#the plot got in the way of my fluff | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

celestie0 · 2 months ago

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gojo satoru x reader | oneshot smut [18+]

title. around the clock

Hooking up with your little brother’s babysitter? That sounds more like a bad porno than a sensible decision.

ᰔ pairing. babysitter/boxing au - underground boxer & babysitter!gojo x college student!reader (f)

ᰔ summary. when underground boxer gojo satoru becomes a little strapped for cash, he gets a day job as a babysitter for a five-year-old kid named yuuji who most definitely has adhd (but that’s besides the point). the kid’s mom gave gojo two rules, and two rules only: don’t accidentally kill my son, and do not flirt with my daughter. he’s pretty sure he’s got a good hold on the former, but he’s got no self control over the latter.

ᰔ warnings/tags. 18+, fem!reader, smut, casual sex, lil bit of fluff, lil bit of crack, slight age gap (reader’s 22 & gojo’s 27), cum play, creampie, unprotected sex, praise kink, slight degradation, gojo is a sleazebag that cares?, sort of porn-coded smut except there’s a lil bit of lore so it’s kinda porn w plot, uhh having sex with risk of getting caught, gojo beats people up at night & then plays father figure to a 5 y/o during the day, mentions of violence/alcohol/drugs/blood/cigarettes

ᰔ word count. 12.6k

a/n. hiiii friends jeez it feels like FOREVER since i've posted some good ol' smut (still has plot tho xd)...hopefully you enjoy n see ya at the bottom! lmk if i missed any warnings! if you asked to be tagged but didn’t get tagged it’s bc you have your tags off aaa :( even when some ppl tried to fix it i still couldn’t tag them i’m sorry!!

alsoooooo so very much love to @starmapz for beta reading this for me :”) really helped me w my posting nerves haha. she is also a wonderful jjk author pls go check out her works!! 💕 ART CREDITS: @/3-aem

➸ masterlist

2:34 pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): heyy um i’m sorry if this comes off kinda rude i just am kinda bad with this but i was wondering if you could text my mom for questions about yuuji’s care instead of me?

2:46pm Gojo Satoru: Oh 2:46pm Gojo Satoru: Yeah, sure

2:34 pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): sorry i know my mom doesn’t know much ab how to take care of him bc i was the one that took care of him for a while but i just really want to separate myself from that guardian role now that i’ve transferred to NYU yknow? :/ i think it’s not my place anymore. i just wanna be big sis now haha

2:46pm Gojo Satoru: I get it. Sorry if I was making you uncomfortable with my texts

2:48pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): no no not uncomfy by it, thanks for looking after him. it’s just i’m kind of busy n stuff so it can be distracting

2:49pm Gojo Satoru: Ok, got it

2:52pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): and it was kind of an issue with his last babysitter

2:53pm Gojo Satoru: Oh?

2:55pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): yeahhh like he would keep textinf me n stuff uhh kinda weird things… i told my mom about it and she was super pissed so she fired him

2:55pm Gojo Satoru: Weird things?

2:56pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): yeah he was always “accidentally sexting me” n like he sent me a dick pic once sooooo yeah

2:56pm Gojo Satoru: Who tf 2:56pm Gojo Satoru: I’ll go beat him up

2:57pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): oh no no its fine lol 2:57pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): please dont beat anyone up 2:58pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): i’m not saying you’re like him tho i just think maybe less texting unless its an emergency okay?

3:00pm Gojo Satoru: Are you sure because I will totally go beat him up for you

3:01pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): NO I DONT WANT YOU TO BEAT ANYONE UP FOR ME 3:01pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): also no offense but you dont look like you could beat someone up

3:01pm Gojo Satoru: WHAT 3:02pm Gojo Satoru: Tf you mean “no offense” that’s literally the most offensive thing you could say to a guy

3:04pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): yeaa i mean you have muscles ofc but in the ‘ohhh i wanna look good for instagram’ way and not like real man muscles yknow

3:06pm Gojo Satoru: Ok princess next time you visit home and go on one of your stupidly large grocery hauls I’ll make sure you carry all those groceries in by yourself

3:06pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): NO 3:07pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): I WAS JUST JOKING 3:07pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): YOURE SO STRONG TY FOR ALWAYS CARRYING THE GROCERIES INSIDE 3:08pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): PLEASE KEEP CARRYING MY GROCERIES INSIDE

3:09pm Gojo Satoru: Nah 3:09pm Gojo Satoru: Should we be texting right now? I’m not sensing any emergencies here

3:11pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): pls. my groceries :(

3:16pm Gojo Satoru: I’ll let the kiddo know you say hi 👋🏼

The irony of it all was that, if Gojo really wanted to, he absolutely could beat the shit out of someone. And he has, hundreds of times, pseudo professionally. Although that isn’t something he’d admit to you, out of fear that you might relay that info back to your mom who would then become mortified that she’s entrusted her five-year-old son’s life to the hands of an underground boxer.

But he needed the money. A night-time job didn’t really make daytime money, not when they could easily replace him with the next dude the second he gets knocked out of the ring more than twice, let alone if he let it happen once. And although he sometimes made large sums, it wasn’t stable income. He needed a back-up plan, and so babysitting it was.

The babysitter working nights at unsanctioned dojos and gyms located in the back of cartel blocks, knocking teeth out of men twice his size, would put any decent mother into a coma or induce some episode of syncope, hence why it wasn’t something he put on his resume before he got hired. Not that he even needed to provide a resume; your mom seemed desperate to cover the position as fast as possible, that promotion at work was moving faster than she wanted to, and Gojo’s beneficial attribute that he possessed as a candidate to look after her son, compared to all the other potential hires, was that he had a penis.

He likes the kid. Yuuji. He’s got kind of a short attention span, and makes Gojo weary of his age. Hold up, that makes him sound like he’s geriatric, he’s really only the ripe old age of twenty-seven, but the immortality and infinite stamina that a five-year-old boy has on him is enough to have him huffing and puffing at the end of every single evening shift he takes on with the rascal.

Fighting is all sprint, and no stamina. Sure, there might be some more seasoned boxers that might disagree with him, but for someone as young as him in the field, it’s the tactic he’s been forced to gain. If he draws a fight on for too long, he'll get killed by a forty-two year old man with steroids clogging up his adipose tissue and enough testosterone to grow a full-body beard by the time the sun starts to set. No, his strategy is to knock them out within the first fifteen seconds. Use their weight against them, and whatnot. A tactic he’s found has worked, since he’s been undefeated thus far.

He can never wrap his head around it. The drug lords that run the rings who’ve gained millions the night before from selling crystal meth only to lose it all the night following in the second Gojo hooklines a solid punch to their betting boxer’s chin, making them see God & their Momma before they tap out (if they’re even able).

He doesn’t pocket much money from it, not anything compared to what the men who bet on him end up making at least, but it’s a decently solid sum. How lucrative it really is depends solely on what he thinks the value of his life is.

It’s not unheard of, boxers dying in the ring. Turns out, rich drug dealers care very little about the sheep they’ve captured to perform their entertaining little stunts. But Gojo wasn’t doing all of this to feel some sense of work-life pride, no, it was just sustenance. When basic needs are not met, humans resort to the most animalistic of all behaviors, and while he’s not proud of what he does, he can’t deny the fact that it’s turned him into an adrenaline junkie that gets a rush in his veins every time he knocks a jaw loose.

But balance was key. And hence why he’s a boxer by night, babysitter by day. For at least four days a week, he gets to pretend he’s the king’s most trusted appointed knight, or he’s the radioactive tyrannosaurus rex that wants to tyrannize all the other dinosaurs, or maybe he’s the evil power ranger (he always forgets which color that one was) that is determined to make the world a living hell by smashing mr. potatohead against the bunk bed post a billion times for all the other toys to see. Or whatever other imaginative hyperfixations Yuuji imposes on him in the later afternoon once he’s had his bowl of spaghetti-O’s and is ready to play. Lately, the kid’s been really into space. They’ve got all sorts of space toys these days. Back in Gojo’s day, he just had a good ol’ Buzz Lightyear.

“One rule, that’s it: don’t accidentally kill my son. Actually, one more rule. Don’t flirt with my daughter.”

There’s a part of Gojo that believes your mom kind of knows he’s up to shady shit at night, otherwise why else would she clause for him to not flirt with you if she didn’t read the slight swell to his eye and the healing gash across his cheek as anything other than this boy is trouble and I want him nowhere near my too-good-for-him daughter of reproductive capacity since that’s the exact tale of how I became a single mother in the first place. Or maybe he inherently looks like he’s up to no good? He’s not sure which angle is more offensive, and which one was more flattering. Well in any case, she entrusted Yuuji’s life to him, despite acknowledging the plausibility of harm, and that means she overall thinks positively of him, right? ……right?

The first night he met you, it was awkward to say the least. Gojo spends most of his nights performing deadly stunts for middle aged men with potbellies, and most of his days hanging out with a five-year-old (one who he’d argue is his only friend at this point). Sure, he’s got some people he sees occasionally back in his high school hometown when he can brave hearing about how everyone’s in college now or doing a masters or they’re working respectable nine-to-five day jobs meanwhile he has to lie to his Pops that he’s been working in insurance for the past two years. Listen, in fairness, he probably makes the same amount of money as an insurance broker would anyways, but he can’t exactly own up to the identity of his craft.

Anyways, the point is, he’s not used to seeing other people his age anymore. There’s the occasional hook-up with girls he hasn’t seen since Mrs. Tracy’s homeroom period back in sweet two-thousand-sixteen, or his twice-a-year hangout with Suguru where he only learns the day of where he's visiting from since the guy moves around more than Gojo can keep up with. But save for that, he mostly just sees your mom and then Yuuji.

So seeing you standing in the kitchen for the first time when he went to put Yuuji’s half-finished GoGurt back in the fridge was startling to say the least. When the sight of a woman startled him, he knew he needed to start getting out again.

You were on your tiptoes, reaching up to grab at something over the fridge, and wearing these ridiculously short shorts to where he could see the curve of your ass, his line of sight trailing down the skin of your bare legs. He couldn’t see anything of your form above your shorts, given you were wearing an extremely baggy t-shirt with NYU on it in big bolded university letters. As far as he knew, you were a senior at NYU, studying psychology, made dean’s list consecutively for the past three years given the way your mother posted all your stellar transcripts up on the fridge (he gets that she’s proud of her daughter, but doesn’t that kind of stuff usually end in grade school?) But other than that, it was all the information he had on you.

“Here,” he said, pressing his front to your back, maybe just to get a feel, as he reached over to you to finally grab the box of cereal you were swatting for, the one that he purposefully placed at the back because Yuuji learned how to climb counters recently. “Is this what you want?”

He had heard you gasp, spinning around on your heel fast, staring up at him with wide eyes like you weren’t expecting some random man to be in the house right now, and your first instinct ended up being to grab the knife out of the kitchen knife block and lunge it straight at his torso.

If it wasn’t for his boxer reflexes, he’d have ended up at the ER that evening. Or dead. All depending on the strength you could pack into a stab. But instead, he deflected it, though not without a gash to his torso through the fabric of his shirt, one that you spent the rest of the evening profusely apologizing for and eventually mending to with cotton balls and neosporin.

“I didn’t know you were my little brother’s babysitter,” you mumbled with a small wince on your face as you dabbed ointment on the wound while he pulled the hem of his shirt up to his shoulder. He’s never had an injury tended to before. It was nice.

“It’s fine, I get it, totally acceptable response to seeing a random dude in your house.”

He remembers the curl of your eyelashes while you stared down at his bare upper half, something he imprinted on his memory rather than the concern in your face as your fingertips traced the scars across his chest. He hoped they made you feel better about the one you just slashed into him, because after all, what was one more?

He knows he shouldn’t have, but he kissed you that night. Two minutes before your mom came home, and right after you bid him goodnight with one more apology, he backed you up against the door of your bedroom, his hands on your hips pulling you towards him, and his lips pressed against yours. Something seamless, from candid conversation that was heading towards an end, to full fledged making out against white-painted wood, his teeth nipping at your lip and he wondered just how touch-starved those university boys were leaving you given the desperate way you’d clinged to his shirt for dear life as he deepened the kiss.

The moment only lasted one minute and fifty-seven seconds, and in the remaining three, your mother’s key pushed into the front door and he had to pull away. Always, on the dot, 10PM, she was home. It was how he knew he had two minutes left to make a move in the first place.

So much for no flirting.

6:57pm Gojo Satoru: Bahahah I accidentally forgot where yuuji’s epipen is 6:58pm Gojo Satoru: [sent a photo] 6:59pm Gojo Satoru: Turns out this can-o-soup was just covering it in the cabinet

7:01pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): ??? why did you need to find his epipen

7:08pm Gojo Satoru: Oh he accidentally took a bite of my pad thai 7:09pm Gojo Satoru: I freaked cuz I thought it had peanuts in it but I remember I asked for it without any 7:09pm Gojo Satoru: shit’s crazy

7:10pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): WHY THE FUCK DIDNT YOU TEXT ME????????

7:12pm Gojo Satoru: YOU SAID YOU DIDNT WANT ME TEXTING YOU UNLESS IT WAS AN EMERGENCY ?

7:13pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): SATORU YOU THOGHT HE ATE SOMETHING W PEANUTS IN IT AND YOU FORGOT WHERE HIS EPIPEN WAS THATSS A FUCKIGN EMERGENCY

7:15pm Gojo Satoru: THE KID IS DOING FINE HES ALIVE JESUS LEAVE ME ALONE 7:16pm Gojo Satoru: [sent a photo] 7:16pm Gojo Satoru: See. he’s chill 7:17pm Gojo Satoru: with intact airways might I add 7:18pm Gojo Satoru: Also isn’t he a little too old to still be watching baby sensory videos?

7:20pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): yeah my mom thinks he has adhd :(

7:22pm Gojo Satoru: oh

He tried to keep his word though (although he doesn’t recall ever giving it) out of the respect he had for your mom. She was a hard-working lady, single mom of two who went from working three jobs to now being a major administrator at a big law firm near the outskirts of town. It was an underdog story if he’d ever heard one, and he loved an underdog story.

But a little texting here and there wouldn’t hurt, right? Or so he thought, until you told him to cut it out with the contact. Maybe you were just trying to be the good one in this situation. After all, hooking up with your little brother’s babysitter? That sounds more like a bad porno than a sensible decision. Still, he’ll eventually get your replies to his which shirt should Yuuji wear to the park? and look, the toothfairy gave him the butt of a joint and a couple thumbtacks for his front tooth. he’s ecstatic texts, although in a less timely manner than before when you weren’t trying to preserve propriety. And when you’d occasionally visit every other weekend, he’d do his best to keep his hands in his pockets, and you’d fill up your nights with hangouts with your hometown friends to avoid spending too much time with him at the house. A silent agreement to not fuck each other, it was.

4:55pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): send pic of yuuji pls i miss him :(

5:04pm Gojo Satoru: [sent a photo]

5:08pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): IS THAT BLOOD?!?!?!?!

5:09pm Gojo Satoru: chillllllll it’s fake. We’re working on his halloween costume

5:09pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): WHY DOES IT HAVE BLOOD?!?!?!?!?!?

5:10pm Gojo Satoru: He wants to be a baby xenomorph and I'm his parasitic host. You know that iconic chestburster scene from the old school alien movies? yeah

5:12pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): satoru please for the love of god just dress him up as a dinosaur or something

5:13pm Gojo Satoru: I’m not the one that came up with the idea, okay? It was him

5:14pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): because you let him watch adult swim with you before putting him to bed. you’ve deranged his brain.

5:14pm Gojo Satoru: He needs it. Builds character.

Gojo was living a double life, and if someone asked him, he’d say it was less of a Clark Kent way and more of a Bruce Wayne way, although in reality, he knows it’s close to neither. He’s no superhero with a concealed identity fighting crime, he’s a con artist that’s tricked a hard-working woman into hiring him just because he’s trying to save up enough money to get the fuck out of this godforsaken town, given he’s not knocked dead before then for the crime’s amusement.

But Yuuji looks up to him now. And Gojo’s grown attached to him too. He taught the kid how to tie his own shoes and piss inside the actual toilet like a real man. And that kid’s the only thing that’s made him question any of this. Maybe that’s what dads feel, suddenly held to all this impossible responsibility and the pressure to stop doing stupid shit so that you’ll stick around to see your kids get older. The thought that there are eyes on you now, eyes that are innocent and hopeful and learning, and because they know nothing at all, you feel the responsibility to protect them from everything. For fucks sake, remind him to never become a dad.

“Do you like my sister?” Yuuji had asked him out of nowhere one afternoon after he just got home from preschool, stacking a blue cube over a yellow one at the dining table.

“Uhh,” Gojo starts. He wondered if your mom had put a wire on the kid, so his answer was as diplomatic as he could manage. “Yeah, she’s cool. You’ve got a cool sister.”

“But. But.” Yuuji stutters, trying to find his big boy words. He stretches up higher to reach the top of his stack of blocks, but he only has so much arm real estate at the age of five. “Do you like her like you wanna kiss her?”

Gojo grabs the block from the kid’s hand, for a moment questioning Yuuji’s decision to want to put a blue block over another blue block, but he figures aesthetics are the least of a kid’s concern, and so he places the block where Yuuji wanted it.

Why does the kid know what kissing is anyway? Do kids know that kind of stuff at that age? Isn’t a kiss to a five-year-old just something their mom gives to them before they head off to preschool for the day? And not something that happens between adult men and women? Maybe he should stop watching that adult swim in front of him.

“No. I don’t want to kiss your sister,” he says, again, because he is suspicious of a wire. It was a lie and then some, because he wants to do a lot more than just kiss you.

Gojo lifts the RedBull he was nursing up to his lips and watches Yuuji in the corner of his eye as the kid stares at his growing stack of blocks with a concentrated expression on his face, his chubby fingers squeezing tightly into little round dimpled balls, like he’s putting together all his tiny brain cells together to form another coherent thought before turning to face Gojo on the chair.

“It’s ok. You can kiss her if you wan’ed to. You can marry her too,” Yuuji says.

Gojo almost spits out his RedBull. He barely manages to swallow it, a broken cough immediately leaving his throat when some of the liquid goes down the wrong pipe and he’s smacking a fist against his chest to knock the sanity back into himself.

“Where the fu—…where the flip did that come from?” he asks, blinking back tears from the rasp in his throat.

Yuuji’s small shoulders sulk as he sits back on his heels. “I want a papa.”

Oh fuck that hurt. Jesus christ, there was nothing more sad than that. Yuuji has literally never known what it’s like to have a dad, since his had left before he was even born. Gojo’s not really close to his old man by any means, but he had still been a fatherly figure in some pivotal moments when he had needed it growing up. Kids need their dads. And he’s seen enough people lose their way without one to know that the value of them is really underestimated.

He’s also kind of shocked that Yuuji really did think of you as his motherly figure. Maybe since it had always just been him and his dad, Gojo learned how to self sustain from a young age, and he and his dad became accustomed to just looking after their own interests to avoid the headache of tending to one another. My land is my land, and your land is yours, and there was the occasional Saturday night spent together with his dad’s millions of beer bottles emptied dry on the carpet in front of the 1992 box TV as the two shared a greasy pizza from the place down the street. That was the extent of family solidarity that he knew.

But he can’t imagine being barely eighteen and having to take care of your little brother all by yourself because your mom was too busy trying to put food on the table and was too poor to hire a babysitter. Your mom tried so damn hard to keep you away from the single teenage mother life, but somehow ended up giving it to you by proxy in the end anyway. It was no wonder you wanted space now that Yuuji’s a little older and your mom can afford a babysitter. No matter how much you might love your sibling, being their effective guardian out of pure necessity had to have taken a toll.

Gojo clears his throat before he speaks. “Buddy. If I married your sister, we’d be brothers. I wouldn’t be your dad.”

Yuuji’s eyes light up at the word brother. “Brothers? Me and you?”

“Yeah. Bros.”

The kid giggles, all bubbly with cheeks rounding fully and eyes sparkling. Gojo reaches out to ruffle at his hair before Yuuji gets down onto one stubby leg at a time from the chair then bolts towards the kitchen.

“Juice!!” he yells somewhere around the corner out of sight.

Gojo sighs, staring at all the toys he pulled out for Yuuji to play with, all left in a scattered mess across the table. He gets up out of his chair and heads towards the fridge. “Yeah, yeah. I’ll get you your juice, you little demon.”

The conclusion he comes to, and it might read like an obvious one, is that kids don’t really know the reality of life, hence why adults hide so much from them.

This is what he thinks of tonight when he wraps his worn out boxing tape around his hands and his wrist, tightening it with his teeth, and he can smell the sweat and grime from them. The back of the underground gym had an old dated locker room, and as Gojo stretches his neck side to side while sitting on the stiff metal bench, he eyes the peeling red paint of the locker in front of him, blurring vision making it look like spilt blood.

His phone pings with a text. He shuffles inside his duffle bag to look for it while his other hand scratches at his bare chest.

1:07am yuuji’s sis (no flirting): hhhhhhhhhiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii 1:07am yuuji’s sis (no flirting): omgomgomg sor y i’m

He blinks at the screen, confusion flashing across his face. He types one letter, but then he sees three dots and a speech text bubble in the bottom left, so he waits for you.

1:09am yuuji’s sis (no flirting): i drunk :(

The corner of his mouth ticks up slightly.

1:09am Gojo Satoru: Yeah I can tell

1:10am yuuji’s sis (no flirting): at a apartyyyy

His eyebrows raise slightly, the thought of you tipsy on some frat party couch flashing through his mind, yet of all things you could be doing at that frat party, you’re texting him? Must be a really boring party.

1:11am yuuji’s sis (no flirting): whyyy are you aawake?

1:12am Gojo Satoru: Couldn’t sleep 1:12am Gojo Satoru: Don’t you have a midterm in the morning?

1:14am yuuji’s sis (no flirting): wtf hwo do you knwo that

1:15am Gojo Satoru: Your mom keeps your schedule posted on the fridge

1:15am yuuji’s sister (no flirting): im so fucked;’;(((

He snorts. He’s got a bit more life experience than you, five-ish years to be exact, more than enough time to master the no-hangover hangout, but just before he can offer you some advice, he sees another text from you.

1:16am yuuji’s sister (no flirting): can i tell u smething

His gaze flits up to the ceiling briefly, and he hears commotion outside the thick walls of the locker room. The previous fight was over, and fast. The guy must’ve been knocked out in under twenty seconds tops, which means that Gojo was next up against whatever superbeast just beat him up.

1:17am Gojo Satoru: Sure

He stands up, placing his phone down on the bench before he flexes the muscles in his arms a couple times to get the blood flowing into them. And there’s the noise of another ping. Actually, four.

1:14am yuuji’s sis (no flirting): sonetimes 1:14am yuuji’s sis (no flirting): i thikn of 1:14am yuuji’s sis (no flirting): when u kisse me 1:14am yuuji’s sis (no flirting): *kissed me

His eyes widen slightly, irises dry to the ashy cigarette smoke from outside lingering in the air, and his heart rate picks up a bit. An adrenaline junkie with close to no fear in his veins due to the way his amygdala’s been fried to a crisp from years of boxing, yet he’s got his breath hitched from the memory of your soft lips against his. It makes the blood rushing through the muscles of his arms rush somewhere down south instead.

Loud banging on the door of the locker room jolts him out of his trance, and he’s stiff around the edges once more.

“Satoru! You’re up, man,” he hears Danny, the fight coordinator, yell at him from the other side of the heavy & poorly-installed steel door.

Gojo sighs, glancing down at the texts on his phone. To respond, or not to respond. You’re off your face, clearly chatty from the alcohol, and he knows for certain you’ll regret every life decision you’ve ever made once you wake up in the morning and see the self sabotaging behaviors you’ve engaged in tonight. He knows that responding to you might put you at ease rather than straight up ignoring you, but the feeling will pass, and he has a match to win with no more room left to stall.

He makes his way out the locker room, pushing past the crowded halls of people underneath dim flashing club lighting, some dudes angrily jerking to face him when he pushes past them with a stiff shoulder, only for their eyes to widen when they see just exactly who pushed them.

There’s strippers in the ring, doing some routine for pre-match, and Gojo narrows his eyes at the man he sees laying back over the rubber boundary rope, head tipped back up to the ceiling with a wicked grin on his face. So that was his opponent? He’s never seen the guy before. Was he from a different district? Different district talent was tough, you had no background info on them, while they’ve been preparing to be here for weeks. Hence why boxers tend to do better when they visit a different district than they do in their own. There have been rules made to limit these types of fights, mostly over outrage that it was unfair to bid on them, but they were also usually more entertaining to watch. Gojo’s got a sick feeling to his stomach as the strippers clear the ring.

“Hey,” Gojo calls out, grabbing Danny by the back of his collar and dragging him towards him and away from the girls stepping down onto the floor, “what’s in for this fight?”

Danny glances up at the ceiling. “Tarp’s bettin’ tonight, so it can’t be anything less than ten grand for you. I’d say tops fifteen?”

Gojo narrows his eyes further, then glances off into the ring again. The man stands up, and Gojo gets a better look on his face. He’s got short hair, neon green in color with a dark fade underneath and tattoos all over his face. But those eyes. They were freakishingly red, and it made him uneasy. He knows the type. The type of boxers that do this to genuinely hurt people for thrill. Make no mistake, Gojo understands he’s made himself out to be like that too, gaining some kind of rush out of this profession, but this type of fighter was different. The type to literally continue smashing a dude’s face into the floor until they’re a bloody mess even minutes after the winning call, and no referee to stop it because that’s the kind of action the spectators wanted.

Danny reads his line of sight. “That’s Gale. Newton’s new boxing toy. Came outta nowhere about a month ago. He’s undefeated so far in his district, and Newton specifically wanted to see you up against him tonight,” Danny tells Gojo, resting his elbow up on his bare shoulder. “Chances are he’ll compete with Tarp for final bid if you win this one. I’m talking twenty-five grand in the next if you can knock him out in this.”

“Uh-huh,” Gojo acknowledges, rolling his shoulder so Danny’s elbow falls from it. Forget the money, he just wants to make it out of this alive.

He sets his foot up on the square, ducking through the dividing boundary straps and the tacky caution construction tape that the gym thinks creates an exciting ambience. He hears the static of the speakers as the announcers call out Gojo’s name, then this other guy, loud bass club music booming through Gojo’s chest as he tries to take a few deep breaths through the thick air of this low-ceiling arena.

The dim overhead lights flickered, casting shadows over the makeshift ring, and the crowd pressed tight around at every perimeter area, yelling and pushing, one even tosses a beer bottle on the square and it shatters, spreading glass all across, a few shards reaching Gojo’s feet and he looks down at them with a shudder. A fight immediately breaks out in the crowd over something related or possibly entirely unrelated, and he’d have no way of knowing as he swipes the shards away with his heel.

The influential men always sat up on higher seating, off towards the back in their own VIP section where they suck in the smoke of fat cigarettes and peer through 100% tinted sunglasses to assess the boxers they’ve bid thousands on. The light reflects off the golden grills of their teeth with every snarl at any passerby that gets too close, like a lion in its den. That’s what the sanction was called. Lion’s den.

Gojo sighed, eyeing the twisted grin of this Gale guy across from him. Was that his real name? Usually, foreign district guys get nicknames. Gojo’s always thought the nicknames were tacky, and he’s accumulated some of his own over the years, but to his ears, none of them ever really landed, although The White Fox admittedly was kinda nice. Reminded him of throwback shooting games.

He sucked a breath in through his teeth, holding his hands up in front of his chest in weak fists, storing energy in them in the form of pure anticipation alone, and then the bell rang.

His opponent lunged towards him immediately, fists flying in a barrage of reckless strikes, and Gojo’s eyes momentarily widened in the briefest moments of hesitation he had been allowed before ducking and dodging every one of this guy's shots, then jumping a step back to create distance.

Fuck. He was fast. Not just boxer fast, athlete fast. There was a difference. And it wasn’t a good one to be up against.

Gojo picked up light on his feet. He couldn’t win this one fast, that much was certain. One single careless or reckless move, and he’ll get tackled. He knows that by the malicious look he sees on that guy’s face, grin wide like he’s some cannibalistic beast.

Stepping back towards the center, Gojo purposefully set himself up for Gale to swipe a vicious hook towards his head, before Gojo last minute ducked down, crouched to the floor, and swung his leg out to knock the guy off balance by his ankles, and he falls onto his back with a loud thud!

There’s a moment of momentary silence from the crowd, right before Gojo put the man in a torso-lock, twisting him in a way a human body should absolutely not be twisted, hearing the grunts of pain and the crack of spine even through the shouts of the crowd.

He can hear it. Kill him! Knock his fucking teeth out! Snap his neck like a goose, man! FIN-ISH HIM! FIN-ISH HIM! FIN-ISH HIM!

He feels like throwing up.

Gojo looks up at the referee, who wasn’t really a referee, just there to run the clock when there was action and only barely stop it before near death. “This is enough, right?” he asks.

The referee nods. “1-0, next round.”

Gojo lets go of his opponent, leaving him there to heave for a moment before he gets up onto his feet again. Just needs one more, and he’s a winner. Ten grand in his pocket, and he won’t have to come back here for a couple weeks.

Gale gets up, swiping at the spit that had trickled out the corner of his mouth down to his chin, and he had an enraged look on his face. The second the bell rang for the second round, he exploded forward towards Gojo with even more fervor than before, gritted expression with a thirst for violence fueling the storm of punches he was throwing towards Gojo but he tried to remain calm, light on his feet, swiftly duck and avoid before he can find another opportunity to clear a sharp, clean jab right to the ribs—

sometimes, i think of when you kissed me

Gojo misses his strike, leaving his guard wide open, and Gale takes the opportunity to land a solid punch straight to his jaw, sending his mouth guard flying straight out of his mouth into the air, and knocking him backwards onto the ground with a thud and then he finds himself staring up at the rusting metal ceiling and a ringing in his ears that almost matches the roar of the crowd.

His head is in a haze, dizzy like where one second could feel like a millennia. He feels a soreness underneath his chin, a pain that radiates to his mouth, and he briefly swipes his tongue over his front teeth to make sure he still has all of them.

What the fuck was that? That intrusive thought. There’s no intrusive thoughts allowed in life or death situations, not when he was always just one smash to the head away from a permanent concussion. But, fuck, he can’t help it. Can’t help thinking of you. Even when his vision has gone blurry and he should really be weary about what happens next in this ring, his mind’s just thinking about you, at some frat party, tipping back shots of tequila and waiting for a text-back in response to your tipsy ones. Were you even waiting up on him? Have you already passed out on the couch, or were your friends dragging you back to your dorm? Or are you fucking some other dude right now? Has he got his hand up your top, squeezing at you, sleazily feeling you up before spilling beer all down your shirt, and are you kissing him back with the same enthusiasm, your phone now somewhere long slipped between the cushions of the couch and out of sight?

Even though it’s still sore, he tenses his jaw. Grinds his teeth, even. Tasting blood somewhere along the line of his gums, he realizes his lip is split. He licks at it, the flavor of copper more rich on his tongue, and he clenches his fists tightly. Why’s he thinking of that right now? It just pisses him off, the thought of you with some other dude. Maybe that’s what he needs to win this fight. Spite. Although he’s not sure why the guy across from him at the ring has to pay for it.

He lifts his head up off the ground, and while it felt like years he had been down, a glance at the timer tells him it’s only been a solid four seconds. A solid four seconds that his opponent had to fully charge a lunge towards him with the look of death in his face, raising his elbow up into the air in time with his leap, ready to come straight down, and Gojo’s eyes widen at the sight above him from where he’s still lying on the wood.

“Shit—” he cusses, rolling his body over to the side so that the dude falls straight down onto the floor rather than elbow Gojo in the fucking ribs, and then he gets back up on his feet.

Stakes were high, he has to end this, he has to end this now, and he flexes the muscle in his right bicep, channeling everything he has into this one blow, and before Gale even really has a chance to turn around and face him again, Gojo’s already three-fourths set up a knockout undercut that he drives straight up the guy’s chin, with so much force it has him lifting up off the floor, a vertebrate stretch to his spine before he’s sent flying backwards and slammed against the tight rubber lining of the ring to where he was half hanging over it.

The room fell silent for a split second, then erupted in a roar as the referee fell to one knee beside Gale, checking him for any semblance of consciousness, and when he found none, he waves the match off.

Gojo’s eyes flit up towards the lion’s den, the only opinions that he really needed to care about were sitting in those mahogany chairs with glasses of scotch swirling around in their hands, and he sees some of them looking straight at Gojo before leaning towards one another and discretely talking about something he can’t make out because he doesn’t know how to read lips.

He feels someone tug at his arms from behind, pulling him to crouch down and he balances back on the balls of his feet. He glances down through the ring at the floor. Danny was leaning against the wooden surface of it. “Dude. Go.” He jerks his head towards Gale, who still laid there sprawled across the now stretched out rubber perimeter bands. “Go fuck him up. Knock a few more teeth out, I don’t know, get some more blood out of him.”

“What?” Gojo huffs, yanking his arm away from Danny’s grip. “The fuck are you saying?”

“I told you, man, Newton’s here and he’s got his eye on you. Go give him a show,” Danny says, “do it.” And when he sees clear frustration on Gojo’s face he sighs. “Twenty-five grand, consider that, will you?”

Gojo sneers at the man, an awful taste in his mouth as he spits blood towards Danny’s feet. “Go fuck yourself on his cock if he wants a show that bad.” And then he ducks underneath the bands and hops back down onto the floor, pushing past people who were trying to grab at him and pull at him and lift him up and even throw him down until he made it through flashing hallways and back to the locker room.

He shuts the door behind him, sliding the bolt lock into the frame so no one can follow him inside, and then he leans his weight back against the chilling steel before tipping his head back until it hits the surface too.

He lets out of a few deep breaths, then stares down at the sting he finds over his knuckles. Red and blistering from the last punch he delivered, and he’s almost certain he broke a bone in his hand. Fuck. It was bleeding across the cuts, too. He had to figure out a way to get it all healed by tomorrow, as if that was humanly possible, just because he doesn’t want Yuuji questioning him about it.

Yuuji. For fucks sake, when has he ever thought about the kid this much? When has he ever thought about much of anything when he’s out here or in the ring? He’s a babysitter by day. He’s a “part” of your family when the sun is up and normal functioning society is breathing their lives into the clean air. That’s it. He’s no five-year-old’s caretaker in front of all these primetime drug lords, and he certainly shouldn’t be thinking of you when facing big, burly men he’s aiming to rough up, all within the dead hours of night. So then how come these thoughts are on his mind at all times, twenty-four-seven, around the clock?

He heads further into the locker room, glancing down at the bench where he’d left his phone, then picks it up, neck craned all the way down to glance at the screen as he holds his phone by his hip because he doesn’t have any energy to pick it up any further towards his eyesight.

He sees your messages. You never sent any follow-up ones, just your horrendously typed out sonetimes, i thikn of when u kisse me *kissed me across the span of four texts, and Gojo runs a tired hand down his face.

He tips his head back to groan at the ceiling, guttural with no basis other than a release of all the pent up frustration of every sort, then he types in a couple messages to you,

3:23am Gojo Satoru: That’s nice 3:24am Gojo Satoru: I think about fucking you all the time

—and then tosses his phone into his duffel bag to call it a night.

⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘

You’re awoken to your alarm blaring heavily, and you whack your arm across your nightstand table beside your tiny twin-size bed to hit the snooze button, then rub your eye with a loose fist while smacking at the residual taste of alcohol you have on your tongue.

“Mm…” you mumble to yourself. And then the thirst hits you. The overwhelming, intense, unquenchable thirst that leaves your mouth feeling like the Sahara desert before you grab your twice-dented Hydroflask from the nightstand, twist the cap off and chug about twenty ounces of water in one breath.

You let out a deep exhale and fall back into bed, your hand resting on top of your water-filled tummy, and you stare up at the ceiling of your dorm.

Last night was horrible. You knew you shouldn’t have gone to that frat party, especially given you have an exam in—you checked the time on your phone—about an hour, and an hour was not enough time to recover from the raging hangover headache that’s pounding through your head. But your roommates insisted you went, and so go you did. You never knew what to expect, always torn between shaving your pussy before you go or throwing on a stained pair of sweatpants to keep the guys away instead. Sometimes, it was a combination of both. But last night, you ended up drinking more than you usually do, and that always led to poor, poor, poor decisions, in which all the sense of pride you had in yourself was washed down with the puke that you hurled into the upstairs toilet.

You grab at your phone again, briefly seeing that your friends had sent you some photos from the night. You immediately swiped off to the side to dismiss the notifications, because as far as you were concerned, you never wanted to see those photos in your life.

And then, in the briefest of moments, you saw a familiar name in your notifications that made you heart skip a beat.

Gojo Satoru (yuuji’s babysitter)

With an immediate gasp, you pulled your phone to your chest and held it there, blinking up at the pale yellow ceiling, your heart picking up in rhythm.

Oh fuck.

That was right.

You drunk texted him last night.

You drunk texted your little brother’s hot babysitter.

Fuck.

Mortified was an understatement, possibly because you don’t even remember what you said, and so you don’t even want to see what he replied with.

You groan, rubbing both your hands across your face then kick your sheets back with your feet like a child having a temper tantrum because you were so embarrassed you had even texted him at all last night. I mean, he was hot. A little older than you, really gorgeous eyes, tall, and, yeah, you gave him shit for the Instagram muscles thing, but that’s only because you thought he’d find it cheeky that you were trying to humble him despite the fact that he’s more toned and ruggedly sculpted than any other man you’ve ever met. You didn’t want to have a flustered schoolgirl attitude because it would just seep through to his ego.

In any case, he was hot, there was no denying it, so can you really blame yourself? But still. There was collateral with this. You had to see him every other weekend. He knows your family, even your extended since they invited him to Thanksgiving dinner a couple weeks ago. A high-risque drunk text recipient if he ever was one (of course he has been, look at that face). Why couldn’t you have just drunk texted ECON160 guy from last semester who Clit DJ’d you underneath your desk at the back of the lecture hall instead?

The thing that made you nervous about Gojo Satoru was that he was just so…confident? Like, in that I was raised to be this way confident and not that I fought inner demons my whole life to barely end up this way confident, y’know? Never had to fake it ‘til he made it, he just was. At least that was the kind of energy you got from him, and unfortunately for you, it was nerve wracking but enticing all at the same time.

You sigh. “Stupid. Stupid. Stuuuuuupiiiiidddddddddddd. You. Are. So. Stuuuuuupiiiiddddddd,” you sigh, running your hands through your hair to grip at the strands.

You pull your phone away from your chest, and finally brave yourself to read the texts from your notifications screen, but not without blurring your vision a little to further stall. And then you finally refocus it to read them. The first one you see has you gasping—

3:24am Gojo Satoru (yuuji’s babysitter): I think about fucking you all the time

It has heat spreading across your cheeks, and you blink at your screen, then quickly swipe up to read the previous messages with rushed glides of your index finger on the screen to see that he had sent it to you in response to your barely coherent texts about how you still so often think about that time he randomly pressed you up against the door of your bedroom to kiss you that night you first met him.

I think about fucking you all the time

At 3 in the morning? He decided to send that text at 3 in the fucking morning? That was the devil’s hour. What’s he trying to tell you?

Oh come on, you’re not stupid. And you know he isn’t either. The sexual tension was palpable, it was there since the day you two met and you almost stabbed him, and also everytime you were visiting the house, and his shoulder brushes against yours when he’s trying to get past you in the kitchen, or when you’ve got Yuuji in your arms and the kid is clinging to Gojo’s sleeve because he wants him near him at all times. There’s even sexual tension over the phone, in those stupid texts he sends you all the time about meaningless child care stuff, and honestly, those little updates made your day.

But… you don’t know much about him, and your mom would kill you if she ever found out you wanted him. And she’d probably pulverize him if she found out he ever made a move on you. Cremated without leaving a trace behind would be an understatement. She thinks he’s no good and she thinks you’re too good. You know she’s warned him before to not get close to you, as if she was pre-emptively expecting him to try to get in your pants like it was some canon force of the universe, hence why he’s probably so fucking awkward around you whenever she’s there too. Like if he accidentally got caught staring at your ankles, your mom would light him on fire, so he’d rather not risk it by just avoiding looking at you at all.

Your mom has always been protective of you. Your father was a deadbeat, one she thought she loved, only to watch him leave. And she had to raise a baby all by herself. He re-entered your lives right before you graduated high school, knocked up your mom again with Yuuji, and guess what? Left again without a trace. To be doubly humiliated by a man is a fate you wouldn’t wish on any woman, but that’s exactly what your mom went through. It was a wake-up call for her, though. No more living paycheck to paycheck like you had been your whole lives up until Yuuji was born. The kid doesn’t even know how lucky he is with everything he has right now. Your mom worked her way up the corporate ladder and made something of herself and now you guys were comfortable, so it was safe to say she had some sort of right to look after her daughter, of whom she simply doesn’t want to follow in the same naive footsteps of her youth.

You get it. She wants to break the generational cycle. But it made being with men tough on all fronts, let alone dating. You could never bring a guy home because he’d never be enough, even if he cured cancer or could make you orgasm while doing a sixty-nine handstand. And while her overbearing paranoia over what you do or where you are or who you’re with has since dimmed slightly since you officially moved out to finish your last year of higher education at NYU, you can still feel her disappointment from a hundred miles away when you’re making out with some random frat guy on his beer-stained couch at eleven AM on a Tuesday.

But you got to college. You’ve already made it this far. You’re on dean’s list. You graduated high school as salutatorian. You’re the most highly decorated cello player in the state. You won Miss County pageant when you were sixteen for your philanthropic efforts towards feline leukemia. You did online community college for three years so you could stick back after high school and help your mom raise Yuuji, which meant that you had to forfeit your scholarship to Cornell. You’ve spent your whole life being good, you just wanna be bad for a little bit.

And if bad meant fucking the hot and mysterious babysitter, then so be it.

You pick your phone up, begin blasting what the hell by Avril Lavigne on your dorm room bluetooth speaker, then type a message to him that says—

10:34am you: do it then

—then shove your phone under the sheets and belt out the lyrics aaaall my life i’ve been good, but now, ahhhh i’m thinkin’ what the hell!!! while kicking your feet and clutching your pillow.

⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘

Gojo has no clue what divine entity has overcast their gratuitous spirit over him on this blessed Monday afternoon, but he’ll thank them for it later once his balls are empty.

He’s got you on your back, sprawled across the couch in the living room, the first fuck being a rushed one that you offered him with before he has to go pick Yuuji up from circle time at preschool, which wasn’t ideal, but he’s delirious at the sight of you underneath him right now. Your little NYU shirt, a tighter one this time, bunched up over your bare breasts, otherwise entirely naked other than the flimsy panties dangling at your ankle, and the view of the tip of his cock looking hot and heavy against the velvet of your cunt, slowly pushing in, feeling the warmth of your walls squeeze around him paired with the sweet moan that leaves your lips, makes him fall forward with a bracing hand dug into the cushion by the side of your head because the sensation feels so fucking good he can hardly keep himself upright.

“Fuck, you’re so tight,” he grunts, pushing himself in further to try and bottom out but he’s still got a couple inches he needs you to take, and so you curl your hips upwards towards the cieling to make more room for him, practically putting yourself into a mating press and soon enough he’s balls deep, “you on any birth control?”

“Uh-huh,” you moan, eyes closed and head tipped back with one hand squeezing your own tit.

“I can cum inside then, yeah?” he asks you, pushing your knees to your chest, slowly drawing his hips back and you squirm underneath him.

“Let’s get there first, and then we’ll discuss,” you breathe out.

“I’ve been there for the past ten minutes, baby. I could cum at any second with the way you look and feel,” he informs you flatly, because it was just the truth and you had to know it, then he feels himself twitch inside, slowly working up to a languid rhythm, almost fearfully like your mom’s going to pop out somewhere around the corner with a camera crew ready like one of those retro TV shows just to humiliate him on national television for not keeping it in his pants like she’d told him to.

“Harder,” he hears you whisper, and he rolls his eyes shut to just focus on the feeling. The feeling of your nails grazing down the skin of his chest and his abs, tracing the scars he’s collected over the years, and he feels you tightening around him. He leans down to kiss you, fucking you properly now with the squeak of the couch springs echoing across the room, your hums of moans seeping through his lips until he’s fully taking them on with an open-mouthed kiss of sloppy tongue.

The fact that it was wrong felt right to him, and he realizes in this moment he’s lost all sense of control. He wasn’t just an adrenaline junkie that liked to rough up dudes, he was an adrenaline junkie that wanted to fuck you against all better judgement or moral compass. The way your tits were bouncing, the slap of skin on skin, his balls slapping against your ass while you wrap your legs around him tighter, all convincing him that any consequence made it worth it.

“Good,” he groans the praise, pinning your hands above your head as he rams his hips against yours, your cute moans and squeals sounding like literal music to his ears and he feels heat spread all the way up his neck, “goooood, keep squeezin’ me like that, fuck.” He slows down momentarily, just to take a moment and watch, really look and see the way his length disappears inside of your pretty self with every push forward, and then he works back up to a relentless pace that has you tipping your head back with a slack jaw and eyes closed tightly shut, sprained expression of pleasure spread across.

“Oh, oh my god, Satoru—” you mewled and he felt dizzy from the sound of his name from your softly parted lips.

“Fuck, I’m gonna—” His hand finds it’s way between your legs, calloused pads of his fingers brushing against your clit and you jolt underneath him, gasping as your hand shoots out to dig your nails into his bicep for purchase. “I’m gonna cum, better tell me where you want it.”

“In me,” you moan, “nowhere else.”

He presses his mouth against your cheek in a lazy smile, “Atta girl,” he drawls before pushing your ankles down as far as they’d go near your ears, folding you in half and then reigns all hell into your cunt. He should really care a bit more about your pleasure, but testing your flexibility like this with both his hands holding you down was doing sinful things to his brain, and besides, you had yourself covered with the messy circles you were rubbing over your clit. It was hot to see that too, your nimble pretty fingers so close to the place where he was pounding into you.

“Oh shit, shit, shit—” he grunts when starts to see blistering white in his vision, balls straining with a pleasure that was almost painful. The moment he finishes feels like hot flashes in his brain, a heat like the cum he begins to paint inside your walls in time with your release, thrusting over and over and over, each one more staggered as he lets off a long, drawn out groan that comes from deep within his chest with the feeling of you milking him dry and the sound of you enjoying every second of it. He can’t remember the last time he came this much or this hard and even after coming down from the high, he feels the remnant pulse of your orgasm around his now half-flaccid dick.

He leisurely pulls out, hearing you let out a soft whimper as he marvels at the sight of his cum slowly dripping out of you and down towards the couch, before he scoops it up with a couple fingers and pushes it back inside. You grip his wrist tightly, but you weren’t stopping it, that motion of him plunging it all back into you.

“Want a taste?” he asks, casually.

“Mhm,” you nod, face looking flush.

He pulls his fingers out of you, coated with sex, then plugs your pussy with the fingers of his other hand because he kinda likes the idea of you walking around all day with him inside of you, so he doesn’t want it getting out. He’s then pushing his other fingers past your lips, pleased to find he’s met with not even so much as a grazing of teeth, and he grins, “bet you take a dick in your mouth as good as you take it down here.”

Your furrow your brows at him, the pout of your lips seen in the way they were puckered to lick his fingers off clean, and when you release the suction with a smack of your tongue and his fingers were wet from your saliva now, his eyes narrow with desire. You push his face away with the heel of your palm to his forehead. “Flattery won’t make me suck your dick.”

“Alright. So? How is it?” he jerks his chin towards your face, pushing against your hand with his forehead until he’s hovering over you again, “taste good?”

“It’s cum, Satoru.”

He shrugs. “Bad?”

“No,” you say, and you can’t make eye contact, “good.” You sigh. “Hot. I don’t know. Salty, sweet. I’m the sweet. You’re the salty. And this conversation is obscene.”

He kisses you, capturing your lips softly, tongue darting out to taste what’s on yours. “I like it that way. Dirty. Nasty. Obscene, whatever.”

There’s the slam of a car door heard from the driveway, and the two of you instantly make eye contact with round eyes.

“Sa—” you stutter, “Satoru.”

He gets up off the couch in a panic, and heads to the window of the living room fully butt-ass naked, then peers through the blinds to see—

Your mom was making it up towards the front door, rustling with her keys in her purse. And the last thing he sees before he turns around to face you is her pushing the keys through the lock.

“Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit,” he cusses, finding his boxers off of the floor, hopping on one foot with his cum & slick coated dick flapping around and slapping against his thighs unceremoniously as he tries to get one leg in through them and then the other. You’re trembling as you hook your panties back into place, pull your shirt back down your torso, and even in his extremely panicked state, he’s still sad he can’t freely stare at your tits anymore. You’re rummaging for your skirt in a haste, looking everywhere for it, and he finds it underneath the coffee table before tossing it to you and then he side-to-side hops towards the coat closet while he pulls his sweatpants up over his ass, in time for you to quickly run and shut the door of the closet closed just before the front door of the house swings open.

The inside of the coat closet is dark, barely enough space in there for a six-foot-four two-hundred-and-twenty pound man, but it’s better than being balls deep inside his boss’s daughter on the couch when said boss just came home from work.

He hears conversation on the other side of the door, albeit muffled, and he presses his ear to it to hear better while he tucks his dick into his boxers from where it was hanging over the waistline.

“Mom! You…you’re home so early,” he hears you squeak out.

“Yes,” your mom says, “The rest of my meetings today are online, so I figured I’d come home when there’s less traffic.”

Gojo feels you lean against the coat closet door.

“I see, I see, how was your day at work?” you ask with a tremble in your voice.

“Fine.” And then nothing. The silence could mean that was all she had to say, since your mom wasn’t really a woman of many words, or it could be a silence that means she’s suspicious about something. “Darling, why is your skirt flipped up and tucked into your panties? Your whole butt is showing.”

Through the wood of the door, he hears you softly gasp. “Oh, um, I just went to pee. Must’ve—…must’ve got caught when I pulled it back up.”

“I see,” your mother says, and Gojo can hear her dropping her heels down near the shoe rack at the entrance. “You know, I really don’t like those short skirts you wear often. Maybe it’s just your generation, but I think it looks tacky and cheap.”

“Mom,” you say, in as stern of a voice as you can manage without sounding embarrassed.

Your mother sighs. “In any case, where is Satoru? I still would like him to go pick up Yuuji. I don’t have the patience to sit in preschool & daycare traffic right now.”

“Oh gosh, I don’t know,” you chirp, and then he hears you let out a small oh no before you lean even more weight against the door, this time somewhere lower, and he realizes you’re pressing your ass against it. His eyes narrow with a small frown, and then he realizes— his cum must still be trickling down your thighs. You couldn’t put your panties on fast enough.

Shit. That’s hot. A little fucked up, but hot. He feels his dick harden against the fabric of his boxers, and he rests his forehead against the door, fringe stuck to his forehead with sweat as he slips his hands down his sweatpants and then gives his cock a firm squeeze. The thought of you discretely swiping his cum up your inner thigh and smearing it against your thin panties so your mom doesn’t catch sight of it dripping down your legs has him slowly working up to a rock-solid erection, and he almost lets out a broken grunt from the feeling.

“What?” your mother says, “what do you mean you don’t know?”

“I’ve just been watching TV this whole time,” you say, “last time I saw him…he was…um, in the backyard pulling weeds?”

He lets out a small scoff through his nose at your cover-up. Cute. And not bad.

Your mother sighs loudly, and he glances down at the strained veins on his dick as he tugs it through his hand, the tip rearing and appearing flushed and dripping with precum. God, you were just on the other side of this door. Less than a few inches away, and he’d be inside of you.

“I’m going to take a shower. Go find him and tell him to pick up Yuuji soon. But before then, change into something less revealing,” your mother says in a more or less detached tone, and he can hear the stomps of her footsteps up the stairs from above him in the coat closet.

The two of you wait at least a solid minute, and just when the coast is clear, he hears you turn the knob of the coat closet and slowly crack it open.

“Okay, I think she’s in the shower, I hear the water running,” you whisper at him, “you can go now—” You glance down towards his groin, your jaw dropping. “What—…Satoru, why the fuck is your dick staring at me right now?!” you whisper-hiss at him.

He pulls you into the coat closet, pushing your front against the door to where it clicks shut, and you gasp when his hands pin your wrists crossed behind your back and his dick presses into the plush of your ass.

“You talkin’ to your mom while your pussy’s stuffed full of my cum was the single hottest thing that’s ever grazed my lizard brain,” he tells you, flipping your skirt up and hooking your panties to the side, his index finger briefly brushing against your entrance to find it still leaking from the way your walls were pulsating from his words. And then he aligns his tip to your entrance. “Now keep quiet while I do this, ‘kay?”

“Oh—” you gasp, your cheek pressed against the door as you arch your back and push your ass out for him, “okay—” you say, barely vocalizing the first syllable before he’s already stuffing himself inside of you with one solid glide of a push, making you yelp loudly and he has to instantly cup a hand over your mouth.

“Shhhhhh,” he hisses at you, immediately starting to pound you from behind, “told you to— fuuuck,” he catches sight of his length covered with a mix of your glassy arousal and his white cum, now starting to cream at the base of his cock, “jesus christ—” he breathes out, squeezing the flesh of your ass harshly with his other hand and you let out another yelp, “I told you to fuckin’ keep quiet.”

“I’m—mff,” you muffle against his palm, “I’m trying but,” your hips move back in time with his, “feels good, feels too good,” you mewl, and his hand desperately yanks up the fabric of your shirt so he can squeeze at your breast.

“Yeah?” he grunts, hypocritical for telling you to keep it down when he was slamming his hips against your ass with so much fervor he wouldn’t be surprised if the sound was reverberating across the entire house, “you like it when I fuck you while your mom’s all clueless just up the stairs?” His rhythm falters, feeling his release building, and his hand reaches in front of you to rub your clit, making you drop your head against the door with tightly closed eyes. “Gets— you—wet, doesn’t it?” he torments you, his lips near your ear as he slams his hips against you harshly with every enunciated syllable.

“Mhm, mhm,” you easily agree, or maybe that’s because it’s all you can really articulate, and he angles his hips up so his balls slap more fervently against your clit, making you scream into his palm while he picks up the pace of the circles he draws on your clit and in one, two, three— beats of his pounding heart, he feels you come undone around his cock, gushing wetness leaking out of you, he can feel the mess of fluids splattering on the skin of his thighs due to each of his heaving thrusts as he cusses out a fuuuuuuckkk before spilling his cum inside of you, a short-lived and thicker release this time that has you mewling from overstimulation, and in a few following thrusts, he’s given you everything he had to give.

His eyes open, he wasn’t even aware he had shut them in the first place, and he glances down at where the two of you were joined. Rings of arousal coat the length of his half-pulled-out dick, and the second he retreats all of it, a bulging push of his cum seeps out of you, dripping and pooling all over the hardwood floors.

“Holy shit, I wish I could take a picture of this,” he says, taking a step away to commit the sight to memory, your legs trembling and still slightly spread, ass pushed out and when you wiggle it a little, he lets out a huff of an exhale because he just can’t believe how sexy you are. Are all college girls like this? He’s never been to college, his old man’s been trying to get him to go for years, but maybe this is what finally convinces him.

“No pics,” you breathe out once you catch your breath, standing up straight slowly, “that’s my one sex rule.”

He takes a step closer to you, flipping your skirt back over your ass while you shimmy your shirt down to cover your chest. “That’s the only rule you have? Anything else goes?” he asks.

You spin around to face him, his eyes briefly flitting down to the still exposed skin of your midriff. “I have a feeling I’d be making up more specific rules if it was with you.”

He smiles, his hands grabbing your hips before pressing you up against the door again. “I also had a rule. It was to not fuck you. Wait, no, to not flirt with you. Which, technically, I didn’t do.”

You blink your eyes at him. “You’re kidding, right?”

“What?” he asks, genuinely confused, “I didn’t.”

“Huh—” you scoff, “how do you think we got into this situation in the first place?? You didn’t just say wanna fuck? You were insufferably flirty with me.”

“Nahhh nah nah nah nah, baby, that’s not flirting,” he tells you, thumb running circles over your hips, “that’s, like—…I don’t even fuckin’ know how it worked on you to be honest, I was just being stupid.”

“Oh okay so I’m stupid.”

“I never said you were stupid?”

“Well you said you were being stupid so me falling for it must mean I’m stupid.”

“Pshhh. You’re cute. Pulling weeds, by the way? Adorable.”

Your hand slowly roams up the front of his shirt, the fabric bunching at your wrists until you uncovered up to his collar bone, and you stare at his skin. He tries to not let the way his heart’s beating faster show through the heave of his chest.

“Why do you have all these scars, anyway?” you whisper to him.

“Too many girls tryna stab me,” he tells you.

You roll your eyes. “Seriously.” Your thumb traces the one you had left on him.

“I—” He stops himself.

Does he tell you? Should he tell you? What, just because he’s seen you naked and you took his dick like a queen he’s supposed to open up to you about these things now? He doesn’t know. Maybe he could? Maybe you already suspect what he does at night. And if not, at the very least, I’m an underground boxer might make you think he’s hot? At the very worst, you’ll report him to the cops and he’d get fired as your little brother’s babysitter then thrown into jail, but not before the busted cartel gets him first.

“Maybe I’ll tell you some other time,” he says, his hand wrapping around your wrist and pulling it from his chest, “no hyper personal details until you’ve had my dick in your mouth at least once or twice. That’s my one rule.”

You snort. “I could’ve guessed that rule from a mile away.”

He hums. And then there’s the sound of steps creaking down the stairs above the two of you.

You both make eye contact, eyes widening, internally yelling at each other: how the fuck did we get into this situation twice?!

This time, Gojo opens the door and stumbles out of the closet, leaving you inside of it, just in time for your mom to come down the stairs.

“Satoru. I was looking for you,” she says as she rounds the post. “Have you picked up Yuuji? He has to go for his swimming lessons soon.”

“Ah, nope, was just about to head out,” he says, letting out a cough to diffuse tension, “sorry, I was—” he points his thumb over his shoulder to behind him, “…pulling out some gnarly weeds.”

She narrows her eyes at him. “I see. Well, thanks. If you want, I can add a gardening stipend to your paycheck. Let me know.” And he’s not sure how to respond because he’s not sure if she’s joking.

He heads out the door, the keys to your mom’s minivan in his palm as he throws them up into the air and catches them a couple times. And just before he gets inside the car, he turns on his heel to face the house and pulls his phone out of his pocket to type in a message for you.

3:22pm Gojo Satoru: Send over those me-specific sex rules soon

[the end]

a/n. hope u enjoyed im shitting bricks posting this bc i haven't posted a oneshot smut since february but thanks so much for reading i appreciate u!! i got way too invested in the whole underground boxer thing 😂😂 but the fact i managed to keep everything under 12k is an accomplishment to me bc if u read my other fics you know i’m a yapper LOL i have another kind of a similarly written smut oneshot n it’s a lil angsty (totally different au tho) i’ll probs post that one next but yea i really like, hmm, i really like exploring entire characters within a short amount of time i enjoy writing the obscure lore drops xd it’s been kinda fun so far anywho much loveee hope to see u around! <3

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lokissweater · 2 months ago

Note

hey i really really love your fics and the way you write youre so talented! ive been searching for a virgin!yuji x virgin!reader for so long and my life would literally be urs if you wrote this. if not no worries, i totally get it.

sending love! - anon

OH THIS IDEA IS HOOOOTTTTT AND U BEST BELIEVE IM ALL OVER IT!! thank you for your sweet words and for sending in a request!! i hope you like it!! :] <333

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oh my god, pretty!

{yuji itadori x f!reader}

summary: your relationship with yuji was semi new and cute, you both absolutely adoring the fuck out of one another since the moment you met. one thing you have in common though? you’re both loser virgins with absolutely no experience whatsoever, and on one night where you’re both innocently cuddling on the couch watching a movie— yuji goes NUTS.

warnings: MDNI. college!au, afab!reader, SMUT, p in v sex, unprotected sex (wrap it ya’ll), accidental creampie LOL, yuji is a little perv, smut with barely any plot she goes straight to the good stuff, cursing, pet names, fluff, FILTHYYYY this is filthy, all characters are aged up.

word count: 3.9k

authors note: PHEEWWWW THIS ONE HAD ME MEOWING LIKE A KITTY CAT AND I HOPE YALL MEOW WITH ME!!! thank you for your support always, that is an absolute given, i love you and i love you forever. MWAAAHHHH <3333

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“are you okay baby?”

no you were not.

because yuji was in a black tight compression tee and pj’s while you both were watching a movie together and cuddling on your living room couch, the sleeves of his shirt accentuating his biceps and the rest of it squeezing over his pecs and torso, the brightness of your tv illuminating all of his sharp handsome features that had you gnawing at your nails in a nervous fit— him looking at you with pinched eyebrows.

yuji and you had just started dating a couple of months ago— his lively overly friendly personality winning you over without really much effort at all, and your genuine sweet one catching his heart the minute he saw you come into one of his lectures last year, looking soul killingly beautiful and radiant, the both of you befriending each other quickly as your interests aligned.

and you started hanging out on and off campus a lot more frequently after that— gradually falling more and more in love until yuji finally gathered up his jumpy nerves and asked you to be his girlfriend.

there was a problem though.

neither of you had had sex before, or had done anything in between the lines with other people before you got together.

it was the first thing that yuji worried about when he first started dating you— embarrassed and afraid that you would think he was a big fat loser with no game and that he would potentially run the risk of losing you, you maybe preferring a man of experience to match your own needs.

but when he admitted that to you, and when you shook your worried little head and told him you were in the same exact boat as him, he was fucking elated— his apprehensions crumbling down like a landslide and replaced instead with the giddiness of getting to do stuff with you for the first time ever, and him being the man (the only man ever he hoped) to get to do it to you.

but then there was another problem.

neither of you seemed to want to start anything, the both of you hesitant and scared because of your lack of experience— petrified of humiliating yourselves if one of you tried and pathetically failed at it or did something incorrectly.

“mhm! fine.” you smiled sweetly, your calm voice a completely different contrast to what was currently happening inside your reeling fuzzy brain.

you had both definitely talked about it, the subject of intimacy. but it was always something that the two of you reassured each other would happen eventually when you were both ready, that there was no rush— choosing to brush the subject off like it was nothing.

except it wasn’t nothing. it was never nothing. and you were both way past fucking ready, especially yuji, him practically ripping apart at the seams with horn dog need anytime he saw you wear those little skirts that you like so much, or whenever you’d straddle his lap during one of your daily makeout sessions— his hands literally trembling over your ass in attempts at being respectful of pretty ol’ you, settling for placing them on your upper back instead.

and you would internally pout, disappointed, because you always without fail noticed all of this yet you were too shy to mention anything or do something about it on your own.

“you sure?” he asked softly. “you look like you’re thinking about something.”

he raised a hand and gently poked your cheek repeatedly with his index finger, a silly smile on his face. “tell me baby tell me baby tell me baby—”

you giggled, “i’m okay! just zoned out.” you pushed his finger away, leaning up and pressing a quick shy kiss to his cheek that made him instantly flush pink in return, a wobbly smile spreading across his face.

in the midst of you retreating back to your previous position, yuji caught your chin with his fingers and turned you to look at him, your cheeks blushing as he stared at you with lovesick dreamy eyes.

“can we— um.” his gaze flickered to your lips. “can we make out.”

your eyes widened slightly and your hands grew clammy fast, cheeks buzzing as you stared back at him.

since making out was the only thing you both properly conquered, it happened almost every single time you saw each other, the act practically filling in and making up for the more lewd exchanges you both were missing out on, your kisses always sloppy and messy but heated— though each time it came around to it you were often just as nervous as the first time.

“s—sure!” you stammered. “you don’t have to ask me yuji… you can just— y’know… do it..”

he bit his tongue, your timidness for some fucking reason sending a shock of arousal through his veins and straight down to his dick as he tried his best to swallow it and not make it obvious for you.

“okay!”

he brought your face closer then and kissed you, a solid one at first, until you slowly parted your lips and ushered him in, deeper, your body moving closer to his on its own as he immediately responded with placing a hand on your leg to throw it over his lap, your mouths wet and slippery as he properly settled you to sit on him.

you wrapped your arms around his neck, the movie drowned out completely in the background as a sequence of lip smackings echoed throughout the room, yuji’s hands on your upper back like always as you continued to make out… until you felt a little stinging cramp in your knee— moving your hips a little bit to readjust, utterly unaware of how you accidentally applied pressure over yuji’s crotch as he sucked in a breath through his nose and pulled away.

“fuck don’t do that baby don’t do that.”

you froze, hands quickly retracting back to your chest. “what? what do what?”

“oh—” he froze, eyes wide and cheeks pink as his mouth opened and closed like a fishy out of water.

he couldn’t possibly tell you why, not wanting to scare you away by admitting that you grinding down on his crotch like that made his dick jerk and mind haze in the most filthy and perverted way imaginable, feeling like he wanted to dig himself a big fat grave of horny shame to throw himself into as he watched your pretty eyes look at him the way that they were, wanting that same look but underneath him instead—

your bent knee cramped up once more and you hissed, moving your hips again except this time harder, yuji’s eyes flying open as the grip around your upper torso tightened, a strangled whiny hum escaping his throat.

your eyes snapped to his at the sound, now feeling something hard poking your clothed pussy as your brain finally put fucking two and two together, your hand slapping over your mouth in embarrassment at what you did and over your stupid delayed realization.

“oh! yuji i’m so sorry i— i didn’t realize—”

he shook his head rapidly, his cheeks and ears red as he shakily smoothed his hands over your hips comfortingly.

“no baby! don’t be sorry it’s okay!” he quickly kissed your forehead. “i—it’s me… it’s not you at all…”

but there was something else behind his eyes, something you couldn’t quite pinpoint as he just stared at the place where your body met his crotch, hands slowly gripping your hips tighter in a certain way and… and actually moving you now in a certain way that made you promptly realize he was grinding you against him, pleasure quickly twitching at your clit in response as flat hands flew to his chest to stabilize yourself.

“what— what are you doing?” you stammered, your chest heaving a little.

“s—sorry!…” he mumbled, eyes still trained to the same area. “it just— felt kind of good… so..”

yuji peered up at you, a cautious look on his face as he eyed you curiously with his pinky cheeks bright— hesitantly indulging in his overwhelming sick need for you, as simply making out was just not cutting it anymore ever since he got a taste of how something like this could feel a couple of seconds ago.

and your thoughts were identical to his.

timidly, you slid your hands up slowly to rest back on his manly shoulders, the rough material of his compression tee under your fingers making you literally squeeze your hole around nothing, eyes nervously darting around his face.

“o—okay…”

his hand came up to brush some of your soft hair over your shoulder, his thumb moving in to caress gently over your hot cheek.

“can i… can i do it again?”

you shakily nodded, and he gripped your hips again before moving you just like he did before, your crotch coming down to meet his slowly and cautiously as your mouth partially hung open at how good it actually felt, yuji staring at your expression with blown out pupils and nearly drooling over it.

but he wanted more, his hands moving you then to grind on him a little faster, his hips coming up to meet yours at the same time as you shyly met him halfway— quick and stuttery until all of a sudden you were full blown humping into each other like rabid dogs, your tiny whiny moans setting him the fuck off as he captured your lips again to make out with you, fearing if he let you quietly moan like that for his ears to selfishly drink up that he was going to end up busting in his pants.

“y—yuji…” you whimpered in between kisses.

“yeah baby?” his husky voice sent another electrical shock of ecstasy through your body, your fingers gripping his shirt in tiny fists as you didn’t even know what exactly you were pleading him for.

but he knew.

he wrapped his arms entirely around you and moved so that you were laying flat on your back now, yuji in between your legs as he kissed you sloppily while grinding himself back on you again, him literally mimicking how it would be to fuck you as you squeezed his biceps for support, your thin pajama shorts feeling his hard cock bulging from his pj pants and rutting against your cunt desperately with every hump.

yuji, literally trapped in a dimension of arousal and nasty fucking thoughts of you with every moan that slipped past your puffy soft lips, had him reaching and tugging down on the waist band of your shorts like an animal, your baby blue panties with a little ribbon bow in the middle making him nearly choke on his spit.

your hand quickly came to clasp around his wrist, stopping him.

“y—yuji my parents! i don’t know if we should—”

“oh fuck—” he whispered, looking up to the top of your staircase and down where your parents were sound asleep, gnawing so much on his bottom lip in cock blocked agony that he accidentally drew blood.

and you didn’t know why, but the urge was unforgiving as you reached up and cupped his hot sweaty cheeks, pulling his face down as you stuck your tongue out and licked over his bleeding lip.

yuji stared, eyes wide, before he let out a low guttural grown and shoved his face into the crook of your neck.

“fuck fuck fuck fuck—”

you were fucking killing him.

he rolled his leaky cock slowly into you again, his shoulders trembling at the cold feeling of his wet boxers that were literally covered in pre cum the moment your pretty plush thighs sat over his lap, you speaking up.

“m—maybe—”

he pulled back fast.

“yeah?”

“maybe if you just— look. that… that should be fine, right?”

“yeah yeah!” yuji’s invisible tail was practically wagging over your words. “look uh huh! just look baby.”

you bit your lip, slowly reaching down and tugging as both of yuji’s hands went flying down to help you, pulling them over your thighs and down to your ankles before setting them behind him on the couch with a soft thud.

you kept your thighs closed, shy and timid as you realized yuji hadn’t seen you like this yet… your cheeks flaring in embarrassment as he pulled your knees apart and gawked at the vision before him, yuji looking at you like you had built the entirety of rome by yourself with your bare hands.

you hadn’t noticed yet, but your panties were drenched— a patch of wet spread over your lips that literally outlined the anatomy of your pussy to a t, leaving little to the imagination as his eyes stayed locked on your clit in a complete trance.

“oh my god, pretty!…” he murmured, his index finger coming down to softly touch and rub your puffed up clit over your panties, you squeaking in response and slamming your thighs closed again.

“sorry! sorry!” he sputtered, frantic as he came down to peck little kisses on your cheek apologetically, your eyes shut, bashful. “did that hurt? i didn’t mean to i’m sorry—”

“n—no!” you shook your head and slowly peeked your eyes open. “it didn’t… just felt s—sensitive.”

his shoulders relaxed in relief, nodding, his eyes widening in delight when you spread your legs back open for him again, your panties literally stuck slick to your pussy at this point.

yuji’s fingers pressed against your folds, him wanting to just feel the way your little wet lips mushed up against his digits, his curious hand directing him slowly up over your clit and back down by your virgin hole as he breathed hard through his nose, trying to get himself to calm the fuck down over your cunt and not freak you out.

but what he was doing felt good, him having no idea as you pulled your bottom lip in between your teeth with your eyebrows screwed together in euphoria, his ears perking up at the sounds of your sweet little moans and whines the more pressure he applied to it.

and then he got an idea.

as you were distracted getting riled up by his fingers, yuji shoved his other hand under his wet pajama pants and boxers, pulling out his throbbing cock and pumping it a little as his angry tip leaked with every jerk— a drop oozing down and landing right on your nub before rolling over your panties as he breathed out a string of hushed curses.

yuji replaced the hand on your pussy with his cock, his length and tip pushing up in between your sopping cunt and back down, completely soiling your panties with a mix of your arousal and his pre cum as he rolled his hips into you again, you not noticing at all until both of his rough hands came to grip and squeeze over your inner thighs, your eyes fluttering open as you wondered why it felt way better than before, them bulging once you saw his thick long dick slipping and sliding hurriedly against your pussy.

“b—baby!” you moaned breathlessly, but yuji literally could not hear you as his dazed droopy eyes stayed focused on your swollen puss while he continued to rut.

“uh huh..?..” he panted. “what’s wrong sweetheart…”

your words lodged themselves in the back of your throat as a particular rough thrust made you choke and clamp your mouth shut, squeezing your eyes shut in response with your sensitive nub pulsing as you felt yuji’s leaky sticky cum all over you.

“does it— does it feel good?” his eyes finally trailed up to look at you, his already fucked out expression and flushed face forming a yummy pit in your stomach that you recognized as your release whenever you fingered yourself, except that feeling no where near as good as what you felt right fucking now.

“mhm..” you moaned and licked your lips.

yuji’s fingers slid up from your inner thighs and to the straps of your panties, fiddling and playing with them as he rolled his hips like a little perv, his tip at times falling and literally sinking into your gaping virgin hole a bit— your panties a thin stretchy wall that frustratingly stopped his cock from going, slipping back upward instead.

“baby…” he moaned lowly, whispering. “maybe we should just have sex right now…”

you gasped. “right now?! i don’t know yuji my— my parents— and we’ve never—”

he leaned down and sloppily kissed you, speaking in between each smack.

“they’re asleep it’s—” mmphf— “it’s okay—”

yuji already had his middle finger hooked under your wet panties as he started pulling down, you squeaking at the cold breeze hitting your bare clit.

“i want to but— hic!”

he rubbed his tip over your entrance a bit, pooling your juice up.

“what if— what if we get too loud? and they come downstairs—”

he shook his head. “i’ll keep on a lookout pretty don’t worry about it...” he murmured. “you just relax while i pump my cock in, yeah?”

you whimpered, nodding quickly and pathetically as you wrapped your arms around his neck and pulled him down flush against your chest, suctioning tiny sucks on his jaw to keep you from moaning the loudest you’ve moaned all night as he started pushing in, yuji’s mind in a literal fucking state of delirium as his dick was finally gonna be buried in your cute pussy after wanting it for so long.

you hiccuped against his jaw, your arms gripping him tighter as he stretched you out so good, feeling a little pinch in your walls that made you spread your legs wider in attempts at alleviating it.

“ohhhh fuckkkk baby—” he moaned loud and you quickly clamped a hand over his mouth.

“shhh honey shhh—”

“m’sorry m’sorry m’sorry—”

his voice was muffled against your hand as he pumped deeper, your squeal catching itself in your throat and his body fucking shivering at the way your tight slobbering walls sucked him in without him having to even push, your hole clenching around him and pumping more strings of stray pre cum out inside you.

“my god do that again please do that again—” he panted, reeling his hips back slowly and pushing in at a steady rhythm.

“d—do what?” you panted, your eyes closing in pleasure.

“squeeze— shit!— squeeze me please please—” he begged, pressing wet open mouthed kisses on your cheeks as he licked up your little overstimulated tears.

“like— like this?”

you clenched your hole again and his body jerked, his choked moans huffing in your ear as he rolled and snapped his hips faster.

“mm! yuji my god—” you squealed and he placed a hand over your mouth, the both of you now covering over each others as he proceeded to drill his hips in, the couch squeaking with every messy hit.

your hand tightened over his lips the louder he moaned, your eyes silently pleading with him to be a little quieter, but him too lost in the milking of his cock and the way your fucked out face looked as he couldn’t connect the dots with what you were asking of him, suddenly your blurry brain coming into reasonable consciousness for a second as you became aware of the fact that you weren’t even using protection.

“b—baby—” you muffled against his hand. “we’re not using a— mmm! c—condom we need—”

smack smack smack—

“shit i don’t— i don’t have one sweetheart.” he stifled, and yuji only went faster then, harder and jerky as his awkward virgin hips jolted you up and down on him, your eyes rolling back. “s’okay i’ll just pull out m’kay? i’ll pull out—”

his snappy pace brought your brain back into your previous dumb erotic state, nodding dazedly as he scooched his hand down and shoved his middle and ring finger inside your wet mouth, your tongue slobbering over his digits before your lips lewdly closed around them and sucked.

yuji was not keeping a lookout for your parents.

“oh fuck baby you look so fucking pretty doing that…” he choked. “you look so so pretty under me and taking my dick—”

“mhm..” you moaned around his fingers, drool seeping out of your mouth and down your chin as you felt like you were on the brink of cumming and squelching all over him.

“i’m gonna pull out soon okay? i feel—” pant— “i feel like i’m cumming—”

you pulled back from his fingers with a pop and licked your lips, nodding vigorously as you squeezed your eyes painfully shut, your release washing over you like a prickly wave with your mouth hung wide open and your vision blowing bright white.

but in the midst of you creaming, you accidentally clamped your thighs shut around yuji as he tried to slip his dick out.

“fuck! i can’t—” pant— “baby open your legs please im gonna— fuck fuck fuck!—”

yuji’s cum pummeled inside you and filled you the absolute brim as he gasped and whined in your ear, his balls draining so much of it into you that it took no time at all for it to slip past your hole and onto your couch below, the both of you heaving heavily with your clothes stuck against your sweaty sticky bodies.

“are you—” he swallowed. “are you okay baby? i’m sorry i came inside—”

“it’s okay it wasn’t you—” you tried to regulate your breathing. “it— it was my fault… i trapped you in…”

you sheepishly looked at him and gnawed at the inside of your cheek in shame, your face only making him lazily grin and press a hard loving kiss to your cheek.

“it’s okay. we can figure it out later!”

he peeled away from you and sat up, his softening cock still buried inside as he slowly pulled out and watched the rest of his cum spurt out, taking one of his shaky fingers and collecting some before pushing it back in your hole.

“don’t put it back in yujiiii!” you whined.

“sorry! sorry sorry—” he grabbed your wrist gently and kissed the back of your hand, his pinky cheeks vibrant as he looked at you with a wobbly shy smile. “i— i couldn’t help myself…”

you giggled. “s’okay honey.”

he laid his body back over yours, being mindful not to squish you as he leaned some of his weight on his arms, cutely pecking your puffy lips over and over until he was satisfied with the amount, nuzzling his face in the crook of your neck after.

“m’glad my first time was with you yuji…” you murmured into his ear, your words causing his heart to literally bang against his chest as he felt like he was on cloud nine with you underneath him like that.

“i’m glad it was with you pretty.” he pushed, looking into your fucked out eyes with sincerity. “and i hope it stays that way. just my dick.”

you laughed loudly, your hand quickly coming up to cover your mouth as he giggled.

you pecked his nose sweetly and readjusted your hips, your cum covered pussy brushing against his cock again, the blood immediately rushing back to it faster than a speeding fucking bullet.

he traced a loving finger across your bottom lip delicately, a little grin on his face.

you quirked a brow. “what?”

“can we um—“ he quickly kissed you. “can we try doggy style right now?”

₊✩‧₊˚౨ৎ˚₊✩‧₊₊✩‧₊˚౨ৎ˚₊✩‧₊₊✩‧₊˚౨ৎ˚₊✩‧₊₊✩‧₊˚౨ৎ˚₊✩‧₊₊✩‧₊

taglist!! <33 (THANK YOU THANK YOU!):

@cupcaketeddybehr @soobiary @roachfun @waterfal-ling @saebaey @reneinii @luvvmae @cake-with-the-cream @pixie-dix @2ukika @cramelmacchiao @hy3phiren @fushigurioo @wil10wthetree

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bighitfics · 4 months ago

Text

jeon jungkook fanfics that deserve to be turned into kdramas and selling books.

(a recommendation you badly need) ⭑.ᐟ

Sauvage ౨ৎ by @tljunglebook

— grumpy x sunshine, cold and detached jungkook (who turns into a whipped puppy later on) office romance, slow burn.

(starting off strong! this book’s got the most delicious slow burn to ever exist! screaming at how sexy, dirty minded, down bad & protective for oc jungkook’s in this fic ugh the wattpad girlies already know that they’re my adopted parents)

10 Seconds ᥫ᭡ by @deepdarkdelights

— yandere jungkook, abduction, stalking, stockholm syndrome.

(this series is my first love, i would do anything to read this for the first time again!)

Penpal 𓍯𓂃 by @laughing-with-god

— yandere prisoner jungkook, stalking, breaking in.

(gotta contact some directors and producers to turn this into a drama! it would slay so hard with its refreshing plot line! and tbh no words are enough to describe her writing abilities, she’s a pro✨)

Risqué ✧˖° by @mercurygguk

— age gap, forbidden romance, smut, angst.

(the time stamps and drabbles are the essence of this fic, the smut is so well written! ALSO THE SEGSUAL TENSION AND OVERALL YEARNING MA’AM!? can someone already turn this into a mini netflix series please!?)

About Time ִ࣪𖤐 by @yoonia

— time travel au, major angst, second chances, smut, fluff.

(if i had the chance to devour a book, i’d eat this one (obviously) it’s one of the best books of my life, i would die to see a live version of this)

I Want You To Stay ʚɞ ⁺˖ by @ahundredtimesover

— ceo jungkook, strangers to lovers, slow burn, angst, smut.

(no slow burn ever slow burned the way this story slow burned! lemme warn ya’ll this fic will keep getting better as you read it!)

Bride Of Devil ♰ 𓏲 ๋࣭ ࣪ ˖ by @jasminefanfics

— dark romance, gangster au, enemies to lovers, forced proximity, age gap, kinda yandere husband jungkook.

(my youtube fanfic girlies assemble! this is the best mafia jungkook fic i can recommend for ya’ll! the bgm is so addictive and perfect)

An Abundance Of Luck And A Sprinkle Of Fate 𐙚 by @borathae

— strangers to lovers, romance, found family, smut, angst, healing.

(I remember being unhealthily obsessed with this lord, aaol!kook & oc will forever be my babies TT this book tugs at your heart in a way that’s inexplainable)

ps — have a good read girlies <3

follow for more.

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eleganzadellarosa · 6 months ago

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Melted

pairing: olderbrothersbestfriend!chan x needy fem! reader

genre: fluff, smut

warnings: MDNI (I'm sorry if this changes the way you see ice cream, pwp I guess, fast paced plot, unprotected sex (don’t 👀), big dick Chan (because what else would he be?), overstim, squirting, hair pulling, choking, creampie, Chan calls reader Baby, reader calls him Channie)

word count: 5.82K

A/N: Just because my mind has been on Chan A LOT lately. Also…this isn’t proofread 😬

Why would you like someone that ruffles your hair, tickles your sides and calls you “baby” as a nickname? Sounds childish right? Not to you when it comes to your huge crush on Chan. You know that’s just how he is with you and has been since you were younger, but you wish it meant something different to him.

Chan is best friends with your older brother, he’s basically been a part of your family for over 10 years. You’ve always liked Chan, but not in that way until your crush developed right before he moved. His family moved away for a while during his late teen years so you hadn’t seen him in quite some time. Then he suddenly came back and he was like a whole new person. His personality didn’t change, no, the way he looked did and you haven’t been able to keep your eyes off of him since.

He and your brother are 25 and you’re stuck being 23. It wasn’t a big enough gap to make anyone bat an eye, but you knew he always viewed you as his best friend’s little sister and you weren’t sure how to make that change. You watched as he pulled up in front of your house, picking up your brother like usual. They spent so much time together, you were almost past the point of jealousy and wanted to hate your brother for taking him away every time.

You stood in the open garage, watching him hop out the driver’s seat. He smiled and waved when he saw you and did a little jog onto the sidewalk and into the garage. Maybe things didn’t need to change and you needed to find someone else to crush on, but it was so hard when he would open his arms for you to hug him and would squeeze you tight until you couldn’t handle it anymore.

“Hey baby, missed you. How ya been?”

Baby. You would never get over that nickname. It gave you that warm fuzzy feeling but also gave you that second heartbeat.

“Hey Channie, you know same old same old. Where have you been all week?” You knew where he’d been but you’d do anything to have a longer conversation with him before your brother snatched him away.

“I went to go visit my family, they told me to tell you hi.” He smiled and you smiled back knowing how much his family loved you, which oddly enough made you like him more. “I got you somethin’, close your eyes.”

You obliged, closing your eyes waiting almost impatiently to see what he had for you. Not being able to see him in front of you but feeling his presence made a light blush fall on your cheeks. You felt his fingertips graze the skin on your hand and the sudden contact made you jump slightly. He carefully opened your hand and you felt the cold contrast of something against your palm.

“Open your eyes.”

You looked down to see a dainty anklet with small charms dangling from it. Your eyes lit up seeing each charm perfectly handpicked with things he knew you’d like. It was gorgeous and on closer inspection, it looked expensive. You didn’t care how much it cost, only worrying that he spent too much of his money on you, but loving that he got you a gift at all.

“Baby, do you like it?” He made dangerous eye contact waiting for you to reply. It didn’t help you gather your thoughts any quicker even though you had your answer already. He made your nervous system short circuit.

“Y-yeah Channie, I love it!” You smiled as much as you could to cover the way you swallowed thickly seeing him stand so close to you.

“Really? Oh gosh I’m glad, I thought I chose something you wouldn’t like.” He had to be lying. He could pick a leaf off a tree and you’d be jumping for joy. “Here lemme see, I’ll put it on for you.”

You gasped when he lifted you up to seat you on your dad’s workbench that sat at the back of the garage. The heat seeping in from outside was hot enough, but now you were sure you could break a thermometer. He kneeled down and wrapped the cold jewelry around your ankle. You were unconsciously holding your breath, scared of having any reaction because if you let go, you’d probably moan and you’d rather not make this awkward.

He looked up at you with your foot still in his hand, “It looks great baby, I like it.” God that comment had you slippery wet. He liked it on you? Now you’d never take it off. “Make sure you think of me every time you look at it.” He shot you a wink and your breath got caught in your throat preventing you from swallowing.

This conversation would be stored for fuel whenever you needed something to tip you over the edge at night. You almost said something equally seductive back, almost, when your brother came and took Chan away. You were used to it by now, never really having more than 10 minutes tops of alone time with him. It was frustrating, having to get most of your information from your brother who always reluctantly told you, asking “why do you wanna know anyways?”

You think Chan would tell you no hesitation if you actually had the chance to speak with him. But truth be told, you’d never be able to do such a thing with your brother around. He made it clear on multiple occasions that he didn’t approve of a relationship between you two if it ever came to be, but all three of you knew that would never be brought into existence.

You sat in the same spot on the tool bench, swinging your foot to see the charms sparkle in the small rays of sunshine. Chan said to think about him every time you looked at it, so you did. The thought of you on your knees in front of him, him slipping his thumb past your lips telling you to suck if you wanted to be rewarded. The ideas that ran freely were filthy and getting worse by the second. Your thighs rubbed together tightly as you felt yourself grow wetter with each passing thought.

The sun shined brightly through the small gaps between your blinds, easing you awake with its warmth. The weekends were the best because it was almost guaranteed that you’d get to have breakfast with Chan. It was an unspoken tradition and you marked it off in your mental calendar. You quickly washed your face before heading downstairs to the kitchen, only to see it completely empty besides the few duffle bags that sat beside the island.

“Where are you going?” You asked your brother who walked in at the perfect time before you could stump yourself with more unanswered questions.

“Didn’t mom tell you? I’m going to stay at a beach house with a few friends for the weekend.” He stuffed a few more things in his bag, talking with his back facing you.

“No…is Chan going too?” You asked carefully trying to make it seem like a normal question.

He rolled his eyes and leaned up against the marble island. “Next time you need to just start asking Chan these questions since you always wanna know everything about him. And no, he’s not coming.”

“Really?” A smile spread across your face but you quickly wiped it away when you saw your brother narrow his eyes.

“Don’t go bothering him while I’m away, he’s doesn’t wanna hang with you at all so just stay home!”

“You’re such an asshole, he never said that!”

“You don’t know what he said because you’re not his best friend! Just don’t bother him okay?” He sucked his teeth as he picked up his bags and walked out the door, kicking it closed with his foot.

He didn’t know what he was talking about. Chan wouldn’t say that, he would love to hang out with you. Right? You felt like a teenager crushing on a college boy that was far out of your league for multiple reasons but you swore you had a chance.

You sulkily walked upstairs back to your room and flopped on your bed. Being that your brother didn’t want you to bother Chan, it made you more curious as to what he could be doing right now. It sucks that you didn’t have his number or really any way to contact him. Well you did, you were just too scared to actually do it.

It was nothing but a 10 minute walk and 2 minute drive to get to his house but in the back of your mind, you were scared he actually wouldn’t want to see you. What would you say; what would be your reasoning for coming to see him?

“I have a crush on you and I want to be around you, please let me in?”

Like hell that would work. He’d probably slam the door in your face, call your brother and tell him how annoying and stupid his little-

There was a ring at your doorbell.

Your head snapped to your left, slightly shocked you had any visitors. It could easily be your neighbor since she always seemed to pop up randomly. “I got it!” You yelled out, jogging down the stairs. You looked out the peephole to see Chan standing there. Your heart started racing and you quickly looked over your appearance before opening the door.

“Channie?! What are you doing here?”

“Aww baby you aren’t happy to see me?” A cute little pout painted his face and you wanted to drag him in and kiss him all over.

“What? No, of course I am! My brother’s not here and I thought you knew…”

“Oh yeah I knew, I came to see you.”

He said it so nonchalantly as if it was normal to come see you. As if you both agreed to hang out today. Or as if you always hung out when your brother wasn’t around. He had to know what this was doing to you, there was no way he didn’t. You opened your mouth to say something but couldn’t find the strength to let the words come forward.

“I figured you’d be here all by yourself, so I thought I’d come pick you up.” He smiled brightly and there were those cute dimples. God you felt like you were gonna explode.

“I…umm…” you were stuttering and if he didn’t stop staring at you, you were going to be stuck like this.

He looked a bit sad and disappointed but waited to see what you would say. “It’s okay if you don’t want to Baby. I should’ve asked first, I’m so sorry.”

You quickly reached out to touch his arm and practically melted into a puddle, “No no Channie, I’m sorry, I just didn’t think you’d wanna hang out with me. I’d love to go to your house, especially since I’ve never seen this one.”

He smiled again, “Of course I would Baby, you’re my best friend! Now come on, hop in”

Oh how this was never something you thought would happen in a million years. You were Chan’s best friend? As much as you wanted this, there must have been some kind of mistake. Surely he didn’t actually think so.

He grabbed your hand and lead you to his jeep and opened your door for you. “Thank you Channie” barely left your lips before he reached inside and buckled your seatbelt, smiling at you before he closed your door. Your body was on fire; ignited from the soft and simple touches. You were down bad, there was no better way to put it. If he kept moving like this, you’d have to go home and deal with the problem between your legs.

His house was nice, nothing too big or small, just right for him. He had a great sense of decor and he kept his place sparkling clean. Scattered about on different pieces of furniture were photos of him, family and even younger pictures of the 3 of you.

“Baby, make yourself at home, you can sit anywhere you’d like.” He spoke to you from the little pass through window in the kitchen.

You nodded your head but decided to explore his living room some more. When you walked past the patio door, you noticed a reflection on the ground outside.

“Oh my gosh Channie, you have a pool?! Why didn’t my brother tell me?”

He walked over to you with a large red double popsicle and chuckled at the amused look on your face. “I’m gonna punch him when I see him, I told him to tell you because I know how much you love swimming. We can go out there if you want.”

He broke the popsicle in two and handed you a half. “I would love to…but I don’t have a bikini with me.”

“Just get in with what you have on.” He leaned against the side of his couch as he sucked on the cold treat.

You looked down at your outfit, a plain white tee and some daisy patterned shorts. “But I won’t have anything to change into. I can walk back home and get something.”

“Orrrrr, you can just wear some of my clothes until yours are dry.”

What was with him saying all this so nonchalantly? When have you ever worn his clothes? The smell must be absolutely amazing, he always smelled so good. If he was offering, you might as well just take it.

“Hmm” you bit your lip and smiled, “okay, but I don’t wanna get in by myself.”

He smiled as he finished off his half of the popsicle and chewed on the stick. He jolted off the side of the couch and pulled his shirt off. You almost choked on the leftover ice you had in your mouth. What the fuck was he thinking?

“Come on Baby, come swim with me.”

He opened the door and ran and jumped in without hesitation. After little to no consideration, you followed behind him, diving right in. The water was a perfect way to cool off in the hot summer sun. He swam over to you, hair drenched and sticking to his forehead. The droplets of water shined against his toned, muscular body. You wanted to lick him dry, no matter how long it took.

His right hand slid over your waist and around to your back, “you look so cute, I could kiss you right now.”

Cute? Kiss? Cute and kiss in the same sentence? Maybe you needed to pinch yourself to wake up from this completely unrealistic dream.

“M-me? I’m just plain and boring.” You mentally pat yourself on the back for not stuttering too much with how close he was and what he just said.

“You’ve never been either baby, no way that’s what you actually think.” His eyebrows raised in shock.

“Well yeah…there’s so many prettier girls than me. I’m just me, but they’re-“

It happened so fast that your mind didn’t process it. He bent down to press his lips to yours and hold you a bit tighter. Your arms were around his neck and you reciprocated the kiss faster than the fear set in. His tongue swiped over your lip and you happily allowed him to explore your mouth.

Somehow being drenched in the pool made it feel more sensual, nothing left to the imagination, bodies practically touching through the thin fabrics. You could feel how hard he was, pressing it right up against your thigh. You bravely touched him through his shorts, earning a small moan from him.

He ran a hand up the back of your thigh and roughly grabbed your ass. It wasn’t until you felt something press into your back that you realized he moved the both of you closer to the edge of the pool. He trailed the kisses over your jaw and to your neck. You were breathing heavily, making no effort to stop the sounds coming from you.

“I wonder how good you’d sound if I fucked you.”

“Channie please, oh fuck.”

Desperate was too innocent of a word to describe how badly you wanted him. You’d do whatever it took to make your dreams come true.

“Would you like that baby? Let me fuck you and make you feel good?”

At this point you were sure you stopped breathing. He looked so good with his wet hair, heavy lids, toned body pressed right against yours. Of course you’d like that.

“Yes Channie, I want it, I want you.”

He slipped your shirt over your head and left open mouthed kisses down your neck and across your chest. Just as he moved to get your nipple in his mouth, a loud ring came from inside the house; it was his phone.

“You should go get that Channie.”

He looked at you, lips parted and breathing heavily. “Fuck, okay I’ll be right back.”

He hopped out the pool and went inside while you tried to put all the pieces together. So Chan liked you? Or he simply just wanted a fuck buddy? Or maybe he just wanted to fuck you because he knows how much you like him and knew you’d be easy? The insecurity began to weigh down on you and now you just wanted to go home.

When he returned, he squatted down next to you, who was now slightly turned away from him with your arms wrapped around yourself in order to seek comfort.

“That was your brother, he said he’s coming home early because someone got food poisoning. So…he asked me to pick him up.” He reached out and touched your shoulder. “Baby, you okay?”

“Yeah Channie, you can just take me home.” You made sure to not let him see the tears brimming your eyes.

“You sure you’re-“

“Yes, I’d like to go home please.”

He watched you for a few seconds longer, definitely able to notice the shift in your mood, he just didn’t know what caused it. “Okay, let me at least get you a change of clothes.”

The ride back home was short and you got out before he could to open your door for you. He shouted something about seeing you later before driving off as you closed your front door behind you. You still didn’t have his number, so him hitting you up later wouldn’t be a thing, unless he was bold enough to ask your brother but you both knew that would open a can of worms you weren’t ready to try and close.

Now you were a bit nervous that he would tell your brother what happened because he wanted to know why you looked so sad. You’d just avoid him as much as you could and hopefully he would forget anything ever happened.

“As much as I don’t want you to, I need you to come with me and Chan so you can help me choose a gift for my girlfriend.” Your brother came into your room, not bothering to knock since your door was already opened slightly.

“I didn’t say you could come in!”

“Oh my god, yes or no?”

“You didn’t ask me anything dumbass and why don’t you already know what your girlfriend likes?”

“I do know but I want to know what’s the best out of the options I have and you’re a girl.”

“Umm…I guess?”

You were conflicted. You wanted to see Chan, you missed him even though it had only been two days since your encounter in the pool. But you also didn’t want to see him right now because you didn’t want to explain anything to him, yet if you said that your brother would for sure know something happened between you two.

“Okay well be ready in like 10 minutes, set a timer or something.”

Chan and your brother greeted each other like always and when he looked over at you, he looked as if he wanted to come hug you. “Hey baby, you coming with us today?”

Your brother rolled his eyes when you let a smile creep past your lips. You were weak for Chan, he knew exactly what to say to make you melt. Maybe you were thinking about it wrong, maybe he really did like you and he actually wanted to be with you. But having it happen so suddenly made you think perhaps you let your guard down too quickly.

You felt like such a third wheel around the two boys, laughing at their inside jokes and not worrying about you following behind them. Well Chan did, he would look back to make sure you were still there and smile at you when you made eye contact. It felt like hours even though but had only been 30 minutes of walking around the mall looking for the perfect gift.

“Girls like jewelry, so get her something she can always wear.” Your brother’s gaze followed yours down to your anklet. Before he could ask you where you got that, Chan spoke up.

“Yeah I told you that the other day man, if you really love her you should get her something that she can keep for a long time but also that you put effort into choosing.” He looked over at you when he said it, hoping you caught on to what he said.

You tried your hardest not to blush, your brother standing way too close for you to even let out a small squeal.

“Yeah that’s what I wanna get her but I’m not sure she’ll wear it, I never see her wearing jewelry.”

“Trust me bro, she’ll love it.” He placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder and nodded his head.

“I’m gonna go get some ice cream and then head back to the car you guys.” You said waving your hand as you walked away. Your brother nodded as he answered his phone.

“Is it okay if I come with you baby?” Chan ran to catch up with you before you got too far.

“Sure Channie, I’ll pay for you.”

“You’re so funny Baby, I’m paying for the both of us.” As you approached the stand, he turned around grimacing. “Aww baby they’re all out of rocky road.”

After all these years, he still remembers your favorite ice cream flavor. “It’s okay Channie, just get me whatever you get.”

He smiled softly and nodded and ordered two strawberry cheesecake cones. You walked back with him to his car to enjoy yet another frozen treat in his presence. Of course, he opened your door and let you hop in before he did the same.

“Damn it’s already melting…”

“I prefer ice cream when it melts a little. Like when it drips down my fingers. It just tastes better that way…well to me anyway.” You realized you were babbling, so you looked up at him but he was already looking at you.

“You wanna lick mine off my fingers?”

The question alone could have made you cum, but the way he looked at you; eyes slightly hooded, lips parted, that had you throbbing. You couldn’t even answer him. Actually your mind was blank so you didn’t have an answer or any response to what he just said. He saw it on your face though. You wanted him just as much as he wanted you. He’s wanted you for a long time and as many hints as he tried throwing your way, you never seemed to catch them.

It became too much for him, your brother always getting in his way of spending alone time with you. He didn’t care what your brother thought about it though. He wanted you and he wanted you bad. So when he eased his hand toward your mouth and you happily let him push a finger past your lips, he knew he didn’t have to try to make you understand anymore; he made that clear when you were in the pool the other day.

“Sorry it’s not your favorite flavor.” He said, removing his finger to replace it with a new one.

“It is now.” Your words were partially cut off by the intrusion of his fingers. You were soaked and your head felt fuzzy, you felt like you were going to die.

You never broke eye contact and he watched you intently. “You can’t look at me like that if you don’t want me to ruin you.”

“Maybe I want you to.” You licked and sucked on his fingers as seductively as you could muster.

He licked his ice cream then shifted more toward you so he could kiss you. The contrast of the cold dessert and the heat from his tongue made you whimper. He slowly let your warmth melt the ice cream and drip down onto your neck and chest. He happily chased the drops with his tongue making sure none of it went to waste.

“Oh god Channie, mmm~”

He caught sight of your brother making his way over to the car so he quickly halted his actions and returned to his seat. “He’s coming, act normal. Deep breaths.”

Well that was surely easier said than done. He just licked the majority of his ice cream off of you, leaving you slightly sticky in multiple places. This was torture, getting so close to what you want only to be cockblocked by your brother once again.

“Yo Chan, is it cool if I stay at your place tonight? My girlfriend might stop by too.”

“Yeah sure, I don’t mind.”

“Okay cool, we can just drop Y/N off.”

You quickly turned, an exaggerated pout on your face, ready to fight your case. “NO FAIR!”

“It’s fine if she stays, I don’t mind.” Chan looked at your brother through the rear view mirror.

“What?! No way, she’s literally just going to bother us the entire time!”

“Fuck you, no I won’t! You always get to hang with Chan by yourself, I can be around him too!”

“Hey! It’s alright, you can sleep in my bed and I can sleep on the couch. I promise it’s fine.”

Your brother rolled his eyes and you stuck your tongue out at him. Maybe you were childish, but you weren’t going to let your day end without at least having another make out session.

You thanked God your brother’s girlfriend came quite late and that she took all his attention off of you and Chan. You all enjoyed some snacks and had movie night. It was nearing almost 2am by the time the movie was over, so your brother took her to the guest room where he was staying for the night.

You stayed up with Chan to help him tidy up even though he insisted he didn’t want you to.

“Is it okay for me to wear another one of your shirts Channie? I didn’t pack anything.”

He looked up from the dishes he just finished, “you don’t have to ask Baby, of course you can.” He gave you a big dimpled smile but then it dropped. “Can I ask you somethin’?”

“Yeah of course, what’s up?”

“Why were you so sad the other day? You know…in the pool.”

You knew he would ask you eventually so you might as well just tell him now and get it over with. “I don’t know…I just…wasn’t sure how to feel and was hoping you weren’t only doing it to take advantage of me.”

He walked up to you and kissed your forehead. “Oh Baby, I would never do that to you. I love you and I can’t ever say it or do anything about it because your brother’s always around. I’m sorry if I came off so strong but don’t ever think I’d do anything to take advantage of you. I love you, yeah?”

He rubbed his thumb over your hand and tilted his head waiting for you to nod your head. It took a heavy weight off your shoulders to hear him express his true feelings and being that he said it so easily helped you understand how genuine he was being.

“My room is all yours Baby, it’s the last door at the end of the hall. You can wear whatever you want and there’s towels in the closet in the bathroom.”

“Thank you for letting me stay Channie.” You stood on your tip toes and kissed him on the cheek and quickly ran away, leaving him in the kitchen with red ears.

You felt refreshed after your shower and even more comfortable as you slipped into one of his shirts. Since you didn’t bring a change of clothes, his shirt was the only thing covering you and barely so. You hopped into his king sized bed and playfully rolled around, enjoying the big size.

You looked over at the digital clock on the nightstand, it had already been more than an hour since everyone went to bed. You weren’t sleepy though, so you pulled out your phone and scrolled aimlessly on your socials. A soft knock on the door turned your attention towards it.

“Come in.”

Chan walked through the door, smiling when he saw you so comfy in his bed. “I couldn’t sleep but I also didn’t try…and, I can’t let you leave before I kiss you again.”

“Well good because I was thinking the same thing.”

He fully shut the door and locked it before he removed his shirt and hopped in the bed with you, lips immediately catching yours. His hands came up to grope your breasts roughly, sucking and biting your bottom lip as he did so. He slid a hand under your shirt, breaking the kiss when he felt your bare skin.

“God Baby, you’re driving me crazy. Seeing you in nothing but my shirt is making me sooo hard.” You took his hand in yours and moved it over your pussy. “Fuck…so wet already.”

He moved down closer to the edge of the bed and kissed his way down from your stomach. He gave you butterflies in the best way possible. His lips danced across the skin on your inner thighs sending tingles up your spine.

“Channie…” you say breathlessly and he looks up at you as his mouth attaches to your sensitive bud.

With his head between your legs, messily eating your pussy, your eyes were squeezed shut. It took every bone in your body to not moan, knowing that if you did, you would be loud. He sensed it, so he stopped eating you out and crawled on top of you.

He used two fingers to slip into you while his thumb pressed down harshly on your clit. “Don’t hide them from me, I wanna hear them.”

“B-but my brother is here.”

“And I want to hear how good I make you feel. Don’t hold back Baby, lemme hear your pretty moans.” His fingers sped up their pace, not giving you any other option. You moaned as your back arched slightly. “That’s it Baby, good girl.”

It turned him on watching how his actions made you react but he needed more; needed to feel the way your pussy wrapped around him like it didn’t want to let him go. You reached out to pull on his shorts and finally free his achingly hard dick from its confines. He was BIG but what did you really expect, it was just really really intimidating. None of that mattered though, you just wanted him in you without any interruptions.

He hissed when he used your arousal to mix with his and coat his length. He gave it a few pumps before he eased the head past your entrance. “I’ll go slow okay baby?”

“Okay Channie just keep going, please don’t stop.”

He caught his lip between his teeth, feeling the lust course through his veins hearing you beg and feeling the tightness of your walls. He watched your face contort in pleasure.

He was barely half way in, stretching you open with ease. “T-too big Channie…” You eyes were rolling back and you were already slurring your words.

“You can take it, look you’re doing so well for me Baby” he touched his forehead to yours and grabbed you by the jaw and kissed you again, “you feel so good Baby, so so fucking good, such a good girl for me.”

When he bottomed out he leaned over you to catch his breath so he wouldn’t cum too quickly. Your head was spinning. His body pressed into yours and the way he spoke to you already had your toes curling. He pulled out to the tip, your pussy making a squelching noise, and he quickly thrust himself back in. Your back arched off the bed and you almost screamed.

As much as you wanted to keep your sounds at bay, you weren’t sure how much longer you could keep the volume down to a minimum. He snapped his hips forward with desperation, grunts and moans falling from the both of you. His hand wrapped around your neck, squeezing enough to make your head get fuzzy and awaken every nerve in your body. He pounded into you with no remorse, making this worth the long wait.

He suddenly pulled out, causing you to whine in response, and sat against the headboard. “Come ride me, wanna feel you in this position.”

You crawled over to him then hovered over his still hard, leaking dick. You sank down on him, taking small breaks so you wouldn’t faint from the pleasure. He bucked his hips up, making you drop down fully. He held you under your butt, spreading your pussy open to help you bounce on his dick easily.

The more you hopped up and down on him, the more you felt the sticky substances mix and connect the two of you. Your legs gave out when he started to thrust up into you every time you dropped down. He repositioned you so that you were on your knees, leaning forward into him. He grabbed a handful of your hair, your back arching more, as he hugged you and fucked you violently. The new angle made him abuse your sweet spot.

“Letting me fuck you with your brother just down the hall, I didn’t know you were such a slut Baby.”

“Mmm ah! Only for you Channie!”

He held you tighter when he felt your pussy clench around him. This is exactly what he wanted, what he dreamed of. He knew he wouldn’t last much longer himself, so he quickly flipped you onto your back again. One hand on the back of one of your knees and the other rubbing harsh circles on your clit.

“Oh fuck…oh fuck Channie I’m gonna cum!”

“You gonna cum? Yeah? Cum with me, make a mess all over my dick.”

He thrust deeper into you and bent down to suck on one of your nipples. A few more loud moans and circles on your clit and your pussy fluttered as you reached your orgasm. He didn’t stop and kept up his quick pace until you squirted all over him and the sheets below.

“Fuuuuuck” his hips stuttered and he pushed himself deep as he painted your walls white. He pulled out quickly, the rest of his cum spilling into his hands and seeping through his fingers.

When you looked down, you couldn’t help but grab his hands to put his fingers in your mouth. Funny enough, the cum looks just like the way you love your ice cream.

“Channie, I think you’re my favorite flavor.”

#bang chan smut #bang chan x reader #skz smut #skz imagines #skz x reader #stray kids #stray kids smut

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reiderwriter · 1 year ago

Text

Little Angel

Pairing: Spencer Reid × virgin!fem reader

Genre: SMUT, some fluff, a little tiny smidge of angst. MINORS DNI 18+

Summary: As the youngest and most innocent member of the BAU, they all take care of their little angel. When they find out just how innocent you are, though, one member takes his possession to the next level. You're his little angel, and he's determined to have you.

Warnings: loss of virginity, loss of innocence, degradation, pet names, oral sex, thigh riding, fingering, cum marking, love bites, Spencer is territorial and possessive, Dom! Spencer Reid, PinV sex, mentions breeding, but he pulls out.

A/N: We've reached Day 8 of kinktober! It's our second "long" fic, meaning there's a bit more plot to this, and the smut scene is longer too (WC is almost 7k!) I hope you love this one just as much as I did... The kinktober masterlist can be found here, and my regular masterlist is here too! If you want something specific, my requests are open ❤️

Your first three months with the BAU were a blur, and for good reason. Endless cases, back-to-back, interrupted only by the slight hint of a weekend or the ever possible death row interview. You were tired, stressed, and afraid to walk home alone at night, and absolutely satisfied. As far as you were concerned, it was all worth it to get these monsters off the streets, to help save their victims and to find out what made them tick. There was nothing else you'd rather be doing.

The team had helped you settle in well, too. You'd joined the team after Alex Blake had left - she'd recommended you actually from the college seminars you'd taken with her. You were obviously lacking a bit of experience, so they took on two team members, and you and Kate Callahan had the great opportunity of both being the newbie. But you had a slight disadvantage of age, coming in as the youngest member of the team. You thought that might be why you'd settled in so well, in all honesty.

Hotch and Rossi were both protective in a fatherly way. Hotch pushed you and Rossi encouraged you and that was everything you needed from them. A strong pat on the back at the end of a case and a "you did good, kid," and whatever hell they'd pushed you through, it was worth it. Morgan's tough love was brotherly, but he did a great job at getting you to relax on and off the case, reminding you to not take the work home. JJ and Kate were great mentors. It wasn't easy being women in the FBI, let alone the unit that specifically looked into some of the most misogynistic killings, rapes and abductions in the world. They both gave you tips about how to handle condescending officers, and JJ had held your hair back after you'd puked your guts up on a particularly harrowing day in the field. With Penelope, friendship was easy, and you loved talking to her about whatever hyperfixation you were on that week, loving that there was someone on your team that had filled their life with genuine joy in the face of so much horror.

And Spencer. Honestly, you were beginning to think that you'd used Spencer as a human stuffed toy a bit too much.

You don't know how it happened at first, just that after one of your first few cases, you'd been so elated to find a victim alive, safe but traumatised, that you'd thrown yourself into his arms the minute you got back to the precinct.

"We did it, I thought she was going to be dead, Spencer but she isn't." Your head was pressed into his chest, you were almost surprised he even heard them, muffled as they were. If you weren't so elated, you'd have noticed the way he'd stiffened at your touch, panicking slightly before awkwardly wrapping his arms around you, too. But you pulled away before you could notice that he wasn't really used to any physical comfort, bouncing off to write up your case report.

Spencer noticed, though. Noticed how the heat of your body made him feel comforted, the way his heart rate increased to 125 BPM from it's base rate and didn't fall back to normal for another half hour. He noticed that you smelt like jasmine and patchouli, and more importantly, he noticed that he didn't really care if you touched him, and that was new.

It became a kind of ritual for you, finding him after a case and folding into his arms to celebrate. They were friendly hugs, after all, a sign that you'd been through hell together, and you'd made it through like avenging angels. They only lingered longer when the cases went badly. You turned to crying in his arms after you'd discovered the body of a dead street girl, Veronica, in pieces in the house of an unsub who'd committed suicide by cop moments earlier.

"I told her she'd be safe if she talked to us, Reid. I told her we'd protect her, that I'd protect her." You were so hurt by that failure that he'd had to drive you home that night, holding your hand the entire way so you didn't feel so alone, left to fester in your guilt.

The rest of the team had begun teasing you about the hugs, but you'd brushed them off. You hugged everyone else too, and you knew for a fact that Penelope hugged every member of the team, so there was nothing special going on between you and Spencer. No one had deigned to inform you of Spencer's germophobia and aversion to touch.

"Gonna tell me what that's all about?" Morgan asked Spencer as you bounced away from a hug one day, leaving to remove your FBI vest.

"What what's all about?" He replied coldly, turning away to remove his own vest, replacing it with his blazer.

"What, you don't have a statistic for how many germs are passed between people during a hug, Kid, come on, you were practically smelling her hair." The older man's eyebrows raised in a question again, but Spencer continued to blow him off.

"I hug people all the time, it's not a big deal." He shrugged.

"It took you four years to return one of Penelope's hugs, and you still only do that on special occasions. That's not all the time."

"Derek, just drop it. There's nothing going on, she just… She just does it sometimes."

It was when you'd hugged him in the middle of the office, without a case to use as an excuse, that you noticed an underlying tension in the office. You were all celebrating, of course, Callahan had just announced her pregnancy, and you were all so happy for her. You'd heard the happy news and instantly turned and thrown yourself into Spencer's arms. Even you weren't sure why, not even questioning it until you saw the awkward glances on the other profilers' faces. You brushed it off by rushing to give each of them hugs, and running out in a mad flush, needing air, or water or something to get you out of what was looking more and more like an interrogation room.

A few cases later, the entire team headed to O'Keefe's to celebrate.

"To another case successfully solved," Morgan toasted, and you all joined him, lifting your glasses in triumph.

"To the wonders of non-alcoholic beer," chimed in Kate, leaving you all laughing together. The booth was small, and as usual, you'd found yourself sat right in the arms of Spencer Reid. You hadn't intended it, honestly, having slightly avoided him recently, but you'd followed Penelope into her side of the circular table, and Reid had followed you. You were sat squished between them, your arms resting awkwardly on your lap between drinks.

"Okay, a night of drinking is slightly boring without some games to spice things up, what do you say, hot chocolate?" Penelope said, addressing Morgan who was on her other side.

"I'm all ears, baby girl. What were you thinking?"

"How about twenty questions? We already know a lot about each other, let's see what we don't know?" Kate suggested, thriving off of the knowledge that as the sole sober member present, she'd hold all the cards tomorrow.

"What, how is asking questions a game?" Reid questioned jokingly from beside you. "That's just an interrogation or a therapy session, there's no winner or loser."

Already slightly buzzing from your drink, you turned to him and out your fingers in his lips, shushing him.

"No time for logic in matters of the bottle, Spencer. Let's play." He pulled your fingers off him, but nodded, holding them in his grip still as you turned back to the table.

"I'll start! JJ, are you and Will thinking of having more baby LaMontagne's?" Penelope jumped at the chance to probe her teammate, and you laughed at her enthusiasm.

"There have been discussions, but I'll not confirm or deny yet." JJ said, taking a sip of her drink as she slyly avoided a direct answer.

"I always forget why you were so good with the press, Miss No Answers. Okay, your turn to ask a question."

"Okay, Morgan. Are you thinking of popping the question to Savannah anytime soon?"

"Did she send you?" He laughed and took a drink. "If I do, she'll be the first to know."

The game went back and forth like this for a few rounds before Penelope turned the spotlight back to you.

"Okay, Y/N. You were a college student recently, I know you've got some wild stories. Where's the craziest place you've ever done it?" You knew Penelope didn't mean to make you uncomfortable. She was just an open person.

But you shifted in your seat nonetheless, trying to figure out if you could answer or even if you would. Your tongue was a bit looser than you expected though, because before you could even finish thinking you just blurted it out.

"Nowhere."

The others blinked at you slightly before Penelope dived in with another question.

"Is that Nowhere, Oaklahoma, or you're just not having sex in crazy places?"

"No. I'm not… I'm not having sex. Period. Never have." You felt yourself shrink as the other members of the team awkwardly apologised for probing you so much. Really it wasn't that big of a deal, and it wasn't as if you were saving it for religious or moral reasons. But you'd not been the most popular teenager, and you'd started studying serial killers and sociopaths so early that you really hadn't wanted to get so intimate with someone else like that.

Unbeknownst to you, Spencer's grip on his own drink had tightened ever so slightly, his heart race had picked up again, and suddenly the hand that was holding yours suddenly let you go, quietly dropping your fingers like they were glowing cinders, and he was dripping in gasoline, waiting to ignite.

Lust. He felt sick with himself for the images that were suddenly flashing through his mind now that he knew you'd never been held in that way, trying not to fantasise about you underneath him, holding him, begging him, feeling all of him. He took another swig of his drink and politely excused himself to get another as he let himself catch some air, as the sudden realization that he wanted you - and had wanted you for quite some time now - finally hit him.

The next couple of weeks were normal, and you were thankful to have that discussion behind you. No one treated you differently, acted like you were more of a child than before, asked you how your dating life was or set you up on blind dates, which was really refreshing actually. You'd let some friends know previously, and that's all they'd done, surprised that you could live ignorant to wonders of sex without shrivelling up and dying.

The only thing that was different was Spencer. And that wasn't really difference so much as growing more comfortable with each other. He'd rest his hand on the small of your back now in support sometimes, or have a hand slung over the back of your chair when sitting together. He was constantly at your side, especially if you were around male suspects or officers who'd taken a bit of a ballsy approach.

You liked it, probably a bit too much. You gravitated towards him in a room filled with people, and found yourself hugging him more often, when you left a room, when you entered one, when he looked like he needed it. Which, recently, was all the time. A month went by with this increased comfort level, and soon you found yourself feeling wrong if his hands weren't on you.

He stood close to you all the time, and you noticed the stares you were getting from everyone else. A few officers who'd approach you would apologise to him when they noticed him at your back, hand on your hip as he pulled you away.

After one case, you could even swear that you felt more than him than you were expecting. He'd moved away slightly in between one of your hugs, but you'd pulled his arms back around you and stepped closer, pressing your back against his chest, letting your head rest on his arms. Something hard and long wedged up against your ass, and in a split second he was pulling away before you could ask him about it. He excused himself, and you felt your body burn up. It was Spencer, it was just Spencer and that wasn't because of you, it was some other reason.

Spencer didn't know what he was doing. He grew more possessive over you by the day, and he'd honestly nearly bitten the head off an officer who asked him for your number.

"Sorry, she doesn't have a phone."

"But I saw her with one earlier. Look I get it she's FBI, and you guys are-"

"Okay, so she's not interested."

"Hey, why don't you let her decide that wise guy?"

"Oh sure, get angry I'm sure she'd love that. She's not interested, she has me." He couldn't help himself from getting in the officers face at that, and Morgan had to pull him back from the edge.

"Wow, wow, hey, calm down." The officer stormed out, and he felt triumphant for only a second before Morgan rounded on him.

"Whatever this thing you've got going on, Spencer, you need to get it out of your system as soon as possible." His voice was low and stern, throwing a glance over his shoulder to where you were sitting, staring confusedly through the glass at Spencer, whose eyes refused to move from your own.

" I just wanted him to back off, she doesn't like him like that."

"No, you wanted him to back off because you've marked her like some animal marking its territory. She's not your prey, Spencer, she's our team member, now you're gonna have to get your act together and leave her alone, because we've got work to do."

Sighing and throwing his hands through his hair again, he finally looked away from you and gathered his breath. He wanted to stop this too, this horrible perverted feeling of needing his hands on you, wanting to possess you day and night. To protect you. He just wasn't sure if he was strong enough to do that.

The next time you all went to O'Keefe's he certainly tried. You expected him to follow you into the booth again - he didn't, sitting opposite you next to JJ. You expected him to talk to you or look at you for more than a second at a time - he didn't, avoiding most conversations entirely and keeping his eyes fixed on the bar. You certainly expected him to still be sat at the table when you returned from the bathroom, ready to slip into the seat beside him, force him to talk to you. Instead he was gone, and you scanned the rest of the bar trying to locate him.

Something green and vile jumped you when you finally locked onto him, stood at the bar, surrounded by other women. Surrounded was maybe an exaggeration, as there were really only two of them, but they were practically draping themselves over him, and for some reason that set something alight inside of you.

You watched them for a moment, how one of them trailed a hand up his arm as he shuddered away from their touch, the other pressing herself against the bar so her chest pushed up dramatically. The green bile in your throat carried your feet forwards, and before you knew it, you were clearing it from your throat to grab their attentions.

"Spencer, there you are!" You brightened your tone specifically, as you locked eyes with his panicked ones. The two girls looked you up and down as you moved closer, brushing past them to climb up right into his lap on the barstool, pulling his arm around you as you pressed your ass into his crotch.

"Are you going to introduce me to your new friends?" The smile didn't reach your eyes as you let your back rest against his chest comfortably, watching the women to see their reactions. The one touching him pulled her arm back instantly, and the other readjusted her dress before they both left silently, carrying their glasses back to wherever they came from.

You watched them leave a little triumphantly before the green faded, and you realised what you had done.

"Y/N…?" His voice was hesitant in your ear, and you shivered slightly before pushing off of him.

"I'm so sorry, Spence, it just- it… looked like you were hard." You panicked again, pushing closer to him. "No, like you were in a hard situation, not that you were," your hand accidentally dropped to his crotch as you spoke your final words: "Hard."

He twitched beneath you as you finally looked down to where your hand was, as his mouth opened to say something.

"Y/N…" was all you heard before you turned around, and fast walked to the entrance, picking your bag up quickly on the way, and then sprinted the second the cold air hit your face.

You cursed yourself inwardly as you ran the three blocks more to your apartment, thankful that you were at least in walking (or apparently running) distance. What the hell had you been thinking? Practically sexually harassing one of your coworkers like that, grabbing his dick, albeit accidentally.

You slammed your door shut behind you, leaning against it and sliding to the floor as you finally accepted that whatever this was with Reid, it wasn't friendship for you anymore. And you weren't sure if it had ever been.

With your head between your legs, arms wrapped tightly around yourself, you started replaying each moment with him, each touch from the very first. How even the memory of a brush past you could excite a fire in your heart, a heat between your legs growing by the second.

You wanted to crawl pathetically into bed and not think about him until the next morning at work, but fate, or Doctor Spencer Reid, had other plans.

The knock at your door was sudden and incessant, the banging starting loud, and staying consistent until you tentatively pulled it open.

He was stood there, chest heaving, looking down at you, sweat coating his forehead.

"Can I… Come in?" He asked, and you nodded, too stunned at his sudden appearance to tell if this was real or just your fantasy becoming a little too realistic.

He thanked you for letting him inside, and you showed him inside, guiding him to he couch, where you took a seat opposite him.

"I wanted to make sure you were okay, you left in a rush and…" He trailed off, eyes flicking down to your lips. His Adam's apple bobbed with his swallow, and you watched it yourself, trying to avoid meeting his eyes, as if you were a schoolgirl about to get in trouble with a disappointed teacher.

"I'm okay."

"Okay, that's great, that's… Great." His breaths caught up to him, and he took another deep breath and a swallow before continuing. "How about we continue that game from last time. Twenty questions?"

You'd do anything to stop him walking out of that door, but you felt too shy to touch him again, even in the friendly ways you were used to, so you eagerly accepted.

"Yes, that… That sounds fun, thank you."

"Okay. Question one. Do you know why I'm here?" He asks as he shifts closer to you, still not touching, but at a proximity where it would be natural to accidentally brush against one another.

"N-No. But I might have an idea." He nodded at your response before moving on to his next question.

"Question two. Are you a virgin?" He didn't trip or stumble over the words, pushing them out slowly and delicately so as not to offend.

"Yes." The lump in your throat was thick, almost as if he'd put something there that you couldn't help but choke on.

"Question three. Do you want to remain a virgin?"

You shook your head no, following it with your voice seconds later as he stood up from his seat, putting some distance between you.

"Question four. Do you feel intoxicated or drunk right now?" He held himself still as you sat on the very edge of your chair, desperate to feel his hands on you now.

"No, I only had one sip at the bar before…" He held up a hand to silence you, and you did.

Question five. Answer me honestly. Do you like it when I touch you?"

"Yes." Your breath was a whisper, but it was breathy, sounding almost pornographic in your neediness.

"Question six. Do you like it when other people touch you?"

"Do you?" His head snapped back to yours, and you froze under his gaze. "Not as much." You answered and relaxed again, pouting slightly at his lack of answer.

"Question seven. Do you like me touching other people?" He took a step closer to you again with this question, but you continued pouting as you shook your head.

"No. I don't." His lips quirked upwards before he could stop them, but he gathered himself together again.

"Question eight. Do you want me to leave?" You met his eyes at that question, taking one good, hard, long look at him. You noted the tensed jaw, the clenched fists, his stiff body language, trailing your eyes over him before looking him directly in the eyes.

"No." You let the word hang on your tongue, pulling it out a bit longer than was necessary as you watched him take in a shaky breath.

"Question nine. Do you want me to come over there and kiss you?"

"God, yes." He was on you in seconds, restraints gone, throwing himself back at you as his lips collided with your own. Virgin you may be, but you'd kissed men before, and it had been nothing like this.

His hands trailed up to your hair, tipping your head back slightly so he could gain better access. He bit your lip and thrust his tongue into your mouth when you gasped, so eager to consume every part of you whole.

You'd never felt like this before.

He pulled away, and you tried desperately to chase his lips, even as your lungs begged you to stop.

"Last question," he whispered in the space between you, holding the sides of your face at a distance so neither of you could be tempted to dive in for a second kiss, or a third, or fourth. "Do you want me to fuck you?" You whimpered at his words, nodding furiously as you tried to lunge at him again, but he held you firm.

"I need you to say your answer, baby. I need to hear your consent, okay?" You nod again and open your mouth, eyes never leaving his lips as you moan out a definitive "yes."

Instead of letting your lips fall against his again, he lunges for you, grabbing your legs and hauling you up into his arms, carrying you bridal style all the way back to your bedroom.

"Gonna do it right," he mutters to himself as he throws you down on the bed, pulling back to take off his jacket and unbutton the cuffs on his shirt, rolling the sleeves up meticulously.

"I'm going to take care of you, Y/N, okay?" You nod at him and flush, suddenly feeling the strength of his need for you as he holds himself back. He puts his hands on you again, gently coaxing your legs apart, pushing your skirt up over your hips. Reflexively, you move your hands over yourself, covering your sensitive places with your hands.

"Don't cover yourself." His voice is strong, deep, as he orders you, and you let your arms drop back to your side. He traces his hands up and down your legs, almost as if he were memorising every inch of your skin, how you felt under his hands.

His hands make their way up to your panties, and you watch with baited breath as he moves you, pulling your hips up so he can let them fall down. The lace material tickles you as he pushes them past your thighs, over your knees and finally off your legs entirely, balling them up and putting them in his pocket.

"I'm going to touch you now, okay?" He asks it like a question, but he doesn't wait for your answer, unable to hold himself back before diving straight between your legs, so desperate to taste you that he's deaf to everything else.

His tongue connects with your sensitive area first, tracing up and down at a steady pace as his legs half-heartedly push your legs open. It's almost as if he's enjoying the pressure of your legs wrapped around him, suffocating between your thighs as he feels your pleasure build, and build.

Eventually he pushes your hips further apart, letting himself push his face into even more of you, his tongue entering your hole as he begins fucking it in and out of you, fingers coming back up to your clit to keep up the pressure there.

"Spencer, please, please, fuck."

"I love it when you beg for me like a needy little slut," he whispers, holding your legs apart as he looked up at you, face slick with your arousal. Your mouth drops wide at his words, and he immediately begins to retract them.

"I'm sorry, Y/N, if that was too far, I just got caught up -"

"I liked it." You said, quieting him as you spread your legs a bit further apart, begging for him to continue. He smiled and dived right back in, bringing his other hand up under your dress, all the way to your chest as you kept your legs open yourself.

He sucked your clit into his mouth, lapping up all the juices you were releasing as you moaned underneath him, bucking into his face at the memory of his degradation.

You were a needy little slut, and you needed him to make you cum. He was more than happy to oblige.

He kept you there for what felt like forever, drinking you in for as long as he could. You orgasmed twice before he finished, completely overstimulated by the way he was desperately fucking you with his mouth.

He was obsessed with you, with your scent, your taste, with being the first ever person to ever touch you like this, to fuck you, to make you feel so good. Without him even realising, you're pushed to the brink for a second time, shuddering under the heat of his mouth as he drinks you in.

He finally pulls his head up again, coming up for air as you're twitching under him.

"Perfect, baby, so perfect for me." His lips fall down to your own, and suddenly you're tasting yourself on his tongue. It's hypnotising, and despite the pleasure you've just received, you need more, desperate to feel him on you again.

When he pulls his mouth away, he replaces himself with his fingers, pushing them into your mouth.

"Suck," he says and you listen, as he watches the way you lick yourself off of him.

He unzips your dress with his free hand, carefully pulling your arms out of the sleeves and pushing your dress off your body. You trace your tongue around every ridge of his fingers, leaving no inch undiscovered. He moved you to pull the dress of, and you graciously followed, letting him do whatever he wanted to you.

"Nice little slut, tasting herself on my fingers?" He whispered when you were finally bare, pulling his fingers from your mouth, letting the trail of spit hang between you as you moaned.

He removed himself from over you, and moved to sit on the edge of the bed.

"Come here. Come and sit on my lap."

You cautiously followed his directions. You'd thought that he'd fuck you then, after spending so long getting you ready, but apart from his tie, which he was in the middle of discarding as you crawled over to him, he hadn't derobed any further.

"That's it baby, come and sit yourself down right here." He pat his thigh and you crawled over, lowering yourself down onto his clothed leg.

"What now, Spencer?" You stuttered the words out, heart beating as you awaited his instructions.

"Now, I want you to rock your hips back and forth. Just like this." He grabbed your hips and started moving you against his leg, pushing you down to grind into him.

"Spencer, wait, I don't know-"

"I do. I know you can do it, so please try. For me." You pulled you in for a kiss, and then removed his hands from you, leaving you to rock against his thigh.

You were unsure of the movements at first, moving slowly as you dragged your aching cunt up and down the top of his pants, watching as you saw the wet patch you were making. You moaned with each movement, growing faster and more confident as you continued.

"That's it baby, use me to get yourself off, okay? Let me see you." He whispered in your ears, pushing your sweat-slicked hair ou of your face, holding it up for you.

"Spencer please," you don't even know what you're asking for as you beg him, feeling that familiar bubble in your stomach grow.

"No, you can do it. You look so beautiful like this, Y/N, so desperate for my cock, huh?" You start trying to unbutton his shirt, desperate to see more of him, to feel more of his bare skin on your own. But he stops your hands and holds them against his chest.

"You need to ask nicely first, before trying to undress me like a needy little whore." The words should sound violent, should humiliate you, but his voice is so soft you simply move faster, moaning and desperate to cum one more time.

"Fuck, Spencer, I'm gonna… I'm gonna…"

"No, you're not." Before you finish, he pulls you off his leg, hauling your body back onto the bed, and laying you back down on your back. You moan in disapproval, so frustrated with the lack of release that you feel tears prick the corners of your eyes.

"Don't cry, baby. I'll give you what you want soon." He practically rips his clothes off, pulling his vest over his head, stumbling over each button and removing his belt and pants before climbing over to you. His cock finally free you take your first glance at it.

You'd never entirely been sure how it was that the male appendage fit inside something as small as your pussy, and you were doubly unsure about how Spencer's was ever going to fit inside you. You stared at it wide eyed, as you took in the length, the girth, and the heat of it as he stroked it in one hands, pushing on top of you.

He let go of it as soon as he was between your legs, letting it fall onto your stomach as he crawled between your legs. He trailed a finger over your lower abdomen just around where his cock was twitching against you as his other hand came up to stroke your hair.

"You look worried, Y/N, what's wrong?"

"Will it, um, will it fit?" You asked, knowing how cliché you sounded.

"We've spent the last thirty-seven minutes loosening you up with foreplay. It should fit, but I can't promise it won't hurt."

"Right, if my hymen is still intact you have to…"

"That's right. And then it's going to reach all the way in you to here," with each word, he stepped his fingers up from your clit to where the tip of his dick sat on your stomach, letting you come to terms with exactly how full you were about to be.

"I'm going to fill you, and you're going to be mine, and I'm going to be yours. My sweet angel." He stroked your face, catching his thumb on your lips on the way down, tempted to thrust it into your mouth again, to see just how much of a whore you could be, given the chance.

Instead, he lined himself up with your dripping core, and, making sure one last time that this is what you wanted, slowly pushed in.

It was uncomfortable at first, having something so wholly alien inside of you, you weren't sure how to react. You wrapped your arms around him, digging your nails in, deep, as he pushed in further.

"Y/N, I need to move more now, and it's going to hurt a little, you just have to trust me, okay?" He kissed the top of your head, but you were so lost in the sensations to answer. With one swift jerk of his hips, he pushed through your hymen, and fully sheathed himself inside of you. He pressed small kisses everywhere on your face, while whispering to you how beautiful you were.

"You're doing so good for me angel, I'm going to take care of you. Going to make you feel so much better than this. You're so beautiful." His lips were distractingly sweet, as were his words, and soon you found yourself relaxing into him, the sharp pain of earlier fading to an electric buzz inside of you.

You jerked your hips up to meet his, and with that, he knew you were ready. From his words, you'd assumed that he'd move slowly in you. But with one final lingering kiss to your lips, he lifted his chest up, pinned your legs tightly down, and started thrusting hard and fast.

"Sorry, just couldn't help myself baby. Needed to see you looking ruined underneath me." Moans spilled out of your mouth with his every movement, and the orgasm you'd built up earlier hit you like a ton of bricks, blackness hazing over your eyes as they rolled back in your head.

"Fuck, fuck, Spencer, don't stop!" You screamed at the top of your lungs, unable to control your pitch or volume as he slammed into you desperately. He was so turned on by the sight of you beneath him, so proud of having fucked away your virginity, to have given you your very first penetrative orgasm that he wouldn't have heard anything that came out of your mouth.

His eyes were fixated at the place between you, where you joined, where he was entering you, defiling you, claiming you, using you, breeding you.

He knew he wouldn't cum inside of you, not the first time, but it was tempting. Instead, he chose to move his lips back to your skin. He marked you with love bites and hickeys across your neck, chest and shoulders as you moaned with every roll of his hips, shuddering on his cock. He was close. And seeing you like this, displaying all the signs that you were his and his only, he finally lost it.

Pulling his dick out of you, he stroked it through his release, spraying his seed over the parts of your skin he hadn't bruised with love. Your stomach, your breasts, hell, one spurt even landed dangerously close to your lips, he was everywhere. You. Were. His.

He fell beside you, panting for a few moments as you finally cracked your eyes back open, realising what the two of you had just done. You wiped the cum from your face with a stray finger, staring at it for a second before licking it off your finger.

"As hot as that was, I think we should get you cleaned up properly, angel." He spends forever cleaning you up, carrying you to the bathroom, washing your entire body with hot water and a fresh cloth, running you a hot bath to relax your muscles. You snuggle into his chest at some point in the bath, relaxing so much into him, that you drift off to sleep.

You feel him carry you to bed, semi-conscious, tucking you in and climbing in next to you. He holds you through the night, the way he holds you after your bad cases. He holds you until he doesn't.

You're blindsided by the cold bed the next morning. You knew he would be there, you'd felt him inside you and next to you, and you'd needed his warmth, but he was gone. You looked for him in every other part of your home, looked for a note or an explanation, but there wasn't one.

Through tears, you got ready for work, ready to face him and make him answer why he was suddenly gone. You wanted him to apologise, especially since he'd marked you so badly the night before you looked like a car crash victim from the neck down.

Dark lavender blossomed along your collar bones as you looked at yourself in the mirror, trailing a finger along every place that he touched the night before.

"How could you be so stupid?" You cursed yourself. If you'd have listened to what he was saying last night, really listened, you'd have known he wasn't going to be here in the morning. He wanted to ruin you, to possess you, to take away your virginity, and he'd done just that.

You almost wanted to keep the bruises on display going into work, to make him confront the pain he caused you by leaving. In the end, it was the inevitable stares from everyone else that convinced you otherwise. You wouldn't give him the satisfaction.

You pushed through the doors to the bullpen and didn't bother putting your bag down before you started scanning the room for him.

"Where's Spencer?" You practically shouted the words at Morgan, unable to hold back your anger.

"Y/N, what's wrong?"

"Where is he?" You demand, and there must be something in your eyes that speaks to your devastation because Morgan shuts up and just points to the top of the stairs, where Spencer is exiting Hotch's office without a care in the world.

You don't realise that something is tears until you're beating a hand against his chest in frustration as they spill down your face.

"Where were you?" You demand, sobbing into his chest, as he pulls your hands away. The entire office is watching your commotion, but you don't care, you're not letting him move you out of the way.

"Y/N, I need you to sign this." His voice is calm, and you hate him for that. That he can stay so neutral when he's just broken your heart.

"No, not until you tell me why you left."

"Sign the papers, Y/N, trust me." He pulls your chin up so you can look him in the eye, and you catch a glimpse of the man who has been holding you, comforting you for the last four months. You snatch the pen from him and sign the papers, thrusting them back at him with a scowl.

He smiles as he looks down at them, placing them back on his desk before pulling you in for a long, deep kiss. You're shocked at first, but you melt into it, pulling him closer so he can't leave again.

"I'm sorry. I had to come into the office to declare our relationship, Morgan sometimes tells me I have a one track mind, and when I woke up this morning, the one thing I wanted to do was get it in writing that you were mine."

Your push the tears out of his face, and attempt to pull him down for another kiss. You don't get the chance, as the sound of several throats clearing around you burst your bubble.

"Public space, no canoodling." Rossi shouts down at you from the balcony, a soft smirk on his face.

Penelope runs in from her office, and stares wide-eyed at the lack of space between the two of you. "You! And you! Security cameras….. You!"

"Now, I'm sure there's a story here, but from the state of our little angel's neck here, I'm sure I don't want to hear it." Derek laughs, smacking Spencer on the back in praise as he walks up the stairs to the meeting room.

You slap a hand over your neck, trying to pull the turtleneck further up to hide the mark you evidently missed.

"She's my angel, now." Spencer calls up to him. "I have the paperwork to prove it."

#spencer reid #criminal minds #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid fanfic #spencer reid smut #mgg #criminal minds fanfiction #criminal minds fandom #spencer reid x self insert #spencer reid x reader smut #spencer reid x y/n #spencer reid x you #spencer reid x oc #dom spencer reid #spencer reid kinktober #criminal minds kinktober #kinktober 23

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asahicore · 2 months ago

Text

cold hands - psh (m)

this work contains smut - minors please do not interact

pairing. sunghoon x fem!reader

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

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

word count. 39.5k 😂

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

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

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

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

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

Just to name a few:

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

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

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

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

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

Right?

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

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

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

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

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

“Dude, you’ll never guess what.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“You don’t believe them?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sunghoon nods. “Good to know.”

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

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

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

Sunghoon can already feel it. The beginning of something.

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

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

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

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

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

Sunghoon smiles. “Probably, yeah.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“There you guys are!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“You’re on, Sim.”

“You’re going down, Sim.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sunghoon thinks he just fell in love.

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

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

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

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

“They really don’t.”

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

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

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

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

“Where’s that choir of yours?”

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

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

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

“You had time to bake?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I came to your concerts!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What if they come back for them?”

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

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

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

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

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

“Better than Berta’s banana bread?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“For sure.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“That makes sense.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“It’d be my pleasure.”

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

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

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

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

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

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

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

“Your mom must be really strong.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But you don’t.

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

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

He can hardly fall asleep that night.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That was his first mistake.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“It is easy. You’re making it hard.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That was his second mistake.

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

yn.sim i’ll be there!!

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

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

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

“Your team jacket?”

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

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

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

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

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

He was terrified—but infinitely excited, too.

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

“Okay.”

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

Your smile widened. “Of course.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And that was when he saw you.

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

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

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

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

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

“Hey. I was wondering where you were.”

“You’re the one who came late.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

You nod. “Mh-hm.”

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

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

“It looks good. You look good.”

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

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

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

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

You sigh. “Okay. Where’s your room?”

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

“Oh, that was Jaemin.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I’ve missed you.”

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

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

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

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

Sunghoon nods. “I know. It’s nice.”

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

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

“Just us two?”

“Just us two.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Okay.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You shrug. “Basically, yeah.”

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

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

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

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

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

“I wasn’t that bad!”

“I should’ve filmed you.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Right. See you, Y/N. Sunghoon.”

Back to no-nickname basis, apparently.

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

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

“Mh-hm.”

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

“Right.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“So you agree that I’m tall?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“You-what?”

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

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

“Sure.”

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

“Looking for validation,” Sunghoon says.

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

“That’s smart.”

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

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

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

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

“Minjeong?”

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

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

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

“What do you mean?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“You’re like, nineteen…”

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

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

“Minjeong, I promise-”

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

“Okay.”

“And don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“Go inside.”

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

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

yn are you still up for doing something this week?

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

She never lets things get serious.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Like what?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You grab his hand; it warms him right up.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Do you wanna come up?”

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

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

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

“Minjeong karaokes?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“You’re me,” he replies breathlessly.

“Hm?”

“I mean, me too.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Yes, please.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You’re better than a dream.

“I feel great. Do you feel great?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

After that night, Sunghoon forgets how to act right.

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

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

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

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

He has never felt so awkward in his life.

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

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

“I haven’t!”

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

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

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

“Yes, after we had sex,” he whispers.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Minjeong’s out at karaoke tonight.”

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

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

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

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

“I was gone two minutes.”

“I mean these past few days. I was starting to think I’d dreamt you up.” His hand on your lower back sneaks its way up between your bodies until it finds your breasts, cupping one of them with his palm before taking your nipple between his thumb and index, gently twisting. It pulls a half-gasp, half-moan from your throat, and the sound goes straight to his dick. “But you’re real, aren’t you?”

“Very real,” you reply, a tremor in your voice. He’s barely touching you, and you’re already having trouble breathing. Sunghoon smiles at the idea of him having as much of a hold on you as you do on him.

“Good,” he says, voice so low it’s almost a growl. In one quick sweep, he pushes you down so your back is against the mattress, resting his palms on each side of your head.

He’s inside you within mere minutes. He’d wanted to hold back a bit, but you whispering Just put it in after thirty seconds of his fingers loosening you up was enough to convince him. His mind is already fuzzy with remnants of alcohol, and his overwhelming desire for you only makes matters worse. He barely has any control over his movements, rushed and sloppy, but as he drives himself deeper into you, your moans increase in volume. He only later realizes how tight his grip on your hips is when he sees two small bruises forming on the skin there.

He comes quickly, probably embarrassingly so, but he can’t bring himself to care—he’s got other things on his mind. He’s not even bothered to discard the condom as he makes his way down your body, lips around your clit before you’ve even had the time to register what was happening. You cry out, a sound that Sunghoon works to pry out of you over and over again. Even when your thighs start shaking and you squirm away from him, he doesn’t relent. He’s just as desperate to make you feel good as he was desperate chasing his own pleasure earlier. He hooks his arms around your thighs, bringing you down to him and ensuring that you can’t get away. One hand still in his hair, the other clutching the bed sheets, you’ve turned your face sideways into the pillow so that your moans come out muffled. He is only satisfied when you’ve reached your second orgasm.

As your breath slowly returns to normal, Sunghoon makes his way back up your body, leaving a trail of kisses in his wake. You clear your throat of its dryness and burst into soft, quiet laughter. “What’s funny?” Sunghoon murmurs, lips against your neck.

“Nothing,” you say, still laughing. “That was just really, really nice.”

Sunghoon smiles. “I’m glad,” he says before kissing you, lips moving slowly against yours.

As he lays against you, the top of his head under your chin and your fingernails grazing along his back, a weird feeling overcomes him. Sunghoon is usually a pine-from-afar sort of guy, with at least five instances of hanging out that could or could not be a date before making things any sort of official. The pining has been a constant with all of his crushes. He’s gotten to the hanging out stage a couple of times, but the officialising has only happened once. Despite its low success rate, it’s a cycle Sunghoon feels comfortable with, and he’d imagined the rest of his romantic encounters would follow that pattern.

But this is completely different. Of the three times you guys have met separately from your friend group, already two times have included sex. This isn’t a stage Sunghoon usually reaches before at least a few months and it disorientates him. What does it mean? That you like him so much, you decided to skip all of the steps and jump straight into the thick of it? He is reasonable enough not to delude himself into such a thought. He likes you a lot—that much he can be sure of. He’s liked you since the moment he laid eyes on you, even if the reason eludes him. Something in the way you smiled at him, the way you took him in stride as if you’d known him forever. When he thinks back to that party, he can’t believe it started out as the two of you being strangers. Even now, feeling your warm skin against his, it feels like a lie that just two months ago he hadn’t even met you.

What he can’t say with total certainty is that you like him the same amount. Or that you like him any amount, really, although in his naivety he doesn’t understand how anyone could be this intimate with another person without liking them at least a little bit. And he doesn’t just mean the sex. He means this. The silently laying in each other’s arms, the soft kisses, the caresses wherever hands can reach. Eating post-sex snacks together, laughing as you watch the first episode of each other’s favorite sitcoms (Brooklyn Nine-Nine for him, Pen15, oddly enough, for you). Falling asleep together, cuddling the entire night then waking up and diving right back into each other’s embrace.

After an entire day spent in rumination, Sunghoon’s still not sure what to make of it all.

All he knows is that when he DMs you that night, asking you how your day went, he goes through every emotion between anxiety, self-hatred and indifference in the five minutes that separate his text from your reply. He’s never been so happy to hear that someone couldn’t concentrate in class because of him.

Sunghoon has always been obsessed with the way couples stand together in public.

Every time, it takes everything in him not to stare, because he wants to take in every little thing they do. He has that practically everywhere he goes, wanting to stare at people just to see what their deal is, but he is never quite as simultaneously fascinated and envious as when he spots a couple. But he knows staring isn’t the socially appropriate thing to do, so he either steals glances or watches for a little bit then pretends they aren’t there. He can’t help himself—even if they aren’t holding hands or obnoxiously making out in public, it’s still visible to anyone with eyes that there is something tying these people together. It’s in the way they stand near each other, their bodies turned inwardly, as though enveloped by a bubble containing just the two of them and no one else; in the way they look at each other, their eyes never straying from the other’s face as they talk, intimacy showing itself even in a loud, crowded room. Sunghoon craves to find that proximity, to be able to touch and be touched so softly, every graze of a hand purposeful and unconscious at the same time.

It’s the first of November already. The Weather app, as it tends to do, has deceived you; so instead of a walk on what was supposed to be a sunny day, you find yourselves in a busy café near the University, the air outside too chilly even with your scarves and gloves. You’re waiting for your order at the end of the counter — a mocha for him, an oat flat white for you — when he notices it. Your body is fully facing him, you’re distractedly playing with the hem of his sweatshirt, and you’re not looking at anything but him as you rant about that annoying classmate of yours that goes by a self-made nickname and always talks over the tutor. In this light, the two of you are like the couples he’s always longed to be—the simple thought makes him want to cry. As more and more often is the case these days, you have no idea what you’re doing to him.

It’s been around two months since you first met and in that time, although Sunghoon is lucky not to have enough fingers to count the number of times you have seen each other one-on-one, not much has happened. Minjeong, who had understood what was going on the first time she saw the two of you eating leftovers from the Japanese restaurant on the couch at 10 a.m., has grown accustomed to his presence in the apartment and even sometimes sits down to watch a movie with the two of you—a movie that Chaewon would usually have forced you to watch in the living room instead of the privacy of your bedroom, so that everyone could join. Sunghoon is just glad Minjeong has stopped silently scolding him with her eyes every time he comes out of your room. She never mentions that night when she essentially warned him against you after the party.

Jake seems to be the only oblivious one in your group. Yunjin and Chaewon have eyes like hawks and horrifyingly vivid imaginations when they put their heads together, so they were probably already making plans for your wedding and fighting for the title of godmother when you and Sunghoon met at the beginning-of-semester party. They cornered him once at a party and forced him to spill the beans and spare no detail, because you apparently were “denying everything, but we know there’s something going on.” Jay is still Sunghoon’s go-to person when he needs advice concerning you, although the older boy doesn’t understand why it has to be so complicated and always tells him to “just tell her how you feel,” which Sunghoon will not do unless there is a gun to his head. But Jake just seems happy to see his friend and his sister get along this well—no matter how many times you wear his jacket at their games or disappear at the same time at the end of parties, he doesn’t grow suspicious. If he does, he doesn’t mention it to Sunghoon, at least.

Between the two of you, not a word is spoken about the nature of your relationship, which remains unbearingly undefined. For a while, he weakly convinces himself that he doesn’t need to have that conversation with you. He’s young, he’s free, he should be able to enjoy casual sex without putting a label on it. The main problem, though, was that the sex could not be further from casual, at the very least not to Sunghoon.

He has never known anything quite like it. In mere weeks, you’ve both mastered the art of pleasuring each other. He understands your body like it’s his, knows what each of the sounds and expressions you make means. He knows where to touch you to have a kiss go from light-hearted to dizzyingly intense, how to move his mouth to have you arching your back and holding onto him for dear life. And you—he thinks your skin must be laced with cocaine, the way he can never get enough of it.

But it’s always the moments afterwards that get him in his head. To him, casual sex means getting dressed the minute it’s over and going off to do other things, which is the absolute opposite of what you do. Whether it’s falling asleep together or spending Sundays in bed, you always stay together afterwards, curled up in each other’s arms as you talk away the hours, conversations interspersed with slow, lazy kisses. He’ll say things like, “You’re so pretty,” or “Why do you smell so good?” because he’s so smitten with you that he can never stop himself from uttering every compliment that flashes through his brain, but the things he really wants to say are harder to speak out loud. Even just a What are we?—three simple words that he can’t bring himself to ask, too scared it’ll ruin everything.

Arguably worse is that sex isn’t even a requirement for when you and Sunghoon see each other. He goes on walks with you whenever you’ve spent too much time in the library and need some fresh air. You go shopping with him when his department throws a fundraiser and he needs a formal outfit. He cooks you your favorite meal when your period is particularly nasty. You sneak into the ice rink after his practice and let him ‘teach’ you how to skate, even though you already learned how with Jake when you were kids. Even mundane moments become fun when spent with you, and you share so many hobbies and interests that you never run out of things to do or talk about.

And yet, it feels like one step forward, two steps back with you—if you let him close one night, you’ll run away the next. A week will pass without you seeing each other outside of the library or group hang-outs, and if Sunghoon asks you out, you’ll say no, usually blaming the amount of work you have. He gets it—due to the nature of your degree and your being a fourth-year student, your workload is much heavier than his, with essays, translations and oral presentations due every other week. And that’s not even including midterms and finals. But still, he doesn’t see why you would need to stay at the library for ten hours straight for days on end. He’d start worrying about your health if you didn’t at least relax on weekends.

So while Sunghoon wants nothing more than to go all in with you, he senses you holding back. He notices you avoiding eye contact during particularly intimate moments, and when you look at him perhaps too fondly for your liking, you quickly catch yourself and resume your neutral, sometimes almost cold expression. When he tries to broach more personal, sensitive topics, you always find a way to change the subject or turn the conversation towards him before you get too deep.

As time passes, and especially as exam season nears, he can tell there’s something that you’re not telling him about. His suspicions are confirmed when you come back from a weekend at your parents’ house. He’s also been away for an out-of-town hockey game, and because he hasn’t had much time to text you (and because their team won, so he wants to show off a little), he’s particularly looking forward to seeing you again that Monday. It’s only been three days since you’ve last seen each other, but he misses you like crazy.

But the minute you’re back, you bury yourself in work like never before, often waking up at ungodly hours and staying at the library until midnight. More than once, he stays behind with you, long after the others have gone, reminding you gently every hour that it might be time to go home and get some rest. The moments you actually agree are few and far between, and although he sticks it out at first, sleeping with his head on the table until you tell him you’re ready to go, your stubbornness soon starts frustrating him, and he ends up leaving when he gets too tired. He knows this is important to you, but he doesn’t understand why you have to go to these lengths—you’d still easily be one of the best students in your class without all this exertion. And despite his many attempts, you won’t tell him what’s wrong, won’t even admit that something is wrong—you keep repeating that “it’s just what exam season is like.”

When he asks your friends about it, they seem just as confused as he is. One evening when you have plans to order some food and watch a movie at your apartment, he shows up at the agreed time, but you’re nowhere to be found. Thankfully, the girls are there to let him up and not leave him standing outside in the rain. You don’t pick up when he calls you and call him back a minute later, apologizing profusely but still saying that there’s something you really need to finish first. If it was only a one-time thing, it wouldn’t make him as angry as it does—but this has been going on for almost two weeks now, and Sunghoon is close to boiling point.

The fact that it’s been months since your date at the Japanese restaurant, and the only thing that you’ve said about what was happening between you and Sunghoon “didn’t have to change anything.” The fact that you’re essentially each other’s boyfriend and girlfriend without the label or the reassurance that comes with it. The fact that there’s something clearly bothering you but that you won’t tell him about it. The fact that this something is effectively coming between the two of you. Sunghoon was originally more worried about you than anything—now that studying has taken obvious precedence over him in your list of priorities, he’d be lying if he said his ego wasn’t wounded. He isn’t asking to be the number one most important thing in your life, and he knew before even meeting you that high academic performance meant a lot to you, but he likes to think he deserves at least a little bit of your time and attention.

Except, does he really? It’s not like you’re actually dating.

There’s a pang in his heart as he remembers this fact that he should never have forgotten in the first place. It hurts—and so perhaps, he’s less patient than he ought to be.

“Whatever, Y/N. Don’t worry about it, just let me know when you have time for something other than getting As.”

He hangs up and meets your flatmates’ worried eyes.

“She still at the library?” Chaewon asks, tone delicate as if trying not to scare off a wounded animal. Sunghoon nods, a deep sigh escaping his mouth.

“She always studies a lot,” Minjeong starts, “but this is something else.”

“Have you guys tried saying something?”

The girls nod. “Even Jake has talked to her, but she won’t listen. And he usually always gets to her,” Minjeong says.

He goes home soon afterwards and spends the rest of his evening in rumination, torn between his worry and his anger towards you—emotions which only increase as more days pass, and he sees less and less of you. Your behavior was already concerning while preparing for your exams and final assignments, it gets even worse when exams actually do start. He doesn’t hear from you for an entire week, and the one time you miraculously agree to a short group hang-out in the form of getting coffee, you’re only half there, physically present but mind far, far away. You barely react when the guys tell you about their victory at the latest hockey game—which you didn’t attend, as well as any other game recently.

No matter how much he tries to put it out of his mind, to focus on his own exams and hockey games, you stay at the forefront of his thoughts. The hockey team is away for another out-of-town game when he decides to broach the subject with Jake, with whom he’s sharing a room. The entire semester, he’s been careful not to raise Jake’s suspicions about the two of you, both out of consideration for you, who’d mentioned you didn’t want your brother to know what was going on, and for himself, who would also rather Jake not know, at least not until your relationship became official. Which it never did. But now that all he gets from you is radio silence at a time when you’d usually be an hour into a FaceTime call, he can’t help himself.

Jake is just coming out of the bathroom, drying his hair with a towel, when Sunghoon takes his shot in the dark. “Have you heard from Y/N recently?” he asks as nonchalantly as he can, pretending to not be avidly waiting for his friend’s reaction by keeping his eyes on his phone.

“Y/N?” Jake echoes. “No, not really. Why?”

“Just ‘cause I haven’t seen her around much. I’m wondering if everything’s okay.”

“You mean her staying at the library all day?” Sunghoon nods; Jake sighs. “Yeah, she’ll snap out of it soon enough. She gets somewhat like this every time exams come around, but even I have to admit it’s pretty tough this time around. The last time I saw her like this was way back in high school, and that’s because our parents were watching right over her shoulder. It’s been better in university thanks to the distance.”

“So this has to do with your parents?”

“Oh, one hundred percent. She’s always wanted to do well at school, but she only gets this obsessive when our parents are involved.”

“I guess this did start after that weekend when she went home…” Sunghoon muses absent-mindedly. It could’ve passed off as an off-hand remark, but Jake pauses in his movements and looks at him warily.

“Yeah, she did… You noticed that, huh?”

Sunghoon pauses. This whole time, he was sure Jake was oblivious to anything happening between you and him—but he might have underestimated his friend. Like brother, like sister; he can hardly read either of you when he really needs to. Jake might genuinely be surprised that Sunghoon remembered your whereabouts that weekend, or he’s onto him. “I guess I did,” he finally says, going for as noncommittal an answer as he can.

Jake says nothing for a bit, and Sunghoon thinks he’s managed to get through the conversation without raising too much suspicion—until a minute later, when Jake speaks again. “Do you… like Y/N?”

Sunghoon freezes, snapping his head towards Jake, who’s lying on his back and staring up at the ceiling. His first instinct is to deny, but there’s no point pretending anymore. It’s one thing keeping it from Jake—lying to him about it is something else entirely. It’s an uncomfortable conversation, but it must be had. “Yeah, I do,” Sunghoon replies, guilt clear in his voice, more because he’s only now admitting it to Jake than because of his feelings themselves.

A shaky breath comes out of Jake’s mouth, as if this was the exact answer he had dreaded. “Right, okay. Since when?”

“Since I met her, basically.”

Jake’s head whips towards Sunghoon, and their gazes meet awkwardly. “Since that party in September?” he asks, shock written all over his face. Sunghoon nods, and to his surprise, Jake bursts out laughing. “Don’t tell me it’s because you accidentally matched costumes?”

Sunghoon looks away, frowning. “That might’ve helped things along,” he mumbles, embarrassment washing over him as Jake’s laughter intensifies. At least he was taking it well—a bit too well, perhaps.

“You’re so predictable, man,” Jake says when he’s calmed down, wiping a tear from his eye.

“How did you know, anyway?”

“You’ve been pretty obvious with it recently,” Jake replies after a few seconds. “I could tell you were a bit shy around her at first, and when it got better I just thought you’d become friends or something. But when she showed up with your jacket at every game and you never left her side at parties, I assumed something else was going on. You’ve always been staying behind at the library these days, and I know you don’t have that much work.”

Sunghoon chuckles. “I guess I haven’t been trying hard to hide it lately.”

“Yeah, why would you hide it in the first place? You could’ve just told me.”

“I didn’t want to make things weird.”

Jake frowns. “It wouldn’t have been weird. If anything, hiding it makes it weirder.”

“I just thought, if one of my friends had a crush on my sister, I’d probably rather they hid it. Like, I don’t need to know about that,” Sunghoon says, and it makes Jake laugh.

“Dude, Y/N and I are only a year apart. Do you know how many guys have come up to me asking me for her number or advice on how to ask her out? It’s been, like, one every few months since middle school. Guys here especially have no shame telling me how hot they find her.”

Sunghoon makes a face. He doesn’t disagree, but he’d never go out of his way to tell your brother how exquisite you looked in certain outfits. “That’s gross.”

“Yeah, it is. But you’re my friend, not some greasy rando, so I trust you. If anything, I’d probably have to tell her to be nice to you, and not the other way around.”

“Yeah, you could say that again,” Sunghoon grumbles, then realizes his mistake immediately, eyes widening.

“What do you mean?” Jake asks, sounding genuine at first, but when Sunghoon stays quiet for a couple seconds, debating whether he should just lay the truth bare, Jake sits up on the bed and repeats his question, his tone much warier this time around. Sunghoon glances at him then looks away guiltily.

“Well, to be completely honest… We’ve sort of been seeing each other, kind of. But it’s complicated.”

Jake flops back down on his mattress with a grunt. “Who else knows?” he asks, rubbing at his eyes with his hands as if suddenly very exhausted.

“Everyone…”

“Everyone?!”

“Well, Jay, Minjeong, Yunjin and Chaewon.”

“So everyone.”

“Basically, yeah.”

“Great.” Jake sighs. “Since when?”

“Since October,” Sunghoon mumbles, feeling guiltier than ever. He’s belatedly realizing that it would’ve been much easier to have everything out in the open from the get-go, both with you and with Jake; now he’s both stuck in situationship limbo and has to face the consequences of keeping something this important from one of his closest friends. “Are you upset?” Sunghoon asks, feeling a bit like a ten-year-old.

“Kinda, yeah, but more at her than at you. I’ve told her not to go after anyone from the hockey team.”

“‘Cause of Heeseung?”

“Yeah. God, that was messy. He gave her mixed signals for so long, I could barely talk to him without thinking of her crying for so long. And now he’s the one who can’t quite look me in the eye,” Jake says, shaking his head at the mere thought of his captain.

“Was it that bad? She made it seem like it wasn’t that big of a deal.”

Jake raises his eyebrows. “Really? It upset her for a while though,” he says, then turns his head to look at the ceiling again. “I guess that’s not so surprising of her. She sometimes likes pretending she doesn’t have any emotions, even though I’m pretty sure she has more than most people.”

“Huh.” That would explain some things, Sunghoon muses. Emotions are not a topic that comes up very often with you, and every time he’s gotten an inkling of them, you seem to shut it all down immediately.

“But you know, I’m more surprised than anything. About… about it all, really. Not just that you’re only telling me now, but that it’s lasted this long. She must really like you.”

“You think?” Sunghoon says, his face brightening with hope, the words slipping from him before he can stop them once again. He shrinks when Jake laughs at him.

“Look at you. Down bad, huh?”

“Shut up.”

“But yeah, dude. I’ve told you about this. I’ve never seen her in a relationship, ever. Says she doesn’t have the time,” Jake says, air-quoting you. “I’ve only had the displeasure of seeing her go home with one-night-stands. You know that since she started college, she’s had a rule that she’d only see someone three times and that was it?”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah, so she wouldn’t catch feelings. I’m telling you, she’s crazy. So you must be special.”

Sunghoon can’t stop the smile from spreading on his lips—special. But it doesn’t make him feel that much better, either. “It’s not like we’re actually dating, so I’m not sure how special I can be…”

Jake’s head turns to look at Sunghoon again, but the younger boy keeps his eyes trained on the ceiling fan above him. “What’s happening between you guys?”

A blush creeps on Sunghoon’s cheeks. “Is this something you really want to talk about?”

“Well, spare me the gruesome details, please,” Jake says, chuckling, “but yeah, I would like to know what’s going on with my best friend and my sister.”

“I’m your best friend?” Sunghoon says, grinning as he meets Jake’s gaze, who rolls his eyes.

“Don’t change the subject.”

“Fine.” He sighs. “Well, I didn’t think it would happen more than once-”

“What would happen more than once?”

Sunghoon pauses. “Well, you know…” Jake gives him a look as if to say, Well, no, I don’t know, so Sunghoon is forced to go on: “Sleeping together.”

“You guys slept together?!” Jake exclaims, sitting up on his bed once again.

“Yeah, what did you think?”

“I don’t know, just that you were going on dates, hanging out one-on-one, or whatever…”

“Well, we were.”

“Ugh, whatever,” Jake says, waving his hand in front of his face like swatting a fly away. “So, not just once, then?”

“No. And I thought it’d be a one-time thing, ‘cause a few days afterwards she said something about it not having to change our friendship…”

“Damn.”

“Yeah. But then it did. Happen again, I mean. And it’s been happening frequently since. But we’re not… dating dating. We haven’t had that conversation.”

Jake frowns. “Why not?”

Sunghoon releases a shaky breath. Why not, indeed. “‘Cause she hasn’t mentioned it. And I’m too scared to do it.”

“What are you scared of?”

“The typical stuff. What we have now… it’s not what I want, but it’s managed to not disrupt the group, you know. I’m scared that if I tell her how I feel, it’ll make things awkward between the two of us, and between all of us by extension.”

“Well, it might,” Jake says after thinking for a few seconds. “I wish I could tell you with certainty that she’ll like you back, but I honestly can’t. As obvious as you were towards her, she was not giving anything away.” Sunghoon chuckles, more out of self-deprecation than anything. This was not the pep talk he had hoped for. “But, I can tell you that she won’t be the type to make things awkward. You have nothing to risk by telling her, because in the long run, you’ll be better off that way. I know you, Sunghoon. You’ll be miserable if you can’t be fully yourself with someone.”

Decidedly, Sunghoon’s friends had a way of telling him the exact opposite of the things he wanted to hear while being completely right. He wishes things with you could stay the same — minus the overworking yourself and ignoring him in the process — and that he wouldn’t have to do anything that might make them change. But just as Jake said, he’d also reach a point where he couldn’t take it anymore—a point he was already inching closer and closer to with every passing day. He likes you enough to let you not define the relationship, but he likes you too much to let it go on. He likes you too much to not be able to tell you, and show you, and remind you of it every day. He hated having to hold back, and he hated feeling you holding back. He wanted to give you his all and he wanted all of you, too, not just bite-sized portions of you.

“You’re right,” he finally says. “I haven’t been able to talk to her lately, but I’ll have to tell her soon enough. When her exams are over, I guess.”

Jake sighs. “Yeah. I don’t know if there’s any getting through to her right now.”

“She’s blown me off so many times! I don’t know what she’s doing, spending so many hours in that library. I’d go insane.”

“She’s a perfectionist,” Jake says, shaking his head. “I’ve talked to her about it. When it comes to school, she needs everything to be as flawless as can be. She spends hours re-reading and editing her work. It’s not good.”

“Not really, no.”

“But she’s only got a week left. I’ll try to convince her not to go home for too long, and it’ll be better after the holidays. Then we’ll make sure there’s not a repeat of this next exam season.”

He thinks of Christmas break and of not seeing you for two weeks; of next semester and going through all of this with you a second time. The uncertainty, the fooling around behind your friends’ backs — although that might not be needed now that Jake is in on it too — Sunghoon’s not sure if he can go through it all again. “Yeah, we will.”

They lose their game the following day. They had an amazing run, either winning or tying every game so far; this loss is not enough to make them drop significantly in the rankings, but it’s enough to demoralize Sunghoon. It couldn’t have come at a worse time—between you and this failed game, his self-esteem is taking a real hit.

He dared hope for some comfort from you once he was back, but in vain. He doesn’t know why he imagined your attitude might’ve changed overnight, and when he texts you asking to hang out, the same old sorry I can’t atm fills his phone screen. And just like that, as strong as his feelings for you have been all this time, so is his resentment—unwarranted, perhaps, but he thinks he deserves better than this, and he’s both angry at you for not giving him anything and at himself for letting it happen.

Now, he’s the one who spends hours working himself to the bone in the ice rink, who’s clearly preoccupied with other things when everyone gets together, and who doesn’t even show up to the party the whole group goes to when you’re all done with exams. The last game before winter break is in two days, and he doesn’t want to waste a day nursing a hangover when he could be practicing.

That night, he thinks everyone is out at some random club downtown, so he does a double-take when it’s past eleven p.m. and you show up at the rink. He’s skating laps, practicing his speed and his goal-shooting, only noticing you when you’re standing in the middle of the rink. He almost skates right into you.

“Y/N?” he asks, not completely sure you’re not just a figment of his imagination. He’s so exhausted, he wouldn’t be surprised if he were dreaming you up.

“Jay texted me.”

“Oh. Why?” He’s out of breath, and the words come out blunter than he intends them to.

“Because it’s almost midnight and you’re still here,” you reply, crossing your arms over your chest. There’s a hint of a smile on your lips, but your eyebrows are furrowed in what looks like worry. It’s the first time Sunghoon’s seeing you concerned over something other than an assignment.

He shrugs and resumes his laps, slower this time, forcing you to keep turning on your feet. “I’m practicing. There’s a big game coming up.”

“Which is exactly why you should be resting, like everyone else on your team right now.”

He resists rolling his eyes. “Why would I rest when I could be getting better?”

“Because you need rest as much as you need practice. You won’t be any use on the rink if you’re too tired to play properly.”

“And I won’t be any use if I can’t shoot properly, either.”

“Sunghoon, you need a break. You’re clearly exhausted-Will you stop it?” you suddenly snap. “I’m trying to talk to you, and I’m getting dizzy.”

Your small outburst only has him growing more agitated, and even though he does stop, it’s more so you can see the annoyance on his face than anything. “You know, this is a bit rich coming from you, Y/N.” He knows this is not the right time to bring this up—if he has grievances against you, he shouldn’t be bringing them up when he’s already frustrated. He’s well aware of this, but he can’t help himself.

You scoff. “Excuse me?”

“You’re the one who spends twelve hours a day in the library during exams and does not budge even if I tell you you should go home.”

“That’s different-”

“How is it any different?” he interrupts, voice rising. “You don’t listen to me when you overwork yourself. I don’t see why I should.”

“So you realize that you’re overworking yourself?”

“Of course I do! But I have to.”

“No, you don’t-”

“Y/N, please. I have to win as much as you have to get the top grades. Is it actually necessary? No, but you know how shit it feels not to.”

“And it’s exactly because I know that feeling that I’m telling you to stop. You’re just feeding into it.”

“So are you, staying until 2 a.m. in the library. You’ve never once gone home when I asked you to.”

“Again, that’s different-”

“How?! How is it different? Please enlighten me, ‘cause they’re the exact same thing to me.”

You sigh. A sudden sadness appears on your face. Sunghoon is torn between wanting to see this to its end and taking everything he’s said back. But he keeps quiet, and your eyes, when they meet his again, harden. “Are you really gonna make me say it?”

“Yes.”

As if you couldn’t say your next words while looking at him, you tear your gaze away from his face. “Because I’m actually concerned about you, here. The only reason you want me to stop and go home is so we can fuck.”

Sunghoon is so astounded that all words fail him—he stares at you, mouth wide open like you just shot him. After a few seconds, all he’s able to come up with is an incredulous, “What?” His voice is a mere whisper.

“You heard me,” you say coldly.

He closes his mouth and swallows. “So… you’re the one who’s worried, and I’m only after sex?”

You glance at him. “Yeah.”

A chuckle escapes Sunghoon’s throat, then another, until laughter spills out of him uncontrollably. He feels like the world is upside down. How could you have lived the same thing and come out of it with such different perspectives? Your account of his intentions with you is so ridiculous and unfathomable to him that he can’t do anything but laugh.

You seem taken aback at first, but your surprise quickly turns into annoyance. “Something funny?”

“Hilarious, actually,” he says, holding his stomach. He takes a deep breath, trying to calm himself. All he finds at the end of his amusement is anger, bright red and hot. It’s not an emotion he feels often, its rarity only serving as an intensifier—he starts making his way out of the rink before it can explode and hit you in its wake. “Well, that’s convinced me to call it a day. So you got what you came for, I guess.”

His fingers tremble as he undoes the laces on his skates and puts his sneakers on again. You stand by the door of the rink, holding onto the frame as you look at him, that same sad look still on your face. “Hoon,” you say, voice weak. What would usually have him melting only has his anger flare harder.

“Don’t. For the first time ever, I actually really don’t want to talk to you right now.” He stands up, gives you one last harsh look, and turns away. He only halts right before exiting the bleacher area, and after a couple seconds of thinking, turns back around. “Oh, but don’t worry, I’ll let you know when I want to fuck again. Since that’s all this is, clearly.”

It seemed to you no one thought you were good enough for Sunghoon.

Only Yunjin and Chaewon seemed excited at the prospect of the two of you getting together, or at least getting to know each other, but they were also the type to coo at dogs in the street and tear up at the sight of old people holding hands; Minjeong was apprehensive from the start, and made it clear; Jay was indifferent; Jake was oblivious for a while. Sunghoon was…

What was Sunghoon?

Someone who had come out of nowhere, shaken up your routine and messed with your head. That’s what Sunghoon was. He didn’t seem apologetic in the slightest.

Maybe it was your fault for not opening up to the people closest to you and letting them think you were some kind of no-strings-attached one-night-stands-only emotionless maneater who had been single for as long as they had known her, who would be seen with someone new every few months, and never for long, who, as far as the eye could tell, only used men for sex. Maybe it was their fault for never trying to dig deeper.

No, okay, it was definitely your fault.

Based on your conversations with your friends, they thought Heeseung had broken your heart, and you had never bounced back properly. He’d hurt you so much, you couldn’t fathom a real relationship anymore—you could only be with someone casually. Which wasn’t so far from the truth, but what Heeseung had done was much worse than just breaking your heart. He’d confirmed what you already knew of yourself: you want too much. You want what you can’t have, what you don’t deserve.

From the moment you met Park Sunghoon, you knew you didn’t deserve someone like him. Minjeong seemed to agree, and when she saw you and him together at choir that Saturday in September, three months ago already, she made sure you knew her thoughts on the matter.

“This is so… unlike you,” was the first thing she’d said after she pulled you aside.

“What is?”

“This,” she repeated, waving her arms around. “Being here. Coming with him.” She pointed at Sunghoon, whose hair was being ruffled by one grandma and his cheek pulled by another. He kept glancing back worriedly at you—you liked him so much already. “See? You’re smiling at him,” she said, making you realize a sappy smile had started growing on your lips at the sight of him. Your face dropped and you scoffed at the disgust in her voice.

“Yeah, some of us like to smile. You wouldn’t understand.”

“Y/N, you know what I’m trying to say.”

“I don’t think I do, actually.”

She sighed. “You don’t do this. You don’t meet a guy and show up to his choir practice the next morning. What’s happening?”

You crossed your arms over your chest. Had you known your presence would be questioned like that, you might’ve thought twice about coming. “Can’t a girl enjoy a choir without getting interrogated these days?”

“You’re avoiding my question! Listen, Y/N. Sunghoon is not the kind of guy you usually go for. He’s-Stop. Don’t smile at me like that.”

“If you like Sunghoon, you can just tell me. You know I wouldn’t stoop so low as to go after a guy my best friend likes.”

“So you are going after him?”

“So you do like him?”

Minjeong shook her head violently and put her hands on your shoulders, staring into your brain as if trying to make you see some sense. Calmly, she said, “No, I don’t. Sunghoon’s nice, but he is so far from my type. He’s too… nice.”

“You mean he doesn’t wear leather jackets or ride a motorcycle?”

“That was once. But no, he doesn’t do that. And what I’m trying to tell you is that he’s not your type either.”

“And how have you gathered that?”

“Because so far, you’ve only wisely chosen guys who are as detached and emotionally stunted as you.”

“I’m not-”

“But he’s not like that, Y/N. He’s the bring-home-to-your-parents-for-Christmas type. Not the hump-and-dump type.”

“I’m starting to get offended by this conversation.”

“All I’m saying is, don’t go breaking his heart. Or yours, for that matter. It pains me to say but I care about both of you very much and I don’t see this going anywhere good.”

You shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other. Was her opinion of your romantic tendencies — or lack thereof — that bad that she couldn’t even recommend you to her friend? You felt like a chastised child whose mom told you you couldn’t get the toy you wanted. Despite being well aware that you weren’t the most committed when it came to relationships, you still felt like she was going overboard. Just because nothing had stuck so far didn’t mean it wouldn’t now—she was acting like you went around playing with people’s feelings for fun.

“Jesus, this is my second time seeing him. I just wanna see what his deal is. I’m not breaking anyone’s heart, okay?”

The choir conductor had called out for everyone to gather on stage then, and that was the end of that conversation. You still remember how funny of a thing it was, seeing Sunghoon in his nice shirt and trousers, his hair falling into his eyes, singing diligently with the choir, when just the night before he had been playing beer pong dressed as Cowboy Ken. In this new light, you understood why Minjeong was so adamant about him not being your usual type, and why the grandmas were fussing over him. You hadn’t known what had pushed you to invite yourself to this rehearsal, and even then as you sat there, you weren’t sure what you were doing or why you couldn’t stop smiling as you watched Sunghoon sing.

Time made things clearer, starting with that afternoon at the beach. The salt in the air that day had clouded your thoughts, covered them with a thin layer so that your usual reluctance to share anything remotely personal had dimmed. Or maybe it had had nothing to do with the air and everything to do with the boy sitting next to you on the sand, the way words came tumbling out of your mouth before you could think about them and were only met with understanding and empathy on his part. For once, you didn’t feel the need to guard yourself, to adapt your words and actions to the person in front of you. It was something you didn’t know was possible with a near stranger—perhaps because Sunghoon felt nothing like one.

He made you feel things you hadn’t felt in a long time; things you had been craving to feel, needed almost as much as oxygen. Being with him felt like breathing again. But you had been underwater so long, being on land again felt foreign, scary, and you couldn’t help but dive back into safe waters, coming up for air once in a while.

Whether he had intended to or not, Sunghoon had started to scratch at your surface, until he’d burrowed a small hole—shallow, but enough for cracks to appear, cracks you were quick to put back together as best as you could.

So when his gaze was too tender, his touches too gentle, you bristled. You went away, because you were afraid of what might happen if you stayed. The more you wanted to give him, the less you gave him anything at all. Your own desire overwhelmed you. His letterman jacket was warm around your shoulders, you proudly walked around with the four letters of his last name on your back, but you couldn’t get out of your mind how cold it would be if it was one day ripped away from you.

You thought of Heeseung, how disillusioned you had been when you thought you had finally met someone who would love you the way you had always yearned to be, only for him to toss you away when you started asking for too much. You thought of your friends in middle school, how it seemed that no friendship could be more wonderful until you overheard them talking about you at a sleepover, about how clingy you were. You thought of your parents, how they had only bestowed kind words upon you when you performed well in your role of perfect daughter, of academically gifted child. How they hadn’t even glanced at any of the drawings you’d done of the four of you, mother, father, son and daughter holding hands with a bright yellow sun in the corner of the sky. How they had pushed you away from their bed when you seeked some comfort after a terrible nightmare. How they had never bothered to hide their disappointment when you came home from school with anything less than an A. How they had shunned your brother for not going down the path they had envisioned for him, how hard you had to fight to make them accept yours was not a worthless one.

Even your best friend seemed to think you were unable to receive affection of the likes of Sunghoon’s—but what you were afraid of was that he wouldn’t handle the amount of affection you knew you were able to give. In a way, that was what had drawn you to Sunghoon in the first place—from the moment you’d met him, you had been able to tell there was something of you in him. It seemed to you he had a heart that was overflowing with love, love to give, love to spare on whoever would have it. In his words, you were him. Nevertheless, your fear of getting hurt overrode your desire to feel Sunghoon’s love, and you didn’t know whether you would be able to revert to your nature after having spent so much time perfecting your new facade.

You knew what it was like to be cold. And so you prematurely braced yourself for it by pushing away Sunghoon’s warmth. If it was going to happen at some point, like Minjeong had hinted it would, might as well get used to it, right?

Except the cold never came. Sunghoon kept on burning relentlessly, no matter how much wood you fed his fire with—you could cling to him for nights on end or ignore his texts for days, without fail, he’d welcome you with his usual, unwavering warmth. He allowed you to bask in it, to momentarily let down your defenses. But something always happened to make you raise them back up—Minjeong would eye the two of you suspiciously, Heeseung would post on Instagram (Is one of the girls on slide five his new fling? Are they serious and it wasn’t that he wasn’t ready for a relationship, it’s that he didn’t want one with me?), or your mom would text you to ask you whether everything was okay.

Yet increasingly, you suspected there was something behind Sunghoon’s warmth, something you had missed, something that was tricking you. He looked at you like you had hung the stars in the night sky, yes; in public, a knowing look from you was enough to have his face turn bright red, and in private, one simple touch had his chest heaving, yes; he expressed disappointment every time you turned him down for a hang-out. Your attachment to him grew, and it became harder to put what the two of you had into words.

It wasn’t just sex—it couldn’t be. It ran deeper than that. You knew what relationships that consisted of just sex were like, and this wasn’t that, it was too good, too intimate to be just that. But you weren’t a couple, that much was clear. Only four other people were aware something was even going on, your brother not included, and you acted as regular friends in front of everyone. Jake had insisted you didn’t fool around with another member of his hockey team because his relationship with Heeseung had already deteriorated enough, he didn’t need to be on weird terms with anyone else on your behalf, so you were not keen on letting him know about what you got up to with Sunghoon. Anyway, even if everyone on earth was in on your shenanigans, you and Sunghoon hadn’t convened on what it all meant. Who knew what was going on in his head? You were no stranger to how deceitful men could be when they were after certain bodily pleasures. Unless Sunghoon said it in so many words, multiple times, you would not be a hundred percent sure he wasn’t only looking to get laid, or wanted someone to act like his girlfriend without the label and the obligations that came with it.

Because you basically were acting like his girlfriend, and he like your boyfriend. You always went to each other. Always, only each other. Whether he needed a second opinion on an outfit, you needed a rant session about your dissertation, either of you a really good orgasm, it was each other you went to.

You waited for him to initiate a conversation about the status of your relationship like one waits for church bells to ring at the turn of the hour—you knew it was coming, but the sound might be too much to bear. And the longer you had to wait, the more you dreaded it. Because how would you react when the time came? You didn’t trust yourself not to run away; neither did Minjeong.

The cold hadn’t come yet. You couldn’t let yourself feel the warmth unreservedly. It was all unpleasantly lukewarm.

Then you went home for a weekend.

It was a good friend from school’s birthday, and despite having spent a lot of time with Sunghoon at the expense of studying, you had done well this semester and thought you deserved a break. After having been away for so long, you had started to underestimate the power of your need for your parents’ approval over you. One small instance that your brother and many other people would’ve brushed off easily was enough to set you off—that same cold look of disappointment when you decided to be honest and told them one of your courses was deadly boring all while being unnecessarily complicated and you had received a low B-grade in it. They barely spoke to you for the rest of the evening.

Exams were a mere few weeks away when you got back. You buried yourself in work, forgot everything and everyone else, even Sunghoon, even yourself.

The cold hadn’t come yet, so you sought it out for yourself.

At the same time, you hadn’t indulged in enough introspection to realize how frustrated you had been at Sunghoon for not trying to create defined boundaries around your relationship. You were unable to do it yourself, you unrealistically wanted him to do the work for the both of you, you got upset when he didn’t. What you were able to do was make up reasons why he wasn’t giving you the what are we talk—he doesn’t like you that much, he just wants sex, he’s settling for you until he finds the next best thing, the real thing. This wasn’t leading anywhere, so you cut it off before he could.

You set foot in the library at seven thirty a.m. on a Monday and every following day of that week, then the next, then the next. He managed to pull you out every now and then—you weren’t that strong against his big pleading eyes, his soft messy hair, his warm hands that entirely covered yours.

Oftentimes, you were too tired at the end of a long library day to have sex. Sunghoon never held it against you—he seemed more than happy to cook you dinner, let you fall asleep halfway during a movie you had chosen, and cuddle all night long. But your body burned with resentment at his mere presence in your bed, in your home, in your text messages. Who was he to stop you from studying, from achieving your goals, to distract you from that top grade just so he could get off? Even your friends and brother weren’t trying so hard to make you take breaks. The worry that furrowed his eyebrows, which you used to want to see fade away with a caress of your thumb, now infuriated you to no end, it seemed — to you — put-on. He kissed your neck and you wanted to push him away instead of melt into him like you had before.

It was his turn to leave for a weekend for an out-of-town hockey game, and you convinced yourself his absence came as a relief. But on the Sunday evening they got back, as you came out of the library, you spotted your brother waiting right outside of the building.

“Why is it so hard to reach you?” he said when he saw you in lieu of a greeting. “What’s the point of having a phone if you don’t even use it? I called you, like, five times.” “It was on airplane mode.” He rolled his eyes so hard, you could almost hear them moving beneath their lids. “What have you done to Sunghoon?” You stopped dead in your tracks. “Sunghoon? What about him?” you asked, chest constricting at the mere thought of him and at the implication that something had happened to him, even if you were the cause. He hadn’t said it in so many words, but it was clear the truth had been revealed to Jake, and for some reason, it didn’t surprise you. You knew they roomed together and assumed Sunghoon must’ve told him. You tried your best to take it in stride. “I thought we said the hockey team was off-limits after Heeseung,” he said sternly. “Also, Sunghoon, of all people?” he adds before you can say anything. “That’s like, my bro. And he’s the nicest guy ever. Not the perfect pick for one of your victims, I must say-” “Oh, please, he’s not a victim. He’s a consenting adult.” “Then why is he so upset over you spending more time studying than with him?” “That’s the male ego for you, Jakey.” Your brother sighed deeply. “He’s really hurt, Y/N. If you were going to reject him, you could’ve done it nicely.”

You frowned. “Who said anything about rejecting him?”

“You’ve shut him out. You’ve shut all of us out.” Jake was staring at you, trying to get you to look at him, but you kept your gaze on the ground and kicked non-existent pebbles around, hands hiding in your coat pockets. “You might not have meant it as one, but he took it as a rejection.”

You scoff. “There was nothing to reject. It’s not like we’re actually together.”

“Yeah, thanks for telling me anything was going on, by the way.”

“It wasn’t any of your business.”

“It is, ‘cause it concerns my sister and my best friend.”

“He’s your best friend?” you echo, a teasing smile on your lips. He rolls his eyes again.

“God, maybe you guys aren’t so bad together after all. But Y/N—I’m serious. You need to do something.”

“Why can’t he?”

“Because you’re the one who’s been fucking around.”

Ouch. “You’ve known about this whole thing for what, two days, and you’re already blaming me for the fact that it’s not going perfectly? How little do you think of me?”

“I don’t think little of you, Y/N, I just know you have a track record of not being serious about relationships.”

Your body tensed up. Maybe it had been a particularly long day. Maybe it had been a long time coming. Tears well up in your eyes—a sight you’ve not let your brother see in many, many years.

“You know what, fuck this, Jake. I’m stressed enough as it is. I’ve done my best with what I have, and you don’t get to pin this on me. As if I was the only person in that relationship. If Sunghoon has a problem, he can take it up with me directly.”

You walked away. Jake called after you once, and when you didn’t come back, caught up with you. “I’m sorry, Y/N. I don’t wanna upset you. I just-I hate seeing him hurt, you know? And you too.”

“I’m glad my feelings are of some importance to you.”

“Of course they are,” Jake said, too concerned to detect the sarcasm in your words. “And you’re right, I’ve only heard Sunghoon’s side of the story. But it really sounded like-”

“Listen, Jakey, I really don’t wanna do this right now. Let’s talk about it when exams are over. I can’t have anything else taking up mental space. I mixed up my Greek third declension endings earlier.”

“God forbid.”

After some arguing, Jake let you off the hook—“Just for now,” he said. You’d get him to recount his and Sunghoon’s conversation in excruciating detail later.

You come out of an evening of contemplation resenting Sunghoon for bitching about you to your brother, of all people. As if he had been begging on his hands and knees for your devotion, as if you had been cool-headed and detached and not thinking he’ll ask me to be his girlfriend any second now every time you spent time together. You told yourself you were well and truly done with him for the time being. If there was anything to salvage, that was future you’s problem.

But late on Thursday evening, Jay sent you a voice message, something he only did when he was gravely drunk, shouting over loud chatter and rap music that Sunghoon hadn’t shown up to a party and was apparently still practicing. You’d caught wind of their loss at the game, and even though your heart had swollen with concern for Sunghoon, very well aware of how important winning was to him, you’d managed to squash it down. You had bigger fish to fry, namely, an Italian written exam that made up 75% of your overall grade for that course. But after ten minutes of re-reading the same three lines of an article from Republicca, you couldn’t get the image of Sunghoon skirting endlessly around the ice rink and potentially hurting himself out of your head. You told yourself you only had this one exam left and plenty of time to revise for it, packed up your things and headed for the rink.

It was past eleven p.m. when you got there. The rest is history.

Your grievances came out in an ugly way, but Sunghoon’s refusal to listen to you got the best of your nerves, and although you really did feel that your worry was more genuine than his, you didn’t truly believe that all he wanted from you was sex—at least, you hoped it wasn’t. It was the first time you ever saw any sort of negative emotion on Sunghoon’s handsome features, be it anger, sadness or pain. It tugged at your heartstrings, made you want to wrap him in your arms and get him away from whatever it was that tugged his eyebrows into a frown—even if that was you.

Now, as if the water has inched up your ankles and frozen over, your feet stay planted on the ice for a while after he’s stormed off. You don’t even realize you’re crying until a hot, salty teardrop falls on your lips.

Your feet regain control of themselves, and they seem to move of their own accord as they guide you right in front of Sunghoon’s dorm room. You’re barely conscious as your knuckles rasp against the door, and the tears that had fallen back behind your eyes spill out once more as soon as your eyes meet his. He’s just come out of the shower, a white towel wrapped around his hips, another one that he uses to dry his hair. His movements stop when he realizes who’s standing at his door, mouth falling slightly agape, chest visibly rising and falling. He’s so beautiful, you feel your heart breaking all over again.

Sobs pour uncharacteristically out of you, so much so that you have to hide your face behind your eyes. He ushers you in, holds you tight as everything flows out, the stress, the resentment, the loneliness, the longing. How could he be so close yet so far away this whole time? Did he want those miles of distance between you, or had you forced them upon him?

Sunghoon smoothes your hair down and shushes you, telling you it’s okay and that he’s here, voice strangled as if he’s on the verge of crying, too. A part of you still feels angry towards him, but the bigger part of you knows only he can give you the comfort you need.

“I missed you,” you say when you’ve calmed down partly. You only realize how true those words are once you’ve spoken them. You’ve missed waking up next to him, watching trashy reality TV together, taking coffee breaks that lasted too long in-between study sessions. You’ve missed the scent of his hair, the scent of his skin, you’ve missed watching the way his back muscles shift at the slightest of movements, feeling the weight of his head as he lay on your chest. All for a bunch of As you would’ve gotten without exerting yourself so much anyway.

“I missed you too, baby. Where did you go?” Just like that, you break down again, and he dissolves into apologies. “You’re here now, it’s all that matters,” he whispers against your hair.

“You didn’t see them, Hoon. You didn’t see the way they looked at me,” you say, struggling to speak, unsure you’re even making any sense but unable to stop. “I got As in everything, I worked so hard. Just one B, one week where I had four things due at the same time. Their faces, Hoon, like they were thinking, what was the point of letting me do this degree if I wasn’t even going to excel in it?”

“But you do excel in it, Y/N. You’re amazing at what you do. And even if you weren’t, you love it, and that’s what matters the most.”

“Not to them, it doesn’t.”

“Then forget them.”

“I can’t, Hoon,” you say, voice trembling. “I just can’t. I need them to be proud of me.”

“Isn’t it enough to be proud of yourself?”

“I wish it was.”

“Does it help if I tell you how proud I am of you and of how hard you’ve worked?”

He doesn’t see it, your face is still hidden in the crook of his shoulder, but a small smile makes its way to your lips. “A bit.”

“Then I’ll tell you everyday until you don’t need their approval anymore. They don’t deserve you, Y/N. They don’t even see what an amazing, beautiful, smart daughter they have. Or her sort-of-okay brother.” You laugh, and so does he. Sunghoon’s words and soothing touch against your back already alleviate the weight on your heart. “But I see it.”

You lift your head to look at Sunghoon. His eyes are glassy. “You see how amazing, beautiful and smart Jake is?”

He laughs again as he tucks a stray strand of hair behind your ear. “Yeah, exactly.” The way he looks at you makes you wish you could go back to the day you met him and right all of your wrongs. No more hiding or running away. You only want to stay under that gaze of his. But sadness soon replaces the joy in his eyes. “You mean so much more to me than you give yourself credit for, Y/N. This has never been just about sex for me. Not even for a second.”

“No?”

“No.”

“Then what has it been about?”

He frowns like a student in an advanced math class who’s just been asked what three plus three is—isn’t it obvious?

“I love you.”

Your eyes dart between his as if searching for any trace of deceit there. Of course, you don’t find any—because there hasn’t been any since the start. You’d let your own fears invent things that weren’t there. Your lips tremble and you find yourself bawling on his shoulder once more, your tears like a well that digs deeper and deeper so as to never run out of water.

“I hope these are good tears,” Sunghoon says light-heartedly, but you can detect the nervousness behind his words. You nod your head vigorously, willing yourself to say something back, but your tears overflow, make your breath hitch.

“Why didn’t you say anything earlier?” you manage in between sobs.

“I didn’t think it was the kind of thing you wanted to hear,” he explains.

“I was waiting for you to say something.”

“I didn’t know. I thought I was being obvious enough.”

“You probably were. I was the one who couldn’t see it,” you admit.

“I thought you didn’t want me like that.”

Sunghoon chuckles, a sound of relief. “I’ve wanted you like that since the start.”

“I think I have too.”

“You think?”

You lift your head again and when your eyes meet Sunghoon’s, it feels like coming out of your hiding place hours after the round of hide-and-seek was over. He hadn’t forgotten to come and find you. He was waiting for you to reveal yourself.

Which goes against the rules of hide-and-seek, but you don’t blame him.

You smile; he smiles, deep dimples carving crescents into his cheeks. “I love you, too.”

You hadn’t realized how cold your hands were until Sunghoon found them.

Everything after that was a blurry mess of tangled limbs, warm kisses, happy tears and relieved laughter.

Your touch had always been intoxicating, but Sunghoon was particularly sensitive to it that night. The mix of not having felt you close in weeks and the heightened emotions driven by your confessions made his skin tingle everywhere it came in contact with yours. He’d never slept so little without regretting it in the morning.

It goes without saying that most of the night was not spent talking, but you still had things you needed to discuss. The two of you laid out all of your fears, and Sunghoon was immensely relieved to finally get a glimpse into that mind of yours. He made you promise to always tell him what was going on, and he promised you you’d never be too much for him. Always just right.

Now, he gets to wait outside of your exam hall with your favorite flowers in hand, to put his arm around your shoulders during movie nights instead of holding your hand beneath the blanket, to kiss you over the barrier at the end of a hockey game he won. Heeseung’s narrowed eyes at the sight of the two of you is an added bonus.

You text him that you’ll hang around the locker rooms after the game so that you can head to the party together. The end of December is nearing and you can’t wait for the new year, for twelve whole months of not hiding your feelings for Sunghoon from anyone, not even from yourself, least of all from him. At least, that’s what you told him in a sappy, drunken voice message at two a.m. the previous night when the girls made you drink a bottle of prosecco to yourself—their way of congratulating you for an arduous but successful exam period.

He steps out of the locker rooms with Jake and Jay. You’ve never looked quite as pretty, face lighting up as you spot the three of them, his jersey on your shoulders. You’d worn it during your last exam—“I thought it might bring me luck to wear a pretty boy’s name on my back,” you’d told him, to which he’d replied that it was good practice for when you actually took his last name. You’d looked away, fighting a smile.

Now your smile is full-blown as you look at him, but the downside of being an official couple is that Jake has now more material to tease the both of you with.

“Oh my God, you waited for me, what a sweet sister I have been blessed with!” he exclaims, arms outstretched as he barrels towards you.

“Fuck off, Sim,” you say but accept his hug nonetheless. “Nice game.”

“I know.” He pulls away and ruffles your hair. Jay nods at you like you’re someone he shared a class with back in second year and not his friend of almost three years.

As if on cue, just as Sunghoon reaches you and envelops you in a hug, Jake turns around and yells loud enough for all the players spilling out of the locker rooms, “And don’t forget to wear protection! I’m not ready to be an uncle yet.”

“That’s disgusting, Jakey,” you yell back, and he smiles proudly. Sunghoon had never thought the day would come where you’d initiate a kiss in a room full of people—he’s on cloud nine when you take his head in your hands and press your lips to his, murmuring praises about how well he played.

“It was all for you, baby,” he says, trying to appear cool even though a blush is creeping up his ears.

“Not for the recruiter of the national team?” you asked with a smirk.

He smiles, shrugging. “Maybe a bit for him too. You’re the one I want to impress.”

“Consider me impressed.” You stand on your tiptoes to kiss him a second time.

You head towards your friends, hands warm against each other.

In classic mysterious Jay fashion, he organizes a New Year’s Eve party that he can’t attend himself.

He’s on holiday in some exotic country halfway across the world with his family, but he’s offered up their house for a celebration and tasked Jake with making sure no one trashes anything.

The party started three hours ago, and you’re sure it’s in full swing by now—you’re sure everyone is having a jolly old time, getting drunk enough to welcome the new year with a hangover, searching the crowds of people for the person they’ll want to kiss at midnight. You’re sure that people are having so much fun that whoever notices your and Sunghoon’s absence might think you’re missing out.

And maybe you are—but there’s nowhere you’d rather be than where you are now, straddling your boyfriend’s lap in the backseat of his car. He’s a little bit tipsy, you’re a little bit tipsy, it’s obvious in the way you kiss each other, messy, impatient, interspersed with giggles and with perhaps too much tongue. Your hands are not much more polite, harshly grabbing at his hair just the way you know he likes it, and neither are his, having snuck their way underneath your black satin dress long ago already.

When Sunghoon pulled you away from the party, you’d appropriately exclaimed, “But the party?”, to which he replied, “Fuck the party.” It wasn’t like him to curse, or to have anything but a bashful smile on his lips, like a guilty dog who’d been caught doing something it knew it shouldn’t, even though he was just standing there, so when you see his stoney expression, you think something serious must’ve happened.

The something serious turned out to be “that guy who was touching your shoulder.”

Clearly, it’d take Sunghoon a little bit more time to be entirely secure in your relationship. In the meantime, you didn’t mind letting him fuck his jealousy away.

Although he’d been the one to whisk you away, you’re the one who finds yourself begging for him to speed things up. Your flimsy thong does absolutely nothing, so you’re basically grinding yourself bare against his clothed erection—and it’s not like the fabric of his suit trousers is very thick, either. A girl can only put up with so much dry humping before having her boyfriend’s dick inside of her goes from being a want to a need.

“Need you, Hoon,” you coo against the shell of his ear. A few words usually do the trick, but Sunghoon has other plans tonight.

“What do you need, baby?”

“You.”

“I’m right here,” he says, punctuating his words with a squeeze of your ass.

“You know what I mean,” you say, practically whining.

“I’m not sure I do, actually.”

You pull away and, looking at him directly, say, “God, Sunghoon. I want you to fuck me.” His shit-eating grin simultaneously makes you roll your eyes and goes straight to your core.

“That I can do.”

He keeps one hand on your ass as he loosens his tie first, then undoes his belt and trouser buttons. His slacks and underwear pool around his ankles, and all he needs to do is hike your dress up around your hips and push your thong to the side. You wrap a hand around his dick, but your mind is too hazy to do much with it—he’s started rubbing circles on your clit with his thumb, the pressure and speed as perfect as it always is. You let your forehead fall against his shoulders and moan unabashedly, thankful he decided to park the car far enough away from the house.

“You like it when I touch you like this, baby?”

“I love it, Hoon.”

He hums his approval. “You’re so perfect. So perfect and so wet for me, isn’t that right?”

You start to say “yes,” but you interrupt yourself with a gasp. You hold onto Sunghoon’s arm, feel his muscles move under your palm as he slips two fingers inside of you without warning. “Please,” you choke out, a tight knot already forming in your stomach.

“Please what?”

“Need you. Need your dick, baby.”

He smiles as if endeared, but his words couldn’t be more different. “Maybe you should’ve thought of that before going off with some random guy the one minute I was somewhere else.”

“He’s just-fuck, Hoon, he’s just a mutual friend of Jay and I. Fuck, right there, baby.” Forming coherent sentences when Sunghoon’s fingers flick against that perfect spot deep inside you again and again is no easy task, but you need to defend yourself.

“Right there?” he echoes, voice a whisper against your ear. When you nod, eyes shut tight, he slips his fingers out. You look at him, betrayed. “That’s too bad. Why don’t you ask him to touch you right there, hm?”

You don’t know how much of his jealousy is put-on to get you to beg and how much of it is real. You make a mental note to have a conversation with him about this later—right now, you don’t mind playing along if it means your boyfriend will deign to fuck you. You know he wants to, he’s just making you work harder.

You move your hand up and down along his dick, brush his reddening tip with your palm every now and then. “He couldn’t touch me like you, Hoon.” You lean in and trail kisses along his neck, his jawline, his ears. “Can’t fuck me like you, either.”

With exams, hockey matches and any other responsibilities out of the way for winter break, the two of you had had an obscene amount of sex in the past couple of weeks. You’d done other things, of course, namely having much-needed conversations with each other, your friends, your families. Sunghoon’s mother was overjoyed at the news, glad her “duckling had finally met someone” — her words — and his sister kept stealing his phone from him to talk to you when you were on FaceTime. You and Jake had gone home for two days for Christmas, and although Jake had needed to pep talk you into it for over an hour, you managed to tell them that you wouldn’t stand for being belittled for your life choices anymore.

But in-between these conversations, you couldn’t keep your hands off of each other. You’ve grown more comfortable with each passing day, both of you bolder in vocalizing what you want and how you feel. And so, you quickly found out that your Sunghoon, your shy, sweet Sunghoon, got off like nothing else on salacious words. In line with his possessiveness, he loved hearing about how he and only he could do these things to you; in line with your need for validation, you could practically come from hearing his praises alone.

“That’s right, baby.” Like the gentleman he is, he fishes out the condom wrapper he had gotten ready from his trouser pocket, tears it open with his mouth and rolls the condom on with one hand, his other one still preoccupied with you. “Come here, my love,” he whispers, his sweet tone worlds away from his previous teasing, almost cocky one. He grabs your hips, guides you closer to him and lines your entrance with the tip of his dick. He lets you go at your own pace, rubs your thighs soothingly as you sink down onto him slowly and adjust to his size. You throw your head back, mind hazy with pleasure as you move your hips back-and-forth against him.

“You feel so good, baby. You’re doing so well for me.” His words make you pick up your pace, and you wrap your arms around his neck, fingers grabbing at his hair and sides of your faces pressed against each other as you start lifting your hips and sinking back down. Sunghoon’s hands hold your ass tightly, guiding you up and down. It’s hot in the car; sweat runs down your hairline and your back, air is running low, the windows are fogging up, but it only adds to the dizzying bliss growing in you. Even the seatbelt receiver digging into your knee doesn’t bother you.

“Feels so good, Hoon,” you moan.

“I know, baby.”

Your hours of studying everyday means your thighs aren’t the strongest—good thing for you that your boyfriend has enough stamina and strength for the both of you. As soon as he feels you tiring, your rhythm becoming slower and more irregular, he picks up your slack. One hand on your back, one arm around your waist, he presses you close to him, his hold on you so tight you can barely move. He bucks his hips harshly into yours, faster and faster, making you cry out with every brush of his tip against that spot deep inside of you. Your whole body shakes with pleasure as your moans grow higher and louder, until the tension in your stomach hits its apex and unravels. A gasp leaves your throat as you come around him, but he’s unrelenting, the overstimulation quickly making tears form in your eyes. Strings of curses and praises of how perfect you are spill out of Sunghoon’s mouth disorderly as he reaches his own end.

Together, you take your time catching your breath, his fingers roaming your back while you trail soft kisses all over his face and neck. “My pretty baby,” he whispers, and it makes your heart swell with so much affection for him that you press your lips to his, shutting him up in case he says something that actually has you exploding.

You wish you could spend some more time just the two of you before returning to the party, but when you check your phone, it’s already five minutes to midnight—he puts his clothes back on as you fix your hair in a rush, Sunghoon helping you wipe away traces of mascara under your eyes, and together, run back to the living room where everyone has gathered. You find Minjeong, Yunjin, Chaewon and Jake, who has Jay on FaceTime. It’s only five p.m. where he is.

Everyone counts down from ten together. The first thing you do in the new year is kiss Park Sunghoon—and you’ll make sure it’s the last thing you do, too.

permanent taglist: @zreamy @sunghoonmybeloved @lalalalawon @sd211 @w3bqrl @raikea10 @wntrnghts @moonlighthoon @4imhry @rikisly @loves0ft @iamliacamila @theboingsuckerasseater9000 @chaechae-23 @baekhyuns-lipchain @hyuckslvr @vernonburger @amorbonbon @fluerz @jakeflvrz (ask to be removed/added!)

#sunghoon x reader #enhypen x reader #sunghoon smut #enhypen smut #sunghoon fanfiction #enhypen fanfiction #enhypen au #sunghoon au #enhypen scenarios #sunghoon scenarios #enhypen imagines #sunghoon imagines

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miserycanary · 8 months ago

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DEFINITELY NUTS ᡣ𐭩 ⤷ next

pairing: Simon 'Ghost' Riley & model!fem!reader

synopsis: Ghost mentions you but 141 doesn't believe that he got a wife

tags: crack (well, attempted), fluff

Ghost’s strict rules for privacy are something the 141 has known for years now. He’s not the type of person to blab about his personal life and often chooses just to keep quiet. So, imagine their surprise when he suddenly says that he’s going to take a day off because his wife asked him to watch a play.

“Price, ‘am not gonna be here tomorrow. Got a date with my missus.”

All eyes are on him, everyone stills. “WIFE? Since when?!” Soap exclaimed, finally breaking the silence. His eyes were almost bulging out his eyes. “Never told you about her?” Ghost hums, unamused by the Scottish’s exclaim. “Johnny here does have a reasonable reaction. You never tell us anything ‘bout you, mate,” Price joined, chuckling and pulling out a cigar. The man just contemplates before brushing it off and bidding farewell, leaving the group confused.

“Ain’t no way he’s telling us the truth. That man ain’t got no bone in his body to bag someone,” Soap voiced out, looking for anyone to support his disbelief. “I mean..” Gaz whistles out, crossing his arms over his chest and tilting his head as if he’s agreeing to some extent. That’s when, unbeknownst to Ghost, he got the reputation of being delusional and a liar.

Soap, still doubtful days later, watches the lieutenant with a vision like a hawk. “Hey, lieutenant.” Ghost snaps his head up, looking at him. “How was the date with your wife?” Immediately, everyone else stopped what they were doing, silently listening. It was obvious he was baiting Ghost, emphasizing the wife as if putting on quotes. They weren’t as nosy as Soap but each one of them still held a bit of doubtness that the brick wall of the team managed to get a girl, and even marry her.

“It was okay. The missus had fun,” Ghost chuckles, fondly remembering how you were beaming on the way, rambling about the plot of the play. “Can we see pictures?” Soap smirked thinking he finally got the lieutenant but was taken aback when Ghost only shrugged and pulled out his phone before freezing. “Ah, we didn’t take pictures yesterday. Said she wanted to live in the moment.”

Soap whipped his head to signal to Gaz, seemingly saying ‘See? He’s definitely lying! How convenient he has no pictures.”

“How about just a picture of your wife?” Kyle suggested, now invested while Price seemed to be shaking his head in the corner. “I have none with me but..” With a few clicks, Ghost holds up his phone for everyone to see. Like birds, everyone flocked around him, curious to see. For a while, everyone was surprised and sure the man was lying. I mean, he just showed them a picture of a drop-dead gorgeous model from a magazine!

��He's definitely lost it’ everyone seemed to think, offering pity glances at the man who had this prideful shine in his eyes. Walking up to his superior, Soap patted him on the back. “It’s fine, mate… we understand how difficult it must be.” ‘not having a lady at all’

Thinking Johnny meant about your hectic schedule, he agreed. “It’s quite tough but we make it work,” he chuckled which made everyone wince.

‘Definitely nuts!’

Weeks passed after that and the topic never got brought up, until Ghost came in with a bento in hand covered with a handkerchief with frilly ends. When asked about it, he replied, “Ah, wife’s testing out recipes for an upcoming TV show. ‘S been practicing and asked me to bring one.” Once again, he was given pity glances and even heard a defeated sigh from Soap.

‘He’s too far gone’

“How’s work?” you ask, dazedly paying attention to the movie you guys put, more invested in burying your face in Simon’s chest while he drapes both arms on your waist, completely engulfing your torso under his muscles. “Been getting a few weird stares,” he mumbles, playing with your hair and pressing kisses on your forehead. “Why?” you peer up, resting your chin on his shoulder. “I don’ know, princess.”

Meanwhile…

“Should we just… finally set the lieutenant on a date? I feel bad. I mean, he even lied about his “wife” making him lunch,” Johnny sighed.

“Probably the best idea,” Kyle nodded.

Now Price… he knows the truth. He met you before when you dropped by, asking for Ghost— which ended horribly— but he’ll lying if he said he’s not getting a kick out of this.

꒰ა ☆ ໒꒱: probably won't be posting for a while :] Did you guys notice the hint to my previous work? Please do. 😔

dividers by @cafekitsune

Please reblog!! Ask is open!

check out my other works in the masterlist: ୭!

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omgeto · 1 year ago

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☆ WHEN YOU BREAK UP AND MAKE UP — NANAMI KENTO

summary: fed up with your stagnant marriage, you serve your husband divorce papers as a final cry to show you're tired of his behaviour. but you forget that, although he doesn't always show it, your husband never goes down without a fight.

w/c: 3.5k

cw: angst to fluff, nanami may come across as an asshole but he means it with love, plot with a dash of porn at the end, so mdni!!, semi-public sex (you fuck in an elevator) afab!reader

authors note: first fic on the new blog (wild) but I actually really fw this fic, hope you all do to. not fully proof read so ignore mistakes!!

nanami's footsteps echo through the dimly lit hallway as he approaches your apartment. his heart pounds against his ribs, a mixture of irritation, confusion, and hurt swirling within him. he had seen the divorce papers, his name scrawled across the top in bold letters, and the shock has left him simmering with resentment.

with a determined exhale, he raises his hand and knocks on your door. the door swings open, revealing his surprised expression. his eyes widen as he takes in your clenched jaw and the tension etched into your features.

"kento," your voice wavers, a mix of surprise and something he can't quite place.

"i didn't expect to find divorce papers on my desk at work," he bites out, his tone sharp and impatient.

your cheeks flush slightly, your gaze flickering away for a moment before returning to meet his stare. "it got your attention, didn't it?" you retort, your voice tinged with exasperation.

"attention?" nanami's voice drips with sarcasm. "you think serving me divorce papers at my job is the way to solve our problems?"

"you've been distant, nanami," your voice holds a trace of weariness. "we've been living separate lives for weeks. i needed you to know that something has to change."

nanami's irritation flares, his patience wearing thin. "dropping divorce papers on my desk is your way of communication now?"

"you've brushed me off every time i've tried to talk," your voice holds a hint of frustration, your eyes betraying a simmering anger. "maybe this is the only language you'll understand."

nanami's annoyance collides with a stubborn resistance, his grip on his emotions hardening. "you know i've been busy," he states curtly.

"busy ignoring me," your voice is edged with bitterness, your expression growing weary.

nanami's frustration deepens, and he steps closer, his gaze unwavering. "you could have talked to me."

you look away, your jaw clenched. "tried that." he reaches out to you but you brush him off, backing out of his space.

you didn’t know what the exact turning point of your marriage was, but once it came it was overwhelming, swept you both up in a whirl of frustration. nanami didn’t feel like yours anymore – he was a shell of the guy you married. there were no more morning kisses, gentle touches, or late-night talks that once filled your lives. the silence in your shared space became a chasm, widening with each passing day. you pleaded for his attention, for a connection, but it was as if he was slipping away, becoming a stranger.

"you’ve taken this game of yours too far," he scoffs, disbelief and a hint of frustration in his voice. nanami had never imagined it would come to this – the thought of you leaving him was a reality he was struggling to accept. he wasn't blind to the shifts in your relationship, the growing distance, but he had convinced himself that it was a phase. a bad period that could be smoothed out with a little time and patience.

when you gathered your belongings and walked away, nearly a month ago now, he allowed you to go, certain that this was just a phase, a moment of frustration that would pass.

"i thought we were just going through a rough patch," he continues, his voice carrying a self-assured edge. "didn't think you'd take it to this extreme. you really tried to embarrass me at work with that shit, everybody saw y’know, my colleagues, my boss.”

your eyes narrow at his response, the frustration that had simmered inside you starting to boil over. "It's not a game, nanami. this isn't some ploy for attention."

“so you’ve given up on me then? on us?” he asks incredulously, stepping closer to you, studying your face.

your gaze holds his, determination mixing with the hurt that still lingers. "i didn't want to give up, but i can't keep holding on to something that's slipping away."

nanami's eyes search yours, a moment of vulnerability flickering across his features before he masks it with his trademark confidence. "you think i'll just let you go that easily?"

you meet his gaze head-on, the tension between you palpable. "it's not about whether you'll 'let' me. it's about whether we're both willing to put in the effort to fix what's broken."

his smirk fades, his gaze intense as he studies you. "and? are you willing?"

nanami didn’t realise how silent his home was without you in it. when he returned, he sat in silence, the weight of your ultimatum sinking in. ‘it’s not a game nanami’ your previous words repeatedly echo through his mind. he had always prided himself on his rationality, on his ability to see things logically, but when it came to you, it was an unfamiliar territory,

he had grown accustomed to the routine of his life, the predictable patterns that had lulled him into a sense of complacency. he had convinced himself that the distance between you two would eventually close on its own. and now, confronted with the reality of your departure, he couldn't deny the truth any longer.

“you’ve really fucked this up nanamin,” gojo lectures over the phone to nanami, “you deserved getting embarrassed at your job.”

“i didn’t call you to be told off,” nanami says, pinching his nose “i called for you to tell me what to do.”

“Isn’t it obvious?” gojo questions, “you know what she wants.”

“If i did, i wouldn’t be on the phone with you, would i?” nanami snaps, frustration brewing.

“she wants the guy she married.” gojo states, ignoring nanami’s tone.

“I am that guy,” there was a pause, as if nanami could see gojo’s pointed look through the phone, “well i thought i was that guy. but i know she doesn’t want to divorce me for real, she loves me.”

“does she though?” gojo questions, “remember nanamin, i was there when you guys got married, the way she looked at you then… isn’t how she looks at you now.”

nanami ends the call abruptly, pacing around his living room. gojo’s words sticking in his mind. he had reached out to his friend seeking guidance, but it’s becoming evident that the answers he’s seeking might not be as straightforward as he had hoped.

gojo’s words struck a nerve, he was right. nanami remembers the early days of your relationship, the excitement, the adoration - the way your eyes would light up when you looked at him. but now, the distance, the hurt, it was evident.

he was going to make things right, he had to. you were his wife - his soulmate. he’s known that from the day he laid eyes on you, and he doesn’t want to let you out of his grasp.

it had been months since you served nanami the divorce papers – he was stalling. you couldn’t deny that he was trying though, the daily flowers that you received, the take out that was delivered to your house without you asking, was a testament to that.

you got daily calls, texts and emails from him asking you about your day, about your wellbeing. he was showing you that he cared, and it was as if he was courting you all over again.

his efforts didn’t go unnoticed, your friends and family could see the subtle smiles you couldn’t suppress and the softening of your eyes when his name was mentioned. they hoped for your sake that nanami would keep consistent.

you felt hopeful, and that made you feel dumb.

but you just needed one more push to feel secure, to feel like this would work – would last. which is why you were standing in the lobby of your lawyers office, your feet tapping nervously against the floor as you wait for your husband to arrive.

“hi, my love,” he greets, the familiar pet name coming out like a whisper, but it doesn’t go unnoticed, “i guess we should head up there.”

“yeah, lead the way,” you say, your tone warmer than you expect as you take in his appearance. he was dressed in one of his signature crisp suits, in fact it was your favourite suit of his, and he was wearing the hell out of it.

you follow him to the elevator, the hallway stretching ahead as you both walk side by side. you haven’t felt like this in a long time, like a pair, a union. nanami’s presence beside you is both familiar and foreign, a reminder of the life you once shared and the uncertainty of what lies ahead.

“we don’t have to go this meeting you know,” nanami forces out, but you ignore him pushing the button of the floor you need to be at.

“love listen, it doesn’t have to be this way,” he persists.

“and what way is it kento?” you argue, “just because you’ve been sending me flowers, and asking me how i am each day, doesn’t mean you’ve magically became husband material again.”

“trust me, i know that.” he scoffs, “you’re a real piece of work bu-”

“and you’re a real piece of sh-” you start, stopping yourself as you realise that you were the one going too far.

“as i was saying,” he continues, “you’re a real piece of work, but you’re worth it. you always have been, from the moment i met you i knew you were going to cause me trouble but i ended up loving you for that.”

“well tell that to your actions for the past–” you pause, feeling the elevator coming to an abrupt stop, “why did the elevator just close… the last thing i need right now is to be trapped.”

nanami's gaze shifts to the control panel, his eyebrows furrowing. "looks like we're stuck."

you glance at him, your heart racing for a different reason now. "stuck?"

nanami's eyes meet yours, his smirk undeniably playful. "Seems like fate has its own plans for us," he remarks, his tone holding a hint of amusement.

you roll your eyes, unable to suppress a small smile despite the circumstances. "great, just what I needed today."

he chuckles, his fingers expertly unbuttoning his cuffs as he begins to roll up his sleeves. "well, at least we have some time to ourselves. might as well make the most of it."

your eyebrows raise at his nonchalant attitude, your surprise momentarily replacing the irritation. "are you serious right now? we're stuck in an elevator, and you're acting like it's a casual evening at home?"

nanami's grin widens, a mischievous glint in his eyes. "why not? it's not like we can do much about the situation. might as well enjoy each other's company."

you huff out a breath, torn between annoyance and amusement. as you observe him making himself comfortable on the elevator floor, you can't help but shake your head. "you're unbelievable."

he pats the spot next to him, his inviting gesture a silent challenge. "come on, it's not so bad. we can reminisce about old times, or argue about who's the better cook."

you find yourself hesitating, the absurdity of the situation sinking in. with a resigned sigh, you take a seat beside him, your shoulder brushing against his. "old times, huh? you mean the days when you used to bring me breakfast in bed?"

nanami's smile softens, a nostalgic gleam in his eyes. "yeah, and you'd always complain that the eggs were overcooked."

“because they always were.” you retort, with a chuckle. you missed this, being in his space without any of the extra noise.

“i can cook breakfast for you again,” he proposes, “if you just come home.”

“kento i don’t know if i-”

“do you remember our first date,” he interrupts, “my car broke down on the way home from the restaurant, so i put you on my back and carried you for 5 miles.”

“you carried my heels too,” you add, laughing softly to yourself at the memory. your first date with nanami solidified that he was the man for you, the way he shamelessly gave you a piggy back ride, heels and all.

nanami’s gaze locks with yours, his fingers gently grazing your hand “it was worth every step.”

a warmth spreads through your chest, a mix of nostalgia and a newfound vulnerability. "you used to be so sweet," you murmur, your voice laced with a bittersweet longing.

his fingers inch closer, your hands almost brushing against each other. "i can still be sweet, you know," he replies softly, his gaze never leaving yours.

your heart skips a beat, the air around you growing charged with unspoken emotions. "you have a funny way of showing it."

he tilts his head, his lips curving into a genuine smile. "maybe I've been out of practice."

as the silence settles between you, the confined space of the elevator seems to amplify the intensity of your connection. the past rushes back, the moments that you shared, the love that once flourished. but you're both here now, in the present, faced with the choice of whether to rebuild or let go.

nanami's fingers finally find yours, his touch sending a jolt of electricity through your veins. "i want to make it right, to fix us," he admits, vulnerability lacing his words.

you meet his gaze, the weight of his confession hanging in the air. "It's not that simple, kento. we can't just go back to the way things were."

his thumb traces a soothing pattern on the back of your hand. "i know. but maybe we can start anew. rediscover each other, learn from our mistakes."

you study his face, the sincerity in his eyes making your heart ache. maybe he had changed, maybe he was willing to put in the effort to mend what was broken. maybe, just maybe, there was hope for your relationship after all.

the elevator's walls seem to fade away, leaving only the two of you in this suspended moment. The past and the present merge, and as you search his eyes for any signs of deceit, you find none. only a genuine desire to make things right.

"i've missed you," he whispers, his voice holding a vulnerability that resonates within you.

“you swallow the lump in your throat, your grip on his hand tightening. "i've missed you too."

nanami's fingers burned with a mixture of yearning and desperation as they reached out to trace the curve of your cheek. his touch was electric, sending a surge of heat through your veins. your breath hitched in response, your heart pounding against your ribs as his thumb brushed over your skin.

his touch was no longer tentative; it was a declaration, a silent proclamation of his desire. the air seemed to crackle with tension as his gaze bore into yours, his eyes dark and smouldering.

"i've wanted to do this for so long," he confesses, his voice a low growl sending a shiver down your spine.

his fingers slide from your cheek to your jawline, his touch igniting a fire within you. the space between you seemed to vanish as he closed in, his lips hovering just a breath away from yours. your eyes flutter closed as his thumb brushes over your lower lip, his touch setting your skin ablaze.

and then, his lips crash onto yours with a fierce hunger that leaves you breathless. it was a kiss that ignites a wildfire, a blaze of emotions that had been suppressed for far too long. his lips moved against yours with a fervour that matched the intensity of his touch, a dance of passion and longing.

his arms encircle you, pulling you flush against him as the kiss deepens. his mouth moves over yours with a possessive urgency, his tongue seeking entrance and igniting a fiery tangle of sensations. the taste of him was intoxicating, a heady mixture of desire and nostalgia.

your fingers claw at the fabric of his shirt, needing to feel him, to ground yourself in this moment. his body presses against yours, every contour and ridge igniting a cascade of sensations that pooled between your thighs.

his hands trail down your back, the touch leaving trails of fire in its wake. when he cups your hips and pulls you impossibly closer, a moan escaped your lips, swallowed by the intensity of the kiss.

as the kiss broke, your foreheads rest against each other, your breaths ragged and laboured. the air around you was thick with desire, the space between you charged with an unspoken promise.

"i need you," he murmurs against your lips, his voice laced with desperation.

your fingers tangle in his hair, pulling his head down for another searing kiss. It was a kiss that spoke of pent-up longing, of a love that refused to be extinguished. your bodies moulded together as if they were meant to fit perfectly, every touch a symphony of need and surrender.

“tell me you need me, love,” he gasps out, and you nod against him, “no i got to hear you say it.”

“i need you, i do,” you whimper against his lips, as his fingers slip below the waistline of your skirt, gently grazing your clit, “k-kento we can’t, have you forgotten where we are?”

“don’t tell me you’ve become shy whilst we’ve been separated,” he chuckles, smirking as he continues to toy with your pussy “you don’t remember all the times i’d have you bent over my desk in my office?”

you bite your lip at the memory, feeling yourself get wetter as nanami’s fingers enter you, his thumb pressing against your clit. nanami knew you inside and out, he knew how exactly where to touch, how to get you whine and writhe against him as you are now.

he took advantage of your exposed neck, biting and sucking against your collarbone as he continues to stroke your cunt. you were gushing over him, repeatedly clenching against his fingers, as he twists and pushes in and out of you.

“you always get so wet for me,” he praises, pulling his fingers out of you, his digits glistening coated with you. you can smell your own arousal from his hand as he grabs your chin, forcing you to stare at his lust filled eyes. “ride me.”

you didn’t need to be asked twice, you discard your skirt off on the elevator floor, as he unzips his pants. he strokes his dick as it gets harder just at the sight of you. he was back was against the wall, his legs sprawled out widely, the perfect opening for you to climb right into his lap.

you slid right onto him, letting out an exhale as he fills you. he presses a sloppy kiss against your lips as your cunt grips onto him. your hands dig into his shoulder as you bounce up and down on him, his hands having your hips in a firm hold to keep you in place.

nanami couldn’t keep his eyes off of you, the way you were taking him in like you needed him, was a sight he could never get tired off. you were so pretty, all fucked out on his dick, your eyes glossed over in a daze, the only thing you were focused on was him.

“d’you see now why i could never let you go?” he teases, thrusting upwards into you as one of his hands trails up to caress your cheek, his thumb parting your lips, “because this pussy’s mine.”

he quickens his pace, eager to get you to come undone all over him, the way your movements became slower, lazier, he could tell you were nearly at your peak. you bite on his thumb, suppressing your moans, as his merciless thrust begin to become too much.

“m’close kento, i-it’s too much,”

“I know my love, you’re taking me so well,” he praises, pushing deeper into you, “just hold out for a bit longer.”

“i-i can’t i-” you couldn’t finish your sentence as you feel yourself release all over him. nanami groans out his head collapsing in your cleavage as he finishes inside of you, your juices mixing with his.

the only sounds that can be heard are you both trying to catch your breath. nanami keeps his head pressed against your tits, still inside of you. you toy with his hair pushing his hair back to leave a gentle kiss against his head, his arms tighten around you and it was as if you could feel him smile against you. you knew from then that you and your husband was going to be okay.

“kento?” your voice wavers, a mixture of uncertainty and hope lacing your words.

“yes? my love,” he responds, his gaze locked onto yours.

your heart flutters as you gather your courage, the weight of the past and the possibilities of the future intertwining in your chest. "I think we can cancel that meeting with my lawyer."

nanami's smile broadens, but it's different this time – it's a smile that carries the weight of understanding and a newfound determination. he holds your gaze, and you can see the sincerity in his eyes, a silent promise of change and rediscovery.

you eventually got out of that elevator and you didn’t go home to your separate apartments, you went home, together.

extra an: so guys what did you think?? first time writing for smut, and for nanami so if it’s shit spare me. but I love him and I’d never divorce him. DIVIDERS FROM @/CAFEKITSUNE !!

#stampedwithanE★#jjk x reader #jujutsu kaisen x reader #nanami x reader #nanami angst #nanami fluff #jjk smut #nanami smut #jjk angst #jjk fluff #jujutsu kaisen fluff #jujutsu kaisen angst #jujutsu kaisen smut #nanami x you #nanami kento smut

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jamminvroomvroom · 9 months ago

Text

no more mister shy guy.

OP x fem!reader

in which you can’t work out why he just won’t sleep with you

i am neither normal, nor am i hinged! i hope you guys get the vision, i literally wrote this last night possessed by some feral urge bc i just love oscar sm and i’ve been needing to write for him sooo baaad. enjoy! pls lemme know what you think <3

songs to set the vibes: delicate by taylor swift, good looking by suki waterhouse, my kind of woman by max demarco, feeling myself by wolf alice

warnings: 18+!! minors dni!! smut, pwp but also there is some plot? overstimulation, crying in a hot way, choking, unprotected sex (L bozo don’t do that!) the most minor moment of angst, fluff

2.8k words

you watch him make coffee, daydreaming, balancing your heavy head on your hand. you study him while your free hand taps against the kitchen counter, nails drumming a random beat. sunlight streams through a gap in the curtains, framing him golden. you don’t think he knows how pretty he is.

oscar is oblivious to the way your mind is ticking behind him, twisting the cap on the carton of oat-milk. you hear the plastic fall onto the counter and your tongue wets your lower lip as he reaches up into the cupboard, his back flexing beneath his shirt as he finds your favourite mug. you realise then how swollen your lip is, snapped out of the trance he had you in, the one that had you biting your lip so hard, completely mindlessly.

he’s bulked up over the winter break, filled out a lot over the course of his rookie season. he’s no longer the scrawny, anxious guy you’d met at your fathers work event a year ago, he’s broader, thicker in your hands, utterly delicious. as much as you like the way he looks, you like his mind a whole lot more. if only you knew what was going on inside it.

oscar is an enigma, quiet, hilariously dry, the kindest man you’d ever had the pleasure of meeting. you’ve been together since the start of the winter break, november, after awkward run ins and plenty of pining since the start of his first season. you’d travel to races with your dad, a mclaren sponsor, and run into the australian, stare at each other and pretend no one noticed. after months of teasing from lando, oscar finally got the kick up the arse that he needed and you’d said yes to dinner before he’d even finished asking the question.

it’s february now, a week til he needs to be in bahrain. the last three months had been serene, spent with a man made of sunshine, and you’re sad to see him go, as if you won’t be in the emirates a mere four days after him. you fear the way you’ll ache for him, having been inseparable since the dinner that started it all.

but then again, it can’t be worse than the way you ache for him now.

“sweetheart?” oscar is waving his hand in front of your face when you realise he’s been calling your name for a good 15 seconds, and you have, in fact, been staring. hm? you jump, staring at him bewildered. he looks amused. “you okay?” he coos, sliding the coffee across the island towards you.

“yeah, sorry, i, um, i just- why won’t you have sex with me?” you blurt, slapping your hand over your mouth as soon as you realise what you’ve just said.

oscar just blinks, mouth forming a little o, the permanent blush he seems to have increasing tenfold. you instantly feel guilty for ambushing him, but you were at the end of your tether. three months of nothing, nada, zilch. every move you made was refuted, ignored as if he was oblivious. you were ravenous for him, he’s so gorgeous! and you didn’t want to pressure him, but you were starting to feel like there was something wrong with you.

you’d wake up in bed with him wrapped around you, grinding against your ass in his sleep, and you’d revel in it, the rare times that he actually seemed to want you like that. you loved him regardless, of course you did, but you’d be lying if you said you didn’t need to be… dealt with. urgently.

“i- um- what?” oscar splutters, and the bottom of his mug blinks against the granite.

“is there something wrong with me? am i not pretty enough?” you whisper, shy. “do you just not… like- do you not want to do that?” you ramble.

panic fills his face, and he’s rushing around the island, by your side in an instant. he takes your hands into his, finding your eyes. they’ve grown watery, a mixture of guilt and desperation swirling in them which makes him feel ill.

“baby, no, god no.” he rushes the words out, desperate to convince you that it wasn’t you. “you’re the most beautiful person in the entire world, prettiest girl i ever saw.” he promises. “i’m just… it’s scary.”

“oh, osc.” your face falls, and you want to throw yourself off of the balcony. “i’m sorry, i didn’t mean to pressure you. if it makes you feel better, i’m scared too. but i love you so much, i just want to feel even closer to you.”

“you didn’t make me feel pressured, i’m just sorry i made you feel unwanted. trust me, i want you like that. drives me insane. but i’ve never had sex before with someone that i love. not the way i love you, anyway. scared that i won’t be good enough for you.” he murmurs.

you’re hung up on the part where you drive him crazy, the part where he loves you like that, and then you remember how vulnerable he’s being, baring his entire soul to you, and you rip yourself from the fantasy.

your hands smooth over his shoulders, until you’re softly fisting a clump of hair at the nape of his neck.

“i love you. insanely. we’ll go slow.” you state. he moulds further against you, and you quickly realise it’s for leverage, because the next thing you know, you’re in his arms. he has his hands hooked under your thighs and he’s kissing you so, so deeply that you’re dizzy. you don’t realise that you’re halfway to his bedroom until he pulls away.

“i don’t wanna go slow anymore.”

oscar places you on your feet at the end of his bed, the large, plush king-sized mattress that is currently calling both of your names. your blouse gets unbuttoned first, his hands shaking in a way that makes you melt, and his lips trail over every inch of bare skin that he uncovers. when it finally falls to the floor, his pupils are blown wide, his hands palming intricate black lace. your jeans are stripped away mercilessly, his hands shaking less now, and you take it as a sign to crawl backwards onto the bed.

he stands there, watching you, apprehensive again. you can see how hard he is, how desperately strained his cock is through the light grey of his sweatpants, and so you switch tactics. your hand grazes your tummy, skimming up your abdomen until you reach a bra strap. you toy with the elastic, holding the kind of eye contact that makes him twitch, tugging it until it hangs loosely off of your shoulder.

“i need you, osc. i trust you.” you utter, soft and enticing. one finger runs under the cup of your bra, flicking over your nipple. he can just about see the hardened bud through the lace of your bra. it’s not enough, though, and every ounce of self control depletes when you whine, “want you inside of me so badly.”

the elastic band snaps and he’s on top of you, rutting between your legs like a man starved. you drag his shirt up and over his shoulder blades, moaning as you feel each and every muscle under your fingertips.

“just wanna make you feel good.” oscar rasps, rolling his hips even harder into your core.

“take these off.” you beg, pulling at the waistband of his joggers. he somehow musters the strength to pry himself off of you, just long enough to discard the uncomfortable material of his sweats, but as soon as he looks down, his plans change.

painted over the crotch of them is a shiny pool of your slick, and when his eyes flit hungrily to your core, he sees where you’ve soaked through your panties. you’re panting when you see the stain, and you just want to get him inside of you, but his priorities have changed. oscar collapses between your legs, head buried, tongue exploring.

he groans, carnal and needy, into the fabric of your underwear, laving his tongue over the lace. your eyes widen as he dives in, licking over the wet patch until he grows frustrated. you hear the tearing of the fabric, feel his big hands pawing at your thighs to spread them as wide as they’ll go. his tongue slides right inside of you and he whines. he fucking whines. the vibration nearly makes you scream. you can’t believe this is your oscar, the same oscar that had quivered with nerves a mere five minutes ago.

“oh my god.” you chant, rolling your hips against his face. you must be all over him by now, what with the way he’s sucking and slurping, obscene sounds of wetness sounding around the room. you’d be blushing a deep red if you weren’t so turned on, shaking against his bedspread which will probably need changing once he’s done with you.

you thought that maybe he was inexperienced and that was the source of his fear, but if he was, you never would have known. he was a natural in between your legs, nipping at your clit to get you even louder for him.

you cum faster than ever, and he’s mumbling something incoherent into your pussy when you do. you’re riding the high, midway through the bliss, when a thick finger slips its way inside of you. oscar realises that he can easily slide another in, and he does. he doesn’t thrust them in and out, he grinds them against your walls, and your mouth falls open as a silent scream forces it’s way out.

you cum a second time, in record time yet again, and he still doesn’t let up. he’s hitting that spot relentlessly with his fingers, keeping your clit between his swollen lips, and you’re begging him. for what, you’re not sure, but you’re whimpering his name like you’re going to die. and what a good way to go this would be.

his eyes meet yours, and he looks unhinged. that’s when you feel it. that all consuming, belly twisting rush.

“oscar!” you try to warn him, but it’s too late, and he knows it. he makes you squirt, because of course he does. the shy guy who was scared that he wouldn’t be able to please you makes you squirt.

he pulls his mouth off of you but keeps his fingers buried deep, eyes fixed on watching the way your pussy convulses.

“holy shit.” you cry. you’re staring down at him like you’ve gone insane. he’s smiling innocently.

“was that good?” he almost sounds shy and you want to kick him.

“are you… are you serious?” you rasp. oscar just shrugs. “get up here.” you reach for him and complies, slotting himself between your legs once more.

oscar resumes the rolls of his hips, and the friction of the grey fabric against your core makes your eyes roll back.

“please, oscar, fuck me.” you whine, his head falling into the crook of your neck. he bites down, leaving behind the sting of his teeth and a faint purple splotch.

“fucking love you.” he slurs, his accent thickening in a way that makes him sound that extra bit fucked out already.

“i love you.” you murmur, forcing his sweats down his legs. his boxers are wet, just like your panties were, and you can’t help but stare. oh, it’s big.

his boxers are peeled down and you can feel yourself throbbing. his cock hangs heavy, red and dripping, painfully hard. you reach for it, looking at him to make sure it’s okay to touch, and he’s rapidly nodding his head. your small hand struggles but you make it work, and his head tips back, exposing his thick neck that you want to suck purple. your hand works over him a few times, and a visible shiver running through his body makes you stop.

“you ready for me?” he asks through gritted teeth.

“please.” you gasp, locking your legs around his waist. “however you want me, ‘m yours.” you breathe.

oscar’s eyes roll back in his head, your words sending his brain blank, and then he’s pushing home, slow and deep.

“fucking hell.” he groans, guttural. you’re so tight, warm, soaking wet. he feels like the biggest idiot in the world for waiting so long for this.

“oh.” you gasp, your eyebrows knitting together. he’s so deep. “so full.” you pant.

“can you take it, sweetheart?” oscar’s lips bump your jaw. “want you to take it.” you nod profusely, desperate to hear him run his mouth even further. your eyes clench shut when you feel him move, just the tiniest bit, readjusting.

“move.” you plead. he’s staring down at you, watching every single micro movement of your face.

oscar pulls out the smallest bit and thrusts back in, nice and slow. the drag drives you feral, the weight of him on top of you makes you weak. you want to stay like this until the end of days.

“good?” he hisses, trying to keep composed. he’s finally inside of you, claiming you as his in the most intimate way of all. he tries not to think about how many times he could have had you begging under him in the last three months.

“so good, so good.” you repeat, pushing your hips up to try and meet his.

“so pretty like this for me. always so, so pretty.” he rambles. he realises that he never quite made it as far as getting your bra off, and he needs to see all of you. the cups are tugged haphazardly down, and oscar stares at your breasts like he’s never seen tits before. you hear him hum, low and greedy, and then you feel the wet drag of his tongue across your nipple.

the animalistic whine that he rips from you makes him thrust harder, upping his pace a bit. he can hear how much wetter you get when he picks up his pace, and he changes up his rhythm, pushing all the way in and dragging out again at lightning speed. your jaw goes slack and your eyes are damp.

“baby, what’s wrong?” oscar slows to a stop, and you want to scream.

“no, no, no, keep going.” you choke out, your throat constricting with a sob. “it’s so good. feel so good.” you sound drunk, all for him, and he loses his mind completely.

he taps into that athletic stamina, fucking into you with a newfound vigour that you didn’t think was humanly possible, and you feel things that you didn’t even know you could feasibly feel. you see stars behind your eyes, his face, and nothing else but bright white. calloused fingers find your clit, and you wonder fleetingly if he’s trying to kill you when he rubs messy shapes into the much too overstimulated bud. his teeth graze your nipple, and everything seems to come together perfectly.

thick tears run hot down your cheeks, only to be licked away by eager tongue. your belly tightens, aflame for him; he’s wound your body up perfectly and you’ve never in your life teetered so dangerously over the edge.

“can feel you, baby. want you to cum, okay? ‘n then i’m gonna fill you up.” oscar grunts. you clamp down on him even tighter, thanking god for oscar’s filthy fucking mouth and birth control, and then everything snaps.

you think you scream, you know that you’re sobbing, and your throat is raw when the wave hits. oscar keeps going, intensifying your pleasure, and when he finally let’s go, it’s the most beautiful fucking thing you’ve ever seen. it’s surreal, the way his neck flexes, eyes clenched tight, brown locks flopping over his sweat damped forehead. and the sounds he makes, god. he’s muttering into your ear, lewd and shameless, and a fifth orgasm nearly takes you under.

“gonna need you everyday like this, tight fucking pussy, all mine. can’t live without this now. fucking perfect.” he’s rambling, burrowing deep into you one last time. you feel his warmth spilling into you, feel his hot breath fanning your face. he licks into your awaiting mouth.

“fuck.” you giggle, breathless.

“good?” he raises an eyebrow, grinning bashfully.

“more than worth the wait.” you whisper, mustering the strength to lift your head just enough so that you can peck his lips. “you better not hold out on me ever again though.” oscar laughs at that and you feel the rumble in your flushed chest.

“you promise?” there’s the shy guy again.

“osc, honey, that was the best. ever. ever. need you to be mr sex god more often.”

“only if you behave for me.” he smirks down at you.

“there he is.” you sigh happily.

when he snakes his way back between your legs, lapping up the mess he’s made, and then some, you wonder just what you’ve unleashed.

whoops? lol

taglist

@thegirlinthefandoms @mcmuppet @japanesekel @vinvantae @ggaslyp1 @dr3lover @smiithys @rachstash @infinitebells @fizzpopsnap101 @gaily19 @icecoldtires @mysticalnightenthusiast @thatchickwiththecamera @oyesmendes @disneydaydreameralways @canyouseethesainz @ferrarifwendvale @fcbformulaeri @tony-stank3 @maih23 @nokiaholland @soleilgrec @carolineworld @anthonykatebridgerton @allywthsr @iamasimpingh0e @ophcelia @lovelynikol16 @coffeehurricanes @jennx03 @blueflorals @lqvesoph @sidcrosbyspuck @better-dead-than-smeg @buendiabebeta @pjofics @kovalcin @wintergilmore3 @for-writing-shit @youdontknowmeshh @im-an-overthinker @jule239 @darleneslane @jazzy722 @weasleyswizarding-wheezes @therealone4r @pleasecallmeunhinged @theonlyadrienne @spideylovin @charli123456789

(run outta space on my taglist lol, lemme know if u wanna be added or removed)

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headkiss · 1 year ago

Text

something more

pairing: aaron hotchner x fem!bau!reader

summary: you and aaron are friends with feelings more obvious than you think. or: 5 times the team suspects you and hotch are dating +1 time they know it.

word count: 6.6k

warnings: friends to lovers, the team being a little nosy, pining idiots!!!, probably inaccurate descriptions of bau jobs (for the plot!), a very small injury, a birthday, a first kiss, and fluff!

a/n: hiii this one has been a long time coming so thank you guys for being so patient with me!!! and special thanks to the anon who requested this one! i hope u guys enjoy it and please please let me know what you think <3 ily

༄

Aaron Hotchner was never someone you thought you could be this close to.

Coming to the BAU, you’d been intimidated more than anything. As Unit Chief, he’s got a reputation that’s hard to ignore. Professional, brave, cold when he has to be. His success and talent were undeniable, and all you wanted to do was prove that you belonged there, too.

Then, you really met him, and he surprised you in a way you hadn’t expected. Hotch was kind right off the bat, welcoming you to the team with a smile that felt like some sort of prize.

He was an excellent boss. Understanding and protective, quick to defend anyone on the team like they were his own family. Except, he was so much more than just your boss.

Now, you’d call him your closest friend, someone who’s number you’d call if you were in trouble. He’s your closest friend and yet you feel so much more for him.

It started slow, a friendship blooming the way a plant does with just enough sunlight. It was a shared smile here, a nudge of the shoulder there. It grew to be a seat next to him reserved for you on every plane ride.

Today, it’s eating lunch with him in his office.

Aaron usually works through lunch, more eager to get things done than he is to worry about skipping a meal. Somehow, with two tupperware containers in your hand and a sweet smile, you’d managed to get him to take a break.

“Whatcha doing?” You’d asked.

Hotch looked up from his paperwork then, dropping his pen because you were in his doorway. “You know, Unit Chief business. Reports.”

“Sounds like you have time for lunch, then.” You set the containers down on his desk, making sure to avoid the papers he’d just been working on.

“I should really get this done-”

“Hotch,” you stopped him, “you and I both know that you’re always ahead on this stuff because you stay here so late. Lunch won’t set you back.”

With a shake of his head and the biting back of a smile, a simple twitch at the corners of his mouth, Aaron agreed and stacked his paperwork off to the side.

That’s how you’ve ended up in the chair that’s usually on the opposite side of his desk, only now it’s tugged to be next to his. Your knees touch every so often when one of you shifts, and the warmth stays with you even when the contact is gone.

“Sorry it’s nothing fancy,” you say as he opens the container you brought for him.

“Don’t apologize. It’s great.” Hotch has a way of saying things that make them sound true, no matter how few words he uses, so you accept it.

“Okay, good!” There’s a small silence, a lull as you both take your first bites. “Can I help with anything?”

Aaron looks from the paperwork to your face, your eyes already on his. “You don’t have to do that.”

“I want to,” you reassure him. “I think sometimes you forget that you aren’t the only one who can do this stuff.”

He knocks his knee against yours. Purposeful this time. A silent ‘thank you.’

“Like you said, I’m ahead anyways. I’ve got it.”

“Come on, Hotch. I’m already done with my report from our last case. I’ve got time. Let me help.”

He’s always been reluctant to accept help, to ask for it, but when you’re asking so sweetly, when it’ll give him an excuse to spend more time with you, it’s hard for Aaron to say no.

“Alright. You help for an hour, that’s it.”

You grin at him, like his acceptance of your offer was some kind of gift he’d given you. Your nose crinkles a little with it, and his hand flexes in his lap, like he’s fighting not to reach out to you.

“Okay, put me to work, boss.”

“We just started lunch,” he says, a little chuckle puffing out.

“Have you ever heard of multitasking, Agent Hotchner?”

Aaron laughs, shaking his head as he reaches for one of the files in the stack he’d made and hands it to you. He’d call everyone at the BAU a friend, but there’s something different, something more about how he’d describe you.

He’s grown closer to you than he usually lets himself get to people, like you’re the only one with the right tools to break through walls he’s put up. You see each other outside of work (on the rare days you aren’t working), and still, he feels like it’s never long enough.

Hotch briefly wonders if he could just move your desk into his office. He shakes off the thought and what it might mean.

Head bent, you’re now focused on the work he gave you, and Aaron takes the chance to admire you. His eyes flick over your profile, the light hitting your cheeks, the flutter of your eyelashes every time you blink.

As if you could feel his gaze on you, you turn towards him and smile—a small, closed-mouth smile, but a smile all the same—before turning your attention back to the page.

When you take a pause and take another bite of your lunch, a small drop of sauce lands on your thigh. “Oh, shit.”

Aaron grabs a tissue from the box on his desk, wrapping it over his fingertip before wiping the small spot from your leg, his finger a spark against you even through your pants.

“Good thing you wore black,” he says, tossing the tissue in the garbage. His hand, however, stays on your leg, and though the touch is light the weight of it feels the opposite. Heavy, huge.

“Good thing you’re here to clean up after me, more like.”

Your eyes meet, and you share a smile with Hotch the way you often do. Mid-conversation, across a room, it’s a smile you sort of reserve for each other.

In the main office below, Derek, Spencer, and JJ stand together, watching the interaction through the window into Hotch’s office. You and Aaron seem to be in your own bubble, completely unaware of your small audience.

“They’ve gotta be together,” Derek is the first to speak, waving a hand towards the office where you and Hotch are talking. “I mean, come on.”

“I don’t know,” JJ shrugs, “they both seem kinda clueless.”

“We probably shouldn’t speculate about them,” Spencer, always the sweetheart, says. “But, statistically, Hotch never eats lunch. Just saying.”

JJ pats Reid on the shoulder, huffing out a laugh before she heads back to her desk.

You stay in Aaron’s office much longer than an hour that day.

Punctuality is important in the BAU. Really, if you’re not early, you’re late. You’ve always got to be ready, wheels up in ten, or five.

You suppose that doesn’t really apply to outside-of-the-office parties at Garcia’s.

It’s rare that you’re all available at the same time, from late nights at the bureau to families, it’s tough to make your schedules line up when you aren’t working, which is why whenever she can, Penelope likes to host drinks for the team.

You’re on your way there now, or, you should be. Instead, you’re getting ready in your bedroom while Aaron waits in your living room.

Hotch has offered to drive you to these things every time, and with every offer, comes your easy answer of ‘yes.’ He’d been outside in his car for five minutes before he decided to call, because you’re usually in his passenger seat within seconds of him pulling over by your building.

The ringing of your phone had your eyes blinking open, squinted against the sudden brightness of your TV. You’d accidentally fallen asleep, and, still disoriented, picked up the phone. “Hello?”

“Hey, everything okay?” It’s Aaron’s voice on the other line, and you pull your phone away for a second to check the time before sitting up quickly.

“Shit, Hotch, I must’ve fallen asleep. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s alright, I can wait for you.” He’d wait as long as you need, he thinks. The thought passes through like a leaf blown in the wind, freely, randomly.

“Have you been waiting long?” You ask, fingers tugging at a loose thread in your pants.

“No, don’t worry. Barely five minutes.”

And he still wanted to check on you.

“Why don’t you come in? My couch is probably more comfortable than your car, right?”

“You sure?” He checks, like he hasn’t been to your place before, like you’d ever not want him there.

“Get in here, Hotchner.”

You hung up before he could reply, and he laughed to himself in his car before shutting it off and doing exactly what you’d told him.

So, now, you’re rushing to find an outfit while Aaron sits on your couch by himself.

Even though he’s in the next room, you can feel his presence around you, the steady security he gives you, the warmth that seeps out of him even when he tries to hide it.

You settle on a knitted sweater, a skirt, and some tights, which you realize as you tug them on aren't the speediest of options, but it’s too late to change your mind now. With your hair figured out and the mascara that had smudged during your nap fixed, you step back out into the living room.

Aaron made himself at home while you were gone (he often feels that way with you, at home), sitting on your couch with his arms spread across the back. He looks better than he should there, suit stretched across his shoulders, and you have to clear your throat to snap yourself out of it.

“Okay, sorry again for the delay. I’m ready to go.”

He looks up as soon as you walk in, eyes skimming over your legs and the tights wrapped around them, your waist, up your neck. His gaze lands on your eyes the way it often does, like magnets.

He shakes his head, “don’t be sorry. We’ll be what they call ‘fashionably late.’”

You laugh, because who would’ve thought that the words ‘fashionably late’ would ever come out of Aaron Hotchner’s mouth.

“Who taught you that one, huh?”

“I like to keep my sources anonymous.”

“Well okay, then. Let’s go be fashionably late, Hotch.”

He lets you lead the way to the car, only jogging up ahead to open your door before you can reach it yourself.

During the drive to Penelope’s, you take control of the music with little objection from Aaron, and when it gets to a song you know he likes, you sing along, encouraging him to do the same.

“Let’s hear it, Agent Hotchner.” You hold your fist out like there’s a microphone in it, looking at him with a grin on your face.

“I can't sing.” Aaron’s fighting off a smile, because you’re sitting beside him, not too shy to sing along, being all cute and, briefly, he thinks about reaching out and grabbing your hand and holding on.

“Sure you can! Everyone can sing, come on.” You unfurl your faux microphone-holding fist and tug on the knot of his tie, “loosen up a little.”

And, because you have some way of convincing him of things—first lunch, now this—he humors you by joining in for one chorus of the song. When your eyes light up a little, and your grin only widens, he can’t bring himself to be too concerned of how bad he probably sounds.

By the time you’re at Garcia’s door you’re a solid hour late, yet you and Aaron walk up to the door with matching smiles all the same.

“I’m getting you to do that every time I hear that song now, I hope you know.”

“That was a one time special,” he says. He reaches over your shoulder to knock on the door. His hand brushes against you, featherlight and quick, a crackle over your skin.

On the other side, Morgan says, “must be the lovebirds” when he hears the sound.

You and Aaron don’t hear him, only broken out of your little shared bubble when Penelope opens the door. “There you guys are! I made your drinks but the ice might be melted by now. You know, ‘cause you’re late.”

You know this is directed towards you more than it is Hotch, because Garcia’s a little intimidated by him still. You also know she’s only joking, and greet her with a hug before stepping in.

Aaron isn’t far behind you, though at these things, he never is.

You’re met with warm greetings from the team when you walk in, and you chat for a bit, but it isn’t long before things split off into smaller conversations. They all know that Aaron drives you to these things, and, as profilers, they’re also all able to see the way you look at each other, the way the knot of his tie sits lower than usual.

In the corner, Emily leans over to Derek, saying, “usually it takes at least two drinks for Hotch’s tie to look like that.”

“I told you, they’re together,” Derek shrugs.

“I don’t think they know that,” Emily replies.

This time, Aaron hears them, and he can’t help but look towards you in the room the rest of the night, thinking and thinking and thinking.

He ends up deciding that they might have a point. That maybe, that shift in his heartbeat when you’re around isn’t nothing, isn’t just friends.

The flight home from a case always feels the longest.

On the way there, you’re packing every hour with information about what’s going on, talking to Garcia, reading police reports. You’re all on edge, eager to get out there and help and do your jobs,

Then, on the way home, with another case solved, all you’re thinking about is going home, sleeping in your own bed, and time seems to go slower.

If your name happens to be Aaron Hotchner, you’d spend the plane ride home doing paperwork that actually can wait.

You and Aaron sit next to each other on pretty much every flight, though the seats have never been assigned. It’s an unspoken thing, like your names are written on the fabric of the same two seats on the jet and that’s just the way it is.

The first time was early on in your time on the team. It was a tough case for you, and Hotch seemed to know it without you having to say anything, so, when you got on the jet to come home, he smiled that small, twitch of his lips smile at you and nodded at the seat next to him. You’ve been sitting there ever since.

Today, your flight is on the shorter side, but feels long the way it always does. Trying to keep yourself occupied, you pull out your earbuds and shuffle your playlist, hoping that the songs will speed things up.

“Sick of me already?” Hotch speaks up when he notices your headphones.

You tilt your head to look at him. He looks tired, the way you’re sure you do, too, but never any less handsome. His eyes are soft where they meet yours, paired with a hint of a smile that you’re always able to catch.

“Sick of you, Hotch? Never.” You nod at the file he has open on the small table, “just didn’t want to distract you.”

“I thought you enjoyed distracting me. Always telling me I work too much.”

“‘Cause it’s true,” you say. “That doesn’t mean you listen.”

“I listen to you more than I listen to most people.” Aaron’s voice is gentle when he says it, the words sinking in and melting you just a little, sugary sweet. It could mean absolutely nothing, but with the way he keeps his eyes steady on yours, you don’t think it does.

“Listen to this, then,” you hand him one of your earbuds, and his fingers brush yours when he takes it from you. “But you can’t make fun of me if a musical soundtrack comes on, okay?”

“Okay,” he huffs a small laugh, and you feel a little brighter. “I promise.”

You’re aware of the team having their own conversations in the rows in front of you and Hotch, but you can’t bring yourself to join in, because you and Aaron are sharing your earbuds and his head is bent just a little closer to yours. It’s delicate, and you’ll do your best not to break it.

You talk a little longer, until it naturally fizzles out and Hotch is back to working on his files and you’re bobbing your head along to your songs. Only now, Aaron sits closer to you, his arm against yours.

He’s not sure what to do with his newfound realization that his feelings for you run far deeper than friendship. All Aaron knows is that he likes the feeling of you beside him, and that he’s planning on keeping you there as long as you’ll let him.

It’s quiet between the two of you aside from your occasional ‘this is a good one,’ and his hum of acknowledgement.

Eventually, you’re relaxed enough that your eyes grow heavy, the sleep you’ve been lacking suddenly catching up to you, and when you hit a patch of slower songs you’re fighting to stay awake.

When your head lulls onto Hotch’s shoulder, you jerk your head up, “sorry, Aaron.”

His chest does something funny. A jump. It’s not often you call him Aaron, and he’d listen to the sound of his name on your lips on a loop if he could. Because he can’t help himself, he scooches himself even closer to you.

He decides to call you something different, too, saying, “it’s alright, honey.”

You’re too sleepy to really read into that one, all you feel is the flutter in your stomach and Aaron’s hand on your head, gently guiding it to his shoulder.

When he’s sure you’re asleep, Hotch looks away from his files and over to you. Your cheek is squished against his shoulder, your lashes fanned shut. He thinks you’re the prettiest girl he’s ever seen.

Aaron doesn’t even feel the smile that spreads over his face as he reaches up and pushes your hair away from your face. He’s completely unaware of the eyes that catch him, far too focused on you.

Emily turned around when she realized she hadn’t heard your voice in a bit, and she did it just in time to catch Hotch’s movement. Instead of saying something, she turns back around and shakes her head to herself.

Hopeless, she thinks.

Sleep doesn’t come so easily with this job, with the things you see, so Aaron can’t help but try and stay steady for you, and if that leads to him letting his eyes close and resting his head on yours, then so be it.

It’s not until the end of the flight that the team checks on the two of you. As everyone stands and grabs their go bags, they notice the two of you, asleep next to each other, earbud wires hanging between you.

“Should we wake them up?” JJ asks.

“Hotch doesn’t get enough sleep as it is,” Spencer chimes in. “Neither does she, actually.”

Of course, Derek finishes with, “let’s leave the lovebirds to it,” before the team gets off the plane.

It’s only about twenty minutes later that Aaron does wake up, but he feels more well-rested than he has in a while, even with the kink in his neck.

Blinking his eyes open, he’s met with an empty jet and the comforting weight of your head on his shoulder. “Shit,” he sighs.

He debates waking you, ultimately deciding that you’d probably rather sleep in your bed rather than the seat of the BAU’s jet. Reaching up, he pulls your earbuds away, setting them on the table. With a brush of his fingertips to your cheek, he coaxed you awake.

“Hey, honey,” Aaron’s nearly whispering, like he’s afraid to scare you. Or, maybe, he’s convinced that if he moves too quickly, too loudly, this whole thing will fade away as if he’d been dreaming. “Wake up, we’re home.”

“Hm?” You grumble, scrunching your nose when he brushes your cheek again.

“We fell asleep, but we landed.”

“Oh, god.” You sit up properly, lifting your head. “I’m sorry, Aaron. Hotch.”

“Aaron is good,” he eases you. “Come on, I’ll drive you.”

Sleep-hazed, or maybe just happy that he can be Aaron to you, you agree easily and take his hand when he offers it, letting him lead you to his car.

You’ve been spending more time at Aaron’s ever since that flight. In the car, he’d convinced you to stay over at his place in the guest room, since it was closer. With your go bag already in his car and heavy, sleepy eyes, it was hard for you to do anything but agree.

It’s another slice of his life that he’s let you see, and you can’t help but feel like it means something, like you’re stepping further and further away from being coworkers who are friends and towards something different. Something more.

That flight feels like the catalyst, the thing that caused things to shift into what they are now.

Aaron’s couch is much more comfortable than yours, and though you’ve yet to spend the night again, you’re sitting there with him at almost every chance. The time off you get is rare, and Aaron wanting to spend it with you sends flutters to your stomach whenever you think about it.

You feel like you know him better, getting to see his space, how he chose to decorate, what colors he likes, which ones he doesn’t. You also know what temperature he likes to set his thermostat.

“Do you enjoy living in a refrigerator?” You ask, hands tucked into your sleeves. “Just wondering.”

Aaron laughs, a small huff, “I think you just run cold, honey.”

He’s been calling you that a lot, too. Honey.

“No way, Hotchner. Your house is what runs cold. Or maybe you’re cold-blooded.”

Not with you, he thinks. Years and years of doing what he does, Hotch might even call himself cold when he’s thinking a little too hard. But never cold with you. He thinks that might be impossible for him.

“Shhh, don’t tell anyone my secret,” he says, his arm brushing against yours from where he sits next to you on his couch. “Where are you cold?”

“Can’t feel my toes, Aaron. I might be out of commission for the next case.”

“Well we can’t lose our best girl, can we?” Best girl, he says. Like he means it, like it’s simple. “I’ve got some thick socks you can grab. Bottom drawer.”

Just like that, he’s cracked another wall of his down even further, giving you permission to go into his bedroom as if you’ve been in there a thousand times.

“Really?”

“Unless you’d rather not feel your toes-“

“Okay, okay,” you stop him, unable to fight your smile. “Thanks, Aaron.”

When you stand and head towards his room, Aaron can’t stop himself from thinking that you belong there, in his home, his room, his life. You fit in so seamlessly he wishes you’d never leave.

He stands up too, because the couch suddenly feels sort of empty without you beside him, without your warmth. He walks over to his thermostat on the wall and turns it up for you.

You’ve always thought that you can tell a lot about a person from where they live, and seeing Aaron’s bedroom now solidifies it. His place does too, but there’s something about his bedroom that feels much more personal.

Here, there’s more of him, little bits of his life scattered around. A picture of him as a kid with his parents on the dresser, the newspaper’s crossword sitting completely finished on his nightstand, his bed neatly made.

You smile at the framed photo before slipping the top drawer open and finding the pair of socks he’d been talking about. As much as you’d love to snoop, you don’t want to invade his privacy in any way. Besides, from Aaron, even a glimpse of his space feels special.

You slip on the socks before you leave his room, letting them bunch at your ankles.

As soon as you walk back into the living room, Aaron’s phone rings. Glancing at you softly, almost apologetically though he’s got nothing to be sorry about—you work with him, you know how important a call can be—he picks it up.

“Hotchner,” he says, holding it to his ear. His voice is different this way, more professional, controlled. Never any less pleasing to hear.

He’d wanted to say something about how good you look in his clothes when his phone rang, Garcia’s name flashing on the screen. Aaron wishes it was someone else, only to spend more time with you this way.

“Sorry to call late, sir,” Penelope says. “We’ve got a case. Missing kid; it’s urgent.”

“Don’t be sorry, Garcia. We’re on our way.”

“Wait, we?” She asks, curious as always.

“What’s going on?” You ask Aaron.

“Got a case. I’ll drive, honey.” He lets the pet name slip, like it’s a habit.

On the other line, Garcia’s grinning to herself in her office. She’d had a suspicion of who on the team Hotch would be with outside of work, and hearing your voice, and his use of the word ‘honey’ all sticky sweet, she knows she’s onto something.

“Oh, that’s ‘we,’” Penelope’s voice teases. “Tell her I’ll see you guys soon!”

Aaron shakes his head, fighting his smile. “Bye, Garcia.”

He hangs up and looks from his phone to you, your eyes already on him, corners of your mouth tugged up just a little like you’d heard what Garcia said, heard the lilt in her voice. Like you liked the idea of you and Aaron being a unit. We.

He likes that idea, too.

Back at the BAU, Garcia calls Derek next, who picks up with his classic, “hey, babygirl.”

First, she tells him that he needs to come into the office, that they’ve got a case, then, “you’re never going to believe this.”

Penelope loves to talk, and Derek’s happy to listen, so she tells him about how you’d been with Aaron when she called, and that you were on your way together.

“I give them another week, max, before they’re holding hands when they come in.” Derek laughs, because he can see yours and Hotch’s feelings so easily, plain as day, and he loves to be right about things.

“How mad will Hotch be when he finds out that we talk about his relationship?” Penelope’s mostly joking, only a fraction concerned.

“If the boss didn’t want us talking about it, he shouldn’t be so obvious, sweetheart.”

Once you arrive at the office, you don’t catch Penelope and Derek’s shared looks behind yours and Aaron’s—who happens to be carrying both his and your go bag—backs.

And if anyone notices the loose socks around your ankles, they don’t say anything about it.

You’re not supposed to go off on your own unless it’s absolutely necessary. You know that, the team knows that. Aaron, who is always trying to keep you as safe as possible, enforces it.

You guess that this time might be up for debate.

When it comes to what you do, you have to trust your instincts most of the time. And today, your gut told you to make a decision that might not have been safe, but to you, it felt like what you had to do.

Aaron had been on the phone with you, trying to figure out a way to make the car drive any faster to get to you. He’d heard it in your voice, in the tone of it, that he couldn’t convince you to wait for someone else to show up.

“I have to do this, Aaron,” you’d said. While the team would normally probably tease him about you calling him Aaron, as if it isn’t his name, they’d known not to interrupt this time. “You know I do.”

“You don’t have to.” His hands tightened on the steering wheel as he spoke. “We’ll be there soon, alright? Just-”

“I’m sorry.” And then, you hung up.

In the end, going in when you did had been the right move. A life had been saved, and you’d slowed the guy down enough that the police were able to arrest him when they arrived. All it cost you was a cut and a bruise on your cheek.

So, your instincts weren’t so bad.

Aaron, however, disagrees. Logically, he knows that he would’ve done the exact same thing you did, knows the rest of the team would’ve, too. But when it comes to you, he has a hard time thinking logically.

After you hung up on him, all he could do was breathe and breathe and breathe over the heavy thumping of his heartbeat and the worry spinning in his head. He drove the quickest he could manage, the car silent inside. A static.

It’s not that he doubts your abilities—he’s always thought you were incredible, even before the friendship, even before now—only that the idea of you being alone with such a bad man makes him feel sick.

He’d take your place in a heartbeat, if he could, just to make sure you’d be safe.

By the time he and the rest of the team get to the scene, you’re walking out of the building with a hand pressed to your cheek and a paramedic leading you to a nearby ambulance.

Aaron spots you right away, his eyes scanning the small crowd through red and blue lights and conversations surrounding him. When he spots you, everything goes quiet.

His first thought is, thank god she’s alive, then, it’s fuck, she’s hurt.

Without a word to anyone, he heads over in your direction right away. He meets you at the ambulance, where you sit on the small bench inside while the paramedic presses your cheek with gauze.

“Honey.” It comes out in a breath. Relief and pain all at once.

You look over to him, his hair a little messy, his eyes wide and roaming all over you like he’s checking for any other injuries. He cares about you, and it’s written all over him.

“Aaron. I’m okay.” You hold a hand out, and he grabs it, sitting beside you on the bench in the ambulance. “Promise.”

For now, he nods, letting the paramedic do their job bandaging up your cheek. When they’re finished, they hand you a spare bandage saying, “it’s gonna bruise, and it might feel sore for a bit, but you’re all patched up.”

The paramedic leaves after that, probably going to check on other people. The lights inside the ambulance seem to cocoon you, a bright difference to the darkness outside.

The first thing Aaron says is, “let me see.”

His hands reach for your face, rough fingertips gently holding your jaw, tilting you so that he can look at your cheek. It’s a little swollen, discolored where you must’ve been hit. There’s a furrow in his brow, something that looks like a pout on none other than Aaron Hotchner.

“Hey,” you grab his wrists, but his hands stay on your face. “I’m fine.”

Aaron’s always worried, he’s always cared about you and about everyone on the team, but this is different. He was usually able to hide things much better than this. Much better than with you.

Now, all he sees is the tiny bloodstain on your shirt and the bandage on your cheek. All he feels is your hands squeezing his wrists and your eyes locked on his.

“You should have waited,” he says. “I could have been there.”

“Hotchner,” your deadpan tone is intact, which he’ll take as a win, even if it’s directed towards him. “You and I both know you would have done the same. I had to.”

One of his hands shifts to cup your non-injured cheek. Normally, he’d be much more composed while working, but he can’t bring himself to care about how he must look right now.

“I know you did,” he tells you, because he does. “I just wish that you didn’t. I don’t like seeing you hurt.”

Your stomach is tumbling, rolling, your heart doing silly things in your chest. You can hardly feel the pain of your cheek anymore when his hand is on the other, his palm warm against your skin, his gaze even warmer.

“I’m hardly hurt, Aaron. Just a scratch.”

“Right. One that required medical attention. That’s more than just a scratch, honey.”

“If you say so, Hotchner.”

He shifts his hands so that they fall into your lap, palms up and fingers instantly finding yours, tangling together perfectly. Like puzzle pieces.

“Good job, by the way.” Hotch rubs his thumb over your skin once, back and forth. “You did the right thing.”

“Learned from the best,” you say.

You’re both oblivious to the fact that the team is watching from a distance, and that the two of you look so lovesick it’s ridiculous that you haven’t spilled your feelings yet. You’re both absolutely fucked.

Where she stands with the team, Emily shakes her head, “I haven’t seen Hotch like this since… ever.”

Beside her, JJ merely shrugs, like it’s obvious, “yeah, they’re in love.”

Spencer looks at you and Aaron in that ambulance with a smile. “The odds of you guys being right are very, very high.”

Aaron Hotchner was never the biggest fan of birthdays. Was never big into the cakes and making wishes, the song and the presents and the fuss of it all.

When he started at the bureau, it stayed that way. Days off were rare enough as it was, so he’d always work on his birthday. And while he kept the signed cards from the team, he treated it as any other day. Nothing special.

This year, you’re on a mission to change that.

While it isn’t the first of Aaron’s birthdays you’ve spent with him, it’s the first one since the two of you have grown as close as you have, since you’ve felt the way you do. You’re just hoping to make it a good birthday for him.

You’ve roped the whole team into it. Decorating the conference room with streamers and balloons and a sign that hangs crooked on the wall, bringing in a cake that reads ‘Happy Birthday Hotch’ in frosting, and keeping it all a secret.

Of course, you’ve all already said happy birthday to him, and you’ve got a present stashed under your desk for later, but you’ve been doing your best to act natural even when the anticipation of your surprise for him eats at your stomach a little.

Surprises are a tricky thing, and there’s no way of knowing whether he’ll like it or not. You’ll just have to wait and see.

While in his office, the team had made it seem like they’d all left for the day, saying their goodbyes to Hotch. Instead of leaving, though, they’ve been hidden in the conference room waiting for you to bring him in.

“Aaron,” you say, knocking on his office door. “I think I lost an earring. Do you think you could help me look for it?”

Because you’re the one asking, Aaron says, “‘course, honey. Where do you think it is?”

You smile, because he’s fallen into your trap easily, because you know that he probably would search for an earring with you if you’d actually lost one.

“I remember having it on in the conference room, so maybe there.”

He stands from his desk, gesturing for you to lead the way with his hand held out. You grab onto it before he can drop it, tangling your fingers and leading him behind you.

Aaron lets you guide him, and when you open the door to the conference room and flick on the lights, he’s met with the team’s grinning faces and a chorus of, “surprise!”

For a moment, he’s speechless, frozen in his spot in the doorway with your hand in his.

No, Aaron’s never been the biggest fan of birthdays, but maybe that’s because nobody’s ever done something like this for him. You came into his life all sweet smiles and now you’re throwing him a surprise party? He’s never ever liked someone the way he likes you.

So much that like is spilling into a four letter word and he’s happy to let it.

You know him well enough to know that he doesn’t like being the center of attention too much, so the only people in the room are those of the BAU. His closest friends. And you, his favorite person.

Before he can say anything he’s being spoken to by the team, getting a ‘happy birthday, boss,’ from Derek, a spill about how hard it was to keep this a secret from Penelope, a grin from Spencer, a tip about how you’d organized all of this from Emily, a squeeze to the shoulder from JJ.

When he finally gets the chance, the others split into their own conversations, Aaron tugs you aside to the corner of the room.

“You did all of this for me?” He asks, head bent to catch your eye.

Although you’d caught the signature Hotchner smile—closed-mouthed and quick—when he saw the surprise, you’re nervous about what he might say. You worry that you’ve done too much, that he’d been pretending to like it for your sake.

“I’m sorry if it’s a bit much,” you start, anxiously tugging at your sleeves. “I wasn’t sure if you liked surprises, I know not everyone does, but I wanted to do something for you because I care about you. A lot. And birthdays are meant to be celebrated, you know?”

Aaron can’t help but let a smile spread over his face as you speak; a real smile. His heart is light, his feelings for you melting through him like the soft pink of cotton candy. He doesn’t think you could ever do anything that he wouldn’t like.

“I’ll clean it all up, too, I prom-”

Your rambling is cut off with his lips on yours. He’s kissing you.

It’s soft, the press of his mouth against yours, and it takes you a second to push back. It stays delicate, a dance between the two of you like you’d practiced a million times before.

His hands skate down your arms to hold your hands, weaving his fingers with yours, squeezing like he’s making sure you know this is real.

You feel it all over, your stomach tumbling, your heart beating in a rhythm that thumps his name. Aaron, Aaron, Aaron, over and over.

It’s a kiss worth a thousand words that you haven’t said yet, a kiss full of feelings and meaning and you know it, just by the way he does it, because you know him and he knows you. It’s you and Aaron, and it feels like the beginning of something huge. Of the rest of your life, maybe.

When he pulls back, Hotch rests his forehead against yours, giving your head a gentle nudge, locking his brown eyes on yours.

“It’s perfect,” he says.

The next thing you hear is Derek Morgan cheering, “I knew it!”

Similar words come from the rest of the team.

“Finally,” from Emily.

“About time,” from JJ.

“This isn’t surprising,” from Spencer, who smiles while saying it.

A sweet, “yay,” from Penelope.

Distracted by Aaron kissing you, you’d sort of forgotten they were there. Bashful, you tuck your head beneath Aaron’s chin, forehead against his collar. He simply tightens his hands around yours.

And when it’s time for cake, this year, Aaron Hotchner makes a wish on his birthday candles. He wishes to spend every other birthday just like this. With you.

༄

thank you so so much for reading!!! if you liked it, please please please consider reblogging/commenting and letting me know what you thought! love you <3

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borathae · 4 months ago

Text

The Consequences of Fucking Up

“Your break up was messy and painful. All you want to do is to forget about him. His friends, who ever since you ended it with Yoongi see you as their bullying target, make sure that the memory of him stays fresh in your mind however, haunting you day by fucking day. While Yoongi makes it seem as if he gives no fuck about your situation. Until one night he is in front of your door. Drunk and fucking regretful.”

♥️ Requested by anonie ♥️

Pairing: Gangster!Yoongi x f.Reader

Genre: Exes!AU, Messy Break-Up!AU, Crime!AU, Cop!AU, Hurt and Comfort, Angst, Smut, a lil bit of Fluff

Wordcount: 15.9k

Warnings: lowkey they're bad for each other, but also somehow so right?, OC is such a people hater, I feel like she has mental health issues which are never addressed tbfh, she is quite the pessimist, unhealthy consumption of alcohol, smoking of cigarettes & weed (listen. i hate smoking and stand by that but it sadly fits their characters), Yoongi is kinda apathetic and cold, or is he??, IS HE???, implied violence and murder, corrupt cops & lawyers, policeman!Jungkook makes an appearance and he stole my heart tbfh :(, he is so cute that i almost sobbed, drugdealer!Hoseok makes an appearance too, there is also detective!Namjoon and smuggler!Taehyung because I love this vibe :); abuse of power, fuck Yoongi just fuck he is so ngngn, slightly protective & possessive!Yoongi, intoxicated sex, desperate!Yoongi, no foreplay, but she is not uncomfortable, choking (m.receiving), rough desperate sex, position change from sex against a sofa to missionary on said sofa, a lil bit of strength kink hihi, he cums too soon, dirty talk, tears :'), he is actually so emotional during the sex, the ending is so cheesy and cute <3, Spoiler: he is willing to change!! and he is a cutie actually, jsjsjsj sorry but i love yoongi a lot :(

Disclaimer: This is purely fiction and isn't like my usual stories. It does not portray how the boys actually are and it is not how I see them. This is a work of fiction with no correlation to real life. The type of relationships depicted in this story are far from how I normally portray my relationships and I do not advertise for such relationhips or staying in such relationships. This story is supposed to be twisted and dark & so are the relationships in it, as well as the characters. You have been warned. If you decide to continue reading, then it is out of your own free will.

a/n: now that the disclaimer is out of the way i can officially bark because woof woof fuckkcc anonie thank you so much for this idea. i had the worst and best time writing this story like nfnfnf her mental state was definitely very difficult to write, but their tension just got to me. i made the ending as cute and fluffy as possible just as you wanted hihi <3 also i love villian characters who would set the whole world on fire just to prove their dedication :) i hope this is what you imagined, because i kinda made it longer and with more plot than i planned to at first sjjsjs i couldn't be stopped jsjsj ALSO this is giving me the perfect opportunity to finally write a Kook request I got years ago ohoho

Yoongi collides with the wall, feeling the cold nuzzle of the gun press against his chin. He drops the keys and flowers he was carrying, lifting his hands in defeat.

“Careful, it’s just me”, he lulls.

“Get the fuck out of my house”, you spit, carrying murder in your eyes.

Three months prior

“So you’re breaking up with me?” he asks, gawking at you with widened eyes. He looks more surprised than he does hurt. Probably because it hasn’t actually sunk in yet.

“I am.”

“No, you’re not.” He laughs because he never takes anything seriously.

“Yes. I am.”

“Too bad, I won’t act like it.”

“Yeah, you will.”

He laughs, “you’ve had better jokes, but I still admire the commitment.”

“You see. That’s the problem with you. Everything’s a fucking joke to you.”

He is smiling. It reaches his eyes.

“Your job, your men. Me. Everything’s a fucking joke to you. If you would have taken Sukuna’s thread seriously, Soojin would still be alive. If you didn’t fucking insult Miss Mei, you wouldn’t have lost twenty thousand in drugs and you wouldn’t have to fucking kiss asses like a beggar.”

His smile doesn’t reach his eyes anymore.

“If you would have put any kind of effort into me, I wouldn’t be leaving now. You take everything as a joke, while in reality you are the biggest joke here.”

His smile falls. You stood up and that actually scared him.

“Wait baby, wait. Princess, we can talk about this”, he argues, closing the distance with his arms stretched open. “I’ll fix the issue with Miss Mei, I promise.”

“Doesn’t matter. I’m done talking. Soojin died because of your recklessness.”

Yoongi touches your hands. He holds them, clutches them. You have never felt such a touch from him before. As if he actually loved you.

“What can I do? Tell me and I’ll do it”, he offers, caressing your knuckles.

This is what you craved for months. Affection. Attention. You were always a passing thought to him. Something to fuck and possess. Something low maintenance like all his other shit. His current touch almost makes you want to stay because for the briefest moment, your breaking heart wants to believe that he finally changed.

But you know better. He doesn’t take you seriously and if you stay, you will one day end up like Soojin. Metaphorically or not, you will end up dead because of him.

“There is nothing you can do. Sorry.”

You slip out of his touch.

“Baby”, Yoongi follows you with panicked eyes, trying to touch you again.

“Goodbye, Min Yoongi.”

“Please don’t leave me.”

You close the door and run, finally letting the tears escape.

You love him.

You always have and perhaps always will.

You don’t want to leave, but know that staying will kill you.

One week passes. You spent it holed up in your small, shitty apartment, crying your heart out. Yoongi was the best and worst thing that ever happened to you and you miss him. You hate that you miss him. Because he was way worse than he was good.

He was never abusive. He was a violent man to anyone but you. You, he always touched with utmost care. At you, he never screamed. But he was still not good. He was cold and apathetic at times, then terribly affectionate at others, only to become cold again. And you couldn’t take it anymore.

You wouldn’t have left your apartment today if your fridge hadn’t been empty. It wasn’t always empty, but sadly enough, groceries don’t magically appear. Not even for an outlaw such as yourself.

The city is busy. The smell of street food, smog and body odor poisons the air. The weather is hot these days and people started sweating more. You can’t stand people. You pull the mask tighter around your nose, hoping to shield the stench this way.

You greet the clerk when you enter the shop, lowering your mask. It smells of grocery store in here. Fresh bread, produce and clean floors. It’s a welcome change to the rancid outside.

You spent fourty minutes in the shop and pay with cash. You never pay with card because it can be traced. Someone like you can’t risk being found.

“See you”, you say your goodbyes and leave the store. You plan on coming back in three weeks. You can’t stand being outside often.

The door just about closed behind you and then someone jumps you. Three people to be more exact. Two hold your arms while one rips the bags out of your hands.

“Let go! Hey, you fuckers!” you fight them off instantly, surprised at how easily it is to do. Way too easy. They let go of you as quickly as they grabbed you. At first you think that nothing happened, until you notice your grocery bags in one of the guys’ hands. They stole your stuff!

“You motherfuckers! Get back here! They’re mine!”

They run away, flipping you off over their shoulders.

You sprint after them, but before you reach them, they jump onto a tuk tuk and drive off, finally showing you their faces. Those were some of Yoongi’s underlings.

“What the fuck?” You stumble back in disbelief. “Did they fucking steal my food? What the fuck’s happening?”

It takes you a while before you finally come to the conclusion that you have to buy everything they stole a second time. And you do. And nobody jumps you. And you go home, make yourself shitty dinner and drink a bottle of soju all by yourself. It isn’t a good night. It’s a shit night. But then. All your nights have been shit for years.

You met Yoongi four years ago. It correlates with when your shit nights began. Okay, you are being unfair. The first two years with him were paradise and your nights were wonderful. You were an aspiring lawyer, while he was in the midst of getting a promotion to superintendent. You supported each other’s dreams, motivated each other and celebrated when your goals were achieved. Then the truth spilled out. The man you knew to love turned out to be a lie. Why you never left, you do not know. He gave you the chance to leave, but you didn’t. You made yourself low maintenance to him and your nights became shit. He pretended to be a proper policeman by day while you pretended to be a proper lawyer and at night he became what he hunted by day while you tried to hide whatever evidence about him flooded into the offices. You hated it at first, then loved it, then lost your job because of it and became dependent on him and started to hate it again. Well, at least working for him. You liked everything else. Having to work in the system and seeing how corrupt even the most eligible politicians or CEOs truly are, made you realise that perhaps stealing from them isn’t as bad as it first sounded. You liked being on the dark side of the law because the bright side was just as twisted. You just simply started to hate that it means being close to Yoongi.

It took Soojin’s death to finally make you realise that staying with him will end in your death as well. And so you finally left.

You will start a new life, make up a new identity, move to a different country and forget about him. Maybe. Who knows. You haven’t decided yet.

A letter comes five days after the grocery store incident. It is stuffed into an unsealed envelope and clearly delivered by the person who wrote it. You open it, feeling shit instantly. Whoever wrote this letter is calling you the most hurtful of names, telling you personal stuff which truly hurts. You throw it away and go back inside, opening a bottle of soju. It wasn’t Yoongi’s handwriting, but somehow you still think that it is connected to him. You try not to let it get to you, but you still end up rotting away in your bed for the rest of the week only leaving it to piss, shit and eat.

The next week your packages are missing. You never get them back. The culprit is never found. You curse the sky, knowing that it was fruitless. Yet again, you think that it was connected to him. To Yoongi, the man you wanted to forget, but who keeps haunting you day by day.

The city at night is a dangerous place. If you don’t know where to walk, you could find yourself in a rather messy situation. Especially as a woman. You are glad that most women are clever enough to stay at home once darkness greets the streets. Most women don’t know how to defend themselves though. Properly and without the law in mind. You killed before. Once. It was self defence. Yoongi took care of the body, you never found out what happened to it. He stayed with you the night it happened, even let you cry in his arms. He was gone the next day and never spoke of it again.

You clutch the big knife tightly in your bag, scanning the streets constantly. It isn’t far anymore until you are home. Hopefully the heavy rain clouds stay dry until you get there. You aren’t in the mood to get wet. Not tonight. You would have never left if you hadn’t ran out of fucking cigarettes. The kiosk was closed, so the journey was useless. Thunder announces that the clouds aren’t your friends. Mere seconds later, it starts pouring.

“Fucking shit, I hate this city.”

Rain in this city is always dirty and never really cold. You take it as a bad sign. Rain shouldn’t be warm. Not always, not constantly. Something’s wrong with this city. Something is rotting slowly until one day it will consume everything in its wake. You hope to have left before it can wake up.

The way home is too long for the amount of dirty rain it pours. You find refuge under a shop sign. There are no rooftops or canopies in sight and the only thing close to a safe place was the stupid restaurant sign. Authentic Asian Beef Noodles, it reads in bright red letters. The place is stuffed with people and the smell of beef broth mixes with the dirty scent of rain. You grind your teeth. What a shitty situation you find yourself in. You prefer being outside though. You know that once inside, the restaurant would be hot and stink of digested booze and body odor. You take getting wet over breathing in people’s air.

Except that you don’t really stay wet for long. The distinct sound of rain hitting an umbrella meets your ears. You look up. Black. You look to the side at the person holding it. Yoongi. Your stomach twists, your heart skips a beat. He is wearing a suit tonight. Black with a black tie. His hair is slicked back. He used makeup to conceal the scar running all the way from his forehead over his eye and down half his cheek. This is his work outfit. His police chief outfit. Yes. He is a chief these days.

Your instincts tell you to leave without saying anything, but it’s been six weeks since the breakup and you still love him. You hate that you do, but can’t stop staring at his face. He has his brows raised in a nonchalant way as he inspects the heavy rain. He doesn’t grant you eye contact, but holds the umbrella in a way which lets you know that he came out here after seeing you. His left shoulder is getting wet, while you stay dry completely.

“What are you doing here?” you hear yourself ask him.

“Work dinner. I have to pay ‘cause I’m the boss and all that shit. They’re eating like greedy pigs”, he scoffs, “fucking assholes.”

“I see.”

“You?”

“Buying smokes.”

He finally looks at you, studying from head to toe.

“The kiosk was closed”, you answer his question about your cigarettes’ whereabouts before he can ask it.

“I thought you quit.”

“Some things happened which made me start again.”

“Mhm”, he hums and takes out a packet of cigarettes from the inside of his suit jacket. He lights himself one and puts the packet away again, leaving you to stare at the smoke he blows out through his nose.

He isn’t actually serious, is he? It is like he is mocking you. It is already bad enough that he sends his stupid goons to terrorise you, now he is mocking you as well? You hate that you still love him.

You stay like this for a while. You staring at him while he holds the umbrella for you and smokes. You don’t know why you stay. You hate that you love him. You hate it so much.

Yoongi takes a long drag of the cigarette and exhales the smoke in an almost sigh-like breath. He lifts the cigarette, holding it closer to you.

“What?” you sound disbelieved, scandalised even.

He doesn’t say anything. He just shows you the cigarette as his eyes follow the endless rain. You hate that you love him. You hate it so much. But you still take the cigarette and put your lips right where he had his’ moments before. But you still smoke it as if it was the most normal thing to do. Because it once was. You and he shared many smokes in the past. It was once the most sensual, erotic thing to do between you and him. Barely clothed, intoxicated minds and high on the other, you often shared a joint as you got each other off. Fuck, it was always so fucking orgasmic to be with him that way.

“Wanna grab a bite?” he offers, pointing at the restaurant behind him, “one more mouth to feed isn’t gonna ruin me.”

You are hungry. You haven’t had a proper meal in weeks. Instant ramen, frozen food and snacks is all your body has to run on. You have no energy to cook and with how shitty you eat, it is a vicious cycle. Shitty food gives little energy, you already have low energy. The motivation to properly cook grows lower and lower each day. You dread the day you have only enough energy left to open a package of chips and eat it for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

“I’m not hungry.”

He glances at you. He knows that you are lying. Your eyes have greyed in starvation. He almost rips the cigarette out of your fingers and smokes it angrily, huffing out the smoke.

“I’m offering”, he hisses.

“And I’m declining. I can take care of myself”, you throw back and rip the cigarette from his grasp to smoke it angrily.

You may be starving, but you will be damned if you make yourself dependent on him again. You left him to finally prove to yourself that you can take care of yourself. You don’t need his help. Not anymore.

You take another deep drag, then hand the cigarette to him. He smokes it, glaring at you. You know that your stubbornness angers him.

“Tell your men to stop pestering me”, you say into the tense silence.

He looks over his shoulder at his police team. They are too drunk and caught in conversation to pay their boss any mind.

“They’re inside”, he says.

“You know I don’t mean them. Tell your other men to stop annoying me.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Yes. You do.” It is your turn to smoke. “It all started when they stole my groceries, but it’s been getting childish. My packages keep getting stolen, my internet cuts off, I find letters in my mail. Letters saying awful things about me. It’s getting ridiculous. Tell your men to stop terrorising me.”

“Stolen packages?” He takes the cigarette from you, brushing his fingers against yours as he does. The touch feels like the sweetest poison on your skin. “This doesn’t sound like my problem to solve. Go to the police.”

“Are you serious?”

He inhales, exhales the smoke into your face. You should be disgusted by it, but almost huff it in like an addict. Yoongi watches your lids lower and your chest raise in a greedy breath, finding it hard not to stare at your lips as he hands you the cigarette. You smoke it. His eyes are still on your lips, glued to the shape of them as his throat runs dry.

“Very serious”, he rasps.

“You are the police”, you throw back in disbelief, exhaling the smoke into his face that way.

“Mhm yeah, I guess I am.” He takes the cigarette, smoking it with half lidded eyes. He exhales, handing you the cigarette. “When are you going to come home again?” he asks, looking back at the rain.

You almost choke on the smoke, exhaling it in a cough. Yoongi glances at you from the corner of his eyes.

“Your farce is getting ridiculous”, he says coldly.

“My farce?”

This break up wasn’t the first break up you and he went through. You left many times before, always thinking that you were finally strong enough to forget him only to come crawling back again. You don’t blame him for doubting that this time will be different, but you still can’t stop yourself from getting angry.

“Did you even hear what I said?”

“I did. Go to the police. I have nothing to do with it.”

You drop the half-finished cigarette. It dies in the puddle on the ground.

“I was smoking this”, he says dryly, “besides, don’t litter.”

“Pick it up yourself if you care so much about these dirty ass streets”, you spit and turn to leave. You take getting wet over being with him any longer.

Yoongi watches you leave, shakes his head in disbelief and bends down to pick up the cigarette. He won’t run after you because you will come crawling back eventually. You always do.

“Sir?”

He turns his head. One of his officers. He is young and with sparkles of big dreams in his eyes. Yoongi pities him. This city is going to chew him up until there is nothing left of him. He had the same dreams once and knows what the viper nest, which is the justice system, is going to do to him.

“What do you want?” he asks him dryly, rolling the wet cigarette between his fingers.

“Who did you talk to right now?”

“Just someone important to me.”

“Shouldn’t we escort her home? It’s raining and there could be criminals on the streets. It’s too dangerous for a woman to be alone.”

“She’ll get home safely.”

“Are you sure, Sir? I stayed sober for cases like these. I could get the car right away.”

“You’re sober?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“But it’s a work dinner. You’ve been off work for hours.”

The young officer salutes, “I know, Sir but a policeman shouldn’t slack, Sir.”

Yoongi feels deep pity for the young man. He is so motivated, so proper and full of good spirit. Waking up is going to hurt like a bitch for him.

He pats him on the shoulder.

“You’re a good person, Jeon”, he says and swerves past him to get back inside.

The young officer follows him with pride glimmering in his innocent eyes. Yes, waking up is going to hurt like a bitch for him.

Yoongi wasn’t always living two lives. He was like his young officer once. Full of dreams and motivation. He dreamed of using his powers to do good, to help those who needed it most and then he woke up. He watched politicians and men in power ruin, rape and kill the powerless without ever getting punished for it. He felt helpless. If even someone in his position can’t change the world, then who will? His criminal work was honourable once. He slipped evidence money under the table to hand out to the powerless, he let proof disappear for people doing crimes out of desperation. One time he was supposed to put a starving mother behind bars because she stole diapers for her babies. Yoongi couldn’t do it and so he disobeyed the law for these kinds of people.

But then his criminal work became less about the powerless and more about him. Making money the illegal way was easy and it is fucking addicting. Especially when he could make sure that evidence about him never reached the higher ups. Yoongi fucking loved the sudden power he possessed and he was too blinded by it to see that he became exactly what drove him to criminality in the first place.

Yoongi tells his officer to check up on your place that night. The young officer rings the doorbell like he was told to do.

You open it, swaying from intoxication as you do. The stench of digested booze wafts off you. But you somehow seem to sober up when you see the police badges on his shirt.

“You’ve got the wrong person”, you tell him, trying to morph your face into an expression of sobriety.

“Don’t worry, Miss. I came here to check on you.”

“Check on me?”

“Yes, Miss.” He salutes you. “I have orders from my captain to make sure that you arrived home safely and that you received this”, he says with an innocent smile on his lips, presenting a plastic bag to you.

Authentic Asian Beef Noodles, it reads in red letters and inside, three big takeout containers of food are waiting to be eaten.

Everything clicks into place. This is one of Yoongi’s employees. Another young, hopeful spirit which will be crushed in the system. You pity the young officer. You had the same innocent sparkle in your eyes once.

Hesitantly, you accept the takeout food.

“Thanks”, you mumble.

“Any time, Miss.” He studies you for a moment. “Are you…are you okay, Miss?”

You bite back tears. His empathy is going to kill him one day. But it feels so good to receive. You haven’t been asked this question in so long.

You shake your head. He straightens up in worry.

“Should I call help for you, Miss?”

You know what he indicates.

“Thank you, no. I’m just going through some shit. Sorry, I’m being sappy tonight.”

“You don’t have to go through it alone, Miss.”

“I know. I’m just… I’m seriously alright, I won’t do anything stupid. You don’t have to worry, officer.”

“Yes, well I still see it as my duty to stay because you seem sad to me”, he says and tries to go inside your apartment. He still has a lot to learn. You know from his eyes that he has no bad intentions and that he truly wants to help, but you know how the city will treat such deeds. One day he will try to help the wrong person and end up with attempted sexual assault charges. And it will fucking destroy him because people like him only see the good in the world and can’t imagine that others would want to hurt people.

You stop him with a guiding hand on his chest.

“That isn’t necessary, really. My packages keep getting stolen and I guess it’s been annoying me.”

He pulls out a pen paper instantly, stepping closer to you without noticing, “your packages? Have you seen anyone suspicious? How many packages have gone missing? When did it start?”

“No, I… Thank you for your concern and the food, but I will get through the night safely.”

He steps back, cheeks reddened in embarrassment.

“Forgive me, I don’t know why I did that. My captain said that you were important to him and that I should make sure that you are well, so I wanted to do a good job at it.” He bows at you deeply. “Please forgive me, Miss.”

“He said that?” you whisper.

He nods his head, “yes, Miss.”

“Oh. Uhm. ” You clear your throat. “Thank you, I, uhm, tell him that I’m good.”

“I will, Miss. Here, my card. You can always call me when you need something” he hesitates, “or when you just need someone to talk to.”

“Thank you. This is so kind.”

“You are never alone, Miss.”

“Thank you”, you say, bowing at him. He is so kind. God, you want to grab him and tell him to run before it’s too late.

He bows as well, “good night, Miss.”

“Good night.”

You watch him leave. He gives you one last look out of the police car and a kind wave, then drives off.

You close the door with a curse. This just sobered you up. The young policeman’s kindness just sobered you up. You check his name on the card he handed you. Jeon Jungkook. Why someone like him? He never should have found his way into this field of work.

You look at the takeout food next, feeling your stomach twist. You are important to Yoongi. Holy fuck.

It’s been eight weeks since you left him. You don’t feel better. The cigarette you shared was two weeks ago and yet you still feel as if it was sticking to your lungs. Each time you breathe out, you swear you can taste him. It almost suffocates you and keeps you from relaxing. So you leave your depressing place for a walk to the kiosk. You read somewhere that walks are good for one’s mental health. You can’t agree. Walks force you to be outside where people are loud and fucking stink.

The vendor must be fucking with you. The day is bright, but the kiosk is closed again. You bang your fist against the closed door, cursing loudly. You want your fucking smokes is that too much to ask? This city is fucking shit.

You’ll just call someone who will always help. You saved him as Jay. His real name is Hoseok. You don’t say his real name in public. He doesn’t say yours. Yoongi sometimes called him his best friend, but what is such a title out of the mouth of the most apathetic man you know? You were his girlfriend too and look at where this has gotten you, living as an outlaw in the shit and dirt of this city.

Like always, Hoseok lets the phone ring four times then he picks up.

“Flames are hot”, he says.

“And the arsonist works hard”, you answer him.

“Hyacinth, it’s good to hear your voice”, there is finally a smile in his voice now that you answered the code correctly.

“The same goes for you, Jay.”

“What’s up? I haven’t heard from you in ages.”

“Nothing much. I’m out of smokes.”

“The corner in twenty?”

“Yeah.”

You and he end the call at the same time. Twenty minutes later you meet. He wears black overalls and smudged eyeliner. He says it keeps the char easier to hide. Like always, he greets you with a quick hug.

“What do you got?” you ask him.

“Whatever you want.” He opens his bag. “I’ve got cigarettes, but something stronger too”, he says, scurrying around the contents of the bag with his fingers. He always has burn marks on them, but somehow they are never dirty.

“What do fifty bucks buy?”

“For you? Two packs of cigarettes and two joints. That’s a steal.”

“Fuck dude, you’re getting expensive.”

“Yeah well, a man’s gotta eat.”

“Fine, I’ll take it.”

You and he exchange goods. He makes small talk.

“But why are you here with me? Did Suga run out of goods?”

Suga is Yoongi’s codename in public. The sound of it almost brings bile into your throat. You did such a good job in forgetting him and now the memory of him is as fresh as a new day. At least you like to pretend that you are doing a good job at forgetting him. Your heart knows better though.

“We, uhm…”

Hoseok exhales sharply, “again?”

You nod your head.

“When?”

“More than two months ago.”

“Damn, that’s long.”

“Yeah, I’m serious about it.”

He cocks his brow up.

“I am”, you insist just a little snappishly.

“Alright”, he closes his bag, “I gotta go now.”

“Already?”

He looks around nervously. Almost as if he didn’t want to be seen with you.

“Yup. Use the stuff wisely, I won’t have new stuff for a while.”

“Seriously?”

He nods his head and salutes you nonchalantly.

“See you around.”

“See…you?”

He turns his back to you and walks off quickly, soon disappearing into the busy crowd. Is this your fate? Even the people closest to you avoid you now that you aren’t Yoongi’s anymore? Were you truly only worth something as his little thing? You ball your hands into fists, bending the joints this way. You have to leave this fucking place. There is actually nothing holding you here anymore.

That night the phone terror starts. Numbers keep calling you over and over and over again. You pick up the first time, only to have to listen to the most hurtful things another human has ever said to you. The voice wasn’t Yoongi’s, but you still blame him. Now that you aren’t his thing anymore, you became free food to whoever had been waiting to make your life a living hell. You turn off your phone after an hour and go to sleep with the help of Hoseok’s joints.

The doorbell wakes you the next morning. You consider not answering because it’s probably just one of his goons wanting to terrorise you. But whoever is ringing the doorbell is stubborn, forcing you out of your bedroom. You look through the door cam first.

That young officer. He is in full uniform.

You open the door hesitantly.

“Good morning”, he greets you with a wave and a smile.

“Good morning”, you murmur. Your mouth is as dry as a fucking desert. You are also so hungry that you could throw up in his face right now.

“How are you feeling, Miss?”

“Good.”

“That’s good to hear.” He says and shows you a package which he kept hidden behind his back all this time. He smiles brightly and proudly. “Tada!”

“What’s that?”

“I caught the package thief, Miss.”

“Are you serious?” you gasp and your eyes instinctively drift to the car you have noticed parked outside your unit for days. The door is opened and someone is sitting in the backseat. He looked cuffed to the seat. You glance at the young officer and the shiteating, proud grin he is sporting. He has been watching you? Did Yoongi tell him to?

“Wait. You’re actually serious.”

“Very serious. For you, Miss”, he says and shoves the package into your face.

“Uhm, uh. Thanks”, you accept it, putting it under your arm. “Have you been watching me?”

“Did you notice the car? Sorry, I thought that I was better hidden. I’m still new to all of this. But I caught the thief, heh.” He points at himself with his thumbs. “That’s my first real arrest.”

He manages to drag an honest smile to your lips. He is kind of adorable in a way.

“That’s cool. Thank you for taking care of it. Now I’ve got nothing to worry about anymore.”

He grins and nods his head, studying your features afterwards. He opens his mouth.

“Jeon are you there? Over”, his walkie talkie interrupts whatever he wanted to ask you. He takes it off his chest harness.

“I’m here, Kim Sir. Over.”

“Come to the precinct. We need reinforcements. Over.”

“Coming right away, Sir. I caught a thief right now, Sir. Over.”

A pause where the higher officer is definitely baffled by his confession.

“Good job, Jeon. Over.”

The young officer giggles before he speaks again, doing so as seriously as possible.

“Thank you, Kim Sir. I am taking the criminal to the precinct. Over.”

“Understood. Over.”

He puts the walkie talkie back on its harness and gives you a sorry smile.

“That was my boss. My other boss, not your friend who is the boss of this boss. Anyways. I have to go now, duty calls. Are you going to be okay, Miss?”

“I am. Thank you for your kindness.”

“Anytime, Miss. Uhm, have a good day”, he says and leaves with a wave of his hand. He waves again as he drives off. You retort it, staring at his car until it disappears behind a corner. You sigh deeply. He is so nice. Why someone like him? Why does this life always find people like him?

It’s been ten weeks since you left him. You read somewhere that walks are good for your mental health. You still can’t agree. Walks force you to be outside where people are still loud and still fucking stink. But it’s better than staying in your apartment. You’ve got new neighbours since Monday. They keep fucking like actual animals. They fucked when you left your place tonight. You were this close to kicking their door in and slaughtering them like pigs. You opted for a walk in the end.

You walk for a while then sit down by an empty bench next to the river. It is quiet. Nobody is really here. At least nobody important. A couple, how disgusting. A late night jogger, clearly a man. A homeless person, who uses another bench as their bed. You hate looking at homeless people because you feel helpless seeing them. You stopped being on the bright side of the law because of people like them. You thought that maybe if you stole from the corrupt men in power often enough, you would be able to help the ones who truly needed it. But you never managed to actually achieve anything. The homelessness in the city grows, while the pockets of the politicians become fatter and fatter in wealth. You fucking hate this city. It is rotten to the core.

“Look who we have here. If that isn’t our pretty little Hyacinth.”

You aren’t quick enough to get up to leave and then you already have two men throwing their arms over your shoulders while a third is grabbing the back of your head from behind. You try to reach for your knife but can’t. Their grip on you is too good.

“What are you doing here all alone?”

Their voices are familiar and one look at them confirms your suspicions. It’s them. The same three underlings who stole your groceries months ago.

“Leave me alone”, you tell them.

“Why should we? You are all alone. If the boss knew we’re leaving you alone, he’d grow angry.”

“I can take care of myself.”

“Now, now don’t be like that. You’re just a girl and there are many dangerous men out there.”

You look to your side. One of them is licking their lips like a hungry animal.

“Yeah? And you’re being fucking inappropriate. Leave me alone”, you spit, shaking off their arms.

They let you. Just as they let you stand up and take your bag.

“Goodnight”, you tell them and leave. Quickly. You walk a good hundred feet until you finally dare to look over your shoulder only to realise in horror that they are following you. Quickly.

You can defend yourself. You know how to kill, but you also know when you are outnumbered. And three bigger men against a woman is sadly never going to end well for the woman. You hate this city and you hate this life. You know that their words were nothing but provocation. They know you aren’t with Yoongi anymore, that you aren’t under his protection anymore and that in some weird way, you sullied his honour. You also know how people who bring dishonour to the gangs of this city are punished. The men are murdered and the women, well, they are murdered too but not before being sullied themselves. You hate this city and you hate this life. This life which is going to fucking end for you soon.

You dare to look over your shoulder one more time. They are so close that you can see the hunger in their eyes. No. Nononononono. It can’t end like this. You were supposed to leave this city, start a new life, forget about Yoongi. You are not going to die here in this dirty, shitty park far away from your dream.

Thump.

You bounce back from the impact, letting out a blood curling scream. It was instinct. Just as it is instinct of the person you ran into to grasp you by your arms and pull you closer again.

“Let me go! Help! Help me!”

“Quiet”, the person hisses and shakes you. This voice sounded different. Familiar in an almost intimate way.

You dare to shift your eyes to them.

Yoongi.

“I, I, I”, you stutter, feeling delirious in both fear and shock. You grab his shirt, twisting it to get closer to him. The act is intimate and out-of-place but you are too frightened to think clearly.

Yoongi brushes over the state of your glassy eyes to look over your shoulder. There are three men suddenly scurrying away, using the darkness to hide. He managed to get their faces.

He looks back at you. Your eyes meet. A little bit of clarity returns to you. What are you doing? Your fingers soften around his shirt.

“I don’t…”

“Come on, we’re going home”, he say sternly and puts an arm around your waist, dragging you with him like this.

You follow him all the way to his car. You even let him sit you down on the passenger seat and you even stay seated when he rounds the car to get to the driver side. You think that you are in shock because you don’t protest when he starts the car, nor when he drives off. You simply stare outside with your knees turned to him because your body acts against your consciousness. The city passes you by in flashes of neon colours. His car smells like his cologne and leather. He has no music playing.

Yoongi glances at your face. You have your head against the window, squeezing your hands between your thighs. The neon lights illuminate your features each time he passes by another light source. He can see that you are trying not to shake.

He takes a deep breath, shifting his eyes to the road. He has to grip the steering wheel, otherwise his hands would shake in anger.

“Should we get dinner?”

His voice rips you from whatever trance you were in. You sit up straight, looking at him. He is gripping the steering wheel to the point his knuckles pale. His long hair is hanging into his face tonight. A turquoise varsity jacket adorns him. His scar wasn’t hidden behind concealer. He wasn’t working his day job today. What was he doing at the park? Why was he there?

“Take me home”, you order him.

“I am.”

“No. Home. Not your place.”

“My place is your home”, he gets out through gritted teeth.

“No, it isn’t. Not anymore.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Did you see what they were doing to me?”

“No.”

You are lost for words for a moment. The tears come afterwards.

“Stop the car.”

Yoongi looks at you because your voice was shaking. He holds his breath at the sight of your tears.

“What?” he makes sure.

“Stop. The. Car. Now.”

He laughs and shakes his head.

You pull the knife out on him. He swerves to the side on instinct, fixing the mistake so vigorously, you and he shake in the small space. You don’t let it affect you, holding the knife against his skin.

“What the fuck are you doing?” he hisses.

“Stop the fucking car or I’ll kill us both”, you spit, holding the knife against his throat.

“Fuck”, he growls and hits the steering wheel. The car rolls to a stop.

“Get out”, you threaten.

“I am. Fuck.”

He follows your orders because you have his life at blade’s end. He still slams the door closed. You leave the car instantly.

“What the fuck were you thinking? You could have killed us both” he tries to scold you, but you silence him.

“I’m talking now”, you roar.

Yoongi closes his mouth because he has never heard you like this before.

“You are such an asshole! Each day I regret the moment I met you! You are the worst thing that ever happened to me!”

Yoongi gulps.

“I had a life before you. I had dreams and ambitions and, and goals and…a chance. I could have had a good life. I was supposed to use my degree to help people but you ruined everything for me.”

He rounds the car in big steps, coming so close to you that you smell his breath. It smells like chewing gum.

“You could have achieved something? What exactly did you achieve as a lawyer? Mhm, what did you achieve? This city is fucked.”

“Yes, because you fucked it!” you hit his chest. He doesn’t budge, but also doesn’t stop you. “You fucked it and you fucked me and I hate you for it!”

“Don’t blame me for your decisions. I gave you a chance to leave me back then. You were the one who stayed.”

You inch closer until your lips are almost touching. Yoongi exhales shakily, placing his hand on your hip.

“And I will regret this decision till the day I die”, you whisper, breaking the closeness.

You slip out of his hold. He follows you in a small stumble and a trembling gasp.

“I never want to see you again. Are we clear?” you hiss at him.

“Don’t be fucking ridiculous, you don’t want this”, he hisses back at you.

“You’re wrong, I don’t want you. I thought I still did, but I don’t. You don’t care about me, it’s finally so fucking obvious to me. You don’t fucking care.”

“You don’t know what you’re saying.”

“They are terrorising me, Yoongi!” You finally scream. “I wake up to people ringing my doorbell in the middle of the night, I have to keep my phone turned off because the phone calls don’t stop. I keep getting my stuff stolen and, and I thought I was going to be raped tonight! They are terrorising me and you called it not your problem!”

“No, you-”

“I’ve been living in constant fear, our friends don’t even look at me anymore, I haven’t eaten in days and I can’t-”, you stop yourself. He doesn’t even deserve your anger anymore. “-you know what? Fuck this and fuck you. I’m leaving.”

You turn your back to him and leave.

He says your name and takes your hand. He pulls, tries to turn you to him. But you rip yourself free again.

“Don’t go”, he says.

You don’t listen.

“I’m ordering you to stay”, he sounds desperate, yelling your name, “I am ordering you!”

He can yell as much as he wants to. You don’t listen to him anymore. The subway station isn’t far. You will make an exception and take it tonight. Even if you hate it. It stinks. Just like the rest of this shitty city.

You are going to leave. Once you are home, you are going to start packing and then you are going to leave. You will call V. You don’t know his real name, but he can change your identity as quickly as others change their socks. You will call V and tell him to have your passport ready the day after tomorrow. You will pay him with the money you have under your pillow and then leave for somewhere clean. Maybe somewhere with lots of mountains. You always heard that the air at these places is breathable.

You call V the same night. He tells you that two days is too short and to wait another week. So you wait. Your bags have been packed. You live out of them in your own place. You don’t leave it. You are scared. With how little Yoongi cared about your situation, you doubt that he told his men to stop. You are scared that if you left again, they would finally go through with what they couldn’t finish back then.

The doorbell rings during a rainy, dark night. You flinch awake to the point where you feel sick to the stomach. The lights are turned on instantly eventhough you know not to do that in such a situation. You can’t think clearly. You just want this to be over. All of it.

You run to the front door because you suddenly feared that it was unlocked. It isn’t, but you can watch someone push an envelope under your door. The shadow blocking the light outside leaves the moment the letter is inside your apartment.

You don’t want to open it at first, staring at it as if someone had planted a bomb in your apartment. Fuck it, if that is how you die then so be it, you think in the end and bend down to pick it up. It feels different in your fingers. Sophisticated. Intimate. The envelope is glued closed as if someone licked the glue stripe and the faint smell of well-known cologne lingers on the paper. You open it with shaky fingers.

A letter. It is heavy and folded once. You open it, gasping when three photographs fall out of it and onto the ground. You don’t know what is on them because they landed on their face side. So you read the letter first.

“It has always been mine as well.”

Written in black ink and a familiar handwriting. This is Yoongi’s writing.

With even shakier hands, you pick up the pictures. You feel sick for a moment, gawking at the cruel pictures with your hand thrown over your mouth. The three men who terrorised you. Their mutilated corpses look back at you. He tortured them to death.

You rip the door open, stumbling onto the balcony. You look down at what tripped you. Two bags of your favourite takeout food and a six pack of water. Both clearly fresh. So it was him. Yoongi must be here somewhere. You look into the distance. The night is loud and blurry in a thunderstorm. The streets are empty. The ghost of your past is gone again. You squint your eyes. A person.

“Yoongi!” you call out, unable to realise that you are smiling and waving your hand.

The person moves. Oh. It was just the shadow of a tree. For just a moment you had hoped that the dark shape was him waiting for you. It was just a tree…and you were happy that if could have been Yoongi. The realisation hurts.

“Fuck”, you press out, going back inside. The lump in your throat makes it hard to breathe. You stumble back to bed, halting for a moment when you pass your suitcases.

It has always been mine as well. His words repeat themselves in your head. All this time, you thought that he didn’t care. All this time, you thought that your terror left him cold. Your eyes drift over the empty takeout boxes from the noodle place. You still haven’t cleaned them up. He made sure that you were properly fed for days back then. A glance at the new stuff he got tonight. He is still making sure that you are. Your eyes drift over the package next. He made sure that they stopped getting stolen. You look at the pictures in your hands. He made sure that they would never hurt you again. All this time, you were so blinded by your own anger that you missed how he had always looked out for you. You missed his way of showing you that you were important to him.

It has always been his problem as well.

Something inside you breaks and you scream. You don’t know what you scream for, but you scream. It hurts so much. It hurts so much because you will still leave. He will hurt you again if you stay. All his efforts healed your heart and it hurts so much because you will still leave. You were meant to stay broken hearted. Leaving would have been so easy this way. Now it hurts like a bitch. But you can’t sway. You have to leave this place. It will chew up what little is left of you until you truly cease to exist.

V comes to your place the next day. He rings your doorbell. It wakes you from the uncomfortable sofa you fell asleep on last night. You groan as you sit up and you barely want to open your eyes as you stumble to the door.

You open it without checking the camera first.

“Took you long en- you?”

Jungkook, the young officer, greets you with a smile.

“I swear I’m not stalking you.”

You have a headache today, so it is difficult not to snap at him. He is also not the person you wanted in front of your door today.

“I’m starting to doubt that.”

He laughs, “it’s not that. I talked to my boss. Your friend, the boss of the other boss. Sorry, anyways. I need you to come to the precinct with me.”

“What? Why?”

“Okay so, this is actually so cool and I shouldn’t even be telling you this, but you’re my boss’ friend so I guess it’s okay”, he begins with sparkling eyes, “turns out that the package thief is actually a serial thief and you aren’t the first one he stole from. Isn’t that cool? It’s like in those movies. Those cool cop movies.”

“Really? He stole from more people?” You highly doubt that.

“Yeah”, he laughs as he answers you, nodding his head excitedly, “now we’re calling in everyone who he stole from so we can take their statements. My boss says that we can’t keep the thief locked up for long otherwise.”

You know that this wasn’t really how the law works. After all, you were once a lawyer who was fucking good at her job. Is Yoongi trying to drag you back to him? First he tries to change your mind by killing your bullies and now he is trying to do the final blow by abusing his power as police chief? You check the time. Couldn’t the young officer have come later? You could have had your passport already and be far, far away from this place.

“Can I just give it to you here?” you ask him.

“Mhm”, he tilts his head to the side, “no, I don’t think that it works like this. I’m sorry, Miss. The captain said that it’s important that all the victims come into the precinct.”

You have to give Yoongi that. He is real clever about it. That means however that you can’t escape this situation. Any more resistance from you would make you suspicious.

You give up with a sigh. “Can I just change into something different?”

“Of course, Miss.”

The young officer lets you sit in the passenger seat. He is so new at all of this. With such naivety he tells you his entire life story. That he was from the countryside and that his dream has always been to be a policeman in the city. That he studied hard for years and that he completed his enlistment with honour just so he could be a proper officer. He sounds so proud of himself that each second with him makes you hate his presence more and more. He is so fucking stupid and it angers you. Why would he throw away his life like that? Why someone like him?

You are led to one of the precinct’s interrogation rooms and are told to wait there. The table is decked with different foods.

“What’s all that?” you ask Jungkook.

“Breakfast, Miss.”

“Did your captain tell you to do that?”

“He said that wanted to make sure you get your breakfast because we called you in so early. The captain really cares for the citizens.”

You stifle a scoff. Sure he does.

“Mhm, I see.”

“Either way, it won’t take long”, the young officer bids his goodbyes and leaves you in the interrogation room.

His words were a lie. You wait and wait and wait, but nothing happens. There are no clocks in this godforsaken room, but you still know that it has to be hours. You didn’t want to eat the breakfast at first, glaring at the two-way mirror because in your mind, Yoongi was behind it, watching you and making sure that you ate. You didn’t want to give him the satisfaction at first, but had to in the end. The body begins working against one’s will when it is starving and the breakfast looked way too good. You eat all of it, then glare at the mirror again. You are still left alone and more time passes. It is as if they are trying to wear you down, as if you were the criminal in this situation. Granted, you are a criminal, but only Yoongi knows that and right now you are a poor civilian having done nothing wrong. You know that it’s Yoongi’s doing. That he somehow wants to terrorise you.

So when the door finally opens and he walks into the room, you almost throw the empty bowl at his head.

“Forgive the wait, Miss but something came up”, he says nonchalantly, flicking through some papers.

His second in command Kim Namjoon and the young officer Jeon Jungkook are behind him, which is why he is putting up this act. You grind your teeth.

“I already started to wonder if I’m in danger here”, you say way too sweetly.

“That depends on how you are going to answer our questions”, he says and sits down on the chair in front of you.

Jungkook stays by the door while Kim Namjoon stands a little to your side.

You look around yourself. He is trying to intimidate you.

“What’s that supposed to mean? I thought that I’m here to give my statement because of my stolen packages.”

Yoongi glances up from the papers. This is the first time your eyes meet after your fight and he killed your bullies. If only the others in this room would know how much blood he has on his hands and to which length he is willing to go to protect you. There were times where you would have dragged him over the table and kissed him senseless, but not anymore. You are stronger than your urges, even if it hurts your heart. You can’t give in again. If you do, he will take you for granted again. You won’t be happy with him. You finally have to fucking understand that.

“You’re right. You are here because of that”, he says dryly.

“Good. It started on May sixteen. I came home at around seven ten and noticed that my packages were missing. Two were stolen back then, but in total he stole eight packages”, you say and proceed to tell him the exact dates with the time as well as what was stolen.

“You seem to know how such hearings work”, he says after he wrote down what you said.

“I had a few hours to practice what I was going to say”, you say with a poisonous smile.

One Yoongi retorts with just as much poison and a deep hum.

“Apologies again.”

“Don’t worry, I know how hard the police works at keeping this honourable city safe.”

He tongues his cheek. You give him a victorious smirk. This cut. Good. He takes a deep breath and releases it through his nose, reaching into his suit pocket to pull out a cigarette. He gets as far as to put it to his lips and then Kim Namjoon already speaks up.

“Captain. Smoking is prohibited in this building.”

“Fuck”, Yoongi presses out and takes the cigarette between two fingers to tap it against the table instead.

“Smoking is bad for you either way”, you say.

He tongues his cheek again. You know that he wants to curse at you right now, but can’t. He has to put up a friendly act.

“I know, can’t shake the habit”, he says and studies your face, “so what now?”

“Sir?” Kim Namjoon is rightfully confused. Yoongi slipped up.

“I don’t know, I was never in such a place before. Do you still need to take my information?” you act oblivious.

“We already have everything.”

“Great. Then I can go?” you ask, fluttering your lashes innocently.

“I don’t know yet.”

“Sir?” “What? Why?”

Yoongi shifts in his chair until he manspreads like an idiot. He crosses his arms in front of his chest.

“What are you going to do now?” he asks you.

“Uhm…is this still part of my hearing?” you ask, glancing at Kim Namjoon.

“No of course not, Miss. Please, follow me.”

“Sit. Down.”

The room is silent for a moment. You glare at Yoongi while Namjoon and Jungkook gawk in complete confusion. Their captain acts out of character. There is no reason to keep the innocent lady here any longer. This isn’t like him at all. He has been fidgeting all day, barely drank his coffee, went for far too many smoke breaks and now this. The officers have no explanation for their captain’s sudden behaviour.

“What is the reason for this?” you ask him.

“Just safety precautions. We wouldn’t want our honest citizen to get into danger”, he says coldly, “now answer my question. What are your plans now, Miss?”

“I will go home.”

“Where is that home?”

“Sir, I don’t know if that is necessary.”

“Shut up, Kim.”

Namjoon gulps, exchanging a confused look with Jeon Jungkook. This is really not like their captain.

Yoongi straightens up and leans forward so he is closer to you.

“Where is that home, Miss?”

You lower your eyes in anger.

“I don’t know yet, I’m planning to leave this city.”

“What?” his voice shook as he spoke. His fingers close and break the cigarette that way. His eyes almost bore holes into yours from how deeply he stares into them.

“This city’s become too depressing for me. I plan on leaving it for good.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“Yes, I do. There is nothing holding me here anymore.”

“Yes, there is.”

“No, there really isn’t. I will leave.”

Bang!

You flinched back. Namjoon and Jungkook tense up as well.

Yoongi slammed his hand on the table, jumping to his feet.

“No the fuck you won’t!” he yells.

“Sir? What are you doing?!”

“Excuse me? It’s my right as an honest citizen to move”, you act oblivious as well.

“Keep her here”, he talks to Jungkook, pointing at him, “lock her up and keep her here.”

“Under what pretence, Sir?” the young officer asks with widened eyes.

“I, I, I don’t know. Refusal to, to, to cooperate or some shit like that”, Yoongi never stutters and he never paces, but he is currently doing both of those things.

“Sir…is…this legal?” Jungkook asks shyly.

Yoongi is by Jungkook’s side within a few steps, grabbing him by the collar.

“Do as you are told, Jeon! Unless you want to lose this job!” Yoongi growls, making Jungkook whimper with fear.

“Captain Min, you are stepping out of place”, Kim Namjoon speaks up, dragging him away from Jungkook, “and get off this poor officer’s neck. He is just doing his job.”

Yoongi whips around, now targeting his anger at Namjoon.

“If he was doing his fucking job, he would lock her up”, he hisses, pointing at you.

“I need you to step out for a moment, Captain”, Namjoon says and gestures Jungkook to open the door. The young officer obeys, holding it open as Namjoon shoves a protesting Yoongi out of the room. He closes the door again, muting the vivid fighting Yoongi was doing with Namjoon outside.

He meets your eyes, smiling awkwardly.

“Please forgive the Captain, Miss. He is very concerned about his citizens’ safety.” He is a terrible liar, but you don’t blame him. If you were in his situation, you would have no idea how to explain such a situation to a supposed innocent citizen either.

“Don’t worry. I, I’m just wondering if maybe I can finally leave? I’m sorry, this just really scared me and I just want to lie down at home now”, you act shaken up, looking at the young officer with pleading eyes.

“Of course, Miss. Our honest apologies again, Miss. Please follow me”, he says and leads you out of the room.

Yoongi and Namjoon are still arguing, but stop when they see you come out. You lock eyes with Yoongi for the briefest of moments.

He closes the distance and grabs your wrist, dragging you with him with such vigour that nobody truly gets time to act. Not even you know what was happening to you until you find yourself in his office with the door slammed shut.

“What are you doing?” you gasp.

“Shut the fuck up, you’re not the one asking this question right now!”

“Yoongi, lower your voice. This isn’t the place for screams.”

He steps closer to you, pointing at your face in warning.

“I have every fucking right to scream right now and you know that”, he presses out through gritted teeth.

“Why? Because I finally don’t need you anymore?”

“You can’t move. What the fuck are you thinking?”

“I’m-”

‘I'm not done”, he interrupts you, “I killed them for you. I did it. Just for you. Because your safety matters to me. I care.” He hits his own chest. “I showed you that I care and you’re gonna leave?”

You hate that you love him, but not for the usual reasons. You hate it because it hurts. You are going to leave despite not wanting to. You love him, perhaps you always will but you are also going to leave.

You nod your head.

Yoongi exhales shakily, taking a stumbling step back. He stares at you as if you were the ghost whose haunting hurts him the most. He huffs out air, rubs his hand over his mouth, then runs it through his hair and down the side of his neck.

“I’ll kill the thief”, he says in the end.

“What?”

“I'll make it seem like suicide. He’ll look like a pisser who couldn’t take prison and killed himself.”

“Are you out of your mind? He’s just a thief.”

“Well, what more do you need?!” he screams

“Nothing! I don’t need anything from you!”

“Why not? I can give you whatever you want!”

“Look at you. Now that you finally realised, I’m actually serious about the breakup, you wanna act like you care.”

“I care”, his voice broke, but you are both too angry to acknowledge it, “i-i-if I knew that you- I just-” He breathes in, breathes out, rubs his mouth, then his neck. “It can’t end like this. It can’t.”

“It can. I’m done begging you for everything.”

Yoongi steps closer.

“I can-”

“Sir? What is the meaning of this?”

Kim Namjoon and Jeon Jungkook are in the office. The rest of the precinct gawks at you and Yoongi through the doorway. The latter lifts his hands and steps back. His fingers are shaking.

“The captain just voiced his worries for my move. Don’t worry about it, Kim Sir”, you lie and turn to leave, “may I finally leave?”

Namjoon tells Jungkook to handle it with a nod of his head. The young officer points at the open door.

“Please after you, Miss.”

Yoongi says your name.

You look at him over your shoulder, despite knowing you shouldn’t. He takes a step closer, lifting his brows in pleading. Don’t give in. Don’t give in. Don’t give in. You ball your hands to fists and turn your back to him.

Yoongi tries your name again, hoping for another look. One which doesn’t come.

“Come back”, he tries, but gets stopped by Namjoon.

You can hear them talk as you leave.

“What the fuck’s your issue, man? You’ve been weird all day and now you’re screaming at citizens?”

“Watch your tone.”

“Hyung, I’m not here as your colleague right now. I’m here as your friend.”

“She’s gonna leave, she can’t…”

Jungkook leads you away from the office before you can hear Yoongi’s full answer.

“Are you crying, Miss??”

“Hm? Oh that, don’t mind them. It’s just…” Your heart is broken and you want to run back to Yoongi. “...forgive me, I’m just a little shaken from everything.”

“I’m sorry, Miss. The captain isn’t normally like this.”

“It’s alright. I know how Yoongi can be sometimes.”

“Yoongi?” Jungkook asks, glancing at the captain’s office. He wonders what kind of friends you and he are. Maybe Those kind of friends? Is that why you are important to the captain?

“I mean…sorry, I don’t know why I said that. I just wish to go home now.”

“Of course, Miss.”

“Oh god, I don’t even have money for a bus ticket with me”, you murmur to yourself, looking for your wallet. This is all a scheme to get Jungkook to drive you home again. You are worried that if he didn’t, Yoongi would somehow get to you before you could reach the station.

“Don’t worry about it, Miss. As a policeman, it is my duty to make sure that you get home safely.”

“Really? I wouldn’t want to waste your time.”

“Of course, Miss.”

And so he takes you home and you hate yourself because of it. So it began. You were the first person who used his kindness to her advantage. You were the drop beginning the inevitable filling of the tank until one day it will swap over. And once that happens, it is almost impossible to stop the leak. Fuck, you are just as terrible as everyone else in this city.

But the young officer is oblivious to what you just did, driving you home with a kind smile on his face. He even walks you to your door and stays as you unlock it. Your neighbours are fucking again. He glances at their door, then awkwardly at you.

“Yeah, I’ve got new neighbours. You can’t go over there and flash your badge and tell them to shut up, can you?”

“Of course I can, Miss. Just one mom-”

“No stop, I was joking”, you stop him, studying him with exhausted eyes. You are so sorry. You are so fucking sorry.

“Ah, okay. Please forgive me, I always take everything way too seriously”, he says, scratching his own neck shyly. He furrows his brows. “What’s the matter, Miss?”

“Can I tell you something?”

“Of course, Miss.”

“Run.”

“What?”

“Run back to your hometown. Run and never look back.”

“Excuse me?” he laughs in confusion, furrowing his brows harder.

“You’re a good person, Jeon Jungkook. This city will fucking ruin you.”

“I…uh…” He laughs nervously. “I don’t seem to follow, Miss. Sorry.”

“You don’t need to get it, just listen to me. Please.”

“O…kay? I uhm…”

“Thank you for driving me home. I’ll think of you sometimes in my new home.”

“Miss, are you okay?”

“I am. You don’t need to worry about me anymore. Just promise me to run.”

“I promise?”

“Good. Be happy, Jeon Jungkook.”

“Miss, I-”

You close the door on him and lock it. You don’t expect him to knock or ring the bell. He is too proper to annoy you this way. You check the camera. He stares at the closed door for a few moments longer, looking confused. He lifts his hand to knock, hesitates and turns his back to the door instead, leaving down the steps to drive off. You know that you confused him, but you had to. Please let it be enough to save him.

V arrives later that day. He is stressed and clearly in a hurry.

“What’s wrong? You look like you need to be somewhere or like you need to shit. Do you need to shit?”

“What? No”, he sounds out of breath as well as annoyed, “I’m risking my ass being here. I’ve got your stuff. It’s the only thing except mine that I managed to save. Give me the money, quick.”

“Save?” you probe, giving him the money.

He stuffs it into his boxers hastily, looking over his shoulder again.

“My place got raided by cops. I was at the market getting food, then came back to five cop cars in front of my place. I barely escaped. If I didn’t always carry my stuff with me, I’d have been fucked.”

“What?!”

“Sorry, Hyacinth. Gotta leave the city for a while. I wish you all the best.”

“V, what the fuck?”

“Here’s to never seeing each other again, aye?” he jokes, laughing nervously. It’s a good thing he said. Never seeing each other again meant that you and he managed to escape safely.

“Wait. Where will you go?”

“I can’t tell you. You know I can’t.”

“Yeah, just…be careful.”

“You too.”

He leaves and you know that he will be successful. If there is one person who won’t ever be found it is V.

You are in a trance for the rest of the day. Yoongi raided V’s place. He went as far as to betray his own people just to make sure that you wouldn’t leave. Carrying your new passport feels like a trophy, as much as it feels like a curse. Leaving this city won’t be as easy anymore now that he knows. You are so fucking stupid for telling him, but you didn’t want to miss out on his reaction when he found out. The small moment of satisfaction seems skippable now that you know how far he is willing to go to keep you close. And because V came as late as he did, your means of escape don’t drive anymore either. You have to wait for the earliest bus if you wanted to or not. Fuck, you did this to yourself. You stupid fucking woman. Look at you. You have this big, honourable degree and still manage to get yourself into shitty situations over and over again.

You go to sleep with a gun under your pillow. You won’t risk anything.

You don’t get a lot of sleep and then a noise wakes you. You heard it as clear as day. Someone unlocked your front door. He sent men to get you. Now he’s gone too far. You jump out of bed and grab your loaded gun, tiptoeing to a spot from where you could observe the apartment. You have to be strategic about it. First count the men, then calculate the fastest way to shoot them, then act. The door closes and locks again. Clever bastards, they want to make sure that you don’t flee. Oh, you are going to have a blast killing them. One last little thing to leave Yoongi before you abandon him.

The automatic lights turn on. Got you, assholes.

The first enters your vision.

“Hm?”

Yoongi. Clearly drunk, he is dragging his feet over the floor, using the wall as support. No one else follows him. So he came here alone.

Overtaken by anger, you jump out of hiding and at him.

Yoongi collides with the wall, feeling the cold nuzzle of the gun press against his chin. He drops the keys and flowers he was carrying, lifting his hands in defeat.

“Careful, it’s just me”, he lulls.

“Get the fuck out of my house”, you spit, carrying murder in your eyes.

“I can’t believe you’re still hiding your keys under the flower pot. Don’t make me so worried, anyone could enter.”

“I’m gonna count to three and if you haven’t disappeared by then, I’ll shoot.”

“Can we talk?”

“One.”

“I know I fucked up. I can’t stop thinking about you. Please, can we try again?”

“Two.”

“I promise I changed. You were right, I was a joke. But I wanna do better now.”

“Three.” “I’m sorry!”

Yoongi squeezes his eyes shut. His death never comes. He peels his eyes open again.

You are staring, panting heavily. Tears are in your eyes.

“I’m sorry”, he whispers.

This is the first time he is the one to say these words first. It feels so good, but you can’t give in again. You made up your mind to leave…didn’t you? You study the state of him. He is heavily intoxicated. He looks the way and reeks of it.

“You’re drunk.”

He nods his head, furrowing his brows. He touches your elbows, caressing them softly. Such touch you only get when he is drunk.

“I drank because of you. What you said today. I just…don’t move away, please”, he begs, eyes filling with tears.

“So now you care? I wasn’t important to you when I was with you and now that I’m leaving, I’m suddenly important?”

“You’ve always been important.”

“No, I haven’t. You took me for granted.”

“I did and I’m sorry. I never should have taken you for granted. I’ll do better now, please just give me a chance to prove it to you.”

“If I give you a chance again, you’ll just abuse it and hurt me.”

“No, I won’t. Please, I just.” He cups your face, running his thumbs under your eyes as gently as possible. “We were right once. We were so good together. We were a team and, and we had dreams and we made each other happy. I want this back, I wanna try to get this back again please.”

“I just want to be happy, Yoongi”, you press out.

“I’ll make you happy, baby. Please, I-I’ll make you happy again.”

“No, you’re drunk and talking fucking shit.”

“I’ll leave this city if you want me to.”

You falter. He would give up what he built just for you?

“You wouldn’t do that.”

“I would. For you I would. I’d set this whole city on fire and leave with you as it burns to fucking ashes behind us, please.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“Please”, he whispers and drops his forehead against yours, “please, I want to make you happy again.”

You hate that you love him. You hate that he made you addicted to him. This is so awfully him. He gives you enough affection that you get addicted to it then takes it away again. And once he feeds it to you again, you drink it up like an alcoholic. It is always the same.

“No, you won’t. You’re drunk.”

“Please.”

“Leave my place.”

He presses himself off the wall and grabs the nuzzle of the gun, guiding it right between his brows.

“You have to kill me if you want me gone.”

You gulp. He forces your finger to the trigger. Your airways close up.

“Kill me. Fucking kill me. I can’t live without you anyways.”

You could end it. You’ve got everything. Your suitcases, your papers, the keys of his car he drunkenly drove like an asshole. You’ve got everything you need to escape this place. You could end it, finally make sure that you have no temptation to return. You could end him and your addiction with it. He’s got your finger on the trigger, it needs just one flex and it would be over. But you never wanted him dead. No matter how much you wished for him to be gone, you never wanted him dead. Because in some fucked up way, all you really wanted was for him to put more effort into you.

“No”, you whimper, shaking your head.

He rips the gun from your fingers and drops it on your dresser.

“I don’t want to kill you”, you press out, sobbing softly.

He cradles your face, wiping your tears.

“I know”, he gets out, nodding his head, “I know you don’t, princess. I know.”

“Yoongi”, you squeak out, twisting his shirt.

“I’m here, princess. I’m here.”

He pulls you closer until his kiss is just one breath away, feeding on the shaky breath you let ghost against his lips. His drunken eyes gaze at your mouth, his heart is racing in his chest.

“Push me away”, he tells you.

“I hate you.”

“And I love you.”

“Yoongi”, you whimper, finally touching his chest instead of his shirt.

He moans and pulls you into a kiss. A deep, hungry kiss.

You pull at his hair to get him off of you as much as you pull him closer, fighting for air. You hate that you love…do you really? Do you really fucking hate it? Do you really hate it when his kiss makes you feel alive again? You spent months feeling out of breath and now it’s gone. You can breathe again. At least metaphorically, physically he’s got you very close to passing out. You push at him to get distance. Air. He lets you breathe, but not escape. He pushes you to your sofa until your legs collide with the back of it. Your shaky breaths intermingle, your shared moans follow. His right hand slides to your ass, his knee lifts to your middle.

You gasp, grinding down on him. You can’t protest because he kisses you so deeply it feels as if he wanted to consume your soul. He kisses and gropes, kisses and gropes until air is sparse. He gasps.

“Fuck. Fuck, I’m fucked”, he gets out and pulls your head back so he could drag his tongue up your throat.

It should disgust you, but it doesn’t. You moan, running your nails down his chest and arching your back. He lifts his head, looking at you with drunken, crazed obsession. His fingers just can’t stay still on your body. It is as if he wanted to touch everywhere at all times. The attention makes you short of breath.

“You’re so fucking beautiful.”

You touch his cheek. He leans into your palm, closing his eyes when you trace his scar. You were with him when he got it. It was during a fight. He fought with his fists, his opponent chose the cowardly way and pulled a knife on him. He was lucky that he didn’t lose his eyesight. He hated it at first, but you made him feel handsome. You always looked out for him that way.

“Do you…do you think I’m handsome?” he asks. Such questions you only get when he’s drunk.

“I do.”

His breath trembles as it leaves him. He drops his hand from your hips to take out his cock. He touches himself, gazing at you as if he needed the view of you to stay hard. And he does. He needs you. You are the only person who can turn him on.

You look at what his hand is doing, gulping heavily. He sighs, gazing at your face. You are as mesmerised by him as you were when everything was still good between you and him. His cock still has the same effect on you.

“Princess?” he tilts your head back up to meet your eyes, using only two fingers under your chin for it.

You meet his eyes, heart racing unbearably.

“Yes?” One little lift of his brows and you give him the answer he craved.

You part your legs, tilting your hips closer to him. You nod your head vigorously, gazing at his cock again.

He doesn’t bother to pull his pants down all the way, neither does he care about taking off your panties. He pushes them to the side and stuffs you full of him, gripping the edge of the couch and your right thigh as deep moans leave him. Your right leg is lifted like this, supported by him.

You gasp, tensing up. Your toes curl instantly, your fingers clutch his lower arms. His cock stretches you out and stuffs your walls. It’s not uncomfortable, but it is definitely intense. You gasp again, looking at him with widened eyes.

“I know baby, I know”, he breathes and bottoms out. “It’s been too long. Fuck.”

He moves, chasing your warmth in drunk, sloppy thrusts. You writhe and gasp repeatedly, scratching the back of his neck. You want to hate that you love him. He should feel like an intruder. You should want to kick and scream for help. But you don’t want to. You feel whole again. No preparation, but he doesn’t hurt. His kiss and touch was enough. Your addiction to him runs so deep that his cock is pure heroin to you.

“Yoongi”, you get out, grabbing his throat. Your thumbs are on his Adam’s apple, threatening to press down.

He smiles, “I love you”, he gasps out and drops his head against yours. His long hair tickles your face, his drunken breath swirls over your skin. He gulps and moans under your fingers, pumping into you with no signs of slowing down. You start losing strength in your calf, standing like this is exhausting, but if you were being honest, you don’t want it to stop.

“I hate you.”

“Fucking kill me then”, he rasps.

You close your fingers slightly.

“Harder. This isn’t gonna do it.”

“You first.”

“Fuck, baby”, he gets out and lifts you so he could round the sofa with you. He pins you down into the pillows, ripping the panties off of you and kicking his pants off. He pushes into you before you can truly realise what was happening, feeding you all of him until he can’t give any more. He twists the pillow next to your head as he takes on a punishing rhythm. His dark hair hangs into his face, his teeth are bared as he huffs like an angry animal.

“Yoon-”

“I know, baby I know. You already told me, baby. I know”, he whispers, wiping your cheek, “take me, I know you can. You’re my baby, you’re made for me.”

His praise is like medicine to you. This is all you needed. To know that he is still obsessed with you and that you still affect him.

You close your legs around his hips, keeping him with you this way. You need him to always stay like this. He moans your name, slipping his fingers from your cheek to hold the pillow instead. You told him that you hated him, but your body betrays you. Your eyes betray you. You keep him close, gaze at him as if he was your everything. Yoongi’s head is turning. Not only from the alcohol, but also from being with you again. And from knowing that you still loved him.

Because he loves you so much. He hates himself for taking you for granted. He never should have. You are his everything. The fucking reason why he does all of this. The last three months were torture for him. He started smoking again, drank too much, slept too little, worked too many hours. And if he didn't distract himself with work, he tried thinking up ways of showing you that he was still there for you. He ordered his officers to look out for you, sent food deliveries to your place, parked in front of your place somewhere hidden to watch you smoke on the staircase. He also followed you sometimes after you confessed to him that some of his goons were terrorising you. And each time he followed you, he wished for you to notice him just so he could get a chance at talking to you again. But you never did and Yoongi thought that you will come back again soon. Then you told him that you would move and Yoongi finally broke. He was truly losing you. Three months of hell, of lonely nights and heartbreak and he was truly losing you.

“I missed you”, he gets out, painting his name against your favourite spots. The eagerness with which you clasp him results in your hips to lift off the pillow, allowing your clit to grind against him each time he bottoms out. The necklaces he is wearing are tangling over your face. They were too long once, but Yoongi cut them to the perfect length so they wouldn't hit your face when you are underneath him. That was six months ago. During a time you thought he didn’t care anymore. You feel so stupid now. His way of showing you that he cared was always there. He was always looking out for you. You were just too blind to see.

You gasp and whimper, mewl and keen, looking up at him with teary eyes and your fingers closing around nothing. You can’t tell him that you missed him too because you are too overwhelmed.

“Did you miss me too?” but Yoongi is drunk tonight and when he is drunk he is needy for your affection.

You nod your head.

“Say it.”

“I missed you”, you get out, following it up with a sob.

“Baby, I love you”, he croaks, wiping your tears before dropping his forehead against yours, “I love you, baby, I love you. Don’t leave me again, please.”

“You’re so drunk.”

“Yeah, drunk ‘cause of you. Thought I’ll lose you. Baby, I can’t lose you”, he croaks and shows you his honesty with passionate rolls of his hips. Somehow he goes even deeper than before, he hits your favourite spots even better.

You arch your back and scream his name, throwing your head back as best as possible. This is electric. Holy shit, he makes you feel good. Your face scrunches up against your will, your feet shake on his back.

Yoongi admires you with a pounding head and racing heart, repeating what he did before over and over and over again. You react in mewls and moans and screams and he can’t get enough of it. He wants for you to lose your fucking voice because you couldn’t stop screaming for him. Because if you sound like this for him, he makes you happy. It has been too long since you actually screamed this way, so Yoongi is especially affected by tonight.

He laces his fingers with yours – again, he is drunk – and squeezes them needily. He thinks that he is crying too. He watches pearls of something drip onto your face sometimes. His eyes also burn. He doesn’t want it to stop. He is willing to carry his emotions on his sleeve if it meant you were happy again.

“Is this what you needed? Does this finally make you fucking happy?” he gets out, chasing the ecstasy as much as he helps you with your own pleasure trip.

You squeeze his hands back, making him moan your name.

“Ye-yes.”

“Argh”, he growls, trying so much harder to fuck you right. It feels so good. He has to tell you. He stayed silent way too often in the past. You want his efforts and he wants to give them to you. “You feel so good.”

The first confession was hard because he isn’t used to sharing his feelings. It was hard, but it was also ecstatic because your sounds of pleasure became louder and you tightened around him, squeezing his hands happily.

“You feel so good. You feel so fucking good. You feel so good, princess. You feel…so good”, he can’t stop now that he started, telling you over and over and over again how you make him feel. Good. So good. He feels so good when he is with you. “You are so good. Princess, fuck. I have to..I, I have to- ah!”

You open your eyes in time with Yoongi collapsing on top of you. He whimpers into the crook of your neck, shaking almost pathetically.

There are two things you always believed to be true about Yoongi. First: When he fucks, his moans are always deep, raspy and growly. Second: He has perfect control over his orgasms.

Both of these things are getting proven wrong to you right here and now as he whimpers and shakes and paints your walls with his unexpected orgasm. You want to blame the alcohol on it and maybe the months of abstinence, perhaps even the fear of losing you paired with the relief of having you again. Holy fuck, he actually loves you doesn’t he?

“I love you”, he sobs, hugging you close.

“Yoongi ah”, he breaks you with his confession and the tenderness with which he holds you. You swear that you can taste colours for a moment. You haven’t felt honestly good in your own skin in months. This right here is what feeling good is. This is it.

You don’t know who comes down first. You think it is Yoongi, but even if he does, he doesn’t pull out. He lets you shake and throb and clench around him until your moment of peak pleasure is over as well. He holds you silently afterwards, catching his breath in the crook of your neck. He missed your scent like nothing else. Truly, it leaves him so drugged out that he actually finds himself drooling as he smiles like a giddy boy.

You calm down with his weight atop your chest, his length still inside you and his hair between your fingers. It is still a little stiff and crusty from the variety of hair products he keeps in it during his day job. To think that mere hours ago, you were screaming at each other in his office. It feels so far away to you now. Like a memory of an unbelievable life.

You don’t hate that you love him. You really don’t.

“How.” He clears his throat. “How are you feeling?”

“Good.”

“Are you sore? Does anything hurt?”

“No, but I’m leaking.”

“Fuck”, he laughs into your shoulder, nibbling on it gently, “sorry, I just…am drunk and missed you.”

“You were pathetic doing that.”

He laughs harder. You and he have a peculiar sense of humour. He knows that you meant it fondly. You laugh as well. He lifts his head at the sound of it, cupping your cheek.

“If it means you’re laughing, I can live with being pathetic.”

Your heart flutters.

“What’s gotten into you?”

“Booze. Way too much booze.”

You laugh again. His eyes soften, he caresses your face.

“Definitely too much booze, yeah”, you agree.

“Mhm, fuck.” He cuddles into your shoulder again. “I’m sleeping here.”

“And you think I’d let you?”

He nods his head.

“Fuck, you’re the worst.”

“Am I wrong?”

“No, you’re not.”

You wake up alone the next morning. It hurts. So nothing changed. He got what he wanted, made you addicted again only to leave. Like he always did. And you are left feeling dirty and used and fucking awful.

You probably would have stayed in bed to cry the entire day if a very worrying noise hadn’t come from outside your door. Someone’s in your kitchen. You roll out of bed and leave the room. You don’t need weapons today. You are angry enough that you will probably be able to beat whoever is dumb enough to break in.

You cross the corner and stop, lowering your fists.

Yoongi.

He took a shower and tied all of his wet hair into a messy bun. He is shirtless, wearing a towel around his hips. Music is playing from his phone while on the stove, breakfast is sizzling.

“You?”

He turns at the sound of your voice, face lighting up instantly.

“Good morning, beautiful”, he says, closing the distance to take you into a hug. “Did you sleep well?”

You don’t answer him, you push at his chest so you could look at him. You can’t believe that he is still here and that he is making you breakfast.

“What’s the matter?” he asks.

“Why the fuck are you still here?”

He furrows his brows, “why not?”

“I, I don’t know. I just, just. I thought that…huh? You didn’t leave?”

He frowns in regret for a moment, before leaning in to kiss your cheek. He gives your left buttock an almost playful squeeze afterwards, stepping back to return to the cooking.

“I’m making your favourite. I also cleaned. Your place was a shithole, honestly.”

Still flabbergasted beyond relief, you look around your small apartment. He didn’t just clean up the garbage and tidy, he fully wiped the place down. You check the clock next. It’s way past one at noon. You slept for more than twelve hours. Damn. You never even realised how much sleep these last three months took from you until you finally fell asleep in his arms again and actually stayed asleep. You feel refreshed and not uncomfortable in your own skin.

Last, you look at Yoongi. He is humming to the music, switching between stirring the eggs in the pan and chopping up some pork belly.

At first you don’t want to accept that this is actually happening to you, but then the desire to be close to him gets too grande to bear. You almost run to him, colliding with his back in a passionate hug.

He stumbles and grunts, following it up with a fond chuckle and his big hands rubbing your lower arms.

“Please don’t make me regret this again. Please.”

He turns in your arms, caressing your waist. He shakes his head, looking at you in ways he hasn’t looked at you in ages. As if he honestly loved you.

“Can you promise me?”

“I promise you, baby”, he says in a soft voice and locks pinkies with you.

The gesture is so cute and honest, that you have to stifle a giggle. Your heart hasn’t fluttered like this in ages.

“I have an idea. How about I’ll take next week off and we’re leaving this city for a while? Maybe the mountains? You’d like the air there”, he suggests.

“Are you serious? Do you actually mean that?”

He nods his head. You and he began swaying to the music, looking at nothing else but the other.

“But first I gotta sort out the mess I made when I busted V’s place”, he says.

“Yeah true.” You slap his chest. “Fuck you for that. He didn’t do anything wrong.”

“I know, I know. I acted irrationally, I admit. But I’m gonna fix this. You know how easily I can make stuff disappear. He’ll be able to return again in a week or so.”

“I hope you’ll fix this, you idiot you.”

“Mhm, I will and then I’m taking you on a long vacation”, he says, kissing your forehead before hugging you against his chest.

You close your eyes, melting into his chest.

“And when we’re there, I’m gonna make you breakfast and make you cum and make you smile. Yeah?” he whispers.

“Yeah”, you snicker.

He smells like your shower gel today, but you don’t mind. He hasn’t shown such an actual desire to change in months and it feels so good to receive. You love that you love him. You really do.

“I love you, Yoongi”, you whisper, feeling him squeeze you for just a moment as your confession overwhelms him.

“I love you too, princess”, he tells you and he is sober for it because he swore to himself that he won’t need alcohol anymore to be able to show you his affection.

He is willing to better himself, he truly is and a week later, you and he are in his car on your way to a long vacation in the mountains.

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