#the universe just needs to make sure I don’t have to make another car payment

[deathtodickens]

I fell behind on posting Ages Chapter 33 and ended up rewriting the whole thing. The universe used my overfloweth cup of stress to say, “Nah, that ain’t it.” And you know what? The universe was right. Because it’s better now.

[nohoney]

k im in desperate need of tooth rotting comfort in the c&c universe T^T

i just got over a really bad migraine so tooth rotting comfort is definitely the vibe ( = ⩊ = )

“Deep breaths, you’re doing good doll.” Touya murmurs gently, holding you against his chest as he feels your body slowly inflate and deflate as you take slow breaths. He’s stood in his spot in the kitchen for the last five minutes since you returned home, not moving until you were ready to do so.

It’s normal to have some off days where you don’t feel your best, but even a bad case of unexplained anxiety could happen to anyone. Usually you carry yourself well, even through some tougher times, so when you experience the days that you don’t feel able to handle your own emotions, it’s often upsetting for yourself. It partly hurts your pride to feel so weak and it took extra effort in the early days of the relationship to rely on one another during the bad mental health days.

You melt against Touya’s body and the uncomfortable feeling in your gut slowly works it’s way up. It spreads through your body and the sudden weight of finally letting go makes you cry. His arms hold you tighter, the smell of cigarettes is a comfort to you in these times and you just want to hold on tightly to him.

Touya’s not the greatest at comforting words. He’s better at putting his foot down when he needs to and being a little bit snarky when it comes to other people. Most of his comfort is through actions. Tight embraces and small acts of service are what get you through these rough moments. Because you can’t explain why you have anxiety, you can only feel it and let it out.

“C’mon, let’s have a smoke.”

You nod against him, wiping away your tears and following behind wordlessly.

One cigarette to share.

The two of you stand outside the balcony together, Touya holding you from behind and waiting for his turn for whenever you pass the smoke back to him. The nicotine is comforting and he likes the way the smell melds with your floral perfume.

The butt of it is stubbed out in the ashtray and he heads back inside with you.

Whenever you have these off days, you’re clingier than usual. You hang onto Touya like a sloth whether it be in the shower or when he’s stirring ramen in a pot for a lazy dinner. And when he needs to step away, you’re hugging your favorite plushie that he bought for you on your six month anniversary. Touya texts his friends to let them know that he might potentially cancel on their next day plans depending on if you’ve shaken off your bad feelings or not.

“Touya…” you come up to his side with your plushie held in your arms. “Hey…”

“Yeah? What is it doll?” He asks as he washes his hands after stepping out to smoke, “Dessert?”

Something sweet to hopefully lift your mood a little which is a typical want when you have your down days. There’s a batch of cookie dough he could pop into oven or the bag of mini candies that you and him eat slowly over time.

“Ice cream?” You ask him in such a small voice almost like you’re a little girl.

“Sure, let’s go. Which one do you want?” He asks you, thinking if the gas station nearby has anything you’d want right now.

There’s a bit of hesitance from your end before you tell him, “I want the other one. Where they make it into a rose shape.”

Ah, the fancy one.

Touya makes the drive for you, his hand on your knee as you still hold your plushie tight against you. He offers to go alone so you can stay in the car and be comfortable but you want to cling to him. He orders at the little kiosk and taps his phone to make the payment, waiting patiently with you hugging him tightly. Ice cream is formed in the shape of a rose and given to you in a little cup. It’s a simple thing that manages to bring a smile to your face, the first one you’ve had since you had returned home.

Unfortunately the anxiety doesn’t subside the next day, it’s still lingering and it keeps you rooted in bed beyond the time that you should be up. He offers to stay in bed with you, but you want some space this time. Touya tells you that he’ll give you an extra hour to stay in but after that, you are going to get up.

He sits on the edge of the bed waiting for you to muster the energy to get up. He watches you take a deep breath in and then exhale out. It’s difficult to see you struggle but he softly encourages you to stand on your feet, to make it to the restroom and wash your face. A very simple goal to reach that feels impossible in that moment. But he’s with you every step of the way as you leave the bed, shuffle your feet to the bathroom, standing beside you with a face towel ready, and then he’s hugging you as a reward.

It sucks to have these kinds of days where you just don’t feel yourself but Touya is with you to help make it easier.

[rayneleagrey]

So I recently bought a car. Got the fancy car payment and everything. Almost completely on a whim. I mean, I was planning to eventually buy a car, but I’d wanted to wait a bit longer. But I had this random bout of mania over the last month and did the spending when I shouldn’t thing.

But mostly… one day, I woke up, and I literally just… felt like I needed a new car. My old car was fine. Serenity. She’s a trucker and reliable but I don’t trust her to make a 500 mile trip up to see my family and my grandmother and mother are getting up there in age. I needed a way to go see them at the drop of a hat if I needed and I didn’t want to have to rent a car and spend hundreds of dollars for a rental for a week and knew ultimately, a car payment would be cheaper in the long run.

Anyway… that’s all besides the point. The point is, I woke up one day and I just felt in my SOUL I needed to buy a car. Immediately. Like NOW now. I found a car I mostly liked, that one fell through, and then I found another one, with even better condition and mileage for the same price and I bought that one two days later.

A week after that, I get the message that my mother just had a stroke and wasn’t doing well. She’s doing better. She can talk, demand food, and at least somewhat move her left side.

Just something in my chest knew.

I told my boyfriend about it and he just nodded.

I dunno. I needed some place to vent about it.

I was desperately looking for another job. Any other job. And hadn’t gotten any feedback on one even though, I’m gonna be honest, I’m a pretty decent candidate. I figured… okay, the universe wants me here right now and tried to make the most of it. Start indulging in spending to make myself feel better, cause honestly, I hate this fucking job.

Wake up one day with the desperate urge to buy a car like right now and ask for some time off after I get it to visit family later in the month, only to have a family emergency pop up a week later.

Let’s just say it, the universe has a funny sense of humor. Or god or gods or whatever the fuck you believe in. I’m not sure what I personally believe in anymore, tbh. But this whole thing convinces me that there’s at least something out there pulling the strings here and there.

[toyotacamryinsacramento]

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[writethelifeyouwant]

It's All Greek to Me

Summary: A small cult of prostitutes sacrificing their clients to the goddess Aphrodite pops up in Kansas City, and Sam and Dean put a stop to them with the help of a professor from the University of Kansas, who tags along with the brothers to translate the cult’s rituals. On their drive back to Lawrence, Y/N reveals what she’d like as payment for her help in stopping the renegade cult.

Pairing: Sam x Reader x Dean (no wincest) Rating: 18+ Tags: Professor!Reader, Multi-Lingual!Reader, slightly Dom!Sam, Bros Being Bros, Talented Tongues, Blow Job, Road Head, Impala Sex, Orgasm Control, Implied Threesome Word Count: 1,195 Bingo Squares: @samwinchesterbingo - Free Space | @spnkinkbingo - Road Head | @spndeanbingo - Road Head | @anyfandomkinkbingo - Orgasm Control | @anyfandomgoesbingo - Orgasm Denial

Created for: Jen was the January winner of my monthly drawing and she submitted this request! If you’d like to be entered, every month, to win a free fic – subscribe to my website here.

“I still don’t get how you suspected what that cult was up to so quickly,” Sam questioned again as he, Dean and Y/N all bundled into the Impala for the return journey: back to Lawrence and the University of Kansas for Y/N, then on to Lebanon and the bunker for the Winchester brothers.

“I mean, you said you had to be there in person to translate the rituals properly and write the counter incantations out for us, but it was like you already knew what we needed to do before they even finished.”

Sam had been suspicious ever since the professor had insisted on coming with them in person, apparently so she could make sure the intricacies of her counter curses against the cult were carried out accurately. But he also suspected that she’d wanted to see the rituals in person for another reason, which she wasn’t being candid about. He hoped she wasn’t planning on writing a book about this or anything. They didn’t need to advertise that sacrificial cults to ancient Greek deities actually worked, even in academic circles.

“Give it a rest, Sammy,” Dean scoffed. He’d shot down Sam’s worries about Y/N every time Sam had tried to have a quiet word with him. Dean was never one to suspect the pretty faces. “Just be glad we locked up Aphrodite nice’n’tight and didn’t have to kill any prostitutes to do it,” he wiggled his eyebrows at Sam through the rearview mirror, a stupid grin on his face.

“I don’t think you actually want to sleep with any of ‘em, Dean,” Sam rolled his eyes. “They were literally sacrificing their johns no two hours ago.”

“Yeah, but they were doing it to get the low down on pleasing your man from the Love Goddess herself,” Dean reasoned, his eyes getting a far away look in their green irises. “Bet they learned some neat tricks before we cramped their style,” he smirked at his brother again and Sam huffed under his breath in frustration, settling into the back seat of the Impala as they sped down the highway towards Lawrence.

“You’re unbelievable,” he muttered to himself, and Y/N giggled in the front seat.

“What?” Dean asked, side-eyeing her while he drove.

“I just don’t know how you guys ever pull off being FBI partners or whatever other ruses you use,” Y/N laughed lightly, glancing back at Sam over her shoulder with a playful smile. “You’re so clearly brothers, it’s nuts.”

“Hey, we can be good actors when we’ve gotta be,” Dean protested with an offended snort under his breath. “It’s just harder when there’s a pretty lady around to distract us.” He pulled his eyes off the road and winked at Y/N, sending her into a renewed fit of giggles, and Sam rolled his eyes again behind the pair of them.

God, Dean was incorrigible.

“Is there anything else hard because of the distracting, pretty lady?” Y/N asked with wide, innocent eyes, fluttering her lashes in Dean’s direction, and the Impala swerved to the right, skating over the rumble strips on the side of the road and sending the car shaking beneath them. She looked in the rearview mirror and shot Sam a wink, which sent him sitting bolt upright in his seat.

She’s just as bad as Dean, he thought, caught off guard. Was she really coming on to both of them?

The car swerved again – violently.

“Woah! Whatcha doin’ there sweetheart?” Dean asked, looking at Y/N in nervous surprise. Sam saw the professor’s shoulder moving at an odd angle and he understood what must have just happened – she was groping Dean in the front seat, hand kneading over his crotch methodically while he tried valiantly to keep driving straight. Sam gulped awkwardly, suddenly feeling very hot under the collar of his plaid shirt.

“Well…” she mused, still touching Dean unashamedly while turning around to look Sam up and down over the back of her bench seat, “I did say I’d think of a way you could thank me for helping you guys solve your little prostitute problem,” Y/N smiled toothily, and Sam felt himself blushing under her lecherous examination. “I want you. Both of you,” she clarified, gaze swivelling between the brothers.

“A-at the same time?” Dean stuttered, moaning under his breath when she squeezed him a little harder. God, he must be uncomfortable in those jeans by now, Sam thought absently. His own body was starting to get a little excited by the conversation, and Y/N hadn’t even laid a hand on him yet.

“I can handle it if you boys can,” Y/N shrugged.

A challenge.

“Plus, if you needed a little more convincing…” She got up onto her knees on the bench seat, and Sam couldn’t see what her hands were doing, but he figured it was a safe bet that she was undoing Dean’s pants and pulling his cock out for him. He could see his brother white knuckling the steering wheel, trying very hard not to crash his precious car.

“My knack for languages has given me a… talented tongue, shall we say?” Y/N looked back at Sam, a wicked glint in her eyes. “One I’m pretty sure you share, Sam. I’d love to test my theory.”

Without thinking too hard about it, Sam scooted forwards in his seat and pulled Y/N into a kiss, keenly demonstrating just how talented a tongue he possessed. Their moans combined and filled the small space of the car’s interior, echoing softly against the fabric coated metal frame.

“Shit.” Sam heard Dean swear and pulled back from the kiss, smirking at his brother through the rearview mirror.

“She wasn’t wrong about that tongue, Dean,” he breathed heavily, chest heaving a little in excitement. “I think you should show him, darlin’.” Sam brushed a lock of hair over her shoulder, carefully putting his hand on the back of her neck and pushing her face down towards his brother’s lap, where she eagerly swallowed down the erection that Sam made a conscious effort to avoid looking at directly.

Dean groaned heavily, head lolling back on his shoulders briefly before he remembered that he needed to be keeping his eyes on the road. Sam heard Y/N’s muffled giggle at his reaction, but she kept her head down, absorbed in her task.

“Bet you can’t last until we get back to Lawrence,” Sam teased Dean, seeing the beads of sweat starting to gather at the base of his hairline. His brother glanced at the clock, then out the window to see a sign that said – University of Kansas: 30 miles.

“If I can, what do I win?” Dean asked, voice very clearly strained. “I get to fuck her first?”

“Dude, c’mon, we’re fucking her at the same time. You heard what she asked for,” Sam laughed. “But if you don’t cum before we get there, I’ll let you cum in her pussy before I do.”

“Fuck…” Dean sighed shakily. “Yeah, I can hold out for that.”

“Good man,” Sam clapped Dean on the shoulder. “Now please just get us there without crashing.”

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[dhdfaq]

Death-Heads: Deals & Payments

Death-Heads are supervised and officially accepted by the government. Some of the Death-Heads’ deals require reports to the government, like cases of euthanasia or other kills.

In a case of a serious deal, like an euthanasia, a death-head needs a permission from their supervisor (the faction boss) to proceed. This is to prevent any unnecessary hitman jobs and people getting each other killed just like that. If the fraction boss says no, then there won’t be a deal.

Nothing is off-limits from deals. A Death-Head can refuse a deal or recommend a colleague for the job - but they can’t constantly refuse a deal request or the HQ will be upset with it.

Hitman jobs are always checked before agreeing, so blatant "I want you to kill my neighbor because he mows the lawn every single day in summer and keeps me awake with that noise"-nonsense murders aren't accepted. You want someone dead? You better have a solid proof and excuse for that. This is, again, to make sure that the society doesn't fall into a chaos. OF COURSE, having said that, high profile persons probably get murders ordered just because they want that, just like in real life. If I want to get someone killed = nope. If a president wants someone to be killed by a secret service = done.

A client can withdraw a deal if it hasn’t been fulfilled yet, but if the Death-Head has done their part from the deal, the client must pay.

If the client refuses to pay, the Death-Head must deliver them a notice of refusal, either playing the official refusal audio or reach the client by mail. If the client still refuses to pay after the official warning notice, the Death-Head in question can deal with the issue however they want. You make a deal, you respect it. Period.

All Death-Head Deals must be paid by a random request from the hired Death-Head. The Death-Head in question will ask for the payment only after the job from the Death-Head’s end has been done. The requests can be anything from a handshake to the life of someone, as long as it matches the size of the deal. For example, if someone asks for a new car from their deal but the Death-Head collects a payment that is too much (like their house in return), this is illegal.

Death-Head factions as well as the HQ supervise the deals so no one can collect too much. There’s no minimum requirements for the payment. It can be as simple as one pebble. The Death-Head in the question decides.

If the client of a Death-Head feels that they have been collected an unjust payment, they must file a report to the faction boss or to the HQ. If the Death-Head has collected too much, the faction boss or the HQ will deal with it.

For the payment, the Death-Head can use their own morals and ethics. Not everyone is the same in Death-Heads.

Death-Heads are not to misuse their rights, for example threaten the headmaster of a top university to get their child in. Misuse of their rights leads to an investigation from the HQ. There are always consequences.

The screening for the work is tight to avoid any unstable persons to join the ranks. However, if someone slipped through it and they start to kill for a joy (or as ridiculous payments, like body parts), there will be consequences. Death-Heads are not above the law if they violate Death-Head rules.

The HQ has office workers. They are not Death-Heads and won’t make deals. They won’t wear masks either and will wear formal office outfits. 

The HQ workers will not be associated with the Death-Heads and the HQ unless they specifically state that they’re working there. They’re not as feared as Death-Heads (think about an office worker VS a commando in a military).

No one is above a deal. Anyone can get a deal or fall into a deal target, except a fellow Death-Head.

No, you can’t hire another Death-Head to save your ass if you know for certain that you’re a deal target. Death-Heads don’t meddle with each others’ work. Whoever gets first - the Death-Head hunting or the Death-Head protecting - will be the Death-Head to complete the deal. 

Death-Heads don’t do permanent bodyguard jobs as they work for individual deals,  so if you are in need of protection 24/7 for a long period of time, you will need a bodyguard.

I don’t know yet how the organization came to be and possibly we might never know it.

No one in their sane mind would pose as a Death-Head. The local faction would hear about it and deal with the imposter with serious consequences. This is equal to real-life situations in Japan, where no sane person goes to rob companies which are in the areas owned by yakuza, or pretend to be one of the mafia members, as the mafia will hear about it and deal with the person for good.

If a deal can’t be completed due to circumstances, the payment won’t be collected as the client didn’t get their deal (compare to how a doctor tries to save their patient’s life but can’t do it, no matter how hard the doctor tries. It’s no one’s fault)

People can be asked for payments if the deal matches this request.

If you are a target of a deal, well, too bad for you. There’s no escaping. For escaping targets, the HQ will help to find them. There’s no escape if you’re the deal target.

If you kill a Death-Head who is after you to kill you, you will be sentenced for a murder. Also, you will also get the whole DH organization from the HQ and the faction who was the killed Death-Head’s home faction after you.

If a target is asked to be killed and approved by the faction boss or in important cases by the HQ, think it as a legally approved execution.

If Death-Head is killed, injured or dies during a deal, the faction of the said Death-Head will complete the deal. Again, think about a doctor who is treating you and passes away. You will be just transferred to another doctor within the same hospital.

If the Death-Head of the on-going deal is killed, injured or dies during the deal, the payment it being collected either by the faction boss for the benefit of the whole faction or by the HQ if the case is important.

I don’t think a deal target can get a deal from a Death-Head to save their ass, as Death-Heads don’t sabotage each others’ work or intervene with the deals unless requested or assigned to do so.

Of course, not every single case is a murder or killing. It can be torturing, black mailing, giving something, doing something etc. 

Clients can ask any kind of deals from Death-Heads. Bigger, more complicated deals are regulated more heavily than easier stuff, for example Give Me Money Please VS Help Me To Cheat in a Political Campaign.

The deals go on until they’re finished, though clients can request a certain deadline. It’s the Death-Head’s job to do their best to meet the deadline.

Death-Head organization does charity work, like annual Death-Head Auction. Death-Heads are supposed to donate either part of their earnings or something worthy for the auction. I think majority are asked for money as otherwise there would be too many auction items.

Faction areas also do charity work within their own territory, like East helping East, West helping West etc.

Charity work is mainly PR to keep the positive mindset in media whenever possible.

[cinnaminsvga]

Hug-o-gram | Yoongi

→ summary: 

“This is probably the dumbest idea you’ve ever had,” Yoongi hisses, but it’s kind of hard for Seokjin to take him seriously when he’s wearing a cardboard sign around his neck that says ‘Huggie Wuggie Machine!’ in bubble font. 

“Like, even worse than when we DIY’d your car into a convertible by sawing the top off?” Seokjin asks, genuinely curious. 

“Worse,” Yoongi admits, trying his best to stay out of your line of sight. His cheeks redden, matching the gaudy pink kitten ears he was forced into wearing.

{or alternatively: Seokjin is a terrible wingman. He also runs a profitable business by sending hugs to people’s crushes for a fee. Mix them together and you have a recipe for Min Yoongi’s worst nightmare.}

→ genre: college!au, hugging booth!au, fluff, humor → warnings: yoongi is so smitten that he’s a walking disaster, so much shy!yoongi to the point where you’ll want to scream, seokjin just tryna get his homie some y/n love coochie bro ;o; → words: 13.3K → a/n: another commission by the lovely @jincherie​ because she’s epic like that!! she literally just told me to write whatever the hell i wanted and well... yoobie got me Good... anyway here’s more yoongi fluff bc apparently i’m a fluff writer now and sometimes i just want my boy to be happy... appa yip yip

Kim Seokjin makes a lot of good decisions. He also makes plenty of bad ones, but he likes to think the score is lying heavily towards the positives. Min Yoongi will be the first one to quickly disagree, but Seokjin doesn’t let it get to him. He doesn’t make it his business to listen to opinions that don’t immediately align with his, anyway; he likes to call it “selective hearing.” Yoongi calls it stupidity. Either way, the point still stands: Seokjin knows a good idea when he sees one. Case in point:

“This automatic popcorn machine is absolutely divine,” Seokjin moans, his mouth agape as he waits for the Mister Popcorn Robot to bestow him with another morsel of goodness.

“Yeah,” is Yoongi’s verbose reply. He also has his mouth agape, his prone body lying side by side with his roommate of four years in their small living room. Their roomba (another one of Seokjin’s good ideas) cleans all around them, its steady whirring serving as their only source of background music. “Lowkey though, I think our position isn’t quite… as optimized as it could be.”

“What do you mean?” Seokjin asks, as he drapes his leg over Yoongi’s. His movement jostles the surrounding popcorn halo around them, as most of the food had missed their mouths by a couple of centimeters. At this point, the roomba has probably eaten more of the popcorn than the two of them combined.

“Nothing,” Yoongi shrugs, or whatever might be the lying down equivalent of a shrug. Some of the popcorn on his chest falls down, only to be quickly devoured by roomba-chi. Yoongi stares at the ceiling, tracing shapes out of the cracks that Seokjin had accidentally made when he tried using a pogo stick indoors. He points up, catching Seokjin’s attention. “Hey, hyung. Doesn’t that look a bit like Y/N?”

Seokjin squints. “You mean the mysterious brown stain near the lights? I think the toilet from the elderly couple upstairs might have leaked that.”

“No, you dipshit. The squiggly curve over there. It reminds me of her smile.” Yoongi says. There’s a stupid dopey grin on his face and Seokjin wants nothing more than to wipe it off.

“Jesus fucking Christ.” Seokjin groans, turning over to envelop Yoongi in a sweaty half-armed hug. The buttery residue on his arms and stomach leaves something to be desired, but Yoongi doesn’t scoot away. He only continues to sigh dreamily, staring mindlessly at the image of you that only his lovelorn brain can imagine.

Seokjin slaps Yoongi in the face. “Dude, get a fucking grip,” he grouses, giving Yoongi a serious look. The younger doesn’t break out of his trance, further irritating him. “Will you stop pining in front of my popcorn? It’s seriously making roomba-chi lose her appetite!”

To his credit, roomba-chi did seem to be slowing down, though that could also be because it had overloaded with popcorn and was seconds away from exploding. Wouldn’t be the first time, but Seokjin always managed to find a way to save roomba-chi from imminent death. She was like a daughter to him.

“Hyung, you know I can’t. I just… God, I really like her, you know?”

“That’s the third time you said that within the last hour. Believe me, I know.” Seokjin groans, shoving Yoongi away. He sits up, reaching over to the popcorn machine and switching it off. He grabs a fistful of fallen popcorn from the ground and shoves it inside Yoongi’s mouth. “There. That should shut you up.”

“Aw weawwy wike hew, hwung.”

“And yet, you still haven’t done anything after four years,” Seokjin tuts, finally standing up. He stretches his limbs, his joints creaking youthfully. He grabs his phone from the coffee table, nearly dropping it from the butteriness of his fingers. The clock reads 4:32 PM, which means–

“Yoongi, it’s time for me to head to work. You want to come with me today?” Seokjin asks, though he knows what answer he’s going to get. You see, Seokjin’s new booming business is another one of his fantastic ideas, but it is a little... inventive. Sure, Yoongi had scoffed when he had originally suggested the idea, but Seokjin knew that it was going to be a money-maker. Sure, it had taken a few years for the business to really take off, but once it finally did…

Enter Kim Seokjin’s Hug-o-gram Service! Students from his university are able to send anonymous payments directly to him, with little notes attached for their crushes. Each love letter delivery comes with a hug from Seokjin himself, delivered straight to the person without them ever knowing who the hug came from. It was ingenious! It was lucrative! But most of all…

It allowed Seokjin to cause drama and have an excuse for it! Nothing could have been more perfect for a man like him.

“No thanks,” Yoongi snorts, rolling over to face him. He watches from the floor as Seokjin changes into a butter-less shirt, which also happens to have his own face printed on the front and back. His trusty cardboard sign that reads “I’m Gonna Glomp Ya!” also joins his attire for the afternoon, a long piece of string tied to its edges so that he can wear it around his neck. Throwing on a pair of white sneakers with the tags still attached, Seokjin is ready to tackle today’s list of would-be hug-ees.

“How do I look?” Seokjin asks, combing his hair with his fingers. It leaves an oily sheen, which he somehow makes it work.

“Ugly,” Yoongi says, like a liar.

“It’s okay, I understand. I can speak tsundere, so you don’t need to explain,” Seokjin snickers, nearly getting hit with a TV remote by Yoongi. He opens his phone again, swiping to his e-mail to see his list of hug deliveries for the day.

Seokjin gets around 10 requests a day, with around half of them coming from regular clients. He’s especially fond of this boy who has been sending hugs to his TA named Namjoon for almost a month now. He has no idea why this kid has so much disposable income, though seeing the blush on Namjoon’s face everyday makes Seokjin think that he would spend every last penny for him too. Namjoon had begged Seokjin for his secret admirer’s identity, but snitchin’ isn’t a part of his service, unfortunately.

As much as Seokjin wants to know who is crushing on who, his little business wouldn’t work as well as it did if anonymity wasn’t included in his package deal. It allows people to thirst in public without facing the repercussions, like getting a knee to the groin or a slap to the face. Not that Seokjin has ever been at the receiving end of that; everyone loves him! Like, have you seen him? He must have saved a civilization in the past with how devastatingly beautiful his forehead is.

“Why am I suddenly filled with the relentless urge to deck you right now?” Yoongi says, getting up to change into clean clothes as well. His black t-shirt unfortunately does not have Seokjin’s face on it, but that can quickly be amended if the elder of the two decides to follow his every intrusive whim.

Seokjin laughs, completely unaware of the murderous capabilities of his friend. Due to his smaller body size, his percentage of evil is unusually concentrated. “Maybe it’s because you know that I’m into pain pla–” but Seokjin’s retort suddenly grinds to a halt. He chokes mid-sentence, coughing wildly as he pounds his chest with a balled-up fist. When Yoongi looks up at him, he finds his hyung staring slack-jawed at his phone, seemingly flabbergasted by what he finds on his screen.

“What’s the matter? Accidentally sent a dick pic to your prof again?” Yoongi snorts.

“That was one time! And no, it’s…” Seokjin trails off, uncharacteristically hesitant. He shifts his gaze from his phone to Yoongi, a drop of sweat quickly forming on the back of his neck. Yoongi raises a brow, silently urging him to continue.

Instead of replying, Seokjin hands him his phone. Yoongi finds a copy of one of Seokjin’s newest hug requests, only having just received it five minutes ago. As he scrolls down, he finds that this secret admirer is a new client, but that isn’t what made Seokjin stop in his tracks. Instead, it’s the recipient of the hug that catches his attention–

“Y/N has a secret admirer?” Yoongi says, voice cracking at the end. He clears his throat, trying his best to school his face into something less… jealous. He swivels away from Seokjin, forcing himself to breathe slowly through his nose. He convinces himself that he is the very epitome of calmness.

“You okay there, Yoongi? You look like you’re about to vomit,” Seokjin says, immediately breaking his inner peace. Yoongi groans loudly, shucking the phone over his shoulder, uncaring of where it lands. Seokjin, with his superhuman and God-given reflexes… doesn’t catch it. But he did dive to the floor like a seasoned Olympian, and his ass cushioned his phone so he supposes that’s a win.

Back to the matter at hand––

“I am fine,” Yoongi says, as he continues to not be fine.

From the floor, Seokjin shoots him a disbelieving look. He lies down more comfortably, propping his head on his elbows. Screw his hug-o-gram appointments for now; nothing brings him more joy than seeing Yoongi absolutely losing it. “Really? So you wouldn’t mind if I marched up to Y/N right now and give her the warmest, coziest, most tender hug of her fucking life?”

“Y… Yes,” Yoongi squeaks, neck glowing a furious red. He has his fists clenched (adorably) by his sides, head bowed as he faces the wall of their apartment. Seokjin’s brain makes the unhelpful comparison of Yoongi with that cat meme who says “no talk me angy” in Impact font.

Seokjin grins, his wickedness from within coiling and yearning to burst from his seams. This is it! Maybe if he pushes a little more, then maybe Yoongi will stop pining like a pathetic loser! Also, it didn’t hurt that he got to push Yoongi’s buttons while he’s at it, but hey! Not all heroes go to heaven or whatever.

He grabs his phone from his ass, scrolling back to the e-mail. “So… You wouldn’t mind if I walk up to Y/N right now and tell her ‘Hey! I’ve had an embarrassingly long crush on you and when I heard about this hugging service… I couldn’t miss the chance to shoot my shot! If you’re single and ready to #mingle, then please meet me at the Corner Cafe at 2 PM tomorrow.’” Seokjin sing-songs, snickering loudly when he sees the absolute pain etched onto Yoongi’s face.

There is a pause, and Seokjin waits as Yoongi uses his tiny kitty brain to think of what to do. He can only imagine what’s going inside his head, but he has a guess. Yoongi could either: 1) finally admit his feelings for you and come clean before Seokjin has to deliver your hug, or 2) do something stupid and counterproductive.

It comes as no surprise when Yoongi goes with option number––

“Hyung, let me come with you to work today,” Yoongi decides, walking over Seokjin’s prone body to their shoe rack. He slides into a pair of sneakers, his harried movements unusual for his customary lethargicness. He grabs a coat from its hanger, stomping his feet to get Seokjin to move faster. “C’mon! We have hugs to deliver.”

“Woah woah woah! Slow down there, Simpimus Prime.” Seokjin gets back up to his feet, skipping over to him. An absolutely feral grin is stretched upon his face. “Am I hearing what you’re saying? Are you offering… to deliver hugs with yours truly? Are you finally going to take up my offer to be an employee at Kim Seokjin’s Hug-o-gram Service?”

“Of course not,” Yoongi scoffs, but his shifting eyes betray him. He fidgets in place, refusing to return Seokjin’s eager gaze. “I just… wanted to go out for once. Yeah.”

“Yoongi.”

“What?”

“You haven’t left this apartment other than to go to class in over a month. You never go out. You’re an indoor cat!”

“I’m not a fucking cat,” Yoongi hisses, like a cat. “And of course I go out! There was that one time I went outside to pick up our food delivery last week.”

Judging from Seokjin’s unimpressed stare, Yoongi’s excuse doesn’t cut it. Yoongi flaps his arms around, defeated. “Okay, fine! I rarely go out! Screw me and the bounteous crapload of assignments I have due! It’s not my fault I don’t have the time to socialize and have fun. What do you want from me?”

What Seokjin wants is to push a confession out of Yoongi, not because he needs the confirmation, but mostly because he just wants to annoy Yoongi and say “I told you so!” He’s also pretty cute when he’s all blushy and tsundere whenever he talks about you. Should he film him and sell the footage on eboys.bb? He’s certain that goth boy over here would make a pretty penny.

“You like krabby patties, don’t you Squidward?”

“I have no idea what you mean,” Yoongi sniffs, nose upturned. He opens the door, not looking behind him to see Seokjin’s triumphant expression. “C’mon. Y/N’s last class of the day ends in a few minutes and we might catch her before she leaves the Science Building.”

Seokjin snorts. He is quick to slip his own coat on and he follows soon after. He locks their door shut, hopping over to Yoongi and matching his shorter-legged pace. “Yeah. Because you totally just know her schedule at the top of your head. You know, like a normal person.”

Yoongi ignores him. He trudges on, each step filled with determination as they make their way to Seokjin’s beat-up truck. Seokjin skips alongside him, observing the younger boy and placing bets inside his mind. The drive to campus isn’t that long as it only takes around 10 minutes to get there, but Seokjin guesses that Yoongi’s defenses will begin to chip away only 3 minutes into the drive.

He’ll start to realize the gravity of the situation, the cogs in his smooth and slushy excuse of a brain slowly comprehend what he’s about to witness. He’ll first think about how 1) he’s going to see you and that never helps his poor dainty grandpa heart and 2) he’s going to see you hugging Seokjin as he reads to you the short love confession from your anonymous Romeo. Seokjin bets that after 8 minutes, Yoongi will start to break out into a sweat, leaving gross perspiration marks on his good car seat leather.

After exactly 7 minutes and 34 seconds (Seokjin was keeping track of the time on his dashboard), Yoongi’s face turns an unflattering shade of green. “Dude. I don’t think this is a good idea.”

Yoongi had originally offered to drive the two of them to campus, but Seokjin had the good foresight to refuse. Had Yoongi been the one on the wheel, he would’ve brought them back home in an instant due to nerves. So instead, Seokjin speeds up, ignoring Yoongi’s soft whimpers of defeat.

“Too bad, but there is no turning back now. I have six deliveries today and I am not putting my livelihood on the line just because your balls have magically shrunk in size,” Seokjin snickers. He glances at Yoongi from the corner of his eye and feels the slightest touch of pity for the pathetic fool beside him. “But if it really makes you want to shit yourself from anxiety, we could save Y/N for last. Though, on second thought… That could also prolong your misery, which I will always be up for.”

“God, shut up,” Yoongi groans, slamming his head on the dashboard. Seokjin continues undeterred as he pulls into the campus parking lot, waiting for his friend to make up his damn mind for once in his life. He supposes that he is being a little harsh on Yoongi, but there are only so many sad love songs he can listen to without going completely insane.

Aren’t you tired of being nice? The demon on his shoulder cajoles, shoving the corpse of his angel counterpart somewhere down a ditch. Don’t you just want to go apeshit?

And who is Seokjin to deny his impulsive needs anyway?

“No, let’s… just get this over with,” Yoongi decides, head still smushed against his dashboard. He doesn’t make any move to get out of the car, not even when Seokjin shuts off the engine and makes a show of “leaving” Yoongi behind.

“Okay, lover boy. You have ten seconds to get your butt into high gear before I’m leaving you behind. And you should know that I’m not above playing dirty and giving Y/N the sweetest fucking hug of her life that will make her forget anyone else exists in this world, so you better start moving before I–”

Like lightning, Yoongi scrambles out of the car faster than if it had caught on fire (and Seokjin’s car has exploded before and Yoongi certainly did not seem as bothered to escape than he does right now.) He nearly trips over himself in his haste, getting caught by the car door and nearly receiving a concrete facial to boot. He straightens up with as much dignity as he can muster (which he doesn’t have very much of, if at all.) Seokjin is kind enough not to mention anything, but the shit-eating grin on his face is enough to make Yoongi bristle.

They exit the parking lot, looking to the world like the sun and moon had turned human for the day. Min Yoongi, with his all-black attire and gaunt appearance, is heavily juxtaposed with the man who appears to have been vomited on by a rainbow. They walk side-by-side together, accustomed to the stares that often come their way when they go out in public.

“I just can’t believe we’re doing this,” Yoongi moans for the umpteenth time, his movements stilted like a robot. His footsteps look heavily disjointed like his knees were beginning to rust. His arms swing like a pendulum, adding to the unnaturalness of his motions. Basically, he looks like a fucking idiot.

“Who are you calling an idiot?” Yoongi snaps. Seokjin startles a bit, realizing belatedly that he’d said that out loud. Not that he cares. Yoongi continues, “I’m not the one wearing a fucking cardboard sign that looks like a toddler made it with macaroni and glitter!”

“Hey, Taehyung told me it looked good,” Seokjin sniffs, fingering the macaroni pieces dejectedly. “I don’t need to hear an opinion from a Music major.”

“Shut up, Business major. No one likes you fucking snakes,” Yoongi retorts, crossing his arms. “Your definition of fun is going on LinkedIn and using Excel sheets.”

Distracted by their own quarrel, neither of them notice the sound of the large clock in the middle of campus that chimes every hour, signaling that it was already 5 PM. A few minutes later, hoards of students begin to leave university for the day, the walkways beginning to fill with people as they head home. Amidst the chattering and bustling of everyone trying to get out of the crowd, it is hard to notice that you are also one of the hundreds of people finishing your last class of the day.

But Yoongi notices, as he always does. Call it Y/N intuition, or whatever. “There,” Yoongi points you out over dozens of heads. Seokjin can hardly spot you, but he trusts Yoongi’s weird Y/N-dar to find you without fail. People have begun to notice the two of them, most of whom were whispering excitedly when they notice that Seokjin is in his work attire.

“Oh my god, someone’s getting a hug-o-gram! I wonder who…”

“Have you ever ordered one? I got one for my current girlfriend last month and that’s how we got together.”

“I’ve always wanted to send one, but the prices are insane! Fuck them business students and their capitalist ways.”

“Screw sending a hug to someone else! I wanna order a hug for me. Kim Seokjin is a hot piece of ass.”

(Yoongi swears the last comment had sounded eerily like Seokjin himself, but the older boy’s mouth hadn’t moved in the last minute.)

“Alright, Yoongi. Here’s the plan,” Seokjin leans closer to Yoongi, stage whispering into his ear. Everyone within a six-foot radius is eagerly eavesdropping, not even bothering to pretend that they aren’t. It’s common knowledge that Seokjin basks in their attention, anyway. Yoongi rolls his eyes, urging him to get it over with.

“Y/N is over there, right? Well, I have to send a hug to this guy named Mark Lee too, who just so happens to be over there,” Seokjin points behind them, in the opposite direction of where Y/N was heading, “so here’s my proposition. You go over to Y/N and deliver the hug for me, while I go catch up to Mark so that we can kill one bird with two stones!”

“Excuse me?” Yoongi wheezes, pushing Seokjin away from him. His eyes bug out. “Are you insane? I am not doing that. And the phrase is ‘killing two birds with one stone,’ you fucking idiot.”

“Same shit, Shakespeare! Who cares about numbers!” Seokjin exclaims, exasperated. “Listen, would you rather you hug Mark and I hug Y/N?”

“I would much rather prefer that I stick my whole fist up your anus,” Yoongi seethes.

“Interesting proposition, but maybe for a later time,” Seokjin says, not missing a beat. “Listen, dude. The longer we prolong this little bitchfest you have going on, the farther away Y/N is gonna get. You know I will stop at nothing to deliver her hug anyway, so would you rather you miss your chance right now when I am so magnanimously offering you a shot at getting closer to your crush?”

Even though Yoongi feels like his insides were slowly turning into mashed potatoes, he knows that he had already made a decision long before they left the house. Seokjin is right; this is a good opportunity for him, whether he is willing to admit it out loud. Perhaps it is just because it is Seokjin of all people who is egging him on that preprogrammed him into thinking that this was a bad idea. In all seriousness, it was just a hug, nothing fancy. It isn’t like Yoongi was going to have to kiss you––

(His heart contracts and Yoongi wonders if he’s having a stroke. The thought of your soft lips connecting with his is enough to cause the wind to knock out of his chest. God, Yoongi is so screwed.)

“Why must I always feel as though I am a snail and God is personally salting me,” Yoongi groans, stepping away from Seokjin and heading your way. Behind him, Seokjin hollers in what he assumes is friendly support, but it only further antagonizes Yoongi. The absolute buffoon waves enthusiastically from behind him, a beaming grin almost ready to split his face in two. Yoongi flips him off without looking back.

God fucking dammit. The closer that Yoongi is to approaching you, the stronger the urge to just evaporate like ice cream on hot concrete becomes. He can feel himself perspiring from every corner of his body and he just hopes that his black attire will do well to mask the slimy creature that he is underneath his clothing.

This is all Seokjin’s fault, Yoongi reminds himself. If he hadn’t started this stupid hugging service in the first place, then no one would have ordered a hug for you in the first place. Then Yoongi wouldn’t have to be in this stupid predicament either!

But you could’ve ordered a hug for her if you wanted to, says the annoying part of his brain – the same part that’s always been a little bit too hopeful for Yoongi’s liking. The whispers continue, And she wouldn’t even know it would be you! But more importantly…

“Seokjin wouldn’t know either,” Yoongi huffs irritably because he knows it’s true. The biggest thing stopping him from ever making a move on you, other than his debilitating fear of rejection and heartbreak, is the fact that he’d rather explode into spores than for Seokjin to find out that he’d used his “genius” business idea to get the girl of his dreams.

He’s afraid that one day, Seokjin would magically develop telepathic powers (a fear that Yoongi feels that the majority of the human population should also share) and find out that Yoongi doesn’t actually think his hug-o-gram service is dumb. It’s actually really cute, and Yoongi hates to admit that the success rate of his service is nearly perfect in terms of getting couples together.

But Yoongi is a strong (read: stubborn) man; he’d rather drop dead than allow Seokjin the satisfaction of seeing his business work out for his seemingly hopeless case. Which brings him to the present–

You’re standing by the entrance of the Sciences building. You are dressed nicely as always; Yoongi doesn’t think he’s ever seen you in anything remotely slobby, not even a pair of sweats like any regular uni student. You always look a little bit business proper: the epitome of someone who should be on the student council.

You’re speaking to someone, a younger male student by the looks of it. The hairs on Yoongi’s neck stand at attention and, God forbid, did he just fucking growl? Did he make that sound? By the looks of the students carefully navigating their way around him, Yoongi surmises that he did make that sound. Geez, is he some sort of animal? Is he going to turn into those feral stan accounts on Twitter that salivate over their K-pop boys like it’s their job? He hopes not.

But what if that’s the kid who sent the hug–

Yoongi shuts up his brain before he can let it finish. No, he can’t let himself go down that path. It’ll only cause him to self-combust right then and there, and he isn’t exactly keen on letting you see his entrails anytime soon. That would be the least cool thing to do, he decides. And so, with his brain turned off, he walks over to you, arms swinging robotically by his sides as he forces himself closer.

“Oh thank you so much, Y/N! You’ve been a real help to our club, you know?” The boy (Yoongi can’t believe they’re letting toddlers into university these days!) says, his eyes glittering with an ambition that still hasn’t been killed by the all-consuming dread that comes with university.

You laugh lightly, the sound causing butterflies to flutter excitedly in Yoongi’s chest. “No worries, Soobin. I’m glad I could be of help. If the editorial board needs any more help, don’t be shy to shoot me a message, alright?”

Soobin nods enthusiastically, his head bobbing up and down so quickly that Yoongi was afraid his neck would snap. “No worries, Y/N! Have a good rest of your week!” He waves a cheery goodbye, springing away with his numerous anime keychains on his backpack jingling softly in his wake.

“What a cute kid,” you sigh. You look incredibly fond, and Yoongi hates the bitter coil swimming in the pit of his stomach. That feeling soon fizzles out when you finally turn to face Yoongi. Your eyebrows shoot up, but your expression quickly morphs into one of pleasant surprise. Yoongi’s heart stops for just a moment, feet turning cold. “Yoongi! Oh my goodness, it’s been a hot minute since I’ve seen you! How’s it going?”

Let’s play a game, shall we? How many of Yoongi’s nervous ticks can you spot within the next five minutes? Think of this as the easiest game of Where’s Waldo ever!

“Hnng,” Yoongi stammers, his hand immediately going to scratch the back of his neck. His cheeks pinken, pupils shaking in every different direction as they try to focus on anything but you. It always feels like he’s standing way too close to the sun when he’s around you, hardly able to keep his gaze focused on you. He chooses to stare resolutely at your chin, but even your fucking chin was impossibly cute.

Seriously? Yoongi is a walking shitshow! His inner voice comes back, but this time it sounds uncannily like his roommate. Come on, buddy. Just say hi… You know, like a normal person. “H… Hey, Y/N.”

Success count: 1 point for the Yogurt Machine!

Even though Yoongi felt like he was living his worst nightmare, you still looked every bit like his favorite daydream. You are all smiles, seemingly unperturbed by Yoongi’s slow, embarrassing demise. “It’s so good to see you! Midterms haven’t been too hard on you, I hope?”

“I’ve been better,” he says. Better now that you’re here, he leaves unsaid. God, can you imagine if he said that out loud?

Your mouth drops open, soft cherry blossoms blooming across your cheeks. “Um, what did you say?” you squeak, embarrassed. But certainly not as embarrassed as the boy in front of you.

Yoongi stops breathing. He did not say that aloud, had he? Judging by the awkward silence stretching between the two of you, the signs are pointing to: yes. Ohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygo–– “Er, what I mean to say is,” Yoongi stutters through his sentence, his entire body flushing fire engine red like it’s nobody’s business. He must look like Satan’s spanked ass right now. “I… I’m here to deliver a hug!”

Confusion quickly replaces the shock on your face. You tilt your head, brows scrunching up cutely. “A hug?” you ask.

“R-right,” Yoongi says, waving his arms around because he has nothing else better to do. He gestures vaguely in the opposite direction, where Seokjin had left to find his other clients. “I’m, uhh… Helping my roommate. Have you heard of Seokjin’s hug-o-gram service?”

“Oh, yeah!” You hop excitedly in place, looking to all the world like the cutest thing in the universe. Yoongi thinks you should be classified as a public hazard, what with how you’re somehow able to give him diabetes just from standing next to him. “I totally heard about that! I’ve always wanted to send a hug, but I’ve always been a little shy.”

That piques Yoongi’s interest immediately. You wanted to send a hug? But to who? He unconsciously clenches his jaw, and he can feel a vein pop up near his neck. He forces himself to smile, but he knows it probably looks more like a grimace. “Oh really? That’s… I didn’t know you had a crush on somebody.”

Yoongi is too busy wallowing in his own self-pity puddle that he misses the way you gaze shyly up at him through your eyelashes, your hands clasped behind your back. “Y-yea… I don’t really go around telling it to just anybody,” you shrug as nonchalantly as you can. You clear your throat. “So, are you here to deliver a hug or something?”

Nothing gets past you, huh? Yoongi swallows thickly as he twiddles his thumbs. He still can’t bear to look at you head-on, afraid that his emotions would be too obvious if he did. (Who is he kidding… He knows he’s fucking obvious, and yet you never seem to get the picture!) “Yea, I am. I’m here to deliver one to you, actually.”

He doesn’t get to see your reaction, but he does notice the way your entire body stiffens. His mind immediately starts to run a minute, trying to guess why you’d suddenly gone stock still.

Did you know who your secret admirer was already? Or perhaps, were you just thoroughly shocked to receive one at all? That can’t be it… You’re the campus sweetheart! Surely it’s much weirder that it has taken eons for you to get your first hug… Or perhaps, are you so disgusted by the thought of him delivering the hug? Oh my god, what if you didn’t want him to hug you? Shit, this entire thing is a terrible idea! How did Seokjin ever convince him to do this stupid shit and get his heartbroken in the process? He swears he’s going to shove ten firecrackers up his ass the next time he sees him––

“Um, Yoongi?” You’re staring worriedly at him, your hand semi-raised as if you were about to wave in front of him. Did you say something? He must look like a fucking prick to you! He shakes his head, trying desperately to get his mind back into his body. Why must he be cursed with inner monologue disease? What is he, some sort of shoujo manga male protagonist?

“Sorry about that. I’ve been a little spacey these days,” he laughs, but even he can hear the panic laced in his voice. He sounds just on the edge of being hysterical. “Ahaha… What were you saying?”

“I was just… shocked?” You giggle softly, making Yoongi cry internally. You smirk, mischief glittering in your eyes. “I just never imagined you’d be the type to… I don’t know…”

“Willingly hug people for the sake of capitalism? I feel you,” Yoongi snorts, forgetting for a moment who he’s talking to. “Believe me, I’d rather drop dead than allow Seokjin to use me for his stupid business venture.”

“Then why are you delivering a hug to me now?” you ask, still smiling.

“Hnng,” Yoongi’s tongue feels like it’s grown two sizes all of a sudden. He wheezes, choking on his own spit as he’s caught off guard by your question. “W-well, I––”

“Just being a good friend, I’m guessing?” You’re full-on giggling now, barely trying to hide your mirth behind your hands. Yoongi understands now; you’re teasing him. He hates how amused you are by his awkwardness, but he loves the way your entire expression lights up, like you’re enjoying yourself by being with him.

“Let’s go with that,” Yoongi mumbles, scratching the back of his neck in embarrassment. He has his head bowed, hoping that his unruly fringe can finally come in handy and hide the disastrous blush encompassing his face. “Right… I’ll just, umm…”

“Am I getting my hug today, or am I gonna have to take a rain check?” You laugh, slapping his shoulder in an attempt to help him shake off the awkward tension. It has the opposite intended effect, as Yoongi’s breath hitches imperceptibly at your proximity. You had taken a step closer, and Yoongi could smell the sweet perfume you always seemed to be wearing. Please don’t pop a boner right now. That would be super fucking creepy.

“You’re…” Yoongi hesitates, arms uselessly immobile by his sides. He doesn’t know if he can even get them to move at this point, as he has lost all motor skills the moment you had focused all your attention on him. It’s a miracle that his heart remembers to beat every so often. “I’m just… I’m just gonna go for it, okay?”

You nod, hands tucked neatly behind your back. “No need to be scared, Yoongi. I don’t bite,” you joke.

God, if you only knew about the dreams I’ve had of you. Yoongi hopes to all the deities from up above that he had not said that aloud, but you don’t seem to be disgusted, so he can only assume that his traitorous brain had disconnected with his mouth for the time being.

He shuffles closer to you, the warmth of your body closing in as he makes the grueling effort to lift his arms up to gently wrap themselves around you, but before he can even fully hug you––

You’re quick to reciprocate. With a small laugh, you wrap your own arms around his torso, nuzzling into his chest with more force than Yoongi was expecting. He lets out a soft wheeze, mouth dropping open when he is assaulted by the smell of your fruity shampoo. His hands hover awkwardly above you, still unsure of where it’s okay to touch you without weirding you out.

You tilt your face up, eyes crinkling cutely by the sheer force of your grin. Both of your faces are only centimeters away from each other, and Yoongi could probably count your eyelashes if he so desired. His breathing stills as he becomes positively mesmerized by the beautiful sight in front of him. He doesn’t even hear the sound of phone camera shutters around him, as he is much too deeply focused on nothing but you, you, you.

“Hey, don’t half-ass your hug! Gimme a good ol’ bear hug!” you whine, nudging his elbows gently to get them to move. Snapped out of his reverie, Yoongi mechanically does as you say, his head completely empty of thoughts. He wraps his arms tightly around your shoulders, his wrist knocking slightly against the back of your head until you’re back to snuggling deep into his chest.

“Your laundry detergent smells nice,” you say, slightly muffled by his shirt. Yoongi lets out a breathy laugh, mostly out of disbelief more than anything. He can’t even begin to process anything right now; he feels like he’s reverted back into a single-celled organism.

“Thanks?” Yoongi squeaks, but you don’t seem to mind his awkward attempts at being a Normal Person™️. You crane your neck upwards so that you’re looking him directly in the eye. There’s a twinkle of mischief there, like you’re enjoying Yoongi’s flushed face a little too much. He honestly feels like he’s seconds away from exploding into tiny bite-sized pieces, and he fears that if you snuggle deeper into his chest, he might just do exactly that.

“So… Are we just supposed to hug for another ten minutes, or am I allowed to let go?”

Yoongi doesn’t even realize how long it’s been. You could’ve been hugging him for ten hours and he wouldn’t have known. Yoongi jerks away from you, nearly vaulting himself across campus by how quickly he lets you go. Thankfully, you don’t appear offended––you were more amused than anything. Yoongi has no idea how red he is right now; he feels like he could be blowing steam out of his ears, astounding anatomists everywhere by his peculiar talent.

“I just have to–” Yoongi pats his back pockets for his phone, clumsily pulling it out and looking for his text messages, “–read this message from your, um, secret admirer and then we’ll be good to go.”

“Great.” You nod at him enthusiastically. “Whenever you’re ready, Yoonie.”

Yoongi’s breath hitches right then, caught off guard by the nickname. Only you ever called him that, and it never fails to make Yoongi’s insides feel like molten lava every time you say it. “I… Yeah, here goes,” Yoongi mutters, trying his best to remember how to speak.

He recites the message with as much enthusiasm as he can manage, which is to say, not very much. He could probably read the phonebook with more zeal, but it’s hard to give it his all when the words feel like acid in his throat. He’s unconsciously clenching his jaw as he speaks, looking like a constipated gorilla. “...so, if you’re single and ready to #mingle, then––” Yoongi stops mid-sentence, staring resolutely at his phone screen with a grimace.

You blink confusedly. “Then?”

“Then nothing,” Yoongi finishes, pocketing his phone without an inch of remorse. “I don’t know what was up with that message, but somehow the letter got cut short. Sorry about that.”

“Huh, strange.” You shrug your shoulders, not bothering to question him.

Yoongi fist bumps himself mentally, though other people might disagree and say that he doesn’t deserve any type of congratulations, to which Yoongi says a big “fuck you!” to those imaginary haters. In the wise words of Kim Seokjin himself, “not everyone is worthy to receive your fucks, so it’s time to stop giving them.” (Kim, 2020)

“Well, that was fun! Thanks for delivering the hug to me, Yoonie,” you pinch Yoongi’s cheek, giggling when they turn even redder. “I’ll see you around, I guess? Don’t let those midterms kill ya!” You wave cheerily at him, walking past him and heading towards the bus stops. Yoongi stands frozen in place, the events of the last few minutes finally catching up to him and frying his brain beyond repair.

Oh my god, he fucking hugged you! Like, a good and genuine hug! You felt so warm and so soft and you smelled really good and it was more than he could ever imagine and just––

Yoongi’s brain is trying (and failing) to desperately parse the delayed barrage of information as it comes, but it’s hard for the little hamster running circles in his head when it has never had to run a day in its life. Yoongi’s body feels like it’s overheating even though the weather is nearing the start of winter, but that’s all thanks to you and the devastating effect you have on him.

In short, Yoongi machine has broken, and any sort of maintenance is going to be hard to come by at the moment.

Yoongi could have been standing in front of the Science building for an entire year and he wouldn’t have budged until a tornado in the form of Kim Seokjin arrived to knock him out of his brain dead state. Whistling lowly, the elder stops in front of the rigid mass of meat, an eyebrow quirked in exasperation. “Dude, nice rigor mortis cosplay. Like, yes girl, give us nothing!” he exclaims, slapping Yoongi back to consciousness.

Yoongi blinks rapidly, dazed like he’s woken up from a dream. “What? What’s happening?” he replies dumbly.

Seokjin rolls his eyes. “Yoongi. Did you finish delivering Y/N’s hug or what? I finished all my deliveries in the same time you had with Y/N, so I better hope to God you aren’t planning on applying to be an employee of mine, because you certainly have a long way to go before––”

“I hugged her,” Yoongi interrupts, eyes going glassy once more. His mouth is agape, and Seokjin can see a pool of saliva forming, ready to runneth over. He could see the rusted gears turning inside his dongsaeng’s head. “Oh my god, hyung. I fucking hugged her.”

“Yeah, and I hugged Taehyung Kim and felt his gigantic dick press into my stomach. You aren’t special,” Seokjin snorts, clasping Yoongi by the bicep. He drags him away, leading them to their parked car. “C’mon, Dampé. I’m tired and I wanna eat popcorn again.”

As they walk back to the parking lot, the campus roads are a lot less populated now that most students have gone home. Yoongi only then realizes how late it truly is and he vaguely wonders how long he had been stuck standing there before Seokjin had come to drag him back home. The sun has begun its daily descent, filling the courtyard with a warm glow and causing their shadows to grow longer as they trudge quietly to their car.

The campus is quiet enough that both of them hear the quiet buzz of Seokjin’s phone, despite him putting it on silent mode before he had gone on his hugging deliveries. He stops mid-step, causing Yoongi to bump his nose into his wide back. He yelps, shoving Seokjin forward in irritation.

“Why’d you fucking stop, you asshole?” Yoongi whines, his normal annoying personality resurfacing now that he’s begun to recover from your hug. He peers over Seokjin’s behemoth shoulders, squinting at his phone screen. “What? Another hug delivery?”

“Yeah. I’ll do it tomorrow since I think she’s gone home for the day,” Seokjin says, his tone sounding slightly too delighted for comfort. “In fact, I know she’s gone home already.”

Yoongi stills, changing his focus onto the elder’s expression. He looks… too eager to receive a simple hug-o-gram request. A shiver shoots through Yoongi’s spine when he realizes how nefariously bastardous Seokjin’s smile has grown, the tips of his smirk curling upwards like a villain from a classic Disney animation.

“What?” Yoongi glares acidly at Seokjin, but the elder is unaffected. In fact, he seems to grow more pleased the more aggravated Yoongi becomes. “Spit it out! What’s got your prostate tickled?”

“Oh, nothing,” Seokjin singsongs, shoving his phone down the front of his pants, exactly where he knows Yoongi would never touch. “Just got an interesting new regular customer, is all.”

“A new regular?” Yoongi’s pitch heightens, the hairs on the back of his neck bristling in alarm (like a cat.) “Is it… Another request for… You know who?”

“I wasn’t aware Voldemort went to our university,” Seokjin teases, thoroughly enjoying Yoongi’s distress. “Though, if you’re talking about Y/N, then the answer is not not not no.”

“Two double negatives.” Anyone could hear the audible soft rattling of his two brain cells exerting themselves as Yoongi deciphers his answer. “That means…”

Yoongi stares pointedly at Seokjin’s crotch, where the outline of his phone is glaringly obvious. “Show me,” Yoongi growls, not making a move to actually touch Seokjin’s nether regions.

Seokjin shrugs his shoulders. “No one’s stopping you from taking my phone though?”

“Hyung!”

“Buy me bubble tea first, then we’ll talk.”

“Fine,” Yoongi acquiesces, folding his arms in annoyance. “Just tell me. Is it really the same guy who requested the hug for Y/N today as well?”

Seokjin fiddles around for his phone, digging deeper when it nearly drops down the leg of his pants. When he pulls it out and swipes to his e-mails, he confirms Yoongi’s fear. “Yep. And it seems like he saw you deliver the hug today. Says that he’d prefer that I deliver the hug next time,” Seokjin smirks, enjoying the deep-set frown on Yoongi’s face.

When Seokjin takes a closer look at the order, however, he notices something a little off. “Hold on a sec,” he scrolls to the receipt, scowling when he sees the incorrect amount. “Well, you might be in luck, Yoongi-chi. Looks like loverboy sent the wrong payment. He’s a few dollars short.”

“What?” Yoongi says, for what feels like the tenth time in this entire fic. He grabs Seokjin’s phone, no longer repulsed by where it had been only a few minutes prior. Like Seokjin said, the customer had given the wrong amount, much to both their confusion.

“That’s weird, considering he just ordered a hug today,” Seokjin murmurs, shaking his head. “Oh well. Happens to the best of us. Guess I’ll just have to refund the poor sap.”

“Wait,” Yoongi presses the phone to his chest, preventing Seokjin from taking it. His hyung raises a brow.

“What is it?”

“What if I just… pay you the remaining amount? Then I can also deliver the hug to her and, uhh...” Yoongi mumbles the remaining part, but Seokjin has trained his ears to catch every whisper and mutter for moments just like this. He wouldn’t be where he is today if he didn’t perfect his eavesdropping skills to a spy’s degree. That’s right––Seokjin is a sloppy and nosey bitch and he’s not afraid to admit it!

“Oh? Do my ears deceive me?” Seokjin guffaws, pinching Yoongi’s cheeks for good measure. He hisses in response, but Seokjin isn’t afraid of some little kitten. Seokjin is a bigger bitch with a meaner bite. “Is my little Yoongi Woongi seriously offering to deliver another hug to Miss Y/N? How magnanimous of you.”

Yoongi stares at him, stunned for a moment. A few seconds pass before he shakes his head, faux disdain coloring his expression. “That’s right,” Yoongi huffs, detaching himself from Seokjin’s meaty claws. He keeps his gaze averted, like the big stupid tsundere that he is. “I’m doing this out of the goodness of my heart! I care about your profits, and I want to make your workload a little lighter! Isn’t that what you want?”

“Sure, let’s go with that,” Seokjin snickers, poking Yoongi in the tit. He swivels away, skipping merrily away to their parked car. “I’m expecting that cash in my Paypal by the time I get to the car, or else the deal is off. Make it snappy, loverboy!”

Yoongi had never transferred cash to someone so quickly in his life.

(Yes, not even when the food court on campus was doing a BOGO promo for churros. That’s the extent of how whipped his ass is, period.)

x x x x x

“This is probably the dumbest idea you’ve ever had,” Yoongi hisses, but it’s kind of hard for Seokjin to take him seriously when he’s wearing a cardboard sign around his neck that says ‘Huggie Wuggie Machine!’ in bubble font.

“Like, even worse than when we DIY’d your car into a convertible by sawing the top off?” Seokjin asks, genuinely curious.

“Worse,” Yoongi admits, trying his best to stay out of your line of sight. His cheeks redden, matching the gaudy pink kitten ears he was forced into wearing.

“Listen, I’m seriously not forcing you to do this,” Seokjin starts, even though he’s giving his utmost effort to further embarrass Yoongi by handing out flyers about Hug-o-gram’s newest employee. “Please, take one!” he cajoles, offering a flyer to a gaggle of giggling freshmen. “Make sure to reserve a hug within the week! Yoongi-chi over here is on his way to becoming employee of the month if he gets ten requests by Friday!” They all point and whisper at Yoongi, and he swears he hears one of them wolf whistle in admiration.

“That’s what makes this entire thing terrible. I’m doing this on my own volition, and I absolutely abhor myself for it,” Yoongi moans, grabbing Seokjin’s stack of flyers and smacking himself in the head with them. It probably would’ve hurt more when Seokjin still had a full-stack, but people had swarmed them the moment they entered the heart of the campus, everyone curious to see Yoongi in his interesting attire.

Seokjin might have been famous for creating the Hug-o-gram Service, but Yoongi was famous for hating the business idea, so it’s easy to understand why everyone was interested. (For good reason, he thinks darkly to himself.)

“Damn, Yoongi-chi. Looks like you’re trending on the campus Reddit page,” Seokjin laughs, wheezing even harder when Yoongi points him with a murderous glare. “What? Like you said, this was all your idea.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t ask to wear… whatever this is!” Yoongi whines, tugging on the string around his neck. The cardboard sign had been ready and prepared the moment they arrived home the other day, arousing Yoongi’s suspicions on Seokjin’s actual involvement in his current predicament. Those suspicions are put in the backburner for now, however, as Yoongi actually feels like he might die of embarrassment instead of the packets of MSG coursing through his veins from the ten ramen packs he ate this morning. Maybe both will kill him, if he’s lucky.

“Well, I would love to lend you my uniform, but I haven’t gotten a t-shirt printed with your face on it yet, so you’ll have to deal with the kitten ears and cardboard sign for now,” Seokjin says, patting him on the back. “Or, would you rather I have you wear a shirt with my face on it? I’m open to suggestions.”

“I’d rather swallow a Tide pod, thanks,” Yoongi says through gritted teeth. “C’mon, let’s move. We’ve been standing in the middle of campus like street clowns for long enough. We need to find Y/N because her class is about to end.”

“Street clowns, huh? I guess you are only missing the make-up to complete the look, especially since you seem adamant to keep honking your way through that sickening crush of yours.” Seokjin nearly catches a punch to the head, but his superior reaction time saves him from Yoongi’s sorely lacking physicality. He snatches Yoongi by the hand, dragging them towards your lecture hall. “C’mon, clown! Let’s honk this bread!”

As the two of them get closer to where you are, Yoongi’s heartbeat begins to accelerate. He wonders idly if he should see a doctor after all this, hoping that he hadn’t actually contracted heart disease due to all this stress. Lord forbid that he meet his end before he even gets to ask you out or something!

Even though he’s already hugged you once (and it was, by far, the most euphoric experience of his sad, miserable life), he still finds himself getting clammy hands at the thought of seeing you again. Nevermind the fact that he looked like a walking circus with his get-up… No, Yoongi refuses to think about it anymore, lest his last remaining brain wrinkle irreversibly smoothens.

The campus clock rings loudly, signaling the end of another block of classes. Students rush out of the buildings, with you being one of the first ones out for a change. When Yoongi spots your head of hair among the crowd, he doesn’t immediately notice what you’re wearing at first. In fact, it’s Seokjin who stops in his tracks for a moment, surprised by how you look.

“Woah, Y/N! Looking good,” Seokjin greets, rushing past Yoongi to envelop you in a hug. (A platonic hug, Yoongi reminds himself. Because unlike Yoongi, Seokjin is a normal human being who can give hugs to anyone he wants because he’s… fucking Seokjin! Lucky bastard that he is.)

“Woah!” You laugh, surprised by the sudden hug. You pat him on the back giddily, allowing him to swing you around a little. “What’s this all about? Am I getting a hug-o-gram again?”

“Yes, you are. But not from me,” Seokjin detaches himself from you, scooting away to point at Yoongi. When Seokjin moves away, Yoongi finally understands why his hyung had said you looked good. No, that was an understatement––you looked [redacted].

(For the sake of the author’s fragile ash-coated heart, she has chosen to redact Yoongi’s exact words to protect herself from slamming her head against a keyboard from how cheesy this fic is becoming. Let’s just say the word starts with a B and ends with an L. Make of that as you will.)

You must have come out of an interview or presentation of sorts because you were dressed more nicely than you usually do, which is a pretty big deal considering how put together you always looked. Your hair is styled nicely, obviously given much more care and effort than your regular appearance. You’re wearing a cute little black dress, long enough to be professional but short enough to give Yoongi breathing problems.

If Yoongi’s brain had a playlist, it would be nothing but the sound of him going HNNNNNNNNNG on repeat.

“Oh geez.” Yoongi curses lowly, smiling through the pain. This is fine, he thinks, even though it is clearly not fine. Yoongi has always been a terrible liar.

“Yoongi?” You sound incredulous, though that’s honestly a win in Yoongi’s book considering everything. You didn’t look disgusted, so that’s great. “You look…” You stop yourself, covering your mouth to hide your grin but your amusement is palpable. At least he made you laugh, he supposes.

“Like a fucking idiot? You said it,” Yoongi snorts, arms crossed defiantly. He’s trying to look intimidating, but with his cheeks puffed up and these abominable kitten ears on his head, he looks more like a grumpy cat throwing a tantrum. He juts a thumb at Seokjin, “Thank this himbo for the outfit. I definitely would have chosen something more… inconspicuous.”

“But where’s the fun in that?” You quip, still trying to mask your giggles. On the other hand, Seokjin was wheezing like a hyena, his phone pulled out and presumably filming Yoongi to add to his cringe compilation.

“Exactly what I said!” Seokjin says through his laughter, tears of mirth streaming down his face. He walks back to Yoongi, pushing him forward until he’s face to face with you. “Go on, then! We haven’t got all day!”

“I’m assuming you’re officially part of Seokjin’s hug-o-gram business now?” you ask, opening your arms wide to accept his hug. Like the beta male that he is, Yoongi has to be the one to follow in your footsteps, meekly coming closer to wrap you in an embrace.

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Yoongi mutters, tucking his chin onto your shoulder. He feels you vibrate with laughter, bringing a small smile on his own face. He likes making you laugh, always has.

With the cardboard sign serving as a barrier between the two of you, he isn’t as fearful of you feeling the erratic beat of his heart, though it wouldn’t be hard to guess if you looked at him. He closes his eyes, allowing himself to enjoy your hug rather than just panic through the entire ordeal like yesterday.

Soon enough, you’re detaching yourself from him, still standing close. Your arm is just a hair’s breadth away, and if not for Seokjin enthusiastically videotaping this entire experience, Yoongi might have closed in for another hug if he could manage.

“It’s always nice to get a hug from someone you like, huh?” You say, cheeks tinted a rosy color. The true meaning of your words flies over Yoongi’s head, as his feeble mind chooses to focus on your comment a little differently.

“I––Of course I like you! We’re friends, aren’t we?” Yoongi laughs nervously, unaware that he’s slowly digging himself into a ditch. To the side, Seokjin audibly slaps a hand to his face, body shivering with secondhand embarrassment from being blasted by the full force of how idiotic his friend actually is.

Yoongi sees you deflate a little, further confusing him. “Yeah, you’re right I guess…” You sigh, taking a step backward dejectedly. Yoongi flounders a little, unsure how he managed to fuck up in just a few seconds when you had just hugged him like your life depended on it.

Choosing now to interfere before the going gets rough, Seokjin steps in between and slings an arm around both of you. Yoongi groans under the weight of his arm, glaring when he notices that Seokjin had done it on purpose, but only to him. You don’t look too bothered by his rude gesture, albeit you were more befuddled than before.

“Hey, Y/N! I don’t know if you’ve ever ordered a hug-o-gram before, but I’m doing a special this week! Now that Yoongi-chi has so kindly joined the team,” Seokjin gives him a pointed look, to which the black-haired music major sticks his tongue out petulantly, “we’re doing a little promotion for first-time customers! Would you be interested in ordering one?”

Your eyes widen, looking like a deer caught in headlights. “M-me? Ordering a hug-o-gram? Well, I…” you hesitate, sending a small glance at Yoongi before looking away in embarrassment. “I would like to, but I don’t know if it’ll be well received, you see…”

Seokjin grumbles, silently cursing the stupid shithead who caused his own demise in the first place. The worst part is that he had no idea that he totally just friendzoned you! YOU! Someone who was literally leagues ahead of him. He sincerely has no idea what you see in this bumbling idiot, but everyone with a brain knows that you have been crushing on him for as long as he’s been crushing on you, so perhaps you’re a little bit of an idiot yourself for liking him back.

Being friends with the two of you makes him feel like he’s constantly wearing a sloppy wet diaper, and he hates it. He wants to wipe his ass as soon as possible!

Seokjin shoves Yoongi away roughly, ignoring his indignant squawks as he pulls you aside. He takes you by the hand, taking you a few steps away from Yoongi, far enough that he can whisper into your ear without the other boy hearing.

Yoongi fumes from the sidelines, trying to keep his emotions in check even though he’s bursting at the seams with jealousy. Not for the first time, Yoongi irritably realizes that he does act like a cat, especially in moments like this. He might make fun of Seokjin for being an attention whore, but Yoongi is the same, if only at a smaller scale. He just wants you to look at him, as selfish as that sounds.

Can someone give him a break? He’s been holding in his crush for four years now… Imagine having to take a massive shit after drinking two gallons of milk while being lactose intolerant, except every time you line up for the washroom, the line gets increasingly long no matter how long you wait. That is the extent of his suffering, he tells himself. So please, excuse his dramatics for this one instance.

(Seokjin’s Note: This fucking jackass is SO stupid. If he only knew how easy it is to ask you out, he would know that his emotional constipation could be solved if he just fucking ASKED where the next washroom is. He could have relieved himself ages ago, but NO! And he calls me the idiot! Me! The utter betrayal! I’m never agreeing to become the second lead to a rom-com ever again!)

When Seokjin finishes whispering in your ears, you appear amused by what he had said. Yoongi sweats when you turn to face him, grinning slyly at him. “Is that so…” you wonder aloud. Yoongi feels like the world has shifted on its axis somewhat, though he still doesn’t know exactly how. He has a hunch that he’s going to find out soon enough.

“Would I ever lie to you?” Seokjin laughs that annoying laugh of his, slapping his thigh in the process. He straightens up almost immediately, his expression turning deadpan in an instant. “Send me the details by tonight, and I’ll make sure to deliver it, okay?”

“Promise?” You ask, holding a pinky up towards him. Yoongi might have let out a high pitched sob when he sees the gesture, wanting nothing more than to cup your hands in his. God, if he already nearly died from hugging you, who is to say Yoongi won’t immediately disintegrate if you were ever to hold his hand?

“Promise,” Seokjin replies, linking his pinky with yours. He doesn’t forget to point a shit-eating grin at Yoongi, for good measure.

You pull away, looking happier than you did moments prior. You were absolutely glowing, filling Yoongi with a warmth that only you ever knew how to provide. He wants to make you smile like that all the time, wants nothing more than for you to live beside him, filling his walls with the sound of your tinkling laughter. You wave cheerily at the both of them, stepping away to head home. “I guess I’ll see you, then? I’ll make sure to e-mail you my request, Seokjin!” you say, winking teasingly. “Bye to you too, Yoongi! Thanks for the hug!”

Yoongi watches as you walk further and further away as the usual melancholy that follows whenever you leave soon takes its place in his soul. It might be his imagination, but Yoongi thinks the cat ears on his head might have started to droop to match his mood.

The only way he knows how to replace the sadness, however, is by redirecting those emotions on an unsuspecting victim. Lucky for him, a willing volunteer is already within punching distance.

“Ow! Stop punching me, you gremlin!” Seokjin whines, blocking Yoongi’s series of punches like a pro. He might as well put ‘professional punching bag’ on his resume at this point. “I’m trying to help you, you useless beta male!”

“How is this helping! You made me wear cat ears and whispered blasphemies into Y/N’s ears! Now she’s going to order a hug-o-gram for her crush and it’ll be the end of my chances with her! How could you!”

“I was not whispering blasphemies, you twittering tit! I was giving her advice,” Seokjin sniffs, annoyed. “Don’t say I never help you, by the way. I’ve been trying to help you for years now.”

Yoongi hits him with a steely glare. “Really? So replacing all my clothes in my closet with clown attire is your version of help? I had to wear those stupid clown shoes for a week before you told me where you hid my clothes, jackass!”

“I was only trying to help you physically express yourself! You’re already a clown on paper, might as well help you achieve your final form!” Seokjin huffs, infuriatingly haughty. “Listen, believe me. I only told Y/N something that everyone already knows anyway, so just shut your trap and let Daddy handle the rest. You’re not going to lose her, I promise.”

“Please never refer to yourself as Daddy ever again,” Yoongi seethes, stalking off towards their car. “Don’t ever talk to me again.”

“No talk, Yoobie angy…” Seokjin snickers to himself, following Yoongi with a spring in his step. This bastard is going to grovel at his feet by tomorrow evening, he’s sure of it. If he doesn’t, then Seokjin will bite his own dick in half––that’s how sure he is of his plan! (Not that biting his dick in half will do anything to his length; he’d still be left with eight inches, let’s be real.) All in good time.

x x x x x

Seokjin gets an e-mail the next morning, much earlier than any sane person would choose to be awake at. He groans lowly, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes as he tries to read the contents of the letter. When he’s satisfied by what he has read, he forwards the e-mail to Yoongi before allowing sleep to take him once more.

Sleep evades him, however, when the sound of Yoongi’s big feet pounds noisily outside his bedroom. He hits his knee loudly against the coffee table, causing their beloved popcorn machine to tumble to the floor, but that is of little consequence to Yoongi right now. No, he needs to get into Seokjin’s room right now and scream––

“WHAT THE FUCK?” Yoongi hollers, slamming Seokjin’s door open. The hinges creak, desperately hanging on despite the impact. Yoongi proceeds to slam a fist upon Seokjin’s ass, who barely flinches due to the fatness of his ass cushioning most of the damage. He blinks blearily at Yoongi, but the smirk on his face is clear as day.

“Came to claim your hug so early in the morning? Well, I usually don’t entertain clients until after I’ve taken a shower, but for you… I’ll make an exception,” he yawns, peeling back his blanket and patting the empty spot on his bed. “Come on in, Yoobie Boobie… Let’s hug like it’s the last day on earth.”

Seokjin fails to realize that once he removed his blanket, he had inadvertently left himself vulnerable. Yoongi slams the heel of his foot against Seokjin’s groin, causing him to shriek bloody murder at 7 AM. He wonders, amidst his pain, whether this might be the last straw and that their landlord will finally kick them out after years of their stupid shenanigans.

“WHAT DID THAT E-MAIL MEAN? IF IT’S WHAT I THINK IT IS…” Yoongi threatens, but it’s as empty as Seokjin’s butthole. They both know the implications of that e-mail, even a toddler can put two and two together and make sense out of it. Anonymous e-mail or not, Seokjin wouldn’t just forward any hug-o-gram request to Yoongi, unless…

What did the e-mail say? It goes something like:

Dear Mr. Kim,

Thank you for offering your special promotion for new time customers of your Hug-o-gram Service! I’ve always been a quiet fan of your business idea, but I’ve always been a little shy to submit a request of my own. Thank you so much for giving me the little push that I needed to send my first (and hopefully last) hug.

I’d like to send a hug to Mr. Min Yoongi from the Music Department. I understand that he has recently been appointed an employee at your business, but seeing as how it’d be difficult for him to hug himself (while not entirely impossible), I’d like to request that you be the one to send the hug to him.

I don’t really have a message for him, per se… I’m still a little shy, even though you already told me that there is no reason to be. I want to believe what you said was true, so I’m pushing my fear aside and putting my fate into your hands. So, to Mr. Min Yoongi… “When I told you it was nice to hug someone you like, I don’t think you understood what I meant. A hug, after all, is a two-way street. They’re often served the best when it is reciprocated, if you catch my drift. :)”

Peace! :3

Regards,

[Redacted] [Redacted]

“Have your brain synapses finished connecting? Because if even this flies over your head, I’m sorry to say buddy but… You might have smooth brain syndrome,” Seokjin pipes up. He observes Yoongi’s brow crumpling, the first signal of his impending mental breakdown. If Seokjin remembers correctly, the next signal should be when––

Yoongi drops down to his knees, his phone clattering to the floor as he stares absently at the ceiling. Seokjin cringes, worried for the state of his friend’s frail kneecaps. The poor sap has bad heart health already; surely, it isn’t too early to get him a life alert button?

Seokjin scooches over his bed, dangling half his body over the edge to appraise his friend. “So. What do you plan to do now?”

For a moment, Yoongi remains silent. Eventually, he shuffles closer to him, perching his hands around Seokjin. The business student raises a brow, confused, until Yoongi pushes Seokjin back onto the middle of the bed so that he can cram himself beside Seokjin on his small double bed. He huffs amusedly, allowing the smaller boy to snuggle into his chest, though he still refuses to wrap his arms around him. Close enough, Seokjin snorts.

“I need your help, hyung.” Yoongi’s voice is small, shy. It’s so uncharacteristic of him that Seokjin immediately softens. They might act like toddlers together the majority of the time, but Seokjin truly does care about Yoongi more than anything. During early mornings like this, when the sun’s soft rays are filtering through his sheer curtains and filling the room with a gentle warmth, it’s nice to cuddle up with one another and enjoy the silence. In fact, Seokjin would never admit it to Yoongi, but he got the idea for his Hug-o-gram service from Yoongi himself, back when the younger boy would be more prone to sneaking into his bed during his bouts of loneliness and homesickness.

Above all else, Yoongi is just a boy with a lot of love to give, so who is Seokjin to say no to his pleas for help?

“You know I always got your back, Yoongi-chi. Whenever you’re ready, we can do whatever you want. Ask and you’ll receive,” he replies, caressing his soft black tresses. Yoongi hums, smiling softly into his chest.

“Thanks, dude. For being… you know.”

Seokjin’s heart pangs a little, but he ignores it. Instead, he continues combing through his hair, humming gently. “I know.”

x x x x x

It’s been a few days since you sent the e-mail to Seokjin and you haven’t heard back from him. You aren’t sure if he sends confirmation e-mails to his clients as you’d never asked for a hug-o-gram before, nor did you know anyone who has. You are forced to continue on with your days like normal, trying to ignore the unsettling anxiety from creeping up your throat and spewing all over the sidewalk.

If Seokjin hadn’t been lying to you, then there shouldn’t be anything to worry about. You’ve been harboring this crush on Yoongi for years now, and you never thought in your life that it would ever be reciprocated. He always seemed a little bit detached, a little too cool for you. Never mind the fact that he always seemed so jittery around you, like it was hard to talk to you or something!

Your answer comes on the last day of the week, after an especially rough day at class. Your back is bent, having finished a grueling four hour lab period where you did nothing but stand and stare at your reaction vessel spinning without any signal of change. You are just a little bit hangry from all the stress piling up on your plate, especially since you hadn’t eaten a decent meal since breakfast at 8 AM.

In short, life isn’t going as smoothly as you’d hoped for your senior year, but you can’t let the blues get to you too soon. After all, there are leftover chicken wings in your fridge with your name on it, and nothing beats your meat more than greasy poultry to end a terrible week.

You’re only inches away from sliding your keycard to open your shared dorm room when the door opens without prompting. You flinch backward, yelping loudly when your roommate Park Jimin grins slyly from the doorway––never a good sign, if you knew anything.

“Fancy seeing you here,” Jimin says, leaning casually against the door like he hadn’t just scared the living shit out of you. He takes one glance at your disheveled hair and lightly sweaty clothes before grimacing in disgust. “Girl, I can’t let you meet the love your life while you’re looking like that. Come on, we have a few minutes before he arrives. Let’s get you freshened up.”

“I’m sorry?” You squeak, allowing your roommate to manhandle you into your own home. He pushes you into your room, depositing you roughly onto your unmade bed. You try to make eye contact with him, but he’s too busy raiding your closet to pay you much attention. “Excuse me? What did you say just now?”

“No time, princess! Your Prince Charming is on the way, and I’ve been ordered by Seokjin to prepare you for this life-changing moment, so get your ass into gear and change into this!” He shoves a clean pair of jeans and a nicer-looking blouse at you before proceeding to grab your hairbrush and comb your tresses with the gentleness of a mother tigress. You shriek when the brush gets tangled in an especially stubborn knot, but Jimin is relentless. He nearly tears your hair by the roots, ignoring your pained whines.

“Will you fucking stop! I have literally no idea why you’re acting like a psycho all of a sudden–” You shout when Jimin begins to undress you, having to kick him in the chest to get him away from completely eradicating your remaining traces of dignity. “Okay, fine! I’ll dress myself! Just get out of my room and fucking stay away!”

Jimin looks at you dubiously for a split second, before eventually acquiescing. “You have two minutes to get changed. You wouldn’t want to keep him waiting, do you?” he says, smirking knowingly. He better dread the day that you finally wipe that annoying twinkle in his eye; it’s been a long time coming.

Left alone to your own devices, you do as Jimin says even though you’re still wildly confused by everything. To think you had been so excited to feast on your chicken wings, and instead, you went through a decade’s worth of torture within the last few minutes. Patting your hands on the butt of your jeans, you meekly take a step out of your bedroom, where Jimin is already tapping his foot impatiently by the door.

He motions for you to hurry up. “Let’s go! Seokjin says they’re rounding up the corner. Hold on,” he steps closer to you, raising your arm up to take a shameless sniff of your pits. “Sorry, had to make a pit stop. You can never be too sure,” he shrugs, disregarding your squawks of indignation.

“I smell fine! Now what are we–” Your sentence is cut short as Jimin all but carries you to the elevator, your shrieks of terror causing one or two of your neighbors to peek their heads out of their doors. When they see it’s just the two of you, they simply shrug their shoulders, returning to their lives like it was normal to see Jimin carry you in a fireman’s hold.

He doesn’t put you down until you reach the lobby of your dorm complex, barely out of breath despite having held you the entire way down. Stupid buff baby, you groan internally to yourself, straightening down your clothes in a desperate attempt to look decent. “Okay, we’re here. Who am I supposed to be meeting?”

In lieu of an answer, Jimin points wordlessly outside your building. A black car is parked on the other side of the road, and you can barely see a familiar head of hair poking out from the driver’s seat. “Seokjin? What the…” you trail off, before your eyes finally land on their target.

Yoongi stands outside the glass doorway, not dressed in his usual all-black attire. He’s wearing an outrageously cute pink shirt today, matching the color of his natural flush. He always looks effortlessly good, with his hair a little windswept in that boyishly cute way. Your mouth goes a little dry when you realize he’s wearing his famous leather jacket, the one that always got the girls and boys swooning when he walked past in them. You hated how whipped for him you were, not wanting to be like the weird kids in his secret fan club, but who can blame you? He’s just so…

You rip open the door, nearly tripping and falling over the short steps leading to the entrance. You grind to a halt in front of him and you’re acutely aware of how rabid you must look. Your chest is pounding, like your heart is begging you to step closer, just like when you had hugged him all those days ago. God, you were going to kill Park Jimin for this.

“Yoongi? What are you…” You take one look at him before your gaze drops to his hands folded carefully behind his back. It doesn’t hide the fact that there is an obvious bouquet of flowers behind him, though. Your face lights on fire when you notice they were your favorite flowers too.

“I’m here to deliver a hug?” Yoongi says it like he’s unsure of himself, but there’s a little coyness laced in his tone. His cheeks are painted a soft pink, and not for the first time, they remind you of freshly baked bread pulled out from the oven. Soft enough to kiss, you wonder idly to yourself.

“I mean… I did order a hug a few days ago, but I do recall not ordering one for myself?” you laugh a little hysterically, your breath cutting short when Yoongi grins softly in response. “I… Who is this hug from?”

Yoongi takes a glance back towards Seokjin. “Hey, boss. Am I allowed to reveal who the secret admirers are, or will that get me fired?”

Seokjin, despite being a few meters away, laughs loud enough for the whole street to hear. “Well, Yoongi-chi. Something tells me your resignation letter was coming in the mail eventually. Who cares about the rules at this point?”

“He’s right,” you quip, pulling Yoongi’s attention back. You’re smiling wide now, your hopes and dreams skyrocketing in your chest and blooming a garden in your heart. “Who cares, right?”

“Right,” Yoongi agrees, taking the last two steps he needs to get closer to you. He drops the bouquet somewhere behind you before finally, finally, embracing you once more. He kisses you gently on the forehead, the contact short and sweet.

You feel like you’re dying, but it’s all good because Yoongi looks just as embarrassed as you. But none of it matters, not when both your happiness is palpable in the air.

“Y/N…”

“Yes?”

“This hug-o-gram is from me to you. Will you go out with me?”

You’ve always been a firm believer that actions speak louder than words. So when you lean in to plant your first kiss of many many more, he knows your answer well enough.

[supercorpkid]

The sun can fuck right off

Supercorp, Kara Danvers x Daughter!Reader, Lena Luthor x Daughter!Reader, Alex Danvers x Niece!Reader

Word count: 2795.

You are bored. Extremely, painfully bored. Kara and Lena are at work, Jamie is busy with Rao knows what, and Maya can’t come to your house, because her mom is the worst. So, you are bored with no idea what to do.

You also have been feeling like you need some adventures. It’s not like you got the taste for it, but every time you look at your picture with Wanda in another dimension, you just think about how great you felt protecting the world, and you just want that feeling again.

You’re not praying for trouble to come around, but when you hear a yell somewhere in the city, you also don’t complain about it. In fact, you suit up in a flash and you’re out of the house before any person can blink.

In retrospect, going out to fight bad guys without not even a heads up to your momma, or aunt Alex was a bad idea. You weren’t expecting a real villain, to be honest. Maybe some punks messing up with the city, or maybe even a fire, but definitely not a full grown-up man in a high-tech suit of armor, hitting the town with shockwaves.

You try flying closed-fist towards him at full speed, but are met with a strong shockwave before you get to him. You fall on the floor feeling a little dizzy, but you’re strong enough to get up. At least you called his attention, and he stopped terrorizing the city for a moment, to focus on you. You try flying again. You fall again. You try using your super speed, no use. Can’t get close to him without feeling an electric wave running through your veins.

Shit. Ok. Time to get serious. You shoot him with your heat vision. He is taken aback, but it doesn’t cause much damage to him, because he stomps his foot causing a mini earthquake. Not enough to destroy anything, but enough to be felt. You fly around cleaning the area for anyone who just might happen to be passing by. It wasn’t a big earthquake, but it was enough to get the DEO’s attention, and you hear when aunt Alex yells directions at the tactic team. You just have to hold him back, there is a team coming your way to help now.

Apparently, the only thing that can hold him back is your heat vision, so you try that again. Stronger. Totally focused on this one thing. You can feel heat running through your veins, like you’ve never felt before. You’ve never held your heat vision for so long and so strongly. But you know his armor is taking a big damage, so you power through. You can’t stop, not now, not when you’re so close to defeating him.

But you feel weak. You feel your legs giving in. And your body feels dry-up from energy. You hope his armor breaks before this breaks you.

When you hear DEO cars arriving at the scene, you give one final push, and hear a crack on his armor. That’s enough to make him fall on the ground and the tactic team runs to cuff him.

He isn’t the only one on the ground, though. You also feel weak, like you overused your powers. You can hear Alex’s voice somewhere close, so you know you’re safe and she’s got you. But you made the mistake of not calling Supergirl once and you’re not doing it again. Before you pass out, you press the emergency button on your watch. Just then you can let go.

You wake up, well-aware of where you are. How many times have you been in the DEO infirmary bed, under yellow sun lamps? It’s starting to look like a real thing in your life now.

“National City’ savior, everybody!” You hear your aunt's voice when you open your eyes. She comes closer with a smile on her face. “Why and how, and most importantly, Wow, kiddo.”

“Super hearing.” It’s your only response, and you look around, looking for your moms. “How badly hurt am I?”

“Not at all.” She holds your arm, and you sit on the bed, with her help. “What happened is that you got solar flared.”

“Huh?”

“You are aware your cells accumulate solar energy.” Alex says and you agree with a nod. “Well, let’s say they can soak up an absurd amount of energy, and every time you use your powers you use a little of that. It’s very hard to use ALL of that in one fight, but you just did.”

“Ok. Makes sense. So I have to soak up as much sunlight as I can?” You ask, aware that you probably need to stay out in the sun making ‘photosynthesis’ like you do, every time you get hurt.

“Yeah. That should work.” She pats your shoulder lightly, but you still feel the weight of her hands on your body. “Until then, you’re pretty much a human being. So be careful.”

“I pressed the watch.” You’re trying not to be too obvious about how upset you are that Kara didn’t show up, but Alex seems to read you easily.

“Oh, she brought you in, and went to pick Lena up, they should be arriving at any time now.” Alex says and you breathe in relief. What a superhero you are. Save the city, but still want your moms to pick you up from a fight.

“Is she ok?” Lena rushes in, talking to Alex, but then she turns to you and sees you sitting on the bed. “You’re ok.” She hugs you, and her hand goes to your hair. “You’re ok, baby. You’re ok.”

It feels so good to feel the weight of her arms around you, so you hug her back, hiding your face on her collarbone, and Lena’s hands just pull you in closer to her.

“Does anything hurt?” She asks, putting her chin on the top of your head, and you smile at the scene, at the feeling, and at the amazingness of the moment. You let go of her, and deny with your head. Kara comes to you, putting her hand on your shoulder.

“You called.” She says that with the biggest smile on her face, like you just did the most awesome thing in your life. “You stopped Shockwave all by yourself, and then you called me to go get you.”

“I did.” You smile back. “And I got solar flared, and I’m human now.”

“Oh, I once got solar flared too!” Kara raises her hand at you, and you guys high-five. “Being without your powers is not fun, but I’m so proud of you, little one! You have no idea!” It’s her time to hug you, and she does it a little too strong. You don’t complain though, is amazing that you can even feel it.

“Well, she is free to go.” Aunt Alex says, and you jump from the bed. It feels so weird. You’re feeling heavy, like Earth gravity finally caught up to you, and you feel like you weigh 200 pounds.

Sure you were once without your powers, but you couldn’t really enjoy this feeling of being human. Back then, you couldn’t really walk, because your leg was hurt, and when you did, you had a cast on. So this now, feels like being human for the first time since you were a little kid without powers.

You look at Kara with a smile on your face. “Race ya to the way out.”

And running you go, at a normal speed, and when you get there, you’re sweating and out of breath and feeling light-headed from the effort. You bend down, putting your hands on your thighs for support. Kara holds your arm, looking very worried.

“That was awesome!” You manage to say, while still trying to breathe and she laughs at you.

“You are aware that everyone in the DEO just saw you running like a freak on the corridors, right?” Kara asks, with a playful smile on her lips, and you open a big one to her.

“I know. But they all know I can take them down if I want to, so I don’t think they’ll say anything about it.” You finally stand up again, and open your arms to her. “I would like a ride home, please.”

“Sure thing, my little human.” Kara holds you, and fly home with you holding her tight. Feeling a little scared that you could fall and not be able to protect yourself. You feel a light rain starting to fall, and you look up with a smile. How great is this day?

Kara lands in the backyard, and you open your arms feeling the rain on your skin. She smiles, looking at you like you’re an alien who just now landed on Earth, and it’s experiencing things for the first time.

“Ok, go inside and get dry, and I’m going to pick up your mom before it starts raining harder.”

Kara leaves, but you don’t go inside. You’re so static that you were actually able to stop that villain -without help this time, may you add-, that the rain feels like a payment for it.

“Get inside, come on. Come on.” You hear Lena’s voice and you look behind you to see her with her suit jacket over her head. She comes to you, shielding you from the rain -like you’re not already completely soaked-, and walks with you inside from the backyard door. “Go take a shower and get out of those wet clothes before you come up with a cold.”

“A cold!” You say, like it’s the most exciting thing in the world. “Have I ever had a cold before? What is it like?”

“It’s no fun.” Lena looks at your excited face, and Rao, how well this woman can read you. It’s impressive. “Absolutely not! You are not getting a cold to feel how it is. Go take a hot shower now, and get yourself into warm clothes.” You pout at her. “I will throw you under the shower if I have to.”

“Fine.” The pouting is over at the sound of that. “I’m not getting a cold!”

But it seems that the universe has other plans for you.

“Come on, babygirl. School. Let’s go.” Lena opens the door in the morning. You try to open your eyes, but it feels incredibly hard to do so. You didn’t even wake up yet, and you can feel the most horrible headache.

“Mom. Don’t freak out.” Your voice comes out small and hoarse, and that’s all it takes for Lena to understand what’s going on.

“Please don’t tell me-” She comes closer, and you feel her hand on your forehead. “My God, you’re burning up.”

“I am?” You ask, pushing the blankets up your body. “Then why am I so cold?”

“Because you have a fever, babygirl.” Lena lets out a sigh, and you just wait until she says ‘I told you so’. But that never comes. “KARAAAA! GET THE TERMOMETER!”

It’s five seconds later when you see Kara showing up at your bedroom door. She gives it to Lena, who quickly takes your temperature and sighs at the number on the screen.

“You’ve got a high fever. What else are you feeling?” Lena asks, and you feel the mattress dipping next to you, and Kara coming closer.

“Headache. And for some reason my legs and arms hurt. Like-” You look at Kara, with wide eyes. “They actually hurt, you know?”

“Well, my love, that’s one of the symptoms.” Kara smiles fondly at you. She looks amazed at the fact that her daughter came up with a cold in the first place. “So, she’s not going to school today.”

“Absolutely not.” Lena says, picking up her cell phone from her pocket. “I’ll call the principal and let her know.” She looks back at you with a flat smile. “At least now we’ll prove to them that you’re an actual human being.”

“Yay!” You cough after such effort. “Silver lining.”

“I’ll go get something for you to eat.” She leaves the room and you look at Kara.

“I’m not hungry.” You think about it for a second and your eyes widen. “Momma! I’m not hungry! Am I dying?”

“Don’t even joke about it.” Kara throws her arms around you and gets comfortable next to you.

“Don’t you have work to attend to?” You ask, trying to do an eyebrow raise, but it hurts so badly you give up midway.

“Work?” She laughs like it’s the most absurd question you’ve ever asked her. You know it can’t be, because you once asked her how fast you had to run for your skin to warm up, like a spacecraft heats up when reentering the atmosphere and catches on fire -to which she replied a solid ‘huh?’-. “I can’t possibly go to work with you sick like this.”

“I’m not that sick. I have a common cold.”

“Shhh. They don’t need to know that.” Kara smiles, and takes her phone out of her pocket. She is typing and saying her message out loud, you know, like old peps do. “Can’t go in today. My daughter has come up with something and I have to stay in and watch her.”

You want to call her a liar, but you also want to thank her for staying with you. So instead, you settle for a smile, and for holding her hand. Lena walks in a while later with food in a tray for you.

“Ok, so I called your school and explained your absence, and I also called my assistant to let her know I’m not coming in today and-” She looks at Kara, already under the covers with you, and furrows her brows. “Don’t you have to go to work?”

Kara gives her a sheepish smile. “Guess we had the same idea.”

“Guess we did. Come on baby, let's get something inside you.” She helps you up, and you sit on your bed. You eat what she brought, and when you’re done, they help you lay back in bed. “Make space for me?”

Kara pulls you closer, and Lena lays on the other side of the bed, dropping her shoes on the floor with loud thuds.

“Rao, that hurts so much.” You wince at the sound, closing your eyes. “Can we all be very, very quiet?” You ask, and add a little later. “Oh, and in the dark?”

“Oh, my love, do you have a migraine too?” Lena whispers, kissing your forehead. “Kara, go get her a cloth, please.”

You barely feel the bed moving and Kara’s already laying down again. She blows a little of her freeze breath in it, and places it on your forehead. You also notice they had turned off the lights, and you doze back to sleep sandwiched between your moms.

You wake up much later. Kara is snoring next to you, arm over your body, making it impossible for you to move, and Lena is sitting on your desk, silently working in the dark. You smile at the scene.

“Mom.” You call her, and she stops what she is doing to go to you.

“Hey, babygirl. Listen, you have to drink lots of fluids to keep yourself hydrated.” Lena hands you a bottle of water. “How’s the migraine?”

“A little better?” You say, truthfully. She nods, putting her hand on your head to check for your fever.

“You’re sweaty. I think your fever is down. You should go take a shower.” Lena says and you just point at Kara’s arms and she knows exactly what you mean. “I always get trapped under her arms too. Let me just-” She scratches the back of Kara’s neck, and instantly her arms move and you’re free to go. “Here.” Lena gives you a hand and you sit on the bed with her help.

“I have to tell you something.” You whisper, still holding her hand. “I don’t really like the cold. You can say I told you so.”

Lena kisses your head, and lets out a chuckle. “I didn’t think you would, but I guess you had to see it for yourself. I’m glad you didn’t like it though; you’ll probably never catch it again.”

“I hope not.”

Despite absolutely hating the feeling of being sick, you look around and things are still pretty good in your life. When Kara wakes up, she wraps you up in blankets like a ‘sick burrito’, and moves you to the couch to watch your favorite movie with them. Sure, you’re surrounded with tissue papers, water bottles, and cold medicine. But you’re also surrounded with love. And that is the best thing you can wish for on a Wednesday afternoon.

Notes:

So it seems a lot of you wanted a sick fic. For this one I have to thank @beepbop122 for the solar flared idea for Superkid to get sick. Then @asiangmrchk13 asked for Supercorp taking care of her and a little bit of Alex in the middle. Also @youngjusticeimaginesus asked me for Superkid get a migraine and I think the basic idea was being cared by Kara and Lena, so I hope this works. And I threw in a fight scene for myself. I hope you all enjoy it, thank you so much!

[thran-duils]

Was Ich Liebe (P.3, Final)

Title: Was Ich Liebe (Part Three, Final) Summary: Fem!Reader x Dark!Tony Stark.  Tony becomes enamored with a stripper at a club his hedonistic friend Thor owns. A casual sexual relationship quickly becomes possessive and the reader sees more of the underground mafia life than she would like to. The cherry on top is that Tony is married and so is she. Him to a woman who has no intention of losing her throne at any cost and the reader to a deadbeat alcoholic. Feeling trapped by both her previous life and the suffocating hold Tony is trying to put on her, the reader steals away in the night, which is not going to go over well. Words: 4,647 Warnings (for whole fic, more may be added): Dub-con, smut, infidelity, stripping, vaginal fingering, public sex, possessive behavior, angst, degradation kink, violence, physical abuse, domestic violence, language, drug use, alcoholism, death Warnings for this chapter: Mention of abortion! Author’s Note: As usual, this is 18+.

Part Two || Masterpost (mobile) || Fanfic masterpost

Tony was calling. He must have gone to the apartment and found you gone by now, especially since you had not been answering him via text or by phone. You sent him to voicemail letting your music start again. You had rented a car to drive away from the city.

The jewelry he had given you came in handy to get cash that you were using for gas and hopefully a down payment on an apartment somewhere. Stripping joints were abundant, and you were sure if you found a sizable city, you would find work without an issue. You were thinking about Milwaukee. It was far enough away from NYC and there was a college there too.

Your phone beeped with another voicemail from him. Signing, against your better judgment, you reached forward to press play, it coming over the car’s speakers.

He was pissed. Unsurprisingly. He had been tight on the last one he had left, wound up that you were not answering him. But this was a whole different level. He was practically shouting.

“This better be a goddamn joke, Y/N. My patience is already up with it though. Did you think I wouldn’t notice you had snuck out? Where the fuck is all the jewelry? Huh? Your clothes? If I find out you left and you’re cheating on me, I’m gonna kill them.”

You did not doubt him when he said that. And he confirmed he was at the apartment if he noticed your stuff was gone.

“And were you planning on telling me about the pregnancy?” Your eyes widened and then you swore remembering you had not emptied the trash in the bathroom. “Or were you just gonna keep that to yourself? Listen very carefully to me, if you do something drastic, I’m not gonna be nice about it. Not in the fucking slightest. You best believe that and take that to heart! Don’t be fucking stupid! Call. Me. Back.”

The voicemail ended.

Yes. The pregnancy. You were already thinking about which office you could go to. You had left a note for Thor about quitting and you wondered how quickly your health insurance was going to stay in place. Before after leaving a job, it had stayed on until the end of the month, but you were unsure, and you were not about to call him and ask. An appointment at a clinic though, that was something you needed to deal with quickly. You were sure there was a facility you could find when you got yourself established.

<><><>

“You’re a psychopath,” Carol said to Tony, smirking.

She was watching him put up security cameras around Y/N’s apartment, hidden from the normal eye with his technology. And when he had taken the lock apart on her door to install tech he could control himself from his cell, she had shook her head.

“I prefer creative,” Tony responded, as he tested it out. It worked perfectly. “Little bitch isn’t going to be leaving without trying extra hard.”

<><><>

You found a hotel in Columbus. You made sure to put a chair underneath the door handle on top of using both locks. It was scary to be traveling alone. And especially when you did not know the area.

The next morning, you woke up to another voicemail from Tony. You had reached over to silence it while you were sleeping, knowing damn well who would be calling you at 2:30am.

He sounded sloshed.

“Do you remember me telling you I was never going to let you go? Cause I said it multiple times. That hasn’t changed, Y/N. It’s been almost 24 hours since you answered to me!” Slip up there with that ‘to’ added in. “It’s really fucking frustrating, and you know goddamn well I don’t like being frustrated. It’s…you’re being disrespectful!” There was a slight pause and you heard him take a drink. He let out a humorless laugh. “You won’t run away from me. I’m going to find you.”

He hung up.

Hearing how mad he was, your stomach was twisting. He was not a man that liked to be thwarted or feel like he was being disrespected. Not to mention that he was a fucking mafia member. If he got his hands back on you, he was not going to be kind. And the time he told you he would never hurt you would be tested, you worried.

Why did you let yourself get so far involved with such a dangerous, jealous man? Again?

Forcing yourself to get up from the bed, you went to take a shower to try to relax in the hot water. Afterward, you walked across the street to the coffee shop. You wanted to get on the road again to put some more distance between you and NYC and ultimately between you and him.

<><><>

You drove around the edge of UW-Milwaukee, stealing glances at the campus. A city like this with a college surely had good clientele for the clubs.

Pulling over and parking, you opened your phone beginning to search for an apartment and a job. There had to be an abundance of apartments available around the college since it was summer and a class had just graduated.

<><><>

He kept calling and kept calling. He was not going to stop. It had been two weeks. You had been trying to convince yourself to answer him and tell him to leave you alone and that it was over. You thought about changing your number and you would, but after the conversation you needed to have.

Piqued, you answered, “Tony, I’m busy—"

“Oh, you’re busy? So busy you couldn’t fucking answer me? Over the last two weeks, you’ve been ‘busy’. Too busy for me? That’s hilarious! You should have your own fucking stand up show.” His tone was dripping with condescension.

Sighing, you said, “I’m getting ready for work! This needs to be quick.”

“Work?” Tony chuckled darkly. “Now you care about work? You fucked Thor over by quitting on the spot. How were you even able to get a reference?”

“I danced. That was reference enough.”

“Of course you did. Of course you’re stripping. Where are you?”

“I’m not going to tell you, Tony!”

“Y/N, baby,” he started, sounding like it was taking everything in him to keep his voice even. “If you just apologize and tell me where you are or just come back, I’ll be able to let this go easier. You can come back to me, and it’ll all be okay.”

You mustered out a strong, “No! I am not going to do that.”

His leash was back off. “Why are we playing this stupid game, Y/N? I can handle you being bratty — cause I love fucking it out of you — but this is really pushing me over the edge!”

“I’m not being a brat! You were suffocating me!”

“Suffocating you? I worship you!” He was so easily able to confuse his possession with love. He continued on irritated, “I shower you with gifts! I make sure you’re well taken care of! I’ve treated you better than anyone else has! And you’re coming at me like this? What is your fucking problem, Y/N? What? Is being on the phone instead of in person giving you some fake confidence? Don’t think I’m not keeping track of this ungrateful bullshit just because you’re not standing in front of me!”

He was quickly losing his temper. You had never made him this mad, had never pushed back.

You were shaking as you tried to stand up for yourself, “I’m not the one with a problem! I didn’t force you to move anywhere or—"

Tony interrupted you furiously. “Do you understand how much that apartment cost? How much that car cost? You barely drove it!”

Frustrated he was steam rolling you as usual. you said fighting to keep tears back, “Sell it then!”

“If that was supposed to be a joke, it was an awful one. This shit isn’t fucking funny, Y/N! When I find out where you are, I’m gonna drag you back by your goddamn hair!”

“Good luck!” you spat, it slipping out before you really thought about it. Your eyes widened at what you had just done, and you quickly hung up as he started to snarl something back.

He was immediately calling you back and you sent him to voicemail again.

<><><>

Tony let out an aggravated shout, throwing his phone down on the desk when she did not answer him back.

Good luck was right.

She had stayed on the line long enough to give him time to trace her down to the general area. Milwaukee. Near the university. He would find her, and he was gonna find her quick with getting eyes on the ground to spot her leaving her place wherever that was in the area. And she was not going to like it when he came knocking to collect her.

<><><>

The bag from the closest grocery store was heavy with groceries for the week. You had returned the rental car when you signed your lease, able to use the bus system until you bought your own car.

You noticed there was a man watching you across the street and you slowed in your pace, narrowing your eyes. He did not look away and you swallowed sharply before resuming your pace. You felt like you could still feel his eyes on the back of your head. You had felt like there had been eyes on you earlier this morning too. A foreboding feeling was creeping; you wanted to get inside and quick.

Entering your apartment, you kicked the door closed and struggled to lock it immediately. The bag crunched as you walked over to the kitchen and placed it on the counter.

You put the few groceries away and walked around the counter, tearing your shirt off and tossing it on the back of one of your chairs. It was hot since you were on the third floor and you had not been able to buy an air conditioner yet.

“This place is a shithole.”

You screamed, startled at the voice, whipping around, your eyes searching wildly.

Tony was sitting in the end of your bed in your room.

He had surprisingly not called you for the last few days, not after the conversation the two of you had. Not hearing from him had set you on edge just as much as him calling you did. You knew he was not going to give up easily and the silence was a trap if you fell into it thinking that it was done.

Your eyes flicked to the door, and he chastised you in low, dangerous tones, “Y/N, you’re already in enough trouble. Don’t make this worse for yourself. Carols outside. So is Rhodey. And a handful of other people I brought along in case you were gonna cause more trouble.”

The man outside. So, you had been being watched.

Tony stood up from the bed and came out of the bedroom, and up to you. You took a few steps back and he tsked you. You stopped immediately, knowing what he wanted. He closed the rest of the space and raked his eyes up and down you.

“Why did you have to go and cause trouble in the first place? You think I was suffocating you? That’ll seem like a cakewalk compared to when you come back with me. See, we’ve lost trust. I can’t have you running around when you know as much as you do. And you running off looks like you were going to squeal.” You opened your mouth to protest but he rose his voice, shutting you up. “And I can’t have that. Not when I have other people to answer to on the team. I will not be the weak link in the chain, which means you are not going to be running off in the middle of the night. Even if it’s not what you planned to do, it looks bad.”

His hands came to rest on your biceps, squeezing in tight, causing you to flinch slightly. His eyes were hard. “You could have had the world and you threw it away.” His thumbs caressed, his tongue slipping between his lips. “But I can be a forgiving man if you make me believe that you’re sorry. Just do that for me, beg for forgiveness, and I’ll take care of you and that baby.”

You gulped at the mention of the baby, and he noticed. His eyes narrowed. He leaned in, searching your face and you looked away, but he forced you to look back at him, his hand holding your jaw tight.

“Y/N, baby… you got something to tell me?”

You were silent, your heart starting to hammer.

“Y/N, you know I don’t like repeating myself.”

His grip tightened and you felt tears pricking, apprehensive of how he was going to react.

Your voice warbled, “I…I had an abortion.”

Tony was frozen, his eyes wide and incendiary. His grip on your jaw loosened and you took a step back away from him. His jaw clicked, eyes not leaving you. You saw he was going to explode.

Raising your hand shakily, as if that was going to hold him off, you started, “Now, Tony—"

His backhand sent you stumbling. He caught you before you could do it yourself and slammed you up against the wall.

“You’re lucky I didn’t cold clock you!” He snarled, his fingers digging in painfully to your arms.

“Tony, don’t—”

“Don’t? Don’t what? Be fucking furious that I told you not to do anything drastic and then you went and did just that? Without even consulting me? I have a goddamn right to be furious! How fucking dare you!”

You were sniffling now, terrified.

He gave you a rough shake before demanding, “What’s the lease on this place?” You took too long to answer. “Answer me!”

“Month to month,” you whimpered.

“Smart. Makes this easier.” His nose was practically brushing yours. “Look, you’re gonna be good and listen to me about exactly what is going to happen—"

“You can’t—"

“Did I tell you that you could talk? No! I told you you were going to listen. Keep your fucking mouth shut!” Tony lashed out. You closed your mouth, your lip warbling. “You’re coming with me. And I haven’t decided yet if I want them all to listen to you beg for forgiveness on the plane or if I’m waiting until we are alone. Not doing it here. Don’t wanna alarm your neighbors and have to injure any of them if they try to interfere. I don’t want, nor need that type of mess.”

He shoved you as he let you go, and you wiped at your eyes.

“I can’t fucking believe you. Can’t even follow simple goddamn directions. What are you? A child?” he snorted angrily. He snapped his fingers at you and pointed at your room. “Get your shit. We are leaving and going home. The jets at the airport.”

<><><>

He had not punished you on the plane. You instead had sat, curled in as tightly as you could to yourself in the chair across from him under a blanket, looking out the window as much as possible. You felt him watching you intensely the whole two hours. You could only imagine the deranged ideas going through his head about what he was going to do to you when he got you alone.

The moment you stepped into your apartment, he ordered you, “Get yourself done up. I want you to look nice for me. I’ll be out here watching the game.”

His goons brought in your suitcases and put them next to the kitchen table before leaving at his order. Tony grabbed the remote and turned the TV on. He saw you were still standing there, and he glared.

“Y/N…” he said dangerously. “I don’t see you moving.”

You grabbed your suitcase with your clothes and trudged down the hall, feeling his hard stare at your back until you disappeared into the bedroom. You had left a lot of your clothes here but there was a dress you had brought with you, one that he liked specifically. Which shocked you a little bit because it was loose and free; still short though.

Taking the time to shower, blow dry, do your makeup, and dress, you felt the anxiety rising about what he was going to do. You thought the extra time would calm you down, but it was doing the opposite because it was giving you more time to think.

When you walked back down the hall, your black wedges announcing your arrival, Tony looked over the back of the couch. You saw the bottle on the coffee table. He had been drinking, not a surprise. He gestured you over and you walked around the couch, coming over to him. He ran his eyes up and down you, taking you in.

“Well, don’t you look just perfect?” he asked, an edge underlying his tone.

He stood up from the couch and you stayed still. He pulled his phone out and took a picture of you without giving you time to prepare. He turned his phone around and you looked dumbstruck in the photo.

But he complimented, “Look at that. Pristine. That’s what good girls look like.” A cruel smile flashed across his features, and he tossed his phone down on the couch. “But you’re not a good girl are you, baby?”

You only had a moment to react before he was forcing you down to your knees. You hissed in pain as your knees slammed against the hardwood.

“You brought this on yourself. You think I like punishing you?” Tony asked, working on his belt with one hand as the other held you by the back of the neck. Your hands came up to grip his thighs, pressing back against the hold he had on your neck. “Ah ah, stay where you are.” He stroked himself with purpose, his hand moving at a steady pace. “Look at you. A pretty little slut that needs to be taught a lesson.”

He was hard now, the head of his cock pressing against your lips.

“Open your damn mouth!” You clenched your teeth, knowing he was gonna be rough and not wanting to choke. He let go of you to slap your cheek and sneered, “Don’t make me ask you again!”

You opened your mouth reluctantly, and he grabbed you by the back of your neck again and shoved his dick in all the way, your nose brushing his pubes. You gagged before he pulled back out, running his head around your lips. He groaned at the sight, slipping back in and using your mouth.

“Tell me you love me!”

“I love you!” you got out around his width.

“Look at me!” You forced your gaze up to meet his and he thrusted faster, hitting the back of your throat. Your hands gripped tight onto his thighs, eyes begging for him to slow down. But he was not relenting, and your throat was aching. Another groan left his lips as he demanded, “Tell me you love me, you little bitch.”

It was hard to say it, you choking now, tears stinging your eyes. “I love you!”

He pulled away roughly, his hand wrapped around your hair tightly, keeping you in place. Your saliva was stringing messily between him and your lips. Your chin as well as his pubes were glistening with your drool. You gasped for air, thankful for the reprieve from your jaw aching from being open so wide.

The reprieve was short lived though and you cried out in pain as he began walking, dragging you by your hair.

“Forgive me that I don’t quite believe you. But I’m gonna make sure I do believe you. I’m gonna get a genuine one out of you before I’m through.”

Tony sat on the edge of the bed and held you tight. “Give me a show. Take that dress off and let me see you. Let me see what I’m going to take.”

Shakily, you stood up as his grip laxed and he was watching you like a hawk. You wiped at your lips, knowing there was little to do about your eye makeup since he had made tears come with how hard he had been choking you. You started to sway your hips, trying to find a rhythm amongst the excitement. You turned away from him so he could not see your face as you struggled to calm down enough to dance.

It was sloppy, unconfident. But that did not seem to bother him. He pulled you into his lip and his hands slipped up your dress and into your underwear.

“Don’t get to tell me now that I can’t touch,” he husked against your cheek, his fingers slipping into your pussy. “All mine.”

He was stroking you, getting you worked up, making you lose focus on grinding. You bit your bottom lip, a strangled moan escaping.

Tony chuckled, nuzzling your cheek. “I know you like that. Gonna get you good and wet for me, sweetheart. Spread your legs further.”

You were falling so easily into his touch, your core wanting more. You were getting wound up and he was loving it. He worked quicker, his breath heavy as he felt how aroused you were, wetting his fingers.

“Maybe you are a good girl. Look how well you are behaving for me. Is this you apologizing?” He pulled away just to lay a hard smack on your cunt. You bucked, crying out and he did it again. You whimpered as his fingers entered again, focusing on your bud. “You’re a needy little slut, aren’t you baby?” You nodded and he sucked at your neck. “You’re repenting so well… but you’ve got a long way to fucking go.”

You were so close, but he suddenly shoved you away roughly, causing you to stumble in your heels.

“Strip.”

You did as he asked, pulling the dress up and tossing it behind you, leaving you in just your underwear. He rose his brows expectantly and you turned around, bending over slowly. You pulled your underwear down, feeling how wet they were at the crotch. You heard him hum at the sight of them and your glistening pussy. They fell to your ankles, and you turned around, kicking them off.

Tony stood up and pointed at the bed. “On your stomach.” You did as he asked and heard him getting undressed. You peeked over your shoulder at him undoing his tie as he walked towards your closet. He emerged again with a scarf, his eyes fixated on you. “Did I tell you you could look at me?” You turned back around quickly, butterflies swarming.

He grabbed one of your ankles and yanked you down the bed. You felt his tie around your ankle, and you tensed as he tied you to the bed frame. He was at your opposite ankle and tied your other leg with your scarf tightly.

“Tony…” you said hoarsely.

He did not answer you and you laid there, spread wide. The bed creaked with his weight and his thick thighs straddled you, holding you even tighter in place. You felt him pressing in and your fingers dug into your quilt. Each inch filled you up more and he exhaled as he reached his base.

“That’s the gentlest thrust you’re going to get, sweetheart. Enjoy it.”

Tony was not lying; he was pounding you into the mattress and you were not being quiet about the intrusion. You were already so wet, and he was adding to the sensation the way he was working you.

“You’re gonna remember who you loves you the most,” he groaned. The bed was shaking with how hard he was driving into you. “You’re gonna remember to behave!”

Pulling out of you, he smacked you hard against your ass. “Get up on your knees. Now!”

You obeyed, maneuvering with the restraints and his fingers replaced his dick, rubbing your clit. You keened, your back arching at the intense contact. You were ashamed that as usual you fell to the arousal, letting him take you over completely even when he was being as mean as he was.

“Fuck, you little whore. Look at you. So needy for cock. Why did you leave me in the first place? You were never going to find anyone that would love you like I do. You hurt my feelings, baby. And I don’t like having my feelings hurt.”

“I’m sorry,” you gasped without any prompting.

Tony’s fingers fell from your sex, and he was up, holding you by the throat. His breath was hot on your ear. “I might just leave you here on the bed right now. Tie those delicate wrists up too. Keep you on display for me. I’ll just walk by and see you stuck here, just dependent on me to come back to release you.”

You shook your head, begging pathetically, “No, p-please.”

“You want me to finish?”

“Yes!”

“Do you deserve it? Cause I don’t think you fucking do.”

You shook your head, “No. I don’t. But, please!” He brushed your pussy lightly with his fingers, teasing and you broke down even further. “I love you! I love you! Please!”

“You’re not gonna leave me again.” It was a statement, not a question.

You shook your head furiously again, gasping, “No! No, I won’t leave you!”

He yanked you up painfully by your hair again and new tears stung your eyes.

“I’m gonna make fucking sure of it. You’re gonna be on house arrest until I see fit to let you out! Face down,” Tony snarled, pushing you roughly down by the shoulders. He was behind you again. “You’re gonna be full of my seed when I’m done.”

Your chest hit the bed as the room filled with skin slapping skin loudly as he ravaged you. It did not take long for your body to tense up and a shriek left you as your pussy clenched around him. Tony’s breath was erratic as his pace lost control, his fingers digging into your hips. Broken husks were falling from his mouth, you could not make it out over the buzz in your ears. You felt the warmth though when he filled you up, his cock buried deep. He was making sure it was up against your cervix. His groan was long and loud, his hands squeezing your ass tight.

When he pulled away, you laid out flat, feeling worn. You heard him leave the room, the hardwood in the hall creaking with his footfalls. Your body was covered in sweat, heavy pants leaving your lips. For a moment, you forgot you were tied and tried to adjust and let out a sigh of disappointment when you felt the tug of the restraint on your ankle.

Tony was back with his phone. He cooed, “Oh, sweetheart. You’re so tired. Look up at me.” You lifted your head and saw him snap a picture of you. His lips curled into a smirk at the photo, and he turned it around to show you. Your makeup was ruined, tear trails on your cheeks, mascara and eyeliner smudged. You looked like a mess.

“Look at this lovely sight,” he purred. He flipped to the last photo of you looking made up and then back again. “Look how dirty you got pleasing me compared to before. I’m going to keep these.” A malicious glint flashed in his eyes, and he said, “I’ll give you a few to recover. But baby, there’s gonna be round two and no, I’m not going to let you clean up. Let’s see how much dirtier I can get you.”

~~~

Marvel tags: @coconutqueen21 @undecidedsworld @holl2712 @agustdowney  @biiskuitx @buttercupfangirl

Fic tags: @buttercandy16

[tiny-slasher]

Bo Sinclair x Reader | Swamped

Alternate Universe where Bo and Vince aren’t murderers.

* . °•★|•°∵ ∵°•|☆•° . *

I had a dream the other night about Bo, and decided to turn it into a fic. My dream was actually a bit darker toned...but it didn’t turn out that way in the fic. So if this seems a little chaotic, that’s why. Blame dream me. Dream Sweepy is a different entity altogether. She should not be trifled with.

* . °•★|•°∵ ∵°•|☆•° . *

Your soaked shoes squelched against the burning pavement, steps heavy as your waterlogged clothes weighed you down. You angrily wiped the sweat from your brows as you squinted, trying to see even a foot in front of you in the bright, afternoon sun.

"I'm sorry, okay?"

Your sister's voice grated on your ears, making you clench your teeth in frustration. You heard her quicker steps try and keep up with yours; her own shoes splashing water against your legs as she got closer.

"Please say something? I said I was sorry!"

You sharply turned to her and snapped, "Tell that to the car sinking in the swamp."

Your sister pushed her sweat-soaked hair from her face, expression the most apologetic you'd ever seen. The anger in your heart fizzled a bit when she whispered another apology, but that didn't ease your frustration. Your nerves were still a bit rattled after the ordeal, and there was a bruise forming on your shoulder from where you'd hit the window of your car. Irritated didn't begin to cover how you felt.

Still, you were thankful neither of you had gotten hurt.

"How far do you think we gotta walk?" she asked hesitantly.

"I don't know."

"My feet are starting to hurt..."

"Be thankful you still have feet."

She huffed and crossed her arms, muttering under her breath as she trailed after you. You couldn't really blame her...it was very hot, and the two of you had been walking for over an hour. You continued for a while longer, each step more difficult than the last. You'd developed a pretty nasty headache, either from thirst or from the heat, and your sister wasn't doing much better.

"Hey, you think there's anyone up over there?"

You looked up to where your sister was pointing, eyes widening. There, slightly obscured by trees was some sort of old building, made almost entirely out of wooden planks. The windows were dingy, and a screen door covering the entryway. It almost seemed abandoned, if it hadn't been for the old pickup truck parked on the dirt in front of it.

"Come on," you said, making your way off the paved road and onto the dirt.

As the two of you made your way over, you saw a sloppy, hand-painted sign at the top of the building that read "Mechanic", and you raised an eyebrow at it. The hairs on the back of your neck stood up as you walked up the front creaking front steps. Your sister stood close behind you, her posture just as nervous as your own. You rolled your shoulders back and straightened up, and headed into the building.

The screen door rattled and creaked loudly as you pushed it open, the springs holding it shut straining against your hold. You heard the low, static hum of a radio playing some sort of old country song. There were boxes of tools and grease-covered appliances without any real organization, and the floor looked like it had never been swept.

"Vince, shut the damn door 'fore you let the gnats in!"

You stepped into the room, your sister less than a foot behind you, and turned to your right to see two young men. One was standing, resting his arms on a wooden rail that acted as a room divider. A dirty hat rested on his head, and his grimy hands picked at the splintering wood they rested on. The other man was sitting in a chair, with his boot-covered feet up on a scratched up desk that took up nearly all the space in the cramped area. He was messing around with a pocket knife, running his thumb over the blade innocuously. There were papers scattered over the entirety of the desk, rustling in the breeze of the desk fan that sat in the corner. You noted the few other pocket knives laying around, holding the papers down.

The one standing noticed you first, and his relaxed expression grew a bit nervous. He cleared his throat, offering you a grimy, but polite smile. The one sitting lifted his gaze towards you, and paused in his fiddling. You swallowed as his gaze pierced you, pinning you in place without having to move a single muscle.

"You definitely ain't Vince."

You shifted on your feet uncomfortably, eyeing the man down almost glaringly.

"Well come on in then," he sighed, setting his feet on the ground and running a hand through his tousled and slightly sweaty hair.

You stiffly walked and sat in a chair on the other side of the desk, thankful to finally give your feet a break.

The standing one walked over with another chair, gesturing for your sister to sit in it. She thanked him, and practically fell into it with a loud sigh. You caught an amused glint in the sitting man's eyes, before he turned back to look at you, squinting at your damp clothes.

"What can I do for ya?"

"We need a ride."

"Car troubles, right?" His brows furrowed, "You too cheap to have me fix it or somethin'?"

"I don't think you can fix it," you dryly replied, earning an offended scoff from him.

"If anyone can, it's Bo," the standing man said behind you, a proud smile on his face as he gestured to the man in front of him.

You rubbed the bridge of your nose, "No it's not...trust me it's not worth the trouble at this point."

The man standing behind you shifted as he continued to lean on the railing, as the sitting man...Bo, squinted at you.

"The hell'd you do to it?" he asked judgmentally.

You crossed your arms with a pout, and out of your peripheral you saw your sister begin to sink lower and lower in her seat, hoping to not be brought into the conversation. Bo, however, noticed, and leaned back in his chair with a raised eyebrow.

He smirked at you, "Ah, someone decided to sabotage the ride, huh? What'd she do? Put her hand over your eyes?"

Your sister sunk even lower, and you didn't feel the need to reply.

Bo leaned back in his seat, "Well where's the car at? Lester can tow it over here for ya."

You glanced back at the man behind you, who gave you a confirming nod, and you sighed, "He might not be able to find it."

"Why not?" Bo asked, twirling his pocket knife in his hand.

You reached over to trace the scratches in the wood of the desk, your fingers coming dangerously close to one of the pocket knifes lying there. You slowly lifted your gaze up to Bo, eyes dark.

"It's sinking in the damn swamp somewhere."

There was a long drawn out silence, before Bo laughed so hard his head lolled back. The man behind you...Lester, began to laugh as well, but tried to be a bit more polite about it. If you hadn't been extremely annoyed, you might've noticed that Bo's laugh was very endearing.

"Ah shit," Bo coughed and snickered at you. "Is that why you're drippin' all over my floor?"

You narrowed your eyes, and grumpily leaned onto the desk.

"Look, can you just give us a ride into town please?"

Bo continued to calculatingly stare at you, as if weighing his options.

"I mean, my services ain't free, darlin'."

Normally, you might've been lured in by that southern drawl, as Bo had intended, but you glanced over at your sister. She was tired, hungry, and most likely had blisters on her feet just as bad as your own. The anger on your face melted into concern, and Bo noticed. The two of you shared a look, and you could see the moment that Bo had made up his mind.

With a deep sigh he stood up, and grabbed the car keys on the desk. "Come on then, I ain't got all day."

As he walked out of the building, you grabbed one of the pocket knives on the desk and stuffed it into your pocket...just in case, and then followed him out.

He surprised you by opening the passenger door, waiting for you to get in.

"Didn't realize you were such a gentlemen."

He smirked at you, about to reply when your sister cut in, "I want to sit in the back!"

She was already in the truck bed next to Lester before you could so much as roll your eyes. After you and Bo got into the truck yourselves, he started it up and began driving into town.

"So, what brings ya all the way down here to Ambrose?"

You shrugged, "Just a road trip, we were passing through."

"Yeah, most people do. There ain't much to see down here, 'sides a buncha mosquitos," Bo hummed. "And a wax museum...but it's kinda an eyesore. Definitely overrated."

You hummed in reply

"Do you even get business out here?" you asked curiously.

"You'd be surprised how many people run outta gas, or blow out a tire," Bo glanced at you with a smirk. "Although, I ain't had many people drive straight into the water before. Most people tend to stay on the road, yknow?"

"Fuck you."

Bo's laugh was hearty, and a bit wheezy. You tried to ignore the flip flops your stomach did at hearing it, but a smile still managed to reach your lips.

You stared at the scenery for a while, thinking about all the things you'd have to sort out once you got into town. You'd definitely need some new clothes, and a shower...you were sure you'd begun to smell pretty awful.

"Sorry for getting your truck all gross," you gestured to your damp and sweaty clothes.

"Nah, don't worry 'bout it. Lester stunk it up long 'fore you got here."

You huffed out a small laugh, catching the way his lip curled when he grinned. You relished in the warm feeling in your stomach upon seeing it, until you glanced out the window and saw that he was pulling into the parking lot of a small restaurant.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm hungry, and I'll bet you and your sister back there are too after all that walkin'," Bo replied, getting out of the truck, walking around to your side to open the door.

"I-"

"You can consider it as your payment for havin' me chauffeur you all over town."

"You drove me ten miles down the road...that's not exactly going all over town," you retorted, folding your arms. "And I don't want to buy you dinner."

Bo just smiled at you, and began to walk into the restaurant, expecting you to follow him. Your sister ran up beside you, droning on about whatever she and Lester had been talking about. Bo stood at the door, holding it open expectantly at you. What were you gonna do? Walk to the nearest hotel? With an angry huff, you shoved past him, sending a scathing look his way. His smirk was smug towards you.

The restaurant was pretty old, but full of people. The food smelled good, at least...and you were hungry.

"Alright, so you grab a tray, and then walk over to that lovely lady behind the counter to tell you what you want-"

"I know how to order," you bit out to Bo, as he leaned away from your ear. He simply smirked at you and then looked back up the menu hanging above the food line.

"Damn, that steak sounds pretty good..."

"Don't you fucking dare," you hissed, earning a glance from your sister. Her eyes flitted between you and Bo, and then she grinned at you. The look you gave her was enough to keep her mouth shut, but her grin spoke paragraphs.

Eventually, the four of you made it through the line. You'd been nervous when Bo ordered, but was relieved when he picked something cheap; reciting it as though he'd done it a thousand times before. You grabbed a cup and swiftly walked over to the drink fountain, filling it with water...since you hadn't had anything to drink in hours. You turned to head to the table you saw Lester and your sister sitting at, only to run straight into Bo and spill water down your already damp front.

"Need me to carry that for ya, sweetheart?" he drawled, eyes lidded.

"No, I've got it," you bit out, rushing away from him as fast as you could.

Sitting down, you picked at your food with your fork. Your stomach felt a bit queasy, just from the entire ordeal you'd been through that day, so you didn't eat much. You focused on sipping your water, instead.

Bo sat down across from you, his legs hitting yours as he stretched them out obnoxiously far. You glared up at him, but he pretended to not notice. When you shoved at his leg, he just smiled at you, and ate a bite of his meal, stretching his legs even farther into your space.

"So, Lester said you had a twin, Bo," your sister said. "Is he as handsome as you?"

Bo snorted, "He wishes."

"Uh...Vince has a...his face 's got a lotta scars," Lester said awkwardly. "He and Bo were conjugated."

"Conjoined, dipshit," Bo barked. "The fucker stole half of the back of my head, and never gave it back."

"He might still be holdin' a grudge, since you got half his face."

Bo turned to Lester, who was failing to hold back a grin, and smacked him upside the head. Lester let out a loud laugh, and you couldn't help but feel a bit amused.

"So, are you the baby brother?" your sister grinned at Lester, who turned red.

"Yeah ma'am, s'pose I am..."

You sipped at your water, making an effort not to guzzle it down.

"Not hungry?" Bo asked, nudging your ankle with his foot.

You looked back down at your food, "Not really...it's been a long day."

Your sister took that as confirmation that she could help herself to it, but you couldn't bring yourself to care. You felt Bo's eyes on you the entire time, but you tried to ignore him.

Lester spoke to your sister, both of them enjoying each other's company and friendly banter. You could hear them, but your mind didn't process anything they said. You simply continued to sip your water, mentally going over what you would need to do once you were a hotel somewhere.

You were abruptly torn from your thoughts when Bo's boot nudged your foot, aggravating the blisters that had already formed there. You winced and irritatingly looked up at Bo, only to find him leaning back and looking over at Lester. Rolling your eyes you looked away, glancing over at the desserts in the corner. Your eye twitched when you felt his boot touch your foot again, a bit more strongly than before. It wasn't until the fourth time he did it that you finally snapped your head over to glare at him, only to have him get up from the table and walk off. You slumped in your seat grumpily, running your finger along the rim of your cup of water.

You blinked when a piece of pie was set down in front of you.

"Ooh thanks!" your sister exclaimed, when Bo set another piece down in front of her.

You stared at Bo as he sat back down across from you, with his own piece.

"Come on now, don't tell me you ain't got room for dessert, at least?" Bo incredulously remarked, biting into his own.

You huffed, "Not when I'm the one paying for it..."

Bo snorted, "Come on, just eat it 'fore it gets dust on it. If you don't like it, you can have mine."

Sighing, you took a bite of your piece, and found it much more enjoyable than you'd expected.

"Good, ain't it?" Bo smirked, and you resisted the urge to flip him off.

You watched tiredly as your sister devoured her own piece, telling Lester about the gator they'd seen out their window earlier that day. It hadn't been that impressive...a tiny little thing, really, but Lester seemed entranced by the conversation nonetheless. You smiled at a joke he made, when you heard a clinking noise from in front of you. Glancing down, your eyes widened at the sight of Bo quickly snatching his fork, which had snagged a large chunk of your pie, back and shoving it into his mouth.

"Hey!"

"You were lettin' get all nasty!" he defended himself, laughing and wincing as you kicked at his legs.

Your sister was snickering at the two of you, when Bo's phone starting buzzing. He pulled it out, and answered it with a sigh.

"Yeah? No we're fine, we'll be home in a little while," he said. "Yeah sorry...forgot to tell you. Okay, bye."

Bo hung up, and then stood, "Guess we'll have to get a move on. I forgot it's movie night."

"Oh yeah!" Lester exclaimed. "Vince is probably so mad..."

"He'll live," Bo rolled his eyes, heading towards the door.

"Wait...aren't I supposed to pay?" you frowned, confused.

Bo smirked, "Nah, I already paid. Come on."

Your mouth hung open as he walked off, and you couldn't tell if you were relieved or infuriated. Deciding it was the latter, you stormed up to him as he pulled open the door of his truck to let you in. Getting up in his face, you hissed, "You did that all on purpose, you jackass!"

"Sure did," he winked. "What're you gonna do?"

You just huffed at him and crawled into your seat, glaring at him as he shut the door and began to walk to his side. Suddenly struck with an evil idea, you leaned over and locked his door. The smirk on his face fell, and he stared at you through the window.

"The hell are you doin'?"

You flipped him off, earning a fiery glare in response.

"Open the damn door!" he demanded, before sending you a confused smile. "This is my truck!"

You just casually sat on your side, seeing your sister and Lester watch everything unfold from the back window, and smirked at him.

He tugged harshly on the door handle, jiggling it as if that would magically unlock it, "If you don't open this door, I'm gonna call the cops!"

You rolled your eyes, "You've got keys dumbass."

Bo froze, his cheeks heating up in embarrassment, as he reached into his pocket and pulled out his car keys. You could hear Lester howl in laughter, and Bo yelling at him to shut up. He practically slammed the door shut behind him as he got in, turning to give you a scathing glare.

"...Where to, sweetheart?" he bit out lowly, his eyes burning.

"Hotel please," you replied with a smile.

He started the engine and then began the short drive into town, sending you angry glances every so often.

"Don't be like that," you grinned. "I was just getting even."

He just fumed in embarrassed silence, his grip on the steering wheel white-knuckled. You frowned, realizing he'd gotten much angrier than you'd expected.

"I'm sorry, I was just messing with you," you sighed. "Thanks for giving my sister and I a ride...you didn't have to."

He grunted in affirmation, his grip loosening a bit.

"And for putting up with how bad I must smell."

At that, Bo let out a soft laugh, "Nah, I've smelled worse, trust me."

The rest of the car ride was comfortably silent, with the two of you occasionally making eye contact with each other. Soon, a hotel came into view, and you tried to ignore the feeling of disappointment in your chest. It only grew heavier as he pulled into the parking lot there.

"Well, here ya are," he said, not looking at you.

"Thank you," you assured him, opening the door to get out.

You paused, reaching into your pocket to pull out the knife, and held it out to him.

"Is that...did you snag one of my knives?" he asked with a laugh, eyebrows raised in surprise.

"Yeah..." you mumbled. "Sorry I just..."

"You're smarter than I thought. You keep it," he chuckled, a glimmer of admiration in his eyes, and shoved it back towards you. "Somethin' to remember me by. Besides, you know where I'm at if you ever wanna look at this handsome face again."

The heaviness in your stomach lifted at that realization, and you smiled at him. Leaning over, you gave him a kiss on the cheek, to which he stiffened and stared at you in surprise.

"I'll see you around, Bo," you said, getting out of the truck.

He nodded, beet red and adjusting the collar of his shirt, while Lester climbed into the passenger seat.

"Y'all be safe," Lester said with a smile.

You and your sister waved at them as they drove off, a bit sad when they finally disappeared down the road.

Your sister nudged you in the side, "You're welcome."

"For what?"

"Wrecking the car," she grinned. "If it weren't for me, you would never have met Mr. Handsome."

You kicked at her shins, "Shut up."

"We're goin' to see them again tomorrow, right?"

"Of course."

[auyouni]

when i’m messed up, that’s the real me // septiplier

Jack's not entirely sure how he got here.

The universe seems to swirl slowly around him as he lays in the grass, the expanse of the sky laid out before him. The air smells new, and sweet, like the start of something wonderful, but Jack's not sure he could handle that something, whatever it is. He can't really handle much.

His heavy hand lifts his phone up above him, squinting at the screen. His eyes shift over it, continuously moving, watching the way the screen multiplies and moves. He feels dizzy.

Taking a shuddering breath, he focuses hard on tapping the screen, pulling up the dial tab. Shakily, he hits number 1 on speed dial and brings it down to his ear, listening to it ring.

Approximately a few millennia pass, but that's fine. Jack would wait for forever, if there was a chance he’d pick up.

“Well hey there, Mr. I-Have-No-Concept-Of-Time,” comes Mark's slightly husky voice, and Jack has no clue if he's trying to be sexy or if it's just from sleep. He's never really sure, when it's this late. “What'll it be tonight, hmm?”

Jack swallows, mouth suddenly dry. “Mark,” he manages to say, voice soft and slurred. “I… I'll pay ya more i...if you come to me,” he says, trying to sound sober, but god, he's really too far gone for this.

There's a beat of silence. Then: “Are you drunk?”

“Please?” he tries, squeezing his eyes closed at the swirling stars. “Wanna see you.”

There's an odd intake of breath on the other end, and another silence, uncertainty lying in the lack of words. Then a sigh, a soft grumble, and Jack can hear faint rustling. “Fine, fine, I'm on my way over. Are you--”

“‘m in the… the park. Big one, by y’r h-house,” he says, not even sure if that's what Mark was asking.

“What… are you okay?”

Jack considers that for a quiet moment, eventually making a noncommittal noise. He hasn't been okay for a while now.

“Why are you at the park? Did you just decide to walk there, for no reason?”

“Drove.”

“...You fucking better have drove before you got yourself wasted.”

“From a party, I… I was a-already drunk.”

“Goddammit, Sean, you absolute idiot.”

“Yeah.”

There's a lengthy sigh on the other end. “I'm gonna hit you.” Jack doesn't doubt that he would, but he probably won't. “On my way - don't move, and don't die.”

Jack nods, but the call ends before he even realizes that Mark can't see him.

Everything becomes a bit blurry when Mark finds him. He gets a vague, flurried feeling of safety and love and warmth and a healthy dose of anxiety, and he's pretty sure he lets Mark drive his car. Next thing he knows, he’s sitting on his bed, watching as Mark unties his shoes for him. Jack tears up a little as he stares at him, taking in all his features and the concern/frustration mixture in his expression.

“Money's in my drawer… th-thanks f’r gettin’ me,” he says softly, instead of something much more idiotic, more damning.

“I'm not taking your money for helping you get your drunk ass home. That's just being a good friend, I don't need payment for that.” Mark sounds a little exasperated, and maybe a little hurt, but Jack can't make heads or tails of why.

“What if I kiss you?” The words just tumble from his lips, the next logical step in his brain.

“You don't have to kiss me. I'm not taking your money, you're too drunk to be making deals, or finding excuses to give me money.” Mark finally looks up at him, expression tired and a little resigned.

“What if I just want to kiss you?”

“I'll hit you.”

Jack considers that. Mark doesn't sound threatening, just tired. “Will you?”

“...No, but I'm not taking your money.”

“What… if I kiss you… an’ ask you ta stay th’ night?”

Mark watches him, a million different emotions flickering over his expression. “I'm not having sex with you. Tonight or tomorrow.”

“Okay,” Jack replies, hope rising in a small way. He might stay. Just for the night, but he'll take what he can get. “Just want a kiss, an’... an’ very manly cuddlin’.”

Mark considers this for a long moment, before finally giving a small nod. “Okay.” Jack smiles, big and bright, and something in the American's expression softens. “I'm still not taking your money.”

“E...even when I'm sober?” Jack asks, tilting his head, eyebrows furrowed in confusion. It's a good deal. He doesn't have to have sex with a guy, but still gets paid the same as if he did.

“Yeah, but I'm sure you'll argue about it more when you are. Counting on the hangover to keep you at bay.” Jack rolls his eyes, which makes him kinda dizzy, so he gives a small laugh. Almost a giggle. He's tired enough, and drunk enough, and lovesick enough to be giggling by now.

“Y… you’d be dumb ta not take it, Marky,” he says quietly, after a moment, and Mark sighs. “Even if… if we didn't do anythin’, I’d still want ya t’ have it. You need it more than me, you… deserve th’ whole world, Mark. I’d trade you the universe f’r a single kiss, that's… that's all I want.” He tries to focus on the other boy's expression, because even through the fog of his mind, he realizes he's just said some pretty damning stuff. Mark, for his part, seems a little speechless, some unnamable emotion flicking through his eyes.

Jack's about to speak, maybe to take it all back - or make it worse, keep on that horrible ramble until he spills all his emotions, cutting into those deep wounds in his heart and just bleeding love for this amazing boy (which is much more likely) - lips already parting, but Mark kisses him instead.

Jack definitely doesn't complain.

He just kisses him back, clumsy hands gripping at his shirt, pulling him closer, so Mark ends up in his lap. Still, he kisses him, letting the feelings wash over everything. Mark's hands end up in his hair and cupping his jaw, lips softly moving against his. It feels different from a lot of the times that Mark kisses him. More… real, maybe. Jack absolutely melts into it, wishing it could fill up all those cracks in his dumb heart.

When they finally break away, they're both panting softly, Jack's mind completely dizzy and lips tingling, heart racing, and he's trying to find the words to describe the feelings that ignited in him with Mark's lips, but all he can think is full blown fireworks. What is this, a teen novel? Still, the description is accurate. Whenever they’d kissed before, Jack had felt those stupid sparks, the silly butterflies, the electricity under his skin, but… but, there's something different about this kiss. Despite being weighed down by the fog of the alcohol, the feelings are more intense now.

God, if only he weren't so drunk.

“You shouldn't want that,” Mark mumbles, voice breathless. “I'm not worth it.”

“You are,” Jack finds himself whispering back without a second thought, believing it wholeheartedly.

“I'm a mess.”

“So? I am too.” Mark makes a noncommittal noise, and Jack frowns a little. “Hey. L… look at me.” Mark reluctantly opens his eyes, lets them meet Jack's own. “We're both… pretty messed up. But you… Y’r mess is the best thing that I've ever gotten c-caught up in.”

“You're drunk,” Mark points out, after a moment.

“So?”

“So you don't know what you're saying.”

“Maybe, but… I mean it. I wouldn't… wouldn't trade any o’ this f’r anything.” Unless that anything included them being together truly, or Mark moving on completely and finding genuine happiness, like he deserves. Even if it leaves Jack behind, heartbroken and alone. It wouldn't matter. “You're… my fav’rite person, Marky.”

Mark just kisses him, again, like it's too much to be expressed in words. He lays him down and kisses him in that sweet, real way, and Jack wishes he could express the sheer magnitude of his adoration and love for the other boy, but. Here they are, like they always will be: Jack, hopelessly in love with Mark, and Mark, holding him close for all eternity.

[seodami]

Our story | LSM

Part 1

This is our story. From the day we met till the day we part. Black on white, our most precious moments, never leaving us. I love your forever.

LSM

Genre: fluff, tiny angst

Warnings: 1 swear word oops

Word count: 1644

Pairing: idol!Lee Seokmin x fashion student reader

Note: Yayy this is the first introduction part where you get to know reader a bit better. Let me know other ideas of plots I’m always open and happy to listen :))) enjoy!

Next

Our story masterlist | MASTERLIST

You let out a happy sigh as you sucked in a deep breath of fresh air. The sun was slowly warming up your hair and generally speaking, today was a great day. It was the beginning of spring and you could already see little flowers growing in every corner or see colourful butterflies fluttering around you.

You loved it. So much.

Spring had always been your favorite season. It was never too cold nor too hot.

With a few last steps around a corner, you finally reached your destination. You opened the glass door on which a tiny bell was attached to signify new customers. The smell of fresh baked cookies filled the lovely spring air and immediately let you sight contently once again. You really already loved today.

From behind the counter, your coworker Chohee looked up with a smile and greeted you joyfully like she did every other day you two happened to have the same shift.

It wasn’t too long that you’ve worked in this adorable café to earn some money for university, which was draining literally every cent you earn. It was exhausting at times but you always remembered yourself to stay relaxed and composed. It was for a good reason after all.

You started studying fashion design at university about 2 and a half years ago and what could you say. It was absolutely tiring and weary but you still loved designing all these different clothing pieces with every single inch of your heart.

Your free time was nearly non existent with your job and all the assignments and due dates you constantly had to work and have an eye on. There were days you forgot eating or drinking while overworking yourself immensely, which ended with you waking up in a hospital bed. It wasn’t one of your proudest moments but at least the dress you were working on turned out amazing.

“Today is amazing, isn’t it? I bet there will be a lot of customers today.” Chohee chirped excitedly, looking out the window. You hummed in agreement, having mixed feelings with that new realization.

“I feel surprisingly good today. Even though I stayed up till 3 am. It’s all thanks to your smile unnie.” You gave her a teasing nudge while tying the yellow apron with the sun logo of the café in the middle around your torso.

The girl giggled and gave you a nudge back. “Hey don’t play with my heart that early. I have a date with Sungho later, I still need it.” She grinned at you with that dreamy look of hers.

You shook your head laughing. With that you started preparing everything else for the day to make your shift smoother.

“By the way, how is your mom doing? Do you want to pack some cookies for her again?” Chohee asked you after the first customers of the day ordered.

You nodded with a smile in her direction. “She’s fine. Still working as hard as ever. That was my plan actually. I’m going to go see her later anyways to help her with some grocery shopping.” Helping your mom was never a big deal for you, even if she wanted to do it by herself most of the times. But with working as a house aunty for an idol group of 13 members, it was often hard for her to do the grocery shopping all by herself. Especially when it was time for a bigger shopping trip.

You had told her many times before that she didn’t have to worry about earning money but she kept insisting to support your payments for university. You were always so grateful for her so you were glad to help her out now and then, despite your stressful life at the moment. You loved her for supporting you so much.

“That’s so good to hear. I hope she enjoys our new cookies. I added a special ingredient today, do you know what?” Your nose scrunched up, thinking hard about her special something. “I don’t know... cinnamon?” You took a wild guess.

“It’s loveee...” she giggled and you immediately rolled your eyes with a small smile, which was hard to hide. “Damn you really are in love.” You chuckled patting her shoulder. She let out a long sigh. “Oh yes baby I am.”

When it finally was the end of your shift for today, you quickly changed the apron against your baby blue jacket and headed out without forgetting to say good bye to your friend and wishing her fun on her date.

As you were on your way down the road to your car, you noticed your phone vibrating in your bag. A quick glance told you it was your mom.

You accepted the call with a smile and greeted her cheerfully. “Hi mom, I just finished working. Are you going to the store now?”

You heard her sighting heavily. “Y/n honey no I am actually at the hospital. The doctor said I broke my foot.”

“What? How? Oh god are you okay?” You stopped walking, staring at the ground with a frown. There were the typical peeping noices as we all know them in the background.

“Don’t worry about me, it was just a dumb accident. I slipped on the stairs and fell on my foot. But Y/n I was hoping to reach you. Can you do me a favour?”

You hummed, listening intently. “Sure mom. Are you sure you are alright? Should I pick you up from the hospital?” You would lie if you said you weren’t worried about your mother. It wasn’t common for her to have such accidents or generally needing to go to a doctor.

“No need for that, sweetie. I’m gonna call myself a taxi. But you see, I was heading over to the boys dorms to cook something for them since they must be hungry after their schedule. But I fell on the way there. Could you go over and make something quick for them? I really don’t want to loose my job because of that.” Your heart fell a bit. Cooking for bunch of grown up men with celebrity status? This was definitely not something that stood on your bucked list.

“Mooom... I would love to help you but-“ she quickly stopped you from talking.

“They aren’t even home by this hour. And I’ve told them already a lot about you. So no need to be embarrassed. And you know they are all very friendly. And you could just do something simple like jajangmyeon. They love it. I think they already have all the ingredients at their house.”

Your eyes moved around while thinking. If they weren’t even home yet, this wouldn’t be too bad, would it? And jajangmyeon was really simple and quick. There wasn’t really a way out at this point. You still wanted to help your mom.

“Alright... but if they come too early and see me, I’m out. Mom you know I can’t handle such situations well, unlike you.” You heard a laugh at the other side.

“Thank you Y/n. You won’t have to do it again, I’m going to work tomorrow. And you can do it. You’re such a pretty girl, who wouldn’t love you?”

You groaned with a chuckle. “Oh god mom stop I’m just cooking for them once. I’m heading to the apartment now then.” She laughed and agreed before saying goodbye.

This was really not how you were imagining this day would go but here you were, heading towards an idol groups apartment totally unprepared.

When you arrived, you made sure to ring the bell beforehand to make sure you weren’t intruding anyone’s privacy if someone just happened to be home. Lucky for you, nobody seemed to be home.

With a nervous feeling in the pit of your stomache, you quickly tapped in the password, your mom told you before and entered the flat without much noice. You stood there for a solid minute, listening to any possible sounds before gently chirping a ‘hello?’ into the empty room. No answer. Perfect.

You quickly took off your jacket and shoes as well as bag. With small cautious steps, you made your way to the kitchen. You helped your mom carrying groceries up to the kitchen a few times already so you were quite familiar with the location of said room. Still it felt quite awkward going around someone’s personal space without anyone present and especially without invitation. You know it wasn’t exactly intruding but it still felt like it.

As you started preparing the dish with chopping some vegetables, you remembered the few times you’ve met one of the members. It was brief but still, you remembered it til today. You believe his name was Seungkwan. You talked a bit and he sang your aunty his infamous ‘WiFi song’. It was the first time hearing an idol sing live in some sort of way so it was hard to forget how clean his voice was. And he was nice.

You started softly humming said song, grabbing another potato and began peeling it. It was all fine and good until you heard the quiet squeak of a door. You immediately stopped humming and stared down the hallway towards where the sound came from. Your heart started racing unintentionally and your brain switched to panic mode.

Please just be the wind or something, please don’t be a person, please.

And you knew you were fucked, when you heard someone walking. You quickly looked around panicked, thinking about hiding or running away. Or should you just jump out of the window? Would you get in trouble? God, you definitely would.

But before you could actually jump out of the window, you were met with a sleepy looking and not to mention insanely attractive man. Your heart definitely wouldn’t slow down with this view for sure.

Oh man, how did you even end up in this position?

[curetapwater]

A Beautiful Transformation? No Way!

Part 1 of Legendary Warrior Sailor Black

Nagisa knew too much about dying for someone still alive.

There she lay, curled up in shuddering fetal, biting back whimpers and growls because she couldn't give the ones that did this to her the satisfaction of knowing she was in pain. But of course she was in pain, what else were you supposed to feel when red was flowing from your pierced abdomen? She coughed and tasted iron. Now blood was coming from two places.

The lightest touch, warm and gentle, brushed her fingers. She mustered what strength she had left and opened her eyes. A girl's face lay mere centimeters from hers on this ground that shook with what Nagisa knew was the world crumbling around them. Wishing she could stop them, she beheld the tears streaming from the deep blue eyes that held Nagisa's world, her universe, for reasons she couldn't quite recall. Neither girl had the ability to speak, but Nagisa knew that right then what she needed to do was take the girl's hand.

Her hand...

🖤🌙🖤🌙

"NAGISAAAA! YOU'RE GONNA BE LAAATE!"

Misumi Nagisa was yanked back into the waking world so hard she feared whiplash. She blinked and rubbed at the clouds in her eyes until she could make out the time on her alarm clock. Oh. Her brother was right.

She yanked on her uniform button-down, skirt, vest, bow tie, and blazer faster than you can say "tardy," ran her toothbrush through her teeth and her hairbrush through her hair, grabbed the crosse leaning against her desk, and sprinted out her bedroom door.

"I'm heading out!" she announced without so much as a "good morning" to her family.

"Don't you at least want some toast?" her mother asked, spreading butter on a fresh slice.

But Nagisa was already on her way out of the apartment. "No time for toast!" she shouted back. Then she was back inside. "Oh, who am I kidding, there's always time for toast!"

🌙🖤🌙🖤

Trying not to choke on toast while running turned out to be a lot harder than television had led Nagisa to believe. Swallowing down the last bite with a hard gulp, she lamented morning coming so early.

She doubted this disaster would have even happened had she not been up all night scared she'd have the dream again. The one where she dies.

Shudders made her almost drop her crosse. That and the fact that she was still running. How could something that wasn't even real do this to her? It was invading real life! She'd considered telling her parents but figured they would just tell her what she already knew: that she wasn't really dying and that the world wasn't ending and that the girl with her wasn't dying either because she wasn't real. If she was, then Nagisa would be able to remember something about how she looked. Other than her eyes. And the way her hand felt...

Nagisa shook her head. If she went on like that it'd give the girls at Verone Academy all the more reason to stuff her locker full of letters she didn't want-

5 kilograms of something Nagisa couldn't see knocked her head clear of thoughts and into the pavement. She growled, staggering back up. "What was tha-"

A group of boys, maybe eight or nine years old, pushed past her and nearly threw off the balance she'd just regained. They were chasing a cream-colored cat that scampered all about, jumping on and off every surface it could to avoid the little menaces. It would seem the cat had chosen her as one of his landing spots.

Seeing the poor thing so helpless, in such terror, stabbed through Nagisa's stomach with a justice-induced rage.

"HEY!" she hollered, brandishing her crosse like a weapon. The boys turned, shocked at the power of her voice. "Pick on someone your own size!" They blinked at her. Then she raised her crosse in a jerk just threatening enough to make them scramble off.

The cat revved up to dart away, but stopped short and turned to stare at her.

"You okay, little guy?" Nagisa asked, stooping down to scratch his head. There was a bandage on his forehead. "Here, let me get that for you."

And she did, peeling the adhesive back to reveal the strangest marking she had ever seen, some sort of weird heart-shaped thing. She thought it might be a bald spot, but it was blue. Blue? Did cats come in blue? She'd never owned one-

Ah crap, now she was double late! The cat was fine, but she wasn't gonna be if she didn't book it to the train station!

🖤🌙🖤🌙

If it weren't for the vice principle telling her off about tardiness and irresponsibility and selfishness maybe Nagisa could have made it for at least the end of the first class period. But nope, instead by the time she made it to her classroom, the second class was well underway and Ms. Yoshimi was handing out grades for a test Nagisa had forgotten about the moment she'd turned it in.

"Ah, Ms. Misumi," she said. "Since you've decided to join us today maybe you can explain this." She handed her a paper face-down. Never a good sign. Walking to her desk, Nagisa clutched the side that held her red-ink fate flat against her stomach so no one, including herself, could see what it said. She waited until eyes were off her and snuck a peek.

She got a thirty percent.

"No way!" she exclaimed before she could stop herself. All eyes were back on her. This day just kept getting better and better.

🌙🖤🌙🖤

"English is a weird language anyway," Rina consoled on the way to the train station.

Shiho nodded emphatically. "Yeah yeah yeah. If it's gonna, like, have that many rules then they shouldn't change all the time."

Well that was easy for them to say. At least they passed the test. Nagisa passed her crosse between her hands before resting it on her shoulder. Lacrosse had gotten her mind off of things for a bit. It helped that it was something she was actually good at. The muscles in her legs ached in protest of their continued use after practice, but they burned good because she knew she was getting stronger.

"Hey! I know what'll cheer you up, Nagisa!" Shiho said.

"What?"

"I hear that one jewelry store in the mall is having a huge huge huge sale!"

"I doubt there's anything in there we could afford, even if it's on sale," Rina reasoned.

"No, but, I hear they're cutting prices by, like, ninety percent!"

"Really? I need to see that for myself!"

Somehow Nagisa doubted even with those huge price cuts that she could afford anything. Not so much because the jewelry was expensive, but because she'd squandered her allowance on chocolate desserts and takoyaki (not at the same time). Not to mention she doubted she'd be getting another payment for the next ten years after her parents saw the newest low in her academic career. And she was pretty sure she was in the hole to begin with...

So, Nagisa hopped on the train to home and left Shiho and Rina to their detour.

She kept her eyes on her loafers. All she wanted to do in that moment was shuffle over to the nearest window so she could stare out of it with quiet sullenness instead of having to look anyone in the eye. But she managed to do just that when she forgot you're supposed to look forward when you shuffle and she ended up shuffling right into a boy's solid back.

"Ah!" She leapt back in surprise, and he did the same. Her surprise soon melted to deep, deep embarrassment when she looked up to find the cutest boy she'd ever laid her eyes on.

"Are you okay?" he asked, his gorgeous floppy hair flopping gorgeously.

"I- I- I'm so sorry!" Nagisa replied with a bow.

"It's no problem," he said. "It was an honest mistake. You're Misumi, right?"

The tight cocoons forming in her heart burst into butterflies. "You know my name?"

"I told him," said the girl Nagisa just noticed had been standing with this boy the whole time. Nagisa recognized her as Yukishiro Honoka from her class, a very pretty girl with delicate pale skin and a head of shiny, neat hair that housed the brain that got the highest score on the test Nagisa had failed. And she knew him. Oh no.

"I apologize if it seemed like I had been talking behind your back," Yukishiro said, which planted in Nagisa's head the idea that she had been talking behind her back. "I was just concerned because you looked so distraught, and I was telling Fuji-P-"

"Ahhh... I told you not to call me that in public!" the boy said, cheeks flushing.

Great. They had pet names, too.

"I hope you're not still upset about that test," Yukishiro told her.

The butterflies in Nagisa's heart were replaced by a wasp sting of horror. "HOW DID YOU KNOW I GOT A THIRTY PERCENT ON THE ENGLISH TEST?!"

Conversations stopped all around her. Passengers, including far too many in Verone uniforms, briefly gaped at the girl dumb enough to announce something like that to a packed train car. Then they turned back in a way that was supposed to be discreet but everyone knew really wasn't.

Yukishiro's polite smile cracked to reveal a foundation of shock and second-hand embarrassment. "I- I- um, wasn't aware of the exact score, but... I just heard you exclaim 'no way' when you saw it and assumed you weren't happy..." She cleared her throat a bit, a cute little sound that somehow made Nagisa feel like even more of a bumbling fool. She had to get out of there.

"Well, it was nice meeting you!" she forced through her teeth before pushing through the packed train car to find a spot as far from all human beings as possible.

🖤🌙🖤🌙

At home, Nagisa was greeted not by her family but by a note:

Nagisa

Ryouta and I are out buying groceries. Leftovers in the fridge. DO YOUR HOMEWORK.

Love, Mom.

Her father wouldn't be home for several hours. So she had the apartment to herself to... what should she do? Cry? Sulk? Scream into her pillow? That last one sounded good. And then maybe if she was feeling a little more devious than usual, she'd change that 30 to an 80 with a couple strokes of a...

No, that was too low. She just wouldn't bring it up until it was brought up to her. Now there's a plan.

She went to her bedroom, threw her bag and crosse on a chair then threw herself onto her mountain of plush toys. She really hadn't gotten a lot of sleep last night, and she decided not to remind herself why in case she scared herself into another all-nighter. That day, especially that exchange on the train, was way scarier than anything her brain could concoct, even if in her dreams she had tasted death...

Because she...

What was she thinking about, again..?

🌙🖤🌙🖤

Nagisa didn't even have time to dream before she was awakened by four little paws driving into her stomach.

Her assailant turned out to be the cat.

"Bald spot cat?" she exclaimed.

"It's not a bald spot-mepo!" the cat said.

Wait.

Nagisa screamed. The cat got the message and launched himself off and onto the floor, giving her the second painful jab to the stomach she'd experienced within a single minute. She scrambled off her bed and grabbed her crosse as if it would protect her from the creature.

"What?! WHAT?! A talking cat?! No way... There's just no way!" she whimpered, more to herself than to him.

"Just put down the stick and listen to me-mepo!"

Nagisa lifted the crosse above her head. "G-Get away! I won't hesitate!"

"Mepooo!" the cat screamed and ran to her balcony that she realized she'd forgotten to close the door to. That would explain how he got in. "Don't hurt me-mepo! What are you doing-mepo! This isn't how legendary warriors should-"

"What's with all the 'mepo mepo' stuff? Say 'mepo' one more time!"

The cat clamped his mouth shut, clearly fighting the urge. "MEPOOO!" he shouted, darting back into the room and between her legs. Oh, no no no, that was closer than Nagisa ever needed to be to a weird talking cat. Who knew if he was even a cat at all?

Nagisa screamed and bolted back to her bed. This had to be a dream. If she just closed her eyes she'd wake back up in the real world where cats didn't-

"Listen to me-mepo!"

She opened her eyes to find him standing at the foot of her bed. She sat up, hugging a stuffed panda close in a feeble attempt to make herself feel better. Saner. "What do you want? What... are you?"

"My name is Mepple-mepo."

"Mepple-mepo?" Nagisa repeated.

"No-mepo. Mepple-mepo."

Nagisa blinked, then nodded her understanding. Maybe he'd go away if she just complied.

"I'm here because I've finally found you, the Legendary Warrior-mepo!"

"Legendary Warrior?" Nagisa said. She'd hardly say a girl in a wrinkled school uniform armed with nothing but a crosse would be something anyone would call a warrior. "I think you've got the wrong-"

"I didn't think you looked anything like what I was looking for-mepo. Until you saved me-mepo! If you didn't take off that bandage I wouldn't be able to talk-mepo!"

"And then where would we be?" Nagisa said dryly.

"Listen-mepo! A strange presence is in the air and it's threatening the city-mepo! I've watched you all day and I'm sure you're the warrior destined to find the Legendary Prism Crystal and the Princess of Light-mepo!"

"The what and the who?" This was getting way too complex. As if a cat being able to talk didn't make things complex enough.

Mepple rolled his eyes, which Nagisa was pretty sure cats weren't supposed to be able to do. "The sacred treasure and the princess of the Garden of Light-mepo!"

"Oh, well, that clears it up," Nagisa said, chuckling in an attempt to depressurize. It didn't work.

Mepple groaned, hopped off the bed, and padded over to the balcony. He pointed up at the sky with a round little paw. "There-mepo!"

Nagisa looked up into the twilight and saw oranges fading to blues but no supposed Garden of Light. "What am I supposed to be looking at?"

"That-mepo! The big white circle with the rabbit on the side-mepo!"

"... You mean the moon?"

"We called it the Garden of Light-mepo," Mepple said, going back inside. Nagisa followed and closed the balcony door before the neighbors started thinking she was crazy. Maybe she was.

"So... you're an alien?"

"I guess, but that's not important-mepo!"

"I beg to differ-"

"Just take this-mepo!" And with that, Mepple suddenly did a high-reaching somersault, leaving behind a trail of sparkling dust that materialized into a white and pink brooch that fell into Nagisa's hands. It was heavy, and it was cute. But it also came out of nowhere!

Nagisa cast the thing onto her bed, freaked beyond belief. "What is happening?!"

Mepple picked up the brooch between his sharp little teeth. Whatever muffled words came out of his mouth, they couldn't have been all that pleasant. But then he dropped it himself, ears perked up. "I sense an evil presence-mepo!"

Nagisa backed away. "A what?"

"Turn on the TV-mepo!"

Nagisa ran into the family room and did as she was told. On the screen flickered live footage of the mall, with policemen trying to break in.

"It seems there is some sort of barrier inside preventing entry into the complex," the news anchor said. "The state of the patrons inside is currently unknown."

The bottom of Nagisa's stomach dropped out. "That's where Shiho and Rina went! Do you think they're still in there?"

"I don't know-mepo! But I know this looks like a job for you-mepo!"

"Me? What am I supposed to do?"

"Put on the brooch and shout, 'Black Prism Power, Make Up'-mepo!"

Nagisa assumed the "mepo" was meant to be left out. "What good'll that do?"

"Just do it-mepo!"

And so, feeling like the kind of fool that announces to a packed train car that she got a thirty percent on a test, Nagisa attached the brooch to her bow tie and shouted, "Black Prism Power, Make Up!"

Her hand shot up without her permission. An instant later, the world around her exploded in blinding rainbow-colored light. She wanted to scream, wriggle, call for help as she was lifted into a void of pure color, but instead her body moved in sweeping, elegant movements in a choreography that she'd never learned. A yelp wished to break through her enforced silence when all clothing except the brooch vanished. Great ribbons of light erupted from the brooch, wrapping around her body in the shape of a leotard, gloves, boots, and a miniskirt. A big bow tied itself just above her backside, earrings clipped themselves into her ears, a choker found its way around her neck. Then a strange, almost searing sensation prickled in the center of her forehead, until a hard metal circlet materialized in place. Finally, her feet touched ground, though still all she saw was nebulous color. Her body struck several battle-ready poses she had no say in striking. But she really started freaking out when her voice started making choices of its own.

"I am the emissary of light that fights for love and for justice! I am Sailor Black! And now, in the name of the Garden of Light..." Her arm snapped forward, pointing a warning finger to no one in particular. "...return to the darkness from which you came!"

She blinked -- Oh, joy, she could blink her own eyelids! -- and the world faded back to her living room.

"...Say what?"

Mepple looked upon her with eyes that saw some champion of justice, as opposed to the middle-schooler in a shrunken black and pink sailor fuku that Nagisa saw when she caught her reflection in a mirror. "Amazing-mepo..." he said. "The Legendary Warrior has awakened right in front of me-mepo!"

"Awakened?"

"Now Sailor Black can finally fulfill her destiny and help restore the Garden of Light to its former glory-mepo!"

"I'm going to what?" Nagisa wanted to press further, suddenly feeling less hugged and more caged by the costume's tight fabric. But the sirens blaring from the television set reminded her there were more pressing matters at hand. "How am I supposed to help Rina and Shiho and everyone like this?" she asked, holding the black skirt's hem between her fingers.

"You are Sailor Black-mepo! You have legendary powers-"

"If you call me 'legendary' one more time..." Nagisa started, simmering on the outside but reeling from how fast this was happening on the inside.

"Never mind that-mepo. Let's go-mepo!" And with that, Mepple ran back to Nagisa's bedroom.

"That's not the way out," Nagisa said, following him. She found him with his front paws on the glass door to her balcony. "Maybe you always land on your feet, but I don't-"

"Do you want to save your friends or not-mepo!"

"I do, I do!"

"Then trust me-mepo!"

Nagisa sighed. She guessed she couldn't exit through the apartment complex's lobby dressed like this. She didn't feel particularly powerful, but if a cat could talk to her and she could change her clothes just by saying a phrase, then maybe she could trust this little guy.

She placed a gloved hand on the handle and slid the door aside in a shuddering motion. "Okay... Okay..." she heaved as she stepped onto the balcony. She'd never before given much thought to how high up the apartment really was. How she'd taken for granted the fact that she knew what the tops of neighboring buildings looked like. She'd never considered having to stand on them!

Part of her wanted to back away, to declare this whole mess some stress-induced fever dream that would all go away once she came back to her senses. But then she thought of her friends' horrified faces, their screams for help, who knows who keeping them in that dark mall to do who knows what.

Next thing she knew, her foot launched herself off the railing and into the newly dark night. The jump sent her farther up than she'd ever thought possible. She bypassed several buildings until her feet touched the roof of some office building. The sole of her boot touched concrete for but a moment before she took to the air yet again.

She wanted to scream but at the same time a euphoria was building inside her. "My body!" she exclaimed to Mepple, who rode her shoulder. "It's so light! And my muscles are so strong!"

"That's the power of the Sailor Guardians-mepo!" he said.

"Guardians? You mean there are others?"

"We'll talk about it later-mepo."

🖤🌙🖤🌙

Perched from her hiding place on yet another roof, Nagisa gathered that the police were trying to break into the mall from every entrance. Some even tried to break the windows, but some unseen force seemed to be keeping the doors shut and rendering the glass unbreakable.

"What kind of glass did they use on that thing?" Nagisa mused.

"These are dark forces at work-mepo. I can sense them-mepo," Mepple said.

"So only someone else with powers can stop whatever's going on here?"

"Yes-mepo."

Nagisa stretched her legs, hardly believing they had been able to make such impossible feats to get up there. "And I guess that person is me?"

"Yes-mepo."

"And what if someone recognizes me?"

"No one will-mepo. You're Sailor Black now-mepo."

"Oh, so people won't recognize me just because I'm in a new outfit?! You know, I'm the only person I know around here who has orange hair-"

Mepple leapt from her shoulder, plunging stories below.

"WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?!" she hollered, following him anyway because she didn't know where else to go. With the place surrounded on all sides and no credentials to get past the cops, Nagisa resolved on the way down to land on the mall's roof. Unintentionally in the best way, she misaimed and ended up crashing through a skylight.

Descending into darkness in a glittering explosion of broken glass, Nagisa -- er -- Sailor Black felt a distinct stab of terror upon realizing she had no idea what she was getting herself into. Or maybe that was just her stomach dropping. She brought her hands in front of her, hoping to soften the fall, but when her hands hit floor she realized she had enough control to cartwheel onto her feet. No time to be impressed, she decided. She needed to find out what the heck was going on. She needed to know Shiho and Rina were alright.

The only light was from the moon, shining through the skylight. Other than the deserted rest area in which she stood, darkness stretched around her on all sides, truly endless. Had Mepple not landed on her head a few seconds later, she may have been paralyzed.

"Would you stop that?" she said, rubbing her head.

Mepple was already on the move. "The dark power! It's this way-mepo!"

Sailor Black sighed and followed. Kiosks, mannequins, garbage cans, so many figures that seemed innocuous in the light now made her heart twinge with dread. Her mind concocted horrible images of the figures she couldn't make out. Then she found one she did.

A body in a Verone uniform, laying crumpled on the floor.

Sailor Black screamed. Mepple sped over to investigate. "She's alive-mepo."

She clapped a hand to her mouth, her scream still echoing through the spacious mall. She hoped that hadn't attracted any unwelcome company.

Mepple stuck his head in a paper bag still in the girl's unconscious clutch. "What's this-mepo? A necklace-mepo?"

"A necklace?" Sailor Black said. That logo on the bag... now that she looked more closely... That was the store Shiho and Rina had been headed! And she knew exactly where it was, even if this place was spookier than usual. "Follow me, Mepple!"

🌙🖤🌙🖤

The sight she was met with a the jewelry store was a horrible one indeed. So, so many bodies littered the floor. Older women lay sprawled alongside schoolgirls no older than Sailor Black. And all their bodies glittered with brand new jewelry.

"What do you think is going on here-mepo?" Mepple asked, sniffing at a ring cast to the floor.

"I don't know, but..." The sinking feeling in Sailor Black's stomach was getting worse by the second. Tip-toeing over girls and women, she scanned around for... Shiho and Rina! They lay together in a heap by a display for friendship bracelets.

"Shiho! Rina!" Sailor Black cried, running for them.

"Shh," Mepple hushed. "Who knows who could be-"

"Who's there?" came a harsh voice. A well-manicured woman stepped out from a back room, paying no mind to the comatose patrons around her. She looked like some sort of store manager. And Sailor Black didn't like her at all.

She looked up from her spot kneeling next to her friends. Each wore one of the friendship bracelets, and it looked like they'd been picking out a third one. "What have you done to them?"

"Why should I care to tell you?" the woman scoffed, heels clacking on the floor closer and closer to her.

Sailor Black picked up the third friendship bracelet, hand shaking. Her eyelids started to droop and her heartrate slowed until she dropped the accessory. "It's the jewelry, isn't it? You're using this jewelry to... to... make everyone fall asleep? Or.. or sick? Or-"

The woman slammed her into the wall with an unnaturally long arm. She held Sailor Black by her neck, her cackling face deteriorating into that of a yellow-eyed monster as she strangled her.

"Mep-" Sailor Black wheezed. "Mepple! Mepple, help!"

Mepple charged for the monster's feet but she kicked him aside.

Sailor Black clawed uselessly at the monster's impossibly strong grip. The air was slowly being crushed out of her lungs. At this rate, she'd-

"Ow!" the monster cried, dropping her. Sailor Black hacked. Stuck in the floor before her was a blue rose. Just as confused as the monster, she looked up.

In the entrance to the store stood a girl in a white top hat, billowing white cape, and a similarly colored blazer and poofy skirt. Her hair shone raven black against the stark white of her costume, and a pale blue mask disguised her face.

"I am Tuxedo White," the girl declared, an identical blue rose playing between her gloved fingers. She snapped a pointed finger in the monster's direction. "Evil servant of the dark power, you will be punished!"

"Not another one," the monster grumbled. She raised her gnarled hands high and bellowed, "Awaken, my slaves, who have given energy to our great ruler!" The patrons on the floor began to twitch, and then to rise from the floor.

Tuxedo White gasped. "Sailor Black, behind you!" she cried.

"AHHH!!!" Sailor Black dove out of the way of an assault from a possessed Shiho just in time, only to almost stumble into a headlock from Rina. "Not you guys, too! Snap out of it, please!" she cried, running around the store.

"You can't stop them by running," Tuxedo White yelled, using a cane to fend off a possessed older woman.

"Do you expect me to attack these people!?" Sailor Black replied. Tuxedo White said something back but Sailor Black didn't hear it because at that point Shiho and Rina had tackled her to the ground. Now, she might have been an athlete, but so were her friends and oh boy did they put up a fight that she wasn't willing to dish back. "AHHHH!!! GET OFF OF ME! GET OFF OF ME!" It was enough to get her to start tearing up. As her vision blurred, the friendship bracelets on her friends' wrists glimmered back at her as the monster's cackling echoed through the store...

They'd had a third bracelet with them...

Had it been for her? Her friends had known how rough a day she'd had and they had tried to cheer her up. And this was the thanks they got? Possessed by this horrible... whatever this lady was? It was enough to make her blood broil.

She threw Shiho and Rina off of her (she'd check on them later) and stood straight up. "You..." she seethed at the monster. "How DARE you take advantage of the friendships of young girls!" She bound towards the monster. Her fist connected with the monster's jaw. "You are an enemy to girls and women everywhere!" Another punch sent the monster careening into a wall. "What you've done is unforgivable!"

"Sailor Black-mepo!" Mepple shouted. "Throw your tiara at her and shout 'Black Tiara Action'-mepo!"

Sailor Black was too angry to ask why. She ripped the tiara from her forehead and instinctively knew what to do. She twirled the tiara around her, felt it crackle and glow with black electricity. Then she threw it like a flying disk, shouting "Black Tiara Action!"

The tiara hit the monster with a crack of thunder, ripping through her body. The monster let out a final screech as she turned to shimmering moondust. Her tiara boomeranged back into her hands, leaving her speechless.

"Did I... do that? No way..."

"You've done well, Sailor Black," Tuxedo White said, bowing.

Sailor Black scratched the back of her head. "I should say the same to you. Thanks for helping me out back there."

Tuxedo White gave a little smile. "Of course. Well, until next time... Farewell!" And she left with a swish of her cape.

🖤🌙🖤🌙

"And when we woke up, the place was a mess!" Rina said.

"Yeah, it's true! You're, like, so so so lucky you weren't there!" Shiho added.

"But I could've sworn I'd seen someone fight the store manager. She saved us, I think!"

"Wow. Really?" Nagisa droned, forehead plastered to her desk. Between getting chewed out for the failed test, getting double chewed out for not doing her homework, and having almost died secretly saving a mall from a monster attack the night before, she was past the point of actually absorbing anything her friends were saying.

"Yeah, it's crazy! She's like a superhero or something! I think she said her name was... um..."

"Sailor Black?" Nagisa mumbled.

"That's it!" Shiho said.

Nagisa moved her head to the side. "Cool."

"Anyway, that's why we couldn't get those friendship bracelets," Rina explained. "But it's okay, because Shiho stayed up last night making these!" She and Shiho held up three little silver charms, each shaped like a bunny sitting on a crescent moon. Shiho handed the one painted with pink accents to Nagisa.

"Here you go!" Shiho said. "I figured something made by me would be more meaningful anyway, y'know? We were... hoping we could cheer you up!"

Nagisa smiled at the gift and held it to her chest. "It did," she said, smiling through her tired eyes. "Thanks, you guys. Really."

[cinnaminsvga]

Hug-o-gram Preview | Yoongi

→ summary:

“This is probably the dumbest idea you’ve ever had,” Yoongi hisses, but it’s kind of hard for Seokjin to take him seriously when he’s wearing a cardboard sign around his neck that says ‘Huggie Wuggie Machine!’ in bubble font. 

“Like, even worse than when we DIY’d your car into a convertible by sawing the top off?” Seokjin asks, genuinely curious. 

“Worse,” Yoongi admits, trying his best to stay out of your line of sight. His cheeks redden, matching the gaudy pink kitten ears he was forced into wearing.

{or alternatively: Seokjin is a terrible wingman. He also runs a profitable business by sending “hugs” to people’s crushes for a fee. Mix them together and you have a recipe for Min Yoongi’s worst nightmare.}

→ genre: college!au, hugging booth!au, fluff, humor → warnings: yoongi is so smitten that he’s a walking disaster, so much shy!yoongi to the point where you’ll want to *o*e him, seokjin just tryna get his homie some y/n love coochie bro ;o; → words: anticipated 10-12K  → a/n: who the fuck am i... why am i writing so much??? let’s all thank miss kwaranteen for that, my friends. but what’s with the fluff, you ask? thank miss @jincherie​ for that because her weak heart can’t handle angst so i have to use my limited fluff muscles to write this for her... anyway idk when this is coming out but its probs soon,, enjoy this lil snippet i guess LMAO 

“Yoongi, it’s time for me to head to work. You want to come with me today?” Seokjin asks, though he knows what answer he’s going to get. You see, Seokjin’s new booming business is another one of his fantastic ideas, but it is a little... inventive. Sure, Yoongi had scoffed when he had originally suggested the idea, but Seokjin knew that it was going to be a money-maker. Sure, it had taken a few years for the business to really take off, but once it finally did…

Enter Kim Seokjin’s Hug-o-gram Service! Students from his university are able to send anonymous payments directly to him, with little notes attached for their crushes. Each love letter delivery comes with a hug from Seokjin himself, delivered straight to the person without them ever knowing who the hug came from. It was ingenious! It was lucrative! But most of all…

It allowed Seokjin to cause drama and have an excuse for it! Nothing could have been more perfect for a man like him.

“No thanks,” Yoongi snorts, rolling over to face him. He watches from the floor as Seokjin changes into a butter-less shirt, which also happens to have his own face printed on the front and back. His trusty cardboard sign that reads “I’m Gonna Glomp Ya!” also joins his attire for the afternoon, a long piece of string tied to its edges so that he can wear it around his neck. Throwing on a pair of white sneakers with the tags still attached, Seokjin is ready to tackle today’s list of would-be hug-ees.

“How do I look?” Seokjin asks, combing his hair with his fingers. It leaves an oily sheen, which he somehow makes it work.

“Ugly,” Yoongi says, like a liar.

“It’s okay, I understand. I can speak tsundere, so you don’t need to explain,” Seokjin snickers, nearly getting hit with a TV remote by Yoongi. He opens his phone again, swiping to his e-mail to see his list of hug deliveries for the day.

Seokjin gets around 10 requests a day, with around half of them coming from regular clients. He’s especially fond of this boy who has been sending hugs to his TA named Namjoon for almost a month now. He has no idea why this kid has so much disposable income, though seeing the blush on Namjoon’s face everyday makes Seokjin think that he would spend every last penny for him too. Namjoon had begged Seokjin for his secret admirer’s identity, but snitchin’ isn’t a part of his service, unfortunately.

As much as Seokjin wants to know who is crushing on who, his little business wouldn’t work as well as it did if anonymity wasn’t included in his package deal. It allows people to thirst in public without facing the repercussions, like getting a knee to the groin or a slap to the face. Not that Seokjin has ever been at the receiving end of that; everyone loves him! Like, have you seen him? He must have saved a civilization in the past with how devastatingly beautiful his forehead is.

“Why am I suddenly filled with the relentless urge to deck you right now?” Yoongi says, getting up to change into clean clothes as well. His black t-shirt unfortunately does not have Seokjin’s face on it, but that can quickly be amended if the elder of the two decides to follow his every intrusive whim.

Seokjin laughs, completely unaware of the murderous capabilities of his friend. Due to his smaller body size, his percentage of evil is unusually concentrated. “Maybe it’s because you know that I’m into pain pla–” but Seokjin’s retort suddenly grinds to a halt. He chokes mid-sentence, coughing wildly as he pounds his chest with a balled-up fist. When Yoongi looks up at him, he finds his hyung staring slack-jawed at his phone, seemingly flabbergasted by what he finds on his screen.

“What’s the matter? Accidentally sent a dick pic to your prof again?” Yoongi snorts.

“That was one time! And no, it’s…” Seokjin trails off, uncharacteristically hesitant. He shifts his gaze from his phone to Yoongi, a drop of sweat quickly forming on the back of his neck. Yoongi raises a brow, silently urging him to continue.

Instead of replying, Seokjin hands him his phone. Yoongi finds a copy of one of Seokjin’s newest hug requests, only having just received it five minutes ago. As he scrolls down, he finds that this secret admirer is a new client, but that isn’t what made Seokjin stop in his tracks. Instead, it’s the recipient of the hug that catches his attention–

“Y/N has a secret admirer?” Yoongi says, voice cracking at the end. He clears his throat, trying his best to school his face into something less… jealous. He swivels away from Seokjin, forcing himself to breathe slowly through his nose. He convinces himself that he is the very epitome of calmness.

“You okay there, Yoongi? You look like you’re about to vomit,” Seokjin says, immediately breaking his inner peace. Yoongi groans loudly, shucking the phone over his shoulder, uncaring of where it lands. Seokjin, with his superhuman and God-given reflexes… doesn’t catch it. But he did dive to the floor like a seasoned Olympian, and his ass cushioned his phone so he supposes that’s a win.

Back to the matter at hand––

“I am fine,” Yoongi says, as he continues to not be fine.

From the floor, Seokjin shoots him a disbelieving look. He lies down more comfortably, propping his head on his elbow. Screw his hug-o-gram appointments for now; nothing brings him more joy than seeing Yoongi absolutely losing it. “Really? So you wouldn’t mind if I marched up to Y/N right now and give her the warmest, coziest, most tender hug of her fucking life?”

“Y… Yes,” Yoongi squeaks, neck glowing a furious red. He has his fists clenched (adorably) by his sides, head bowed as he faces the wall of their apartment. Seokjin’s brain makes the unhelpful comparison of Yoongi with that cat meme who says “no talk me angy” in Impact font.

Seokjin grins, his wickedness from within coiling and yearning to burst from his seams. This is it! Maybe if he pushes a little more, then maybe Yoongi will stop pining like a pathetic loser! Also, it didn’t hurt that he got to push Yoongi’s buttons while he’s at it, but hey! Not all heroes go to heaven or whatever.

He grabs his phone from his ass, scrolling back to the e-mail. “So… You wouldn’t mind if I walk up to Y/N right now and tell her ‘Hey! I’ve had an embarrassingly long crush on you and when I heard about this hugging service… I couldn’t miss the chance to shoot my shot! If you’re single and ready to #mingle, then please meet me at the Corner Cafe at 2 PM tomorrow.’” Seokjin sing-songs, snickering loudly when he sees the absolute pain etched onto Yoongi’s face.

There is a pause, and Seokjin waits as Yoongi uses his tiny kitty brain to think of what to do. He can only imagine what’s going inside his head, but he has a guess. Yoongi could either: 1) finally admit his feelings for you and come clean before Seokjin has to deliver your hug, or 2) do something stupid and counterproductive.

It comes as no surprise when Yoongi goes with option number––

[euphorianyx]

DADDY ISSUES [Dawn] -2-

Pairing: JungKook & Reader Genre: Smut, Fluff, Angst Summary: You believe you know someone you live together but that only counts if they are true to themselves. Can love really change someone or do they just hold back? What if you are yet to meet the dark side? Will you stay to handle all that or will you walk away? When there is something you have to protect, the choice is not really yours so you just do what you think is the best.

AN: If you just found this story you can read the prequel here.

Other Chapters

The way to your own home has never been this dull and empty. You felt like screaming but you could not. You closed your eyes to fight the tears that were streaming down on your cheeks but failed miserably. JungKook’s eyes while killing Jimin just hunted you again.

You wished you would never see what happened but regret took over. Even if you did not see it would still be the truth. Jimin’s last words echoed in your head again.

“She saw the monster you are...”

You would never call JungKook a monster but he was not the good man you tried to make him. Johan’s eyes met yours by the mirror but he did not say anything. You never thought of what you could say to your mom and dad. TaeHyung crossed your mind for a moment. Staying with him would be easier than explaining everything to your family. God knew you were not ready for their questions and trying to calm down your dad. 

Then it hit you lost TaeHyung when you married JungKook in front of his eyes. The way he begged you and pain pouring from his deep voice filled your mind for a moment. You had no right to call him and ask for such a thing.

The only option was finding a hotel to stay for a couple of days until you decided what was going to happen. You checked your phone to find a decent one with cheap value. Thank god there was one with two rooms left so you booked the single room right away. 

“We are going to the hotel Comfytime...”

You explained but Johan refused right away.

“Mrs... I was told to bring you home.”

Caressing your forehead after a sigh followed.

“I can’t go home right now. You can explain and tell him where I will stay.”

Johan hesitated for a moment but accepted with a simple nod. The rest of your journey was silent. Then the car pulled up by the car park. After a deep breath, you indicated you were ready to go. Johan respectfully opened the door for you. Taking a look around you wiped your tears and let the fresh air in your lungs. You thanked Johan not knowing what else to say.

“I will bring your belongings tomorrow, Mrs...”

You stopped him before he could finish his sentence.

“Call me Y/N and please contact me before you bring them. I may need to make some arrangements.”

When you turned around Johan’s gentle cough stopped you.

“I will call you that way because he really loves you, Mrs. Jeon. I just wanted you to know that.”

The way he called you by his surname said he loved you caused an ache in your heart. Walking towards the tall receptionist in red uniform you explained the reservation you just made. He happily took the payment and handed you the card for the room and another slim woman in the same red uniform lead the way for you. 

The single bed with white sheets, the single chandelier by the ceiling felt lonely just like you. Leaving your phone on the bed you stood by the window. Thoughts passed by your head after another. Memories of JungKook and you together were hunting you. Feeling worn out you finally made your way to the bed. You felt a drop fell from your eyes before you finally fall asleep.

After one or two hours you woke up with JungKook’s last stare before your eyes. Realized you were hardly breathing you tried to calm down. Grabbing your phone to check you saw there was nothing. The thoughts that suffocated you came back again. Skipping breakfast you took a small walk around the garden of Comfytime. Sunshine and chill weather felt nice against your skin. 

You knew you have to explain everything to your family but you could not tell them about what JungKook did. If you ever told them he got you upset, your dad was going to question your decision to marry him. You needed another reason that made sense. It was better if you faced them after putting things in their place. 

You also had to find a company to work until you graduated from school. If it were a law company it would help your resume in the future. You sighed and how much JungKook was doing for you hit once again. Your phone buzzed in your hand made you flinch. When you saw it was Johan you answered right away. 

“Mrs. Jeon... I have got all your belongings. Where would you like me to deliver them?”

You sighed.

“I am still at the hotel. You can bring them here.”

You simply said. Johan did not stay much after dropping them and greeted you respectfully before he left. You went through them and brought a few pieces of clothing out for use. You kept the rest in your suitcase. Then you realized the things you wore when you met JungKook were not here. None of it. Shirt, skirt, even your buckle. Wondering if JungKook kept them on purpose you sighed. You were missing him like crazy. Spending some time lost in thoughts you zipped your suitcase. Life had no time for your weaknesses.

You contacted the university to see if you could apply to stay in the dormitory but there was no space. You looked through rooms for rent and tried a few small law companies.

You found a decent room a single mom rented for his son’s education expenses. He was a sweet guy who just started high school. They both were kind to you and the house was clean so you decided to stay there for a while. 

Almost two weeks passed by and you were nearly out of the money you had on your own account. On a cloudy afternoon, you received a call from one of the companies you applied to. In fact, it was the best one and you thought you had no chance at all.

You paid utmost care to your outfit and hair. You chose to keep your make up simple and natural. With your heels, you finally were ready for the employment interview. The wait was more stressful then you thought it would be. 

When your name was called you took a deep breath and walked in with small but firm steps. There were three men and two women behind a glass table. You sat down on the chair that was placed in the middle and briefly greeted them.

The interview started with simple questions on your vision of life and law. The man sitting in the middle grabbed a pair of paper before he directed his gaze at you again.

“When Kim NamJoon mentioned your name we took a look at your transcript. You seem to have a bright future Y/N.”

You were confused.  How did NamJoon get involved in this and why did they never mention your surname? You were sure they have seen your face on news or magazines. You had a lot of questions but digging these down may lose the only opportunity you got so you simply thanked him.

In his dark grey Armani vest and white shirt, JungKook reached for the astray on the mahogany desk as NamJoon sat across him. The rich smell of his Cuban cigar filled the air. NamJoon asked after fixing his glasses.

“I was surprised when you agreed with me to mention her name. I don’t know what happened between you two but...”

JungKook’s cold voice and poker face broke for a second before he wore them again.

“I am just trying to give her what she deserves.”

NamJoon would not question any further. He simply agreed but what he heard next shocked him even more.

“Y/N will probably ask for divorce soon. I want you to settle things with her.”

Eyes wide NamJoon froze for a good moment.

“Tell her I will accept whatever she wants.”

The cool lawyer seemed lost as he spoke.

“But you were...”

JungKook raised his hand before NamJoon could state the obvious fact that you were in love. The situation was still the same in his part but you. NamJoon lightly shook his head.

“As far as I know Y/N would not accept anything.”

JungKook arched an eyebrow at him.

“It’s your part to convince her.”

Their meeting ended and JungKook rubbed his face since he felt tired after another sleepless night. He pushed back his parted hair before it fell on his eyes and called for Yugyeom. The man fixed his jacked before he knocked on the door. When he walked in JungKook gestured him to sit.

“Did you do the research on the woman?”

YugYeom put the iPad on the desk in front of JungKook.

“Yang Seol In... She is thirty-nine years old, has a son. He is fifteen years old, studying at the high school in their district. She is working for a catering company and probably rented the room for extra income. They seem clean.”

Arched an eyebrow Jungkook asked.

“Her husband?”

Yugyeom switched the page.

“Yang Hae San... They lost him in a car crash last year. And she has not seen anyone since then.”

JungKook let out a small smile.

“Y/N made a good choice it seems.” 

Then his smile faded away.

“I still want you to keep an eye on her.”

The only one knowing everything that happened, YugYeom nodded.

“Will you meet the new candidate today?”

A simple nod was followed by JungKook’s deep voice. He walked towards the window.

“Change the place. I will not see her at the café I met Y/N.”

Next Chapter

[tngrayson]

While My Heart Gently Weeps

A/N: A long blurb I wrote to get back into writing. I know I’ve been away for a long time. This is my first time dipping into the BCS world, and writing Nacho, so I’d LOVE your feedback. I think I’m going to write more Nacho, since there seems to be a shortage of him on here. 

P.S. This ends suddenly

Word Count: 2500

Warnings: Explicit sex, Violence, Drugs, things typical of the Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul universe. Might not be for everyone

Pairing: Nacho x Reader

___

“Will I see you tonight?”

“I don’t know, I’ve still got a lot to do here,” he said, looking at the warehouse where the exchange was to happen.

She sighed. “Please? I miss you, Ignacio.” She continued dramatically, “It’s so lonely in this bed.” She stretched out seductively as if he could see her.

Nacho breathed a laugh. “Okay, baby. I’ll come by after I finish up.”

“Promise?”

“I promise,” he said, getting out of the car and walking into the Los Pollos Hermanos warehouse.

“I love you, Ignacio.”

“I know, baby.” Nacho hung up, tucked his phone into his pocket, and waited for Gus’ two goons to show.

Several hours later, after Nacho had a gun pointed to his head, got the idea to sabotage Don Hector’s medicine, and broken into Daniel Wormald’s home to make a deal, he was at her door using the key she’d given him some time ago to let himself in.

He hung his jacket up in the entry closet, dropped his keys in the dish by the front door, and toed off his boots before heading straight for her bedroom. He wasn’t surprised to find her sleeping there. He did his best to undress quietly and get in bed without waking her. She stirred when the bed shifted with the weight of him getting in. She stretched, her nightshirt—one of Nacho’s tees—riding up just enough to reveal her lace underwear.

“You came,” she said sleepily, sitting up to greet him.

“I promised, didn’t I?”

“I know, but,” she trailed off. They both knew Nacho hadn’t been keeping his promises lately.

Nacho sighed, leaning his head on her shoulder. “I’ve been letting you down.”

“You’ve been busy,” she corrected.

“No,” he insisted. “I’ve been a shitty boyfriend. You deserve better than me.”

“Why are you being so hard on yourself right now?” She took his hand. “Did something happen?”

Nacho thought of the stunt Hector asked him to pull, taking six instead of five. He played calm, but for that small moment when there was a gun aimed at him, he only thought of her. He thought of how he was about to break another promise.

“Tonight. When you called, you said you loved me. All night I’ve been regretting not saying it back to you.”

“Nacho, I don’t tell you that to hear it back. “

“I love you,” he said assuredly, looking into her eyes. “I want to do better for you. I’m going to do better for you.”

Nacho pressed his lips to hers tenderly. He took his time, committing the moment to memory. He savored the feel of her soft lips on his, the lingering scent of her shampoo, the warmth of her when he pulled her to straddle on top of him. These were things he missed when he thought he might die earlier.

He broke the kiss to pull her—his—shirt off of her and then worshipped every inch of her skin that he could reach with his mouth. His hands found their way to her thighs, pulling her impossibly closer as he ground his hips up against hers, earning himself a soft moan.

They parted to shed the rest of their clothing, and then Nacho was guiding her back into his lap. She eased herself on top of him, so he was buried deep inside of her wet center. She shuddered at the fullness of him, rocking her hips in time with his. His hands found a place in her hair, massaging her scalp while he tilted her head back to gain access to her neck and breasts.

She braced herself on his shoulders, nails digging into his skin as the delicate pace turned into a desperate one, and he pounded into a sweet spot. Her orgasm wracked through her suddenly as she cried out.

They shared a passionate kiss as he grabbed her thighs to pick her up and laid her back against the sheets—Nacho re-situating himself in between her legs.  One hand gently steadying her thigh above his hip as he slid himself inside, and the other with fingers interlaced with hers just above her head. Her body shook with another orgasm as he plunged harder, providing more friction on her clit. Pleasure rolled through her in waves, and the involuntary pulsing was enough to bring Nacho over the edge with her.

They rolled on their sides as they caught their breath. Nacho took her hand, kissing her knuckles and bringing her closer to him. The stress he was under melted away when she was in his arms. While Nacho felt at peace, her mind was uneasy. She couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong, and the phenomenal sex had been a cover-up.

“Ignacio?”

“Hmm?” he said, fingers lazily drawing patterns on her side.

“Everything’s okay?”

He opened his eyes and looked into hers, allowing himself to get lost in them for a moment. He wanted to tell her everything. Tuco was going to be in jail longer than anyone anticipated, meaning he’d have to keep picking up the slack. Hector was reckless in his pissing match with Gustavo. Nacho needed to get it off of his chest, but more than that, he needed to keep her safe. The less she knew, the better.

“It will be,” he said, kissing her forehead.

***

Nacho had been more involved after that night. He called more often, visited for quality time, and they went out more often. Things had been back to how they were when they first started dating. Nacho had practically moved in with her, spending more time there than anywhere else when he wasn’t working for his father or Hector. He credited the pill switch for his upturn in mood. He just had to be patient.

All that came crashing down when he could no longer hold Hector off from using his father’s business as a front.

Nacho came home, taking off his jacket, boots, and dropping his keys in the dish like usual.

“Hi baby,” she called cheerily from the kitchen.

Rather than saying anything, Nacho went straight for the bedroom. By the time she could follow to see what was wrong, Nacho had closed the bathroom door and started the shower.

She knocked softly, fighting the urge to ask if everything was okay.

“What do you need?” she asked, seeking the solution, rather than dwelling on the problem. “Can I get you anything?”

After he said he needed to be alone for a while, she left, falling asleep on the couch before he reemerged to the rest of the apartment. Nacho woke her, guiding her to the bedroom where she could sleep comfortably.

Nacho took the couch, still opting to be alone with his thoughts. Don Hector would be in his father’s shop tomorrow. He tried to explain to his father that it would be temporary, but that didn’t change how disappointed he’d been to learn that his son was working with those drug dealers again.

Nacho was gone before she woke up the next morning. She decided to make lunch for him and his father in hopes that a homecooked meal would ease whatever had been bothering him.

Nacho and Hector pulled into the upholstery shop with two more guys. Nacho cursed when he saw her car in the lot. He didn’t want her here for this. He tried to keep them in the back, explaining how everything could operate. When Don Hector asked about his father, Nacho tried to redirect him. Hector spotted Manuel having lunch with ‘her’. Manuel seemed to notice at the same time, standing and staring at the man. She leaned into the doorframe to see what had caused the reaction. The only person she recognized was Nacho.

“Hello, my love,” she said, coming around the counter. “I made lunch for you and Manuel. I thought-”

“What the hell are you doing here?”

She was taken aback by his tone. Nacho had never talked to her like that.  

“I didn’t think it’d be a problem. Manuel didn’t say-“

Hector mumbled something in Spanish about ‘untamed pussy.’

‘Excuse me?!” she exclaimed angrily, stepping towards Hector.

Before Hector could do anything, Nacho grabbed her by the arm, making sure to grab her purse and keys off the counter as he practically dragged her out of the shop.

Go home,” he said,  once they were outside. He opened her car door and handed her the bag and keys. “Right now.”

She snatched them from his hands, got in the car, and sped out of the parking lot.

Nacho apologized to Hector when he came back into the shop. Hector accepted the apology with more derogatory comments about Nacho keeping his woman in check and a few more degrading nicknames for her. To top it off, Manuel was refusing Hector’s money, telling him to get out of his shop. Nacho kept the peace for the moment, getting his father to accept the payment. On the way out, Hector was clear about not trusting Nacho’s father.

“He’ll come around,” Nacho promised.

After things were settled with Hector, Nacho headed straight for her apartment. Her car was parked outside, but the door was slightly open. Nacho pulled out his gun and ran up to sweep the apartment. It was empty. He called and sent a few messages, even asking her friends if they’d heard from her.  He fell asleep while waiting to hear anything from her. When he woke, finding that she never came home, he called again. He got her voicemail this time and left a message.

“What happened yesterday was…complicated. I’ll tell you everything. Call me back…I’m worried.”

When Nacho pulled into El Michoacano to count the takes for the week, he saw her sitting at the table opposite Hector inside. Hector was casually waving his gun around as he spoke to her.

“You want to tell her everything?” he started as Nacho walked in. “I’ll help you. She’s going to sit right here. I will show her…so it’s less complicated.” Hector shrugged.

The first dealer of the day walked in.

Nacho ignored him. “Don Hector-“

“Count the take, Ignacio.”

Nacho took a breath to steel himself, putting his hands out for emphasis. “Don Hector, please-“

Hector cocked the gun and pointed it directly at her. She couldn’t help the tears that came forward, and she struggled to keep calm. “Count the take,” Hector demanded.

Nacho raised his hands in surrender and slowly turned to sit down with his back to the situation. Halfway through counting the take, he heard her whimper. He didn’t see Hector move the gun from aiming at her chest to her forehead.

‘Shut up.” Hector groaned, slamming the gun down on the table and swapping it for his newspaper. Everyone but Hector jumped at the sound of the metal clanging against the aged wooden table.

Nacho finished the count. “You’re good,” he said.

A few dealers later, Domingo came in, and his count was short. Nacho gave him a pass; told him to make it up next week.

“Who works for who?” Hector said, without looking up from the paper. His gun was still resting ominously on the table.

Nacho got up and dragged Domingo back into the restaurant. He begged as Nacho beat him up in the kitchen. The sight broke her heart even more than seeing him collect drug money all morning.

The end of the day came, and she had seen Nacho collect from countless dealers, all of whom seemed familiar enough with him that this wasn’t a new thing. What threw her over though, was watching as he beat Domingo in the restaurant’s kitchen when he was “light.”

After the last dealer, Nacho stood, and Hector spoke again. “Not so complicated, is it?” Hector motioned for them both to leave.

Outside, she pulled out her cell phone, turned it on, and dialed a cab. Nacho noticed the new cracks on the phone and the bruises on her wrist and around her knuckles.

“Let me take you home,” he said, pushing away the thoughts of how she may have gotten the bruises.

“Cab’s already on the way,” she said, making a beeline for the sidewalk without looking in his direction.

“Please,” he insisted. “Just to make sure you get there safely.”

The ride in Nacho’s van was silent. After they pulled into the complex, Nacho followed her up to the apartment.

Nacho locked the door when they were inside. He also drew all of the curtains shut. When he turned to her, she had taken off her jacket, revealing a trail of nasty bruises up the expanse of her arm. He wasn’t surprised when she’d asked him to leave, or when she requested for him to leave his key to her apartment as well.

***

The sound of her front door opening drew her attention. Before she could grab a weapon or call out a warning, the door swung open enough to reveal Ignacio leaning on the frame for support.

He wore jeans and a bloody tank top. He had gauze taped to his shoulder and side, covering the gunshot wounds. Both were bleeding heavily, and he looked like Death.

She rushed forward to help him apply pressure to the wound on his side and get him into the bathroom. “What happened to you?” she asked frantically.

“I couldn’t go to my father,” he said weakly.

“Nacho, you need a hospital,” she said, noticing more blood as she pulled her hand away to pull out the first aid supplies and grab her cell off of the counter.

Nacho reached out to grab her wrist.

“Don’t call anyone,” he begged. The fear in his eyes taking precedence over his pained expression. “They’ll kill you.”

She looked up into his eyes and knew he was telling the truth. She put the phone down. “I don’t know how to help with this, Ignacio,” she admitted.

“Just help me clean up,” he said shakily, “Okay?” Nacho was in more pain than he’d ever been in, but he still needed to comfort her more than anything else. He hated putting her in this situation and regretted that she was the only person he could turn to, not for his own sake, but hers. She didn’t deserve any of the things she’d been through because of him.

To her surprise, someone stitched up the wounds pretty well. They were still bleeding because Nacho came straight to her after his father told him to leave. He hadn’t rested since Hector’s nephews found him in the desert.

Nacho didn’t explain anything apart from mentioning that it would put her in danger to know what was going on. She didn’t push the subject anymore. She gave him pain medicine, helped him undress, cleaned the blood and dirt from his body, and rebandaged the wounds.

They worked in silence until he saw her crying as she washed his blood from her hands. “I’m sorry about this. I’ll go-“

She sniffled, wiping the tears from her face. “You need to rest.” She went into the bedroom and pulled back the covers. By the time Nacho made in there, she was propping up the pillows so he could sleep comfortably without straining either of his wounds. She helped him get comfortable in the bed, and crawled next to him, careful not to jostle him.

“Thank you,” he said softly. “I know it’s been a while since-”

“Try to rest, Ignacio,” she said softly. “We can talk later.”

She looked him in the eyes for the first time in an hour or so. He looked better than when he arrived, but he still looked terrible. How had Nacho gotten himself into this? She patted his arm gently, keeping her hand there until she fell asleep.

___

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Thank you so much for reading!