#there are 4 white ones and 2 of those tri colour ones

[beansnpeets]

The babies are sooooo cute and funny

[hedghost]

Hedge’s Official Ranking of the 24/25 WSL Kits That Literally Nobody Asked For - Home Edition

please please tell me your thoughts in the reblogs or tags!!! i love hearing other people’s critiques. this is the one time the woso community can all come together and complain about the same thing!

1.Liverpool

potentially a controversial opinion but this is Nice As Hell! i know a lot of people said the collars are ugly but like idk it’s kinda giving if you ask me. it’s bold, it’s a statement. i love retro. this is just a good kit. it’s doing bits without doing too much. simple, tasteful, plus a little subtle pizzazz with those jaunty ass stripes - werk it ladies!

plus this kit is made from recycled plastic bottles, nice job! save those turtles liverpool!

apparently the pattern spells out ynwa, which i’m totally Not seeing (maybe i misunderstood this). i’m getting a Y, and then like an H in there maybe? and then i’m just lost, so not sure you hit the mark with that one, but love you for trying! it’s a cool pattern regardless, so i’d maybe just ditch the whole symbolism jargon and stick with that. overall nice job guys - 9/10

bonus points for that prematch shirt, love the detailing on it very sexy top marks

2. Arsenal

sorry arsenal fans, this shit is ugly as fuckkkkk - i’m not even being biased or trying to start fights (for once) it’s just like so hideous. i didn’t really like last season’s but compared to this that was a masterpiece. it’s so PLAIN! the weird red splodge is like not flattering at all and the blue? what’s that all about? also i fucking hate the back it looks like a used period pad, so hopefully the numbers fix that.

praying for your sakes you get a nice third kit or something bc this is ass.

also i’m a HATER for minimalist badge designs. this cannon logo makes the shirt look like a uniform for a museum volunteer. don’t get me wrong - arsenal is not the only culprit. what has a good old crest ever done to you? why do we hate maximalism? why do we hate fun? - 4/10

3. Manchester City

now this is fine. it’s just fine. it’s objectively nice, but it’s also objectively boring! as! fuck! the solid blue is clean but a little too flat. something looks off. it’s missing something. idk it’s nice ig, but it also seems identical to last season? if i saw these pics with no context i’d literally think it was from this year, but that’s the case with most top tier clubs it seems. have some fun guys! push the boat out! where’s the whimsy? but yeah anyway it’s alright.

at least they tried with the sleeves. allegedly they have the manchester dialling code 0161 on them but i mean - do they? do they really? because it looks like a bus seat to me. city fans decide for yourself i guess, because i for one won’t be getting close enough to a city shirt to look

it’s also made from recycled waste textiles so yay again! probably made from all the city shirts people threw out after they all but fucked the title 🤭 - 7/10

4. Tottenham Hotspur

wow spurs this is nice. it’s just so clean, so crisp. my normal issue with spurs kits is their absolute undying commitment to being plain as fuck. they picked one colour, white - arguably the most boring colour of all, arguably even the total absence of colour - and stuck to it. this however? it’s simplicity done well. it’s still plain and simple, but in a gorgeous sexy way. those navy retro colourblock sleeves? stunning! the crispest white you’ve ever seen? stunning! the tiniest of sleeve embellishments? stunning! simplicity done well. it’s just so crispy. pleases my eye.

also huge respect to them for not jumping of the band wagon with the whole ‘every shirt must have ugly details with symbolic meaning we grasped at straws to come up with in order to do something new and edgy’. spurs said no! they said ‘oh this? yeah this is a football shirt. what does it mean? it means football shirt.’ thanks spurs, good job - 9.5/10

5. Crystal Palace

ummmm. now. hmm. uhh. what? this is, um, what? give me a second to get my thoughts in order. i don’t know what is happening here and i’m at a loss for words.

right. crystal palace. inaugural season in the wsl. making a statement. making a splash. right. here’s the thing. i’m always saying wsl kits are too boring. i’m always saying we want fun patterns and whimsy. i’m looking at this in genuine confusion because i actually do not know what is going on here. do i like it? not sure? do i hate it? also not sure?

i think i kind of like it? but i also kind of hate it? it’s insanely busy, it’s probably the most garish kit i’ve ever seen in my life. i think part of the problem is that the club doesn’t have a great colour palette to work from. it’s very bright. i do love the pattern of the eagle crest in the blue, that’s a huge win from me. it’s just those spray paint red splatters that’s throwing me off. it looks like they spent ages making a lovely blue eagle pattern and then remembered they needed red in there so just used the funky spray tools on microsoft paint to draw over the top. it’s giving shit cgi blood splatter in a low budget zombie film. it’s like the barcelona shirts if they were designed by a gcse art student on an acid trip.

the more i’m looking at it however, i’m kind of loving it? kinda camp i guess. this one could be a grower. i’m still confused. at least they’ll make a splash in the wsl - 6/10

6. Manchester United

you’d think by now that i would have learnt to not get my hopes up with this club. remember the long long list of disappointments from yanited this season that i never shut up about? yeah, add this kit to that list.

listen it’s not awful. it’s not ugly, it’s not an eyesore. at the very least, it’s classic united. but it’s just so! bloody! dull! i’m literally falling asleep looking at it. it’s a t-shirt. its literally just a t-shirt. the problem is they set the bar too high last year, with that beautiful pattern and beautiful shade of red. and now, in proper united style, we’re straight back to mediocrity.

let’s talk details. oh wait, they aren’t ANY. there is nothing to say about this kit because there is nothing going ON with this kit. i like the white stripes. that’s it. theres the ombré red at the bottom, which is like- it’s okay. problem is - there’s like four too many shades of red on this shirt, and none of them are that nice. it needs a pattern or something! a pop! a little pizzazz! not a fan of the curved back panel, but it does look a whole lot better than arsenal’s at least.

this is absolutely nothing groundbreaking but it’s fine. it’s just so fucking plain. i know my girls will still serve in it, but i hoped for more. of course, in true united fashion: it’s the hope that kills you - 6/10

7. Chelsea

the tagline for this release is 'we burn blue', because 'the hottest part of the flame burns blue'. congrats on passing year seven chemistry guys. anyway, with that in mind, this kit is, naturally of course, patterned with a mystery blue LIQUID. im not seeing flames in any part of this kit. literally how is this meant to look like fire. this tagline is pure bollocks. it literally could not look more like water if it tried. aka, the opposite of fire.

the kit itself, i'm honestly struggling to form an opinion. i dont think i hate it, but i dont love it either. it may have been easier to figure out if i could actually SEE the kit in any of the release photos, instead of some stupid fucking slow motion blur effect. this pic makes mayra look like she's undergoing mitosis. poor girl's been through enough. it says a lot that in your official kit release you're actively preventing me from looking at the kit.

its not awful? i'm not a fan of these kind of realistic graphics on kits, just makes it look fake and cheap, but like, idk its kinda cool ig. the more i look the more i'm down with it. the colours are nice. its shiny. i'm glad we've gone for originality at least. patterns are fun. - 7.5/10

8. Brighton

i missed this release bc i saw the pictures and genuinely did not realise it was a different kit oops. i do feel bad for clubs who have committed to a striped kit because honestly there’s not really many ways you can play with that. but also that’s kind of their own fault. there’s really not much you can say about this. the sleeves are white this time… okay… there’s a faint pinstripe down each stripe… okayyy… yep that’s kind of it really.

it’s clean, it’s classic brighton, it’s a decent kit. there’s just genuinely nothing new about this. it’s fine. they just clearly couldn’t be bothered and i respect that. - 6/10

9. West Ham

okay we’re doing turtlenecks now apparently!! interesting choice!! i think it kinda looks fuckass silly but also i kind of like it actually. bit of fun innit. good stripes.

the rest of the kit is pretty mid. plainer than a toast sandwich. except for the sleeves! because this year, not only are they bringing in turtlenecks, west ham have decided to also bring in milkmaid sleeves! why is it like that? like is it just a weird bad fit or have they put a fucking elasticated band on? who’s idea was that? what is going on! also am i having a stroke or has the badge changed colour. because it looks fucking hideous. what did they do that for.

i do love the fact they did this shoot in a pub though. very funny. and the kit isn’t too bad. i like the stripes - 6/10

10. Leicester

this is the plainest most boring kit i have ever seen with my own two eyes. that is literally all i can say about this. boring. much like the city of leicester itself.

however - the women have a different kit sponsor to the men and i respect that so you can have one bonus point - 4/10

11. Everton

i’ll be totally honest - i wasn’t expecting everton to give me like the best kit of the bunch. this is the kit for me. i like this one a lot. castore may be mega shit quality but at least they don’t just copy paste all their kits.

i fucking love the pattern here. it’s subtle but it’s nice! and it’s different! we’re not doing any mad shit like chelsea, we’re not doing absolutely nothing at all like leicester. the perfect middle ground of the blue kits. the sponsor is hideous but i’m ignoring that. this is just lovely to look at. stylish, sleek. it’s giving high quality bus seats. this is no stagecoach, this is private hire only. i just love it. and then to top it all off, just the perfect amount of collar detailing. i would be a happy toffee if i was wearing this. gorgeous. loses half a point because the badge fell off during the game which is hysterical.- 9.5/10

12. Aston Villa

this is just the west ham kit if west ham were normal. it’s nothing to write home about, but i do like it. i like the block sleeves and the stripe colour. i like the subtle stripes down the side. i like the simplicity. i like the collar stripes. i even like the flat badge. also i’m assuming this is a betting sponsor which sucks but i do have to say that the sponsor looks great with this kit. it blends in, which is rare. this is a clean, classic kit, and i’m glad that at least one team could be normal. i don’t like that there’s pretty much nothing i can make fun of here. unfortunate for me, good for villa. good job - 8/10

note - all this was written as soon as each club released their kit, so some of my opinions have changed, and a lot have grown on me (looking at you united), but i’ve left the review untouched so you can get purely my honest first impression.

away, third and goalkeeper ratings are currently in progress so expect them once they've all been released! these posts literally never get any notes but i absolutely love doing them so i'm doing it anyway, but if you did wanna encourage me with some nice comments that wouldn't go amiss ;) xx

[finalfrontierpublishing]

Ulysses by @girlbookwrm

Ok so my next chaparral_crown bind is pending bookboard for a cutout design, so that's on the back burner till bookboard arrives! Did this in the interim, since I've leapt onto the 00q train pretty hard! They're my new favourite ship and I love the fic dynamics!

Statistics:

89,065 words || 294 pages

Chapter titling: Brigmore Thin

Body text: Liberation Serif

Accents: Petrona

My initial plans for this bind was to do a ship-shaped cutout from chiyogami paper - to which my cricut blade said f-no and proceeded to shred my very precious paper. So back to the drawing board and to the tried and tested method of HTV I went.

Boy, did I have trouble with colour for this bind - I am ridiculously bad at colour, my friends, I am one of those people who can maybe match 2 colours but ask me to pick a contrasting one to match and I'll go fjrbdidsmfbejsnbxks how does one do such sorcery. Again, Manda my sounding board who is excellent at colour matching contrasting colours had to listen to 3 different separate colour rants/panic attacks, not that I actually listened to them because I am an absolute wuss when it comes to colour.

Ugh I had so much fun with the typesetting. I actually found this font - Brigmore Thin, which the background decor for the font was London Bridge and I went yup, that's the font I want. As per the fic, I included parts of the Ulysses poem by Tennyson, which corresponded to chapter titles.

The main cover title page is less striking then I had wanted - curse my lack of colour printing and inability to colour the middle of the target sight red.

Also did my best to include a black and white spread of that image of the meet infront of The Fighting Temeraire. Absolutely iconic. My printer wasn't very up to it, but it tried.

Anyway, so- endbands!!! I had a good time making them, this is my first attempt that isn't a trial book, and I have fallen in love with capricious capricious silk. It just looks so good, even though it's slippery as hell.

I took two tries at this textblock because I overtrimmed the first one. Still thinking of what to do with it- it's actually fine, and readable, the page numbers still exist but it's just got such a thin margin I went eugh no and had to make a second copy.

Despite my general anxiety regarding this bind, it didn't turn out too badly.

I'm starting to prep for binderary so I'm overwhelmingly excited about that. My goal is officially 3-4 in February but I've planned for 6-7. Unsure if it will happen but I'm hopeful as I do have some leave then.

[greenhorn-art]

Prince of Shadows, Lord of Thieves by alkat

Fandom: The King's Avatar | 全职高手

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Category: Gen

Words: 1 929

Once upon a time, their exploits were immortalized by artists and writers across the tapestry of history. Once upon a time, they were worshipped as gods and reviled as demons. None of that stopped the Met from stealing all their shit.

About the Book

FONTS: Alegreya [Google Fonts], Lato [Google Fonts]

IMAGES: all art made by myself @greenhorn-art for this fic

MATERIALS: regular ol' printer paper (8.5"x11", 20lb, 96 bright); ~2-2.5mm binder's board; Neenah cardstock (8.5"x11", 65lb, bright white); Cialux bookcloth (black); waxed linen thread (30/3 size, white); wheat paste (1:4 flour:water); paste wax (from a friend, unknown ingredients&quantities, some kind of wax and turpentine/mineral spirits)

PROGRAMS USED: Affinity Publisher 2; Affinity Designer 2; Bookbinder JS | Renegade's Community Imposer (settings: Quarto, snug against binding edge, custom signatures of 2, 1, 2 sheets).

Text & QR codes printed with colour laser printer (duplex, flip long edge), images printed with inkjet printer. QR codes generated with LibreOffice Writer, snipped, saved, and inserted where needed.

BINDING: quarto (quarter-letter) size, sewn board binding with french link stitch and breakaway spine.

.

So this one all started because the visual of HST's outfit was so fun that I was possessed by a visceral need to draw it. Inspiration slapped me across my mind's eye, and much like a medieval knight being slapped in the face by a glove (which didn't actually happen, that's a myth that sprung from the throwing down of a gauntlet. but that's beside the point), I felt bound to take up the challenge. Which lead me to draw a few more, and then I ended up binding the whole thing.

(Also, I find it really amusing that the famous Terracotta Warriors were just storage for YXs stuff. And the gang going 'shopping' at various exhibits for gifts for friends/family,, like that sure is SOME window shopping! I can hear it now: 'Oooh I'll take one one those SMASH, and that SHATTER, and throw in some of those CRASH, they're going to love these! 😇'. All in all, it was a fun little read, and fun little project! :D)

About the Art

Because this was initially a one-off drawing I tried a new art style (and struggled to at least not stray too far for the rest). It was fun and helped me think more about shape and visual focus, instead of being caught up in the details.

The crow (based off of image ID: 4039963 from Rawpixel) and the red umbrella on the front cover were filled curves made with the pen tool. The illustrations' poses were based off of a combination of images found on Google and photos taken by myself.

Pinterest is awful for sources, but it would have been handy to pin the references I'd googled. Only remembered to save the one of a man sitting at a desk. (I deliberately searched for someone sitting with bad posture because YX is described as being "slumped" over the desk. I figure that since "the laws of physics held no meaning to ["cursed souls eschewed by the natural order"]", they'd also be immune to mundane things like discomfort from sitting hunched over for too long. Back pain images were a gold mine! All I had to do was choose one with lighting that would give me a silhouette.)

The Myriad Manifestations Umbrellas and illustrations were drawn in Procreate.

I opted for a more plain umbrella design because it's not (presumably) a fantastical weapon in this story. Though the initial version did have YX cradling the donghua!MMU.

For the scene breaks I inserted the images, pinned them inline as character, and adjusted height and baseline in the pinning menu to fit.

The author wrote one scene break differently than the others, using multiple empty paragraphs instead of just one. Following suit, I used a different image for that particular break. I wanted to reference vampires somewhere, so for that break I made two bloody spots resembling bite marks. The blood spots were made with a group of shapes in Designer.

On cover design:

Because the MMU is what sparks the whole heist, I wanted it on the front cover.

Earlier iterations involved a full cover spread with a man's shadow standing before a shattered glass case, with a plaque mounted on the wall to the left providing information. The plaque was formatted like a museum label and had the author, date published, title, event collection, and story description. I'd also added a QR code to it. Ultimately, I abandoned the concept because it was difficult to decipher what is was when only looking a one cover at a time.

My second idea for the cover would have been a bookcloth-only cover with a cut-out of the MMU on the front, acting like a window showing off an image of the MMU on paper below it. (Inspired by the work of a number of folks over on Renegade's Discord. Here's a few examples gleaned from a quick search: szynkaaa's lung cutouts, some of EHyde's books, and the front cover of Spock's massive all-in-one TGCF). As fun as that would have been to try out, I felt it didn't quite suit the style of the art so I nixed that too.

Eventually I landed on the back cover design with the Met exhibition webpage. At last, I felt that the back & white and simple-shapes-background went with the artwork. The webpage viewed on the phone is based off of the Met's actual website. I took a snip/screenshot of the Met's logo from the banner at the top, then looked at their exhibitions' pages and eyeballed it to create my own. (Threw in the QR because I wanted the easy access to the fic online on the back cover). I chose to use a phone screen rather than I computer monitor because it worked better composition-wise. And besides, while YX may be allergic to owning a phone, SMC is not. I imagine that she saw the news while on her phone then messaged him.

The front cover came together after that. An umbrella for the MMU, and a pop of red. One of YX's messenger crows. A black shape in the background similar to the back cover's, sort of creating a spotlight over the umbrella and placing the rest of the cover in shadow.

Trying New Things: Applying a protective finish to printed covers

Over on the Renegade Bindery Discord, folks have spoken about using a beeswax & turpentine/mineral spirits 50-50 mix to seal printed covers (thank you Kate). According to my dad that's just a paste wax, so he threw 3 different ones at me and said 'have at it'.

I tested them out using the same paper and inkjet I'll use for the cover. I was looking at 1) whether the paste wax affected the paper colour or print quality, and 2) the finish. After applying one coat each and buffing them out I had my winner. Then I applied & buffed two more coats to it and tested 3) water resistance by dripping tea on it. The liquid beaded up and wiped away without staining -- good, three coats will work nicely.

(Test results: Mystery paste wax from a friend wins.

The commercial SC Johnson Paste Wax Original formula (intended for woodworking) has a nice dry shiny finish, but coloured the paper slightly brown -> disqualified

My dad's homemade stuff has a nice shiny/satin finish and didn't change paper's colour, but it felt slightly tacky even after buffing it -- maybe I didn't buff it enough?

The gifted paste wax has a matte finish, didn't change paper's colour (in the image below this one has 3 coats. The paper is now slightly off-white, but still acceptable), and while not as dry-to-touch as the Johnson it was not as tacky as the other homemade stuff.)

When I print out my quarto covers, I print front and back covers side-by-side on the same page*, with some guides to ensure I'm cutting and gluing in the correct place. (The guides mark the boundaries of the covers and start of the turn-ins, and stop at the edge of where I cut. Before cutting I flip it over to mark the guides [see marks indicated in image below] on the wrong side and connect them so I can see where to glue/place book. Then flip it back over to cut, right side up.)

*I'm being economical here at the cost of possible warping damage. This layout means that I'm only using one sheet of paper, but the grain is running in the wrong direction (across the book instead of preferred head-to-tail/top-bottom). This could cause warping issues, but I'm OK with that. I'm hoping that by just gluing at the edges, instead of pasting down the whole thing, warping will be minimized. (I use wrong-grain endpapers most of the time with larger books anyways).

I applied the paste wax before cutting out the covers, working carefully to avoid accidentally creasing/bending the paper (which happened twice, but it was minimal and I hardly notice it). Doing so before cutting ensured that the cover material was completely covered. Even the turn-ins -- something I later came to regret. After all, wax is used specifically so that things don't stick to it. It made it rather difficult to drum on the endpapers because I was trying to glue something down onto a waxy surface. It all worked out in the end -- perhaps due to the fact that there were multiple layers of wheat paste which could adhere to each other, followed by being squashed in a press.

[guilty-pleasures21]

Yooooooooouuuuuuuuuu!!!!!!! You SUCK!

As promised! New chapter!

0. The slow burn

Part 1 - the meet cute

Part 2 - the coffee mug

Part 3 - the spicy song

Part 4 - the absence

Part 5 - the watch/the sweet song

Part 6 - the backrub

Warnings: none. Just fluff.

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

He sighed and reached for his cup of coffee, his hand grasping at the air above the desk. Where … He looked down, finding an empty space where his mug usually sat. He raised an eyebrow, confused, then remembered that X wasn’t here today. Not that he needed her to babysit him or anything. He hit the switch to lower the platform, then stepped off and began making his way over to the pantry. And that was where one of the Peter’s found him, banging around in the cupboards.

“Hey, boss,” he began cautiously, leaning over the other side of the island. “What’cha lookin’ for?” Miguel stopped what he was doing, straightening up and placing his hands on his hips. He stared at the cupboard for a minute longer. Then, when he still couldn’t find what he was looking for, he sighed and shut the doors before turning around to face Peter.

“Do you know where my cup is?” he asked, narrowing his eyes in thought. “The green one?” Peter raised an eyebrow, thinking about it. Then he snapped his fingers, eyes going wide with recognition.

“Oh! The one with the little dinosaurs that change colours?” he asked. Miguel stifled a groan, rolling his eyes and pursing his lips in annoyance instead.

“Yes,” he mumbled, avoiding Peter’s gaze. He didn’t have to have the cup, it wasn’t an absolute necessity … but he found himself getting more and more irritated at the thought of drinking coffee out of anything else. Especially one of those generic white mugs he’d had the cupboard filled with for the other Spiders. Peter considered the question.

“Uh, I think X took it. She usually keeps it with her in case anyone tries to use it,” Peter informed him. Miguel’s brows came together in a frown.

“What … Why would she care if someone else used it?” Peter raised an eyebrow, as if it should have been obvious.

“Because she bought it for you?” he revealed. That was a surprise. He hadn’t known that she’d bought it for him: that she’d seen it and thought of him and then brought it to him just so he could have something that belonged to him, something that was all his own.

“Oh.” He stood there for a second, a number of different emotions flooding through him; emotions that he wasn’t ready to confront right now. He shook the thoughts away, returning his attention to the coffee machine. He grabbed a random mug lying on the rack, then shoved it under the nozzle before punching in his usual order. He removed the cup once it was done, adding his usual amount of sugar and milk before raising it to his lips and taking a sip. He almost spit it out immediately, the hot liquid scalding his sensitive tongue and taking him by surprise. “¡Ay, coño! Why is it so hot?!”

“Uh, it’s always hot?” Peter replied, confused. Miguel frowned, getting more and more frustrated by the conversation.

“But this … this is boiling!” he exclaimed, gesturing to the cup as if it had intentionally offended him somehow. Peter thought about it for a moment, then snapped his fingers suddenly, remembering something.

“Oh! Yeah! X always adds an ice cube at the end. To cool it down? She said something about not wanting to shock your super senses or something?” he supplied. Miguel gritted his teeth, the muscles in his jaw clenching as he tried to maintain his temper. Could he seriously not even make his own cup of coffee without X around to do it for him?! He huffed and grabbed the cup, retreating back to the control room without another word.

The next problem presented itself when people would not stop showing up in front of him, all of them complaining about some inconsequential problem they really didn’t need his help for. It was starting to prevent him from getting any actual work done, not to mention surpassing the quota of social interactions he was able to handle in one day.

“Why does everyone seem to be having a problem today of all days?!” he ground out, fingers clenching into fists on his desk. Lyla popped up next to him, studying her nails detachedly.

“Actually, I’ve run the numbers and we’re experiencing the average number of problems today.” Miguel raised his head immediately, turning to Lyla with a scowl on his face. Not possible. There was no way this many people encountered this many problems on a daily basis. He’d definitely have noticed if it was true.

“What?”

“Yeah,” Lyla confirmed, turning her attention to him now, “you just never notice because X takes care of it for you. I think she likes you …” He clenched his fists at that, at yet another reminder of how much he’d let himself come to depend on her. Never mind the fact that his heart fluttered at the very suggestion of her having feelings for him.

“Lyla,” he growled, his tone threatening - a warning to not bring the subject up again.

“Oh, no,” Jess agreed, coming up behind him. “She’s definitely got it bad for you. Have you seen the way she looks at you?” He should have locked the door to the control room. He stayed frozen in position, refusing to turn around and entertain either of them, what with their ridiculous ideas about him and X.

“Oh my god,” Lyla flickered over to Jess’s side, grinning with delight. “So. Cute. Literal hearts in her eyes.” He frowned, hating how his curiosity continued to rise with every mention of her.

“Especially when you guys have your nerd talk going on,” Jess continued, refusing to let the subject go. “It’s like you guys are speaking this whole other language, but I swear that’s the only time I’ve ever seen you smile.” Lyla placed her hands on her cheeks, her eyes widening as she let out a concurring gasp.

“Oh my gosh! You noticed it too?!” She turned back to Miguel then, a smirk plastered over her holographic features as she waited for his response. He gripped his hips, trying so hard to be irritated, to stop his scowl from twisting up into a smile - the very smile that took over his features every time they had one of their ‘nerd talks’. He cleared his throat and turned around to look at Jess.

“Is there an actual reason that you’re here right now?” She rolled her eyes at his tone.

“Yes,” she confirmed. “I thought I’d give you a debriefing on our mission earlier, but if you’re not interested …” He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose with his fingers. How did everything always turn into his fault? If only X had been here, then she’d- He stopped his thoughts in their tracks, his frustration building up again as he tried to get rid of the rapidly rising desire to have her back by his side. He looked up at Jess and waved a hand for her to continue, his tension easing slightly when she shared how successful the mission had been - another anomaly wrangled and another canon event proceeding as intended.

“Great,” he replied, his tone dismissive as he turned back around to his computers. “Thanks, Jess. Go get some rest.” He hesitated before saying the last part, unsure as to whether he was in any position to give her such advice. But he’d become softer recently, no guesses as to who had provoked such a change in him.

“Will do, boss,” Jess assured him, a teasing tone in her voice - she’d noticed his gradual change in demeanour as well, it would seem. “Call me if you need anything!” And with that, she left.

The final straw came not long after, when Ben strolled into the room asking where the cashews - the p*nche cashew nuts - were. As if he’d know where the hell the f*cking cashew nuts were. Who even ate cashews anyway? Why not peanuts or almonds or something remotely normal?! Why couldn’t one variant in the entire maldito multiverse be normal?! Just one! Was that too much to ask?!

“Has he been like this the whole day?” Peter murmured to the holograph taking cover behind his shoulder. She flickered to his other shoulder as Miguel switched to Spanish, continuing his rant without pausing to take a breath.

“He hasn’t even had lunch yet,” she confessed. Something shattered and another slew of what Peter could only guess were curses fell from Miguel’s lips. He clapped his hands together, determined to resolve the situation.

“Okay,” he began, webbing up to the platform and placing a reassuring hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Why don’t we get some food, huh, Miguel?” Thankfully, the big man let himself be led away, his muttered curses tapering off as they neared the cafeteria. He pressed a button on his watch to activate his eye protectors, shielding his sensitive vision from the artificial lights around them. He took a seat at an empty table as Peter went to get some food, his threatening aura warning away anyone who might have been tempted to approach him. Peter slid the tray of food in front of him, then took the seat beside him.

“So,” he began cautiously, wondering how to broach the subject, “do you want to talk about it?”

“About what?” Miguel grunted, a little calmer now that he’d gotten some food into him. Peter shifted in his seat to face him fully.

“Well, it seems like something’s bothering you,” he pointed out gently. “Do you … want to get it off your chest?” Miguel paused his eating and began fiddling with his fork instead, his lips pursed in thought as he considered the question. How could he get it off his chest when he didn’t even know what ‘it’ was?

“I’m just …” he hesitated, looking around for an excuse. His eyes landed on his food. “I’m probably just hungry.” He dug into his meal, filling his mouth so he wouldn’t be able to talk anymore. But it wasn’t that, he knew. Food wouldn’t be enough to fill the uncomfortable ache currently throbbing in his chest. He hunched over, signalling an end to the conversation and Peter sat back in his seat, knowing he wouldn’t be able to get anything more out of him, but not wanting to leave his friend alone either - not in this state.

“Oh! Where’s X?” Peter asked suddenly. “I haven’t seen her around today.” It was a Saturday, so she should have arrived in the morning, then spent the day bouncing between the biology lab and wherever Miguel was in the building. It was pretty obvious to everyone that she liked him - and Peter was glad to find that Miguel seemed to enjoy her company too. He always seemed more … at ease whenever she was around. More relaxed and less … agitated.

He clenched his jaw at the mention of her name, his leg beginning to shake beneath the table as the knot in his chest tightened. “She’s busy. She’s not coming in today.”

His response was brusque, the words almost a growl as they came out of his mouth. He sounded defensive, unexpectedly so, and it only made Peter all the more desperate to push the topic. He leaned forward, trying to sneak a peek at his friend’s reaction. But Miguel turned his head away quickly, hiding his expression from view. “Well, when is she going to be back?”

“Wednesday.” He winced, hating how immediate his response had been - hating how it sounded like he’d just been counting down the days until she returned. Which he most definitely hadn’t been. It was only for a few days, after all, could he not survive just a handful of days without seeing her face? Her … cute little smile and her … pretty eyes … and the way she’d always listen to him, nodding in understanding even when he wasn’t making any sense at all. He held his head in his hands and groaned, frustrated with himself. Then he stiffened, suddenly remembering that Peter was still sitting right beside him. “Uh, I mean … That was a … completely unrelated … issue that I was … that’s bothering me.”

“Riiiiiight …” Peter nodded, completely unconvinced. But he let the subject drop anyway, the two of them settling into a comfortable silence as Miguel went back to his food.

“Hey, Miguel!” X began cheerfully, walking into the control room. “I got your coffee!” She set the mug down in front of him - his mug, the one she’d gotten just for him - and smiled up at him cheerfully. Like nothing had ever happened. Like it had had no effect on her, not seeing him for a whole five days. Like she didn’t even care enough to miss him. He huffed and turned away from her, the corners of his lips twisting down in irritation.

“I can get it myself,” he told her, his tone harsh. She froze, taken aback by his response. He’d never snapped at her like that before - he only ever pretended to get exasperated with her, that amused snort escaping his lips as he rolled his eyes and shook his head at something she’d said. She took in a deep breath, then let it out slowly, trying to calm her racing thoughts. There must have been something else bothering him; something else that had him lashing out at her without him even realising it. She set her glass down on the desk, then curled herself up in the chair - her chair, the one he’d brought out just for her - and studied him carefully.

“I know,” she replied softly, still waiting for him to turn around and look at her. “But …” ‘I like getting it for you. I like making it for you. I like looking after you, like … like we mean something to each other.’ But that would only end up pushing him away, she knew, because he was afraid. He was afraid of letting someone else look after him - of letting someone else in enough to depend on them. Just like her.

“Wait!” she exclaimed suddenly, causing him to startle and finally turn to her. She untangled her limbs, sitting up straight and pointing a finger in the air. “I do that too!” His brows furrowed in confusion as he waited for her to elaborate. She didn’t. He folded his arms across his chest and looked away, forcing the question out of his mouth.

“Do what?” he asked reluctantly. She smiled.

“Get mad at people for caring about me?” She paused, waiting for his reaction. She leaned back in her seat when he didn’t respond. “It’s terrifying right? Letting someone in enough to depend on them? ‘Cause people like to leave?” Her voice softened as she said the last part - like she knew exactly how it felt; to be left behind. He held her gaze, stunned by how easily she’d called him out, how quickly she’d understood the real reason behind his sudden hostility.

“But don’t worry!” she continued, brightening up again. “You’re stuck with me now. I’m kind of obsessive-possessive. I’m never going to leave you. Not by choice, anyway.” She added the last part as an afterthought, as if remembering that the choice might not always be hers. But when it was hers - when the decision was hers alone - she’d never choose to leave him; never choose to abandon him. His chest warmed at the thought.

“Uh, I …” He turned away again, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. Because what could he say? What could he say when she’d been so patient and understanding and he’d been so … so unkind? He cleared his throat and tried again. “Careful, arañita - you’re starting to veer into villain territory.”

He was joking - actually joking with her! She felt a delighted warmth spread through her body at his attempt at humour - at his apology. She grinned. “Is that my origin story? The path to evil is paved with good intentions?”

He snickered at her response, the sound escaping from his lips before he’d even realised. His eyes widened in embarrassment and he glanced over at her, pulling his gaze away again when he saw the pleased smile on her face. He cleared his throat, trying not to think about what it meant, her pride at having been able to put a smile on his face.

“No, don’t do that, arañita,” he told her gently. “I don’t want to have to hunt you down.” He slid his gaze over to her, his eyes narrowing in anticipation of her response. She tilted her head as she considered his argument.

“Mmm, that’s kind of sexy though.” Her lips curled into a wicked smile as she met his gaze and his stomach flipped at the sight. And then, Dios, then she bit her lip, and he could hear his heart pounding in his chest as she trailed her gaze over him, his body heating up wherever her eyes landed. She licked her lips and pulled her gaze back up to his, that devious expression still written all over her face. Sexy? She’d called him sexy? Or, well, she’d called the situation sexy. But the way she’d looked at him after saying it … He swallowed hard and turned away, trying to come up with an appropriate response, anything that would diffuse the sudden tension that had fallen over them.

“Uh, how’s your research, arañita?” he inquired, staunchly refusing to meet her gaze. “Any progress on the … the samples from Earth-742?” Her eyes lit up - as they always did when she started discussing her progress in the lab - and then everything was back to normal again. Everything except his heart, that is, which continued to flutter in chest everytime he glanced over at the smile on her face.

Tags: @leahnicole1219

[intrikatie]

♡ Pairing: Minho x Jisung ♤ Genre: Mafia AU, Romeo x Romeo ♢ Chapter Warnings: foul language throughout, mxm sexual intercourse (suggestive language) ♧ MINORS DNI🔞

♤ ♡ TASTE Synopsis & Chapter List ♢ ♧

<< Chapter 2 - The DLC ♤ ♡ ♢ ♧ Chapter 4 - The Wolf & His Pack >>

Chapter 3: Broken Compass

♤ ♡ ♢ ♧

Minho steps into his apartment and clicks on a lamp on the side table. 

“You live here?” Jisung gawks at him. “But it’s so–”

“Careful.”

“–homey.” Jisung finishes and Minho can’t help but smile at him.

His apartment has a spacious living area, with large panoramic windows, overlooking a stone walled balcony bordered with various shrubs, herbs and flowers, and expensive and expansive views south over the Han River. In the centre of the room, there’s a black leather corner sofa facing a flat screen television on the wall and numerous bookshelves. The kitchen, all white granite and units, takes up one corner of the open planned space, separated by a breakfast bar and two chrome and black leather stools. His bedroom door, off to the side.

Minho slips off his Gucci shoes and sets them in the shoe rack. Hangs his keys on the hook behind the door. He’s about to take off his jacket when he remembers he’s wearing his knife belt on his shoulder and thinks better of it.

Jisung is crouching at his side, unlacing his boots, before he stands and steps out of them. Without them he’s probably an inch shorter than Minho and—

“What on earth are those?”

Jisung looks down to where Minho is pointing. He’s wearing bright pink socks adorned with lime green love hearts. He wiggles his toes. Smiles up at Minho. “Don’t you like them?”

Minho tries to reconcile this Jisung against the one he’d met at the club; the sexy Jisung. Who became the Jisung who fights as well as he does, who in turn wears ridiculous socks inside combat boots.

“The views from up here are insane,” Jisung walks over to the windows. He looks small and beautiful, backlit by the twinkling city skyline beyond. Minho turns on some lamps, bathing the room in warm yellow light and straightens some of the mint-coloured cushions on the couch. Lifts the legal papers he’d been reading from the glass coffee table and secretes them in a sideboard drawer. Absently touches the leaves of his bamboo plant, and reminds himself to water her tomorrow. 

“You keep flowers?” Jisung says, frowning at the large container with pale pink cosmos. He arches an eyebrow at Minho. “You don’t seem like the type.”

“Judgemental,” Minho says, and he’s smirking, partly at his own wit.

“Touche,” he starts looking around the living space, head tilting back at the high ceiling, then slowly down again, settling on the bamboo at Minho’s side, “and you have house plants,” he’s moving now, head tilted as he reads the titles of the books on his bookshelves, his slender fingers caressing their spines, “you read,” he’s at the kitchen now, fingers walking over his cookbooks, “and you like to cook?”

“Stop compiling your list,” Minho pushes his hands into his pockets. He’s not used to this. Not used to being assessed in this way. Any previous acquaintances he’s had over before were in the bedroom and gone the next morning. They didn’t have time to analyse. Minho preferred it that way.

And Jisung smiles. It’s not the smile Minho has become familiar with, the flirtatious half-smile, it’s an unguarded gummy-grin and it is like sunshine. If Minho thought his smile was pretty before, then this, this is fucking gorgeous. He’s pretty impressed with himself that he hasn’t crossed the room to seize hold of that forbidden waist. You brought him here so he could get cleaned up. Nothing more. You missed that chance.

“And… you have a cat?” Jisung lifts a box of kibble, brandishing it as evidence.

“Soonie,” Minho says automatically.

“Soonie-Soonie-Soonie,” Jisung coos.

“You’re wasting your breath he doesn’t come when—” there’s a tinkle of a bell, small curious cat chirps and Soonie trots out of the bedroom. He merely glances at Minho like, ‘oh, you’re here,’ before trotting over to Jisung, tail in the air.

 The traitorous little shit!

“Oh hi!” Jisung croons as he crouches down into an impossibly small shape, his knees level with his shoulders, his arse almost touching the tiled floor. Minho resolves to not think about Jisungs flexibility. In fact, he is not thinking about it at all. Is absolutely not thinking about it. And he’s definitely not tilting his head at how curvaceous Jisung’s arse is either. He is, though, wondering why someone so fucking pretty, wears ridiculous socks inside combat boots. Although the heels of them are very close to that arse– 

No, no. We are not thinking about that, Minho straightens up.

 Jisung holds out his right hand and allows Soonie to sniff it. “I know, I’m all dirty aren’t I?” Soonie rubs his chin against Jisung’s fingers. Purrs. Like, actually fucking purrs, for someone who is essentially a stranger. The little cat whore. In the thirteen years Minho has had him, he has never, not once, shown a modicum of interest in another human. It’s the one thing they have always had in common. Or so he thought.

Minho makes use of Jisung’s distraction and heads to his bedroom. He removes his jacket and tosses it onto the white bedspread, flicks on a bedside lamp, puts his phone on charge whilst he unbuckles his holster and drops it into the bedside draw. Retrieves the bloodied brass knuckles and drops them in there too.

In the adjoining bathroom, he washes his bloodied hands and face. Grabs an armful of soft white towels from the linen cupboard and sets them on a stool beside the shower. 

Back in the bedroom he pulls a black t-shirt and a pair of grey sweatpants from his wardrobe and sets them on the bed. He drops a pair of boring white ankle socks on top of them. Considers offering up a pair of boxers, but thinks that could be viewed as a bit weird, or is it weirder not offering underwear? Isn’t it weirder to expect him to freeball in a pair of your sweats?

He is still debating when Jisung appears at the bedroom door, Soonie curled in his arms, tail swishing lazily. “You okay?”

Minho blinks. Whether he’s blinking at Soonie contentedly letting a stranger hold him, or at how lovely he looks in Jisung’s arms, or how lovely Jisung looks holding him, he’s not entirely sure. But there’s something… like a déjà vu level of familiarity. He blinks several times. “Uh, yeah. I think these might be a bit big for you, but they’re clean,” he gestures to the small pile of clothes at the foot of his bed. “There’s fresh towels in the bathroom too, if you want to take a shower?”

Jisung smiles warmly, allowing Soonie to jump from his arms onto the bed. Strokes the length of him, from the top of his head to the tip of his tail, Soonie arching into his touch. “Thank you,” Jisung says as he lifts the clothes. 

“No problem,” Minho says, returning to his wardrobe to find a change for himself, or to shield himself from Jisung. He unclasps his cufflinks, sets them in his jewellery tray. He hears Jisung step into the bathroom and lock the door. Until this moment, Minho didn’t know his bathroom door had a lock. He’d never had cause to lock it himself and certainly never had anyone here long enough, let alone use his shower…

He’s still fumbling with the buttons of his shirt when he hears the shower running and tries very hard not to think about Jisung in there. Naked. The water trailing over is skin, down his back, that waist, that arse–

Giving up on the remaining buttons, he wrenches his blood-spattered shirt over his head, drops it into the wash basket and rounds on Soonie, “Explain yourself.”

Soonie sits on the bed, looks up at him and tilts his head, like, ‘What?’

“You know what I’m on about,” Minho hisses at him.

Soonie chirps in a manner that suggests that he doesn’t know and his actions have been nothing but ordinary. He licks his paw as though he’s making a point.

“You’re a traitor,” Minho says but scritches him under the chin because he’s too fucking cute, even when he’s behaving like a twat. 

Minho changes quickly into a pair of navy sweats and a black tank top. Shoves his jacket and trousers into a separate basket he uses for dry cleaning. Gently squeezes Soonie’s ear as he passes.

Barefooted, he pads out into the kitchen, inspects his cupboards and the fridge. Realises that he’s woefully understocked, decides that omelettes will have to do. 

He’s dishing up when Jisung reappears, looking completely alien and incredibly attractive. Minho’s t-shirt looks oversized on him, the baggy sleeves reaching past his elbows. All the makeup he’d been wearing is gone, revealing a beauty mark on his left cheek and softening the roundness of his dark brown eyes. His damp hair is curling at the ends. If it wasn’t for the cut lip, Minho would think this was an entirely different person. Mentally, he ticks off the Jisungs he’s met this evening. Sexy Jisung. Fighter Jisung. Effortlessly attractive Jisung. 

Look at you, making a list. Seungmo would be proud.

Jisung’s holding a bundle of clothes in his arms, “Do you have a shopping or trash bag I can put these in?”

Minho sets the frying pan down, sucks some sauce off his thumb, “Give them here,” he takes them from Jisung, stoops down, shoves the jeans, tank top, boxers (tries not to think about Jisung going commando) and offensive socks into the washer-dryer, and inspects the shirt. Pure silk. He takes it to the sink, drops it in the basin, and starts running cold water. Returns to the machine, adds detergent, kicks the door closed, sets the cycle. Adds some detergent to the basin, turns off the water. Lifts the frying pan and finishes plating his own dinner, “Why are you looking at me like that?”

Jisung is sitting at the breakfast counter, chin resting on one palm, his smile very warm, or, at least, making Minho’s ears very warm. “You’re very domesticated.”

Minho scoffs, pushes a plate towards him, “Eat up before it gets cold.”

He pours them each a glass of grape soda, and they eat in silence, forks clinking against plates. Minho, leaning on the counter across from Jisung, can't help glancing at him every so often. He looks like a squirrel eating sunflower seeds. It’s really cute.

Cute. Where did the hot and sexy Jisung from only a few hours ago disappear to? When had he ever considered anyone or anything, other than his cat, as cute?

How many Jisungs is that, now?

“That was amazing,” Jisung says, pushing his plate away.

“It’s only an omelette,” Minho says, but he’s pleased.

“It was a brilliant omelette. I could eat that everyday. And the ham and cheese in it,” he kisses his fingers. “Perfect.”

“You want more?”

“No, thank you, I’m full,” he pulls his phone out of his pocket. The screen is spider webbed with cracks, but the screen is on and it looks, in part, functional. Minho can’t believe it’s already nearly three in the morning. 

“Do you need to call someone?” Minho asks, as he pushes his own plate to the side, “Let them know you're okay or…”

Jisung laughs heartlessly, “They wouldn’t notice if I went missing for a week, let alone one night,” he pushes his phone back into his pocket. “Thanks for the offer though.”

Minho watches him for a moment. He wants to ask a question. But he doesn’t ask questions… he doesn’t have interest in people outside of his very small, very private circle… and yet, “Why wouldn’t they notice?”

“I’m probably being unfair,” he shrugs with one shoulder, “my brothers would probably notice that I wasn’t about, but my mum,” he shakes his head, “I don’t think she’d miss me unless my absence was an inconvenience to her.”

“Same, with my old man,” Minho says absently. “As for my brothers, they’d probably be glad to see the back of me for a week.”

Jisung grins that wide, dorky, gummy-grin and the room brightens tenfold. “How many brothers do you have?”

Minho thinks about this. The honest answer is none, his father would say Minho is one of twelve. The real answer is, “Three. That I count.”

“Huh, same,” Jisung giggles. “Older?”

“No, I’m the eldest.”

“Ah, that explains it.” Jisung leans back on the bar stool, arms folded across his chest, the action causes the collar of the t-shirt to drop a little lower and Minho can see the hollow at the base of his throat. The suggestion of a collar bone.

“Explains what?”

“Why you are so domesticated.”

Minho chuckles, “Based on that assessment, I’m guessing you’re a middle child.”

“Fuck you.”

“Am I wrong?” he arches an eyebrow. 

“No. But still, fuck you.”

Grinning smugly, Minho stacks the plates and brings them to the sink. Sets them down and lifts the shirt from the cold water, “I think this might be ruin—” his sentence is cut off by a pair of arms encircling his waist and the warmth of lips pressing against the back of his neck. 

His breath hitches, because it feels… familiar. He wants to sink into it. Sigh against it. Savour it.

Why does this feel so good? Is it because Minho has been resisting for so long? How long has it been? An hour? Two? A fucking lifetime.

“It’s okay if you don’t want to,” Jisung says, lips still hovering over his skin, arms still wrapped around his waist, the tips of his fingers stroking the fabric of his tank top. “Just tell me to stop.”

Are you really going to ask him to stop when you’ve waited so long?

Minho lets the shirt fall back into the basin. Twisting round in his arms, Minho pushes his fingers through Jisung’s damp curls. His hair is exactly how Minho had fantasised it would feel: soft and lush and thick. And his eyes, fuck. There’s a whole world in those large and beautiful brown eyes of his. 

He tips his head, meeting Jisung’s lips with his own, feather soft as to not aggravate Jisung’s cut lip, and Jisung is kissing him back, soft and long and slow and lazily. It’s like a walk in the park on a sunny Sunday afternoon, and polar opposite to how he’d imagined this would be all those nights he’d laid in his bed imagining it. A month of nights…

“Hmm,” Jisung smiles against his lips. “You’re restraining yourself.”

Unbidden, Minho barks out a laugh because it’s too fucking true. Jisung’s fully grinning now, that silly, dorky grin. Minho’s new favourite. 

“You’re hurt,” Minho let’s his thumb trace the outline of Jisung’s bottom lip.

“I meant what I said before,” Jisung’s breath ghosts Minho’s lips. “Anything,” he says and the word travels down and down and Jisung’s hands are chasing the word, seizing hold of Minho’s hips, pulling his pelvis to his. Grinning again when he can very obviously feel Minho’s desire, and Minho’s smiling back, because he can feel Jisung’s. “Anything.” Jisung says again and his lips are on Minho’s and it’s deep and uncontrolled, their lips sliding and scraping against the other and it’s messy and it’s different from Minho’s fantasies, because this is everything and so much more than his mind could conjure. Jisung pulls against Minho’s push until he is pinned against the breakfast bar, caged between Minho’s arms, and his hands are in Minho’s hair and on his back and his hips and seemingly everywhere and he’s kissing that magical spot below Minho’s ear. 

“I’ll… break you,” Minho hisses, gripping the counter as Jisung scrapes his teeth in the same spot. 

“I’m stronger than I look,” Minho can feel the smile against his neck. “I fought six guys at once.”

New turn-on: unlocked.

“Yeah you fucking did,” Minho says, grabbing a fistful of Jisung’s hair, pulling his head back, exposing his neck. He can feel Jisung's pulse hammering against his tongue and Jisung groans, stretching his head back further, allowing Minho to taste him and inhale that earthy scent of his. Minho’s hands slide down his ribs, to his waist, that forbidden, grabbable waist and it fits perfectly between his thumb and fingers. Minho pulls back to admire his hands gripping it, his thumbs and fingers caressing. He momentarily considers that it’s Jisung who will do the breaking. Because this, all this, is fucking killing him. 

“Take me to bed,” Jisung says and his voice is like velvet, smooth forwards and rough back and Minho slides his hands down over the curve of Jisung's arse to the back of his thighs, pulls him up into his arms. He’s not exactly light, but he’s far from heavy and when Jisung wraps his legs around his waist, grips his shoulders, it only makes it easier. They kiss as Minho carries him to the bedroom, lays him back on the bed, hands sliding over fabric, then under it and Jisung’s skin is smooth, and hard, and soft and warm and Jisung is arching up and into him, making pretty little whimpers—then his eyes fly open and he seizes hold of Minho’s wandering hands. “Wait!”

Minho stops immediately, “I’m sorry, are you— what’s wrong?”

“Where’s Soonie?”

“Soonie?” Minho repeats, the blood supply needed to comprehend what Jisung is saying is directed decisively elsewhere. “My cat?”

“Yes,” and Jisung’s cheeks are reddening. “I can’t — I can’t do this with Soonie in here.”

Minho can’t control the smile that leaps to his face. It’s the cutest thing he’s ever fucking heard. 

Sexy. Fighter. Attractive. Cute. Adorable. 

Chuckling, he rolls off the bed, “Soonie?”

A gravelly purr emanates from the wash basket, and Soonie blinks at him in a manner that says, ‘Who dares disturb my slumber.’

Minho pets him, scoops him up and carries him out to the living room. Sets him on a blanket on the couch, pats his head, “Sorry pal.”

The responding cat chirp sounds a lot like, ‘fuck you’, which is perfectly justifiable.

Still chuckling quietly to himself at the absurdity, Minho returns to the bedroom, closes the bedroom door, turns and hesitates. Jisung smiles warmly up at him from the centre of his bed. His cheeks are flushed, his lips red and swollen, his golden skin seeming to glow against the white of the sheets. He looks so small and so fucking beautiful. Minho crawls up onto the bed to lie beside him and Jisung rolls onto his side to face him and for a minute, Minho allows himself to just look. 

Look at how, his curls fall lazily and elegantly over his brow and into his eyes. How his brown eyes appear almost black and still emanate light. How his soft round cheeks blend into the sharp edge of his jawline. How his narrow top lip is all angles, whilst his bottom lip is a curvaceous invitation. Jisung’s face is all juxtapositions. None of it should work together, but it’s truly beautiful.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Jisung whines, bringing his hand up to cover his face.

Minho smiles, gently pulls his hand away, “You said, ‘anything’.”

Something in Jisung’s eyes soften and his hand slots around the nape of Minho’s neck and he kisses him.

Minho allows himself to be kissed whatever way Jisung wants it, which just so happens to be how Minho wants it. It’s a sunset kiss. A twilight kiss. Deep and longing. Their hands move slowly, pressing and pulling. After seconds or a lifetime, but too short, Jisung pulls away, tugging at the hem of Minho’s tank top, pulling it over his head. Minho makes light work of Jisung’s own t-shirt, and Jisung has a fucking chest tattoo on the right side, and his pecs and abdominal muscles look like you could skip stones off them and… he’s bruised. There are noticeable red and blue marks, the size of fists down the left side of his chest and Minho’s breath catches. God help me if I ever see those men again…

“I’m okay,” Jisung says gently, taking Minho’s hand and holding his palm against his bruised ribs. Minho can feel the heat of his skin, the texture of his ribs moving beneath his hand. “Really, it doesn’t hurt all that much.”

Still holding his hand against him, Jisung kisses him into the pillows and Minho pulls him down with him. He traces the red and black tattoo with his fingers, then with his tongue, Jisung humming appreciation at his ear before biting gently on his earlobe. “More,” he says, as his hand slides beneath the waistband of Minho’s sweatpants and the elastic of his boxers, fingers digging into the flesh of Minho’s arse. Minho returns the action in kind, smiling against Jisung’s groaning mouth.

Now Jisung is sliding Minho’s joggers and boxers down, tossing them off to the side, then his sweats and the socks and they are both naked, their legs scissoring, hands and feet caressing. Minho lets his hands trace Jisung’s outlines, carving the shape of him into his mind, memorising how the curve of Jisung's waist fits under his palm. How his dark hair falls forward over his face. How his full bottom lip curls and his top lip dips. 

Jisung’s hand slides down over Minho’s abdominal muscles and lower—

“Fuck,” Minho hisses through his teeth, as Jisung’s fingers encircle him. Every muscle and tendon in his body tightens, his fingers pressing into Jisung’s waist. Jisung hums, his lips are at that spot beneath Minho’s ear, melting his insides. 

He reaches for Jisung, but Jisung pins his hand against the bed, their fingers interlacing. “Not yet,” Jisung’s voice has a dangerous edge. And again Minho’s mind reels: Sexy. Fighter. Attractive. Adorable. Dangerous Jisung. “I said I would make you beg.”

Yes. Yes you did. And…fuck… I might. Minho fights to stay here. He shuts his eyes, gripping Jisung’s hand and fisting at the sheets with the other.

“Look at me,” Jisung says and Minho obeys and it’s a big fucking mistake. Jisung is a pleasurable assault on his senses. His lip curled in a smirk. His dark eyes sparkling. His hand doing…fucking incredible things and if he doesn’t stop it now, he’s going to have to beg. With a roll of his hips, he flips Jisung onto his back, pinning Jisung’s legs down with his own, capturing Jisung’s wrists with one hand. Jisung’s eyes are round and wide at the sudden reversal, but he’s smiling, his pink tongue at the corner of his lips. Minho smiles darkly down at him, makes use of his advantage (and his ambidexterity), his free hand sliding down… Jisung arches off the bed, a red lip caught between white teeth. Slowly, Minho releases his wrists, kisses him into the mattress whilst Jisung’s fingers dig into his shoulders.

Slowly, Minho backs off from him, retreating towards the foot of the bed, lips and tongue tracing his jawline, his neck, his chest, his belly button and Jisung’s fingers are in his hair, watching Minho who is retreating further and lower, tracing kisses inside his thighs. And he looks up the length of Jisung, their eyes locking, tongue and lips teasing–

“Those fucking eyelashes,” Jisung swears throwing his head back when Minho takes him in. Jisung groans softly, chewing his lip as he watches Minho. His thighs trembling under Minho’s fingers whilst his own knot in Minho’s hair and the litany of curses that spill from Jisung are enough to consecrate the room. “Holy mother of–” Jisung’s fingers are pulling Minho’s hair, and he’s sitting up and bringing Minho’s lips back to his, in a crushing kiss that must be painful on his cut lip, “Irino, I need you.”

Irino. Something about the way Jisung contracts his name makes Minho momentarily giddy. I need you. Drives him wild. “Are you begging?”

“Stop being a fucking tease!”

Minho arches an eyebrow at him. Biting Jisung’s lip and dragging it through his teeth. And the sound that escapes Jisung’s mouth is particularly pleasurable.

“Irino, please,” Jisung says, pressing his lips against Minho’s. Kissing him deeply, hungrily, desperately.

Are you really going to prolong your own suffering? Blindly, Minho fumbles in the bedside drawer amongst his leather holster. He pulls back from Jisung to tear the foil open with his teeth. Jisung, huffing impatiently, snatches it from him, rolls the condom on him, and even that action makes Minho moan. 

Jisung lies back against the pillows, lifting his knees as Minho lines himself up and slowly pushes into him and he’s hissing through his teeth because Jisung is so fucking perfect and arching off the bed, groaning pleasurably and again he’s fighting to maintain himself. Resist a little longer. Give Jisung time to adjust. Inch by blissful inch.

Slowly, they move together, their bodies seemingly, instinctively knowing what the other wants, what the other needs, as though they had done this before in a past life, on another timeline, in an alternate universe. Soon, Jisung digs his fingers into Minho’s hips, encouraging him to move, pulling him deeper and he looks so fucking pretty beneath him, lips parted, his eyes burning darkly up at him, sweat beading around his temples, “You’re not–going to–break me,” Jisung pants, and for a fleeting moment, Minho believes him, believes that he’s unbreakable and his entire body rolls at the words and Jisung gasps, fingers knotting in Minho’s hair, a sound like a growl escapes his own lips when Jisung pushes against his thrust. “Oh! Uh-huh–yes, like that–just–like–that–”

Oh he can fucking take it. Minho stretches forward, kisses him with teeth, swallowing Jisung’s groans which are growing louder with every thrust. Minho kisses over his jawline, down his neck, to his collarbone and back up to his ear, “Let me hear you.”

“Irino.”

Fuck, just the sound of his name is undoing him. Driving him.

“Irino,” Jisung groans and he’s calling to some part deep inside Minho. Some part of his soul. Calling to another Minho in a past life, on a different timeline, in that alternate universe. “My Irino.”

My. “Ji—fuck—” Minho grinds out as Jisung wraps his legs around Minho’s thighs, pulling him closer, urging him deeper, moving him faster, his hands slipping over Minho’s back, fingers digging, breath quickening.

“Irino!”

“Ji— I’m going to—”

“Look at me,” Jisung cups Minho’s head in his hands, fingers digging into his hair, arching up, his mouth parting and eyes watering and he looks like fucking heaven and Minho is trembling and groaning back and seeing stars but they aren’t stars, it’s the whole fucking universe, past, different and fucking alternate in Jisung’s eyes before they coalesce and become a single point of blinding light.

Boneless, Minho collapses forward against Jisung's sticky chest. He listens to the sound of Jisung’s breath, his too quick heart beat.

His giggling.

“What’s funny?” Minho asks, utilising his remaining strength to push himself up and look down at Jisung.

“Nothing,” Jisung kisses him again and again.

Sexy. Fighter. Attractive. Adorable. Dangerous. Great in bed. Minho thinks, giggling against Jisung's hair.

♤ ♡ ♢ ♧

They shower together.

It’s not sexual, but very sensual. And it’s new. Minho has never done anything like this with anyone before. Has never wanted to until Jisung had made the suggestion. He takes his time lathering shower gel into Jisung’s skin. He’s being particularly gentle over his ribs, which are more purple than red now. Smiles when Jisung giggles, “Not there! I’m ticklish.”

Jisung gently massages shampoo into Minho’s hair in between kisses and giggles. It’s odd, just how much Minho is enjoying this. Enjoying the closeness. Enjoying Jisung.

When they step out of the bathroom, hair dripping, towels around their waists, Minho pulls the top sheet off the bed, drops it into the wash basket and Jisung crosses the room to the bedroom door, pulls it open, “Where’s the beautiful boy?”

‘That’s me,’ Soonie chirps as he trots to Jisung, arching against his legs, bell tinkling. ‘I’m here.’

What the fuck is wrong with my cat? 

Jisung scoops him up, carries him over to the bed. “I’m so sorry we kicked you out.” Jisung croons, “I know. We’re mean, aren’t we? Yes.”

“You’re mean,” Minho corrects, lying on the bed and scratching Soonie under the chin. Mimicking Jisung’s condescending tone, “You were all cosy before you got evicted.”

Jisung narrows his eyes down at Minho, “I’m certain that everything that just happened would have been traumatic for the poor boy.”

Minho chews his smile, “He still heard us, Ji.”

And there it is, that pleasant shade of pink spreading up Jisung’s neck and settling around his cheeks. 

Jisung kneels up onto the bed, lays down with Soonie between them. Soonie languishes in the attention he’s receiving from them both. Jisung’s fingers buried in the softness of his orange and white fur, his knuckles purpling and swollen. Minho traces them with his thumb, “Where did you learn to fight like that?”

“I just kind of had to,” Jisung shrugs. “I’ve always been sort of scrappy. If there’s one thing I know, it’s that, to survive, you have to fight.”

If you want something. Fight for it. Fight for it and win. It’s a lesson his Father had beaten into him from an early age.

“I hope the girl is okay,” Jisung says. A small furrow forming on his brow.

Minho cups his head, leans forward, kisses it gently. “I’m sure she’s being well looked after.”

The furrow melts away.

“You can fight too,” Jisung says. “Boxing?”

“Hmm, and mixed martial arts.”

Jisung’s fingers trace the ragged line on his bicep, “You have a lot of scars,” he says. “Who hurt you?”

“That’s from a broken bottle,” he tells him. “I was trying to break up a fight.” He chooses to leave out the part where he’d started and finished it.

“And this?” Jisung caresses the pink scar beneath his left collar bone that his brother Felix gave him after a particularly rowdy night and an honest to goodness misunderstanding. 

“Broken pool cue.”

“And this?” Jisung’s knuckles brush the long thin scar below his diaphragm.

“I don’t actually know about that one. I’ve had it for as long as I can remember.”

“Hasn’t your father told you?”

“He doesn’t know either. I, um… I’m adopted,” he surprises himself by saying this out loud. He’s not ashamed of it. It’s just something he chooses not to tell people. “So my medical history from before is a little vague.”

Something flickers over Jisung’s eyes, but it’s gone and he’s speaking before Minho gets the opportunity to try and understand the look. “Your brothers?”

“We’re all adopted, but I love them as if they are brothers,” he smirks, knowing that whilst this is true, his brothers would vehemently deny that Minho is capable of such affection. “Blood is thicker than water, after all.”

Jisung grins widely at him, “You are probably the first person I’ve heard use that in the correct way,” his eyes burn, and he leans forward, kisses Minho who kisses back and their hands are quickening, fingers digging, towels slipping and—

Meow. 

Jisung pulls away giggling. Minho is less than amused. 

“I’m sorry!” Jisung says, leaning back and petting Soonie, “Are you feeling left out?” he plants a kiss on the top of Soonie’s head. Soonie purrs happily. Little cat cock blocker.

Minho settles down against the pillows. Outside, the sun is rising and the morning twilight plays with Jisung’s soft features. Minho thinks he’s probably the most beautiful man in this, or any other world, past, present or alternate. 

Jisung glances at him, smiles, “What are you looking at?”

“Nothing,” it comes out like a sigh. Minho traces the black and red circle with a white star radiating from the centre. “Tell me about this.”

Jisung smiles, “My broken compass?”

And now Minho can see it, the points for north, east, south and west, but the letters at these points are different; S-T-A-Y. “Why’s it broken?”

“Have you seen Pirates of the Caribbean?”

“No,” Minho says.

“Well, shame on you. You should watch it. It’s a whole thing,” his smile is teasingly beautiful. “But my broken compass is a reminder. A reminder that I’m never really lost. That I’m not really astray. That I can always find myself, if I rely on what my heart is telling me.”

Whatever Minho had envisioned the answer to be, this was not it. He feels a bubble rise in his chest, and poking curiously at it, realises that it’s sadness. He feels sad that Jisung has ever felt astray. He cups Jisung's face, lets his thumb caress his cheek, “Stay with me a little longer?”

Smiling, Jisung cups Minho’s hand with his own, and lays down. “Okay.”

♤ ♡ ♢ ♧

Minho wakes to sunlight blinding him. South facing windows are great and all, except at midday when you’ve had less than four hours sleep. He flinches back from it, rolls away, hand reaching across the bed finding it empty. Usually, finding that his previous nights fuck toy has scarpered fills him with relief. So he’s a little surprised and wary of the hollowness sitting in his chest at Jisung’s absence. Or is it the absence of Jisung? Whichever it is, he’s not particularly fond of the feeling.

Distantly, in the fog of his sleepy brain, he’s aware that Soonie isn’t glaring at him from the bedside table or neighbouring pillow, bopping his nose with an angry paw demanding breakfast, which is his usual morning alarm. He rolls onto his back and drops his forearm over his eyes, listens to the sound of the hum of the traffic and a television. No, not a television. He removes his arm, sits up on his elbows, stares at his open bedroom door. It’s definitely his television.

He rolls out of bed, pulling on last night's sweatpants and pads barefooted and bare chested into his living room.

Jisung is sitting cross legged on the couch, wearing his laundered tank top and jeans and hideous socks and eating a triangle of jammy toast. Soonie is curled into a ball on his lap and they are both staring at the television. On the screen, a pretty woman is talking to a prettier man and after only thirty seconds of listening to them, horror settles into his stomach, it’s one of those fucking dating shows. “You’ve got to be kidding me? You watch this shit?”

“Shush,” Jisung says, waving his toast at him in a gesture to be quiet. Which is fucking cheeky since he’s sitting in Minho’s home. Or fucking cute. By the way Jisung nibbles on his toast, his eyes large and fixed on the screen, Minho leans towards cute, but he’s adding cheeky to his list. “I’ve been waiting for three weeks for him to finally confess to her.”

“Confess what?” Minho folds his arms across his chest, “That it’s a terrible idea to talk about their love life on national television?”

“Shush!” Jisung hisses.

Feeling scolded and chuckling quietly to himself, Minho ruffles Jisung’s hair as he pads over to the kitchen, or what had been his kitchen. The carnage remaining from Jisung making toast is a wonder to behold. It’s amazing there’s any jam on his toast, since a large quantity of it seems to be everywhere else. He’d clearly tried to wash the previous night’s dishes, but didn’t know where to put anything so had them teetering dangerously on the sink. But there’s coffee brewing in the pot, so that’s something. He steps on something hard, curses as he hops on one foot, inspects the other to find a cat biscuit there. Glances down at Soonie’s overflowing bowl.

“YES!” Jisung says. “Tell her! Tell her!”

Meoooow, Soonie agrees.

‘The thing is…’ the handsome man on screen is saying. ‘I never stopped loving you.’

Minho rolls his eyes, pours himself a mug of coffee.

“YES!” Jisung bounces on the couch, hands in the air. Soonie leaps away from him and scampers into the bedroom as Jisung claps his hands. “Finally!”

Music is playing now, the dramatic-romantic type as the camera focuses on the pretty woman’s disbelieving face and then the credits roll. Jisung vaults over the back of the couch, his smile wide and fucking adorable. He does a little happy skip, his fists like paws at his side. “He finally told her.”

“I gathered,” Minho can’t help smiling at him around his coffee mug. 

Jisung plants a kiss on his cheek, “Good afternoon.”

“Afternoon,” Minho replies, setting his mug down so he can wrap his arms around Jisung’s waist. Honestly, his arms are made for this. “Hmm.”

Jisung grins at him, but pulls away and covers his mouth when Minho leans forward for a kiss. “I haven’t brushed my teeth.”

“Neither have I,” Minho says, pulling Jisung closer, breathing on him.

“Oh my lord,” Jisung whines, nose wrinkling as he tries to wriggle free.

Minho plants a quick chaste kiss against Jisung’s lips and at once he stops wriggling, begins melting in Minho’s arms, his hands encircling Minho’s neck, pulling him down, kissing him deeply, and he tastes like strawberries, moaning against Minho’s lips. After seconds that might have been hours, Jisung pulls away. His cheeks are that pretty shade of pink, “Well, that was disgusting.”

“Uh-huh,” Minho says, kissing him once more before letting him go.

Jisung leans back against the breakfast bar, “I fed Soonie.”

“I see that.”

“I wasn’t sure how much to give him.”

“I see that too,” Minho tickles Jisung under his chin. “Good effort.”

Giggling, Jisung rabbit punches his shoulder. Hugs himself. “I don’t suppose you have a jumper or something I could borrow? My shirt’s outside, but it’s still damp.”

“Of course, are you cold?”

“No, not cold, I just, I er, don’t really like my arms out, on show.”

Minho arches an eyebrow at him, “You don’t like your arms?”

“I just don’t feel comfortable.”

Sexy. Fighter. Attractive. Adorable. Dangerous. Great in bed. Cheeky. Shy. 

Minho kisses the top of his head, “For the record, you have very sexy arms,” he says, stepping round Jisung and heading to his room. At the very top of his wardrobe he finds an old, hooded jumper in dark grey, with two white wings on the back. “Is this okay? It’ll be massive on you.”

“It’s cute, thanks,” Jisung says, pulling it over his head, the sleeves hanging low over his hands. And Minho sees the way Jisung’s shoulders relax under the fabric. 

“Better?”

“Much,” Jisung smiles at him.

There is the sound of a phone vibrating. Minho automatically glances at his bedside table where his phone is on charge, but it’s still and silent. 

Jisung pulls his own from the front pocket of his jeans, his face hardens as he scowls at the broken screen, and ends the call. 

“You okay?”

“Yeah, I’m—for fuck’s sake,” he ends the second call. “I have to go.”

“Do you need a lift? I could drive—”

“No. No, that’s not necessary.”

His phone rings for a third time and Minho’s seeing the tightness in his shoulders return. “Do you need to get that? I can leave—”

“No. They can wait,” Jisung steps forward, cups Minho’s head and pulls him down for a kiss and the kiss is going places when his fucking phone starts ringing again. “Fuck, I’m sorry.” Jisung ends the call again. “I had a wonderful time last night.” He looks Minho in the eye, pushing strands of hair away from Minho’s forehead. “A really wonderful time.”

“Me too,” Minho says, allowing his hands to rub circles over Jisung's back. Feels his muscles tense when his phone rings again.

“I really have to go,” he steps back, pets Soonie on the head and stoops down to kiss the spot between his ears. “Be good, beautiful boy.”

Soonie chirps, ‘I will’.

Why are you lying? Minho thinks.

“Ji?” Minho follows him out of the bedroom, Jisung is already at the main door, pulling on his boots, not bothering to tie his laces, just shoving the loose ends inside them. Groaning loudly when his phone starts ringing again. “Ji?”

Jisung shakes his head, unlatches the door, but Minho slaps his palm against it, slamming it shut. 

“Ji, look at me.” 

Jisung takes a shaky breath, looks. His eyes are damp. Any joy he’d had only five minutes ago has been expunged by the person trying to call him. Minho feels a visceral loathing of the person on the other end of those calls. He thumbs a tear from Jisung's cheek, “Who’s trying to call you?”

“It’s no-one,” Jisung lies terribly, which isn’t necessarily a bad trait.

“Your boyfriend?” It makes sense, in the moment, though the word burns in his chest. “Girlfriend?” he hedges, remembering the red and blue girls from the club.

“No,” Jisung smiles tiredly at him, “Nothing like that, it’s,” he sighs, “it’s my brother.”

“Oh, okay,” Minho hears the sound of relief in his own voice. “Are you okay?”

His nose wrinkles as he shakes his head. 

Minho’s unsure who kisses who first but they are kissing, Jisung pinned against the door, his leg around the back of Minho’s thigh, pulling him in, and closer, his hands flattening over Minho’s chest, up and over his shoulders, into his hair and his fucking phone starts ringing again.

“Tell him to fuck off,” Minho growls against Jisungs mouth.

Jisung giggles, dropping his foot back to the floor and gently detaching Minho’s hands from his waist. “I have to go,” he says as he wrenches the door open. Hesitates on the threshold. “Can I call you?”

“You fucking better,” Minho says and Jisung kisses his cheek quickly before he flees out of the door, jogs towards the elevator, takes the stairs. 

Minho closes the door, walks to his windows, heaves one open and steps out onto the narrow balcony. The sun is heating his skin, but his feet are cold on the concrete. He watches and he waits, and finally he sees Jisung, hood over his head, phone pressed to his ear, jogging lightly across the street, flagging down a taxi and scrambling into the back of it. Minho watches as the taxi rolls down the road and disappears around a corner. 

Palming the back of his neck, Minho turns to head back inside when he spots Jisung’s shirt, draped over the back of a chair. He lifts it, carries it inside. 

Purr? Soonie is pacing in front of the door, sniffing the spot where Jisung’s boots had been.

“He’s away,” Minho tells him. “Don’t look at me in that tone.”

Soonie sits down and continues to scowl at Minho as if he was the one who made him leave.

Minho flops onto the couch, idly feeling the smooth silk of Jisung’s shirt between his fingers. He glances up at the television showing icons of several shows of happy, smiling, pretty heterosexuals and the words: Because you watched Exchange: you might also like…

“No I fucking wouldn’t,” Minho says reaching for the remote and turning the television off. 

Jisung: Sexy. Fighter. Attractive. Adorable. Dangerous. Great in bed. Cheeky. Shy. Algorithm wrecker.

“Fuck,” Minho sighs dropping his head back. He’d slept with a lot of people in his time… could remember (maybe) some of their names. Could just about recall what they looked like… but here he was able to recite his list of Jisung’s without any issue.

Meow? Soonie says for no reason.

Another Jisung: Cat heart stealer.

“Fuck.”

♢ ♧ If you made it this far, thank you for your support! ♤ ♡ please consider leaving a comment, like or reblog ♤ ♡ ©2024Intrikatie ♢ Ao3 ♧ Quotev ♤ Wattpad ♡

dividers by the talented @firefly-graphics

TASTE M.List & Sypnosis

Chapter 1 - Parley

Chapter 2 - The DLC

Chapter 4 - The Wolf & His Pack

Soonie♡

[somethingkindazainy]

♡ Pairing: Minho x Jisung ♤ Genre: Mafia AU, Romeo x Romeo ♢ Chapter Warnings: foul language throughout, mxm sexual intercourse (suggestive language) ♧ MINORS DNI

♤ ♡ TASTE Synopsis & Chapter List ♢ ♧

<< Chapter 2 - The DLC ♤ ♡ ♢ ♧ Chapter 4 - The Wolf & His Pack >>

Chapter 3: Broken Compass

♤ ♡ ♢ ♧

Minho steps into his apartment and clicks on a lamp on the side table. 

“You live here?” Jisung gawks at him. “But it’s so–”

“Careful.”

“–homey.” Jisung finishes and Minho can’t help but smile at him.

His apartment has a spacious living area, with large panoramic windows, overlooking a stone walled balcony bordered with various shrubs, herbs and flowers, and expensive and expansive views south over the Han River. In the centre of the room, there’s a black leather corner sofa facing a flat screen television on the wall and numerous bookshelves. The kitchen, all white granite and units, takes up one corner of the open planned space, separated by a breakfast bar and two chrome and black leather stools. His bedroom door, off to the side.

Minho slips off his Gucci shoes and sets them in the shoe rack. Hangs his keys on the hook behind the door. He’s about to take off his jacket when he remembers he’s wearing his knife belt on his shoulder and thinks better of it.

Jisung is crouching at his side, unlacing his boots, before he stands and steps out of them. Without them he’s probably an inch shorter than Minho and—

“What on earth are those?”

Jisung looks down to where Minho is pointing. He’s wearing bright pink socks adorned with lime green love hearts. He wiggles his toes. Smiles up at Minho. “Don’t you like them?”

Minho tries to reconcile this Jisung against the one he’d met at the club; the sexy Jisung. Who became the Jisung who fights as well as he does, who in turn wears ridiculous socks inside combat boots.

“The views from up here are insane,” Jisung walks over to the windows. He looks small and beautiful, backlit by the twinkling city skyline beyond. Minho turns on some lamps, bathing the room in warm yellow light and straightens some of the mint-coloured cushions on the couch. Lifts the legal papers he’d been reading from the glass coffee table and secretes them in a sideboard drawer. Absently touches the leaves of his bamboo plant, and reminds himself to water her tomorrow. 

“You keep flowers?” Jisung says, frowning at the large container with pale pink cosmos. He arches an eyebrow at Minho. “You don’t seem like the type.”

“Judgemental,” Minho says, and he’s smirking, partly at his own wit.

“Touche,” he starts looking around the living space, head tilting back at the high ceiling, then slowly down again, settling on the bamboo at Minho’s side, “and you have house plants,” he’s moving now, head tilted as he reads the titles of the books on his bookshelves, his slender fingers caressing their spines, “you read,” he’s at the kitchen now, fingers walking over his cookbooks, “and you like to cook?”

“Stop compiling your list,” Minho pushes his hands into his pockets. He’s not used to this. Not used to being assessed in this way. Any previous acquaintances he’s had over before were in the bedroom and gone the next morning. They didn’t have time to analyse. Minho preferred it that way.

And Jisung smiles. It’s not the smile Minho has become familiar with, the flirtatious half-smile, it’s an unguarded gummy-grin and it is like sunshine. If Minho thought his smile was pretty before, then this, this is fucking gorgeous. He’s pretty impressed with himself that he hasn’t crossed the room to seize hold of that forbidden waist. You brought him here so he could get cleaned up. Nothing more. You missed that chance.

“And… you have a cat?” Jisung lifts a box of kibble, brandishing it as evidence.

“Soonie,” Minho says automatically.

“Soonie-Soonie-Soonie,” Jisung coos.

“You’re wasting your breath he doesn’t come when—” there’s a tinkle of a bell, small curious cat chirps and Soonie trots out of the bedroom. He merely glances at Minho like, ‘oh, you’re here,’ before trotting over to Jisung, tail in the air.

 The traitorous little shit!

“Oh hi!” Jisung croons as he crouches down into an impossibly small shape, his knees level with his shoulders, his arse almost touching the tiled floor. Minho resolves to not think about Jisungs flexibility. In fact, he is not thinking about it at all. Is absolutely not thinking about it. And he’s definitely not tilting his head at how curvaceous Jisung’s arse is either. He is, though, wondering why someone so fucking pretty, wears ridiculous socks inside combat boots. Although the heels of them are very close to that arse– 

No, no. We are not thinking about that, Minho straightens up.

 Jisung holds out his right hand and allows Soonie to sniff it. “I know, I’m all dirty aren’t I?” Soonie rubs his chin against Jisung’s fingers. Purrs. Like, actually fucking purrs, for someone who is essentially a stranger. The little cat whore. In the thirteen years Minho has had him, he has never, not once, shown a modicum of interest in another human. It’s the one thing they have always had in common. Or so he thought.

Minho makes use of Jisung’s distraction and heads to his bedroom. He removes his jacket and tosses it onto the white bedspread, flicks on a bedside lamp, puts his phone on charge whilst he unbuckles his holster and drops it into the bedside draw. Retrieves the bloodied brass knuckles and drops them in there too.

In the adjoining bathroom, he washes his bloodied hands and face. Grabs an armful of soft white towels from the linen cupboard and sets them on a stool beside the shower. 

Back in the bedroom he pulls a black t-shirt and a pair of grey sweatpants from his wardrobe and sets them on the bed. He drops a pair of boring white ankle socks on top of them. Considers offering up a pair of boxers, but thinks that could be viewed as a bit weird, or is it weirder not offering underwear? Isn’t it weirder to expect him to freeball in a pair of your sweats?

He is still debating when Jisung appears at the bedroom door, Soonie curled in his arms, tail swishing lazily. “You okay?”

Minho blinks. Whether he’s blinking at Soonie contentedly letting a stranger hold him, or at how lovely he looks in Jisung’s arms, or how lovely Jisung looks holding him, he’s not entirely sure. But there’s something… like a déjà vu level of familiarity. He blinks several times. “Uh, yeah. I think these might be a bit big for you, but they’re clean,” he gestures to the small pile of clothes at the foot of his bed. “There’s fresh towels in the bathroom too, if you want to take a shower?”

Jisung smiles warmly, allowing Soonie to jump from his arms onto the bed. Strokes the length of him, from the top of his head to the tip of his tail, Soonie arching into his touch. “Thank you,” Jisung says as he lifts the clothes. 

“No problem,” Minho says, returning to his wardrobe to find a change for himself, or to shield himself from Jisung. He unclasps his cufflinks, sets them in his jewellery tray. He hears Jisung step into the bathroom and lock the door. Until this moment, Minho didn’t know his bathroom door had a lock. He’d never had cause to lock it himself and certainly never had anyone here long enough, let alone use his shower…

He’s still fumbling with the buttons of his shirt when he hears the shower running and tries very hard not to think about Jisung in there. Naked. The water trailing over is skin, down his back, that waist, that arse–

Giving up on the remaining buttons, he wrenches his blood-spattered shirt over his head, drops it into the wash basket and rounds on Soonie, “Explain yourself.”

Soonie sits on the bed, looks up at him and tilts his head, like, ‘What?’

“You know what I’m on about,” Minho hisses at him.

Soonie chirps in a manner that suggests that he doesn’t know and his actions have been nothing but ordinary. He licks his paw as though he’s making a point.

“You’re a traitor,” Minho says but scritches him under the chin because he’s too fucking cute, even when he’s behaving like a twat. 

Minho changes quickly into a pair of navy sweats and a black tank top. Shoves his jacket and trousers into a separate basket he uses for dry cleaning. Gently squeezes Soonie’s ear as he passes.

Barefooted, he pads out into the kitchen, inspects his cupboards and the fridge. Realises that he’s woefully understocked, decides that omelettes will have to do. 

He’s dishing up when Jisung reappears, looking completely alien and incredibly attractive. Minho’s t-shirt looks oversized on him, the baggy sleeves reaching past his elbows. All the makeup he’d been wearing is gone, revealing a beauty mark on his left cheek and softening the roundness of his dark brown eyes. His damp hair is curling at the ends. If it wasn’t for the cut lip, Minho would think this was an entirely different person. Mentally, he ticks off the Jisungs he’s met this evening. Sexy Jisung. Fighter Jisung. Effortlessly attractive Jisung. 

Look at you, making a list. Seungmo would be proud.

Jisung’s holding a bundle of clothes in his arms, “Do you have a shopping or trash bag I can put these in?”

Minho sets the frying pan down, sucks some sauce off his thumb, “Give them here,” he takes them from Jisung, stoops down, shoves the jeans, tank top, boxers (tries not to think about Jisung going commando) and offensive socks into the washer-dryer, and inspects the shirt. Pure silk. He takes it to the sink, drops it in the basin, and starts running cold water. Returns to the machine, adds detergent, kicks the door closed, sets the cycle. Adds some detergent to the basin, turns off the water. Lifts the frying pan and finishes plating his own dinner, “Why are you looking at me like that?”

Jisung is sitting at the breakfast counter, chin resting on one palm, his smile very warm, or, at least, making Minho’s ears very warm. “You’re very domesticated.”

Minho scoffs, pushes a plate towards him, “Eat up before it gets cold.”

He pours them each a glass of grape soda, and they eat in silence, forks clinking against plates. Minho, leaning on the counter across from Jisung, can't help glancing at him every so often. He looks like a squirrel eating sunflower seeds. It’s really cute.

Cute. Where did the hot and sexy Jisung from only a few hours ago disappear to? When had he ever considered anyone or anything, other than his cat, as cute?

How many Jisungs is that, now?

“That was amazing,” Jisung says, pushing his plate away.

“It’s only an omelette,” Minho says, but he’s pleased.

“It was a brilliant omelette. I could eat that everyday. And the ham and cheese in it,” he kisses his fingers. “Perfect.”

“You want more?”

“No, thank you, I’m full,” he pulls his phone out of his pocket. The screen is spider webbed with cracks, but the screen is on and it looks, in part, functional. Minho can’t believe it’s already nearly three in the morning. 

“Do you need to call someone?” Minho asks, as he pushes his own plate to the side, “Let them know you're okay or…”

Jisung laughs heartlessly, “They wouldn’t notice if I went missing for a week, let alone one night,” he pushes his phone back into his pocket. “Thanks for the offer though.”

Minho watches him for a moment. He wants to ask a question. But he doesn’t ask questions… he doesn’t have interest in people outside of his very small, very private circle… and yet, “Why wouldn’t they notice?”

“I’m probably being unfair,” he shrugs with one shoulder, “my brothers would probably notice that I wasn’t about, but my mum,” he shakes his head, “I don’t think she’d miss me unless my absence was an inconvenience to her.”

“Same, with my old man,” Minho says absently. “As for my brothers, they’d probably be glad to see the back of me for a week.”

Jisung grins that wide, dorky, gummy-grin and the room brightens tenfold. “How many brothers do you have?”

Minho thinks about this. The honest answer is none, his father would say Minho is one of twelve. The real answer is, “Three. That I count.”

“Huh, same,” Jisung giggles. “Older?”

“No, I’m the eldest.”

“Ah, that explains it.” Jisung leans back on the bar stool, arms folded across his chest, the action causes the collar of the t-shirt to drop a little lower and Minho can see the hollow at the base of his throat. The suggestion of a collar bone.

“Explains what?”

“Why you are so domesticated.”

Minho chuckles, “Based on that assessment, I’m guessing you’re a middle child.”

“Fuck you.”

“Am I wrong?” he arches an eyebrow. 

“No. But still, fuck you.”

Grinning smugly, Minho stacks the plates and brings them to the sink. Sets them down and lifts the shirt from the cold water, “I think this might be ruin—” his sentence is cut off by a pair of arms encircling his waist and the warmth of lips pressing against the back of his neck. 

His breath hitches, because it feels… familiar. He wants to sink into it. Sigh against it. Savour it.

Why does this feel so good? Is it because Minho has been resisting for so long? How long has it been? An hour? Two? A fucking lifetime.

“It’s okay if you don’t want to,” Jisung says, lips still hovering over his skin, arms still wrapped around his waist, the tips of his fingers stroking the fabric of his tank top. “Just tell me to stop.”

Are you really going to ask him to stop when you’ve waited so long?

Minho lets the shirt fall back into the basin. Twisting round in his arms, Minho pushes his fingers through Jisung’s damp curls. His hair is exactly how Minho had fantasised it would feel: soft and lush and thick. And his eyes, fuck. There’s a whole world in those large and beautiful brown eyes of his. 

He tips his head, meeting Jisung’s lips with his own, feather soft as to not aggravate Jisung’s cut lip, and Jisung is kissing him back, soft and long and slow and lazily. It’s like a walk in the park on a sunny Sunday afternoon, and polar opposite to how he’d imagined this would be all those nights he’d laid in his bed imagining it. A month of nights…

“Hmm,” Jisung smiles against his lips. “You’re restraining yourself.”

Unbidden, Minho barks out a laugh because it’s too fucking true. Jisung’s fully grinning now, that silly, dorky grin. Minho’s new favourite. 

“You’re hurt,” Minho let’s his thumb trace the outline of Jisung’s bottom lip.

“I meant what I said before,” Jisung’s breath ghosts Minho’s lips. “Anything,” he says and the word travels down and down and Jisung’s hands are chasing the word, seizing hold of Minho’s hips, pulling his pelvis to his. Grinning again when he can very obviously feel Minho’s desire, and Minho’s smiling back, because he can feel Jisung’s. “Anything.” Jisung says again and his lips are on Minho’s and it’s deep and uncontrolled, their lips sliding and scraping against the other and it’s messy and it’s different from Minho’s fantasies, because this is everything and so much more than his mind could conjure. Jisung pulls against Minho’s push until he is pinned against the breakfast bar, caged between Minho’s arms, and his hands are in Minho’s hair and on his back and his hips and seemingly everywhere and he’s kissing that magical spot below Minho’s ear. 

“I’ll… break you,” Minho hisses, gripping the counter as Jisung scrapes his teeth in the same spot. 

“I’m stronger than I look,” Minho can feel the smile against his neck. “I fought six guys at once.”

New turn-on: unlocked.

“Yeah you fucking did,” Minho says, grabbing a fistful of Jisung’s hair, pulling his head back, exposing his neck. He can feel Jisung's pulse hammering against his tongue and Jisung groans, stretching his head back further, allowing Minho to taste him and inhale that earthy scent of his. Minho’s hands slide down his ribs, to his waist, that forbidden, grabbable waist and it fits perfectly between his thumb and fingers. Minho pulls back to admire his hands gripping it, his thumbs and fingers caressing. He momentarily considers that it’s Jisung who will do the breaking. Because this, all this, is fucking killing him. 

“Take me to bed,” Jisung says and his voice is like velvet, smooth forwards and rough back and Minho slides his hands down over the curve of Jisung's arse to the back of his thighs, pulls him up into his arms. He’s not exactly light, but he’s far from heavy and when Jisung wraps his legs around his waist, grips his shoulders, it only makes it easier. They kiss as Minho carries him to the bedroom, lays him back on the bed, hands sliding over fabric, then under it and Jisung’s skin is smooth, and hard, and soft and warm and Jisung is arching up and into him, making pretty little whimpers—then his eyes fly open and he seizes hold of Minho’s wandering hands. “Wait!”

Minho stops immediately, “I’m sorry, are you— what’s wrong?”

“Where’s Soonie?”

“Soonie?” Minho repeats, the blood supply needed to comprehend what Jisung is saying is directed decisively elsewhere. “My cat?”

“Yes,” and Jisung’s cheeks are reddening. “I can’t — I can’t do this with Soonie in here.”

Minho can’t control the smile that leaps to his face. It’s the cutest thing he’s ever fucking heard. 

Sexy. Fighter. Attractive. Cute. Adorable. 

Chuckling, he rolls off the bed, “Soonie?”

A gravelly purr emanates from the wash basket, and Soonie blinks at him in a manner that says, ‘Who dares disturb my slumber.’

Minho pets him, scoops him up and carries him out to the living room. Sets him on a blanket on the couch, pats his head, “Sorry pal.”

The responding cat chirp sounds a lot like, ‘fuck you’, which is perfectly justifiable.

Still chuckling quietly to himself at the absurdity, Minho returns to the bedroom, closes the bedroom door, turns and hesitates. Jisung smiles warmly up at him from the centre of his bed. His cheeks are flushed, his lips red and swollen, his golden skin seeming to glow against the white of the sheets. He looks so small and so fucking beautiful. Minho crawls up onto the bed to lie beside him and Jisung rolls onto his side to face him and for a minute, Minho allows himself to just look. 

Look at how, his curls fall lazily and elegantly over his brow and into his eyes. How his brown eyes appear almost black and still emanate light. How his soft round cheeks blend into the sharp edge of his jawline. How his narrow top lip is all angles, whilst his bottom lip is a curvaceous invitation. Jisung’s face is all juxtapositions. None of it should work together, but it’s truly beautiful.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Jisung whines, bringing his hand up to cover his face.

Minho smiles, gently pulls his hand away, “You said, ‘anything’.”

Something in Jisung’s eyes soften and his hand slots around the nape of Minho’s neck and he kisses him.

Minho allows himself to be kissed whatever way Jisung wants it, which just so happens to be how Minho wants it. It’s a sunset kiss. A twilight kiss. Deep and longing. Their hands move slowly, pressing and pulling. After seconds or a lifetime, but too short, Jisung pulls away, tugging at the hem of Minho’s tank top, pulling it over his head. Minho makes light work of Jisung’s own t-shirt, and Jisung has a fucking chest tattoo on the right side, and his pecs and abdominal muscles look like you could skip stones off them and… he’s bruised. There are noticeable red and blue marks, the size of fists down the left side of his chest and Minho’s breath catches. God help me if I ever see those men again…

“I’m okay,” Jisung says gently, taking Minho’s hand and holding his palm against his bruised ribs. Minho can feel the heat of his skin, the texture of his ribs moving beneath his hand. “Really, it doesn’t hurt all that much.”

Still holding his hand against him, Jisung kisses him into the pillows and Minho pulls him down with him. He traces the red and black tattoo with his fingers, then with his tongue, Jisung humming appreciation at his ear before biting gently on his earlobe. “More,” he says, as his hand slides beneath the waistband of Minho’s sweatpants and the elastic of his boxers, fingers digging into the flesh of Minho’s arse. Minho returns the action in kind, smiling against Jisung’s groaning mouth.

Now Jisung is sliding Minho’s joggers and boxers down, tossing them off to the side, then his sweats and the socks and they are both naked, their legs scissoring, hands and feet caressing. Minho lets his hands trace Jisung’s outlines, carving the shape of him into his mind, memorising how the curve of Jisung's waist fits under his palm. How his dark hair falls forward over his face. How his full bottom lip curls and his top lip dips. 

Jisung’s hand slides down over Minho’s abdominal muscles and lower—

“Fuck,” Minho hisses through his teeth, as Jisung’s fingers encircle him. Every muscle and tendon in his body tightens, his fingers pressing into Jisung’s waist. Jisung hums, his lips are at that spot beneath Minho’s ear, melting his insides. 

He reaches for Jisung, but Jisung pins his hand against the bed, their fingers interlacing. “Not yet,” Jisung’s voice has a dangerous edge. And again Minho’s mind reels: Sexy. Fighter. Attractive. Adorable. Dangerous Jisung. “I said I would make you beg.”

Yes. Yes you did. And…fuck… I might. Minho fights to stay here. He shuts his eyes, gripping Jisung’s hand and fisting at the sheets with the other.

“Look at me,” Jisung says and Minho obeys and it’s a big fucking mistake. Jisung is a pleasurable assault on his senses. His lip curled in a smirk. His dark eyes sparkling. His hand doing…fucking incredible things and if he doesn’t stop it now, he’s going to have to beg. With a roll of his hips, he flips Jisung onto his back, pinning Jisung’s legs down with his own, capturing Jisung’s wrists with one hand. Jisung’s eyes are round and wide at the sudden reversal, but he’s smiling, his pink tongue at the corner of his lips. Minho smiles darkly down at him, makes use of his advantage (and his ambidexterity), his free hand sliding down… Jisung arches off the bed, a red lip caught between white teeth. Slowly, Minho releases his wrists, kisses him into the mattress whilst Jisung’s fingers dig into his shoulders.

Slowly, Minho backs off from him, retreating towards the foot of the bed, lips and tongue tracing his jawline, his neck, his chest, his belly button and Jisung’s fingers are in his hair, watching Minho who is retreating further and lower, tracing kisses inside his thighs. And he looks up the length of Jisung, their eyes locking, tongue and lips teasing–

“Those fucking eyelashes,” Jisung swears throwing his head back when Minho takes him in. Jisung groans softly, chewing his lip as he watches Minho. His thighs trembling under Minho’s fingers whilst his own knot in Minho’s hair and the litany of curses that spill from Jisung are enough to consecrate the room. “Holy mother of–” Jisung’s fingers are pulling Minho’s hair, and he’s sitting up and bringing Minho’s lips back to his, in a crushing kiss that must be painful on his cut lip, “Irino, I need you.”

Irino. Something about the way Jisung contracts his name makes Minho momentarily giddy. I need you. Drives him wild. “Are you begging?”

“Stop being a fucking tease!”

Minho arches an eyebrow at him. Biting Jisung’s lip and dragging it through his teeth. And the sound that escapes Jisung’s mouth is particularly pleasurable.

“Irino, please,” Jisung says, pressing his lips against Minho’s. Kissing him deeply, hungrily, desperately.

Are you really going to prolong your own suffering? Blindly, Minho fumbles in the bedside drawer amongst his leather holster. He pulls back from Jisung to tear the foil open with his teeth. Jisung, huffing impatiently, snatches it from him, rolls the condom on him, and even that action makes Minho moan. 

Jisung lies back against the pillows, lifting his knees as Minho lines himself up and slowly pushes into him and he’s hissing through his teeth because Jisung is so fucking perfect and arching off the bed, groaning pleasurably and again he’s fighting to maintain himself. Resist a little longer. Give Jisung time to adjust. Inch by blissful inch.

Slowly, they move together, their bodies seemingly, instinctively knowing what the other wants, what the other needs, as though they had done this before in a past life, on another timeline, in an alternate universe. Soon, Jisung digs his fingers into Minho’s hips, encouraging him to move, pulling him deeper and he looks so fucking pretty beneath him, lips parted, his eyes burning darkly up at him, sweat beading around his temples, “You’re not–going to–break me,” Jisung pants, and for a fleeting moment, Minho believes him, believes that he’s unbreakable and his entire body rolls at the words and Jisung gasps, fingers knotting in Minho’s hair, a sound like a growl escapes his own lips when Jisung pushes against his thrust. “Oh! Uh-huh–yes, like that–just–like–that–”

Oh he can fucking take it. Minho stretches forward, kisses him with teeth, swallowing Jisung’s groans which are growing louder with every thrust. Minho kisses over his jawline, down his neck, to his collarbone and back up to his ear, “Let me hear you.”

“Irino.”

Fuck, just the sound of his name is undoing him. Driving him.

“Irino,” Jisung groans and he’s calling to some part deep inside Minho. Some part of his soul. Calling to another Minho in a past life, on a different timeline, in that alternate universe. “My Irino.”

My. “Ji—fuck—” Minho grinds out as Jisung wraps his legs around Minho’s thighs, pulling him closer, urging him deeper, moving him faster, his hands slipping over Minho’s back, fingers digging, breath quickening.

“Irino!”

“Ji— I’m going to—”

“Look at me,” Jisung cups Minho’s head in his hands, fingers digging into his hair, arching up, his mouth parting and eyes watering and he looks like fucking heaven and Minho is trembling and groaning back and seeing stars but they aren’t stars, it’s the whole fucking universe, past, different and fucking alternate in Jisung’s eyes before they coalesce and become a single point of blinding light.

Boneless, Minho collapses forward against Jisung's sticky chest. He listens to the sound of Jisung’s breath, his too quick heart beat.

His giggling.

“What’s funny?” Minho asks, utilising his remaining strength to push himself up and look down at Jisung.

“Nothing,” Jisung kisses him again and again.

Sexy. Fighter. Attractive. Adorable. Dangerous. Great in bed. Minho thinks, giggling against Jisung's hair.

♤ ♡ ♢ ♧

They shower together.

It’s not sexual, but very sensual. And it’s new. Minho has never done anything like this with anyone before. Has never wanted to until Jisung had made the suggestion. He takes his time lathering shower gel into Jisung’s skin. He’s being particularly gentle over his ribs, which are more purple than red now. Smiles when Jisung giggles, “Not there! I’m ticklish.”

Jisung gently massages shampoo into Minho’s hair in between kisses and giggles. It’s odd, just how much Minho is enjoying this. Enjoying the closeness. Enjoying Jisung.

When they step out of the bathroom, hair dripping, towels around their waists, Minho pulls the top sheet off the bed, drops it into the wash basket and Jisung crosses the room to the bedroom door, pulls it open, “Where’s the beautiful boy?”

‘That’s me,’ Soonie chirps as he trots to Jisung, arching against his legs, bell tinkling. ‘I’m here.’

What the fuck is wrong with my cat? 

Jisung scoops him up, carries him over to the bed. “I’m so sorry we kicked you out.” Jisung croons, “I know. We’re mean, aren’t we? Yes.”

“You’re mean,” Minho corrects, lying on the bed and scratching Soonie under the chin. Mimicking Jisung’s condescending tone, “You were all cosy before you got evicted.”

Jisung narrows his eyes down at Minho, “I’m certain that everything that just happened would have been traumatic for the poor boy.”

Minho chews his smile, “He still heard us, Ji.”

And there it is, that pleasant shade of pink spreading up Jisung’s neck and settling around his cheeks. 

Jisung kneels up onto the bed, lays down with Soonie between them. Soonie languishes in the attention he’s receiving from them both. Jisung’s fingers buried in the softness of his orange and white fur, his knuckles purpling and swollen. Minho traces them with his thumb, “Where did you learn to fight like that?”

“I just kind of had to,” Jisung shrugs. “I’ve always been sort of scrappy. If there’s one thing I know, it’s that, to survive, you have to fight.”

If you want something. Fight for it. Fight for it and win. It’s a lesson his Father had beaten into him from an early age.

“I hope the girl is okay,” Jisung says. A small furrow forming on his brow.

Minho cups his head, leans forward, kisses it gently. “I’m sure she’s being well looked after.”

The furrow melts away.

“You can fight too,” Jisung says. “Boxing?”

“Hmm, and mixed martial arts.”

Jisung’s fingers trace the ragged line on his bicep, “You have a lot of scars,” he says. “Who hurt you?”

“That’s from a broken bottle,” he tells him. “I was trying to break up a fight.” He chooses to leave out the part where he’d started and finished it.

“And this?” Jisung caresses the pink scar beneath his left collar bone that his brother Felix gave him after a particularly rowdy night and an honest to goodness misunderstanding. 

“Broken pool cue.”

“And this?” Jisung’s knuckles brush the long thin scar below his diaphragm.

“I don’t actually know about that one. I’ve had it for as long as I can remember.”

“Hasn’t your father told you?”

“He doesn’t know either. I, um… I’m adopted,” he surprises himself by saying this out loud. He’s not ashamed of it. It’s just something he chooses not to tell people. “So my medical history from before is a little vague.”

Something flickers over Jisung’s eyes, but it’s gone and he’s speaking before Minho gets the opportunity to try and understand the look. “Your brothers?”

“We’re all adopted, but I love them as if they are brothers,” he smirks, knowing that whilst this is true, his brothers would vehemently deny that Minho is capable of such affection. “Blood is thicker than water, after all.”

Jisung grins widely at him, “You are probably the first person I’ve heard use that in the correct way,” his eyes burn, and he leans forward, kisses Minho who kisses back and their hands are quickening, fingers digging, towels slipping and—

Meow. 

Jisung pulls away giggling. Minho is less than amused. 

“I’m sorry!” Jisung says, leaning back and petting Soonie, “Are you feeling left out?” he plants a kiss on the top of Soonie’s head. Soonie purrs happily. Little cat cock blocker.

Minho settles down against the pillows. Outside, the sun is rising and the morning twilight plays with Jisung’s soft features. Minho thinks he’s probably the most beautiful man in this, or any other world, past, present or alternate. 

Jisung glances at him, smiles, “What are you looking at?”

“Nothing,” it comes out like a sigh. Minho traces the black and red circle with a white star radiating from the centre. “Tell me about this.”

Jisung smiles, “My broken compass?”

And now Minho can see it, the points for north, east, south and west, but the letters at these points are different; S-T-A-Y. “Why’s it broken?”

“Have you seen Pirates of the Caribbean?”

“No,” Minho says.

“Well, shame on you. You should watch it. It’s a whole thing,” his smile is teasingly beautiful. “But my broken compass is a reminder. A reminder that I’m never really lost. That I’m not really astray. That I can always find myself, if I rely on what my heart is telling me.”

Whatever Minho had envisioned the answer to be, this was not it. He feels a bubble rise in his chest, and poking curiously at it, realises that it’s sadness. He feels sad that Jisung has ever felt astray. He cups Jisung's face, lets his thumb caress his cheek, “Stay with me a little longer?”

Smiling, Jisung cups Minho’s hand with his own, and lays down. “Okay.”

♤ ♡ ♢ ♧

Minho wakes to sunlight blinding him. South facing windows are great and all, except at midday when you’ve had less than four hours sleep. He flinches back from it, rolls away, hand reaching across the bed finding it empty. Usually, finding that his previous nights fuck toy has scarpered fills him with relief. So he’s a little surprised and wary of the hollowness sitting in his chest at Jisung’s absence. Or is it the absence of Jisung? Whichever it is, he’s not particularly fond of the feeling.

Distantly, in the fog of his sleepy brain, he’s aware that Soonie isn’t glaring at him from the bedside table or neighbouring pillow, bopping his nose with an angry paw demanding breakfast, which is his usual morning alarm. He rolls onto his back and drops his forearm over his eyes, listens to the sound of the hum of the traffic and a television. No, not a television. He removes his arm, sits up on his elbows, stares at his open bedroom door. It’s definitely his television.

He rolls out of bed, pulling on last night's sweatpants and pads barefooted and bare chested into his living room.

Jisung is sitting cross legged on the couch, wearing his laundered tank top and jeans and hideous socks and eating a triangle of jammy toast. Soonie is curled into a ball on his lap and they are both staring at the television. On the screen, a pretty woman is talking to a prettier man and after only thirty seconds of listening to them, horror settles into his stomach, it’s one of those fucking dating shows. “You’ve got to be kidding me? You watch this shit?”

“Shush,” Jisung says, waving his toast at him in a gesture to be quiet. Which is fucking cheeky since he’s sitting in Minho’s home. Or fucking cute. By the way Jisung nibbles on his toast, his eyes large and fixed on the screen, Minho leans towards cute, but he’s adding cheeky to his list. “I’ve been waiting for three weeks for him to finally confess to her.”

“Confess what?” Minho folds his arms across his chest, “That it’s a terrible idea to talk about their love life on national television?”

“Shush!” Jisung hisses.

Feeling scolded and chuckling quietly to himself, Minho ruffles Jisung’s hair as he pads over to the kitchen, or what had been his kitchen. The carnage remaining from Jisung making toast is a wonder to behold. It’s amazing there’s any jam on his toast, since a large quantity of it seems to be everywhere else. He’d clearly tried to wash the previous night’s dishes, but didn’t know where to put anything so had them teetering dangerously on the sink. But there’s coffee brewing in the pot, so that’s something. He steps on something hard, curses as he hops on one foot, inspects the other to find a cat biscuit there. Glances down at Soonie’s overflowing bowl.

“YES!” Jisung says. “Tell her! Tell her!”

Meoooow, Soonie agrees.

‘The thing is…’ the handsome man on screen is saying. ‘I never stopped loving you.’

Minho rolls his eyes, pours himself a mug of coffee.

“YES!” Jisung bounces on the couch, hands in the air. Soonie leaps away from him and scampers into the bedroom as Jisung claps his hands. “Finally!”

Music is playing now, the dramatic-romantic type as the camera focuses on the pretty woman’s disbelieving face and then the credits roll. Jisung vaults over the back of the couch, his smile wide and fucking adorable. He does a little happy skip, his fists like paws at his side. “He finally told her.”

“I gathered,” Minho can’t help smiling at him around his coffee mug. 

Jisung plants a kiss on his cheek, “Good afternoon.”

“Afternoon,” Minho replies, setting his mug down so he can wrap his arms around Jisung’s waist. Honestly, his arms are made for this. “Hmm.”

Jisung grins at him, but pulls away and covers his mouth when Minho leans forward for a kiss. “I haven’t brushed my teeth.”

“Neither have I,” Minho says, pulling Jisung closer, breathing on him.

“Oh my lord,” Jisung whines, nose wrinkling as he tries to wriggle free.

Minho plants a quick chaste kiss against Jisung’s lips and at once he stops wriggling, begins melting in Minho’s arms, his hands encircling Minho’s neck, pulling him down, kissing him deeply, and he tastes like strawberries, moaning against Minho’s lips. After seconds that might have been hours, Jisung pulls away. His cheeks are that pretty shade of pink, “Well, that was disgusting.”

“Uh-huh,” Minho says, kissing him once more before letting him go.

Jisung leans back against the breakfast bar, “I fed Soonie.”

“I see that.”

“I wasn’t sure how much to give him.”

“I see that too,” Minho tickles Jisung under his chin. “Good effort.”

Giggling, Jisung rabbit punches his shoulder. Hugs himself. “I don’t suppose you have a jumper or something I could borrow? My shirt’s outside, but it’s still damp.”

“Of course, are you cold?”

“No, not cold, I just, I er, don’t really like my arms out, on show.”

Minho arches an eyebrow at him, “You don’t like your arms?”

“I just don’t feel comfortable.”

Sexy. Fighter. Attractive. Adorable. Dangerous. Great in bed. Cheeky. Shy. 

Minho kisses the top of his head, “For the record, you have very sexy arms,” he says, stepping round Jisung and heading to his room. At the very top of his wardrobe he finds an old, hooded jumper in dark grey, with two white wings on the back. “Is this okay? It’ll be massive on you.”

“It’s cute, thanks,” Jisung says, pulling it over his head, the sleeves hanging low over his hands. And Minho sees the way Jisung’s shoulders relax under the fabric. 

“Better?”

“Much,” Jisung smiles at him.

There is the sound of a phone vibrating. Minho automatically glances at his bedside table where his phone is on charge, but it’s still and silent. 

Jisung pulls his own from the front pocket of his jeans, his face hardens as he scowls at the broken screen, and ends the call. 

“You okay?”

“Yeah, I’m—for fuck’s sake,” he ends the second call. “I have to go.”

“Do you need a lift? I could drive—”

“No. No, that’s not necessary.”

His phone rings for a third time and Minho’s seeing the tightness in his shoulders return. “Do you need to get that? I can leave—”

“No. They can wait,” Jisung steps forward, cups Minho’s head and pulls him down for a kiss and the kiss is going places when his fucking phone starts ringing again. “Fuck, I’m sorry.” Jisung ends the call again. “I had a wonderful time last night.” He looks Minho in the eye, pushing strands of hair away from Minho’s forehead. “A really wonderful time.”

“Me too,” Minho says, allowing his hands to rub circles over Jisung's back. Feels his muscles tense when his phone rings again.

“I really have to go,” he steps back, pets Soonie on the head and stoops down to kiss the spot between his ears. “Be good, beautiful boy.”

Soonie chirps, ‘I will’.

Why are you lying? Minho thinks.

“Ji?” Minho follows him out of the bedroom, Jisung is already at the main door, pulling on his boots, not bothering to tie his laces, just shoving the loose ends inside them. Groaning loudly when his phone starts ringing again. “Ji?”

Jisung shakes his head, unlatches the door, but Minho slaps his palm against it, slamming it shut. 

“Ji, look at me.” 

Jisung takes a shaky breath, looks. His eyes are damp. Any joy he’d had only five minutes ago has been expunged by the person trying to call him. Minho feels a visceral loathing of the person on the other end of those calls. He thumbs a tear from Jisung's cheek, “Who’s trying to call you?”

“It’s no-one,” Jisung lies terribly, which isn’t necessarily a bad trait.

“Your boyfriend?” It makes sense, in the moment, though the word burns in his chest. “Girlfriend?” he hedges, remembering the red and blue girls from the club.

“No,” Jisung smiles tiredly at him, “Nothing like that, it’s,” he sighs, “it’s my brother.”

“Oh, okay,” Minho hears the sound of relief in his own voice. “Are you okay?”

His nose wrinkles as he shakes his head. 

Minho’s unsure who kisses who first but they are kissing, Jisung pinned against the door, his leg around the back of Minho’s thigh, pulling him in, and closer, his hands flattening over Minho’s chest, up and over his shoulders, into his hair and his fucking phone starts ringing again.

“Tell him to fuck off,” Minho growls against Jisungs mouth.

Jisung giggles, dropping his foot back to the floor and gently detaching Minho’s hands from his waist. “I have to go,” he says as he wrenches the door open. Hesitates on the threshold. “Can I call you?”

“You fucking better,” Minho says and Jisung kisses his cheek quickly before he flees out of the door, jogs towards the elevator, takes the stairs. 

Minho closes the door, walks to his windows, heaves one open and steps out onto the narrow balcony. The sun is heating his skin, but his feet are cold on the concrete. He watches and he waits, and finally he sees Jisung, hood over his head, phone pressed to his ear, jogging lightly across the street, flagging down a taxi and scrambling into the back of it. Minho watches as the taxi rolls down the road and disappears around a corner. 

Palming the back of his neck, Minho turns to head back inside when he spots Jisung’s shirt, draped over the back of a chair. He lifts it, carries it inside. 

Purr? Soonie is pacing in front of the door, sniffing the spot where Jisung’s boots had been.

“He’s away,” Minho tells him. “Don’t look at me in that tone.”

Soonie sits down and continues to scowl at Minho as if he was the one who made him leave.

Minho flops onto the couch, idly feeling the smooth silk of Jisung’s shirt between his fingers. He glances up at the television showing icons of several shows of happy, smiling, pretty heterosexuals and the words: Because you watched Exchange: you might also like…

“No I fucking wouldn’t,” Minho says reaching for the remote and turning the television off. 

Jisung: Sexy. Fighter. Attractive. Adorable. Dangerous. Great in bed. Cheeky. Shy. Algorithm wrecker.

“Fuck,” Minho sighs dropping his head back. He’d slept with a lot of people in his time… could remember (maybe) some of their names. Could just about recall what they looked like… but here he was able to recite his list of Jisung’s without any issue.

Meow? Soonie says for no reason.

Another Jisung: Cat heart stealer.

“Fuck.”

♢ ♧ If you made it this far, thank you for your support! ♤ ♡ please consider leaving a comment, like or reblog ♤ ♡ ©2024Intrikatie ♢ Ao3 ♧ Quotev ♤ Wattpad ♡

TASTE M.List & Sypnosis

Chapter 1 - Parley

Chapter 2 - The DLC

Chapter 4 - The Wolf & His Pack

[a-forbidden-detective]

The Toto on the cover theories

I have a few so hear me out.

1) No. 13 is an ominous number. To counteract it, Akira Amano wanted to incorporate the power of two characters to create the amulet to drive away the bad luck. What could be more powerful and mightier than the power of RonToto! Moreover, is Toto the focus of this volume cover?

2) Akira and her editor heard the clamour for more variety on the cover illustrations. Maybe she tried and wanted to but the powers that be convinced her to be consistent by making Ron her cover boy as the titular character. I presume those coloured chapter covers had been her attempts to have different characters on the covers. Though it bothers me a bit as Toto has only one chapter cover by himself and that was his birthday special. Will this be the start of that? Ron with different characters next to him?

3) Is Akira leading us closer to Toto Isshiki arc in the upcoming chapters???

4) The mise-en-scène intrigues me. The couple seems to be lying on a crime scene. Glass shards on the floor, a camera, documents, traces of evidence numbered, their shirts: black and white, their coordinated ochre ties, their mien…

I honestly am not averse of a RonToto volume covers. Akira can do it every time.

This to coincide, if Akira would read this, a background story for Toto is definitely in the offing. We know that he’s been brought up by his grandmother, a hardworking police officer, who prays pillow sutra for the dead. Chapter 121 shows how spiritual he is. I wonder if his religion he’s been brought up with is Buddhism.

So many questions that Akira and only Akira could answer. Unless she accepts our own head canons…

[leftnotright]

PROOF APOLLO WEARS HAWAIIAN SHIRTS

“The Tri-Ni-Sette machine is failing. The world will die.” “We can’t do anything going forward. Going backwards, however, is another matter.” Ryohei had his mission: To go back. To before the most recent Arcobaleno Curse, to before the slaughter of the Simone. To before the Tri-Ni-Sette System finally gave out. Ryohei was used to loss, in the ring and in life. But this time, he promises, he’ll win. Reborn had his mission: Get in this man’s pants, or die trying. After all, Reborn was nothing if not an Icarus. (Or: The ‘size matters’ fic)

Parings: Reborn/Sasagawa Ryohei

Characters: Reborn (Katekyou Hitman Reborn!), Ten Years Later Sasagawa Ryouhei, Sasagawa Ryouhei, Vindice (Katekyou Hitman Reborn!), Arcobaleno (Katekyou Hitman Reborn!), Checker Face | Kawahira

Tags: Time Travel Fix-It, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Ryouhei Time Travels

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11

CHAPTER 11: LET'S BE ALONE TOGETHER

When Reborn and Verde returned to the sunset-tinged sands of the Simone Island, it was to the sight of Ryohei frolicking in a shore tipped with gold, surrounded by a flock of boys and girls with red hair and stigma eyes. Reborn stared out at the sight of Ryohei, his shoulders blushed pink and his hair slicked back, children hanging from his arms. 

Pink and red and warm, summer golden-yellows. Reborn thought those would be a good colour palette for a wedding — he should update his mood board. 

Then Ryohei turned, sun-lit eyes scorching the horizon before they laid upon that figure dressed in black, standing on the sand. He grinned, lips wet with seawater, and waved with both arms. 

“Reborn!” Ryohei cheered and, like something out of Baywatch, came wading out of the shore, waves breaking on his calves.

Reborn stared. 

Reborn turned to Abramo, “You have done exceptionally.”

Abramo nodded, arms crossed over his chest, puffed with pride. “Thought you’d like the tight shorts. He chose the worst colours though.”

Verde sighed and walked away, shoulders slumped and eyes squinted against the bright outdoors. Good, Reborn didn’t think he deserved to bear witness to Ryohei dressed in only wet, clinging swimwear.

“How’d it go!? Did you have fun!?” Ryohei asked as he came to a stop in the soft, white sand. 

“A few moments short of painful,” Reborn shrugged and reached his hand across. Reborn trailed his fingers along Ryohei’s sun-blushed chest, connecting constellations of just-there freckles with the droplets that clung to his skin. “I’m glad to be back on Simone soil.”

“Well, welcome home!” Ryohei laughed, hands on his hips and completely unperturbed by the finger tracing along his pectoral. 

Abramo glanced between the men, then the hand that had still yet to drop. He wiggled his eyebrows at them before not-so-casually excusing himself, splashing loudly into the surf.

“How’s the mainland? Everything still intact?” Ryohei joked as he squatted down next to a haphazard pile of towels, pool noodles and discarded clothes. 

For a moment, Reborn was distracted by a single drop of sparkling seawater as it made a journey down Ryohei’s spine and into the tight waistband of Ryohei’s flamingo-themed shorts. He wondered, if he were to tug them, if there would even be any give. 

“Nothing of note,” Reborn hummed, and watched as Ryohei shrugged on one of his many Hawaiian shirts, left mercifully unbuttoned.  

“Reborn, you should swim too, the water’s great! Something about a volcano!” Ryohei said as they began the slow, sandy walk towards the Simone quarry.

Reborn slipped his arm through Ryohei’s and smiled, “That sounds like a wonderful idea. Can’t let a day like this go to waste.”

Ryohei grinned and cheered, scattering the seagulls scavenging along the shore. 

“Wait for me here will you, my dear Ryohei?” Reborn crooned as they stepped through the hazy darkness of the Vindice portal, solder and fumes stung their noses. “I’ll be out in a moment in something more… Comfortable .”

“Remember to bring Leon! He needs some real sun!” Ryohei called and Reborn waved over his shoulder as he disappeared through chained-down doors.

Ryohei rocked on his heels and looked around, the grand atrium of the Vindice’s Simone Base still as impressive as the first time he had seen it. The skeletons of the Machine were filling out with muscle of thick wire. Those heavy, metal bases were bolted deep into the bedrock to support the towering beams, finally set and soldered into place in arches overhead.

Vindice ghouls floated around, carrying boxes of materials, sand and shattered glass. There were loose bolts and nuts littering the floor, as numerous as the crushed-up remnants of ancient shells. Ryohei could feel them under the thin soles of his sandals as he walked, inspecting each frame with barely bottled excitement. 

And at the centre of it all, surrounded by those looming structures of metal and hope, Verde sat on the floor, nearly nesting in his papers. 

Ryohei had barely seen Verde since bringing him to the island, elusive and nearly outsight evasive of all things unrelated to ‘his Machine’. In truth, Ryohei didn’t know Verde well — or knew the would-be- could -be Verde well. The Verde of the future had always been too taken with his creations to deign an audience with the Vongola for anything short of the Tri-Ni-Sette collapsing.

Ryohei could see that same fanaticism now as he made his way over, stepping around the wires thick as great tree roots. He peered over Verde’s shoulder to read what the man was scratching down with a pen running low on ink.

“What?” Verde snapped, quick as a whip.

Ryohei grinned, “How’s the progress? Figured out the glass?”

“Components are missing. Working backwards,” Verde answered, eyes shifting around as if knocked by every new idea in his rattling brain. “Someone— I created intentional voids. I do not know why.”

Ryohei tilted his head, brows furrowed. Verde had left out information. Crucial information. Ryohei squatted down and rested his chin on his knuckles, sandals grinding into the sandy stone floors.

“There's no distinct pattern to the omission. If there's a code, it's not obvious.” Verde dragged a box full of rolls of grid paper, elbow-deep as he scrounged for a loose piece. 

There was silence. Soft breathing. Completely unobtrusive, but almost omnipresent. A heat that warmed the stone under Verde's thighs and dried out the paper in his hands. Inescapable. Like the smell of summer on a windless day.

Verde turned his head and regarded Ryohei, still dripping with water, flecks of shells clung to his shins and between his fingers. His shirt was damp with a mixture of seawater and sweat, the bridge of his nose glistened with sunscreen. And he was still. Sitting on his sandy haunches, sun-kissed face cradled in his seashell-sparkled hands. Watching. Windless.

Verde returned to his work. Verde continued to speak. Less to Ryohei and more to Ryohei’s presence — to the heat —, an engineer to a rubber duck. Ryohei listened wordlessly, eyes bright and alert despite the odd, jargonistic words that flew well over his head.

“Everything else is laid out. Working with that, it will simply be common sense. It will require a heat, apparently even more so than the kiln the Vindice uses now but— there’s a piece missing.” Verde scrubbed his hair, sticking up weirdly with oil and sea salt residue. “I will find it. Given time, I will find it.”

“You will,” Ryohei agreed without missing a beat, without taking a breath, without a doubting thought.

Verde blinked and turned to the man crouched at his side, sand sticking to his legs from the beaches, nose bridge pink from the sun. He was smiling. Unhindered. Unwavering. The sky was blue, the sea was deep, and Verde would solve this puzzle made just for him.

What faith.

Verde clutched his near-empty pen tighter, took a breath and felt his lungs scorch. The near-constant damp of the place ripped from the very fibres of his clothes. Under those smiling eyes, Verde was warm.

People hailed Verde as the next Da Vinci. Under those smiling eyes Verde was Now .

“I will,” Verde said, voice almost raspy-dry. 

Ryohei grinned like a bonfire. Like a collapsing star. Full of blinding life and steadfast, searing, unrelenting Will . 

Oh.

Verde shifted his gaze to the side and saw Reborn standing there, cast in shadow with eyes so bright it was like looking at a sunrise. Reborn inclined his head.

Do you see it? 

How could you not?

He’s perfect—

It’s huge—

It could be ours.

Verde swallowed greedily, throat parched, hands tingling. Reborn regarded him with sunrise eyes from behind the figure made of heat and some astronomic faith — clad in an eyesore of a blue and red Hawaiian print shirt.

Verde felt his eyes sting from the light, but kept them open. He felt the buzzing in his teeth. Verde felt the strike of dry lightning on brushland.

Reborn smiled, vindicated. 

☀☀

Reborn reclined on the wicker lounge, cradling something boozy, fruity and full of crushed ice. The sun beat down on him as he laid there, his open white, linen shirt fluttering in the salty sea breeze and Ryohei’s wet abs reflecting in the black of his sunglasses.

Ryohei grinned as he helped a small gaggle of Simone children build a sandcastle, shoulder-deep in the sand for a secret tunnel. Reborn watched the slick muscles along his back flex. 

“Enjoying the show?” Abramo asked as he came to occupy the lounge beside Reborn, his own crushed ice cocktail sloshing about in his four-fingered hand. 

“It’s a luxury,” Reborn sighed, fixing his sunglasses upon his nose. “I need to enjoy the sights while they’re still so exclusive.”

Abramo glanced at the man from around his cup. Reborn looked smug, a curl to his lip, a lilt to his tone — it reminded Abramo of a barn cat after a hunt, picking feathers from its teeth. Abramo sipped his cocktail and cast his gaze over to the man crusted in sand and sunshine, children clambering onto Ryohei’s shoulders as he knelt on the shore.

“Does he know?” Abramo asked. 

Reborn regarded him out of the corner of his eye. 

Abramo let his cup settle on his stomach as he watched his Family orbit around this new Sun on their beaches, blond hair gritty with salt and seashells, laugh louder than crashing waves and smile brighter than daylight. 

“He’s told you right? About his old Set,” he continued, “Things like Harmony… Ryohei’s been hurt, ya know?”

Reborn didn’t utter a sound as he laid there, dark eyes cast in shadow as the rest of him basked in sun. He could feel his skin burning. He didn’t want it to stop.

“I know,” Reborn said finally, almost too softly. 

Reborn remembered the suitcase full of pictures, full of papers he had yet to read. He remembered the whiskey, how it had let the words float to the top and spill over. He remembered the lonely, lonely look in Ryohei’s eyes and Reborn’s teeth wanted to grind.

Reborn looked forward and saw Ryohei wrestle with the Simone youths, heard the cheers as no less than seven young boys sent him crashing into the shallows. 

“Okay,” Abramo uttered, and Reborn felt the pressure ease, the weight on his chest and crushing gravity. Acceptance was light against his skin. “Nonna Teresa’s pub has an upstairs balcony. It faces the west beach. It’ll be empty tonight.”

Reborn raised his sunglasses and glanced at Abramo. The man was smiling, red eyes soft and warm as he watched his Family play in the sand and the sea, little hands dragging the Sun to follow. 

“Reborn!” He turned to the call and saw Ryohei waving, a child standing on his shoulders. “You coming!? You said you’d swim! Volcano water!”

“Volcano water!” The child agreed loudly and jumped into the sea, almost immediately replaced by another clambering Simone child.

“Be gentle with him,” Abramo said as Reborn rose from the lounge.

“How gentle can you be with something just short of a god?” Reborn asked and threw his sunglasses on his towel, sand between his toes and salt in his hair. Ryohei welcomed him into the shore with open arms, sunflares sparkling on crested waves and red eyes watching everything. 

☀☀

It was getting cold, a southerly breeze biting through the summer night’s heat haze. The low roar of the pub below melted into the drag-and-crash of the tide, salty meals mixing with salty sea air. The door to the balcony closed with a snap, their private table stocked with alcohol and nibbles.

Reborn let out a long, burning breath, a Simone-style whiskey almost scoring him down to the belly. Beside him, Ryohei sat, elbow on the table and cheek upon his fist, staring out at the bay, the last curve of a smile still on his face. 

“What is Harmony like?” Reborn asked, staring out at the pink-orange-red of sunset. 

Reborn had heard stories. The moans of Harmony-drunk Flames post-bliss. They say it's like drugs, but better. Like alcohol, but stronger. Like sex, but deeper. Something that could make a hardened mafioso roll over and show his belly, all sticky sweet like honey and tar. 

“Warm,” Ryohei answered finally, gently, voice just over a murmur. “Like a bath after getting caught in a storm. Like seeing family. Like coming Home after a long…long forever.” 

Reborn listened to Ryohei breathe. Slow, soft draws of breath through his nose. There was a slight whistle, like it had been broken before. The hand on the table, loosely wrapped around a glass, flexed. Scars pulled at rough skin, bumped and callused. Dark at the knuckles. 

“You’d do anything for it. To protect it. To stay,” he said, “It feels like being loved.”

Home. Reborn barely understood the concept. Base, safehouse, touchstone — those were all more familiar to him but Home? Said just over a whisper and with such warmth it all but melted off Ryohei’s tongue and nestled inside Reborn’s ears. 

Reborn tapped his cup with the tip of his finger, a crystal ‘twing’ rang light through the air.

“What was your Sky like?” 

“Which one?” Ryohei asked back.

Reborn ran his thumb through the condensation on his glass, ice clinked as it melted. 

“Your first.”

Ryohei didn’t move, still cheek to fist, still staring out past the bay like there was something out there. Something heartbreakingly close. 

“She was perfect,” he said, a smile in his voice. “She’s my little sister, my childhood friend. I held her hand the day she was born — it was tiny. Tiny little nails.” 

Ryohei took a drink. Reborn mirrored him slowly. 

“We were always together. She was shy before she went to school, used to hide behind me. I would always have to talk to the shopkeeper if she wanted ice cream.” Ryohei looked into his cup for a moment, watching amber whiskey shift and swirl. “She ate a lot of ice cream. Even in winter. Has a sweet tooth. Likes things cold.”

Reborn let the silence settle, let the glass in his hand go lukewarm under his fingers. He sipped neat whiskey with a slow relish. 

“And the second?” He asked, prompting gently.

Ryohei didn’t respond quickly. He pressed his lips to his glass and drank, long, slow draws of the burning liquid. His breath fogged the cup. Ryohei put the glass back on the tabletop with a soft clatter and licked his lips when they tingled from the alcohol.

Reborn watched.

“He was everything.”

Ryohei sounded raw. Like an open wound, meat and nerves, exposed down to the bone. 

“He — He was everything. To everyone. You should have seen it- You will see it. God he was —” Ryohei covered his mouth for a moment, breathed hard against his hand covered in starburst scars. “So scared. All the time. He didn’t want to be there, Boss wasn’t raised to be a, well, Boss . He got thrown into it. He was scared.”

Ryohei shifted in his seat, the old wooden chair groaning under his weight. 

“Maybe…that was why I loved him so much. Boss was scared, all the time, but that didn’t stop him from fighting. From trying . He built a family out of strangers. He fought for a Family that he had only just heard of. He protected everyone — He tried —”

Ryohei’s voice hitched. Reborn didn’t move. Couldn’t move. Eyes wide, fingers clutched his glass. 

“He tried —” Ryohei said again. He swallowed, throat flexing in the sunset light. “He tried to suffer through it. Tried to be big enough, to- to make room for me.” His leg moved, the chair wheezed. “And even then he tried to keep me, to love me, to give me a home even when it hurt . Even when I hurt them— ”  

Reborn didn’t know when he moved. Before or after the bolts and wedges of the old, rickety barstool gave under the heat of a Sun ablaze in self-loathing. But he had lept, feet off the ground and hands stretched out, fingers seeking that burn, burn, burn as they fell—

They hit the old timber deck of the pub. Their glasses shattered beside their heads, amber whiskey soaked Reborn’s sleeve, and matted Ryohei’s hair. Bits of wood scattered around, smelling of smoke and black as char. His hat was somewhere in the ruins.

Ryohei laid there, arms out akimbo. Reborn laid there, arms wrapped tight around Ryohei’s crown. Chest to chest, belly to belly, Flames alight and aching as Ryohei laid there under Reborn.

“I can’t do it again,” he whispered, voice muffled into Reborn’s collar, cologne and sea salt in his every breath. “I can’t lose it again. I’ve already lost so much — I can’t lose a home again .”

Reborn could feel him shaking. A spring wound tight, years of compression bubbling under his skin. Years of being small, of being held tight and forced to bow to fit a box. Reborn let his fingers, wet with whisky, slip. And he stared at Ryohei. At the pinch in his brow, the ache in his jaw, the whistle of his broken nose and the burn of his eyes as they blinked, stubbornly dry despite it all. 

Ryohei was used to loss. He had run out of tears to cry about it.

Reborn had thought about Skies, like all young Flames, he had fantasised about the day someone worthy of holding him would come. A Sky vast and pure and just the right kind of unhinged that would make room for him, bend the horizon for him. A Home. Better than wine, better than sex.

“You won’t,” Reborn said. With such conviction, with such faith —

Ryohei would not lose again. Not now. Not him. Not ‘His Reborn’ . 

Flames rumbled like the coming of a solar flare.

Reborn had thought about Skies, like all young Flames. And he let those dreams, those little thoughts burn with the rest of him as he laid there atop this supernova, his very own Impossibility . 

Flames bubbled. Lashed. Stretched. Reached.

And like Icarus he fell, his forehead pressed to the rough timber decking just beside Ryohei’s. He breathed in deep, scorched his lungs with smoke and sunlight. 

He felt Ryohei breathe against him, chest expanding under his — that shocking Hawaiian shirt still searing in the twilight. 

“You won’t,” Reborn said again. 

Ryohei’s chest rattled, “Reborn—”

“You won’t lose me.”

It hurt. 

Like sinking into a hot bath after a snowstorm. A shock to the system to feel True Heat. 

Reborn felt it tear through him, through his arms, down his legs, up his throat until his tongue tingled and his gums throbbed. And then he looked to the side, his forehead slick with sweat, he saw something divine .

Ryohei laid there, head turned to face him. His cheeks were flush, red and pink and ruddy. There was sweat bubbling on his hairline, slicked back with the fall. His horrendous collar open against the seabreeze that barely cut them a break. The cut on his eyebrow was bright pink like it was fresh again, rebirthed in place. Reborn could see the pulse in Ryohei’s throat jumping a double-time rhythm even for him.

And Ryohei was smiling. Lips puffy and cracked in the corner, teeth knocked just a bit askew from one too many punches without a mouthguard. His eyes were wet — with sweat or tears Reborn didn’t know, but he didn’t care.

Reborn was going to make this man, this Sun, his Icarian Sun , cry for so many reasons. Happiness, frustration, anger, love and every overstimulating nerve he can touch.

And he had all the time in the world. Their world. Their Harmony —

Reborn took a breath, felt his chest expand and relished in the knowledge that he would never know the chill of cold again. 

Reborn reached up, fingers sticky with dried up alcohol and sweat and cupped Ryohei’s shining face. Felt his hand sear like he cradled the molten core of a star.

“Till the fall do we part.”

Ryohei stared at Reborn, sweat dripping from his nose. Then he let out a laugh that boomed from the belly, grin bright and utterly radiant in the twilight. A celestial body plucked from the heavens and laid out before him, barely contained in mortal flesh. Reborn bounced with every heave, would have tumbled away if not for those arms that wrapped around his waist and held on with a vengeance. With desperation. With a plea, and a hope and a faithful prayer—

“Why would we fall?!” Ryohei laughed, eyes bright and voice brighter, glittering with seashell sand and glass. “Don’t worry, I’ll catch ya!”

And that was all it took. Reborn let the air seep out through his lips, let that torrent of heat turn into a slow, molten crawl in his veins. Let it curl up in his chest. Let it find a place to call Home.

“Because you did that so well just now,” Reborn huffed, and looked at the charred remains of the barstool. They were going to have to reimburse Nonna Teresa. She took payment in manual labour.

“Hey! I’m a great catch!” Ryohei defended hotly.

Reborn smiled, so deeply satisfied he could barely find the space to be surprised. “Indeed you are, my Ryohei.”

In the quarry, deep underground, the Vindice all turned their heads. Verde glared through his glasses, his pen creaked in his hand. And in the pub, the Simone raised a glass, welcoming the dawn of the strongest Elemental pseudo-Harmony the world had ever seen.

[foolbohalo]

log 1:

People have started seeing tubbo staring at the stars

most unable to break his facination, the eye contact

log 2:

hes started chuckling at them

the federation seems intrigued

etoiles and sunny being able to take his attention away from them

log 3:

hes talking about the stars now to anyone

his eyes changing colours day by day

his skin is changing, small specs of white silver and gold appearing

log 4:

we have to do something

Hes gotten bagi to look at them too, shes starting to suffer the same symptoms

his eyes have stars in them fully now

he has a wide smile on his face but his teeth are pure white...

his scars have turned a golden yellow colour

the specs are spreading

log 5:

his...his mouth...i hate to do this but i have to test on him, it doesnt matter if pac protests

his mouth is unhinged, its like a black hole in there but....theres...stars....distant stars

log 6:

i have to fix him- i need to, i trapped him in a room, bagi is locked up somewhere too, i have to keep her from the stars

Empanada has been looking a bit weird recently

bagi isnt as bad as tubbo but shes giggling, too much...

tubbo is shaking screaming about needing to see the stars, i might have to sedate him

pac doesnt know, he cant know

nobody can know they are here

fit and pac are looking for them, i dont know if i can keep this hidden

log 7:

i sedated tubbo, i took some blood samples and put him in one of those jackets, hes screaming

is he even tubbo anymore...?

bagis...getting better..? i dont know, shes stopped giggling

but the bad news is, i think that pierre was looking at the stars...who...who told him to though...

anyhow i dont know if i can get pierre under control

i tried to feed them, they dont eat, tubbos talking about an old island

bagi wants paridise

im concerned and scared

log 8:

i cant call this thing tubbo anymore, hes, hes going to get out

im going to warn everyone else to hide the eggs

i...need to tell pac

i hope this goes well

(insert the temptation to make a qsmp version of those mlp infections)

[sharpth1ng]

Scream Wardrobe HCs Pt 2- Billy Loomis

Billy wears a weird blend of prep and grunge in the movie, so I tried to work with that while also considering how his style would develop after high school, because I think going to college and having an ounce more self acceptance would lead to some new threads for him

Tommy Hilfiger & Calvin Klien

This one seems obvious, I didn't put any polos here because we all know he wears them

He's got a bunch of their pullovers and button downs, they're simultaneously a prep brand but with looser fits and styles so they slide into the grunge vibe a little

definitely has one of the oversized horizontal stripe sweaters (a la kurt cobain)

He definitely has a pair of the CK cords (bottom row on the right) they've got that good soft/ridged texture, good for covert stiming

Also CK was controversial for putting up these massive homoerotic billboards and he doesn't even know but those pictures of marky mark grabbing his dick did some subliminal messaging

2. Levis

Boy got the 501 jeans in a few colours (blue pictured here but I think he would have the black ones too)

obvious obligatory plaid shirts, mostly in blues and greys

DENIM JACKET. I refuse to believe this kid didn't do the incredibly 90s denim on denim look at some point. Its really, really gay and he has no idea

3. Denim cut offs

This is his only pair of shorts, he almost never wears them

Stu keeps pulling at the loose threads at the bottom so they're slowly getting shorter and shorter

4. The classic 90's white tank top

Starts wearing these as undershirts, slowly they turn into just shirts, he wears them under unbuttoned shirts and stuff

Makes Stu lose his mind a little (Sorry, the shirt is slightly see though, Stu needs help)

5. Big fleece lined hoodies

Boy likes a hood, sometimes you gotta not show your face

Has a habit of pulling the sleeves over his hands, which he isn't actually aware he's doing but Stu thinks its cute

in high school he probably has a plain one(on the left), later gets the sick Nine Inch Nails one and Stu likes to steal it (also Stu calls the band Nine Inch Males and it makes Billy want to strangle him)

Edit: also he’s transmasc, every single one of us has a Big Hoodie™️

6. Obligatory turtleneck

These were massively popular, Skeet Ulrich had one

I just think he's pretentious and he goes to film school, this bitch has a turtleneck idk what to tell you

7. Dr Martens

Boy almost never wears sneakers, he likes the thick soles and the shit-kicking vibes

He gets a pair of the brogues (on the far right) in college during his turtleneck phase but still wears the ankle-high ones lots

8. Obligatory 90's leather pants and jacket

He buys these in like 1998/99, its the gayest thing he's ever done and it's because Trent Reznor wears them

This is basically lingerie to Stu, he's a weak man

Bonus, cause I gave Stu underwear so Billy gets some too:

He wears the ck boxer briefs (almost exclusively, you got sensory issues? You dont fuck around with underwear)

I told you this ad campaign was gay

More:

Randy

Stu

Sidney

[karmagotme]

I'm rather proud of this, even if it did take me about a month to complete.

Let me explain.

I'm normally a cross stitcher, but I'd been seeing a lot of embroidery tricks on Pinterest (chronic scroller) and have been wanting to try the tulip button stitch for quite some time. Unfortunately, I had no jackets or cardis appropriate enough to try it on, so I hit up the Rockmans website and got this fuzzy thing for $20 (marked down from $80, mind, so I'd call that a win). It eventually arrived and it came with buttons like this:

Blingy, no holes, and so heavy they were drooping off the cardi and making it a lop sided garment when worn unbuttoned.

In other words, perfect.

Before I could start lopping them off, I had to make sure I had replacement buttons. As I live in small town with barely any decent crafting supplies, I needed to wait for a day off work where I could travel the hour and a bit away to my closest Spotlight. The day finally came, I took in the spare/replacement button the cardi came with, hunted through the minimal button section (why do buttons not come in those long tubes with the sample button on the lid anymore? Sometimes I would like to buy more than one button? Or more than three??) and walked away with a packet of mixed white buttons.

Then my stupid brain hit.

When I finally had another day for me to work on my cardi, I opened the button packet and started rummaging. I pulled out the various buttons that had been the same size as the original buttons, lamented that the creamy ones with the slight flower petal design on them only numbered 3, and realised that in order to find enough of the right size buttons that were all the same type, I was going to have to sort them.

I ... may have a problem when it comes to sorting.

Sorting things takes me AGES. Not that I think I'm bad at it, I think I'm too GOOD at it. My usual sorting items of choice are books. You won't believe how much enjoyment I get at spending days sorting our library after every time we've had to move house. And just like with sorting books, buttons seem to have their own distinctions. Buttons with 2 holes. Buttons with 4. Buttons with writing. Buttons with SHEEN. SPECIFICALLY COLOURED SHEEN. THERE WERE SO MANY BUTTONS WITH GREEN SHEEN AND, LIKE, THREE WITH PINK?!

Anyway.

I believe the task of sorting them into pairs or more of identical buttons - with a small pile of Lonesome Larries to the side - followed by bagging up the piles, and followed THEN by glad wrapping the rest of them because I had limited amount of little baggies, took me a good couple of hours. In the end, I had a pile of 7 of these plain white buttons of the right size, so at least I have 2 spare if I ever lose any in the future.

And then I discovered just how difficult a French knot can be.

Mini videos on Pinterest generally don't explain how to do things in words. I'm a visual learner, I think, so I thought I'd be able to do this just by following the example. I struggled for a long time, @itchylimpet 's Ma even tried to help me to no avail, and after watching many videos and reading one article on how to do it, I finally managed to do it without making a horrible mess. I continued on, paused for dinner, and by the pitch of night I had finally finished.

So, there you have it. One project that resulted in barely much but took forever to do. I am proud that I eventually managed to get it and I am excited at trying out some other embroidery projects I have in mind. I know this is probably silly, considering it was just a button change, but I like this.

[roman-catholic-mass-readings]

22nd May >> Mass Readings (USA)

Wednesday, Seventh Week in Ordinary Time 

or

Saint Rita of Cascia.

Wednesday, Seventh Week in Ordinary Time 

(Liturgical Colour: Green. Year: B(II))

First Reading James 4:13-17 You have no idea what your life will be like. Instead you should say: If the Lord wills it.

Beloved: Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we shall go into such and such a town, spend a year there doing business, and make a profit”– you have no idea what your life will be like tomorrow. You are a puff of smoke that appears briefly and then disappears. Instead you should say, “If the Lord wills it, we shall live to do this or that.” But now you are boasting in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. So for one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it, it is a sin.

The Word of the Lord

R/ Thanks be to God.

Responsorial Psalm Psalm 49:2-3, 6-7, 8-10, 11

R/ Blessed are the poor in spirit; the Kingdom of heaven is theirs!

Hear this, all you peoples; hearken, all who dwell in the world, Of lowly birth or high degree, rich and poor alike.

R/ Blessed are the poor in spirit; the Kingdom of heaven is theirs!

Why should I fear in evil days when my wicked ensnarers ring me round? They trust in their wealth; the abundance of their riches is their boast.

R/ Blessed are the poor in spirit; the Kingdom of heaven is theirs!

Yet in no way can a man redeem himself, or pay his own ransom to God; Too high is the price to redeem one’s life; he would never have enough to remain alive always and not see destruction.

R/ Blessed are the poor in spirit; the Kingdom of heaven is theirs!

For he can see that wise men die, and likewise the senseless and the stupid pass away, leaving to others their wealth.

R/ Blessed are the poor in spirit; the Kingdom of heaven is theirs!

Gospel Acclamation John 14:6

Alleluia, alleluia. I am the way and the truth and the life, says the Lord; no one comes to the Father except through me. Alleluia, alleluia.

Gospel Mark 9:38-40 Whoever is not against us is for us.

John said to Jesus, “Teacher, we saw someone driving out demons in your name, and we tried to prevent him because he does not follow us.” Jesus replied, “Do not prevent him. There is no one who performs a mighty deed in my name who can at the same time speak ill of me. For whoever is not against us is for us.”

The Gospel of the Lord

R/ Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.

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

Saint Rita of Cascia 

(Liturgical Colour: White. Year: B(II))

(Readings for the memorial)

(There is a choice today between the readings for the ferial day (Wednesday) and those for the memorial. The ferial readings are recommended unless pastoral reasons suggest otherwise)

First Reading Philippians 2:1–11 Have in you the same attitude that is also in Christ Jesus.

Brothers and sisters: If there is any encouragement in Christ, any solace in love, any participation in the Spirit, any compassion and mercy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, with the same love, united in heart, thinking one thing. Do nothing out of selfishness or out of vainglory; rather, humbly regard others as more important than yourselves, each looking out not for his own interests, but also for those of others. Have in you the same attitude that is also in Christ Jesus,

who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Because of this, God greatly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

The Word of the Lord

R/ Thanks be to God.

Responsorial Psalm Psalm 8:4–5, 6–7, 8–9

R/ O Lord, our God, how wonderful your name in all the earth!

When I behold your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you set in place— What is man that you should be mindful of him, or the son of man that you should care for him?

R/ O Lord, our God, how wonderful your name in all the earth!

You have made him little less than the angels, and crowned him with glory and honor. You have given him rule over the works of your hands, putting all things under his feet.

R/ O Lord, our God, how wonderful your name in all the earth!

All sheep and oxen, yes, and the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, the fishes of the sea, and whatever swims the paths of the seas.

R/ O Lord, our God, how wonderful your name in all the earth!

Gospel Acclamation Matthew 5:3

Alleluia, alleluia. Blessed are the poor in spirit; for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven. Alleluia, alleluia.

Or: Matthew 5:6

Alleluia, alleluia. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied. Alleluia, alleluia.

Or: Matthew 5:8

Alleluia, alleluia. Blessed are the clean of heart, for they will see God. Alleluia, alleluia.

Or: See Matthew 11:25

Alleluia, alleluia. Blessed are you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth; you have revealed to little ones the mysteries of the Kingdom. Alleluia, alleluia.

Or: Matthew 11:28

Alleluia, alleluia. Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest, says the Lord. Alleluia, alleluia.

Or: Matthew 23:11, 12b

Alleluia, alleluia. The greatest among you must be your servant. Whoever humbles himself will be exalted. Alleluia, alleluia.

Or: Luke 21:36

Alleluia, alleluia. Be vigilant at all times and pray that you may have the strength to stand before the Son of Man. Alleluia, alleluia.

Or: John 8:12

Alleluia, alleluia. I am the light of the world, says the Lord; whoever follows me will have the light of life. Alleluia, alleluia.

Or: John 8:31b-32

Alleluia, alleluia. If you remain in my word, you will truly be my disciples, and you will know the truth, says the Lord. Alleluia, alleluia.

Or: John 13:34

Alleluia, alleluia. I give you a new commandment: love one another as I have loved you. Alleluia, alleluia.

Or: John 14:23

Alleluia, alleluia. Whoever loves me will keep my word and my Father will love him and we will come to him. Alleluia, alleluia.

Or: John 15:4a, 5b

Alleluia, alleluia. Remain in me, as I remain in you, says the Lord; whoever remains in me will bear much fruit. Alleluia, alleluia.

Or: John 15:9b, 5b

Alleluia, alleluia. Remain in my love, says the Lord; whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit. Alleluia, alleluia.

Gospel Luke 6:27–38 Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.

Jesus said to his disciples: “To you who hear I say, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. To the person who strikes you on one cheek, offer the other one as well, and from the person who takes your cloak, do not withhold even your tunic. Give to everyone who asks of you, and from the one who takes what is yours do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you. For if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do the same. If you lend money to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, and get back the same amount. But rather, love your enemies and do good to them, and lend expecting nothing back; then your reward will be great and you will be children of the Most High, for he himself is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. “Stop judging and you will not be judged. Stop condemning and you will not be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven. Give and gifts will be given to you; a good measure, packed together, shaken down, and overflowing, will be poured into your lap. For the measure with which you measure will in return be measured out to you.”

The Gospel of the Lord

R/ Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.

[k-zu]

ガイア : power outage ft. kaeya modern au for yae publishing house event

"please, have mercy on me." you let out a sob when the dark-haired guy in front of you hits you with yet another +2 card, his smirk making the humiliation of losing a two-people game of uno even worse.

"oh? but i'm having so much fun, and we only just started the second round. you're tired of losing already?" he tilted his head to appear baffled, the permanently printed smirk on his face ruining his whole theatrics. of course, he would like to go around making fun of you just for the hell of it. it's like he feeds from your reactions, he eats them up for breakfast, lunch and dinner and always tries to get even more of them. "besides, you've insisted so much on playing with me these last few days. don't tell me you're giving up so easily, darling."

"you're always so mean to me. what have i ever done to you?" you pouted while giving it a last try to counterstrike his attacks but soon realizing your whole fifteen (15!!!) cards were useless, he put down a blue. the only colour you didn't have.

you cursed under your breath and picked up as many cards as necessary to continue your turn, it all felt like life had smiled at you one last time when your vision caught on the colour of the card you were just picking up though. the characteristic colour of a special card with white details lining a beautiful, gorgeously made +4 card. you decided to save it, with an uncontrollable wicked smile forming on your face that made him shiver.

picking up your next, you couldn't help the malicious giggle slipping from your lips rather loudly. oh, you thought you might've found out the significance of life right there at the moment a second +4 card found its way to your hand.

kaeya could see the gears turning in your head, calculating your next move with a newfound motive, your sinister expression made him move uncomfortably in his position. if you started rubbing your hands together in delight at your evil plan he wouldn't have been surprised.

"now. what's so amusing about your never-ending hand of cards?" he asked, a single drop of sweat running down his forehead. meanwhile you let out small giggles like a maniac.

"patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish." you quote in the middle of throwing your arm up in the air, his unknown demise dancing on your fingertips. you felt a rush of confidence run through your body like the blood in your veins, you were too worked up for an uno game but your game buddy appreciated the enthusiasm nonetheless.

you would savour that moment of pure and blissful fulfillment when watching your opponent fall into a disaster of your creation again if you could, watch those pretty white jewels adorning his sly stunning smile that would be replaced with the face of stupefaction in the most satisfactory way possible. and you were just about to see every second of it.

until you weren't.

darkness covered the room and it took a while for your eyes to get accustomed to the change of lighting, your one-way ticket to success fell out of your hands onto the table with no spectator to witness your triumph, thus the game was over. everything fell silent.

it wouldn't last long though for kaeya let out the biggest laugh you've ever heard coming from him in all your months being roommates. you plopped yourself down to your spot on the floor, defeated, and watched your companion cry of happiness at your misery.

"you're adorable, really. patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles perish." he kept on stupidly giggling for another five minutes after that, you were nothing short of annoyed.

not just that you lost so ridiculously, but the moonlight slipped through your window so perfectly that it smacked kaeya on his good side, if he was aware of that fact you would never hear the end of it. you made sure he never knew it coming directly out of your mouth, but sometimes the way you would stare at him told him more than what he needed to hear. the ridiculous crush you've had on him ever since you guys moved in together was painfully obvious.

"alright, alright. let's clean the floor up, shall we?" you tried reasoning with him while getting up and picking up some of what was left of your dignity with you. "help me find some candles too, handsome"

with that, kaeya finally stopped laughing his ass off and pretended to wipe a non-existent tear off under his eye. "aw, you're making me blush! and here i thought i was the charming one." he tried to contain himself back from letting stray giggles out "it appears you can still be lovely after losing both a game and your dignity."

the innocent sweet smile he gave you while saying that made your chest feel all weird, was it the lack of good lighting that made it seem like his eyes had stars in them?

"stop trying to be cute."

"what do you mean trying? i am cute."

"you definitely are lying to yourself."

"well you literally called me handsome just a second ago."

"i think you're delusional-"

next thing kaeya knows, a loud thud and an "ouch" were heard, indicating you got so distracted by your bickering with him that you walked onto a wall. once again, you could almost see his shining bright smile in the darkness of your shared apartment and you couldn't even get mad at someone as pretty as him. instead, you chose to lazily push him away from you causing him to crash into a doorframe.

"what is wrong with you?" kaeya huffed out a laugh albeit porting pain in his features, he caressed his arm.

"i can't see, genius." sarcastically, you moved before him and entered the kitchen. when your face was concealed from his view you finally let yourself smile.

"i believe it was actually intentional on your part." you heard his footsteps behind you, each step taken would increase your heartbeat to the point that you had to put your hand on your chest. still, you tried your best to look for a candle, directing yourself by your other senses. were did you put them last time?

undoubtedly, there was something about being alone with kaeya in the dark night with the moon as the only witness that'd make your head feel dizzy and your hands go numb. god, how could someone be so mesmerising? you're not even mad about losing the uno game to him anymore, you'd let him win everytime as long as you can see him unabashedly smile like that again: eyes crinkling, cheeks flushed, messy hair brushing his face, soft hearty laugh and the absolute light in his eyes that would follow your movements after laughing too hard.

you found the candle and lit it up, just to see kaeya inches away from your face. "you do know we have our phone's flashlights, right?" is what he said, barely above a whisper. his gaze seemed to be fixated on something on your face, or maybe just on you. you let out a nervous laugh trying to brush it off, but he saw right through you, or more like right at you, directly in your eyes.

"again, i believe that was also intentional on your part." he lifted his hand to your cheek and caressed it oh so tenderly as if fearing you might break. you felt your breath shudder and embarrassingly stared at your roommate's lips, his smile growing bigger by the second while your mind clouded in a fog of thoughts about how much you wanted to kiss him, just to feel what is like to have his soft-looking plump lips on yours. "it makes this even more romantic, don't you think?"

yet as he got closer and closer all you could do was melt in the hands that held you so gently. you hoped for more dark nights loosing uno games if this was the result of them every time.

a/n: notice how i got uninspired near the end, it all comes down to the curse, ended up hating it ;-; but it's finally done, i'm free.

[dextixer]

Oh Dex, you don't get to pull the "I can't be bigoted, stalking, violent trash because I'm more leftist than you are" card.

I'm trans and an ancom and it's no secret that a lot of "ex" gg-ers tried to re-invent themselves.

Funny how it never works for long.

No one outside your diminishing echo chamber believes a word you say.

Actually, that is just wrong. Me being leftist has nothing to do with me not being bigoted. Im simply... Not bigoted. The reason why i point out my leftist "credentials" is to prove through my ACTIONS why you people are fake progressives.

You gave me labels. You are trans and an ancom. Okay. Why should i care? I dont care about your labels (I stopped caring about them during the invasion of Ukraine when people started using the "pacifist" and "anti-imperialist" labels to argue for Russian occupation of Ukraine). I care about actions.

So, let us all recall what YOU anti-RWDE people have done with your actions.

1 - During the RT controversies many of your people came in DEFENCE of RT, people like Lilith Fairen cursed out and attacked people on twitter for criticizing RT and afterwards your anti-RWDE crowd spread Kdins past shitty behaviour. Pointing out her past behaviour is not a problem. But you did so to protect a bigoted company.

2 - Your anti-RWDE crowd has called for people to support RT financially through merch and other such avenues. Showing that you care more for your show and a corporation than its workers.

3 - Multiple anti-RWDE people have been caught using slurs, people like Lilith using ethnic slurs while some of your other people have been caight using the word "ret*rd". One of your people, Darious uses an alt account to spread islamophobic and racist shit to Adel Aka and Vexed Viewer. I dont like their content. But the racist attacks on them come from YOUR crowd

4 - Multiple of your people have been caught faking accusations about others. Canonseeker, a person your anti-RWDE crowd is friendly with for example took issue with me slagging of NAZIS on twitter. Pretending that they were "RWBY fans". I dont know why he stated that Nazis were RWBY fans but you should ask him that.

5- Your anti-RWDE crowd constantly use language or tactics associated with the alt-right. Lilith Fairen often weaponizes an alt right tactic when people call out racism/sexism, to them accuse the accusers of these things. Some of your people freely use the word "degener*te" which is HEAVILY associated with far right ideologies.

6 - Most of your biggest attacks have been against people of colour and sexual minorities. You dont go after chuds. Your MAIN targets are specifically women, people of colour, and those of non-straight sexualities. And that is no coincidence. Hell, quite recently one of your leaders, Lilith straight up made an entire paragraph which just reeked of white saviour syndrome.

7 - It is only from YOUR anti-RWDE crowd that i have gotten shit for supporting Ukraine in their defence against a Russian invasion. No single critic of RWBY has EVER given me shit for that. Only RWBY fans. Why is that?

Need i go on? The reason why i call you fake progressives is not due to the labels you hold. But due to your behaviour. The BEST you can levy in accusations against RWDE people is making shit up.

Xel Writer/Zam/Xelianthought for example is hanging around twitter claiming that the Canonseeker expose document was made with the help of Kiwifarms knowing that its a lie. He wanted to get my Reddit account deleted through false accusations that Lilith wanted to get onto too. Your friend canonseeker is coming up with real life fanfiction about me "controling" RWBY youtubers and r/RWBY mods.

The best you can do are either lies or shouting "YOU ARE SEXIST/RACIST/HOMOPHOBE" with absolutely no proof.

While your, anti-RWDE behaviour has been recorded to be fucking horrible. And none of you ever apologized or even acknowledged the things you have done. None of you have acknowledged or apologized for using slurs. None of you have apologized for defending RT.

You doubled down on that shit.

Also, if you dont care what we say. Why in the fuck do you keep hounding us? Why do i receive nearly daily asks of harassment? Why do you keep talking about us? If nobody believes us or listens to us. Why do you care?

See? Your attacks are so transparent its funny to me. Because in your whole "Nobody cares about you spiel" you reveal just how much of a pain we are to you people. Good.

[itsana004]

10, 12, and 14 for Droite for the meme!

Ahhh thank you so much for the ask 💞💞💞

10. Could you be best friends with this character?

Oh gosh definitely not, it's like asking if celebrities could be best friends with their fans and I would be that fan worshiping her and having fan pages dedicated to her so definitely not

12. What's a headcanon you have for this character?

Oh my gosh I actually have a lot hehe

1-One headcanon I have is I think she has a really cute sneeze no matter in what situation, she can't control it and the worst part is it's not expected of her since she's serious most of the time, so she tries not to sneeze in front of people whom she doesn't want to look at her differently, especially enemies, but terribly fails in front of long-term friends and people she sees and visits often like Gauche, Haruto and Kaito.

2-I personally do not believe she's from Spartan City and the idea Mr. Heartland travelled that far from Heartland City to Italy to pick up orphaned children, and Gauche himself says the city they were born in was “terrible” and did not mention Spartan City by name. Even looking at the flashback, just looking at the surroundings it feels the buildings are a bit modernised, more like the outskirts of Heartland City. Gauche and Droite probably travelled to Spartan City due to the Championships being held there and they just travel around living in hotels and don't have a permanent home yet except Heartland City, but I really like the idea of her and Gauche sharing some Italian ancestry and connections to that place I just like the idea of them being Italian since I grew up in Italy. I like to imagine Droite's innate Italian spirit being stereotypically Italian that hates food crimes such as pineapple and fruits on pizza or ruining pasta, she's very defensive of that and even more so after staying in Spartan City in those couple of months. Never show her a Hawaiian pizza ever or she’ll get crazier than how Chris is when he teaches dueling. Haruto found out the hard way and he will never ruin pasta in front of an Italian ever again.

3-Droite is good at many things, but drawing is not one of them. As an orphan who was living in the streets she never really got the practice as a child, and once she was picked up by Mr. Heartland, art wasn't really a big focus in her studies, especially during training. She's insecure about that especially in front of people like Kaito where he needs to make detailed geometry and references in order to build something, she's bad at anything that requires art, whether it is a flower or an architecture. She tries to hide that though.

4-Just as drawing, she's really bad at whistling, she can't whistle for her life, just imagine Haruto trying to teach Droite how to whistle the same he learned from his brother so adorableee 😭💞

5-Droite is incredibly good at board games like chess or Go, she's good at any game that requires and tests one’s ability to think critically and defeat the opponent completely unnoticed, it's just one of those fields where she's almost unbeatable. She's so good that it rivals Chris. She has incredible muscle memory compared to the average and can play chess while blindfolded.

14. Assign a fashion aesthetic to this character.

I think she's a Chic Modernist

with the colour scheme of Barbiecore with the pink, grey, purple and white combination 

I would absolutely love her to wear darker colours since her normal outing dress is too much pink for my taste, she would kill it in black the ones with nets, and outfits with corset!!!

She already wears a huge belt in canon which kind of acts as a corset

I can also imagine her having a light textile dress like this one

in an open field filled with flowers and butterflies near a seashore - this is not too far of as the first one is the same as her regular outing fit if you remove this

And the second photo is similar to her nightgown

I think for Droite the animators wanted to fit her dress to match the colour scheme of her hair but I think she would rock so many other colours than pink, grey, white and purple/violet combination.