#there are probably more but these ones got the most hate

[curtins]

taking a shower with the jujutsu kaisen men

gojo — despite what his no.1 hater says (gege) i'm telling you and promising you that he showers daily. trust me when i say his white hair is fluffy fresh. spends way too long in the shower and you get a bit bored because he's hyping himself in the mirror beforehand (who's the strongest? you are!). uses a fancy, overpriced shampoo that smells like tropical fruits but leaves the cap off each time. has broken 2-3 waterproof speakers before. once bought a waterproof phone case to scroll his phone in the shower, but ended up getting distracted on tiktok until the water went cold. his bathroom looks like a high end salon, more products than an influencer. leaves little hearts in the condensation on the mirror

nanami — you have your regular showers with nanami, but he's really more of a bath guy i think. like i'm saying a glass of wine and a candle. if he doesn't like you or your name is gojo satoru, then interrupting him here will result in the worst lecture you've ever heard in your life, but if he likes enough, he'll let you sit on the edge of the bath with him and talk about your day. the most pristine bathroom of all time, it's literally a spa. you once asked if his shower head was imbued with cursed energy, because it's just that precise and perfect. very possessive about his towels.

geto — definitely the type to stand under the shower and waste the hot water. this is mainly because he can't help but monologue about his philosophy for too long, and by then, you've hopped out and left him there. the most perfect cherry-blossom floral scented shampoo is the only thing that can touch his thick, glossy hair. his hair is probably stuck to the shower wall a lot, but he tries to blame it on you. weirdly eclectic shower playlists that range from ominous, chanting ballads to 2000s boybands because he claims he's a man with layers.

toji — for a man with a kinda gross job (like assassination isn't all that great right...) he smells good. but that depends on who you ask, because sometimes the scent of cologne is so strong, you feel a little nauseous. prob uses a 3-1 body wash, shampoo and conditioner because its 'all the same anyway.' this makes you cry! spends about three minutes in the shower each time, and then leaves without even drying himself, soaking wet and rawdogging the world. once got a bathrobe as a gift and tried it on for fun, but now uses it all the time when he's lounging around to eat takeout.

sukuna — once asked you to join him for a bath, and you agreed. let's just say you took a big step back when you realises why the bathwater was a thick, gloopy red. you once gave him rubber duckies as a present and he pretended to hate them and gagged. you caught him lining them up in military formation along the edges of the bathtub for 'reasons that aren't your concern.' ended up almost coughing a lung out after accidentally ingesting one too many bubbles. hates most modern inventions but enjoys a good loofah.

[solarhysm]

DUST OF US - 01

> synopsis: 7 years ago Y/N broke Jungkook’s heart when she decided to end their relationship without an explanation. When they meet again at a friend's wedding, after almost a decade, Jungkook needs answers to move on.

> pairing: Jungkook x reader

> genre: romance, ex to lovers au

> warnings: explicit languages, violence, smut, cheating, nsfw, angst, +18 minors dni !!

> word count: 2.6k

*french writer, i apologize in advance for my awful english!

AGE: 27 years old

“Where are you going?” Baekhyun asks, stretching as you get out of bed and grab all of your clothes. It was late but you hate sleeping in another bed than yours.

“I should go home.” You simply say, pulling on your panties and jeans as the younger man whines, flipping on his back.

“Oh, come on, Y/N, stay the night.” He suggests as you shake your head with an apologetic smile while putting your bra on.

“Hyesun is getting married, tomorrow. I need to get up early,” You explain, but it was an excuse. You don’t want to be more than intimate enough with anyone.

Once fully clothed, you grab your keys and turn to look at the man still laying completely naked in bed. “I’ll see you on Monday.”

“Aight, boss,” He teases making you roll your eyes. “One last kiss?”

“Bye,” You smile closing the door of his room, hearing him laugh before making your way out of his apartment.

Once in your car, you sigh, leaning on your seat as you stare at the ceiling. Eleven pm already, and tomorrow’s list kept growing in your mind.

Your way home was silent, you didn’t even put music on, mentally listing all the tasks to do tomorrow morning. Drive Hyesun to the hairstylist, make sure that the flowers are delivered, get her dress, and a lot more.

The house should already be decorated by now. Hyesun was getting married at her in-law’s house. They have a big yard and suggested to make the reception in there. Since you couldn’t be here to help today, you ended up with the stressful tasks tomorrow. Her friends aren’t yours.

Yes, you still have a small circle of friends in common, but Hyesun was a sunshine and most of all: an extrovert. She met her husband by boldly asking his number at a coffee shop where he was working, five years ago. Something you could never. That’s probably why you’re still single and she’s getting married.

Kicking your shoes off at your front door, you’re greeted by your cat. He was a little terror. Or a demon like Namjoon loves to call him. And you can’t blame your friend. Not only was Trash a black cat with only one ear, the other got cut off. You don’t know how.

He was already like that when you adopted him. He was skinny and really ugly when you first got him. Well... he’s still ugly, but now he’s well-fed, maybe too much, you chuckle as you kneel to scratch the top of his head. But he was also a tiny demon who attacked everyone who dared to visit you.

“Did you miss me?” You coo as the black cat let out a meow husky enough to let you think that he smokes too many cigarettes. He’s not a loud cat, he occasionally meows when he’s hungry or when you come home after a long day.

As you make your way to the kitchen, the fat cat follows you. Opening the fridge, you take out a bottle of water and gives him a treat. Your eyes fall on the dress you’ll wear tomorrow, hanged at the bedroom door.

The wedding theme was midnight sky. So, obviously, your dress is navy blue and long enough to end at your ankles with a slit on the right side. You didn’t choose it, Hyesun did.

Palming your face, you take a sip of your water and walk to your bedroom. You need a shower. You could still smell Baekhyun’s cheap cologne on your skin. And you hate it. Too used to your own scent. Not of any men anymore.

The wedding was beautiful, but you didn’t expect less from your best friend. And she was gorgeous in her wedding dress. She smiles a lot, but you never see her smile that way. And all you could think was that her jaw muscles probably hurt after four hours.

“No, what I want, is a whole butterfly starting from my shoulders to my ribs,” Your friend, Hwan explains to you as she flips to show her bare back. You can’t help but scoff, taking a sip of your wine.

“Why? You want to become a fairy or something?” You ask arching a brow as she turns to face you, frowning.

“Don’t make fun of me,” Hwan pouts, folding her arms under her chest, “I saw it on Pinterest, I totally fell in love with it.”

“A tattoo is for life, you know?” You sigh, finishing your glass before tilting your head to brush your fingers on her back, right where her ribs are. “And this part is sensitive. It’ll hurt like hell.”

Hwan shivers at your touch, and you chuckle. You know her. She wants a tattoo today, a piercing tomorrow and in two weeks she’ll regret both. The red head -a dye she did without a second thought- rolls her eyes.

“And you think I can’t handle the pain?” She asks with an attitude, a tone that makes you pinch her forearm as she squirms and step back. “Are you crazy?”

“You can’t handle the pain, Hwan.” You conclude while she rubs the part that start to turn red.

“You’re the worst tattoo artist I know. I’ll give you a bad review on Google.” She groans as you smirk and stick your tongue’s out at her, making her smile amused by you.

Your eyes scan the room full of guests you don’t know before a huge smile spread on your lips as you notice the man all alone. He was sipping his glass of whisky as he looks at his phone, feigning to be interested but he’s probably scrolling emptily. You know him. He hates when people try to connect with him.

Excusing yourself from Hwan and the other girls, you make your way to your friend, too busy on his phone to see you coming.

“Yoongs,” You call him once you’re a few steps closer to him, he lifts his cat eyes from his screen before offering you a slight smirk and opening his arms as you nestle against his chest. You’re not really touchy, but with Yoongi, it was different.

“Nice dress.” He simply says, his nose in your hair before you pull back to look at him. He looks nice too. His hair is longer, but it suits him.

“You didn’t cut your hair?” You ask as he sighs, rolling a strand between his finger as you keep an arm around his waist.

“Didn’t have the time for it.”, He mumbles taking another sip of his whisky. “I didn’t know you would be here. Since you own a tattoo shop, we don’t see you often anymore.”

“It’s my best friend’s wedding, I couldn’t miss it. She would have dragged my ass back here.” you chuckle making him smile and nod.

“That sounds like Hyesun,” He jokes as you smile.

Yoongi wasn’t that tall, but he was still everyone’s type. Calm, mysterious, and good looking. If only dating was on his plans. That guy will probably stay single his whole life, too focused on his work.

“I was looking for you everywhere!” Hyesun groans grabbing your arm.

“I was here,” You simply reply, raising your shoulders, making Yoongi looks at you both amused. You probably get along because you’re both sarcastic. At least you know that’s something he likes about you.

“Thanks Sherlock, Mystery solved!” She rolls her eyes, before pulling you away from your friend, “Come on, follow me, I want to take pictures with you.”

She quickly waves at Yoongi, blowing a kiss at him as he didn’t move before pushing you away.

“He’s like a good old wine. Every time I see him, he’s getting hotter.” She smirks as you make your way to the photographer.

“Aren’t you married?” You joke making her roll her eyes.

“Married, not blind. As long as I touch with my eyes,” She adds as you shake your head, laughing, joining the girls.

Yoongi leaves his empty glass on the table next to him, an amused smirk on his face. If you stayed longer, he would have been part of an interesting reunion.

“Shit, I almost peed myself. There is a whole queue at the male bathroom,” The younger man groans, coming back next to Yoongi as he takes back his beer. “Hyung?”

The older man turns to his friend and arches a brow to show that he’s listening.

“Hyesun told me that there was a private bathroom upstairs for the closest friends” Yoongi simply mumbles, making Jungkook groans as he ties his hair into a bun.

“And you tell me only now?” the tattooed man sighs as he pulls up his sleeves, the temperature of the room getting hotter. Or maybe it’s him from running here and there.

“You left without a word,” Yoongi shrugs like it was obvious, his eyes still on the group of girls making funny faces at the camera. Jungkook lets out a chuckle.

“Which one?” He asks his friend who simply arches a brow. “I’m sure it’s the red head. You always had a think for girls with weird hair colors.”

Yoongi didn’t say anything. He’s used to the teasing. It’s a loss of energy, Jungkook was competitive and if you say that the sky was blue, he would tell otherwise until you tell him he's right.

Jungkook smiles proudly, turning his attention to the bunch of girls. Hyesun had pretty friends, but he’s not surprised. Until he recognized a face. A face he knows too well, a face he loved deeply once upon a time.

You didn’t change. Well… Your hair is shorter. You never liked your hair short, not after your mother spent your childhood cutting it into a bob.

The bangs too. You hated them. But today, you wore it gracefully. His doe eyes trail the length of it, how it brushes your shoulders when you laugh, how you have to push your bang asides.

He never hated you. Even after you broke his heart. Even after coming home to an empty apartment because you disappeared, or when you blocked his number and changed yours. He never hated you.

“You said she wasn’t here.” He frowns, turning to Yoongi who simply arches a brow.

“She wasn’t supposed to.” Yoongi replies, taking a sip of his new glass.

“I shouldn’t have come.” Jungkook sighs, his brows still in a frown creating a slight wrinkle between them.

“Kookie,” Yoongi turns his gaze to his friend who’s clearly uncomfortable. “You’re back in town. You both have the same friends group. What did you expect? You’ll have to confront her one day or another.”

“Y/N,” Hwan calls you as you were taking another glass of wine, facing her with a small hm? “The guy you talked earlier,”

“Yoongi?”

“Yeah, something like that. Do you know his friend?” She asks as you follow her gaze to the large man next to Yoongi, his back facing you. You liked the tattoos, and the muscular frame. The long hair was clearly a bonus.

“No,” You reply, your eyes trailing on Yoongi’s friend. You’ll definitely ask Yoongi who that is later.

“He’s hot,” Hwan comments as you nod, taking a sip of your wine before spitting everything out. You cough when the mysterious man turns around, laughing with your friend.

And almost immediately, you hide behind the table that separates you. Was this a joke?

“What’s wrong? One of your one-night stands?” Hwan chuckles clearly amused to see you, on your knees, trying to hide under the table. If only you could be sucked up by the floor. It was stupid. It was an old story. It’s been seven years since you dumped him like an old, forgotten sock.

“It’s my ex,” You almost whisper, making Hwan wide her eyes and hide with you like she even met him before.

You never thought that you’ll see him again. He disappeared for Japan right after your breakup for his studies. And you didn’t think about him since then. Well, it’s a lie.

You thought about him the three first years after your split. But, he was just some old memories from the shoebox under your bed. 

Some love letters written by a teenage boy, an empty bottle of perfume and a shirt of his that you didn’t have the heart to throw. But that’s all he was. A shoebox of memories.

“Oh damn,” Hwan murmurs, “How did you get that hot piece of man?” She asks as you roll your eyes.

He wasn’t that hot when you started dating him. He had a chestnut haircut, was too skinny even if he was the sporty type, and huge doe eyes. Now he’s…. a man.

“I think… I need to get out”, You swallow, get up and finish your glass. Walking to the backyard, you catch a bottle on your way.

Thankfully, Hwan didn’t follow you. A few persons were outside, some of them making out, the others too drunk, and probably getting some fresh air like you.

Did Hyesun invite him? Why did he come? He knows that she’s your friend. That you’d be here. Palming your face, you lean back against the wall, taking a sip of your bottle of champagne. Fuck… This is childish. You’re twenty-seven, for God’s sake. Act like an adult.

“Hiding?” You heard on your right, making you almost jump.

And here he was, a few meters away, a bottle of beer in hand. His eyes changed. He grew up.

“Good evening, Jungkook,” You breathe as he offers you a slight smile, his lips mostly forming a line.

“Good evening, Y/N,” He replies, making a few steps closer, “Long time no see.”

“Yeah...”

A silence falls between you before he takes a breath like he wants to calm his nerves too. Were you two nervous around each other?

“How… have you been?” He asks with a soft voice.

“Good. You?”

“Good.”

“Nice.”

You wanted to punch yourself. That conversation was stupid. Back then, you two could debate about everything for hours. Now, you can’t even have a basic conversation.

“I… Didn’t know you were back.” You say, looking at the grass at your feet.

“Yeah… I- I missed Korea.” He raises his shoulders slightly before taking a sip of his beer.

“Oh…Okay.” You scrunch your nose and take a sip of your bottle to not look too much stupid but his lips crease in an amused smile at the bottle in your hand. Neither of you says anything. And it’s weird. “That’s… some cool tattoos,” You add, trying to make the conversation as you point his entire inked sleeve with your chin.

“Yeah?” He chuckles awkwardly. “I always wanted tattoos.”

“I know.” You reply, almost immediately, making him lift his gaze to you as your eyes widen. “You- hm- You thought that Yakuza were cool.” you continue as he nods, his eyes still on you while you look away.

“You remembered.”

You clench your jaw slightly and take another sip of champagne. You hate champagne, but you didn’t read what was written on the bottle when you took it.

“Your father must be proud of you. I heard you had your own tattoo shop.” He says as your gaze soften. Jungkook and your dad were always close, he even called him ‘son’. Your father was in fact, proud of you.

“He is”, was all you could reply, and he nods silently before taking a deep breath.

“Can I… ask you a question? I need to understand something” He frowns a little, turning his head to look at the backyard before finally glancing back at you. He is waiting for you to answer and you simply stare at him. “Why did you leave me, Y/N?”

DUST OF US MASTERLIST.

WATTPAD.

buy me a coffee<3

[sweettoothy]

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐋𝐃𝐒 𝐄𝐍𝐃

╰ SHOW ﹕ ARCANE !

︵ WARNING(S) ﹕╰ swearing ⸝ violence ﹕ sex

︵ relationship ﹕ Vi x fem!fragile!reader x Caitlyn

NOTE: short chapter ? (If you guys have any questions head to my inbox ^^, and I all know we wanna see a sex scene where they’re bumping against each others clits, and scissoring, It’ll happen soon trust me)

⟣・S2・WATCH IT ALL BURN︰

YOU WALK INTO a pretty battered up place, a hand on your hip as you walked next to caitlyn. you were still a little injured from yesterday but that’s okay, the green smoke was clouding your goggles that were attached to your face, causing a frustrated sigh to escape you. the rest of the enforcers including you, were searching for jinx after the incident that had happened.

It wasn’t just an incident, it was a pretty big one, cause caitlyn’s mom got caught in the crossfire. least to say it wasn’t surprising that caitlyn was on the verge of losing it, but she was holding her composure the best she could.

Not to mention you getting hurt was one of her biggest regrets, she wish she could’ve protected you more— but things happen.

Vi checks over her shoulder from time to time to make sure you’re alright, she doesn’t want you getting caught in her sister’s bullshit. It was pretty scary being here, if you were truthful.

You never met jinx but you’ve heard so many good and bad things about her. Honestly, none of it seemed to make sense anymore. She just sounded like a broken person overall, someone who just needed help.

Jinx was hiding somewhere near the ceiling, she could see you, caitlyn, and vi. her pink colored eyes landing on you as she raised her gun slightly, she wondered what it would be like if vi were to lose the most precious thing she’s had in her life— due to being in jail for long 7 years.

You and caitlyn really switched vi’s life around, even though right now she didn’t like having to be an enforcer. But if it was to stop her sister? It was the right thing to do, it has to stop at some point.

Jinx hand starts to shake as tears prick her eyes, she leans back and hides behind a wall— not bothering to take the shot.

She’s just hated what her sisters become, so lovestruck on you and out to get her— it wasn’t fair.

You flinch slightly when music suddenly comes on, making you step back quickly.

“It’s okay, (name).” Maddie tells you, placing her hand on your shoulder. “No one’s there.”

Caitlyn’s eye twitched when she saw the way maddie had placed her hand on your shoulder, her lips upturning into a frown as she grew a little annoyed— maddie always used the sweet act with you just to get close.

And it pissed off vi and cait.

YOU HAD TO take a minute to catch your breath as you leaned against the wall, collapsing to your knees as you lift up your top underneath your shirt, the gash still there from the time you had gotten injured after the explosion. Vi and caitlyn make their way towards you, their expressions full of worry and concern.

“Are you okay, love?” Caitlyn asks as she kneels to your level, the height difference between you three very visible. Cait being taller than vi and vi being taller than you. that was so cute.

Vi tucks some of your hair behind your ear as she rubs her thumb over your cheek, “we can take you back. you didn’t have to come with us.” she tells you, leaning forward to kiss your forehead.

“No, no,” You reply. “I want to help. I’m tired of lying in bed doing nothing.”

Caitlyn knows it wasn’t the best time to be taking at look at your boobs but they were so round and pretty she just wanted to put her hand over it and squeeze them in her possession. If only her thoughts weren’t so vivid right now, she probably would be dead set on getting revenge on jinx which—of course—she still is.

Vi reaches to grab the curvy part of your waist, her hand easily squeezing there gently. “Okay. but if you feel sick let us know.”

“I’m okay, guys, seriously.” You tell them, “I can handle myself.”

“If you’re sure.” Caitlyn replies, trying to keep her dirty thoughts away.

If they were out of sight, they’d be out of mind. right?

Wrong!

Vi couldn’t help but take a look at your chest again, oh this felt so wrong and disrespectful but it felt so good at the same time. when she first met you, she already knew she would take a liking to you.

The thought of being between your legs right now and wanting to hear you whimper was not what she had in mind but she wanted it to happen, she craved it to happen.

Standing up you dust yourself off, “okay-- let’s go get the others. I think I know a route.”

“After you sweets.” Vi replies softly, dusting herself off.

Caitlyn stood up as well, vi taking a long look at your ass before quickly adverting her gaze.

They do not know how long they’re gonna last.

END OF CHAPTER TWO

[adimouze]

post-las vegas WDC max/daniel, rated M. ~1300 words. @girlsdads mentioned something about a lil bit of LL hating in a fic so. I did a lil bit of LL hating too.

-

A face floats into Max’s field of vision probably three hours into the fifth different party Max had been shepherded to since the race ended. He’s about ninety-percent sure he’s still in Las Vegas. He blinks blearily at it, hoping at least it’s pretty enough to look at. It has been a while since. Since.

Liam Lawson blinks back. Not who he was expecting. Gross. 

“Max,” he says, sounding too sober for whatever time it is. The club is loud but Max can still unfortunately hear him. “Are you okay?”

Max attempts a sweeping gesture, he’s carrying a glass of something and it hits someone’s back, making Max drop it with a smash. Liam cringes, looking like he’s about to complain. “This is my party, mate,” Max says, cutting off whatever Liam was going to say. “I’m fucking great.”

“Christian just left,” Liam says, and Max kind of hates how he talks but what can you do. Maybe he just doesn’t like Liam. “I think there’s another party happening a few blocks from now, do you want to join me?”

If Christian left that means Max can leave without theoretically offending anybody, even though it is his party. Half of the people around him don’t seem like people he knows anyway. “Nah man, you go on ahead, I’ll head back to the hotel –”

“Oh then I’ll head back with you,” Liam’s probably the most cheerful he’s been since Max met him. “Yuki scored and left me here.” 

Pity isn’t something Max feels often, but he does feel a bit of pity now. In his first year he was never left alone in clubs, either Carlos or Daniel were always there making sure they were around to get him back to wherever before they took someone home or to their hotel rooms. More often it was Daniel, and more often Daniel didn’t take anyone home, because they were sharing a room and more often it was just fun to watch onboards together, side by side. 

No one else but them. 

Then again, Max was a teenager in his first year and Liam’s twenty-two. He wouldn’t need babysitting. 

“Alright,” Max isn’t sure where he is. He doesn’t know how to ask Liam without sounding like an absolute idiot. 

“I have a car waiting,” Liam adds, after Max stared off into the distance for a few seconds, willing someone to appear with a car. Maybe Max isn’t being as subtle as he thought he was. 

_____

Red Bull and VCARB drivers are often put up in the same hotel, usually the standard room but Helmut had finangled him a penthouse upgrade on Thursday, telling Max that he deserved a proper room to party in, like Max was going to bring home an orgy. 

He’s pretty sure Liam couldn’t possibly have gotten a penthouse upgrade too. He’s sure hotels only have one penthouse? He’s sure. If he was less drunk he would be surer. But Liam makes no move to push any buttons. 

“Mind if I come up for a nightcap?” Liam asks, smiling. This is the most Max has seen him smile ever since he got Daniel…ever since Daniel left and he jumped in the car. Max does not want him to come up for a nightcap but Max is feeling generous tonight. 

“Sure, why not.” Someone had spilled what seems like a bottle of champagne on him at some point in the night and his shirt is sticking to him. He’s too tired to shower. Meh. It’ll be a problem for hungover Max tomorrow. 

The lift goes up insanely fast but still feels too slow for Max tonight. He’s WDC, four times WDC, he’s used to faster things, sue him. Liam is still staring at him. 

“Good driving tonight,” Max says, for want of anything better to do or say. He has no idea where Liam finished to be honest. 

“I finished 16,” Liam says flatly. Yikes. Well. 

The door dings open onto Max’s floor. And. 

Daniel’s sitting on the giant sectional of the penthouse living room. 

He looks gorgeous. Max wants to stare forever. He looks broad and good and tanned, his beard has filled in a lot more than when Max last saw him in Monaco, his hair thicker. The sweatshirt he’s wearing looks less oversized than usual, fitting his shoulders instead of drooping over them, and his trousers make his thighs look great. 

He’s smirking. He looks like a frat guy. He looks like one of those men from Victoria’s magazines that Max definitely didn’t jerk off over. 

Max is probably drooling, and Liam runs into him as he’s stepping out of the lift. 

“Oh sorry mate I – Daniel, hello.” Liam’s voice is a bit high. Confused. Probably scared. “Didn’t realize you were in Vegas. Red Bull didn’t…”

Daniel stands up and comes over. Max is still staring. Daniel moves like an apex predator and Liam’s just the runt of litter in this.  “Hey Liam. Well. Red Bull doesn’t own me anymore mate, do they? I can be wherever I want.”

He claps Liam on the shoulder in greeting then grabs Max’s limp hand. “Came to see my boy be the World Champion again.”

Liam’s probably saying something but Max doesn’t care, because Daniel’s pulling him in, arms going around Max, sticky shirt and all, and Max is going to swoon because Daniel smells good, good, good, their lips meeting after ages, Daniel’s lips and tongue the best, most refreshing thing Max has tasted all night. Someone’s moaning. 

It’s him. 

“Um…”

Liam’s still there. 

Max tries to pull back but Daniel’s got his hands on his ass, lifting, lifting, and Max’s legs going around him in response, and Daniel’s got them on the sofa in a second, Max perched on Daniel’s wide wide thighs without even separating their lips once. It’s the hottest thing Max has ever felt. He’s going to come just from the thought alone. 

“Liam,” Daniel’s saying, pulling back a few centimeters to give Max some breathing space. “I’m going to fuck my husband on this sofa right now, and he’s going to be screaming loud enough to be heard from the moon. So like,” he pops the k, and Max’s dick twitches, precome dripping into his underwear, “unless you want a front row seat to that for some reason, shouldn’t you be heading to bed?” 

“Husband?” Liam’s stuttering. “Excuse me? You can’t – Does Christian know? He’s going to be so mad at you, Max what the fuck –?”

“Get out,” Daniel says. Max has never heard him sound like that. “Now.” 

“I’m calling Christian,” Liam says as a parting shot. “He won’t – he’s not going to allow this.”

“Yeah you do that, mate,” Daniel rolls his eyes then squeezes Max’s ass harder. God, he’s so hot. Max feels insane. Husband husband husband. “What’s he going to do, fire me again?” 

The lift dings shut again. They’re blessedly alone. 

“Husband?” Max snorts, shivering as Daniel’s fingers undo his pant buttons. “Bit presumptuous of you, don’t you think?”

“The ring’s in the suitcase, baby,” Daniel says, smiling like a wolf, fingers curling around Max’s dick. Max grinds into the feeling, needing Daniel inside him right now. This is the best day of his life. “Was hoping you’d say yes.”

“Let me think about it,” Max laughs, and Daniel bites his nipple through his shirt. “Liam’s probably told the Herald by now.”

“I’ll personally send him the wedding photos,” Daniel cackles, licking up Max’s neck, leaving wet trails in the cold air con of the room, “if he promises to send me photos of Christian when he tells him I was about to fuck him in front of you.”

“Stop talking about Christian and fuck the World Champion already, husband,” Max says, his laughter turning into moans when Daniel all too willingly complies.

[abbysimsfun]

Sims In Bloom: Generation 2 Pt. 94 (The Body in Brindleton Bay)

cw: dead body and a blood puddle, discolored / shadowed by the lighting, just to be less graphic tbh. For that reason I also don't zoom in on the body that closely, but text mentions who it is and there's no trick! That is who it is, even without a close-up!

Conrad met his young, eager partner, Zion Spangler, at the docks. His last partner, Josephine, had stuck around a few years longer than planned, but she was so close to retirement she deferred almost all her field work to Conrad and Zion. The sergeant liked the newly-minted detective's ambition and his instinct, and they approached the crime scene with caution.

A body laid at the edge of the pier in a pool of blood, already slightly washed away by the heavy, wet coastal snow of Brindleton Bay.

"The owners of the Salty Paw said someone knocked on their door about a body by their patio tables, but everyone was inside because of the cold and no one saw anything," explained Zion.

"Did you find any clues at the scene?"

"None. The snow washed away every footprint and fingerprint we might possibly find."

Zion got down on his knees to brush through the snow surrounding the body in search of clues. But Conrad took one look at the victim and knew exactly who they needed to look for. "Any ID on him?"

"Everything. Even his money. Vic's name is Jameson Bower."

No it wasn't. Not really. "Run that name through the database back at the station. Make sure he doesn't have any aliases, check his record."

Conrad could have offered to do it himself to cover his tracks. But he wanted to mentor Zion to be as good a detective as he could be, and he knew what the body of Jimmy Stefano represented. Surveying the grisly scene, his heart raced.

When Conrad backed out of the search for Rafa, Ximena called his bluff. This was his jurisdiction. He couldn't ignore a dead body connected to the cartel in Brindleton Bay. He didn't know whether Ximena wanted to hurt the cartel or bring him down, but she wouldn't let him walk away.

He'd all but asked for this when he agreed to meet her in this very spot months earlier, hoping he could get her to disappear by giving her what she wanted, helping her brother in the process. But Ximena hated to go quietly, and if he'd ignored her she wouldn't have let him be, either. It probably always would have come to this, but that didn't make it any easier to swallow.

He called Heather to check in. "Did you get to your parents'?"

"We're fine, Conrad. Lavender's asleep again and I'm just hanging out with Sammy." She tilted the camera on her phone to show off River and Cass' infant son, quietly drinking from a bottle. "Is the body related to the cartel?"

"It is."

"What are you going to tell your boss?"

"The truth."

"You could lose your job for sneaking around."

"Wouldn't I deserve it? I had to come clean to you first, and now it's time to come clean to everyone else."

"Conrad, I love you," she said. "I'm so mad at you for lying to me that I don't even know what else to say right now, but I need to be mad at you in one piece. We can talk more if you make it here this weekend."

"I love you, too." Zion called him then to return to the precinct. "I have to go."

As much as it burned to leave their conversation on that note, Ximena had forced his hand. If he didn't come clean to his coworkers and his boss, he'd lose his job. He might, anyway, but he couldn't move in shadows anymore.

With the scene documented and cleared and the body moved to the morgue, Conrad and Zion returned to the station. They worked through the night, and by morning it was obvious the victim was Jimmy Stefano, a low-level member of Los Tigres de Selva, one of the most violent cartels in Simlandia. "Do you think it's a new turf war?"

Conrad shook his head. "I don't think Los Tigres has operated out of Brindleton Bay for years."

Zion cocked his brow in confusion. "Well, what stopped them? They operate just fine out of everywhere else."

"They don't need Brindleton Bay when they've got hold of the ports in San Myshuno," he said, but his attention turned when their captain arrived. The man barely said hello, immediately shutting himself inside his office. Conrad didn't know if it was just that he'd had to come to work on a Saturday, or this specific case, but he had to come clean.

He knocked on the door. With a look, the captain waved him inside. "Sargent, you look tired." He laughed as if he'd made a joke.

"Been a long night."

The captain's expression changed. "Go ahead and shut the door, Sargent."

Conrad sat with an anxious expression, knees together, eyes down like he was about to be reprimanded in grade school. "About the docks victim, sir. I knew him."

The captain nodded plainly. "I read your file when I took over. But you're not the first cop who turned toward the law when they could have easily gone the other way."

"The thing is, I've been working a case under the table for a while now. I found Jimmy Stefano and filed a report against Ximena Bonilla."

"After everything done to bail you out and send you through the academy, you thought it was a good idea to investigate the cartel runner you once dated? For what reason?"

"She found my address, scared my fiancee. Ximena told me her brother was missing, and he and I were close. He was so young, and I wanted to help him."

"You didn't want to help San Myshuno PD? Ximena Bonilla's brother is a wanted man..."

"I would have told him to turn himself in and work a plea," he insisted. "My old precinct would look good, and I hoped Rafa could turn his life around with a little encouragement from someone other than his sister."

"Are you still in touch?"

"No, sir. I told her two days ago I was done searching for Rafa because I thought she was trying to trick me into investigating the cartel. Blocked her number. After the body showed up I tried the number I had but it's been disconnected."

"So she's the prime suspect."

"I think she might've figured out Jimmy talked to me and she wanted to get rid of him. If she didn't kill Jimmy herself - and she might have - I think she ordered the hit to draw me into an investigation against the cartel that could get me killed and endanger my family."

"Do you think she's working with Los Tigres?"

Conrad shrugged. "I don't know. I did a bit of digging and it looks like the cartel itself might be in a bit of disarray. Power vacuum after the murder of one of their higher ups (go on Frida!), so a turf war seems unlikely. I think the safest way to do this is to treat Ximena like a lone wolf. The cartel's not even supposed to be operating in Brindleton Bay these days."

"Since George Brindleton pulled his guys from the ports, they could have moved back in."

Conrad's stomach flipped. "George Brindleton?"

"George Brindleton lost his boats, but he didn't lose his security business. Pulled his men just before he left for Sulani. Said he was cutting costs at the port during the dead season, but I think he's just trying to remind us how important he is after his son went to prison. We upped patrol to try to deal with the lack of security down there, but his guys don't abide by any constitutional rights...I don't admit this outside these walls, but Brindleton's ports have always run better under private security."

"Was this before or after the restraining order I took out on him for Heather and the kids?"

The captain excused Conrad to think, soon calling him back with Zion and another officer who typically dealt with the press. "This is the plan. Our suspect is Ximena Bonilla, but we don't announce it. We look for her, or her brother, and no one else. We say the investigation is ongoing until we've found one or both of them. And Spangler, you're taking point on this one."

"Why me? Gordon's the sergeant."

"Gordon's too close to this one. I want him focused on looking for Rafa Bonilla, not Ximena, but he'll cooperate with you and help behind the scenes. She might try to reach out to him, and if she does, you'll be the first to know. And if you're not, he's a suspect, too." They nodded with understanding. "And Gordon? No more bullshit under the table or I'll put you on leave and find a way not to pay you."

Having worked through the night, Conrad relinquished his files to his mentee, but he left the precinct with a sense of unease. He still had a job, and he could still search for Rafa without needing to hide anything from his coworkers, but while Ximena was unaccounted for he would scarcely be able to relax.

After a nap in the break room, Conrad prepared to drive to Henford-on-Bagley and face his fiancee. ->

<- Previous Chapter | Gen 2 Start | Gen 1 Summary | Gen 1 Start

NOTE: I reinstalled TOOL to place the body. The blood isn't placed underneath the victim properly, but I was working at the edge of what was visible in a fully zoomed out screen, and for my second ever placement of a build/buy item and first ever placement of the teleporter off a lot in-game, I'm happy enough with the fact it looks like he bled out from the knees. 🤷 Maybe he did, I don't know, I didn't get detailed about the condition of the body because it doesn't advance the plot. Who and why is more important than how.

WCIF Poses & CC? @simmerianne93's Injured poses pack #1, which is a great set - so cinematic. One of the injured poses has the victim with eyes closed and looks a little like EA's curled-up death animation to me, and that's the one I used. And Blood on the Floor from the There Will Be Blood set by Lore from SimsRebelCreators. Several swatches (including red!) and different spatter patterns if you need some blood for your storytelling!

[silentscrying]

🎸 out of my mind ! 💿 track two: kowalski, status report

guitarist!ino x drummer!reader

summary: it's the annual battle of the bands at the fix, your college campus's iconic live music bar, and this year you're taking the stage as the drummer for indie rock group cursed technique. you know the competition is strong, but no part of you is ready for lead singer and guitarist takuma ino. you lock eyes at the edge of the stage, and something starts—something that might make you feel alive even more than the beat of the drums.

warnings: language, alcohol, mentions of drugs/drug dealing, toge bullying, unbearably cute dogs. || sfw. 9k words.

"I SHOULDN'T CUSS in this, right?"

It’s the day before the other four artists premiere their sets at Battle of the Bands, and you haven’t been home since six in the morning. You’re running on caffeine and spite and the pursuit of the story, parked on a high stool across the bar from the one and only Ieiri Shoko.

Toge leans on the counter beside you, opting to stand. He’s agreed to pay for the next snack run in return for you letting him be your partner. You both know you’re going to end up doing most of the writing, but you don’t really mind. Toge would if you asked him to, but you love this kind of thing in a way he just doesn’t. Plus, he’s better with a camera than you, and he’s taking photos tomorrow night.

You laugh, pulling out your phone to record. “You can say whatever you want as long as it’s honest. Be candid.”

“You might regret saying that!” Gojo calls from the back, and Shoko silences him with a glare.

“Are you coming or not?”

Gojo grins and finishes up whatever he’s putting away in the storage room, then strides out and leans his elbows on the counter.

“Do you mind if I record?” You point to the open voice memo app. “Makes it easier to quote you correctly.” You also just hate running interviews when you’re scribbling hand-written notes the whole time. You’d much rather have a genuine conversation and worry about the details later.

Shoko waves a hand airily. “No problem.”

“Absolutely,” Gojo says. “You can probably sell that for thousands.”

You set the phone on the counter, next to one of the tiny pumpkins scattered across it in celebration of the beginning of October. You and Toge bounce back and forth as you run through the standard start-of-interview checklist, having them spell out their names, getting their ages, hometowns, degrees, all that jazz. And then you launch into the stuff you really care about.

“So, you opened The Fix about ten years ago now, correct?”

Shoko nods. “Yeah, a little over two years after we graduated.”

You look at Gojo, whose eyes are even more alarmingly blue in the daylight. “And you were hired right away?”

“Utahime first, then me,” he nods. “Best for last, y’know.”

Shoko snorts. “We knew each other in school. I just took pity on him.” She smirks as Gojo’s jaw drops. “You can quote that.”

“Right, so all of you were friends in college. And you came together to start this place—what was the idea behind it?” Toge chimes in. “You said you studied nursing, Shoko?”

And you sit and listen as Shoko explains. Back in college, she was at the top of her class. By graduation, she’d been accepted to basically all the best med schools. She had her pick. She could do whatever she wanted. But she realized that what she wanted wasn’t that at all.

The medical field is brutal, she tells you. It’s all late nights and emotional burnout. People yelling at you, misplaced anger when you give them the bad news. Getting attached to people only to watch them waste away.

“I needed to get out before I got too far in. Maybe it was selfish,” she admits. “But I wasn’t cut out for it. I have so much admiration for medical professionals, but I couldn’t be one of them. A few clinicals and I was already feeling the consequences of giving too much of myself and getting nothing back.” She shrugs. “So I named it The Fix, as some kind of homage to the medical background. And I figured I’d just make sure it’s safe.”

Something sits heavy in her gaze as she stares at something behind you, middle distance, like she’s remembering.

“Why a college bar?” you ask, nudging the phone across the counter to pick up her voice better. “I mean, the extra security, thinking about underage drinking, dealing with a bunch of broke university kids. You could’ve just as easily opened a different bar in a more lucrative area. What was the appeal?”

She smiles crookedly. “Appeal. Well. My senior year, I was working in the local ER. And I saw… god. So many kids came in there needing their stomachs pumped, or kids who’d done laced drugs, gotten roofied, harassed, it was… I mean, it was a city university club scene. They weren’t safe. And I just felt like I needed to give them that. I couldn’t stay there as a nurse or a doctor. But I could do this.” She shrugs. “Sorry. That was probably way too much.”

“No,” you say quickly, smiling at her. “That was—that’s what we came here for. Shoko, that’s amazing. And it’s not selfish, taking care of yourself. You’re still here taking care of others.”

You don’t know Gojo well. Most of your stories about him come secondhand from Nobara, who knows him through Megumi. She paints the picture of a flamboyant, obnoxious bartender who’s more like a weird uncle to her than anything. From what you’ve seen of him at The Fix, you know this to be mostly accurate—he’s rarely serious, always taking flack from the students and giving it right back, ragging on Utahime, begging Shoko to play his playlist instead of Geto’s and knowing she’ll never cave. But now, as he listens intently to Shoko, you think you’re seeing another side of him.

There’s something troubled on his face as she speaks, like he wishes he could reach into the past and help. Like he regrets it.

The bar’s not the only thing that has a different side in the daylight.

“She’s right,” Gojo tells Shoko. It’s not much, but she looks up at him a bit surprised, something in her expression softening. A smile tugs at the corner of her mouth, not quite there but not quite not. “You’ve got a pretty big heart under all that RBF.” Shoko rolls her eyes, the moment over.

“What about you?” You turn to Gojo, nudging the phone his way. “Why a college bar?”

Shoko turns toward him, leaning a hip against the bar, just as curious as you are. “I think kids deserve to be kids,” he shrugs. “And if I—if we—can create a space where it’s actually safe for them to do that, it feels important.” His gaze shifts from you and Toge to the empty bar, the stage and floor and high-top tables that tomorrow will be full of music and laughter and students knowing they’re allowed to let loose here.

“There aren’t a lot of places out there that are exclusively for students,” he continues. “It’s this weird phase, college, where you’re figuring out who you are, trying to take risks without losing too much. It’s a lot. And you look at the crime rates, date rape drugs, theft, DUIs, in the city, and it’s just—this place gives them the room to learn and grow and mess around and have a good time without the danger of the… I don’t know. The outside world. Does that make sense?”

He drums his fingers on the countertop, then seems to abruptly remember the recording and stops. “I think it’s just… well, no one’s allowed to take youth away from young people. So that’s why I’m here.”

You wonder what Gojo was like in school. He majored in gender studies, which you’re pretty sure is what Todo is at least minoring in, too—you’re not sure how it’s applicable to anything, but Nobara says he likes to pull his diploma out from behind the bar and say he’s an expert in women. It seems a far cry from this rare, more subdued version of Gojo you’re seeing right now. You’d guess he’s grown quite a bit in the time he’s been here. And Shoko’s been here to witness it.

He’s not a business owner, like Shoko or Geto. And according to Nobara, he definitely doesn’t need this gig to make a living. He’s here because he wants to be.

“These last few years have been nice, in particular,” he offers. “Just ‘cause some of us have kids going here. I mean, you know the Fushiguros. Suguru’s got the twins. And I know Ino’s not Nanami’s kid, but they’re tight.”

“Wait, what?” Nanami is the bar’s primary security guy, a bouncer who never lets a fake ID fool him. He’s part of the reason this place is so safe. Toge spins to look at you as you blurt out the question, caught off guard. “Uh, sorry. I just didn’t—I didn’t know they knew each other.”

Shoko studies you with tired, intelligent eyes, and you can’t help but feel the tables have been entirely flipped. You’re the one being interrogated, wordlessly, by the woman across the counter. You feel like every thought in your head is scrawled across your face for her to read.

“Yeah,” Gojo says, unaffected. “Ino looks up to him a lot, I think. Even though he’s an old man who reads the newspaper for fun.” He snorts. “He’s a good guy, though. And Ino’s a good kid.” He finally clocks the way Shoko’s looking at you and cocks his head, appraising.

Thankfully, Toge cuts in with another question. “So, we’ll be around tomorrow for the bands and to take some photos and observe,” he explains, glancing at you to make sure he’s got the information right. “Will Geto be around?” You’d wanted both owners’ perspectives, and now that Gojo’s reminded you of the twins, you’re even more curious.

“Yeah, Suguru and Utahime will be here tomorrow night,” Shoko says. “And Nanami. Geto would totally be down to talk to you some other time, too, when it’s a bit quieter.”

“Amazing,” you say, pulling the phone back toward you. You’ll need details, follow-ups, but you need to process this first, write some things down while they’re fresh in your mind. ‘Thank you so much for this. We appreciate it.”

“Anytime, kid,” Shoko says, waving you off. “See you tomorrow.”

As you turn off the recording, Gojo and Toge have already devolved into conversation about the bands and predictions about tomorrow night. A few posters are scattered across a low table near the door, and you pick one up, smiling at the blocky lettering advertising Black Flash. There are posters advertising all of the artists, and they look amazing, straight out of one of the alt rock venues in the wider city.

“They’re sick, right?” Gojo calls, nodding to the posters. “I gotta hang those up, actually. Thanks for the reminder.”

You wave goodbye to Shoko and Gojo and lead the way out, Toge just behind you.

“Man,” he says, and you brace yourself, recognizing his teasing tone for what it is. “They said Ino’s name and you look like scared Bambi or some shit.”

“Shut up,” you mutter, elbowing him.

He holds his hands up. “I’m just living in pursuit of the truth! Like Kusakabe would want.”

“Is your camera battery charged for tomorrow?” you say in a blatant attempt at a topic change.

“Who do you think I am?”

“Toge Inumaki, chronically irresponsible student and—”

“Okay, sorry I asked, holy shit.” He sticks his tongue out at you. Then he hesitates, frowning, and then he’s pulling out his phone and calling someone in his favorites list before you can see who it is. “Hey,” he greets. “What? No, she didn’t kick me out. Hey. Hey.” You snicker and Toge glares at you, pressing the phone closer to his ear. “Yutaaa,” he whines. “Do you know where my camera battery is?”

—

Even when you’re not the one on stage, you live for Fridays at The Fix. Tonight you’re doing double duty—because of the dual elimination at the end of the round, all of the competing artists are here. It’s not a requirement, but you want to see what you’re up against, and the sentiment seems to have carried. You and Toge are also in reporting mode for your project story.

The band on stage right now is… well, you can’t say new wave metal is really your thing, but it’s definitely theirs, and the audience is loving it. The Cull, you write in your notes. Look up names.

You couldn’t make out the lyrics if your life depended on it. It’s three guys and a girl, vaguely familiar, but you’re fairly certain they’re seniors and absolutely certain they’re baked right now.

“God, this is loud.” Yuta winces, turning to face you, and then his eyes flicker to something over your shoulder. You divert your attention from the stage and just catch the brief commotion in your periphery. Nanami has a kid by the elbow, and he’s escorting him out the side door, expressionless. The kid’s obviously drunk out of his mind, tripping over himself, shouting something that Nanami doesn’t bother to respond to.

Maki follows your gaze and wrinkles her nose up in distaste.

“Who’s that?”

“My cousin,” she says flatly. You glance quizzically at Megumi, who is definitely standing five feet away and not being escorted out of the bar.

“Dude, how much family do you have at this school?”

She sighs. “Just Mai and Megumi and him. Naoya. He’s a piece of shit.”

“Clearly,” Toge says. “He broke the M theme. No respect for the family alliteration.” Maki kicks him in the shin.

“One last round for The Cull!” Panda calls from the stage, and your ears slowly, very gradually stop ringing with the raging new wave music. The stage techs get to work behind Panda as he introduces the next group.

“Up next, making their debut, we’ve got a sophomore girl pop trio. Give it up for MOTION CAPTURE!”

There’s a big cheer from the bar, and you turn to see Geto grinning. Three girls take the stage, the blonde one grabbing the mic and adding, “All caps!” The girl beside her is very obviously her twin sister, though her hair is straight and dark while the blonde’s is tugged into pigtails. Light and dark. The girl on keys has a long, black bubble braid that she pushes out of the way as she settles in to play.

The blonde plugs in her electric and calls out, “Alright, I’m Nanako.” She tests out a chord, the sound reverberating, filling the bar all the way up to its high ceilings. “That’s Mimiko, that’s Remi, and we’re just here to have a good time.”

“Hey,” a voice says behind you, and you jump. You turn to find Takuma holding two drinks, offering one to you.

“Oh! Aw, thanks, you didn’t have to do that. How much do I owe you?”

He rolls his eyes. “Nothing.”

“Takuma—”

“Nothing,” he reiterates. “Anyway, The Cull. Thoughts?”

You take the drink and try it while you think on your answer—it’s the same thing Nobara got you last week. How did he know?

“I didn’t really understand any of the lyrics,” you admit, shrugging. “They weren’t bad. Not really my genre. Do you know them?”

Takuma shakes his head. “I had a gen ed once with that Rin kid, but I don’t know the other ones. These girls aren’t bad, though.” He’s right—they’ve launched into an Olivia Rodrigo cover that’s actually decent. They could work on their voice control, but they’re young and fun and having a good time and working the crowd, and that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it?

You sing along, alternating between your drink and exchanging quips with Toge and talking with Takuma. You like this new balance between your band and his, the easy camaraderie.

When the girls wrap up their set, you whoop and cheer and Kirara shamelessly watches Hakari move things off the stage, arms bare in his cut-off tank.

“You’re subtle,” Takuma tells her, and she tugs his beanie down over his face.

“Hey!”

You grab his drink before he can spill it and grin as he yanks his hat off and readjusts it. His hair is a fluffy mess underneath, and it’s kind of endearing.

When the girl pop trio is done, two guys take the stage, one in white and one in black. They’re clearly related, dark hair and pale skin and piercing eyes, and Panda introduces them as the Kamos. You don’t know if they’re brothers or cousins or what. But they’re good—they sing a few alt rock covers, play guitar.

“Damn,” Nobara sighs, a little longingly, her gaze settling on Choso as he takes over the chorus. “They’re…”

Beside her, Yuji wrinkles his nose. “Dude. That’s my half-brother.”

Nobara hums noncommittally. “And?”

He groans, tipping his head back and staring at the exposed beams of the ceiling, run through with colored lights. “Why does this always happen?”

Toge is taking more photos of them than is strictly necessary, considering your story is about the bar and not the band, but you let him have this. Scattered throughout the crowd are more kids with cameras, freshmen from the entry-level reporting classes with big underage stamps on the backs of their hands. Somebody mistook Toge for one of them earlier, and Maki hasn’t let it go all night.

You jot down atmospheric notes on your phone, little things that’ll help set the scene for your project lede, keeping an eye on the bar as much as you can. Geto has jumped in at the bar, which he usually does when the place gets busy, and Gojo is terrorizing Utahime again.

“How’d your interview go?” Takuma asks, nodding at your notes. It shouldn’t faze you so much that he remembers what you told him about your story, but you can’t help the little kick of your heart in your chest at the reminder.

“Good! Really good.” And then you catch sight of Nanami, back at the door after calling a cab for Maki’s asshat cousin. “Actually, Gojo mentioned you.”

Takuma’s brows shoot up. “Gojo? Why?”

Nanami has always seemed incredibly reserved, stony and silent in a way Takuma has never been. You don’t want to pry, but you’re also curious about the relationship between them, how they met, what they are to each other. The journalist in you wants to know.

And then there’s the part of you that just wants to know Takuma.

“Well, he was talking about the twins and the Fushiguros, and he kind of mentioned something about you knowing Nanami?” You try to sound casual, jerking your chin toward the door where Nanami is posted, like a tall, blond guard dog.

“Oh,” he says, surprised, but he shrugs, not seeming too alarmed by the question. “Yeah, I’ve known Nanami for… a long time. He’s kind of a mentor. He’s the reason I met Fushiguro in the first place, actually, ‘cause of him knowing Gojo.”

You’re considering asking how exactly they did meet when the Kamos wrap up, Nobara staring up at them dreamily, and the stage clears out for the final artist.

Whatever questions you had are thrown out the window, because you know who this is. Everyone knows who this is.

Fifth-year student and resident SoundCloud rapper, Ryomen Sukuna. Or D!SH0NORED1, according to the posters.

“Oh, here we go,” Megumi groans.

Despite his reputation on campus, you don’t know anyone who’s actually close to Sukuna, except Uruame. You mostly know that he deals at the skate park and that he’s clean about it.

And that his raps are truly, genuinely horrible.

He lets Panda give a stilted introduction and launches into a verse, mic too close to his mouth, making hand gestures or stepping to the beat of his backing track. His tattoos are even more stark and bold under the stage lights.

“My blood type’s B, your type is me, my zodiac Caprisun, it might be controversial but you’re still lookin’ at me, son!”

“Oh, sweet Jesus,” Kirara mutters. “I’m gonna bleach my eardrums.”

“Caprisun?” Nobara whispers. “Oh, dude.”

You might be a terrible person for thinking it, but watching this guy’s performance makes you feel infinitely better about your odds of advancing in the tournament.

His final song is a new one he introduces as Frosted Flexin’, and Maki looks like she’s about ready to keel over dead.

“Frosted flexin’, I'm the cereal king, pourin' oat milk in the mix, yeah, I'm doin' my thing,” Sukuna spits in his low voice, swaggering up to the front of the stage. You are trying so hard not to lose it.

“Sukuna being an oat milk truther wasn’t on my bingo card,” Toge says.

“Got the swag of a squirrel and the brain of a dove, call me trash, but you're still showin' me love.”

“Thoughts on the amount of swag a given squirrel possesses?” you ask Takuma. He laughs, loud and bright, and then seems to very seriously consider the question.

“I don’t know if campus squirrels have swag. They live in luxury. They probably eat better than we do,” he says. You can’t argue that—you did once see a squirrel outside your sociology class run by with a full bagel in its mouth. “The wilderness squirrels, though, I think they got a scrappy kind of swag. Like, I wouldn’t cross them.”

You nod sagely. “I want them on my team in the apocalypse.”

He nudges you with a shoulder. “Am I on your team?”

You glance at him, make a show of looking him up and down. Maybe you’re imagining it, but you think he’s blushing a little. “I don’t know. How fast can you climb a tree?”

Sukuna is nearing the end of his song, now, saying, “Off-tune, out of sync, yeah, I know it's a sin, but you'll play it back twice 'cause I still might win.”

He actually, physically drops the mic and Hakari swoops in and catches it, clearing his throat and saying into it, “Yep, friendly reminder that equipment’s expensive! Everyone give our last artist of the night a hand, yeah?”

There’s scattered applause and more than a few confused faces as Sukuna lopes off stage, and Panda hops back up to explain the voting system for anyone who wasn’t here last week. “QR codes to the Google form are posted around the bar,” he says.

Out of all eight artists, the bottom two will be eliminated. You’re nervous. But voting was open last week too. You can’t vote as a member of the band, and it’s all done through school Google accounts to avoid double votes or the link getting sent out to non-students.

“Open until tomorrow morning,” Panda reminds the audience. “Results and second round schedules will be posted on the Instagram at some point tomorrow! That’s it for this Friday at The Fix. Have a great night, folks. Get home safe.”

Gojo whoops dramatically from the bar, and Panda gives him a weird look before getting off stage.

Your friends start heading toward the door, and you grab Toge and excuse yourself to catch Geto at the bar. Gojo sees you first. “The newsies!” he calls.

“Like the musical?” you say in lieu of a greeting. “Banger soundtrack.”

“I could dance on newspapers,” Toge says.

“Geto!” The Fix’s other owner smiles at you, soft and genuine. Part of his dark hair is pulled back and the rest hangs loose over his shoulders, a stark contrast to Gojo—like the Kamos, you think, or like Nanako and Mimiko. Light and dark. “We were wondering if you’d be down to set up a time to talk. Has Gojo told you about our story at all?”

Geto smiles, drying a glass and leaning against the bar. “He told me he’s gonna be the front page of every paper in the city, which I assume is a horrid exaggeration,” he says. Gojo looks affronted. “Shoko mentioned you’re doing a feature for class, though. I’d be happy to.”

“We have our Monday night class time open for field reporting the week after this one,” Toge offers. “Will you be around?”

“I will indeed. Utahime, too, if you want to speak to both of us. And Gojo won’t be here, which might be beneficial for you.”

“Suguru,” Gojo gasps, pretending to stagger back. “You wound me.”

“Mhm,” he says, unaffected. “What time works best for you two?”

You set up a time to interview Geto and Utahime, then say goodbye to him and Gojo and run to catch up to your friends. It’s a nice night, and since you didn’t have to deal with instruments, you all decided to walk.

“How goes the… journalisming? Journaling?” Takuma asks when you fall into step beside him.

“Good, all good. Reporting is maybe a better word, but valiant effort.”

“I like journalisming. Can you just submit words to the official dictionary? I’m gonna do it.”

“No,” Toge says, and you blink. He shrugs. “What? I tried once. But the only submission form I could find was for the Bureau of Linguistical Reality and it wasn’t like, a legitimate dictionary form. There’s all these requirements, it’s horrible.”

“What word did you try to submit?” you ask warily, not sure if you actually want to know.

“Some things,” Toge says solemnly, “are better kept secret.”

The night is hazy, only small rays of moonlight piercing through the cloud cover, and you make your way through the campus roads guided only by the streetlamps and Maki’s reliable sense of direction.

Part of you wants to ask Takuma to come over, or Yuji to insist the band come over to his place again, just so you can keep talking. But you have work to do, things to write and transcribe, lists of follow-up questions to make, and that’s only your workload for this one class. You still have exams this week, and you need to study now so you can balance it with rehearsals. Assuming you actually advanced to round two, that is.

And part of you worries you might be taking this too fast, too. You don’t typically integrate people into your life so quickly. You like spending time with Takuma and Kirara and Yuji and even Megumi, though he’s pretty quiet. You just don’t want to jump in too far too fast.

At your place, you say your goodbyes and head up to your room to get some work done. Toge uploads his photos and puts them in your project folder on Drive. And you spend the night doing what you do best, aside from drumming—writing.

Youth for the young: JU alumni run safest live music bar in city limits

You don’t even notice the time until it’s past one in the morning, and you’re nearly asleep at your desk. The dark has crept across your room, the only source of light the desk lamp and your laptop screen. Finally, you push the computer shut and flick off the light, flopping into your bed. A few missed messages pop up when you hold your phone up, wincing at the bright screen.

takuma: just letting you know i made the treacherous journey home safely takuma: many miles of hardship takuma: thought i was gonna die halfway there

You smirk and type out a reply.

you: did kirara have to save you takuma: i resent that takuma: (yes) takuma: wait why are you up it’s so late you: journalisming you: why are YOU up takuma: travel adrenaline takuma: (coding project due monday that i just started) you: TAKUMA

The next text to come through is a voice note, and you can’t help smiling as you hit play and his voice fills the open air of your bedroom.

“Okay, in my defense, I thought it was due next Monday. Which maybe isn’t my defense because it means I just can’t read due dates, or maybe I just can’t read, but I thought I had a lot more time and then one of my classmates texted me asking for help on this block of code and I told him I hadn’t started and he was like oh my god, Ino, it’s due in three days, and I was like no it’s not, we have so much time—turns out we don’t have so much time, so I’m over here staring at my screen until the vessels in my eyes pop—”

He yawns, and it makes you yawn too, despite the screen separating you. “Sorry, agh. Anyway, I have to write this program that uses some kind of randomized generator…”

You find your eyelids fighting gravity, exhaustion washing over you as he explains the project and all the reasons he’s not that worried about getting it done by Monday because actually he’s on a roll and it turns out the code isn’t that different from a similar project he did last year so he can just lift the main blocks over and wow, he’s tired, and you stifle a laugh as the voice memo comes to an end and he says, “Okay, gosh, I should go to bed. You should go to bed. Stop journalisming, Skip, get some sleep. G’night.”

You grin, plugging your phone in and sending him a voice memo of your own.

“I’m done journalisming. Still haven’t written that story on you, though. Night, Takuma.”

The last thing you see before you fall asleep is his reaction to your text. It’s a thumbs up, but after a few seconds, it disappears, replaced with a heart.

—

“I’m gonna die,” Nobara groans.

You’ve been checking Instagram every hour on the hour for the bracket results, but to no avail. The five of you are sprawled out in the living room, a Fleetwood Mac record spinning in the corner, cups of coffee and tea and scattered remnants of breakfast dotting the table and the floor and the windowsill.

You have post notifications on for the Battle of the Bands Instagram page, but you check anyway, as if you somehow missed it.

“Okay,” Maki says. “Cut it out. No phones.”

“Maki,” Toge groans. “How do we live with the suspense?”

“Go around and give a rundown of your week?” Yuta suggests.

“Aw, highs and lows, it’s like elementary school,” Nobara says happily. “I’ll go first! High: annoying slacker guy in my marketing class got a shit grade on the group project and the rest of us got As. Low: Skipper won’t give me Ino lore.”

“Lore,” you mimic. “I don’t have any lore. We’ve known each other for like, two weeks.”

“That’s enough time for lore,” she insists. “What’s your high? Ino?”

“Okay, jeez,” you say. “Maybe it’s that Toge and I had a really good first interview for our project story.”

Toge blinks at you.

“Fine, maybe it’s Takuma.”

Nobara grins in a way you can only describe as malicious. “Okay,” you say, pointing at her. “Low: whatever that is.” She sticks her tongue out at you.

“My low is Skipper bullying me in class,” Toge says. “And my high is she said she’d be my partner, so I’m not gonna fail.”

Yuta nods sagely. “Maki?”

“Uhh,” she says eloquently. “My parents won’t stop pestering me about fall break. But I aced a test on Thursday in anthro, so there’s that.”

“You’re not going home, right?” you ask. She shakes her head resolutely. Maki doesn’t go home unless she absolutely has to—one thing she and Mai actually have in common.

All of your phones go off at once, a mix of buzzes and beeps and Apple watchfaces lighting up, and Nobara screams. “I can’t look!” she cries. “Someone tell me!”

You click on the notification and pull up the post, heart racing.

The first slide is a generic Battle of the Bands announcement with the cool ass graphics you’ve been seeing on the posters. Whoever designs those needs a raise. The second image is the bracket for next Friday, with the first knockout round of three—only one group will move on to the finals. “Who is it?” Nobara asks anxiously, pacing the room. “Oh god, I’m gonna die.”

“Shibuya Incident,” you read off, unable to keep the smile from your face. “Angel.” Nobara groans overdramatically. “And the Kamos.”

You swipe to the next screen, heart in your throat. OCTOBER 18, it reads. THE CULL. CURSED TECHNIQUE. BLACK FLASH.

“Oh my god!” you scream. “Oh my god, we made it!”

Toge yanks you to your feet and starts hopping around the living room, and Nobara shrieks with joy as you pull her into the celebration. Even Maki and Yuta are sporting wide smiles as they watch the three of you bounce around like kids on a sugar rush.

“What, no Sukuna?” Maki teases when you’ve calmed down. Toge clears his throat and does his best impression, going as far as to make his pants sag a little around his waist.

“Frosted flexin’, I’m the cereal king, pourin’… uh, duh nuh nuh, something doin’ my thing,” he says in a deep voice. “Uh… squirrel? Somethin’ fuego, that’s Spanish, uhhh…”

“Oh my god, let me look it up,” Nobara cackles, pulling up SoundCloud. “It’s I’m the king of bad decisions, got a throne made of Legos, took a bite of my mic and said these bars are fuego.”

Yuta physically winces. “Does he really sag his pants like that?”

Toge shrugs. “It felt right in the moment.”

“Wait, who’s the other one eliminated, then?” you ask, running through the bands in your head. Yours, Takuma’s, Black Flash, the Kamos…

“Motion Capture,” Maki says.

“No, it’s all caps. You have to shout it. MOTION CAPTURE!” Toge hollers. Nobara snorts.

You aren’t entirely surprised, but you have a feeling the girls aren’t too put out about it. They’re young, too—they’ll have their time to shine eventually.

You grin, flopping back onto the couch. “Okay, rehearsal when? Tonight?”

“Yeah, I have to go to a friend’s to figure some stuff out for a project, but I’ll be back at like… five?” Yuta says.

“Oh, fuck, I gotta go too!” Nobara says, darting toward the stairs.

“Group project?” Maki asks.

“Shopping! I gotta pick Miwa up in like, ten minutes!”

Maki rolls her eyes fondly. Yuta stands up and grabs his bag, heading toward the entryway, and the rest of you gravitate instinctually to the kitchen. Nobara is out the door moments later with a wave and a shout, and Toge grins.

“What,” Maki deadpans, not a question.

“I printed memes to hide on her Polaroid wall. Be right back.”

You snort, turning your attention to the window to watch Nobara cruise down the block. The view of her sleek, small car is interrupted by Yuta’s jungle of plants.

“I hope they’re not too cold,” he says, frowning as he tugs a jacket on over his white hoodie. “Do they look okay to you?”

“Yeah,” you say, pointing to the one in the white, ovular pot. “Especially this one, it’s getting so big! What’s his name, Snorlax?” Yuta had a phase where he named at least six plants in a row after Pokèmon.

“No, that one’s Rika, after that TV show,” Maki corrects, not looking up. Yuta blinks, looks between her and the plant, whose vines have started to creep up the window. A smile tugs at the corner of his lips. Both of your eyes on her have her looking up from her phone, expression flat and unaffected. “What?”

“Yeah,” he says slowly. “I didn’t know… anyone paid attention.”

Maki shrugs. “You talk to them out loud.”

“Yeah, I guess I do.” Yuta laughs and waves one last time before he walks out, closing the door behind him. You count to five in your head and then whirl on Maki, entirely unable to keep the shit-eating grin off your face.

“Kowalski, status report.”

She blinks at you. “What?”

“I said—”

“No, I know, just—on what? What happened?”

You groan, dragging the heels of your hands down your face. “Maki. Please.” You gesture wildly between her and the door, wondering if she’s genuinely this oblivious or if she’s just as good a liar as Mai. “Are you—did we not just witness the same interaction? Jesus, Maki, put the boy out of his misery!”

Seeing Maki frazzled is not a common occurrence. The most agitated you ever see her is talking about her family or trading passive aggressive jabs with Mai. This is an entirely new sort of disarray—she’s flustered.

“I—what?! I can’t do that! And he’s not miserable. He’s that nice to everyone.”

You groan, burying your face in your hands with your elbows on the counter. “Maki! He likes you. And your face is telling me you like him back.”

She scoffs, turning her head down and crossing her arms defensively. “I’m not messing things up by dating my bandmate. We live together, Skip, he’s my best friend, if things got messy—”

You hold up a hand. “First of all, offensive. I’m your best friend. Second of all, I hear no denial. Also, it won’t get messy. You are the two most mature people in this house and you know how to separate personal from practical. If anything, it’s gonna kill the vibes of the band and the house if you just keep stewing in the sexual tension.”

“Oh my god,” Maki groans. “There. Is. No. Sexual. Tension.”

“There’s always sexual tension,” Toge announces, walking in and jumping up onto the countertop, legs swinging. He looks between the two of you innocently. “What are we talking about?”

“You might be of some help, actually,” you say, turning to Toge with your hands clasped.

“Uh, actually? Not oh, Toge, you’re always so helpful, thank god you live with me and keep my life interesting—”

“Nevermind.”

“No, pleeease,” Toge insists, sticking out his lower lip. “What?” His gaze shifts to Maki, who’s blushing a furious red. His mouth turns into a small O. “This is about Yuta?”

You didn’t think she could get any more scarlet, but here she is.

“Does everyone think that?” she groans, throwing her head back in exasperation.

Toge shrugs. “I thought we were all just quietly skirting around it until you both snapped.”

“Nobara doesn’t skirt around anything,” Maki says.

“Well, there’s no way she doesn’t know,” you point out. “Maybe she just respects both of you enough to leave it alone.”

“Hah!” Toge snorts, poking you in the ribs. “That means she doesn’t respect you. She wants the Ino lore.”

“I’m gonna tell Nobara about the memes.”

“You wouldn’t dare.”

Abruptly, you realize you never got around to Yuta for highs and lows, what with the chaos of the brackets dropping. “Ah, guys,” you say. “We missed Yuta.” You pull up the house group chat.

you: YUTA DROP YOUR HIGH AND LOW IN THE CHAT you: YOU ARE NOT FORGOTTEN freak no. 1: yes you are utah: haha aw that’s nice utah disliked a message from freak no. 1 utah: uhh low is maybe that toge keeps leaving memes all over our room. like i keep finding them tucked in my notebooks and everything freak no. 1: SLANDER freak no. 1: LIBEL you: not the same thing freak no. 1: SHUT UP utah: high is someone remembers the names of my plants!! :) nobara: Sorry, using voice text while I drive. Who knows the names of your plants? You and God? utah: maki! :)

“Okay, well, respond,” Toge says, poking Maki in the side. She glares at him and likes Yuta’s message.

“Guys,” she says exasperatedly. “What the hell am I supposed to do? Does he know?”

And you’re not sure, honestly. You don’t know that Yuta is even aware of his own feelings, let alone aware that Maki reciprocates them. You shrug helplessly. “How about… ask?”

“Jesus,” Maki says.

“Not him, Yuta.”

Maki socks Toge in the shoulder and levels him with a disdainful look. “You are the bane of my existence.”

“And the object of all your desires,” Toge proclaims in a horrendous Bridgerton accent. He made you watch all of it with him in two days. Maki refused.

Now, she just shoves him, and he squeals as he falls off the kitchen counter.

“Children,” you sigh. “Do you need to be separated?”

“Yes!”

—

“Why is this so hard?” You stand with your feet planted on Takuma’s skateboard, which is confoundingly, entirely different than balancing atop your longboard. “Oh my god.” You lurch forward as the board rolls a bit to the left, unable to stifle the squeal that comes out of your mouth.

Takuma stops it with one foot.

“Your center of balance is lower on a longboard,” he laughs. “Like, here.” His hands wrap around your waist and you tense under his grip, and he immediately freezes, jerking his arms back. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t—”

“No! No, it’s okay,” you blurt, sheepish. “I just wasn’t expecting it, I—here.” You try to fight the blush furiously rising in your cheeks as you take his wrists in both hands, putting them back where they were. You clear your throat, suddenly too warm. “Um. Okay, so—do you turn the same way?”

“Pretty much. You just lean,” Takuma says, and you shift your weight to your heels, letting him steady you. “It’s a bit harsher than you would on a longboard, though. Unless you want me to send you right into kickturns?” His tone is teasing and you pretend to consider, tapping a finger against your chin.

“Mm. Maybe later.”

You’ve been at the skate park for a while now, and you’ve only recently ditched your longboard for the skateboard. Takuma brought the extra board you saw hanging on his wall the other day, and he uses it to demonstrate while you practice riding back and forth, getting a hold on your balance. After you feel like you can make it a good distance without pinwheeling your arms, you come to a staggered stop beside him.

A flash of blue-green hair grabs your attention, and you watch a kid in a lightning bolt hoodie slip under the ramps. The park has been pretty deserted today aside from a few guys doing tricks in the pit, a chilly Sunday with the sunlight muted by the clouds.

“Ooh, drug deal in action.” You poke Takuma in the side.

“Ah, probably Sukuna. He deals here all the time.” Sukuna’s business is one of those things everyone’s aware of but nobody talks about. He’s consistent and pretty safe, as far as drug dealers go, but he’ll deny any involvement while smoking a joint if he has to.

“Who’s space buns?”

“Uhh…” Takuma narrows his eyes, and the guy slips out again. “Damn, that was fast. Oh, that’s Hajime. Another senior, I think. They hate each other. Fastest deals I’ve ever seen.”

“I wonder how much of his songwriting is just… while he’s really, really high,” you muse. Swag of a squirrel doesn’t strike you as a particularly levelheaded thought, but hey, it’s certainly memorable.

Takuma leans in and says conspiratorially, “I’m pretty sure I heard him dropping bars here the other day when I was with Yuji.”

You snort and look up at one of the smallest ramps, one you think you could handle without falling on your face, and point to it with a raised brow.

“Oh, moving up in the world?” Takuma kicks his board up and starts walking over, and you do the same. Before you put the board down at the top of the ramp, though, you hold it up to the light, noticing a few short, white hairs caught on the surface.

“Is this… fur?” Maybe there was a cat hiding out somewhere when you were over. Kirara seems like she’d have a cat.

Takuma sighs. “Yeah, the dogs shed like crazy. It gets everywhere. I don’t think I even left that on the ground.”

Your jaw drops, and you stare at him until he looks back at you. “Dogs?”

“What? Yeah, Fushiguro’s—”

“Fushiguro has dogs? Dogs plural? In the house?”

“You didn’t know?”

“No!” you cry. “What? Oh my god! Where were they on Wednesday? How many? What are their names?”

Takuma leans back on the rail next to the ramp, grinning. “I can’t believe you didn’t know. Oh my god. They’re so cute. Tsumiki had them Wednesday, I think. Mandated auntie time. Do you wanna meet ‘em?”

“Do I want to meet them?” you repeat, practically bouncing on the balls of your feet. “Uh, yeah. Are they home? Oh my god. I love dogs.”

“I couldn’t tell,” he deadpans, but he’s smiling still. “Yeah, they’re home. And you can meet them if you go down this ramp without dying.”

“You’re cruel,” you say, situating yourself on the board. “But I will. And then I’ll meet the dogs and become their best friend and they’ll love me more than you and Megumi combined.”

“Confident.” He comes up beside you, checking your stance. The ramp didn’t look steep or long at all from your vantage point across the park, but now that you’re atop the board, it feels suddenly very steep and very long. “You got it. Just don’t panic, keep your stance.” He drops his own board and cruises down the ramp, hardly even trying.

“Okay, go!” he calls from the bottom. “C’mon, Skip, the dogs are waiting.”

“Oh, god,” you murmur, the wind catching your words and whisking them away. You ball your hands into fists and push off, planting your foot back on the board and trying to keep your knees bent, but not too stiff, as you careen down the ramp. Don’t panic, keep your stance. You’re at the bottom in what feels like nanoseconds, and the sudden shift from ramp to flat ground has you stumbling off the board with an embarrassingly high-pitched squeak of alarm.

“Nice!” Takuma laughs as he catches you, the board rolling a few more feet ahead. His arm is wrapped around your front, the other holding you up by the shoulder, and this time you don’t tense under his hands.

“Thanks,” you say a little breathlessly, grinning, the tiny spike of adrenaline making you almost lightheaded. He lets his hands drop when you’re steady on your feet, and part of you mourns the warmth a little. But there are more pressing matters at hand. “So, about those dogs?”

You opt for your longboard on the way back down your street, cruising along beside Takuma, who has his extra board tucked under his arm. You’ve got a lot to do tonight, all the last-minute preparation for another crazy week, but you can and will drop everything to pet a puppy. Or two. Always.

And they’re actual angels. Big, fluffy angels on earth, one white and one black, and they’re all over you the second you open the door.

“Hi!” you say happily, sinking down to their level. The white one immediately tries to burrow into your lap. “Oh, hello! You’re so nice, aren’t you?” You glance up at Takuma. “Where’s Megumi?” You grab the white one’s collar and check the tag—Shiro.

“Shiro thinks she’s a tiny dog,” he says, bending down to ruffle the fur behind her ears. “Uh, Fushiguro’s at the animal clinic. He works there Sundays. And Tuesdays, I think.”

“Wait, really?”

“Yeah, he’s a vet student. You didn’t know?”

“I did not.” The black one is licking your face, and you giggle and check his tag, too. Kuro. “Hi, Kuro. You’re a good boy, aren’t you?”

“He’s got such a soft spot for animals,” Takuma says as he kicks off his shoes. “You should see when they both try to sleep in his little twin bed. It’s ridiculous.”

“I love them,” you say, burying your face in Kuro’s scruff. “Hi, doggies. You’re awful cute, you know that? Mhm. Yes you are.”

When you finally look up again, Kuro’s cold nose nudging insistently at your palm, Takuma is leaning against the wall, looking down at you with his phone discreetly angled your way. “Takuma!”

He laughs, not bothering to hide it anymore, very clearly taking photos of you with the dogs. “It’s cute!” he insists. “I’ll send them to you. Proof for Fushiguro of your master plan to make them like you more than him.”

“And you,” you remind him.

“Well, I don’t know about that.”

You gesture pointedly to the two dogs, who are all over you and not him. It’ll be a nightmare trying to get all of Shiro’s white fur off your black jacket later, but it’s worth it.

“You’re new,” he says. “New scent. It’s the novelty factor. I am their favorite.”

“You sure? I’m pretty hard to compete with.”

He smiles, looking from you to the photos he took of you and the dogs. “Yeah,” he says. “You are.”

—

The first half of the new week goes by in a rushed routine of classes, homework, and rehearsals, each night ending with you collapsing into bed, new and old lyrics fighting for dominance in the back of your mind. Sticks re-taped and drum heads re-tuned, assignments turned in and drafts edited. Your classes are ramping up as midterms approach, and Yuta bounces between his own work and poking his head into everyone’s rooms, making sure they don’t forget about dinner.

Toge follows through on his snack run promise, and the two of you spend hours on Tuesday afternoon trading two different flavored bags of Doritos back and forth, Toge writing photo captions while you edit your story lede.

Takuma, Hakari, and Kirara have offered to help Cursed Technique record a single on Wednesday night, and the five of you have been drilling the new song you wrote up, down, and sideways.

Finally, Wednesday arrives, and you’re all crammed into the recording studio space, instruments set up and headsets tuned in.

“Yeah, I’m good,” Nobara says to Hakari on the other side of the glass. She taps a finger on the mic in demonstration, and you hear it in your own headphones.

“Great,” he says. “Skipper?”

“Skipper? I hardly know her,” Toge says, earning a harmless smack upside the head from Yuta and a not harmless smack upside the head from Maki.

“I will throw these at you,” you tell him, holding up your sticks. Toge sticks his bottom lip out, pouting.

A snicker from beside you draws your attention back to Takuma, kneeling just beside the throne as he adjusts the kick mic. He has you hit it a few times while Hakari monitors the levels. You feel oddly self-conscious like this, him looking up at you, but then he smiles and it’s not strange at all. It’s stupid how fast he can put you at ease with a look.

“Nice,” he says. “Okay, that should work, yeah, Hakari?”

It’s Kirara who answers, “Yeah, you’re good.”

Takuma stands up, claps his hands together once, and looks at you. “Okay. Kill it, Skip.”

“Yessir.” You salute him with a stick and he makes his way to the other room, closing the door behind him.

“All good?” Yuta asks, glancing at each of you in turn before giving Hakari a thumbs up. It’s strange to be on this side of the glass, to think about your music being played back, to think about it on Spotify, out in the world.

“Next Fix,” Takuma says into the mic, locking eyes with you through the window. “Take one in three, two…”

The song starts out simple. You click your sticks together near the mic, on two and four, while Maki lays down a four-bar loop.

Yuta keeps glancing at Maki while she plays, utterly unaware, and the look on his face is so soft you want to shake Maki by the shoulders until she does something about it.

Nobara’s got her eyes closed with the headset over her ears and her hands around the mic, entirely engrossed in the song.

“It’s comin’ on, comin’ strong, spinnin’ up out of the blue, mmm,” she sings, stretching out the vowels. “And I’m on the ground, bleedin’ out, until my next fix of you, ooh.”

Now you start up with a light rock beat, closed hat and a bit of a dragging buzz on the snare hits. Just as you transition into the beat, Toge comes in with some low chords and Yuta moves down the line in syncopated sixteenths.

Hakari is nodding approvingly and Takuma has a wide grin on his face, and you can’t help smiling back.

“I need it like a lung,” Nobara sings, swaying a bit. “I need it like a light. It’s got me twisted up. I need you here tonight, tonight, tonight, oh, oh, I wanna—”

And this part is your favorite—Nobara sings each two-syllable phrase while you pound on the toms twice, emphasizing it with the kick, and then the backup vocals echo her. Get my (get my) next fix (next fix) of you (of you, of you, of you.)

Kirara pumps her fist in the air twice, in time with the beat, and your bandmates can’t keep the smiles off their faces. You’ve got something here, you really do. This might be your best one yet.

When the song’s over, Nobara whoops and tugs off the headphones, jumping around the cramped studio space with a grin on her face. “That was so cool! Oh my god. Guys, we sound good. We actually sound good.”

“Damn,” Kirara calls. “Okay, girl drummer. Good shit.”

“Not bad for a first run,” Maki admits, adjusting her bass strap over her shoulder. “Do we wanna try recording backups separately at all?”

“Good call.” Takuma nods. “Let’s run that again without the backups and record them over, see what happens.” He’s in full producer mode, flipping switches, colored lights reflecting in his eyes as he and Hakari talk shop away from the mic. He’s good at this, you realize, running sessions like this, making sure things go where they need to go, that everyone’s heard, that things get done. It’s a little bit like watching him skateboard, or seeing him on stage. There’s a confidence to him here, a smooth, easy energy. He’s in his element.

“Alright,” he says after a minute. “Let’s hear that again.”

And you play it again. And again. And again. And you are so in love with this moment, with your band, with a couple rowdy kids on the other side of the window, the rasp in Nobara’s voice and the expression on Yuta’s face and Maki’s obliviousness and Toge’s consistent, head-banging keys, and your drums and your words and the music, and the lyrics feel right to you.

You need this like a lung.

directory | prev. |

jjk taglist open: just send me a message!

@shutuppeter @mikikkoo @reactwithjan @theclassbookworm @lilactaro @bisforbuse @risararelywrites @idkidk32

a/n: GUYS. loml @shutuppeter is so downbad for soundcloud rapper sukuna that she's writing fanfic of my fanfic😭 credits for frosted flexin' are all hers LMFAO so go check that out (MDNI for that one though).

yutamaki nation rise. also, i kinda love this fic. there may be spinoffs for other characters in the works...

[ipilokko]

Hello! This is me attempting to write after a looong time. I was not home today so i wanted to try again. I don't think I'm the best at it and i probably made a LOT of grammar mistakes since English is not my first language. So i might get embarrassed and delete this later 💀

The thing is under the cut...

From the warmth of their home, Mollie stood in front of the window, she could hardly make out her immense husband between the layering raindrops. It was getting colder and colder each day as the weather pulled away from autumn and was being dragged more into winter.

His back facing her, he was wearing a dark brown coat with his umbrella on his hand, creating a spotlight on him free from the raindrops. She gripped the ladder, slowly climbing down to reach the ground. She put on her jacket, her hat, took her own umbrella, her gloves and went outside from the human door.

The oversized raindrops were a bit sticky as the surface tension was, for sure, directly proportional to the scale. She slowly made her way through him, whose gaze was lost in the foreverness of the ocean. She watched as he stretched farther over her horizon line, much farther over her head and then finally, as he completely took over her vision as she got closer.

The raindrops stopped falling on her when she passed the lineage of the circular waterproof fabric hundreds of feet above. He wasn't acting like it but she was sure he had noticed her coming, he always did.

"Always by the sea... Why do you hate me so much?"

Mollie teased before letting out a short-lasting laugh, cranning her neck to be able to see his face... Well, more like underside of his jaw. He looked down and his eyes landed on her. She was not even sure if he could see her eyes, yet it WAS an eye contact. Roy smiled kindly and looked back up to his own vanishing point. He moved his umbrella to her direction and centered it on top of her, even though he knew it was already covering her before. The sound of huge raindrops falling just a few feet away from her tickled her ears.

"What so nice here anyway?"

She walked closer to his feet. She could smell the fresh polish he applied on his shoes just a day ago.

"Stay here with me for a little longer and you will find out" He replied softly without breaking his eye contact with waves for a moment, then glancing at her.

She shifted her attention back to the ocean and glanced around between the waves. "I guess I'll be here for a while, then"

"I would love that" he once again, smiled calmly.

She was a bit cold, but it was no excuse to get back into the house. Yes, maybe she didn't understand what he liked so much about the sea but just staying with him made her happy. And her staying with him made him happy. Despite her being really talkative, it was actually the speechless moments of pure togetherness she adored the most.

His long legs shifted behind her, transferring his weight onto them with a soft tremour, shielding her from the cold breeze. His movements calm and bare of rush, as they always were. After a short amount of time, she felt a movement behind her and noticed he was lowering himself on the ground, his stature folding in half and getting more than twice as big with the affect of perspective. He smootly reached for her and slightly spread out his fingers to reveal his palm, inviting her to join him up in the sky. She glanced at his ring, which was a symbol of their marriage. it warmed her heart seeing how well he took care of it, not a single piece of dust between the elegant engravings.

With her barely perceivable touch, she put one of her hands on the inner side of his forefinger and the other one on his thumb. She supported herself and climbed on it, her small weight barely forming a dent on the soft flesh. She felt the welcomed thrill of weightlessness as he began to rise her up in the air, making her previous ground shrink and shrink more until it stopped.

"Shoulder, please" she requested. He obeyed after he deeply studying her with his soft gaze. She took a step that led her on his shoulder after his hand was aligned with the level of it. She carefully passed his and made herself comfortable near the wall of his neck with the warmth of his life blood leaking on her. His presence was dominating yet somehow, so recessive that she felt like she was taking advantage of him. She was always grateful that the gentle giant was always so patient, so respectful and considerate of her needs. He was a gentleman from every angle and his manner and accent only made her opinion stronger.

She once again paid attention to the sound of rain, a wee bit muffled now as she was further away from the origin.

"Shall we go in?" His voice rumbled through her from where she was leaning her head on. Weird enough, even though she was this close to his voicebox, his voice always touched her so gently.

[forestfrolickingfairy78]

Linked Universe Headcanons: What I think each of their roles would be in a boy band

I'm surprised how popular my prev one was! I was chatting to a non fan friend and she was curious what they would be like in a band, and asked me who the rapper would be...I reckon WILD hahah

Anyways...

Time: Not an active member but used to be a solo artist back in the day, he doesn't like being in the limelight as much and mentors/manages the rest of them. Still has that suave quality, a total heart throb and occasionally hosts a one off concert only available to the VIPS. He was the IT boy back in the day.

Warriors: Leader of the band and all rounder. He's a complete heartbreaker, can sing, and dance every style and fans go crazy over him. Very charismatic and flirty, knows how to make a fan feel special at a meet and greet and always takes a photo with them.

Twilight: I think lead guitarist, can sing beautifully and has one of the most charming voices, also very yeehaw and country when he goes on solo tour dates or drops his album. He's dripping with quiet confidence and doesn't share too much about his private life to fans, likes to keep a boundary between his private and professional life but will always be kind of them and never deny a photo or autograph

Sky: Has a beautiful voice, more shy and s o f t, he's one of the more quieter members and doesn't like being on camera as much but doesn't hate it either. Has that sweet prince charming vibe that everyone loves, would probably be a part time model on top of his band duties. Can play the guitar and bass

Wild: Absolute hardcore. He's def the main rapper and won't pass up the chance to drop any bars. He'll def go on rap battle tv shows and break EVERYONE. Mans got flow and swag, especially after getting a full arm of tattoos. What's the backstory behind them? He'll change it everytime he's on an interview. Absolute coolest dude on earth, fans LOVE him and how chill he is but you don't want to get on this guy's bad side or you'll be on his diss track list. Even the others are slightly scared of him. Always on social media posting selfies and updates, or threatening other artists that come for him or his band. Likes to film the other members to until Time tells him to cut it out and touch grass

Legend: I can see him having a lot of range in his voice, very powerful and can sing ballads. One of the lead singers and occasionally helps with writing songs. He CAN dance if he puts his heart and soul into it. He loves writing poetry and secretly writes love songs for himself based on a special girl, but he'll tear them up before anyone sees them. Would Probably records an incredible, heartfelt song he wrote and composed himself on his instagram then delete it after 5 hours beccause he'll be like, why the hell did I just do that? Fans would cry, wishing he would post more gems like that. Hates to be in the front but also fairly confident in his skills. Fans adore him because you can just see he's actually a big softie on the inside despite that tough exterior he puts up. Secretly jealous of Wild's rap ability, can't rap to save his life but maybe, one day.

Hyrule:

One of the lead singers, has the most melodic voice and can absolutely stun a crowd with his angelic vocals. Like Legend, also is one of the members with the most range. You know when you see someone in person and their just glowing? Yea, that's him. Sweetest celeb ever, everyone that's worked with him only has good things to say about this guy. Definitely has the most potential to go solo as well with his incredible piano skills. Can also play almost every other instrument, an absolute talent in everything. He also sponsors charities every now and then and interacts with fans on social media. Can do contemporary dance

Wind/Four: Tbh I think they would be good in broad way, both are great singers and still very much fanboys to the others. Their working their way, still in training. Can definitely see Wind going big on broadway and theatre and specialising in tap dance

Can you guess who is my bias? Or who's your bias? hehe

[jasvtsc]

dean winchester x angel!reader — family feud.

warnings! mentions of drugs, violence, abuse, bad parenting, neglect, john winchester, mary winchester, implied prostitution, fem!reader

word count! 1.5k

you didn’t hate.

sure, you disliked some things more than the others. but hate? that was a strong word.

however, when it came to john and mary winchester?

you fucking despised these two to the point it made you want to hurl.

and that’s a lot, coming from an angel. leaves some space to think about things, y’know?

anyway.

john and mary ‘the worst parents of the century’ winchester.

you could write the whole bible on their parental mistakes and how they both neglected their children, basically scarring them with lifelong traumas—especially dean.

of course, you didn’t want to belittle sam and his trauma, since he got the fair share of john’s bullshit himself. but dean was the one who had to step up and be both a father and a mother while only being a kid. and that’s not fair—for both of them.

dean was the one starving himself, so sammy had food, since john forgot about his kids or took too long on some hunt. he was the one who earned money in ways that were more shameful than one could’ve imagined. he was the one getting roofied and…

yeah, you were livid.

and you didn’t even get that from the brothers themselves. before coming to earth you got a solid debrief of what you were getting into. and that meant knowing about the shit they went through from a to z. that was probably the main reason why you were so nice to them instead of acting like a complete jackass like most of your feathery siblings.

you had compassion that some of them massively lacked. you were the literal example of an angel supposed to help humanity and heal troubled souls. you were the epitome of purity and goodness.

but to older winchesters? yeah, you were a little bitch.

ever since they came back to life—a family thing apparently—trying to redeem their mistakes and be this happy and loving family, there wouldn’t be a minute without you sending daggers with your glare or scoffing at every word that left their mouths.

not only did they break the rules of the living and undead (sam and dean didn’t count), but they acted as if they didn’t do anything wrong. as if they could make up for their mistakes. well, too fucking late for that.

you simply couldn’t watch them together nor could you understand why they forgave them so easily. why did dean forgive them. you were baffled, but for the first time, you didn’t feel like asking questions.

no, you were having too much pent-up anger that you began slowly turning into castiel. not that it was bad, but considering your usually bubbly and happy personality now so doom and stern? yeah, it was concerning. especially for dean.

but when he tried to confront you, you brushed it off and disappeared. just like cas. and you were disappearing more often, without telling anyone and god knows where. and dean began to think what had he done to upset you to the point where you couldn’t even stand being in the same room as he was. cause he was always ready to blame himself first.

he sighed, sitting in the library, sipping a beer while mindlessly staring at the wall. he was debating whether to start praying so you’d come, but then his father entered the room, startling him out of his thoughts. john put a hand on his shoulder, making him jump up in his seat and visibly tense up—a response that a true soldier should have. what a fucking bullshit, just another trauma response.

“come on, son. stop brooding over that angel. you know how they are. they don’t give a shit. we’re just humans for them. toys they can play with and then dispose of as soon as we’re old and cranky and without much use. they’re immortal. they’re getting bored quickly,” john sighed with a small chuckle, patting his son’s shoulder, which only made him flinch more.

“you don’t know her. she’s not like that,” dean muttered, rubbing his chin. you weren’t like that…right?

of course you weren’t. why did he even think that? you were his whole world, and he pretty much thought that he was yours. you weren’t like other angels—you were actually angelic and pure and all the other schmancy shit. but yeah, no, you weren’t like that, and his dad was fucking wrong.

“she’s an angel. a supernatural creature. that says enough. they shouldn’t be here anyway. their place is up there where they can be all high and mighty with those pretentious stares.”

“she’s not like that,” dean said more sternly this time, his voice strong and leaving no place for a discussion. you were his little birdie, and he wouldn’t let anyone badmouth you. not even his own father.

“you’re defending her now?” john scoffed in amusement, looking at his son in disbelief. “you’ve gotten soft,” he hummed.

“and? is it so bad now? i’m sorry to disappoint you. again,” dean stood up, ready to leave, when his father grabbed his arm and looked at him with those eyes that dean knew too well—those eyes that meant he was about to get his ass beat.

“don’t be a brat now. show your father some respect. i don’t think i taught you to run your mouth—" dean swallowed thickly, preparing himself to get a blow to his face or at least try to dodge it, perhaps.

however, before john could finish, suddenly his hand on dean’s arm was yanked away and painfully bent backwards as if it was going to break any moment, the angel blade pressed dangerously to an artery in his throat.

“touch him again and i’ll make sure to drag your ass to hell myself, you fucking deadbeat,” you hissed with so much venom and hatred in your voice that it honestly made dean speechless.

you had the deadliest expression dean had ever seen on your face. he felt goosebumps on the back of his neck, suddenly feeling as if he was frozen in place. to be honest, you looked pretty scary and intimidating for such a small and inconspicuous creature.

“oh, look who’s back from heaven,” john chuckled darkly, clearly pissed off by your presence. “tell her to back off,” he almost growled while shifting his eyes from you back to his son.

dean stood still. honestly? he didn’t want to help. he wanted to let you do your thing. he wanted you to protect him.

but it was his father. and he felt that he couldn’t just let him be treated by you like that.

“birdie, come on. drop it,” he sighed, coming closer and wrapping his arms around you, gently pulling you back. he knew you wouldn’t protest, and you knew that as well—you’d never hurt dean or even try to do something that would possibly hurt him. you’d probably cut your own wings off if he got even the smallest bruise because of you. “relax, okay. don’t do anything stupid, birdie,” he rubbed your arm, trying to calm you down.

with a huff, you turned around and looked at dean. “i don’t like him. and i don’t like your mother. these people are weird and had hurt you and i don’t trust them,” you hissed, keeping your voice a whisper so john wouldn’t hear as he tried to scramble himself up from the floor.

“birdie, they’re my parents. i—” but he cut off and raised his brow. “how do you even know what happened? i never tol—”

“angel stuff. doesn’t matter. i just don’t like it when you’re hurt and upset and feeling sad. and these two make you upset, sad and hurt!“ you tried to resonate. “i just want you to be happy. i can’t give you your childhood back nor i can undid every awful thing that happened to you. but i can try my best to make it better and give you what you missed out on. if you want to feel childish for a minute, we can do that together. i’m already considered to be one apparently,” you huffed with a small eye-roll.

and dean was speechless. he looked at you in disbelief, and all the other feelings that he couldn’t quite name. he felt his heart squeeze painfully in his chest, tears gathering up in his eyes. he tried to say something, to think of something, when john’s mocking chuckle echoed through the walls.

“are you kidding me? crying? what kind of soldier—” before he got a chance to finish, you sent him on the floor with a solid sucker punch to his face. john groaned and blinked hazily before losing consciousness.

you shook your hand with a small huff and then looked at wide-eyed dean.

“i’m not going to apologize for that,” you said in that direct and indifferent tone, pointing at john’s unresponsive body.

dean just blinked and then looked at you, his expression slowly softening. he smiled at you and pulled you closer.

“honestly? i don’t want you to. thanks birdie,” he hummed and kissed your temple, letting his lips stay on your skin for a moment, while you leaned into his invitingly warm touch. “i love you so much, my little angel.”

“i love you, too, deano.”

god, he was so glad to have you.

a/n: i’ll drop the drabble tomorrow cause i didn’t think i’d finish this shot faster lol😭

༄♡ tags: @frosttbitessam @beausling @deanswidow @titsout4nicholas @a1ecmcdowell @aileenunfiltered @figthoughts @fitxgrld @angelicp0etry @hrtsoldierboy @deansbite @artyandink @10ava01 @abellmunsonmovie

[flythesail]

Okay last thing for now! But I did start rewatching the other day, and I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of people dropped the acolyte after episode 1 and 2 because they're slower. Yet I'm not sure... what you can do about that other than stick with it. Because more exciting episodes like 5 and 8 or even 6 won't be exciting without that intro. You can't start the show with everyone on khofar. And even when andor first premiered, remember what the #1 critique was??? It. Starts. Too. Slow. But now two years later, no one is saying that. Most people are looking back on andor like it's the best thing star wars has done. A lot of this probably is because of the streaming model. It creates a pressure to like a show from the very first second and to watch it as quickly as possible. (Idea being the quicker you like it, the quicker you finish, the quicker you move on to another show so these companies can sell you on the Next Big Thing.) It's just capitalism! But that means we also don't get to take our time with art as much because where's the profit in savoring. With the acolyte, people would have come around too, especially as the hate it got died down. But by canceling it so early on, you give people no reason to. It's like creating proof for a problem you created.

[thezombieprostitute]

The Arrangement - Part 12

Summary: Jake's done a lot of things to keep his sister, and then his niece, safe from his parent's influence and manipulation. If he wants to keep them safe, he has to marry you.

Warnings: Anxiety, Bad parents and siblings, Talking about abuse. Let me know if I missed any!

Part 11 - Part 13

Series Masterlist

It had been just over a week since your wedding. You and Jake have improved your communication. He's also managed to really set himself up in the home theater where he'd spent that first night. Apparently one thing your parents got right was the massive pair of recliners specifically for that room. Jake swears they're more comfortable than most of the beds he's slept on over the years. It makes you feel better about taking the master bedroom for yourself. Clay had visited again bringing a few duffel bags of Jake's things, including his computer. The massive screen for the theater worked really well for his setup.

While you were cooking, Clay had made sure to update Jake on the status of his family. Things were working pretty well, but there were going to be a lot of paper trails to hide so that they couldn't be followed. Or at least, not followed easily. Aisha and Cougar had both caught a couple of people following his family around that were confirmed to be employed by his parents. Hopefully now that Jake had his computer he could get some better intel on the parents' finances and connections.

But you weren't privy to that update. Jake and Clay agreed it was safer to keep you in the dark about the details. Though Jake didn't doubt your sincerity, there were still too many unknowns about you.

You really didn't mind that they got quiet whenever you were near. Your mind was already at maximum anxiety with Travis, your brother, still being in the Intensive Care Unit. Your parents had been acting unusually as the week progressed and Travis didn't get better. According to the police report he'd been seen drinking heavily with friends before trying to drive home. Usually one of his friends would be the designated driver and keep everyone's keys but, somehow, Travis had gotten his keys.

And now your parents seemed to be readjusting their life plans, and yours as well. The one time you were allowed to visit the hospital you'd overheard your parents murmuring about "he can't be seen like this," "he'll be seen as weak," and other similar thoughts. It made you worried you and Jake would be even more under their scrutiny, set to even higher standards. Your breath hitched as you realized they may demand a grandchild to help change the public perception of the family to one of hope or something like that.

You and Jake were getting ready for your first public event as a couple. You're helping Jake pick out the right suit while doing your best to answer his questions about what to expect, what is appropriate conversation, how much both of you needed to talk to others before you could leave. You know you're missing things. Jake does, too. But neither of you can think of the questions to ask so you establish a silent signal for help. Jake squeezes your hand three times and you either step in or whisper some advice in his ear. It's not a great system, but it's all you can do for now.

Jake hates how he looks in all of this but he knows it's not about him or his comfort. At least he doesn't have to wear the torture device you call a dress. The thing looks impossibly tight on you. He's worried about your ability to breathe. And the stiletto heels have you warning him you'll be on his arm all night to help you keep your balance. Jake actually takes comfort in that because he really doesn't want to be left alone at this event. Probably any event, but this first one especially.

As the car pulls up Jake takes a deep breath and you attempt the same.

"We can do this, right?" He says quietly.

"I believe we can," you nod. You gently squeeze his hand in reassurance like you did that first morning with the parents.

He nods, "let's do this."

As soon as he's able Jake is out of the car and opening your door for you. The last time he did so you were scared of each other. Now you make sure to give him a small smile of thanks as he takes your hand. The elevator ride to the party is as quiet as the one you took together your wedding night, but less oppressively so. It isn't until the elevator doors open that you both put on your fake smiles. Both of you taking small comfort in the fact that neither of you is suffering alone.

After the first couple hours Jake is ready to punch someone, anyone, just so he can be forced to leave since he's not allowed out yet. He's incredibly grateful you insisted on eating a little something beforehand. The food here is barely edible and dissolves faster than cotton candy. He hates the wine? Champagne? Whatever the hell it is, he hates the taste of it but, in following your lead, he knows he has to at least sip often enough to warrant a replacement glass every 30 minutes or so. Jake was grateful to have your weight on his arm to help keep him grounded.

Especially when Charles Blackwood, a "friend" of his from high school, showed up. Charles had been nothing but a leech throughout all of high school but Jake was desperate for some kind of friendship.

"Jacob! Where have you been?" Charles holds out his hand and Jake grips it firmly.

"I've been okay, Charles. You?"

"Holy crap, you're married now? Is that why you finally came out of hiding?"

"Sort of," he admits.

He goes to introduce you but Charles stops him. "I know this lovely lady quite well," he admits. You avert your eyes. "We were engaged for some time."

"You were?"

"Didn't she tell you?" Charles smirks. "Would've been married for two years now if her parents hadn't stepped in."

"For once I'm glad they did," you interject. "You're a conman who shouldn't be here."

Charles gives a small laugh, "well look who finally grew up. Too bad you didn't pick up on what was going on before I got you into bed." Your cheeks burn with embarrassment. "How are those dolphin projects going?"

"Sharks," Jake snipes. "Her focus was on sharks."

"Ooo, nerd standing up for nerd. How cute."

"You need to leave us alone," Jake fumes. "She is my wife and I won't let you insult her."

Charles scoffs, "since when can you fight?"

"Since boot camp."

That gives Charles pause. He searches Jake's face for tells that he's lying but finds none.

"Yeah, alright," Charles concedes. "Just don't ruin this party for me. Lots of other potential targets."

As soon as he was out of hearing range you let out a breath. "I'm so sorry," your voice quavers. "I should have...I should have told you."

"Told me what? That your ex-fiance is an asshole? That's not something you need to divulge."

"No...that...that I'm not..."

Jake leans in so that you're the only one who hears him. "You're more than just your virginity status. I'm sorry your first time was with him, he doesn't seem the type to make your pleasure a priority, but I'm not upset that you've had sex before."

You take as deep a breath as you can to steady yourself. "Thank you for that."

"So, can we leave the party yet?"

You check Jake's watch, trying not to be obvious about it. "We've got at least another half hour."

"When we do get out of here, would you be up for going out for some real food?"

You chuckle, "maybe delivery? Or take out? I'm not going to be able to eat much in this dress."

"Fair. And thank you for helping me get through all of this."

"Thank you for listening to my advice," you counter.

"Always," Jake affirms.

Part 11 - Part 13

Series Masterlist

Tagging: @alicedopey; @ashdoctor; @delicatebarness; @ellethespaceunicorn; @embarrasingmf;

@irishhappiness; @jaqui-has-a-conspiracy-theory; @icefrozendeadlyqueen; @lokislady82;

@ronearoundblindly; @thiquefunlover63

[oodlyenough]

continuing my arcane s2 ted talks i guess, i've been trying to decipher how i feel about the medardas' plotline in s2 and i never really land anywhere but a sort of disgruntled marge simpson groan.

i think anyone who paid any attention at the end of s1 or spent even ten seconds theorizing probably knew mel was a mage and her shield magic would protect some or all of the council. i was surprised this reveal didn't happen right away, and i liked that initially we see an overhead shot showing her totally-undamaged bubble around her seat. i could roll with jayce wondering why he survived and mel sort of shrugging it off. the black rose stuff in act 1 i also found intriuging and the action scene with amara was cool. i was excited that kino would be more relevant

but then act 2 ... it felt like we put mel in the torture labyrinth only to draw two conclusions, the first being that she's a mage (no duh; we could've revealed it in the first episode) and the second being that she's a bastard child from a secret love affair her mom had. and then we uh. didn't really explore that second part at all. we learn, sort of, that her mom has some beef with the black rose; if you don't play League you have no idea who or what they are; they claim Ambessa let Kino die and only wants Mel as a weapon; when confronted Ambessa only half-answers and seems to disdain mages; Ambessa ends up fighting Mel, gets killed by Mel's double bluff, and then Mel takes over the Medarda clan for... some reason (does she want to? does she HAVE to?)

mostly it ends up feeling like a backdoor pilot for a future noxus spinoff. and a future noxus spinoff starring mel isn't a bad idea; it's just that it feels like a lot of screentime in an already-frantic final season for arcane was then spent on a plotline that doesn't really resolve.

also in season one i thought mel and ambessa's relationship was very interesting and i looked forward to more of it. i thought the idea of ambessa sending mel away because mel's big puppy eyes made her feel guilty for doing what she felt she had to do, and mel feeling that as a rejection/banishment/lack of love fit nicely into the general themes of s1. i... just don't really know how the secret mel magic that ambessa hates and/or covets (unclear) adds to that rather than weakening it. their two conflicting worldviews alone set them up nicely to butt heads in season 2, especially with caitlyn potentially stuck in the middle, torn between both of their guidances and philosophies. instead it's like mel mostly inhabited a different show for most of her screentime.

i'm also not super convinced ambessa was written with the same level of sympathy characters like silco got in season 1. it certainly seems to me she gets less of that from fandom, anyway, who treat her like a uniquely evil character even for a major antagonist. it's hard for us to understand her motives when we don't really know what they ARE, the origin of her black rose feud, who tf the rose are to begin with, the true circumstances around kino's death and mel's banishment, etc... if this is all the unofficial pilot for a Noxus spinoff it might as well have just waited until then and let us use this screentime to expand on the other things in s2 that needed to be expanded/wrapped up in their final season.

[noonwardmoss]

A short piece regarding this post of mine. If you can't find 'em, make 'em.

Apologies for any errors. I wrote this very quickly in my Notes app because I hate myself apparently

CW: Anal, VERY slight daddy/petplay kink on Butcher's part (he calls himself Daddy and you pet/dove)

SMUT BELOW CUT

You're dribbling into the sheets, pussy clenching around nothing and drooling desperately. Butcher's got his big hands on your ass cheeks, holding them spread and forcing you to take it. Most of his weight is on you in this position, and you're some fuzzy place past cockdumb with the air forced out of your lungs with each thrust, but it feels too good to make him stop.

"Good fuckin' girl," he grumbles when you arch your back further. You can feel his eyes burning where he slams into you, watching your hole accept him greedily again and again. "Told ya you'd like it—choking my cock like yer trying to keep a piece'a me for later."

His words make you whine, as they often do, and a chuckle reaches your ears. You were hesitant before, but God was he right. From him fingering your ass to actually fucking it, you've been drenched the whole time. It's just something about him that makes you enjoy nearly anything.

"Thinkin' I can keep a load or two in here, sweetheart," Butcher muses, hips slamming into yours with bruising force. He has your face pressed into the sheets, tears soaking the material. "What'dya say? Think she can take bein' stuffed?"

Despite not being fully aware, you nod desperately. As long as he speaks to you like that, there's little you won't do for him and he knows it. It's seldom you deny him in the first place. You can practically hear his shit-eating grin when he says, "That's what I like to hear, dove."

His grip shifts more toward your thighs, pushing them together as his angle changes so he can get deeper with more force. Pitiful whines rip from your throat as he does, nails gripping the bed for any sort of steadiness. You know you probably won't walk right after this—Butcher's already nearly too thick for your cunt—and some part of you delights in that fact.

"Ah– fuck, Butcher–" you manage through moans. He swats at your leg with a groan as you flutter around him.

"That's it, darl'," he soothes, slightly mocking. His hand hooks around your pelvis, fingers dipping into your slit just to feel your ache for him. "Tsk. This needy hole need some love too, pet? Should'a just told me. More than happy to help with 'at."

A scream nearly tears from you as two of his digits slide into you, their girth welcomed by your slickness. His huffed amusement sounds right by your ear.

"I'm the only one who can do this for you, ey? Only bastard bigger enough than you to fill you all up just right," he grunts. When you clench, he curses. "Fuck, making me wanna switch over here, doll. That slutty cunt of yours is gripping me fingers tight."

He knows he's got you when your eyes roll back.

"Oh, close, is she? Well go on, give me a show. Let Daddy feel you come while he fucks yer ass."

You tip over the edge, voice all scratchy from the moaning he makes you do. He's the only man who ever gets you this noisy in bed. That cockiness of his is for a damn good reason. He groans and follows shortly after, spilling into you with the stuttering of his hips.

When he pulls out, you can feel yourself gaping and dripping his sperm. He pushes it back in with his fingers and presses his dick in again.

"Said I was gonna fuck two or so loads in, didn't I?" He smirks, and you whimper into the sheets.

[alittlebitofloveliness]

The thing is, Evie knows she’s a pushover.

She’s loud, sure, once she gets to know someone, and she likes to laugh and needle and tease, but she isn’t brave, not really. Last week when her chem partner hadn’t written his half of their assignment Evie had written it for him even though it took all night because she figured it was better than confronting him. When she was in second grade and Trip Lewitt stole her lunch every day for a year she never once stood up to him, and last Tuesday when Sandy had asked to borrow her lipgloss and hadn’t given it back, Evie hadn’t said a word.

So yeah, she’s a pushover and she knows it. But the thing is, she doesn’t need to be brave because she has Steve. 

Steve, who had given her his jacket and let her sleep in his car because she was nodding off in math after she was up all night writing that paper. Steve, who had pushed Trip Lewitt into the chain link fence when he caught him snatching her lunch one day and then made him eat dirt. Steve, who could tell she was put out about something last week even if he didn’t know exactly what so he’d bought her a milkshake and it meant she’d had just enough change to replace her lipgloss herself.

Steve Randle is the furthest thing from a coward Evie has ever met. He’s so brave she doesn’t need to be, but sometimes he makes her brave too. 

They’ve been friends for as long as Evie can remember. Her mom used to be friends with Steve’s mom before Steve’s mom left him behind, ensuring Evie would hate her forever even if she’ll never see her again. Evie’s been around long enough that Mr. Randle knows who she is- a rare feat from the man who goes from loving his son one day to hating him the next. Steve has slept over at her house, she’s bought him birthday gifts every year since she got her first job at twelve, and everyone always assumes they’re dating because he’s protective in a way most guys only get around their girls. 

They’re not dating though. It isn’t like that. She’s not in love with Steve, has never loved anyone that way; and Steve only has eyes for his blonde haired best friend who loves him but not enough, not like Steve loves him, in the kind of way that makes the world shake. 

Even still, she usually tells Steve everything. He’s her best friend even if she isn’t his, and she needs him more than she cares to admit. She never feels safer in the world than when she’s sitting beside him at the drive-in with his jacket around her shoulders, or throwing fries at him at the diner while they shit talk Sodapop’s latest girlfriend or scheme how to prank their horrific spanish teacher. 

Right now he’s down the hall half wrestling with Sodapop and Johnny Cade, laughing and as happy as he ever gets. She could join them if she wanted to, just walk up and say hello and she’d be safe. Steve would take one look at her and know something was wrong, even if she tried to hide it, and he’d walk her to class with an arm around her shoulders and a murderous glare on his face he’d give to anyone who dared glance in her direction.

As she watches, Sodapop ruffles Steve’s hair and he beams. It lasts half a second before it’s replaced with his usual scowl, but it’s enough for Evie to make a decision. He just looks so happy. Even on a good day Steve is probably one of the saddest people she’s ever met, and it drives her half crazy sometimes because if anybody deserves the truest happiness the world has to offer it’s stubborn, gentle, scowling, deadly kind Steve Randle. The fact that this kind of lightness in him is so rare is a travesty, and she won’t be the one to ruin it. She can’t. She won’t.

She sighs and pulls the sleeve of her shirt down further. Not that anyone would notice the bruise on her wrist anyway, but the purple is ugly and Sandy always says purple isn’t her colour. 

*********************

“I was thinkin’ we should maybe go to that drag race out by the rodeo grounds this weekend when I get off work. I heard from Cindy who’s sister is going with Two-bit Mathews that Sodapop’ll probably be there an’ I want him to see me in that new skirt I got.”

Sandy is jabbering on about her latest plan to attract the attention of one Sodapop Curtis- an unfortunate recent development that has left Evie between a rock and a hard place between trying to keep Sandy away from Soda while not spilling why she’s so against her friend pursing the blonde. Luckily, Sodapop is a typical idiotic fifteen year old, and barely has eyes for anyone longer than a week, and as such, has not yet noticed- or responded to- any of Sandy’s advances. Evie can see this, but whenever she points it out Sandy reminds her that she has an advantage other girls don’t considering Evie’s boyfriend is Sodapop’s best friend. She refuses to believe that Steve isn’t Evie’s boyfriend, and further refuses to believe that despite how close Evie is to Steve, she has little more than an acquaintance with the Curtis boy. 

It’s only a matter of time before she asks Evie to try and get Steve to convince Soda to go on a double date with them, in which case Evie will refuse without an explanation and Sandy will give her the silent treatment for a week. Evie’s trying not to think about it.

“Sure,” she agrees half heartedly, dodging the stuck out foot of some soc girl as they make their way down the hall, “I’m coverin’ the evenin’ shift for Corrin though so I might not be able to stay-”

She cuts herself off abruptly, books tumbling out of her arms as she locks eyes with him.

He’s standing in a group of football players, a junior to her sophomore, and he’s big, terrifyingly so, muscles straining against the fabric of his shirt. Half the hallway had turned at the commotion of her dropping her books but he hardly spares her a glance, blue eyes glinting cruelly as he gives her an unimpressed once over and turns back to his friends. 

It’s yet another slight, another reason for her to despise him though it does nothing to assuage her fear. She still remembers the feel of him pinning her against a locker, remembers the feel of his hot breath against her ear and the way his friends had jeered and catcalled, names she was used to but that stung all the same.

She doesn’t have to remember the terror- she’s feeling it again right now.

“-vie? Evie? Hello?” Sandy is giving her an exasperated look, Evie’s discarded books are piled in her arms- when did she pick them up? “Earth to Evie! Are you back with us?”

She sounds annoyed but her eyes are dart to a group of senior soc girls who are giggling and whispering behind their hands, then to the football players and him. Sandy’s nervous, she realizes, and then realizes why. They’re already at enough of a disadvantage being greasy girls. They can’t afford to be weird too, and Evie’s already enough of a freak as it is. 

“Sorry,” she forces a smile, takes her stack of books with trembling hands, “sorry I just got a wicked headache all of a sudden.”

“You’re probably dehydrated,”  Sandy seizes her arm and practically drags her down the hallway, head high even as a wave of giggle and whispers claw at them, “it’s thirty degrees out, an’ you’re wearin’ long sleeves like you ain’t never seen Oklahoma summer before.”

“Yeah,” Evie ignores the twinge of her wrist and the pounding of her heart, “I bet that’s it.”

*****************

She spends the rest of the day jumpy and tense. Sandy tires of her newfound jitters quickly and jumps on an invitation from Kelsey Morrone to go out for a smoke a little too eagerly. Evie hardly has it in herself to mind.

She doesn’t start to calm down until last period and it’s only because Mr. Horton’s geography class is so boring it trumps all other emotions. Sandy isn’t in this class either, which means they can’t even write notes to pass the time.

Her anxiety ramps up the second the bell rings. She’s all too aware of the possibility she might run into him in the hallway, and everything in her screams that that cannot happen. She takes extra care as she packs away her things, prolonging the inevitable, and then regrets it when she realizes she has no crowd to blend into as she steps into the hallway. Luckily her locker isn’t too far from the math wing, so she keeps her head down and walks quicker than usual and makes it there without any further disaster.

It’s not until the familiar scent of motor oil and fabric softener envelops her and she feels a slight tug on her braid that she finally relaxes. 

“Hey doll.”

“Hey yourself,” she swats at Steve halfheartedly, tucking her braid back behind her ear from where he’d tossed it over her shoulder.

“Hey,” he takes her hand gently- he’s always gentle with her- and pushes her sleeve up slightly, revealing the horrible mottled purple and blue bruise, “what happened?”

All day she’d sat next to Sandy and she hadn’t noticed a thing. Not a single teacher had glanced at her twice, not even when her english teacher handed back their essays and her sleeve had slipped, and yet Steve had noticed within the first minute of being here.

She looks into his eyes, at the anger hiding beneath his concern, at the scowl twisting his face that had been so happy just this morning, and makes a decision.

Even if she’s spent most of her day waiting for a chance to talk to him, she can’t let Steve Randle fight her battles forever. 

“Nothing,” she pulls her hand away and pulls her sleeve back down, “don’t worry about it.”

“Evie-”

“Steve,” she cuts him off, “it’s fine, really. What’s up?”

“I wanted to know if you an’ Sandy wanted a ride home.” He says, eyes still locked at where her bruise is hidden away under blue fabric. She can tell he desperately wants to ask for more details, just like he knows that she won’t offer any. 

“Ain’t you playin’ chauffeur to your buddies?”

“Not today,” he shakes his head, black hair glinting in the afternoon sun as they meander out the doors. He takes her backpack without seeming to think about it, slinging over his shoulder, and Evie hides her amusement at the fact that for all he’s a tough greaser he’s secretly a gentleman, “Two-bit’s takin’ the kid and Johnny, an’ Soda’s walkin’ over to the DX for work.”

“Well Sandy’s got plans with Carmen,” Evie tells him, “But I wouldn’t say no to a ride.”

Some of the tension bleeds out of his shoulders when she mentions Sandy’s busy. It’s no secret he’s not exactly a fan of her, thinks she’s sharper than she needs to be with Evie and hates her for it, the stupidly protective person that he is, not realizing that’s just who Sandy is. Still, it was nice of him to extend the invitation to her in the first place. She wonders for the millionth time how Steve got a reputation for being an asshole when he does stuff like offer a girl he hates a ride home without thinking, just because she’s a friend of Evie’s. 

“You wanna stop for a milkshake on the way home?” Steve asks, tossing their bags in the back seat, and rolling down the window. If it was hot outside, it’s a million degrees in the car, but she fights the urge to roll up her sleeves, not wanting to give him a better look at her bruise if she can help it. “I’ll pay.”

She considers his offer. First of all, damn him for knowing her so well- ice cream has always been her biggest weakness. Normally she’d say yes without hesitation, but his offer today is very obviously a ploy, a scheme, a bribe if you will, to trick her into talking about the bruise and Him, and she has decided already that she won’t. To sit across from Steve, while he looks at her with sad eyes and tries to sweet talk her into talking is not part of her plan. 

“Not today,” she shakes her head and offers him a smile, “I'm beat.”

“I can see that,” he mutters under his breath, but doesn’t protest, starting the car and pulling out of the parking lot.

It’s a quiet ride home. Normally they’d chat and tease each other, but Steve’s mood is sour and she’s hesitant to start a conversation because she’s famously bad at keeping secrets and Steve knows that better than anyone. If he got her talking, sooner or later she’d let something slip and all bets would be off.

Fifteen minutes later he pulls up in front of her house and cuts the engine with a sigh.

“Thanks for the ride,” she presses a kiss to his cheek and goes to leave.

“Wait, Eves,” he catches her hand, the rough calluses on his skin at odds with the softness of the movement, “just- you know I got your back, right? No matter what.”

He’s so earnest, so worried. 

“Yeah,” she smiles, heart swelling with gratitude for this dumb boy who came into her life and never thought once about leaving, “I know.”

He holds her gaze a moment more and nods, clearing his throat abruptly.

“I’ll give you a ride to school tomorrow. Sandy’s welcome too if she wants.”

“Thanks.” She smiles, squeezing his hand and trying to put all her gratitude into it before she lets him go, closing the door gently behind her.

He doesn’t drive away until she’s safely inside, the door locked behind her. He never does.

***********

“Mornin’ doll.”

“Mornin’,” she hands him a piece of still warm bannock wrapped in a tea towel, and he shoves half of it into his mouth in one bite, humming appreciatively. If there’s one thing she knows Steve loves, it’s her mom’s baking.

He inhales the rest of the bread before speaking.

“Sandy comin’?” 

“Nah, she’s gettin’ a ride with Carmen.”

He nods and starts the engine, the car coming to life with a purr. It’s not as quiet as some of the socs fancy ass cars, but it’s the quietest tin can in all the east side and it’s all because of Steve’s magic with mechanics. She always feels an unearned swell of pride on his behalf whenever she sits in this car, stupid as it is.

It’s not until they’re halfway to Will Rodgers that she notices Steve’s hands are torn up and bruised, every knuckle split. 

They definitely weren’t like that yesterday.

“You get into a rumble or somethin’ last night? What happened to your hands?”

“Oh, that,” Steve waves a ruined hand dismissively, “don’t worry about it.”

“Steve-”

“Evie-” he mocks, flipping their argument from yesterday, “really. It’s fine.”

“I know it’s fine, that ain’t what I asked!”

He pulls into the parking lot and cuts the engine before turning to her with a sigh, 

“You really wanna know?”

“Yes!”

“Well, I heard a rumour somewhere that some of the football team- a certain captain in particular- have started to get a bit brazen in how they’ve been treating some east side girls. And Sylvia Devares seemed to think maybe Angel had mentioned something about you showin’ up late to spanish last week and shaking like a spooked horse. So me’n the boys decided it was time to have a little talk with the dear captain and his buddies.”

“You didn’t have to do that," gratitude and shame swirl in her gut, “I can’t expect you to fight my battles forever.”

He lets out an inelegant snort.

“Of course you can,” he says, so matter-of-fact she couldn’t argue with him if she wanted to, “I meant what I said yesterday: I always got your back. Always. Even if you don’t wanna talk about things, I’m always gonna be here for you.”

Yeah, she realizes, he really is, always has been always will be. It doesn’t matter if she’s a pushover or not, he’ll always have her back.

How did she get so lucky?

[tojisth3rdwife]

⚠️nsfw/mdni⚠️

Just a Thursday Night…

cw: suggestive (for now) you’re in a poly/closed triad with Toji and Shiu. They hate each others guts most of the time but they love the fuck out of you so..common interest i suppose lol

a/n: some fic below smau

Conversations like this were typical between the three of you. Shiu and Toji acting as if they weren’t essentially best friends by default, seeing as how it was difficult for either of them to cultivate any kind of relationship in their line of work. Which was what made the relationship between the three of you work so well. How it all came about? That's probably a complex story for another day. Tonight was going to be simple. Your boyfriends were working late and usually didn't get home until even later. So you were never hard-pressed for time to prepare the evening for them.

It's close to midnight and the house you three shared was warm and cozy, the air colored with the scents of dinner cooking. Foil-wrapped potatoes baked in the oven while two skillets sizzled on the stove. One containing buttery garlic green beans and the other a thick ass porterhouse steak. On the counter, one steak rests at medium well doneness to Shiu’s liking, soon to be joined by Toji’s medium rare.

You were busy searing each side of his steak when the door chimes alerted you that the front door had been opened.

Someone was finally home.

Shiu walks in the house first ,dressed in his suit and tie, blazer tossed over his shoulder. He always smells good as hell. Like expensive leather and mixture of his woodsy cologne and a freshly lit cigarette. Like a grown ass man that works hard just to provide his baby girl with whatever she wants.

He finds you in the kitchen at the stove preparing dinner and steps up behind you to make his presence known. His touch is gentle but firm, skimming over your hips and waist, pressing his front against the curve of your back. His lips find your ear, pressing a kiss to your temple before greeting you with a deep raspy “Hey sweetheart.”. His voice is like the butter sizzling in the pan in front of you and you melt against him, turning your head to give him a proper kiss that he hums into contently with pliant lips.

“Hi baby” you’ll sneak in between kisses that become less and less chaste. You're mindlessly pressing your ass into his crotch, making him grunt sexily and tighten his hold on your waist.

“Dinners almost done” you add, sneaking a lick of his tongue with a smile.

“Mmm..Smells good…” he’ll mutter against your lips, to which you’ll tell him to go get cleaned up so he could enjoy it. He’ll then hum in acknowledgment before pecking your lips a few more times, squeezing your hips and giving your booty a healthy slap before leaving you to it. Toji usually comes in right after him, shedding his coat and sporting dark jeans and a fitted tee. Looking every bit like that bad ass boy next door that your parents forbid you from dating. He greets you in his normal Toji fashion.

You yelp at the sting of the smack he plants on your other ass cheek, but it's soothed under Toji’s hand as he rubs and kneads your plumpness.

“Sup, Mama..” he growls into the curve of your neck, his buff ass arm coming around you and slotting under your chest for a possessive back hug. Toji’s scent is an addictive amalgam of sandalwood, some sort of citrus, and his sweat from the day. Since he rode home in Shiu’s car, accents of smoke were woven into the fibers of gia clothing to mix with his natural fragrance, having its usual effect on you.

He nibbles and teases the skin of your neck until you're giggling and reaching up to tangle your fingers in his messy hair.

“Toji!!” You attempt to squirm away from his lips. A feeble attempt of course. He’s got you locked in place under his bear arm. After seemingly having his fill of nuzzling, Toji lifts his head and the hand resting against your ribs to turn your face towards him for a kiss that already has your head spinning. His tongue tastes of mint and Monster energy drink, which he more than likely chugged on the ride home.

It takes some effort to pull back from him, and he just keeps kissing you. The corner of your mouth. Your cheek. Your jawline. Before he can find his home in the crook of your neck again you have to elbow him in the abs gently to get his attention.

“Youre gonna make me burn the food, Toji. Quit it..” you giggle.

“Just take it off the heat then..I missed you today.” He whines,his lips moving sinuously against your skin. You gasp when his teeth graze your flesh. You were feeling dizzy with desire, your lashes fluttering at the way Toji bit into your neck and sucked hard, earning a barely muffled moan that snaps you back into reality.

“Uh uhn Toj…I gotta finish your steak. Unless you want me to overcook it..” You nudge him gently with your shoulder and he obeys with a grumpy sigh, pulling away reluctantly.

“So? Then I’ll just have to eat you instead..” he grins, his cool-toned gaze blazing into you lustfully. Before you fall into his trap again, Shiu returns to the kitchen. He’s still in his dress shirt, the top few buttons undone as he's yanking at his necktie. He opens the freezer before glancing over at the two of you tangled in a hot embrace at the stove, he sighs and rolls his eyes.

“The least you can do is wash the murder off of your body before you rub yourself all over her…” he scoffs, rummaging in the ice tray for two cubes to drop in the short-cut glass. Toji’s upper lip curls into a snarl as he glares over your head at Shiu, who is now mindlessly opening his liquor cabinet.

“The least you can do is mind your damn business..cock blockn’ ass..” Toji seethes. Shiu's tired gaze returns to Toji while he pours himself a drink.

"So it's cock blocking because Id rather you didn't get some dead man's DNA all over my girl?" he perks his brow, lifting the glass to his lips for a sip. Toji kisses his teeth. " You think I'd be all over MY girl like this without at least changing clothes? I'm not an idiot.."

At that opening, Shiu's brows lift as if he's about to disagree. He merely grunts in response instead, mumbling something snide under his breath as he posts up against the counter with his drink in hand. You didn’t catch it but Toji must have since he was bristling with you still in his possessive embrace.

“Yeah? Wanna repeat that to my face?” he drops the arm that caged you to his chest. His other arm loosens a bit as he steps around you as if he's about to approach Shiu, who of course regards Toji blankly before taking one more sip of his whiskey. When you noticed him turning to set the glass aside, your eyes widened.

"Yall don't start.." you whine, already scrambling to grasp Toji's shirt. It stretches from his torso a little when he tries to move further away from you to close the distance between him and Shiu with a sinister smirk on his face. Shiu smirks back, leaning back up from the counter to face him. There's a silent exchange of colorful language between the two men that you weren't going to let escalate. It was late and you just wanted a peaceful night in with your men. No drama. No bickering.

"OH MY GOD! ALL THIS TESTOSTERONE IN MY KITCHEN!” you blurt out, earning both of their attention. Pointing the spatula you now had in your hand, you aimed it towards Shiu with a glare. He opens his mouth but you shush him.

“Aht! Make that the last drink you get before you eat your dinner, ok? And you..” you pause to crane your neck back enough to look at Toji.

“While I do love the smell of you, if you killed someone tonight I'd prefer it if you cleaned up. Cool?”

Toji glances down at himself with the same type of furrowed brow that Shiu was now sporting when he looked into his glass. "Now I don't wanna hear anymore bitching from either one of you tonight, dammit. Its late and I’m cramping. Dinner will be ready in about 10 minutes, ok? So both of you get out of my kitchen so I can finish cooking please.”

You give them both a look, ensuring that they understand their assignments, spatula waving between them. There is a mixture of surprise and amusement in their expressions, finding your bossiness endearing considering you were the smallest person in the room. The men exchange a seething look of understanding, Shiu being the first to scoff and break eye contact before looking to you.

"Sure thing baby," he remarks warmly, picking up his glass and tossing back what was left in it before putting it back on the counter. He then approaches you, giving Toji a snarky downward scan in passing before leaning in to peck your lips. Toji rolls his eyes and huffs loudly during the affectionate exchange, knowing Shiu was just trying to push his buttons in the little ways he could without you knowing.

When he pulls away, you lick the remnants of whiskey he left on your lips with a smirk.

" Mmmhmm. Out." you wrinkle your nose at him, pushing him away playfully as he steps between you and Toji to exit the kitchen.

Leaving you with your broodiest boyfriend.

Toji was biting the inside of his cheek and watching Shiu leave with narrowed eyes, looking like he was plotting something devious when you poked him in the pec. His glare drops to you, softening a little on the way your siren eyes were drawing him in. With a lift of your brow, Toji relents.

"What?" he frowns and you smile at him sweetly, reaching up to run your thumb over the scarred corner of his mouth before speaking.

"You too, big boy. Go wash ya ass. And don't kill Shiu on your way back there please." you nod your head in the kitchen doorway's direction. At that, Toji grunts humorously as he kisses your thumb, then your forehead.

"Only 'cuz you said please.." he grumbles before trudging out of the kitchen somewhat begrudgingly.

You maintained that stone-cold expression while you admired that muscular ass back on his way out, waiting until you were alone to allow that facade to break immediately in favor of you being utterly hot and bothered.

It wasn't always like this but you swore one day things would come to blows between those two if you weren't always there to intervene. There was no reason for them to still be this competitive when it came to you. There was a clear understanding between you three that you were theirs equally and vice verse. But you had to admit that it was annoyingly sexy to see them still fussing over you though. Or maybe it was just because you were ovulating.

Either way, you were sure to be in for another long night with these two…

[johnnysuhbmarine]

Knowing a change of scenery was what your mental health needed, you transferred to where your brother, Mark, goes to college. The good news is, he’s not too cool for his younger sister, so he lets you join his friend group immediately. The bad news is, Haechan is in that friend group, and a brief encounter four years ago was enough for you to understand he does NOT like you. Even worse news, he’s a lot hotter than he was four years ago…

Chapter Fifteen: I'll just ask Mark - four images, 1.5k words - heads up, this chapter deals more with y/n's mental health than previous ones

You were thankful you didn’t have any classes for the rest of the day, because time slipped right by you while at lunch with Haechan. The two of you got sandwiches and coffee from the library café, but when you quickly realized all the tables were taken, you ended up bringing the food back to Haechan’s apartment just a short walk away. This is where time started flying past. The two of you turned on an old cartoon show to watch while you ate, but once you were finished, your own voices quickly overtook the sound of the television.

It was a strange truth to find out - that you and Haechan actually got along swimmingly, taking to each other like a duck to water. Of course, up until the last week or so, the majority of your time knowing each other was spent either ignoring one another or exemplifying passive aggression; so your ability to actually carry a conversation for hours was a very new concept, but one you could hardly take the time to question when you were too busy laughing until you couldn’t breathe.

Haechan was the first to calm down after the last bout of laughter shared in the living room, and he leaned his head against the front of the couch - the two of you opted to sit on the floor as you ate since there was no coffee table to place everything on; not to mention the couch wasn’t that comfortable in the first place.

He rolled his head to the side so he could look at you, your eyes squeezed shut as you bite on your bottom lip to try and stop more laughs from leaving your system. He let a soft grin come across his face as he took in your presence, and the fact that he was happy here with you. “Remind me to thank Mark for convincing you to transfer,” he says gratefully, traces of a laugh still tainting his light voice. Though, all at once, your body stills, and you open your eyes to meet his soft gaze before swiftly bringing your focus to where you had begun messing with your fingers in your lap.

“Oh. It wasn’t really- he didn’t convince me, so to speak. I had to transfer.” You fumble through your words, embarrassment tinging your cheeks a shade of pink.

Haechan furrowed his brows at you. “What do you mean?” He asks curiously, and you can’t help the heavy sigh that escapes you.

You stop fidgeting, but you can’t bring your gaze up from your lap as you respond smoothly. “I was really, badly depressed. Not to mention half the student body at SM used to actually bully me," you recall with a scoff.

“At the end of the day, I just wanted my brother closer than thirty minutes away from me. Helped me feel less alone, or at least helped me not make rash decisions, I mean- I hated myself. Wasn’t sure I was anything but a waste of space, honestly; and the idea of going to my brother to be talked down felt better than going to my friends, cause I always thought they would leave me if all I did was come to them with struggles. My brother can’t leave, he’s stuck with me. Though most of the time, that doesn’t really make it any easier - it’s still putting so much responsibility on Mark, when he’s probably the last person who needs any more added to his plate. Regardless, he does his best - and only partly because he's forced to," you say with a weak laugh before continuing softly.

"In transferring here, my parents made him promise that he wouldn’t allow me to throw myself into oncoming traffic, or maybe it was off a bridge. I don’t know. Something stupid but-”

You cut yourself off when you hear what you think is a sniffle from beside you. You whip your head over to look and get confirmation that he’s actually crying. “Haechan?” You get out worriedly, your brows furrowing as you take in his wide watery eyes and small trembles. You reach out to wipe away at the tears racing down his face, and he just shakes his head against your hold.

“Don’t leave. Don’t you ever dare leave,” he manages to get out somewhat firmly. Your lips form a tight smile at his care and you shake your head, trying to dispel his worries.

“I’m not-” You start, but he cuts you off and you’re sure it’s because he doesn’t quite believe you…not that you could blame him.

He moves from sitting flat on the ground to instead lean over and engulf you in a hug, made awkward by the fact that he was practically just ramming his body into your side. You didn’t care, you wrapped your arms around him the best you could as he gets out choked words. “I need you. Here. I need you here,” he hiccups, and you break.

“Haechan…it’s okay. I’m not going anywhere. I promise,” you say, trying your best not to cry now, too as you begin to rub a hand up and down his back.

You feel a light poke at your side and glance down to see his pinkie outstretched. You look back up to face him in confusion, but his eyes are still directed towards the floor, not to mention squeezed shut. “P-promise,” he gets out weakly. With the tears staining his face, the shaking of his body, and his choked words, you knew you never wanted to see Haechan like this ever again. So, without truly realizing how much this pinky promise was going to mean to him, you lace your finger with his and watch as the smallest wave of relief crashes over him.

He falls more decidedly against you, and you hold him there tightly, running your fingers gently across his clothes and through his hair. You don’t know how long the two of you stayed like that, but you know you didn’t let up from the hug until he was completely rid of tears. Though, when you lift your arms up and allow him to sit back upright, he doesn’t, and a small smile crosses your face as you gently place your arms back around his figure.

You hadn’t seen him look this small ever before, and the fact that he was being this emotional and vulnerable with you was making warmth spread through your entire body. You only hoped it could transfer through the hug you had him in, figuring he probably needed it more right now - for some reason, it couldn't click that he was crying over you, that he was currently concerned about making sure you felt comforted and cared for...though that quickly changes with his next words.

“I’m sorry I was a dick to you earlier,” he finally says with resolve. You move to shake your head and dismiss it, but he presses on. “I treated you poorly for no reason, and I’m sorry. The last thing I ever want to do is remind you of someone from your old school. I’ll do better. I promise all I’ll ever try to do is put a smile on your face, but if it’s ever not genuine, I need you to know that you can come to me, confide in me, whatever. Your heavy feelings aren’t going to scare me away. You don’t need to ever pretend around me, and if I’m the only person who has made that clear, then so be it, I’ll be your rock.”

He finally moves as he says this so that he can make eye contact with you, unfortunate because you had finally started crying at his words. “It’s so hard,” you squeak out. “With my family, I mean - I just want to be a good daughter- a good sister. They don’t deserve all that stress of my mental health. I- I broke my family’s heart telling them how I thought of myself…the point I was reaching. I don’t ever want to worry them like that again.” As you finish, your attention is turned towards where Haechan lightly grabbed your hand in his.

“You broke mine, too, but you need to understand that I’ll let you break it over and over again if it means you aren’t going through this alone.” There’s nothing but sincerity in his tone and it sends even more tears racing down your cheeks. He sighs, bringing a hand up to wipe gently under your eyes. “Y/n,” he says, his voice soft but filled with intent.

You nod your head, knowing what he was looking for - any confirmation that you were actually taking in his words. “Thank you,” you say weakly, causing a corner of Haechan’s mouth to perk up in a soft grin.

His hand that was previously at your cheek moves up to eventually run back down through your hair, tucking a piece behind your ear. “Do you wanna watch The Aristocats?” He asks gently.

Your wide eyes meet his. “You’d watch it with me again?” You respond in awe.

Haechan lets out a small laugh, turning his gaze to the floor before shaking his head and looking in your teary eyes again. “You said it’s your comfort movie…I’d watch it a thousand times.”

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a/n: yuhhhh

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