#there is no way to explain to this cat that Actually it's his fault for being smart as fuck and too goddamn fast

[bilbobagginsomebabez]

so the thing about smart housecats who used to be stray is they need a Challenge equivalent to an actual real bird when they kill. and the thing about that is cats are really fast and have a physics engine in their brains. so the thing about that is you have to move the rod with a string & toy on it really fast or it's boring. and the thing about that is the rod and the cat are moving faster than i can really see. and the thing about that is the cat is Not looking at the rod, he's looking at the toy.

so basically i keep hitting our cat with the rod while trying to create engaging play and he's clearly beginning to resent me for it.

[torasplanet]

❝𝙎𝙏𝙐𝙋𝙄𝘿 𝙎𝙇𝙐𝙏.ᐟ❞

BONTEN + BIMBO!F. READER

𝙨𝙪𝙢𝙢𝙖𝙧𝙮 ; you didn't plan on showing your new tattoo to save your ass but this wouldn't have happened in the first place if you weren't being such a stupid slut in the club!!

𝙬𝙖𝙧𝙣𝙞𝙣𝙜 ; smut, gangbang/groupsex, rough sex, sloppy sex, degradation, praise sorta, p in v, oral (reader giving), handjobs, anal, like a lot of sex, voyeurism, belly-bulging, reverse cowgirl, dumbification, humiliation, recording, jealousy sex, reader wears makeup, petnames (baby, dollface, princess, etc), UNEDITED and skin color not mentioned

It wasn’t your fault. You just wanted to have fun at the club for once because finally, none of the Bonten members were looming over your shoulder like a hawk because they had ‘different’ business to attend to, well that’s what they told you. Still, you knew that just meant they were going to kill someone or something like that. It’s not exactly ‘okay’ to do that but you were kind of glad it was happening because usually, they didn’t even let you have more than three shots at the club; Haruchiyo sometimes snuck you one more or let you get a bit of his coke but that’s it and you weren’t able to actually go clubbing. Regardless of what you took, you still had to sit next to them wherever they went and by the slight chance that they’d allow you to, someone would go with you.

They were so protective that it was annoying. Couldn’t even talk to the bartender without Koko or Takeomi coming behind you draping their arm somewhere on your body and asking what you were doing. So of course you weren’t paying attention to shit when you were finally left alone.

As you danced with your friend, running your hands all over your body and smoothing down the fabric of your short dress to the rhythm of the music. Your tongue hanging out and everything with your eyes closed; you were lost in the moment. So lost that you didn’t realize your friend was no longer behind you and instead, there was a guy. And yes, you will admit that maybe you should have noticed this or at least looked back at your friend but it’s still not entirely your fault! If you leave your cat in front of a open door, they’re gonna leave without a second though so what did they expect you to do?

But when you heard your name getting called and saw Mikey and Rindou glaring at you hatefully, you realized that there’s a reason why cats are supposed to be kept inside. Well, you didn’t realize that immediately because at first, you just didn’t understand why they were all ignoring you. After all, they weren’t explaining anything…you hated it when they did that. They knew you weren’t the brightest so you spent practically the entire walk to the car, and when you got in the car, begging Mikey just to explain to you but he stayed silent. Barely spared you a glance and everyone else did the same.

You sat on Mikey’s side staring at him with a frown on your face just wanting him to pay you some attention and tell you what you did wrong. “Mikey, please…’m just confused.” You whined grabbing hold of his arm. You’d been begging the entire time and he hadn’t even said anything to you, only pushing you away. Hell, you even took off your heels to run after him and the rest of the guys on your way out of the club because they were ignoring you purposefully and walking fast as hell. Probably by the orders of Mikey.

Ran sighed and ran his nimble fingers through the multi-colored strands of his hair “Shut the hell up, god.” He said with a groan and Haruchiyo chuckled, his diamond-shaped scars on the sides of his mouth stretching.

“Can’t really expect her to be quiet can you? I mean baby girl just confused, ain’t you?” The pink-haired man said turning his attention to you and you nodded violently as Mikey pushed you away from him. You quickly hopped over to the green-eyed man who was welcoming you with open arms to sit on his lap while Takeomi grumbled about Haruchiyo’s sweet spot for you which was ridiculous for him to say.

If anything, Haruchiyo was the most sadistic out of them all. Shoving a gun down your throat and making you suck on it, inviting you into the execution room and making you shoot one of the traitors knowing how sensitive you were about that and that you were going to cry about the blood and how it splashed on you. He only did shit like this when everyone else was mad to piss them off even if he was just as mad. Kokonoi, Kakucho, and Rindou were the ones with the soft spots (any maybe Mikey just a bit) but that’s for another time…

“Haru, what did I do…? Tell me.” You asked into his ear whilst wrapping your arms around his neck, you really wanted someone to tell you what you did wrong so you could make up for it. Haruchiyo merely shrugged at you with a sick grin on his face, you turned your head to locate the heterochromatic-eyed male who was always sure to stick up for you when everyone else was being so mean. “Kaku…” You muttered standing up from Haruchiyo’s lap while he tried to get a glance under your dress. Kakucho merely sighed as you plopped down onto his lap looking at him with those wide teary eyes.

He felt bad, he really did but it was your turn to learn. Almost every punishment, he was there for you; kakucho always went soft on you and praised you but he couldn’t do that this time.

This wasn’t a just normal thing you did like annoying everyone, it was more than that and he was upset too. So he stayed silent. “Sorry pretty.” He muttered placing his hands on your hips. You opened your glossy lips to let out pleas and whines once again not even noticing the sound of the safety of a gun clicking off.

“Shut the fuck up,” Mikey said in an unnaturally soft tone interrupting whatever you were going to say. Your head turned to look at him to ask why he was being so mean but your eyes widened seeing his gun pointed right at you. Mikey’s finger was nowhere near the trigger but you didn’t look at small shit like that, you saw a gun in your face and you went quiet. It’s hard to keep talking when Bonten’s leader has a gun pointed at your forehead.

You stared at Mikey with your lips parted slightly in shock. Ran grinned in amusement at this as did Haruchiyo and Koko but everyone else had a straight face waiting for more to happen and wondering what you would do. Would you keep talking like a dumbass or shut up? It was always a surprise which one you’d choose. “Hopping from lap to lap asking what you did wrong like a stupid slut. If no one’s answering you that means we don’t want to hear your fucking mouth!” Mikey shouted making you flinch and shut your eyes.

“While we were doing our job, we got word that you’re in the club acting as if no one fucking owns you all over some fuckhead; so I had to stop our meeting mid-way because clearly, you have no fucking brain in there!” Mikey said with a frown decorating his face, he was clearly pissed off at you. More than anyone else and it made sense. You may have been Bonten’s whore but in the end, you were Mikey’s, you went home with him, and slept in the bed with him beyond sex so of course he was the most upset about it.

It didn’t matter what you had to say about the situation and thinking that it was your friend because it wasn’t making Mikey any less angry. It wasn’t making any of them less angry at you.

“But–” “Get the fuck over here.” Mikey interrupted you with a demand which you were hesitant to oblige to. You didn’t even get a chance to look at Kakucho or anyone for help because the Hitto man gently slapped your bottom before taking his hands away from your hips signaling you to listen to Mikey. You hesitantly stood to your feet and slowly walked over to the white-haired man with your hands balled up in fists. Mikey tilted the gun down in a direction for you to get on the ground and you nervously played with the hem of your dress.

Staring up at him with your mascara-coated lashes just waiting for him to give you a direction made him rock hard “I’m tired of hearing your excuses, you’re gonna stuff your mouth until I feel like hearing you. Understand?” Mikey asked. You were lucky really. Usually, when Mikey was this upset at you, he wouldn’t ask if you understood or not and just would’ve shoved your head down on his cock because you had no choice but to not understand. But you still had something to say.

Maybe if you told him about the new tattoo you got, he’d stop being so mad at you. You got the Bonten tattoo right on your pelvis and was just waiting for the moment to show them all; this was not the time you planned but it’d hopefully get them off your ass about this situation. You hooked your fingers on his boxers and pants, pulling them down slowly debating if he’d let you live long enough to even mention the tattoo once you opened your mouth. Blinking up at him ignoring the gun above your gaze, you grew nervous but still decided to speak “M-Mikey…I–” Mikey’s other hand came to the back of your head before shoving your open mouth down on his hard dick not letting you get another word out.

“Didn’t I tell you I was tired of hearing you?” Mikey said as tears burned in the back of your skull from his harshness, your acrylics dug into his pale thighs as you sat there on the floor of the limo under all their eyes. It was embarrassing and it made your panties drenched in your arousal. “She’s stupid, what’d you expect?” Koko said with a scoff as he typed something on his phone, hardly interested in what was happening because he wasn’t getting his dick wet. 

Ran leaned against the back of his hand staring at Koko “Boss said he didn’t wanna hear her whining, think you should shut up too.” He said and the long-haired male rolled his eyes muttering ‘Whatever’ and then he began to type harder on his phone before turning it off and putting it in his life. Sheer seconds later, Ran’s phone notification went off making the male’s grin extend but he stayed quiet. “We need to do something about Misaki.” Mikey started to lower his gun as he spoke before discarding it on the seat beside him letting you relax a bit but you didn’t dare take your mouth off his cock. He’d be upset if you stopped sucking.

No one said anything and just waited for him to continue “Sanzu, Takeomi, you’re going to keep track of him and all his guys.” Mikey said with a small grunt and Haruchiyo’s face twisted into one of confusion and anger.

“Why the hell do I have to go with the old man!? That’s what Mochi’s for.”

“Believe me, I’m not exactly joyful to go with you either.”

Ran laughed at their banter before his gaze traveled to you “Well, if you haven’t noticed, Mochi is taking care of that animal back at the club because little miss slut…” He places the bottom of his incredibly expensive shoe on the back of your head making a whimper come from your mouth “Wanted to get her princess parts touched…” Ran ended with a mocking tone almost talking in a baby-ish voice whilst pressing his foot down harder on your head. You gagged around the shorter male’s cock as tears slowly came down your face.

You hadn’t even noticed Mochi was missing because of how busy you were trying to find out what you did wrong and even apologizing despite not knowing what you did.

You just didn’t want them to be upset but it seemed your attempt at that just made them more angry at you “Ugh, should’ve let me do it. I’d make that fucker suffer.” The mullet-haired man said leaning back against his seat and grabbing the cigarette from Rindou’s hand “You get too messy.” Mikey stated simply glancing down at you as you continued to look up at him but when his dark and gloomy eyes met yours, your eyes dropped immediately “Oh like you’re not gonna make her a mess.” Haruchiyo replied and grinned at his boss with narrowed eyes.

Mikey didn’t reply and only looked down at you once again and you did the same thing as before. He didn’t like that at all.

He knew you wanted something from him or more like you needed to tell him something but for some reason, you didn’t. You never made eye contact with him when you were keeping something from him “Stop looking at me like that. Talk.” Mikey said planting his hand on your forehead before pushing you off his dick harsher than he intended making you fall back on your elbows.

You coughed lightly while wiping the small tears that hadn’t yet dared to mess up your makeup. “I-I…I wanted to show you something.” You said nervously as you shifted onto your knees grabbing at the hem of your dress and trying to gather up the confidence to look at him in his eyes, you knew how he hated it when you didn’t look at him when he talked to you and he was getting a bit upset with how often you were looking away from him.

Mikey lifted his hand off his knee gesturing for you to do what you wanted. You slowly stood to your feet in front of Mikey, his knees on either side of your body leaving a bit of space between himself and you. Mikey watched as you lifted your dress just below your boobs and his eyes immediately caught the tattoo on your pelvis that dipped into your panties. It was the Bonten tattoo with the only difference being the dot in the middle was a heart, he ran his thumb over the tattoo and pulled the waistline of your thong down just a bit so he could see the full inked skin. “…Wanted to make it cute.” You said with a smile forming on your lips at his reaction.

Mikey continued to stare at the tattoo in awe running his fingers over it to see if it was real and wouldn’t wipe off “It is cute baby.” His voice was softer than before as his eyes flickered up to yours, his hands went to your hips “Think you should show everyone else.” The Sano man didn't give you any time to react or protest (though you wouldn’t have) before he turned you around making your bare torso visible to everyone.

“Holy shit…” “Fuck pretty you’re so hot.” “Cute.” “C’mere dollface.” The compliments from the men made you grin wider, almost giggling at all of the attention. Koko then grabbed your wrist gently and pulled you out of Mikey’s arms and toward him before he began to rub his fingertips over the tattoo “You pay for this yourself love?” The long-haired male asked not looking up at you, you merely shook your head with a negative hum “Used your card.” A smile stretched across Koko’s mouth at your words before he pressed a small wet kiss to your pelvis on the ink “Good.” Rindou then reached over and grabbed your other arm, pulling you over to him and into his lap before you could respond to Koko.

His palm was placed directly onto the tattoo as he chuckled in your ear with Haruchiyo and Ran on either side of him chuckling as well “Gonna have fun with this, that’s for sure.” Ran said and Haruchiyo nodded in agreement with a devilish grin on his face, Rindou’s hand slowly drifted into your thong with his fingers trailing down to your clit “This why you wanted to be ass up so bad the other day?” Rindou asked tilting his head, his lips ghosting over yours and of course, when you went to connect them, he pulled away.

As nice as rindou was compared to those monsters, Takeomi, Haruchiyo, and Ran, he could be just as mean well…not exactly as mean.

Haruchiyo’s hand grabbed your chin harshly and he turned your attention toward him “Gotta let me eat this pussy baby…” He said licking his lips and once again, before you could even say anything, you were interrupted. “Who says you get to have ‘er first?” Ran said with a scoff as he put his hand on your leg, it was only adding to the small bit of pleasure his brother was giving to you by circling your clit. Takeomi scoffed as Kakucho just shook his head “She needs someone soft first. You guys will tear her in half.” The scarred-face man said folding his arms across his chest but his words only earned more noises of disapproval.

“Oh please! You’ll end up coddling her anyway.”

“Dollface loves getting split in half right?”

“You’re a bunch of selfish fucks.”

“And you’re not? Don’t act like you didn’t keep her to yourself all day yesterday Koko.”

As the men began to argue, you felt yourself being torn from Rindou’s lap and it seemed no one noticed.

You looked behind you to see the culprit of the action, Mikey. You gave him a small smile as you sat down on his lap but he didn’t return it and just continued to stare at you with his tired eyes “Take them off.” You weren’t really smart but you didn’t have to know rocket science to know what he was referring to. Nervously glancing at the men who were raising their voices at each other fighting over who got to use you first and then back at Mikey who was, surprisingly, waiting patiently. You began to pull the panties from your hips and let them drop to your ankles before stepping out of them staring at the damp spot in them as they lay on the floor useless as they always were.

You went to turn around to face Mikey but he stopped you “Look at them and be quiet.” And you did as you sat back down on his lap but this time, you felt his cock sliding inside of your slick hole making you shiver. You let out the smallest moan but it gained the attention of most people in the room, the people who didn’t hear only looked at you because everyone else went silent and turned to you. “Didn’t I say be quiet? Can’t listen for anything…” The short-haired male whispered in your ear while he held onto your hips.

“Oh shit look,” Ran said pointing at the bulge in your tummy that happened to be angled right where the tattoo was, making it poke out. “Fuck…are you gonna have her all to yourself, Mikey? Shit’s not fair.” Takeomi said letting out a low hiss and Haruchiyo nodded in agreement “Yeah, you told–” “She gotta get her present before her punishment.” Mikey said interrupting the long-haired male as he put his chin on your shoulder to look at you with his dead eyes. You glanced at him nervously, you thought that this would make him less mad at you and stop this ‘punishment’ but I guess not. “Well…shouldn’t that be the other way around?” You asked putting a manicured finger on your lip.

Mikey hummed raising his voice a few octaves to mock you “Well…you’re taking it this way.” His voice returned to normal halfway through his sentence “And stay quiet, we’re still talking. Now get moving, I’ll help after.” Mikey demanded slapping your leg and earning a whine from you but you nodded in agreement before beginning to move slowly with your lips glued shut not trying to let out any noises as all eyes were locked on you. When Mikey cleared his throat, their gaze focused past your form.

Your hands grabbed at Mikey’s skinny thighs as a support line as you heard him open his mouth to speak “Sanzu, Takeomi, I expect you to be professional about this. Do not have a repeat of last time.” It was ridiculous how he could speak so calmly when he was stretching you out. You felt like you were getting torn in half from the way his girthy cock was bullied into your…

It was too hard for you to move when he was stuffed inside of you like this but you kept trying, Mikey would never help you get what you wanted if you didn’t do it by yourself for a bit. That’s something about Mikey you hated! It didn’t matter if he was rewarding you or doing the opposite because he’d make you work for it just for a while until he took over; Mikey didn’t believe in that pillow princess shit, if you wanted something, you were going to work for it but maybe if he was in an extraordinarily good mood…the most he’d do is make you tell him what you wanted in LOTS of detail.

“Yeah, Yeah, I won’t shoot him or anything,” Haruchiyo said folding his arms across his chest with a sigh of annoyance but when he caught the sight of you resisting the strong urge to moan made him grin. He didn’t give a damn about going with Takeomi because of what you did at the club because he still gets to have you every day and see you in that state every time and Kakucho nor Koko could complain about how mean he was being because…well, you deserved it this time.

Haruchiyo looked at you like he wanted to do what Mikey wasn’t: Fuck your brains out and you wanted him too. It didn’t matter if it was him honestly, you just wanted to be taken care of…was that too much to ask? “Haru’...” You mewled looking at Haruchiyo through the mascara-coated lashes that you batted at him in hopes he’d give you what you wanted before Mikey could condemn you for talking. It’s best not to get your hopes up when it comes to him especially because all he did was laugh at you and grab his phone. “Didn’t I tell you to be quiet?” The sano man asked you as your makeup started to smear with you knuckling away the tears in your eyes. Haru was ignoring you and starting to record you in such a vulnerable and pitiful state.

“Yes but–” “Then shut up, it’s as simple as that,” Mikey said interrupting you once again and making it clear that he did not want to hear any of your excuses but you needed him too! It wasn’t fair that he had you sobbing like this while Haruchiyo was busy recording it. He never posted them but he did send them, especially to the guys who had the confidence to text you or give you their number with a text about how you were busy and it was so embarrassing. Haruchiyo just loved to humiliate you even when you were getting a reward. You could only imagine what he would do when it was time for you to be reprimanded.

Haruchiyo turned to Rindou and bumped him with his elbow “Put ‘em in her mouth.” He said gesturing to the thong on the floor and Rindou grinned before leaning down to grab the undergarments. The long-haired brother reached over grabbing your jaw with his hand “Open wide sweetie.” You did as he asked opening your mouth but you were barely able to open it wider before he stuffed them inside of your mouth silencing the pathetic whimpers that were an attempt to get him to pity you so maybe your punishment after this wouldn’t be so bad. You saw that it worked on him a bit but not enough for him to say anything.

“Since you can’t do anything on your own, I guess I’ll just give you what you want,” Mikey said running his hand up your thigh, dragging his fingertips over the tattoo to your scrunched-up dress before snaking his hand under the fabric. His fingers wrapped around your tit squeezing it lazily as he began to man spread forcibly spreading your legs for everyone to see what was between them. His other hand grabbed your hip before bringing you up and slamming you back down on his cock making you whine behind the fabric as hot tears ran down your face messing up your mascara. The black droplets of tears stained your pretty face as Mikey forced you up and down his cock.

You heard his grunts from behind you before they went quiet with his deep breath “I meant what I said. I don’t want no fucking shoot-outs.” Mikey said to the other men in the car. It seemed like you should have stopped at the hideout by now…wait, was the car even moving? You hadn’t even noticed if it had stopped. “Got it.” The voice was familiar but you couldn’t tie an exact face to it. Your eyes were squeezed shut and you were losing yourself in your pleasure already. Haruchiyo was probably having the best time of his life watching you fall apart in Mikey’s grasp and getting it on record.

“Do you? Last time you said that and I had to take funds out of the Bonten portion to pay off the cops because you are an idiot!” That was easily recognizable as Koko’s annoyed voice. Your eyes opened at the feeling of fingers grazing your chin and you were met with the camera of a phone. Your eyes trailed down to see the Sanzu man on his knees grinning up at you, his diamond-shaped scars stretching on the ends of his lips “Uhm, hello? I’m talking to you.” Koko said looking at the pink-haired man annoyed glaring at him whilst the man ignored him and just focused on capturing all of your whining excellence.

Haruchiyo clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth “I don’t give a shit. Pretty girl’s more important than anything you’re talking about.” He said dragging his fingertips over your skin making you shiver into him and Mikey’s touch. You whimpered through the fabric that was dampening from your drool. Koko didn’t respond and only rolled his eyes before relaxing further in his seat to add to the other eyes concentrated on you.

Mikey’s hand ran all over your body “Gonna cum?” He asked lowly in your ear with that baby-talk voice he and everyone else used to mock you but you didn’t care; you only nodded dumbly in response “Uh-huh! Uh-huh!” You screamed and your mumbles were loud enough to be understood by everyone. You began to bounce on your own chasing your orgasm, the back of your thighs slapped loudly against Mikey’s which were much skinner than yours “Yeah?” Mikey asked as Haruchiyo grabbed your panties from your mouth before forcing you to look down at him and not just at the camera.

“Feel so-oh good! Want more!” You moaned loudly glad that your cries were finally being heard. Haruchiyo’s smile widened evilly at your words as he lowered the camera down to take in how you sucked in Mikey with ease “Don’t worry, we’re gonna give you what you want.” Obviously, you didn’t think much of these words. It’s not like you thought much but he was telling you about giving you what you wanted…and that’s all you cared about.

You moaned louder, your sounds becoming more high-pitched as you grew closer to the edge “Cummin’! ‘M cumming!” You squirted all over Mikey’s cock triggering his own orgasm that was unwarranted. You gasped in shock at the warm feeling of him filling you that you were so used to, you felt yourself slipping from not only your thoughts but Mikey’s hands. Mikey didn’t catch you when you began to fall forward and neither did Haruchiyo but Koko (being the closest to you other than those two) did. 

You blinked up at the white-haired man with a blissed-out look on your dirtied face with small sobs escaping your lips that were in a pout. He didn’t say anything and allowed you to climb onto him; when you landed in his lap, your cunt leaking all over his expensive clothes, your arms immediately found their place around his neck “Aw…so sensitive.” Koko said teasingly when you spazzed into his body at the feeling of his hand just grazing over your clit.

“Don’t get too comfortable over there.” Your head turned at the voice and you saw all the eyes that were staring at you now with a hungry look in their eyes like you were their prey. You were and you have learned to accept it but it never failed to make you quake. They were not done with you whatsoever.

“Ah, ran that hurts…” You muttered gripping Mikey’s shoulders tightly as Ran pushed inside your second hole but you couldn’t even do that because Haruchiyo grabbed your hand and Koko grabbed your other so the only support you had was Mikey’s hands on your hips. It was a small burning pain but the pleasure from…everything overtook it by a lot. Whimpers left your messy lips as they manhandled you not caring that Mikey was still inside of you and you were moving all around him. They treated you like you were nothing but a toy for them, yet you found yourself growing wetter at their actions.

Your fingers wrapped around Haruchiyo’s cock with your other hand doing the same thing to Koko “Ah, you’ve taken it here before. You’ll be fine.” The eldest haitani brother responded to you with his hands creating hand-shaped bruises on your hips. Kakucho, who sat closer than before with his cock in his hand, rolled his eyes at Ran’s harsh treatment of you “Could have at least lubed her up, I see why she comes to me all sore.” Kakucho said which only earned chuckles from the other men in the room. You couldn’t even begin to respond to him, you could barely form anything other than moans and whines from how you were being used and pulled in every direction.

Despite this mindset, you saw Rindou stalking over from the side of your eye and your attention turned to him. He sat down in front of you on the seat as you along with Ran and Mikey, who were buried deep into your holes, sat on the floor “Keep your mouth open pretty.” Rindou said beginning to slide his slacks down to pool at his ankles, you did as he asked and opened your mouth wide and it wasn’t long before he shoved himself into your mouth muting your mewls “Tch. Why do I always get left out?” Takeomi questioned taking in the sight of you being stuffed in all holes possible.

Haruchiyo threw his head back as you moved your hand up and down his shaft, his pre spilling all over your hand and your long nails. He tilted his head back to look back at the older man “‘Cos it’s playtime and you’re too old for that.” The mullet-haired man said with a laugh triggering another mini argument between the two of them which no one paid attention to but at least it distracted him from recording you. “So pretty. This color looks so nice wrapped around my dick.” Koko complimented as he slicked his hair back to prevent it from sticking to his forehead which was growing wet with sweat. Koko was so glad he got to pick the color of your nails this time, his pleasure felt so much better knowing that especially because he picked it specifically because of how beautiful it looked around his dick.

You tried to thank him for the compliment but you couldn’t help but moan at the feeling of Mikey taking in your nipple in the wet cavern of his mouth; not like he’d be able to hear it anyway…

Mikey took full advantage of your tits being shoved in his face because you attempted to reach Rindou as you sucked him off. Ran groaned as he threw his head back while he continued his strokes deep inside of you “Fuck keep doing thing, she likes that, yeah?” Ran said with his hand snaking around to lie on the moving bulge in your tummy that was right under that tattoo, he’d be sure to pay some extra attention to that later. You weren’t even able to nod because Rindou had a tight hold on your hair as he practically fucked himself down your throat.

“Mmph!” Mikey’s cold hands groped your other tit as the other rested on the fat of your ass, you felt him smile at your muffled moans as he continued to fuck up into your sloppy cunt. Your body shuddered as his mushroom tip grazed over your g-spot “Oh fuck–ngh…pretty, you’re doing so–fucking–good.” Rindou moaned bucking his hips into your mouth slightly, you glanced up at him with teary eyes as makeup continued to run down your face showing your pathetic and slutty state.

Your stomach tightened and your legs nearly clenched together if it wasn’t for Mikey sitting between them as you felt your orgasm coming. “Gonna cum? Yeah?” Mikey said taking his mouth away from your nipple as he grunted at the feeling of you squeezing around him, he had to hold himself back; he had an issue with cumming as soon as you do just because of the feeling. “Mhm! Yeah, Yeah!” You shouted as Rindou yanked your head away from his cock as he began to jerk himself off for a few seconds until he came all over your face only adding to the mess “Ugh! C-Cummin’!” Koko laughed at your sputtering while you bounced up and down on Mikey to work yourself through your orgasm.

“You always cum so easy, don’t you beauty?” Koko asked with a teasing laugh.

You didn’t even respond and just murmured as you kept rocking back and forth because of Ran’s thrusts, he wasn’t letting up until he came and you couldn’t feel it coming yet. “Says you, every time we share ‘er, you cum within seconds.” Haruchiyo added looking back at the white-haired man who breathed heavily “You’re boutta cum right now, aren’t you?” He added making Koko grunt in annoyance, he placed his hand onto yours as you continued to jerk him off.

“Ugh, if you wanna kiss me just say that.” Koko responded with a roll of his eyes and Haruchiyo’s grin widened.

“If you cum easily like a virgin, just say that.” 

“I don’t!”

“Prove it.”

“Shut the hell up, nobody wants to hear you,” Rindou said with a raspy voice as he scooted away from his place on the seat. Dragging himself over to a farther seat to sit there and relax, rindou glared at his co-workers who looked at him and then at each other. Haruchiyo didn’t say anything but his look seemed as if he was challenging Koko and the other man accepted.

Your skin burned at the feeling of Ran’s long fingers digging into your skin as you breathed heavily slumped over onto Mikey’s shoulder. Ran leaned forward and kissed all over your shoulders while his hips continued to snap into your ass faster than before “Gonna give you two loads, ‘kay baby?” Mikey said pushing you off his body so he could look at you, his eyes narrowed at you when you didn’t respond and just mewled while sniffling and it made more globs of tears spew from your eyes as you nodded.

“C’mon love, use your words…taught you better,” Kakucho said as he slid into the empty space that Rindou had currently sat in. “Okay Mikey…” You said glancing up at Kakucho. He always tried his hardest to keep you out of trouble, even if you deserved it. Kakucho’s hand was placed on your head as to congratulate you for being good.

“Fuck, I’m cumming right now,” Ran grumbled as he pounded into your tighter hole harder making you yelp and your back arch. Your arms wrapped around Mikey’s head as you cuddled closer to him, your legs were numb by now but you felt them quake as Ran filled you to the brim and soon Mikey followed. So that’s what he meant by two loads…

Your tongue lolled out at the feeling of being filled up completely while you breathed heavily but your comfort didn't last long because your hands were snatched back and placed back on the cocks you took them away from “Stop playin’ dollface, we’re tryna have a competition here.” Haruchiyo said as he moved your hand around his dick again while Koko tried to resist cumming, he couldn’t let Haruchiyo win another fucking bet. “Sor–ah!” You couldn’t count how many times you’ve been cut off this night from saying anything.

You gave Koko an apologetic look as you winced at the feeling of Ran’s touch leaving your skin after pulling out. That’s what did it to him, there’s no way he can hold back when you’re looking at him like that…so Koko let go and allowed himself to cum all inside of the palm of your hand. You gasped and looked down at your soiled hand as your fingers unwrapped from him. Staring at his burning red tip that was twitching, you smiled a bit before looking back at him “Looks like you lost pretty boy.” Haruchiyo said grunting. You had completely forgotten he was there. “Shut up,” Koko said joining Ran and Rindou who were busy tucking themselves back in and coming down from their high.

Your head turned as you brought your hand to your lips gently licking Koko’s mess from your hand “Hm, haitani already ruined your face…” Haruchiyo said as you glanced up at his phone that was lazily held in his hand, you weren’t even sure if the camera was taking in your filthy form. You wondered what Haruchiyo was going to do next but your thoughts were ripped away when your hand was brought away from your mouth to wrap around yet another cock making you whine. Your arms were almost as sore as your throat, you were getting extremely tired…

“Don’t act all tired now. You can rest all you want after.” Takeomi said with his gruff voice as you began to lazily move your hand around his cock, rubbing your thumb over his tip to tease him a bit. Before you even got to say anything, you felt warm ropes of Haruchiyo’s cum not only landing on the side of your face but in your hair. “Mikey! Haru made a mess in my hair…I paid so much to get it done…” You complained looking at your boyfriend(ish) not paying attention to Ran commenting how he actually paid.

See, Mikey didn’t really give a shit that your hair got fucked up or any of that shit because it was supposed to be a punishment. However…he did not want to deal with you whining to him the whole time after this about your hair, you were already going to be upset about your makeup and your underwear that had been torn to shreds by now and he really did not want to hear this. He never heard the end of it when some of his cum accidentally landed on your hair when he was giving you backshots. “Get away,” Mikey said to Haruchiyo as you wrapped your arms around his neck looking up at Kakucho who looked at you sympathetically.

“Come on Mikey, I’ll buy her a new one or whatever,” Haruchiyo said a tad bit annoyed that he was getting scolded over this. You weren’t really focused on Haruchiyo anymore or what Mikey was telling him, only on Kakucho now that you were facing him and you had discovered that he had been jerking himself off. Well, he wasn’t anymore but he was.

Kakucho’s unused hand went to your head and he pulled apart strands of your hair to see if it was as bad as you thought it was “It’s really bad, right…?” You asked to sniffle and Kakucho grimaced at the sight of Haruchiyo’s seed on the side of your head but he still tried his best to get it out regardless of his disgust “Not that bad. I can help wash it out.” Kakucho told you with a sweet voice. That’s what you liked so much about Kakucho…he was so nice to you no matter what you did wrong.

And you’d never say it aloud because of how jealous most of them would get but Kakucho would be the first person you’d run to in a situation when you know you did something wrong. He was always just so nice to you…he deserved a lot for being such a sweetie all the time! “Thank you…” You muttered as your hand that was free of Koko’s mess trailed up Kakucho’s leg and grabbed him making him stiffen. “Oh, that’s bullshit. How come we have to sit out but Scarface over there still gets his?” Haruchiyo asked with a frown ignoring how Takeomi was glaring daggers into the side of his head. You felt the need to mention how most people in Bonten had scars on their faces but you made your first smart decision not to. They’d probably get offended…

“He’s nice to me.” You said glancing back at the pink-haired man as Mikey sat below you silently, leaning his temple against your bare side. Your whines of sadness instead of pleasure had brought out that soft spot in him and he just wanted to be as close to you as possible. “Sweetie, I don’t give a fuck about that nice shit,” Haruchiyo said rolling his eyes as he snatched whatever Rindou was lighting up. You merely huffed and looked back at Kakucho who stared down at you in all of your glory.

He observed how your body would jolt and the little noises that would leave your throat ever so often maybe because of the lingering pleasure or Mikey moving in the slightest. Either way, your blessed-out expression was so cute, especially with that pout of anger. “Well, I do.” You muttered before beginning to move your hand up and down on Kakucho’s cock while resting your cheek on the top of Mikey’s head.

“O-Oh shit…” Kakucho mewled as he watched as you took him in your mouth, your hand remained around the length that you could not take in. His back arched just slightly at the vibrations that your whines and groans sent to his dick that rose to the pit of his stomach where his orgasm formed. “Mmpfh…” You said lowly as you rocked back and forth to grind on Mikey which just made him even more impatient to get his way with you. He needed Kakucho to hurry and finish.

Kakucho’s large hand found its way to the nape of your neck just resting there as he moaned breathlessly. He resisted the urge to fuck your face because he didn’t really want to but it was just so good that he couldn’t help but crave more. That feeling in the pit of his stomach grew so large that he could barely keep his eyes open anymore but he tried to, he wanted to see those eyes that stared up at him so teary and wet. So beautiful.

He could see how Koko came so easily just from how you looked at him. His ring-clad fingers traveled from the back of your neck to the back of your hair. Running his fingers through the clean strands and gently pulling at it “You’re going so good…shit oh my–” Kakucho’s words were cut off when he came without warning into your mouth making you choke just a bit. Taking him out of your mouth, you stuck your tongue out as you lightly coughed and he gawked at the sight.

Mikey’s hand went from roaming around your back and grasping your hips “You done with her?” The tired male asked in his usual raspy voice and Kakucho confirmed that he was with a puffed-out response. Within a few seconds of Kakucho’s response, Mikey had you on your back on the floor of the car and you grew a bit embarrassed at the eyes on you. They were always there, staring but instead of feeling their gazes, you could actually see them.

The roughness of his fingertips pressing against your love handles made you squirm as you babbled about how he was being so rough. “You know who you belong to, correct?” Mikey asks as he begins to move inside of you with slow strokes. His hands trailed down to your thighs and found their place on the back of them “Uhm, y-yeah…” You replied trying not to moan so you could at least answer him properly. Mikey pushed your thighs up so that they met your chest as he continued to stare at you “So why act like you don’t?” He continued to ask as you groaned at the new angle.

Only babbles left your lips as you insisted that you didn’t act like that and that’s why you got the tattoo but it seemed that no one was buying it. “I mean you were all over that…ugh. So clearly you don’t.” Koko said shrugging his shoulders and you only whined at his words. “How many times do we have to teach you? We know you’re a little dense but you’d think you would learn by now.” Mikey said bluntly watching as you arched your back at the little pleasure he was giving you.

“Mikey…p-please jus-just want more.” You babbled to him as hot tears streamed down your face. Haruchiyo smacked his tongue across the roof of his mouth. This was supposed to be a punishment for you but you were too much of a cockwhore to not want more of what you were given. Haruchiyo had so many more methods for putting you in your place but apparently, he was ‘too harsh’.

Mikey blinked at you and leaned closer to you only getting deeper into your warmth. His lips brushed over the shell of your ear as you waited patiently for him to talk “You’re lucky if I ever let you go out with those fucking friends of yours again, understand?” He whispered to you and you nodded immediately not thinking much of it. “Great then don’t fucking complain later.” The short-haired male said narrowing his eyes at you.

The sano didn’t waste any time to begin thrusting harshly inside of you. The prominent veins on the sides of his cock rubbed against your fleshy walls that were already soaked with his seed “Ugh! F-Feel so g-go–ood!” You shouted dragging out your sentences as you moaned loudly. Your arms wrapped around Mikey’s neck and you clawed at the back of his shirt while trying to contain yourself. Your body moved up and down and even though your eyes were squeezed shut, you could practically see the smirks on the haitani brother’s faces at the sight of your tits bouncing.

They were also probably smiling at the noises that came from Mikey’s cock leaving and entering your soaked cunt. The sounds were so filthy and so wet, it was like music to their ears. One of Mikey’s hands found its place right back on top of your tattoo and he groaned loudly throwing his head back at the feeling of his cock poking through your skin and rubbing against his palm. 

Your walls tightened around him as you felt yourself nearing the edge. “Hold it, I want you to cum with me,” Mikey told you. “No! I-I can’t…” You shouted out as you brought him down to be closer to you. “If you cum before I tell you to, I swear to god you won’t cum for a month.” Mikey threatened making your skin run cold. Mikey was so mean to you sometimes…it wasn’t nice at all!

“I’m s-sorry! Ngh…I won’t–fuck–go with another guy e…ever!” You were barely able to get out a clear sentence as you felt Mikey hit your G-spot. You couldn’t hold it in for long, it just felt so good that you needed to cum now. “Tch. If you can even call it that.” Rindou snickered not taking his eyes off how you couldn’t even close your mouth with how many moans were continuously emptying from your lips. 

Mikey put his face in your neck as his hips sped up, undoubtedly to discolor under the pressure of hitting your thighs. He breathed heavily into your neck occasionally letting out groans with how you pulsed around him eager to cum under his touch and only add to the cum ring that formed around the base of his dick.

He groaned at the feeling of you sucking him deeper than he could possibly imagine. It always happened. No matter how much he thought he couldn’t get deeper inside of you, he did. Mikey loved the feeling of your plush walls hugging his cock tightly and he loved it more when you let out sobs and purrs expressing how much you loved it when he fucked you like that. It only turned him on more.

“Now.” He commanded and just as he pleased, you both came together with your moans swirling with his beautifully. Your back only arched off the floor more at the feeling of him stuffing you full of his cum once again “Uhn…so full.” Your eyes closed as you relaxed against the floor and Mikey’s harsh press of your thighs to your rest softened. Mikey pulled out making you gently wince and peek your eyes open.

The short man sat on the seat of the car before he began to pick you up so you could sit next to him. Mikey stared at you for a moment taking in how pretty you looked with a tear and cum-stained face with small touches of ruined makeup here and there before he went to get your dress from one of the executives. He smiled a the sight of you knowing that he couldn’t stay mad at you for long and of course, you had to make him smile just a bit more with your words and girlish giggles that adorned it. “Nice butt.”

©torasplanet .ᐟ reblogs and likes are very appreciated! pls do not repost!!

[psycholattemacchiato]

cats and cuddles

pairings: minho x gn!reader

warnings: fluff; cuteness; getting scratched by a cat; minho being utterly sweet; jealous minho(not much);

summary: when minho asks you to spend a chill day with him, and his three cats, you can't say no. but he can't stand that you spend his cats more affection than him.

word count: 1.3k

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"Are you free on saturday?" You hear Minho's voice over the phone. "Depends" You shoot back almost instantly with a grin on your face, because you can basically hear Minho roll his eyes. "Do you want to come visit me and Sooni, Doongi and Dori? They missed you." "You know you can just say, that you miss me, you don't need to use your cats as an excuse."

On saturday, you ring Minho's bell at exactly 10.13 am, as he tells you, that you are three minutes late, which you argue, was the bus' fault, and not yours. But you are lucky he is in a good mood and lets you in.

It would have been quite uncomfortable to stand outside on a november day, and despite wearing a hoodie and sweats you started to freeze on your way from the bus station to Minho's apartment.

You squeeze yourself past him, and kick off your shoes. Then you shuffle inside, to greet Sooni, Dori and Doongi, not sparing Minho a second look, because if you believe his words, the cats had missed you more.

You plop yourself on the floor, and Dori is the first one to come around, immediately jumping in your lap and closing her eyes while you pet her fur. Occasionally you can hear a purring sound coming from her, but other than that you are pretty sure she is sleeping.

After a while Sooni tries to also lie on your lap, but Dori doesn't want to share, so you try and keep her happy, with petting her too, while Doongi just came for a quick greeting and then goes back to her little cat tent.

It was just then, that the thought crossed your mind, that Minho had to be around somewhere.

"I completely forgot to ask you how you are, Minho. Sorry, but now, hello, and how are you?" You turn your head slightly to see him standing in the doorframe, also in sweats, and a plain shirt. With your head you gesture him to sit down on the floor too, since you have no free hand. He follows through and sits down opposite of you, so that you are both facing eachother. "'m fine. How was your week?" "Fine actually, but now it's even better."

He raises an eyebrow. "Your cats are comforting me, it makes my whole week, and the thought that they missed me, makes it even better." You explain, trying to get a reaction out of him, and getting him to admit, he missed you too.

But the reaction is still missing. Instead he just nods.

You spend at least half an hour sitting there in silence and petting the cats, when Minho suddenly gets up. Surprised, you look up at him, to see him frowning, while walking around you, to go to the kitchen. "Wanna have a coffee? With cookies?" You hear him ask from the kitchen. "You're asking me?" "Of course, who would I ask else? Dori?" He huffs out.

You get the slightest feeling, that he is in a bad mood, and if you didn't know him better, you'd say, he's jealous of Dori, because she's still laying in your lap, like a queen.

"Sure, coffee and cookies sound good." You smile to yourself at the thought of coffee.

A few minutes later Minho enters the living room with two cups of coffee in one hand and a plate full of cookies in the other. He sets them down on a little coffee table and carries it way over, to where you are sitting.

"Thank you." You say to him, gratefully. He just nods, since he is too busy already sipping his coffee.

You try to maneuver Dori out of your lap, but once you put her down on the floor, she is back on your lap in a matter of seconds. No matter how often you try to put her off, she comes back again, and it makes you laugh, while Minho looks quite annoyed, and tells her repeatedly to get off of you.

It all makes you laugh even more. "You know, you can let her stay on my lap, its not like she's too heavy or anything." You say while taking your first bite of a cookie. "Hmm, delicious." You hum in acknowlegement.

And there is the silence again. The silence in which you both eat your cookies and sip your coffees.

After the coffee and cookies you stand up for the first time since you got to Minho's place, much to Dori's dislike. But this time you want to bring the plate and cups to the kitchen, so that Minho doesn't have to do all the work alone. When you get back to the living room, you hear Minho mumble something, but you pay it no second thought, and once you enter the room you burst out laughing, because the view is just hilarious.

Minho has his index finger raised, and seemed to try to tell Dori something important, while she just licked her paws and paid no attention to the male in fron of her.

The second Minho hears you laugh he turns around so quick, you think he wanted to do a pirouette. "What were you telling my poor Dori, huh?" You ask him while walking to said cat and picking her up.

At your action he frowns and pouts slightly.

"So she's 'your' Dori now? And what is with me? You came over to MY place, to hang out with ME." He blurts out and that makes you laugh again.

But you decide you want to tease him a bit longer, so you say: "Aw, my poor Mihno, have I made you feel neglected today? But I thought your cats were the only ones who missed me."

"You're really gonna make me say it?" He sighs. "Make you say what?" You ask feigning innocence. "That I missed you, even more that Dori, okay?"

"Now I'm good. That's what I wanted to hear." You grin at him and he rolls his eyes as answer. "You made me say it, now come on, I need my affection too. you can't spend it all on my cats."

You comply without saying anything, putting Dori away, while you make yourself comfortable with your back leaning against the couch. Then you pet your lap.

Both Dori and Minho took it as an invitation, and attempted to make themselves comfortable on your lap. But Dori did not, like that Minho was faster and decides, to hit him with her paw. Unfortunately she has her claws out, so that she scratches him lightly on his cheek. The sensation makes Minho hiss, while you gently push the cat away.

"Are you okay? Or do I need to kiss it better?" You ask him. "Kiss please." Minho mumbles barely audible. "Okay, where does it hurt the most?" You decide not to tease him this time, not when he is hurt.

"Here." He says, pointing to his lips and you laugh. "Sneaky." "No she hurt me there. Need you to kiss it better." Even though you know Dori's claws hit Minho's cheek, and not his mouth you don't say anything but lean down to kiss his lips.

When you pull away he whines lightly at the loss of contact but as soon as you start to pepper feather light kisses on his face he just sighs.

Once you are done, with the procedure, you kiss him again on the lips, before you maneuver him from your lap to lay down on the couch and pat the space next to you.

"C'mon. Let's cuddle. I'll shower you with all my affection, so you never need to be jealous of your cat again."

Minho is laying next to you within a second, enclosing his arms around you, and embracing you with warmth. You throw your arms around his neck and kiss his cheek, before he moves to lays his head on your chest and you nuzzle your nose in his hair.

That way you stay until evening. Then you eventually fall asleep and don't even hear someone enter the room.

[thestrangepoet]

The White and Orange Cat | The Magnus Archives One Shot

Based on @ultramarinaa's Cat!Martin AU and @coworkerjonathan's interpretation of it. If you would prefer a sweeter, fluffier take, that is over here.

CONTENT WARNINGS: Character death, animal death, crippling and ungodly levels of angst.

DISCLAIMER: I wrote this in an hour and haven't proofread it, so please forgive its very first-draftiness.

──── •✧• ────

[CLICK] 

Statement of Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist at the Magnus Institute, London, regarding the…the m-murder of Martin Blackwood. Statement…recorded by subject, October 17th, 2017.

Statement begins.

I…killed my coworker, yet the police refuse to arrest me. 

I know why, of course. For whatever reason, I remain valuable to Elias. His intimidation and manipulation has proved sufficient to keep the authorities from accepting my confession, despite the fact that no one has seen nor heard from Martin Blackwood in months. 

No one will see or hear from Martin e-ever…ever again. And it is my fault. 

It is all my fault. 

I…

[CLICK]

[CLICK]

Statement of Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist at the Magnus Institute, London, regarding the murder of Martin Blackwood. Statement recorded by subject, October 17th, 2017.

We have collected a number of strange and unusual books at the Magnus Institute. He knew not to meddle with them. He knew. Maybe the rather unassuming title convinced him it wasn’t a bad one, or…or maybe he didn’t realise he’d picked up a Leitner. 

The Ninth Life. I should have noticed sooner. I should have…

I…God, Martin, I…

I’m sorry.

[CLICK]

[CLICK]

Statement of Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist at the Magnus Institute, London, regarding the murder of Martin Blackwood. Statement recorded by subject, October 18th, 2017.

[THE ARCHIVIST EXHALES SHAKILY] 

Martin disappeared on June 4th, 2017. It was certainly unusual for him not to show up to work, especially without a call or message to explain himself. Naturally, we tried to contact him, but he didn’t answer his phone, nor did he answer the door when Tim visited his house to check in on him. I’d have gone myself, only another strange occurrence had taken place that day too, one I just…didn’t connect. 

The appearance of a large, white-and-orange furred cat in the archives. 

No one seemed to know where he had come from, yet he was remarkably well-behaved. In hindsight, he…

[ONCE AGAIN, THE ARCHIVIST FALTERS. SILENCE SETTLES FOR A WHILE, PAPERS ARE RUSTLED, AND WHEN HE SPEAKS AGAIN, HIS VOICE STRAINS WITH REGRET] 

I stayed to take care of the cat. I should have gone to Martin’s place, but I…I don’t know. I felt compelled to look after this poor, lost creature. 

He didn’t seem keen to leave the archives, and he constantly prowled around Martin’s desk. We’d even, ahh, joked that he was a good replacement for Martin. 

He hid under the shelves after that and didn’t come out for an hour. When he finally did, he actually hissed at me. Again…hindsight, I suppose…

So, that was the situation we found ourselves in. Martin was mysteriously absent, and a strange white-and-orange cat had appeared in his stead. 

I named the cat – I named Martin, for no doubt it is clear to whoever is listening to this that the cat was Martin himself – I named him Champion. 

Champion took quite a shine to me. I almost volunteered to take him home, especially when it became clear that Elias was allergic to cats, but Tim protested. Said Champion should be an office cat. “Keep the rats from visiting,” he said. I presume that was a dig at Elias.

For what it was worth, Champion seemed very happy to remain in the archives. He set himself up at Martin’s desk, snoozing on his chair or in my lap. He even seemed to be reading statements and—

Well. I suppose he was. 

Probably looking for a way to save himself when it became clear we would not.

It was weeks before I began to realise something was wrong. It’s…not the first time I’ve found myself aware or knowing something without any obvious reason or source, but I couldn’t shake the notion that Champion was slowly becoming…

Less…familiar. 

He napped on Martin’s chair, as always. Slinked around my legs in the morning as I made tea. But he stopped doing things that we used to find so endearing. He used to miaow in protest when I’d reheat my forgotten tea in the microwave. He’d turn his nose up at cat food; we were costing the Institute a small fortune buying him human food! If I pulled out a packet of cigarettes from the drawer, he’d leap to try to bite the box and run off with it. He succeeded a few times too! 

But he just stopped one day. Microwaving tea didn’t upset him anymore. He was no more concerned about my smoking than he was about anything else. He started eating the cat food Elias insisted on putting out every day “to teach him what he’s supposed to eat”. 

He stopped being particular about me. 

I know, that sounds ridiculous. I realised there was something wrong with the cat when I was no longer his favourite. 

That was when I started digging. Properly digging. Not Martin disappearing for weeks. No. A cat deciding to sit in Tim’s lap instead of mine, that was what spurred me to investigate Champion’s origins. 

…

…I, err…I went through Martin’s desk. I should have done it sooner, it just…didn’t feel right. Even when days became weeks, it just…seemed like a violation? It wasn’t that I didn’t care where Martin was, I swear, it just…felt like he’d come back at any moment.

The police had rattled through it, of course, but they didn’t pay any mind to the battered copy of The Ninth Life. 

But I did. I was practically drawn to its shabby cover, my heart growing colder and colder, knowing whose damned name would be scrawled on a bookplate on the front page. 

From the library of Jurgen Leitner. 

I didn’t read too far. I gleaned enough from its presence, its former owner, and Champion’s appearance to finally put the pieces together. 

Martin hadn’t been missing. He’d been in the archives every single damned day…as Champion. 

Martin was Champion. And, as with any good Leitner, his humanity had been fading away day by day as we chuckled at his antics and cooed at his funny miaows and gave sickly sweet sympathy as he bumped into a chair leg or door again and…

He was trying to tell us. Of that, I am now sure. He was begging us to notice him. 

He’d always been begging for someone to notice him. Notice his plight. 

And we failed him. 

I threw the book back into the drawer and raced through the office, searching high and low for any sign of that fluffy tail or strangely attentive blue eyes. I called out for him. By his name. 

Nothing. 

I finally found him in the break room, curled up without a care in the world on the counter. I called his name – Martin, that is, not Champion – praying he’d look up, that joy and relief would flood his features, that he’d realise he was saved. 

He barely flicked an ear at me. 

Not until I said his name. 

Champion. 

He looked up at that. For a little while, at least. 

The sight of me crying didn’t interest him all too much, I suppose. 

I knew at that moment that Martin was gone. I knew…but I didn’t want to know that. The idea of having failed Martin so spectacularly just…it just drove me to try to fix it all. 

I’d run out of time before I’d even started looking for a solution. And I knew that, deep down. I suppose that is why I was so reckless, so willing to believe the most hideous of suggestions. 

It took me three nights of pouring over literature and statements, with Champion occasionally visiting me for ear scritches or to remind me loudly that he hadn’t been fed yet. It was as I was scraping out some pungent chopped meat into his bowl that I recalled one of the countless fairy tales I’d devoured in my youth. 

The White Cat. A-a…Slavic fairy tale, I believe. I don’t recall all the details; the usual fare, a king and his sons, he sets them three tasks, completing them will grant great fortune. But one of the tasks struck me – he requested his sons to fetch the most beautiful princess to take as a bride. One of the sons had formed a bond with an intelligent white cat who had helped with the previous tasks, so he returned to the cat to ask for its assistance. 

The cat told the son that she would give him a beautiful princess…if he would…if…

[THE ARCHIVIST HESITATES, HIS VOICE CATCHING]

If he would…cut off her head. He…refused. But then he did so and from the cat’s body, a beautiful woman emerged. 

The woman explained that she’d been transformed into a cat by some power or other, and she would only be free if the man she loved cut off her head, I think, and…

…

…He loved me. 

Martin. I…I know he did. I didn’t at the time – I am not so arrogant – I just thought that…that maybe the solution, as awful as it was, it was from a book, a-a-a tale about a person cursed to be a cat and I just…

I thought Martin would reappear if I did. If I did the same as the prince. 

He was eating, oblivious as I went to the kitchen drawer. The knives obviously aren’t the biggest or sharpest, it’s a workplace, but I found one that I thought would be, ah…swift, a-at least. 

Picked him up. He didn’t mind. He liked being on the counter. Think he liked being able to see everything a bit better. 

His eyesight was terrible, you see, and…

I-I think he knew? Or…m-maybe he wasn’t entirely…cat yet. Maybe a small part of Martin was still there, still aware, and realised what I was going to attempt, and…

He…panicked. 

…You can, from the fairy tale, figure out what happened next. 

Martin did not emerge from the cat. 

[A LONG SILENCE. FOR A WHILE, IT SEEMS LIKE THE ARCHIVIST MIGHT END HIS STATEMENT THERE. BUT HE INHALES DEEPLY – A TREMOR BETRAYS HE’S BEEN SOBBING AS HE RECORDS THIS – AND CONTINUES.]

Elias found me first. 

He was smiling. 

Took the knife from me, said it was for the best that Martin was gone. That things hadn’t…hadn’t gone as planned with him. 

I didn’t ask him what he meant by that. I couldn’t. I couldn’t…do anything. 

I just stayed there, having sunk to my knees on the floor, watching Elias pick Martin up and…dispose of him. Just like that. 

He must have known the fairy tale too, because when he collected Champ— Marti—

When he picked up the head, he…he laughed. 

“Oh. Oh, I see why you might have thought that. You old romantic, Jon,” he said, dropping the head into the bin. “If only you knew how fitting that was. Would you like to know?”

I didn’t. 

I really, really didn’t. 

But he showed me anyway. Right into my head. Just…tore open the wound and poured all that agony upon it. Martin’s heart, his feelings, his…his love for me. 

He loved me. And I…I…

He…

We didn’t notice him. He was right in front of us, losing his humanity day by day and we just…

I’m sorry, Martin. 

I…

[ONCE AGAIN, A LONG SILENCE FALLS UPON THE ARCHIVIST. WHEN HE SPEAKS AGAIN, HIS TONE HAS DROPPED TO SOMETHING EERILY EVEN-KEELED]

Elias asked me where the book was. 

He knew the whole time. He knew what had happened to Martin. For whatever reason, it seems Elias had backpedalled on his decision to transfer Martin to the archives and wanted him gone. The book provided the perfect opportunity. 

Had I a reason to, I would endeavour to find out why. What Elias is up to, why Martin being in love with me would cause a problem with that. 

I have no reason. 

Not now. 

…

I’m going to read The Ninth Life. Cover to cover. I’m going to know his pain. His loneliness. My failure. 

But first, I’m going to leave a copy of Grimm’s Fairy Tales in Tim’s desk drawer. 

Tim. If, by any chance, you listen to this…I’m sorry. 

You did the right thing. 

You…avenged Martin, after all. 

End recording. 

[CLICK]

[starsofjewels]

GREETINGS!! was wondering if you feel up for it if you could do a tyrion x autistic reader? idk how you could make autism fit into the GoT world but I always feel like an outsider even in the real world and i feel tyrion would be one of the few who'd actually be accepting and not judgemental

A Kitty Cat in the Lion’s Den

Tyrion Lannister x Autistic! Lannister! Reader

(Feat.) Tywin Lannister x Autistic! Lannister! Reader

CONTENT: Autistic meltdown, small! Mention of blood/ injury, self-deprecation, the Lannisters are their own warning

Word count: 1.5k (lil pookie bear)

· · ────── ·𖥸· ────── · ·

Hi, beautiful. I absolutely loved this request !! This was only semi triggering to write, and I hope you like it. <3

I’ve just started back at college, so the drip might be dry (not that it wasn’t to begin with). I may or may not have published this during a Free Study period…

This is proof I don’t just write Gregor Clegane fics. But I do love big squishy man and his cock.

I think I probably need to make a masterlist..

· · ────── ·𖥸· ────── · ·

(A teeny PSA before we begin- I, unsurprisingly given the shit I upload on here, am autistic. I’ve struggled with it my whole life, and this is an interpretation of my own experience with autism. ASD is, as the name suggests, a spectrum, so this can’t really be a generalised fic. I put my own personal experiences with my condition into this, so if you’re also autistic/ otherwise neurodivergent and this doesn’t fit your vibes, that’s why. I can’t really explain it any other way, so yeah, here you go.)

Your entire life has served as a reminder that, whether by your own fault or some cruel will of the Gods, you are not wanted. You are the outsider, the youngest Lannister, not beautiful enough to marry off young and, decidedly, not male. Lord Tywin is consistently busy with his duties as the Hand, Tyrion hides with his wines and his whores, and Jaime has his own place in the Red Keep. You are forced to sit with your sister and her ladies, who talk too loudly and prattle on about nonsense.

Cersei, you have long established, does not like you. You aren’t really sure anyone likes you, in the traditional sense, but you know that your sister only keeps you around for fear of Tywin’s wrath. There is something in the back of your mind that remembers a younger, softer Cersei putting you in her lap, of brushing your hair and putting it in gold bows. But, that was before. Before you could walk or talk properly, before you spouted random facts on unasked for topics, before she realised you were different.

Everyone knows you are different, and no one can explain why. Not even you. All they know is to stay away from you, all they know is they’ll never understand how your little mind works.

So, you sit as nicely as you can on the outside of Cersei’s circle of ladies, and you try to focus on your sewing. You don’t like sewing, but it’s what all of the noblewomen do to pass the time, and all you want is to fit in.

“Your sewing is coming on well, my lady.”

The septa tilts your sewing slightly to look at it just a little more. It’s supposed to be a gift for your father, and it is not good. You see every uneven stitch, all of the oddities and bumps in your work that make it so you can hardly look at it. You hate it, and you hate that you can’t even sew properly.

“The stitching is all wrong…”

She takes your hands as you try, again, to pick out your newest stitch, a learned behaviour with you. Despite being with you near your whole life, since you weaned off of your nurse, you aren’t sure the septa completely understands your fascination of perfection,

“It is fine,” Her voice is soft, but you can feel her disappointment, “you are still learning, my lady, some mistakes are natural. You do not need to pull it apart- again.”

You jump when Cersei’s ladies giggle at some joke you haven’t heard, the woman beside you takes your hand, and you are reminded why you keep her so close. At least, in some way, she understands what you like and what upsets you.

Tea is served for the ladies. They give you what Cersei likes, what her ladies eat, green and red things that squish and squelch in your mouth and taste like you’ve eaten rags. And the queen sees you push them around your plate, and scoffs.

“At least try it, sister,” She sips from her wine. You feel each of her noblewomen shift, in turn, to look at you, “a Lannister lady can’t just survive off of the children’s food you eat, we can’t all eat nothing but cakes and plain bread all day.”

But you don’t, and you starve. Tywin will get you something later, you’re sure of it, as he sighs, and gently suggests you’ll need a more varied diet if you’re to marry a good husband.

The women’s giggles practically turn to cackles, which do not stop for what feels like hours. You wish they’d stop, or that you could understand what they find so utterly hilarious, so at least you may join their hysteria. You’ve put your sewing down in your lap, and you fiddle with your hair. The sept doesn’t like that, she guides your work back into your hands.

“Your father doesn’t like it if you mess your hair, sweet girl, you know that,” Her hands find your hair, carefully untangling the knots you’ve made, “try a few more stitches.”

And then, inevitably, it happens. You prick your finger on your needle, and a soft ruby comes from your noble, incomprehensible skin.

Throwing your project to the ground, you rush off as fast as your legs can manage. No one comes to find you.

You are long practised with the subtle art of trying not to cry. You pace back and forth, away from anything and everything, your hands in your hair as you do. The tears in your eyes hurt, they make you tired, and only add to your humiliation. You can do nothing right, why can you do nothing right?

You think of your sister, of perfect, beautiful, poised Cersei- She has a gaggle of women to do her bidding she is loved, and desires and you doubt she paces the halls trying not to cry. She is the lion queen, and you are her kitty-cat of a sister.

And then, you hear your name called. Followed by hurried footsteps toward you. Tyrion takes your hands in his, but you cannot even look at him.

“Has someone upset you? Cersei?”

All you can do is give him whines in response. You feel a sob bubbling in your throat, and you cannot give him the satisfaction of seeing you weak.

“Tell me.”

So you look down, you watch his eyes change from confusion, to the pity you are so used to seeing. But he is your older brother, and you know he won’t run back to Cersei, like Jaime would.

It comes in one, huge splurge, as tears fall against your skin and ruin the pretty powders your maids spent so long putting on you this morning,

“I- Was making a gift for Father-” You gasp, “And they didn’t give me anything to eat, and- and the sewing was terrible, but Septa is lying and saying it’s good and-” Another. “And I cut myself!”

His arms wrap around you, and he puts his head against you. Though much smaller than you, it offers greater comfort than he knows it does. All you can do is sob. You feel like a child.

No words are spoken as he takes you down to the kitchens, and puts you at the staff table. You are given something you eat with relish, and get a plate of pudding for your effort. There is no need for you to have any medical attention for your injury, but he has it wrapped anyway. A psychological comfort, if nothing else.

Tyrion helps you into bed, letting you reach out for the rag dolls your sister claims you’re too old for. You want your father, you want him to go and tell off Cersei, but you have your brother instead, and he at least semi-understands what it’s like to be different.

“I’m sorry,” you turn and look up at him,

“Sorry?”

He stands, walking to your window to look out at the courtyard below.

“When you look at me, what do you see?”

Tyrion is going somewhere with this, you know that much, but what, you are left wondering,

“I see… my brother.”

“Yes, you do. But the world? What does the world see? They see a drunk, lustful little man with a lion on his chest he doesn’t deserve.”

Something in you knows that it’s true. Tyrion is nothing more than his condition to the eyes of most in the Keep, most of the kingdom.

“You, you look like a Lannister. Your brokenness is inside. And I wish I could understand it.”

“It’s alright-” You sit up, clutching your doll, “It’s just… what it is. I have you, I have Father.”

Tyrion almost scoffs, he comes back from the window, passing you your water,

“Yes, you get Father, but that’s because you are utterly adorable.”

“I am adorable, aren’t I?”

“And humble, it appears.”

When Tyrion leaves, he kisses your forehead, and you know he is going to tell Father. You are the one thing they share something of a common interest in, and you suspect Tywin will make an appearance at some point. You’re right, of course.

It is Tywin’s heartbeat you listen to to calm yourself down for sleep. Your father strokes your hair, half-dozing himself. A soft, sweet moment that you are reminded Tyrion doesn’t have the privilege of.

Cersei is no longer allowed to be your main caretaker, you spend your afternoons out in the gardens, or sit entertaining yourself in Tywin’s solar. Tyrion takes you on walks, and there is something of a peaceful normality brought about.

You are still terribly disappointed in how Tywin’s gift turns out, it looks like a child made it, and when you become obviously quite upset over the manner, you have the Old Lion and his younger son to calm you. He loves it, he assures you, and Tyrion is so enamoured by it he requests his own. You know they are simply making you feel better, but you let it happen anyway.

And, perhaps, life is not so bad after all.

[trgldyte]

Wait so you’re telling me Seth was the fourth of seven siblings and had an older brother named Jeremy who was the second oldest child. And Jeremy has—3 siblings (why did Cat hesitate before saying the number??) and one of them is an older brother. Something happened at the fall banquet during his freshman year.

I know it’s a stretch—but what if Jeremy is Seth’s older brother? We know Seth died, which would reduce the seven children to six, and leave Jeremy with 5 siblings. So maybe something happened in Jeremy’s freshman year that resulted in the death of two of his siblings? That could certainly tear a family apart. And what if Jeremy’s family blames him for it? What if it actually was his fault? What if it was his fault in the sense that something he did contributed but in a way that it makes no sense to actually lay the blame on him?

If he is Seth’s brother, that indicates he raised his siblings from the age of 12. There bio dad disappeared at some point. Also why did their mom disappear so often, forcing him to take on that responsibility? And further, how did he get from Arizona and raising his siblings to living in Cali with a family of politicians? Did his mom get married? Did she leave so often bc she was having an affair w some guy? And then they got married and moved the family or something?

A step-dad situation could also explain his dislike for being referred to by his last name, esp is that step dad sucks somehow.

I have so many questions man. The desire to know Jeremy’s history is killing me slowly.

This is a theory that may or may not be baseless and I might not be making any sense here. But do you see my vision? Do you see it?

I’m going crazy.

[joejhang]

why kevjean doesn't work.

i'm sad about it too but hear me out. spoilers ahead continue at ur own risk.

look it makes me so sad to say it but kevjean does not work in this universe (i know, this also means it doesn't work, by extension, in any universe, considering jean is dead.) and i need y'all to hear me out on this. everyone theorising that kevjean will be the endgame ship in tsc i hate to break it to u all: not only does that not at all align with anything in canon, but it also would just be a really bad writing decision on nora's part.

LET ME EXPLAIN. jean's arc in tsc is first and foremost about healing. i think everything and every relationship jean has throughout the tsc trilogy has to lend itself towards that in some way, and ultimately has to resolve in jean being in a better place than he was at the beginning, and if not done healing, then being certain that one day he will be. (this is how jean is when he graduates from usc in the current canon ec).

following this line of thought, jean logically can't end up with kevin. and not just because it contradicts canon, because i fully believe nora is free to contradict any of the ec she wants in tsc, but because fundamentally, it would not aid in jean's healing arc.

i see the appeal, i really do. kevin and jean have insane lore, off the charts chemistry and tension and are actually extremely compatible. but that isn't enough in this case to justify an established relationship between the two of them that isn't in the past. (don't get me wrong i am a WHORE for past kevjean/kevjean situationship/unrequited kevjean it's all very yum).

i genuinely think getting into a relationship w kevin at this point in the story would hurt and hinder jean's healing arc. kevin, through no fault of his own, is so deeply entwined with jean's trauma and memories in evermore that he literally cannot be anything but a trigger and catalyst for bad memories and grief/anger in jean. y'all forget just how deep kevin's departure cut jean (not just physically), and jean hasn't even entirely worked things out with kevin yet. they have a lot of dirty laundry to air out, both between the two of them and their relationship as well as about neil and r*ko. people also forget that kevin and jean both played a role in each other's abuse. jean said himself that it destroyed him, how easy it was to fall into kevin's bystander role. they both were witnesses and bystanders to each other's abuse by r*ko or tetsuji. that doesn't mean it was their fault, and they literally could not have done anything to help or stop anything, but it doesn't mean it didn't have an affect on the other nonetheless. i feel like ppl r missing a lot of nuance in this context: kevin and jean's relationship has always been inherently tragic, even if it doesn't end with a fall out. they've always been each other's greatest friend in the worst places, and they've always been forced to witness the trauma done to both of them. their bond is complicated, even if the love is there (which i think it is). i won't call it a trauma bond but i do think their bond is deeply influenced and intertwined with their shared trauma.

even if they did work thru everything, i honestly think jerejean is the only way to go here. nora has laid the groundwork for that mutual attraction and trust there in book one, and now we're just gonna have to see how it plays out. they may not be together properly until jean graduates, but i don't see a problem with that. i think, at the end of the day, it's not a matter of if it'll happen but when. jean needs jeremy (and cat + laila) right now, and there's a reason kevin chooses to send him to the sunshine court, and it's not just cos they're the only team worthy of jean's skill. "their kindness matters." kevin says, and it does. jeremy + the trojans innate kindness and care towards jean are what he needs to heal and grow out of the ravens' shadow. being with kevin i fear would jeopardise that. at the end of the day, kevin is too deeply rooted in jean's past, which is a veritable goldmine of trauma that, while does need to be acknowledged and talked about, does not need to be dug up again. this isn't jean or kevin's fault, just a fact.

i think nora's also made it pretty clear that kevjean (whether requited or not) is a thing of the past. the love was there, and it might've changed everything and it might've changed nothing, but the love was there. and maybe it still is. but things have changed, and they're both going their own way and i think it's really important to understand that.

side note: this is also part of the reason i'm not the biggest fan of thea and kevin's relationship. i'm not actually sure if they're all that good for each other, given how/where their relationship began and developed. i don't doubt they care for and love each other, but i just don't know if they're the best people for each other in terms of like...wellbeing. anyway does anyone have any good kevaaron fic recs???

[spotsandsocks]

🎃 cat

Hello and thank you for trick or treating with me - I got to 650 ish words with this one so here we go with cat

Dinner is over and a surreptitious check confirms no one is watching him. Eddie stands up as casually as he can to take his plate to the kitchen then edges carefully towards the pole. Not too slow or too fast nothing to attract attention. You wouldn't think it but its actually the fastest and least obvious exit to take as long as everyone else is looking in the opposite direction. Luckily for him they are. Not that he’s doing anything wrong but he could do without the inevitable comments that will come if he’s caught.

Glancing around one last time everyone looks fully occupied so he makes his break for freedom, fully aware that he’s five minutes later than usual and that means there will be complaints. Someone won’t be happy with him. The lump in his pocket reassures him he’s prepared for the encounter so he’ll be forgiven quickly enough.

One hand on the pole he makes a last check. It’s been particularly hard to avoid Buck catching on to what he’s doing because he’s so often with him or looking at him. However at the moment Buck is fully engaged in a heated debate with Ravi and Chim about the relevant merits of some social media site he’s never heard of.

Taking advantage of that he vanishes out of sight.

Downstairs his exit is significantly easier, most of the shift are still upstairs, a few other occupied by the gym equipment or chores Bobby set. He makes it out to the back of the station without having to explain why he slinking around.

He wouldn’t be in this predicament if she wasn’t so cute and he hadn’t fallen completely in love. If Buck finds out he’ll never hear the end of it.

The packet slips out of his pocket with a crinkle and within seconds she’s there. Making a lot of noise, as he suspected, she’s cross with him but as he also knew the treats laid out on his hand soon fix that. Eddie sits down and the cat he refuses to name purrs wildly, butting her head against his fingers demanding attention and affection.

“Hello beautiful” he whispers, giving the golden brown tabby cat the fussing she wants.” How’s your day going?”

The stray he’s very much not in the process of adopting purrs some more and climbs into his lap. She is very pretty and absolutely adorable. Still young, probably not even two yet. He doesn’t need a cat. He doesn’t want a cat. He hasn’t got a cat.

Yet.

He smiles down at the one kneading his thigh happily and strokes her ears. It’s not his fault if she’s so fluffy and cute is it? How’s he supposed to resist. He knows Buck and the others are bound to find out soon but until they do he kind of likes having this little lady to himself.

*

“Where’s Eddie?”

Hen asks the person most likely to know. She’s looked everywhere and she wants him to help with the inventory downstairs but he’s vanished. Buck looks back over his shoulder at her, pausing whatever argument he’s having with Chim.

“He’s out the back, he snuck out to see his cat again, thinks I don’t know.” Buck shakes his head in disbelief. “As if…”

As if indeed Hen thinks and trades a look with her partner who’s sat next to his brother in law and pulling a face Buck doesn’t notice. It’s funny how Buck notices some things instantly and other things get totally missed. The guy had a set of weirdly specific interests.

And speaking of Buck’s weirdly specific interests Hen looks and eventually finds the missing firefighter sat outside talking quietly to a small noisy cat. She can hear it purring from the door she’s hiding behind.

Eddie looks so calm and happy that she retreats quietly the way she came with her own smile. She can wait a little longer for Eddie to come back from not too secret adventures in kitty sitting some things are just too adorable to interrupt.

Sorry for all the tags these last few days you must be tired of me!! Only one more after this and then I’ll be quiet for a while @actualalligator @bekkachaos @beyourownanchor6 @bekkachaos @caroandcats @daffi-990 @dangerpronebuddie @darkrose6578 @diazsdimples @eddiebabygirldiaz @exhuastedpigeon @hermscat @hippolotamus @inell @lonelychicago @monsterrae1 @repressedqueen @ronordmann @stagefoureddiediaz @steadfastsaturnsrings @shipperqueen6 @tizniz @thekristen999 @thelikesofus @theplaceyoustillrememberdreaming @underwaterninja13 @wildlife4life

[scoobydoodean]

if the spn queer poll showed me anything, it's that sam girls don't even like the show version of sam 😭 i can't even fault them for that tbh

(before i get misunderstood!) i don't hate show sam personally, i love him, warts and all. the sam girls just take a lot of creative liberties with the fanon version and i get the appeal of that

Fanon Sam is just so not my jam that I will never get it I don't think. I just don't see it as an improvement. But funnily enough, I was just thinking a little while ago that the reason queer Sam meta falls so flat for me is that every time I see it, it's based around what I regard as aspects of Sam that are misunderstood. Specifically, the idea that Sam was rejected by his family ever since he was a child because he was a freak. In the typical queer Sam narrative, Sam's "otherness" and his family's rejection makes him queer-coded. If you take it a step further, then within this framework, Sam is "forced" for the entire series to assimilate into hunting instead of being allowed to be "himself". So the predominant queer Sam meta overlaps with the interpretation of Sam as this autonomy-less baby who is forced to be a hunter his whole life, and that just isn't Sam's story.

In reality, Sam suffered from childhood neglect, and that neglect gave him some hangups, but he rejected his family from a fairly young age because they were freaks. On a very surface level, we can say he rejected them because John wanted him to be someone Sam wasn't, but when we dig just a tiny bit deeper... the whole first season slowly unravels all of John and Sam's similarities, and the reason Sam rejected his family is that they weren't normal and being normal was what Sam initially wanted most desperately at that time. Over the first few seasons, Sam slowly comes to the realization that he loves his family, that he doesn't want to be normal, and that hunting with his freak family is where he's at his happiest. I have a whole tag for this called #sam the hunter, but I'd like to focus on this bit of dialogue in 4.17 "It's A Terrible Life" when Sam is actually forced to assimilate into a normal life, because I think it fits into what I regard as a more compelling queer Sam meta where hunting actually represents Sam embracing queerneess, and normal life is Sam trying to/being forced to assimilate into a cishet mold:

SAM: No. I—I just can't shake this feeling like I—like I don't belong here. You know? Like I should do something more than sit in a cubicle. DEAN: I think most people who work in a cubicle feel that same way. SAM: No. Well, look, it's more than that. Like, I don't like my job. I don't like this town. I don't like my clothes. I don't like my own last name. I don't know how else to explain it, except that...it feels like I should be doing something else. There's just something in my blood. Like I was destined for something different. What about you? You ever feel that way?

Sam describing being forced to be normal by Zachariah and losing his life as a freak hunter like... dysphoria??? Anyone??? He doesn't know who he really is, but he knows something isn't right—he doesn't like the image that greets him in the mirror. He feels stuffed into a ill-fitting normal life—forced to perform something that is not him, and he's desperate to get out to the point he asks Dean Smith—a relative stranger—to run away with him and go be ghost hunters.

5.12 can serve as another example, where Sam is again shoved into someone else's ill-fitting normal life and their actual body, and acts like an angry wet cat about it the entire time, culminating in this exchange:

SAM Yeah, I know. I'm telling you, kid – I wish I had your life. GARY You do? Thanks. SAM Get out of here. GARY and NORA head for the house. DEAN That was a nice thing to say. SAM I totally lied. That kid's life sucked ass. All that apple-pie, family crap? It's stressful. Trust me – we didn't miss a damn thing.

I think that when we embrace the idea that Sam is ultimately a hunter at the core and that hunting is where he feels most himself and most accepted, and allow hunting in of itself (at least in Sam's case) to serve as a metaphor for self-acceptance, and allow his family he initially rejected to be a family of freaks (i.e. queer), and allow college and the push for normality to represent him as a queer man desperately trying to assimilate into "normal" society only to realize happiness comes with embracing who he really is... we stumble across a much more compelling queer Sam meta.

[rrxnjun]

dancing in my backseat ✲ l. donghyuck

pairing. film student! donghyuck x film student! fem! reader starring. uchinaga aeri genre. college au, acquaintances to lovers. fluff, comedy, suggestive warnings. mentions of alcohol and weed, swearing, sexual innuendos word count. 24k (24.047) a/n. please dont hate me for the fact that this does not have any expected smut in it i tried and it felt too awkward i just COULDN'T. also this fic doesn't fit the image of it i had in my head at all but i actually kind of prefer this version over the prev idea i had anyway <;3

playlist. marvelous - wallows / crash my car - coin / test drive - ariana grande / streets - doja cat / no manners - superm / feather - sabrina carpenter / AEAO - dynamicduo / wet tongue - thomas headon / car crash - eaj / delicious - the boyz / but i like you - boynextdoor

there are only a few things in which men value their social status; one of them being the number of girls in their bed, the next one their rank in league of legends, and lastly, their cars— or— where you would never fuck a guy without a driver's licence.

✲ PART 3 OF THE SIMPLIFY ROMANCE SERIES ✲

If anyone asked you about your relationship with Lee Donghyuck, you’d scoff at them and simply state that the resident gemini was your moral enemy. Was that true? No. No, of course it wasn’t– there was nothing this man has done in his life to get on your bad side, and you truly don’t feel any hatred towards him, but at the end of the day, it’s always easier to say this than to explain the exact feelings you have towards the male without sounding at least a bit overly-dramatic.

See, you don’t hate Lee Donghyuck; you don’t think he’s your enemy either– you just find him absolutely, excruciatingly annoying.

And it’s not his personality, no– although you do admit that the way he carries himself and has such high mind about himself is quite alarming– the way your toes curl and the hair on your body stands up, all alert in sheer ick and disgust, has nothing to do with his ego and everything to do with your experience with the man. 

The first time you find Lee Donghyuck intensely annoying is when you get a text one day (having acquired his phone number from one of the class group chats, since the two of you major in the same program), at 9 in the morning, approximately 15 minutes before you have to leave your apartment to get to your fist class of the day. The man picked the wrong time to bother you, since it was Monday, of all days– the beginning of the week always manages to rile you up just because it exists in the first place– and you could give him the benefit of the doubt and say that it wasn’t his fault at all and you woke up grumpy already, but the events that happened after made you so deeply disturbed and annoyed to your core that there truly wasn’t any other word left in your vocabulary to describe Lee Donghyuck than the adjective already mentioned – annoying.

lee donghyuck (film theory class) – hi im in a crisis lee donghyuck (film theory class) – can u pls throw some toilet paper lee donghyuck (film theory class) – we ran out and my roommate already left for class lee donghyuck (film theory class) – pleaaaaase

Staring at the texts appearing on your phone screen in a hurry, you stop in your tracks and furrow your brows at the contact name in confusion. The truth is, you haven’t spoken to Lee Donghyuck that many times– you just know that he’s friends with your friend Lee Yangyang from high school and you two meet occasionally at the said friend’s gatherings. Plus, you had a discussion or two about the beauty of Quentin Tarantino movies when you met at orientation in freshman year, and that's also when you learned that he’s your neighbor; in fact, the window to his flat's bathroom and his very own bedroom face yours. But that’s about as far as it goes when it comes to your closeness. You’re not familiar enough with him to text each other or to think of each other in a time of need, so to have his first texts to you be about him being out of toilet paper is a thing to really dwell on to fully understand the extent of the bad impression this man had on you.

you – what the fuck

lee donghyuck (film theory class) – just open the window and throw me some lee donghyuck (film theory class) – i am good at catching

you – im in a hurry rn. gotta get to class

lee donghyuck (film theory class) – SO DO I why else do u think id be up this early lee donghyuck (film theory class) – so PLEASE throw me the damn toilet paper so im not late today

Shaking your head in disbelief at the conversation you’re currently having, too confused and tired to deal with it so early in the morning, you walk up to your room and look out of the window. Right opposite of you, not being further than 10 meters, if you’re being absolutely exact, is Lee Donghyuck’s head popping out from the bottom rim of his bathroom window, seemingly still sitting on the toilet. The look in his eyes is desperate as he clasps his hands together and mouths “Please!” at you, his face forming into a truly humiliating scowl that makes you wonder if he's truly done with what he'd been doing on the toilet only a few minutes prior. 

Sighing, you turn on your feet and escape your room– not noticing the absolutely disturbed and mortified face Donghyuck’s pulling behind your back, thinking you abandoned him and took off for class– and you truly can’t believe yourself when you walk into your own bathroom and take the half-used roll of toilet paper off the stand, murmuring a silent “Fucking hell” under your nose as you walk back to your bedroom and open up your window wide. Donghyuck’s eyes light up now, as if he was a kid under a Christmas tree about to receive a gift from Santa.

“If it falls to the street, I’m not getting it!” you yell after the boy, seeing as he eagerly nods and ushers you with a wave of his hands.

“Just throw it and I’ll be sure to catch it!” he nods, waiting for you to start your career in the new twist on baseball– a sport you’d call a toilet roll throw against the street. His eyes seem focused, knowing this is his only opportunity at wiping his ass this morning (why neither of you thought of suggesting to use the shower instead, you don't know to this day– perhaps it was too early in the morning for such complex strategies), when you surprisingly do your best at aiming for his window– thank god you both live on the same floor– and throw the roll across the alleyway, the paper unwinding only slightly before it lands on the floor of Lee Donghyuck’s pearl white bathroom.

“Thank you so much, you are my savior!” he yells, his head disappearing from the window, leaving you alone in your room to watch the commotion. When nothing happens for a while, you only shake your head in disbelief once again, deciding your job here is over and you can finally take off for your dreaded lecture.

“I’ll get going!” you scream into the void, scratching the back of your neck, aimlessly. 

“Mhm! See you later!” 

Nodding to yourself, you sigh, closing the window and doing a double take as you’re about to leave your flat for class, hopefully still on time. In disbelief, feeling the second-hand embarrassment seeping to your bones, you put on your shoes at the entrance and swear to yourself that you’re never gonna answer any of Lee Donghyuck’s texts ever again.

The previous scene already established that you’re no stranger to second hand embarrassment. I’m sure all of you have experienced it before– seeing someone desperately flirt with your friend, knowing that they’re not interested… Watching a drama and being absolutely grossed out with the script, wondering how the actors got convinced to take on the role… Hearing someone say an absurd answer in class… There are many, for sure, and the list could just keep going. You saw it with your own eyes as well, when your friend Choi Beomgyu tried hard to impress a girl at the skate park and managed to fall off his skateboard mid-trick, tearing his jeans in the crotch area in the process. Or when your roommate Aeri got tipsy at the club and who she thought was a very fine gentleman to flirt with was actually her ex boyfriend. The list goes on and on.

What about first hand embarrassment, though? You’re sure you experienced it before as well, but if anyone asked you, you’d tell them you don’t remember any embarrassing stories. If it’s because you just don’t want anyone knowing about the shame in your bones or if you really hated those experiences so much you chose to bury them and extract them out of your memory, you won’t tell. You just won’t let the shame haunt you for any longer than it has to, that’s for sure. 

So when you walk home from the hairdresser one afternoon and you’re met with your roommate Aeri looking at you with lips pressed together, yet the corners tugging upwards in what you assume (and fully know) is her trying to hold back an amused laugh, you admit that your suspicions were indeed correct when you saw yourself in the mirror at the salon and you’re going to have to live through another embarrassing moment. One that will take days and weeks to outlive as well, since your hair doesn’t grow back overnight– and when you look into the mirror again, you’re terrified.

“Don’t laugh.”

“I’m not laughing, it’s just… you look… well, you know, it’s just…” she mumbles, before she finally breaks into a loud laugh, standing behind you and examining the state of your hair in the mirror of your entrance hall with you, hands coming up to play with your strands and hold them up and down, brushing your bangs out of your face and ruffling the top– trying everything possible to find a single good hairdo with the haircut you have going on right now. “Oh babygirl… what did the do to your beautiful hair…” she mourns, the tone of her voice still amused, but now also kind of considerate.

“I told her I only wanted a trim,” you say, voice weak in what you realize is you holding back your tears and suppressing a mental breakdown, “how the fuck am I supposed to show my face to the world tomorrow?” 

Your roommate sighs at you, spinning you around so you no longer can see the disaster on your head, a pout forming on her face as she lightly shoves you deeper into the apartment. “At a second glance, it’s really not that bad, you know–”

“You don’t have to lie to make me feel better,” you cut her off, annoyed at her soft eyes.

“I don’t?” she looks at you, shocked irises hardening when she realizes you no longer need her sympathetic words. “Okay, thank god. Man, she fucked you uuup, leave a bad review like, right now. I’d cry myself to sleep if I got a haircut like that–”

“I take it back, I liked your lies better,” you roll your eyes at her, walking over to the kitchen to fix yourself a glass of water to calm down your racing heart. The mental breakdown is still right around the corner and you realize you have to do everything in your power to stop it, because you already have a fucked up haircut– you can’t afford to show up to class tomorrow with puffy eyes and stress-induced pimples as well. Gulping down the cold liquid, you decide to hop into the shower (and avoid looking in the mirror at all costs, which is kind of difficult, since there's three of them just on your way to the bathroom). 

Meeting the encouraging eyes of your roommate once you come out of the shower, hair tied up in a towel so you don't have to think about it any longer, Aeri's words reach your ears in the living room. “Come on, I’m sure we can manage to do something with this tomorrow morning,” she smiles, “at least you have a pretty face. You can pull off everything!”

And the truth is, even though Aeri is nice, she’s not always right. You’re met with the fact the next morning as you watch your reflection in the mirror before you both leave for your shared Film theory class, standing next to each other defeated; one breathtakingly beautiful and one looking like the main character from Chicken little. You'd be fine with it if it was only you who was aware of your disastrous image, you would be able to deal with the shame and insecurity silently– but that's not what happens as you’re only reminded by the fact that other people, sadly, do perceive you, against your biggest wishes, throughout the whole day.

You’re reminded by the fact that your haircut is fucked up when Ji Changmin, the guy you share an Animation class with, sees you in the corridor and does the yikes face at you and his friend Sunwoo hides his face from you as they turn the corner. You’re reminded by the fact again when you see Jisu, the ever-so-sweet girl that majors in Finance, the girl that’s friends with everyone in this school, look at you with a considerate look, patting your shoulder when she passes you by before you enter your Film theory classroom. 

And most importantly, you’re reminded by the fact when you finally sit down– at the very back of the classroom, which is both valid and understandable, considering your current state– and you’re met with a thud of a backpack to your left, a figure sitting down on the usually vacant spot. Clenching your jaw and looking up to see its owner, mentally preparing yourself for the teasing that’s about to come, you meet eyes with a tall, sleek man, shirt tucked into his black jeans and a sigh of relief escaping his throat as he sits down on the uncomfortable chair. Lee Donghyuck waves at you in greeting when he notices you there, running his hand through his neatly styled hair.

“Hi there,” he breathes out, “can’t believe I made it on time. My alarm didn’t go off and my roommate couldn’t be arsed to wake me, even though our morning lectures start at the same time, so I had to run and my usual seat is taken already… hope you don’t mind me sitting here– woah.”

And here it is again– the feeling of absolute humiliation as the man scans you up and down, eyes bearing into yours with an unreadable look on his face. Is this how he felt when he texted you to throw toilet paper through his bathroom window? Or was he immune to the shame? 

“Did you get a new haircut?” he asks, squinting his eyes at you in question.

“Shut the fuck up,” you sigh, already annoyed with his antics– because frankly, you know what will come next. 

“That’s an interesting answer to a yes or no question,” he muses, chuckling to himself, “I’ll take it as a yes, though, but it seems like you’re not satisfied with the new look…”

“Woah. You should work with the FBI or something,” you mumble, averting your gaze from him and looking straight in front of you, praying for the class to start fast so you don’t have to interact with your neighbor any longer and listen to him make fun of you for your new look.

“Why? It doesn’t look bad at all,” he says, the tone of his voice fakely considerate, making you want to punch him in the gut, “It’s interesting. I like it. It shows off your eyes and your forehead more, since your bangs are way shorter now,” he says, putting emphasis on the fact that your bangs truly are half their original length– which wasn't your original plan at all– only riling you up more.

“Only thing left to add is that I have a massive forehead, isn’t it?” you ironically smile at him, and the male takes your word for it as his eyes focus on the exposed part of your skin, furrowed eyebrows and all, as he examines your features.

“Not massive, but it’s a little… like, I wouldn’t say–”

“Just don’t say anything, okay?” you sigh, cutting him off and folding your arms at your chest in a poor attempt at defending yourself.

“Geez, why are you so snappy? I was complimenting you, y'know,” he says, and if you were more stupid, you’d even believe him– the tone of his voice still sounds genuine, but that’s just the way your neighbor likes to deceive people, and you know that; you’ve seen it happen multiple times before. “It adds character.”

The comment makes you roll your eyes, all words taken off your tongue– you simply think there’s no use defending your atrocious haircut now (not that you tried defending it before, even you aren't that oblivious). Your gaze is focused anywhere but at your seatmate, counting down the minutes until the class starts and you're taken out of your misery for at least an hour and a half. Your Film theory professor is almost never late and now is the only day you’re content and happy about the fact, because it means you won’t have to listen to Lee Donghyuck for more than approximately 2 more minutes until the small, hunched over frame of your professor strides through the door. 

Still, you feel his burning gaze to the side of your face, and despite your best intentions, you snap your head towards him and bite at the annoying gemini.

“Take a picture, it will last longer,” you spit, scoffing at the male.

“Can I really?” he asks, and before you have a chance to disagree, his phone is shoved into your point of view and the shutter comes off, making you lounge after the man in a poor attempt at taking his phone away and deleting the first picture of your new hair ever taken. (Well, except for the one you took crying last night, with a peace sign and your tongue darted to the side against your mirror. You don’t need any more traces of your current haircut than that one.)

lee donghyuck (film theory class) – hi neigbor whatchu doin lee donghyuck (film theory class) – u have a car right

Squinting at the next text conversation with Lee Donghyuck, the first one since he asked you for toilet paper 3 weeks ago, you feel nothing more than pure confusion at the strange questions the man asks you in the middle of the night. It’s Friday evening and your roommate went out with a guy named Eric she met four weeks ago in the gym, and even though you were slightly concerned when she texted you to say she was staying over at his house for the first time, you only showed her support as you went to lay down with no other plans for your evening. Falling asleep to your midnight playlist playing in the background (thanking God for the smart feature that makes the music shut off after 30 minutes), it's completely understandable and predictable that the noise of an incoming text annoys you when you hear it only a few minutes after 2 in the morning. The fact that it’s your neighbor texting you, out of all people, only makes the fury in you bigger as you click your tongue and shoot him a quick text back.

you – what do u want

lee donghyuck (film theory class) – neighbor!!!!! lee donghyuck (film theory class) – you do have a car 

Staring at the text that just appeared on your screen, you sigh and decide to spill the truth, preparing for whatever request that’s about to come after you admit to the fact that you do, indeed, have a perfectly functioning vehicle parked behind the building.

you – yes 

lee donghyuck (film theory class) – perfect lee donghyuck (film theory class) – do u hav sm time on ur hands

you – im sleeping

lee donghyuck (film theory class) – veryfunny youre replying rn tho lee donghyuck (film theory class) – come on itsa simple request

Breaking your back just to decipher the words through the amount of typos Lee Donghyuck’s making, your annoyance only grows bigger. Has he always been a bad texter? You don’t remember him struggling as much when he was sitting on the toilet three weeks ago– his texts were absolutely clear and with 0 mistakes back then. Maybe he was in a more desperate situation back then, after all…

you – what do u want hyuck its late

lee donghyuck (film theory class) – can u drive me home

And here it goes– in the back of your mind, you somehow knew it was coming. There were only a few reasons why someone would ask if you owned a car, and judging by the fact that it was now 2 in the morning on a Friday night, your neighbor wasn’t trying to sell you a new vehicle just in case you didn't have one yourself. Getting a drive home would be the only logical request from someone asking if you owned a car– it would only be more logical if the person asking you was your friend, and not an acquaintance at best.

Staring at the screen of your phone, counting down from 10 to not snap at the ridiculous request, you watch as the device lights up with an incoming call. You don’t even have to look at the caller ID to know who’s calling, and despite your best assumptions, you pick up with no more thought given, waiting for the person on the other side of the line to speak first.

“Y/N,” he says, voice breathless. 

“Lee Donghyuck.”

“Can you please drive me home?” he asks, tone of voice lazy and tired, something about the dragging of his words hinting you that there’s more to the request than you’re grasping right now.

“Are you drunk?” you ask, right off the bat, to clear out any confusion. 

There’s a short silence on the other side of the line, one that hints that you’re completely right in your assumptions, but you still want to hear it from the guilty man himself. “Maybe a little,” he admits, snickering, “I was over at Yangyang’s and then he kicked me out and I… my legs hurt too much to walk home.”

Sighing loudly at the man’s antics, you shake your head in disbelief and clear your throat. “I don’t see how that’s my problem?”

“Oh, come oonnn,” he drags out, “it’s not that far.”

“Yeah, so I don’t see how you can’t walk back, then?” you mutter, rolling your eyes at the demanding tone in your neighbor’s voice. If it was anyone else, maybe, just maybe, you’d be on your way already. You never decline your friend’s requests for favors, since you know they’d do the same if you asked, but you don’t really see how Lee Donghyuck, a man you’re not even close to in the first place, could repay the favor. What on Earth was he thinking in the first place when he called you? Were you his last option? Is he out of his mind?

“Because my legs hurt, if you were paying attention, you’d know that I told you before–”

“I don’t really care,” you mutter, “this is not my problem, I’m ending the call now, goodbye!”

“Y/N!”

The tone of his voice is desperate. Laced in agony, even. Still, you don’t care as you cut off the line and close your laptop that's been your source of music during the late night, settling deeper into your sheets. This is not your circus, not your monkeys, and frankly, you don’t really care what happens to Lee Donghyuck on his way home from Yangyang’s house, no matter how drunk or high he is right now. The man has done nothing but annoy you in your short, 23 year old life, and you’re not going to change out of your pajamas just to drive a few miles to get your dumb neighbor back home.

You’re not going to lose your beauty sleep for this. No, not at all.

Still, your eyes only close when you see the light in Lee Donghyuck’s room go on and the shadow of his slouched figure safely hits his bedsheets, another smaller frame coming to close his door and shut the blinds off, turning the light back off. 

The next Monday, you find yourself sitting in your Film theory class alongside your roommate Aeri that’s currently snoozing in the middle of the lecture. You can’t really blame her, since she only got home from her romantic retreat (read as: hanging out at Eric Sohn’s house the whole weekend and having sex possibly on every surface of his little flat downtown) on Sunday evening, and you can only imagine that she didn’t have much sleep during her stay there. 

And the class was boring, to add another reason for your roommate's nap. It’s not like you weren’t interested in the theory behind every movie, like the topic itself wasn’t interesting– you quite enjoyed wondering about all the special details in each movie that complete the story and make the atmosphere pop just in the right way– but the professor currently standing at the very bottom of the auditorium is old enough to be there when the Lumiére brothers showed the first ever movie to the public back in the 19th century, and his age only matches with the monotonous style of his teaching. Which means that his voice is mellow, but close enough to a lullaby, and with the amount of issues you have when paying attention in general, the lack of focus caused by this only feeds your distraction during the lectures, resulting in you not really being the top of the class in this specific subject.

So when you hear the professor mutter something under his nose about a project in pairs you’ll have to submit until the end of the semester, you feel your heart drop down to your stomach, all alert. Suddenly, you’re 100% present, brain racking about all the possible solutions and ways you could go around this just so you could pass the subject this year. 

Because frankly speaking, at the moment, you’re failing the class. And if you don’t manage to get a good grade on this final project, you’re going to have to retake the class next year– and trust me, another year listening to the monotonous lectures won’t make you pass easier, since you can only imagine the boredom will only grow once you’re in this class the second year in a row and you'd already heard all of the lectures once before.

“What was that?” Aeri mumbles under her nose when she notices you staring at the front of the classroom with wide eyes, an expression close to one you'd wear after seeing a ghost (with the age of your professor, you might as well have). She often tells you you look like a deer in the headlights when you get shocked or stressed-out, and you can’t say that comment doesn’t make you insecure. Still, you can’t quite control it when you sigh and turn to your roommate with a distressed look on your face.

“We have a final assignment to do,” you mumble, “in pairs.”

“Amazing, we’re doing it together, then,” she yawns, stretching a little before slumping over the desk again, ready for round two of her nap. 

“Fuck no,” you quickly dart, looking at her with furrowed brows.

“What do you mean, no?” 

Sighing, watching as she opens her eyes and looks at you with an offended expression on her face, you shake your head in disapproval and lower your voice, careful to explain yourself. “Look, girl, I love you, you know that,” you assure, “but we are both failing this fucking class. And I can’t afford to do badly just because the both of us suck, because I am not retaking this atrocious class ever again, so I suggest that the both of us find someone with good grades to leech from and get this over with.”

Aeri squints at you, seemingly lost in thought– more so contemplating your master plan– before she leans back in her chair and cautiously looks around the room. “You have a point there.”

“See? It’s nothing personal,” you chuckle, seeing as your roommate nods to herself.

“Okay, I’ll flutter my eyelashes at Shotaro,” she turns to you, eyes bright with the newly made plan, “we’re both Japanese, so he’s not legally allowed to turn me down.”

Rolling your eyes at her comment, you only nod in approval to her idea. Shotaro was one of the best in this class, so you can imagine that working with him would satisfy your professor enough to let Aeri pass the class this year. The only thing left to do was find the culprit to your own plan– you needed to team up with someone good enough to at least make you get a D on your final. And since half of the class was just as good as you in this particular subject, there weren’t many candidates left.

Eyes scanning the crowd (thank god you chose to sit in the back again), your gaze lands on a particular man sitting a few rows under you, a little bit to your right. Helplessly searching through the flood of your classmates currently occupying the auditorium, you sigh to yourself in realization, already dreading what’s about to come when the class is dismissed and you hurriedly walk over to the only person that can help you now, before he escapes the university grounds and you’re going to have to shamefully text him or ring his doorbell this afternoon.

“Donghyuck! Wait!” you yell after him, legs taking you closer to the man in question, now standing still in the middle of the moving crowd, watching you in curiosity.

“What’s up, neighbor?” he asks with a lazy smile, the tug at his lips only making your blood boil and your insides tighten into a bundle of nerves. Everything about him was ticking you off, the slouch in his shoulders making you want to stand behind him and fix his bad posture and slap the back of his head so you no longer have to look at him standing like a hermit crab, the glint in his eyes making you want to curl your fingers into a fist and slam your hand against a wall. The seemingly strong emotions of annoyance run through your veins whenever you interact with Lee Donghyuck, it seems, but the senile voice of your professor keeps repeating itself somewhere in the back of your head throughout the whole interaction, and so you choose to take a deep breath in and out before you smile at the man and prepare your best speech– you can't afford to be picky with this any longer.

“Who are you doing the project with?” you ask innocently at first, trying to get some info out of him.

He offers you a suspicious look, but replies nonetheless. “I’m not sure yet,” he sighs, “I was thinking of chasing down Haknyeon, but you stopped me in my tracks…” he shakes his head at you, teasing. 

“Hmm, I see,” you mumble, more for the effect than for anything else, “well, what if we do it together?”

There aren’t many instances in which you could catch Lee Donghyuck completely silent. Now is one of them, though, as he watches you with wide, surprised eyes, furrowed brows and his plump lips slightly agape, breathing in a few times before he shakes his head as if to reset the system, snickering to himself. “Us two?”

“Yeah, why not?” you peep, shrugging.

“Look, respectfully,” Donghyuck starts, and you brace yourself for the impact, “your grades in this class aren’t as good as mine, and even though I’d love to do it with you, I don’t wanna be the one doing all the work and–”

“I’ll help!” you snap, maybe too urgently for your own liking. “I promise. I’ll do everything in my power, I just really need your help with this,” you plea, looking at him with what you pray are your best puppy eyes, seeing as the man in front of you chuckles at the expression and averts his gaze from you for a heartbeat, signaling that you were most likely unsuccessful at the attempt.

“Sorry, Y/N,” he shrugs, shaking his head at you, even going as far as taking one step away from you, “see, if you hadn't declined my call on Friday, maybe I’d take this offer as a way to repay the favor, but you know…”

“I threw you toilet paper before, Donghyuck, you can’t be shitting me right now–” you feel your blood boil at the note, the ever so familiar annoyance seeping back into your bones.

“That was nothing–”

“You seemed pretty desperate back then.”

“That was the past, sweetheart,” he chuckles, taking another step away from you, somehow overthrowing your annoyance with pure, embarrassing desperation as you chase after him and stop him with a swift motion of your hand, catching him by his wrist. He stares at you with a shiteating grin on his face, one he always uses to get a reaction from you, and somehow, you know this is all a game for him, a stupid tug of war, but you can’t help it– you are in a desperate situation. So if you need to say please to the man and humiliate yourself in front of him just to pass this class, then so be it.

“Please, Hyuck? Just this once, I swear I’ll make it up to you. Literally, say anything, I’m gonna do it, I just really need to pass this class,” you mumble, a pout forming at your lips as you clasp your hands together– much like he did back when you two communicated through the window of his bathroom– and you swear you can see the gears in his brain turning when he calculates his next move and tells you his answer.

“Anything?”

“Pretty much, yeah,” you nod, hoping that Lee Donghyuck still has some dignity in him and wouldn’t ask for anything that would make you uncomfortable. He’s annoying, sure, but he’s not a dick, after all.

“Okay, then,” he nods, tone of voice airy, underlined with laughter, “be my personal driver for the entirety of the project, then. I’ll do it if you drive me places,” he grins, and that’s when your composure falls.

“Absolutely not.”

“Well then, say goodbye to the grade!”

Putting your arm around the passenger’s seat headrest, twisting your whole body as you look back and reverse the car into the parking spot in front of the mall, you see the figure next to you still in its place, eyes alert and staring at you. “If you’re so terrified of me driving, why did you want me to do this in the first place?” you sigh, finally turning back to the front and turning the engine off once you're standing straight between the lines, satisfied with your job.

“That’s- that’s not it,” he clears his throat and gulps nervously, shaking his head. “Anyways, let’s go,” Donghyuck says, slapping his thighs like parents do when it’s time to leave a family gathering, grinning at you widely as he waits for you to get out of the vehicle.

“What do you mean, let’s go? I drove you here, I can go now,” you glare, not satisfied with the way your Wednesday afternoon was going. You only agreed to the deal on Monday, and Donghyuck already made you drive him home after class twice and also asked you to drive him to the school this morning. Having him constantly leeching around you and making you drive him places wasn’t exactly fun, since he always asked weird questions and made fun of your bored face at every red light, so you really, desperately, needed him to be gone already so you could head home and scream into your pillow to unwind the nerves. 

“Well, how am I supposed to get back when I’m done shopping?” he innocently asks, pouting at you. “My hands are gonna be full with bags and you’re gonna have to come pick me up, because that’s the deal, and I can’t afford to wait with my hands full until you get back here, so you might as well stay and come with me, so it’s convenient.”

“Nothing about this is convenient for me,” you mumble, but comply with his orders nonetheless. “Why don’t you get a car? Or take a bus back?”

“Buses smell and I don’t have a license,” he mutters, “besides, I have you now to be my personal taxi driver, so I don't need a car,” he shrugs, walking alongside you to the mall. 

His confession startles you, makes you halt in your step as the boy looks at you with defeated eyes, already knowing what’s next. This scenario has happened to him multiple times before– he’s best friends with Huang Renjun and Liu Yangyang, he’s in for a teasing at every single action of his that goes just slightly wrong– but to hear it from you will surely feel more humbling to the man. Closing his eyes as if to not see the grin overtaking your features, he sighs. “What?”

“You don’t have a license?” you tease, snickering. “For real?”

“No.”

“Why? You failed the test?” you ask again, catching up to the male and falling in with his quick pace, enjoying the fact that you now have the upper hand on him for once.

“Never really tried getting it in the first place,” he mumbles, shrugging. 

“Why?”

“I dunno,” he shamefully ducks his head, “it seems scary,” he adds, making you snort out at his confession.

“Fucking hell dude,” you laugh out now, swatting his shoulder in a teasing manner, “that’s so embarrassing, it’s not even really that difficult in the first place–”

“I don’t know what’s more embarrassing,” he cuts you off, tone of voice laced with frustration as he realizes you are a bit too amused at him admitting to one of his fears, “is it me not having a license or you driving me around because you're failing a class… Hm?” he asks, locking eyes with you, lips pressed shut into a straight line, and suddenly, your composures exchange. He won. Again.

“Anyways, let’s get going!” he smiles, dismissing the previous discussion as he tugs you by your hand into one of the stores right in the middle of the mall.

You should’ve already predicted that shopping with Lee Donghyuck would be exhausting. Not only did he demand to know your opinion on every single thing he tried on, he also wanted you to pick up something for him to try– as if driving him here wasn’t too much work for you as it was. All you wanted to do was walk back to your car and get away from him as soon as possible, but with the way he teasingly poked your sides every time you weren’t paying attention and turned to your phone to entertain yourself with some mindless scrolling on social media, you weren’t able to escape even mentally, no matter how hard you tried. 

“Why don’t you try something on?” 

“I’m not in the mood,” you glare, walking out of the last store in the whole entire mall, the sky behind the glass doors already dark from how late it’s gotten. You’re pretty sure it’s gonna close soon, but checking the time on your phone, you’re relieved to learn that you still have enough time to get boba from the stand at the entrance of the mall. You deserve a little treat after involuntarily hanging out with Lee Donghyuck the whole day, after all. Call it your girl dinner, or something.

“Taro milk tea with coconut jelly, please,” you smile at the tired barista behind the counter, noticing the way Donghyuck stands next to you and looks at the menu. You expect him to order a drink for himself as well, and surely, he doesn’t disappoint as he smiles at the girl, the tone of his voice sweet and considerate– so far away from the way he speaks to you on a daily basis– as he asks for his own drink.

“Will you pay together or separately?” she asks.

“Separate–”

“Together,” your companion cuts you off, grinning at you when you glare at the man, sighing at his antics.

“Come on, I already drive you everywhere, do you think gas is cheap? Now you want me to pay for your boba as well?” you whine, reaching for your wallet as you frown at the male, his confused eyes bearing into yours when he slightly nudges you from his way, offering the girl behind the counter his card instead. The action shuts you up, making the gears in your brain turn faster as you watch him in the action, and it doesn't fully register yet, but you're left feeling a bit taken aback and sheepish when the cashier hands him the receipt.

“I was gonna buy it for you as a thank you for the nice day, but now you’re making me look like I felt pressured to,” he sighs, shaking his head at your little tantrum. His actions still don’t register in your brain, though, his words resonating all the way through your ears to your Wernicke’s area and right back, hanging everywhere in the air of the mall, shock making your body still. Then, it hits you.

“Ah,” you gasp, feeling the tips of your ears burning with shame at the fact that you managed to ruin his nice gesture, your eyes scanning the space in a poor attempt to not look at him or the cashier still watching your exchange.

“Get your drink and let’s go,” he nudges you instead, rolling his eyes for good measure as he walks out of the mall, nearing your car in the parking lot.

“Look at this, look! Isn’t it funny?” Donghyuck hovers over you with his phone in his hand, giggling to himself as he tries to make you look at the screen. You don’t really know why he’s trying to get a laugh out of you, honestly, but he’s currently doing everything but that as you’re sat in his living room, legs plopped up onto the sofa and crossed in front of you, waiting patiently– but also kind of boiling on the inside out of frustration– for him to pay attention to you.

“Hyuck, I didn’t come here to watch Tiktoks with you,” you say, eyes sharp, tone of your voice cutting like razors– efficiently making him look up from his screen and meet your gaze with an amused grin, “I’m not really sure if you forgot, but I came to discuss the project,” you mutter, sighing.

“Jeez,” you see him roll his eyes, the energy around him still not shifting as he maintains his casual and unfocused composure, but you know that on the inside, he's enjoying the view– your angry face seems to be his most favorite thing to stare at recently, “didn’t know you lack a sense of humor.”

“What?” you look at him, confused, quite frankly, before you shake your head in disbelief at the comment. “You know what, just put the phone away for 5 seconds and finally talk to me about the project, smart boy, or else I’m not wasting my time here any longer and I’m leaving.”

“You’re acting as if you’re the one putting in work,” he mumbles, snickering.

“I will be putting in work when you tell me what to do!”

At your sentence, Donghyuck finally puts his phone back at the coffee table and shifts a little in his seat, facing you and scratching the back of his head, seemingly lost in thought. You let him, convinced that if you speak up and cut off his train of thought, the poor boy wouldn’t be able to get back to it again, waiting for him to be done with his brain weaving so you can pick up on them and ride them out, seeming at least decently smart (or not completely stupid). When he finally speaks up, he licks his lips and shrugs.

“We just gotta pick a theme and do our best portraying it with no words in a 3 minute clip, right?” he asks you in reassurance, as if you were the most reliable source of information when it comes to this class and its assignments.

“Yeah,” still, you agree.

“Well, then we just gotta pick a theme and the rest will be easy,” he nods to himself, reaching back for his phone, which you swiftly take from his hold and hide behind your body. 

“Hey–”

“We’re not done talking about this! I’m not letting you use your phone, because you’re just gonna scroll on Tiktok instead of thinking about this,” you squint at him, twisting and turning in your seat as his hands try to sneak around your sitting figure and take the device out of your grasp. 

He seems determined as his arm lands on your elbow, a victorious grin smoothly swiped off his face when you sit on his phone and flash him a wide grin. “I’ll give it back when we have the theme down!”

“That’s an invasion of my privacy,” Donghyuck mumbles, and you roll your eyes at him, pointing a finger to his shoulder.

“That’s not what an invasion of privacy means, but whatever floats your boat…” you mumble, watching him sit back in his seat, defeated as his shoulders slouch and his gaze is glued to the wall in front of him. You’re not sure what’s so interesting about the white paint, but at least there’s not the noise of his phone filling your ears right now– you’re more than okay with silence, since you don't get to hear it often when Donghyuck is present. You would like it better if he spoke up and talked to you about the assignment, but if you had to choose between him being annoying and him being quiet, you think everyone knows which one of the two you’d prefer.

“So?” you test the waters after a while, seeing if your project partner decides to finally comply with your request and discuss the important matters.

“So? Do you got any ideas?” he teases, watching you with challenging eyes.

Clearing your throat, caught off guard at the request– you assumed he’d tell you exactly what to do and you just have to do it and follow his lead, essentially not putting in much effort and still being sure of passing the class– but it seems like Lee Donghyuck won’t let you off that easily. You should've expected it. Being difficult is his favorite hobby, after all.

“Well, you’re the smart one here, so…” you shrug, trying the method that always works on men– and that is praising them.

“So you’re saying you’re stupid?”

“If it works in my favor during this conversation, then sure,” you nod, smiling at him in irony. Hyuck gives you a defeated sigh, shaking his head at you before he clicks his tongue at you and finally gives in.

“Okay, so, I was thinking we should pick a theme that fits the current social struggles, but after hearing this, I don't think feminism is our best choice,” he mutters.

“Like you’d know anything about feminism–”

“What do you have me for?” Donghyuck sharply glares at you, clicking his tongue at you in pure offense. “I am a fan of Little women, I'll have you know, of course I’m a feminist.”

“Well, you must be a fake fan, since everything about this deal is just me majorly girlbossing,” you point out, trying really hard to prove your point.

“Are you even being serious right now–”

“Anyways,” you cut him off, “what were you thinking?”

The man sighs and shakes his head at you in disbelief, but still speaks up again nonetheless. “I was thinking, well, maybe we could pick something that would really play into the old man’s feelings, you know, so we get him all sentimental and moved to tears…” he starts off, tone of voice now completely serious, making him sound kind of smart– startling you in the process, “that leaves us with a few possible options. We could do something with the 18 hundreds, or… fishing? I heard he’s into fishing. Or we could do something more abstract and shoot something about youth, since he’s very old and this could get him nostalgic. Or!” he suddenly perks up in his seat, eyes wide and a disturbing grin sitting at his lips, “we could include nudity! He’s a man, after all… wanna shoot porn? We don’t need words for porn.”

In absolute disbelief, you stare at the man with eyes wide open, blinking a few times and taking a few seconds to yourself to process the monologue you just listened to. You knew he was absolutely insufferable, but you didn’t know he was this much of a dumb freak. 

Taking your silence for disgust, Donghyuck just nods to himself and purses his lips.

“Youth it is, then… I mean, nudity would be difficult to present in front of the class for sure–” he admits, pouting.

“Yeah, like that’s the only problem with that idea…”

Afternoon classes aren’t your favorite ones of the week and although you absolutely despise waking up early and having to commute to university while you’re still half-asleep and absolutely irritated, there’s nothing that infuriates you more than knowing you could be done with the day already, sitting at home and watching your favorite TV show, only if it wasn’t for the responsibility of having to stay at campus and sit through another hour and a half lecture on a Thursday afternoon, way too late for your brain to be working in those hours.

This is one of the only classes you don’t share with your roommate Aeri– which makes the lecture that more excruciating, since you don’t have anyone with you that you could gossip with about your classmates or friends from back home when it gets too boring and you can't bear sitting in silence and forcing yourself to focus anymore– but there is one person from your circle that you do share this class with, and yes, you already guessed it; it’s Lee Donghyuck.

You don’t know when you’ve gotten so close to the point where he sits in the vacant seat right next to you almost immediately, followed by his friend Ju Haknyeon who you’ve never even spoken to before, but he still does so nonetheless, every Thursday, just so he could annoy you with his only half-funny remarks to every other sentence that comes out of your Animation class professor’s mouth. 

“What are you doing this weekend?” you hear Haknyeon ask the devil sitting on your left, and trust me, you don’t really like listening to other people’s conversations (that’s a lie, you live for gossip. You just wish you knew the least amount of information about Lee Donghyuck as possible, because sometimes you learn fun facts you wish never joined your brain), but you can’t really help it this time, can you? Haknyeon doesn’t know what whispering is, and you’re convinced Donghyuck would love everyone to hear him talk and give him attention anyway. 

“Not really sure,” Donghyuck replies, “Renjun bailed on me, said he’s going to the shelter with his girlfriend again, so I was thinking, right? You know, I’d looove to go on a road trip, and it’s crazy, you know, because–”

The words coming out of his mouth instantly make you alert, snapping your head around to make eye contact with the man that’s already staring at you with a shit-eating grin on his face, knowing you’re listening to them talk. “Lee Donghyuck, I am not going on a road trip with you–”

“See, Y/N here is my personal driver for the semester, so she can’t really say no–” Donghyuck continues, enjoying the way your face distorts into a pained scowl, your hand coming up into your hair to tug at the roots in frustration.

“If you make me do this, I’m going to open your door while we’re going 120km/h on a crowded highway and throw you out so you die under the wheels of someone else and I don't face the consequences,” you propose, shaking your head in disbelief, your voice shushed due to you still not wanting to be heard by the whole classroom, but still loud enough for both of the boys to chuckle.

“Come on, I bet you’d have fun. I have the best playlists for road trips, you know,” Hyuck teases, poking you with the tip of his pen, to which you click your tongue and move a bit further away from the male. 

“The last time I drove you somewhere that was more than a 10 minute drive, you had Céline Dion on loop, so I don’t know just how believable this claim is.”

“That’s disrespectful to the legend Céline Dion is, dear Y/N, and I’d take it back before her ghost comes to haunt you at night.”

“Is she even dead in the first place?” you squint at him, at disbelief of his words.

“She’s not,” Haknyeon chimes in from the side, shaking his head at the both of you before he chuckles, “you two argue like a married couple.”

“I would rather die than to marry him–”

“See, Hak, Y/N just hasn’t realized she’s in love with me yet,” Hyuck adds, clicking his tongue at his seatmate, “but she’s gonna realize it somewhere during our 5 hour long road trip, I’m sure. Just wait, it’s gonna happen soon.”

The class gets dismissed somewhere in the middle of the argument, and as you’re gathering your things to go, you hear the two of them talk among themselves, not really including you in their conversation anymore (which you’re glad for, frankly). 

“Are you going home after class?” Haknyeon asks.

“No,” Donghyuck shakes his head in disapproval, and there it is– the shit-eating grin appears on his face when he initiates eye contact with you and snickers, “Y/N and I are actually getting fried chicken at this place downtown, since I got coupons– well, Renjun got coupons for free chicken from his uncle last week, but he doesn’t like chicken that much, so I stole them from him–”

“Huh?” you scowl at him, wondering if you heard right. “I’m not getting chicken with you.”

“Of course you are,” Hyuck announces, “the coupons expire tomorrow, so we gotta do it today. I know you’re not busy, come on.”

“I’d rather choke than to spend any more time with you than I already have today, Donghyuck. Go with Haknyeon,” you say, pointing to the clueless senior staring at the both of you in wonder.

“Yeah, go with me, man,” he shakes his head, “I like chicken.”

“Unfortunately, this offer only applies to people that have a working car that could drive me there, so in case you wanna get your shiny BMW fixed in the next 24 hours, I can save the coupons for you,” Hyuck chimes, smiling innocently at his friend.

“What are you even talking about?” you mutter, tone of voice pained.

“Look, do you wanna get out of the road trip on Saturday, or not?” he stares at you, his gaze flaming as you sigh more for him to hear than to get out your frustration– you learned long ago that it does nothing to calm you down, worse, it makes you even more infuriated.

“Woah, Donghyuck!” you exclaim, fake excitement written all over your features. “Chicken actually sounds so good right now!”

That’s how you appear in one of the fried chicken places downtown, your car parked in their tiny parking lot, with Donghyuck excitedly skipping towards the restaurant with the bunch of coupons in his hands. You don’t really know why he insists on spending time with you– he could get a bus here or drive with one of his other friends that own a car, and you’re certain you are not the only one on his list– so the whole interaction makes you slightly confused. Still, you enjoy the free meal– like any other broke college student would– and when Donghyuck eats, his mouth is usually shut, so you don’t find that many negatives in this whole thing, after all.

“What are you thinking of doing for the project, by the way?” you ask, wiping your greasy fingers on one of the napkins Hyuck had offered to you just a few seconds prior after noticing your dismay at the state of your hands. You don’t like it when you get dirty with food, but you’d rather not eat at all than to eat fried chicken with a fork, so you guess this is the price you have to pay.

“You keep talking about the project,” he shakes his head, chuckling, “don’t worry about it. I have it covered.”

“What do you mean, you have it covered? This is supposed to be teamwork. Just because I drive you around, it doesn’t mean I won’t put my hand in– you’ll complain too much if I don’t,” you mutter after you swallow, rolling your eyes at him. He keeps saying the same thing each time you ask him– you’re suspecting that he has zero idea at all, and he’s just bluffing to make you feel more comfortable. Hell, you might even fail while working with Donghyuck and your whole plan is going to be ruined, for all you know.

“Don’t worry about it,” he says, grinning, “we got the theme, so half the work is already done. We’ll just have to take one day to shoot some scenes on a field or something, and then I can edit it and put some sad music over it, and we’re sold. Trust me, I am a straight A student, I know what I'm doing.”

“You are not a straight A student, Lee Donghyuck,” you glare at him, not believing a single word that's just came out of his mouth.

“Okay well,” he shrugs, taking a sip of his coca-cola that he got for free with the order, “maybe I’m not. But you can count on me with this, hon.”

Sighing to yourself, you shake your head at him. “Don’t ever call me that ever again.”

“Hyuck,” you call for the male, nestling a little in your seat and scratching the back of your neck in frustration.

“Hm?”

“You said we were going to work on the project today, am I correct?” you ask, watching as the male walks up to you from the kitchen area of the room, a bowl full of popcorn in his hand as he plops on the sofa next to you (on the only area that allows you to lay down comfortably and still face the TV, also known as the spot you’ve already laid on, making the two of you almost uncomfortably close in the small space), a bottle of coke situated under his right shoulder.

“Correct,” he nods, reaching for the TV remote he spent approximately 15 minutes searching for in between the cushions of the sofa when you arrived, screaming at his poor roommate for losing it again as the shorter boy just grimaced at you and escaped the flat to hang out with someone you heard him call RJ! y/n.

Humming to yourself, you nod. “Okay, then… why the living fuck are we watching Hunger games right now?” you ask, tone of voice laced in frustration.

Donghyuck doesn’t reply to you for a while as he fumbles with the TV remote (and frankly, you don’t really know why he’s so focused, it doesn’t take much to just press play), but when he looks back at you and sees your gaze impatiently glued to his forehead, he shrugs. “We gotta find some inspiration first, you know,” he innocently states, “Hunger games is a movie about youth if I’ve ever seen one.”

“We’ve both already seen Hunger games, Hyuck,” you whine, but take a hand-full of popcorn out of the bowl that’s currently sitting in his lap. 

“How do you know that I have seen it already?”

“You just said so, you dumb fuck,” you mutter as you roll your eyes, watching the opening credits start. You can do nothing else than settle deeper into the sofa and watch the painfully long movie with your annoying neighbor now, and you despise the fact.

Well, you could do something else. There are many things, to be exact– you could either protest so much that Donghyuck finally gives in and turns the movie off, focusing his efforts into actually working on your project. If that doesn’t work, you can fight him for the remote, but you can’t really know if that wouldn’t make him pettily give you the silent treatment, which is exactly the opposite of what you’d like to be doing right now. Or you could just give up– seeing that you’re not gonna get much work done today– and stand up and go home. It’s not like you live that far away anyways… 

But still, you stay and watch the movie with him. You’ve seen it at least three times already, having watched it recently with Aeri when the movie had its second wave of fame on Tiktok, so you’re pretty sure that if you tried hard enough, you’d be able to recite the script alongside the actors, word-for-word, 100% correct and exact, right on time. You stay and watch Hunger games with Lee Donghyuck– why exactly, you still don’t know– and you find yourself enjoying the experience. It’s not as boring when you hear your neighbor annoyingly comment on each and every little thing that happens in the movie, his nasal voice cracking jokes and jumping into the conversations as if he was a part of the cinematic universe. Somewhere along the way, you join in with him, laughing and giggling when your roleplay gets too silly, and before you know it, the movie is about to end and you’re finally going to be free to work on the project with him.

Donghyuck gets unusually quiet towards the last part of the movie. You turn your head to him, ready to crack jokes at the tears you’re expecting to see in his eyes because of the emotional outro– Katnis and Peeta’s berry scene got you the first and the second time you watched the movie, the third time not so much, since Aeri kept pausing the movie for pee breaks, ruining the full effect– only to witness the man’s head falling to your shoulder the exact second you try to lock your gaze with him; your neighbor having passed out somewhere in the middle of the movie. You foolishly jump just the slightest bit at the contact, opening your mouth to say something to him that could wake him up, your instincts telling you to move away from the already uncomfortable closeness of your bodies and give yourself more space.

But as your lips part and you’re about to protest, you notice his own lips apart in a small pout, his cheeks appearing softer now that one of them is smashed against your shoulder, his long eyelashes fanning over the bones of his cheeks. The blue hue of the TV paints his cheeks rosier in the dim light, making you notice the moles on his face for the first time– leading you to count them and mentally create constellations between them as your gaze focuses from all the different places of his face to another. Chewing on the inside of your cheek, you shut your mouth and awkwardly make yourself look away from your annoying neighbor, cracking the knuckles of your hands that have been resting in your lap; but when the credits of the movie roll and you have nowhere else to focus your gaze on, you find yourself scanning the man up and down again, orbs catching every detail of his suddenly so pure being.

He is wearing gray sweatpants, the fabric hanging low on his waist, a plain black tee adorning his upper figure. He doesn’t often look this casual when he comes to class, opting to wear jeans or pants more formal, so you foolishly admire the cozy fit he has going on, not quite used to seeing Donghyuck looking this homey. His clasped hands resting in his lap catch your attention next, the soft skin adorning his slender fingers looking way too inviting right now as you subconsciously want to glaze your fingertips against the surface of his palm, just to see if your suspicions are right and his skin is just as gentle as it seems to be to the eye, and you almost do it– for scientific reasons, of course– before you catch yourself and almost mentally slap yourself for being so foolish.

What the hell is going on with you right now? You should wake him up now– the movie is already over, there’s no use in you staying over any longer if he’s asleep and won’t work on the project with you anymore– but you find yourself freezing each time your eyes focus on the creature sleeping against your shoulder, so soft and comfortable it makes your insides squeeze in warmth. It’s a strange sensation, and even a stranger one to feel for a person that annoys you the most in this world, and you can't bring yourself to do anything else than to overthink the simple fact. 

He can sleep for a few more minutes. You don’t mind. He must be tired, you think– he deserves 10 more minutes, maybe even 15– you won’t disturb him. The silence is strangely comforting, after all.

He can sleep for a few more minutes, you think– but the exact moment those thoughts roam around your head again, the front door to Donghyuck’s apartment opens and his roommate stands still in the doorframe of his living room, gazing at you with suspicion in his gaze. You quickly jump away from your project partner when eye contact with Huang Renjun is made, feeling the tips of your ears heating up in shame as you scatter to your feet and scramble for your things. You feel like you were just caught red-handed, doing something you shouldn’t have been doing, and you can’t bear the thought any longer. You need to get out.

A dissatisfied noise leaves Hyuck’s mouth as he wakes up to the impact of your movement, squinted eyes watching you as Renjun just laughs at your antics, shaking his head as if to tell you that he knows something you don’t. You don’t wanna hear it.

“Where are you going?” Donghyuck asks, voice laced with sleep. 

“Home,” you snap, running your hand through your hair as you move through the door frame that separates the living room from their entrance hall. “We can’t work on the project if you’re asleep, so I might as well just go and not waste my time here any longer!” you offer him, making sure to save your face by putting just enough pretended frustration into the comment as you put on your shoes and don't look back at him– however inviting the mental image of him seems in your brain– before you shut the door after yourself and leave.

dongfuck – drive me to mcdonalds

you – well hello to you too you – no.

dongfuck – >:( dongfuck – please

you – its 2am dude

dongfuck – your point..?

Sighing, scrambling for your things as quietly as possible to not wake up your sleep deprived flatmate, you get dressed in comfortable sweatpants, throwing a hoodie on to shield yourself from the chilly air. The walk down the stairs doesn’t take you more than a few minutes before you’re standing in the parking lot of your apartment complex, already seeing Donghyuck’s figure leaning on the side of your car, almost looking like he owns it– he does act like it lately, to be fair. 

“I knew you’d come,” he snickers as you roll your eyes at him, pressing the button on your car key to unlock the doors, watching as the man swiftly opens the driver’s side for you and then jogs towards the passenger’s side to get in, an excited stride in his step.

“I’m only here because I haven’t eaten dinner and chicken nuggets sound absolutely amazing right now,” you mutter, “don’t get too ahead of yourself. None of this is for you,” you grin, fastening your seatbelt and adjusting the rearview mirror just the slightest before turning on the engine and driving off the parking lot.

Donghyuck only shakes his head at you, a bright grin playing with his features. “Of course,” he hums, “wouldn’t want me to think that you actually want to hang out for once.”

“Of course,” you nod, “because that would be a lie. My goal is chicken nuggets, nothing else. And if I manage to get them out of you for free, that’s even better.”

“Who said I’m paying?”

“The gas station clerk did when I last went to get gas, actually! He told me I’m using twice as much gas lately because I’m driving a certain dumbass around, and I’m paying for all of the gas myself, can you believe it?” you shake your head, teasing him as you turn right on the main road, already seeing the McDonald’s in the distance. 

“That’s a strange way to talk to a customer,” Donghyuck squints his eyes at you, watching as you slow down when getting into the food chain’s parking lot, ready to drive up to the drive-through window and order your late night snacks.

“At least he’s looking out for me,” you shrug, teasing the male. “I better order a hefty meal, since you’re paying and all…” you mumble, looking over the poster to your left, tapping your chin, trying to look lost in thought. 

Hearing the man next to you scoff– already satisfied with how frustrated you’ve managed to make him– you pretend to look over the most expensive parts of the menu. “I’m starting to regret my decision,” Donghyuck adds, but the tone in his voice is light.

After a few more minutes of picking out your menu, you both order your meals and wait for them at the window. It doesn’t take long, since you’re the only ones in the whole place, and before you know it, Donghyuck is pressing his card into your palm, nudging you to pay for both of your meals. The gesture should be expected– you pretty much plastered him into doing this with how much you teased and complained– but it still shocks you when he does it with no other annoyed comments, watching as you offer it to the cashier and smile at him in thanks, taking the bags of food and driving off into the very back of the whole parking lot, turning the engine off and settling into the dark.

You tug your feet up to your seat, sitting crossed-legged in the small space as you face your companion, watching as he offers you the bag of food and digs into his own fries as well, scanning you from the corner of his eye. Now is the time you finally get to admire his attire for the first time the whole night– you never knew you had a thing for guys in sweatpants and oversized jackets, but the way your breathing almost catches in your throat at the sight of Donghyuck dressed so cozily again should be enough of a warning for you to the future. Forcefully taking your eyes off the male next to you, because you’d rather not think about the way you find yourself eyeing him lately, you eat your chicken nuggets– the ones you’ve dreamed of the whole night– and listen to the sound of your neighbor chewing on his burger. 

Feeling his eyes on you, you glare at him. “What are you staring at?”

“No take a picture, it will last longer this time?” 

“I learned my lesson from the last time,” you laugh, reminded of one of the first interactions you had with the male. “I hope you deleted the pictures, by the way.”

“No, I stare at them every night before I go to sleep,” he says, “so I’ll dream of you,” he sing-songs, laughing at the way your face distorts in discomfort at his words.

“Ah, so annoying,” you roll your eyes at him, but can’t battle the way your heart jumps a little at the sound of a laugh escaping his throat. Your eyes automatically trace his movements, noticing the way the far standing lamp post illuminates his face in just the right way, casting orange shadows over his features, making his eyes glimmer when they catch yours. Clearing your throat after being caught staring at him, you avert your gaze and finish the last of your fries, noticing the male done with his meal as well. 

“Now what?” he asks.

“We go home, what else?” you laugh, shaking your head at his question.

“But I don’t wanna go home yet,” he whines, and you already know what’s coming– pursuing, weird ideas, absurd arguments just to make you stay longer. And you’re immune to them on most days, but it’s too late in the night, so you have to cut yourself some slack. So what if you don’t want to come back yet either? It’s not a crime to want to spend some time with Lee Donghyuck.

“What a shame,” still, you tease, waiting for him to come up with a bright idea that you could use as an excuse to stay out longer.

“Oh come on,” Donghyuck mutters, “you always ruin the fun. Teach me how to drive, what do you say?”

Shocked at his preposition, you turn to him again, wide eyes and mouth agape. “What? Absolutely not.”

“Why? The parking lot’s empty. I can’t possibly be that bad that I crash your car into nothing. Come on!” he pleads, going even as far as pouting at you– not really knowing that the expression has you shamefully stare at his lips for a split second, insides heating up– and realistically, you should have warning signs blinking at you from everywhere in your brain, an alarm going off to tell you that this is not a good idea at all, but you’re too stunned to come up with another plan for the rest of your evening, and, well, you may be getting a little weak for the annoying gemini. He's right, though– what could possibly go wrong? 

So you only sigh in response, opening the door and getting out of your seat, watching as Donghyuck excitedly mirrors your motions and jogs to the driver’s seat, ready to possibly ruin your evening and your car at the same time. When you’re back safe inside of the car, you quickly fasten your seatbelt, a sign of your sense of self preservation still working well, watching Donghyuck move your seat further back so he can comfortably reach the pedals. His focused face is in your full view as he adjusts all the mirrors possible, and only then is when you notice him chewing on the inside of his cheek– in either nerves or concentration, you can’t really tell right now– and the sight makes you halt him in his motions before he manages to start the engine.

“Have you ever done this before?” you ask, watching as he turns to you with wide eyes, shaking his head in disagreement.

“No,” he peeps, laughing to himself, “Yangyang declined me the last time I asked.”

“Yeah, because he has a working brain,” you whisper under your breath, still in disbelief of what you allowed to happen, “so… can you reach the pedals?”

“I can.”

“And you see the whole back window in this mirror, right?” you ask, pointing to the rearview mirror, watching as Donghyuck nods.

“Positive.”

“Great. So… start the engine now, I guess?” you say, chewing on the inside of your cheek as you see him nod and reach for the keys, turning them. The car instantly comes alive right in front of him all while Hyuck seems  absolutely clueless, looking at you with big, adorable eyes, and you take it as your cue to instruct him on his next moves.

“Now press the clutch– the far left pedal– and move the gear stick into the first gear,” you say, watching as the boy slowly does as you say, reaching for the device and moving it to the desired place. “Good. Now, keep pressing the clutch and slowly start pressing the accelerator– the far right pedal– while also slowly letting go of the clutch until you get to the point where the car starts moving on itself. That’s when you don’t let go of the clutch, but keep it at that same exact spot, and put a bit more acceleration until the wheels spin like, once or twice. Only then can you keep your leg off the clutch.” 

“You’re kinda hot when you tell me what to do,” Hyuck mumbles, but the flirting doesn’t quite come through when his face is focused at the road and his composure seems shaken, too stressed out to actually mean the words coming out of his mouth.

“Shut up and do what I said,” you snarl, seeing as the man nods and tries moving with the car. It takes him some time, but it seems that he is a natural– the car moves without the engine dying, and suddenly, you find yourself cheering him on. “Good! Good! You’re moving!”

“Oh. My. God.” 

“Don’t panic!”

“I’m not panicking!” Hyuck hums, nodding to himself as he turns the wheel and makes a circle around the parking lot, grinning to himself with confidence. The car moves painfully slowly, and you, despite your best interest, find yourself enjoying the view– although you should probably be more worried about your own safety than you currently are. That's when you decide to challenge the male further.

“Okay, then we can shift into the second gear, it’s gonna go a little smoother,” you muse, seeing as the male nods.

His eyes stay focused on the road, though, so you take it as your cue to instruct him again. “Press on the clutch then, and move the gear stick straight down.”

“Mhm,” he hums, and presses on the clutch, but the struggle comes next as his hand flies all over the car, not quite used to the placement of the gear stick yet. Stressed, eyes glued to the road in front of him to not run into any possible obstacles in your way, he refuses to look away for even a second, and the whole sight makes your heart race in anxious agony as you reach for his hand and grip it, guiding him towards the stick and placing his palm on top of the device.

Your hold on his hand doesn’t loosen up as you guide his movements further and do it for him, just to make sure the stick really gets to its designated place and doesn't get stuck in neutral, which would make the engine die with the next press of the accelerator. His skin is soft under your touch, just like you imagined it to be, and you find yourself growing hotter the more your skin is in contact with his, the touch so innocent yet still sending you to overdrive.

“Now let go of the clutch,” you order, eyes glued to the side of Donghyuck’s head as he nods, listening to everything you say. The car now goes more smoothly and you watch him take another lap around the parking lot before you realize your hand is still gripping his on the gear stick, the information making you jump slightly in your place, clearing your throat in the awkward, tense atmosphere you managed to create for yourself.

“Okay,” you announce, “the trial is over, it’s time to press the brake– the middle pedal, if you haven't figured that out so far– and get out of my place,” you say, hoping the tone of your voice sounds as light as usual. 

The car comes to a strong halt, since Hyuck doesn’t really know how fast the brakes react yet, and if you weren’t buckled in, it’s certain that you’d go flying in your seat and smash your head against the dashboard. Breathing out when the car stills, you finally feel yourself relax, having been alert this whole time, as you squeeze Donghyuck’s hand for the last time, amidst selfishly, before you let go of it and turn towards the door, opening it and thanking the chilly air of the night for slapping you to your face. You really needed that wake up call.

Do you really need to drive a fucking manual? 

hyuck – can you drive me to yangyangs at 8

Staring at the text message on your phone, sighing to yourself at the weird discomfort in your stomach when it appears and registers in your brain, the sound catches attention of your roommate Aeri currently getting ready on the floor of your room, pressed almost uncomfortably close to the mirror. She should really wear the glasses she was prescribed.

“Donghyuck again?” she asks, staring at you through the mirror, a mischievous grin sitting on her face as she asks the crucial question.

“How’d you know?” you roll your eyes in irony, walking over to your closet and picking out your tonight’s outfit.

“Well,” she shrugs, “one, he’s like, the only person that ever texts you except for me, and two, you had that disgustingly doe eyed look on your face.”

“I so did not–”

“You so did,” she notes, putting another coat of mascara onto her long eyelashes.

“You know what? I regret telling you about this,” you mourn, scrambling for your things around your room and putting them into your bag, practically already ready to leave the apartment alongside your roommate slash best friend. When you came home last week after the McDonald’s run at 4 in the morning, you decided that sleep really wasn’t worth it anymore– as if you could fall asleep after the hotness in your whole body despite your window being wide open– and so you took a cold shower and decided to stay up in the living room, watching Netflix (more like having the show in the background as you tried hard to not have a mental breakdown at the newly found information about yourself). Aeri found you like that at 6 in the morning when she woke up to get a glass of water, and even though she was sleepy and groggy– which was probably why you decided to spill the beans so quickly– she interrogated you about the weird look on your face and it’s been a running joke between her and herself for the whole week.

“It’s really not my fault that you find our neighbor hot,” she notes, shrugging to herself.

“When did I say that? When did I say that!” 

“Well, you said you came home all flushed and that you imagined making out with him when you dropped him off back home, so that’s basically the same thing.” 

“I did not say I wanted to make out with him!” you defend yourself. You didn’t say it. You thought about it, that’s for sure, but your roommate really doesn’t have to know that. Unless she can read your thoughts, of course.

“Yeah, whatever. You and I both know it’s true.” 

Sighing, deciding that you’re ending the conversation with your roommate as long as the topic is your annoying neighbor, you turn to your phone and finally reply to his text message.

you – can’t

He replies almost instantly, as if he was waiting at his phone for the last 15 minutes, and the predictableness of his message almost makes you chuckle.

hyuck – why

you – cuz im going you – and i wanna drink you – so i cant drive

hyuck – ok that changes things then hyuck – my original mission was to get you to go there with me but this has to do i suppose hyuck – see you there ;)

Yes, you admit that you reread the messages a little too many times for your own liking. Trying to decipher the hidden meaning behind his words, you swear your brain is running a thousand miles an hour, and realistically, this is the part where you reach for your girl best friend and ask her what exactly is happening in the chat with you and the guy you’re talking to, but after the endless teasing you’ve already heard from her side, you decide against it and just turn off your screen and put the phone into your bag with the rest of your necessities.

“If you mention something about this tonight in front of Donghyuck, I’m locking you out of the apartment.”

“Ay ay, captain!”

The journey to Liu Yangyang’s house isn’t long. He’s the only one that still lives with his parents, but you can’t really blame him– the house is huge, and they are hardly ever home, because they are always on business trips in Taiwan. Half the time, it’s like the guy owns the place, and he also acts like it too, since half of the parties you’re invited to in a year are taking place at his house. 

When you get there, it seems that everyone was already there– at least the usual group, you suppose. You don’t know who else is invited, but when you arrive to Yangyang’s basement– the part of the house where he usually hosts the more chill, laid-back parties, with low music in the background, laughter resonating through the place and alcohol being passed around between people drinking straight out of the bottles– your eyes instantly zero on Donghyuck, dressed in a light bomber jacket and skin tight jeans, you decide that burning your throat with alcohol is the best thing you can do instead of audibly moaning at the sight.

Taking one of the opened bottles of Bacardi off the little camping table situated near the corner of the big room, you take a swig, not really caring about the people who have drank out of it before you– because the pandemic has taught you nothing, it seems– when you finally walk over to the group and say your greetings. Deciding that avoiding the object of your desire for the whole evening is the best plan how to survive without doing something you’re going to regret, you engage in conversation with pretty much everyone else, completely unaware of the way your neighbors eyes are burning a hole through the side of your skull, kind of offended that you haven’t come up to him first, since as far as he’s concerned, out of all the people present in the room, you spend the most time with him in the first place (with the exception of Aeri, of course, but you two live together, so it doesn't really count). In his opinion, you didn’t need to be talking to Na Jaemin right now– you’re not even friends with the man.

But still– drinking beer out of a bottle Lee Jeno passes you somewhere in the middle of the night before he disappears with his best friend to dance with them under the cigarette haze (pretty embarrassingly, you may add) – the only thing resonating through your brain is that you got this, you’re not gonna give him a single glance, you’re not gonna think about how attractive he looks in all black.

You guess that everything about the way this evening has been going is the prime example of every single college kid’s usual Friday. Sitting in a basement of Liu Yangyang’s house, your vision cloudy with a bit of alcohol and also the sweet, piney smoke of the joint that’s been passed around the room only a few minutes prior, music lowly plays in the background, adding a relaxed, yet exciting and bubbling atmosphere to it all– it’s the epitome of the experience you imagine before you go to college when you’re 15 and gazing longingly outside of your window, wondering if life when you’re older will be better and more fun.

And while you don’t necessarily think life is better now– you do have a shitton of assignments to do and stress eating up your insides– you do think it’s kind of fun. Everything is more bearable when you have a group of friends by your side, and while you wouldn’t call every single person in this room right now your closest friend– a friend for life, even– you’d say everything is better than being stuck in your house on a Friday evening, mourning the break up of One Direction one more time as you watch This is us again with spoonfuls of ice cream shoveled into your mouth, figure cuddled up under the blanket with your roommate by your side.

The fun only lasts until a round of Truth or dare takes place, though. You must admit that it’s the fundamental part of the whole hang out, and yes, it’s the thing you always see in the movies. It adds a bit of spice to it all and it’s twice as fun to play when you’re a little intoxicated, but still– you’d like to think you’re too old for the game now, even though your friends believe otherwise and never fail to bring it up again.

This time, it’s Jaemin who brings it up. You shoot daggers to his skull, annoyed eyes and all, but you don’t think he notices as he continues to excitingly sway his arms in the air when he repeats the submission over and over again, finally heard by his roommate Jeno that’s just come back from the weird dancing session with his best friend that he’s very obviously pining over, and grins at his roommate in agreement, starting the game. 

“Not again,” you whine audibly, because frankly, if you wanted to survive the evening with no embarrassment and no weird thoughts about one of the party guests, you don’t think a game of Truth or dare is your best move. Your disgust makes your own roommate– that’s suddenly glued to your side, too tipsy to even walk (you heard her exclaim that her legs are too heavy to be used)– giggle, already familiar with your thoughts on the game. And frankly, that makes you even more terrified– because when Aeri is drunk, she talks even more than she does when she’s sober, and well, there’s no promising that all of the information you’ve ever shared with her will stay truly confidential when she’s under the influence.

“Don’t start again,” she says, shaking her head, “you always say you hate it, but you always end up playing it anyway.”

She’s right. It’s not like anyone is pressuring you, but you kind of feel like the situation calls for you to join in– because what else are you supposed to do, watch them? There’s no fun in watching if you’re not involved, and you’d feel like an intruder if you just watched them do all sorts of dares while not being in on the game. 

“Yeah, because you’d all whine if I didn’t,” you say instead, taking a sip of your drink, letting the bitter taste of beer slide down your throat as she rolls her eyes at you, nudging you in your side with her elbow.

“Just say you end up having fun,” she snickers, “nobody would think that’s weird, you know.”

“Yeah, whatever you say,” you shush her and pet her hair, taking advantage of the fact that you’re very obviously less tipsy than her, as you turn to the middle of the circle and wait for the game to start.

Usually, a couple of rounds pass before your name is called. You enjoy the tension– it feels like you have time to prepare to do whatever task their hazed minds come up with or answer whatever question that’s been burning on their tongue, yet, it also feels like a buildup before the big thing– a strange sense of climax, if you will. 

This time, it’s no different. A couple of minutes pass as you watch Yangyang lick the bottom of Jaemin’s foot– because Jeno always likes to come up with the nastiest, most worrying dares of them all– followed by the sight of Shotaro kissing the forehead of the most attractive guy in the circle (Renjun wasn’t happy with the wet peck left on his skin). The guys almost always pick a dare, and you think that’s an advantage, since before it’s your turn to finally participate in the game, they run out of ideas for dares that are possible to do in the weed-smelling basement of Liu Yangyang’s house and you can safely choose truth instead. It’s not like you’re not brave enough to choose dare– you did so many times before and never once backed away from the task, not even when you were dared to kiss the person on your right (that was the night you learned Kim Sunwoo wasn’t all that, because the drunken peck he pressed to your lips wasn’t all that appealing) – you just simply tried to pick the safest strategy for the game. 

Another kissing dare could suggest that you kiss the person you find the most attractive in the room right now. Or they could ask you for a lap dance on one of the guys. The possibilities are endless, and even though choosing the truth isn’t that much safer, since their questions could vary all the way from ‘What’s the color of your underwear right now?’ to ‘What is your favorite sex position?’, you’re trying to comfort yourself with the fact that you could just lie. You know it’s kind of prohibited, and that it also defeats the whole purpose of the game, but still– you’re not planning on embarrassing yourself tonight, and you were always a pretty good liar when it came to words. Actions? Not that much.

Sinked deep in the stained light orange fabric of the sofa, eyes half-lidded, you await Jaemin’s question as you tell him you did indeed pick the truth. And you were right, there are no protests coming out of the boys’ mouths this time around, seemingly tired of coming up with original ideas for their dares. 

“Come on, man, we don’t have the whole day,” Renjun nudges the boy into his ribs, annoyed with the lack of words from his friend. 

“Actually, we do. I don’t see the issue-”

“Just ask something already!” Shotaro whines from his position on the floor, his back pressed against the side of the sofa.

“Fine,” the man straightens up in his position, as if struck by a newly found sense of clarity, the look on Na Jaemin’s face reeking of insanity, “I've got something.” 

The room cautiously looks at the platinum-haired boy sitting on the floor, his back resting against an armchair in the corner of the room as he blinks a few times, seconds passing, yet there’s still nothing coming out of his mouth. 

“Are you gonna say something, or will you continue to act all dramatic…?” Jeno snickers, making his roommate roll his eyes at the jab, finally breaking the silence.

You’d argue that he just forgot what he wanted to say– with how Jaemin gets when he’s drunk, it wouldn’t be half surprising– but it seems like his roommate knows him better than you do, because the man speaks up fast, and suddenly, you take back all your impatient thoughts that urged him to ask you something already, because the question takes you by surprise and leaves you in shock, staring wide eyed and speechless.

“If you had to have sex with anyone in this room, who would you choose?” 

You no longer wish he took longer to ask you the question. No, you wish he would’ve sent it to you telepathically, so you could prepare your answer beforehand. You’d save yourself a lot of trouble– being met with the gaze of everyone, looking at you as they await your answer is truly not helping you with the difficult task of responding to the truth, when in reality, you don’t think you can manage to even say anything.

Because truthfully, if you were asked this question at any time prior to the weird situation you found yourself in with Donghyuck– who’s, just by the way, still present in the room, but more quiet that usual, which you shamefully notice and worry about on your insides, but don’t mention out loud– you’d think that you wouldn’t have sex with anyone in this room. It may be hard to believe– even though the men in this room aren’t the sexsymbols they often think they are– but that's the sheer reality.

But now? You feel like the truth is written all over your face, you feel like everyone can see right inside of your head and read the words straight out of your brain. It’s embarrassing. You feel ashamed.

Looking around the space, shiteating grins meeting all of their expressions, you shrug and finally get some words out, hoping they satisfy their needs for an answer. 

“No one,” you say, praying you sound confident. 

“Yeah, no-”

“Oh, come on-” 

“That’s a lie-”

Multiple voices cut into your confession, all in disbelief. If this isn’t the proof of their impressively big egos, you don’t know what is. All of them now staring at you with furrowed eyebrows, not believing a single word that’s just came out of your mouth, you start to wonder about how to convince them that you are, indeed, telling the truth, even though you’re obviously aren’t, so you don’t have to take a shot of whatever liquid the host of the party has hidden in the closet of his basement as a punishment.

“I’m serious! I’ve never looked at any of you and thought, ‘yea, I’d let him get it’,” you shrug, taking a nervous sip of the beer in your hold again.  

“Okay, but if you had to? Like, imagine someone is holding your mother captive and telling you they’re gonna kill her if you don’t have sex with anyone in this room. Who are you choosing?” Jeno squints at you, and you’re starting to believe that the man just wants you to pick him. 

“I’d have sex with Aeri,” you muse, pointing a finger to her as she’s leeching to your right shoulder, snickering.

“That’s a cop out!”

“Look, man, I don’t find anyone here hot, okay?” you shake your head at the commotion, grinning to yourself to seem more believable. And with how they roll their eyes and sigh to themselves, you think it’s working. There’s a premature feeling of relief in your insides, thinking that you’ve done it, you haven’t exposed yourself, before you hear your roommate mumble from her slumber, making your heart drop deep down into your own fucking asshole.

“Not even Hyuck?” 

Slowly spinning your head towards her, the tight smile on your face suggesting that you’re going to kill her in under approximately five seconds if she doesn’t take back what she said, you’re painfully aware of the fact that everyone’s staring at you now, grinning to themselves with a look that says they believe that Aeri knows something they don’t– she’s your best friend, after all– and you realize that you’re going to have a hard time getting out of this one. 

You should’ve expected this the moment you saw her drink that much. Maybe you should’ve stayed home today. The information about Lee Donghyuck was still too fresh in her brain to not mention when she has some to drink– you understand, in a way. At least, you’re trying to understand.

“Fuck no,” you grunt out, furrowing your eyebrows in the best acting performance you’ve managed to put on since your theatre kid days. You don’t think you’re convincing anyone, though. You’re not even convinced.

“Was that my name I heard?” 

And again, your heart drops at the familiar tone coming from the place straight opposite of you, the place that’s very obviously in your point of view, yet you’ve been successfully avoiding the whole evening to not seem as obvious to everyone that the very man has been occupying your every thought for the last week or two. You realize this is the first time he’s spoken to you this evening, if you’re not counting the text messages you exchanged before you got here, and something about the fact makes you shiver.

Meeting his eyes, because it’s the natural thing to do when someone speaks to you, you mentally curse and feel your heartbeat quickening at the grin sitting on his face. Eyes roaming his body– all against your will–  you notice the comfortable way he’s sitting on the armchair in front of you, legs parted wide and his thighs on full display, hair a little messy and eyes glossed over and blown out, since he smoked just a few minutes prior to the game, making you realize just how painfully he resembles someone who just had a long make-out session; the thought automatically leading you to think of the fact that you’d like to have a make-out session with him right now, and wow, his thighs do look inviting to sit down on.

“You wish,” you spit instead, still wanting to save the situation. Averting your gaze from him to keep yourself sane, you choose to focus on the floor instead, heat rising to the tips of your ears. 

“I mean, it seems more like you do,” he grins, the whole group snickering at the sudden quarrel in between the two of you. Your conversation suddenly reminds you of the ones you had with him before the two of you started properly talking, and something about the confident smirk on his face makes you remember just how annoying you’ve always found him whenever you encountered him at this very place. You’re back to square one for a minute, with your defensive remarks, similar to the way you used to quarrel with him before, and the familiarity engulfs you like a warm blanket.

“Your confidence amuses me,” you bite back, choosing to look at him as you say it to add more impact to your words; your decision seems to only worsen the things for you, though. The conversation admittedly sounds a little too much like flirting, and the way you notice him clutching the can of beer in his hand only makes you more flushed under his gaze.

“You don’t seem amused.”

“That’s because the idea of having sex with you makes me want to leave this room,” you grunt, shifting uncomfortably in your seat.

“I’ll take you home if you’d like,” he winks at you. Alarm sound goes off in your mind, your hands clammy as you run them through your hair, and suddenly, you’re on fight or flight. And if you can’t escape the situation, you decide to choose the latter– throwing him the most jabbing remark you can think of at this moment, fighting to keep your dignity.

“On a bike, or something?” you snicker. “As if I’d let a guy without a licence fuck me. You know that’s below my standards, Hyuck.”

An amused gasp is heard in the room when this remark leaves your mouth. The main source of the noise is Liu Yangyang, the host himself, since he likes to laugh at times when it’s the least socially acceptable. 

Now, you know that there are only a few things in which men value their social status; one of them being the amount of girls in their bed, the next one their rank in League of Legends, and lastly, their cars. And while Lee Donghyuck is known to be quite the player when it comes to the first thing in the list of social ranking between guys (or at least you’ve heard so from the girls in the locker room in the past years. Not like you were listening to their conversations whenever his name was mentioned… you just have very good hearing) and he was known to be the one that carries the team whenever any game on Yangyang’s PS5 is played in the dimly-lit basement on nights much like this one, there was something always setting him back in the neat ranking, and that something was the state of his car. 

Why? You guessed it– he doesn’t have a car. Or a licence.

To be quite frank, by the expression on Donghyuck’s face– all wide eyes and mouth agape in shock– you hit him right when it hurts, the grin falling off his face when he takes a sip of the beer in his hand, seemingly to chase down the taste of being put in his place and to have something to do to not seem as awkward and embarrassed as he must be feeling right now. 

You feel victorious, in a way– you managed to mask your very obvious sexual frustration caused by the man, while also managing to rile him up with your comment, which is definitely a first in your dynamic– adrenaline rushing through your blood as you look at him with expecting eyes, awaiting his response. The rest of the crowd laughs at your remark, only fueling the joy you feel when he suddenly averts his gaze from you, licking his lips for only a millisecond (yet it doesn’t get unnoticed by your eyes) before he snickers again, shrugging.

“Okay then,” he grunts, pressing the tip of his tongue to the inside of his cheek in annoyance, “you won.”

You know what? Once he admits to it, the feeling of victory quickly fades. Watching his frustrated face, eyebrows furrowed as he looks everywhere but at your face, suddenly, you choose to drown yourself in the rest of the beer in your bottle, relieved when you notice the game progressing without you. 

You won, he says, but you don't feel like you did. Quite the opposite, actually. You feel a tad bit defeated. 

You managed to lie to the crowd, but the very obvious pit in your stomach reminds you that you can’t lie to yourself– and now, bear with me as I say something cheesy, yet true– because even though Lee Donghyuck can’t drive, he’s still very successful at driving you crazy.

You feel like the universe is punishing you for every little, smallest thing you’ve ever done wrong in your life. You feel like whatever force is there that’s making this world go around, absolutely, completely, wholeheartedly hates, despises you, and won’t have mercy on you as you’re left dealing with the text message shining on your phone screen four days after the party, at 8 in the evening. 

hyuck – drive me to a date hyuck – please ig 

Sighing, one, two, three times, you chew on the bottom of your lip as your eyes scan over the messages, and something about the very few words makes your stomach turn and twist in an emotion you’d describe as a weird mix of disgust and shock as you mentally try to come up with a reply. And it’s hard.

It’s difficult, because you hate it, you hate it, you hate it– the way Lee Donghyuck just managed to score himself a date only four days after your ever so growing sexual frustration has started to see the light of the day, you hate the way he’s asking you to drive him there– as if to show you that he still has it, that you’re wrong, and that even though he has no car and no license to boost in front of other girls, they still want him and you’re about to witness it as you drive him there. 

And you hate it so much you start to think you’re going to chew on your own fist and throw a rock through your own window, but you strive hard not to show it. And is there a better way to seem unaffected in this situation than to comply with him? If you weren’t so jealous about the whole thing, you’d surely just make fun of him and do it, no questions asked– a friendly favor, or something. And so you do it. Like it’s nothing.

you – ok text me when you’re ready 

After a few minutes, you end up sitting in your car, hands on the wheel ready to turn (and run into the nearest car out of pure rage, possibly), waiting for Lee Donghyuck to appear on the passenger’s seat, all dolled up and dumped in cologne, presumably– and that’s exactly what happens when the door swings open and your nose is filled with his usual smell but somehow amplified, and you catch a glimpse of his leather jacket and the shirt tucked into his black jeans. You don’t outright look at him– because you’re still trying really hard not to show all of your inner thoughts on your face– and so you only turn on the engine and hum at him, already making your way out of the parking lot.

“Where are you going, then?” you ask, tone of voice completely unbothered and not too stingy or tight. “And I’m just dropping you off this time, right? Because I won’t sit there and watch you have a date and wait to drop both of you back,” you say, playing with the car radio and trying to find a station that would both satisfy your need to tune out your thoughts with a good song and the need to do something with your fingers to seem occupied.

“Of course not,” he snickers, “wouldn’t do that to poor you. And just go the way I tell you. Now turn left at the end of the street.”

Sighing to yourself at his orders, you do your best at driving your neighbor to his date while trying to ignore just how ridiculous this whole situation is. You should’ve said no back when he first asked you to be his personal driver for the semester– failing Film theory class doesn’t seem like such a bad thing in your eyes now, when you look at the situation in retrospect.

“Can’t believe you have to be dropped off at your own date and you still pull bitches,” you shake your head in disbelief, hoping, praying you seem annoyed because of your duties and not because you’d much rather have him staying in so you could catch a glimpse of him in his window, crouched down in the blue light of his room (yes, he has neon lights in his room. Yes, you teased him about it countless of times before) as he plays League of Legends or stays up on a discord call with his friends, playing Minecraft.

“See? You’re missing out,” he chuckles, shrugging to himself. 

“As if I’d ever go on a date with you,” you huff, moving to turn the volume of the radio higher so you don’t have to make small talk with him anymore, agitated, yet completely ignoring the fact that it was you who brought it up in the first place.

Hyuck moves his slender fingers along the knob of the radio and tunes the volume back down, and you’re eager to repeat your previous steps just to anger him and also so you don’t have to listen to his sneaky, egoistical remarks for any longer, when you hear him tell you the next directions and you realize that you still indeed need to hear Donghyuck’s voice, or else you’re not gonna be able to drop him off at his destination and drive away as fast as humanly possible.

The terrain around you starts to look more stranded. There are more trees than buildings in your sight, lampposts decreasing in amount as you drive further away from the city center, and only when you pass the sign that tells you that you just left the town you speak up again, now truly concerned.

“Where the fuck are you taking your date, man? To the middle of the woods?” you huff. “Is she meeting you there?”

“Don’t worry about it,” he laughs, shaking his head at your furrowed brows. Something about his casual composure makes your nerves tick off and goosebumps appear all over your body, as if you were sensing danger, when you sigh out heavily in frustration and turn to look at him for only a split second, eyes meeting with his. 

“Or are you making me drive to another fucking state, you fucker? I don’t have that much gas right now, you dumb ass–”

“We’re almost there, don’t worry,” he rolls his eyes at you, pointing somewhere into the distance again. “Just turn right there and drive up the hill.”

“Up the fucking hill?” you repeat, concerned.

“I told you to not worry about it,” Hyuck hums, settling deeper into the car seat, letting you battle your own thoughts as you follow his orders and drive up the hill for him, praying no deer decides to jump onto the road and total your car right now. 

“I worry about the girl that agreed to go on a date with you, Donghyuck,” you mutter, “I’ll tell you that, she clearly doesn’t have everything alright in the brain, because this is ridiculous.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he swats your worries away with a swing of his arm, pointing towards a place that extends out of the main road– if you can even call it that, since no cars are passing through the hill ever, much more in these hours of the day– and tells you that you can park the car there. 

And you do as you’re told, despite your never-ending complaining– that’s the dynamic you have with Lee Donghyuck, it seems. 

Stopping the car out of the main road, your car shielded from one side by a row of trees, you step on the break and look at the man to your right in question, the engine still running. “Is this it? Is this the place?”

“Yeah,” he nods, a grin slowly starting to play with his features. Something isn’t right– you feel it in your bones and see it in his eyes, but you can’t quite put your finger on it, still utterly confused and in the dark about everything. “Come on, get out of the car.”

He wastes no time in unbuckling his seatbelt and hopping out of the vehicle, his figure circling the car as he leans on the hood, turned away from you and seemingly waiting for you to follow his actions. Confused, figuring that you can’t do much more about the situation right now– where the fuck is his date? Why are we on the top of a hill? Will his date show up? – all swimming around your brain, you hop out and find his warm being, standing one step ahead of him and staring at him with stern, frustrated eyes.

“Look, isn’t it pretty?” he asks, pointing somewhere behind you. It takes everything in you to turn and gaze at the sight in front of you, your heart still weak and angrily beating against your ribcage, but you do as you’re ordered, eyes bearing into the view. 

The whole town is stretching out right below you. Now that you’ve turned the engine off and your headlights have gone out, you see the lights even better, shielded by a blanket of stars glimmering above the horizon, and you can’t help but gasp out in the beauty of it all. This place makes you want to take a picture, so you can remember how you felt while standing here and admiring the city forever– so you can remember how you felt while standing next to Donghyuck, heart foolishly drumming against your ribcage– and you suddenly realize just how badly you despise the fact that he showed this to you just to send you off while he waits for his date, as if to show you everything you could have if you went out with him, even though the question was never even on the table in the first place.

Clearing your throat, you turn to him, eyes glazing his side profile. “Where’s your date? Is she turning up? I don’t think it’s safe to make her–”

“My date’s already here,” he hums, nodding to himself. 

This does nothing to clear out the fog of confusion from in front of your eyes. “Huh? Where?”

“Here,” he repeats. The word has you wearily looking around yourself, furrowed brows and all– and that only makes the man chuckle at your antics, low voice cutting out of his throat making its way straight to the bottom of your stomach. “There’s no one else here. Just us. And no one else is coming, so will you chill out and enjoy our date, finally?” he asks, locking his gaze with you in a lazy, yet attractive manner that has your hands shaking and your brain instantly panicking.

Chewing on the inside of your cheek, you process his words for a few seconds, doing mental acrobatics and racking your brain in thought. Nothing helps. “Our date?”

“Mhm.”

“Yeah, no,” you giggle out in awkwardness, feeling unarmed and like somebody’s just dunk a bucket of hot water over you. Shaking your head, you try hard to mask the way you’re feeling on the inside right now, because what are you even feeling right now? As you do some unreadable gestures with your arms as a way of declining and canceling everything that’s happening right now. “Us? A date? Yeah, not happening–” 

You mumble out, ready to escape the situation as fastly and as efficiently as you can while you try to make your way back inside of the car, not really thinking of the journey home you’re about to have to make with him on the passenger’s seat, when a hand grips your wrist, making you stop in your tracks. You take a few steps away from him nonetheless, and the man soon follows you before your body is swiftly turned against your car, the small of your back coming in contact with the driver’s door. Your breathing is quick when the man hovers above you, and you don’t feel danger– you just feel a bit panicked at the way tonight’s playing out. A date? You wouldn’t have thought of this in your most insane dreams.

“Why are you trying to run away?” he asks, his hand still holding your wrist, his fingers firm, yet gentle on your skin.

“Because– um– because-” you stutter, eyes instantly meeting his– regret pooling in the bottom of your stomach when you realize the proximity of his gaze, something tense bundling up in your insides, “this is ridiculous, Donghyuck, you can’t just–”

“I can’t just?” he tempts you, eyebrows rising to make you continue.

“You can’t just lure me into a date with you, that’s not how this works–”

“Would you go if I asked, then?”

“No, of course not!” you shake your head at him, tone of voice a few octaves higher than usual. Your eyes scan over your companion, his face reflecting the moonlight, and you find yourself counting the moles on his cheeks and noticing his sped-up breathing, automatically matching it despite not realizing it yourself. 

“Why? ‘Cause I don’t have a driving license, or because you’re just scared to admit that you’re attracted to me?” he challenges you, quirking up his brows at you in tension. 

Something about it makes you lose all the air in your lungs. He’s so close now you swear the scent of his cologne has made you drugged up, since you can’t seem to take your eyes off his lips for the next few seconds, completely in trance and electrified, and before you know it, you’re a blubbering mess, too lost in everything that is him to come up with something coherent. “That’s- that’s just not-”

He laughs at you, he snickers, as those words escape your mouth, not even a full sentence. You bet it’s enough of a confirmation for him that you’ve officially lost all control– you can’t seem to get out a teasing remark like you usually can, no smart words calculated and thrown his way to scatter down his ego, and you think he realizes that he won. You’re defenseless, you’re weak, and you really want to make out with him right now.

Which he might have sensed out of the way you’ve been yearningly staring at his lips the whole exchange. Still, he mumbles out a small “Stop me now if you don’t want this,” just to be completely sure.

And you don’t. You don't stop him when he leans in and captures your lips with his. You’d be a fool to.

His lips crash against yours with a fever-like pace, the tension that’s been building up between the two of you making itself known in the hurried motions of your lips. His kiss is deep, hands cradling your cheeks as he angles you to lock your lips with his better, not a hint of shyness or hesitance in his motions. Your fingers shakily grasp at the front of his shirt, trying to steady yourself when each motion of his mouth against yours leaves your knees weaker and weaker, your body pressed harder against the car door.

He tastes of mint, making you suspect he planned this and chewed on a gum before meeting you, and when his teeth gently pulls at your bottom lip, eliciting a gasp from you, his tongue is left exploring the inside of your mouth, making you grow hotter and hotter under his ministrations. Your hands occupy themselves as they finally let go off his shirt and sneak around his small waist, pulling him closer, and you swear that you’ve never experienced a kiss that would leave you so eager for more before, a kiss that would leave you so weak and open for anything that’s about to happen– as if you were already naked and bare, a puddle in his palms. 

You’re soon left out of breath, gasping for air when he pulls away from you, and his kisses turn into pecks left on your lips, open mouthed kisses slowly trailing to the corner of your mouth and down your jaw, lips hungrily attaching to your neck, his nose glazing the soft skin as if to smell your scent and ingrave it into his memory. Something inside of you unties and makes you lose all of your control, finally falling fully into the sensation of the novelty of making out with Lee Donghyuck against your car, and you find your hands tying themselves into his hair, tugging at the roots when he finds the soft spot on the crevice of your shoulder that makes you squirm, and you suddenly know what all the girls in the locker rooms were talking about. Each action of his has you gasping for air, eyes pressing shut in the blissfulness of it all– the bites he leaves on your neck, smoothing them down with kitten licks each time surely leaving bruises, making your insides light up with the acts of possession.

“Hyuck–” you gasp, his mouth sucking into another spot on your neck, your head instantly moving away from his way to give him more space to work his magic.

“Hm?” he hums, a satisfied sound cutting out of his throat as his actions get more slow, more lazy, but still just as electrifying. You don’t really know what you wanted to say– perhaps you had no point of calling his name just to say it, and the hazy look in your face is enough of a proof to him when he unattaches himself off your neck and locks his eyes with you, a grin settling onto his face. “Feels good?” 

Nodding eagerly, almost a bit fast and a bit too soon to your own liking (but you’ll worry about that later), you watch him lean towards you again, lips locking with yours in need. Your fingers trail up and down his clothed back, his fingers mirroring the same, but up your loose shirt (which reminds you that you didn’t even dress prettily for the occasion– since you didn’t know this was your date you're attending), cold hands against your heated skin. Shivering from the fresh breeze of the night, you feel him grin against your lips before detaching himself from them to speak against your mouth. “Let’s move this somewhere warmer,” he murmurs before he tugs you away from the car and opens up the back door, pushing you inside.

Swiftly getting inside and closing the door behind himself, Donghyuck appears hovering above you, caging you against the uncomfortable seat. Still, you don’t have time to feel any sense of discomfort as his fingers move your hair from the way and his lips are back on yours again, leaving you no time to think of the implications of the whole situation. 

“See? Isn’t this much better than arguing with each other all the time?” Hyuck snickers again in a moment of weakness when he pulls back from your face to admire your swollen lips, and the teasing has you pushing him towards the seats, a dissatisfied look on your face. 

“Shut up,” you whisper almost hurriedly, climbing onto his lap (not before you admire his sprawled-up legs and the sight of his thighs, though).

“Make me,” he challenges.

“Gladly,” you nod, attaching yourself to his plump lips again, since you can’t seem to get enough of the sensation of them against your weak self, every sweep of his tongue with yours making you feel more heated and impatient as you move against him in his lap, the motion earning you a dissatisfied grunt sent against your mouth as his palms grip your hips with unsaid urgency.

“Don’t start something you wouldn’t want to finish,” he breathes out.

Nodding, you hum. “Who said anything about stopping?” you muse out, grinding against him harder.

You’ll worry about the consequences later.

“Why am I the only one in the shot?” you squint your eyes at the male, watching him as he points his camera to you and tells you to smile and act natural. Donghyuck has on his varsity jacket and his hair is sitting messy, a bit curled on the top of his head, his legs are covered with loose gray sweatpants instead of his usual black jeans– he looks casual, and yet, he looks amazing, you foolishly think as you sigh to yourself and walk across the field, much like the male mentioned a few weeks ago when the two of you ate fried chicken with his free coupons, trying to capture the energy of what youth feels like to you.

“Because you are the main star, honey,” he grins at you, the nickname making you trip over a little on your own feet, before you turn back to him and send him a glare.

“I told you not to call me that,” you mutter, but feel the heat from your stomach slowly rising to the tips of your ears and the tops of your cheeks, your composure slowly crumbling under his gaze. Not only are you watched by his deep brown orbs, there’s also a camera pointed at you now, and if he doesn’t stop with the weird flirting he has going on– especially after what happened between the two of you last week– you don’t know how you’re supposed to contain yourself and act so you don’t look like an utter fool in front of everyone, when the clips will be played in class next week.

“Besides, the project is due next week and this is all we’re doing? Are you sure we’re going to be able to pull this off?” you ask, wary of his confidence. You’re not really sure if Donghyuck knows what he’s doing with this assignment. Why did you even trust him with it in the first place?

“I told you to leave it to me,” he says, “now be a good girl and run down the field, maybe twirl a little like a ballerina, I dunno… Hum a little tune to yourself, do anything remotely interesting and youthful, okay?” he instructs you, and you comply, ignoring the fact that he told you to be a good girl, because after what the two of you did last week, you’re not able to register those two words in a way that would not be mildly sexual in your brain.

You two haven’t spoken about the fact that you hooked up in the backseat of your car after your weird date last week. Truth be told, you two haven’t spoken about anything since it happened, because you felt too awkward and hesitant to bring any conversation topic up. The first time you two spoke was when Donghyuck texted you yesterday about the project, and you told yourself that you simply can't ignore him when it comes to these things, and so you agreed to meet up with him, hoping he won't bring up the events of last week. You were scared. What were you scared of, exactly? You have no idea.

Something in you was almost a bit shameful to admit to yourself that you managed to fall for Lee Donghyuck this quickly. Something in you was a bit embarrassed at the fact that you let yourself be so intimate and so close with the male, and although you don’t regret it, you don’t think you want to talk about it with him (or anyone, for that matter) just yet. Or ever, actually.

And although you could be rational and tell yourself that surely, Donghyuck wanted you in just the same way you wanted him, and there was nothing embarrassing about it, you didn’t feel comfortable with talking about the act with him, because deep down, you know it wasn’t just about the sex for you and you were afraid that it was for him, and you’d rather stay in the blissful unknowingness than to know he only wanted to have sex with you and not try to go somewhere further with your relationship. Did this inner monologue reek of disgusting insecurity? 

Yes. Yes, it did. But somehow, you’re not able to do anything about it.

And so you run down the field like Donghyuck told you to, and you twirl and twist and shout and dance around, trying your hardest to act silly and youthful and exactly like he would like you to, because you’d hate to be unnatural around him, and you pray it’s enough for both the project and him included. Turning back to gaze at him from the distance, you notice that he’s not even recording anymore, only watching you with a lazy grin on his face, eyes glimmering under the direct sunlight, and you wonder how you haven’t realized just how beautiful he is when he’s simply just existing all those months ago, and how foolish you feel with the thought and both without it now. Walking up to him, you muse. 

“Are we done here?” 

“I think we got all the shots we need,” he hums, nodding to your question. There is something reassuring in his smile, and if you were confident enough to grasp at the straws, you would try to talk to him about the events of last week. You lack in many ways, though, and you were never so self-assured as you try to portray yourself to be, and so you don’t. 

“Let’s go, then,” you say, shuddering from the cold November wind as you walk away from the man, expecting him to follow you. You drove here, since the place is a few miles away from the city, and the fact that this marks the end of your project didn’t really make you as relieved and happy as you thought you’d feel back when you agreed to be his driver for the semester. 

A soft fabric envelopes your shoulders, his varsity jacket hugging you into warmth. You smell his cologne when you shyly push your limbs through the sleeves– a self-indulgent desire, too strong to be fought away– and when you look at him to thank him, he wears a soft look in his eyes that glazes you with such tenderness you feel like combusting from the inside with the strengths of your own emotions. Your heart beats fast in your chest when he tucks a strand of hair behind your ear as you walk towards the car, and when a stronger wind hits your heated face, you think that maybe Donghyuck was right, after all. 

You do think this perfectly captures what youth feels like.

“So we won’t talk about it?” he asks, and you turn away from him in fear of your emotions being clearly written on your face. He doesn’t have to name it– you know what he means.

“No,” you shake your head, determined, yet a little scared of his response, “not now.” Not yet, you think. You want to enjoy today a little longer.

“Why?” he asks.

Taking a shaky breath in, sensing that you won’t get to avoid the confrontation like you wanted to, you shrug. “I don’t know if I’m ready to hear it yet,” you bitterly laugh, meeting his eyes with something close to fear in your eyes.

“Hear what?”

“That you… you didn’t really mean anything by it, y’know,” you mumble, “I mean, you probably just did it to stroke your ego, or something, after everything I said at the party, so… yeah, I just don’t know if I wanna hear it.”

There’s a heartbeat of silence after your explanation, and Donghyuck only stares you down with a blank expression. It's not often that you don’t get to clearly see and experience all his emotions flashing through his face, letting you know what he feels even before he gets to speak it out loud. Now is one of the situations, though, and it scares you– it makes you so deeply afraid you’d rather back away from this conversation– damn you for entertaining it in the first place, and so you pretend it never happened in the first place.

“You think I did it to stroke my ego?” he clarifies.

“I- I mean…” you stutter, shying away from his gaze.

“Okay, then,” he mumbles, jaw hardening, his eyes not meeting yours when he circles the car and gets to his designated place on the passenger's seat, “that’s fine, I guess. I’ll try to show you my intentions clearer next time.”

Sitting in class, head resting in your hands as you stare right in front of you, mentally counting down the seconds until the last class of the semester starts, you are only vaguely aware of the things happening around you. You register Aeri talking to you about the new episode of her favorite drama somewhere to your right and you are also aware of Haknyeon and Shotaro sitting in the row in front of you, laughing loudly to themselves about the way their weekend went– yours went terribly, just for everyone’s information, since you decided to drown your feelings in alcohol alone in your apartment, having to be led to bed by your roommate after she got home in the middle of the night from one of her dates with Eric. You don’t really realize it when the class starts, because the monotone voice of your professor doesn’t do much to wake you up, but you are painfully aware of Lee Donghyuck’s body slumping next to yours into one of the only vacant chairs approximately 10 minutes after the class starts, out of breath and slouched over.

Aware of his presence, yet still acting like a scared deer around him, you don’t make any effort into turning to him and greeting him upon his arrival. Still, you sense the smell of his cologne filling your nostrils and making you just a bit more tired and sleepy, your eyes closing on themselves before you’re woken up by the sound of your name coming out of the professor’s mouth.

Scared you’re getting scolded for sleeping in class, you straighten your back and put on your best polite expression, but then you realize your name wasn’t called, just mentioned, and the name of none other than your neighbor was following, when the projector on the wall in front of you lights up and a file named Final projects is opened on the professor’s laptop, each .mp4 file named with a pair of surnames, and two clicks after, your final project is the first one of many presented in front of the whole class. You tried to tell Donghyuck that you could help with the final editing, but the male said he had a vision he needed to achieve, and for that, he wanted to be in charge of it alone, and frankly, out of fear of interacting with him more than was absolutely necessary, you left him to do his thing, resulting in this being your first time watching the final video as well.

There’s a few seconds of silence, a point of complete blankness as the clip starts, and a song played on an acoustic guitar starts playing when the word YOUTH, all capitalized, flashes at the screen. 

A clip of you running down the field in your flowy dress starts the video, the camera zooming in on your figure when you twirl and skip around in the tall grass, and then you laugh over the background music, the sound making you gape in surprise. You didn’t know your laugh sounded like that, and with the hazy coloring of the clips and the solemn, youthful atmosphere Donghyuck managed to capture in the video, you find yourself thinking the sound was kind of beautiful. 

Then the clip cuts into another one– and you widen your eyes at the sight, because Donghyuck told you he’s only going to include the clips from the field, and you believed him, well, because you never saw him record anything else– as the screen shows you a bunch of moments, all wordless, of you just going on with your life. The very next one is of you arriving to class late, a grumpy expression playing with your features. You didn’t notice Donghyuck filming back then, when he offered you a cup of coffee as you laid back on the desk, and a fit of giggles erupts around the class at your behavior. The next clip shows you laughing at Aeri’s shoulder in Yangyang’s basement– a couple of clips of that night following, capturing you playing beer pong with your other friends, or taking sips of your beer when you sat down on one of the folding chairs in the corner of the basement– each one showcasing you completely natural, unstaged, and raw. You had no idea anyone was watching you, yet alone taking clips of you. Did Donghyuck have his camera with him all those times? Or was he just taking those with his phone, since you never even noticed?

There’s a clip of you showing him the middle finger through the window when he called you late at night one day. Another one of you driving, and frankly, you don’t even know where you were going, but the sound of you giggling breaks through the speakers and you slouch deeper into your seat, shy at hearing the sound. The very next one is of you sipping at your boba through your straw, and that’s when you realize those were taken by his phone– at least some of them– because you attempt to hide from the lens by showing your palm against it. Another clip shows you digging through bags of McDonald’s take out in the driver’s seat of your car, another one lets you remember the time you went to get fried chicken with him, thinking he’s sending the video he took of you to tease his roommate with the free food he got with someone else back then, unaware that he wanted to use it for the project later. 

There are a few clips that only last a second. You walking a few steps ahead of him– you think it was the time you two went to the mall, you angry with his antics. Another one of you picking out cans of soda from the rack in the convenience store. A clip of you driving, once again, but now the sky is starry and dark, and you remember the night too well, since it wasn’t that long ago. A clip of you glaring at your bangs in the rear view mirror, another one of you staring into your textbooks at the library. 

There’s only one clip that shows Donghyuck as well. It’s one taken without you knowing, much like the previous ones, and how you missed the phone plopped up against the corner of your dashboard, you really don’t know, but the video shows you two in the McDonald’s parking lot, your hand touching his on the gear stick as you show him how to drive. Only then do you notice the flustered look on his face and the nervous laugh he gets out in the clip, the sound making your heart jump in your ribcage. 

The last part of the video is of you walking a few steps ahead of him, his varsity jacket hugging you around your shoulders. It’s the latest clip of them all, and it makes you painfully shy to look at it. The video comes to finish with a few last strums of an acoustic guitar in the background, and you come back to your senses when you feel a hand squeeze your thigh under the table, the whole class erupting into claps. The video was beautiful, and you feel moved.

Although you should be more mad about the fact that Donghyuck took videos of you without you knowing, there is something incredibly moving about the fact that somebody was looking at you and felt the need to capture the moment before it went away. The clips were candid, real, raw, showcasing exactly how the memory went, how your laugh sounded, and how you looked through Donghyuck’s eyes. The video was exactly what it needed to be and more. 

There’s something about the fact that all of the clips were of you that made you feel weak in your knees. If the video was what youth feels like, does this mean you were his youth?

If you felt beautiful in the video, loved the way your eyes crinkled in joy, liked the way your expressions morphed into the purest form of whatever emotion you felt at the moment, did that mean this was the way Donghyuck saw you with his eyes?

“See?” you hear him whisper into your ear, his hand still resting at the top of your leg. “I told you I had a vision. I did a good job, didn’t I?”

You chuckle, then offer him a nod. “I didn’t know you were recording all of those,” you whisper, ignoring the words coming out of your professor’s mouth– surely evaluating your work right now. You don’t really want to hear it, though– you’re sure you’ll pass. After seeing what your neighbor’s capable of, you have no doubts.

“I wanted it to feel authentic,” he peeps, “to the way I see you, I mean.”

“Is this what you meant when you said you’d prove your point later?” you wonder.

“I mean, the fact that I’ve always had the biggest crush on you was supposed to come across when I liked your objectively terrible haircut you got at the beginning of the term, but yes,” he admits, sheepishly smiling.

“Okay, uncalled for,” you shrug off his hand from your thigh, to which he giggles and captures your limb with his again, interlacing your fingers. He sways your hands back and forth, offering you a soft look that drives you slightly insane. After all of this, you’re really not sure what you were so afraid of.

“How does that roadtrip sound right now?” 

“Still absolutely terrifying,” you note. 

“Even if I pay for gas?” he laughs.

Squinting at him, admiring the boyish grin playing with his lips, you sigh. “I’ll think about it.”

[puimoo]

Some thoughts on Dick's parents, away from the rose-tinted glasses.

[Obligatory ‘new to comic canon’ warning!]

I was working on writing up my thoughts on young!Dick in general, when I kept getting stuck in my thoughts around how there are particular personality traits he likely already possessed before coming into Bruce’s care. This led me down the Grayson family route, which is always interesting. In everything I have consumed so far, this is always portrayed as a very loving relationship that hasn’t really been explored in much depth in canon. Which leads me to…

I completely understand why Dick loves his parents so deeply and don’t doubt at all that they loved him, but there is also this interesting selfishness with them that I find difficult to ignore.  I can’t help but keep coming back to this: they included Dick in an act where they chose not to have a net.  A position where, if he makes a mistake, it could mean his death or (probably worse for Dick) the death of his parents. This isn’t a situation that occurred out of necessity, his parents chose to do this: they could have chosen to use a net when they started involving Dick in their act, but they didn’t.  They could have chosen to wait until Dick was older and more able to make a call about what risks he could and couldn’t take, but they didn’t.  When the options were to adapt their act to protect their son or to keep it as they wanted to, they chose the latter – and I would say because the act wouldn’t be the same if they did.  I very much doubt it’s because they didn’t realise the risk involved, and rather that it wasn’t enough to get them to make changes. 

And so, you have an 8-year-old Dick Grayson who has likely been training for years under the knowledge that if he doesn’t get things perfect – if he makes a mistake – he and his parents could/would die (and it would be his fault).  You have an 8-year-old Dick whose parents are willing to risk his well-being for the ‘greater good’, and he sees this as normal – this is how families are, the payoff is worth it. You have an 8-year-old Dick who likely doesn’t value his own life quite as much as he probably should, because his parents didn’t exactly appear to, either.  You have an 8-year-old Dick Grayson dealing with adult responsibilities and adult consequences. 

This is all drummed into Dick at some level before Bruce even enters the picture. It helps explain why young!Dick struggles to understand why he shouldn’t be able to fight at Bruce’s side – his parents included him in situations that could (and did) turn deadly, and they didn’t feel the need to include a physical or metaphorical safety net.  This is going to sound really harsh, but I think it’s also kind of true: they didn’t value Dick enough to. The act was more important, and the show must go on.

I don’t doubt at all that his parents loved him.  In some ways, it’s even worse that this comes from a place where there is likely love because it gets as deeply ingrained as those healthier, positive parental elements.  However. There is an interesting prioritising of their act over Dick, and I’d love to see this explored more.  Less the perfect, untouchable parents and more the actually somewhat morally grey parents who had both a positive and negative impact on their son.

(or: we really throw the cat amongst the pigeons and hypothesize that the reason they don't use a net with Dick is because it is part of his preparation for the Court of Owls, but that is not simply taking off the rosy glasses but smashing them completely!)

[yelenasdiary]

Omg your requests are open lol

I humbly ask for something adorable and fluffy for BuckyNat x R. Like maybe just some cute domestic activities after the three of them have been super busy and they're finally able to catch up with each other and just be together 💕

Bonus points for including Alpine and Liho

Free Time

Pairing: BuckyNat x Fem! Reader

Summary: After what felt like months, you and your partners finally had a week off from work, allowing you all to enjoy some much-needed quality time. 

Fluff

Warnings: None | 1.1K

Translations: Detka (baby),

AC: I love me some BuckyNat! Thank you for sending this! I hope you enjoy it x

You couldn't help the soft smile that tugged at your lips as you stirred the butter chicken sauce to keep it from burning. You'd been waiting for this night since Fury said that everybody is to take a little break from work to relax and recharge. This meant that you would finally be able to have some much-needed quality with your partners.

Bucky and Nat were doing some last-minute mission reports before clocking off for the week, meaning you had the perfect window to cook them dinner. Cooking was one of your favorite hobbies, you loved cooking for people but mostly you loved cooking for Nat and Bucky. 

Your shared apartment smelled like an Indian restaurant, which only made you even more hungry. Your favorite playlist played softly in the background while you danced around the kitchen, grabbing plates and glasses from the cupboard before setting the table. You couldn't wait for them to come home and be able to enjoy a home cooked meal and a movie on the sofa with Alpine & Liho head butting for pets. 

Nat & Bucky came home just as you had finished dishing up the butter chicken, rice and naan bread as if the smell lured them home to you. "Something smells good detka!" Nat smiled softly before she gently pulled you in for a kiss. Bucky following behind her, "butter chicken? my favourite!" He chipped in, placing a kiss on your cheek. 

"Well, before you even think about sitting at the table, you need a shower! You smell" you chuckled, noticing he was in his gym clothes that had a noticeable sweat stain at his collar. 

"Yes ma'am" he winked before making his way to the bathroom. 

"How was your day?" Natasha asked as she wandered into the living room to kick off her shoes. You placed the dishes on the dining table and took a seat, waiting patiently for your lovers to join you. "It was boring but Alpine, Liho and I had a pretty fun game of laser!" You replied.

“Ah, that would explain why they’re basically passed out” Nat chuckled lightly. 

After a dinner full of conversations and laughs, you and Nat allowed Bucky to pick the first movie. It was no surprise that he had picked The Godfather. You sat between Nat and Bucky, Nat rested her head on your shoulder while Bucky wrapped an arm around the two of you and soon enough, Alphine and Liho woke up, jumping up onto the sofa to be sure they wouldn’t miss out on any snuggles. 

----

The next morning, Liho woke you by jumping up onto the bed and headbutting you for a morning pet. The bed was empty, making you frown slightly at the loneliness of being in such a big bed by yourself. You gave the cat a good pat before you slipped out of bed and wrapping your night gown around your body. 

“You know, I’m never going to let it down that you burned pancakes” Bucky chuckled as he poured maple syrup over his stack of 4. Hearing his comment to your girlfriend made you smile softly knowing they were still here, “Nat, don’t tell me you actually burned pancakes” you chipped in. 

Natasha playfully rolled her eyes, “it was Alpines fault, she almost knocked the batter over” she said, defending herself. 

“Sure, sure” you teased before taking a seat next to Bucky at the dining table. “Good morning doll, did you enjoy your sleep in?” He asked. “You guys could’ve woke me” you reached for the plate of pancakes. 

“You looked so peaceful though and you did cook the best butter chicken I’ve ever had, take it as my gift to you!” Bucky smiled. 

“Besides, we don’t have any plans until late this afternoon” Nat added, taking a mouthful of pancake. “What plans?” You questioned with a cocked brow. 

“It’s a surprise” Bucky replied. 

“Oh, come on! you know I can’t handle knowing there’s a surprise coming!” 

Both Nat and Bucky chuckled, “and you should know just how much we love to tease you” Nat said. 

After breakfast, the three of you went grocery store. Natasha pushed the cart while Bucky and you ticked items off the shopping list. His hands interlocked with yours as the three of you walked up and down each aisle, “come on baby, tell me what the surprise is” you said in an almost whisper so Nat couldn’t hear. If anybody was easy to break a secret, it was Bucky.

“Sorry, doll, no can do” he smiled before placing a kiss on your temple. You sighed playfully while you racked your brain for any idea of what might be the surprise they’re holding from you. 

“I think that’s everything” Bucky spoke, looking back at Natasha before the three of you headed for the checkout. 

After that, it was a quick drive home to unload and pack away the groceries then back out again for a little late lunch before it was off to the surprise date that Bucky and Nat had in mind for you. Nat gently put a blind fold on you once the car had come to a stop, “guys, I’m nervous!” You said as Bucky took your left hand and Nat took your right, helping to guide you. 

“Just a little longer, I’ll love it!” Bucky’s voice eased your nerves but made you more excited for what was planned. You felt like you were stomping your feet as your lovers led you to a stop eventually, “ready detka?” Nat questioned. 

“Yes!” You replied with excitement. Slowly, Bucky removed your blind fold to reveal a large hot-air balloon in front of you. “Surprise!” Bucky and Nat said in sync. A date on a hot-air balloon had been on your bucket list since you could remember. Your smile grew bigger as you turned to face your lovers. 

“No way!!!” You almost jumped with happiness before hugging them both tightly. 

“Anything for you doll! We’ve had this planned for weeks” Bucky smiled. 

“Are you sure this isn’t because I made you one of your favourite meals?” You joked. Nat lent forward and whispered, “that’s exactly why” she chuckled. 

“I thought so!” 

----

The views from the hot air ballon were better than you could ever image, the wind softly blowing through your hair as while Bucky had his arms wrapped around you, Natasha snapping a phot of the two of you before turning the camera to selfie mode just to capture a photo to add to the photo albums. 

You gently pulled Natasha closer, gently kissing her deeply. “This is beautiful, thank you” you smiled softly, “Like Bucky said detka, anything for you” she smiled softly.

~~~~

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[luvyeni]

10 DAYS TO FALL IN LOVE — chapter 8. jays party !

word count. 0.8k+ content warning. drug usage, mentions of alcohol, angst, jake is lowkey dumb

You sat in your seat legs folded — jumi in your lap as you typed away at your computer trying to finish the essay. You sighed, stretching as jumi began to meow. “You hungry baby?” you picked her up, sitting her on the floor. “Let’s go get you some food.” You stood up, walking out the room, your cat following behind.

“Here you go girl.” You sat her bowl down, giving her a head pat — your phone began to ring. “Okay baby eat your food.” You made your way back to your room.

You assumed it was heeseung because he was  a supposed to call — and you definitely kept looking at your phone, but you lowkey frown when you realize it was his number. “what do you want sunoo.”

“Now why are you answering the phone like that?” He said before you heard hanni in the back muttering something about it not being the time. “dumbass.” You heard her say much clearer showing that she now had the phone. “we need you to come get us, your car is out the shop right?” Your friend said — you had forgotten all about your car since heeseung started driving you. “yeah.”

“Well then hurry, jungwon was our designated driver, but dumbass went and got himself drunk.” Sunoo shouted over the music. “okay here I come, make sure he’s okay.”

You search for your keys, grabbing your shoes, before making your way to your parking garage to your car to go save your friends.

You knew where jay lived, and the drive wasn’t far so you got there quickly, jumping out of the car to go find them. “yn!” you heard hanni’s voice, you turned and they were running over to you. “we lost him.”

“You what?” you shouted. “we were waiting and he complained about going to the bathroom, so we let him.” The girl explained. “and now he’s somewhere in the house.” you didn’t plan on going into the house, but it looks like you were now. “Im gonna kill him when I find him.”

You all make your way into the house , splitting up to find your friend. Making your way into the kitchen to see if was in there. “yn?” you turned thinking it was jungwon, your face dropping once you saw who it was. “Leave me alone jake.” He looked you up and down at your outfits — you definitely weren’t dressed for a party. “nice sweatpants, your tank top doesn’t match that.”

“Have you seen jungwon?” you asked. “who?” he questioned, you were about to ask him again when you finally saw his eyes — he was high, so there was no way you were getting anything out of him. “nothing move.” You pushed him out the way. “wait , he's over there.” He pointed. “That’s where I seen him with her.”

Thinking he was talking about jungwon you follow his instructions, making your way through the crowd. “jungwon.” You called out — someone bumping into you. “im sorry– yn?” you recognized the voice immediately. “heeseung?”

There he stood, a girl sitting next to him — he immediately dropped her hand. “what are you doing here.” He asked, you looked in between them, and you weren’t stupid. “I could ask the same about you, when jake told me he was over here i thought he was talking about jungwon.” You said. "Jake told you where i was?" he stared at you about to open his mouth when you finally noticed how he was acting and he could barely stand up.

“You’re high.” You scoffed. “aren’t you?” he didn’t say anything. “right, goodbye heeseung.” You went to turn away but he grabbed your hand. “wait yn.” You snatched your hand away. “let me explain.”

“explain what, that you lied to me, told me you weren’t coming here, told me you weren’t gonna get high, that you weren’t hooking up with other girls, made me fall for this bullshit, that you actually changed.” You felt yourself getting upset. “don’t be so dramatic yn.”

“don’t be dramatic?” You questioned. “fucking asshole.” You scoffed. “yeah it’s not a big deal, you knew how I was.” He said. “yeah but you’d promise to change.” He shrugged. “well, who’s fault is that, that you believed me, did I change back then?”

You didn’t even want to fight, he wasn’t even sober so you’d just get no here. “you’re right , that was my mistake.” You said , just as hanni came over. “we found jungwon.” She asset the situation, frowning. “yn?”

“let’s get jungwon and get out of here.” You grabbed her arm , dragging her away. “yn— I don’t want to talk about it.”

You both found jungwon and sunoo outside , jungwon crouched down groaning. “yn!” he shouted once he saw you. “you’re here!” he drunkenly wrapped his arms around you. “oh?” he grabbed your face. “why do you look so upset?” he slurred. “don’t be upset.” He stumbled. “get in the car.” You ignored what he said, helping hum in the car.

The drive to the boys dorm was silent until sunoo spoke up. “what’s wrong yn?” You gripped the steering wheel. “nothing.” You said, he turned to hanni, who just shook her head and it  continued to stay silent until they made it home.

You dropped hanni off at her dorm who sat in the front seat almost scared to say something. “he’s an asshole.” She said as you pulled up. “yeah.” Was all you said. “fuck him.” She opened the door. “yeah.”

She quickly touched your arm comforting you, getting out the car. “drive safely.” She waved you off, as you drove away.

You felt the tears streaming down your face as you drove back to your dorms, you hated him so much right now, you hated the fact that you allowed him back into your life just to hurt you again.

You hated that this time you actually fell in love with him.

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©️LUVYENI

[bakugosatoru]

You and Bakugo adopt a kitten together

Requests Open!

Warnings: None Genre: Romantic Fluff Fic Type: Short Fanfic (1k Words) Fandom: My Hero Academia

Authors Note: I actually work at pet store and thought about this story in my head while working so now I shall share it with all of you.

"I still dont understand why we couldnt get a big dog" grumbled Bakugo, as you wandered the rows of cages full of all myriad of rescued dogs and cats.

"I don't know, maybe because our apartment lease very clearly states 'no dogs'? Besides, it wouldn't be fair honey, our apartment isn't exactly a penthouse, and with how much you and I are away with work? Poor thing would go crazy" You calmly explained for the hundredth time to your moping boyfriend.

It was his own fault, he had let his guard down. About a week ago you were both lying on the couch after a long mission and an ad came on the television about a rescue shelter near your apartment that had animals looking for their forever home.

"You know it could be fun to have a kitty, I had one growing up" You mumbled, cuddling up into your boyfriend on the couch.

"Oh? Yea sure honey" He mumbled, clearly a little too tired to be fully paying attention.

But that was all the confirmation you needed.

So here you were, walking the rows of dog and cats, looking for the new perfect addition to your little family. Your eyes scanned the various kittens in the various enclosures and you felt your heart melt, you just wanted to take them all home. But no, Katsuki made you promise you were only getting one on the drive here.

Finally you reached the room at the end of the hall. The shelter had placed the kitties that were up for adoption into the room for prospective families to take a look at, so you and Katsuki slipped through the two doors (to prevent any kitty escapees) and into a room full of fluffy balls of joy.

"Babe there's so many! Look how cute!" You beamed, stepping towards a small ribbon toy and picking it up, four or five kitties flocking to your feet as you swirled it around.

Katsuki just smiled as he stood back, watching you spin around, the kittens running after you. He wandered over to the bench on end of the room and sat down. You were the one that wanted the stupid cat after all, he was happy to just let you pick. But he couldn't help but smile at your excited squeals as the kitties clambered all over you.

Suddenly, he felt a sharp sensation in his leg. He looked down to see two small kittens, quite a lot smaller than the rest, clawing their way up his pant leg.

"Dumb cats, what are you doing? Your going to put holes in my pants you know!" He grumbled, with no real malice in his voice, as the two small kittens curled up into his lap. His hands hovered over the small creatures, not exactly sure what to do with them.

Gentle had never exactly been his forté

"Aw Katsuki honey, they like you!"

Bakugo looked up to see you walking over, that gorgeous smile on your face that always made him melt.

God you were too good for him.

"Dumb idiots just crawled up my pant leg and sat here, probably just think i'm a warm bed" He grumbled as you sat down next to him. You rested your head on his shoulders and you reached out and began to softly stroke the head of one of the kittens. A quiet purring radiating from it. Katsuki slowly lowered his hand to the other kitten, being as gentle as possible, using his fingers to scratch its head and around its ears. Soon enough, that kitten joined his friend in purring.

"That means they're happy right?" Bakugo mumbled

"Mhm" You smiled, pressing a small kiss to his cheek. There was nothing you loved more than seeing your loud, strong, and sometimes rough around the edges boyfriend turn into a gentle giant.

"I don't know how we're going to pick just one" You sighed, looking at the two kittens in your boyfriends lap. Bakugo paused for a second, before sighing.

"I know what your doing" He said, exasperated.

"I have absolutely no idea what you mean" You smirked

"Whatever, dumb idiot should have a friend or whatever." He grumbled, cradling both the kitties in his arm as he stood up to go find an employee to help with the paperwork.

"You mean it? We can get both?!" You leapt from the bench following your boyfriend and holding his free hand.

"Only if I get to name one of the dumb things" He grumbled, but he couldn't hide the smile curling at the side of his lips as he waved over the employee.

So after about an hour of paperwork, many thank you kisses, and a short ride home, you welcomed two new little fluffy creatures into your family.

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

Bonus

"Babe you cannot name him Grenade" You laughed, cradling one of the kittens in your arms as you looked down at your boyfriend, sprawled out on the floor, playing with the other kitty.

"You said I could name one, that was the deal" He said, his smile evident in his voice.

"Come on! I named this little one Blossom!" You said, rolling yourself off the couch and onto the floor, allowing the two kitties to play together as you curled into Bakugo's side. His arms wrapping around you and pulling you closer.

"Hmmmm" He hummed, his chin resting against the top of your head.

"Explosion?"

"No"

"Murder"

"Absolutely not"

"Gunpowder kitty of death"

"Babe!" You laughed, wacking him in the arm with a cat toy that was laying on the ground.

"Well then, that settles it, Grenade it is" He said triumphantly, before turning your head slightly and catching your lips in a soft kiss.

"I love you dummy" You hummed as his lips parted from yours.

"I love you too babe, and our two new dumb cats" Bakugo sighed happily.

[snakes-and-fluff]

Contemplating when blood is explictly shown in Milgram MVs and for what purpose. (Plenty of shots of blood and bloodied people below the cut)

Both of Muu's songs show a pretty clear-cut image of the murder, blood and all.

But it's interesting to note that, while Muu does show realistic blood in both MVs, in After Pain it's only for a single shot: most of the shots of Rei's body have her covered in a neon green liquid instead - the same liquid inside the hourglass. But in It's Not My Fault, while the hourglass does return, it's not used as a stand-in for blood this time, only showing realistic shots of blood at the scene.

Realistic blood is again shown in The Purge March and although this whole scene is metaphorical, it is highly likely that this is what the state of the actual weapon would have been.

Some of the blood in MeMe appears to be representative of real events (though the circumstances around the murder are still so vague I can't say for sure), but some of it is clearly over-exaggerated for dramatic effect and not a representation what literally happened.

Sometimes blood is purely symbolic, like in Cat (in addition it is coloured pitch-black, even on Hinako's face when the lighting should make it appear brighter).

Similar to the above, the blood in Bring It On is symbolic of Fuuta's guilt, but is portrayed with more realistic colouration.

Then you have Haruka's weird midground, where he has blood in both his MVs, and both are heavily stylized (albeit in different ways). If the shot at the end of All-Knowing and All-Agony is any indication, he strangled his victim which should have been a bloodless death, but he has engaged in literal bloody activity before (killing pets), so his blood appears to be both metaphorical and literal.

At the end of Deep Cover, Kotoko stands covered in neon pink blood, chess pieces representing the other prisoners scattered about her feet. But the only pieces that are shown are those voted Innocent in T1 - those she has not yet attacked. So the blood here is not representative of any particular event, but rather her intentions.

But if that's the case, what does that say for Double, which portrays John standing in a train, dripping with blood the wrong colour as he attacks mannequins? Is this merely a mental block he has because he cannot clearly remember the events? Or, like Kotoko's similar theming above, is it purely metaphorical, indicating his emotions rather than his actions?

Then we get to Milgram Enigma Number 1, Mahiru. I Love You undoubtedly shows realistic blood, but whether it is literal or not is left very unclear. If the only bloodstain present was the one on his torso I'd be more inclined to believe it was truly all a metaphor; a betrayed or bleeding heart. But that doesn't explain the stain on the sleeve. And of course, it begs the question: if it is metaphorical, what is it representing? Fuuta showed guilt by recoiling at the blood on his hands, and Kazui showed remorse and how he feels like a monster by tearing a dove apart. But we don't see Mahiru cause this wound, nor does she react to it. As of right now I don't understand enough about Mahiru to form a concrete conclusion but if the trend in the other MVs is anything to go by, I'm afraid that these bloodstains might be more literal than I want to believe.

Interesting to note that Fuuta is the only character to show blood in his T1 MV but not the second, and both Yuno and Shidou show no blood in either MV (ironically enough for Shidou, as things like rotting fruit have to take the place of organs and blood instead)

[dallasgallant]

I never realized it before until recently but it’s so crazy how much and how often ponyboy babies johnny in the book….. always talking about him being the pet of the group (which is true but he really does talk about him like he was a dog or a cat like chill out girl 😭), how much hero worship he has for everyone around him, his stature and soft spoken-ness, pony really seems to preserve him by making him seem like 10 years old even though he describes many situations in which johnny is taking care of him especially in windrixville like staying awake for him on the train letting him sleep on him, his own jacket as a blanket when he goes to buy them food, etc lol I hope you get what I mean I don’t have the book with me rn so I can’t really give off exact examples off the top of my head but—

also maybe that’s why people are often soooo turned off by the concept of J and D being a ship because of how PB describes him, I’ve seen people think that J was the same age or younger than him and so they think of a big brother/little brother dynamic for jally when they actually seem more on equal ground than pony and dally (who in a kind of mentor/mentee relationship) and even pony and johnny (who I’d say are in more of a brother relationship… controversial opinion I know but I’m sticking with it!) in fact I’d say they’re the Most on equal ground in the whole story even more than soda and darry…. but I’ll let you guys figure that out on your own… even though JD only have a 1.5 age difference

okayyyyy so I definitely didn’t mean to make this about the ship dynamics of the book but I guess I can’t not be gay for five fucking minutes 😭😭😭 but it’s relevant to the point !!! idk I just felt like rambling to someone about it because pony really does talk about him like he’s so little and I think that really muddles the perception of johnny even though he’s trying to honor his memory because of the delicate ways he’s trying to protect him after he died :(

johnny cade they will never make me hate you </3

Oh yeah, I definitely think a lot of it is Pony’s recognition of himself as the youngest, as a “baby” and sort of projecting it off onto someone else. However, we know the gang doesn’t just see pony as “the kid brother” so it’s sort of his own issue to work out- as well as I think a bit of a lack of understanding? Or lack of a way to properly explain the way the gang treats Johnny, they take it a little easy on him as he’d been shaken pretty bad (they wouldn’t known/use ‘traumatized’ but they would know he changed a little) but they never really talk down to him.

No but yes I agree! Pony sort of washes over a lot of senecios where Johnny is clearly the older/more mature of the two of them. He’s the second youngest but he’s still 16. He’s still protecting and helping Pony like the rest of the guys and the whole “my fault for dragging a 13 year old kid along” detail…

No you’re right honestly. It’s weird to me as Johnny’s described as soft and close to Ponyboy but he never came across as 14 or that young to me in the book or movie— like there was always that knowledge to him that revealed his age. And I agree… he and Dally are on equal footing and trust. They have something going on whatever way you interpret it…. Personally I find “little brother” INSANE. As where people baby Johnny they over age Dallas… he’s 17 it’s a years age difference. If a friend barely older than me tried to pull that I’d throat punch them 😭 it’s ? They’re trying to make it cute but it feels a little demeaning? Putting the “little” in there. Dal doesn’t talk down to Johnny… honestly he talks up to him, gets mad expecting him to know better etc — trusts him with the gun, money etc everything and taking responsibility.

But no that’s also so sweet that in a way, even if Pony is being a bit off in how Johnny was treated that he’s trying to sort of protect him within his story. Honor him in a strange way. Ough. He was his best friend, you’d want to sweeten that image. Absolve.