#there is nothing you can do to come back from that. at all. you are no longer allowed to be around me or the people i care about

[mostly-imagines]

Motion Sickness

jason todd x fem!reader

aka jason makes you cry after a fight

warnings: angst with comfort

“Jason—”

He waves you off immediately, “No, I’m not your problem, okay?”

Your arms drop, “You’re not a problem at all, that’s not what I’m saying—”

“Then what are you saying?” he challenges. 

You almost bite your tongue but then decide against it, “I’m saying you’re being an asshole right now just because I tried to help.”

He’s angry and you’re someplace in between desperate and tired, but you push on, hoping you’ll be able to solve this without an extended argument. To little avail though, apparently. 

A tense exhale from him, “I don’t need your help, I don’t know how I can make it any clearer.”

“It’s not about needing it—”

“No, it’s about wanting it. I don’t want your fucking help,” he snaps. “I’m grown, I can handle my problems myself.”

You drop your hands to your sides, “Then what am I doing here, Jason?”

“I don’t know!” You can literally see the regret sweep over his face but he lets the moment consume him and the words linger anyways. 

You know he doesn’t always think before he talks, especially when he’s mad. You’ve seen it plenty when he’s fighting with his family. This is the first time it’s shown up with you though, and while you know it’s not coming from a place of genuinity—it still really fucking stung. 

Far from being in your control, tears slip out, more at his tone than his words, and you remove your gaze in favor of the linoleum tiles. He says nothing as you start to cry, which only makes the heat of the moment worsen. 

“Okay,” You take a deep breath, pursing your lips. “You need to go away.”

There’s a long, hard moment of silence, but ultimately he doesn’t fight you on it, only exhales harshly and slams the door on his way out.

The resulting reverberation of the apartment has your shoulders shaking, tears falling onto your shirt.  

You and Jason don’t fight often but when you do it’s usually about insecurities and fears coming forward. He’d been having a bad night to start with and all you wanted to do was make him feel better but he wasn’t willing to talk to you or let you do anything for him. He gets selfishly selfless like that, but you know why.

You know him, in and out. You could’ve anticipated this—you should’ve. You should’ve approached the topic more sensitively. And it’s not his fault, his life has taught him that it’s safer to believe that other people don’t have his best interest. You know that. 

Yeah, you know him in and out, but he knows you in and out, too. He knows you’ve shown him nothing but kindness and generosity since the day you met and you’ve reinforced a thousand times how safe you are for him. But if he still can’t trust you to care about him, then what are you doing here?

You let yourself fall back onto the arm of the couch, huffing in defeat. 

It’s nearing two in the morning when Dick awakens, the bandages across his abdomen digging into his skin uncomfortably. He sits up, bedsheet pooling around his waist. The ache of the bruising pushes him towards his old bedroom door before he’s even fully coherent, narrowly missing shouldering the door frame as he passes through.

He’s still half asleep as he thumps down the staircase, cold hands stuffed in the pocket of his sweatshirt. He’s so out of it in his blind search for painkillers, that he nearly misses the large shadowed figure huddled up on the couch.

Dick stills, blinking warily.

“What’re you doing here?”

His younger brother says nothing, only continues to stew in the shadows, staring at the rug.

As his eyes adjust, Dick takes in his appearance: messy hair, tired eyes, only clad in a t-shirt and sweatpants.

He rubs his eyes, approaching with measured steps, “What happened?”

Jason remains silent for a long minute before grunting out, “Got in a fight.”

Dick nods slowly, shuffling forward a little more to sit on the far end of the couch. 

“What’d you do?”

Jason doesn’t have it in him to comment on how his brother immediately knew he was the issue. It just makes the entire thing hurt even worse. Instead, he tells the truth. 

“Be myself.”

Dick says nothing, 

When the silence persists, Jason elaborates, even though it’s the last thing he wants to admit to.

“I made her cry,” he says, voice below even a whisper. He hates it and he hates himself for leaving you when he knew he’d hurt you.

Dick nods, not saying anything. He’s definitely been there before, though he’s not nearly as volatile as Jason can be, so he can imagine how this likely played out. In any case, Jason has never responded well to being pushed to talk about his feelings so Dick lets him get there in his own time.

He’s half expecting to end up with no results at all, but Jason pipes up after a minute, voice broken.

“I don’t know what she wants me to do,” he rasps.

Dick takes a deep breath, adjusting his posture. “When girls are mad you give them space but when they’re sad you definitely don’t. Is she sad or mad?”

Jason exhales desperately.

“Both, I think.”

Dick nods, understanding.

“Then go home.”

Jason shakes his head, defeated. “She told me to leave. She doesn’t want to talk to me.”

“What did you say?”

He huffs, not wanting to bring the memory back up. “I basically told her to fuck off.”

“Yeah,” Dick drawls. “I wouldn’t let that simmer.”

Jason’s head snaps over to him. “She’ll break up with me?”

“No, I don’t—” Dick pauses, thinking over his words. “It’ll be fine. Just go home.”

Despite taking the long route on the way to the manor, Jason sped back home on his bike, now unwilling to leave you alone for another second longer than he had to. 

He creeps through the front door of your apartment, proud and only a little hurt that you’d remembered to lock it. 

The apartment’s mostly quiet, nothing but a lamp lighting up the front half. He can hear the shower running from where he stands, the waterfall noise awfully muffled from behind the closed bathroom door.

He bolts the door behind him, pushing forward towards the hallway. He approaches the bathroom door, noticing how there’s no light flooding out from underneath.

“Baby?” Jason calls it out quietly, like he’s scared to commit to alerting you of his presence.

He hears no response, but he knows you heard him. He knows you heard him in the same way that he knows you’re sitting on the shower floor, curled in on yourself under the sensory relief that the pouring water brings. He doesn’t know how, he just does.

So he leans against the door, listening closely, and calls out again, “Can I come in?”

There’s a solid ten seconds of silence before you respond, just barely audible over the cascade of water.

“Not right now.”

Your volume has him wincing, saddened and embarrassed that he’s the one that made you feel like this.

He reluctantly walks back to the bedroom with heavy shoulders, thudding his weight down on the mattress. He sits half folded over himself for the next ten minutes, thinking only of you, sitting alone in the shower with your thoughts.

He perks up considerably when he hears the water shut off, and after several long minutes, you emerge from the bathroom, towel wrapped around your middle.

He stands up when you enter the bedroom, hands stiff and awkward at his sides. You barely look at him, having trouble willing yourself to do more than glance. 

Your eyes fall downward, your lips pursing. You instinctually move to clutching the towel tighter around you, more than anything because you don’t know what to do with your hands. 

It makes his heart break to see you so out of comfort around him—because of him—so he gives you the benefit of privacy, turning around so you can get dressed. It kills him to do it, makes him feel like he’s just some stranger in your life rather than him. But he supposes that he deserves to feel like that right now. 

Whether or not you wanted him to turn around goes unsaid, he can only hear the quiet shuffling of you putting clothes on.

He waits until the movement stops, after he hears the squeak of the bed springs and the faint sound of the sheets being pulled up.

He turns around again with a silent sigh, taking in the sight of you laying in bed, back turned to him.  

He approaches slowly, stopping just before his knees hit the mattress. He notices quickly that the t-shirt you’d chosen was one of your own. He frowns.  

“Sweetheart. Can I touch you?” His voice is soft and low, like he’s trying to coax you back out to him.

It takes a long few moments, but you nod.

He sits down on the bed, still hesitant to go through with it.

“Will you turn over?”

An even longer pause and you’re flipping over to face him. You don’t make eye contact, only look blankly past him. Your blinks are heavy, and even in the dark, he can see that your eyes are still bloodshot. 

He brushes your hair back, his fingers feather-light against you, like he’s scared to touch you too harshly. Like he’s touching porcelain.

He lets you hold the silence for a while, reasoning with himself that you’ll talk when you’re ready.

You let it go on longer than he’d hoped, past the point of him knowing what to do with it. He’d hoped you’d yell at him. He can take that, he knows he can. He can see plainly that you’re thinking deeply and wants more than anything for you to say it, scream it if you have to. 

He knows he deserves it and he frankly would take anything over the silence. But then again, he doesn’t deserve the reprieve, does he? No, but he’s not strong enough to deny himself the chance to hear your voice.

“Say it,” he urges. “Please.”

Your fingers tap against the bed sheets for a moment before you sit up, almost defeated. 

You face him, taking a breath and relenting. “I don’t like that you said that to me.”

He nods, brow deep. “Me neither.”

Your shoulders sag at that, and you feel stuck in the moment. You feel guilty too but you don’t know if you should. He didn’t mean it, you know that, and they weren’t his words, really. But the snap of his voice when he’d said it and the look on his face—it made you feel terrible. It still does.

You look awkwardly to the left, feeling heavily spectated by him and so hyper-conscious of all of your movements. The downturn of your lips gives way to burning in your eyes and before you can do anything about it, tears are spilling out. 

Jason sees it immediately, his head lulling helplessly. 

“Oh, baby. Please don’t cry, please.”

But that only makes it worse, the tears falling faster and heavier at his soft tone.

He forgoes asking permission and pulls you directly into his chest, a firm hand on the back of your head. It’s what you needed though, to be close to him right now.

“I’m sorry. I’m really fucking sorry, baby—” he murmurs against your hair, pressing a rough kiss as he holds you tighter.

You shake your head, sniffling. “It’s okay, Jay.”

“No, it’s not.”

That sentiment lingers for several minutes, as he holds you cheek to chest and rubs soothing patterns into your hair.

It’s not long before you’re able to fully relax against him, his touch feeling nothing short of therapeutic. Your breathing eventually levels out back to baseline and your thoughts start to find peace amongst themselves.

When you’re ready, you sit back from him, letting him see your face again.                    

He visibly winces as he scans over the tears on your cheeks, how they’re starting to stain.

You’re still upset, a little, but not nearly as much as you’re sure your face is conveying. 

“It’s okay,” you tell him, wiping your eyes with your sleeve.

He shakes his head, “If I ever say something like that to you again, hit me. I’m serious.”

You drop your hand onto your lap, tilting your head at him with a serious look. “I’m not going to hit you—”

“Then break up with me. Don’t ever let somebody talk to you like that, especially not me.”

His voice is hard and you can tell the impact of his words have every bit of weight intended.

Your mouth closes and you waver unsure of where to go with that. Your gaze falls down to where your hands lie discarded on your lap and there’s a palpable shift to the air in the room.

“Hey.” He pushes your chin up to make you look at him, “Listen to me. You’re the love of my life. You hear me? I’m supposed to take care of you, make you happy. I don’t…I can’t talk to you like that. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.”

Your eyes flicker back and forth across each others and you can see the genuine sincerity etched plainly across his face.

He processes the comprehension across your own before his jaw tenses for a moment and he adds, “Nobody’s gonna talk to you like that, much less me. Yes?” 

You start to nod slowly and he mirrors you until he’s convinced of your belief in the statement. 

He rubs calm circles into your thighs as you both sit with the conversation, the light sounds of each others breaths the only sound heard. This silence isn’t the same as it was before though, it’s safer, more comfortable. It’s familiar, if not weighted.  

“I love you,” you tell him quietly.

His eyebrows furrow like his heart was just shattered. 

“I love you too, baby. So much.”

🦟 if you don't reblog things i'm actively sending bad vibes your way 🦟 and maybe also a plague

[starkeysbunny]

tears [rafe cameron]

pairing - rafe cameron x reader

summary - rafe was a busy man. but, when his girl knocked on the doors of tannyhill with tears streaming down her cheeks—nothing was more important than her. and he’d fix whatever was bothering her. or whoever. he hated to see his girl cry.

warnings - none rlly, hurt/comfort, protective and attentive rafe

rafe sighed into his phone call when he heard a knock on the door. he stood in his father’s office—which was now his—pacing the room.

“hey, hey man, just hang on a sec, sorry.” he muttered to the potential investor before he put him on hold. he set his phone down on the desk and marched out of the office, curses and mumbles leaving his lips.

“somebody always fuckin’ needs something.” his hand rubs over his buzzed hair as his other hand curls in and out of a fist at his side. “goddamn. probably fuckin’ sarah and her stupid—“

his mumbles come to a halt when he opens the door and sees his girl standing there, tears staining her flushed cheeks. “rafe..” she whispers weakly, her frame shaking as she looks up at him.

“hey, hey, baby.” he says quickly, completely forgetting the phone call waiting for him as all his attention, worry, and concern is shifted to her. “what’s wrong, c’mere.”

his hand reaches for her wrist, pulling her into his chest. she lets out a quiet sob as she buries her face into his chest, stepping inside. he haphazardly pushes the door shut as he keeps her close to his chest and walks them both inside and through the foyer.

he whispers shh’s, and coos at her in his arms as he heads for the living room, sitting them both down. he softly pulls her from his chest, his head dipping down to her level. his hands come to her cheeks, wiping the tears off her soft skin.

“hey, baby, what happened? talk to me.” he says, his eyebrows furrowed with concern.

“i-i-“ she stammers, unable to get words out as she chokes on cries. her breathing quickens, getting close to hyperventilating. when she cries, she goes too fast, losing control of her breathing.

“hey, hey, no. don’t do that. c’mon baby, you know better. breathe, baby, breathe.”

she begins to slow down, her breathing coming back to normal. she keeps her eyes on rafe’s, slowly calming down.

“there ya go. atta’ girl. good job. breathe.” he praises, his head nodding softly as he watches her. once her breathing fully calms, she takes one last deep breath and wipes the last of her tears.

“now, gonna tell me what’s got your pretty little head so worried, hm?” he coos, his head tilting slightly. “what’s bothering you? who do i have to kill, huh?” he jokes with a grin. but to be honest—he probably wasn’t joking.

she sniffles, her eyebrows furrowing. “my uterus.” she whines. “i’m on my period. my cramps hurt like a bitch. and my mom is pissing me off.” she sniffles, stumbling over her words slightly. “and i’m hungry. and you weren’t answering, i know you’re busy. but i just really needed to see you, i’m sorry—“

“hey, hey, it’s okay.” he nods softly. “i’m here, it’s alright. i’m not busy, doesn’t matter.” he says matter-of-factly. he wraps his arms around her, pulling her into his chest. “what do you need? hm? i have that heating pad in my room i bought for you a couple months ago.” he whispers sweetly. “i can make you somethin? buy you stuff? i dunno, what do you need?”

he was willing to do anything, he didn’t care. when his baby cried, he’d move mountains to make her feel better. he’d go to every store in town, run up his credit card, do anything. as long as she got a smile on her face at the end of it.

she nods against his chest, looking up at him. “yeah.. the heating pad. and—and can you make me a grilled cheese? you make em’ so good.” she asks sweetly, her voice gentle and weak.

he smiles softly, looking down at the sweet girl in his arms. “yeah, baby, of course. i don’t know if they’re that good. everytime i make them, you’re usually drunk and it’s three in the morning. that might be why they taste so good.” he jokes.

she shoves his chest playfully. “i don’t care, you can’t fuck up a grilled cheese. please?”

he grins. “yeah, yeah. grilled cheese, heating pad. got it, baby. anything else?” he says thoughtfully, his fingers coming to push strands of hair off from where they stick to her tear strained cheeks.

she shakes her head. “just you.”

he smiles. “okay.” he kisses her forehead. “i’ll be right back, gimmie a few minutes to get all that.” he stands, making sure she’s laid comfortably on the couch. he grabs the blanket from the end of the couch and drapes it over her. his eyes search the living room, landing in the remote, he hands it to her.

he leans down, placing another kiss to her cheek this time. “put on whatever you want. i’ll be back, promise.”

he leaves her at the couch and heads back to the office. he picks up his phone and takes it off hold. “hey, gotta go. somethin’ came up. i’ll give you a call later.” he hung up before the guy could even get a word in.

nothing came before his girl.

[liketolaugh-writes]

I've been playing with a no-one-knows AU where Danny has been married to Jason for years but hasn't told him his secret. Jason knows that Danny isn't human, but hasn't pressed because Danny is so terrified when he approaches the topic. The Batfamily do not know.

Presently, the GIW are in Gotham and closing in, and the Box Ghost has come to Danny seeking help.

----

“You’re a ghost,” Jason said gently, pulling one of Danny’s hands away from his face to wrap it in his own. Danny let him. “Aren’t you?”

Danny’s breath hitched again.

Surprisingly, the Box Ghost looked almost as horrified as Danny.

“What? NO! I, the BOX GHOST, would not out Danny Fenton to his human family! For he is as human as I once was!” He flailed his arms in blatant panic. “There is nothing to reveal, for Danny Fenton is most certainly NOT a ghost!”

“What’s wrong with Danny being a ghost?” Box Lunch wanted to know, tilting her head up to peer up at her father in confusion. “Is it a secret?”

“BOX LUNCH!” the Box Ghost wailed, every inch a mortified parent.

“Yes, it was, or your father would not be so blatantly lying about it,” Damian told her, taking pity on the child ghost.

“Oh!” Box Lunch nodded seriously. “Danny isn’t a ghost!”

Danny let out a slightly hysterical laugh, and then started to cry, gasping quietly with tears pouring down his face, hunched down to hide from them. He didn’t pull his hand out of Jason’s.

“It is no longer a secret here, as it has become apparent,” Damian elaborated.

Box Lunch scrunched up her nose. “Oh.”

“Ghosts are not bad,” Cass said softly, “if ghosts are Danny.”

“Danny.” Jason scooted closer and pulled Danny against him, and Danny let him, pressing into him without unwinding at all. “Danny, I already knew. I’ve known for years.” Danny tilted his head up to give him an incredulous look, and Jason grinned at him. “You’re not good at hiding it, stardust. Your freckles glow when you’re excited and your eyes flash green when you’re frustrated. You walk through closed doors when you’re sleepy and things fall through your hands when people startle you. I’ve known you aren’t human since we moved in together.”

“…Oh,” Danny murmured, guilt and relief and wonder swirling together in his still-wet eyes.

“Phantom!” the Box Ghost scolded. Jason took note of the sudden change in address. “You are the worst secret keeper ever!”

“Shut up, Boxy,” Danny snapped. He pulled away from Jason and wiped his eyes, sniffling. Their hands stayed locked together. “We, we need to hide you and bitty-bite b-before we talk about this any more. I wasn’t joking about the Guys in White.”

The Box Ghost flapped his arms dismissively. “They will not find us! They are looking for YOU, and their instruments will not be prepared for such subtle spirits as Box Lunch and I!”

“They are looking for me while I am hiding,” Danny said, soft but barbed. He wiped his face again and turned around to better face the other ghost, glaring sharply. “Something I am well known to be very good at. Far better at than you.”

The Box Ghost went so pale he was almost translucent.

“You don’t look like a ghost at all,” Tim said, studying Danny. “Your skin is pink, you don’t glow… most of the time, no pointed ears or fangs. Your eyes are normal.” His eyes narrowed. “Is this… not your natural appearance?”

Danny flinched. “I… I…” He swallowed, staring at nothing, and then forced his attention back onto the Box Ghost. “Your base signatures are pretty low. If you stop using your powers and suppress your auras as much as you can, you can probably bring them low enough to hide.”

No answers would be forthcoming for now, Jason understood. He signaled sharply to Bruce and Tim, the most likely to try to interrupt. Wait. Time-sensitive, finish operation before proceeding.

Bruce didn’t look pleased, but he nodded sharply. Tim just watched, thoughtful eyes fixed on Danny. Damian was scowling, Dick frowning faintly, but Cass’ curiosity looked borderline idle. Jason watched Danny interact with the other ghost with a healthy blend of interest and concern, and tried not to wonder if Tim was right.

“Box Lunch, do you know how to land?” Danny asked. It seemed like a silly question until Box Lunch wrinkled her nose and cocked her head.

“Land?” she asked, audibly uncertain. For that matter, her father looked vaguely baffled too. “Like… with my feet? On the floor?”

Danny managed a smile and nodded. Box Lunch eyed the floor, then drifted down to hover at floor level. “Like this?”

“Not exactly,” Danny said, sounding more fond than anything. He slid off the bar stool and knelt down in front of Box Lunch. Jason couldn’t look away; he’d been deprived of any open knowledge of Danny’s nonhuman side for so long that his curiosity was damn near insatiable now. And Danny teaching a kid of his species? That was doing things to Jason. Good things. “Close your eyes.” Box Lunch did. “Feel the energy in the air. Do you feel gravity? Do you sense how it pulls things down?” She nodded uncertainly. “Hold onto that feeling. Let it hold onto you. Do you feel it?” Nod. “Good. Now- let go of the sky.”

The instructions didn’t make a lick of sense to Jason, but Box Lunch dropped right out of the air and landed on her feet. Her eyes flew open, and she pinwheeled dramatically until Danny caught her.

“Ahh!” she squealed, looking dismayed. “I’m heavy!”

Danny chuckled. “No, bitty-bite, you’re still light as a feather.” He picked Box Lunch up and held her out in front of him, smiling. She squealed again, kicking her feet, her eyes bright with delight. “Good job. Do you think you can hold that?”

“Um, sure,” she mumbled, not looking at all sure.

The Box Ghost landed on the floor with a grunt - Jason suspected that he’d been listening to Danny’s instructions too. He held out his arms for Box Lunch, and Danny handed her over willingly.

“Now what?” the Box Ghost asked tentatively, staring at the floor like it would eat him. Yeah, Jason could definitely believe that he’d never landed before either.

“Now, you listen to me,” Danny said seriously. He reached out and grabbed Box Ghost’s arm, demanding his attention, and forced eye contact. From the Box Ghost’s wide eyes, this behavior was as new to him as it was to Jason. But then Danny continued, speaking as firmly as if he were willing his words into existence. “You are not a ghost. You are not a ghost.” Understanding flickered across the Box Ghost’s face, and he screwed his eyes shut. His glow started to dim. “You are solid. You are heavy. You are warm. You are made of flesh, blood, and bone. You are not a ghost. You are not a ghost. You are human.”

The Box Ghost’s glow receded and disappeared. Except for his blue skin, he almost looked human now. He opened his eyes uncertainly, and Danny gave him a weary smile and a nod, letting go of his arm and leaning back.

“But what about Box Lunch?” the Box Ghost asked anxiously, looking down at Box Lunch. She’d squeezed her eyes shut to try and follow Danny’s instructions, but didn’t seem to be meeting with the same success.

Danny sighed. “I’m not sure how to explain it to her,” he admitted, reaching up to run his fingers through his hair as he looked at the little girl with worry. She opened her eyes and gave him an anxious look, and Danny gave her a small smile. “It’s not your fault, bitty-bite. It’s just… you’ve always been a ghost, so you don’t have your dad’s memories of what it felt like to be human.”

Box Lunch stomped her feet. “I can pretend!”

“Then pretend,” Danny said seriously. “It doesn’t have to be perfect. Just do your best.”

“Wehh!” Box Lunch flailed her arms, brow furrowed in concentration. “I am human! My body is super solid and I crash into things a lot! And I run around on the ground and eat human food! Fear me!”

It was so cute that Jason muffled a laugh, and he wasn’t the only one. Box Lunch ran a circle around the floor, then crashed into a wall on purpose and bounced off, giggling. Even Bruce’s hard expression softened into a fond look.

“That should keep you off the sensors,” Danny said to the Box Ghost, voice low. Something about his eyes looked exhausted. “Just make sure Box Lunch maintains it. Maybe keep playing human with her.”

The Box Ghost nodded uncertainly. “Thank you, Phantom,” he said quietly. “I know that we can count on you.”

[ceilidho]

take me home, country road

[ao3]

You have nothing on your person apart from a hastily packed suitcase and the dress you came into town wearing, on the run from trouble back home. Too bad John's missing a bride that matches your description. Or: the 1800s (mistaken) mail order bride au (chapter 19)

masterlist

-

A blood-orange sun hangs low in the sky.

You might think it ominous on any other day, but not this one. What more adversity could stand in your way? 

Instead of sharing a saddle with John, you ride the same horse that Graves rode out of town. Days spent on horseback have finally caught up to you, pain radiating up and down your legs, a soreness embedded deep in your inner thighs, the skin positively chafed from the constant friction. At least you no longer have the handcuffs digging painfully into your wrists, the metal cuffs long since unlocked using the key in Graves’ pocket and discarded, now lost some acres back for the coyotes and the hares to prod at and sniff. 

You drift in and out of conscious awareness, coming back into your right mind every mile or so, losing track of time along the way. Sometimes you blink and trees disappear out of sight, already ten miles back. Scouring the landscape for something familiar only to come up empty. 

Recent events lour over your conscience. It’s difficult not to let it get to you. So much has happened in such quick succession that part of you still thinks you’re dreaming in the abandoned shack with Graves sleeping just a few feet away. 

A distinct sound scrapes against the inner recesses of your mind and eardrum. If you were to look behind you, you’d find the source of it wrapped in a shroud and dragged behind John’s horse. Drying blood stains the fabric. The head, obscured under the fabric, jostles from side to side as it passes over rocks and undergrowth. 

It’s beyond you now though, the future shuttling forward at an unfathomable speed and taking you with it, willing or not. The world hurrying on to repeat its past mistakes. 

So you don’t look behind you. 

“Won’t be much longer,” your husband murmurs from beside you, speaking just loud enough for you to hear him over the influx of thoughts in your head, which rapidly empty out at the sound of his voice. 

“We can stop for a break after?” you ask, turning your head enough for your eyes to land on the hard, bristled line of his jaw. He nods. 

“Just gotta get this part out of the way.”

He says it so casually, like a bit of unpleasantness that has to be dealt with; no way around it. Unfortunately, a body isn’t something that can be just swept under the rug. No matter how much your muscles beg for a moment’s reprieve, you won’t get it until all the loose ends are tied up. 

“How do you know the land around here so well?” you ask as John leads the two of you deeper into the plains.

“The boys and I have been out here before. Grew up in this county anyway; been wanderin’ these parts since I was born.”

You can’t imagine John as a young boy, uncertain of his place in the world. He seems like someone who emerged from the womb ready-made, already able to skin a deer and build a bushcraft shelter by hand. But he must have been young at one point. 

Finally, he comes upon a suitable place to bury the body. 

Deep in the wilderness, he digs a shallow grave with the short shovel strapped to his horse, sweating up a storm before the hole is big enough to bury the body. You dismount your horse and wander off while John handles the burial. 

This is the part where you have to turn away and pretend it isn’t happening. You stave off the urge to plug your ears and close your eyes. Dogear any page in your life except this one. This is the only memory that you want to fade into obscurity, pretend that it never happened, that this was some bad dream that you only half-remember twenty years from now. 

You glance back only once to find John breathing heavily at the edge of the hole, having just hauled himself out. Sweat slicks his brow and drips down the side of his face near his temple, a dark flush spreading over his cheeks from exertion. Even his shirt is damp with sweat under the pits and around the collar. 

You force yourself to look away. Now is not the time for your libido to trouble you. 

Graves’ body lands with a dull thump when John rolls it into the makeshift grave. You bite your lip and let your eyelids slide shut. Then he starts the process of covering the body, shoveling the dirt back into the hole. It takes a while. An offer to help hovers on the tip of your tongue, but you can’t quite make yourself say the words. 

A half hour later, it no longer matters, the hole covered until the only thing demarcating the grave is the layer of upturned soil, slightly darker than the dirt in the surrounding area.

“That’s it,” John announces, making his way back to you with the shovel slung over his shoulder. You can smell the ripe scent of sweat wafting off him even from a foot away. “Let’s head out; we’ll wanna make camp before it gets dark.”

You don’t answer. Not verbally anyway. The guilt almost makes it hard to breathe. In all your stupidity and poor decision-making, you’ve inadvertently made John an accomplice in your crimes; forced him, in fact, to commit one as heinous as the one that had started this whole debacle. 

You travel the next mile in relative silence, scouring the landscape for a neat patch of land to set up camp. The sun plummets towards the ground at a faster and faster pace until it’s tugged below the horizon, vanishing with a green flash. Then it’s too dangerous to keep going, the way back far too dark to keep traveling down. 

John builds a small fire after tying up the horses for the night. The temperature drops exponentially as the sky darkens, the cold sinking low to the ground. You help with gathering the kindling, mostly twigs and clumps of dry grass, then take the packs off both horses to use as makeshift seats by the fire, unrolling the sleeping bags as well. 

It comes as a relief to finally sit down after the fire is struck. Rest is a double edged sword though; the longer you sit with Graves’ old pack propping you up, the more the pain has time to sink its claws in deep. 

In the hours since he shot Graves, neither of you have spoken more than a few words to each other. You certainly haven’t brought it up. The memory of Graves revealing the truth of what you’d done back east to John looms over you. It’s inevitable that you’ll talk about it eventually though. It’s heavy in the atmosphere, almost oppressive; the weight of everything said and unsaid. You can’t take back what Graves revealed to John. At some point you’ll have to face it. 

At what point will you have to beg for forgiveness? It sits on the tip of your tongue. 

The small fire crackles in front of you. Red tongues of flames lick at the darkness, the light extending out in a circle around the two of you. You’re grateful for the warmth though, particularly after spending the previous night in the cold.  

“Nothing to eat, m’afraid,” he says apologetically, brow creasing. “I didn’t exactly pack before coming after you.”

You shake your head. “That’s fine. I’m not hungry anyway.”

In a few more hours, you might work up an appetite again, but for now, you couldn’t be further from it. All you want to do is lie down on your bed back home and sleep through to the next day. 

“Yeah,” John sighs. “Me neither.”

He picks up your hand and holds it in his for a time. It’s strange how such a small gesture has become such an immense comfort for you. You wish you could thread your fingers through his and bring his hand up to your lips to kiss all over, but you’re too tired for a gesture of that magnitude. 

When he lets go of your hand, it’s only to transfer it to your face. His thumb runs over your split lip, pulling away when you wince. “Looks like it’s healing on its own.”

“That’s good,” you mumble. “…It hurt a lot more yesterday.”

John’s nostrils flare. The fire reflects off his eyes in such a way that, for a moment, it almost looks like it’s coming from within him. “I’d kill him again if I could.”

Your stomach clenches at the ferocity behind his words. 

“You—you shouldn’t have done it in the first place,” you croak. “Not when he was—” right, you don’t say. Right to haul you out of town by your hair and drag you back to the scene of the crime, back to pay for what you’d done. 

“Now I ain’t gonna hear you go spoutin’ that horseshit,” he growls, clasping you by the back of your neck and tugging you to his side. It’s so sudden that your butt skids across the ground, raking up a small mound of dirt with the weight of your body.

You look away, unable to meet his eyes even as he pulls you forward until you’re nearly nose to nose. “It’s not—”

“Yes, it is, darlin’. That shit weren’t none of your fault. You ain’t done a thing wrong by keeping yourself safe.” 

It’s almost hard to hear. It’s taken you months to scrub the dirt from your soul, which until recently was raw to the touch and pained you to even think back on. And the hopelessness. And the longing, the irreversibility of it; irreversible in the way that you couldn’t turn your pain inside out. You could never go back to the way things were because the only way out was to keep on trudging forward. 

Like rain in a drought, you’ve been missing someone’s mercy. You’ve been waiting for someone to come and forgive you for your sins; someone to absolve you of them. 

You lean forward, burying your face in his neck. Not making much of a sound except for a harsh exhale, your throat quavering with something unsaid. 

Then you grip him by the back of his shirt and pull him to the ground with you. 

Out in the open like this, John doesn’t dare remove your clothes, but he does reach beneath your dress to pull off your underclothes. He’s silent through it all, eyes fixed on yours. Never wavering or dropping your gaze. It’s intoxicating to be stared at with such a fierce intensity. Vaguely overwhelming, the sensation creeping up your chest and lodging in your throat. 

The light of the fire he built for the two of you flickers across his skin, illuminating his face in shades of orange and gold. 

He holds your gaze when he rucks the skirt of your dress up and crawls down the length of your body until his mouth is level with your center, slick already dripping from your sex. Your breathing goes haggard, anticipating his mouth before it’s suddenly there between your thighs, planting a gentle kiss on your inner thigh before dragging his lips over your sensitive skin until they brush your clit. Your mouth opens to a soundless gasp. Electrical impulses travel up your spine, your arching back following their trajectory. 

He pulls back to stare at your dripping hole. “Missed me, my love?” 

You’d answer if you could form words, but then you realize who he’s talking to and your mind goes blank. 

When he runs his tongue up the seam of your pussy, you jolt, legs slung over his shoulders kicking at the air. He eats you out with gusto, with reverence, sighing into your pussy that it’s been too long, that he’d worried himself nearly half to death over you. 

Rough hands hold you by your waist and pull you down onto his face. Long, crude licks of his tongue, rubbing the flat of it over your clit until you’re a roiling, twisting hotbed of pent up arousal. 

The urge to suppress your noises is almost overwhelming. When you twist your head from side to side, there’s nothing but miles of land; trees and shrubbery and a deep, impenetrable darkness. Not another person around for miles. It makes you shiver when you stare out into it. 

“I can’t, I can’t, I can’t—” you gasp, chest getting tighter and tighter until you expect it to burst but it doesn’t. It stays all pent up, all itchy and scratchy and you can feel the sweat slicking the small of your back and the blood furiously rushing to your cheeks, heating you up from the inside out. Sweat-laden and flustered. 

Your toes curl in your boots, throat tightening up the closer it gets. All it takes to push you over the edge is John cupping his hands under your butt to tilt your hips up, licking you from hole to hole. The impertinence and thrill sends a rush through your body, the coil in your belly twisting and releasing, core pulsing around nothing. Your body gives a violent jolt when he gives your clit one last wet, suckling kiss.

“Are you comfortable like this, darlin’, or should I wait until we’re home?” John asks when he positions himself over you again, beard still wet with your desire and a big hand cupping the front of his trousers. You stare down at the hair dusting his knuckles and the bulge straining against his pants. 

The shadows make it seem even larger than usual. Your throat goes dry the longer you stare down at where he fists his length through his trousers.

“Darlin’?” he repeats, drawing your attention back up to his face.

“Oh?” you ask, cheeks heating. “I’m, um…I’m quite comfortable.”

It seems absurd to have such a conversation when your husband’s hand is reaching into his trousers to pull out his cock and fuck you with it, but the nervous tickle in your belly is far from unpleasant. 

He’s so careful with you, cognizant that your muscles are already sore and aching from days of being on the road and the abuse Graves put you through. Gentle hands maneuver your legs around his hips and move your hair from your face. Again your belly flips. 

Your grunt is involuntary when he first pushes in, walls stretching around the head of his cock. It hasn’t been long enough for the blunt intrusion to be painful, but it’s overwhelming all the same. You wince and grimace through it all. 

“Easy does it. You’re alright,” John shushes when you whimper, rough hand cupping your cheek. It sends a thrill down your spine, but doesn’t lessen the intensity. 

He stays like that for a time, hovering over you and stroking a thumb over your cheekbone until you relax around his girth, gradually finding your breath again. In and out; one after the other. When he pulls his hand away, it’s to plant his forearms on the ground beside your head and grind his hips forward, taking your breath away. 

“Oh Lord,” you wheeze, then brace your hands around his neck. 

“You’re doing great, darlin’. Just hold on; I’ve got ya.”

It’s nothing like the times before; your arms link around his neck and your breath goes shallow, hitching with every measured thrust. It’s too much and not enough. You feel windswept and battered, bruises smarting now that you’ve had time to feel them, but still you need more from him. 

He works himself into the wet flex of your pussy with slow, heavy thrusts. Taking his time. Not rushing it just yet because though the threat of you being taken from him still looms over his head, he’s sated his bloodlust. His reassurance now comes in the form of your legs spread to receive him and the fat head of his cock fitting snugly in you. 

The heels of your boots press firm against the flesh above his buttocks. Taking him this way with your clothes still on feels debaucherous, filthier than usual; like you were so desperate to have your husband inside you, that you couldn’t even be bothered to remove your garments. 

He must feel the way that thought heats you up because he rasps, “Need a lil somethin’, love?” 

Before you can even answer, he’s reached a hand down and tucked it between your thighs to strum the tight bundle of nerves at the apex of your sex. 

“John—”

Your fingernails must dig into the back of his neck because he grunts. Serves him right, you think, digging your nails in all the harder when grinds a knuckle against your clit and you briefly see stars. 

You’re splintering down to the root, coming apart in his hands like clay; when he says your name, the darkness fades and for a moment, you’re in the light, a shaft of it haloing your face. Chasing it no matter how fast it runs. A hare in a snare, a shadow captured in the palm of your hand. 

It comes fluttering down from somewhere beyond sight. Gasped out in another voice, a truer voice. From the depths of you, true as stone and air. 

“I love you.”

Give it time and it’ll come naturally. Now, it comes as a gut punch. Even John stills over you when he hears the words, and you can feel the shudder that runs through him under your fingertips. There’s no time to sit and talk about it though, not with the frenzy that comes over him, blue eyes glazed over by a manic glint. 

He braces one hand on the top of your head and surges forward, so rough with you that your teeth clack together, eyes rolling back in your head. 

“Say it again,” John growls, leaning down until his mouth is right next to your ear. 

“I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you—”

Then it hits you. A wall of heat. Your belly rolling and cheeks burning, walls squeezing around John’s cock, tighter with every thrust. You yelp when he lifts himself off you to yank the skirt of your dress up higher and presses his hands to your inner thighs, spreading your legs wider for him. Bullies his cock into your channel even as you try to squeeze him out, pounding into you until the lurid torrent of words spilling out of his mouth go slurred and his release floods into you, his hips slapping against yours until he’s emptied the last of his spend into your womb. 

It’s a while before either of you can move after that. Your energy melts into the ground like rainwater, purifying the earth. Maybe life is already germinating beneath you, grass seedlings about to burst from the dirt, flower buds curled up in tight coils until they’re ready to bloom. 

Your hands shake when you lift one up to wipe the sweat from your face. 

When he finally pulls out of you, the feeling of his come leaking down your inner thighs makes you fussy. You lift your thighs just enough to let him pull your drawers back up before lying back down, no energy left in you to do more than that. You only scrunch your nose a little at the feeling of your combined juices already wetting the gusset.

Time seems to come apart and then piece back together. You roll over onto your side and nestle up against John’s chest, staring up at him wordlessly. His eyes stay shut for some time until he feels your stare on him and they peel open, the color of his irises barely discernible in the flickering light. 

“Somethin’ on your mind?” he asks in a tone so devoid of accusation or condemnation that you’re almost thrown by it. He says it like it’s just another day, like something horrible and monumental didn’t just happen. 

It takes you a while to find the words. Even when you do, they come out jumbled and disjointed. “How long have you…—when did you find out?”

“‘Bout what happened back East?” he clarifies, blunt as usual. 

The question makes you swallow impulsively, anxiety secreting from you again. “Yes.”

John looks up into the dark sky, quiet for a spell. “Not until recently. The arrest warrant drifted across my desk probably around the time Graves first stopped by. Wasn’t hard to put two and two together after that—you showing up in a tizzy around the same time as the warrant was issued. General description matched as well.”

You feel a bit foolish in retrospect, certain that you were getting away with it all this time. 

“You know my name.”

“I do.”

“My real name.”

“In a manner of speaking. Got yourself a new last name since then though, didn’t you?”

Your lips pull up at the corners involuntarily. “Yes. I guess so.”

You can almost hear it now. The penultimate note of the overture writhing against convalescence like you might stay this way for a second longer. But it isn’t right to keep feeling the same old pain. At some point, it has to heal. 

“Hey,” John says, giving your shoulder a little shake to draw your attention back to him. The look in his eyes is serious. “This is as far as the story goes, alright?”

You stare up at him silently until you nod against his chest. 

“You’re my wife. End of story. The rest ain’t anyone’s business but ours.”

Off in the distance, an owl hoots, and its call hits your ear as a distant evocation to sleep. You press one last kiss to his chest before rolling off him, letting him put the fire out before the two of you turn in for the night, and then drawing a blanket over the both of you. 

And then, you go to sleep.

[thelov3lybookworm]

My World

Day 1: Cool quiet.

Summary: Y/n's in labour. Azriel needs to stay calm.

•○●⛦●○•

Word Count: 805

Warnings: labour ig? azzie being scared and sad cus yn is in pain :(

A/n: HAPPY DAY 1 OF @azrielappreciationweek YALL WOOHOOOO 🥳

all fics in the week will be like a series cus theyre all revolving around azzie and his daughter hehe but it isnt a series ig?

ANYWAY ENJOYYYY 🥳

°•°•°•○🌑○•°•°•°

Rhysand did not see the shift in his spymaster. Did not see the way he stiffened, the way his eyes went distant before focusing again, fist clenched.

He said no words, nothing to indicate he knew his mate was going into labour. And if the meeting with Keir had not ended when it had and Azriel hadn’t immediately winnowed away without preamble, Rhys wouldn’t have even known.

Even when Rhysand and Cassian followed their brother to his house on the outskirts of Velaris, welcomed by agonising screams of Azriel’s mate, Rhysand saw him stand quietly in the hallway.

Rhysand could not fathom being that cool, that quiet if he knew Feyre was in labour.

He had to give it to Azriel, the male was great at hiding his weaknesses. And Rhysand would have been convinced he was still composed had he not seen that in the dark corridor, light glinted off of the tears rolling down his cheeks.

Azriel still did not move, standing still against the wall with his hands folded behind his back.

It shook Rhys more than him pacing and losing his mind would have.

°•°•°•○🌑○•°•°•°

Azriel’s pov.

He wanted to scream, he wanted to curse himself out loud. After all, he was the reason his darling mate was going through the pain of birth.

Should’ve resisted when she said she wanted kids.

But alas, it was now too late to do anything but stand here helpless as he heard her loud cries of pain from their bedroom.

"I- Azriel! Az-"

It took all Azriel had in him to stand outside while his mate, his wife went through unbearable pain he knew he could not even fathom of. Having your privates stretched while you had to push out a literal being was something he knew his worst wounds would look like paper cuts in comparison.

It made him respect females more at the moment.

Through the bond, he felt flashes of hot agony and cold pain, but he was aware it was nothing, nothing compared to what his mate was going through.

The door opened the slightest bit, the worried eyes of an apprentice healer peeking out. "Spymaster? Madja said you can come in to soothe your mate."

Instantly, Azriel was hurrying inside the room, his eyes finding his mate lying on the bed.

Keep calm. Keep calm. Keep calm.

But how could he, seeing as the one person he could ruin the world for, was sobbing, tears running down her face in constant streams, aided by the sweat gathering on her skin?

He hurried over to her side, her palm instantly finding his.

"My love, I’m here."

She gasped in pain, nails digging into his palm.

Cool. Stay cool. It will be fine.

"Just one more push dear, then you can rest."

Azriel turned his head to Madja when she said that, relief spreading through his veins. At least the torture Y/n was going through would be over soon.

Y/n nodded, meeting Azriel’s eyes. Even while she was pushing out their baby, she found it in herself to offer him a weak smile.

Be calm.

Not even a moment after Y/n dropped back down on the bed with an exhausted sigh, loud cries filled the room. Azriel leaned down, placing his forehead against his mate’s. She smiled up at him, her eyes tired.

"No more babies. Y/n, I’m telling you, I cannot see you in pain."

Y/n had the audacity to pout. "But what if our baby gets lonely?"

He shook his head, kissing Y/n’s cheek. "I won’t let them get lonely."

He straightened when he heard footsteps approaching, lifting his head to look at Madja, who grinned at them over the baby’s head. "It’s a daughter."

Tears gathered in Azriel’s eyes as Madja leaned down, his daughter’s face coming into view for the first time. Azriel could not look away.

She’s beautiful.

Her eyes are so pretty.

She stared back at him with wide eyes.

Don’t cry. Stay calm. Stay quiet.

Fuck calm. Fuck quiet.

He let the tears fall as Y/n placed a hand on his arm, telling him to take his daughter. And even though he did not want to taint the pure soul made of him and his beloved, he extended his arms. Y/n had had the time of months to scold and train Azriel to not be scared of his own child.

The moment Madja stepped out of their room, Azriel let out an involuntary sob, accompanied by a look in his mate’s direction, who was crying too.

"I love her so much."

She nodded, giggling. "Me too." After a pause, she continued. "Hazel. That’s what we decided."

He nodded, unable to look away as he leaned down to press his lips to her tiny forehead.

"My world."

°•°•°•○🌑○•°•°•°

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[emmyrosee]

shhhhHHHHHUTUPIDONTWANTTOTALKABOUTIT

-

The first time you sleep over Katsuki’s, it’s not long after he’s moved into his apartment with the rest of his friends.

Which is bold, the only one who doesn’t flirt with you any chance they get is Mina -mainly because she has her own place- but she’s always telling Katsuki that the minute you get bored with him, she’s there to swoop in.

But his friends waste no time in making sure to rile Katsuki up with cheesy pickup lines that mean nothing to you, but everything to him. He hates the idea of having his friends hit on you, but you’d be lying if riling him up wasn’t exhilarating.

You smile as you hear bare feet pad along the tiling of the kitchen, a massive presence looming behind you; it’s warm, loving, and you feel yourself relaxing at the closeness.

“Morning,” he rasps, arms wrapping around your waist. You smile and curl against him, tipping your head back to look at him.

“You hungry?”

“You didn’t have to make us breakfast,” he murmurs, pressing a loving kiss to the curve of your neck.

You mewl and bend your arm to wrap around him, “I know, I just wanted to do something nice for my man and his friends for being such good company last night.”

He grumbles, “don’t ever refer to my roommates as ‘good.’ Bunch of fucking menaces and creeps.”

“They can’t be too bad,” you hum, turning off the stove. God knows how long you’ll both be drooling with affection. “After all, you let me meet them,” you coo. “And you’d never let your little baby be put in danger.”

“Fucking hate when you call yourself that,” he snaps, spidering his fingers up your side. You squeal and shrink to the side, only to be met with pokes on the other. “Katsuki!”

“Don’t be a little shit and I won’t have to torment you,” he snickers. You’re quick to flick off the stove with what little movement your arms can give you while protecting you from tickles, and you duck as fast as you can under his caging limbs to escape.

He must like the challenge, because he lets you go, only to barrel after you into the living room. A small coffee table separates you both, and you’re at a standstill as you watch each other.

“Katsuki!” You giggle, making a sudden dart to try and throw him off your trail. It doesn’t deter him, like he’s able to predict what you’re going to do before you do. “Y-You’re gonna wake everyone up!”

“I’m not gonna do a fuckin’ thing,” he snorts. “You’re the one screaming and whining.”

“Am not!”

“Are too.”

“Am not!”

“Are too.”

“Are not-“

“I think it’s bold of you to argue with me instead of sprinting away.” He shrugs, making a dash for you and wasting no time in grabbing you into his big arms. You writhe and laugh in his grip, desperate to not shriek and wake his poor roommates. Giggles bubble wildly over your lips, and he hauls you back into the kitchen before plopping you onto the countertop, distant from the stove. You instinctively move your hands to card his blonde hair, and he leans in to steal the last of your giggles from your lips.

“How much time we got before breakfast burns?” He mumbles, hands smoothing up your thighs. Crimson eyes glimmer with mischief, and he bumps your nose with his.

You chuckle and shake your head, legs wrapping around his thick waist, “it was burning before you came in; I turned off the stove so it wouldn’t burst into flames.”

He snorts, “good.” One of the hands resting on the meat of your thighs comes up to grip your chin, “now I don’t have to rush.”

“Ew,” you giggle, but it dies as quickly as you said it when he connects your kiss, working his lips against yours in this own way, full of passion and love with just enough tease to have you whimper.

The hand on your cheek shifts down to rest on your delicate throat, dangling like a necklace. A subtle act of dominance to make you shiver.

“I love you,” you murmur against his lips.

“I love you more-“

“Ewwwww!!!”

“Who knew he had a weakness?”

“Lookin’ good, Dynamight!”

Immediately, Katsuki’s shoulders hike up as the shrill voices from his friends ring through the air. You let out a string of laughter while the other boys you were visiting peer around the wall of the apartment, Sero with a face of disgust, Kirishima with a playful understanding and Kaminari with a cheesy bite of his lip.

“I’m going to KILL YOU IDIOTS!” He barks, abandoning you to dash over to the trio, mainly targeting Kaminari and Sero, who sprint away as fast as they can. Kirishima chuckles and makes his way over to you, helping you off the counter with a sigh.

“How’s he ever going to keep being Number One if you keep doing this to him?”

You snort and elbow his ribs while somewhere in the house, Katsuki caught Denki, and the screams ring loudly in the walls.

“Shut up and help me remake breakfast, dickhead.”

[fxstpace]

the very first night

summary: the search for a new place to live takes a turn for the worse when the only person willing to split rent with you is your ex-boyfriend.

pairing: kim mingyu x fem!reader genres: romance, angst, smut, exes to lovers!au, roommates!au word count: 19.7k

↳ warnings: profanity, alcohol conusmption, explicit sexual content (oral sex, fingering, protected sex) ↳ a/n: title is the very first night by taylor swift. reposted from my old blog.

ONE

You think that all the decisions you’ve made in your life so far have all boiled down to this one moment.

Karmic retribution, if you will.

Despite the six months for which you and your ex-boyfriend have been separated, Kim Mingyu looks the same. The same floppy hair that never quite sits flat on his head—though he’s let it grow a tiny bit, and now it curls behind his ears—and the same tight-fitting black shirt you swear you tried stealing from him once. Wire-rimmed glasses perched on the bridge of his nose, and warm brown eyes that peer back at you. Pink lips which beckon you with a small, yet welcoming smile.

“Hey.” The word drags from his mouth, and he extends the last syllable for a second longer than necessary. “You’re here early.”

Shit. Even his voice sounds the same.

You heft your suitcase and place it by your feet just so you can avoid eye contact. Under different circumstances, Mingyu probably wouldn’t have let you carry your suitcase all the way up the stairs to the third floor—the elevator has been out of commission since before you even met him, and that doesn’t appear to change anytime soon. He probably would have lugged the whole thing upstairs, despite your protests and claims that you’re strong enough to do it on your own. But now, you can only sense his gaze on your figure as you place it securely on the floor.

When you straighten up, he’s still looking at you. He has an eyebrow raised and his arms crossed over his chest, but his eyes are clouded, almost as if he’s built some kind of impenetrable fortress against you. You have your walls up, too—in the slight clench of your jaw and defiant raise of your chin—and it’s something someone else wouldn’t be able to notice, but you’re sure Kim Mingyu has.

“Yeah. Um.” You attempt to smile, pray it doesn’t visibly appear as a grimace, and gesture behind you with your thumb. “The packers and movers came by pretty early, so everything ended up moving faster.”

“I see.” He purses his lips, evidently running out of things to say. (Good for you, really, because there’s nothing for you to say either.)

You take the chance to glance behind him—a feat in itself, considering how broad his shoulders are—and observe the interiors of what is going to be your home for the next year. Beige walls, the ratty sofa he bought off a garage sale, the television set he originally used to play video games on but ended up using it to watch shows instead—and a potted succulent placed in the corner. That wasn’t there before.

Before you allow your lips to tug up amusedly, Mingyu speaks again. “Is that all? When’s the rest of your stuff coming in?”

“The movers said they’d have everything ready within two days. It might take me longer to get everything sorted out, though,” you reply, aiming your gaze downwards at your suitcase.

It’s an old thing, with fraying fabric and rusty wheels, but it currently contains a fraction of your belongings: Clothes, toiletry, a small pouch where you keep items that have a special significance to you. Only the bare essentials, really. Mingyu had assured you that the room was furnished, with a bed, closet and desk. His old roommate, Minghao, had moved out but left the furniture behind because he had no reason to take them with him—not when he moved in with his girlfriend in her own apartment. All that’s left for the movers to bring over is your bookshelf, your book collection, the rest of your clothes, the Ikea drawer you and your best friend, Park Jihyo, built together, and other smaller items like your desk lamp and office chair.

“That’s okay,” Mingyu says. “Take as long as you need.”

You nod, mumbling a “thank you”, then bend down to pick up your suitcase.

Mingyu moves aside, granting you enough space to roll it across the floor and head over to the side that leads to the Minghao’s old room. Right opposite you is the doorway that leads to Mingyu’s bedroom, and further to the side is the corridor that opens into the kitchen, the small space where he keeps a dining table, and the bathroom.

In a way, you’re glad your room is situated further away from those places. Ghosts of memories linger there, ones that you can’t bear to revisit.

No, it’s better this way; you’re away from everything that you used to consider a second home. Maybe if you close the door behind you, you can pretend like you’re in some kind of void where the only things that exist are you and the bed.

“Wait, Y/N.”

You pause, feeling… something. The way he says your name, so casually, as if it’s second nature to him (it used to be) and nothing has changed at all, has you on edge—not in the good way, but not in the bad way either. 

You turn around. “Yeah?”

“Um.” Your ex-boyfriend hesitates for a second. “I’m… going out for dinner with Minghao and some others, is that okay? It might be late by the time I come back.”

“Okay.” Then, feeling the need to clarify something, you say, “You—you don’t have to tell me that. We don’t��� owe each other an explanation for where the other is.”

Mingyu stays quiet, and you look away, teeth worrying your bottom lip. You wonder if he’s going to say anything—or even show any kind of reaction at all. 

“Right. We don’t.” His voice is toned down with a kind of uneasiness that you don’t blame him for. Heck, even you feel a twinge of hurt rise up your throat at your own words. “I’ll… let you get some rest.” He nods once, places his hands in his pockets, and walks back to his room.

Your grip on the suitcase handle tightens. Once you enter your room, you let out a pained sigh. You shut the door and turn your back to the wooden blockade that separates you from the rest of the apartment.

This is not going the way you expected—but then again, what had you expected? That everything between you and Mingyu would just vanish and you could talk to him normally without feeling that tiny pinprick of bitterness stab your chest every time you address him? You and Mingyu have a history, filled with good times and bad times, and six months spent away from each other will do nothing to erase that. 

You think of what your old roommate, Jihyo, would’ve said. He’s just a boy, Y/N. Make him clean the toilet all the time so he’ll automatically get sick of you.

You smile to yourself, unlocking your phone. Jihyo is probably too busy settling down in her new home in the city she moved to, so she can’t pick up your call. You decide to send her a text message instead.

You switch to the food app, order your favourite dishes from the Indian place a couple of streets away, and toss your phone onto the bed. Kneeling, you unzip your suitcase and unpack the few items you have with you. As you move around, you can already imagine how to decorate the place, how to make it feel more like a home and less like you’re an intruder. The closet is just enough for all the clothes you own—the ones you’ve packed and the ones stored in cardboard boxes yet to arrive. The desk placed opposite to the bed is perfect for when you have to work on your laptop late at night; if you place your lamp on it, you might even forget that you’re not in your old apartment. The bed already has a mattress with clean linen on the bedspread. You place your old Looney Tunes duvet on it.

Thirty minutes later, the doorbell rings. You pause your unpacking to get the door and thank the delivery guy for the food. Mingyu has already left, judging by the lack of noise in the rest of the apartment. You just hope he doesn’t come back home drunk and shit-faced—that would definitely ruin the rest of your night, and the much-needed sleep you require. 

You decide not to use the kitchen table, instead opting to take the food containers into your room, where you can eat and watch a show at the same time. It’s lonely, but at least you can have your meal somewhere comfortable.

Your phone rings with notifications. You pick it up, carefully balancing the bowl of curry on your knee. 

(19:47) Jihyo: hows the apartment??? did u make mingyu clean the toilet yet?

(19:47) Mingyu: hey, i’m at a thai place. do you want anything to eat at home? i could get something packaged.

You smile at the first text, tense up at the second one, and place your phone down next to you. Not replying to either of their messages might be a bad idea, but right now, all you want is to have your spicy curry and naan in peace—your best friend and ex-boyfriend be damned.

TWO

It’s only after you move in with Mingyu that your separation from Jihyo truly sinks in. Now, there’s no one you can wake up at two in the morning because your period started and you ran out of pads, or gossip about that one campus couple who broke up in public at your favourite boba place.

Not to mention the fact that living with your ex-boyfriend is mildly awkward at best and stupidly melancholic at worst.

It’s been a week, but you and Mingyu seem to have figured out a way to work in tandem. It appears as though neither of you want to see the other—just yet, at least. He goes for a morning jog at six; your alarm rings at six. He comes back reeking of sweat at seven in the morning; you’re getting ready to leave for work by then. You do the dishes on the days he vacuums the apartment and vice versa. It leaves no room for conversation, other than the occasional greetings and small talk when you happen to cross paths.

In fact, ever since you purposefully ignored Mingyu’s text asking if you wanted anything from the Thai restaurant, he’s made a conscious effort at avoiding you.

You nearly jump out of your seat when someone taps your shoulder. “Hey.”

You turn around and meet your co-worker, Lee Seokmin’s eyes. He smiles at you, eyes curving into little crescents.

“Hi,” you say, smiling back automatically.

If there’s one person you can count on to bring a smile to your lips, even if it’s eight o’clock in the morning—at work, no less—it’s Lee Seokmin. His cheerful nature and lively personality is infectious. His happiness radiates outwards in waves that everyone gets swept up on. You might even consider yourself envious of how easily he sways everyone, with that exuberant smile and those good-natured compliments he doles out to everyone like they cost him nothing. (Which they don’t, you suppose.)

“Something on your mind?”

Your smile turns into a grimace. “You could tell?”

He gives you a little half-shrug, still smiling. “You had a weird, serious, think-y face. And before you come at me for think-y not being a real word—I’m very aware of that, thank you—it’s the best way I can describe you.”

“You chose think-y—” you bite back a chuckle— “as the best word to describe me? Come on, Seokmin, you can do better than that.”

“I can,” he agrees, “but only when the situation is appropriate.” His face turns grave, and he continues, “But seriously, Y/N. Did you have a rough night?”

His eyes roam over your face, evident concern shown in the curve of his lips and the slight dip of his eyebrows. You control your wince, wondering if the swollen bags underneath your eyes aren’t as concealed by your makeup as you thought. 

Rough week, more like. But you don’t say that to him. “Something like that,” you say.

“You moved out a while back, right? How’s the new place?”

“It’s… good. Close to the supermarket and all that. Everything is within, like, a ten-metre radius, so I don’t have to go very far to get things.”

“That’s nice to hear,” Seokmin says, and you can tell he really means it. “I bet you’re tired, though, with all that packing and unpacking and moving around.”

He bends closer, the front of his loosely tucked shirt just barely touching the back of your chair. This close, you can smell the faint scent of Seokmin’s deodorant and fabric softener. He taps his finger on the arm of your chair. “Do you want to get some coffee with me?”

“Um.” You look back at your laptop and the pile of binders next to it. Seokmin seems to know what you’re thinking, because he huffs and says, “C’mon, I’m sure Seungcheol wouldn’t mind if you took a coffee break.”

“I guess,” you return, flashing him a smile when he rolls your chair backwards to give you space to stand up.

Getting up, both of you weave your way to the third floor, where the only functioning coffee maker is housed. The elevator is too crowded and busy for you to use to get down from your position on the seventh floor, so you settle for using the stairs. Throughout the ten-minute walk (which effectively turns into a fifteen-minute one, thanks to him), Seokmin waves and greets every single fellow office worker you pass by. By name.

You roll your eyes and bite your lip to hold back your laugh when a young, female intern—probably still in college by the looks of it—flushes bright red because Seokmin complimented her barrette.

He catches your eye and grins. “What’s so funny?”

You shake your head good-naturedly. “It’s nothing. Carry on with whatever you were doing.”

“What was I doing?”

“Oh, you know,” you say airily, “making everyone fall head over heels for you because you’re just so nice.”

His grin only widens. “You make it sound as though being nice is a bad thing.”

“That’s not what I meant at all,” you protest. “I’m just— Greeting every single person you see? By name? How do you even know everyone in the building?”

“I just check their ID card,” he explains, shrugging slightly. “I read this WikiHow article that said if you speak to people using their name, it creates a good impression and makes you appear more confident than you really are.”

“Really?”

Humming, Seokmin nods, before adding slyly, “I’m not sure what you mean by making everyone fall in love with me, though.”

“Please,” you snort. “You’re way too charming for your own good—and I don’t mean that in a bad way.”

“You think so?” 

You can hear the smugness in his tone and you roll your eyes again. “Yes, I think so.”

“Then…” He trails off, gazing at the handrail.

Seokmin’s voice turns softer, more serious. Contemplation bleeds into his features, and when he speaks again, he lacks the bravado he had with all the other people he spoke to on your way down.

“Guess I better work on charming the right people, huh?” 

You blink, but before you can digest Seokmin’s words, he gives you another bright grin before rounding the corner and striding towards the coffee machine. You follow, the need for caffeine in your system overriding your instinct to mull over what your co-worker said. Unfortunately, it seems you and Seokmin aren’t the only ones who want coffee; a long queue runs ahead of you. Your coffee break might end up taking longer than you thought.

“So,” Seokmin casually drawls, one hand in his pocket and the other fiddling with his ID card’s lanyard. “Do you want to talk about your rough night?”

“I…” You pause and consider. 

Should you tell Seokmin? You trust him enough—you’ve known him for as long as you’ve been working in this company—and he’s always been friendly to you, offering you a ride home when both of you work overtime and paying for your food on the occasional visits to a café or a coffee shop. Besides, he’s the closest person you have to a friend, now that Jihyo lives in a different city and you can’t call her up whenever you feel like it. You decide to tread the waters first, only telling him the bare minimum.

“Hypothetically speaking,” you begin, “if you move in with someone you don’t like but have known for years, what would you do?”

“That’s a tough one.” He scratches his chin, pretending to think. “I guess it depends on the kind of past you share, y’know? But either way, I would try to… make peace with them, I guess. Like a ceasefire. Offer them an olive branch. Hypothetically speaking, of course.” He grins knowingly at the last bit and you shove his shoulder.

What Seokmin said makes sense. You and Mingyu are living together; your past relationship shouldn’t come in the way of talking to each other. But it does, so much more than it should. Try as hard as you might, every time you think of Kim Mingyu, the first thing that comes to your mind is all the kisses you’ve shared, the way his arms feel around you, how both of you broke the promises you made to each other—all because you were too proud and he was too stubborn. 

You still are proud. For all you know, Mingyu might still be stubborn. 

What a pair, you think drily.

You and Seokmin shuffle forwards. He stays silent, allowing you to process your thoughts and wonder how, exactly, you’re going to get over Mingyu and talk to him without feeling like your stomach is twisting into a million knots. 

Once you reach the coffee machine, Seokmin hands you a cup. “It’s hot,” he warns, before carefully handing you the styrofoam cup filled to the brim with the bitter brew. You cautiously take a sip, wincing when you almost burn your tongue and make a face at your co-worker when he chimes, “I told you.”

The walk back to your floor doesn’t take as long as the walk down. Before you part ways, Seokmin offers you a small smile and a pat on your shoulder.

“If you’re wondering how to approach your roommate,” he says, lowering his voice, “maybe start off by offering them food. Works like a charm every time.”

Food. Yeah, you can manage that. Dinner with your ex-boyfriend.

Should be a piece of cake.

THREE

Asking Mingyu if he would like to have dinner with you is decidedly not a piece of cake.

When he comes back home from work, Mingyu has only one trajectory: Travel in a straight line from the door to his bedroom, offering you a tight smile if he sees you along the way. His bag is always slung across one shoulder and his shirt is always untucked and his hair is always a wild mess. If his appearance wasn’t achingly familiar, you would probably laugh every time you see his unruly figure.

It takes a week for you to muster up the nerve to look Mingyu in the eye, after your conversation with Seokmin. He’s been pestering you incessantly, almost exactly like Jihyo. When you told her about Seokmin’s suggestion, she had been nothing short of enthusiastic. Your phone has been blowing up constantly with texts from her, egging you on and on and on to make a move first and raise the (hypothetical) white flag. 

“If you keep putting it off, you’re going to be very miserable for the rest of your immediate future,” was her reasoning when you called and spoke to her on the phone three days ago. “But also if you don’t fucking ask him to have a meal with you within the next week, I will fly over and have you both sit in a room, alone, and force you to talk.”

Both the options are pretty much the same. You didn’t have the energy to tell Jihyo that.

It’s on a Monday evening that you catch Mingyu and pop the question. A Monday evening that’s insignificant, really. Almost laughable at how normal the evening is. Mingyu unlocks the door, closes it while toeing his shoes off, and gives you the same tight smile—one where it doesn’t reach his eyes, his jaw is slightly clenched, and his lips thin into almost straight lines. 

“Mingyu.” Your voice comes out breathless, like you’ve been jogging for miles before coming to a stop in front of him. He pauses, wind-ruffled hair framing his face in cloudy wisps.

“Yeah?” 

“I—uh—” you force the words to tumble out of your lips, before you can overthink— “I was wondering if you would like to have dinner with me?”

Mingyu purses his lips, looking at you warily. He’s careful, cautious, when he asks, “Is… there any special reason?”

You swallow. “No,” you say honestly, not allowing your eyes to tear away from his. “There isn’t. But I tried making lasagne today, and I would like to share it with someone.”

For a minute, he doesn’t say anything, only lets his bag fall into the crook of his arm. “Okay,” he says finally. “Let me just change and wash up.”

You nod, making your way to the kitchen to bring out the casserole. You’re not usually one for cooking—you prefer ordering takeout because it’s easier and they make the food better than you, anyway—but simply ordering food didn’t sit right with you. Lasagne is a dish you’ve made a few times before, and you would rather make something you’re familiar with instead of trying to whip up something new.

When you go back into the kitchen, you find Mingyu already there, bent over an open cupboard’s door as he fishes out some plates and cutlery. He’s wearing a loose white shirt and grey sweatpants, fringe falling freely over his forehead and obscuring his eyes. 

“Are our regular plates okay or do we need the china ones?” he asks, still bent over.

“Why do we need china plates? Wait, why do you even have china plates with you in the first place?”

He looks over at you and shrugs. “Dunno. Minghao had a china cutlery phase, I think.”

That does sound like a phase Xu Minghao would have.

“The regular ones are fine.” You don’t want to risk breaking Minghao’s precious cutlery.

While Mingyu wipes the plates with a dishcloth, you grab two mugs and pour orange juice from the fridge into them. You take one in each hand and follow Mingyu to the kitchen table, placing both of them on either side.

“Orange juice?” Mingyu’s eyebrows are raised.

“Yeah. So?” you challenge him, raising your eyebrows as well.

But he doesn’t say anything against your choice of beverage, only shrugs and mumbles, “We should really stock up on alcohol.”

Your lips twitch. You don’t allow yourself to smile.

Instead, you pull your chair back and sit down, steepling your fingers in front of you. Mingyu piles some food onto his plate. For some reason, you feel weirdly nervous. What if it’s not as good as you think? What if he doesn’t like it?

You shake those thoughts away. This is Kim Mingyu. Even if the food was bad, he wouldn’t tell you; he would only grin, compliment your culinary skills, and continue to eat despite everything.

“Is it… good?” you ask tentatively, after he takes a forkful into his mouth and chews deliberately.

He waits until he’s swallowed before answering. “It’s great. Really good,” he affirms, and you can hear in his voice that he means it.

Well, almost.

It’s the slight dip and intonation of his tone, but it’s one you’re familiar with. You narrow your eyes at him. Mingyu continues eating, oblivious to your glare. In fact, he shovels more lasagne onto his dish and eats with more gusto, pausing every now and then to gulp down some orange juice.

“Really?” you say casually. “I’m glad. Maybe I should try some too.”

Mingyu’s reaction is so instantaneous, it’s almost comical. His eyes widen by a fraction, and he immediately reaches for the casserole. “You should definitely try some,” he says. “But it’s so good, I wanna have some more.”

You bite the inside of your cheek, watching Mingyu stuff more food into his mouth before deciding to put him out of his misery.

“Mingyu. Tell me the truth. How’s the food?”

He pauses, swallowing the food in his mouth and answering with a subdued, sheepish smile:

“It’s too salty.”

FOUR

“Why are you leaving so early?” Jihyo’s voice crackles through your phone placed on your bed.

“Seokmin said he wanted to try out the croissants at the new bakery that opened nearby,” you reply, fiddling with the buttons of your shirt. “He also said he wanted to buy a baguette so that he could whack his roommate with it. Something about going all the way to Paris to buy it but his roommate used it to hammer a nail into the wall and broke it.”

A pause, and then, “Is his roommate okay in the head?”

“Good question.” You grin at your reflection in the mirror, pat down the hair at the back of your neck, and grab your phone. “I’m heading out now. I’ll text you later.”

“’kay,” your best friend says. “Tell Mingyu I said hi.”

“I will,” you say, but you already know you’re not going to greet him on behalf of her.

Things between you and Mingyu are… still pretty much the same, honestly. After that dinner fiasco, you’ve been too embarrassed to properly address him, and he’s not made much of an effort on his part. Or maybe you’ve been consciously avoiding him so much that he doesn’t get a chance to put his foot forward. Either way, your cheeks still burn up whenever you think of that night’s dinner, so for now, hiding in your room is quite possibly the only way you can prevent yourself from catching fire completely.

Stupid logic. You’re a grown adult, with the ability to make good judgements and make decisions. Unfortunately, your decisions are mostly borderline idiotic.

Shouldering your bag, you leave your room and head to the kitchen to grab a bottle of water. There’s a Post-It note stuck on the refrigerator. Peeling it off the fridge’s door, you read it curiously.

Got some cookies from Minghao’s friend’s bakery. I’ve kept them in the pantry. Enjoy! :) 

Mingyu’s familiar scrawl is branded into your head, and seeing the yellow square of paper makes nostalgia bubble inside your chest like a bath bomb dropped into a bathtub filled with water. You pocket the note, and smile so widely, your cheeks hurt.

Maybe he’s put his foot forward, after all.

Seokmin is already waiting for you outside your apartment building by the time you go out. He grins at you, his eyes crinkling in the corners and teeth flashing happily. 

“Hi,” you greet him. “Did you wait long?”

“No.” Your co-worker shakes his head, still smiling. “I just got here, actually.”

“I’m glad.” You return his smile. “Should we head out?”

Seokmin nods. “Of course,” he says, and you fall into step with him. 

He has a never-ending list of topics to talk to you about—and for the most part, you’re glad that he’s so outgoing. In twenty minutes, you’ve learnt almost everything there is to know about his roommate, Jeonghan, his older sister, his fear of ladybugs (you snort out loud at that particular anecdote), and his favourite anime (Haikyu!! and One Piece). In return, you tell him about that time you and Jihyo accidentally walked into the wrong restroom at a bar, and how you got dumped by your high school crush because he thought you were better than him at playing basketball.

It’s comfortable. Talking to Seokmin always is. 

But you still don’t talk about Mingyu. You try hard to stop thinking of him, but he’s always there at the back of your mind, an unopened gift that you don’t unwrap. 

Finally, you and Seokmin round a corner and find yourselves standing in front of the just-opened bakery. The scent of vanilla and cinnamon wafts through the open door. An array of different types of breads and other desserts is placed carefully on a display at the counter, and the owner greets you with a welcoming smile.

“What do you want to have?” Seokmin asks, holding your elbow and leading you in.

You eye the basket of croissants. The buttery confection looks delicious, but so does the tray of muffins placed next to it. And the bagels placed beside the muffins. “I can’t decide.”

“How about one of everything?”

You glance at him to see if he’s joking, but Seokmin looks completely serious. “You’re kidding, right?” you say, grabbing his arm. “There’s no way I’m going to let you buy one of everything in this store!”

“I would,” Seokmin admits, a flush creeping up his neck, “if you asked me to.”

You groan. “Seokmin. Please don’t.”

“Alright, alright.” He raises his hands in defeat. “I’m just saying, if you wanted me to—”

“One croissant, please,” you interrupt, addressing the owner. “To go. And he will have…”

“Make that two croissants,” Seokmin finishes. “I’ll have whatever the lady’s having.”

“How gentlemanly of you.”

“I know.”

Seokmin pays for his croissant, and you pay for yours. The owner wraps them up and hands them to you, asking you to visit again. Once you exit, you unwrap yours and take a small bite. The bread is soft and melts in your mouth, leaving a sweet aftertaste. You take another bite, and it’s only then that you notice Seokmin looking at you, a corner of his lips turned upwards in a crooked smile and one hand in his pocket.

“What?” you ask, suddenly self-conscious. “Do I have crumbs on my face?”

“No,” he replies. “I just… I would really love to do this again, Y/N.”

Oh.

Seokmin looks at you so hopefully. Like he’s been waiting for this opportunity for a long time. Like he needs to get something off his chest. Like he never wants this moment to end.

“...I’d like that, too,” you say.

Somehow, the words leave a bitter taste in your mouth, one that even another mouthful of the sweet snack can’t erase.

FIVE

It’s getting late, and yet Kim Mingyu is hellbent on getting you to keep him company. The worst part is that it’s working—though you would never admit that to him.

Being friends with your ex isn’t that uncommon. You and Mingyu can be friends. But how long are you willing to put up with this ruse before it all blows up in your faces? Friendship between two people who used to date isn’t that much of a big deal—but that’s just it, isn’t it? You and Mingyu weren’t just two people who used to date.

How did you even let him talk you into spending time with him? Or maybe that’s all on you; you’ve never been able to say no to him. One minute you’re looking at his face and remembering the lasagne gone wrong, the next he’s asking if you want to watch a movie with him. Except neither of you have updated your Netflix subscription, so this was a bad idea all along.

Maybe talking to Mingyu is a bad idea. 

Maybe you should go back to your old ways, locking yourself up in your room and only acknowledging his presence when you happen to cross paths. 

But the socialite in you nags, what if he thinks you’re some kind of hermit who only comes out to eat and drink? Besides, he’s here now, right next to you on the sofa—keeping a respectable distance between your bodies—as he watches a rerun of America’s Next Top Model because it was the least shitty thing playing on all the channels you scrounged through fifteen minutes ago. 

Normally, you would be elated at the idea of poking fun at random reality shows, expressing your exasperation at the poorly-written scripted drama and the even worse acting. But even if the showoff between two aspiring models both named Jessica and sporting the same colour of fake tan and bleached blonde hair was somewhat interesting, you find your gaze keeps wandering to your ex-boyfriend.

You trace the contours of his face with your eyes—the cheekbones that jut out only slightly, the furrow created on his forehead as his eyebrows kiss, the way his honey-brown eyes stare at the screen in front of him with a focused intensity. Even the way his lips curve ever-so slightly upwards, despite him pressing them together, has you recalling just how soft they felt against your own. 

His warm, soft skin. The prominent collarbone that you used to press small kisses to whenever you wanted to get his attention. The moles scattered all over his body, creating a canvas for you to paint on by tracing them with your fingers. The flex of his fingers as he bunches them into a loose fist.

Everything about him is so familiar, yet so foreign at the same time.

Even this semblance of friendship that has bridged the drawn-out distance between you both feels strange—as though somewhere in the back of your subconscious, you recognise that this camaraderie is either a really good thing or could go extremely wrong. You’re in the middle of that bridge, trying your best not to lean too much to the right or to the left, but even a slight misstep could lead to everything going downhill.

“Are you rooting for Jessice H. or Jessica C.?”

“Huh?” You blink, escaping your haze of thoughts. “I’m sorry—which one is which?”

Mingyu glances at you with a deadpan expression. “We’ve been watching them trying to one up each other for the past ten minutes.”

“Sorry.” You smile sheepishly. “Both of them look the same to me.”

“Fair enough,” he acquiesces, before returning his focus to the show. “It’s the fake tan, isn’t it? Although the hair is similar too… No wonder they’ve been arguing about who put on their mascara better—it looks identical.” 

You play along. “Or maybe it’s the supposed Gucci belts. I had no idea Gucci made handbags with fake crocodile skin.”

“The more you know…”

You laugh at that, and Mingyu looks at you—really looks, the same way he used to when you made a bad joke and giggled at it yourself. He looks at you with adoration written all over his face, in the upward twist of his lips and the crinkling in the corners of his eyes.

You clamp your mouth shut immediately, feeling a sense of nostalgia, longing and wistfulness seep into your skin, through your flesh and settle deep into your bones. 

Too much. It’s too much, and it’s way too early, and you don’t want to dwell on anything at the moment. So you do what you do best: You hide.

You tear your gaze off him and rub your palms on your old jeans. You hear Mingyu’s sharp intake of breath, but you force yourself not to look, not to think about him. 

“Hey, uh—I was supposed to call Jihyo right now,” you lie, and even you think it sounds lame coming out of your mouth, so there’s no way Mingyu can’t see through it.

“Y/N,” is all he says. 

You hate the way your chest clenches—just because he said your name—but what can you do? Escape the situation and never bring up the obvious elephant in the room?

Yeah. That’s exactly what you do. Making decisions isn’t your forte, but you’ll deal with the consequences of your actions later. Much, much later, if you can avoid it for as long as you’re living here.

You get up and make a beeline for your room, and Kim Mingyu doesn’t say anything to make you stop.

SIX

Whenever you faltered, Jihyo was your voice of reason. She would help you back to your feet, give you a solid nudge on your shoulder and list out the pros and cons of everything, allowing you to formulate your own opinion and come to a decision.

She isn’t being very helpful right now.

“Think about it,” she reasons. “Before, he was your ex. Now, he’s the guy you live with. You have to talk to him, no matter what.”

She’s right. She knows you know she’s right. You still refuse to acknowledge it, because pride comes before a fall, but you haven’t fallen yet. It’s more like you’re dangling off the precipice.

“How’s Jaehyun?” you say instead, referring to the guy she’s been crushing on ever since she moved to the new city.

Jihyo lets out an unimpressed sigh, the grainy image of her face on your phone screen contorting slightly. “Don’t think you’re being super smart by changing the topic, Y/N. And he’s fine. We went out for boba the other day.”

“Yeah?” You play with the fraying edge of the duvet thrown over your body. “That’s nice.”

Jihyo hums, pushing some of her hair behind her ear. “And then he asked if we could hook up.”

You guffaw. “Really?”

“Yeah.” She nods vigorously, affirming her statement. “I said no, obviously.”

“Why? Afraid he’s too much to handle?”

“Please,” your best friend snorts. “Have you seen him? I think I’m too much for him to handle. He couldn’t even pay for the boba without tearing his pocket because he was too enthusiastic in getting his wallet out.”

You smile thinly. Jihyo might be poking fun at the man, but you can tell from the twinkle in her eyes and the way her voice is filled with infectious joy that she’s enamoured by him. You wish you could meet him in person. Instead, you have to settle for checking out his Instagram profile.

“Anyway,” she continues, stifling a yawn, “it’s late and I have to head out tomorrow. I’ll call you later.”

“Okay,” you say. “Good night. Don’t dream of Jaehyun.”

She flips her middle finger at you and you roll your eyes, pressing the end button. Just when you’re about to fluff your pillow so you can lie down, you hear a knock on your door.

“Y/N?” Mingyu sounds remarkably active, considering the fact that it’s currently fifteen minutes past midnight. “Are you awake?”

Curiosity compels you to answer honestly, “Yeah. Is everything okay?” 

You tread over to the door, swinging it open. Mingyu is in his sweatpants—a pair you know he only wears for bed—and a loose graphic T-shirt. You’re wearing pretty much the same attire, except your shirt is an old one, worn-out from your high school days, and it doesn't fit you that well anymore. You tug the hem over your hips consciously.

“Yeah,” he says, nodding. “Yeah, everything’s okay. I was just…” He pauses, raising a hand and ruffling his hair. “Do you wanna get some ice cream?”

Of all possible things you expected Mingyu to ask you, this certainly wasn’t one of them. You blink, bemused. 

“Or—or we don’t have to,” he backtracks, when you don’t say anything immediately. “I was just craving something sweet, that’s all—”

“Okay,” you say, surprising yourself with your answer. Mingyu is trying to extend the olive branch you placed in between you both, and you have to appreciate that. Regardless of your personal feelings. Besides, Jihyo was right—he’s the guy you live with, and you need to be able to spend time with him. As friends. Nothing more.

“Okay.” He exhales, relieved. “It’s right across the street.”

“I think I know the one you’re talking about.”

The ice cream parlour is a ten-minute walk from your apartment, but walking with Mingyu makes time fly. He says something about mint chocolate being an underrated flavour, and you insinuate that it deserves to be, and just like that, conversation flows between you both as though your past is some kind of a fever dream.

Where Seokmin is a bright ray of sunshine lighting up your way on a cloudy day, Mingyu is moonlight, skittering over your figure and providing solace in the dark. Seokmin is infectious laughter and gleeful smiles; Mingyu is whispered jokes and shared silence.

Perhaps it’s those very qualities that made you fall so hard for the man next to you. You know for sure it’s those very qualities that still have you in his grip, even though he doesn’t know it. Maybe that’s why talking to him is awkward—because how do you move on from someone who captured your heart and kept it for safe-keeping but know that there’s one big, gaping hole in your chest where his heart is supposed to be? Even now, a small part of you belongs to Mingyu, like a little token which he’s kept locked up and hidden the key.

Six months is a long time, but neither you nor Mingyu seems to be able to bring up what happened. Maybe it’s for the best, you think. You would rather have a small bit of this domesticity that feels familiar than have everything blow up in your face because of the harsh words you exchanged.

You ignore the tightening in your chest and focus on the warmth pooling in your stomach when Mingyu grins and offers you a chance to redeem yourself when it comes to good ice cream flavours. You say mint chocolate is tolerable, but only because Mingyu likes it.

SEVEN

Seokmin drops by your cubicle almost every day now. He offers to drop you back home, too.

Each time, you smile but decline politely. You still feel guilty about saying that you would like to spend more time with him as well—but in your defence, you didn’t really lie; you do want to spend more time with him, but only as a friend. Seokmin didn’t specify how exactly he wants to go out with you.

It’s getting harder to say no, however. Seokmin is everything if not persistent, and his determination to take you out has you crumbling under his forlorn gaze and pleading words.

He doesn’t make your heart beat faster, or make butterflies erupt inside your belly. Being with Seokmin doesn’t come with bright fireworks or flashy songs. It’s finding the extraordinary in the mundane, and laughing yourselves silly over jokes that aren’t even that funny.

So. It’s not Mingyu, but Seokmin is nice and friendly and stable, and you think you can fall for him. You and Mingyu aren’t going to cross the threshold of friends ever again, anyway. There’s nothing stopping you from going out with Seokmin.

“Okay,” you say when he asks you again, a half-resigned look on his face when he assumes you’ll just say no again. 

The way his expression morphs to elation is worth it, you think. He surges forward, wrapping his arms around you and pulling you in for a tight hug. “Thank you,” he whispers into your ear, and the joy he feels is infectious—as most good things with Seokmin are—so it’s no surprise that your cheeks are already hurting from smiling too hard.

When you update Jihyo about the latest turn of events, she tuts disapprovingly and says, “Have you told Mingyu?”

“No,” you say, feeling defensive. “I don’t have to tell him, do I?”

Your best friend waits for a beat. “You don’t, I guess.”

Mingyu interrupts your call then, and you quickly tell Jihyo you’ll text her later. He stands in the living room, holding up a pair of button down shirts, one in each hand, forehead creased and mouth downturned.

You lean against your doorway, amused. “You called?”

His face clears as he looks at you, tongue poking the inside of his cheek. “I have this work event I need to attend tomorrow, but I don’t know what to wear.”

You observe the shirts he’s holding up. One is cream in colour, long-sleeved and ironed neatly. The other is black, with a thin white stripe along the collar and sleeves.

“The black one,” you say immediately. And then feel your cheeks heat up with your quick answer. In your defence, Kim Mingyu has always looked alarmingly handsome in black. Objectively speaking.

“I haven’t worn this one in a long time.” He brings it close to his face, squinting at it. “It probably stinks.”

“Smell it, then,” you say, chuckling at the mortified look on Mingyu’s face. “What? You’re telling me you’ve never worn your underwear inside out because you forgot to do the laundry? This isn’t that different.”

“I have never done anything of the sort.” He sniffs petulantly at you, before his eyes narrow. “Wait. Does that mean you’ve worn your underwear inside out?”

You wrinkle your nose. “Gross. I thought you knew me better than that.”

Mingyu tenses up at your offhand comment, and you look down, wondering why that even slipped out of your mouth in the first place. Of course you screw everything up just when things are going decently well. 

“I do,” he mumbles. “I do know you better than that.” When you look at him, he has a wan smile on his lips. “Which is why I’m going to trust your judgement and wear the black shirt. Even if it’s musty from sitting in the back of my closet for so long.”

“Oh, shut up,” you huff, walking over to him and grabbing the cloth out of his hand. “I’m sure it’s not that bad.”

He only raises a single eyebrow at you.

That’s what prompts you to sniff at it. At his goddamn shirt. Like you’re one of those police dogs they use to find missing people.

It… doesn’t smell unpleasant. A little bit musty, like Mingyu said, but that can be attributed to him not wearing it often. Mostly, it smells of faint fabric softener and deodorant—and underneath it all, a scent that is solely Mingyu’s. (Pine and citrus and lavender, all mixed together, in a way that only Mingyu can pull off.)

“It smells fine,” you say, shoving it into Mingyu’s chest. “You’re being dramatic.”

“I’m not the one who grabbed it and shoved my face into it,” he says, “so who’s the real dramatic one here?”

“I didn’t shove my face into it!” You swat at his shoulder, but he laughs and dodges, eyes twinkling with playfulness.

“If you say so,” he returns, still chuckling to himself.

“When is this event?” 

“Tomorrow evening,” he answers.

“Both of us won’t be at home then,” you say, and he raises an eyebrow. “I… have a date tomorrow,” you explain, and regret it almost instantly. Why are you even telling him that? He doesn’t need to know.

“Oh,” is all he says, followed by a quieter, “Have fun.”

EIGHT

Seokmin picks you up at exactly six o’clock, wearing a loose button down shirt and slacks, and his hair styled carefully. He perks up as soon as you wave at him, jogging over to you with a smile.

“Hey,” he greets you. “You look good.”

You return his smile, tugging at the edge of your blouse and smoothing out your skirt. “Thank you. So do you.”

Seokmin’s grin brightens, which you didn’t even think was possible. “Thanks,” he says, and then gently takes hold of your elbow. “So… the plan for today is to take you out for dinner, and then a movie. How does that sound?”

“It sounds… good,” you say, letting him lead the way. It’s basic, yes, but you’re a firm believer in clichés—there’s a reason they become popular, after all.

He doesn’t stop talking, and neither do you. Throughout the entire half an hour dinner in some hole-in-the-wall diner that Seokmin discovered a month ago and serves the best blue lemonade mojitos you’ve ever tasted, and the entire two hour movie that’s way too boring for you to focus on the screen anyway, you and your co-worker keep up an endless stream of banter and silly anecdotes and you find yourself enjoying it more than you thought you would.

It’s refreshing, and when you and Seokmin finally make the walk back to your apartment, you find it difficult to let go of his hand. He pulls you to a stop in front of the building, rubbing his thumb gently across the back of your hand. 

His smile is as bright as ever, albeit tinged with slight disappointment. “So. I’ll see you on Monday, yeah?”

“Yeah,” you confirm, nodding. “Thank you for today, Seokmin. I had a lot of fun.”

“Me too,” he returns. “Listen, I—”

He’s interrupted by someone stumbling across the sidewalk—not someone, you realise. It’s two people, tightly coiled around each other in a manner that is entirely indecent for the public eye. But as they trip around one another—still holding each other tightly—your heart sinks deep into the pit of your stomach.

One of them is Mingyu.

The other person is some girl, hair falling loosely across her face, Mingyu’s fingers tangled into her tresses, while his other hand bunches up the material of her dress at her waist. They kiss and kiss and kiss, and you don’t tear your eyes away until Seokmin makes a noise of disgust.

He turns around, blocking your view of them and takes both your hands in his. “I… I’ll call you. Okay?”

You nod numbly. “Okay.”

Seokmin leaves with a bright smile and a lingering kiss on your cheek. You plaster a smile onto your lips until he moves out of your line of sight, after which you begin the arduous trek back to your—Mingyu’s—apartment. Normally, the three floors you climb aren’t much of a strenuous task; tonight, however, every step you take makes you feel like your legs are made of lead. 

You fumble in your purse for your key, the image of Mingyu kissing that girl not leaving your mind. It’s not supposed to hurt, you’re not supposed to be bothered by it. But it stings, like the biting cold on a freezing winter morning, making your fingers stiff and your ears chilly.

You hear footsteps right when you twist the key into the lock.

The last thing you see before you enter the apartment is Mingyu clambering up the staircase, clearly drunk but surprisingly upright. He has a lipstick stain leading from the corner of his mouth to his cheek, his hair is tousled—no doubt from someone running their hands through his silky locks—and his shirt is untucked and wrinkled.

He opens his mouth to say something, but you grab the door handle and step inside, because the last thing you want to confront is the fact that your feelings for Kim Mingyu might not be as forgotten as you believe.

Which is fine, all things considered, except Kim Mingyu doesn’t give a damn.

You let the door slam shut behind you before Mingyu can get in. Technically, it’s his house. Technically, he’s the one who has the right to lock you out.

Technically, you’re acting like a child throwing a tantrum, and technically, Mingyu is allowed to kiss whomever the fuck he wants. 

You wish Jihyo was here. She would ground you, make you see everything calmly and rationally. But she’s been having boy problems of her own (Jeong Jaehyun, who is decidedly not as romantic as Jihyo was led to believe), and the last thing you want is to dump your boy problems on her.

Besides, it’s no big deal. Right?

Mingyu lives here. He should have his own copy of the keys. He’s also drunk. (Drunk and half-laid, your mind helpfully reminds.)

Before you start overthinking about letting the door close behind you, you decide that what you really need is a warm shower. So you let your feet lead you to the bathroom directly, and don’t allow thoughts of ex-boyfriends and overly friendly co-workers to enter your brain.

You don’t hear the sound of keys turning in the lock the entire night, but you shove down the guilt that bubbles up your throat. It’s Mingyu’s fault for not carrying them with him wherever he goes; you’re not his caretaker, anyway. 

Your phone pings with a text message from Seokmin, and you pick it up.

(19:47) Seokmin: I had a great time today. Thanks for coming with me :) 

Despite the fact that you only have a towel wrapped around your body, and the fact that your hair is dripping wet, you feel a tingling warmth creep up your chest. 

NINE

Monday is a horrible day.

You woke up half an hour later than usual, which led to you rushing through your morning routine. Your clothes aren’t ironed, which is fine usually, but the shirt you pick doesn’t tuck in quite right and you don’t have the time to change it. You almost tripped over the curb in your rush to get to work and nearly spilled a cup of coffee—which is far too sweet for your liking, due to the dollop of sugar you added by accident—all over yourself. Your manager, Choi Seungcheol, doesn’t approve of the project portfolio you compiled, and the deadline is fast approaching, which means more late nights for you.

And to top it all off, your car engine won’t fucking start.

You’re really not in the mood for Seokmin and his exuberant enthusiasm, which is something he probably catches onto, considering the fact that he stands silently next to you, waiting for you to finish cursing the piece of metal you call a car. Once you’re done resisting the urge to burn down the automobile, Seokmin places a placating hand on your shoulder.

“Hey, it’s okay,” he soothes, training a concerned gaze over your figure. “I can drop you back home.”

“No, it’s fine,” you mutter sullenly. “I’ll just call a cab or something.”

“Y/N, please. It’s no trouble.” He pauses, and you glance at him, at the sympathetic crease of his forehead and the genuinity reflected in his eyes. It’s touching, and Seokmin flashes you a small smile. “I was gonna head over that way anyway—I wanted to get some stuff from that bakery we went to.”

“I—” You hesitate, and he takes the chance to slide in.

“You call the mechanic. I’ll wait for you in my car, okay?”

He scurries away, leaving you biting your lip and staring at your phone. You should probably call Mingyu; he can help. Knowing him, he would probably want to help, regardless of who was asking him. Instead, you search up the nearest mechanic shop and dial in their number, giving them the details of where you are. They arrive a couple of minutes later, and you watch as they hook your car onto their big tow truck and drive away.

Seokmin waves you over to his car, a sleek Hyundai that's probably a few years old but still looks brand new. He opens the door to the passenger seat with a smile before grabbing the stack of folders you had kept clutched to your chest. You let him take them. You’re far too tired to argue.

Briefly, your mind wanders to Mingyu—what he would do if you had told him. Probably run all the way here, your brain supplies, prompting a wry smile to form on your lips. You press them together when you think of Mingyu with that girl immediately afterwards.

The drive to your house is silent, only the rumble of Seokmin’s car and the soft noise of some interview playing on the radio filling the silence. He pulls to a stop near your apartment, bundles up your work folders in his arms and gestures for you to lead the way to your flat. 

The door swings open before you get the chance to pull out your key. Mingyu stands opposite you, dishevelled—just woken up from a nap, it seems. His mouth parts when he sees Seokmin standing behind you.

“Who’s this?” he asks by way of greeting.

You shift uncomfortably, wanting to say something, but the words stick to your throat like you’ve swallowed chewing gum. Seokmin reaches out from next to you, and you don’t need to see him to know he’s positively beaming.

“Hi, I’m Seokmin,” he says. “I work with Y/N.”

Mingyu shakes his hand, eyes roaming quizzically between you and Seokmin. “Nice to meet you,” he says distractedly. “I’m Mingyu, Y/N’s… roommate. And ex—”

“Come on in, Seokmin.” You glare at Mingyu. He only raises an eyebrow in retaliation. Seokmin coughs slightly, blows out a puff of air, and follows you inside.

“You can just…” You wave your hand around vaguely. Gritting your teeth does nothing to bring you out of your haze. It only exacerbates it.

“Did something happen?” Mingyu moves aside, but you feel his eyes on the back of your neck.

“Y/N’s car broke down,” Seokmin supplies. “It’s at the mechanic’s right now, so I offered to drop her back home.”

“I see.” His next statement is directed at you. “You could’ve called me. I would have come.”

It’s only then that you turn around and face him. He doesn’t move, gaze locked unwaveringly on your hunched-over figure. It’s almost like he’s challenging you to say something.

“I know that,” is all you say, voice low.

Mingyu nods. “Good.”

You avert your attention to Seokmin. He appears lost, gaping at both of you as though he can’t quite catch onto what’s going on. “Let’s go to my room, Seokmin. You can leave my stuff there.”

“Okay.” Seokmin nods, giving Mingyu a hesitant smile. “It was nice meeting you, Mingyu.”

“You too.”

It’s a tiny exchange, but it’s enough to cause a fissure inside your heart. Seokmin is always so nice. He gives out niceness like he’s handing out free candy to toddlers. The only time you’ve ever seen him get remotely angry was when another co-worker of yours forgot a pen drive containing a crucial presentation to an important client—even then, all he did was level a glare at her before calmly asking for a backup drive to be brought.

Mingyu, on the other hand, is like a burning ember. Calm one minute, and angry the next—and it’s the reason you love him, but it’s also the reason you broke things off. You and Mingyu are far too similar, hot-headed and careless to a fault, like two candle flames competing to see who can burn their wick the fastest. You didn’t burn the wick. You ended up burning each other instead. Let it not be said that playing with fire isn’t one of your specialties.

Seokmin lets out a breath that sounds like a huff and a sigh simultaneously as soon as he enters your room. “You can leave the stuff here,” you say, pointing at your desk.

He obliges, carefully placing the stack on the table. “That’s your roommate, huh? Y’know, when you said that you were living with someone you didn’t like, I didn’t think you meant your ex-boyfriend.”

You look away, biting the inside of your cheek. “It’s… difficult. I needed a place to live and he was the only person who offered on short notice. It just happened.”

Seokmin nods understandingly, lips pursed in thought. “He seems like a nice guy.”

“He is,” you agree. “One of the nicest people I know.”

“Yeah?” Your co-worker lifts one corner of his lips in an amused half-smile. “What does that make me?”

The answer is on the tip of your tongue. You know Seokmin is expecting it. Hell, you’re expecting the words to just come out. The nicest guy of them all. That’s all you have to say.

“You’re… Lee Seokmin.” 

The words are flat on your tongue. Seokmin’s expression falls—just the tiniest bit, a crack in the foundation—but you feel a terrible weight in your stomach, pulling you down, down, down until your head sinks below the surface of the metaphorical waves and the water erases your existence. 

Seokmin is a nice guy—you know that, and you’ve reiterated it so many times. The only thing stopping you from being in a proper relationship with him is your ex-boyfriend, only separated from you by a wooden door and cement walls. Mingyu doesn’t like you anymore, not in the way he used to, and it’s clearly time for you to stop dwelling on what you had.

You swallow, looking at Seokmin directly. “And…” You take a step closer to him. “I consider myself lucky to have met you.”

Seokmin looks at you, his gaze unsteady, but he takes one of your hands in his. “Yeah?” His throat bobs when he speaks, and that’s how you know he’s nervous.

“Yeah,” you confirm, letting his fingers slip in between yours. 

He shuffles closer to you, and you can smell his woody cologne intermingled with sweat. You can count the moles on his face, see your reflection in his pupils. 

“Y/N, I really want to kiss—”

There’s a knock on your door, and you and Seokmin jump away from each other like a pair of schoolchildren getting caught doing something you’re not supposed to. Seokmin looks down at his feet; you clear your throat before letting out a hoarse, “Yes?”

“You left your phone outside,” Mingyu calls. “The mechanic just called.”

“Oh, um. I’ll be right there.” You turn back to Seokmin, cheeks burning with embarrassment. Of all possible times for Mingyu to be a cockblocker, why now? “S-sorry about that.”

“No, it’s—you’re fine,” he stammers out, clearly as out of it as you are. “I should probably leave too, I still need to stop by the bakery.”

“Oh, yeah!” you say. “I forgot. Do you want me to come with you?”

“It’s alright,” he says. “It’s getting dark outside and you need to get some rest. I’ll see you tomorrow, ‘kay?”

“Okay,” you murmur. “Thank you for today, Seokmin. I don’t know what I would’ve done without you.”

“Cursed your car to oblivion, probably,” he teases.

You flush, heat creeping up the back of your neck and ears. “That—you didn’t have to see that.”

“I thought it was cute,” he returns easily, corners of his lips twitching. 

Against your will, your lips twitch upwards too. “Okay, okay, I get it.”

Seokmin opens your door, and you follow him out of your room. He gives Mingyu a grin, says, “See you around,” and lets you close the door behind him. 

Mingyu crosses his arms over his chest. You glance at him. His eyebrows are knotted together, lips pressed into a stoic line. You bite the inside of your cheek, suddenly feeling awkward.

“Hey,” he begins, voice soft, “is that… your boyfriend?”

You raise your eyebrows. “Does it matter?”

He huffs, shifting from one foot to the other. “Yes—no. No, it doesn’t matter. I was just curious, okay?”

You open your mouth, then close it, at a loss for words. Are you and Seokmin together? Not really. Both of you haven’t done or said anything to define your relationship—if there is one in the romantic sense, at least. Seokmin wanted to kiss you, but Mingyu interrupted before anything could even happen—it’s your irritation at the day being shitty, and Mingyu being an asshole after everything he did that makes you roll your eyes at him and snap at him. “It’s none of your business.”

Mingyu’s face turns stony, a hardness to his features that you’ve only seen a few times before—it was directed at you the last time, too. “Okay. Fine. Sorry I asked.”

“Are you?” you retort, and before he can say anything to retaliate, you storm back into your room and lock the door.

Your heart feels like it’s been split into two, one half yearning for the comfort and familiarity that comes with still liking Mingyu, and the other excited to explore what Seokmin could offer you—and what he already has offered. But for now, you decide to get some sleep. Your heart can wait.

TEN 

Jihyo is back.

Jihyo is fucking back, and she’s standing in your—Mingyu’s—living room, arms wide open and a grin on her lips so wide, her eyes crinkle in the corners. It takes all of your willpower not to launch yourself into her arms. Instead, you slow down, toe your shoes off, let your bag drop to the floor, and then launch yourself into her arms.

She laughs at your overzealous demeanour, and you giggle into her hair. God, you’d missed her. Texting every day and video calling every weekend can only do so much, and it’s nothing compared to seeing her in person.

“Hi,” she says, pulling back enough to escape your cage-like hold around her body.

“Hi,” you greet back, smiling so wide and so hard, you can feel your ears pop. “You’re back.”

“I’m back.” She confirms your statement by nodding. “Only for a week, though.”

“Ah.”

Your best friend lets out a sheepish chuckle, and you take a step back. Her suitcase is on the floor next to her, and she’s kept her backpack on the sofa. “Are you gonna stay here?” you ask.

She winces. “No, there isn’t much space here. I booked a room at a hotel nearby. It’s, like, ten minutes by walk from here and it’s not very expensive either,” she assures.

“Okay,” you say, a little deflated. If Jihyo stayed with you, at least the awkwardness between you and Mingyu might be reduced by a small fraction. Her overbearing nature and ability to make conversation with literally anyone would be a lifesaver, given the situation you’ve dug yourself into.

A situation that she knows nothing about.

You haven’t had the time to keep Jihyo updated about the latest turn of events—not when she was busy juggling a relationship with her sort-of boyfriend, Jeong Jaehyun. She doesn’t know about Seokmin, and she doesn’t know about your lingering feelings for Mingyu.

“Hey, you’re back already.”

Speak of the devil. 

You turn around and find Mingyu leaning against the doorway, hands stuffed into the pockets of his jeans. You feel your breath hitch. He continues, “I guess Jihyo already beat me to it, huh?”

“You knew she was coming?” you ask him, almost accusatory. 

“You didn’t tell her?” Jihyo echos, a curious tinge to her tone.

He lifts his shoulder in a half-shrug, lips twitching with the beginnings of a smile. “Wanted to surprise you, that’s all.”

Against your will, you find yourself grinning at him. Mingyu dissolves in the slightest—a small hint of surprise—before he grins back at you, teeth flashing and eyes crinkling. Jihyo lets out a small huff from next to you, but you know nothing can put a damper on your mood right now. Not even your resurfaced feelings for Mingyu, nor your newfound ones for Seokmin.

Your best friend squeezes your arm. “I have some time before I need to check in at the hotel. Do you wanna check out our old place?”

You turn to her and nod. The prospect of going back to the place where you created cherished memories with someone so dear to you is enticing; then you remember your car is still at the mechanic’s. “My car is out of commission.”

Jihyo only turns and stares at Mingyu. He sighs resignedly, pushing himself off the doorway and heading inside his room. “Let me grab my keys.”

“Might as well stop for ice cream along the way,” Jihyo calls out gleefully to his retreating back. 

You gulp. This… might not be a good idea. If Mingyu tags along with you, this would be the first time since last week where you’re speaking to him normally, making conversation that isn’t just along the lines of “Did you do the laundry?” or “I bought some vegetables”. Of course, if you told Jihyo what happened, she would immediately make sure Mingyu doesn’t come. You chew on your bottom lip, but before you can come to a decision, Mingyu emerges from his bedroom, car keys dangling off his fingers.

“Ready?” he asks.

Jihyo grabs onto your arm, excitement so visible on her face that it prompts the tension in your own features to melt away. You let yourself get carried away by her giddiness, not noticing the fond glances the only male in the group keeps giving you whenever he’s sure you’re not looking. If you’d met his eyes once throughout the drive to your old place, you’d see the way his eyes still twinkle at you with the same intensity as they did months ago, but you’re too busy catching up with Jihyo to notice.

Mingyu pulls to a stop in front of your old apartment building—a dilapidated structure that’s not half as modern as the current building you stay in. At least the elevator is still functioning; you purse your lips to contain your laugh when Mingyu looks at it, eyebrows raised in visible astonishment. Jihyo grips your hand tightly when you reach your floor. You tighten your hold on her hand as well, feeling a sudden burst of emotion erupt inside your chest like lava escaping from a volcano.

You and Jihyo round the corner to the apartment that used to be yours, Mingyu following closely. The door is the same dull brown it was back then as well, but someone has put in the effort to redo the varnish. There’s a potted fern next to it as well. 

You let out a shuddering breath. Jihyo wraps an arm around your shoulders and pulls you close; you aren’t sure if it’s just the wind rattling through the open window, but you hear something like a sniffle.

This is the place you lived in when you had your first boyfriend, when you had your first heartbreak, when you cried your lungs out at some stupid TV show that you were invested in at the time but can’t possibly remember the name of now. This is the place where you and Jihyo bonded over crappy supermarket deals and made a mess of the kitchen whenever you tried to learn how to cook something new.

This is the place where you first met Kim Mingyu.

You tilt your head at him, watch as he stares resolutely ahead of him, like if glares at it strongly enough, he can bore two holes straight through the wood. Eventually, his eyes land on yours.

His lips part but no words come out. He offers you a small smile instead, one so tender and heart-warming and achingly familiar. You blink, and the moment is gone. You’re left with the same sense of wistfulness and longing that you always feel around him. 

Jihyo squeezes your shoulder, eyes shining. “Should we ring the bell?” she asks, and then presses the doorbell before you can respond.

A muffled “Coming!” from inside, and the latch is pulled open to reveal a college student—a few years younger than you, perhaps, with sleep bags underneath his eyes and a cup of coffee clutched to his chest. He looks confused—as anyone would be, you suppose, when you see a random bunch of strangers standing on your doorstep—but his expression clears when Jihyo explains who you are and why you’re here.

He says he’s living here with his boyfriend and their pet cat—a beautiful Siberian who coils itself around his legs, tail upturned—and you feel your heart swell with the knowledge that your old haven is being taken care of well. Jihyo consistently badgers him with questions and he answers each one patiently, to his credit. 

A flicker of uncertainty crosses your mind, however. Does Mingyu not remember this? He was looking for apartments in this building, too, when you met him. Doesn’t he remember the old landlady conversing with you? Doesn’t he remember the way people constantly asked if you two were together, which is what even prompted him to ask for your number in the first place? 

You’re shaken out of your thoughts when you feel a slight pressure on your shoulder. Mingyu’s hand is on your shoulder. Your gaze flits over to him. 

“Sorry,” he mumbles, ducking his head. “There was a mosquito.”

He’s lying. 

He remembers. 

ELEVEN

“Spill.”

“The… tea?” you ask cautiously, looking at Jihyo. She’s holding a steaming mug of tea in her hand.

“You think you’re so funny.” She rolls her eyes.

“I know I am,” you quip, and she rolls her eyes again, taking a sip of the beverage.

“You’ve been distracted since yesterday,” she states matter-of-factly. “Since we went to our old place.” Her voice quietens, “Is it Mingyu? Did he do something?”

You eye her warily, sitting down on the plush armchair opposite her. “No,” you say.

“Then what is it? Did—did you not want me here?”

“No.” You’re quick to alleviate her concerns. “Of fucking course I wanted you here. I missed you. So much.”

Your best friend smiles at that, swirling the tea in the mug. “But something’s bothering you.”

“...Yes.” You admit it slowly, playing with your fingers splayed out on your lap. “It’s not important. You’re here only for a few days, we should do something fun.”

“Y/N,” Jihyo says slowly, enunciating every syllable of your name like she’s speaking to a troublesome child, “if you’re worried about me feeling bad or anything, please don’t. I want to help you.”

You wave her away. “You have your own shit to deal with.”

“What, you mean Jaehyun?” She snorts. “I’m over him. I was over him ages ago.”

“Are you sure?”

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing. Just.” You look down at your feet. “You really liked him, didn’t you?”

Jihyo cocks her head to the side, studying you carefully. “Yes. I did. What about it?”

Your shoulder slump, dejectedness seeping into your figure. “How… did you do it?” You glance up at her, note the way she observes you carefully. Your voice is almost pleading when you continue, “How did you get over him?”

Your best friend’s expression clears, comprehension dawning on her face. She places her mug down, leaning forward and clasping your hand with hers. “It’s Mingyu, isn’t it?”

You shake your head miserably. “Not just him.”

“There’s someone else?” She doesn’t sound surprised, only intrigued and concerned.

You take a deep breath, lock gazes with her—and everything comes spilling out of your mouth like the tide receding into the ocean. You tell her everything, about Mingyu and Seokmin and how conflicted they make you feel; how one is like the living personification of sunlight on a gloomy day, and the other reminds you of clouds providing shade on a hot afternoon. You tell her about how guilty you feel, as though you’re leading Seokmin to believe that you’re ready for a committed relationship when a part of your heart still belongs to Mingyu. You speak until the words end up garbled and slurred, and your breathing turns heavy and salt water streaks across your cheeks, your best friend rubbing them away with the pad of her thumb.

When you don’t know what to say, Jihyo pulls you into a hug—it’s an awkward position, your elbows locked around her arms while your neck is bent at an odd angle, but it’s comforting, and you let your eyes close tiredly. 

“Y/N,” she says, rubbing her thumb on your shoulder soothingly. “I know it’s hard for you to decide, but you have to know: What do you want?”

The question makes you contemplate. What do you want? 

“I don’t know,” is all you can get out, slumping further into her arms.

She hums softly. “But you’ll figure it out. I know you will.”

Will you? You’re not so sure. Maybe when the time is right. But for now, you rest your chin on your best friend’s shoulder and let her rub circles onto your skin.

You pull back when the position becomes too uncomfortable—you can already feel a crick in your neck—and Jihyo wraps her fingers around her discarded mug. She raises it in a half-hearted toast. “To sexy girls who don’t need men in their lives.”

You giggle, rubbing your eyes. “Men are pieces of shit, anyway.”

“Damn right they are,” she croons, falling dramatically back onto the couch. “We should just get married instead.”

“If you propose to me the right way, maybe I’ll consider it.”

Jihyo grins at you, and it’s infectious enough to make you grin back at her. “Consider it done,” she says. “I have a ring in my nightstand drawer with your name written on it.”

“If it’s not pure diamond, I won’t accept.”

“Tsk. So greedy.”

TWELVE

Introducing Seokmin to Jihyo was not a part of your agenda for the week.

But it’s Seokmin and it’s Jihyo, so really, what else did you expect? Both of them integrated themselves seamlessly into your life, and they have no plans of leaving anytime soon. Might as well get the introductions over with.

Ironically, it happens when you go to collect your car from the mechanic’s, and once they’ve exchanged names and small talk, Jihyo and Seokmin are inseparable. The former regals him with tales of your college shenanigans, while the latter listens enthusiastically, eyes flitting between you both amusedly.

“Okay, that’s enough,” you hurriedly interrupt the conversation, right before Jihyo can go into the messy details of how you wanted to marry the toilet when you were drunk once and Mingyu had to physically carry you out of the house because you were convinced the white ceramic was proposing to you.

“You and Mingyu were together for a long time, huh?” Seokmin asks you quietly, once Jihyo is finished with her sulking at you interrupting her story. She’s at the side, conversing with someone on the phone, leaving you and your co-worker alone in front of your car.

You’re so startled by the question, you nearly drop your keys. “I—why do you ask?” 

Seokmin licks his lips, a seriousness to his figure that you haven’t witnessed many times before. “Just… curious, I suppose.”

You look down once, see how he’s twisted his fingers together—even the Lee Seokmin gets nervous, after all—and look back up at him. “Yes,” you admit softly, voice hitching slightly, “we were. We… were in love, I guess you could say.”

He’s silent for a minute, tongue darting out to lick his lips again. “And now?”

“I don’t know, Seokmin,” you answer him honestly. Your heart flutters inside your chest, while your stomach twists into tight knots—two reactions you didn’t think would go hand-in-hand, yet here you are, leaving your heart bare for Seokmin to take while gatekeeping a part of it to yourself.

He raises his head, warm eyes capturing yours. You see the smallest flicker of hope and sadness, two thin wisps of emotion dancing in his eyes—but even then, his lips are turned upwards, because it’s Lee Seokmin. 

“But you could try?” he asks, so softly you can barely catch the words.

You push down the emotions that threaten to swallow you whole, swirling around your entire body like the blood that flows through your veins. “I don’t know,” you say again, no less honest than the first time.

He opens his mouth, but Jihyo walks back to you both, mouth downturned. “My company said they need me back as soon as possible.” She says it calmly, but disappointment and bitterness seep into her voice.

For a moment, you freeze, and then ask, “When do you need to leave?”

“Tomorrow,” she answers with an apologetic shrug of her shoulders. “They’ve already booked the flight.”

“Okay.” You nod. “I’ll drop you to the airport.”

“I’ll come with,” Seokmin chimes in, and adds, in true Seokmin fashion, “Make sure Y/N doesn’t drive us all into a ditch or something.”

You shove his shoulder, muttering an “asshole” under your breath, and his smile only widens. Jihyo glances in between you both, lower lip caught between her teeth, before she sucks in a breath and smiles. “Good to know my best friend is in good hands.”

“The best hands, actually,” Seokmin teasingly corrects. 

You roll your eyes at the two of them. “Can we go home now, or not?”

“Home it is,” Jihyo agrees, “but first, I demand Taco Bell.”

“Fine,” you concede, letting her grab the keys from your outstretched palm. 

Seokmin grabs your hand once she clambers into your fixed car. His palm is broad, skin warm, and his fingers wrap around yours with ease. He squeezes your hand once, gently, and it feels like a promise and a farewell at the same time.

Seokmin asks you out again three days after Jihyo leaves. 

This time, he takes you out to an Italian restaurant. He’s dressed up in a suit and a bowtie—and actual blue velvet bowtie that sits snugly at the hollow of his neck—and he’s the perfect gentleman, pulling your chair out for you and pouring champagne into your glass like a professional. (When you compliment him on his drink-pouring skills, he just mutters bashfully about how his dad taught him that to please a lady, you need to be good at pouring drinks; it does nothing to ease the quickening pace of your heart.)

Lee Seokmin compliments your dress, says that that specific shade of pink looks beautiful on you. He recommends you try out their vegetable lasagne, says it’s one of the dishes the restaurant is famous for. He laughs about his favourite show, tells you he would love to rewatch it with you someday. He asks if you like gardens because his neighbour is trying to convince him to grow a rosebush outside his house, but he can’t look after plants even if his life depended on it. He wants to go out for ice cream afterwards, but the night is too chilly for the cold dessert so you opt against it.

Throughout, you play someone who’s on her first date, who thinks this is all there is and everything she’s been dreaming of has come true.

You would like to think you’re a good actor.

Kim Mingyu has seen you in nothing but sweatpants and old t-shirts and he used to whisper praises against your skin, flushed with sweat and sweet words. He ate the shitty lasagne you made without complaining, no matter how bad it tasted. He watched whatever was playing on television with you, just because he enjoyed your company and wanted to be wherever you were. He’s not particularly good with plants, but he has a little succulent named Spurt, making sure it gets enough sunlight and water. He likes mint chocolate ice cream, and would defend the flavour with his life.

Kim Mingyu and Lee Seokmin: Two sides of the same coin.

Jihyo’s question resonates in your mind as you and Seokmin walk back to your car.

What do you want?

As you near your vehicle, Seokmin puts a gentle hand on your arm. “Y/N,” is all he says, and you hate the way your chest clenches at that—just because he said your name.

“Did you have fun today?” he continues, eyes roaming over your features like he’s committing you to memory. Like a soldier leaving his wife before he heads out to the frontlines.

“I did, Seokmin. I really did.” You place your hand over his, tracing the veins on the back of his hand, pressing lightly on his knuckles; you need him to know that you truly enjoyed today—desperate for him to know, because it’s the least you can do for him after everything he’s done for you.

“Good,” he says. “I—I had fun today with you, too. I always have fun when I’m with you, Y/N.”

He bends down. You can feel his breath fan out on the shell of your ear and it makes you shiver. He turns his head, and his lips brush against your cheek. A small, soft farewell. 

“I’m sorry I couldn’t—” you begin, feeling your voice begin to wobble.

“Don’t be sorry,” Seokmin whispers, but he sounds firm. “We’re still friends.”

Your heart plummets deep, deep down, a free fall that isn’t orchestrated by gravity. You think you know the answer to Jihyo’s question now.

“Thank you,” you whisper back to Seokmin.

THIRTEEN

The light is on when you enter the apartment. Mingyu’s figure lies hunched on the sofa, head in his hands, a half-empty beer can next to him. You quickly shuck off your heels and drop your purse onto the shoe rack.

Your ex-boyfriend looks at you when pad over to the living room. “You’re back.” He sounds hoarse, tired. 

“Have you been drinking?” you say in return, raising an eyebrow. 

Mingyu glances at the can in his hand then back at you. “Yeah. Long day.”

“Me too,” you admit quietly.

Perhaps it’s the quiet ambience of your shared home—silent, despite the noise of the city outside—that compels him; or maybe it’s the idea of coming home to someone you think you know better than the back of your own hand. Either way, when Mingyu pats the cushion beside him, your feet move automatically and you sit down, letting out a weary sigh.

It’s quiet, but not in the awkward sense. Not like back then, when Mingyu thought you and Seokmin were dating. Not even when you visited your old apartment. Exhaustion makes its home in your bones, and you suspect it’s taken over Mingyu too; there’s no way this shared piece of night can be so comfortable otherwise.

“Want some?” he asks after a few minutes.

“No thanks.”

Mingyu shrugs and puts the can down on the coffee table. “Wanna talk about it?” He leans back against the sofa, arms crossed behind his head.

“No,” you answer, and then, “Do you?”

“No.” He clears his throat, glancing sideways at you. “Were you with… Seokmin?”

“...Yes.”

You don’t have to look at Mingyu to know he’s clenching his jaw. It’s a pure rush of adrenaline that makes you ask, “Why does it bother you so much whenever I’m with him?”

Silence.

You turn your head, cheek brushing against the back of the sofa. Mingyu’s eyes are closed, hair falling in loose strands around his forehead and neck. You wonder what he’s thinking.

His answer excites you—in the rawest form possible. Anticipation builds up in your chest, threatens to explode through your windpipe. You don’t know what he’s thinking, but when he opens his eyes and meets your gaze, there is nothing you can do to stop your heart from rabbiting inside your rib cage.

“It doesn’t,” he says finally, an air of decisiveness about him.

For the second time that night, your heart plummets, and you tear your eyes off him. “Okay,” you say. “That is, um, good information to have.”

“Isn’t he your boyfriend?” 

“How does it matter to you?”

Mingyu crosses and uncrosses his ankles, this time staring resolutely at the floor. “I don’t know. It just does.”

You purse your lips. He isn’t being fair to you. “What about you?” you demand. “What about that girl you almost brought back home, huh?”

His mouth twitches. “You saw that.” It’s not a question, it’s a statement.

“I’m not blind, Mingyu,” you retort.

Your roommate lets out a sardonic chuckle at that, slowly dragging his eyes up. “I highly doubt that.”

“What do you mean?” You scowl at him, feeling your chest begin to heave. “You—you’re like some kind of a riddle, Mingyu. I can never tell what you mean by anything, and it’s even worse now that you’re drunk and—”

“I’m not drunk, Y/N,” he interrupts. 

“I don’t care if you’re drunk or not—” you don’t realise your voice is caving in, growing softer and softer by the second— “stop saying things you don’t mean.”

“I want to kiss you,” he says finally. “I want to kiss you and I may be slightly drunk, but I don’t fucking care. And I mean it.”

You swallow, blood pounding through your veins. “Say that again.”

“What?” he says, sounding genuinely confused. His gaze never leaves your face, every ounce of earnestness and honesty written plainly on his features.

“Say it again,” you repeat.

“I want—”

You surge forward, capturing his lips with yours, pressing them firmly against his even when he lets out a muffled gasp. He doesn’t kiss back immediately, but his hands find their way to your waist, gripping tightly and crumpling the flimsy material of your dress. He kisses you back then, mouth jutting insistently into yours, tongue sliding against your lower lip. You arch your back, scramble to find some balance in this precarious position, and your hands end up tangled in his hair. He tastes like beer and aftershave and something that’s so distinctly Mingyu, you want more.

You pull away when air becomes a necessity, blinking even as Mingyu’s arms pull you closer to him.

“This isn’t over,” you manage to get out in between huffed breaths.

“Tomorrow,” he promises, but his eyes are glazed. He looks at you like a man starved, and tilts his head and kisses you again, kisses you like he might never see you again. 

You let him. It’s Kim Mingyu, after all, and you’ve always been a little weak for him.

You don’t think of Seokmin; don’t let him come out of the tiny pocket you’ve preserved in your heart just for him. Instead, you wrap your arms around your ex-boyfriend’s neck, leaning into his chest and kissing him back with equal fervour, letting him know that you need him as much as he needs you.

God, you’d missed him. Way more than you thought. You’ve memorised his touch, branded it into your mind, but it still feels new. Like the first time you were with him, kissing like two teenagers with reckless abandon. 

His cold fingers find their way underneath your waist, hitching up the loose material of your dress around your thighs. You kneel on the couch cushions in front of him, almost straddling his lap but not quite. His fingers brush against your sides in a way that sends shivers down your spine.

He nips at your lip, asking for entrance to your mouth to which you accept, parting your lips enough for him to get a taste. As he moves his tongue around yours, exploring your mouth in every way possible, you can’t contain the slight whimper that escapes your throat. 

Mingyu groans, leaning his weight onto you as you both start moving together until you’re laid flat against the couch. He’s impatient, you can tell; his fingers dig into your skin, and he groans again when you bite down gently on his lower lip. He pulls back and moves downwards, kissing your jaw and behind your ear, suckling gently on a sensitive bit of skin with expertise. “Tell me to stop,” he says, whispering the words against your skin.

All you do is moan in response, rubbing your thighs together to get some friction with the way he’s moving his mouth against your skin. 

“Tell me to stop,” he says again, more firmly this time.

“Shut the fuck up, Gyu,” is all you reply with, the nickname falling out of your lips with familiarity. 

Maybe it’s the use of something that used to be your thing—something the two of you shared, the shortened version of his name—but hearing it come out of your lips again does things to Mingyu that he isn’t sure he’d ever be able to put into words for you. Trailing his movements down to your neck, he stops at your chest, a small smile spreading on his face. “Forgot how much I loved it when you called me that.”

Looking down at him, you hadn’t realised he’s moved further down your body and his fingers trace the edges of your underwear. Your dress is bunched up above your thighs, skin exposed to the cool air. “Gonna make you feel so good,” he mumbles, pressing a tiny kiss to the inside of your thighs. He toys with the elastic of the waistband, chuckling when you shoot him an irritated glare.

He stares down at your clothed core, mouth watering while his hands move faster than you can comprehend. It takes him two seconds to hook his slender fingers underneath the waistband of your panties before he pulls them down to your ankles and tosses them onto the coffee table. 

You feel a wave of shyness overcome you—with the way he’s looking at you, desperate for your taste—and you try to close your legs, before his hands land on your thighs, halting your actions. “So pretty,” he murmurs. “I want to see all of you.”

Heat burns your cheeks and flows through your body. You turn your head to avoid his burning gaze as you feel him part your legs. He readjusts himself, laying as flat and comfortably as he can with what little space he has on the couch until he’s face-to-face with where you need him most. He tests the waters, leaning in with his tongue out, letting it graze your clit. You stifle a moan, biting your lip so hard, you think it might bleed.

He smiles, loving how you’re holding back. “So quiet, baby. Wanna remember how I used to make you feel.” Laying his tongue flat against your clit, he gives you slow and soft strokes—so gentle that it drives you insane. 

“You’re such—such a tease,” you gasp out, right when he swirls his tongue around the nub.

Mingyu only raises an eyebrow at that. “You haven’t changed.” But all the same, any plans he had to be patient with you go straight out the window; he wraps his arms around your thighs to pull you down further to his face. The sudden pull surprises you, and you gasp a little while searching for something to grab onto. He indulges in your pussy, tongue exploring your pulsating hole that clenches around everything and nothing all at once. He relishes in the way you feel on his tongue, groaning against your folds while bringing a hand up and rubbing his thumb on your neglected clit. 

You’re a mess under his touch, squirming on the sofa, loud groans and soft mewls escaping your lips wantonly. Your fingers find their way into his soft locks, pulling gently on his hair and scratching against his scalp. He lets out a moan against your pussy, lapping at your juices as if you’re his last source of water. “F-fuck, Gyu, ‘m gonna—” a gasp— “‘m gonna cum.”

This only encourages him to work his mouth harder, wanting to watch you fall apart just by his mouth alone. You tug harder at his hair, moans growing louder and more desperate by the second, and your thighs shudder around his head, feeling the rush of your high come so close, you aren’t prepared for it.

With two final sucks to your clit, you come undone on his tongue followed by a string of moans with broken pieces of his name somewhere in between. Mingyu looks up at you with bright eyes and a satisfied grin, as if he didn’t just eat out your pussy like he would never get the chance to again. The mixture of saliva and your juices dripping down his chin makes your eyes widen even as you squint down at him. 

With careful, deliberate motions, he moves away from you, the grin on his face replaced by a more serious expression. You sit up, leaning on your elbows. The aftermath of your passionate actions catches up to you; reaching over, you snatch your panties from the coffee table and swing your legs over. Throughout, Mingyu doesn’t say anything. He only watches, in that quiet, observant way of his, swiping at his mouth and chin with a tissue he grabbed from the tissue box next to the couch.

You glance at him. Is he going to say something? Or is he going to let you walk away again, with all the words you want to say to him lying on the tip of your tongue, always there but never released?

“Y/N.” He scrambles to his feet when you stand up, clutching your underwear in one hand and adjusting your dress with the other. He sounds… uncertain. Completely unlike the Mingyu who cockily asked you if Seokmin was your boyfriend, or who joked around with Jihyo like it was second nature to him.

You bite your lip. “Yes?”

“Do you… do you want anything? Water?” 

You melt a little at his words like an ice cream left out for too long. Kim Mingyu, always so kind, always so caring—you know that better than anyone. 

He can be cruel too, in the way he chips away at your already broken heart. He doesn’t know it but he does—lift your hopes only to let it all crumble down. Like how he broke the promises you made to each other, and how you broke the words you’d sworn to say to him alone.

It hits you again, how you and Mingyu were meant to be, and how lonely it was when he left. You wonder if he feels the same way—did he spend sleepless nights in bed, thinking of you? Did he ever think that if he could travel back in time, he’d do it all over again?

You shake your head no at him. He doesn’t say anything after that, but his lips part slightly. He watches you as you walk over to grab your purse and head inside your room.

That night, you don’t sleep at all—despite wrapping yourself up in your Looney Tunes comforter and the comforting weight of your pillow beneath your head that usually puts you to sleep instantly. 

Instead, it feels like the very first night you and Mingyu broke up all over again.

SIXTEEN

You don’t tell anyone about what transpired between you and Mingyu. It remains hidden between you both, a secret neither of you are willing to bring up.

Jihyo is back to work at her new city, now completely devoid of boy problems of any sort, since Jeong Jaehyun has shifted his affections to another co-worker. (“It’s better this way,” she tells you, “he didn’t want a committed relationship, anyway.” You can tell she’s truly not bothered by it, so you grin and agree.)

Seokmin doesn’t come around to your cubicle the way he used to earlier, either. Your days at the office are dreary and boring, now that your co-worker’s sunshine smile isn’t there to keep you company. In fact, the only person who still talks to you voluntarily at work is your boss, Seunghcheol, but even then it’s mostly just a sympathetic smile he offers you followed by a new deadline or a project.

You and Mingyu are back to whatever it was you had when you first moved in, before the lasagne fiasco. Not talking to each other, but not not talking to each other either. You swerve around each other in tandem, finding more and more excuses to avoid whatever happened in between you both. He lied when he said he would talk to you about it the next day, after he ate you out on the couch.

You can’t blame him completely; you’ve made no effort to reach out to him, either.

Weariness seeps into your skin with every passing second. You rub at your already half-closed eyes and hide a yawn behind a closed fist. The letters on your laptop screen swim in front of you. The stack of folders next to it drags a tired sigh out of your lips.

You’re so tired. Not just physically, but emotionally you’re drained out, all the liveliness sucked out of you like someone vacuumed up the inside of your heart. The lack of sleep is getting to you; the lack of someone to brighten up your days is getting to you more.

If you and Seokmin were still on a talking basis, he would have sauntered over to your desk by now, hands in his pockets and the same question on his lips: “Coffee break?”

He’s not here now, probably tucked into his corner of the floor. Maybe his smile is directed at someone else. Maybe he’s taking someone else on the daily ritual that you used to consider yours. Maybe it’s time you get out of your fucking swivel chair and get some coffee.

You’re not doing it alone, of course. No, coffee at the office—no matter how shitty the machine is and how long the line for the coveted caffeine is—is yours and Seokmin’s thing. Besides, he said you’re still friends; it’s time for you to step up.

Stifling another yawn, you blink slowly before pushing yourself off your chair. It occurs to you that you don’t know exactly where Seokmin’s cubicle is—he’d mentioned it was by Seungcheol’s room once. You decide to start there.

It doesn’t take you long to find Seokmin. You walk into him—literally walk into him. A startled gasp leaves your lips when you collide into someone’s chest, an apology already on the tip of your tongue.

“Are you okay?”

You blink once. The voice is familiar. You direct your gaze at the person you bumped into. 

“Seokmin,” you breathe out weakly.

He smiles but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “The one and only.”

“I-I’m sorry I bumped into you,” you quickly apologise. “I was on my—”

“It’s okay, don’t apologise,” he interrupts. “I should’ve looked at where I was going too.”

“How… have you been?” The question spills out before you notice, and you realise that you’re genuinely concerned about his wellbeing. You’ve missed him, missed his companionship. 

Seokmin looks briefly surprised that you’ve asked him. He clears his throat, once. “Oh, um. I’ve been fine—y’know, the usual. Work, home, sleep and then repeat. How—how about you?”

“I’ve been better,” you admit. “You look tired, though.”

He lifts his hand and rubs his cheek with an accompanying embarrassed chuckle. “You could tell?”

He has bags underneath his eyes. His shoulders sag ever-so slightly. His usually perfectly styled hair isn’t as neat as it used to be. You nod. “You look exhausted.”

“Ah.” Another embarrassed chuckle; you can tell he doesn’t know how to respond to that.

“Coffee break?” you offer, a small, lopsided smile gracing your lips.

This time, the smile Lee Seokmin gives you lights up his eyes.

SEVENTEEN

“This is ridiculous!” you call out for the nth time, glaring at the door with as much intensity as you can muster.

“Jihyo’s orders!” Seokmin calls back, from outside the room. “I have proof that she asked me to lock you two up in order for you to talk it out.”

Mingyu huffs out a breathless laugh from behind you. He’s sitting cross-legged on the bed, sheets crumpled and pillow on his lap. You turn around to level your glare at him.

“Give it up,” he advises.

“Don’t even.” You pinch the bride of your nose, closing your eyes in exasperation. “This is all your fault.”

“My fault? No one told you to tell Seokmin everything!”

“Well, how was I supposed to know he would go and tell Jihyo?” you splutter out, opening your eyes and bringing your hand down. “I didn’t even know they’d exchanged numbers!”

“Might as well get it over with,” Seokmin’s voice travels through the barricade once more. “The sooner the better.”

“I didn’t ask you, Seokmin,” you mutter.

“He’s right, you know.” Mingyu pats the space next to him, inviting you to sit down. “If Jihyo hadn’t forced him to do it, I would have found some way to do it myself.”

“No, you wouldn’t,” you retort. “You’ve been avoiding me since the day we—since the day we kissed.”

“I would have tried,” he reasons. “But since you’re here now, can you at least please listen to what I have to say?”

“Oh, so now you have things you want to say,” you grumble, crossing your arms over your chest. Regardless, you sit down next to him. You’re curious, you will admit. This conversation could potentially break your heart, or it could also change the trajectory of your relationship with Mingyu.

Your ex-boyfriend takes a deep breath before beginning.

“The other day, when I said I wanted to kiss you—I wasn’t lying, Y/N. I truly meant it. I’ve wanted to kiss you the minute I laid eyes on you again. I wanted to hold your hand, to take you places around the neighbourhood, to come back home to you.

“I thought we were making progress. I thought we were friends again, and I could somehow win your heart back.” A wry smile crosses his lips. “But then Seokmin came by, and you both just seemed so close. He—he brought back this life in you; your eyes sparkled whenever he was around, and you were always smiling when you were with him. I never saw that after we… after you moved in. You were always so jittery with me—understandably so—and I… I let my jealousy of seeing you with Seokmin get the better of me.

“That day, when I—” he pauses, glancing at you; his eyes are imploring, and you sense that he’s laying himself bare for you— “when you saw me kissing that girl, I did it on purpose. To make you jealous. And then I saw the look on your face, and even when I was drunk, I knew I’d fucked up. So I left her, and I followed you back inside—you closed the door just as I caught up with you. I called up Minghao, spent the night at his place. I think that’s when I realised completely that I—that I still love you.”

Your breath catches in your throat at his words. Your heart is hammering inside your chest. You can’t believe you’re actually hearing these words.

Mingyu swallows. “That’s what I wanted to tell you. Even after we broke up, even after all the things we said to each other—some part of me knew that I shouldn’t give up on you. I have loved you throughout. I will continue to love you throughout.”

He looks down, staring at his hands. In that instant, he looks so small. Vulnerable. As if giving his entire heart to you on a silver platter isn’t enough. As if he’s giving all of himself to you, mind, body and soul.

You need to tell him that your mind, body and soul have always been his.

“Mingyu,” you begin, watching as his eyes travel over to yours uncertainly, “you absolute fucking idiot.”

His lips twitch up briefly. “Wha—”

“I love you, too, idiot.” The words rush out breathlessly. “I never stopped.”

Mingyu’s eyes widen and his mouth opens imperceptibly. You continue, “I knew this would happen. The minute I stepped foot into your house, I knew I would fall for you all over again.”

You reach out and grip his hand, needing something to tether you against him. “And I did.” A watery laugh escapes your mouth. “I fell in love with you all over again.”

A pause, and then Mingyu’s free hand cups your cheek, skin warm against yours. “You’re joking.”

“I’m not.”

Mingyu smiles at your confession—a full smile, with his eyes crinkling in the corners and his lips turning upwards. He leans forward. “I’m going to kiss you now.”

You beat him to it, covering the distance between you both with one swift swoop. You capture his lower lip in between yours, hands resting on his shoulders to steady yourself. He kisses you back with equal fervour, wrapping his arms around you and pulling you impossibly closer. You close your eyes and slide your tongue across the seam of his lips, smiling when he lets out a silent groan. 

He only pulls away once he needs air, but even then he doesn’t let you go. He pulls you forward, making you straddle his lap as he kisses your cheeks, your nose, the column of your throat. You relish in his touches, tangling your hands in his hair and tugging gently at the silky strands.

“We should probably stop,” you whisper, when a particularly sharp nip at your neck elicits a soft moan from you. “Seokmin’s standing outside.”

“Fuck him,” Mingyu says. He presses another kiss on your jaw, looking up at you like you’ve hung up all the stars in the universe.

You roll your eyes affectionately at him. “C’mon. I don’t want to scar him for life.”

“Who cares?”

“I care,” you say, slowly getting off his lap. Already you can feel the absence of his warmth. 

“Fine,” he agrees, once you stand up fully and brush yourself off. “I love you.”

Warmth shoots up your chest and onto your cheeks and neck. Your heart swells, and you find yourself grinning involuntarily. “I love you, too.”

“Good.” Mingyu stands up and pecks your cheek. “Now let’s go save Seokmin from his misery.”

(Later, if you find Seokmin with bright pink ears as he pointedly avoids yours and Mingyu’s gaze, that’s no one’s business but his.)

EIGHTEEN

Mingyu sucks on a sweet spot right underneath your ear and you can practically hear his smirk when you let out a whine. You fist your hand in the sheets, feeling the soft material crinkle underneath your fingertips. 

“Such a tease,” you whisper out.

He lowers his head, nips at your neck and then runs his tongue over the spot, soothing it. “So you’ve mentioned.”

Your retort dies on your lips when he moves lower and lower, pressing open-mouthed kisses on your collarbones and shoulders. You whine again when his fingers find your nipple, pinching the bud lightly in between his thumb and forefingers. He moves lower, breath ghosting over your abdomen and belly button, until he finally comes face to face with your clothed pussy.

He hooks his finger into the waistband of your panties, nails scraping against your skin. You squirm under his touch, lifting your hips to help him pull the flimsy garment down your legs and toss it to the side. Mingyu sucks in a breath sharply when he sees your exposed cunt—despite already having seen it before, and you feel a rush of pride at the fact that you still have this effect on him. “So pretty,” he murmurs, eyeing your folds hungrily. 

Mingyu works on your clit expertly, thumb rubbing against the nub, eliciting a loud moan from you. He licks a stripe up your folds, grinning when your hand automatically finds itself in his hair again. When he finds you’re wet enough, he slides a finger in. You inhale sharply, hole clenching around the digit. He circles his thumb around your clit once more, before sliding another finger in.

You gasp at that, tightening the hand in his hair. Mingyu leans forward, swiping at your clit with his tongue one more time and pulling both his fingers out at the same time. He relishes in the sounds coming out of your mouth, feeling proud that you’re not trying to hide anything from him. You’re completely under his mercy, as is he when it comes to you.

He slides both the fingers back in, hissing when your walls contract against them, pumping the digits in and out a few more times. The way you moan—because of him—makes him finger your hole faster, enjoying the way your moans increase in pitch. When he sees your eyes beginning to cloud over, Mingyu quickly withdraws his fingers. You whimper at the loss of his touch and he chuckles. “Patience, baby. Don’t want you to cum just yet.”

Your head falls back on the pillow and you mutter a string of incoherent words under your breath. “Look at me,” Mingyu tuts.

You lift up your neck curiously. Mingyu waits for your eyes to land on his lips before he slowly, deliberately puts his two fingers into his mouth, swirling his tongue around the digits and licking your juices off. He doesn’t fail to notice the way you bite your lip at the sight.

Once he pulls his fingers out, Mingyu bends down and presses an open-mouthed kiss to the inside of your thigh. “Are you even gonna fuck me, Gyu?” you grit out, and his eyes widen.

“Call me that again,” he orders. 

“Fuck me, Gyu.” Your voice is borderline a whimper, and, well—who is Mingyu to prevent you from getting what you desire? After all, he’s always been a little weak when it comes to you.

He gets on his knees, holding his throbbing cock in his hand. He pumps it a few times, groaning softly, before positioning himself at your entrance. “You’re on the pill?”

“Yes.” You nod almost desperately, waiting for him to slide it all the way in.

Mingyu enters you slowly—the pace is almost unbearable—but he shudders when he feels your walls against his dick. You grab onto his shoulders, nails digging into the flesh. A loud moan escapes your lips when he jerks his hips forward, his cock pressing into your cervix. Your eyes screw shut, and Mingyu grunts, pulling out and thrusting back inside with more force. Almost unconsciously, you wrap your legs around his hips, granting him more access to your hole and allowing him to push himself deeper inside you.

He leans down and captures a nipple in his mouth, rolling his tongue around the pebbled bud. You gasp out moans wantonly, and it spurs him to thrust faster and faster inside you. He watches you fall apart on him, a hint of a smirk playing on his lips when your moans become interspersed with chants of his name. 

Your grip on his shoulders tighten and the muscles flex under your hold. Your cries reach a crescendo with one particularly sharp thrust; Mingyu can tell your climax is approaching.

He speeds up, pumping into you with as much strength as he can muster. Your nails leave white-hot trails along his back, his shoulders—you try to hold onto him as best as you can. You cry for more, beg him to keep going. A bit redundant, in his opinion—he has no plans of stopping until you’ve orgasmed. 

Mingyu thrusts into you one last time, throwing you over the edge. Your walls clench around his cock tightly, black stars floating in your vision as you cry out his name. He pumps into you weakly, letting you ride out your orgasm while chasing his own high. He buries his face in your neck, breathing heavily, and when your walls tighten around him, he comes inside you, his movements coming to a pause. 

You stroke his sweaty bangs away from his forehead, both of you catching your breaths. He remains sheathed in you, even as he pulls you onto your side so both your chests are touching. 

“Feel good?” he asks, one hand carding through your hair gently.

You let out a tired, but satisfied hum, smiling softly at Mingyu. 

You spend the night curled up in his arms. He sleeps soundly next to you, eyelashes brushing against his cheeks and hands wrapped protectively around your figure. The steady thrum of his heartbeat sounds against your ear, and you smile, even in your sleep.

NINETEEN

“You have your thinking face on.” Your boyfriend saunters into the kitchen, a knowing smile on his lips. You roll your eyes at him. 

“You can’t tell me you don’t see it too,” you say pointedly, waving your wooden spatula at him.

Mingyu chuckles, moving over and wrapping his arms around your waist from behind. He presses a sweet kiss to your shoulder. “What, that Seokmin and Jihyo are meant to be? That smells amazing, by the way, love.”

“Yes,” you huff out, stirring the soup inside the pot boiling on the stove. “And thank you.”

From the living room, you can hear your two friends laughing over something you couldn’t possibly begin to comprehend. Jihyo still lives in another city, but she comes over to visit whenever she can. You and Seokmin remain friends, and he often comes over whenever you, Mingyu and Jihyo decide to hang out—though, you suspect his enthusiasm to join you three has more to do with one particular person rather than the entire group.

“If you say so,” Mingyu agrees. “I think they’re just friends.”

“Friends don’t look at each other that way,” you say matter-of-factly.

“Really? I seem to recall him looking at you the exact same way not too long ago.”

“That’s different, Gyu. Here, can you taste some? I don’t want it to be too salty.” Grabbing a large spoon, you dip it in the pot and offer it to Mingyu.

He obliges, letting you shove the spoonful into his mouth—and yelps almost immediately. “Ouch! You didn’t tell me it was hot.”

You only raise an eyebrow at him, but a small hint of amusement dances in your eyes. “How does it taste?”

Mingyu rolls his eyes at you but rests his chin on your shoulder; his hair tickles your ear. “It tastes amazing as always, love.”

“You’re sure? You’re not just saying that to make me feel better, are you?”

“I’m offended you think I would lie to you.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” you deadpan, and it makes Mingyu giggle.

“I’m serious, it tastes good.” He smiles at you, peeling himself away from you. “Let’s go join the other two.”

“Coming.” You put the stove on simmer and grab Mingyu’s extended hand. His fingers slot in between yours easily. Your lips curl upwards on their own accord, and your heart feels so full, it’s close to bursting.

You’re there, in a room with all your favourite people, and it’s perfect.

The very first night you and Mingyu broke up is pushed to the back of your mind, never to slip out of the corner you’ve tucked it into. The nights after made up for it, and you wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world. You rebuild the promises you made and make new ones along the way.

You’d write it in the sky if you could, but you and Mingyu don’t need that. 

[evie-sturns]

avoid - Matt Sturniolo

summary: when matt calls you out on you pushing him away, until a huge fight breaks out between the two of you. a couple hours later you find him a mess, you have no choice but to make things right.

contains: angst, crying, arguing, yelling, fluff, comforting, swearing.

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

you didn't realise you were doing it, you just were.

you had accidentally been avoiding him and pushing him away for the past couple of weeks, there wasn't a specific reason but you just were.

9:04pm

i'm laying on the couch alone, watching some random romcom as i stare at the screen.

the floorboards creak as i hear matt coming down the hallway, his footsteps are heavy as he approaches the living room.

he stands in the doorway, just observing me for a couple of seconds.

i hear his lips part as he gets ready to speak.

"y/n..?" he mutters softly, his voice is weak and shy.

i hum quietly as a response, not even diverting my gaze away from the bright screen. i hear matt huff slightly, a hint of annoyance in his tone.

"what- why- can you at least look at me when im speaking?" matt scoffs.

"what difference does it make?" i mumble back, still staring at the television.

"makes me think you might actually give a shit about me still." matt spits, his arms fold over his chest as he leans against the doorway,

"pfft." i dismiss him which only sets matt off even more.

"why are you acting like this? seriously!" matt exclaims,

"why are you being so sensitive." i groan,

i know i’m being annoying as shit, but i can’t help it, i’m just doing what i can to tick him off.

matt just stares at me, his breathing heavy as i see him visibly start fuming.

“you wanna know what it is? you’ve been acting like a total stranger for the past couple months and i’m done with it, i’m done with you.” matt raises his voice

i stand up off the couch, standing a couple feet away from matt as i lock eyes with him,

“me? i’ve been acting like i stranger?” i laugh dryly, not cause this situation is amusing, i’m just in shock.

“yes! you’ve been treating me like crap for the past too long!” matt keeps his voice raises,

i point my finger at his chest as i walk closer to him, “you cannot be serious? i literally do everything for you? i gave up so many things for more time with you!”

“i didn’t ASK you to do that! nobody did!” he scoffs loudly, grabbing my wrist and yanking it away from his chest.

“so it meant nothing to you? clearly you’re not appreciating my love for y-“

matt cuts me off,

“don’t even. you’re trying to make me feel bad when i’m literally trying to talk to you about my feelings!”

his eyes are narrow slits now, his fingers wrapped tightly around my wrist.

“let me go, now.” i mutter angrily,

“just listen to me!” he spits, moving his hand off of my wrist to grab my shoulders,

he jolts me back and forth harshly,

“i fucking hate this new attitude of yours, you’re the most self centred bitch ever!” matt shouts,

his voice booms through my living room, making my heart race quicken.

“would you just shut up- shut up!” i scream,

matt shoves me back gently, not enough to actually hurt me, just enough to get his point enough.

“you’re just- you’re just being ridiculous?” matt mutters, turning on his heels and walking away from me.

“i fucking hate you! i hope you get that through your thick head!” i snap

i didn’t mean it.

not at all.

i was so angry, just doing anything i could to be mean.

i hear matt’s heavy footsteps as he walks up the stairs, followed by the door slamming shut.

i flop down on the couch, running a hand through my hair as i pant.

i don’t know why i said any of that.

(35 minutes later)

i’ve just been thinking for the past half hour, about things i shouldn’t have said, things i shouldn’t of done.

i’ve held back all my emotions, feeling somewhat numb, except for the intense feeling of guilt gnawing away at me

the whole house has been eerily silent, usually it would be filled with matt and i’s endless giggles, but it’s not.

i stand up off the couch, my legs somewhat wobbly and my stomach churning with immense guilt.

i need to talk to him,

i drag my feet over to the bottom of the stairwell, knowing matt’s at the top of the stairs, locked away in our bedroom.

one step,

after another,

i slowly walk up the stairs.

my heart pounds against my rib cage, not knowing what matt would say, nor think, when he saw me in the doorway,

the same person that just screamed at him, making him believe that i hated him.

i reach his door, my hand stalling on the doorknob as i let out a soft sigh.

i couldn’t bring myself to just twist the doorknob, my hand was lightly shaking.

i swallow harshly before twisting the knob,

i stand in the doorway, looking around the dimly lit room.

there’s a discomforting feeling in the air, the room is cold.

my eyes search around the room until they land on matt.

he’s laying down on the bed, his back facing me and his still.

is he asleep?

“matt..?” i call out quietly, my voice breaking.

i walk over to the bed, my footsteps light.

suddenly i hear him,

a choked sob escapes him.

he’s crying?

i made him cry,

matt’s never cried infront of me before

and i’m the reason he now has.

“baby- are you crying-?” i whisper, reaching down and brushing his hair away from his eyes. he shivers at my touch, rolling over so his face is buried in the pillow.

i quickly crawl into bed beside him.

“please- please don’t cry-“ i mutter, my tone is panicked as i reach for him.

i sit up against the headboard as he stays buried in the pillows beside me, letting out strangled sobs.

“please look at me- darling i am so sorry, seriously.” i speak softly, my voice just loud enough so it’s audible to him

“matt, look at me please.” i say, my tone shaky as my voice cracks again.

he gently lifts his face from the pillows,

i take the opportunity to grab him, and tug him to sit up beside me.

i run my hands through his messy hair, he looks like a wreck, i feel terrible.

his eyes are swollen, his lips are a deep red and puffy and tears roll down his pale cheeks.

i grab his hands, “matt,” i sigh, “y-you’re killing me.”

matt stares down at the bed, “can- can i have a hug?” he whispers with a small hiccup.

“of course you can have a hug.” i sigh, wrapping my arms around him and pulling his body flush against mine.

i hold him close to me as i lay down on the bed, his head buried in my chest.

he sniffs shakily as he just cries, letting everything out.

i can still feel the undeniable tension in the air,

we’re both so angry at eachother still, it’s hard not to be after argument like that.

“hey, it’ll be okay- we’ll be okay.” i whisper, running my fingers through his locks of hair.

he lets out another sob against me, the noise making my heart break.

“you’re gonna make me cry.” i whisper with a small sigh, holding the back of his head gently.

“sorry.” he sniffles.

i hold him in my arms, whispering small words of affirmation while matt slowly starts to calm down.

i fight back the tears in my eyes as i attempt to stay strong for him.

“could we- talk maybe?” matt sniffs, wiping his eyes on my shirt before slowly lifting himself away from me.

he sits up on the headboard beside me, his legs outstretched and his hands still gently shaking.

“i think we need to.” i nod,

we both sit in silence for a second, waiting for one person to start.

“i know i was-“ i start but matt interrupts me,

“can i go first- i just want to tell you… how i’ve been feeling.” he rambles, his voice cracking.

i nod, “yeah..”

matt starts,

“i mean it when i say you’ve been stupidly distant for the past months, everytime i try to initiate anything with you, i just get brushed off, all of our conversations are shallow and i can’t tell if you actually care about me anymore!”

i stare at him as he rambles, trying to take all of his words to heart without getting mad again.

“i love you so much, and it’s hurting me to see you slowly drift away from me, i just want to know what i did wrong..?” he follows on, swallowing harshly,

i nod slightly, my lips parting to speak but no words coming out.

“i’m not trying to push you away matt.” i whisper,

he goes to speak but i interrupt, “i think it’s just a mix of everything, i’m just so exhausted with work after half my coworkers quit, i’ve been working long hours and i don’t mean to push you away, i swear.” i ramble on,

matt nods slightly with understanding, his hands fidgeting in his lap.

“i love you so much matt, and i’m trying to do better, i promise.” i finish,

matt just looks at me, before finally nodding.

he lets out a breath, one that i can tell took a weight off his shoulders.

“i’m sorry about the argument.” matt says,

i shake my head, “no i was being a pain on purpose, it could’ve been avoided if i acted differently.”

“i came at you with like a confronting tone- i should’ve approached it better.” he speaks,

“and i also shouldn’t have laid my hands on you, i didn’t mean for it to ever get physical..” matt whispers, his eyebrows furrowing as he breaks eye contact with me,

“it’s okay, i needed it-“ i try to defend his actions but he cuts me off,

“no- no that was a shitty thing for me to do, i feel super guilty about it.” he sighs,

the room goes silent, my heart aches as i try to apologise for that one thing i said, the 3 words that exited my mouth, which is now eating me alive.

“i’m sorry- for saying i hate you.. i- i don’t i swear, it wasn’t true at all i was just saying it to make you mad- i promise, i love you more than life itself.” i spit it out.

matt’s gaze softens,

my eyes well up with tears, “i shouldn’t have said that, i’m so sorry-“ i whisper out,

matt reaches his hands up to my face, his hands caressing my cheeks and his thumbs wipe my eyes quickly.

“no tears.” he gently coos,

“i’m so sorry- i fucked up so bad-“ i continue, but matt cuts me off.

he presses his lips to mine, his hands still firmly on the sides of my face.

he rolls us over so he’s ontop of me, keeping our lips connected.

i kiss back, distracting myself from the swirling thoughts in my head.

after a few moments he pulls away from my lips with a small ‘pop’.

a warm smile appears on his face as he peppers kisses all over my face.

i squirm with a giggle as his pecks kisses all over me, before pressing a final peck to my lips.

“we’ll always talk things out next time, i promise this won’t happen again.” he whispers comfortingly, his hands gently running through my hair.

i nod in agreement, “i love you.”

“love you too sweetie.” he whispers, before going back to peppering kisses all over my face.

-

@sturnsdoll @obvisturns @stupid4sturniolo @meerkatzthings @witchofthehour @rosalierenee43 @gabrielle-brun1 @ilovemymannnnnnnn @sturnioloxlver @buckys-goodgirl @sturniol0s @ilovemymannnnnnnn @chr1sgirl4life @luanetaluenta @sturnsssbow @mattfangirl girl @luvr4miya @luvtay111 @lolasturniolo @freshloveforthefit @ruedowney @lovingchrissposts @333michelle @h3arts4harry @jamiesturniolo o @chrisstopherfilmed @ @daddyslilchickenfingers2 @ev3rgreenxtrees @certifiednatelover er @solarsturniolo lo @mattsenthusiast t @yomamaslays4lyfe @peachmels @alinaa131 @pepsiluvr0209 @creamoncreamoncream2 @szobofc @mattscoquette @blahbell668 @sturniolo04 @bitchydragonparadise @sturni0l0tripletzz @ratatioulle @sturnsfav @mattsonlybitch @justalittle47 @sunsetsturniolos

@sturniolo04 @similartokayyz @sturnsintrouble @ilovemattsturn @raysmayhem-72 @75sturn @sturniol0s @secret-sturniolo @hfkeclnendmwodne @sturniolosass @gxldenlush @stonermattsgf @101sara @beccaluvschris @oliviasturniolo21 1 @imwetforyourmom @tylerstacobell @sunsetsturniolos @aliceloveschris @jayz4dayz 4 @sassysturniolo2008 @nyktoxs-love r @nathandoesgf @starsturns234 @chrissturnsss s @joemamaaa42069 @sturnthepot @zayyluvz @realuvrrr @livialifesblog @sturnioloblogs @riowritesitall john @raysmayhem-72

[dragon-ascent]

Imagine being able to see people’s elemental aura. If they bear a vision, the energy around them takes the color of the corresponding element. So Pyro users have a burning red-orange energy flickering about them while Dendro wielders are draped in a calm deep green. Only you can see their aura, perhaps just a special (but mostly useless) gift you were born with.

Which is why when you start working for Wangsheng Funeral Parlor and are introduced to Zhongli, you’re freaking out that you can’t tell anyone he’s actually the Geo Archon who is supposed to be dead.

Shimmering golden rays with a glare so intense they may just be exploding stars suspended in sunlight…yes, the aura around him is simply unmistakable. The Dendro Archon’s wavelength was of a similar intensity back when you attended the Sabzeruz festival. The appearance of the Raiden Shogun during Irodori had you beholding a similar feeling.

Zhongli’s every action only confirms it, not that confirmation was ever needed. His knowledge is too vast to be that of a young man, his mannerisms more ethereal than worldly, his gait steadier than stone.

Soon enough, he takes notice of the way you’re always so jittery around him – but he chalks it up to you being a naturally skittish thing. So he tries to alleviate your nerves by talking to you any chance he gets…not that that helps because his every word has you even more on edge.

“So true, bestie!” you blurt out after he’s told you something that’s gone in one ear and out the other. “Speaking of, isn’t it so sad that Rex Lapis is dead?”

Zhongli pauses, eyeing you curiously. “My dear, this is the third time this week you have brought up the topic of the Geo Lord’s death. Has it affected you so? Please take comfort in that He remains in all our hearts, watching over us common folk from the afterlife.”

He’s mocking me, I just know it! you think, your cheeks heating up as you try not to stare at the divine golden aura crackling around him.

One time, as (un)luck may have it, you accidentally bump into him and spill coffee on his beautiful suit. “Oh gods! Forgive me!” you wail, getting onto your knees. This time…this time he’ll certainly show you his godly wrath…maybe skewer you with his spear…or summon a fissure to swallow you…

But Zhongli is chuckling softly, dabbing at the stain with his lovely embroidered handkerchief. “Please do not fret, my friend. This is nothing a wash will not fix.”

You then insist you’ll cover the cost and get it cleaned, to which he eventually accedes. Holy…when he takes it off to reveal his cream-coloured shirt underneath, it’s like his aura gets even more blinding. It takes everything in you not to just throw yourself at his feet and sing his praises.

(How gorgeous he looks as he works the rest of the day with his coat off.)

He warmly invites you over to his place for tea when you come to return his coat, now cleaned; the house is as well-kept as he is. As night falls, the glow around him only strengthens in response. You can’t stop yourself from asking, mid-sip of your well-made tea:

“What’s Rex Lapis doing working a salaried job?”

[catboyieejeno]

gameboy :: p.js — two

genre: gamer! jisung x gamer! reader, college au cw: female reader, fwb to lovers, explicit smut, pervy jisung, male masturbation, oral (m and f receiving), unprotected sex, inexperienced jisung, cum play/breeding kink, pet names, slight humiliation kink, size kink, creampie, probably more wc: 14.963k

[one] [two]

18+ minors do not interact!

“Is that my cardigan?” 

Forget distraught, forget embarrassed, forget every possible synonym for the word humiliation. Not a single one would do what he’s feeling in this moment even a sliver of justice. Jisung is convinced his soul has left his body, that he’s passed on or that the ground has swallowed him whole. In fact, he’d prefer it that way. He has never felt more panic in his life as you quickly approach the cum-stained cardigan that he took from you, that he pleasured himself with countless times, that he still hasn’t washed…

“You dropped it in class, and I-I meant to give it back to you, you know, a-after I washed it, but then—” 

As you turn the material over in your hands, taking note of and examining the stains, Jisungs breath completely cuts off. You spin slowly on your heel, facing him. There’s an unreadable expression on your face, and it takes every bit of the little pride he has left to not squeeze his eyes shut. 

“Are these—” His voice is no more than a sputtering squeak, “I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry. Fuck, you must think—” 

“Jisung.” 

“I didn’t mean to keep it for so long, or-or at all, really, it’s just—”

“Jisung.” He’s pretty sure you can hear him gulp. “Were you using my cardigan to get off?” 

“I-” 

“Were you?” You ask sternly. 

He sucks in a breath, unable to look at you any longer as the faintest of yeses leaves his pouty lips. 

There’s a moment of silence. A terribly long, excruciating moment of silence where Jisung can think of no way to make this up to you. He’s beyond ashamed, palms clasped together and sweating, face red with horror, inside of his cheek clamped tightly between his teeth, the whole nine miles. So much for mulling over how he’d reveal who he was to you, and so much for all the overthinking he did, all the times he planned out exactly what to say to you and how. Now, it’s all coming to an end because of this damned cardigan. He should’ve just washed it and given it back to you after the first time—no, he shouldn’t have used it at all. His mind is filled with thoughts of everything and nothing at the same time, and he’s already beginning to mourn the loss of your friendship when you say the unthinkable: 

“Show me.” 

Jisung works his jaw to gather some spit to swallow, since his mouth has managed to run completely dry in record time. His breathing has picked up significantly too, at your words and the way they drip from your lips with silky lust, or venom—he can’t tell which yet, since he’s not entirely sure he heard you correctly in the first place. For all he knows, they may be one in the same, and that would make him quite the textbook masochist; to be so humiliated and simultaneously, so fucking flustered. 

The reddening tint on his face pales suddenly as he realizes that he has yet to respond and the seconds continue to pass. With a shaking voice, he chokes out a single word: “...What?” 

There is no beat, no single pause before you speak. Similarly, there’s no hesitation in your words that spill seamlessly from your smooth lips. “Show me how you get off using my cardigan,” you repeat loudly, clearly. 

There isn’t an ounce of playfulness in your voice, much less in your stature, upright and commanding. Your expression is unreadable as you stand in front of him expectantly, holding out your cardigan with its new (and not so new) decorative additions for him to grab ahold of. 

With a heavy gulp, Jisung lowers his head. “You already got me to admit it. You don’t have to embarrass me any more.” 

“I’m not trying to embarrass you,” You explain, taking a few cautious steps forward until you’re but a foot away from him where he sits on the edge of his bed, “If you’re feeling embarrassed, that’s not because of anything I’ve done.”

He gulps again. 

“I just wanna know what you did as you…” Your index finger finds the underside of his chin, tilting it up so that he’s forced to look at you, “...thought of me.” 

Oh. 

Oh. 

For a brief moment, he can’t construct a response, only gawking at you speechlessly as he attempts to process whether or not you really mean the words that are coming out of your mouth and their twisted implications. Then, his length gives a twitch and he fully wishes the ground would swallow him whole because, how could he have so little shame? 

“Ji…” you start, and his attention is fixed on you once more. The heat in his cheeks returns as you brush your fingers through his hair, pushing all the strands back to allow you a clear view of his face. “It’s kinda pathetic, you know. Having me so close and still using my cardigan…”

His stomach churns, his dick leaks, and his hands grip the bed sheets as you use your index finger to push him back on his chest until he’s resting on his elbows against the mattress. 

“If only you would’ve let me know sooner…maybe I could’ve helped you.” 

“You can help me now,” the words are tumbling from his lips breathlessly, “please.” He isn’t above whimpering any more, or begging. You have him wrapped around your finger, you have for the last few months, and he’s pent up and desperate. There’s nothing he wants more than to have you sink down on his length at this very moment—and he can't believe how plausible that reality actually seems. Still, you have other plans. 

“Tell me what you thought about, baby.” 

He gulps, taking a leisurely glance over your body now that the situation allows, each and every thought his imagination previously concocted coming up to the tip of his tongue where it sits idly, unable to be uttered. He’s so embarrassed, so turned on, so conflicted. 

You give him an encouraging nod, casting your eyes down to his lap where his length strains against the fabric. 

“Can I?” 

Jisung nods eagerly, and you pop off the button of his jeans, sliding down the zipper so slowly that the buzzing is the only sound either of you can hear for a second or two. The next sound that echoes around the small dorm room is a hiss from Jisung’s drooling lips, elicited when your hand brushes his hard on. He can tell your actions are nothing less than methodical when you reach for his hand. You place the black cardigan in his fist, then lay it over his lap. 

Then, you spin around, bringing his desk chair over and taking a seat expectantly. 

When he still doesn’t respond, horny and frozen in shock, you smirk. 

“Need me to walk you through it?” 

Oh, God. He could come undone just from that thought alone.

“Please.” He squeaks out. 

“Take off your pants, Ji.” You instruct, leaning forward to rake your nails along his thighs, “I want you to tease yourself as you tell me what you thought about.”

”Fuck, I—” he glances at your hands that rest just inches away from his length, “I wanted you—I want you so bad.”  

You scoff. “Not very obedient, are you?” 

“Sorry—“ he clears his throat, hoping that of all times, his voice doesn’t betray him now. Following your directions, Jisung hurriedly slides his joggers down so that they’re resting at his knees, before speaking up, “I thought about you, what you looked like. Thought about your body in some pretty little outfit like the one you’re in now.” 

“You thought about me wearing clothes?”

”I thought about you taking each piece off, one by one. Just for me,” he adds. 

Perhaps, it’s a reward for his compliance, or maybe it’s a punishment; regardless, you lean back, sliding the shirt he had lent you off so that you’re sitting before him in nothing but a lacy black piece. 

If he thought your breasts were spilling from your top at the party, it’s nothing compared to the way they sit in your bra, constrained by the lace and begging to be held in his greedy palms.

You hum for him to continue, and he has to remind himself he isn’t dreaming. Subconsciously, his hand has begun to squeeze his cock over his boxers and you don’t miss the way the action makes his lips part.

”I pictured you touching me, like it was your hand instead of mine.” As he mumbles this, he slides his left hand into his underwear and gives himself a generous pump, then another, a shuddering breath making his chest heave.

“Like this?” 

Jisung freezes as you reach in to chase his hand, grabbing a hold of his length for yourself. Instantly, he throws himself back onto the mattress, covering his face with his palms as he moans. 

“Nuh-uh, baby,” you scold him, “You have to look, otherwise you’re defeating the purpose.” 

“Feels so good,” 

“I know,” you coo, letting your thumb swipe along his slit. The prettiest sounds leave his lips in the form of whimpers and whines, and he forces his eyes open to watch how you pull him out from his boxers. 

“Can you tell me what I did next?”

”You—fuck,” Despite his best efforts, his voice cracks, “you used your mouth.” 

“My mouth, huh?” You lean in, pressing a soft kiss to his head. Some more precum leaks, coating your pouty lips, and Jisung thinks he may have actually died and gone to heaven. 

It takes everything in him to keep his head up, especially when you wrap your mouth around him. Your nails dig crescent moons onto his bare thigh and Jisung croaks out a throaty groan as he feels himself poke the back of your throat. There’s a bit of drool gathering at the corner of your mouth, and he brings his thumb forward to swipe it away. With the salty taste of him

on your tongue, you blink at him appreciatively, coming up for air with a gasp. 

His dick is so red and swollen that you can’t help the praise that leaves your lips. “So pretty,” 

“You should see my view.” 

His reciprocation only makes you more eager, and you kiss him again. Teasing him is creating a mess between your legs and the only relief is the way the friction feels when you roll your hips against his desk chair. 

You hum contentedly, tongue poking out to kitten lick his flushed head. He shudders and rolls his head back for the nth time, gripping his sheets. 

“Shit, you’re driving me crazy,” 

You bat your lashes at him, taking him into the warmth of your mouth again. You hollow your cheeks to suck on his head, eyes fixed on his and watching for a reaction—and boy, does he give you one. His jaw goes slack, brows dipping down to hover over his half-lidded, glossed over eyes. As his thighs tremble, he watches you intently, wary of your every move you make and anticipating your next one. The sensation of your wet tongue, and the inside of your cheek, and your tightening throat that swallows around him—it’s almost all too much, and it has him using absolutely all of his self control to keep from bucking up. He wants to enjoy this, to soak this in; he needs to.

But his balls already feel so heavy and tight, and when you moan around him, he feels the vibrations in the form of tingles at the end of his spine. He can barely get a warning out quick enough before he’s releasing a load down your throat.

“Oh, fuck—I’m coming—“ 

You lift your head off of him with a pop, but not without sticking your tongue out to catch the spurts of white cum that dribble and shoot from his spent cock. A string of strained purrs and whimpers fall from Jisung’s ‘o’ shaped lips as he sees this, right before his vision whites out and his nerve ends go numb. His arms fall limply at his sides as the waves of pleasure drag on and through him, till he’s emptied every last drop into your waiting mouth.

You can tell from the way he’s shaking that he’s starting to become sensitive, but your hands don’t stop stroking him, nor do they let up on their pace—not until he takes them into his own and grips them over his abdomen, chest red and heaving. 

His ears are ringing by the time he comes down, the only feeling being your lips that kiss at his thigh and the thumb that swipes along his knuckles. He blinks down at you in awe and mentally professes his love and devotion to you, courtesy of the insane head, though on second thought, he realizes it might just be a side effect of post-nut-stupidity. 

“You’re too fucking good at that.” He lets out breathlessly, wiping some sweat from his chest. 

“Thank you,” you laugh. The moment you retract your hand from his hold to swipe at the cum and drool that sticks to your chin, Jisung shoots up, cheeks reddening again at the mess he’s left on your face. 

“Shit, sorry. Here.” Somewhat awkwardly, he shimmies his joggers back on after tucking himself into his boxers with a wince, then runs to the other side of his room where he gets you a pack of wipes, some tissues, and a fun sized water bottle from his mini fridge. 

“Are you hungry? I’ll make you some instant noodles or—“

“I’m fine, Ji.” 

“Ji? What happened to Sung?”

You ponder for a moment, then give him a little smile as you wipe away the mess of fluids on your face. 

“Ji suits you more.” You decide, “I called you Sung before I knew you, like, really knew you. And now that I do, I think Ji is more fitting.” 

He’s lost count of how many times he’s gone red in your presence, but he can’t help it. Not after the way the night unraveled, and certainly not when your cheek presses into his shoulder. You’re still not wearing a shirt, and the night’s makeup has started melting off around your cheeks and lips, but for whatever reason, you’ve never looked better. He’s glancing down at you warmly, lost in thought as he tries to decide which feature of yours is his favorite. 

It’s a pointless battle, and a decision he gives up on quickly, because there’s no way he’d manage to decide on an answer. Your eyes that looked up at him from between his legs just moments ago are filled with the most extravagant mix of light and mischief, and every time they meet his, he thinks he could float away. Your lips are velvet, he can confirm since he’s felt them now, albeit not on his own. Nonetheless, they’re pillowy and soft and wonderous, and he can’t wait for the moment he gets to taste them. 

As he watches you rub your legs together, he’s confronted by a mix of emotions: Firstly, he feels relief, because this could only mean you were worked up, and more importantly, because of him. Then, he’s instantly grieving the fact that he hadn’t asked to return the favor, and now you were needy and helpless. But no matter, because he clears his throat, mustering up a bit of boldness from the alcohol that still swirls through his system. 

“Let me eat you out.” 

“What?” 

”Let me eat you out, please.” he tries again, and instantly grimaces at the poor attempt at rephrasing. 

This is why you’re bitchless, Jisung.

You don’t seem to mind, though, letting out a light laugh as you straighten up beside him. “You don’t have to,” you whisper shyly, but you barely get the words out before he’s interrupting you. 

“I want to!” He corrects quickly, and you flash him a sweet smile. 

“Not today,” You can practically see the way he deflates, so you quickly explain,“I’m on my period.” 

“Oh.” 

“But that just means you owe me next time, right?” His eyes instantly light up at your proposition, and you can practically see the way his pupils dilate.

Oh. 

“There’s gonna be a next time?” 

You feign offense, “You’re already going back on your offer?” 

“No!” he answers quicker than he means to, clearing his throat, “I mean, no. Definitely not. Like, really. I can’t wait. I mean I can wait, but—”

He can’t even process the moment your lips press against his because just as quickly, they’re no longer there. A peck, and then you’re mumbling “good” against his mouth and going in for seconds as his brain starts buzzing. 

He acknowledges that this gesture was to shut him up, but he doesn’t care. His mind is numbed by your taste and the way your tongue glides against his teeth. If this is how you intended on getting him to be quiet, he’d never stop running his mouth. It doesn’t help that he can taste himself; that thought on its own is almost enough to give him a semi. 

You pull away with a small smack between your lips and instantly, Jisung feels himself melt, leaning into your hand that comes up to caress his cheek and mess with the ends of his hair at the side of his head. 

“I should head out.” You sigh, and he thinks he’s never been so disappointed after hearing just four words. 

“It’s cold out.” He protests, trying not to sound too whiny.

“Am I supposed to stay here?” He knows it’s a rhetorical question, but he still has to bite back the urge to ask you to do just that. “You can just lend me a jacket. I mean, that would make us even, right?” 

When you pick up the end of your cardigan as a notion, Jisung grimaces, but decides that ultimately, if it wasn’t for this cardigan, he might’ve never ended up where he is now: with your hand in his hair and the taste of his cum still lingering on your tongue. 

“You want me to walk you home?”

“Please.” 

And so he does, with his jacket wrapped tightly around you. He drops you off in front of your door, with an endearing wave of his hand and the plan to see you again after class on Monday set in motion. 

•.¸¸☆*･ﾟ

“This is convenient.” 

“What is?” he perks up, watching as you sit criss-crossed on his bed, a stack of astronomy books piled up on your lap. You don’t look up, but gesture around.

“We can just study at yours,” you say as if it’s obvious, “we don’t have to worry about booking a lab.”

Jisung hums in agreement, gleeful at the idea that you intend to spend more and more time with him, and even more importantly, in his room.

Here, where he can only remember the way your mouth felt around him, and the countless times he’s pleasured himself to the thought of you. Here where you lay, on his bed, in a skirt that’s definitely too short for the harsh winter season, which could only mean you wore it for him. Here, where if he leans back, he can catch a glimpse of the cotton, light blue panties you’re wearing under the hem of polyester. 

After he returned from walking you home, Jisung collapsed into his bed, overjoyed and buzzing with energy, and so grateful there was no class the next day—Since he was not sure he’d be able to work himself out of bed with his mind still in a haze. By the time he managed to stop kicking his feet and replaying the night in his mind, the clock had striked six and the sun was beginning to peek over the hilltops. 

He can’t stop thinking about what the two of you had agreed on doing the next time you hung out, especially not when your pretty legs are bare and exposed. 

It’s a shame they’re not wrapped around his head. 

Nonetheless, he remains hesitant to make a move because: what if you had forgotten? Or perhaps, it was the alcohol talking that night and you really didn’t intend to do anything else with him—a totally plausible reality, as much as he hates to admit it.

Although he had gotten the go-ahead with you, and his dick is already growing at the thought of how your cunt would taste, his crippling fear of rejection still managed to choke him. A single, suggestive brush of his hand against you could make you uncomfortable, since the line between sexual and friendly intentions is so blurred, and that terrifies him. 

Very quickly, however, he realizes that’s not the case. 

“What do the books say about Castor and Pollux?”

“Well,” you start, “for starters, it’s more detailed than all the stuff we’ve found online.” 

“Really?” 

“Yeah. Like, for example,” your leg unfolds from its position tucked away under you, and stretches out to rub along Jisung’s thigh. That’s how it starts. 

“In the book it goes into a lot more detail about the battle which inevitably leads to Castor’s death.” 

He can barely register what you’re saying, because with each word, your foot, adorned by your tantalizing knee-high socks, is rubbing shamelessly over his bulge. You watch out of the corner of your eye as his jaw goes slack, his gaze tracking every move you make over his lap. In fact, the only time he glances up at all, is when you lay back against his pillows and prop your legs apart, granting him a clear view of your panties that now showcase a wet mark. 

Jisung sucks in a breath, “Y/n, I think we should take a break–“ 

“Did you know that Pollux gave up half of his immortality so that Castor could live?” 

To put it bluntly, Jisung really couldn’t fucking care less.  

“Mhm?” He hums, except it’s practically a moan, because now your legs are fully spread, and your leg is restless, rubbing against him with no remorse. He’s fully hard, so hard that it’s beginning to hurt, but he feels stuck in place. 

“Fuck, we need to stop, I can’t focus if—“ 

“We should add some of this stuff to the presentation.” 

You’re playing some kind of game, and he’s happy to take the bait. Your eyes that hover over the top of the book flicker up to his for a split second, glossed over and sultry, revealing just how needy you actually are. 

And so, he breaks. 

Your leg is flung off his lap as he leans forward, settling his shoulders between your knees and attaching his lips to the plush of your thigh. Wet kisses make a path toward your core before he turns to give some attention to your other leg. It’s indescribable, how soft your skin is under his puckering mouth and how riveting the view of you is from this angle. 

You’ve moved the book a bit to the side, giving him full visibility so he can watch the way your eyes roll back for a split second when his big hands push your skirt out of the way, the material bunching up at the small of your waist.

Despite the fact that you’re clutching the pages of the book so tightly that your hands are turning white, you maintain your composure. “When Castor was revived, Zeus turned them into the constellation. Then–“ 

He tunes you out, squeezing your skin like a stress ball as a newfound determination manifests. You’re only acting unphased—the growing wet patch on your covered folds giving you away—and he’s dead set on breaking your facade. 

As bad as he wants to taste you, he won’t; not yet. Not until you’re writhing and shaking and desperate to be touched. 

He keeps working his kisses up to your center, then pulling away, alternating between using his teeth to nibble and tug at the more giving parts of your skin, and licking at the firm areas, like your hip bones and below your navel. 

Him nuzzling his nose into you tickles, especially since you can feel his breaths as they grow more uneven. Your view isn’t so bad either; you can make out the way his hips rut into the mattress and his hair flops as he moves to kiss across your skin. You only dare to steal a glance when you know he’s not looking; otherwise, you’re reading off the page in the steadiest voice you can muster, though your patience is slowly withering. 

When he finally gives any attention to your core, it’s over the panties, nose digging into your clit and breathing you in. His next breath is full of you, and all he can feel is your thighs as they slightly tighten around his head. 

The slight friction is ruinous, and it almost manages to make you stammer over your words, but Jisung interrupts you with a groan and misses the way you stifle a whine.

“Put that book down so I can make you come on my face, baby.” 

“Y-you’re distracting me. We’re supposed to be studying–“ you argue, but the book is already hanging loose in your hands, moments away from being discarded to meet the rest of the pile. Jisung catches this, and he doesn’t entertain your resistance any longer. You’re about to snap, he can feel it—he can practically taste it. 

And so, his tongue pokes out to lick a long stripe from your entrance, up to your clit. His pace is menacingly slow, he still hasn’t moved your panties aside, but somehow, the action rips a moan from your throat and causes your hips to buck.

Humming in satisfaction, he does it again, and the small whimper you let out the second time around almost makes him bust in his pants. 

“Ji..” 

With his arms hooked under your thighs and his palms situated over your abdomen, he hums in acknowledgement of his nickname and presses his face further into you. Your heels dig into his shoulders to tug him closer, but he tuts, flickering his narrowed eyes up to you. 

“Is something wrong?” His tone is teasing and cheeky, and you take your lip between your teeth. 

“No–I just,” you huff out, reddening cheeks filling with air, “please–“ 

“Please?” The single syllable is dragged out, encouraging you to elaborate, but all you can manage is another helpless moan.

“Just tell me what you want and I’ll give it to you, angel.”

“I–please, I need your mouth or–or your fingers. whichever,” you pant, “fuck, Jisung, I don’t care–just touch me—“

You don’t have time to finish your babbled plea before he hooks a finger on the material of your panties and pushes them aside. His tongue darts out to lick your clit, and he instantly, both you and Jisung moan in fervor. When he dips the muscle into your entrance, your essence coats his taste buds, and he decides then and there that he’s never tasted anything better. 

He’s also never seen anything better than the sight of you arching your back and digging your hips down to push your aching folds closer to his mouth. And it works, because he gets a mouthful of you and he begins to suck on your bud contentedly. 

Forget reading about the constellations, you were practically seeing them. 

They swirled over your eyelids when you closed them and swam around the room when you managed to peek them open for a glimpse of the boy laying between your legs. Any time his eyes flicker up to yours, the pleasure peaks, and you have to clasp a hand over your mouth to contain yourself. 

He hopes you can’t tell that he’s never done this before; by the looks of it, you have no idea. Your moans are growing louder by the second, with every swipe of his tongue against your slit, and your fingers have long forgotten the book you were clutching earlier. Now, they tug on Jisung’s hair, scratching at his scalp affectionately and pulling on the locks at the root anytime he does anything a tad too well. 

He laps you up again and again, replicating everything he had ever seen work in porn videos, until your toes are curling and you seem to be running out of air. Broken cries fall from your parted lips, with an occasional call of his name that has him rutting into the bed at a pace that almost provides as much friction as he desperately needs. 

“So pretty like this,” he manages to sputter into your core, and you instantly shiver, pressing him closer to you with your heels—if that’s even possible. 

You breathe out a series of phrases, all incomplete and taking after a whine more than anything else: “I’m gonna–“ and “Feels good–“ and “Keep going–“. 

No part of your brain is composed enough to form an actual sentence while Jisung’s tongue buries itself into your hole, but he seems to get the memo. He devours you like he’s famished, and when his hands reach up to grab ahold of your breasts, your efforts to contain your moans become obsolete. 

Your orgasm crashes into you as he returns his attention to your clit. His fingers busy themselves pinching one of your nipples and his deep hums vibrate at your core, and you find your vision going dark until there’s no choice left but to squeeze your eyes tight and reconcile with the ecstasy that has no means of stopping. For a second, your legs begin to shake, but as the feeling of coming from his swirling tongue becomes overwhelming, they fall limp, held up only by Jisung’s shoulders. 

And he doesn’t stop, until he’s completely sure that you’ve taken everything and have started to come down. His face is flushed red from the effort and a bit of sweat shines like gloss on his forehead, when you’re finally able to open your eyes and take him in. 

Secretly, he’s both surprised and proud of himself that he’s managed to make you come—for some reason, he wasn’t as nervous as he thought he might be under this pressure—mostly put on him by him. If he couldn’t manage to give you an orgasm, he’s not sure how he would have faced you again. 

“Holy shit.” Your voice is thinned out and dreamy, and you don’t hesitate to grab the collar of his shirt and pull him up to you for a kiss. He moans into your mouth, slick covered lips disappearing between yours as you make out with him.  

“Damn,” You mumble as you break apart, “You eat out all your friends like that?” 

His eyes that were shut dreamily flutter open at once, and his brows pinch in slight confusion that he refuses to address for the moment.

 Technically, you aren’t wrong. 

Technically, the two of you are friends. 

But that title is the very last one he expected to and wanted to hear right about now. 

He can’t spare it another thought, because just quickly as the words leave your mouth, he’s lost again in your kiss. The feeling of your soft lips is so invigorating that it makes him salivate, and as he situates himself properly between your thighs. A few brushes of your wet cunt against his bulge and he’s releasing into his boxers with a groan, emptying himself as you continue to taste his spit and your release on his tongue, hips grinding down to stimulate him further. 

He comes hard, considering the compromising position he’s in, but just the idea of his member being so close to your pussy, especially after he’s tasted it, is enough to tip the scale. 

“Mmph..” 

“Feel good?” 

“So good,” he nods, rutting until every last drop has been expelled and his tip is too sensitive to touch. Then, he collapses into your arms that wrap around him, palms smoothing through his hair and down his spine. 

“Gimme a kiss,” You plead softly, and he looks up at you, peeking through the strands of hair that cover his eyes until your fingers move them away. He happily puckers his lips to place a gentle peck on yours. He’s almost smiling into it, until then and there, in the back of his mind, he thinks back to your choice of words. Do friends kiss like this? He supposes they do, in a talking stage of sorts. When the lines between friendship and more have been blurred, as they have here, and some sort of romance is blossoming, friends can kiss.

Typically, though, that blur is discussed and some boundary is set. Considering his dick has been in your mouth and he just gave you head until you and him both came from the effort, he figures some of those rules don’t necessarily apply here. 

He decides he’d rather not overthink. It got him nowhere when he wanted to come up to you before, and now that he has you, he’s sure it won’t help him here, either. 

So instead, he melts into your touch and relishes you until the moment you pull away and remind him of the half-written notes on his laptop that lie discarded since long ago. This gets him to regain focus for the rest of the night, and the two of you manage to get a decent amount of work done without ripping off each other’s clothes. He’s only slightly regretful of that, but the soft look of content on your face is enough. 

•.¸¸☆*･ﾟ

The project had gone off without a hitch. It seemed that the trick to being productive when it came to you two, was releasing some pent up sexual tension; then, your buzzing neurons would reward your efforts and get to work—like the time you met up at the library, just three days later. 

Barely fifteen minutes of little-to-no productivity had passed before you found yourself bored and pressing your thighs together to give your slick-covered pussy any bit of relief. And Jisung, hyper aware of you as always, noticed. It took one lustful glance from him and you were crawling onto his lap, leaning into his side, and nibbling softly on the lobe of his ear until his dick was so hard it almost hurt. His hands flew to your hips, pinning you down until your cunt was rubbing against him. He had barely half a mind to keep you quiet, because the computer labs had no lock on the doors. With his hand clasped over your mouth, you rolled yourself against him until both of you came in your clothes, eyes rolling back and chests heaving with exasperation. That day, you wrote over three thousand words on the constellation—talk about post-nut-clarity. 

The powerpoint that came hand in hand with the essay was an idea that came to be at your apartment. He found out Karina was your roommate during his visit, and she had invited Heesung over so they could work on their assignment, too. It wasn’t long before Jisung noticed your dissipating patience, and the overwhelming relief on your face when the two of them announced they would go grab coffee as a pick me up. You pulled him into a kiss almost instantly, discarding your notes and forgetting about the due date that was closing in. 

All that mattered in that moment was being close enough to Jisung to breathe him in, and who was he to complain? He wanted nothing more than that sweet bliss—sharing your air, tasting your spit, squeezing your skin, making you come.

He was only denied the last of the four today, because as his tongue sunk into your hole and lapped you up, the door clicked and both of you rushed to straighten out your appearances. Karina and Heesung didn’t seem to suspect anything, only mildly reminded the two of you were in the room after finishing their own sweet interaction. 

Karina gasped when the coffee she sipped burned her lip, and Heesung popped off the plastic cap of the cup, blowing the steam away at once and scolding her for not being careful. The scolding was more endearing than anything, and Jisung found himself being jealous at the way Karina’s pupils practically became hearts, gawking at Heesung as he cooled down her drink before returning it and giving her a kiss on the forehead. It became clear as he watched them that you had never really looked at him that way, though he tried not to think too hard about it or the stinging in his heart would get worse. 

That’s when he suggests the powerpoint, which both of you finished that very same night. As a reward for his ingenious contributions, you dragged him out into the hallway to “say goodbye” later that evening and palmed him until he ruined his third pair of underpants this week. 

Professor Hwang seemed to be more than pleased with your finished product, because when she spontaneously announced the scores for the project would be curved, the two of you got the highest marks in the class—and this called for celebration. 

You had to attend your Literature class, but promised to come by his place later, which left Jisung just enough time to do the absolute bare minimum: clean his room, take a shower, make a playlist. 

After his shower, the boy spent the better part of an hour obsessing over which cologne to put on, or if any of the three he owned were even pleasant enough for you, at which point, Mark knocked on his door with complaints about how the bathroom on his side of the hall got flooded. 

“What do you want me to do about that?”

“You’re an RA, no?”

“Yeah, but like, RA’s don’t fix toilets, you know?” Jisung shrugs.

“Dude–then, at least let me use your bathroom—”

“Yeah, go ahead. I’ll call—“ 

“Hey!” 

Your sweet voice calls out from the end of the hall, making both Jisung’s and Mark’s heads turn your way. You look ravishing today, a huge grin plastered on your face and the newest book you’d be analyzing in your Lit class clutched in your arm. Your hands hold two coffee cups, and you stride down the hall to meet the two boys where they stand.

Quickly, you place a kiss on Jisung’s cheek, direct and short but very bright “hello!” at Mark, then step inside his room with a decisive and upbeat pep on your step. Jisung knows why, of course, but as he turns back to Mark’s dumbfounded, and quite shocked expression, the smile on his lips instantly falls. 

“Was that–“ 

In less than a second, Jisung closes the door to his room and grabs the boy beside him, dragging him down the hall and out of earshot from you as he turns back to glance suspiciously at the wall you stand behind.

Jisung gulps, holding him still, “Mark–“ he knows what’s coming, but even then, he can’t mask the dread on his face.

“It was, wasn’t it? Jaehyun’s ex?” Mark’s eyes are so large, they look like they might roll out of his head.

“Yes, but–“

“Are you crazy?”

“Keep your voice down!” Jisung scolds, but Mark just lands a hit on his shoulder, disbelief written over his features. 

“What the hell are you doing with Jaehyun’s ex? You realize he’ll kill you if he finds out, right?”

With a nervous reluctance to his tone, Jisung begrudgingly sighs out, “We’re just friends.”

“Yeah, cause you and I kiss all the time when we say hello.”

“Okay, we’re a little bit more than friends, but–why does it matter?”

“It matters because you don’t mess with your friend’s ex, dude..” At this, Jisung’s lips press tightly together.  He can’t think of anything to say or argue in an attempt to defend himself, so Mark continues, “If it was Chaewon? Man, I don’t think I could even look at you again.” 

“He won’t find out.”

“Dude, not the point!”

“I know, I know. I’m just–“ I’m in love with her “–nevermind. you don’t get it.” 

“No, I don’t.” He echoes, “Figure it out before Jaehyun puts the pieces together.”

“You don’t think there’s even a slight chance he’ll understand?”

“If i’m being honest with you man…” He pauses, and the hope in Jisung’s eyes dwindles as Mark casts his own eyes away and sighs. “No. I don’t.”

Mark gives him one last look before striding past him and to the bathroom. 

Meanwhile, Jisung drags his feet back to his room, only slightly mulling over Mark’s words and the likelihood of their truth—but the guilt dissipates the moment his hand twists the doorknob and his eyes land on you. You’re sitting on his bed, evidently anticipating his return because you aren’t on your phone, or with your nose in your book. 

You’re sitting up, hair tucked behind your ear, eyes wide and looking his way as he closes the door behind him and moves closer. 

Perhaps, it’s the overwhelming lust or like or even love that he feels every time he looks at you—or maybe it’s a bit of his frustration from the devastating inconvenience of your affiliation with Jaehyun, he’s not sure—but he finds himself taking long strides to close the space between you and him. 

“I got you coffee–“

You don’t manage to finish your sentence before his lips are on yours, swallowing down the surprised whimper you let out before reciprocating his affection. In less than a second, he’s crawled onto the bed with you, hands holding you wherever they can. 

Your thighs grow sticky almost instantly as he draws moan after moan from you, rushing to peel off every last article of clothing that obstructs him from feeling your warm skin. It’s not long before you become as ravenous as him, only breaking your kiss to pull your shirts over your heads or readjust so he can crawl between your legs as you lay back. 

When he finally has expended every last bit of oxygen in his lungs, he moves back to take you in, finding that, for the first time, you’re fully naked before him—and god, are you a sight for sore eyes. 

He can see your chest heaving, the action slightly bouncing your curved breasts that sit prettily, spread from laying on your back. Your nipples are eager and perked up, inviting his tongue to run over them, which he takes a mental note to do in just a second. Your smooth stomach, tightened in anticipation, leads down to your messy wet folds, and your thighs, soft under his big hands, tremble as you grow shy and unsure under his gaze. 

“Ji? W-what’s wrong?”

“Literally, and I mean this with every fiber in my being, baby—nothing is wrong. You are so,” he leans down to kiss you softly, completely unlike the kisses you shared earlier, “so,” he travels down your chest, “so beautiful.” 

“You think so?”

“Yes, baby. God,” he huffs, “I need you so fucking bad.”

“So have me then.”

His movements stutter for a moment, and he snaps his head up to look at you. “You mean?”

“Yes.” You nod, “Please.”

When your fingertips dip into his boxers, he nuzzles his face into your neck and sighs out dreamily, allowing you to pull his fully hardened length out. 

“I want you so bad, Ji… Need to feel you inside of me.”

Your words send shivers down his spine so intense that he practically shudders, and he knows for a fact you can feel his dick twitching incessantly your palm.

Jisung clears his throat, leaving back to look into your eyes. 

“Let me eat you out first, yeah?” 

“It’s fine, I just-“ 

“Please,” he basically whimpers, “I love tasting you so much,”

“Fuck.” 

Your legs spread expectantly for him, but he takes his time, stopping at your lips again as if he can never feel them enough. Then, he makes his way down, licking and nibbling, pausing to lap at your nipples as he so desperately wanted to do earlier. 

“Jisung, holy shit–“ 

“So pretty, so good for me always.” 

“Baby–“ you gasp out as his lips come off your tit with a pop, and in an effort to quiet yourself down a bit, you take his index and middle finger into your mouth, swirling your tongue around them and muffling your cries of pleasure. At this, he has to peel your moving hand off his cock at the risk of coming into it. 

He can feel how the layer of sweat coating bus skin, and he can feel the way it’s sticking to yours, slick and wet. 

“Your pussy is so perfect,” he purrs, lodging his shoulders under your thighs and settling down between your legs where he belongs. 

He dives right in, molding his mouth over you in a way that has you arching your back and squeezing your eyes shut. He can feel your cunt pulsing under his tongue, all wet and gushing with your arousal. It’s dizzying, your taste, your smell, you, all of it has his mind spinning and him melting further into you. 

You can hear the sounds of him devouring you, as well as the noises he’s muttering into you, indiscernible strings of praises that have you on the brink of undoing. 

The moment his tongue slips in you, you pull his fingers from your mouth, reaching your own towards his hair. “How are you so good at that? Please, Ji, I’m so close–“ 

“Please,,” he echoes desperately, “come for me.” 

That, and his finger slipping into you has you grinding down onto his tongue and hands, dissolving into your orgasm that he so willingly paints out for you, using every little tactic he’s noticed you like so far, like curving his finger to hit your sweet spot, or sucking on your clit until you’ve got tears prickling at your eyes. 

You come on his face, writing and shaking and gripping his locks for dear life as bliss bubbles through your nerves. You’re soaked and breathless by the time he lets up. 

“So good,” he reminds you, making his way back up to your lips so you can find out for yourself just how intoxicating you are. 

Your hands reach for his hips and tug him closer, and the two of you yelp into the kiss as his length brushes your still sensitive folds. Jisung can no longer think straight, especially with the way your glossy eyes blink up at him sweetly. The realization of what’s to come dawns on him at once. He doesn’t intend to tell you you’re his first, because that’s pathetic and embarrassing, but nonetheless, he can’t hide the nerves. 

“Are you sure you still want to… you know? We don’t have to if you’re not comfortable. We can do something else, yeah? I’ll just take care of myself really quick in the bathroom and we’ll–“ 

“Ji, baby.” he gawks at you. You smile and brush a few hairs back from his eyes, not even minding when your hand brushes against his slightly sweaty hairline. “Who’s the talkative one now?” His cheeks glow at your attempt to lighten the mood, and you kiss them generously.

“I’m so sure I want this,” you start, “I’ve never wanted anyone this much.” 

And that makes his heart beat so fast and swell up so much inside his chest, he thinks it may just burst from within his ribs and land right in your hands where it belongs. 

His head bobs in a soft nod, and he swallows down the spit in his drying mouth. Between your bodies, one of his hands spreads your legs a bit while the other guides him towards your slick. He rubs his head between you, lathering his dick up in your cum, eyes never leaving yours in fear of missing the way your jaw goes slack at the sensation.

“Okay,” he nods again, “Then I’m all yours.”

“Good.” You whisper back.

“Let me know if you need me to stop, yeah?”

Unlike some of his friends, Jisung has never been addicted to porn—addicted to masturbating? Maybe, but that was partly due to his addiction to you. For the first time ever, he realizes how useful a porn addiction might have been right about now, even if it did build unrealistic expectations. Simply because then, he’d know what to do in this situation. The expectation part doesn’t concern him, you’ve already surpassed all of his anyway; the only thing eating him up is whether or not he’ll be able to please you. 

For his own sake, he gulps down his nerves and focuses on the pretty girl lying before him, with watering eyes and drooling lips who’s shaking in anticipation each time his head teases her entrance. He’s twitching in his own hand, clumsily bumping into your clit, but you seem to like that, reaching for and squeezing his arms with every accidental brushing.

And finally, when he sinks into your sopping walls, it’s like a breath of fresh air. 

Your hands slither around his shoulders, willing him closer until the two of you are chest to chest, and his hips push in far enough to bottom out within you. 

“Oh, my god..” The words leave you in a whisper, cock stuffing you full and balls pressing against your ass. The stretch is notable, though not painful, and given that you already came once today, you can’t help the way you clench down on him, making him hiss. 

“You okay?”

“Yes.” you nod, leaning up for a kiss.

Slowly, he starts rocking his hips, reminding himself to slide almost all the way out of you before thrusting back in. That’s what he’s supposed to do, or so he thinks. Your moans start as little hiccups, soft and airy, but as his rhythm continues, they get louder and whinier, and so he matches their pace and enthusiasm, speeding up in tandem. 

After leaving a wet kiss on your neck, Jisung sits up and looks down at where the two of you meet, pushing your knees up until they’re together on your chest. Every time he glances up at you through his brows, you squeeze him instinctively, and the new position just amplifies the pleasure for both of you.

Each graze of his fingers on your face or boob or arm, the weight of his hands keeping your thighs still, it’s all so satisfying that you feel your inevitable orgasm well on its way. It only takes a few more seconds of him fucking your soft, warm walls, before his fingers find your clit and start rubbing it. Instantly, your head is thrown back and you’re calling out for him in pleasure. 

As you come again, Jisung has a moment to take you in. 

You’ve infiltrated all of his senses: he can see you, hazed and fucked out and staring back at him with an infatuated look—the same one he saw on Karina’s face when she looked at Heeseung, and the very one he’s been longing to see on you. He can smell sex in the air—taste you still on his tongue from when it was in you just moments ago. He can hear your loud moans and pleas, every syllable of his name as it slips from your lips. And finally, finally he can feel you, stretching out around him and sucking him in deeper still with every thrust. You’re gushing so much that your thighs and his are covered, and his sheets have grown darker in the spot below where you’re connected. 

“Ji, please–“ 

“Please what, baby? Just tell me and it’s yours.”

“Fuck, don’t stop. Don’t stop, please.” 

He wouldn’t dream of it. 

Each drag of his cock through you solicits a new wave of pleasure, and you’re coming so hard that you’ve gotta grip his arms to keep from floating. Your nails dig into his skin and Jisung moans, pounding into you faster and keeping his fingers at work until he’s sure you’ve begun to come down. Only then does he slow with you, leaning down to capture your lips in a kiss. 

“Good?”

Through tear-brimmed eyes, you blink up at him, feeling drunk. “ So good.” 

He hums into your mouth when your tongue finds his, fingertips losing themselves in your hair. 

“Mm, lay down,” you start, slurring, though he catches every syllable you utter with ease, “I wanna ride you.”

His eyes snap open to find you giggling at his reaction, and he doesn’t realize his mouth is hanging wide until your gentle palm reaches up to hold his chin and close it. 

“Is that something you’d like?” your thumb tugs on his bottom lip, and he presses a kiss to it before answering quickly.

“God, yes.” 

You laugh again, giving him a kiss for his endearing reaction. When he doesn’t budge, still slightly in shock, you prop yourself up on your elbows, pushing him back and guiding him to lay down where you were just a second ago.

The moment your plush thighs settle on either side of his, his hands go limp by his sides. It takes your patient ones to grab ahold of them and place them on your body, one by your waist, the other holding your boob. You keep your hand over his and squeeze, encouraging him to the same, and he does, letting his fingers swipe over and play with your pretty buds. 

“You just dicked me down and suddenly, you’re nervous?” You hum, swirling your hips over his length. 

“I don’t think I’ll ever stop being nervous around you.” 

“Baby…” You coo, wiping some of the sweat from his cheeks, “You think I don’t get nervous around you? Every time I know I’m gonna see you… You should see how long it takes me to pick what to wear.” 

“I mean, you look perfectly fine like this, too.” 

“I’m sure you think so.” 

Jisung starts to laugh, but it turns into a hiss as you sink yourself down on him. The feeling, he realizes rather quickly, is absolutely incomparable to anything he’s even felt or anything he might ever feel. He’s balls deep, completely hugged by your gummy, wet walls. Your skin pressing against his and your weight on his lap feels so, so right. 

“You feel amazing,” he whispers, and you ready yourself to move but he stills you, “God, hold on. Please, just—“ 

“What? What’s wrong?” 

“Nothing—It’s just,” he pauses, looking anywhere but at your eyes. “I-If you move right now, I might...” 

“Oh.” The skin on your cheeks goes hot. Part of you wants to teasingly roll your hips anyway, but the furrow in his brow tells you he’s not bluffing and he really will blow his load if you so much as clench. So, you give him a few seconds, leaning down to kiss his chest until he bucks up into you as a go-ahead to start moving. 

“So good,” he repeats, and you moan back a similar phrase. Each time you take the entirety of his length, his tip kisses the smooth spot inside you and you can’t help but mewl into his neck, giving him back every babbled praise he manages to spew to you though his tightened voice. You start bouncing yourself on him, with your hands resting on his chest for balance, until you feel the pit in your stomach begin to turmoil again. 

”I’m really close,” he warns you. 

“Me too..” 

“Shit, I have to pull out or I’m gonna-“ 

“It’s okay. I’m on the pill.” You whisper, and his eyes widen, “I want you to come for me.” 

He can barely mold his mouth to form the beginning of an “Are you sure?” before your walls squeeze him and he’s spilling himself inside of you. He lets out a guttural groan as he does so, clutching your hands in his as you milk him for all that he’s worth. The sounds you’re making are absolutely delectable and the grip your pussy as on him makes his ears start ringing so bad, he’s convinced he might pass out. 

“Ji, I’m-“ his release triggers your third one of the night, just as you lose yourself in his arms and in the whimpers he’s releasing as he grows more sensitive. You can see his eyes through a sliver, finding them to be dazed and adoring and admiring all that is you.

So you grind against him until you’re both left sweaty and spent, holding on to each other until the pounding in your chests simmers down. 

You naturally collapse on top of him, face near his neck with his hand petting the back of your head. For a few minutes, the two of you stay like this: breathing in each other’s scent and basking in the aftermath of what happened. Both of you are sticky with sweat and cum and spit, but neither seem to mind for the time being. 

It’s only when your ringtone blasts through the room that either of you move to get up. With a heavy sigh, you pull yourself off of him and waddle over to your bag to find the disturbance. 

“It’s Karina.” You announce, and Jisung lays back down with his arm tucked behind his head, admiring your naked body pacing around his room before you swipe to answer and tuck your phone between your cheek and your shoulder, reaching for his shirt to slip it on. 

“Hey… Tonight? Oh, you mean like right now? Uh… Yeah, it should be fine.” You glance over at him to find him raising a brow, “Oh… Oh. Okay, I see. Yeah, no worries. Tell me about it after, yeah? Alright! Bye!” Your shorts are tugged on as you spin around to face him. 

“Um…” You start, and Jisung sits up instantly. 

“What’s wrong?” 

“Nothing, it’s just…” The corner of the mattress dips as you take a seat, “Heesung is over.” 

“Oh.” 

“And he and Karina are gonna…” 

“Oh.” 

“Yeah.” 

He remembers the layout of your room, two beds in one open space. It’s a standard room, like Mark and Chenle’s or Jeno and Jaemin’s. The only reason he scored a solo dorm is because he’s an RA for the floor, a blessing at times like this, where he can confidently say: 

“You can stay the night here.” When you don’t answer, he clears his throat. “You know, since they’re gonna…” 

“Really?” 

“Yeah, of course,” his hand reaches for yours, pulling you towards him. “We can watch a movie, or study…” 

“Or…” you tease, “we can do something else…” The moment you climb on his lap, it clicks for him—what you mean. And when your lips find themselves on his neck, a shudder goes down his spine. 

“Thank you, though.” You smile and he looks down at you and quirks a brow. 

“For what?” 

“For letting me stay over. You’re such a good friend.” 

It’s instant—his stomach dropping before the last syllable leaves your mouth. His hands are on your shoulders to push you away and his stomach is tied into a dozen knots as he blinks, repeating what you’ve just said over and over in his mind. For a moment, he thinks his lunch is starting to come back up, too, and he’s sure he’s gone drastically pale. 

You’re absolutely oblivious and confused as you meet his eyes. “What–” 

“You don’t mean that.” He insists.

“Ji–” 

“You can’t mean that. Right?” When you tilt your head, still lost, he purses his lips, and this time, his question comes out with much less assurance. “Right?” 

The disorganized sheets are shoved off of him in an instant, and he’s up and tugging his sweats back on, spinning around as to not look at you for a second. His heart, which he holds his hand over, starts beating faster. 

“Y/N. Please tell me you’re joking.” 

“I–You are a good friend. I do mean that. But–why– I’m so lost, Ji. What’s wrong? Was it something I said?”

‘Was it something I said?’

He hates this. He hates everything about this. The look on your face, the nerves in your voice, the way your hand is shakily reaching for him—there’s nothing he wants more than to forget how that word feels each and every time you utter it. He wishes he could brush it off, and crawl back under the sheets with you and mess around until the sun rises the next day. 

But it stings, and it burns, and it fucking aches that you insist he’s nothing more than a friend, reminding him for the second time now that he can’t have you as his—and that’s the only way he intends to have you, for the sake of his poor heart that beats only for you. 

He didn’t hallucinate. You looked at him the same way Karina looked at Heeseung that night; he saw it, there was something there. 

He thinks back to what Mark said earlier. Friends don’t kiss—and they certainly don’t fuck the way you two just did. If he could just get you to admit that…

“Do you do that with all your “friends?”” 

“No, of course not!” You shake your head quickly, and he can see the offense flash across your features at his implication. Still, he insists.

“Then what are we?” 

He sees you physically deflate, but he retains his composure. “Ji…” 

“You’re telling me that after all that, and after everything we’ve done this semester–”

“Jisung–“ 

“–and after all the time we’ve known each other.. You don’t see me as anything more than a friend?”

“I…” That’s it. That’s the only word you manage to mutter, because your thoughts are tangled together and working against you to, for the first time since he’s known you, render you speechless. “I don’t know what to say.”

A pricking sensation in his eyes commands him to turn around, because simply put: he refuses to cry in front of you. 

“I like you. A lot, in case it wasn’t painfully obvious.”

“I-I like you, too but—“ 

“But you still like Jaehyun?” Truthfully speaking, he doesn’t even know where that came from. But the words have already left him, and even though he can’t see your face, the fact that you’re hesitating tells him all he needs to know.

“It’s not like that,” you start after a pause, “It’s just—how do you even know about that?” 

“It doesn’t matter. I-“ He takes a shaky breath, “Fuck.”

“Jisung…” You mumble cautiously, quietly, too nervous to approach him any more. 

“I like you,” he repeats, “so, so bad.”

“I do, too.” You whisper. It’s no use, and you discover that quickly—the moment you see him tear his doubtful eyes away from you and towards the ground.

“Stay the night here. I’ll be down the hall.” 

He grabs a random shirt from his drawer, since you’re occupying his, and puts it on as he makes his way towards the door.

“If you need anything,” he adds quietly, “just message me.” 

He steps into the hall and shuts the door behind him as you call out his name, storming down the ugly carpet that looks uglier than usual today, until he’s reached Mark and Chenle’s.

He hesitates before knocking as he realizes the tears he’s been fighting to hold back really will start rolling any second. So he passes their door angrily and barges into the bathroom.

He’s careful not to step on the filthy water that covers most of the floor, verifying Mark’s claim that the bathroom had indeed flooded, and navigating the dry patches with his slides to get to the sink. He turns on the faucet and washes his hands, then cups them and brings a decent amount of water to splash some on his face. It washes away the stray tears that managed to escape, and he repeats the process over until his eyes are no longer bloodshot, but not without a few broken sobs escaping his parted lips. 

Whether it’s hurt, frustration, or both, he doesn’t know, but before he knows it, he’s fully crying over you, until his throat is dry along with his eyes. 

After a lazy once over in the mirror, no longer regarding his looks, he treads carefully back to the exit and toward his friends’ room. 

He can hear them through the wall as he gets closer, tapping his knuckles on the wood. They sound like they’re watching the play-offs. He’s not sure, but anyway, he’s never cared about basketball, and he can’t bring himself to care about much now. 

It takes him knocking one more time before one of them hears him, and the door opens. 

“Oh, it’s you. Hey did you call about the toilet—“ 

“You look like shit.” Chenle interjects. Jisung just rolls his eyes and walks past them. 

“Can I stay the night?” 

The two boys look at each other, then back at him. 

“Uh… Not that I don’t wanna have a slumber party but… Why?” 

“Y/N is staying in my room.” 

At the same time, both of their eyes bulge. 

“Oh.” Mark says, but Chenle quickly shakes his head. 

“You have a girl in your room? Like a real one? No way.” At this, no one cracks a smile, “Why do I know that name, though… Y/N… Y/N…” 

”I thought it was going well, though,” Mark inquires, “How did you get kicked out of your own room?”

”Y/N…. Y/N who…” 

“We fucked and I asked her what we were.” Jisung regretfully admits. He had no time to mull over how much detail he wanted to share, but confiding in his older friends sounded more helpful than not. 

At this, Mark doesn’t reply, but the way he purses his lips is more than enough for Jisung to let his head swing down and he catches it in his hands.

”Y/N… Wait.” Having reached an epiphany, Chenle shoots up from the couch, “Y/N as in Jaehyun and Y/N?” 

“I don’t get it…” Jisung sighs, muttering mostly to himself, “everything was fine.” 

“So what went wrong?” It takes him a second to ponder Mark’s question, but the answer sits at the tip of his tongue. The hesitation in actually speaking it out loud—a sliver of embarrassment that shows in the way he stutters. “She k-kept calling me a friend and well, I don’t know. I just… ran my mouth.”

“If she made it clear you guys were friends then why would you ask her if y’all are a thing?” Chenle wonders, raising a curious brow. Mark gives him a shove.

”Because,” he starts, “We’ve been hooking up almost the whole semester. And not just hooking up. Talking all night, flirting… meeting up between and after classes.” 

“Yeah, that’s not friendly.” Mark agrees. 

“She does like you.” Chenle says with some level of astonishment, earning another shove from Mark and a gesturing glare that alerts him of Jisung’s obvious dishevelment.

“Chenle’s right.” Mark says, in a more gentle way, “She wouldn’t do any of… that if she didn’t. Maybe,” he puts a hand on Jisung’s shoulder and the younger boy looks up through wet eyelashes, “she was just a little overwhelmed by your confession.”

“She called me a friend.” He shakes his head, “I just had sex for the first time and she called me a friend.”

Mark quickly interjects before Chenle considers saying something insensitive, “Okay. But you have to remember: her and Jaehyun dated for two and a half years—“ 

“That’s not what I wanna hear, man.”

“—And,” Mark continues, “they only broke up earlier this year. You and her are new, and she’s probably just getting used to that. Besides, you only confessed after you guys… hooked up—nothing was established before.”

“If you liked her, you should have asked her out first.” Chenle sighs..

“So this is all going wrong because I didn’t do things by the book?”

“Yes.”

“No.” Mark glares at Chenle who at this point, gives up, leaning back to watch his game in silence. “I think if you would’ve made your feelings clear before, she might have reciprocated. She assumed you two were still friends because… you technically are still friends. Maybe she didn’t want to assume and have you freak out or something.”

At this, Jisung nods slowly, processing Mark’s words. 

“What are you studying?” Chenle pokes the older boy.

“Engineering. Why? Also, we’ve lived together for two years and you don’t know my-“

“Drop out. Become a relationship counselor.” Chenle pats him on the back. Mark quickly shoves him off and turns to Jisung again who has shot out of his seat with a newfound confidence. 

“I’m gonna go and apologize.” He decides. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” Chenle replies without looking up from the screen. Mark just sighs.

“Yeah. Let me know how it goes.” 

When Jisung knocks on the door to his room, he hears no answer. When he pushes the door open, he finds his room empty, with you and your things nowhere to be found. 

The first thing he feels is worry, because where did you go? Not back to yours, because Heesung was there. He knows you have other friends, but he doesn’t know if you’re close enough to any of them to stay the night at theirs, and it was almost 11PM at this point. 

He considers calling you, but if you didn’t answer, he would be shattered, more than he is already at the thought that you might have been hurt by what he said. So he settles into his bed that still smells like sex and you, and curls up on his side, legs restlessly shifting in a failed effort to get comfortable.

He spends the better part of an hour planning what to say to you tomorrow after class, or the next day, or whatever day you decide to give him a chance to explain himself and apologize for some of the things he said. Eventually, he drifts off, clutching to his chest the pillow where your head laid. 

•.¸¸☆*･ﾟ

Absent.

You were absent. 

You have never been absent from astronomy before. Your seat besides his is empty, and you’re absent from class. 

All morning, Jisung went over his speech as he paced around his room. He changed his sheets after finding some cum stains on it as he recited his confession, his apology. He planned how he would explain his mistake and how he would relay his understanding for your confusion. 

He went over scenarios in his head on how to possibly get you back, because truthfully, that’s all he wanted. You were all that he wanted.

And now, you weren’t here. 

Karina and Heeseung were, but the two didn’t even look his way, and had sat near the front of the class—an act which worried him, because: had you told Karina what happened? Did you go back home upset and interrupt them? Were they mad at him now, too?

Inevitably, class went by slowly. Painfully slowly. Unable to focus, all that Jisung could think about was you, so when the bell rang and all the students left the lecture room except him, he didn’t notice. The only thing that caught his attention finally, was your name being called out in Professor Hwang’s sharp tone. 

“Huh?” He looks up from his laptop.

“I asked,” she starts, not too happy about having to repeat herself, “If you knew the reason for Ms. Y/n’s absence.”

“Oh.” He mumbles. As he looks around and notices the lack of classmates at his side, he starts packing his things. “No. Why do you think I would know?”

“Because, Mr. Park, the two of you are attached at the hip.”

“Well, I don’t.” He swings his bag over his shoulder and jogs down the stairs, “Maybe Karina does.”

As he’s about to pass her, Professor Hwang points her pen at his chest, stopping him. 

“When you run into her, let her know her absence will count against her unless she has an excused note. And,” she slides her glasses off, folding them and tucking one of the legs to the neckline of her shirt, “I hope the two of you make up.”

“I-“ He’s speechless, “H-how did you know?”

“Educated guess.” she states simply. 

Jisung nods once, and she lifts her pen to allow him to pass. He heads for the door, pushing it open and making his way to the quad so that he can go home. 

He’ll just message you. That’s what he decides. He’ll just ask you to meet up with you, he thinks, that shouldn’t be too hard. 

But the moment he hits the send button on a message he so carefully crafts for you and looks back up, he sees you from across the huge field of green. 

A smile almost breaks out on his face, because he sees your hair and the pretty outfit you’ve chosen today, layered to keep you warm with a scarf tucked under your chin. But he doesn’t quite get to smile, because you’re accompanied by the last person he’d like to see you with right now. 

You pause your conversation with Jaehyun to look down at your phone, presumably to check the message Jisung just sent you. Without replying, you quickly tuck it away into your pocket. 

Jisung watches as you and Jaehyun stop and sit at a bench on the quad, engrossed in what looks like a serious conversation. 

Now: he doesn’t want to be dramatic. It’ll get him nowhere and he knows that. That being said, he still pulls your contact up again, and writes you another message, rereading the one from earlier, too. 

To: Y/n :3 

hi. i noticed you weren’t in class today…  i hope you weren’t avoiding me. i want to apologize to you in person for what happened last night. can we meet up if that’s okay? Sent at 2:10 PM.

To: Y/n :3 

i’ll be at my dorm in 10 so just pass by when you have a chance. please. 

Sent at 2:17 PM

He presses send and watches, as you pick up your phone again, read the message at lightning speed, and put it away. 

Fuck. 

•.¸¸☆*･ﾟ

Jisung feels absolutely fucking ridiculous. 

Why time seems to circle around you and waiting for you to come over so can apologize, he doesn’t know. The rest of his day is meaningless; he doesn’t eat, doesn’t study, doesn’t shower, doesn’t play video games, doesn’t call his mom, doesn’t do any of the things he normally does. 

You don’t pass by today, meaning you read his messages, and willingly ignored them or put them off. Doesn’t mean he didn’t think about you or thought about you less; your continuous absence gave him more time to think and dwell. 

He’s tired and feeling wide awake at the same time, missing your scent that he can no longer find on his sheets. Maybe he shouldn’t have washed them, even if they were filthy. He’s done worse things, like go to class with dried cum on his stomach, or used your cardigan to jack off. Your cardigan, that’s still by his desk, would have remnants of your scent, but he doesn’t have the energy to get up to retrieve it. And, even if he did, he would probably get hard and he definitely did not have the energy to jack off right now. 

So he tosses and turns restlessly until he passes out with his mouth half open and his leg half hanging off the bed. 

That night, he dreams of you. The next morning, he wakes up to someone continuously knocking on his door. 

“I’m coming,” he grumbles into his pillow, quite literally rolling out of bed and in the process, getting tangled up in his comforter and falling on the carpeted floor of his dorm with a thump.

Jisung lets out some sort of distressed moan before struggling to his feet and wobbling over to the door. His left hand rubs his elbow which braced his fall, while his injured arm reaches out for the doorknob.

The knocking hasn’t stopped, so when he opens his door, his eyes are narrowed with sleep and annoyance. 

“What?”

“Dude, why haven’t you called about the bathroom? I had to take a piss in the middle of the night and I stepped on toilet water. In my socks.”

Jisung only rolls his eyes at Mark, turning back to his bed and plopping down on it with a hiss as the rest of his body feels the damage of his fall. 

“Have you talked to her?”

“No.” Jisung grumbles.

“Okay.” Mark sighs, “Well, when are you supposed to see her again?”

Jisung looks at his phone for the time. “Right now.”

“What? Is she coming over? Should I go?”

“No, you’re good. I have astronomy with her right now.”

“When?”

With a pause, Jisung rubs his eyes as he calculates, “47 minutes ago.”

Mark huffs, “so you just didn’t go to class?”

“Nope.”

Mark steps further into the room, looking around. “Is she supposed to come over at all?”

“Hopefully.”

“Alright, then. Get up.” His eyes bounce around the room until he finds a trash bag behind a clutter of Jisung’s things, then repeats himself a little sharper. “Get up and start cleaning.”

Instantly, Jisung groans, rolling over and getting under his comforter that seconds later, is yanked off of him. He starts to complain but Mark just shoves a bag in his hands.

“Non-negotiable. You think you’re gonna win her back with your room looking like a rat’s nest? Tidy up a bit, man.”

“Okay, mom.”

Reluctantly, he follows Mark’s lead, throwing away empty water bottles and cans that littered his room, as Mark focuses on any other pointless trash like empty packaging boxes. 

“Where’s your hamper?” He asks, and Jisung extends a finger towards his closet. 

“Dude.” Jisung turns to him. “When’s the last time you did laundry? This shit is overflowing.”

“Haven’t had the energy.”

“You had plenty of energy before this week. Here,” he kicks it over carefully so it doesn’t tip, then points at the clothes that litter his room, “Put it all here and go wash it. I’ll make your bed and throw out the trash.”

Jisung has never missed his mom so much. Sure, she’d nag him about his mess for days on end, but she was his mom, so eventually, he’d come home and everything would be tidied up for him. He definitely took her for granted,  that much is painfully clear now as he gives Mark a long look of disdain. The older boy doesn’t budge; he only shoos Jisung away from the edge of the bed so he can get to work on spreading out the comforter. 

Jisung does as instructed, too tired to argue or form a fuss, especially when all Mark is doing is helping him. That being said, he does do it in a very Jisung fashion: shoving all clothes, clean or dirty, into the hamper and literally dragging it down the hall to the laundry room. That includes your cardigan, which he gives one last glance to before tossing in the washing machine. It’s about time he gave it back to you anyway.

He watches his clothes spin around and around in the cycle for two different reasons, the first being that he’s generally zoning out, thinking about you. The second being that he’s making time before going back to his room, cause despite his friends best efforts and even better intentions, he does not want to clean. 

But eventually, those two mix together, and he realizes Mark does have a point—if you came over and his room was a mess, that’s just one more thing he’d be embarrassed about. 

So, he leaves his things in the washer and sulks all the way back to his room where he finds Mark accommodating the clutter at his desk. 

“What a difference, huh?” Jisung wishes he could just shrug, but Mark’s eyes are filled with expectation. 

“Yeah, thank you.”

“Don’t mention it!” He grins, grabbing his phone from the dresser. “I’ll leave you to it. Take a shower and try texting her again.”

Jisung nods once. 

He checks the time and notices that you’d be out of class shortly, and if you didn’t come over, he’d have to stop by yours later. Regardless of how, the plan is to talk to you today, because Jisung simply can’t keep existing with his even-waking thought being you. The minute that class wraps up, he types out a message to you as he walks over to the shower. He makes a quick call to maintenance for the bathroom down the hall before turning on his ringer in case you reply and stepping into the shower. 

For a while, he lets the water run over him, hissing as the temperature fluctuates between an acceptable barely-warm and an icy cold that matches the weather outside. The building’s heating system isn’t consistent or reliable, especially as the temperature drops more and more in the winter months, so he ceases his stalling and washes himself quickly before the water decides to stop cooperating.

He types away into his phone after wrapping the towel around his waist. 

“We… really… need… to,” he reads out his text as he writes it, sighing out the last word, “talk.” 

But as he walks down the hall to his room with the towel still hanging loosely and his hair dripping over his chest and shoulders, and consequently, the innocent carpet of the hallway, his feet skid to stop. Just as his finger presses send, he hears the ‘ding’ of the receiving end. 

Both of you look up from your screens at the same time. As Jisung jumps in surprise, his towel drops, and you yelp. 

“Sorry!” You spin around and cover your eyes as frantically looks around the hall to make sure no one else saw the mishap. He picks it up and ties it around himself again, securing it in his grip this time. 

“No– I–It’s fine. You… You can look.” It’s not like you haven’t seen it before. 

Cautiously you spin around, peeking through your fingers to check before peeling your hands from your face and dropping them at your sides. The air between the two of you is thick for a minute, until you sigh dejectedly. 

“I got your texts.” You smile weakly, and Jisung can’t help but mirror your slightly embarrassed expression. The moment is awkward and bittersweet, and neither of you move until Jisung realizes he’s still standing naked in the dormitory hallway. 

“Oh, right.” He shakes his head and moves to unlock his room door. “Here,” he gestures, and follows you inside. 

You move cautiously through the small space, glancing over at his bed and chair before deciding you don’t wanna take a seat. 

“I came over because…” you sigh again, “well, because we have to talk.” 

The only word he can utter is “yeah.” as he watches the way you shift your weight between your feet, not knowing he was doing the exact same thing. 

“Do you wanna wanna maybe…” 

He follows your gaze as it reaches his towel, and he almost jumps out of it again. 

“Right! Sorry! I-” he huffs, “could you just…” 

Wordlessly, you turn around and opt for twiddling your thumbs as he waddles over to a drawer and finds a pair of shorts and shirt to slip on, but not without glancing over his shoulder to make sure you aren’t looking. 

There’s no hiding the red in his face and ears as he spins back around with his lips pursed. “I’m done.”

There’s a pause as you spin around slowly… and another pause as both of you debate the right moment to speak up. It’s so awkward that his skin crawls and his mouth runs dry. There’s no noise, only the creaking of the floor as he walks to his bed and offers you a seat beside him.

“No, I-I’m okay with standing.”

Another pause.

“Jisung–”

“Y/n–

“You first.” You both reply, and you sigh as you realize you should probably go first, seeing as you’re the one who came over to talk in the first place. 

“Okay.” With a shaky breath, you nod to yourself once before speaking, your voice coming out quieter than intended. “I came to talk to you because… Well, I saw your messages and… I don’t like how we left things off, Ji.” 

“Me either.” He admits, looking down at the floor as his mind swarms him with all the possible things you may or may not say. 

“I talked to Jaehyun earlier. He’s my, uh,”

“Ex.” He says at the same time as you, and both of you make eye contact.

Jisung’s heart pounds as you stand before him, voice tentative and unsure. When you say, “It wasn’t fair of me to downplay everything between us. I just… I got scared,” he can’t help but clench his jaw. He wants to be understanding, to remember that you’re figuring things out too, but the memory of you calling him just a friend gnaws at him. How was he supposed to take that?

“So… was it just comfort for you, then? Convenience? A quick fuck?” he blurts, his voice tight. “Because I thought I meant something to you.” He doesn’t intend for it to sound so raw, but the words slip out anyway, his vulnerability laid bare.

You look up at him finally, eyes wide. “You do. You mean more to me than anyone ever has, Jisung,” you say, looking at him with a mixture of guilt and longing. His heart stutters. 

You take a shaky breath. “I talked to Jaehyun about us.” Jisung’s eyebrows shoot up. You talked to Jaehyun, that much he knew. But about him? He swallows thickly, nodding for you to continue, bracing himself for whatever you’re about to say.

“He told me that… that you’re a good guy,” you continue, voice soft. “He said I’d be lucky if you… if we…” You trail off, biting your lip, and Jisung’s heart tightens. 

“So… Jaehyun’s okay with what happened between us?” he asks, his voice barely above a whisper.

You nod, looking at him with an intensity that makes his heart race. “He is. And he’s right, Jisung. You’re good to me, and I don’t want to push you away. I didn’t want to call it something more because I was afraid I’d mess it up. But now… I don’t want to ignore it anymore.”

He lets out a shaky breath, feeling the weight of your words. He takes a small step toward you, closing the distance, his hand lifting almost on instinct to brush against your cheek.

“Are you serious?” he asks softly, his voice barely steady. “Because if you’re in, I’m in. I’ve been in this whole time. I’ve wanted us to be more, and if you’re ready, I’m… I’m here.”

You nod, relief and a hesitant smile lighting up your face. In that moment, Jisung’s fears and doubts melt away slowly. He pulls you into his arms, holding you close, as if he’s finally found his way through the maze of emotions you both have been lost in.

In the warmth of his embrace, you whisper, “I’ve got you. And I’m not going anywhere.”

Jisung holds you close, but there’s a hesitation in his touch, like he’s afraid this might disappear if he lets himself fully believe it. His fingers press into your back, grounding himself in the feeling of you, warm and real against him. He swallows, his heart heavy with the months of wanting, wondering, hoping, and fearing. Finally, he lets his eyes close, murmuring, “I thought I’d have to keep pretending forever, you know? Like maybe if I just waited long enough, I’d be okay with just… us as friends.” He laughs softly, the sound more fragile than he intends. “But I was never okay. I don’t think I ever would’ve been.”

You pull back slightly, your heart aching at the vulnerability in his voice.  You search his eyes, looking for the hesitation, the doubt that lingers in his gaze. 

“I know,” you say quietly, your voice soft but full of sincerity. “I wasn’t fair to you. I didn’t give you the chance you deserved. I was so afraid of what it could mean, of what I could lose, that I… I pushed you away.”

Jisung’s jaw tightens, and you can see the struggle in his eyes. “But now you’re here. Saying you want this… with me,” he whispers, his hands shaking slightly as he cups your face. “How do I know… how do I know you won’t change your mind again?”

“I don’t know,” you admit softly, your voice quivering. “But I do know that I’m not running this time. I’m here.”

And then, almost imperceptibly, you both laugh. It’s soft at first, a tiny giggle that slips out between the quiet, and it catches both of you off guard. The sound is shaky, like it’s laced with the bittersweet relief of finally breaking the tension that’s been building between you for so long. 

“God,” Jisung chuckles, his hands moving down to your shoulders, giving you a soft squeeze. 

The smile between you both widens as you inch closer, drawn by the gravity of each other’s presence. Slowly, almost cautiously, you lean in. And when your lips finally meet, it’s tender and slow. 

The kiss deepens, and this time, there’s no hesitation. Jisung pulls you closer, his hands resting at the small of your back, guiding you into him as if he wants to feel every inch of you, to make sure this is real. You respond just as eagerly, wrapping your arms around his neck, allowing yourself to melt into the warmth of him, the gentleness that’s always been there beneath the surface.

His lips move against yours with a tenderness that makes your heart swell, as though he’s savoring the moment, soaking in everything that’s been unsaid for so long. The kiss is slow, deliberate, and full of promise. There’s no rush—just the sweet, simple taste of your mouth on his. 

When you pull back, both of you are breathless, grinning at each other. His hand gently cups your face, his thumb brushing over your lips, still tasting the lingering sweetness of the kiss.

You laugh softly, resting your forehead against his. “I’ve always been here. I just needed to realize it.” You tilt your head back slightly, locking eyes with him.

With a gentle pull, Jisung brings you in for another kiss, this one more playful, less tender, but just as full of emotion. 

You pull away first, your lips tingling, and look at him with a teasing smile. “So, what now?” you ask, a little shy.

He raises an eyebrow, his grin matching yours. “Now, we take this one step at a time, but together.” He wraps his arms around you once more, pulling you into him with an ease that feels natural, “And maybe…” he starts, voice teasing as he buries his face in your neck, “we make up for lost time.”

You gasp out softly, tilting your head to give him room to continue to kiss and lick at your throat, “sounds… good to me.” 

He turns his head, his lips brushing the edge of your ear, “Let me lay you down, yeah?”

You nod, ‘Mhm…”

Jisung pulls you closer, his hands sliding down your back as the space between you both shrinks. The air feels thick with anticipation, and the playful teasing that once filled the room fades, replaced by something deeper, more pressing. His touch is gentle yet urgent, guiding you toward the bed with a quiet confidence, the two of you knowing exactly what comes next. 

The world outside this moment feels distant, irrelevant. There’s nothing but the heat of his skin against yours, the way your bodies fit together so naturally, as he realizes, he finally got you. 

*. * ·

[fxstpace]

nice boys don’t kiss like that

summary: when your former rival chances upon your diary and reads all the unpleasant things you’ve written about him, he takes it upon himself to change your mind.

pairing: kim mingyu x fem!reader genres: fluff, developing relationship!au, rivals to lovers!au, pining, kind of suggestive? idk word count: 3.3k

↳ warnings: profanity, making out ↳ a/n: inspired by this scene from bridget jones’s diary. reposted from my old account.

It is on a twilit Saturday evening, at precisely 7:01 P.M, that Kim Mingyu is accosted by a notebook for the first time in his life.

He lets out a startled grunt and finds himself with an armful of things—a denim jacket, a crumpled grocery shopping list, an empty box of Tic Tacs, a woollen beanie with a questionable brown stain he thinks is ketchup; all presumably from whatever depths of your drawer he can see you hunched over, searching for something that remains stubbornly elusive. The offensive projectile whizzes past his shoulder and lands on the polished wooden floor with a thud.

Mingyu stands at the doorway to your bedroom, having bypassed the living room and hallway that leads to the kitchen in favour of pressing heated kisses to your cheeks and collarbones. He watches you, bemused. A few weeks ago, he might’ve laughed at your frazzled state with derision. Now, he still wants to laugh, but more in an affectionate way.

You turn around swiftly, nearly tripping on a stray stocking on the floor, and he bites back a smile when you mumble a string of curse words under your breath. 

“Hi,” you say, breathing heavily. “I’m really sorry.”

Then you slam the door shut on his face.

Well, Mingyu thinks. This is the first time a girl’s closed the door when I’m in her apartment.

Faced with nothing else to do except wait for your arrival, he drops the Tic Tac box on the floor, hangs your jacket and beanie on the back of the sofa, and almost stubs his toe on the corner of the notebook.

Wincing at the close call, Mingyu glares at the book like it’s the cause of all his troubles. DIARY, it reads, embossed in ornate gold letters. The cover is a rich shade of red, rough and leather-bound. He picks it up; it’s rather heavy, and judging by the frayed corners and the random bits of paper poking out of the sides, it seems to be quite old too. Regardless, it is well-cherished—he knows this because he knows you, and you’re the kind of person who wears your heart on your sleeve.

Which is why he knows opening it is a bad idea. 

Mingyu shrugs and places the book on the coffee table, taking a seat on the plush, olive green sofa opposite it. He leans his elbows on his knees and interlaces his fingers under his chin. From the inside of your room, he can hear muffled screaming—should he be worried? The screaming stops. Mingyu lets his tense shoulders relax.

His eyes zero in on your diary once more. He shouldn’t open it—he really, really shouldn’t. It would be a horrible breach of your privacy. Your trust in him would be broken forever, and even if he somehow manages to win it back, it will always be a stain in the fabric of your still-developing relationship.

But.

One tiny peek can’t hurt, right? He’s only waiting for you to come out of your room, after all. Just one little look, and then he’ll close the book immediately. It can’t possibly hurt. Curiosity is both a blessing and a vice, he figures, and since he’s already stacked up on vices, there is no harm in adding to his karmic points.

So he picks up your diary and flips to a random page, freezing momentarily when he hears an irritated grunt and the sound of something hitting the floor from inside your room. Your handwriting is a lot messier than it usually is; you probably save your best penmanship for official things, and your personal diary is not one of them. That, or you were just frustrated.

12th June I fucking hate Kim Mingyu. I hope I never have to see him and his stupid handsome obnoxious face EVER AGAIN. I’m so DONE with him.

Mingyu’s cheeks prickle with heat. He’s thoroughly invested now. He turns to another page.

14th June Ran into KMG again today. He spilled coffee all over me what else is new but. he actually apologised!!! Crazy. Maybe he was just in a good mood. Either way, my new blouse is ruined so fuck him.

The strangest thing is that Mingyu actually remembers that day vividly. You were wearing a gorgeous cream-coloured blouse, and he was so caught up in staring at you talking animatedly with your supervisor that he zoned out completely and accidentally spilled his coffee on you because he tripped over his shoelaces. Now, knowing that your blouse was new at the time brings up a slight twinge of guilt. He’ll ask you about it later.

22nd June KMG is actually…… kinda nice? He supported me in the meeting today with the clients when they were being so tiresome. He has a nice smile I guess.

Mingyu smiles widely. 

23rd June Nevermind. I take back everything I said. Kim Mingyu is a prat with zero social skills. I mean, would it kill him to say hello back??? I get that he’s busy but i thought we’d made progress. One thing is for sure. Kim Mingyu is NOT nice. Not even a little bit.

His smile falters.

The next page contains a similar anecdote—something about how he always vehemently disagrees with everything you say, and how despite his good looks he was a complete and utter asshole. Further investigation reveals the same thing: you hate Kim Mingyu with a burning passion.

And… Well, he couldn’t lie and say the feeling wasn’t mutual at one point in time—but it has mellowed down since then, gently and slowly, like a fallen leaf being carried by a soft wind. There came a day where Mingyu found himself glaring at you, not with disdain in his eyes, but with a steady thrum in his chest where his heart lay. Later, he would realise that he didn’t hate you—not even a little bit.

He assumed you felt the same way. Why else would your smirks, so full of malice, melt into grins that could light up a whole town? Why else would you agree to go on a date with him when he asked you out, one day, after work, tripping over his words like an elementary schoolboy? Why else would you invite him home and ask him to spend the night?

Of course, it doesn’t explain why you’ve locked yourself up in your bedroom currently (frankly, he’s a bit befuddled about that). But the sentiment must still be there.

It’s a diary, he reasons. 

It’s your diary, his brain screams back, and that’s the real issue here, isn’t it?

Diaries are full of crap, anyway, he thinks to himself.

Diaries contain the Real Thoughts And Emotions of a human being, his brain hollers back.

Mind swirling, Mingyu closes the book and places it back on the coffee table, barely aware of his movements. Have you been lying to him? No, there’s absolutely no way—he trusts you far more than that, and besides, what would you even lie to him about? There are no benefits to stringing him along, and you’re not the kind of person who would do something like that, anyway.

You must have had a change of heart, then. That’s the only conclusion he can think of. Your diary entries come to a standstill after 27th June, which means you haven’t opened it in a while. It’s also around the same time you stopped picking fights with each other. Something must have changed by then; Mingyu is glad it did.

Satisfied with his deduction, Mingyu stuffs his hands in his pockets and crosses his ankles together. Behind your bedroom door, you remain suspiciously silent. He considers knocking on the door once to make sure you’re okay—or if you need any help, because staying put inside your room for over twenty minutes is certainly not normal when you have a guest and potential boyfriend over. 

Almost as if you’ve heard his thoughts, the door to your room swings open. You stand at the doorway, breathing heavily.

“Hey,” Mingyu says, quickly standing up. “Everything good?”

You beam at him. “Perfect. Sorry to have kept you waiting, I—”

Your gaze drops to the coffee table, landing on your diary. Mingyu keeps his gaze fixed on you. You look back at him, lips parted. 

“Um,” you begin. “It’s— It’s just a diary.”

“Clearly.” Mingyu fights back a smile.

You chew your bottom lip nervously. “Did you read it?”

“I did,” he confirms, nodding. “I’m sorry. I was just curious—”

You groan, lifting your hands and covering your face with your palms. “Fuck.”

Mingyu reaches out and encircles your wrists with his fingers, gently tugging your hands away from your face. He finds it oddly endearing. “It’s only a diary. I’m sorry I read it. I shouldn’t have.”

“I don’t care about that. You… you probably read all the horrible, mean things I wrote about you.”

“Well,” he says, shrugging a little, “some of the entries were definitely… interesting.”

You blink. Unable to help himself, Mingyu drops a light kiss to the tip of your nose.

“I don’t hate you, you know,” you tell him.

“Mhm.”

“I’m serious.”

“Mhm.”

“Mingyu.”

“I’ll tell you what I think about your diary later, ‘kay?” he says, hooking his pinkie finger with yours. “Come with me.”

“What? Where?” Confusion paints your features.

Mingyu huffs out a laugh. “Just trust me.”

Mingyu places the brand-new diary he’d bought for you on the dining table with a flourish. “D’you have a pen?”

You eye him suspiciously, gaze darting between him and the new, dark green notebook on the table. He grins, carefree and indulgent. Still wary, you hand him a blue ballpoint pen from the pen stand placed above the drawers to the left. He hums and uncaps it.

Flipping open the book to the first page, he bends down and writes slowly.

This book belongs to Kim Mingyu and

Mingyu stops writing and holds the pen out expectantly to you. “Here. Write your name.”

Confused, but curious, you oblige. Your name, written in your handwriting, next to his own semi-legible scrawl, makes a warm, affectionate feeling bubble up inside his chest. He wonders what it would look like when both your names are signed next to each other on a marriage certificate. Then, he wonders when and where your wedding would take place. A summer wedding sounds nice, but the sweltering heat might be a bit of a problem. Winter weddings are beautiful for sure, but neither of you is a big fan of the cold.

He’s in the process of thinking of names for your children and pet dog when you break him out of his daze. 

“Hey. What’s all this about, hm?” You nudge his shoulder lightly with yours.

Mingyu says, “It’s a diary, but for both of us.”

You glance at him, eyebrows raised questioningly. He swings an arm over your shoulder and draws you closer to him, smiling when flyaway strands of your hair tickle his cheek. 

“In your old diary, it was pretty obvious you, uh, didn’t like me much,” he explains, holding up his free hand when you open your mouth to protest. “I don’t blame you. We were assholes to each other most of the time. But we’ve moved past that. At least, I hope we have.”

Your reply is instantaneous. “Of course. Of course, we have.”

Mingyu trails his fingers absent-mindedly over your arm. “Right. And… It’s kind of silly, I guess—I don’t know—but I thought—if we kept a new diary together, one that we could use to document our journey, with both our perspectives in the same place—I thought it would be nice.”

Your mouth parts and you look at him, an indiscernible expression on your face. He shifts from one foot to the other, feeling suddenly nervous. You don’t betray any hint of emotion on your face, but Mingyu’s heart hammers inside his chest. What if you think he’s being silly and overly sentimental? What if you find the idea ridiculous?

“We don’t have to if you don’t want to,” he quickly backtracks. “I know we’ve only just moved past the idea of being more than friends, but—” He stops himself.

“But…?” you gently prompt him, twisting around to see him better.

Mingyu swallows. “But I can’t imagine not being with you.”

He hears your sharp intake of breath, and in the next moment, the breath is knocked out of his lungs when you throw your arms around his neck and pull him in for a tight, rib-squeezing hug.  Automatically, his arms circle your waist, and he presses a light, barely-there kiss to the junction of your neck and jaw. 

Eyes shining happily, you pull back slightly with a wide grin on your face. “You’re so hopelessly romantic, it makes my chest hurt.”

“Consider this your trial run. If you don’t like it, I’ll stop.”

“Don’t you dare.”

He sighs, content. “Okay, I won’t.”

“What should our first diary entry be about?” you ask, loosening your hold on him.

“About how you ditched me inside your house for almost half an hour after you invited me over.” He’s only half-joking.

You look away, embarrassed and sheepish. “I can explain.”

“I’m sure you can.”

“I’m being serious, Mingyu.”

“So you’ve said,” he agrees breezily.

“Actually,” you begin, a tad shy, “I was thinking it could be about this—about how you bought us a diary and then kissed me in front of the dining table after we christened the book.”

Mingyu’s eyes widen, but before he can get a word in edgewise, your lips are already centimetres away from his. “May I?” you whisper.

“Yeah. ‘Course,” he murmurs back.

The kiss makes him feel dizzy, like he’s had one too many bottles of soda—fizzy and light-headed. Your lips are soft, mouth warm; you taste like chocolate, and he licks into your mouth desperately. His fingers dig into your waist, bunching up the material of your t-shirt, and you run your hand through his hair, tugging gently. He’s kissed you before, of course, but something about this time feels important, a core memory sort of thing. Later that night, he’ll sit beside you on your bed and watch as you write in your shared diary, and he’ll make fun of the way you chew on your pen cap when you’re thinking of what to write next and you’ll shut him up with a kiss.

But for now, he indulges himself whole-heartedly. You let out little gasps which he swallows with his mouth. He tilts his head and kisses you deeper. Only when his lungs are burning does he pull away, and even then, not without a parting peck to the space in between your eyebrows.

“Mingyu,” you say, breathless. 

“Yeah?” he responds, unable to tear his gaze off of your kiss-bitten lips.

“I really am sorry about what I wrote about you,” you apologise, looking down once and then back at him. “It’s only a diary—everyone knows diaries are full of crap.”

“I know.” Mingyu smiles tenderly. “I’m not mad.”

“You should be. I would be, if I was in your place.”

His eyes dart back to meet yours, and he grimaces. “If you really think about it, I’m the one who should be apologising, not you. I shouldn’t have read your diary, no matter how curious I was.”

“I… don’t really care about that, weirdly enough,” you say thoughtfully. “I was more worried about the fact that you thought I hated you and you were gonna leave me. Not so much about you reading the diary itself.”

“Pfft,” Mingyu says, affectionately condescending. “If I left you, where would I go?”

Your mouth parts as you stare at him, dumbfounded. “Jesus. How do you say things like that unironically?”

“I could compose whole sonnets about you and it wouldn’t be enough.”

“That’s ironic, I hope.”

He tilts his head and pulls you close. “Only one way to find out.”

When he captures your lips with his this time, it’s with colliding bodies and biting teeth. He runs his tongue across your bottom lip, and you shudder in his arms, moaning. Somehow, you stumble back into the living room, a mess of tangled limbs.

Briefly pulling away, Mingyu sits down on the same sofa he’d occupied earlier and clumsily pulls you onto his lap. You brace your hands on his shoulders for support, lifting your head up when he presses an open-mouthed kiss to your jaw.

“Fuck, Mingyu,” you gasp, eyes falling shut.

He hums against your skin. “Tell me what you were doing in your room for so long.”

“I was—ah—it’s embarrassing.”

Mingyu stops his movements. “I won’t judge you.”

“I know,” you say, teeth worrying your lower lip. “I’ll tell you someday.”

When you purse your lips, ready for him to kiss you again, Mingyu lets out a soft laugh. “Sweetheart.”

“What?” 

“I think I need to correct some of your… perceptions of me,” he murmurs, rubbing his hands up and down your back.

You furrow your eyebrows. “What?”

“I’m sorry about your blouse,” he whispers. “You looked really pretty wearing it, you know. Got distracted. Couldn’t take my eyes off you.”

“Mingyu, I don’t know what you’re talking—” You gasp when he kisses the column of your throat.

“I’m sorry for being obnoxious,” he continues, lowering his head and pressing his lips to the pulse point on your neck. “But I’m not sorry you think I’m handsome.”

“Only your face,” you mutter, but you tug on his hair to get him to tilt his head up. When he does, you kiss him again, your hands warm and placed on the junctions where his neck meets his shoulders. 

“I’ll support you in more than just meetings,” he says, pulling back. His breath ghosts over your lips, prompting a shiver to pass through your body. Your eyes widen when you finally, finally realise what he’s talking about. “I’ll tell those stupid clients to shut up and take it.”

You laugh, bright and happy, and Mingyu wants to bottle the sound up greedily. “That sounds kinda wrong,” you say.

He shrugs, his smile turning lopsided. “I’m sorry for ignoring you when you said hi to me. I won’t do it ever again.”

You laugh again, teeth flashing in the warm glow of the living room lights.

There’s an odd feeling in Mingyu’s chest—something warm and golden—something he can only describe as being terribly, hopelessly lovesick for you.

He whispers your name again, kissing the corner of your mouth. “Tell me what you were doing in your room for so long.”

You groan again, your previous amusement turning into embarrassment. Your next words are muffled by his shoulder, your lips warm against his clavicle as you mumble something only you can understand.

“What’s that? I couldn’t hear you,” Mingyu says mischievously.

 Another sound of mortification.

“I won’t laugh,” he says. “Promise.”

“Underwear,” you mumble, just loud enough for him to hear. “I was searching for a better pair of underwear than the one I had on.”

To his credit, Mingyu really doesn’t laugh. It takes a lot of effort, though, and he has to bite the inside of his cheek to prevent his giggles from escaping. 

You lean back and narrow your eyes at him. “Oh, go on. I know you’re dying to laugh.”

He shakes his head, cheeks blown out like a pufferfish. You stare at him quietly.

Minutes later, he exhales shakily. “See? I didn’t laugh. I’m a nice guy.”

His lips find yours again, slower and more languorous this time. After all, he has all the time in the world now—to hold you like this, kiss you gently—and he plans to cherish each second. Your tongue swipes his lower lip, and he parts his mouth willingly. He feels like putty underneath you, as he uses one of his hands to cup your face and deepen the kiss. Your lips move against his, already familiar, but he could never stop craving it.

When you pull back to breathe, your eyes are wide and your lips are swollen—a fact that Mingyu notes with pride.

“Nice boys don’t kiss like that,” you breathe out.

“Oh, yes, they fucking do.”

[interruptedtrance]

Period sex (franco x reader)

Smut; 18+

contains: period sex, cock warming

masterlist

“querida, what’s wrong?” franco asked swiftly moving to you

“nothing, it’s just my period”, his eyebrows furrow.

“again, isn’t it early?” he asks with a bit of worry and shock in his voice.

shrugging you answer “yeah, it happens”

“oke, let me go get you supplies” franco says practically running out the door.

“i don’t need anything!” you try yelling after him, but he is already long gone. with a small exhale you lay yourself back down onto the bed, hoping resting will ease the pain. after some time franco returns from the shops with pads and chocolates, and cranberry juice because the internet said it helps with cramps. “i don’t think it does, but thank you” looking through the supplies you notice he managed to get all of them correct, “franco, how did you get all of them right” you ask in confusion.

“i just pay attention” he says, kissing your cheek, gently moving to your ear and whispering “the internet also said having sex during your period eases the cramping.”

bringing your arms up to his chest and slightly moving away from him, you look at him weirdly “i thought you were scared of blood?”

“i think i'll manage” he says with a smile spreading across his cheeks.

“you sure?” you are still not fully convinced.

“positive” he mumbles against your lips. while sloppily kissing you, franco moves his hands from your hips to your waist so he can guide you more easily to the bed where let’s go for just a second so you can climb on it.

before he manages to follow you and get on the bed you tell him to grab a towel, and he is gone for less then a second, coming back with the fluffiest towel you have ever seen. you lay down on your back and lift your hips so he can slide the towel underneath you, after doing so franco gets on the bed and eagerly crawls over to you, stopping when your faces meet.

shyly smiling at him you pull him in by his hair, kissing him sweetly, he deepens the kiss by gently moving his arms along your waist under your shirt, “sit up a bit, let me take it off” he quickly takes both of your shirts off and throws them to the side, making sure he obliges to your soft tugs at his hair, he comes back face to face with you, lovingly looking into your eyes, and kissing you again.

gently working his hands down to your waist he hooks his fingers into your shorts and underwear and tugs them off, looking at your naked body with lust, which you are now trying to cover from his gaze with your hands, he lightly prys your arms away, kissing you on the jaw, and whispering in your ear “please don’t cover up, i love every bit of you”.

with a blush spreading across your cheeks, you cup his face in your hands, “kiss me properly” you say turning an even deeper shade of red in your face. franco could never say no to you, lovingly he moves his lips onto yours. “can we start” he asks you slightly out of breath from your makeout session, you nod your head, wanting nothing more than to feel him inside you, so franco in a swift movement takes his sweatpants and underwear off, his dick springing up, and hitting his lower abdomen. the sight pulling a quiet moan from your lips.

franco smirks at that, and gets on the bed between your legs, adjusting slowly at your entrance, glancing up at you one last time to ask for permission, “please” you whine, now becoming desperate, so he bottoms out in a single thrust. kissing and lightly nipping along your neck while you adjust to him, turning your head to him, you catch his lips in another short but sweet kiss. breaking the kiss you look at him, him finally getting the hint and thrusting his hips slowly but firmly against you, making sure to pull out almost all the way out.

after a while of franco keeping the same perfect speed, you bring your hand down to play with your clit, where he playfully swats it away, “let me do it”, saying it at the same time as placing his thumb on your clit and moving it in figure eights, making you moan from the pleasure. “you like that?” he asks, a smirk forming on his lips.

“you know i do” you playfully snap back, making him also smile and lower himself onto his arms which are now resting next to your head, his face millimeters away from yours, where you can smell his minty breath, ever stopping his movement. teasingly you drag your nails up his sides from his waist to his shoulders, where you slightly dig them into the skin, making him release a breath groan.

“can you thrust harder? i’m getting close now” you ask sweetly, making him release another groan.

“your wish is my command” he says with a smirk, thrusting in you harder.

you let out a moan, “yeah, like that”, and with a few final thrusts franco brings you over the edge making you cum all over him, now thrusting very slowly and lightly to help you ride out your high. he gently wraps his arms around your waist and rolls you over onto him, while still being comfortably situated in you.

moving your head to look up at him, you give him a questioning glance, “what, cock warming is supposed to further help with easing the cramps”.

“i don’t think that's true, but whatever, as long as i can cuddle with you i’m happy” you say, now moving your head to rest it against his chest, where his steady heartbeat slowly lulls you to sleep.

“just try resting a bit” he says, giving your temple one final kiss and dragging the covers over you two.

[eupheme]

Not to be the little gremlin obsessed with Chappell Roan BUT… reader thinking Logan is too cool to want a proper relationship with them, so when things get physical they insist things are just “casual” in order to protect themselves from getting hurt. But secretly you’re in love with each other, so honestly, neither of you want things to be casual at all… (mutual pining my beloved) please & thank you!! Love you!

ahh hi hi avo I LOVE this song, and this request, and you - I could so see this being a situation that Logan and reader find themselves in. I had so much fun writing this, I hope you like it! (I added a couple winks to the lyrics as well.) 💖 thank you so much for sending this to me!!!

casual | variant!logan howlett x f!reader

1.2k | posessive!logan, fwb(???), use of alcohol, mutual pining, references to oral sex and PiV.

It doesn’t matter that your heart flips when you look at him. It’s Logan. It’s just casual.

It certainly feels like a dream, watching your worlds collide.

The heft of Logan’s palm fitting into your friends as he shakes their hand - the five of you squeezed into your usual booth in the corner of the bar.

You’d say the past couple weeks had seemed that way, as well. A late-night dose of bravery spiraling into something so raw and intense and real, that you feel like you could choke on it.

Even now, there’s heat in your cheeks as your eyes flick his way. Something stirring in your chest at the way his other arm slings across the back of the booth almost possessively.

But like all dreams, there comes a moment where you have to wake up.

Because you know it’s not.

Because you know your feelings aren’t requited. How could they be, when it’s Logan you’re talking about?

A legend.

A lone wolf.

Someone important, someone whose name carries a weight. Who saved the world, from what Wade tells you.

And you’re - you.

So even if you know what he looks like beneath that flannel, know what his mouth feels like when it presses against yours - what he sounds like, when he comes - you know that this is nothing.

It’s casual. A distraction, for both of you.

And if that’s how it has to be, then you’ll do your best to show him you’re cool with it.

You just hadn’t expected this moment to come so soon. It had been a genuine offer, your “you wanna come with?” when the hour rolled around for your weekly trivia night.

Not thinking his head would cock to the side. The look he’d give you - that arched brow, as his fingers splayed out across your bare hip. Still crowded together on your couch, sweat-dewed.

The “sure, sweetheart” that slipped out.

And now you’re introducing him as your friend - that quick history you’ve perfected - rattling off the “you know, Wade from work’s roommate” even though Wade didn’t work at the dealership anymore.

He had made enough of an impression that none of your friends had forgotten.

And you ignore the bitter jolt in your stomach, when all Logan does is hum.

You think you must have assumed right.

He doesn’t correct you.

Logan quickly solidifies himself as an asset to the team. He gets a lot of the history questions that you’ve always struggled with. A shy quirk of his lips when your friends cheer, and you get swept along with it.

His hand ending up on your thigh along the way. Squeezing, when you chime in. Almost as if forgetting - it’s easy to, when you’re having fun like this.

A low rasp in your ear, when the host takes a break.

“Lemme get you another.”

You can only nod, as he eases out - taking your glass with him.

It only takes a second, before MJ’s hand slaps down on yours.

“That’s Logan?” She hisses - leaning forward, “The one who-”

“Yes.” You cut her off, ignoring the sideways glance her boyfriend gives you.

You never should have told her about that.

Had a hard enough time climbing into your car without thinking about it, yourself - the way he had man-handled you in the passenger seat. Thighs thrown over broad shoulders.

Fingers twined in his hair, as he made you moan in the dark parking garage. Too eager to make it up to your apartment.

She frowns, the words petering out, “But I thought-”

Your teeth worry at your lower lip.

“Yeah. Me too.” You sigh.

MJ knows how much you like him.

Really like him - butterflies, and everything. How it’s been years since you felt this way - slipping from you during that rushed phone call at 6 am the morning after your first night together.

Her eyebrows raise, and it’s a look you know well.

“It’s, you know.” Your hand waves, “It’s casual. It’s-”

It’s easier, this way.

Maybe if you keep repeating it, it won’t hurt as much when he moves on.

The look she shoots you is one of pity, just as a drink is set down in front of you.

Your teeth clicking against each other as the words are swallowed. Forcing a smile as Logan slips back in the booth next to you.

The next round starts a moment after, and it’s a welcome reprieve.

You miss the way his eyes narrow, as yours fix firmly on scorecard in front of you.

But you don’t miss the way his hands stay folded on top of the table, for the rest of the night.

You suppose he must have remembered where he was.

“You wanna come up?”

He lingers outside your apartment door, hands jammed into his pockets. That look from the bar is back - all dark, narrowed eyes.

A low sound in his throat, close to a scoff.

“That what you want, sweetheart?”

Your eyebrows raise, “Yeah. I do, I mean-, that’s what we usually do, right?”

He’s spent just about every night at your apartment. His things still scattered across your room. A leather jacket slung across the chair that’s tucked against your vanity.

Logan’s lips twist at the edges, eyes dropping.

“Suppose we do.” Those hands slip from his pocket, crossing over his chest, “Back when I thought we knew what we were doing. But now…”

His head shakes. A tick in his jaw.

Your stomach drops.

“What do you mean?”

Logan huffs, “The bar, baby. Is that how you really feel?”

A step closer, until he’s caging you in. Voice dropping, rough and low - near gritted out.

“Does this,” His fingers flick between your chest and his, “feel casual to you?”

Your heartbeat gallops behind your ribs.

“I thought-,” You manage, “Thought that’s what you wanted.”

He’s too close, now. The dip of his head, those eyes burning in their shades of brown and gold.

“Now, why would you think that?”

You swallow, “Because you’re you, and I’m-”

“You’re?” He prompts, but you go silent.

A sigh, when your head dips.

Unable to say it out loud.

“Driving me crazy all night, you know that?” He rasps, “Giving me those looks. Calling me your friend, when we both know your mouth was around my cock this morning.”

A low rumble in his throat, “When I still taste like you.”

Your breath hitches, as his hand thumbs at your jaw, tilting it up.

“Lemme ask you again.” His mouth is close enough now to ghost against yours, “Is that how you really feel?”

Your head shakes.

“Wanna be yours.”

It’s breathed out, just as he kisses you.

His body pressing flush, as your hands twine around his neck. A palm around the back of his neck, pulling him closer as he deepens it.

Desire thrumming to life inside you, washing out the dregs of insecurity that you’ve been carrying this whole time. Melting them away completely with the hungry sweep of his tongue, the way he swallows your soft moan.

There’s a flash of white when he finally leans back, with the curve of his lips.

“Good.”

His hand closes around the knob. A rough twist, as his another arm wraps around your waist.

Walking you backwards, into the dark.

“The let me show you exactly how I feel.”

thank you so much, again!! 💖

[multipleoccupancy]

The Inspector nodded to Violet as she greeted him and then gave a short and quiet hum of agreement at her dismissive reply. Taking mental notes of her attitude and deciding he didn't much like it but she was at least holding her own for now and had not done anything outwardly troubling. He turned his attention back to Theo who was still considerably uncomfortable but had put his hand on Mauve's as it rested on his shoulder.

"I work for an organisation who specialise in things like this," he gestured to the monster on the floor, "I and many other agents strive tirelessly and endlessly to keep people safe and on more than several occasions already saved these United States and even the world from this danger and I think that you," he pointed to Theo specifically for now, "might be the sort of person who could help us."

Theo looked over at Mauve, amazement in his eyes as it had been exactly what they had talked about, an official branch helping to save the world from monsters! Their agent idea had already been done and here was a man offering it all to them... or just to him? He looked back to the agent.

"Now I have an offer to make you. You can come with us and we are interested in putting you through school, getting you into the FBI Academy for you to follow that path which you have expressed previously. We'll wipe everything clean, you'll be cleared as innocent and wrongly interned in this ward so that you can walk around free and innocent. Your parents won't have to pay a cent, you will be sponsored through collage and you will work hard to achieve the results necessary to become an FBI agent." The inspector waited for a moment while Theo clearly observed him, he was after all the man who had put him inside in the first place and he was offering him everything he wanted on a plate, just like that. "On the condition that you work for us. You do as we say, you protect our secret from everyone including family and friends, no one can know. You do exactly as you are told and follow every instruction we issue you to the letter."

The Inspector knew that was less appetising as an end point but he leaned forward and looked Theo directly in the eye, ignoring Violet completely for now, she wasn't who he was after. "Or," his voice had dropped to a more threatening tone, "you can stay in here and become nothing more than a drooling mess until the end of your life. Stuck with absolutely no way out. You will stay here, where no one will believe you, where you will one day get one shock therapy session too many." He eyed Theo who gulped loudly, terrified of that thought and squeezing Violet's hand on his shoulder. "This is a one time offer, lad. What's it going to be?"

Theo opened his mouth but it was dry inside, it was as if he had just lost his voice, the man had offered him everything he had ever wanted and now was threatening to force him through his worst nightmare. However, he couldn't leave Mauve. "My friend helped me, Mauve needs to come too." He insisted, "We both deserve to be out of this ward. Please, promise me that she will be freed with me." The Inspector's lip curled and he looked to Violet, one eye brow raised.

"She will have her own deal." He said lowly and then offered his hand out for Theo to shake. "Now or never kid, I am not playing around, that deal has a time limit of seconds. You shake my hand and get out of here today or I get up, walk out and leave you here to rot." Theo's heart raced in his chest, his eyes were wide and his breath was almost frozen in his lungs, stinging him and aching at every bruise, shock, or most recently stab and bite he'd ever had in that ward. He couldn't go through more of it and with Mauve getting her own deal to leave, Theo took the Inspector's hand and shook it.

𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐎 & 𝐕𝐈𝐎𝐋𝐄𝐓 @multipleoccupancy

Violet quickly fell asleep, but she woke up just as fast, startled by a nightmare. After that, she didn't dare fall back asleep, discreetly observing the orderly as he cleaned up the whole cell. It wasn't too hard to pretend to be asleep, lying down next to Theo. After a while, the cell was perfectly clean (save for the dead monster in the corner), but Violet wished the orderly would have given them clean pajamas too. She was still covered in blood, but it had dried up now, forming an uncomfortable layer over her skin.

With her eyes half-closed, she noticed the two men as they stood outside the room. Violet didn't know who they were, but she assumed they were the Delta Green agents sent to offer Theo his "deal". When the orderly went to wake Theo up, she didn't bother acting as if she was sleeping, simply sitting up on the bed.

Theo's warning confirmed her thoughts: this was a Delta Green agent. But not just any agent. The agent who had framed Theo and sent him to the ward. Her look hardened, and she put a protective hand on Theo's shoulder.

The man sat in front of them, introducing himself. "Hello, inspector," she replied coldly. Violet was unmoved by the agent's praise. She really didn't care if he was impressed! As far as she was concerned, he was a wicked man. But she knew she couldn't make a scene, and risk Theo's deal in the process. She had to grit her teeth and swallow all the things she really wanted to say.

"It ain't our first rodeo," she replied dismissively, hinting at Theo's first monster encounter, and her own "encounter", which was in her file.

[sweetpupii]

Hi! Do you take requests?

If so, I think a fic bases on this excerpt:

"she can't have her parents walking in again. poor cassandra…finding your daughter with her whole face buried in between a girl's thighs is not the most ideal situation"

of your cailtyn story would be phenomenal 🙏

If you don't, feel free to ignore this! :)

Let's start by saying Caitlyn knows how to eat pussy and loves doing it :3 babe could have it for breakfast, lunch, dinner and even dessert. she wouldn't call herself an expert per se, but she's quite proud of her talent.

sure, receiving it feels good—but what's better than knowing you're making a girl cum with just your mouth? to cait, absolutely nothing. the moans, the hair-pulling, the thighs clenching against her head ♡ ugh chef's kiss.

( she came untouched a few times from it but you did not hear it from me ok? )

it's usually one the first things she does when you successfully sneak into her room. like a reward for getting through massive place she calls home without anyone noticing.

your back against the bed and legs immediately spread to expose the sight she absolutely adores. god, she could just stare at it forever and it'd still have the same effect in between her own legs. new panties are needed.

she doesn't dive in face-first like an animal the second your clothes are off, even if she does feel like a starved woman. she starts by slowly kissing your thighs and caressing any bit of skin she can, hand sneaking up your abdomen and ribs to massage your breasts a little—don't mind it.

“Should I continue?” cocky because she already knows the answer is a breathy ‘yes, please’.

oh and she gets way more cocky once she finally starts working on you, soft and slow stripes and twirls with her tongue. nothing fancy yet; she wants to tease a little more.

the second your hips start bucking into her mouth though? girl, grab onto something because she takes the signs IMMEDIATELY.

legs propped up on her shoulder while her hands hold your hips down to keep control of them. the slurping sounds are almost pornographic with how sloppy she's being. no whine coming from you is gonna make her stop any time soon. she's enjoying it waaaay to much already.

if she's feeling nice she will add a finger or two while sucking ๋࣭⭑ curling them just right inside you, not in-and-out like crazy. her tongue’s already lapping at you pretty fast so no need to overwhelm you…yet.

she wishes you would look down at her for a sec to see that pretty expression better, but she also understands it's her own fault that your head is thrown back against the bed, clenching around her fingers while pulling at her hair. what a curse to be so good at pleasing girls.

she knew speeding up her movements wasn't a smart thing to do so late at night as soon as the loud whine that escaped your lips reached her ears. obviously louder than the previous ones.

the heavy thump on the door when it opened proved her right.

“Caitlyn.”

of course it had to be her mother out of all people.

cassandra's eyebrows furrowed as she looked away with a small huff, trying to erase the sight from her mind by blinking and observing every detail on the window. she thought caitlyn was trying to sneak out and get involved with stuff she shouldn't like she had done in the past with serious cases or something, not this!

“It is 3 am; please take your… friend out of here.” a dismissive wave of her hand showed that there wasn't much room for arguing—none really because she's already out the door with a low mumble to herself before her daughter could say anything. tomorrow's talk is gonna be awful, that's for sure.

“just keep quiet some more, then you can go home, alright?” the blue haired girl softly whispered, leaning up and kissing the soft skin on your shoulder to reassure that you're not leaving until you get a few well deserved orgasms, her fingers already going back to rubbing small circles.

she's not gonna let a pretty girl leave her bedroom unsatisfied even if it means getting caught again.

[hotshotsxyz]

this town is only gonna eat you

(buddie) (s8 spec) (1.1k) already wrote some buck-gets-hit-by-a-car spec, so how about some buck-gets-shot? kept thinking about "take eddie [to the laker's game] and die" and uh... here we are. cw: mass shooting/ gun violence (described vaguely), somewhat graphic description of a bullet wound, blood edit: now featuring a companion piece

Buck is smiling when it happens. Grinning at Eddie like he hung the fucking moon as he points out what must be the hundredth interesting play he’s seen on the court tonight. Buck’s smiling.

Eddie registers the screams before the gunfire. He smells the metallic scent of spent shell casings before he sees the shooter. He tackles Buck to the ground before he realizes he’s already hurt.

Buck was smiling, but now his face is inches from Eddie’s and his eyes are wide with pain and panic.

“Eds,” he says, and it’s barely above a whisper but it’s still too loud.

Eddie shakes his head, a tiny, sharp movement. Buck takes a shaky breath and presses his lips together. He understands. Eddie hates that he understands. Thank God he understands.

There’s something warm and wet slowly spreading between them, and it takes Eddie several wasted seconds to realize it’s blood. He’s almost completely certain it isn’t his, which—

God, that’s so much worse than if it was.

One of Eddie’s hands is still cradling Buck’s head, an instinctive act of protection before they hit the ground. With the other, Eddie slowly begins feeling his way around Buck’s abdomen. His fingers brush against torn fabric and he feels nauseous.

I’m sorry, he mouths before pressing down hard.

Buck gasps in pain. A muscle in his jaw ticks with the effort it must take him to keep from screaming.

“You’re doing so good,” Eddie breathes into Buck’s ear. “I’ve got you; I promise.”

The bullet caught him somewhere along the fifth intercostal space on the right side of his chest. Eddie doesn’t have a way to feel for an exit wound, not without letting up pressure on what he knows is there.

At best, the bullet glanced off a rib and tore through nothing but skin and muscle. At worst…

At worst, Buck is dying beneath him and there’s not a damn thing Eddie can do, not until the shooter is dead or gone. All Eddie can do is pray. Pray and hope like hell that God has forgiven him for his incomplete confession.

Another spray of gunfire echoes through the arena. It’s nearly impossible to identify where it’s coming from, but Eddie’s got a vague idea based on the direction people seem to be running in.

Buck takes a ragged, watery breath.

For the first time in his life, Eddie hopes he’s crying. He draws back, just far enough to look Buck in his eyes. His eyes, which are clouded over in pain but free from tears.

Fuck, fucking goddamn it.

Eddie presses his cheek against Buck’s.

“Slow, steady breaths, okay?” he whispers. “You have to breathe through it, even if it feels like you can’t.”

The tiniest whimper escapes Buck’s chest.

“You have to, Buck, I can’t—” Eddie squeezes his eyes shut and takes a shuddering breath. “I just need you to hold on,” he begs.

A single shot rings out, and nearby, something falls to the ground with a dull thump.

“Suspect is down!” someone shouts. “We’re clear for EMS.”

Eddie carefully extricates his hand from behind Buck’s head. “Hear that? We’re so close, Buck.” He brushes a thumb across his cheekbone, then sits up and raises his hand in the air. “Over here!” he shouts. “I’ve got a penetrating chest wound that needs to be on the first ambo out of here!”

Buck’s eyelashes flutter as he fights to stay conscious.

“Come on, eyes on me,” Eddie says.

With his free hand and his teeth, he tears a strip of fabric from his shirt to wad up and press into Buck’s wound.  The skin there is ragged and torn, almost certainly an exit wound. Eddie curses.

“I need EMS now!” Eddie roars, not tearing his eyes away from Buck for even a second.

“I’m coming to you!” someone calls back.

Buck’s eyes slip shut.

“No!” Eddie commands, rubbing his knuckles across Buck’s sternum. “You’re staying right here with me, you got it?”

Buck groans weakly. His eyes flick back open.

“That’s perfect, you’re perfect,” Eddie babbles. “Just keep—c’mon, Buck, just keep fighting. I need—you have to be okay.”

Buck’s lips part. “Hurt,” he breathes.

“I know,” Eddie says desperately, “I know it hurts, I’m sorry.”

A pained sound falls from Buck’s lips. He lifts one of his hands just high enough to ghost his fingers along the ruined hem of Eddie’s shirt.

Behind him, Eddie hears a gurney roll to a stop.

“Here!”

Eddie turns and find a young woman, no more than twenty years old, wearing a polo that declares her part of a private ambulance service. He doubts she’d weigh even a hundred pounds soaking wet.

“Alright,” he says, turning back to Buck. “I’m going to get you onto that gurney. Let me do all the work, okay?”

Buck’s eyes widen. He makes a strangled sound. “Hurt,” he coughs out again, fingers scrambling uselessly against the concrete floor of the arena.

“They’re gonna give you the good stuff at the hospital,” Eddie reassures. He lets go of Buck’s wound and pulls him into a seated position, then rolls him awkwardly onto his back. “I got you,” he says as he stands.

Eddie staggers beneath Buck’s weight but manages to get him down three rows worth of steps and onto the gurney without the young EMT’s help.

“We’re staged just outside the north entrance,” she says as she begins to push Buck toward a set of doors.

Eddie nods sharply. “He’s got a perforating chest wound, probable pulmonary laceration, and a history of pulmonary embolism. Allergic to naproxen,” he rattles off as he pushes the gurney alongside her.

“Um, okay, that’s—are you a doctor or something?” she asks.

“Firefighter,” Eddie corrects. “We both are.”

The closer they get to the exit, the harder Eddie has to work to keep pace with the EMT. He must be coming down hard as the adrenaline fades. A few spots cloud the corners of his visions. He blinks them away.

The doors to the outside fling open, revealing two paramedics from the 136.

“Diaz, is that you?” one of them asks.

The best Eddie can do is nod.

“Shit, and that’s—”

Eddie’s ears start to ring.

“Diaz, were you shot?”

No, he tries to say. One of the paramedics grabs him under the shoulders, and the other pushes his t-shirt up until—

Oh.

Huh.

He has been shot.

The paramedic in front of him is saying something, but Eddie can’t quite understand it. Over his shoulder, the EMT looks blurry and horrified.

The spots in his vision return with a vengeance, and in his last few moments of lucidity, it occurs to Eddie that the bullet in his abdomen is probably the same one that ripped through Buck’s chest.

Then, the world fades to black, and Eddie thinks nothing at all.