#there’s nothing wrong with her she just has to put up with these losers

[medblackcoffee]

Average dorm activities

[asahicore]

cold hands - psh (m)

this work contains smut - minors please do not interact

pairing. sunghoon x fem!reader

synopsis. plot plot plot what is a plot when you can just have vibes and a vague narrative direction... if you MUST know you go to your brother's hockey team back-to-uni party accidentally matching one of the members with your cowgirl barbie costume. hopelessly romantic sunghoon sees this as a sign that the two of you are meant to be together, but you're impossible to read and soon the two of you settle on an ambiguous secret friends with benefits relationship. unfortunately, conflict ensues.

genre. strangers to friends to fwb to lovers..?? its not an asahicore fic if it doesnt have fluff angst AND smut, brothers best friend, jock x nerd type vibe, slight miscommunication put your pitchforks away and hear me out pls it works out i promise, reader has ISSUES 💜 loser loverboy sunghoon, its mostly in his pov, i know nothing about ice hockey

word count. 39.5k 😂

a/n. inspired by @moonlighthoon's request for the 1k trope event! sorry it took ages to write but i hope you like it and that i met ur expectations!!!! hope everyone else enjoys it too, this is the longest fic ive ever written and im quite proud of it, pls pls pls let me know what u thought <333 shoutout to @zreamy .. good luck with your studies, thank u for beta reading and making this fic exponentially better as u always do ⭐️ credit to @/plutism for the dividers :)

Some men never think of it. You did. You’d come along And say you’d nearly brought me flowers But something had gone wrong.

The shop was closed. Or you had doubts - The sort that minds like ours Dream up incessantly. You thought I might not want your flowers.

It made me smile and hug you then. Now I can only smile. But, look, the flowers you nearly brought Have lasted all this while. - Wendy Cope, Flowers

When Sunghoon falls in love, it usually goes as quickly as it came.

Just to name a few:

There had been Ahn Yujin, whose family had moved next to his when he was twelve, and whose dog got on perfectly with his. His crush on the cute girl next door grew with every walk the four of them took but disappeared the second she ditched him to walk home from school with Na Jaemin. 

A few years later, there had been Bae Sumin, who sat in front of him and always had her hair up in a ponytail he found exceedingly pretty. An appointment at the hairdresser was enough for him to stop liking her, as if his interest in her had been laying in the ten centimeters of hair she had cut off. 

In his junior year of high school, there had been Kim Yerim, a college student that tutored him in Math and English. She was three years older, but that didn’t deter him—what did was the fact that she was dating a college graduate. She showed him a picture once, and the guy had biceps probably twice the size of Sunghoon’s. He thought it was safer to give up on her than to fight such a bulky guy five years his senior. 

The first time it stuck was during his first year of college. She was his coach’s daughter and he liked the way she would smile at him when she came to watch their practice. Sunghoon didn’t like to think about her, mainly because even after she broke his heart, for a while there, he continued to love her. 

So, when he first spots you from across the room at the Welcome Back costume party thrown by his hockey team, unintentionally the Cowboy Barbie to his Cowboy Ken, he tries not to read too much into it. Barbie was a hit this summer, it’s an easy and topical costume, of course there’s a pretty girl wearing the same bright pink cowboy hat he is. It doesn’t mean she’s the love of his life.

Right?

He knows you from the pictures that littered the walls of Minjeong, Yunjin and Chaewon’s apartment last year, from Instagram posts, both yours and your friends’, from your video calls with Jake, who dragged him into the camera’s view. Say hi to my sister, he’d insist, like Sunghoon was a child who didn’t want to greet his great-great-aunt. He’d dip in to say hi as requested, ask how you were, and mumble me too like a fool when you said you heard so much about him and were excited to meet him in real life. 

These are the things Sunghoon knows about you: Jake’s older sister by a year, currently on a year abroad in Rome, studies something fancy like Classics, which he hadn’t known people still did in the twenty-first century, deep attachment to Stardew Valley in first year, rarely seen with the same man twice, very pretty. Absurdly so. He’s also weirdly obsessed over the texts you’ve sent to the group chat he was added to at the beginning of last year—scarce, short, elusive. Never more than two sentences, and always long after the conversation was over. But sometimes you’d send photos and videos out of nowhere, of your adventures or of funny things you saw online, and he always hearted them. He even replied to it sometimes (brave hahas or that’s so cool!s), in hopes that it would make you like him, would make you think, he gets me. 

The two of you have never formally yet because you left for Italy the year he started university. He’s been nervous about meeting you since the first time the group told him about you. 

Now that he is about to, he can hear his heart thumping so loudly in his ears, it drowns out the bass of the music. He’s glad he gets to see you before having to talk to you—he’s not sure he could take in your presence and form coherent words at the same time. He watches you laugh with your friends, the smile lines that form like dimples around your mouth, the strands of hair you keep tucking behind your ear. Then someone joins your group—except it’s not just someone, it’s Minjeong, her denim jacket so often worn he recognises her from the back, and he realizes the people you’re with have been Chaewon and Yunjin this whole time. The three of them have been banging on about you all year, even more so due to the fact that their replacement flatmate was dreadful, a Spanish girl who only hung out with other Spanish exchange students and looked the girls up and down when they tried to invite her out somewhere.

You turn towards Minjeong, and before he knows it, he’s in your line of sight, and your eyes meet. Confusion, then a flash of recognition goes through your eyes. He had been resting his elbow on a countertop, cider bottle in hand and watching you, he realizes, not unlike a creep, but now he stands up straight and looks around him as if you hadn’t just caught him staring. Before he can find a way out, Jake appears by his side and throws an arm around his shoulders, guiding him into the throng of party-goers and, coincidentally, closer to you.

“Dude, you’ll never guess what.”

“What?” Sunghoon says, tone coming out more irritated than he means it to. He’s just had to give up on making a good first impression on you, and he doesn’t even have the time to think of a way to redeem himself. When he dares to look back at you, your eyes are already on him, a small smile on your lips. You probably hate him already.

“My sister is dressed just like you. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you guys came together or something. Hey, guys!” Jake calls out, and all of a sudden, it’s not just your eyes on him, it’s everyone’s. Well, to be fair, they’re also looking at Jake. But you’re only looking at Sunghoon, and he can’t look away from you either, can’t even manage the politeness to hug everyone in greeting like Jake is doing now. He watches as your eyes rake over his figure, taking him in, assessing him, and he suddenly feels awkward in his costume that matches yours, like he’s somehow overstepped a boundary, like you might think he’s asked around about your costume, found out you were going as Barbie and decided to match you so you’d think the two of you were meant together, like he had two minutes ago, and come to the fairly reasonable decision that he was the weirdest man on Earth. But then you meet his eyes, smile a kind, genuine smile, and his whole body relaxes. 

“Hey, Hoon!” Chaewon calls, arms open wide. He remembers himself and hugs everyone, even you, and he has to pretend like this is completely fine and normal, like his hands aren’t practically shaking as his arms circle your shoulders in a two-second embrace. 

You squeeze one of his shoulders, and keeping his countenance is a Herculean task. He feels like those people centuries ago who passed out at the sight of a lady’s ankle. “It’s so nice to finally meet you,” you say, peering at him over the rim of your red cup. “I’ve heard so much about you.”

Sunghoon feels the blush growing on his face; he wasn’t expecting so much of your attention so quickly. He takes a swig of his lukewarm cider, hoping if he seems drunk, it might explain his redness. “Good things, I hope,” he says, aware of the unoriginality but unable to come up with anything better.

“Oh, don’t worry, they’ve made you out to be a saint.” You’ve not once broken eye contact or stopped smiling—it should intimidate him, but instead, it makes Sunghoon feel like you’ve known each other for ages and that this isn’t your first conversation at all. He finds himself able to relax into a smile, and manages to meet your eyes for more than three seconds at a time.

“You don’t believe them?”

You pause, gaze zeroing in on him even more intensely than previously, smile turning smirk-like. Sunghoon’s heart skips a beat. Okay, maybe he’s not that relaxed. “I don’t know you well enough to make up my mind yet. But we’ll be seeing plenty of each other from now on, won’t we?”

This is exactly what Sunghoon has been warned about. You at parties, the way you look at guys, the way you talk to them. Sunghoon has been the audience of more than one recreation of such a scene, Yunjin pretending to be you, Chaewon pretending to be your “victim,” as the others liked to call them. Because once you had set your eyes on a man, he had little chance of making it out. Jay prides himself as being the only survivor, although he has to admit it’s only because Jake interrupted your conversation, telling him, “I see you’ve met my sister.” And Jay was not the kind of person that got off with their friends’ siblings, especially since his and Jake’s friendship was only a week long at that point, and he didn’t want to ruin the atmosphere in their dorm for the rest of the year just because his dick had gotten the best of him. His words. Whenever they were all hanging out together and they called you, one of the girls would inevitably ask if you had “turned any Italian boys into men” or if you had been “terrorizing the good men of Rome recently.” You would either roll your eyes or say this was not a conversation to be had in front of your brother.

Sunghoon had been sure they were exaggerating—it takes two to tango, as they say, and it wasn’t like you ensnared innocent men into your trap. They had to be willing, to want something from you just as much as you wanted something from them. He’d also gotten them to admit it wasn’t that frequent, that you weren’t looking for a new prey every party, just once in a while when you found someone you liked. (He’d been very quiet when Jay asked why he was trying so hard to defend you.)

But now that he is on the receiving end of your alluring smiles, he starts to understand how one could fall for you without meaning to. He knows he can’t — Jake probably wouldn’t take to it kindly, and he didn’t want to spoil the dynamic of his best group of friends at uni — but he has a feeling that ten minutes of talking to you would be enough to shake his resolve.

“Oh, yeah, I’m sure we will. Jake said you studied a lot, but I’m sure we’ll get to hang out. All of us, I mean,” he quickly adds, lest you think he’s already asking you to hang out one-on-one. Sunghoon would not be that forward.

“Of course. I have to see if you did a good enough job replacing me for a year.” Sunghoon’s eyes widen, and before he can blurt out something weirdly laudatory like “I could never replace you, I would never even try, I don’t know you but you’re clearly far superior to me in every aspect and I could never even claim to fill your spot,” you giggle and tell him it’s just a joke. “If anything, I’m happy Jake has managed to make a new friend that he didn’t meet through me, that loser,” you say, and together, you laugh at Jake’s loserness, a topic that will never fail to amuse Sunghoon, although he’s not faring much better in that department. 

“Like, look at him right now,” you say, jerking your head in Jake’s general direction, somewhere behind Sunghoon’s shoulder—and that’s when he realizes that it’s just the two of you standing there, the others gone without him even noticing. Sunghoon turns around, finding the girls, Jay, and a bunch of other people he vaguely recognizes huddled around Jake. They all start chanting his name as he gulps down a giant red cup of beer, then raises the empty cup over his head in victory and crumples it, beaming at the people around him. 

“What is he doing?” Sunghoon asks, laughing at his friend.

“Jay called him over for a beer-off,” you explain. After a beat, you ask, “You didn’t notice?”

The implications are clear in your tone and in your eyes. In the smile playing on your lips, just shy of being a smirk. You didn’t notice because of me, is what you’re really telling Sunghoon—at least, that’s the impression he’s getting. And you’d be right. He was too busy talking to you and trying his best not to make a fool of himself to notice his friends leaving, too engrossed with you to register the sudden disappearance of four people. Across the room, where people have shifted their attention to yet another hockey player downing a sizable amount of beer, he catches Chaewon’s eyes, and she winks at him. Of course—leave it to Chaewon, to whom Sunghoon once made the mistake of drunkenly rambling about how pretty you looked in your Instagram posts last year, to give you and Sunghoon some time alone, “to get to know each other properly,” she would probably say. Although he isn’t sure that small talk over 2000s music counts as getting to know someone. According to the others, she and Yunjin started dating a month into their second year, so Chaewon has proclaimed herself as the goddess of dating and is now always trying to set people up. Sunghoon thinks she’s just living vicariously through her friends now that she has a Mrs. at home.

Because the filter usually at work between the part of Sunghoon’s brain where sentences are formed and his mouth is apparently on leave today, he says, “I do have a pretty distracting sight in front of me.” He’s immediately both mortified and impressed by this sudden bout of confidence, but then you look down and giggle, actually giggle, the sweetest sound he’s ever heard, and only pride remains. 

“So, Ken?” you ask, a cute attempt to change the subject, taking the fabric of the pink bandana around his neck between your fingers. Sunghoon wonders if you’re going to yank him down to your level, and he thinks he wouldn’t have much of a problem with that. 

He realizes that even though you should technically know each other’s names, you haven’t actually exchanged them, so in a confused but correcting tone, he says, “Um, Sunghoon.” He only belatedly realizes that you hadn’t gotten his name wrong, you were just making a comment on his costume, which he had completely forgotten he was wearing in the first place. Just as he’s about to backtrack and salvage what he can of the situation, you burst into laughter, hand leaving his bandana to cover your mouth as he hides his face behind his own hands, laughing along with you despite himself. 

“I know your name is Sunghoon!” you exclaim. The gratification of hearing you say his name takes away some of his embarrassment. “I’m Y/N, by the way. Not Barbie.”

Sunghoon nods. “Good to know.”

The laughter gradually dies down, but your smile stays the same; wide, bright, a smile that exposes your teeth and turns your eyes into crescents. Sunghoon can’t look away. He’s awash with nerves, your gaze simultaneously planting his feet to the ground like they’re full of lead and making him light-headed. His heart is beating so fast, he can barely feel it anymore. 

The two of you stand there, looking and smiling at each other, like in a cliché movie scene where everyone else at the party seems to fade into the background. He has no idea how much time has passed when you break the silence. “It really is nice to finally meet you,” you say, repeating your statement from earlier, as though you mean it more now. 

“It is,” Sunghoon simply replies, because he doesn’t know how else to express the relief of seeing you in the flesh after hearing about you and looking at a digital version of you for a year. The relief, but also the anticipation of what is to come now that he knows he likes you even more now that he’s actually seen you. And improbable as it sounds, you might even feel the same.

Sunghoon can already feel it. The beginning of something.

You nod towards his now empty cup. “Want a refill?”

Together, you make your way through the crowd of increasingly drunk students until you reach the kitchen, where the countertops overflow with open bottles of liquor of all sorts and paper plates with half-eaten pizza slices on them. He watches your every move as you find a cold bottle of beer in the fridge, a bottle of strawberry syrup in a random cupboard that you had to know was there, and a half-empty discarded bottle of lemonade on the counter. You ask him to tell you about last year, everything you missed out on, and so he does. He knows you’ve probably heard it all from the others before, but you still laugh and gasp like it’s the first time you’re hearing about any of it, all the hockey games they won, Jay getting food poisoning from the sketchy pizzeria he kept eating at, Yunjin almost getting into a fistfight with a man twice her size who was flirting with Chaewon. 

You assemble two drinks and hand him one of them. When he takes a sip, his eyes widen at the refreshing and sweet taste. “Good, right?” you say. “I discovered it on a trip to France last summer.”

“Thank God for France. I think that’s the first time I’ve ever enjoyed drinking beer,” he says.

“That’s probably because you can’t taste the beer at all.”

Sunghoon smiles. “Probably, yeah.”

You turn around, lower back against the counter, and take in the current kitchen population. “We really weren’t very original with our costumes tonight.” Sunghoon, who had not taken his eyes off of you this entire time, follows your gaze. He counts five partygoers dressed in some version of Barbie or Ken, and that’s just the kitchen. He doesn’t blame them—the fact that so many people came dressed in costumes at all impresses him, especially for a party on the 10th of September and not the 31st of October. The social committee of the hockey team just seems to really love themed and dress-up parties.

He chuckles, then takes a sip of his drink. It’s really nice. “Yeah, but we look the best.”

Your head whips towards him, eyes glinting with something that makes Sunghoon smile, even though he doesn’t know what you’re thinking. “Should we enter the couple’s costume contest?” you ask.

At the mention of couple, his eyes widen, his brain tricking him into thinking you’ve asked him out for a second. But when what you actually meant dawns on him, the first thing to come out of his mouth is, “There’s a couple’s costume contest?!”

“Mh-hm. The sign-up sheet should be around here.” 

For what feels like the millionth time since he’s started talking to you, his face heats up. “Are non-couples allowed to enter?”

“We’re Barbie and Ken. I’d say that’s enough of a couple, don’t you think?” 

Right. Because he had been thinking of Sunghoon and Y/N, while you obviously meant Barbie and Ken. In the contest, it doesn’t actually matter whether the contestants are dating in real life—it matters that their costumes match. Sunghoon knows that. He just needed a second.

He grins, deep dimples punctuating his cheeks. “Okay, let’s do it.”

Armed with your drinks, you walk around the kitchen in search of the sign-up sheet. You find it on a wall next to the dining table, which has been turned into a beer pong table for tonight’s festivities, and the sheet is almost filled with names already. Sunghoon can only hope that by midnight, when the contest is set to take place, most participants will have had too much to drink to remember it. You write your names on the list, and Sunghoon likes seeing his name in your handwriting so much he almost wants to take a picture.

“There you guys are!”

You both turn around to find Jake stumbling towards you, clearly more intoxicated than when he had left you half-an-hour ago. He rests his arms on your shoulders, forcing Sunghoon down to his height and making you stumble forwards from the sudden added weight. “I’ve been looking all over for you- You’re entering the contest?!”

For a split second, Sunghoon is scared he’s going to get scolded by Jake for trying to hit on his sister, but surprisingly, it’s you he narrows his eyes at. “Y/N, what are you roping my little Hoonie into?”

Sunghoon groans, face perpetually red at this point. Leave it to Jake to make him seem like a total loser. 

You frown at your brother. “I’m not roping your little Hoonie into anything.” Sunghoon wants to bury himself alive. “We agreed on doing it together. Right?” you ask, turning towards Sunghoon and batting your eyelashes at him. It makes him feel a bit better.

He turns back to Jake. “Right. We’re just joining forces to crush the competition.”

Jake scoffs. “As if.” He snatches the pen from your hands and underlines his name as well as Kazuha’s, the girl he came with tonight, three thick black lines that almost erases the names underneath them. “You can’t beat the hockey player and cheerleader combo.”

“Those aren’t even costumes, you guys are a hockey player and a cheerleader,” you protest.

“So?” Jake simply retorts, more attitude in his tone than he would have were he sober.

“So, that defeats the whole purpose of a costume contest.”

Jake knocks on your cowboy hat, and you immediately put it back in place, glaring at him. “As if Barbie was the greatest costume ever. Whatever, let’s just play beer pong so I can defeat you guys twice in one night.”

“You’re on, Sim.”

“You’re going down, Sim.”

Sunghoon had just been watching your back-and-forth amusedly when you grab his hand, leading him to the side of the table opposite Jake. His fingers tingle under your touch, but just like that, it’s gone. He’d rather keep on holding your hand than play this stupid game, but he isn’t opposed to taking Jake’s ego down a notch, either. The boy can barely stand straight, anyway, so it probably won’t be a very tough match.

Some guy he doesn’t recognize in a striped black-and-white referee t-shirt fills most cups with beer and a couple on each side with shots of vodka—he’s so earnest, Sunghoon isn’t sure whether he’s just taking his costume-slash-role very seriously or if he has genuinely been hired to look over the beer pong matches of the night. Some order in the brutish world of college parties, Sunghoon guesses.

Minjeong, Yunjin, Chaewon and Jay appear then, exchanging a quick look at the sight of you and Sunghoon together. The two former join your team, while the two latter join Jake’s, as well as other people that Sunghoon vaguely recognizes from other parties. But by the simple action of getting behind him, they become his most trusted allies for at least this part of the night.

You’re a terrible shot, but Sunghoon makes up for it by scoring almost every round. In his defense, he only misses when you come up close to him and whisper in his ear which cup he should go for. Your breath tickles his (oddly sensitive) ears and the combined scents of the strawberry and lemonade on your tongue and your delicate perfume make his head spin. He can barely think straight, so his aim is naturally thrown off—other than that, he makes Jay drink a healthy amount of beer. He almost feels bad for his friend, but he’d arrived late at the party and needed to quickly catch up with everyone’s level of ebriety anyway.

When the opposite team is down to their last cup, a lightning bolt of luck strikes you, and your ball disappears straight into the vodka-filled cup that Jake now has the honor of downing. 

Sunghoon gives you no time to celebrate, to gloatingly pump your fists in the air and point a mocking finger at your brother, because as soon as you make the shot, he wraps his arms around your waist and lifts you off the ground. When you’re on your feet again, you spin around to find a proud-looking Sunghoon beaming down at you. You burst into giggles and high-five him, your palms perfectly clapping against each other, and he threads your fingers together. A current of electricity rushes through him, and for a second, he swears it’s just the two of you in this packed room.

The moment is cut short by the loud cheers of the others on your team as they shake your shoulders and raise their hands for you to high-five them too. Minjeong flips the other team off and Yunjin has to go hug Chaewon and reassure her it’s nothing personal. It’s really quite easy to make college students happy—or devastated. 

You raise your eyebrows at Jake, who’s busy glaring at you instead of accepting his defeat and taking his shot. With a begrudging sigh, he tips his head back and drinks the vodka in one gulp, the cheers doubling in volume when his face scrunches at the bitter taste of the liquor.

“Don’t act so proud,” he scolds you. “Sunghoon carried your team.”

“Maybe, but she made us win in the end,” Sunghoon retorts, putting an arm around your shoulder. 

Jake scoffs, frowning at Sunghoon’s hand placement before eye-rolling his gaze away. “Whatever.” He slides his phone out of his back pocket and smiles as he shows the two of you his screen. “Would you look at the time? The contest is starting soon.” Then, with an accusatory finger pointed at you, adds, “You may have won this battle, but I’m winning the war.”

He stomps away, presumably to find Kazuha before the contest starts, and it’s your turn to eye-roll at his dramatics. You grab Sunghoon’s hand that hangs off of your shoulders, and together, make your way through the crowd again to the garage, where the contest is taking place. All the alcohol he’s been drinking has definitely started kicking in by now, and he finds himself giggling at nothing with you.

When you reach the threshold, still hand in hand, Sunghoon stops so abruptly behind you that you almost stumble. You look back at him, then follow his gaze towards the garage and the sheer amount of people in there. Worriedly, his eyes take in every single one of the contenders. You let go of his hand and stand in front of him, placing your hands on his shoulders and putting on a determined expression. You’d almost look like a parent reassuring their kid before their first day of kindergarten if you weren’t so much shorter than him. “Don’t even worry about them, Sunghoon. We look better than anyone here.”

His eyebrows crease. “There’s like, three other Barbie-Ken couples here. Some of these costumes are so original. And do you see their makeup? Is that even possible?” he asks, staring at a couple in scarily realistic cosplay of Simon and Jeanette from Alvin and the Chipmunks, fur and all. He can’t look at them for too long without getting chills.

You shake your head. “Almost everyone here is either a hockey player or a… hockey-affiliated person. You’re the beloved and talented defenseman of the team and I’m the star player’s sister. They’ll love us,” you say with a smile, watching the worry dissipate from his features.

“We’re like nepo babies,” he whispers. His lips break into a grin when your eyebrows furrow in confusion. “I don’t know how nepotism works,” he admits, smiling wider when you burst into laughter. “How do you know if I’m talented, anyway? You haven’t seen me play yet.”

Your eyes rake him up and down appreciatively. “I took a wild guess.”

Not unlike a cartoon character, Sunghoon audibly gulps. As a hockey player since his most tender age, and dare he say, a pretty good-looking guy, he is used to girls flirting with him, and he is even hit sometimes by the occasional lightning strike of confidence that allows him to flirt back (he still can’t believe he managed to call you “a distracting sight” without spontaneously combusting). But there’s something in your eyes, in your smile, in the way you talk—something about you that has his breath hitching and his heart racing. He doesn’t know if he wants to run away and hide in a corner or kiss you right then and there.

Heeseung, the captain of the hockey team, announces into a microphone (which Sunghoon wonders where they got the money for) that the contest will start now, so he can neither kiss you nor run away. Instead, he follows you to the side of the room where all the contestants, including Jake and Kazuha, wait for their names to be called out. There are so many participants, it takes way longer than Sunghoon would like for the two of you to step onto the makeshift stage. Judging by the looks on the audience’s faces, everyone is surprised to see you and Sunghoon together—the hockey community at your university may be big, but everyone knows everyone, and gossip travels fast. No one had seen you and Sunghoon together before, for the obvious reason that you hadn’t even met before tonight. But you could be sure that by tomorrow, as silly as it sounds, word will have gone around that you and Sunghoon had participated in a couple costume contest together. 

At least, you give them something of substance to talk about—as you and Sunghoon pose on stage, wearing your brightest smiles to please the crowd, you stand on your toes and press a kiss to Sunghoon’s cheek. Sunghoon’s eyes burn a hole in the side of your face but you just watch as the audience of drunken 20-somethings goes wild over something as simple as a peck on the cheek. Jake is the only one booing. 

Sunghoon is still in shock when the next couple is called forward and you have to step off. His cheeks are redder than before and he can’t quite meet your eyes. Apparently, he also goes wild over something as simple as a peck on the cheek. You nudge his shoulder. “See, I told you they’d like us.” 

He feels like a fourteen-year-old for it, but Sunghoon can’t stop thinking about your soft lips against his cheek, so much so that he barely says a word as the three judges deliberate. If you notice the sudden change in his behavior, you don’t comment on it, perhaps chalking it up to nerves. He’s glad for it—he doesn’t know if he could handle being teased about it, especially from you. Although he’s not sure he wants you to think he’s the kind to stress over a last-minute Halloween costume contest. 

In the end, you don’t win. He suspects it was a rigged contest all along: the couple in the unimpressive Edward and Bella costume are friends with one of the judges, probably leading to their anticlimactic victory. At least it isn’t Simon and Jeannette who win, or Kazuha and Jake, even less original than the winners. Anyway, Sunghoon couldn’t care any less. With your hand in his as you walk back to the main room in search of your other friends, he feels like the biggest victor of the night. He doesn’t even mind it when his teammates tease him about his costume and how good the two of you look together—the smile you shoot him makes putting up with it worth it. He tries to think straight, but between the alcohol and your proximity, he feels like you’ve cast a spell on him.

Jake stumbles into your group, three drinks drunker than when Sunghoon last saw him, enthusiastically reporting that a game of spin the bottle is about to start in one of the rooms upstairs, because what every college party needs is a middle-school game to shake things up. None of the guys seem particularly interested until Jake reveals that the cheerleaders are playing. 

Sunghoon looks down at you, laughing when he sees your mildly disgusted moue. “Don’t feel like playing?”

“Not really, no.” Your eyes linger on his face. “There’s only one person here I want to kiss, anyway.”

All capacity for thought leaves Sunghoon’s brain. He just stares back at you blankly, lips slightly agape, willing himself to say something but also terrified that whatever leaves his mouth might make him seem like the biggest loser ever. 

You couldn’t possibly mean him—but did you? Was he the person you wanted to kiss?

As these questions resound through his head, your gaze drops to his lips. There’s his answer. 

His heart beating wildly in its cage, Sunghoon decides to do one smart thing tonight and leans in, slowly but surely closing the gap between the two of you. Then a sudden vibration in the back pocket of his jeans zaps through him like lightning and he jumps back, as if startled out of the trance you had put him in. Shame flooding his cheeks, he checks his phone; it’s the stupid alarm he set himself earlier to make sure he doesn’t get home too late. Midnight, Cinderella-style. 

You scratch the back of your neck as your eyes dart around the room. For the first time tonight, you look embarrassed—Sunghoon is in disbelief at how pretty you look even then. “I, um,” he starts, clears his throat. “I have this thing tomorrow morning, so I can’t stay too long…” he says guiltily.

He doesn’t want to get his hopes up, but he swears that what he sees on your face is disappointment. It makes him want to take it all back, to stay here with you for as long as you want and forget about tomorrow morning. 

“Oh, right,” you say, nodding. “That’s fine. What thing?”

“Oh.” Sunghoon turns an impossibly deeper shade of red, further resembling the strawberry syrup the more he gets himself in these embarrassing situations with you. “Just… choir. I go to choir on Saturday mornings.” He looks down at his feet like he’s just revealed a secret, shameful part of himself.

You burst into laughter, and Sunghoon is scared for a second that you’re making fun of him, and his feelings are a lot more hurt than they should be by someone he just met. Although, to be fair, you don’t feel like someone he just met.

“That’s so cool! It must be such a nice change from all the dudes on the hockey team,” you say, a sweet, curious smile on your lips. Like you mean what you say. Like you might want to know more.

Sunghoon thinks he just fell in love.

He chuckles. “Yeah. Definitely a nice change. As much as I love hockey, it’s nice to do something calmer, you know. And I like singing. And the cakes the local grandmas bring.”

“So that’s what it’s all about, really.”

“Yep, you caught me.” Sunghoon still feels the almost-kiss lingering, a tension between the two of you that has him on edge. He feels like he’s just missed his bus because it left a minute earlier than planned. The opportunity is gone, and he would definitely mess everything up, trying to kiss you now. So instead, he decides to leave. Whatever must happen, will happen, even if it’s not tonight. You have the same friends—this is definitely not the last time you will see each other. “Well, I should probably head. I have to be up at eight tomorrow.”

“Oh, wow. The choir grandmas don’t play around.”

“They really don’t.”

“Well, see you around then,” you say, a clumsy laugh falling from your lips as you wrap your arms around Sunghoon’s neck, bringing him into a tight but short hug. You also smell good, he notes to himself. Of course you do.

“See you, Y/N.” Just as he’s about to turn away, you wrap your hand around his wrist.

“Wait. Sunghoon?” He’s only half-surprised at the immense relief he feels to hear his name on your lips. Like you, too, didn’t want to part with him just yet.

“Yeah?” he says, wishing the hope and anticipation aren’t too obvious on his face.

“Where’s that choir of yours?”

--

When Sunghoon arrives at his neighborhood’s community center, ten minutes before nine a.m., you’re already there. Despite the seven hours of sleep under his belt, he feels like he could’ve done with three more, and the singular cup of instant black coffee he had for breakfast was both atrocious and useless. But your smile has the restorative effect of two Red Bulls and a power nap. You look surprisingly bright, like you either managed to get a very good night’s sleep or are just the biggest morning person to ever exist.

He hugs you when he reaches you on the sidewalk, tighter than he probably should, but you return it. You smell like fresh soap and sugar. The two of you exchange quick greetings before he leads you inside the center. 

“I made some cookies as well.” You point to your tote bag and Sunghoon’s jaw slackens.

“You had time to bake?” 

“Kazuha made me take Jägerbombs, so I felt crazy when I got home. I thought it wouldn’t be fair on the old ladies if they did all the work.”

Sunghoon laughs. “They’re going to love you.”

You follow Sunghoon up two flights of stairs and into a spacious room with a wooden stage. There’s a snacks table on one side of the room that is almost fully decked with plates and tupperwares of all sorts, and although their contents remain covered by tin foil or lids, the coffee and hot water pots are free to use. Most of the chairs are stacked on each side of the room but a few have been put in the middle, the grandmas sitting and chatting there waving at Sunghoon as the two of you walk in. There are about fifteen people in the room so far, most of them older ladies, but not only. There’s a dad that came with his daughter, a couple of teenagers, and a few other adults. It’s quite an eclectic mix, and Sunghoon loves it.

Minjeong is here, too, which Sunghoon realizes he forgot to say until he sees the sheer confusion of finding someone you know in an unexpected place on both of your faces. She walks towards you, suspicious eyes darting between you two.

“Hey,” she says only to Sunghoon before turning to you, arms crossed over her chest. “And what are you doing here?”

“Hi, Minjeong, so nice to see you too!”

“I invited Y/N,” Sunghoon says quickly, although you did technically invite yourself. For some reason, he feels the need to defend you, even though he knows you and Minjeong have been friends for years now, and Minjeong is just always this blunt.

“I didn’t know this was the choir you went to,” you say to Minjeong.

“Oh, this?” She looks around the room. “It’s only the choir I’ve been going to since I was a kid. You’d know that if today wasn’t the first day you showed interest in it, ever.”

“I came to your concerts!”

One of the old ladies calls Sunghoon’s name from the snack table, and he is glad for the diversion. “Right. I’ll let you guys talk this out.” A hand on your shoulder, he smiles down at you. “I’m gonna say hi to the ladies over there. Be back in a minute.” He shoots Minjeong a look as if to say, Be normal. 

As he approaches the small group, one of them asks very loudly if you’re his girlfriend. They all burst into giggles, blushing and eager-eyed like they’re sixteen rather than sixty. Sunghoon would be endeared if you didn’t look so alarmed and Minjeong so horrified, both of you looking at him before turning back to each other and getting into a very heated and secretive discussion. He is bombarded with a hundred questions: what your name is, where you’re from, how did the two of you meet, are you together? No? But you’re so pretty! And he’s such a nice boy! He answers all of their queries to the best of his ability while checking that your conversation with Minjeong hasn’t turned physical—your arms are now also crossed over your chest, and you look annoyed while she looks like she’s accusing you of something, but at least, punches aren’t being thrown. 

Thankfully, it’s only a couple more minutes until the conductor calls for everyone to gather on stage, and a weight is lifted off of Sunghoon’s shoulders once the ladies’ collective attention is no longer on him. He isn’t sure where they came from, or why they’ve decided to make the choir rehearsal their hang-out spot, but there is always a group of women who sit there and knit while chatting quietly or listening to the songs, and they are sometimes joined by children whose parents are part of the choir but don’t want to sing themselves and apparently have nowhere else to go. Sunghoon had been so excited at the prospect of having you come see him that he hadn’t thought of how boring this might be for you, sitting with sixty-year-olds for two hours, listening to an amateur choir go through scales and sing corny romance ballads—they’re rehearsing for a wedding they’ve been hired to sing at. But as the minutes go by, his worry dissipates when the delighted smile on your face hardly falters. He can’t imagine that his choir is that good, but you genuinely look like you’re having a nice time, and it makes Sunghoon stand a little taller, sing a little louder. Your eyes are on him for most of the time, and he blushes every time your gazes meet, but he still can’t keep himself from looking away from the conductor to check on you every few seconds.   

Once rehearsal is over, everyone gathers around the refreshments table. When you tell Sunghoon that he looked good out there, he stuffs his mouth with banana bread to stop himself from blurting out something stupid. Your cookies are a hit, and so is everything else—Sunghoon would be more than happy to watch you eat as many baked goods as you possibly can and chat with the grandmas, but he has something to ask you. Without thinking much, he wraps his fingers around your wrist, gently pulling you away from the table and towards him. The question that was at the tip of his tongue fades as soon as you meet his eyes, looking up at him like a deer caught in headlights, cheeks stuffed with brownie. You’re so cute that words fail him for a second, and when he notices the proximity between the two of you, takes a small, bashful step backwards. You glance at his hand still around your wrist, and he withdraws it like he’s suddenly been burned. 

A playful smile grows on your lips. “Everything alright?”

He scratches the back of his head. “Yeah, yeah, everything’s fine. I just, um, well. There’s a bus that takes us from right across the street directly to the beach, if you’re, um, if you’re interested. In going. With me. If you want.”

Your eyebrows cock in surprise, and Sunghoon thinks he’s messed it all up. You shoot Minjeong a quick, worried glance, then seem to think for a second. But when you look back to him, your smile is soft. “That sounds nice.”

An hour later, you’re running around together on the beach—or rather, Sunghoon is running around, and after five minutes of watching him with a smile on your face, he’s convinced you to run around with him. You’ve both long discarded your shoes and socks, jeans scrunched up to your mid-calves, grins so wide, your cheeks start to hurt. The wet sand is hard under your feet and the water cold against your skin. Sunghoon’s t-shirt sticks everywhere you sprayed water on him, and he knows putting his shoes on later will be a whole ordeal, but it doesn’t bother him. Even the gray September sky feels brighter because you’re standing with him underneath it. 

The water-splashing battle quickly has you both out of breath, and Sunghoon is ready to call a truce when you spot something behind him, gasping and running towards it. He turns around to find you picking up a bunch of sandcastle-building toys that must’ve been left behind by some kids. “I haven’t built a sandcastle in such a long time, this is so exciting,” you say, excitement written all over your face. 

As much as he loves seeing the glint of childish amusement in your eyes, Sunghoon keeps looking around in case the owners of these toys might appear out of thin air. “I feel like there’s something immoral about this,” he says, and you stop stacking sand into one of the toys to look at him with a confused frown. “Aren’t we technically stealing from some kids?”

“Sunghoon. If those kids really cared about these plastic toys, they wouldn’t have left them here.”

“What if they come back for them?”

“Then we’ll give them back. We’re not monsters.” That’s all it takes for Sunghoon to give in. He helps dig trenches around the towers you build, carving out small windows on them and apologizing profusely when he accidentally pokes too hard into one of them, destroying half of it. 

The second he notices you shivering, Sunghoon is on his feet, unwrapping the scarf around his neck and laying it like a blanket over your shoulders. “I’m going to get us something warm to drink. I’ll be back in a minute!” he announces before you can even protest, and practically runs to the nearest café. 

He only leaves you and the slightly pathetic-looking sandcastle alone for a minute, quickly coming back with two take-away cups of milky Earl Grey tea and a brownie that he couldn’t help himself from buying. The moan you let out when you bite into it, gooey, sweet chocolate sticking to your teeth, goes straight down Sunghoon’s spine, but he tries not to let his thoughts get too carried away.

“Good, right?” he asks, laughing when you nod fervently. When you laugh too, it’s a sound so sweet, it rivals the decadence of the brownie. “I sometimes make the trip all the way here just for this.”

“I thought I’d be done with sweets after this morning, but this is so good.”

“Better than Berta’s banana bread?”

“Oh, a hundred percent,” you say, covering your mouth with your hand as you speak. “Sorry, Berta. I’ll be thinking about this for the rest of my life.”

Sunghoon hopes you’ll remember him as the boy who’d introduced you to those brownies, if nothing else.

The two of you are silent for a little bit, but it’s a comfortable silence—something Sunghoon didn’t know was possible with someone he’d just met. This was something he loved about the sea: it allowed for some quiet. The crashing of the waves against the shore, the calls of the seagulls, the dogs barking after them—it all meant he didn’t need to fill the space with needless chatter. He could look out at the peaceful water, you by his side, and just enjoy the moment.

“I’m still so amazed whenever I come to the beach, no matter how many times it’s been.” Sunghoon’s voice is quiet when he speaks, lower than usual. It sounds a lot more intimate than he means it to be. You turn your head to look at him, silently asking him to go on. There’s a small smile playing on his lips, a twinkle in his eyes as he watches the water. “The town I grew up in is right in the middle of the country, so the sea is like, a five-hour drive. There was a lake nearby, but it was nothing compared to this. It might sound silly, but being from somewhere where everyone knows each other, I never realized just how big the world was until I came here and saw the sea for the first time.”

“You’d never been to the sea before coming here?” you ask, surprise clear in your voice. 

He shakes his head. “My hometown isn’t far from the mountains, so it’s a huge tourist spot both in the winter and in the summer, which meant my mom had to work even when my sister and I were out of school and could actually go on holiday. We’d go visit my grandparents and aunts when we found the time, but that was it.” He meets your gaze, a smile playing on his lips at the thought of his hometown and his family. “This is the furthest I’ve ever been from home.” 

The corners of your lips raise into a smile too, matching Sunghoon’s. “And how has that been going?”

He sighs. “It’s okay. I miss my mom and sister like crazy, of course, but they FaceTime me so much that I barely notice it. And anyways, it’s also nice to be on my own. Discover another part of myself, and all that.”

“For sure.” 

There’s a slight shift in your expression that Sunghoon catches onto, a falter in your smile and a hint of sadness in your eyes. He doesn’t want to force a topic that you don’t want to talk about, so he just gently eggs you on, in case all you need is a small push.

“What about you? I think Jake mentioned you guys growing up around here, only an hour or so away.”

At the mention of your brother, the smile returns to your eyes. You take a deep breath and think for a bit, but eventually, you start talking. Although Sunghoon’s eyes are on you, you keep yours trained on the sea. “Yeah, we did. We live just up the coast, so we were always hanging out at the beach. In a way, it’s nice having the sea here as well. It’s like-I don’t know.”

“Like having a piece of home even when you’re away?”

Your gazes meet for just a second, the surprise clear in your eyes, but as quickly as it came, it’s gone, and you turn away from Sunghoon once more. “Basically, yeah.” A sardonic smile appears on your lips. “Although the constant reminder isn’t always appreciated.” 

He tilts his head. When you don’t say anything further, he flicks some sand onto your hand and asks you what you mean by that. He looks at you with curiosity and kindness only, eager to know more about you, to let you know that you can open up to him, that he won’t judge you, but careful not to overstep any boundaries either. It seems to work.

“It might sound stupid, but back home, the beach was a place I could go to when it all was a bit too much, you know? Like an escape from everyday life. Where I could forget about all of the pressure on my shoulders.” Sunghoon hums, and you take another deep breath. “I don’t know if you and Jake talk about this sort of thing, but… our parents are barely nice when we do well, and pretty awful when we don’t reach their expectations. So we were like, constantly having to outdo ourselves just for them to say, ‘Keep it up’, or something like that. And if we did something wrong, well…”

You trail off, but Sunghoon knows what you mean. “Yeah, Jake said they barely spoke to him anymore because he decided to play hockey instead of becoming, like, a doctor or something.”

You smile, but it’s humorless. “Yep. They send him money, and he comes home for a bit over Christmas and summer break, but that’s it. I’ve gone home by myself sometimes and they won’t even mention him, it’s insane.”

“He also doesn’t talk about it a lot.”

“I know. I’m always the one to bring it up. I know it’s a sensitive topic for him, obviously, but I still find it amazing how well he deals with it. But me… despite everything, I still need their approval, you know?” you ask, and Sunghoon nods.

“That makes sense.”

You sigh. “I guess. And I’m obviously not becoming a doctor like them. Not a medical one, at least. It took a year of convincing them that doing the degree I’m doing was okay. ‘Cause at the end of the day, it’s still me filling in my university applications, and they can’t actually force me to go to medical school, but I still wanted them to be proud of me. Even if I study languages.” It’s quiet for a few seconds as you both look out at the waves crashing against the shore. When you start talking again, you look down at the sand, picking it up and letting it filter through your fingers. “So, yeah. Jake got a scholarship here, and I didn’t wanna be too far from home, so here we are. We’re so close to home, the sea I went to when I needed a break in high school and the sea I go to now are one and the same. And now it reminds me of my parents rather than making me forget about them.”

“I’m sorry for bringing you here,” Sunghoon says. “I didn’t think…”

You cut him off with a smile. “It’s okay. Now I’ve created new memories. Nice ones. And you know… wherever I am, it’ll be at the back of my mind. It’s up to me whether I let it affect my life or not.”

“Letting go of these things is never easy,” Sunghoon offers. “You also can’t blame yourself if it does affect you sometimes.”

When you look at Sunghoon, your eyes darting back-and-forth between his like they’re searching for something there, he feels himself tense up slightly. He can’t read you at all, has no idea what you’re thinking even as you smile and say, “You’re right.” Even as you silently link your pinky with his, gazing down at your hands with a small smile. He hadn’t realized how cold his hands were until this small touch, so small yet able to spread warmth throughout his entire body. When he speaks, he can’t bring himself to meet your eyes—he’s still so focused on where your hands touch, too aware of the skin of your finger right against his. Such a small, innocent touch. He can’t even begin to understand why it means so much to him.

“For what it’s worth, I think what you’re doing is super cool,” he says. “I’ve always been so shit at foreign languages, let alone dead languages. And packing your bags and going abroad for a year, not everybody can do that. Becoming a doctor might be hard, but it also takes a specific kind of person to do what you do. And what Jake does. It’s all valuable.”

“Now, if you could say that again while I record you to show my parents, please,” you say, making him laugh.

“It’d be my pleasure.”

“What about you?” you ask him after a small pause. “I can’t be the only one who trauma-dumps on the first date.”

Sunghoon’s breath hitches in his throat. He hadn’t even dared entertain the thought that this might be more than a platonic hang-out in case he was crossing a line—but you’ve just called it a date. With just a few casual words, you’ve changed the entire meaning of the hours you’ve spent together. He hopes you can’t tell how flustered it’s made him.

“Well, there’s not much trauma to dump, really. Sorry.” 

You giggle. “Don’t apologize. That’s a good thing.”

Now that you’ve just opened up about your parents, Sunghoon is scared that telling you about how good of a childhood he had might come off as insensitive—but you smile softly at him, holding his hand face-up in yours, tracing the lines of his palm with the tip of a finger, and he starts talking. “So, it was just me, my older sister and my mom growing up. My dad died when I was 2.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. It is a bit sad that I don’t have any memories of him, but everyone who knew him said he was a great guy. And my mom’s had this boyfriend since I was like, 10? He’s the one who got me to start hockey. So it hasn’t been that bad.”

“Your mom must be really strong.”

Sunghoon smiles. “She is. She’s amazing. To raise two kids on your own while grieving and not royally fuck up is… well, amazing. She’s always been so supportive of us, no matter what we wanted to do. My sister did well at school, but I wasn’t so good. I never really enjoyed it, but she’s never made me feel bad about it. She didn’t mind that all I wanted to do was hit a puck around.” 

“And you’re pretty good at hitting that puck around, aren’t you?”

“I’m not so bad,” Sunghoon says, chuckling along with you. He’s about to go on, but he is cut off by a raindrop hitting his hand, then another one; before either of you know it, your clothes are soaked through. Sunghoon takes his denim jacket off, using it as a makeshift umbrella for the both of you as you run towards the nearest awning, shaking with giddy laughter until you forget about the chilly rain and the clothes sticking to your skin. When it doesn’t let up for another few minutes, Sunghoon suggests catching the bus back, and you agree. 

The heating on the bus is set on low, but it’s enough to warm Sunghoon up as soon as he steps onto it. You sit at the back in a corner of your own, multiple rows away from the other people onboard. The two of you are relatively quiet, lost in your own thoughts until Sunghoon, after much internal deliberating, takes one of your hands in his and interlaces your fingers together. You look up at him, but he doesn’t return your gaze, eyes fixed on the window to hide his shy smile and the blush slowly staining his cheeks. To his surprise, you squeeze his hand and rest your head on his shoulder. He freezes for a second, unsure how to react to your reciprocated affection, but he makes himself relax into your touch, and starts brushing his thumb back-and-forth on the back of your hand. The sudden storm has made day turn to night a little earlier today, and with the quiet hum of the bus, he finds himself on the edge of sleep for the whole ride—the only thing keeping him awake is his booming heart.

The bus is nearing his stop when the buzz of his phone in his back pocket jolts him awake. You lift your head from his shoulder, massaging your neck as you fish your phone out of your own pocket. Sunghoon, more intrigued by you than by whoever has texted him, watches as the brightness of your screen makes you wince. Once you’ve read the text, you turn towards him, sleepy eyes and sleepy voice as you ask him whether he’s seen “this,” referring to a text from Chaewon. dinner at our flat tonight!!! come whenever. bring drinks. 

“Oh, I forgot she was doing that tonight,” you say through a yawn.

Sunghoon chuckles. “Do you have enough energy for it?”

“I always have enough energy for Chaewon’s cooking.”

You and Sunghoon make a pit-stop at a grocery store to buy two bottles of white wine and the hummus Chaewon likes, then head to your flat. Naturally, questions are asked when you and Sunghoon arrive at the exact same time, but before Sunghoon can explain that you spent the day together, Minjeong’s head pops out of the kitchen door, and she asks whether you ran into each other downstairs. Chaewon is only looking at the both of you, waiting for an answer, so she doesn’t see the very pointed look Minjeong gives you, as if to say Agree with me or else. You quickly glance at Sunghoon then say, “Yeah, we just arrived at the same time.” When they’ve both turned away, you tell him in a hushed tone that you’ll ask her about it later. 

The girls are busy in the small kitchen and Chaewon insists that they don’t need any more help, so you and Sunghoon bring two chairs by the kitchen door and sit as Yunjin catches the four of you up on the most recent drama in her Law cohort. Jay arrives twenty minutes later, but it isn’t another hour before Jake shows up with the excuse that he was taking a nap.

“Someone would think you don’t sleep at night, with the amount of naps you take,” you say.

“Oh my God, I miss when you weren’t here,” Jake replies, flicking your forehead before promptly plopping himself down on the couch. “I was so hungover when I woke up. I had to sleep it off,” he explains as he grabs four cans of beer from his backpack. 

Chaewon always makes a point to ask how everyone’s spent their day, but today, she unfortunately starts with Sunghoon, so he doesn’t have any time to come up with anything believable other than the truth, which is exactly what he does—and when Jay asks, What, to the beach by yourself? under Minjeong’s heavy gaze, he has no choice but to say yes. He isn’t sure why it’s such a big deal that you spent the day with him, or why it needs to be kept a secret, but there must be a reason. He’ll find out later. When it’s your turn, you look straight into Sunghoon’s eyes as you say you spent the day at the library but didn’t get much work done. Everyone ignores Jake when he exclaims Boring! and Chaewon swiftly moves onto Jay.

But you don’t. 

Your eyes stay on Sunghoon, unflinchingly watching him, expression unreadable, and he finds himself unable to look away, even as he feels his face heat up and his stomach flip. Then you smile, a satisfied smirk like you got what you wanted, and shift your gaze to Jay, who’s going on and on about the first six episodes of Lost he binge-watched earlier and wondering why nobody had told him about this “masterpiece of a show” before. Sunghoon is too busy thinking about the way you’d looked at him and pondering all the reasons for it to listen carefully. He watched Lost when he was fourteen anyway.

All throughout the evening, as the seven of you eat Chaewon’s pasta dish (which she made entirely from scratch, and is probably one of the best things to have ever graced Sunghoon’s taste buds), drink, talk, and afterwards, play card games, every glance between you and Sunghoon feels like a secret conversation that only the two of you are privy to. No one except for Minjeong is aware that you spent the day just the two of you until now—and even she doesn’t know what it is you did. Within a day of knowing each other, you already share memories that are yours and no one else’s. Sunghoon is giddy with the knowledge, heart skipping every time your eyes meet, no matter how fleetingly. When you’re all saying goodbye, it takes everything in him not to hug you for an awkwardly long time and to tear himself away from you. 

He can hardly fall asleep that night.

--

For the entirety of the year you were gone, Sunghoon could only nod and smile while the others bemoaned your absence or commented on how much more fun it’d be if you were here (even Jake, after enough wine spritzers, would admit to missing you). He understood that the group dynamics might feel different to them without you around, but this particular set of people was all he knew, so he never minded it. It reminded him of people telling him how sad it must’ve been growing up without a father, trying to be empathetic, when he didn’t know how he could miss something he never had. 

But now that you’re here, he gets it. You add something to the group that he can’t quite put his finger on. It’s in your affectionate gestures towards Chaewon and Yunjin, in your shared sense of humor with Jay (which no one else seems to find funny, save for Sunghoon, sometimes), in your bickering with Minjeong and downright arguing with Jake. It’s a hackneyed expression, but you do light up a room—at least in Sunghoon’s opinion, you do. In your presence, everything feels not only more lively, but also more cohesive, like you were the missing piece of a puzzle. Like a historic work of art that has been returned to its rightful owner. 

Sunghoon just finds himself drawn to you, at times unable to keep his eyes off of you, and the only things keeping him from making a move are his inherent shyness and the eyes of your friends. He doesn’t want to mess up the friendship he has with anyone from the group, least of all Jake, just because he can’t keep it in his pants. He thought of Yunjin and Chaewon, how their relationship had gone smoothly from the beginning and posed no problem to the dynamic of the group, but he had no idea if this was replicable between you and him at all.

If he had to be honest, a big part of him was also just afraid you’d reject him.

Getting a read on you is hard, which doesn’t help. It’s been three weeks since the gang reunited, since that party where you met. The first semester of his second and your fourth year started a little bit over a week ago; Sunghoon sometimes worries that you think there is some big age gap between you and that you see him as a kid, even though, admittedly, two years is not such a huge difference. In those three weeks, there have been many encounters which could be seen as cases of flirting between the two of you—Sunghoon has noticed every single one of them and replayed each an embarrassing amount of times in his head. A hand carefully posited on his shoulder; prolonged eye contact; jokes whispered in his ear at a crowded house party; knees lightly touching at first, then pressed together during movie night. None of it ever fails to make Sunghoon’s heart flutter. You could breathe in his general direction and it’d make his heart beat fast enough to worry a cardiologist, so when you smile at him, it’s a small death every time.

And so he dares hope that his interest isn’t one-sided—although most of the time, he is so stuck between thinking none of it means anything and thinking every single thing you do is a sign that you like him, that he rarely knows what to think. And whenever you’ve paid him enough attention to make him believe it’s not all in his head, you do something that proves him wrong. Watching you interact with other people, he realizes that you keep good eye contact with everyone and that you’re just as touchy and playful with all of your friends. At parties, you hit it off with new people and catch up with old friends without so much as a hint of awkwardness. He watches as you talk to other guys, the same smile that has been making him weak for the past three weeks, directed towards them and not him. Sunghoon assumes you’re either really nice to everyone and oblivious to the fact that it could be seen as flirting, or you just flirt with everyone. 

In that sense, the two of you are complete opposites. Sunghoon, whose entire friend group hangs on the fact that he befriended Jay, who knew Jake, who knew you, Minjeong, Yunjin and Chaewon. Sunghoon who has spoken to maybe half of his hockey team outside of the locker rooms and the occasional party. Sunghoon who, outside of his usual friend group, has managed to make three other friends on his own in the year he’s been at university, because they had been put in a group project and magically hit it off enough to upgrade from classmates to friends. 

Then there’s you, who has to stop every thirty seconds at a party to say hi to someone you know. You, who still keeps in touch with the friends you made in a foreign country, even those who spoke broken English. You, who didn’t make Sunghoon feel like his crippling shyness was a problem when you first met. 

He doesn’t understand how everyone who meets you doesn’t instantly fall in love. 

Or maybe they do, and he’s just one of many vying for your heart. 

Tonight is one of the nights where all he can do is watch from afar as you interact with another man that he desperately wishes was him. With your lower back against the kitchen counter, drink in hand as you laugh with that other guy, eyes never leaving his face, it almost looks like someone has copied your time with Sunghoon at the costume party and pasted it onto this post-hockey game party. All you’re missing is a bright pink cowgirl hat and boots to match.

And yet, it’s his team jacket over your shoulders, his name and number on your back. Sunghoon shouldn’t feel nearly as jealous as he does.

So he does what any good friend would do, and blames Jay for reasons completely unwarranted—even now, days after receiving his advice, and hours after taking it, Sunghoon still can’t help but regret involving him at all. 

Initially, Sunghoon hadn’t wanted to tell anyone about his growing feelings for you—he’d thought that if he pushed them away and kept them to himself, they’d go away on their own. But clearly, they didn’t, seeing as how his stomach always twisted in nervous excitement at the prospect of seeing you and how he could never get through a conversation with you without blushing. So, quicker than he’d like to admit, he’d given in and told Jay about the day you’d spent at the beach and how felt about you now, thinking it was some big shameful secret that would render his friend flabbergasted. 

That was his first mistake. 

Jay wasn’t impressed. “Yeah, it’s been pretty obvious, dude,” he’d said through a mouthful of cheeseburger. It was after hockey practice, and they were sitting in the burger joint near the ice rink that had some of the best student deals in town. Jake was going on a Hinge date, and Sunghoon had lured Jay in with the promise of free food (Jay wanted to go home and game, but all Sunghoon needed to do to convince him was to say “I’ll pay for it”). 

“Obvious? How obvious? Does everyone know? Does Jake know?” Sunghoon asked, growing more agitated by the second.

“Jake is possibly the worst room-reader that has ever lived, so no, I don’t think he’s caught on. But the rest of us know. I mean, you look at her like a twelve-year-old with a crush on his English teacher,” Jay said, unceremoniously cramming fries into his mouth.

Sunghoon ignored the slightly humiliating remark, still preoccupied by the fact that he hadn’t been as discreet as he thought he had. He leant in towards Jay and dropped his voice to a whisper, even though the restaurant was practically empty, save for them and a group of rowdy middle school boys who were definitely not paying attention to them. “Do you think… does she know?”

Jay dropped his fist on the table in sudden annoyance, causing Sunghoon to jump back in his seat. “Now you’re acting like a twelve-year-old.” Before Sunghoon could defend himself and argue that he’s being completely rational, Jay launches into a surprisingly moving monologue. “It’s fine if you like her, there’s nothing to be embarrassed of. Everybody feels attraction towards other people, everybody gets crushes, it’s no big deal. Just talk to her. Worst case scenario, she doesn’t feel the same way, and you both move on, because you’re adults.”

There’s nothing worse than a friend being right about something you absolutely don’t want to hear. Sunghoon did feel like he had been carrying a horrible secret around, but Jay was spot-on: crushes are a very common, very human experience. And yet Sunghoon managed to feel like he was the only one who had ever had to go through this torture. “You say that like it’s easy,” he said, sulking.

“It is easy. You’re making it hard.”

“So what, your advice is just to confess to her?”

Jay rolled his eyes. “See? You’re saying confess like it’s some sin you have to repent for. Yeah, just tell her.”

“Just tell her,” Sunghoon repeated, looking at his friend like he was crazy. Jay just took another bite of his burger.

“Yeah, dude. It’s not even like you’ve known each other for a long time, so there’s no risk of ruining a friendship, or anything.”

“But do you even know if she feels the same way at all?”

Jay shrugged. “She hasn’t mentioned anything,” he said, and Sunghoon’s heart dropped in disappointment. “But it’s Y/N, she’ll be cool about it. And who knows, she might actually see something in you, for some godforsaken reason.”

Jay laughed at his own joke, and Sunghoon afforded him a chuckle. They moved on to other topics, but later, as they waited for Jay’s bus to come, he couldn’t help himself. “Do you think Jake will mind? If something happens with Y/N and me?”

Jay thought for a second. “I think he’d be more upset with her than with you, what with everything that happened with Heeseung... But knowing him, he probably won’t care as long as you aren’t weird in front of him.” He puts a hand on Sunghoon’s shoulder and shakes it gently. “Don’t let that stop you from making a move, okay? You’ll cross that bridge when you get to it.” His bus came then, so Sunghoon couldn't ask for more details about this Heeseung situation—he knew that there had been something between you and him which hadn’t ended particularly well, but no one ever really talked about it so he didn’t dare bring it up. All he knew was that it had been significant enough for Jay to mention it now, and for Jake to seem bothered every time it was mentioned.

He put all of that out of his head for the time being. In a way, he had just received Jay’s blessing; even if it scared him shitless, he could make a move. Perhaps not something as straightforward as Jay was suggesting, but something, at the very least. 

The first major hockey game of the season was that coming Friday. Sunghoon had an idea.

The morning of, he shot you a text. He tried to make it sound as nonchalant as he can, so that you wouldn’t know he spent close to an hour deleting, writing and pouring over a singular sentence. Can you meet me in front of the locker rooms 30 mins before the game? 

That was his second mistake.

You replied twenty minutes later, twenty minutes that Sunghoon spent questioning everything that had led up to this moment.

yn.sim i’ll be there!!

You even got there five minutes early. He was waiting for you, all decked out in his hockey uniform, save for the gloves and protective headgear. He was anxiously chewing on gum, heart doing somersaults inside his ribcage—a grin found his lips as soon as you appeared around the corner, the sight of you alleviating his nerves for a second, then doubling them when you came close. “Hey,” he said, voice soft and slightly trembling.

“Hey,” you simply replied, a smile on your face to match his as he took you in his arms. It was a hug that lasted a second longer than it should, but that also ended too early for his liking.

“Um, I only have a second, Coach will be wanting to give one of his pep talks,” he said when you separated. One quick glance back at the locker room doors behind him, then back at you. The tips of his ears burnt, and he couldn’t stop his eyes from furtively darting between your face and the floor. But he’d come this far, so he couldn’t back out now. He just had to get it over with. “Here,” he blurted out, holding out the letterman jacket he had been hiding behind his back. You grabbed it, eyeing him with amused suspicion at first, but surprise spreaded over your features as you unfurled the jacket.

“Your team jacket?” 

He couldn’t tell whether you were amazed or horrified. You stared wide-eyed at the jacket, at its dark green sleeves, at the four letters of his last name and the huge number 8 embroidered onto the back. Your surprise faded back into what he thought — what he hoped — was excitement as you looked at him. He scratched the back of his neck, feeling his face flush red. “Yeah, I just, you know… It’s the first big game of the year, and I thought it’d bring me good luck if a pretty girl was wearing my name…” he explained, repeating the words he’d practiced over and over, voice turning into more and more of a mumble as he spoke. He had planned on speaking with more confidence, but now, the fact that he could speak at all felt like a miracle.

A light giggle spilled out of your mouth. Sunghoon immediately took it for mockery and regretted every decision that had led him here. “Sorry, it was a silly idea, you don’t have to wear it if you don’t like it,” he said, reaching for the jacket. But you were quicker than him, hugging the thick bundle of fabric to your chest as you now beamed at him.

“Are you kidding? I love it,” you said, shrugging off your jacket and replacing it with his.

First, relief flooded his body, then pride and excitement — as you spun around and showed the jacket off — at seeing his name on your back, and his attempt at making a move being successful. At least, he thought it was clear what he meant by giving you his jacket to wear at his game—he could only hope you understood. “Well… I’m glad.” Your eyes met, and you both chuckled softly, gazes holding each other’s for a second too long. 

Two weeks ago, Sunghoon still would’ve been able to convince himself this was a fluke; that this was just another one of his crushes that a gentle breeze could blow away. Because after all, when Sunghoon fell in love, it usually went as quickly as it came. But at that moment, in front of the locker rooms, his mind solely on you and not the opening game of the season, he realized this was something else entirely. And whatever it was, he hadn’t felt it in a good long while.

He was terrified—but infinitely excited, too.

“Okay, I should probably head back in now,” he forced himself to say, but made no move to go.

“Okay.”

He paused. “Will you be cheering me on?”

Your smile widened. “Of course.”

He nodded slowly, upper body starting to turn away but feet still firmly planted on the ground. “Okay.” 

Another second passed, and just as he was about to actually walk away, you grabbed his hand. Before he could compute what was happening, you lifted your head and pressed a small kiss to his cheek. His hand was still in yours when you took a step back, and for once, it was you who looked sheepishly at the floor. “For good luck,” you explained. He had no time to reply—you were already walking away, only looking back once to wave and shoo him in the direction of the locker room. He chuckled and nodded, but waited until you were out of sight to head back into the locker room.

Inside the locker room, everyone was too focused on getting their head in the game to notice his giddy smile. Your lips had been warm and soft against his cheeks, a welcome repeat of that time at the costume party, but the quickness of it all had only made him want more. From that very first night he’d met you, the question of how your lips would feel on his had scarcely left his mind. This brought him a step closer to getting an answer, but also made his curiosity grow tenfold.

Thankfully, by the time his coach gathered them around for a last minute pep talk, he’d managed to put the distracting thoughts of you out of his head, at least temporarily—he’d need to play well, for himself and his team mostly, but impressing you was also a priority. 

As the captain, Heeseung said a few words. He reminded the team of how important this match was and went over the main strategy points. For the time being, Sunghoon was able to forget about his arguably unfounded resentment against the older boy and whatever it was he had to do with you. This was not the time for jealousy over someone he had no right to feel jealous over. 

A few minutes later, his members and those of the opposing team poured out onto the rink for warm-up. Sunghoon searched the crowd for your face—when he found it, you were already smiling wide and waving at him. His heart did something funny, but Jay punched his shoulder pad and he remembered what he was there for. He could get lost in the eyes of a pretty girl later, specifically when he’d destroyed the other team and shown her how good of a hockey player he was.

Every now and then as he skirted around the rink and did his stretches, he stole glances at you. They didn't last long, because every single time, you’d already be looking, as if your eyes never strayed from him. Knowing you were watching made him nervous at first, but by the end of warm-up, mainly because he didn’t have much of a choice, he’d turned those nerves into an ever stronger will to do well.

The moment the referee blew the whistle, and for the hour that followed, Sunghoon was locked in on one thing and one thing only: winning. He was only competitive when it came to hockey—he didn’t care about dying in an online battle game or losing to Jake at beer pong, but once he was on the rink, he had to win. Pride surged through him and filled every crevice of his aching limbs whenever he or one of his team members scored, and the feeling that came with a victory, with hugging his teammates in celebration or hearing the crowd cheer for them, was like nothing else he’d ever known. The other side of that coin meant that any loss was a tremendous disappointment. Getting beat at an important game could put him in a week-long funk. His sister had once carefully hinted at his self-esteem relying too much on his hockey performance, and although his first reaction had been to dismiss her, he knew she had poked at some truth there. But what could he do—on particularly lonely nights, he truly thought hockey was all he had going for him. 

To his overthinking nature, becoming so single-minded the second the whistle blows was a relief, a break from the stress of daily life. He didn’t have to worry about his next deadline or about what the guys on the team thought of him or about the inevitable phone call to his mom asking for more money for groceries. It was respite from the thoughts surrounding you that plagued him: how you felt about him, how you might react knowing what he felt for you, how Jake might react. Why Minjeong hadn’t wanted you to say anything that evening, but why Jay had told him to just go for it. Heeseung, whom he had to respect as the captain and an undeniably talented player, but also as someone who had had something to do with you, whether good or bad. All of it had been wildly bustling around Sunghoon’s mind, but once on the rink, all he had to concern himself with was the puck and getting it in the opposing team’s goal. 

And Sunghoon did just that—he scored the first goal of the game, another one in the second period, then a third during the eleventh hour, breaking the tie between the two teams. He smiled right at you after each one, just to make sure you had seen everything. He couldn’t quite describe how it felt to see you clap and cheer for him, jumping up-and-down, forming a megaphone with your hands around your mouth and yelling, “Go Sunghoon!” all while you wore his jacket. It was a separate kind of pride and satisfaction from the sort he’d get seeing anyone else cheer him on, for sure. 

The other team put up a good fight, getting in a few goals of their own and protecting their side well, but in the end, thanks to Sunghoon’s goal, it was his team that won. He took his helmet off and got his hair ruffled by half of his team, then shook hands with the other team, trying to contain his boastful smile—some ice hockey players flew off the handle very quickly, and starting a fight was the last thing he wanted.

Kids and local fans huddled by the barriers on each side of the player’s tunnel to get an autograph or a picture. People around here were weirdly attached to their university sport teams, and the athletes on teams that did particularly well — namely football and rugby — were sort of local celebrities. Their ice hockey team wasn’t quite at that stage yet, but they were placing better nationally with every year, and so the local interest had grown. More kids had started signing up for lessons, and their parents often brought them to home games. As Sunghoon chatted with men twice his age and took selfies with ten-year-olds, he tried to find you in the crowd, to no avail. He’d been hoping for a thumbs-up from you for a game well played, or even a hug, but you were nowhere in sight.

It wasn’t until half-an-hour later, after saying bye to all the fans that had waited after the game for them, listening to Heeseung and their coach congratulate them (but also remind them to not take anything for granted), showering and changing, that he got to check his phone.

chaewon we going k-bbq! u guys played well see u later at da party!!!!

Disappointment only had a second to sink to the bottom of his stomach. He’d barely finished reading the text when he was hoisted up by the shoulders. Two of his senior teammates, Soobin and Beomgyu, marched him towards the exit. “We are getting you wasted tonight, Park,” Beomgyu announced, a wide grin on his lips.

“I have a good feeling about this season,” Soobin added. Sunghoon looked back to find Jay and Jake simply shrugging and laughing at him.

Indeed, the second they got to the dorm where tonight’s party would be taking place, a beer was thrusted in his hand. It was only 7 p.m., still light outside, but that didn’t stop the team nor their friends that had come to the game. They sipped beer like it was water, so much so that two hours later, when the party started to grow, Sunghoon was already quite inebriated. It didn’t help that his cup was never empty for too long, and that he had the reassurance of being in his own dorm—it was the closest student building to the ice rink, and so was one of the prime spots for hockey parties. He could get as drunk as he wanted — or as Beomgyu wanted — and still get home in less than a minute. 

He somehow ended up in the corridor, part of a nonsensical conversation about candle-making with two guys he had recognized from one of his Phys Ed classes but could not for the life of him remember the names of. One had shared that candle-making was a big hobby of his, and it had made Sunghoon and the other unknown man lose their minds—Sunghoon had never realized how curious about candle-making he was, but he couldn’t stop asking questions. It sounded great. Maybe he’d have to pick up candle-making, too. 

Eventually, he headed back to the kitchen for a new drink. For the nth time this evening, he thought of texting you, then immediately thought against it. He wanted to know when you’d get here, but he didn’t want you to know that he wanted to know—although as the night deepened and his intoxication rose, he could remember less and less why that would be such a bad thing. He stepped into the kitchen, and going from the brightly-lit corridor to the dark kitchen with flashing neon lights made him so dizzy that he made a beeline for the couch, needing to sit down for a second.

And that was when he saw you.

Lower back against the counter, talking with a guy he’s never seen in his life. You look like you’re having fun—smiling, laughing, keeping eye contact with that guy. You’re still wearing his jacket. It should probably reassure him—his name is literally on you, what does it matter that you’re speaking to someone else? But instead, all he can think is that wearing his jacket must mean nothing to you. What was basically a confession from him seems to have fallen on deaf ears.

His friends’ words over the past year come back to him—how much you flirt with people, how it wasn’t a rare occurrence for you to go home with a guy after a party and never speak of him ever again. Was this what was happening here?

He knows it’s unreasonable, but in his drunken state, he takes it as a betrayal. Like he can’t believe you haven’t read his mind, figured out how he felt about you, and decided to give special attention to him and him only. He’s only able to take it for so long—two minutes later, he trudges out of the room, walking right past you but not looking your way.

His new mission is to find his friends, but before he’s done much searching, he hears his name being called out. Of course, he recognizes your voice immediately, but he doesn’t quite believe it until he looks over his shoulder, and there you are, face glowing and smiling wide. You’ve clearly had a few drinks, but he likes to think you’d be just as happy to see him if you were sober. He turns around to face you, watching as you narrow the distance between the two of you. He’s not in a much better state—the simple thought that you had come after him makes him forget any sort of resentment he held against you a second ago. When you reach him, he holds on to one of your arms, as much an effort to stabilize his swaying body as an excuse to touch you.

“Hey,” he simply says. He’s always at a loss for words around you, so scared he’ll say the wrong thing that he ends up barely speaking at all. He’s only sober enough to know that with all the cheap beer and vodka running through his blood, his odds of making a fool of himself are even bigger. 

“Hey. I was wondering where you were.” 

“You’re the one who came late.”

“I know!” you exclaim. “I wanted to come right away, but Chaewon was hell-bent on getting her Korean barbecue.”

“She does get cranky when she hasn’t had pork belly in a while.” Sunghoon feels like he’s just won the Nobel Prize when you let out a laugh. “Was the food good at least?”

“It was amazing. So worth getting here late,” you joke.

He rolls his eyes playfully. “I see how it is.” Then, before he can stop himself, he adds, “Then we should go there together next time.” 

Your smile changes, turning from cheerful to surprised, but amused—almost mischievous. You take a step forward. Sunghoon gulps; the gap between the two of you was narrow to begin with. “Are you asking me out on a date?”

Usually, this type of straight-forwardness would have him stuttering, but drunk Sunghoon is a man sober Sunghoon barely recognizes in the morning. “Yeah. I am. Is that okay?”

You nod. “Mh-hm.”

“Nice. Okay.” For a second, you just look at each other. Another thing about drunk Sunghoon: he doesn’t feel like prolonged eye contact will make him spontaneously combust. He actually quite enjoys it. He also stumbles, even when all he’s doing is trying to stand straight. “You’re still wearing my jacket,” he eventually says, reaching out to take the end of your sleeve between his fingers.

You stretch out your arms and appraise the team jacket as if you only remembered you had it on. “Yeah. It’s comfy.”

“It looks good. You look good.”

“You’re not quite sober, are you?” you ask suddenly. 

“Is it that obvious?” When you nod, he giggles, lowering his head in defeat. “The guys made me drink so much.”

“You did score three goals after all. And you looked good doing it.”

At the praise, he stands up to his full height and places his palms behind his head in a victorious pose. “I did, didn’t I?” he says, looking off in the distance with a self-assured look that makes you burst into laughter. He drops the confident facade and laughs along with you, until somebody bumps into him and sends him stumbling forwards. If you weren’t standing there to catch him, he’d probably have fallen flat on his face. But even though he doesn’t fall, he feels all the alcohol catching up to him and threatening to come right back out where it came from. You hold him for a second, and just as you ask him if he’s okay, he says, “I think I’m gonna throw up.”

You sigh. “Okay. Where’s your room?” 

Arm under his shoulders, you let Sunghoon lean most of his weight on you as you guide him towards the elevator. It’s just one floor, but you said you didn’t want to risk the stairs with him. “Hey, who was that guy with you in the kitchen? That guy in the striped shirt? You guys seemed real chummy back there…” he mumbles as you help him out of the elevator. Even on the verge of sickness, Sunghoon is preoccupied by more important things.

“Oh, that was Jaemin.”

“Jaemin,” he echoes, more venom in his voice than needed.

You look at him, taking in his disgruntled expression, and chuckle. “Yeah, he’s having some problems with his boyfriend. He asked me for advice.”

Sunghoon almost freezes in his tracks, but you’re there to keep him walking towards his room. “Oh. He has a boyfriend.”

“Yeah…” He can tell you want to tease him about it, but thankfully, you say nothing. He’s made it clear he had gotten jealous of your gay friend—no need to spell it out in so many words. Once you reach his studio (which he’d stupidly left unlocked), he heads straight for the bathroom, locking himself in, half out of embarrassment, half because he really doesn’t want you to see him throw up. Talk about a turn-off. He leans over the toilet bowl, waiting for the vomit to rise, but nothing comes. He waits, and waits, mind completely empty, head spinning even though he’s sitting very still, when suddenly a knock on the door pulls him out of his stupor.

“Sunghoon? It’s been ten minutes. Everything okay?”

He doesn’t say anything, just unlocks the door for you. Without realizing, he fell asleep like a bored teenager in math class. “All right,” he hears you say.

He’s surprised you’re able to carry him out of the bathroom—if he was a deadweight before, by now, rigor mortis has practically set in. Despite his small student room, crossing it takes you an entire minute, and when you reach his bed, you all but let him flop on the mattress. He doesn’t mind. As soon as his body hits the bed, he feels quite snug, curling against his blanket. You start to unbutton his shirt, probably just thinking he’s already fallen asleep and wanting to make him more comfortable, but your fingers freeze when he starts giggling. Shoulders shaking with unbridled laughter, he feels as delighted as a five-year-old who just said a naughty word and made all his drunk relatives laugh at the family dinner. 

“I know I looked really hot tonight, but can we wait until I’m sober?” he asks, slurring his words slightly and keeping his eyes shut, despite the shit-eating smirk on his lips. You hit him on the chest but it just makes him laugh more.

“Bold of you to assume I’d still hit when I’ve just had to peel you off your toilet seat.” He lets you finish helping him out of his button-down. 

“Wouldn’t you?” he asks. He tries to look at you, but his eyes don’t quite open all the way, and they don’t focus properly, due to a strong mix of alcohol and inappropriate thoughts. Of you, specifically. His body feels suddenly very heavy, his want for you weighing him down into the mattress. The room is dark, your face illuminated only by the light in the bathroom and the glow of the street lights outside. You always look pretty, but your beauty is especially breath-taking right now, Sunghoon thinks. He wants to reach out and touch your face, wants to trace your jawline and know what your skin would feel like against his fingers. He doesn’t realize he’s actually doing it until he hears you inhale shakily.

The expression in your eyes is unreadable, and quickly gone, replaced by an annoyed squint. You grab his wrist gently, setting it back down next to him. “I’m gonna make you some ramen. You need to sober up, and you haven’t had dinner, have you?”

Sunghoon shakes his head. He feels rejected, and it makes him inordinately sad.

For five minutes, he watches as you rummage around his cupboards for a pack of ramen, fill a pot with water and bring it to a boil. His thoughts float back to your day at the beach, memories that he’s preciously held onto for the past few weeks. You running around on the sand, opening yourself up to him and letting him open himself up to you, holding his hand on the bus. That day, he’d really thought it would be the beginning of something new; but as time passed, he became less and less sure of himself. He’s scared it might’ve just been a fluke, and that he’d have to destroy the castle he’d built in his head. He’s seen you almost every day since, but it’s never been the same. And even if your eyes met unexpectedly sometimes, or if you went out of your way to sit next to him during movie nights, he can’t let himself go on with so few signs. Jay was right—he had to be clear about his feelings, otherwise this would go on forever. Even if it didn’t feel like it, the Earth would continue spinning on its axis if you didn’t reciprocate.

“I’ve missed you.”

You pause in your movements. “Missed me? But we’ve seen each other every day,” you say after a few seconds, still facing away from him. Your voice is softer than he’s heard it before, almost unsure of itself.

“No,” Sunghoon whines, frowning. He can barely keep his eyes open—he wishes you could read his mind so he wouldn’t have to explain, but alas. “I miss you—the you from the beach. When it was just me and you. It’s not the same with the others around.”

Silence falls over the room again. Sunghoon wonders if you’re just going to ignore what he said, until you take a deep breath, and walk back to his bed. You crouch in front of him and take both of his hands in yours. Electricity flows from where your hands touch to the rest of his body. He suddenly feels a lot more awake.

“It’s just the two of us now,” you whisper. 

Sunghoon nods. “I know. It’s nice.”

You smile. It might be the alcohol playing tricks on him, but Sunghoon swears there’s a hint of sadness in your eyes. One of your hands comes up to his hair. You thread your fingers gently through it, pushing it away from his forehead, then bring your hand down to the side of his face, your palm cupping it tenderly. Sunghoon lets himself lean into your warm touch. With his eyes closed, the darkness surrounding him makes this feel like a dream—he basks in the moment so as not to let a second of it go to waste.

“Do you wanna do something just us two this week?” you ask softly. His eyes shoot open—he needs to be sure this is really happening. He nods again, fervently this time, and it makes you chuckle. “Okay.”

“Just us two?” 

“Just us two.”

He relaxes once more. He guides your hand towards his mouth and presses his lips against your palm. Something shifts in your eyes—Sunghoon thinks the opportunity to finally kiss you has arisen, but as soon as his gaze drops to your lips, you’re back on your feet. “Let’s eat some ramen, shall we?” you ask as you head back towards the kitchen. Sunghoon tries his best (and probably fails) to not let his disappointment show.

There’s no dining table to speak of, only a low table near Sunghoon’s bed, on which you set down a wooden board and the steaming pot of spicy noodles. You hand him a pair of chopsticks and a spoon, and tell him to eat. Neither of you say much for a while, and Sunghoon grows redder and redder under your watchful gaze. He asks if you want any a few times, but you always turn him down. The silence quickly gets a little too unbearable for him, and he’s got a question burning the tip of his tongue anyway. Now’s as good a time as ever to ask it.

“Something’s been bugging me recently, actually…” You wait for him to go on. “So, at the costume party, right?” You nod. “You said there was only one person you wanted to kiss… Did you mean me?”

You tilt your head, looking at him like you’re trying to figure out whether he’s joking or not. “Yeah, Sunghoon… I meant you. Who else?”

He’s only half-relieved. “So why won’t you kiss me now?”

To his surprise, you smile. “Because you’re drunk.”

Confusion fogs Sunghoon’s brain. Is that all you’re worried about? Is his blood alcohol level the only thing stopping you from kissing him? “But I-I’m fine. I give you consent to kiss me, Y/N.” He’s dead serious, so when you laugh, it only frustrates him further.

“Finish your food, Sunghoon. We’ll see about kissing later.”

He sighs. Later he could deal with. “Fine. But I’ll hold you to it, okay?” he says, pointing a menacing chopstick at you.

“Okay.”

But Sunghoon can’t keep quiet for long—ten seconds later, he’s remembered another question he’s been dying to ask. He continues drinking his soup in an attempt to appear nonchalant. “So what happened between you and Heeseung?”

The question takes you so off-guard, you look like you would’ve done a spit-take had you been drinking water. “That’s-you know about that?”

“Well, not much, that’s why I’m asking.”

You scoff. “Why do you want to know? It’s boring.”

At those words, Sunghoon whips his head up to look at you. “It’s not boring!” he exclaims, perhaps a tad too vigorously. “Anything that has to do with you is interesting to me.”

Finally, the corners of your lips rise. Sunghoon hated the ten seconds in which you weren’t smiling. “Well, there isn’t much to say, anyway. We had a thing when we were in second year, I caught feelings and wanted more, and he didn’t. The end.”

Sunghoon freezes, staring at you with his eyebrows furrowed and his mouth agape. He then sets his cutlery down neatly next to the pot of ramen and clasps his hands together like he’s in a business meeting. “So you’re telling me that he had the opportunity to make you his girlfriend and he just… didn’t?”

You shrug. “Basically, yeah.”

He hits the bedsheets next to him, huffing out in annoyance. “What an idiot.”

“He sure is,” you say. You smile to yourself as you grab Sunghoon’s spoon and try some of the broth. He wonders whether anything lies behind that smile. “But it happened a while ago. Don’t be weird with him on my account. He’s still your captain.”

Sunghoon thinks for a second. “Can I side-eye him once in a while? Or not pass him the puck during practice?”

“Sure,” you reply, laughing. You swiftly move on to other topics as Sunghoon slurps the last of his noodles, asking him about the beginning of the party and just how much his teammates made him drink. He’s recounting the shot contest they held, which Mark won with an impressive seven shots of tequila in a row — Sunghoon hopes the boy is okay now — when your phones buzz at the same time. Minjeong’s name appears on your screen, Jay’s on his, both asking where you are.

“Should we head back now?” you offer, although Sunghoon, wishfully perhaps, detects a trace of reluctance in your voice. “You look like you’ve sobered up a bit, seeing as you’re able to string more than two sentences together.”

“I wasn’t that bad!”

“I should’ve filmed you.”

It’s one a.m. when you head back down, and the party is in full swing. Pop music blasts through someone’s JBL speaker in the shared kitchen, the hallways are more crowded than the subway at rush hour, just as full of hockey fans celebrating their team’s win as students who just wanted an excuse to party, and every window is open to alleviate some of the stuffiness. They probably have another hour left before the dorm residents who decided not to join in the festivities call campus police on them.

Sunghoon is relieved to find that Jake is off with other team members, reaching levels of drunkenness that will most definitely be regretted in the morning. Technically, he hasn’t done anything wrong—he simply let you nurse him back to sobriety after he almost regurgitated his pre-game protein bar and three beers all over your nice shirt. Chaewon and Yunjin are busy making out in a corner, their lack of decorum only increasing when they’ve been drinking, but Jay and Minjeong eye you suspiciously upon seeing the two of you arrive together. You explain what happened so casually that they don’t question it any further.

Chaewon and Yunjin only tear themselves off of each other when a Beyoncé song starts playing, and they drag all four of you to the makeshift dancefloor, which is really just three meters away in the middle of the kitchen. Sunghoon is practically all sobered up by now, but he’s loosened up enough not to feel self-conscious with every step he takes; the fact that you look so happy, dancing with him and laughing at his silly moves, is a considerable bonus. He won’t drink any more, not wanting to risk embarrassing himself further in front of you, and Jay, as the group’s self-proclaimed health guru, probably had his last beer around nine p.m., but the girls, each of them with a cup of suspicious transparent liquid in hand, are getting drunker by the minute—and so is Jake, who has now joined you all on the dancefloor, if his inability to stand straight is anything to go by. Sunghoon assumes you’re also done with alcohol for the night, until you turn to him in the middle of a song no one has heard since 2015 and tell him you’re going to get a drink.

“Okay!” he simply answers, and for a good thirty seconds, basks in the blissful satisfaction of knowing he was the one you informed of your whereabouts. That is, until he realizes a minute later that it was probably a covert invitation for him to come along, which he totally missed. But when he looks over at the counter where all the drinks are, his heart drops—Heeseung is standing in front of you, pouring gin and lemonade into your cup. A flurry of emotions course through Sunghoon, emotions he has no idea what to do with, because he’s not sure they’re entirely warranted. He’s angry that Heeseung is talking to you, after what he did, confused that you’d let him; but mostly, he’s jealous. But he knows it’s only because he has no guarantee that you like him, and that you won’t go off with Heeseung, despite having just talked about how you were over him.

Wait—is that really what you said? You told Sunghoon that what happened with Heeseung didn’t bother you anymore, which doesn’t necessarily mean you wouldn’t go back to him, given the chance. 

Before he can think it over a second time, Sunghoon heads over to where you and Heeseung stand. He places himself right behind you, reaching for a bottle of Coke on your side and pouring himself a drink.

“Oh, hey, Hoon,” his team captain says, clearly surprised to see him there and looking so discontented. Sunghoon can’t remember whether they’ve ever been close enough for Heeseung to call him by his nickname. “Having fun?”

“Yep,” he curtly replies, avoiding eye contact with either of you and looking out at the crowd of party-goers instead. He can feel your gaze, heavy on his face, can see the knowing smirk slowly rising on your lips. How was it that you could see right through him so easily?

“Too much dancing made you thirsty?” you ask, taking a drink from your cup and hiding your smile behind it.

He glares at you, more annoyed that his attempt at subtly sussing out what you and Heeseung were doing together was shut down so quickly than anything else. “Yep,” he repeats.

“You guys know each other?” the older boy asks, eyes darting between the two of you.

“Jake introduced us,” Sunghoon quickly answers. To his surprise, this makes Heeseung chuckle.

“Jay, Sunghoon, me… Wow, do you meet all your friends through your brother, Y/N?” he asks jokingly. Immediately, so many alarm bells ring in Sunghoon’s head—the implication that you and Heeseung are friends, the fact that he put himself and Sunghoon in the same bag, and above all, that teasing, almost flirtatious tone of his. 

He’s horrified to find you rolling your eyes playfully and saying, “I have other friends, thanks,” in a tone far too similar. At that moment, Minjeong starts yelling about how much she loves everyone in this room but particularly “you guys,” pointing to Jake, Jay, Minjeong and Chaewon, and “you guys, too!” screaming over the music as she points to you and Sunghoon.

“There’s one of them,” you say, half-amused, half-exasperated. “We should probably go check on her. See you around, Heeseung.”

“Right. See you, Y/N. Sunghoon.” 

Back to no-nickname basis, apparently.

Your group’s indicator of when it’s time to go home is when Minjeong starts one of her “I-love-my-friends-so-much” rants—if she’s that drunk, everyone else must be wasted. Indeed, Chaewon and Yunjin are holding onto each other to keep themselves from falling down, and Jake is unable to keep his head up. You, Sunghoon and Jay herd your friends outside and wait for Jake’s Uber, making sure to get him safely inside and to tip the driver generously for his pains. Jay lives nearby yours and the girls’ flat, and Sunghoon, ever the gentleman, walks you all home.

“Just ‘cause you and Jay might need a hand getting these three home,” he tells you. Yunjin, Chaewon and Minjeong are currently running around on the road, pointing and laughing at random shop names, and Jay is yelling at them to get back on the sidewalk.

“Mh-hm.”

“And it’ll be good to completely sober up before going to bed.”

“Right.”

There’s no use putting up a front with you—he’s an open book and you’re an avid reader. You don’t need to say anything to make it clear that you know it’s just an excuse to spend more time with you.

“You know, I told you not to be weird with Heeseung,” you say, gently punching him in the arm.

“Was I weird?” he asks, knowing fully well he hadn’t acted at all like he usually did around his captain. 

“You basically only spoke to let Heeseung know we’re friends. You were making yourself all tall and looking mysteriously out into the distance instead of at us.”

“But I am tall and mysterious,” he says, pride coursing through him as it always does when you laugh at one of his jokes.

“You’re probably the least mysterious person I know, Hoon.”

Hoon. How much sweeter that name sounds coming from you over anyone else.

“So you agree that I’m tall?”

You roll your eyes, but there’s a grin on your face. A win is a win. “That’s just a fact.”

Sunghoon smiles victoriously. “I’ll take a fact. But I’m sorry if I was acting weird… I just wanted to make sure he wasn’t bothering you.”

“Heeseung is always bothering me,” you say with a sigh. “He comes up to me like this at every party. He’s just asking how I’ve been, but it’s like he’s sussing out whether or not he’s still got a chance.”

“Do you need me to beat him up? Threaten him? Dox him?”

Even though Sunghoon was only half-joking, you burst out laughing, hard enough for Minjeong to whip around and shout, “What are you laughing about?” as if you had offended her personally. At least Jay is there to make her turn around and focus on walking straight.

“I appreciate the offer, but that won’t be needed. I just don’t like talking about it, ‘cause it’s really not that big a deal anymore. It feels like digging up old bones, you know?”

Sunghoon shrugs. “I’d commit grave robbery with you.”

“You-what?”

“Nevermind. We obviously don’t have to talk about it, but I’m curious.”

You sigh. “I guess it’d make sense for you to know about this.” Sunghoon thinks he sees something like panic flash across your features, but it’s so quick and such a rare expression on you that he’s not sure whether he just imagined it. “You know-just ‘cause everyone else is aware of it, and everything,” you quickly explain.

“Sure.”

“I just… I’m sure Heeseung is a nice guy when it comes to other things, but what the girls and I have concluded is that he’s a bit of an attention whore, you know. When it comes to girls. We fooled around for a while, and he never made it official, even when I made it pretty clear that that was what I wanted. But every time we saw each other after that, he’d flirt with me like nothing had happened. I fell for it at first and flirted back, thinking he had changed his mind… but he really just wanted to make sure I was still into him.”

“Looking for validation,” Sunghoon says.

“Exactly. And when I realized that, I stopped giving it to him. I was getting tired of him anyway, saying the same thing every time. But now, I entertain him for a couple of minutes before I walk away. I shut him down before he gets a chance to do it to me.”

“That’s smart.”

“I know,” you say, smiling. “I understand the need for validation, but he won’t be getting any from me.”

Jay bravely handles the three drunkards the whole way home, letting you and Sunghoon hang behind and carry on talking. You reach the boy’s apartment first, and yours five minutes later. But when you reach your front door, Minjeong announces she needs to talk to Sunghoon. “Privately,” she emphasizes.

You give Sunghoon an amused look and shrug as if to say “She’s your problem now.” He doesn’t have time to protest before you’ve bid him goodnight and disappeared behind the door, Yunjin and Chaewon in tow, yelling good night at Sunghoon like they’re not going to see him for months. 

Minjeong places her palms flat onto Sunghoon’s torso and looks right at him—to the best of her ability, at least, considering she’s having a hard time focusing her eyes. “Sunghoon,” she says gravely.

“Minjeong?”

“Listen, there’s something I’ve been wanting to tell you,” she says, slurring her words. “You know I love Y/N, she’s amazing…”

“Yeah, she is,” Sunghoon says firmly—already, he can tell where this is going, and he doesn’t like it.

“But she’s not the best with relationships.”

“What do you mean?”

Minjeong’s hands drop by her sides and she exhales deeply. “I’ve just never seen her in a committed relationship in the-in the almost four years I’ve known her. She never lets things get serious. She’s just so afraid of being hurt, Hoon, and I-” 

A hiccup escapes Minjeong’s lips as tears start pooling in her eyes. Sunghoon has only ever seen Minjeong cry when drunk—even movies that had him sobbing barely made her eyes water. Even if she isn’t in her right state of mind, he knows it means this must be important to her. He holds her arms and tries to put on the most reassuring tone he can. “But I wouldn’t hurt her.”

“No, I know that. I’m scared you’d get hurt. I don’t want things to become weird between all of us.”

Sunghoon shakes his head. “Minjeong, what-that wouldn’t happen.”

“But it will!” she exclaimed. “If something happens with you and her, and it doesn’t work out the way you want it to, it’ll make things awkward-”

“If that happens,” he interrupts, “I’ll deal with it. I won’t make it your guys’ problem. Y/N and I are adults, okay?”

“You’re like, nineteen…”

“Yeah, whatever. Don’t worry about it, okay? It’ll be fine.” He takes a step back and opens the door for her to get in. 

She’s only on the first stair when she turns back around. “But, Hoon-” she tries, though he cuts her off.

“Minjeong, I promise-”

“Just don’t rush into anything, okay?”

“Okay.”

“And don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“Go inside.” 

She complies, giving him one last look before climbing the stairs to her apartment. Sunghoon closes the door behind her, a heavy sigh leaving his lips.

--

Sunghoon is on his way home from hockey practice when his phone buzzes with a text from you.

yn are you still up for doing something this week?

He almost throws his phone in the air in celebration, as if it was a graduation cap. His Sunday was spent going back-and-forth between lapidating himself for his drunken stupidity, memories, rough as stones, hitting him in the face every time he thought of what he said and how he acted, and congratulating himself for having finally made his feelings for you somewhat clearer. Hopefully, you now know he isn’t just awkward and silent around new people—well, he is, but it’s worse with you.

She never lets things get serious.

Minjeong’s warnings echo in his head as he types a positive — although not over-enthusiastic, ‘cause that’d be uncool — answer, but he dismisses them easily. Perhaps he shouldn’t; Sunghoon is, after all, incredibly serious about any and all romantic encounters. The girl at the grocery store who reached for the same red bell pepper as him was the most serious thing to him in the world for a good ten minutes; all of his school crushes were of utmost importance to him, however long they had lasted.

So this? This is capital-s Serious. But therein lies the problem; he’s so serious about you that he’d let you not make it serious. If Minjeong is right, and you’re not planning on taking this nearly as far as he wishes for it to go, he can already tell he’ll just let you. He’ll probably be happy you wanted anything to do with him at all. 

He has ways of reassuring himself, of convincing himself he isn’t a totally lost cause. Because when Sunghoon falls in love — and he had an inkling this was what this was — it usually goes as quickly as it came. Who’s to say this time next week he won’t have completely moved on? Maybe this date that he’s agreed to will go horribly wrong, you’ll be rude to the waiter, you’ll spill tomato sauce all over your shirt, and the flame in his heart will be put out. Easy as that.

You decide to meet on Wednesday evening, two days from now. Sunghoon suggests a Japanese restaurant he likes, a place he had gone to with his mom and sister when they had dropped him off at university before his first year, and that he knows is nice enough for a date but won’t burn a hole through his wallet.

Seeing you at the library the day before is a real thrill. Nobody but you knows of your plans—at least not until he caves in and tells Jay about it, who congratulates him with a roll of his eyes and a pat on the head. All of your eye contact feels loaded with the kind of complicity that comes with sharing a secret. As much as he would love boasting about it to every soul who’d listen, this secrecy electrifies him—it binds the two of you with something much more real than before. At least, more real than Sunghoon’s imagination and one-sided feelings. He knows that your text wasn’t in any way a confession of your own feelings for him, but it’s a step in the right direction.

In the few hours before your reservation at seven p.m., Sunghoon spends so much time thinking about the date that he’s almost late for it. He thinks about his expectations, then tries to get rid of them; he comes up with ideas of what your expectations might be, remembers Minjeong’s words, dismisses them, remembers them again; he goes through scenarios upon scenarios of everything that might go wrong and everything that might go spectacularly well. He ends up with less than twenty minutes to get ready, but manages to arrive at the restaurant a minute before you.

When he sees you approaching, Sunghoon feels like one of those boys in Disney movies as they watch their girlfriend coming down the stairs in her prom dress. You’re not wearing an over-the-top poofy purple dress, but the effect is the same—his eyes are glued on you with every step you take towards him.

You grab him by the arm and lead him into the restaurant as soon as you reach him. He’s too busy taking in your appearance to be bothered by it. “Don’t look at me like that,” you chide as you wait for waiting staff to seat you. He’d actually think you were mad at him if it wasn’t for the small smile playing on your lips.

“Like what?”

“Like what you’re doing right now! You’re staring.”

Realization slowly dawns on him; your gazes have made him lose his composure too many times for him not to know what being flustered looks like. He’d be lying if the fact that it was you in this tight spot and not him didn’t heavily stroke his ego. 

“Why wouldn’t I? You look beautiful,” he says, dropping his voice to a whisper so that the approaching waitress can’t hear. Her presence saves you from responding verbally, but as she brings you to your table, you pinch his arm lightly as if to say Be on your best behavior—although Sunghoon would argue this was his best behavior.

You have trouble making up your mind about the food—you want to try everything on the menu. Sunghoon tentatively offers to order a bunch of dishes and share them. “It’s what my family always does at the restaurant, just try as much as you want and take the leftovers to go. We never ate out very often because my mom would spend so much money every time,” he recollects, smiling fondly.

“That actually sounds like a dream. My parents would never do that. It was always just eat what you got, but I’m unable to look at someone else’s food and not want to try it. It honestly should just be common practice to share dishes at the restaurant.”

Sunghoon thinks he could get down on one knee right then and there. Whenever they went out to eat, the boys would roll his eyes at him when he stole bites of their food. But you—you’re like him. He knows he’s prone to over-exaggeration, but he can’t help but feel like if you understand each other on this, you must understand each other at a molecular level.

He had expected a level of awkwardness to your date, at least at the beginning — God knows the moments in which he doesn’t feel like a mumbling fool in front of you are few and far between — but to his surprise, everything goes smoothly. There is no uncomfortable silence, all his jokes miraculously land, even the lousy ones, and you both laugh and talk and share sushi and pork cutlets like it’s the most natural thing in the world, which perhaps it is. His attempts at flirting are well-received and he only turns violently red twice when you compliment him and smile at him in a particularly pretty way.

It’s that day at the beach all over again. Always on the same page, you dip in and out of topics with a synergy he has rarely felt before. Sunghoon realizes it must be the presence of others, rather than you yourself, that makes him feel like he can’t act the way he wants to around you, makes him so nervous. Save for the moments where you make his heart flutter like a thousand butterflies’ wings, he actually feels quite at ease with you, all things considered. Of course, he still tries — and fails — to look cool for you, but he knows it comes from a place within himself rather than because you make him feel as though he has to meet a certain standard. Surprisingly, he can be totally himself, and it seems to be enough for you.

He loves his friends. He wouldn’t trade them for the world. But he’s not sure he won’t have moments where he’ll wish nothing more than for them all to go away and leave the two of you be.

You eat until you can’t anymore and are still left with enough food for another full meal. You only let him get the bill once he’s promised that next time will be on you. If it means there’ll be a next time, he’s more than happy with making that promise. The sun has set when you exit the restaurant. Sunghoon shivers as he steps outside, the temperature having gone down by at least four degrees in the last two hours.

You grab his hand; it warms him right up.

Your apartment is a thirty-minute bus ride away, but Sunghoon offers to walk you home. Anything to spend more time with you.

He spends the first few minutes of the walk worrying about his hand, whether it’s too clammy, whether it’s holding yours right, but he eventually relaxes into the touch. When a particularly chilly gust of wind blows, you drop his hand and hold onto his arm instead, inching closer to him for more warmth.  He only drank lemonade with his meal, but he feels blissfully light-headed.

Silence only arrives when you reach your doorstep. You stand in front of each other, Sunghoon looking down at his feet, you gazing out at the empty street. He knows this is the moment where he is supposed to kiss you. If there was a step-by-step guide on how to date — there probably is, but Sunghoon hasn’t resorted to such loser-like measures yet — this would probably be the moment where it would be written to just kiss her, you idiot. But nerves get the best of him.

At least, you’re there to save the day. You direct your gaze towards him, a bashful smile playing on your lips. “So… are you gonna kiss me now?” you ask, essentially reading his mind. 

He reacts immediately. “Y-yep. Yes. I am.” Heart racing, he takes a step towards you as he rests his hands on your waist. Then he changes his mind, and brings one hand up to your cheek. There’s an eyelash that has fallen below your eye; he brushes it out of the way with his thumb before leaning in and pressing his lips against yours.

In all of his late-night scenarios and daydreams of kissing you, he had never imagined something as good as this. You find your rhythm within seconds. It’s slow, almost hesitant, yet so tender, it makes Sunghoon’s heart ache. As your lips move against each other in perfect sync, as your hands find their way around Sunghoon’s neck, he realizes he should have known — this will not go away as quickly as it came.

Only when you grab a fistful of his hair, making him react viscerally and wrap his arm around your waist to bring you closer to him, does he remember where the two of you are. He leans back, then almost passes out when you chase his lips and press a shorter but just as sweet kiss there. He commits this view to memory—the smile on your lips, the glow on your face, the haziness in your eyes.

“Do you wanna come up?”

“Yes,” he replies immediately, and it makes you laugh. You grab his hand and lead him up the stairs and into your apartment.

“Are the girls in?” he asks as you lock the front door.

“Minjeong is at karaoke with her school friends, and Yunjin and Chaewon are at a dinner party somewhere.”

“Minjeong karaokes?”

“Get enough G&Ts in her and she’ll do anything.”

You turn on a small lamp in your room and take off your jacket. Sunghoon has been in your apartment before, but never in your room—at some point, he’ll spend an hour observing every photograph and trinket in detail, asking you about every backstory, but right now, he’s got more important things to tend to. His heart beats uncontrollably as you shut the door to your room and walk towards him, eyes gazing deeply into his. The corners of your lips rise when you tug at the bottom of his sweatshirt, a clear indicator that you want it off. He wastes no time in obliging.

The air is buzzing with electricity when your lips find each other again. You’re both more confident this time around, and so the kiss is deeper, your touches bolder. Everything happens quickly—one second, you’re standing in the middle of your room; the next, you’re laying on your bed, Sunghoon underneath you. 

“You know,” he says between kisses, “I’d really planned on being a gentleman and not going up to your room after the first date…”

Your lips move from his lips to his jawline, warm and soft against his skin. Sunghoon closes his eyes and lets out a low hum of approval. “I’m glad you changed your mind,” you whisper, lips brushing against his neck as you speak. “And since we’re onto confessions, I can finally say I’ve been wanting to do this since we met.”

This information sends his mind reeling. Not once had he been sure of how you felt about him — he even remembers you saying no to a kiss — and here you are, saying you’ve been wanting to kiss him since the beginning, just like he had. 

“You’re me,” he replies breathlessly.

“Hm?”

“I mean, me too.”

You pause your kisses to giggle, a sound so soft and intimate it has Sunghoon melting impossibly more. “You’re me?”

Unfortunately, he is too preoccupied by you to put a filter between the weird, half-formed thoughts in his brain and the words that leave his mouth. “Don’t question it,” he says, a smile audible in his voice, before moving his head and catching your lips. If he couldn’t stop himself from saying odd things, he could at least distract you from them.

Sunghoon thinks he’s doing a good job keeping himself together, until you roll your hips against his. It’s barely anything, but it sends waves of pleasure and anticipation through his body. His grip on your waist tightens, and when you repeat the motion, his hands sneakily find their way down your back and under your dress. Palms splayed against your ass, he brings you down closer to him. The second you moan into the kiss, he’s a goner. 

After that, it doesn’t take long for clothes to be discarded or for curious fingers to find the other’s waistbands. Your movements are hasty, messy—the tension that had built up over weeks of pining for you, after getting close to kissing you twice and thinking about it a hundred times more, it all comes crashing down in this moment, as his teeth sink into the flesh of your neck, as your hands pull at strands of his hair, as your bodies gently bump into each other. If someone asked Sunghoon right now how long he’d known you, he’d say years, not mere weeks. It couldn’t possibly be real that this much desire had accumulated inside of him — and inside of you, if your broken moans and rapid breathing are anything to go by — in just over a month. 

He only slows down when he has you naked and heaving underneath him, reminding himself to savor the moment instead of rushing it. His fingertips graze down your sides until they reach between your thighs, and he marvels at the way his touch makes you shiver. His eyes are so wide with amazement at the sight of you that he probably looks like he’s never seen a woman before, but he can’t help himself—he always thought you were beautiful, but this is something else entirely. 

His first touch is hesitant, a slow upward motion of his thumb between your folds as if quite literally testing the waters. But it has you arching your back and gripping his bicep, meeting his eyes to silently plead for more. Sunghoon takes that as his green light, thumb circling your clit as his lips continue their work on your neck, on your face, everywhere they can reach. He slips a finger inside of you, then a second one, and when he is satisfied with the state he’s gotten you in, all disheveled and gasping for air, he replaces his fingers with his dick, rock-hard just from seeing and hearing you.

He slowly inches forward until he’s bottomed out, letting you adjust around him. “All good?” he whispers, lips moving against the shell of your ear.

“Never better,” you whisper back, smiling. You kiss him, and the tenderness of your lips on his, mixed with the feeling of being inside you, has Sunghoon’s heart constricting inside his chest. He starts rocking his hips back-and-forth into you, the side of his face is pressed up against yours, head light from the little oxygen the two of you share. It all feels oddly intimate for a first time, feels more like the kind of sex two people would have after years of knowing each other’s bodies. He moves like it’s second nature, thrusts deep and slow, trying to reach those spots that have your hands clawing at his back. He wraps an arm around your waist, pulling you closer to him, using his free hand to push the hair that sticks to your face with sweat.

You wrap your legs higher around his hips, the shift in angle letting him go deeper. “Fuck, right there,” you say, voice strangled. Sunghoon doesn’t need to be told twice—he picks up his pace, and already within a minute, starts to feel himself reaching his limit. He tries to muffle his groans against your skin, but with the way your hold on him tightens and your moans go higher in pitch, you seem to be just as close as he is. When you do come undone around him, breath hitching in your throat before you release a heavy sigh, he has mere seconds left in him. A few thrusts later, his orgasm finally releases him from the tension that had been twisting his stomach into a knot for the past half-hour. You’re both spent, but he continues lazily rocking his hips against yours chasing the last remnants of pleasure, wanting to bask in it just a bit longer. He rolls onto his back after sliding out, wrapping his arms around you. You bury your face in the crook of his neck.

His chest rises and falls as his breathing takes its time returning to normal. In a way, he’s almost relieved it’s over, like any longer would’ve actually taken too much of a toll on him. He likes the comfort he gets from having you in his arms as much as the sex itself. “I didn’t know it could feel this good,” he says, the words spilling out of his mouth before he can stop them. He needs more than a few minutes to get his head back on straight and start thinking before he speaks again. You chuckle airily, he chuckles too, and within seconds, you’re both laughing for seemingly no reason. The bliss of such an intense orgasm and the lack of oxygen must have gone to your brain, too.

“Me either,” you say once the laughter dies down. When your lips find his once more, Sunghoon forgets entirely about his exhaustion and feels like he could go for a second round. “Shower?” you ask right when he realizes how sticky and smelly he is.

“Yes, please.”

He can’t keep his hands off of you in the shower, rubbing soap on every square inch of your skin when you could do it perfectly fine yourself, kissing you even when you’ve both got foaming cleanser on your faces. The taste of soap in his mouth is worth the giggles he gets out of you.

Sunghoon reaches heaven when you drop to your knees in front of him, water rushing down his back as you take him in your mouth. He’s eager to return the favor, of course, thumb flicking your clit with a speed and dexterity even he didn’t know he was capable of. If you weren’t already in the shower, you’d have needed another one.

As soon as your bodies hit the mattress, you both drift off to sleep, limbs wrapping around each other as though they had been separated for too long and finally found each other again—not to let go again.

--

When Sunghoon wakes up, it takes him a few seconds to realize that he hadn’t dreamt up last night’s events. He reaches a hand out hesitantly, still half-asleep and scared that you’ll disappear into thin air at the touch of his fingertips. But no—he feels your skin, warm and soft, and he knows this is real.

You’re laying on your side, facing away from him, so he has to strain his neck to peek at your face. You look so peaceful as you sleep—he doesn’t want to wake you up, but he can’t stop himself from wrapping an arm around your waist and pressing his torso against your back, humming contentedly to himself. He presses a soft, quiet kiss to the top of your head, just because he can.

Outside, clouds part, and a bright ray of sun shines through the window, landing right on your face. Sunghoon watches as you grumble and turn around, burying your face in his chest to avoid the blinding light, but the damage is done—you’re awake. He can tell from the drawled-out whine you let out and the way you grab tightly onto his waist, as if it was his fault the sun had decided to shine right on you. 

He lets you settle in a comfortable position. Stays still as you hike your leg over his legs, then slip it between them instead; as you press your cheek against his chest, then bury your nose in his neck; as you wrap your arm around his waist, then move it to thread your fingers through his hair, until you give up on falling back asleep altogether. “It’s so bright in here,” you mumble in lieu of a good-morning greeting.

You can’t see him, so Sunghoon smiles and tightens his grip around you—one arm circling your shoulders, the other, your waist. Skin to skin. “We forgot to close the blinds yesterday.”

“It’s okay,” you say, sighing. You press a kiss to the base of his neck, right between his collarbones, then lift your face to look at him. “How are you feeling?”

This is what it feels like to wake up next to her, Sunghoon thinks. He’d thought about it so many times: what you would look like first thing in the morning, what you’d say to him, what it’d feel like when your eyes met. If you’d be a slow sort of morning person, cuddling in bed with him until the very last possible second, or if you’d be up and about as soon as you woke up. If you’d be grumpy. If you’d want coffee. If you liked morning sex. 

It seems to be a recurring theme that Sunghoon’s imagination never quite lives up to reality. Your sleepy eyes boring into his, struggling to stay open, your fingers playing with the hair at the nape of his neck; your skin, so warm and so soft, your scent, so intoxicating he can barely think straight.

You’re better than a dream.

“I feel great. Do you feel great?”

“I feel amazing, thank you so much for asking,” you say, burrowing yourself impossibly closer to him.

The two of you stay like this for a while, talking about your plans for the day and begrudging how little you want to go about them. Sunghoon wishes this could go on forever, but then his stomach growls so loudly, his face turns red from embarrassment. He hadn’t even noticed how hungry he was. 

“You’re me,” you say, laughing, and Sunghoon can’t help but join in. “Is it crazy to have last night’s leftovers for breakfast?”

What Sunghoon hears is that you want him to stay; that you don’t want to part ways just yet.

“If by crazy you mean the best idea ever, then yes.”

“Amazing, because I’ve been thinking about that curry all night.”

“Really? I was thinking about something else,” he says, burrowing his face in your neck and leaving warm kisses there. 

You hum and lean into his touches, leaning into his touches. Chills run down his spine as your nails graze his sides. “There might’ve been other things occupying my mind, too.”

And just like that, breakfast is postponed to thirty minutes later.

--

After that night, Sunghoon forgets how to act right.

His mind has never been so singularly taken up by sex in all of his life. It was already preoccupied with you most of the time, but now that it has more material to gnaw on, it’s practically started to eat away at him. It doesn’t help that you’ve seen each other every day since, or that at every chance you get, you smile knowingly at him or try to get him to play footsies with you. Of course, he loves every bit of attention that he gets from you, but whenever he feels his heart get carried away, Minjeong’s words come back to him in a panic, and he remembers that he has no idea what it is that’s happening between you and him. You could be stringing him along, for all he knows, or you could be as into him as he is into you and just letting things happen. Unfortunately, just letting things happen was not something Sunghoon was good at—if things weren’t written black and white, he’d find a way to overthink even the littlest of details. Like how you’d kissed him for a good five minutes before letting him leave your apartment, otherwise known as the least platonic parting to exist, or conversely, like how you’d sometimes take hours to reply to texts.

If he was already a mumbling fool in front of you before, his condition has only worsened now. He tries his best to be normal and not make you or anyone in the group feel weird, but the fact is that you rocked his world and now he can’t look you in the eyes and not remember how it felt when you touched him or the sounds you made or the way you looked. It’s all playing in a loop in his mind and the only way he knows how to control it is by limiting his interactions with you, which doesn’t even work that well. 

The first couple days, you seem amused by his shyer-than-usual demeanor, but you quickly grow confused more than anything. Sunghoon won’t sit next to you, only speaks to you when necessary, doesn’t seek you out outside of a group setting. He tells himself he just needs some more time to be able to be around you casually again, but before that happens, one day at the library, you make a point to ask him if he’ll come help you get drinks for everyone from the dispenser machine. He knows it’d be too odd to say no, so he follows you.

He presses the buttons for everyone’s order (a Sprite for him, Diet Cokes for the girls, a Red Bull for Jake who has a midterm tomorrow and nothing for Jay who only swears by his disgusting herbal infusion) as you lean against the machine, arms crossed over your chest as you stare at him.

He has never felt so awkward in his life.

“So…” he starts although he has no idea what to say—he hopes something will just appear in his mind and that it’ll alleviate the tension. However, you seem to have other plans.

“What the hell, Sunghoon?” you say, taking him aback. When he glances at you, you don’t seem angry—just genuinely confused. “You’ve been avoiding me like the plague.”

“I haven’t!”

“Sunghoon,” you say sternly. He gives in right away.

“Okay, I’m sorry. I just-I didn’t know what to do. After we, you know…”

“After we had sex?” you say, then burst into laughter when he looks around the room to make sure no one’s heard. His cheeks heat up.

“Yes, after we had sex,” he whispers.

He pays for the drinks and picks them up. When he looks at you again, your smile has completely died down, and worry has settled into your features. “Do you regret it?” you ask, voice now as low as his. As if it hurts to say the words too loud.

Panic overcomes him, and he almost drops half of the drinks as he shakes his head. “No, of course not! I’m really sorry, Y/N, I never meant to be weird about it, I was just trying to wrap my head around everything, and I just… Well, I just didn’t know what to do. I’m sorry.”

You nod, taking his words in. “That’s fine. I get it. I just wanted to say, you know, it doesn’t have to change anything. We can still be friends and all. Like you said, it shouldn’t make things weird.”

Sunghoon’s stomach drops. He knows you’re trying to make him feel better, but you’ve inadvertently said the exact opposite of what he wanted to hear. He doesn’t want things to stay the same, or for you to stay friends. For him, things can’t go back to normal after that night — whatever normal means for the two of you — and he was foolishly hoping that you felt the same.

But clearly, you want to let the whole thing die and pretend like it never happened. And whether it’s a good thing or not, his feelings for you have grown so much, he’ll just let you lead him anywhere. Even if that turns out to be nowhere. 

So he conjures up the most convincing smile he can, hands you half of the drinks to carry, and says, “Yeah, sounds good.”

--

After that conversation, Sunghoon doesn’t think anything else will happen between the two of you. You had sex, you talked it out, and that’s the end of it. But then, it turns out that both of your last midterms are at the same time, in the same building, so you invite him to celebrate with pork belly and some drinks. Sunghoon is finishing his second beer when he starts to feel like he’s on that date again, laughing for no reason, butterflies in his stomach every time his gaze catches yours. You lean on your hand as you listen to him talk about a stupid memory from his childhood and he thinks he’s never seen anyone as pretty as you. 

The sun has long set when you say, “You know, it’s Wednesday today.”

He’s not sure what you’re trying to get at. “Yeah?”

“Minjeong’s out at karaoke tonight.”

With these simple words, all the images of you that Sunghoon had finally managed to banish from his mind come flooding back, and he is not even surprised to find himself half-naked in your bed thirty minutes later. So much for staying friends—one time is one thing, but Sunghoon knows he’ll never be normal again after a second time with you.

It’s not a long time before he finds himself in your room again. Every item of clothing between the two of you is gradually discarded while you kiss, lips growing more impatient with every inch of bare skin uncovered. He reluctantly lets you go when you suddenly giggle and say that you really need to pee, watching as you grab his t-shirt off the floor and put it on, just in case Minjeong comes home. You wear it like it’s yours, like it’s the most natural thing in the world that you’d be wearing his clothes. An indescribable feeling washes over Sunghoon at the sight, so intense he feels tears welling behind his eyes. Like something he’s been yearning for is finally at the grasp of his fingers; like it might slip away at any moment. 

His feelings must’ve transpired in the way he was looking at you—when you meet his eyes, your expression shifts slightly, and you quickly slip out of your room. He tells himself to reel it in. Get it together, he thinks. Or you’ll drive her away. 

A wave of tiredness hits him in the minute that you’re gone, probably due to all that soju and beer. “I’m back,” you whisper, but he doesn’t move, only opens his arms wide for you to get back into bed with him. It’s like a weight is lifted off his heart when he feels you against him again. You’re back. Your face is fresh, as if you’d splashed it with cold water, but when he slips one of his hands underneath your (his) t-shirt, your skin is still just as warm as before. Far from the fuzzy, tingly feeling he had gotten when you’d woken up together the other morning, now, he feels his desire for you deep in the pit of his stomach. The kind of hunger food couldn’t satisfy. “I missed you,” he whispers, voice low and gravelly. He reacts immediately when you squirm against him, tightening his grip around your waist and pulling you to him.

“I was gone two minutes.”

“I mean these past few days. I was starting to think I’d dreamt you up.” His hand on your lower back sneaks its way up between your bodies until it finds your breasts, cupping one of them with his palm before taking your nipple between his thumb and index, gently twisting. It pulls a half-gasp, half-moan from your throat, and the sound goes straight to his dick. “But you’re real, aren’t you?” 

“Very real,” you reply, a tremor in your voice. He’s barely touching you, and you’re already having trouble breathing. Sunghoon smiles at the idea of him having as much of a hold on you as you do on him.

“Good,” he says, voice so low it’s almost a growl. In one quick sweep, he pushes you down so your back is against the mattress, resting his palms on each side of your head.

He’s inside you within mere minutes. He’d wanted to hold back a bit, but you whispering Just put it in after thirty seconds of his fingers loosening you up was enough to convince him. His mind is already fuzzy with remnants of alcohol, and his overwhelming desire for you only makes matters worse. He barely has any control over his movements, rushed and sloppy, but as he drives himself deeper into you, your moans increase in volume. He only later realizes how tight his grip on your hips is when he sees two small bruises forming on the skin there. 

He comes quickly, probably embarrassingly so, but he can’t bring himself to care—he’s got other things on his mind. He’s not even bothered to discard the condom as he makes his way down your body, lips around your clit before you’ve even had the time to register what was happening. You cry out, a sound that Sunghoon works to pry out of you over and over again. Even when your thighs start shaking and you squirm away from him, he doesn’t relent. He’s just as desperate to make you feel good as he was desperate chasing his own pleasure earlier. He hooks his arms around your thighs, bringing you down to him and ensuring that you can’t get away. One hand still in his hair, the other clutching the bed sheets, you’ve turned your face sideways into the pillow so that your moans come out muffled. He is only satisfied when you’ve reached your second orgasm. 

As your breath slowly returns to normal, Sunghoon makes his way back up your body, leaving a trail of kisses in his wake. You clear your throat of its dryness and burst into soft, quiet laughter. “What’s funny?” Sunghoon murmurs, lips against your neck. 

“Nothing,” you say, still laughing. “That was just really, really nice.”

Sunghoon smiles. “I’m glad,” he says before kissing you, lips moving slowly against yours.

As he lays against you, the top of his head under your chin and your fingernails grazing along his back, a weird feeling overcomes him. Sunghoon is usually a pine-from-afar sort of guy, with at least five instances of hanging out that could or could not be a date before making things any sort of official. The pining has been a constant with all of his crushes. He’s gotten to the hanging out stage a couple of times, but the officialising has only happened once. Despite its low success rate, it’s a cycle Sunghoon feels comfortable with, and he’d imagined the rest of his romantic encounters would follow that pattern. 

But this is completely different. Of the three times you guys have met separately from your friend group, already two times have included sex. This isn’t a stage Sunghoon usually reaches before at least a few months and it disorientates him. What does it mean? That you like him so much, you decided to skip all of the steps and jump straight into the thick of it? He is reasonable enough not to delude himself into such a thought. He likes you a lot—that much he can be sure of. He’s liked you since the moment he laid eyes on you, even if the reason eludes him. Something in the way you smiled at him, the way you took him in stride as if you’d known him forever. When he thinks back to that party, he can’t believe it started out as the two of you being strangers. Even now, feeling your warm skin against his, it feels like a lie that just two months ago he hadn’t even met you. 

What he can’t say with total certainty is that you like him the same amount. Or that you like him any amount, really, although in his naivety he doesn’t understand how anyone could be this intimate with another person without liking them at least a little bit. And he doesn’t just mean the sex. He means this. The silently laying in each other’s arms, the soft kisses, the caresses wherever hands can reach. Eating post-sex snacks together, laughing as you watch the first episode of each other’s favorite sitcoms (Brooklyn Nine-Nine for him, Pen15, oddly enough, for you). Falling asleep together, cuddling the entire night then waking up and diving right back into each other’s embrace. 

After an entire day spent in rumination, Sunghoon’s still not sure what to make of it all.

All he knows is that when he DMs you that night, asking you how your day went, he goes through every emotion between anxiety, self-hatred and indifference in the five minutes that separate his text from your reply. He’s never been so happy to hear that someone couldn’t concentrate in class because of him.

--

Sunghoon has always been obsessed with the way couples stand together in public. 

Every time, it takes everything in him not to stare, because he wants to take in every little thing they do. He has that practically everywhere he goes, wanting to stare at people just to see what their deal is, but he is never quite as simultaneously fascinated and envious as when he spots a couple. But he knows staring isn’t the socially appropriate thing to do, so he either steals glances or watches for a little bit then pretends they aren’t there. He can’t help himself—even if they aren’t holding hands or obnoxiously making out in public, it’s still visible to anyone with eyes that there is something tying these people together. It’s in the way they stand near each other, their bodies turned inwardly, as though enveloped by a bubble containing just the two of them and no one else; in the way they look at each other, their eyes never straying from the other’s face as they talk, intimacy showing itself even in a loud, crowded room. Sunghoon craves to find that proximity, to be able to touch and be touched so softly, every graze of a hand purposeful and unconscious at the same time.

It’s the first of November already. The Weather app, as it tends to do, has deceived you; so instead of a walk on what was supposed to be a sunny day, you find yourselves in a busy café near the University, the air outside too chilly even with your scarves and gloves. You’re waiting for your order at the end of the counter — a mocha for him, an oat flat white for you — when he notices it. Your body is fully facing him, you’re distractedly playing with the hem of his sweatshirt, and you’re not looking at anything but him as you rant about that annoying classmate of yours that goes by a self-made nickname and always talks over the tutor. In this light, the two of you are like the couples he’s always longed to be—the simple thought makes him want to cry. As more and more often is the case these days, you have no idea what you’re doing to him.

It’s been around two months since you first met and in that time, although Sunghoon is lucky not to have enough fingers to count the number of times you have seen each other one-on-one, not much has happened. Minjeong, who had understood what was going on the first time she saw the two of you eating leftovers from the Japanese restaurant on the couch at 10 a.m., has grown accustomed to his presence in the apartment and even sometimes sits down to watch a movie with the two of you—a movie that Chaewon would usually have forced you to watch in the living room instead of the privacy of your bedroom, so that everyone could join. Sunghoon is just glad Minjeong has stopped silently scolding him with her eyes every time he comes out of your room. She never mentions that night when she essentially warned him against you after the party. 

Jake seems to be the only oblivious one in your group. Yunjin and Chaewon have eyes like hawks and horrifyingly vivid imaginations when they put their heads together, so they were probably already making plans for your wedding and fighting for the title of godmother when you and Sunghoon met at the beginning-of-semester party. They cornered him once at a party and forced him to spill the beans and spare no detail, because you apparently were “denying everything, but we know there’s something going on.” Jay is still Sunghoon’s go-to person when he needs advice concerning you, although the older boy doesn’t understand why it has to be so complicated and always tells him to “just tell her how you feel,” which Sunghoon will not do unless there is a gun to his head. But Jake just seems happy to see his friend and his sister get along this well—no matter how many times you wear his jacket at their games or disappear at the same time at the end of parties, he doesn’t grow suspicious. If he does, he doesn’t mention it to Sunghoon, at least.

Between the two of you, not a word is spoken about the nature of your relationship, which remains unbearingly undefined. For a while, he weakly convinces himself that he doesn’t need to have that conversation with you. He’s young, he’s free, he should be able to enjoy casual sex without putting a label on it. The main problem, though, was that the sex could not be further from casual, at the very least not to Sunghoon.

He has never known anything quite like it. In mere weeks, you’ve both mastered the art of pleasuring each other. He understands your body like it’s his, knows what each of the sounds and expressions you make means. He knows where to touch you to have a kiss go from light-hearted to dizzyingly intense, how to move his mouth to have you arching your back and holding onto him for dear life. And you—he thinks your skin must be laced with cocaine, the way he can never get enough of it. 

But it’s always the moments afterwards that get him in his head. To him, casual sex means getting dressed the minute it’s over and going off to do other things, which is the absolute opposite of what you do. Whether it’s falling asleep together or spending Sundays in bed, you always stay together afterwards, curled up in each other’s arms as you talk away the hours, conversations interspersed with slow, lazy kisses. He’ll say things like, “You’re so pretty,” or “Why do you smell so good?” because he’s so smitten with you that he can never stop himself from uttering every compliment that flashes through his brain, but the things he really wants to say are harder to speak out loud. Even just a What are we?—three simple words that he can’t bring himself to ask, too scared it’ll ruin everything. 

Arguably worse is that sex isn’t even a requirement for when you and Sunghoon see each other. He goes on walks with you whenever you’ve spent too much time in the library and need some fresh air. You go shopping with him when his department throws a fundraiser and he needs a formal outfit. He cooks you your favorite meal when your period is particularly nasty. You sneak into the ice rink after his practice and let him ‘teach’ you how to skate, even though you already learned how with Jake when you were kids. Even mundane moments become fun when spent with you, and you share so many hobbies and interests that you never run out of things to do or talk about.

And yet, it feels like one step forward, two steps back with you—if you let him close one night, you’ll run away the next. A week will pass without you seeing each other outside of the library or group hang-outs, and if Sunghoon asks you out, you’ll say no, usually blaming the amount of work you have. He gets it—due to the nature of your degree and your being a fourth-year student, your workload is much heavier than his, with essays, translations and oral presentations due every other week. And that’s not even including midterms and finals. But still, he doesn’t see why you would need to stay at the library for ten hours straight for days on end. He’d start worrying about your health if you didn’t at least relax on weekends. 

So while Sunghoon wants nothing more than to go all in with you, he senses you holding back. He notices you avoiding eye contact during particularly intimate moments, and when you look at him perhaps too fondly for your liking, you quickly catch yourself and resume your neutral, sometimes almost cold expression. When he tries to broach more personal, sensitive topics, you always find a way to change the subject or turn the conversation towards him before you get too deep. 

As time passes, and especially as exam season nears, he can tell there’s something that you’re not telling him about. His suspicions are confirmed when you come back from a weekend at your parents’ house. He’s also been away for an out-of-town hockey game, and because he hasn’t had much time to text you (and because their team won, so he wants to show off a little), he’s particularly looking forward to seeing you again that Monday. It’s only been three days since you’ve last seen each other, but he misses you like crazy. 

But the minute you’re back, you bury yourself in work like never before, often waking up at ungodly hours and staying at the library until midnight. More than once, he stays behind with you, long after the others have gone, reminding you gently every hour that it might be time to go home and get some rest. The moments you actually agree are few and far between, and although he sticks it out at first, sleeping with his head on the table until you tell him you’re ready to go, your stubbornness soon starts frustrating him, and he ends up leaving when he gets too tired. He knows this is important to you, but he doesn’t understand why you have to go to these lengths—you’d still easily be one of the best students in your class without all this exertion. And despite his many attempts, you won’t tell him what’s wrong, won’t even admit that something is wrong—you keep repeating that “it’s just what exam season is like.”

When he asks your friends about it, they seem just as confused as he is. One evening when you have plans to order some food and watch a movie at your apartment, he shows up at the agreed time, but you’re nowhere to be found. Thankfully, the girls are there to let him up and not leave him standing outside in the rain. You don’t pick up when he calls you and call him back a minute later, apologizing profusely but still saying that there’s something you really need to finish first. If it was only a one-time thing, it wouldn’t make him as angry as it does—but this has been going on for almost two weeks now, and Sunghoon is close to boiling point. 

The fact that it’s been months since your date at the Japanese restaurant, and the only thing that you’ve said about what was happening between you and Sunghoon “didn’t have to change anything.” The fact that you’re essentially each other’s boyfriend and girlfriend without the label or the reassurance that comes with it. The fact that there’s something clearly bothering you but that you won’t tell him about it. The fact that this something is effectively coming between the two of you. Sunghoon was originally more worried about you than anything—now that studying has taken obvious precedence over him in your list of priorities, he’d be lying if he said his ego wasn’t wounded. He isn’t asking to be the number one most important thing in your life, and he knew before even meeting you that high academic performance meant a lot to you, but he likes to think he deserves at least a little bit of your time and attention. 

Except, does he really? It’s not like you’re actually dating.

There’s a pang in his heart as he remembers this fact that he should never have forgotten in the first place. It hurts—and so perhaps, he’s less patient than he ought to be.

“Whatever, Y/N. Don’t worry about it, just let me know when you have time for something other than getting As.”

He hangs up and meets your flatmates’ worried eyes. 

“She still at the library?” Chaewon asks, tone delicate as if trying not to scare off a wounded animal. Sunghoon nods, a deep sigh escaping his mouth. 

“She always studies a lot,” Minjeong starts, “but this is something else.”

“Have you guys tried saying something?”

The girls nod. “Even Jake has talked to her, but she won’t listen. And he usually always gets to her,” Minjeong says. 

He goes home soon afterwards and spends the rest of his evening in rumination, torn between his worry and his anger towards you—emotions which only increase as more days pass, and he sees less and less of you. Your behavior was already concerning while preparing for your exams and final assignments, it gets even worse when exams actually do start. He doesn’t hear from you for an entire week, and the one time you miraculously agree to a short group hang-out in the form of getting coffee, you’re only half there, physically present but mind far, far away. You barely react when the guys tell you about their victory at the latest hockey game—which you didn’t attend, as well as any other game recently. 

No matter how much he tries to put it out of his mind, to focus on his own exams and hockey games, you stay at the forefront of his thoughts. The hockey team is away for another out-of-town game when he decides to broach the subject with Jake, with whom he’s sharing a room. The entire semester, he’s been careful not to raise Jake’s suspicions about the two of you, both out of consideration for you, who’d mentioned you didn’t want your brother to know what was going on, and for himself, who would also rather Jake not know, at least not until your relationship became official. Which it never did. But now that all he gets from you is radio silence at a time when you’d usually be an hour into a FaceTime call, he can’t help himself.

Jake is just coming out of the bathroom, drying his hair with a towel, when Sunghoon takes his shot in the dark. “Have you heard from Y/N recently?” he asks as nonchalantly as he can, pretending to not be avidly waiting for his friend’s reaction by keeping his eyes on his phone.

“Y/N?” Jake echoes. “No, not really. Why?”

“Just ‘cause I haven’t seen her around much. I’m wondering if everything’s okay.”

“You mean her staying at the library all day?” Sunghoon nods; Jake sighs. “Yeah, she’ll snap out of it soon enough. She gets somewhat like this every time exams come around, but even I have to admit it’s pretty tough this time around. The last time I saw her like this was way back in high school, and that’s because our parents were watching right over her shoulder. It’s been better in university thanks to the distance.”

“So this has to do with your parents?”

“Oh, one hundred percent. She’s always wanted to do well at school, but she only gets this obsessive when our parents are involved.”

“I guess this did start after that weekend when she went home…” Sunghoon muses absent-mindedly. It could’ve passed off as an off-hand remark, but Jake pauses in his movements and looks at him warily.

“Yeah, she did… You noticed that, huh?”

Sunghoon pauses. This whole time, he was sure Jake was oblivious to anything happening between you and him—but he might have underestimated his friend. Like brother, like sister; he can hardly read either of you when he really needs to. Jake might genuinely be surprised that Sunghoon remembered your whereabouts that weekend, or he’s onto him. “I guess I did,” he finally says, going for as noncommittal an answer as he can.

Jake says nothing for a bit, and Sunghoon thinks he’s managed to get through the conversation without raising too much suspicion—until a minute later, when Jake speaks again. “Do you… like Y/N?”

Sunghoon freezes, snapping his head towards Jake, who’s lying on his back and staring up at the ceiling. His first instinct is to deny, but there’s no point pretending anymore. It’s one thing keeping it from Jake—lying to him about it is something else entirely. It’s an uncomfortable conversation, but it must be had. “Yeah, I do,” Sunghoon replies, guilt clear in his voice, more because he’s only now admitting it to Jake than because of his feelings themselves.

A shaky breath comes out of Jake’s mouth, as if this was the exact answer he had dreaded. “Right, okay. Since when?”

“Since I met her, basically.”

Jake’s head whips towards Sunghoon, and their gazes meet awkwardly. “Since that party in September?” he asks, shock written all over his face. Sunghoon nods, and to his surprise, Jake bursts out laughing. “Don’t tell me it’s because you accidentally matched costumes?”

Sunghoon looks away, frowning. “That might’ve helped things along,” he mumbles, embarrassment washing over him as Jake’s laughter intensifies. At least he was taking it well—a bit too well, perhaps.

“You’re so predictable, man,” Jake says when he’s calmed down, wiping a tear from his eye. 

“How did you know, anyway?”

“You’ve been pretty obvious with it recently,” Jake replies after a few seconds. “I could tell you were a bit shy around her at first, and when it got better I just thought you’d become friends or something. But when she showed up with your jacket at every game and you never left her side at parties, I assumed something else was going on. You’ve always been staying behind at the library these days, and I know you don’t have that much work.”

Sunghoon chuckles. “I guess I haven’t been trying hard to hide it lately.”

“Yeah, why would you hide it in the first place? You could’ve just told me.”

“I didn’t want to make things weird.”

Jake frowns. “It wouldn’t have been weird. If anything, hiding it makes it weirder.”

“I just thought, if one of my friends had a crush on my sister, I’d probably rather they hid it. Like, I don’t need to know about that,” Sunghoon says, and it makes Jake laugh.

“Dude, Y/N and I are only a year apart. Do you know how many guys have come up to me asking me for her number or advice on how to ask her out? It’s been, like, one every few months since middle school. Guys here especially have no shame telling me how hot they find her.”

Sunghoon makes a face. He doesn’t disagree, but he’d never go out of his way to tell your brother how exquisite you looked in certain outfits. “That’s gross.”

“Yeah, it is. But you’re my friend, not some greasy rando, so I trust you. If anything, I’d probably have to tell her to be nice to you, and not the other way around.”

“Yeah, you could say that again,” Sunghoon grumbles, then realizes his mistake immediately, eyes widening.

“What do you mean?” Jake asks, sounding genuine at first, but when Sunghoon stays quiet for a couple seconds, debating whether he should just lay the truth bare, Jake sits up on the bed and repeats his question, his tone much warier this time around. Sunghoon glances at him then looks away guiltily.

“Well, to be completely honest… We’ve sort of been seeing each other, kind of. But it’s complicated.”

Jake flops back down on his mattress with a grunt. “Who else knows?” he asks, rubbing at his eyes with his hands as if suddenly very exhausted.

“Everyone…”

“Everyone?!”

“Well, Jay, Minjeong, Yunjin and Chaewon.”

“So everyone.”

“Basically, yeah.”

“Great.” Jake sighs. “Since when?”

“Since October,” Sunghoon mumbles, feeling guiltier than ever. He’s belatedly realizing that it would’ve been much easier to have everything out in the open from the get-go, both with you and with Jake; now he’s both stuck in situationship limbo and has to face the consequences of keeping something this important from one of his closest friends. “Are you upset?” Sunghoon asks, feeling a bit like a ten-year-old.

“Kinda, yeah, but more at her than at you. I’ve told her not to go after anyone from the hockey team.”

“‘Cause of Heeseung?”

“Yeah. God, that was messy. He gave her mixed signals for so long, I could barely talk to him without thinking of her crying for so long. And now he’s the one who can’t quite look me in the eye,” Jake says, shaking his head at the mere thought of his captain.

“Was it that bad? She made it seem like it wasn’t that big of a deal.”

Jake raises his eyebrows. “Really? It upset her for a while though,” he says, then turns his head to look at the ceiling again. “I guess that’s not so surprising of her. She sometimes likes pretending she doesn’t have any emotions, even though I’m pretty sure she has more than most people.”

“Huh.” That would explain some things, Sunghoon muses. Emotions are not a topic that comes up very often with you, and every time he’s gotten an inkling of them, you seem to shut it all down immediately.

“But you know, I’m more surprised than anything. About… about it all, really. Not just that you’re only telling me now, but that it’s lasted this long. She must really like you.”

“You think?” Sunghoon says, his face brightening with hope, the words slipping from him before he can stop them once again. He shrinks when Jake laughs at him.

“Look at you. Down bad, huh?”

“Shut up.”

“But yeah, dude. I’ve told you about this. I’ve never seen her in a relationship, ever. Says she doesn’t have the time,” Jake says, air-quoting you. “I’ve only had the displeasure of seeing her go home with one-night-stands. You know that since she started college, she’s had a rule that she’d only see someone three times and that was it?”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah, so she wouldn’t catch feelings. I’m telling you, she’s crazy. So you must be special.”

Sunghoon can’t stop the smile from spreading on his lips—special. But it doesn’t make him feel that much better, either. “It’s not like we’re actually dating, so I’m not sure how special I can be…”

Jake’s head turns to look at Sunghoon again, but the younger boy keeps his eyes trained on the ceiling fan above him. “What’s happening between you guys?”

A blush creeps on Sunghoon’s cheeks. “Is this something you really want to talk about?”

“Well, spare me the gruesome details, please,” Jake says, chuckling, “but yeah, I would like to know what’s going on with my best friend and my sister.”

“I’m your best friend?” Sunghoon says, grinning as he meets Jake’s gaze, who rolls his eyes.

“Don’t change the subject.”

“Fine.” He sighs. “Well, I didn’t think it would happen more than once-”

“What would happen more than once?”

Sunghoon pauses. “Well, you know…” Jake gives him a look as if to say, Well, no, I don’t know, so Sunghoon is forced to go on: “Sleeping together.”

“You guys slept together?!” Jake exclaims, sitting up on his bed once again.

“Yeah, what did you think?”

“I don’t know, just that you were going on dates, hanging out one-on-one, or whatever…”

“Well, we were.”

“Ugh, whatever,” Jake says, waving his hand in front of his face like swatting a fly away. “So, not just once, then?”

“No. And I thought it’d be a one-time thing, ‘cause a few days afterwards she said something about it not having to change our friendship…”

“Damn.”

“Yeah. But then it did. Happen again, I mean. And it’s been happening frequently since. But we’re not… dating dating. We haven’t had that conversation.”

Jake frowns. “Why not?”

Sunghoon releases a shaky breath. Why not, indeed. “‘Cause she hasn’t mentioned it. And I’m too scared to do it.”

“What are you scared of?”

“The typical stuff. What we have now… it’s not what I want, but it’s managed to not disrupt the group, you know. I’m scared that if I tell her how I feel, it’ll make things awkward between the two of us, and between all of us by extension.”

“Well, it might,” Jake says after thinking for a few seconds. “I wish I could tell you with certainty that she’ll like you back, but I honestly can’t. As obvious as you were towards her, she was not giving anything away.” Sunghoon chuckles, more out of self-deprecation than anything. This was not the pep talk he had hoped for. “But, I can tell you that she won’t be the type to make things awkward. You have nothing to risk by telling her, because in the long run, you’ll be better off that way. I know you, Sunghoon. You’ll be miserable if you can’t be fully yourself with someone.”

Decidedly, Sunghoon’s friends had a way of telling him the exact opposite of the things he wanted to hear while being completely right. He wishes things with you could stay the same — minus the overworking yourself and ignoring him in the process — and that he wouldn’t have to do anything that might make them change. But just as Jake said, he’d also reach a point where he couldn’t take it anymore—a point he was already inching closer and closer to with every passing day. He likes you enough to let you not define the relationship, but he likes you too much to let it go on. He likes you too much to not be able to tell you, and show you, and remind you of it every day. He hated having to hold back, and he hated feeling you holding back. He wanted to give you his all and he wanted all of you, too, not just bite-sized portions of you.

“You’re right,” he finally says. “I haven’t been able to talk to her lately, but I’ll have to tell her soon enough. When her exams are over, I guess.”

Jake sighs. “Yeah. I don’t know if there’s any getting through to her right now.”

“She’s blown me off so many times! I don’t know what she’s doing, spending so many hours in that library. I’d go insane.”

“She’s a perfectionist,” Jake says, shaking his head. “I’ve talked to her about it. When it comes to school, she needs everything to be as flawless as can be. She spends hours re-reading and editing her work. It’s not good.”

“Not really, no.”

“But she’s only got a week left. I’ll try to convince her not to go home for too long, and it’ll be better after the holidays. Then we’ll make sure there’s not a repeat of this next exam season.”

He thinks of Christmas break and of not seeing you for two weeks; of next semester and going through all of this with you a second time. The uncertainty, the fooling around behind your friends’ backs — although that might not be needed now that Jake is in on it too — Sunghoon’s not sure if he can go through it all again. “Yeah, we will.”

--

They lose their game the following day. They had an amazing run, either winning or tying every game so far; this loss is not enough to make them drop significantly in the rankings, but it’s enough to demoralize Sunghoon. It couldn’t have come at a worse time—between you and this failed game, his self-esteem is taking a real hit.

He dared hope for some comfort from you once he was back, but in vain. He doesn’t know why he imagined your attitude might’ve changed overnight, and when he texts you asking to hang out, the same old sorry I can’t atm fills his phone screen. And just like that, as strong as his feelings for you have been all this time, so is his resentment—unwarranted, perhaps, but he thinks he deserves better than this, and he’s both angry at you for not giving him anything and at himself for letting it happen.

Now, he’s the one who spends hours working himself to the bone in the ice rink, who’s clearly preoccupied with other things when everyone gets together, and who doesn’t even show up to the party the whole group goes to when you’re all done with exams. The last game before winter break is in two days, and he doesn’t want to waste a day nursing a hangover when he could be practicing.

That night, he thinks everyone is out at some random club downtown, so he does a double-take when it’s past eleven p.m. and you show up at the rink. He’s skating laps, practicing his speed and his goal-shooting, only noticing you when you’re standing in the middle of the rink. He almost skates right into you.

“Y/N?” he asks, not completely sure you’re not just a figment of his imagination. He’s so exhausted, he wouldn’t be surprised if he were dreaming you up.

“Jay texted me.”

“Oh. Why?” He’s out of breath, and the words come out blunter than he intends them to.

“Because it’s almost midnight and you’re still here,” you reply, crossing your arms over your chest. There’s a hint of a smile on your lips, but your eyebrows are furrowed in what looks like worry. It’s the first time Sunghoon’s seeing you concerned over something other than an assignment. 

He shrugs and resumes his laps, slower this time, forcing you to keep turning on your feet. “I’m practicing. There’s a big game coming up.”

“Which is exactly why you should be resting, like everyone else on your team right now.”

He resists rolling his eyes. “Why would I rest when I could be getting better?”

“Because you need rest as much as you need practice. You won’t be any use on the rink if you’re too tired to play properly.”

“And I won’t be any use if I can’t shoot properly, either.”

“Sunghoon, you need a break. You’re clearly exhausted-Will you stop it?” you suddenly snap. “I’m trying to talk to you, and I’m getting dizzy.” 

Your small outburst only has him growing more agitated, and even though he does stop, it’s more so you can see the annoyance on his face than anything. “You know, this is a bit rich coming from you, Y/N.” He knows this is not the right time to bring this up—if he has grievances against you, he shouldn’t be bringing them up when he’s already frustrated. He’s well aware of this, but he can’t help himself.

You scoff. “Excuse me?”

“You’re the one who spends twelve hours a day in the library during exams and does not budge even if I tell you you should go home.”

“That’s different-”

“How is it any different?” he interrupts, voice rising. “You don’t listen to me when you overwork yourself. I don’t see why I should.”

“So you realize that you’re overworking yourself?”

“Of course I do! But I have to.”

“No, you don’t-”

“Y/N, please. I have to win as much as you have to get the top grades. Is it actually necessary? No, but you know how shit it feels not to.”

“And it’s exactly because I know that feeling that I’m telling you to stop. You’re just feeding into it.”

“So are you, staying until 2 a.m. in the library. You’ve never once gone home when I asked you to.”

“Again, that’s different-”

“How?! How is it different? Please enlighten me, ‘cause they’re the exact same thing to me.”

You sigh. A sudden sadness appears on your face. Sunghoon is torn between wanting to see this to its end and taking everything he’s said back. But he keeps quiet, and your eyes, when they meet his again, harden. “Are you really gonna make me say it?”

“Yes.”

As if you couldn’t say your next words while looking at him, you tear your gaze away from his face. “Because I’m actually concerned about you, here. The only reason you want me to stop and go home is so we can fuck.”

Sunghoon is so astounded that all words fail him—he stares at you, mouth wide open like you just shot him. After a few seconds, all he’s able to come up with is an incredulous, “What?” His voice is a mere whisper. 

“You heard me,” you say coldly.

He closes his mouth and swallows. “So… you’re the one who’s worried, and I’m only after sex?”

You glance at him. “Yeah.”

A chuckle escapes Sunghoon’s throat, then another, until laughter spills out of him uncontrollably. He feels like the world is upside down. How could you have lived the same thing and come out of it with such different perspectives? Your account of his intentions with you is so ridiculous and unfathomable to him that he can’t do anything but laugh.

You seem taken aback at first, but your surprise quickly turns into annoyance. “Something funny?”

“Hilarious, actually,” he says, holding his stomach. He takes a deep breath, trying to calm himself. All he finds at the end of his amusement is anger, bright red and hot. It’s not an emotion he feels often, its rarity only serving as an intensifier—he starts making his way out of the rink before it can explode and hit you in its wake. “Well, that’s convinced me to call it a day. So you got what you came for, I guess.”

His fingers tremble as he undoes the laces on his skates and puts his sneakers on again. You stand by the door of the rink, holding onto the frame as you look at him, that same sad look still on your face. “Hoon,” you say, voice weak. What would usually have him melting only has his anger flare harder.

“Don’t. For the first time ever, I actually really don’t want to talk to you right now.” He stands up, gives you one last harsh look, and turns away. He only halts right before exiting the bleacher area, and after a couple seconds of thinking, turns back around. “Oh, but don’t worry, I’ll let you know when I want to fuck again. Since that’s all this is, clearly.”

--

It seemed to you no one thought you were good enough for Sunghoon.

Only Yunjin and Chaewon seemed excited at the prospect of the two of you getting together, or at least getting to know each other, but they were also the type to coo at dogs in the street and tear up at the sight of old people holding hands; Minjeong was apprehensive from the start, and made it clear; Jay was indifferent; Jake was oblivious for a while. Sunghoon was…

What was Sunghoon?

Someone who had come out of nowhere, shaken up your routine and messed with your head. That’s what Sunghoon was. He didn’t seem apologetic in the slightest.

Maybe it was your fault for not opening up to the people closest to you and letting them think you were some kind of no-strings-attached one-night-stands-only emotionless maneater who had been single for as long as they had known her, who would be seen with someone new every few months, and never for long, who, as far as the eye could tell, only used men for sex. Maybe it was their fault for never trying to dig deeper.

No, okay, it was definitely your fault.

Based on your conversations with your friends, they thought Heeseung had broken your heart, and you had never bounced back properly. He’d hurt you so much, you couldn’t fathom a real relationship anymore—you could only be with someone casually. Which wasn’t so far from the truth, but what Heeseung had done was much worse than just breaking your heart. He’d confirmed what you already knew of yourself: you want too much. You want what you can’t have, what you don’t deserve.

From the moment you met Park Sunghoon, you knew you didn’t deserve someone like him. Minjeong seemed to agree, and when she saw you and him together at choir that Saturday in September, three months ago already, she made sure you knew her thoughts on the matter.

“This is so… unlike you,” was the first thing she’d said after she pulled you aside. 

“What is?”

“This,” she repeated, waving her arms around. “Being here. Coming with him.” She pointed at Sunghoon, whose hair was being ruffled by one grandma and his cheek pulled by another. He kept glancing back worriedly at you—you liked him so much already. “See? You’re smiling at him,” she said, making you realize a sappy smile had started growing on your lips at the sight of him. Your face dropped and you scoffed at the disgust in her voice.

“Yeah, some of us like to smile. You wouldn’t understand.”

“Y/N, you know what I’m trying to say.”

“I don’t think I do, actually.”

She sighed. “You don’t do this. You don’t meet a guy and show up to his choir practice the next morning. What’s happening?”

You crossed your arms over your chest. Had you known your presence would be questioned like that, you might’ve thought twice about coming. “Can’t a girl enjoy a choir without getting interrogated these days?”

“You’re avoiding my question! Listen, Y/N. Sunghoon is not the kind of guy you usually go for. He’s-Stop. Don’t smile at me like that.”

“If you like Sunghoon, you can just tell me. You know I wouldn’t stoop so low as to go after a guy my best friend likes.”

“So you are going after him?”

“So you do like him?”

Minjeong shook her head violently and put her hands on your shoulders, staring into your brain as if trying to make you see some sense. Calmly, she said, “No, I don’t. Sunghoon’s nice, but he is so far from my type. He’s too… nice.”

“You mean he doesn’t wear leather jackets or ride a motorcycle?”

“That was once. But no, he doesn’t do that. And what I’m trying to tell you is that he’s not your type either.”

“And how have you gathered that?”

“Because so far, you’ve only wisely chosen guys who are as detached and emotionally stunted as you.”

“I’m not-”

“But he’s not like that, Y/N. He’s the bring-home-to-your-parents-for-Christmas type. Not the hump-and-dump type.”

“I’m starting to get offended by this conversation.”

“All I’m saying is, don’t go breaking his heart. Or yours, for that matter. It pains me to say but I care about both of you very much and I don’t see this going anywhere good.”

You shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other. Was her opinion of your romantic tendencies — or lack thereof — that bad that she couldn’t even recommend you to her friend? You felt like a chastised child whose mom told you you couldn’t get the toy you wanted. Despite being well aware that you weren’t the most committed when it came to relationships, you still felt like she was going overboard. Just because nothing had stuck so far didn’t mean it wouldn’t now—she was acting like you went around playing with people’s feelings for fun.

“Jesus, this is my second time seeing him. I just wanna see what his deal is. I’m not breaking anyone’s heart, okay?” 

The choir conductor had called out for everyone to gather on stage then, and that was the end of that conversation. You still remember how funny of a thing it was, seeing Sunghoon in his nice shirt and trousers, his hair falling into his eyes, singing diligently with the choir, when just the night before he had been playing beer pong dressed as Cowboy Ken. In this new light, you understood why Minjeong was so adamant about him not being your usual type, and why the grandmas were fussing over him. You hadn’t known what had pushed you to invite yourself to this rehearsal, and even then as you sat there, you weren’t sure what you were doing or why you couldn’t stop smiling as you watched Sunghoon sing. 

Time made things clearer, starting with that afternoon at the beach. The salt in the air that day had clouded your thoughts, covered them with a thin layer so that your usual reluctance to share anything remotely personal had dimmed. Or maybe it had had nothing to do with the air and everything to do with the boy sitting next to you on the sand, the way words came tumbling out of your mouth before you could think about them and were only met with understanding and empathy on his part. For once, you didn’t feel the need to guard yourself, to adapt your words and actions to the person in front of you. It was something you didn’t know was possible with a near stranger—perhaps because Sunghoon felt nothing like one.

He made you feel things you hadn’t felt in a long time; things you had been craving to feel, needed almost as much as oxygen. Being with him felt like breathing again. But you had been underwater so long, being on land again felt foreign, scary, and you couldn’t help but dive back into safe waters, coming up for air once in a while.

Whether he had intended to or not, Sunghoon had started to scratch at your surface, until he’d burrowed a small hole—shallow, but enough for cracks to appear, cracks you were quick to put back together as best as you could.

So when his gaze was too tender, his touches too gentle, you bristled. You went away, because you were afraid of what might happen if you stayed. The more you wanted to give him, the less you gave him anything at all. Your own desire overwhelmed you. His letterman jacket was warm around your shoulders, you proudly walked around with the four letters of his last name on your back, but you couldn’t get out of your mind how cold it would be if it was one day ripped away from you. 

You thought of Heeseung, how disillusioned you had been when you thought you had finally met someone who would love you the way you had always yearned to be, only for him to toss you away when you started asking for too much. You thought of your friends in middle school, how it seemed that no friendship could be more wonderful until you overheard them talking about you at a sleepover, about how clingy you were. You thought of your parents, how they had only bestowed kind words upon you when you performed well in your role of perfect daughter, of academically gifted child. How they hadn’t even glanced at any of the drawings you’d done of the four of you, mother, father, son and daughter holding hands with a bright yellow sun in the corner of the sky. How they had pushed you away from their bed when you seeked some comfort after a terrible nightmare. How they had never bothered to hide their disappointment when you came home from school with anything less than an A. How they had shunned your brother for not going down the path they had envisioned for him, how hard you had to fight to make them accept yours was not a worthless one.

Even your best friend seemed to think you were unable to receive affection of the likes of Sunghoon’s—but what you were afraid of was that he wouldn’t handle the amount of affection you knew you were able to give. In a way, that was what had drawn you to Sunghoon in the first place—from the moment you’d met him, you had been able to tell there was something of you in him. It seemed to you he had a heart that was overflowing with love, love to give, love to spare on whoever would have it. In his words, you were him. Nevertheless, your fear of getting hurt overrode your desire to feel Sunghoon’s love, and you didn’t know whether you would be able to revert to your nature after having spent so much time perfecting your new facade.

You knew what it was like to be cold. And so you prematurely braced yourself for it by pushing away Sunghoon’s warmth. If it was going to happen at some point, like Minjeong had hinted it would, might as well get used to it, right?

Except the cold never came. Sunghoon kept on burning relentlessly, no matter how much wood you fed his fire with—you could cling to him for nights on end or ignore his texts for days, without fail, he’d welcome you with his usual, unwavering warmth. He allowed you to bask in it, to momentarily let down your defenses. But something always happened to make you raise them back up—Minjeong would eye the two of you suspiciously, Heeseung would post on Instagram (Is one of the girls on slide five his new fling? Are they serious and it wasn’t that he wasn’t ready for a relationship, it’s that he didn’t want one with me?), or your mom would text you to ask you whether everything was okay.

Yet increasingly, you suspected there was something behind Sunghoon’s warmth, something you had missed, something that was tricking you. He looked at you like you had hung the stars in the night sky, yes; in public, a knowing look from you was enough to have his face turn bright red, and in private, one simple touch had his chest heaving, yes; he expressed disappointment every time you turned him down for a hang-out. Your attachment to him grew, and it became harder to put what the two of you had into words.

It wasn’t just sex—it couldn’t be. It ran deeper than that. You knew what relationships that consisted of just sex were like, and this wasn’t that, it was too good, too intimate to be just that. But you weren’t a couple, that much was clear. Only four other people were aware something was even going on, your brother not included, and you acted as regular friends in front of everyone. Jake had insisted you didn’t fool around with another member of his hockey team because his relationship with Heeseung had already deteriorated enough, he didn’t need to be on weird terms with anyone else on your behalf, so you were not keen on letting him know about what you got up to with Sunghoon. Anyway, even if everyone on earth was in on your shenanigans, you and Sunghoon hadn’t convened on what it all meant. Who knew what was going on in his head? You were no stranger to how deceitful men could be when they were after certain bodily pleasures. Unless Sunghoon said it in so many words, multiple times, you would not be a hundred percent sure he wasn’t only looking to get laid, or wanted someone to act like his girlfriend without the label and the obligations that came with it.

Because you basically were acting like his girlfriend, and he like your boyfriend. You always went to each other. Always, only each other. Whether he needed a second opinion on an outfit, you needed a rant session about your dissertation, either of you a really good orgasm, it was each other you went to.

You waited for him to initiate a conversation about the status of your relationship like one waits for church bells to ring at the turn of the hour—you knew it was coming, but the sound might be too much to bear. And the longer you had to wait, the more you dreaded it. Because how would you react when the time came? You didn’t trust yourself not to run away; neither did Minjeong.

The cold hadn’t come yet. You couldn’t let yourself feel the warmth unreservedly. It was all unpleasantly lukewarm.

Then you went home for a weekend.

It was a good friend from school’s birthday, and despite having spent a lot of time with Sunghoon at the expense of studying, you had done well this semester and thought you deserved a break. After having been away for so long, you had started to underestimate the power of your need for your parents’ approval over you. One small instance that your brother and many other people would’ve brushed off easily was enough to set you off—that same cold look of disappointment when you decided to be honest and told them one of your courses was deadly boring all while being unnecessarily complicated and you had received a low B-grade in it. They barely spoke to you for the rest of the evening.

Exams were a mere few weeks away when you got back. You buried yourself in work, forgot everything and everyone else, even Sunghoon, even yourself.

The cold hadn’t come yet, so you sought it out for yourself.

At the same time, you hadn’t indulged in enough introspection to realize how frustrated you had been at Sunghoon for not trying to create defined boundaries around your relationship. You were unable to do it yourself, you unrealistically wanted him to do the work for the both of you, you got upset when he didn’t. What you were able to do was make up reasons why he wasn’t giving you the what are we talk—he doesn’t like you that much, he just wants sex, he’s settling for you until he finds the next best thing, the real thing. This wasn’t leading anywhere, so you cut it off before he could.

You set foot in the library at seven thirty a.m. on a Monday and every following day of that week, then the next, then the next. He managed to pull you out every now and then—you weren’t that strong against his big pleading eyes, his soft messy hair, his warm hands that entirely covered yours. 

Oftentimes, you were too tired at the end of a long library day to have sex. Sunghoon never held it against you—he seemed more than happy to cook you dinner, let you fall asleep halfway during a movie you had chosen, and cuddle all night long. But your body burned with resentment at his mere presence in your bed, in your home, in your text messages. Who was he to stop you from studying, from achieving your goals, to distract you from that top grade just so he could get off? Even your friends and brother weren’t trying so hard to make you take breaks. The worry that furrowed his eyebrows, which you used to want to see fade away with a caress of your thumb, now infuriated you to no end, it seemed — to you — put-on. He kissed your neck and you wanted to push him away instead of melt into him like you had before.

It was his turn to leave for a weekend for an out-of-town hockey game, and you convinced yourself his absence came as a relief. But on the Sunday evening they got back, as you came out of the library, you spotted your brother waiting right outside of the building.

“Why is it so hard to reach you?” he said when he saw you in lieu of a greeting. “What’s the point of having a phone if you don’t even use it? I called you, like, five times.” “It was on airplane mode.” He rolled his eyes so hard, you could almost hear them moving beneath their lids. “What have you done to Sunghoon?” You stopped dead in your tracks. “Sunghoon? What about him?” you asked, chest constricting at the mere thought of him and at the implication that something had happened to him, even if you were the cause. He hadn’t said it in so many words, but it was clear the truth had been revealed to Jake, and for some reason, it didn’t surprise you. You knew they roomed together and assumed Sunghoon must’ve told him. You tried your best to take it in stride. “I thought we said the hockey team was off-limits after Heeseung,” he said sternly. “Also, Sunghoon, of all people?” he adds before you can say anything. “That’s like, my bro. And he’s the nicest guy ever. Not the perfect pick for one of your victims, I must say-” “Oh, please, he’s not a victim. He’s a consenting adult.” “Then why is he so upset over you spending more time studying than with him?” “That’s the male ego for you, Jakey.” Your brother sighed deeply. “He’s really hurt, Y/N. If you were going to reject him, you could’ve done it nicely.”

You frowned. “Who said anything about rejecting him?”

“You’ve shut him out. You’ve shut all of us out.” Jake was staring at you, trying to get you to look at him, but you kept your gaze on the ground and kicked non-existent pebbles around, hands hiding in your coat pockets. “You might not have meant it as one, but he took it as a rejection.”

You scoff. “There was nothing to reject. It’s not like we’re actually together.”

“Yeah, thanks for telling me anything was going on, by the way.”

“It wasn’t any of your business.”

“It is, ‘cause it concerns my sister and my best friend.”

“He’s your best friend?” you echo, a teasing smile on your lips. He rolls his eyes again.

“God, maybe you guys aren’t so bad together after all. But Y/N—I’m serious. You need to do something.”

“Why can’t he?”

“Because you’re the one who’s been fucking around.”

Ouch. “You’ve known about this whole thing for what, two days, and you’re already blaming me for the fact that it’s not going perfectly? How little do you think of me?”

“I don’t think little of you, Y/N, I just know you have a track record of not being serious about relationships.”

Your body tensed up. Maybe it had been a particularly long day. Maybe it had been a long time coming. Tears well up in your eyes—a sight you’ve not let your brother see in many, many years.

“You know what, fuck this, Jake. I’m stressed enough as it is. I’ve done my best with what I have, and you don’t get to pin this on me. As if I was the only person in that relationship. If Sunghoon has a problem, he can take it up with me directly.”

You walked away. Jake called after you once, and when you didn’t come back, caught up with you. “I’m sorry, Y/N. I don’t wanna upset you. I just-I hate seeing him hurt, you know? And you too.”

“I’m glad my feelings are of some importance to you.”

“Of course they are,” Jake said, too concerned to detect the sarcasm in your words. “And you’re right, I’ve only heard Sunghoon’s side of the story. But it really sounded like-”

“Listen, Jakey, I really don’t wanna do this right now. Let’s talk about it when exams are over. I can’t have anything else taking up mental space. I mixed up my Greek third declension endings earlier.”

“God forbid.”

After some arguing, Jake let you off the hook—“Just for now,” he said. You’d get him to recount his and Sunghoon’s conversation in excruciating detail later.

You come out of an evening of contemplation resenting Sunghoon for bitching about you to your brother, of all people. As if he had been begging on his hands and knees for your devotion, as if you had been cool-headed and detached and not thinking he’ll ask me to be his girlfriend any second now every time you spent time together. You told yourself you were well and truly done with him for the time being. If there was anything to salvage, that was future you’s problem.

But late on Thursday evening, Jay sent you a voice message, something he only did when he was gravely drunk, shouting over loud chatter and rap music that Sunghoon hadn’t shown up to a party and was apparently still practicing. You’d caught wind of their loss at the game, and even though your heart had swollen with concern for Sunghoon, very well aware of how important winning was to him, you’d managed to squash it down. You had bigger fish to fry, namely, an Italian written exam that made up 75% of your overall grade for that course. But after ten minutes of re-reading the same three lines of an article from Republicca, you couldn’t get the image of Sunghoon skirting endlessly around the ice rink and potentially hurting himself out of your head. You told yourself you only had this one exam left and plenty of time to revise for it, packed up your things and headed for the rink.

It was past eleven p.m. when you got there. The rest is history. 

Your grievances came out in an ugly way, but Sunghoon’s refusal to listen to you got the best of your nerves, and although you really did feel that your worry was more genuine than his, you didn’t truly believe that all he wanted from you was sex—at least, you hoped it wasn’t. It was the first time you ever saw any sort of negative emotion on Sunghoon’s handsome features, be it anger, sadness or pain. It tugged at your heartstrings, made you want to wrap him in your arms and get him away from whatever it was that tugged his eyebrows into a frown—even if that was you.

Now, as if the water has inched up your ankles and frozen over, your feet stay planted on the ice for a while after he’s stormed off. You don’t even realize you’re crying until a hot, salty teardrop falls on your lips.

Your feet regain control of themselves, and they seem to move of their own accord as they guide you right in front of Sunghoon’s dorm room. You’re barely conscious as your knuckles rasp against the door, and the tears that had fallen back behind your eyes spill out once more as soon as your eyes meet his. He’s just come out of the shower, a white towel wrapped around his hips, another one that he uses to dry his hair. His movements stop when he realizes who’s standing at his door, mouth falling slightly agape, chest visibly rising and falling. He’s so beautiful, you feel your heart breaking all over again.

Sobs pour uncharacteristically out of you, so much so that you have to hide your face behind your eyes. He ushers you in, holds you tight as everything flows out, the stress, the resentment, the loneliness, the longing. How could he be so close yet so far away this whole time? Did he want those miles of distance between you, or had you forced them upon him?

Sunghoon smoothes your hair down and shushes you, telling you it’s okay and that he’s here, voice strangled as if he’s on the verge of crying, too. A part of you still feels angry towards him, but the bigger part of you knows only he can give you the comfort you need.

“I missed you,” you say when you’ve calmed down partly. You only realize how true those words are once you’ve spoken them. You’ve missed waking up next to him, watching trashy reality TV together, taking coffee breaks that lasted too long in-between study sessions. You’ve missed the scent of his hair, the scent of his skin, you’ve missed watching the way his back muscles shift at the slightest of movements, feeling the weight of his head as he lay on your chest. All for a bunch of As you would’ve gotten without exerting yourself so much anyway.

“I missed you too, baby. Where did you go?” Just like that, you break down again, and he dissolves into apologies. “You’re here now, it’s all that matters,” he whispers against your hair.

“You didn’t see them, Hoon. You didn’t see the way they looked at me,” you say, struggling to speak, unsure you’re even making any sense but unable to stop. “I got As in everything, I worked so hard. Just one B, one week where I had four things due at the same time. Their faces, Hoon, like they were thinking, what was the point of letting me do this degree if I wasn’t even going to excel in it?”

“But you do excel in it, Y/N. You’re amazing at what you do. And even if you weren’t, you love it, and that’s what matters the most.”

“Not to them, it doesn’t.”

“Then forget them.”

“I can’t, Hoon,” you say, voice trembling. “I just can’t. I need them to be proud of me.”

“Isn’t it enough to be proud of yourself?”

“I wish it was.”

“Does it help if I tell you how proud I am of you and of how hard you’ve worked?”

He doesn’t see it, your face is still hidden in the crook of his shoulder, but a small smile makes its way to your lips. “A bit.”

“Then I’ll tell you everyday until you don’t need their approval anymore. They don’t deserve you, Y/N. They don’t even see what an amazing, beautiful, smart daughter they have. Or her sort-of-okay brother.” You laugh, and so does he. Sunghoon’s words and soothing touch against your back already alleviate the weight on your heart. “But I see it.”

You lift your head to look at Sunghoon. His eyes are glassy. “You see how amazing, beautiful and smart Jake is?”

He laughs again as he tucks a stray strand of hair behind your ear. “Yeah, exactly.” The way he looks at you makes you wish you could go back to the day you met him and right all of your wrongs. No more hiding or running away. You only want to stay under that gaze of his. But sadness soon replaces the joy in his eyes. “You mean so much more to me than you give yourself credit for, Y/N. This has never been just about sex for me. Not even for a second.”

“No?”

“No.”

“Then what has it been about?” 

He frowns like a student in an advanced math class who’s just been asked what three plus three is—isn’t it obvious?

“I love you.”

Your eyes dart between his as if searching for any trace of deceit there. Of course, you don’t find any—because there hasn’t been any since the start. You’d let your own fears invent things that weren’t there. Your lips tremble and you find yourself bawling on his shoulder once more, your tears like a well that digs deeper and deeper so as to never run out of water.

“I hope these are good tears,” Sunghoon says light-heartedly, but you can detect the nervousness behind his words. You nod your head vigorously, willing yourself to say something back, but your tears overflow, make your breath hitch.

“Why didn’t you say anything earlier?” you manage in between sobs.

“I didn’t think it was the kind of thing you wanted to hear,” he explains.

“I was waiting for you to say something.”

“I didn’t know. I thought I was being obvious enough.”

“You probably were. I was the one who couldn’t see it,” you admit.

“I thought you didn’t want me like that.”

“I thought you didn’t want me like that.”

Sunghoon chuckles, a sound of relief. “I’ve wanted you like that since the start.”

“I think I have too.”

“You think?”

You lift your head again and when your eyes meet Sunghoon’s, it feels like coming out of your hiding place hours after the round of hide-and-seek was over. He hadn’t forgotten to come and find you. He was waiting for you to reveal yourself.

Which goes against the rules of hide-and-seek, but you don’t blame him.

You smile; he smiles, deep dimples carving crescents into his cheeks. “I love you, too.”

You hadn’t realized how cold your hands were until Sunghoon found them.

--

Everything after that was a blurry mess of tangled limbs, warm kisses, happy tears and relieved laughter.

Your touch had always been intoxicating, but Sunghoon was particularly sensitive to it that night. The mix of not having felt you close in weeks and the heightened emotions driven by your confessions made his skin tingle everywhere it came in contact with yours. He’d never slept so little without regretting it in the morning.

It goes without saying that most of the night was not spent talking, but you still had things you needed to discuss. The two of you laid out all of your fears, and Sunghoon was immensely relieved to finally get a glimpse into that mind of yours. He made you promise to always tell him what was going on, and he promised you you’d never be too much for him. Always just right.

Now, he gets to wait outside of your exam hall with your favorite flowers in hand, to put his arm around your shoulders during movie nights instead of holding your hand beneath the blanket, to kiss you over the barrier at the end of a hockey game he won. Heeseung’s narrowed eyes at the sight of the two of you is an added bonus.

You text him that you’ll hang around the locker rooms after the game so that you can head to the party together. The end of December is nearing and you can’t wait for the new year, for twelve whole months of not hiding your feelings for Sunghoon from anyone, not even from yourself, least of all from him. At least, that’s what you told him in a sappy, drunken voice message at two a.m. the previous night when the girls made you drink a bottle of prosecco to yourself—their way of congratulating you for an arduous but successful exam period.

He steps out of the locker rooms with Jake and Jay. You’ve never looked quite as pretty, face lighting up as you spot the three of them, his jersey on your shoulders. You’d worn it during your last exam—“I thought it might bring me luck to wear a pretty boy’s name on my back,” you’d told him, to which he’d replied that it was good practice for when you actually took his last name. You’d looked away, fighting a smile.

Now your smile is full-blown as you look at him, but the downside of being an official couple is that Jake has now more material to tease the both of you with.

“Oh my God, you waited for me, what a sweet sister I have been blessed with!” he exclaims, arms outstretched as he barrels towards you.

“Fuck off, Sim,” you say but accept his hug nonetheless. “Nice game.”

“I know.” He pulls away and ruffles your hair. Jay nods at you like you’re someone he shared a class with back in second year and not his friend of almost three years.

As if on cue, just as Sunghoon reaches you and envelops you in a hug, Jake turns around and yells loud enough for all the players spilling out of the locker rooms, “And don’t forget to wear protection! I’m not ready to be an uncle yet.”

“That’s disgusting, Jakey,” you yell back, and he smiles proudly. Sunghoon had never thought the day would come where you’d initiate a kiss in a room full of people—he’s on cloud nine when you take his head in your hands and press your lips to his, murmuring praises about how well he played.

“It was all for you, baby,” he says, trying to appear cool even though a blush is creeping up his ears. 

“Not for the recruiter of the national team?” you asked with a smirk.

He smiles, shrugging. “Maybe a bit for him too. You’re the one I want to impress.”

“Consider me impressed.” You stand on your tiptoes to kiss him a second time.

You head towards your friends, hands warm against each other.

--

In classic mysterious Jay fashion, he organizes a New Year’s Eve party that he can’t attend himself.

He’s on holiday in some exotic country halfway across the world with his family, but he’s offered up their house for a celebration and tasked Jake with making sure no one trashes anything.

The party started three hours ago, and you’re sure it’s in full swing by now—you’re sure everyone is having a jolly old time, getting drunk enough to welcome the new year with a hangover, searching the crowds of people for the person they’ll want to kiss at midnight. You’re sure that people are having so much fun that whoever notices your and Sunghoon’s absence might think you’re missing out.

And maybe you are—but there’s nowhere you’d rather be than where you are now, straddling your boyfriend’s lap in the backseat of his car. He’s a little bit tipsy, you’re a little bit tipsy, it’s obvious in the way you kiss each other, messy, impatient, interspersed with giggles and with perhaps too much tongue. Your hands are not much more polite, harshly grabbing at his hair just the way you know he likes it, and neither are his, having snuck their way underneath your black satin dress long ago already.

When Sunghoon pulled you away from the party, you’d appropriately exclaimed, “But the party?”, to which he replied, “Fuck the party.” It wasn’t like him to curse, or to have anything but a bashful smile on his lips, like a guilty dog who’d been caught doing something it knew it shouldn’t, even though he was just standing there, so when you see his stoney expression, you think something serious must’ve happened.

The something serious turned out to be “that guy who was touching your shoulder.”

Clearly, it’d take Sunghoon a little bit more time to be entirely secure in your relationship. In the meantime, you didn’t mind letting him fuck his jealousy away.

Although he’d been the one to whisk you away, you’re the one who finds yourself begging for him to speed things up. Your flimsy thong does absolutely nothing, so you’re basically grinding yourself bare against his clothed erection—and it’s not like the fabric of his suit trousers is very thick, either. A girl can only put up with so much dry humping before having her boyfriend’s dick inside of her goes from being a want to a need.

“Need you, Hoon,” you coo against the shell of his ear. A few words usually do the trick, but Sunghoon has other plans tonight.

“What do you need, baby?”

“You.”

“I’m right here,” he says, punctuating his words with a squeeze of your ass.

“You know what I mean,” you say, practically whining.

“I’m not sure I do, actually.”

You pull away and, looking at him directly, say, “God, Sunghoon. I want you to fuck me.” His shit-eating grin simultaneously makes you roll your eyes and goes straight to your core.

“That I can do.”

He keeps one hand on your ass as he loosens his tie first, then undoes his belt and trouser buttons. His slacks and underwear pool around his ankles, and all he needs to do is hike your dress up around your hips and push your thong to the side. You wrap a hand around his dick, but your mind is too hazy to do much with it—he’s started rubbing circles on your clit with his thumb, the pressure and speed as perfect as it always is. You let your forehead fall against his shoulders and moan unabashedly, thankful he decided to park the car far enough away from the house.

“You like it when I touch you like this, baby?”

“I love it, Hoon.”

He hums his approval. “You’re so perfect. So perfect and so wet for me, isn’t that right?”

You start to say “yes,” but you interrupt yourself with a gasp. You hold onto Sunghoon’s arm, feel his muscles move under your palm as he slips two fingers inside of you without warning. “Please,” you choke out, a tight knot already forming in your stomach.

“Please what?”

“Need you. Need your dick, baby.”

He smiles as if endeared, but his words couldn’t be more different. “Maybe you should’ve thought of that before going off with some random guy the one minute I was somewhere else.”

“He’s just-fuck, Hoon, he’s just a mutual friend of Jay and I. Fuck, right there, baby.” Forming coherent sentences when Sunghoon’s fingers flick against that perfect spot deep inside you again and again is no easy task, but you need to defend yourself.

“Right there?” he echoes, voice a whisper against your ear. When you nod, eyes shut tight, he slips his fingers out. You look at him, betrayed. “That’s too bad. Why don’t you ask him to touch you right there, hm?”

You don’t know how much of his jealousy is put-on to get you to beg and how much of it is real. You make a mental note to have a conversation with him about this later—right now, you don’t mind playing along if it means your boyfriend will deign to fuck you. You know he wants to, he’s just making you work harder.

You move your hand up and down along his dick, brush his reddening tip with your palm every now and then. “He couldn’t touch me like you, Hoon.” You lean in and trail kisses along his neck, his jawline, his ears. “Can’t fuck me like you, either.”

With exams, hockey matches and any other responsibilities out of the way for winter break, the two of you had had an obscene amount of sex in the past couple of weeks. You’d done other things, of course, namely having much-needed conversations with each other, your friends, your families. Sunghoon’s mother was overjoyed at the news, glad her “duckling had finally met someone” — her words — and his sister kept stealing his phone from him to talk to you when you were on FaceTime. You and Jake had gone home for two days for Christmas, and although Jake had needed to pep talk you into it for over an hour, you managed to tell them that you wouldn’t stand for being belittled for your life choices anymore.

But in-between these conversations, you couldn’t keep your hands off of each other. You’ve grown more comfortable with each passing day, both of you bolder in vocalizing what you want and how you feel. And so, you quickly found out that your Sunghoon, your shy, sweet Sunghoon, got off like nothing else on salacious words. In line with his possessiveness, he loved hearing about how he and only he could do these things to you; in line with your need for validation, you could practically come from hearing his praises alone.

“That’s right, baby.” Like the gentleman he is, he fishes out the condom wrapper he had gotten ready from his trouser pocket, tears it open with his mouth and rolls the condom on with one hand, his other one still preoccupied with you. “Come here, my love,” he whispers, his sweet tone worlds away from his previous teasing, almost cocky one. He grabs your hips, guides you closer to him and lines your entrance with the tip of his dick. He lets you go at your own pace, rubs your thighs soothingly as you sink down onto him slowly and adjust to his size. You throw your head back, mind hazy with pleasure as you move your hips back-and-forth against him.

“You feel so good, baby. You’re doing so well for me.” His words make you pick up your pace, and you wrap your arms around his neck, fingers grabbing at his hair and sides of your faces pressed against each other as you start lifting your hips and sinking back down. Sunghoon’s hands hold your ass tightly, guiding you up and down. It’s hot in the car; sweat runs down your hairline and your back, air is running low, the windows are fogging up, but it only adds to the dizzying bliss growing in you. Even the seatbelt receiver digging into your knee doesn’t bother you.

“Feels so good, Hoon,” you moan.

“I know, baby.”

Your hours of studying everyday means your thighs aren’t the strongest—good thing for you that your boyfriend has enough stamina and strength for the both of you. As soon as he feels you tiring, your rhythm becoming slower and more irregular, he picks up your slack. One hand on your back, one arm around your waist, he presses you close to him, his hold on you so tight you can barely move. He bucks his hips harshly into yours, faster and faster, making you cry out with every brush of his tip against that spot deep inside of you. Your whole body shakes with pleasure as your moans grow higher and louder, until the tension in your stomach hits its apex and unravels. A gasp leaves your throat as you come around him, but he’s unrelenting, the overstimulation quickly making tears form in your eyes. Strings of curses and praises of how perfect you are spill out of Sunghoon’s mouth disorderly as he reaches his own end.

Together, you take your time catching your breath, his fingers roaming your back while you trail soft kisses all over his face and neck. “My pretty baby,” he whispers, and it makes your heart swell with so much affection for him that you press your lips to his, shutting him up in case he says something that actually has you exploding.

You wish you could spend some more time just the two of you before returning to the party, but when you check your phone, it’s already five minutes to midnight—he puts his clothes back on as you fix your hair in a rush, Sunghoon helping you wipe away traces of mascara under your eyes, and together, run back to the living room where everyone has gathered. You find Minjeong, Yunjin, Chaewon and Jake, who has Jay on FaceTime. It’s only five p.m. where he is.

Everyone counts down from ten together. The first thing you do in the new year is kiss Park Sunghoon—and you’ll make sure it’s the last thing you do, too.

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[thebestsetter]

Thinking about Isagi Yoichi, the hero of Japan and biggest egoist on the field, being a complete loser when it comes to the girl he likes.

Like, he may insult the opposing team's players (and even his own teammates sometimes!) in the field, but gets all red and stutters when he needs to talk to you.

Isagi Yoichi who is absolutely delusional. If he holds a conversation with you for more than 5 minutes, you can bet he's gonna think about it during THE WHOLE WEEK. His friends can't escape his feelings either: he's always talking about you or associating things with you. Like: "Oh, she would like this!" Or "You guys won't believe it: we talked for almost 10 minutes today!" Please save Hiori and Bachira. They can't take it anymore. (Well, Bachira doesn't really care, but Hiori is really almost losing his shit.)

This absolute dork would listen to love songs while thinking about you and then get all blushy after, hugging a pillow while stuffing his red face on it and everything. And heaven forbids anyone enters his room after you compliment him! He's kicking his feet, screaming, crying and laughing all at the same time. SPECIALLY if it's a compliment regarding his football abilities. Say something along the lines of "That goal today was amazing, Yoichi! It was such a smart play!" and he's melting and thinking about it through the whole month.

Speaking of football, he'd LOVE to see you in his soccer games/practices cheering loudly for him. I mean, he's already absolutely smitten for you, but seeing you there screaming because of his goal or smiling because of a play he made just makes his obsession love for you grow 10 times bigger!!

He'd even ask his mom for advice on what to say to you! She thinks it's cute her little boy is growing up (even though he's already 17), so she tries to help him the best she can. But there's just so much mama can do. He tries to follow her teachings, but, as I said before, always stutters and trips over his words, which makes him feel really stupid and almost give up on love, since it's a "very hard and painful feeling that just hurts people" (his words).

When he finally musters up the courage to ask you out on a date (after a lot of insistence from Hiori, who is just really tired from all of this), he wants it all to go perfect. He has it all pictured in his head: he'll ask you to meet him in the back of the school after extracurricular activities so he can ask you out. He'll have flowers and everything, and then he'll say that speech he spent the last 14 days memorizing. You'll say yes with a smile in you face (he's already blushing just from imagining your smile, he really is down bad) and then you'll live your happilly ever after together.

Spoiler alert: nothing went as planned. First, the letter he wrote asking you to meet him in the back of the school got wet because he accidentally spilt water on it. So, he had to make a half-assed substitute letter to put in your desk.

Second, he forgot soccer leaves people all stinky. So, at the end of practice, he had to choose between taking a shower and showing up all drenched and late and showing up sweaty and smelly. He choose the former, after all, showing up late but presentable is better than showing up early but looking like you got shit on by a racoon.

Third, when he finally got there (you were almost leaving, thank God he caught you just in time!) and apologized for being late, he gave you the flowers. He thought nothing else could go wrong, but things can always get worse than they already are. But I don't blame him for not knowing that things could, in fact, get worse: how was he supposed to guess there were literally bees in the flowers? To get rid of them, he tried to shook the bouquet, but accidentally ended up throwing it at your face. With bees and all.

You screamed. He screamed. He grabbed the bouquet and shoved it away, looking at the ground and wishing it'd just swallow him whole. He messed up his chance, you'd never ever even look at his way again. You hated him, absolutely hated him. You wish he was dead, you were going to change schools just to never see him again, he's the worse person ever-

Huh? What is that sound? You're laughing...? You're seriously laughing?

You laughed. He got confused.

He looked up. You were throwing your head back while wiping away the tears that got out of your eyes. You were clutching your stomach because you were laughing so hard it was starting to hurt.

You laughed. He laughed.

You both looked like maniacs. Lunatics. Laughing alone in the middle of nowhere. You looked crazy he WAS crazy. Crazy for you. Not that you knew it at that time

He then decided to just shoot his shot and finally asked you out, without flowers or memorized speech. He didn't even think you'd accept, he just thought it wouldn't hurt to try.

Imagine his face when you said yes. Even with the shitty proposal and embarassing moments, you said yes. And he was absolutely delighted. You gave him your number so he could text you the details about the date, and he was seriously shaking. I'm being for real, his pupils were blown wide and he was almost crying from happiness.

He went home jumping and skipping from happiness. Now, he wasn't just a loser. He was a loser with a date, so that makes him less loserly (at least that's what he thinks).

You accepting his proposal didn't make him talk less about you. Actually, he was now talking about you more than before, if it's even possible. Hiori felt like killing himself (he was happy for his friend, of course, he just didn't want to admit it).

This fic has a "sequel", it's this one

Masterlist

[junethestudent]

Discreet Perversion

I just want this ridden of my drafts, I cannot perfect it..

F! Dom Reader x G!P Loser Jeongie

Content Warning: Not proofread, blowjob, and unsafe sex (guys please use protection.)

(Reader's friends are bullies, so is reader.)

Minjeong adjusts the rim of her glasses and whines, the darkened circles under her eyes prominent.

Her mouth is slightly ajar as she pants, her hand moving quickly against the hardness of her erect cock.

“This seems like something you’d do at home, yet here you are in the computer room,” you whisper, your breath tickling at her ear.

She jolts upward and knocks herself back into the cheap plastic chair, crashing onto the floor. With her cock still sprung in the air she kicks in an attempt to level herself.

Her cheeks are bright red, showcasing her embarrassment as she wobbles to her feet.

“Not going to say anything? That’s shameful of you Minjeong, even for a loser such as yourself,” your voice is harsh now, judgemental.

“Nobody was supposed to be here,” she spits out her words, adjusting the way too long sleeves of her flannel.

“Nobody was supposed to be jerking their meat in the computer lounge either,” you put your hand on your hip and smirk at her guilty looking face.

“Anyway, I’m sure it’ll make for a good story at the party tomorrow night.. not that you’d be going.”

“It’s just a rumor.. they wouldn’t believe you.” She seems to question her own words, hesitating to continue her sentence. She flexes her jaw, hiding her face behind her unkempt hair, hands gripping on the table behind her.

“Well why would they believe you, an outcast?” You take one step toward her, testing her.

Minjeong breathes out, anxious of your confidence and threat of outing her actions to the school.

“I could let it go though, if you do something in return.”

The truth was that you found Minjeongie to be very attractive. Her worn clothing fitting loosely around her perfect body, or the nerdy square glasses that frame her puppyish face.

However, for someone as popular as you, it would not look well to be seen with an infamous loser, regardless of her cuteness.

So why not take advantage of this private situation, and put her on a leash now?

“If it has anything to do with sticking my head in a toilet again, then I’m not doing it,” her voice rings out through the lab as she clenches her fists near her sides, her knuckles white.

“Toilet? Tfft.. I had nothing to do with that. Honestly, I wasn’t even aware my friends paid much attention to the likes of you.”

You sway towards her, skirt moving against you as you corner her into the table, smiling with an all too recognizable seductive look.

“The truth is Minjeongie, I really really like you,” you swirl your finger against her shirt, teasing her, as if to coax her into just throwing you against the table and pounding you.

But no, Jeongie’s too shy to take initiative, so you have to do everything for her. Of course she wants it, but admitting to it would prove that she has nothing but perverted tendencies.

“I’m not ready yet,” she murmurs under her breath as you cup the crotch area of her jeans.

“Why not? What’s wrong with me, hm?”

There was absolutely no way she wasn’t interested in you, the little perv always had her eyes following you in class.

“No I mean.. I can’t get hard..” Her eyes are looking down now at her flaccid cock just hanging there.

You let out a giggle and it almost sends the poor girl into orbit just hearing you, feeling you.

“I must have scared you when I came in, right? Otherwise that raging boner you had would have been inside of me.”

She widens her eyes, the back of her mind imagining how your tight wetness would feel around her entire length. How would it feel to finally lose her virginity to someone of high social status?

That thought in itself is enough to send blood rushing straight to her dick, causing it to jump straight up.

“I think it likes me Jeongie, a lot.”

She nudges herself into you and rests her head on the crook of your shoulder. Her fingers claw into your shirt, her cock resting against your stomach.

“I do like you a lot,” her breathing is labored as she speaks, and you can feel the steady but fast pumping of her heartbeat.

It’s truly adorable how she is. So clingy at the slightest display of attention, holding you so close. Her body tenses as you suddenly work your thumb against her tip, elliciting a way too adorable whimper from poor Jeongie.

“I wanna make you feel good too,” and with that she’s already dropped to the floor and spun you around, lifting your skirt for easy access and moving your panties out of the way as if they were bothersome.

It makes you laugh how desperate she is to please you, ignoring her own pleasure just to worship your body. Not only that, for a virgin she’s damn good.

Using her tongue to flick your clit in circular motions while she only pumps one finger in, not wanting to hurt the woman she worships.

She’s good, must be all the porn she consumes - considering it’s inaccuracy it’s quite surprising. She has your legs twitching already as she tries to force her tongue into you. It feels hot, really hot. It’s no help that she’s switched to using her finger to rub at your clit in a figure eight motion, letting a drawn out moan out from you.

But since you don’t want the virgin to know she has the upper hand right now, you signal for her to put her cock in you. Lord knows you aren’t able to fix the words out of your mouth right now.

Minjeong stands eagerly, positioning herself clumsily behind you. Slowly pressing down on her shaft she massages it in between your ass, cursing under her breath every now and then. Patience isn’t one of your strongsuits though, you always get what you want.

Right now you want her cock buried deep in your guts, not fondled around on your ass. This is what you tell yourself as you reach under and pull her deep into you, making her shudder as she doubles over, grabbing you like her life depends on it.

“S’good.. really good!” Is all she manages to say as she starts to pound into you, her cock hitting deep against your cunt while her balls are forced into your clit with each thrusting motion.

The warmth of her body on yours and the tingling feeling that is evoked from your body makes you feel fuzzy inside. You can’t seem to think of anything but the nerdish girl who was just red faced moments ago.

“Oh.. fuck!”Jeongie cries out as your wetness spills onto her, something you weren’t even aware of at the moment.

Keeling into you, Minjeong, who’s eyes have glazed over in shock, has started to hump her cock deeper into you at an uneven pace. Pitiful she is as her balls begin to tighten, her load working its way out of her cock.

“Gonna cum now.. please?” She grits her teeth, holding herself back until you’ve given her the proper permission. But why would you do that? Poor baby hasn’t even lasted over ten minutes..

Looking back at her you frown, not satisfied with her inconsistent thrusting. She picks up on this in an instant, pulling herself out with a quick whine and grunt.

“I can wait, I promise! I just need a second..” she stumbles over the majority of her words, completely lost in the heat of the situation.

“I don’t think you can Jeongie,” rising from the table you snatch at her wrist, pulling her back against your breasts. She swallows hard and wipes the sweat from her forehead, breathing heavily.

Without warning you grab her dick, pumping your hand fast against the skin. She tenses her shoulders, her mouth agape and eyes rolled back as her seed spills out onto her tummy.

Only now do you really notice the true girth of her cock. It’s pretty looking and clean. Perfectly proportioned balls and just enough length that she could hurt you if not careful.

It just keeps shooting back onto her and running down onto her pants that rest at her ankles. You grab her balls, massaging them until every last drop of cum has drizzled down her legs, leaving her helplessly on you.

Seconds pass now, the clock ticking in the quietness of the room. Minjeong drops to her knees as her cock slowly softens.

“What about you?” She sputters out her words, mouth dry and voice hoarse.

Dropping your skirt you scoff at her words, moving your way towards the door.

“You’ll be repaying me for my generosity soon, don’t you worry Jeongie baby.”

[mydearesthrry]

casual - h.s.

a/n: self indulgent because i will never get over the fact that half of this happened to me literally verbatim because im a loser ok bye. this is my way of coping enjoy please i got so carried away ugh the impact of a british man hahaha. i suggest casual by chappell roan or …what are we? by lizzy mcalpine

wc: im guessing 1k>

warnings: angst thats really it harry’s lowkey a cunt but its not him ok. THIS IS FRAT BOY HARRY FOR THIS ONE!!!

y/n was startled to see her front door swing open, harry stepping into the threshold to get away from the cold air outside. “hi baby.”

“hey, h,” she replied, stepping up from her place on the couch to meet him where he was toeing off his shoes. “how was your day?”

y/n’s hands ran up his chest to his shoulders, pushing his coat off his figure and hooking it on the coatrack. “it was okay, how was yours?”

“fine, thank you,” she smiled, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes. “tired, i guess.”

“that’s not good, princess, you need to get your sleep. can’t have my pretty girl all sleepy, hm?” he grinned, wrapping his arms around the girl and pressing a kiss into her temple.

“yeah, just had a lot on my mind recently, i guess.” she says through a sigh, unwrapping harry’s arms from her body, walking away from him toward the kitchen.

“like what?” harry questioned, following behind her like a puppy.

“i… nothing, it’s not important,” she considered it. she really did. but it just… she couldn’t find it in herself to ruin what they had so easily. to ruin them so easily. “don’t worry about me, really.”

harry physically recoiled as if he’d been burnt, “i want to worry about you, y/n. i want you to be okay, always.” he’d used her real name— a true indication that she’d offended him.

“i- i know, i’m sorry. i jus’ don’t wanna bother you with my stupid stuff.” she glanced up at him through her lashes, refusing to make eye contact.

“it it has to do with you, it’s not stupid. now, tell me, princess, what’s wrong?” he tried once more. he could tell that she was getting closer to telling him the truth, he just needed to coax it out of her.

“can we sit?” she asked, harry immediately nodding and grabbing her hand to lead her over.

“so, what’s on your mind?”

“i’m scared to tell you.”

harry looked confused then. “why?”

“because… if you don’t know, and i don’t know, then it doesn’t make sense for this to keep happening,” she paused. “and i don’t want to lose you.”

“wait, what are we even talking about? lose me? why would you lose m-“

“you confuse me.” that’s definitely one way to put it.

“what?” harry tilted his head, his hand still covering hers.

“i- it’s just, sometimes i really can’t tell if you want me, or if you’re just keeping me around just to keep me around. like, sometimes you treat me so platonically it confuses me, and then other times you’re rattling off how i’m the only one for you. i know we said no strings, i know, but i know you don’t really see me as a friend. there’s no way that this is just casual, harry.”

harry didn’t know what to say. staring down at their intertwined hands, he cleared his throat and bit at his lip.

“what is it, please just tell me what’s on your mind,” y/n pleaded, squeezing his hands.

“i… honestly don’t know, my love, im sorry,” he finally said, but he chose to twist the knife. “i don’t know what we are.”

oh.

oh.

“oh, um,” she whispered, sliding her legs off of harry’s knees, withdrawing her hands from his grasp to slide under her thighs. “yeah, i… i didn’t think you would.”

“i’m sorry, princess. you won’t lose me though, y’do know that, right?” he could sense her sadness like it was his own. his phone ringing distracted her from her thoughts, the name reading ‘Claire’, making a scoff leave her lips.

“go handle business, i’ll be upstairs.” y/n said coolly, standing from the couch once more. as she began her trek to the stairs, harry grabbed her wrist.

“don’t be like that.” he grumbled, pressing the pressure point between her thumb and pointer finger.

“be like what? i’m gonna go take a nap, didn’t you just tell me to get some rest?” she smiled, but he could see the hurt in her eyes.

not exclusive, more than friends, less than lovers. how could she be so naive?

“are you sure?”

“your phone’s still ringing.”

“that’s unimportant. are you okay?”

“peachy.”

he knew she was lying. he just didn’t know what she wanted to hear.

“okay, pretty girl, dream of me, yeah?”

“mhm. see you later, lock the door if you leave.”

“i will, i’m sorry.”

as she walked away, she could hear his voice fill the living room.

“hey angel, i’ll be there in 20.”

more than friends, less than lovers.

—

part 2

[inf3ct3dd]

streamer!ellie headcanons

warnings: yo no se

content : streamer!ellie headcanons 🔥🔥

authors note : the streets r calling and they’re telling me to write streamer ellie hcs….

- def started off as a faceless streamer. she wasn’t really comfortable on camera, and she just thought it would be way easier. you can only see her shoulders-down leaving her (deliciosu. scrumptious. yummy) arms in the cameras view.

- her twitch user is “creeperewman” cuz shes like…discreetly hiding her initials and referencing the best minecraft parody ever 😕!!!

- bought the most random shitty mic and webcam and started streaming 🔥🔥 she never got rid of either of them its part of her odd loser charm

“‘fartmaster69:it’s probably cuz your camera’ it’s probably bc of YOUR CAMERA!!! theres nothing wrong w my camera bro 😞”

“don’t listen to them…ur perfect 🤫 IM NOT TALKING TO U GUYS IM TALKING TO MY CAMERA”

- only had a few viewers the first couple times she streamed, and it was some random 10 yr old who kept spamming “yassss” in the chat and some dude who said she was shit at minecraft 😞 he was LYING

- started off doing minecraft speed runs (or trying to) and got like way good over time

- she randomly started getting more and more viewers, because people kept posting abt her and calling her fine on tiktok , making edits of her hands and her voice 😭😭 (real)

- as she got more and more viewers, she started branching out more with the games she’d play. def loves shooter games like cod and pubg, but she’d also play like indie horror games like faith (omg markiplier fans would know)

- she has a orange cat she named garfield (cuz��of course she does) and he’s always sitting on her lap during her streams or messing w her setup 💔💔

- def put stickers all over her headset and showed them off all proud on stream

- designed her own cute banners and stuff for streams 😞!!!

- def had a subreddit/disc server with her viewers where she’d let them give her game recs or make memes of her

- ppl saw her guitar in the back of her streams and BEGGED HER to play it and she had her own lil concert stream !!! she was so freaking nervous and messed up a bunch the first like minute or two but like after that she was in the ZONE

“‘ewswife: i wish i was that guitar’ oh!! you guys are so…kind!!!”

- when she INSANELY hit 1k, she did a face reveal and she hit 10k the same day 😦 the amount of edits that ppl made was actually insane. ESP ONES MAKING FUN OF DREAMS FACE REVEALLLL

- started doing much more random shit on stream after she got more famous. she LOVES cooking on stream, and she’d start reacting to random shit ppl sent her on the subreddit

- she cut her hair on stream once, and everyone in the chat kept spamming “yo bob…is fye” for like 5 minutes 😪

- “you’re at work watching me? i hope you get fired. i mean. i hope you don’t get fired 😞”

- she gets so many thirst comments and like…is terrible at responding to them

“‘ewleftbicep: you look so vulnerable today’ WHAT”

- she has her own apartment cuz of her awesome streaming money 🔥🔥🔥 soundproofed walls too cuz she’s. loud.

- one day, you were walking on campus to a class. you had your headphones on, listening to your main playlist on shuffle, when you got stopped by someone. you pulled your headphones off your ears and gave the man in front of you a confused look. you looked down to his hands, holding a tiny mic, and another dude holding a camera.

“what song are you listening to?” he held the microphone towards you, awaiting your response.

you quickly responded “uhm, last goodbye, by jeff buckley.” and stood there awkwardly, pushing a piece of hair out of your face.

the man quickly thanked you and you walked away, slightly suprised.

- after a couple hours, the video had blown up and the comments were filled with people complimenting you.

pickleluna: jeff buckley girl is so fine

minyonlala: 3rd girl is so bad

rilakkila: I NEED JEFF BUCKLEY GIRL

and unknown to you, someone else found you on their fyp.

creeperewman: guys what is the 3rd girls @. im literally BEGGING BRO PLEASEEE

- ewleftbicep: BEING DESPERATE ON MAIN IS CRAZY

- ewsgirlf: random tiktok girl stole my wife 💔

- elliewilliamsidechick: guys im literally the 3rd girl 😂😂😂

- it didn’t take long for your phone to be blown up with people sending you the video, tagging you in funny comments, and finding your instagram. you watched the video, and saw ellie was the top comment. you checked her profile, and saw how FINE she was, and immediately responded

- y/nmainn: guys 😳😳😳 what if i was the third girl 😳😳

- ellie checked her phone and saw thousands of people tagging your comment, and she wasted zero time following you on tiktok. and your instagram. its not stalking if its in your bio, right?

- you two immediately hit it off, and ellie loved the fact that you had absolutely no idea who she was. to you, she was just some hot girl. not some famous streamer you were obsessed with.

- she didn’t even realize you two went to the same school until she saw you in her astrophysics class one day, and she almost had a heart attack when you waved at her and walked over to sit next to her.

“what a coincidence.”

- she took you out on your first date to a planetarium, and not even a week after, asked you to be her girlfriend.

- she definitely teaches you how to play her favorite games. but she gets wayyyy defensive when you beat her.

“im just letting you win.”

“beginners luck.”

but shes SO COCKY when she beats you

“hey, don’t be so hard on yourself after this. not your fault im a professional!”

“aw, maybe one day you’ll be as good as me”

- definitely helps you build your own pc.

- loves watching you play things like animal crossing or stardew valley, always lays on your shoulder while you’re on the couch.

“why are you being so mean to gaston :((“

“because hes UGLY and he has an ugly house and he’s ruining my village.”

“wowww you’re bullying a little bunny man because he doesn’t fit your aesthetic 😒 so mean”

- if you like more aggressive games like cod, she loves listening to you talk shit while you play and always makes fun of people with you. (she thinks its hot when you’re mean to people)

- her chat absolutely loves you, and every time you stream together its a continuous stream of “me and who” and “when is it my turn 😪”

[blackdollette]

"i fell for another loser." | spencer reid

in my feelings. - lana del rey

⊹₊⋆ synopsis: it didn't take a genius to detect when something was wrong with spencer...

fill out the taglist form! : @thirtyratsinasuit @auggiethecreator @oliviah-25 @sleepysongbirdsings @pleasantwitchgarden @emma-e-a @bellasprettywords

⊹₊⋆ pairing: bau!female!reader x spencer

⊹₊⋆ word count: 651

⊹₊⋆ contents: nervous spencer, slight tension, a little fluff

you quietly placed a hot, coffee-filled cup beside the two empty ones on spencer’s desk, the slight click sound it made as it hit the hardwood making his head jerk up. this was the third time he has dozed off like this, and it was only 11 in the morning.

he rubbed his eyes, his hair falling in disheveled tufts over his face as you leaned against his desk. 

“thanks… again.”

you nodded. “anytime.”

he picked up the cup, looking up at you. “blonde espresso with two teaspoons of sugar, right?”

you rolled your eyes. “this is my third delivery of the day. i even opted adding a quart of sugar.”

he mustered a little laugh, taking a long sip with a deep sigh, leaning back in his chair as he set the cup back down, starting to fidget with his thumbs like a nervous child. you were still standing there, confused at his unkempt disposition.

“something keeping you up at night, spence? i’ve never seen you this… disordered before.”

he locked eyes with you, hastily trying to fix his hair as he shook his head. “n-no, i’ve just…” he hesitated. “it’s nothing.”

your mouth nearly curled into an amused smile. on a normal day, you wouldn’t even need to ask spencer before he began telling you all the things he dreamt of and all the ways he would spend his evening. you wanted to pry, but didn’t want to strain him any further.

“well, you know where i am if you wanna talk.”

you smiled and gave him a half wave, heading to the exit door of his office. as you began to turn the handle, he blurted out quickly. “do you have any idea why i can’t get a date?”

you turned around slowly, raising an eyebrow. “maybe because i’ve never seen you ask a girl out, casanova.”

his cheeks flushed a little as his head angled downward, staring intensely at the ground. the realization suddenly hit you like a freight train.

“oh… is that what’s been keeping you up at night? you… like a girl..?”

spencer swallowed hard, nodding just a little. “i guess you could put it that way.”

you two fell silent for a moment, spencer not even being able to look you in the eye. he was blushing like an embarrassed school boy and could barely formulate a single sentence. 

you cleared your throat to break the silence. 

“so… you got any plans for her?”

spencer nodded, shuffling around a few papers on his desk. “y-yeah. i got her and i tickets to a ball game, reservations to her favourite restaurant, and… i was gonna ask her to be my girlfriend.”

your heart would’ve warmed up if the lump growing in your throat hadn’t appeared first. “wow, it looks like you’ve got the whole night planned.” it was your turn to fidget with your thumbs. “i-is she pretty..?”

spencer finally loosens up at that question, a full smile breaking out on his face. “that doesn’t begin to cover it.”

you nodded, feeling a stab of insecurity in your chest, but you masked it with an endearing smile. “well to the looks of it, you’ve got a plan, you’ve set everything up, and it seems that you really like her. so go ahead and ask. i promise that no girl could ever say no to you. and if she does, you’re way out of her league.”

spencer’s eyes grew a little misty, along with yours. your hand fell to the door handle once again, turning it slowly.

“good luck, spence…”

god, that nickname, the one that no one else in the world ever used. the butterflies in spencer’s stomach had increased significantly. he knew that it was now or never.

his voice coming out shakier than ever stopped you in your tracks as you began to leave the room.

“so, uh, a-are you free this saturday..?”

author's note: ugh.

[webbluvrsugar]

I'm loving the bully!reader trope.

Currently thinking about reader teasing him but like physically teasing him, Walking past him as her ass rubs against him. During movie nights sitting next to him, touching his thigh and going up. Whispering nasty shit in his ear. Meeting him in the hallway to make out and then leaving him rock hard, alone and desperate for more.

With bully!reader you wake up something in all of us, that we didn't know we had. You bring back to life the tag.

a/n: omg yes I love this trope soooo much! And thank you so much, this is a huge compliment, I’m so glad y’all are liking it!!

﹒ ☆ 𓂂 ˚ ☆. ꙳ * ࣭ ࣭ bully!reader teasing Ethan ‘cause she knows how it gets him…

He doesn’t think you do it on purpose at first, specially because you’re not the brightest bulb in the bunch — he’s noticed that when you two started dating — even if you convince yourself that you are by ordering him around and mocking him to insanity, he just thinks you’re a bit careless with the things you do, that you don’t notice how he gets.

For example, when you ask him to get you something from a high cabinet, you always make sure to arch your back a little more, get your ass flush with crotch and then make fun of him when he gets turned on for it. — “Oh my god, are you seriously that easy?” You’d say in a high pitch girly voice, laughing and giggling at him as you leave the room. — He never thought you’d be that mean, he only realised you had the courage to do it when you started putting him on the spot, always in these compromising situations to get a boner out of him.

Like in class, when you’d sit besides him to whisper — “My back hurts soo much, you need to stop giving it to me that rough.” — and he’s suddenly gripping his pencil harder than he was before, trying not to picture your head on the pillow and the way your ass looked with every thrust he gave you.

But the worst thing you’d do would be randomly stopping him after lunch with an angry frown to trick him. “Meet me in the library, can’t believe you’ve even had the courage to do that!”

Now, Ethan doesn’t know what the fuck he’s done wrong, he usually knows how to calm that little demon in you, but now he really thinks he screwed up when you turn around in your kitten heels and sprint your way there. He follows you in an instant.

“Listen, I don’t really know what I’ve done but I just —“ He’s cut off with an angry grunt and a command that follows suit.

“Sit down.” He does, you sit besides him.

“I’m serious, I have no idea.” He mutters, doe eyes staring into yours as you drop your books on the table and turn to him. “If you could just —“

“Shut up, loser.” And then your lips are on his, both hands on his shoulders before one goes down to his thigh, slowly going up to the zipper on his pants.

Of course.

Your hand is quick to nest itself inside his pants, manicured nails brushing against the tip of his cock before you slightly squeeze him, pull away with a smirk, and just when he thinks you’d get on your knees, you stand, kiss him on the cheek.

“What? You got class.” You say with a smile, pouting as if you’ve done nothing wrong.

So now, not only does he have to walk around with a boner, he also has to carry the books you casually forgot there.

Next time you’re both in bed, he’ll make sure he gives it to you rougher.

[jwanniie]

ik hanni's so soft, but can you make a fic like I kinda wanna see her as a fuck girl 😭 liek girlie be fuckin girls left and right

And she's like a bball/foot ball player and ur like innocent and ofc a VIRGIN

Mean gp hanni please, and also take ur time 😓

Pairings: G!p Fuck girl basketball player Hanni x fem reader!

Word count: 1,4

Warnings: unprotected sex (don’t be silly wrap your Willy), use of aphrodisiac, manipulation, corruption kink, p in v, fuck girl hanni, virgin reader, reader gets called kitty, little bit of teasing, not proofread, and just filthy smut!!

Jwans note: I managed to make this kinda soft🫣🤷‍♀️

—————————————————————————

You hated basketball, and you hated Hanni. Or maybe you hated basketball because of hanni?

Hanni was one of the most popular basketball players in your whole school, and the most arrogant one. She had girls literally flooding her house everyday or all over her in the school cafeteria.

You’ve heard some of the nastiest rumors about her, from the same girls that she has fucked dumb and threw away the next day, it got to the point that there were no more girls to fuck in your school, she had to “re-fuck” and that was one of the things that she hated. She wanted something new and different, not something she already got to have her fun with. She got bored easily and that’s just her habit.🤷‍♀️

You hated her because of her mean attitude and the way she treated the girls after she got to have her fun with them. Well hate is a big word, dislike is more like it.

You never hanged out with type of people like Hanni. She was way out of your league and you liked your own small group of friends. You guys weren’t nerd but you weren’t popular, you guys just had your grades on the top of the list. You cared for your future and career. So after the cute kindergarten crush and date you had, you never went out nor had some kind of hook up in some available room in those frat parties like most people your age did.

You heard the unnecessary rumor in your school, about your friend group being a pack of losers and virgins. You have no idea who spread that information, but there was nothing to deny except the losers part. You honestly didn’t know what was wrong with being a virgin or not having much experience. But still you had to torment the laughing of the mean girls and the laughing of the fuck girls.

Hanni found the thing, quite alluring actually. The idea of fucking a virgin pussy and virgin mouth, didn’t fail to make blood pressure in her cock and also she’d put you in the list of the girls she has already fucked, so it’s a win win situation for her.

But the real question is…How will she get you under her spell?! You were a hard person to impress or to make a move on, so if she acted nice and kind around you, that won’t impress you.She need more smart and easy way to blind you under the sheets.

The teacher has been nagging about her needing a tutor because of the constant basketball practice and the basketball games. So she have been missing out on lots. Hanni recommended you as her tutor, you were shocked that she even acknowledged you, you were gonna deny but the wide smile the teacher gave and the loud “Good choice” she muttered made you change your mind and accept being her tutor. What is the worse that could happen?

Days come and go as fast as wind, and here you are in front of her door, the first tutoring session. Bringing your hand to knock on the wooden surface. You gave two soft knocks, and not long after, a figure stood tall in front of you. She was wearing grey sweatpants and her teams basketball shirt.

You couldn’t help but let your eyes travel down to her crotch, the visible little bump in there. She saw how you eyed her length she gave a little dirty chuckle. “Shall we go inside?”

You gulped before meeting her lust filled eyes and nodded hurriedly. The little look she had on her face, made anticipation burn right under your belly button.

You sat down on her black leather couch crossing your legs and she stood in front of you.

“Do you want coffee, tee or juice?” She asked you heading towards her kitchen, you registered what she said. “Juice is fine!” You answered politely.

You waited for her patiently, your bag on your lap, playing with all of the cool zippers and pockets before her figure came with a tray of what you think is Orange Juice and heart chocolates. You honestly don’t know about this combo of Orange juice and chocolate, but you are here as a guest so you must be grateful for what she offers you.

You took the glass of juice from the tray and took a little sip, she offered you heart chocolates with a little smirk. Your heart told you to not take it but your brain shouted otherwise and you obviously went with your brain.

“Taste these new chocolates, I bought them from a cool shop near here!”

You mumbled a low ‘thank you’ and took a bite from the heart chocolate. “It’s good!” You said with a warm smile on your face. “I know” she smiled back at you, or not a smile, it was more like a grin.

You started the tutoring session, it was going peacefully and perfectly, before you felt your panties soaked, you were so wet that you swore that there is a probably a stain on her couch. But what confused you was,why were you aroused? There was no particular reason for you to be this wet.

You felt that your clit was ten times more sensitive and you felt like a horny rabbit, even the slightest touches of her hand on your burning form was enough to make the most sinful noises come out. She saw how you were biting your lip or stuttering when her knee brushed against yours. The drug finally did it work and she loved seeing you in this vulnerable state.

You tried rubbing your soaked pussy against the couch, but soon stopped due to the noises that threatened to fall. She wrapped her hand on your thigh, dangerously close to your heat.

She started groping and rubbing the soft flesh. And you couldn’t help yourself and you let out a moan, your hand immediately found it way on top of your mouth, your eyes wide at the sound you just let out.

She gave once again one of her dirty chuckles “if you want me to touch you this badly you could just tell me kitty!” Her index and middle finger found it way over your clothed clit and started rubbing it.

“Fuck- baby you have a waterfall down here” your breath hitched, your brain too occupied with pleasure and the feeling of wanting more that you are not processing what she said. She took off your pants and started toying with your soaked pussy, playing with your folds, thrusting her knuckles in then pulling immediately out, or pinching your sensitive pearl.

And suddenly all of her touches were gone. Her sweats were getting too uncomfortable and suffocating for her, with one swift motions her clothing was discarded on the same pile as your pants.

She aligned herself with your walls before pushing in, your virgin pussy suffocating her cock in the most delicious way ever.

“Fuck kitty, your pussy is hugging me so tight.” Her eyes were shut close and yours were too. Your sobs echoed through the room walls, you were desperate for more. Her hips started rocking against yours gently, the head of her cock discovering places nobody has ever visited. She gripped on your waist like she could just collapse any moment, the grip so tight that you are sure there is now a red or purple marks there

“I’m the first and only one who is going to run this pussy” she muttered before her face leaned against yours, her lips swallowing your high pitched moans.

Her pace started being desperate, hammering her hips against yours, sweaty skin slapping sounds echoing, moans and groans the only thing your brain processing. Her lips captured yours, the kiss messy and sloppy, exchanging saliva and her tongues sucking on yours.

Your pussy was now swallowing her length even tighter, “Hanni I-I’m close” you uttered, it was more like a moan but she could understand you.

“M-me too kitty m-me too!” She groaned. Her tips continued abuse made you clench once more around her before your orgasm washed over you, leaving you exhausted. Your first ever orgasm.

You felt your insides being flooded with warm sticky liquid and you realized that she came. She snuggled onto you, her hands wrapping around your exhausted form. And your hands around her neck. You knew that you had to take a shower soon, but you want to enjoy this moment for now.

[deanssluvr]

DOUBLE OR NOTHING

PAIRINGS: joost klein x fem!reader ,, ski aggu x fem!reader ,, joost klein x fem!reader x ski aggu

SUMMARY: two frat guys are betting on who can have you first, but why choose when you can have both of them.

WARNINGS: RPF. SMUT. threesome. aftercare. mentions of alcohol.

WORD COUNT: 6k

A/N: i hope you guys enjoy reading this because i loved writing it. not proofread. also fyi aggu’s real name is august for those might be confused when it’s brought up. <3

In the bustling heart of college campus life, two fraternity brothers, Joost and August, stood amidst the raucous energy of a late-night party. This event marked the last night before winter break started, a chance for everyone to get together before they all left campus. It was usually the biggest party of the year, and luckily this year Joost and Aggu were in charge of throwing it. Surprisingly setting up a party was easy since the frat house was almost cleared out. In only a few hours, the entire place was a chaotic mix of red cups, music blasting, and students weaving through a maze of people.

You arrived quite late at your friend's invitation. Now you had wished you had taken her offer for a ride, but your roommates had insisted on pregaming. Luckily it was the point of the night that they were letting in anyone because you left your invite with Sadie. As soon as you stepped inside, your roommates ditched you to find their friends, leaving you to yourself. It was more packed than you expected. The air felt heavy as smoke and sweat filled the room. The house was covered in multiple bright colored lights but soon settled on a dark blue. Now here you were trying to make your way through the large crowd looking for Sadie. It was like looking for a needle in a haystack. As you moved through the crowd, you tapped on a few shoulders thinking they were her. It was awkward every time you touched the wrong person. You gave up after a few minutes and made your way to the drink table.

On the other side of the room, Joost, with a cocky grin, turned to Aggu, who leaned casually against the wall.

"How about a bet?" Joost challenged a mischievous smirk on his face.

Aggu raised an eyebrow, his smirk matching Joost's. A chuckle left his lips. "Sure. Why not. What are we betting?"

Joost's grin widened. "Loser has to clean the entire house tomorrow. Alone."

Aggu’s eyes narrowed but he accepted. “Deal. So, who’s the catch?”

Joost’s eyes scanned the room, finally focusing on you as he watched you look around the drink table. He pointed in your direction. “First one to get with her wins. No sleazy moves, though. We’re talking genuine charm and conversation.”

Aggu nodded, sizing up the competition. "Sounds fair. May the best man win."

The air buzzed with anticipation as the two friends separated and made their way through the crowd of partygoers. Both were determined, but only one would walk away with the number and bragging rights for the semester. Little did they know someone had been listening to their whole conversation. Your friend Sadie quickly made her way across the room before either of them could reach you. Luckily both guys were stopped by what she assumed were friends, putting a brief pause in their plan. She caught you by surprise when she grabbed your arm and pulled you aside. You were a bit confused, but just happy to finally see your friend.

“You will never believe what I heard.” she was shaking with anticipation.

“Hello to you too.” you laughed. “What did you hear?”

“You know those two frat dudes in our math class? Joost and Aggu I believe are their names.” You nodded. They were both relatively popular on campus. Mostly for the parties they throw, but also because of the broken hearts they leave in their tracks. You’ve avoided them for that reason, not wanting to end up with the same fate as the other girls. But you could see why they fall for them so easily. They were both very attractive in their ways. Aggu was a gym rat so he was very buff and fit, but also very soft-spoken and kind despite what people like to believe. Though only you knew that because of the one time you both worked on a project together. On the other hand, Joost was a bit thinner but still very good-looking. He had fluffy blonde, almost white, hair and was littered with tattoos. He also had a cocky attitude to match.

“Well first off, both of them find you really pretty. Second, they made a bet to try and sleep with you.” She smiled at you as if she was proud to have given you this information. On any other occasion with any other guys, you would’ve been disgusted and repulsed at the thought of two guys betting for you. But you did like them and found them very attractive, so you decided to turn this around for yourself.

“Thanks for letting me know.” You smirked and looked around the room. Your eyes landed on them both as you spotted them with their friends.

“So who are you gonna pick? Personally, I couldn’t,” she admitted, pulling your attention back to her.

“I think I’m gonna take both.” You winked. You watched as her expression changed from confusion to surprise. She playfully hit your arm.

“You naughty girl.” she teased. You just shrugged innocently.

Aggu was the first to pry himself away from his friends. He wasn’t contributing much to the conversation anyway. Joost was too deep in said conversation to notice his absence. Sadie peered over your shoulder to see him walking your way.

“Incoming. Good luck.” She giggled and slipped away before you could say anything. Not even a minute later you felt a soft tap on your shoulder. You turned, realizing it was Aggu who was approaching you first. He had a warm, genuine smile on his face. You smiled in return.

“Hey.” He greeted, speaking loud enough to be heard over the music.

“Hey,” you responded as if you were surprised to see him.

“I’m glad you came. I don’t really get to see you outside of class.”

“I mean if you want to see me more, you could just ask.” You both laughed, but something about him seemed off. You turned to pour yourself a drink, but he gently grabbed your arm causing you to drop the ladle.

“I wouldn’t. Joost made it. He dumped whatever we had into that.” You scrunch your nose at it. “Here. Let me get you something else.”

He walked you over to the cooler and opened it revealing various alcoholic and soda beverages. He dug around in it for a moment before pulling out a particular can. He handed it to you.

“Still your favorite right?” What he handed you was your favorite soda. He only knew because you’ve given him one before. During your project, you both were pulling an all-nighter at your dorm. It was late and you both had decided to stop working and just talked. That was the night you learned more about him beyond what other people tell you. And as a nice gesture, you offered him a soda. That moment meant more to him than you’ll ever know.

You were shocked that he still remembered considering that was a year ago, but sweet nonetheless.

“Yeah, it is.” you smiled sheepishly. You opened it and took a sip. Though he was wearing those ski goggles, you could feel his stare. The brief silence soon became apparent as you became more aware of the music again. He leaned into you, his lips barely hovering over your ear.

“Can I take you somewhere quieter?” He asked and put some distance between you both once more. He looked over your face, waiting for an answer. You nodded and he softly grabbed your arm. As he guided you through the crowd, his hand slipped down so now he was holding your wrist. His fingers gently grazed against your palm, sending a slight tingling sensation up your arm. You were glad he was the one guiding you because the crowd seemed to be way more packed than when you first arrived. Your shoulders grazed against random partygoers, but all you could pay attention to was the small connection between you and him.

There was a brief moment where you passed a group of guys. If you hadn't been paying close attention to your surroundings, you wouldn’t have noticed Joost amongst those guys. You saw him share a glance with Aggu and then his eyes fell on you. He forced himself to smile rather than let you see his jealousy. You sent him a quick wave and he raised his cup a bit, waving back. Aggu led you down a hallway that seemed to be noticeably less crowded than the main floor. It was a bit awkward having to pass the people in this space. Most were either smoking or making out against the wall. A lot of them didn’t take notice of either of you as they seemed to be in their world. But those who did see you, glared at you as if you were the odd one. He stopped in front of a doorway and let you step inside. You looked around. The room was quite clean and cozy compared to the rest of the house. It was dim with only a small, warm lamp emitting light. In the middle was an old couch that clearly had been loved. You sat down, sinking into the soft fabric. The loud music outside became nothing more than a gentle hum as he closed the door behind him. He walked over and sat next to you. He watched as you continued to take in your surroundings. He leaned in, his voice soft.

“This is our second living room. No one uses it since it’s not close to the front of the house.” You hummed in response. Turning to look at him, you weren’t expecting him to be so close. You quickly became flustered under his gaze, so you picked up your drink and sipped it. If Joost wasn’t in the question you would give into Aggu right now.

“So how did you remember this?” You gesture to the drink in your hand. He shrugged.

“I try to remember everything about you. And since we don’t hang out, it’s not much.” He paused and thought about what he just said, letting out a small chuckle. “Sorry if that came off creepy.”

You reciprocated his laughter. “No, it's fine. I find it cute that you care about the small things. Not many guys do these days.” He smiled in response. The energy shifted between you. It was less tense and you felt more comfortable around him. And maybe it was how close you were to him, but you swear you felt the air become warmer. You leaned further back into the couch and felt his arm under you, lightly supporting your head. There was silence between you both, but it was a comfortable silence.

“Can I tell you something?” He asked. His voice was softer now.

“Of course.”

“That night in your dorm,” he looked away for a moment, avoiding your gaze. You make him nervous but he’d never tell you. “meant more to me than I'd like to admit.”

“Why? Because we had finally finished our project.” you were joking, but you could see he was serious.

“No. Because for the first time in a long time, it felt like you saw me. Like actually saw me. No front, no expectations. It was just... easy." you couldn’t say anything. You didn’t know what to say. He paused, looking for the right words. He still hasn’t looked back at you. "I guess what I’m trying to say is I like being around you. More than I thought I would. And it’s not just about finishing projects or hanging out because we’re supposed to. It’s more than that."

His honesty hung in the air between you, heavy and sincere. The noise of the party seemed to fade into the background, leaving just the two of you at this moment, the weight of his confession settling into your heart. You moved your hand under his chin and gently lifted it so he was looking at you. He leaned into your touch.

“I wish you had told me earlier because I feel the same way.” He smiled, a little nervous but relieved, as if a burden had been lifted. His hand hesitantly reached out, brushing against yours, a silent question in his touch. The softness in his voice, the way he looked at you. It was clear this wasn’t just another flirtation for him. This was real, and it meant something. Your hand moved to his cheek and your thumb rubbed gently into his skin. He leaned forward, closing the distance between you. Suddenly the door flung open. You both turn to see a guy frantically running into the room.

“Oh. Sorry. I just needed to tell you that something happened upstairs in your room. Some drunk dude and his girl broke your TV.” Aggu sighed and muttered something in German. He looked back at you with sympathetic eyes.

“It’s okay. Go. I needed another drink anyway.” You gave him a reassuring look before he got up to leave. You watched as he and the random guy walked out, and then you were left alone. The energy shifted again since he was gone. The room became noticeably colder and the music started to fade back into your ears. You decided to get up and head back to the main floor. You quickly walked through the awkward hallway as before, though the people didn’t mind you this time around. The music became louder as you made your way into the living room. The crowd didn’t seem any different than when you had stepped away. The idea of trying to find Sadie in this crowd again seemed pointless, so you made your way over to the drink table again. As you weave your way through the crowd, you wish Aggu was here to lead the way as he did earlier. You were bumping into far more people and even caused someone to spill their drink. But eventually, you made it.

Joost was still in the same conversation as earlier but wasn’t talking as much anymore. He was too upset with the idea of you and Aggu. He didn’t want to lose the bet when the night barely started. But he was losing hope with every minute you were spending with him. That all changed when he saw you walking up to the drink table. Alone. He watched as you dug through the cooler. Taking this as an opportunity, he walked up next to you and leaned on the table. You finally found what you were looking for and turned around, but immediately bumped into someone. Their drink fell to the ground.

“I am so sorry.” You looked up to find a familiar face. The worry dissipated and was quickly replaced with relief.

“It’s okay.” He reached down to pick up the now empty cup and tossed it in a nearby trash can. “It wasn’t that good anyways.”

“Didn’t you make it?” you asked.

“I mean yeah. But I never said it was good,” he said playfully, making you giggle. “You know you owe me now.”

You looked at him confused. “For what? Spilling your drink?” he nodded. “I mean I already apologized. What more do you want?”

“Dance with me.” you laughed. You assumed he was joking, but his face told you otherwise.

“Oh. You’re serious.” He nodded. You paused considering his offer. Just pouring him another drink was probably a safer choice, but this option seemed way more fun. “I’d love to.”

He reached his hand out, offering it to you. You hesitated for just a second, feeling a flutter of excitement in your chest, then slipped your hand into his. His grip was warm and steady, reassuring in a way that made you feel both safe and exhilarated. With a gentle tug, he guided you through the crowded room, weaving effortlessly between groups of people until you reached the pulsating heart of the dance floor. The music was loud in your ears, the bass thrumming through your veins as you stood within the crowd. The lights flickered above, casting the room in shades of blue and purple that washed over the swaying bodies around you. The energy of the room seemed to only intensify. The beat vibrated in your chest, making it impossible not to dance.

You started to dance, quickly letting the rhythm take control, your hips swaying to the music. The world around you seemed to blur with the people around you fading into the background as you lost yourself in the moment. Then, you felt Joost’s hands, firm yet gentle, slide around your waist. His touch sent a shiver up your spine, grounding you even as the music threatened to carry you away. He pulled you closer, his body aligning with yours, and suddenly it felt like it was only you both on the dance floor. His breath was warm against your ear as he leaned in, the scent of his cologne and faded cigarette smoke mixing with the electric atmosphere. The music pulsed around you, but all you could focus on was the way your bodies moved together, perfectly in sync with the rhythm.

The song changed to something more slow and sensual. And, as if on cue, the lights changed to a deep red causing a noticeable change in energy. Your hips moved to the new rhythm of the song. It was unfamiliar to you, but that didn’t matter. You felt his grip on you tighten as he pulled you closer against him. He dropped his head into the crook of your neck. Your scent was intoxicating and he bit his lip, blocking a groan that threatened to leave. You weren’t stupid, you could feel the tension between you. As well as his bulge pressing against your ass. So you knew it was time for the final step of your plan. You turned around so now you were facing him. He looked as though he was in a haze. His pupils were blown and his lips were parted. You closed the distance between you both only to move to his ear.

“We should go somewhere private.” your voice was hot in his ear and sent goosebumps across his skin. All he could do was nod in response. He led you out of the crowd and up some stairs. You stopped him.

“I want to freshen up a bit before we…” you lied. You just needed to go get Aggu before things got too heated. “Where can I meet you?”

He looked down the hall nearest to you and pointed. “The last room on the right.”

“Okay.” you nodded. “I won’t be long. I promise.”

You gave him a sincere smile and watched as he left. When he was out of your view, you turned and began walking down a hallway in the opposite direction. You were familiar with the layout of the house since most of the time this is where you and Aggu had worked on your project together.

This part of the house was surprisingly empty. Though the trash scattered about and the smell of smoke told a different story. You assumed they cleared the hallway after the incident in Aggu’s room. You continued down the hall until you heard voices. After turning a corner, you saw him. He was leaning against the wall talking to the other guy from earlier. You walked towards them and they were quick to see you. Probably because the clicking of your heels was the loudest sound in the hall. He smiled before turning to his friend to tell him something. You saw him nod and walk away.

“Hey.” he smiled as you walked up to him. “Sorry for taking so long.”

“It’s fine,” you reassured him. Your hands slipped into his and you placed them around your waist. He instinctively pulled you closer to him. “but I was getting bored without you. I want to continue where we left off.” you bit your lip hoping he’d get the hint.

“Oh. Oooh.” It’s like you could hear the gear moving in his head. He was a bit flustered at your eagerness. “Of course.”

“Okay meet me in the room at the end of the hallway across from here.” He looked at you confused. “I’ll meet you there. I just want to freshen up first.”

He nodded before leaving you for the requested destination. You quickly walked further up the hall to the nearest bathroom. It was quite small and the scent of cheap lavender was strong. In front of you was a little sink and a mirror that had multiple cracks in it. You had no time to find another bathroom, so you made do with this one. You rummaged through your purse for your perfume and deodorant to freshen yourself up with like. You also took this opportunity to touch up your makeup. Once you deemed yourself ready, you left the bathroom and headed to the room.

Anticipation built in your chest the closer you got. You were also a bit worried. Sure you were able to lure them in, but what if they don’t want to do this? Hopefully, you’ve played your cards right. As you approached the door, you could hear what sounded like bickering. As expected. They were both under the impression that they won the bet. You took a deep breath and opened the door. Immediately they both went silent as they saw you in the doorway. You hesitantly stepped inside, closing the door behind you.

“Finally. Please tell him that you came here for me.” Joost had his arms crossed over his chest, eyes glaring at Aggu who scoffed in response.

“We were just in the hallway together and she said she wanted me.” he looked at you for support. In fact, both of them did. “Go ahead tell him.”

“You’re both right.” Aggu looked at you in confusion and Joost seemed like he was trying to find the right word, but was coming up empty. “Look. I know about your bet.

Their demeanor changed and they looked defeated and embarrassed. Apologies started to pour from their mouths, but you raised your hand, silencing them.

“I’m not mad about it,” you reassured, which confused them even more.

“Wait. So then why are we here?” Joost asked. You set your bag down on the dresser next to you and walked closer to them, leaving little space between the three of you.

“I thought it’d be more fun if you both won the bet.” It took a minute for it to click. They were both silent for a moment. You could see the hesitation in both of their eyes. You almost thought that this wasn’t going to happen, but then Joost made the first move. He stepped up to you and held your face in his hands. He pulled you into him. The kiss was gentle, but only for a moment as it quickly became hungrier. His tongue swirled with yours, and you could taste the alcohol and faint cigarette smoke that lingered. Aggu, feeling left out, came behind you. His hands find their way to your hips and under the soft fabric of your shirt. The feeling of his cold fingers against your skin sent shivers across your skin. His lips were quick to attach to your collarbone where he kissed and sucked. He trailed up your neck and nipped at your sweet spot causing you to moan against Joost’s lips. The air around you became hot and the clothes on your body felt restraining. He was the first to pull back for air and you both looked at each other, panting. Aggu took this opportunity to lift your shirt over your head and throw it somewhere on the floor. You immediately caught Joost staring at your tits which caused you to bite back a giggle.

“Get on the bed for us.” Joost cooed. You nodded before walking over to the bed. Luckily whoever room this was had a decent comforter. It was soft and plush under you. You looked over at the boys who seemed to be held up in some sort of conversation. You sighed and took this opportunity to remove your pants, leaving yourself in just your bra and panties. You were glad you chose to wear a pretty set. It was black with lace and rose embroidery. It was one of your favorites. Finally, they walked over to you, removing their shirts as they did so. They stopped when they saw you. You watched as their eyes gazed over your body.

“Fuck she’s hot.” Joost blurted and Aggu quickly nodded in agreement. Aggu stood at the foot of the bed while Joost was at your side. You watched as he crawled onto the bed, stopping when he was between your legs. You bit your lip as he lowered his head closer to your clothed pussy. His warm breath against you was enough to pull a whimper from you.

“Someone’s needy.” Joost breathed in your ear. He brought his hand to your chin and pulled you into another kiss. His hand then dipped under your bra where he gently squeezed your breast. You moaned into his lips when you felt his cold fingers pinch your nipple. Aggu had already taken off your panties and delved his tongue into your folds. You had to pull yourself away from Joost to let out a loud moan. It was quite a sight when you looked down. He was relentless in the way he was eating you out. His hands were holding onto your thighs tightly, keeping you exactly where he wanted. Your attention was pulled back to Joost when he pressed his lips to your jaw and down your neck. He took your hand and placed it over his growing bulge. You got the message and started palming him through his pants. Even through the loud noises coming from you, you could still hear him groan against your neck.

You unbuckled his pants and pulled out his aching cock. There was precum already dripping from his tip. You swiped your tongue across your hand before firmly grabbing him at the base. You started jerking him slowly which pulled another groan from him. He was still pressing sloppy kisses into your neck and you were sure he was leaving marks at this point. You gasped as the other man pushed one of his fingers into you. Your head fell back against the headboard giving Joost more space to explore your neck. His breaths were quick and hot as you pumped your hand faster. Then Aggu slipped another finger in, pushing into you at a frantic speed. All of it was too much as you felt yourself rapidly approaching your release. Aggu could tell by the way you were clenching around his fingers, but he didn’t let up. You felt that familiar coil in your stomach snap as you came. Your knees tightened themselves around his head, but that didn’t stop him. He let you ride out your high on his tongue.

Once you calmed down, Aggu removed himself from between you. His face was wet with your juices. He climbed off of the bed and wiped his mouth as he did so. Joost moved from your side and took his place. Aggu didn’t sit next to you like the other man did. Instead, he stood there waiting. You were panting and still a bit dazed from your orgasm, but Joost’s voice grabbed your attention. He told you to get on your knees. Although your legs were slightly shaking, you got on your knees anyway. You turn to notice they’ve both taken off the last few articles of clothing they had on. Aggu climbed into the bed in front of you. The first thing that caught your eye was his thick cock which was only a few inches from your face. When you looked up at him, he had a smirk on his face causing you to become flustered. Your attention shifted as you felt a dip in the bed behind you.

”Look at that pretty pussy.” His hands came to squeeze your ass and pulled them apart to get a better look at your pussy. You were still wet with Aggu’s spit and your orgasm.

“I know right.” Aggu’s hand came to your chin, making you look up at him. “Tastes even better.”

Without warning you felt Joost swipe his tip along your folds. You moaned when he went over your sensitive clit. Remembering the man in front of you, you leaned down and licked up the base all the way to his tip. A low groan left his lips as you took in only his tip. Joost deemed his cock wet enough and slid into you slowly, allowing you to adjust to him. You moaned onto his cock, sending vibrations through him. The noise he made was a little more vocal than before. He grabbed a handful of your hair and pushed himself further into your mouth. Behind you, Joost had bottomed out. He pulled back out and pushed into you again. This time a little rougher. Then he started rutting his hips into you. Aggu, his hand still in your hair, was guiding you up and down on him at his own pace. You were a drooling mess all over him, but you were too lost in pleasure to care. He managed to find the right amount you could take before you started gagging.

Joost’s relentless thrusts into you were quick to bring you to the edge again. You couldn’t say anything with Aggu in your mouth, but you’d doubt you’d get a coherent sentence out anyway. Behind you, Joost brought his fingers to your sensitive clit. It only took a few strokes to bring you over the edge again. Tears rolled down your cheek and you lifted yourself off of Aggu to cry out in pleasure. Joost’s thrusts were messy and becoming out of rhythm. Then his hips stuttered and stopped as he came inside of you. You felt him fill you up and spill out as he pulled out. He leaned back watching his release drip from you and took a mental picture.

“She’s all yours.” he panted over his shoulder to the man in front of you. You felt his weight on the bed disappear, and look to see him walk into the bathroom that’s connected to the room.

“Come here.” Aggu brought your attention back to him as he gestured to his lap. You weakly crawled over to him and straddled him. He traced his hands up your back and unhooked your bra. He slid the piece of fabric off of you and tossed it somewhere. You felt the cold air of the room against your nipples, hardening them. His hands grabbed your waist and he lifted you up. He moved you so you were hovering over his cock. You sank down on him slowly. He cursed under his breath as he watched where you both connected. He filled you up completely and then some. His hand came up to your cheek where his thumb rubbed gently. You melted into his touch. He pulled you into a kiss. This was different from his counterpart. He was soft and sweet against your lips. His tongue slipped past your lips and danced with yours. You shifted slightly, thrusting him into you. He gripped your hips tightly, nails digging into the plush skin.

Even with his hands and lips all over you and having his cock buried deep inside you, you were still desperate to feel him more. You whimpered against his lips. He was quick to pick up on what you wanted, so he pulled away and placed his hands firmly on your hips, guiding you to lift yourself up and then back down. With his help, you were moving at a steady pace, but it still wasn’t good enough. You were tired but still trying to chase your release. He watches you try and fuck yourself on him and senses your struggle. Taking control again, he meets your movements with his own thrusts. The way he was drilling into you had you seeing stars. Broken moans and incoherent noises were all that could be heard. For the third time already you felt yourself getting closer. His hand dipped down to rub your clit.

“Go ahead. Cum for me.” he breathed. Those words went straight to your core and were enough to bring you over the edge again. You cried out his name as you rode out your final orgasm. Hearing you say his name like that brought him to his release soon after. His grip on you was tight as he spilled into you. You both just looked at each other panting. Then a smile came across both of your faces. You were about to speak before you heard the door to the bathroom open. Joost walked out with his eyes covered by his hand. When he didn’t hear anything he removed it and sighed in relief.

“Finally. I thought you’d never finish.” Aggu rolled his eyes and you giggled. You carefully got off of him, wincing at how sensitive you still were. You stood up, or at least tried to. Your legs were now jelly. Joost was quick to come around and help you before you fell.

“I just want to go to the bathroom.” he nodded and placed his arm around your waist to support you. You both carefully walked over to the bathroom. He let you go and you leaned against the sink while he went to ran a shower for you. Aggu walked in and leaned on the counter next to you. You watched through dazed eyes as he reached his hand out and ran his finger under your lip where your lipstick had smudged. You were trying to avoid the mirror behind you so you didn’t have to see how much of a mess you were right now.

“Do you mind if I join you?” you shook your head. You were relieved he asked.

“Me too?” Joost asked. He didn’t want to be left out and you could tell. You laughed tiredly.

“Of course.” He smiled as if he was proud of himself. He turned to feel the temperature of the water. It seemed warm enough, so he helped you up and into the shower. Aggu entered behind you for support. The warmth of the water felt amazing against your skin compared to the cold air of the bathroom. If you were being honest, you were worried they would try for another round in the shower. Luckily they were just there to help you. They both lent a hand in cleaning you up. They lathered up small towels with soap and rubbed them against your skin while placing soft kisses all over you. After finishing up you were the first to step out of the shower. Neatly folded on the counter was a white towel. You picked it up and dried yourself off. They finished up a few minutes after and you stepped back out into the room. The sudden change in temperature made you shiver. You quickly put your undergarments back on and laid down on the bed, not caring to put the rest on.

Your mind can’t help but start to wonder what this means for your relationship with them. Of course, you have feelings for them and it’s clear that they’re reciprocated. The problem was having to choose. You sighed and pulled the covers over yourself. You were too exhausted for these types of thoughts. Then you heard them come out of the bathroom. They were talking amongst themselves then went quiet when they saw you.

“Are you guys gonna go back to the party?” you asked as they both looked around the room for their clothes. You were nervous about their response. They had no reason to stay. They got what they wanted. But you would be lying to yourself if you said you didn’t want them to stay with you. There was a brief silence as they shared a look.

“I wasn’t planning to,” Joost admitted.

“Me neither,” Aggu responded.

“Good.” You couldn’t hold back your smile. You watched as they quickly changed into their boxers and joined you in bed. Your worries melted away as they laid next to you, arms lazily on your waist. Maybe you’d have to make that decision at some point, but that would be a problem for another day.

[janicekao]

Kookville

Pairing: Rafe Cameron x stepsis reader(dark smut) Summary: Rafe Cameron and his step sister secretly have been hooking up and he is extremely possessive over her. She's a plus size black goddess and he wants her all to himself, although they often quarrel and bicker, she is his and only his. (reader may use Y/N or choose any name of your liking for the fem character)

Warnings: stepcest, dark romance, smut, hate s3x, rough s3x, cr3ampie, violence, br33ding kink, possessive, d0m&femsub, dub!con, etc.

3890 words

Wattpad link:

Enjoy my babies <3 -------------------------------------

The house quiets down just the way that you like it. Each of your family members have their own plans as they do everyday in the beautiful OBX.

You enjoy the beach, but what you enjoy the most is the new mansion you and your mom just moved into when it's nice and empty.

It's only been you and your mother for as long as you have known it, but just last year, she married the millionaire real estate developer, Ward Cameron.

Not only did you have to get used to having a stepfather, but now you have three step-siblings. Two sisters, Sarah and Wheezie Cameron, and a brother, Rafe Cameron.

You enjoy Sarah and Wheezie's company. Sarah is a year or two younger than you, but she's really down to Earth. Wheezie is the baby, she's much younger than the entire house and seriously looks up to her big sister Sarah.

The girls are nothing like Rafe and Ward...

Rafe and Ward are two of the same kind. Arrogant, selfish, spoiled, and most of all pure evil. Labeling themselves as "Kooks" they believe that they are better than the lower class people on this island who are known as the "Pogues."

You're not sure what your mother saw in Ward Cameron, but you have no right to say anything being that for the last few months, you've been fucking Rafe behind everyone's back.

Started as a drunken mistake, now it has become a necessity to you both.

He needs you so badly, that if he weren't as stuck up as he is, he'd worship the ground you walk on... But then again, maybe he wouldn't with the amount of hate you both have for each other.

You see him as a cruel, rich, arrogant, asshole... And he sees you as a boring, loser, with a bad attitude. So why put up with each other?

Because the sex is fucking incredible.

Incredible to the point that he spoils you with skimpy lingerie and has put you on a birth control regiment.

Each time you do it, you promise yourself it's the last... Hating the fact that you and Rafe were supposed to become family, and now embarrassing enough, you two can't stop boning.

Maybe it is a kink that you both share together... An exhilarating fear of getting caught and the excitement of doing something so extremely wrong...

Whatever it is, you just can't stop.

—————

Lounging in a pair of black shorts, you enjoy the quaintness of your room as you flip through a magazine on the bed.

Sarah and Wheezie are out for ice cream, Mom and Ward are out shopping and spending alone time together, and Rafe is out on the town being devious as always... so you thought.

Bursting through your bedroom door, Rafe comes inside as he searches your purse for money...

You sigh, here we go again.

"What is it this time?" You continue to read as you ask in sarcasm. "For coke, or molly?"

"Shut up, y/n." He takes the only money you have, quickly storing it in the pockets of his pants. "It's my Dad's money anyways. If you need more, just go ask your slutty mother."

"What did you just say?" Hearing the insult about your mother makes your blood boil.

You leave your bed to quickly check him, however he only finds your short and innocently chubby stature amusing. You're far from threatening, voice too sweet to strike fear into anybody.

Staring down at you he chuckles deviously. "You heard me right. Every single night, they keep me up as she loudly fucks my dad out of all of his money."

Rafe caresses your full bottom lip as he gently pulls it down. "Like mother, like daughter, huh?"

You slap Rafe clean across his face.

He takes it like it's nothing.

A low toned growl heats his throat. "Do it again."

You do.

Face hot and red from the second slap, he absolutely loves it.

Rafe tightens his grip around your wrists pulling you up against him. His face should be stinging with pain but instead you feel his hardened cock poke against your bellybutton.

"When was the last time we—"

"Fuck off." You immediately interrupt his lewd intentions as you find yourself back onto your bed and reading your magazine.

Rafe gently lays next to you. He's quiet, too quiet as his intense blue eyes watch you.

Rolling your eyes you immediately turn your back on him. You try and hide the fact that his cologne from after his fresh shower has you almost dizzy with arousal, but he knows.

He watches the goosebumps fill the skin of your arms and begins to smirk.

"What is it this time?" He gently taunts. "Was it my presence? Maybe lying beside you? Or was it the cologne?"

Rafe chuckles as he watches your body tense up. "My cologne. It's always my smell isn't it, y/n?"

"I'm in a rush." He snaps.

Rafe pulls the tiny shorts off of your hips and down your legs before he tosses them to the floor. "I have places to be, not time to waste here with you. Lay on your back."

"You came in here to bother me, remember?" You play hard to get as you bark, knowing that your panties are soaked for him. "Go fuck yourself Rafe."

"Yeah?" He questions. "Well I can do that too."

As you ignore him, you hear his khakis suddenly unzip and the sounds of lewd fapping.

You peel your eyes from the magazine and notice Rafe stroking himself at the sight of you in your underwear and T-shirt.

His mouth hangs agape as he whispers your name. You continue to peek and your mouth begins to water for his handsomely long cock.

His large hand seems to swallow yours up as he takes your attention from your magazine and places your digits over his shaft for you to continue the hand job.

You sigh. "Rafe, what do you want from me?"

"You know what I want." He groans lightly. "I'm going to give you this cock and then I have to go and meet up with Barry."

Rolling your eyes at the thought of Rafe's friend Barry, you know for sure that the money he stole from you is to party. Barry is the worst company to keep... OBX's drug dealer.

Taking your hand away from him as he nears his cum immediately aggravates him.

Rafe takes your magazine and throws it out of your bedroom's opened window, vexed from the aching blue balls you've now given him.

"I was reading that!?" You whine as you watch the pages of your favorite magazine soar through the wind and out of your window.

Rafe puts himself away as he scoffs and begins to leave your room. "You're just a fucking tease."

You hate being called a tease.

You aren't a tease, you two just... hate each other.

Sitting up from your comfortable position, you begin to demand an exchange. "What's in it for me?"

Rafe hardly hears you as he becomes nearly hypnotized by the way your thighs expand as you sit on the edge of the bed.

"Rafe!?" You complain.

"Whatever you want." He can't pull his eyes from you as he licks the drool from his lips in temptation.

You begin to ponder over what it could be that you want in return... You are having a bit of trouble making friends in this new state, maybe getting out more could help. As much as Rafe parties, you are sure that tagging along will help you meet new people.

"Let me come with you to the beach party this Friday!" You finally decide.

"The beach party?" He frowns. "No fucking way. I know you too well, y/n. You'll do something stupid like wear that black string bikini I bought you... That's only for me to see."

You laugh. "Rafe, I'm fully grown, you forget that you're my stepbrother... not my dad."

He gags. "Trust me, I remember quite well."

You reach to aggravate him further. "You're just afraid you'll see me flirting, having fun, and ready to fuck someone else, huh?"

His sarcastic grin fades until his eyes darken. He hates when you push him there, and somehow you're the only one who knows how to do it.

"Do you remember the last time you tried to make me jealous?" Rafe begins to threat.

You reminisce on the red and blue lights that approached the fist fight that nearly knocked you to the ground as you tried to step in between Rafe and your potential one night stand. The evening at a local bar that you wished you never had visited... The evening when you realized how possessive Rafe was truly over you.

You gulp, "I try not to actually."

"Good." He fumes. "Now take off your panties, you're wasting my time."

Tempted to watch the spoiled rich boy plead for something that only you have control over, you begin to toy with his patience.

"Hmm?" You taunt. "Beg for it."

"What? Beg? You?" He laughs in a way that most would see as him bullying you.. Laughter that seems like you're not shit to him, but you know that you are. Your confidence has always been your most powerful trait, also what drives Rafe mad the most. "I can get pussy somewhere else."

He gulps as your cold siren eyes wait for his childish laughter to end. "So do it."

Rafe's jaw clinches. He's terribly angry that the only sex that he actually wants, is yours.

His skin begins to redden as you break the arrogant spirit of the powerful six-foot-two-inch man of pure muscle. "Please, y/n?"

You ignore him... it inflames him.

"You fucking want it too!" He scoffs. "Stop playing so hard to get!"

"So what? I also want a million dollars Rafe." You argue. "I want to hear you beg or you're not getting a fucking thing."

You gently part your plush thighs apart to drive him a bit more crazy... It's nearly comical the way you can melt him. Far from his usual type, however you have just what he needs.

"Yeah, fine. Whatever, fuck you— fine." He struggles with his thoughts and words, wanting you so bad that he nearly stutters words of hatred. It's hilarious.

Eyes of hunger, he finally submits to you. Rafe sits at the edge of your bed, tossing you into his lap as if you were weightless.

He wants you to feel his heated gaze as he does what you ask him to do. He begins to beg for you.

"Y/n, please let me eat your pussy and fuck you until your flesh is raw and you finally shut the fuck up." His erection prodding against you out of his tight khakis nearly takes your breath away.

"Nicer." You whisper quietly.

....

His voice shudders. "Please baby.." Rafe is finally the begging puppy that he deserves to be brought down to. "Let me fuck you so good."

A smirk creeps across your face. "Baby?" You coo. "You must really want it, seeing that you've already gone to pet names."

"Shut up."His kiss takes your breath away, thirsty for your essence, Rafe chokes you with his tongue.

He strips you out of your clothes, letting your T-shirt and panties hit the floor as he stands over your completely bare body.

The way he watches makes you redden with shame. You're nude and he's fully dressed as you become more vulnerable by the second.

"At least undress Rafe!" You frown as you go to stand.

Your breath is sharply taken from you as he pushes you roughly back onto the bed. "Shut up, let me look at you." He demands.

Your goosebumps are back and at full force.

"Oh god.." You become embarrassed as the glistening waterfall between your legs begins to reveal your arousal. Tightening your knees together was a bad move... All Rafe does is pry them apart to watch the slickness even closer.

Enticed and licking his lips, his shirt finally comes off. He enjoys watching the gripped indents around your thighs, so soft and malleable like two pillows as he pulls you further down to the edge of the bed.

Rafe doesn't hesitate any longer. His mouth begins to swallow you up causing you to gasp from how sensitive you are down there.

Your back begins to arch as he devours your pussy and the flicking of his tongue on your clit makes you squeal uncomfortably.

You can't take it.

Your hand presses against his head, fingers through his buzzcut as you shove him away.

Rafe growls. Eyes of pure evil watch up at you as he pins your wrists to the bed. He doesn't stop.Slurping, nibbling, and tongue fucking you as he wants badly to see you cry from his pleasurable torture.

Adding his long digits into your tight cunt, Rafe curls a singular finger at your g-spot.

"Fuck! Rafe please—" Your begging is pathetic.

"Shhh." He coos gently. "You can take it, I need to work you open for me a bit."

You hate how at times he can be almost gentle and romantic... It gets to be so confusing, and in this case, it doesn't help the orgasm tightening in the midst of your stomach.

His indecent finger-fucking has your brain a puddle of dumb mush, not being able to take the precious tongue flicks and kisses on your clit along with the rough thrusts inside of you A second long and strong finger takes you to the moon. Pussy too full of his tanned digits and melting down his wrists, you sinfully cum and lay tiredly into the mattress.

He comes up for air, panting lightly as the alluring muscles in his chest writhes with each breath.

His smile melts you, wet and devious as he presses his lips to yours. "Taste that?" He taunts breathlessly, "Pussy too good for someone so fucking annoying."

Stripping out of his pants, you watch Rafe's weighty erection near his bellybutton as it stands at attention.

He strokes himself softly, making his skin slick with the drop of wet precum that's already beaded out of his needy tip. "Turn around."

He tosses you onto your stomach without much of a warning. You still can hardly think for yourself since your last cum, so Rafe does the thinking for you.

Putting you onto your knees, he arches your back and smooths his fingers through your curls as he presses your face into the mattress for the coming back-shots.

Sliding through your slickness a few times, he lubes himself enough to fuck into you. The tip of his cock plunges through your already sensitive cunt, forcing you to take a gasp of air as you fist the sheets under you.

You hear a gulp that chokes his throat as Rafe continues to push his cock forward. "Fuck, you feel so good baby."

Clinching your eyes shut, you feel his swollen bulbous tip kiss at your cervix. It makes your body shudder. He's so far deep in you, you almost feel sick.

His balls slap against your cunt as he bottoms out into you. Your pussy feels so tight around him that you're sure you can feel his every vein probing out of his hardened flesh.

Rafe follows his own speed, paying most of his attention towards his needy want to reach his own finish. Fucking power drives into you because he knows that you can take it.

His groans are music to your ears, but you can hardly hear them over your own weeping and curses.

"Stay just like that, y/n." He nearly pleads. "You're so tight for me baby, whose pussy is this?"

Although clearly fucked to a pulp and pussy clearly belonging to him, you'd rather die than to let him know it. Eyes half-lidded and drooling onto your sheets, you refuse to let him have it.

"Mine." You pant.

Rafe laughs, plummeting his broad thumb into your tight asshole. "You're so fucking hardheaded, that's okay, you'll learn."

"Rafe! St-Stop!" Your fist tighten the sheets further until your knuckles turn white.

"Next time it'll be my cock.." He threatens you to behave as he forces his thumb in deeper and suddenly snatches it out. "Keep playing with me."

Your body lewdy continues to slap against his. Rafe is so obsessed with it, loving your extremely thick figure and knowing just how to handle it.

He slaps your ass. "Fuck me back."

You do. You throw your ass back in away that has Rafe biting at his lip, trying to hold back from cumming his load too soon.

His strong fingertips seep into the plushed flesh of your waist as he hammers his last strokes into you. Chain dangling against your skin with each thrust.

He groans, deeply growling out his words as he tries to help his own anticipation. "The other day when you babysat for our neighbors, I watched you bounce that baby on your hip and all I could think of was breeding you. Wanting so badly to take the pills from you and pump you with my seed."

"M-fuckkk." You mewl, pussy numb, obliterated, and needing a break.

Rafe chuckles. "The family knows how reckless I am, but what will Mommy and Daddy think of their precious-America's Sweetheart daughter when they find out she's a slut who fucks her stepbrother? A dumb slut who loves her stepbrother's cum so much that she let him fill her until she grew his baby?"

He snatches a handful of your hair, making you yelp and drop tears as he continues to tear you apart. "You deserve the hate that I get it..." His jealousy has his jaws tightened, and gritting his words. "They should know you aren't as innocent as you act."

Rafe harshly slaps your ass, you can feel the handprint swelling into a stinging welt on your flesh.

You can't help but to moan. The sex is so good but the embarrassment of loving it causes you to cry.

"Fuck you." You manage to speak through your wet lips and trembling breaths..

"Anytime you want, sis." His laugh is pure mockery.

"Fuck."Rafe fawns over your body, his hand reaches beneath you, cupping your large breasts and slowly choking your air away.

With a grip on your chin he forces your head around to watch his final act.

Deviously impaling your insides as he sputters his hot cum inside of you. "You're so pretty with a cock in you.Stop acting like we're going to stop, you know that we never will."

"Mmm."His muscles tighten as his many inches still inside of you, jolting as he spills his milky seed. "Tell me how much you love to be fucked by me..."

You feel shame as the hot nut causes you a second climax. Biting the sheets, you can't answer anything as your eyes cross and roll to the back of your skull.

"I swear to god, y/n, answer me." Rafe impales you further making your tummy ache and your cunt nearly tear against him.

"I love it." You weep a final act of submission. "I love to be fucked by you Rafe, my god, just don't go any harder."

Spreading your cheeks apart, he grins at the masterpiece of mess he's made on your swollen flesh. "I won't baby, you did good."

Melting into the mattress, you flatten out of your arched back.

Rafe checks his watch... he's extremely late to meeting up with his drug dealer.

He redresses, grinning as he watches you ache from his ruthless fucking.

"Ice it." He cruelly demands. "I'll be back again when the house falls asleep."

You roll your eyes, reaching for your clean beach towel to wipe his cum from dripping down your thighs.

A phone begins to ring as you redress. You think that it's probably Barry calling Rafe's phone to see where he's been so held up at...

But it's not Rafe's phone, it's yours.

Rafe immediately beats you to the ringing iPhone. "Ohhhh?" He taunts. "An unsaved number? What are you being sneaky about?"

You snatch for your phone, angry that he keeps it high out of your reach. As he answers he tightly wraps his arm around your waist to keep you from fighting it.

Rafe answers your phone quietly, waiting for the caller to speak first.

"Hello?" The voice asks. "Y/n? Where are you? I thought you wanted me to come meet you halfway? Anyways, you know where we are! Bonfire at John B's baby! I already got the beer."

...

Rafe's blood boils.

Hearing a Pogue's voice has him heated. But hearing that out of all people, the voice belongs to JJ Maybank? It makes him furious.

He hangs up. "Getting drunk at John B's house, huh? My sister Sarah has you hanging with those fucking Pogues?"

"Give me my phone back!" You argue. "It isn't like that.."

"So then what is it like?" Rafe frowns. "You're fucking JJ Maybank?"

You scoff. "What is wrong with you? He's the only friend I've made here in Outerbanks. He waits tables with me at the Waterside restaurant."

"Oh does he now?" He taunts.

Rafe begins to laugh sarcastically. He suddenly snatches your arm into both of your views, forcing you to see how your skin is again riddled with goosebumps.

The same goosebumps that you get when indecent thoughts make you horny.

Fuck... He knows you better than you thought.

"Look at you." His jaw tightens. "You might not be fucking him, but you want too."

Your eyes widen and your large guilty irises give you away.

You are smitten with JJ, and you can't help it. He's the opposite of Rafe... He's kind, gentle, and extremely sweet to you.

You love his innocently dimpled smile. He's the largest crush you've had since you were in middle school and watched your first Justin Timberlake video.

"I guess I have to stop by John B's house tonight, huh? Pay a visit to JJ?" You're able to feel the heat raging off of Rafe's body.

You grab his arms, pleading for him not to make a scene. "No don't! Please, Rafe! What do you want? Aren't I giving you enough?"

"No." Rafe firmly grasps your wrists, flinging them away from touching him. "Block JJ's number, and stop talking to the fucking Pogues."

You agree, nodding as tears swell in your eyes.

"You live in this house, you're a fucking Kook!" His raised voice rains frightening screams upon you. "...Better yet, you're not even a Kook, you're mine.You're Rafe's, and if you continue to be hard headed and act like a fucking child, I'll release hell on Earth... you know that I can, and that I fucking will."

"Tell me you understand y/n, before I make you hate me even more." His voice lowers into a final threat.

You've seen him get rough with people, better yet, you've seen him already kick JJ's ass once for something that had nothing to do with you... doing it again would only make his day.

You gulp. "I get it Rafe, I understand."

...

Silence fills the room as he continues to gawk deviously over what is his, you.

Rafe wipes a fallen tear from your face. "Kiss me."

He tilts your chin to reach his lips and places the most tender kiss he has ever given you.

Rafe claims you as his as he grabs a handful of your ass, prying your sweetly soft lips apart as his tongue locks with yours. Rafe Cameron's tongue kiss is the only thing that has ever made your knees weak. Sadly, you can't decide if you still hate him or if his need to be possessive over you is actually causing you to love him.

[ashwhowrites]

Eddie x cheerleader! Reader, so, Eddie's FWB ends things with him and he's kinda sad about it, but during a deal with Cheerleader! Reader, she offers to make him feel better (hurt/comfort to smut?)

I hope this is what you wanted and you enjoy it! Thank you for requesting <3

⚠️ smutish

Deal?

Y/N has bought weed from Eddie for months. She was one of the only cheerleaders that wasn't scared off by Jason's freak speech. As a result, she got sent to do everyone's deals. But she didn't mind, she enjoyed talking to Eddie.

He was energetic, funny, and the life of the party. He could make anything fun. Y/N enjoyed talking to him because she finally got to talk to someone real.

But today he seemed distracted. He was quick to deal, with no small talk as he silently separated the bags of weed. Y/N watched him closely. She noticed the frown on his forehead, the pout of his lip, the defeated sighs that kept escaping from his lips.

"Okay, what's wrong?" She finally asked, he was about to stand up to leave.

"Nothing." He shrugged, continuously packing up his stuff.

"Sit and talk. We're friends. Let me listen." She offered, and she gave an encouraging smile as he thought it over.

"Remember Becca?" Eddie asked, sitting down back on the bench. His eyes looked over Y/N as she tried to remember the name.

"Sex girl right?" Y/N remembers slightly talking about a Becca. But it always was about sex.

"Yeah. Well, she ended our little exchange and I'm screwed." Eddie sighed, he put his elbows on the table, crossed his arms, and leaned down on it. His face was close to the table as Y/N softly hit his nose.

"Eddie, you're hot. You can easily go to a bar and ask for a fuck." Y/N didn't see the big deal. It was just a girl, and he could find another.

" I need....just never mind." But Y/N didn't let him adventure off.

"Explain."

"I struggle to sleep. Like I went days without sleeping. And I learned that if I have sex or an orgasm, it helps me sleep. But it's like immediately if I'm in bed. I can't bring a girl over and pass out in seconds. She could rob me or think I'm a loser. Becca understood that and she stayed. Some nights she'd stay the whole time and some she left once I was asleep for a few hours to make sure it worked. She understood me. " Eddie explained. He felt like an idiot. It was such a first-world problem. Here he is crying about not getting fucked to sleep.

"What if I help?" Eddie snapped his head up to look at her, sitting up straight.

"Um, what?" Eddie choked. Spit stuck in his throat as he coughed.

"You explained it all to me. I understand what you need. " She said, standing up and walking over to him. She stood behind him, her lips against his ear as her hands ran down his chest.

"It can be a little deal. You call me when you need help sleeping, and I get free weed. Sound fair?" Eddie shivered as her voice ran chills down his spine. Her hands slowly moved down to his belt.

"But...you sure?" His voice went higher in pitch as she unbuckled his belt. Her lips softly kissed his jaw. He looked around, he saw nothing but trees. He couldn't even see her, but he loved feeling her pressed against him.

"Definitely. Tell me it's a deal." She said, her hands were now in his boxers, her fingers circling his tip.

"It's a deal." He moaned, a smile on her face. She removed her hand for a second, her palm under his chin.

"Spit"

Eddie spit in her hand, moaning as she yanked his hair. His head flung back as she kissed his jaw and neck. Her wet hand was back in his boxers. She ran her fingers up and down his length. She enjoyed the way he stuttered and shook.

"I know, baby. Just let me make you feel better." She encouraged. She wrapped her hand around his cock and began to jerk him off.

Eddie felt his nails digging into his palm. His mind was racing. He can't lie, he always thought of Y/N in a more friendly way. But never did he think she'd be giving him a handjob in the middle of the woods behind school.

"See, no reason to be sad. She's just a girl." Y/N whispered but Eddie could only think about her. Becca lost his head as Y/N's name was on his lips.

"Fuck, Y/N." He moaned as she sped up. He could feel every muscle tightening but also melting. He felt like he wasn't even there.

"That's it." She praised them, he could feel himself getting closer and closer. He looked down, seeing her hand disappear under his boxers, his jeans down to his ankles.

"Close." He warned, expecting her to speed up but she stopped. He went to protest when she asked him to turn around. He was confused but listened.

He turned himself around, kicking off his jeans. He now faced her as she dropped to her knees.

"Oh, you're gonna kill me," Eddie smirked, and she winked in response.

She felt branches digging in her knees but she didn't mind. She wrapped her lips around his cock, grabbed his hand, and placed it on her head.

Eddie got the hint and began to move her head. Helping her bob up and down on him. His hands gripped her ponytail as he fucked her throat. He chased his orgasm, moaning as his stomach clenched.

He tried to pry his eyes open to look down. Her eyes were watering as she gagged around him.

"Cumming!" He moaned, both his hands pushing down on her head as he came. Forcing her further down his cock as he shook. She felt his cum hit the back of her throat, breathing through her nose the best she could.

Once he slipped out, she took a deep breath. She coughed a few times as she stood up. She leaned down and used his shirt to clean her lips. Eddie always came a second time.

She dug in her backpack and grabbed a sharpie. She wrote her number in his palm.

"Call me." She winked. Eddie put his sensitive cock back in his boxers. His eyes on her as she wandered off.

Eddie has no idea what just happened.

But he knew for sure he was calling her.

Tags!

@bmunson86 @mxcheese @ladymunson @michaelfuckinglangdon @z0mbie-blah @biittersweet @mirrorsstuff @somethingvicked @micheledawn1975 @ago-godance @magnificantmermaid @tlclick73 @hargrovesswifee @cityofidek @manyfandomsfanvergentreblogs @silky-luxe @lokiofasgard616 @loving-and-dreaming @eddiemunsonsbitch69 @thegemaqua @ashlynnkennedy @strangerthingsstories5255 @harringt8ns @pleasinghellfire @whoscamila @stusdollface93 @gretavankleep37

[dulcewrites]

ewan in the saltburn trailer is j sooo giving private school filthy rich aemond i love it

AND YES HE NEEDS HIS POC GF

I have been feeling…. less than inspired lately about hotd tbh but hopefully this will spark something. I know no one asked for this lol. This was inspired by Beyoncé’s Upgrade U. Honestly, I don't think Aemond would be much of a loser in a modern setting. He would be far too elusive and people would find him interesting simply based on that. But I am combining/changing some lore here so he is a #loser in this like I am assuming Ewan's character is Saltburn is.

Upgrade You

Pairing: Aemond Targaryen x rich!reader (wc: 2k)

Summary: You have always enjoyed having a project to build or fix up and Aemond Targaryen is no different

You flick a spoolie brush over your brows as you finished up your makeup. The lights from your vanity mirror illuminating you as you put the last touches on your face.

"I don't get it," Melanie sighed as she hugged one of your pillows to her chest. She sat crossed legged on your California king bed. "You're like the smartest person I know. Why do you need to be tutored?"

"Everyone can improve themselves, no matter what someone's specialty may be. Remember that."

Melanie nodded enthusiastically. Sweet girl, you think. A little daft at times but nothing some time under your guidance cannot fix.

She tilts her head curiously. "You are pretty dressed up for a library meeting too."

"Another lesson," you fluff your curls then turn from the mirror to her. "Do not let anyone tell you that you are overdressed. Does the library have a dress code?"

Melanie shakes her head slowly.

"So, who is going to tell me to change?"

"... No one?"

"Exactly."

Melanie chews on her lip in thought as if she is taking mental notes in her head. Though she is not wrong you are quite dressed up just to be studying. But your advice was also not wrong; any moment to be noticed should be taken and made the most of. If are to come into contact with any of your peers, why not make the best impression possible. You also do not have in it in you to tell your new pupil about the real reason as to why you were making this little trip. Best move through life with your cards close to your chest as your mother tells you. You can only imagine how wide Melanie's hazel eyes would get if you told her what you had up your sleeve.

Much like how you help the girls around you cultivate their futures, you must look out for your own as well. Your phone dings, and you smile when you check the notification.

Aemond Targaryen.

Archaic, some would say. Sending the feminist movement back 50 years, many could argue. Being realistic is more how you would put it. You have money, sure. Your parents have afforded you all the opportunities they wanted you to have, and for that you are grateful. But you are not naive; this is still very much a man's world. No matter how much money you have, there will be people who will look at you and hate you for having the gall to want more. For having ideas and wanting to express them. For looking the way, you do - for using the way you look against them.

You may not be able to have a seat at the table... but you can have someone build another for you.

Your family may have resources and money. But they do not have 'my father can use company family buy his way into politics; my mom has ancestry that traces back to French royalty' reach.

Luckily for you, there is someone who does have that access.

A little rough around the edges, but nothing some TLC cannot fix. It was one of your best traits: finding the diamonds in the rough and polishing them off so they shine brighter than before.

You go over to your closet and open the double doors. As your eyes search over the different handbags, you call out back to Melanie.

"Watercolor Dior saddle or creme Bottega Jodie?"

"Dior," she calls back.

You check yourself in the mirror before existing the closet.

"Well," you twirl for Melanie. You run hand over your midi turtleneck dress. You knee length boots clanked around as you moved in a circle.

"Perfect," she beams.

She sees you out to your car. With the window rolled down, she waves you off like a mother seeing their child off for kindergarten.

"Happy studying!"

Sweet and simple, just how you like em.

———

You always thought the best thing about Oxford was how it looked in the fall. The leaves begun to change, sprite green to a blend of red, orange, purple, and brown. Made the most picturesque background. But it seemed like how gently the leaves fell from the trees was the only thing that was coming easily.

Maybe it was naivety on your part, but you thought when you showed up in four-inch patent leather Aquazzura heels and literally no books, Aemond would have got the hint. And yet, here you were talking about the components of stockholder’s equity, as if you cared.

"So," you interrupt him mid rant. "Any fun plans for Winter break? I know it is a while away, but everyone is already taking about what they are doing."

He wrinkles his nose, his glasses being pushes up in the process. "Probably just dinner with the family."

Right. The compound. At least that is what the Targaryen main home looks like. You of course needed to your research.

"Well, there is this crazy Christmas that happens before everyone leaves," you shuffle closer to him, and you hope he gets a whiff of your perfume. "Maybe we can go together?"

Aemond snorts and looks down bit sheepishly. "Highly doubt, I am invited."

You fight the urge to sigh wistfully. Cute, smart, wealthy as fuck... and apparently awfully insecure. Everyone throwing the party should be falling at their knees to have him around. But you have since understood during your time at Oxford that many students here do not understand the opportunities in front of them.

If Aemond had any real confidence, he'd say fuck it because he could buy everyone going if he wanted to. They ignore him because he allows them to. And then you realize he is one of those people; the delusional 'I want to get by on my merit not my name' kind of people.

Oh sweet, silly boy.

"That doesn't matter," you wave him off. "Besides, if anyone says anything, you can just say you're with me. Consider it a thank you for doing this for me."

You let your hand slip on his thigh and squeeze slightly.

"Better yet, let's call it a date."

Rhaenyra would think for the amount of money her family has; they would be able to afford stronger liquor. But she has a feeling that it has nothing to do with money, and more about the 'champagne only' rule Alicent liked.

The expansive backyard was decorated impeccably, as it always is for the annual holiday party that they throw. Twinkly lights in the trees, red and green everywhere, and even a frankly nouveau riche ice sculpture. The affair was black tie, and Rhaenyra could feel the eyes of some guess when she showed up in a red fitted suit. Taking small sips from her glass, she looks around the area. She swears the more years go on, the less she recognizes who is invited to things like this.

"Don't tell me step-mommy has put you in timeout."

She rolls her eyes when she hears a familiar voice. Daemon comes to stand next to her, with a small glass in his hand.

"No, you fucker," Rhaenyra then frowns. "Where did you get the scotch?"

"Why do you think I am in timeout?"

Her uncle always found a way around the rules. Rhaenyra blows air out of her cheeks in annoyance. She looks down at her watch; another rule is that they were required to stay at 2 hours. Only 45 minutes has passed since she arrived.

"Heard you are going to the company retreat this year," Daemon downs the rest of the drink and winces at the burning.

"Someone has to represent the family with dad," she shrugs, a small amount of smugness seeping into her tone. "He asked me to go."

"Hmmm," Daemon smirks at her smugness. "You and Aemond."

Rhaenyra blinks confused. "What?"

"Yup," he leans against the wall. "I suppose Viserys found a new muse."

Rhaenyra snorts at his words but then licks her lips nervously. It sounds cruel to think, but it was never something she ever really worried about - her father preferring her siblings over her. At least not something she worried about in her adulthood. Sure, as a girl, newly off the passing of her mother, seeing her father marry a woman only six years her senior rattled her. Aegon being born shortly after only made things more tense. But, and to his own detriment really, Viserys had made sure she came first.

"I did not know Aemond had an interest in the company in the first place."

"He didn't," Daemon's mouth pinches a little. "Not until... recently."

Rhaenyra follows her uncle's gaze out to where Aemond was standing. He always managed to look more grow up than his sibling, more than Helaena and Aegon. A mimicry that Rhaenyra thinks he picked up from his mother, but something seemed different now.

New haircut, no glasses, new suit. Armani? No, Tom Ford. With a Cartier tie clip and sparking cuff links to match. He is surrounded by some of the lawyers that work at the company.

"Looks like university has done him well," Rhaenyra tries to sound as even keeled as possible. "Good for him."

"No," Daemon sounds bored with her strained pleasantries. "That is what pussy does someone who has never got any before."

Rhaenyra blanches. The last thing she wants to think about is her younger brother having sex. She sets her champagne down in disgust.

"Don't be gross."

Daemon huffs before directing his attention towards the other side of the courtyard. His eyes zero in on Alicent, who tosses her auburn hair over her shoulder as she laughs with a young woman. A pretty young woman.

"Only met this semester and managed to get a holiday party invite, and a seat next to mother dearest. She must some charmer."

"You know," Rhaenyra starts. "Not every woman that is around this family is some sort of ruthless social climber."

"Of course, not every woman. Only the smart ones."

She sighs. That was not just pointed at the girl, but at Alicent too. Even though Alicent grew up with an even cushier life than they did. A type of old money that even the Targaryens had to give credence to. Strangely enough, Daemon seemed to take Viserys remarrying worse than Rhaenyra did. Even Rhaenyra over the years has grown to accept the fate that is their blended family. Accepted it enough to be cordial, albeit sometimes still awkward, with Alicent. They have forever been bonded in having to deal with the moods that come with Viserys Targaryen. But Daemon... it seems like he has never forgiven his brother for the act of moving on. He seemed to only grow more jaded since the divorce from Laena.

"How do you even know this?"

"Aemond told Aegon who told Helaena who told Rhaena who told Baela who told me."

Rhaenyra breaks her gaze from the two women. "Keeping tabs on your nephew that you barely speak to?"

Daemon gave her an empty smile. Almost a little cruel like he would crush her like a bug if it would not so pitiful. "You naive little thing. When you figure things out, let me know."

Rhaenyra wants to ask him what he means by that, but Daemon pushes himself off the wall he was leaning against to leave Rhaenyra alone.

Alone was a feeling she was used to. Rhaenyra often found solace in the loneliness that she found herself stuck in. If she did not find comfort in it, it would swallow her whole. Jaw unhinged and bloodthirsty.

Her eyes went back to the where Alicent and the girl were sitting, but Helaena seemed to replace the girl's place to speak with her mother. Instead of getting chummy with Alicent, the mystery woman had gone over to Aemond. Rhaenyra felt a little queasy watching them. Like watching two little dolls or those silly little cake toppers people get. Picture perfect like the stock photos that came in picture frames.

She shook her head at herself with an internal laugh. Here she was picking apart her baby brother's seemingly first real relationship; she was no better than Daemon if she did that. It was she told herself when she watched one of the wives of the company's lawyers come up to the girl and give her kiss on the cheek. Like they were old family friends.

Rhaenyra suddenly finds herself straightening out her jacket and her heels moving across the outdoor area. Might as well introduce herself... as a kind sister figure, of course.

She has a funny feeling she will be seeing this girl around more often.

[pupyuj]

[cw: exhibitionism, g!p, humiliation, degradation, choking, dubcon, breeding]

to all those that liked the stalker!yujin thought.. this is for ya'll ✊️✊️ we are expanding the universe 😭😭😭 BUT UMMMMM HAPPY BIRTHDAY WONY???? 😍💞💞💞💞 it's a shame i don't have an actual fic for her special day...

hehe.. you've heard of voyeurism yujin now get ready for exhibitionism wonyoung 😏😏

wwhat if wony was like, your uber-rich two-faced friend who always has shit to say about you behind your back because you are, admittedly, a huge fucking whore but you keep her around bcs she's the only person who would be honest with you about everything and bcs she's hot, duh.

she keeps you with her for the same reason too, and bcs she wants to fuck you. again, duh.

wony has always had her eyes on you,, whenever you guys spend time together all she wants to do is drag you inside a bathroom stall and ruin you against the door :(( or maybe you guys are watching a movie,, sometimes she just wants to reach over and play w your pussy until midnight 😩😩 but her pride gets in the way and she settles with just glaring daggers at the back of your head, even though she so badly wants you begging for her cock 💔

so when she hears about this 'hot neighbor' of yours that fucked you in your bedroom in the party that you organized with wonyoung... yeah, she was pissed. like wdym you ditched her for some creepy loser??? her, jang wonyoung, your friend (kind of) who can fuck you so much better???

"i'm bored. i think i'll call her over when you go home. when are you going home, by the way?"

"what, are that much of a slut that you can't go a day without being filled up with dick? ...by her?" you were used to wonyoung doing a sudden 180 and turning into a mean bitch towards you for no reason, but something about this one felt different. bcs you actually felt threatened, and also bcs she was right in front of you. way too close.

"you could say that." you joked with a smile.

wonyoung chuckles mockingly. yeah, she was done hearing about this neighbor.

"allow me, then." and suddenly she was on top of you, one hand holding your wrist in a tight grip above your head and the other palming your pussy through your shorts,,, she's kissing you roughly, tasting her strawberry-flavored chapstick on your tongue and moaning when she softly nibbles on your bottom lip,,

before you knew it, your shorts and panties were off and wony was teasing your entrance with her fingers,,, not even putting her digits inside you, just rubbing them against your folds and drenching it with your slick :((( she was surprisingly strong too,, you couldn't pull yourself out of her grip no matter how hard you tried,, "don't resist me, (y/n). you know you want this." she's saying while kissing your neck :((

dudbfndkf finally seeing your friend's big dick when she pulled her skirt off ,,, as wrong as this was, you couldn't help but be turned on out of your mind,, and wonyoung noticed that look in your face,, a look she knows well bcs she has always watched you, and she knows when you wanna get fucked 😳😳 wony now pinning both of your hands down on the bed so you can't push her off when she climbs on top of you,, "see? this isn't so bad." she was grinning widely, finally getting what she deserved all this time!!

both of your wrists held up by wonyoung while she teased your entrance with her tip 🫣 not finding it in yourself to fight anymore bcs deep down you wanted to see this though :(( nearly screaming when she forces her length inside you, she was so big :((( "i know you've taken bigger than this, slut. don't fucking act out on me." and then she's moving in and out of you slowly, watching your face as you tried your hardest not to show her that you were enjoying this... but she knew,,, you were nothing more than wonyoung's slutty best friend, (y/n), you were always gonna enjoy being fucked, consensual or not :((

wony making you suck on her thumb while she thrusting faster 😵‍💫 she looked so pretty on top of you,, but then you remember just exactly how she went about this entire thing you get turned off 😭 "think that neighbor of yours is watching? hm?" wonyoung glances at the window across your own. "let's give her a show, yeah?" and you started panicking bcs what the fuck did she mean by that??? luckily, you didn't have to be confused for long... wony simply pulls out of you and dragged you towards your window, where she pushed you against the glass and put your entire naked body on display to whoever may be watching.

(the curtains were drawn in the window across from yours, but you knew she was watching. she always is.)

"i'm gonna fuck you so hard... show that creep the kind of girl you're really into." wony slams her dick inside you, and doesn't waste any more time before pulling out and doing it again. you couldn't believe the pain and pleasure that came with it,, "a-and we're a perfect match, aren't we, (y/n)?? down to the way we—oh, god—the way w-we get off to being seen like this... fuck. i knew your pussy would be fucking sweet." wonyoung brings down her hand to your ass, grinning at the way it made you push into her more. you didn't know it was possible for her to go any faster than she already was, but she did it anyway,,, both of your moans got louder, you even failed to say her name properly... if someone from outside were to listen closely, they would probably hear you... and that just contributed more to wonyoung's sick obsession with showing you off like you were some prized possession, one that belonged to her...

she really was going to show everybody.

"i don't wanna compare... but i will anyway," you feel wony's slender hand secure around your neck, choking you slightly. "you weren't this loud when you were with her... i doubt you felt half as good.. i know you, (y/n). that's why i can fuck you the best. that's why only i can fuck you like no one can." she pulls you back into her by your neck and kisses your cheek, once again glancing across, "don't you agree, baby?" she whispered, tightening her grip on you slowly.

😵‍💫 ugh, she made you feel so good that you couldn't bring yourself to hate what she was doing,, "i'm gonna come inside you, okay? fill you up more than she ever can..." she finally releases your throat from her grip, moving her hands to your waist and uses your cunt as she pleases,,, her grunting and groaning on your shoulder, so focused on trying to breed you, so lost in the way you clenched around her,, she just knew she had to fuck you stupid soon,,, she was never going to let you fall into the wrong hands just like that!!

her whining too omg :(( she might have a big cock and an even bigger ego but she's still such a baby,, practically hugging you while fucking you,, eyes shut tightly and mumbling whatever,,

"you're so p-perfect, (y/n)... i'm a fucking bitch but.. fuck, you're everything..."

"she can't steal you away... n-no.. not from me...! you're my best friend, she's nothing... right? a-ahh..."

"i'm gonna come...! i'm gonna breed your pussy f-full, (y/n)... (y/n)!!"

and as promised, wony comes hard 😵‍💫😵‍💫 feeling her warm seed seep into your womb, as well as hearing her cute moans, made you come too :((( and wony was so proud of herself,,, taking some of your cum that trickled down your thigh and tasting it from her fingers,, "you're delicious, (y/n)." she says while kissing your shoulder :((( she was sweet for a bit until she gets irritated again at the thought of your neighbour,, but at least she has shown you that she was a better fuck than her!

(truth to be told, it was debatable. but you weren't going to tell wonyoung that. not unless you want to get fucked until sunrise. you were going to save that mess for later 😉)

sdkhdsjncjd BUT IMAGINE IF SHE LIKE... GETS A LITTLE COMPETITIVE??? wony having just pulled out of you, sitting on your bed while you were laying down trying to catch your breath from everything that had just happened,,, your heart dropping to your stomach out of both excitement and fear when she suggests a crazy idea...

"you said she was good, right? call her over so we can see who really deserves to fuck you." aaaaackkkk 😩😩🤤

[tiredfox64]

Can you write about a female reader that is being bullied by other clan members because she's not considered pretty and doesn't have a nice body and tease her the Smoke would never have feelings for her, so the reader becomes depressed and volunteers to go on a dangerous mission thinking she won't come back only for Tomas to step in and go with her so he can be closer to her?

Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder

Prior notes: I’ve been taking some fat naps. It’s not important but y’all know now

Pairing: Tomas x Afab reader

Warnings ‼️: That foundation was 45 dollars put your head up!

Why are they so mean to you? What could you have done to deserve their ire?

You thought the Shirai Ryu would be a more accepting and safe environment. It’s not the clan itself, it’s the people in it. A mix of different people with different personalities. Yet they treat you like an outsider. A freak even. Especially the women.

They saw how you would look at Tomas. Such love and affection in your eyes when you got a glimpse of him. He’s so nice and caring while also being incredibly skilled and strong. How could you not fall for that face? Or even that voice. Hearing his voice made you feel warm every time. When you heard his cute chuckle it made you feel good about whatever you said.

Those nasty girls put you down the moment they realized you liked Tomas. First it was your face. Somehow they would see acne scars that, according to them, made you look messed up. They weren’t even that bad, barely noticeable. But after that you noticed them much more. Freckles, moles, dimples, no matter the unique feature on your face they would say it looked unnatural and ask ‘who were you trying to fool’.

Their comments about your body were the worst. It fluctuated between people. Some said you look like you were starving yourself. Some said you look like you were eating for the whole clan. They treated body hair as if it were unnatural as well. There was nothing to be happy about when it came to a happy trail according to them. And stretch marks? Apparently nobody has those. Not on their chest, their stomach, or their thighs. What a lie. A bunch of lying, hypocritical bitches.

What hurt the most was when they told you that Tomas would never like you. That all those conversations where you two would laugh were all smoke and mirrors. He was only doing it to keep the peace and not seem like the bad guy for rejecting the loser of the clan. He would only find them attractive because they were better. Better looking, better skilled, better overall. You are just the background character getting in the way of what was supposed to happen. The background character doesn’t get with the hot guy.

You were hurt, you won’t deny that. You always thought you were beautiful no matter what. But they all made you think you were ugly, a beast. You didn’t actually have a chance with Tomas. You were just bothering him this whole time.

So you pulled away from him, avoiding any sort of contact with him. You even tried your best not to be seen by him. That depression hit hard for you. You felt so alone and isolated from everyone else. There was no other home to go back to. You’re stuck in this hell hole. A hell hole where you won’t find love and you will be shamed for anything and everything about you.

There is only one way to leave and that’s to take the dangerous mission. The mission that no one wants to take because they fear they will never return. That’s what you want. If you’re going to leave you rather leave by the way of death. Death by choice, leave with honor.

══💤══╡°˖✧🦊✧˖°╞══💤══

You were wrong. Everybody was wrong. No one had the right to assume Tomas’ feelings and desires.

He was disappointed that he wasn’t seeing you much anymore. It felt you just got up and disappeared. He couldn’t even get a glimpse of you anywhere. Not even during training or walking around the temple. When he would ask other clan members some would agree that they haven’t seen you either or some said they just saw you but only for a moment. He got really suspicious when those same girls who were bullying you would wave the topic away as if there were other important matters at hand. Tomas wouldn’t give them the time of day. He would walk off with a pout, sad that he hasn’t heard your sweet voice in so long. Maybe Kuai Liang would know.

When Tomas asked his brother whatever happened to you he told him that nothing happened to you, you’re just preparing for a big mission. Of course he asked what kind of mission. Kuai Liang hesitated, knowing his answer would enrage Tomas. He admitted he was sending you on a high risk mission. A mission that involves you getting close to the Lin Kuei. He was right to think Tomas would explode because he did.

“How could you send her out there?! Do you know how dangerous that is? She could get killed!” Tomas protested.

“She volunteered, I did not force her hand. She was the only one willing to do this.”

Kuai Liang believed you were doing this out of braveness and commitment. You hid your true intentions well. He was clueless to the situation between you and Tomas and how you have been avoiding him. Tomas could sense the bs however. This was not like you. Not that you weren’t brave but who in their right mind would willingly go into something like this on their own. That’s a suicide mission at that point. Tomas couldn’t and wouldn’t let you do that!

“Then I will go with her as well! We can’t send her out there on her own.” He volunteered to go with you.

Kuai Liang was very hesitant. Even just letting you go was a hard choice for him to make. But they needed the info on the Lin Kuei. He will admit it was a wrong choice but it might not be bad if Tomas goes with you as well. He nodded before speaking.

“Go get ready now. She will be leaving soon.”

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You had all your equipment ready. Your weapons were sharpened and your mind set on something. Try your best to complete the mission. And if things fail and you are on death’s door, accept it. Either way you will leave or come back with honor. You took a deep breath and with a big step you-

“You’re not going by yourself.” You heard Tomas’ voice.

He grabbed onto your hand to prevent you from going. He pulled you back so you were right next to him. You were shocked to see him here. You didn’t understand why he was stopping you. He looked like he was preparing for a mission too. Before you could ask what he was doing he spoke up again.

“Why would you think it was a good idea to go alone? I know you’re brave but this is way too risky to do by yourself. You should have asked me to come,” he sighed before looking forward, “Well, we are already prepared. We should get a move on.”

This was shocking to you. Not only did Tomas willingly find you but now he was holding onto your hand. He held it tight like he was worried you would run off and leave his side.

He was. You were running away from him all this time he can’t let you go. He’s been wanting to talk to you for so long. Get close to you and find some sort of excuse to touch you. But you’ve not just been avoiding him, but everyone in general, like they were the plague. He doesn’t even care if he gets an explanation he just wants to talk to you again.

“You look very pretty today. I mean you look pretty every day but I thought you should know you look pretty, heh.” Tomas struggled a little but he hoped you got the point.

You didn’t, not because you were ignorant or missing signs you just didn’t believe him. Those girls really messed with your head and made you think everything he says to you is a lie. He sounded convincing yet your mind just wouldn’t accept it. You were afraid of being hurt even more. If you did die you don’t want to die with anymore of a broken heart.

Tomas’ heart aches when he didn’t get a response from you. You even turned your head away from him. He almost thought he was bothering you. He would have let your hand go but he was more afraid of losing you than bothering you. So he kept holding on and trying to talk to you.

“Did you sharpen your weapons? You do it so good. I might need you to sharpen my karambit if you don’t mind.”

Still nothing from you. You were hurting more than you were before. You wanted to talk but your mind was at war with your heart. You held your tears in but they threatened to burst out of you.

Tomas saw right through you. He saw that you are struggling but with what he doesn’t know. You’re more reclusive. Even your clothes spoke that. You looked like you were trying to hide your body more and even your face. You never wore a mask before. Why were you hiding all that beauty from him?

“I’ve missed talking to you. It was nice to have a break in my day where I could talk to someone about anything other than the clan. I’m sorry if I did something to scare you away. I don’t like doing that to people I care about.” He spoke softly to you as if to make you understand how much he cares.

You couldn’t. You just couldn’t.

Your heart was hurting and so was his. He just wants to be close with you again. If this is all he can get for now so be it. He wishes it was more, much more than this. You wished you could believe him again. See him as a man who could love you. You wished you could look at yourself and love who you are. You do and you hate that you let those pricks alter your belief.

In moments of weakness like this it gives others the perfect opportunity to strike. And that they did. As your two were having this mission to gain more info on the Lin Kuei, they too had orders to gain more info on the Shirai Ryu. There were more of them and they ambushed you both.

Tomas let go of your hand and took out his karambit to defend you both. This was a shock to your system and you took too long to get your kunai out. You defended yourself to the best of your abilities. Kicking and striking whenever you could. It wasn’t enough and they knocked you down. In that moment you realized that you didn’t want to die. You couldn’t tell if you didn’t want to die in an ambush or didn’t want to die in general. You were horrified and your eyes expressed that greatly to the assassins. You put your arms up to defend yourself one more time.

All you heard after was Tomas yelling ‘no’ before seeing a bunch of smoke burst in front of you. A bunch of slashing and grunts could be heard but you couldn’t see anything. When the smoke cleared all you saw was Tomas standing in front of you with all the assassins dead on the ground. There was about ten of them and he took them down in seconds. He helped you up before holding your face to check for any injuries.

“Oh god, are you hurt? Did they injure you in any way. Are you okay?” He asked as he pulled your mask down so you could breathe better.

He asked if you were okay. You knew he meant physically but you needed to hear it mentally. Those tears that have been building up this whole time slipped out slowly. He realized that there was more to this than he had imagined. He brought you into a tight hug as one of his hands went into your hair and the other rubbed your back. He whispered to you that it will all be okay and that he doesn’t want you being alone in this.

You missed him so much. You missed his touch even if it was minimal before. You can’t stand being away from him again. It doesn’t matter what those girls say you have as much right to be with him as anyone else does. No matter what you actually are you know you love him. You don’t want to die anymore. It won’t help your soul. He doesn’t want you dying either. He missed you. He needs you. You’re so special to him not even for your beauty but your personality. He would never want a girl who would drive someone to their death. That’s dishonorable and cruel.

“Come on, let’s go back. I don’t want you getting hurt anymore.” He whispered as he took your hands again.

Before you could protest by saying the mission won’t be fulfilled an opportunity opened. There was one Lin Kuei assassin left alive. Tomas was about to end his life before he begged for mercy. He said he will tell them everything but just let him live. Looks like you two didn’t have to go far for this solution.

Tomas dragged the assassin back while keeping you close. When you two returned Tomas gave the captured assassin over to Kuai Liang. He was surprised but was happy that no one got hurt in the end. And seeing that the person was willing to talk that means the mission was accomplished. He thanks you both and told you both to rest up.

Never once did Tomas let go of your hand. He wanted you close and safe even if you guys were back in the temple. Even if you don’t tell him immediately what was wrong before he was glad that some progress was made. You were looking at him again with that softness he loves.

“Let’s get you comfortable, alright? Then after that we could talk just like we used to.” He said as he walked you to your room.

You nodded and for once in a while you smiled again. You felt that warmth in your body. Whatever those girls said before was a lie. You can see that for yourself. Everything they said was a lie.

The truth is that you love Tomas and he loves you. There is nothing fake about this. And there will never be even if those jealous idiots try to say otherwise.

You are beautiful and loved. Don’t forget that.

After notes: 🍊…🦊 WHY IS MY BOLD AND BRASH PAINTING ON THE FLOOR? WHO WAS BOUNCING OFF THESE WALLS? ARE YOU EATING MY WORK AGAIN? I think I’ve manifested foxes in my town. They don’t come here and they shouldn’t. Next thing ya know the deers and vultures will come back. I don’t want to square up with a hawk again…I never did that. Adiós!

[inf3ct3dd]

loser!ellie headcanons pt.6

summary: ellieeee my chiquitita my baby my love

warnings: none :3

authors note: ik yall missed herrrr

masterlist. help palestine.🇵🇸

- ellie tries to be soooo cool and wear her cool people jackets (leather jackets, canvas, those carhartt hoodie jackets etc) but they’re very not helpful against the cold and you’ll be out with her and shes just SHIVERING the whole time…

- she’s obsessed w those “general knowledge quizzes” on tiktok. that girl is a hoe for trivia she’s sitting on her bed at three in the morning saying her answers OUT LOUD while she watches them. she gets so upset when she gets literally any wrong… “man…im not a quiz master 🙁”

- ik in the games she walks around with her little journal and shit but i feel like shes definitely jus constantly typing shit in her notes app… random thoughts and jokes and shit that she most definitely shows you at the end of the day

- she barely ever baby talks to babies… she’ll go up to a baby and just be like “wassup dude” and have a full blown conversation with him while the babies just sitting there babbling and giggling at her

- thinks those “im nothing like yall” slideshows r so hilarious…. like you’ll be on the couch and she’s just giggling at her phone at paracetamol 😞

- references the most niche memes ever constantly and literally googles them to explain herself. you guys went camping and she said “boy you want hot dog” and you were like ????

- so strangely particular about how her stuff is arranged 😭 her desk looks like an absolute hot mess 90% of the time but SHE UNDERSTANDS IT and if u try and organize it for her she just puts it back how it was

- always says “guys” and “yall” when she’s talking to literally one person. and CHAT. she just constantly adds it into conversation like “chat how are you today”

- loves asking if things are “fire.” she’ll cook you something and you take a bite and shes like “is that shit fire???” she has to know

- obsessed with “i barely know her” jokes. the second someone says something ending in er shes like “rider??? i barely know her!!” and she’s laughing her ass off

- that girl will go HAM on some mac and cheese. but it can only be really good baked mac or the shitty kraft mac and cheese. she puts like- hella pepper and red chili flakes in it and eats it straight out of the pot 🔥 its always at like three in the morning and you just walk in the kitchen to her with a pot in her lap watching glee or some shit

- SPEAKING. OF. glee is most definitely one of her guilty pleasure shows…like shes rewatched it a million times and glee cast was one of her top artists on apple music wrapped

- shes an apple music user. send tweet.

- got yelled at by an old lady once cuz she picked her flowers out of her front yard and gave them to you

- when i tell you that girl goes ham on those tiny clementines… she’ll eat like 10 in one day and theres just PEELS. EVERYWHERE.

- also she fw grapes heavy. especially green grapes (shes a weird little freak red grapes are so much better)

- OBSESSED WITH THOSE BLIND BAG SHITS. especially mini brands oh my god she definitely has the whole lil grocery store set and she’s so obsessed with it.

- her house slippers are definitely just a pair of crocs with the fur inside and a bunch of stupid ass jibbits. she buys the mega packs off amazon and changes them whenever shes bored

- has SO MANY drafts on tiktok and they’re all her trying filters staring at the screen like 😯

- most annoying person to sleep next to ever . snoring, sleep talking, moving around CONSTANTLY and hitting you accidentally, the only way she sleeps peacefully is if you’re holding her or she’s holding you, otherwise shes insane

- weirdly into linguistics…that girl is using humongous words for no good reason just for fun and half the time she has no idea what they mean and when she googles them and shes right about the definition she does that little fist pump and “fuck yes”

- speaking of. that girl is SPEEDRUNNING DUOLINGO . she’s fluent in (bad spaniard) spanish from it, and just learns random languages for fun. you speak a different language? she’s learning it immediately. definitely leaves notes for you in random languages she learned and you have to pull out a translator to understand wtf shes talking about… she also sleep talks in spanish sometimes and its so funny

- loves trying out different recipes…like i said my girl is a CHEF she will be at home fucking up a salmon bake she made and making you homemade pho for dinner

- had a phase when she was younger when she was really into the la bamba movie and dressed like richie valens for two years

- also cried so hard when she watched selena with you…that girl was devastated 💔 every time she hears “dreaming of you” she almost sheds a tear

“when that yolanda bitch gets out of prison….im shooting someone . its obvious who its gonna be.”

- she definitely begged joel to buy her a gun for christmas and he would take her to the range all the time so she can SHOOT. that girl is goated at lazer tag she gets down…does not play

- thought that candy cigarettes were the coolest thing ever when she was little… everywhere she went she had one hanging out of the side of her mouth and shed hold them between her fingers like they do in movies. if you two go to a candy shop shes for sure buying a pack