#ty for all the questions i enjoyed answering these

[courtesons]

There was no rush to any of this, almost as if Ethan was taking his time on purpose to enjoy the sensation of binding Fabian - not to mention being rather specific about it all. Like this was some kind of project rather than just a reason to have his beautiful hunk of a younger lover bound. A faint smile filled his face at the question, not answering straight away as he finished one particular knot before he spoke up.

"Tying someone up safely would be the start of college, I met some people who introduced me to this sort of dynamic" He explained, in fact he had been roughly Fabian's age when he'd started which was quite the little parrallel. "As for doing this more...artictic rendition of it, that took a lot of practice and experimenting. With partners in college, going to clubs - learning from others. There's a whole community willing to teach and explain things, as long as you're willing to learn and have an open mind." He explained, fingers trailing down Fabain's spine as he examined his work.

"Many forms of rope and bondage are indeed artistic, shibari is a rather famous example of such. But then again with such a beautiful subject being tied up, how can it not look like art?" He hummed, kissing Fabian's neck gently from behind. He'd bound Fabian's arms behind his back - his wrists barely able to move and made sure that the rope at front was brushing against his cock. Not restricting it in any way, but let him feel the sensation of the silk rope against it.

"Now, for the next step..." He trailed off, slowly moving to the side of the couch where there was a small wooden side table that had a removable lid. Inside was a few things, including a rather large silk pillow that was a deep, royal blue colour. He slowly set it down next to the couch and placed his hands on Fabian's shoulders. "Now, I want you to kneel for me - take it slow, it may hurt a little with how beautifully red your backside is" He hummed, another kiss to his neck.

"But I know you can do it, be a good boy for me" He said, before guiding Fabian down slowly. He'd offer physical support to do so, letting him take his time but one way or another his boy would be kneeling on that pillow before Ethan. Fingers fondly carding through his hair before slowly sitting down on the couch as well right beside him. "How does it feel, to be bound and kneeling for me?" He asked, fingers carding through his hair. "You can rest that pretty head on my thigh if you like, you have my permission."

Standing up after the spanking wasn't as intense as standing up after Ethan had fucked him for the first time, but now Fabian had time to really take in the fact that he was completely naked in Ethan's living room, while Ethan was fully clothed. Once more, that sent a thrill up his spine. The power imbalance was visible and obvious. He stood with his hands in Ethan's as he explained what was to come. Fabian just nodded along.

As he was positioned on the couch, Fabian tried to keep his butt hovering in the air. If he planted it on the cushions, it stung. If he rested it on his heels to get some relief, the sides screamed. So he tried to stay perked up in the air for now, though he knew his thighs weren't strong enough to hold him forever. And if Ethan was really diabolical he could tie his thighs closed as well, really forcing him down onto the whatever cushion he planned to give him.

As it was, Fabian watched the rope slide across his body. Purple was a good color against Fabian's skin (though perhaps not as striking as yellow, pink, or green). "How did you learn to do all this?" Fabian asked as Ethan painstakingly created designs across his chest before sliding the rope around Fabian's arms.

Those were pulled behind him and tied away, leaving him able to flex his fingers open and closed, but his arms were no trapped against the small of his back. The bondage was familiar, since he'd been in a similar position that first night in the kitchen chair. "I didn't expect the rope to look so...artistic" he admitted, looking down at the almost harness-like rope crossing around and his pecs. The rope actually perked them up a little, making his titties push out a little.

[gviral]

one last one i just had come to mind: was will aware that alfred trained HUNK? if so, did part of him think alfred had anything to do with the collection of g / his assasination because of how will treated alexia? how does he feel about alfred ( and especially alfred being given command of an island unsupervised )?

william, admittedly, does not know much about H.U.N.K. however, there is not a SINGLE doubt in my mind that he absolutely would have believed alfred had something to do with his assassination / the retrieval of G because he is... insane.

i'm pretty sure william and alexia never met one another (it's a bit vague in canon... i don't THINK there was any mention of the two of them ever meeting? just that william was Big Mad about a 10 year old being employed by umbrella LOL), but regardless- his hatred of alexia absolutely extends to alfred as well. granted, alfred never held much of a candle to either of them and didn't threaten ("""threaten""") william's intelligence / position like alexia did, it was mostly just on the basis that he was alexia's brother. and also annoying. william just straight up thinks alfred is annoying.

irt to the rockfort island, i'd say he's annoyed- but not surprised! the ashfords are umbrella royalty. figures he'd get some extra special treatment (as if william didn't come from a highly privileged background himself).

* @blitzkriegers / relationship queries

[literaryvein-reblogs]

bunny x cat dynamic?

Like, adhd bunny and grumpy cat dynamic? I'm going to try writing a bit where the dynamic of the main characters are fleshed out. Any input on what people often enjoy about these for me to take into account?

To me it's so cute because she considers herself more as an annoying dog but for him, he considers her to be a cute, hyperactive bunny (that's kind of useless to (literal) death but let's put that aside, or not)

The ideal response to this would come from your readers. If you've already established your reader base, try asking them their preferences and expectations. Of course—still, write the story you want (and need) as a writer. And there it is, in your second paragraph. The idea is that if you write what you want, the people who also prefer this dynamic will find your work and stay for the rest of the story, and will more likely enjoy your other work as well (this is essentially what most successful authors advise new writers—write what you want, what you enjoy etc etc). But striking a balance between your readers' and your own preferences would be great too.

If you don't have a reader base yet, I'd suggest going through your favourite literature/films and finding ones that depict this particular character dynamic. Then you yourself, as a reader/viewer now, could answer what you find enjoyable about these pieces of media, and incorporate that in your writing.

Also, here are some tropes that I think have similarities with the dynamic you described. Same suggestion with finding books or films/TV shows you like that feature these tropes. But also research their readers'/audience's feedback to find out what they enjoyed about these character tropes, and this is what you can take into consideration for your story.

Grump and sunshine. One character is so grumpy all the time; the other character is so bubbly all the time. And somehow, through that power-of-love thing, they end up balancing each other out. The grump sometimes has sworn off love.

Savvy Guy, Energetic Girl. This is a potential pairing (platonic or otherwise) between a pragmatic guy and a girl who is very full of energy. One partner in the pair will be lively and optimistic while the other is savvy and more slothful, quiet, or otherwise less expressive. EXAMPLES:

In Corpse Bride, Emily and Victor. The former is a dead bride who is rather lively and spiritual for a corpse, while the latter is a live man who is shy and awkward almost to a fault.

This defines Anna and Kristoff's relationship in Frozen nicely. She is a spunky princess willing to do whatever it takes to bring her sister home, he is a grumpy, rough-around-the-edges ice harvester helping her along the way.

In Pixar's Up, the quiet and timid Carl befriended and eventually married the energetic Ellie.

Uptight Loves Wild. He's stuffy. She's untamed. It's true love. Mr. Stuffy is in a rut: Life is boring because he plays by the rules. Along comes this wild and crazy woman to show him how to live life to its fullest, and she just might learn a few things along the way, too. EXAMPLES:

Enchanted: Stuffy, cynical divorce lawyer Robert meets fairytale princess Giselle.

The Sound of Music: Maria isn't "wild", but she is a Blithe Spirit in the face of the extremely uptight, Captain von Trapp.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind: Quite thoroughly deconstructs this. A relationship like this doesn't always work and after the falling-in-love part, it causes more pain than joy; so much so that both parties opt to have their memories removed of each other. The Manic Pixie Dream Girl is also far more complicated: "I'm not a concept, I'm just a fucked-up girl looking for a peace of mind".

Opposites Attract. EXAMPLES:

The Princess and the Frog has Tiana and Naveen. She's a Workaholic, no-nonsense waitress and he's a fun-loving, lazy prince.

Tangled gives us the jaded, worldly-wise thief Flynn Rider and the spirited, innocent princess Rapunzel.

Treasure Planet has Captain Amelia and Dr. Doppler. She's a tough-as-nails Action Girl, he's a bookish scientist, not to mention they're basically an anthropomorphic cat and dog, respectively. The two grow closer throughout the movie, and by the end they even have several kids.

Sources: 1 2 ⚜ More: Writing Notes & References

[twentyfivemiceinatrenchcoat]

sometimes i remember that gojo wanted to tell geto “we’ll meet again, right?” just before he died but forced himself not to knowing it would have cursed him and then i start thinking about how kind and thoughtful gojo is as a character and how he hasn’t been able to lean on another human being since geto defected and then i want to . Scream

[tojiscrack]

holaa sumayaa!!

first of all - I absolutely adore your works! you are probably the reason I fell back into reading fanfics after a very dry era, and with good reason<3 I LOVE liar liar sm it's almost pathetic, but I digress...

as others have mentioned, we have gotten fluff and slice of life till now, but there will be heavy angst 😟 does this mean you have written most of the story already, or is it just your general outlining of the fic? 👀😳

anyways!!!! THANK YOU FOR SUCH AN AMAZING FANFIC, TE AMO!!!!

love, ana<33333

liar, liar masterlist here:

HOLA 🤭 (got excited seeing the spanish as if my gcse spanish at grade 5 for foundation is gonna be of any relevance here 💀)

‘you are probably the reason i fell back into reading fanfics after a very dry era’

…

i’m gonna cry that is such a unique thing to say and the absolute sweetest thing i’ve seen today 😭❤️❤️❤️

i’m so glad you’re enjoying it??? and i love you more than u’ll ever love liar, liar??? and let’s get married soon??? 🥹

but alas, we return back to the angst scare…

to answer ur question, unfortunately, i have not written any of the chapters further than chapter 6 (which is halfway completed atm). but i do have all the chapters up until chapter 17 PLANNED in my notes:

i have another file for events that must occur (e.g. how i see them conversing during the angst, how i see the other characters’ reactions to the angst, the narration points that must be mentioned, etc).

so while none of the angst has been written yet, it’s very much been planned already (written down and also mentally prepared). the parts that haven’t been included in a chapter yet will be formed and built together as the story progresses.

this story will have way more than 17 chapters tho. wayyy more than 17 chapters. so… fear not? or maybe you should. idk.

i’m really excited for you to see it all come together… 😋

[wikitpowers]

happy new year, folks!!!!

if life ever tries to bring you down just remember everyday is a day closer to twp... U CAN DO THIS!

i hope ya'll have a great year and achieve all your goals! wishing u all the very best!

p.s. cassie will be posting more twp updates in this new year and spam us with brand new artwork, stories and teasers and 2024 will be a good year dw<3

[wistful-pigeon]

https://www.tumblr.com/cartoons-asfuk-blog/131237661529 This really got on Cartoon Network. It’s the episode that was delayed and screened at sdcc to. That had to be fun lol. Teen titans go probably does worse but still wow

I mean I assume that whomever you are, this is in my inbox because of my recent Ramblings-

I'll be honest, I don't quite understand the tone implied in this message but I know that I remember the character (Cheshire? Listen it's been a solid 5 years since I had the emotional capacity to watch YJ again but I did in fact watch Season 1 at least 3 dozen times)

I'm going off of context cues alone here and granted, I don't have a whole lot but I feel like this is about Her Legs; and man I can't think of any way to fight in a long skirt (or skirt in general) that doesn't involve Your Opponents Seeing Your Whole Ass and that's why I personally always wear shorts or leggings underneath if I'm wearing a skirt/dress (one has to always be prepared for combat at any moment).

I *did* check just now to make sure, but Cheshire is 19 already in Season 1 so honestly? I don't necessarily see this as being an "inappropriate" or even particularly sexualizing scene- I've seen clips of the latter seasons and whenever Starfire is introduced (no spoilers there please y'all istg I'm going to be watching it soon I just need to emotionally prepare myself and after Good Omens Season 2 I'm still reeling here) I have seen a multitude of GIFs involving... a more sexual nature than what this gives off to me.

So like I think what I'm saying here is that given how female superhero outfits have always been, this scene is nothing particularly raunchy in my eyes; I'd say the whole "Oriental" aesthetic of her character may or may not be in the best of tastes (I would listen to what people of East Asian ethnicity have to say about it rather than say "it isn't problematic at all" cuz I don't know the intricacies of it all) and the overall sexualization of Cheshire's character does sorta play in to the whole "sexualizing East Asian culture" trope that IS indeed a long existing problem; but in the way they tell her story (as far as I recall and up until S2), I think that the overall story of her character is generally handled well without anything that my younger self noticed as being particularly problematic.

Although I do feel there is a difference between how one can show that a certain character may display their attunement with their sexuality (and I don't mean sexuality as in sexual identity per say it's more about one's own image of themselves and how one wishes to be perceived by others, as a Sexual Being) as opposed to the perception of the character through the lens and to the audience and the OVER-sexualization of characters and people that is an ongoing Issue and remains one of the reasons why I have never gotten fully otaku-level obsessed with anime bc it is a very prevalent issue within that form of media.

Don't have a clue why this answer became an essay but here I am, 7am, and I hope that this all comes across in a more cohesive manner than it felt writing it.

And I swear I'll go ask my girlfriend for the HBO password and finally WATCH the show again and the new seasons and maybe then I will understand better? Honestly if you can't tell from all of this I'm AUDHD so if I misconstrued things lmk

[hoshigray]

𝐒𝐌𝐀𝐒𝐇 𝐨𝐫 𝐒𝐋𝐀𝐒𝐇[𝐞𝐫]!! | t. fushiguro + s. ryōmen

𝐒𝐲𝐧𝐨𝐩𝐬𝐢𝐬: Next time, look around the area before you say you find a serial killer attractive. Because you’re about to see what mess your words will have you end up in — and your clothes all torn up.

𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬: serial killers! Toji + Sukuna x fem! reader - explicit content; minors DNI - modern au! - age gap (the reader is in their early 20s) - porn with plot - oral (f! + m! receiving) - threesome - double penetration; anal (first time) & vaginal - restricted movement (hands tied up) - face-sitting - cowgirl dp positions - gun + knife play - choking - spanking - unprotected sex - overstimulation - degradation (brat, broad, slut, whore) - pet names (baby, dollface, good girl, pet, princess) - blackmail/threats - the reader is in an established relationship w/ Nanami - mentions of blood, tears, spit, and drool.

𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐂𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 6.6k (told you, porn with plot, lol)

𝐀𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫'𝐬 𝐍𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐬: uhhhh happy Friday the 13th, everybody???? blame @ramonathinks for this idea (jk, don't, she's so amazing, ty for pushing me into this, mona bear ♡ and tysm for beta reading; your thoughts mean the world). Haven't done a fic in two months sooooo go easy on me!! Not proofread, so I'll fix stuff l8rrrr

“No.”

“Oh, come on, Y/n! Just answer the question!”

“You’re so fucking sick, you know that!?” You glare at your friend, who slumps on the booth chair with a heavy sigh. 

A slight breeze tickles your skin through your comfortable sweatshirts as the leaves on the trees slowly change to autumnal colors, and Halloween decor is already adorning every house and every yard. It was a warm and sunny afternoon on this pleasant Friday. Usually, you’d be cozied up in your apartment enjoying yourself, probably catching up on some horror flicks you missed last year. 

But alas, that was not the case. Because you’re a college student. As October has finally rolled around, only one thing prevents you from enjoying this beautiful season — midterms. The thought of it is enough to pull you into a pool of dread. Every day has been one whirlwind after another. Yet, on the bright side, all you have now is one last exam to worry about, and you’ll finally be able to rest this weekend. So here you are, at the diner with your best friend, Shoko Ieiri, completing your papers while eating off your plates to satiate the stress. For the most part, things were going smoothly.

Until the news anchor on the television at the bar relays an announcement… 

“…Once again, everyone, please be on the lookout for these two killers on the loose. Three weeks ago, the two recently escaped from their cells, killed three guards, and are still at large. There have been accounts around the state that reported recent sightings of either or both criminals, the recent one being in this county 27 hours ago. So, please, stay safe. The killers are identified to be…”

And Shoko, being the curious person she is, asks you a question that stops your fingers from typing on your laptop: “Do you find those killers hot?” 

That’s how you two end up where you are now, groaning at the brunette’s persistence in getting your approval to find two criminals — murderers, even! — attractive. 

“Hey, Y/n, I know you hear me.” Shoko snaps their fingers at you while you try to get the assignment done. “Just answer the question: don’t you think those guys are hot.”

“We didn’t come all this way for you to talk about your hybristophilia fantasies.” Facing the Word document, you remind your friend why you’re here in the first place. “Just get back to writing; I wanna finish this and get home.” There’s nothing said afterward for a few seconds, thinking she has finally given up.

However, “First of all,” your eyes close to conceal them rolling behind the lids. “I’m not into hybristophilia; I just know a hot guy when I see one. Second, look at their mugshots. Like, damn, you’ve ever seen anyone so intimidatingly good-looking before? Come on, have a look!”

“You’re such a weirdo,” the click-clacking of your fingertips tapping your keyboard fills the rest of your answer. 

Still, she persists. “Y/n, look at the phoooone~”

No words, only tapping keys.

“Y/n?”

The keys become louder. 

“Pretty, pretty, pleaseeeee~?” 

Louder.

“Y/n!!”

A fist bangs on the booth table as the other closes the laptop shut, sending another glare to the person across from you who holds the phone up. You’ve had it at this point, so you say with a steady breath, “If I look at the dumb mugshots and answer your dumb question, will your dumbass leave me alone and finish your work?” The brunette only puts the phone on the table and slides it your way, giving you big doe eyes and whimpers like a hurt puppy. You sigh with your nostrils as you snatch the phone up, your gaze stationed on the images presented.

The image displayed two mugshots: on the left was a man with raven hair and a scar on the left of his lip. Intense, forest-green orbs contrast the black strands that cover his forehead. The mugshot letter board below him is labeled as "Toji Fushiguro." The one on the right is another man with spiky salmon-colored hair pushed upfront with prominent black tattoos decorating his nose, cheeks, and forehead. The board named him as “Sukuna Ryōmen.”

You look at the pictures intently, examining the men’s features at your discretion. It didn’t occur to you how long you were gawking at the mugshots until you peered from the phone to see Shoko give you the biggest shit-eating grin. Shaking your head, you chew the inside of your cheek before responding.

“….Well,” you cough. “…they’re not terrible looking at all. They are…..hot.”

“Told you!” Shoko slams the table with high enthusiasm, earning another sigh from you as she snatches the phone back. “Would you fuck them?”

You almost popped a vein. What the fuck—“is wrong with you!?” 

“It’s just a question, geez.” She holds her hands up defensively. “Or is that too lewd and raunchy to ask the partner of the trusting, charismatic “Golden Boy” SGA president, Kento Nanami?”

You choke on your spit before you can say anything, and your cheeks dial in warmth. “S-Shut up! Don’t bring my love life into whatever deviant horny thoughts you’re thinking!”

“I’m sorry, I’m boreeeeeeed. I don’t wanna do this paper, ugh.” The brunette whines and bangs their forehead on the table surface; your eyes roll for the fifteenth time in the past three hours. “…Maybe I should get some dick after this.”

“For fuck’s sake, I’m going to use the restroom.” 

You exit the dining booth when they give you a muffled response of anguish, straightening yourself and heading for the back of the diner. As you walked away, you noticed a pair of hooded figures sitting at the booth behind you. Realization kicks in, and you groan internally. Oh, God, they probably heard what we were talking about! But what caught your mind next was that one of them had a black mark on the bridge of their nose. Huh, what an odd tattoo…

After using the toilet, you wash your hands at the sink, but your mind is still fixated on that weird tattoo. Who would get such a thing on their face? Wouldn’t that hurt? I wonder if that’s the only tatt— And then It clicked, you quickly turn off the faucet and dry your hands, exit the rest restroom, and run to your booth. Shoko was begrudgingly typing away on their laptop until she saw you return in a hurry. 

“Hey, you okay?” She asks you, but you aren’t looking at them. Your face contoured to a confused expression as you stared at the booth behind the one you were sitting in, now empty. 

“Did…..The two people who sat behind us, did you see them?” 

“Hmm? No, I didn’t. Must’ve left while my head was on the table.”

“Uh huh…” you say nothing more as you slowly sit back in front of your laptop. Your mind is now clouded with confusing thoughts, questioning your experience up until now. It could be a coincidence, quite far out at that. Regardless, you could’ve sworn you saw that tattoo on the Sukuna guy that Shoko showed you. It was such an uncommon decor, especially since you just saw it on the face of a criminal. Not to mention, the news anchor earlier stated that those two killers were in this exact county…

Needless to say, you didn’t touch your keyboard for about twenty minutes. Your mind was too wrapped up elsewhere to think clearly about your school assignment, and your body harbored a disturbing chill worse than the soft autumn winds.

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───

“…So, why are you researching about the loose killers again?”

“Hm? Oh,” you stop typing on the laptop to attend to the phone call you’re on. Exiting your bedroom, you walk to the living room. “No reason, I was just curious. I saw something about them on the news at the diner with Shoko.”

The person on the other side of the line hums. “You should be careful about stuff like that.”

“Yeah, I know, Kenty,” you open the sliding door to your balcony and close it behind you before taking a seat on the cream-colored swing chair.

“I’m very serious, Y/n.” It was none other than Kento Nanami who was speaking with you. The trustworthy “Golden Boy” of your class year, the circumspect president of the Student Government Association… your loving and attentive boyfriend.

"I know you are."

"And those guys aren't just any usual criminals. They're notorious killers who barge into people's homes at night to steal valuable things. Maybe even kill their victims in their sleep if they have the time. So, be very careful, okay? Can’t trust these streets at night, especially now with those guys on the run. So, don’t go anywhere alone, always have your pepper spray on you, and be sure everything is locked — doors, windows, everything.”

A deep sigh leaves your lips. “Yeah, I double-checked all the locks once I got inside.” 

No one says a word; the rustling of the trees and the beeping of cars from the traffic at the light substitute this awkward silence. Until Nanami says, “….You scared?”

You don’t answer immediately, your mind flashing back to the bewildering encounter at the diner earlier today. Those two hooded men, one with a black tattoo on his face. It felt too surreal to feel like a coincidence, yet it wasn’t too far out of your mind to think as such. The timing was strange, with the news reporter and your conversation with Shoko. The thought of two murderers nonchalantly being in the same space as you rub you off in the worst way imaginable. “…Kinda, yeah. A bit spooked.”

“You want me to come up there and spend the night?”

“No, no! You don’t have to do that,” you hurriedly decline his proposal. “I know you’re busy with homework and student government stuff. I wouldn’t want you moving around so much; I’d feel bad.”

You hear him chuckle on the other side of the phone, and your heart swoons at the sound. “Don’t feel bad; you could never be a burden to me, especially when your safety is my top priority.” Another skip of the beat; it’ll never fail to amaze you how sweet he is with his words.

“Thank you, Kenty. But still, I know you’ve got a lot on your hands. You don’t have to see me right this moment. Besides, isn’t Haibara supposedly dragging you to some party at Geto’s?” Nanami is silent for a few seconds before he groans; a smile creeps up on your face at his reaction.

“Unfortunately, yes. I have to leave to pick him up, and then we can go…But I can cancel and come o—“

“Absolutely not.” You’re quick to interject. “You’ve been so high and on edge with your exams. This is the first party after midterm week. And I can bet my left toe that Gojo — cause you know he’ll be there if Geto is — will be upset you couldn’t make it.”

“…….Which one?”

“Excuse me?”

“You have five toes on your left foot, so which one—“

“Kento.” He chuckles once more for your ears to hear at the use of his real name. “Have fun, okay?”

Nanami hums. “I’ll try. I’ll come by your place Sunday. Sounds good?”

“Perfect. Take some pics for me. Love you!”

Your boyfriend bids you farewell before ending the call, already missing his voice. A yawn creeps out from you, a sign that you are indeed fatigued and need rest. Leaving the balcony, you close the door and do a final check at your door. Confirmed that it’s locked and secured, you turn off the living room lights and head back to your bedroom to get some shut-eye. 

You shut off and close your laptop on your desk before turning off the lights. Then, you lift the comforter and finally enter the chilly embrace of your bedsheets.  Usually, you’d scroll on your phone for a little bit until you get drowsy enough to fall asleep. Yet — it could be because of the exam you were doing at the diner — you felt way more exhausted than usual and wanted to sleep right away. And you did just that: closed your eyes, listened to the calming rhythm of your breaths, and soon drifted into an anticipated slumber.

….Three Hours Later….

The next time you open your eyes, you’re not in the room you left yourself in — let alone the bed. 

Instead, you find yourself somewhere cold and dark. Your bed is nowhere in sight, just a lone chair facing you. There are no windows, no desks, just you and this chair with a sole overhead light that almost blinds you when you slowly get up. 

The change of scenery throws you off as one thought after another picks up the pace of confusion. Where am I? What is this place? This has to be a sick dream of mine…Wait a minute. You look down to find your pajamas are shriveled and torn up, pieces of the material scattered all over where you’re lying on the cold floor. Also, what the fuck!? You can’t seem to move your hands and feet, noticing that there’s some rope restricting your limbs from moving freely from one another. No matter how hard you try, squirming does little to no help, yet it confirms that this is not a dream.

What the absolute fuck is going on right now!? It was an appropriate question for this perplexing situation, not knowing where to pick up from to start picking clues as to why you’re here. Better yet, who brought you here?

“Ah, look who’s awake.”

You turn to the sound of a door opening and closing; the direction it came from makes it hard to register the distance of whoever was speaking to you. However, that doesn’t matter because you can hear footsteps approaching you and a figure stepping into the light. And when the face finally comes to your field of vision, your blood shifts into an immediate icy cold.

Standing to you by the chair was a man in a tight black shirt that exhibited his muscular arms and physique way too perfectly, harboring dark and baggy pants. But those weren’t the features that had your breath hitch. No, no. The man before you had raven hair with the length stopped to his ears and strands that covered his brows. They did not even try concealing the striking green eyes that looked straight at you. And the familiar scar at the right of his lip put everything together for you — the mugshot that Shoko showed me, the inmate that escaped prison…!

Toji Fushiguro, in the flesh, takes a seat on the chair with his legs spread while putting on black gloves. He notices your look of realization and smirks; you don’t like how his scar is rooted up with the motion. “Y’re a pretty heavy sleeper, ya know that. But I guess that made bringing you here a lil’ simple.” 

A tiny bit of confidence prompts you to speak with the man. “Whe–Where am I?”

“C’mon now, little girl,” your stomach churns when he scoffs at you. He brings up a hand to help him as he cracks his neck. God, why is he so jacked!!? “Y’re supposed to be smart, right? You know that’s the wrong question to ask me.” 

Okay then, think, Y/n, think… ”…Why did you kidnap me? Is it for money? Because I don’t have much—“ The palm of Toji’s hand faces you to halt you from speaking more, making your nervousness dwell even further. 

“For one, you should really consider locking your balcony door when y’re done using it.” There are not enough words to describe the mental facepalm you gave yourself. “If we wanted to run y’r pockets, we woulda done so earlier.” He casually admits to you. “But that’s not why we brought ya here, so he’ll explain it to ya.”

He? Wait, wait, we??

The other mugshot hits you like a flash before you hear the door open and close again. Of course, Toji isn’t the only one on the run right now. There was another guy with salmon-colored hair and tattoos. The other figure, now wearing a black tank tee and ripped black jeans, came from behind Toji. Your stomach drops to the floor when your eyes land on the prominent black tattoo on his nose — now seeing that he has way more on his face, shoulders, arms, and wrists. The scene from the diner replays until your brain can’t keep up. It was him, no doubt about it.

“Well, well. Did the sleeping beauty finally get their rest?” Sukuna Ryōmen, looks just as [if not more] dangerous as Toji. He stuffs his hand into the back of his jeans pocket. “Listen here, I’ll be asking you some questions, and I expect nothing but honest answers. Got that?” 

You don’t know what possessed you to ask the question. You being scared shitless right now should’ve prevented you from doing so. And yet, you ask, “And if I don’t?”

It happened way too fast; your eyes couldn’t even process it happening. But one moment, the salmon-haired criminal was standing in front of you beside Toji. The next, you feel someone crouched behind you with the cold feeling of something barely piercing your skin. Your eyes widen, and you don’t dare move a single hair. Toji shakes his head at you, the smirk on his face still present. Now you can guess who had fun cutting up your PJs.

“I don’t think you wanna know the answer to that question.” He says it so close to your ear that you could’ve nearly fainted. Sukuna then moves the knife to scrape the side of your neck. “And don’t you ever think you’re in a position to ask me questions. Use that college brain of yours, brat.” 

You gulp — a risky move when you have a sharp object to your neck — and nod. Satisfied, the pink-haired man removes the knife from your proximity and stands right up. “At least you follow things quickly.” He says while walking back to where he stood prior. “Now, question one: do you know a kid named Kento Nanami?” 

The mention of your boyfriend’s name hits you like whiplash. Kento? What do they want with him!?

“…Yes, I do.”

“Good. Next question,” You chew the inside of your lip before he asks you the following. “Where does he live?”

Your body almost shuts down when he says the final word. No. No, no, no! Absolutely not! “I can’t tell you that.”

“Tch, just when you were doin’ so good.” Sukuna sucks his teeth. “And why the hell not?”

“Because I don’t want you hurting him.”

He barks a laugh. “You don’t even know what we’ll do to him! Damn, talk about a loyal dog.” 

The insult sparked a flame in you. It was a small one, but a flame nonetheless. “Why the hell do you want to know anyway? It’s not like he knows you any—Hrckk!”

“What the hell did I say about you asking questions, huh.” A hurried hand meets your throat, black nails digging into your skin as his grip gets unbearably tight. You attempt to keep a stern face despite choking for some air, but you’d be lying that the pain wasn’t getting to your head.

“Alright, Kuna, let ‘em go.” You almost forgot about Toji sitting on the chair until he spoke up. With a displeased click of the tongue, Sukuna releases you and throws you to the cold, hard floor. “For your information, princess, that kid does know us.”

You’re coughing up a storm, but you still listen. Your eyes are watery, and your throat pulses. “Hic…Ack, what—What are you talking about?”

Toji continues. “That little friend of y’rs is the reason why we were behind bars for three years. Fuckin’ kid saw us break into a house in his neighborhood and called the cops on us. For the longest time, we’ve thought about getting out of those damn cells and coming back to rip that lil’ fucker limb from limb. Maybe ransack his whole home and then some.” 

“And now that we are out here,” Sukuna chimes in. “We plan on doing just that. We were sitting right behind you at the diner and heard the brown-haired chick say his name, meaning he had to be around this county. And when he heard that fucking square had a little girlfriend, who better to introduce ourselves and point us the way than you.” 

So much information hits you all at once that you’re not given enough time to process it properly. Nanami called the cops on these guys? Where was that piece of information on the phone call!!? Three years ago, it must’ve happened before the start of freshman year. And then there’s the matter of these murders trying to kill him — the love of your life! 

You immediately try to weigh your options: you could give them a fake address, but that would lead them back to you and have you killed instead. And Nanami doesn’t live at home right now; he’s on campus with you and everyone else. So, sharing these two his home address will just have his family killed in his place! Oh, you wouldn’t handle that guilt; you just couldn’t!!

“So, what’ll it be, little girl?” Toji’s voice snaps you from your rampant thoughts. “You can be a cute girlfriend and be loyal, and we’ll just kill you right here, right now. Or, you give us an address, we’ll put you back to sleep, and you’ll never see from us ever again.” 

Those two options were far from what you wanted to do. You would never want to jeopardize your poor boyfriend’s life and those around him for being a model citizen, especially for these assholes! There had to be a way, something you could do!

“Please, don’t hurt him!” The ropes on your hands and feet have you shuffle to look at the two men from the dirty ground. “He didn’t do anything wrong. Please just spare him!”

“No-can-do, brat.” Sukuna comes down to your level once more, yanking your shirt — or whatever’s left of it, your bra practically out for the whole world to see — to lift your upper body. “Nothing to ease a vengeful spirit than taking care of the problem, right? So do us a favor, will ya.” 

Tears are fighting your control to fall, your body trembling. You’re scared, so so frightened. But most of all, you’ll do what you can to make sure your “golden boy” stands tall for you. “Please, I’ll do anything! Anything you want, I’ll do it! So, please!!” 

Sukuna opens his mouth to bite back, but no words come out. Actually, his expression resorts back to a neutral tone. He then turns to Toji, who looks at him with a quirked brow. There’s nothing but silence between the two, a silent conversation between the two killers that you have no choice but to stay quiet for. And you jerk when the two focus back on you. Sukuna then finally says something.

“Anything, huh?” It’s the worst when he sneers at you. Such a devious man. 

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───

“Tch. Fucking brat.” Sukuna sucks his teeth before he snatches your chin with a rough vigor, forcing your teary eyes to face him. And it doesn’t help that you now have a gun pointed at your temple. “This is your warning. You better do this right, or you’ll be the first to get a gift with your boyfriend’s head all minced up. Now, use that mouth. Properly.”

Never in your wildest dreams did you ever think you’d end up here. You stood on your knees and hands on the concrete floor, your mouth occupied with Sukuna’s cock, propelling your face to and fro to meet the base. Why the handgun to your head? According to the salmon-haired man, he said: “Try to fight, run, or bite our dicks off, then this whole mag is getting emptied.” So, you’re literally giving the fellatio of your life. And judging by the grunts coming from Sukuna, it seems you’re doing a decent job keeping him going. 

As for the other one, Toji, his hands grabbing onto your asscheeks from beneath should answer that. “C’mon, baby, sit on my face. I don’t bite…” you can tell he has the biggest grin on his face saying that, has you hesitant to follow orders. Regardless, you gently sway your ass down to sit on his face. But impatience gets the best of him before he pulls you down himself, his nose abruptly hitting your clitoris. You jolt despite his hands keeping you on him, forced to feel his tongue and mouth indulging on your wet folds.

So there you sit, bare and nude, for the men to use you as they see fit. Whatever piece of your clothes were torn off you to be fully exposed for them. This is what you choose to do for the sake of your boyfriend: giving yourself off for the night. 

Oh, if Shoko could see you now. Sucking off one of the exact murderers you two were talking about at the diner while the other eats you out? You know you’ll never hear the end of it from her if — by some miracle — she finds out! And you’ll hold onto that miracle for as long as you can. 

“…Fuuuck, hnngh! It’s been a minute since I had my dick on something tight,” Sukuna comments while putting his free hand on your head. His thrusts increase to have your tongue bathe the underside of his dick, and he sighs at you choking when the tip suddenly hits your uvula. “Heh, that’s right. Keep those tears coming, pet…You seem to be enjoying yourself there, Fushiguro. This broad taste that fucking good—Ohhh shit, fucking shit…”

You can feel Toji’s lips curve into a smile from down under, he gives your labia and clit a slow and antagonizing lick before responding to his partner in crime. “Mmmm, man. It’s been a while since I had to do this. Crazy how this princess got with a square like that kid. Wonder if he makes ‘em feel good like this.” And then he returns to your clit to give it a harsh suck. 

Your body continues to be used like a toy. Your jaw loosens to oblige Sukuna’s girth that’s currently hitting the back of your throat every time your lips meet the pubes of his pelvis. His ruts dial-up, and you ball your fists with the constant oral abuse on your face. Drool runs down your chin with every shove of his length, practically choking you with his dick. And the commotion between your leaking vulva and Toji doesn’t go unnoticed either; motherfuker’s tongue is relentless, making sure every crevice and part of your pussy is familiar with him. And the sounds of him slurping your essence are so lewd, so erotic for your ears that you think they’re bound to explode on you. 

“—Ahhh, damn, I’m gonna cum,” Oh, God. Your eyes open to look at Sukuna’s expression, nothing but pure enjoyment looking at your pitiful look. “You’re cute looking all pathetic taking my cock like this, whore—Mmmph!! Shiiiit, keep your head like that.” He grabs your head as his thrusts speed up to an irregular pace, your throat and face becoming numb. Your whimpers are muffled, and tears streak down your cheeks. His groans of pleasure fill the room, and before you know it, his load is released down to the depths of your throat. You’re stuck taking it, mewling on the shaft still in your mouth until he’s finished. 

He removes you when he is, his cock slathered in your saliva and still rock hard. You gawk at it, amazed that you could fit it in your mouth. And you hate to admit this, but it has you wondering what Toji’s is like. 

Speaking of, with a foggy mind, you peer down to see Toji finally done eating your cunt out. “Ya taste good, you know that.” He licks his lips provocately with a smile. You open your mouth to say something, but he cuts you off. “You ready fr’ me now?” He cocks his chin up, and you turn to see what he’s talking about, only to be met with the pinkish-red tip of his sprung erect cock. If you didn’t think you’d be able to have Sukuna’s in your mouth, you’re going to need a diety’s grace to see what you can do with Toji’s. “Heh, think I’m too big fr’ you? How the hell is Kento handling a piece like you?”

“S–Shut up, stop bringing him up!” You shout at him, tired of being reminded of the love of your life whom you’re betraying right now. All for his sake, but still…

He chuckles at your reaction. “Little girl got spark, huh. Fine then, be a doll and put it in yourself.” 

Cold sweat slides from your brow. Me? I’ve gotta put that shit in on my own!? But you have to. You know you do. So, with anxiousness pooling in your stomach, you bring your ass up and use your hand to align his cock to your wet cunt. 

It takes a lot of mental motivation for you to continue, but slowly and surely, you push the folds of your cunt onto his glans. The pain you experience makes it excruciating to bear, but with steady breaths, you push the tip in with every exhale. And when it finally enters your vulva, a gasp erupts from your puffy lips and a hiss from the man with the scarred lip. “Mmmm, slow down, baby, slow it down…” That was probably the only words he’s ever said that you could trust, so you anchor your ass down, taking in every inch of his length with his hands guiding your ass down. When you reach the base, you give yourself a few seconds to adjust to his girth within your velvety walls. “Fuck, ya feel so nice and tight, princess.”

“Is that so?” Sukuna walks from behind. “Can’t wait for me to have a go.” You couldn’t even comprehend the meaning of that sentence because the salmon-haired one kicked your back. You are now mounted on Toji completely, the two of you facing each other while Sukuna crouches behind your ass. “Get ready, I’m putting it in.”

“Huh?” Wait, both at the same time!? “Ho–Hold on, I’ve never done it in my ass bef—“

“Doesn’t sound like a problem to me; guess I’ll be the first then,” he shuts down your argument and then bends down to use his fingers and spit to ease your asshole. It feels so gross and repulsive that you could puke right now. Not that it would matter to Sukuna because he’s already set on doing it — his fore and middle finger pushing in and out of your anus. When he feels you’ve loosened up, he’ll remove his digits and substitute them with his cock. 

And he doesn’t warn you either, fucking bastard; he nudges his dick in his own countdown with no regard to how you’re feeling. Gripping onto the raven-haired man’s black shirt, Sukuna’s cock puts you through pain worth traumatizing, evoking screams that scratch your throat until he gets the whole thing in your ass. Nanami would never put you through this much pain. Never!

“Aww, y’re making the pretty girl cry,” Toji teases condescendingly, chuckling at the sight of you burying your head in his chest to shield the embarrassment. 

Sukuna hums while grinding his hips to your ass, a tiny bit of blood painting his shaft. “Hmph, good, makes my enjoyment worthwhile. Now,” you shriek with the sudden snap of his hips to your ass. “Let’s get this show started.”

When Sukuna moves, Toji follows right after, and you’re left to fend for yourself in this unsteady tempo from both your holes. You start seeing stars from the unusual stimulation, and your mind and vision become so blurry that it hurts to think. Hell, it hurts to try and concentrate on one dick at a time! One is currently scraping the wells of your walls in a way that your slit clenches around him, while the other churns your insides from the back that almost takes your breath away. More drool and tears seep into the black shirt you use to disguise yourself from them. This shit is already humiliating as is!

“C’mon now, baby. Show me that pretty face of y’rs.” Of course, Toji uses one hand to nudge your head to look at him. Your face is such a wet and hot mess, the sweat on your body making you sticky. The attempt to make sentences is beyond you, relying on moans and choked sobs to express your disorganized emotions. “There ya are. Good fuckin’ girl.”

Toji then takes your plump lips with his, his hand snaking to the back of your head to deepen the kiss. It was one thing letting them use your cunt and ass as they see fit; now, they dare to kiss you in a time like this. Oh, this is the absolute worst! How can you speak to Nanami ever again after this!? These lips are now sullied by the lips and cock of other men. You can’t ever go back and say that you were his, and it’s because of these assholes!!

…And what’s worse, you were starting to find enjoyment in what you were doing, sinking into Toji’s kiss and moaning into his scarred lips.

“Haahh…Mmmph…Damn, this slut is so fucking tight.” Sukuna watches your back glisten in the light while your ass quaked under his unstable momentum. He sneers before slapping your asscheek, resulting in a rushed moan and a twitch from your pussy. Toji breaks the kiss. “Hey, keep doing that. Think they like it.” 

With devilish glee, the tattooed other doesn’t hold back. He gives you another smack to the ass, and more loud purrs and shrieks fill the space between you three. Fast ruts to your soaping slit and ass coincide with the strikes to your butt, catching you off guard and leaving a stinging sensation every time. 

It’s apparent now that your hips start to move on their own, riding out your own high while preparing for your orgasm that’s climbing up. And the raven-haired man notices as he puts your hand on your aching buttcheeks. “Goin somewhere, dollface?” 

Oh, for fuck’s sake, let me come already!! “—Ahhnn, ooohhhh!! I’m about to cummm—I’m gonna break—Eeyahhh!!!

“That so?” You want to wipe that smirk off his stupid, dumb, handsome face. “Then go ahead and get dirty, princess. Ring us up.”

Your arousal staggers up when both of their thrusts fall into a unity, the tender spots of your gummy walls from your ass and cunt being hit and abused prompt more ecstatic moans and your head pounding with every jab. Almost there, almost! Please, please, I want it!! And you are finally given what you want; your release crashes into you in a hard swoop, the shocks crawling up your body while your holes contract around both men’s cocks. Your brain falls into an erotic trance; you only care about the euphoric sensations tingling around your body. Dizziness overtakes you, and your head descends back on Toji’s chest.

“Hmph, you really a pathetic pet.” Sukuna grinds his pelvis into your sensitive ass. The aftershocks from your release still make your body react to their movements. “Chasing for your own orgasm, huh. We outta fuck that selfishness right out of you, damn brat…”

You don’t say anything — more like you don’t have the energy to. Your ass and chasm are too stuffed to keep your mind active, and your eyelids feel too heavy to keep up. It probably was from all that crying and screaming. All you want to do is go back to sleep in your bed at your cozy apartment. But that must be asking for too much. Just please end this nightmare…

Kenty��Please forgive me, I’m so sorry….

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───

You can’t remember how sleep found you that night. But your eyes open to the ray of sunshine that peaks through the binds of your bedroom. Wait, my bedroom!?

You shoot up from your bed, the soft comforter and sheets peeling off your skin, and the cool air from the air conditioning welcomes you back to your personal space. Everything untouched, everything where it’s supposed to be — where you’re supposed to be.

A deep breath is the first thing you do when you wake up, following a long exhale. Was I dreaming? You would’ve accepted that delusion had you not looked down to realize that your figure was covered with one of your oversized shirts, remembering that your old pajamas were cut and torn up. Flashes of last night return to haunt you, and shivers travel down your spine from realizing what transpired at those ungodly hours. You quickly check your sheets for any stains — Thank God, none. Funny how a pair of serial killing assholes have the decency to clean up your body. 

And then a sudden feeling of dread crawls up after hearing your phone vibrating on your nightstand. You hurry to check the screen to find out it was a text message from Nanami. It’s a Saturday, 9 a.m. He’d usually be sleeping in until noon. Curious, you unlock your phone to check what your boyfriend is texting you about.

Recent Message from: ♡ my bby nanamiii ♡

Hey, Y/n. Hope you slept well and everything’s okay. I’m coming from Geto’s place after picking up Haibara, who is going through the worst hangover right now. He said he wants to see you and that you make the best meals for his hangovers. I don’t want to intrude if you’re not up for guests, so please tell me so I can take him somewhere else. But otherwise, we’ll be there at around 30-45 mins. Let’s just relax this weekend, okay?

Reading the text as you fall in love with him all over again. After what you’ve gone through, knowing that he’s safe and sound from any trouble, all you want right now is to be around him and hold him close. To be with him and forget about everything that’s happened. 

You send a heartwarming reply saying you’ll be waiting for the two of them. Then, you remove yourself from the bed and stretch out your fatigued muscles. Ugh, I should probably shower before Nananmi gets here…

However, before you lift your shirt and head for the bathroom, you notice a glass of water and a bag full of pills. Huh…I definitely didn’t have that there when I went to sleep before I was taken. And next to the glass was a folded piece of paper. Curiosity got the best of you this morning as you picked up the material to read its contents. 

And this is where you knew your life was changing, for better or worse. Your legs give out, making you fall to your knees with a shaky breath, the hairs of your body standing, and your heart on the verge of leaping out of your mouth. What you read crushed your whole being, leaving you cold in this world — worse than the autumn breeze.

Yo, thanks for the great time last night. Keep that up, and your pretty boytoy will keep standing. Here’s water and birth control, and keep that bag safe. Wouldn’t wanna end up losing it for the next time we fuck you dumb. See ya later, pet.

SR + TF

♱ 𝐌𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭

© 𝐇𝐨𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐲2023 – reblogs + comments are appreciated wholeheartedly <3 header art by rororgi mogera + dividers by the amazing @/cafekitsune!!

[k-hotchoisan]

hiiiii <333 I have lovedddd lovvvveeeddd alll of your works I actually spent my day reading each and everyone of them I love it so muchhh!! 😭❤️

I have a request teehee, could you write one where Sannie is like a professor in your college and there’s little teasing here and there and where he ends up having her alas!! DOM - SAN ‼️💋

his favourite

<prof!san x fem!reader>

Prof Choi likes playing favourites.

You’re his favourite.

Genres/Warnings: smut, dom professor Choi San, pwp, face fucking, unprotected sex, oral (m receive) ,mutual pining, age gap, size kink, cream pies, mild jealousy plot, sir kink, light bondage (just tying up reader) teasing, sexual tension, teaching assistantxteacher obv forbidden but we still eat it up anyway!

Word count: 12.3K

a/n: happy birthday to the man of my dreams </3 enjoy this little choi san birthday treat. i put my love into this so please love this as much as i did! and thank you @bro-atz for the tidbits of help as always 🩷

apply for taglist here!

You stare at the laptop screen, scanning through your details on the application form, double, and triple checking that everything was filled in correctly. 

“Which professors are you trying as a teaching assistant for?” Your roommate asks, her neck craning over to see you attaching the file to six different emails, to six different professors within the department, pretty much answering her question the moment she reads off each professor’s email. 

“Why not try for the department chair?”

You scrunch your eyebrows as if it’s the first time you’re hearing that. 

“Who?”

“Professor Choi?”

Your eyes widen, your neck almost getting whiplash from how fast you turned to your roommate at the sound of his name. 

“Why the fuck would I try him?” 

Your roommate shrugs in an attempt to hide her amused reaction from your reaction at his name. 

“Who knows? I’m confident he remembers you even though you spent only one semester with him”, she hums turning away to pour herself another ice drink from the pitcher. “On a serious note, you may as well just get all the help you can get. Besides, what are the chances that Prof Choi sees your email? He’s the department chair. I’m sure his mailbox is just flooded anyway.” 

True, you think to yourself, turning your head back to your laptop, and adding the professor’s email address in. But you still hesitate, staring at the application form, your cursor hovering over the send button. Your roommate looks over at you, and she decides that your wishy-washy behaviour is just being the biggest nuisance on earth, so her hand flies over yours and helps you to press send, and she watches you freak out at her while she giggles and escapes after committing her crime, chasing your roommate around the kitchen island for a good seven minutes.

Settling back down in defeat, you sigh in your hands, giving yourself pep talks. 

Right. 

The chances are close to zero that Prof Choi will see my application anyway. 

The chances of him remembering me are close to zero anyway. 

You shut your laptop, and the applications are completely erased from your mind. 

“Yo, check your emails, babe. The application results are out for me”, your roommate says, her eyes glued to her laptop screen. 

You settle yourself down across her, a chilled drink in your hand, pulling up your email inbox. As you expected, you see the subject headline ‘Teaching Assistant Application Results’, and you expand the email.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me”, you mutter, loud enough for your roommate to hear. Her head pops out from behind her screen. 

“Who did you get?”

“Choi San.”

Professor Choi San. His classes weren’t the bane of your existence—but he, himself was. 

And the fact that it only took one semester to solidify that claim. Almost everyone wanted to get into his class, so fucking many of them just squealing over how he looked almost god-like. You wonder how much of a swoon he would be, how much of the rumours that travelled down the stream were factual, though with thousands of students constantly fighting for a spot in his class, you sure were coloured surprised when you landed a spot in Professor Choi’s class. 

The moment he walked in, the whispers within the confines of the lecture hall erupted into gasps and squeals. Unfortunately, the rumours were right—the moment ProfessorChoi walked in, it was as if your eyes naturally followed his movement—confident strides in his steps dictated by his outfit—a simple dress shirt under a dark gray vest that accentuated his wide shoulders and skinny waist.  

He was so fucking handsome—his hair neatly slicked back, frameless glasses sat on his nose bridge, his sharp and small eyes hiding behind the lens. Undoubtedly, seeds of infatuation began lodging themselves in you. Well, it’s not like you had a chance with him anyway, especially when the gold band reflected from his ring finger being a huge indicator. Maybe keeping him as an eye candy would work out just fine. 

Prof Choi’s classes were interesting, and he as a professor, other than being a distraction during the majority of his classes, held his credentials. However, at times, some sarcastic comments would bubble to the surface, and even though he did tend to commend top-scoring students for tests, he still maintained professionalism for the most part—the content taught wasn’t rocket science anyway. You saw yourself being able to breeze through the syllabus for the most part until you received your grade for one of your essays. You stared at his comments, marked in red lines, circles, and words—tone cold and direct—not that you weren’t used to it, but this time? You felt his comments alongside him marking you down were completely unjustified. 

It was then that you pushed past the group of girls who would stay back after class to shamelessly flirt with him, under the guise of wanting to discuss more about the content taught that day, and you stood before the group, asking to speak to Prof Choi personally. Prof Choi did have people staying back after class to consult with him about grades, although they would stay shortly with him staying stern to his marking rubrics, but when he realised you weren’t backing down on top of the way you approached him so directly, it intrigued him.

His office was spacious, considering that he was the department chair—and without introductions, he had you dive in immediately in consultation. 

You wasted no time, flipping through the spent pages of your essay, pointing out areas where you felt his comments were unjustified. Prof Choi listened, and he refuted your points, some of which you decided to accept but not for one particular part;

“This part had no proper scientific support of your argument for this point-“

“Bullshit”, you cut him off. Prof Choi blinked, shocked at the blunt cut from you. His eyebrows were scrunched in confusion next, wondering if he heard right that a student not only just cut him off, but cussed at him.

“Excuse me?”

“It’s here. A small significance value is still something isn’t it?” You replied, pointing at the paragraph after. He glanced at the paper once more, forcing himself to focus while you fought back that your argument was supported. 

So you made Prof Choi sit before you and listen to your elaborations, and needless to say, he was rather impressed, although he had to hold his expression neutral. 

You came out of the consultation victorious—the day Prof Choi called you over after his class again, handing you your script, and you saw your total marks shooting up to a gorgeous score. Your head was so into the clouds that you returned a smirk along with a shrug—showing off your victory and satisfaction as your thanks—an I told you so, leaving the professor to stare after you in awe while you practically skipped to your seat. 

That sealed your fate. 

From then on, Prof Choi would have his attention on you—recognising which seat you picked to sit in in class, wondering why you hadn’t dared sit nearer. And when it came to picking people to answer questions, his gaze would fly to you immediately—either waiting to call you out once you raised your hand or simply calling you when he felt like it. For some sick reason, he finds the way your face scrunches up in stress when he calls your name in his honey-soaked voice amusing, and even adorable at times, though he would never admit it. But oh, did he love the comments and answers you would give him. 

Despite that assignment being the only one where you decided to consult Prof Choi, following every grade release of an assignment, he would single you out, especially after class, to fucking ask if you had questions regarding said assignment, which honestly started to freak you out—mostly because he never gave you the attention before, and you weren’t used to it. The whispering gossip in the class about you being the teacher’s pet slowly reached your ears too, and even Prof Choi heard it—and he only exacerbated that rumours by constantly giving you his attention. 

Every time you reached your dorm, the words that left your mouth which your roommate could recite verbatim, “I swear to god, Prof Choi has it out for me!”

Not to mention you were fucking relieved when the last day of his class rolled around, but unfortunately, his parting words to you were, “I’m sure I’ll see you around, y/n”. You did everything in your power to avoid getting into his class and even bumping into him, which seemed to work swell. 

Until now that is. 

Now here you are again, standing before the familiar heavy wooden door, staring up at the wooden plate, embossed with gold lettering “Department Chair Choi San” staring right at you. You had to physically drag yourself off your bed to prepare for the first day partnered with Prof Choi. And when your roommate’s words of “oh come on, he can’t be that bad. He’s hot!”, echoed through your ears, it all the more made you want to just ditch your first day by clawing your eyeballs out. 

You had to collect yourself before Prof Choi collected you. 

With a raised knuckle, you rap against the door, taking deep inhales in the process. His voice, which sounded deceivingly like honey, remained the same as you remembered. 

“Come in.”

You pause for a moment, embracing yourself before holding onto to doorknob and pushing his door open. 

There he was, Professor Choi, his eyes focused on the scripts on his desk, which had piled up. His space remained the same as you remembered, for the most part—shelves littered with awards and files, the same desktop taking up one-quarter of his huge ass desk, and the couch with the coffee table left to the side of the room. Prof Choi wore a stern look of concentration on his face, still preoccupied with finishing up marking his scripts. 

When his pen pauses and his gaze shifts towards the door, a small smile spreads across his face. He lifts his head and drops his pen, interlocking his fingers on his desk with growing amusement when his eyes meet yours. 

Fuck, he’s still so handsome.

“Professor Choi”, you greet, holding your expression neutral as you bow, forcing yourself not to fidget with your tote bag. 

“Y/n!” Prof Choi greets almost too enthusiastically. “I would assume you would be more than delighted when I picked you to be my teaching assistant.”

“Honoured, almost”, you reply. It’s taking all of your energy not to break his gaze. He’s staring at you with unreadable eyes, and you’re wondering if the fluttering in your chest is from the anxiety or the way Prof Choi is staring at you.

Prof Choi laughs, and it tickles your ears a little too good. 

“Sit. We have a lot to go through today”, he gestures to the seat before him, and you take it.

He switches on his monitor to his course syllabus and turns the monitor slightly towards you. 

“Oh, before we begin, it’s a pleasure meeting you again, y/n.”

Oh boy, was being Prof Choi’s teaching assistant a fucking handful. You knew it was gonna be rough, but to be assisting Professor Choi San? He was on another level—his schedule would be filled to the brim with meetings with the faculty on top of conducting classes weekly. You struggled in your first month, learning the ropes, especially from a busy and challenging professor like him. He wasn’t mean or cold at all, on the contrary, more direct and meticulous. Well, he had to be, considering his position. Nonetheless, it felt like he was always too busy to attend to your questions sometimes, and that would leave you to your own devices. 

You stand in the aisle, looking down at the assortment of foods lined up in the chiller. Has Prof eaten yet? Does he even eat? What does he even eat? By instinct, you pull out your phone and open his chat. 

[you]: Hi Prof. Have you eaten? I’m at the convenience store near the campus. I could grab something quick for you. 

A couple of minutes go by, but your phone doesn’t receive a ping, and you had to reach the office soon. So you pick up another tuna rice ball for the professor alongside yours before making a beeline for the cashier. 

Prof Choi hears the knock on his door and as usual, he utters his usual “come in”. His gaze lands on you, and he glances at the clock. 

“You’re on time today”, he points out. 

You furrow your eyebrows, confused. “I’m always on time, Professor.”

“You’re usually in a little earlier.”

“Right, because I got you this”, you reply, rustling through the plastic bag in your hands, fishing out the rice ball.

He looks up at you, confusion hinted in his expression. He doesn’t take the food yet. 

“What’s this?” 

“Tuna rice ball. Surely only having coffee in the morning is not filling your stomach.” 

You put the food in front of him. “Besides, I messaged you but you didn’t reply. So I just chose something safe. Unless you’re telling me you’re allergic to tuna or something.”

Prof Choi blinks. His hands reach out to take the snack from the desk, unwrapping the plastic packaging as he watches you leave his office to grab a mug of coffee. He glances over at his phone, and sure enough, your name is there with your message.

Since then, his reply would pop up in mere minutes whenever you asked him if he wanted anything to eat. 

Of course, the more you spent time with him, the more you grew comfortable, and all the thoughts you ever stressed about slowly faded off. Prof Choi grew more relaxed around you, internally grateful that you’re able to tank a significant fraction of his workload for him. Undoubtedly, you also come to realise that Prof Choi is human after all—he obviously would make mistakes, even as someone of his caliber, and deep inside, you found it rather cute, well, until you had to stop yourself from developing deranged thoughts. 

Not to mention, another problem seemed to pop up—his flirty banter. He likely picked up that it made you flustered sometimes, and since then, he wouldn’t let it go, relishing at the way pink creeps up your cheeks when he would say something that wasn’t like his ‘professor-self’, and at worst, feeding into your crooked thoughts. 

You stare at him as he types away, particularly, the metal band around his ring finger. You wonder who was the lucky lady who had the chance to be with him. You blink. 

What the hell were you thinking?

“It’s rude to stare, you know”, Prof Choi’s voice snapping you out of your daydreams. 

“I’m just wondering about your ring, that’s all”, you reply, forcing your attention back to your half-marked assignments.

“I’m not actually married”, he suddenly confesses, and for some reason, it makes your heart beat slightly faster. 

“Huh?” Is all you manage to reply. 

Prof Choi chuckles. He pauses his work on the desktop, turning his attention to you. Even though you have worked so closely with him for a while already, you can never seem to find your composure around him. 

Even though you see his face every week, you can’t seem to wrap your head around how insanely good-looking he is, how sometimes you struggle to maintain eye contact with him, because it doesn’t take long before you feel yourself slowly flushing. 

“I wear it on my ring finger so the students stop asking about my marital status”, Prof Choi clarifies. You watch him pull the ring from his ring finger and fit it over his index. 

“So you’re single”, you echo.

He nods, “I’m single.” 

What is this strange feeling of relief?

“What about you?” He suddenly asks. You’re not looking directly at him, and you don’t realise the way he’s looking at you attentively. And if you do, you just might combust.

“I’m…single too”, you answer, trying to meet his gaze, fidgeting with the red pen in between your fingers. 

“And why’s that? Too busy fighting with your professors for grades?”

You glare at him. 

“I think it was my professor picking fights with me”, you reply quickly, jabbing right back at him. 

You watch Prof Choi lower his gaze, a smile spreading across his cheeks—an actual smile—his dimples showing up. Oh fuck. Just when you thought you could depend on your ribcage to contain your heart properly, you found out Prof Choi could actually smile. 

When he looks up at you again, you break the eye contact, your gaze flying back to the papers before you. 

“You know, I’ve met many students, but you were the first to cuss out at me.”

You did? “I did?”

Your professor nods, cocking his eyebrow at the way you had seemed to have simply forgotten something as eventful as that. 

This time, Professor Choi bursts into a chuckle, completely amused by your reaction. 

“Is that why you kept-“

“Giving you chances to answer in class for credit? You should really thank me for that. Your grade for my class was one of the highest you know.”

You feel your cheeks flush. But before you can retaliate, Prof Choi cuts you off.

“Jokes aside, no. I think the discussion we had that afternoon had an impression on me. The cherry on top was you cussing at me. I liked that. Refreshing and endearing”, Prof Choi continues, his attention seeping back to the pile of scripts before him. 

“I think this side of Professor is pretty refreshing and endearing too”, you let it slip.

His pen pauses in mid-air. You don’t catch his gaze completely softening on you. 

As the semester continues on, you began easing into the class schedules. You watch prof get swarmed by a group of students, a usual ritual that happens right when the class ends. At this point, you had grown used to it. Sometimes the students would come and approach you instead, which honestly surprised you, but your heart would feel warm, knowing that these students trusted you.

It was then you became acquainted with another teaching assistant under Prof Choi, who joined shortly after you did—Choi Jongho. Initially, he came off as a rather shy individual, but the both of you warmed up quickly with each other, sharing the workload and bonding over gossip with each other. Gosh, was he fucking amazing with gossip, especially when it came to Professor Choi. Soon enough, the both of you were texting almost on a regular basis, the conversations weighing more towards academic topics sprinkled with a little gossip. 

“You’re going off with Choi Jongho?”

“Yeah”, you reply, bunching the papers in your hands. “I’ve got some things to discuss with him about.” Partially true. 

For some reason, even though your professor has been completely swamped with papers to grade and meetings to attend, you would always find him loitering around your desk from time to time. He seems to especially enjoy doing that when you’re around. 

“You’ve been spending an awfully lot amount of time with him”, Prof Choi points out, looking over your shoulder as he watches you scribble on another student’s paper. 

“Yeah, we get along well actually. Isn’t that a good thing, Prof? Both your teaching assistants are besties.”

For some reason, that makes Prof Choi frown, but you’re too absorbed in your work to notice it.

A couple of minutes go by, and you still feel his presence, not that you mind, but you’re starting to find it peculiar that he’s been hanging around your desk a lot recently.

“Do you have something to discuss with me, prof?” You ask, eyes still glued to the paper.

“Yes”, he replies, taking another sip from his mug. “What do you think of Choi Jongho?”

Such a random question to ask, you think. Maybe he’s just making sure you and Jongho get along well?

You pause, giving yourself to think, tapping the back of the red pen against your bottom lip, taken aback by Prof Choi’s sudden question, but the conversations you and Jongho had resurfacing into your brain, and a giggle escapes you, which makes Professor Choi subconsciously narrow his eyes and furrow his brows. 

“He’s fun to be around, and despite how he looks, he’s actually got a wicked sense of humor. Oh god, wait. Let me tell you what you he did that day while we were having lunch together-“

You turn your head to continue to run your mouth, only to slowly trail off when realise his face is just inches from yours, and you swear your heart is on a treadmill from the lack of distance between you and Prof Choi. It’s as if time paused, the both of you sinking right into each other’s gazes. You can’t help but notice how intense his gaze is, and you can’t seem to decipher his thoughts, but from the way this situation played out, you swore he’d just lean in and kiss you. 

Your heartbeat accelerates at the thought—why would he do that?

And when his fingers are on your chin, your rational thoughts are getting flushed out. 

“That’s an awful lot of cute things about Choi Jongho. I’ve never heard you talk about another Choi like that.”

You swallow hard, your body still frozen in spot. 

“What do you think about him then?” 

“Jongho? I was just-“

“No. Choi San.”

Oh god. You could only stare back at him. Prof Choi tilts his head, his eyebrows raised, waiting for his answer. His cologne floats and almost shuts down your senses—has he always smelled this good? 

The corner of his lips curl slightly at the way you’re staring at him like a deer in the headlights. 

“I t-think Prof-“

“San. Choi San”, he corrects you. 

Another hard swallow the more you try to focus your gaze on him. 

“I think Choi San’s a great professor. He’s really competent, a lot softer than he presents himself as-“

Fuck you can’t think. Not when he’s staring down your eyes to your lips like that. 

“Mmhm.”

“And he’s really so-“

Then a loud knock echoes across the room, breaking the tension. Prof Choi’s body doesn’t shift, but he looks up at the door, shouting “door’s unlocked”, before he stands back upright, adjusting his glasses and walking back to his desk. 

Jongho’s head peeks in, then he bows at Prof Choi before he walks to your desk. You stare up at him with a forced smile. 

“Ready to go? I was waiting for your message”, Jongho says, his eyes glancing over the professor, then you, a strange feeling that he probably interrupted something. 

You nod, while shoving your belongings into your bag, then slinging it on your shoulder. 

Barely being able to look at Professor Choi, you still force yourself to, bowing goodbye to him. 

“Thank you Prof Choi. See you tomorrow.”

He looks up from his desk, right into your eyes. 

“See you too, y/n.” 

You can’t help but wonder how far things would have gone if Jongho didn’t knock the door.

Jongho isn’t an idiot. Initially, he assumes that you and the professor were on much friendlier terms considering that you came in before he did. Granted, the workload he would give the both of you was the same, he would take the initiative to have lunch with the both of you both individually and together whenever he had pockets of free time, but what roused his awareness was the lingering glances Professor Choi would cast at you from time to time, the way he seemed to relish the reactions you would give him whenever he teased you. 

He notices the way your ears would grow red even when you roll your eyes at the professor and jab him with another playful snarky remark. 

Though he wonders how dangerous things could get, Jongho thinks this could get interesting. 

The semester continues smoothly, the only change being that Jongho being absent from the office more often due to his other commitment to soccer. You remember him telling you he had quite a big match coming up, the sparkle in his eyes bright and twinkling whenever he talks about said sport. 

If he wasn’t in classes, he’d be off for training, hopping into the office from time to time to pass Professor Choi marked scripts and reports. Prof Choi pretty much didn’t mind—he stated as long as Jongho did his job, he could be free to do what he wanted outside of being a teaching assistant.

Needless to say, the office was mostly Prof Choi and you, now even more time spent with him with Jongho mostly being absent. By then, the both of you had grown so accustomed to being in each other’s presence that banters amongst each other became the norm—the both of you competing with each other with unserious remarks, laced with almost flirtatiousness, just to see who would back down first. 

Then came the proximity—since Prof Choi would wander over your desk as if he had all the free time in the world, he would somehow strike up another conversation with you, leaning over to hear you better, his arm bumping into yours to look over at the papers you were grading to check if you were doing them correctly. But what he absolutely adores the most is when you’d roll over to his desk to pester him with your questions—sometimes even testing him on his own content. 

He likes the way he gets to be closer to you. He likes the way your shoulders touch his when you lean in to push the paper towards him so he can see the script better. 

He likes the way you would finally look up and meet his eyes when you’re done formulating your question, waiting to hear his opinion.

Today is no different—Professor Choi being so used to the notion that he would only be seeing you in the office, the corner of his lips pull upwards at the thought of the types of banter you would have with him, the kinds of shenanigans you would bring into the office.

He hears your knock at the time you would always arrive, watching the way the door opens, and your head popping from the door, as you greet, “Hi Prof!” 

“Good morning, y/n”, he would greet back, sipping on his morning coffee. 

You walk over to his desk, dropping his tuna rice ball. “Here you go. Enjoy your breakfast, Prof!”

“You can stop calling me Prof”, Prof Choi suddenly says, twirling the pen in his hand. For a second, you wonder what triggered the sudden change. You’ve been calling him Prof since day one, pretty much used to it already, the only time you didn’t was when he—never mind. The thought of it is making your face flush again. 

“Is there something else you want me to call you?” You ask, trying to calm your heartbeat down when that memory suddenly resurfaces. 

“You can call me San. I’m fine with that. I know you’re still my teaching assistant but we’ve been working closely. I think it’s fine to drop the Prof honorific.”

You try out. 

“Sure thing San”, you reply. “Though it’s gonna take a while for me to get used to this.”

“If you’re able to cuss in front of me, calling me by my name should be the least of your worries, y/n”, San teases.

You raise your hand, feigning a stance ready to smack him before you lower your arm, listening to the way San laughs before rolling your eyes and sinking into your desk. 

The day marches on as normal—attending a class or two with Jongho before he’s whisked away to his soccer practice, leaving just the two of you for the rest of the day. 

San is leaning at your desk again, looking at you typing out your report. He squints slightly before he leans down to your shoulder, his finger pointed at one of the paragraphs, asking you about the content. You answer him, and when you turn your head once you’re done, you find yourself looking at San’s side profile mere inches away—his sun-kissed skin, his pretty lashes, his thick, well-trimmed eyebrows, and the way his lips protrude out a little—he always looked like he’s pouting in the most adorable way. 

That’s when you realise a problem seemed to be bubbling up to the surface, try as you might to ignore it, repress it—that you’re falling for your professor. Fast. 

You snap back to reality, finally aware of how loud your heart is beating against your rib cage, and your hand flies up in instinct as a divider between you and San. San blinks at the sudden movement, confused. 

“Y/n, what are you doing?” He’s not moving. 

“I think I’ve got something on my face.”

San cocks an eyebrow. “You do? Let me check-“ 

His palm covers yours, bringing it down to the table, and you’re kicking yourself for sprouting such a self-sabotaging lie.

Why? Because now San has his hand on yours on top of his face in full view of yours, his eyes meeting yours before his gaze flutters around your face, checking for whatever hell you said was on your face. 

His gaze meets yours and for a split second, something else glints in his eyes. 

The door swings open, and San straightens himself up, slightly irritated at the interruption, leaving you to spin your chair away from San, your hands cupping your cheeks, the heat warming you up against the cold air conditioner. The heat from his hand on yours lingers for a little longer. 

Jongho walks in, his duffel slinging on his shoulder with his shoe bag clipped. 

“Hey, Prof. Hey cutie.” 

San blinks. What did he just call you?

“Hey jjongie. Aren’t you supposed to be at practice?” You ask, forcing yourself to focus on your colleague instead. 

“Supposedly, yeah, but there was a sudden downpour midway so training got cancelled. Might as well get some work done here”, he shrugs, dropping his bag onto the floor. 

San is wrapping his head around the fact that you and Jongho seem to have pet names for each other. 

“Didn’t miss me too much right?” Jongho teases. “‘Cause I did!”

“That’s a first coming from you jjongie”, you reply, surprising a smile. 

“Of course! It’s been a while, how could I not? We should go eat dinner together sometime.”

San only stares on in silence, pretending to sink back into his grading.

Jongho walks over to your desk, taking his turn to look at your report. San watches the way Jongho’s arm is comfortable over your seat, as he asks you about your report, talking to you as if San wasn’t just behind you seconds before. 

The fact you’re entertaining him—hitting his arm playfully and laughing at his remarks—all the more rouses some kind of irritation in San. It’s like a boiling pot. 

He pretends he doesn’t see the way Jongho leans in to whisper something into your ear although it’s bugging him so fucking much. For once, he wishes Jongho’s training didn’t cancel. 

“Oh right before I forget”, Jongho mutters, rushing back to his desk, digging through his bag. He walks back over with a paper in hand and places it before you. You glance down and your face brightens up—it’s a ticket to his game. 

“For real?” You exclaim, your eyes bright, taking the ticket in your hands. “I’ll definitely make time for you.”

“I’ll score goals for you, kay?” Jongho teases, his eyes glancing at San, who is progressively looking more irritated. 

“Ah, Is San not going?” 

“San? Since when were you on first name basis with him?” Jongho wonders aloud, the suspicion only brewing even more. 

“Jongho, don’t you have reports to hand in?” San asks curtly. 

You feel like you are caught in between crossfire for some reason. 

Jongho smiles, then has your head under his arm, which elicits another irritated reaction from your professor. 

You have never had Jongho done this before. In fact, you recall him offhandedly mentioning that he’s never a physical touch person, and that anything with physical touch makes him shudder. 

“Relax, Prof. You’d rather your subordinates get along than not right?”

Just when San is about to reply, Jongho suddenly exclaims. 

“AH, coach is calling me back to the field. Prof, I’ll send you the report by tomorrow okay? See you guys!”, Jongho hums as he runs back to his desktop to turn it off. 

“Has he always been like that?” San wonders aloud, his eyebrows furrowed. 

“I guess. It’s actually what makes him cute.”

“Cute? You think Jongho is…cute?” 

“Is he not? Doesn’t he remind you of a bear? Big and cuddly.”

San clears his throat, and you watch him walk over to your desk, his hand resting on the tabletop. He leans in. 

“So… you find it cute when he gives you pet names?”

“Well, I mean-“

“You find it cute when he plays with your hair?” San curls your locks around his fingers. 

You can’t seem to get words to leave your throat. 

“You find it cute when he has his hands all over you like that?” He’s leaning in even closer this time, arms trapping you at either side.

“Prof-“

“No. It’s sir.”

Your mind is in a whirlwind at the way he’s towering over you, his scent the only thing filling your olfactory senses, the way he’s staring right into you, gaze sharp as a blade. 

“You find it cute when his touches run up your body like this?” His fingers are trailing up your arms, every touch he burns into your skin, and when his thumb pauses at your chin, you realise you’re royally fucked.

Once more, his face is mere inches away from yours. You wonder if you’ll be teased like two previous times before. 

“Of course you don’t. You’d rather I do that to you, right?”

Fuck, fuck, fuck. 

“Yes, sir.”

His voice is barely a whisper, his eyes downcast, staring at your lips like it’s his reward to claim. 

“Good girl.”

Of course, he claims it.

His kisses are so greedy—his lips prying yours open, and you feel yourself completely give in to him, surrendering whatever resistance, rationale, repression to Choi San. 

You want more—you want seconds. Every swipe his tongue passes your lip, it makes your head float. How does someone taste this fucking good?

He pauses mid-way—barely a couple of seconds, to pull off his glasses and strew them across the desk—then goes back to devouring your lips. 

San would smile in between kisses when he hears your whimpers. He thinks you’re so fucking adorable when you tremble slightly at his touch. It all goes straight to his cock. 

He thinks you’ll be even more adorable when he ruins you. 

When San pulls back, he swipes his thumb across your bottom lip, watching your glazed-out expression with amusement. 

"I'd love to continue messing you up, but I have a meeting to attend. I’ll deal with you later, sweetheart. See you next week.”

His touch lingers on your chin for a couple of seconds longer before he pulls away and shifts to walk back to his desk, leaving your heartbeat wild and erratic, and your thighs squeezed tighter.

Since then, that was all you ever thought about—the slight smile before his lips collided with yours, the way his words rang in your ears. You could barely meet his eyes. 

In more instances than one and with any chance given to him, he’d close up any physical distance he had with you. Worried that your emotions would bubble and overflow when he does that, you developed a habit of avoiding his eye contact. 

Even after classes, you swore he was casting you glances even with lines of students waiting to talk to him. 

“Did you piss Prof off or something?” Jongho asks as he shuts his laptop. 

“Why are you asking?”

He shrugs. “It’s just that he’s been eyeing you down like a hawk recently. Did something happen between the both of you?”

You freeze when the flashbacks of the taste of his lips return to your memory when you remember how hungry he looked just wanting to devour you. 

“Y/n?”

You blink, then force yourself to meet Jongho’s eyes. 

“No. Nothing happened. At least I hope I didn’t make any mistakes.”

“You’re fine. There’s a reason why the department chair chose his teaching assistants.”

You laugh softly at his words.

But when you hear San’s voice from behind you, you almost jump. 

“Y/n, Jongho, the both of you can wrap up here and head back to the office”, he instructs. You feel his warmth radiating from behind, and it only makes your heart jump at the proximity. 

You watch Jongho slowly pack up, small conversations sparking between the both of you about his soccer practice. 

You glance at the door. San isn’t back yet. 

“I think it’ll take him awhile to be back. The students there seem to really like him.” 

No doubt, the female students for this class seemed a lot more assertive, almost always demanding all of San’s time. Well, not that it should matter. It’s not as if he should mean anything-

“Y/n? Are you okay? You seem pretty off recently. Even Prof’s pretty worried”, Jongho’s voice grounding you back to the cold office. 

You force a smile and shake your head. 

“I’m fine. I guess it’s just so much workload to deal with.” 

Jongho places his hand on your shoulder in comfort, “You’re doing fine. You know you can approach either of us if you’re struggling right?”

You feel comforted, even though your messy thoughts weren’t even about the workload, so you return an assured smile before waving Jongho off for his soccer practice. 

You’re wondering what you’re feeling nervous about, because when the door of San’s room opens, you jolt slightly. 

“You’re still here?” You hear San ask. 

“Yeah. Need to reply to some emails and double-check some of their assignments.” Not a total lie. It’s the swirling feelings he’s been giving you whenever that day surfaces in your mind, the small bouts of attention he pays you and the touches he lets linger a little too long that’s all a dopamine rush in you. You can’t help but want more. But in the same breath, meeting his gaze will allude doom for you. 

San nods as he sits back at his desk, going right back to his computer. The silence continues for awhile and you’re surprised that you’re even able to concentrate. 

“Y/n”, you hear San call you. 

Your gaze doesn’t break from your screen. “Hmm?”

“Come here. Help me look at this.”

You walk over, ignoring the way your heart is just pounding so damn loudly. It’s painfully obvious that San is staring right at your face, and it’s also painfully obvious that you’re avoiding looking at him. 

And it definitely seems to be ticking him off. 

Your eyes stay locked to his screen reading off whatever is on the screen, and nothing is processing in your brain. 

“It looks good”, you curtly reply, trying to ignore the fact that you’re being stared down by a certain professor. You turn away, your eyes still not acknowledging San, only for your professor to stop you in your tracks. 

“Now where do you think you’re going?”

He’s making you face him now. 

You’re still not giving him eye contact. 

“Back to my desk?” You say, looking off into the distance. But San seems to have other plans. 

“You know ‘looks good’ isn’t the feedback I’m looking for, right?”

Shit. You know that clear as day. 

Now San has both his arms trapping you on his desk. 

You somehow still manage to avoid his sharp gaze even when you’re backing up against him, easily letting him corner you.

His belongings are strewn all over the desk when he pins you down. By some miracle, only papers flutter down his desk. 

And you’re finally looking right at him. 

“You’re finally looking at me, y/n”, he states the obvious. “Now tell me, did I do something wrong?” 

“No, you didn’t, sir”, you reply curtly. 

He leans in closer. 

“Then why are you avoiding my eye contact?”

You shut your eyes and squeeze them. There’s no pure way out of this—your dirty thoughts are seeping into the smallest crevices of your brain, and the more San is prodding you, the more it makes you throb.

“It’s because that evening when we…” you feel your cheeks burn with every word leaving your lips. 

San is waiting for you to continue. 

“When we kissed…couldn’t stop thinking about it.”

“And?”

“It made me want…more.”

There’s a moment of silence.

“Has anyone told you how adorable you are when you’re honest?” He chuckles. “I’m gonna finish what we started sweetheart, like I promised.”

It makes your heart flutter. 

“Am I getting your consent for this?”, San’s voice rings in your ears. You’re finding it hard to focus, especially when his thumb is pushing past the corner of your lips, and you’re just growing wet as fuck. 

This is not right. This is so dangerous. 

“Yes sir”, you reply back, trying to ignore the way your cunt is just tingling from the feeling of San’s thick erection pressing against you.

“That’s my good girl”, he praises before he dives in for a hungry kiss, his fingers roaming around your body, squeezing your tits before he unbuttons your shirt at an agonising pace. He smiles on your lips when he hears your soft gasp, and he presses his lips down to your jaw and then to your neck, sucking and biting the soft skin against your neck, his erection growing tighter against his trousers when he hears you moan and squirm. 

When he’s satisfied with the light marks he decorated down your neck, his lips are pressed against your ear, and his hands are moving dangerously close to your cunt, and inevitably, your bottoms are off in seconds, leaving you in your pretty panties. 

“I would prefer fucking you on my bed instead for the first time, but taking you on my desk? Maybe not too bad.”

Your cunt squeezes at the sound of San cussing. You never thought he’d sound this fucking hot. 

He groans when his fingers press against the soaked patch of fabric hiding your pussy. All that wetness for him. He bunches up the fabric and rubs it against your clit, the friction drawing frustrated whimpers from you, much to his satisfaction. It feels so good but it’s not enough, and it’s driving you crazy.

San’s fingers finally hook against the waistband of your panties, sliding them off your legs, and pocketing them, much to your shock. 

And he doesn’t give you much time to focus on that because when he pulls his cock out from his unzipped pants, it makes your head spin from how thick Choi San is. 

“Sir, I’m not sure-“

“It’ll fit, sweetheart, like it’s made for me”, is all the warning San gives before he lines up to your hole and pushes his cock in. 

You can’t tell what’s fucking you up more—the way his cock is stretching you open or the San groaning in relief when he finally gets to stuff you full. 

You bat away your tears, his cock so fucking full inside of you, pressing against your walls, being squeezed so perfectly by you. 

God, Choi San thinks he’s in heaven. 

His fingers brush across your cheeks, collecting your teardrops. His eyes lack any ounce of empathy. 

“Aw, are you crying because it feels good? You look so fucking pretty crying when I’m stretching you open.”

You barely find the words to reply to him, all stuck in your throat, your mind only flooded by the way San’s cock is buried in your cunt, your thighs trembling from the pleasure. It’s almost sickening. You know you shouldn’t be doing this—not with your professor, not on his fucking desk, but when he has you wrapped you around his finger and cock fucking the daylights out of you, it’s a temptation you can never resist. 

A soft hiccup escapes past your lips when San pulls out almost all the way, his cock covered in a sheen of slick and precum before he pushes himself in once more, groaning when you clench around him for the nth time. 

“You feel so fucking good, sweetheart. God, I could just fuck you all day. You’d like that right?”

You’re barely keeping track, eyes rolled to the back of your head while your thighs twitch from the pleasure, but you manage to hold the eye contact, and through blurry tears, you mutter a weak, “Yes sir”. 

“Of course you do”, San hums before he pulls out once more and starts fucking you dumb on his desk. 

No matter how much you try to cover your mouth, bite your tongue or your lip, your moans only come out louder in defiance, the dopamine shooting up your pussy over and over again whenever San’s cock hits your pretty spots. 

Your mind is addicted to the way San’s shirt is buttoned down his chest, his cleavage almost fully out for you to gawk at, the way strands of his hair cling to his forehead because of the sweat, the way his eyes roll back when he feels you squeeze him with every loud fuck, and the way he looks down to you from time to time before he eats up your pathetic moans with hungry kisses. 

He fucked you up so good, you didn’t even realise it until now. 

“S-San”, you manage out a whimper, “please…”

“Please what, sweetheart?”

You don’t even know what you’re begging for. 

“Please… you feel so fucking good. I’m gonna cum. It’s so fucking good”, you babble, trying to force your eyes open. 

San can’t help but smirk when his ego is being stroked so nicely like that, especially by you. He’s a good person, of course, he’ll give what his good girl wants. 

His thumb slides south on your body until you feel the ticklish sensation of him on your clit. Cream and precum pooling at the base of his cock makes it even worse for you—with every graze, his finger pressed onto your clit, the knot tightened in your stomach. 

Your nonsensical strings of words only push San to tease you more as he endearingly watches you break slowly when your orgasm builds up. 

Your body twitches, your back arches, your eyes roll back, white splashes beneath your eyelids. Your orgasm burning through you while you cry out San’s name and you twitch pathetically on his cock, letting your cream leak all over his wet cock. 

“Fuck. You’re such a good fucking girl for me, aren’t you?”, you hear San curse. He fucks you through your orgasm, the overstimulation building up. The sensitivity feels so fucking good. 

His hand catches your jaw, and he forces you to meet his eyes. 

“Wanna pump you full of my cum, keep you so fuckin’ full for days on end,” he huffs, “but not now, sweetheart.”

Not that you minded, but there’s a strange tinge of disappointment ringing at the back of your head. 

San thrusts into you a couple more times before he pulls out, his thick and wet cock resting on your pelvis, twitching as his hand takes over. 

Nothing can beat Choi San’s fucking face when he cums. He looks like he’s in fucking heaven, and he’s tearing up the sky because of you. His fingers leave light marks on your thighs, you hear him groan at such a low tone that your cunt flutters uselessly against the air. Translucent spurts land on your skin, but it barely registers in you—you’re too busy swooning over the way your Professor just cummed over your body. 

San’s high dies down, and he catches his breath, casting you a glance, red dusting his cheeks, before he reaches out for the tissue box to clean you up. 

A quick kiss on the lips before he goes on to collect all the papers all over the floor.

That night he drives you home, filling the space with light conversations as if he didn’t just railed you on his desk. 

It’s only when you reach home that you realise one important thing—San still has your panties. 

You know you shouldn’t be telling secrets to your colleague, especially when it’s about your fucking boss. But here you are, facing Jongho, who has his arms crossed in front of you. 

“What’s up with you and Prof?” You predict the words that leave his lips. 

You hesitate to tell him, unsure how you should even say it, where to even start. 

The worst part you knew clear as day was that nothing changed since that day. You chalked it off as San being swamped with assignments to deal with, that’s why the topic was never brought up again, but something still irked you. The only comfort you had was that the semester was ending, and so was your term as San’s teaching assistant. 

Maybe it was how it was meant to be. Just nothing more than that.

But when you realise the dreaded feeling prickling at the back of your eyes, you knew you were fucked. 

“I don’t know how to even start jjong”, you sigh. Jongho scrunches his eyebrows. 

You watch his expression switch from one to the other. You expected him to freak out at you, yell at you for unprofessionalism or something, but he doesn’t. 

“It’s so fucked up. But I just can’t help but wonder if he feels anything”, you mutter. The thought of you not being the only one he’s doing this with makes your stomach churn. But somehow, in the most twisted ways, confiding Jongho made you feel slightly better. 

“Well, looks like we’ll have to play that card I guess”, Jongho shrugs. “But you should mentally prepare yourself for the results, that’s all I gotta warn you. I just need your consent to play along.”

It’s a risky bet you’re playing, but drastic times called for drastic measures, right?

As the semester closes to its end, so does the workload. San feels a lot lighter on his shoulders, and while he’s grateful for his teaching assistants for lifting a significant amount of workload off him, the end of a semester meant the end of the working relationship between him and his teaching assistants. He usually doesn’t feel that much, considering he has had many teaching assistants in the past, but for some reason, he feels a sense of discomfort lodged in his stomach when he thinks about having to let them go.

Especially one of them. 

He sighs, removing his glasses from his nose and shutting his eyes while reviewing the exams. San feels like a fucking idiot when his eyes land on your empty desk, his frustration bubbling when you cross his mind again. 

Even though he pretends to keep himself busy by flooding his mind with work, somehow, you would bubble to the surface once more, pushing him into the pits of frustration when he’s reminded of the way you get a kick arguing and refuting him just to get a reaction out of him, the way you taste like sweetest thing on earth he’s ever tried and the way you completely unravel when San fucks every single thought out of you—

He bites his cheek. 

No. He has to keep it professional. At least, until the term is over. 

He just doesn’t know how to tell you. 

He knows he’s entered deep waters when he crossed the line that evening, the sight of you undone right before him snapping all his rationale. More than anything, he’s suffering the withdrawals, maybe that’s the punishment he has to bear. 

He glances at the colourful ticket at the corner of his desk. It’s Jongho’s big game. Even though he usually doesn’t let himself intertwine with his subordinate’s personal interests, it’s hard not to. 

In addition, you’ll be there. Maybe he’d snag you after the game and talk to you properly. 

The meeting ran overtime, San glances down at his silver watch, realising he’d missed almost thirty minutes of Jongho’s game. Despite the exhaustion, he pushes it aside and heads to the stadium. 

He watches the brightly lit scoreboard as he takes a seat on the bench, Jongho’s team is in the lead by one point. 

Somehow he gets wrapped up in the game, cheering when Jongho’s team takes championship as the benches all burst into loud cheers too. 

He gets up to leave, already thinking of drafting a text to congratulate Jongho in his head, maybe get him a small congratulatory gift on the side. 

Then he spots you, just rows below. Now, he’s walking down as if on instinct, to get to where you are.

San pushes past the crowd to approach you. He’ll offer to drive you back—he knows it’s all an excuse but anything to get you into his space once more. 

His arm outstretched, reaching out to tap your shoulder, then suddenly stopping when he sees Jongho appear right in front of you. That’s fine. San could just congratulate him at the same time—

Which all of those thoughts immediately disintegrate when he watches Jongho cup your cheeks with his hand, his eyes widening in complete silent horror as Jongho leans into you for a kiss. 

You seriously doubt that Jongho’s plan would work. Didn’t San decide not to come anyway? You heard it with your own ears too. 

Nonetheless, you pushed it to the back of your mind, focusing on cheering for your friend, watching the leading scorer jump from one team to the next. You couldn’t help but erupt into cheers when Jongho’s team won, screams echoing through the open stadium. 

You watch Jongho walk up to the benches where you are, and his arms wrap around you, his smile big and bright, competing with the stadium lights. 

“Congratulations, baby bear”, you tease, pushing against his shoulders lightly. Jongho inches close to you. 

“He’s behind you by the way”, Jongho mutters, loud enough for you to hear, but not long enough for you to process, because his hands are cupping your jaw, his thumb pressed against your lips. 

He hears you muffle some kind of question but your lips stay sealed. 

“You owe me one for this,” is the last thing you hear before he leans in. Your eyes widen in shock, and you freeze in your spot, even though his lips don’t meet yours, evidently separated by Jongho’s thumb, his action had caught you off guard.

You barely have the capacity to process what had just happened, and you feel someone’s warmth tightening against your wrist. 

Jongho lets go of you immediately, but you’re staring right at your professor, who is staring right at Jongho with an unreadable expression, with his fingers curled tightly against your wrist. It feels like an eternity since you saw him. He’s not wearing glasses today and his hair is down instead of his usual slicked-back look, donned with a simple dress shirt and tie which framed his wide shoulders so perfectly.

“Congratulations on your win, Choi Jongho. I believe you should be with your team to celebrate right?”

Jongho only smirks back. “Right. See you babe. Thank you, Prof. See you next week.”

Jongho casts you a glance, the mischief twinkling in his eyes before he turns his heel down the stairs and back to the field. 

What the fuck just happened?

And you find yourself staring up at the male before you, his gaze piercing into yours. 

“Prof—San?” You blink. “I thought you weren’t-“

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world, sweetheart. Why would I not want to see the cute relationship my teaching assistants have right?” His voice is laced with venom. 

San doesn’t really elaborate further, leading you to his car, sealing your fate once more when the passenger doors close shut. 

He’s all over you. His body is burning up, maybe just as fast as yours is, and it’s making you feel dizzy. His moves are aggressive, impatient and you swear you feel something else too—desperation. 

“S-San—“ you gasp, in an attempt to take control of something.

“It’s sir to you, sweetheart”, his voice low and gentle, but commanding. Goosebumps scatter across your skin, making you shiver in response when his palms slide up your waist. 

You never saw it coming—from the second his hand grabbed yours, pulling you away from Jongho, his eyes locked into yours for a moment before he turns to Jongho, then to the car ride back, where you noticed the way his knuckles turned pale from gripping the steering wheel. On the walk to his car, you asked him where you were going, and all he did was turn to you and reply, “We’ve got things to talk about, don’t we, sweetheart?”

Now you’re becoming undone once more under San’s touches, trapped beneath him like the first time, now at his place, on his fucking couch instead. 

“It was just foolish of me to just let it be, wasn’t it?” He asks. “Fucking you dumb on my desk wasn’t a good enough indicator, was it?”

“S-sir…!”

“And you think it’s cute getting all cuddly with Jongho? Letting him kiss you all over, touch you all over?” San mutters, his fingers wrapped around your throat, his grip tightening slightly and you’re sure he’s about to leave light imprints. 

But oh, was it so fucking exhilarating—the thought of Choi San riled up like that, a sight you’ve never seen before, and you’re not sure if fear or excitement running through your veins right now, but what you do know, is that if he finds out that your panties are completely soaked through, you’re fucking done for. 

His lips collide with yours again, branding himself as some kind of oxygen thief when he’s turning your mind into complete mush. 

“I’m not sure if it’s a little game to you sweetheart, but if it is, I think you need a reminder.”

You breathlessly look up at him, and he looks ethereal even when he’s panting and looking pissed as hell. 

“What reminder, sir?” You dare ask back. 

The side of San’s lips tugs upwards. His hand leaves your throat and trails down your blouse, effortlessly unbuttoning the apparel until he tugs it off you, panting at the sight of your tits hugged by your lace bra. Your bottoms are off again on the floor of his bedroom, alongside any ounce of rationale. Your soaked panties are agonisingly pulled off your legs, and before you know it, his hands spread them open too. It takes all of San’s self-control to not stuff you full. At least, not yet.

“It’s my cock you’re gonna cum all over. Even when you have another guy’s lips on yours, it’s my name you’re gonna fucking scream.”

Oh. Oh god. 

The pieces of what Jongho was trying to do suddenly come together, unfortunately, the realisation doesn’t last long because San has his lips greedily on yours again on top of the way his full-blown erection is pressing onto your pussy. 

“Sir”, you manage out a weak mutter when he finally pulls away, trying to press and grind against his clothed dick for some friction or anything to rid the burn that’s going through your body. But San remains still. 

“Use your words since you love using your mouth so much.” Like kissing Choi Jongho. 

Your mind is a complete puddle. 

“I really…fuck. I really need you to fuck me right now, sir”, you beg, red flushing your cheeks, but it’s not from the shame. There’s a feral glint in San’s eyes that you don’t miss. 

“No”, is all he answers, and you feel your heart drop to your stomach. 

“Not until I’ve fucked your mouth full, sweetheart.” 

All you can do is watch him speechlessly as he hooks his index finger on the knot of his tie and loosens it, unraveling it back to its original form. 

“Hands together”, he commands you, and you do so immediately, basking in the scent of his cologne while he leans into you, his hands tying knots around your wrists with his tie. “Don’t let it loosen, got it?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good girl. Now on your knees.” 

You’ve never dropped to your knees so fast.

San forces you to watch him unbutton and lower the fly of his trousers, and you’re just doing your best not to get drool on his expensive carpet. 

When his cock springs out, you’re also forced to watch him fuck his palm at a slow pace, drinking in his groans, slick staining your inner thighs, and the fucking floor next if you don’t do anything. 

His cock is heavy against your cheek when he taps it there, and your tongue slips out of your mouth by instinct, given experimental kitten licks on his slit, before his fingers catch your chin, and he forces you to look up at him. 

“Look at me”, he instructs. 

You do. You do your best not to break the eye contact, trying not to be sidetracked by his big fucking cock, but your eyes can’t help but dart to his appendage. 

“No, keep your eyes on me”, he redirects once more, his fingers fixing your head in place. 

Then he slides his cock into your mouth and pulls out a choked moan from you. 

“That’s it. Good girl”, he grunts when you start bobbing your head, fucking his cock with your mouth. 

His fingers trail to the back of your head, but he’s using all of his strength not to force your head down. 

But as you pick up the momentum, it’s an automatic reaction to push your head down so his cock hits the back of your throat. Your eyes are watering but fuck you feel like you’re in fucking heaven. Your head spins whenever his wet cock is forced down your tight throat, and you break eye contact a few times, which San has to tap your jaw to make you keep eye contact while he fucks your face. 

“I’m cumming, sweetheart. Fuck. Keep that pretty little mouth open for me yeah?” He groans, bucking his hips, letting streaks of warm white paint your throat and mouth, watching the way you’re looking up at him with doe eyes, taking his cum in your mouth like a good girl. His good girl. 

He smudges his thumb against the corner of your lips before his arms carry you up, only to dump you on the couch.

Your back is on the couch again, hands still tied behind your back and legs up with San pressing his body weight on you.

He props your leg on his shoulder, and he stretches you open inch by inch. You gasp when he fills you up, your walls immediately clenching around him. 

“So fuckin tight for me, sweetheart. You take me so well.”

His thrusts are growing more aggressive mixed in with the possession that’s bleeding in and it’s setting your whole body on fire. Your words are caught in your throat when he’s buried into you to the hilt. He groans at the way your pussy is fluttering pathetically against him. 

It feels so fucking good that nothing but stars engulf your vision when his cock stuffs you full to the hilt again. His name leaves your lips like a mantra on top of broken moans and whimpers, and it only makes San fill up the space in your pussy all the more better. 

His shoulders are so wide that he’s towering over you, his fingers forcing you to face him whenever you’re drifting because of the pleasure, his eyes feral when you look so fucked out for him. And when he combines his heavy thrusts with a squeeze around your throat, it makes your mind shut off and your cunt cream all over his dick.

“Good girl, looking all so fucked out for me.”

 His cock is hitting all the perfect spots, and it’s driving you insane with the knot tightening in your stomach at such a fast pace. You think you’re sliding off the couch but San isn’t letting you—especially not when his thrusts are keeping you on the couch. His name continues to leave your lips in broken moans every time he fucks you. 

San snakes his fingers to your scalp and he tugs sharply, enough to force you to look up at him. You’re tearing up again, and it feels so fucking good with the way he’s keeping your hair tugged while he fucks the ever-loving shit out of you.

“My name does sound much better when you’re crying it doesn’t it, sweetheart?”

You choke back a moan when he hits your g-spot once more.

“Y-yes sir.” 

“How are you feeling?”

“Full. So full sir. Want more. Please. Need you to ruin me”, you beg once more, your mind floating in an endless euphoria.

“Oh, I definitely will”, San hums, watching in sheer pleasure as your eyes roll back when his cockhead presses perfectly against your g-spot over and over.

Before you realise it, your orgasm hits you like fucking train, spreading through your body like a fucking wildfire, engulfing every crevice of your body. 

He’s gonna break you, and you’re fucking loving it. 

“San-“, you cry out, not registering the way he’s wiping the tears off your eyes. “So good. You feel so good. Cumming so much-“ 

“I know, sweetheart. It feels so fucking good doesn’t it?” He asks with a smile, satisfied when you nod frantically while he rubs your thighs.

Your thighs are shaking from how good this all feels, cream staining your inner thighs and his cock when he pulls out. 

“I’m not done with you yet, sweetheart”, San reminds you. 

He turns you over, keeping one hand on your tied hands, while the other pressing your head against the back of the couch. He lines his cock back to your cunt, pushing into your hole once more. You choke on your moans again, tears gathering at the corner of your eyes until he’s fully seated in you once more. 

The sounds are even wetter now, especially when you’re overstimulated, pussy just being so perfectly abused by Choi San. You fucking love the way his hands are around your neck, forcing you against the cushions when he fucks you dumb from the back. 

Your stomach is in knots once more, the feeling building up faster than the previous time, and all you can mutter is that it feels so good. San thinks you’re so fucking adorable when you’re not having banters with him and being this cock drunk for him. 

Then he pulls you off the couch, letting you catch a breath before he sits you on his lap, his cock still buried in your cunt, and starts bouncing you off his cock from below.

He alternates between melting your brain with his pornographic moans right at your ear and planting more love bites down your jaw. 

“Gonna cum again. You feel so fucking good in me. Oh god”, you hiccup through your tears, the sensitivity pushing your limit. 

“Cum as hard as you want, sweetheart. I’ll let you milk me dry, fill you up so fucking good that you’ll be leaking with my cum for the next two days.” 

That was enough to set you off. Your pussy convulses when your second orgasm hits, fireworks bursting in your eyelids, long drawn-out cries while San fills your tight cunt with his warm and thick cum, while his groans fill up in your ears. You feel his fingers massaging your thighs, coaxing you from your high. 

You’re dizzy, and light-headed as your head slumps against his shoulders, too spent to acknowledge the male behind you leaving more marks down your neck. 

“Let’s get you cleaned up, sweetheart,” San breaks the momentary silence, well aware that his softening cock is still in you. 

Your hand flies up to his chest to stop him, even though you’re still recovering from seeing stars. 

“We need to talk-“

“After we clean up”, he cuts you off, lifting you off his cock and carrying you bridal style to his bathroom. 

But you’re stubborn. 

“N-no. It wasn’t what you thought it was”, you say, feeling your tears well up in your eyes on top of the weight. 

The prickles are starting to form at the bottom of San’s heart, but he’s more focused on trying to hose you down with warm water. But he’s listening you run your mouth, not that he minded. 

“We didn’t kiss”, you reiterate. 

Now he’s just confused. He stares at you. 

“We just had sex, y/n”, San reminds you, trying not to let the red reach his cheeks. 

“No—I mean Jongho and I. We didn’t kiss”, you clarify.

San doesn’t really know if he should believe your words or his eyes, but now he’s focused on lathering your hair and body. 

“That wasn’t what I saw”, he replies, avoiding eye contact. 

“That’s cause we did this-“ you huff, turning his head to face you, imitating the way Jongho had slid his thumb between your lips and his, demonstrating San the fake kiss. 

San only stares at you wordlessly when you pull back, only more questions than answers. 

“But why would he do that for?”

“He was trying to rile you up.”

“For what?”

“To see if you felt anything for me?”

“By kissing you?”

Oh god. It felt like the more you explained, the more San was getting the wrong ideas. You let your head sit in your hands, unsure if it’s from the embarrassment or the fact that you don’t even know where to start. 

“It wasn’t a kiss, Choi San”, you groaned, your hands leaving your face, suddenly self-conscious that San is staring intently at you. “After we, um, fucked the first time, you acted like nothing happened, and I felt like shit about it, and I told Jongho and then…” you trail off, feeling your cheeks heat up again. It’s probably the hot water, at least that’s what you try to convince yourself with.

“I don’t kiss people I’m not in love with, San”, you sigh in defeat. Your eyes are downcast, but you feel his fingers cup your cheeks, and his lips press onto yours. You swear you could go another round again. 

The silence hangs in the air for a while, only the sounds of the shower filling the emptiness when he pulls back. 

“I didn’t do anything since after that evening because I wanted to properly tell you after the term ended.”

“Tell me what?”

“That I’m in love with you, too.”

You blink. Somehow that shocked you more than the both times he fucked your brains out. 

You don’t answer him because your head is just swarming with so many thoughts, and San lets you do so, satisfied that he’s finally have you quieten down so he can finish washing you up. 

Even when he’s dressed you in his oversized hoodie, San peppers you with kisses, basking in the way you sometimes cover his face with your hands to stop him, which only rouses him to continue to attack you with his lips.

San’s arms are tight around you when the both of you are finally on his bed. You smell like his favourite body soap and he can’t seem to get enough of it—nuzzling against the crook of your neck, muttering sweet nothings. You think this is probably your favourite version of Professor Choi. 

Your fingers twirl around his splayed-out locks, and you speak. 

“Prof Choi”, you tease, and San looks up, and it’s the first time you actually see him pout—it almost makes you combust. 

“I told you to stop calling me that”, he frowns, burying his face, feigning trying to cut off physical contact from you, which only makes you laugh in response. 

“I just wanted to disturb you”, you respond, trying to yank him back into your arms. “I do have a question though.”

His head pops up from his pillows and he stares at you, waiting for you to speak. 

“When did you realise you had feelings for me?”

He pauses, giving himself a couple of minutes to think. 

“The moment I received your teaching assistant application.”

📚 Bonus Epilogue 📚

“Prof Choi!” One of his teaching assistants calls out to him. 

He turns his head and attention to her, pushing up his glasses. 

“Yes?” 

“I need help with this part of the assignment. Could you help me check that I’ve marked it correctly?”

San nods, taking the papers from her. 

As he scans through her work, the teaching assistant’s eyes glance down at the band hugging his ring finger. 

“Prof, you’re married?”

San pauses his writing to glance at the glistening gold on his finger, and a small smile spreads across his cheeks. 

“You know, I used to wear a ring on my ring finger so students would stop asking me if I was married or not.”

She raises her eyebrows, her curiosity piqued. “So you’re not?”

“I am.”

Her eyes brighten, invested in her handsome professor’s love story. 

“Tell me more then”, she asks. 

San scoffs playfully, turning his gaze to her. 

“All I can tell you is that she’s always been my favourite.”

taglist: @bro-atz @diamond-3 @mcarebearsstuff @choisansplushie @pre1ttyies @songmingisthighs @yeosangiess @mylovelymito @softwsan @yourlocaljonghoe @ywtf @woojirang @yuyusgirl

@jeon-ify @itza-meee @miss-fallon @hwallazia @bunnyluvr25 @eggyboy5 @hourswithoutyou @iwishiwasthemoontonight @yunhogrippers @watermelon2319 @vampiregirl215 @kibs-and-bits @s-h-y-a @liyahbug05-blog @luvt0kki @httpseungmxn @vic0921 @sanhwajoong @bitejoongie @no1likevie

network: @atzhouse @cultofdionysusnet @cromernet

[gyuswhore]

Hits Different (...'cause it's you) (1)

«« I trace the evidence, make it make some sense Why the wound is still bleedin' »»

PAIRING: kim mingyu x reader

SYNOPSIS: Kim Mingyu was the first friend your brother had brought home for dinner. Fast forward a couple years, his toothy smile and pierced ears would wedge their way into a permanent place in your heart. Nail to a coffin, never to escape.

or;

in which you get rejected by the only boy you've ever loved; a rejection you can't quite shake off.

GENRES: based off of 'Hits Different' by Taylor Swift, brother's best friend!au, brother!seokmin, fluff, angst, smut (in part 2) [MINORS DNI], friends(?) to lovers, university!au.

PLAYLIST: right here!

WORD COUNT (full fic): 40k (im actually embarrassed)

Part 1: 20.2k | Part 2: 20k

masterlist

WARNINGS : slowburn, angst, fluff, mingyus a bit of an airhead and an ass, reader has a hard time managing her feelings, lots of frustrated tears, one sided pining, user toruro x minghao make an appearance, swearing, there's another woman (gasp,,,,,but shes cool so), Nayeon is a darling, Seungcheol is kinda annoying here but we love him, smut tags in part 2

(Comments from @toruro): "oh shizzle", "yeah bitch", (on jihyo) "mother", "ME X HAO FIRE EMOJI", "men (derogatory)"

[A/N]: Tumblr is annoying and won't let me post the entire 40k in one go so i have to break it up (part 2 is out tomorrow!!!) i hope you guys enjoy this, thank you for all the love on the teaser, i hope this is able to live up to the hype, thank you so much for being patient with me &lt;33 (ty @toruro for encouraging me when i felt shit ab this gkjnrgvkjrng and beta-ing ofc)

As someone who could vomit at the mere thought of throw-up, you tried not to stare into the toilet bowl as you emptied your guts in this questionable club bathroom. 

It was proving to be easier than you’d anticipated, naturally, when your eyes were blurred with bubbling tears. Were they because of your wretching or the feelings that churned in your heart? You can’t be entirely sure, nor can you find yourself having the mental strength to figure out. There’s a banging on the door behind you, one that sends your already aching head into a hurling spin. 

“Open the door, I have water for you, it’ll help!” You hear Mika blare from the other side, concern lacing her voice. 

You try to blink the tears away but they cascade down your cheek anyway, rubbing at them furiously before preparing to haul yourself off the disgusting bathroom floor. Taking a deep breath was a horrible idea, you realize when an atrocious mixture of scents hit your nostrils, cringing visibly. 

Washing your hands at the sink took you another five minutes, scrubbing furiously at your palms and nails with the dollar store soap the club graciously placed in a fancy dispenser, pumping more than a normal amount to rid yourself of the paranoia of tainted hands. 

Unfortunately for you, your palms were tainted with entities beyond mere soap and water’s powers. 

It was evident with the way you exited the bathroom feeling perhaps worse than you went in. Mika was nowhere to be seen in the hall, moving along to the private room where the rest of the group was to find her springing up as you enter. 

“You weren’t answering, so I left. Here, water, I told you to be careful with what you drink; you haven’t had a bite to eat either.” She reprimands. 

“Sorry,” you smile sheepishly, not having a reasonable excuse to give her. 

Joshua peeks over her shoulder, “You feeling any better?” 

The water is slow to go down as you sputter before replying in a hoarse voice, “Yeah. Way.” 

To be fair, the water did help. But it was you who was the problem, blaming the alcohol for the behaviour all your friends knew perfectly well where it was stemming from. Not a word was said though, for your sake or their own. You wrap up quickly after that, Joshua insisting to drop you off home himself, quoting how Seokmin would have his head if he left you in the hands of a taxi driver in this state — age gap be damned. You can only thank him as he pulls up to your destination, hoping you’ll remember this in the morning to return the favour in the future. 

“Before you go, can we talk for a second?” he piques, halting you as you remove your seatbelt. 

“Sure, yeah. What is it?” 

“I’m not gonna ask if you’re doing alright, not when you’re gonna give me the same answer as always. But…please take care of yourself. You’ve been drinking quite a bit lately, and it can’t be helping you at all” 

You listen to him silently, not a thought in your brain. But you nod anyway. 

“Thanks for looking out, Shua. I’m…I’m probably not gonna be going out for a while, you’re right,” you reply, quietly, a small smile on your face that you can only hope is reassuring. 

“I don’t mean lock yourself up, either. You don’t give yourself a break and then try to make up for it by drinking your self faint every week, that’s never gonna help you. You know that.” He speaks in a soft, soothing voice, a hand coming up to pat your hair before landing on your clasped hands on your lap. “You know what, I’ll pick you up tomorrow night, we can go the fair just me, you and Seok-” 

“I have class tomorrow.” 

“Like showing up hungover is gonna help you retain any information. Just skip.” 

You sigh a deep exhale, deciding to simply be upfront. “I kinda just wanna stay home for a while, going out’s kinda making it worse. I think rotting in front of my laptop’s what I really need right now” 

Throwing in a tinkle of a laugh, you hope you’ve sold yourself.

“Alright,” he sounds slightly unconvinced but doesn’t push you further, “I’ll drop in to bother you tomorrow though, don’t try stoping me”

“Okay,” you say, smiling a little wider. “I’m gonna go now, goodnight.”

“Wait!” he stops you once again, right before your about to shut the door. “Have you talked to Mingyu at all?” 

“There’s nothing to talk about, Shua. Night” 

With that you’ve slammed the door of his car shut, missing the ghost of a “goodnight” that leaves Joshua’s lips as he watches you walk inside the building. 

“And stop staying out so late at night! What were you supposed to do if Joshua wasn’t there?” Seokmin rants as he walks back and forth grabbing you water and pills as you finish your forced breakfast.

“Take a taxi?” you suggest sarcastically. 

“What? And get me called to the station to identify your body parts when some dude decides he wants to play cannibalistic butcher?” he screeches, and it has you wincing and grabbing onto your head at his volume. You dramatize it a little, hoping he’d shut it with his nagging if you gained some extra sympathy. He doesn’t stop talking, but he does tone it down. 

“Whatever, I’m not going out anymore.” You push your plate and bowl away as you hop off the stool and stalk off to your room, making as much noise as possible in the process. 

Your brother calls after you, but you don’t stop. Your head was pounding, 

“Are you gonna take your meds? HELLO? Or do you enjoy the feeling of having your head split open?” he slams open the door of your room mid-sentence, going on at your blanket-clad figure on the bed. 

“I’m going back to sleep.”

“No, you’re taking your fucking meds.” A cup of water is thrust into your hands as you pick up the pills from Seokmin’s open palms, swallowing before he decides to shove it down your throat himself. 

He waits on the edge of the bed, checking to make sure you actually swallowed the pill instead of hiding it under your tongue like you’ve done since you were kids. 

“I’m not stopping you from going out if that’s what you think I mean,” he starts, a lot softer this time, and you’re taken back to your conversation with Joshua last night. “You’ve been going out and coming home wasted a lot more than normal lately. I don’t know if it’s because your college agendas are finally catching up to you or what.”

“I’m just…My friends are always out and I wanna be with them, it’s normal,” you grumble, disappearing deeper into your sheets.

“You’d tell me if something was bothering you, right?” 

‘Yeah, yeah, now shoo. Your voice is making my head hurt worse, I doubt Advils are immune to your yapping.” 

“Fine, fuck you too” he mumbles, leaving the room only to pop back in a second later. “Mom called last night, told her you were at a study group. Might wanna call her back before she catches a flight herself.” 

You wave two fingers up in a salute from your flat position on the bed, hearing him close the door. You don’t sit up until you hear the TV blare from the living room, knowing he had parked himself on the couch and has his attention diverted. 

The headache wasn’t actually that bad, you just really wanted to be left alone, and your brother had a habit to do the opposite when asked, so it had to be done. 

What on Earth were you supposed to tell him, anyway? That his best friend in the whole world rejected his sister on the spot when she confessed her decades long feelings? That she was ruining her liver and kidneys every weekend over a rejection? By his best friend in the whole world?

Yeah, that’s an easy conversation. 

Snuggling into the covers you try not to think back to the abomination that was your birthday party just a few weeks ago, but your thoughts yank you there anyway, as if to remind you of every wretched detail of the encounter like it was wasn’t already burned into your frontal lobe like a brand. 

You were on a high; too happy, too excited. It’s not like you were expecting anything for your first birthday at uni anyway, you were too old for pink blowout parties and too young for the madness of college level clubbing. You were excited for takeout with your brother, to sit in front of the TV for the rest of the night, maybe even stick a candle in one of your burgers and call it your cake. Plans were changed when you walked into your home, ready to wind down for the night and celebrate in your own way. 

It was a full house, food and drinks everywhere, complete with a loud “SURPRISE” as you walk through the door. You remember hugging both your brother and Mingyu when they tell you they did all of this for you, an overwhelming feeling overcoming you as you grip them tight, hoping it’ll transfer all the gratitude you couldn’t express. 

You’re breathless as the night progresses, trying hard to focus on the conversations at hand, trying to be a good host. Failing miserably, you can’t force your gaze from wandering every few minutes, searching for Mingyu in the crowd, watching him move his mouth as he talked, throw his hair back as he laughed, smile that beautiful, beautiful smile of his, perfect teeth on display. 

It had been bliss these past few weeks, the lingering smiles he would give you, the flirtatious attempts never gone unnoticed. The smoothest of words slipping right off his tongue as he gave you eyes that twinkled and sparkled and blew air directly into the embers in your heart. You would still yourself as they would happen, like the mirage would crack and shatter if you even dared to breathe; it felt unreal. After all these years, you realised soon, Kim Mingyu may have began to like you. 

You’d be lying if you said you were completely sober when it happened, drinks were passed around and as the birthday girl you didn’t seem to have a choice to back down, already a little hot and wide eyed barely halfway through the night. 

And when Mingyu doesn’t interact with you all night, you go to him as the numbers in the house dwindled, cornering him as he collected bottles in the kitchen.

“Hey!”, he sounds enthusiastic, “You having fun yet?”

“Yeah, thanks again for doing this.” your remember fidgeting with your fingers and nails, digging them into each other as you let yourself spew. 

“Are you gonna say thank you at every chance for the next six months? It's your first birthday away from home. Besides it was Seok’s idea, I just helped out.” He had said, beaming.

“Mingyu, can I talk to you about something…?”

You sigh loudly as you replay the memory, face pushed into the covers as you bite back a scream at the blood rushing to your head. 

Stupid. Idiot. Absolutely brainless.

“Oh.” He had breathed out when you had spilled your entire heart out to him standing in that kitchen, visibly taken aback at your abruptness. “I…I’m sorry I’m not quite sure what to say.” 

You still remember that sickening feeling, that big ball of junk and emotions that sank lower and lower in your abdomen, settling a deep hurt in your chest that made it difficult to breathe. 

Laying in your bedroom, weeks after the fact, you can still feel your breathing go slightly erratic at the memory, hot tears springing your eyes, burning before you wipe them away. You were aware how baffling it was, how you were letting it affect you to this degree, but you justified it with the years you had remained quiet, yearning on the sidelines. 

You deserved to wallow in this pit. 

At least that’s what you thought. But after last night you wonder if you had stopped indulging in the sorrow and let it ruin you instead. A sigh escapes you at the thought of ending yet another night in a dirty bathroom, makeup smeared and guts removed, misery becoming the only thing you were allowed to feel in the aftermath. 

You reach for your phone on the bedside table, flicking through your unread messages, barely registering a word as you leave them opened and unanswered. There wasn’t an ounce of willpower in you even after a full night’s sleep, turning your phone off before shoving it in your bedside drawer, forgotten. You take a moment to stare at the ceiling, having no energy to get up to turn your lights off. Until the doorbell sounds. 

Of course you knew who it was the second you heard, but the voice paired with your brother’s conversing outside was enough to have you catapulting out of bed. You slap your hand over the switchboard, turning off all your lights, moving across the room to pull your curtains shut, cascading complete darkness in the room. You fly under the covers as a last effort to convince, covering your face with the sheets just as you hear a knock. 

The door creaks open slightly as Seokmin calls out your name. 

“Are you up? Mingyu’s here, he brought coffee.” He whispers slowly. You don’t respond. 

He calls out your name one more time before you hear the door click shut. You don’t move till you hear his muffled voice on the other end, “She’s knocked out, her head was hurting, better let her rest.” 

Heat pricks the sides of your face as your body finally relaxes, borderline embarrassed at how you were hiding from him like a middle schooler who thinks she’s in love. Which you were at one point; now you're a college kid who thinks she’s in love.

You try not to focus too much on the sounds coming from outside, burying under the covers to attempt at sleep for real this time. Eyes screwed shut, you can’t help but open them at every other intonation. There was no way you could figure out what they were saying if you tried, between the door and the TV, it was all a taunting buzz in your ears. 

You do end up falling asleep. But only after you hear the droning of the TV turn off, and the distinct goodbyes as the front door clicks shut. 

Keeping to your promise, you stay away from late nights for the next couple of weeks. Joshua so far as commends you for declining invitations, offering dinner on him on one particular phone call. 

“You know, I was serious when I said I was proud of you.” Joshua voices solemnly as you attempt to cut a strip of meat onto the grill. You snort as a response. 

“I wasn’t like, an alcoholic, you’re making it sound worse than it was.” 

“It was still bad for it to affect you in that way. Takes a lot to get back up from heartbreak”

“Especially one that’s lasted for nearly a decade.” You sigh as you give up on the meat, handing the scissors and tongs over. 

“Are we still talking about that?” He raises his eyebrows. 

A smile makes its way to your face, nibbling on a radish, “No.”

“Good. Because we need to talk about if we want our noodles hot or cold.”

“Seok! SEOK! Where the fuck did you put my pimple patches?” Your screams echo across the house yet garner no response. Opting to yank open the fridge, you dig through through the box of face masks to find them possibly laying at the bottom, forgotten. Seokmin bounds into the kitchen, towel in hand as he pats at his damp hair.

“What?” 

“Nothing,” you huff, shoving the unfruitful box back into the cabinet, "you used up all the patches.”

“Patches? Pimple patches? We’ve been out for a month, just use this tube in the drawer.” Pulling open the drawer, he rummages for a moment before emerging with a sickly yellow tube of what looked like poorly marketed toothpaste.

“You want me to put this on my face?” 

“Yeah, it works, zit on my nose was gone by morning.” He stuffs the tube back in the drawer not before squeezing a small amount on his fingers to dab on your face.

“Ew, get your dirty hands away from my face.” You grip his wrists before he tries to move in further. 

He does nothing but shush you, shaking off your hands as you grumble in silence, letting him finger paint on your face. You move up to fix a roller on your head, undoing it before rolling the bit back in, resulting in another “tsk” emitting form your brothers concentrated face.

“Okay, enough! I don’t have that many zits.” You pull away as Seokmin moves to wash his hands. 

“Are you going to bed right now?” He asks as you move over to the door.

“Yeah. I’m not going to sleep, though.” 

“Gyu’s coming over, you were asleep when he was here last too.” 

It seemed as though every bone in your body rattled against your flesh. 

“When is he coming?” You ask quickly, frozen in your spot. 

The doorbell rings. 

“Right now, I guess.” He snickers to himself.

You can only watch in mild horror as he moves to open the door, words escaping you. You follow behind him, trying to stop him, yet not doing much other than reach the front door yourself, fingers frozen yet mildly trembling. 

“Wait!” You finally whisper-shout, “Don’t open it!” 

Seokmin pauses to give you a look, “Why? He’s seen you look worse, it’s fine”

The door wrenches open before you can protest any further, a cartoonish moment of the hunched figure of you, hands out in a nearly there grip. You’ve failed, and the chorus of ‘hey’’s reach your ears in almost a mocking manner. There’s a conscious effort on your end to not look up too high, keeping to chest eye level for your own sanity. What you find once your vision clears from the white blur, is that there’s not one, but two people at the door. 

Mingyu’s brought a girl. 

Standing behind the door meant there was no immediate attention on you, which should have been a perfectly good opportunity for you to book it to your room, but you don’t. You stand there instead, staring at the back of their heads like a child in wonder.

Once you are noticed by your brother, he winces at your appearance, a silent apology, like he didn’t know about this new guest either. Or he was apologising for what he was about to do next, you wouldn’t know, because you wouldn’t be hearing him out when you throttle him later. 

“This is my sister” 

All three sets of eyes are on you now, a moment of silence as they take in your appearance. The grandma nightgown, in all its blue and collared glory, does absolutely nothing to boost your confidence in front of the very pretty lady, whose hair cascades down her back, whose skin stands as clear as a summer sky. 

“Hi!” She breaks the awkward silence first, “I’m Jia, it’s nice to meet you! I’ve heard a lot about the both of you.”

What?

“Mingyu has a hard time keeping his mouth shut, I’m not surprised.” Seokmin tries to joke as he motions for the couch in the centre of the room. You catch him kicking a stray sock out of the way as he urges them to sit. 

With the way your brother is acting, you don’t doubt this is his first time meeting this girl. Mingyu is yet to clarify why he would bring a friend to the house unannounced, but something tells you you already know. You remain on the sidelines, inching away to the hallway slowly, trying your hardest to not bring attention to yourself.

“I haven’t seen you around campus ever, are you new?” Seokmin prods, his voice slightly on edge. 

“Oh, um-” Jia begins but is cut off by Mingyu as he speaks for her. 

“Jia doesn’t go to our uni, we met at Seungcheol’s, we’ve been dating for a couple months.” 

There it is. 

“Oh! Couple months? How come I didn’t know?” You don’t miss the hurt laced in your brother's words, your fists clenching slightly at the oncoming silence. 

“That’s on me, sorry. It’s just…I didn’t want anyone to know ‘cause I thought he was playing around when he said he liked me, I wanted to see if he was being real or not.” She laughs nervously, and you see the back of her head move as she talked. You can’t help but note the arm that’s swung across the back of the couch where she sat. “Please don’t be mad at him! I promise it was me that stopped him.”

You don’t hear too much of what happens afterwards as you slip away into the crevice of your bedroom, standing in the entryway in absolute silence, attempting to absorb what you had just witnessed outside. Approaching the full length mirror on the other end, it takes a lot out of your to bring yourself to look straight into it, regretting it immediately as you acknowledge your appearance. 

Of course, the woman who actually succeeded in winning over the man that rejected you had to witness you in the unappealing yellow paste that your brother graciously dotted all over your face, not leaving the giant rollers in your hair to cut you any slack either. You could cry about it, but you don’t. Instead you lay back in your bed, sniffling in the dark, just as you had the last time Mingyu was over. 

It’s significantly easier to drown out the voices this time round, especially when your mind is preoccupied with a couple months. Your birthday was a couple months ago, does that mean they started dating right after that conversation? Or were they already offical and you had waltzed in with your princess dreams about your brother’s best friend being in love with you. 

It made perfect sense at the time, and no sense at all anymore as you wonder why on Earth he was being so forwardly flirty with you if there was another girl all along. There’s a bitter taste in your mouth as you recall how he had quit perceiving you altogether after that night, and you can’t help but mentally commend Jia for testing him by keeping it quiet. Especially when he was going around flirting with his best friend’s sister. 

It didn’t take long for you to guage Mingyu’s reputation when you first dropped into university, the senior having made himself a reputation none less similar than he had in high school. He was popular, but with his outgoing personality and a face like that it was hard not to be liked. Your brother was right there beside him, living it up as carefree college kids, suddenly remembering he now had a little sister to tend to. You were grateful for the both of them for being there to help you take your first baby steps, all the rites of passage and which professors sucked the least, not leaving the leaky water fountain to never drink from. 

That was when Mingyu’s (supposed) advances had begun. 

You’re projected back to first semester, when both of them had dragged you to the same couch outside, talking about an “important thing you should know”. 

“You walk into class one day, expecting nothing out of the ordinary. Your professor drones on as usual, your classmates look bored as usual, you’re tired as usual. But then!” Seokmin breathes in sharply, and you hear Mingyu bound to the other side of your vision, emerging on the opposite end of the room with a backpack swung over his shoulder. 

“The man of your dreams walks by…” Seokmin continues and you snap your head towards him in a panic, suddenly afraid he had found you out. He’s busy though, making ethereal hands in Mingyu’s general direction, while the latter walks in comedic slow motion like he’s in a K-drama b-roll, complete with passes over his hair and a nonchalant yet controlled expression. 

“What is this about?” It comes out snappier than you had intended, but you’ve had one scare already. 

“Just!” your brothers hands turn from graceful to clenched, like it was you he was trying to squish you for interrupting him, “Listen, alright?” 

“The man of your dreams walks by,” he goes back to his narrator voice, “and you wonder where he’s been all your life. You start talking, you’re enamoured. You start thinking about introducing him to your parents, what your wedding’s gonna look like, what your kids are gonna look like!” 

Your face is becoming increasingly warped the more you listen to him speak, not being able to fathom where this was going. 

“But no!” It’s Mingyu that speaks this time, pushing a jolt out of you as he slams the backpack on the floor, pointing directly at you for added effect,  “You’re better than that!”

“What the fuck-” you start, but are shushed by a physical finger on your lips as Mingyu shushes you. Seokmin slaps his hand away. 

“Our point is, that you’re probably gonna come across someone who you think is your next boyfriend.” Your brother continues, “But lucky for you, you have two seasoned professionals here to tell you that it’s nothing but fresher’s fever.” 

“It’s a new place, new people, loads of new experiences; you’re bound to latch on one of the first couple pieces of meat. Our advice is don’t, because it will happen to you. But you also now know that your just in a deluded stage right now. Give it a semester before you start dating people, trust.” Mingyu finishes for Seokmin as he thumps down on the couch next to you. 

“So all of this was just another stay away from boys lecture?” You raise your eyebrows. 

“Yes and no. You can date whoever you want,” Seokmin answers coolly before quickly adding, “but not right now.”

It was laughable, the thought of latching onto another person when you’d been trying exactly that for years. To have anyone catch your eye, to have anyone sweep you away from this madness that came in the form of Kim Mingyu. Neither of these seasoned professionals had a thing to worry about though, because you weren’t latching on anything that came out of this institute. You had already done so, in a stage more impressionable than this, years and years before any of them knew of the dangers of young girls and new boys in their vicinity. 

“Okay, I know you’re like on a self inflicted party ban and all that…” Joshua starts the second he places himself at your table, still haggard looking from jogging across campus.

“Don’t even try.” You warn with filled cheeks.

“Girl, let him finish.” Nayeon chides next to you. 

You exhale through your nose heavily, going back to pick at your tray as Joshua continues.

“Cheol’s throwing a little party tonight to celebrate the end of midterms.” He starts, “You should come, it's only gonna be a handful of people.” 

“A handful?” You repeat, unable to bite back the amusement in your voice. 

“Come on, your brother’s going as well! You’ll be fine, I promise we’ll keep you in check.” 

“I don’t need to be kept in check, I’m fine.” You grumble.

“Perfect! Nothing stopping you then, I’ll pick you both up at 8.” The words are barely out of his mouth before he’s back to sprinting out the vicinity, garnering looks from oncoming traffic, off to his next pestering destination 

“I don’t think I’d explicitly agreed.” You voice. 

“He got what he wanted.” Nayeon snorts, “Whatever, we’ll get ready at my place after this.”

“Weren’t you guys worried about me? Now you’re actively dragging me to parties.” You drop your utensils onto the tray.

“Too much of either isn’t a good thing, you went from forgetting what home looks like to exclusively holing yourself up in there.” She stabs a piece of potato with a chopstick and tries to pry it in your mouth. “Besides, Cheol’s parties are always super intimate, they’re all gonna be people you know, don’t worry.”

‘Super intimate’, as Nayeon had put it, had amounted to at least fifty people as you take in the crowd at the floor of the house. Despite not being packed to the brim, it was still coming out to look like a full house, random items already scattered across the floors in true frat party fashion. 

“Do you want a beer?” Nayeon asks, dragging you to the kitchens by the hand as you crane your neck to spot people.

“Uh, no. Is there juice?” 

“Um, there’s a questionable looking fruit punch.” she wrinkles her nose at the blaring red bowl on the counter. 

You sigh, grabbing a cup, “I’ll risk it.”

Joshua was air the second he had walked in with you, whisked away to socialize with his own hoard of acquaintances, leaving both you and Nayeon to fend for yourselves. You’re yet to spot your brother, granted you’d only been here a mere five minutes, his rowdy demeanor making him quite easy to spot in usual circumstances. 

Taking a casual sip of the electric red liquid you’re forced to make a face as you register the flavour, alerting Nayeon, who was too busy fiddling through multiple crystal bottles. 

“What? Is it bad?” 

“What the fuck is that?” You sputter in astonishment, wondering how the bowl was already half empty. “Who’s drinking this stuff?” 

She grabs the cup from you before taking a gulp herself, emerging the same gagging mess you were, eyes watering at the taste. It seemed almost comical when Seokmin shows up behind her, waiting to greet only to find both of you doubled over. His eyes move over to the potion in Nayeon’s hand and passes a knowing look.

“He’s brought The Whole Shabang out of retirement.” He states like it was the obvious answer.

Nayeon spits first, “Are we supposed to know what that means?” 

“Cheol got drunk one time in freshman year and mixed every ounce of alcohol he owned into one big bowl of despair. We retired it last year when the bowl broke and stained his counters. But anyway, beginners are supposed to dilute it before downing it.”

“That’s great and everything but why is it so red?” You ask.

Another voice speaks from behind you, turning around to find Seungcheol himself. “There’s an entire thing of food colouring in there, gives it an edge don’t you think?”

“I’m scared of you.” You deadpan, a sour expression remaining on your face. 

Seunghceol is quick to suggest the backyard for some fresh air to distract from the flavour it’s left in your mouths, commenting on the nice weather. Neither him nor your brother stick around for too long though, dipping at the holler of their names somewhere inside. You’re comfortable though, despite being blocked off by a concrete railing, the stairs make a nice haven for the both of you to lie down and stare into the clearer than usual sky. Cheol was right, it was nice outside. 

“I can’t lay down like this, I need to get a drink.” Nayeon announces not even five minutes later. 

“Why didn’t you get one when we were there?” You groan, but she doesn’t respond as she hops back inside, throwing a promise to be quick in the air behind her. 

The wall supports you as you deflate into it, legs sprawled across the steps in disarray. Nobody could see you anyway, taking full advantage as you practically manspread. The side of the pool that’s in your vision is empty by grace; calm save for the giant flamingo floaty that bobs itself into view from the edge of the wall you lean against. A breathy laugh leaves you at the sight. 

The railing on your other side is mostly concealed, you can still make out the wicker sofa set, complete with an unlit fireplace. It’s unoccupied, for the time being, as you register a conversation floating closer and closer to your ears. Wondering if Nayeon had brought friends, you stand up quickly to look over the railing to check for her face over the sliding door that leads inside. 

There’s no Nayeon in sight. 

But there is Mingyu. 

His mere presence knocks your butt back onto the concrete the second you see him stumbling over the threshold with a hoard of his friends, nothing short of his picturesque party strut. There was little reason for you to hide from him at all, considering the very possible notion that he would look right past you if you happened across his line of sight. Space floating in, he’d ignore you for your sake or his own, perhaps even both. 

For now, he’s seated himself with a few other people on the wicker sofas, leaving you hugging your knees to your chest, head on the concrete wall with the lingering feeling akin to that of a trapped mouse. Closing your eyes, you blow out air in an attempt to relax yourself, take light of the situation you’ve found yourself in. You could get up and leave in this very moment, possibly go unnoticed if you stalked back inside before they began their rattle not meant for your ears. 

And yet, you find yourself unable to move, not even when you hear their topic shift to Mingyu’s new beau. Suddenly you wish you’d moved inside the moment you saw him. 

“Was it you that stopped Jia from coming to parties?” You hear somebody ask.

“Why the fuck would I do that?” Mingyu grumbles, he pauses and you assume he’s taking a swing of his drink. “We started going out and suddenly she didn’t wanna come, that’s fine though, it isn’t her vibe anyway.”

There’s a snigger that moves across everybody seated, you hear loud thwack before Mingyu speaks again, “What’s so fucking funny?” 

“This girl’s made you work for it, huh?” 

“Isn’t that like, his brand? Don’t look at me like that, you’re the one yapping about liking a challenge all the time.”

“Yeah, remember Minji?” 

“I still think she was only pretending to not like you, her clique was always smacking at her to straighten up when you’d come over like we couldn’t see everything.” You could almost hear the eye rolling.

“Change the subject, will you?” Mingyu proposes, sounding exhausted at the prodding already.

“I apologise for the ex talk and nothing else.” 

There’s a pause for another choke of laughter across the group, and you wonder what it was that they found so funny. 

“I don’t know if I should say this…” Somebody begins, but is cut off by Mingyu.

“Then don’t say it.” He snaps, but you don’t miss his own jest. 

“I honestly thought you were gonna date Seok’s sister at some point. I mean, common consensus is that bagging your best friend’s sister is… what you’d call a challenge.”

What the fuck. 

You feel your eyes drifting closed at the turn this conversation has taken, wishing to simply fall asleep at what it’s come to. Somebody speaks up. 

“Nah, that’s like, the grand slam prize, that one comes after he’s done hanging with the side quests.” 

The situation is making itself out to be something out of a fever dream. 

Mingyu tsks, and you note a jostle happening through the gaps of the railing. “I’m leaving.” 

You find yourself hugging yourself tighter, eyes shut like he wouldn’t be able to see if you couldn’t see him. Not that it was possible unless he peered directly through the railing in his peripheral. 

“OKAY! Okay! We’re kidding.” There’s a pause. “Okay, but really…”

Another pause, this time longer. You hate how you can picture the ghost of an exasperated smile on Mingyu’s face, a bite of his lip perhaps, dejected at the shoulder with his longing, distant look. You hate how your mind fills the gaps of him the railing won’t allow you to see. 

“Seok’s not the type to beat me up if I dated his sister. And besides…” He sighs, halting his words.

“Besides what?” Somebody chimes in.

“I’m not interested in going after someone who’s chased my tail for the past fifteen years.”

There’s a chorus of hisses and oh’s, a few bounts of laughter in their disbelief. You can feel your stomach twist, heat pooling your figure. 

It would’ve been better if his words had hit you like a gong, maybe the aftermath wouldn’t have felt as horrid. But the connotations crept up on you like a million spiders making their trek up to your brain, waiting to stick their crawlers in the bits that would allow those words to hold meaning for you. You can feel the electric red of Seungcheol’s god awful concoction begin to rise up in your throat like bile; burning, imprinting. 

Mingyu had said what he had said. And everything was in it’s place, in finality. 

Despite the nearly four year age gap, you and Seokmin had co-existed without the semblance of an older-younger duo. It was mostly owed to Seokmin's shy nature, and his difficulty making solid friends. That, however, didn’t last long as your brother progressed through middle school. 

You had met Mingyu for the first time when Seokmin brought his first ever friend from school home for dinner. 

Despite being barely nine years old and half spoon fed by your mother at the same table, the prospect of Seokmin’s new friend was equal to you having a new friend – which caused enough excitement as you brought your favourite cartoon books into your brother’s room to show this new person after dinner. 

As the following year progressed, you saw less and less of your brother, and more and more of newer faces of ‘friends’ that you weren’t allowed to play with. It was distressing enough to be told by your mother that something of your brother’s was not yours, but even more so when you were kicked out of the room by Seokmin himself for the very first time.

It wasn’t as trauamtising as it felt in the moment, because you grew to find your own group of friends, doing the same as you’d kick your brother out for being annoying – except unlike you, he was doing it on purpose. 

Mingyu was a recurring face, one that was nicer to you on the days your brother was meaner, more forgiving on the days your relatively new middle school was relentless. He fit himself in your life easier than you had realised, more comfortable than you soon found you were comfortable with.

“Did you take my guitar picks?” Your brother bursts into your room just as your about to fall into your after school nap, grip loosening on the book in hand. 

Jolting awake at the sound of loud voice, you don’t respond as you attempt to orient yourself. 

“Well? Did you?” He demands again.

“What? No, I don’t know where your stupid guitar pick is.” You grumble. “Get out.”

“It’s not in my room that has to mean you took it, where is it?” 

Mingyu emerges from behind him, hand on his arm as he tries to pull his iron grip off of your doorway. “It’s probably just in your bag, you haven’t even looked!” 

Kicking the covers off, you sit up in a disarray, progressively annoyed at your brother for ruining your perfect descent into dreamland. 

“I don’t have shit, you just suck at keeping tabs on your stuff!” You grit. 

There’s a stagnant pause as he stares at you from the doorway. You can sense it coming. And it does. 

“MOM! SHE JUST SWORE!” He yells into the hallway, bounding to where your mother was, leaving an unsure Mingyu in your doorway.

Surprisingly, you were just glad he was gone, wanting to melt back into the covers. You make eye contact with Mingyu. “I really don’t have it.” 

“It’s probably in there somewhere, he’s just not looking.” He mumbles, standing a little awkward. “Um, go back to whatever it was, I’ll close your door.”

He does so, allowing you to finally slump back into your pillows to go back to your nap.

You find out quickly that you couldn't sleep after that.

The controller is becoming increasingly uncomfortable to hold. It doesn’t help that you’re brother is chewing on his four additional pieces of gum behind you on the couch, making obnoxious comments about your gaming form. 

You’re also sitting a foot away from Kim Mingyu on the floor, with whom you’re forced to battle out on Mario Kart. 

“Why’re you clicking the buttons so hard, chill out.” You heat Seokmin say, continued by his wet chomping right by your ear. 

“How hard is it to chew with your mouth closed?” Mingyu grits.

“What? Like this?” Seokmin leans over to Mingyu, chewing even louder, mouth wrenched open and closed right into his ear. Mingyu makes a sound before falling to his side, covering his ears at the ghastly sound, pushing him back with his free hand to shut him up.

You barely crack a smile at the unfolding, watching them continue to wrestle half on the floor. It’s noisy when you set your controller down, chest heavy, unfolding your legs to walk into the hallway to your room. Unnoticed. 

You only reemerge to feed yourself, inspecting the fridge for possible leftovers. Settling on an apple, you’re closing the fridge when you see Mingyu walk in, seemingly taken aback to see you there. You freeze with your mouth still attached to the apple to take a bite. 

“Oh! Where’d you go when we were playing? Didn't notice you gone till I got him to spit that wad of gum out his mouth.”

“Uh, just tired. Took a nap.” 

He hums in response and you're just about to leave when he starts talking again. 

“Hey, did you move the popcorn somewhere else? Could’ve sworn it was in here last week,” he mumbles as he rummages through a cabinet. 

“Oh. Um. It’s in the pantry.” You move before you can think, grabbing the box and slamming it on the counter, pausing briefly before reaching for the popcorn bowl and setting it on the counter next to it. “Here.”

You don’t wait for a reply before grabbing your apple and moving out the kitchen, only to bump into your brother at the door. 

“Where’ve you been?” 

“Napping,” you say, moving around him to go your own way but are stopped yet again as he calls for you. 

“We’re gonna watch a movie! You can lie on the couch.” 

Turning around, you catch sight of your brother still in the doorway, and more intriguing, Mingyu also expecting an answer from inside the kitchen behind him. You gulp as you attempt to remain casual.

“Nah, I’m good. You guys have fun.” 

You’re nearly at your door when you hear your brother speak. “She didn’t even ask what we were watching.”

Nayeon catches up with you before you notice, pulling your headphones away from your ears to announce her presence, not slowing down as you walked to campus. 

“Are you still upset about that Mingyu thing?” She asks when noting your silent demeanor. “We talked about this, come on.”

“Yeah and we concluded that it’s not an easy thing for me to just get over.” You huffed.

“You know what he’s like…” 

“Which is why I should’ve seen this all coming.” You turn around the corner with her.

“That’s not what I meant either.”

“I don’t know what came over me that day. I was doing so well for so long and I had to go ruin it because I’m – I deluded myself into thinking I had a chance.” You’re breathing heavily when you find a table in the air conditioned common room, yanking your bag off and slumping into the sofa. “None of this would’ve happened if I just shut the fuck up.” 

“What wouldn’t have happened?” Seungcheol plops down next to Nayeon, butting into the conversation. 

“Aren’t you intrigued.” Nayeon muses. 

“Especially when it’s none of my business.” 

“Charming.” 

“Anywho,” he sighs, throwing himself back against the couch. “I’ve been tasked with rounding people up for an assignment.”

“Are you gonna experiment on us?” you ask, referring to his chemistry major. 

“Nah, this is for an elective. Faculty needs volunteers for a photography class.” 

“So they need models?” You ask.

“I mean, anyone who signs up is automatically a model, so yeah they need models.” 

“Are we getting paid?” 

“You get to say you modeled for me.” 

“How convincing.” Nayeon deadpans. 

You’re stifling a snicker as you see Joshua walking up to where you were sat, planting himself next to you. 

“What’re we talking about?” He asks, pulling his laptop out almost immediately.

“Nothing, just how Seungcheol needs a reality check,” you sigh. 

He barely acknowledges the comment, going straight to business typing away. “Hey, you're staying for the summer right?” 

“Ew,” Seungcheol voices. 

“I am,” You confirm. 

“For what?” He sputters. 

“Is this you offering to pay for a round trip?” 

He silences quickly after that, giving room for Joshua to ask his next question. 

“Are your parents coming for your brother’s grad?” 

“Mhm, only for the night, though.”

“Oh, did you hear back from the bookstore too?” he asks. 

“I’m gonna apply right before break, I’m swamped right now.” 

“Let me know when you do, the restaurant might need another hire, you could work there if you want.” 

You make a face. “Appreciate the sentiment but I don’t think I’m in the right state of mind to be working in customer service.” 

Joshua’s hands freeze over his keyboard as he breathes out a delayed laugh. Nayeon mimics him.

“Right state of mind?” Seungcheol’s eyebrows are furrowed. “Wait, what were you talking about before I sat down again-” 

He’s cut off by a voice bellowing your name from across the common room. All four of you perk up at the sound, locking in on Mika aggressively pointing her wrist at you from yards away. You sit up with a jerk, checking the time. You were nearly thirty minutes late for your lecture.

“Josh, move.” You basically climb over him to get out of your seat, waving a hasty goodbye as you sprint to an exasperated Mika. 

“I’ve been waiting outside the hall for ages, you said we’d go in together!” she chides as you both speedwalk. 

“Sorry, I lost track of time…” You huff out a breath. “I just started talking about…whatever.” 

“Why’d you have that face on in there?” she asks.

“Huh? Oh, I was-”

“Nevermind, I don’t wanna know.” She picks up the pace and reaches the door before you do, rendering it impossible for you to speak to her after that. 

You’ve forgotten about it by the time you come home to an empty house, both Mika and Nayeon in your arms. It doesn’t take long for them to make themselves comfortable on the couch, looking at you expectantly like children waiting to be fed. You do that, courtesy of the half eaten pizza that sits on the coffee table. 

“I think you need to get drunk,” Nayeon voices from her end of the couch. 

Mika is immediate with her response, “Don’t encourage her.” 

“Hey!” You pout, “I haven’t gotten drunk in a while.”

“Keep it that way,” she shudders, “don’t need another Mingyu fiasco.” 

Your chewing slows at the sound of his name, a strange feeling settling in your stomach at the thought of him. Setting down your half eaten slice, you brush off your fingers. 

“I mean…” Nayeon starts after a long pause. 

“We don’t. Need another Mingyu fiasco, I mean.” You cut in. 

“If only he’d learn to shut up.” Nayeon grumbles, a sour expression on her face. 

Mika’s been shifting looks between the both of you, seemingly confused. “Am I missing something?”  

Despite not having the intention, you find yourself telling her what you heard while enclosed in the staircase. You attempt to keep it concise, for the sake of your own sanity, but Nayeon’s grumbling is only pushing you deeper into a rant. You’d be lying if you said you didn’t let a couple frustrated tears make their way down your face. 

Mika’s response as brisk as your explanation was passionate, brushing over the topic quickly before you got too heated. You appreciated it. 

“Have you considered signing up for the photography thing?” Mika asks.

“You know, I was thinking about that too.” Nayeon pulls a finger up in signed patience to wait till she finished the remaining pizza in her mouth. “You should do it. It’ll put your mind off…him. You’ll be busier too.”

“I have a million things to do, I’m busy enough.” You retort. 

“You’re busy studying at home. Where he could drop in at any point of day.” She points. 

Your open your mouth to rebut again, only to close it as you fail to find a reason to deny her point. “Okay, still!” 

“Just – think about it, okay. It’ll put more on your plate but maybe it’ll help.”

That was the last of your Mingyu talk, not that you could carry on when your brother comes slumping into the house after his class, stealing a slice of pizza as he makes his way to his room. He’s slumped at the shoulders, and you egg him to take a nap before he collapsed on the living room floor. 

Both Nayeon and Mika are quick to leave after that, leaving you with leftover pizza and your thoughts.

You sprawl your things out on the coffee table, taking advantage of the silent house to get some work done. Nayeon was right, as you think of the prospect of Mingyu entering at any given moment to bother your brother as a constant threat. 

It’s not until your prepping dinner with Seokmin that the project is brought up again.

“There’s leftover Chow Mein Mingyu made yesterday, shove that in too.” He yawns as he pushes the box over. 

You can only stare at the box in mild agitation, contemplating if you should simply chuck it into the garbage chute. Unfortunately, by experience, you knew Mingyu made really good Chow Mein, so you begrudgingly slide the opened box into the microwave to heat up, deciding you’d push Seok to eat it before you have a chance to take a bite. 

It’s silent while you eat, Seokmin still in a daze from his earlier nap, shoving spoonfuls of noodles in between bites of pizza. It’s not until your halfway through eating before he jolts up slightly like he’d just remembered something.

“Did you hear about that volunteering thing from the photography department? They want models for some project.” 

“Oh, yeah.” You pause, thinking back to what Nayeon had proposed. “Are you gonna sign up?” 

“No, but you should.”

“I don’t know, I still have a lot of prep for finals.”

“You get extra credit if it helps,” he notes. 

That was news to you. There’s a frown on your face as you deny, “No, you don’t.” 

“They’re doing it ‘cause they weren’t getting the response they wanted. I found out just now too, they’re gonna put it up on the bulletin tomorrow. Might wanna decide before then.” 

There were no questions asked after the realization, blue light of the laptop casting your face aglow in the darkened room as you hit the big blue Confirm button on the website. Skimming through the subsequent email, you find you won’t be needed till next week, the date and time making it’s way to your calendar. 

Now, if you had known what the next week truly held for you, there was no doubt you’d be sending in a cancellation email at first chance. 

But you didn’t know. So you simply went to bed, falling asleep to the vague idea of searching for modeling tips on youtube during the coming weekend, entertaining the mild possibility that this might be the thing that puts you at peace at last. 

The photography classes are held in regular lecture rooms, as you find out as you file into the sparingly filled hall at the date your calendar has graciously alerted you for. There was an image of a larger, more spacious area for a discipline pertaining to the arts, yet to be fair, the idea of having to create this form of art within a four walled containment did seem a little counter productive. 

Nonetheless, you find yourself seated in a spare chair, waiting for the clock to hit nine on a Saturday morning for the shuffling professor at the front of the room to begin. Your eyes make passovers across the gradually filling room, searching for a semblance of Seuncheol’s bright blond hair to wave him over. There’s no sign of him five minutes before the minute hit twelve, and you’re thinking about slipping to the restroom before it can to kill the remaining time. 

There’s another person filing into the room as you rise from your chair, and you pause in attempt to recognize Cheol in the grey zip up.

Except you don’t find Seungcheol, not at all. 

Mingyu is walking into the classroom, gaze sweeping across the hall as he seats himself in the front bottom row, head thrown back as he sifts through his perfect hair with his fingers. 

You aren't sure why your brows furrowed like they did, or why you planted your butt back onto the chair with the force that you did; especially when all you wanted to do was book it out of the room in full velocity. 

He was taking this class. Of course you knew that, especially when it was all he would yap about at any point he graced your presence. 

You can feel your purpose in the room fade to nothing as you register him as a unit. You want to blame someone, but you know it’s all you fault. You knew he’d be here; if your mind had only thought fit to remind you at any point in the past week. 

In regular Mingyu fashion, if he’d seen you, he does nothing to show it as you find him unraveling a loose thread off of his jacket. You keep your eyes on him, remaining mortified at your blatant disregard to the information that Mingyu was also in this class. Come to think of it, it was probably Mingyu who told Seokmin about the added credit in the first place. You want to kick yourself for not questioning your brother’s apparent magical source of information. 

There’s nothing that can be done as you feel Seungcheol finally slip into the seat next to you just as the professor in the front of the room begins to speak. You’re not in the right headspace to make conversation, so you're grateful for the small acknowledgment as the professor begins to drone. 

“Each student has been given a theme to work with, they’re all different and given to the people whom I saw fit for the job. You’ll be receiving your packets with your theme today, so remember to pick them up from the front desk before you leave,” she begins. 

“As for your models,” she switches to the next slide over to reveal a spreadsheet full of names. “Their names will be right next to yours, the photography students.” 

The entire room lurches forward as a unit, eyes squinted and whispers exchanged as they search for their partners in the sea of names. Seungcheol is zooming in on the picture he took with his phone, eyes zooming over to find his name. 

“Hey, I found yours!” he announces, moving the phone over to you. 

He’s zoomed into your full name on the screen, and your moving the picture aside to see the name across from it. Except, you find you wish you hadn’t. 

—Kim, Mingyu. 

If you needed more confirmation that the universe was simply against you, you’d gotten the message as you prayed the letters would morph into something else before your very eyes. 

You seem to have been staring at the name for too long, because Seungcheol snatches his phone back from your grip to see for himself after you refused to answer his questions of what the name next to yours was. 

“Oh, it’s Mingyu! That’s easy, you're basically related.”

You wanted to slap him. 

Before you can stop him, he’s yelling the boy’s name across the room amidst the growing chatter, the biggest, stupidest grin on his face. “Mingyu! I found your model, she’s right here! 

You wanted to squeeze Seungcheol’s neck till his head popped off. 

Mingyu turns around at the call, registering his friend’s words despite the growing noise. He registers you and you watch as he turns his head back at the projection, like he was confirming it was true. 

Of course he’s as petrified as you are, if not more. But the embarrassment of his apparent disbelief made its hot way into your stomach and chest nonetheless, your breakfast threatening to make its way back up. 

By the time the professor’s done with her bit and the room has begun to file out, you’ve found yourself standing outside the lecture hall in uncomfortable movement, shifting your weight between both feet and fiddling with the straps of your bag. Every passing face sends a jolt though your stomach as you calculate how jarring it would be if you left right this second without seeing him. 

You're counting his steps inside your head, how he’d shuffle for his name on the packet he’s meant to receive, counting in any conversation he’d start with a friend or with the professor. A thought occurs to you, and you wonder if he was searching for you inside. You’re weighing between walking inside and leaving altogether when he makes the decision for you, walking out of the room, booklet in hand. 

There goes the toast blaring its way back up your esophagus. 

“Hey,” he says unceremoniously. 

You respond with an unreasonably meek “Hi.” 

“Seok didn’t tell me you signed up for this.” He points casually. 

Well, Seok doesn’t need to tell you everything. 

“Oh, I told him while he was like half asleep, pretty sure he thought he dreamt it.”

Mingyu snorts a little at that, a slight smile appearing on his face as he pictures a sleepy Seokmin. 

“I can imagine,” he says, before he’s brought back to the matter at hand by you. 

You clear your throat before you begin to talk, expression remaining neutral. “Do we need to get started right away?” 

“Oh.” He seems a little taken aback at your forwardness. Like he didn’t know why you didn’t want to make small talk with him. “Uh, I don’t even know what theme I have yet. I’ll read over the packet and plan a couple things out before you have to come in.”

“That’s great.” You hold on the straps of your tote. “Text me when you need me.”

With that, you had spun on your heel and stalked away, not leaving room for him to retort with anything at all. You don’t look back. 

Nayeon can do nothing but gape as she watches you hold back frustrated tears, picking apart the grass under you as you curse the heavens for your horrible fate. She’s absorbing the situation as you wallow, finding the words to say.

“Fuck, this is my fault,” she breathes out.

“No!” You gasp out, furiously wiping away the irritating tears. “It’s not. I just forgot, it’s my own fault. You were right for trying to get me to do it, it just…”

“You can’t ask to change partners?” she asks.

“I can’t!” You wail, “I’m supposed to not care, how is this me not caring?” 

It was ridiculous. Truly. You were sobbing like a child over this, screaming about wanting to not care. But you did care. Too much. Nayeon can do little but hold you as you sniffle into her lap, feeling sick to your stomach at your own childish behaviour. 

“Why am I crying about this, this is stupid.”

“You’re stressed, hon, that’s it. You’ve got a lot going on and this just multiplied it.” She’s running a soothing hand over your back. “Just let it out, you need it.”

You emerge from your hunched position to sit up straight, sniffling a little less as you calm down. “Should I withdraw from the project?” 

“I mean, if you really want to,” she says softly. 

“But?” You sense her apprehension.

“But, maybe you should give it a go.” 

You can only blink at her with wet lashes.

“Think of it this way. You need to… build resistance, keep yourself around him regardless. There’s bound to come a point where you start to feel…nothing.” 

“Are you trying to work exposure therapy on me?” 

“Maybe? If that’s what it means. If you take yourself out of the project, it shows that you care. You need to pretend to not care before you can stop feeling the real thing.” 

There’s a pause as you attempt to find reason in her words.

“Listen, I may be talking out of my ass, and if you do end up doing it, it’s gonna be hard – like a lot, but–”

“No. You’re making sense.” 

“I am?” She blinks, taken aback at the realisation that you may be listening to her. You nod quietly, “You’re right, I can’t keep running away.” 

“So, you’re gonna do it?” She confirms with wide eyes.

Once again, you find it within yourself to nod. 

Yeah. You were gonna do it.

Being in Mingyu’s presence and feeling nothing may be the goal, but you realise quickly it’s going to take you a while to restrain the trailing eyes that follow him wherever he goes. Nayeon had warned you, but you realise you may be slightly ill-prepared. 

The theme is light. Vague to you but he doesn’t seem too bothered by it. He isn’t looking at you as he talks, eyes darting between the laptop screen and the plethora of papers he’s scattered on the coffee table. “I don’t really have a colour preference for this one but a a deeper blue or a purple would fit pretty well with the sunlight on here.”

You can only nod along in mild understanding, most of your effort exerted on trying to keep your eyes on the screen where he’s pulling up a color wheel. “I probably have something.” 

“Do you still have that button up Seok bought you? The one with the stripes?”

You recall the deep blue shirt your brother had gotten you for your first in class presentation, picturing it hung still in your closet. “Uh, yeah I do. I’ll wear it.”

“Bring options, whatever fits the colours. No turtlenecks or crewnecks though…” Mingyu continues to talk, taking notes for you in the process. Your mind, however, is somewhere else.

You hate how your mind takes you to a murkier place, one where the thought of him retaining memory of your closet pieces unprovoked has your neck tingling and your cheeks lifting. Trying to snap out of it before he notices your dazed expression, you pretend to flip through the couple papers in front of you, noting nothing. 

“Other than that–” he’s cut off by his phone ringing on the table. Both your gazes dart to the caller ID, and you immediately wish you hadn’t as you register the pink heart on the end. Jia was calling. 

He barely spares you a glance as he excuses himself in a mumble, something about being back in a second. You watch him leave through the cafe altogether, emerging on the other end of the glass walls in your direct vision. For the nth time that day, you find it impossible to tear your eyes away from his positively elated face, teeth out on display as talks to his girlfriend. You wonder what they’re talking about, if her face is beaming like his own, wherever she is. 

You zone out as you wonder what it’d be like to be the receiving end of an expression like that. To have something within you to be worth his smile, his mumbled pardons and his uninterrupted space. There’s a part of you that wonders if its greed – you’ve gotten to see him nearly everyday for the past decade, perhaps you’ve run your tickets dry. 

You realise quickly that Mingyu is no longer in your line of sight as you feel a ruffle on the chair as he sits back on his seat. 

“I think we can wrap up here, let me take the first couple shots before I can see where to go with it afterwards.”

You sense his eager want to leave, and you cannot help but beat him to it for your own sake. 

“Alright. I’ll see you friday then.” SLiding out of your seat, you make a halfhearted attempt at shuffling his papers in a neater pile, throwing him a half smile before grabbing your bag.

He isn’t watching you leave, you know that. Yet you find yourself refusing to slow down or look back till you round the corner, letting your shoulders finally slump and your pace to come to a temporary halt. It takes you another beat before you begin walking again, breathing in slowly as you navigate your way through the moderately crowded sidewalk. Nearly ramming into a fire hydrant, you shake off the seize that remains in your body, picking up the pace hoping it’d promote less thoughts.

It works, as you unlock your front door, finally shaking off the autopilot. Shifting to the kitchen is easy, rummaging the cabinets for your hidden stash of moonpies with the intention to devour the family box whole. You’re contemplating texting Seokmin to bring you actual food as you make your way to your bedroom, wanting nothing more than to let your covers absorb all the feelings that make you human. 

You find it unfortunate as you catch sight of yourself in the full length mirror and the outfit you’d put together before you had left. Your mind goes back to pandemonium as you take in the details, wondering why on earth you’d put in so much effort for a conversation that lasted less than an hour. You tear your eyes away before you begin to truly hate yourself, ripping your jewelry off as you make a beeline to wash your face clean of the makeup you’d put on. 

It becomes increasingly difficult to look at yourself even in the bathroom mirror, moisturizer going on more aggressively than what’s good for you. You feel a sting in the back of your eyes and owe it to the face wash. 

It’s easier once you’re in bed, your laptop at the ready, and a text on its way as you bug your brother to bring you your favorite burger and milkshake combo. You put your immediate faith in your moonpies for now as you rip the first one open, letting the sweetness bring you a deluded happiness. 

“His name hurts.” Your voice comes out echoey, the sound reverberating in the cavern of your chest. The shot on the table is inviting, but you can’t help but feel nauseous at the thought of downing it. Your fizzled out sprite is being good to you, so you let it.

“Hearing you talk about him hurts,” Mika slurs, slumping down onto the beanbag she’s dragged onto the scene, joining you and Nayeon next to the couch. 

Letting out a loud sigh that you doubt she can hear over the bass booming across the house, you settle to rest your head back on the couch backrest, staring into the ceiling. “Imagine what it’s doing to me then.”

“I don’t need to.” You can hear the exasperation in her voice. 

“Oh, hey, Hao!” Nayeon drags next to you and you lift your head up to see Mika’s boyfriend join her on the already tiny beanbag. He huffs out a hey between a slight smile, slumping almost entirely on his girlfriend. She pats his hair in silent regard. 

“I read this research paper about how they can delete the memories out of your brain squiggles,” Nayeon pops in.

“Since when do you read academic material for interest?” Minghao mumbles, fingers busy playing with Mika’s hair.

The pair continue to bicker as your eyes trail across the moderately packed house, the party looking more lowbeat than any other Seungcheol extravaganzas. Not that you were complaining, but when you spot a certain someone, it’s hard not to. 

Mingyu files into the kitchen with your brother in tow, beaming face evident over the island as he pours himself what looks like orange juice. Your mood is instantly soured.

“What study was that again?” You poke at Nayeon, the image of the man you wished for gone burned into your forebrain. She glances over to the open kitchen and realises what you’re talking about, coming around with a face of her own.

“That one’s gonna be a hard one to scrub out. But it’s okay, even the toughest stains succumb to bleach that’s strong enough,” she sighs. You’re barely listening to her analogy, not when he’s standing right there rendering it impossible for you to look anywhere else. 

“You sound like a commercial.” You can almost hear the crinkle in Mika’s nose as she comments, and you can’t help but breathe out a laugh. 

The rest continue with their conversation as you remain quiet for most of the exchange, eyes filling your heart heavy with the way they remain glued to the figure far out into the kitchen. It was less about the fact that you just wanted to look at him and more of how it was forcing you to think about your predicament; something that was weighing you down yet something you couldn’t help. 

You can’t be entirely sure how long you managed to stare without getting caught, but when Mika calls your name out harsher than expected, you snap around to divert your attention. 

“Huh?”

“Sixth time’s the charm, huh? Get it together, he’s not gonna look at you,” she huffs as she slumps back onto the beanbag, alone this time as you note that Minghao is gone.

It takes you a moment to gather what she had said, mouth gaping open and close as you try to conspire a proper response. “I wasn’t trying–”

“No. Save it. It was my fault for thinking I could sit here without having to sit through more of your Mingyu bullshit.” She’s shuffling out of her bean bag with mediocre difficulty, exasperation on her face as she trudges away to sit with her boyfriend and his friends on the seats on the middle of the floor. 

The air seems to have knocked out of your chest as you find the capacity to process what just happened. Seemingly forgotten Nayeon was also here, you note the hand she places on your elbow as a sober attempt to get you to look at her. 

The rest of the night passes in a nauseous blur, none that you could really make sense of. You bid Nayeon goodbye as you assured her you’d go home with your brother, waving goodbye to blurred taxi lights as she leaves you alone in front of a dwindling house. 

The breath you let out is shaky as your feet remain planted on the concrete, the remnants of tonight passing over you as they came. Deciding you owed it to yourself, you let the tears well up in your eyes. As tired as you were of crying over what was essentially the same thing over and over again, you let yourself tire yourself out once more. 

The party was over, and you knew that because you were walking home alone, hoping Nayeon would forgive you for lying to her. But you couldn’t possibly explain the tear stains on your cheeks to your brother, not when he knew nothing. It was better that way; you refuse to be the person that potentially ruins a friendship that’s lasted longer than any other.  

You try to keep your sniffling to a minimum as you trudge slowly in the dark, not bothering to wipe your tears. Your stomping grows louder the more you grow frustrated with your thoughts, and it proves not too well for you. There’s a pair of headlights throwing light onto the oncoming street, illuminating you in the process. You want to kick yourself as the realisation settles in, praying the car would simply pass you. Considering the late hour and the fact that you were alone is hitting you at the worst time, wondering if you could pretend to make a call as you walked. 

It’s a black sedan that rolls up next to you, slower than what’s considered a normal speed on an empty street. It honks and you nearly halt, owing to the shake that passes through your knees. It honks again, and you can’t help but look to the side to find a window rolled down. 

Mingyu sits on the driver’s seat, leaning over to the empty passenger side to grab your attention. 

“The Uber’s free! So is the driver,” he yells out the window. “Hop in.”

“I’m alright. I kinda wanna walk.” You shift your weight between your feet, the distance adding an awkward feel. 

“Wasn’t asking. It’s the middle of the night, I’m not letting you walk alone.” As he speaks, another car passes from behind him, slowing down. You note the look the other driver is giving you through the window, and it’s enough to convince you to step into Mingyu’s car. 

“I think we’re way past the point of formalities, don’t know why you hesitated.” He chuckles as he motions for you to click on your seatbelt. You fumble with it for a moment, his own fingers coming to the rescue to latch it on. You retract your fingers before they can brush with his own any further. 

Settling into your seat, you choose to look forward as he picks up speed. “Uhm, just wanted to walk, it was nice outside.”

“Take someone with you next time, it’s nearly midnight,” he warns. 

There’s a twinge of annoyance that emerges in the back of your mind for some reason, despite knowing full well that he was right. You just didn’t want to hear it from him.

It’s silent for a bit as the radio plays an uncharacteristically upbeat tune, prompting you to wonder if it was just you who felt the atmosphere pressing in on your chest.

“Did you not bring your car today?” he asks out of the blue, eyes remaining on the road as you glance up at him. One look at his side profile and you’re turning your gaze away.

“No, it’s at the workshop. I came with Nayeon.” 

“Why didn’t you leave with her?”

“I…” You pause. “I told her I was gonna go with Seok.”

“Hm. That didn’t happen.”

“It’s like I said,” you mumble.

He hums again in response, dropping the subject.

“Listen, are you…are you okay?” he starts again and it has you looking back up at him. 

“Why wouldn’t I be?” You try to hide the bitterness in your tone but it proves difficult.

“I couldn’t help but overhear but I was sitting right there. Hao was talking to Mika about something she’d said to you, about…” He trails off. “I mean, you looked a little upset, I just wanted to ask if you were okay.”

You bit your tongue. Hard. 

He knew you were staring at him, he knew you weren’t over him. He knew you were still standing on the same square confinement from months ago. Never changed. 

“I’m fine,” you reply, snappier than you had intended. 

“Are you sure? I felt like I should’ve said something but Nayeon was right there so I thought…” He sounds unsure and when you see him look at you, with eyes filled with an emotion that makes you nearly gag, you almost lose it. You did not want him to pity you. Nor care for you; especially when it came from a place that nullifies your feelings. You didn’t want him to care for you for the sole reason that you were his best friend’s sister. 

“Mingyu, I think it’s best if you drop it.”

“Of course. But it might help if you wanna, you know, feel your feelings.” 

Fuck no, you weren’t crying in front of him. Not when you're sure he’s noticed the tear stains on your makeup.

“Mingyu, I said drop it. I don’t need your help, I don’t need to feel anything, I need you stop feeling like you’re obligated to care about me because you’re not.” The words come tumbling out before you can stop them, irritation laced in every snap and dent.

He says your name in an attempt to smooth you over. It only lands him in more trouble.

“No, listen, I get it. You’re uncomfortable about everything but you feel like you need to check up on me at the same time, and I’m here to tell you that you don’t have to worry about that. What happened, happened, and it’s my job to pick up the pieces because it’s my fault. You don’t need to meddle.” You’re breathing hard as you finish, finally settling back in your seat. 

He’s already pulling up to your building, heat still penetrating the silence. You unbuckle your seatbelt, mumbling a thanks for the ride. 

“Seok’s staying at Cheol’s tonight,” he calls out as you shuffle out the door. “Remember to lock the door.” 

You stand sheepishly holding the open door as you nod quietly. “I’ll see you tomorrow for the shoot.”

Middle school was harder than you thought. 

Not that you expected it to be easy, but you remained hopeful nonetheless. Fifth grade came plowing for you with an unexpected vigor, which you were feeling especially as you gripped your red marked paper with a vice grip. 

It was Mingyu who had found you on the kitchen island sniffling, waiting for your mother to come home and ask you for your dreaded test results. 

You drop your head in shame (even more so) when he asks you the inevitable question of “what’s wrong?” Your voice comes out as a mumble. “I failed my first test.” 

He blinks as he stops in front of the fridge, opening it to emerge with a carton of chocolate milk and two monsters. He slides the carton over to you as he takes a seat on the other chair. 

“Well, what did you get?” he asks as he pops his can open, ears studded black from the piercings he’d gotten done. 

You mumble out the number in incoherence that has him hunching down to hear you. 

“What?” 

“A fifteen!” you finally huff out in exasperation. 

“Hm. Better than me I think I got a two at some point. Don’t worry about it, it's not the end of the world.” He says. “D’you want me to turn that into a seventy five?” 

You look up confused. “How?”

“You’ll see. Get me your test. And a red marker.” 

On that day, Mingyu aided you in your first con, pulling lines to turn the one into a seven right before your eyes. 

“There. Now don’t let her look at it too hard or check your answers. And only give it to her if she asks for it.” 

He had left back to your brother’s room with the spare can of monster, leaving you to stash your test into your bag and move to seat yourself in a more natural position. You’d gotten away with it as your mother pats you on the back for your first attempt at a fifth grade paper, leaving you with a lesson to work harder, and a memory that stayed with you for years. 

The following day is met with a pit of guilt sitting in your stomach before you could even recall the events of last night. 

There’s little that you can do to prep as you’re supposed to change at the studio anyway, pushing the remnants of your makeup products into a pouch as a second thought. Your hair seemed fine, deciding you’d see to it if it needed changing when you got there. 

You push your departure as far as you could, finding more things to do and more chores to finish before you were due to leave. It takes you a final look at the time before you finally decide to trudge to the door with your things. You cross paths with Seokmin who’s only just coming home, looking worse for wear. He barely acknowledges you as he makes a beeline for his bedroom, disappearing. 

He’s probably fine. 

By the time you get to the studio Mingyu is already in the middle of setting up, immersed in the switches behind giant studio lights. It’s dark, save for the one studio light thats already on, casting a light on the white backdrop, a single stool sits at the front. Looking around, the place casts an eerie atmosphere, the unattended stations and dark back rooms casting a shiver down your spine despite the Afternoon light outside. Perhaps you were acclimated to the hustle and bustle in behind the scene videos of photoshoots, yet here it was just you and Mingyu. 

He doesn’t notice you come in right away, and you’re thankful for the opportunity to recast your words in your head, waiting to be uttered as soon as you say your hellos. 

“Oh, hey,” he says normally. 

“Hope I’m not too late.”

“No, you’re fine, I’m nearly done setting up,” he says, as he switches the second studio light on, doubling the glow in the room. 

“Oh, okay.” Your voice comes out as an uncharacteristic whisper. “Uh, listen, Mingyu, I just wanted to apologize about last night. You were only asking and I was being too harsh.”

He picks up his back from his bent position to look at you, hand coming to rub the back of his neck. “Oh, no, don’t say that, It’s me who should be apologising. I shouldn’t have pried when you said you didn’t wanna talk about it. I’m sorry, really.” 

You're opening your mouth to rebut, nails clashing onto each other as your fidgeting gets worse, but you decide to end it. “We’re both sorry, let’s just end this here.” 

Both of you have slightly uncomfortable smiles on your faces as Mingyu continues to fidget with his cables and equipment. It went smoother than you’d thought, silently thanking him for keeping it from getting awkward – more awkward than necessary anyway. 

“These ones are gonna be basic studies, establishing the usual studio lights in the beginning before we move to the more experimental shots.” He drags his own stool forward to sit directly across from you in front of the plain white backdrop. “Did you bring another black top?”

“I did, do you want me to change?”

“Not yet.” He positions the camera higher, looking like he’s ready. “Okay, relax your body. Shoulders back, chin down. Okay, now a smile, really small, barely there.” 

He snaps his first photo and you nearly knock yourself backwards on the stool, lights going off at the shot damn near blinding you. 

“You good?”

“I thought the flash was just gonna be your camera.” You frown, coming round. 

“Nah, you’ll get used to it. Okay, back in position.”

He takes a couple more pictures, urging you to make miniscule changes to your poses, whatever feels good. You find yourself loosening up, your posture aiding you instead of working against you. “Try putting your hands on the stool, yeah like that, lean forward. Chin up a little more.”

The directions continue from behind the camera as he continues to flash away, and you do your utmost to not let the lights disorient you too much. He lets you take a break when you make a comment about the pure thermal energy in the room, your face no doubt shiny and red from the lights. You’re done after you take a couple more pictures after an outfit change, rendering you free to leave within the hour. 

“I think you’re done,” he announces, stretching as he leaves his own stool. “I’ll send you deets for tomorrow, we’ll probably get a lot more done.”

“Oh, cool.” 

Gathering your stuff doesn’t take you as you go up to tell him you’re about to leave. You find him fiddling with cables, packing everything up before leaving himself. You make a split second decision, dropping your bag before announcing yourself. 

“Let me help.”

“Huh? Oh no, it’s fine. I just need to shove them in storage.” 

“That’s alright, I’ll help. What d’you want me to do?” 

“Uh, Maybe unplug all the ports, and um, turn the lights on too, I guess. It’s gonna get dark if you don’t.”

Cleaning up was easier when those god awful studio lights weren’t overheating the entire hall, collecting cables and putting equipment back into their places. It was over before you knew it. 

“Is your car back from the workshop?” Mingyu yells from inside one of the side rooms collecting his stuff. 

“Not yet, I’m getting it back on the 15th. Ordered a cab.” 

“You’re going home from here, right?” He emerges from the room, arms in the middle of slipping into his jacket. “I’ll drive you.”

“No, it’s fine I have to meet Nayeon at uni and–”

“Even better, I was going there too. Come on, I just need to kill the lights.” 

You’re out of saviours, evident as you slide into his car, yet again with no choice. It’s meant to be a short drive, considering the studio is barely ten minutes away from where you need to be, yet it feels like an impromptu road trip with the way the roads seem to stretch. 

It’s significantly less awkward than last night, perhaps owed to him not being as inclined to make conversation, unlike last night. 

By the time he’s pulling up, you already have your bag in hand, a thank you frozen on your tongue as you register who it is that’s standing outside the library. You groan internally as you see Nayeon waiting for you, immersed in something on her phone. Praying she stays occupied, you rush your, “thanks, I’ll see you tomorrow,” as you hope she doesn’t see you slip out of the familiar car. 

She does notice. Looking up at the sound of yout door opening, she catches clear sight of you stepping out of the car, Mingyu in the driver’s seat. You can tell she’s subdued her reaction, but the eyebrows gives her away as they shoot up at the sight. Trudging up to her is a nightmare and a half, dreading the questions she’s going to ask as you hear Mingyu rev away.

“Are my eyes deceiving me?” she breathes out, eyes wide, mouth open in jest. 

“Quit it, I have work to get done.” You choose to lead her straight into the library where you know she won’t be able to ask you any more probing questions.

That doesn’t seem to sedate her though as she continues to whisper a million questions, watching you pull your stuff out.

“I had a shoot with him today, he offered to drop me off and I couldn’t say no!”

“Oh my gosh!” she exclaims a little too loud, owing a couple nasty surrounding looks her way, including yours. She continues quieter, pulling your laptop away from you so you’d pay more attention to her. “How’d it go? Did you pose all sexy for him, did he look nervous?”

“I did not pose sexy, I posed normally, because I have a conscience,” you snap, yanking your laptop back from her grip. 

She’s smiling like an idiot, unaffected by your annoyance. “Is he gonna drop you off after every shoot? Oh my god! Don’t you dare get your car from the garage, give it to Seokmin, or, or, tell them to keep it!” 

“Nayeon, shush!” It’s your turn to whisper shout at her gradually increasing volume, pushing her to quit leaning over the desks. 

“Okay, okay.” She sobers up.

“I’m supposed to be getting over him, why are you so happy about this? Indifference, remember? It was you who brought it up.”

“Yes, but you can’t tell me it doesn’t look, I don’t know, like, you know!”

Once she’s a little less giddy, you finally tell her about last night – leaving out the bit where he droppped you home for the sake of the library and its inhabitants. 

“I mean, I know we aplogised and everything, but I felt a little less… on fire around him. Other than those stupid studio lights, those were turning the place into a sauna. But I could meet his eyes without hyperventilating,” you explain, eyes downcast as you speak. 

“I imagine his eyes were covered with that camera anyway, but progress, I guess,” Nayeon comments.

“Maybe I needed to get mad at him to feel better, I don’t know. But it feels like I’m making progress for the first time.” 

“I told you this would be good for you, give it a couple more weeks and it’ll be like Mingyu never happened.” 

It takes a conscious attempt to not scoff. Like Mingyu never happened to your heart. That’s a heart you can’t recognise. 

The first time Seokmin had brought girls over was a day you couldn’t forget, no matter how hard you tried. 

You were padding down to the kitchen, still bleary eyed and pyjama clad from your nap, making a beeline for the fridge to get a glass of water. Your trip is cut short, however, when you realised the living room was not as empty as you expected. It’s a crowd (to your eleven year old self, anyway) of people your brother’s age. You catch a couple familiar faces, friends of your brother who visited often, Mingyu is part of the lumps on the couch with them. 

What stumped you, however, were the girls that were seated in between, eyes equally trained on you as everyone else in the room. 

“Oh, who’s this Seok?” one of the girls asked. 

“My little sister. D’you wanna say hi?” he asked you, neck craned to look at you. 

“Uh. Hi,” you whisper, gulping. 

There’s a chorus of hi’s that came bounding at you. You could feel the embarrassment creep up your entire body, feeling conscious for the first time in your life. They were staring at you. They were smiling, but you hated it. 

You weren’t thinking as you turned around to sprint back upstairs, not missing the tinkle of laughs coming from the living room. 

“Oh, she’s cute,” you had heard. That had you nearly starting to cry. 

You’d be lying if you said your little crush on Mingyu hadn’t started blossoming for a while at that point. Being younger meant you were constantly fighting to be seen, even more so when you’d do anything for Mingyu to look at you. Hogging your brother’s bean bag until you were kicked out, putting sparkly clips in your hair before you went to the kitchen, laughing especially loud when you knew he could hear.

And yet, despite everything, for the very first time, you hated that Mingyu was looking at you, watching you idle and awkward while he sat next to a bunch of prettier, older girls. 

That night was of many firsts, including the first time you had ever cried over Mingyu.

Mingyu claimed this was the last shoot, that he’d be done after this final set of shots. 

You’re having a hard time though, because he’s decided his studio for the day was gonna be at the top of a mountain at the asscrack of dawn. 

“We have fifteen minutes,” he announces. 

“To live?” You heave, crouching on the gravel to give your body a break. 

“Till sunrise,” he interjects, reversing to get to your crouched figure. You feel him grab hold of the straps of your bag, swinging it over his own shoulder. “Come on, just a little more.”

“You’ve been saying that for an hour.” You groan, picking yourself up off the path to resume your trudging. Mingyu stays next to you this time. 

“Did you pack your entire house in here, the fuck is this so heavy for,” he grunts. 

“You're the one asking for a bajillion outfit changes, I’m just doing what you asked.” 

“One change of clothes and a compact doesn’t weigh this much, are you disposing a body up here?” 

“Might be yours if I don't see that damn railing in a minute.” 

“I think you're hungry,” he huffs out. 

“I think I need to never agree to do this again.” 

“Salavation!” he yelps as he sees a vending machine in the distance, quite literally glowing (with its fluorescent lights). 

“I don’t need a water bottle, Mingyu, I need to lie down.” Your voice grows more gruff by the minute, legs nearly giving away. 

“No, the vending machine means…” He bounds up the last couple leaps to the glowing box with a burst of motivation. The slope turns flat at the horizon. “We’re here.” 

Nearly falling to your knees at the sight of the long awaited arrival point, you drop to a nearby bench and lay flat on the stiff wood. 

“How long till I need to look presentable? Because if it’s anything under thirty minutes, I’m tapping out.” You declare. 

“I can give you five minutes, take it or leave it.” He barely sits down as he speaks while already unzipping his camera bag. The thought of lifting your arms is excruciating, so you rest your tongue and bite back a whine. 

By the time you do find it within yourself to swing your legs back over the bench, the sky is shifting to a smoky navy, urging you to hurry up as you dry your sweat. You’re cringing as you press powder on your unclean face, but power through the final touches as you stretch while standing up straight.  

The first rays of sunlight are just coming through as Mingyu calibrates his lenses, trying to figure out the best shots in the limited time frame you have. You listen to him as he directs you where he wants you, contorting your face into something akin to faux serene. It’s near impossible when the frown has molded itself into your face after what you’ve put your body through today. 

“Think happy thoughts.” Mingyu calls out from behind his camera. 

“Oh, I’m thinking real happy thoughts. Like the ice cold shower I’m about to take when I get home. My clean bed that’s gonna be nice to me when I lay in it. The leftover pasta in the fridge. My moonpies.”

He has to bring his face away from the camera to throw his head back in a breathy laugh, smile as wide as it could go. It does things to you, but you ignore it. 

The summit isn’t entirely empty, noting a few people leaning against the railings, rendering it mostly quiet. All the more jarring becomes Mingyu’s phone as it blares into the silence, causing the both of you to jump at the sudden sound. 

He checks the caller ID only to silence it and slip it back into his pocket. 

You don’t get to ask who it was calling him so early in the morning, but get your answer when he immediately announces he’s done with his shots. The sun is higher up at this point, casting a more even orange glow across all the eye could see. 

You suppose he’s in a hurry to get home, seeing as he has someone waiting on him. “Should we leave then?” 

He swings the camera strap around his neck, forearms on the railing as he admires the view. “Give it a couple more minutes, I need to mentally prepare myself for the next hour.” 

It’s hard for you to deny that, so you let yourself place your head into your crossed arms over the railing, staring into the glow. It’s silent for a while as the rays hit your face, warming you more than you’d like. You don’t make any effort to move though, deciding to appreciate the view while it was here, doubting you’d ever make the trek up here again. Not willingly, at least. 

There’s a camera shutter that goes off next to you and you find Mingyu fidgeting with his camera as he tries to begin packing it up. You would help, but you’ve found yourself refraining from touching anything when it comes to his actual camera setup, opting to watch as he disassembles his lenses and pushes buttons to power off. 

By the time you're trudging down the path you’d come up from, it’s bright and sunny, rendering it warmer than before. Going down, however, is proving easier as you appreciate the reduced strain in your calves, letting the recent conversation take you to a smoother route. 

“When d’you think your gonna be done editing?” You ask at some point, the thought occurring to you that you’d only seen a couple pictures that he’d taken so far, oweing to his disapproval showing you all the raws before editing. 

“Kinda have to get them edited and annotated by the due date, so probably by the end of the month.” 

“D’you think I could get the ones you edit?” 

“Why? D’you wanna kickstart a portfolio?” he muses.

“I think it’s normal to ask for my pictures you took of me,” you grunt.

He laughs it off. “Yeah, yeah, I’ll send them over.” 

Mingyu doesn’t drop you off home this time, both of you slipping into your own cars at the base of the hiking trail, bidding your goodbyes. You’d gotten an earful from Nayeon for getting your car back from the garage so quickly, and while sitting in a car with him wasn’t so bad anymore, you choose to retain that distance regardless. This was work, You’re doing this because you have to, and the stupid extra credit that roped you into this in the first place.

Alas, as you start your engine, eyes cast towards Mingyu’s number plate right up front, you can’t help but feel…sad… remembering this was your last shoot. As emotionally vexing the experience was, you had grown to look forward to his discreet location pins and outfit plans, growing more comfortable with him by the meeting. 

It almost felt like you and Mingyu were friends. 

Your brother’s graduation was an ordeal to say the least. Your parents flying in was a plus, getting to see them at least once for the summer, even if it was just for the day. 

The night is wrapped up fairly quickly, a big dinner with yours and Mingyu’s family to congratulate the freed graduates from their academic shackles. It dials back when Mingyu announces he’s gonna take a summer course for now to keep himself busy, wanting to wait a little before job hunting. Seokmin seems to express the same, wanting some time off for himself before entering the corporate world.

It’s when you get home and your brother is sending you all the pictures of today that you note one that stands out. It was of you and Mingyu, an inevitable one as your parents took turns to make sure everybody got solo shots with everyone.

You’d applaud the enthusiasm, but it was particularly unfortunate for you when the camera was thrust into your hands as Mingyu and Jia posed for nearly fifty pictures. You wouldn’t mind usually, but it just felt like a little too much in the moment.

Despite everything, you find yourself clicking on the Save button on the picture where you’re smiling a little too wide right next to him, for the sake of yourself.

Summer break rolls around with no more hiccups, if you’d count finals as anything other than strenuous. You were happy, with a new job to keep you company for the next three months as you lament not being able to go home. 

Getting the job at the bookstore was easy, your shifts were reasonable and it didn’t pay half bad. You would’ve guessed they were desperate for a hire, but you appreciate the activity regardless. It’s not really hard work, you find out quickly. Manning the desk, shelving deposits and restocking supplies. Monotonous tasks yet ones that you find yourself slipping into quite easily.

After the last shoot at the mountain, it was basically radio silence from Mingyu. Not being able to catch him the rare chance he stopped by the house, both of you swamped with the end of semester throw up. You doubt he’d noticed, and you despair at the fact that you did, even if it was just a little. 

“Oh, great, you’re here!” The owner greets you as you walk into the store, all smiles. She was a sweet lady, nicer than any other boss you’d ever had. “Was just waiting for you so I could leave, my daughter has a play she’s putting on today!” 

“Oh, sorry to keep you!” You rush to set your bag down as she picks up her own things, coming around from the table to take her leave. “Hope the recital goes well, tell her I said good luck.”

“Will do.” She smiles before adding, “Oh and, somebody called an hour ago asking about our book bundles, he said he’d come in to check but he hasn’t yet. Thought I’d let you know in case he asks about the phone call.”

“Got it,” you confirm, waving as she walks out the door, “I’ll see you tomorrow!” 

Breathing out a sigh, you find yourself relatively free this afternoon, a slow weekday as you pick your current read out of your bag to get comfortable for the long shift. You’re nearly through the halfway point when you hear the first jingle of the day, the bells attached to the door making their familiar chime

“Good afternoon!” You look up to greet the customer, dog earring your book before standing up from your seat.

The person who’d walked in wasn’t just any customer, you soon realise as you recognise the familiar shag of hair. Mingyu was here. 

“Oh.” You can’t help but let it out when you register him, his own eyebrows shooting up at the sight of you behind the counter. Your next greeting comes out a little dumbly. “Hi.”

“Hey. What’re you doing here?” he asks, eyebrows furrowed as he takes you in. 

“Um,” you glance at your obvious name tag. “I work here.” 

“Oh, right, Seok mentioned you started working at a bookstore.” He throws his head back at the memory. “Hey, was it you over the phone earlier today? Didn’t sound like it.”

“Oh no, that was my boss, my shift started like an hour ago.” You confirm. 

“Ah, I see.” 

The silence is awkward for about five seconds before you jump into action. “You asked about a bundle over the phone?” 

“Right, um,” he pauses to fish his phone out his pocket, scrolling for something. “It’s Jia’s birthday coming up, and there’s this book series she’s been wanting. Here.”

You need to remind yourself to pat yourself on the back for not shaking as you received his phone, mind remaining in the moment. “Oh yeah, we have those. Let me grab ‘em for you.” 

He follows you through the columns of shelves as you navigate to find what he was looking for, stopping in front of the shelves. “There’s three of these, I can put them in a sleeve for you. Probably put a bow on it too if you want.” 

“Okay, perfect. Do you guys have LP’s too?” he asks.

“Uh, yeah. Hold on, let me put these up front.” 

You lead him to the back of the store. “The selection’s pretty small, the first shipment only came in like a month ago. I’m not sure if you’ll find what you want here.” 

“She’s been talking about getting more LP’s after she got a new record player. Hasn’t mentioned anything she wants though,” he voices, thumbing through the selection. 

“What does she listen to normally?” You ask before quickly adding, “So I can, maybe, help pick something she’d like.”

“Uh, older stuff? I should’ve snooped before coming, fuck.” He mumbles, thinking hard. “She barely plays it when I’m around but most of her LP’s are like Frank Sinatra and…Duran Duran was it?”  

“Hm…” You hum as you flick through the dated section of the stockpile, “How’s this?’

He’s taking a look at the record you’ve handed him, scanning the tracklists on the back. “I’ll get this, I guess. I can always bring her around to get more that she likes.” 

“D’you want a bow on this?” You ask, referring to the books you’re putting into the set sleeve, “You can pick your colour.”

He’s quick to pick the lilac ribbon, watching you as you tape it prettily on the box. You’re trying to curl the ribbon at the ends when he tries to make conversation. 

“When does your shift end?” 

If the man wasn’t quite literally buying a birthday present for his girlfriend (or if you had any memory of your own birthday), you’d think he was trying to hit on you. But he’s not. You know that. 

“Ten-ish. Closing’s on me so I could technically leave an hour early and no one would know.” You snort.

“Everyday?” he asks incredulously. 

“Minus weekends, the family takes care of that. They just need someone for afternoons and evenings on the weekdays. It’s not like I’m taking summer classes or anything, and it’s easy work.” 

“Well, you’ll be pleased to find out you’ll most likely be available on the 27th of August, then.” He sing songs as he fishes his phone out to pay, a cheeky air in his expression.

You blink at him in confusion, waiting for him to explain. “Was I supposed to get that?”

He pushes his shoulders back, content expression on his face as he continues. “There’s a cultural art exhibition in two months, and I, have just found out I’ve been shortlisted for a spot.” 

“A spot? Like to display your photos?!” You drop the card machine with a thud.

“Your photos. Prof liked the project so much she submitted some of ‘em as entries. It was super short notice, but they liked them, I guess.” His grin is wide, one that you find impossible to not reciprocate. “I just need you to sign a consent form and I’ll be all set to start prepping.” 

“That’s insane, Mingyu, congratulations!” You exclaim, genuinely excited. “Are you gonna be using the same pictures?”

“Yup, I just need to fix the editing with my prof before they go up. You’re the first to find out, I just got out of the meeting.” 

There’s a mix of hesitation before you utter your next proposal, a split second of bewilderment at what you were about to suggest. “Come over tonight, we can celebrate with Seok. Bring Jia along too, we can celebrate an early birthday.” 

“I’ll see, she might be taking a bus home tonight for the weekend, might have to bother you by myself.”

The ache in your cheeks didn’t stop until well after Mingyu had left with his cargo, the elated feeling remaining for even longer after the fact. There was a point where it took you convincing to rid yourself of another intrusive, uneasy feeling, like you were taking a step back by being happy at his announcement. 

It was, however, safe to call Mingyu a friend. Safe to be happy for him. Safe to have your heart swell at his achievement, having watched him work hard for it.

It was safe to feel.

This was horrible. 

Truly. 

You were trying to ignore it, the strange thumping noises coming from under your car, like it would go away if you pretended to not hear. There was a sliver of hope for you, barely five minutes away from home that you’d make it before your tire decided it had enough of trying to grab your attention. 

But then it started screeching, and you had to stop before you caused a road fire.

“Tire? Didn’t you get them changed like last month?” Seokmin asks over the phone.

“Didn’t know new tires were immune to industrial blades, too. Are you gonna tell me I got ripped off?” 

“Mingyu has a scissor jack, I’ll tell him to come to you.”

“Wait! You have a scissor jack, too! Why can’t you come?” You sputter at the sound, glancing at the 21:42 on the dial. 

“He has my scissor jack, he’ll change it for you.” He grits back. “Besides, I’m not letting this face pack go to waste I just put it on.” 

“Seok!” 

“Stay in the car, lock the doors till he gets there.” He grounds.

“Seokmin!” 

Beep. 

The bastard hung up. 

“Ugh!” you break from a tightened jaw, slamming the car door shut with passion as you huff into your seat, waiting for Mingyu. 

Was Mingyu busy at 10:30 PM on a weekday? He was, actually.

He’d scrambled to finish up the last of his meeting with his professor, wrapped up in planning for the exhibition despite the two month time frame he’d been given. Exhibitions were a lot of paperwork, as he was finding out as he sweet talks Jia over the phone, promising to be with her within the next five minutes. Well, ten maybe, he has to grab butter from the store.

She sits on the kitchen counter as Mingyu makes her favourite. A strenuous task, but he’s willing to go through the double frying to make up for the time he’s lost. It’s not until he’s doing the post dinner dishes while Jia’s picking a movie in the living room that he’s met with another dilemma to handle. 

He’s deflating as he stands, phone to ear as he listens to Seokmin about your situation. Glancing at the near 10:30 PM hand on the clock, he finds it difficult to refuse, especially when he’s told you’re alone and stranded on a highway. He thinks to Jia in the living room as he tells Seokmin he’s leaving the house to get to you.

He’d only be gone for barely 20 minutes. He’s changed plenty of tires, this should be quick and easy. 

Slipping into the living room is easy, wrapping his arms around Jia from behind is even easier. It’s when he has to open his mouth that he begins to falter. Twenty minutes, he reminds himself.

“I have two I’ve heard are really good, you can pick which one we watch first,” she voices as she fluffs the pillows on the couch, ready to tuck in for the rest of the night. 

“Babe?” 

She spins around in his arms, coming up to fluff his flat hair too. “Hm?” 

“Seok just called…”

Her face falls as he talks despite his best attempts to assure her he won’t be long. 

“Twenty minutes?” she parrots, wanting his word. 

“Fifteen.” 

Whether Mingyu would keep his word is something he’d find out, but you had kept your word to Seokmin, staying in the car, doors locked till you saw Mingyu’s car pull up behind you in the rearview. The wretched scissor jack that’s caused all of this sits in his own boot as he yanks it out to bring it over to your car, where you stand arms crossed, face dejected. 

“Were you waiting long?” He asks as he immediately crouches to fit the jack where he wants it. 

“No, not really,” you reply. “I’m sorry you had to come all the way out here, if only Seok remembered to take the stupid scissor jack–”

“No, no, it’s okay. I wasn’t doing anything.” Lies. But you already sounded apologetic and he didn’t wanna hear you apologize any further.  

“No, it’s not okay. The idiot’s relaxing with a stupid face mask on while you have to come out here and change a fucking tire, God, you have class tomorrow too, don’t you?” 

“Not until the afternoon, I’m in the clear.” He springs up from his crouched position, pulling the jack with him. “Open the boot.” 

Placing the scissor jack in your boot, he continues, a little breathless. “There, I’ll tell Seokmin I left it in your car. Or, you could do that.” 

“Thanks, Mingyu. Really.” 

He does nothing but flash a smile, doing his best to convince you you weren’t an inconvenience before having to see your apologetic face again. “Alright, I wanna see you drive off before I leave, go on.” 

By the time Mingyu’s slamming the door of the house shut, it’s eighteen minutes on the dot. Jia doesn’t say much, excited to have him back in her arms. 

“Wait!” he suddenly yelps, once he’s tucked in with her. 

“What now?” she groans. 

Mingyu’s bounding back to his bedroom, emerging a few moments later with a dark paper bag. He goes back to sit next to her on the couch, sliding the bag and its contents towards her.

“Here. We’re not gonna be together for your birthday, might as well give you your present the night before you leave.” His eyes are glinting, hopeful.

Jia expresses her thank you’s commenting on the ribbon and his LP choice, grinning widely.

Your name comes tumbling out of Mingyu’s mouth before he can stop himself. “She helped me pick it out!” 

“You…took her with you?” She asks after a moment.

“She worked at the store! I didn’t know till I went there either.” Mingyu’s voice grows increasingly enthusiastic, seemingly unaware that his girlfriend was growing slightly irritated. “I’ll take you there when you get back, the selection’s small but she’ll probably help you pick out something you’d like. I only had to give her like two names before she figured it out.”

“Oh, that’s nice,” she comments, tight smile on her lips as she collects the book sleeve and the LP, placing them back into the bag and leaving them on the floor next to her.

Mingyu is blissfully unaware of the fuel he’s added to growing embers, munching away on his popcorn, eyes trained on the TV and its stimulating colours. 

“I was talking to Jihyo the other day, super random but it came up while we were talking about you,” Jia starts experimentally. 

“Huh?” He has her attention. And when she mentions your name, the part of him that’s always wondered when she’d bring it up comes out of dormancy. 

“She said she…I don’t know, she said she liked you at some point, Like a lot, and for a while.” Jia sounds unsure, like she didn’t know if it was a good idea to bring you up. 

Mingyu sighs as he rears himself for the inevitable conversation. “It’s—well, it was—just puppy love. I was around all the time and I guess she latched, I don’t know.”

Jia pauses, eyes remanging trained on the movie. “Does it make you uncomfy? That she liked you? Maybe she still does.” 

“It doesn’t matter, does it? I’m around Seok which means I’m sometimes around her by default. Can’t help it. I mean, the photography thing kinda just happened but, I don’t really care. And she seems over it.” 

Mingyu is rambling. He can feel it. Which is why he tries to end the conversation right there, tone nonchalant as he hopes the topic breezes past. 

It doesn’t. 

“You seemed pretty adamant in leaving, though.”

“Huh?”

“When she called just now.”

“Seok called, I had his scissor jack!”

“Why couldn’t he have grabbed it for you and helped his sister himself? He has a car too.”  Jia’s paused the movie at this point, moving away from his arm she was leaning on, shifting to look at him fully. 

“It would’ve taken him forever, she was alone in the middle of a highway at nearly eleven, you wanted me to leave her there?” Mingyu finds the conversation ridiculous, and it shows in the irritation that rises in his own voice. 

“Mingyu, you can’t be upset with me right now,” she breathes out exasperated. 

“I’m not? I get that you’re upset, I haven’t been around as much but you also know what this exhibition means to me. I need to put everything I have into this and it’s only for a couple months–”

“Mingyu, it’s not just the exhibition!” 

“Jia, I can’t know if you don’t tell me what’s really bothering you, talk to me.” Mingyu’s begging at this point, wondering how it’s come to this in the first place. 

“You can’t expect me to be okay with you going around wherever, whenever, when I know what kind of lifestyle you’ve come out of not even six months ago!” 

Mingyu had come a long way from his galvanizing tendencies, doing absolutely everything he could to convince Jia he was serious about her. Unfortunately, this was not the first time his past had been brought up; in an argument or in a light hearted setting, and he wasn’t particularly fond of it. 

“Are we in six months ago? Are you saying I’ve done nothing substantial for you to think I’m still fucking around? Either give me an instance or figure out what the real issue is!” 

There’s a plaster of suffocation in the room, neither soul speaking a word. Until Jia finally speaks. “I wanna go home.”

It didn’t matter to Mingyu if she was expecting him to grovel, to ask her to stay and talk about this further. It was clear she wasn’t about to talk about anything pertinent at all, and definitely not tonight. He was tired, and frankly wanted to be alone right now.

“Fine.” 

Silence penetrates all of his air for the entire car ride up until he’s entering his apartment for the third time that day. Not bothering to clean up the living room, he thinks he does himself a service so as to not be reminded of the past couple hours. He’s casting the place in complete darkness before moving to his room. Might as well get some work done. 

There’s a conscious effort to not start slamming things, he succeeds mostly, his graphic tablet receiving the short end of the stick. Turning on his monitor, he’s met with his ongoing project still brought up on the screen.

It’s a picture of you. One he took in a greenhouse off the outskirts of the city, something you complained about extensively as the heat ruined both your mood and your hair. You were smiling regardless; a wide, happy smile as you looked into the camera, petunia’s and dahlia’s framing an illusion around your figure.

Mingyu feels the tension in his muscles begin to relax, his breathing evening out after what felt like hours. He becomes almost excited to pick up his stylus and work on the photo, the set up allowing him to dive right in. There was barely any work left, moving on as he finishes the photo and saves it. 

It isn’t until he happens to click on the the last folder, the one where you both caught the sunrise after a strenuous hike. He can’t help but break into a hint of a smile at the memory of your broken figure at the pathway, cursing him for bringing you here so early in the morning. The pictures had come out good, especially when Mingyu opens a particular photo at the bottom of the folder, an extra from his initial round of editing for his actual project. 

It’s of you (of course) with your chin tucked into your arms as you gaze at the scene from up above, beyond the railing. The sun is up higher at that point, but the cast remains as the top half of your face that wasn’t tucked in your arms is lit in an orange glow, eyes glistening like stars during the day, wide and beautiful. 

Mingyu remembers the shot. It was an accident.

In an attempt to fiddle with the settings to turn off the camera, he ended up snapping a picture instead. The distinct click was noticed, never bothering to check what came out of it when he stuffed his camera back into his bag, nor when he sifted through his SD card. 

It was like he was seeing the picture in a new light, and the potential it had to become something worth ogling at. He wonders what had come over him when he had placed the photo as a secondary option without another thought, lamenting at what could’ve been his actual final piece. 

He stares and stares, attempting to draw maps of color rendering in his mind, yet all that comes up is his eyes zeroing in on your own. How they glisten. How they sparkle.

Part 2

[reidmania]

WHY WAIT | Spencer Reid.

summary; reader works at a childcare and realises she wants kids sooner than she expected she would and struggles to admit that to Spencer after their agreement to wait a few years.

warnings; 16+, slight angst, a bit suggestive at the end. fem reader, childcare worker reader, mentions babies, wanting babies, avoidant reader, guilt, feeling scared to talk about emotions, talks about feeling empty, references sex, makeout, talks about trying for a baby. lmk if i missed anything

a/n ; i imagined this as post prison reid but literally any works

Your head is almost a foggy mess when you step into the bau office out of the elevator. Your hand grouped your hair before tying it up into a mess of a ponytail but you couldn’t find it to care as your eyes skimmed over the room for your husband.

You had finished work almost an hour ago, to where you were supposed to go out with Spencer for a date night — it was an unspoken agreement between you two that no matter how busy you were, at least once a week you would go out for a date night. It was important for your relationship because of how much Spencer was away.

Working at a childcare had its ups and downs, being vomited on, the headaches from toddlers screaming tantrums and annoying parents weren’t always the best or easiest thing to deal with — but you were doing what you loved.

The little letters or flowers you would be given by kids throughout the say, the big grins on their faces in the mornings, and watching their curious faces grow more and more was so rewarding. The job fit you perfectly it allowed you to be able to be nurturing and caring, like you were in your everyday life.

Normally you worked in the toddler room, which you enjoyed the absolute most, having little conversations, answering their hundreds of curious questions, and reading to them. A few weeks ago however, you had to take over the baby room because one of your coworkers were out sick and causing the baby room to be out of ratio of babies and adults, whereas the toddler room was perfect — you were able to help out, it had been a continuous thing, you would go in and help out whenever due to the low staff in the baby room, over the last few weeks you had spent many days in there.

Only it didn’t go exactly as you expected and not at all in a bad way, you had something about you that was so enhancing to little humans, their adored you — It was no different with the babies.

Only holding them and rocking them to sleep, feeding them bottles and watching them coo and smile made you think too deeply. You couldn’t stop your mind from travelling to the idea of kids of your own.

You and Spencer had talked about it, you wanted kids and he wanted kids, that was definite, but you both also agreed you would wait a few years until Spencer was ready to teach. He didn’t want to risk the chance of not coming home to you and his children — he didn’t want to leave you alone.

And you were completely okay with that. You worked around kids all day so there was no rush for you, you were completely content with the decision. Until recently.

Until it was all you could think about all day, and the entire way home, until you were laying in bed thinking about it, until everyday doing anything it felt like there was something missing, someone missing.

You smiled as your eyes laid on Spencer who was sitting at his desk finishing Paperwork, the only reason you were here was because he had some extra work to do and would be here later than he planned but he wanted to see you. So he called you once you finished and suggested you come here to hang out with him until he finished and then you would go on your date.

You walked up to him, hand gently brushing over his shoulder. He tilted his head to look up at you, the smile on his lips arrived almost instantly after seeing your face. “Hey” He smiled, hand reaching back placing itself ontop of your hand that was on his shoulder.

You repositioned your hand, clasping it over his own. “Hi honey” You leant down to place a gentle kiss on the top of his head. You could feel his thumb rubbing back and fourth over the back of your hand.

“How was your day?” He asked, shuffling around on his chair to be facing you completely as he swung your hands together gently, everything he did was so gentle. You couldn’t stop your mind from imagining him holding your baby in his arms, playing peekaboo with them.

Your mind didn’t stop there. You could just imagine your baby wrapping its small hand around Spencers ring finger where his wedding ring stayed. You could see it all playing out in your mind.

“Baby?” He said after your lack of response, noticing clearly your mind was elsewhere. You looked at him— you were looking at him before but you were really looking at him now, out of your daze.

“Sorry, What?” You apologise as you realise you had basically ignored whatever he was saying, making a small puddle of guilt flood through your stomach.

He tapped his knee, encouraging you to sit down innocently. You did so without question after he repositioned slightly in order to make it more simple and comfortable for you. His hand rested gently against your thigh. “I asked how your day was.” He said softly.

You hummed, turning your head in order to be facing him. “Good” You nodded — purposefully not mentioning any details, too scared you may go into too much detail. You and Spencer had agreed on a timeline for your future and you knew how important timing was, and you didn’t want to ruin that for Spencer just because you had a bit of baby fever.

Or what you passed off as baby fever.

“Yeah?” He muttered, hand raising to brush untied strands of hair out of your face. You nodded in response, leaning into his touch as he hand paused, cupping your cheek slightly. “How was yours?” You ask, you hand trailed behind his head to rest gently in his hair.

“Good, I missed you” He said, head leaning back slightly into your touch. You smiled at the little thing, how his body relaxed at your contact.

“I missed you too, Im sorry I had to leave early this morning” You left before he woke up, which wasn’t normally the case but you were called in because a parent needed to drop off a kid extra early.

He just shook his head, bringing your free hand up to place a gentle kiss to your wrist. You heard your name causing you to turn your head, you smiled widely as you saw JJ — looking very pregnant. It had been a while since you had seen her, last time being at the start of her pregnancy, she would’ve been just over half way now.

“Hi!” You smiled widely, lifting yourself off Spencers lap to wrap your arms around the blonde girl, she reciprocated the action, smiling widely. “Hot mama!! you’re looking great” You smiled once you pulled away, referring to how good she looked.

She chuckled softly, “Thank you.” She said, her hand coming down to her belly, rubbing it gently. Your mind traveled slightly to the idea of you in that position, before you brought yourself out of it.

“When you two gonna start a little family of your own? He will need a friend” JJ teased lightly, a smile on her face.

You smile as you thought about your baby growing up with JJ’s, the idea of them having little playdates while you and JJ could mutually support one another, before your smile slipped slightly when you realised that wouldn’t happen.

You tried not to show it in your face as you pushed out a rough chuckle, shaking your head. You looked over at Spencer who’s eyes were on you with a soft smile on his face, before you looked at JJ.

“Oh no, not for a few more years” You said, you wondered if she could hear the lump in your throat as you talked, a lingering feeling of disappointment taking over your stomach as you plastered a smile on your face.

She frowned, looking between you and Spencer. “You would make amazing parents” She said, gushing slightly at the idea. “Seriously you would be the best mum, wouldn’t she?” She asked, looking at Spencer.

Spencer stood up from his chair to rest his arms around your waist from behind you. You hated the way you slightly tensed before relaxing. “She would” He said, placing a tender kiss your temple.

You pushed out a laugh — it all hurt. In a way you couldn’t explain. It was as if they were taunting you even though you knew they weren’t. You wondered why the universe chose today for JJ to ask the question.

The feeling of loss returned, the feeling of something missing. It had been turning up randomly, doing the littlest things like washing the dishes, doing laundry or just laying in bed at night next to Spencer when he was home — it was worse when he was home. You couldn’t stop thinking about how much you craved your baby lying with you and him.

JJ smiled widely, “Don’t you want kids? Why wait?” She was almost joking, you could hear it in her tone there was a hint of seriousness lingering in it.

“We’re gonna have kids.” Spencer said as if there was no question about it. Your entire body tensed and you hoped Spencer didn’t notice it, you silently prayed he didn’t. “Just in a few years, when everything had calmed down a bit” Spencer said.

Your chest ached at his words more than you cared to admit. A few years, just a few years.

You didn’t know if you could wait a few years. The feeling was taking over every aspect of your life and it was already driving you insane — it had merely been a month.

JJ pouted dramatically as she looked at you, “You would make such a hot mum, full milf” She nodded as she looked you up and down, throwing in a gentle wink.

You chuckled, “I don’t know about that” You brought your hand up to your face, rubbing your cheek gently pushing a smile to your lips as JJ looked at her watch before sighing. “I have to go, how about we go for coffee this weekend?” She suggested looking at you.

You nodded your head smiling as she said her goodbyes before making her way out of the building. Spencer spun you in his arms turning you so you were facing him.

“You’re so beautiful” He said, thumb brushing over your cheek gently as he brought his hand up to your face. He leant down for a moment finally placing a gentle kiss on your lips now that the office was basically empty.

You laughed as you pulled away, “Okay boy wonder, finish up — im starving” You said. He smiled, leaning down to place another kiss against your lips, this one softer and quicker before he turned to sit down.

“Tell me about your day while I work” And you did, leaving out the parts that caused your heart to pull on itself.

The thought never left your mind that night, or any night after that.

“So much for our coffee date” JJ joked after you both ordered hot chocolates rather than coffee’s. You smiled widely at her, shaking your head slightly. “Coffee is overrated” You joked.

She groaned, “Im glad you think that, I’m hardly surviving. My obgyn told me I should cut back a little bit — which is all well and good till I actually had to do it” She said, you watched as her hand instinctively dropped down to her stomach.

There was a feeling in your gut, jealousy? Envy? You weren’t sure but you knew it was beginning to get harder to deal with. You just chuckled, “I could imagine”

The table fell quiet as your eyes dropped to the table, almost wishing you had the struggle of not being able to drink a lot of coffee because you were having a baby — you hated that.

“Alright, no more small talk. Whats up”

You furrowed your eyebrows in confusion as you looked up at her. You pushed a laugh past your lips as your head fell to the side, “What do you mean?” You asked in confusion.

She rolled her eyes playfully. “You have been all… sad. You’re so sad. Why are you sad? I noticed it the other night at the office— Did Spencer do something?” She started out worriedly before becoming slightly defensive of you at the idea that maybe Spencer did something that upset you.

You laughed, “Spencer didn’t do anything. Spencer is amazing.” You reassured lightly. Although the pit in your stomach deepened — you knew exactly what she was talking about and no matter how much you denied it if there was one person able to get it out of you, it would be JJ.

“It was right after I mentioned you having kids… Do you not want kids?” She guessed, it almost made you laugh because it was exactly the opposite. “Does Spencer know?” She asked — everyone knew how much Spencer wanted kids of his own one day.

You shook your head. “I want kids.” You said but the words held more depth. You wanted kids, you wanted a baby and you wanted them with Spencer.

“I still don’t understand why you’re waiting.” She muttered shaking her head and she distracted herself from the topic at hand — which you would’ve been grateful for besides the fact she was now bringing up exactly what was wrong — waiting.

“Spencer couldn’t do it now” You muttered slightly under your breath but she caught it, furrowing her eyebrows she asked why.

You sighed, shrugging. “He loves his job and he wants to wait a few years before he starts teaching. We decided to wait” You said, you tried to hide the disappointment in your voice but that was useless when sitting across from a profiler.

“You don’t want to wait.” She realised, her lips pulling into a frown. You mirrored the look, nodding your head sadly. She huffed slightly.

“It’s alright, really. Its just working around kids all days, babies and toddlers really makes it difficult for me to just—“ You were cut off when your waitresses came to place yours and JJ’s hot chocolates on the table, you both thanked her before she walked away and you continued. “It just makes it difficult to ignore it.”

JJ nodded her head in understanding. “You shouldn’t have to ignore it! You know Im sure if you talked to him—”

You didn’t mean to cut her off, “He wants to wait. If i bring it up he will agree just because it’s what I want, I don’t want that.” You said, shaking your head as you looked down at the hot chocolate in your hands.

“He wants kids.” She said. You knew this but it felt nice hearing it again. “He wants to be a dad and he wants to have kids — with you. Of course he will do it if you want it, thats not a bad thing. He wants it to, theres ways to work around work — you just need to have a conversation about it” She said honestly.

You pushed a smile to your lips as you thought about her words, still there was an overwhelming amount of guilt in your chest. “Ill see how it goes” You say.

It had been two weeks since your ‘coffee’ date with JJ and you still found yourself unable to admit out loud to Spencer that you wanted kids now. He had been away on a case this week, which didn’t help you being alone with your thoughts — but it made it easier trying to hide the feeling of emptiness that had been present for weeks.

Not because of Spencer, he made you happier than you thought humanly possible. There was just something missing, you kept waiting for the feeling to go away but it never did. You kept waiting to be able to fall asleep at night without the feeling of longing for something more.

You were lying in bed, when you heard the front door of yours and Spencer’s home open and close. It was probably some outrageous time in the night. You had been lying in the same position for hours unable to fall asleep.

You heard footsteps you knew all too well coming towards your bedroom. The door opened and you turned slightly to look at Spencer who was tugging his tie off messily as he walked towards the bed, eyes widening when he saw you were still awake.

“Hi” He sighed tiredly, throwing his tie on the floor. As he began unbuttoning his shirt, after pulling off his suit jacket. “Im so glad you’re awake” He breathed out.

You furrowed your eyebrows as you sat up to look at him properly. His hair was a mess and he was rushing to get changed. He hardly finished taking off his pants before he was pulling on grey sweatpants leaving his top half naked as he got in bed next to you.

“Hi” You said.

He smiled, wrapping his arms tightly around your body as he pulled you in close to him, so much so you found yourself straddling his hips as he laid on his back. “Hi” He breathed out again.

You were confused. Of course you adored the affection — evidently he missed you but he was out of breath and you didn’t know why. You looked over at the clock seeing it was nearing three in the morning. Spencer never had this much energy this late at night — especially after being away for a week on a case.

Normally he would come home and just hold you. That was what he needed after being away. Just you in his arms.

“What-” you were cut off by him leaning upwards, capturing your lips in a heated kiss, you hummed slightly as you kissed him back, melting into the softness of his lips. His hand trailed down your torso before slipping under your shirt — which was actually his shirt.

You gasped as you felt his cold hands against the warm skin of your waist. His hands traveled up your back like a mad man — as if he could hardly get enough, he took your gasp into his advantage slipping his tongue into your mouth.

You made out with him for a few minute before pulling away, he chased your lips but you pulled back, “What has gotten into you?” You breathed out — chest rising and falling heavily as you worked to catch your breath.

He looked up at you, eyes full of an emotion you’d never seen on his face, one you couldn’t place. He let out a breath. “Let’s have a baby.”

You swore your heart stopped as your breath got caught in your throat. You were sure your pulse was going haywire as you tried to process what he said. “W-What? Spence.” You moved to slide off his lap, feeling a sense of hurt in your stomach.

His hands gripped your hips, keeping you in place. “Please.” He said breathily. “JJ told me” He said, looking so deep into your eyes. Your eyes widened and your lips parted as you sucked in a harsh breath. You felt a sense of betrayal from JJ but you knew deep down she was just trying to help you. She hated seeing you so.. Sad.

“Spence” You could cry. You swore you could cry.

“Im serious angel. Let’s have a baby. I want a baby.” He said, thumb rubbing over your hip sending a burning sensation to the place his fingertip brushed over.

You frowned, “But you wanted to wait.” You said.

He shrugged his shoulders, “So did you.” He muttered, leaning up to place gentle kisses down your neck.

You tilted your head instinctively at the feeling of his lips gently brushing over your skin. “But you shouldn’t change your- your mind just because I did” You sucked in a harsh breath as you felt his tongue brush over a sensitive spot of your neck.

“I want a baby with you. I want to raise kids with you. I want to be a dad to our children.” He said, pulling away to look at you. “If you’re ready Im ready, I’ll start teaching. I want a baby with you, now.” He said, looking into your eyes. He spoke genuinely.

“Really?” You asked.

He nodded, “Lets start trying.” He said, leaning back down to kiss your neck again.

“Right now?” You laughed out a giggle as your stomach swarmed with an overwhelming amount of happiness.

He hummed against your skin.

“Why wait?”

[hamilando]

ੈ✩‧ just friends (smau) ੈ✩‧

pairing : charles leclerc x hamilton! fem reader

summary : what happens when the official lunch turns to official hate. This is PART 2 ! PART 1 HERE Part 3

tw : hate, cheating, rude comments

a/n : This is a series ! anyways enjoy ! also feel free to drop in a request or a question ! TAGLIST IS OPEN !!

tag list : @tremendousstarlighttragedy @hiireadstuff @mayalove014

·:｡･ﾟﾟ･ ✩ ･ﾟ ･ﾟ·:｡･ﾟﾟ･ ･ﾟ·:｡･ﾟﾟ･ ✩ ･ﾟ ･ﾟ·:｡･ﾟﾟ･･ﾟ·:｡･ﾟﾟ･ ✩ ･ﾟ ･ﾟ·:｡･ﾟﾟ

liked by lewishamilton, charlesleclerc, lilyhye and 162,643 others

otherhamilton 2025 IS HAPPENING !!! @ charlesleclerc @ lewsihamilton

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user 1 AHHHHHHHHH

user 2 AHHHHHHHHH

user 3 AHHHHHHHHH

user 4 LESSGO LECLERCTON

lewishamilton ❤️🇬🇧

↳ liked by otherhamilton

user 5 Toto be crying in his Mercedes

user 6 with his billion dollars user 7 with George Russell user 8 without his 8 wdc

charlesleclerc lovely meeting you 💪🏻

otherhamilton same here Charles !

alexandramalenart welcome to the fam ❤️

otherhamilton ty bbg 🤍

scuderiaferrari Welcome @ otherhamilton 🙌🏻

otherhamilton the offfical admin - scuderiaferrari the best for the best - otherhamilton who said you are the best ? scuderiaferrari ouch 😩 mercedesamgf1 “alexa play drama by aespa” otherhamilton well @ scuderiaferrari who is the better Hamilton ?scuderiaferrari this violates rights and we have to refrain from answering mercedesamgf1 definitely @ otherhamilton otherhamilton @ mercedesamgf1 correct ☑️ answer !

user 9 NOT THE ADMINS FIGHTING OVER THE HAMILTON SIBLING

user 10 @ mercedesamgf1 forgot about Lewis -

user 11 toto sipping his wine laughing after telling admin to drop Lewis ����🏻

liked by user1, user 2 , and 765,926 others

f1wags Someone was seen being cosy with @ charlesleclerc!

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user 1 home-wrecker 😌

user 2 YALL LITERALLY DUMB !?

user 3 she is literally his teammates sister -

user 4 HE IS HAPPY DATING ALEX! REMOVE THIS

user 5 STAY AWAY FROM CHARLES 😤

user 6 she called alex bbg 🤢

user 7 SINCE YALL DONT UNDERTSAND ! She is Lewis Hamilton’s sister! She visits the paddock frequently and it’s common for her to have lunch with CHARLES AND LEWIS AND FRED AND THE WHOLE OF FERRARI TEAM !

user 8 They are literally just chatting in the first pic and the last 2 pics are of the official Ferrari Lunch !

user 9 why is she sitting next to Charles only -

user 10 here we go again !

user 11 ugh the famous kids wrecking relationships

user 12 never expected from @ otherhamilton

liked by lewishamilton, charlesleclerc, lilyhye and 162,643 others

otherhamilton ITS HAMMER TIME AGAIN !! so proud of you @ lewishamilton and congrats to @ charlesleclerc for the 1-2!

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lewishamilton thank you sis ❤️ would have appreciated a better picture of me !

otherhamilton oh cmon you old person who can suprisingly party

landonoriss I came third !

otherhamilton congrats kid ig 🫷🏻

user 1 LEWIS IS BACK !

user 2 told ya it was the car, not Lewis 😤

user 3 love how she is posting after ruining Charles life !

user 4 MY POINT EXACTLY @ user3

user 5 CAN YOU ATLEAST LET HER CLEEBRATE HER BROTHERS BIG MOMENT !?

user 6 just look at that, older brother winning hearts, little sister breaking hearts

user 7 home wrecker 🤢

liked by lewishamilton, charlesleclerc, lilyhye and 162,643 others

otherhamilton just some Aussie gp things

@ lewishamilton @ charlesleclerc @ alexandramalenart @ lilyhye @ alexalbon @ francisca.gnomes @ heidiberger

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lewishamilton you bursted my heart after all that screaming in paragliding

otherhamilton I COULD HAVE DIED ! lewishamilton but you didn’t 🫶🏻

user 1 oh to have a sibling bond like them 😩

user 2 pls my brother won’t even take me to target

lilihye 🪽 GIRL NIGHT

alexalbon I got a picture in THE @ otherhamilton Instagram

otherhamilton it was all lily. We don’t know any Alex lilihye 💪🏻💪🏻

alexandramalenart such a fab time 💛

otherhamilton 💛

user 3 not her forcing herself to comment -

user 4 the forced comment -

user 5 she literally wrecked her relationship !

user 6 the audacity to tag alex after spooling her relationship !

francisca.gnomes LOVED IT ❤️

otherhamilton more nights coming up 🙌🏻

heidiberger the late night swim -

otherhamilton loved how all the boyfriends came running 😌

user 7 yall notice how Charles didn’t comment or even like !?

user 8 why would he like his mistress post -

user 9 THATS TOO MUCH @ user8

user 8 it’s the truth -

user 10 just go in hibernation

user 11 too much drama of this stupid girl !

Part 3

[celesteleoves]

Could you do a todoroki oneshot/head cannons for him having a secrete crush on (y/n) and doing some cheesy confessions? Thanks a lot!!❤️🤍

“I LOVE IT WHEN YOU CALL MY NAME.”

shoto todoroki x reader.

summary: shoto has developed a crush that even he himself doesn’t quite understand, so he’s hiding it. you however, have a small huge crush on him yourself aswell. hopefully he can confess!

warnings: mentions of the todoroki family, shoto being a little insecure, fluff with a SMALL tinge of angst! reader is as whipped as he is lol!

a/n: i decided to turn this into a little one shot. ty for requesting this ml! i really enjoy writing shoto and trying to understand his character (especially trying to interpret how he would do a confession lol!) enjoy!!!! pls send more requests. this is quite long i feel like :( i hope it’s to your liking!!!

—

“todoroki, have you ever wondered what it would be like to be in love?”

that was a sentence shoto didn’t think he’d have to answer at 10 am in the morning. yet here he is. standing very stiffly next to a happy momo who is helping him make breakfast for their classmates. the question certainly woke him up at this early time.

“not really.”

“oh come on! you know i’m not the type to push boundaries but are you sure?” momo looked at him in confusion, for a boy like shoto everyone would’ve thought love defintely came easily to him.

“i don’t think i have. please hand me the knife.”

momo sighed and passed him the knife before moving around the kitchen and grabbing the rest of the ingredients to finish up their meal.

——

the conversation with momo had been stuck in shoto’s head all throughout the day (it was currently 1 pm). he felt as though he answered her wrong. yet, how would he know a thing about love? romantic love. souls being practically tied to another. he didn’t know anything about it.

shoto felt uneasy facing emotions he never explored: love. It was like standing on a cliff's edge, peering into an unfamiliar abyss. His usually composed demeanor faltered as he grappled with the intensity of these new feelings. yet, despite his apprehension, a part of him was curious, cautiously reaching out to understand this uncharted territory.

from a young age, shoto learned he couldn't rely on his parents to model what real love looked like or how to navigate relationships. they weren't an example he could follow, leaving him uncertain and unguided in matters of the heart. that’s something shoto learnt at a young age, he couldn’t rely on his parents to show him what real love looks like.

he’s not very good at lying. thats also something shoto learnt at a young age. it baffles him how he has been able to hide his crush on you for this long.

you sat comfortably next to shoto, scrolling through your phone and peppering him with questions about the various foods you were discovering on your Pinterest feed.

“oh my gosh! did you know that strawberries are the most common fruit people use to confess their love?” you grinned like a child and turned your phone towards shoto who was already paying attention to your scrolling.

“oh wow, i didn’t know that.” shotos answer came out more nonchalant than he wanted and he winced, praying you wouldn’t be upset with him.

instead, you felt a warmth in your stomach at his words. excited to teach him more about strawberries, you leaned closer.

shotos breath hitched at the smell of your perfume engulfing his senses, he could practically see ever detail of your face. to the way you did your makeup all the way down to the necklace you wore that shoto had gifted you for your birthday.

the sight made shotos cheeks flushed as he took deep breaths. as of right now, shoto wished he would be more calm like he usually is.

damn it, hiding a crush is not easy.

little did either of you know, you were both thinking the same thing.

——

strawberries. the history of the strawberry dates back to Ancient Rome where the fruit was considered the symbol of Venus, the goddess of love, because of its red color and enticing taste.

shoto had been sitting in his dorm for hours looking up facts about strawberries.

he gently placed his phone down and pondered. does the kitchen have strawberries? or would he have to go buy some?

“i’ll check the kitchen.” he mumbled, hurriedly making his way there.

upon his arrival, he realized everyone seemed to be also chilling in their dorms. it was only 5 o’clock and a free day for his classmates to relax and catch up.

he searched the fridge, a deep frown settling on his face when he realized there were no strawberries.

shoto stared at the fridge for a couple minutes, debating what to do.

“shoto? is that you?” he jumped at the sound of the kitchen door creaking open but relaxed after realizing it was just you.

“sorry! didn’t mean to scare you. what are you looking for?” you moved towards him, stopping right behind him and peering over his shoulder to look at what the fridge might contain for him.

much to shotos dismay, it didn’t contain the one thing he wanted. the thing he craved however was just standing behind him.

“i want strawberries. do you want to come to the store with me to get some?” shoto peered back at you with the cutest look on his face. your heart clenched at his unintentional puppy eyes.

“yes! i mean- sure.” you stumbled over your words and he softly smiled, moving to grab his hoodie as you excitedly walked beside him, leaving the dorms and heading to the store.

the walk was calm, exactly what you needed but also despised. for months, it felt as if you had been left in the dark with shoto. it seems as though he’s keeping something from you.

selfishly, you really want to understand his sudden demeanour change. he’s almost softer, sweeter and very careful with you.

selfishly, shoto also wants to just run away and hide. he is not good at keeping secrets from you. this secret is something he knows would affect your friendship greatly. which is why he’s afraid.

“shoto. we’re here.” you spoke to him softly, the chill evening air makes you feel at peace next to him and shoto swears you glow as the afternoon sun hits the side of your face perfectly.

“i really want strawberries.” shoto said and you swore you almost let out a cackle at his blunt words, why did he need that fruit so badly?

“then let’s look!”

you two trudged to the fruit section of the store, analyzing which strawberries would be perfect.

“y/n, look at these ones.” shoto beckoned you over and you happily walked over to where he stood.

shoto had managed to find the most perfect strawberries you had never seen, they looked so perfect! (just like him) and you quickly nodded your head towards the cashier.

“hello! my my, what a lovely young couple you two are! did you know, strawberries are a symbol of love?” the cashier, a friendly middle aged women, spoke endearingly at you two.

“oh! we aren’t a-”

“thank you, m’aam.” shoto softly smiled at the lady and she grinned back, winking at you as you blushed.

“have a good one, you two!” the cashier waved as you two exited the store, you being too flustered to reply while shoto waved back at her.

his nerves began to get the best of him, his idea didn’t seem like it would work now. what if his perspective of love is wrong and he’s doing the opposite of what you think love is? the questions continued to plague his mind like a sick joke and taunt. his mind seemed to be his biggest enemy.

were you against the idea of dating him? you didn’t reply to the lady in the store. was it his scar? was it his personality? shoto suddenly really liked the idea of crawling into hole.

you moved towards a bench nearby, patting the seat next to you. you didn’t enjoy how quiet shoto had been. normally he would at least say a few words and you would be able to continue the conversation. shoto seemed speechless suddenly.

shoto stared at the batch of strawberries in his lap, grateful they were washed. he could eat them now with you.

he picked up what seemed like one singular strawberry that laid perfectly on top of the rest. as he picked the strawberry up, it revealed to be a double strawberry. (press on the text to learn more!)

“woah! a double strawberry, can we split it?” you spoke for the first time in a while and shoto felt his heart swoon, you wanted to share a strawberry with him?

shoto only nodded and split the strawberry for you two, a red hue very evident on his cheeks as he took a bite of the strawberry.

“you know, i’ve been wanting to tell you something for a while.”

shotos nerve racking words caused you to perk up in your seat as you quietly ate the strawberry, encouraging him to continue.

“um, strawberries mean love.” shoto mentally face palmed. that is not what he wanted to say!

you giggle, “i know sho! i told you that.”

silence overtook you two once again as you gave shoto a moment to think about his words, patiently nervously swinging your legs back and fourth beneath the bench.

“it is also said that if you spilt a double strawberry with someone, you two will fall in love.” shoto whispered those words as if they were forbidden.

your eyes widened and you let out a huff of laughter, trying to make humour of the situation incase he does but agree with your next words.

“and what happens if you’re already in love?”

shotos eyes bulged, he looked up from where he was staring at his feet nervously to make eye contact with you for the first time in a while.

the feeling of being nervous about what the other will say seems so intense, but once you're already in love, every word they utter becomes a symphony that warms your heart. you two felt that way each time the other spoke.

“then… the two will grow their relationship and be more than friends?” shoto asked shyly.

“yeah, that sounds about right.” you grinned, shuffling closer to shoto, finishing your strawberry as you place your head on his shoulder.

shoto smiled a toothy grin, silently applauding himself. his confession wasn’t as bad he thought it would be! strawberries really do symbolize love.

——

A/N: UM HI… i hope this was how you wanted it!!! i kinda got carried away… if you guys can’t tell i really like strawberries so i had to include them. please send tips for me to improve my writing and requests for not just mha, but jjk too!

[lordprettyflackotara]

till dawn || eyeless jack || bonus part

SMUT. MINORS DNI. 18+. tw: this is unfortunately very fluffy as well as smutty. if you came here for raw intense fucking wait until i release my new one shot with ej called huntin’ wabbitz. this is for the till dawn girlies ONLY. enjoy <3

“Why are we doing this again?”

Jeff’s voice was harsh, raising the question Ben had as well. The blonde stood in front of Jack, attempting to gracefully finish tying the demons bow tie. “Well Jeff in human culture weddings are a symbolic ceremony of love and unconditional commitment,” Ben explained, not glancing up at the pale killer. Somehow your request of a wedding had managed to get every creep dressed up, including Jacks friends.

Jeff went to run his fingers through his ash black hair, frowning once he realized it was in a man bun. “Yeah no I obviously have that part down pat. But I meant why are we doing this? We aren’t exactly humans anymore you know,” Jeff pointed out. Ben smiled as he finished adjusting Jacks bow tie. The sapphire blue suited him the best, according to Clockwork anyways.

“You are aware she’s a human right?” Ben asked. Jeff sighed, refraining himself from face palming. “As everyone has been talking about for the past twenty four hours, yes I am aware she’s a human,” Jeff answered. Ben went to defend you further, Jacks voice interrupting the blonde.

“We’re doing this because it’s what she wants.”

Believe it or not, Jack was apprehensive about the whole thing. It wasn’t the ceremony he feared or the social pressure to lift his mask to kiss your sweet lips. It was having you around so many creeps at once. The residents at Slender’s mansion had grown accustomed to your presence. You became just another resident, killer or not. Even the proxies had grown fond of you, initially pushing back on your stay due to your mortality. It may not have been a life they would’ve chosen for themselves, but you had proved time and time again your love for Jack prevailed all doubts.

It was also highly convenient to have someone able to grocery shop without a swat team being called.

You hadn’t outright come out and said you wanted marriage to Jack, but he was no fool. The magazines left out with pages of rings and dresses. Weddings were apart of your kinds culture and more importantly, they meant something to you. It wasn’t long after that Jack bribed Hoodie into helping him rob a jewelry store to get as many rings as they could carry. What else was he supposed to do? He didn’t know your ring size and he couldn’t possibly acquire the knowledge and be inconspicuous at the same time.

Word of your engagement spread like wildfire, the concept alone unheard of. Creeps from all over, including the Trenderman mansion, had been invited per your request. You had never met Laughing Jack, Jason the toy maker, Candypop, etc. Yet, you wanted all of them there for your special day. Jack thought it was touching once he put aside all of his fears about having that many immortal psychopaths around you. The main reason every creep turned up to your wedding was simple: you were human.

Outside of proxies, the supernatural haze that imbedded itself into creeps. It slowed down their aging, kept their bloodlust prevalent. Many of them didn’t even recall their human life. If they even had one to begin with. The idea alone that someone like you, could love someone endlessly like them was incomprehensible. This resulted in every creep on the planet to attend, that fact alone making Jack more nervous.

Slenderman had high expectations of his residents, ensuring that although unhinged they would maintain a stable and respectable behavior. Many of the creeps attending, including X-Virus and Nina the killer, were highly unpredictable. In the back of his mind he doubted that he would be able to protect you from all of them.

“Dude you should sit down, you don’t look so good,” Ben said, guiding him to sit down on the end of the bed. It was rare Jack had his mask off and it was most certainly non negotiable during the ceremony. But here in his bedroom with his (whether he’d admit it or not) best friends, he felt comfortable enough to take it off. Just for a moment. “You look kinda pale,” Jeff said, helping Ben guide Jack to sit down. The demon stifled a laugh. “Yeah you’re one to talk casper,” He chuckled.

Jeff rolled his eyes, a knock on the door interrupting a comeback that threatened to roll off of his tongue. The pale killer answered the door, revealing you. You were mesmerizing, the white dress Jane and Clockwork helped you acquire fitting you perfect. “I’d like a moment alone with Jack, if y’all don’t mind,” You say. Ben and Jeff exchanged glances. “Isn’t there some tradition about not seeing the bride until-” Jeff began, Ben’s hand planting a sharp slap on his shoulder.

“Hey dude what the fuck-”

Ben grabbed Jeff’s suit sleeve, dragging him towards the door. “Message received, see you guys at the ceremony,” He chimed cheerfully, a confused and mumbling Jeff trailing behind him. You could hear grumbling about Ben tearing the suit, the complaining making you giggle. You stepped inside, shutting the door behind you. Jack was eager to be beside you, approaching you quickly.

“Hi there,” You greeted, giving him a genuine smile. Upon seeing your face he began to relax, the dark gray color returning to his face. “You look absolutely stunning my mate,” Jack purred, pressing a kiss to your forehead. The sound of chatter from the hallway made Jack jump, pulling you behind him. He recognized the voices to belong to Laughing Jill and Kate the chaser, two creeps he did not trust. His gaze was centered on the door, your soft hand grabbing his arm.

“Jack, I need you to relax,” You say softly. Your voice was like warm honey, temptation threatening him to look away from the door. How could he protect you if he wasn’t ready? You walked around him, looking up at him as he towered over you. “EJ seriously, it’s okay. I’m okay,” You told him. Jacks gaze finally broke from the door, the sound of the girls straying off in the distance. “It’s hard to focus when there’s so many of my kind around. You’re not a proxy you know, you don’t have Slender’s unlimited protection,” Jack explained. His eyebrows furrowed as you admired his suit, rubbing his fingers over the suit jackets fabric.

“Maybe not. But I have yours, Jeffs, Ben’s, the proxies, Jane’s grown to like me I think, oh and Smiley,” You replied, giving him a small smile. Jacks eyebrows furrowed, tilting his head to the side. “You really think we could take on all of them and win?” He questioned. You giggled. You took his large hand, guiding him over to the window. You gestured for him to look outside, the creeps all taking their seats and talking. “This isn’t a war EJ. They’re not here to kill me. They’re here to celebrate,” You say. Jack watched as Smiley chased Sally around the yard, Slender and Trender caught up in a telepathic conversation at the podium.

Where the fuck did they get a podium?

“I guess what i’m trying to say is that you worry too much. Your friends like me right? So will they,” You told him, tucking your hair behind your ears. Jack contemplated your reasoning, glancing down and spotting the bloody painter. “You invited the bloody painter?” Jack questioned. You followed his gaze, spotting him talking to X-Virus. “I guess? Does it matter?” You asked, raising your eyebrows. Jack inhaled sharply. The last time he saw the Bloody Painter it ended in a bloody brawl. No pun intended.

“He’s just uh, not my favorite person on the planet,” Jack answered dryly. His gaze was locked onto him, refusing to shift away. You grabbed Jacks chin, guiding him to look at you. “I don’t like the idea of him seeing you. Being near you,” Jack admitted. It was something primal, something he couldn’t shake off. You were his mate and an enemy was prancing around his territory. “Guess you should show him who I belong to then,” You suggested, biting your bottom lip.

Jack could hear your heart skip a beat, a smile creeping across his face. “Oh you naughty little thing,” He whispered, bringing his lips to yours. Jack was never soft or gentle, but he tried his hardest to be so he didn’t ruin the dress. His kisses were hungry and desperate, his primal instincts ensuing. “How long do we have until the ceremony starts?” Jack asked, his lips refusing to stray from yours. You giggled, lying down on his bed. “Oh I don’t know, maybe till dawn?” You teased. Jack pounced on top of you, giving you a small smile.

“Need to know how much time I have with you love,” He purred, his breath hot against your ear. The sensation made you shudder in pleasure, your body igniting itself on fire. “Maybe twenty minutes?” You guessed. Jacks hands slowly pulled up your tight dress before cupping your drenched heat. “Okay maybe thirty,” You groaned. He could feel your dampness through your lacey white panties, the feeling alone euphoric. “Tsk tsk. Dressed so pure when you know I stole that purity long ago,” Jack hummed, teasingly dragging two fingers up and down your slit.

You whined, your hips bucking upwards. “Jack we don’t have time for teasing,” You say, eager to feel him. The demon above you quietly snickered, pushing your panties to the side. “It’s our wedding, they can wait,” He said, dropping to his knees. He dragged you by your thighs to the end of the bed, playfully licking up your thigh. “Jack please,” You whined, running your fingers through his hair. You tugged harshly at the roots, trying to drag him to your cunt. “So desperate,” Jack murmured before diving into your folds.

You could never explain or process the euphoria his three tongues provided. Two would shove themselves inside of you, scissoring your walls to stretch you out as much as they could. The third would attach itself to your clit, stimulating the bud as much as possible. It was an indescribable feeling, one that always made you moan and pant like a wild animal. Jack had purposefully gave you head everyday for a month, just to train the muscles in his tongues to be able to fuck you better.

As much as you were hesitant, it paid off.

“Fucking shit, Jack!” You moaned, throwing your head back as his large hands pried your thighs open. A primal growl rumbled in the bottom of his throat, his gaze centered on watching you fall apart. His tongues curled to begin abusing your g spot, your back arching off of the bed. You yanked at his locs, trying to pry him away from your aching cunt. You bit your bottom lip. “Jack if you keep that up you’re going to get very wet,” You threatened, your face turning red. You always got embarrassed of your bodies natural functions, Jack noticed. He didn’t see the point. He had seen every part of you and adored every nanometer.

You also had squirted on his fingers, tongues, and cock more times than he could count. How you orgasmed didn’t matter to him. He smirked as he continued his motions, your thighs trembling in his grasp. You whimpered as you came, your juices squirting across his face. You could feel your face growing hot, some of Jacks suit jacket soaked. He leaned back, your juices coating some of his clothing. He could hear your heart practically pounding against your rib cage.

“Goddammit-” Inhale. “Jack-” Exhale. “Your suits now all wet,” You sighed, trying to swallow as much air as possible Jack on the other hand was gleaming with pride, helping you rise to your feet. “It’ll dry. Besides, I think it’s pretty fucking hot,” He purred. He brought you over in front of his full length mirror, bringing your hands to either side of it to hold yourself up for support. “You look so beautiful, just watch yourself crumble for me,” Jack ordered. You could hear the clinking of his belt, the demon then wrapping his arms around your waist.

The height difference was one that couldn’t be ignored. Originally you didn’t think it would be possible for Jack to fuck you standing. That was of course until one eventful morning in the shower made it possible. All he had to do was pick you up and guide you down onto his cock. He did just that, watching you awkwardly balance on your tip toes to stay standing. As many times as you took him it always felt the same, your walls spasming around him as you struggled to take his girth.

“You’re doing so well for me beautiful, now open your eyes and watch,” Jack purred, placing a kiss on the side of your head. You felt him bottom out inside of you, the bulge of his cock visible through your dress. You whimpered as he let you adjust to him, his ears twitching at the sound of your heart beat. It always sped up when he first entered you, creating an addicting sympathy he wanted to hear forever. He swallowed as his gaze fell down to your neck, the urge to cover you in marks ensuing.

Jacks large hands grabbed your hips, slowly guiding you up and down his cock. “Fucking- fuck,” You moaned, struggling to keep your eyes open. Jack couldn’t control himself as he thrusted into you, his mind emptying entirely. “Such a good mate for me, taking me like this,” He panted. He licked the tender side of your neck, a chill running down your spine as he continued to fuck you. “You like this huh? Being used like my own personal fleshlight?” Jack chuckled darkly. Your head fell forward, your eyes screwing shut.

“Oh don’t get all shy on me now. Look at yourself,” Jack ordered. He slithered one hand up to your face, forcing you to look up. “Watch as I breed you mate. Fucking watch,” Jack rambled, grinning as your lips puckered out like a fish. Your noises were sinful, Jack couldn’t help but have an egotistical sense of pride. You could feel your second orgasm coming, your hands grabbing onto Jacks arm.

“J-Jack i’m gonna cum,” You panted. Jack’s hand slithered to your throat, squeezing the airway. “Not yet mate, wait for me,” He ordered. He continued to snap his hips into yours, your body beginning to shake as you tried to listen. “F-f-fuck I can’t-” You rambled. You moaned as you felt him choke you harder. “Awe you wanna cum so badly? Go on, cum. Cum on my fucking cock,” Jack huffed. The cord inside of you snapped, your body trembling as Jack came undone inside of you. Cumming anywhere besides deep in your cunt was out of the question, your pussy often dripping with his seed.

For a brief moment Jack held you in place, enjoying the feeling of your abused walls settling down around his shaft. “EJ?” You panted, still dazed. Your fingertips traced over the bulge that showed through your stomach. “Yeah?” Jack hummed. He wiped your smudged eye makeup, trying to clean you up without taking you off of his cock. “We’re still supposed to be getting married you know,” You chuckled. Jack playfully sighed, rolling his non existent eyes. He lifted you off of him, your bare feet hitting the wooden floor.

You turned around, pressing your lips to his. You smiled into the kiss, Jacks hands going to help you fix your dress. “How kind of you good sir,” You say teasingly, both of you letting out a genuine chuckle. A loud knock made both of you jump, Jacks eyebrows furrowing.

“Guys i’m not going to come in I know what you guys are up to but everyone’s hungry can you come get married already?” Ben asked. Jack quickly redressed himself, the two of you making sure the other was presentable. Once you both were properly dressed Jack opened the door. Ben’s eyes were buried in his hands. “Ben you can look at us you know,” Jack said, reaching over to his nightstand and grabbing his mask. The blonde shook his head. You stuck your head out from behind Jack.

“You really don’t wanna see me naked?” You asked curiously. You couldn’t help but burst into a fit of giggles as Ben quickly looked at you. Jack went to hit him, the blonde dodging his hit. “You gotta be faster than that Jacky boy,” He said teasingly, running down the hallway. Jack looked at you, his blue mask secured to his face. You stood on your tippy toes, pressing a kiss to his mask before encouraging him, “Go get em tiger, i’ll make sure the bridal party is ready.”

The bridal party in question was standing in beside the alter. Toby was your maid of honor, the ticking time bomb the most excited out of the three of them. Masky and Hoodie on the other hand, could not believe you roped them into this. “They’re fucking right now aren’t they?” Masky asked. Their gazes fell on Jack chasing Ben across the yard. “Maybe Ben got a peak, lucky man,” Hoodie snickered. Masky elbowed his partner, rolling his eyes. “They’re going on a honeymoon right? We’re never gonna get any sleep if they stay here after this is over,” Masky grumbled. They watched as Jack tackled Ben, the two tumbling to the ground.

“Where could they even go for a honeymoon?” Hoodie questioned. Toby waved cheerfully as you walked out of the back door. “They’re going to a remote cabin Slender got for them, isn’t that sweet?” He asked, smiling as you wobbled across the yard. Masky and Hoodie exchanged glances before resuming a calm facade. “Ten dollars says she’s pregnant by the time she gets back,” Hoodie said immediately. Masky grabbed a twenty dollar bill out of his pocket and showed it to his friends. “Make it twenty, not physically possible,” Masky replied. He raised his eyebrows as he watched Ben climb Jack like a jungle gym, the two in a petty brawl.

“They are aware they’re supposed to be getting married right now right?” Hoodie asked, watching as you smiled and greeted Laughing Jill and Jack. Masky sighed, reaching in his pocket and grabbing a box of cigarettes. “You can’t do that! This is a sacred ceremony!” Toby gasped, his head twitching to the side. Masky dug around in his suit pockets for a lighter. “Yeah yeah it’ll be fine kid. How long are we required to be here anyways? Boss was pretty vague with us,” Masky asked. Toby’s smile was cheerful as Hoodie handed Masky a lighter.

“He said till dawn.”

[xxsunoosprincess]

hiii thank you for your writings!

can you write enha and things they say during sex?

Tysm!! I’m so excited, it’s baby’s first request (˶‾᷄ ⁻̫ ‾᷅˵) hope you enjoy! xx

Enhypen and things they say during sex (OT6)

pairings: enhypen legal line x y/n

warnings: 18+, minors dni, dirty talk, fem!reader, mentions of overstim, oral sex, and sexting, Jake calls reader a whore and a cocksleeve <3

Heeseung is so down bad for you. That’s why when you guys have sex, he is spouting out praise. Loves you so so much and not afraid to say it.

𐙚 “You see what you do to me, baby? Fuck, I’m so hard for you”

𐙚 “Look up at me. Yeah, that’s it. Look so pretty like this. You’re made for my cock.”

Jay loves how stupid you get when he fucks you good, and the way he speaks to you already has you about half way there. Always asking you questions despite knowing you are too far gone to be able to answer.

𐙚 “That feel good? Hmm? Love when I fuck you like this?”

𐙚 “Give me your hand, sweetheart. Feel that? That’s me in your tummy. Is that too deep for you?” He so condescending it’s so hot.

Jake is always bossing you around in bed. Not shy about telling you how he likes it. Really doesn’t mean to be, his mouth is just filthy!

𐙚 “Kiss the tip, baby. Just like that. Fuuuck, you’re an angel. Love you so much.”

𐙚 “Fuck yourself on my dick like the little whore you are. I’m so close already, baby. My perfect little cocksleeve.”

Sunghoon tends to be quieter in bed, but loves building up the anticipation. Known to sext, and has absolutely no filter. Simple, but effective.

𐙚 “I think about you when I touch myself. Need you so bad.”

𐙚 “You look so good. Got me so fucking hard and you’re not even here.”

Sunoo is so loud when you fuck and wants you to be too! Wants everyone to know just how good he makes you feel!!

𐙚 “Don’t be shy baby, say my name. No need to hide those pretty sounds. Tell everyone who is fucking you right now.”

𐙚 “You sound so pretty gagging on my cock. My beautiful girl. Fuck, love you so much.”

Jungwon, always the supportive friend, can’t shake the habit in bed. Always encouraging you to fuck him just right!

𐙚 “Take it. Come on, I know you can fit all of me inside. That’s it, that’s a good girl”

𐙚 “Wanna cum again. Please, y/n, just a little faster. Ah~ <3!”

END.

a/n : sorry these are a bit short, I’m still figuring out how I want to do requests :3 requests are open if you want to see more!! Ty for reading <3 xx - princess

[n0tamused]

Welt nerding out about his little special interests and his tv show he likes and whatnot... Dr.Ratio going on and on about all his bath soaps and bath salts and whatever he has... Sunday snuggles and sleeping after a long and heavy day of work....

A/n: Sorry for taking so long pookie I hope you like these little imagines :( <3 mwah, ty for requesting <3

Contents: gn reader, separate drabbles for Sunday, Dr. Ratio and Welt, a bit angsty in Sunday's part, fluff otherwise

Gloved fingers held around the black stylus pen as it glided over the digital screen in a few precise strokes. The character on screen is becoming more and more alive, and looking over his shoulder you can see the several other frames that lay finished, resembling only the start of this little project you managed to convince Welt to partake in. 

“I take it you like it, right?” you ask, tiptoeing playfully around the direct question, prompting the man to laugh heartily, mirth seeping into the crinkles in his face. Leaning back in the chair he takes a small break from the lineart, adjusting his glasses before he look up at you where you stood at his side. 

“You’re spoiling me, you know?” he begins, his eyes mellow with a childlike wonder and joy that isn’t too often seen on his person these days. “Yes, I do like it, a lot. This tablet is even more advanced than the ones I was used to using back in my day. I mean, it holds so many functions, and the program itself has many great features to assist with the process - whether it be just one piece of art or a whole animation” His eyes gleam as he looks back at the screen, his eyes flickering over the corners of the canvas, the little icons and frames and the low opacity sketch of the animation.  

“That is a relief, and I’m glad to hear you’re enjoying it so much. You do deserve it, Mr. Yang” cooing at him softly you pat his shoulder and give him a light squeeze before taking note of what’s on screen. It’s a simple set of characters, and in a more cartoonish style - chibis, is what you heard them call this style. But the characters are oddly familiar to the crew itself.

“Huh..? Is that.. us?”

“Yes… Since this gift was from you, and also the crew has left its mark on this old heart, I thought that my first project on the tablet should be something special too.. Uh, wait..” He fumbles a bit with the frames and animation, brief images flickering of different character - Dan Heng surrounded with books, March 7th’s chibi showing a worried face as she stands next to a pot of Himeko’s coffee and Himeko looking pleased as she drinks from her mug, and there’s PomPom next to the Express, but what  gets your attention is the chibi version of yourself at the very start of the frame set. You’re sitting at a round table with a few chubby stars above you.

“Starting with you, I am first making an introduction to each character..”

“But where are you?”

“Hm?”

“I saw everyone in these, but not yourself? This crew is incomplete without you, Welt.. You should put us together in one frame. I mean, we can be drinking tea at the table together, right?"

Welt looks at you, then at the frame, noting the vacant left side of the big table. 

“You’re right…”

“Sunday..” sleepy mutters fall from your lips as you push yourself to sit on the big bed, the covers pooling at your hips. Your hand is lifted up to shield your eyes from the golden light that spilled from the hall. 

“Apologies... I'll turn the light off now.." comes a reply from the figure shrouded in darkness, but by silhouette alone you could tell him apart from another. His wings droop underneath his ears, showing that even the lightest parts of him felt the heaviness of today’s work. He swiftly but quietly slips into the hallway to turn the lights off, before his footsteps mark his return to the bedroom. Now you can only listen to him shuffle about, the heavy breathing making your heart throb from concern, but you know asking him about it wouldn’t grant you an answer.

So you wait until he lifts the bedsheets and until his palm searches for you across the vast expanse of the mattress. Taking his hand in yours you lead him to where you are, laying on your back and feeling the bed dip and move underneath you until Sunday has settled himself with his head on your chest. Sighing the biggest breath you heard from him so far, you tighten your hold on him, arms circling around his shoulders.

His arms wrapped around your waist as he had you both sinking further into the bed, desperate to feel your warmth, hear your peace and feel it rub off on him too. “I missed you…” he confessed, leaving a chaste kiss on your collarbone before his ear pressed above your heart, listening to the trapped drumming within. 

“I missed you too..” you reply, combing your fingers through his hair, feeling the wings around his waist stretch out for arguably the first time today, one wing shorter than the other, feathers cut halfway. 

“Rest now..” you prompt, kissing the top of his head and he hums into you, wanting nothing more than to dream of you and freedom with you.

"I told you to be a little more careful with which shampoos you purchased.." you heard him say when you pointed out how a particular shampoo on the shelf made your hair damaged the last time you used it. You sighed, in agreement with him, but as he plucked the bottle from the shelf you looked over the other products on the shelves, taking a hair mask container and putting it in your cart.

“See, this is why this shampoo didn’t sit well with you” Veritas says, looking over the ingredient list after catching sight of the logo of the producer, a sneer already on his face as he never had good experiences with this company’s products. 

You look over at him, holding onto the shopping cart with one hand as you peer at the bottle in his hand. “Oh, yeah- that one did have my hair feeling like hay.. ugh” you frown a little but as Veritas looks further down the ingredients list, you let your eyes wander over the shelves in search for a possible alternative - one that won’t leave your hair feeling dry and ready to snap. 

“Hmm…” Veritas looks up, his coral eyes looking over at you after he had returned the bottle onto the shelf. “Let me see..” he muttered, already reaching out to grasp a lock of your hair in between his fingers, twirling it for a moment before thinking hard about it. Then his eyes return to the vast selection of shampoos, reaching for a green bottle on a higher shelf. “Ah, this one would go well for your hair type. And it will regenerate whatever damage that other bottle left you with”

“Oh, let me smell it-” you whisper with soft excitement, forcing a huffed chuckle from Veritas as it seemed you cared more about the smell than what the shampoo actually had to offer. He shakes his head as he pops the lid open and brings it to your nose. 

“Does it smell good enough for you?” he asked, teasing laced in his words, but despite that he brought the bottle to his nose as well to inhale the light green apple smell. He relishes in the scent, imagining the way our hair would smell the same if you purchased this. 

“Ohh.. oh definitely, it smells so good. Give it here” you smile up at him and take the bottle to put in the cart. “I should ask you more often on this guru advice, Veritas, you’re more help than I gave you credit for” you playfully jab at him as you walk a few steps forward, looking at another section where bath salts and bath bombs lay. “Oh! Look at this!” you gleam as you pluck a round bath bomb colored blue. 

“Lavender?” Veritas asked as he came up next to you, choosing to ignore your initial jab. 

“Yeah. Lavender suits you, and it is a relaxing scent over all. Didn’t you run out of those bath salts too? We should get some new ones” you throw the bath bomb into the cart before he can reject it, but you make space for him to look over the other products, smiling up at him coyly as he gives you a daring look, yet you knew he meant no malice, he was being playful. 

Ⓒ n0tamused. Do not repost, translate, edit, and/or copy any of my works. Likes, comments, and reblogs are appreciated.