#understandably sex adverse after he was abused

[katepeoart]

the fact that Astarion will leave you after you insist on having sex while he's trying to have a real, intimate conversation and connection with you is just Correct

[99liners]

liberosis — myg;

liberosis; the desire to care less about things.

pairings: lawyer!min yoongi x trophy wife!reader

extra characters: kim taehyung and tanaz (enouement), kim seokjin and inaya (aphotic), jeon jeongguk and azumi (kaiho), park jimin and rei (nodus tollens), jung hoseok (psychomachy) (avengers, assemble!)

genre: angst, smut, contractual marriage!au, age-gap!au (10 years)

words: 31.390

warnings: tsundere!min yoongi, toxic relationship, talks of corruption, morally corrupt!min yoongi, morally corrupt!bts, minor/unnamed character deaths, yoongi is a chain-smoker (most lawyers smoke, believe me on this one), cold and distant behaviour, scenes with alcohol consumption, face-sitting, pussy-eating, consensual and unprotected sex, doggy-style, orgasms (f / m), mental abuse, mental breakdown / meltdown, hurtful words, mentally abusive, explicit display of controlling behaviour, extreme paranoia, irrationality, yoongi exhibits signs of pyromania (he sets ‘some’ things on fire), mentions of cheating, exhibitionism.

part of: tatemae; 建前 — a bts series.

a/n: let me warn you all, well in advance, that the legal depictions portrayed in this piece of work, specifically about ‘spousal privilege’ is not how the actual rule of law works and is a bit different (also can differ based on personal laws around the world). i took the liberty to alter some details to suit this piece of work better, so please take note of them with a grain of salt. your understanding is appreciated!

August 2020:

you turned off the water tap after using the facilities. at the very least, hospital restrooms are squeaky clean and hygienic. funny how a clean washroom is the highlight of your week.

the past week has been a ride to hell and back. watching your father fight death, suffering to take even the next breath, all because your family cannot afford the best cancer treatment. chemotherapy can drastically increase his survival rate, but it costs a fortune in addition to his daily treatment requirements.

your mother had passed away when you were around two years old, and since then, it has always been your father and you. 

your father, a low-grade government employee, did not earn much. it was enough to get by, a low-key life with the proper necessities. you never had a want in life, but adversely, there were no funds in any bank for emergencies like hospital bills. your father retired around three years ago, his pension being 75% of his salary, causing a stretch in daily life. you have had part-time jobs since you were fifteen (15), but wages from part-time jobs hardly account for pocket money; it cannot possibly run a household.

you shook off the water droplets lacing your hands before standing in front of the hand dryer. there were some sounds of footsteps outside, almost like someone was pacing the length of the restroom entrance while talking on the phone.

you were too busy drying your hands when the dryer sensor went off for a few seconds.

“jeon, i need you here. there is a body, and i need it taken care of... what do you mean you are busy? i am fucking busy too... taehyung, that idiot called me instead of you... yeah? well, i don’t fucking care whether you two get along or not. i came thinking it’s an emergency because mighty kim seokjin told me. then i discovered that it’s beyond my concern,” the male, who now stood right outside the blurry glass panel of the restroom door, took a drag of his cigarette before continuing, “no, no, it’s not about hoseok. it’s seokjin’s business. some poor chap got stuck in the crosshairs.”

you heard the part of the conversation clear as day before the dryer started again. hearing the dryer's sound, the voice outside the door ceased at once. the realization did not take long to hit that you just listened to a conversation that you were clearly not supposed to. you tried to stop the dryer, but it was sensor-enabled and had a time lag before turning on and off. you tore your hands away from where they were lying under the machine, but by the time it stopped whirring, the restroom door opened with one smooth push of a hand.

“you’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” the male groaned before putting out the cigarette in his hands and flicking it towards the trash can.

you stared in absolute shock at the male; he was dressed in a suit, made of lush expensive fabric, polished shoes. his tie was tucked inside the sweater he was adorning over his shirt and underneath his suit blazer. initially, you thought it would be a gangster, but the look of the sophisticated person standing in front of you caused you to do a double-take. 

“what did you hear?” he took steps towards you, the automated restroom door closing behind him.

“what..?” your eyebrows scrunched together at the sudden interrogative tone.

“are you deaf? i asked, what did you hear?”

“nothing,” you replied sternly this time, holding your head high as you tried to walk away, but the male barred your pathway.

he looked at you, creating the illusion of towering over you although he is of average height and not that taller compared to you. he had a sombre look; the man meant business only.

“don’t make me repeat myself. i am not having the best day.”

“of course, guess hiding dead bodies is not your forte,” you blurted out unintentionally. your passive aggression is going to sign your death warrant someday soon.

an unmistakable smirk appeared on the male’s face, his eyes never breaking contact with yours, maintaining the upper hand, “so you did hear it.”

“well, you were not exactly being subtle,” you sighed and replied honestly, now that the cat is out of the bag.

“oh yeah? my bad, my first slip up and at what cost. humour me, what all did you hear?”

“listen, i don’t care who you are, who you work for or with, i won’t tell anyone anything. i promise,” you spoke softly, just wanting to leave, but he kept glaring at you till you finally gave up, “i heard you telling someone to take care of a body. i heard four names. i don’t know any of them, i promise.”

“you heard the names too?” he asked, almost in disbelief because that is circumstantial evidence. you nodded at the rhetoric inquiry causing the male to massage his temple with his forefinger and thumb, “what do i do with you now?” he mumbled to himself.

“don’t kill me please, i need to take care of my dad,” you spoke out, impatient to get back to your father.

“oh, little one. how do i believe that? you could rat me out anytime.”

“no, i won’t! i don’t even know your name! see, there’s the loophole.”

a dark chuckle left his thinly shaped lips, “do you take me for an idiot? i know a self-righteous person when i see one,” a reminder tone played on his phone, causing him to check it.

“i am serious, mister. this is none of my business. i heard things i shouldn’t have, and i am more than happy to forget about the whole incident.”

min yoongi, obviously, did not trust a word that left your mouth but decided to indulge you as he was running late for a hearing. this way, he can also understand your intentions better, “i don’t believe that, but for the time being, i am going to let it go and forget this ever happened.”

you nodded at that and meant to walk away, but the man caught you by your elbow. the grip was firm, forceful even.

“don’t think i will hesitate even for a second before ruining your life if you choose to open your trap anywhere.”

you wrested out of his grip, “i am not an idiot either. you won’t see me again,” you replied briskly before exiting the restroom. letting a sigh of relief on escaping the situation, you walked back to your father’s room.

︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶༉‧₊˚.

it did not take more than three days for the universe to make you eat your words as you found yourself walking towards the police station.

‘he is going to kill me, surely,’ you sighed, your hands clutching on the straps of the crossbody bag hanging from your shoulder. you stopped in your tracks around 200 metres away from the precinct entrance and turned back.

‘i need to be alive for dad,’ you thought as you started walking in the opposite direction. 

‘but i should report it. they got someone killed,’ you groaned, stopping in your tracks. turning back, your eyes traced the precinct building while in the other direction, at a considerable distance, was the hospital where you came from.

confronted by your thoughts, you sat down on the pavement, covering your face. the dilemma was giving you a headache. you need to stay alive to help your father heal, but you cannot just not report a serious crime like murder. 

it was sunny out, the rays of sunlight almost burning off the top part of your head, but you kept sitting with your face bowed down, trying to decide what to do.

“ma’am, are you alright?” a voice caused you to break out from your train of thoughts and look up.

“i am alright,” you croaked out after clearing the lump in your throat.

“you look out of sorts. is everything alright? i am a cop,” he showed you his badge, which read ‘detective jung minjun, violent crimes squad,’ “maybe i can get you a cab home.”

your eyes almost lit up at the sight of his badge.

‘is this a sign from the universe?’

you kept staring at him for a while before finally speaking up, “actually, i want to report a crime, but i am afraid i will risk my safety.”

“ma’am, we can help you with that. why don’t you come with me to the precinct and talk to my senior?” he urged you.

you were already leaning more on the ‘should report it’ side, and now coupled with his reassurance, you stood up to your feet.

i mean, what is the worst that could happen?

“alright. but i am still not sure.”

“i can understand,” minjun offered you an understanding smile before walking towards the precinct with you on his toes.

“sir?” minjun spoke up once inside the precinct, standing in front of the largest desk. the man sitting on the other end of the desk looked up from his desktop screen and urged minjun to go on.

you watched quietly from behind minjun’s figure, almost like you had taken shelter behind him.

“ma’am here wants to report a crime,” minjun moved aside and left, so now you were left face-to-face with the senior detective. 

‘senior detective jeon jeongguk’ read the name plaque kept on top of his desk.

“yes, miss, go ahead,” jeon jeongguk stood up and walked to you, pulling out a chair for you, “you look anxious. here, have some water,” he moved a glass of water towards you.

you sat down, your body almost reclusing into yourself in the presence of the detective. compared to minjun, jeongguk had a heavier presence. his war-core attire screamed superiority in power. he was trying his best to be gentle, but there was a certain crassness in his tone. guess that comes from dealing with notorious criminals all day. you extended your shaky hand to take the glass of water he was holding out for you.

“it’s alright, don’t be afraid. we are all here to protect you,” jeongguk smiled before walking back to his chair and taking a seat, “now, tell me what happened?”

“i am not sure if i want to make an official statement,” you mentioned after taking a sip of the water.

“sure. whatever makes you feel comfortable.”

you nodded and narrated the whole incident to him down to the T, not leaving a detail out.

“four names you said, a john, taehyung, kim seokjin and hoseok, right?”

“yeah! you got them right.”

“do you want to make an official statement and report the crime?”

“i wasn’t so sure about it, but now that i am here, might as well go ahead with it.” you sighed.

jeongguk nodded and turned to minjun, who took the cue and recorded your statement. jeongguk stood up from his seat, grabbed his phone and mumbled a soft ‘excuse me’ before walking out of the precinct.

“your witness is here,” jeongguk spoke through the receiver of his phone.

yoongi, on the other side of the call, sighed, “i knew it. did you take her statement?”

“had to. i am not the sole person who works here, everyone in the squad heard what she had to say, and she wanted to report the crime, so yeah, she is getting her statement recorded right now.”

“fuck. i swear i can’t go one day without seokjin’s stupid issues blowing up in my ass. hold her there, i am on my way.”

“cool. it’s almost lunchtime, so i will make sure it’s just her, and i left in the precinct.”

“got it.”

jeongguk completed his call before walking back in.

“can i leave now?” you asked as the detective made his way back to his desk where you were sitting.

“did they record your statement?”

“yeah, sir. they did,” you smiled, preparing to stand up.

“can you hold on for a while? i have some additional documents i need you to sign.”

“oh? alright,” you let your weight rest back on your seated legs.

“yeah, yoon-” jeongguk turned around and faked being surprised with the realisation that everyone had left for lunch, “i am afraid you will have to wait, ma’am. form 15-B is maintained by yoona, and everyone is gone for lunch.”

you nodded, thinking nothing much of it and took out your phone to pass the time.

jeongguk offered you a small smile before going back to the case file he was registering onto the system after giving yoongi the affirmation that you two were left alone now.

it took ten minutes for yoongi to arrive from his office to the precinct. he sauntered in, as soft as a cat, not letting you any time to suspect that someone was standing right behind you.

you did notice something was amiss when you could smell a familiar cologne. you turned back in a flash only to discover that your hunch was correct. the cologne belonged to that very man, and now he was standing right behind you.

“you are a sanctimonious little prick, aren’t you?” yoongi smiled as he noted the look of dismay on your face.

you turned to jeongguk, “sir, this is the guy! he was the one talking about the dead body.”

jeongguk leaned back into his chair, “i know, miss. i know.”

“you... know?” your eyebrows scrunched together in disbelief. reports of police corruption are rampant worldwide, but it is indisputable that we trust the cops to protect us at the end of the day. when it happens to you, it feels surreal. you felt so helpless because you had nowhere else to turn to. also, you do not know what will happen to you now.

“so it wasn’t john but a jeon?” you asked after putting the pieces together.

jeongguk laughed, “well, they both have the same pronunciation, but yes, i spell it as j-e-o-n.”

you went to reply, but yoongi’s voice brought your attention back to him.

“you are big on words, little one. i must say, you even promised me by yourself that you would forget about everything.”

“i tried, okay! i tried, but you assholes killed a person.”

yoongi let a chuckle before getting a hold of your elbow, “get up.”

“wher-where are we going?” you kept looking between jeongguk and the male, scared for your dear life.

“to have the talk, little one. since you have chosen this path, let me show you your options now. it’s only fair,” he tugged on your hand again.

you stood up and followed him out to his car. it was a black rolls royce wraith. the male opened the right side back door and pushed you in like neither you nor the car meant anything. he got in after you, shortly.

you regained your balance and sat properly on the seat, “why are you doing this?”

“are you serious? i should be the one asking you that!” he reached inside his blazer pocket and brought out a sealed packet of imported Marlboro Vintage.

you scoffed, “well, it’s too late. i already made an official statement.”

“yes, that you did,” the male held the butt of the cigarette between his lips before lighting it up, “but you have to appear in court and testify in front of a judge.”

“and i will if that is not evident enough by now.”

the male scoffed this time, dragging in a long puff before breathing it out, “i was hoping you would say that. unfortunately, i, for a fact, know that you would not be able to make it to court. i am given to believe that your father is in critical condition, and chemotherapy can greatly help his treatment for renal cancer.”

“how do you know that?”

“i know everything about you, y/l/n y/n. everything. i have your school records in my office. top As but never joined college cause of high fees.”

“none of that has anything to do with you or this situation,” you looked around, trying to locate the car door. drawing in another breath was becoming impossible.

“just ask, and you shall receive,” the male shook his head before cracking the window open, letting the smoke move out as fresh air poured in, “my name is min yoongi. remember that cause you will be hearing soon from my assistant about the cheque. so, why don’t you be a good daughter and take care of your dad? go ahead and get a new kidney even!” he leaned in, a sick grin playing on his lips. the stench of cigarettes wafting through your nostrils as you only leaned back.

yoongi advanced a hand, causing you to clutch your hands tightly near your chest, but he unlocked your side of the door to push it open, “get lost. you will get your money soon. keep your trap shut.”

you peeked your eyes open, and after noticing that he opened the door, you got to your feet and left as fast as your wobbly feet could take you.

one month later. September 2020:

you came back from work and took off your jacket while listening to pending voicemails. most of them were just from your friends, but the last one was from the hospital. your father’s primary doctor had left a voicemail stating that they have found a kidney transplant match for your father. you played the voicemail over and over again, happy that your father can get better now. for the past month, you have held on to yoongi’s cheque, unsure if you should accept it, but what could possibly come before your father’s health? you walked to your room and pulled out the slightly tattered cheque from under the mattress. you looked at it with the same expression of disbelief as you have over the past four weeks. how can someone just hand over five hundred million korean won ($500,000) just like that? keeping it back in the safe place, you took a quick shower before heading over to the hospital to be with your father. he would probably rip out the kidney with his own two hands if he ever comes to know where the money came from, but you will just think of a lie when the time comes.

come next morning, you headed back to your place from the hospital to freshen up and head to work when a sealed official mail lying in front of your door caught your eye. the symbol of justice was unmistakable as you leaned down to pick it up. it was a court summons, and just like that, it was almost as if the earth stopped spinning, your surroundings blurred out as you read the letter. you are expected to appear in court next week thursday to testify. all five of your senses felt numb and hot at the same time as you made a run for your room to retrieve the cheque. you changed quickly, and instead of clocking in for work, you headed over to min specter firm. over the past month, you have gathered some intel on him. from the internet, you gathered that yoongi is a bigshot criminal lawyer who runs one of the most successful law firms in the country. he has completed his education from the top universities worldwide and charged a fortune for a single appearance in court. 

however, there was not much information available about any other aspects of his life.

︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶༉‧₊˚.

fifteen minutes later, you were standing in front of the trust tower in seocho-gu. the board on the front side of the building read “min specter legal firm” in bold.

you struggled to take another step forward because refusing his money is not the problem. the issue is what he will do with you next. he is not the type to just let you walk free after you inform him that you intend to testify in court, after all.

“hey, y/n. eonnie, is that you?” a familiar voice broke you from your trance.

you turned to your left when you recognized the owner of the voice. your favourite junior-classman from high school; rei.

“yeah, it’s me. rei, oh my god, i am seeing you after graduation?”

“yes!” rei smiled before leaning in to hug you.

you stood there for mere seconds, your hands lying limp by your side before you eventually hugged her back. you closed your eyes after resting your chin on her shoulder, feeling less stressed as your tensed form relaxed under her reassuring taps on your back.

“what are you doing here?” rei asked upon pulling back from the hug.

“uh, i am here to meet min yoongi.”

“you are? is everything alright? are you in trouble?” she inquired as you both headed inside the building.

“h-how do you know?” you turned to her, visibly shocked.

“well, you don’t meet up with min sir, if you don’t have a business to discuss.”

“oh yeah, that. right. what about you?”

“oh, i work here.”

you both walked to the elevator as rei clicked on the floor button.

“you are an advocate?”

“yes, ma’am. i just graduated a few months ago, so i am fairly a newbie.”

you nodded, “can you show me which way his office is?”

“of course,” rei smiled at you, but it turned to a frown when you kept staring ahead, pointlessly, at the closed elevator doors.

rei extended her hand and kept it on your closed fist, giving it a squeeze, “don’t be nervous. i know sir does not take on a lot of cases, but even if he refuses you, i am here for you. let me know if i can help you.”

you looked at her with a smile on your face this time as the doors opened, “i will keep that in mind.”

rei flashed you a smile before showing you off to yoongi’s chamber. you bid goodbye to her before giving your name to yoongi’s assistant sat outside in the lobby.

you were called to his chamber within five minutes. timidly, you walked through the large oak double doors after knocking.

“what is it?” yoongi leaned back in his chair, his eyes trained lazily at you.

“i can’t do it,” you brought out the cheque from your trackpants pocket and kept it on the edge of his enormous oak table.

“what, do you want more money? is that it?” yoongi asked, crumpling up the cheque and tossing it in the bin.

you shook your head, “i can’t take a penny from you. it’s blood money.”

“your dad is literally on the verge of death. are you sure that argument matters?”

“i don’t know what matters or doesn’t. i will admit, i was blinded by the money, by the thought of seeing my father healthy again, but i got the court summons today, and it did help me snap out of that superficial happiness. my dad raised me better.”

“yes, and this is how you are repaying him by choosing death for him. literally.”

“exactly. this is how i am repaying him, to this extent.”

yoongi shook his head, “i have a murder trial hearing in two hours. my junior is supposed to come to brief me in maybe another twenty minutes or so. give me one reason why i shouldn’t just get rid of you and be done with this whole business once and for all.”

“i am trying, but i just can’t take that money. you can’t stop me from showing up at court next week.”

“are you sure? i can make a phone call, and you will end up the same way as the guy over whom you are holding this candle of morality.”

“please, don’t kill me. much like everybody else, i do not want to die.”

“i have no intention of having you killed, or i would have made that phone call quite some time ago. getting someone killed is easier said than done, little one. it will only cause me more issues. on the other hand, making your life difficult can be easily arranged.”

“then, i guess we have reached an impasse.”

“not yet.” yoongi tapped a button on the telephone, “jungha, can you summon that rei kid for me? thanks.”

“why are you calling rei?” worry graced your features.

“oh, you know rei?”

“yeah, she was my junior in school.”

“wow, this is only getting better and better.” an evil smile appeared on his face, “so listen carefully, when she comes here, i am going to make an offer with her as a witness. and if you refute it, i will fire her, and i will make your life hell, including your dying dad’s.”

before you could reject or agree with the notion, there was a knock at the door as rei walked in.

“oh, i am sorry, sir. i was unaware that you were with a client. i can come back later?”

yoongi shook his hand and pointed to the empty chair beside you, “she is no client. she is my fiancée.”

rei’s head turned to you in a flash. you are sure she must have gotten whiplash from it.

“you guys are engaged?” her eyes fleeted between her boss and you, in quite the frenzied manner.

you kept quiet, unsure where yoongi was taking this. was he trying to test you in some way?

“yeah. i asked you here for another issue, however. can you tell me what is the validity of testimony in criminal cases if spousal privilege is invoked?”

“oh, it would be inadmissible because the other spouse can just refuse to disclose any conversation as part of the confidential marital communications.”

“right,” yoongi turned to you, the same evil smile on his face, “are you free this monday, miss park?”

so this is where marriage comes up. he would be basically buying off your witness testimony.

rei nodded, “yes, sir, i am.”

“good. can you come over to the registrars' office on monday morning? y/n would need a witness for the marriage, but her dad is sick and cannot attend.”

“me?” rei turned to you again.

you finally looked at her. either you agree with yoongi, or you would be dragging rei along with your father in this mess. you have known rei from middle school through high school. while you had lost your mother at a young age, rei had lost both her parents. when you passed high school while rei still had a year left, she cried her heart out on the graduation day because you were one of the only few people who ever cared for her. you have always empathized with her, and dragging her down with you seemed downright cruel.

“yes, rei. i would like that,” you faked a smile.

“i would be honoured to, eonnie.” rei stated before leaving you alone with yoongi again.

“so, you can use your head after all,” yoongi commented after the doors closed behind rei.

“i don’t see the point of making her suffer.”

“aw, i almost forgot about your self-righteous meter. it has far surpassed the skies. anyways, i will see you on monday. if you have any boyfriend or whatever, hope three days are enough to break up and wrap up any other business.”

“please, think about it again. can’t we take another option? you don’t even know me! nor do i, you.”

“don’t care. i don’t date, i don’t have time for any of this bullshit, and i already did give you other options. this is the last bit of rope i am willing to throw you at having a life and watching your loved ones living their lives happily,” yoongi stood up, his fair veiny hands buttoning his blazer buttons, “see yourself out. i have to do the briefing for a case. see you later, little one,” yoongi pat the top of your head in the most patronizing manner before walking out, leaving you alone in his office, all alone with nothing but your conflicting thoughts.

︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶༉‧₊˚.

“isn’t this your senior prom dress?” rei asked as she tried to do an up-do on your hair. you already told her that it is alright, but she insisted you look the best on your special day. it made you almost snort in derision, your best day.

sure.

“yeah.”

“thought you wanted to wear your mother’s dress at your wedding.”

you almost stopped breathing on hearing that. yes, that is what you had always dreamt of doing, of walking down the aisle in your mom’s beautiful wedding dress. you still keep her picture adorning the beautiful dress over your dresser. she looked so graceful, a genuine smile on her face. that is what you had always visualized your special day to be and not this, definitely not this. with a stranger, in the registrar’s office, without the presence of your father, all because you refuse to cower down to the way of this unfair world.

“yeah, uh, it got torn during a move and is non-restorable,” you lied straight through your teeth.

“really? that’s too bad. okay, here, look,” she turned the front camera on her phone before handing it to you, “hope you like it.”

you took the phone and stared at your face on the screen. It was just a reminder of what reality has turned into and what you are about to walk into. handing back the phone to her, you faked a smile, “i love it.”

rei just stared at you, seeing right through your fake smile, “why don’t i believe that?”

“no, seriously. you have done a good job, love!”

“no, i mean. can i ask you something?” she continued after you gave her a nod, “are you really sure about sir? i don’t mean to sound too rude, but you two look like you have never even been in each other’s presence before.”

“i guess that’s just how we are,” you shrugged and watched yoongi walk towards you both. he was dressed in one of his usual suits.

“we are next,” he announced with his arrival and turned to rei, “did you get the next date for that theft case?”

“yes, i did,” the pair continued talking about the details of some case when rei stopped and turned to you, “sir, it’s your wedding day. let’s not talk about work.”

“yeah. that. right. totally slipped my mind,” yoongi mumbled, “thanks for, uh, taking care of,” his eyes turned to your face as he tried to remember your name, “my, um, bride.”

you stared at him in sheer disbelief and with disdain. did he just stutter while remembering your name? so now he cannot even remember your name?

after yoongi’s witness, kim seokjin and his wife inaya came over, the group of you headed inside the registrar’s office.

yoongi was the first to sign the documents before turning the marriage register and prenuptial document towards you.

your gaze was strictly trained at him, your hands shaking as they got the hold of the pen from his hand. your eyes still pleading him to not take such a drastic step. you knew he was not going to budge, yet you tried that one last time before finally signing both the documents, sealing your fate with his.

the registrar attested the document, and after all the formalities were over, the group headed outside.

“you know, we met because of you,” yoongi started in a sarcastic tone, addressing seokjin.

“ah, yoongi-ah, you don’t have to thank me,” seokjin laughed, knowing very well what yoongi was hinting at, but he could not miss the opportunity to tease the younger man.

“no, hyung, i am so grateful to you,” yoongi gritted further. his tone was in complete contrast with his jovial expressions, “i can never thank you enough.”

seokjin tried to stop his laughter but failed tragically, “cheer up yoongi. you were the only bachelor in our group, and i was sad to see you so lonely.”

“oh! you were concerned about me???” yoongi’s voice almost went up an octave in absolute exaggeration.

“of course! we all were!” seokjin turned to you, “we are kind of a big group, y/n. would you like to have us over some time so we can all get to know you better? i only want to see yoongi happy. you know, put a smile on that stoic face.”

you were caught off-guard when seokjin addressed you. after rei left, you were stood quietly beside yoongi while the two men talked. you did not fail to note the sarcastic tone of your newly-wed husband while he spoke about you. well, the feeling is mutual. you are not ecstatic about him, either.

you almost wanted to curse seokjin out. yoongi is correct, this whole thing is happening because of him, but inaya was there, who clearly looked like she was unaware of the situation, so you chose not to lash out publicly, “of course, mr kim. that would be lovely.”

“it would be so nice to spend time with you, and rei too, she was nice,” inaya spoke up, smiling at you.

you smiled back, “i would like that very much. i will have rei over as well.”

“well, the girls have decided then.”

yoongi fought off the urge to roll his eyes as the couple took their leave.

“i have to go to court,” he spoke after taking a glance at his wristwatch, “my driver will take you to my place.”

“alright. i will be gone to the hospital till late.”

yoongi shrugged, “hardly matters to me. i am home mostly after ten in the night.”

“oh. okay,” you replied before getting in the car, and the driver first dropped off yoongi at the court before taking you to his place. 

you stepped out of the car, your eyes stuck at the beautiful architectural monument in front of you. while the driver unloaded your luggage from the vehicle, your eyes fell on a lady dressed in a black dress with a white apron, stood at the front door. she resembled one of those maids from the eighty’s movies. her hair was prim and proper, her posture — the epitome of vintage high ladies.

“this way, ma’am,” the driver spoke up as he carried your luggage towards the entrance.

you followed him quietly till you saw the lady approaching you. she had the kindest smile you have ever encountered. although her skin was riddled with wrinkles, her features were sharp, nonetheless. she reminded you a lot of your own dead mother.

“i am juyun, ma’am, and i have been at mr min’s service for more than a decade. i am his family housekeeper. it’s so great to meet you.”

“please call me y/n, and it’s great to meet you, as well.”

“oh, i can never, ma’am. that would be inappropriate. if you kindly will, this way,” she twisted open the handle on the front door to usher you inside.

you walked inside the house as prompted by the kind maid. the driver brought your luggage and placed it in yoongi’s bedroom. early in the morning, yoongi had picked you up from your place along with your stuff. first, you headed to the registrar’s office and now here you are. within a matter of a few hours, your address, your marital status and your fate changed.

you looked around the house, which was nothing less than a palace.

“would you like to take a look around?” the kind maid, juyun, spoke up when you kept looking at the expensive paintings mounted on the wall.

“no, thank you. i have to go meet my father.”

“would you like me to draw a bath for you, instead?”

“yes, that would be nice,” you turned to her after finishing your short eye-tour.

juyun nodded and walked to yoongi’s room with you on her tow. one look around the room, and you knew it was yoongi’s bedroom. neatly organized and a hundred per cent devoid of any kind of personal memento, almost like it is specifically designed to be devoid of any personal touch.

“can you set up my room in the guest room, please?”

“as you say, ma’am.” juyun agreed at once like it was nothing odd. well, considering she has been in yoongi’s service for more than a decade, she clearly knew him better. 

︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶༉‧₊˚.

later in the night, you were already asleep by the time yoongi came back home.

around one in the night, you woke up from a thudding noise on the window pane. you turned the bed lamp on and tried looking out the window but could see nothing other than a couple of branches of the maple tree on the porch. due to the night breeze, the branches might have been crashing against the window. turning the light off, you laid back down, but in the moonlight, the shadow of the branches on the opposite wall looked like a hunched over man in a dark overcoat.

you are not one to get scared, but the unrhythmic thudding of the branches against the glass pane in the dead of night, inside a strange new house and empty room gave you the chills. juyun had informed you that she leaves the household premises before nightfall, so you knew, yoongi and you were the only people left in the house.

not thinking much of it, you went to sleep that night only to find yourself in the exact same situation the very next night. you held the comforter close to your chest, the darkness around you leaving room for an eerie aura to envelope the air. additionally, the shapeless shadows formed by the tree's branches were nothing less than scary.

that night as you slept, you had the worst nightmare. you dreamt of being chased by a shapeless form who wanted nothing but to hurt you — hurt you bad. it was malicious and evil. it made no sense because you have never had nightmares like these.

you woke up to your ringtone blaring loudly. it was an unknown number, and you hesitated to answer it, but right before the call would finish ringing completely, you picked it up. it was the state prosecutor’s office asking you to come over so they can prep you for the trial tomorrow. right. you still have to appear in court. given how sly and resourceful yoongi is, you already had the feeling that even appearing in court would not really amount to anything. nonetheless, you were going to exhaust all your options at helping out the dead fellow.

thursday came in a blurry, and you were up all night thinking about all the possible outcomes. last night when yoongi came back home, he had come up to your room to ask you if you were still planning to show up at court. when you replied in the affirmative, he just laughed. there was an air of smugness surrounding him like he had already planned ahead, at least, five moves. 

at the first rays of sunlight illuminating your room, you left the bed and started searching up courtroom etiquettes online. you have never been more nervous in life, it felt like the most significant examination of your life and you, so badly, wanted to pass.

you rummaged through your luggage to pull out your only formal skirt. tucking the white dress shirt inside the skirt, you stood in front of the mirror in the washroom to look for any creases. sighing, you grabbed the comb and neatly gathered every strand of hair to tie it in a ponytail before walking out in a pair of heels.

yoongi was having his breakfast while reading the newspaper. he took one look at you before turning the page to the finance section, “someone knows how to clean up.”

you kept quiet and headed towards the door.

“i can drop you off, i mean i am going to court as well. courtesy of you.”

“i can go there myself, thank you,” you replied before exiting the house. the bus takes half an hour to reach the trial court compound, and you did not want to risk arriving late.

reaching the court compound, you found your way around and sat in the spectator stand, your hands sweating from feeling extremely anxious and nervous. you kept memorising how to refer the judge, ‘your honour, my name is y/n.’ ‘your highness?’ ‘no, your honour’ ‘or is it your lord/ladyship?’

“top of the morning to you, little one,” your husband whispered when he walked past you to the attorney table and sat on the left side. he was accompanied by another sharp-looking man dressed in a fine suit.

you rolled your eyes at that but kept sitting quietly. the stand filled up soon to about half of its capacity, and everyone rose to their feet once the judge entered the courtroom. the trial started within moments, and you watched the sharp-looking man, introduced as the defence counsel, mr harvey specter, skilfully refute every piece of evidence that the prosecution had built a case on. you were expecting your husband to fight the case, but he had his firm partner representing him. the whole exchange between the defence and prosecution went by in a flash. you tried to keep up with the arguments till you heard the prosecutor calling your name.

“your honour, i would like to call to the witness box prosecution’s last witness, y/n,” the public prosecutor said after presenting all the facts.

“permission granted,” presiding judge marly replied.

prompted by the prosecutor, you stood up and walked to the witness box. it was surreal and nothing like how it is usually portrayed on television.

“state your name for the record and relation to the case,” the judge asked once you were done repeating the words of affirmation.

“your honour, my name is y/n..” you trailed off.

“are you sure, dear? you sound unsure of it,” marly J. commented, her dominant hand scribbling away.

your eyes followed her hand, your own shaking a bit. you turned forward to notice that everyone in the courtroom had their eyes on you. mainly, that unmistakable predatory gaze of min yoongi, who looked like this was all a piece of cake for him.

“miss, can you state your name for the record and relation to the case,” the prosecutor repeated the judge’s words when you kept sitting quietly.

“i-i’m sorry. my name is y/n, and i heard a conversation regarding the murder.”

“can you tell the court what you heard? verbatim, if you will,” the prosecutor asked of you next.

you nodded and duly obliged, narrating the exact words of the conversation that you had heard that day.

“do you swear that this is a true and accurate statement?” the judge asked.

you nodded, “yes, your honour.”

“do you recognize that man,” the prosecutor pointed at yoongi, “as the one who had that particular phone call conversation?”

you followed the prosecutor’s hand and looked at yoongi, who winked at you. the gall of this man.

“yes, sir. that’s him.”

“let the record reflect that the witness has identified the defendant. no further questions, your honour,” the prosecutor walked to the attorney table and sat down.

mr specter stood up once the state prosecutor sat down. he fixed his blazer, buttoning it up as he walked to the stand and stood in front of you.

“miss, can you state your full name for the record? the name that you have taken over since your marriage,” he started.

“min y/n.”

“married to?”

“min yoongi,” your eyes boring holes into yoongi’s, who smirked a little at your tone.

“can you please tell the court what this is?” mr. specter brought over a piece of paper and handed it to you. 

you took the paper and glanced at it quickly, “it’s the marriage certificate of mr min and i.”

“very well, can you tell me when is it dated?”

“16th August...” you read out the date, and at the realization, your voice died down. it was back-dated. you married him two days ago, not one month ago but the date on the marriage certificate said otherwise. clearly attested by the government ordained registrar.

mr specter turned, “let the record show that the prime witness of the case is the wife of one of the named defendants, and the conversation took place after they were married.”

“objection your honour,” the prosecutor stood up, “relevancy.”

the judge turned to mr specter for his reasoning.

“your honour, the relevancy of this established fact will be shown to the courtroom very soon. in order to do that, i would like to call the defendant, min yoongi, to the stand.”

“very well. please proceed.”

you stood up and walked down, giving space for yoongi to take the seat. you were feeling airy headed since you knew precisely what yoongi was going to do. truth be told, you showed up at court today solely on that last morsel of hope that maybe your testimony can amount to anything, something, but yoongi was going to tear it all down to nothing.

“mr min, do you recognise this woman as your wife?” mr specter asked.

before yoongi could answer, however, the prosecutor spoke up.

“objection, your honour. already asked and answered. counsel is wasting the court's time.”

mr specter did not wait for the judge to rebuke him and started, “seems like my learned friend is in a hurry, so allow me to rephrase. do you recall having the conversation with or in front of your wife, min y/n?”

“no, your honour,” yoongi lied through his teeth, “i do not recall having that conversation even in the slightest. additionally, anything between my wife and i is protected under spousal privilege.”

“counsellors, approach the bench. you too, mr min,” marly J. commanded before walking to the attached judge’s room.

the prosecutor, mr specter and yoongi walked to the judge's room.

marly J. was sitting in her chair and had a distasteful scowl on her face, “mr min. my courtroom deals with criminal cases, not family issues.”

“i am well aware, your honour,” yoongi replied.

the judge turned to the prosecutor, “i believe your entire case was based on her testimony, but i cannot allow it.”

“your honour, please reconsider. this is the first time any witness has willingly testified against kim seokjin.”

“i cannot deny a citizen their right to the privileges they enjoy granted by the law. everyone is equal in front of the law. i cannot allow it. if there is nothing further that you can produce to stand your case, i am disposing of it.”

︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶༉‧₊˚.

when the opposing counsels, along with your husband, had gone to talk to the judge personally, you could already guess the outcome of this whole stunt. defeated, you did not wait for the judge to pass the order and left for the hospital to be with your father.

that night, you were scared to fall asleep. counting sheep was not helping, neither was watching anything on the phone. your eyes drooped with sleep, but just as sleep started to seep in, you woke yourself up. but there is only so long till you can keep yourself up forcefully. soon you fell into a deep slumber and almost like a lucid dream as you saw the exact same nightmare. only this time — the figure had caught up and was about to hurt you, but you managed to wake yourself up just in time. now you know, the faceless figure is the dead man over whom you have, so far, risked and ruined your entire future. you have done your part. you cannot possibly fight a system alone when the corruption is at every micro-level.

on the fourth night, you seriously debated what to do about this situation. during all this time, you have had absolutely zero interaction with your so-called husband. he left for work around nine and came back around eleven, had his meals alone as you had a different daily routine. juyun took care of everything around the house, so it was not like your presence was required anywhere. you kept yourself limited in the four walls of the guest room while you were in the place, the rest of the time you spent with your father, who was getting the treatment he needed. amidst the quiet of the night, as your mind raced through all these thoughts, a car horn from the main road caused you to flinch.

“fuck it,” you mumbled before getting out of bed. grabbing a t-shirt, you put it on over your racer-back tank and headed out into the doorway. you do not know exactly remember which way was yoongi’s room and amidst the dimly lit hallways, all the corners looked the same, but you kept walking forward till you came upon a door, wherefrom under the small gap at the bottom, a faint light was coming out causing you to knock at it.

there was a shuffle of sheets, and the door opened to reveal yoongi in his pyjamas. he was wearing a t-shirt with a pair of joggers, not much different than your attire.

“what?” he asked, rubbing his eyes.

“i can’t sleep,” you admitted shyly.

“i don’t know any lullabies,” he walked in, leaving the door open. you walked in too, closing the door behind you.

“no. i mean, can i sleep here tonight? i’ll sleep on the couch.”

“whatever,” yoongi replied before sitting on the bed with his laptop as he resumed typing something.

you sauntered to the couch and sat on it first, watching yoongi work. he was not lying. he really did not care and continued typing whatever he was working on.

you took off your slippers and pulled your bent legs on the couch, letting your head rest on one of the armrests. your eyes were trained at him, your arms crossed over your chest in a fight or flight mode.

sleep took over soon, but it was uncomfortable to lie in that awkward position. you kept repositioning your head or your legs in the sleep, not being able to drift into a deeper sleep that your tired body needed.

yoongi finished his draft in about two hours. he turned off his laptop and looked up to see you still curled up in that uncomfortable position. for the past two hours, he has not failed to note that you could not sleep properly. he stood up, keeping away his laptop on his desk before walking to you. he let a kick on one of the legs of the couch, causing a vibration.

“get up.”

by the third kick, you woke up, squinting your eyes open. yoongi was standing in front of you, hands in his pocket, “what?”

“get on the bed.”

you sat up at once, alarmed at his words. 

“whoa, whoa, i am not trying to jump you. it’s three in the morning, little one. i finished a draft, and i only want to sleep now. so just get on the bed. you are clearly uncomfortable.”

“promise you won’t touch me?” you asked, massaging the back of your aching neck.

he nodded tiredly, “go ahead. you can sleep on the right side. the left is mine,” he said before heading to the washroom.

you walked to his bed and crawled on the right side of the extra comfortable king-sized bed. by the time you settled under the warm covers, yoongi came out of the washroom and joined you. he turned off the lights and turned his back to you after getting inside the covers.

November 2020:

over the past two months of your early married days, your interaction with your husband has been questionably none. some nights, you overcome your fears and sleep in the guest room, other nights when they overcome your conscience, you end up sleeping with yoongi again, in his bed, against his warmth but that is about it. there is never much talk.

some days it feels like he is intentionally ignoring you or avoiding to talk to you but with time you have concluded that he is a busy person in general and is not exactly putting up a front to ignore you.

some other days, it feels like he is just putting up a show but he has other intentions. like when he shifts in his sleep and his hand sometimes falls on your chest, his fingers almost moulding to the shape of your breast causing you to glare at him but his soft snores are evidence enough that he is clearly asleep and the movement is unconscious.

either ways, he is a not a man of a lot of words. or maybe he is, considering he is an advocate. you don’t really know, and he never leaves space for you to know him any better. your marriage is a sham and will never pick up pace, so you turn your focus to the one constant in your life; your father.

after receiving the best cancer treatment (curtesy of your generous husband), your father did get better last month but after a few weeks, he started deteriorating again. the doctor has already informed you that there is no hope and you know too, that look in his eyes is unmistakable. more or less, you have accepted it but that has not brought any break in your daily routine.

every morning you wake up alone in the bed as yoongi wakes up before you, take a quick shower, finish your morning routine and breakfast and then head over to the hospital to spend time with your father. most days you read to him, while on others, he reminisces about his past and tells you more stories about your mother than you have ever heard since your childhood.

you were flipping through the pages of wuthering heights, trying to look for the last line that you read when your father’s eyes fell on your wedding ring.

“what’s that?” he asked, his eyes stuck at your ring finger.

“hm?” you softly hummed, very much invested in finding the bookmark till you followed his gaze and gulped. you must have forgotten to take it off before walking in his room a few hours ago, “it’s a ring.”

“for what?”

“fashion, dad. it’s just a ring,” you shrugged it off confidently, turning your gaze back to the book.

your father sighed. he knows you, he knows no matter how hard he is going to try, he will not be receiving a straight reply from you, “i still don’t understand how you can afford this CCU room. i asked a nurse and the per-day cost is more than our monthly rent.”

“i have told you, dad, just let me handle it the best way that i can,” you mumbled before finding the pencil mark and started to read again;

“i’m wearying to escape into that glorious world, and to be always there: not seeing it dimly through tears, and yearning for it through the walls of an aching heart: but really with it, and in —.”

“y/n, is there something you are hiding from me?” your father cut you off in the middle.

you sighed, putting down the book on your lap, your index finger keeping the book from closing, “not really. everything is fine, as always. i have handled everything, as always.”

your father turned his gaze back to the ceiling above his head, the same ceiling that he has been staring at for over a month now, “you know... your mother loved this book. her favourite line was honest people don't hide their deeds, and she truly lived by those words.”

“i am not hiding anyth—”

your father cut you off again. he overlooked your words as he was speaking in a flow, “i will forever regret that i couldn’t send you off to a good university. you were always the best in your class, always at a higher reading level than your current grade, and yet because of our family condition, you could not attend a university. like you deserved to.”

your hands closed the book shut, eyes now stuck to the graphic design of the cover as your father continued.

“and now i won’t be there to walk you down the aisle when you meet your prince charming.”

you unconsciously played with the wedding ring till you took it off and pocketed it.

“forgive me, y/n. turns out i am not the father that i should have been to you. i couldn’t support you financially, and i won’t be there for the rest of your life either. please forgive me.”

your vision turned blurry as tears welled up in your eyes, “stop saying that.”

“it’s the truth! you’re a good kid, baby. the best i could ever imagine having. all i can wish for till my last breath now is that you get the prince you deserve. a good guy who will take care of you better than i ever could.”

“stop saying that!” your enraged voice went up, unintentionally, “no can ever take care of me better than you did as a single dad. so just stop saying that. i will come again tomorrow,” keeping your head bowed down, you walked out of the room swiftly before your father could further protest.

sniffling in the hallway, you speed-walked to the restroom to bawl your eyes out. the moment your eyes met the mirror, the tears fell like an incessant waterfall. it took you around fifteen minutes to calm down, till your tears turned to a bitter chuckle as you laughed at the irony of your life. freshening up, you were drying your hands when you remembered that this is the exact place where your downfall started. the universe indeed has a wicked way to rub your face in it.

composing yourself, you left the hospital building to make your way back to the place you have been calling ‘home’ for the last two months. it did not feel like home. even the walls were unwelcoming. you had nothing to do. your status was nothing more than a piece of wall furniture, not even a fancy one at that. probably the cheapest one that your husband owns.

there were no visitors, no family, just the maid who leaves every evening after preparing dinner. everything around the house is always taken care of. visiting your father every day was the only sort of routine you had in place, but that would come to an end soon, as well, just like everything does in your life.

“you are back early today, miss,” juyun spoke up when you walked into the living room. she was in the process of dusting the window panes.

“yeah...” you trailed off, meaning to walk away but stood your place, “i remember on my first day, you had mentioned that you are yoongi’s family housekeeper.”

juyun straightened up with pride at the mention of her employment history, “yes. i have served the min family diligently, ma’am and wish to do so till my bones cannot take it anymore.”

“so what about his family? where are they now?”

juyun’s proud smile vanished within seconds at your question. oh, you don’t know.

“i thought you knew, miss.”

“what do you mean?” your eyebrows furrowed with confusion as yoongi had never mentioned his family. he hardly speaks two-three words to you, let alone talk about his family.

“around five years ago mr and mrs min died in a car crash.”

“i’m sorry,” your blood turned cold at the revelation. your fate must be so tainted that you do not even have in-laws to call a family.

“they were murdered, miss,” juyun continued, tears streaming down her face, “your husband was still making his name in the legal world, and he had put an evil man in jail. a gang-man who had killed many, and then one day, mr and mrs min were hit by a truck when they were on their way back home. it was clear as day that the gang-man was behind this. then yoongi sir met with seokjin sir and soon founded his firm.”

“is the gang member still behind bars?”

“oh no, miss. he is dead. he was murdered in his own cell. police suspected some gang rivalry.”

juyun’s tone was sincere as she narrated the story to you, but it did not take you a moment to connect the dots. your father used to call you miss holmes due to how quickly you can see the bigger picture even with incomplete facts, half stories or wrong clues. honestly, you are the one who finds it annoying when people cannot see through the truth, it is always glaring them straight in the face, but they choose not to see it.

yoongi must be behind the death of the gang member, he must have taken help from seokjin, and then jeongguk must have taken care of the police. it was clear as the day really, the affiliations are apparent enough. after all, you are another victim of the same affiliations, only.

“where’s your ring, miss?” juyun asked, her hands touching your bare finger.

“oh, i took it off to wash my hands,” you brought the ring out of your dress pocket and wore it, “there.”

“it’s gold, dear. you don’t have to take it off when touching the water.”

“right. will keep it in mind next time,” you smiled before making your way to your room.

when yoongi came to bed after finishing work that night, he was surprised to find you awake. you are usually asleep by the time he comes.

during the first month, he would walk to the washroom to change, but he has stopped bothering. your face is usually turned towards the wall near the bed, so these days, he just changes in the room itself.

“can’t sleep?” he asked, changing out of his dress pants and into a fresh pair of sweats.

“no, was just lost in thoughts,” you turned back unbeknownst that his upper body was bare as he just took off his shirt, “i-i’m sorry,” you closed your eyes shut.

yoongi snickered noiselessly on noting that you did not close your eyes immediately, but after taking a good look at his body, “ahha,” he hummed after putting on the t-shirt and walking to the washroom to freshen up.

“can i ask you something?”

yoongi stepped out of the washroom and made his way to the bed, “go ahead,” he raised the covers and got inside them.

“what happened to your parents?”

you rushed it. you asked the main question way too early before laying down any groundwork. he was in a good mood, but his expression turned into a scowl on hearing your question.

“i don’t wish to discuss my parents. ever. if you wish to gossip, feel free to leave because i need to sleep,” he turned his back to you.

see, this is what you do not get. why do you have to lay the groundwork for someone? why do you have to walk on eggshells around someone? why can’t you just ask min yoongi something ever and actually get a proper answer. are you not a receptive person? do you not deserve to be talked to? it is always the same with your husband. he never wants to talk, never wants to give you even the slightest glimpse of his life. all you want, all you need, all you wish — to just talk to someone, maybe tell them about how you are feeling internally, about your father, about this complicated fate that you have found yourself tangled in, about your future, what lays ahead — all you want is to talk. you are always making sure that you do not take too much space, trying to never bother anyone as everyone is doing their own work, always spending your time alone knowing that it is not anyone’s job to entertain you or hang out with you. no one has time for you. even life does not have time for you. you, on the other hand, have all the time in this world, always free, just laying around on the bed, eyes either stuck to the ceiling or out the window, watching couples, friends, family walking by, having fun, spending time with each other.

life must be colourful for them, unlike the black and white permanent filter veiling on yours.

︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶༉‧₊˚.

yoongi came back one day around seven in the evening, very much to your surprise. he sat down on the wingback chair placed adjacent to the sofa set on which you were sitting, watching a movie on television.

“don’t do that,” you rolled your eyes upon noticing through the peripheral vision that yoongi had brought out a cigarette and was about to light it up.

“i am not having a good day,” yoongi drawled out lazily before lighting up the cigarette.

you sighed, “well, i can’t really help much if you don’t share stuff with me.”

yoongi allowed his body to rest back against the plush upholstery of the wingback chair, his one leg resting over the other, “what do you want to know?”

you almost brushed over the reply till it hit you that he was actually giving you a chance to ask him what you wanted to know. your eyes went wide at the realization as you put the television on mute and turned to him, “are you serious?”

“don’t push your luck, little one. ask me what you want before i change my mind.”

you parted your lips intending to say something but shut yourself up. it is early days, and you cannot spook him off yet. going in slow would be the best option. he will let you in eventually, but you have to be patient. nodding to yourself, you turned to him, “did something happen at work? you’re back early.”

“not really,” there was an uncomfortable silence; the smoke from his lit up cigarette, held tightly between his long fingers, formed a cloud before he brought it up to his lips and took a drag, “a dumb cop filed the wrong charge-sheet against a client of mine and then my junior had the absolute audacity to let his phone ring inside the courtroom. kids these days are fucking embarrassing.”

you nodded, not to anyone in particular, acknowledging what he talked about. it did not seem that big of a deal, but you guessed it was one to yoongi. 

you started thinking again before asking the second question. the last thing you want is for him to shut off as usual, “is there something that i can help you with?”

you were not expecting him to reply in the affirmative, but it made your ears perk up when he did. you can be of some use to someone? anyone? wow, what a day.

“yes, actually. thanks for reminding me. seokjin hyung is eating my head off about the gathering. he wants to call the boys and their wives to meet you. i swear if hyung and jeongguk text me one more time about this, i will block them.”

“we can have them over. i don’t mind. it would be nice to have people over, i guess. i mean, i would love to look over the arrangements and meet them.”

“you sure? they can be a handful. they are basically adults on steroids.”

you giggled softly at the comparison, “can’t be that bad.”

“fine. don’t say i did not warn you in advance.”

you went to add something more, but his phone started ringing.

“guess time’s up,” your husband put out the cigarette before making his way towards his study. he stopped in his tracks and turned to pat your head, “good talk.”

you watched him leaving just as smoothly as he had arrived, “condescending, cold bastard,” rolling your eyes, you went back to watching the movie.

︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶༉‧₊˚.

jung hoseok was the first one to arrive. as informed by your deeply cherished husband, you know that he manages the biggest chain of hotels in south asia and has been a loyal client of yoongi’s for almost six years now.

“hello, mr. jung,” you smiled politely as he was let inside the living room by juyun.

“oh hey, you must be y/n. it’s great to finally meet you,” he smiled back with the same fervour.

“and your wife...?” you trailed off, unsure. as far as you remember, yoongi did mention that all his friends were married.

“ah, dany is at home with our son. he is only five months old, so she doesn’t really leave the house much.”

“oh! congratulations on the baby boy.”

“yeah,” hoseok nodded awkwardly as the conversation turned silent, “well, i hope you don’t mind that i am here early. i came here directly from work. had i gone back home, i would have just fallen asleep.”

you nodded at that, but before you could reply, yoongi came down from his bedroom. juyun must have informed him that hoseok was here.

“i’ll take it from here,” yoongi’s hand brushed against the small of your back as he smiled at hoseok, “let’s talk in my study till the rest of the party arrives.”

hoseok nodded, and both the men left for yoongi’s study room. you kept standing there, thinking about the way he left, but his touch lingered on your skin through the fabric of your black a-line dress. it burned through your being, and you craved it more, just like you do every night when he scoots a little bit too close. 

you must have been standing there for a few minutes because the next thing you heard was the honk of a car pulling up in the driveaway.

yes, more guests. your hands instinctively straightened your wrinkle-free dress to greet the guests.

“ah, you,” your lips broke into a rhetoric smile when your eyes spotted jeon jeongguk.

jeongguk shrugged, smiling back, “hello, miss.”

“do you guys know each other?” a soft female voice from behind him caused you to crane your neck sideways till the figure came out in front.

jeongguk turned to his wife, “know? yoongi hyung met her cause of me! it’s a shame they did not call me to the wedding.”

“really? that’s nice,” the girl turned to you, a smile on her face, “i am azumi, jeongguk’s wife.”

“where’s hyung?” jeongguk asked after taking a look around.

“he’s in the study with mr. jung,” you informed him.

“sweet. i believe you ladies would certainly find something to talk about,” he smiled at his wife before walking away.

you just stared at azumi, not knowing what to say or do. you have spent most of your adult life working, taking care of your father and then locking yourself up in your room. that was your ‘me’ time. socialising, going out, having friends is not something you are good at, even by a tiny bit.

“can.. we sit?” azumi asked, gesturing at the couch.

“a-o-of course! sorry, my bad. i didn’t ask you to even sit.”

“it’s fine. happens to the best of us, don’t worry. you’ve got this,” azumi smiled, grabbing your hand as she walked to the couch and sat down with you beside her.

you felt relieved. you are not an anti-social person. you just need the proper nudge to open up and talk.

azumi almost had the opposite personality as you. she was charming, bubbly and knew her way around words. it almost seems like a cruel joke that her husband is jeon jeongguk. well, she seemed clearly ignorant of the exploits of his corruption. that much was clear.

“oh and then tanaz and i we- wait, do you know tanaz?” azumi asked in the middle of telling you about her university life.

you shook your head a no, “i’m afraid not.”

“don’t worry! you’ll know when they come over. she’s my best friend. we’ve known each other since we were kids.”

your fingers softly played with each other, your clasped hands lying in your lap, “that must be nice.”

“yeah, it is. you must already know inaya, at least?”

“i have met her, but we haven’t talked much, really.”

“oh...” azumi sighed. she could easily sense that this was all new to you, and she has been trying to make you loosen up, but so far, it has not worked well, “is there anyone coming tonight that you know?”

“yeah! rei is coming, she’s my friend. not exactly my friend, more like my little sister, but i’ve known her since school!” you beamed almost, happy that you also have someone in your life that you have known for a while. life is not that bad. you have some aspects like most normal people, as well. and knowing that, just that fact gave you satisfaction at the moment.

azumi grinned at your enthusiasm. yes, it finally worked!

around twenty minutes later, rei finally came, and so did inaya and seokjin.

“you’re late, miss,” you huffed as rei walked to you, giving you a brief hug.

“i know, i know, i wanted to get something for you, but nothing just seemed right.”

“what? no! you didn’t have to.”

“psst, not taking a no. here,” she handed you a gift-wrapped packet.

“i’ll check it later.”

“no! open it now. i want to see if you like it,” she urged you till you finally gave in and took off the wrapping paper to reveal a picture frame. it contained an old picture of you with rei, back from high school. the photo was taken on sports day, dressed in matching uniforms and cute braided pigtails. you were pinching rei’s cheeks, who was trying to escape your hold.

“i think i am the only one who has a copy. so, i want you to have it,” rei smiled eagerly, waiting for your reaction, but you kept staring at the picture, your eyes turning glassy.

“i love it. thank you. thank you so much,” you sniffled once, soaking your tears back in before putting up the frame on top of the fireplace, “and this is...?” you gestured towards the male who had accompanied rei and was now talking with seokjin. the two men had struck up quite a conversation.

“that’s um, jimin-ssi,” rei turned towards the jimin-person who noticed you both staring at him, so he flashed you both a toothy smile causing you to smile back in return.

“boyfriend?” you grinned, turning back to rei.

“uhh, we got married last month.”

“wait a second, you got married? what?”

“it’s a long story,” rei mumbled, her gaze towards azumi, “i’ll tell you later.”

you followed her gaze and nodded, “right. come here, this is azumi, and you surely remember inaya.”

rei nodded before joining the girls. another five-six minutes and taehyung and his wife, tanaz, arrived. the men came out to the living room as well, and yoongi introduced you to all of them one by one while you introduced jimin to them.

late into the party after concluding dinner, you turned around yourself. everyone seemed to be having a good time. it made you genuinely smile. after months, you had something to do, arrange a party you had never done before. one-night yoongi came back and informed you that the party was going to be on friday night. that was on a wednesday, so basically you had two days to arrange everything. juyun was glad to help, but she offered you took the lead and asked you to manage everything before asking for her help. at first, it terrified you because you did not want to screw up, not at your first gathering, but it was thrilling, too. you went shopping for hours, took hours to finalise the dishes, the drinks, the décor, everything. and to see it all come together nicely, your smile only grew fonder.

“so, why do i get a vibe that you guys don’t like jeongguk?” azumi asked suddenly, making all of you quiet down.

the men were sitting separately on the other side of the room, drinking and smoking. they had a completely different conversation going on, more like they were in their own world.

tanaz was the one who broke the silence, “’cause he’s an asshole.”

“hey, that’s rude!” azumi smacked tanaz’s arm lightly in mock retaliation.

while they laughed it out, inaya and you just exchanged the ‘who’s gonna tell her’ look between each other. seems like no one really liked jeongguk.

“what? he’s a jerk, and so is dr taehyung,” tanaz scoffed, finishing her wine in a gulp. there was a certain tinge of anger laced with her voice when she enunciated the doctor.

inaya cringed at it, “aria eonnie is testimony to that.”

tanaz chuckled, “she sure is.”

azumi kept quiet at the comment, choosing not to go into further details. you certainly did not know any of them enough to contribute to the conversation. while rei quietly observed the girls, her gaze moving back and forth between them like a bobblehead.

tanaz stood up to refill her glass, “rei is awfully quiet tonight,” she poured some more of the red fluid into her wineglass.

“oh, this is all new to me. i am still processing it in,” rei smiled sheepishly, “you guys seem very close, i mean from the way you are bitching about your husbands.”

“bitching? if only,” azumi let a bitter laugh.

rei turned to you first, to which you only gave a shrug, so she continued, “am i missing something?”

“oh no, you are fine, darling. ignore us,” tanaz tutted back to resume her place, “tell us about yourself. what do you do?”

“i am an advocate. i work in yoongi sir’s firm.”

“that’s amazing! where did you meet that charming devil?” azumi asked, her eyes gesturing to where jimin was sitting, talking with jeongguk.

“at work..” rei trailed off.

“really? i thought you said he was a dance teacher?” you inquired further.

“he is. he is a choreographer and works mainly in the k-industry, but we met at work. it’s a long story really,” rei dismissed your queries and chugged down her wine.

“if you don’t mind my asking, how old are you? you look quite young,” azumi asked after rei refilled her glass.

rei turned to her, “i can say the same, really. you hardly look older than me. if you don’t mind my asking, how old are you?”

azumi laughed at rei’s defensive tone, “wah, forgot you are a lawyer for a second. it’s not an interrogation. we are all friends only.”

rei joined her and laughed too, “i’m just kidding. i’m twenty-two.”

“oh,” tanaz paused and turned to inaya, “turns out we have another member joining the maknae club.”

“welcome to the club,” inaya clinked her wine-glass against rei’s at that but kept the glass away, not taking a sip.

“tell us about your married life,” tanaz asked further. rei was a new target, and the girls indeed loved hassling her. it was fun to watch rei getting flustered, so you allowed yourself to indulge as well instead of saving her, like rei wanted, evident from her pleading eyes every time she looked at you. she was indeed not the extrovert of the bunch.

“it’s certainly a new experience,” rei let a soft sigh.

“yes, the honeymoon phase. it’ll fade away soon, believe me. ask inaya, she’s been doing this for four years,” azumi was the one to reply this time.

inaya did not register the statement as her eyes were stuck at her husband’s figure.

“inaya?” azumi touched inaya’s hand, causing the latter to flinch as she was brought out of her thoughts.

“i’m sorry. what’d i miss?” her eyes travelled between all of you ladies.

“nothing. tell us what’s going on with you,” this time, it was tanaz again who spoke.

“the usual, really,” inaya exhaled. it was more a mumble. her wine-glass went untouched, and when you brought that up, inaya seemed visibly dishevelled, “i can-can’t drink.”

“is everything alright?” you turned to her, worried this time.

inaya’s gaze moved towards her husband first, then to tanaz, who was quick to her rescue.

“she can’t drink cause of a medical condition.”

although the hesitancy in their voices indicated something more, it was not your place to pry further, so you left the topic alone.

the night grew, and the clock struck half-past ten. it was azumi who stood up first and made her way to her husband. 

she tapped on his shoulder, “we should get going. you’ve duty in the morning.”

jeongguk sighed, taking one last drag from the cigar before handing it over to hoseok, “yes, baby,” he turned to the men, standing up, “unlike you rich pricks, i have work in the morning.”

“mm, officer. thank you for your service,” seokjin mocked, gaining a laugh from the rest of them.

jeongguk chuckled, wearing his jacket, the right sleeve of which he kept getting wrong till azumi held it up for him to slide his right arm in.

you watched the couples quietly, as one by one, all of them took their leave after bidding you and your husband a goodnight. rei had stayed back to help you clean up till you literally had to scold her that you could handle it.

“she never takes no for an answer,” jimin spoke, his first words to you that night.

“yeah, she’s always been like that. take good care of her. she only has you.”

“oh my god, that’s so embarrassing,” rei groaned, rolling her eyes.

it felt like you guys were back in high school, making you giggle at her tone as you hit her head, “shut up. i have lived one year more than you. that’s 365 days more. eonnie knows better.”

rei was leaning against jimin’s figure, holding on to his arm, tired from the long day, but she straightened her back the moment yoongi walked in after seeing off the guests and stood by your side, “thank you for having us, sir.”

“not at all, rei. thanks for coming over. you too, mr. park.”

jimin nodded, shaking his hand before they set on their way as well.

you watched from the front door as jimin and rei got in their car and drove out of the porch. you walked back inside, closing and locking the door behind you.

︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶༉‧₊˚.

rei kept staring at jimin, who drove carefully, he was not drunk out of his senses but enough to make him tipsy.

jimin caught her constant stare, “what?”

“you smoked. i have never seen you smoke.”

“i don’t. that was just a cigar,” he shrugged.

“fine. did you have a good time?”

jimin nodded, changing gears after the signal turned green.

“see! and you thought you would be bored alone.”

“i was able to make friends, luckily that’s all. oh, by the way, i will be going out with jeongguk tomorrow for some drinks.”

“really? of all the people, you chose to be friends with that guy?”

“what do you mean?”

“i don’t like his vibe, i don’t know. there was also a weird tension between the ladies regarding jeongguk and taehyung,” rei shrugged, “it was all peculiar.”

“doll, you are overthinking. i will also be meeting with seokjin hyung about some work.”

rei let a soft sigh in reply before turning her gaze out the window, watching the tall buildings fly by in a blurry haze. 

︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶༉‧₊˚.

it has been a while since the couples left. you retired to your room after cleaning up. a knock came and the door opened while you were in the middle of changing out of your dress.

“hey, just wanted to than- fuck, i am sorry,” yoongi closed his eyes, halfway inside the room.

“did something happen?” you asked, your hands pulling up your shorts in a second. you were clad in a t-shirt.

“no, i came to thank you.”

“you can look. it’s fine.”

yoongi peeped one eye open before blinking both of them open, “thanks for arranging the party. everyone had a good time.”

you nodded, noticing his stumbling gait, “you’re going to trip over that corner,” you grabbed his hand in a plea to sit him on the bed.

under the spell of alcohol, yoongi lost his balance and held on to your arms. you both stayed frozen at the moment. yoongi sitting at the edge of the bed, and you standing between his legs, his hands holding your arms. it did not matter how it happened, but the only thing your mind registered was yoongi’s lips on yours. you could taste the alcohol and cigar on his tongue, but it did not really matter, not when this was the first time kissing your husband. your arms lying by your side bent at the joints and raised up to touch his hair. his hands let you as you run your fingers through his hair.

yoongi pulled away and touched the side of your face with his slightly raised hand, “i wanna see your tits,” he mused lazily.

you batted your eyelashes, oh so lustily, before lifting your arms over your head to swiftly get rid of your t-shirt, which you had just adorned a few moments ago. your breasts hung inside one of your standard bralettes, and you saw yoongi’s hand extending towards your chest before it stopped mid-way, abruptly.

“how old are you, again?” he blinked before focusing his gaze back at your face.

“twenty-three,” you replied, your fingers playing with themselves enclosed within your clasped hands resting at the small of your back.

“fuck,” yoongi muttered a curse before retracting from your figure, “you are a fucking kid. do you know old i am? i am thirty-three. this is wrong,” he shook his head as if trying to break his daze from the alcoholic riddle.

before you could complain, he removed himself from your room at once and stumbled his way to his bedroom.

your hands unclasped and rattled with the sipper bottle placed on the nightstand for a countable few moments before you tipped it over in annoyance. this is okay. you can get past this. breathing sharply, you gathered the discarded t-shirt from the floor and made your way to the bed, sitting down with the fabric in your lap. 

maybe it is not okay, after all. how dare this atrocious and scandalous man marry you in a frenzy and then keep you locked away without so much as a bit of sexual relief. all these months, he would not even look at you, and now that he has, he sees you as a literal child. so he is a bit older than you? he should have thought of that beforehand. you did not ask for any of this, and he does not get to deny you anymore, not after the way he literally runs his devilish tongue over his lips. he can run them over yours. it is not really that difficult, not when you are entirely willing to hold your panties out of the way to give him better leverage.

balling up the t-shirt, you threw it at the couch before setting out towards your lawfully-wedded husband’s bedroom. you opened the door with a single push of your hand in the most dramatic way possible. upon entering, you noticed yoongi splayed out on the bed, still clad in his work clothes, the back of his dominant hand resting over his closed eyes, obscuring his vision. he did not bother to look up as he knew it was probably just you coming over to sleep on his bed. 

he is used to it now, but what he is not used to at all is the feeling of your unfamiliar lower figure settling around his crotch area. tearing away the hand from his eyes, he looked at you in shock only to find you making yourself comfortable on his reclined lap.

“the fuck is this, now?” he asked in apparent distaste.

too bad cause you are not going to have any of it, “i am not a minor, you know, and i am way over the legal age to drink alcohol even.”

“doesn’t change anything. i can’t do it—” his words were snatched right out of his mouth when he felt your hips moving, causing lewd friction between your heat and his crotch, “no no no,” he placed his hands on your hips in a plea to stop your movements, but you continued on. your eyes not breaking contact for a single moment, not even to blink.

“go ahead, stop me,” you shrugged nonchalantly, your heat hanging on to the zipper of his trousers, your hips still moving in a rhythm.

yoongi’s breathing went back to its average pace as he allowed himself to lay back down in the fortress of pillows, his eyes maintaining the contact that yours have established.

your hands lying by your side, now rested flat atop his chest, feeling every breath of his rumble inside the rib cage.

due to the lack of much-needed friction, you pushed aside the triangular patch of your shorts that barely covered the swell of your ass and placed your bare heat on top of his fully-clothed groin, soiling it a tad bit with your pre-lubrication.

“no panties, huh? did you want me to come and fuck you into the mattress?” yoongi finally asked when he felt your arousal forming a patch on the fabric of his trousers.

you shrugged, “i practically sleep naked every night. not that you would know—”

“i know,” he seethed this time, getting a hold of your wrists resting on his chest, “when you grind that sinful ass against my fucking dick in your sleep, i know, little one. i know.”

you did not mean to blush at his words, but you were practically gushing, glowing red all over when yoongi’s hands beckoned you closer to him.

“you don’t get to be shy. not now,” he tutted softly, his hands letting go of your wrists and grabbing onto each of your breasts. oh, how yoongi has restrained himself night after night from touching you, but he knew you were sleeping, and he did not want to risk doing the wrong thing, not when he did not know if you wanted it.

he kneaded your breasts from over the bralette that you were still adorning, “get rid of it.”

it was barely a whisper, but he did not need to repeat himself as you sprinted to action and completely unclothed your upper body.

yoongi’s hands now latched onto the globes of flesh, finally touching the soft skin. his touch was careful, needy, but gentle.

very unlike you, who was growing visibly impatient. you needed to have something stuffed deep inside you, preferably his dick, or else you would have to resort to touching yourself.

however, the extreme measures did not need to be acted upon as yoongi let go of your breasts and tapped on the side of your thigh, “c’mere.”

“what do you mean?” you shot him a confused look.

yoongi chose to keep quiet and, instead, locked his arms around your thighs, pulling your figure forwards.

you crawled up his chest hesitantly until your heat was, for all intents and purposes, right over his face.

“let it down,” yoongi tapped your thigh again.

you still held onto your weight and kept biting your lip, unsure.

“i won’t keep waiting forever, little one. i am trying to give you the release that you need, but if you hold back, there’s not much i can help with,” your husband spoke in his usual tone this time, his breath sending chills right up your spine.

you were slowly letting go of your weight, but yoongi fast-tracked the process by yanking your waist down till your heat was within the range of his tongue. his fingers manoeuvred the fabric of the shorts out of his way, his eyes stuck at your hardened nub. 

a squeal left your lips when his tongue darted out and touched your lower lips. the soft muscle was warm, but it felt ice-cold compared to your heat, causing you to shiver. the pointed tip of his tongue was not as gentle as his hands were as it prodded inside, inching past the outer lips of your labia. your hands rested against the headboard of the bed to support your figure as his tongue flicked the hardened nub. it did not take long to feel the moistened muscle lick your inner lips.

“oh—” you verbally let an exhale at the sensation, feeling short bursts of electricity in your pelvic region.

your intimate smell masked the air paired with the priceless view at your crotch from yoongi’s angle — the way your fleshy lips invited him in, the tender skin of your thighs, the way your arousal coated his tongue. he licked it all up and finally dived in to enjoy his five-star main course meal. yoongi tried his best to not use his hands and entice you with his tongue alone, but he had to use his fingers to hold your pussy lips apart. the further apart he held them, the deeper his tongue went, filling up your entrance. the further up his tongue reached, the closer he got to tasting your arousal. he brought his free hand over your clit, getting a hold of your sensitive nub. allowing his fingernails to graze against your skin, resulting in you squirming with each graze before he circled his thumb around the nub, applying pressure and gently massaging it in a circular motion. all the while, his tongue was lapping up your arousal. not letting you one moment breathe.

your hands clutched the headboard, the calf muscles straining from desperately trying to stay still but failing as they started shaking when his lips wrapped themselves around your labia and sucked on your slit.

yoongi let a slight slap on your inner thigh, “stay still, little one,” his voice was a mumble against your clit.

you whimpered at the vibration, your thighs inching closer towards his mouth, wanting to restore the earlier contact. yoongi softly chuckled at your actions before thrusting his tongue up your slit, holding your thighs apart. his tongue went in and out of your slit, licking a stripe up each time. the muscle circled the perimeter of the inner lips and started sucking relentlessly.

with the amount of pleasure and electricity pulsing through your veins, you did not even feel your orgasm ripping through. your juices had hardly even made their way out before yoongi’s tongue lapped them up and licked it all up. even that last drop which had slithered out onto your outer labia lips.

his tongue had you singing all sorts of songs — first, you started out with cursing out to your heart’s content when he nipped around your clit, giving you butterflies, then all that left your lips were soundless gasps and moans. only air escaped your lips while yoongi’s tongue thrust in and out of you. by the time you came, and he started licking clean every surface, your airy moans had reduced to downright whimpers similar to a mewling cat. your legs were shaking, one of your hands gripping the headboard while the other grabbing firmly onto his hair, your head resting against the wall — face first.

after yoongi made sure that he had not left out a single drop of your love juice, he finally let go of your thighs that he had locked between his arms to stop you from squirming away. the skin of your thighs where he held you down stretched after being released, and as the fresh air from the air conditioner touched the skin, it felt tickly even. his fingers imprints were growing clearly visible on your skin, including the mark from the metal of his wedding band. in a plea to catch your breath and reduce the strain of your calf muscles, you rested your legs carefully against the mattress, allowing your lower body to sit down, slow hands massaging the knees when the mattress behind you shifted.

yoongi had sat up, and while you recovered, he got rid of his suit blazer. The matching trousers followed next. his knees delved into the mattress as he unbuttoned his shirt when you turned back to him. grinning as your eyes took in the new expanse of untouched skin, you advanced towards him. your sneaky fingers pushing down the bands on either side of his underwear to unsheathe his hard length.

“i would like to return the favour,” you mused, palming his length and opening your mouth to take him in, but yoongi stopped you, and his hands pulled you up.

“i can see through your tactics,” there was a smug smile on his lips, “i know you are trying to rest up while sucking my dick, but there’s no time for that. i am nothing if not a man of his word so let me fuck your cute cunt into the mattress.”

his skilful hands wrestled you around. the moment you gained some stability in the new position, he yanked your hips closer towards his figure, lining up the tip of his length with your entrance.

“wait, wait, let me at least catch my brea —” your words turned into a low growl as his length dipped inside after catching onto some of your residual arousal.

there you go putting your all-time chartbuster songs on repeat. the sacrilegious litany of curses, the airy moans, the whimpers. yoongi really had you dicked down deep into the mattress, singing songs for him.

the stutter in his thrusts as he neared his high was unmistakable. his hips drawled out his plunges, forcing the intrusive length even deeper inside you with full force and boy, did you feel that. your head hit the pillow lying against the headboard with each of his drawn-out thrusts, his hands on your hips remained the only constraint keeping you firmly planted around his length.

“i’ll come again if you keep doing that,” your voice got muffled as your face rested on the pillow, your body impatiently waiting for his next thrust.

you felt yoongi lowering himself, his lips sneaking up near your left ear, his breath making even the micro-hair strands on the back of your ear stand up, “and who stopped you, little one?” 

his hips snapped forward, sending your bundle of nerves into overdrive, extricating the loudest moan from you that the four walls have been witness to this night insofar.

“nggh —” you came for the second time, your hot cavern sucking in his length, the constricting walls taking the shape of his length.

yoongi stood straight on his knees, watching your juices coat his length as they leaked out. he pulled his length out a bit, watching the string of cum stuck to his tip only to drive it in you again. a cry left your lips, your walls closing in against his length, pushing him closer to his high. one last thrust inside your deep walls and yoongi came undone on your lower back.

︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶༉‧₊˚.

after wiping away his cum from your back, yoongi tossed the soiled tissue into the trash can before lying down on the bed with a long exhale. you gathered your hair to the side and carefully laid your head down on yoongi’s chest, testing the water before getting comfortable. he did not object, so you snuggled closer, watching his chest rise up with each breath. coming down from your high, the air felt colder, and you wanted yoongi to wrap his arm around you, but he did not. instead, he brought out a cigarette from the packet. holding the butt between his lips, his hands traced for the lighter till he realized it was placed on the nightstand.

yoongi raised his upper body, while in the process, removing your head from his chest as he reached over the bed to grab the black lighter. it had a red dragon engraved on the side with some phrases written in japanese. he flicked the lighter on and lit up his cigarette, but his phone rang before he could lay back down. after receiving the call, he started talking, releasing deep clouds of smoke into the air, his head resting on the headboard.

“i am sorry for calling so late, sir. i left messages on your cell, but there was no reply, and i need to talk about tomorrow’s case.”

“yeah, i was busy. which judge is presiding over the matter?” yoongi asked, putting the phone on speaker and keeping it on his chest as he reached over the bed again to dust off the residual ash from the cigarette into the ashtray.

“judge chwe,” a male voice replied from the other side.

you quietly watched the whole ordeal, and it did not fail to catch your eye that he was not paying you any attention all over again. as if the pair of you did not just have sex. you let your finger draw lazy figures on his chest, not minding the conversation.

“fuck, really? he rejects all anti-bail pleas.”

“i know.”

“we have to bring up other points then. the interim period for arrest is over. guy’s been in jail for too long.”

“i have been working on the draft.”

“good, mail it to me,” yoongi replied and went to take another drag from the cigarette when his eyes went wide as you clicked on the red button on the screen, “what the fuck? why did you cut the call?”

you were taken aback by the change in his voice; it was laced with annoyance and pure anger than his previous nonchalant one, “i-i am sorry. you, um, wanna do it again?” you asked, trying to dissipate the air, your hand slowly travelling down towards his length but he stopped you.

“later. i have work,” yoongi replied monotonously, pushing the blanket over as he got out of bed. he put on a pair of boxers before redialling the number, making his way out of the bedroom. 

prior to the bedroom door closing behind, he peeked behind once, “get some sleep. i’ll be late.” and he was gone, just like that. while you lay in the bed like a discarded one-night stand. he might as well have left you a tip and called you a prostitute.

tears pricked at your lower eyelids. unbeknownst, you were tearing up. you hid your face in the pillow in an attempt to stop yourself from crying. he did promise you a loveless marriage — expecting anything more is naivety on your part. accepting that this is the closest he will come to showing you any intimate decency, you quietly went to sleep.

︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶༉‧₊˚.

the following day, your eyes fluttered open to your husband’s face mere inches from yours. his lips were slightly parted, his upper body was bare, and you guessed just as much for his lower body while you were stark naked, as well, under the modesty of the covers.

you let out a breathe you did not quite realize you were holding, your chest slowly heaving down. you let your fingers crawl up to the section of hair that had fallen forwards and was now shadowing his left eye. sweeping it away, you combed it gently with your fingers, setting it back with the rest of his hair.

now that you think about it, this is probably the first time you are seeing your husband from this close up. he looked different; he did not look so cold, so distant. he looked — normal. a living, breathing human just like everybody else. his eyes did not seem so cruel. instead, they looked peaceful, the brow line on his forehead; relaxed. he was sleeping on his stomach, his head resting sideways on the pillow — facing you.

you must have been deep in sleep when he came back to bed because you did not feel him crawling into bed beside you. just like every morning, you did not expect to find him beside you, much less sleeping beside you.

watching him, in the rawest version of himself, weirdly felt wrong. as if it was a crime to see through the layers he puts up. it felt illegal, yet you kept staring at him, breathing in his features.

there was a certain air of intimacy masking the situation. you both laid naked under the covers after a night of fervour love-making. he certainly knew how to please a woman, yet you have never caught him staring at anyone. his eyes feel dull at times, too burdened by his workload, constantly under stress. yet when he looked at you last night, his eyes were anything but dull. there was a spark that came and went with the beginning and conclusion of the physical act.

you wanted the moment to last forever, but soon yoongi’s eyes opened. his hands felt around the bed till it located his phone, which he brought in front of his face. his eyes squinted as the brightness through the screen increased to let the face recognition run. his phone unlocked, and yoongi swiftly went through the notifications before keeping his phone down. at his wordless series of actions, you had reclused into yourself, your hands clutching the edge of the covers close to your chest. holding on to the last piece of modesty, although you were not so shy the previous night. it must have been something in the wine, you are not this outright, or maybe it was something in your quiet husband that prompted you to take the drastic step – to bare your body to him.

“don’t do that. makes me feel like a pervert,” yoongi grumbled in his morning voice, causing you to establish eye contact with him.

“stop thinking like that.”

“i’m trying, but the situation keeps feeling wrong. you’re too young.”

your expressions turned into a scowl. what the hell is that supposed to mean now?

“as far as i remember, you claimed to know everything about me. you are the one that proposed the marriage contract. did it not strike you then?”

yoongi sighed, “you remember the circumstances leading to that very well.”

“so what? what am i supposed to do now? i sit around this house all day, alone, with nothing to do.”

yoongi sat up, stretching his rested muscles, “we will have this talk later on. i need to leave for work now.”

“you always do,” you did not mean to blurt that out, yet they left your lips like thorns aimed at him. you sat up too.

yoongi chose not to reply and got out of bed. he sauntered to the attached washroom, smearing a blob of toothpaste on the bristles of the toothbrush before walking out. his one hand laid inside the pocket of his boxer shorts while the other guided the brush against his teeth.

the air was warm. it smelled like last night’s sex amidst yoongi’s cologne. it had a powerful domestic feeling attached to it, and you hated it. you hated it with your whole being because you know yoongi would snatch it away any moment when he deems fit. he has done it countless times before, and he would do it again. he is cold, distant, and that is the truth. 

annoyed, you moved towards the edge of the bed, “hand me my bra.”

“i literally saw you naked last night,” yoongi mentioned before leaning down and grabbing the piece of fabric lying unceremoniously on the floor before handing it to you.

“turn around,” you kept holding the covers near your chest till he indulged you and turned around. you wore the bralette and grabbed your shorts, adorning them right after.

yoongi went to spit out the foam in the washbasin. by the time he came back to the room after freshening up, you had left.

you did not mean to leave that way or fight with him first thing in the morning, but he never refutes your action, never stops you or even says anything to make you feel like he cares. the warmth his physical body offers falls short in front of the icy emotional show he puts up. he could have come after you, right? he could have talked to you further, maybe help dispel whatever hesitations you had, help you see him in a better light, but he did not. he did not even pay it another mind as he continued with his morning routine.

︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶༉‧₊˚.

that night, you slept in the guest room. after the morning tiff, you had no further interactions with yoongi. he was gone for the day, and you had retired to the guest room by the time you heard his car pulling up on the porch. you checked the clock when your sleep was interrupted by the vibrations of his car wheels on the pathway. it was almost midnight. you kept lying in the dark, listening to the car door opening and then closing shortly, indicating yoongi’s descend from the vehicle. there was the jingle of the keys, and the front door opened and closed after yoongi walked in. you could hear his soft footsteps till he entered his room. of course, how dare you expect that he would come to talk to you or even want to see you. disappointed by your own expectations, you went back to sleep.

meanwhile, yoongi frowned when he walked into his room because it was empty. it was cold like every other night when you do not sleep in his room. it was a long and tiring day. he could really do with some cuddling or just your warmth against him. he stepped out of his shoes, took off his blazer and directly went to bed.

sniffing around the pillow cover, he noted the lingering fruity smell. yoongi moved back and realized he was sleeping on your pillow. it smelled like you, your shampoo, your scent. juyun must have kept it on his side after fixing the bed like she does every morning after yoongi leaves for work. however, he could not complain as he fell asleep holding it close.

︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶༉‧₊˚.

yoongi woke up right in the middle of deep sleep. it felt like he was forced awake, his consciousness grabbing at that he was just in his room, lying in his bed. something felt like it was poking at his thigh. he touched his pocket, his phone was still inside, and given the awkward position, its metal was poking uncomfortably. yoongi woke up fully on remembering that he slept in his work clothes, no wonder he woke up halfway through the minimum hours of sleep he gets. changing into his pyjamas, he tried to fall back asleep but failed. after forty-five minutes of fruitless efforts, he gave up. the clock read five thirty-five when his stomach made a loud grumble, the hunger clawing against the walls of his stomach lining, making its existence known.

right. he went to sleep without dinner. throwing on a warm pullover, yoongi made his way downstairs to the kitchen. he found eggs in the fridge and noticed some packets of ramyeon lying around the kitchen counter. juyun does not buy readymade food, so it must have been your doing. initially, yoongi thought of making some toast and eggs. still, the red colour of the shin ramyeon packet just pulled him in closer till he found himself cutting it open, pouring the contents of the flavour sachets into a pot of boiling water.

it has probably been a decade since he last cooked ramyeon, and the last time must have been when he was doing his bachelors and used to live in a dorm with his roommate yoo kihyun. he should probably call kihyun sometime. it has been so long.

it hardly took ten minutes to cook ramyeon with the vegetables, meat and eggs just like he likes it. turning the stove off, yoongi opened one of the cabinets to grab a bowl when, due to the slip of hand, another piece of utensil fell on the floor.

you know that feeling when you drop a utensil in the middle of the night, and it just would not stop bouncing against the floor, making the loudest possible noise all along? yeah, that is precisely what happened to yoongi at the moment.

grabbing the utensil, he put it back from where it fell, but it was too late. you were already awake and had made your way downstairs to the kitchen, thinking someone had broken in.

“yoongi?” you rubbed your sleepy eyes, your hair messy and awry.

“yeah, it’s just me. sorry about that. i was hungry,” yoongi watched you.

“what’s the time? are you in a hurry for work?” you asked, still confused. why is he cooking? where is juyun? why hasn’t she prepared breakfast yet?

“it’s five-fifty on a sunday morning, little one. no work,” he informed you, pouring the content of the pot into two bowls.

“oh, okay. enjoy,” you yawned and meant to walk away.

“do you want some ramyeon? i accidentally made too much,” yoongi’s voice caused you to stop in your tracks as he placed the pair of bowls on the countertop.

you gazed at his face first. is this your husband, min yoongi, or did some burglar break-in? but why would a burglar cook ramyeon in the kitchen?

you hesitantly walked to the countertop, pulling out a barstool and sitting atop it, “it surely smells enticing. looks like you cooked all the four packets.”

“yeah, i did not realize it until pouring in the last packet. back in college, i was in charge of cooking ramyeon, and kihyun and i had quite the appetite.”

“kihyun?” you questioned, grabbing a pair of the chopsticks.

“my dorm roommate,” yoongi replied, taking the first bite.

“oh. must be nice,” you took a bite too, almost stopping to admire the unique taste.

“yeah, we used to sneak out all the time,” he chuckled softly, his eyes sparkly from reminiscing some scene as you both continued eating.

“what else did you guys used to do?”

“all sorts of things, really. sneaking out, causing trouble, blasting fireworks right outside the dean’s office, playing as each other’s wingman in clubs, sneaking in alcohol and cigarettes.”

“he is a lawyer, too?”

“no, he was a business major. he won the young entrepreneur award, too.”

“are you guys not friends anymore?”

“mm, we are. just not much in contact. i went to the UK for my masters, he stayed back to build his empire. when i came back, i was too focussed on establishing a career. never really took a break.”

“do you want to?”

“what?” yoongi slurped on his noodles.

“do you want to take a break?” you reiterated before grabbing a spoon to drink the soup.

“i don’t know. i might. do you want me to take a break?”

you almost choked at his words, “wh-why does it matter what i want?”

“itmatterstome,” yoongi spoke too swiftly, but you caught each word. 

you kept staring at him, dumbfounded. if this is not a burglar, are you perhaps dreaming by any chance?

“c’mere,” yoongi motioned for you to come closer, and your body moved towards him just as his words beckoned as if moving along the sound of a pied piper.

you walked to him, stopping in between his legs which closed around you. his hands snaked around your waist before he raised a hand to smoothen down your hair, “you look so sleepy.”

“right? i must be dreaming!” you replied when you felt his lips on yours. you kissed back, thinking it was definitely a dream.

soon enough, there was a gasp causing you both to pull back at the sudden noise.

juyun trained her eyes at her feet, quick to apologise for the interruption, “i am sorry, sir. i was not expecting you here.” it was six-thirty. like routine clockwork every morning, juyun came to the main compound to start the breakfast preparations like she has over the past decade. she seriously did not expect to see her master and mistress kissing in the kitchen, of all places.

a shy blush appeared on the apple of your cheeks, your fingers resting against his pullover clutched onto the fabric. it was real, he talked to you, and he kissed you.

“it’s alright. we’ll let you get to work,” yoongi said before getting off the barstool, his hand grabbing yours as he walked out with you on his tow. you let him lead the way; you would let him lead you to hell itself if it meant he would talk to you, treat you like a human being, treat you like a husband treats his wife.

february, 2021:

it surprises you — how much yoongi and you have progressed as a couple. he is still cold, prioritises work over you, and hardly gives you any time, but it is genuine and honest when he does. at night when he comes to bed to you, he is yours. if you try slyly, you sometimes can extricate details about his life. his exterior is still just as hard, but when he enters the bed, that piece of furniture becomes a pure and sacred shrine where only you and he exist. it sounds more romantic than it actually is in reality. there is no pillow talk with him, no stolen glances, no soft gazes, just the raw version of him. he is not a man of a lot of words, even less so during sex, but he maintains the eye contact, and you know his eyes are earnest, at the very least.

more often than not, you have to try in various ways to know more about him because he can always call your bluff. well, that is what he does for a living, and he is good at it. he finds it fascinating that you always put in so much effort to get to know him better when he is nothing but a stranger that forced you to marry him on a whim. he had promised you a loveless marriage, and he has kept his end of the bargain, but he admires your rigour for not giving up on him.

unbeknownst to him, you only take an interest in his life because there is not much going on for you. you are not in love with the man you gladly sleep with, far from it. you still harbour the same feelings of disdain that had arisen during the whole testimony business. he is willingly protecting his friends who are openly indulging in criminal activities. how do you love a person like that? sure you allow yourself to submit in the physicality of it, allow him to touch your body, every crook and crevice, allow him to show you stars when he has you cumming just with his tongue, but that is it. you treat the bed as the shrine as well. whatever happens between you two stays there.

you had duly noted that yoongi only talked about his life before his parents passed away. he never touches upon the topic, nor does anything ever slip from his mouth. he carefully chooses his words and thinks things through before letting you in. so far, he has told you about his high school, college and then his UK experience. he talks about his family but only in traces. you do not mind it, as long as he talks to you and not just treats you like a wallflower.

life has been slow-moving, quiet, calm and primarily low-key, but then came the news that you had been dreading so far. one fine morning, your father passed away. his passing was peaceful at the very least, and all you did was stand quietly throughout the entirety of the funeral. the girls had offered to provide you with some moral support, but you refused them all. you only allowed rei to be there and the pastor who performed the last rites. you kept staring at the distance while the pastor narrated some verses about repentance and salvation — you could not care less.

“hey, do you have anything for the eulogy?” rei touched your arm to catch your attention.

you flinched at the touch and turned to her, “no,” shaking your head, you turned back to stare into the distance, albeit pointlessly.

the ceremony concluded within an hour, and yoongi was the one who took care of all technical details, and the rest was handled by rei.

“can you take her home? i need to take care of some final details,” yoongi asked rei, who nodded at once and escorted you to the vehicle, which took you both home.

“come here. you need to eat,” rei dragged your autopilot self inside the house by the elbow.

“um, ma’am, can eonnie have something to eat?” rei asked juyun.

“of course, miss,” juyun was quick to bring out food to the dining table.

prompted by rei, you sat down but refused to eat anything.

“don’t bother. thanks for helping, i will be fine.”

“you want me to leave you alone?” rei turned to you after pouring out a glass of water.

“if you don’t mind, yes.”

“i’ll get out of your hair. just take care of yourself. alright?”

you nodded as rei gathered her keys and wallet before leaving you alone.

once you heard the front door closing behind her, you left the dining hall and headed straight for the guest room, although, these days, you stay in yoongi’s bedroom.

about an hour later, the door to the guest room opened, “what are you doing here, little one?” yoongi’s voice was the softest that you have ever heard.

“thank you for taking care of everything,” you spoke up without missing a beat.

“you look guilty, more than upset.”

“i am,” you affirmed.

“why? you couldn’t have saved your father, you know that, right?”

“it’s not about that. it’s about the lies i told him. every day, i went to meet him. everyday i read him books and sang lies to him when he asked me how i could afford the treatment, the expensive medicine, the transplant, the CCU room. i never told him about you — us. not a word. i used to take off my ring before entering his room so that he would not ask about it. i only ever told him that i took care of everything and thought it would be enough, but it never was enough. it used to eat me alive. i only used to sit and read through pages of books but never talked to him about life. he used to try his best to engage me in conversation — telling me more stories about my dead mother than he ever had even when i used to ask him as a kid. he wanted me to talk to him, to open up to him and maybe tell him what was bothering me b-because he could tell that something was bothering me, but i said nothing. i only read through fucking pages of books that don’t matter to the dead anyway! i could have put his conscience at ease by telling him the truth, by letting him know that i would not be so lost without him like he feared till his last breath. yet, — i” you lost your voice as your words turned to hiccups, “i only lied to him,” you managed to finish your sentence, a high-pitched cry tearing through the confines of your throat.

yoongi noiselessly approached you, and although you tried your best to resist his touch and wriggle away from his grip, he kept holding you till the fight in you died down, and you let him hold you. your limbs never reciprocated, but you let him to hold you, let him rub your back, let him brush your awry strands back into place, let him wipe your tears every once in a while, till the flow of salty water through your eyelids blurred your vision too much. none of that really mattered. you just cried and cried.

you must have passed out because when your eyes opened next, they fell on the wall in front of you — an arm hanging by your lower waist, you could feel the warmth of your husband’s body from behind you. he was holding you close, his heartbeat reverberating against your back.

“awake?” yoongi asked when he felt your body squirming lightly.

“mhm.”

“are you feeling better?”

“yeah, thanks for that,” you mumbled, “how do you deal with death? i know i lost my mother years ago, but i don’t think i have ever actively dealt with the loss, just the consequences.”

“i’m probably the last person who is equipped to give advice in this area, little one. i am rude, i hold grudges, and i tend to remember the negative traits in people. i don’t think i have ever processed the passing away of my own parents.”

your breathing slowed down at the mention as you did not expect yoongi to be talking about his parents, “how did you deal with it?”

“i don’t. i am always annoyed and frustrated. annoyed because i don’t have them in my life anymore. frustrated because i couldn’t protect them, as a good son would’ve.”

you turned to now lie on your back, your face turned towards him, “you couldn’t have known, yoongi,” a raised hand touched the side of his cheek.

“you couldn’t have saved your father either, but you still feel guilty.”

“because of other reasons!”

yoongi grabbed your hand and removed it from his face, “i got my parents killed y/n. yes, i should’ve known. i should’ve protected them.”

“do you really believe that?”

“why won’t i? my actions directly led to their untimely demise. nothing else by my actions.”

“you put a bad man in jail! your parents certainly would have been proud of that.”

yoongi chuckled at that, “yeah, right. little one, no matter how many bad guys you send behind bars, there are always two others to fill up that place. the world is unfair like that, and these days, ‘doing the right thing’ means nothing to me.”

“is that why you are protecting mr seokjin?”

“not really. it is my job as a defence lawyer to protect my clients. i am just doing my job.”

“b-but it’s wrong….”

“being a defence lawyer is all about exploring the grey area of the statutes. we all do wrong things in life.”

you went to say something further but stopped and turned your back to him, continuing the previous snuggled-up predicament, “can you hold me?”

“i will always hold you, little one,” yoongi’s lips attached to the back of your earlobe to leave a chaste kiss before wrapping his arms around you in a warm hug.

︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶༉‧₊˚.

your stance regarding morality and justice has always contrasted with yoongi’s, and at times, he does not appreciate it, but he has come to admire you for not being swayed by way of the world. you still have the same stance you did when he first met you. the situations between you two have drastically changed – he threw you in the middle of a whirlwind, forced you to be his bride on a whim just because he wanted to check how the legal stance of spousal privilege upholds in a real-life courtroom situation, and yet here you are in bed with him.

the feelings he harbours towards you are not love, he is sure of it, but he likes you. he has come to adore your antics and at times even finds you endearing, but he will never admit it publicly, lest his body shall go up in flames.

initially, he regretted marrying you because he forgot that marriage entails more than signing a bunch of legal documents, and it is a whole human being in your house, in your face at all times. still, he has grown accustomed to your non-imposing presence, where you have grown to become a part of his day-to-day routine. and min yoongi is nothing if not a man of habit.

he was not always such a closed-off individual, but his parents' death hit him too hard, and he continued carrying those painful wounds around by never addressing his mental health. he drowned himself in work, quit his position as the public prosecutor, and had only one thing on his mind ‘revenge’. had it not been for kim seokjin, yoongi would have ruined himself completely instead, here he is. a reputed lawyer, founder of the top law firm in the city while also achieving the revenge he wanted. yoongi has also grown quite fond of the group of boys, they are not related to his personal life or his previous life when his parents were still alive, and that gives him a safe place to just be – he does not feel the need to open up to anyone about his feelings, he just wants to be. breathe, have a couple of whiskies, and just be.

︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶༉‧₊˚.

all this talk of losing family makes yoongi want a family. he knows that what you and he have does constitute a family, albeit a dysfunctional one, but it would not hurt to have a family of his own? you would probably agree too now that you have lost your own family. he is not trying to prey on you at your weakest moment but instead, have a rational discussion with his wife about it. life is full of surprises, and we never know what the future holds.

well, while yoongi was just casually sitting in his chambers, thinking of how to bring up the topic of having kids with you, what the actual future held was definitely not the surprise that he would have ever expected.

one minute it was all fine, like any other ordinary day, and then the next thing he knows, his secretary rushes in to ask him to turn up the television. startled at the unusual request, he turned the tv on after sensing the urgency in her voice. the default news channel took up the place on the blank screen of the monitor, and yoongi finally saw it.

‘BREAKING NEWS: fourteen-year-old son of reputed lawyer harvey specter was shot by gangmen in broad daylight.’

the reporter went on to broadcast the murder scene, which was painted in blood, and there was even some scripting on the wall where the dead boy lay in his pool of blood, written in his own blood. before the camera could zoom in, however, yoongi pulled the plug on the electronic device, causing the commotion and other noises in his chamber to die down within seconds.

yoongi refuses to watch the scene, just like he had refused to visit the accident site of his parents. his secretary left shortly to give him space as yoongi sat down on his chair, with a visibly dishevelled look marring over his features.

around fifteen minutes later, yoongi finally picked himself up again. mind you, he had no sentiment attached to the specter boy, hell he does not even know the boy’s name, but just because he does not care about someone does not automatically imply that he wishes death upon them. plus, he has worked with harvey for the past five years. they make quite the intimidating duo, and harvey has always been there for him whenever he needed it. now that it is on yoongi’s shoulder, he does not know how to be there for him. how do you console someone who had his teenage child murdered in broad daylight? hell, he does not even know about harvey’s whereabouts or what is exactly happening in the real world outside. he reached inside for his packet of cigarettes to bring one out, but his eyes took note of the way his hands shook. his gaze bore holes on the back of his shaking hand. this is precisely like five years ago all over again. he is just sitting in his chamber, locked behind a stack of files when other people could really use his help, or at least really appreciate if he can just be there for them, but here he is, locked away in a high-security prison of his own thoughts.

he is not exactly sure why he is dialling your number, but your name is what his phone is displaying on the screen. it rang and rang and rang, and there was no answer from the other side. wait a second, are you alright? are you in danger?

worried, next he dialled the number of his housekeeper who kindly informed him that you had gone out. well then, why are you not taking his calls? this is the fifth time he is calling, and if you do not pick up now, he will be filing a missing person report at once. luckily, you picked up just in time. yoongi meant to ask you where you are and why exactly it took you so long to pick up his calls, but the babbling of children in the background caused his words to get caught up in his throat and slowly die down.

“what is that?”

“what? yoongi, you mean ‘who’, and it’s just hyuk and moon playing.”

“where are you?”

“remember i told you that dany had called us over.”

“and she is?”

“mr jung’s wife.”

“right.”

“are you okay? you sound off.”

“mm,” yoongi hummed before cutting the call. he knows you are safe and having fun, so he should probably tell you the news later. he is not one to rain on someone’s parade.

︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶༉‧₊˚.

unable to stay cooped up in his chamber, yoongi came back home, but you were not home yet. although he had missed breakfast when he left for work, he refused to eat a morsel overlooking juyun’s persuasive talks about health and all that yada yada yada.

it is weird because yoongi is feeling exactly like he felt when he received the news of his parent’s accident. he feels helpless. he feels like a coward for being so weak and incapable of doing anything worthwhile to not put anyone’s life in danger. the specter boy did not die because of his direct actions, but it is related to their work. in this world, you always piss someone off, and there is always someone waiting to watch you suffer.

this is probably related to the yakuza clients of the firm. around seven months ago, there was a gang war between the yakuza and some local korean gangs, and specter and yoongi had been able to get their clients free of charges. while the leader of the korean gang got convicted on two counts of murder. on the day the judgement was pronounced, the other members of the korean gang had openly threatened specter. it was even aired on television as the brawl took place right outside the courtroom in front of a fleet of paparazzi.

yoongi and probably the rest of the world already know who is responsible for the death of the specter boy but what about it now? putting them behind bars would not bring the innocent child back. it would not make it hurt any less to the child’s parents. a life is lost, and nothing can get it back. justice is hardly a substitute for this deep a hurt.

a life for a life does not work either as have been tried and tested by yoongi – he got his parents’ murderer killed, but it did not bring him even one iota of ease. he still felt guilty, even more so because he dirtied his hands to get someone killed but most importantly, it did not bring back his parents. his childhood home was still empty, his parents' room covered in dust and spider webs.

yoongi was onto his fourth glass of whiskey when you walked in the bedroom after coming back from your short get together.

“hey,” you smiled, but it turned upside down on noticing the thick smog of smoke enveloping the room. it reeked of alcohol and burnt out cigarettes.

yoongi turned his gaze to you and nodded before turning his head back to the fireplace in front of the couch set. the flames from the logs burned in the blacks of his irises, “had fun?”

“yeah, it was nice. the kids are so sweet,” you replied while emptying your bag and came across a baby sock of hyuk. it must have accidentally fallen in your bag, “oh my god. look at this, isn’t it adorable!!” you grinned, taking the cute little sock to yoongi’s figure.

“what is it?” yoongi’s gaze did not falter from watching the show put up by the blazing flames.

“hyuk’s sock!! it’s so small, so adorable, just like his cute little baby feet,” you advanced the sock towards yoongi.

yoongi kept his glass away before taking the piece of fabric in his hands. it smelt like baby powder, baby formula, and everything baby. it was baby yellow in colour and extremely small like you had been gushing about. your husband let a sigh, his fingers feeling the fabric before he threw it in the fireplace.

“wha-what the fuck!” you yelled before pulling out the burning sock by grabbing it at the edge with your nails. you can be blindly impulsive at times.

“why the fuck would you do that?!” you yelled again, grabbing some ice cubes from the ice bucket to cool down your semi-burned finger.

yoongi finally turned his gaze away from the flames and looked you dead in the eyes, “we will never have kids.”

“huh?”

“don’t huh me. you were getting there with all the gushing and baby handling, so get this drilled through your thick skull – you and i will never have kids.”

“what is the meaning of all this? are you drunk?”

“certainly not enough,” he refilled his glass again, emptying more than half the canister, “next time you go out, let me know in advance and always have the driver accompany you.”

“yoongi, what is happening? why are you talking like this?”

“leave me alone,” he gritted his teeth.

you tried to approach him, but he dismissed you with a show of hand, “just leave. and i should never hear baby talk around this house ever again.”

confused, humiliated, and feeling somewhat afraid by his erratic behaviour, you walked away wordlessly.

︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶༉‧₊˚.

a week passed by without a word from yoongi. he refused to look you in the eye or lay in the same bed as you. although you felt like the one intruding, he never asked you to leave the room and instead slept in the guest room himself. you did not see much of him either. he would return from work in the wee hours of the night and then leave early in the morning. when he was home, he would keep himself locked in his study. typically, you would at least be able to hear his voice while he is talking to some junior or client through the phone, but in the past week, you did not even hear a sigh leaving his lips. the house had gone into a permanent state of silence, filled only by your soft sighs, mutterings and short conversations between juyun and yourself. visitors have never known the min house to be home, so there is not another life around other than yours, yoongi’s, juyun’s and the driver’s.

bored out of your mind, you finally decided to go out for some fresh air. you have never been much of a homebody. owing to having part-time jobs since fifteen, you are pretty much accustomed to going out and spending your day outdoors. it feels nice, the sun on your face, and its rays always rejuvenate your energy. staying indoors is a far difficult task for you than you thought it would be. and to top it off, yoongi is not talking to you.

you were changing to some beige shorts paired with a cute top when the doorbell went off. juyun usually answers the door, so you were not bothered by the bell and went on to inserting the belt strap through the hoops when the bell went off again. odd, juyun never slacks off. she must be using the facilities or is extremely busy dealing with something else. fastening the belt, you walked downstairs and opened the door just as the bell went off for the third time.

“yes?”

“is mr min home?” a bald guy stood on the other side of the door, dressed in a white tank and a black leather jacket. you could tell he had a tattooed arm, and there were smaller tattoos on his face as well. he had a rough exterior but also had a classy aura around him. he looked like a man who held a lot of power and was in a respectable position. certainly not someone to mess with.

“no, he is at court.”

the man nodded and turned his back to leave but turned again with a fake smile, “can i bother you for a glass of water?”

you debated internally about letting a dangerous-looking man in, but he knew yoongi and looked like a wealthy client, so there was probably not much to worry about.

wrong.

reluctantly nodding, you let space for the man to enter, who sauntered in and sat down on the couch without a care in the world. you walked to the kitchen but still did not notice juyun anywhere around. sighing, you brought out a tumbler from one of the cabinets and poured water in it.

upon walking out with the glass of water, you saw the man now sitting with his phone in his hand, “here.”

“thank you, miss,” the man smiled before taking the glass of water and finishing the contents of it in one gulp, “i talked to mr min. he said he was on his way home.”

“oh? alright then, please make yourself comfortable,” you mumbled before leaving the living hall space to escape to the bedroom – not wanting to be in the presence of the man anymore.

yoongi was in his car, headed from the court to his office, when his phone dinged with a new mail. he did not want to check it but saw that it was from the yakuza boss. upon opening it, yoongi’s eyes went wide to the very brim when he noticed what he was staring at. the mail had a video attached to it – the camera lens was pointed downwards, but yoongi can clearly make out your bare legs walking into the living room from the direction of the kitchen and handing something to the boss, who thanked you for it in return. what the fuck is that guy doing at his place? why the fuck did you let him in?

yoongi did not waste a minute before directing his driver to take him home at once.

“is it urgent, sir? there is some traffic jam on the 46th,” the driver asked.

“just take a u-turn and take the flyover.”

“well, you are the lawman, sir,” the driver nodded before taking a sharp u-turn on the one-way and taking the flyover, which took yoongi home within seven minutes.

he walked out of the car in haste while it was still slowing down on the porch and directly headed towards the door before smashing the doorbell.

you answered the door again to see your husband boiling in anger. if only looks could kill. yoongi walked past you and addressed the yakuza boss.

“my driver will take you to my office. i will meet you there.”

“fine thought we could just talk here like old times,” the man shrugged before standing up.

“at the moment, that won’t be possible,” yoongi gritted out.

the man smirked a little before leaving the two of you alone.

“what were you fucking thinking? why did you let that asshole in!” yoongi’s yell boomed inside the empty confines of the house, the sound echoing off the walls.

“who is he?”

“he runs the biggest mafia organization in incheon. that’s who he is. where is juyun?”

“i don’t know. she did not answer the door, so i did. he told me that he had talked to you, and you had asked him to wait at here.”

“well, he fucking lied!”

“why are you angry at me? what should i have done instead? refuse him? i could clearly see his gun sticking out from under his jacket!”

yoongi groaned in frustration this time because you were right. these people do not precisely have a morality meter and could have easily hurt you if you had not extended the hospitality, “you are such a fucking liability. five years i have been a defence lawyer with zero issues, and the moment you walked into my life, you have been nothing but a liability.”

“stop calling me that! i am a human,” you rebutted, equally angry.

“shut the fuck up,” he turned around, looking for juyun and yelled for her. by the second time, she finally came out in a soiled apron filled with dust.

“yes, mr min? i was cleaning in the outhouse.”

“why did you leave her alone?” yoongi spoke in the same loud, angered tone.

“i-i am sorry, but what happened?”

“next time you leave her alone, i will fucking fire your incompetent ass.”

you flinched at his tone. he was being unreasonably mean and talking very rudely to the old lady, “please, don’t scold her for my mistakes.”

“shut up, y/n. i don’t want to hear a word from you. i have heard enough all these months, and i have done my best to accommodate you in this new life, but i am done now. i am done fixing every havoc you wreck in my life,” yoongi turned to you after dismissing juyun, who scurried to her feet and left you both alone immediately.

“what are you on about? i have never intruded in your work life or any life for the matter. i stay in this house like a piece of furniture and just keep to myself.”

“well, that’s too bad because from now on, you ain’t stepping a foot outside without juyun, the driver or me accompanying you.”

“but that way, i won’t have my freedom at all!”

“little one, probably the most oppressive lie ever uttered was the song of freedom. for nearly every living thing, choice breeds shame and uncertainty and regret. there’s a fork in every road, yet the wrong path is always taken.”

“i had warned you beforehand that you would regret marrying me, and yet here we are. you cannot just imprison me like this yoongi!”

“do you really want to test me? are you sure?” yoongi growled and advanced towards you.

his chest almost met yours when you suddenly felt a burning sensation and took a step back with a yelp, “ouch, what the hell?”

yoongi stared at your hand. it had a burn mark from his lit up cigarette in his hand, which must have accidentally brushed and touched the back of your hand.

“see, you are nothing but a liability.”

“and you are a fucking asshole,” you whimpered and rushed to the guest room to lock yourself in.

︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶༉‧₊˚.

that was the last you saw of yoongi for an entire month and a half. for six whole weeks, your husband ignored you, strayed away from you and downright avoided you – a part of it came from his guilt for unintentionally hurting you.

at night, when he comes back after a rough day at work, he unceremoniously barges in the guest room where you have chosen to reside these days, and he just lays down beside you – holding you snuggly in his arms and falls asleep in his work clothes, reeking of cigarettes and bourbon. you lay there perfectly still, aware of his every movement, woken by his crass door-opening. you allow him to hold you to sleep, but in exchange, you sacrifice your own sleep as the overwhelming smell blinds your senses. however, you have come to enjoy these times as it feels nice to be held – he could have gone to any woman he wants – he is rich, handsome, successful. clearly, in an unhappy relationship with his wife and yet, at the end of the day, he comes to the same wife — not to talk to her but to hold her close.

you are often left confused between feeling patronized or relaxed under his touch, but there are not many things left to enjoy, so you enjoy this embrace he gives you. his soft snores are rhythmic. midway through the night, he often pulls up his leg on top of yours and crushes you under his weight – your face in the pillow. you just sigh, close your eyes and rest.

︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶༉‧₊˚.

the quiet and silence were not for naught. it was the calm before the storm, and boy did the cloud burst on your head with the loudest bang.

towards the start of the seventh week, you received your father’s ashes. he wanted his ashes to be distributed on han river – his favourite picnic spot for a still middle schooler you. he would make those cute little bento boxes with the adorable designs, and the pair of you would enjoy them by the shore.

you decided to not waste time and distribute the ashes on the very day. however, the flaw in your plan was what your husband had ruled for you. you are not allowed to step outside the threshold without juyun or the driver accompanying you, but this is something personal. you wanted to be alone for this one and hence decided to sneak out.

isn’t it amazing when your plans just bust open and come to bite you in the ass? well, it did not take a long time for your sneaky plans to come bite you in the ass. juyun found out that you were missing from the house after the courier with your father’s ashes arrived. like a loyal servant, she immediately informed her master, who was very displeased to learn of the unsavoury news. what are you trying to do? trying to get killed? yoongi is desperately trying to keep you safe, keep you from getting killed just like everyone he cares about, but you cannot clap with one hand – he needs you to cooperate with him as well. living in luxury, catered to by servants and enjoying the best life in exchange for freedom – what is the problem with that? he earns in millions and has put every luxury at your feet, yet you choose to defy him when he is just trying to keep you safe. how difficult is that to understand? yoongi has no choice left but to take the matter into his hands – like always.

one phone call to your favourite detective jeongguk, and yoongi had your location by tracking your cell. if you are going to defy his express concerns and sneak out, then at least make it difficult for him to find you.

naïve.

han river is a mere twenty-minute drive from his office, and lo and behold, twenty minutes passed, and his driver parked the car outside hangang park. yoongi sauntered in, and within a few minutes, he was able to locate you among the sea of visitors as you stood by the shore barefoot. the hem of your dress flowed with the soft breeze from the river. you were staring out in the distance, the urn held securely in your hand as the peaceful ebb and flow of the waves crashed against your feet, immersing your ankles.

he admired the view but snapped himself out of it – this is not the time to be basking in your beauty. you have willingly put your life in danger, and for what? to distribute your dead father’s ashes? anyone could have done that! you could have just asked the driver. getting angrier and angrier with the intruding thoughts, yoongi marched right over to where you stood and grabbed you by the elbow.

it caught you off-guard, and you almost dropped the urn but regained your stability and turned to fight back the assaulter only to face your husband. oh fuck, here comes the angry stare and the unkind words. well, that is all he usually does, so you are not too scared of the outcome now that you have been caught. and let me tell you, you have never been more wrong in your life.

“i told you not to go out alone!” yoongi’s grip around your elbow only tightened as he came closer to your figure.

“yoongi, this is between my father and i. couldn’t just bring someone else for such an intimate see-off. i have to do this alone. please try to understand my plight.”

“oh yeah? your dead father wanted his ashes distributed? fine! i’ll be a good son-in-law and do it,” yoongi proceeded to snatch the urn from your hands – uncapping it and emptied the contents on the sand away from the shoreline – near the area where the river wave was not strong enough to drown it out with it, “there. it’s done. let’s go.”

you watched him frozen. your limbs fell cold as the blood circulation slowed down, much like your breathing had. you are not sure if you felt anger, remorse, regret, disdain, shock, and many other emotions and honestly struggled on how to react to this blasphemy. you tried to get away from his grip, but he dragged you towards the exit. you saw people watching you being carried away. they just assumed that it was none of their business and did not even bother butting in to help you or even to make sure if you were okay – if you were being taken away against your will but guess the world just revolves around the rich men. as long as it is a rich man, in a fine suit doing it, they can get away with just about anything and the world will not bat an eyelash.

tears rolled down your face as yoongi shoved you in the backseat of the car, slamming the door shut behind you. soon after, he got in as well through the other door.

“did you think i was joking when i told you, explicitly, to not leave the house without company? do you have any fucking idea how dangerous it is outside? they killed specter’s son, and they will kill you if that pleases them. stop flaunting yourself around like you are no one. you are mrs min yoongi – the wife of a defence lawyer. do you have any fucking idea how many goddamn enemies i have?! everything is a joke to your pretty little head, isn’t it?” he jerked you once to get a response out of you, but you kept crying, refusing to even look at him.

enraged, yoongi grabbed your chin in a tight grip and turned your gaze towards him, “cat got your tongue?”

after all your attempts to get away from him failed, you gave up and looked him right in the eyes, “how could you do that? i thought you knew better. haven’t you lost your own parents?”

yoongi’s grip loosened at the mention of his parents. well, isn’t he doing all of this cause of what happened to them? scoffing, he let go your chin and looked away when your gaze did not falter – something in him could not meet your eyes. what was he becoming? he would like to call himself paranoid, but that does not even cut half of it, not when people are really out there to hurt them.

upon reaching home, you ran straight towards the guest room, completely ignoring juyun, who asked in a worried tone why you were crying.

you locked yourself in and cried to your heart’s content. all you wanted, the only thing you wanted was to keep your father’s last wish, and it got taken from you like your will means nothing to anyone. you just want to mean something to someone, the last person to whom you meant anything is dead and just got his ashes emptied on the sand, on fucking sand where the water does not even reach over to drown it away.

it must have been hours till yoongi came to you. although you take the unnecessary care to lock the room, he walks right in with his keys.

“stop crying,” his voice had mellowed out and held a tinge of remorse. you kept crying, not paying any mind till you felt the delve of the bed behind you and tried to get away from him when he sat down, but he pulled you right back and had you sit down on his lap.

“let go of me!” you yelled in anger, your shriek booming in the confines of the walls, but yoongi did not loosen his grip. he held you down till you stopped resisting his hold, till you stopped resisting his presence in the same room as you, till you stopped resisting him.

“i am sorry little one. i am really so-”

you cut him right off. he had no right to speak after the stunt he just pulled, “i lied to my father when he was dying, yoongi. i lied to him till his last breath, i lied to him about every single happening in my life, and now you just took away that last chance i had to do anything right by him! one thing, one last single fucking thing i had, and you took it away because what? because you are paranoid!?!?! why do you even care if i drop dead someday? i sure do hope i do, so i don’t have to be imprisoned by you anymore!” you blurted it all in one breath, even though you knew he would get angry – it just did not matter anymore. you have nothing to lose.

“don’t say that, please just don’t say that. fight with me all you want but don’t say that. i am doing everything in my ability to keep you safe, to keep you from their reach so they cannot hurt you. i have grown fond of you, y/n, i think i might be in love with you, but above all that, i just wish to protect you. i don’t expect you to love me back, but please, don’t wish for that. i can-can’t lose one more person from my life.”

and that is probably the only time you have ever heard your husband’s voice falter than his usual nonchalant and casual one.

it would have been different in other circumstances. at the moment, it did not matter what he said. it was all the same to you – sweet nothings.

“good for you ‘cause i will never love you back, min yoongi.”

yoongi’s hold on you loosened at those words, which really drove a wedge through his heart – he accepts it. he has hurt you beyond words, but he can live with it. he can live with just watching you living and breathing in the safety of his house and his arms. he has survived all these years without the love of a partner, so what are another few decades?

he kept holding you for the rest of the night, securely in his lap, and you just sat there – exhausted from crying, from fighting him and his irrational ideologies – he could do whatever he wanted to you for all you cared, but he just held you.

︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶༉‧₊˚.

“eonnie, i am very sick. can you please get me some aspirin? i have a nasty migraine attack,” rei spoke through the phone when you picked her call one fine summer afternoon in may.

“can’t jimin get it for you?” you asked as you did not want to break the rules again. since the whole incident with your father’s ashes, you have not stepped foot outside this house – out of pure hatred and pettiness more than anger. life has somewhat returned to how it used to be, some nights would end in (consensual) sex, but all nights would definitely end in snuggles and cuddles. you never reciprocated his actions and let him do whatever he wanted – he was bound to be bored by a rag-doll.

“he is gone to the states for some dance competition,” rei replied with a blocked nasally tone.

“can you try and order online, maybe?” you really wished to avoid going out, but you felt guilty for refusing as well.

“i tried, but it would take more than two hours because the app says that none of the deliverymen are in my area. eonnie, please, jimin-ssi has been gone for a week. it would be nice if i get to see someone for a change.”

you let a deep sigh. well, it would be nice if you also could see someone other than your husband and maid for a change, “alright. i will come over but only to drop off the meds, i won’t stay for long.”

“works for me! you’re the best!!” rei gushed before cutting the call.

a small smile appeared on your face after what felt like weeks on hearing rei’s voice and her childish shenanigans. after a quick shower, you got dressed and headed downstairs to find juyun. since obviously you cannot go alone, might as well take your alleged bodyguard with you. upon entering the kitchen, however, all you found was a note stuck to the refrigerator.

“i will be gone to get the monthly groceries. i will be back around 6pm.”

the clock on the kitchen wall showed that it was only around four. you were left with no option but to go out alone as the driver was gone with yoongi. sighing, you set out alone after locking the doors. it would take a total of forty-five minutes to rei’s house and back home, five minutes to buy the aspirin from some pharmacy on the way and maybe a ten minutes talk with rei, and still, you would be back before juyun. finalising your plan, you took a cab and headed to rei’s place.

︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶༉‧₊˚.

around fifteen minutes past five, you left rei’s place even though she begged you to stay a while longer, wanting to hang out more with you, and although it broke your heart to refuse her so sternly, you had to. it took you twenty minutes to get back home, and you walked in unsuspecting till you noticed juyun and yoongi standing in the living room staring as you walked in.

“h-hi?” you exhaled sharply.

yoongi came back earlier because he wanted to take you out for a night out, whereas juyun had finished shopping and came back by five. she usually finishes all her work before the set-out time, so this was everyday routine work for her.

it is just the absolute worst day of your life though, why did yoongi think of taking you out on this particular day? why is juyun so prompt and diligent? can fate cut you any slack at all?

“where were you gone?” yoongi crossed his arms over his chest.

“to um, rei’s. she’s sick, and her husband is away. she needed me.”

“right. wonder if she will still need you when you are lying by the street in a pool of your blood with a bullet wound in your forehead.”

you rolled your eyes at the clearly exaggerated paranoid thought, “you are overexaggerating.”

“i-? i am the one who is overexaggerating? wow. the fucking nerve you have! and here i was, leaving back work to take you out thinking you would be so bored at home.”

“just because you thought to do one single decent act for me does not mean you own my freedom, as well. i can go anywhere i wish to. it's a free world.”

“right. it’s a free world, and that applies for the criminals too.”

“you can’t always shield me, yoongi. this is madness!”

“spare me your moral pep talks. and that rei? i am going to fire that bitch.”

“hey, don’t talk about her like that!” you raised your voice at the sudden provocation, “i am all she has, and lately, the vice versa also stands very much true.”

juyun watched from the background as the two of you fought back and forth. she clearly would not want to be a party to her employer’s personal matters, but yoongi had asked her to stay back, so she is standing her ground.

yoongi chuckled at your words, “oh yeah? she is your only family? because of what, this stupid picture that she gave you?” he pointed at the picture frame mounted over the living room fireplace before walking over to it and grabbing it.

“it might be just a frame, but a rich snob like you will never understand the sentimental value of it,” you were in no mood to bite down today, which was clearly evident from your passive-aggressive words.

“really? fine, then what’s the point of keeping it in MY house when i am an unemotional asshole,” he broke upon the glass of the frame by smashing it against the wooden frame of the fireplace and brought out the picture. with his free hand, he retrieved the lighter from his trouser pocket.

“n-no no-no, don’t do that, please,” compared to your earlier harsh tone, your voice now come out as a feeble plea.

“oh, little one, you have no idea what all i can do and more,” yoongi grinned before flicking the lighter open. he placed one of the pointy edges of the picture on the flame, and the material went up in flames faster than your reaction speed.

by the time you walked to him and snatched the burning picture from him, the fire had engulfed most of it, and your fingers let go of the charred end that was left of it, only to let the fire turn the entirety of it to ashes.

“wh-why! why are you doing this! i was good! i listened to you and kept my word.”

“clearly, you were not good enough,” yoongi turned to juyun, “get that gift i had prepared for your mistress.”

juyun nodded slowly, unsure what her employer was planning and went inside to retrieve a gift-wrapped box. yoongi got a hold of it and brought out a white wedding dress from the box.

“where did you get that?” you tried to take the dress from his hand upon recognizing that it was your mother’s treasured wedding dress.

“juyun found it one day while she was cleaning. i saw that it had some tears, so i had it restored to exactly how it was. i wanted to surprise you, but hey, it’s not like you ever want my love, right?”

and the next thing you know, your mother’s beautiful dress was up in flames. dumped on the floor, the flame engulfed inch by inch of the luscious fabric. you tried to get a hold of it in an unsuccessful yet desperate plea to save it from the fire, but you were only hurting yourself. juyun held you back while you kept thrashing against her. voiceless cries and whimpers left your throat as tears blurred your vision.

“dear, please get a hold of yourself. you know master min loves you and only wants the best of you,” juyun wiped your tears after you calmed down by her side and had slid down to a kneeling position on the floor.

you pushed her hands away, “how can you say that! how dare you even think that he loves me and cares for me after seeing what he did with your own two eyes! what kind of love is this?”

“shh,” the kind maid finished wiping your tears and tucked your awry hair behind, “go to him.”

“for what? so he can hurt me more?” your eyes fixated on the third-degree burns on your palms and fingers. they weren’t many, but they were proof of just what he did.

“just let me take care of this mess and go to him, alright?” juyun walked you to yoongi’s bedroom before ushering you in and closing the door gently behind you. a minor quarrel is usual between husband and wife, and talking can solve a lot of things, at least that is what juyun is hoping for cause what she witnessed first-hand has really shaken her, too.

you kept standing near the doorstep, your head hung low. just when you had thought that you had nothing left to lose, you lost even more things – things you never feared you would lose, and the way you lost them really opened gates to another level of emotional trauma.

“strip,” came yoongi’s voice after what felt like an eternity of just standing there with tears dripping down on the carpet. he finished the cigarette he was smoking and smashed it in the ashtray kept on the nightstand.

you looked up at him in disbelief – you were also surprised that you could feel any emotion at all after the preceding traumatizing turn of events, “what?”

“i asked you to strip, which you heard correctly the very first time,” yoongi was still angry from the act of defiance and wanted to punish you more but could not think of how. he did ask you to strip but, in his mind, it was all blank – he would never put a hand on your dignity without consent. still, a part of him revelled in that terrorised look in your eyes.

“no,” you shook your head and took a step back when yoongi stood up at your defiant answer. your back came in contact with the closed-door as yoongi stood right in front of you.

“you are not making this any easier,” he brought a finger to your figure, tracing your arms.

you shivered from the touch out of disgust and complied wordlessly. you don’t think you have anything left to lose, but you cannot take a chance, not anymore.

content by your actions, yoongi walked back to resume his seat on the bed and watched with hawk eyes as you stripped off your clothes.

his hard exterior tore apart as each piece of clothing came off. he cannot do this. not to you or any human being. you stood in your lingerie, hugging yourself in shame and fear.

yoongi felt bile rising up to his throat at sight – what is he doing?

“c’mere,” he patted his lap with a frown. he is supposed to protect you. why is he hurting you? this is not supposed to happen.

reluctantly, you walked to him before sitting on his lap but not letting your guard down.

he put his work blazer over your shoulders before snaking his arms around your waist, but they never strayed towards your intimate region. his hold was secure around your waist, and his head came to rest against your back, “little one, don’t defy me like this. believe me when i say i know better and only want the best for you. please, forgive me for hurting you. it is never my intention. i am so so so sorry.”

and there we go, we have come a complete never-ending circle finished off by his sweet nothings.

July, 2021:

valentina walked in with a cup of coffee to your room, “here, you go, miss. what you reading there?”

you looked up from your book, “shakespeare’s king lear,” you smiled, taking the cup of coffee, “thank you.”

“is it a love story about some king?” she smiled enthusiastically.

“not really. it’s a tragedy about a king who relinquishes his power and land to his two daughters and then becomes destitute.”

valentina’s smile vanished, “oh… you read a lot of tragedies.”

“mhm, now that you mentioned it, i do that. guess we look comfort from our real-life in storybooks,” you shrugged, taking a sip of the coffee.

“but you live in such a huge mansion with such a handsome husband, you don’t have to lift a finger, and every work around the house gets done routinel-” she stopped upon noticing the quirked eyebrow on your forehead as you watched her talk, she might be crossing some lines, “i am sorry, i just don’t see the tragedy.”

“it’s poetic,” you sighed on noting that she was still confused, “don’t think much about it. i am just a pessimistic person.”

“oh no, ma’am, i meant no disrespect!”

you nodded and went back to your book, prompting valentina to take her leave, as well.

valentina is the newest addition to the min house staff, and she was hired personally by yoongi because he claimed that you needed a friend, someone your age in whom you could confide in and feel comfortable around. ironic how he pretends that he actually cares or gives a shit. you have not stepped foot outside by yourself since the day yoongi burned your mother’s dress along with the picture that rei had gifted you. you go out with juyun when and absolutely required. other times, you refuse any chance to go out and choose to stay in. you do not want to set off that arsonist maniac anymore. you have had enough of his rough handling your life like a piece of paper that he gets to crumple and straighten out whenever he feels like it.

valentina is one chirpy bird. she is always so happy even if you ask her to do some extra work. she does everything in her capacity to get you talking or even going out with her as instructed by your husband, but you know better. you know that behind those honey-laced words and batting eyelashes lay a pair of greedy eyes that are eyeing up your position as the mistress of this house.

the way she subtly flirts with yoongi is so evident to you. although you have yet to find it in you to be jealous, what annoys you is how oblivious yoongi is to her shenanigans. juyun too, who is usually very strict about the household chores and always scolds valentina if she misses a spot, gladly turns a blind eye to her shameless flirting. makes you wonder how maybe yoongi’s staff do not really approve of you as his wife because you are not affectionate towards him. well, how can you possibly be? you can never fall for a person like that. it’s beyond your wildest imaginations – he can speak his sweet nothings about love and safety all he wants, but you are not going to fall for that.

for all you care, yoongi can go ahead and cheat on you. the contract you had signed on the day of marriage did not have it written anywhere that you have to love him. it just had been a means to buy your testimony, and it has fulfilled that purpose well. if he cheats on you, maybe you can bring that up as a ground for divorce. although taking the help of law against a lawyer is a losing situation, but, might as well try it out.

that is precisely how you found yourself outside of yoongi’s study late at night. you had fallen asleep but woke up to the sound of something falling on the kitchen floor. you came downstairs to check the ruckus and saw valentina making a cup of black coffee. only yoongi drinks black coffee in the household, but what was she doing here? both juyun and valentina are supposed to leave the household premises by nightfall, and yet at half-past twelve, you see the conniving little bitch in your kitchen brewing coffee for your asshole husband. maybe they are sneaking out behind your back, after all.

fine, all you have to do is catch them in the act.

you watched from the shadows as valentina finished the coffee and walked towards yoongi’s study, where he was cooped up working on a high-profile case. there was a particular sway in valentina’s hips tonight that did not escape your hawk eyes. rolling your eyes, you followed her and watched her walk in after she knocked. yoongi must have been too engrossed in his files to just blindly give permission so late at night, or he might have thought it was you. wait, why are you making excuses for him already? you are here to catch him red-handed.

you walked to the door and pushed it slightly to let a crack at the door through which you could see them.

“yes, little on-” yoongi turned up from his files and looked visibly confused on noticing that it’s not you but his new maid. what was her name, again? yeah, valentina. right, “what are you doing here? you are not supposed to be in the main house after nightfall.”

“yes, i know you work nights, so i thought of making you some coffee since miss goes to sleep,” valentina smiled, advancing the coffee towards him.

“did she ask you to be here?”

“miss? no-no! she does not even know i am here. i don’t think she cares enough.”

“excuse me? what did you just say?” it did not take more than seconds for yoongi’s expressions to turn into a scowl.

‘you are one good actor, min yoongi. as if you care if someone speaks bad behind my back,’ you thought, watching the scene unfold.

valentina walked to his side, placing her hand carefully on his arm, “you work so hard, but miss never looks after you. i can look after you, mr min, i will take good care of you!”

yoongi slapped her hand away, “what are you on about!”

“she wants to fuck you, asshole,” frustrated by his obliviousness, you exclaimed out too loudly. oh fuck.

“y/n?” yoongi called.

“ugh,” groaning, you walked in, “can’t you see it? she is flirting with you. she wants to be the next mrs. min,” you crossed your arms.

“next? but i already have a mrs min,” yoongi’s scowl turned to a smirk, he has dearly missed this feisty side of yours.

“divorce me and live happily with her. like she said, she will take good care of you. right, miss valentina?” you gritted, turning your head towards valentina.

the new maid, who was a couple of years older than you, cowered in fear under your judgmental gaze, “miss, i am sorry, please.”

“god, you look so fucking hot right now,” yoongi smacked his lips.

your eyes went wide at the vile words, is he seriously flirting with the maid right in front of you! “are you for real right no-” you turned to him, ready to tear him a new one, but your words died in your throat when you noticed that his gaze was only fixated on you. he was calling you hot, “-oh.”

you started playing with your fingers again, as has been your habit whenever you get nervous or shy. the blush on your cheeks was unmistakable, and yoongi could clearly feel the heat they radiated.

he grabbed your hand, pulling you towards him, “is little one blushing for me?”

“n-no!” you huffed as yoongi placed you right in front of him, between his legs. you both stood behind the oak table whereas valentina was by the door, looking for a chance to leave the mess she had caused.

yoongi let a soft chuckle watching you getting flustered. he guided your hips to sit upon the edge of the table, “you,” he turned to valentina, who had just opened the door to walk out, “close that door and don’t you dare leave.”

and it was at that moment, valentina realized that she had fucked up royally.

yoongi turned his undivided attention back to you, “my feisty little wife, were you jealous?”

you made a disgusted face at that, “not even by a bit. why should i be jealous?”

“is that so? so you would be totally fine if i cheated on you?” yoongi pulled up your t-shirt, and you wordlessly raised your arms to facilitate the motion.

“i dare you to try and cheat me,” you grabbed his collar, pulling him close to you.

yoongi grinned, “thought you wanted to divorce me.”

“i will find other grounds, but i refuse to be disrespected like that,” cupping his face, you kissed him, probably the first time in months. although the two of you have sex on and off, you deny him any kisses from you. it was supposed to be some punishment, but to hell with all that. your husband did not miss a beat to kiss you right back.

valentina, on the other hand, watched with wide eyes as the scene unfolded in front of her.

yoongi’s hands are always very skilful when it comes to taking your clothes off, his hands always know how to unhook your bra, and he rarely has to worry about panties because you never wear them to bed, and tonight, as well you did not. he yanked the shorts off you.

given the positioning of the table, valentina could not see you naked. only your back was to her.

yoongi leaned down to his knees and situated his head between your thighs, the intimate smell from your sex greeting his senses. his thumb massaged the outer walls slowly while his index finger aided to push your walls wide open. the hot craven calling to yoongi like the sound of a siren. he licked his lips once before delving in and doing what he does best – having you by the toes with his tongue. you gasped at the sensation of his tongue between your lush walls. your hand grabbed onto one of your breasts, squeezing it in an attempt to muffle down your cries. you refuse to give him the satisfaction — that his tongue always sends you on the edge from the very start. for instance, he has barely started, yet you are already wet, your arousal coating yoongi’s tongue like a forbidden elixir. you equipped your free hand to keep you stable on the table as it gripped the edge tightly, your nails scratching the expensive wood polish.

“you never learn,” yoongi tsk’ed when he felt you trying to close your legs together.

“guess, i never do,” you mumbled, raising one of your legs up to now rest over his shoulder blade. who is this new confident y/n?

“that’s more like it,” the devil’s advocate grinned his gummy smile before resuming his rightful position between your walls. his tongue reaching up at an angle while his fingers pumped inside you smoothly, aided by your generous lubrication. his fingers bent upwards and thrummed against the upper wall with the force that had your toes curling up.

“fuck-” you moaned loud enough for your voice to reverberate in the room, your hand now grabbing onto his hair for support.

yoongi alternated between sucking on your hollow walls to pumping his fingers at a supersonic speed. the closer he got to your orgasm, the more lubrication your sex created. he was ready to taste your cum, he was eager and excited even, but you pulled his head away.

“i want your dick,” you leaned down to kiss him.

“you will get it. have some patience, little one,” he said in between the kiss. his tongue, dutifully, transferring your taste to your very tongue.

“now! i can’t wait,” your fingers brought out his semi-hard dick from underneath his underwear and started pumping it – from the base to the tip with the same fervour that yoongi had shown you.

“whoa, someone is eager to get dicked down,” he chuckled, letting you work around his length.

“maybe because you don’t dick me down enough,” you shrugged and collected a ball of spit before dropping it on the bulbous tip.

yoongi inhaled sharply at the cold sensation of the saliva, “then maybe you should,” he took hold of his length and gave it a few pumps before entering you, earning a delicious moan from you, “speak up more.”

“never,” your fingers grabbed onto the hair on the back of his head, pulling it backwards to bring his eyes to yours.

“feisty,” he drove his length in, past the initial discomfort, and you felt your body going through physical hiccups at the slow and drawn out thrusts. he was enjoying the view, how enticing you looked, how out of wits miss holmes looked at the feeling of his dick inside her.

halfway through getting railed, you looked behind to check if valentina was watching. the moment you made eye contact with her, you smirked at her and sent a playful wink which had her staring at her feet out of sheer embarrassment and shame.

“thought i would make you come once with my tongue before dicking you down,” yoongi spit at the junction where his dick disappeared into you before collecting it on his thumb to rub circles on your nub.

“mm, we don’t always get what we want. are you afraid you can’t make me cum with your dick?”

the look that he gave you next was one that made you genuinely regret the words that you just spewed as he sped up his thrusts, accompanied with his skilled finger stimulating your sex to no ends. you grew closer to your orgasm, but yoongi had other plans – he pulled away and brought you to your feet to turn you over. his hand on your back traced downwards along your spine and pushed you down on the table – all the while, his dick poking at your inner thigh like a warning. you lowered your upper body on the table and felt yoongi’s hand holding your head down amidst the case files he was working on. your eyes fell on a familiar name, ‘kim seokjin’ and on the second line, you could clearly make out the words ‘innocent of murder charges’. you tried to raise your head up to read more, but yoongi’s hand kept you pinned down while his length impaled you again.

“mm,” you exhaled as the tip felt like it tore through your walls in this position – with your pelvis strictly bent over the edge of the table in a painful position.

you stood corrected as yoongi brought you to your orgasm, all the detective thoughts in your pretty little head getting washed over by the wave of pleasure. he kept holding you, thrusting into you at the same speed to ride out your high and chase his own. you could tell he was closer when his grip on your body loosened up. a few more thrusts in, and yoongi emptied his balls on the small of your back.

︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶༉‧₊˚.

“can you imagine i almost came inside? you always rile me up so well,” yoongi mused after cleaning your back.

“mhm, the no-kids clause. how can i forget,” you offered him a close-lipped smile, putting on his work shirt and buttoning it.

yoongi put on his underwear and wore his trousers. his hand advanced towards you to tuck your hair behind, but you dodged it and walked to valentina, holding the door open.

“i never want to see you again. leave before i drag you out by your hair.”

you did not need to repeat yourself as she made a run for the door to never come back to the min mansion.

after she made her exit, you walked out too, closing the door behind you, but before the doors could close completely, you heard yoongi again.

“by the way, i fired rei today.”

of course, yoongi had other reasons to fire her, which he tactfully did not let you on in.

it only felt like another thing that you did not know you could lose but just did to your paranoid husband.

︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶༉‧₊˚.

a/n: our hon’ble judge marly is none other than my bb @teakwoods-ghost​ !!

feedback is deeply appreciated.✨

masterlist | bangtan masterlist | rules | ask box

- jaimie.

© 𝟫𝟫𝓁𝒾𝓃𝑒𝓇𝓈, 𝟐𝟎𝟤𝟣. 𝐀𝐋𝐋 𝐑𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓𝐒 𝐑𝐄𝐒𝐄𝐑𝐕𝐄𝐃.

[glorified-red]

(CW & TW: this does discuss noncon & Dick's history of assault and an analysis of his coping afterwards)

So its a pretty canonical thing that Dick was sexually assaulted, not once, but multiple times. Not to mention the repeated underage comments thrown his way during his time as Robin. It's fine to sweep this under the rug, hell, I do, because the fact is uncomfortable at best.

But when you look at this realistically, it makes a lot of sense for his character and will tell you a lot about his personality as well.

Dick is often written as this flamboyant, charismatic, flirtatious, playboy. He bounces in between relationships and always has a charming attitude surrounding him. His suit is designed for aesthetics and he knows he looks nice in it.

He's aware of his own sex appeal because it was taught to him very early on. An unfortunate side effect of this can turn into hyper sexuality---not all survivors turn repulsed. If his partners aren't using him for his body, what else is he useful for? He's touchy in relationships because he's been taught that validation comes from other peoples use of him.

So if a partner doesn't? It leaves him winded as hell and incredibly insecure because do they really love him? If they did they would be using him like everyone else....right? Sometimes he has a hard time believing that people would even care about him or keep him around if he wasn't pretty and sexy.

Because all he's good for is a good time....right?

He has a hard time with long term, committed relationships because he needs that validation---an unfortunate side effect because he doesn't understand what other validation can look like. Sex turns into his confidence, his validation, his everything. But afterwards? It can definitely feel disgusting.

Considering what he went through, he should hate sex, that's what the entire world says he should feel. So why does he feel so attached to it? He's disgusted with his own coping because he's not "supposed" to enjoy sex anymore. He's not "traumatized enough". This is the exact reason why he doesn't talk about his assault because then he's put into a box of "not supposed to be sexually active anymore".

Or at least adversed to it. But he's not, because now he attributes his entire personality around being sexy for others because why wouldn't he. He's useful that way. It gives him control again when he actively choses to have sex. It gives him his power back.

Does he feel disgusted with himself afterwards? Absolutely he does because he's digging a deeper hole for himself. His own coping mechanism makes him feel shitty again.

That's why he gives so much aftercare and needs so much in return. He needs to prove to himself that the consent was two-sided because god what if he turned into his own abusers. Pair that with his own personal disgust, he needs some kind of validation that it's okay to be sexually active after what he went through.

He just doesn't want to have to prove his trauma to anyone anymore.

I feel like this should be explored more when people talk about Dick in such a flirtatious way, because man, that angst.

[rockinmyownboat]

Stockholm Joker

It's disturbing that there are people in the world who idealize the toxic obsession that exists between Joker and Harley Quinn as "relationship material."

I wonder if these ass- clowns have ever even read a fucking comic book. Or watched any of the movies.

Most of the time they're just trendy Fairweather fans that jumped on the Batman bandwagon when comic book movies became "hip and popular."

To believe in the idealized relationship between Harley and Joker, either that person is really fucking shallow with no understanding of the characters deeper motivations.....

....or they have such deep rooted problems that one bad day could change their entire destiny anyway.

Heath Ledgers iteration said it best:

"Madness, as you know, is like gravity. All it takes is a little push...."

There's absolutely nothing romantic about an emotionally abusive psychopath that destroys the mind of a woman he doesn't even love ... for fun ....

David Ayer tried to force-feed a little romance into their situationship in Suicide Squad. I love the Alex Ross throwback. It was an intentional over romanticizing to establish Harleys frame of mind as being completely disconnected from reality. The scene was not a character memory despite the Leto fangirl fiction I've heard.

In proper context, the movie is saying THE IDEA of their relationship ....

Is much more romantic ....

Than the ACTUAL relationship itself.

Watch Suicide Squad with some objectivity. You'll see what I mean.

They are two psychopaths that aren't in love with one another, so much as overly obsessed. This creates a need to absolutely possess... that's why Joker comes for Harley late in the film. That's why he dives after her into the vat of toxic sludge (after deliberately pushing her in ). These were not selfless acts of love; they were possessive attempts to cling on and control Harley for himself.

Don't think she's just a victim either. No... not at all. Harley Quinn is an enabler.

They were toxic for each other and the combination of their toxicities was nitrogen and glycerin for the rest of society.

Don't get the wrong idea with this blog.

I love Harley Quinn.

She's a great character with a lot of depth and dimension. Her brokenness makes her easy to relate to, but she's so good at hiding it and being strong in the face of adversity. Long before her jester tights were replaced with ridiculous hot pants, and a kinky t-shirt to peddle Hot Topic merch to slutty teenagers, she was already one of the sexiest comic book villainesses ever created.

What's not to love about Harley??? She's the queen of fucking Diamonds! She's a bona-fide bad ass bitch ! She doesn't take shit from anybody ( .... EXCEPT Mr. J.....). She EVEN has a moral compass from time to time....

At least by comparison to her peers....

.... We're grading on a curve here, ok?

And yeah casting Margot Robbie. Fucking great. She's incredible. She is to Harley what Hugh Jackman is to Wolverine.

I will NEVER shit on her performance. She embodies Harley Quinn.

David Ayer handled her character with no respect or dignity... and fuck him for that. His "bold new vision" played out like a perverted 15 year old's wet dream.

Fight me on this.

We should have had some version of the jester uniform.

Margot Robbies a beautiful woman. Her ass would have looked just as great, if not better, in black leather with red diamonds. Not only that, we would have respected her a lot more for it

(thank you, Marvel for keeping Black Widows integrity. Sincerely, real fans)

Harley is a fantastic character no matter what she's wearing ...however ....

As great as she is, I'd never date a woman like her in real life. No self respecting guy I know would date Harley in real life either.

First of all, you can't trust her. She would rob you blind sooner than she'd have sex with you; hell, the experience could be one and the same depending on if she were having a good day or not.

More importantly, most guys I know don't want a woman so mentally unstable that she'd smash your balls with a hammer if you pissed her off.

Harleys not the kind of girl I'd be excited to introduce to my mom.

If anything, a smart guy will look at her and say, "keep that crazy far the fuck away!!!"

Contrast that with her sexual counterpart. When Jared Leto took the role, a lot of girls started to look at Joker as if he were the perfect ideal mate to strive for.

This is pure conjecture but I feel like that's why Joaquin Phoenix played Arthur Fleck as an incel in Todd Phillips' Joker origin story. The record needed to be set straight. Joker is a much deeper and more complex character than we saw in Suicide Squad. The most important key fact that must be understood to get in the mind of the character: the Joker has no interest in his own sex drive. That's what makes him dangerous. He is not bound to the conventional hierarchy of human needs like the rest of us.

The fact that he is not driven by baser desires is what makes him a compelling character.

In other words, the world doesn't need a Joker with a sex drive, Leto.

Come... the fuck... on ....

That's how Leto fucked himself out of one of the most coveted roles in Hollywood. By masturbating his own ego all over the set, he played Joker like an oversexed pussy fiend for Harley ....

Ironic that Catwoman wasn't even in this movie.

I'm not even going to go into what a convoluted mess the plot was for Suicide Squad. Nor am I gonna dump shit on such a wasted opportunity of both star power and marketing... the movie could have been brilliant with the right director.

Instead what David Ayer gave us was a bumbling inexcusable mess. Leto's Joker was a glorified Pimp that was shoehorned into the story to abuse Harley and give her an anchor.

The needless sexualization of psychopathological behaviors turned a complex relationship into one summed up by Leto in his description of his Puddin' .... "the fire in my crotch ... the itch in my loins....."

That's about the depth of Leto's Joker.

Had Ayer familiarized himself with decades of source material, he could have made gold.

He didn't.

But he would have needed to understand that Joker doesn't give a shit about sex.

Joker's about murder. Chaos. Deadly pranks. Sending messages. Most importantly, he stands to turn society on its head and let its own ironies tear it apart. Heath Ledger brilliantly embodied the last in Chris Nolans Masterpiece. There was no sexual motivation in that Joker.

Only Anarchy.

Joaquin Phoenix embodied it in a much different but equally effective performance.

There was no sexual motivation in that Joker.

Only bitter hatred and festering resentment towards the world that forgot about him.

The Joker doesn't follow a sex drive pattern in ANY of his iterations.. going all the way back to Caesar Romero. Sex is often perceived as boring and uninteresting to him.

Its part of the goddamn character legacy. In The Killing Joke by Alan Moore, the Joker shot Barbara Gordon through the spine. He didn't sexually assault her.

The Killing Joke is the definitive work on the Jokers psychology. And there are no sexual references anywhere as a motivator for why Joker does what he does.

Even good ol' Jackie boy in Tim Burtons 1989 film had the sex drive of a rock.

When a woman shows sexual interest in him, he looks at her with absolute disgust. In the scene, he hasn't become the full on Joker, yet you can see his disgust ... just at being touched. Jack's Joker was about "creating art." His modus operandi was murder.

It bears mentioning, Joker later ruins this woman's life similarly to what the character would do to Harley Quinn in other iterations.

Sex is worthless to a man that thrives on chaos.

It is the key disparity in the relationship between Harley and Mr. J. Their entire succesful dynamic rides on her desperation for attention and affection she will never get from him, no matter how hard she tries. Joker's incessant gaslighting becomes her literal mental downfall as he strings her along. The Clown Prince of Crime is the ultimate tease and this part of their connection MUST be understood...

His relentless teasing drives her psychosis and steers her unhealthy obsession with him. But no matter how badly he strings her along, he DOES NOT LOVE HER. She is a TOOL he uses. Nothing more.

Take this scene from Batman: the Animated Series. A kids show.

A lot of fans don't know this but Dr. Harleen Quinzel was created specific to that show.

They understood the true nature of the Mr. J/ Harley Quinn dynamic to be inherently toxic. They couldn't SHOW much without parents losing their shit....

But they showed enough.

In this scene, she wants his attention. She's desperate for his attention. Check the outfit. Its not her usual jester get up. Of course they're not gonna come out and SAY it. But to show this much skin on a kids show? That was racy as fuck.

We didn't get it as kids. But now we do

She was trying to get Joker to Rev his engine for a lot more than just a ride to rob a bank.

She wanted to squeeze his fake flower til Joker juice run down his leg, if you catch my drift.

Now ladies, if you're trying to turn your guy on and he's ignoring you, or treating you like shit cause you're annoying him, that's one thing. This has probably happened in many relationships.

This is why I find it ridiculous that there are women who look at This toxic pairing to be worth striving for.

Here in this scene Mr. J takes it to a whole new level.

Joker BASICALLY slaps Harley in the face knocking her off the table.

Now granted, in the series, they showed him SHOVING her off the table.

With his HAND to her FACE. That's all the network would allow... They had to be subtle. If they actually showed a male cartoon character Pimp slap his woman like a ho on network TV,

90s parents would have lit the network up like a mountain of gas soaked mob money...

Either way, Where I come from, Mr. J's behavior is called "abuse." And his annoyance at a woman wanting affection is the exact opposite of Ayers dyslexic interpretation of a murderous clown with his sex drive cranked up to 11.

Ayer did get one scene right in Suicide Squad.

Joker uses Harley to break out of Arkham Asylum and after murdering the staff, he has one of his goons forcibly hold her down to a table.

The whole time he's strutting around without a goddamn shirt on. I have no idea why it was apparently "essential" to the plot for Jared Leto to be half naked almost the entire time he's onscreen... it comes back to David Ayers' heinous crime of over sexualizing the film.

But he defines the terms of their relationship using electroshock therapy to short circuit her brain. It's terrifyingly sadistic.

This scene alone should tell any girl watching how horrible of an idea it is to gain an obsession with a murderous narcissist.

He smiles his when he tells Her, "I'm gonna hurt you .... really .... really..... bad ....." he makes it obvious that he's getting off on her senseless pain.

She quips "I can take it" as if it's supposed to be a statement of empowerment. Instead it plays out as a weak little girl that's duped and manipulated into an abusive relationship.

This is real love alright. Definitely worthy to aspire to.

So romantic. Every woman's fantasy is to be chewing on old leather so you don't break your teeth off as a My Chemical Romance reject gets ready to torture you to get himself off

Look at him. He's having an orgasms for fuck's sake.

This is an ideal relationship to some people?

I'm obviously a huge Batman universe fan. And I obviously love both Harley Quinn and the Joker. In their proper places and contexts.

As often as I come across misguided women that use their relationship as an ideal, I've not found a single one willing to honestly answer the question when I ask:

What is there to look up to in the pairing?

If living with Stockholm Syndrome with an abusive narcissistic psychopath is sexy and attractive to you ....

.....you really shouldn't be dating....

Your crazy ass should be in a padded cell.

#mythoughts

#joker

#harleyquinn

#stockholmsyndrome

#davidayer

#suicidesquad

#margotrobbie

#thankyoujamesgunnfornotfuckingupthesoftreboot

#batmanvillains

#jacknicholson

#jaredleto

#heathledger

#darkpsychology

#joaquinphoenix

#toddphillips

#timburton

[nightmarewritings]

both the billys with a s.o who has ptsd and wants to help them cope? you can write them seperate or not, im just curious to see what you think would be most helpful for these boys cuz they definitely need support ;w;

Gonna write them together, I think they'd both have an easier time that way. Not MUCH easier, you'll have your work cut out for you either way, but I think it would be a little easier. Also this really got away from me at a point and I think I might've rambled again, really sorry about that!

A warning that there is a brief mention of the childhood abuse remake Billy suffered, as I feel it's sadly an important part of understanding him.

Helping the Billys

It might be difficult at first, but they really need to see a professional. They wouldn't want to be alone with them, neither of them are very trusting of mental health workers because of their past experiences, so you'll have to go with them every time.

Neither Billy would be good at remembering to take any medication they might need. Original Billy gets distracted much too easily, and remake Billy is very stubborn. Remake Billy can help you remember original Billy's medication, but not the other way around.

Patience is key. You will have to listen to them and try to understand what they're going through. It'll take them both a while to open up to you (remake Billy even more so, he's even less trusting), but when they do it's because they've decided they feel safe with you. Your PTSD might make it easier for them to feel they can open up to you, as they both have it as well and you'll have a better understanding of what it's like.

Neither has a very healthy view of sex, relationships, or women. Original Billy is both hypersexual and sex-adverse, something that will need to be navigated very carefully, and remake Billy is much more sex-adverse in general because of what happened to him as a child, but he is a tiny, tiny bit better with women (since he works with his sister/daughter Agnes near the end of the movie with no problem and she seems very fond of him). So that's two similar but very different at the core things that would need to be worked on.

Both have violent mood swings you would need to navigate with the utmost caution. If the other isn't having one, you might get help from them in assisting, thankfully. Original Billy's mood swings are more varied than remake Billy's; the original's tend to be either bouts of anger, sadness, or excitement, while remake Billy mostly gets very violent and angry outbursts.

To navigate their mood swings and violent outbursts, you will need to be completely calm and alert. They're both incredibly dangerous at any type of mood swing, but they can get through it with help and a calm voice guiding them.

Agnes isn't much better off than them, but she does genuinely love her father, and while she won't trust you much at first, she'll come around when she sees how much you care about him, and can become a very valuable ally. She can help calm them down, is strong enough to wrestle away anything dangerous they might get their hands on, and remind her father to take his medication much more easily than you could on your own.

Original Billy would be more open to cuddling as a form of stress relief/calming down. Remake Billy would be less so at first, but could be coaxed into it after a while and find it’s not so bad, just as long as he gets to choose when you touch him instead of you deciding.

Overall, this is going to require a TON of time and effort, and there's still times where they might slide back a bit in progress. You can't ever get all their problems to go away, but you can make it so they have a sort of peace and comfort neither of them have ever experienced before, someone they feel safe with.

[alatismeni-theitsa]

anti LO anon opinions:

(1) You know what crazy thing lo fandom do now? They are shiping HERA and ECHO!!! And also someone said that smythe is shipping them too! Everyone in fandom are praising smythe for that bc its so feminist and empowering! Do tgey cant understand that this arent someones ocs thatstory you can play with but gods from religion. It was like someone would make comic with jesus and shipped him with someone.

(2) You know, and i'm just talking within LO, but why is Hades constantly made out to be an underdog who is unfairly treated when we see how power hungry, cruel, and violent he is even from his POV? You can't constantly have even antagonist figures like Ares or presumably characters with good judgement like Hestia say how terrible he is and not expect us to feel like Persephone is blinded by lust, is lying to herself, or is just plain stupid. The whole comic reads like an extra bad Gossip Girl plot.

(3) LO is such a dystopia. Virginity is dictated to get financial aid, anyone who isn't an Olympian geets abused and tortured to anyone's content (especially Hades of all people) and apparently now you have to submit paperwork to Hera to get married? Not to mention the eternal slaves no one calls Hades out on, or the creepy sex acts Aphrodite does to get her son out of trouble, or flip flopping morality. I'd hate to live in that reality.

(4) Does LO know it's about Hades and Persephone? I swear every episode now is like uh, here's Daphne now! Here's Echo! Here's Thetis again! None of these characters or stories contribute to the main point of the story! They are just distractions! I can get maybe throwing in some Eros or Minthe, but LO seems adversed to it's one selling point.

(5) I think Smythe is sick of Hades and Persephone at this point. She's now introducing Echo and having that as new drama for Hera and Zeus, and yet Persephone still hasn't shown up, and we're still no closer to them being a couple, if anything we've moved backwards after having Hades say he doesn't even know her. I understand she's been working on this comic for over five years now, but i've never seen a creator avoiding their own main character and relationship so much. She seems burdened by it.

(6) We can hate on Miller or Riordan all we want, but LO has poisoned the minds of countless young girls about Greek myth. They're thoroughly convinced Hades and Persephone are the only figures of worth and that anyone else who can't be used to prop them up are evil r*pists and whores. It's glamorized greed, the ownership of slaves, violence, entitlement, and the sexualization of young girls all to make "Hades" look better. I know it's not a household name outside WT, but still, the damage is done.

(7) I hate how people even trying to constructively criticize LO is met with hostility. There are MANY people who found the r*pe to be grossly handled and only used for cheap drama, especially considering how fast LO Persephone gets over it and has to literally be explained by a guy what it even is, yet if anyone says how they didn't like you see countless "well I thought it was done respectfully!" or a number of other excuses to shut it down. Every other webtoon can be criticized but LO can't be?

(8) istg if smythe makes Thanatos end up with Daphne, instead of someone more likely to be shipped with him like Macaria imma flip. I don't get why she loves all these crack ships? And people say that this is "accurate" lmao SURE

[yandere-daydreams]

A commission for the lovely, patient @rockin-renegade, featuring Izuku/Male!Reader, and a little bit of hornieness, towards the end. I may’ve had too much fun, but in my defense, y’all never give me the opportunity to write for riding crops. 

Word Count: 4.5k

TW: Torture, Physical Abuse, Mental-Break, Non-Consensual Touching, Non-Con, and Oral Sex.

Izuku could barely remember how long he’d been dreaming of this moment. 

Sometimes it’d only been a month or two, and on other days, he could swear he’d known you for years, and been in love with you for so much longer than either of your lives could’ve ever spanned. But, he was sure of one thing, as he stared down at the crying, shaking, beautiful sight in front of him.

He knew, for a fact, that he’d never been happier.

You, on the other hand, were sobbing harder than he’d ever seen someone else sob. Izuku couldn’t blame you, really, not when he thought about it. The average civilian wasn’t used to waking up in cold, damp basements, nor did Izuku think you enjoyed being handcuffed to the metal headboard of a cot, a man twice your size leaning over you, one you probably didn’t recognize without his signature mask and suit. It broke his heart, to see how you tried to plead to someone you couldn’t see, the rag around your eyes soaked through and nearly translucent, but Izuku had to stay strong. He knew from the moment he saw you, such a weak little thing, that he would have to be the strong one in this relationship.

Of course, you hadn’t been as accepting of Izuku’s love as he’d hoped, when he first tried to ‘propose’. You’d politely avoided his attempts to get you alone, when he cornered you at your workplace, always having some excuse to busy yourself or a coworker to call you away. When Izuku changed his commute to match yours, you’d simply given the staring man an odd look and moved on, seeming to keep yourself a little farther from him every day. You ignored his gift, burned his love-letters, and on one occasion, yelled at him. He’d been trying to do something nice, trailing after you at a respectful distance as you walked down such a dangerous route, and you had the nerve to yell, threatening to call the police and making him look like some petty villain, rather than the only person keeping you safe. He’d realized you must’ve been scared, confused, that you hadn’t known it was Izuku following you on such a dark night, but…

Fuck, your mumbled words and soft whimpers were like music compared to how your voice had been, that night.

Slowly, Izuku stepped in front of you, smiling despite knowing you couldn’t see him. Right now, you’d be lucky if you could hear his footsteps, with the walls, floor, ceiling, everything in his basement sound-proofed and padded, both for your safety and for his own. Somehow, he was aware of how… strange this might look to someone else, someone who didn’t understand that such an approach was necessary. Your bedroom (your actual bedroom, he wasn’t cruel enough to keep you down here permanently) was the same way. Izuku didn’t want anyone disturbing you, nor did he think the neighbors would appreciate the noises a newly-impassioned couple may, hypothetically, make when left to their own devices.

Regardless, he peeled away your blindfold with a great deal of hesitancy, letting the fabric fall loosely around your neck. Your eyes were already red, blood-shot from crying but as vibrant as ever as you blinked against the new light, taking your time to adjust, but looking around all the same. The pathetic sounds falling from your lips stuttered to a stop as you squinted at the corners of his basement, more confused than you were scared. Izuku didn’t stop you, only smiling when the attention he so craved turned towards him, fighting the urge to wave as you continued to stare. That would be awkard, and Izuku wanted to make this process as seamless as possible.

Instead, his hands stayed at his sides, Izuku almost grabbing for the leather handle hanging from his belt. He stopped himself, just before he could draw attention to it. That was a surprise he didn’t want you to see, not if you hadn’t earned it, yet.

Eventually, though, he was forced to break the silence, taking another step forward, now close enough to touch you. Several things came to mind, when he tried to think of a way to greet you, but cuddles and kisses and confessions should probably wait, at least until you’re in a better position to recuperate. Instead, he attempted to hide the pure excitement racking his nerves, keeping his tone even, calm. Stable, because you needed him to be stable. “Do you know who I am, (Y/n)?”

Your immediate reaction was adverse, lips pursing automatically and feature scrunching up adorably, he couldn’t find a reason to be mad. “You’re… you’re a Hero, right? For the Agency downtown?” He let you think, his smile only growing wider as recognition seemed to spark in your mind. “Deku. You’re Deku.”

He nodded, more enthusiastically than he should’ve. “Yes, Deku!” Thoughtlessly, he moved to hug you, frowning when you only squirmed, leaning towards the wall, trying to get away from him. Again, his hand fell to the leather-wrapped handle hanging at his hip, but he pulled it away before he had the chance to let himself use it. You were scared. He couldn’t blame you for being scared. With a dry swallow, Izuku begrudgingly pulled back. Giving you space you didn’t need, not when you were with him. “Izuku, now. Lovers shouldn’t call each other by their aliases, it’s informal.”

At this, you stiffened, shoulders squaring as the rest of your form went rigid. You stopped crying, but the bewildered shock that crossed over your face wasn’t much better than your tears. “...lovers?”  

He couldn’t help but laugh, a deep chuckle falling out before he could stop it. When his fingers wrapped around the handle next, he let them, not resisting the call of the object he’s been dying to use. “Don’t act so surprised, it wouldn’t be appropriate for us to live together if we weren’t lovers. And… we love each other. Lovers do that. They live together, and they love each other. You just haven’t accepted it, yet.” He forced himself to take a deep breath, stopping, thinking, deliberating. He was more collected, when he continued, if only because of how badly he needed to be. “But, that’s why we’re here! I’m going to help you!”

“Help me? What do you mean ‘help me’?” You snapped, straining against the handcuffs. Something switched-on inside of you, an anger Izuku hadn’t expected swiftly boiling to the surface. “Oh my- you’re the fucking creep who’s been stalking me, aren’t you? I thought I made it clear that however you think I feel, you’re wrong. And you’re a Pro-Hero too, isn’t that perfect? I have fucking Deku stalking me, how could things get-”

The words died in your throat with a sharp, loud snap, the sound seeming to catch you off guard more than the sudden pain did. You recoiled a second after the impact, pulling your legs back towards you, curling into the ball you’d just relaxed enough to get yourself out of. You’d been too preoccupied with your outburst to notice it when Izuku unclipped the sleek, black riding-crop from its place on his belt, or its existence at all until Izuku saw fit to use it, striking somewhere without many nerves, aiming for your lower calf. It was a warning, and you knew that.

Which meant you also knew that it could get so, so much worse, if Izuku deemed it necessary to make it worse.

“Here’s what’s going to happen,” He explained, as calmly as he was able to. Izuku’d gone through many, many interrogations, and even if this was a little more personal than the average session, it was similar enough to warrant comparison. He would ask questions, and you would answer them correctly, or face the consequences of treating your boyfriend like someone you should try to avoid. “You’re going to stop lying, be honest and tell the truth, and I won’t have to use this, again. Doesn’t that sound easy, sweetheart?”

You were still, for a moment, then shook your head furiously. “What? No, the fuck are you-”

There was another crack, this one to your thigh, forcing you to cringe and draw back, your body now pressed stiffly to the headboard. The first strike had been unprecise, the preparation took to long and Izuku hesitated during the swing, but the second was better, it came more naturally. He let himself fall into your response, too, lingering on the way your features tightened in pain, the way the skin under his swatched darkened and swelled. It hurt, but you deserved it. And you deserved it because you were wrong.

You had to be wrong. If you weren’t wrong, than Izuku was, and…

Izuku couldn’t be wrong.

You scowled, opening your mouth, Izuku holding the crop up as a silent threat. Your expression dropped instantly, a soft whimper escaping from your lips as you sunk into yourself. He didn’t say anything as you fought to keep your composure, a vain effort, as your failure would prove. “You… you can’t keep me here.” When your voice broke and shook, Izuku almost regretted hitting you. Almost. “I… this is illegal. You’re hurting me.”

“I wouldn’t hurt you if I didn’t have to.” His voice was flat, but warm all the same. Izuku didn’t stop himself from sitting, forcing you to move back as he slotted himself into the cot’s empty space, only then realizing how thin your matress really was. Hopefully, he would be able to move you up to your bedroom tonight, but maybe spending a night in such poor conditions would teach you to be more appreciative of what he could give you. “I want to love you,” He paused, cupping your cheek with his free hand, drawing circles in your skin with his thumb. You tried to twist away, and he tightened his grip. “But you’ll have to love me, too.”

But, you didn’t love him. You didn’t even try. Instead, you fought, struggling against your restraints violently, nearly knowing Izuku to the floor as you kicked out blindly, your shoulder making contact with his chest, Izuku grunting as he forced himself to keep from relenting. Reflexively, the hand on your cheek dropped to your neck, finding somewhere thin and squeezing until your mouth fell open, sputtering for air,  even as you continued to thrash against him. He was leaning over you by the time he realized he was moving, crouching just high enough to lash at your stomach, not bothering to go through a layer of fabric, this time. He damn-near relished in the way your lips parted, tears beginning to form in the corners of your eyes with every proceeding snap. After five, six, a dozen blows, Izuku forced himself to be the more mature one, pushing you into the mattress as he got up. Still, he gave himself one more primal, hard blow before stopping, this one to your ribs, shirt having ridden up during the struggle. Bruises had already begun to form, spanning from your hip to your chest, much Izuku’s sick, sick satisfaction.

But, you weren’t done. “You’re insane!” You yelled, not bothering to keep your voice down. “What kind of psycho are you? This is crazy!”

He grit his teeth, digging his nails into the leather. “This is love.”

“People don’t whip the person they love! They don’t handcuff their partners to beds after stalking them for months!”

“One more word, one more fucking word-”

To your credit, you didn’t say anything. Instead, you screamed, loud and wordless, obviously trying to attract the attention outside of Izuku's home, someone you thought would help you. Izuku didn’t warn you, either, letting One For All run rampant through his veins as Izuku tore through your handcuffs as easily as a cheap, plastic toy. Silently, he threw you to the cement floor, watching as you tried to scramble to your feet, only to be forced back down with a single foot on your back. It took the blink of an eye to tear off your shirt, and half of that to bring down the crop over and over and over, until your skin was raw, torn, bleeding, welts forming on anything that wasn’t already a bloody, visceral mess.

When you screaming stopped, he didn’t, closing his eyes as the repetitive sounds of skin-on-leather filled the room. Only when you went limp under his foot did he stop, letting his arms drop to his sides as he dug his heel into the base of your spine, grimacing as you writhed weakly. He didn’t know what he’d been hoping for, really. Maybe that you would pass out, letting Izuku restrain you again and start all of this over, or your apologies wouldn’t have to be prompted. But, deep down, he knew you weren’t going to make this easy for him.

You never had before, after all.  

With a great, great amount of self-restraint, Izuku forced himself to drop the riding crop, letting it land somewhere next to your head. You made no grab for the weapon, nor did you move in the slightest, only whimpering when he kneeled, looking down on you, running a finger over the torn gashes in your back. Now, you flinched, attempting to curl into yourself before a firm hand closed around your shoulder, stopping any further distractions, things as small as the uneven pants you were taking in beginning to worry Izuku.

“I’ll say this again, now that you’re listening.” He rubbed slow circles in an uninjured patch on your shoulder, wondering if he should tend to you sooner, rather than later. For all the… research he’d done, Izuku hadn’t expected there to be this much bruising. Maybe he’d gone a little too far, after all. “I love you. I want to take care of you. I will, but you have to let me. No more fighting back. Do you understand?”

There was no response. Izuku considers the possibility that you were unconscious, but dismissed it just as easily. Unconscious people don’t cry that much.

“I love you,” He repeats, firmer, this time. He turned you over with one hand, prying you away from your self-made shelter, keeping his hand around your neck to keep you from getting up. “Because I love you, what am I trying to do?

Your eyes were still closed, tears fresh on your cheeks, but you whimpered nonetheless, choking out a response. Your voice was hoarse, probably due to the screaming. He’d have to get you something to drink. “You… you’re trying to take care of me.”

“I want to take care of you, you need me to take care of you.” It was like giving a stray dog a good home, for one example. You were lonely before, miserable, he was sure. He saw you with friends, and he knew you had a family, but he couldn’t find it in himself to believe that you were happy with them. You couldn’t be happy, not if you were away from your soulmate. And Izuku couldn’t be happy if he knew you were out there, alone and putting yourself at risk, away from the person you should be with. “And what do I need you to do, angel? And open your eyes. Look at me, when you answer.”

The hesitation was brief, this time. You opened your eyes first, cringing when you saw Izuku leaning over you, the boy smiling sympathetically, encouragingly. You didn’t relax, but you met his eyes regardless, your hands coming to rest on his. It must’ve been a sign that you were accepting him, finally. You were trying to hold his hand! Why else would you be trying to pull him away from your neck? “I have to let you.”

“By?”

You swallowed, avoiding his eyes. You were so shy, Izuku would have to break you out of your shell, too. “By not fighting back.”

Your posture had changed completely, no longer defensive or assertive, no longer trying to keep him at a distance. There was an uncomfortable shift, the slight movement to take the pressure off the wounds pressed against hard (but sanitary, as he’d made sure of), but you made no meaningful attempt to get away, resigning yourself to submission. It wasn’t what he’d aimed for, he wanted reciprocation, not submission, but he knew how he would start to fix that.

He didn’t rush you, as he helped you sit up, allowing you to take your time and not complaining when you whimpered, failing to take the brunt of the pain you’d forced him to give you. But, Izuku didn’t ask for permission, either, as he slid the remaining rags of your shirt over your head, disregarding the ruined fabric before letting himself rub over your exposed chest, feeling how warm you were, how soft your skin was, compared to his own. Izuku wanted to fall into the moment, to focus on the fact that you were here, that you were in front of him. Just the sight made him excited, eager to feel more, eager to see more.

It made him want to show you just how much he loved you.

But, you had to go and move, to cross your arms and squirm, and successfully pull Izuku out of his trace, bring his attention back to the matter-at-hand. Back to the fact that you didn’t love him, that you were putting-up with his affection, not accepting him. It was all Izuku could to keep from frowning as he leaned forward, kissing the corner of your mouth, comforted slightly by the fact that you didn’t pull away. He was kneeling in front of you, on one knee between your open legs. It was an intimate position, and could be a romantic one, with a little work.

He hoped you saw it that way, too.

“You’re going so well, I’m so proud of you,” He praised, petting through your hair as he stood. He towered above you, this way, pushing you down when you moved to follow him. You were on your knees, eye-level with his thighs, when you stopped. He only continued to comb through your hair, the calm smile never leaving his lips. “You’re doing great, and you must be so tired. I promise, I’ll take you up to your room when we’re done.” He paused, giving you the opportunity to react. You didn’t, and Izuku continued. “I just need to make sure you’ll be more considerate, from now on.”

He should let you go, bring you up to your room and let you sleep, but there was something so satisfying about having you sit still and wait, your gaze never leaving his face as you tried to predict what he would do, what he would do to you, more specifically. You were anxious, and he understood that. This was a big step, and it may have been too soon to take it, in all honesty. But, this was what Izuku wanted. A relationship that worked both ways, something equal, where you repayed all those hours of watching and protecting with something he asked from you. This was good, for both of you. It’d teach you how to behave, and more importantly, show you how relationships were supposed to be, without overstepping his boundaries. This was better than forcing something worse onto you, wasn’t it?

Sure, it would get rid of the problem straining at his jeans, but that was just a bonus.

He holds your head in place with one hand, nearly attacking his belt with the other, careful to just pull his pants and boxers down enough to get a hand on his half-hard cock. Your eyes crossed in an attempt to see it, a grimace now etched into your features as you tried to squirm away, but Izuku only tightened his hold on you, stifling any movements that could’ve interrupted the moment you two were about to have.

It was funny, how you thought anything could get out out of this.

“It won’t be bad, you’ll make me so happy,” He reassured, his free hand closing around his length, slowly pumping up, just enough to feel something more than a teasing sample of pleasure. It didn’t take him long at all to fill-out, not with such a lovely sight in front of him. Meanwhile, his grip drifted down to your jaw, tugging at the corner of your mouth until you were forced to accommodate him, his thumb slipping in and prodding anything it could reach, Izuku fighting the urge to moan at just the thought of being inside of somewhere that warm and soft and incredible. Unconsciously, your tongue pressed against his thumb, swirling around the finger, and Izuku could hardly keep from cumming in his hand.

He couldn’t wait any longer, he just couldn’t. With a strong jerk to your hair, your mouth opened, any scream or sound you’d been planning to let out suddenly muffled by the cock being shoved through your lips. Izuku stopped abruptly, hardly remembering to pull his hand away before dragging you closer, your form falling against his legs as you lost balance, subsequently gagging, choking around him, your throat tightening and fluttering as you struggled to swallow around something you were thoroughly unprepared to take. Izuku wasn’t new to this kind of thing, not by any means. He’d had blowjobs before, drunk experiences with friends that weren’t spoken about the next morning and awkward interactions with fans, desperate to show their gratitude between floors on elevators and in cramped bathroom stalls, but those felt foreign, unpleasant, compared to this, if only because it was you.

(Y/n), his (Y/n). His lover, his boyfriend, his soulmate, someone who would only ever do this for him. Because you loved him, because you only loved him. Because you wouldn’t even think of ever loving another person like you loved Izuku, not again.

With a blissful shudder, he pulled out, his concentration switching to the head, grazing it against your teeth for a more primal source of stimulation and rubbing it against your tongue, before plunging back in, keeping his thrusts short but fast, determined to keep his cock inside of you for as long as possible at any given time. He could hardly hear the words falling from his own mouth, an incomprehensible mix of murmurs and moans, each sound blending with the next. “Good boy, good boy,” He panted, if only out of habit, countless scenarios he’d already ‘planned out’ playing through his mind much faster than they should’ve.  “I love you so much, you’re perfect. I should’ve done this so much sooner.” He grinned, dragging you closer to him, his smile never faltering as you pounded and clawed at his covered thighs. “I’m gonna keep you all to myself.”

In the end, Izuku didn’t get the chance to enjoy it for very long. One For All was an odd quirk, like that, making most of his boy so strong, so resistant, but incredibly sensitive, at the same time. Every nerve was inter-connected, sending a thousand signals to the rest of his body at any given second, and right now, each one of those synapses was completely focused on the feeling of your warm, wet mouth taking in his cock, your tongue rubbing against the part of his body most willing to accept anything you had to give him. All it took was a glance towards your face, cheeks blistered, red eyes puffy from crying and spit beginning to soak your lips, to finish Izuku off.

He raked through your hair as he climaxed, the sensation like a weight being lifted off his shoulder, like a fresh of breath air, more relieving than it was ‘orgasmic’. Staying as deep inside of you as he can, his fingers clamping down on your scalp as you jump, making one last effort to get away as cum hit the roof of your mouth. Izuku didn’t let you, fighting off the over-sensitivity that came with remaining inside of you, refusing to pull-out as you refused to swallow.

You were always the stubborn one, weren’t you? What else had he expected?

He sighed wistfully, detangling the knots he’d been responsible for forming, but never shifting. Your panic was quickly turning into resistance, but Izuku remained undeterred, remaining hopeful as you started to tremble. “You’re alright, everything’ll be fine,” He told you, his eyes moving up towards the staircase, to the basement door. “I just need you to swallow. Then I’ll let you go.”

You didn’t, only forcing out gargled, coughing noises Izuku didn’t recognize.

He smiled a little wider.

“Swallow, baby,” He repeated, his tone nothing short of sickeningly sweet. “I’m not bluffing. It takes a lot of patience to be a hero, you know. I’ll keep you here until you swallow it.”

And, with a strangled sob, you did, your lips only closing for a second after he retreated before you cringed, your mouth remaining open as you practically punched at your cheeks, wiping away your tears as furiously as possible. You were crumpled, half-naked and collapsing onto yourself, but Izuku couldn’t find it in himself to feel anything but overjoyed at the sight of his lovely little partner.

He whispered quiet ‘I love you’s and ‘I’ll make you feel good next time’s as he gathered you up in his arms, cradling you against his chest despite how much you clearly didn’t want to be held. You were handled softly, your back always pressed against something smooth and clean, but he could still hear you cursing him out under your breath, even as he littered kisses and pecks across anything he could reach. This wasn’t ideal, but it was a start. You wanted him to hear you, but you knew what would happen if he took you too seriously.

Your face was buried in his shirt by the time he made it to your room, right next to his, as it should be. You two would share a room eventually, but that could wait until you weren’t in such an unstable state. He was happy that you didn’t scream when the velvet-lined, snug shackle closed around your ankle, any more spats seeming annoying, compared to how roughly his confession had gone. He’d put a lot of effort into your room, and he was glad you appreciated that.

You did appreciate everything he did for you, right?

If how tightly you clung to your comforter was anything to go off of, you must’ve.

Izuku knelt next to you, taking a minute to be by your side before he decided to leave. You were beautiful, disheveled and messy and stunning, in his care and finally getting used to it, now that you’ve gone through your first (and hopefully only) punishment. He kissed your shoulder lightly, lingering just long enough to admire his precious boyfriend.

Everything would be perfect, now.

[idio-cies]

Right, I need to go on a rant because lockdown is still getting to me and I am fed up with the same comments I hear every time I allude to my sexuality (mostly ace) towards my family.

So story time: today my Nana was showing my mum about princess Gertrude or something being married in an old Ball gown of the Queen's and how it was altered a bit and as an a fly away comment of me being pedantic I said "having a wedding dress is over-rated anyway" to which my mum gave a mock shocked face saying that of course I would say something like that (My family joke about me being cold-hearted as I don't cry at sad films or books, and can just lack empathy to certain things). So I laughed to continue the joke but what I intended was that you know why a dress? Women can be married in suits or two-pieces if they wish? Like what's the fuss. Oh hell, the men could wear flounces! Also upcycling yay for the environment! So I continued, starting to say the colour, my mum saying about how my older sister will be in Ivory and I said "Come on, that's off white! But I mean Chinese get married in red" and she continued "in India they get married in all sorts of colours" and I said "exactly! Why white?" And she said before I could continue "I suppose you would get married in black" so I scrunched up my face and said "if I ever get married" and then came the usual "you might not say that as you get older" you know. That golden nugget of a line that is told to many people who are aro/ace or whatever the identify as. Some people just do not wish to be married. I also said "whats the point in having a dress you only wear once, anyway" which, as I expected was returned with "you could pass it on to your children". My mum continued saying how her best friend used to think like me and now is married and has had two children, then she left to go do something. My Nana then joined in saying how I don't want to not give my mum grandkids, to which I shrugged, she continued saying how what if my husband didn't wanted kids what would I do then? This is when I started to get mad but with this situation I always try and brush everything over considering I know from experience how things will go (will get brushed with the aforementioned comments, stereotypes etc). So I shrugged and said "well then it wasn't meant to be" in my head I was thinking what if I don't want a husband, what if I have a wife, or a partner who identifies as non-binary or genderfluid? What if I just never marry, or just live the rest of my life with my friends? What if, if I do change my mind about kids, I adopt. But I couldn't say that. My nana continued by saying "well, I guess you wouldn't marry if that was the case" and I'm just sat there stewing.

See, my problem here is that my parents certainly are more liberal, and the reason why I make jokes that allude to me being ace is because they have also made jokes about saying how they probably will never have grand kids, or that I don't go for that sort of thing and I had hope. My sister is a lesbian and they knew for ages and still love her and want the best for her, but my mum never understood why my sister was so hesitant to come out and I explained to her how people coming out always have that fear, that even if their parents or their friends are liberal, they still may not be fully accepted for who they are. Plus, my sister has had bad experiences with friends being homophobic or use her in the face of her coming out, but my mum took this explanation as me hiding something about myself.

When I had my first boyfriend a year ago my mum thought the perfect time to bring up sex would be as she placed food in front of me. I legit choked on my food and as she continued I had to tell her right there and then that I believed myself to be ace and she had nothing to worry about and she didn't understand, so I had to explain. This was the first proper time I heard her deflect that "I might change my mind". When I stayed overnight at his, my dad was teasing me asking whether I needed rubbers and kept on asking me. The thing is, it was always jokey but I'm pretty sure he was concerned. Then my sister thought more happened between him and I when he broke up with me, indicating that we probably had sex, because of how upset I was over it all. I'm pretty sure a couple of my friends thought that too. However, one of my friends said what I was thinking which was that part of the reason why he broke up with me was because I wouldn't have sex with him which was the case considering when I told him that my dad joked about getting rubbers he asked me if I did all excited and I said no with a confused expression like "we've been over this, I thought you understood" and he looked away disheartened with an "oh" thats when I think I knew this wasn't right. To be fair I should've known about "oh, so you're a celibate" and loads of other things like believing I liked something when I didn't or I wasn't sure so ¯\_ (ツ)_/¯ I was young and it was my first boyfriend so you know, I was naive. The reason why I was so broken-hearted was because I'm pretty sure it was because I was ace, and because of that I felt like I would never be loved, or respected. What's more is he tried to take advantage of my friend when they were together whilst she was drunk! So he is just a huge dickhead anyway.

Anyways, I guess for my grandparents to understand is trickier and as far as I'm aware they don't know that I said to my mum who probs told my dad that I'm ace. I always get told that they won't change. My grandad I think still believes my sister isn't fully gay by the fact that he refuses to say "girlfriend" and also slander her girlfriend a bit, and he never believed she showed signs, though why should that matter if she "showed signs"? And my Nana said she did and is a little more accepting of my sister's girlfriend (btw, this is not my older sister who is getting married). I hate being told that people who are older (especially my grandparents) won't change their minds or see things differently. I don't understand how people can go through life like that? But I guess that's because I'm a more open-minded person who makes sure I have several perspectives on certain things.

The thing now though is that I'm scared that I'm under the category of ace where the stereotype is that I'm a robot because I lack empathy and am cold-hearted and such. I know that for my Nana and also for my Nanny that they ended up abandoning their careers for the sake of raising a family and for me, that just feels like an epic loss. I also think that my grandparents first impression of my mum was not approving as she had a baby when she was 20 out of wedlock and had an abusive partner.

After this spiel, if you are still with me, I just want to let you know that this is life is complicated. Heck, I even queried about my best friend being ace, but I think that is because I never thought someone so close to me could have the same feelings about that topic and also because I am constantly questioning myself, probably because I have had "oh, you may change your mind when you're older" most of my life. Oh, I know I could, but for what feels my entire life (when I gained consciousness of myself and was making choices for myself without having this stereotyped life conditioned in my brain) was that I never personally want to have kids. Ever. I understand I may change my mind and if I do I will adopt because I would like to think that I could make a child's life better, and also we have a dense enough population as it is. I do not care if I have a partner with me in my life. I can quite easily get by independently in life. I'm not adverse to having a partner, whoever/whenever/and whatever status it may be.

What I find hilarious though is that I'm very nonchalant about my sexuality, but I do not wish to tell my gay sister that I am queer on some scale. She has had too many run-ins of me slipping to say that I'm not straight or my friend legit said a joke about how my hair is as straight as me (it's curly) because I have made that joke around her before about myself. TERRIFIED. She has jokingly confronted me about it as well and I remained nonchalant as I always do.

So I guess what I'm trying to say that even though people can be liberal in mind, it is always tricky to tell your family and (after stereotypes and assumptions have been placed on me) friends. I have even had a friend who told me that basically I wasn't ace sinply because I didn't know how to answer him in something related to do with sex. I AM ALMOST 19, I DO NOT HAVE MY LIFE FIGURED OUT. I AM STILL QUESTIONING MY OWN EXISTENCE LET ALONE MY SEXUALITY/ORIENTATION.

I would love to go through my life with no labels whatsoever. Whether I'm female, that I'm ace, or that I'm most likely pan. I've always been weird with labels. I simply do not care about that, but I also care about it too much. I do not want societal pressure to tell me that I need a partner in my life, that I need to have children in order to be happy and be worth something. That is not what makes a life. I want people to understand this, especially my family, but I'm afraid they won't even if they are aware that they know it's not for all people. The life I want is to be with the people I love and I can trust and engage with. That I am successful and can stand up for who and what I believe in. So this is my message to people out there. Take all the time in the world to discover who you are. Whether you prefer labels for it or not. To not let societal pressure get to you too much. I know it's hard and the nature of the world and its people are complex, but please be true to yourself and I'm sure you will find your people and your way in life.

[ghostofviperwrites]

Crossing Paths - Part 1

I posted this story once a long time ago and it seems to have vanished off the face of the Earth so I’m reposting.  

The first and only slash fic I’ve ever written simply because the Hiromu/Despy feud called for it like no other.  

Pairing:  Hiromu Takahashi/El Desperado

Category:   Smut (slash)

Word Count: 1435

Warnings: Slight Choking, hitting, hair pulling, rough oral sex, hate fuck

50.          “Get on your knees.”

51.          “This cock isn’t gonna suck itself.”

68.          “Fuck, that’s good.”

69.          “Holy shit, you’re so fucking sexy like that.”

“You two seriously need to fuck and just get it over with.”  Naito said as he and Hiromu Takahashi walked into the Los Ingobernables dressing room.  

“Who needs to fuck?” Evil asked coming out of the shower area, towel around his waist.  “Desperado and Hiromu?”  

“Why does everyone say we need to fuck?”  Hiromu asked throwing himself down on the bench.  “I don’t even like him.”  

“Ever heard of a hate fuck?”  Sanada asked looking up from his phone.  “If two people have ever needed one it’s you and Desperado.”  

“And we all know you don’t need to like someone to fuck them.” Bushi pointed out.  

Hiromu pouted arm folding over his eyes as he thought about his friends’ words.   He couldn’t stand Desperado.  The man drove him fucking insane.   He wanted nothing more than to punch him and kick him and bite him and maybe stick his cock down his throat until he choked.   Hiromu groaned at that thought, the image of him standing over a kneeling Desperado, hips pressed to the man’s lips with his dick deep in his throat making his cock twitch.  Maybe they were right.  

“Even if I wanted to. And I’m not saying I do.  He has no interest.”  Hiromu said sourly.  

“I wouldn’t be so sure.” Evil said as he dressed.  “From what I’ve heard I don’t think he’s nearly as adverse as you want to believe.”  

Hiromu perked up at Evil’s words.  The man was rarely wrong with his information.  Maybe there was an opportunity to be had.  Pushing the thought away for the time being Hiromu began gathering his belongings as did the rest of LIJ preparing to return to their hotel rooms.  

Begging off from the group’s plans, Hiromu went for a walk down the quiet streets, the cool night air fueling Hiromu’s raging emotions as he thought about this rivalry with El Desperado.  He hadn’t paid the masked man much mind before.  Didn’t have a whole lot of interaction, but now they were fighting on an almost daily basis and as much as Hiromu didn’t want to admit it, he was excited by Desperado.  Desperado was wild and aggressive and physical; all things Hiromu loved.   He didn’t like the man, but he wanted him. The thought of gagging Desperado with his cock had Hiromu rock hard and not paying attention making him bump into someone on the sidewalk.  Hiromu immediately recognized the raspy voice that spat curse words at him. Desperado.  Of all the people to run into, it would be him.  

Hiromu found himself staring into Desperado’s cold blue contact coated eyes.  He must have been out with the Guns as he was still in his mask. The idea of him in his mask with Hiromu’s cock in his mouth painted a pretty picture for Hiromu.  Without thinking Hiromu shoved the man, spitting nasty words right back and the drunk and belligerent man.  

Hiromu moaned when Desperado grabbed a handful of his hair and yanked, raising his hand to return the favor to Desperado, the two yanking and pulling each other falling off balance and into an alley way.  Hiromu was the first to react scrambling and climbing on top of Desperado and wrapping his hands around his throat, pinning him to the ground as Hiromu straddled him. Hiromu tightened his hands around Desperado’s throat as he grinned down at him.  A shift of his body and Hiromu felt it.  Proof that Desperado was not nearly as immune to Hiromu as Hiromu had believed.  Goddamn Evil was right again.   Desperado stilled underneath Hiromu grateful for the mask that was hiding his blush as he knew Hiromu had felt his growing hard on.  

He waited for Hiromu to taunt him, call him disgusting and any other derogatory thing he could think of for lusting after him.  Instead Hiromu pushed himself down, rubbing along Desperado’s cock before he leaned down and attacked Desperado’s mouth.  Surprise had Desperado parting his lips as Hiromu’s tongue pushed through. Desperado’s tongue tentatively met Hiromu’s stroking around their mouths as the kissed deepened.  Breaking for air the two men glared at each other.  

“I fucking hate you,” Desperado spat.

“Good.”  Hiromu growled.  “I hate you too.  And I’m going to hate you while you gag on my cock.”  Hiromu pushed off Desperado and rose to his feet, hands moving to the buckle of his belt.  “Get on your knees.”  Desperado hesitated for the briefest of moments, but the thought of Hiromu abusing his throat had him scrambling onto his knees.  

“Holy shit, you’re so fucking sexy like that.”  Hiromu mumbled as he stared down at Desperado on his knees staring up at him with eyes filled with a mixture of lust and hate.  Unzipping his pants Hiromu pulled out his cock, stroking it idly as Desperado’s eyes followed his every movement.  

“Well? Come on.  This cock isn’t gonna suck itself.” Hiromu said impatiently.  

“Fuck you.”  Desperado spat, batting Hiromu’s hand off his dick and taking the length in his own fist. His strokes were rough and jerky pulling at Hiromu’s cock as Desperado hesitantly moved his mouth towards the head. Darting his tongue out tentatively Desperado licked the tip of Hiromu’s cock a few times before he parted his lips and took the head into his mouth.   His eyes closed as his tongue felt the unfamiliar flesh in his mouth, sucking hard at the bulbous head and tasting a slight salty tinge.  Gaining confidence as Hiromu moaned Desperado slid his cock further into his mouth breathing deeply through his nose to control his urge to gag.   Having never sucked a cock before Desperado was hesitant in his actions, trying to do what he liked when girls went down on him, pushing his tongue around Hiromu’s thickness and sucking hard as he slid him further into his mouth.  

Hiromu kept his eyes focused on Desperado as the masked man brought him pleasure, his hand moving to rest on Desperado’s head as he watched him mouth swallow him.  For a brief moment their eyes met before Desperado lowered his eyelids and pushed his head further on Hiromu’s cock.   Pulling Desperado off his cock by the tendrils of his mask Hiromu tilted the other man’s head back until he opened his eyes and glared up at Hiromu.

“I’m going to fuck your face now. Do you understand?”  Hiromu warned him smirking as he saw the internal battle raging within Desperado as he fought against submitting to his enemy.  Finally Desperado nodded in Hiromu’s hold granting him the control he sought.   Desperado opened his mouth and slid Hiromu back into his mouth, his own hands sliding down to his groin and rubbing his crotch through his pants as Hiromu began guiding Desperado’s head back and forth on his cock.  

He hated to admit it but Desperado found himself getting more excited as Hiromu forced his head up and down at will making Desperado gag as the cock penetrated his throat.  Desperado could feel spit leaking from his mouth as Hiromu roughly fucked his throat.   Squeezing his cock through his pants Desperado stroked it as Hiromu’s hips snapped against his face.  

“Fuck, that’s good.” Hiromu grunted as he buried himself in Desperado’s throat.  The sounds of Desperado choking around him were driving Hiromu insane with lust and for a moment he wanted more than just to fuck Desperado’s face.  Pushing aside that thought Hiromu concentrated on using Desperado’s mouth, his hips rocking against the other man’s lips.

“I’m going to cum.”  Hiromu said after several more minutes of intense thrusting, pulling back to rest just his tip on Desperado’s tongue as his load shot out, the creamy seed coating his mouth.   Desperado pulled back with a slight grimace the salty substance foreign on his tongue but he wasn’t completely turned off by it so he swallowed it much to Hiromu’s delight.   Tucking himself back in his pants Hiromu nodded with satisfaction.  He felt much better now.  

“See you around Desperado,” Hiromu teased as he walked out of the alley, leaving the other man on his knees his creative curses following Hiromu out onto the sidewalk as he whistled cheerfully and disappeared into the night.  

[starr-fall-knight-rise]

Humans are Space Orcs “Stress”

I thought about this idea during finals week for obvious reasons. As for some of the other stuff, I am still trying to figure out what I want to do. My motivation likes to come and go at odd moments, so the longer, more complicated stuff that requires research is eluding me at the moment, but I hope you all like it :) 

Humanity was crafted in the fire of adversity. On a planet where everything is stronger, faster, and more dangerous than them, they still manage reign supreme. Looking back at their history, the human came down from the trees and developed primarily on hot, hostile prairies of Africa relying on their small bands of family to keep them safe.

Due to the hostile nature of their planet the human has one of the most remarkable and advanced reactions to stress in the sympathetic response of their body, known as the fight or flight system. In response to say, sight of a predator, the human brain immediately releases stress hormones into the blood activating adrenaline and cortisol production. In states like these humans, run faster, jump higher, react quicker, feel less pain, increase their strength, and recognize more frames per second (described by humans as the world slowing down). Additionally the sympathetic response shuts down all parasympathetic actions, which include digestion, growth, ovulation, sex drive, hunger, and other additional functions.

However, this remarkable stress system, which the humans are renowned for, has one horrible downside….. The human body cannot tell the difference between the stress of a predator attack or the stress of a long-term work environment. The human body reacts to deadlines the same way it evolved to react to the chase on the prairies thousands of years ago. Chronic stress is one of the largest dangers posed to your human companions, and should be taken seriously. Long term effects of stress can results in depressed immune systems, sickness, skin problems, high blood pressure, cardiovascular issues, digestive issues, sexual dysfunction, depression, anxiety etc.

Chronic stress is a human’s worst enemy.

***

“I swear by all nine circles of Dante’s hell that if the assembly refuses to hear me out than we are going to have galaxy wide rioting on our hands, and you know who is going to have to deal with it. Me, yeah that’s right, me, just like every other riot, protest, demonstration and sit-in this side of the sector. Just let them be together if they really want, just get them immunized first, Damn!” Commander Vir marched onto the bridge angrily pulling on his jacket and throwing himself down in the Captain’s chair, “Four hours of sleep last night, four, and I have to tell you I am sick and tired of this shit. LIEUTENANT!”

“Yes, Sir.” She asked hesitantly

“What do we have TODAY? What could have possible gone wrong on this fine morning?” The man snarled sarcastically. Krill glanced at Sunny with a worried expression. This was hardly behavior they had come to expect from their friend.

“Well sir, paperwork, as usual, and then you have a conference with the GA at 9, and a report due to the Fleet Admiral at 10. Captain Kamma and Captain Roll need your opinion on dealing with a Finneri dispute over airspace in the Alpha sector, plus the ship is due for routine maintenance, but there is still a little matter about that Vrul scientist that the GA wants transported back to HQ. If you have the reports, I can send them in now…..” She trailed off.

Commander Vir took a deep breath and rested his forehead against one hand messaging his temples, “I haven’t finished the reports yet, I haven’t had enough time to finish the reports, I was doing more important things than finishing the reports like…. Oh, I don’t know trying to put down riots and prevent luting. I think humanity’s public image is more important than some stupid piece of paper. Kind of hard to get anything done when you are trying to keep the entirety of the GA to stop seeing humans as violent militants.”

“Sir, I can-“

“No, I will have the stupid reports done, just give me an hour.” He stood from his chair, “Walk with me.” The supporting crew barely had time to leap from their seats and follow after the man as he marched out of the room. Usually silent, the prosthetic on his leg whirred with excess power as if aware of the man’s agitation. Sunny followed behind the only one able to keep up without jogging. She held Krill by the hand as he floated behind her. Commander Vir answered rapid fire questions left and right as he marched on down the hall. A marine appeared form one of the side halls.

“Captain,”

“Make it quick, Corporal.” The man fell into a jogging step beside him.

“Uh, yes Commander, there seems to be a problem.” A single green eye turned upon the man and narrowed. The entire crew stiffened a little. Krill hid behind Sunny’s bulk. The entire crew had been on edge for weeks now. All of them begged to whatever deity out there that things would get better for their Commander. The crew, once so laid back, and relaxing now found themselves in an enviornment of stress like a rubber band close to sapping, all caused by a triangular ripple effect coming down from on high. When the Commander wasn’t happy, no one was.

Generally, goofy, friendly, social, and fun, the man had slowly grown, irritable, reclusive, and tense as sarcasm and jokes began to fly right over his head….. Accept for the biter angry kind.

“What NOW.”

“Well, sir, the last armament shipment….. well they got our order wrong. We got only two cases of .223.” The man had to speed up a little to keep up

“Two cases! The F*ck are we supposed to do with that. We needed two Pallets not two cases.”

“Yes sir, I know but-“

“Ahg never mind, I’ll call in to the supply department later.” He coughed once or twice, wiping his mouth before pushing past the marine and into the chow hall marching up to the coffee maker and angrily shoving mug under the nozzle. Another glance was exchanged between Sunny and Krill, the man didn’t drink coffee at least he hadn’t until about a week ago. All around, the breakfast crowd looked up from their meals nervously fiddling with their forks and spoons as they watched.

Cup filled up, the man turned in a circle.

It all seemed to happen in slow motion. Could it have been the unusual power of the prosthetic, the fact that he turned in the direction of his missing eye, or could it have just been coincidence that his leg knocked against the counter sending a wave of hot liquid over his arm and onto the floor as the cup dropped from his hands. The entire room went silent, which only made the shattering of the glass louder followed by the string of abusive, vulgar curses spilling form the man’s mouth that much more poignant. Sure, he wasn’t opposed to cursing, but THAT was excessive.

He waved his arm hissing in pain. Before growing silent, horribly silent. The entire room was still hands raised halfway to their mouths food dripping form forks. He stood very still shoulders hunched hands clenched into half claws.  From their position, Krill and sunny watched as the man’s slow, even breathing began to speed up, blood rushed up to his face, a vein pulsed in his neck.

The expression that came over the human’s face was one of pure animal rage completely out of place in such a setting. Humans and Drev alike ducked for cover, especially telling when it came to the humans, as the man spun in a circle and violently ripped the machine from the wall and throwing it to the floor. Glass and plastic shattered, but that didn’t seem to be enough. The advanced military prosthetic, sensing his anger, whirred to life powerful hydraulics and pistons crackling to life as he engaged the foot. Metal screeched and screamed as it was crushed. Crewmembers cowered further under their tables as the wreckage was kicked violently into the air. The power of the prosthetic sent it halfway across the room where it smashed into the ground shattering whatever piece of equipment was left.

Then slowly they looked up watching as the man spun in an agitated circle, paced to the right, then to the left before screaming through his teeth and running out of the room leaving a scene of carnage behind him.

***

Krill and Sunny found him three hours later forced to explain to the admiral and the GA of the commander’s absence.

They found him in a service tunnel running the side of the engine room sitting in the red emergency lights on the floor with his legs curled to his chest, and his arms about his dog’s neck. The animal had her head resting on his shoulder tail tucked between her legs as if she knew something was terribly wrong.

Sunny had trouble squirming through the close opening, but eventually hauled her bulk into the small space, “Adam?”

The man didn’t look up but a desperate chuckle broke from his lips cracked and breathless, “Great, just what I needed, for you guys to see me like this…… what did the admiral say? Am I fired?”

Krill scuttled around the side of Sunny squeezing himself past her bulk with a huff, “Commander, why would they fire you. Preposterous, that doesn’t make any sense.”

Sunny managed to make it to her knees and then into a low crouch, “Vir, the Admiral actually said that…. Now maybe you’ll understand because I didn’t and I quote, ‘I’m impressed the boy managed to make it this long, my first breakdown was two weeks after I started, and I nearly ran my car into a tree.”

The dog whimpered as the man lifted his head, throwing it back with a shaky breath, “You don’t have to try and make me feel better Sunny. The damage is done, I messed up, and I lost in in front of the crew like a child, and I can’t help but think about how much of a jackass I’ve been for the last few weeks. I’m garbage at this, I should never have taken the job.”

Krill huffed scuttling down the short hallway and over to the man, “Oh what is it you humans say…… pity party is over. Man up and talk to us, you are being horribly illogical, and that is something I cannot abide. Start from the beginning and tell us what’s wrong so we can fix it. You ARE the commander of this ship and you deserve to be here, so might as well fix the problem while we can.”

Fifteen minute later, Krill had ushered them out of the engine room and back to his infirmary where the Commander now hunched on the edge of one of the beds elbows resting on his knees as he stared down at the floor. Krill bustled around him like krill always did examining his burned arm, if there was a problem, he fixed it. That’s just the way he was, Sunny listened.

He rubbed the sides of his head again, “I’ve just been so….. Stressed, I have so much to do, and I don’t have enough time, everyone is counting on me, and now with the riots…. I just….. my body is falling apart, I can’t sleep, I can’t eat because when I do I get nauseous, my head hurts all the time, I’ve bene sick for like…. I don’t know, a month. Feels like my heart never slows down, and someone has their hand around my chest just…. Squeezing. Plus.” He lifted up his shirt exposing his pale stomach, and the livid red bumps across his stomach raised and strangely discolored, “I broke out in hives yesterday, haven’t done that since I was a kid.”

Krill paused shooting the man a glower, hands resting on his hip equivalent, “And you never thought to, oh I don’t know talk to a DOCTOR because you don’t have one of those just conveniently lying around.”

Vir rubbed the back of his neck with a sigh, “I…. its stress related Krill, there’s nothing you can do medically for me.” Sunny had moved at this point slowly walking over towards her two friends, and before Krill or Vir could say anything, she pulled the man into her arms, all four of them, and hugged him lifting him completely and easily off the ground. He went quiet in surprise and Krill looked up at her in annoyance.

“Hugs are good for humans. Supposed to relieve stress…. I think.” Sunny said. She thought for a moment he would pull away, but after a few seconds he sagged against her read resting against her chest. Krill relented with a sigh and stepped back.

A muffled voice, “What am I supposed to do Sunny?”

Krill tapped one of his feet on the floor, “The way I see it, Commander, there is only one logical course of action.”

***

The crew watched from where they sat or stood around the chow hall, on or around the tables as the man, their Commander, awkwardly shuffled his feet and stared down at the floor, “I…. have to apologize to…. To all of you for my….. Deplorable behavior lately. “He took a deep breath and looked up with clear difficulty, “The way I have been acting is very unprofessional, and the outbursts are just as bad. I know there are no excuses for what I have done, and I take responsibility but I have been under a lot of stress lately, and I am still learning how to deal with it.”

Some members of the crowd nodded along with him, some frowned, but the vast majority gave encouraging smiles. “That’s alright, Commander, we understand.” Someone said from the back followed by a chorus of agreement.

One of the marines stood up, “We forgive you, Commander, and I have one word for you….” He turned to the room and waved his hand in a wide arc over his head, “Delegation.”

“Delegation?” The man questioned

“Yeah.” The marine said, “Like since you’re a boss you can make everyone else do the work for you.”

The commander shook his head, “I no… I couldn’t”

Just then the lieutenant took to her feet, “Just hear him out, sir. He’s right, you’ve been trying to do everything yourself, and it isn’t healthy. There are plenty of things you can outsource. I mean some of the other captains have specialties in certain areas, and you could put them in charge. And here, on the crew, you could appoint someone as the head of a sector, and just have them report in. They can deal with the little stuff and you can do the big stuff. For instance, I’m great at writing, I was an English major before joining the army, so I can write the reports….. and no offence, but you suck ass at writing… sir.”

The crew broke out into laughter, Vir grinned sheepishly, “Alright, maybe you have a point.”

Other members of the crew agreed, “You’re forgetting we’ve had almost as much contact with E.Ts as you, sir. We can deal with some of the little stuff, so you don’t have to worry.”

The commander took a seat on one of the tables facing the crowd, “I just don’t want it to seem like I’m pawning all my work off on others.”

Another crewmember waved the comment off, “Give us some credit, we know you better than that. Besides everyone deserves a little downtime.”

“Yeah a little stress relief is good. Man you need to get some kind of hobby.” The marine who spoke leaned over towards his companion and quietly…. But not to quietly whispered, “Either that, or get laid.”

The comment hadn’t been quiet enough, and a row of marines broke into fits of giggling. Vir flushed bright red trying to ignore the comment, “Alright, first thing’s first, we need to have a meeting, decide how to divide things up. I’m thinking the marines, the bridge crew a -“ A glare from Krill silenced him, “Of course…. We can talk about that tomorrow….. you…. Are all dismissed.”

The crew shifted to their feet. A few of the marines walked past still laughing causing the blush to flare up again. The marine that had spoken shoved him lightly, “You’re such a boy scout, you know that right?” Vir grumbled as he moved past. The marine turned to walk backwards down the hallway, “Come on man, just saying great stress relief. Woman, dude…… alien if you’re into that.”

Vir raised his hands, “Ok, ok, stop, I get it.” More laughter as the marines walked away. He sighed, but was immediately accosted from behind. The floor fell out from under him, and suddenly his only view was blue armor, “F***, Sunny what the hell.”

She shifted him into a more comfortable position over her shoulder, “This is a hostage situation. You will not be released till you get at least eight hours of sleep, there are no other options.”

Vir sighed, “Guess I don’t have much say.”

“Nope.”

Stress is a human’s worst enemy, and it is our job to make sure our humans stay healthy.

[tervenish]

Radical Feminist/Gender Critical Questions

I've noticed some contradictions throughout GC/radfem spaces and I just wanted to write them down and talk about them.

PLEASE NOTE: I know someone is going to interpret some of these as if I believe some horrible way, or distrust some people, but genuinely I’m just trying to ask questions and have a discussion to try to make sense in this terribly confusing world.

A big problem I have with self-ID laws is that it’s all just based in “because I said so.” But when I tell someone I’m a lesbian, I can’t share my feelings so that they, too, feel them. I have no way to prove that these are my feelings. All of our morals are just “because I think it’s right/wrong.” I don’t understand how to move forward with this problem.

Don't we, too, seek out studies that confirm our beliefs? There are studies that say yes but there are also studies that say no. Each side pays attention to the ones they want. How do we remedy this?

(1/2) We call out the no-true-Scotsman argument a lot in genderist circles, but there was that time a feminist organization partnered with conservatives. What happens when a group that calls themselves radical feminists or even gender critical, and do something like that? Saying "that's not real radical feminism" feels like the Scotsman thing. Not every radical feminist agrees with the same things. Julie Bindel doesn’t believe bisexuality is real. Some radfems think women can never reach equality if they’re around men.

(2/2) One explanation I came to was that when we hear “a real trans person/trans ally wouldn’t do that” is that that is referring to a person, whereas “that’s not radical feminism” is referring to an ideology that, theoretically, has defined principles. However, as I said, it doesn’t really... At this point, I feel like nothing can be set in stone besides math, and even that has theoretical areas.

We say TRAs show their faults when they don't respond after we ask them things like "so define a woman" or whatever, but there are times when I choose to stop talking even after some significant point they made (for example, one said "I didn't choose to be bullied for this") often bc I'm either not in the mental head space to handle a debate or I've just gone blank on how to respond. I also can’t perfectly explain everything I believe. I believe in the forces of gravity and friction, but I can’t explain them. So... is that really an argument?

Why don't we hear more about transmen getting hurt in male bathrooms? Statistically, women have been harmed more in mixed-sex bathrooms... right? I know female-only bathrooms are important, but I still can't articulate why I'm uncomfortable without simply saying "the history of male violence toward women." And then of course people can call me paranoid and point out transmen doing fine?

Again, I don’t now how to explain why I value female-only spaces without sounding paranoid or saying women are weaker than men. On one hand, AFAIK it is true on an average of physical ability. But on the other hand, do people have a point when they say we’re teaching women to view ourselves as victims? There has to be a balance of pointing out violence and risk patterns without kinda enforcing learned helplessness.

Re: "men do express their emotions but they do it with violence/anger" -> "not all men do that" ...I'm confused because it's true, I rarely see men slamming doors or punching people bc they're upset, but when they do, they're criticized for it bc most people recognize that as shitty behavior. So... how true is this? How much of our own personal witnessing of these experiences counts toward “enough” to make it a generic statement or not? What else can we say to describe men and their relationship w/ emotions?

How far can we say "men do ___" when, duh, not every single man does, but... what constitutes "enough men"? I'm just thinking about this bc my brother gets upset when I make broad statements and he genuinely doesn't fit the male stereotypes, and then I feel stupid because I can't really back up my judgments without just gesturing vaguely to "the history of male behavior." I'd just like to be able to have a more complete response, y'know?

(1/2) We say "cisgender privilege" doesn't exist because women can't oppress men, but then there's the intersectional axis of, for example, white women over black men. White people oppress people of color, and that doesn't change when it's women vs. men. So what do we call this?

(2/2) Secondly, well, a transgender person does face different kinds of adversity that I don’t because I’m not trans. This is a thing. But misdirected misogyny and homophobia are also a thing. Perhaps what they're referring to as "cis privilege" is just gender conforming privilege? I don’t know.

When women talk about hating men, we say it's because men have done so much shit to us. Isn't that similar to someone saying "it's okay, he was bullied/abused so you can't be mad"? How much is mistreated “enough” to say this is okay?

It’s horrifying to me to think of a 13-year-old or a 9-year-old getting put on Lupron or some other experimental puberty blocker, but how do we define children’s autonomy? What about other health problems? Are they allowed to consent to cosmetic treatment after a disfiguring accident? Or would we just say “you should learn to love your body as it is”? I know they’re not truly the same thing, but where is the line? What about a child getting treatment by pills for Schizophrenia? It’s all so complicated.

There are so many arguments that Intersex people do not represent a sex spectrum, and there are lots of other arguments that say they prove that human sex isn’t 100% binary. On one hand, of course it’s binary because of how we reproduce. But on the other hand, how do you define who fits into male/female? A woman with high testosterone, no breasts, no uterus/ovaries, etc. is no less a woman, but why? Women with CAIS have XY chromosomes and testes but are considered female. And what about chromosomes beyond XX and XY? Even if I were to acknowledge that an everyday individual can’t truly define that and that we should leave it to the biologists, we still have to have a decision to make votes and arguments.

Please be respectful if you answer. There are harmful people in every circle, and we’re all just trying to do what we think is right.

[rosepetals-flyingbirds]

Moving on. (1/3)

Pairing: Kylo x Reader, Poe x Reader.

Word Count: 2K

Warnings: An abusive relationship so if its a trigger for you consider not reading, angst and maybe some tears.

Day 515.

Opening his eyes Kylo looked at his surrounds and saw the hour on his clock on the nightstand. 05:20 AM.

Grunting he sat and rubbed his face, another day where he would spend tired.

He glanced at his large window and saw the lights over the other buildings.

His apartment was in the penthouse of a known building in the city. He was CEO of his uncle’s firm and money wasn’t an issue.

Deciding to start his day he took a hot shower to fix his thoughts and went for a run. It would be nice to watch the sunrise.

Back at his place he took another shower and walked to his closet to choose his suit for the day.

Of course he chose some normal black one.

He walked to the garage but felt something rubbing on his pockets, clicking the lock button and unlocking his car he touched his pocket finding a small paper rolled up.

Just to remind you of me. I love you, Kylo. ♡

Your handwriting perfectly wrote with a heart followed. Kylo’s lips almost smiled but he frowned and threw the paper at the back seat of his car.

He hasn’t time for that.

Not now.

You woke up thanks to Kylo’s annoying alarm. It was 7 AM and you just wanted to sleep a bit longer. “Kylo can you please turn it off!”

He laughed and did so moving so he could grasp you with his arms. “I love how grumpy you are.”

“Okay, praise me later it’s too early.”

“Is never too early to praise you.” He left a sweet kiss on your lips and made sure you would get up.

People would never expect Kylo to be romantic, but what mattered was what happened between you two.

“Come, let’s get ready and I’ll let you at your work.” He stated and kissed your bareback.

You were almost ready when Kylo was finishing putting his papers in order inside the suitcase. Smiling you grabbed a paper and wrote a small message down. Kylo would probably have a busy day and you hoped it would make him at least smile.

As you thought the day was busy, a few associates and partners where Kylo wishes he could fire -but Luke didn’t allow so- didn’t agree with Kylo’s project, he was already tired.

Long hours late he was finishing some contracts and rolled his eyes when his pattern Hux found a problem at Kylo’s sketch.

It was always like that, Kylo created something, the associated would approve, but Hux would find a flaw.

After the long meeting and finally finding something Luke and Hux agreed with, Kylo sat at his desk seeing some financials documents on his computer, darting his eyes to his watch he saw the black and white photo aside his Dell computer.

He smiled and grabbed the frame, tracing his finger on your face he wondered how someone so good was doing with him.

Remembering your complains about the late hours he had been working on he decided to go home and grab something to make a dinner for you, he searched the car keys but when he did he felt a paper and wondered what it was, probably some claim check, it was a small message you wrote for him, he smiled like a fool in love and went home ready to spend some quality time with his girl.

Gruting Kylo drove faster to his job, his knuckles growing white as how hard he was gripping the wheel. He had a large meeting today and the last thing he needed was to be distracted by something that ended a long time ago.

His day went rather normal, Luke asked some file Kylo had saved in one of the boxes on his shelves. Searching for it he saw a picture fallen on the floor, it was you and him on the second anniversary you two shared.

He didn’t like photographs but his smile was huge in the picture, it was a great day. A fucking great day.

Eating breakfast you looked Kylo by your side reading the newspaper. “A whole another year with you, how did I manage that?” You teased and Kylo laughed at the words, he knew he wasn’t the easiest person to be around. “I’m joking you know, I love you.”

He placed the newspaper down and moved his chair pulling your arm. “And I love you.” You sat on his lap and kissed him gently. “Tonight we will have a nice dinner.” He proposed and caressed his large hand on your shoulder. “Maybe watch some movie at that drive-in cinema you love so much,” His hand went lower on your arm. “And then we come back here, have some fun.”

Grabbing your waist he pulled your lips near. You smiled at the kiss, happy about the idea, he hated cinema due to the people that would be there, his flat tv was almost the size of a cinema’s screen and he had money enough to buy the new realised films, so the thought of going out just to make you happy meant a lot.

The day gladly flew by at your job and soon enough you were at home dressing a new dress your boyfriend bought.

The dinner was at the most luscious restaurant on the city, Kylo knew you would be by his side didn’t matter if it was on an expensive dinner or a simple pizza at the street corner, and he loved it.

The movie was the old On the Waterfront and Kylo managed to park his black Range Rover in the best spot to watch the screen. At home, well, moans, curses, and love statements were surely heard by the annoying rich neighbors down the level of the building.

He hated to admit, but he missed you. A lot!

The fact that his uncle, father, and mother kept talking about you didn’t help much.

His apartment seemed boring with the modern structure. His closet only filled with dark colored clothes, his feeding was only around proteins and alcohol.

Everything was too boring, too tasteless.

He knew he messed up, he knew that he failed his promise of loving and respecting you, that he took you for granted and he regretted it.

And what pissed him off the most is that you moved on, adversely than him that tried to find solace in wild nights in clubs, you found someone else.

Kylo would respect that you had sex with other people, he did too. But it wasn’t that, you found someone new, someone better.

Poe Dameron was the one, of course it was. Poe used to live in Kylo’s neighborhood while kid, and they were friends but as the teenage years came around Kylo started to ignore Poe due the jealousy he felt.

Kylo Ren were always smart, clever, skilled and entered on his uncle’s empire managing to bring more fortune and accomplishments, but his parents would always look at the man whose the wish while kid was to fly.

Leia worked in the council and is an important general, and Poe worked for the government service pilot managing to be near her still. Han used to fly too and that is how he met Leia. Another reason why Han liked Poe Dameron so much, for Kylo’s dismay.

Kylo understands that even if you started to date someone that he had never even heard of he would be pissed, but Poe Dameron? He felt attacked. He felt like you did it to hurt him directly.

Day 15.

He was terrible, today it made exactly fifteen days you two broke up, that Kylo loved you wasn’t something new, he knew it very clearly. But that he couldn’t live without you? That was sad.

He knows he has the tendency to push people away, but after you two started to date his insecurities and bad temper started to slow down considerably, you calmed him and definitely made him a better person.

The four years and five months you two dated was perfect, you were so good and bright. Even on the days you felt ugly, angry, depressed Kylo still saw you as the most bright angel that fell on his lap.

He needed to see you again, he needed to talk to you and apologize. He wanted to send you flowers but he had no idea where you were. He wanted to talk but you had blocked his number. He even went to your work searching for you, but you weren’t there. He even gave the doorman money and his phone number ‘if you see her, you call me, doesn’t matter the hour’ he stated after handing the man a large money quantity.

And when nothing happened he decided to go to Rey’s apartment to look for you.

When he reached the building he tried to remember the floor and number, he had been there before, when Rey and Finn started to date and she threw a party, and to make you happy Kylo went there with you.

Gladly the apartments bell were mixed together and aside each number had the last name of the owners, Kylo saw that her apartment was the 20th one, he would ring but she would never allow him up there. An old lady approached opening the door and Kylo enjoyed the opportunity to go up.

He knocked on the door and was met with Finn. “Hi, Kylo.” He answered surprised, shocked.

Kylo wasn’t Finn’s friend and after the club incident, he knew he wasn’t welcomed in his house. “Hey, is Y/N here?”

“Babe, who is there?” Rey yelled while she approached the door cleaning her hands on a cloth. “The dinner will burn if you keep-” She stopped and her smile faded. “What do you want Kylo?”

“I want to see Y/N, she is here?“

"No she isn't." She answered quickly and Kylo looked at Finn trying to see if it was the truth.

“I don’t believe you.” He stepped inside the place pushing Finn and Rey away in the process.

“Dude you can’t enter our house in that way!” Finn shouted and grabbed Kylo’s shoulder.

“Y/N? Y/N?” Kylo shouted and took Finn’s arm out of him, he kept searching but didn't find you. “She ain’t here.” He murmured after looking at the whole place.

The apartment wasn’t big. “That is what Rey told you, now leave, you are not welcome here.” Finn stated and Kylo shook his head, he didn’t care if he was welcomed or not.

“Where is she?” He asked and looked over Finn and Rey trying to find something, any glimpse of an answer.

Rey saw how terrible Kylo looked, his eyes heavy followed by deep dark circles under his eyes. “She is out of town, she needed to breathe and took off.”

Kylo thought about your relatives, but they didn’t live near. “Where?” Rey stood quietly. “Listen, I know we are not friends, but I need her!” His tone of voice raised and Finn looked at his feet before glaring back at the tall man before him, he looked like a junkie searching for his drug. “Listen,” He reached Rey’s arm and touched it making Finn intervene stepping in front of his girlfriend.

That made Kylo see how desperated he looked and how none of them would answer.

He shook his head and walked outside the place but kept his hand on the door to make sure they wouldn’t close. “I miss her. I miss her so fucking much. I can’t eat, I can’t sleep, I can't think! I can’t live without her. Please, please tell me where she is.” He begged.

Finn opened his mouth but Rey quickly raised her hand silently telling him to stop. “Can’t live without her?” She asked and Kylo nodded. Rey touched the door and with a quick move closed it beating on Kylo’s nose. “Then die!” She shouted.

Of course Rey would not help him. Kylo felt his world ending, he was an idiot to let you slide. He knew he couldn’t ever find someone like you. Because the only one he could ever love was you.

                               …

Day 21.

Kylo discovered where you were living and walked there wearing a hoodie and jeans, a different look for him. But he needed to talk with you, he needed to open up his heart, to show you he cared and missed you.

Reaching your door he knocked twice and placed his thumb on the peephole, you wouldn’t open if you saw him. When you opened the door you looked brighter, you were wearing a white flowered dress with your hair slightly wet, you had a smile, until you saw him. Kylo’s heart clenched at how your face fell seeing him, placing his foot in the door he extended his hands on the air trying to show it was okay. “Y/N, please listen to me.”

You looked at how broken he was… good!

“I’m sorry, I took you from granted and I shouldn’t have. Y/N you are everything, you have no idea how broken I am and I regret all the time I made you cry, we used to be so happy and-” Kylo’s mouth closed and a thin line formed.

Poe appeared behind you and looked at Kylo there. “Y/N everything is okay?”

Your eyes were teary and you dried them before looking back at Poe. “Yeah, it’s okay.” When you looked back at your door it was empty, Kylo left.

You weren’t dating Poe on that day, a friend was throwing a party and you and Poe would go together, as friends. But on Kylo’s eyes, you picked Poe only to hurt him.

Day 65.

You were walking on the sidewalk with Rey on the phone, she was trying to set you up with Finn’s cousin and you were declining saying you weren’t ready yet.

When you turned the corner of your building you saw Kylo there wearing jeans and a green shirt. It was a Thursday and he always worked in that hour. “Rey, hm, I have to go.” Finishing the call without waiting for her answer you gulped seeing him. “What are you doing here?”

Placing his hands in his pants pockets he looked at you. “We need to talk.”

Shaking your head you grabbed your keys and walked trying to enter the building. “We don’t.”

Kylo touched your arm and you cringed.

He saw it and felt bad about how much he disgusted you. “Please just hear me. And I’ll go.” Taking a deep breath you looked back at him. He didn’t have a speech ready, he just wanted you back. “What do you want? A house in the sub? I buy it, I quit the job, I do whatever you want Y/N.”

“Kylo I don’t want you to quit your job, it wasn’t work that tore us apart. It was you.” You pointed the obvious.

“Y/N marry me.” He stated and you widened your eyes.

"What?"

“Marry me, we will move together and I will fix it, Y/N I can’t stand being without you.”

“Kylo we can’t be together, you don’t love me anymore and… and I cannot live knowing I’m with someone that doesn’t want me, someone that doesn’t respect enough me to sit down and fix our problems. Someone that would get home late and don’t tell me what was happening, someone that on the first fight would run away and fuck someone else!“

His eyes were teary with guilt, this could not be the end. “Listen we can fix it!”

"We can't.“ He tried to grab your hands but you dodge it. A man walking on the sidewalks saw the tears in your eyes and quickly tried to help you.

“Are you okay ma’am?“ He asked and looked at Kylo up and down.

You smiled and nodded. “It's, thank you.”

Cleaning your tears with the back of your hands the man nodded slightly but didn’t believe your words. "Are you sure?”

“Yes. I live here, you don’t have to worry.“ The man looked at you again trying to find any hint of a ‘help me‘ sign, but when he found none he left.

“Kylo. I love you. But I let myself love and care for you more than I cared about myself, and I can’t live in that way. We spent good years together, but this is broken, and we can’t fix. Is beyond repair.“ The words hurts but it was the truth.

He was just as hurt, but Poe’s face came to his mind. “This is because you are dating Dameron?” He asked clearly pissed.

Scoffing at how his mood shifted so quickly you looked him deep in his beautiful brown eyes. “We are not together anymore, what I do with my life is only my business.“ Answering coldly you entered your building and closed the door.

The memories still hurt Kylo, 515 days had passed and he still misses you.

He hated himself for hurting you so much, he wants you back so desperately, want you back in his arms that is where you belong to. He would do anything for it to happen, but you moved on.

                              …

Next.

[nandalorian]

So. I wasn’t going to post about Roswell, but now I am, so buckle up because this is going to be a long one.

A lot of people on Tumblr, Twitter, and the wider internet have, over the last few days, very intelligently posed criticisms of Roswell’s representation of POCs and queer characters in the context of Malex. While I have to be upfront about the fact that the problematic writing has made me apprehensive of seeing the show through to its next season, I’ve been pretty quiet on that front as I gather my thoughts and figure out what I need to say. As a white woman, I am upset and dismayed by the token and tone-deaf representation, but I feel like that’s not mine to speak to when there are a lot of people of colour in this fandom who can and should take this opportunity to explain, criticize, and educate the rest of us on how the show has failed and how it must do better. In that regard the most worthwhile contribution I can make is to listen and amplify those voices and their thoughts, feelings, experiences, and insights about the negative and at best lazy representation of people of colour on the show.

But as a bisexual woman and a professional writer and editor, I am in a position to criticize the queer representation from a political and social standpoint, but also a creative one. I am going to break this post up into two parts because there’s a lot I want to address about two separate issues, and I think the waters will get muddied if I try to combine it into one post. So let’s talk about Malex first, which is the subject about which, oddly enough, I feel the most calm. Depressed af, but mostly calm.

More under the cut.

A lot of people have already written about Malex or Tweeted Carina and the production team far more eloquently than I can manage, but the thing is, while I do have issues I’ll get into in a sec, I... actually think they have done a good job of writing Michael as a bisexual man and Alex as a gay one. That isn’t a popular opinion at the moment, but hear me out, because I have a lot more to say on the subject of bisexuality that doesn’t concern Michael Guerin. The show’s struggle isn’t entirely that their politics are bad. I do think the intentions are mostly good--mostly--but what I want to speak to is the breakdown between intentions and how those intentions translate to the screen through the medium of writing, direction, and the actors’ performances.

I don’t want to dismiss or disregard anyone who feels differently since that view is also totally valid and a lot of people have raised very fine points to that end. This is just my interpretation, so take it with a grain of salt and feel free to disregard or not. But my take is we can’t boil down the show’s issues to saying oh it’s biphobic or homophobic where Michael and Alex are concerned. I don’t think it is, not inherently.

The show’s struggle is that the writing is often so sloppy, rushed, and disjointed that it’s impossible to tell whether they don’t fully understand what positive queer representation is and what it isn’t, or if they just don’t know how to do it justice on TV. Perhaps it’s a combination of both, and right now I’m not writing off either possibility.

But I’m inclined to think it’s the latter. To be clear: the Malex/Maria triangle is shitty writing because love triangles frequently are, and they’re really, really difficult, if not impossible, to get right. The reason I think so many of us are up in arms about it is because the show rushed and stumbled its way through a 30-second supercut of Alex and Michael’s relationship from the word go, just enough to get us hooked before abandoning it for something else.

We’re pissed because it’s like they got us addicted to black tar heroin and then took away our fix just as the night sweats and shaky hands started to kick in, and at this point my life since episode 1x11 has been like a bad Trainspotting withdrawal montage. I don’t think they have intentionally baited us, although that is what it feels like. It’s taken a lot of angst and going back and forth on my part to arrive at this conclusion, and I will say I still waffle about it some days. But bad writing is bad because it pulls unintentionally negative reactions from people due to being misunderstood, or from creating all these wild implications the writers didn’t necessarily intend or realize were present in the final product.

The fact that Carina has to take to Twitter to explain each episode to viewers shows the quality of the writing or lack thereof. If it were stronger, she wouldn’t have to do that, but the show suffers from chronic exposition, incredibly bad pacing, and an overreliance on plot devices to advance the story rather than gradual and necessary character development. Sorry if that’s harsh, but the editor part of my brain sometimes wants to weep during episodes of Roswell. Oftentimes a bunch of shit will happen in an episode that doesn’t even progress the story, leaving us or the characters at exactly the same place they started off.

In short, everything happens too much. The characters feel like they have no agency because they are always reacting to one thing after another every episode, not even a second for them to breathe and be and let us see who they really are when the world isn’t on fire. And that’s all the characters, not just Alex and Michael, although arguably we have a bit more insight into the primary characters like the Pod Squad and Liz. But really, everything suffers as a result. The characters seem thin or underdeveloped and the sense of urgency, tension, and risk disappears even from theoretically high-stakes scenes like a live shooter at a hospital because we don’t get to see who the characters are in their normal lives. We don’t fully know what’s important to them before the next explosion happens.  

Adversity is a helpful writing tool because it can show us who characters are under a certain set of high-pressure circumstances, but boredom and normalcy is just as important for character development. You can’t tear down what we don’t know exists. Star Wars: A New Hope wouldn’t have been half as effective if we hadn’t seen Luke Skywalker in his day-to-day life before that simple life was upended and he got the call to adventure. The first stage of the hero’s journey is necessarily the boring part because we can’t cross from the known to the unknown world without seeing what the known world is.

We never really… get that with Roswell. Not even for a second. So of course we feel cheated of bisexual or gay representation in the show because we never actually get to see Michael and Alex in any kind of sustained relationship, healthy or not. It’s just conflict conflict conflict with a bit of sex and longing gazes thrown in, followed by more conflict and then the relationship ending in favour for a new one. All hat, no cattle. (Literally.)

With Michael we get to see some of his routine and him being himself with his family, etc., and a lot of that has to do with the incredible performances Michael Vlamis delivers week after week, although even then, that suffers. Rather than start us off slow and building relationships from the ground up, the season begins in conflict, so that it has the effect of it seeming like the town of Roswell has been vacant for 10 years and everyone moved back in the same day and started catching up on each other’s lives after a decade apart. You don’t get the sense that anyone really talks to each other, even though most of them have been living in the same place their whole lives. Every single relationship, from Isobel and Michael, Max and Michael, Max and Isobel, even Maria and Michael, could have been strengthened if they’d taken more time to lay that groundwork ahead of the conflict. Especially Maria and Michael! Imagine how much better this season would have worked if they’d had an existing relationship, friendship, or flirtation before Alex got back. By this point we’d be nodding and probably going, “Okay, I get it. I might not like it, but I get it.”

Alex by comparison is a total cypher where his background and his day-to-day life is concerned. We know almost nothing about him outside of his history of abuse, his tragic backstory with Michael, and his role in helping to uncover the mystery about the fourth alien. Yes, we’ve gotten to see that he is blunt and fiercely loyal to his friends, and he has serious issues with needing to be in control, which are all valid from a character development standpoint. I have come to desperately crave any and all scenes with him and Kyle because that seems to be when we get the most significant moments of character insight like that wonderful “I’m talking about a conversation, not a war” moment. But how much else do we know or understand about him that is canon, not fans’ headcanon?

Furthermore, the lack of context and representation around Alex’s disability as a veteran, amputee, and potentially as a PTSD-sufferer is really dangerous and feels like tokenism. The way they’ve written the existence of his injury feels inconsistent, and while showing his residual limb during a love scene was significant, they ruined any goodwill we might have developed toward them for that by simply never engaging with his disability again. Same with the fact that he is of Indigenous heritage, which we know FROM A TWEET but which the show has never actually engaged with explicitly, in a move taken straight from the J.K. Rowling Book of Bogus Representation. We don’t quite have enough information to know yet whether this is tokenism or bad writing, in Alex’s case, although I sincerely hope it isn’t the former. Based on everything I’ve seen so far, though, my hopes aren’t high, because it kind of feels like the writers want credit for representation when they haven’t actually done the legwork (yet?).

Maria suffers a similar lack of character development, and what started off promising when we got great scenes with her, Liz, and Alex and then met Mimi has quickly deteriorated to her being nothing more than Michael’s new love interest. As a woman of colour, that is lazy and shitty on multiple levels, and I just about hit the ceiling in 1x11 when they not only showed a black woman being drugged and her body used against her will--could you be more tone-deaf to those implications?!--but had two white women (Jenna and Isobel) accusing Maria of being a murderer to another WOC (Liz). Maria’s very thin character development in the latter half of the season has had the dual effect of making us feel like we’ve been cheated out of a relationship we have gotten attached to but haven’t been given time to fully appreciate or understand (Malex) and thrust into a new one that feels weak, arbitrary, and rote by comparison.

I actually don’t object to the idea of Michael and Maria as a couple. They have great chemistry. But I do object to the lack of development they’ve given us on either front, either Michael/Maria or doing serious justice to Malex as a ship. To think all of that could’ve been solved if the writers had slowed down the show’s pacing and actually given themselves and the characters time to breathe and get to know each other, and us them.

What I feel a lot of straight/white/cis/able-bodied writers don’t seem to understand is that representation takes care. It’s great to say you’re going to write a diverse show and have lots of representation, but it’s for naught if you don’t also understand that you can’t write diversity in the same way you’d write a character coming from a place of privilege, be it racial, socioeconomic, gender, sexuality, ability, etc. Part of that privilege is having a lot of generally positive understanding and assumptions about those characters already built in, especially from your viewers who share that privilege. Writing diversity takes WORK, a lot of attention to detail, sensitivity, and most of all the ability to listen. It takes a lot of consultation with people who have those experiences and know what they’re talking about, because the experiences, assumptions, and biases of nondiverse writers just can’t fully capture what minorities know and live every day of their lives. To do otherwise is how we arrive at whitesplaining, mansplaining, straightsplaining, etc. If you’re a white/straight/cis/able-bodied person and think you’ve done enough to positively represent your diverse characters, that probably means you need to do more. It’s not for you to judge how much is “enough.” That’s for your consultants and, most importantly, your viewers. And if those people are telling you you’ve missed the mark, the next best thing you can do is stfu and listen to them and try to learn how to do better, not get defensive or start patting yourself on the back for everything else you’ve done.

I think those principles can be applied to all the representation on the show, including that of POCs, the differently abled, and the queer characters. I think the writers have done enough with Michael and Alex as queer characters on their own, but they’ve missed the mark on doing enough with them together. Because--and I know this will come as a shock--part of writing queer characters is also giving us well fleshed-out queer relationships. They started off down that road, but at some point the road abruptly ended and left us as viewers feeling stranded in the middle of a desert. That’s uneven writing that results in a feeling of uneven representation, and as far as viewers are concerned, it amounts to the same thing.

Carina’s attempts to explain why they’ve done nothing wrong to viewers via Twitter and social media is sheer intentional fallacy. And while we’re at it, I’ve spent a lot of this season wanting to take Twitter away from her and throw a copy of “The Death of the Author” at her head instead. It’s not enough, Carina. What you intended isn’t enough if it’s not there on the page or visible to us on the show. As a writer she should understand that, but instead she is getting defensive of her abilities as a screenwriter and showrunner when fans pipe up to say whatever she intended isn’t translating properly. We aren’t seeing that representation, which means the writers need to do more than what they think is “enough.”

Add into that a rushed, arbitrary love triangle with an underdeveloped black female character and an underdeveloped gay POC with a disability, especially when those two characters are also best friends whose relationship is severely threatened as a result, and there’s no wonder why viewers are up in arms about this. I don’t think the love triangle makes Michael seem like an indecisive or promiscuous bisexual--and anyway, since when is being promiscuous a bad thing. It just makes him and Maria seem careless of Alex’s feelings and like Alex is the victim, which they could have avoided by taking their time with the characters/relationships, especially the vulnerable ones, or by avoiding such a lazy and unnecessarily dramatic trope in the first place, or at the very least establishing the characters and their relationships enough that our current situation felt more organic.

So really this kind of leaves us at an impasse, I think, as fans. I think people ought to keep speaking up to Carina if they think that will help, but I think it’s also important for us to be able to separate bad politics from bad writing, or at least be able to engage with them as separate things that occasionally (or frequently) overlap with disastrous consequences. I’m sure there are a lot of people who will disagree with this utterly, and that’s fine. Could be I’m totally wrong, and I am aware that I’m probably giving the writers too much credit about what they may or may not have intended.

But with regards to Alex and Michael, maybe it will help to understand what’s happening from this standpoint and tailor our approach accordingly. We really can’t take it upon ourselves to make demands upon the show in terms of what story they want to tell, but we can certainly complain when they aren’t telling that story effectively or when it alienates viewers, especially on points of diversity and representation.

But I don’t know. It could be the only way to make ourselves heard, to tell the writers when they are and aren’t doing “enough,” is to vote with our time, attention, and viewership, whether that means continuing to watch the show or stopping altogether. And that’s kind of a bummer, because there was a lot of potential. But if the quality of the storytelling is unable to make heard the voices and experiences it ought to, especially with such a receptive, enthusiastic audience, then maybe it’s time we start looking for other shows that do a better job, or better yet, continue to keep telling and creating our own.

Those are just my thoughts. Please feel free to discuss with me in the comments or via DM, because I’m still talking through this stuff and welcome the conversation and any alternate or opposing viewpoints.

I’ll be back in a bit to share a second post with my far less forgiving thoughts about Roswell’s representation of queer female sexuality, because that one’s a doozy and the gloves come off. Sorry not sorry in advance.

[motherboxing]

traumatics! [csa tw, rape tw, abuse tw, jian ghomeshi tw]

An op-ed I read today ACTUALLY SAID that survivors of childhood trauma are unfairly admired for having overcome adversity, to the point where it traumatizes children who have not otherwise been done any great psychological injury by making them ashamed of their privilege. These children, then, routinely lie about their backgrounds to garner sympathy and impress people, for social and professional gain - advantages which people who were abused/poor/subjected to horrific circumstances like war/etc as children are just HANDED by circumstance! I guess since I am poor and unsuccessful and perhaps not largely adored, I must be a sheltered rich girl who no one ever laid a hand on?

**

[Redacted] thought that the things I told her about my childhood were too traumatic to be real. “You’re, like, a Mary Sue,” she said. When I told her about [redacted], she rolled her eyes. This again.

**

There are tons of memoirs that stress tragedy. Lifetime movies. Autobiographical comics, even. Everyone loves to see a character suffer and overcome. Or maybe just suffer. They like to feel shocked, then good about themselves because they think that makes them empathetic. It’s different from the quiet, stunned response, the sympathetic misery, the gentle respect, that a friend gives me. “That’s awful. I’m sorry.” 

**

There’s this weird-ass ongoing Public Discourse about the appropriateness of fanfiction that romanticizes, eroticizes, and apologizes for sexual violence. There are a lot of people who are REALLY defensive about the idea that fanfiction could even do those things. They accuse others of “not knowing the difference” between “REAL rape and fiction.” If this makes you uncomfortable, it’s because you were never abused, is what that means. If you clarify that you were, in fact, abused, they get mad at you for assuming that they weren’t, even if you didn’t. A real survivor wouldn’t assume that anyone is not a survivor, after all. A real survivor wouldn’t do a lot of things that you, specifically, do, or - more importantly - are said to do.

**

When I said I had been raped, [Redacted] called me a rape apologist. I was a rape apologist specifically for calling my abuse rape. 

What I tried to say was: I wasn’t allowed to have any sexual agency. I was shamed for expressions of desire. He would solicit signs of affection from me, then aggressively shut them down for being wrong. He called me a slut. He said degrading things about my sexual orientation constantly. And, also, he raped me. 

What I tried to say was: Lots of DV advocates agree that “withholding sex” can be part of a pattern of abusive behavior. No one is saying that it’s abusive on its’ own. It is not abusive, for example, when a friend who is suicidal reaches out to me for help. It is abusive that I was made to do suicide intervention with my ex-father at the age of five, that he used suicide to threaten, control, terrorize, and shame me. Sometimes, things that are good or neutral fit into patterns of abuse in specific ways. 

What they said I said was: It is abusive to say no to sex. Not having sex with someone is basically rape.

What they said I said was: Asexuals are all rapists and should be raped themselves.

What kind of a monster would say those things? Someone who loves rape. Who is obsessed with rape. 

**

Monsters are the ones who have to flee in the night from villagers with pitchforks. Fortunately my former father prepared me for just this eventuality. 

**

J*an Gh*meshi’s recent essay describes very carefully a post-traumatic response. Anger and shame and fear so powerful it forces you out of yourself. You become paranoid, emotionally terrorized. You run through the names of everyone you know in your head. Who can you really trust? Who are you safe with? Do you know how this person feels about you? Maybe they’re lying? Better to withdraw. You feel alienated. You are exhausted, numb, shell-shocked, dissociative. You cannot envision a future beyond this. You don’t want to. The path out is too hard. You’ll never make it.

But of course, he rallied. He overcame. He has found moments of beauty and peace with strangers, moments when he is grounded and he understands great truths of the universe. J*an Gh*meshi will be okay. But those bitches should still be sorry. He’s been through such hell. They could never imagine, probably, what it’s like to be so abused. The people who sympathize with him do so because they know. They’ve been through real hardship. Nothing so trivial as rape.

**

I can’t, like, call in sick to a hotline shift or to work or whatever with PTSD. 

I can’t be like: Sorry! I had flashbacks last night, and I’m tired and shaky today, and I’m in an insomniac phase because of the night flashbacks so I’m exhausted, and I haven’t felt like I can eat so my blood sugar’s super low, and I’m really afraid because of [details of specific situation redacted because the internet is creeps] and I just feel so helpless and depressed. I feel safer in my apartment so I need to just stay in today.

If it a sympathetic, flexible, progressive environment, I can sometimes say I’m having a “personal crisis”. Let them imagine something they might take seriously. If such a thing exists.

**

It’s funny, isn’t it, how there’s Victim Privilege when its’ convenient, but it never really seems to apply to me, or you, or her, or them over there, or her, or him, or her, or her. Rape Victim Privilege is people thinking you are cool and smart and brave and tough and capable of surviving difficult circumstances. 

Rape Victim Privilege is being believed. 

**

[Redacted] believed me. Was he the first one? He might have been. He believed me so much. He wanted to save me. I was so young and fragile. He could believe I’d been abused because I was just so tragic, like a wounded swan.

Less young and fragile when, last year, I reached the age he was when we first interacted. By then, I was just “unhealthy.” It is unfair of me to think that maybe that’s just code for “unsexy”.

**

I’m just so tired and angry and, above all, crazy. I’m crazy. They said it so many times it finally became true! Or, maybe, it was always true. 

**

The B*ch*l*r is a really bad show. 

[beginagaincolorado]

INTIMACY DISORDER TREATMENT AND COPING STRATEGIES

Life can be pretty lonely if you have an intimacy disorder. Your disorder doesn’t allow you to truly get close to others. You keep your emotions guarded and people at arm’s length. But you can overcome this loneliness and lack of true connection with intimacy disorder treatment and coping strategies. 

Understanding Intimacy Disorders: Definition and Examples

Intimacy is “a close, familiar, and usually affectionate relationship with another person or group.” True intimacy allows us to feel seen, known, and accepted, and to provide that to one another. An intimacy disorder is the inability to be close to someone else and the feeling of acting within a fake persona rather than an authentic self. There are also various intimacy disorders since there are numerous ways to be intimate with someone else. Most, if not all, intimacy disorders can be tied back to unresolved past trauma.

Types of trauma that can cause intimacy disorders include:

Physical Trauma. Physical abuse by a stranger or someone you know well.

Emotional Trauma. There are many types of emotional trauma, including negativity, belittling, and the constant presence of high-stress levels. 

Sexual Trauma. A stranger or someone you know can perpetrate this unwanted sexual contact. 

Betrayal Trauma. Being betrayed by a person you trust. The betrayed person may doubt their judgment and ultimately not trust anyone else anymore. This outcome may also be a byproduct of any of the above types of trauma.

While you might think sex addiction is the only kind of intimacy disorder possible, there are multiple classifications that can afflict people. Most of them stem from past trauma.

Other types of intimacy disorders include:

Sexual Anorexia. This disorder is an obsessiveness with avoiding sex. It involves a common history of trauma and toxic relationships with a parent.

Love Avoidance. Marked by a desire to stay in control of the frequency and intensity of emotional connection, this intimacy disorder is indicated by exhibiting a “bachelor for life” persona, as well as many intense on-and-off relationships.

Love Addiction. Those with this type of intimacy disorder can’t balance being smothered or abandoned by a partner. Unfortunately, they tend to select an unhealthy partner because healthy relationships can cause them anxiety.

Sex Addiction. Like sexual anorexia, this intimacy disorder can stem from a history of trauma or toxic relationships. It drives a person to constantly seek sexual gratification to overcome or cope with negative emotions.

Intimacy Disorder Treatment and Coping Strategies

Now that we’ve defined intimacy disorders and discussed those conditions caused by adverse experiences and trauma, it’s time to turn toward what’s possible and how to work toward healing and recovery.

Coping strategies to consider:

Find Places in Your Life to be Authentic. Find a safe person or group to talk with about the feelings of loneliness and isolation where you can feel supported and heard.

Turn Toward Jesus. Intimacy disorders often affect your relationship with God, causing you to see him as cold and distant or dangerous and wrathful. Examine this, am I projecting my traumas onto God? If so, engage with the Jesus as he represented in the Gospels. Meditate on the Parable of the Prodigal Son or the redemption of Peter after his three denials. How does Jesus really feel about those who struggle? 

Have Some Self-Compassion. Think about yourself as a child. What did they want? Who did they want to be? What kind of relationships did they need? Have compassion for the child. You can learn to care for yourself now as adult in ways that were impossible then. 

Look At Your Past. If you can, think about a simpler, more pleasant time before an intimacy disorder took hold. Whether it’s the earliest days of a wonderful relationship with a loved one or your faith in Jesus Christ, remind yourself of what you had, how you felt, how good life was, and how it could be again.

Set Goals and Review Them. Take stock of your situation, setting and regularly reviewing your goals for your mental, physical, and spiritual well-being. Remember that you should use your goals as things to strive for. You need to work on your mental and physical health and your relationship with God.

But you don’t have to limit yourself solely to coping strategies for an intimacy disorder, especially if you’ve tried repeatedly to no avail to manage it. Professionals are waiting to help you. You just have to ask.

Intimacy disorder treatments include:

Group Therapies and Support Groups. You can find a men’s group for discussing and dealing with intimacy issues to help you communicate your concerns with others who are also recovering.

Speaking with a Pastor. Though clergy specialize in helping people draw closer to God, many of them also have specialized training in dealing with relationship and family issues. And if your pastor doesn’t have that training, most likely, they can recommend a professional counselor who does. 

Professional Treatment. You can seek help from a mental health professional through regular counseling sessions or a residential treatment program to help you cope with unresolved trauma and heal your intimacy disorder.

Willpower can help you deal with your problems, but it can only take you so far. You don’t have to deal with your issues alone. There’s no shame in reaching out for help.

How Boulder Recovery Can Help

Boulder Recovery is here to offer the help you need. We’re a Christ-centered, Scripture-based, and clinically innovative men’s program specializing in treating intimacy disorders.

With our 14-Day Men’s Intensive, you’ll be able to address the trauma that can cause various intimacy disorders by learning techniques to help heal trauma and attachment issues.

You should have no fear or shame in reaching out for help. Get in touch with Boulder Recovery to begin your road to healthy relationships.

Source: https://beginagaininstitute.com/christian/intimacy-disorder-treatment-and-coping-strategies/

[thoughtfulbluebirdharmony]

Blog post 5

How dating apps contribute to intimate partner violence against women

In 2018, New York and the country at large were shocked by the rape and strangulation of a 29-year-old nurse from Springfield Gardens, Queens. Samantha Stewart was raped and strangled to death by a sexual predator, 31-year-old Danueal Drayton after the two met on the dating app Tinder. It was reported that Ms. Stewart was deceived into going out on a date with the suspect, who pretended to be charming online but was in reality a sexual predator. During an interview with the police, the offender explained how he had met the victim online and how they went for pizza and how he later choked her in her Springfield Gardens apartment.

Similarly, cases of dating app violence against women have been reported nationally and globally. For instance, a man was sentenced to 12 years of incarceration for the rape of two women he met via Tinder from 2016 to 2017. Another couple also used dating apps to lure unsuspecting victims into their sex fantasy, which led to the strangulation and dismemberment of one of their victims. 

The tragic rape and death of Ms. Stewart and other women in the hands of sexual predators and abusers highlight the growing risks of mobile dating applications and their contribution to intimate partner violence.

Tinder is a widely used dating app.

In recent years, with the growth of new technology, dating applications/apps have become a widely used method for accessing dating services. The growing prevalence of digitization in every aspect of our lives and the frequency of consumer technologies such as smartphones and mobile apps have made it easier for users to access various services at their fingertips, including dating. Consequently, the proliferated use of dating and hook up apps as a method to seek romantic or sexual partners has drastically changed how people negotiate sex and intimacy, according to the author and researcher Elena Cama. Popular examples include Tinder, Bumble, Grindr, and OkCupid. In the US, 48% of dating app users are adults under the age of 30 according to a 2020 Pew Research Center survey. 

Whereas mobile dating apps provide users with quicker and easier ways to meet or communicate with potential partners, they also serve as a growing platform for technology-facilitated sexual violence or digital abuse. In her 2021 article “Understanding Experiences of Sexual Harms Facilitated through Dating and Hook-Up Apps among Women and Girls,” Cama explains that despite their potential benefits, dating and hook-up apps serve as platforms for perpetrating or facilitating sexual harm including sending unsolicited or unwanted sexual imagery and contact-based sexual offenses.

Dating apps contribute significantly to violence against women including IPV. Recent studies have established that technology-facilitated IPV affects 1 in 3 women and 1 in 6 men during their lifetimes. Also, young women are more likely to report adverse experiences with online dating sites such as harassment and receiving unsolicited sexually explicit photos. Similarly, young women are two times more likely to receive threats of physical violence than their male counterparts. 

The escalated use of digital tools especially dating apps to create and maintain intimate relationships has thus coincided with the use of such smart devices to facilitate sexual offenses and violence against women. As a result, dating apps have contributed to an increase in technology-facilitated sexual violence against women including online sexual harassment, cyberstalking, coercion of victims, and image-based sexual abuse. Similarly, abusers use dating apps to make constant and unwanted requests and demands for sex or contact, send undesired sexually explicit texts, photos, or videos as well as access and circulate explicit images of women without their consent. Moreover, perpetrators can use dating apps to blackmail, bribe, or threaten women into offline sex, arrange offline meetings to sexually or physically harm women, or even organize for a third party to sexually or physically harm their victims.

The growing cases of violence against women via their services have seen tech companies such as Tinder face condemnation and questions over abusive interactions on their platforms. Despite these concerns, tech companies providing online dating services have taken a few steps toward ensuring users’ safety. Tech companies have failed to take proactive action to tackle abuse because they profit from a business model that overlooks the abuse enabled by their services. 

Dating apps should develop safety features to enhance users’ safety on their platforms.

To address dating app abuse, tech companies should create programs or features on their apps that educate users on safe and competent dating. In addition, they should implement safety services such as those that automatically detect abusive and hurtful messages, as well as a panic button.

References

Cama, E. (2021). Understanding Experiences of Sexual Harms Facilitated through Dating and

Hook Up Apps among Women and Girls. In The Emerald International Handbook of Technology-Facilitated Violence and Abuse (pp. 333-350). Emerald Publishing Limited. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-83982-848-520211025

Harris, C. (2019, July 12). Man lured young woman from Tinder, strangled and dismembered

her. People Magazine. https://people.com/crime/jury-convicts-man-tinder-strangled/

Marcius, C. R. (2022, April 2). Man who police say used Tinder to hunt women is charged with

murder. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/01/nyregion/tinder-killing-danueal-drayton.html

McCallum, S. (2022, July 22). Tinder: Women's safety now at the heart of the app. BBC News.

News.com.au. (2019, August 1). Tinder rapist who claimed to be ex sniper jailed for over 12

years. Nationwide News. https://www.news.com.au/national/victoria/courts-law/tinder-rapist-who-claimed-to-be-ex-sniper-jailed-for-over-12-years/news-story/824f10c8c84e1534c9b3a8f6259a8d0f#.ia9h9

Pew Research Center . (2020). The virtues and downsides of online dating. Retrieved from

Phan, A., Seigfried-Spellar, K., & Choo, K. K. R. (2021). Threaten me softly: a review of

potential dating app risks. Computers in human behavior reports, 3, 100055. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chbr.2021.100055

Pooley, K., & Boxall, H. (2020). Mobile dating applications and sexual and violent offending.

Trends and Issues in Crime and Criminal Justice [electronic resource], (612), 1-16. https://www.aic.gov.au/publications/tandi/tandi612