#update my classmates are still not helping even though i’ve told them over and over again what they have to do

[cata-strophes]

tomi

[enhyupn]

the perfect date! chapter two

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a series in which enhypen’s 02s competitive side shines through when trying to get your attention. the only solution to end this tiring rivalry? three dates with each of them in the course of three weeks.

paring: 02s x gn!reader

word count: 2.8k

genre: fluff, angst, high school!au, someone’s gonna end up heartbroken

warnings: swearing, violence is mentioned, a lot of jealousy

ask to be on taglist, updates are irregular

a/n i can’t tell if i love this or not BUT i say that abt all my works sooooo 🙏 enjoy

taglist: @dchannie17 @simluvbot @jaeyuni @neocrush @penghoons @min-arya @sunooflowerss @badroseee @cha-raena

there you stood. your mouth barely open as you stared blankly at your best friend (there were question marks floating around that word currently), you weren’t able to process anything up until that moment so jake’s few words made your brain explode in utter distress. you put your finger up in the air, trying to figure out this whole situation in under a second so you could catch up with what was going on. no words coming out of your mouth as you tried to communicate with yourself but the outcome of it just left you as confused as you were in the beginning.

“y/n?” jake waved his hands in front of your face to try and get your attention. he sighed before running his hair through his hair, seemingly frustrated by this whole incident. “i swear i was gonna try and tell you this at a later stage in a more romantic way but i couldn’t let him try anything” he paused, licking his lips, “he definitely would of if you told him you liked him in middle school too—”.

“okay can we just let this all sink into my head before we start talking about what the fuck you just told me” you shut him up from carrying on with his little rant. your hands find it’s way to your head, not so lightly hitting it in irritation. your thoughts were already clouded by jay’s return meaning jake’s makeshift confession didn’t help clear up anything at all. especially with all his unneeded rambling; you weren’t be able to understand anything coming out of his mouth.

“what are you—” jake’s eyes widen in concern as he tried to stop you, a glare from you being the thing that stopped him from doing so. you pause what you were doing to blankly stare at jake with furrowed eyebrows, scaring him a little in the process.

“so you’re telling me that” you muttered just clearly and loudly enough that he could understand you. “park sunghoon was staring at me?”.

“yes, but that’s not as much of a big deal compared to what’s happening—”

“we have a new transfer student”

“correct”

“and that transfer student is my first love, jay park?”

“you hit the nail on the head”

“and he told me he liked me? like romantically?”

“i’m sure that’s what he was implying”

“and now you?” you stared at him with narrow eyes. you felt a mix of guilt and confusion due to the fact you should of realised his feelings for you throughout your friendship. the only thing confusing you was why you? what did you bring to the table besides playful bullying and the occasional hyping up for jake sim to have a crush on you? “when did you— why do you— never mind i can’t think right now”.

“you can answer me when you have time to figure this out y/n” he shrugged a little too calmly for you to feel reassured. “i’ve liked you for a while i guess, i even told some people on valentine’s day i couldn’t accept their gift because i had a crush on you”.

“you what?” the memory of the most recent february fourteenth played in your head, the dots connecting when you realised that’s the reason why jake’s number of confession significantly dropped.

“it doesn’t matter okay?” jake didn’t want you to question him about his embarrassing crush on you any further. “i just wanted to make sure you knew so jay park over there can realise you aren’t the same person from middle school”.

“how could he— what does you confessing to me have anything to do with jay?” you furrowed your eyebrows in confusion, your voice raising slightly. jake just laughed in response, biting his lip in what it seemed like victory as he turned around in the direction on your classroom. the brown haired boy seemed like he was proud of himself for accomplishing basically nothing, confusing you even more with a random confession seemed to be the only thing he actually did.

“nothing really, just to put him in his place” jake told you as you two made your way through the hallways. you rolled your eyes as you quickened your pace up to walk beside him.

“you’re acting really possessive right now, put him in his place? you’re so weird” you murmured, irritated at how jake was acting. “plus it’s not like jay likes the high school me, you heard the boy. he liked me, even made sure to make the -d sound pop”.

“i don’t think so...” jake replied as his head replayed the memory of jay entering the classroom again. he scoffed at the image of him, not entirely loving the fact he was right in reach of you. “honestly i think he still—”.

“y/n are you okay?” sunghoon interrupted jake, you two were almost one step into the classroom when he had appeared out of nowhere. it seemed like he was waiting for your arrival but you shook it off as some sort of coincidence.

your eyes widen in surprise at his concerned expression, this being the first time you’ve seen the boy look so warm when compared his cold front he normally puts on. “i told everyone to not speak about what happened, i thought that you would feel a little uncomfortable about it” he added.

“oh great” jake said to himself quietly, “another one”. you rolled your eyes at your best friend’s pettiness, elbowing him in hopes he’d finally shut up.

“no sunghoon” you smile widely at him, a warm feeling spreading around his stomach. “i’m fine! thank you though, that was really nice of you”.

“don’t mention it, it must be troubling to be surrounded by all these boys but i can see why” he smiled shyly. everyone but you could see the pink tint taking over his face as he turned around to get back to his desk. it was a blessing you were as oblivious as you were, completely not catching his last few words.

jake raised his eyebrows in suspicion before catching a glimpse of jay who was watching the whole conversation go down with a smirk. rolling his eyes he looks back at you, a small smile spread across your lips from the small interaction with sunghoon.

“sorry about jake too!” you rose your voice a little louder so sunghoon could catch it, he nodded with a small chuckle before sitting in his seat.

jake sent a glare towards sunghoon, visibly annoyed that he was taking your attention off of him. the boy then replied with another glare back, somehow looking more intimidating than jake was.

“some lunch” you whispered to yourself as you looked back on the last thirty minutes. there was only two minutes left of your break and all you had accomplished was three bites from your sandwich and a miniature war between three of your classmates. normal things i suppose.

it wasn’t like jake had anything against the class president, it was just... obvious what sunghoon was trying to do.

what was he trying to do exactly? get closer to you in hopes that you’d fall in love with him.

honestly anyone could put the pieces together, sunghoon passionately telling the class while you were away to not bother you and the pink in his ears when you spoke to him was only the tip of the iceberg. jake was jealous of sunghoon, not that he’d ever admit it, and in the heat of moment he’d let that jealousy take control.

jay was a different story to jake however, he definitely had something against him, he could admit that easily. unlike his jealousy towards sunghoon, this form of jealousy was much more obvious. when your teacher had come in and assigned jay a seat, it was right beside the two of you. jake made it his entire job to make sure jay couldn’t get a word to you, it wasn’t so subtle due to the fact you could see it from the way jake interrupted jay’s questions.

“y/n where is—”

“if you look at page four of your school journal, it tells you where all the factuality rooms are” jake smiled sweetly, sarcasm practically dripping from his lips.

“thanks jake” jay replied, his words not really sounding sincere as he stared blankly at him. jake chuckled to himself before sitting back in his seat smugly, finding some entertainment in this situation.

you couldn’t help but let a sigh out, frustrated at not only jake (who honestly was being a little annoying) but yourself for letting this whole thing happen. i mean it’s not your fault exactly that jake likes you, the fact that jay had a crush on you wasn’t in your control but the fact they had some rivalry going on made you feel guilty since you were the pathway between the two of them.

“can you stop jake, what is with you?” you whisper to the boy. currently sunghoon was giving a speech to the class, something about festivals and booths but you honestly weren’t in the mood to listen to his rambling. “at least play nice, jay’s still new to this whole korean high school thing”. jake rolls his eyes before turning to you, his tongue poking the inside of his cheek in slight irritation due to the fact you were on your first love’s side instead of his.

“y’know, i don’t owe him anything y/n” jake reminds you as you roll your eyes, placing your chin into the palm of your hand not wanting to continue this conversation further.

“the least you can do is be nice” you muttered, jake not hearing due to the fact he was now paying attention to sunghoon. you had never seen jake like this, the usual yellow bubbly aura surrounding him was now replaced by a repulsive green that was unrecognisable.

“and so, that’s why i think we should sell food at our booth” your ears had finally tuned into sunghoon’s speech, who looked like he was currently desperate for some interaction from your classmates. “any ideas?”.

the classroom was completely silent, nobody wanting to speak up in hopes that sunghoon would just figure out the solution himself. you frowned to yourself, feeling pity for him as trying to engage with your class wasn’t the easiest thing to do. you scanned the classroom, making sure your next few words weren’t going to interrupt anyone.

“we could sell candied apples?” sunghoon’s expression turned into a positive one as his eyes sparkled in gratitude. you stand up from your seat so the boy could get a better view of you. “they’re cheap and pretty much in our budget? plus you don’t really need that many people to do anything”.

“that’s a great idea” sunghoon’s praise only caused your smile to grow wider, an action that didn’t sit quite well with the two boys next to you. “and it fits our limited amount of workers too! only... two people signed up to help out this year, which funnily enough is just you and i”. he glanced around the classroom to only find people awkwardly avoiding eye contact.

you had felt a little happy that sunghoon had said that, being one of the two people he had mentioned just added to your already positive mood.

as for jake, who raised his eyebrow in displeasure, you could tell that he was feeling the exact opposite. as if he wasn’t already annoyed with the fact jay was in the room, now he has to deal with the fact you and sunghoon are going to intimately work together on some stupid booth. he took a quick peek at jay, wondering what his expression was at this news.

sure enough the boy was almost as displeased about this whole situation as jake, his cool yet calm composure being the thing that masked his emotions. the only thing that was giving it away was the way he bit his lip in aggravation, making it clear that sunghoon’s words were putting him in a bad mood only an hour in of attending this school.

“y/n meet me after school so we can discuss this” sunghoon grinned, you nod happily as you sat downback into your seat gleefully. you didn’t know why you were so happy, maybe it was the fact this was one of the first times where sunghoon is actually warmly speaking to you? or maybe because he was indirectly praising you? you went with the latter to answer your question.

“sunghoon— it’s sunghoon right?” your eyes widen in surprise when you realise it was jay speaking up. and from the looks of it, sunghoon was not that pleased with the way jay had tried to catch his attention.

“yes jay?” sunghoon tried his best to hide his growing irritation with a smile. jay sat up straight in his seat, clearing his voice before not so subtly sending jake a mischievous smirk. anyone looking at jay could tell that he was about to plan something, a plan that was going to one up jake in terms of getting closer to you.

“maybe i should help out at the booth, since i am new and it’d be good to be involved i guess” bingo. jay gave him his most convincing smile.

“you guess?” jake repeated to himself as he crossed his arms, a scoff escaping his mouth. a smirk found itself on jay’s face when he heard jake’s mumbling, quite proud of himself that he got the boy pissed off from simply nothing.

“that’ll be... good” there was no sincerity in sunghoon’s voice, a slight scowl present across his lips as he wrote down jay’s name on the sign up sheet. “then see us after—”.

“sunghoon” now it was jake’s turn to speak up. you groaned in embarrassment when you realised all eyes were on you, well mainly the two boys beside you but you could also feel the stares too. you glanced over at your best friend, unsure what to feel at his sudden interest in this conversation.

“yes, jake?” at this point it was obvious to your class that there was something going on between the four of you. from the way you had tried to hide from the stares by slouching slightly in your seat in embarrassment to the three boys not to subtly glaring at each other, there was no way you could deny the tension.

it was kind of like you were playing piggy in the middle. you were the pig but every time you tried to interrupt this slightly (hugely) embarrassing quarrel between your classmates, you were ignored. your eyes scanned between the three boys, unsure what was really going on but from the looks of it, they definitely did not like each other. from sunghoon’s passive aggressive tone, jake’s unusual possessiveness to jay’s hostility towards jake, you really didn’t understand where any of this stemmed from.

and yes, it was very cliché of you to be completely and utterly oblivious to their attractions to you but if we think hard, isn’t it justifiable? i mean three heartthrobs (not just one!) suddenly start indirectly arguing with each other over you in under a day and it would be a little unbelievable due to the fact it sounds more like a shoujo manga or k-drama plot than anything.

“i’d like to sign up too”

considering jake was your class’ unofficial yet official golden boy, it was a surprise to know that he didn’t really involve himself in class activities. it was mainly you, who’s aim was to buff up any application you were going to fill out in the future, who was involved in almost everything. well, besides school council, you didn’t think you were ready to have that amount of authority.

“that’s a first” sunghoon joked, one that wasn’t received well by jake.

“ha ha ha” jake laughed dryly but loudly enough that the whole class could hear. you almost elbowed the boy for the second time that day in more embarrassment but you stopped yourself in fear you were going to cause a scene.

“anyone else want to sign up?” sunghoon asked the class, slightly pleading that nobody else would answer him. the class shuffled uncomfortably in silence, a clear sign that nobody else was going to speak up anymore. “i love the enthusiasm” a sarcastic sigh left sunghoon’s mouth, “so i’ll see you y/n after school... and the two of you i suppose”.

“asshole” jay spoke under his breath as he sat back in his seat. the quiet reply was only heard by him and your seat mate since you were in the process of trying to figure out how to make everyone understand you weren’t involved in this silent argument.

while jake, for the first time, finally found something he agreed with that came out of jay’s mouth.

[zoopzopp]

A post for some BAMF Izuku fics <3 (more of these will be added and the list will be updated as i read them)

Fics i've read:

The Secret Ingredient is Crime- Izuku only had a whole month to further prove himself worthy of Yuuei's golden acceptance, and he was going to do whatever it took to make it in. Yuuei would never truly know what hit them until it was too late. (The secret crime AU in it entirety is fucking amazing and what wouldn't i give to read more stuff with it)

Deku the Villain Hunter: Support Hero - We all know the story: After being told he couldn't be a Hero by All Might, Midoriya Izuku still wandered over to a supervillain attack where he could save Bakugou Katsuki. But what if he had made the other turn? The answer is a butterfly effect that would lead him on a path to paving his own future. A path of revenge, finding his own moral compass, and doing the impossible. (OKAY MANY THOUGHTS. Very cool story and aspects. I binged it overnight and lost a bit of sleep the next night as well.)

The Story of How Midoriya Izuku Asserted His Dominance (And Traumatized Japan) - The Sports Festival was supposed to be a break from stress. Shouta should have known there is no such thing as a break with his class.

making it right (for real this time) - - Izuku is a support course student at UA, and Katsuki's neighbor, best friend, and former bullying victim. After Izuku's performance at the sports festival, Katsuki realizes something. He has to make things right. -

Hero Fall (UA Civil War Exercise) - It's now the end of the first year of UA for our students. Nedzu had decided to bring back the annual Heroes vs Villain fight. The fight shall last 5 days and the villain leader is Izuku Midoriya, with the commanding officer of the hero team being Katsuki Bakugo. But, what happens when Izuku is left alone?

Hero Class Civil Warfare - Heroes lead by Bakugo. Villains lead by Midoriya. Seven days prep time. Three days for Izuku Midoriya to show why they should be glad he's not a real villain.

"I Didn't Know You Had It In You." - Midoriya goes feral rage mode in his fight against Overhaul. The beat down still happens, but with Eri no longer at his back, he gets more violent. One For All reacts in an interesting way and Midoriya commits a terrible and unheroic act - the cold blooded murder and maiming of Chisaki Kai. Shigaraki is there to watch it all unfold.

Plan C meets Plan A - Even if All Might is right and Izuku can't be a hero, Izuku refuses to be useless. So Izuku uses his analysis skills to develop Plan C: Consulting in order to help the heroes. Eraserhead is impressed by this mysterious new consultant but alarm bells in Deku's behaviour quickly have Aizawa recruiting help for Plan A: Adoption.

Q. A. B. - One month after @hawks_unofficial's initial viral post, the blog titled "Quirk Analysis Blog for the Future", otherwise known as "Q. A. B.", has gone from an average of 10 views per post to an average of 20,000 views per post. Midoriya Izuku does not know how to view the impressions analysis for his suddenly popular blog, and only notices that sometimes, people actually comment on his posts now. He does not google himself or his moniker and thus does not see the rise in online articles and speculation. He is unaware that the "kyuu-ei-bee" he begins to hear about in passing refers to his own blog. He does not have a Twitter account. At the time, Midoriya Izuku is 15 years old.

How to murder your father - It's dangerous to be a bad father when you have a life insurance. Just saying.

Negation - Passive Quirks are a bitch. Izuku is reasonably done with the situation.

Thanks For Your Support - Izuku has the talent and the intellect to be the first Quirkless pro hero, and everyone at UA knows it. Unfortunately, his desire to become a hero has long since been buried thanks to the words of his childhood friend and childhood hero.

Policed To Meet You - Izuku takes All Might's advice and becomes a cop.

Vigilante Work And Other After School Activities - Izuku is a vigilante, Aizawa likes cats and therefore kids who help cats, and sometimes breaks must be forced upon overachieving teenagers.

When the Commission Lost Total Control - The hero polls have a small part where one can suggest their own hero. This is done just because of the amount of heroes is to great to name them all. This creates a little problem for the commission because a vigilante is assumed to be a brand new hero by the public- and ranks pretty high. Because of that, this vigilante now is too popular to hide and they can't come out with their mistake either! Think of the chaos that would bring.

Izuku being Badass but like in not that grand of a way but still tearing-people-down-in-some-way kind of way

He Was Quirkless - Midoriya get's sick of discrimination against the quirkless and decides to do something about it. It leads to some interesting situations. A trilogy.

bloody, but unbowed- It's Advocacy Week for Yuuei's hero students and it gives Midoriya Izuku a lot to think about about what kind of hero he wants Deku to be.

Called Out - When Izuku is hit by a quirk that will cause him to call out the first person to be rude to him on the way to school with every mistake they've made in the affected persons presence or have otherwise effected said affected person, Aizawa is in for a rough ride. In other words, with some help from a quirk, Izuku rakes Aizawa over the hot coals until he gives out. (a great fic but i've got mixed feelings on this one because on one hand, izuku is badass but on the other its Aizawa bashing and really like him skhdskdb so yea! Read it as per your tastes!!)

The time when everyone learned that izuku respects Bakugo more than all might. - I didn't like how Bakugo was tied up during the sports festival and so izuku didn't. Badass izuku roasted all might and midnight.

Villainous Sunshine - After an innocent question, Class 1-A learns just how terrifying Izuku's analysis is. Nedzu's along for the ride.

Never understand ( and you can't ) - Midoriya is sick and tried of his classmates bias and prejudice against the quirkless community and finally breaks

Mastermind: Strategist For Hire - Izuku Midoriya never got the chance to save Bakugo from the sludge villain and impress All Might. With his dream crushed, Izuku becomes bitter and angry. It also doesn't help that he faces discrimination at every turn. All he ever wanted was to be appreciated, so when the villains are the ones to recognize his talents rather than the heroes, well, Izuku just can't resist. He might as well help those who actually want him around. Mistakes were made, and now society must face a villain of their own making: Mastermind.

Malignance - Deku is far scarier than anyone gives him credit for.

Fics in my to read list which has/probably has BAMF izuku

Young Midoriya - Izuku Midoriya couldn't help himself when he saw someone in trouble. Even at 12 years old, his instincts drive him to help those in need. So when he sees Kacchan and his goons about to ambush another student, he has to step in, right? It's not like this hasn't happened before. What is different this time though, is that he's never had an audience that consisted of the Number One Hero.

Heroics and Other Things That Don't Require Superpowers - Izuku doesn't have a quirk. That's the long and short of it. After being told his whole life he can't be a hero, General Education at UA is the best he can hope for, right? Wrong. Dead Wrong. So super wrong that his best friend from Gen Ed, all of Class 1A and a whole mess of Pro Heroes are going to prove to him how wrong he is. Izuku has the makings of a hero, and his lack of a quirk only throws those qualities into starker relief. After all, who wants to be as strong as All Might when you can be the cleverest hero in the business?

Cases of More Than - Izuku is known as Deku online. He's an analyst of quirks, sometimes even working with the local detective, Tsukauchi, on a case. He meets new friends, builds a few relationships, and slowly crushes on his best friend. But then he's thrown into the General Studies Course at U.A. It doesn't help that All for One is showing an interest in him at all.

No Regret - In this world there is no hard set villain or hero. No victim and aggressor. Everyone is at fault for something and Izuku, with his own villain group, will make everyone pay. Even the bystanders who did nothing. This is what society gets for abandoning it's people. Deku will manipulate everyone and be the greatest villain, all so the world can be a better a place. With the stakes so high there is no time for regret.

We Are a Different Kind - Mirio doesn’t think he can be a hero anymore now that he’s quirkless, Izuku calls bullshit.

Live a Hero - "You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain." Or, you're raised a villain, rebel when you're nine, and fight against the odds to become a hero anyway. That's how it is in Izuku's case.

Prodigal - After being convinced to give One for All to Mirio, Midoriya Izuku must rebuild his shattered dreams with bloody hands.

Two Sides of the Same Coin: Vigilante - Izuku is orphaned at the age of four and is sent into the Japanese Foster Care System. After multiple failed attempts at finding a forever home and some unfortunate circumstance, he ends up on the streets. Eventually, the vigilante, Deku appears. Eraserhead must gain his trust to bring Deku back to the right side of the law. If he he does, however, the untrustful but pure-hearted boy may just be a bit more than Aizawa Shota can handle.

From Muddy Waters - - but the sleeve of his tracksuit was bulging, tearing and ripping and a mass of twisted flesh, nearly as big as the boy himself and nauseatingly familiar (the arm of the man that had torn a hole in his side with a grin and left him a frail shadow of himself) swung forward and slammed into the flat face of the giant robot. Izuku wants to be a hero more than anything.

Pieces are easily sacrificed when they're nameless - Nobody ever thought quirkless, weak, weird Midoriya Izuku was dangerous. This perception carried over to his first year high school class, because really despite the super strength Midoriya didn't have it in him to be dangerous. That was their first mistake. And the one that would see them fall.

Not exactly BAMF izuku but i just wanted to rec these fics <3

In the shade of a sunflower - Being biologically quirkless came more with an extra pinkie joint in the toes and a stunning lack of vestiges mutations. It came with smaller things, like extra teeth that did virtually nothing, exploding organs, and weird exposed nerves that weren't designed to feel pain.

Throat Punch - In which Aizawa attempts to teach Izuku how to use various battle tactics and it goes just about as well as you'd expect. At least Shinsou is there with his fantastic commentary. (just a fun lil thing where izuku is really stronk and trains with shinsou and aizawa)

So Be It - He could still do good. Midoriya could show them all what a hero without powers looked like. If he had to break a few rules to do it, so be it. So be it… (as stated not exactly BAMF but its a vigilante izuku so ye-)

Never Enter a Drinking Game with Bakugo or Izuku - Izuku walks in on Kirishima and Kaminari having a drinking competition (no alcohol involved). And it reminds him of an old story.

5 Times Midoriya Taught Class 1A about Memes and 1 Time they Found a Villain that Understood Them - After being diagnosed as quirkless, Midoriya gets into pre-guirk media and finds memes. He shares them with Class 1A. Aizawa doesn't get paid enough for this. (THIS FIC???? FUCKING AWESOME. LITERALLY WHAT I WANTED TO SEE)

Midoriya: JD Version - Nedzu has decided that a play should be put on so that the students can learn how to "go undercover", an idea which Aizawa thinks is utter bullshit. They're putting on Heathers and when Nedzu chooses to cast Midoriya for JD, everyone objects. Midoriya is a much better actor than they thought.

that is a lot!! I hope you have fun reading it!!!

[yikeslads]

A Relaxing Evening - Yandere Sero Hanta x Reader

Trigger Warnings! - 18+ only. Non Con (sex and non con drug use). If this bothers you p l e a s e do not read this fic! You are responsible for your own consumption and this is your official warning. Also they smoke a lot of weed in this but I don’t think that really needs a warning but idk

Author’s Note: Hey guys! Long time no see (please don’t kill me, I’ve been hella busy). I’ve started my last year at university so I am super thrilled about that, just turned 21, and I have spent my entire summer working full time. But enough about me, I’m sure everyone is dealing with a ton with the pandemic plus whatever they have. Anyways, I will be doing my best to update more! I have a WIP that should be released soon (i only have like 400 words left) so that should be fun. 

Big big big big thanks to @yanderart ! If you don’t know recognize the name, she is a phenomenal artist (both in visual and literary works, an icon) who shares the yandere/dark love. Thank you SO much for your super helpful edits/comments/encouragement with this <3 

Also thanks to @opheliadawnwalker3 for the advice to start small when getting back into the writing game! I took that to heart and tried to keep it shorter this time and helped me get this out so thank you!

And thanks to @rat-suki @weebsinstash��@drxwsyni because I have definitely binged all of y’alls content and used the immaculate yandere vibes you write as inspo so thank you <3 

Now let’s get started!

It was eerily silent in the hallway as your feet made their way to their destination through the mostly abandoned college dormitory. Your mind was so preoccupied with the many thoughts that demanded your attention that you weren’t paying attention to where you were going. Not that it mattered. You had made this walk so many times, you could find your way even if you were blindfolded and hammered, that you were allowed to fully slip into your thoughts without having to worry. Before long you were standing in front of a very familiar door, the only one in the hallway with light peaking through the crack at the bottom. Music could clearly be heard through it, Jimi Hendrix’s singing the only sound of human life that you had encountered during your entire walk over here.

It took you a moment to snap out of your thoughts and come back to reality and notice that you were already standing at your destination. Clearing your throat awkwardly at the realization, you raised your arm and knocked solidly on the door to be heard above the music and waited as patiently as you could for an answer.

From behind the door you could hear someone swear, causing a small smirk to rise on your face, along with the sound of some rustling. A few moments later the door cracked open a bit as the familiar raven haired male peaked into the hallway, a bright smile pulling at his lips as he  regarded you.

“Well this is a pleasant surprise!” Sero chirped, opening the door all the way, seeing that it was only you standing in the hallway. “What can I do for ya, sunshine?”

His cheery, warm response to your presence unknowingly brought a small smile to your face, a needed break from your tense, concentrated expression you had been wearing when Sero first opened the door.

“Sorry to bother you, Sero,” you began, stuffing your hands into the pockets of the jacket you were wearing to stop you from wringing them anxiously. “I’ve just been really stressed with final exams and choosing which agency I want to officially sign for and… it’s just been a lot.” As you explained, Sero’s face softened slightly as he listened intently to your words, not liking the fact that you were so stressed.

“Anyway,” you continued with a chuckle, bringing yourself back onto the subject, “I was wondering if you had any of your stash left that I could buy from you? I know I bought from you a little while ago, but I’ve been more stressed out than I can handle,” you admitted, hoping that Sero might still have some weed hidden away in his room somewhere that you could use.

It was a little into sophomore year of college that you found out that your classmate, Sero, was a bit of a stoner. And as someone going through the hero course, you are understandably dealing with a lot of stress. So what’s wrong with smoking a little Mary J every once in a while to relax, right? Or at least that’s what you told yourself when you first asked Sero if you could buy weed from him. Ever since then he had been your personal plug, but over time, you two became close friends. “I think you might be in luck, sunshine, I think I have some on reserves. Come on in,” he welcomed, and you crossed the threshold without a second thought. As you stepped inside and took off your shoes, a large but gentle arm carefully looped around your shoulders, gently pulling you into the tall man’s side as you led you to the couch and sat you down on the soft fabric in front of his laptop that was open and had various work assignments in different windows.

“Tell ole Sero what’s troubling you,” Sero propositioned as he moved to his desk, opening a drawer and grabbing his needed paraphernalia as he waited for you to begin speaking. He settled down next to you on the couch, pulling the small table holding the laptop in front of you a little closer as he set down his bong, and pulled out his grinder and began the process of loading you a bowl.

You were about to begin venting, but you paused as you took in the sight of Sero wordlessly working for your benefit, and you pulled your wallet out of your jacket pocket after a few seconds. “Sorry, before I forget, how much do I owe you?” You asked, opening your wallet and beginning to pull out a few bills. You didn’t get far though, as a warm hand covered yours, drawing your eyes to meet his black ones. He gave you a boyish smile and shook his head at you, giving a small laugh. “No way, sunshine. You need a little break, this one is on me,” he offered with a grin. You were hesitant for a few moments, not seemingly convinced that you should let him give you part of his stash for free. The potential feeling of guilt ebbed away as Sero’s warm smile never faltered, kindness seemingly exuding from his every pore. What was the harm, right? Nodding, you gingerly took the loaded bong from his large, calloused hands into your own smaller ones.

“Alright,” you agreed thoughtfully as you mirrored his smile, “but I want you to smoke with me. It’s no fun getting high alone,” you countered to which you could almost see Sero’s eyes sparkle in response at your words.

“I would be happy to,” he assured, never one to miss out on the chance to smoke, especially with you, but you added one more condition.  

“And,” you drawled, his eyes never leaving your face as he waited patiently for you to continue. “Whatever food we order when we are stoned off our asses is on me.”

A soft chuckle resonated from Sero’s chest as he nodded along to your stipulation, finding no qualm with having the promise of food.

“Deal,” he agreed, and with that you went to take your first bong hit of the evening.

~~~~~~~~~~

Your sides ached as you tried to force yourself to stop laughing, but your efforts seemed trivial as Sero laughed just as hard, if not harder, alongside you as you finished Sero’s favorite flick, Scott Pilgrim vs the World. It felt so good to let go and really laugh, it had started to feel like it had been too long. Time seemed a distant concept to you at the moment, as nothing from the outside world weighed on you as you merrily enjoyed your high with Sero.

Your eyes were pink from smoking, little tears forming at the base of your lower eyelashes as you gasped for breath as your laughing fit began to subside. You don’t even remember what you had been laughing about exactly, but you couldn’t really bring yourself to care. Your attention was brought back to Sero as he began to rise from his spot beside you on the couch, your eyes following his lazy movements as the movie credits began to roll.

“I’m getting a bit of cottonmouth,so why don’t I get us some drinks while you choose something else for us to watch?” Sero offered to which you agreed, lazily beginning to scroll through the other titles that were currently available on Netflix as Sero made his way over to the little kitchen he had equipped.

“Thirsty for anything in particular?” You heard his voice call out to you, but you didn’t take your eyes off the laptop screen, still searching for another flick to watch.

“Just water would be fantastic,” was your response as you searched through the comedy section, knowing that Sero preferred comedies.

A few moments later, Sero had returned to your side, a glass of water in one hand for you and a soda can for him in his other hand. Thanking him as you gently took it from his hands, you took the glass and raised it to your lips. Taking large sips, reveling in the cool feeling of the water flowing over your tongue and to the back of your throat, you failed to notice a pair of eyes watch your every movement adoringly.

“Wanna take another hit?” Sero asked as you finished taking a drink, setting down the mostly empty glass back down on the table.

You hummed in thought at his question, before nodding, a small giggle escaping your lips, “What’s one more hit, right?”

Sero, the practiced stoner he is, had another bowl set up for you ready to go in what seemed like seconds, graciously handing you the now loaded bowl. Gently taking it from his hands and placing it in the bong, you fired up the lighter and took a huge hit.

A h u g e hit. It was a little larger than you had meant, but being high had made your judgement a little empaired. You coughed a bit as you expelled the wave of smoke from your lungs, waving your hands as Sero laughed.

Your cheeks flushed slightly with embarrassment at Sero laughing as you tried to regain your composure. “S-Stop laughing!” You cried, setting the bong back down, but Sero just shook his head.

“I can’t help it, sunshine. Seeing you not being able to take that hit is hilarious,” he continued to laugh, as your cheeks burned warmer at his words.

“Its not my fault that I don’t have your iron lungs,” you mocked, picking up your glass once more and finishing the contents in an attempt stop your coughing fit. “Not all of us are stoners.”

A small gasp tore from Sero’s throat, as he held a hand to his chest, pretending to be surprised by your words. “Me? A stoner? How could you even say such a thing?” He asked, shooting you a kicked puppy look which just made you giggle in return, your head feeling a little fuzzy from the extra hit.  

“Oh don’t be a baby,” patting the spot next to you, you flashed Sero a loopy smile, “come on, lets watch another movie,” you countered to which Sero agreed to, settling back down in his spot beside you. You reached forward, setting your now empty glass next to the laptop and hit play on the movie, before moving back into the cushions. Your body began to feel heavier as  you gingerly leaned into Sero’s side, who in return wrapped his arm around your shoulders and gently tugged you a little closer to his chest as the intro finished and the movie began.  

You weren’t long into the movie before you were struggling to keep your eyes opened. You shifted slightly, trying to force yourself to wake up, but the more that the time wore on, the harder it became to stay awake.

It wasn’t more than twenty minutes into the film before you were out cold, your deep and even breathing soft in Sero’s ear as your tired figure slept against his shoulder.

“Sunshine,” Sero whispered, tentatively placing a hand on your knee and gently shaking you. He watched your face carefully for any sign of rousing, but your breathing continued at its deep, even, undisturbed pace. An eager smile danced across Sero’s visage at your lack of response, his heart pounding in his chest in excitement. Wrapping his strong arms around your pliable person, Sero gently maneuvered your sleepy shape to be laying on your back, tummy up, the skirt you had worn riding up on your thighs as your leg lay limply, slightly apart.

Sero took a moment just watching you, drinking in all of your beauty. You looked so sweet and vulnerable asleep on Sero’s couch defenseless. He gazed at your unconscious body oh so lovingly as you lay completely helpless to the danger that lurks around you. It makes Sero’s heart squeeze in his chest in realization that you need him. You needed him to protect you and Sero would happily be your knight in shining armour.

“Her knight in shining honor”, Sero thought to himself merrily, infatuated with protecting his little ray of sunshine. His fingers began to skim the skin of your thighs, slowly pushing your skirt up higher and higher. Shouldn’t your knight get a little reward for his services? Sero certainly thought so, afterall it was only fair that he get to enjoy his sunshine in return for all he does for you.

Sero’s breath caught in his throat at the sight of your black laced panties, skirt bunched up past your hips, leaving your panty clad intimate parts exposed for his greedy eyes. There were no such things as imperfection to Sero when it came to you. All of your little bumps, blemishes, and things you didn’t like about yourself were all things that Sero adored about you. It's what made you you, and he simply ached to worship you.

Hungry hands hooked fingers into your panties, swiftly pulling the soft material down your supple skin in earnest. A groan tore from Sero’s throat at the sight of sticky, clear strings sticking from the fabric to your little treasure.

Fuck was he glad he slipped you an aprodiasic alongside the sleeping pills. Seeing your hole already wet and begging for his attention had his pants quickly tenting uncomfortably. He could not wait to get started.

Moving quickly and silently, he settled himself on his stomach between your thighs, carefully placing your thighs over his shoulders. His starved stare meets your slick slit and he couldn’t stop himself from licking a stripe up your lips, moaning at the delicious taste of your essence. His eyes flickered back to your face where he found you still sound asleep, unaware of reality.

“Perfect”, he thought to himself at your unconscious state, “just like last time.”

Confident in his security, Sero began to feast on your unprotected pussy, his tongue swiping through your folds as he drank every ounce of you in. His eyes almost rolled into the back of his head at your taste as if he was tasting the most divine thing ever created. He couldn’t seem to get enough as his hands encased your thighs, hungrily pulling your closer to his famished mouth. Your breath quickened in pace at Sero’s ministrations but the sleeping pills kept you nestled peacefully in between complete unconsciousness and your dreams, deep asleep. It seemed almost as if Sero had been eating you out for hours when he had finally come up for air, sucking in deep gulps of air into his lungs greedily.  He knelt in front of your vulnerable body, lips and chin shiny with your slick as he slipped a finger into your heat, quickly followed by another as he gently began to scissor your walls apart. Your warmth gushed around his fingers as he worked you open for him, using his free hand to slip down to his belt and make quick work of that before tugging his boxers and pants down. His cock now free of confinement slapped against his abs before he gently removed his fingers from your heat. Your juices completely soaked his hand as he brought it to his cock, using your wetness to get him slick for you. He watched your sleepy face as he stroked himself, his bottom lip caught between his lip as he intently drank in your features. With both of your bodies prepped, patience grew thin, so he tilted his hips down, nudging your dripping entrance with his plush tip, your legs lazily spread and looped loosely around his hips.

Slipping himself between your folds, Sero took a deep breath before pressing himself into your warm, wet, tight cavern. He didn’t stop slowly driving his cock into your twitching heat until he became fully sheathed inside your awaiting pussy. He groaned softly at the feeling of his cock being encased by your velvet walls, his eyes never leaving your face as he adjusted to the delicious feeling you were giving him. After a few moments of adjustment, Sero pulled his hips back, feeling his manhood drag against your plush walls, a soft moan escaping your sleeping shape as you stirred slightly in your hazy state. Once you settled and he was positive you were going to stay asleep, he drove his hips forward into your cunt his eyes moving away from your face and down to where his cock was buried deep inside of you. The erotic sight of you being fucked by his cock kicked him into gear as he soon found a steady rhythm as he pounded into you.

With every thrust of his hip, your cream coated his silken rod, making Sero almost feral with the sight. It took every ounce of self control he had to not fuck you the way you deserved, the way you needed him, but he couldn’t risk having you wake up during your little relaxation session. It took every ounce of self control that he possessed to keep himself from fucking you silly, but with plans for the pair of you in the future, he was willing to wait to rock your world for when you were awake and in more of a … receptive position to receive the full force of his love for you.  

It wasn’t long before Sero found himself reaching his end, much to his displeasure, but he knew it wouldn’t be long until he was able to get to do this again. He always made excuses to get the two of you alone, for “purely innocent reasons” according to your knowledge. He couldn’t help it! He loved you too much, and he needed to get his fix.

“F-Fuck,” he moaned as he fucked himself into your pussy, panting softly as he drew close to his completion. “You feel so good, sunshine. You were made for my fucking cock, shit,” he swore, his thrusts becoming increasinly sloppy. He pulled himself out before he came, hips hovering over yours as his hand frantically worked his length trying to finish himself off.

“Fuck yes!” Sero growled as he came, hot white, sticky ropes of cum decorating your glistening pussy as he furiously worked his hand over his cock. “God, love you so much,” he groaned as he finished,  hovering over you as he caught his breath. His eyes watched as his cum dripped down your pussy, becoming entangled with your own juices. Without skipping a beat, Sero reached over and grabbed his phone, taking a quick snapshot of your fucked out pussy covered in his essence and saved it in a secret gallery of pictures he kept of you. He needed to add to the collection, something to help tide him over until the next time. Setting his phone back down, he leaned over you and gently kissed you, like a lover would, savoring your lips while you were still asleep. Breaking the kiss, he gazed lovingly down at you, gently playing with a strand of your hair. He wished this moment would never end, but he knew that he had to get going, sighing softly to himself.

It was time to start up the cleaning process.

~~~~~~~~~~

A phone ringing caused you to stir from your deep slumber, a deep yawn escaping your lips as you stretched your stiff body from sleeping on the couch. You rubbed your eyes slightly as you woke up, before you took in the room before you. You saw Sero back turned to you as he spoke in hushed tones over the phone, hearing Bakugo’s voice grunting something to him over the phone about working out later that day. You glanced around the room as you yawned again, slightly confused as to how you got here before remembering coming over to Sero’s place the previous night after being really stressed and wanting to take a break. It wasn’t long until Sero finished his phone call, turning back to your and finding you awake, looking back at him.

“Sorry,” Sero began, rubbing the back of his neck, “I didn’t mean to wake you,” he apologized sheepishly with a small smile, taking in your figure.

“It’s no worries,” you hum out sleepily finding yourself naturally returning his smile. “Did I pass out last night?” You asked, not fully remembering what had happened after that last bong hit.

“Yeah! You fell asleep about maybe half way through the first movie? I don’t remember exactly when, I was paying too much attention to the movie,” he lied smoothly, your face showing telltale signs of embarrassment at having fallen asleep during the movie. Especially in Sero’s room after having come to his room for a favor. How could you ask to hang out with someone then fall asleep on them!”

“Oh… Sorry about that, I didn’t mean to fall asleep on you like that,” you laughed a little uneasy, but Sero was quick to reassure you. “Don’t worry about it! You said yourself that you were stressed out of your mind, and it seemed that you needed to give yourself some rest. No need to apologize,” Sero soothed you easily, a smile returning to your face as you nodded. He almost felt bad lying to your face, but this was just more proof that you needed him! He had placed all your clothes back on properly, cleaned up the mess last night and you were none the wiser! Your lack of realization of what had happened, though it pleased Sero to know he got away with his little love session, cemented your need for him in Sero’s mind.  

“Well will you let me buy you coffee as a thanks for letting me crash? We can study together at that cafe near the gym if you want? ” You offered, wanting to express your gratitude to your friend, who graciously accepted your idea, pleased to spend more time with you.

“Now that sounds like a good idea,” he chirped, quick to pack up his things in his backpack and get ready to go.

The sun was rising slowly from the horizon, fluffy white clouds moving lazily across the sky, as the two of you walked to the cafe together. The birds sang so sweetly as the pair of you made your way, but their songs meant nothing to Sero, too entranced with your own sweet voice as you chattered happily with him about whatever came to mind.

Opening the door for you once the pair of you arrived, you flashed him a sweet smile in response before stepping inside the warm coffee shop. The smile you gave, to him, was brighter than the sun, warmer than the core of the Earth, and he realized he needed it. Just like you need his protection, he needs you, his sunshine, to bring warmth into his life and make him whole. With your back to him, browsing the menu of its many drink options, you failed to notice the pair of eyes drinking in every inch of your form with intense infatuation. You had no idea the danger that lurked behind those kind eyes, and unfortunately for you, you didn’t notice that Sero’s friendliness was more until too late.  

[ruthiswriting]

heart line

mp100 | serirei, reigen arataka, serizawa katsuya, kageyama ‘mob’ shigeo, AU, 6k | on ao3

It doesn’t really matter, he reminds himself. He’s making a change, just like all of Reigen’s clients. What’s on his hands isn’t set in stone. He just has to make sure Reigen doesn’t see it— even if it might feel nice to have that steady attention, Reigen’s hands that are so much nicer than Serizawa’s folding around his. 

(or: Reigen starts offering palm readings as a service, leading to Serizawa having to confront his feelings for his boss.)

this is pretty fluffy, only real tw is some self deprecating depression thoughts from seri.

-

One day, when he comes into work, Serizawa sees Reigen industriously spreading a new poster on the wall, next to the monthly specials.

“Oi, Serizawa,” Reigen says, head half turning, first in acknowledgment, then in focused interest. “Come help me finish putting up this poster— I can’t get the last corner. Or well, I could,” he allows, stepping away from the wall as Serizawa approaches, “but I don’t want to get the step ladder out of the storage closet, it’s always such a damn pain to dig it out. You had really good timing, you know…”

Serizawa comes in at the same time every day, so he hardly thinks it counts as good timing, but he doesn’t say anything. Reigen passes over a thumbtack that he’s been holding between his teeth— a terrible habit, one that always makes Serizawa’s stomach start doing awful twists when he sees him doing it— and Serizawa takes it, stepping to the wall.

The poster’s half up already, it’s really just this one corner that’s a bit awkward to get to behind one of Reigen’s potted plants. He smooths the corner out, hesitant, and carefully pushes the tack in.

“A little up,” Reigen directs from behind him, and even though Serizawa can’t see him he can feel the way Reigen’s head tilts to look under Serizawa’s stretched arm. “It needs to be straightened out— ah, the other side’s falling out, can you get that too? Serizawa! The bookshelf, watch it.”

After a few more tweaks, Serizawa finally manages to pin it to the wall in a way that satisfies Reigen. Serizawa runs two fingers over the slightly wrinkled corner— he can’t remember if it was already slightly bent, and he swallows nervously. But if Reigen notices, he doesn’t say anything, humming appreciatively. “Right. This’ll be good, people will walk in and see it with the monthly specials.” He stops, hands drumming on his hips. “Unless it should go on the far wall, while they’re sitting during the consultation? It works well as an add on, so maybe if they see it there it’ll drive more sales…”

Serizawa’s slowly processing the actual contents of the poster as Reigen hems and haws to himself. The center of the poster’s occupied with a giant stock photo hand, with arrows helpfully pointing to different creases and hills in the flat palm. A nauseating array of colors pinwheel around it, making it difficult to look away from once your gaze has drifted to it. PALM READINGS, the banner across the top screams out. LEARN ABOUT YOUR LIFE, LOVE, AND FORTUNE. Then, explosions of price points decorate the bottom.

Belatedly, he realizes he saw Reigen working on the poster yesterday during a slow hour in the office— slowly dragging together clip art in a way that he found appealing. Serizawa had avoided asking questions, since Reigen would then want his opinion on the poster, and Serizawa didn’t have the slightest clue about anything to do with design. Now, he could actually understand the poster for what it was.

“No, better to leave it here,” Reigen decides, bringing Serizawa out of his reverie. “Now, I’ve just got to add it to the website.” He sighs, scratching his cheek. “Damn builder’s always so tedious to fiddle with.”

“I didn’t know you could read palms, Reigen-san,” Serizawa says, still staring at the poster.

“Hm? Oh, yeah, I read a couple articles about it over the weekend,” Reigen says, starting back to his desk. Then he half turns back, adding, “when you get to my level, it’s easy to pick up this kind of stuff, you know— it’s good to buff out your skills, too. Sort of…” He spins a hand in the air as he thinks. “Expanding your resume.”

Serizawa nods. This makes sense to him. To Serizawa, Reigen’s never had much of a recognizable aura— or really, he thinks privately, any recognizable ability at all. But he has a very long list of clients, successful exorcisms, and the attention of the most powerful psychic that Serizawa knows, besides maybe the president. Not to mention the entirety of CLAW’s former 7th Division’s admiration and respect. All of those people can’t be wrong, Serizawa reasons, so it must just be something that he’s missing. Serizawa misses a lot of things. And as Reigen’s repeatedly told him, his powers are just more spiritual, so him picking up a new ability with some light reading seems perfectly reasonable. “One of my classmates talk about learning coding a lot, since that’s good to have on a resume,” he says. “So it’s kind of like that, maybe.”

“Well,” Reigen pulls a face as he drops into his desk chair. “That’s a different kind of resume.” He swivels to his computer. “While I’m updating the website, Serizawa, can you look at the client list for the day?”

Serizawa hastens to look at the digital calendar that Reigen’s set up on his phone. “There’s a consultation in the morning, at ten,” he says. “Two massages in the afternoon… An exorcism at four.” Serizawa will be gone by then. Kageyama will be assisting with that exorcism— Reigen’s marked that on the calendar too, although Serizawa’s not sure Mob’s once looked at the calendar Reigen constantly refers to.

Reigen’s practically rattling the keyboard with the force of his typing. “Plenty of down time today, then,” he said. “I’ll be able to get this set up no problem.”

“Reigen-san,” Serizawa begins, awkward. “Should I…” Reigen’s stopped his punitive typing to stare at him, which always makes Serizawa’s words begin to stutter. He clears his throat and tries again. “To better assist the clients. Should I learn about palmistry, too?”

He doesn’t know why he asks. Most of the questions he asks feel pointless as soon as he says them, and this one’s ridiculousness is heightened by the way Reigen frowns. “If you want to,” he says, tone implying he’s not sure why Serizawa would. “I was planning on handling it, since it’s mostly interfacing with the clients, and you’re still getting comfortable there, but I wouldn’t stop you.”

Serizawa can’t stop the way his shoulders sink, and hurriedly, Reigen adds, “you’re doing fine, Serizawa— I’m glad you’ve got the initiative to ask about it. But I know you’re busy with your studies, so I didn’t want to take up your time unnecessarily. You’re already a great asset to the business.”

Again, Serizawa wants to protest, to say that really he should be doing so much more for Reigen than brewing tea and exorcising stray ghosts. But he shouldn’t argue with his boss, so he just nods, swallowing all of his words.

It only takes a few days for someone to take Reigen up on new special— a jittery looking college student with spectacles twice the size of her eyes. She comes about a necklace that she inherited from her recently deceased grandmother. Serizawa can’t see anything on it, and Reigen smoothly steps in to handle it. As he shreds rock salt over it and kept up a stream of gentle questions about her grandmother, the girl’s eyes roams over the wall, and she asks about the palm reading. Within seconds, Reigen has the lights dimmed, incense candles in Serizawa’s hands that are apparently his responsibility to light.

Reigen sits on the edge of his seat, face serious as he looks down into her upturned palm. She watches him with wide eyes. “It’s not so much that your palms determine your fate,” he explains to her, voice taking on a knowing, mystic quality. “It’s more that they’re a microcosm of reality… The big’s encapsulated in the small.” He draws one of his fingers along a crease in her fingers, barely a ghosting pressure.

As Serizawa struggles with the candles, the match in his hand finally catches, and the light blooms across her face. The beginning of a blush is striping across her nose.

“This is your head line,” Reigen says. Then his finger moves across another web. “Your heart line. Your fate line. And your life line.” For this last designation, his finger curves across the base of her thumb and comes to rest against her wrist.

“The life line,” she says, eyes wide. “I heard once that if you have a short life line, that means that you’ll die young.”

Discreetly, Serizawa peeks at his own palm, but he can’t track what any of the mess of creases are supposed to be when transposed onto his own hand. “Not necessarily,” Reigen says, shaking his head. “Your life line has more to do with your vitality. If it’s short or shallow, that’s not necessarily bad, but it might mean you need to make a change.” Reigen’s mouth draws into a frown. “…Have you been feeling disconnected from the people around you?”

“That’s exactly it,” she says, voice a relieved rush. “It’s been so hard, ever my grandmother died…”

The conversation streams on past Serizawa. He watches as Reigen gives her advice, her hand still resting comfortably between Reigen’s long fingers.

The palm readings only happen occasionally, but Reigen seems satisfied enough with their performance— like he said, it’s a nice add on. But on days when someone asks for one, they cling to Serizawa’s mind the entire train ride to his night classes.

Regardless of Serizawa’s perception of Reigen’s aura, he proves himself as a natural when he sits down with a client for a palm reading. No matter what he says, they always gasp in shock at how accurately Reigen’s pinned down their life with just a few sentences. Then, he’s immediately pinwheeling into advice on how best to fix their relationships, their jobs, their life.

He doesn’t like it. The idea that, just by looking at his hands, someone can accurately judge everything inside of him. Reigen never says anything bad about the clients, of course, but he’s sure that he has to see it. All of Serizawa’s mistakes are surely reflected in the creases of his hand— and he’s made a lot of mistakes.

Serizawa spends a lot of time staring at his hands on the train. They’re square in shape, with short, blocked off fingers, and a tangled mess of lines and mounds— what Reigen calls the bumps of flesh on the client’s hands. He doesn’t know what any of it means. He doesn’t think it could be anything good.

It doesn’t really matter, he reminds himself. He’s making a change, just like all of Reigen’s clients. What’s on his hands isn’t set in stone. He just has to make sure Reigen doesn’t see it— even if it might feel nice to have that steady attention, Reigen’s hands that are so much nicer than Serizawa’s folding around his.

The train rumbles under his feet, and hurriedly Serizawa tucks his free hand under his armpit. Like if it hand is out of his sight, the obsessive thought might be too. It doesn’t stop his eyes from ghosting over everyone else’s hands, that all surely say much better things about them than Serizawa’s.

He’s not doing a good job of not thinking about the hands.

Mainly, he keeps thinking about Reigen’s, which doesn’t bode well for Serizawa’s attempts at professionalism.

Serizawa realized fairly early on that his feelings for Reigen exceeded the typical respect one should have for an employer. It even went past the gratitude that one should have for someone who saved Serizawa’s life— because genuinely, Serizawa thinks that Reigen saved his life by giving him this job, when Serizawa didn’t even have a high school education or any practical experience beyond being a reformed terrorist. Even if Serizawa’s managed to stop referring to every manual of business practice as inarguable law, enough of them reiterated the extreme inappropriateness of workplace relationships that Serizawa figured it was a rule he should stick with. Their cautions at power imbalances, lack of professionalism, and the inevitability of messy breakups bang around in Serizawa’s mind every time he looks at Reigen.

Of course, it’s not like Reigen would want anything to do with Serizawa even without these restrictions. Reigen’s a good, helpful person, and he saw that Serizawa was in a bad spot, and wanted to do something about it. That was all. So, it’s up to Serizawa to draw a professional boundary. If he maintains a distance, that’s better for both of them— Reigen won’t have to deal with Serizawa’s messy, inappropriate feelings, and Serizawa won’t get hurt.

But the palm readings make that so much harder than necessary.

Reigen has nice hands, and he takes full advantage of them in every moment. They accent every word that Reigen ever speaks, making his case for him before he’s even begun a sentence. And when Reigen’s hands are making an energetic arc across the room, Serizawa keeps finding his mind going back to the dim office— the candles flickering in the dark, the sweet heady scent of incense. Reigen’s hands comfortably enveloping his hands.

Not his hands, really. It’s only Serizawa’s hands in his flushed, distracted imagination. He wishes, very desperately, that Reigen wasn’t so dedicated to the atmosphere of his services, but if he’s being honest with himself, Serizawa probably would have the same problem if Reigen conducted palmistry under the boring office lights.

It’s just Serizawa’s embarrassing personal problem. It’s something he has to deal with on his own. Another misguided crush on his employer— except he’s so sure that Reigen would let him down gently it burns.

It’s a slow day in the office when Reigen says, tone casual, “Serizawa, let me read your palm.”

Serizawa’s pen jags across the paper. He’s doing homework, which he always feels guilty for, even though Reigen’s repeatedly told him it’s fine, even offering to help him with any assignments he’s having trouble with. Now, he’s punished for slacking on the job by way of an unfortunate ink splatter obscuring a section of his notes. Serizawa feels a static charge draw up around his ears, and he takes a deep breath as he settles the pen against the page. “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Serizawa says.

“Why not?” Reigen’s half out of his chair before he’s distracted by a loose set of papers about to escape his desk. He pins them down with a half full mug of tea, then continues his circuit around the desk. “We don’t have a client until later this afternoon, and it’ll be fun— enlightening, even. It’s a good team building exercise.”

He’s pretty sure Reigen just wants to put off the paperwork that he’s been complaining about the whole morning. It’s given him too much time to let his eyes drift across the room and watch Serizawa, probably monitoring any possible mistakes in his work. The palmistry poster’s right behind Serizawa’s head at his desk, so maybe that’s what made him think of it. Regardless, Serizawa does not want Reigen to be enlightened by anything about Serizawa. He clenches his hands into fists and sticks them under the desk, like maybe Reigen will forget about it if he can’t see them.

All the excuses collecting in his brain don’t make it to his mouth in time, and Reigen’s leaning against Serizawa’s desk. “Come on, Serizawa,” he entreats him, voice wheedling. “Don’t you ever unwind? It’s not bad to have a little fun when it’s slow.”

Serizawa can’t think of something less fun than his crush learning all of his secret and not-so-secret inadequacies while holding his hand. Plus, he’s sure that there’s something better both of them could be doing— that’s another thing the self help books harp on, that you can always find something to do to improve your workplace. But he’s not good at telling Reigen no. And so, in a matter of seconds, Reigen’s setting up the office as Serizawa watches, arms locked at his side.

“You don’t have to waste the incense candles,” Serizawa mumbles as Reigen energetically lights a match.

“It’s not a waste,” Reigen says firmly. “Anyway, I do my best readings when there’s a proper atmosphere.”

Since there’s no way to get out of this, besides maybe running straight out of the office and never coming back, Serizawa sits down at the table where Reigen always ushers their clients and waits. Reigen draws the blinds shut and then sits across from him, wiggling forward in his chair.

Reigen’s thighs sandwich the low table between them, pressing close enough for their knees to touch. Even though he’d dreaded the low lighting before, Serizawa’s abruptly grateful for the fact that Reigen can’t see the way his face heats in the dark.

And then, Reigen’s hands are taking his.

His hands are cool, maybe even a little clammy. They rest calmly against Serizawa’s over-hot skin, and Serizawa’s sure Reigen can feel the way that his pulse is rampaging in his wrist. Even before the palm reading’s begun, Serizawa’s hands apparently have the ability to betray him. He tries to swallow his nerves, again, force it all down. He can control himself, even if he’s feeling scared and lovesick. He’s not the person that he used to be.

Serizawa’s reminding himself of all of this, when Reigen says, very seriously, voice a low murmur, “you’ve got nice hands, you know.”

“What?” Serizawa blurts. “No, I don’t.” And then he flinches, immediately berating himself for contradicting Reigen.

Reigen’s eyebrows rise up, vanishing under his bangs. “Sure you do,” he says, insistent. And then, he turns Serizawa’s palm flat, running one electric finger around the circumference. “Square palm— short fingers. You’ve got earth hands. Means you’re reliable, Serizawa.”

Even though his brain is buzzing with this much prolonged contact— Serizawa’s not exactly had a lot of people spend extended time touching his hands, much less Reigen touching his hands— this sentence manages to drag him a little closer to reality again. Reigen just meant that comment in the context of palmistry, of course. He’s probably said similar things to his clients, even if Serizawa can’t exactly remember him saying them in this moment. He breathes.

After waiting long enough to realize that Serizawa’s not going to say anything in response, Reigen returns to tracing the lines of his hands. “Look here,” he murmurs, moving one finger down the center of his palm. “You’ve got a pretty pronounced fate line.”

And Serizawa knows, immediately, that that can’t be right. He’s heard enough of Reigen’s explanations to his clients to have learned that a deep fate line means you have control over your life— that outside actors don’t control your fate. Serizawa can’t think of something less likely to be applied to him. He feels his face sink, watching Reigen’s hand move, back and forth, over his own.

Reigen’s lying to him. He probably doesn’t mean it in a bad way. He probably wants to boost Serizawa’s abysmal self image, because Reigen’s good hearted like that. But it stings that he’d tell Serizawa falsehoods just to make him feel better, against something that demonstrably isn’t true. It calls into question every other good thing Reigen’s said about him.

“Aren’t you going to ask what that means?” Reigen’s eyes move up to look at Serizawa, burning holes in him.

Serizawa sucks in a breath that ghosts over his teeth. “Reigen-san…” He swallows, throat clicking. Every noise he makes suddenly feels so loud and over important when they sitting this close, without even the hum of fluorescent lights to drown it out. “I don’t really know if that makes sense, from what I’ve heard you say to the clients.”

Reigen’s eyebrows work together. “Your fate line can change over the course of your life, you know,” he says slowly. “Just like how you can change. It’s just a reflection of you.”

Serizawa lets his hand drop— it’s only Reigen’s interlaced fingers against the back of his hand that keeps his hand from knocking against the table. “I don’t know,” he mumbles. “I don’t know, if I’ve changed enough to justify that.”

“You’ve made a lot of changes,” Reigen says, still insistently not letting go of his hand. His fingers interlace into a cradle, and Serizawa can feel the press of Reigen’s index finger on one knuckle. “You’re taking classes. You chose to leave a harmful situation, when it would’ve been easier to stay. You’re working here. Serizawa, you’re the one that’s taking charge of your life now.”

But even that’s a falsehood. Serizawa knows, deep in his bones, that he never would have left CLAW on his own. He never would have been able to see past the circumference of his umbrella and his own starry infatuation. The only reason he was able to leave at all was because of Kageyama, forcing him out of the fantasy he was living in, and Reigen, offering him a lifeline when Serizawa was sitting in the absolute rubble of his fake life.

“Serizawa.” Reigen’s voice is suddenly sharp. “Are you really going to doubt an expert spiritualist such as myself?”

“N— no, I didn’t mean—“

“Then accept it. You’re the only one in charge of your life. Let’s look at something else more interesting,” Reigen says, immediately shifting gears and ending the conversational thread. “Your heart line, it looks like it’s pretty—“

And this is something that Serizawa absolutely cannot handle. He yanks his hand out of Reigen’s before he can stop himself. “Reigen-san,” he said, voice climbing an octave. “I don’t know if that’s— appropriate.”

“Eh?” Reigen’s blinking at him.

“I mean,” he pulls his arms back, keeping whatever incriminating information is inscribed on his hands safely hidden. “Isn’t it bad to discuss… Relationships, in the workplace?”

Reigen tilts his head like Serizawa’s said something foreign. “It’s perfectly normal,” he says. “I help Mob with his relationships all the time.”

That’s obviously completely different, Serizawa wants to say, but the words won’t come. Suddenly, he’s seized with the idea— Reigen already knows exactly what he’s thinking and feeling. There’s probably a specific triangle of flesh on Serizawa’s hand that communicates, this person is in love with their superior, and Reigen’s seen it and knows. Serizawa feels the redness climbing all over his face. He can’t stop himself from looking down, palm turning up as he tries to find whatever betrayed him.

And immediately, Reigen’s grabbed his hand again. Serizawa feels his brain misfiring as Reigen yanks it closer. “Look,” Reigen says, eager. “Yours begins below your index finger, from the edge of your palm.” He indicates it, and Serizawa desperately wishes his heart would stop jackhammering in response. His pulse is loud enough to hurt his head, so surely Reigen can feel it pounding in his grip. “Means you’ve got a giving heart, Serizawa. It’s pretty short, so you’re introverted… But deep, so relationships are definitely important to you.”

“Aren’t they important to everyone?” Serizawa asks, floundering for any type of purchase in this conversation.

“Not necessarily,” Reigen says. “I mean, think about it— you��ve definitely met people who’ve put more work into relationships than others, haven’t you? But you value the people around you, so your hands reflect that. Maybe even…” His hand traces a crease, and he wiggles an eyebrow at Serizawa. “Value of a specific person? Someone you have in mind?”

Bone deep shame makes itself known from within Serizawa’s marrow. His fingers automatically curl inward, in an attempt to hide, and suddenly, without realizing, he’s holding the tips of Reigen’s fingers under his.

He expects Reigen to pull back, automatic, but Reigen doesn’t move at all. All Reigen does is go still, not meeting Serizawa’s eyes all of the sudden. His nose dips forward to look down at their hands, hovering above the table. It’s like he’s shy. Reigen is never shy.

“It’s a good thing, you know,” he says. “You’d be a good partner.”

He’s staring down at their hands, resting against the table, still not moving to pull his fingers away, or even to spread open Serizawa’s hand to continue his relentless assault of kind words. It’s like he’s perfectly content to rest there, long fingers trapped in Serizawa’s grip, which is probably too tight and not at all pleasant. Serizawa keeps waiting and waiting for Reigen to pull away, but he doesn’t.

Then, suddenly, the door to the office buzzes, signifying a walk in client. Reigen pinwheels away so dramatically he almost falls off his chair. A little pop of psychic energy spreads out from Serizawa’s feet, lifting everything in the office just an inch off the ground before it drops again. Serizawa stands, frantic, looking for something to do as Reigen hurriedly draws open the blinds.

It’s too late, though. The unexpected customer’s standing in the entrance, staring at both of them. “Um,” he begins, phone held lamely up. “I saw the sign outside, and I was wondering if I could ask about getting some spirit tags…”

Reigen recovers admirably, immediately pivoting into welcoming the customer and acting like it’s perfectly normal for both of them to sit around in the dark with only candles to see by. Serizawa guesses it’s not totally unreasonable— it is a psychic business, after all. You’d only know it was strange if you were a regular customer, and this man isn’t.

The only thing that betrays it as odd is the red blush that’s spread all over Reigen’s face, even staining his ears. It couldn’t be because of Serizawa, of course— it’s just that a customer caught him off guard. It has to be that.

Serizawa stares at the back of Reigen’s flushed neck, and wonders.

The rest of the day is tense.

It’s not exactly like Serizawa and Reigen sit side by side all day, but Reigen normally will get up and come see what Serizawa’s doing. He’ll hang over him as he supervises his work, or offer suggestions on whatever homework assignment he’s working on. In general, Reigen seems to dislike sitting still for long hours. He tends to pace about as he verbally puzzles through work problems to Serizawa, or Mob, or, probably, to an empty room. But after the palm reading, Reigen stays firmly confined to his desk, not saying anything at all as he still fidgets. Even when a client comes for an exorcism and he has to get up, Reigen maintains an exaggeratedly respectful distance between him and Serizawa.

The palm reading plays on repeat in Serizawa’s head, offering new mistakes for Serizawa to fixate on each time. The more they sit in silence, the more Serizawa’s completely sure that Reigen knows exactly how he feels. Why else would he suddenly become so shy? He wishes, fervently, that he’d just managed to keep it to act normally. Maybe if he hadn’t made such a fuss about the whole thing he wouldn’t have made Reigen uncomfortable. Now it’s even more obvious to Reigen where his feelings lie. It must disgust him, to have to deal with Serizawa’s sad, misaimed emotions— pathetically clinging to any basic kindness shown to him.

The whole afternoon, Reigen’s ears stay red as he works at his computer, only stealing glances at Serizawa when he thinks Serizawa can’t see.

He has to say something. He has to to apologize to Reigen for making everything so awkward. Maybe if he promises that he can control his feelings, that it won’t get in the way, things could go back to normal. Serizawa wishes the earth would swallow him whole. But it won’t— not without Serizawa splitting the earth open himself, at least. But if Serizawa wants to have any chance of reintegrating into normal society he has to deal with his feelings in an adult way.

Of course, Reigen beats him to bringing it up, as Serizawa’s dragging up the nerve to say something at the end of the day. He’s just stood, closing his laptop as he says, “Serizawa,” and pauses immediately, scratching the back of his neck. “You know, when you mentioned inappropriate workplace relationships—“

“I promise it won’t get in the way of anything,” Serizawa says in an explosive rush. “Please don’t fire me.”

Reigen stares at him, one hand still resting on the back of his neck. This is a look that Serizawa’s unfortunately gotten to know quite well. It’s the look that Reigen gives him when he’s said something unexpected. Serizawa’s begun to mentally mark it as a sign as conversational failure. “Pardon?”

Serizawa was really desperately hoping that Reigen wouldn’t make him actually say it, but that was looking less and less likely. “When you read my palm,” he stammers out, clutching onto the edge of his desk for dear life. “I know maybe not everything you saw was— appropriate, or maybe it showed something it shouldn’t, but I promise I won’t let it get in the way of working here. I can maintain professional boundaries, and… And…”

His voice trails as he dares to look back into Reigen’s face. It’s completely red again, naked surprise totally dominating his features. His hand’s gripping the back of his chair, like it’s stuck there. Reigen very rarely holds still, but in this moment, he’s completely frozen in place. By shock.

Abruptly, Serizawa realizes he was wrong. Reigen hadn’t seen his feelings in the surface of his fingers. But if he didn’t know about it before, he definitely, definitely knows about it now.

For a split second, Serizawa’s certain the office will collapse around them— his powers going rampant one last time to spare him this complete embarrassment. But all that happens is the furniture trembles, once. Serizawa supposes, under the part of his brain that’s screaming for death, that it shows he’s made good progress on controlling his powers.

He stands robotically. “I should go,” he says.

“No— no,” Reigen suddenly blurts, and he unsticks himself from behind the desk, racing across the office after Serizawa. “Serizawa, wait—”

Serizawa trips over his chair in his rush to leave, which gives Reigen the time to grab his arm before he reaches the door. It would be very easy to pull free and continue his frantic path onto the street and into the horizon, but the feeling of Reigen’s fingers digging into the side of his arm totally arrests Serizawa. He freezes, staring down into Reigen’s still beet-red face.

Reigen’s face is twitching in some kind of worrisome motion— he really looks like he’s about to have some kind of seizure, especially when his complexion is still so totally red. But finally, he manages to speak. “Our heart lines might not be so different, you know,” he says, voice wobbling just a little from— nerves? That can’t be right. Unless Reigen’s so totally disgusted by him that he’s nervous to be around him, now. But he’s holding on so tightly. Like he doesn’t want Serizawa to go.

Serizawa’s eyes slide away, not wanting to look at Reigen dead on, but then Reigen tugs his arm, insistent, trying to get his attention again. “Obviously, the qualities that we have, and the ways that we love— hypothetically— are very different,” Reigen says, voice gaining volume. “But, maybe similar things are revealed if you look closely. Just… A little closer.”

And then he doesn’t say anything, staring wide eyed at Serizawa. He’s clearly waiting for something, as Serizawa’s brain shudders to put the pieces together past every instinct that’s screaming at him to escape. Serizawa can’t conceive of a person being more different from him than Reigen. Any kind of similarity seems like too much to imagine. A similarity of the heart line? Maybe, Reigen has some of the good qualities he’s superimposed onto Serizawa, and that’s what he means. Or maybe— maybe—

Before he can stop himself, Serizawa’s hand slides up to grab the one that Reigen’s got on his arms. This time Reigen’s hand is damp with sweat. So is Serizawa’s, and he can’t imagine that it’s a pleasant experience for Reigen. Still, Reigen spreads his fingers, interlacing Serizawa’s fingers with his as they fall to the side.

“Just a little closer,” Reigen says again, voice almost a whisper as he steps into Serizawa’s personal space. The gap between their bodies narrows, and then vanishes, Reigen’s torso pressing against Serizawa’s.

It seems, impossibly, to be what Reigen wants. So before he can stop himself, Serizawa dips his head and kisses Reigen.

Reigen’s body leans up and into Serizawa, his free hand reaching up to touch his face. Underneath the fireworks happening behind Serizawa’s eyelids, there’s a moment of terror at Reigen touching his face— like he’ll find some patchy place where Serizawa missed shaving, or the pockmarked memory of an acne scar, and abruptly snap out of whatever insanity’s fallen over him. But Reigen touches his cheek gently, so, so, gently, and the fingers encircling Serizawa’s only tighten.

He’s sure, from any objective standpoint, it’s not a very good kiss— Serizawa’s never kissed anyone before, so his skills are probably awful. But it also means it’s the best he’s ever had. He never wants to come up for air.

Eventually, though, their faces break apart. Reigen’s face is still twitching a little, but now it’s up into an almost manic smile. Serizawa’s starting to wonder if the blush across Reigen’s face will ever subside. “This is,” Reigen begins, and then stops.

Reigen’s words rarely stop, and the silence stretches on for a few uninterrupted seconds until Serizawa realizes that genuinely, Reigen’s lost for words. A laugh threatens to break loose from Serizawa’s chest, but he doesn’t want it to seem like he’s laughing at Reigen. He only wants to express that whatever Reigen’s feeling, Serizawa understands. Completely and totally. It’s something he feels confident of when typically, Serizawa feels confident of nothing. So he just smiles, hoping that maybe, Reigen will understand too.

“I should have gotten into palmistry earlier,” Reigen says finally, and at that Serizawa can’t suppress his laugh. “Clearly I should screw around reading articles on the weekend more.”

“This wasn’t the reason you learned about palmistry,” Serizawa says, laugh still making his voice shake.

“Hell no,” Reigen snorts. “I just wanted to find another way to make a quick buck.” Then, immediately, he adds, “and also help our clients find out important truths about themselves, and the universe, of course—”

“While making a quick buck,” Serizawa says. It feels too joking, too disrespectful, but then, Serizawa’s just kissed Reigen. Reigen’s kissed him back. Worrying about professionalism seems suddenly pointless.

Reigen raises an eyebrow at him. “Sassy. Just don’t say that to the clients, Serizawa.”

His hand’s still clinging to Serizawa, gently swinging between them. Impulsively, Serizawa brings the hand up to his mouth, kissing the knuckles. Reigen’s breath pulls in, and Serizawa feels his face heat. He suddenly realizes that really, he has no idea what Reigen expects from this. They could be on completely different pages, Serizawa could be moving too fast, he could be doing everything all wrong.

But Reigen’s smiling at him. It’s a smile that he hasn’t seen before— totally unlike the dazzling grins that he gives his clients, and everyone he’s trying to convince to believe him. It feels different. The other smiles, Serizawa realizes, are something that Reigen puts on, in the same way that he puts on his tie in the morning. This one is real. This one is for Serizawa.

There’s a part of his stomach that’s still telling him this whole thing is a bad idea. Every chapter on workplace relationships he’s taken careful notes on is flashing on the back of his eyelids when he blinks. But, more and more, Serizawa’s realized that Spirits and Such is far from a typical office environment. Serizawa’s not a typical employee, and Reigen— wonderful, strange, perfect, Reigen— is not a typical boss.

When they walk out of the office, Reigen’s still holding his hand. Serizawa hopes, impossibly, that he never stops.

[omniswords]

chronicles of a parisian dumbass 19

i’m sorry i’ve been MIA ; ; i’ve been up to my ears in streaming and also returning to work in-person. either way, i hope you enjoy this update of chronicles. better late than never right?

strap in 💙💖

If Luka could get at his phone, he wouldn’t know what to type. maybe a vague, oh, fuck. Maybe some long thread about how cryptic conversation starters only ever scared him and ended both of his relationships—only to follow up with silence in the face of a couple of likes, or a reply from a sort-of-stranger that would debilitate him, remind him of his own vulnerability, more than it would reassure him. Hell, maybe even a message to Bubbles about how he was right all along that he’d need the luck. Or how Bubbles was right about how he really was in for it the moment he stepped into the bakery.

It’s just that, with the way Marinette Dupain-Cheng is looking at him on her balcony—all sad, scared softness—he gets the feeling that he’s not meant to repeat whatever she tells him.

Luka steels himself, loosens his death grip on the neck of the guitar, and releases a breath he doesn’t want to hold onto anymore. “Yeah,” he says. “Anything.” It comes out choked from how tight his vocal cords are. The way they get sometimes when he plugs in the microphone and hits RECORD.

She pats the floor in front of her and mumbles something about being on equal ground, and he slides down to meet her, guitar in tow. She looks like she wants to touch it, feel now real it is. Or how real he is. As though that moment with his card wasn’t enough.

“It’s about your sister,” she says, her gaze darting away in shame. “And Adrien. Sort of.”

“Okay,” he says. It’s slow, and uncertain, but he hopes it tells her he’s all ears.

Marinette looks at her lap and draws herself up and in. Like she’s wanted to tell him this for a long time. Like she’s only just found the words for it. “We were pretty close,” she says. “In grade school. Not as close as… Rose, yeah, Rose. But we were in the same class for a couple years. I helped her with some class picture stuff, she listened to me yammer on about Adrien after he joined our class… even helped me come up with some ideas on how to… confess to him? Win him over? I don’t know.” She rubs the back of her neck. “Actually, I think all my girl friends did that.”

Luka nods slowly, thinks of the school photos in the album Juleka bought from the thrift shop, tries to match faces in his head. He thinks he sees pigtails. Or maybe a bun. He could be wrong. “So,” he says, “you had it pretty bad for him, huh.”

“I dunno if I had it bad. Like I said, puppy love. I mean, I thought we were soulmates—God, I even named our kids—and I couldn’t even get out a sentence in front of him. I didn’t even like him at first. Plus, we were like, fourteen. I didn’t know any better.”

He shrugs. “Just cause you were fourteen doesn’t mean it wasn’t real.” He thinks he catches a blush stealing across Marinette’s face then, but maybe it’s just a trick of the lights. “So… what changed?”

“With Juleka? Or Adrien?”

“Both, I guess.”

Marinette turns her head away. “It’s dumb.”

Luka shrugs again, smiling faintly. “So?”

She starts to pick at her nails, like her hands are just looking for something to do. Without thinking, he gives the spinner ring on his index finger a flick to get her attention, then slides it off and hands it to her. She looks at it with questions in her eyes, then slips it on. It barely fits her index finger, and it wobbles when she gives it a curious flick of her own. It seems to get the job done, at least. “He lent me his umbrella,” she mumbles, final but sheepish. Then she follows up, before his brow can so much as furrow, “He was friends with an old bully of mine—Mrs. Bourgeois’s daughter, actually—and I caught him doing something with some gum on my chair. And I… misjudged him. “Another flick. “He was trying to make it up to me. And he said… he didn’t have any friends. He hadn’t even been to school.”

He lets out a hollow laugh. “Rich kids, huh?” And then, at the first sign of her discomfort, “Sorry, I—”

“No,” she says. “It’s okay, I was just thinking…” She presses her thumb into the curve and the aged grooves of the ring more than she actually spins it. Like she cares about losing it more than she cares about comforting herself. “I think everything around me told me that… that was how I was supposed to feel. Unwavering love. Now it’s been years, and I think… I think I just wanted to be that friend for him. I just wanted to be what he was looking for.”

Luka lifts his gaze from the ring to her face. “Who says that’s not love?” He doesn’t know where the words come from. They just feel like the right ones to say.

Marinette freezes, blinking at her hands. She doesn’t say anything; the only sound is the whine of his ring as the metal scrapes together with another flick.

When the silence goes on a bit too long for either of their liking, Luka clears his throat uncertainly. “So, um…”

She speaks so he doesn’t have to. “Juleka,” she murmurs. “Right, um…” It’s hard to tell who’s more uncomfortable between the two of them. Who's really supposed to say what next. “Well, I mean… you can sort of imagine that I wasn’t the only one who wanted to… y’know. Be with Adrien.”

Luka doesn’t have to imagine, but he nods anyway.

“Not”— Marinette hedges—“not that Juleka was competition or anything. I mean, duh. Just… there was this other girl—there were other girls, and…”

“You don’t have to tell me this,” he urges. “If it still hurts.”

She closes her eyes. Hard, and just for a moment. “Please let me tell you this.”

Her voice wavers. That’s all the cue Luka needs to stay quiet. To let her say everything, or nothing, at her pace.

“Her name was Lila,” she says. “She was a new girl. From Italy. Everyone liked her, except… she lied. Like, compulsively. About connections she had, places she’d been, charity work she did. And she did it because she wanted everyone to like her. She was just telling people what they wanted to hear because the attention made her feel important. She thrived on it.” She gets to her feet. “Sorry, I can’t sit still when I get all… agitated. You know?”

Luka gestures vaguely at the balcony space. “That makes two of us.”

Marinette takes that as her cue to start pacing and turning on her heels, only pausing every so often to stare up at the night sky. “I was jealous,” she admits. “I was also our class representative. And I might’ve… used that to my advantage.”

Maybe he shouldn’t say Hell yeah out loud, but he’s definitely thinking it.

“I kept tabs on people’s schedules, you know?” she says. “So we could work on important events and class projects and stuff. There was one we were planning for Adrien, to celebrate that he’d been in school with us for a year and all. And it just so happened that…” she shrugs, feigning apology. “All the days that worked conflicted with all her charity work.”

Luka whistles, half-impressed. “This the part where you tell me she decided to make your life a living hell like some high school drama villain?”

Marinette’s face falls. “Yeah,” she says, and her voice cracks, and he wishes he weren’t right. “But all she did was exactly what I did. Convinced… everybody… that every little thing I did was proof that I wasn’t a real friend. That I couldn't commit to anything because I committed to everything. And especially with how I avoided her… didn’t trust her, treated her cruelly. she turned everyone against me, a little at a time. Even Alya.” She shifts her weight. “Even Juleka.”

Luka’s heart sinks. He almost wants to reach for her hands when she paces toward him. Almost wants to kick himself for asking, “And… then what?”

She lingers at the balcony railing, perhaps preferring to tell the night sky the rest. “She got me expelled.”

Luka tenses.

Marinette doesn’t notice. “I’d been telling myself for months that I deserved it. Eventually I just… believed it. Let it happen. Never talked to my classmates again.” She shrugs. “I cried a lot. Transferred schools. Threw myself into… everything. Because if Lila said that was what I was doing—just over-committing—I might as well own it. And because if I was constantly doing something, then I couldn’t stop to think about all the bad things I deserved. And I couldn’t be paranoid about being judged for every little thing I did.”

“What…” He’s trying, with every fiber in him, to keep his heart from breaking for her. To keep himself from blurting out how well he knows the feeling. “What about Alya? And Adrien, and, uh… Mrs. Bourgeois’s kid?”

Marinette turns to face him, leaning back against the railing, and something in her face—no, everything—changes. There’s a tiredness in her eyes, a twitch in her hands. Lines in her face that shouldn’t be there for decades. As though she’s just lived them all over again. “I didn’t talk to Alya for over a year. I couldn’t be friends with her. I couldn’t even talk to her.” Her gaze lowers. “It was really hard on Nino.”

“Nino?”

“Our friend. well. My friend. Her boyfriend. He’s the one I’ve been helping for that summer project.” She folds her arms tight. “He apologized first. If it weren’t for him, Alya and I still wouldn’t be talking. And Chloé, well… Mrs. Bourgeois’s recommendation letter had nothing to do with her. I entered some contests with my portfolio and won a couple of them.” She flicks her gaze back. “I did run into Chloé once. In New York. I guess she decided to live with her mom for a while. She kind of took the ‘enemy of my enemy is my ally’ approach. Which was… weird. But tolerable.”

Luka searches her face, even at a distance, and settles on the end of the deck chair again. “What about Adrien?”

The pause that follows is heavy. He can’t tell who feels the weight of it more; he just hopes it’s equal. Marinette scrunches up her lips, braces herself on the railing, and all those decades come back. “Well,” she murmurs. “I guess you don’t really realize what you have until it’s gone, huh.”

He sobers. “He felt guilty.”

“I guess we all did.” She scuffs her heel. “I guess we all do.”

Luka waits. There must be more she wants to say.

There is. She even starts pacing again. “My guidance counselor used to tell me that all that’s necessary for the triumph of evil is that good people do nothing. It was supposed to be comforting.”

He raises an eyebrow. “It doesn’t sound very comforting.”

“It wasn’t so bad,” she says, “He reminded me they were still good people, and good people could do bad things, and even if they were still good, it was okay for me to not want those people in my life anymore. I dunno.” She rocks on her feet. “Maybe someone told Adrien the same thing and he couldn’t stand doing nothing anymore.”

“Did you want him?” he asks. “In your life? Do you still?”

She heaves a laugh like it’s hard to do. “Would you think it was messed up if I said yes?”

“No, of course not.”

“He could see it,” she says. “What Lila was doing. That was why he felt so bad. That was why he convinced her to clear my name. Turns out he knows how to use things to his advantage, too.”

Luka softens and runs his fingers over the body of his guitar. “He must love you a lot,” he says, “if he was willing to do all that for you.”

At first, Marinette doesn’t say anything, only grips the railing tighter. He can see it, how her knuckles go white, as though there’s something she’s trying to forget. Then she murmurs, “She tried to talk to me. Juleka did. To… apologize… I ghosted her. I didn’t want to deal with it anymore. For a while, I didn’t want to deal with anything anymore. I don’t want you to think it didn’t hurt me, because it did. It did hurt.”

Luka’s stomach turns. He puts his guitar down. “That’s why you’ve been so nice to me, huh…” There’s a lump in his throat that he tries to swallow; he only partly succeeds. “You felt guilty about avoiding her and just… wanted to make it up to her.”

Something flashes across Marinette’s face. Horror, maybe. Or shame. “No, I—that’s not what I—”

“I’m not upset.” He’s not. He’s staring at the floor with a pit in his stomach and a shake in his limbs, and his knee is starting to throb again in protest, but he’s not upset. “Really. I get it. If that’s what you needed for your own closure, then…”

A ragged breath and a sniffle cut him off, and he’s barely able to lift his gaze before Marinette kneels in front of him, placing his ring in his palm and closing his fingers around it. He can’t revel in the touch—won’t let himself—because her hands are cold. Trembling. “Don’t go,” she whispers, squeezing his hand tight, and when he looks up there are tears staining her cheeks. “I’m sorry, I know I shouldn’t even be asking this of you, just… please, don’t go.”

Luka learned, a long time ago, to look for the things unsaid. when I can’t make it really meant I’m trying to avoid you. when you’re certainly different really meant God, you are a level of fucked-up I can’t put into words. When we need to talk really meant it's over.

He hears, “Please don’t go,” and he thinks he finds, I want you in my life. Don’t you want me in yours?

Or, maybe, I need you.

Or maybe it’s as simple, as desperate, as, Not you, too.

He’s known Juleka, and maybe even himself, long enough to know what that sounds like in other people.

“Hey,” he murmurs. “Hey, I’m not going.”

Marinette freezes, still staring at their hands. “Why? You have every reason to.”

“Because I’m not.”

“You’ve known me for like, two months, as what? A baker’s daughter? Overly nice customer service? Someone who just gave you kindness out of some dumb high school guilt?”

“I’m not going,” Luka says again.

“You should.” Marinette rubs her eyes dry. “Why not?”

“Because I don’t want to.” He coaxes his hand open, slides the ring back onto her finger. “Isn’t that enough?”

Marinette studies the ring, giving it a cautious flick. As though touching it might break it altogether. “It’s too big.”

“Then I’ll trade you.” Luka takes the ring back, digs around in his pocket, and fishes out a couple of guitar picks. “Here. Take one.”

One of them has a picture of Jagged Stone’s face. The other has a Kitty Section logo, crudely painted on with some of Juleka’s old nail polish. Marinette takes the first one almost instantly with another sniffle, examining it from all sides. “He’s… my favorite.”

“Yeah.” Luka smiles, not minding that she can’t see it, and thinks of the album cover. “Mine, too.”

She runs her thumb over the faces and edges, blinking away whatever tears threaten to stick around. “Why?” she asks again.

“To prove it.” He tilts his head. “To prove I’m not going.”

She turns the pick this way and that, but doesn’t put it away just yet. Instead, her eyes drift toward his guitar and the amp, and then up to him. “Hey,” she says. “Do you think you could do me a favor?”

“I know,” he tells her. “I won’t tell Jules about any of this. And I won’t make you talk to her if you don’t want to.” And I’ll stay. I swear to God I’ll stay.

“Not that.” Marinette presses her lips together, still sitting on her knees. Still holding on to the pick for dear life. “Can you play it again?”

“What, the song from your playlist?”

“Me.” She looks away, her cheeks flushed and blotchy. “Can you play me. Again.”

Luka’s heart picks up, so loud he can barely hear anything else. Even her. “Yeah,” he says, setting his guitar in his lap, “Yeah, I think I got it this time.”

i guess it’s eleven now.

[broccoliboix5peepeeman]

Prompt: Izuku's sick. Shōto takes care of him. In his hazed state, Izuku slurred things Shōto aren't meant to hear/know: him being diagnosed as Quirkless at age 4 caused him to endure a decade of bullying & being discriminated against those with flashy, powerful Quirks. Finished with him being suicide-baited/dared by Bakugō. But when Izuku is fully sober, he has no memory of telling Shōto the whole thing. (You're free to choose whether Shōto confronts Bakugō about it or not)

(Holy heckers I love this so much! :O 3000 words, this is the longest prompt I've done so far asdfghjkl Hope you enjoy!)

The moment Shoto's eyes landed on Midoriya, he knew something was wrong.

His best friend had just walked into class, disheveled and pale, with purple bags under his verdant eyes. Beads of sweat clung to his forehead and he was trembling terribly. Concerned, Shoto immediately jumped to his feet.

'Midoriya.' He called out as he strode towards him.

'Oh! Hi Todoroki-kun!' Midoriya turned to look at him, a wobbly smile plastered to his face that didn’t quite reach his eyes. ‘How are you?’

‘I was just going to ask you the same thing.’ Shoto dodged the question and came to a stop in front of his friend. When Midoriya tilted his head to the side quizzically, he raised his right hand to a freckled forehead and inhaled sharply at the temperature. ‘Midoriya, you’re burning up - you need to go see Recovery Girl.’

‘I’m fine, Todoroki-kun!’ Midoriya laughed in response, frantically waving his hands in front of him. However, his body betrayed his words when he swayed off-balance. He was about to stumble backwards when Shoto clasped his other hand onto his friend’s shoulder to steady him.

‘No, you’re not.’ He told him firmly, before using his quirk to cool the palm pressed against Midoriya’s forehead. The action elicited a sigh of pleasure from his friend that, in any other circumstance, would’ve had Shoto blushing.

‘Mmm, that’s nice.’ Midoriya leant into the touch, eyes fluttering shut. ‘But I’m not going to Recovery Girl. I’ll be fine - I can’t afford to miss a day just because of some stupid illness. I’ll fall behind and I already have so much catching up to do!’

‘What are you talking about-?’

Before Shoto could ask why Midoriya would even think that he was falling behind, Aizawa suddenly appeared and stood in the doorway, waiting expectantly for everyone to take their seats. Midoriya tried to use the opportunity to escape, but Shoto wasn’t about to give up that easily. He kept his hand secure on his friend’s shoulder, holding him in place, even when their teacher glared at them with exhausted eyes.

‘Please, Todoroki-kun.. I’m fine.’ Midoriya whispered, looking up at Shoto with an expression he recognised but did not expect from his best friend.

Fear. Midoriya had never looked at him like that before; Midoriya had never been scared of him before. Shoto felt a wave of disgust at himself, albeit he had no idea what he had done to cause such distress.

‘Mido-’

‘Is there a problem there?’ Aizawa interrupted, startling Midoriya. Shoto watched as his friend closed in on himself, as if preparing for an attack. Shoto knew that stance well - it was how he used to act when he first started training with his father.

‘Sensei, Midoriya isn’t well and is refusing to get help.’ He spoke, ignoring the rest of the class’s eyes burning holes into his back. ‘I’m not moving until something is done.’

He stared at Aizawa challengingly as he regarded the situation. After a few moments of silence, their teacher approached the two of them, took in Midoriya’s bedraggled appearance and grumbled.

‘Go and see Recovery Girl, Midoriya. You’re not fit for class, even a dope like All Might could tell you that much.’ He spoke gruffly, albeit his words were non-negotiable. ‘I’ll see that you are provided with some substitute work at the end of the day so you can catch up to your classmates.’

‘But Sensei-’ Midoriya began.

‘Todoroki, see to it that the problem child gets to the infirmary in one piece.’ Aizawa finished, his tone bored.

‘Yes, Sensei.’

Their teacher grunted approvingly, then turned and made his way to the front of the classroom. Shoto took that as their cue to leave, so gently ushered Midoriya out of the room, careful not to alarm him. Luckily, his friend went willingly, too exhausted to protest.

Once they were out in the hallway, Shoto closed the door behind them and gazed at Midoriya, who was struggling just to stand up on his own.

Shuffling on his feet, he asked quietly, ‘You want to lean on me? I can help cool you down a bit.’

Please say yes. Please say yes. Please say yes.

‘O- Okay…’ Midoriya rubbed the back of his neck. ‘If you’re okay with that, that is.’

‘I wouldn’t offer if I wasn’t okay with it.’ Shoto stepped forward and wrapped his right arm around Midoriya’s waist whilst the latter hooked his arm around his shoulders for support. Shoto instantly activated his quirk and Midoriya practically sunk into him as they started walking towards the infirmary.

By the time they arrived, Shoto was carrying Midoriya - who had passed out from exhaustion - in his arms. His friend had nestled his head in the crook of Shoto's neck while his arms hung limp at his sides.

Shoto nodded to Recovery Girl when she spotted them, and moved towards one of the beds. As he carefully laid Midoriya down, the healer sighed and walked over to meet them.

‘What’s he done now?’

‘He isn't well. He has a fever and has been acting on edge.’ Shoto explained, straightening back up. 'Aizawa Sensei instructed me to make sure he got here okay.'

'I see.' She tutted, although Shoto noticed the way she looked over at her patient, clearly concerned. 'Well, at least he hasn't broken anything this time.'

She then met his gaze and smiled. 'Don't worry, Todoroki-shounen. I'll take care of him. You can go back to class now.'

Shoto sent one last look at Midoriya, as white as the sheets around him, swallowed heavily and nodded. 

'Okay.'

Just as he turned to leave though, he suddenly heard his friend grumble and whipped around in alarm.

‘Todoroki-kun?’ Midoriya mumbled, eyes still closed but face inquisitive. ‘Todoroki-kun, are you there?’

Shoto strode forwards and kneeled down, arms resting on the bed as he took his friend’s hand in his own.

‘Yes, Midoriya. I’m here.’ He spoke, trying to hide his worry in his even voice. ‘Go back to sleep, it’s okay.’

‘If I d- do, will you leave?’ Midoriya’s hand tightened around his, making Shoto’s heart clench. ‘Please don’t leave me.’

‘I won’t leave you, I promise.’ Shoto reached forwards and picked up the wet rag Recovery Girl had just set down. He then placed the damp material over his friend’s forehead, dabbing at his flustered skin. The healer merely sighed at the action and muttered something about telling Aizawa about his absence from class, but as long as Shoto didn’t have to leave, he didn't care what happened. He couldn’t abandon his friend while he was like this. 

‘Th- Thank you.’ Midoriya whispered, eyes falling shut against his will.

Within minutes, his friend was asleep again, allowing Shoto to reach behind him and drag forwards a seat to sit in. The chair scraped against the floor, causing Shoto to let out a wince, but Midoriya barely stirred.

Not long after, Recovery Girl came back to examine Midoriya and to tell Shoto that Aizawa had signed off for his absence just this once. Once the healer had finished, she confirmed the presence of a fever and prescribed at least a day of bed rest - not that Midoriya was conscious to hear it. She then tucked Midoriya in bed properly - if she noticed that Shoto was still holding his friend’s hand, she didn’t comment on it - and bustled off to update Midoriya’s lengthy patient record, leaving Shoto alone with him.

Shoto didn’t know how long he sat there, tracing his friend’s scars with his thumb and dabbing his temple with the cool material. Occasionally, Midoriya would murmur something unintelligible in his sleep and Shoto would watch the way his friend’s face scrunched up slightly, hand tightening around his under the covers to make sure he wouldn’t let go.

Eventually though, Shoto’s phone buzzed in his pocket. Leaving the cloth on Midoriya's forehead, he pulled out the device and found a message from Uraraka, asking if everything was alright.

Shoto begrudgingly let go of a calloused hand to type out a response. However, in the minute it took him to send the message, Midoriya's slumber quickly became less peaceful.

His head started moving around and his body twitched. Shoto instantly noticed the movement and pocketed his phone.

'Midoriya?'

He got no response. Instead, his friend started to thrash around in bed, his eyes squeezed shut. Was it his fever? A nightmare? He should go get Recovery Girl. As Shoto stood up though, suddenly his friend cried out.

‘No! No, please don’t!’ Midoriya's eyebrows furrowed and tears started to leak from his eyes as small sobs escaped him. Shoto was instantly at his side, leaning over the bed and taking hold of one of Midoriya’s hands once more.

‘Midoriya-’

‘Kacchan, no! Stop!’ His friend almost wailed, not hearing him. Shoto froze in place at the mention of Bakugou’s name, eyes widening slightly as Midoriya continued to writhe around. ‘Don’t hurt them! Hurt me instead!’

'Midoriya-!'

'I'm not quirkless anymore, Kacchan!' His friend exclaimed. 'No, stop!'

'Izuku!'

Shoto cupped Midoriya’s face in his hands as verdant eyes shot open, terror quickly being replaced with familiarity when he recognised Shoto.

'Todoroki-kun…' He panted heavily, staring up Shoto but not quite seeing him. His eyes were glazed over and his expression was one of apprehension. 'You're not going to hate me too, are you?'

Shoto was taken aback by the question.

'Of course not.' He frowned, wiping away Midoriya's tears. 'I could never hate you. You’re my best friend.'

‘Kacchan and I were best friends too.’ Midoriya turned in Shoto’s hands to look away, voice slurring slightly. ‘But when he found out I was quirkless, he started to hate me.’

‘But-?’ Shoto began, confused. What was he talking about? ‘Midoriya, you’re not quirkless.’

His friend hid his face in Shoto’s palm as hot tears dampened his skin.

‘I used to be.’ Midoriya whispered. ‘Kacchan used to bully me for it. All the kids were in on it too… So were the teachers.’ He whined at the memory. ‘They hated me for living and I hated them for hurting me, but I wanted to be a hero and heroes aren’t meant to hate others.’

Shoto’s mind was running a mile a minute as he tried to process what Midoriya was saying. He used to be quirkless? He was bullied? By Bakugou?

So many questions were on his lips but that didn't matter right now. Right now, his best friend was suffering and Shoto had to help him.

'I think heroes are allowed to feel hate towards those who have hurt them.' He remembered the hatred he felt towards his old man back in their first year. 'Heroes save people, sometimes they even have to save those that hurt them, but we're only human.'

'Sometimes…' Izuku mumbled, eyelashes fluttering against Shoto's hand. 'I thought they were right. That I would be better off dead.’

‘Midoriya!’ Shoto couldn’t help the surprised exclamation. Where had that come from? ‘How could you even think something like that?!’

'Izuku.' Midoriya turned to look at him with red-rimmed eyes. 'You called me Izuku before.'

'I-' Shoto struggled for words. He had to remind himself that his friend still had a fever and that his words were coming out unfiltered. He probably couldn’t even process what he was saying, let alone understand the weight behind his words. Nevertheless though, Shoto couldn't just ignore the revelation that Midoriya - his best friend, the person he trusted the most in the whole world - would ever think that he wasn't worthy of living.

He gently wiped tear trails away from freckled cheeks. 'Izuku.' He corrected. ‘How could you ever think that you would be better off dead?'

Several moments passed without an answer. Shoto searched Midoriya's face as his friend bit his lip, eyes never leaving him.

'They were so cruel to me.' He finally whispered, barely audible if not for the choked way he spoke. 'And when… When Kacchan told me to take a swan dive off the roof and hope for a quirk in the next life… I thought, maybe he was right. I was useless Deku, after all. I wasn't meant to be a hero. I'm just me, weak and pathetic.'

'No, Izuku. He couldn't be more wrong.' Shoto shook his head violently and sat down fully on the bed beside his friend. He leant forwards and rested his forehead against Midoriya's, not caring about how the wet cloth had fallen off to accommodate him.

He felt Midoriya inhale sharply at the contact but he didn't recoil from the touch.

Shoto swallowed heavily. 'No one can even compare to you. You're not just a hero, you're Kota's hero, you're Eri's hero, you're All Might's hero... You're also my hero. Quirk or no quirk, I can promise you that'll never change.'

'But-'

'A world without Midoriya Izuku is a world that I don't want to be a part of.' Shoto continued, his own tears threatening to fall. His vision of Midoriya became blurred, but he dared not blink, even as small sobs escaped his friend.

'Todoroki-kun…' Midoriya slurred, exhaustion finally catching up to him. 'You don't really mean…'

'I do, Izuku.' Shoto replied, desperation seeping into his voice. 'You're the most important person in the world to me and I don't know what I'd do without you.'

Midoriya sniffled in response, raising his trembling hands from beneath the covers and placing them over Shoto's own.

'You mean it.' He whispered.

Shoto knew it wasn't a question, but he nodded against Midoriya's forehead anyway. He then moved to lie next to his friend and took him in his arms, cradling him gently as the last of Midoriya's tears fell. When he eventually quieted, Shoto retrieved the damp cloth from the pillow and - after cooling it again - placed it back on his forehead.

Shoto stayed with him like that, long after Midoriya had fallen back asleep and even as his temperature rose significantly to fight the fever, causing sweat to cling to Shoto uncomfortably. Even when Uraraka, Iida and Tsu came to visit them at lunch, Shoto didn't move, resting his head against Midoriya's own as his friend used his shoulder as a pillow, his arms wrapped around him tightly.

As long as Midoriya needed him, Shoto refused to leave.

However, that evening, after classes had long since finished and Midoriya was sleeping peacefully at his side while Shoto worked on his homework, the door suddenly opened, drawing his attention towards the visitor.

You.

When Bakugou stood in the doorway, glaring at Shoto and Midoriya as if they had offended him just by breathing, Shoto found that his body moved before he could think.

☀️ ☽ 

'The fuck do you think you're doing, Icyhot?!' Bakugou shouted when Shoto slammed him into the wall outside the infirmary.

'What the hell do you think you're doing coming to see Izuku?' Shoto growled, pulling at the blonde's collar.

'None of your business, bastard.' Bakugou snarled. 'Get your fucking hands off me.'

'Oh no, we aren't done yet.' Shoto leant in and stared at the blonde, his eyes cold and unforgiving. 'Luckily for you, I want to be a hero, so instead of beating the shit out of you like I want to, I'll be nice.'

'You wanna fucking go, Half n Ha-?!'

'Izuku told me what you used to do to him!' Shoto shouted, not caring that he was drawing attention to them. 'The bullying! The discrimination!'

He watched Bakugou's mouth snap shut as recognition dawned on him. Shoto glared at him, eyes wide. 'That's right. Anything to say for yourself?'

When the blonde merely tsked and looked away from Shoto's piercing glare, scowling, that was all the confirmation he needed.

He tugged harshly on Bakugou's collar again, drawing his attention back to him. 'Here's what's going to happen, Bakugou.'

'Like I'm gonna listen-'

'Oh, you're going to listen. Because if you don't, I have no qualms with informing Aizawa-Sensei that one of his top students used to mercilessly bully and suicide-bait another for over a decade.'

Bakugou growled, but said nothing. Shoto didn't make idle threats. The blonde knew that - when Shoto said something, he followed through.

Shoto nodded once. 'Good. Here's the deal then. Stay the fuck away from Izuku. Don't talk to him - don't even fucking look at him unless it's for training. If you even lay a finger on him outside of that, there's not a pro out there who'll be able to stop me. Understand?'

When Bakugou remained silent, he continued. 'You may think you're such a big man, but you'll be pleased to know, Bakugou, that I actually like big men like you. When they fall, they make more noise.'

He leant in to whisper in his ear, 'And sometimes, when they fall, they don’t get back up.'

Shoto pulled back and shoved Bakugou away, enjoying the way his back hit the wall with a thud. 'Consider this a warning.'

Shoto turned away then, leaving the blonde to consider his words, and returned to the infirmary. The moment he walked in though, he was met with a pair of emerald eyes, staring at him knowingly.

'You're awake.' Shoto stated, approaching the bed and sitting down on the edge. 'How are you feeling?'

'Did I really…' Midoriya began, before lowering his chin to his chest. 'I told you about the bullying?'

Shoto stilled. Had he really shouted that loudly? How much did he hear? It didn't matter now though. After all, he couldn't lie to Midoriya if he tried.

'You did.' He confirmed, watching as his friend chewed on his lip. 'You also said… That he used to bully you because you were quirkless and…'

He trailed off. I can't do it.

Shoto had already seen how distraught Midoriya had been before when he had recalled the suicide-baiting and the depreciating thoughts that had stemmed from it. He couldn't make his friend go through that again.

'And?' Midoriya asked, worriedly.

'And…' Shoto met his friend's vulnerable eyes and sighed. I'll make sure he never hurts you again. I'll protect you with my life.

'And I just want you to know… While I don't understand what you meant by being quirkless, I'll always support you - I could never hate you, Izuku. That's a promise.'

Midoriya startled at Shoto's use of his given name, but he didn't question it. Instead, he sunk further into the bed and smiled at him.

'I guess I have a lot of explaining to do, huh?'

Shoto laid down next to him and the two of them stared up at the grey ceiling.

'It's okay, you need to rest.' Shoto reached out and took Midoriya's hand. 'I can wait. I'll always wait for you.'

[athena-is-a-chaotic-lil-shit]

Of Ice and Blood

Part 2

Hello there! I present to you, part 2 of my orc x fem!human series!

I still don't know what to name this fic of mine

I should've thought about the title in the first place lmao

Anyways! I'll try updating constantly if I can. Enjoy reading!

Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6

Pairing: Tai'chi Kashharzol (Orc) x Pearl Blackbell (Human OC/Reader)

Warnings: Cursing, lots of cursing. Mild violence and mentions of injury.

UD 01/10/21 : CLEANED AND PROOFREAD PROPERLY (hey I did my best)

(reference to the mask she's currently wearing //her hair is still braided// )

*

Even with the tedious introduction the professor was on about, I couldn’t help but pick up the whispers of my human classmates, and the unmistakable nasty odor they were giving off.

“Hey. Look at that orc over there.”

“Tsk. Beast. Why is it even here—”

“I bet it’s gonna get suspended from breaking someone’s arm.”

“It looks like he’s gonna kill somebody soon.”

Snickers and clicks of disgust went around the group.

The professor shushed them, not quite knowing what they were talking about before he moved on.

I cursed, feeling my blood boil from their words. The orc wasn’t even doing anything! And they slander him like that? I would love to break their fucking ne—

No, damn it! No violence! Mama will go crazy if she finds out I broke someone’s spine. Behave and endure. Remember your training.

...but seriously though, I'm going to fucking snap their legs. Nah, perhaps use pepper spray on their eyes until they go blind, even though the mixture inside my spray bottle wasn’t made to have permanent effects on someone, but it would still cause great discomfort.

I hugged my backpack, the thought of my dusters inside somehow comforting.

I didn’t notice Tai'chi was taking glances at me out of concern while I was imagining how I’d smash those jerks’ faces.

************************************

My mind wandered around the interaction by the gates earlier, and how... contradicting... it was when I entered the building.

Everything passed like a blur as I continued daydreaming about other things, hardly paying attention to what everyone else was saying. Plus it takes a lot of concentration to survive their pungent scents.

A bell rang, bringing me back down to Earth. It was lunchtime already.

Everyone seemed relieved as they started filing out of the area and headed towards the cafeteria. [a/n: Ooh that rhymed] I failed to see the lingering glances of barely masked distaste in our direction.

I glanced at the or— Tai'chi, whom I found out was looking at me already, stunning me at how he stared for a moment before I broke eye contact and stood up, which he also did. I almost fell back down my chair when I scented him.

Wha—

How the fuck did I not smell him before?!

I must’ve focused too much on the awful odor surrounding me that it didn’t register this—

This, oh my God.

To describe it, it was simply so— manly (or is it Orcish?). Like the scent of fresh earth and the warmth of a fireplace in the midst of a cold night. Embers crackling and sending sparks up into the sky.

He doesn’t smell one trace of a beast at all! In fact, I’ve never smelled someone so clean, so pleasant, all the while exuding masculinity, and was that a tad hint of vanilla?

For the first time in a while, I couldn’t place what the feeling was exactly. He simply smells so— good. Which is a positive sign?

I looked up to his eyes once more before I blurted out, probably a little too high-pitched;

“Lunch?”

Seriously? That’s what comes out of your damn mouth?

“I mean, do you want to go grab some lunch? At the cafeteria?” I clarified to sound normal and unaffected, (even when I clearly am).

Was the last part necessary? You’ve broken noses, dealt painful blows like a skilled warrior, but you’re embarrassing yourself.

I was busy reprimanding myself that I nearly missed what he said.

"Sure.”

He straightened up, and I was then faced with the reality of how damn tall he is. Or is it because I’m short? I barely reached over 5 feet, and he is standing there, almost three heads taller than me. Was he hunching for my sake earlier?

Wowie…

I scented a hint of pride, and was that a small quirk of his lips for a second there?

Huh. My mask is a lifesaver, or else he would've seen my jaw dropping.

I followed him out and headed straight for the campus’ cafeteria, all the while trying to converse here and there.

****************************

'Trying’ was not the right word.

Definitely not.

It was surprising, how easy and nice it was to talk to him. I could scent his apprehensiveness when I talked to him at first, but he relaxed not long after I introduced myself properly.

It felt... natural.

I learned that he came from the Northside of the country and moved to the city last year to pursue his dreams and to find a better future for his clan. I also told him about my family and home, along with my reasons for being here, leaving out the… violent part.

“My family and my entire clan wanted the best for me and my brothers. Up in the North, education is… very limited. Although ever since we were young, we were taught everything from our clan’s history, how to hunt for food, what herbs and plants were poisonous, what were medicinal and edible, how to stay alive, survive and so on.”

He paused for a moment before continuing.

“But we were cut off from the modern world. Times are changing, fast. Global warming being a major problem, leaving a huge impact on our living. So, when my clan heard about a school in the city, open to all races, they turned to us, the youth, and we took this chance.”

I looked down and thought about how disconnected the others were, only given the freedom to modern society eight years ago. Eight years is a long time, but I guess it’ll take more than that for everyone to get used to the change. That doesn’t mean they should treat them poorly!

As I realized I’ve been quiet for a while, I shot up and apologized for not replying.

“No, it’s okay. You looked like you were in deep thought. I didn’t want to interrupt.”

“Y-yeah… I was—”

“Thinking about how the majority of the human race still see us as beasts?”

There was a bit of spite in his voice, although barely noticeable. Or was it because I caught a whiff of it? No one was paying much attention to us while we were walking. But I noticed many of them hastily stepping aside and felt their glares at my back.

“How did you know?” I asked, curious.

“I could tell from your- I could tell, from the way you frowned earlier when one of those humans said something.”

Oh. He was looking at me that time?

“Frowned? But my mask—”

“It’s easy to tell if you are frowning when your eyebrows scrunch up like that. Believe me, my father does that a lot.”

“Ah. Well. It was just very rude of them. To talk shit about you and your kind like that, as if they were any better. You weren’t even doing anything, and they judge you based on your race. Orcs are civilized and intelligent just like any other, and I don’t understand why there’s still so much prejudice after eight damn years—”

I stopped and restrained the urge to go wild and curse every single human who smelled so foul every time we pass by.

“Sorry. I was...rambling.”

Was I this talkative? Maybe it's because I never had anyone to talk to.

He didn’t reply, which I found strange, so I glanced over at him and saw his eyes wide open and brows shooting up in surprise. It was almost comical.

“Uh, Tai'chi?”

Before he could even utter a word, we arrived at a huge hall where students were chatting and enjoying their lunch. Still, I noticed some humans were giving unkind looks to a gathering of goblins eating at the far left side corner of the cafeteria.

And of course, I didn’t fail to smell that wretched odor coming from a group of girls on my right when we walked in. I also recognized the one who pushed me, (No doubt it was intentional). I had to pinch my nose over my mask just but I could only block out half of it.

Ah shit, this mask doesn’t have proper air filtration.

I groaned as I tried to cut off the noise and thickened scents. For real, I wasn’t expecting it to be this harsh! I could literally smell discrimination and hate in the air!

Fuck. I should’ve worn my other mask. I swear I’m gonna burst if I stay and inhale more of that any longer—

“Pearl, are you okay?”

I groaned again and didn’t reply, busy controlling my sense of smell to even open my mouth. We were standing there like a pair of street posts, blocking a small part of the main entrance. That is if there was a 5ft- tall post. I’m more like that foldable caution sign.

“Pearl—”

“Hey, you there! Freaks! Move out of the way.”

Great. Another awful fucking odor. And what a coincidence! It was the one I smelled this morning!

“Are you deaf? I said—”

He shouldn’t have grabbed my shoulder, shouldn’t have tried to shove me aside, for the second I felt his hand reaching for me, and before Tai'chi could pull me away, my reflexes kicked in.

What did I do exactly? Oh, I simply grabbed that damned arm of his, threw him over my shoulder, and slammed him down on the tiled floor in front of me, finishing a one-arm shoulder throw.

The people in the area halted what they were doing and a short-lived silence came over, broken by whispers.

So much for keeping a low profile.

The guy I just performed basic self-defense on was spitting curse words at me. He was still on the floor, trying not to voice the pain in his back.

“Freak! You’re a monster, aren’t you?! How dare you do this to me. Don't you know who I am?!" he yelled.

Did he mean me or? Either way, what he said was not true.

I tried to calm my anger down and gave him a forced smile, under my mask, and mustered up the voice and tone I always used when I’m annoyed.

But right now, I am pissed.

“Now, dear, fellow, human, what you said was clearly untrue. I am entirely human and this person beside me is an orc. Or were you blinded by your overgrown ego and disgusting attitude to see the obvious in front of you? Surely that must be it. The entrance to the cafeteria is wide enough for two people to not serve as a hindrance to the ones coming in, but still, you chose to try and shove me aside yourself. Well, I won’t apologize but I’ve had enough pushing for one day. And lastly, no, I do not know you and I don’t care.”

I gritted my teeth, my face hurting from smiling forcefully. The cafeteria was quite silent enough all the while and no doubt they heard every word I said.

Fuck.

I twisted around and bolted out of the building.

Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck! I blew it! Fucking blew my chance to have a normal college life! Now everyone will think I’m some crazy person and would, without a doubt, avoid me forever.

I was too busy cursing and walking away, planning to hide in a hole for all eternity that I didn’t feel the presence of someone following me.

Without thinking much of where I was heading, my feet led me to a secluded part of the uni. Tall trees lining up before and around me looking like an entrance to a forest, and so I tried hiding behind one. Hoping that the guards wouldn’t notice and detain me or something.

I sat down between the great roots of an oak tree and rested my head on top of my knees as I took deep breaths and listened.

Nature always had a place in my heart. How could it not? When you can hear the chirps of little birds, the soothing sound of leaves rustled by the wind. And the peace that comes with it all.

Not to mention it smells so relaxing.

“Hello there.”

************************************

Haha! What will Pearl do next I wonder, and who is this person who followed her??

Had to cut it off at that part because my dearest self just loves cliff hangers—

And because I wanted to post something as soon as possible.

Hope you enjoyed! I will be working on the third part asap.

Tags: @kokokatsworld @crackinanutshell

[silverlightqueen]

Filter

‘I can be whatever you want me to be, babe.’

fratboy/jock!Jimin x cheerleader!reader (bc apparently I don’t know how to not write university aus) - e2l, smut, angst, humour, a teensy bit of fluff if you squint

Part of ficswithluv’s Bulletproof Bingo!

Rating: 18 (graphic sex and mature themes)

Word Count: 14.9k+

Warnings - there’s a lot (because this is absolute filth) so please read carefully!  discussion of drugs and consumption of drugs, alcohol consumption, mention of rape, brief mention of murder and violence, brief mention of STDs, extremely bad language, extreme sexual tension (like on another level guys), brief mention of stripping, Jimin is a total dick, a lot of arguing and insulting, y/n has way too much pride for her own good, Jimin is too arrogant for his own good, mention of Namjoon being naked (you’ll understand when you read it), explicit sex, unprotected sex (use protection guys!), hate sex, (really) rough sex, very slight dubcon (she doesn’t explicitly say yes but she does give him consent), dom!Jimin and sub!y/n, y/n is the brattiest bratty stubbornest brattiest brat, very explicit dirty talk, asphyxiation, mention of spitting during sex, marking, y/n does a little striptease, nipple play, finger sucking, cum licking/swallowing, multiple orgasms, orgasm denial, edging, begging, spanking, hair pulling, punishment, pussy slapping, degradation, mild sadism and masochism,  very brief exhibitionism, fingering, oral sex (m receiving) and mention of oral sex (f receiving), face fucking, gagging,  thigh-riding, overstimulation, Jimin has a big fat huge monster cock, teasing, manhandling, slapping during sex, penetrative sex, squirting, cunnilingus, (I’m sure that’s it, but please let me know if you notice that I missed something!)

a/n: hey guys! please enjoy this absolute filth lmao (blame black haired Jimin for being the sexiest person in the world). the biggest thank you to the love of my life @silverlightprincess​ for proof-reading this two nights in a row and hyping it up so much, you’re the best and I love you.  lmk what you think and hmu if you’re interested in a part two x

silverlightqueen masterlist

‘Please come with me. I can’t go by myself,’ I whine at Jennie who sits on her bed, watching me in amusement like she’s watching a film or TV show. 

‘Nope, and I already told you why; I don’t want to see him, not after what happened,’ she says, and I roll my eyes as I order an Uber. ‘So you’re really gonna make me go by myself? What if I get drugged, or beaten up, or raped, or murdered, or-’ ‘y/n!’ she exclaims reproachfully, and I shrug, ‘it could happen.’ ‘Well, it won’t. Loads of our friends are there. Wendy and Irene and Seulgi, Yeri and Joy, loads of people,’ she lists off. ‘Yeah, and they’ll be there, too,’ I sigh. ‘Well, I mean, it is at their house,’ she says, holding back a laugh, and I stick my tongue out at her.

‘You know what I mean. I hate them – jocks are so unbearable. It’d be better if you were there,’ I say, pouting. ‘You’re a liar, you don’t hate them. Just him,’ she points out. ‘Well, what if he tries something? He’s so strong, he could literally lift a car if he wanted to-’ ‘Bit of an exaggeration, don’t you think?’ she says, and I roll my eyes again. ‘You know what I mean. The point still stands that he’s strong – you’re the one that saw him at the gym lifting more than your body weight. And remember when he knocked one of the players on their opposing team to the floor in that match last year, and he was literally twice his size. If that guy couldn’t take him on, how can I?’ ‘And you think I can? I’m smaller than you, you idiot.’ ‘But you’re scary.’ ‘You’re scarier than me,’ she says mildly, and I sigh. ‘Please, Jen. It’s not even that big of a deal, what happened. If anything, it’s more embarrassing for him than for you,’ I say, trying so hard to persuade her. ‘It is a big deal. It only happened yesterday – I at least need to give it a couple days before I can face him again.’ ‘Fine, I’ll go by myself. If I’m not home in the morning, it’s on your head,’ I say dramatically, pulling on my heels.

‘Don’t be like that,’ she reprimands before launching into a speech, ‘you look absolutely gorgeous and the boys will be all over you, so don’t do anything I wouldn’t do, and if you do, please use a condom. I don’t need you bringing an STD back with you. If there’s an emergency, or you need me to pick you up, call me. Make sure you keep me updated on what’s going on. Don’t drink anything anyone gives you – pour your own drinks. Make sure you’re always with one of the girls.’ ‘Okay, okay! I’ll see you later, mum!’ I exclaim, and she laughs, pulling me into a hug. ‘Be careful, y/n,’ she says gently, and I nod. ‘When am I not, Jen?’ I say, and she raises an eyebrow. I leave our dorm and head down the corridor, opting to take the lift instead of the stairs – these heels aren’t that high, but I don’t want to take any risks.

My Uber’s already there by the time I get outside, so I jump straight in. The journey there is short (not short enough to walk in heels, though) and within five minutes, we’re pulling up in front of the house. I climb out, the driver instantly zooming away, and I look up at the house in front of me. It’s much bigger than and further away from the rest of the houses on the street, and it has its own little pier out onto the university lake, perfect for drunken skinny-dippers at the end of the night. I head up to the porch, the Greek letters for Alpha Sigma Phi hanging above my head, and push through the slightly open door. The party is already in full swing, loud bass-heavy RnB pulsing through the house, people already drunk and dancing, the smell of drugs thick in the air. I push through the throng of my classmates into the kitchen where I know my friends will be. The lowered volume in the kitchen is brief; only the moment before my friends notice me is quiet. ‘y/n!’ they all shout, and I jump in surprise. ‘y/n, you made it!’ Wendy shrieks, throwing her arms around me. ‘Of course, I wouldn’t have missed it,’ I say, hugging her back. ‘y/n, you look good!’ Yeri exclaims, holding me out for her to admire. ‘Thank you, Yeri, but look at you! Absolutely gorg!’ I don’t get to hear her reply before the rest of my friends greet me, all of them dressed up and drinking. ‘Let me get you a drink. What do you want?’ Irene asks me, and I scrunch up my face in thought. ‘I’ll just have Diet Coke for now – I don’t want any alcohol,’ I say, and I feel a hand appear on my waist. ‘Lightweight,’ I hear his teasing voice, and I can’t stop the big sigh I let out, accompanied by my signature eye roll.

‘Where are your pom-poms today?’ he asks, and I turn to look at him, the smell of vodka strong on him. ‘I was wondering how long I’d have without you bothering me,’ I say, fixing him with a dirty look. I’ve always thought of him as tiny, but he really isn’t – I have to tilt my head back slightly to look at his annoying face because of how close to me he is (he most definitely has lifts in his shoes). And it’s not just his face, that’s annoying, let me tell you that. It’s everything about him. And shall I tell you why? Because it’s all perfect. Everything about him, physically, is infuriatingly perfect. His legs are long and toned, his waist cinched and his frame slim, with vascular hands adorned in silver rings, matching with the silver earrings hanging from his ears and the silver Chanel necklace around his neck (how he can afford Chanel jewellery whilst at university, I don’t know). His lips are plump and glossy, like a Bratz doll, and his eyes are a deep chocolaty brown, framed with dark lashes. His jaw is sharp, his cheeks chubby, and his black hair is soft and fluffy, swept back to reveal the tan skin of his forehead and dark, bold eyebrows. Long story short, he’s beautiful, on the outside. The inside is a whole other story.

‘Bothering you? More like gracing you with my presence. Remember, this is my party, and there are plenty of other, more… willing girls I could be spending my time with, but I chose you. You should be honoured,’ he says with a grin, and I scowl at him. ‘Honoured?’ I echo as Irene hands me a red solo cup with the Coke in it, ‘it’s not your party. It’s Alpha Sigma Phi’s party.’ ‘And what does everyone think of when they think of ASP? This handsome face and the perfect dick that comes with it,’ he says, preening, and I roll my eyes again. ‘Can you not be so annoying and full of yourself all the time?’ ‘I can be whatever you want me to be, babe,’ he says lowly, thumb swiping across his plump lips, and I blink, heart jumping which pisses me off – my own body betrays me when I’m with him. ‘Well, whatever. I don’t think of you when I think of ASP. I think of a bunch of douches,’ I shrug, changing the subject back, and he grins even wider, obviously amused that he managed to make me flustered. ‘Now, now. Is that any way to speak about your friends? I’m sure the other boys would be offended to hear you speak about them like that,’ he says, plucking the cup from my hand and taking a sip. ‘Well, let me correct myself. You’re the douche,’ I say tiredly, and he grins. ‘You won’t be saying that for long. You’ll be eating your words when you feel how good my cock is,’ he forebodes, handing me back my cup, completely empty. ‘I don’t think I’ll be able to feel anything,’ I mutter, throwing away the cup, and he chuckles. ‘Oh, y/n, you do amuse me,’ he grins. ‘Oh, Park, the feeling is most definitely not mutual,’ I say in a bright tone, a fake smile plastered on my face. ‘Good talk, y/n, I’ll see you later,’ he says distractedly as he moves away from me, watching a sophomore that’s just walked in with her friends, wearing a skimpy dress. She’s pretty and looks nice, but I can’t help but dislike her instantly, surprised at myself for being so bitchy.

‘Who are you shooting lasers at?’ Joy asks. ‘Park Jimin,’ I spit out, turning my dirty looks to him instead. Or rather, his back, as he’s now facing away from me, speaking to the sophomore. ‘Cradle robber,’ Joy observes, and I laugh. ‘I wouldn’t quite say cradle robber – we’re only a year older than her,’ I point out, and Joy waves my words away. ‘Still. Anyway, are you drinking?’ she asks. ‘Well, I did have a drink, but he took it and downed it,’ I say, motioning to Jimin who’s now got a hand on the girl’s arm. She looks up at him with a sweet smile, her eyes wide and big, and I almost want to go over and warn her away, knowing he’s just looking for someone to fill his bed for the night. ‘Well, Seulgi brought Malibu, and I know you like it, so here,’ she says, pushing an unopened bottle into my hand and disappearing back into the throng of people. ‘Thanks,’ I say to the spot where she was just stood, plucking a clean cup from the packet, pouring out some of the rum and mixing it with coke (an unopened bottle – I’m no rookie). I also find some straws and pick out a pink one, dropping it into the cup. Just as I begin to take a sip, a pair of big hands clap down onto my shoulders, making me jump and I choke on my drink.

‘Oh, shit, sorry. You okay, y/n?’ I hear Namjoon’s voice as I cough again and again. ‘Do I look okay?’ I ask once I’ve stopped choking, my eyes beginning to water and my face warm. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to,’ he says reproachfully, holding back laughter. ‘Idiot,’ I mutter, taking a seat on one of the stools around the kitchen island (these trashy dirty frat boys don’t deserve such a nice house). ‘Sorry. Anyways, how are you?’ ‘I was fine before you tried to kill me. What about you?’ ‘Um, good, yeah. I saw you speaking to Jimin,’ he says, triggering an eye roll. ‘He’s such a pain in the ass. I’m gonna file a restraining order.’ ‘Go for it, I’ll file one too. So, you, um… did you come by yourself?’ he asks, rubbing at the back of his neck, and I raise an eyebrow. ‘Don’t be a pussy – say it with your chest,’ I say in a bored tone, and he sighs. ‘Did Jennie come with you?’ he asks quietly. ‘No, she wasn’t feeling too well, so she stayed back at our apartment,’ I grin, and he puts a hand to his forehead. ‘She’s avoiding me, isn’t she? Urgh, I’m such an idiot.’ ‘I can’t argue with you there,’ I reply, and he scowls at me. ‘Sorry. But, it’s true, you are an idiot. I mean, what on earth were you thinking?’ I say, failing to hold back my laughter. ‘I didn’t know that she would be out there. If I’d known…’ he trails off. ‘You wouldn’t have run across the pitch butt naked?’ I ask, and he slaps a hand over my mouth, looking around to see if anyone heard. ‘Keep your voice down! I don’t want people knowing. I lost a bet, and I did it at night-time so no one would see. How was I supposed to know she’d be out there?’ he says defensively, and I shake my head at him in disgust. ‘You’re a mess. And, anyway, yes, of course she’s avoiding you. How can she look you in the face again properly having seen you completely naked?’ I say, struggling to hold back laughter as I think back to Jennie’s face when she walked into our apartment after going somewhere quiet to speak on the phone to her sister, Rose – there was a party going on in the apartment next door, so she went on a walk, conveniently running into (a naked) Namjoon. ‘Oh, go suck Jimin’s dick,’ he says half-heartedly. ‘Go flash Jennie again,’ I retort, and he flips me off before disappearing.

I stay in the kitchen the majority of the night, catching up with all my friends. It’s been a while since I had a chance to socialise; settling back into the Uni schedule after a long summer is tough, especially when you have an entire cheer team to lead. And cheering isn’t easy! People think we just run around in skimpy outfits, chanting and waving pom-poms, but there is so much more to it than that – I’d go as far to say that cheer is one of the hardest sports you can do. I spend so much of my time choreographing and working out to keep fit and planning routines and deciding positions for the team. It requires a lot of dedication and time to get everything done before the season starts. But obviously, a lot of my peers don’t have to dedicate their time to things like that and are used to partying, opting to get black out drunk at these frat parties instead of socialising with their friends. Only three hours after my arrival, there are people passed out all over the place, bedrooms occupied, and drunken students dirty dancing in the living room. Sat in the same stool as three hours ago, I watch Yeri flirt with a senior, feeling proud of my girl. She catches me watching and I put my thumbs up to her, giving her a big encouraging smile, and she quickly looks away for fear of laughing out loud.

‘Ah, y/n. Alone?’ I hear Jimin’s voice from behind me before he takes the seat beside me. ‘Yes, and I was enjoying it,’ I say pointedly, despite knowing he won’t go. ‘How have you been? Still dancing away?’ he asks with a grin, and I roll my eyes. ‘Cheer isn’t the same as dance.’ ‘I’ve seen you on the side-lines while we’re playing – sure looks like dance to me.’ ‘And anyway, why do you have to say it like that? I’m not a stripper,’ I say exasperatedly, completely ignoring his stupid interjection. ‘What’s wrong with being a stripper?’ ‘Nothing, I consider it at least nine times a day.’ ‘Let me know if you decide to pursue that as your career – I’d be more than happy to support you. Maybe even join you if football doesn’t work out for me.’ ‘Oh, I don’t doubt you’d support me, you pervert.’ ‘Now, you know that’s not true. I only flirt with girls that want me back. If they don’t, I leave them alone.’ ‘So why don’t you leave me alone?’ ‘Because it’s clear to me that you enjoy my flirting. You might act like you don’t, but not once have you ever explicitly told me to stop, or to go away,’ he says, and I struggle for a comeback, knowing it’s true. He might be a total dick and I might hate him, but the flirting and the attention, it makes me feel good. It’s a nice feeling, knowing that a boy who could have anyone… wants me. ‘See?’ he points out with a smirk, and I roll my eyes as he takes a sip of the vodka in his hand. ‘You need to deflate your ego a little.’ ‘You need to pull that stick out your arse.’ ‘It’s stuck up there, with your head.’ ‘Touché,’ he laughs, and I shake my head.

‘So, as I was asking before we got side-tracked, how have you been? How are you finding junior year?’ he asks, and I raise an eyebrow. ‘Why do you care, Park?’ I ask, and he grins. ‘Why wouldn’t I care?’ ‘Because we don’t like each other.’ ‘I like you,’ he smirks, head resting on his hand, arm leaning on the countertop. ‘No, you don’t, and I sure as hell don’t like you.’ ‘Why do you keep lying to me, and to yourself, y/n?’ ‘I’m not lying. Just because you’re attracted to someone, it doesn’t mean you like them,’ I say, regretting the words as soon as I see the mischievous light in his eyes. ‘You’re attracted to me?’ ‘That’s not what I said.’ ‘It pretty much is, y/n. But it’s okay, I knew that already. It’s just nice to hear it out loud. Well, I hope that’s what you were referring to, and not to me being attracted to you, because that certainly isn’t true,’ he says, my body going cold at hearing his words as my jaw drops. I turn to look at him, a shit-eating grin on his face, and I want to slap it off.

‘You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,’ I say, and he just gives me an infuriating grin. Now, let me make something clear. Park Jimin isn’t that bad. Annoying, flirty, egotistic? Yes, exactly, and everyone loves him for being the star player on the team, which makes it worse. But I can deal with him. He’s not really… the bane of my existence, or anything like that. But he is the most irritating person I’ve ever met. He’s like a chipped nail on a fresh set, or a bird chirping outside your window at 4am when you have an exam. But this? This is on another level. How, how on earth, has he managed to turn the tables onto me like this? ‘What d’you mean?’ ‘What do I me- I mean that you flirt with me every opportunity you get!’ I say, voice getting a little louder with annoyance, and he raises an eyebrow, still looking annoyingly laidback, his smirk and my anger growing at the same rate. ‘So what?’ ‘So… if you’re flirting with me that often, you’re attracted to me. You’ve made it clear you’re attracted to me,’ I say slowly, starting to wonder if I’m missing something, and his grin grows impossibly wider. ‘Just a bit of fun, isn’t it? Doesn’t mean anything,’ he says with a little shrug, and I try to hide the way his words hurt.

‘Fine. Go have a bit of fun with someone else, then,’ I say savagely, facing away from him and crossing my arms over my chest, and yet, he seems nothing but amused. ‘Don’t be like that, babe,’ he says easily, reaching for me, and I slap his hands away, ignoring the pet name. ‘No, leave me alone,’ I say sulkily, and he raises an eyebrow at me as he rests a hand on my thigh, lips twitching when I don’t brush it off. ‘Come on, baby, I was just kidding,’ he smiles serenely, and I turn a scowl to him. ‘Well, I didn’t find it funny, so go find some other girls who will,’ I spit at him, and he’s holding back a laugh, which infuriates me even more. ‘But those girls are boring. You aren’t. So stop being bratty,’ he says, and my mouth falls open slightly, my eyes fixed on his stupidly handsome face. ‘Bratty? I’m being bratty?’ I demand, and he nods, lips slightly quirked up at the ends with amusement. ‘Yes, angel, you are.’ ‘Well… you’re being a dick.’ ‘Real mature,’ he says with a roll of his eyes, and I scowl. ‘Says you, you fucking manchild.’ ‘Wow, you really are a brat. I’ve apologised, like, twice. Get over it and stop being so stubborn.’ ‘I’m not being stubborn! ‘You are.’ ‘Am not.’ ‘Are too.’

‘Wow, you two are children,’ Jungkook’s voice comes from beside us, and we both turn to look at him. ‘How long have you been there?’ Jimin asks moodily, and Jungkook grins, dropping me a wink. ‘Long enough to see that you two need to stop fucking around and… fuck,’ Jungkook says, and I scrunch up my nose in disgust, leaning away from Jimin. ‘Don’t ever say that again. I hate him,’ I spit out, putting emphasis on the word so he understands that I truly mean it, and he rolls his eyes again, taking a sip of his drink. ‘You don’t have to love each other. Hell, you don’t even have to like each other,’ Jin’s voice comes from behind me, and I turn to him with a hard stare. ‘Seriously? Who fucks someone they don’t like?’ I say, both Jungkook and Jin laughing. ‘Lots of people, actually. Honestly, y/n, I promise you, it’s better when you don’t like each other. No strings attached, no obligations afterwards, and you don’t have to think about whether it feels good for them,’ Jungkook explains, and now my entire face is scrunched up in disgust. ‘That’s the worst thing I’ve ever heard anyone say. You men are disgusting,’ I say, giving Jimin a pointed look, and he gasps. ‘Don’t look at me! I’ve never done that!’ Jimin exclaims defensively, and I raise an eyebrow. ‘Yeah, right.’ ‘He’s telling the truth,’ Jin says, and I turn my raised eyebrows to him. ‘Sure.’ ‘No, seriously, he never has. Everyone Jimin fucks adores him, so he’s never known the joy that is hate sex,’ Jungkook says, he and Jin laughing as I give them a disgusted look, Jimin suspiciously silent. ‘Jin, Jungkook, Jimin, come dance with us,’ a high-pitched female voice calls from the living room, all four of us looking to see a group of skimpily dressed freshmen beckoning the boys over. Jin and Jungkook waste no time, practically leaving us in their dust as they rush to join the girls.

I look to Jimin, who hasn’t moved a muscle, still with a stormy expression on his face. ‘Well? Go dance with them,’ I prompt, and his features smooth out before a small smirk curls his lips up. ‘I’d rather stay here, babe, with you,’ he says, and I grit my teeth, trying not to swing for him. ‘You didn’t hesitate to leave me earlier for that sophomore,’ I say despite myself, knowing I sound petty, and he chuckles. ‘Jealous, baby?’ he asks, and I let out a sigh, having had enough. ‘If you’re not going to go, I’ll go,’ I sigh tiredly, getting up from my stool, and heading towards the living room. He grabs my hand as I pass him, turning me around to face him, and I want to pull my hand out of his grasp, but the second I turn to see those big brown eyes on me, I freeze. And I hate it. How can he be such a dick to me all the time, so flirty but then so cold, and I forgive him every time because he’s handsome? How? ‘What do you want me to say, y/n? That you’re prettier, way prettier than the sophomore girl, and those drunk freshmen dancing in the living room? That you’re prettier than every girl in this damn house? Is that what you want?’ he asks, actually sounding sincere for once, and my heart jumps at the compliment. I hate it. I hate him.

‘No. I want you to leave me alone,’ I spit, wrenching my arm from his grasp, and he lets out an amused chuckle. ‘Good, because I hate lying,’ he says with an easy grin, and that little voice in my mind just says, ‘oh’ as I stop still. ‘You know what? Fuck you,’ I whisper, feeling tears in my eyes as I turn away from him, ready to go home. ‘You should be more polite, angel,’ he calls after me, and I can’t help myself, turning to look at him. ‘What?’ ‘I said,’ he replies, getting up from his stool before downing his vodka (I hope it’s mixed with something because he doesn’t wince at all), making me wait until he says, ‘you should be more polite. A request like that? You could at least say please.’ My blood boils, anger actually consuming me as all I can see is red, and that stupid fucking smirk on his stupid fucking face. ‘You’re such a fucking dick, Park. I don’t know who the fuck you think you are,’ I rage, stepping closer to him, and he just carries on grinning at me. ‘Go on, babe,’ he says when I’m silent for a moment, jutting his chin out to prompt me, and I want to actually slam his head into the wall. ‘Just fuck off. I can’t deal with you right now, go find someone who adores you so you can stick your tiny dick down her throat,’ I spit at him, his face twisting with anger at me using his friends’ words against him (or at calling his dick tiny – I’m not sure which), and I stomp towards the back door.

I push open the door, storming through and narrowly avoiding colliding with a group of boys passing around a joint. ‘Oh, hey, y/n!’ Taehyung exclaims when he sees me, a big grin on his face. ‘Hi, Tae,’ I say quickly before rushing up towards the road, pulling my phone out of my pocket to order an Uber. ‘You’re leaving?’ I hear Jimin call after me, and I let out a scream of rage, whirling around to face him. ‘How many times do I have to tell you to leave me the fuck alone?’ I shriek, the few people outside watching us with interest, Jimin marching up towards me. ‘No, you don’t get to say your piece and leave,’ he spits out, jaw clenched in anger, and I look skywards, throwing my hands up in despair. ‘Say what you want to say, then. Go on,’ I prompt, voice shaking with anger.

‘You’re such an uptight little bitch, y/n. You fucking mope around in the kitchen at parties, don’t touch the drugs and barely drink, thinking you’re so high and mighty and above the rest of us. You can’t even take a fucking joke and you turn it into something serious by fucking insulting me!’ he shouts, and I’m a little shocked and a lot hurt, the people around letting out little noises of embarrassment on my behalf. ‘Are you kidding me? Just because I don’t turn into a messy fucking disgrace at parties, doesn’t mean I’m uptight!’ I shout back, taking a step towards him, and he lets out a humourless laugh. ‘See? There you go again! It’s called having fun, y/n, you should fucking try it some time!’ ‘I have fun, you dick!’ ‘Yeah, okay, sure you do. You were sat by yourself at a party. Do you know how sad that is? And me, being the nice guy I am, come to sit with you to talk, and you’re just fucking rude to me!’ ‘Nice guy? You have to be joking! You’re not a nice guy, and you never have been! You’re entitled and egotistic and can’t keep your dick in your pants! You can’t take a hint, and even when I tell you explicitly to leave me alone, you don’t!’ I shout, both of us moving closer and closer to one another. ‘I’m trying to be nice, for fuck’s sake! I don’t understand why you tell me to leave you alone!’ ‘I don’t understand why it is so hard for you to accept the fact that I. Don’t. Like. You,’ I say in his face, emphasising every word, hoping he finally gets the message.

‘You fucking liar,’ he says lowly, taking another step closer to me, centimetres apart from me. ‘Excuse me?’ ‘I said that you’re a liar. You do like me,’ he says, eyes dark as he looks at me, and I scoff, trying to ignore how tense I am now that he’s this close to me. ‘I promise you, I really fucking don’t,’ I laugh, our voices much quieter now, everyone around us still watching the exchange, straining to hear our words. They must be confused to see a girl not falling at the feet of great Park Jimin for once. ‘Stop lying, for once, y/n! Discard your pride, for fuck’s sake! You think I’m stupid?’ he asks, getting even closer to me, so close that his chest brushes against mine, my skin igniting at the touch, and I curse my body for betraying me. ‘You think I don’t see you literally fighting the smile off your face when I compliment you? You think I don’t feel the way you shudder when I touch you? You think I don’t notice how you lean towards me when we’re sat together? You think I don’t see the way your breath catches in your throat when I talk about the things I’d do to you? And it’s sexy, it’s really fucking sexy, and it’s so fucking hot when you play hard to get,’ he whispers, his tone harsh but his words making my entire body feel like it’s on fire because, yes, I fucking hate him, but God, he’s hot as hell. And then he makes me want to strangle him by saying, ‘but you ruin it by being so fucking uptight and taking a stupid little joke to heart.’

I let out a disappointed sigh, opening up the Uber app on my phone. ‘y/n. What the fuck are you doing?’ he asks, an edge to his tone, and I ignore him completely. ‘Are you ordering a fucking Uber?’ he demands, sounding incredulous, and I continue to ignore him, knowing it’ll piss him off even more. ‘I’m trying to fucking speak to you and you’re ordering an Uber? Can you stop being so fucking immature and, like… talk to me? Put down your fucking phone, y/n,’ he says slowly, and I can practically sense how he’s trying so hard to keep a hold of his temper – I can see him clenching and unclenching his fists, the vessels in his hands more visible than ever. And then he snatches my phone out of my hands. ‘Wha-’ I start to say, looking up at him, but I’m startled into silence when my eyes meet his. I’m good at riling him up from time to time, but I have never seen him this angry, not even when he’s playing football. His eyes are dark, cheeks flushed with rage, jaw and fists clenched so tight that I’m worried he might shatter a bone, and I actually feel scared. ‘Give me my phone back, Park,’ I say tiredly, and he lets out a mirthless laugh before turning away from me and heading back towards the house, tucking my phone into the back pocket of his tight black jeans.

‘For fuck’s sake,’ I say before following him – I’ve got too much pride to run after him, especially in heels because my clumsy ass will fall over. ‘Park, I swear to God,’ I call after him, the onlookers laughing. I’m glad they find it funny – I’m just tired, fed up and I want nothing more than to go to bed. He disappears into the house, and I speed up a little, knowing if I lose him, it could take ages to find him in that huge ass house, packed full of people. ‘y/n, babe, wait,’ I hear Yoongi say as I pass their group again, feeling him grab onto my hand. ‘Yoongi, not now. He’s got my phone.’ ‘I know. He told us to distract you,’ Yoongi admits, and I let out a noise of frustration as I pull my hand from his grasp, rushing into the house before another of them can grab me, narrowly escaping Tae’s reach. I see him disappearing into the living room, and rush through the kitchen, pushing through the few people stood around the counters, but I freeze when I reach the living room door. A load of ASP boys are lining up coke on the coffee table with their credit cards, Eric Nam who lives in our accommodation block is passed out at my feet, and a group of girls from the sorority up the road are grinding on each other in the middle of the room, Jungkook in the thick of the throng with his hands on Nayeon’s waist. My eyes scan the room, and I spot jet black hair disappearing into the front hall. I seriously consider just leaving my phone and getting Namjoon to call me an Uber, but my passcode is basic as hell (123456) and I don’t need Jimin snooping around my socials. Or worse – my camera roll.

I step over Eric, narrowly avoiding Momo’s hands stretched out to grab me and dance with me, and sidestep the table covered in coke, bursting into the front hallway where Seulgi stands with Kai, one of the spotters on our cheer team. ‘Hey, babe!’ Seulgi exclaims when she sees me, and I grin at her, momentarily distracted from Jimin. ‘Hey, Seulgi. Hi, Kai. Have you guys seen Jimin?’ I ask, both of them looking at me in confusion. ‘Park Jimin?’ Kai asks, and I nod, a little impatient. ‘He just went upstairs. Why?’ Seulgi asks as I begin to run up the stairs. ‘He stole my phone,’ I shout over my shoulder, ignoring Kai’s shout of, ‘Use protection!’ At the top of the stairs, more of my friends are sat in a circle on the landing, handing a bottle of vodka around. ‘Hey, y/n,’ Mina says when she spots me, the others all greeting me too. ‘Hi, guys. You seen Park Jimin?’ I ask, all of them exchanging a glance. ‘You two about to resolve the sexual tension?’ Dahyun asks with a wiggle of her eyebrows, and I roll my eyes. ‘No, he’s got my phone.’ ‘Ooh, worried he’ll find your nudes?’ Jackson asks with a smirk, and I fix him with a hard stare. ‘He’ll never guess the passcode for ‘My Eyes Only’ so I’m not worried,’ I say evenly, and I have to hold back a laugh when the boys all exchange a glance. ‘Anyway, did you see where he went?’ I ask, getting even more impatient now. ‘He went upstairs – his room’s up there. Second door on the left,’ Jeongyeon says, everyone’s eyes turning to her now. ‘How do you know?’ Jinyoung demands, and I take the moment of them being distracted to sprint up the stairs. With every step, I feel the anger inside me grow, all of the times he’s pissed me off over the past couple years building up within me. I hate him, really fucking hate him, and this is just the last fucking straw.

When I reach his room, I don’t even bother knocking, bursting in. And when my brain registers that he’s lying on his bed, with the pretty sophomore from earlier on top of him, all I can see is red, my hands shaking with fury. She looks up at me in surprise, Jimin completely ignoring my presence and continuing to press kisses to her jaw. ‘I swear to fucking God, Park, I’m going to murder you,’ I say slowly, voice wavering with anger, and the girl has enough sense to get off him. ‘I’m really sorry, I didn’t know he was in a relationship,’ she says, sounding truly apologetic, and I feel bad for her. ‘He’s not. You’re welcome to get back to your thing in a minute – I just want my phone,’ I demand, eyes flitting to the bed where he’s leaning back on his elbows, watching our exchange with amusement. None of us say anything for a few moments, the poor girl caught in between mine and Jimin’s feud.

‘I’m being serious, Park. Give me my fucking phone before I cut your dick off,’ I threaten, knowing I’d make good of it too, but he doesn’t move a muscle, just watching me with eyes sparkling with mirth. ‘You know what? I’m gonna leave you guys to resolve whatever the hell this is,’ the girl says, heading to the door. ‘I’m so sorry,’ I say, truly feeling bad, and she turns back to look at me, stood in the doorway. ‘Don’t be. I think you’ve helped me dodge a bullet. If anything, I’m sorry for you, being involved with him,’ she says quietly, making me laugh, and she laughs too. She really is a nice girl. ‘Thank you. I’ll see you around. I’m y/n, by the way,’ I say, and she nods. ‘I know. I’ve been thinking of trying out for cheer, and everyone I’ve spoken to said to go to you,’ she says, and I let out a little noise of excitement. ‘Oh, my God, you should! You look like you’d be a good flier, and we’re running short of fliers at the moment!’ I exclaim, completely distracted, and she grins. ‘I used to fly at high school, so I’d definitely like to give it a go.’ ‘That’s great. Try-outs are next Saturday, at 12, and I’ll keep an eye out for you. What’s your name?’ ‘Park Jiwon. Do I have to sign up or anything?’ ‘Well, you missed sign-ups, but I’ll put your name down. Just show up,’ I say with a grin, and she smiles back. ‘Thank you, y/n. I’ll see you on Saturday.’ ‘See you, Jiwon,’ I smile, the girl heading towards the stairs with a wave.

When I turn back to look at Jimin, he’s right there in front of me. He pushes the door shut and then slams me up against it, knocking the air out of me before pulling my shoulder bag off my arm and throwing it across the room, the chain strap making a loud clanking noise when it hits the wall. He’s so close that all I can smell is him – the vodka he’s been drinking, his expensive aftershave and… something that’s just him. ‘You’re so fucking hot when you’re jealous, and angry with me. Love getting you all worked up, baby,’ he spits out, voice so low it sounds like a growl, and I’m speechless, literally speechless, his words igniting a fire low in my stomach. ‘You had plenty to say earlier, babe – why so quiet now?’ he asks, eyes dancing with amusement, and I look to the side, unable to hold his heavy gaze. ‘Don’t even think of turning your head away,’ he spits out, my stomach turning when he raises a hand to my chin, moving my head back to face him so my eyes can’t escape his. He holds my head in place, and the feeling of his hand resting loosely around my neck sparks arousal deep within me, my mouth drying. But I have too much pride to submit to him. ‘Give me my phone,’ I demand, and he lets out a chuckle, dark eyes not leaving mine. ‘I don’t know about that, angel. What will you do for me in return?’ he asks, pressing his body against mine so I’m trapped up against the door, and my eyes widen. ‘Nothing. It’s my phone,’ I say slowly, unable to believe how entitled he is. ‘It’s mine now,’ he grins, my mouth falling open. ‘Close your mouth before I spit in it, baby,’ he says, my mouth falling open even more in shock, stomach churning, arousal burning hot in my veins. ‘Don’t tempt me,’ he growls, pushing my mouth closed.

‘Get on your knees for me and I’ll consider giving you your phone back,’ he grins, and I can’t even say anything because he’s holding my mouth closed. ‘Is that a yes?’ he asks teasingly, and I make a noise of frustration, looking down at his hand to try and get him to move it. With a sigh, he removes his hand, and I snap, ‘get your hand off my neck, and give me my fucking phone, Park.’ ‘I always thought you’d be into choking. You seem like a dirty little slut,’ he grins, hand still not moving, my underwear flooding at his words. ‘I swear, Park, I will fucking kill you.’ ‘So you really, truly want me to let go of you? You really want to just get your phone and go?’ he asks, words dripping with amusement, testing me. And I can’t, I just can’t discard my pride – it’s too painful for me to concede to him. ‘Yes,’ I spit out, and his face twists with anger.

‘What is wrong with you, y/n? Why can’t you just fucking let go of your pride for once? I know you want me, I’m not fucking stupid! We’re both attracted to each other so why can’t you just stop fucking around and let me fuck you? I’m not going to do anything without your fucking consent, y/n, I’m not a fucking rapist! Why are you making this so fucking hard for me?’ he demands, rage making his voice shake, and I don’t know what to say. ‘I…’ ‘You what? Go on, fucking speak,’ he prompts, jaw working overtime as he waits for me to answer, hand still resting around my neck, his silver rings cool against my burning hot skin. ‘I do like choking,’ I breathe out, giving the only form of consent to him that my pride will allow, his face blank for a moment. ‘What?’ ‘I said… I do like choking,’ I whisper, his eyes lighting up slightly. I hold a finger up against his lips to stop him explicitly asking, hoping he’ll understand from my gaze. ‘Sure?’ he asks, plump lips moving against my finger, my heart warming at him double checking, and I nod. ‘I’m sure,’ I whisper back, and that’s all he needs to hear.

His hand tightens at my neck as he leans down, lips landing on mine. He kisses me, harshly, forcefully, his tongue sliding into my mouth within moments, turning my mind to slush and emptying my head of any thoughts other than how good he is at kissing. His free hand grips my waist, bruisingly tight, as my hands run through his hair, the soft and fluffy black locks tangling between my fingers, and he tastes like the citrusy vodka he was drinking, with the sweet undertone of my coke (the soft drink – not the drug). ‘On your knees,’ he growls, and I laugh against his lips. ‘No.’ ‘No?’ he asks, sounding amused. ‘No.’ He breaks away from me, looking down at me, heavy breaths escaping through his swollen lips. ‘Wanna say that again, babe?’ he asks, his gaze intimidating, but I don’t let myself break. ‘I said ‘no’. I’m not getting on my knees,’ I say forcefully, matching his serious stare with one of my own, and he lets out a little chuckle. Hand still around my neck, he grabs my arm with his free hand and pushes me towards the middle of the room before letting go of me and sitting at the edge of the bed he was lying on a few minutes ago, another bed on the other side of the room empty. ‘Strip,’ he commands, and I cross my arms over my chest, raising an eyebrow. ‘I swear to God, y/n, do not fucking test me. Take off your fucking clothes,’ he spits out, the rage from earlier reappearing, and I decide to follow his instructions, but have a little fun while I do so.

I grin at him before I slide my hands across my torso, slipping my fingers beneath my top and pulling it up over my head, slowly as I possibly can, leaving me in just my black lace bralet (my top was too thin to wear a padded bra). Once it’s off, I throw it to him, and he deflects it with a quick hand, just about stopping it from hitting his face. He sends me a hard glare (though I can see that he’s trying to hold back a laugh behind it) but it disappears the second I flick open the button of my jeans, pulling down the zip too, his gaze darkening. He’s so intimidating that I can’t help but feel self-conscious at undressing in front of him, but then I spot the growing bulge in his jeans, and it makes me feel a little better. I turn away from him, kicking off my heels, pushing my jeans down my legs and bending over to give him a view of my ass, covered by my black lace pants, and I know there’s probably a slightly darker patch between my legs. I straighten up again, stepping out of the denim pooled at my feet, and turn back to face him. He runs a hand through his hair, a smirk on his lips as he beckons me over with the curl of a finger. I step towards him and he reaches out, grabbing me by one wrist and pulling me onto his lap. He tilts his head back to kiss me again, my fingers tangling into his hair and nails scraping against his scalp as he digs his hands into my back, our bodies pressed together almost painfully. He pulls my bottom lip between his teeth before laving his tongue over the sore skin, making me let out a whimper against his mouth.

‘Feels good?’ he asks cockily, and I want nothing more than to take him down a peg, so I ignore him, just continuing to kiss him. ‘I asked you if it felt good,’ he says against my lips, hand reaching behind me to gather up my hair and pull my head back, exposing my neck to him. ‘And I ignored you,’ I reply, voice shaky, as he kisses up and down my neck, pulling the skin beneath my jaw between his teeth, marking me. ‘Petty… stubborn… uptight… bratty… little bitch,’ he says between marking my neck and skin around my collarbones, shaky breaths and little whines falling from between my lips every few seconds at the feeling of his tongue laving over the bruises caused by his perfect teeth and plump lips. ‘I’ll break you, y/n. You’ll be begging for my cock by the time I’m done with you,’ he says, lips curled into a smirk against my skin, and I let out a laugh. I lean down, my lips against his ear, and whisper, ‘less likely than you scoring a goal in the first match of the season. Which we all know is very unlikely.’ He scoffs, lifting me up and putting me down over his lap, my ass sticking up the air.

‘Safe word?’ he growls, sounding almost reluctant, and I feel a thrill at the thought that he’s planning on doing enough to me that I might need a safe word. I think for a moment, and his grip on my thigh tightens before he spits out, ‘hurry up.’ ‘How about… small dick?’ I ask, biting my lip to hold back laughter (I really do find myself funny), but my amusement quickly disappears when his hand delivers a solid slap to my raised ass, making me let out a small squeal of pain, and I look back at him with a glare. ‘Small dick it is,’ he says cheerfully with a grin at me before reaching out to turn my head away from him. ‘You’re being punished, bitch, you don’t get to look at me,’ he spits out before his hand lands down heavily on my ass again, in the exact same spot as the previous slap, making me yelp in pain. I begin squirming in his lap – this spanking is not it, but he holds me firmly in place, landing another slap on the same cheek, and another, and another, and-

‘Park, cut it out!’ I shriek, my ass stinging with pain, and I just know he’s grinning. ‘Safe word?’ he asks, and I bite my tongue, knowing I can’t give in this easy. ‘That’s what I thought,’ he says cheerfully, before wrenching my pants down just past my ass, his hand, spread wide, to land across both cheeks with every slap. I squirm on his lap, still trying to escape, but he’s strong, holding me still and spanking again and again. And then the pain begins to ebb away into pleasure, my yelps of pain becoming desperate whimpers, my pussy practically drenched. With one slap, his skin is inches from the place I need him most, and I can’t stop the moan that escapes my lips. ‘Enjoying being spanked like a dirty little bitch?’ he asks, stopping the tirade of slaps on my ass, but I stay silent, too proud to admit to it. The spanks continue with my silence, my ass burning with the pleasurable pain, and when he’s finally deemed it enough, he rubs a hand over my cheeks, the metal of his rings providing relief for my stinging skin.

‘You okay, y/n?’ he asks, momentarily breaking from his hard demeanour, my heart warming despite myself. ‘Yeah, I’m fine,’ I reply, sounding breathless to my own ears, and he chuckles. ‘You took your punishment well, for a little brat. What do you want now, babe?’ he asks, and I’m silent, too proud to tell him. ‘Well, you’re obviously deciding to be a stubborn little bitch, so we can sit here like this all night,’ he says, and I look up to see him with his arms crossed over his chest, looking relaxed and smug. I let out an annoyed huff, looking back at the ground, and I wait a few moments to say, ‘touch me.’ ‘What was that, angel?’ he asks, hand beginning to rub over my sore ass again, reliving some of the pain, and I sigh. ‘Touch me.’ ‘I am, baby,’ he replies easily, hand continuing to skim over my stinging skin, and I let out a frustrated whine. ‘You know what I mean, Park!’ I exclaim angrily, and he chuckles. ‘I’m not sure I do, babe. Spell it out for me,’ he prompts, endlessly amused, and I clench my jaw in anger. ‘Can you touch my pussy?’ I snap, and he chuckles, making my blood boil. ‘Can I touch your pussy…?’ he asks, and I let out another angry noise, not wanting to be polite to him at all. But he’s completely silent, waiting for me to speak, and I give in, spitting out the word, ‘please.’ ‘Good girl,’ he compliments, voice soothing, but his hand doesn’t move from my ass. And then he says, ‘but it took too long.’

‘Are you fucking kidding me? If you’re not going to fuck me, Park, I’m leav- oh! Oh, God,’ I moan out, my angry tirade cut off when he pushes two thick fingers deep between my folds, stretching me out almost painfully. My walls clench around him as I whimper, my slick coating his hand. ‘So fucking wet for me, oh, my God. Does being a bitch to me turn you on, angel?’ he asks, but it seems he doesn’t require an answer, pushing one of my legs off his lap to give him better access to my pussy, my foot on the floor to stop me from sliding off him. He begins to thrust his fingers in and out of me, fast, and my head falls down as I let out a loud moan because, God, he’s good, better than I could’ve imagined. ‘So tight,’ he groans, as I throb around his thick fingers, my hips rolling back unconsciously to meet the thrusts of his hand. I can feel my high nearing quickly, the spanking and teasing making me desperate, and his fingers are so fucking good. And then his thumb begins to rub at my clit harshly, forcing a startled moan out of me, and I’m so close, twitching around him as my entire body tenses.

And then he pulls his fingers out. I let out a frustrated whine, eyes prickling with tears as he chuckles, leaning down and holding his slick covered fingers in front of my face. I refuse to take his fingers into my mouth, lips sealed shut, and he sighs, before his other hand lands a harsh slap onto my swollen pussy. I let out a shriek of pain, but he doesn’t relent, landing more heavy slaps onto my sensitive folds, pulling pained moans from my mouth. ‘Stop making this so hard for yourself,’ he says through gritted teeth, and I reluctantly open my mouth, his fingers instantly slipping between my lips, the slaps ceasing as I lick his fingers clean of my arousal. ‘Look at you, being a good little slut for me,’ he says with satisfaction, making my blood boil, and I can’t help but bite down on his fingers, not hard enough for it to hurt, but hard enough for it to shock him. He jumps, making me grin in satisfaction, before ramming his two fingers back between my folds. I let out a loud moan as he pumps in and out of my pussy, the pleasure rolling over me in waves. The rough pads of his fingers brush against my walls, thumb nudging at my clit as I let out moan after moan, feeling my orgasm build back up. I clench around him even tighter, twitching against his fingers, and it’s like he’s already managed to identify when I’m close, pulling his fingers away at the last second.

‘No, please,’ I whine pathetically, bucking my hips up in frustration, and he chuckles. ‘It’s a bit late for ‘please’ now, babe. You can beg better than that,’ he prompts, and I want to cry, so desperate for a release that I give in, swallowing my pride to force out some desperate words that might persuade him. ‘Please, Park, please make me cum. I need it, I need it so fucking bad, need your fingers or your mouth or your cock, anything. I just need to cum,’ I beg, and he’s silent for a moment. ‘God, that’s fucking hot, y/n. But…’ he says, making me tense at the thought he’s not going to give me what I want. ‘Your begging means nothing – you’re just saying what you think I want to hear. You need to earn it, angel,’ he says, making me whine in frustration and thrash on his lap. I’ve had enough now – my vibrator can probably do a better job than him, and Jennie will be fast asleep now (she could sleep through an earthquake). ‘Call me by my name,’ he says, breaking through my anger, and I freeze. ‘What?’ ‘I said to call me by my name. You’ve only ever called me Park. If you swallow your pride and call me ‘Jimin’… I’ll make you cum as many times as you want,’ he says, and it sounds simple enough, tempting enough.

But I’m not giving him what he wants.

‘No.’ ‘No?’ ‘No.’ ‘Okay,’ he says simply, his fingers sliding back in easily, making me shudder. His fingers pump in and out of me, furiously fast, as his thumb rubs against my clit, my mind numbing with pleasure as I let out moan after moan, unable to stop myself, and I know I must be so loud right now, loud enough for my friends on the floor below to hear, but I don’t care. He curls his thick fingers, brushing against the soft spongy spot inside me, and I let out a loud whine. ‘Listen to you being nice and loud for me, like a good little bitch. You’re so close, aren’t you? Can feel your tight pussy clenching around my fingers. You’re gonna cum soon, right?’ he murmurs, fingers fucking into me relentlessly. ‘Call me Jimin. Swallow your pride, call me my name, and I’ll let you cum all over my fingers, as many times as you want, baby. Just call me Jimin,’ he says, voice so soothing that I’m almost persuaded, but no. I’m too proud, too stubborn. I bite down on my lip to stop myself, and he sighs. ‘Such a stubborn little bitch,’ he says, almost disappointedly, pulling his fingers out from me, and I let out a shriek of frustration.

‘Fuck, please, Park! Please let me cum, please! I’m so fucking desperate, need to cum so bad!’ I cry out, words slurred as my eyes fill with tears, vision blurring. He’s silent, just listening to my desperate begging, before plunging his fingers back into me, making me moan. And then he stops, fingers stilling inside me. ‘Park, please, feels so fucking good, please!’ I beg, his fingers continuing to thrust into me when I begin to speak, but stilling when I stop. ‘Please, Park, I need it, need it so fucking bad,’ I whine, and it’s an endless cycle, his fingers only moving when I speak, and stilling when I fall silent. I fall into a repeated cry of ‘please’ again and again until my throat is hoarse, his fingers bringing me close to the edge before he pulls out, yet again. ‘Oh, my God, Park, please make me cum! Please, I need it so bad, need to cum so bad,’ I beg pathetically, and he chuckles. ‘Not until you break,’ he says, pushing his fingers into my swollen pussy again. And he’s ruthless, relentless, fingers fucking into me so fast, so hard that it hurts, hurts so good, and I’m moaning out, loud and desperate. ‘Say it, baby, swallow your pride and say my name like a good girl. I can make you feel so good, angel, so good. Fuck you all night, eat this pretty little pussy until you’re begging me to stop. Just say my name, swallow your pride. Come on, babe, say my name,’ he murmurs, soothing voice mixed with how good his fingers feel fucking into me and his thumb rubbing at my clit that the prospect of not finishing, makes my eyes fill with tears. And I’m so close to breaking, so close. But his fingers disappear.

He lifts me up, moving my weak body to straddle one of his strong thick thighs, the material of his jeans against my pussy making me whimper. My hands grip onto his shoulders to support myself, and when my eyes meet his, I nearly cum from that alone. His eyes are so dark, impossibly dark, blown wide with lust, his hair a mess from him running his fingers through it, his lips swollen and shining in the low lamplight, skin flushed and hot. He looks so fucking hot. ‘Ride my thigh,’ he whispers, and it takes every last bit of my willpower to shake my head, no. ‘Such a fucking brat,’ he spits before he begins bouncing his thigh. I let out a strangled moan when my pussy rubs against the sturdy denim of his jeans, head lolling back, and he quickly grabs my waist to stop me from falling off his leg. He doesn’t stop, and I’m bouncing on his thigh, moans falling from my lips with every jolt, his eyes latching on to my breasts which bounce right in front of his face. ‘Fuck. So fucking hot,’ he says, hand wrenching down the centre of my bralet so my breasts fall out, straps digging into my shoulders. His plump lips attach to one of my nipples, waves of bliss washing over me at the mixed sensations, heightened when he reaches a hand down to rub my clit slowly. ‘Look how good I’m being to you,’ he says against my nipple, his saliva sliding down my breast as he speaks, ‘making you feel so good, angel. And you can’t even say my name. It isn’t that hard.’

I ignore him, focusing on keeping my orgasm at bay – I’d rather feel the pleasure of now for hours than have one more orgasm denied. ‘Say it,’ he says, moving to the other nipple, flicking his tongue over the bud before sucking it. ‘Fuck, please, Park.’ ‘Say it, angel.’ ‘Oh, God, feels so- oh! Fuck.’ ‘Come on, y/n. Just say my name, baby, and I’ll make you feel so good. You’re so close, I know you are. You’re gushing all over my thigh, can feel it through my jeans. Just say it, babe, and I’ll let you soak my thigh with your cum. Say it, angel. Swallow your pride for me, baby, and I’ll make you feel so good, fuck you all night long if that’s what you want.’ And I feel my high nearing, feel the knot in my stomach tightening, and I’m so close, so fucking close that I just can’t, I can’t lose it.

And I break.

‘Fuck, Jimin, please, make me cum, I need it,’ I cry out, a shit-eating grin spreading across his lips as I moan his name again and again, unable to stop because of how fucking good he feels. ‘Cum for me, angel,’ he whispers, and the second I hear him give me permission, I’m falling over the edge, crying out his name as I cum all over his thigh, shuddering as he continues bouncing his leg, thumb rubbing at my clit to prolong my high. ‘Such a good girl, so fucking good for me, angel,’ he whispers soothing words as I come down, his hands on my back gentle and comforting. The exhaustion that comes after my orgasm is heavy, making me fall into him, and he chuckles, holding me as I try to get my breath back, hands on his shoulders.

‘Are you too tired? You wanna stop?’ he asks, and I push myself off him with effort, trying my hardest to stay upright when I land on my feet. I pull my pants back up, and my bralet too before dropping to my knees (I hate being naked while I’m sucking someone off – it’s weird, but I hate being… on display). His eyes darken the second I hit the floor, and he can’t stand up quick enough, unbuckling his belt in record time. I pull his black jeans down to his ankles and he steps out of them, and he pulls his white t-shirt up over his head, throwing it over his shoulder as he steps out of his jeans, kicking them away. And then I pull down his boxers, leaving them bunched up at the top of his thighs, and my heart skips a beat, my eyes widening and my mouth watering at how beautiful he is. His legs are long and toned and his skin is tan and clear, pulled over hard muscles and a full six pack, his abs rippling as his long, thick length stands up against them, rock hard and leaking with precum. I spit on his dick, his breath catching in his throat at the contact, before I use my palm to spread my saliva over his length, his hips bucking. He’s so sensitive, reacting to my every touch, and I almost feel sorry for him, thinking how long he must have been hard. And he’s so big, so thick, with a beautiful fucking curve, that I actually wonder how the hell I’m supposed to get more than just the head of his cock in.

Without wasting time, I lick the tip, revelling in the shaky breath that falls from his lips, his salty precum spread across my tongue. I decide to give him a taste of his own medicine, kitten licking his tip, occasionally swirling my tongue around the head, exhales and gentle groans escaping from his lips. He soon gets impatient, gathering my hair up in one hand and trying to push my head further down onto him, but I resist his force. ‘Stop fucking teasing, y/n,’ he spits out, making me grin to myself, and I don’t waste another second before sinking down onto his length until he hits the back of my throat, the boy letting out a strangled moan as I begin to bob my head up and down. I can’t get my lips to the base of his cock, and my jaw quickly begins to ache, because he’s just too damn big, gags being forced from my throat every few seconds. I take him out of my mouth, placing my tongue at the base, licking up to his tip against the vein on the underside of his cock to relieve myself of having him in my mouth, but he’s quickly bucking his hips, desperate to have my lips around him again. I look up at him through my lashes as I swirl my tongue around the tip before slowly taking him in as far as possible, gagging around him, and when he hits the back of my throat, his head falls back, a desperate moan of my name falling from his lips, the sound rushing straight to my core.

I slowly build up my pace, steadily bobbing my head up and down, taking him in further each time. ‘Fuck, y/n, you’re so fucking good at this, oh, my God. So fucking good, angel, such a good little cockslut for me,’ he groans, hips bucking and making my eyes water, not to mention how hard he’s tugging on my hair, but his moans spur me on through the pain. And I just as I’m beginning to adjust, nearly getting him into my throat, he loses his patience. He starts thrusting into my mouth, controlling my head movements with the hand he has fisted in my hair, and all I can do is grab onto his thighs as he fucks my mouth. ‘Fuck, you’re so good. My perfect little whore, letting me fuck your mouth, and taking it so well. Love hearing you gagging,’ he says, thrusting particularly hard and prompting a gag from me, the noise making him moan. ‘So sexy,’ he whispers, and I moan around him, the vibrations making him thrust faster. Tears stream down my face, saliva bubbling around my mouth and dripping down my chin and neck.

And then there’s a knock at the door, followed by, ‘Jimin, you in there?’ Jimin stills completely and opens his mouth to reply, but I get an idea, deciding to get my revenge for all the edging. I bob up and down on his length, furiously fast, hands playing with his balls, and a strangled groan falls from his lips, panic in his eyes when he looks down at me. ‘y/n,’ he says, almost pleadingly, and I look up at him innocently, as the door opens. I take his dick out of my mouth, looking around Jimin to see Hoseok stood in the doorway, eyes widening at the sight with Namjoon stood behind him, quickly clapping his hand over his eyes when he sees us. ‘I…’ Hoseok says, Jimin sighing before looking at him over his shoulder. ‘Yes?’ ‘Sorry. But I did ask if you were in here,’ Hoseok says, eyes flitting to me, and I can see him holding back a laugh when I grin at him mischievously. ‘Please, Hobi, just get what you need, and go,’ Jimin says tiredly, Hoseok nodding as he darts in, grabbing a charger from what must be the other bed which must be his, before darting back out, dropping a wink at me before he shuts the door.

And Jimin looks down at me, his gaze making my stomach turn. ‘Get up. Now,’ he spits out, and I rise up from the floor as slowly as possible as he pushes his boxers off, leaving him stood in all his glory. He’s so fucking beautiful, an absolutely Adonis – his body is perfect, like it’s been carved by the Gods. He rips my pants off as he reaches around me, unclasping my bralet with unmatched expertise, pulling it off my arms, and throwing both items over his shoulder. He grabs me by the neck, forceful but not violent, and walks me backwards to his bed, pushing me down and climbing over me. ‘You think you’re funny, huh?’ he demands, no regard for how tight he’s gripping my throat, and I grin, enjoying how pissed off he is. ‘We were doing well, and you just had to fucking ruin it,’ he spits out, entire weight on me, and I struggle for air, the lack of oxygen making my head spin pleasurably. ‘You like being caught in the act, huh? Like being a dirty little bitch and being on your knees for me in front of my friends? Or d’you just like pissing me off?’ he demands, eyes dark with anger, veins in his neck corded tight. ‘Like… pissing… you off. Thought… we could… try… hate… sex…’ I breathe out between deep inhales, desperately trying to take in enough air, and he smirks. ‘Thought you’d piss me off, so I’d hate you?’ he asks, and I grin as best as I can, eyes watering. He reaches down and grips his cock in one hand, running his length along my folds teasingly, sending little waves of pleasure through me. ‘Don’t make me beg,’ I whisper, my hoarse voice making him loosen his grip slightly, a smirk stretching his lips out. ‘That’d be mean, right? After how good you’ve been for me?’ he says sarcastically, eyebrow raised, and I fix him with a glare, his hand tightening again, rings digging into my skin. ‘Beg, bitch,’ he spits harshly, and I’m silent, our eyes locked together. ‘I could cum just like this,’ he says, still running his cock across my folds, and I sigh, the thought of him not fucking me making me snake my hand around the back of his neck, pulling him down to press my lips to his ear and whisper, ‘Fuck me, Jimin, so hard I can’t fucking walk, for as long as you fucking want. Fill me up with your big fat cock until I can’t breathe. Don’t care about me – I’m just a slut for you to use for your own pleasure, a whore for you to fill with your cum until your balls are empty.’ My words make him gulp, eyes blown wide with desire, and I press my lips to his, speaking against his mouth:

‘Fuck me like you hate me.’

He plunges all the way into me, both of us moaning, ‘fuck’, drawing the word out until he bottoms out, and it’s so fucking good. He’s so thick, the stretch burning deliciously, the curve of his cock having him fill me up perfectly, brushing up against my spongy spot without even meaning to. He doesn’t give me even a second to adjust, pulling all the way out before slamming back in, both of us letting out moans at the feeling. He sets a bruisingly fast pace, the bed hitting the wall with each strong thrust of his. ‘So fucking tight. Gonna stretch you out with my fat cock, gonna ruin you for everyone else,’ he growls, forcing the words out with effort, his energy being taken up by thrusting into me, and it’s euphoria, absolutely euphoria. ‘I’d… like to see you… try,’ I breathe out between moans, and he chuckles, hammering into me, heavy balls slapping against my skin. ‘I already broke you, angel – don’t make me embarrass you by doing it again,’ he growls, hand still tight around my neck, my hands on his back, nails digging into his skin, hard. He grabs one of my legs, lifting it to rest on his shoulder, and he goes even deeper than before, my eyes rolling back into my head at the feeling of his cock dragging against my walls.

Obscene squelching and the sound of skin slapping against skin fills the room with my moans and whimpers, his groans and grunts, the smell of sex thick on the air as he abuses my pussy, pounding into me like there’s no tomorrow, and all I can think is, ‘why the fuck haven’t we done this already?’ ‘Fucking gushing around me, soaking my bed like a good little slut. Gonna smell like you for days – my other bitches will know I’ve had a cock-hungry whore in here,’ he moans against my ear, rage filling me at the mention of other girls, and I can’t help myself. I slap him around the face, and he just grins at me, cheek reddening, not ceasing his thrusting. ‘Jealous? Don’t worry, baby, you’re the best I’ve ever had. I’ll ruin you, but you’ve ruined me. Only want your pussy from now. Want you to be my good little bitch, my sex toy,’ he grunts, cock hammering into me relentlessly, my walls clenching around him. ‘Only if you eat my pussy with those pretty lips,’ I whisper with a grin, and he chuckles, smirking. ‘Can’t wait to taste your pussy, angel. But let me fill it with my cum first,’ he breathes out against my neck, making me moan, before he practically pushes me down into the mattress, cock pounding into me bruisingly hard.

‘So fucking tight around me, baby, like you’ve never been fucked. Your cunt was made for me, huh? Scream my name out, babe. Let everyone in the damn house hear how good my cock makes you feel,’ he prompts, and I can’t help but do as he says, head thrown back into the pillow as he repeatedly hits my g-spot, crying his name repeatedly like a mantra. And I can feel my orgasm approaching, my walls clenched around him, my nails raking down his back, moans falling from my mouth again and again. ‘You gonna cum for me, baby? Come on, want you to soak my cock like a good little slut. Cum for me, angel,’ he whispers against my ear, hand snaking down to rub at my clit, other hand still tight around my neck, pushing me down into the mattress, and I feel the knot in my stomach tightening, head full of bliss. And then he hits the spot inside me head-on, and I reach my high.

I scream out his name, so loud it feels like it’s being ripped out of throat, my own voice ringing in my ears as I cum around him, gushing out release, walls clamped around him so tight he can’t move, and so he rubs at my clit to prolong my orgasm. Never have I felt an orgasm this intense, never felt pleasure like this, and my vision becomes blurry as the tears run down my face, mouth hanging open, eyes rolling back into my head and nails raking down his back, breaking the skin. And when I begin coming down, my walls loosening around him, he starts chasing his own high, with no concern for me at all. He slams into me, again and again, the bed probably leaving dents in the wall every time it bumps against it, and the overstimulation is too much, making me sob. But he doesn’t care, one hand pressing into the mattress, the other one still around my neck as he fucks into me, grunts and groans falling from his lips, and when my vision clears, I nearly cum again at the sight of him.

His black hair is pasted to his head with sweat, his skin completely drenched and glistening with perspiration, mouth wide open and letting out whispers of my name, lips swollen and shining. His eyes are dark, impossibly dark, completely blown wide with lust, and his face is flushed and contorted with pleasure. His muscles ripple with the effort of fucking me, desperate whines escaping his lips as he chases his high, body tense and strong. He looks like sin incarnate.

And I can feel him nearing his orgasm, dick twitching inside me, and I tighten around him, digging my heel into his back to hold him place, his hips stuttering with erratic thrusts. ‘Fuck, baby, I’m gonna cum. Gonna cum in this tight little pussy. So good for me, so good,’ he moans loudly, making my lips curl in satisfaction before he lets out a cry of, ‘fuck, y/n, gonna cum!’ He buries himself deep inside me, head falling to rest in the crook of my neck, biting down on my skin as he cums, thick and hot ropes of his release painting my insides. And there’s so much of it, an endless amount of cum flooding me, and my sensitive walls fluttering around him prolongs his high, milking his cock for all he has.

Once he’s done, he pulls his softened cock out of me, moving down the bed with a grin, wanting to see his masterpiece. ‘You squirted, you know?’ he says nonchalantly, eyes momentarily flitting up from my pussy to meet mine, and I can’t mask the surprise quick enough, a satisfied smirk stretching across his lips. ‘Thought so. I’m the best you’ve ever had, right, babe?’ he asks, eyes trained on my folds, waiting for his cum to leak out of me, and I don’t reply. ‘God, after such a good fucking, you’re still a stubborn little bitch? Well, whatever. If it makes you feel better, that was the best I’ve ever had too,’ he says, and I’m silent, attempting to ignore the thrill that runs through me – he’s fucked that many girls, but I’m the best. ‘Your moans are so pretty, angel. My name sounds good on your lips,’ he grins, and I roll my eyes, dropping my head back to rest on the pillow – I’m absolutely exhausted, physically and mentally (and of him). ‘Do you always talk this much after sex?’ I ask, and he chuckles. ‘Nope. I usually give them a kiss on their cheek and send them on their way. You should be honoured you’re getting pillow talk,’ he says cockily, and I scoff. ‘Fuck you.’ ‘I just did,’ he says, voice dripping with mirth, and I roll my eyes.

And then I feel it. His cum beginning to drip out of me. ‘God, I really did cum deep, huh? Look how long it took,’ he says, words lined with fascination as he watches my pussy intently. ‘Remember when you said I’ve got a tiny dick?’ he laughs, and I let out an annoyed noise. ‘Shut up,’ I say half-heartedly, before he collects up some of his cum on his fingers, making me let out a shaky breath as I look down at him. He holds his fingers out to me, and I don’t bother waiting this time, licking them clean, and his cum is actually... not bad. Sweet and almost… fruity. But I’m knocked out of my thoughts about his semen when he licks a bold stripe up my pussy, a broken moan falling from my lips. ‘I… didn’t think my cum would taste this good. Or maybe it’s just your pussy,’ he says casually, as though discussing the taste of cocktails. ‘I think it’s your cum.’ ‘Let me test it,’ he says before delving back down for another taste of my juices, making me moan before I thread my fingers into his hair, pulling him away. ‘I’m too sensitive,’ I say gently, and he nods, moving to lie beside me. ‘It’s you, by the way. Your pussy tastes amazing. You gotta let me eat you out in the morning,’ he says, and I turn to look at him, raising an eyebrow and trying to ignore how handsome he is. ‘In the morning?’ ‘Well, if you wanna stay the night, that is,’ he offers indifferently, but I can see that he’s a little nervous underneath the casual demeanour, and so am I, panicking at the prospect of this… not being just sex.

‘Where’s my phone?’ I ask, and he laughs at the swift topic change, before reaching his hand under the pillow my head is on, pulling out my phone, and handing it to me as I thank him – though I shouldn’t have to say thanks for getting my phone back. But whatever. I start to get up, slowly sitting up and swinging my legs over the side of the bed. ‘Are you leaving?’ he asks, almost panicked, and I laugh. ‘I gotta clean myself up, and go to the toilet – I don’t want a UTI. Where’s the bathroom?’ I ask, and he pulls a face. ‘It’s the last door in the corridor,’ he says, sitting up to watch me as I collect up my clothes, legs shaky. ‘You’re not gonna put those tight ass clothes back on, are you?’ he asks, and I raise an eyebrow. ‘It’s not like I brought a spare change,’ I say, and he laughs, getting out of bed. He goes to his wardrobe, getting out a loose black long-sleeved top of his, and then to his chest of drawers, delving deep into one of the drawers and pulling out a pair of black Nike socks and a pair of black cotton pants, holding them out to me. And I look at him, looking back at the clothes, before looking back up at him, and then back at the clothes. ‘I hope to God you’re not expecting me to wear those random pants,’ I say with disgust, and he laughs. ‘They’re brand new, I promise. Rosie bought a pack to keep here for when… hers weren’t suitable to wear anymore, and these are from that pack – they’ve never been worn. I swear. And the top and socks are mine – freshly washed,’ he says, and I nod, still suspicious, sniffing the pants when he hands them to me. They smell clean, and I decide to give him the benefit of the doubt – I’d rather not be underwear-less in a frat house. So I pull the pants on, and then his top, trying to ignore how it smells exactly like him, the nice scent filling my senses, and it’s long enough that it covers my ass completely, hem brushing against my thighs. I pull on the socks, soft material nice against my tired feet (I don’t know why I wear heels – it’s literal torture).

‘Make sure you knock – there might be someone in there,’ he says meaningfully, and I scrunch my nose up in disgust. ‘Who fucks in the bathroom of a frat house?’ I ask, and he’s silent, looking a little sheepish. ‘That’s gross. Please, don’t. I don’t want to know,’ I say when he opens his mouth to explain, and he nods, holding back a laugh. I open the door, looking down the corridor to see if it’s empty before rushing towards the bathroom. Thankfully it’s empty, so I wee and clean myself up, trying to ignore how much of a state I look. Once I’m done, I look a little more presentable, but it’s clear I’ve just been fucked, my eyes a little heavy and lips swollen, and my skin glowing. My makeup (which was a full face) is minimal now, my mascara slightly smudged around my eyes and my foundation patchy around my mouth and chin, so I blend it out as best as I can, and it doesn’t actually look that bad. The most noticeable thing is the purpling marks from his mouth, his hand and his rings around my neck and under my jaw, the ones on my collarbones hidden by his top. I run my fingers through my hair, and have it hanging around my face, not really covering the marks, but it’s the best I can do. I head back into Jimin’s bedroom, and I stifle a laugh at seeing that he’s fast asleep. And he looks really fucking cute, lips pouted, hair messy and face relaxed with slumber. How can he go from being the most annoying person in the world, to being sin personified, to being adorable? It’s obvious he was expecting me to stay the night with him – he’s on one side of the bed, the other side with two pillows, my phone sat atop them with the blanket pulled down for me to climb in.

But I can’t. I can’t stay the night and pretend like everything’s okay. Yes, he just gave me the best fucking of my life, but I’m not sure if it makes up for all the times he’s been a dick to me over the past couple years. And now, he’s expecting me to climb into bed with him, to act like we’re more than just two people who hate each other, and acted on our sexual tension and attraction to one another. Because that is all we are. But then he said things like me being the best he’s had, and that he wants to eat me out in the morning, and he’s expecting me to stay the night when he never lets anyone stay the night – everyone knows that about him. So maybe he doesn’t hate me, which is terrifying, because I cannot deal with Park Jimin not hating me.

So I have to make him hate me.

Quietly, I grab my phone, and he moves in his sleep, stirring, making me panic and run out of the room, leaving behind my clothes and shoes. I venture to the end of the corridor, ordering my Uber before looking down the flight of stairs, spotting the group of my friends still sat on the landing, Chaeyoung sat closest. ‘Chaeng, I whisper, but she doesn’t hear me. ‘Chaeng!’ I hiss a little louder, and she looks around before spotting me, opening her mouth to speak before I hold a finger to my lips. She gets up, pretending she’s going to the bathroom before rushing up the stairs. ‘Are you okay?’ ‘Yeah, but I need to, like, escape. I’ve ordered an Uber, but I left my shoes in his room,’ I say, and she instantly slides off her sparkly silver sliders. ‘Don’t you need them?’ ‘Yoongi said I could stay the night,’ she says shyly, making me squeal with excitement for her, a little smile on her face. ‘You know there’s no way you’re gonna be able to leave without everyone seeing you?’ she says, and I sigh, slipping her shoes on. ‘I know, but I can’t stay. I can’t share a bed with him,’ I say, and she raises an eyebrow. ‘Girl, we heard everything. Everything. But staying the night is where you draw the line?’ she asks, and I nod, absolutely humiliated that they could hear. ‘Yes. I still hate him,’ I say as though it’s obvious, and she just nods, holding back a laugh. ‘Come on, then,’ she says, leading me down the stairs, and I’m so embarrassed when my friends spot me, jeering and laughing. ‘Walk of shame!’ Bambam shouts, before the boys all begin chanting it, and I cover my face in embarrassment. ‘Bye, girls!’ I call over the racket, the girls all bidding me goodbye before Chaeyoung leads me down the next flight of steps.

She turns the handle of the front door, pushing it open for me, and I quickly rush out before I can run into anyone else. ‘Thanks, Chaeng, you’re the best. I’ll drop these off tomorrow,’ I say, motioning to the shoes, and she waves my words off. ‘Just bring them to try-outs next weekend. Text me when you get home,’ she says, and I nod, my phone buzzing to let me know my Uber’s a minute away. ‘See you, Chaeng,’ I call over my shoulder, heading up to the pavement. My Uber pulls up, and I turn to wave at Chaeyoung, instead seeing her being pushed out of the way by Jin and Jungkook who are cheering and shouting at me, running over. I quickly jump into the Uber before they can reach me, telling the driver to go quickly, and he does so, leaving Dumb and Dumber in our dust. I’m silent the entire journey back, trying my hardest to stay awake, and I can feel him looking at me in the rear-view mirror, probably wondering why I’m dressed the way I am, getting into an Uber at 4am. Or maybe he knows exactly why.

When we pull up to my accommodation, the sky is already beginning to lighten with morning just around the corner, and I thank him, climbing out of the Uber and heading into the building, entire body aching. I take the lift, having to lean one hand against the wall as I walk down the corridor towards our door. And then I realise I left my bag, with my keys in them, in Jimin’s bedroom. I’d hoped to sneak in whilst Jennie was asleep, but I’ll definitely have to wake her up now. I knock on the door, not too loud because I don’t want to wake anyone in the neighbouring rooms up, but it works, Jennie instantly opening the door. And she doesn’t look like she’s been sleeping, wide awake and fixing me with a hard glare. She knows.

‘How the hell do you know?’ I ask tiredly as she moves to the side to let me in, looking me up and down. ‘Namjoon phoned me after your conversation with him, to clear the air. And halfway through our reconciliation, I can hear shouting in the background, and he kindly informs me that you and Jimin were having a screaming match on ASP’s front lawn. And then he texts me around an hour and a half later to say he’d just seen you on your knees in Jimin’s bedroom with his dick in your mouth,’ she says, voice harsh but eyes sparkling with amusement. ‘I know, I know, I’m an idiot. But I’m really fucking tired and achy so can I sleep first? I promise, I’ll let you lecture me all you want in the morning,’ I say as I collapse into my bed, and she just stares at me for a moment before nodding, a small grin on her face. ‘It’s about time you got laid.’ ‘Oh, thanks.’ ‘I want all the details in the morning.’ ‘I’m not sure you do.’ ‘Ew.’

[severetimetravelnerd]

Let’s Switch Things Up (ft. MINO) (2)

Part 2

Minho just keeps surprising you.

A/N: Heyy! So this is my new series, that I’ll be updating every Thursday. All images I’ve used in this moodboard that I’ve made are just representative of the emotions, not the way the reader looks :))  Please show this lots of love!

Comment if you’d like to be added to the taglist.

Taglist:   @herewecomeitsjekki  ; @kwonnansi ; @happiestgirlontheeastcoast ; @unabashedturkeytreeslim; @to-all-the-stories-i-love​

I only write on this blog on tumblr, so if you see my work on any other platform, please let me know!

Word Count: 2028

Warnings: Suggestive, snarky? Mentions of cheating

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He paused and blinked a few times.

“I’m sorry, I don’t think I heard you right. What did you just say?”

You laughed.

“You heard me right. I’m attending my ex’s wedding. And he’s marrying my friend who he cheated on me with.”

He tilted his head to the side.

“I don’t understand.”

You laughed again, a little more bitterly.

“Yeah, neither do I. I’m only going because of my best friends.”

“What do you mean?”

“This is the first time in ages we’ll get to meet in person.” Your eyes softened. “And I really miss them.”

The guy had a light smile on his face.

“I get it now.”

“It’s just that… I know I will be made fun of for not having a plus one.”

You shook your head at his raised brows.

“Yeah, a lot of my old classmates can be mean.”

He inched a little closer.

“Could you tell me what happened? Only if you’re okay with it, of course.”

You shrugged.

“Yeah sure, I don’t mind talking about it.”

You took a sip of water and began.

“So, all of this happened two years ago. We had been dating for three years. And I knew that something was off. It was understandable. He was very busy with his job and I was busy with mine. We weren’t getting time to spend with each other. And every time I tried, it seemed like he would try his best to get out of it.”

You smiled sadly.

“I know. I should have seen the signs. But he was my longest relationship. And we had been friends for years before dating. I trusted him. When he told me that he’d have to spend two months abroad for work, he wasn’t lying and I didn’t doubt him. At that point, things were just really strained and he was very stressed. So, to make things a little easier for him, I introduced him to my friend who lived in the city he’d be working in.”

You paused, grip on your dress tightening slightly. You didn’t notice that he noticed.

“And from there, it’s pretty obvious what happened. Soon, he started ditching my calls saying he was busy. He just never told me he was busy with her. And then, one long weekend, when I flew over to surprise him, I found her in his bed.”

He surprised you when he reached over to hold your hand, gently rubbing his thumb across your knuckles. You stared at him for a bit, trying to gauge whether he was trying to make a move on you or whether he was just being nice. Looking at his eyes, your heart melted a little. He was definitely just being nice.

“Yeah. I really should have seen it coming. But I didn’t. I saw them together and walked straight back out and took a flight back home. I packed up all my stuff and left home for Seoul.”

“You just packed up and left?”

“Yup. Needed a change of scene. I couldn’t deal with being in that apartment anymore.”

He nodded.

“I understand.”

He didn’t really understand, because everything seemed too sudden for him, but somehow for you, who just started talking to a stranger on a plane who seemed scared, it fit. He looked down at his hand. He didn’t know what possessed him to hold your hand, but again, it just seemed right, even if it was something he had never done before. He found himself opening his mouth to ask you something.

“So, they’re getting married now?”

“Yeah. And it’s not a normal wedding. They had to make it an all-expenses paid wedding that goes on for literally three days.”

“Okay. Wow.”

“Yeah.”

And although you looked perfectly content, something told him that you were upset. Again, he didn’t know what he was doing, because he just wasn’t an impulsive or spontaneous person, but he found himself retracting his hand to shake yours. You looked up with an eyebrow raised.

“Hi. I’m Song Minho and I’d be more than happy to be your plus one for this wedding.”

You widened your eyes.

“Oh. Oh wow. Are you sure? You don’t have to if”-

He shook his head. You studied his face for a few seconds before grinning.

“Hi then Minho! I’m Y/N L/N. And I’d love to have you as my plus one.”

---

“So, tell me a bit more about your ex and his fiancé. I don’t want to be clueless when I meet these … interesting people.”

You nodded and whipped out your phone, pulling up some old photos.

“Okay, so I know this is a group picture, but he’s the shirtless one in an apron and she’s the one holding a cake.”

Minho’s jaw got ever so slightly tense when he realised how alone you were in the picture. Sure, your ex’s hands may have been draped over your thighs, but you were struggling to keep a smile on your face. It was so obviously fake. And your ex was so obviously unbothered by it.

“Ah okay. What’re their names?”

“Andy and Liza.”

“Okay, tell me more. How did you meet?”

“Oh right. We were in high school together. At that point, we were just friends, but when we ended up working the same part time job in college, things started changing and one day, after months of flirting, he made me a cake with the icing saying, “Will you go out with me?””

Minho forced a smile.

“Hmmm romantic.”

“It was. It really was. He wasn’t always that bad. He…just got incredibly forgetful over the years.”

Again, Minho found himself saying something he never would.

“So basically, he took you for granted?”

You paused, stunned for a moment.

“Yeah, yeah he did.”

There was a moment’s silence before you turned to him.

“Okay, so if we’re going together, we have to know basic things about each other. So… how do you feel about twenty questions?”

Minho hated twenty questions, but he nodded anyway.

---

An hour or so later, you pouted as Minho helped you with your bags.

“We weren’t done with the game though.”

He finally managed to get the last of his bags and started walking towards the exit with you.

“I know, but don’t worry. We can figure this out once we get to the hotel.”

“Thank you so much Minho. I honestly can’t explain how much it means to me, especially since you’re here on vacation.”

“No, don’t worry about it. My friend was a little busy for the next few days anyway.”

Lies. You would soon learn that whenever his left eye twitched, he was lying.

“No, but still”-

“Y/N!”

You froze. You’d recognise that voice anywhere. Before you could react, you felt Andy’s arms wrap around you as he hugged you.

“Y/N! I’m so glad you could come!

Minho stiffened when he noticed how uncomfortable you were with Andy’s overfamiliarity. Minho didn’t like him. Something about his behaviour with you was odd. Liza also hugged a visibly uncomfortable you and smiled.

“Y/N! The reason this is all happening!”

Your fake smile slipped. And that was when Minho couldn’t watch this anymore. Again, he found himself doing something he would never otherwise do. He walked forward, wrapped his arm around your waist and pulled you closer.

“Hi. You must be the happy couple.”

Your tense body relaxed a little when you heard his voice and felt his arm around you, which was odd. You always took a while to warm up to strangers. Andy’s expression tensed though.

“And you are?”

Minho stuck out his hand.

“I’m her boyfriend.”

Your breath hitched for a second and a light blush spread across your cheeks. You had been planning on introducing him as a close friend. Oh well.

Andy took his hand and smiled a visibly forced smile.

“Oh, I didn’t know she was seeing someone.”

His grip on Minho’s hand tightened.

Minho’s eyebrows shot up. Oh. So, Andy was that kind of guy. The one who felt oddly possessive over his girlfriends no matter how badly he treated them. Scum.

Minho’s grip tightened even more.

“Well, I doubt you know much about her anyway.”

Your eyes shot up from your fake smile to stare at Minho in shock. You did not see snarky Minho coming.

Andy just stood there for a minute with his eyes wide. He couldn’t believe what he heard. When he finally got around to reacting, Minho had already moved on to shaking Liza’s hand and offering her a smile. It was fake, and you knew this because every time he had smiled at you, with that ridiculously adorable smile that just lit up his whole face, you found yourself melting. Andy, however, interrupted your thoughts. In a mocking tone, he asked,

“I’ve known Y/N for 8 years. How long have you known her for?”

You glared at Andy, and wrapped your hand in Minho’s, prepared to leave and apologise to Minho about Andy’s behaviour later, when Minho replied in a tone of pure ice.

“Long enough to know her worth.”

Your jaw dropped. Liza’s smile was long gone and Andy was practically red with anger. So was Minho. On the outside, he seemed calm, cool and collected, but he hated the way Andy treated you and felt so entitled to your kindness. The way he treated you when you were so clearly uncomfortable was just the tipping point. A smile tugged at your lips, even though you made a half-hearted attempt to glare at Minho. He pulled you a little closer, shooting you the smile that made you lose track of thought.

Andy was furious and it was clear Minho wasn’t going to back down. It was also clear that you weren’t going to do anything to stop Minho. It wasn’t like Minho was lying about something. You were at an impasse. So, when Liza awkwardly suggested they show you guys to your room in the hotel, everyone jumped at that chance.

Half an hour later, the four of you walked in awkward silence as Liza led you to your room. She offered you a genuine smile.

“Here you go Y/N. We picked one of the pool facing rooms because you like those.”

You struggled, but smiled back at her. It was their wedding. You were not going to be unnecessarily mean.

You and Minho walked in and when you saw the large bed in the middle of the room, your eyebrows shot up. Natasha, one of the two friends you had really missed, told you that all the rooms had two beds. 

“Why is there only one damn bed here?”

Minho blushed and looked away, but you jumped when you heard Andy.

“Why? Is sharing a bed a problem?”

You turned around to find Andy right behind you, about to lean on your shoulder. Before you could even react though, Minho stepped in between.

“No, absolutely not a problem.”

“Oh yeah? Then why did she sound so annoyed?”

Both you and Liza were glaring at Andy, though for very different reasons.

Minho closed his eyes for a second and decided to just go for it. No matter what happened, he would not let Andy bother you any more than he already had. He wrapped his arm around your waist and pulled you close.

“We had a bit of an argument before getting here. But we’ll be fine, right babe?”

If you thought your heart was beating fast because he called you ‘babe’, when you looked up at him and he placed a soft kiss on your forehead, you thought it would burst out of your chest.

His hand slipped a little lower, from your waist to your hips and played with the knot holding your dress up. He had the most wicked smirk on his face when he mumbled,

“Besides, these things have a way of working themselves out, right princess?”

Andy let out disgusted snort, grabbed Liza’s hand and stomped off, but you didn’t register any of that. You could only register the look in Minho’s eyes and the way your knees were weakening. Did…did you like him?

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

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[five-rivers]

Interview with a Ghost (part 4: Strange)

Sort of a tenuous connection to the prompt.  Oh, well.  

(PART 1) (PART 2) (PART 3)

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They had asked the Fenton parents for an interview with Daniel Fenton to ask him about things he might have seen at school. They had agreed, heartily, but had insisted on staying because 'the kids are a little biased towards Phantom, teens, you know,' and they wanted to keep the record straight.

The other two children had, with extreme reluctance, gone home. His sister, however, had refused to leave, saying that she knew just as much about things at the school as Danny, and they might as well question her at the same time. Collins couldn't really argue with that, and he had elbowed Paterson when she tried.

Daniel looked very small and meek against the large armchair he was perched on. Nothing at all like Phantom, who projected personality and confidence even when nervous.

Collins could see how he had gotten away with... whatever he had gotten away with... for so long. He still wasn't entirely convinced that Fenton was Phantom. It seemed pretty incredible, and there wasn't any physical evidence. Especially with the body gone.

Paterson took out a pad of paper and a recorder. "Do you mind if I record this?" she asked. "For record keeping purposes."

"Not at all!" said Jack, grinning. "We're glad to be of help!"

Daniel looked at the recorder as if he thought he'd be ill. He looked pale. Almost green. Was that because he was a ghost, or was he really just that nervous?

"Alright," said Collins. "Do you see Phantom around Casper High?"

"Not really," said Daniel.

"Everyone does," said Jasmine.

The siblings glanced at each other.

"I try to stay away from the ghost fights," said Daniel, shrugging.

"Yes. Your classmates seem to think that you have some kind of sixth sense, as you always leave class right before an attack."

Daniel's eyebrows pinched together in genuine confusion. "They think what?" He shook his head. "I just leave when I need to go," he said.

Paterson looked up from her notepad. "Go as in...?"

"You know, go," said Daniel, a blush dusting his features with pink.

"I see," said Paterson. Daniel blushed harder.

"Have you ever spoken to Phantom?" asked Collins.

"Yes," said Jasmine, crisply, to murmurs of disapproval from her parents. "He saved me from from Spectra. The ghost who masqueraded as a psychologist."

"I remember that," said Paterson. "Old Elroy had that case." It was from before the existence of ghosts had been widely accepted, even in Amity Park. "You were one of her victims?"

"I'm the one she tried to blow up."

"Ah," said Collins. "And what did you talk about?"

"With Spectra?"

"With Phantom."

"Nothing much," said Jasmine. "Not that I remember, anyway. It was over a year ago."

"Try to remember," said Collins.

Jasmine shrugged. "I think it was basically just agreeing that Spectra was terrible."

"Have you had any other interactions with Phantom?"

"None worth mentioning," said Jasmine.

What a strange way to phrase that. Collins decided not to call her on it, yet. Even with Paterson pointedly poking his ankle with her toe.

"Daniel, what about you?"

"It's Danny," the boy corrected. "I've never really talked to him. Unless you want to count things like 'look out!'"

"Nothing about his origins, then?"

"No?" said Danny.

"Have you heard anything about his origins from anywhere else?"

"We already told you about that," interrupted Maddie, frowning. "His origins are unknown, but he's existed for hundreds of years, at a minimum."

"Yes, but we'd like to hear from Danny and Jasmine," said Collins, giving Maddie his best professional smile. He turned back to Danny, expectantly.

"Someone once told me they thought he was a plague doctor, but, like, updated. I don't remember who, though."

"Right," said Collins. "Now, we'd like you to think back to about two years ago. Call it late summer, early fall. Did anything strange happen around that time?"

"Yeah," said Danny. "The Lunch Lady attacked the school for the first time. I don't remember the exact date, but it was right before the meat-vegetable protests."

"It was that early?" asked Collins, surprised. "That's months before the first recorded attack! Are you sure there was a ghost?"

"Pretty sure, yeah," said Danny, crossing his arms.

"Hey! That's about when we saw Phantom for the first time!" exclaimed Jack.

"Is it?" asked Collins.

"Yeah! He stole our prototype Fenton thermos! I still don't understand how he got it working." The last was a grumble.

"Interesting. And did anything strange happen other than that? Anything out of the norm?"

"Well," said Maddie, thoughtful, "we got our portal working about a month before that. Danny did, anyway."

"Did he? How?"

"Knocked a loose wire back into place!" boomed Jack, laughing. "That's my boy."

Danny's face was whey-colored again. Interesting.

Oh, hell. The portal definitely had something to do with all of this, didn't it.

"How does your portal work, exactly, anyway?"

"Excellent question!"

Fifteen minutes later, Collins had no better idea of how their portal worked except that it involved a great deal of ectoplasm and electricity, both of which they had found on the corpse. He couldn't help but think that he had finally discovered how Phantom had died.

And hearing Jack and Maddie, the boy's parents talk about the portal with such obvious pride while Danny squirmed in the armchair, looking for an escape...

"Thank you," said Collins, quickly, while Jack drew a breath. "I think that's all we need for today."

"But-" started Paterson.

"It's really all we need," repeated Collins. He saw Danny relax, marginally. "Just one more thing. Do you know anything about the break in at the city morgue last night?"

Various expressions flicked over the Fentons' faces. Jack's and Maddie's were blank. Danny's was was angry. Jasmine's was, surprisingly, guilty.

Did she steal the body? Collins would have never guessed it. The image she presented was too neat and mannered.

"Was it a ghost?" asked Maddie. "I'm afraid we can't do anything about it, otherwise."

"Right," said Collins. "We'll contact you if that evolves to be the case. And-"

"Oh, I can't take it anymore!" exclaimed Paterson. She pointed at Danny. "Are you Phantom?"

Danny jumped about a foot. "Wh-What? Nooooooooo. No, I'm not Phantom. I'm alive, aren't I?"

Damn. If that wasn't all but a confession.

The other Fentons started to laugh. The adults heartily. Jasmine uneasily.

"You've been listening to what's-his-name, haven't you? The West boy?"

"Weston," corrected Maddie. "No matter how many times we explained things to him..." She sighed. "I think there's something wrong with him, to be honest. But just to assuage your doubts..." She stood up and walked over to Danny. "Danny, do you mind."

"Nope," said Danny, standing up and holding out his wrist.

Maddie beckoned the detectives forward. "Here," she said, "feel this." She tapped her fingers on Danny's wrist.

"Go ahead," said Danny, staring up at him with a mix of apprehension and determination.

Collins put his fingers on Danny's wrist, on his pulse point. Danny's skin was smooth and cool, but not at all corpselike, or what Collins imagined a ghost would feel like.

"I have a pulse," said Danny. "Ghosts don't." Sure enough, Collins' fingers detected a slow but steady thump thump thump.

Maddie nodded. "Their closest equivalent is more of a constant rush. I could explain the science... but you were just leaving."

"Yes. Sorry about that. My partner can be a bit susceptible to conspiracy theories. I had to talk her out of hiring a psychic, once."

"Thank goodness you did," said Maddie, smiling. "Almost all psychics are fake."

.

"They don't believe it," said Danny, watching the detectives pull away from the curb below from the window of his room.

"Mom and dad? Of course not," said Jazz. "They won't believe you're Phantom unless you show them outright."

"No, the detectives. They don't believe I'm human. They still think I'm Phantom."

"Danny," said Jazz, cautiously. "Don't do anything rash."

"It isn't like I can make this any worse," said Danny. "I'm going to talk to them."

.

"What was that?" complained Paterson. "I never tried to hire a psychic!"

"Yeah, but you did agree that we wouldn't out Phantom in front of his parents. He said he doesn't want his family to know about him, and I don't want an angry ghost trying to throttle me! He can bench press a bus! I don't want his hands anywhere near my throat." He inhaled deeply and sighed. "At least we know what did him in."

"Do you?" asked a very cold voice.

It was a testament to Collins' steely nerves and rigorous police training that he didn't immediately crash the car upon finding a ghost in the back seat. Paterson nearly threw herself out of the car.

"Hi, Phantom," he said, instead, looking at the young ghost in the rear view mirror. "I don't suppose you know what happened to your body."

The ghost scowled. "It wasn't me. I told you to stop messing with stuff."

"Who, then? Your sister?"

Phantom's scowl deepened to something like rage. "Leave her out of this."

"Oh, god, you really are Fenton," said Paterson.

In her defense, Collins hadn't completely believed it, either.

Varied emotions passed over the ghost's face. "Come on, you don't believe Wes, do you?"

"There's other evidence," said Collins, voice wavering just a little. "I don't know how you're keeping up a pulse, or the rest of your human disguise, but you died in that portal, didn't you?"

Phantom was silent for a moment, then he reached through Paterson's chair and neatly plucked her recorder from her jacket, along with her phone. He tossed the phone into the seat next to him and crushed the recorder. Then he started riffling through Collins' pockets.

"Is that really necessary?" asked Collins. He guided the car to the side of the road and put it into park.

"You made it necessary," said Phantom. He pulled out Collins' phone as well and gave it a once over. "Look," he said. "I'm sort of," he paused, "upset that you guys dug up my body and then freaking lost it."

"Lost it-"

"Fine. Got it stolen from you by one of my enemies. One of my most dangerous enemies. Okay? Happy? Are you starting to understand why I wanted this left alone?"

"Are you trying to say that this isn't about your family not knowing you're dead?" asked Collins.

"Of course it's about that!" exclaimed Phantom. "It's just about half a dozen other things at the same time! You knowing about me could get me killed. Knowing about me could get you killed. The only reason Wes isn't dead is because he's completely ridiculous and no one believes him! You're credible!"

"By that enemy you mentioned?" asked Paterson, having regained some composure.

"Yeah," said Phantom. "He's got an interest in it not getting out."

"Why?" asked Paterson.

"Reasons," said Phantom, stubbornly.

"Does he have the same thing going on as you?"

Phantom crossed his arms and shrugged.

"One second," said Collins, "what do you mean, kill you? You're already dead."

"It's a figure of speech," mumbled Phantom. "Either way, the GIW would be more than happy to cut me open. Do you have any idea what they do to ghosts?"

"You- you're not actually dead, are you?" asked Collins. "Holy-"

"Yes, I am," said Phantom, quickly.

"How did you manage the pulse trick, then?"

"Lots of ghosts can do that. My parents don't know everything."

"You're a terrible liar. How the hell does that work? This- Ghost powers while alive?"

"I am dead," repeated Phantom. "How do you explain the body?"

"Half of it was missing," said Paterson.

Silence.

"I'm begging you to let this go," said Phantom. "People are going to get hurt. I'm going to get hurt."

"You don't think we'd let the GIW have you?" asked Paterson.

"I don't think it's a matter of 'let.' I-" he sighed and buried his face in his hands. "Ugh, I can't believe I made this even worse. What are you going to do?"

"We-" said Collins. Honestly, he had no idea. He looked at Paterson, who shrugged. "It isn't up to us, it's up to the captain."

"You can't tell more people!"

"Then you tell him. Come with us," said Paterson. "It's just one more, and he knows all of our suspicions, anyway." That wasn't completely true.

"If you really wanted to convince us not to, you could tell us more about your terrible enemy who may or may not be like you."

Phantom shook his head. "It's not worth it," he said, floating halfway out of his seat. "I'm going home."

"Wait," said Collins. "Your accident- It really was an accident, wasn't it? Your parents didn't-"

Phantom's face scrunched up. "Of course it was an accident. I was messing around someplace I shouldn't have been because of a dare. Are we done, now? Right up until you decide to ruin what's left of my life, anyway."

"Do you have a cell phone?" asked Paterson. "So we can call you, instead of your parents, if necessary." She offered up her notepad.

Phantom jerked it out of her hands and scrawled something on the paper. "Goodbye," he said, shortly, before flying out of the car.

Paterson swore, loudly.

"Yeah," agreed Collins. "Yeah."

[navyhyuck]

week one | previous | masterlist | next

𝐒𝐈𝐆𝐍𝐄𝐃, 𝐉𝐀𝐘.

↳ a love letter a week, and it has you wondering who’s your secret admirer. you have nine weeks, eight candidates, and one story to live. will you find out who your ‘jay’ is?

a/n :: hi hi hi fellas here’s the first part (technically, since the other one was an intro) <3 uhh a little fun fact! this project mentioned in this chapter was one that i actually had to complete last year (before corona lol) and i thankfully got a good grade on it even tho my teacher swore on all gods that it was very difficult,, he also let me put up nct posters in the classroom <3 enjoy :) [also, i may have missed some tags!!! if you aren’t here and you sent in an ask before, please do so again since it’s been some time since i last updated this!! ty mwah]

wc :: 2.2k

taglist: @childofthecycle @takoyakkun @the8luvr @staywrites @chocolattees @cherry-jaemin @cloudzume @babytoadz @cherrystay @sandaigdigan-reads @hoes4hoseok

couldn’t tag: @x-dawna-x

let me know if you’d like to be added to the taglist!

There have been far too many unfortunate events unfolding in your day so far, starting off with the stupid guy that had parked just a little into your spot (that still had you thinking more than you had to do for any science test, and you were highly tempted to just smash the car instead) and then moving onto your English class where you were given a pop quiz on the third act of Romeo and Juliet, and then finally, the situation you’re in now.

It’s the last period of your day, which is supposed to be the most laid back in certain cases, but you’re slumped in your desk in the AP Chemistry lab room for a new assignment of partners. You’ve already attempted to convince Mrs. Choi to let you continue being partners with Chaeryeong, who was looking equally as gloomy from the opposite side of the room, but she had passively dismissed your request with something that went along the lines of ‘expanding our knowledge as a class.’ Not only did that sound like bullshit to you, it actually was, but you didn’t do anything more than stay put as she called out the assignments of partners.

“...Chaeryeong and Jisoo. Beomgyu and Yuna. Y/N and Jisung.”

You’re frozen at the sound of your partner’s name, slightly expecting your teacher to pair you up with one of the overachievers that usually sat in the back and talked shit about the ‘untalented’ kids, but you’re also pleasantly surprised. Turning your head, you meet the said boy’s eyes from a distance, shining into yours before a smile spreads across his face almost immediately. You return one back (probably forcibly from the shock you’re experiencing of the Han Jisung actually recognizing you and smiling at you) before whipping your head back to the front, gulping deeply.

Fuck.

“Now that we’ve split into pairs, there is a list of chemical compounds on this table. Come up with your partner and choose one wisely. After everyone’s chosen, I will tell you what your assignment is.” Mrs. Choi gestures vaguely with her hands, turning away as the rest of the students move around to find their partner. You stay planted in your seat, eyes barely staying open as you quietly continue to try and calm the beating of your heart. You’re sure that it’s not healthy, the erraticness overflowing to every single vein and artery in your body until you’re filled with the filling remembrance that your teacher just paired you up with the single most attractive boy in the school. Well—you purse your lips, thinking about that Hyunjin guy from yesterday—Jisung still causes more heart palpitations than some new guy could ever.

When you deem yourself safe enough to finally use your legs without thinking about falling, you stand up, meeting your partner halfway in the middle of the classroom. He doesn’t say anything at first, possibly because you’ve found a newfound interest in your dirty Converse, but he chuckles as a few seconds pass by, making you look up. “Hey there, thanks for looking at me. Wanna go choose a compound?”

You blanch at his choice of words, but you nod slowly. “Uh-huh, yeah. Sure.”

You learn later, alongside Jisung, that your assignment was to successfully convert your chemical compound into another, with exact proportions being massed properly. Just as you listen to Mrs. Choi going on and on about proper dilution, you slowly start blanking out into the space of ‘why did my dumbass decide to take this class’ and ‘this isn’t worth the pain that I’m receiving.’ Thankfully, Jisung has an equally shocked look at his face as the explanation continues, and you’re sure that there isn’t a way the two of you would be able to complete the assignment properly. There was no way; it was practically impossible.

“I just want to remind you guys that this is definitely possible! Students have succeeded well in the past years! You and your partner should be working together as efficiently as possible, which is why I mixed it up a little this time. There should not be any distractions, understood?” Mrs. Choi finishes, nodding as if someone had actually answered her rhetorical question. “Also, I’ll be grading you on how well you manage your time, so if there’s unnecessary chit-chat, that’ll be points deducted from your grade. No exceptions. Got it?”

You think maybe she’s referring to the time you and Chaeryoung accidentally fucked up the entire experimental process by forgetting to set a timer (it was because the two of you were preoccupied by a TikTok dance, though you would never admit it to anyone), or maybe the time that Jaehyun guy almost set half the chemistry lab on fire by not disposing of chemicals properly. You’d think the school would be a little more careful considering they’re letting teenage students handle dangerous chemicals, but thinking of the time that your teacher told you it was fine to handle acid without wearing gloves, it clearly was never a practice.

You and Jisung start to prepare, with you carefully reading through the reaction process several times and measuring out the chemicals as precisely as possible while Jisung handles the rest of the equipment, bringing over pipettes and scales. As the two of you continued working for the rest of the class period, only till the very end did you notice that you were, possibly for once, actually using all of your class time properly.

“Are you going to homecoming?” Jisung asks as you set down the beaker on the scale, startling you with a non-chemistry related question. If you were being honest, you hadn’t thought about it; homecoming wasn’t too big of a thing at your school to begin with, plus, there wasn’t even the cliche dance that everyone thought they’d get as kids. It was one of the first home games played by the football team (which was pretty shitty, for the record) and they crowned a homecoming king and queen every year. Honestly, it was usually a bore.

“I don’t know,” you say honestly, trying to keep your voice as steady as possible. Maybe constantly reminding yourself every two seconds that Han Jisung was speaking to you would help, but you couldn’t get over it. At least not today. “I haven’t really thought about it.” He hums thoughtfully, taking the beaker from you as you pass it along.

“Have you ever gone to a swim meet before?” His question sounds rather interrogative in nature, and he seems to notice, stumbling over his words for the first time. “Um—I mean, have you gone to any of our swim meets before? You see, I’m on the team and I feel like I’ve seen you before at one of them, and it’s fine if you have gone! I’m just curious.” He holds up his hands in defense as if he’d said something wrong, the chemical splashing around in the beaker as you widen your eyes.

“Fuck, be careful,” you retrieve the object from his hand, placing it down safely on the table to ensure you weren’t going to take after the setting-the-classroom-on-fire guy. Jisung watches as you do so, perhaps overanalyzing the fact that your gloved fingers brushed past his in that moment, now an apologetic look forming over his face. “Sorry, you were about to spill it on yourself.”

“No, it’s fine!” He replies, the volume of his voice attracting attention from the nearby classmates, including Chaeryoung, who gives you a small smirk. You return a pointed glare in her direction, trying to calm down as you realize you’re overheating from the situation at hand right now. “Shit, sorry, that was kind of loud.”

“It’s okay, Jisung,” his name tastes unfamiliar on your tongue, only having been used around Ryujin earlier. Ryujin, you remember, my best friend that’s practically in love with the boy standing in front of me. “I’ve been to your swim meets before, I mean—no offense but—who hasn’t? You guys are undoubtedly the best team in school, who wouldn’t want to watch?”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” he chuckles wryly, sounding a bit forced. You decide to ignore it and continue working on the project. Thankfully, your teacher gave the class a few days to work on it, or else it would be essentially impossible to finish. “Wait, aren’t you usually there with your friend? The one with the blue hair?”

You raise your eyebrows, somehow already feeling just a little more comfortable around him. He isn’t as stuck up as you expected, and he definitely doesn’t act like a cocky little shit either. Most importantly, he seems to be just as nervous as you. A small smile forms on your lips. “You mean Ryujin?”

“Ah, yeah! Her.”

“Ryujin and I usually go to watch swim meets together, or at least, she drags me around everywhere and that’s one of the places I’m forced to go.” You chuckle at the memory of her towing you towards the pool, swearing that she’ll buy you a hundred dollars worth of milkshakes for the next month if you keep her company. She never kept the promise, but you still remember the feeling of watching people competitively swim. More importantly, the seven most popular boys in the school at the time. “But I go voluntarily now. I think everyone has to have some sort of school spirit, right?”

You look up at him, your eyes sparkling under the fluorescent lights and you don’t notice, but Jisung gulps, avoiding your gaze after a split second. “Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Totally, definitely.”

The conversation awkwardly ends there, a little weird but better than having to continue talking about how many times you’ve seen him backstroke his way to a medal. You’re not sure if Jisung even knows how popular going to a swim meet is, because when you ask him, he answers with: “I thought all sports got the same audience.” They don’t, that’s confirmed, unless the dance team was performing as well.

The bell rings a few moments later, finally signalling the end of the day with a deep sigh from you. You clean up as quickly as you can, bidding your new partner (and maybe friend) a goodbye to the rest of the day. As you yank out your phone from your bag, going out into the hallway towards your locker, you spot Chaeryoung from the corner of your eye, brushing past you dramatically with a whisper of:

“You’re whipped already.”

dear y/n love,

this is my second letter to you. hopefully, unless you didn’t receive the first one for some reason. but if this is the second one, hi! i hope you had a great day today and if you didn’t, i hope you feel better. i think you probably find this weird, the love letter sort of thing, it’s super cliche and everything so i’d get it if you decided to take this and, like, throw it out or something. but please don’t! please don’t throw it out, i’d be very upset. not that you’d know anyway, but :)

you’re also probably wondering, ‘why is this guy sending me stuff without telling me who he is?’ well, i’m glad to say that i have a purpose. it is, well, just to make you happy. life is hard, ya know, and i don’t think a lot of us would be able to get through everything without someone by their side. not that you don’t have anyone by your side! i’m sure you do, you have friends and family that support you as well, but since i unfortunately do not fall into either of those categories, i have to resort to written letters.

anyway, i’m ending this letter quickly considering my class is ending in hmm, like four minutes? i want to make enough time to get to your locker and give it to you, hopefully without you ever noticing, but if you did end up finding out who i am…just forget about that part. yeah, like my face and all? erase that memory from your pretty head. i’m so sorry, i just realized how much i just didn’t get to a point with this letter at all.

in a few days is the homecoming game, and i may or may not have a little surprise waiting for you there. if you’d like to come, that’s awesome, if not, that’s perfect as well. i know the last thing you’d do is trust someone you don’t know, and it might be a little hypocritical of me to say this, but trust me. in the least creepy way, i will say that yes, you do know me, maybe not as well as i know you. shitttt that sounds so creepy, i deeply apologize. i’m just your secret admirer, that’s it, not a stalker omg. now it sounds like i’m a stalker. okay, anyway.

please come to homecoming, i won’t reveal myself to you just yet (maybe not ever, but it depends) but i have something waiting for you. it’s NOT a death wish, cross my heart, for real.

signed, jay

[thetomorrowshow]

Slower Than Words Ch. 20

First  -  Previous  -  Next

Been a busy week! I’ll let you know if I need to slow down updates! So how about we visit Virgil, see what’s up with him?

cw: a n g s t, panic attack

~

Virgil couldn't move. Roman had helped him into bed, then sat in the room for a while, trying to talk to him. When Virgil didn't respond, he eventually left, stating that he would be back later.

His world was crashing down around him.

Could he believe that just yesterday, he'd smiled? He'd laughed? Now it was all background noise, mindless buzzing that felt totally inconsequential. There was only one thing that mattered now. Patton.

Therapy had been rough, and Virgil had expected it to be. What he hadn't expected was to go over every meaningful interaction he had with Patton. The doctor had said she was “doing some tests”, so Virgil struggled to keep himself together as he talked about the one person he missed most in the world.

Then, she'd had the audacity—she'd dared to—

Virgil took a deep breath, blood boiling as he remembered that it was she who encouraged these breathing exercises. What if he didn't want to calm down? He deserved to feel, remember, Patton needed him to—

Virgil's legs started quaking, but he paid it no mind. He could not be wrong, admitting he was wrong would be abandoning Patton, he couldn't do that, he wasn't dead, he wasn't gone, he'd always been there and always would.

His breathing quickened, coming in short, shallow breaths. His entire body was shaking, and Virgil nearly puked when he realized he could smell rubbing alcohol. He hadn't had a flashback all week, he'd been doing so well!

As if summoned, there were gentle fingers on his wrist. Calm, the fingers traced. It's okay. I'm here.

“Patton,” Virgil croaked. “I—I knew it, you're here, you're here, I knew it—”

V breathe slow. Safe.

Virgil got his breathing under control after a dozen rounds of exercises. His legs were still quivering, but he knew where he was. He was in his room, in Roman's house, and he was going to be okay, and Patton—

Virgil choked.

His own hand gripped his wrist. His own hand was tracing soothing words.

“She was right,” Virgil whispered. His mind frantically grasped at straws, trying to explain what had just happened, as Virgil felt an overwhelming amount of despair.

“Virgil, you talk a lot about Patton. In every instance you told me about, however, you never hear him. You can't see him. Based on your time alone at the beginning of your imprisonment, it seems unlikely that they would suddenly decide to move you into a room with another person.”

Virgil's body had been completely out of energy, lax and unable to move, but now he was stiff as a board, locked in place. It couldn't be. It couldn't.

“We haven't been able to find out what that book was, based on your description of it.”

No. No no no no no.

“And I've seen you trace words onto yourself, in times when you need comfort. An interesting coping habit, one that might appear when a person is locked in a room with no outside stimulation.”

Virgil sobbed, full on weeping as his body couldn't move. This couldn't be happening. This couldn't be real.

And that was exactly the problem, wasn't it?

“Virgil, I think Patton may have been a hallucination that your brain fabricated in order to keep you comfort during the year that you were alone. I may be wrong, but everything you've told me about Patton points to it. Virgil, can you be absolutely certain that Patton was real?”

He'd said yes, he'd said that there was no other option. He'd stormed out of the office five minutes later. He'd refused to talk to Roman in the car. He'd gone straight to his room and curled up on top of his blankets.

Patton had to be real, didn't he? He couldn't have made up a person so complex, so loving, so wonderful. And, more realistically, he couldn't have created something so solid it had washed his clothes on days he felt too ill. Unless he'd imagined it. Anything was possible if it came from his head, wasn't it?

One part of him was screaming, begging him to not abandon his best friend. The other part of him was mourning the loss of Patton. Virgil wasn't sure what to do, torn this way. He had to be real. He was real—but was he? Where was the evidence?

The world was crumbling. Virgil choked on his tears, crying for Patton, crying for himself, crying for the loss he'd just suffered. Patton wasn't real, Patton had to be real, Patton couldn't be real.

Roman knocked on the door, asking cautiously if Virgil wanted to come down for dinner. Virgil pretended to not hear him, feigned sleep when Roman opened the door to look in. He buried his eyes in his pillow as he heard the door quietly shut, then Roman's footsteps retreating. He was alone, isolated, and the one person he'd truly loved had probably never even existed.

What was Virgil supposed to do?

-

“Dude, what does it say?”

A long silence. Virgil groaned. Apparently he'd gotten an email as well as a letter, but Roman had insisted on reading it to him. Screen-readers were 'too impersonal' now. It wasn't like he was going to get his information any other way.

“Virgil, I . . . I'm sorry.”

Virgil's heart dropped. Roman sounded lost for words, his voice cracking in the middle of the sentence. There was no way whatever the letter said was good news.

“You . . . you got in!”

In a shot of adrenaline, Virgil smacked him. Probably on the arm.

“Ow! That was my face, you heathen!”

Oops.

“Roman! Don't—why—” Virgil could barely speak. He'd gotten in? He was certain he wouldn't get in the first time, let alone twice . He got in!

“It's my job, as your adopted older brother!” Roman said, the false hurt completely gone from his tone. “I have to bully you a bit! You should've seen the look on your face, it was priceless!”

Virgil frowned, his heart still racing. He shook his head in an attempt to clear it a bit. “I'm . . . older than you?”

“Doesn't matter! I am, by proxy, older!”

Virgil snorted. “That makes no sense, dude.”

“Doesn't have to!” Roman proclaimed. Virgil could practically see him doing some dramatic arm thing. “I'm the older brother, and therefore, I don't have to make sense!”

Virgil tilted his head back in an approximation of rolling his eyes. According to Roman, it looked pretty creepy when he actually rolled his eyes, and it stung a little. Still, he would probably roll his eyes once he was around people who weren't Roman's parents.

He was really going back.

He sniffed, his nose burning. It had been so, so long. Had the campus changed? Would he be in a different dorm? Would he and Roman still share, since they were in different grades now?

He knew everything about their accessibility and whatever, about how they would accommodate disabled people. The school had actually reached out to him, informing him that he could finish his degree no problem, they had four or five visually impaired students already and could easily make it possible for him to continue his education. Virgil had been in contact with various foundations in order to work things out with his university, and he'd gotten a few scholarships—not to mention, the handful of scholarships he'd already had had gladly reinstated themselves. In fact, Virgil had pretty much already known that he'd be going back. There'd been very little room to doubt, as his therapist had told him several times.

This was real, though. Right there, in Roman's hands, was proof. He was allowed back, and would see teachers and classmates he hadn't seen in over a year. He was starting spring semester, which was still a few months away—Roman, despite his protests, had also put off starting his junior year until spring semester.

“Virge? Are . . . you okay?”

Virgil sniffed again, wiping his cheek to find a few tears there. “Yeah, I'm fine,” he said, with an attempt at a laugh. “I just . . . didn't think this would ever happen, y'know?”

Roman also laughed, albeit much more nervously. “With the way admissions was basically begging you to come back? Of course it happened!”

Neither of them acknowledged what Virgil really meant.

“So, packing?” Roman said, after several seconds of silence. “I know it's a while away, but is there anything specific you want to bring?”

With a pang, Virgil thought back to his hand-stitched hoodie. Hopefully it was bringing Patton as much comfort as it had always brought him. He'd had it for years, made it in Home Ec in high school. Until recently, he'd never been without it. It was bittersweet, in a way. Sure, it was gone, but it was with Patton. Like . . . like a piece of his heart would always be with Patton.

Virgil shook himself. That's stupid. And cheesy, he told himself. Grow up. Move on. He doesn't exist.

There was an ASL club on campus, one that Virgil planned on becoming a part of. Roman wanted to as well, making up something about having always wanted to learn sign, but Virgil knew it was just protectiveness. Virgil was pretty sure Roman had been about to rearrange his entire schedule so that they could have the same classes, despite the fact that Roman was a year ahead and in a different program of study. After a long evening of Virgil sitting in his room anxiously while Roman talked to his parents in the living room downstairs, Roman had come to the conclusion that it was best for him to continue with his intended major. Virgil was relieved—he was a grown adult, after all. He didn't really want someone trailing after him everywhere, insisting on helping him with every little thing.

Did he?

“Am I ready for this?” he wondered aloud. Roman gripped his shoulder tightly.

“I think so.” The words were soft, but no less powerful than Roman's usual loud tone. “You're so strong, Virgil. You're the strongest person I know.”

Virgil couldn't help but cringe. He knew someone much stronger. Whether that person was real or not was up for debate.

His most recent therapy sessions had involved a lot of tears, but Virgil had agreed to acknowledge that Patton might not exist. In turn, the doctor agreed to not make a formal assessment on Patton for the time being. It was still devastating, of course. It was still as if his entire world was falling apart. But Virgil was finding it easier to smile, more natural to joke with Roman.

He was healing.

Did he want to heal?

Yes, of course Virgil wanted to heal. He wanted to move on. He wanted to lead a normal life, without hurt and flashbacks and hallucinations.

But not without Patton.

There was a fork in the road approaching, Virgil was sure of it. He was going to have to choose between waiting for, hoping for Patton, and moving on. He wasn't sure what would happen when he reached that point.

But it scared him that he would have to make that decision alone.

~

Taglist (let me know if you want to be added/removed): @enragedbees @gotta-love-alejandra @bunny222 @basiic-emo @patt0n-sanders @rosiepupper @fangirlgeekandfreak @dn-fan21 @that2000skid @remy-the-lemon-berry @itsadastraperaspera @xionbean @sanderssides-angst @hell-yea-we-gay-tonight @maybedefinitely404 @broken-pencils @thewhimsicallibrarytech @doomllily @hereissananxiousmess @judyismydog  @arodynamic-enby @at-that-one-nerd @therapysides

[angelofthequeers]

How is Zoe's comic racist? (sorry don't mean to question you, genuinely curious) Also, I admit I was also sucked into the salt fic whirlpool, but quickly left after I realized how toxic it was being. Could you also elaborate on GalahadWilder, if it isn't too uncomfortable for you? I'm sorry, I don't mean to be rude, or ask uncomfortable questions.

I can’t point out everything off the top of my head but the racism (along with everything else but that’s not the focus) is a large part of what made me throw my hands up and write this. And I won’t be answering any more asks about any of this because I just want to get it out there so people know (because of how many people genuinely don’t see it) and then go back to trying to forget that this shit ever existed, rather than dragging out some new fandom drama. Also keep in mind that while I’m West Asian/Arab, I’m also white-passing so if I get anything wrong, I appreciate call-outs. (Also I finally got my laptop charger today so I can snip my posts again 😭)

Her treatment of Max in ‘Gamer’.

It’s not unique to her; it’s a very common salter thing to utterly tear into Max for being a “sexist jerk” and daring to underestimate princess Marinette because she’s a girl. Never mind that they canonically aren’t close friends because of Chloé’s bullying, so Max probably had no idea that Marinette’s liked video games all this time, where Adrien is the new boy so it’s just one more thing to learn about him.

It’s especially heinous compared to how the other classmates are treated far more leniently for their own mistakes - they still get salted on but Max, aka the Black boy, always seems to get singled out and held to higher standards. Just look at ‘Chameleon’ and how the other classmates are mildly to moderately attacked by salters but Max gets utterly ripped to shreds because he “should know better”. (Never mind that just because he’s smart doesn’t mean he’s good at human interaction. They just want to attack him).

It also angers me because people like Nathaniel and Ivan are absolved of what they do as akumas (like kidnapping others and literally forcing someone to go on a date with them) because they couldn’t help it, yet Max is literally held responsible for what he did when akumatised (because he dared to go after Princess Marinette) and even for daring to get akumatised in the first place. Both these things just make him a sore loser, apparently.

So SL ‘Gamer’ was the final straw for me, especially with how she characterised Max as a smug arsehole, and it made me so angry that I just exploded to my friends, but I didn’t know how to directly call it out without looking like a petty bitch.

Here’s a post I made about salters and ‘Gamer’ if you’re interested in a more coherent and in-depth thing about it.

Alya’s treatment throughout the whole thing.

In canon, she’s an enthusiastic and passionate girl who sometimes gets carried away and goes too far and who idolises Ladybug because Ladybug stands against evil. Here? She’s treated as the butt of the joke for being so starry-eyed over superheroes that she idolises Scarlet Lady while Marinette mocks her behind her back. Never mind her iconic line of “all that is needed for the triumph of evil is that good people do nothing” and this is why she loves Majestia in the first place. Never mind that she loves Ladybug because Ladybug is kind and passionate and strong and creative. Canon Alya wouldn’t want a bar of Scarlet Lady, who just sits around complaining, and yet SL!Alya worships her because...why? Running joke? The only Black girl in the series is treated as a gag to be made fun of by someone who’s supposed to be her best friend, just for the audience’s amusement. Marinette’s probably meant to look funny and relatable here, but she just looks like a major bitch to her new friend. Alya’s flaws are basically blown up and exaggerated for comedic effect, while Marinette in contrast is airbrushed to perfection, with no flaws and no anxiety that was only alleviated in canon by - guess what - being Ladybug.

It’s like Zoe wants to stick to canon while adding her own little “fun” twists for humour, like making Marinette snarky and perfect (which just makes her look like an utter bitch) and in the case of Alya, it does her so dirty that even Lila is more sympathetic. LILA. After SL humiliates Lila, Alya looks doubtful but buys some bullshit excuse so that she can continue to be the Scar-worshipping idiot. And then in the aftermath, her concern isn’t for Lila, the girl who was humiliated and bullied by a literal superhero and then ended up sick. No, she’s angry because...Lila lied on her blog. The blog that doesn’t have nearly as much recognition as in canon because SL would never validate her, unlike Ladybug. So her passion for her blog is exaggerated to imply that she’d say that a girl deserves to be bullied and sick because she told a few lies (since at this point, Alya doesn’t know about any possible malice on Lila’s part, just as in canon. All that’s known is the lying for attention).

It’s horrible hypocrisy, where Alya is held to higher standards than the other (white) characters and when she fails to meet those standards, she’s torn into. She’s not afforded any sympathy for being hurt that Lila lied to her; in fact, she’s demonised for feeling hurt, especially because of the running joke that her blog is focused on someone so horrible and she doesn’t see that. Lila is presented as the sympathetic one here. LILA. Just because Alya dared to believe her in canon.

Also, how she’s constantly trying to either tease Marinette for having a crush or insist that Marinette’s only doing what she does because of a crush...even though according to this ‘verse’s canon, Marinette is too good to make mistakes and do obsessive stuff over a crush, which is why canon Alya thinks this about her in the first place. That didn’t just come out of nowhere in the show purely for “woe is Marinette, her best friend doubts her”.

Like in the first part of ‘Gamer’, where she’s accusing Marinette of only entering the tournament to flirt with Adrien while Marinette so “coolly and calmly” rebuts her...why? By the ‘verse’s own logic, Marinette isn’t a flustered mess around Adrien. The only purpose of this scene is to glorify Marinette and her amazing calmness while making Alya look like a nosy idiot who dares to doubt her best friend. The logic of the ‘verse and of canon clash really jarringly in moments like this, and it becomes clear that the only purpose of these moments is to make Marinette look better at the expense of others. Most often her best friend, who’s an utter idiot for not seeing Scarlet Lady’s true nature and just can’t keep her nose out of Marinette’s business and so comes to wrong conclusions. Why are Marinette and Alya even friends in this ‘verse? SL!Marinette’s been nothing but condescending towards Alya most of the time.

Uh, and also the way she occasionally whitewashes Alya. Just look at the SL headers. She literally made Alya, aka a Black girl who’s one of the good guys, lighter than Lila, aka a white girl who’s one of the bad guys and not even that tanned in canon. Why do people make one of the villains darker and often whitewash one of the heroes? It’s not that hard to figure out.

(Also the way she really played into the aggressive Black girl stereotype in ‘Horrificator’ over a minor argument, even physically threatening Nino. Why? Literally why did she have to go full-on aggressive instead of just looking angry and scolding him or something?)

This all might not be conscious on Zoe’s part but the way Alya is treated is still disgusting, especially if you’re operating on internalised salt from other aspects of the salty fandom. I’ve seen her claims that she’s trying to help Alya improve and she’s not being salty but...even if she’s not being consciously salty, her salt is definitely still leaking over it and part of that salt includes racism. I also don’t see how making Alya a joke and exaggerating her flaws is helping her to improve when there was plenty to go off in canon but, well, that might just be me.

Even Marinette, who’s pretty much treated as white for 99% of it.

Marinette, aka the girl who’s only made visibly “Asian/Other” in SL ‘Reflekta’ with her Chinese-inspired Black Cat suit and name which is a one-off, while her permanent Bee outfit is just the bland tight suit that salters criticise Ladybug for having and her name is just Marigold. It comes across as using “Asianness” as a costume and it really didn’t sit right with me at first, but it took me a while to tease out why exactly this made me feel ick.

There’s nothing wrong with touching more on Marinette’s heritage and expanding on it in ways that the show doesn’t, especially because this is a big sticking point for salters, but again...it’s only a one-off. A costume. There aren’t casual hints sprinkled throughout the comic that just normally establish Marinette as half-Chinese, aside from like a page or two in ‘Timebreaker’ showing Sabine’s outfit. It’s another ‘Kung Food’ where it’s slammed into one episode and shoved into our faces that Marinette Is Chinese and it’s really jarring and unpleasant.

It just comes across as fetishising, is all. I don’t think it’s something most people would pick up on unless they’re used to being able to see this kind of thing.

Master Fu. Oh, Master Fu.

From an old man who made mistakes but tried as best as he could with the limited knowledge he had, he’s now a bumbling idiot who...put the earrings in Marinette’s bag instead of her room for some reason? To kickstart the plot? Especially because the ring was still in Adrien’s room. It’s very, very contrived.

And then in one of the most recent updates, Zoe has Adrien - a white boy - physically threaten Fu, aka an elderly Asian man. It’s disgusting. I was gobsmacked when I first saw it. And that’s the thing with salters: they tear into Adrien for being a white boy so they can look Enlightened when he hasn’t actually done anything racist, yet they then turn around and perpetuate actual racism in trying to “fix” him

There’s probably more but those are the examples that jump out at me of the racism in SL. There are plenty more problems but...whatever. I’ll be here all day if I try and cover those.

As for the Galahad thing...it’s personal. That original post was as much as I was comfortable revealing.

[scarofthewind]

Ushijima Wakatoshi x Reader || Farm Life AU (Pt.2)

A/N: Hello everyone! I hope you are all enjoying your days! I updated my blog once again, sorry for the confusion. All tags are at the bottom of the post!

Warnings: Foul Language, farm au, Ushijima being a jerk, aged up au

word count: 1.6k Tip jar 

pt.1 | pt.3

The first two weeks were like this; you would try to talk to Wakatoshi and be nice, and he would be the absolute worst to you. His cold words and harsh tone didn’t sooth the aching in your heart that you felt every time he looked at you with those pretty olive colored eyes. He was different no doubt, but you knew it was because of you that he’d become like this. You left him behind without a moments hesitation and expected him to be happy to see you; boy were you wrong. 

With a heavy sigh, you brushed some hair from your face as you sorted through the chicken coop, collecting all the eggs you could find. A beautiful red hen sat on the top tier and stared at you with her little beady eyes. “I don’t know what to do about him.” You said to the chicken who titled her head at you in confusion. Reaching up, you gently petted her head, watching her eyes slowly close in affection, before you turned and left the coop, basket of eggs in hand. 

Your eyes caught sight of Wakatoshi walking through the back garden, a variety of carrots in each hand. He stopped walking when he looked up and made eye contact with you, causing you to lower your gaze and head inside the main house. 

The kitchen was bustling with noise and the grandparents both smiled at you when you set the basket of eggs down. “Oh goodness, look at all those eggs. Better get a few cartons and fill them up - we can sell those are the market today.” The grandmother grinned, watching as her grandson walked in, carrots in hand. “Are there more?”

“Lots.” He replied bluntly, setting them in the sink and rinsing them off. Both grandparents watched as you stood back to back from him, trying your hardest not to say anything. Flipping through the newspaper, the grandpa mumbled something under his breath earning a glare from his wife. 

“How about you two sell at the market today instead of us?” She suggested with a knowing grin. Your head shot up to look at her as well as Wakatoshi’s, disbelief on both of your faces. “Just like old times.” She smiled, watching as you nodded, packing more eggs in cartons. 

“Did you clean or disinfect those?” Wakatoshi said coldly, watching you stiffen and look at the eggs in your hands. He scoffed and you felt your face heat up with embarrassment. You couldn’t admit that you weren’t told to; you didn’t want to embarrass his grandmother. 

“I forgot.” You said meekly, your heart hammering in your chest. 

Wakatoshi let out a breath, “Of course you did.” His words made your heart sink lower into your chest and you heard his grandfather snap at him, causing him to walk out the door. 

“Don’t worry about those, I’ll do them. You just go get cleaned up and we can go to the market together.” Grandmother said, watching you trudge off with a sad look on your face. “Those two are going to kill me.” She sighed, watching her husband look at her sternly. 

“They’ll come around. He’s just being an ass because he got his feelings hurt.” Grandfather chuckled, earning a small hum from the woman as she continued with the eggs. 

*

It had been years since the last time you came to the market, but it was just how you remembered it. There were a lot of people wandering to various booths set up in the middle of town. Grandmother sat beside you, waving off another customer who had bought a few heads of corn. “What do you do for business in the winter?” You asked after bagging up an order of various vegetables for a customer. 

“We sell winter vegetables mainly; squash and all those good things. Last year I finally got enough blackberry’s and strawberry’s to make jam and those were hits.” She told you as your customer payed and left the booth. “If you freeze the fruits during the summer and fall, it preserves them long enough to make jam to sell in the winter.” 

You nodded, finally sitting down for a second and watching everyone walk around. Scanning the area, your eyes landed on a familiar face and you immediately stood up. “I’ll be right back.” You told the woman next to you who waved you off. 

Walking across the street to a booth that had many varieties of chocolates, you caught the eyes of a all too familiar boy who ran at you full speed. “(Y/N)! You’re back!” The red head swept you up in a hug, swaying you around a bit before letting you breathe. “I haven’t seen you since high school, how have you been?” Tendo grinned down at you with wide eyes. 

“I’ve been good. I came back for a few months to help out at the farm, what about you?” You asked, watching him step back and point to his booth. 

“I’m a chocolatier. Went to a big fancy college for it and everything.” He smiled and handed you a piece of chocolate, watching you eat it. 

“This is amazing.” You gasped, savoring the way in melted on your tongue effortlessly. “I’m so happy for you, although I didn’t think I’d ever see you doing this.” You laughed. There was no doubt he looked different for sure; he’d aged like fine wine and his hair was way shorter than you remembered. However, he still held that boyish charm. 

“Me neither. After graduation, everyone parted ways and I decided to go to this college in the city and here I am now. I actually get to go all over Japan and next spring I plan to grow my small business.” He said, referring to the booth. “I already have offers in the UK.” He grinned and you beamed at him.

“That’s so great, Tendo. I’m glad you were able to find a new paradise.” The boy nodded and helped a customer before turning his attention back to you. 

“What about you? I know you left first out of all of us third years- where did you go?” He asked. 

“I went to America. I had a good job offer there that would also pay for my training and any college I would want to I took it.” 

“So that’s what happened.” He said as though he was connecting the dots to something in his head. “You’ve seen Wakatoshi then?” You nodded and he rubbed the back of his head. 

“I know I hurt him by leaving, but why did he stay here? He was going to be big and famous from some club he was a part of.” You said and Tendo shrugged. 

“He never told anyone why. Even Semi couldn’t get it out of him. Which by the way did you know he’s a musician now?” The two of you continued to chatter about other classmates and their futures before you decided to make your way back to your booth, not without Tendo giving you his number of course. The rest of the day was calm and when the sun started to set, you packed up what was left at your booth and headed back with grandmother. 

The drive was long back to the farm and you found yourself dozing off a bit but waking up when you heard the front gate screech open. With a yawn, you got out of the car and helped take the rest of the food inside, setting it down on the kitchen table and looking out the window above the sink. You could see the barn from there and inside you watched as Wakatoshi took a horse from its stable, walking it to the back probably to get washed. 

Mind made up, you walked to the barn with a headstrong approach. Making your way to the back, you found the horse and him standing next to it, but it was not getting washed. Wakatoshi tightened the saddle on the black beast and was about to slip his foot in one of the stirrups to get on when you spoke up, “Why did you stay?”

His head snapped towards you and the horse looked at you as well, curious as to who you were. It turned and faced you, inching towards your slowly but getting stopped by the man holding its reigns. “That doesn’t concern you.” He replied coldly, watching you roll your eyes. 

“Well what about Tendo. Remember him? Your best friend from high school.” You watched as his olive eyes widened, “Yeah, I saw him today and he said he had no idea why you stayed. Strange.” The man in front of you narrowed his eyes at your assumption.

“I stayed because someone had to. Everyone else left, so I stayed.” He sighed, mounting the horse and turning it around to leave the other end of the barn. 

“You were going to make something of yourself and because of a breakup, you decided to waste your life here.” You said, causing him to halt the horse’s movements. He turned slightly in the saddle to look back at you. A heated glare in his eyes made you want to cower. 

“I’m not wasting my life and it wasn’t a breakup.” He scoffed, watching your face pale slightly, “How can two people break up if they were never together in the first place? You said it yourself, (Y/N), we were never good for each other.” With that, he turned and rode out of the barn, leaving you standing there with a heavy heart and a twisted gut. 

tags: @cloudswritings​ @jtsgjdfjg​

[hanamakkiss]

Pros and Cons

Matsukawa Issei x reader

summary: Being childhood friends with Oikawa and Iwaizumi had few perks, it's all worth it when one of those perks came in the form of one(1) Matsukawa Issei.

Where Matsukawa gets a nickname.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5

a/n: yall rmb y/n talking about a hot vb boy? yea also makki is a lil shit but everyone loves him  UPDATE: reuploaded sorry😓😓😓

You had made it a point to visit trainings whenever you were free now.

Always popping up whenever the coaches left, Matsukawa’s eyes were instinctively drawn to you when you entered, not that it was hard, considering how much ruckus you made.

After greeting everyone generally, you spent some time chatting with OIkawa when you head whips around to-

Kyoutani?

Oh right, this would be the first time you met him after anticipating it for so long. Matsukawa gestures to Makki about your actions and the two of them pause to watch the show.

Prancing over to the cropped blonde, excitement coming off in waves, "Kyouken! I've heard so much about you! I-"

"Stay away from me." he practically growled.

You froze in your tracks.

"Huh?" your head tilts, taking a step towards him.

"Why?"

Another step.

The growling intensifies, "Or else."

"Or else what? What are you going to do to me?"

Another step.

You're standing directly in front of him now, eye to eye. The sound of balls impacting a gym floor has ceased. Matsukawa tenses, holding his breath.

A second passes, then five.

Kyoutani turns and sprints out of the gymnasium.

Jolted by the sound of feet slamming against the floor, you turn around, head resting on your palm, "Oh dear, I don't think he likes me very much. What a pity," you basically spat the last word out. The contrast between your words and your sinister smile sends shivers down his spine.

Wow. He lets out a low whistle, that sure was something. For a second there, you had the same menacing aura Oikawa sometimes sported. He doesn't know if the stuttering of his heart was fear or attraction.

Somewhere nearby he hears Oikawa's laughter get cut off by a yelp and a stern warning. ("I told you to stop influencing her! Now look at how weird she is!")

Makki comments what he thought, “What, the fuck?”

“Amazing, isn’t she? I thought her that mysELF-“ Oikawa is cut off by a blow to the stomach.

“Shut up, stop looking so proud of yourself, Shittykawa,” Iwaizumi scowls.

By this time you had made your way back to them, all smiles. “Sure hope I get to talk to him again someday,”

Makki snorts his water out.

The morning for the study session arrives.

As Matsukawa strolls to your house, he briefly wonders how the day might go. He figures it might become a little awkward if it was just the two of you, so he's thankful that Makki would be present.

Your house comes into view when the devil himself texts him.

He doesn't have to wait long before he got his answer. Just as he presses the doorbell, his phone chimes again.

Ah fuck. He doesn't even have time to curse him before the door is swinging open.

"Hi," you greet him, "welcome, to my humble abode," you usher him in with a flourish.

Ah shit, he takes off his shoes, here we fucking go.

Making his way to your bedroom he takes note of the frankly absurd number of houseplants that filled the place. Every free window, corner and crevice was stuffed with greenery. He vaguely remembers a flourishing garden in the front yard too.

Entering your room was no different, every available space on your desk and windowsill had small succulents and tiny flowering plants. He takes a moment to study while you set up the floor table.

“Doesn’t... having a lot of plants diminish your oxygen level at night...?” Your head whips around, scowl already in place.

“That’s just a myth. Plants don’t produce enough carbon dioxide at night to suffocate, otherwise how would forest animals survive?” The agitation with which you reply clues him in that you got this question too often.

“Also, if that works I would have already died,” you add on as an afterthought.

His eyebrows shoot upwards as he blinks slowly, “Um, alright, good to know?”

You grin in response, patting the floor next to you, “Sorry about the mess, I don’t have many friends who visit,”

“Judging by how much time you spend with us, I was starting to think you didn’t have any others,” he teases, eager to clear the awkward air.

“Eh, that’s true,” you shrug, “you guys are kind of my only friends in Seijoh,”

Oh shit, did he just overstep? He cringes inwardly when you interrupt.

“Why else would I spend so much time with a bunch of idiots?” the playfulness of your tone allows him to relax.

“Considering how well you mesh with us, doesn’t that make you an idiot too?”

Your smile drops, making a noise of indignation as your own joke is played against you. He just laughs as he avoids your smack, opening his textbook.

The previous conversation still weighing on his mind, he contemplates asking you about it.

“What is it.” You don’t even look up.

“What?”

“I can feel you staring at me, and your finger tapping is really loud,” looking up, you scrunch your face at him. “If you wanna say something, just say it.”

“Mmmhm alright then, if you don’t mind, are you on bad terms with your classmates?”

You stare back blankly, “Not...as far as I know?”

“Do you not hang out with any of them?” Are you not friends with them? You sense the unasked question.

“Well...” you trail off for a few moments, contemplative, before looking him in the eyes, grimacing.

“It’s... kind of due to Kawa?” at his confusion you rush to explain, “Not that he did anything! It’s more of... us being so close? Even platonically,” you scratch the back of your neck.

“They’re nice until they find out I’m close friends with Kawa and Iwawa. Then they either outright hate me, or get close to me in hopes of a better chance with him. Not all of them are like that though! But, at a certain point it’s easier to avoid that problem entirely rather than sifting through. Some girls look really nice, I just don’t know how to talk to them, I transferred in so late, after all.” you laugh sheepishly.

He hopes he isn’t letting his indignation show on his face.

“Does he know?”

“God no, that’s kind of a bastard thing to do, isn’t it? Hey, did you know I can’t have any girl friends cause they’re all crazy over you? That’s kind of fucked up yea? He can’t even do anything about it.” You wave a hand in the air, dismissing the idea.

“What about Iwaizumi,” he tries.

An incredulous look, “You think he would understand that? He barely even looks at girls! Actually, now that you mention it, a sizeable portion of the girls who befriended me had a crush on him. Guess it’s because he’s intimidating,” you nod along to your own words.

“So you’ve just been alone this time?” He can’t wrap his head around it.

“I haven’t been alone! I’ve got you guys, don’t I? I wouldn’t change that for anything,”

The look of happiness you pin him with causes his heart to flutter, but he’s not entirely convinced.

Sensing his unease you soften, “Besides, there’s only a few more months left, I can handle it,”

He exhales his frustration, letting the topic go. Nothing much he could help with anyway. The only thing he could do now was stay by your side, if you need him.

“Thank you for your concern,” You pat his hand comfortingly, the sides of your lips tug upwards, and you speak the next words gravely. “But,” breath bated, he waits for you to continue.

“sometimes, it really do be like that.”

He attempts to flip the table, causing you to scramble for cover, choking on your laughter as you do.

The two of you fall into a steady rhythm, asking each other questions here and there.

A few hours pass when both phones chime, breaking your concentrations, “Oh! Makkun’s at the convenience store now, whaddya want?”

He tells you his order and while you type it in, he observes your figure.

You’ve got a thing for nicknames, he’s always wondered about it.

“Hmm? What? Oh, yea, I guess I do, what about it?” Looking up, your gaze is pointed.

“Huh?” Shit, did he say that out loud?

“You said I got a thing for nicknames? What about it?” You leaned towards him, a teasing grin forming.

He feels himself begin to instinctively draw back before forcing himself to still. “Just like Oikawa, was what I meant.”

At this, your grin deepens, “Well, duh. Who do you think he got it from?”

Interesting. He nods in understanding.

“Well,” he drags the word out, mirroring your grin, “you don’t have a unique nickname for me, are we not close enough?”

Your smile turns into an O as you process his words. He’s right, you never really thought about it.

“Huh. I guess not. Do you want one?”

Stupid of him to admit, but he didn’t expect you to ask him that, and he takes a moment to decide. Did he want a special nickname from you? Is that asking too much? Moving too fast? Just as he’s about to reply, you make the choice for him.

“You know what? I’m gonna give you one anyway. Just give me some time to think.”

He just shrugs, accepting, and goes back to doing his work.

Some time passes and he sneaks a glance at you. A cute furrow nestled between your brows, you doodled in your notebook.

“I’ve got it!” You slam your hands on the table, shifting to place more weight on your knees, leaning far across the table now.

His pencil slips out of his hands from the sudden eye contact.

“How about,” you pause for effect, so close now he could count the light freckles on your cheeks, “Issei?”

The sound of his name coming out of your lips causes his brain to short-circuit. He never knew it could sound so sweet.

“Well?” You probe, “It’s kind of a cop out but I like how it sounds,” you sound it out a few more times with different intonations.

He thinks he might die.

“Hey, you okay? If you don’t like it you can let me know, yanno?”

“It’s fine,” he chokes out, “go ahead.”

“Great! Then-“

The doorbell rings.

“Oh! He’s here! Be right back!” You don’t wait for a reply before leaving.

Matsukawa has never been more thankful for Makki’s impeccable timing. Lucifer used to be an angel, he supposes.

He passes a hand over his face, willing his cheeks to cool down.

He composes himself just in time for Makki and you to enter.

Makki lets out a hum of appreciation, “Mad oxygen in here,”

He turns to you, “Say, isn’t it bad for you at night?”

“Oh my god, do the two of you share one braincell?”