#we talk about this fic every week
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veephoenix · 1 year ago
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Laura, I'm a messsss 🫣🫠
“I don’t know how well you slept last night, but this hotel really has to work on soundproofing their walls,” We all saw this coming, didn't we? 🤭
“That was you! Oh you dirty, dirty kids,” he laughed. At first I thought he wouldn't mind, but then I read the rest of the paragraph and I felt bad for him :(
The whole alcohol issue going on with Noah is really keeping me on my toes. I even hated him a couple of times in previous chapters, but reading this one and seeing how he chose to be better felt like a wave of relief crashing over me, and it was definitely so welcome.
Oliver feeling left out had me crying for him! I wanted to hug him and keep him wrapped in my arms forever. Poor baby! I love how you portrayed his vulnerability at this time. And I'm glad he was brave enough to be honest with Aubrey and not keep it to himself, which led me to check this fic's masterpost, and I realized there're only 6 chapters left 😫
"I have so much love for both of you, in such different and such similar ways all at once." Aubrey is here making confessions as such and I hope they don't break her heart, because if they do I'll get my guns ready! (I don't have any real gun, but you know, the emoji gun, I meant lol)
"Tall men, indeed," 🤤
Oh, I feel Aubrey so much with her worries about the long-distance relationship. I was going to mention it in your comment on my epilogue, but I was in a two-year long-distance relationship, and that shit is indeed hard af and emotionally draining.
“So, it’s all about love, isn’t it,” I said, trying hard not to sniffle. “As long as you love them enough, you make it happen.” That's a yes from me, from experience 😇
“Sometimes you have to realise just how in love you are first. Or allow yourself to admit it.” Oli and Noah should have been there because that last sentence was definitely aimed to them.
Noah in the turtleneck, please! I used to hate turtlenecks until I saw him.
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(Just dropping this picture here for no other purpose than drooling).
“I figured it should be one, you know,” Oli mused in fake contemplation. “Only seems fair to take you two out for dinner before I fuck you.” His bluntness will kill me. I was NOT ready for that statement.
I like that both our Noah's are so unexperienced in terms of being with another man 😇 cute
"though neither of us were thinking very much about eating right about now." Wrong, Aubrey. I'm pretty sure Oli is thinking about eating. Just not that dessert.
I also want to go to Oli's house. I volunteer! I've seen some picture before and the place actually looks very nice.
This man doesn't waste any time, does he?
Not both of them sucking and licking and getting Oli off 😮‍💨 The clashing of heads was so real and so honest of you to write because as I started reading that part that was all I could think of lol 🤭
They're so nasty with this impulses to clean each other's cum from each other's lips, i love it 🫣 Oh okay, Oliver just agreed with me in the next sentence haha
Okay, I'm leaving this link to this artist's work here (nsfw) because I've been following him for a while now, and the moment I read about Aubrey sitting on Oliver's face, this picture came to mind, and now nobody can't tell me it's not them (ok, the tattoos are not there and the hands were on his chest, but it's still them in my head 🫣)
“Aubrey, what the fuck are you doing,” Oli mumbled from underneath me, making me halt in my movements. “I just-” “It’s called sitting on someone’s face, not hovering.”
L, this entire scene was so real, every line, every description, their dialogues... I've been living in it since I read the chapter. Not in a perverted way, but as in admiration at how wonderful this scene was between the three, how they finally had this intimate time the three together and how they were learning to maneuver themselves in a trio.
“And you be a good girl too and prepare yourself for me, yeah? I’m going to fuck you when he’s finished and I’m not going to put any fingers in you first.” He's such a demon, i'm in love with him.
“Did you do it missionary, like an old couple?" Dude, never underestimate the power of missionary and eye contact and forehead to forehead fucking. 👆🏽 Aubrey will teach you about it at some point, I'm sure.
“Let’s see who can do it better, doll.” Oh no, not a competition! It's not a competition!
"I ended up making grabby hands at him like a little child as the sweat on my body slowly turned cold, leaving an entirely different type of goosebumps to wreak havoc on my skin. Noah saw, pulling the plush blanket up with him as he got into bed next to me, making sure to tuck both me and Oli in before hugging close to me." bUT BUT this whole thing is so cuteeeeee i'm sobbinggg
“So, who fucked you better, doll, me or Noah?” I hope this doesn't lead to some serious competition, unless it's just for fun 😏
“Guess you’ll both have to fuck me during the same evening for optimal comparisons.” During the same evening, at the same time, perhaps?
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in love with the mess - day ten
summary : Aubrey is going on tour and, for once, she’s decided to focus on having as much fun as possible. Oli can be a little shit but he does nothing short of adore Audrey and… well, maybe Noah a little, too. Noah likes the flirting, as long as no one gets too close, emotionally. But what will happen when the three of them take it too far?
content : smut (p in v, dirty talk, oral (f and m receiving), hints at anal play), angst, fluff
length : 10k
tags (let me know if you want to be tagged!) : @veronicaphoenix @cookiesupplier @lma1986 @jilliemiw86 @bngurngheart @lacktoesandtoddlerants @narcissisticbehavior81 @flowery-mess@shilohrosechicken@justeli6@starvingarsyn@floatinglikeaswan @blacksoul-27 @somebodyels3@kageyasma@spikeisdaddy@broken0mens
a/n : Hope you enjoy this one!! Comments and reblogs keep the writer writing 💕
•••
day ten
I was getting tired of unexpected knocks on my hotel room door. Especially when it was much too early and I was already rushing to get ready after something had prevented me from properly packing my suitcase last night. Now I had mere minutes until I needed to be downstairs with the rest of the crew and the band because Bring Me had an awfully early bus call to get to Sheffield. I couldn’t blame them for that - it was home, after all. Most of them were using the day off to visit friends and family, but Oli and, as far as I knew Matt too, were heading for the store for the day.
I ripped the door open as much as I could under the weight to find none other than Oli himself standing in the hallway, an amused smirk on his face.
“I don’t know how well you slept last night, but this hotel really has to work on soundproofing their walls,” he chuckled, letting himself in just past the doorway as I stood frozen. “‘Cause I was definitely wide awake hearing two people have the fuck of their lives. Like, holy shit, staying quiet definitely wasn’t part of their vocabulary at all. Did you hear them at all?”
Keep reading
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hideyseek · 2 months ago
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wrote like ... 1k of good solid fic today ... feeling VERY ACCOMPLISHED. my new solution to a convo in-fic that feels like it's dragging is to actually make the characters have two conversations at once. this takes twelve million hours to figure out how to do in the text for me BUT does solve my problem of "WOW THIS CHAPTER IS LIKE. STRAIGHT UP BORING?!" lol
also i've put in (HEE HEE) a very pointed technical shift at one key point of chapter 3 which satisfies my need to underscore the important thing happening. and ALSO all the dialogue is sooo much snappier and faster and "realistic" and less "here is plot exposition. here is my clear and direct feelings" thank god omfg
ANYWAY! suffice to say. it is possible that. there will be a new chapter on time on uhh whichever weekend day i post on. sunday (???) i think. and also like .... it might actually be good up to my personal standards
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remythologise · 1 month ago
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kcd2.........
#the slowburn merthur of it all. head in my hands.#hyperfixations. you'll never guess where they'll come from next#sorry if you have sent me a message recently on any platform. I will attend to it....#obsessed with how they marketed it last game as like anti-woke and now the biggest controversy is it's slightly woke now. times we live in#if you don't know what the hell I'm talking about I just found out about this game last week and then through a series of shenanigans...#well. anyway when I looked up what the gay romance controversy was like >10 hours into the game I screamed in new and interesting ways#best way to experience it honestly would be to play kcd1 and kcd2 completely unspoiled but that's unrealistic. well. anyway#oscar award for most pleasant surprise of the year.#btw I have not even remotely gotten to this part in kcd2. like haven't gotten to the STRAIGHT romances never mind the. well#anyway. my point is. [falling over] MY POINT IS#thank god for historical fandoms where the fic is on average really good#every person on the team who fought for the storyline to be a thing you deserve one million gift baskets#[me crying to my friends] they let you fuck the guy that's constantly talking about pussy...... do you know how important this is.....#kira for ts#anyway thanks to the people who wrote kcd1 fic. you guys ROCK congrats on your elite investing sense#this is a public service announcement bc nobody on my dash is talking about this incredible thing. I got recommended this game at WORK#by someone who DIDN'T EVEN KNOW ABOUT. WELL.#discovering something incredible was going to happen to me in real time.....
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kit-screams-into-the-future · 4 months ago
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looking at the dialogue i wrote up for the next comic strip and the sheer amount of sketches (sketches. not even the lineart itself) to go along with it........ at this point i may just have to start writing fanfiction. it would be a lot less tedious methinks
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caffernnn · 10 months ago
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Previous reblog has me going down the usual “ok but what if Makoto or Rei actually drowned and didn’t survive” thought spiral. So there’s that
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loveandthings11 · 10 months ago
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Don’t worry I’ll tell you more, still writing about it
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13eyond13 · 9 months ago
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wait. there's a Those fic server?
it was more of a thing about 4 years ago, but yep!
Edit: if you want someone to chat to about it check the notes of this ask for an offer anon :)
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rosesradio · 8 months ago
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mantisgodsdomain · 1 year ago
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Very fun to be an dormant Homestuck in 2023. We saw a post with an aside about the mid-to-highblood bias present in the fandom and we took a moment to think "wait, what?" before remembering how much people posted about Mallek, Lanque, and Marvus. Obviously no one asked our opinion on the matter but we think that a lot of the bias here may just be because fandom people will jump at any vaguely conventionally attractive male character who can say something angsty, and we don't see 99% of this effect because we rapidly get fatigued with any character who is overly present in the fandom and any ship that has overrepresentation in the sample size and start blocking tags.
Very highly effective approach, admittedly, but it leaves us a bit out of the loop. We only really start encountering Issues with that approach in smaller fandoms when blocking any given popular ship will instantly shrink our mutual circle to Just Us and maybe, like, one guy who we dragged in here ourself, so we have to relax blocking standards somewhat and just make it "blocked for a week" or something similar.
#we speak#whenever we decide to revisit homestuck ao3 we just block the entire first block of Popular Ships#we have not seen a da vekat fic in years and this is vital for not burning out our tolerance of Them Interacting At All#we are censoring that tag so it does not appear in their ship tag also#we still have the mar vus tag blocked. we know this bc we have one specific clown mutual who likes him and will reblog him sometimes#but its been like a year since we've seen mal lek or lan que in anything and we like it that way#this has also made our character preferences skew like. OVERWHELMINGLY to woman and enbies over time#because fandom as a whole is EXTREMELY prone to focusing on men and setting anyone who is Not A Men as a background character#which results in a weird little loop where we'll get into something and get burnt out on like. Every Guy within a week#simply due to the sheer oversaturation That One Guy has#and then we only get time to recover on the saturation of Random Gals bc of the trends falling towards Just Men and nothing else#and then our Characters We Like portfolio ends up being like. five women used as background characters and one enby#sometimes we will also pick up a guy who gets villainized by like half the fandom or a popular character where the popular takes suck#but like. it's almost all background characters you see what we mean. we're a home for random blorbos that no one pays attention to#because in order to get into Actually Liking A Character Enough For Them To Hit Heavy Rotation#a high concentration of fans is like. an active detriment bc we'll get burnt out on them#and if people talk about them Too Much to the extent that theyre unavoidable then we will inevitably start to dislike them#we are but a simple beast and if we don't get recovery time we begin to run into Issues with random things & tropes#and then our recovery time once we've hit burnout is like. months to years#anyways this is a long tag ramble but generally if we spend the time to explore a character and figure them out we'll enjoy them in some wa#with the major caveat that if theyre Too Popular we may dislike them regardless#and the way that they're framed both inside and outside of the original narrative can heavily influence us if we run into it too often#bianca and jaune are utterly facinating characters who work with a set of tropes we would LOVE to do justice to#but unfortunately people who like bianca and jaune are the kind of people who think they did nothing wrong#so we can't just like. Talk About Them And Whats Going On There#without running face first into people that genuinely believe theyre a Good And Loving Family Who've Done Nothing Wrong In Their Lives#but we feel a lot like if we go into depicting them without making “THIS IS IN FACT BAD” incredibly blatantly obvious#that we will begin running into people who DO NOT have the prerequisite knowledge and will take it WAY off from intended
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spookyrea · 3 months ago
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god, mood.......... but
this is the best part of it all -- it's a GREAT writing exercise!! how do you convey universal experiences without tying them to your own biases? bodies come in all shapes and sizes - so how do you describe a body that is effectively amorphous? how do you work around hair type/texture/colour, around height and weight, around textures and bumps and lumps and crooked teeth and all other human awkwardness? how does this interact with the fact that these things are so often effectively a social currency?
it teaches you a lot about language and intentionality. effective use of the X Reader genre involves a lot of play.
X Reader is inherently indulgent. but it asks that you - the author - make your own indulgences accessible in very interesting ways!
being an x reader writer and trying to be inclusive of all readers makes me overthink so much like should i write about you having smth with milk in it? no no what if the reader is lactose-intolerant. about the reader being the big spoon? noo what if they wanna be cuddled like a little spoon. about fingers through your hair? noooo what if the person reading it is bald
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the-game-spirit · 2 months ago
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why is everyone writing terrible surprise plot twists. stop that.
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inkedbybarnes · 2 months ago
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none of it was fake
bucky barnes x avenger!fem!reader
summary: you've been undercover with bucky as husband and wife. upon returning, he seems to have forgotten that it was all pretend.
word count: 1.6k+
warnings: two idiots cluelessly pining for each other. fluff. usage of petnames such as sweetheart, doll, and baby. lowercase writing.
note: hi, babies. how's everyone? this is my first fic in ages, so sorry if it's not my best one. i just wanted something cute ++ this is unedited & not proofread, might fix it laterrr. still hope you'll enjoy this one! xo
dividers made by @firefly-graphics!
comments, reblogs, and likes are highly appreciated. thank you! ♡
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“i can't believe your first kiss happened during a mission. an undercover mission!”
wanda huffed, still hung up on the mission you had with bucky weeks ago wherein you had to play pretend as a married couple. there had been a kiss or two during that time, and it felt impossible not to tell your best friend about it when you had been crushing over the soldier for ages.
wanda knew what you felt towards bucky. in fact, she was the only one who knew, or at least the one you shared th information with, and she made sure to ask everything about the mission, even if it took days for her to interrogate you.
“excuse me? that was not my first kiss,” you said defensively, reaching for a cup from the cupboard that you had just opened. “and why are we still talking about this? you and nat already squeezed out every information from me for an entire week.”
“i didn't mean your first first kiss!” she exclaimed, following you around the kitchen as you made yourself a cup of coffee. “you've had a crush on the guy for so long, and the first time you two kiss each other is when you're pretending. that's not how i pictured it at all!”
you had to admit, the mission was sort of a blessing in disguise and a curse at the same time. you were glad to be able to spend time with bucky in ways you've dreamt of, but there was also the horrible reminder that none of it was real. with how avoidant bucky was with you, it was impossible for any of it to happen outside of the mission.
“well, maybe you should stop picturing us doing that sort of stuff. you're way more invested in this than i am, wanda. don't you have your own relationship to think about?” you asked. although you knew she was in a happy relationship with vision, you just wanted her to take a break from all the bucky talk. “when is your man home anyway?”
“my relationship is doing great, so i'm good. i don't need to think of it as much since he gives me everything that i need, and i think of yours because you deserve happiness as well.” she smiled fondly, her eyes sparkling with happiness. “and i'm glad that you asked because this reminded me that vision's arriving with bucky soon.”
“already?” your eyes widened at her statement, completely forgetting that bucky, along with steve, clint, and vision, were coming home today from their mission. “why didn't you tell me sooner!?”
after finishing your mission with bucky two weeks ago, he was immediately sent into another mission which specifically needed him. so, today would technically be the first time you're seeing him again since you last called him your “husband,” which was more nerve-wracking than you expected.
“hey, i'm your best friend, not your alarm.” wanda raised her hands up, defending herself. “and why are you so worried? i can feel your anxiety without needing to be in your head.”
“well, we never talked after.. you know,” you replied, taking a big sip out of your cup. “i know none of it meant anything and that we were just doing our job, but it's the first time i'll be with him normally and not as a pretend married couple. it's kinda awkward, wands.”
“you were able to pretend you didn't like the guy for months, you can do it again for another day.” she answered. “unless you finally tell him what you feel?”
“oh, that? yeah, never happening. i'm not going to risk—”
“there you are, sweetheart.”
there was a collective shocked gasp from both you and wanda, recognizing that voice from behind. except the gasps had different reasons.
you were surprised with his arrival.
wanda was surprised that he casually called you sweetheart.
you turn to find bucky already walking towards you with a smile on his face.
this man never smiles unless he was tasked to do so!
“bucky! you're back!” you awkwardly greeted him.
“yeah, didn't they tell you? i was looking for you when we landed.” he said, pulling you close to him before bending to place a soft kiss on your lips like it was something he'd always done. “you okay, baby? you look pale. did you eat?”
i look pale because wanda is right here with us and you just kissed me while acting like we're dating!
“um, yeah, i'm fine. i'm fine,” you answered, gently pulling yourself away from his arms before he could wrap them around you completely. “can we talk? privately?”
he frowned, worry etched on his face, but he nodded and squeezed your arm softly. “of course. where do you wanna talk, doll?”
“anywhere where wanda isn't there.” you said lightheartedly, throwing a sharp glance at wanda who finally understood what you wanted her to do.
“oh! right, right. i'm sorry, you guys can stay here. i have um..” she paused, thinking of a reason to say. “i have to look for vision anyway. we're supposed to watch a movie together. bye!”
and just like that, wanda was gone and you were left alone with bucky in the kitchen.
before you could speak, bucky asked you first. “what's the matter, doll?”
“what's the matter?” you echoed in a higher tone. “what was that all about?”
“what are you talking about?” he asked, seemingly confused.
“you kissed me, bucky, like it was nothing. then you keep calling me these nicknames.” you reminded him. “we're back home, not in los angeles in our fake house that we used as a fake couple.”
bucky took a step back when he realised his actions, now finding it hard to look at you. “i.. i'm sorry. i completely forgot. i just.. i wasn't thinking. i got used to how we were before,” he mumbled, still finding the right words to say. “did i make you uncomfortable?”
“no, but you made me confused,” you replied. “i'm guessing you got used to how we acted as a fake married couple, but you were gone for another mission. how are you still stuck with the old routine we had?”
“because that's all i could think about,” he answered, now staring at you. “while you're back here in the tower, completely done with our mission, i was thrown back into another one, having only you in my head to pull me back up from the fatigue.”
“you're telling me that you kept thinking about us even when you were gone? why?”
“haven't you?”
“is this a trick question?”
“it's a question to find out whether you like me too or not.”
“you.. you like me?” you blinked. “that's impossible.”
“how on earth is that impossible?”
“because you're always so cold and grumpy around me,” you answered. “i think you're just confused with all the acting we've done, bucky. you don't like me.”
“i was supposed to go on that mission with sharon, not you.” he exhaled. “she volunteered to do it, so she was initially picked. i tried getting out of it, but i had advantages that they needed for the mission to go smoothly. so, i agreed, but in one condition.”
“what was it?” you whispered.
“that you should be my partner,” he answered quickly. “ask me why.”
your heart pounded. “why?”
“because i wanted an excuse to act the way i've always wanted to. i wasn't cold or grumpy because i didn't like you, i just didn't want to scare you.” bucky explained, his hand reaching out for yours. “god, doll. figuring out whether you like me or not has got to be the hardest mission i had to deal with. so do me a favour and get me out of this misery.”
once your lungs found a bit of oxygen again, you finally spoke. “what you said.. you mean it?”
bucky nodded. “every word.”
“well, i like you too.” you tried to bite back a huge smile. “for some time now, actually. wanda will eventually tell you all about my obsession with you. i can't believe we were both worrying for the wrong things.”
“your obsession with me, huh?” he asked cockily, a teasing grin plastered on his face.
“really? i said all that and that's what caught your attention?”
“can't help it. i've been obsessed with you for a long time now as well.” his eyes crinkled at the corners, a little smile gracing his lips while his arm slipped around your waist.
your eyes peeked up at him through your lashes. “does this make it real now?”
“do you want it to be?”
“you're really asking me that?” your chest rumbled. “of course i do.”
“then let's make it real.”
bucky watched you intensely for a few seconds as if he wanted to frame this exact moment before licking his lips and leaning down. you suck a breath, eyes closing as you felt his soft lips meet yours.
you never realised how much you've grown familiar with his touch and affection since your time together as a fake couple.
except this time, none of it was fake.
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should we see their time in los angeles as an undercover married couple? 👀
if you have any requests for bucky, send them my way! 💌
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dilf-docs · 2 months ago
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My Baby's Fit Like A Daydream
husband!pedro pascal x younger!reader
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summary: your relationship is finally out to the world. now, pedro and you will explore what it feels like to have your love out in the open.
warnings: 18+ (minors dni), age gap, smut, FLUFF, the empire of bad humor strikes again, hurt/comfort bc all roads lead back to angst, a brief mention of bodyshaming, this is lowkey pwp my bad, dirty talk, fingering, p. in v., bathroom sex ijbol, exhibition kink (they be fucking everywhere but in a bed), degradation kink (he calls her a slut twice), the one and only creampie (twice), so naturally: breeding kink, ALSO pls stop the husband!pedro reqs, i beg. a delulu girl can only take so much 💔
word count: 10,991 words
side note: not one but two requests to be fullfilled! this is as a sequel to call it what you want. also, spam time: i happen to write in wattpad as well, and i have a pedro pascal social media fic going on :) but it's on spanish tho. if u speak the language and would like to tune in, read it here AND spam again but speaking of the ptwt dynamic, why don't we become moots? check my (new) stan twitter account here (i had one in 2022 that i had since 2016 but entered a crisis and deleted it lol)
part: prev | masterlist | next
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The news had spread like wildfire.
As soon as you hit the red carpet, hand on hand, rings finally on display―shining under the spotlight, your phone had been blowing up nonstop: every show, podcast, tabloid, news outlet and social media had been talking about it. California had turn into an easter egg playground; everyone was eager to know it all.
(They had found the church where you married, the dress boutique, jewelry shop where Pedro bought the rings―the employees ratted him out, even sharing pictures of the moment, your husband posing with them without knowing of the future treason. They too had found the place where the reception took place, and even the name of the priest who had married you, but he refused to give the hungry press any details. God Bless)
In short, it had been a hell of a week. You figured dissapearing for a while was for the best, but with some interviews still left, that option had been discarded. Still, doesn't mean you couldn't retreat for a couple of days to the tranquility of your home while it was time to show up again. Well, as peaceful as it could get, since reporters were camping near your house and roaming around Hollywood Hills like vultures; the neighbour's nagging was just another layer of problems in your shit cake.
"I'm sorry, Louis. Walks will be postponed for a while" you talk to your cat, but the lazy bastard just stretches and lays down again. "Yeah, I can see you're affected. Don't cry"
"It's not the cat's fault" Pedro emerges from behind, "don't take it out on him"
He takes a sit next to you, two mugs in hand. He gives you the one with a chocolate steam, a souvenir he bought when you visited your home country last summer. You wonder if that's a trip you'll ever be able to make again.
"I'm not. Just- It's horrible that I can't even go outside my own house and walk the same roads I've walked in four years because the press is hidden with cameras in, I don't know, bushes!" you exclaim, quiet rage carried within your words. "It's unfair, really. All I want is to walk my damn cat without a flash up my ass"
Pedro nestles his face in your neck, nose carressing the skin. Giggles leave your lips, the sensation ticklish.
"It'll pass. It always does" he says, voice assuring, probably because he's used to the violation of privacy, but you're not. Getting bigger, is this the price to pay for making a name for yourself and claiming out loud who you love?
"I hope so" you murmur above the quietness of your home, a sound as eerie as fake, devoid of it's tranquil nature as a world of invasion awaits outside.
"Do you trust me?" Pedro speaks, voice unwavering. He holds your gaze, steady brown challening your shaky orbs.
"I do" you speak up, yet you wish you could believe it. You believe in him, there's no question to that, but do you believe in yourself? That the love you'd put out to the world would be treated with the same care and respect you have treated it in secret? For a fleating moment, you miss the secrecy.
"Then trust me this will be over sooner than expected" he presses a kiss to your lips, soft and sweet, feeling remanents of chocolate he licks away, as you mockingly yell ¡Qué sucio! but it's devoid of malice. "In time, this will become another anecdote we'll share with our kids, and laugh with our grandkids when we get older"
You smile, feeling tears in the corner of your eyes. Oh, doesn't he turn you into a pathetic sappy wife?
"Well" you sniffle, giggling to push back the tears away. "About the old part..."
He playfully kicks your side. "Uno ya no puede ser romántico, que le salen con estas cosas. Your generation could use some respect, you know?" (one can't simply be romantic anymore)
Pedro gets up, picking the mug from your hands as both rings brush together, the gold shinning under the morning Californian sun.
"And your generation could take a joke" you quip, lips curled up like you hadn't in weeks.
"Very funny, y/n. Thought you loved me" but then he's pressing a kiss to your temple like kissing you once isn't enough, promising to return after washing down the mugs.
"I do!" you shout to his dissapearing broad frame as he enters the kitchen, and he playfully makes a dissmissing move with his palm.
The laughing dies when your phone chimes next to you.
You shouldn't really, but the curiosity that draws you in is as intense as a magnet. The phone burns on its position, screaming for you to open it, despite being told by your husband that the best was choice was to ignore it until the buzz had died down, but you're afraid the turmoil isn't nowhere to be finished. Comments can be mean, he'd said, they can hurt you. Pedro said he'd learn with time to ignore it, but he was experienced. You weren't, so naturally, as your husband and protector, he wanted to shield you from the pain.
Although, both of your fandoms had been pretty supportive of your relationship, some user even claiming to suspect it, making threads full of easter eggs and connections that validated the theory which was now a reality. I've connected the dots, followed by pictures of you sharing wardrobe, slips on interviews, similar backgrounds in your posts across social media, and of course, the two Gladiator Ii interviews. Many resorted to making edits or screaming over your pictures in the premiere, demanding for more content you had yet caved in to share (there was a gigantic carpet of evidence sitting heavy in your cloud).
So, in a way, this support made it hard for you to truly dimension the hate Pedro warned you about: all you saw was fans being happy and showering you with love, making paparazzi to be the only problem as for now.
That's it.
You cave in, turning the phone on as you bite your lip, searching first your Instagram: a bunch of new followers, many with variations of ispunk on their usernames, as well as a swarm of comments on your recent posts. There's a small voice in your head telling you to turn away, but your thumb moves without thinking, clicking on pictures of the red carpet―a carrousel of you and then a picture of you both at the end, one fans had been gushing about the last couple of days, rings on display, practically up their noses. You were smiling, and Pedro was looking at you fondly, his other hand holding Lux but his gaze never leaving yours; he was too perfect to be real―yours.
You unconsciously smile at the captured moment, love obvious on your faces, so you open the comments, thinking it would be the same support or love radiating of the comment.
But boy, weren't you wrong?
It was all the same, support lost between waves of hate. Variations of bodyshaming, age shaming and even gold digger claims were on full display across the comment section. "She's ugly" "In it for the money, am I right?" "I thought Pedro had better taste, lol" "She got the role in Gladiator II because of nepotism. Or cocksucking" and then a cruel answer that read "Right, threesome with Ridley. Ew, what a whore!"
Worst of it all, some even had Pedro profile pictures, or usernames and accounts dedicated to him.
Your heart was beating like crazy, chest heavy and hollow, face red with emotions you couldn't quite place (embarrasment? fear? rage? sadness?) as you kept searching across Twitter*, doing a quick skim of the trendings that included you. The same hate speech pattern was all over the timeline, some betting for divorce in a couple of years (even months!), while others took their time dissecting your looks and relationship. As if they knew. Long gone were the edits and harmless threads: the hate wave was here to stay. Some where even being a bit racist, the irony of it all, being Pedro himself was latino and didn't shy away from it, rather proud as he didn't miss an opportunity to shot out his dear Chile. Or any social issue, as a matter of fact, very vocal on his political beliefs.
This was fucking ridiculous, and if the cameras were an issue, this swarm of negativity is what really took a toll on you, the flashes as you went grocery shopping now barely a scratch. No, this was worst. All you wanted to do was cuddle in a blanket while wearing one of Pedro's shirts and dissappear. Too much noise. Too much hate. You can feel it creeping up your body, tainting your soft curves, wrinkles, acne scars and face. It's like rough hands, tugging harsh, ripping your vocals because you can't scream; no words to express this pain.
You knew one day it would come, but never imagined the hurt and to what extent people were capable of. Cruelty. Dissecting your life and body like it was a show for them to be entertained: your marriage was a circus and your body a joke.
It hurt their condescending dismiss of your love, questioning as if the gap were only numbers and not a pillar of your relationship that made you and Pedro closer, despite the bridge in age. You were reduced to a middle-age crisis, and he to a filthy man pinning for a younger girl. Your body was turn apart, despite no real flaws existing. Humans are meant to be so, not perfect, but real, and that was the problem: you had turn into an object―a target for their dards to pierce through.
Your body shakes violently with cries, deafening your ears that you don't hear when Pedro walks in.
"Why are you crying?" he rushes to your side, panic on his voice. "What happened? Are you hurt?"
You barely manage to shake your head, and then his eyes scan all over your features, until they land on the phone on your hands. The worry turns to anger as he asks:
"You looked at them, didn't you?"
He isn't yelling, but it would be better if he did. This contained fury, fading into dissapointment, as if you were a naive child scolded by their parents makes you feels small and stupid, as if you knew no better.
"I'm sorry-" you manage to choke out among tears, "I know you told me-"
"I told you" he interrupts, words laced with wrath, "so this wouldn't happen. See what happens?"
"Why are you talking to me like it's my fault?" you yell, and Pedro sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose in irritation. "I didn't ask to receive all this! Do I deserve the death threats, shame and hate?"
He walks past you, and it's like a slap to your face. Was he going to behave like this? Didn't it matter how you felt, or was it something childish that could be brush to the side like nothing? Insecurities you hadn't even think of come crashing down on you, doubts creeping up and attacking you from all sides. It's horrible. You try to hold onto the good memories, praying you don't loose him. You can't. You just can't.
"Answer!" you demand, tears spilling like a broke dam.
"I was just closing the windows. Or do you want to fuel the talk, huh? Give the hungry hoard more to bite?" Pedro then stands to hold your gaze, and you hate that you can't place his emotions. Anxiety corrodes your brain: was this really the beginning of the end?
"Do I?" you dare to speak up, and even if its loud, it comes out drowned, the exhaustion from the emotional turmoil taking its toll on you. "Do I deserve it?"
"No, you don't, carajo!" Pedro bursts. "You don't deserve any of that, which is why I didn't want you looking at those things!"
He sighs, realizing the anger is misdirected.
"I'm sorry"
Your broken wails are the only thing to be heard. He hates himself for being a part of it, even if not the biggest.
"No, I'm sorry for being so stupid" you sob. "I-I just wanted for people to be as happy for us as I am with you"
"Come here" but he's the one cutting the space to embrace you.
His scent calms a part of you, body still rocking with violent shakes.
"You're not stupid. Nor ugly, or any of those things people are calling you. No, mi amor. You're beautiful, smart and talent. They fail to realize I'm the lucky one. So please, don't be hard on yourself, yeah? I can't bear to see it. Less if I know it's not true. You didn't ask for it; you don't deserve all that bullshit"
He presses a kiss to your temple, arms that hug you tighter holding you close close up to the point his heartbeat melts within your own.
I won't let you go. You won't fall as long as I got you.
"We'll get through this, yeah? Think of the future, and what's to come. It's hard, that I know, but let us enjoy the moment. Life is too precious to waste it away" he brushes stray tears with his thumb, softly and full of love that words aren't enough to express. "I'm here" the out loud, "and I'm not going anywhere. That's a promise"
Later that day, Pedro posts a carrousel of unseens, even one of your wedding (a video of your first dance), telling people to leave you alone. That he loves you, and that no malicious news, fans or comments will ever change that―suck it energy laced within his rageful statement.
Safe to say, in the next weeks, hate is barely a small voice whispering in the back of your neck, one that hushes down with each kiss and/or words uttered by your one and only devoted husband.
mandoshoney: y/n protection squad pull up, we ride at dawn starlightt180: unhing3dprincess WHERE ARE U??? PTWT IS IN SHAMBLES AND NEEDS U MY SHAYLAAAAAAAAAA elysyannemimi: i feel like a kid scolded by their dad. pedro has achieved the ultimate daddy status bobgirlll: is no one going to talk about how rageful/protective pedro sounded in that story????? NEED MORE FERAL PEDRO RN GRRrrrr ps. photos so cute, wish that was me lol pyramiidsf: i hope y/n is okay, ppl can be so cruel sometimes but at least she's got pedro on her side <3 he's such a perfect man :,)
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It had been days since your fight.
In an sweet attempt to cheer you up, Pedro had taken you out for dinner to a fancy restaurant you can't remember the name of. If they'll snap pictures of my wife without my permission, I might as well show you off. So, per his petition, you had wore a little black dress that hugged every curve of your body perfectly and pushed your tits to the top. Stunning, he had growled, and it had been hard to push him off as he devoured your mouth in your house's doorstep.
"Let's give them talk" you had agreed.
So now you sat at the restaurant, Pedro filling your cup of wine for the third time in a row, talking about all and nothing: about politics, the weather, your siblings, Louis the cat, upcoming gigs around your home you wanted to go to, how support had risen and the hate had dwindled, the numerous calls of job offers and interviews to keep on milking your relationship... life had never been more hectic.
"You know, maybe the dress was a bad idea" he takes a bite of his meat, tone nonchalant.
"Yeah?" you challenge, cheeks flushed with alcohol, "why's that? I thought I had to look good. What changed your mind?"
"Turns out" he looks at you, gaze piercing through your body, brown warm eyes darkening, "I figured something"
You know your husband. It's still fresh in your mind the first day you took a notice of it: jaw clenching, gaze fixated at nothing and white fists balled up on to the sides, arms swinging while fingers itched. A vein on his forehead would pop, and brows would melt together in a furrow. It happened when you got recognized by a fan, on your early days, and he had taken a picture of you, uploading it to social media. Dating Pedro had been going on for little to five months, and the way this guy hugged you from behind, hand resting above your ass, had made your then-boyfriend see red. His posture stiffened, demeanor changed and face adquired all the characteristics above. There was only one correct answer: Pedro was jealous, so fucking jealous.
So here he is now, jealous to the bone, alcohol increasing the rage.
"And that is?" you push his buttons, something you normally wouldn't do, but you're drunk and God, so sex-starved. His possesive side was always hot, yet now? It had a layer of allure it didn't have before, the idea of calming him down long lost.
"You know what it is" he answers, but you tilt your head to the side, acting confused. Pedro growls, clenching the glass a bit too tight; you fear it'll break.
"No, I don't" you serve more wine in your glass, savouring the liquid. Some spills into your mouth, and you lick it while not breaking eye contact. "Enlighten me"
"Turns out" the words come out strained, a whirlwind of emotions burning in the tip of his tongue, "that I wanted people to look at my wife, but I looked their looks and realized I don't like how they look at her"
He rambles the words out, speech pattern slurred and ideas clashing into one another, clearly drunk.
"I see" you draw out, demeanor calm, but your panties have started to get wet.
"No" he hits the table, making your eyes go wide and people turn to your table. You should be embarrased, but you're only aroused. "You don't see what I see. And I hate it, I fucking hate it" he seethes, words spit out over your unfinished meal.
"Dessert?" the waiter appears from seemingly nowhere, menu on hand.
Pedro doesn't even look when he answers, "Sure. Bring your best"
"The chef's suggestion is Soufflé, a classic dessert from his country"
"That'll do" Pedro looks at you, but his brain seems to be somewhere else. Like he's thinking. "How long will it take?"
The waiter ponders the answer, yet doesn't think any weird of it.
"About twenty to thirty minutes. Would that be alright? Or would you prefer to switch to one of our quick-fixes? They're as delicious as our fresh and-"
"No" your husband interrupts, eyes shinning with something akin to dangerous. "We'll take the soufflé. Just want my wife to eat the very best"
The waiter smiles. "Sure, will be back in a few. More wine?"
Pedro stops the action, removing the bottle's neck from pouring more red liquid in your glass.
"Won't be needed"
They excuse themselves, leaving both of you alone. The restaurant bubbles with chat and instrumental music from a band playing on a corner, but all you hear is his heavy breathing and your heart.
"I wanted more wine" you pout, not even knowing why you said it.
He smiles devilishly. "I'll give you something better than that"
How does it happen, you have no idea, but then Pedro gets up with a brash move, chair making a sound that draws attention. He smirks, his auburn reflecting on the candle glowing in the center with a light that's menacing.
"I'm going to the bathroom" an announcement that feels like a threat that runs through the newfound tension; it could be cut with even a butterknife.
You sit there in silence, too stunned to speak. Your phone chimes in what feels like an hour (it's been a few minutes, probably three). You open the notification, a single text from Pedro.
I'm waiting.
So this was his plan all along, huh? Maybe he's gotten bored of sex on a bed and room like normal couples, because ever since that time you sucked his dick in his trailer, Pedro has shown an appetite for public sex. Well, more like just shown but never done. Guess that changes as of tonight.
I'm coming.
Truth is, after the reveal and fight, you hadn't had sex since that time before the London premiere. Press tour hadn't finished, and the movie was still playing in theathers, but it feels much longer the time you had gone without having his dick rearranging your insides. That changes as of tonight.
You practically leap out of your sit, rushing to the restroom, which is too fancy for your liking. You're unsure how to proceed, and it should be because you realized how stupid and reckless this is, but it's more because you don't know which door Pedro is behind: men or women.
You knock softly on the ladies room first. "I'm here" you speak, voice small.
After a few seconds, a muffled voice from behind replies: "Me too"
You giggle as he pulls you inside, mouth devouring yours in a hot kiss.
"The lock!" you squeal, yet Pedro is busy buring his face between your breasts, pulling the dress down until he's nipping at the skin before licking the spot with his tongue. Your back is pressed against the tiled white wall, cold meeting your now heating skin.
"Mmm, missed this" he mumbles in a drunken state. "Needed my girls so bad"
His words elicit a moan out of you, a way to comunicate that your body too had been aching for this.
"Please, Pedro-" you whimper, trying to get rid of the pretty dress. He doesn't say it, but his movements command for power, big hands dragging your dress down until the black cloth falls to the floor in a sound filled with grace, it feels merciful.
"Black panties? But I thought I was a man with a plan" he groans, calloused digits ghosting over the wet patch in the middle. He smells your arousal off his fingers, and this is so nasty but you're so into it.
"Two can play" is all you answer, eager fingers unbuckling his belt as you unbutton the formal pants and pull them down to his knees, so with his underwear.
"Sure thing" he chuckles darkly. "Just look at you, baby. So loud, but you gotta be quiet. ¿Quieres que alguien entre y te vea así? Fucking slut, begging for my cock" (do you want someone to come in and see you like this?)
He's always been sweet-talking you through sex, and you know he doesn't mean it aside from being lewd words, but you also didn't know you could be aroused by it. Change is welcome, to say the least.
His hard dick is immediately stroking at the apex of your thighs, like he's got no time to loose, kissing you roughly like he hasn't eat and your mouth is his meal.
"Twenty minutes" he grumbles, groaning.
"Or thirty" you add, whining when his cock brushes dangerously close to your dripping folds.
"Can't believe you're this wet already" he chuckles, but it sounds more like a breathy sigh, lost in the inside of your mouth.
"I've been wet since before we left the house and you kissed me"
"And I kissed you" he adds. "No sé ni por qué putas te traje si sólo quería quedarme en casa y comerte" (i don't know why the fuck i took you out if all i wanted was to stay at home and eat you out)
You moan at his dirty mouth, clicking your tongue as a way to say so.
"You dirty old man-" it dies in your throat when he glides inside your folds with ease, a finger slipping in, then two, as he curls them. Your head rolls back, landing against the door with a hollow thud.
"Dirty? But you enjoy this, don't you?" his fingers buried up your hilt. Your eyelids flutter, whimpering drowned by your lips, bitten so deep you think you start to taste blood. "Bad news, mami. You're as dirty as me"
You choke in your words. "No-"
"No what?" Pedro mocks, sliding his digits out of you and shoving them inside his mouth, sucking on them while looking at you. You whine at the display and loss of them, knowing he's tauting you for fun. "Don't tell me you don't want someone to come in here and see you acting like a dirty slut? To see you almost coming here and now with just two of my fingers"
"Fine. What if I want to, huh? Just give me your damn cock already and quit teasing"
Words were lewd, but Pedro smiles with adoration.
"That's my girl"
His length springing free to slap against his now smooth stomach, your mouth drooling.
"Sit"
He glares back, "in the toilet?"
"Well, do you happen to see a couch or bed?" you quip. "That's right: you were the one who chose the bathroom, desperate old man. So needy, aren't you?"
You see your husband turning around, ashamed, and you laugh. "I didn't think it through" and you avoid to add a that's quite obvious snarky type of reply.
"Want me as much as I do?" Pedro doesn't protest anymore, grunting some spanish curses before sitting on the cold surface. "Good. Then comply"
You swing a leg over his lap, not afraid if the thing breaks, dragging your wet folds against his cock. He moans, gripping your thighs hard, biting at your lower lip to hide a growl that seems to erupt from deep within his chest.
"Gonna ride you, baby. Is that okay?" you take the lead, and Pedro gets frustrated that you're taking up a plan that was originally his. Despite such, he just finds himself nodding wordlessly like a fool.
You line up, desperate to have him inside of you. But you go slowly down, taking his size, maybe because you're drunk or because you'd never fucked in a bathroom before. Because, really, how will you even try to explain your PR team a broken bathroom?
You gasp as he bottoms out, struggling to catch your breath with the relentless push. His strong arm cages your waist, as he moans in your ear, bodies going up and down in sync. His slides are smooth across his length, helping you find your pace.
"Fuck" you whimper, legs starting to shake. "I think I-"
"I know" he interrupts you, a quick kiss to your earlobe. "It's okay; I've got you, linda"
He thrusts upwards, toilet creaking as Pedro keeps you in place.
You bury your teeth into his shoulder to muffle your moans, skin slapping against skin loudly, his movements becoming faster. The pressure keeps on adding, until the tightness on your walls is too much, and you're collapsing over his chest, folds spasming as he empties his load inside of you, seed deep in your walls, dripping down your legs.
"Oh, shit" you gasp, "Pedro!"
"Perdón!" he shouts, then covers his mouth. "Mierda, no quise ser tan ruidoso. Ay, carajo. Didn't want to spill all over you-" (sorry! didn't mean to be so loud. oh, fuck)
"There's a sink" you start, "and toilet paper. We'll manage"
"Right" he looks at his watch, "we got about ten minutes"
You smile, cheek resting against the warm skin of his neck. "If the chef took the whole thirty"
"There's only one way to find out" he gasps for air. "Pero, ¿no estás llena? Still up for dessert?" his big hand finds it's way to your tummy, you still contentedly stuffed full of him. It lingers, and when you look into his eyes, he averts his gaze, ashamed of whatever he thought. (but, aren't you full?)
"After this, I need some sugar to make it home" your eyelids drop. "I'm starving"
He presses a loud kiss to your head, "that's my girl"
"Yours" you pull back to rest your forehead against his. "Just yours"
He jolts forward, capturing your mouth in a hot kiss, and you smile into it.
"Good. Now, I'll give my good girl what she deserves" he takes some toilet paper to clean his spilling load out of you, kisses running from your face to neck. Then, gently so, lets you dress in again, exiting the bathroom first to give you some cleaning up space. When you come back to your table, the Soufflé is there.
"Eat" he commands, voice thick and rough. You smirk, giving it a bite as you look into his eyes: hair disheveled, puffy lips and droopy eyes. The bite mark seems to shine, or maybe you need to lay down for a while. "Y no mires atrás, ¿sí? We got ourselves a crowd" (don't look back, yeah?)
That night, you upload a story with a picture of the dessert with a caption that reads: best meal I've ever had. The context is lost until news of your bathroom affairs hit headlines next morning, but you don't notice: your phone happens to be dead, and you're too busy getting railed in what could count as round two to charge it.
pompeiianbollockr: hello just woke up and saw the pictures WTF TMZ??? did they really do #that 😭 bring back public shaming unhing3dprincess: i bet my grandma they fucked in that fancy ass restroom ㅤㅤmostannoyingbillioner: unhing3dprincess QUEEN U ARE BACK 😭 BETTING UR GRANDMA AGAIN? OH IKTR WE WERE LOOSING THE ANCIENT TEXTS poppysplayground: ohhhhh they're so nasty (do u want a third) ㅤㅤann-gell: poppysplayground fr like INVITEN
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The interview for Entertainment Weekly's behind the cover for Gladiator II was supposed to just include Paul and Pedro, but taking advantage of the free publicity and buzz your announcement made, they added you. Especially after the news about your restroom affair had hit, courtesy of TMZ; the rumor wasn't taken into account in the beginning, but now added gasoline to the gossip fire. Just what the movie needed: free promo.
You're sat in the middle of the two men, dressed in white as well, to match their attires with a flowy dress that loosely resembles that of Rome's. Then, Paul begins to speak.
"I saw the film for the first time when I was about 13 with my dad" he talks about the original movie.
"I saw it in the movie theater when it came out" you imagine a young Pedro lined up to see Russell Crowe's magnetic performance and let out a small smile. "I saw it twice, because of how emotional the movie was. Obviously it's incredibly visceral, and epic and the kind of movie you rarely get to see made, uh, these days"
You look at him, elbow resting on the arm chair as your body is all turned to his side. Truth is, you love listening to him, especially when he seems so invested, love for the subject rooted in each word.
Pedrito, you'd affectionally call. Ésto es una conversación, no un monólogo. And he'd blush embarrased, only for you to laugh it off, saying you would turn mute if that meant for him to continue speaking. (this is a conversation, not a monologue)
"It had an impact emotionally. I remember that, I guess, sadistically I was drawn to a second time go back again because, weirdly, it was very comforting. I remember it perfectly came out in year 2000. Right?" he asks, and Paul and you agree with a yeah. "I can remember what theater I was in and everything-"
"What theater was it?" Paul interrupts his passionate talking.
Pedro stops, "It, uh-" he rambles, before you all laugh.
"What about you, y/n? Were you even born?" Paul jokes, making you roll your eyes at his antics and deliberate desire to keep nagging you like some older annoying brother.
"I was like, born a year after you, Paul. But I didn't watch the movie until I was fifteen" you feel the gaze of both men fall upon you. "The first Ridley Scott movie I watched was Thelma and Louise, as you all know. Then my dad insisted I should watch it, and finally, at fifteen, when I had given up on my dreams to go on one last epic trip to the Grand Canyon, he played it. My eyes, they were, like, glued to the screen. I couldn't stop thinking about it for a while" you leave a small lingering touch on Pedro's arm, "just like he said: epic and emotional. Also, I had a huge fat crush in Joaquin Phoenix that lasted until I was twenty"
"That was like, seven years ago!" Pedro yells, making Paul snorts. "I feel deceived"
"Qué dramático. We're both married, you big baby!" you laugh, then make a joke before the next conversation starts: "You wouldn't think he plays an epic Roman General, would you?" (how dramatic)
They film some shots of you and the boys before moving to the next talk.
"I was doing a play in London at the time. I'd met with Doug and Lucy who are the producers of the film in LA, and then a zoom was set up and I spoke to Ridley for about 5 minutes about what Gladiator was going to be about. And then we spoke for the next 25 minutes about like, gaic football and dogs, and then I thought we'd do like camera tests and- but no, he just-" he shrugs. "I found out about two weeks later"
Now it's Pedro's turn.
"I knew that the project existed. I knew that Paul was doing it. I think it started with an actual like meeting with Ridley to go and sit down with him and I, whether or not the movie was going to happen for me or not, I was like I'm going to go meet Ridley Scott" he jokes, making you both chuckle. "It wasn't even about getting the job, it was like I'm going to go and sit down maybe five minutes, ten, twenty, as many minutes as I can"
"It was in LA" you speak up, "in his offices"
"Yeah, and thankfully he was willing to talk about all the things I wanted to know about, in terms of other movies, and that's what it really turned into"
"He's a wonderful Storyteller" Mescal compliments. "You could sit down with Ridley for-"
Pedro makes a joke, speaking over him. "Give me another one, give me another one-"
You still kind of hate the guy after his supposed comments on your husband's weight, but won't talk bad about a man who gave you work and your biggest role to the date yet, so you explain how it happened to you.
"I wasn't even planned to appear on the movie. As a matter of fact, my character was squeezed in last minute. Ridley is, just as they said, indeed, a storyteller" you smile. "The truth is, I worked with Cuba, his granddaughter, on a proyect together, a photography one. I was in London at the time, auditioning for a movie, when we met"
"London?" Paul asks.
"Yes" you laugh, ashamed. "I traveled to London with some of my savings, because you know what they say about not doing and then regretting. But I do regret it; I cried for my money to be back!"
"You didn't get the part" Pedro adds, barely containing a snicker.
"I didn't" you sigh, "Cuba saw me sitting alone on a café, eyes red with tears of failure and talked me into capturing such vulnerable moment. She didn't know me but made my day better, and she took some of the most beautiful pictures I've seen of myself. So, in a way, I won. I mean, she's the reason I got the role: my name came up on a phone call with Scott, as I had already made a name for myself, and showed him the pictures. He got in contact with my agent and I got the role after auditioning. Call that friendship nepotism"
"Didn't Pedro tell you about it? I find it funny that he was in the movie and didn't get you in" Paul comments, curiously.
"We were supposed to remain a secret, and the sudden connection when we had barely interacted according to the public, would've been weird. So no, Pedro rubbed his role on my face and then I came home with the new script as he received his. We both won our roles separately, and until we got it both, we realized just what it would mean"
"But now we're here" Pedro speaks fondly, taking your hand. "Rome conquers it all"
You can only hold his and stare back lovingly.
"Oh" the Irish man feigns disgust, "don't get all lovey dovey on me!"
The topic changes again, as Paul speaks.
"We meet early in the film, and this is again kind of Ridley's genius. He shoots it in a way that it feels plausible, but in like- the real action of that there's no way-"
They start talking ovwe each other excitedly about the process of filmaking, Pedro listing all the settings were the epic action takes place.
"We lock eyes" Pedro jests, "we lock eyes"
"All right" Paul plays along. "Three, two, one"
"i'm right here" you say, pushing your body to the front. "You got me third wheeling in my own marriage"
Paul laughs, breaking contact.
"Time for you to get a taste of your own medicine. You've made the rest of this press tour unbearable!" he protests, but his tone is devoid of complain.
"Marcus Acacius represents like-" Mescal then speaks about your husband's character, "he's a Roman general"
"No, he is the general of Rome" you correct, smirking.
"Be careful, princess. Don't let the emperor see you all over his General" the blue-eyed man next to you mocks, and you roll your eyes again.
"Will you ever let me live?"
Paul then talks about his character. "I'm like a lieutenant in the numidian Army. I kind of see Acacius as this, he- he represents everything that I hate about, uh, the Roman Empire"
"Well, the Roman Empire is expanding and expanding" Pedro takes the word, "and invading Numidia just to gain more and more power, and we realize that there really is kind of no ceiling to the lust of that power"
"And that's to do with the Emperors, right? Like, played by Joe and Fred who are wonderful" Paul adds, complimenting both actors in the process. "And let's not forget our Empress too"
You make a face at that, feeling in the need to defend your character.
"Empress Alba is tragedy. I think she embodies well the feelings of helpnessless all women felt during that time. She's an object, another shiny possesion subjected to her husband's amusement, so she drowns in all pleasure available to forget her existence. Lucius hates her because he sees all the filth of Rome in her, like, this whole debauchery and squandering while the people beg for scraps. But it's a pattern seen across history, isn't it?" you pause. "I think it's interesting to compare her to Lucilla, because she's loved by the people, seen as human- despite being noble. It's sad because it's until too late that Lucius realizes she's a victim of the system he hates"
Pedro smiles at your little intervention, loving the way you explain a character you'd play so graciously. One of your favorite movies is Marie Antoinette, by Sofia Coppola, so probably it felt personal to you in some level. God, hadn't you made him watch it at least ten times?
"It unravels through the film that I've kind of miscalculated who I think Acacius is, just as with Alba" Paul comments.
"His character misunderstands my character just like Paul misunderstands us" Pedro quips, making both of you laugh.
"Then it kind of culminates in a big fight that we have in the-"
"Doesn't it always?" you add. "Wouldn't be an epic without it"
"Do you want to talk about it?" Paul dares, jokingly.
"No we're not talking about it" he cuts him off.
"Who's the better fighter'" Paul asks after some silence. Pedro dares him with a go on.
"I would say I'm better the better share. What you think?"
"I would say Lucius is the better fighter"
"Lucius is the better fighter" Pedro repeats slowly, incredulous. "Do you want us to fight? Lucius is a better fighter than the general of Rome, who survived decades and conquered" Paul tries to defend himself but Pedro doesn't let him. "I fight four men before I get you, and I call it off!"
"Yeah, but I think if you hadn't called it off -"
"You don't think I would have do some sort of mature aged learning-"
They end up discussing a bit more until you clear your throat.
"Why don't you ask for a third party to break your tie?" and you point towards yourself, mouthing a cute me with your painted pink lips.
"No!" Paul immediatly opposes, "It would be biased, silence her!"
"Have you seen Acacius' arms?" you gauge Pedro's arms, biceps flexing under the white attire. "It definitely isn't biased, at all"
The conversation carries on after some more shots. In some, you pose seriously, but in between such, you laugh along with them, Pedro even hugging you and Paul from behind in one of both. No kisses yet, but you know fans will be rabid just with the lingering touches and flirty undertones in your interactions.
"We began together in Morocco, and I think seeing that set and the scale of the production so quickly, desensitized me to the scale of the of what- Malta was in the Coliseum, and Ridley moves at such a pace, which I actually think really helped me because you don't have time to kind of sit there and and kind of bask in the wonder of it" Paul talks. "Because you're shooting three or four scenes, build your expectations of how to meet the size of, it or anything 'cuz 'cause it's impossible" Paul looks at Pedro and asks: "and I think Ridley; did I tell you what Ridley said first day of shooting to me? He came out to the tent while they were dressing the set, thousands of extras, everything fire, camels and he comes in, and he's- he's smoking a cigar, and we're all stood around and he's like Are you nervous? and we're all like No and he slaps me on the back and goes Your nerves are no good to me, before we filmed anything. But I think it was like- it's funny, but it's this idea that this is your playground, and you have to kind of step into it and own it. So, I-I don't actually really remember my first walking into the Coliseum, 'cause I feel like I lived in the Coliseum for about three or four weeks"
"You lived in the Coliseum of your mind" Pedro quips, making Paul laugh.
"I do remember, you know, when I first walked into the Coliseum, you know. It- it gave me chills. Like, literally chills. Look! I still get the goosebumps" you point your arm. "Honestly, all of it felt just too real, and I couldn't help but for a moment, think I actually was in Rome- that I belonged to nobility"
Pedro takes your hand and kisses it gently. "That's because you do, princesa"
"One of the things that I have never experienced on a movie before, is that there was so little left to the imagination" Pedro expresses. "Me and the rest of the ensemble are together in the emperor's box, and there's this enormous battle that's taking place, and Ridley composed all of the off camera for us in the emperor's box, with Paul leaping from one ship to another taking two men down what would you call that?"
"A cloth line flying" Paul answers.
"Clothes line?" you try.
"A flying- a flying clothes line" Pedro decides, carrying on "just so that we could know what we were looking at. I couldn't f*****g believe it"
"That's true" you remark. "The result goes so hard- I mean, it looks amazing" you sheepily laugh. "The action, the violence, the epic... it all shines through. It just- it makes sense"
The conversation shifts again.
"The legacy of the first film is so profound, and has such a strong place in so many people's, like, hearts and minds, it's inescapable, but I was looking at it- and I was like" Paul shares. "The screenplay does a lot of that work for you in terms of like, the rubbing the dirt between the hands. the kind of DNA and the genetics that Lucius inherits. I remember reading the script and there's like, a moment in the script where it's Lucius puts on the breastplate and it's written like Lucius now becomes Maximus"
"But Lucius, despite being a son, is also a man" you counter. "He isn't Maximus"
Paul agrees.
"I kind of tried to park that to one side, because ultimately, where Lucius is coming from at the start of the film, he has a very different journey than Maximus does, and I was hoping that whatever DNA- and even just the physical gestures, was going to be one part of- a kind of small part of the performance" he explains. "What I tried to do is figure out exactly who Lucius was and where those differences lay between Lucius and Maximus"
"One of the things that I loved most about my character is that he's introduced in the beginning of the movie, in this very epic battle sequence, that I think in its own way homages the first film" Pedro shares. "But even better, because we follow him back to Rome and discover his direct connection to one of the only characters that is living and with us from the first movie, and I loved being a a kind of thread, an invitation, into what we know from the first movie by being Connie Nielsen's man"
Paul looks at you silently, before poking your side: "Someone is real quiet with that comment"
You narrow your eyes. "I have no idea what you're talking about"
"I am Connie Nielsen's man as Marcus Acacius, but as Pedro Pascal, I'm all y/n's"
Your face goes red at how easily you are to be understood, your husband answering just what you wanted to listen.
"Ha! Look at your face, I was right!" Paul ridiculises you.
But after such an embarrasing moment, he shifts the conversation again.
"There's a moment where Pedro has this, uh- it's so clever from a- from an acting standpoint, but also in the in the script like, you see this brutalizing Force come into Numidia, and there's this section where there's the burning of the bodies, and that it's one of my favorite shots in the film" Paul muses. "It's this closeup on Pedro, when he says Vae Victis to the conquered, and you feel like it's a really difficult thing to communicate in one line, that you see: Oh, this General is, kind of wearing this responsibility with great difficulty and shame"
"I wasn't doing that at all" your husband deadpans. You stiffle a giggle.
"You were very good in it" Paul argues back with a smile.
"That wasn't what I was playing" he insists, serious but Paul asks What were you playing? and you all laugh.
"If I had a favorite scene, I'd say it'd be naval fight" you mention. "The colliseum is filled with water, and it's this- it feels like a thing that has never been done before, and with the people cheering and the buzz, and the announcement and echo of the drumming, it's as if you were there, in the crowd. The tension is palpable, the violence is thrown at your face but the scariest one, is the one that lies underneath. Uh, Lucius character tries to attack the General while we, you know, the royals and especial guests, are sitting at our box, and he gets so close, it serves, I think the bottom climbing the ladder to bite the ankles of the top. Obviously, that before we know who Lucius actually is, but I think it's kind of cool"
The interview is ending, the last of your twelve-minute conversation being filmed now.
"I am really excited for everyone to see Paul" Pedro beams, making the younger one laugh. "I'm sorry but it has to be said. You are sensational in the movie" then adds, "and pretty easy on the eyes"
"Everyone in this movie is easy in the eyes" you quip, looking at your side. Pedro coughs a bit before speaking again, even if a faint blush is coating his cheeks.
"-And he worked so hard, and I got to see that happen like, in front of me, and on the day and just lead with Ridley, this enormous crew and this enormous cast... To get to see that, on the big screen, is really exciting and I think people are going to- they're going to love it"
"That's very kind" you exclaim softly with a smile, then add. "I'm sure of it, especially if you were a fan of the first. Both are very interwined, although each film is its own thing" you comment.
"For a lot of us, the actors, we haven't worked on a film on that scale" you violently shake your head "and I think, there's a little bit of trauma bonding that went on with, kind of having to- kind of feel like, total impostor syndrome within it all. But to see your friends operate at that level on a film of that scale, doing like incredible work. I think, across the board, I haven't seen a film on this scale for a long long time rhat's rooted it has the scale and the performances, and I personally think it's one of Ridley's greatest pieces of work"
senhoritamayblog: y/n was SO REAL holding pedro's arm and talking abt how he'd beat paul bc he's beefy ME WHEN moltisantiii: you know what i think ridley's greatest piece of work is? giving us this trio youlooklike-clarabow: y/n is truly a princess 🥹 i don't know if i want to be y/n to be with pedro or pedro to be with y/n ㅤㅤann-gell: youlooklike-clarabow well, she's the people's princess after all!
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You haven't even left the room when Pedro is all over you, kissing your neck on that sweet spot of yours that elates a little breathy whine. Doesn't he know you well?
"What are you doing?" you manage to squeak out as his needy big hands grope your body, flesh soft under the flowy white dress. He grunts when he catches your panties, embarrasingly wet already at just a few sloppy kisses and eager touches.
"What do you think?" he whispers against your ear as you both try to walk away from where voices can be heard, and then Pedro is guiding you to a room, closing the door behind him. If he was able to walk to the room while kissing you, he must've seen it in a passing. Had your husband plan this all along? Greedy needy old man.
"What I think, baby, is you're forgetting something" you push him off, giggling. He makes a little pout, making it hard to keep your ground. "Now that everyone knows we're married and we suddenly both go misteriously missing at the same time, they'll just put two and two together. I mean, does it really take a smart person to figure it out?"
Pedro doesn't back down, still caging your frame against the locked door.
"So?" his annoyed and tense voice only makes you laugh more. That turned on was he? Pedro seems annoyed at your fit of laughter, his pants tight.
"What do you mean so? We almost got caught by Paul last time!" you chuckle amused. "And, are you seriously going to pretend TMZ didn't air our bussiness just about last week?"
"Well, maybe you should've thought about it before" he goes back at the task of attacking your mouth, words spewing in between hungry kisses. You mouth a little taunting innocent looking Before what? and then Pedro is talking while his gaze is glued to yours, tightening his arms around you, and the answer is just about that. "You should've thought about it before getting all flirty with me, grabbing my arm in front of the camera like the naughty girl you are. So fucking needy you can't hide it for a few hours, can't even go through an interview without touching me, looking at me, being possesive at a fictional marriage even" your face burns hot with embarrasment at that. Oh, was he being nasty on purpose? Why bring that up? "Haven't I taught you manners?"
It's hard to force yourself to hold his gaze while standing still. Taunting. Defiant.
"José Pedro Balmaceda Pascal" you chastise, "do you want people to know we are raw dogging in the dressing room? That's the manners you so badly talk about"
His face goes red, his demostrations stopping for a bit as he studies your now serious face.
"Wait, do you want to raw dog in the dressing room?" he gasps at the boldness in your words, which, to be fair, is kind of exaggerated, as you both have said worst stuff before. "That's not what I had in mind"
"That's not?" you arch an eyebrow. "Oh, no. Absolutely not. You can't just kiss my neck greedily and touch my body eagerly like a goddamn starved horny idiot, and then expect me to not act up on it, you old man"
There's silence before he speaks up again. "Y/n, you talked about manners"
You take a deep breath in, making sure the door is actually locked.
"Well, fuck them manners"
You capture his lips on a hungry kiss, same kind of force you had made fun of him, just minutes ago. He's pushing his tongue inside of you, as his hands move up to your shoulders and back down to your waist. You rub yourself against him, looking for some kind of friction, and his big calloused hands pulls your waist closer in an attempt to do the same.
"Manners maketh man" he's reciting, and such stupid proverb and line from one of his old works shouldn't turn you this much. Pedro lifts up the dress until your body is devoid of the cotton, murmuring about how unfair it was for you to taunt him with translucent cloth, tender flesh hiding under the white. So hard to focus on interviews, mami, when you're close to me or something like that, as you're too lost in the fire. No bra? Fuck, baby. Do you want to kill me?
"Sofa" you command, eyes darting to the furniture so you can show him where. "Now"
You take off your panties in a go, revealing the slick that's just a few seconds from running down your legs.
"I see, my legs won't be the only thing drooling" you mock his agape mouth. He takes off the blazer with shaking hands, sitting as you get on top of him. Pedro kisses his way down your neck, sucking on the skin. How will you get out of here without comfirming suspicions? Surely, there must be something inside here that could be of help.
"Well, I've wanted to do this for a while" he mumbles against the now red patches of before honey-ed skin. Again? you think.
"Have me or fuck again in public?" you ask out loud, and even if you're laughing, there's a layer of fondness in your voice. "I'm starting to wonder if you have an exhibition kink, papi"
He breathes a little no before biting right above your collarbones, his tongue then releaving the pain with a wet slick move over the flesh as you let out a whine.
"Busy schedule, mami. A husband's gotta find a way to make time for his pretty wife, even if it means fucking her in the goddamn dressing room" he says into your ear. Pedro had done more interviews than you, and between that and filming for his other projects, he's right. "So what if they find out? Need them to know who you belong to. I'm just a devoted husband, will you punish me for that?"
You caress his face, pristine hair now disheveled, the gel succumbing to the heat and sweat trapped in the room.
"Look at you, naughty boy. El burro hablando de orejas" you laugh, "but of course I won't. Need you too so bad" (look who's talking)
His finger wanders down to your pussy, big hand roaming around the area. His middle and ring finger run over it, the golden band starting to shine with your arousal. Fuck, that just made you wetter.
"Shit, baby. You're so eager... wasn't lying when you talked before"
"Needed you since you kissed me today, when you woke up" your teeth grit at his lingering digits. "Your dick rubbed against my bare thigh, fucking hard"
Truth is, you're always horny; being married to Pedro Pascal does that to you. But mornings? Waking up to that handsome face and girthy dick? You really be testing yourself sometimes.
"Jesus, mami" he whistles. "So fucking dirty, thinking about me all the interview because my morning wood grazed your skin, you dirty naughty girl"
Pedro finally slides his fingers inside of you, making you squirm under his gaze as your back archs. "So fucking beautiful, can't believe you're all mine" he moans and you squeeze his shoulders, nails digging and bruising his skin under the shirt that sticks to his skin, body heating up like a furnace.
"Please, Pedro" you plead, lip biting your under to supress a whimper. "Please curl your fingers, need to have you- feel you inside. Fuck-"
Your words cut off as he moves his fingers with learned ease, his thumb rubbing your clit as a treat.
"Mmm" you murmur with pleasure, back arched again, your tits too dangerously close to his face. Without much thought, he licks your nipple and then devours the whole breast with his mouth. All while looking at you, this absolute horndog. Your nails dig in deeper as you pronounce his name in a shaky exhale. Wanting more. Begging for more.
"Mmm? That's right" his palm on your waist squeezes lightly, more pressure on his grip. "Can't speak 'cause I'm making you feel so good, huh?"
You don't answer, instead throwing your head back, nails digging deep to the point he winces, making a face by the pain. You mouth an apology, but then he licks your nipple again, and teeth move to your nibble your earlobe―you're not sorry anymore.
"S-stop" you choke out, body shivering.
"What? Can't take what you asked for? No muerdas más de lo que puedes masticar, niña mala. Bad girl" (don't bite off more than you can chew, bad girl)
His lewd words elicit another moan out of you.
"I-I can. In fact, I want- no, need more. I don't want to cum on your fingers" you whisper in his ear, hot breath probably why he shivers. "Pull down your pants, pretty boy, because I want to cum on your dick"
"Fuck, mami. What a dirty mouth" he moans.
Eager hands try to lower his pants as your fiddle with the same feel, the borrowed wardrobe struggling to get off in the current position. His underwear goes next, and you squirm as he aligns his tip with your dripping entrance.
You moan and he grunts, as his dick enters your tight folds, sounds clashing onto each other as so do your bodies, fitting perfectly. His hands travel from your waist to ass, his head against the back of the sofa, your hands that were before on his shoulders now on his chest.
"Such a pretty view you're giving me, wifey" he tries to laugh, but the sound comes out strained along each powerful stride of his cock that buries inside of you, each bouncing harder, his hands pathethically running over your ass, back, hips, and legs, as his eyes devour the way your tits jiggle with each thrust, tongue burning with desire to suck on the skin again. "So beautiful, and all mine. Only mine. Mía"
His words drip with devotion and wordship; all the love in the world. Pedro calls you beautiful, goddess, and a string of spanish words crossed with adoration. Mami. Linda. Princesa. Diosa. Hermosa. It has your orgasm looming over, head spinning and pussy stretched, walls tightening.
"I'm close" you whisper, riding him with soft-paced movements as his turn sloppy.
You see stars, walls almost kicking his dick out as you coat it in your slick, arousal dripping down until it's coated his balls and smeared the white attire. Fuck. Now Pedro's moving his waist, hunting for his own orgasm.
"Me too" he breathes out, "stay with me"
His hands travel sloppily to your waist, lazily holding you still with his calloused digits.
"Quick, baby" you breath out, "I'm sensitive"
"I'm almost there. Just hold on a little longer" then a whine before shakily pleading. "Please, please, just wait for me"
You move your hips slowly, aroused by his needy pleads, robbing a moan out of him. "Cute" you praise, making his cheeks redden with sweat and blush.
He is cute: hair messed up, mouth red and puffy, and brown puppy eyes.
"I love you so much" Pedro let's out, and it sounds like a confession, despite being married for so long.
"I know, baby, I know" you reach for his face, removing some sweat beads from his forehead, and he leans on the touch, closing his eyes as another gutural growl erupts from his chest. "I love you too"
You keep on riding until you feel his dick twitch inside of your walls.
"We need to stop doing this" you pant out.
"Too late for that, bonita. At least no one found out this time" Pedro laughs. "But you like the talk, don't you? Gonna give 'em something to talk about" he pants, "will fill you up so good you won't be able to walk without my seed spilling from you" sweat beads from your face fall onto his. He obscenely licks the salty drops. "Te voy a dar tantos hijos, que no cabrán en la casa. That way they will know you're mine" (will give you so many kids, they won't fit in the house)
You moan loufly, folds now coated on thick ropes of hot cum, as his movements come to a stop, slowing down until all that can be heard is your uneven breaths trying to recover.
And on cue, there's a knock at the door. Shit. You both remain silent, as if it would stop, but the knocking turns persistent.
"Pedro, I know you're in there"
It's Paul freaking Mescal, again. You might just have to invite him next time if he keeps showing up like that.
"Should I go?" Pedro whispers, and you shrug, stating it would be weirder to pretend he wasn't if Paul knew he was. "How do I look?"
You eye him up and down, eye glistening with dissaproval, red cheeks giving away your thoughts as if the furrowed eyebrows and ashamed gaze didn't already.
"We are fucked"
"No" he giggles, "we just fucked"
"That's not funny!" you roll your eyes, playfully smacking his chest. "Please, look into the mirror and try to fix yourself a bit. If not, we're doomed to be remembered as a horny couple. Oh, we were going so well! Fans will make fun of us and the press will call us horndogs" you lament, exaggerating your voice.
"Oh, shush. We wanted to be able to be in public. This is what it feels like"
You blush. "Maybe we can reduce the public aspect a bit..."
Pedro snorts before doing a quick fix to his appearance, walking to the door where Mescal patiently waits behind. Oh, of course; that little fucker. After the TMZ news dropped, he connected the dots and know that whatever happened in that trailer when Pedro told him to fuck off, wasn't holy at all. Now, he's probably laughing or scheming.
"Paul!" Pedro opens the door. "W-what's up?"
The younger man does a quick scan of his friend, barely able to hide a laugh.
"Looking radiant, my friend" he answers with a shit-eating grin. "They need to do some re-shootings. Have you happen to seen y/n? She just keeps dissappearing when you- oh, when you do!" he mocks. "Well, if you ever happen to find y/n, tell her you both need to get a good fix unless y'all want to show up on TMZ again. I'm pretty sure you can find something in this dressing room to cover those marks, yeah?"
He finally breaks down laughing in front of Pedro's shocked face.
"Ah, you guys are the absolute worst" he folds in a fit of laughter, "so fucking horny you end up fucking in bathrooms and dressing rooms!"
Your voice can be heard from inside as you growl, face red with fury and shame:
"Hijo de puta" (son of a bitch!), "don't make me bring Daisy Edgar-Jones into this!"
l-u-n-a-m: they're just milking their relationship atp for promo but i'm not complaining need more pictures of the photoshoot NOW vnightx: istg if they don't stop flirting in front of my single ass face. i need a gun at0michips: have i gone insane or does pedro have love bites ㅤㅤmybritishstyle: MI HIJO DOES NOT HAVE LOVE BITES. HE JUST FELL DOWN THE STAIRS
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cr: divider @kodaswrld / gif @trashcora / *i'm never gonna call twitter as X. it's still twitter, and will always be. fuck that ugly bigot filthy billionaire hoe called elon-trump-cocksucker-musk.
2K notes · View notes
100vern · 7 months ago
Text
ex-conomics | csc
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you supported seungcheol through years of being an aspiring athlete, and all you got to show for it was your undergraduate degree and an awkward, stuttered apology when he dumped you to go semi-pro. now he’s back after an injury derailed his career, and there’s only one problem: you’re the only one available to tutor him. you - 0; the universe - 1. talk about no return on investment.
⚽ pairing: choi seungcheol x f. reader ⚽ genre: exes to (lite) enemies to lovers; university au; angst, fluff ⚽ rating: while there is nothing explicit in this fic, there are two brief references to smut. while i can't stop anyone from reading this, i would prefer minors do not interact with this or any of my work. ⚽ warnings: cheol is some degree of famous, reader is a grad student/TA, mentions of an injury and coping with the aftermath of it, lots of economics talk that even i do not understand, swearing, one mention of alcohol, some misplaced jealousy, rom-com tropes, dino is kind of a loser but we love him anyway. probably a lot of other things i missed, but this is actually pretty tame for a fic of this length. ⚽ word count: 13.4k ⚽ thank you: a lot of people looked this over for me in the process and i'm sure i will forget some of them so if i do i'm sorry: @the-boy-meets-evil, @hot-soop, @highvern, and @haologram, who also gave me some wonderful ideas for the vlogs. thank you to MIT for opencourseware existing. i took microeconomics and dropped it, so i couldn't have done this without you. everyone in the discord server for helping me along the way and keeping me motivated. ⚽ author's note: i haven't posted a fic in nearly seven months, so i think it goes without saying that there are parts of this i like and a lot more i'm not 100% happy with. i'd love if this was more fleshed out and 10k longer, but i was able to write anything at all so it's good enough. this was written for the back to school with seventeen collab, hosted by @camandemstudios. thank you both for letting me participate! please make sure to check out the rest of the stories! everyone worked so hard and this collab was a ton of fun to participate in. <3
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You look down at the paper. Back up at who handed it to you. Down at the paper again.
“You’ve got to be joking.”
The poor freshman kid laughs, all nerves, and even though the sound is grating, you remember what it’s like to be forced into work study. How far away graduate school seemed; how large your professors loomed over you with all their power and knowledge and credentials; how you constantly felt like the dumbest person in nearly every room you walked into for four straight years.
“Um—”
You sigh, just barely resisting the urge to slam your head onto your desk. “I—it’s fine, don’t worry about it.” Your words do little to ease Freshman’s nerves. He’s still hunched over in the doorway of your office, wringing his hands as he shifts his weight back and forth, in for a lifetime of body pain with the way he’s squaring his shoulders. “You’re sure about this, though? Like, I’m really not being set up?”
“I don’t think so?” he offers, slowly starting to turn green right before your eyes. “Dr. Lee ga-gave me the paperwork himself, I don’t think he would’ve messed it up? Oh no, did I mess it up? Should I go back to Student Services and conf—”
Good god, this kid’s anxiety is gonna stink up your office for weeks. “No need!” you interject. “I’ll just…” Sign it, you want to say, but the longer you stare at the sheet of paper the quicker you’re losing your resolve.
TUTORING REQUEST FORM Student Name: Choi Seungcheol Degree: Undergraduate Major: Business Course: ECON04101 Introduction to Microeconomics Instructor: Lee Yeonseok, PhD. Recommended Tutoring: High (3-4 hours per week)
You curse under your breath. Of the two names on the paper, Dr. Lee’s does not come as a surprise. He’s a notorious hard-ass with an infamous attrition rate—most students don’t last more than a week in any of his classes—but he’s also the sole reason you were able to pay for someof your grad school tuition out of pocket with all the tutoring money you made.
That, however, was two years ago.
“Does he know I don’t tutor anymore?” Stupid question. The kid stares blankly back at you, as if to say I don’t know any more than the people in Student Services, let alone Dr. Lee. It is literally my first year here. “I’m Dr. Ahn’s TA this year. I’ve got my hands full with her bullsh… stuff—”
Immediately, you know you’ve said something wrong, because the kid’s eyes light up, all that previous anxiety disappearing like smoke. “Wait, the same Dr. Ahn that teaches the crypto course?”
“No, that one died,” you say quickly. Kid deflates. “Anyway, I don’t really tutor anymore, especially for econ. As you can see”—you gesture vaguely around the cramped four walls of your office—“they’ve upgraded me. They even put my name on a little placard by the door! Go look! They spelled it wrong! If that doesn’t sum up this university I don’t know what does.”
You heave another sigh. Try to school your face and tone into something that exudes professionalism and finality. “Look, I’m sorry I can’t help you. I tutored Dr. Lee’s students for, like, three years in undergrad so I’m sure they just… forgot that wasn’t my actual job here. Who’s in charge of tutoring these days? I’ll shoot them an email and explain all this.”
Freshman gives you a name, and it takes less than a second to find them in the employee directory. You expect that to be the end of it, but he’s still taking up space in your doorway. You quirk an eyebrow. “Yes?”
The hand-wringing returns, along with an embarrassed flush that disappears beneath the neckline of his school-branded sweatshirt. “I just—um. Maybe you could, uh. Send that now? Before I get back there?”
You blink. “Don’t you have to go all the way back across campus? How slow do you think I type?” He shrugs, and you give up on the idea of getting rid of him. “Fine. What’s your name, anyway?”
“Lee Chan. I’m a sophomore. Do you know that guy?”
“Oh. I thought for sure you were a freshman, but you’re gonna need to be more specific, Lee Chan, Sophomore.”
“The guy they want you to tutor.” You freeze. The guy they want you to tutor is—“Choi Seungcheol,” Chan tacks on, and, yeah, you know—knew, you correct yourself—someone with that name, once upon a time.
But there are a lot of Chois and a lot of Seungcheols. It’s been years since you’ve spoken to the Seungcheol you knew, and that was when he’d broken up with you to—“I heard he’s a football player? Well, used to be, I guess. The girls in the office were freaking out so I guess he’s pretty famous, but I don’t know anything about sports, do you? They said they have photocards of him. I thought they only did that for idols.”
You think about being kids together in Daegu. Think about the exasperated looks you’d share when your parents would drag the two of you to festivals: Palgongsan in the autumn, Biseulsan in the spring; transformation and rebirth. Think about being eight years old and watching your father cram into the small space of the Chois’ living room, standing around the TV with Seungcheol’s dad, shouting at Park Jonghwan. Daegu FC made the FA Cup quarterfinals that year, and you think, of everything, that’s what you’ll remember for the rest of your life.
You think about falling in love slowly. Sixteen and clueless, the pair of you were. Didn’t really know any different, just that you’d look at him and feel butterflies. That you’d hold hands in secret. Text beneath the dinner table. That you’d watch him on the football pitch and be consumed by pride. That the future felt impossibly far away, that life would never catch up to the two of you.
You think about all the football jargon you didn’t understand—the academies, the teams, the implications. You think about, I’m thinking about trying out for the FC Seoul U-18, I just don’t think there’s much more I can do here in Daegu. You think about replying, Oh, I applied to university there.
You remember thinking it must’ve been fate, how easy that had worked out. How easy that first hurdle had been overcome.
You think about how fast everything happened. The try-out, the acceptance, the explosion. Remember being unable to go anywhere those first few months without seeing Seungcheol’s face, touted as the next big thing. Think about applying for scholarships when he was applying for international visas. Think about studying for midterms when Seungcheol was studying English for interviews.
You think about the last few weeks of your relationship, when it felt like you were desperately trying to cling to ghosts. Think about how Seoul had once felt endlessly big, both in opportunity and size, and how it now felt suffocating. You think about, So you’re just giving up? Is that what you’re saying? Think about, I don’t know what else to do. It doesn’t feel fair to you.
You think about all the places you’ve watched him. On countless football pitches; shy glances in school hallways; in the passenger seat, wracked with nerves on the drive to Seoul; poised above you in bed, hairline dotted with sweat as he rolled his hips, telling you how much he loved you.
You think about watching him walk out the door, and how you never watched him again.
So you fire off your email, concise and to the point about why you can’t tutor Choi Seungcheol in Introduction to Microeconomics, and turn to Lee Chan, Sophomore.
“No,” you finally answer. “Never heard of him.”
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For all intents and purposes, your rejection should’ve been the end of it.
A few days go by. You hold office hours, attend lectures, work on your thesis when you have both the time and the energy. Try to ignore the feeling of bees beneath your skin, anxiety needling each time you check your email. You were well within your right to decline the tutoring request, but you can’t help but feel like you’ve done something wrong. That someone somehow knows who Seungcheol was to you and will pull you up on it. That those girls who’d gushed about him to Chan are somewhere laughing at your expense.
But you don’t hear anything at all about it… until you do.
Sunday evening. You haven’t moved from your couch in hours, some variety show playing in the background, barely audible over your keyboard clacking. Much to your detriment, you don’t write many papers these days, so you’re out of practice. Feels like you haven’t done anything besides formulas in years, all of your academic knowledge reduced to fucking math, so you’re about ready to toss your laptop out the window long before the email even comes through.
You see, From: Lee Yeonseok. You see, Subject: Choi Seungcheol - Tutoring.
Your stomach plummets to the floor.
You scan the body quickly. You see the words personal favor… friend of his father… urgent matter… and your hands start shaking. Whether it’s from the sheer audacity of this man or anxiety, you aren’t sure, but it’s not like it matters. There aren’t a whole lot of people on campus brave or dumb enough to go up against him twice.
“Motherfucker,” you spit, bitter the only taste in your mouth.
Where did you go wrong to wind up here? You’d followed the script: got the grades, passed the exams, received half of the required education for the Respectable Career, helped a few others along the way chase dreams that may or may not have been their own. You’d fallen in love. Only had a broken heart to show for it, but that’d been in the script, too: The First Love, followed by The First Heartbreak.
The split from Seungcheol was supposed to have been the end of that chapter. You’d planned on never seeing him again, and you never would have, had it been up to you. Apparently the universe has other plans, participation required.
“Did you spill onion dip on the rug again?” You startle, sending your laptop flying. Kaori, your roommate, is perched halfway in between the living room and the kitchen like a cryptid, clearly not expecting your reaction. “Oh. Were you watching porn?”
Face burning, you fetch your laptop from the floor. “In a common area? Kaori, please, I have far more decorum than that.”
She snorts, resuming her trek to the fridge. “See, that’s what I thought, but then I walked out here and you threw your laptop so fast it was like watching my ex get caught watching furry porn all over again.” She pries the lid off a large container of yogurt. “You think this is still good?”
“Dunno. What’s it smell like?”
She sniffs it and pulls it back to check the label. “Vanilla, I think, which is concerning because it’s supposed to be strawberry.”
You shrug. “What’s the worst that can happen, you get extra”—you pause, trying to remember the correct order of things, before giving up entirely—“...biotics?”
“Mm, so close. Care if I just eat this with a spoon?”
Nose scrunched, you wave her off. “Couldn’t pay me to eat yogurt on a good day, let alone if it’s expired. All yours, babe.”
Spoon in hand and a pleased smile on her face, Kaori collapses onto the couch beside you. You try to return your attention to your paper, try to find your momentum again, and it works for all of ten minutes before you’re groaning and slamming the top closed.
You don’t even need to look over to know Kaori’s staring. “What’s up with you?” she asks. Before she can answer: “Wait, is this serious? Because I can’t have a serious conversation in this t-shirt.” You steal a glance sideways. Ask Me About My Hemorrhoid! it says, and you exhale loudly. “Don’t breathe at me, I lost a bet.”
“And continued wearing it?”
She jokingly rolls her eyes. “God forbid a girl has hobbies.” Nudges you with her foot. “C’mon, spill.”
Kaori doesn’t know about you and Seungcheol. Most people don’t, aside from a few old classmates from Daegu who found you on social media and tried befriending you once he started making a name for himself in Seoul. After that, it was just easier to keep things private while you were together. New friends knew you were seeing someone but not their name or how long you’d been together. Any curiosity surrounding why the Choi Seungcheol was following you on Insta had been waved away easily. Our parents are friends, we grew up together. Then you broke up, and there wasn’t any evidence to delete, and he wasn’t following you on Instagram anymore, and it was easier that way.
So, yeah—even though you hadn’t met her until years later, Kaori knows you have an ex. She knows you’ve had a few flings and situationships in the time since, too, and it’s why she’s none the wiser when you ask, “It’s nothing, really. Just—do you follow football at all?”
“Nah, not really. The new guy’s pretty into it and keeps trying to get me to watch the games with him, but it’s so fucking boring? I dunno, I can’t get into it. Not in real life, anyway—I binged all of Captain Tsubasa in an embarrassingly short amount of time, though. Why?”
“Student Services asked me to tutor someone the other day and I had to turn it down. I just don’t have the time, you know? This semester’s already killer, and Dr. Ahn’s been riding my ass nonstop about grades. Turns out it’s some football player, so Dr. Lee emailed me asking me to do it as a personal favor, which means, on top of all the other shit I have to do, I’m now tutoring some football player four hours a week in Microeconomics.”
Her face distorts. “God, that guy’s such a prick. Like wow, you’re good at the economy! Good for you! Who cares! Why don’t you go balance the national debt or something instead of torturing university freshmen!”
You also wrongly assume that’s the last you’ll hear of it from Kaori.
Two days later, after Student Services replies to your email with the days and times you’ll be tutoring Seungcheol, she materializes in the living room to harass you.
“You didn’t tell me your football player was Choi Seungcheol.”
The panic is instant. You know how she means it, but it’s not how your body interprets it. All of a sudden it feels like an interrogation, an accusation, and a whopping serving of guilt takes up residence in the middle of your chest for not being entirely honest.
“Explains this weird text Ken sent me.”
She slides her phone over to you, open to her text thread with her current flavor of the week. Beneath an article about Seungcheol enrolling in classes at your school:
doesn’t ur roomie TA there Why are you calling her “ur roomie” like you don’t know her name?? Rude. Also yes. ask her to get me an autograph No babe pls he was my fav player before he got injured No 🙄 fine. can i come over later? Starting to think you’re using me for my roommate. Get your own job 🙄
You hand her phone back. “I didn’t think you’d know who Choi Seungcheol even is.” It’s the best you can do, even though it just digs you a deeper grave. “You said you’re not into football.”
“I’m not, but unfortunately I am into that stupid man.” She sighs, wistful and longing. “Babe, you have to understand. His dick is so big.”
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You hadn’t wanted to stay in Seoul for your graduate degree, let alone the same university you’d gone to for undergrad.
You’d applied to schools all over—Japan, Europe, even a few in the States. Romanticized the hell out of NYU, went window shopping for an overpriced apartment, picked a favorite pizzeria based on nothing but vibes and online reviews. In those few months after graduation, there wasn’t a whole lot tying you to Seoul. Your and Seungcheol’s relationship had been old history by then, your parents split. Your dad stayed in your childhood home and your mother moved a few hours closer to her sister. They’d waited until your brother was old enough to be out of the house.
And it’d just been… a lot. Overwhelming. Some days you could barely shower or feed yourself, let alone move halfway across the world, so you’d stayed in the familiar and tried not to let it feel like failure.
But the good thing about familiarity is you learn its tricks, figure out the hiding spots. Early on, your first or second week of grad school, you laid claim to a study room on a floor of the library everyone else ignored. You write notes on the whiteboard with faded blue markers that are still there days later. The chair on the opposite side of the table is always exactly where you left it, the space between it and the table enough to only accommodate you. Sometimes you leave books—old paperbacks littered with notes in your writing—or papers, just to see if they move.
They never do.
And all of this is why it feels like a punch to the gut when that sanctity is tainted. When you’re halfway through a stack of Dr. Ahn’s exams and the doorknob rattles behind you. When you don’t even need to turn around to know who it is, because he still sounds the same, still has that overwhelming presence. You’ve always sensed him before you felt him.
“There you are,” Dr. Lee says, ambling into the room before you can protest. He, too, is overwhelming, just in different ways. Immaculate posture that anchors his slight frame that’s always dressed impeccably and expensively. Wears a watch that’s triple your tuition. Shoes polished so bright they’re nearly blinding. “I’ve been looking all over for you.”
This time it is an accusation.
Well, you found me, you want to say, but just knowing Seungcheol is behind him, lingering in that half-study room, half-hallway space, is enough to keep you quiet. Like if you speak you’ll summon him closer and you’ll no longer be able to pretend this is nothing more than a nightmare.
You plaster on a polite smile. Say, “Ah, here I am, kyosu-nim,” and put all your energy into trying to glue Seungcheol to the floor with your mind.
Which is fruitless, because Dr. Lee moves further into the room. Gestures for Seungcheol to follow him with an impatient huff, and the study room is small, sure, and with three people it feels cramped, but that’s not the reason it feels like all the air’s been sucked out of the room.
Seungcheol looks… different. He looks as anxious as you feel, and he sticks close to the wall like he’s trying to disappear. Dr. Lee introduces him with grave importance, unaware of your history, and the forced smile he offers you almost looks embarrassed.
You know Dr. Lee is still hammering away, probably giving you a stern talking-to for rejecting his request the first time, but you can’t tear your eyes away from Seungcheol. Feels like the world around you has reduced to a pinhead, all hyperfocus; feels like your lungs are sucking in stale air one at a time.
“...his father is a very good friend of mine, so I expect…”
You expected to feel nothing. Seungcheol had left to chase his dream—one you’d always been so supportive of that it sometimes felt like your dream, too—and, perhaps naively, you thought the distance and the years would’ve been enough. You expected your heart to have hardened. You expected all those nights you spent crying to hit you at full force. You expected anger, hurt—indifference, at the very least.
“...as many hours per week as you both can manage…”
But you should’ve known better. Should’ve expected the butterflies, the way your palms grow clammy, the way your heart rate spikes. Should’ve expected everything to feel upside-down. You should’ve expected to look at Seungcheol and feel sixteen and in love all over again.
“...you are responsible for his academic progress…”
And that simply will not do. You’ve spent the last few years pulling yourself out of that hole, clawing your way back to something resembling normal. You’ve purged the thought of him from your mind—let his scent fade from your sheets, an old sweatshirt he’d left behind; forgot the way his lips felt against every inch of your skin; forgot the way his entire being lit up when he laughed; forgot the safety he encompassed, the way he whispered all those sweet nothings.
You cannot go there again.
So you roll your shoulders back, smile politely. Say, “Ah, kyosu-nim, Choi Seungcheol-ssi seems very intelligent, I’m sure he is capable of being responsible for his own academic standing, don’t you think?”
Dr. Lee cannot disagree without all but calling Seungcheol an idiot, so he hovers before you in shocked silence. Makes a show of huffing and checking his watch, like he’s all of a sudden remembered he’s late for something and being inconvenienced by this conversation he started, and then he’s halfway out of the library with a terse, “Discuss and figure this out amongst yourselves,” thrown over his shoulder.
You have an entire dramatic exit planned in your head. Gather your things, fake a phone call that makes you sound authoritative and important, and brush past Seungcheol wearing your nicest perfume as if all of this is so far beneath you you can’t even bring yourself to care about it.
Of course, you actually have to brush by him for any of that to happen, and since you’ve already decided you will not go there again, you quickly scribble your email address onto a piece of paper and slide it across the table at Seungcheol, who has steadfastly remained planted just outside the door. “Here’s my email. I don’t have time to discuss this right now.” Seungcheol cocks an eyebrow. You start throwing things into your bag haphazardly. You know you look frantic and affected, but there’s not much you can do about that. “What? Send me a copy of your syllabus and what you want to prioritize. It’ll be easier to get through this if we have a plan instead of winging it.”
He seems to catch on to your distaste because he mirrors it. Scoffs as he rolls his eyes and says, “Yeah, no use spending more time together than we have to,” and if you hadn’t gone years without speaking, you would’ve seen right through it.
But you did, so it stings all the same.
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As it typically does, the planet keeps spinning after your run-in with Seungcheol.
You grade Dr. Ahn’s coursework. Try running off your anxiety at the gym, even though it’s pretty good at keeping pace with you these days. You meet Kaori’s maybe-boyfriend sneaking out of your apartment early in the morning and he has the good sense not to mention your ex, but you chalk that up to the mess of hickeys covering his neck and not any sense of social decorum.
Other people’s embarrassment saves you a ton of your own, you’ve come to learn.
Throughout all of this, Seungcheol only emails you once to send you his course syllabus. Doesn’t mention tutoring or provide you with his schedule or ask for yours, so when you’re sitting in a bar with your friends, three or four drinks deep and feeling a little petty, you forward him the original tutoring request and make sure to bold, underline, and highlight the “Recommended Tutoring: High” part for good measure.
He doesn’t take your bait—electronically, at least—but he does show up to your office hours the following Tuesday.
Bag tossed onto the floor, he flops unceremoniously into the chair across from you and says, in lieu of a greeting, “They spelled your name wrong. On the door thing.”
“I know,” you reply, your smile polite and terse. Incredible how he has the ability to raise your blood pressure in milliseconds. “What can I help you with?”
“Depends. How long do you have?”
“Well, considering you’ve shown up to my office hours on time, I’m assuming you already know I’m here every Tuesday and Thursday from four to six. So”—you glance at the clock above the door—“assuming no one comes by who needs my help more than you do, you have approximately one hour and fifty-eight minutes.”
Seungcheol is quiet for a moment as he takes you in. His stare is weighted; it makes you feel a little green around the edges. Clinical and sharp, so far removed from the way he used to look at you. You clear your throat. “I looked over your syllabus. The good news is there’s only a midterm and a final and the rest is problem sets. The bad news is there’s only a midterm and a final so they’re weighted quite heavily. You really need to know this stuff inside-out to have any hope of passing.”
“That’s why you’re here, right? Dr. Lee specifically requested you.”
You huff a breath through your nose. “I’m here as supplemental help. I can’t take your exams or do your readings for you. What else are you taking this semester?”
He sighs, sinking further into the chair, very much playing the part of the heir who has no interest in any of this. Which… is unlike him, you think, if you’re even allowed to. The Seungcheol you knew years ago took everything so seriously. Never clipped corners or took shortcuts. Anyone else would think him a spoiled, petulant child. “Business Accounting and International Trade.”
“Could be worse,” you note. “At least those three courses are tangentially related.”
Seungcheol rolls his eyes. “Easy for you to say. I haven’t taken a fucking math class in years.”
You return it. “You remember how to add and subtract, don’t you?”
“I ruptured my ACL, not my…” He trails off, looking a little embarrassed that he can’t name a part of the—“Brain.”
Whatever you were going to quip back with dies on your tongue. It's the first time Seungcheol has broached the topic of his injury—the first you’re hearing of it at all, actually—and he says it like it’s a joke, like it’s not a thing at all, but the pain is all over his face. The bitterness of the situation he’s found himself in. The unfairness of it all.
And there are so many questions you want to ask that aren’t your place: if it’s fixable, if he’ll ever play again, how he’s coping. But you don’t really need to—you can’t imagine how you’d feel if someone suddenly pulled the rug out from under you. If everything contained within the four walls of your office suddenly disappeared.
Not that the man sitting across from you hadn’t already done that, but.
“Right,” you continue, as if he hadn’t said anything at all. You know Seungcheol—know he wouldn’t want you prodding, sticking your fingers in that particular wound. “I want you to take a look at this,” you say, handing over a printout you have saved from your undergrad tutoring days. “Tell me what looks familiar, what doesn’t; what does and doesn’t make sense.”
He looks down at the paper. Back up at you. Down at the paper again. “What the fuck is this?”
“I—what? Cheol, it’s my old notes on recitation. Surely you’ve already covered this—the syllabus says this is week one stuff.” He looks down at the paper again, and it’s so familiar, watching the life drain entirely from someone’s eyes.
You barely resist the urge to slam your face onto your desk a second time.
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You meet Seungcheol at the sports center for your next tutoring session.
He likes the humidity and the smell of the chlorine by the pool. He also likes that it’s not the football pitch, so the two of you sit in the bleachers there and go over his lecture notes. Much to your surprise, Seungcheol talks a mile a minute. Has stars in his eyes when he says he finally understands elastic demand curves, supply shock; tells you he spent a whole hour making flashcards.
It’s the first time you’ve seen him so excited since your tutoring began—the first glimmer of hope you’ve felt since Dr. Lee cornered you in your library hideaway. None of this surprises you. Seungcheol has always been smart, even when football was his primary (and sometimes only) focus. He has more determination and grit than anyone you’ve ever met, so you’re not surprised he’s doing well, excelling, but you are surprised—
“Can I ask you something?” Seungcheol shrugs, shoves half a protein bar in his mouth and swallows without chewing. “Why are you… uh. Here?”
“At this university?”
“Not exactly. I mean, I am wondering about that, but I guess… why business?”
Seungcheol hums. Tucks his good knee to his chest and stares down at the pool. No one’s using it, and truthfully the two of you probably aren’t even allowed to be here, but you understand why he likes it. It’s nowhere near as secluded as the library and definitely not as air conditioned, but it is peaceful. Calm. The water laps against the coping in quiet, small waves.
“Ah, I don’t know. You know how it goes.”
You quirk an eyebrow. Never, in all the years you’ve known him, has Seungcheol done anything he didn’t want to do. All that grit and determination. “What about your father, then? Dr. Lee mentioned this was a favor to him. He’s a pretty important person to have in your Rolodex of favors.”
Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see what this is: Seungcheol’s father has new money; worked from the bottom up, made some smart investment decisions that finally panned out after Seungcheol left for Seoul. Started doing his own thing, made a name for himself. Last you’d heard from your mother, Seungcheol’s brother was second-in-command. Hell, even your own brother did an internship there.
So you know what this is: a father helping his son after his dream was shattered, life turned upside-down. You can’t blame him, even if you’ve heard the whispers from all the way across campus. That Seungcheol is washed up now, trying to nepo his way into his father’s company because of it; that all he knows is sports and he should’ve stuck to that, what does he know about business, why is he the one Dr. Lee went out of his way to help.
Doesn’t stop any of them from smiling at him, though; doesn’t stop them from asking for autographs or selfies.
But you also know this isn’t something Seungcheol seems willing to discuss, so you crack a joke—“I mean, business. God, who’d wanna go into that?”—and go back to what he was willing to talk about.
You’ve never hated elastic demand curves so much in your life.
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Deep in the throes of tutoring—when you can’t tell if it’s week two or week twelve—you make it back to your apartment just before ten, head pounding.
The door flies open just as you’re about to punch in the code, and there stands Ken, looking far more put-off than you’ve ever seen him. Looks defeated, if you’re being honest, like someone mopped up all his emotions and wrung them out like dirty dishwater.
“Oh, hi,” you say hesitantly. The man in front of you seems too much like a caged animal to let your guard down. “Everything okay?”
He aborts a nod halfway. Mutters an apology as he brushes by you and stalks down the hall, disappearing around the corner to the elevators. Usually he’s a talker—you haven’t been able to avoid a Seungcheol-related conversation in weeks—so you’re a little stunned. Stand there stupidly for a while, and that’s where Kaori finds you a moment later.
“You gonna stand out here all night, or…?”
“Oh—yeah, right.”
You follow her inside. Toe off your shoes and put them in the rack. Focus on the sound of the kettle whistling instead of the overbearing tension in the room. Drop your bag off in your room, throw on a sweatshirt three sizes too big and a comfy pair of socks. Rummage through the fridge for leftovers, contemplate what mindless show you’ll watch as you eat, and you do not, under any circumstances, ask Kaori what happened.
You don’t have to. You knew what this was going to be the first time Ken spent the night—the way he looked mortified to be meeting you in the shared kitchen at seven a.m., wearing a look that begged you not to tell your roommate he was sneaking out.
I, uh, have an early class, he’d said. You know how it is.
Maybe you should’ve called him on it then. Issued a warning-but-not-really. She’ll get attached if you don’t tell her. She should know it’s different for you, if it is.
But you’d convinced yourself it wasn’t your place. Kaori wouldn’t want you in her business like that, so you stayed quiet, just nodded before watching him slip his shoes on and close the door behind him so quietly you wouldn’t have known he left at all if you hadn’t been looking. Gone, just like a ghost.
So, yeah, you know exactly why your roommate looks haunted.
“I’m a few episodes behind on this if you want to watch with me,” you offer, pointing at the television with the remote. It’s a lie—you’ve never watched this show a day in your life, which Kaori seems to know—but she contemplates it nonetheless. “Also, my mom mailed us some cookies. I think they’re in the fridge.”
“Why are there cookies in the fridge?”
You huff a laugh. “They were outside the door this morning before I left for campus. I don’t know—just saw who the package was from and was like, oh, this must go in the fridge.”
She nods. Grabs the container and joins you on the couch. Sticks her feet beneath your butt and doesn’t mention a thing.
The closest she comes is a few days later. Catches you right before you head out to campus and asks how tutoring is going.
“Not bad, actually.”
Her smile doesn’t reach her eyes when she says, “That’s good. I’m glad things are going well for you two.”
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Lee Chan, Sophomore makes his unexpected return at your office hours on an unsuspecting Tuesday.
“Can I help you?”
He doesn’t answer right away, just helps himself to the seat across from you. “Maybe,” comes his cryptic retort. “I was thinking about signing up for that crypto course next semester.”
You narrow your eyes. “No, you weren’t.”
He sighs. Looks a little panicked, like he can’t believe that didn’t work. “You’re right, you’re right. I, um—I wanted to come say thank you.” He pauses. “You know, for that… email you sent.”
You blink. “No, you didn’t.”
Lee Chan, Sophomore cracks immediately. Thunks his head on your desk and lets loose a pained sound. It nearly sounds like he’s wailing when he says, “I’m sorry! They put me up to it!”
What you’re able to piece together is this: Lee Chan, Sophomore has become a bit of a celebrity in the Student Services department ever since he met you, Choi Seungcheol’s tutor. And, like any smart, previously unpopular university student would do, he took advantage of it. Might’ve stretched the truth a little to make it sound like he knew more than he did, so now here he is, angling for information the girls with the photocards may or may not have paid him to get.
“They want to know about his girlfriend.”
“His what?”
What you’re able to piece together is also this: the Photocard Girls are certain Seungcheol is dating someone, based on little more than vibes. You suspect these vibes are their three degrees of separation, considering there was an abnormal amount of Change of Major files formed after his enrollment, but you tell Lee Chan that you don’t know anything and, even if you did, you wouldn’t put his business out there like that.
But some part of you still has this inexplicable urge to protect Seungcheol, so you match their offer with interest and tell him to say there’s nothing to report—not that you didn’t know, not that he couldn’t get anything out of you. Seungcheol isn’t dating anyone.
You don’t know if it’s true, but you figure that if it isn’t, he still deserves privacy.
Which is a notion you have trouble explaining a few hours later, when Seungcheol strolls into your office with a grease-stained paper bag full of cheese coin bread, offering one to you with a proud smile that drops slowly when you just stare in return.
“What’s wrong?”
Your mouth opens, closes, opens again. Nothing comes out, even though it should be simple. Some sophomore kid was just in here angling for information or the Student Services department is taking bets on whether or not you have a girlfriend would both suffice, but you cannot bring yourself to say the words.
What you settle on is, “Sorry, I just… had an interesting meeting before you got here.”
“Oh. Are you okay?”
You sigh. Tilt your head back to stare up at the ceiling. “It was about you, actually.”
Seungcheol chokes, starts stuttering over words you can’t make sense of. Says, “Me? Why? I passed my last exam—I mean, barely, but I still passed. And that wasn’t your fault! I didn’t study enough! I’ve been losing my mind over my International Trade class, that shit sucks—”
“It wasn’t about your grades, Cheol.”
“Oh.” Then, slowly, a lopsided, pleased smile overtakes his face. “Haven’t heard you call me Cheol in a while.”
“Seungcheol,” you correct.
He seems to forget all about the meeting. Tries again to offer you a coin bread before he threatens to eat them all himself, so you acquiesce mostly to shut him up, say you’ll bring the extras to Kaori. For some reason, you tell him about how much she’d loved the cookies your mom sent, and the nostalgia sets him off, gets him talking again, asking if they were the yakgwa she used to make when you two were kids.
They were, but you can’t seem to tell him that, either.
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Seungcheol: sorry it’s last minute - running late. can you meet me at my place instead?
Seungcheol shared a location with you
You’re halfway to replying—I don’t think that’s appropriate—before you sigh and delete it. Midterms are only a few days away and you don’t have time to argue over where your tutoring sessions will be, so if Seungcheol wants to meet at his apartment that’s where you’ll meet him.
You read over the midterm notes on the train. Once, twice, and then a hundred more times until they’re nearly memorized, all so you can ignore the voice in the back of your head saying what a bad idea this is. That you have no business being on your way to your ex’s swanky part of town or integrating yourself into his life beyond tutoring at all. You shouldn’t know where he lives. Maybe you shouldn’t even have his phone number or answer his texts.
Not that there’s much you can do about it now, two stops away.
Seungcheol greets you warmly, if not a little rushed. Apologizes for the mess once you step inside, although it’s less “mess” and more “haven’t finished unpacking,” but there’s enough clear space to study at the dining table, so that’s where you set up, determined to keep things professional.
“Sorry again about this,” Seungcheol says, placing a can of cola in front of you as he takes the seat across. “I had to meet with my father and lost track of time, I guess.”
“Oh. How’s he doing?”
Seungcheol sighs, leans further back in the chair as runs a hand through his hair. A light brown, now. “Same as he always was, I guess. Talked about the business, about my brother. Can’t get him to shut up about that stuff most of the time.”
“The business is doing good, though.” You cough, clear your throat. “My, uh. My brother interned there during undergrad. I don’t know if your father told you that.”
You don’t know why you say it, because it’s clear from the brief flicker of pain on Seungcheol’s face that he hadn’t known, that no one had told him. And it hurts you too that they felt the need to keep it a secret, to protect Seungcheol from you even in tangential ways.
“He didn’t,” he admits, “but I’m sure he was happy to see him. He was, uh—he was glad to hear you’re my tutor. Said you were always smarter than all of us boys combined.”
You laugh. Hope it sounds casual instead of strained. “Well, no need to prove him right. Come on,” you say, tossing a study guide in his direction, “let’s get to work.”
Everything is alright for a while—nearly an hour at least. He has the formulas memorized and attributed to the correct equations. He can explain supply and demand, preference and utility, but things start to fall apart around budget constraints and constrained choice.
The formulas get mixed up. He grows frustrated when he doesn’t know the answers to your questions right away. Rolls his eyes and gets a little snappy when you correct him, try to explain things differently in a way he understands. At first he’s able to temper it, collect himself before things truly start spiraling out of control, but the longer the two of you sit there the more it all unravels.
He snaps, you snap back, and you can’t figure out why. You’ve survived this long in Seungcheol’s orbit even though you never thought you’d be around him again, and perhaps it was bound to explode eventually, but…
It’s the familiarity, you realize.
You and Seungcheol aren’t friends, though you’ve been playing at it for weeks now: meeting outside of the library or your office, the personal conversations bordering on reminiscing, being in his personal space. You don’t belong here. You don’t want to be his friend—you can’t be, not for real or pretend.
“That’s not what I’m say—”
“Then explain it better,” Seungcheol fires at you, eyebrows creasing. “You’re the tutor here.”
You roll your eyes. “I’m trying, okay? All I meant was—your answer isn’t wrong, but I know Dr. Lee and he’s going to want more than that in a response.”
“Right—not good enough, like I said.”
“I’m just asking you to expand on your answer—”
“And I’m telling you that’s all I’ve got. I’m not like you, all right? I don’t have all this shit just floating around in my head all the time. I’m not smart, I barely have any idea what’s going on half the time, and you sitting here being condescending about it is doing fuck-all to help.”
You inhale sharply, taken aback at the hostility in his voice. Suggest calling it for the night, say neither of you will be productive if you keep going like this, and neither of you bother to apologize.
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So much of your relationship with Seungcheol was marred by clichés.
The two of you passing notes back and forth during class. You in the bleachers of all his games, screaming along to the team chants, waving a sign around with his name on it. Not realizing you had a crush on him at all until he liked someone else and it made your stomach hurt. Childhood friends turned lovers.
Another cliché: that it’s starting to feel like that all over again.
Seungcheol sits across from you in the library, econ textbook cracked in half in front of him as he pays no attention. Keeps grabbing his phone each time it vibrates across the table. Can’t fight the smile that forces its way onto his face when he reads whatever’s there.
Stupid, you think—both to do this and to think it’d play out any other way. Seungcheol left years ago. Probably lived ten lifetimes while he was away while you were here in this exact spot doing this exact thing. Barely lived half a life, just stuck your nose in textbooks and forced your way through.
“Cheol,” you say, trying to drag his attention back to the study guide. No use. He’s typing away, presses his tongue into the fat of his cheek as he responds. “Seungcheol,” you try again.
Also fruitless.
You have no claim here, you remind yourself—not to his time, not to him. He’s only here because someone else mandated it. You’re only here because someone else mandated it, but it stings all the same. Another reminder of what used to be, of what ended regardless of what you wanted. Another reminder that the role you used to play in his life is not the role you play now. That the space you used to take up created a vacancy, and eventually it was going to be filled.
And if this was anyone other than Seungcheol, if you were more emotionally evolved when it came to him, it wouldn’t gnaw at you as much. All of this would roll off your shoulders.
But it isn’t, and you’re not.
“If you’re not going to listen, then—”
“I am listening,” he interjects, but he’s not looking at you. Not looking at his textbook or his study guide. Keeps laughing and smiling at his phone, and it’s sick how bothered you are by it. That it feels like your stomach’s been turned inside-out with jealousy; with annoyance, because you don’t want to be here anyway, don’t want to do this anymore, and you’re wasting your time on someone who doesn’t appreciate it.
Perhaps he never did.
“What are we discussing, then?”
Still not looking up: “Consumer theory.”
You laugh—more a huff of air than anything, grin sardonically out of one corner of your mouth. Seungcheol sees none of it. “Wrong,” you answer, already expecting the way he shrugs it off. “I’m gonna skip ahead a few chapters, though. Consider it a freebie for your business class.”
It must be your tone that finally grabs his attention. Cutting, precise, purposeful. Seungcheol lowers his phone, quirks an eyebrow, wonders where this is going to go. It’s clear he’s pissed you off, that you’re itching for a fight. It’s clear the years of silence are finally coming to a head.
“Let’s talk about ROI. You know what that is?” You barely give him a second. “Return on investment. A performance measure used to evaluate the efficiency of an investment or compare the efficiency of several investments. So, let’s say I make one-hundred-thousand won on a ten-thousand won investment: my ROI is 90%. Are you following?”
He nods.
“Great, now let’s try something a bit more hypothetical.” You suck in a breath. “Let’s say I invest years of my adolescence into someone. A friend at first and then something more. Let’s say I played cheerleader, supported every hope and dream he had—went to every game, cheered him on, helped him practice his English. Held his hand and talked him down when the pressure felt overwhelming, when the only thing that felt inevitable was failure. Now, let’s say all I got in return was a stuttered, awkward apology as he dumped me and walked out the door. Let’s say that guy showed up again after years of silence just to once again waste my fucking time.”
The thing about pain is it’s not linear. What hurt five, ten years ago might not hurt today, but it might tomorrow; what hurt yesterday may never hurt again. The thing about pain is it lets you stick your head in the sand until it can’t anymore, and that’s where you are now: that window of time between Seungcheol walking out the door on the assumption you’d never see him again before he bulldozed his way back into your life has been slammed closed, locked up tight.
So you don’t even notice you’re crying until the room goes deathly silent and you can hear the drip drip drip of tears on paper. Until you watch Seungcheol’s hands flex and unflex in mid-air, stuck in that liminal space, wanting to reach out but knowing he has no right to. Until your chest aches so bad you’re sure you’re either about to break into stardust or cease to exist.
Until you say, “What, Choi Seungcheol, would you say my fucking return on investment was?” and he has nothing to say at all.
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Kaori invites you to a party.
Just something small to celebrate the end of midterms and a classmate’s birthday. Nothing out of control or raucous, not even the kind of thing that’d earn a second glance from campus security. I won’t even make fun of you if you leave before eleven, is how she sold it to you, in addition to a small amount of begging and bargaining and a powerful set of puppy-dog eyes.
After everything the two of you have been through, you find it hard to say no.
So here you are, nearly eleven o’clock on a Friday, a cup of cheap beer in hand. A friend of a friend of a friend is wailing into a karaoke machine and although your ears are bleeding, it does feel nice for that to be your greatest worry. You aren’t thinking about your classes or how you’ve been prioritizing everyone else’s academic success. You aren’t thinking about whatever’s going on between Kaori and Ken. You aren’t thinking about Seungcheol.
At least you aren’t, until he walks through the door.
You’re going to continue not thinking about him at all—not about the fact he’s alone or how good he looks in a simple black T-shirt that’s a little taut in the shoulders. You’re not going to think about the way the air shifts, like the universe knows he’s important and is willing to accommodate. You’re not going to think about how Kaori catches your eye across the room, recognizes him from all her internet searches, and the way she mouths oh my god he’s so beefy at you.
You’re not going to think about how guilty you feel that she doesn’t know, because if you do you’re certain it’ll take over.
You watch Seungcheol work the room; watch as he floats between conversations, as strangers fall over themselves at the sight of him. How eager everyone is to give him something and how reluctant he is to take them. You watch as he winds up in the same circle as Kaori and how she must mention you, oh, your tutor is my roommate, because there’s a question in return before he turns and meets your gaze.
You wonder why the distance between you feels more insurmountable now than ever before.
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Seungcheol finds you in your office.
It’s not a Tuesday or a Thursday, far later than four to six in the evening, but he doesn’t even bother knocking before he’s barreling in, stifling your space with his bad energy.
You haven’t seen him in nearly two weeks. Not since the party, if that even counts. Hasn’t bothered to reply to any of your texts or emails, and that was just fine by you, if that’s how he wanted to act, but it isn’t until he’s brooding on the other side of your desk that you realize you’re still aggrieved, too. Feels a little too familiar, him leaving you behind and in the dark.
So you don’t mean to—typically have much more professionalism than this—but when he tosses a stapled stack of papers with a barely-passing grade on your desk and says, “This is your fault,” the words come automatically and without forethought.
“Fuck off, Seungcheol.” It’s not your words that take him by surprise; more so the roll of your eyes, the accompanying huff. The impression that all of this is beneath you and nothing more than a mere annoyance. That however affected you were two weeks ago is not how affected you are anymore. “That’s what happens when you blow off your tutoring for two weeks because you’re a coward.”
He laughs, incredulous; unable to help the sound the tumbles out of his mouth. “I’m a—I’m a coward?”
“Yes,” you reply, tone giving away nothing. All he sees is feigned nonchalance despite the hurricane you feel brewing beneath the surface. “This,” you continue, pinching the corner of the paper between your fingertips and disposing of it in the trashcan beneath your desk, “is all on you, but do please let me know if there’s anything else you’d like to blame me for. I’m all ears.”
You don’t miss it: the way Seungcheol’s eyes grow wide at your ‘I’m all.’ The way he thinks you’re going to punctuate that sentence with yours, and it nearly has bile rising in your throat. Makes you want to scream, rip at your hair. If the last few months have taught you anything, it’s that you are still hopelessly in love with the man across from you—the man that continues to leave before he’s left, always at your expense.
So, yeah—Seungcheol is a coward, but only when it comes to you.
But he doesn’t look much like one now, gripping so hard at the edge of your desk that his knuckles have gone white, baseball cap pulled down low enough his eyes are barely visible. He’s always been overwhelming, always carried himself with an exaggerated arrogance even when it wasn’t warranted, always took everything so seriously, and maybe that’s why you’d thought he’d treat you the same way. Take you seriously. Wouldn’t just throw it all away on a maybe thing, and that’s why it's been years and you still aren’t over it.
Maybe Seungcheol is a coward, and maybe so are you.
Because not once since he’s been back have you been able to say what you mean. Can’t seem to tell him about the anger, the hurt, the heartbreak. Played it all off as petty nonchalance because you foolishly thought that would hurt him, that you’ve been reduced to simmering ash, no hope left for a fire.
“I could never blame you for a goddamn thing,” he says, voice so deep you could drown in it.
You so desperately want to know. You don’t want to know anything at all. You want Seungcheol to explain everything to you in detail and spoil the ending, but only if it’s guaranteed to be happy. Enduring another loss like the first time—you’re not sure you can take it. Not after you two have crossed paths like this, because you’ve never quite believed in fate but you think that has to mean something. That so much time and life had transpired and you two came back together.
Today, though, it doesn’t look like you’re going to get any answers.
Seungcheol straightens, looms at full height. Digs into the pocket of his sweatpants and pulls out a thumb drive. Wordlessly, he hands it over, and then he’s gone just as abruptly as he’d arrived.
Again.
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Kaori wants to spend the weekend moping, and you can’t come up with a good reason not to join her.
She doesn’t mention Ken once. Not when she’s sobbing over A Silent Voice and Toradora! after that. Not when she keeps glancing at her phone every couple minutes to see if she has any texts. Not when you—only halfway paying attention between grading and your own assignments—suggest ordering something for delivery, maybe that new burger place down the street you heard was good, and Kaori shuts it down so vehemently you can only assume it was Ken’s favorite place.
Kaori just cries over the man with the big dick she never expected to take so seriously, and not even your stonewalling makes her feel ashamed of it.
And there’s respectability in that kind of openness and vulnerability. At least whatever she’s feeling is honest; at least she can admit she’s sad. You think watching Kaori process her breakup might help you process yours too, years too late, so you suck in a breath and ask, “Can I tell you something or is now not a good time?”
Kaori looks over at you. Dabs a soggy tissue at her eyes. “Well, I guess it depends,” is her answer, and she doesn’t shy away from how waterlogged her voice sounds. “If you’re going to tell me you’re a Takasu and Kawashima shipper, maybe, but if it’s anything worse I’m not sure I could take it.”
“I—what? Who even are they?” She gives you a half-hearted thumbs up. You sigh in response, sink further into the couch. “It’s, uh.” Clear your throat. “Do you remember when we met sophomore year? At that party? And I told you I wasn’t looking for anything and you said, and I quote, why not, I have a sixth sense for this kind of thing and I know that guy will have a huge—”
She hides her face behind her hands. “Ew, god, yes I remember that. My dick whisperer era. How embarrassing.”
“Right. And I told you I wasn’t looking for anything because I’d just gotten out of something.”
“Not really by choice, if I remember correctly. I told you if it was quiet it should’ve been loud, and then you never talked about it again.”
You nod. “I—yeah, that sounds like something I would’ve said.” You suck in a deep breath. “Listen, this is probably gonna sound bad considering I did never talk about it again, but—”
“Hey,” Kaori says, nudging you with her foot. Meant to be comforting, somehow. “It’s okay. There’s a lot you don’t know about me, too… most of which I’m not sure you should, actually.”
A laugh forces its way out, gives you a nice reprieve from the anxiety of the conversation you’re about to have. The need to explain it all, the need for advice. Maybe it’s not her—or anyone else’s—business, but you think you’ve kept this to yourself long enough. You and Seungcheol loved each other, once, and it seems foolish that no one knows.
Maybe Kaori had been right. Maybe love should be shouted from the rooftops; exist out in the open. Maybe something hidden in the shadows can never thrive in the light, and you knew it back then, deep down, but now it seems so obvious.
You think back to a few days before the library. Think about how things didn’t feel good but they felt okay. Think about the frustrated crease between Seungcheol’s eyebrows as he stared down at his textbook and how all you’d wanted to do was smooth it. Think about how you’d rolled your lips and tried not to laugh; how you thought it’d take a miracle to help Seungcheol pass this class.
Think about: What is the difference between the short-run and the long-run from the perspective of production theory?
Think about the short-run of your and Seungcheol’s relationship—that you’d burned bright and fast, even though it’d felt like a million years. Hadn’t dared to consider the long-run because anything beyond that bubble felt impossible.
Think about: Which of the following is not a property of isoquants?
Think about the way Seungcheol’s eyes lit up when he knew the answer. That they’re always linear, he said, and you smiled at his enthusiasm, raised your hand to high-five him and dropped it when he hadn’t noticed.
You think about the explanation—isoquants can be linear when inputs are perfectly substitutable—and what those graphs look like. Downward sloping, left to right. Think about how the graphs change when the isoquants are perfect complements.
L-shaped. Less straight as the inputs become poorer substitutes.
You know what your and Seungcheol’s graph would’ve looked like back then.
So it’s easy, almost, to tell Kaori everything. You tell her about growing up in Daegu, about the smell of the azaleas at Biseulsan in the spring. You tell her about how your parents had befriended the neighbors, how they had a kid your age, that that kid was Seungcheol—yes, that Seungcheol.
She’s able to anticipate the rest from there, but you fill in the blanks of what she can’t: being sixteen and falling in love, holding hands, the clandestine notes. All those football matches and how your throat would be hoarse from cheering. How nauseous you’d felt applying to university in Seoul, how excited you were when Seungcheol said he was coming with you. That, after you arrived, it felt like you were living in fast-forward. Barely any time to breathe or adjust; no time to just be you and Seungcheol. You had to be a student, someone responsible; Seungcheol had to be a phenom.
“Could you feel it was going to happen?” Kaori asks, now sat ramrod straight, all her attention on you. “Like, did you know?”
“I don’t know,” you admit. “Maybe I did? It’s hard to say now, all this time later. I know things definitely felt different, like life was pulling us in opposite directions.” You laugh, bitterness coloring the edges. “You couldn’t go two blocks without seeing him on some billboard, and I was just… normal, you know? I wasn’t some rising star athlete like he was, I just went to my classes. How was I supposed to compete with something like that?”
Your roommate hums, leans back into the pillows as she stares up at the ceiling. “I don’t think you were. Maybe that’s why Seungcheol was worried—maybe he felt like you were losing your own identity feeling like you had to keep up.”
You want to push back, argue that you weren’t, that you didn’t, but the truth is that it’s possible. That the shadows created by Seungcheol’s dreams were so massive you wouldn’t be surprised if they unintentionally swallowed you up. “It still wasn’t his choice to make,” you say, voice barely above a whisper.
And Kaori already knows all about your hurt, listened as you explained it all and laid everything bare. So when she says, “Sometimes that’s just how it goes, though, babe,” it doesn’t feel condescending. “We do the best we can with what we’ve got at the time. You can say now it wasn’t Seungcheol’s choice to make, because it’s been almost five years and you’ve made a life for yourself separate from him. But the—god, this is gonna sound so patronizing, I am so sorry—but you guys were so young. No one has it all figured out at that age.”
She snorts, runs a hand through her messy hair. “Shit, I’m nearly halfway to thirty and I still don’t know anything.” Adopts a frown. “What do you want now? Do you want closure? Want to try to fix things and become friends?”
“I don’t know,” you admit, biting at a hangnail. “He actually, um. The other day when he stopped by my office, he left me a USB drive? And before you ask, no I did not already look at it.”
“A USB drive? Who does this guy think he is, James Bond?” A pause. “Are you gonna look at it, though?”
You do.
Not until the silver, midnight light creeps in through your bedroom curtains and you’ve stared at the ceiling long enough; waited long enough for texts that never came, for divine intervention to, well, intervene. It never did—fair enough—so you decide to take fate by the reins. Grab your laptop, instant headache from the screen, stick the drive into the port.
It takes a second for it to load, but when it does: dozens of videos, organized by date. Vlogs, by the look of them—some from before your breakup but the majority of them from after.
You’re not sure what you expected, but it wasn’t this.
You click on the first one: a month and a half before both of you moved to Seoul. A fresh-faced Seungcheol appears on your screen, cheeks still round with adolescence. He’s in his room back in Daegu, can’t get the camera angle right. Nostalgia hits you like a ton of bricks as it pans to the side, to the wall behind his bed, and you see all his old posters. Mostly football players you couldn’t name, some girl group he used to love, a few movies. Just below them are some of the notes you’d written him in school, and they’re all you can focus on as he talks about how excited he is for the move.
The next: a few weeks after you’d started classes. By then, Seungcheol was well into the swing of things with Seoul FC. Already a big fish in a small pond, tryout offers from European teams starting to roll in. You can hear yourself in the background stressing over your first exam, wishing a generational curse upon your calculus professor. In the video, Seungcheol laughs, whispers like he’s telling the camera a secret as he talks about how nervous he is for his future. I don’t know why, he says, but it just feels like everything is about to change.
There’s a long pause between that one and the next. You understand why when you look at the date: three months after your breakup. Your hands hover uselessly above your keyboard. Whatever answers you’ve been looking for the last few years are probably in this video, but you can’t bring yourself to open it. Not right away, at least.
You click on a different one at random. Seungcheol’s somewhere in Europe, judging from the language on the signs behind him. Snow falls quietly—whenever he filmed this, it must’ve been early. No one else is around, and he cracks a joke that it’s a good thing, people would probably think he was crazy if they saw him. He doesn’t tell you where he’s going but he narrates the entire walk: points out a cafe he’s grown to love. The way to get to his practice stadium from where he’s standing. Pauses near a restaurant and laughs ruefully, shakes his head, says, I don’t know why I’m telling you this, but one of my teammates set me up on a blind date here and I got stood up. You’d probably think that was funny.
(You do. It also makes your chest ache.)
One from two years ago: Seungcheol in a hotel room, clearly nervous. He raises his hand to wave at the camera and you can see the corners of his nails bitten raw. Dark circles beneath his eyes; cheekbones more pronounced than you’ve ever seen them. On the screen, Seungcheol sighs, rakes a hand through freshly-bleached hair. Sucks in a deep breath as he says, I’m so nervous. I’m so—so fucking nervous and I don’t. Fuck, I don’t know what to do. I want to call you because you always knew what to say but that’s so fucking selfish. God, we haven’t spoken in years, and it’s my—that’s my fault, I know, so I brought this all on myself. I just want to hear your voice.
Another from a week after that: the color’s returned to his face, and he’s recording from what looks like a penthouse apartment. Sleek, modern; a small white dog napping on the bed beside him. He smiles, looks like he got his teeth fixed, looks like he’s no longer carrying around the weight of the world. Talks endlessly and excitedly about some tournament. Talks so fast you can barely keep up. Talks around words tinged with languages you don’t understand.
Seungcheol wins a championship. Records a drunk vlog from the same night, hair soaked through with god-knows-what—water, champagne, you don’t know. But he looks radiant. Looks like the culmination of two decades of dreaming. He looks happy, free, at peace. He looks like the reason he let you go, why he had to go away.
You scroll to the bottom of the files. Pause at the last video, dated seven months before the term started.
“Hi,” he says, and you can immediately tell everything is all wrong. Seungcheol’s in the dark, face only visible enough to see the tears tracking on his cheeks. “This is going to be the last one of these I make. I don’t know if you, uh—I’m sure you aren’t paying attention to me—my career—anymore, but. I, um. I got hurt. Ruptured my ACL. They’re not sure I’ll…” A sob escapes him. Has you wanting to climb through the screen to hold him, thumb away his tears, tell him everything is going to be okay. “They don’t know if I’ll ever play again.”
Seungcheol no longer looks happy, free, at peace. “Maybe you’ll be happy to hear that,” he continues. “Maybe it’ll help you to know I threw away our relationship for nothing.”
Cut to black.
The sudden silence is deafening. Has you desperately clicking back to the video you’d skipped, the one from just after your breakup. Seungcheol looks the same in that one, too, like the life has been drained out of him.
I don’t know why I’m doing this. It’s not like I’ll ever show these to you now, since I…
I’m sure I owe you an explanation. To be honest, I don’t know what I’m doing, I just—things have been so hard, and I’m still trying to make sense of it all. I feel like my life went from zero to a hundred before I could even blink and now I’m scrambling. I didn’t think it was fair to—to drag you through that. Me being away, moving to an entirely different continent. I have faith we could do it, I just. I don’t know, baby, I don’t…
You deserve to have your own life. Be your own person. I’m so scared that the world will never see you for who you are—so beautiful and intelligent and kind. You don’t deserve to be reduced to my partner. And if you ever see this, I know you’re gonna roll your eyes. Probably call me a mean name because I took the choice away from you, because you think I’m trying to be selfless and heroic, and you’d be right. It’s not fair, and I wish I could tell you I’m sorry.
I wish I could just… pluck out my brain and give it to you, because even if it killed me to do it, at least it makes sense to me. And I don’t—I don’t want you to think I’m not hurting. I’ve been sick to my stomach since I left. I know I’m making a mistake, I know I am, I just—how do I do what I think is right in the long-run when it’s not what I want right now, or ever?
I don’t want to get over you. I don’t want you to get over me, and that’s how you know I’m not acting selflessly, because you should. I want you to always be happy, I just… wish it was with me.
So, I’m going to keep making these. I’m going to take you along for the ride, wherever it takes us, because you should be here but I can only hope you can one day understand why you’re not. I’m so—I’m so sorry, I don’t…
I’m sorry.
I love you.
You fall asleep and dream that you were the one meant to meet him at that restaurant.
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The first thing you do is make a call to your mother.
“Could you send another container of yakgwa?”
On the other end of the line, your mother tuts, motherly intuition audibly kicking into overdrive. Is probably wearing that all-knowing, sly grin she always does when you try to be coy and evasive. “What happened to the last container I sent?”
“Ah, you know Kaori loves those. They barely lasted an hour after I told her what was in there.”
She hums an acknowledgement. Sounds like she takes a sip of tea. “I remember someone else being quite fond of those cookies, too.”
“Well, they are the most popular cookies in the country, so.”
After haranguing you into admitting they’re for Seungcheol and not your roommate, your mother promises to send them quickly. A few days at most, which buys you enough time to figure out how you’re going to approach the man in question.
The vlogs have turned your entire world upside-down. Answered questions you hadn’t even known you had. Took all that anger and resentment you’d been holding onto and set it free, and now you’re just left with… a void. Want to mend things, and it makes you wonder if such a thing is even possible, if it’s too late, but you don’t let those thoughts get very far.
Instead, you let them spur you into action. Have you sitting in front of your laptop at your desk, office hours long since over, silence creeping in the more the department empties. The thrum of the airconditioning and the tick-tick-tick of the clock are all the only company you have.
You worry if it’ll show on camera, how out of sorts you feel: sweating from the nerves, dabbing at your hairline; cheeks warm to the touch. But you suck in a breath anyway, steel yourself. Look at your webcam and the daunting red circle…
And start recording.
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He hadn’t gotten it at first. Not really.
There’d been a container of yakgwa outside his door with his USB drive taped to the top of it. No note—not that he needed one to know who it was from, but he wasn’t sure what it was. A goodbye? A please fuck off forever and never contact me again?
He’d just taken them inside. Ate too many of the cookies while feeling sorry for himself. Maybe had a glass or two of wine to compound the issue, and never, ever considered contacting you. Didn’t think he could bear it if you never wanted to see him again, but he just…
Well, he was drunk and alone and he missed you, and he’d rewatched all those videos he recorded a million times before when he was like this, so what was a million and one?
It’d been the same as every time before: he smiled at the happy parts, cried at all his old wounds. Wanted to reach through the screen and strangle his past self for including that part about the blind date, because he never wanted to date anyone who wasn’t you, why would he say that, felt mortified at the thought of you watching that—
And then there it was.
All the way at the bottom. A new video. One that hadn’t been recorded by him—
Hi, Cheol, you say, and that’s all it takes to reduce him to a sobbing, yearning mess. I’m not sure what to say here. I don’t really record much—sometimes for lectures when the professors are too busy, but never anything personal like this, but I watched every single one you made for me and I thought I should return the favor.
I wanted to tell you everything I’ve been up to since you left, but it hasn’t been much. I got my degree. Tutored a lot in undergrad—the same thing I’m tutoring you in now, actually. I was good at it and it felt good to have something that was mine, you know? I almost moved for grad school. Thought for a while I was going to wind up in New York, but then my parents divorced and it felt like too much, too scary, so I stayed. Kaori also stayed, so we got an apartment together. It’s not much, definitely not as nice as your place, but it’s good enough.
I don’t think I ever told you, but she was seeing a guy for a bit and he was… obsessed with you, to say the least. Thought you were the coolest person in the world. They aren’t seeing each other anymore. Ended pretty badly, but—speaking of which, maybe steer clear of Student Services for a while, too.
Sometimes it felt like failure that I wound up staying here. That I had scholarships from all these far-away, prestigious places and didn’t take advantage of them. That I gave into my fear. And now… I don’t know. Maybe there’s a reason I stayed behind. Maybe there’s a reason you ended up back here, too.
Whatever happens—I don’t want you to think I still blame you. Kaori says we do the best we can with what we’ve got at the time, and I understand now that’s what you did. Even though it hurt me, you were trying to protect me. I get it now. And I’m sorry you had to go through all of that alone. I can’t imagine how hard it must’ve been to go to all these places you didn’t know. To have to deal with your injury, the loss of a dream.
You said in one of your videos that you just want me to be happy, and that’s all I want for you, too, whatever that looks like.
Here’s my address if you ever want to come by to talk.
I love you, too.
—and then he’d been up and out the door, feeling stone cold sober, running to the front of his building to wait for his ride.
Felt like the drive took hours. Must’ve hit every red light between his apartment and yours. Took the steps two at a time just to get to your door faster.
There’s a man already standing outside your door when he gets there. One that looks shocked to see him, stars in his eyes, and when Seungcheol says, “Oh, you must be Kaori’s ex,” he looks more like he wants the earth to swallow him whole. Embarrassed in front of his idol.
He knocks on your door and gets no response. Knocks again, harder this time, and he has to try really hard to stifle his laughter when your voice yells from the inside, “Fuck off, Kenji, I already told you she’s not here!”
“It’s me,” Seungcheol yells back.
There’s quiet again. Just enough time for it to feel like his heart is going to beat right out of his chest and follow Kaori’s ex down the hall.
Then you’re yanking the door open—slowly, so slowly, like you’re scared it’s not actually him. Your eyes are brimming with tears when they meet his own, and he doesn’t let himself think, just goes on instinct, when he grabs for you, hands on your cheeks, and presses his lips to yours.
Somehow you taste the same.
Somehow you taste like redemption.
You taste like home.
Seungcheol kisses you until the tears slow. Kisses you until the universe realigns, until he could map your mouth in the dark. Kisses you until all you’re all he knows again.
When he pulls away, you’re gripping at his sweatshirt, don’t want to let him go. He presses his forehead to yours, offers up a million more apologies, starts talking nonsense. Says he’s going to drop microeconomics, what the hell does he know, he barely has a passing grade anyway, what does it matter, he’s such an idiot—
And then you say, “You came back,” and nothing else matters.
“I always will.”
(Later on, as you’re trying to steady your breathing, slick with sweat, your thigh thrown over Seungcheol’s hip as he stares down at you, dopey smile on his face, you say, “Choi Seungcheol, don’t you dare drop that class. I have worked my ass off to get you to barely-passing.”)
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if you’ve made it this far thank you so much for reading! i am still very new at writing for seventeen, so i hope this was acceptable. i'm now going to throw myself into the warped tour vernon fic and will hopefully not go another 7+ months without posting anything. 😭
i would love to hear your thoughts! <3
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oneofreid · 2 months ago
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Casual Tendencies
Summary: In which she’s never had an orgasm and he’s willing to please her until she cums. Straight to the point.
Pairing: Spencer Reid x Inexperienced!Fem!Reader
Warnings: (18+ Content) Dry humping, oral (female receiving), explicit language, the usual smut
A/N: so here we go again…bye y’all. my ride is here. (gif by @reidgif) → my other fics are here
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“So you’ve never had an orgasm a day in your life?”
You shrugged at his question which was more of a response to your sudden confession. Reverting your attention back to the book that was in your hand. Your body completely sprawled out over the couch in your best friends apartment.
Getting lost in the chapter that your were reading before a hand suddenly pried the book out of your hands. “Reid, what are you-“
“You’ve never had an orgasm before.”
He repeated back to you slowly. Still mind blown at the fact that you’ve never experienced the exhilarating feeling of exploring your body to its full purpose and potential.
“And?”
“Well, it’s typically suggested that the human body have an orgasm at least three times per week. It has a lot of health benefits and by doing that, you’re releasing your body of stress. It can also act as a pain reliever, create dopamine, lower depression, and can even make you nicer-” Spencer began to ramble.
You shook your head, “I don’t see how that’s relevant though.” Slightly gnawing at your lip out of habit since you were growing nervous.
Spencer gulped, suddenly feeling out of place in his own apartment. Yet, the question hung from the tip of his tongue.
“Do you want to know what it feels like?”
Your eyes nearly popped out of your head, the air completely being knocked from out of your lungs.
“Spencer…I-I”
“You don’t have to. Please don’t feel like you have to, I’m only suggesting it…as an option, if you want to,” he trailed off. His shy demeanor coming back, realizing he might’ve just fucked up your friendship and relationship for life.
Your heart rate picked up, feeling as if the room was spinning around you. The room suddenly becoming all too hot for you, you might as well have just stripped your clothes off in front of him right then and there.
Closing your thighs together, you grew more aware of the fact that your best friend, the man who you’ve secretly held a crush on for many years, just offered to have sex with you.
“I’m sorry. I know I probably just crossed a huge boundary and ruined our fr-,” Spencer began.
“Okay.”
“What?,” he paused.
“I’ll do…I want you to make me cum.” You uttered, barely above a whisper.
Hardly noticing that Spencer had moved closer to you, his eyes studying your every move. Yet, all you could do was talk down your nerves and doubts that began to arise.
“Hey,” Spencer grabbed your hand to gather your attention, “You don’t have to do this if you’re not comfortable.”
You turned towards him, his warm and familiar brown eyes still on you. The sunset that beamed from his open window shining a cast on him, illuminating not only his figure but the beautiful features that you grew to love about him.
“I want this.” You had made your decision.
Lifting yourself to straddle his lap, maneuvering your legs to kneel and place yourself on either side of him. The cool leather of his couch adding some much needed support as you felt it dip from your weight.
Spencer looked at you in awe. His heart rate picking up as the gravity of what was about to happen between you two finally settled in.
“You can touch me, Spence. It’s okay,” you leaned in to pur in his ear. All your nerves suddenly being thrown out the window the second your clothed center made contact with his hardening one. His bulge growing at the sight and feel of you.
It’s like the forces between you had finally collided when he found his lips meeting your soft, plump ones. Your lips melting together into one as you moved to run a hand through his brown curls. Tugging slightly which earned a low moan from him.
You smiled into the kiss, suddenly feeling more relaxed and in control. The scent of leather books, peppermint, and a few spritz of luxury cologne filling your nose.
Spencer broke from the kiss, his lips traveling down to explore and pepper kisses alongside your jaw.
“You smell so good,” he complimented you. Your signature scent of vanilla and amber were his favorite pheromones.
“So,” he kissed you, “pretty.”
His big hands wandering down to play with the hem of your shirt as he began to tug it over your head with one hand. The other one inches above your ass, pulling you closer to him until you were flush against his chest.
Not paying attention as Reid unclasped your laced bra in one swift move. The cool air hit your bare breasts, your nipples hardening at the sudden lack of clothing that you didn’t have on. His hands moved to palm your tits, grabbing one in each hand as he toys with them. Rubbing your nipples in between his long fingers.
You began to grow impatient, realizing that he was still completely clothed. Your body naturally beginning to ache for him as you sat on top of him.
Rocking yourself back and forth, you started to grind against him. Circling your hips, only to press your ass down a bit harder with each roll, onto his clothed dick.
“Fuck,” Reid let out a shaky breathe.
His hands moving to grip your hips to prevent you from moving. “I have a better idea. Lie down,” he instructed.
“But I thought we-,” you began to whine. Feeling your underwear grow soaked by the friction you had just started to ignite.
“We will. Just trust me, honey,” the pet name that fell from his lips causing your cheeks to heat up.
Squealing a bit as he picked you effortlessly up by your thighs, carrying you toward his bedroom. Placing you down gently on his beige comforter before helping you tug your grey sweatpants off.
“Okay love, lie down for me,” you nodded. Doing as he said, the plush and cool material of the comforter hitting your back. Leaning against his pillows for some added support. “Just follow my lead, I will do all the work. You just get to look pretty, okay?”
You nodded again, biting your lip, looking up at his ceiling as you tried to avoid eye contact at all cost. Suddenly growing nervous again at the idea of your best friend seeing you this exposed.
“Hey,” Reid had grabbed onto your knee, “Look at me.”
You obliged, your eyes finally meeting his sincere and concern ones. He began to rub circular pattern on your knee cap as he sat on his, attempting to comfort you.
“If at any point you change your mind and decide that you don’t want to do this, just let me know. Okay?”
Your nerves still getting the best of you, all you could do was offer him a little nod. He was your best friend. Your awfully smart, handsome, charismatic, and charming best friend who you have known. And been in love with for over four years now. So the idea of him seeing you completely naked and head deep into your pussy had you on completely edge.
“Use your words, sweet girl. I got you. I’ll be here to guide you the whole way through. Okay?” He reassured you.
You let out a shaky breathe, managing to get out a small, “okay,” before sinking a bit further into his bed.
Spencer moved crawled closer towards you on his knees, using his large hands to spread your legs open. Your matching lace thong now completely on show for him.
He sucked in a breathe, his own underwear growing incredibly too tight. “You wore this just for me, huh?”
You felt your cheeks grow red again, blushing at his comment. “It’s my favorite pair,” you said sheepishly.
Spencer hummed, not convinced yet all he could do was think about indulging himself into your delicious pussy.
Dipping a finger into the waistband of your underwear, he quickly yanked the thong off. Leaving a full view of your dripping wet cunt just for him. Your folds were soaked, already coated in your arousal. The sight alone was enough to make him go feral.
“Fuck, baby. You’re so wet for me.” He gawked.
His eyes set on the beautiful masterpiece in front of him.
Not being able to contain himself any longer, he sunk down further on his knees. Propping himself up so that he was closer to your core yet still at enough eye level for you to see him devour you.
Spencer began to run his lips over your thighs, leaving sloppy kisses along the inner part of them. Using his hand to grip the side of it for extra stability.
He was hungry. And he wanted more.
Your eyes began to squeeze shut, feeling him inch closer and closer towards your core. Growing noticeably more needy and desperate for him by the second. A loud moan finally leaving your own lips as Spencer swiped his tongue across your folds. The sweet yet salty taste being something he could definitely get used to.
Spencer continued his motions, opting to trace intricate and circular patterns with his tongue. Sucking on the skin of your pussy as if it was his last meal. Gripping harder onto your thighs with every lick and pull that you had on his hair.
“Spence….God, fuck. Holy shit.” You panted.
The sight of him on his knees, face deep in you was something you never thought would happen in your wildest dreams. His moans echoed against your cunt, sending vibrations throughout your whole body. A sweet lullaby to your ears.
You cried out, “Just like that. You feel so good.” Feeling him hit what you assumed, was your sweet spot, one that sent electrifying surges through your body.
Every flick and swipe of his tongue making you see stars. Your moans filled his ears, listening to the sweet melody that you sung to him. You were loud and he loved it. Feeling satisfied with every reaction he got out of you.
You felt your stomach starting to tighten, growing anxious at this unfamiliar feeling. “Spence-“
He lifted his head from your pussy for a second, saliva and your pre-cum dripping slightly down his chin.
“It’s okay baby, when you feel it, just let go.” He sent you a soft smile, kissing your inner thigh before continuing his work.
Flicking his tongue in circular motions, getting the last few swipes in. As you started to pant more, the coil in your stomach growing even tighter and unbearable. The sudden urge to shut your thighs together yet Spencer held you in place. His brown eyes never leaving yours as he sucked relentlessly on your pussy.
Tears brimmed in your eyes as your core clenched, your chest heaving up and down in anticipation. Before a wave of relief washed over you, your legs began to shake uncontrollably. The room filled with the sound of the moans that left you and Spencer.
Spencer lifted his face to finally meet yours.
Your pussy already becoming wet again at the sight in front of you. Spencer’s long, luscious curls all disheveled from you tugging and pulling on it. His brown eyes fully dilated, anticipating his own high as he looked at you ready to pounce again. Your cum dripped down his chin, licking his lips as he savored every last drop.
Spencer couldn’t help himself from pulling you in for a long, passionate kiss. Already missing the exhilarating feeling of your lips on his. His hands shifted to pull you closer to him, your legs now straddling his lap just like you had done before on his couch. You could taste yourself on him.
“That was,” you breathed.
“Amazing,” he finished, pulling you gently by the neck to deepen your kiss before preparing himself for your next round.
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lokissweater · 7 months ago
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hey! i really love your fics and i have a special request 4 my 19th birthday ( aug 16 ) . can you do inexperienced yuuta x inexperienced reader or frat boy/play boy yuuta x shy nerdy reader? I really luv u and it would mean alot 2 me if you did this,feel free to say no or ignore this if you want! no pressure!
OH MY GOODNESSS i could never ignore this! i can ABSOLUTELY cook this one up for you and i hope i met your expectations!! i wanted to release this right on your birthday, so here is my gift to you! <3 ILY you’re so sweet thank you for sending in a request!
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finally.
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{frat boy/playboy yuta okkotsu x nerdy f!reader}
summary: yuta okkotsu is a typical popular frat boy player who’s never been told no, but at one of his regular parties where he spots your pretty little self in the kitchen, and you turn him down? his entire existence resets as he then cannot stop thinking about you and tries his absolute hardest to change the impression you have on him.
warnings: college au, afab!reader, fluufff, mentions of alcohol and drinking, yuta LOVES you, he’s a little weenie at first, character development yuta, no smut in this one!, cursing, party fight, protective yuta, yuta fights someone lol, slight sexual themes but really nothing.
word count: 5k
authors note: OH HOW I LOVE THIS ONEEE!! i hope i’m feeding you guys well this week with these fics hehe!! IM WRITING A FREAKY ONE FOR THIS NEXT SO STAY TUNED!! love you love you <3
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yuta okkotsu was the biggest player and frat boy to ever plague your college campus— having parties literally every other night and trashing the absolute fuck out of his frat house after every single one, living in the privileges of popularity as he was without a doubt the hottest man there.
he absolutely relished in his reputation, loved the attention, loved the stares he got, and had a body count that absolutely shot through the roof in numbers.
and yuta was quite literally a typical frat boy. he was loud and obnoxious, the most stubborn hot headed man to ever exist on the face of the planet, passed the time playing beer pong for fun and drinking, and had girls practically at his feet, him never having to work for anything to get in his bed and fuck.
until he met you.
you had timidly walked into one of his frat parties one night, shy, cutely nerdy, a little scared and absolutely drop dead gorgeous, your energy an entirely different one from his own as he watched you a little too much throughout the night, rehearsing his perfected plan of getting girls into bed with him as he finally spotted you alone in the kitchen after a while, approaching you.
yuta flashed you an attractive polished smile as he leaned up against the kitchen counter, practically cornering you in as you eyed him alarmingly.
“hey,” he sipped at his beer. “what’s your name?”
you awkwardly shifted, wondering where the hell your best friend was as the biggest player you’ve ever heard of was talking to you.
“y-y/n…” you stammered, your gaze barely looking at him but giving a small smile through your nervousness nonetheless.
“pretty name for a pretty girl,” he hummed. “you’ve never come to my parties before, have you?”
you shook your head no, your doe eyes finally peering up at him.
“welcome then!” he chirped smoothly and leaned closer to you, his breath faintly smelling of alcohol. “you here by yourself?”
“no i’m with a friend, actually.” you laughed awkwardly, your cheeks red with embarrassment but smiling politely through your discomfort, not wanting to offend him in any way.
yuta nodded, his eyes scanning the crowd. “did you lose them?”
“i— i guess so—”
“you can stick with me then.” he shrugged, a sly smile on his face as he sweet talked you, it slightly faltering when he noticed how uncomfortable you looked, but carrying on anyways. “you wanna head upstairs? maybe we can—”
“no thank you.”
he paused.
no?
“no?”
he was yuta okkotsu. no girl has ever told him no before.
you shook your head at him and gave him a sugary smile, your tone kind and polite as you started to walk away from him. “i’m sorry, i think i see my friend over there though! thank you for keeping me company, i hope it wasn’t too much trouble!”
he watched you walk away then in your tiny little skirt, and he felt stupidly offended. absolutely stupidly offended as he slightly scoffed and shook his head, taking a swig of his beer, his body and mind literally glitching with the foreign feeling of rejection.
yuta tossed his empty beer bottle lazily in a black garbage bag and stuffed his hands into his pockets, his long legs already pulling him over to the beer pong table in the living room, opting to forgetting the entire encounter he had with you altogether and shaking it off.
except he couldn’t. he couldn’t shake it off.
his brain was buzzing and utterly reeling over the thought of your timid nature and soft spoken words and pretty pretty face from that point forward, thoughts that aggravated him to no end that bubbled up every time he ate, slept, was in class, and did basically anything.
he didn’t know why it was happening. he didn’t know why you took over his every fucking thought as he only interacted with you for like five minutes. but your aura was different. so poised, so shy and gentle, and it was like a red string was physically pulling him towards you everywhere you went.
yuta saw you around campus a lot more after that, you sticking out like a sore thumb and blinding his vision whenever you walked past him, your smile sweet and respectful towards him that lasted only a millisecond as you walked down further, his eyes watching you over his shoulder, soft.
you conversations with him were nothing but polite and casual as he tried to talk to you again and again, your body language guarded and careful, but your voice like silky honey, speaking to him with more kindness than he deserved.
yuta never seemed to be able to get past the invisible wall you built in front of him.
“a girl like her isn’t gonna go for a guy like you, yuta.” one of his frat brothers muttered to him, having been fed up with yuta’s moping and grumbling around the house ever since he saw you.
“and why not.” he gruffed, his arms tightly crossed over his chest as he leaned back on the couch.
“because she’s nothing like us.” he emphasized. “she’s a nerd, respects herself, is way too good for you, and would never let herself waste time with a guy of your reputation.”
his frat brother patted him heavily on the shoulder. “just go back to the ones you usually go for. they’re easy.”
yuta only rolled his eyes and stood, but he really couldn’t deny what he had said. you were too good for him, way too good for him, his life completely mismatched from yours— paths never meant to cross as he solemnly watched you from afar, wanting you to smile at him the way you smiled at others, wanting you to talk about your precious nerdy interests and your studies with him like you do with your friends, and wanting you to just simply look at him longer than the usual casual hello you gave him.
but you never did.
in an attempt to try and talk to you again without seeming like an absolute fucking stupid creep like last time (something he quickly realized), he started throwing parties at his frat literally every single night in hopes of you showing up, scanning the crowd and sulking in a corner when he couldn’t find you, the bags under his eyes growing darker and darker with every time you didnt make an appearance.
he tried to go back to his old ways and hook up with the girls he usually did, tried to bury you in the back of his mind and go back to before, but he just couldn’t, his mind foggy and preoccupied with thoughts of you that invaded his every neuron, making him kiss his hook ups back lazily or straight up just cancel on them— stopping all together in the end.
it had been months, and yuta sat bored out of his mind on the living room couch during another one of his parties, not a single drop of alcohol in his system as music pumped and drummed through the frat that made his headache ten times worse.
these everyday parties were pointless.
he sat up and trudged to the kitchen, pushing past his friends for a beer until he froze.
there you stood, finally, leaning against the kitchen counter all by yourself, just like how you were when he first saw you.
his eyes flew open and he quickly smoothed over his white t-shirt with his hands, heart hammering against his chest so hard that it traveled down to his ribcage as he approached you, internally freaking the fuck out.
“hey y/n,” he greeted quietly and calm, trying his absolute hardest to convey sincerity towards you. “how are you doing?”
your eyes snapped to his and you leaned back a bit, but smiled. “hi yuta! i’m doing okay. how are you?”
he could practically see the wall you had in front of him, your posture timid and cautious, and his eyes only grew more insecure.
“i’m good! do you— do you want a drink? or something? i could—”
“oh it’s okay yuta! i’m fine,” you answered shyly, a grin on your breathtaking face.
yuta gnawed on his thumb, looking around the kitchen for something, anything that could fix the image you had on him.
the fridge.
“do you um—” he walked over to the fridge, almost stumbling over his own shoes as he opened it. “do you want maybe apple juice? or— or i have chocolate milk? or sunny d i drink like an entire dozen a day but—”
you giggled.
his head snapped over to you and watched your pearly smile, shining just for him for a moment, his shoulders slowly relaxing.
yuta sheepishly scratched the back of his neck and laughed along with you.
“sunny d would be great!”
he stared blankly, and then quickly nodded. “o—okay! yes sunny d—”
he ransacked through his fridge, knocking over several cans of energy drinks and beers before he finally found the sunny d’s in the back, tearing one out from the pack and closing the fridge.
“here you go.”
your cheeks glowed pink as you shyly took the small bottle from his hands, a cute wobbly smile on your face that made yuta’s chest clench.
precious.
he wiped his sweaty hands on his jeans.
“i wanted to apologize—” he strained out. “for the way i spoke to you when we first met.”
you stared at him.
“it was never my intention to make you uncomfortable, and i acted like a complete dingbat with the things i said, so i just—” he scuffed his shoe against the kitchen floor. “i’m really sorry.”
you were quiet, big doe eyes blinking up at him in shock— until your frame gently deflated, eyes softening for him.
“you don’t have to apologize yuta honestly.” your soft voice soothed him, a sound he craved to hear everyday since the moment he met you. “i don’t think any less of you if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“you don’t?”
you shook your head cutely, beaming. “i don’t.”
he felt like he could breathe again.
your invisible wall slowly and gradually crumbled away the more you got to know yuta after that. he was still a little flirt, but only a little flirt with you, and he still did his frat boy job duties everyday, but he toned down the parties massively and stopped playing beer pong and drinking just for fun.
it would be a lie if you said you weren’t hesitant about yuta to begin with. you knew of his reputation and the risks you ran with befriending him the way you were— you well aware that he was trying to win you over, but you saw something different in him that he didn’t show to anyone else, and you trusted him, the goodness of your heart always giving people the benefit of the doubt.
he was trying his absolute hardest for you and changing his bad traits, wanting to become a person that deserved to be with you as he listened to you ramble on and on about your classes and your studies all of the time, him smiling adoringly at you because he genuinely loved so much hearing you talk to him and listen to anything you had to say— and yuta was falling practically head over heels over the way you gushed about your little nerdy interests, your eyes shimmering every time.
“and what’s this one called?” he asked softly.
you glanced over. “that’s the corpse flower! they only bloom for two to three days every two to three years.”
“only for two to three days?!” he whispered harshly, the ambiance in the botanical garden quiet and serene as you both observed the different kinds of breeds, flowers being your specialty of knowledge.
and he wanted to know all about it, even though he had a pamphlet in his hand that told him everything.
he wanted to hear it from you.
“and this one?”
he pointed to a vibrant scarlet red flower.
“that’s the cardinal flower. they attract little bees and hummingbirds!”
your words were gentle and polite, your eyes sparkling at all of the different flowers in front of you.
“oo! and this one—” you stopped suddenly, slowly retracting your hand and looking at him bashfully, your cheeks redder than ever.
yuta’s eyebrows furrowed. “what? why’d you stop?” he looked to where you had been staring. “what about this one?”
“sorry!” you sputtered. “i felt like i was getting carried away and talking way too much…”
you laughed it off, but yuta only shook his head.
“no you weren’t. you weren’t at all.”
you peered up at him shyly.
“you can talk about anything you want with me wherever we are, y/n. i like it when you explain to me these things, or anything you know really.” he ruffled your hair. “i like listening to you.”
your cheeks adorned a pinky shade as you took in what he said, and you smiled so so big then, nodding.
“so what’s this one?” he pressed again, lightly.
the bed contained a mix of white and purple flowers, small and dainty as they swayed to and fro a bit with every breeze.
“those are pansies,” you leaned over the railing. “i like these especially because it looks like they have another pair attached to them on the other side.”
“like a little buddy,” yuta commented.
you laughed softly, “yeah! like a little buddy.”
he pointed to a specific pansy that had one white flower and one purple flower on the opposite side.
“that’s you and me.”
“is it?” you grinned. “who’s who?”
“you’re the white one and i’m the purple one,” yuta absentmindedly turned and grabbed your hands gently, playing with your fingertips— and you let him. “because you’re pretty and really fucking smart and way too nice to me, and i’m a douchebag and sometimes i’m a mean and scary old fart.”
you giggled loudly at his joke, shaking your head. “nuh uh. i don’t agree.”
“you don’t?” he quirked an eyebrow, a silly smile on his face.
you shook your head again. “you’re genuine yuta. really genuine. and you’re funny, you never make me feel embarrassed for the things that i love, and you make others happy!… sometimes.”
yuta laughed, “sometimes?” he softly placed your hands back at your sides. “yeah, you’re not wrong.”
“but you make me happy, always.” you finished off.
his eyes lit up like a firework. “really? so does this mean you’ll finally say yes to going out with me and give me a little kiss?”
you snickered and covered your mouth, your cheeks flushed. “nuh uh.”
“aww mannn,” yuta groaned and leaned against the railing, but turned his head to the side after a few seconds and looked at you, giving a tender smile.
your eyes continued to sparkle over the flower beds in front of you, but yuta’s eyes only sparkled at the one flower in front of him.
that’s where he started calling you flower.
“that’s okay!” he leaned back up. “i’ll keep trying.”
and boy did he try. each and every single day yuta tried as he brought you little treats from the campus cafe, or helped carry your textbooks to wherever you went, brought you neatly packaged flowers or sometimes would even pull his car over when he saw pretty ones on the side of the road, getting off and running to pluck them, handing them to you through the window with a goofy grin.
everything was bliss between you two, and your world only got brighter as you hung out with him.
but for yuta, his world got a little complicated.
his former hookups only grew sour once they found out about you, the girl yuta seemed to spend every waking hour with, completely blind sighted to the fact as they thought he would’ve dumped you months ago already.
and his frat brothers were just bothered. yuta wasn’t managing the frat like he used to before, like he was supposed to as their leader, neglecting the collective reputation they all had with him not sweet talking the entire female student body, or their parties not running every single night anymore— and even when they did run, yuta wasn’t ever even there to begin with, he was with you, something they quickly realized.
“you have to cut it out man,” one of them said. “this frat is turning into a shit hole because you keep spending your time with that girl—“ he stopped. “who the fuck even is she? i mean if it was layla fine everybody knows layla but—”
“who she is is none of your fucking business?” yuta snapped. “and just because i’m not sending girls for you to jerk your dick with doesn’t mean this frat is turning into a ‘shit hole.’”
some of the boys snickered.
“you wanna run the maintenance on the house? you wanna call up the fucking board and ask for the ten thousand fucking permits we have to have for our parties every year? you think you can run that?”
“no—”
“then be my fucking guest.”
“okay fine, i’m sorry man.” he sighed. “we haven’t had a party in a week though, we have to throw one tomorrow and you have to be there. then ill call it even.”
yuta snorted. call it even? whatever.
he begrudgingly agreed, not wanting to be there whatsoever but softening up to the fact that maybe he was neglecting his frat a little too much.
so when he called you up that day for your nightly phone calls, yuta asked for your attendance.
“i know— i know parties aren’t really your thing…” he pursed his lips, staring up at the ceiling as he had you on speaker. “but i’d feel a lot better if you were there… and you won’t be alone! you’ll be with me the whole time so—”
yuta sighed. “…i have been neglecting the frat a little bit, and they’re pissed at me.”
you gasped softly, “they are?”
“yeah but i don’t give a fuck.”
you both giggled.
“but i do want to make them somewhat happy so that’s why i gotta throw this party… can you come? it’s okay if not flower don’t worry—”
“of course i can go yuta!” you spoke cutely over the speaker. “as long as you give me a sunny d i’ll be okay.”
he laughed.
“i feel like…” you struggled. “them being mad and what’s happening with your frat is partially my fault yuta… i’m sorry.”
your voice was so worrisome, you feeling tremendous guilt on the other line as you bit your lip.
“what?” his eyes narrowed. “no flower, absolutely not. why would you think that?”
“because i keep asking you to hang out with me,” you spoke softly. “and i feel like im hogging you from your frat boy duties.”
yuta chuckled and shook his head. “i would ten times rather spend time with you than hang out with these fucking dummies.” he sat up on his bed. “i love it when you ask for me flower. keep doing it please. whatever that’s happening with my frat strictly has to do with me okay? not you.”
you grinned on the other end, your heart giddy. “okay.”
so the night of the party, you showed up to his frat looking absolutely gorgeous in your tight little dress, his hands instantly clamming up and his throat closing at the scent of your strawberry perfume and lovely face alone.
yuta tried so hard to keep his eyes respectful and not drift down to your ass or the way your perfect tits squeezed out from the top, almost physically slapping himself when he accidentally touched you way lower than he should have when guiding you through the crowd.
everywhere he went people were greeting him or passing him shots, him quickly acknowledging everybody and downing whatever they gave him as you shyly and timidly stuck to his body (which he loved).
yuta taught you how to play beer pong that night and cheered like an absolute fucking idiot whenever you would make it in, drinking the cups for you instead as he knew you weren’t the biggest fan of alcohol, which made you a little weak in the knees that he catered to you so much.
the party was actually way more fun than the both of you expected, especially for yuta, because he proudly had you on his arm as you walked throughout the house, you trying your absolute hardest to ignore the stares you got from different girls and not uttering a single word about it to yuta, not wanting to burden him and take his focus away from rejuvenating the frat and his brothers.
all was bliss, until it wasn’t.
“is this her? the girl you’re always talking to?” one of his frat brothers stumbled through the crowd, the one that argued with him the day before, drunk off of his freaking mind as his eyes raked over your body like nothing.
yuta instantly picked up on that and stiffened, “yeah.”
he tried his best to swallow his annoyance and be civil as he gently placed a hand on your back and softly ushered you forward, you shy and clinging onto his shirt. “this is y/n.”
“h—hi.”
“i see why you abandoned us for a nerd man!” he slurred. “she’s fucking hot. never seen tits look so good—”
your breath hitched.
“the fuck you just say?” yuta tugged you behind him. “the hell is wrong with you man? don’t talk about her like that.”
you noticed several eyes looking over.
“what!” he hiccuped dumbly. “they do! why are you getting pissed—”
“i don’t give a shit!” yuta snapped. “don’t talk about her like that!”
he scoffed, swaying a little. “what, like you actually care about her anyways—”
“are you fucking serious?” yuta stepped forward and you tugged him back, your eyes frantic as they scanned over the crowd forming and back to him.
“no yuta, he’s drunk it’s okay—”
“she’s just another one for your body count, once you fuck her you’re gonna leave—”
yuta slipped from your grasp and lunged at him, tackling him and towering over him on the ground as he fisted his shirt and jerked him up, yuta landing punch after punch to his face as the crowd yelled, cheered and recorded around you.
“yuta please!” you tried to get his attention, your chest heaving in a panic as you watched the other guy land a hit on yuta, not wanting him to get hurt over you at all whatsoever.
yuta dodged another coming hit and beat the shit out of him, grueling him down to a mere pulp as everything around him went completely white and fuzzy, his body stinging with absolute rage.
he was furious.
finally, several other frat brothers broke through the crowd and pulled yuta off of him.
“that’s enough that’s enough!”
“guys stop!”
quickly, you grabbed yuta’s hand once they put him aside and tugged him away from the crowd, speed walking to the front door.
“you’re out of the fucking frat you piece of shit!” yuta practically roared behind him as you pulled him. “you’re out!”
your trembling fingers hurriedly turned the knob and opened the door, dragging him out down the steps to the porch and across the grass, not saying a single word to him yet as he kept breathing out desperate apologies to you with every step.
once you both were a safe distance away from the house and just a tiny bit down the street, you let go of his hand and turned to him.
“—fuck im sorry i’m sorry im so sorry—” yuta shoved the base of his palms into his eyes as he threw his head back, “i just fucked everything up between us i—”
yuta knew you would never want to be with a guy like him, especially one that couldn’t keep his shit together and resorted to violence the way he did minutes ago, right in front of you. a guy like that didn’t deserve you. you deserved way way fucking more. and as he tore his palms away from his face, eyes looking up at the night sky, he knew he completely messed up his chances with you for good.
his head snapped down to look at you, his eyebrows pinched and eyes contorted in absolute guilt and agony as he placed his bloody knuckled hands on your little cheeks.
“i’m so fucking sorry he said those things to you like that that was not okay flower,” he emphasized. “and i’m so sorry i beat him when you told me not to i— i just couldn’t stand there when he was talking to you like that man—”
he dropped his hands and cursed, his arms going up as he covered his eyes again.
“yuta it’s okay—”
“no,” he shook his head and looked at you. “no it’s not okay. you deserve way more than this and no matter how fucking hard i try to do better, the life i built before you just doesn’t let me.”
his eyes got so sad, saying words he didn’t want to say, but knew he had to. “you shouldn’t be around a guy like me flower, you really shouldn’t. fuck— i don’t want you around a guy like me. you’re too precious for that. i’m gonna end up screwing you over like i always do—”
“yuta stop.” you raised your voice a little, your tone one he’d never ever heard come out of your mouth, firm and serious in contrast to the sweetness you always gave him.
he shut right up.
“come sit down with me on the curb,” you pulled his arm. “please.”
he followed you and sat down next to you on the side walk with his head down, you taking in how yuta only had one little cut next to his eyebrow, pride funnily bubbling up in your chest as you realized how good he actually fought.
he did that. for you. he made a scene out of himself and protected your name.. for you. although you hated that he got into a fight, you knew he was trying so so hard for you, going above and beyond for a year now trying to fix himself to be a better man deserving of you, and you were immensely touched, no one having put even close to that amount of effort like he was in your life.
“you don’t get to decide what i deserve yuta.”
his eyes shot in your direction “but as a friend i’m telling you—”
you huffed as you grabbed his cheeks and kissed him.
you kissed him.
yuta’s eyes were blown astronomically wide as you did, his heart no longer beating as he could’ve sworn he was dead right now, not believing that you were actually kissing him.
him.
you pulled apart from his lips with a smack, your hands still on his red cheeks. “a guy who’s willing to literally change himself without me having to ask, trying to be better for me everyday without fault for literally a year, doing everything he can to make me happy? definitely deserves me yuta. you deserve me.”
you pecked his forehead softly and pulled back again, his body going numb when you did. “so what if you beat the shit out of him? i would do it too if someone was talking to you like that i don’t care. i’d lose but i’d do it,” you giggled. “i didn’t like the fight because i don’t want you getting hurt, ever, period. but you literally scrapped him up like it was nothing, so i don’t have anything to worry about.”
he shook his head and playfully rolled his eyes. “no flower that’s the thing you’re too sweet to me, i don’t want you justifying—”
“yuta be quiet!” you whispered harshly, giving him a silly grin. “you talk too much.”
you reached up and very very gently pecked the little cut on the side of his eyebrow, feeling a cool calming waterfall wash over his body at the feeling of your soft lips finally on him, something he’s wished upon every star for.
“you’re so good to me yuta, truly you are. and i��m sorry it’s taken me so long to say this because i’m always nervous but—” you smiled endearingly. “i do want to go out with you, and i do want to give you little kisses. all of the time.”
yuta slowly let his forehead fall against yours, feeling like he was in a dream as the only emotion he felt at the moment was bliss. pure honeyed bliss as he wrapped his arms around you and pulled you to his chest, his face burying in your silky hair.
his hard work had finally paid off, and he had every fucking intention of keeping up that work until the day he dies, wanting you, his shy and timid precious little flower forever in his life— you changing him for the better so much that he finally feels like he’s properly healthy, in more ways than one.
“we’re going out tomorrow,” he mumbled into your hair. “bright and early. i’m gonna take you to get breakfast, and then we’re gonna go to that aquarium you’ve been wanting to go to for weeks now, and then i’m gonna buy you a souvenir, and then i’m gonna take you to get your nails done—”
“yu!” you pulled back and giggled happily. “you don’t have to buy me anything my goodness. just you is enough.”
he bit his lip, smiling like a fucking idiot.
“really?”
“really.”
“well too fucking bad i’m gonna do it anyways.”
he pulled you back in as you laughed and buried his face back into your hair, not wanting to break away at all, feeling like the richest douchebag in the world as he finally had you as his.
you scooted your face up then and nudged him, him pulling a part in response as you proceeded to plant another sugary kiss to his lips, yours lingering as they melted into a perfect mold against his mouth, yuta’s heart absolutely soaring, your red invisible strings close together at last.
he finally had you.
finally.
and he was never letting you go.
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