#what *i* would do if we have to salvage it is like. its not about the land make it an environmental issue
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Winter Wonderland
Premise: Cassie and Ethan enjoy the holiday decorations around town, leading to a candid conversation about their relationship.
Book: Open Heart Pairing: Ethan Ramsey x F!MC (Cassie Valentine) Rating/Category: Teen. Fluff. Words: 1,475
A/N: This is set during the Secret Dating phase in Lia Land. Submission for @choicesholidays Winter 2024 and @choicesjanuary2025 prompt "hot chocolate:
Cassie Valentine discreetly glanced at her wristwatch beneath the table, wondering if there was still a chance to salvage her evening plans.
She had already changed into street clothes an hour ago and was ready to clock out when she received a page to report to the Diagnostics Team office. Dr. Ramsey had been clear from the start. The team’s schedule was unpredictable, and all members had to forego time off as needed.
As the latest and the most junior member, Cassie had to flex more than others since she was juggling a tough residency and diagnostics fellowship. Still, there was an upside to all the time spent at work—she got to do it with her boyfriend.
Not that anyone else knew the delectable Ethan Ramsey was hers, she mused with secret amusement. She knew, and that was all that mattered.
She side-eyed Ethan at the front of the conference table, facing the videoconference screen she hadn’t known existed until today. His eyes were alive with curiosity and interest as they consulted with a colleague in California. The virtual consult would determine if the team was required on-site for the diagnosis.
Cassie wouldn’t mind a couple of days of sunshine. Winter had Boston firmly in its grip. Of course, there was something magical about walking through a winter wonderland during the holiday season. Twinkling lights strung on palm trees didn’t have the same appeal as snow-dusted oak trees.
“Thank you, Dr. Amherst. We’ll review the patient file and get back to you tomorrow.”
Ethan wrapped up the call, and Cassie refocused her attention on the job at hand. She really hoped tomorrow didn’t mean they would be working late into the night. But, with this team, you never knew.
“I don’t know about the rest of you,” Baz said, stretching his arms, “but I could use a break before we work on the diagnosis.”
“I agree,” June said. “I’d rather come in early and approach the case with fresh eyes.”
Cassie held her breath in anticipation. Ethan seemed to hesitate, but then he nodded in agreement.
“Let’s pick this up tomorrow morning. Not much else we can do today.”
Baz and June wasted no time gathering their things and heading out. Cassie wasn’t far behind, but she stopped when she saw Ethan sit down at his desk and flip open the patient file.
“It’s late, Ethan,” she said, not hiding her exasperation. “Are you really planning to keep working?”
“I just want to go over things while they’re still fresh in my mind,” he said, sliding on his glasses.
He looked up at her. “Go home, Cassie. I’ll be fine.”
“I’m not going home,” she said, settling into the seat across from him. “I’m heading to Faneuil Hall to check out the Christmas tree and holiday decorations. Come with me.”
Ethan smirked, amused. “Isn’t that for tourists?”
“And for doctors who’ve spent fourteen-plus hours in a space that smells like antiseptic. I went last year, and it was nice.”
He rolled his eyes. “I see those decorations every day on my way to work. I’ll pass.”
“Fine,” Cassie said, pulling out her phone. “If you change your mind, you’ll know where to find me.”
When his phone pinged, Ethan glanced at the screen. “What’s this?”
“I just shared my location with you,” she explained. “I’ll keep it on until I get home.”
Almost ten minutes later, Cassie stepped out of the car, thanked her rideshare driver, and drew in a deep breath of the crisp evening air.
Just what I needed, she thought, feeling the tiredness fade away.
The scent of roasted chestnuts and pine mingled with the faint melody of holiday carolers stationed near Quincy Market. Strings of twinkling white and multicolored lights wound their way around the lampposts and tree trunks, casting a soft glow on the historic architecture.
Huddled inside her thick parka, Cassie trekked down the cobblestone streets, her boots crunching softly against the uneven stones as she admired the holiday wreaths adorning shop doors, their vibrant ribbons fluttering in the brisk evening breeze.
Tourists exclaimed excitedly at storefronts showcasing meticulously arranged scenes of snow-covered villages, glittering ornaments and festive garlands. Meanwhile, hardy Bostonians paid no mind to the spectacle, staying laser-focused on their holiday shopping lists.
Cassie treated herself to a steaming cup of hot chocolate and a bag of tiny, freshly fried donuts before settling onto a bench outside Faneuil Hall to people-watch.
A massive Christmas tree towered over the square, draped in a cascade of shimmering gold and silver lights that seemed to light up the night sky. Nearby, a family of four posed for a picture in front of an illuminated reindeer installation while a couple took a selfie, their cheeks rosy from the cold as they huddled close.
“Got room for one more?”
Cassie’s heart lifted at the sound of her lover's familiar voice. She turned to see Ethan and couldn’t help but break into a wide smile.
“Always.” She shifted to make room for him beside her.
“Christ! It’s fuckin’ cold tonight,” he shuddered as the wind picked up.
“You should’ve grabbed a hot chocolate on the way,” Cassie teased, taking an exaggerated sip from hers. “Here.”
She offered him the bag of still-warm donuts, grinning when a dusting of sugar landed on his coat and the corner of his mouth as he took a bite.
“Relax, babe,” she said with a laugh as he muttered about the mess, brushing away the sugar particles with a napkin. “You missed a spot.”
Cassie leaned in and licked the sugar from the corner of his lips. Ethan turned his head, his lips brushing against hers, and then he placed two fingers under her chin, holding her in place as he kissed her deeply and without hesitation.
Firecrackers burst in the distance—or was it her racing heartbeat and the rush of blood to her head? Cassie didn’t know or care as she fell into the moment.
All too soon, their lips drifted apart and the kiss faded into a whisper as their foreheads touched, sharing a quiet, unspoken connection.
“Excuse me?” a man’s voice interrupted. Cassie glanced up to see the other half of the couple who had been taking selfies earlier. “Sorry to disturb you, but could you…?”
He held out his phone to Ethan, then glanced uncertainly back at his girlfriend. Cassie grinned at Ethan’s hesitation and decided to take pity on him.
“I’ll do it,” she offered, stepping forward.
She took a few photos as the couple wrapped their arms around each other and struck playful poses for the camera. The last photo had them kissing softly under the Christmas tree lights. Cassie thought it might be the best one of all, envying the openness of their relationship.
As the couple walked away, thanking her with bright smiles, Cassie sighed wistfully and settled back onto the bench beside Ethan.
“What’s that sigh about?” he asked, raising a curious brow.
“Nothing,” she said, avoiding his gaze as she gathered the empty cup and paper bag to toss in the trash.
“Do you wish we weren’t keeping our relationship secret?”
Cassie was always amazed at how astutely Ethan could read her feelings. She supposed it was inevitable when two people had been in an intimate relationship of one type or another for almost nine months.
“We’re private people.”
“That’s not what I asked, Cassie.” He took her hand, intertwining their fingers. “Do you want to go public?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Our families and my close friends know. It should be enough.”
“But…?”
Cassie rolled her eyes. He could be relentless, like a dog with a bone. She knew he wouldn’t drop it easily.
“But I hate how the nurses flirt with you at work while I have to pretend it doesn’t bother me. Or how, if we took a selfie right now, I couldn’t post it on Picta because, as far as the world knows, I’m single.”
“I’m not posing for a selfie on Picta under any circumstances,” Ethan murmured.
“Wanna bet?” she shot back, glaring at him.
Ethan smirked, his lips twitching as if to hold back a retort. Instead, he leaned in closer, his voice low and teasing. “You’d lose that bet, Dr. Valentine.”
Cassie raised an eyebrow, a challenge glinting in her eyes. “Careful, babe. I always play to win.”
He chuckled, shaking his head. “Come on, let’s get out of here before I freeze my balls off sitting on this icy bench.”
She grabbed her things and fell into step beside him, their fingers brushing but not quite holding. As they walked into the twinkling glow of the holiday lights, Cassie glanced at him, a quiet smile tugging at her lips.
Maybe the world didn’t need to know about them just yet. Moments like this were enough.
A/N: In case you were wondering. Ethan lost that bet. 😂
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All Fics & Edits: @bluebelle08 @coffeeheartaddict2 @crazy-loca-blog @jerzwriter @justyourusualash @lady-calypso @kyra75 @mainstreetreader @peonierose @potionsprefect @queencarb @quixoticdreamer16 @snoopdogcone @tessa-liam @trappedinfanfiction @loreofyore
Submissions: @choicesficwriterscreations @openheartfanfics
Ethan & Cassie only: @cariantha @custaroonie @youlookappropriate
#open heart#ethan ramsey#ethan ramsey x mc#open heart fanfic#choices open heart#open heart fanfiction#playchoices#choices fanfic#choices fanfiction#ethan x mc#winterholidays2024#ethan ramsey x cassie valentine
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more monochrome practice I suppose
#tumblr getting this version of this drawing bc i dont want to get in trouble for drawing them nakey#so its date night vibes instead of like eden vibes#i have such complicated feelings about this ship in part bc we havent really met lilith so dont know what shes about yet#but i know in my heart there was a time they loved each other so much and so this is that#honestly would love so much to get backstory on the eden crew and the happenings there even just like a flashback in an episode or somethin#but lowkey im on the 'hoping they get divorced but deeply care about one another and are a part of each others lives' train#bc thats kind of more interesting to me than them getting back together bc i think the crux of it is how much theyve changed and a part of#their relationship getting to the point where lilith disappeared maybe being them both trying to desperately to salvage it and in doing so#making it worse bc they felt like they ruined their lives to be together and so what was the point of it all if they weren't anymore?? but#like theyre immortal so of course theyre going to change and of course theres a chance that the relationship doesnt work even if they deepl#love one another and always will and i just like the closure of that and admitting they arent right for each other in that way anymore but#they still love and care about each other and will never lose that#this is rambling and doesnt make as much sense as when i was typing it on a different post i am wondering now if theres a limit on how many#tags i can put here bc im just yapping at this point whoops#anyway i need to buck up and actually finish/post that draft i have about my very long and complicated hazbin ship opinions#lucilith#hazbin hotel#lilith morningstar#lilith hazbin hotel#hazbin hotel lilith#lucifer hazbin hotel#hazbin lucifer#hazbin hotel lucifer#lucifer morningstar#hazbin lilith
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genuinely i find the entire chunk of lore to be unsalvagable at this point like just throw it out and start over
#what *i* would do if we have to salvage it is like. its not about the land make it an environmental issue#like its a giant high tech robot factory make it about pollution and make the alf into a group of people trying to survive on poisoned land#still doesnt read GREAT but like. idk its SOMETHING. better than trying to litigate a land rights issue with your fantasy racist white guys#one of whom you looove vaguely implying miiiiiight be indigeneous teehee ^-^ juuuuust maybe#they love implying it juuuuust enough that nobody can get mad at them for the racist shit they keep doing
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slams my head against a wallllll
#bad day#wraith fuckin dropped a class without consulting any of us and then turned around and tore into this girl which more or less is gonna ruin#our reputation at work which means we can either pull back from everyone all together or just pretend it never happened#but that also means that auz is pretty much fucked in terms of work environment#so that part of our life is steamed for the next 2 months at least maybe more#not to mention the fucking dropped class that Nobody else had thought about or had a chance to do anything about#and we’re frequently scheduled with this girl so we’re in a corner over it#and suicidal ideation is acting up bc im in front and apparently im just COMPLETELY fucked for some reason!#god i dont even wanna know whats gonna happen when kos gets back in front#god willing amnesia wall and they dont have a breakdown about it bc its not like theres anything we can do about it now#anything we would usually do to salvage this is ‘weird’ to this girl#and of course cant re-enroll in a class we dropped#and of course i cant even keep my fucking head on straight to complain about one thing at a time!!!#fucks sake.#fucks. sake.#is it too late to just like drop off the face of tge earth forever
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I was meeting a client at a famous museum’s lounge for lunch (fancy, I know) and had an hour to kill afterwards so I joined the first random docent tour I could find. The woman who took us around was a great-grandmother from the Bronx “back when that was nothing to brag about” and she was doing a talk on alternative mediums within art.
What I thought that meant: telling us about unique sculpture materials and paint mixtures.
What that actually meant: an 84yo woman gingerly holding a beautifully beaded and embroidered dress (apparently from Ukraine and at least 200 years old) and, with tears in her eyes, showing how each individual thread was spun by hand and weaved into place on a cottage floor loom, with bright blue silk embroidery thread and hand-blown beads intricately piercing the work of other labor for days upon days, as the labor of a dozen talented people came together to make something so beautiful for a village girl’s wedding day.
What it also meant: in 1948, a young girl lived in a cramped tenement-like third floor apartment in Manhattan, with a father who had just joined them after not having been allowed to escape through Poland with his pregnant wife nine years earlier. She sits in her father’s lap and watches with wide, quiet eyes as her mother’s deft hands fly across fabric with bright blue silk thread (echoing hands from over a century years earlier). Thread that her mother had salvaged from white embroidery scraps at the tailor’s shop where she worked and spent the last few days carefully dying in the kitchen sink and drying on the roof.
The dress is in the traditional Hungarian fashion and is folded across her mother’s lap: her mother doesn’t had a pattern, but she doesn’t need one to make her daughter’s dress for the fifth grade dance. The dress would end up differing significantly from the pure white, petticoated first communion dresses worn by her daughter’s majority-Catholic classmates, but the young girl would love it all the more for its uniqueness and bright blue thread.
And now, that same young girl (and maybe also the villager from 19th century Ukraine) stands in front of us, trying not to clutch the old fabric too hard as her voice shakes with the emotion of all the love and humanity that is poured into the labor of art. The village girl and the girl in the Bronx were very different people: different centuries, different religions, different ages, and different continents. But the love in the stitches and beads on their dresses was the same. And she tells us that when we look at the labor of art, we don’t just see the work to create that piece - we see the labor of our own creations and the creations of others for us, and the value in something so seemingly frivolous.
But, maybe more importantly, she says that we only admire this piece in a museum because it happened to survive the love of the wearer and those who owned it afterwards, but there have been quite literally billions of small, quiet works of art in billions of small, quiet homes all over the world, for millennia. That your grandmother’s quilt is used as a picnic blanket just as Van Gogh’s works hung in his poor friends’ hallways. That your father’s hand-painted model plane sets are displayed in your parents’ livingroom as Grecian vases are displayed in museums. That your older sister’s engineering drawings in a steady, fine-lined hand are akin to Da Vinci’s scribbles of flying machines.
I don’t think there’s any dramatic conclusions to be drawn from these thoughts - they’ve been echoed by thousands of other people across the centuries. However, if you ever feel bad for spending all of your time sewing, knitting, drawing, building lego sets, or whatever else - especially if you feel like you have to somehow monetize or show off your work online to justify your labor - please know that there’s an 84yo museum docent in the Bronx who would cry simply at the thought of you spending so much effort to quietly create something that’s beautiful to you.
#shut up e#long post#Saturday thoughts#this has been in my drafts for a week haha#also this is the heart of why AI art feels so wrong#forget the discussion of copyright and theft etc - even if models were only trained on public domain they would still feel very wrong#because they’re not art. art is the labor of creation#even commercial art and art commissioned by the popes and kings of history: there is humanity in the labor of it#unrelated: I did not know living in the Bronx was now something to brag about. How the fuck do y’all New Yorkers afford this city???
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ID. Shaw making a bomb and smiling as she says, "There's a time for a scalpel and a time for a hammer. It's hammer time." End ID.
Person of Interest (2011-2016) || 3x12 - Aletheia
#poi#shaw my beloved...#god. person of interest was so so so good until it. wasnt.#like they set so much up so well but then i feel like the fundamental problem was greer does not feel realistic. his motivations do not#make sense to me. i know they tried with like#his distrust of human decision making bc of cold war stuff or whatever but. that does not a zealot make.#which is what you Have to go with if you are going to have a human follow an AI that doggedly.#i think it would have been much better if he had been trying to use samaritan and you could have done something really interesting with#the way its avatar is a CHILD and we could have befriended samaritan! or put it out of its misery! idk!#i just think it was thematically uncompelling which is the worst. bc a poorly executed but thematically consistent ending is salvageable.#but the message got so unclear by the end.#anyway. sorry about the tag essay op.#i watched the second half of season 5 finally last year and. well.
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✭INFAMOUS UPDATE IS HERE ✭
238K -> 457K WORDS
Please read this post before playing! It's finally here! After five months of writing and rewriting and salvaging and crying and sweating and bleeding I finally finished sort of kind of! Firstly, I want to thank you for your patience and understanding over this duration of this rewrite. It was stressful at times but I'm happy with the end result and I hope everyone else will be too :)
This will be the last chapter I release without beta testers/other sets of eyes so expect errors. I can playtest until my fingers turn blue but I'm just one person </3 I'm bound to have missed stuff.
Please let me know of errors! I tested it a few times with no problems but we know how it goes lol
IN THIS CHAPTER THREE UPDATE:
drama
mayhem
chaos
some betrayal
some surprises
just...read it lmao
PROLOGUE - CHAPTER 2 CHANGES:
**chapter two was too large of a file to upload on dd so I had to split it last minute and I uhhhh dont know how that translates in the demo but it should work lol please let me know if its wonky!**
fixed up grammatical errors and typos
expanded some scenes and added some more choices
you can now choose that your mc has "changed" in some way (drinking, no longer drinking, partier, no longer a partier, negative, positive, attached, detached, or a general default. I was asked to add an MC who "gets around" or hookups a lot but I'm still debating on whether I'll add that since there's already quite a bit lolol)
you can choose to have changed your band's genre before/after seven
TECHNICAL CHANGES:
you will be able to explicitly state your sexuality in the beginning. this was a big ask and I apologize for not doing it earlier! I wasn't good at coding when I started and I knew I always wanted to make the genders separate from MC's sexuality but I didn't know how to do that at the start :) So you can still choose the genders of the ROs for story purposes and variety. IF YOU DO NOT SEE ROMANCE OPTIONS THAT IS NOT A BUG. You simply chose a RO gender that doesn't correlate with the sexuality you chose for your MC. Having said that, if you do see a romance option available and it's not supposed to be there please let me know! That means I may have missed it coding-wise.
the stats have been all fixed! I've added all the necessary variables and such. The stat portion of the game has been updated with the appropriate pages but they're not finished. Still, the stats should be fine.
You will now have confessionals in the stat page! The feature still isn't a thing yet because I haven't come up with the confessionals lolol but you can click on it to see what it's about. Essentially, as you progress through the story you will be able to see confessionals from the cast of Infamous throughout. They disappear and appear periodically so if you miss it, THAT'S IT! You won't get a chance to see them again until MC watches an episode where it's relevant.
There is now a: Discography page, Infamous wiki, botb cast and staff page, and other characters page for organization. Those are not finished but they're there!
I changed a few stat names but their functions remain the same.
You will be able to choose how you would like to be described (masculine, feminine, neither, both).
O is officially gender-selectable.
You can set the genders of the ROs at the start or wait till you meet them.
PLAY HERE
#update#ch 2 is super cursed by the way#so big it couldn't upload on dd#had to move the variables#was ripping my hair out#infamous update
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We Didn’t Start The Fire
“See man, the moon!” Kid Flash said as they came outside, standing on the pile of rubble.
“And Superman! Do we fulfill our promises or what…” his voice trails off as a grinding clanking sound echoes behind them.
They turned around, confused to see a tricked out pale yellow Volkswagen bug trucking its way up the rubble and crumbled building blocks. It stopped before it got too steep, a man in a familiar white lab coat stumbling out.
Immediately, they were on guard, the man haphazardly climbing towards them.
Robin drew two batarangs in each hand, standing in front of Superboy as he got closer. It didn’t even matter that the Justice League had just landed behind them, if this CADMUS scientist tried something, Robin would be the first to defend Superboy. Without hesitance.
The man stopped in front of them, huffing for breath.
“You’re-!” He stopped, leaning over his knees with gasping breaths, “Sorry, one sec!” He held up a finger, gasping for another few seconds before stepping forward-
Chains of water surrounded him before they could blink, Robin looking back surprised to see Aqualad standing with extended weapons and a grim face.
“This is odd.” The man looked at the water wrapped around him, wriggling a bit before shrugging. His eyes zeroed in on Superboy, “You’re okay!” He said with a blinding grin.
Superboy recoiled and Robin immediately stepped between them.
“What.”
The man glanced at him briefly before looking back over Robin’s head, “You are okay right? I mean I tried my best but I couldn’t figure out a way to get you out- I mean if I’d known you were there to begin with I’d would have never-but then I wouldn’t have-
“Who are you?” Superman asks, suddenly close from behind them.
The man’s mouth clicks shut, looking between them all before a grimacing smile rises to his face.
He extends his hand at the elbow between the liquid chains, “Dr. Danny Fenton, ex-biochemical engineer of CADMUS labs Mr.Superman,sir.”
Flash zips forward, the eyes of his cowl narrowed, “Ex?”
The grimace turns into a wince. “Oh.. heh, yeah, I’ve found that arson is usually a pretty good kickstart of sudden unemployment,” there’s a thoughtful pause as he looks over the rubble, “It’s usually accidental though.”
Nobody responds.
“What? You didn’t think that lab fire started on its own did you? How else was I supposed to get you here?”
“There’s a Justice League public phone! That’s literally its entire purpose!” Kid Flash shouts, throwing his hands in the air. At this point, Aqualad cautiously lowers his water bearers, releasing Fenton.
“Oh, sure, I call a bunch of superheroes and tell them my boss is doing a Grow-Your-Own-Superman in the boiler room. That’d go over well.” He pauses, “Though the sidekicks was a surprise.”
The comment goes uncorrected, as the rest of the league has snapped to face Superboy the moment he says it.
Superman looks stricken as Superboy reveals the logo on his torn shirt.
Fenton unceremoniously breaks the tension, “Sorry I never asked, do you have a name? I’d feel really bad just calling you-“
“… They called me.. Superboy..” He says, still not looking away from the man of steel in front of him.
“That’s not-“ Fenton rubs his temples and sighs harshly, “Okay, I can fix that later, whatever-“
“You’re not gonna be ‘fixing’ anything, Doctor.” Robin snarls.
Fenton blinks. “Huh?”
Batman steps forward, “Green Lantern.”
Green construct cuffs snap around the Dr.Fenton’s wrists, though he looks at them puzzled.
“Superman, check for survivors in the damage, Flash find some salvageable evidence before it finishes burning. The rest of us, we’ll continue this interrogation at the hall.”
“Wait what?” Dr. Fenton says, perking up like a meerkat even as Batman turns away with swirl of his cape.
“What about me?” Superboy asks, desperation in his hesitant step forward.
Batman looks to Superman. Superman nods, and then shoots off into the rubble and emergency vehicles.
“For now, you come with us.” Batman says, and Superboy’s shoulders loosen just a hint.
The dark knight pauses again before turning completely, “And don’t think we’ve forgotten the rest of you,” he says, cowled eyes narrowed over his shoulder, “Robin.”
Robin shirks back, “Heh.. Right.”
“Wait what’s going on?” The Fenton scientist yelled back over his shoulder as Green Lantern pulls him away.
He starts to say something but the construct fully engulfs him now, shifting from a platform to a soundproof bubble.
It seems to shock him enough, Fenton tapping at the walls and looking like he wants to take it apart and take a sample.
Robin grit his teeth.
He was not gonna let these CADMUS freaks touch Superboy again.
Not Fenton or anybody else.
#batman#danny phantom#batfam#danny fenton#dc#danny phantom crossover#batman and robin#young justice#bruce wayne#tim drake#Superboy#dp x dc#dpxdc#young justice danny phantom crossover#dp#dp crossover#Cadmus
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trapped
pairing: hotel owner!heeseung x reader, slight sunoo x reader
genre: reincarnation au, supernatural themes, horror
synopsis: a road trip with your parents gone wrong lands you at a mysterious mansion in the middle of nowhere. after it turns out to be a hotel, your parents decide to stop over. everything about this place screams deja vu to you which is strange because you've never even heard about it. the hotel was not the only weird thing though, its handsome yet mysterious owner who looked like he stepped out of the 1920s is way too enthusiastic about your stay. every encounter with him leaves you feeling weirded out yet enamoured. but he is not who you think he seems to be. he will be the one to decide the duration of your stay here and it looks like it will not be ending anytime soon.
warnings: READ AT YOUR OWN DISCRETION! horror themes, suggestive content, slight yandere themes, manipulation, possessive!hee, murder, blood, lmk if i missed anything
note: i just came back from a party and my legs are killingg me so im half awake as i post this BUTTT it's finally out!! i love this plot so much omg. i think the ending could've been written better but eh. enjoyy and lemme know what you think of it!
word count: 24.3k
if you liked it please reblog or comment to give me your feedback! <3
the endless bickering between your parents filled the car like white noise. you were used to it by now—too used to it—but today, it grated on your nerves more than usual. you pressed your forehead against the cold glass of the window, watching the dark trees rush by, a blurry mix of black and grey.
"well, if you hadn’t taken that ridiculous detour, we wouldn’t have wasted half the day!" your mom snapped, her voice rising with every syllable.
your dad clenched the steering wheel tighter, his knuckles turning white. "oh, right, because everything’s my fault! you’re the one who insisted we take this ‘bonding trip’ in the first place."
you sighed. there it was, that phrase again: bonding trip. a doomed effort to salvage what was left of your parents’ relationship before you left for your two-year exchange program. your mom had decided that spending time together, crammed in a car for hours on end, would somehow solve years of unresolved issues.
"maybe if you actually listened to me for once, we wouldn’t be in this mess!" your mom retorted, arms crossed, glaring at your dad from the passenger seat.
you resisted the urge to groan out loud and instead slumped back in your seat. what was the point? nothing ever changed between them. you glanced down at your phone; no service, of course. this road trip to the ‘resort’ was supposed to be a goodbye vacation before you headed overseas, but the way things were going, you were counting the hours until it was over.
the car began to slow down as your dad pulled into a shabby gas station. it wasn’t much—a couple of pumps under flickering neon lights and a small convenience store that looked like it hadn’t been updated since the early 2000s.
“we’re stopping here?” your mom said, exasperated. “this place looks like it’s one step away from falling apart.”
“we need gas and food. you can’t survive on passive-aggressive comments alone,” your dad muttered, turning the car off and stepping out.
you stifled a laugh but quickly hid it when your mom shot you a look. without a word, you pushed the door open, desperate for a break from their constant bickering. you could feel their voices rising behind you as you made your way towards the store, the bell over the door jingling weakly as you stepped inside.
the guy behind the counter looked about your age, his face illuminated by the dull glow of a hanging light. his disinterested gaze shifted from the magazine he was reading to you as you approached. the store smelled like stale chips and cheap air freshener, a layer of dust coating the shelves.
“hey,” you greeted, leaning against the counter, “do you know if there are any motels up ahead?”
the guy looked up, raising an eyebrow as if the question itself was a bother. he glanced at the darkening sky outside and then back at you. "motels? there’s a town maybe three or four hours ahead. not much else between here and there, though."
you frowned. “three or four hours?” your stomach twisted. that would mean driving into the night—and with your parents still at each other’s throats, the idea didn’t sit well with you.
“yeah,” he shrugged, “but it’s getting late. if i were you, i’d try to get there quick. you don’t wanna be out here after dark.”
his tone sent a shiver down your spine, but you nodded anyway, brushing it off. you grabbed a couple of snacks and paid quickly, eager to get out of the unsettling atmosphere of the store.
outside, the bickering had not only continued, but it had escalated. your mom was leaning against the car with her arms crossed, while your dad angrily fumbled with the gas pump.
“what do you mean it’s not taking the card?” your mom was saying, her voice sharp with irritation.
“i don’t know! maybe it’s your stupid card,” your dad shot back, slamming the pump back into its holder.
you rolled your eyes so hard it almost hurt. wordlessly, you tossed the snacks into the backseat and climbed in, shutting the door with a little more force than necessary. you didn’t want to deal with their drama anymore. after a few more minutes of back-and-forth arguing, they finally got the gas pump working, and soon, you were back on the road.
the silence in the car was thick, broken only by the occasional sigh or muttered insult from the front seat. you kept your gaze fixed on the road ahead, trying to tune it all out, when suddenly the car began to sputter.
your dad’s face tightened as the car jerked, the dashboard lights flickering. “what the—?”
with a final shudder, the car rolled to a stop, dead on the side of a long, deserted road. darkness had fully settled around you, swallowing the car in a sea of black. you could barely make out the outline of the trees surrounding you, their twisted branches reaching up like claws against the sky.
“great,” your mom groaned, massaging her temples. “just perfect.”
your dad cursed under his breath and got out to pop the hood, leaving you and your mom in the eerie silence of the car. you sighed, reluctantly stepping out to help. you had no idea what you were doing, but sitting in the car doing nothing felt worse.
as you peered under the hood with your dad, who was muttering to himself as he checked the engine, your mom’s voice suddenly cut through the night air.
“look!” she said, her voice urgent. “there—do you see those lights?”
you looked up, squinting into the distance. sure enough, faint lights were flickering between the trees far ahead, barely visible but unmistakable.
a chill ran down your spine. you’d been looking at the gps not too long ago, and there hadn’t been any signs of life for miles. no towns. no houses. nothing.
“something’s not right,” you muttered, turning toward your dad. “there was nothing out here when i checked earlier.”
your dad waved you off, closing the hood with a loud bang. “you’re just tired. we’ll check it out. maybe there’s a house or something up ahead.”
your mom was already back in the car, apparently unconcerned. you stood there for a moment, staring at the mysterious lights that flickered in the distance. something about them felt… off, but as usual, no one was listening to you. with a groan of frustration, you climbed back into the car, your nerves tingling with unease.
the engine sputtered weakly to life once again, and as your dad drove toward the lights, you couldn’t shake the feeling that whatever was waiting for you up ahead wasn’t what you thought it was.
the car stuttered one last time before it gave up entirely, coming to a dead stop right in front of the lights. you blinked, heart racing as you took in the sight before you.
a mansion—no, the mansion—rose out of the darkness like something from an old gothic novel. the sprawling, ivy-clad structure stretched far beyond what you could make out in the dim light, its towers stabbing into the sky. faded stone gargoyles leered down from the corners of the building, their grim faces illuminated by the faint, flickering lamps that lined the driveway. the mansion seemed alive, ancient, its very presence looming over you like a dark shadow. it was eerily silent, save for the wind that whistled through the trees surrounding it.
for a second, you couldn’t breathe.
you swallowed hard. “this can’t be real.”
your dad got out of the car first, slamming the door shut with a mix of frustration and exhaustion. “we’ll figure out the car in the morning,” he grumbled. “we don’t have a choice. let’s see if they’ll let us stay.”
your mom, already out of the car and standing beside him, nodded in agreement. she didn’t even look fazed, just happy to be somewhere with lights and (hopefully) a bed. “come on, it’s late,” she said, like she hadn’t noticed the eerie silence hanging in the air or the fact that this place seemed plucked out of another century.
“are you serious?” you muttered under your breath, standing frozen next to the car. “this place looks like a horror movie set.”
your dad gave you a weary look. “we’re not staying in the car, that’s for sure. stop being dramatic and come on. it’s just a mansion.”
just a mansion? you wanted to scream. there was no way this was a normal place—no way a mansion this large, this old, could have gone unnoticed on the gps. but the protests died in your throat when you realised neither of them cared. like always, they were too focused on practicalities to notice the screaming red flags around them.
with a sigh, you unwillingly followed them up the cracked stone steps that led to the massive, elaborately carved front doors. every footstep echoed, the wind seeming to still as you approached the entrance. you couldn’t shake the feeling that you were being watched, like a pair of invisible eyes followed your every movement.
your dad pressed the doorbell—a soft chime rang out, sounding way too delicate for a place like this. you couldn’t help but wince, your nerves on edge. the silence that followed stretched on, thick and suffocating. it felt as though the mansion itself was holding its breath, waiting.
then, slowly, the door creaked open.
a young man stood in the doorway, his face illuminated by the warm glow of a chandelier behind him. his expression was neutral, almost blank, as if he had opened the door purely out of obligation. he was dressed impeccably, a sharp black tuxedo that seemed far too formal for a place like this—or maybe it was just perfect for this kind of mansion. either way, it unnerved you.
his eyes swept over your parents first, taking in their travel-worn appearance with little interest. “hello?” your dad started, clearing his throat awkwardly. “we, uh… we had some car trouble just outside. we were hoping… maybe you could help us?”
for a moment, the man—sunoo, as you’d later learn—didn’t say anything. he simply stood there, watching your parents with a blank face, like he was waiting for them to say something more interesting. his eyes flicked up to yours, and the world seemed to tilt slightly as his gaze met yours.
it was only for a second—just a fleeting moment—but something shifted in his expression. his cold, neutral stare melted into something… darker, more intrigued. a spark of something flashed in his eyes before his face returned to its impassive mask. the brief change left you rattled, a chill creeping up your spine.
your mom jumped in to break the awkward silence, her voice bright despite the situation. “yes, we’ve been driving for hours, and when our car broke down, we were hoping to find a place to stay. is this…” she glanced up at the looming mansion, almost sheepishly. “is this a hotel?”
there was a brief pause, and then, without warning, sunoo’s face split into the widest, most overenthusiastic grin you’d ever seen. it was such a drastic change from his earlier demeanour that it made your skin crawl. “oh, of course! you’ve come to the right place. this is a hotel, and you’re more than welcome to stay.” he extended an arm, gesturing grandly to the vast, dimly lit entryway behind him. “we have plenty of rooms available!”
your dad exhaled in relief, completely missing the oddity of sunoo’s exaggerated reaction. “thank god. you’re a lifesaver.”
you couldn’t stop staring at sunoo, watching the way his smile stretched just a little too wide, the way his eyes gleamed with something that wasn’t quite right. “this is a hotel?” you asked, voice filled with scepticism. “i didn’t see anything about it on the gps.”
sunoo’s eyes flicked back to you, and the unsettling smile never left his face. “oh? how strange. we’ve been here for a long time… surely, you must have heard about it.”
“no,” you said flatly, narrowing your eyes. “i’m sure. there was nothing around here.”
just as you were about to explain further, he smoothly cut you off with a bright, “well, no matter! you’re here now, and that’s what counts. come, come! let’s not waste any more time standing out in the cold.”
he practically ushered your parents through the doorway, his sudden energy making you want to take a step back. your dad muttered a quick “thank you” and walked right inside, your mom following closely behind. neither of them seemed to notice the way sunoo’s cheerful demeanour seemed… off.
you, however, couldn’t ignore the gnawing discomfort twisting in your gut. every instinct screamed at you to leave, to drag your parents back to the car, but the reality of your situation left you with little choice. sighing in frustration, you reluctantly followed them into the mansion.
the door shut behind you with an ominous thud that echoed through the long hallway, and the heavy weight of the mansion seemed to settle around you. you felt trapped, as if stepping into this place had sealed your fate.
as sunoo led your parents through the dimly lit entry hall, you lagged behind, your skin prickling with unease. you leaned toward your mom, lowering your voice to a whisper. “this is creepy. something’s not right about this place.”
she barely spared you a glance. “you’re being paranoid. it’s just an old mansion.”
“an old mansion that no one’s ever heard of? that wasn’t on the map? you didn’t see the way that guy was acting. he’s way too happy about us being stranded here.”
your dad huffed, clearly having reached the end of his patience. “it’s a hotel. we need a place to stay, and we don’t have any other options. you can sleep in the car if you’re that worried.”
you rolled your eyes, biting back the rest of your protests. of course, they wouldn’t listen. they never did. they couldn’t see the danger right in front of them.
as you followed your parents deeper into the mansion, the hairs on the back of your neck stood on end. the walls seemed to close in around you, and every footstep echoed like a warning.
something was wrong here. you knew it. you could feel it in your bones.
sunoo led your parents away, gesturing toward a desk where they could check in. you lingered behind, reluctant to follow them. the dimly lit hallway stretched before you, lined with dark wood panelling and framed with ornate carvings. despite the grandeur of the place, there was an eerie stillness that seemed to swallow every sound. no humming of guests, no distant chatter, no echoes of footsteps on marble floors—just a vast, consuming silence.
you slowly started walking, glancing around, trying to shake off the uneasy feeling crawling up your spine. for a hotel this size, it should have been bustling with activity. yet, there was no one. not a single person walking through the hallways, no staff except sunoo at the entrance. just the soft padding of your own footsteps, echoing like whispers through the still air.
as you turned a corner, your eyes landed on a giant painting mounted on the wall. you stopped in your tracks, something about it tugging at your mind. the painting depicted a dark, stormy landscape—a crumbling stone mansion, much like the one you stood in now, surrounded by leafless trees that seemed to reach out toward it like skeletal hands. the sky above was swirling with ominous clouds, and a full moon cast a pale, ghostly glow on the scene.
but it wasn’t just the image itself that made your skin crawl—it was the strange feeling of familiarity. you couldn’t shake the sensation that you’d seen this before, as though it was pulled from the corners of a forgotten memory. a knot formed in your chest as you stared, lost in thought. where have you seen this before?
suddenly, a voice, smooth as silk, broke through your thoughts.
“interesting, isn’t it?”
you jumped, your heart leaping into your throat as you spun around. standing behind you was a man, and not just any man—he was stunningly handsome. his dark hair was neatly styled, framing a face that could’ve been carved from marble. his suit, a luxurious black ensemble that fit him perfectly, was undeniably expensive.
but what struck you most were his eyes—wide and dark, locked on yours with an intensity that sent a flush of heat creeping up your neck.
“i'm sorry,” he broke out into a soft laugh as he took a step back. “i didn’t mean to scare you.”
his voice was smooth, almost hypnotic, but he paused mid-sentence when his gaze landed squarely on your face. his eyes seemed to freeze there, widening slightly as if he were studying every detail. a look of surprise, or maybe recognition, flashed across his face for just a moment before he quickly composed himself. but the intensity in his stare remained, his eyes never leaving yours.
you felt a wave of flustered heat rise to your cheeks under his gaze. he wasn’t just looking at you—he was seeing you, like you were the only person in the world. the weight of his attention made you feel strangely vulnerable, your pulse quickening in response.
you cleared your throat, trying to shake off the sudden rush of nerves. “uh… it’s fine,” you mumbled. “you just startled me.”
he blinked, as if snapping out of whatever trance had held him. a slow, charming smile tugged at the corners of his lips. “i’m heeseung,” he said, his voice smooth and deep. “the owner of this mansion.”
“the owner?” you echoed, taken aback. “wow. i… i wasn’t expecting to meet the owner so soon.”
he smiled again, a soft, enigmatic grin that sent another wave of unease down your spine. “i like to keep close to my guests. this place… it’s very special to me.”
you tried to return his smile but faltered slightly, still unsettled by how intently he was watching you. “i’m—” you began, but before you could introduce yourself, your parents’ voices echoed down the hall.
“there you are!” your dad called, striding over to where you stood with heeseung. your mom followed closely behind, oblivious to the awkward tension in the air. “we were just getting checked in.”
you barely had time to react before your dad turned to heeseung, giving him a polite nod. “this is the owner of the mansion,” you quickly explained, introducing him. “heeseung.”
your parents seemed relieved to meet someone in charge, especially after the ordeal with the car. “oh, thank you so much for accommodating us on such short notice,” your mom said with a grateful smile. “our car broke down just outside, and we didn’t know what else to do.”
you shot a glance at your parents, your eyes widening in warning. why are they telling him that? you thought in frustration. it wasn’t exactly the kind of information you wanted to share so freely—especially not in a place like this, with a stranger who gave off such unsettling vibes.
heeseung’s smile widened at your parents’ words, and you couldn’t shake the feeling that he was far too pleased to hear about your vulnerability. “no need to worry,” he said smoothly, his gaze briefly flicking back to you before focusing on your parents. “i’ll make sure your car is taken care of. i’ll have it sent for repairs tonight.”
“really?” your dad sounded relieved. “that’s incredibly generous. thank you.”
heeseung waved a hand dismissively. “it’s no trouble at all. you’re my guests now.” he paused, his eyes lingering on you for a beat longer than necessary. “i’ll make sure you’re well taken care of.”
you swallowed hard, fighting back the gnawing sense of dread as you all started heading down the hallway. the mansion seemed to stretch on forever, with countless doors and long, winding corridors. despite the size, heeseung explained that most rooms were booked, which meant you would be in a room far from your parents.
your room was tucked away in one of the mansion’s oldest wings, a beautifully vintage suite with antique furniture and intricate wallpaper. the four-poster bed was draped in elegant, embroidered sheets, and the room was bathed in the warm, golden glow of a chandelier. it was charming, old-fashioned, and just a little too perfect. the type of room that might seem cosy under normal circumstances but felt unnervingly isolated in this mansion.
after settling in, you reached for your phone, hoping to check for updates on the car—or anything, really—but your frown deepened when you realised there were no charging ports in the room. none at all. you glanced around, frustrated, searching for a way to charge your phone, but there was nothing modern about this place. to make matters worse, your phone had no cell reception. it was like the mansion existed in its own bubble, cut off from the rest of the world.
letting out an exasperated sigh, you tossed your phone onto the nightstand. looks like you’d have to borrow your dad’s power bank later. you were exhausted, but the nagging feeling of unease wouldn’t let you relax. after changing into your nightwear, you slipped under the heavy, ornate blankets, hoping that sleep would take over soon.
but as you lay in bed, staring up at the dark canopy above, you couldn’t help but feel that something—someone—was watching you.
you lay in bed, the warmth of the heavy blankets doing little to ease the chill that seemed to settle deep in your bones. the eerie silence stretched on, the only sound the faint rustling of the curtains as a gentle breeze swept in from the cracked window. you hadn't noticed it was open before.
rolling onto your side, you glanced at your phone again. still no reception. it felt like you were completely cut off from the world, alone in this strange, sprawling mansion with no way to communicate with the outside. the feeling gnawed at you, a strange mix of frustration and unease swirling in your chest.
the longer you lay there, the more restless you became. every creak of the floorboards, every shift of the wind seemed to amplify the unsettling atmosphere around you. the chandelier overhead swayed gently, casting shifting shadows across the walls. you closed your eyes, trying to focus on your breathing, telling yourself it was just a normal hotel. nothing weird, nothing out of the ordinary—just a quirky, old-fashioned place.
but the image of heeseung’s face kept creeping into your mind. the way his gaze lingered on you, intense and unreadable, like he was seeing something in you that no one else did. something about him felt off, not just unsettling but almost too perfect, too polished, as if he didn’t quite belong in a place like this.
eventually, the exhaustion started to pull you toward sleep. just as your mind began to blur at the edges, a soft sound reached your ears. a whisper. faint but unmistakable. you bolted upright in bed, eyes wide, heart hammering in your chest as you strained to hear.
at first, you thought it was the wind. but no, it wasn’t coming from outside—it was closer, much closer. the sound seemed to echo from just beyond your door, like soft voices carrying on a conversation, too low for you to make out the words. your skin prickled with unease.
you pushed back the blankets and slipped out of bed, your bare feet hitting the cold floor. the mansion felt even more imposing in the darkness, the once quaint vintage charm now taking on a more sinister tone. stepping cautiously, you moved toward the door, pressing your ear against it, listening.
nothing.
the whispering had stopped.
you hesitated for a moment, hand hovering over the doorknob, debating whether you should open it. it’s just your imagination, you told yourself. you’re tired. you're in a creepy place. it’s normal to feel a little on edge.
but your curiosity—and the nagging sense of something being very wrong—won out. slowly, you turned the knob, the door creaking as it swung open into the dark hallway. the air was colder out here, carrying a faint, almost imperceptible scent of something sweet—like roses that had been left too long in the vase, just starting to wilt.
the hallway stretched out in both directions, the same eerie silence blanketing the mansion. no voices, no footsteps. nothing. but your eyes caught on something—the flickering light at the far end of the hall. the soft glow of a single candle, perched on a small table near one of the old-fashioned sitting areas.
you frowned. that candle hadn’t been lit earlier.
carefully, you padded down the hallway toward the light. as you got closer, you noticed something strange—the candle’s flame wasn’t moving. it stayed perfectly still, not even flickering despite the faint breeze you felt coming from the windows. it was almost like it wasn’t real.
just as you were about to reach it, a figure stepped out of the shadows.
you gasped, taking a step back, but quickly realised who it was.
heeseung stood before you, his tall frame casting a long shadow across the hallway. his suit was immaculate as before, not a single wrinkle out of place, and his expression was calm—too calm. he smiled softly, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes.
“couldn’t sleep?” he asked, his voice low and smooth, though it sent a shiver down your spine.
you hesitated, your mind racing with questions. why was he here? why wasn’t there anyone else around? but instead, you forced a tight smile, trying to appear composed. “yeah, i guess… this place is just a little unsettling.”
heeseung tilted his head slightly, his gaze once again holding that unnerving intensity. “you’re not the first to say that. old places like this tend to… hold onto things. memories. feelings.” his words hung in the air, heavy with an unspoken meaning.
you swallowed, the unease bubbling up again. “it’s just… weird that there’s no one else around. for such a big hotel, it’s completely empty.”
heeseung’s smile widened, but there was something off about it. “most guests prefer the quiet. it allows them to reflect, to... feel things they’ve long forgotten.”
there it was again—that cryptic, almost too-perfect way of speaking. it made your skin crawl.
“well,” you said, your voice a little shakier than you intended, “i think i’ll head back to my room now. it���s late.”
as you turned to leave, heeseung reached out, his fingers brushing lightly against your arm. the contact sent a jolt through you, though his touch was oddly cold. you froze, glancing back at him.
“there’s no need to be afraid,” he said softly, his gaze never leaving yours. “you’re safe here. i’ll make sure of it.”
the way he said those words—like a promise—sent another shiver down your spine. you forced a nod, pulling your arm away gently and stepping back. “thanks,” you mumbled, backing away from him.
heeseung watched you for a moment longer, his expression unreadable before he finally stepped aside, allowing you to retreat to your room.
once you were safely inside, you shut the door firmly behind you, heart still pounding in your chest. the mansion was far too quiet again, but this time it felt suffocating. something wasn’t right here, and you weren’t sure how much longer you could ignore the sinking feeling in your gut.
you climbed back into bed, but sleep didn’t come easily. every sound, every shadow seemed to hold something sinister. and you couldn’t shake the feeling that somewhere, in this sprawling, empty mansion, heeseung was watching. waiting.
the next morning, you were roused from sleep by a soft knock at your door. groggy and still heavy with sleep, you sat up, rubbing your eyes as the knocking continued, more insistent this time.
“coming,” you mumbled, swinging your legs over the side of the bed. you padded across the room, and when you opened the door, you found your mom standing there, a tired smile on her face.
“good morning, honey. they’ve called us for breakfast downstairs,” she said, her voice chipper despite the early hour. “you should hurry and get ready. we don’t want to be late.”
you nodded, stifling a yawn. “okay, i’ll be down in a minute.”
she gave you a small smile and headed back down the hallway. you shut the door and took a moment to shake off the lingering unease from the night before. the encounter with heeseung had left a strange feeling in the pit of your stomach, and the mansion’s eerie stillness hadn’t done much to help. but this morning was different, right? it was daylight now, and everything felt less intimidating in the warm morning light streaming through the window.
you quickly got dressed, choosing something comfortable yet presentable. once you were ready, you stepped out into the hallway, glancing left and right. your mom hadn’t mentioned where the dining hall was, and you realised you had no idea how to find it. the mansion’s labyrinthine corridors all looked the same—long stretches of dark wood panelling and ornate furniture that seemed to belong to a different century.
with a sigh, you started walking, hoping you’d stumble upon it. as you rounded a corner, you nearly bumped into someone. you gasped, pulling back just in time, and looked up to find heeseung standing before you, a charming smile on his face.
“good morning,” he said, his voice smooth and soft. “i see you’re trying to find your way to breakfast?”
you nodded, trying to keep your tone neutral. “yeah, i’m not sure where the dining hall is.”
heeseung’s smile widened slightly. “no problem. i’m heading there myself. we can go together.”
you hesitated for a moment but nodded, falling into step beside him as he led the way. the hallway felt even longer with him by your side, his presence both unsettling and magnetic. he walked with an easy grace, like he belonged in a place like this, and yet something about him still made your skin prickle with unease.
“so,” he began after a few moments of silence, “you mentioned last night that you’re on a family vacation? that sounds lovely.”
you nodded, keeping your answers short. “yeah, just a road trip before i leave for university.”
“ah, university. where are you headed?”
“exchange program. i’ll be gone for two years,” you answered curtly, trying not to give too much away.
heeseung hummed thoughtfully. “that’s quite a long time. your parents must be proud—and a bit sad, i imagine.”
you shrugged, glancing away. “i guess.”
he let the silence stretch for a moment, and you could feel his eyes on you, studying you in that same intense way he had the night before. it was like he was trying to figure you out, peel back layers you didn’t even know you had. you kept your gaze forward, determined not to let him get under your skin.
finally, you reached the dining hall. heeseung pushed open the large double doors, and you stepped inside, immediately taking in the scene. the room was vast, grand in an old-world kind of way, with high ceilings and walls lined with towering windows draped in heavy velvet curtains. a long dining table dominated the centre of the room, stretching almost the entire length of the hall. the table was covered with a pristine white cloth, and an array of silverware was laid out with meticulous precision.
but what struck you most was how empty it was.
apart from your parents, who sat at one end of the long table, there was no one else. the chairs were all perfectly arranged, as if waiting for guests who had yet to arrive. but the eerie thing was, it felt like no one would arrive. the silence in the room only amplified the emptiness.
you frowned, glancing over at heeseung as he escorted you to the table. “where is everyone?” you asked, the question slipping out before you could stop yourself. “this place is huge, but... it’s like there’s no one else here.”
heeseung’s smile didn’t falter, but there was a flicker of something behind his eyes—something almost too quick to catch. “most of our guests prefer to have breakfast very early,” he explained smoothly. “they’re probably already off enjoying the grounds or have checked out. i typically have my breakfast after the guests. but since you’re a bit late this morning, i thought it would be nice to join you.”
you stared at him for a moment, trying to read between the lines of his carefully chosen words. it didn’t quite add up. the mansion had felt empty from the moment you’d arrived, and now, seeing this massive dining hall with only your family in it, that feeling only intensified. still, you didn’t press further. instead, you forced a small smile and nodded, going along with his explanation for now.
your parents, seemingly unaware of the strange atmosphere, smiled as you took a seat next to them. “this place is incredible, isn’t it?” your mom said, her eyes sparkling as she looked around the room. “i can’t believe how lucky we were to find it.”
you tried to match her enthusiasm, but something about this whole situation still felt off. the room, the empty table, heeseung’s unsettling politeness—it all gnawed at the back of your mind, a whisper of warning you couldn’t quite shake.
breakfast was laid out in a lavish spread, far more than the three of you could possibly eat. there were plates of fresh fruit, pastries, eggs, and other delicacies you couldn’t even name. everything was prepared with a level of care and detail that felt almost excessive. you glanced at heeseung, who sat at the head of the table, watching your family with that same, unreadable smile.
he gestured toward the food. “please, help yourselves. i had the chef prepare a little bit of everything.”
your dad wasted no time digging in, clearly impressed by the spread. your mom followed suit, smiling warmly at heeseung as she complimented the food. you, on the other hand, hesitated, your appetite dulled by the nagging sense of something not quite right.
as you picked at your plate, you caught heeseung’s eyes on you again, his gaze sharp, studying, as if waiting for something. the way he watched you—so intently—made the hair on the back of your neck stand on end.
you couldn’t shake the feeling that, despite the empty chairs, the empty mansion, you weren’t alone.
as you carefully picked at your food, trying to ignore the unnerving atmosphere, your dad set down his fork and wiped his mouth with a napkin. he turned to heeseung with a casual smile, though you could see the underlying hint of concern in his eyes.
“so,” your dad began, “any idea how long it’ll take for the car to be repaired? we’d like to get back on the road as soon as possible.”
heeseung, ever the picture of politeness, gave a reassuring smile, leaning back in his chair with ease. “not to worry, sir. the mechanic i contacted is very efficient. the car should be ready by this afternoon, if not sooner. you’ll be on your way in no time.”
your dad seemed relieved, nodding. “that’s great to hear. we were worried we’d be stuck out here for too long.”
heeseung’s smile widened slightly, though there was a strange glint in his eyes as he said, “we’d never dream of keeping you longer than necessary. but please, take your time enjoying our hospitality.”
you glanced up at him, something about his choice of words sending a ripple of discomfort through you. there was something about the way he spoke, always so measured, so... calculated. it was as if every word was carefully chosen for some hidden purpose. you couldn’t help but wonder what he really meant by that.
your parents finished their meals before you and heeseung, having arrived earlier to start breakfast. as they wiped their hands and prepared to stand, sunoo appeared at the door. his arrival was quiet, almost too quiet, and you hadn’t noticed him until he stepped into the room. he was dressed just as impeccably as before, his tuxedo crisp and perfect, but there was something off about his overly cheerful demeanour.
“if you’d like,” sunoo began, his eyes bright and a bit too wide, “i’d be happy to give you a tour of the gardens while you wait for the car. they’re lovely this time of year.”
your mom’s face lit up with enthusiasm. “oh, that sounds wonderful! what do you think, dear?” she asked your dad, who nodded in agreement.
“sure, why not? it’ll be nice to stretch our legs a bit.”
you watched as your parents exchanged smiles with sunoo, who beckoned them toward the door with a dramatic sweep of his arm. but your heart sank as you realised what this meant—your parents were leaving, and you were about to be left alone with heeseung.
before you could even offer to join them, sunoo ushered them out of the dining hall with a smile. “we’ll take our time, don’t worry! you two enjoy the rest of your breakfast.”
the door closed behind them with a soft click, leaving you sitting at the grand dining table, the echo of their footsteps fading into the distance.
and then it was just you.
and heeseung.
the silence stretched between you like a chasm, the weight of it pressing down on your chest. you tried to focus on your food, but the air felt thicker now, charged with an unsettling energy that made it hard to swallow. you could feel his eyes on you, studying you again with that same, intense scrutiny that had left you uneasy from the moment you arrived.
you kept your gaze fixed on your plate, hoping that if you didn’t look at him, he might just lose interest. but you could still sense his presence, feel the way his attention never wavered.
“you’re not eating much,” heeseung remarked, breaking the silence, his voice smooth and deceptively casual. “is the food not to your liking?”
his tone was polite, but there was a subtle edge to it that made you feel like the wrong answer could mean something more than just criticism. you forced a small smile, shaking your head.
“no, it’s fine. i’m just not that hungry.”
heeseung leaned forward slightly, resting his elbows on the table, his eyes never leaving yours. “you seem... uncomfortable,” he said softly, his words hanging in the air. “is something bothering you?”
your pulse quickened. the way he asked the question, so calm and controlled, made you feel like he already knew the answer. like he was testing you, waiting to see how you’d respond. you didn’t want to give him any more reason to focus on you than he already had.
“no,” you replied, your voice a little too quick. “it’s just... a lot to take in. this place is... different.”
heeseung’s lips curved into a faint smile, but there was no warmth behind it. “different can be good,” he said, his eyes glittering with something you couldn’t quite place. “sometimes it’s the unexpected that makes an experience truly memorable.”
you shifted uncomfortably in your seat, the strange tension between you growing heavier by the second. there was something almost predatory in the way he watched you, like he was waiting for the perfect moment to pounce.
“i suppose,” you muttered, pushing your food around your plate. “i guess i’m just not used to places like this.”
heeseung chuckled softly, the sound low and almost dangerous. “not many people are.”
another silence fell between you, thick and uncomfortable. you could hear the faint ticking of a distant clock, the only sound breaking the stillness of the room. you glanced toward the door, half-hoping sunoo and your parents would return sooner rather than later, but there was no sign of them.
heeseung’s voice interrupted your thoughts, his tone soft but insistent. “you didn’t seem very interested in the history of the mansion last night,” he said, leaning back in his chair, his eyes still fixed on you. “but if you’d like, i could tell you a little more about it now. it has... quite the past.”
your throat tightened at his words. part of you wanted to refuse, to keep the conversation as shallow and short as possible, but another part of you couldn’t help but be curious. what kind of history could a place like this have? why did it feel like there was something dark lurking beneath the surface?
you hesitated, your fingers gripping your fork a little too tightly. “sure,” you said quietly, against your better judgement. “i’d like to hear about it.”
heeseung’s smile widened, a slow, almost sinister curl to his lips as he leaned forward again, his eyes gleaming with a dangerous kind of interest.
“good,” he said, his voice barely more than a whisper. “because there’s so much for you to learn.”
heeseung’s words seemed to echo in the cavernous dining hall, each syllable hanging in the air like a weight pressing down on your chest. you shifted in your seat, suddenly aware of how isolated you were from everyone else. your parents were somewhere outside, wandering the sprawling gardens with sunoo, oblivious to the tension brewing in this room. and you were here—alone with heeseung, who was studying you like you were the most fascinating thing in the world.
he leaned back in his chair, a slow, deliberate movement, his eyes never leaving yours. “this mansion has a long history,” he began, his voice low and smooth, like velvet. “it’s been standing for centuries, long before this area became what it is now.”
you swallowed, trying to keep your unease from showing. “centuries? that’s... impressive.”
heeseung nodded, his fingers tracing the edge of his plate in a casual, almost absent-minded way. “impressive, yes. but also... haunted by its past.” his eyes gleamed with something you couldn’t quite place. “you see, many who come here find themselves drawn in by the allure of the unknown. they come seeking something different, something unique. and often, they find more than they bargained for.”
you felt a chill run down your spine. the way he spoke—so calm, so composed—made the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end. it was as if he was telling you a story he had told many times before, one with a punchline you wouldn’t like.
“what do you mean by that?” you asked, your voice quiet but firm. you didn’t want to seem rattled, even though you were starting to feel like the walls were closing in around you.
heeseung’s smile widened, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “let’s just say this mansion has a way of revealing things... about the people who stay here. things they may not even realise about themselves.”
your pulse quickened. “that sounds a little ominous.”
heeseung chuckled, the sound soft and unsettling. “it’s not meant to be. it’s just... the nature of this place. it has a way of bringing the truth to the surface. you’ll see, in time.”
you didn’t like the way he said that, as if you were going to be here long enough for the mansion to work its mysterious magic on you. you were only supposed to stay until the car was fixed, and then you and your family would be gone. the thought of staying here any longer than necessary made your stomach churn.
“i don’t think we’ll be here long enough for that,” you said, forcing a small smile.
heeseung’s eyes flashed with something—disappointment? amusement? it was hard to tell. “you never know,” he said quietly, his gaze intense. “sometimes, plans change.”
you glanced away, focusing on your barely touched plate. the food that had once looked so appealing now seemed like a burden, something you had no appetite for. you just wanted this conversation to end, to find your parents and get out of this place as soon as possible.
as if sensing your discomfort, heeseung leaned back again, his demeanour shifting ever so slightly. “i didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable,” he said, though there was a glint in his eyes that told you he knew exactly what he was doing. “it’s just that... guests here tend to stay longer than they anticipate. this place has a way of... captivating people.”
the word captivating sounded too much like trapping for your liking.
before you could respond, the door to the dining hall creaked open, and you breathed a silent sigh of relief as your parents entered, laughing and chatting with sunoo, who was still wearing his unsettlingly bright smile. their carefree demeanour was such a stark contrast to the tension you’d been feeling that it almost made you dizzy.
“sweetie, you should see the gardens!” your mom exclaimed as she approached the table, oblivious to the undercurrent of unease between you and heeseung. “they’re absolutely gorgeous. i’ve never seen anything like it.”
your dad nodded in agreement, beaming. “it’s like something out of a storybook.”
you forced a smile, trying to match their enthusiasm. “that’s great. i’m glad you had fun.”
sunoo’s eyes flicked to heeseung for a brief moment, something unspoken passing between them, and then he turned his bright gaze back to your family. “i’m sure you’ll have plenty of time to explore the rest of the estate before you leave.”
you stiffened at his words, catching the subtle implication. you weren’t leaving any time soon.
heeseung stood then, smoothing down the front of his suit, his gaze lingering on you for just a beat too long before he addressed your parents. “i’ve arranged for the mechanic to give me an update on the car shortly. in the meantime, please, make yourselves comfortable. feel free to explore the mansion further if you’d like.”
your parents seemed delighted by the prospect, but you felt a knot of anxiety tighten in your chest. you couldn’t shake the feeling that this place was trying to keep you here, that every step you took deeper into the mansion only tangled you further in its web.
heeseung’s gaze slid back to you, his smile as charming and unsettling as ever. “i’ll make sure everything is taken care of. don’t worry.”
but worry was all you could feel as your family began to follow sunoo out of the dining hall, leaving you to trail behind, your thoughts spinning. as you exited the room, you couldn’t help but glance back at heeseung, who stood by the door, watching you with that same piercing gaze.
there was something about the way he looked at you—something that made you feel like a fly caught in a spider’s web.
and you weren’t sure if you could escape.
the afternoon dragged on in an unbearable haze of waiting. you, your parents, and heeseung sat in the grand living room, the heavy silence punctuated only by the occasional ticking of an old grandfather clock in the corner. outside, the sky had darkened, heavy clouds looming like a bad omen. the only thing on your mind was the car—where it was, how much longer it would take, and when you could finally leave this unsettling mansion behind.
your parents seemed more at ease, happily sipping tea that sunoo had prepared earlier, oblivious to the undercurrent of unease that rippled beneath the surface of every interaction with heeseung. you, on the other hand, were fidgeting, your leg bouncing nervously as you tried to avoid catching heeseung’s gaze. he had been watching you ever since you mentioned the car, his expression growing darker, his easy charm slipping.
“you seem quite eager to leave,” heeseung finally said, breaking the silence. his voice was calm, but there was an edge to it, something cold hidden beneath the surface.
you glanced up at him, forcing a tight smile. “well, we have to get to our resort, and we’ve already spent a lot of time here. i’d hate to miss out on more of the trip.”
heeseung’s lips twitched, but his smile didn’t reach his eyes. “you don’t like it here?”
there was something almost accusatory in his tone, and it made your skin prickle. you hesitated, not wanting to offend him but unable to shake the growing feeling of unease that seemed to cling to the walls of this place.
“it’s not that,” you said carefully, shifting in your seat. “it’s just that we had plans. you know, a family bonding trip. and... well, we’ve been here longer than we expected.”
heeseung’s gaze didn’t waver, his expression unreadable. “plans change,” he said softly, his eyes narrowing just the slightest bit. “sometimes, staying a little longer can be... beneficial.”
a cold shiver ran down your spine at his words. the way he said it felt off, as if there was something deeper he wasn’t saying, something he didn’t want you to understand just yet. you opened your mouth to respond, but before you could, the sound of footsteps echoed through the hallway, and sunoo appeared, running into the room with a frantic expression.
“heeseung!” sunoo called out breathlessly, his usual cheery demeanour replaced with genuine concern. “there’s a storm! a really bad one. the roads are flooding, and the mechanic just called—he can’t bring the car back today.”
your heart sank at his words, and you shot a glance at your parents, who exchanged a look of resignation.
your father sighed, rubbing his temples. “well, i guess we’re not going anywhere today.”
your mother nodded in agreement, placing her teacup down with a little clink. “we’ll have to stay another night, then. there’s nothing we can do about it.”
you could hardly believe it. you were so close to leaving, so close to getting out of this place, and now a storm? it felt too convenient, too well-timed. you turned to heeseung, expecting some kind of reaction, and you weren’t disappointed. he was smiling again—but this time, it was different. it wasn’t the charming, polished smile he had worn before. this one was darker, more predatory. his eyes glinted with something that made your stomach twist.
“i suppose that settles it,” heeseung said smoothly, his voice like silk. “looks like you’ll be our guests for another night.”
his words sent a wave of discomfort rolling through you, and you felt your throat tighten. you looked away, staring out the window as the rain began to pour in heavy sheets, the dark sky flashing occasionally with streaks of lightning. the storm outside felt like a reflection of the storm brewing within you.
“i’m sure the car will be ready first thing tomorrow,” your father said, ever the optimist, though his voice carried a tinge of doubt.
sunoo nodded enthusiastically, stepping forward with his usual bright smile. “of course! we’ll make sure everything is perfect for you until then. don’t worry!”
you wanted to scream. how could no one else feel what you were feeling? how could your parents be so at ease when everything about this situation screamed danger? the mansion, the people, the timing of the storm—it all felt like a trap closing in around you.
heeseung’s eyes flicked toward you again, and you caught the smirk curling at the corner of his lips. he knew. he knew how unsettled you were, how desperately you wanted to leave, and he was relishing it.
“please, make yourselves comfortable,” heeseung said, his gaze locking onto you as he stood up from his seat. “we have plenty of time to enjoy the rest of your stay. after all, it’s not every day you get to experience a place like this.”
his words felt like a warning, a reminder that you were stuck here, and you had no choice but to play along with whatever game he was setting up. you forced a smile, feeling your pulse quicken.
“great,” you muttered under your breath, barely loud enough for anyone to hear. but heeseung did. his eyes flashed with amusement, and he gave you a slow, knowing smile that made your skin crawl.
“don’t worry,” he said in a voice so low only you could hear. “you’ll be safe here.”
the way he said it made you doubt every word.
that evening, the mansion’s eerie atmosphere feels heavier on your shoulders than ever. as the storm rages outside, you find yourself wandering through the darkened hallways, trying to shake off the strange feeling heeseung left you with earlier. something about his cryptic words keeps circling back in your mind, making it impossible to relax. you run your fingers along the old wooden bannister as you walk, the sound of your footsteps echoing in the too-quiet halls. but even that sound feels strange—the echoes don’t seem to bounce back to you the same way. it’s almost like they fade into the walls, swallowed by the house.
you pause as you notice a clock hanging on the wall ahead. the second hand ticks steadily, but when you glance at another clock just around the corner, you feel your skin prickle. the second hand on that clock is moving faster—much faster. you stand frozen, watching the two clocks run at different speeds, as if time itself is slipping out of sync.
the light overhead flickers, and you feel a chill run down your spine. the mansion is still as beautiful as it is unsettling, but tonight, it seems to be shifting in subtle ways. you walk further down the hallway, but something feels… wrong. the layout doesn’t seem quite right, as if the corridor you just passed should have been longer or led somewhere else entirely. you shake off the feeling, convincing yourself that it’s just your imagination playing tricks on you in this old, dimly lit place.
whispers.
you swear you hear them. at first, you think it might just be the wind rattling through the old windows, but the sound is too human—too hushed, like voices speaking just outside the range of your hearing. you spin around, expecting to find someone behind you, but there’s nothing. just shadows dancing along the walls, moving ever so slightly as the flickering light fights to keep them at bay.
your pulse quickens as you walk on, drawn down a side corridor you’re sure you haven’t been down before. the walls here are different—more elaborate, with heavy drapery and intricate mouldings. at the end of the hallway, you come to a door. something about it makes you pause. you reach for the brass doorknob, your fingers brushing against the cold metal, and a shiver runs through you.
when you open it, a wave of familiarity washes over you, hitting you like a forgotten memory. inside, the room is dimly lit, filled with old-fashioned furniture that feels like it belongs to a different era—plush chairs, wooden tables with detailed carvings, and an antique music box sitting on a dresser. the air smells faintly of dust and something sweet, like old perfume that’s been lingering for years.
your eyes fall on the music box. it’s small, delicate, with intricate designs etched into its surface. without thinking, you step forward and reach out, fingers brushing lightly against it. before you can even wind the mechanism, it begins playing on its own, the soft, haunting melody filling the room.
your breath catches in your throat as that eerie sense of déjà vu tightens its grip on you. the tune is familiar—so familiar, but you can’t place where you’ve heard it before. it pulls at something deep within you, like a forgotten dream just out of reach. you’re transfixed, unable to pull away from the music, when suddenly, the door creaks behind you.
you whip around, and your heart skips a beat when you see heeseung standing in the doorway. his expression is unreadable, but there’s a coldness in his eyes that sends a shiver through you. he steps into the room, his presence filling the space, and the music stops abruptly, as if the mansion itself is responding to him.
“what are you doing here?” his voice is stern, not the smooth charm you’ve come to expect from him. there’s an edge to it that makes you take a step back.
“i—i was just looking around,” you stammer, feeling like a child caught snooping where they shouldn’t be. the weight of his gaze presses down on you as he moves closer.
“this is my study,” he says, his tone low and controlled, but you can hear the warning in his voice. “you’re not supposed to be in here.”
you feel a flush of embarrassment and unease wash over you. “i didn’t know… i just—”
“didn’t know?” heeseung cuts you off, raising an eyebrow as his eyes narrow. “or were you curious about what you’d find?”
the tension between you feels thick, almost suffocating. heeseung’s gaze is unwavering, as though he’s trying to read your every thought, his earlier charm replaced with something far more dangerous. you feel like you’ve crossed a line—one that you didn’t even know existed until now.
heeseung’s intense gaze softens slightly as he notices the way your face flushes with embarrassment. his lips part, as if he’s about to say something harsh, but then, as if catching himself, he lets out a sigh. the coldness in his eyes melts away, replaced by that familiar, smooth charm.
“i didn’t mean to scare you,” he says, his voice lowering, smoothing over like silk. “why don’t i show you the library instead? i think you’ll find it... interesting.”
you hesitate, still rattled by the sharpness of his previous tone. something inside you whispers to be careful, to keep your distance. but the magnetic pull of heeseung’s presence is hard to resist, and despite your instincts, you find yourself nodding.
heeseung smiles faintly, though his expression remains unreadable. he gestures for you to follow him, and together, you walk down the dimly lit corridors of the mansion. the silence is unsettling, broken only by the soft shuffling of your footsteps against the creaky wooden floors. you can’t help but feel like the walls themselves are watching you, the weight of the mansion pressing in from all sides.
as you walk, you become aware of how time feels... off. the clocks you pass seem to tick irregularly, some faster, some slower, as though they belong to different realities entirely. the light filtering through the tall windows is dim, though it doesn’t seem like it’s evening yet. you glance back, feeling the hairs on the back of your neck prickle as if something—someone—is just out of sight.
you stumble over a loose tile, your thoughts breaking apart. with a yelp, you trip forward, bracing yourself for a fall. but before you hit the floor, strong hands catch you—heeseung, steadying you with effortless ease. his grip is firm but strangely gentle. you gasp, heart hammering in your chest as you realise how close he is.
“you should be more careful,” he murmurs, his breath warm against your ear, a hint of amusement playing at the edges of his voice.
“thanks,” you mutter, flustered as you quickly pull away from his touch. your cheeks burn with embarrassment, and you avoid his gaze as he releases you, his soft chuckle following you down the hall.
the library is massive, far larger than you anticipated. the shelves seem to stretch endlessly, filled with books of every size and colour, their spines gleaming under the warm light of chandeliers. the space feels grand and intimate all at once, the kind of place that would normally make you feel at ease, but here... something feels different.
heeseung watches you carefully, his dark eyes studying your every move. you glance at him for permission before running your fingers along the spines of the books, your curiosity getting the better of you. with a nod, he gives you his approval, and you can’t help but dart forward, eager to explore the room further.
you lose yourself in the rows of shelves, marvelling at the collection of novels, old tomes, and handwritten manuscripts that line the walls. the air smells of dust and aged paper, steeped in centuries of history. you glance over your shoulder, half expecting to see heeseung watching you, but he remains a respectful distance away, his gaze soft and almost fond as he follows your movements.
but something feels... off. as you drift deeper into the library, a strange sensation pulls at your mind, as if something is guiding you, drawing you toward a particular section. without thinking, you find yourself moving toward the back, where the older, dustier books are kept.
your fingertips brush across the spines of these ancient tomes, and an eerie sense of déjà vu washes over you. there’s something about this place—this corner of the library—that feels unsettlingly familiar, like you’ve been here before in another time. the hairs on your arms stand on end, and you shiver involuntarily.
just as your fingers graze the spine of a particularly worn book, you feel it—the presence behind you. heeseung.
you turn slowly to find him standing there, his expression unreadable, but there’s a dark intensity in his eyes that makes your breath catch. he takes a step toward you, and without realising it, you step back, your shoulders hitting the bookshelf behind you.
his eyes remain locked on yours, his proximity making it hard to think clearly. there’s no anger in his gaze now, just that familiar magnetic pull—like he’s trying to draw you closer, to see through you.
“you’re curious, aren’t you?” his voice is barely above a whisper, but it sends a shiver down your spine.
you swallow, trying to push back the fear creeping into your chest. “about what?”
“about this place. about me,” he replies, his tone smooth, almost teasing.
his eyes seem to darken as he takes another step forward, closing the distance between you. the heat of his body presses in on you, and you feel your pulse quicken as his fingers trail lightly along the bookshelf beside your head. heeseung’s smile sharpens, a predatory glint flashing in his gaze.
“curiosity can be dangerous,” he murmurs, his voice low and intoxicating. “you never know what you might uncover if you start digging too deep.”
his words hang in the air, a challenge laced with something far more sinister. your heart pounds in your chest, torn between the urge to escape and the overwhelming draw of his presence. you can feel his breath against your skin, his closeness making it hard to think, to breathe.
for a moment, neither of you speak. his gaze flickers to your lips before meeting your eyes again, and you can sense the power he holds in this place—like he knows far more than he’s letting on. like he’s been waiting for you to find something... or for you to lose yourself completely.
you break the silence, your voice shaking slightly. “what do you want from me?”
heeseung smiles, though it’s a slow, dangerous curve of his lips. “maybe the question is... what do you want from me?”
the uneasy chuckle escapes your lips before you can stop it. "you’re being ridiculous," you say, forcing more confidence into your voice than you actually feel. you try to shake off the tension hanging between you, hoping to laugh this off like it’s some strange dream.
but heeseung’s expression doesn’t change. he merely raises an eyebrow, his lips curling into the barest hint of a smirk. "very well then," he murmurs, his voice calm and unbothered, as though he knows something you don’t.
for a moment, you’re not sure whether you’ve defused the situation or walked deeper into it, but heeseung steps away, the heavy tension between you seeming to dissipate with each step he takes toward the door. he gestures with a small bow. "i’ll leave you to your evening, then."
you nod quickly, not trusting your voice to say anything that won’t betray the swirl of confusion and unease knotting in your chest. with that, heeseung disappears into the corridor, leaving you alone in the vast library. the silence is thick, almost oppressive, as if the mansion itself is holding its breath.
when you finally leave the library, your mind is buzzing. the conversation with heeseung, though cryptic, has left you more rattled than ever. his words, the way he watched you—there’s something deeper here, something you’re only starting to scratch the surface of. but, for now, you decide to push it aside. you need to clear your head.
by the time dinner rolls around, you’re feeling on edge. your parents are already seated at the dining table, chatting quietly as you join them. the room is dimly lit, casting long shadows across the grand, empty space. it feels strange—eerily quiet without the other guests.
you glance around, frowning. “where’s heeseung? and the other guests?”
sunoo, who’s been silently setting the table, looks up at you with his usual cheery smile. "ah, i’m afraid the other guests have already had their meal earlier. heeseung sends his apologies—he’s been caught up in some... urgent business.”
it’s the same excuse they keep giving you, and each time it feels less believable. you open your mouth to press further, but before you can say anything, your mother cuts in with a light laugh. “honestly, you’re always so curious, darling. just let it go.”
her words sound playful, but there’s an odd edge to them, as if she’s brushing off your concerns without really thinking about them. you glance at your father, hoping for some support, but he just nods in agreement, distracted as he stirs his soup.
you bite your lip, trying to push down the growing frustration. why aren’t they worried? can’t they sense that something’s off here?
dinner passes in a strange blur, the silence at the table broken only by the clinking of silverware. sunoo continues to move about the room like nothing is wrong, but the more you watch him, the more something about him feels... rehearsed, like he’s going through the motions of being normal without actually feeling any of it.
after the meal, you head back to your room, feeling more unsettled than ever. your parents’ strange behaviour, the missing guests, heeseung’s cryptic words—it’s all starting to feel like pieces of a puzzle you can’t quite put together.
that night, you toss and turn in bed, unable to fall asleep. every creak of the floorboards, every faint whisper of the wind outside sends your nerves into overdrive. the mansion seems to come alive in the darkness, its walls groaning, floors shifting, as though it’s trying to speak to you—trying to tell you something.
you sit up, your heart pounding in your chest. there’s no way you’re getting any sleep tonight, not with this strange energy crackling around you. something is wrong with this place, and you need to figure it out.
quietly, you slip out of bed, careful not to make any noise as you tiptoe toward the door. the hallways are dimly lit, the chandeliers casting long, ghostly shadows against the walls. you pause for a moment, listening to the silence, and then make your way through the mansion, your footsteps soft on the old, creaky floors.
as you wander, something strange begins to happen. the air feels colder, heavier, and the walls seem to shift subtly, as though the layout of the mansion itself is changing. you turn down a corridor you don’t remember seeing before and find yourself in front of a door, slightly ajar, that you swear wasn’t there earlier.
your hand trembles as you push the door open.
inside, the room is dimly lit by a single flickering candle. it smells of dust and time, as though no one’s been here for years. but what catches your attention immediately are the photographs lining the walls—old, faded photographs in ornate frames. you step closer, squinting at the faces in the pictures.
your breath catches in your throat.
the people in these photos… they look like you. some of them even resemble your parents. the clothes are different, much older—decades, maybe centuries old—but the faces… it’s impossible. how could they look so familiar?
you take a step back, your heart racing. something about this room feels wrong, like you’ve stumbled onto something you weren’t meant to see.
your eyes scan the rest of the room, and that’s when you notice the guestbook sitting on an old wooden desk in the corner. you approach it cautiously, your fingers brushing over the brittle pages as you open it.
the names written inside are faded, barely legible from age. but as you turn the pages, one name catches your eye—your father’s name, written in the same elegant script as the others.
your heart pounds in your chest. you flip through more pages, and there’s your mother’s name, too. and then… your own.
but the dates next to the names don’t make any sense. they’re from decades ago, long before you were even born.
you slam the book shut, a chill running down your spine. this can’t be real. it doesn’t make sense.
before you can gather your thoughts, a soft creak echoes through the room. you whip around, your heart in your throat, and see a shadow flicker in the doorway.
it’s sunoo, his expression unreadable in the dim light.
“what are you doing here?” he asks, his voice soft but carrying an unsettling edge.
you freeze, unable to find the words to respond. sunoo steps further into the room, his ever-present smile feeling more like a mask than ever before.
“you shouldn’t be snooping around,” he says, his tone calm, almost soothing. “some things are better left alone.”
before you can say anything, sunoo’s eyes shift toward the guestbook in your hands. his smile falters for just a split second—barely noticeable, but enough to send a fresh wave of unease through you.
"i’ll take you back to your room,” he says, his voice steady again. “come on, it’s late.”
you don’t argue. you just nod,and follow him out of the room, feeling the weight of the mansion pressing down on you with every step.
the next morning, you wake up to the sound of heavy rain beating against the windows. groaning, you pull the covers over your head, hoping that maybe the storm has let up by now, but from the relentless sound, it’s clear that isn’t the case.
you make your way downstairs, hoping for better news, but your parents are sitting at the breakfast table, both looking completely at ease, as though the weather outside is no big deal.
“good morning, sweetheart!” your mom chirps, her voice unnaturally bright.
"morning," you mumble, taking a seat as you glance toward the large windows in the dining room. the sky is a swirling mess of dark clouds, rain pouring down so hard you can barely see the surrounding grounds.
“storm’s not going anywhere for the next few days,” your dad says casually, stirring his coffee. “looks like we’re stuck here for a bit longer.”
you frown, a wave of frustration bubbling inside you. "what about the resort? the plans we made?"
your mom exchanges a glance with your dad, then she turns to you with a serene smile. “you know, maybe this is a sign. the resort will still be there later, and this mansion… well, it’s kind of charming in its own way, isn’t it? why not just enjoy it?”
you stare at her, incredulous. "you want to stay here?"
“it’s vintage, classy, and we’re already settled in. it feels… perfect, in a way,” your mother continues, her voice light but with an unsettling certainty. “it’s like we were meant to be here.”
something about the way she says it sends a shiver down your spine. you’ve been feeling like you weren’t supposed to be here at all—like you’ve stumbled into a trap you can’t escape. but looking at your parents’ relaxed faces, they clearly don’t share your unease.
you sigh, rubbing your temples. “fine. i guess we’re staying.”
it’s not like you have a choice anyway. the storm doesn’t seem like it’s stopping anytime soon, and the roads would be impossible to navigate in this weather.
you wander through the mansion’s winding hallways, the silence heavy and oppressive. no matter how grand or beautiful this place is, it feels like a cage—isolated, suffocating, filled with unseen eyes and secrets buried in every corner. the tension from this morning still clings to your thoughts like a dark cloud, refusing to let you find peace.
as you turn a corner, you nearly collide with sunoo, who’s balancing a tray of ingredients. his usual brightness doesn’t fade; instead, his eyes light up as he sees you. but there’s something in his smile—something mischievous, playful, and... unsettling.
"looking bored?" he asks with that trademark grin, though his eyes seem to flicker with something deeper. "want to bake something with me?"
you hesitate, feeling an odd sensation settle in your stomach. you haven’t exactly gotten close to sunoo since you arrived here. something about him always felt a little strange, as if he’s holding back, concealing his true self behind that playful mask. but the silence of the mansion is worse than the idea of baking with someone like him.
after a beat, you nod. "yeah, okay."
sunoo's grin widens, and he leads you into the mansion’s oversized kitchen, the high ceilings and gleaming countertops almost intimidating in their grandeur. you can’t help but feel like even this space is part of the house’s deception—too perfect, too polished.
“you’re in for a treat,” sunoo says, his voice slipping into a more casual tone as he sets the tray on the counter. “i make the best cookies you’ll ever taste.”
you don’t respond, already lost in your own thoughts, trying to distract yourself from everything that's happened. the tasks of measuring and mixing are a welcome escape. sunoo chatters on as he gathers ingredients, but you only half-listen, trying to ignore the prickle of unease creeping up your spine.
as you mix the batter, sunoo’s light-hearted teasing pulls you in despite yourself. his comments, although flippant, ease some of the tension you’ve been holding, and before you realise it, you’re laughing at one of his jokes. you sneak a bit of dough when he’s not looking, and it feels almost… normal.
but then sunoo catches you, playfully swatting your hand. "hey! no cheating!" he scolds with mock seriousness.
you let out a chuckle, taking the opportunity to swipe some flour onto his cheek. "oops."
sunoo gasps, clutching his chest in exaggerated shock. "oh, you’re going to pay for that."
before you can react, he smears flour across your nose. the playful gesture sends you both into fits of laughter, the tension of the mansion temporarily lifting. for a brief moment, the world outside this kitchen—its darkness and mysteries—feels far away. the warmth of sunoo’s laughter fills the room, and you can’t help but feel yourself relax in his presence.
but then something changes.
the playfulness lingers, but when sunoo’s hand grazes your arm, wiping away some flour from your cheek, the touch lingers a little longer than it should. his fingers brush your skin lightly, and suddenly, the laughter fades into a different kind of tension. his eyes meet yours, and for the briefest second, there’s something there—something unspoken, something... charged.
you swallow hard, unsure how to respond. the lighthearted moment has turned into something else entirely, and the air between you grows thick. sunoo’s grin remains, but his gaze—intense and a little too intimate—holds you captive for a moment longer than feels safe. you’re aware of his closeness, of how different this interaction feels compared to everything else between you.
and then, just as quickly, the moment is broken.
the sensation of being watched crawls back over your skin, sending a cold shiver down your spine. you freeze, the weight of a gaze pressing heavily on you, suffocating the playful atmosphere. slowly, you turn toward the doorway.
heeseung is standing there, leaning against the doorframe with an expression that makes your blood run cold. his eyes are locked on you, darker and more intense than you’ve ever seen them. the tension in the room shifts, and it’s no longer playful—it’s dangerous.
sunoo’s posture stiffens, but his smirk doesn’t falter. if anything, he seems to relish the moment. “oh, hey heeseung,” he drawls, his voice dripping with mock innocence. “we were just having a little fun. you don’t mind, do you?”
heeseung doesn’t respond right away, his gaze flicking from you to sunoo, then back to you. his eyes are sharp, a dark possessiveness brewing behind them. when he finally speaks, his voice is low, dangerous. “i’m sure you’re keeping her... entertained.”
sunoo’s smirk widens as he steps a little closer to you, just enough to make the tension unbearable. “oh, absolutely. we make quite the team in here,” he says, his hand grazing your shoulder briefly in a gesture that feels too familiar, too intimate.
your heart races as you stand between them, caught in their unspoken battle. heeseung’s eyes darken further, his jaw clenched tightly as sunoo continues to play his game, his fingers brushing more flour off your cheek. the touch sends a jolt through you—not of comfort, but of confusion. why does this feel wrong? and why can’t you pull away?
heeseung’s calm facade cracks. he steps forward, his movements deliberate, as if every step brings him closer to an edge you can’t see. his voice, when he finally speaks, is smooth but holds a razor-sharp edge. “i think you’ve had enough fun for today.”
heeseung’s hand reaches up to tuck a strand of hair behind your ear, his fingers lingering just a little too long, the touch possessive. sunoo’s playful demeanour falters slightly, but he steps back with a knowing look, eyes flicking between you and heeseung.
“i guess that’s my cue,” sunoo says with a sly wink, retreating from the kitchen. but before he leaves, his gaze lingers on you one last time, and in that moment, it feels like the game is far from over.
the moment sunoo is gone, the atmosphere shifts. heeseung’s hand lingers on your arm, his fingers ghosting over your skin as he pulls you closer, his gaze locking onto yours. his touch, once soft, now feels like a cage, holding you in place as his lips curl into a dark smile.
“you shouldn’t let him get so close to you,” heeseung says softly, his voice like velvet, wrapping around you with a dark intensity. “he doesn’t have your best interests at heart.”
your pulse quickens, and you try to pull away, but heeseung’s grip tightens. his eyes are soft, but the look in them is anything but. he’s watching you like you belong to him, and the thought sends another wave of fear crashing over you.
“i…” you don’t know what to say. you’re caught between the two of them, between the strange camaraderie they share and the way heeseung’s mood shifts on a knife’s edge.
heeseung leans closer, his breath warm against your skin as he whispers, “you should only trust me. i’m the one who cares about you.”
the words send a chill through you, and yet… you can’t pull away.
heeseung’s hand remains on your arm, his touch gentle but firm as he leads you out of the kitchen. his earlier tension has shifted into something more deliberate, more focused, and you can’t shake the feeling that he’s leading you somewhere for a reason—one that you’re not entirely sure you’re ready to face.
“there’s a better way to pass the time,” he murmurs, his voice low as he glances at you from the corner of his eye. there’s something unreadable in his gaze, a dark glimmer of emotion that both unnerves and draws you in.
you don’t respond, your mind still spinning from the earlier interaction with sunoo, from the way heeseung had claimed your attention so completely. now, as he leads you down another unfamiliar hallway, you can’t help but feel like you’re walking deeper into something—into the very heart of the mansion’s secrets.
eventually, you reach a door at the end of the corridor, and heeseung pushes it open with a soft creak. the room beyond takes your breath away.
it’s elegant, grand in a way that feels both timeless and dreamlike. a grand piano sits in the centre, its polished surface gleaming under the light streaming in from a gigantic window. the window offers a perfect view of the garden outside, which—despite the ongoing storm—seems eerily peaceful, the flowers swaying gently as though untouched by the chaos in the sky.
you step inside, your feet moving almost of their own accord. the air in here feels different, thick with something unnameable. as you look around, that familiar feeling of déjà vu washes over you again, stronger this time. you’ve been here before—or at least, it feels like you have.
heeseung watches you closely, his dark eyes following your every movement. there’s something in his gaze—something that flickers between hunger and sorrow, desperation and longing. it’s as if he’s waiting for you to remember something important, something crucial.
without a word, he sits down at the piano. his fingers brush lightly over the keys, and after a brief moment of silence, he begins to play.
the melody is soft at first, gentle and haunting, and yet… you know it. somehow, impossibly, you recognize the tune even though you’ve never heard it before. the notes seem to pull at something deep inside you, stirring emotions you can’t explain.
as heeseung plays, his gaze never leaves you. his eyes are dark, intense, filled with a pain that tugs at your heart. but behind that pain, there’s something else—something dangerous, something that feels like it’s pulling you toward him, binding you to him in ways you can’t understand.
the music swells, filling the room with a haunting beauty that leaves you breathless. your chest tightens, and before you realise what’s happening, you feel tears streaming down your face. your body moves on its own, your feet carrying you across the room toward heeseung.
you stop in front of him, your vision blurred with tears. gently, almost instinctively, you reach out and place your hand on his cheek. his skin is warm under your touch, and for a moment, he closes his eyes, leaning into your hand as if savouring the contact.
the final note of the melody lingers in the air, and heeseung’s fingers are still on the keys. the silence that follows feels thick, heavy with unspoken words and unasked questions.
you gasp, suddenly realising what you’re doing. you pull your hand away from his face, stepping back as if you’ve crossed an invisible line. your heart pounds in your chest, your mind swirling with confusion.
“i—i’m sorry,” you stammer, wiping at your tears. “i don’t know what came over me.”
heeseung opens his eyes slowly, and when he looks at you, there’s a sadness there so profound it makes your heart ache. he doesn’t speak for a long moment, simply watching you as though waiting for you to understand something.
you take a shaky breath, trying to steady yourself. “what is this place, heeseung? why… why does it feel like i’ve been here before?”
his expression darkens, his gaze growing distant as if he’s wrestling with something inside himself. for a moment, you think he’s going to deflect your questions like he always does, but then, to your surprise, he speaks.
“this mansion,” he begins, his voice low and almost resigned, “is not what it seems.”
your blood runs cold at his words, and you feel a chill creep up your spine.
“what do you mean?” you ask, your voice barely above a whisper.
heeseung rises from the piano bench, taking slow, deliberate steps toward you. there’s something predatory in the way he moves, but there’s also a deep sadness in his eyes, as though he’s weighed down by centuries of pain.
“this place…” he says quietly, glancing around the room. “it has a way of trapping those who stay too long. the walls, the halls—they shift, they change, and time here doesn’t flow the way it should.”
your mind races as you process his words. “trapping? how?”
heeseung’s gaze locks with yours, his expression unreadable. “the mansion is alive in its own way. it feeds off the presence of those who come here, twisting their reality until they can no longer leave.”
you take a step back, your heart pounding in your chest. “are you saying… we’re trapped?”
heeseung’s jaw tightens, and he looks away, his hands clenched at his sides. “yes,” he says softly. “but you… you’re different.”
“different?” you echo, confusion swirling in your mind. “what do you mean?”
heeseung steps closer, his eyes filled with an emotion you can’t quite place. “the mansion brought you here for a reason. it’s not a coincidence that you ended up at this place—it’s because of who you are.”
you shake your head, backing away from him. “what are you talking about?”
heeseung’s gaze is piercing, and his next words make your blood run cold.
“you’ve been here before,” he says, his voice low. “a long time ago.”
your heart skips a beat, and you feel a wave of nausea wash over you. “that’s impossible.”
heeseung takes another step forward, his eyes filled with desperation now. “it’s not impossible. you were here, in another time, in another life. and you were with me.”
the room feels like it’s spinning. your thoughts race as you try to make sense of his words, but nothing adds up. “you’re lying,” you whisper, but even as you say it, a part of you knows that he’s telling the truth.
“i’m not lying,” heeseung says, his voice filled with quiet sorrow. “we were together, bound to this place. and now… the mansion has brought you back to me.”
you shake your head, tears welling up in your eyes. “i don’t understand.”
heeseung’s expression softens, and for a moment, he looks almost vulnerable. “the mansion has a way of bringing people back, of trapping them in a cycle. i’m bound to this place, cursed to live here for eternity. and now that you’re here again…”
he doesn’t finish the sentence, but the implication hangs in the air.
you take a shaky breath, your mind reeling. “you think… you think i’m supposed to share your fate?”
heeseung looks at you with a mix of desperation and longing. “i don’t know. but i do know that this place… it won’t let you leave easily.”
the weight of his words sinks in, and you feel a chill run through you. the mansion—the strange feeling of familiarity, the way time seemed to warp—it all suddenly makes sense. you were meant to be here, drawn back into heeseung’s orbit, bound by forces far beyond your control.
but even as you grapple with the reality of it, one question burns in your mind: what are you willing to do to escape? and more importantly, are you even sure you want to?
the air between you and heeseung feels heavy after his haunting confession, a truth that lingers like a cloud over your thoughts. your heart is racing, torn between fear and an inexplicable pull towards him. his words replay in your mind, looping with eerie familiarity: you’ve been here before. with me.
it doesn’t make sense, and yet somehow, in the deep recesses of your memory, it does.
heeseung’s dark eyes soften as he steps closer to you, his previous intensity fading into something almost fragile. you expect him to push further, to lock you into his twisted truth, but instead, his posture slackens as if he’s letting go of something—some control he’s been gripping too tightly. there’s a new softness in his gaze, and it catches you off guard.
“i didn’t mean to scare you,” he says quietly, his voice barely above a whisper. “it’s just… this place, this mansion—it does things to people. to me.”
he reaches out, hesitant, as if afraid you might flinch away. but you don’t. you stand frozen, your mind still reeling. when his fingers brush against your arm, there’s a strange warmth to his touch, and you feel that pull again, that magnetic force that both terrifies and draws you to him.
"i've been trapped here for so long," he continues, his voice trembling just slightly. he sits down on the sofa by the fire, the flickering flames casting shadows on his face, highlighting the hollowness in his expression. “i don’t even know how much time has passed. decades? centuries? it all blurs together after a while.”
you remain standing, watching him closely. his earlier intensity—the predatory edge in his voice—seems to have dissolved, leaving behind someone who looks genuinely broken. his eyes drop to the floor, and for the first time since you arrived, he looks vulnerable, as though the weight of his endless existence is finally catching up to him.
“i didn’t ask for this,” heeseung says, his voice raw with emotion. “i didn’t ask to be bound here, to this place. i never wanted to be a prisoner.” he glances up at you, and in the dim light, you see something flickering in his gaze: pain, longing… regret.
your chest tightens. the mansion, the strange events, the unshakable feeling that you’ve been here before—it all swirls inside your head like a storm. but now, looking at him, sitting in front of you like this, you feel a pang of sympathy. maybe he isn’t the monster you thought he was. maybe he’s just as trapped as you are, desperate for a way out.
you find yourself stepping closer to him, your feet moving on their own. you sit down beside him, keeping a small distance, your body tense. for a long moment, neither of you speak. the only sound is the crackling of the fire, filling the room with warmth and an eerie sense of peace.
“i’m sorry,” heeseung whispers, his voice so soft it almost gets lost in the quiet. “for dragging you into this. you shouldn’t have to suffer because of me.”
your heart clenches at the raw emotion in his words, and against your better judgement, you find yourself reaching out, your hand resting on his. he looks down at the contact, his eyes wide as if he didn’t expect your touch, and for a fleeting moment, he closes his eyes, savouring the warmth.
“it’s not your fault,” you say, your voice trembling slightly. “none of this is your fault.”
heeseung’s eyes snap open, and he looks at you, truly looks at you, with a mix of shock and something else—something deeper. for a long time, neither of you speaks, but the silence between you feels heavy with unspoken words.
then, without warning, he lets out a shaky breath, almost a laugh, though there’s no humour in it. “i don’t know why i’m telling you all of this,” he murmurs, shaking his head. “maybe because you’re the first person i’ve seen in so long… maybe because i’ve been alone for too long.”
the sadness in his voice tugs at your heart. you can’t help but imagine what it must be like—to be stuck in this place for eternity, unable to leave, watching the world move on without you. the thought sends a chill down your spine.
“i don’t want you to be alone anymore,” you say, the words escaping your lips before you can stop them.
heeseung’s gaze snaps to yours, his eyes wide with surprise. for a moment, the two of you just stare at each other, the weight of your words hanging in the air. then, slowly, he shifts closer, his fingers brushing against your arm, the touch light and hesitant, as though he’s afraid of pushing you away.
“you don’t know what you’re saying,” he whispers, his voice thick with emotion. “if you stay… you’ll be trapped, just like me.”
the reality of his words hits you like a wave of cold water, but even as you register the danger, you can’t seem to pull away from him. there’s something about heeseung that draws you in, something that makes you want to help him, even if it means risking yourself.
“i’m not afraid,” you say, your voice trembling slightly. “i don’t know why, but i feel like… like i know you. like we’ve been through this before.”
heeseung’s breath catches, and for a moment, he looks at you with such intensity that it takes your breath away. then, without a word, he reaches for your hand, holding it tightly as though he’s afraid you might slip away.
“i wish it could be different,” he whispers, his voice filled with quiet desperation. “i wish i could let you go, but… i can’t.”
the next few days pass in a blur of quiet moments shared between you and heeseung. there’s an unspoken understanding that neither of you fully addresses—the haunting truth of the mansion and its curse—but in these days, heeseung’s vulnerability and warmth seem genuine. the dark edges of his earlier intensity have softened, leaving you with the version of him that feels...safe.
each evening, the two of you sit together by the grand fireplace in the main hall, the warmth of the flames casting a golden glow over heeseung’s features. the way he speaks to you during these moments is intimate, his voice low and soothing. he shares bits and pieces of his past—not the dark, twisted parts, but memories of beauty and light.
one night, you find yourselves sitting across from one another at a small, round table, a cosy dinner spread out between you. the fire crackles beside you, filling the room with warmth. heeseung had insisted on preparing the meal, and though you’d never seen him cook before, the food is surprisingly delicious. it’s simple, nothing extravagant, but there’s something deeply comforting about the whole scene.
heeseung pours you a glass of wine, the red liquid glistening in the candlelight. he smiles gently as he hands it to you, and for the first time since you arrived, the tension between you feels like it’s beginning to ease.
“it feels normal, doesn’t it?” he asks quietly, his voice tinged with something you can’t quite place—hope, maybe. “like we could be anyone, anywhere. like none of this…” he gestures vaguely to the mansion around you, “…exists.”
you take a sip of the wine, savouring its sweetness before you nod. “it does,” you agree softly. “for the first time since i got here, it feels… peaceful.”
heeseung’s gaze lingers on you, and when he speaks again, his voice is barely above a whisper. “that’s all i’ve ever wanted. a moment of peace.”
the words hang in the air between you, and you can’t help but feel the weight of them. heeseung’s life—if you can even call it that—has been one long stretch of isolation and pain. and now, here he is, seeking solace in the small moments he can share with you. your heart aches for him.
“you’ve been alone for so long,” you murmur, placing your hand on top of his. his skin is warm beneath your touch, and for a moment, heeseung’s eyes flicker with something deep, something raw.
“i’ve had to be,” he says, his voice heavy with emotion. “i don’t know what i’d become if i let myself feel anything. if i let myself believe that things could ever be different.”
he looks away, staring into the fire as if searching for answers in the flames. “but with you… it feels different. like there’s a chance for something better.”
your chest tightens at his words. there’s a sincerity in his voice that you can’t deny, a vulnerability that makes you want to believe him. you’ve seen the darkness in heeseung, felt the weight of his mysterious past, but now… now you see the man beneath it all. the man who’s been trapped, longing for freedom, for connection.
“i want to help you, heeseung,” you say, your voice trembling slightly. “i don’t know how, but… i want to try.”
heeseung turns back to you, his eyes shining with something akin to hope. he lifts your hand to his lips, brushing a soft kiss against your knuckles. the gesture is tender, intimate, and it sends a shiver down your spine.
“you’ve already done more for me than you know,” he whispers. his gaze locks with yours, and in that moment, it feels like the rest of the world falls away. there’s only you and him, caught in this strange, timeless place.
the next morning, heeseung takes you on a walk through the mansion’s garden. the day is overcast, the sky a soft blanket of grey, but the air is warm, filled with the scent of the blooming flowers that line the winding paths. it’s quiet out here, save for the occasional rustle of leaves or the chirp of a bird hidden somewhere in the overgrown hedges.
heeseung leads you toward the edge of the garden, where a large, ancient tree stands tall and proud, its branches stretching out like arms welcoming you. the bark is weathered, covered in thick moss, and there’s a certain energy that emanates from it, something both powerful and deeply familiar.
“this tree,” heeseung begins softly, running his hand over the rough bark, “has been here longer than the mansion itself. some say it’s the heart of this place, that it holds the memories of all those who’ve lived here.”
you step closer, staring up at the gnarled branches twisting above you. there’s something haunting about the tree, something that feels almost… alive.
“it’s strange,” you murmur, “but i feel like i know this tree. like i’ve stood here before.”
heeseung turns to you, his gaze filled with a deep intensity. “that’s because you have.”
your breath catches at his words, and you glance up at him, your heart pounding in your chest. “what do you mean?”
heeseung steps closer, his fingers brushing lightly against your arm. “there are pieces of you that remember this place,” he says quietly. “just like there are pieces of me that have never forgotten you.”
his words send a shiver down your spine, and you feel a strange pull toward him once again, a sense that the two of you are bound together by something far greater than just this moment.
“do you ever wonder,” heeseung asks, his voice barely above a whisper, “why this place feels like home?”
your mind races, trying to process the weight of his question. you don’t know how to answer, because the truth is, you’ve been wondering that since the moment you arrived. and now, with heeseung standing beside you, the mansion looming behind you, and the ancient tree towering above you, the feeling is stronger than ever.
“maybe,” you whisper, “it’s because it is.”
heeseung’s gaze locks with yours, and for a moment, it feels like time itself stops. there’s a deep, unspoken understanding between you—a sense that, no matter how much you try to fight it, your fates are intertwined.
but as the days pass, those sweet moments with heeseung—the cosy dinners by the fire, the walks through the garden, the soft, lingering touches—begin to feel like something more. they feel like a promise. like he’s slowly binding you to this place, to him.
and you can’t shake the feeling that maybe that’s exactly what he wants.
the following morning is quieter than usual, with heeseung nowhere to be found. you drift through the halls of the mansion, feeling a strange mix of restlessness and curiosity, until you find yourself in the kitchen. the smell of something sweet wafts through the air, and when you step inside, you see sunoo standing by the counter, mixing a bowl of dough with effortless grace.
he looks up as you enter, a bright smile spreading across his face. “good morning!” he chirps, his voice as light and cheerful as always. “i thought we could bake something today. you seemed to enjoy the cookies i made last time.”
you hesitate in the doorway, unsure why your chest tightens a little at his easy demeanour. sunoo has always been polite and warm, a calming presence in the otherwise eerie mansion, but lately, something about him has started to feel... off. his constant cheerfulness, his perfect hospitality—it all seems too deliberate, too practised.
still, you find yourself drawn to the idea of something normal, something grounded in the here and now. so you nod, stepping into the kitchen to join him.
“what are we making?” you ask, moving to stand beside him at the counter.
sunoo beams. “heeseung loves cinnamon rolls,” he says with a knowing glint in his eye. “i thought we’d make a batch for him.”
you feel a flutter in your chest at the mention of heeseung. you’ve spent so much time with him lately that it’s hard not to think about him constantly.
“how long have you been here, sunoo?” you ask after a moment, trying to sound casual. you’ve never really asked before—never thought to, really—but now that you’ve started thinking about it, the question gnaws at you.
sunoo’s smile tightens just a fraction, his hands stilling for a moment before he continues kneading. “longer than i can remember,” he says with a light laugh. “time is strange here. you lose track after a while.”
his words send a shiver down your spine. you’ve heard heeseung talk about the mansion warping time, but to hear sunoo echo the same sentiment makes it feel even more real. and the way he brushes off the question only adds to the growing sense of unease.
you try to shake the feeling, focusing instead on helping him roll out the dough. the kitchen feels warm and cosy, a stark contrast to the unsettling thoughts swirling in your mind. sunoo hums softly as he works, his movements fluid and graceful.
but then, just as you’re starting to relax again, sunoo speaks, his voice soft but laced with something... knowing.
“cinnamon rolls were always your favourite, too.”
you freeze, your hand hovering over the tray of dough. his words sink in slowly, like a cold drop of water trickling down your spine.
“what did you just say?” you ask, your voice barely above a whisper.
sunoo looks up at you, blinking in confusion as if he doesn’t quite understand the gravity of what he’s just said. “i said cinnamon rolls were always your favourite,” he repeats, his tone casual but his eyes flickering with something deeper.
you stare at him, your heart pounding in your chest. “how would you know that?”
for the first time since you’ve met him, sunoo seems caught off guard. his usually calm, cheerful demeanour falters, and he fumbles with his words. “i-i mean, heeseung mentioned it once,” he says quickly, his smile strained. “you must’ve said something about it, right?”
but you know you didn’t. you’ve never mentioned cinnamon rolls or anything about your preferences to either of them. you would remember if you had. and the way sunoo’s face pales slightly, the way his smile doesn’t quite reach his eyes—none of it feels right.
“sunoo,” you say, your voice sharper than you intended. “how do you really know that?”
he straightens up, the playful light in his eyes dimming. for a brief moment, you see something else in him—something darker, something far more calculated than the friendly host you’ve come to know. he looks at you as though measuring his next move, deciding how much to say.
“i—” sunoo stammers, then forces a bright smile again, though it no longer seems genuine. “you know how heeseung and i have lived here for so long. it just... slipped out. i’m sorry, i didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”
he’s deflecting. you can see it in the way he avoids your gaze, in the way his hands fidget nervously at his sides. the confidence that usually defines him is gone, replaced by something much more guarded.
you narrow your eyes, stepping closer to him. “that’s not it, sunoo. you know more than you’re telling me.”
for a moment, sunoo’s cheerful facade cracks completely. his eyes meet yours, and the playfulness drains from his expression. what’s left behind is cold, calculating, and far too knowing for comfort.
“you don’t want to ask questions you aren’t ready to hear the answers to,” he says quietly, his voice carrying a strange weight that sends another shiver down your spine.
before you can respond, he turns away, resuming his work on the cinnamon rolls as though the conversation never happened. the air between you feels thick with unspoken truths, and your mind races with questions you don’t know how to voice.
how does sunoo know things about you that you’ve never shared? and why does it feel like he’s hiding something—something big, something dangerous?
as the silence stretches on, your unease only grows. the cosy warmth of the kitchen now feels suffocating, and every glance sunoo throws your way feels like a veiled warning. you try to focus on the task at hand, but your thoughts keep spiralling, circling back to the same unsettling conclusion:
there’s something very wrong here.
later that evening, as you sit with heeseung by the fire once again, you can’t stop thinking about what sunoo said. you want to ask heeseung, to get some kind of explanation, but you don’t know how to bring it up without sounding paranoid. every time you try to voice your thoughts, the words get caught in your throat.
heeseung notices your distraction, of course. he always does. his dark eyes flicker with concern as he reaches out to brush a strand of hair from your face.
“are you alright?” he asks softly, his voice filled with that familiar warmth that always seems to melt your defences.
you force a smile, though it feels brittle. “i’m fine,” you lie, your heart racing.
but as heeseung leans in, pressing a soft kiss to your forehead, you can’t shake the feeling that everything is slipping out of your control. the mansion, sunoo, heeseung—it’s all starting to unravel, and you’re not sure if you’re prepared for what you’ll find once the proper truth comes to light.
the storm that had raged outside the mansion for what felt like days finally breaks, leaving the air heavy with the scent of damp earth and the last drops of rain dripping off the eaves. the sky is clear now, a pale blue that feels far too serene after the eerie chaos of the past few days. you should be relieved, ready to leave this strange place and return to the life you know, but there’s a tension clinging to you that refuses to dissipate.
your parents, already packing up in their room, seem eager to get back on the road. they’ve been talking about the upcoming week—about how you need to prepare for your university exchange program and the final stretch of family time before you go. you should feel the same urgency, the same excitement to return to normalcy, but something keeps you rooted in place, lingering in the mansion’s dim corridors.
and then there’s heeseung.
he’s been quieter than usual since the storm ended, his smiles fewer and his demeanour darker, but every time you try to bring it up, he brushes it off. it’s like he’s biding his time, waiting for the right moment to say whatever’s been brewing behind his careful mask.
that moment comes after dinner, when your parents step outside to check on the car. you find yourself alone with heeseung in his room, the fire casting long, flickering shadows across the walls. the atmosphere is heavy, thick with unspoken words. you glance at him, and something in his expression—a tightness around his eyes, a tension in his jaw—makes your pulse quicken.
“heeseung…” you begin, your voice tentative. “we’re leaving soon. i have to get back in time for the program.”
at your words, something shifts in him, subtle but palpable. his dark eyes lock onto yours, and the pleasant facade he’s been wearing all this time cracks, just slightly. the smile that curls his lips doesn’t reach his eyes.
“you’re really going to leave me?” his voice is soft, almost too soft, and yet there’s an edge to it that makes your stomach churn.
you take a step towards him, trying to explain. “i have to go. the program—it’s important, and i can’t just stay here.”
heeseung’s expression darkens, and he takes a step toward you, closing the distance between you. “what’s more important? some exchange program or me?”
the question catches you off guard. his voice is low, laced with something that sounds like hurt, but there’s a simmering anger beneath it that makes you nervous.
“i… it’s not like that,” you stammer, trying to find the right words. “i’ve worked so hard for this, heeseung. it’s a big opportunity. you understand, don’t you?”
but he’s not listening. heeseung’s jaw clenches, and his eyes narrow as he steps closer, his presence suddenly overwhelming. “no, i don’t understand,” he snaps, his voice rising with barely contained fury. “you can’t just leave! after everything we’ve been through—after everything i’ve done for you—you’re just going to walk away?”
your heart pounds in your chest as his words hit you like a physical blow. there’s something wild in his gaze now, something unhinged. heeseung reaches out, grabbing your arm, and his grip is too tight, his fingers digging into your skin.
“you’re not going,” he says, his voice low and dangerous, the fury in his tone barely masked. “you can’t.”
the room feels like it’s closing in on you, the fire’s warmth suddenly stifling. you try to pull away, but heeseung’s grip tightens, his fingers digging deeper into your arm. his face contorts with an emotion you can’t fully name—something between rage and desperation.
“heeseung, you’re hurting me,” you manage to say, your voice shaky as you try to free yourself from his grasp.
at your words, his expression shifts again—this time to something that almost looks like regret, but it’s fleeting, quickly replaced by that same desperate intensity. he loosens his grip, but he doesn’t let go. instead, he pulls you closer, his other hand coming up to cup the side of your face.
“i’m sorry,” he murmurs, his voice softer now, but there’s still an unsettling edge to it. “i didn’t mean to hurt you. i just… i can’t lose you.”
his face is inches from yours, and there’s something predatory in the way he looks at you now. before you can react, he leans in, his lips crashing against yours with a force that makes you stumble back. the kiss is rough, possessive, not at all like the tender moments you’ve shared before. it’s as if he’s trying to claim you, to make you stay through sheer force of will.
you try to push him away, but he’s too strong, his hands holding you in place. panic flares in your chest, but just as quickly as the kiss began, he pulls back, his face contorted with a mixture of fury and something akin to pleading.
“don’t go,” he whispers, his voice trembling now, and you can see tears welling up in his eyes. “please… don’t leave me.”
the sudden shift is dizzying. one moment, he was angry—furious, even—and now he’s begging, his voice raw with emotion. heeseung’s hands slide from your face to your shoulders, his fingers trembling as he holds onto you as if you’re his only lifeline.
“i’ve been trapped here for so long,” he says, his voice breaking. “you’re the only good thing that’s happened to me in… i don’t even know how long. i can’t bear the thought of being alone again. not after everything we’ve shared.”
you feel a pang of guilt at the sight of him like this—vulnerable, broken. his eyes are filled with so much pain, so much longing, that it tugs at something deep inside you. despite the warning bells ringing in your mind, a part of you feels drawn to him, feels the weight of his desperation, his need for you.
“i don’t want to hurt you,” he whispers, his voice barely audible. “but i can’t let you leave. i can’t let you forget about me.”
his words send a chill through you, but they also stir something else—something darker, something that makes you question your own resolve. can you really leave him here, alone, after everything?
“heeseung,” you begin, your voice shaky, “i don’t want to hurt you either, but i have to go back. my life… i can’t just abandon it.”
his expression hardens for a moment, and for a terrifying second, you think his anger will return, but instead, he collapses against you, resting his forehead on your shoulder. his body trembles, and you feel the wetness of his tears soaking into your shirt.
“stay with me,” he whispers, his voice raw with emotion. “please… i need you.”
the weight of his words crashes down on you, and you feel your resolve slipping. heeseung’s vulnerability, his desperation—it’s overwhelming. you can’t deny the pull you feel toward him, the way your heart aches at the thought of leaving him behind.
maybe it’s the mansion, with its strange, unearthly hold on you, or maybe it’s heeseung himself—the way he’s embedded himself into your heart, into your very being. either way, the thought of leaving him feels unbearable.
slowly, you wrap your arms around him, holding him as he clings to you. “i’ll stay… for now,” you whisper, the words slipping from your lips before you can stop them.
heeseung pulls back just enough to look at you, his eyes searching yours, filled with a mix of hope and relief. “you will?”
you nod, even as your heart twists with doubt. “just for a little longer.”
the smile that spreads across his face is soft, almost tender, but there’s a flicker of something else in his eyes—something darker, something that sends a shiver down your spine.
but for now, you push it aside. you’ll deal with the consequences of your decision later. right now, you just want to believe that you’re doing the right thing, that staying with heeseung is what’s best.
even if, deep down, you know it might be the worst mistake you’ve ever made.
the room is bathed in the soft, flickering light of candles, their flames casting shadows that dance along the walls. the air is thick with the scent of something floral, a heady mix of desire and tension swirling around you as heeseung’s lips trail down your neck, sending shivers through your body. his touch is gentle, worshipping, as if he’s afraid you might disappear at any moment.
it feels almost too perfect—like a dream you’re not quite sure you want to wake up from. his hands are on your skin, warm and possessive, and despite everything, despite the lingering doubts in your mind, you feel yourself giving in. his breath is hot against your collarbone, and your body responds to him, melting into his every touch.
heeseung presses you down onto the soft bed, his movements slow and deliberate. there's an intensity in his gaze, a hunger that’s been simmering under the surface ever since you arrived. his eyes never leave yours, and in the flickering light, there’s something primal in the way he looks at you—something that makes your pulse quicken with both anticipation and a strange sense of foreboding.
“i’ve waited so long for this,” he murmurs, his voice thick with emotion as his fingers trace the curve of your waist, his lips hovering just above yours. “you have no idea how long…”
his words make your heart stutter, but you push the uneasy feeling aside. this moment feels too intimate, too charged to ruin with questions. you close your eyes as he leans in, kissing you deeply, and for a moment, all your doubts dissolve in the heat of the moment.
heeseung’s hands move with purpose, his touch both tender and possessive, and soon you find yourself swept away by the passion between you. it feels like time has stopped, like the mansion itself has paused its strange, shifting nature to let you have this moment together. his body presses against yours, and the world outside the room seems to blur into nothingness.
as the intensity builds, heeseung’s breath grows heavier, and so does the atmosphere around you. his whispered words become more erratic, laced with a strange urgency. he murmurs your name like a prayer, his lips brushing against your ear as he speaks in low, fervent tones. you try to hold on to the heat between you, to the passion, but there’s something unsettling underneath it all. something you can’t quite put your finger on. the way he touches you—so familiar, like he’s done this before. like you’ve done this before.
as the moment deepens, you’re both lost in each other, but then, somewhere between the whispers and the heat of his skin against yours, heeseung says something that makes your heart stutter.
“you know he was never good enough for you.”
his words are laced with a bitterness that cuts through the intimacy like a knife. your body tenses beneath him, but you don’t fully register the meaning of his words right away. who is he talking about? the thought flashes through your mind, but it’s quickly drowned out by the sensation of his hands on your skin, the warmth of his body pressed against yours.
still, the words echo, growing louder with each passing second. he? who is he talking about?
your mind begins to wander, to places you’ve been trying to avoid. somewhere deep inside, there’s a flicker of recognition. the inkling of a past lover, a shadowy figure whose face you can’t quite remember but whose presence lingers in your mind. it’s as though there’s something—or someone—you’ve forgotten, buried beneath layers of a life you no longer recall.
heeseung’s lips press against your skin again, pulling you back into the moment, but the unease has already taken root. you can’t shake the feeling that something is off. his words—he was never good enough for you—ring in your ears. but who? who could he mean?
you try to push it away, to focus on the present, but there’s a strange shift in the atmosphere now. the way heeseung touches you, the way his voice wraps around your name—it feels less like adoration and more like possession. and the way he said he—the bitterness, the jealousy—it felt too personal, too pointed.
you close your eyes, trying to lose yourself in the heat of his body, but the unease grows, knotting in your chest. you can’t stop thinking about what he said, about who he might be referring to. you don’t remember anyone else—at least, not fully. yet there’s this nagging feeling, like you’re forgetting something important. or someone.
heeseung seems oblivious to your growing discomfort. his hands roam over you with a kind of desperation now, his grip tightening as if he’s afraid to let go. there’s a possessive edge to the way he holds you, a subtle shift in the dynamic that makes your heart race for reasons that have nothing to do with passion.
“you’ve always been mine,” he murmurs, his lips brushing your ear. “from the beginning.”
the words send a chill through you. from the beginning. it’s a simple phrase, but something about the way he says it—like he’s claiming you, like he’s rewriting your past—makes you uneasy. you don’t know why, but those words feel loaded, like they mean more than he’s letting on.
and then, as he kisses you again, his voice drops to a whisper, soft but chilling: “even before… before him.”
your body goes rigid. there it is again—him. the mystery lover you can’t remember. the one who, according to heeseung, wasn’t good enough for you. the one who existed before heeseung.
your heart pounds in your chest as your mind races, trying to piece together the fragments of memories you don’t have. who is he? and why does heeseung sound so bitter, so possessive, when he talks about him?
you don’t ask the questions that are burning inside you. not yet. you’re not sure you’re ready to hear the answers. instead, you let heeseung pull you closer, let him kiss you with that same intensity, but the warmth between you has shifted. there’s something darker in the air now, something unsettling, and no matter how much you try to ignore it, the words before him continue to echo in your mind.
later, when the passion has faded and the room has fallen into silence, you lie beside heeseung, staring at the ceiling, your thoughts racing. heeseung’s arm is draped over your waist, his breathing slow and even as if he’s already drifted off into a peaceful sleep. but you can’t rest. not with the weight of his words hanging over you.
he was never good enough for you.
as you lie there, wrapped in heeseung’s arms, the reality of your situation starts to sink in. the mansion, the strange familiarity, the way heeseung acts as though he’s known you forever—it all feels too real, too deliberate. you want to believe that what you have with him is real, but there’s a part of you, buried deep inside, that knows something isn’t right.
something is missing. something from your past, something—or someone—that heeseung isn’t telling you about.
and the scariest part? you’re not sure if you want to remember.
the air feels heavy, pressing down on you as you toss and turn in the unfamiliar bed, your mind restless even in sleep. the warmth of heeseung’s presence lingers, but something inside you feels unsettled—his words still echoing in your mind, he was never good enough for you. a cold shiver runs down your spine as you drift deeper into unconsciousness, slipping into the kind of dream that feels far too real.
the room is dark, but something’s wrong—everything feels… different. you sit up slowly, eyes scanning the space. the door that led to the hallway earlier now opens to somewhere else entirely, revealing a long corridor that seems to stretch into nothingness. the walls seem to shift, pulsating like they’re alive, and the low hum of eerie whispers fills the air.
your heart pounds as you swing your legs over the edge of the bed. the floor beneath your feet feels colder than it should, like ice seeping through the soles of your skin. your instincts scream at you to stay where you are, but something compels you to move, to explore. you walk toward the mirror on the wall, drawn to it like a moth to a flame.
but when you look into it, the reflection staring back at you isn’t your own—or at least, not how you recognize yourself. the figure in the mirror is wearing clothes from another time—a long, flowing dress, intricate lace details that seem ancient, out of place in this modern world. you can’t breathe. the woman in the reflection is you, but not you. she looks like you… but she belongs to another life.
a flicker of movement in the mirror catches your attention, and you turn to see heeseung standing in the doorway, his figure bathed in shadows. but this isn’t the heeseung you’ve come to know. the softness in his expression is gone, replaced with something darker, more sinister. his face is cold, almost expressionless, but his eyes—his eyes gleam with something sharp, dangerous.
“you’re here,” he says, his voice deeper than usual, lacking the warmth you’ve grown used to. he steps into the room, and the air seems to thicken around you. “i was hoping you’d remember sooner.”
“remember?” you whisper, confusion and fear swirling in your chest. “what are you talking about?”
heeseung’s lips curl into a bitter smile. “this place, us… none of it is a coincidence. you think you were just passing through? that the mansion drew you in by some strange force?” he laughs, a low, humourless sound that sends chills down your spine. “i brought you here.”
you take a step back, your mind reeling. “what… what do you mean?”
heeseung tilts his head, studying you like you’re a puzzle he’s waiting for you to solve. “this mansion, this cursed place—it’s ours. we built it together. we ran this hotel together. don’t you remember? you and i… we were supposed to live here, forever. but you chose him.”
a cold weight settles in your stomach. flashes of images invade your mind—distant memories you don’t understand, flickering in and out of focus. heeseung standing beside you, both of you smiling. the mansion was alive back then too, bustling with guests, full of life. but something feels wrong, distorted.
you suddenly feel like you’re suffocating, trapped under the weight of something you’re not sure you want to remember. the walls seem to shift again, the whispers growing louder, more insistent. bloodstains appear on the floor beneath you, as though seeping up from the wood itself.
heeseung’s voice pulls you back. “i loved you,” he says softly, stepping closer. his words should feel comforting, but they don’t. there’s a hunger in them, a possessive edge that makes your skin crawl. “but you were going to marry him… sim jake. you never gave me a chance.”
your heart skips a beat. jake. the name pulls at something deep within you, something you’ve been trying to ignore. memories you can’t quite grasp swirl at the edges of your consciousness, threatening to break free. you shake your head, unable to speak, your throat tight.
“i watched you with him,” heeseung continues, his eyes never leaving yours. “watched as you planned a future that didn’t include me. but i couldn’t let it happen. i couldn’t let him take you away.”
the bloodstains grow darker, spreading across the floor. you take another step back, your breath quickening.
and then it hits you—a flash of memory, so vivid it nearly knocks the air out of your lungs. you’re standing in the grand foyer of the mansion, dressed in that same lace gown from the mirror. jake is beside you, holding your hand, and you’re smiling up at him, heart full of love and excitement for the life you’re about to start together.
but then heeseung appears, his expression twisted in anger, betrayal simmering beneath the surface. and beside him is sunoo, his usually cheerful face cold and calculating. you see the way they look at jake, the silent exchange between them. before you can even process what’s happening, sunoo moves like lightning—his hand coming down in a flash of steel.
blood.
you gasp, your body trembling as you relive the moment. jake’s body crumpling to the ground, lifeless. your scream echoing through the halls, terror and grief crashing into you like a tidal wave.
in the dream—or is it a memory?—you turn, locking eyes with heeseung. you see it in his face, the mix of guilt and satisfaction. he’s done it. he’s made sure jake will never have you. but you… you’re not supposed to be there. you weren’t supposed to see it.
heeseung’s lips part as if to speak, but before he can, sunoo moves again. you don’t feel the blade; you just see your own blood spilling onto the floor, mixing with jake’s. heeseung’s yell is heard in the background and then… darkness.
the memory snaps you back to the present with a force that makes you stumble, your hands clutching the edge of the bed as you struggle to breathe. your heart is pounding in your ears, and your vision blurs with tears as the reality of it all sinks in.
you stare at him, your mind reeling. “sunoo killed me…” the words barely escape your lips, your voice trembling. “you… you both… killed us.”
heeseung’s expression hardens. “it was never supposed to end like that. but sunoo—he was afraid. afraid you’d ruin everything. so he—”
“he killed me,” you repeat, the weight of the revelation crashing down on you. “because of you.”
“because i loved you,” heeseung snaps, his voice sharp, eyes blazing with fury. “because i couldn’t stand the thought of you being with him. you were supposed to be mine!”
the room begins to shift, the walls closing in around you, the whispers rising to a deafening roar. you see it all now—how the mansion is tied to you, how it’s always been tied to you. it’s not just a place; it’s a prison. a prison where heeseung, sunoo, and you have been trapped for eternity, bound by the violence and betrayal that happened within its walls.
and heeseung… he’s not the victim he claimed to be. he’s the one who set all of this into motion, the mastermind behind the lies, the manipulation. he brought you back here, trapped you in this cycle, because he refuses to let go. he refuses to let you go.
“you can’t leave,” he whispers, stepping closer, his voice soft but laced with something sinister. “not now. not ever.”
your body trembles, fear twisting in your gut. the mansion—the distorted laughter, the bloodstains that won’t fade, the sensation of being watched—it’s all his doing. all part of his twisted game to keep you here, with him, forever.
but now, you remember. and you know the truth.
you wake up suddenly, your breath catching in your throat. the room is filled with the steady sound of heeseung’s breathing, soft and rhythmic as he sleeps beside you, his arms still wrapped around you protectively. but there’s no peace in it for you. your heart races, your mind tangled in a web of fear and confusion after what you just experienced. the images of the dream—or was it a memory?—flash through your mind. heeseung and sunoo killing jake. your own death. the truth about the mansion. it all feels too real, too vivid.
you glance at heeseung's sleeping form. his face is peaceful, innocent even, as if none of the horrors you've just seen could possibly be tied to him. but you know better now. his charm, his warmth, it’s all a mask—a cruel lie.
carefully, you slide out of bed, every movement deliberate, trying not to make a sound. you hold your breath as you tiptoe across the floor, your hands trembling. you don’t dare look back at him, too terrified that he might wake up and catch you. you know that if you stay here any longer, you’ll be trapped forever, just like in your dream. or worse—your nightmare.
you slip out of the room, heart pounding in your ears as you make your way down the dark hallway toward your parents' room. the walls seem to loom larger in the dim light, shadows flickering at the edges of your vision. the mansion feels like it’s alive, watching your every step, waiting for you to fail.
when you reach their door, you knock softly, trying not to panic. “mom, dad,” you whisper urgently. “we need to leave. please, wake up.”
after a moment, your mother opens the door, her face groggy with sleep. "what's going on?" she asks, rubbing her eyes.
"we need to leave," you repeat, your voice shaking. "something's wrong with this place. please, trust me. we have to go now."
your father stirs awake as well, frowning. "leave? in the middle of the night? what's gotten into you?"
"please," you beg, "i can't explain it right now, but we have to go. meet me outside, okay? just pack your things and meet me at the gates."
they exchange concerned glances but for once, sensing the urgency in your voice, they nod and begin to gather their things. relief washes over you for a brief moment as you make your way down the stairs, moving swiftly toward the mansion’s grand entrance. you're almost there, just a few more steps.
but as you reach the towering iron gates, you’re suddenly pulled back and pinned against the wall. you’re not surprised to see heeseung looming above you, with the most furious look you’ve ever seen on him.
“where do you think you’re going, my love?”, he spits out venomously.
you try to push him away, but to no avail he just grabs both your wrists, pinning them to your chest.
“you lied to me about all of this”, you look at him with betrayal, “you’re nothing but a manipulative liar. you killed us!”
heeseung seems to freeze at that, a look of realisation crossing over his face. he lets out a chuckle in disbelief, staring at you with a dark look.
“you found out then huh. but, you don’t know the full truth, do you?”
you furrow your brows in confusion at that. what was he talking about now?
he smirks at that, letting go of your hands now. “you’ve left me no choice y/n. you did this to yourself.”
with that ominous declaration, he brings his hand up to your forehead. a series of images rapidly flash in front of your eyes, and you immediately blackout.
you’re back in the dream again, but this time it’s different. you see yourself—your past self—walking through the halls of the mansion. the air is warm, the sunlight streaming through the large windows, and everything feels… peaceful. you look younger, happier, laughing at something heeseung said. he’s beside you, his arm brushing against yours as you both walk through the corridors like you belong there. like this place is yours.
heeseung is smiling at you, but not in the charming, calculated way you’ve come to expect. it’s a genuine smile, filled with warmth and affection. your heart flutters as he leans closer, his voice soft as he speaks. “you always make everything feel right,” he says, eyes shining with something you can’t quite place.
you smile back, a soft blush colouring your cheeks, and it hits you—he loved you then too. but you were too caught up in your engagement to jake to see it.
the scene shifts. you’re sitting together, laughing over something, your hand resting on his arm as if it’s the most natural thing in the world. there’s an intimacy between you that makes your stomach twist with unease. this version of you looks so in love with him. you’re touching him like you belong to him.
but that can’t be right. jake was your fiancé. you were going to marry him.
the memory shifts again, this time darker. heeseung leans in, his hand resting on yours for just a moment too long. “if only things were different,” he murmurs, his gaze heavy with unspoken longing.
your past self looks away, guilt flashing in your eyes. “i can’t leave him,” you whisper, barely audible. “it wouldn’t be good for my family or us. for the business.”
heeseung’s jaw tightens, his fingers brushing over yours with a tenderness that makes your heart ache. “but you want to,” he says softly, the words hanging in the air between you like a dangerous secret.
and you… you don’t deny it.
you wake up with a gasp, your heart racing as you bolt upright. your head throbs where as if you were hit, and the confusion of the dream still lingers like a fog in your mind. you’re back in heeseung’s room. alone. sunlight spills in through the curtains which means..
panic floods your veins. you scramble out of bed, your feet hitting the cold floor as you rush to the door. you can’t stay here. you have to find your parents and leave before it’s too late.
when you reach the foyer, your breath catches in your throat. your parents are there, bags packed, ready to leave. relief crashes over you like a wave, and you run toward them. “mom! dad! let’s go, we have to—”
but then they turn to you, confusion etched on their faces. your mother tilts her head slightly, her brow furrowing. “who… are you?”
the words hit you like a punch to the gut. “what do you mean? i’m your daughter! we need to leave, now!”
your father frowns, glancing at your mother, then back at you. “i think you’re mistaken. we don’t have a daughter.”
your laughter bubbles up, but it’s panicked, forced. “what? no, stop. this isn’t funny. we need to go, we need to leave right now!”
suddenly, you feel an arm snake around your waist, pulling you into a strong hold. you freeze, knowing exactly who it is before you even turn to look. heeseung. his smile is charming, but the coldness in his eyes sends a chill down your spine.
“ah, sweetheart,” he says smoothly, turning to your parents with an amused chuckle. “she likes to play these little pranks sometimes. always such a joker, my wife.”
your parents—no, these strangers—laugh awkwardly, nodding along like everything makes sense. “oh, we see,” your mother—no, not your mother—says with a forced smile.
your blood runs cold. you twist in heeseung’s grip, looking at him with wide, horrified eyes. “what have you done?”
heeseung’s smile falters slightly, but he feigns hurt, his voice dripping with mock sympathy. “what have i done? darling, i think you’re a little confused.”
you struggle against him, but his grip tightens. "mom! dad! please, it's me! it's your daughter! you have to believe me!"
but they just stare at you, their expressions growing more uncomfortable by the second. your father clears his throat, glancing at heeseung. “i think it’s time for us to go.”
heeseung nods, his smile never wavering. “of course. i’m sorry about all this. she’s been under a lot of stress lately. sunoo,” he calls over his shoulder.
sunoo appears from the shadows, his ever-cheerful grin now twisted into something darker, more malicious. he moves toward you, grabbing your arm with surprising strength. “come on now, let’s not make a scene.”
“no!” you scream, thrashing in sunoo’s hold. “please, you have to remember me! i’m your daughter!”
but your parents—these strangers—just exchange awkward glances before turning away. you all watch them leave, sunoo’s arm still securely around your waist, holding you in place.
you break free from his grip, bolting toward the door screaming for your parents, desperate to escape. but as soon as you reach the threshold, you slam into an invisible barrier. the impact knocks the air from your lungs, and you stumble back, disoriented.
heeseung is behind you in an instant, wrapping his arms around you from behind, his breath hot against your ear. “i told you, didn’t i?” his voice is low, cold. “you’re mine. you’ve always been mine.”
tears stream down your face as you push against the barrier, your hands shaking. “what have you done to me? why are you doing this?”
heeseung’s grip tightens, and he spins you around to face him, his eyes dark with a possessive intensity that sends shivers down your spine. “you think you’re innocent in all of this?” his voice is soft, but there’s a dangerous edge to it. “you think you didn’t know what was happening? you chose me. you were mine long before jake was ever in the picture.”
you shake your head in disbelief. “no, i didn’t… i didn’t—”
sunoo steps closer, a mocking pout on his lips. “oh, sweetheart, you did. you just didn’t want to admit it.” his finger traces the line of your cheek, and you flinch away from him. “you knew about heeseung’s feelings. you used him. and when jake became a problem, you turned a blind eye to it all. you knew we would kill him.” he sighs, “unfortunately, miscommunication led to your demise and we were eventually hanged. and now our souls are cursed to be bound to this mansion for eternity.”
heeseung’s voice lowers, his lips brushing against your ear as he whispers, “you’re just as guilty as i am. and now… you’ll suffer with me. for eternity.”
you stand frozen, your mind reeling from heeseung’s words. the weight of the truth, the accusations, presses down on you like a boulder. memories you didn’t even know you had flicker behind your eyes—of stolen glances, secret touches, a forbidden affair. the you from before, so desperate to keep everything intact—your reputation, your future—had made a choice. a terrible, selfish choice.
“no…” you whisper, backing away from heeseung, shaking your head in denial. “that’s not true. i didn’t—”
“didn’t what?” heeseung cuts you off, his voice sharp and cruel now, all traces of tenderness gone. “didn’t love me? didn’t lead me on while you paraded around with him?” he spits the last word like it’s poison. “you knew exactly what you were doing. you wanted to have it both ways, and when i couldn’t stand it any longer, you let me kill jake because it was easier for you.”
the room spins as his words hit you like a tidal wave. you feel sick, your stomach twisting in knots. but even as the guilt rises in your throat, something inside you resists. “i didn’t… i didn’t want that…” you stammer, but your voice is weak, and the look in heeseung’s eyes tells you that he doesn’t believe you. maybe you don’t even believe yourself.
he steps closer, his eyes dark and filled with anger and betrayal. “you were mine, always mine. but you just had to keep playing your little games, didn’t you? you thought you could control everything. but look where it’s gotten us.”
you stumble backward, hitting the invisible barrier once again. this time it feels like it’s closing in on you, trapping you not just physically but mentally, emotionally. “i didn’t want anyone to die!” you shout, your voice cracking as the tears blur your vision. “i didn’t want this!”
sunoo chuckles softly from the corner, leaning casually against the wall, his expression unreadable. “well, that’s a nice story,” he says, voice light and mocking. “but none of us are getting out of here. not you, not me, not heeseung.” he crosses the room, his eyes gleaming with malice as he moves toward you. “you see, you set all of this in motion. you thought you could control us, control your fate, but now you’ll be trapped here just like us.”
heeseung’s grip on your arm tightens painfully, and you can feel his desperation, his anger, boiling over. “you’re not leaving, no matter how hard you try. this mansion, this curse, it’s our prison. and now it’s yours, too. we’re all in this together, for eternity.”
the word “eternity” sends a fresh wave of panic through your veins. “no!” you scream, thrashing in his grip, desperate to break free. “i won’t stay here! i won’t!”
but heeseung only tightens his hold on you, his face twisted in a mixture of rage and possessiveness. “you will stay,” he growls, his voice low and dangerous. “you belong to me. you always have.”
sunoo steps beside heeseung, his gaze cold and detached as he watches your struggle. his mocking smile only deepens the pit of dread in your stomach. “it’s only fair, don’t you think?” sunoo says, his voice filled with cruel amusement. “after all, you did help put us in this mess. you turned a blind eye to what heeseung did. and now…” he trails his fingers along your cheek, his touch sending a shiver of fear down your spine. “you’ll pay for that mistake.”
you shake your head wildly, trying to back away, but the barrier prevents any escape. “please, no!” you beg, your voice breaking as you sob. “i didn’t know… i didn’t mean for any of this to happen…”
but heeseung’s grip is unrelenting. he pulls you closer, his eyes gleaming with twisted satisfaction as he watches you unravel. “it doesn’t matter now,” he says, his voice soft but filled with dark intent. “your parents don’t remember you anymore and we’re bound together, all of us. the mansion, the curse, it’s our fate. and now it’s yours, too.”
as his words sink in, you feel the weight of your past bearing down on you. the memories, the guilt, the betrayal—it’s all too much. you collapse against the invisible barrier, tears streaming down your face as you realise the full extent of what’s happened. you’re trapped. trapped with heeseung and sunoo in this mansion, cursed to live out eternity in this twisted nightmare.
heeseung kneels down beside you, brushing a strand of hair from your face with a cruel tenderness. “it’s better this way,” he whispers. “now you can’t leave me. you’ll never leave me again.”
you choke back a sob, shaking your head. “i never wanted this… i never wanted to hurt anyone…”
heeseung’s lips curl into a dark smile. “but you did,” he says softly. “and now, you’ll live with that guilt forever.”
sunoo crouches beside heeseung, his gaze filled with mock pity as he watches you break down. “look on the bright side,” he says with a smirk. “at least you won’t be lonely. you’ll have us… forever.”
the finality of their words crashes over you like a wave, and as you look into heeseung’s cold, possessive eyes, you realise there’s no escape. you’re trapped in this mansion, bound to heeseung and sunoo for all eternity, forced to relive the mistakes of your past life in an endless cycle of torment.
with a sinking heart, you realise that heeseung was right all along. you’ve always been his. and now, you’ll never be free.
𝗰𝗼𝗽𝘆𝗿𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁 ©𝗴𝘆𝘂𝘂𝗯𝗲𝗿𝗿𝘆𝘆 on Tumblr
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I Want More, More
Crosshair x Reader Oneshot
WOW, I broke 20 followers! Thank you, thank you for reading my little fics, it means the world! Have a Crosshair battling with his feelings oneshot!
Word Count: 4605
Summary: Crosshair is made aware that he has not been treating you like he should. He has a crisis about it before talking to you like an adult, kind of.
Warnings: Here there be smut, minors begone, Crosshair struggling with his feelings is its own warning, Crosshair is a dick until he's not, he's a moron your honor, slightly desperate Crosshair, rough sex into talking into gentle sex into rough sex again, oral (m receiving), oral (f receiving), p in v sex, language, some derogatory pet names, talking during sex, reader is afab, there's porn here I promise, you just have to get through Crosshair's angst
This wasn’t fucking working.
Crosshair was near madness, and he was sure you were reaching a point where you needed a break. You’d never let him fuck your mouth for this long before. But there you were, topless, tears streaming down your face, knees probably scuffed or even bleeding from the durasteel floor, nevermind that you still had your pants on. And yet you pushed through, voicing not a word of complaint as you gagged on his persistent cock.
And he wasn’t anywhere close to finishing.
You should be complaining, he decided. What had it been? Thirty minutes? Fifty? Crosshair couldn’t keep track of anything except his own frustration, and that was making him a terrible lay. And if there’s one thing he would be loath to be terrible at, it was sex.
His cock throbbed, his balls ached, and you kept moaning. He growled.
Sooner or later, you’re going to hurt her. She’s going to get tired of this, and she’s going to leave. Hunter’s words from earlier in the week creeped back into his mind, and any hope of salvaging this situation dissipated into thin air.
Crosshair abruptly pulled you off his length and backed away, tugging his pants up as he went. Still you knelt, breathing heavily, awaiting what he’d do next. It was the arrangement you’d both worked out months ago. You allowed yourself to be used as he saw fit, and he made sure you left satisfied and ready for dreamless sleep. No feelings, no complications. It had worked well for a long time. But he looked at you then, your face a mess, your curled legs trembling, and for the first time, he couldn’t stand the sight.
She deserves someone who cares deeply about her, Echo’s voice, well, echoed in his head, as unbidden as Hunter’s had been. His nosy brothers had held an intervention of sorts a few days ago while you were out getting supplies. It had started with Tech’s “We want to know what you are doing with our medic,” gone through Wrecker’s “You know she likes you, right? Like, a lot,” and ended with a long speech from Hunter about how “One day Crosshair, you’re going to wake up and realize that she’s moved on. For some reason, she really cares for you. And you’re treating her like a meaningless one night stand, except you keep doing it over, and over and-”
It was stupid. You both liked what you were doing. You were both consenting adults with the power to walk away at any time. You were both happy and fulfilled with that. It was enough.
Except for the past few days, it hadn’t been.
Crosshair began to really notice certain things since the talk with his brothers. Like how you always met him with a cheery good morning, and how you didn’t expect an answer in return. How you’d sit next to him while he cleaned his rifle, content to do all the talking if he just listened. How you always ran over after a close call on missions, frantic about his safety and never expecting him to inquire about your wellbeing, even if you were covered in soot and limping away from an explosion.
He realized you were giving more, much more to your…friendship, than he was. And that didn’t sit well with him. Your relationship was supposed to be transactional, and here you were, giving him attention and assistance and contact without expecting one damn solitary thing in return. Always giving, never receiving, and he…
He was a fucking prick.
Horrible, awful scenarios started coming to mind after that. For two days, he thought about what would happen if you got transferred, or completed your service and left, or, stars-forbid, got shot. A concept he’d never considered before. You were always there, always constant as Tech’s pointing finger and Echo’s whirring attachments.
The idea of you leaving him - and he was completely arrogant for never seriously entertaining the thought - was frightening. And Crosshair didn’t do frightened.
The worst part? While he was drowning in inner turmoil due to his asshole brothers and your own damn sweetness, you were waltzing around, perfectly fine. You had never given any outward indication that you wanted something real from him, something more than a smokescreen of orgasms and sharp banter. Now that he knew how much you cared, now that he’d heard that you liked him no matter how hard you tried to hide it, he couldn’t let it go.
You’d been contenting yourself with his hands on your body and his lackluster personality for months, when, according to his brothers, you’d really wanted something deeper. Did you think he would reject you, or that he wasn’t capable of anything more to begin with? Both possibilities stung, a lot deeper than he’d ever supposed they would. Especially as he realized that neither of them were unreasonable of you to assume. Suddenly, he was furious.
That’s how he ended up with his cock down your throat in the back of the Marauder, while everyone else was out on the town. Not in his bed, never in his bed. That was one of the rules he’d made, to stop things from getting too intimate. Instead he’d had you kneel, and you’d done it with a wry smile and no questions. He’d planned to fuck these thoughts out of his head, but as it turns out, his brain was thinking the fuck out of his dick, so to speak.
So instead, he leaned against the wall, gazing at you. You still kneeled, still waited patiently while he’d stared for who knows how long.
You deserved better.
The thought was pounding against his skull, incessant and refusing to leave. And Crosshair knew there were only two ways to resolve it. He could walk away, wish you well, and hope that you found someone who could give you a true relationship, no matter what it might cost him.
Or…he could try to be worthy of you.
The first option entailed less risk, and was definitely more his style. He couldn’t be bad at a relationship if he never tried to give you one. But the thought of someone else seeing you like this, or worse, someone else seeing you in ways he hadn’t yet…on a beach, walking down a colorful city street, riding a speeder bike, in the snow…
He stood abruptly and crossed over to your languishing form. He had you in his arms in less than a second, and had you laying on his bunk in less than five more.
“Cross, wha-?” you protested. You knew the rules, knew his boundaries, and tried to sit up and leave.
He grasped your shoulders and gently pushed you back, “Please.” Was all he said, whispered and hoarse. He worried at his lip without realizing it. Your eyes widened, and you let him lean you back on his pillows. He fidgeted with them, trying to make them fluffier than the GAR issued sacks of foam they really were, and you quirked a brow.
“You fucking with me, Cross?” you asked, and he could tell you were putting real effort into keeping the trepidation out of your voice. “Because this is a real weird joke.”
Okay, he deserved that one. But his words were stuck somewhere between his brain and his mouth. How was he supposed to know how to tell a woman he liked her anyway? If the Kaminoans included a class on charm somewhere in their training programs, he definitely didn’t get an invite.
Maybe you would be better off with someone who didn’t spend their days getting up close and personal with other people through a fucking scope.
But all this staring was starting to freak you out. You were sitting awkwardly, legs open, tits out, under his genetically superior gaze. Crosshair didn’t know what kind of face he’d been making, but it clearly wasn’t one you were used to. You crossed your arms over your chest and turned your head to the side, away from him.
“Are we done?” You ground out through a set jaw, a slightly trembling lip. “Is this…ahem…is this over? Because you could just tell me, you don’t have to try and make it easier. I can just go back to my bunk and…and…”
He caught the sheen in your eyes, the catch in your throat. Fuck. Fuck.
“I-I want you…” stars, he can’t even talk. Damn you. Damn him. He cleared his throat. “I. want. you. to stay… there.”
Well, it sounded like it was being tortured out of him, but at least it got your attention. You turned back to look at his face, “You want me to stay here.” You said evenly, jerking your head towards his shabby pillows. “In your bed. Where I’m never, ever supposed to be.”
He swallowed, mouth dry as hell, and nodded. You were so much better at this, so much stronger than he was. He couldn’t do anything but spill his guts in what was probably the least romantic way possible.
So he did, “I want to try…something else.”
Your lips parted just a fraction, and something seemed to click behind your eyes. But you were tough, tougher than he ever gave you credit for, and you never gave him any ground. Oh you were gentle about it, cool satin to his rough burlap. He suspected it was the healer in you. But you always demanded communication from him, demanded that he explain his behavior, even if it took him a while.
“Something else,” the hitch in your voice had disappeared. “You’re going to have to explain that one to me, babe. You know I’ll try something new, and we have a safe word, but this violates your rules, and I don’t know how to act now. I don’t know what’s okay.”
Babe. It slipped out of your mouth every so often, usually in a teasing lilt over comms during a battle. He didn’t know if he loved it or hated it, but it always brought a sudden heat to his face. He felt the tips of his ears burning.
“I…” c’mon, bastard. You can get this out, you have to get this out. She’s waiting. “I want… toforgettherules.”
“I’m sorry? One more time?”
Brat. In any other circumstance, he’d have you over his knee for something like that. But he took a deep breath, like the ones he’d take before making an impossible shot. And maybe that’s what this was, “I want to forget the rules.”
Your eyes alighted with something like hope, “Why?”
Yes Crosshair, you stupid prick, tell the lady why. He needed to get his head examined. He was talking to himself more than usual. And now he’d started to sound like Hunter.
“Because,” he ground out, teeth clenched. “You deserve…better…than what I’ve been giving you. But I…I don’t want anyone else to deserve you.”
You sat with that for just a moment. And then you brought a hand up to your mouth and giggled. It was such a happy sound, he was almost completely unoffended.
“You like me,” you murmured, eyes full of mirth and pure, honest delight.
He let out a shaky breath. It was almost a chuckle, “I like you. You’re a little shit, and you give me a heart attack half the time. But I like you.”
“And… I’m allowed to like you back?” This question was tentative, small. Not how he wanted to see you. You should be bright, confident, unafraid to show your brilliance. A fierceness crept into his heart.
“You get to like whatever you damn well please,” he growled, then softened slightly. “But…it would be nice if you liked me.”
You hummed, and dropped the arms covering your gorgeous breasts to cup his face in both hands. Your fingers moved in his cropped strands of hair, but he resisted the urge to close his eyes at the peace it brought him.
“I like you, more than I ever thought you’d want me to,” you almost-whispered. Then you grinned that same grin you got when Wrecker offered to let you press a detonator. “But if you want in on this, babe, if you want some kind of commitment, I’ve got some rules of my own.”
Strangely, the thought didn’t concern him nearly as badly as it had a day ago. He didn’t know shit about real relationships. He wanted you, and if you gave him some kind of guide to go off of, well, at least there was less of a chance of him fucking it up.
Crosshair nodded, and your smile grew wider, joy sparkling in your eyes.
“First of all,” you began. “You have to say good morning and good night to me. You also have to hold my hand every so often, and let me kiss your cheek. I promise not to embarrass you…too much.”
He huffed a little, but conceded, “Agreed. Anything else?”
“Oh this is an ongoing list. There will be amendments,” you chirped happily. “I require actual conversation daily, and I get to sleep next to you after we fuck.”
“What do you take me for? Of course you get to-”
“No getting jealous of my guy friends, including your brothers. Like when I give them hugs or candies or-.”
“The regs absolutely cannot be trusted-”
“Ha! I knew you’d be a jealous boyfriend. Oh yeah! And I get to introduce you as my boyfriend from now on.”
Crosshair’s mild disgust must have shown on his face, because you laughed outright, “What about partner? Lover? Fuckbuddy?”
He rolled his eyes, “I’ll make ‘boyfriend’ work. Can I kiss you now or does the princess have more proclamations?”
That shut you up. Despite all the other parts of him you’d had in your mouth, one of his rules had been no kissing on the lips. Your eyes glazed over, and he smirked and leaned forward.
Your lips were so soft, plush and sorely neglected. A vague sense of regret and longing overtook him. How the hell had he managed to avoid kissing you until now? It didn’t really matter. He decided, as you let out a little hum of surprise, that it was about to become his new ritual. Every morning, every night, every time he could drag you into a private little alcove, he’d do it, just to get a chance to press his lips to yours.
He pushed forward, his tongue licking at the line of your lips, and you whined. His cock pulsed, and he began steadily rocking it against your clothed thigh. You opened your mouth eagerly and he dove in. Oh this was divine.
“Never thought,” he mumbled into your mouth. “Never thought it’d be like this.”
“Like…what?” you gasped.
“This…this fucking… brilliant. Stars, your mouth…”
You groaned, and he moved to sweep his deft tongue along your jaw, up to your ear. He bit at your earlobe, and your hips began doing some involuntary rocking of their own. Crosshair growled in your ear, satisfied when you shivered.
He stopped though, when he felt your stealthy hand cup his balls through his pants, “No,” he rasped, taking your wrist in hand and bringing the misbehaving appendage up to nip at your squirming fingers. “I told you, doll. I want… to try… something else.”
“Letting me call the shots would be something else,” you whined, still wiggling in his grasp.
He shook his head, “Not tonight,” he said, sounding out of breath. “Tonight, you just lay there. Look pretty. Look fucking gorgeous because that’s what you are, and keep making little noises for me.”
You whimpered at that, and he smirked. But it wasn’t his usual cocky, infuriating twist of the lips. This was an adorable half smile, part disbelieving, part alive with anticipation.
Your pants were hastily removed, and while your shoes caused a bit of an obstacle, Crosshair simply wrenched them off and tossed them over his shoulder. One landed with a thump on the durasteel floor - a place he swore you would never be kneeling unprotected again. He was pretty sure the other ended up in Tech’s bunk.
Crosshair traced his hands down your legs and slowly, ever so slowly pulled your knees further apart. You were pressed back against the pillows, open and waiting for him, and his heart rose to a furious din in his ears. He was almost positive you could hear it.
He was seized with another fit of insecurity. How was he supposed to know how to cater to you like this? He knew how to grasp your throat just hard enough that your eyes would roll back into your head. He knew how you liked to be tied down and spanked. This wasn’t even the first time he had held your legs apart and let you squirm under his attention. But tenderness… communicating one’s feelings with one’s body… he didn’t even know how to begin.
His eyes flicked to your face, flushed with shyness and lust. Your kind, welcoming eyes, more open in every breath than he was in his entire lifetime. You bit your lip.
You have to try to be worthy of her, he thought to himself. And he turned his attention to your pussy.
Still clothed in your thin, basic panties, the solid color was stained dark with your wetness. Crosshair cursed, and slowly descended between your legs.
First, he kissed your knees, not bleeding but definitely scraped, and the gentle touch of his lips had you sighing. You’d never made that sound before, that exhale of pure contentment. He wanted more of it.
You flinched and squirmed as he ran his tongue down your inner thigh, but he held you fast. You weren’t getting away from him. Not now, not when he was finally ready to really try.
Crosshair knew where you wanted him. You weren’t exactly subtle with the canting of your hips and the nervous fluttering of your fingers over the sheets. Your breaths were coming in short bursts of want. Stars, how were you this sensitive already? He’d seen you in a state of pre-orgasmic distress plenty of times, had made you beg for him past the point where you could speak in coherent sentences, but never had he seen such simple, sweet touches electrify you in this way.
Instead of lowering his mouth to your pussy, though, Crosshair moved to lick and nip at your hip bone. You squealed and moaned, and he decided he’d never heard such an addicting sound.
He brought his tongue across your belly, snapping the waistband of your panties with his teeth before teasing your other hip. Your whimpering was a constant symphony in his dark bunk. He pulled back and chanced a peek at your face. Your eyes were shining with yearning. You had one hand in your hair. He reached up, tugged your abused lip from between your teeth, worried that you’d draw blood, and glanced back down.
The wet spot on your panties had grown, and finally, with a lighter touch than he’d ever directed towards you, Crosshair ran a knuckle up and down your clothed center. You keened, and threw your head back on his feeble pillows, which had flattened almost completely under you.
I need to get new ones, he thought absently as he tugged your panties to the side, exposing your dripping core. She deserves to be fucked on real pillows.
He lowered his head, and you were both gone.
Crosshair had tasted you before, often as a tease while you were tied up and helpless. But not often, and not thoroughly. He usually enjoyed watching your face while taking you apart with his fingers, snarling demeaning pet names into your ear. But this…this was transcendent. You tasted like home, like he could live his entire life and die between your legs. He drank from you slowly, meticulously, lapping at your entrance and circling your clit before closing his lips around it and lightly sucking. Your legs were trembling within minutes. Every few seconds, garbled, meaningless sounds escaped from your throat and spurred him on. He gently, reverently pushed a finger into your hot center, caressing the spot you both loved. You seized up…, and let go.
He rocked you lovingly through your orgasm, fingering you slightly and keeping his mouth clamped around your clit. Your pussy spasmed, your hips jerked, and your mouth opened in a silent scream.
But he didn’t stop.
Crosshair began again, stroking your throbbing clit with his tongue, refusing to allow the fire in your abdomen to subside. Now that he’d really tasted you, now that he’d felt you fall apart on his lips, his only goal was to make it happen again.
“C-cross!” you yelled, hand flying down to his hair. You tugged hard, and he groaned.
“More,” he mumbled into your cunt. His fingers pressed at that tender spot inside you, and your head flew back. You shrieked and writhed on his bed, dripping onto the sheets.
You were moaning with every breath, tensing your legs and frantically thrusting your hips towards his waiting mouth. Your toes curled repeatedly in the corners of his vision. Your pussy was red and swollen, your slick arousal running down his hand and wrist.
Crosshair curled his fingers inside of you and allowed his teeth to gently catch against your begging clit, and your second orgasm hit like a lightning strike. You seized up, screaming your release to the ceiling of his bunk. He gently lapped at your clit as you came down, your yells turning to sobs. Tears spilled down your face and onto your chest. You reached for him, and he encircled your shaking body with his arms.
“Shhhhh,” he hushed into your hair. “You’re alright…you’re alright…I…I’ve got you, mesh’la.”
You pulled back, tears tracking your cheeks as you stared into his eyes, “Y-you’ve never called me that before.”
Crosshair knew you understood the word. Echo called you mesh’la on occasion, Wrecker too. “I felt left out,” he said. “I should get to remind you of how beautiful you are more than anyone else.”
You sniffed, and threw your arms around him, “You’re beautiful too,” he heard you mumble, and his heart swelled. “But…”
“But what, doll?”
Your voice took on a fierce, desperate tone, “If you don’t get inside me right now, we’re going to have our first fight.”
Crosshair was stunned, but only for a moment. This was why he lo…liked you in the first place.
He took on the domineering tone he usually had with you in these situations, “Demanding girls don’t get what they want.”
But you just grinned, and lifted your chin, “Girlfriend privilege.”
He threw his head back and laughed. What had he gotten himself into?
He couldn’t wait to find out.
“Just this once, mesh’la.”
You practically went limp in his arms as his straining, red cock breached your entrance. He stilled for just a moment, relishing in the feeling of being inside you. When you looked up at him, eyes shining with something he dare not name, not yet, he felt complete.
Crosshair grabbed hold of your hair and yanked, and you squealed from the pull of his hand and the push of his cock. This much he was sure of: he knew how you liked to be fucked, and he didn’t have it in him to be gentle any longer. And though he wouldn’t last as long as he’d like, no one could accuse him of not being a giving lover.
“Just like that, good girl,” he growled. You whined and writhed, impaled on his cock and unable to even think. “You just lay back, and come for me one more time.”
“Cross…I-I can’t.”
“You can,” he assured you, and his thumb went down to ever so gently move on your clit. “You’ve done it for me before, and you’re going to do it for me again. Scream, bite me if you have to, but you are going to give me one more.”
You wailed, hips thrusting up, frantically trying to match his rhythm. Crosshair released your hair to grab your throat. He leaned in, a hair's breadth away from your ear, and whispered, “That’s it, that’s my good girl.”
You tensed, and he grinned, “You like that? You like knowing you’re mine? That this mouth, these tits, this pussy all belong to me?” He started moving faster, keeping that pressure on your throbbing clit. He bit at your ear, “But remember, mesh’la, just because you’re my girl doesn’t mean I won’t fuck you like the slut we both know you are.”
That did it. Your cunt clenched around him, and you let out an ear-piercing scream. Your release came in strong, crashing waves, wiping your mind of anything else and soaking both of you. Crosshair couldn’t hold out any longer. He buried himself to the hilt and came deep inside you, and you shuddered with the aftershocks, so full and sated Crosshair swore you’d fallen asleep.
He was wrong. You lifted a trembling hand to his face and smiled gently at him, “Thank you, Cross.”
He scoffed, “Nothing to be thankful for. Not like we haven’t done this a hundred times.”
But you shook your head, “We’ve never done this before.” You gestured at the mess you’d made in his bed, at your tangled limbs and the invisible closeness that still existed between you, even after the amazing sex. “Thank you for trying.”
Crosshair felt his strength leave him. He gathered you up, and buried his face in your chest, taking deep, calming breaths, “Don’t let me coast on it.” He murmured. “Don’t cut me any slack. I’m bad at this.”
He heard your giggle from above, “A little unpolished, maybe, but I’ve never seen you fail to excel at something you were determined to accomplish.” You stroked his hair. “We’ll be fine, babe.”
“We need to talk about that nickname.”
“I can think of others,” you teased. “Honey, sweetie, my little tooka-”
He made a gagging noise against your breasts, and you were outright laughing, “Babycakes, darling, love-”
Crosshair knew he’d tensed up at that last one, had let a little gasp escape in his contentment. He blamed the recent orgasm. But you’d heard it, and you stopped laughing.
“Oh…” he heard your voice take on a strange tone, and finally looked up at your face. You looked…shy. Shy and happy. You nodded, “Love, then. I can make that work.”
He felt his ears burning, and he turned his face back into your chest. A sudden possessiveness overtook him, and he gathered you closer, “You can’t…” he mumbled. “You can’t call anyone else that.”
You were quiet for a moment, probably remembering all of the interchangeable nicknames you liked to use with his brothers. Then he felt your hands grab his face - still hiding in your breasts like a coward - and turn it toward your own. You smiled down at him.
“And that, love, is what we call boyfriend privilege.”
Crosshair gazed at you in amazement, then felt a rare smile break out over his face. He hugged you close, took his time kissing your lips again. He knew, in a moment, he would tell you to stay where you are as he got up and did something he’d never done for you before - clean you up himself. It’s something he would insist on doing from here on out.
Because, he decided, that’s what your boyfriend would do. And, as he was realizing rather quickly, he did not want anyone else to earn that title.
It was his. And he was yours.
#crosshair x reader#crosshair smut#tbb crosshair#the bad batch crosshair#crosshair fanfiction#tbb fanfiction#bad batch fanfic#the bad batch fanfiction#crosshair bad batch#wisteriabyrnefanfic#wistysfics
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as soft as we know
pairing: choso kamo x reader word count: 12.7k (oops) content: fluff, angst, choso experiencing his first christmas, jealousy, insecurity, loss of virginity, choso being a sweetie pie, smut, 18+ a/n: this is a continuation of 'it's britney, bitch', but it can definitely be read independently as well
“That’s not where it goes, Cho.”
“Lower?”
“A little bit.”
“Here?”
Grunting in frustration, you reached for his wrist, guiding his hand to the proper positioning.
“These are supposed to be his arms, Cho.” You laughed despite your playful exasperation, helping him carefully shove the small stick he’d found into the snowman’s lumpy torso.
Stepping back to check your progress, you smiled gleefully and bit back a cackle at the state of it. Its head was far too small for its body, and the rocks you two had found for his eyes were completely different sizes.
Turning to catch Choso’s reaction to his first snowman, you were almost caught off guard by his stoic expression. His sharp, dagger like gaze could cut straight through glass, pairing terrifyingly with the firm line his lips were set in. One thing you had learned in the few months you’d been with the half-curse though, was that he had the nastiest case of resting bitch face that you’d ever seen on a man. It was no wonder you were so put off by him upon first meeting. Still, you couldn’t help but tilt your head a little to meet his gaze.
“You okay?” You questioned with a knowing smile.
Blinking away the snowflakes that had gathered on his dark lashes, his eyes seemed to light up at your question, the abrupt switch in expressions nearly giving you whiplash.
“Yeah, he looks funny. Why?” Choso grinned sincerely, reaching out to gently brush the snow from your hair. “Was I doing that thing with my face again?”
“Yeah, you were.” You giggled and reached up on your tiptoes to press a kiss to his cheek, gripping at his bicep for balance. He hummed appreciatively, a flush quickly coming up to paint his pale cheeks. It was something you were eternally grateful that he hadn’t grown out of since the beginning of your relationship. You were sure if the day ever came that he stopped blushing so furiously at your kisses, your heart would split in two.
“Does it look how you wanted it to?” He asked as he reached out to straighten the right eye that had slipped a bit. Huffing out a sigh, you sized up the snowman that looked like he had definitely seen better days.
“He looks… unique.” You offered with a tilted head, trying to see which angle would make it look halfway decent. “But hey, if I can’t decorate a tree, our freak snowman is gonna have to do to get me into the Christmas spirit.”
“Why can’t we decorate a tree?” He questioned with a tilt of his head. From what you had told him, the tree was kind of the main event of this holiday you seemed to be buzzing about.
“I don’t have time this year.” You muttered dejectedly, distracting yourself by straightening out the drooping arms of your snowman. “I’m supposed to be filling in as supervisor for some of the kids’ missions in the next few weeks.”
Choso hummed pensively, taking note of the gloom that had suddenly befallen your once cheerful mood. In a meek attempt to salvage it, he nodded toward the snowman.
“Is there anything else we can do to him?”
“Well, I wanted to fix his head, but I think my fingers are gonna freeze off if we don’t stop here.” You confessed sheepishly.
“You’re cold?”
“You’re not?” Your brows rose challengingly, giving him a once over to note that he appeared perfectly comfortable.
Choso tried to hide his anticipatory smile as he pulled you closer, tugging his gloves off with his teeth to reveal his chipping, black painted nails, courtesy of you, of course. It took almost four weeks of you observing the way he’d watch you so intently as you gave yourself haphazard manicures on the floor of your dorm. You would feel his warm breath over your shoulder as you picked up various bottles to choose your weekly color.
One evening, you had of course seen it coming a mile away when he apprehensively requested if you could do his, too. You could remember smiling knowingly at him before nudging your chin toward the bottles to prompt him to pick one.
Maybe it was because this grunge side Choso had been ever so slowly leaning into as he came into his own made you swoon just a bit, but you’d be lying if you said your shared, weekly manicures hadn’t become some of your favorite memories with him.
It was time for a touch up, you determined with a soft smile while he gently gathered your hands to uncover them as well. A slow breath escaped you as his large hands enveloped yours, and you gradually felt a steady warmth begin to fill his palms. Your thus far frigid fingers felt as though they were defrosting in his grip, and you nearly moaned in relief.
“Is that your technique?” You finally gathered, his supposed immunity to the cold becoming less mysterious. He hummed affirmatively, shifting to place both your hands in one of his as the other came up to cup your rosy, snow-kissed cheek.
Leaning into the heater-like quality of his palm, you peered up at him through your lashes. He became more beautiful each time you looked at him, you were sure.
The dark circles you once found so intimidating now served as an enticing emphasis for his chocolate, brown eyes. His ever-shifting blood-mark gave a dark edge to his otherwise benevolent nature that never failed to send shivers down your spine. These days, he was wearing his hair loose more and more, and maybe it was because you liked to tangle your fingers in it when he kissed you, but he’d never admit that, of course.
Your eyes fluttered shut as his thumb maneuvered down to brush heat along your chin, unintentionally snagging on your bottom lip on the way. Everything about him made your mind turn to degenerate mush, and it only seemed to be getting worse the longer you spent with him. You weren’t sure how much longer you could take of the careful tango you two had been spinning in the past few months.
Choso had been adapting quicker than you had expected to the sorts of little intimacies that came along with being in a romantic relationship. It took some gentle coaching for him to understand what types of those intimacies were appropriate and where. When he was introduced to the notion that your lips were essentially free game for him, you would have thought he’d won the lottery. You by no means minded that his new favorite hobby was discovering all the ways he could leave your lips red and raw, but you preferred he not do it in public.
Still, some neck kisses and love bites seemed to be the extent of Choso’s exploration so far, and you weren’t sure if it was your place to introduce more to him just yet. The man made it hard though when he looked at you with those tired, sultry eyes. Little moments like this, where it was clear how easily tenderness came to him, had your mind wandering around questions of how nice those heated hands of his would feel running up the insides of your thighs.
“I know something that will warm you up faster.” His raspy voice pulled you from your sinful thoughts, the suggestive context making your eyes fly open to meet his loving gaze. The corners of your lips twitched up in anticipation as your breath mingled with his and created ghosts that danced against the contrasting frigid air between you. You tilted your head down to press a soft kiss against his thumb as you raised a questioning brow at him. “Hot chocolate? I found the thick one that Yuji likes.”
Despite the crushing disappointment that you felt in your core, down to the heat between your thighs, you couldn’t help but smile in amusement at his oblivion. Acting on a gnawing urge, you wrapped your arms around his thick torso from under his puffer jacket and squeezed him, a small part of you wishing he’d always stay this adorably oblivious.
“I’d kill for some, Cho.” You mumbled against his chest, sighing contentedly as his Herculean arms came around your shoulders to squeeze you back. A squeal of delight escaped you when you felt your feet leave the ground, wrapping your legs around his hips so you could climb into a more secure position, arms locked around his shoulders now as he began his trek back to the school with his hands gripping at your thighs.
It was something Choso took notice of very early on, how you’d flush instantly whenever he’d sweep you off your feet. That, and it didn’t hurt that his hands could wander without question when he was carrying you around wherever you went. His curiosity seemed to grow with each passing day, and he was quickly realizing that he was greedy, forever chasing an inexplicable craving he had for you that only drove him crazier the more he fed it. He had a general idea of what his body was asking of him, but the half-curse was still painfully unaware of how to broach the topic, or even what to do.
So, for now, he’d allow his hands to creep up the expanse of your plush thighs, the ones he could undoubtedly squeeze between his fingers till they fell off. You didn’t stop him as his veiny hands drifted up to cup at the swell of your rear, so he figured it was innocent enough, even if it felt so incredibly far from it. God, how his digits seemed to be lighting ablaze, that insatiable demon in the back of his mind roaring for more as it always did. He wondered if you’d notice, glancing at your contended side profile as he allowed his fingers to squish at those enticing pieces of you that seemed so off limits despite your lack of protest. They were soft, just as he thought they’d be, and maybe if he just snuck a few inches lower he’d be able to see if that heat that seemed to emanate from between your legs was—
“Having fun?” You mused, trying to calm the way your breath wanted to hitch as he drew closer and closer to where you so desperately wished he’d explore, but you were entering the common area now, and you really didn’t want to have to deal with the consequences should someone see his hand on its way to your now throbbing heat.
In an instant, he halted his exploration, and you chuckled breathily as you watched the blood creep up his neck.
“Sorry,” he stammered out, guilt beginning to eat at his chest. “I didn’t mean to make—”
“It’s okay, Cho.” You reassured, leaning back to look in his eyes that wanted to focus on anything but you at the moment. Your fingers crept up his nape to twist at the soft tufts of hair there, making him hesitantly peer at you. “You can… touch me wherever you want. Just when it’s us two though, okay?”
The thought had his mind spinning, his heart racing into his throat as he pondered all the possibilities. For now though, you were sliding down his torso, your boots hitting the wood floors with a small thud as you greeted his younger brother who perked up at your mention of hot chocolate. Choso blinked a few times when Yuji asked him if he was okay, and he quickly plastered on a smile, finally lighting up at the thought of spending some time with his two favorite people.
Though it didn’t happen how you two had expected, the brothers had actually grown closer since the beginning of your relationship. Maybe it was because Choso’s time was actually occupied by something else for a change, and it had finally given Yuji the space he needed to come to his older brother on his own volition. The other theory was tethering on the fact that the pink haired boy and his friends were genuinely baffled that the half-curse had managed to woo you into a relationship, and they were constantly trying to butt in these days to get a sense of how that dynamic even worked.
Either way, those little moments of Yuji’s incessant nosiness and reaching out to his brother for a change, you felt so lucky to have been able to watch a genuine connection form between the two.
You smiled warmly as you got the ingredients together, watching as they looked out the window at the snowman you two left behind. The younger boy was using some… colorful terms to describe the unique creation, surely just so he could rile Choso up as he was growing so expert at doing. Rolling your eyes in mock exasperation, you turned to Megumi and Nobara who had been spectating on the sidelines.
“You guys want some too?” You offered, pretending not to notice the way Choso now had his brother in a headlock as he demanded that he apologize for criticizing the snowman you had worked so hard on. Both observers mumbled in agreement, too busy trying to see who would win this one. With a defeated sigh, you began pulling out some mugs.
“Got enough for one more?”
The voice almost had you groaning in disappointment, but the last thing you wanted was to cause an unnecessary scene, so you simply clutched at the mug in your hand tightly before offering a tight lipped smile. The smug man leaned on the counter beside you gleamed as his lips twisted into a smirk.
“Want peppermint in yours?” You offered with as kind a voice you could manage, begrudgingly looking up at Hiroki, with his perfectly punchable face. Since you’d stood him up those months ago upon giving into Choso’s begging, he had been oh so subtly taunting around you. He was smart with it though, never blatant enough for anyone else to notice or even for you to point it out, but you could see it in that sneering glint in his eyes, he was holding it over your head.
“You trying to tell me I should freshen up for ya’?”
At this, both Nobara and Megumi tore their attention away from the fight to make sure they’d heard that correctly. Even Yuji stopped his attempts to fight his brother off to blink up dumbly at the suggestive comment. You felt the irritation creeping up your neck in the form of flushed skin at the thought of your students having to witness this painfully awkward situation.
“Dude, are you gonna let him do that in front of you?” The pink-haired boy whispered incredulously at Choso, who was still trying to gather why the energy in the room had changed so abruptly. His brows twitched down in confusion, and he couldn’t understand what was so wrong with the man’s words, but he knew your shoulders were tense and the smile on your face wasn’t a genuine one. Slowly releasing Yuji, he was by your side quicker than you could have processed that the room had grown so silent.
You felt his hand creep around to rest on your side as he smiled at Hiroki. A ball of guilt twisted in your stomach— you had never told Choso that he was the one you’d stood up all those months ago, and you certainly hadn’t told him about the way he’d been subtly taunting you about it either.
“Right,” you stammered, hoping desperately to pull it together lest you make the tension obvious to your oblivious boyfriend. “No peppermint then.”
“Actually, forget about mine— not as enticing when everyone wants it, y’know?” Hiroki shrugged with a poorly hidden smirk as he reached out to brush a stray hair behind your ear. For a second time that day, Choso could feel the energy shift, and he wasn’t sure why the man’s words felt sickening as they settled in the air around him. The hand on your waist tightened, and he pulled you just the few centimeters it took to press you against his side. He was sure if his fingers weren’t pressed to you, they would’ve found their way around this man’s neck. “But let me know when you’ve had your fill, yeah?”
As he walked away, Choso stepped forward, unsure of what he would do but acting on an instinct he had yet to feel throughout his self-exploration as a human. Your hand, still warm from the tight grasp you had on the mug before you, wrapped around his fingers to tug him back. As if coming back down to earth, he blinked a few times, looking back at you with that familiarly terrifying expression— though you were already used to it.
“Are… you okay?” He asked quietly, still unsure of what had transpired and why it seemed to have changed the trajectory of their otherwise pleasant day.
You nodded, looking away from his concerned gaze to top off his hot chocolate with some marshmallows. As he peered down at the mug now being presented to him, you held your breath. Slowly, he allowed his tired smile to once again replace his frown, leaning forward to press a kiss to your cheek in thanks. The memory of what had transpired still lingered in the back of his mind, but he couldn’t bring himself to let it ruin his day as he began handing the filled mugs out to his brother and his friends.
You hoped that Choso had forgotten the whole ordeal by that night. The scene kept replaying in your head as the steaming water from your shower ran down your back— how you just stood there and took it as he humiliated you. At the very least, you were grateful that your boyfriend wasn’t too well-versed in deciphering innuendos just yet, but it was clear that he knew something wasn’t quite right.
Maybe you shouldn’t have pulled him back, let him act on whatever his instincts were clearly telling him to do at that moment. Though Hiroki was a talented enough sorcerer, you were confident in the ways Choso could outmatch him in size as well as combat. It would have been satisfying enough just to see the look on his face as your otherwise docile boyfriend stalked toward him with nothing but human instinct and lean muscle on his side. You smiled at the thought while turning the shower off.
No matter how much he probably deserved the reality check, Hiroki was still technically your coworker. The last thing you wanted was a meeting with the higher ups about how ‘mixing business with pleasure always ended badly’. It gave you a headache just thinking about it. You could be civil, you rationed with yourself as you towel dried. You only wondered if you could say the same for Choso if he ever put two and two together.
Sighing wistfully, you hung up your towel, moving to grab your clothes and get dressed. Blinking a few times in confusion, you took note of the empty counter where you typically left your clothes waiting for you.
“Shit.” You groaned quietly, your heart picking up a bit at the mental image of your pajamas at the edge of your bed where you’d forgotten them. Chewing at your bottom lip, your eyes drifted to the closed door where you knew Choso was waiting on the other side of.
You shook your head at your unnecessary nerves. Sure, you two had never… explored each other in such a way yet, but you were both adults. Ripping your towel back off the rack, you wrapped it snuggly around yourself before cracking the door open and peeking out.
Your boyfriend was lying stomach down on your bed, surely pretending to be sleeping as he had a tendency of doing so you wouldn’t kick him out at the end of the day. Rolling your eyes at his performance, you quietly slipped through the door, hoping he’d keep his eyes closed long enough for you to gather your clothes and run back into the bathroom.
As you tiptoed to the other side of the bed, you weren’t expecting his eyes to already be open, now staring widely back at you with an unreadable expression. With a small yelp of surprise, you flinched back. It took expert reflexes, but you managed to catch your towel swiftly as it began to slip down your chest.
Choso would be a stone cold liar if he said he had never imagined what was always hiding beneath the chunky cardigans and oversized sweaters you seemed so fond of. Though he could say with full confidence that he didn’t expect to be so… distracted by it now that it was right in front of him. Well, underneath the towel you were clutching desperately to, but still— it stopped barely midway down your thighs, allowing his eyes to traverse the smooth expanse of your legs and give him just an infuriatingly small taste of the curve of your ass that began just where the fabric ended.
He felt his fingers twist into the pillow he had clutched underneath his head as his eyes traveled up to your chest, where the swell of your breasts threatened to burst out the top of your towel thanks to the tight grip it now had around your body. They were almost heaving in time with your labored breaths, still glistening from the water of your shower, and god did he want to just lick it off of you.
“I forgot my clothes.” You stated awkwardly, hoping that he’d either make a move already or just close his eyes. This though— the silent, wide eyed stares that did little to reveal just what was going on in that head of his, the anticipation of what might come— you weren’t sure you could handle it anymore.
Choso licked his lips, finally blinking for the first time in what seemed to you like hours, before slowly sitting up at the edge of the bed. Tearing his gaze from you, his eyes landed on the neatly folded clothes beside him. It felt as though there was lead in his arms as he carefully picked them up. Instead of handing them to you as you thought he would though, they instead hovered over his lap as he continued to stare down at them in uncertainty.
“Cho—” You began, but he finally looked up at you.
“Can I kiss you?” He requested, fisting at your clothes while his eyes gave your body another once over before meeting yours again. “Just like this?”
A shiver ran down your spine at the way his ominous eyes seemed to drink you in. Releasing a shaky breath, you took a tentative step toward him, now standing directly between his muscular legs. In an instant, he was dropping your clothes to the ground, head tilting back to watch what you’d do next.
With your fist tightening around your towel, you carefully raised your knee to rest it beside his hip before doing the same with the other until you hovered over his lap. His glistening, pink lips parted, and you swore you heard the tiniest of moans slip past them as his hands quickly found the small of your back to pull you into a snug straddle on his lap. One of his hands remained firmly on your back as the other crept up to softly grasp your jaw as he finally kissed you.
That long since dreamt about, golden spot between your legs was pressed right against him now, and, even with the god-forsaken barrier of his pants, he could feel its heat right on his groin. Choso whined into your mouth, the fresh scent of your body wash only adding to the circus of sensations that were overriding his system.
The hand on your jaw drifted down your damp neck, testing its luck as it grazed over the mound of your breast still covered by the towel. You arched against his tentative touch, and he wondered if you’d think he was completely depraved if he asked you to take the damned thing off. If only he knew you were only keeping the useless fabric on for the sake of him setting his own pace.
Despite this, you couldn’t help yourself as you allowed your hands to dance down his torso and creep under the hem of his crewneck. Your fingers greedily explored his chiseled physique, the sensation of his abs jolting against your touch making you press yourself into the steadily growing tent in his pants. Choso gasped greedily at the feeling, quickly pulling away from you to yank his shirt over his head once your hands reached his shoulders.
Had you been given the chance, you were sure you could have spent hours staring at each rippling muscle of his abdomen, the way even his shoulders looked so deliciously defined— you wanted to just lean forward and take a bite of him. So, you did, hands gripping at his bulging biceps for balance as you sunk your teeth into his firm trap. His jaw dropped open involuntarily, and it was now his turn to drive his solid bulge into your center. You moaned softly around his muscle, releasing it in favor of wet kisses to soothe the now irritated area.
Choso wanted so desperately to chase that sultry sound that had just swam into his ears. He gripped at the nape of your neck to pull you back, panting softly as he stared into your blown-out eyes.
“Did… did that feel good?” He asked, hoping to any god that would listen to him that he wasn’t all alone with these confusingly craven feelings.
“Yeah,” You quickly rasped out, placing a hand on his shoulder to push him back against the mattress. His hand hesitantly found your thigh, running his palm up the smooth flesh until his fingers met the hem of your towel. Leaning forward, you rolled your hips against his, delighting in the way his face scrunched up so gorgeously when he moaned. “Everything you do feels good to me, Cho.”
The fingers against your thigh squeezed at the fat there as his free hand reached up to tuck your hair behind your ear in hopes of getting a better look at you. Despite his mind being on a completely different astral realm at the moment, this movement struck a memory he desperately wanted to forget about right now.
Shaking his head subtly, he pushed it to the back of his mind and allowed his hand to creep under your towel as you leaned down to kiss him once again. Your skin was still warm from your shower, and his fingers were a mere inches away from your bare ass, and god why the fuck can’t he stop thinking about Hiroki and his grimy hands in your hair?
You pulled back a bit upon noticing the falter in his movements.
“You okay, Cho? You wanna stop?”
“No!” He insisted eagerly, cursing himself for ruining the moment. An amused smile played at your lips, and you leaned down to begin pressing wet kisses against his jaw. His dark eyes stared up at the ceiling, the same words replaying in his mind until he couldn’t take it anymore. In one swift moment, he sat up, hands gripped at your back so you didn’t fall off his lap as you yelped in surprise. “I just…”
The way your fingers were now tracing feather-light touches up the nape of his neck was making it hard for him to concentrate. Still, when he looked at you he could only see that unexplainably tense expression you’d given just a few hours ago. Whatever chills the sensation of your bare thighs pressed against the skin of his waist were producing though were wildly outnumbered by that gnawing feeling of dread growing steadily in his stomach.
“What did he mean?” Choso’s question came out firmly despite his apprehensive gaze. You tilted your head in question, but he quickly clarified upon seeing your confusion. “Hiroki.”
You didn’t say anything for a moment, but your knowing expression still made his stomach churn.
“Is that really what you’re thinking about right now, Cho?” You tried to smile easily at him, leaning forward to press another chaste kiss to his pouted lips, to which he returned quickly.
“Something is going on.” He pulled away just enough to mumble against your lips. With his forehead pressed against yours, you could feel the way his brows furrowed at the thought of being left out of something seemingly significant. You sighed, your warm breaths mingling in the minuscule space between you.
“Remember when I was gonna go on that date? You know, before we got together.” You began as you pulled away to sit back on his thighs. After a short moment of thought, he nodded. The slow unfurrowing of his brows told you he was already placing the pieces together though. “It was supposed to be with him, and… I guess he’s just still upset about how I went about it, is all.”
“So, when he said to let him know when you got your fill—”
“Choso, don’t think—”
“He meant of me.”
The mark against his nose twitched as his face heated, but for the first time, you weren’t sure if it was born from embarrassment or rage. You tried to gage the far off look in his eyes but were coming up short. A shiver shot down your spine when he looked at you once again, his dark eyes sharp as daggers.
“He talked about you like you were food.” He spat, the rest of the odd conversation finally clicking in his mind. The fingers against your back dug into your towel before he carefully maneuvered you to the spot beside him. You quickly sat up when he snatched his crewneck from the end of the bed. Grabbing blindly at your sweatpants, you shoved them on under your towel.
“What are you doing?” You questioned cautiously, gripping at the other end of his sweater to stop him.
“I’m going to talk to him.” But the enraged glint in his eyes told you he had more detailed plans than he was letting on.
“No, you’re not.” You insisted, tugging on his arm.
“This isn’t the first time he’s talked to you like this, is it?” He assumed, searching your face as if daring you to lie. “I don’t like this. I’m going to say something.”
“Choso, I’m asking you to please let it go.” You pleaded as you tugged him down to sit beside you. “If you make a scene, I’m going to be the one who will have to clean it up later. Please, I’m a big girl— you don’t need to defend me.”
His shoulders slowly deflated while taking in the desperation in your eyes. He could feel his resolve slipping from right underneath him.
“Will it really upset you?”
“It really will.”
The man’s sigh morphed into a quiet groan that you wouldn’t have noticed had you not been so close to him at the moment. His shadowy eyes, still swimming with that unmistakable vexation, watched as the frigid air finally caught up to you, and a subtle tremble shook your frame. Pursing his pouted lips, he slipped his forgotten crewneck over your head before pulling the damp towel off of you.
“Are you gonna kick me out now?” He muttered, widening his eyes in the matter he knew you always seemed to melt for. As you had already come to recognize— Choso catches on fast.
“You can stay as long as you do that heater thing with your hands again.” You compromised with a grin, watching as he wasted no time pulling the covers over the two of you. Scooting closer to you, both his hands came up to cup your face, and you soon melted into the warmth that flooded them. Humming contentedly, you reached up to hold onto his wrist as you allowed your eyes to drift shut.
He studied you as you relaxed against him, the fat of your cheeks squished against his hands, and he felt his heart accelerate. It had been a few months now since he began learning of this side of humanity— learning about you. No matter how much he seemed to squeeze at you when he had the privilege of being beside you, or how ever long he’d spend memorizing the divots and marks on your face, nothing Choso did ever stopped the longing he felt for you when you parted. A soft call of your name had you humming in question, too comfortable to bother opening your eyes.
“Do you think you’ll ever… get your fill of me?”
At his apprehensive question, you sighed wistfully, blindly trailing your hand up until it tangled into his hair.
“I could never get enough of you, Cho. I— ” I love you. The words died in your throat. Cracking your eyes open, you found that he was already peering back at you, patiently awaiting the rest of your sentence. Was he ready for that? Were you ready for that? Even so, you questioned if he would really understand the depths of your words enough to reciprocate them genuinely. Twisting your fingers into the hair on his nape, you tugged at it gently, the way he always shivered over. “I think you’re my favorite guy.”
The way he smiled warmly at you, eyes glistening as he started from scratch once again making sure he had every part of you committed to memory, told you that your meaning got across anyway. One of his hands creeped around to the back of your head to pull you against his bare chest, slotting his leg between yours in hopes of enveloping you completely.
“You’re my favorite girl.”
As the two of you went about your week, you prayed that your intimate reassurance would be enough for Choso. Though you could hardly blame him for getting so upset, you wouldn’t change your stance on him letting this one go. And, truthfully, he had all but forgotten it that next morning when he woke up beside you. The only thing still fresh in his mind was your sweet promise, the reassurance that, of all the men that had waltzed into your life, he had somehow managed to find himself at the top of your list.
This haze-like bliss only lasted so long though, and he was rudely reminded of the need for that conversation in the first place when he saw Hiroki again. The man wasn’t even doing anything wrong, simply talking to one of the supervisors about his next assignment, but everything about him made Choso’s blood boil.
You had agreed to go on a date with him once, so that must mean at some point in time, in some shape or form, you had been interested in him, too. It was selfish, childish even, but to hell if he didn’t feel like a petulant toddler at the very thought of it. Tearing his eyes away from the man, he continued to remind himself of your request.
“You gonna show this dude up or what?” Nobara suddenly questioned with a quirk of her perfectly defined brow. Luckily, your fondness of the half-curse helped Yuji’s friends warm up to him more, though they still had difficulty relating to his strange demeanor half the time.
Choso grumbled under his breath, continuing to collect the materials they needed for their sparring today. A part of him wanted to yell that he was trying to, but he thought it best to keep the kids out of his relationship with their sensei.
“Yeah, bro, I can’t believe you didn’t kick his ass the other day.” Yuji guffawed with a shake of his head.
“It’s not worth the trouble.” He responded simply, hoping that they’d change the subject so he could think of anything else.
“Like hell it is!” The redhead scoffed, piling the targets she was holding into Megumi’s arms so she could pop her hip at the man before her. “You’re underestimating how much girls like a man that fights for them.”
This made Choso’s movements falter for a moment. Should he really be taking romantic advice from teenagers? Yuji circled around him as he continued driving home their point.
“Yeah, you’re basically giving this dude free reign to flirt with your girl when you just stand there and let it happen.”
“That’s not what I’m doing.” The half-curse finally defended, his mind reeling with the mixed information he was receiving.
“Then do something about it!” Kugisaki shouted in exasperation as the trio followed him outside. “You want her to feel unappreciated? Get bored of you?”
Her words hit him like a ton of bricks, the memory of Hiroki’s taunting playing like a sick melody in the back of his head. Perhaps if he had been in a different state of mind, not already plagued with insecurities of which he’d never had to worry about before, he would have been able to recognize that the teenagers probably didn’t know best. But it wasn’t different though, and insecurity and jealousy were rearing their ugly heads at him in a first time’s greeting.
Choso was far too consumed in these new, vile emotions to not allow these kids’ words to seep into his veins. So, when Hiroki passed by him with that nasty smirk on his smug face as the student’s were sparring, purposefully shouldering at the half-curse’s already tensed arm, rational thought was out the window. His hand quickly wrapped around the man’s wrist before he could leave. Taking a calculated breath, he thought that maybe talking wouldn’t be so bad.
“What’s your pro—”
“I know what you’re doing, and I’m asking you to stop.” Choso explained levelly, his grip unintentionally tightening around his wrist as Hiroki raised an amused brow at him. “You’re making her uncomfortable.”
“Easy man, c’mon.” There was the smallest trace of unease in the man’s falsely nonchalant voice. He tugged at his arm in an attempt to free it, but there wasn’t a chance in hell that was happening before he agreed to the request being laid before him. “I haven’t done anything to her.”
“I know you think I’m stupid, but I’m not.” Choso seethed, and perhaps that insecurity was doing the speaking for him, because he just knew how he appeared to everyone else. Despite his age, he was less experienced, less assimilated to the world around him, and though he tried, he wasn’t sure he’d ever catch up. Still, he wasn’t a child, and the last thing he wanted was for you to ever think of him as someone who couldn’t be there for you because of his inexperience with humanity. “And she might be worried about making a mess, but I’m not.”
He wasn’t sure what was coming over him, but it felt as though he might implode without the opportunity to prove himself to this scum who at one point had a shot with you— who was fucking with you right under his nose. Hiroki scoffed “There’s no need for all that. We’re friends right?” Using his free hand, he patted Choso’s shoulder with an attempted brotherly bonding gesture before leaning into his ear. “No bitch worth getting a black eye for, right?”
He wasn’t sure what caught the trio’s attention away from their sparring first— the instantaneous morphing of his blood mark as it traversed the length of his vexed face in tandem with his last resolve of patience snapping, or the literal snapping of Hiroki’s wrist under his crushing grip.
“Call her by her name.” His heated demand somehow made it out over the pained yells of the man crumpling to his knees before him.
“I—”
“Actually,” Choso’s indignation wouldn’t let him just shut the fuck up and let it go. The feeling of bones crunching under his grip didn’t quell his anger— it made it worse. He was boiling over, bursting at the seams in search of relief that was nowhere in sight. “Don’t speak to her again— don’t speak about her again.”
He thought it would help, give him a sense of accomplishment that he’d protected you from the disrespect of the lesser than individuals you were forced to call coworkers. What he didn’t understand though, was the fact that he was protecting himself. This man could come and make you think lesser of him, and how could he not do anything to stop it? Though he’d had time for his confidence in areas such as combat and technique to flourish over the years, Choso still held the vulnerability of a man decades younger than his body revealed.
Despite his own justification, nothing would do away with the precipicing guilt setting his guts ablaze with discomfort. It couldn’t be explained— Hiroki deserved it, he deserved the humiliation of having to wake in the morning with the knowledge that everyone saw him brought to his knees so easily. So, why was the half-curse’s mind reeling with dramatized scenarios of how he might explain himself to you when the news undoubtedly found your ears? No matter the myriad of alternate endings he’d concocted though, nothing could have truly prepared him for the betrayal in your eyes as you burst into his space that night.
Choso stood from the edge of his bed with a haste, as if trying to shroud the fact that he’d been staring at the door with an inexplicable immobility for what seemed like hours. His eyes fluttered as the heavy door fell back against its frame with a thud. Your lips parted, almost as though you had your monologue pre-planned from the moment you began your enraged trek toward his living space, but they shut with a click of your teeth as your face scrunched in frustration.
His feet were planted firmly into the wooden floors beneath him, preparing himself for the calculated rage that was surely building within that heavenly frame of yours. What came though was worse, because your words were quiet and your eyes lost that flare of outrage that they held when you first entered, replaced by a hoaxed glimmer that made your irises gloss over heartbreakingly.
“I asked you not to, Choso.” Your cheeks were still ablaze with an unfamiliar rouge, and he wasn’t sure if it was the bitterness of the cold nipping at your skin or an internal ticking clock.
“How could I have ignored it?” He tried, but you were shaking your head before the last syllables spilled from his lips.
“Because I asked you not to.” You ground out once again, that rage making a sudden resurgence as you took an indignant step toward him. “Do you know how humiliated I was?”
“You didn’t hear what he said about—”
“I don’t care what he said!” You gasped in exasperation, a smile of disbelief gracing your face before it fell back into that painful scrunch that made his soul cry out. “I don’t care about him. I care about you, I care about my job, my reputation, Choso!”
The man fell silent before you, his face beginning to sting from the blood rushing to his mortified cheeks. He could only stare down at you with that familiar pout as you crossed your arms over your chest and shook your head.
“I had to hear about how I was the cause of some pissing match today that put one of our sorcerers on leave.” You began pacing the room in your incensed explanation. Choso wanted to ask you what that meant, as he always felt so comfortable doing with you, but he couldn’t bring himself to open his mouth. “Which, by the way, I am now having to help out on missions during said leave, just to put a cherry on top of this shit cake.”
“I-I’m sorry, I—”
“No you’re not, you’re sorry because I’m having to clean it up like I told you I would.” You knew you might have been laying it on a little thick, but logic was racing from you in the midst of your humiliation.
“You’re right, I’m not sorry.” He stated affirmatively, as if just now coming to this realization himself. Your brows shot into your hairline. “And you can’t expect me to be, it’s not fair. I can’t, I don’t know—”
“Yes, you can.”
“I don’t know how.”
“I’ve seen you learn to do things a hell of a lot harder than controlling your anger, Choso.”
“No— I don’t know how to not feel like I’m not good enough for you.” He finally confessed, face ablaze with a shameful tint of red. Your arms gradually fell from their defensive position, hovering at your sides with the weight of a thousand bricks as you watched the dampness gather in his waterline. “I-I’m sorry I made things hard for you, but I don’t know what to do with these feelings. You might have had time to figure it out, but this is my first time, okay?”
“Choso—” You breathed softly, reaching out for him when he turned from you to bury the heels of his hands into his leaking eyes.
“I’m sorry if I messed up. I just don’t know, I don’t—” His trembling ramble was cut short when you wrapped your arms around his waist, resting your cheek against his back. “Sometimes I don’t understand when someone is making fun of me right to my face, but I didn’t care until they started doing it to you, and I was…” You felt him take a shuddering breath. “I was too clueless to be there for you, or to defend you, or—”
“Cho, please look at me.” You pleaded gently. With an anxious air that was just so like him, he slowly shifted in your loosening grasp until you were looking right up at his blushing, tear stained cheeks. “I’m sorry I got mad at you. I didn’t know you were feeling like this.”
His somber eyes drifted to the side as if unable to look at you as he carefully sank onto the floor. You placed a hand on his shoulder while you lowered your beside him, watching carefully as he shoved his head into his hands.
“You shouldn’t be apologizing to me. I’m the one that messed up.” He corrected affirmatively. After a moment though, he peeked up at you with a hesitant purse of his lips. “Well, I didn’t mess up when I broke his wrist. I’d do it to his other hand too if I had the chance.”
Despite the mess his aforementioned actions had spilled upon you, you couldn’t help but laugh softly with an incredulous shake of your head.
“Can I be honest?” You questioned, nudging against his arm with your shoulder, and he nodded with a quick sniffle. “I’m almost more upset that I didn’t get to see it.”
This helped ease some of the palpable tension in his shoulders, knowing that if you were still able to laugh with him that he hadn’t entirely fucked everything up. A shy smile spread shakily across his wet lips. Leaning forward, you brushed a featherlight touch against his cheek.
“Sometimes I feel things so deeply, and I don’t know where to put it all.” His attempted explanation made your heart warm. “I don’t know how to make sense of them, and I don’t know if I’m the only one feeling them.”
“Give them to me then.” You insisted, shifting to sit on your knees in front of him. “I’ll help you. I always have, remember? You have to talk to me though.”
Give them to you? There was a point so early on in your relationship when he was willing to do so without question, eager to learn whatever wisdom your advantage on humanity could give him. You always seemed to have the right answer— the ones that made it all click into place. Choso was learning though that as your relationship blossomed, as did the complexity of all those human emotions— as did the intensity of them. How far could he push before the impending possibility came to fruition that he was alone in these alien feelings?
“I thought if he kept talking about me that… eventually you’d believe him.”
You maneuvered closer to him until his hands found your waist, inviting you to sit on his lap. Running your hands up the sides of his neck, he closed his eyes as your fingers slipped into his hair.
“Did you think any less of me because of what he said?” You asked quietly, your voice barely above a whisper. His eyes quickly cracked open, and he stared back at you as if offended that you’d ask such a thing of him.
“No, I would never—”
“Then how could you believe I’d ever think less of you?”
Silence hung between you, weighing you down on his lap as he stared back at you. Your words made him feel guilty— as though he had betrayed you by thinking so lowly of your devotion to him. His eyes drifted down your face, lips parting with an unspoken apology lingering between the minuscule space separating your mouth from his.
“I… I have something for you.”
His words were familiar, making your lips curl up at the memory of the day he’d confessed his feelings for you. Tilting your head, you squinted your eyes teasingly.
“Is it another car?” You quipped, almost breaking your resolve as you watched his face fall, eyes drifting to the side in doubt before meeting yours once again.
“Do you want another car?”
God, how could you ever stay mad at him?
You clung onto Choso’s shoulders as he piggybacked you back to your dorm, purposefully jostling you here and there just to hear your harmonious giggles. Though you told him you could walk just fine on your own, he insisted on taking you himself— not that you fought him terribly hard on it either. In fact, you found it endearing how much he delighted in carrying you around, though you weren’t sure if it was due to his own enjoyment or the knowledge that you simply melted each time for it.
“Close your eyes.” Choso scolded as he looked back at your curious gaze once he’d reached your door. Huffing in frustration, you allowed your eyes to shut, your head falling against his shoulder in defeat. You heard him rustiling with the spare key you’d given him— not that he had ever managed the tenacity to invite himself in without your prior invitation. Each time, you’d shake your head in amusement at the sound of his gentle raps against your door, and each time you’d remind him that he had his own key.
The lingering smell of your festive candle flooded your nose as he stepped into the room, making you sigh contendedly. He crouched down until you felt your bum hit the soft comforter of your bed, and he carefully released you.
“Don’t look yet.” He commanded clemently as you bounced back gently against your mattress.
“Not peeking.” You assured with a smile, anticipation tickling up your toes and into your legs as he leaned down to press a swift kiss against your forehead. Upon feeling him pull away, your chest caved a bit in disappointment, your thoughts already having wandered far from whatever likely innocent surprise he had awaiting you.
There was a subtle rustling on the other end of the room before a soft click had your curiosity reeling.
“Um— okay, you can look now.”
Squinting your eyes open, you were met with a myriad of gently twinkling lights. Blinking a few times to focus your vision on the sudden onslaught of brightness, an abrupt gasp escaped you at the sight of the lit up Christmas tree in the corner of your space. The ornament adorning it were a mess of contrasting colors, some too close together while there were various bare spots on the tree. Most of the decorations, you noted with a suppressed giggle, were focused on the upper half of the tree while it remained awkwardly vacant toward the bottom. It was a bit crooked, leaning marginally toward the right in its stand. It was far from the meticulously coordinated trees you had grown so accustomed to setting up, but it was perfect to you nonetheless.
“Do you like it?” Choso questioned anxiously, smiling apprehensively at his first attempted Christmas tree. With his shadowy eyes fluttering from his handiwork to your awe-struck face, he tilted his head. “I can change it if you don’t like it.”
“When did you do this, Cho?” You breathed out incredulously, feeling the salty dampness already gathering pathetically in your waterline. Sliding off the bed, you took a few, slow steps toward the tree.
“Oh— I… I came this morning after you left for class.” He explained with downcast eyes. “I’m sorry for coming in without— hmph!”
His practically instinctual apologies were cut short as you tossed yourself onto his chest, arms wrapping snuggly around his neck. Without question, he was trailing his needy hands up your back to press you closer to him, dipping his nose into your nape with that love-sick smile of his.
“This is alot better than a car.” You attempted a joke through your onslaught of emotions, but the slight tremble in your voice was betraying you. “You didn’t have to do all this.”
“You said Christmas gifts have to go under a tree.” Your boyfriend said obviously, and you followed his gaze to the choppily wrapped present sitting under said tree. Biting down your grin, you peered back up at him with a raised brow.
“And would that be for me too, babe?” You teased, revelling in the sheepish smile that softened his intimidatingly sharp features as he nodded. “Well what do you want for Christmas, Cho?”
The sun was steadily setting outside your window, causing the soft glow of the string lights to warm your sparkling eyes as they stared up at him in question. The warmth in his flushed cheeks seemed to drain from his face, settling like stones at the pit of his stomach. Gulping at the lump in his throat, he shook his head softly at your question.
“I don’t think I should answer that.” He sighed out honestly, lips twitching nervously under your questioning gaze.
“What do you mean?”
The tilt of your head made your luscious hair sway just so, the ends brushing teasingly against his arm and leaving goosebumps in their wake. Had you focused enough, you would have felt the way his heart was beating out of his firm chest, making his breathing labor.
Give them to me. Your words rang in the back of his muddled mind. That overwhelming sense of uncertainty and confusion flooded him once again, and though you had specifically told him you’d walk him through anything, this just seemed too daunting a confession.
“It’s not—” His tongue darted out to lick his drying lips, and your wanton eyes followed the movement with a sharp precision. “I don’t think it’s… appropriate.”
Your brows rose marginally at his claim, the realization flooding you with the unconscious squeeze of his hands on your waist. A deep, calculated breath had your chest rising to brush against his, and you felt him shudder at the proximity.
“It’s… just us here.” You offered quietly, hoping your silent invitation was enough for him to burst out of the anxious shell he’d been hiding behind all these months. He furrowed his brows in contemplation at your words, weighing whether the fruits of his vulnerability would outweigh the humiliation of possible rejection. Biding his time, he leaned down to press a longing kiss against your awaiting lips, the little remaining blood that was keeping his mind functioning properly rushing down south.
“Just us?” He repeated breathlessly against your lips as he tried to make sense of the new territory he was daring to traverse.
You nodded urgently, reaching up on your tiptoes to chase his panting mouth. Choso’s hands traveled down your waist to hook under your bum, hoisting you up around his hips as he carefully sunk to his knees. The soft whimpers escaping him were driving you into a nonsensical stupor despite his attempts to swallow them down.
Shifting your hips forward, you urged him to fall back against his hands, his long fingers digging into the plush rug beneath him. You took advantage of the exposed expanse of his heaving chest, running your hands down his pecks until your fingers were dancing across the ripples of his abs as you bit at his lips. His response to your explorative touch was almost instantaneous, raising his hips in a desperate hope that your hands would slip just a few inches lower.
All his not-so-subtle thrust did though was drive his painfully constricted length right against your inner thigh, the friction nearly causing his arms to buckle underneath of him. You had never mentioned it before— all the times his cock would press against you in such an embarrassingly obvious fashion. It never took much at all, and Choso wasn’t sure if your nonchalance at the feeling was because it was normal, or if you were simply saving face for him as you so endearingly did more often than not.
Whichever it was though, he couldn’t take it anymore, not when you were dragging your hips against him as though you knew much more about his affliction than you dared to let on. The moan that left him almost teetered on the edge of a cry, and he brought a hand up to push against the subtle arch in your back, pressing you firmly against where he needed you the most.
Your warm breath shuddered against his swollen lips as you moaned. The hands you had on his abdomen clutched desperately at his shirt, fighting for your composure because you could feel every inch of him straining right against your core, and his sweatpants were doing little to leave anything to the imagination. Pulling away from you in a frenzy, his eyes remained squeezed shut as his fingers dug into the fabric of your sweater.
“Help me.” He pleaded, opening his eyes hesitantly to catch your reaction with burning cheeks.
“He-Help you?” You repeated unassuredly, and he nodded quickly as your face flushed with the implications of his request.
The hand on your back snaked around to tangle in with your own fingers, tentatively maneuvering your hand down his naval. His breath hitched as he guided you over his waistband, and he peered up at you timidly. A damp warmth spread along the lining of your panties at the raw vulnerability of his movements. When you made no indication of protest, his fingers danced up to grip gently at your wrist before you finally took the initiative to finish his clearly set out path, wrapping your hand around the prominent length poking through the outline of his bottoms.
“Please.” Choso gasped out, bucking up into your warm hand. A blissed out hum reverberated in his chest, and he leaned forward to press his forehead against yours. “This is all I want. You’re all I want.”
Your thusfar gentle grip on his cock tightened ever so slightly at his tender words, and it was almost instinctual when you palmed him purposefully, squeezing carefully toward his tip in a manner that had him reduced to puddy beneath you. Fighting through your lustful haze, you nodded deliriously at his request, pressing a chaste kiss to the corner of his mouth.
“Choso,” It was clear that you were trying so very hard to steady your voice, and your careful tone flooded into his consciousness. His darkly-lined eyes were half-lidded as they regarded you in question. “Have you… ever touched yourself?”
This made his gaze widen just a hair, the mark across his nose twitching in a tell-tale sign of his embarrassment. Though it seemed impossible, his face seemed to flush that much brighter as he opened and closed his mouth in an attempt to gather his composure before he answered you. A shaky huff escaped him as he cast his gaze to the side, and your free hand reached up to brush the hair from his face.
“It’s okay, it’s normal. I just want to understand how much you know.” You explained gently. At this, his lashes shifted as he hesitantly looked back up at you before offering a nod so subtle you almost missed it.
His mind was reeling with memories of all the mornings he’d spent with his hand shoved haphazardly down his pants, dreams of you having roused him from his sleep and lingering without any hope of solace. He thought about how dirty he’d felt when facing you afterwards, ignorant to the fact that he’d spilled himself onto his own mattress with fantasies that one day it’d be you. After so long of feeling isolated and depraved in these unfamiliar cravings, you were right here above him, your hand stroking up his cock in an all too familiar motion, telling him he was normal.
You nodded slowly at his confirmation, releasing your grip on him to trail your fingers along the sliver of skin exposed between where his shirt had ridden up and his waistband. His large frame trembled at the miniscule touch, hips rising in anticipation of your next move. The sudden shift dragged his length right against your pulsing clit, and you could barely disguise your breathy moan as you leaned into the friction.
The wheels were turning in his head as he absorbed your reaction, his curious eyes locked onto where you two were connected. He tentatively raised a hand and settled it testingly just below your belly button before peering up at you.
“Can I… touch you too?”
You hummed affirmatively, quickly maneuvering back as Choso leaned forward purposefully to lay you against the pillowy rug just beside the Christmas tree. He hovered on his knees between your spread legs, eyes drifting all over as if he didn’t know where to start. Your eyes fluttered shut as his hands began their wavering trek up the sides of your thighs. Feeling him pause at your waistband, you cracked your eyes open.
“You can take them off.” You offered, watching the way his eyes lit up. “—if you want.”
If he wanted. The man could have laughed in your face, because he’d be damned if he wanted anything more right now.
Hooking his fingers into the waistband of your leggings, you assisted him by lifting your hips while he tugged them down. In his desperate pursuit, the laced hem of your panties were partially yanked down, leaving them bunched and just barely covering your intimates. He was leaning down, eyes locked on your center as though it might disappear if he blinked too long. His intense gaze made you flush, and you weren’t expecting it when he pushed the nearly translucent fabric to the side, the sudden gust of cool air against your wetness making you shiver.
Choso hummed, but you could swear it morphed into a soft groan as he decided that this view just wouldn’t do before sliding your panties off as well. The sight of your plush folds glistening under the twinkling Christmas lights was causing a sheen sweat to break out across his neck, and he pulled uncomfortably at the fabric of his shirt.
“Take it off, Cho.” You pleaded, desperate to not be the only one so exposed.
There was no need to tell him a second time, and his shirt was quickly joined with your discarded bottoms. Moved by the wanton way your eyes seemed to drink him in, he found himself crawling up over you to kiss you once again. Your hands wrapped greedily around his broad shoulders, nails working their way across his taut skin. He gasped against you as your hips rolled up in desperate search of friction, your wet warmth grazing against his covered thigh.
“How? Show me how to touch you.” He rasped out, trembling hands already dancing down your naval as he propped himself up with his free arm. Much like he’d done just moments prior, you laced your finger through his, guiding them through your folds.
“Here.” You gasped as his warm fingers grazed your clit. Choso’s face crumpled at the feeling, mouth falling open in a silent moan. You pressed down on his middle and ring finger with your own, encouraging the soft circular motions around your swollen bud. The back of your head hit the rug as you arched into his touch, slowly removing your guiding hand once the motion had grown familiar to him.
“Am I doing it right?” His question came out practically a whisper as he watched you writhe against his hand. The strain in his pants was becoming painful at this point, but he couldn’t bring himself to stop the sensual circles that were sending you into such a whimpering frenzy, by his hand nonetheless.
“Mhmm,” You hummed, one hand drifting up to grip at his bicep as the other trailed under your sweater, lifting it up in search of relief from the sudden sweltering heat Choso seemed to emanate. “You’re doing so good for me, Cho.”
A groan worked its way up his throat at your praise, and his hips lurched forward in search of the pathetic friction your leg could provide him. His desperation was sending sparks up your thighs, making his slippery massaging feel that much more heavenly as you felt the familiar coil tightening in your stomach.
Your jaw popped open, the hand that had found its way under your sweater clutching at your breast as if it could ground you. Choso’s eyes followed the movement hungrily. The swell of your breasts were just barely peeking out from the hem of your top, but it was enough to drive him into a frenzy if he couldn’t see what it was hiding immediately.
“Take it off.” He commanded with a wavering resolve, his fingers increasing their pressure against you in anticipation.
Had your teetering release not been solely in his hands at the moment, you would have teased him for his sudden burst of assertive confidence, but you thought you might begin kicking and screaming if anything deterred his rhythmic motions right now. Crossing your arms over your chest to grasp at the bottom of the offending sweater, you messily ripped it over your head before settling back against the rug that was now warm from your imprint.
Your breasts bounced with your abrupt motions, and Choso felt the saliva gather embarrassingly on his tongue. It was far too clouded in your mind for you to notice though, your breaths beginning to come out in short pants as your peak drew nearer and nearer.
“Please, please, please.” You babbled nonsensically, gripping at his forearm as your hips began grinding against his fingers. And, god, he wasn’t sure what you were begging for, but he knew he’d lay down his life right here and now if it meant he could deliver it to you on a silver dish, because he knew for certain that he’d never had the privilege of laying his eyes on anything nearly as debauchedly stunning as your naked body submitted so vulnerably beneath him.
“Anything, I’ll give you anything.” He rationed through lustfully slurred words. Dipping down, he pressed drooling kisses against your heaving breasts, succumbing to a primal desire as he sunk his teeth into one of them.
“Cho—” Your choked plea pitched until it fell silent all together.
Shifting his weight from his propped arm to his knees, he used his now free hand to press down against your hip as your thighs began trembling with the force of your climax. A warming flush spread from your scalp down your spine, sending tingles of relief down each of your nerves until you slumped back against the ground.
“Ah— ah!” You stammered out as your boyfriend continued his purposeful ministrations against your now overly-sensitive bundle of nerves. Slamming your thighs shut against his wrist, you attempted to shimmy away from his relentless fingers. “Too much, Cho, it’s too much!”
His lips popped off your breast to pout wetly at you, the hand on your waist pulling you back down toward him as his fingers finally paused their assault on your center. Loosening the squeeze your thighs had trapped him in, he ran his hand up your stomach and chest before grasping the side of your neck.
Upon closer inspection, you noticed the dampness that clung to his lashes and the way his brows were drawn softly together as he looked down at you hazily.
“Choso? Are you—”
“I love you.”
Despite having been spread open before him just seconds ago while coming undone on his fingers, you somehow felt all the more exposed now. Your eyes fluttered a few times, and you drew your arms closer to your chest as though it would shield you from his raw gaze. A breathy, forced laugh escaped you as you shook your head softly at him.
“You’re just turned on right now, Choso.” You tried to brush off his sudden confession, protecting your pride from falling victim to his naivety. He shook his head though, pulling you up until you sat perched upon his lap.
“No, I love you.” He stated again, this time more matter of factly. “You’re the only one who treats me like.. I’m human and not a curse. You’re the only one who makes me feel like I am human.” His fingers wrapped hesitantly around your forearms as he gently coaxed your arms away from their defensive positions. “I love you. Don’t you love me?”
A soft tremor wobbled your bottom lip, but you willed yourself to pull it together. Allowing your protective walls to crumble down with your last bit of resolve, you pushed at his chest until his back hit the floor. Not once did he let his eyes drift from yours, even as your fingers dug into his waistband to tug down the remainder of his clothes.
His swelled length sprang free from the fleece lined prison they had been straining against for painfully long, falling against his stomach with a barely noticeable smack. You thought he might shy away from you, flush that familiar shade of red you’d begun making synonymous with him in your mind, but it only felt so natural to him to have your lingering eyes on even the most intimate parts of him.
“Of course I do.” You whispered, moving to straddle his slim, defined waist. A shudder racked your body at the feeling of his thick cock pressing against your stomach, his tip already smeared with evidence of his arousal. His mouth fell open, eyes widening at the sensation of your soaked folds running across his length. With his rustled hair splayed out on the floor surrounding his head, pupils creating black holes in his already midnight stained eyes, you concluded that Choso would never stop growing more beautiful. “I love you.”
With a fluttering blink, a stray tear gathered at the corner of his eye, slipping down his temple as you nudged his tip past your slicked entrance. It had admittedly been a while since you were last intimate with someone, so you couldn’t help but wince subtly at the stretch of his girth forcing your walls open. For him though, he wouldn’t know the difference, because he was inside you, and your heat was enveloping him like flames licking up his every nerve ending.
His hands hovered over your back as you slowly sank down onto him, unable to find the courage to disrupt you until he was finally buried in you to completion. With featherlight brushed against your spine, Choso ran his fingers down the expanse of the silken skin on your back until he met the curve of your ass. Curling his grasp around the plush of fat he’d learned he could utterly worship till the day his body became one with the earth, he held you in place for a moment.
By the heaving of his chest and the tremble in his pitched moan, you knew he wouldn’t last very long, but you were satisfied enough to watch him come undone under the careful touch of someone who truly loved him— someone he truly loved.
“Hah, I— I love you.” The man gasped again, teary eyes rolling back into his skull as you steadied your hands on his chest to lift your hips just barely off him before sliding back down. You bit at your bottom lip as his tip grazed against that plush of nerves that hadn’t been explored in so long. His lips were pulling down into his famous pout while he planted his heels into the ground to chase your rhythm with sloppy thrusts of his own.
“I love you, Cho.” You reciprocated through a harmonious moan, watching his face scrunch up pitifully as the pace of his hips grew erratic.
“Bite me—ah!” He whimpered softly, puppy dog eyes pleading up at you in the way he knew you could never refuse.
Your lips curled up at his request, unaware of just how much your previous actions had lingered in his mind. Tracing up the firm planes of his chest, your fingers tangled into his hair, tugging at it to maneuver his head to the side before leaning down to sink your teeth into the first bite you had left on him, the mark just barely faded on his trap.
Choso felt utterly consumed by you, his heart thumping wildly in his muffled ears. With the pressure of your fingers’ grasp against his roots combined with the subtle sting of your canines against the sensitive skin just below his neck, it took all but one last supple roll of your hips for it all to come crashing down on him.
His eyes rolled back, a delirious grin tickling his lips at the sensation that he was all yours to use. The once gentle squeeze his fingers had on your bottom morphed into a frenzied digging, surely leaving crescent shaped marks in the wake of his chipping nails. It was meant to hold you there, ensure your hips stayed glued to his own as he spilled himself inside of you with bone grinding thrusts. He could feel himself oozing out of you and onto the unsuspecting rug beneath him, but none of it mattered to him because he finally understood.
It didn’t matter the spiteful words that would slice across his vulnerable soul, and it didn’t matter whether or not someone thought he was human enough for you. What he was experiencing now, enveloped in the must of sex-littered air that surrounded you was all the confirmation he’d ever need that he was irrevocably soul tied to you. The half-curse had seen the absolute pinnacle of humanity, and you were perched upon it with your drooping breasts and pleasure-ridden face— the one that made the space between your brows crease and your nails dig into whatever slab of muscle on him was closest to you.
As he finally began tumbling down the hill of his climax, his hands drifted up to splay across your back, keeping you pressed against his sweat lined chest. The twinkling lights in his peripheral seemed to blur at the edges of his sight as they mixed with his lingering tears. You were working gentle kisses up his neck, dragging your wet lips across his sharp jaw until you finally circled back to his still swollen lips. He hummed against your kiss, deciding affirmatively that he’d stay awkwardly splayed out across the floor of your dorm all night long if it meant he could keep you this close.
“I… I think I have to get you a better Christmas gift.” Choso concluded, revelling in the sensation of your warmth still enveloping his softening manhood. “Yours was way better.”
You laughed tiredly against his cheek, pulling back to peer down at him in question.
“What did you get me?”
His cheeks flushed, and he looked over at the small gift that sat just a few feet away from you under the tree with a soft pout.
“It’s… it’s a Britney Spears CD.”
this was supposed to come out before christmas, but alas the procrastination won this time, so sorry for the delay :(
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In that instant, her empire was gone. Gl'bgolyb's swan song wiped out her entire race, save the Condesce and her lone heiress, leaving the empire nothing more than a galactic necropolis of floating tombs.
I think that this would be a very interesting setting to explore, as the dust settles.
Picture it. You’re an alien race, one of thousands that have been enslaved by these awful galactic conquerors for untold centuries. One day, with no warning or apparent explanation, every single one of them starts howling in unbelievable pain, streams of technicolor blood erupt from their eyeballs, and they die.
Once the celebrations have died down, how does the galaxy respond? How do you rebuild civilization around such an enormous, unexpected power vacuum? Do the former colonies unite, salvage what they can from Alternian infrastructure, and try to form a government of their own? Does the universe devolve into anarchy, with everyone fighting over the mountains of resources now unguarded?
What happens to your sci-fi setting, when your Evil Galactic Empire is just... erased?
She should arrive any minute now. When she does, she will find nothing but ruins and dust.
And, in the midst of all of this – what do you do if you’re the lone Empress, the last of the trolls? How long can you survive, when every single being in the galaxy would shoot you on sight?
If she cared to look closer, she would find a city of slain exiles, a man on the moon, and a pair of black lovers locked in a deadly dance.
A man on one of the moons, anyway. We still don’t know anything about Alternia’s pink moon – and, considering the dark significance of the Green Moon, I’m awfully suspicious of its sister satellite. Who’s living there?
But whether she looks or not, one thing will find her with certainty. A new employment opportunity.
The Condesce is fresh out of options, and has nowhere else to go - and if there's one thing Scratch likes, it's a woman who's out of options.
Why, though? What use is a dethroned empress to Scratch – or English, for that matter?
Anyway, the last of the twelve ancestors arrived a bit late. In fact, she would cross through her portal six centuries after the descendants had come and gone.
I would raise the girl to be groomed for her calling. My lessons would emphasize obedience, mastery of the clockwork majyyks, and being locked in a room.
So that's what's up with Fauxradia.
Megido, I am so fucking sorry. In a comic packed to the brim with terrible parents, you still managed to win the lottery. The absolute fucking jackpot.
You literally cannot get any lower than being raised by Doc Scratch.
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i just read fuck marry kill and it was sooooooo good gah i love it , idk if its rude to ask thos but can u make a mingyu wonu and seungcheol version of it too? they are my baises and i would love something like that !! u can alternate the setting if u please :>
tysm 💘
-💫
Pairing: fem!reader x ex!mingyu x seungcheol x wonwoo
Genre: smut
Word count: 5.6k
tags: poly, exhibitionism, voyeurism, degradation, pet names (princess), unprotected sex (except cheol), praise kink, spanking, clit slapping, fingering, oral (rec. and giving), u, pussy slapping, ass play, triple penetration
Summary: one dumb party game makes a comeback.
author note: tbh i initally wondered how someone could ask to replace some of the members in the original, but then I realized how grateful that it got the attention it did that another version was requested. these were honestly really fun to write and I'm glad to have found a way to tie in the last version and this one to make a spinoff!
“Fuck Cheol, obvious because he has the experience. Marry Wonwoo because he just seems like he knows how to treat someone well. And duh, kill Mingyu because he’s Mingyu.”
“You’re such a bitch.”
You glance back at the man you hypothetically killed, now giving you a cold dead stare, making you grin smugly before taking a swig from your beer. “Takes one to know one.”
He raises a brow, now leering at you, “I hope you’re alone forever.”
You slightly slam your empty bottle on the coffee table, “And I can already tell you’re halfway there.”
He scoffs, crossing his arms, “Oh yeah, remind me again who approached who?”
“Remind me again who also dumped who?”
Mingyu was baffled. It had been months since you both had broken up and you still used that to pull over his head. You had your reasons for ending things, he knew that but had hoped to salvage some of the good left in your relationship with him. Once it was over, you mutually agreed on being friends, willing to forget about all that’s happened because you were friends first, but he knew that better than anyone, that shit was never easy.
“Uh, guys?”
Wonwoo’s voice, despite being as timid as it was, asserted attention with two words alone. Mingyu and you look at Wonwoo, still angry at one another, but melt at their friend’s concern, putting aside their petty disagreement. You exhale in an attempt of calming your heart rate and pat Wonwoo’s hand reassuringly, “We’re good. Just how we are. Mingyu gets it.”
Wonwoo was never one for conflict. He was the glue to hold this entire group together. If it wasn’t for him, the terror couple would've never made up the way they did.
“Yeah, we’re just horsing around, but that does remind me,” Mingyu is quick to turn the attention to Seungcheol, a cheeky smile bright on the younger man’s face, “You promised to discuss the details of what happened after the birthday party.”
The eldest arches a brow, amused by Mingyu’s statement, and decides to entertain the idea, “When the hell did I promise that?”
“You didn’t, but you might as well after I caught that group chat,” Mingyu scoots closer to him, “Go on, tell us all about you having to share with three other dicks.”
Seungcheol clicks his tongue, already scolding him. “There were two other dicks, first of all. Secondly, it just happened. You can’t really plan a foursome.”
You peer over at him intrigued. “You technically can, but considering you just did it out of nowhere, I don’t know whether to be disgusted or impressed. I thought you’d be way more responsible and boring than that.”
His eyes shoot back at your assumption. “I am not fucking boring and you can be responsible in an orgy! We all knew what were doing, we all consented, and we were all clean–”
“Boring…get on to the part where three of your dicks were in her at once.” A flying head smack makes its destination to the back of Mingyu’s head and instantly he’s offended, glaring back at his assailant. “Hey!”
“Don’t talk about anything you’re uncomfortable with Cheol. It’s your dick, it’s your sex life,” You reassure.
“Well, it’s not just my story to tell so I’ll leave it at this.” All ears perk in his direction, even Wonwoo, who was quietly observing, couldn’t help but ponder on the rare experience Seungcheol had at that birthday party. “There is nothing more satisfying than seeing a pussy so full. I kid you not, I would do it over and over again just to see the look on her face.”
Not a dry eye in his audience. You hold your hand over your mouth in shock, Mingyu’s howling like the moon had just come out, and even Wonwoo was stunned at such an obscene statement, blinking into the distance like he’s in The Office. Seungcheol, filled with pride, picks himself off from the ground and dusts any dirt off. “I’ll be back. Too much beer. No one kill anybody.”
He ambles off to the restroom, closing the door behind him.
“Ah,” Wonwoo claps his sweater paws together, “there’s a game I was waiting to buy. I still have some time before then. Need to be first in line.”
He hurriedly gets up from the floor and rushes to his room, “I’ll be back! 20–30 minutes tops!”
You two are left alone and awkward silence fills the air. Things were never really the same since your relationship ended, but things weren’t ever really it when you were together either.
“Foursome huh?” You ponder. “Didn’t seem like his kind of activity but if he enjoys it.”
Mingyu scoffs, ready to start smth again. “What? Jealous he’s getting more action than you?”
“Not jealous, just worried. How can a human body take that much cock and still walk around all normally? Happy birthday to them,” you snicker.
“Don’t worry, you won’t have to worry about that many dicks wanting to be inside you.”
You glare at him, your teeth grinding behind your fake smile. “You sure talk a lot for someone as bitchless as you are.”
“Excuse you, I am fucking stacked with pussy right now, speak when you have your facts right, ‘mmkay?”
You let out a curt guffaw, “Please, you are so fucking lucky you had me when you did. No damn way in hell you could’ve gotten laid without me.”
Mingyu slouches, drawing his jaw open. “Wow. I get it now”
“Get what? How big of a loser you are?”
He shakes his head. “No...You miss my dick so bad.”
You make a show of yourself laughing, even physically doubling over. “In your fucking dreams, you human pandemic.”
“Admit it. You miss our sex. It’s why you’re such a fucking a bitch to me. To throw my game off.”
“Oh honey, you don’t need my help doing that.”
“Please! You got this territorial thing because we were each other’s first. You’re obsessed with me. I see that now.”
“Right, you’re drunk,” you pick yourself up from the ground this time and saunter off to the kitchen, “I couldn’t care less about who you sleep with. As long as it doesn’t involve me.”
“You’re such a liar,” he insults as he gets up to follow.
He positions himself by your side as you distract yourself in the kitchen, mindlessly looking for, well, anything. Why was every cupboard empty? You really have to remember to go grocery shopping with Wonwoo later.
“Am not,” You insist, no finding haven in the fridge, which also happened to be barren of things except half a dozen eggs, a carton of milk, and for some reason a box of m&ms.
“You can’t even look me in the eyes right now. Say it while looking at me.”
You scoff without looking, “I don’t have to prove myself.”
“Why? Because you can’t? Admit it.” His hand trails over your backside as you stall at the fridge, trailing underneath your shirt and sending chills.
You can practically count his breaths as his lips ghost over your ears, smiling against your skin. You almost let out a gasp at the close proximity of his hips pressed into your back, your heartbeat heightening, but immediately close your mouth shut, not giving him the satisfaction. That didn’t bother him though, your body language was enough. You were frozen under pressure, unable to fight back, let alone talk back, similar to how you used to get in the past only minutes before he gets you cum like the mess you were.
His hand slides over your bare stomach, feeling you tense it up as a result. “You loved when I ate out your dirty little pussy. You begged for it. Remember?”
You shudder at his touch, gripping the handle of the fridge for safety, “Mingyu—“
“Don’t think I forgot how you moaned my name either,” he finds the top button of your pants with ease, unbuttoning it and pulling the metal zipper down, “Tell me to stop. Otherwise, I’ll just keep going.”
When you grow silent, he takes it as a sign to keep going. He presses his lips to the back of your ear, hand falling to your thigh and cupping over your clothed cunt. You dip into the fridge’s cold, taming the heat in your body, while Mingyu makes that difficult to resist. Your back arch, fitting seamlessly to Mingyu’s figure, soft, yet desperate, sighs escaping from your lips.
“Mingyu please…”
“Mmh, just like that…” he nibbles against your ear, slowly and cautiously he sinks his hand down your pants and finds your arousal, a thin film of it already coating his fingers, “your voice was pretty just like that. Whining about how you need my dick inside of you or begging to let you cum on my fingers. You were such a sweet little slut for me. Tell me you don’t miss that.”
You’re shaking so much, you could feel your legs seconds away from giving out. You shut the refrigerator close and turn to face him, leveraging yourself against the appliance’s cool exterior. He pins himself against you, sliding his digits between your slit, making contact with the clit, and pinching it between his thumb and index. You can’t help but crack a small moan, only loud enough for him to hear, and he just chuckles. “There you are. Old habits die hard don’t they?”
He does his best in reminding you of the old times, even rubbing your pussy how he used to, getting your sweat pilling on your forehead, or your voice getting raspy as if you were left to die in a desert. Fuck him for still having that effect on you.
“Please…you’ll get us caught.” You plead weakly.
“You say that like you actually want us to get caught.”
He pulls out his fingers from your pants, sticking them in his mouth before sucking your juices from them. You watch in a hypnotized state, mouth gaping in envy, desperate to have his lips wrapped around you, your lips, your cunt, anywhere as long as it's your body. “Sweet. Just like how I remember.”
You gulp hard, staring back into his carnal gaze, and observe as he slowly pulls out his fingers and rests them against your cheek, parting your lips back with his thumb.
“Am I interrupting something?”
As an impulse, you push Mingyu several feet away from you, hiding your undone pants behind a kitchen counter. The taller man can’t help but suppress his boisterous laughter threatening to seep out and only glances back at his friend’s sudden appearance in amusement, feeling like the victor in the situation. Meanwhile, you made yourself physically small, tucking away in the corner of the kitchen where he can’t see you panic while fixing your pants but inevitably fail. “S-Seungcheol.”
Mingyu lets his smugness show. “I don’t know. Is he, Y/n? Is he interrupting something?”
“No, of course not. Just caught me a…rough spot.”
Seungcheol rolls his eyes. “Look, if you guys are going to have sex and get back together. No one is stopping you.”
“Excuse me,” you feel rather insulted at his assumption, it was condescending entirely.
“Come on, it was bound to happen eventually. Save us, the tittering and whatever.”
You push past Mingyu to walk straight to Seungcheol, shoving his heavy build. “What I do with my body and my life is not up to Mingyu or you, Choi Seungcheol. Fuck you.”
He leers down at you. “Don’t get mad at me because you know I’m right, you brat.”
“Oh, because you fuck with a few extra people, you think you know everything, don’t you?”
“More than your ‘only Mingyu having ass’,” he taunts.
If Mingyu was the ex, and Wonwoo’s the innocent bystander, Seungcheol, in your case, was a shit stirrer. He pushes your buttons about the same as Mingyu some of the time. He was supposed to be your closest friend, your longest friend. Somewhere that had changed. You used to tell each other everything and now he was getting into threesomes?
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, fuck you.” You push him back onto the couch behind him, having him collapse seamlessly against it before you’re straddling him.
Your lips latch onto him assertively, tugging and, no doubt, stretching his plain tee. If Seungcheol minded, he didn't seem to show it, and instead kisses you back, matching your aggression. Although initially startled, it doesn’t take him long to adjust to your pace. He handles your body as if he belongs to him, gripping you by the back of your neck as his other hand tucks around the shape of your ass, firmly squeezing it.
“You’re so, mmh, f-frustrating sometimes.” You manage to comment between your moans.
He snickers under his breath, hand running through your hair and pulling at its strands, tugging your head back, “And you can be a real bitch.”
Your blossoming attraction for him only made it all the more frustrating. You always did notice that he behaves a more particular way around you over the past few years. Somewhere between distant and insensitive. Whatever it was, you were gonna take it out on him, and maybe that’s what he wanted.
Scoffing, you grind against his bulge, harshly brushing it against your cunt. “I’ll show you a bitch.”
He grunts beneath your efforts, quickly returning your offense. His hands travel underneath your shirt, pressing into your flesh. His teeth bite down, pulling on your bottom lip, and you can sweet his smile as he does it. He thrusts up into you, rocking back at your core, waiting to fill out what you’ve been dying to entrust him with. The thought itself made you wet (as if you weren’t already from that little incident with Mingyu).
The man that previously had been watched was now the one watching. It was all face paced but it was like he watching in slow motion. He observes the placement of Seungcheol’s hands, and how they grabbed you possessively, even hearing the growl under the elder’s breath. Your moans grow louder when the man’s lips are suctioned around your neck, your nails noticeably digging as his hands slide lower to feel the bare ass beneath your jeans.
Mingyu sucks in his breath, repositioning the spot in his jeans. He impulsively licks his licks, unable to look away. “Didn’t expect that.”
“Me neither.”
Startled, Mingyu cups his erection as his eyes shoot up alert, finally noticing his four-eyed friend has emerged from his bedroom without so much as making a single wood board squeak. “The fuck? Did you come back from the shadow realm?”
Wonwoo shrugs nonchalantly. “The deed is done, and this is a thing now, I guess.”
Wonwoo just how Mingyu felt about you over the years despite the flaming misalignments with your personalities. He couldn’t imagine the thoughts running in his best friend's head right now.
He turns Mingyu in concern, seeing the man’s eyes glisten in the scene's direction. “You okay?”
Was he? He’s looking at one of his best friends furiously getting it on with his ex, neither of them giving a damn who watches and he should be furious. He should be enraged. He should be at least bothered by what’s happening, but no. Only one thing was furious.
“No,” Mingyu answers, “I’m horny.”
He leaves Wonwoo’s company to join you and Seungcheol on the couch, immediately taking your head back in a hungry kiss as Seungcheol finds solace back on your neck, finding weak weak points in mere seconds, and you can’t help but moan in Mingyu’s liplock. Wonwoo is at first confused about what to do, only able to watch at first until his curiosity piques.
In the midst of his observation, you’ve gone pantless, quickly followed by Seungcheol and Mingyu, and has quickly adjusted to double the attention. Seungcheol manages to pull out a few spare condoms from his wallet all too conveniently, handing one off to Mingyu, who was ready to whip his angry erection out any second. He then lays his eyes on Wonwoo, staring off in his direction, still suckling on your neck. He gestures to him to take the extra condom, nonverbally inviting him into the spontaneous mix.
The bystander hesitates, staring back at the silver wrapper as if it was a foreign object, unsure if he was really offered to join or had this situation become a common courtesy for a latecomer such as him.
“Take the condom, Woo. You’re gonna need it with what we’re about to do,” Seughcheol ushers against your flaming skin.
Wonwoo inches closer in baby steps, hand stretching out and grasping the plastic, and at the same time, you pull away from either man from the couch, turning your whole attention to Wonwoo. You grab him by his collar and smash against his lips. It’s strange, almost wrong at most, you were already occupying someone else’s lap, but in a strange way, empowering. His hand crawls up the side of your face to deepen the kiss, feeling your tongue explore his mouth just as you did the other two, while they were only able to watch.
Exhibitionism, let alone orgy, was never on his bingo card. Sex for him wasn’t even that regular an occurrence for him, but he could see now the taste of what Seungcheol was talking about. There was something satisfyingly carnal about sharing someone. You play into their hands as if your life depended on it, but felt all that same arousal anyone else in that group did.
With that thought in mind, it invoked something in Wonwoo. Shivers ran down his spine the moment your hand goes to cup the bulge of his track pants, feeling him grow bigger in size when you slip past the waistband and slid beneath his briefs. His eyes fluttered at the soft sensation of your fingertips, teasing the precum squeezing out of the head.
“You feel so big, Woo,” you gasp out as your grasp travels down his length, “let me suck on it, please.”
The man shifts in his seat, delirious to the point of being mute, only able to nod triumphantly as you begin tugging the pants and underwear off, collecting the fabric at his ankles.
“Princess,” Seungcheol beckons, “why don’t you lay your stomach on my lap to get closer to Wonwoo’s cock.”
You nod obediently, satisfied with your new pet name, getting off of Seungcheol’s lap to place yourself back on again, this time your ass in view for Seungcheol and Mingyu to appreciate. Mingyu’s teeth catch his bottom lip, groping himself through his briefs. “Fuck.”
He can’t help but land a full-handed spank against your cheek, causing you to flinch after your grip wrapped around the base of Wonwoo’s cock and he feels a tight squeeze around his girth and he throws back his head from the sensitivity, “Gyu, for god’s sake.”
“Sorry, dude, couldn’t help myself,” the younger man chuckles, “but she likes that. You like all our attention on you, don’t you?”
You let out a light chuckle, a smug grin stretching over your face. “Yes, yes I do.”
Seungcheol couldn’t help fixating on your ass pulling your waistband down to the curve and sliding a dry finger up your wet slit, groaning at simply how gloriously wet you were. “Shit. You’re fucking soaked. You can take my fingers right, princess?”
“Mmh, yes, Cheol. Give it to me…”
As you’re spitting into your hand, stroking handfuls of Wonwoo in your hand, you can feel Seungcheol fitting two digits in your moisture and hooking them in place. He goes easy on you, mildly prepping you, while you drop your head and wrap your lips around the tip of Wonwoo’s length, swirling circles on to lap up the bit of his precum, your soft giggles vibrating against the spectacled man.
His gaze softens at you, petting your hair and caressing your cheek. “So…pretty…”
“Thank you,” you reply, taking half his size in your mouth, and feel how he hugs your cheeks.
Wonwoo lets outs hushed whimpers, exhaling out of his nose, his fingers impulsively finger through your hair and take grip. Through his shut eyes, he can feel the nodding of your head, the vigor of your tongue, and finally the head of his cock hitting your uvula, bobbing back and forth. “S-shit, like that, yeah…”
He can feel himself physically shuddering, glancing back at the lure of your eyes as your mouth collects every inch, every vein, and moan that escapes his lips. His hand guides you, pushing you deeper around his cock and the sounds of your efforts were euphoric, especially how they were followed by Seungcheol’s work, who found himself slamming his fingers back into you like a jackhammer. You slightly jump, vibrating around Wonwoo as you cried out obscenities.
“Mmph, more, please,” you beg, bringing a smile to both Seungcheol and Mingyu’s faces.
Seungcheol used another hand to give spanks on either one of your cheeks, playing with you like a set of drums. They get tender in his grasp, making them more fun to squeeze and there’s that pleasant way your backside jerks towards him, knowing he’s doing everything right.
It was then Mingyu had an idea. While his other friends handled you their way, he had no choice but to find his own choice of sport. He pulls himself up from the couch, excited to spring back into action, and goes on to grab something from your room. He disappears as quickly as he returns, a familiar transparent squeeze bottle in his hand. He goes on a knee to your side, squeezing the cold sticky substance on your unpreoccupied hole, squirting circles around your quivering rim.
“Remember when you thought we wouldn’t use this again? Looks like now’s the time. Are you ready for that?” He asks with a Cheshire smile as he closes the cap and puts the bottle aside.
You moan a confirmation, nodding your head complacently. His chuckles are sickly sweet as he draws his lips close to your ear, teasing his digit from entering. The moment it enters you mentally prepare yourself for the sensation, know damn well you could never get used to that. Mingyu groans at how you swallow his middle digit as he churns it inside you, another hand coming against your tender cheeks. “Fucking slut. Like us filling all your holes, hmm?”
There is no way you can physically answer as you feel yourself gag as you reach your limit with Wonwoo, who at this point doesn’t hear others and uses your mouth with only the thought of getting off down your throat. You finally croak out a yes before two of Wonwoo’s hands grip your head and slam you down the base when you least expected him to. Tears run down your eyes, your cheeks hot, feeling yourself suffocated, you dig your nails into Wonwoo’s thighs, white crescents appearing on his skin.
He groans long and loud, jerking his hips as he’s dumping some of his load down your throat but pulls out from the overstimulation, having the rest shoot on your face. The translucent thick ribbons stain your cheeks and drip off your chin down to his thigh. Red face and a hot sweat beading from his forehead. Wonwoo finally collects himself enough to look back at you apologetically, visibly embarrassed.
“I’m so, so sorry, Y/n.”
Instead of letting him feel sorry for himself and you, you take Wonwoo’s hand and use it like a napkin, swiping his cum on his fingers. He’s stunned when he sees it, a quarry of your actions stuck and stopped at his throat until you take that hand and enter it in your mouth, your tongue catching his release. The man’s abdomen tense, letting your hand suck his fingers off clean and you hold them in there, filling your mouth with another body part of Wonwoo that day.
“Goddamnit, Y/n. You really can’t help yourself.” He comments blatantly lost in awe.
Your body curled up in Seungcheol’s lap helplessly, trembling, slick moisture seeping out of you at their mercy. The others can hear the anguish in your muffled voice, how close you get with fingers thrust inside you with only every passing second, only to have that ecstasy slip away as their fingers pull out. You whine in retaliation, their collective chuckles mocking you, even Wonwoo couldn’t help but find the scene amusing.
“Can’t have you cum that quickly, can we?” Seungcheol taunts.
He roughly tugs up your body until your back is toward his chest, feeling your perspiration against his torso. He shrugs off his briefs and your underwear is quick to follow, the tips of his fingers now rubbing your arousal all around your entrance, adding the slick substance to your already lubed up rim. You mewl at his fingers, your hands gripping against his forearm but lacking the willpower to have an effect. His teeth graze your eye, pulling you by the cartilage. “We’re gonna fill you out so nice, you’ll beg for more…perfect little holes for us to use…tell us what you want, princess.”
You let out a shallow breath, “I want…to feel full. I want you inside me.”
His hand lands on his cock, hard and naturally aligned at your rim, before testing Mingyu's prep work, “Good girl…feeling so perfectly tight…”
Seungcheol can’t forget how it closed around him while he takes a long gradual stroke inside. He groans loudly, filling you until your moans give out. His hands plant against the backside of your thighs to lift them and fold them against you, pushing his length in. Your eyes rapidly shake, the white of them visibly, and you welcome Seungcheol’s cock with his name on your tongue. “F-fuck yes…more Seungcheol…”
Wonwon doesn’t know what gets over him when he finds himself staring back at your glistening folds, looking at your pulsing clit like it was the last m&m. His flaccid cock now twitching upright in his lap, he licks his lips, not taking his eyes away from you. “Seungcheol spread her legs out more.”
The elder man gave a knowing smile and did as requested, and your pussy stretches open, your clit more evident than before. Soon Wonwoo has mustered the strength to put his face up to your entrance and suck on the bulging nub like a straw, watching your toes curling as soon as he does. You can feel his subtle smiles against your arousal, the curve of it pulling at your folds.
“Shit,” you whisper, throwing your head back against Seungcheol’s shoulder, panting against the man’s cheek.
“Feels good, doesn’t it?” Seungcheol teases, “You haven’t gotten enough just yet.”
Mingyu gets up from where he sits, stroking his cock in his hand. He comes to your side, the tip of his length angles at your lips, and you look up at him in anticipation. He mocks you, tapping himself against your lips. “Beg for it. Go on. Whore.”
You sigh defeatedly, “Please, Mingyu…I need your cock in my mouth…”
“Isn’t that nice? You can shut up.” He chuckles to himself.
He takes hold of your head, prodding your lips apart with the head of his cock inside, and sees how easily it slides in your mouth. You moan around his girth, as the jerk of his hips pushed himself deeper inside you. It's almost how fast it happens just as you don’t remember how it began. All you knew was it felt amazing nothing like you ever felt. You never knew you could want this–no, you never knew how much you needed this.
“Want to fuck you, Y/n? Can I?” Wonwoo asks politely against your core.
You nod with your mouth full, coughing out Mingyu’s cock given the opportunity. “Yes, Wonwoo, I want you…I want all of you…please fuck me full…”
Saying that out loud was enough of a motive to flip the script. Seungcheol, still inside, lays flat against the couch, head propped against the couch arm. Wonwoo gives Mingyu a knowing look, letting his friend go first. Mingyu scoffs, “I’m coming for you, Y/n.”
“Not yet, you are,” You retort.
“And you said I’d never get be inside you again. Things can happen.”
Mingyu lets his cock slip around your arousal before he’s reunited with your fluttering walls, a nostalgic hum leaving his lips. “Fuck, that’s good.”
“Mingyu—You both—ah fuck, feels so g-good…”
Mingyu and Seungcheol carry a mismatched pace, their uneven breaths fill the air as you take it, take them. Your voice sounds of agony but rather the opposite, you couldn’t feel more bliss. Wonwoo mentally and physically readies himself, his cock almost back to full power. He joins the party when he feels the fire in him, thanking himself for getting a big enough couch, and hovering on top of you.
You hadn’t noticed it before but something was missing from the man joining, and not his clothing. “Your g-glasses…”
“Ah,” he smiles, “put them aside, didn’t want them to break.”
“Hmm, it’s n-nice looking you in the e-eyes for o-once.”
“I’ll make sure to make it happen more often…Tell me if I’m hurting you. If any of us do.”
You hum a yes, finding his lips reattach to yours soon after. Wonwoo gives himself one last stroke before its mere centimeters away from Mingyu’s, finding the right angle to join his friend. It’s not an easy feat sharing space, but he finds a way, pushing through to stretch you wide and open, collective moans coming from all ends.
“Holy shit,” you screech, “so many c-cocks…”
“You’re taking us so too, Princess. I knew you could do it,” Seungcheol exclaims.
Mingyu was getting a thrill out of this, “Of course she can, Y/n is a bigger dirty slut than she makes herself out to be. She enjoys it, hmm? Say it.”
“I en—love it. I love the cocks in me so much…”
“Shit, you’re so pretty for that,” Wonwoo claims on your neck, pounding now faster, “say that again for us please.”
“I love your cocks fucking me…fucking my pussy and ass…”
Mingyu missed how you gave your everything during sex, groaning louder and louder the tighter you try to clench, how closer he realizes he’s getting. “She’ll say anything to cum…don’t let her.”
Mingyu’s hand comes up from behind Wonwoo to slap your clit, pinching to hear you whine. “You cum too soon, we’ll just fuck you over and over again. I want white to cover every inch of your body, clear?”
“Y-yes…sir…”
“Perfect little whore.”
You feel the rutting in and out of you like clockwork, overwhelmed by all the different energies your body accepts. Your moans, your screams, or your tears could never tell the full story of the euphoria of your feeling. Your arms embrace Wonwoo, latching on his hair and face, kissing him on his swollen lips, and feeling hot to the point you could confuse it for inferno, or that you were part of inferno yourself.
Seungcheol swallows back his drool, blind in ecstasy flowing through him and now reaching up to the surface. His fingers dig deeper into your thighs and the sounds of skin slapping drown out his moans. Seungcheol clutches you against him as he whispers, “you okay with me cumming in your ass princess, hmm, is that what you want?”
“Yes,” You answer in a hushed tone, “please I want you to cum in my ass…”
You feel his relieved sighs on your neck, slamming his body into you harder. You’re stretched like elastic, wearing down at their rough touch, until Seungcheol does as promised, squeezing his load and shooting it up in gradually staggering pumps until he’s empty and drops his rubber covered cock out to drip back onto the fabric of the couch.
That had been your final straw, feeling your climax erupt only immediately after Seungcheol. “I’m cumming, I’m cumming, I’m cumming…”
Wonwoo kisses your cheek in response but doesn’t stop. Mingyu on the other hand slaps against your clit harder repeatedly, reveling in the wretched noise you make. “Cum all you want…we'll take it…like you’re gonna keep taking us.”
Wonwoo grunts alone by himself, Holding you against him like it's the last, helping Mingyu keep his word and fuck you senseless. He was a good friend, he was good at helping his friends. That friendly nature makes you weak to the sensitivity after, whining under their touch, shaking on top of Seungcheol, as he tenderly fondles your breasts in his rest. It feels endless, not like you’re complaining, but a somewhat bit of relief is obvious when both of the remaining men cum in you simultaneously. Friends that cum together, stay together, you guess.
“You gonna take our cum?” Mingyu pokes, his cock ruts in you like a man with no control.
“Y-yes.” You choke out.
“Yes, what?”
“Yes, yes, I can take your cum, please. Please. Cum in my pussy, I need your loads in me.”
“Wait condoms? You guys aren’t wearing any?” Seungcheol voiced out.
Wonwoo shakes his head as Mingyu aguishly blurts out a “no.”
“Aw, fuck you guys.”
“Mmp, mmph,” that was the sound of Wonwoo biting into your shoulder, his sweet white dispersing into you perfectly with Mingyu to follow. Ther loads meshed well together like they do, becoming one with your climax, dripping out of your brim like oozing honey: sweet, creamy, sticky. The perfect symphony to showcase the perfect vessel, capable of catching their cum.
“Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit—”
Mingyu moans out his climax just as you remember, just as voluminous and rich. He’d laugh if he knew how much you would think about hearing it again. Your tired bodies part from each other, panting loudly inches away from each other, staring mindlessly into the space in front of them. You were the particularly spent and Wonwoo, the first to notice and care, picks up by your knees and carries you, fulfilling his duties as your designated roommate. “You’re okay, right?”
“Mm, I’m good, Woo.” you softly respond in his arms, you turn to the other two men fatigued on the couch, “I’m taking a shower first, assholes. Only Wonwoo can join.”
Wonwoo smiles with a blush on his cheeks, while the others roll their eyes.
“What? Why only Wonwoo?” Seungcheol questions.
“He treated me nicer. Think about it the next time we all fuck.”
Wonwoo looks back at you with a surprised look before taking you away to the bathroom. You leave Mingyu and Seungcheol to look back at each other, pondering on your response, taking all the world, space, and time to process your words.
Simultaneously. “Next time?”
#svthub#wonwoo smut#seungcheol smut#mingyu smut#scoups smut#seventeen smut#kim mingyu#mingyu#jeon wonwoo#wonwoo#choi seungcheol#seungcheol#choi seungcheol smut#jeon wonwoo smut#kim mingyu smut#seventeen seungcheol#seventeen mingyu#seventeen wonwoo#seventeen fanfic#seventeen x y/n#seventeen x reader#seventeen x you
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Monsters Reimagined: Yeenoghu, Demon Lord of Insatiable Hunger
It's been some years since I did my overhaul on the lore of the gnolls and how they embody the weird de/humanization that goes on with various monsters over d&d's history. Ever since I've had more than a few folks write in asking about how I would handle the default Gnoll God Yeenoghu, who exists in a similar state of "Kill everything that ever existed" to Orcus and a good portion of the game's other late game threats, thematically flat and not really useful for building stories around.
For a while I've avoided doing this post because I thought it might skew a little too close to my personal philosophy, and risk going from simply being influenced by my views to an outright soapbox. I personally hold that despite being part of our nature hunger is the source of the majority of human cruelty, and if society and cooperation are the tools we developed to best fight against the threat of famine, it is fear of that famine that allows the powerful to control society and secure their positions of privilege.
I've also dealt with disordered eating in a prior period of my life, alternating between neglecting my body's needs and punishing myself for needing in the first place. I'm well acquainted with hunger and the hollowing effect it can have, though I'd never claim to know it so well as someone who went hungry by anything other than choice and self hatred.
Learning to love food again saved saved my life. The joy of eating, of feeling whole and nourished, yes, but there was also the joy of making: of experimenting, improving, providing, being connected to a great tradition of cultivation which has guided our entire species.
If I was going to talk about an evil god of hunger, I was going to have to touch on all of that, and now that it's out in the open I can continue with a more thematic and narrative discussion on the beast of butchery below the cut.
What's wrong: Going by the default lore, there's not much that really separates Yeenoghu from any other chaotic evil mega-boss. He wants to kill everything in vicious ways, and encourages his followers to do the same. He's there so that the evil clerics can have someone to pray to because the objectively good gods are on the party's side and wouldn't help a bunch of cannibalistic slavers.
This is boring, we've done this song and dance before, and the only reason that there are so many demon lords/evil gods/archdevils like this is because the bioessentialism baked into the older editions of the game's lore was also a theological essentialism, and that every group had to have their own gods which perfectly embodied their ethos and there was no crossover whatsoever, themes be damned.
Normally I'd do a whole section about "what can be salvaged" from an old concept, but we're scraping the bottom of the barrel right from the inset. Likewise my trick of combining multiple bits of underwritten d&d mythology to make a sturdier concept isn't going to work as most of d&d's other gods of hunger or famine are similar levels of paper thin.
How do we fix it: I want Yeenoghu to be the opposite of the path I found myself on, a hunger so great and so painful that it percludes happiness, cooperation, or even rational thought. Hunger not as a sumptuous hedonistic gluttony but a hollowing emptiness that compels violence and desperation. More than just psychopathic slaughter and gore, it is becalmed sailors drinking seawater to quench their thirst, the urban poor mixing sawdust and plaster into their food because their wages are not enough to afford grain.
This is where we get the idea of Yeenoghu as an enemy of society, not because violence is antithical to society ( I think we've learned by now how structured violence can really be) but because society fundamentally breaks down when it can't take care of the people who provide its foundations. Contrast the Beast of Butchery with one of my other favourite villainous famine spirits: Caracalla the grim trader, who embodies scarcity as a form of profit and control in to Yeenoghu's scarcity as suffering.
Into this we can also add the idea of the hungry dead, ghouls yes but also vampires, anything cursed with an eternal existence and appetites it no longer has the ability to sate. A large number of cultures across the world share the idea that the dead cannot rest while they are starving, which is why we leave offerings of food by their graves or pour out a glass to the ones we lost along the way.
On that topic, there's also a scrap of lore involving Doresain god of ghouls, who has been depicted as an on and off servant of Yeenoghu. Since I'm already remaking the mythology, I'd have Doresain act as a sort of saint or herald for the demon lord, the wicked but still partially reasonable entity who can villain monolog before the feral and all consuming demon god shows up.
Summing it all up: Yeenoghu isn't a demon you wittingly worship, it's a demon that claims you, marks you as its mouthpiece and through you seeks to consume more of the world. It gives you just enough strength to keep on living, keep on suffering, keep on filling that hole in your belly and feed it in turn.
The greatest of these mouthpieces is Doresain, an elf of ancient times who's unearthly hungers elevated him to demigod status. Known as the knawbone king, he dwells within a dread domain of the shadowfell, and is sought out only for his ability to intercede with the maw-fiend's rampages.
Signs: Unnaturally persistent hunger pangs, excessive drool and gurgling stomach noises, the growth of extra teeth in the mouth, stomachs splitting open into mouths.
Symbols: An animal with three jaws, a three tailed flail or spiked whip. A crown of knawed bones (Doresain)
Titles: Beast of butchery, the maw fiend, the knawing god
Artist
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WIP excerpt for Plot Bunny; love is being stupid together. (( chrono || non-chrono ))
“Somehow I’m certain a member of an alien species salvaging a DNA sample while you were too dead to be useful would not, in fact, have been ‘normal’ for your people,” Lex counters dryly. Superman smiles wryly. It’s appallingly attractive on him.
Ugh.
“The planet was a little too . . . xenophobic for that, unfortunately,” Superman says, then sighs regretfully. Lex stares blankly at him.
Why is the man just telling him these things?
“Xenophobic,” he echoes.
“Kryptonians never left Krypton,” Superman says. “Or let anyone else on Krypton. More of us would’ve probably survived, if they’d been willing to. Or at least, more people with our DNA would’ve been out there in the universe.”
Lex stares blankly at him again. Superman leans down a little closer to Experiment Thirteen. He’s about as far in its space as he can get without actively getting in its way.
“You do realize if it wants to draw even slightly farther to the right you’re directly in its way, yes?” Lex says, because just because Superman’s gone insane doesn’t mean he’s going to let him inconvenience his finest work’s fine motor control practice.
“Sorry, Kon,” Superman apologizes disgustingly sincerely, floating back a foot or two. Experiment Thirteen ignores him, but also very pointedly adds a large red "X" to the window on the right side of its previous work. Then it scoots to the far left and resumes drawing on that side of the window with a green marker.
Lex really is finding parenthood so incredibly rewarding, he decides, fondly admiring the absolute pettiness of the gesture.
Experiment Thirteen seems to be drawing a monster. Superman is visibly resisting the urge to lean over towards it again.
“Is that a dragon?” he asks curiously. Experiment Thirteen continues ignoring him to add more spikes to the monster’s tail. “Do you like dragons? I know some Kryptonian legends about some, if you’d like to hear the stories sometime. We could have storytime, maybe.”
Experiment Thirteen does not seem particularly interested in the concept of “storytime”. Lex resists the urge to make any sign of paying attention to what Superman is talking about either, for obvious reasons. Kryptonian bedtime stories have absolutely no relevance or use in his life, and there’s absolutely nothing he’d gain from hearing any.
Superman just doesn’t just say things about Krypton like this, though. At least not in his presence, anyway.
“If you’d like, anyway,” Superman says, watching Experiment Thirteen draw its probably-not-even-a-dragon monster with a fond expression. Lex, as usual, is disgusted. He gets to be fond over its petty gestures, not Superman. Superman didn’t build the thing, much less spend eight point two billion dollars on said building process. All he did was be dead for a while. Which–even if Experiment Thirteen was interested in Superman's existence, the damn alien would just go and die on it the next time a crisis happens, so what’s the use in letting him hang around anyway?
#clex#lex luthor#clark kent#kon el#conner kent#superfamily#superman#superboy#wip: love is being stupid together#plot bunny
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In January of 2024, Dr. Bara Zuhaili entered Gaza on a two-week medical mission with a U.S.-based organization, Rahma Worldwide. Dr. Zuhaili dedicated most of his time to Shuhada' Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir Al-Balah, central Gaza. While this was not his first experience in a wartime or crisis setting — he had undertaken medical missions in Syria and was in southern Turkey during the earthquake — it proved to be his most horrific. As a vascular surgeon, he was tasked with assisting Gazan doctors in one of the ugliest tasks of this war: amputations. A generation of amputees has emerged, with over 10 children losing one or more limbs per day, on average, since the beginning of the war. Dr. Ghassan Abu-Sittah called it “the biggest cohort of pediatric amputees in history.” Even this statistic, reported by UNICEF in December of 2023, is now outdated. The true number of men, women, and child amputees remains unknown, with estimates ranging upwards of 10,000 people. It is a number that will continue to rise as new and unknown weapons destroy tissue and bone, crumbling medical infrastructures and scarce supplies force constant life-and-death decisions, while infections and chronic illnesses — largely ignored — silently kill or handicap thousands.
Is this the first time you've worked in a war zone or in a humanitarian crisis? Did any of them prepare you for this? It was not the first time. Unfortunately, I had experience in Syria, working in the underground hospitals in the besieged areas of Aleppo and Idlib. There, the healthcare facilities were also under constant attack by the Syrian regime. But Gaza was unlike anything I had seen before. To start, the supply chain was completely broken. Supplies were extremely limited in Deir Al Balah, where I was based for most of my stay. The hospital functioned at only 5-10% capacity compared to any similar hospital in the Middle East—I'm not even talking about an American hospital. Then, there were the number of patients. Just to give you an idea: Shuhada' Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir Al Balah is only equipped for 150 patients. Under extreme circumstances, they could maybe stretch to accommodate up to 200 patients. When I arrived, there were 950 patients, in addition to over 20,000 refugees sleeping in the corridors of the hospital and its complex. Every time we experienced a bombardment, we had anywhere from 20 to 60 patients rushing in simultaneously, in addition to the patients already being treated. It was completely overwhelming and overcrowded. The third issue had to do with the type of injuries. I've seen a lot of trauma before — traumatic injuries are not new to me — but the level of trauma I saw was something I've never witnessed in my entire life. When I was in the operating room, I would get a call from the ER saying someone was shot in the leg and they needed me as soon as possible. In my mind, someone shot in the leg with a bullet would have an entry size of about five to six millimeters and an exit wound size of about two centimeters long. That is what I was familiar with. What I saw in Gaza — which I had never seen before — was literally as if an explosion, an RPG, had exploded into the leg. The entry wound would be about five to 10 centimeters wide and the exit wound would be almost 30 centimeters wide. One bullet would destroy a diameter of 10-15 centimeters… all of the muscle, bone, arteries, and nerves were all gone, destroyed.I'm not a military expert, I don't know much about weapons. But I don't know what kind of bullet can cause that much destruction. With a bullet wound in the U.S., I could get away with doing a bypass to salvage the leg. In Gaza, there was nothing anyone could do to salvage the leg. The amount of tissue damage forced me to do amputations almost every single time.
Can you describe what a single day would look like? As a rule, anytime a bombardment happened, we would wait between four to eight hours before we received any injured people. In Deir Al-Balah, we would see the missile hitting two to three kilometers away and we knew that there were many casualties, but it would take these people — who were only three kilometers away from us — four to eight hours to reach our location. The IOF (Israeli Occupation Forces) prevented any ambulances from entering the scene, and anyone attempting to help or approach would be shot. I had many cases where the ambulance driver would come to me holding two or three kids. They were dead, and he would swear to me they were alive four hours ago. We lost a lot of lives just waiting to reach us in the hospital. Our days typically began around seven in the morning, and even though the night was filled with attacks and bombardments, no casualties would reach us before the morning. By then, we would go to the ER and try to start the triage process: determining who needs to go to the OR first and who could afford to wait. We would then perform surgeries throughout the day, often not finishing until one or two in the morning. Sometimes, if I had time, I would do my rounds to check on the patients, and by late afternoon, we would have more bombardments and injuries coming in until midnight. Usually, by midnight, things slowed down… not because there was no bombardment, but because they couldn't reach us anymore.
#yemen#jerusalem#tel aviv#current events#palestine#free palestine#gaza#free gaza#news on gaza#palestine news#news update#war news#war on gaza#gaza genocide#genocide#disability rights#disability justice
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