#when there are SO MANY characters to work with

[inthegardensofourminds]

-[speaks foreign language] was discouraged at thr company I worked at, you wanted to identify the language if it at all possible for those sound cues since even if it's not the main language used in the show, doesn't mean it's a foreign language to the audience or the characters. But in my experience you don't transcribe it if it's not intended to be understood by the audience. I have seen the sound cue misused for sure, but it's usually not transcribed in my experience when it's not the target language or intended to be understood. It does eliminate the possibility of a multilingual person being able to pick up on things like one can with audio, but choosing whether to subtitle additional languages usually comes down to intent of the source. I can see the flaw in this approach though.

-Sentences are sometimes condensed for readability, it's not laziness or intent to change the meaning, but because there are rules about reading speed/characters per second. It's actually more challenging when you have a situation where you have to do this compared to when you have space and time to include every word. You can push it a little bit sometimes, but the rules about how many characters you can have per line are strict. I agree it's not great, but not everyone would be able to read them in that situation. It can lose a bit of nuance, but at my company we tried to preserve the meaning as much as possible while remaining within the technical parameters of a given project.

-I agree about not including sŵear when it's not bleeped in the source audio. We would not have done this at the company I worked at. It's possible a bleeped version, in theory, could be used when crating a subtitle track, then the client used it again on an uncensored version of the same video without revising the subtitle file. However, with things translated from one language to another, sometimes target audiences are not the same as in the original, and that can result in changes in language. That's a whole other matter and I haven't experienced that, and I don't know where I stand on that. With unscripted or behind the scenes content, I was trained to keep in mind the target audience, so if you're subtilitng a behind the scenes segment for a family or child audience and someone in the background swore, we wouldn't include that along with other audio, but I don't know how often that happens and I don't think that's what OP had in mind here. If companies are censoring subtitles for no reason, I would disagree with that.

-Something I have also seen that always bugs me for disrespecting audience members is when sound cues for visible sound sources are subtitled. For example, I was trained not to write [door slams] if you can see the door being slammed. The viewer can see it, and including the sound cue can imply you don't think the audience member knows what they are seeing. An exception to this would be if the door slams and something unusual happens, like there being no sound or an unexpected sound like if there was a duck quack instead of the slamming sound.

happy disability pride month and once again, FUCK lazy subtitles. fuck the [speaks foreign language] instead of actually transcribing the words, fuck shortening sentences and changing whats been said for no reason, fuck censoring swearing in captions but not in audio and fuck anyone who says youre being 'too sensitive' for being upset about a lack of accessibility

[ao3commentoftheday]

so, tagging background ships on AO3. I personally don't like looking for fics ABOUT my OTP and finding 90% fics where my OTP is a background ship and don't even have any moments about them. I feel like it clogs up my results. I know people sometimes want to know what background ships are in a fic for various reasons, but I personally would rather put that information in the summary than clog up tags. I was just honestly curious how many people prefer one or the other or feel the same lol.

I've described ao3 tagging in a few other asks, but I'll give a rundown here again because it's not entirely obvious to people, and people really are just trying their best.

So if you're an author who wants to tag something like minor A/B don't put it in the relationship field. Tag wranglers would have to syn that to the regular A/B tag, thus dropping your fic into the filter results for that ship - that's what anon here is experiencing. Instead, put your minor A/B tag into the Additional Tags field. People will still see it there on your fic, but it won't be filtered into ship filter results.

When you filter for a ship, that filter only applies to the ones tagged in the Relationship field in the work posting form. That's why putting the minor A/B tag in the Additional Tags keeps the fic out of the A/B filter. Same applies for minor Character A. If you put that into the Character field, it will get synned to Character A. If you put it in the Additional Tags, it'll stay out of the filters.

I, personally, don't want minor character information in the summary because I use the summary search trick to find fics where minor characters are actually the main character in the fic. My reasoning is that if their name is in the summary, they must be doing something important in the fic and/or the fic is specifically about them.

If you're someone who wants to try that summary searching trick, I've got a video and text tutorial for it over here.

Also, if you're someone who doesn't want to see A/B or Character A at all, not even in the additional tags, you can remove them by using the Search Within Results box. Just type in -"Character A" and that will remove them.

All of the above is just information for you to do what you like with, but I found it fascinating when I started learning this stuff myself so I hope you at least find it interesting too!

[ef-1]

Everytime Flavio Briatore is blorbofied an angel loses its wings. the general popular sentiment around Flavio since his lifetime ban from f1 was forgotten is that he's Fernando's yaoi daddy or a quirky character or whatever but I actually can't help but think about how this LITERAL criminally convicted fraudster has done irreparable damage to the careers of 2 young drivers. Esteban said Briatore made his life "extremely hard" forced him to forfeit his seat in Alpine if he wanted to go to Haas and then went around telling the media that Esteban had bad work ethic and was actually bad for Alpine because he was “completely demotivated” for some reason.

He then jettisoned Jack Doohan into a position that is INHOSPITABLE for growth or learning. Jack literally entered the paddock and it was immediately an open secret that was snickered and sneered at that he had a ticking time bomb on his head. Alpine let their rookie get ravaged by the media when he was never given the chance to actually drive. This man had to hire security for himself because he was getting so many death threats.

And then yesterday watching Franco, jettisoned into the exact same environment that is INHOSPITABLE to growth and improvement, being at a loss for words—he genuinely seemed like he didn't know what to say or what not to say after his crash because now it's also an open secret that a ticking time bomb looms over his head. Nelson Piquet Jr giving sound bites about how he's "completely broken".

Like I'm a big proponent of the "this is sport you're allowed to root against people" philosophy but we're just watching young drivers being mentally broken down by their own team and the digusting mismanagement of Flavio.

[cutehoons02]

Ordinary Life

*pairing: pervy ice-rockstar Sunghoon x Influencer girl

*trope: grumpy boy x sunshine girl/fake dating

*synopsis: Sunghoon had never been an outgoing guy, and in the world of music and being a "rockstar," that was seen as a bit odd. There had never been any drama surrounding him—no paparazzi photos of him with girls, and people only talked about him on social media or TV because of his stunning looks and the hundreds of brands eager to work with him. Fans often wondered if Sunghoon was even capable of love or of showing a more "human and affectionate" side. So, it came as a shock when he suddenly found himself at the center of a media storm after being photographed at Milan Fashion Week with Y/n—one of the most famous influencers in Europe and beyond. But the truth was, he couldn’t stand her. She was overly dramatic, talked too much, and in his eyes, she was just an attention-seeking brat looking to boost her fame. But what would happen if fans started "shipping" Sunghoon and Y/n?The staff of "The4boys" decided to take action, aiming to show the public a more human side of Sunghoon. They proposed a six-month contract where the two of you would pretend to be a couple. But what happens when the Ice Rockstar slowly starts to see you differently—and even attractive?Is it all just an act… or is it becoming something real?

*tags: Sunghoon at first is cynical and cold with her, the main character loves to tease him, fake dating, you at first are a little teeny with him, you’re obviously downbad for him, many kisses, a lot of tension, humor, fingering, female and male masturbation, unprotected sex (don’t horny ppl) sex mirror, explicit sex, dirty talk, pet names (hoon,hoonie) (sunshine,brat,cutie) statement with song by The Weeknd

25k (💿) The4boys series!

NEW YORK

That year, New York was buzzing with excitement for Fashion Week. The air was mild, the traffic even more chaotic than usual, with hundreds of honking yellow cabs and people whistling, trying to catch a ride to work. All around you, models strutted as if the sidewalks were invisible runways, and photographers seemed ready to sell their souls for the perfect shot. The entire city felt like it revolved solely around this one event, capturing not just New York’s attention, but the whole nation’s. But that year, something else was happening....something so big it threatened to overshadow even the glitziest fashion shows, the most famous designers, and the endless parade of celebrities swarming the city. It was the world premiere date of the global tour of “The4Boys.”

A band that had taken over the world in under five years. A fanbase larger than the population of some countries. Millions of broken hearts across every continent. Their fans were wild, four boys straight out of a K-drama, but with an explicit twist, and every fan had her favorite. The group was made up of four members. Four personalities, four different reasons to lose your mind, four different kinds of beauty, and four guys who could easily steal the spotlight from any actor or model.

Jay, the true rockstar of the band. Always with a guitar in hand, oozing ‘80s vibes, raw and free-spirited, just like his voice. He was the gritty, soulful core of the group. On stage or in music videos, he came across like a London club rock legend. Offstage? A perfect gentleman, with a capital G. The kind every girl dreamed of calling her boyfriend.

Jake, the golden retriever. Cheerful, sweet eyes that were always smiling, and a sense of humor that could melt even the sternest grandma. The guy every mom wished for her daughter...until he started flirting. He loved teasing his fans in full“flirty boy” mode. Some girls would faint just from his smile or hearing him crack a joke in his Aussie accent.

Heeseung, the Starboy, the genius, the producer, the perfectionist. He lived and breathed music, but had no problem driving fans crazy with a single glance or a whispered lyric into the mic. He might have seemed shy at first, but on stage he transformed...becoming one of the sexiest performers in the group. Wicked dance moves, tongue always out, and yes, he also loved to tease.

And then there was Sunghoon: the IT boy. The most elegant, the most silent, the most distant. His eyes alone could shut you up in a second with their intensity. Sculpted features, known more for his deadly stares than for interviews (which he hated). No one knew what he liked, no one knew who he dated, and maybe that was his superpower. He was praised the most for his ethereal, vampire-like beauty in human form. The most introverted, the most mysterious, which only made fans more desperate to catch his attention. But that? That was a rare event indeed...

You had followed them, like pretty much everyone else in your generation, through TikTok, Twitter, and Instagram. You’dspotted them on massive billboards for brands like Adidas, Prada, and L’Oréal, and sometimes you’d even roll your eyes when yet another brand snatched one of them up as their new visual.

You’d liked a few fancams here and there, caught yourself humming their songs while filming your stories, and sure, maybe you’d even daydreamed once or twice about who your favorite was. But… you’d never seen them live. And no one had to know, but… sometimes you had saved a few of their videos, especially the ones with Sunghoon.

The atmosphere in the room where the runway show was about to take place was the perfect mix of controlled chaos and meticulous luxury, people hugging, greeting each other with fake smiles, and trying to mingle with the elite.

The show was about to begin, and you, a girl still in disbelief at even being there, looked around with an expression that tried to stay calm, but your nerves were just beneath the surface. You couldn’t believe that, thanks to your Instagram profile that had nearly hit a million followers, you’d been invited to one of the most talked-about fashion shows of the moment.

The emerging Korean brand, now a full-blown global phenomenon, had attracted a wave of idols, stylists, actors, and influencers. Even the air smelled of expensive perfume. You glanced around, hoping to recognize someone, but seriously, who could you possibly know at a show on the other side of the world, where you were probably the only Spanish girl invited?

Soft music filled the space, blending with camera flashes and whispered conversations as celebrities began taking their seats on pristine white chairs adorned with delicate prints of Korean cherry blossoms, the brand’s iconic symbol.                                                        

You were wearing a white and pink top that complemented your olive skin, paired with tailored trousers and a blazer with details inspired by the collection. In your hand, you held the card with your name and seat assignment. You expected third row, maybe second at best, but your eyes widened when you saw your last name printed on a chair in the front row, center stage, the very heart of the venue.

On that pristine seat embroidered with flowers were small personalized gifts. You couldn’t help but pull out your phone and open Instagram, snapping a quick story of the carefully crafted, exclusive items souvenirs designed with obsessive attention to detail for just a select few. You gave your usual sweet smile, zoomed slightly on your last name next to the brand’s logo, and when you watched the story back, it was perfect, or almost. Your heart was still racing just a little too fast.

To your left sat a Japanese fashion designer, with whom you’d exchanged a few polite words. The seat to your right was still empty. You figured it would be another influencer, maybe an editor, someone you could chat with to ease the tension, but then you felt it, the murmurs, the sudden hush, the shift in the air. You noticed all the girls around you fixing their makeup, adjusting their posture. You looked up, curious, wondering why suddenly everyone seemed desperate to get someone’s attention.

And then… You saw him. Park Sunghoon. He wasn’t walking, he was gliding, like he was the real model of the show that hadn’t even started yet. His expressionless gaze gave nothing away. Your eyes scanned him like a full-screen screenshot: slightly unbuttoned white shirt clinging to his body like it was tailored to his skin, black jacket embroidered with cherry blossoms on the chest, unintentionally matching your seat’s theme, elegant trousers hugging his endlessly long, muscular legs, broad shoulders, jawline sharp as glass.            

His dark, slightly tousled hair shifted with each step, and his eyes looked like they were staring at no one until they landed on you. He stopped right beside the empty chair to your right. Slowly, he turned his head, as if checking who he’d be sharing air and the next few hours with. He gave you a cold look. The kind of cold that’s also the sexiest thing you’ve ever seen, and in that second, it felt like no one else existed. Just that moment. And you, staring wide-eyed like a curious puppy. His lips lifted slightly into an unreadable smirk. Maybe annoyed, maybe amused, maybe fake. Your cheeks caught fire the moment you realized he was looking at you. He wasn’t just beautiful. He wasn’t just famous. He was… irritating. Elegant. Intimidating. And unfortunately… painfully interesting.

You smiled out of instinct more than intention, but he didn’t return your warm smile. He sat down silently, like he did every day. Like a robot. Controlled movements, eyes fixed on the runway. Not a single word. You thought: Perfect. It’s official. They’ve sat me next to Ice Man. But you weren’t exactly known for keeping quiet. Ten long minutes to go before the show started, but for you, it felt like hours. You couldn’t sit still. Not your hands. Not your eyes. Especially not your eyes…

The boy next to you looked like he’d stepped straight out of a dream, sketched by a Korean artist with a mild obsession with perfection. Park Sunghoon. Even his name sounded good. Every breath you took was filled with the scent of rich, clean spices like fresh laundry drying in the autumn sun. His jawline was a perfect V, sculpted and symmetrical, his nose long and straight, like someone had drawn it with a ruler to be the exact length.

You, on the other hand, had that tiny bump on your nose you’d always hated, and you pouted instinctively. It just wasn’tfair how perfect he was. Not just in your eyes in everyone’s. His face was… too much. Too much to look at. Too much to handle. Too perfect. Little moles scattered like dots waiting to be connected: one beneath his left eye, another near his nose, one by his ear, one below his lips, and the more you looked, the more they seemed like they were meant to be touched. Or better kissed… His long, dark lashes curled softly against his porcelain skin. His black hair fell over his forehead most indecently, like it was begging to be messed up. You sighed. Quietly. Lost in him. Then, he moved. Glanced at you. Turned his head just slightly, his gaze sharp like a freshly honed blade. He stared. Eyebrows slightly raised. Curious but also vaguely threatening.

I don’t know who you are,” he said, voice low and rough, like burnt velvet. ”…but could you stop staring at me?” You froze for half a second. Then, slowly, a grin spread across your face. Not forced real. Maybe too bold for someone you’d only seen in TikTok clips and YouTube fancams. You brought your hand to your mouth. “Oh my God, you can talk?” you said, sweet and flirty, with that soft accent, maybe Spanish? “I thought you were playing some kind of silent game.” He closed his eyes for a beat as if even the sound of your voice gave him a headache, and then… he caught your scent. Vanilla but not just vanilla. Something floral. Bright. Sweet to the point of being almost too sweet. He wrinkled his nose slightly. Too sweet, too sunny, too bold for his taste. He didn’t answer right away, but you weren’t discouraged. You reached out your hand, the one with the pale pink ring and simple nails dotted with tiny rhinestones. “Nice to meet you. (Your name).” He looked at your hand like it was a challenge. Then took it and for just a second, he froze. The contrast between your warm, olive skin and his snow-white one. Your firm, alive grip. Your bright, puppy-like smile. It unsettled him. He looked at you, eyes flicking up. “You give off the same energy as Jake.” Your eyes widened. You laughed softly. “Jake Sim? Your friend? The human golden retriever? The one who smiles at pigeons on the street?” He nodded, expression unchanged. “Well,” you leaned in slightly, “it’s an honor to be compared to the sunshine of the band.” He shot you a deadly side-eye, like his glare could slice through the air. “It’s not an honor.” He paused. Raised an eyebrow. “Jake talks too much, laughs too much, hugs too much. He’s like a puppy with hands, and he’s way too into physical contact.” You burst into genuine laughter, fresh, light, with a soft crackle in your throat. “So you’re like, allergic to affection?” Not surprised he wasn’t the touchy type. “No. I’m allergic to clingy humans.” You gave him a sidelong glance as you tucked a lock of hair behind your ear. “Then yeah, you’ve got a problem with me.” Sunghoon looked at you for real this time. Slowly. Like he was trying to decide if you were a dream or a problem to solve. And he couldn’t deny it, you were beautiful, not in the classic, perfect way, but in a way that bothered him. Like looking directly into sunlight. Yes, bothered him.

The lights dimmed, and a wave of excited murmurs spread through the room, followed by the rustling of camera flashes and iPhones ready to capture every step, every detail. Naturally, you pulled out your phone with a huge smile, and a small professional LED light on your case lit up, casting a clean, white glow over your face as you framed the runway and that’s when Sunghoon sighed heavily and rolled his eyes, visibly exasperated.

An influencer. Of course. What else could a girl like that be? Loud, cocky, probably fake the thought hit him fast and sharp: Another one who ended up here thanks to the algorithm, not because she can tell a couture drape from a factory seam. Influencers drove him insane and not in a good way. Loud, attention-hungry, always with a phone in hand. Invited to events because of numbers, not talent. Some he found annoying… others, he straight-up despised. Especially the ones who came to concerts just to post “I was there,” without even knowing the band members' names or worse, not even the name of the song that represented "The4Boys."

Some had even called him Seonghwa. From another group (their rival, of all people.) He glanced at you from the corner of his eye. And, of course, you were looking at him. Irritating. God, so irritating. Those curious eyes that wouldn’t stop staring. That perfume way too sweet for his taste. He brought a hand to his mouth and leaned in just slightly, subtly enough not to be noticed especially with paparazzi from Korea lurking for scandal but close enough for you to feel his warm breath at your ear.

“Stop staring at me.” his voice was low, hoarse, rough. “You’re here to watch the show. The clothes not me. Though I’d bet you’ve saved a few of my TikToks.”

You turned to him, shocked, mouth slightly open, eyes wide at the sheer audacity of this guy. You were about to answer  you were but then he gave you a deadly glare that froze the air and turned away like he hadn’t just roasted you on the spot. You stared at him in silence for a few seconds, stunned… then, reluctantly, you turned your head too, trying to focus on the runway but it was hard, really hard, with a guy that gorgeous and that arrogant sitting barely twenty centimeters from you.

After a few minutes, the heat started creeping in, and with a smooth motion, you slipped off your blazer, revealing a light white corset with cherry blossom embroidery. The fabric hugged your body, tracing every curve, every line of your olive-toned skin that seemed to glow under the lights. It was innocent, you raised your arms to tie up your hair with a cherry-shaped clip, and in that instant, Sunghoon looked at you again. This time, longer...his gaze swept over you at first quick, then slower following the line of your raised arms, the soft curve of your shoulders, the way the corset stretched across your chest.

Your scent shifted still vanilla, yes, but now there was a warm, calming note of chamomile that seemed to wrap around him, making his head spin. His eyes lingered on your shoulder blades, then dipped down to your chest your slightly full breasts visible through the fabric and he thought: She’s hot. She has… everything. And God, why does she have to be beautiful too?

He bit the inside of his cheek, clenched his jaw when he noticed a tiny mole under your collarbone — one of those that makes you want to…No. Sunghoon. You’re here for the show. Not to get distracted by a girl who screams trouble.

Then you caught him staring and you’d known for a while. You turned just slightly, with a smile, but not a normal one. It wasn’t sweet, it was a declaration of war a slow, wicked, one-sided smile tilted just so bold as hell. Sunghoon looked away, shook his head, and pressed his lips together. God, he thought, she’s that kind of girl. The one who knows she’s got the room’s attention and enjoys it. The kind that looks at you like she already knows you won’t be able to stop looking. The kind who plays… too well and he hated games.…or at least, that’s what he liked to believe.

The ground floor was a maze of dim lights, half-filled glasses, and perfumes mixing like scattered notes. The rain had ruined the rooftop party where a fake cherry blossom garden was supposed to bloom, but no one seemed to care. The stylists had transformed an entire hall with flowers, oriental scents, and soft lighting that radiated warmth. You moved through the groups with natural grace, chatting with influencers you only knew from tags and makeup artists you’d always admired from afar.

One of them had even done your makeup in London for an event full of YouTubers, you’d recognized him instantly, laughed, caught up, and made some quick content with a group of European girls you'd met near the dessert table, but now the euphoria had faded. It was nearly midnight, and your legs sore from the heels and the day’s tension were begging for a break. You lifted your phone and called your manager to ask if you could head back to the hotel. He told you a car was waiting and would pick you up in five minutes. You thanked him as you crossed the lobby, the noise of the party fading behind you, the doors opened with a soft whoosh, and there he was.

Sunghoon. Leaning casually against the wall under the cold light of the entrance, his face lit by the glow of his phone screen, finger lazily scrolling through what you guessed was Instagram, but then he stopped, as if he’d felt your eyes on him. He looked up and met your gaze. You gave him a half-smile, bold and teasing.

“So… did you enjoy the event?” He looked at you, unreadable, and gave a silent nod. Just a small one. Not a word came out of his mouth, but you raised an eyebrow.

“Do people have to drag words out of you, or…?” you whispered low, amused, not thinking he’d heard you, but of course he did. Sunghoon raised a brow, eyes sharp like the rain tapping against the windows.

“Repeat that?” he said quietly, his voice rough. You giggled, flirtatious, lifting your hands as if to apologize, though you didn’t mean it.

“No offense... It’s just, I don’t know.... when I see you in fancams or with your members or fans, you talk. A lot.” He crossed his arms, shifting his weight slightly as he studied you. A distant rumble of thunder shook the sky and made you shiver not just from the sound, but from the cold seeping through your light corset.

Sunghoon stared. “I don’t like talking to people,” he said. “Especially when I already know it’s a waste of time.” The words were sharp, cold, meant to push you away but his gaze wasn’t as steady now… There was a flicker of hesitation in his eyes.

You sighed, rubbed your bare arms, and muttered under your breath, “Shit... It’s cold.” Sunghoon tilted his head, realizing only then that you weren’t wearing the blazer he'd seen you with earlier during the show.

“Your blazer?” he asked quietly. You swallowed, embarrassed, hand brushing your face. “I… left it in the show hall,” you murmured, fingers playing with your ring. He noticed the faint blush on your cheeks and gave a crooked smirk.

“Loudmouth and forgetful,” he said, voice laced with sarcasm. “Or too busy staring at me?” You pouted, the kind of pout that came naturally when someone hit a nerve, and hugged yourself tighter.

“My ride’s coming any minute. I’m heading back to the hotel… flight to Madrid tomorrow morning.” He nodded slowly, not saying a word because, in theory, he didn’t care. In theory, you were just another influencer in a too-thin top, too many one-liners, too much vanilla, too much of everything and yet... he didn’t like seeing you shiver and to be honest, that top was distracting the hell out of him hugging your chest in a way that showed off every soft curve.

So he moved, slowly, without saying a word. He took off his black blazer, the one embroidered with cherry blossoms, the same one from the runway, and walked closer. You held your breath as he leaned slightly toward you. His hands landed gently on your bare arms. You felt the warmth of the fabric, but more than that, his scent. Soft spices. Clean laundry. Something fresh and masculine that hits you in the gut like mint laced with musk.

His hair barely brushed your cheek as he leaned in. He fastened two buttons with precise, slow movements so slow they felt deliberate, like he was committing the gesture to memory. As if touching you, just once, was something he didn’t want to rush. Then he straightened, looking down at you with a neutral expression, almost indifferent, but he was still close. Too close...close enough for your eyes to catch his impossibly long lashes and that perfect, marble-carved gaze. You still wore the blazer. Soft fabric warming your skin, his scent now all over you as if Sunghoon had left a piece of himself there, wrapped around your body, and then you heard it. Barely audible, a whisper from his lips, a word that escaped before he could stop it.

“Cute.”

Your eyes widened, and you froze for a second before slowly looking up at him. He didn’t move, had never said that out loud to anyone before, and you took it as a sign, a green light to keep teasing him just a bit longer. Because in just a few hours, you’d realized you loved teasing the boy whose face covered billboards around the world. Your gaze wandered over him again: the sharp cheekbones, pale skin, tense jaw, the crooked line of his lips as he silently cursed himself. You even noticed the faint stubble under his chin, and a smile crept up.

"Wait… did I hear that right?" You tilted your head playfully. "Did you just call me cute, Park Sunghoon?" His cheeks turned a shade of red so out of place on his usually perfect, cold face. He scoffed and looked away.

"I say it to all the fans. It means nothing," he muttered, running a hand through his hair, clearly annoyed.

"Oh, sure," you said, rolling your eyes, arms crossed under the oversized but extremely comfy blazer.

"Like, ‘Good morning, welcome to the fansign, cute!’ or ‘Let’s take a cute picture!’ You know, like those old Italian men saying ‘ciao bella’ to everyone who breathes." Sunghoon narrowed his eyes. "You’re unbearable," he muttered.

But deep down, he knew it: he couldn’t stop staring at you. Your lips were full and soft, and you talked way too much, but he could listen to them for hours. Your eyes were too big, too warm for someone as cynical as him; they looked like they were trying to see through him and that scent again. Too sweet. Vanilla, flowers, and a soothing hint of chamomile.

Annoying. That was the word. You were annoying.

But what annoyed him was that… he’d been looking for you all evening. Since the moment he saw you and then he noticed something new: your height. He was over 1.80m, and even with heels, you barely reached his shoulder. He smirked.

"Thought you’d be taller. You look taller in pictures. Maybe even prettier in videos, too."

"Wow," you stared at him, mouth slightly open. "And here I was thinking K-pop princes were supposed to be nice."

"I’m not a prince," he said bluntly. "Oh no, definitely not. You’re more like the sexy villain in a drama who ends up saving the lead in the final episode."

Sunghoon huffed, about to say something, but then a car horn cut through the moment. A black van pulled up slowly, headlights glowing. You turned to see your driver, then faced him one last time, stopping just a few steps away. You gave him a small, graceful bow, like a mini Cannes film star, and said,

"Thanks, Park Sunghoon. For the blazer… and the long, deeply emotional conversation." You winked at him, cheeky and elegant, then ran into the rain, hands above your head. He watched you go, like some character straight out of a romcom, but just before you shut the door, you turned around one more time, and he was still staring. You winked slowly, movie-style, and Sunghoon’s mouth parted slightly, a small smile appearing before he sighed in defeat.

"You’re seriously… a character," he muttered under his breath, watching your van disappear around the corner. A few seconds later, his car arrived. He got in, leaned back, unbuttoned the top of his shirt, and let out a long breath. He never thought he’d run into someone like that at a Korean fashion show. Then, without really thinking, he opened Instagram. He typed your name slowly, like he was breaking some unspoken rule, as if you might somehow know he was stalking your profile.

986K followers. 🎥 YouTube: 1.2M 📍Fashion Marketing student 🤍 Based in Barcelona | London and Seoul sometimes.

Maybe you weren’t the typical influencer, and maybe… he wasn’t quite the person he thought he was before meeting you but right in that moment, from a building across the street, someone had captured a video; one that was about to drive his fans, especially the Korean ones, absolutely insane. The whole scene was recorded: You and Sunghoon talking, you are laughing casually, and he is putting the blazer on you like you were his princess. His buttoning it up for you, that slightly cold smile on his face, and your final wink. By sunrise, fans across Korea and beyond would have seen the clip of Park Sunghoon, the Ice Prince, cold, distant, untouchable, smiling, talking, and giving his blazer to a girl. You and only one question would be on everyone’s mind: Who the hell are you to break down his walls in just one night?

NEW YORK

The Manhattan sky was still stained in navy blue, but the horizon was starting to turn peach and orange. Sunghoon stood on the balcony of his 20th-floor hotel room, wearing nothing but boxers and a black hoodie, a cup of bitter coffee in hand, eyes fixed on the early yellow cabs cutting across the wet asphalt. He spotted a woman jogging with her dog and breathed in the city's morning blend: roasted coffee, car fumes, cold air, buttery pastries... maybe even bacon or sausage.

He liked New York. Strangely enough, it calmed him. That rare calm he rarely allowed himself. No alarm had woken him; he wasn’t like Jake or Heeseung, who could sleep until time itself gave up. He loved these quiet moments. The smell of dawn. The melancholy New York always gave him, no matter the time.

Then, the terrace door slid open behind him. Jay stepped out, shirt open, loose pants, a granola bar between his lips, and a honey tea in his hand.

“Morning, Hoon,” he mumbled, stretching like a lazy cat. “What’s the word at 6:10 AM?” Sunghoon didn’t even blink. “That you’re way too awake for this hour.”

Jay chuckled, leaning on the railing beside him. For a few minutes, they stood in silence, watching the city wake up like two old friends. “How was the show last night?” Jay asked, knowing Sunghoon better than anyone, besides maybe Jake. “Same as always.” Sunghoon sipped his coffee.

“So... boring.” Sunghoon gave the faintest nod, like. Then came the buzzing. Jay’s phone wouldn’t stop vibrating, dings, pings. Sunghoon rolled his eyes.

“What did you do now? Jazz solo in a pub dressed as Elton John again?” Jay laughed, but then paused mid-bite of his bar. His eyes widened. He scrolled, then turned his phone off.

“Did something happen last night?” Sunghoon narrowed his eyes. “No. Just another fashion show. Lights, clothes, way too many people. Oh, and one annoying influencer…” Jay raised an eyebrow, then pressed play. The video was shaky but clear: He, draping his blazer over her shoulders. He buttoned it. Her smiling. She was winking before getting into the van. Sunghoon's jaw tightened as he read the caption:

1.8M likes. 5.2M views.

#GentlemanHoon #NewShipUnlocked #ParkSunghoon #WhoIsThisGirl?

His heart gave a hard thump, then sank.

“Shit,” he muttered, fingers in his hair.

Jay practically lunged. “OH MY GOD. WHO IS SHE? Why does this look like a K-drama from Netflix? WHERE were you? That’s chemistry, bro, and don’t even lie, you were being cute and gentlemanly and soft!”

“She’s just... some Spanish influencer,” Sunghoon mumbled. “Forgot her jacket, so I gave her mine. That’s it, I was being polite, like you always lecture me about.”

Jay smirked. “Polite, or whipped?” He hit play on another clip, now with fan comments flashing:

— “WHO IS SHE??”

— “Sunghoon buttoning her coat? I can’t breathe.”

— “She fell first, he fell harder.”

— “Sunghoon is NOT single anymore, girls 😭💔”

— “She smiled. He MELTED. I saw it.”

“OKAY, ENOUGH!” Sunghoon lunged for Jay’s phone, his face and ears blazing red. He shoved his hands over his ears and paced backward like a panicked kid.

“Jay, I swear on everything, I’ll strangle you with that damn granola bar.” Jay cackled, nearly spilling his tea. “Oh, my dude… welcome to your first romance scandal.”

BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. Three sharp knocks hit the suite door.

“PARK SUNGHOON!” Their manager. Furious voice, full-on PR emergency mode, Jay patted him on the shoulder like a man being sent to war.

“Good luck, Hoonie. Sounds like Communications is waiting for you.”Sunghoon closed his eyes and whispered, “Please, someone shoot me before I see one more comment saying ‘I ship them.’

They always say New York never sleeps, but you? You wanted to sleep. More than that, you wanted to dream about that tall boy with carved biceps, unapproachable eyes, and a vibe more vampire than human. But at 6 AM, with your pillow still tattooed to your face and your hair in full-on “combat lion” mode, your manager woke you up with a ringtone too loud and a voice that was already annoying.

“Dress comfy but cute!” he yelled. You groaned, one leg still under the duvet, and your voice raspy with sleep. “Is it time for the airport?”

“Nope. We’re not going to the airport.” You lifted your head from the pillow and saw him standing there, laptop in one hand, phone in the other. “…What do you mean?” He tossed the phone onto your bed. “Open TikTok. Instagram. Weverse. Wherever fans go to scream.”

Still half-dead, you grabbed your phone like a weapon. Three voice notes from your Korean bestie were already waiting:

Y/N. OPEN TIKTOK. NOW. YOU AND SUNGHOON. ARE YOU TWO KISSING OR WHAT?! You opened the app and saw it: Your followers had doubled, hundreds of mentions. You were everywhere, you, standing in the rain, him, stepping closer, the jacket, the buttons, his face is near yours and then… that damn word.

“Cute.”

You rubbed your eyes like crazy. You were watching on screen what you had lived just hours ago, the video looped in slow-mo: your nervous hands fidgeting, his eyes on you, that half-smile, his hair brushing your cheek. You two looked like a literal K-drama scene, and you tossed the phone onto the bed like it burned and screamed.

“Okay. Okay. It’s just editing. Bad angles are a lighting illusion. I barely talked to him. I did all the talking; he was like some walking robot. I want nothing to do with him or this...” But then you saw your manager’s face. The “you’re not gonna like this” face. You stared at him, already bracing for it.

“Don’t you dare say it, Miguel. Don’t-”

“The PR team of The4Boys wants to meet you, Sunghoon’s team, and… Sunghoon himself.” You collapsed back into the bed and groaned.

“Why?” Miguel sighed. “They want to manage the situation.” But the real problem was… You were sure Sunghoon had already denied everything. So, how the hell did you end up about to face the cold, arrogant rockstar again? In real life...In just a few hours?

NEW YORK

You were standing in front of the door labeled "ONLY THE4BOYS STAFF", frozen there for almost five minutes, your hand slightly sweating. Your manager told you to go in, assured you nothing would happen, but a small instinct to run sparked inside you. Still, you were already there, so you stepped in. Your eyes scanned the room and the people in it: Jake, Jay, Heeseung, and finally… Sunghoon. All of them sitting there with vaguely bored but ridiculously photogenic expressions. Next to them were two adults: a man in his forties with the serious air of a dad delivering punishment, and a hyper-efficient-looking blonde woman juggling a tablet, a phone, and a laptop, probably a PR or content manager. You bowed, like you'd learned during your three trips to Seoul, and said, "Good morning, my name is Y/N. It's a pleasure to meet you."

Your cheeks flushed red as you bowed and accidentally met Sunghoon’s gaze for a second, you felt like you were under a microscope. He was perfect… as always, in his defense; white shirt, black jeans, styled hair, CEO gaze straight out of a K-drama. And you? A zip-up hoodie with a glittery star, wide linen pants, and just a bit of concealer to look alive. Your manager cleared his throat and introduced himself, breaking the awkwardness. The boys’ manager nodded and turned to the group. Heeseung stood up first, held out his hand, and smiled. "I'm Heeseung, the oldest. Welcome to our… madness." Then it was Jake’s turn, warm and kind-eyed, he shook your hand and said, "Nice to meet you! You seem super cool. I have a feeling you and I will get along just fine." You saw the blonde woman roll her eyes slightly. When Jay came up, he gave you a dazzling smile, greeted you in Spanish with… a very creative accent, and bowed too. "Estás aún más guapa que en el video." You laughed, slightly embarrassed, and then, of course, everyone turned to look at Sunghoon. He didn’t stand up but shifted slightly in his seat and stared at you with a sharp gaze. His tone was neutral.

"We already met last night." He said it with the slightest sarcastic curve to his lips without thinking, you looked right back at him and replied with fake innocence, "True, we 'met'. I just didn’t think two words and a blazer thrown at me counted as getting to know someone. Maybe I’m too romantic, or maybe we just socialize differently in Spain!" The blonde PR chuckled behind her tablet, trying to hide it. Sunghoon raised an eyebrow a tic you’d already picked up on from last night. Then, in his usual cynical and half-bored tone, he accused, "Did you pay the paparazzi well? The one who got that shot of us last night? Or was it just a favor?" You blinked. Then looked at him like someone who’d just said the dumbest thing ever. You turned to your manager, then back to him, and without realizing it, took a step forward. He stayed seated, legs spread wide, and you looked slightly down at him.

"I’d never stoop that low just for a couple more views. I gained my followers without scandals, without fake relationships, and without using anyone. Fashion and marketing are my job, not fanfiction... It’s not my fault a Korean journalist had the bright idea to film us and post it online and make people believe there’s something romantic between us!"

Silence fell in the room.

Jake’s eyes widened. You looked so sweet and put-together, but clearly, you knew what you were doing.

Jay covered his mouth to keep from laughing. Heeseung sat there with his jaw dropped, gesturing wildly and you saw Sunghoon clench his jaw. He didn’t say anything, but it was clear he’d maybe spoken too soon—and meant it.

The PR woman stood up, walked over, and said: "We tracked down the paparazzi. He’s Korean, works for KoreanScandal, and was only there for Sunghoon but he caught the whole scene. No setup. No conspiracy. Y/N is telling the truth."

You glanced at Sunghoon with a defiant smile. His expression was hard, like he hated that you weren’t… what he expected. Then the manager finally spoke. He stood, turned on the smartboard, and pulled up the Twitter trends.

"In less than ten hours, your names are everywhere. Global trends. Twitter topics. TikTok. Even Dispatch articles. The fans? Mixed reactions, but many are excited. Some have already made fan art of you two."

The blonde began reading:

"‘I’ve never seen Sunghoon so human, so... soft’,"

"‘She’s not an idol, just a normal girl, and it works’,"

"‘Please let their relationship be real’,"

"‘The blazer, the smile… she makes him laugh, no way.’"

You stared at the floor, cheeks flushed, while Sunghoon glared at you, and then the manager placed a folder on the table. The PR pushed it toward the center.

"We want to propose something. A contract. Nothing long-term. Just… a couple of months. A public, strategic relationship. A ‘fake girlfriend’ to show a different side of him. We’ve realized fans want to see a more ‘human’ Sunghoon lately, and last night, even just on camera, he was. There’ll be payment, visibility, and honestly… a bit of fun. I mean, who wouldn’t want to spend six months with The4Boys?" he said with a laugh.

The blonde looked at you with pity, her eyes screaming RUN WHILE YOU STILL CAN.

You didn’t reply right away. You felt Sunghoon’s stare on you, waiting, judging. But people had been judging you for years already. You picked up the pen and signed your name then looked straight at Sunghoon and quietly said,

"Let’s do it. Let’s show them that Park Sunghoon can be more than just the classic ice prince everyone paints him to be."

NEW YORK - LOS ANGELES

Madison Square Garden was a frenzy of red lights, fans’ screams merging with crimson and violet beams dancing like flames through thick smoke.

The concert opened with a single electric guitar note from Jay, stage left, where the sound merged with flames bursting from the platform. Then came Jake, charismatic, eyes glowing like headlights, dressed in black latex and sheer lace. The crowd was his and he licked his lips seductively and screamed into the mic like a rock god. Heeseung appeared next, fingertips grazing the microphone as if he were caressing a lost soul. His voice, deep and cracked in places, felt intimate, raw but the moment the crowd completely lost control… was when Sunghoon rose from a coffin.

He walked slowly, like time itself was waiting for him. Dressed in dark velvet, skin pale as alabaster, a black rose pinned to his chest. The music slowed because the true vampire had arrived and he knelt, pulled the thorn from his heart as if tearing out a forbidden emotion, and fake blood trickled from his fingers down his neck. Then he laughed a cold, razor-sharp laugh that ripped through the entire arena like a damned, irresistible vampire and you, watching from backstage, thought it was the sexiest thing you’d ever seen.

But in Los Angeles… it got even more disturbing. The stage became a crypt. 70,000 people under dimmer lights. A dancer approached him, dressed only in a sheer corset and a widow’s mask. He took her by the neck, tilted his head, and sank his teeth into her neck, fake, of course, but the intensity felt too real. You swallowed hard as you watched him bite the dancer like it was a ritual, and you thought:

"Who the hell taught you to act like that?" you whispered backstage as he came down without even looking at you, Sunghoon simply replied, "No one. It comes naturally… especially when blood's involved. And when there’s a pretty girl around."

LOS ANGELES - LONDON

Everyone was exhausted, and the flight from LA to London had just taken off. You settled by the window in the most comfortable outfit you could think of, loose pants and an oversized shirt, and opened your MacBook, highlighting lines from a fashion marketing book.

Sunghoon was next to you, arms crossed, gaze distant—but every five minutes, he shot you a glance. He didn’t speak… until he finally snapped, annoyed by the time and the light from your seat, since all he wanted was to sleep.

“It’s 2 AM. Studying now is stupid,” he muttered, low enough not to wake the staff or the other members. You raised an eyebrow, eyes still on the screen. “Oh right, forgive me, Mr. ‘sexy vampire’. I thought vampires didn’t need sleep.”

He didn’t answer right away just clenched his jaw. “Do you always need the last word? You’re so annoying. And for the record, I’m not a vampire...it’s just performance on stage.” You didn’t reply. He let out a long, frustrated sigh and just sat there, listening to the soft tapping of your fingers on the keyboard.

Ten minutes later, he heard your seat recline into a flatbed position. You shut your laptop quietly and lie down carefully to avoid making noise but you felt something brush your wrist.

His hand.

“Sorry… for what I said in New York. You’re less… unbearable than I thought. I was just mad. I’m never involved in scandals or anything like that.” You looked at his warm hand resting lightly against your wrist and closed your eyes.

“Better late than never, Sunghoon.” He sighed again. You gently pulled your hand away from his and tucked yourself under the blanket. Then, in a soft voice, you heard him say, “Goodnight.”

The moment you landed in London, both your managers looked like they were about to rip their hair out. Rumors about the two of you were everywhere social media, blogs, articles, even TikTok was flooded with edits of you and Sunghoon. You’d already been told to like, repost, and interact with fans.

-You two need to engage. A lot,- your manager said. 'They want you together—give them something, even just a little, but make it… visible,' Sunghoon’s manager added, sounding almost amused. You had just taken a sip of mint tea… and immediately spat it out when the manager said you’d be sharing a room.

“Wait—a room? Like... with one bed?” Sunghoon asked, his ears visibly red from embarrassment. 'Absolutely. A couple sleeps together. What kind of relationship would it be otherwise?' his manager replied, dead serious.

You wanted to tear your hair out. First, strangle both managers. Then maybe Sunghoon because fine, pretending to be a couple in public was one thing...but in private? You still wanted your damn privacy.

LONDON

You were already in pajamas, a soft tank top, loose shorts, hair tied up in the messiest way possible. You were adjusting the bedside lamp, testing out a video idea you wanted to post later on TikTok. You heard the bathroom door open. Sunghoon walked out with slightly damp hair falling over his forehead, wearing an oversized black shirt and grey sweatpants. He smelled fresh soap and something warm and masculine that hit your brain like a drug without meaning to, you brought a fingernail to your lip, staring at him like a puppy, and he shot you a sharp look.

“Whatever it is, it’s already a no,” he said, collapsing onto the bed. “You didn’t even hear the proposal yet... and you’re already grumpy. Consistency is your strength,” you replied, fluttering your lashes with fake innocence. You walked over barefoot on the plush carpet, and he crossed his arms, tilting his head slightly and he looked at you like one would look at an overly curious kitten and sighed,

“What do you want now?” You clapped your hands like an excited child and moved closer. “There’s this trend going viral on TikTok, it’s called boyfriend skincare.” Sunghoon sat up slightly and asked in a low voice, “In the bathroom?”

You blushed a little and shook your head. “Nooo, way better. You lie down, I sit on top of you like, straddling...and I apply your skincare, massage you a little, andspoil you. You pretend to relax or throw in a couple of sarcastic lines for our audience.”

The silence that followed cracked through the air like thunder. His eyes widened. He crossed his arms tighter across his chest like he needed protection from you. Then, smirking, he teased,

“Okay, wow, so your excuse to climb on top of me and touch my body is... a TikTok trend? Original. You could’ve just said you wanted to straddle me. You’re such a brat.”

You crossed your arms too, pouting slightly. “Please. If I wanted to jump on you, I’d find a more creative and probably private excuse.”

He rolled his eyes, which, in your book, meant you weren’t denying it. He groaned loudly, and you, determined, showed him your phone with some of the viral videos of girlfriends straddling their boyfriends, laughing, cuddling, and applying face masks together.

Sunghoon watched a couple of clips, then... he thought: your legs around his hips, your hands on his face, your smug little grin staring down at him, he imagined the way you'd move, slightly flustered, and how hard it would be for him to ignore it all.

His jaw tightened, and then he gave a small nod, like signing a deal with the devil, and said, “Fine. Let’s do it. But if you tickle me with those nails while laughing like some hyper gremlin, I swear I’m throwing you off the bed.”

You bounced on the spot like an excited kid because deep down, you knew Sunghoon was weak when it came to you. “I knew it! I knew you had a heart under all that existential fog!” you laughed while setting up the ring light, and he gave you a side glance.

You were all focused, adjusting the tripod and lighting, and he couldn’t help but wonder: 

How does such a shameless little brat have this much power over me?

You adjusted the ring light to a warm tone that made his features look even sharper, and every time you looked at him, tension flickered down your spine. When he lifted his arm to shield his eyes from the light, his bicep flexed just right, and you stared, not-so-innocently.

Okay, calm down, Y/N. It’s just skincare, it’s just skincare, you told yourself over and over but another voice kept getting louder in your head...but damn, that bicep. Lord, forgive me.

You walked over, holding cotton pads, toner, and his entire skincare kit, and with a fake-innocent tone, you asked quietly, “Can I… sit on you?” You gestured to his muscular legs, covered by grey sweatpants. Sunghoon furrowed his brows and teased,

“You asked me five minutes ago if we could do this little show. I’ve been dying to be straddled by a skincare guru with deer eyes and a content calendar.” You rolled your eyes, you just wanted to double-check he was okay with it.

“Aww, you’re so sweet when you’re passive-aggressive.” With a light, almost playful movement, you settled yourself on his thighs. You tried not to giggle when you felt him tense again beneath you as you adjusted for comfort, and realized just how solid his legs were.

He looked at you with an unreadable expression not annoyed, but somewhere between how did I end up here? And don’t bite your lip, don’t smile like that. You opened the toner, soaked the cotton pad, and leaned forward slightly.

Sunghoon held his breath, he felt the warmth of your body just inches away, the soft scent of vanilla and chamomile clouding around him. You pressed the pad gently to his cheek, noticing how closely he watched your every movement.

“Easy, right? Look—I don’t even bite,” you whispered, gliding the pad across his cheeks, chin, and forehead. He closed his eyes for a moment. He looked… almost relaxed.

Then you switched to the hydrating serum and you placed a drop on your fingers and gently smoothed it over his skin. Your fingertips brushed along his cheeks, temples he twitched his nose a little each time you touched there.

“You have lashes way too long for a guy. So unfair,” you murmured, almost to yourself, as your fingertips traced softly over his skin. When you moved to his forehead, the atmosphere shifted slightly. He exhaled, barely audible. “You’ve got gentle hands. Probably the only gentle part of you,” he muttered.

You giggled. “Mhm, I’ll take that as a compliment…” Though his comment stung a little, you lightly tapped his bicep with your fingertips, and he blinked at you, wide-eyed.

“Do you have some kind of obsession with my arms, or are you just looking for another excuse to touch them?” You slid your hands slowly down his toned arms as he opened his eyes again, you added quickly,

“Relax...they’re just average biceps. I’ve seen better.” The room dropped into absolute silence. He was glaring at you, and you tried not to laugh at his irritated expression. The video was still recording, but in that moment, everything blurred except your eyes locked on his. When Sunghoon propped himself up slightly on his elbows, your body instinctively followed, and in that instant, you felt it. His erection is beneath you.

The contact froze you for a second, but it was the way he looked at you directly, unbothered, almost daring, that made everything burn hotter.

“These are just... average biceps, right?” he said in a low, slightly raspy voice, flexing one arm, you looked up and rolled your eyes. “Oh, please. You look like you just stepped out of one of those alpha male deodorant ads they air before football games. You’re insufferable and full of yourself.”

Sunghoon gave that smirk: the one he used only when he knew he had the upper hand. “Cute. It’s not arrogance if it’s true. Calling out a good body is just... intellectual honesty.”

“Ugh. Let me just finish this before your ego crashes the camera,” you muttered. He laughed with his eyes closed, and you grabbed the spray bottle.

“Close your eyes properly, this one’s lavender, and I don’t want it to burn.” You sprayed the mist gently around his face. The scent floated between you. Then came the moisturizer and you worked slowly, calmly, as if you’d known his face forever. He looked more relaxed now. His features softened under your fingers as you leaned in to reach his forehead, his arms moved and you felt them wrap around your back, barely there but warm.

His forearms pressed gently against your sides, and the tension tickled under your skin.

“Sunghoon?” you whispered.

“Mmm?” he murmured, eyes still shut. “I’m done with the cream...” But his arms didn’t move. Instead, he pulled you just a bit closer. “You forgot the best part,” he whispered and he liked how natural it felt, having his arms around your waist.

You tilted your head, confused. “What part?”

“The lip mask, duh. That sweet stuff you got from Lush...your favorite store that reeks of candy soap from a mile away.” You looked at him, surprised he remembered. “You want me to?” He finally opened his eyes. “Just this once. But use your nails only, got it? I don’t trust the rest of you. Way too dangerous.” His tone was playful, but edged. That teasing, cutting way he had of hiding challenges behind sarcasm made you smile.

“You wish. My nails aren’t even sharp.”

“No, but they’re the only part of you that seems harmless.” He gave you a half-smile and absentmindedly licked his lower lip, and you thought he could probably shoot a commercial for lip balm right there. Still, you focused on your task. Gently, you applied the sugary lip mask with just your fingertips, barely touching his lips. His eyelashes fluttered when you reached the bottom one, he almost seemed to hold his breath.

“Rub it in. It activates the formula,” you whispered and he obeyed slowly, and you were sure you'd never seen anything more sensual. The way his tongue moved against the sweet taste… the lazy rhythm… the look he gave you right after you shifted slightly against him without even realizing it and his body responded. His arms pulled you closer for just a second and then... “Stop.”

His voice was low, rough not angry, just... tight and he lifted you gently by the waist and sat you down beside him on the bed. Then he stood up. His steps were slow as he walked to the tripod and turned off the recording.

“Video’s done,” he said without looking back. His voice was strained and you stayed still on the bed, heart racing, cheeks flushed half with embarrassment, half with the heat you hadn’t dared release.

“Hoon...” you called quietly. He glanced over his shoulder, one eyebrow raised. “Edit that thing properly and post it soon because I’m never doing anything like that with you again.”

Then he walked out of the room.

LONDON - BERLIN

The Wembley concert had been a triumph. Performing there had been the dream for all four of The4Boys since their debut, and it was completely sold out. The lights, the screams, they were deafening, echoing outside the stadium, with an energy that refused to fade. The three new songs had made the crowd explode, and the entire show—with sensual choreography, fake vampire fangs, and stage blood—feelt like some kind of mass enchantment.

You watched from backstage, spellbound, and when Sunghoon, with a blood-soaked rose on his chest, dropped to his knees while a dancer “bit” him, you thought no guy could be more magnetic than this. It was just a shame that off-stage, he was back to his usual self: cold, closed-off, distant but the audience didn’t know that. They were starting to love the two of you together. You could tell the moment you stepped out of the arena, and a few girls stopped you.

Can we get a photo with you?

We adore you!

You and Sunghoon are perfect together! 

You’re so cute, it’s giving grumpy x sunshine romance novel couple.”

You laughed, smiled, thanked them and one fan even gave you a bracelet with the group’s initials. It was all beautiful… and perfectly fake, in a couple of months, it’d be over and he’d probably write a moody heartbreak hit that would climb the global charts, and you… Well, you’d have gained a few hundred thousand followers.

That was the plan: everything now was about hype, shares, likes, engagement and the plan had been perfectly written and executed.

That night, the flight to Berlin was ready. You were flying above the clouds in silence. Exhausted from jet lag, sore, and feeling a bit more vulnerable than usual, you took your usual seat next to Sunghoon, wrapped a blanket around your legs, and closed your eyes. Twenty minutes into the flight, a bit of turbulence rocked the cabin, and your head fell onto his arm,Sunghoon went completely still and the moment your head rested on his arm, it was like someone hit pause on his entire spine.

He slowly turned to look and saw you asleep, brow lightly furrowed. Your lips slightly parted in a pout he claimed to hate, but secretly adored and your breath was slow, cheek squished against his bicep, tiny dark circles under your eyes, hair a complete mess from exhaustion and still… you looked unbelievably sweet.

“I shouldn’t look at you like this,” he thought. "But you seem so small right now. So vulnerable. You’re not just an actress in this show. Not to me.” A tiny smile ghosted his lips, then he looked down and noticed a rogue strand of hair stuck to your forehead and withmore tenderness than he cared to admit, he gently tucked it behind your ear.

“You’re falling, bro.” The voice came from Heeseung, sitting in the row ahead with a grin on his face, Sunghoon looked up and glared.

“Shut up, Hee,” he muttered.

“I saw the TikTok. You're doing skincare with her. You two were way too cute. And the weirdest part? You were smiling. Like smiling. At a girl you barely know.” Heeseung turned in his seat, smirking. “Took us nearly a year to see you that comfortable. But with her? She softens you, Hoonie.” Sunghoon groaned at the word and shot him a glare.

“Don’t start.” But Heeseung loved poking him, and he knew exactly which buttons to press.

“You know what’s funny? Since she showed up, you’ve chilled out. You don’t care so much about being perfect all the time. You laugh more. You’re... less Ice Prince.”

Sunghoon didn’t reply, he just looked back down at you, your peaceful face, the way you curled closer to him. “I can’t fall for her,” he whispered, barely audible but Heeseung dropped his voice too.

“You know who says stuff like that? People who already fucking did.”

Sunghoon didn’t say anything, his eyes never left your face and you?You felt nothing, you were asleep, peacefully snuggled up against him completely unaware that right in that moment, a cynical boy with dark eyes was starting to lose the battle with himself.

BERLIN

You hadn’t gone to the concert that weekend, and that was absolutely out of the ordinary, especially for someone like you, who had built your entire existence around this tour for the past few months. Berlin was supposed to be epic, and yet there you were, stuck at the hotel, buried under two blankets in a room way too big for one person, fighting exhaustion and pretending you weren’t falling apart.

Not that anyone could blame you…between 2 a.m. flights, brutal online university exams, and the never-ending pantomime of your fake relationship with Park Sunghoon, your mental stability was a miracle. So you stayed in the shared hotel room with Sunghoon, who sometimes brought you small snacks after rehearsals, a few vitamins for fatigue or cramps, and occasionally even made you laugh with your TikToks going viral because the act was working.

So well, that under every single GRWM or photo dump video you posted, there were thousands of comments like:

“He looked at her like she was his only reason to live 😭😭”

“Sunghoon’s obsessed, look how he holds her hand.”

But the truth was something else entirely inside your head, you were sure he couldn’t stand you and you? You secretly enjoyed teasing him.

The next morning, you were already downstairs for breakfast, wearing an oversized sweatshirt, faded jeans you bought with Heeseung’s younger sister, and sunglasses, trying to hide how little you'd slept. You’d ordered a fresh orange juice and were lazily listening to the three girls in front of you one complaining about the flight prep schedule, Heeseung’s sister showing a sketch of a dress to T/L, and the blonde girl you met on day one, who you’d discovered was one of the many content creators working on socials.

To your surprise, all three had become your friends but when you looked up you saw Sunghoon. He walked in with that annoyingly relaxed aura, wearing a lightweight black hoodie under a leather jacket, gray sweatpants, white sneakers, and a bare face: no makeup, no stage effects, and he was dangerously beautiful like that even more than usual. He walked up to you, hands in his pockets, then leaned in close until his lips were nearly brushing your face.

“Cutie, hurry up and eat. I’m taking you somewhere.” His low voice brushed your ear like a chill, and you turned slowly with half a piece of toast in your mouth and nodded, his dark eyes so expressive you could’ve drowned in them.

You swallowed hard, cheeks already burning.

“Where are we going?” you asked softly, scanning the schedule you two didn’t have anything planned.

“Surprise and no, don’t change. You look fine like that.” You mumbled an okay, but as you lifted the glass to drink your juice, he didn’t even let you finish it his hands, always too warm, wrapped around your small wrists and pulled you to your feet in one swift move.

The three The4Boys members, still half-asleep, whistled and threw jokes.

“Oooh, Sunghoon’s taking her away? Must be the end of the world!”

“Play nice and don’t kill each other,” one of them laughed—you thought it was Jay.

The staff stayed silent and you got into a matte black sports BMW, and once the door shut, you turned to him with a curious look. “You know this wasn’t on the schedule, right? Our contract doesn’t include surprise plot twists.” Sunghoon gave you that smug little smirk that made your knees weak.

“I know. I just wanted you to try something new. Something I’m sure you’ve never done in Barcelona.”

“Wait—what do you mean ‘new’? Like... bondage new or like... escape room new?”

“Are you always this messed up in the morning?” he chuckled.

“Only with you, babe,” you said, starting to bombard him with questions.

“Is it food related?”

“Cold.”

“Fashion?”

“Colder.” You pouted, then blurted something that you knew would get his attention.

“Does it involve… You naked?” Sunghoon snapped his gaze toward you.

“You’re getting every possible guess wrong.”

You slumped into the seat and turned on the music. You chatted about random things, always with that blend of attraction, annoyance, and repressed desire. When the car finally stopped, you looked around: a sports center. A modern facility with glass walls.

“Wait. Don’t tell me you brought me to..."

“Ice skating. Basically, the thing I love most in the world.” Sunghoon calmly turned off the engine. “Welcome to my ice kingdom.” You stared at him with your mouth slightly open as you got out of the car.

“You decided to torture me physically?”

“No, I decided it’s time you fall...for me.” He chuckled, then paused.“Though you’ll probably just fall on your ass.”

“Ugh, you’re unbearable, Park Sunghoon,” you said as you ran after him and entered the ice rink with him. The place was too quiet for your taste, but you understood why Sunghoon loved it—it was like him: cold, elegant, reserved, with a milky light cutting across the ice, and a shiver ran up your arms. Not from the cold… it was the atmosphere. Sacred, almost. Like walking into a temple. Sunghoon walked ahead of you calmly, holding a pair of worn-out black skates with the logo of the Korean national team the ones he used before debuting and you watched him from behind, slightly fascinated. He had that focused, serious look he rarely showed, as if he were a little melancholic for all the hours he’d spent training on this very ice that probably knew him better than anyone else. You followed him to a section filled with shelves and skates. He motioned with his chin for you to sit on a bench.

“Stay there.” You watched as he rummaged through the skates for a few minutes, his long fingers moving confidently through sizes and colors. When he came back, he had two pairs in his hand and knelt in front of you, placing them on the ground.

“I got you these,” he said, looking up light pink, with delicate white laces... almost childish.

“They’re cute… like something out of a drama.”

“Exactly, they represent you,” he smirked, slowly taking off your sneakers like he’d done it a thousand times. His fingers brushed your ankle so naturally, you avoided meeting his gaze because your heart was already racing.

“Try these.” You hesitantly offered your foot, and the first skate slid in perfectly. You looked up, surprised.

“How… did you get the exact size?” He shrugged casually.

“Maybe because I’ve watched you enough to know how many breaths you take in a minute.” He said it so offhandedly, but the message was clear… he’d been watching you for a while and you either didn’t know or pretended not to.

When he tied the other skate, the sound of the laces under his fingers felt like a ritual he’d done his whole life. You stood slowly, slightly wobbly, and looked at him on his skates. He was even taller, like a manga character: elegant, cold, and impossible to decode.“Ever skated before?” he asked, leaning gracefully against the railing. You faked an innocent smile.

“No… never.” That was a lie. Every Christmas, you skated in Plaza Mayor in Madrid; it was your little escape. He looked at you for a moment, then gestured.

“Come on. I’ve got you.” You both stepped onto the ice, and the feeling was immediate: cold, slippery, alive. Sunghoon reached out with steady hands, and you took them, your small hands swallowed by his. Just that was enough to send adrenaline rushing through you.

“First rule: find your balance,” he said, watching your movements, and then started skating backward, easily dragging you along.

“Spread your legs a bit. Like this.” You watched how stable and graceful he was as he demonstrated. You mimicked him, biting your cheek not to smile too wide.

“Is this good?” you kept asking just to get his attention, and he’d nod, quiet, eyes never leaving you. Five full minutes of intense focus he watched every move, every hesitation, like he was studying you… sketching you with his eyes. Then suddenly, he stopped.

“Now I want to see you alone.”

“Eh?!” You gripped his hands tightly. “No, no, no...I can’t!”

“No one’s born knowing how. If you fall, it’s ice, you won’t get hurt. Just your butt or your pride,” he grinned and before you could argue, he took off, skating away like a flash smooth, fast, effortless.

“PARK SUNGHOON!” you shouted, scandalized. he laughed without even looking back. Fueled by your stubbornness, you started skating toward him, trying to stay steady. Every slide felt risky, but… you were moving on your own and you weren’t falling because, yeah, you knew how to skate. Pretty well, actually.

Sunghoon had figured it out instantly your lie was just an excuse to touch him and stay close. When you finally reached him, he stopped and looked down at you, then bent forward until his face was only inches away. His dark eyes were lit with something you’d never seen in him before.

“I don’t like liars,” he said coldly. You tried to play it off.

“It was a white lie. Harmless...I mean, come on, it was almost cute.”

He tilted his head slightly and murmured with a sharp smile, “No. You just found a bold little excuse to get all my attention and touch me.” Your heart skipped, and as he leaned in closer, he whispered,

“And the worst part is… it worked,” He said, staring at you, your flushed cheeks, your breath a little uneven, and you looked so incredibly cute, standing there in his element.

You were still basking in the way Sunghoon had looked at you moments before, when your skate slipped slightly to the right and touched a smoother patch of ice. You yelled, “Oh, crap…”

Instinctively trying to keep your balance, you grabbed onto him, your hands sliding along his tense, muscular arms. But your clumsiness pulled him down too, and in an instant, you both slipped, the dull thud softened only by his body bending beneath you. Sunghoon landed on his back on the ice, and you crashed straight into his chest, your legs tangled between his. Breath caught in a second of silence, then like you couldn’t hold it in you burst out laughing; a light laugh that filled the entire rink, bouncing off the walls and sticking to the air like a melody.

He stayed still under you, eyes fixed on yours, cheeks slightly flushed, ears completely purple from the position you were in. He shook his head slowly with a half-exasperated, half-incredulous expression. “You’re a troublemaker, you know that?” he said low, almost gruff, but there was amusement in his tone. “You’re like… a magnet for chaos.”

But the thing was, he wasn’t letting you go in fact, he pulled you closer, one hand sliding slowly down your back as if checking you weren’t hurt, or maybe just to feel you nearer.

“You need to relax a bit, Hoon… enjoy life more,” you whispered with a small smile, clutching his chest, trying to get up but he didn’t let go.

“Stay still,” he murmured, and you looked at him with curiosity. Your eyes lingered on his lips soft, slightly parted, still tense from irregular breaths. It was crazy because your heart was pounding like something forbidden was happening beneath your hand and Sunghoon understood what you wanted in that moment. He saw you looking at him like that, like you were trying to imagine what his lips would feel like, but also scared to death because if he rejected you, what would you do?

And for the first time, he didn’t run from that possibility. He lifted himself slightly on an elbow, legs still tangled with yours, and without hesitation pressed his lips to yours. At first, you thought you were dreaming because it couldn’t be real. Not him: Park Sunghoon.

The cynical, grumpy, silent type with the sharp remarks he, the one every girl wanted but who never opened up was kissing you in one of his favorite places in the world, his refuge, the kingdom where he’d cried, won, lost, sweated, and given everything. And now… he was giving you something. His kiss. And no one was filming or watching—this was real, nothing fake about it.

It took you a second to realize his lips were really on yours, exactly one second, enough time to seriously process that he’d taken the initiative. There was no noise around you, no phone lights or ring lights just the ice beneath your skates and the incredible warmth of his kiss. The kiss was intense but hesitant, as if he was just realizing he couldn’t hold back anymore. You slowly raised your hands, resting them on his chest. The heartbeat beneath your fingers was fast, wild, and you understood all of this was real. So… you kissed him back.

His lips were slightly dry from the cold but soft, warm, so damn human that you wanted never to part. It was slow at first. Sunghoon was almost shy, surprised at himself for giving in after weeks of resisting your lips, but you… You weren’t the quiet type. So with a small smile against his mouth, you bit his lower lip gently, and Sunghoon knew you were teasing him. That’s when he completely lost control.

“Mmm…”

He moaned softly, a deep, guttural sound that sent shivers down your skin. His hand gripped your back tightly as his pelvis moved slightly beneath yours. There was no more hesitation—only raw desire, held back too long. He was burning and so were you.

You pulled away for a moment, breathless, lips swollen, trying to say something, but he cut you off with a hoarse, impatient voice: “Shut up for two seconds. Please.”

That phrase, said with closed eyes and lips still pressed to yours, made you laugh softly, but it was too good to interrupt. So this time, you kissed him with more determination, more hunger, more you. His warm tongue brushed yours slowly, deliberately, and you moaned softly, surrendering to the feeling of finally, after months, being kissed by him for the first time. Maybe the wait was too long, but it was worth it.

Because when he slid his tongue inside your mouth, the kiss lasted for minutes, teasing and exploring. Sometimes you kissed in discovery, other times you teased each other. You tugged his hair lightly, and he chuckled against your lips.

“You’re a disaster, babe,” he whispered low and arrogant, the tone driving you crazy but he didn’t stop kissing you. He kissed like it was the first time ever, like there was nothing to pretend—no cameras, no contracts. Just two mouths searching for each other for weeks, finally found.

His hands glided along your back steady, warm—while yours moved from his chest to his neck, fingers tangled in dark hair. Your bodies were still entwined on the ice rink, but the heat between you was breathtaking.

When you finally parted, your heart was racing out of control. Sunghoon looked at you with flushed cheeks and ears, red, glossy lips. He seemed torn between panic and euphoria. You smiled, gently stroking his cheek.

“Oh my God. Your cheeks and ears are red. Sunghoon, are you okay? Want a blanket? A hug? Some hot tea?” He sighed, rolling his eyes, resting his head on the ice, pulling you closer.

“Stop it…” he said softly.

“No, really, you’re almost… cute.” You touched his nose with your finger, still hanging on him. Sunghoon shook his head, but couldn’t take his eyes off you because deep down he was falling for you.

CANNES

Since that first kiss on the ice rink, something had changed in Sunghoon. He was still himself, of course: sharp, cynical, incapable of giving a caress without a biting remark at the end, but… he was also different. More present, more attentive to you and what you liked or didn’t like to do, more yours even if he never said it. On the plane to Nice, he had taken pictures of you while you were sleeping, your mouth half-open and your headphones slightly askew. He posted them in the stories of his private Instagram account with the caption: “The glamorous influencer who sleeps like a drunk panda.” And you had hated him for a good twenty minutes, but then, when you saw he’d only tagged a few people those close ones, the real ones, you understood it was his way of saying you were part of his small circle of trusted people and maybe, slowly, you were starting to like him too.

Even before the concert, backstage, while you were sitting on a crate chatting with their content creator, he had come up behind you without a word and left a kiss on your cheek—just for you. When you turned around, your face flushed, sure there were at least three cameras pointed at you to create a scene, there was no one. He ran immediately to the stage, and you didn’t understand what was happening between you two…

And now… now you were there, in front of the hotel mirror in Cannes, wearing a white and blue dress that seemed painted on you, echoing the colors of the Côte d’Azur. It was elegant, simple, and chic, with a delicate side slit and thin straps that revealed your neckline and collarbones. You looked at yourself but didn’t fully recognize yourself because, okay, you’d been to dozens of events… but none like this. And the Cannes Film Festival was way beyond your usual scene, especially next to Park Sunghoon. You had never cared much about your beauty, but sometimes a quiet thought pierced your heart like a light but precise blow: “What if I’m not good enough for him?” That magnetic, statuesque, mysterious man with the sculpted face and deep eyes that everyone wanted. As if fate wanted to answer, you heard a knock at the door and knew it was him. All the L’Oréal makeup artists had left five minutes ago, and now you just had to go down for the red carpet. “It’s open!” you shouted, trying not to sound nervous as you grabbed your clutch. The first thing to reach you was his scent: spicy, clean, familiar this mix that smelled like freshly washed clothes but also like Sunghoon’s skin. You turned slowly, and when you saw him… the world stopped. You thought about how perfect he looked, even simply dressed in an elegant black tuxedo with clean lines, a white shirt hugging his toned but muscular physique, and his hair combed back with a slightly tousled style that made him look damn human. Sunghoon stared at you and said nothing, just swallowed softly at the sight of you so elegantly dressed, yet stunning at the same time. He thought: “Christ… how am I supposed to keep her under control tonight? If she walks next to me like that… I’ll end up staring at her all night instead of talking nonsense with people I don’t even know.”

He cleared his throat because he’d been silent for at least sixty seconds, maybe too many, and as he approached, you said, “You look nice.” You raised an eyebrow. Seriously? He’d just called you “nice”? You were more than nice in that dress… with your hair half-up and makeup flawless, and a pinch of disappointment mixed with irritation crept over you. “Nice?” you repeated. “Really? All this…” and you gestured to yourself, “for a ‘nice’?” He shrugged, looking away, and you saw his ears turn red from embarrassment. You grabbed your clutch with a small pout and huffed. “Wow, you’re a real poet. I can just imagine you telling girls: ‘Hey, you’re nice.’ You must have been a disaster on dates before our little show,” you said acidly, and he bit his cheek to avoid snapping back. Because, in truth, he wanted to tell you everything—that you were too beautiful, that you drove him crazy, and that he didn’t know how to say it without sounding ridiculous or… too exposed. He wasn’t good at expressing feelings at all. You lifted your chin. “Move it, Park. We have to go down. You don’t want to be late for the only red carpet where we pretend to be in love.” “Wait, I want to tell you,” he said, trying to take your wrist. “We don’t have time,” you said with a sarcastic smile as you opened the door, and he followed you. When you reached the hotel lobby, the flash of photographers blinded you. Sunghoon took your hand. You let him, aware it was part of the “game,” but inside… You felt everything. The firm grip, his thumb stroking the back of your hand, the step perfectly matching yours but while you lived it as a performance, he did not. Sunghoon glanced sideways at you as you climbed the Palais steps, and for a moment, amidst the noise of flashes and shouts, he saw nothing but you by his side.

The flashes were like wild stars when you stepped onto the Red Carpet, blinding you with their harsh lights, surrounding you, chasing after you because you looked perfect, and everyone was shouting different things:

Look this way! One shot together!”

Can you kiss, just for a moment?”

A bigger smile, Park!”

You felt Sunghoon tense slightly beside you, his jaw tightening just under the skin. You turned toward him just a bit and, with a soft smile, whispered, “It’s okay. It’s just noise. Imagine you’re at one of those events in Korea for idols.”

He didn’t say anything, only nodded. Then… he placed his hand on your back light but steady and you smiled a little more, and he did the same. But after exactly a minute, you leaned in and whispered,

“Let’s get out of here. Come on.”

And Sunghoon nodded immediately. “With pleasure.”

You made your way through the crowd and the flashes toward the Prada pavilion, where brand ambassadors, designers, and creative directors were waiting for him. You let yourself be pulled along for a while, then slipped away with a playful smile:

“Go do your job, mister ‘Spokesperson of the Year.’ I’m off to find something to drink. If you don’t see me again, I’ve probably been kidnapped by L’Oréal to make some beauty content.”

You took refuge in the L’Oréal pavilion, where the atmosphere was more relaxed, filled with people your age. Everyone welcomed you with enthusiasm. They took a few photos and even had you do a short interview with a French YouTuber.

You answered with your usual humor, talking about your favorite products, your outfit of the night, and what excited you most about Cannes.

Then, after nearly an hour, you looked up… and saw him. Standing at the edge of the pavilion, gaze intense, curious—but mostly, he just couldn’t take his eyes off you. He made a small gesture with two fingers, simple and discreet, as if to say: Come here. Just for a moment.

You moved through the crowd toward him, and as you approached, he leaned down, and his voice was low, meant only for you.

“I’m done with Prada. I don’t want to be here a minute longer.”

You blinked in surprise because your managers had told you both to stay until the end of the night. You said, “But… this is one of the biggest parties of the festival. You need to be patient, you were invited by one of the top brands—”

“I don’t care.” He said it without hesitation. “I don’t care about Prada or any of this. I just want to leave with you.”

You glanced around and saw that no one was watching. Then he laced his fingers with yours and started walking past the champagne-filled tables, the clinking glasses, the photos, the forced laughter, the background music, and the glittering gowns…but the only thing that felt real was his hand holding yours.

When you slipped out a side door, the air outside was cooler. You stopped for a moment. “Where are we going?”

Sunghoon turned to you and said, “To the room.”

You froze—not out of discomfort, but because you no longer knew what was real and what was pretend.

“We’re in Cannes… We could go to a little seaside restaurant. Have dinner outdoors, listen to the waves, take a walk under the lights.”

But he shook his head, and his expression turned more serious—maybe even more intimate.

“Trust me.” And you, even though your heart was beating too fast for a boy who, in theory, was just your fake boyfriend…you followed him anyway.

CANNES

As soon as you stepped into the hotel room, Sunghoon shut the door with a firm thud and pressed you against the wall, not violently, but with intent. His dark eyes locked onto yours, full of restrained hunger and his warm breath fanned your lips as he leaned in. He cupped your face as if studying it for the first time, his thumbs brushing your cheeks with a tenderness that clashed deliciously with the urgency in his gaze.

“Fuck…” he whispered hoarsely, almost to himself. “I can’t take it anymore, Sunshine.” The nickname caught you off guard, made your heart stutter, he’d never called you that before. You looked at him, surprised and burning with desire.

“Sunghoon…” you breathed, resting your forehead against his. He sighed, closing his eyes for a second, as if searching for control. “Tell me to stop… Please, tell me now. Before I kiss you and can’t stop myself.”

You lowered your gaze, teeth catching your lip. This was your chance to pull away, to protect your heart before falling into something too big for either of you but you didn’t want to. You craved his mouth on yours and maybe on other parts of you, too.

“Don’t stop,” you murmured and that was all it took. Sunghoon took your words literally. His lips crashed onto yours with a hunger no longer disguised. The kiss was deep, messy, intoxicating the expensive wine on his tongue clashing with your fruity gloss in a heady mix. You wrapped your arms around his neck, pulling him closer, needing him like air. He smiled against your lips.

“Do you even know how beautiful you are?” he murmured, trailing kisses down to your neck. “I was such an idiot. Thought if I got too close… I’d ruin everything.”

“Shut up, Sunghoon,” you hissed against his skin, your fingers tangled in his dark hair.

“Yes, sweetheart,” he muttered sarcastically, his voice cracking with tension. “Whatever you say.” Then his tongue traced the seam of your lips, and the kiss shifted, turning into a battle, a give-and-take that neither of you wanted to win. You needed each other too much, caught in that perfect point of tension where no one ruled, but both were falling.

His hands slipped down your expensive dress, fingers finding the hem. Slowly, deliberately, he started hiking it up, never breaking the kiss. You gasped as his mouth left yours, dragging down to your jaw, your neck, until he found that sensitive spot behind your ear, kissing, nipping, sucking just hard enough to make you tremble.

“Mmm… Sunghoon…” you whimpered, head resting against the wall, knees weakening as his hands slid between your thighs. He chuckled darkly.

“God, you sound so fucking good when you moan, sunshine.”

Your dress was bunched around your hips now, and you exhaled. “Take it off,” you begged.

But he paused, a wicked grin playing on his lips. “No.”

“What?” you blinked, breathless.

“If I see you fully naked right now, I’ll fuck you against this wall… and you don’t deserve just that. Not yet. I want to ruin you with nothing but my fingers and my mouth.”

Your breath caught. His control was maddening. Without warning, he knelt before you. “Hold on.”

One hand gripped your thigh firmly, the other slipped beneath your soaked white thong.

“Fuck…” he muttered. “You’re already wet? For me? What a perfect little slut.”

Your breath hitched, and you yanked his hair hard.

“Say one more thing like that… and I’ll make you stop.”

“You won’t,” he laughed low against your center. “You love it when I talk dirty to you, sunshine.”

You moaned, it was true, damn it and he was so close, you could feel the heat of his breath through the drenched fabric. His fingers moved slowly but expertly, driving you mad. “Look at you, squirming… Opening up just for me. All this for your fake rockstar boyfriend. Ironic, huh?”

“Sunghoon…” you whimpered again, desperate.

“Shh,” he whispered, kissing you gently over the soaked fabric, tongue teasing the edge.

“I want to hear you cry from pleasure… without taking a single thing off. Just me. Just my mouth, my fingers, and my voice.” And as he started slow, precise, merciless you realized this wasn’t pretend anymore. Maybe… it never really was.

Sunghoon pinned you against the wall with such intensity that your knees nearly gave out. One hand gripped your thigh, the other slid with surgical precision until his long, slender fingers hooked the waistband of your white thong and slowly pulled it down, like he was unwrapping something too expensive to rush.

“Look how swollen you are, sunshine…” he murmured with a wicked smirk. Then he did it, with just one finger. That long, perfectly controlled finger brushed your clit in slow, precise circles. The touch lit you up instantly, like your entire body had one nerve, and he knew it by heart—even if it was the first time he touched you.

“Aah,” you gasped, trying to stifle a real moan, your head falling back against the wall as your breath caught in your throat. It was a mix of sudden pleasure and sweet humiliation because he was seeing all of you. Wet, vulnerable, and completely his. He chuckled, kissing the space between your thigh and your center, savoring every twitch of your body. Then, without warning, he slid a finger inside. You moaned louder, instinctively clenching your legs around him as your walls gripped him tightly.

“Look how you squeeze me, sunshine…” he growled, kissing your skin as his finger moved inside you slow, devastating, relentless.

“So fucking tight and wet. No wonder you act like such a brat. You were made to be touched like this. By me. Only me.”

You tangled your fingers in his dark hair, messing it up as you gasped—because it was true. From the moment you first saw him, you’d wanted this, wanted him. He grinned, clearly satisfied, as his finger began to thrust with a steady, hypnotic rhythm.

“Feel how easily I slide into you? So smooth. So wet. And who’s it all for, sunshine? Tell me who this is for.” You bit your lip, rolled your eyes—you didn’t want to give in too quickly. He was a bastard, and you didn’t want to lose the upper hand. His finger curled inside you, brushing your swollen, aching walls, but still you stayed silent.

“Sunshine…” he said again, voice low and darker now. “Answer me. Who do you belong to?”

You tilted your head, feigning innocence. “I don’t know…” That was your mistake. Sunghoon slowly pulled his finger out, torturously slow, and the emptiness made your breath hitch in frustration. He wanted to hear you say his name, and you broke immediately.

“No! Don’t....fuck! Bastard!”

He laughed, low and smug, before lowering his mouth again. His lips met your clit not gently. He teased the sensitive, swollen nub with his teeth, giving it small, stinging nips, a punishment for your disobedience.

“Then say it… Tell me who you belong to, baby.”

“To you… Sunghoon,” you finally gasped, wrecked and burning.

“Good girl,” he murmured, kissing you right there. “That’s the answer I wanted, sunshine.”

Then he either punished or rewarded you, two fingers slid into you with purpose, making you cry out his name as your legs spread wider on their own. Shame disappeared; only need remained. You wanted him to fuck you harder with just his fingers.

“Look at you, spreading so wide… Good girl.” He added, in a low, teasing hiss, “Still my filthy little brat, though, aren’t you?”

You whimpered, broken by pleasure as he arched his fingers and pressed deep into your sweetest spot.

“I want more…” you sobbed. “I want to come… on your mouth, your fingers anywhere…” His fingers kept pumping in and out, slow but deliberate, knuckles brushing exactly where you needed them, while his tongue caressed your clit with torturous patience. He was skilled, focused, and relentless—like your body was the only thing that existed to him.

You grabbed his hair, pulling gently, breath trembling. “I’m… I’m gonna come…”

“Mmm, yeah?” he purred against your clit, then started licking harder alternating sharp flicks with deep, slow sucks. The contrast sent a jolt through your spine. Every move of his mouth drew helpless little cries from you. You trembled from head to toe, your legs shaking around his head, toes curling, spine arching.

“Look how you tremble for me…” he whispered, feeling your pulse around his fingers. “You’re falling apart, sunshine. Perfect like this. Beginning with your body, even when your mouth stays quiet.”

You let go with a sharp moan, your hips moving on their own as your orgasm crashed over you like a sudden, overwhelming wave. You clenched around his fingers while his tongue never stopped guiding you through it, holding you in that pleasure until you were spent and trembling. Only when your body stopped shaking did Sunghoon pull back. He slowly slid his fingers out and stood, looking down at you with that same arrogant, hungry smirk. One of his fingers still glistening with your arousal he brought to his lips and sucked it in slowly. You whimpered just at the sight.

“So good…” he murmured to himself with a satisfied grin. Then, without warning, he lifted his other hand, the one with the middle finger just as soaked, and brought it to your face. His eyes were locked onto yours, firm and commanding.

“Open your mouth, sunshine.” His voice was low, hoarse, and it wasn’t a request—it was an order. Your eyes widened, your cheeks flushed hot.

“W-What��?” you whispered.

“You heard me,” he hissed, bringing the finger closer to your lips. “Don’t get shy now. I know you’ll like it. Be good.” This wasn’t the cold, distant Sunghoon from before. This was the man who had seen you vulnerable, and now was taming you in his way. And you didn’t want to fight it. So, slowly, you opened your mouth.

He slid the finger in, and you welcomed it with your tongue, licking it gently. It tasted like you're salty, sweet, obscene. Your lips closed around him, and you began to suck, slow and deep, mimicking what you knew you wanted to do next.

Sunghoon stared at you like he was losing his mind.

“Fuck…” he muttered. “If you suck a finger like that… can’t imagine what you’d do with my cock.” You smirked around his finger, then slowly pulled it out with a soft pop and said, voice full of bratty mischief:

“Maybe you should let me find out… I want to try.” His jaw dropped slightly, clearly taken aback by how far you’d come from that mouthy little tease he once thought you were.

“Fucking curious, huh?”

“Insatiably,” you whispered, stepping closer. “Lie back on the bed. Now.” He didn’t need to be told twice. Gripping your hips, he lifted you like you weighed nothing and carried you to the bed with smooth, commanding confidence. He lay down slowly, arms behind his head, watching you with a smirk that blended anticipation and provocation.

“Show me what that mouth can do, sunshine, that mouth that usually runs way too much.”

Those words sent a jolt through you, and you slowly straddled him before sliding down between his legs. Looking up at him, you tugged his pants down his thighs, revealing his Supreme boxers and the thick, swollen outline beneath them. You licked your lips. When he gave you the slightest nod, you pulled his boxers down, too.

Your mouth parted, then closed again as you stared. He was long, smooth, flushed, veined, and hard. Sunghoon was… massive. You’d imagined it, but now it was real. Right in front of you. And all yours.“Fuck…” you whispered, running a finger along the length, feeling how hard he was even before touching skin. “You’ve been keeping all this just for me?”

He growled at the nickname he hated and hissed, “Shut up and suck it.” You laughed shamelessly, loving the way he struggled to keep his cool around you. “So rude for someone so desperate.”

You slowly dragged your tongue over the tip, savoring the salty taste of pre-cum, and he threw his head back, groaning through clenched teeth.

“Shit…” Your eyes were wide and innocent, but your tongue was sin itself. You took him slowly, inch by inch, his hands diving into your hair in a desperate attempt to stay grounded.

“You’re…” he panted, jaw clenched. “So fucking good. Where did you...” You didn’t let him finish. You took him deeper, your lips wrapping tight around him, your tongue teasing, your pace shifting—slow, fast, slow again just to watch him fall apart. Sometimes you squeezed with your lips, sometimes with your hands. Every reaction, every twitch, every groan was yours to enjoy. Sunghoon was cursing, losing his signature control.

“Fuck… sunshine… just like that… be good for me…”

His breathing was erratic, neck veins taut, and now and then he'd open his eyes just to make sure this wasn’t a dream just to see you, on your knees, taking him so well—then shut them again as his hips bucked subtly, pushing deeper into your mouth.

“Who gave you permission to be this much of a brat and this fucking perfect?” he muttered, almost angry with how badly he needed you. “You’re ruining me, you know that?” You pulled back just a little, your chin wet, lips swollen.

“Doesn’t sound like you’re complaining,” you whispered before he thrust forward again, sinking his cock back into your mouth.

“No. I’m praying you don’t stop. And trying not to cum too fucking fast.”

You grinned, letting your tongue trace his length again, slow, hungry.

“Then shut up, Hoon, and let me have my fun.” You dove back in, harder, deeper, your moans vibrating against him. His hands gripped your hair tightly as he groaned your name through gritted teeth. In that moment, he wasn’t the cold, distant rockstar anymore. He was just Sunghoon warm, wrecked, completely gone for you. You slowly climbed back on top of him, your hips brushing his, the hem of your dress so high it may as well not exist. Sunghoon lay there beneath you, head resting on the pillow, one hand behind his neck, the other gripping your waist.

The bed creaked beneath the weight of your bodies, but the only sound truly audible was his breathing deeper, shakier. Each thrust of his hips pushed him deeper into your mouth, each movement fueled by a hunger he had denied far too long.

One hand was tangled tightly in your hair, holding you in place, his fingers pressing into your scalp. The other gripped your hip, keeping you still while his body tensed beneath you.

“Look at you…” He hissed, lips tight. “That mouth stuffed full and those watery eyes… You look like the picture of innocence. But you’re just a filthy little slut in heat.” You moaned softly, his cock so deep it made your eyes tear up but there was pleasure in those tears. His tip brushed your palate, and you welcomed it like worship. Bent between his hips like some unholy devotee to his body but of course, he didn’t want to give you the satisfaction.

He brought a fist to his mouth, trying to muffle the sounds, refusing to moan in front of you, refusing to let you hear just how good you were at breaking him. But you noticed.

You grabbed that fist and gently, firmly pulled it away. He shot you a look—blazing, fierce—and in that exact moment, a groan escaped him. You giggled around his cock, rubbing your tongue along his shaft, eyes gleaming as you looked up at him.

“What was that, rockstar? Did you just moan for a brat like me?”

“Shut up,” he growled, but noticed your struggle to take all of him.

“Breathe through your nose,” he ordered. “No excuses.”

You obeyed—just to watch him unravel. He ran a hand over his neck and groaned, “Fuck, sunshine… I’m gonna cum.” You teased him again, taking him deep into your throat, then slowly sliding back up, your tongue tracing every inch. He panted, biting his cheek, murmuring through gritted teeth:

“Fuck… if you don’t move, I’m gonna cum down your throat.”

It sounded like a warning, but it felt more like a plea. With your lips still glistening, you nodded, and Sunghoon cursed, like you were tearing down every last ounce of his restraint.

“Christ, sunshine… you’re fucking ruinous.” And then he came. You felt his whole body jolt beneath you, his length twitching as hot spurts flooded your mouth. His release hit the back of your throat with such force that it made you swallow again and again, instinctively. You felt him pressing against your palate, burning hot, and your tongue welcomed him, obedient and eager. His eyes blew wide open, chest rising and falling like he’d just run a marathon.

“Fuck…” he breathed, running a hand through his tousled hair.

When you finally let him slide out of your mouth, his cock bounced against his stomach thick white streaks splattering across his tight abs. You bit your lip, admiring the sight like it was a masterpiece, and he stared at you, wrecked, stunned, overwhelmed. Then he reached up, cradled your face gently, and asked in a low, shaky voice:

“Did you take it all?” You lowered your gaze, smiled faintly, and nodded.

That broke him. He pulled you up against his trembling body in a sudden, visceral embrace. His arms wrapped tight around your waist, one hand cradling the back of your head, the other sliding down your spine as he held you like you were something precious, his sanity, his undoing and for long minutes that felt like forever, you just listened to the thunder of his heartbeat against your ear. Then, in a voice low and rough, he whispered:

“That’s… my good girl.” And the second he said it, he tensed—as if realizing, too late, just what those words meant. You curled up tighter against his bare chest, cheeks still wet, heart pounding out of control.

BARCELONA

Barcelona smelled like sea salt and endless afternoons under the sun. The moment you stepped off the plane, the warm breeze messed up your hair, and with your sunglasses sliding down your nose, you smiled at him like you were about to show him your whole world.

He loved Spain had been there often but never your city. Never your home. When you suggested playing tourist—wandering down Las Ramblas, sharing tapas, exploring Parc Güell—he gave a faint smile. But then, in a quieter voice, you added, “Hey… my parents are coming to the concert tonight. I haven’t seen them in a while.”

He looked at you for a long second, then nodded, his voice lower than usual that voice he only used with you.

“Then let’s skip Gaudí. Take me to them. I want to know your parents… and where you grew up.”

After the concert, your parents watched from the front row, eyes shining, waving handmade Spanish flags with Sunghoon’s face glued on them he came down from the stage, walking toward them with a trace of nervousness. He reached for your father’s hand, but your dad pulled him into a tight hug instead. Then he turned to your mom—and the moment she smiled at him with the same bright, doe-eyed warmth you had, Sunghoon short-circuited a little.

“Christ, now it all makes sense,” he thought, clearing his throat to stop himself from laughing. She was so you—same smile, same zest for life. You got your sun-kissed skin from her, even that soft, curvy figure. In her sweet, proud voice, your mom asked, 'Would you like to spend tomorrow with us? Our house faces the sea…'

He looked at you, and you smiled like you already knew his answer. Because how could he possibly say no to spending the day in your home, in your Barcelona, learning everything there was to learn about you?

That summer afternoon, there he was—sitting on your terrace overlooking the sea, sunlight warming the white-and-blue tiles underfoot. You laughed freely in your silky dress, blood-orange sangria flowing from two pitchers, a radiant smile shining bright on your face.

“You trust me too much, letting me hold the alcohol,” you teased. He watched you silently for a moment, then whispered:

“No, sunshine. I trust you enough to know: if you get me drunk, it's just an excuse to kiss me more and to touch me.” You laughed, glasses clinking, cheeks warm. Soon, you dragged him into the kitchen, where your parents were busy prepping crostini with jamón ibérico, patatas bravas, grilled fish, and petite bowls of fresh salad.mSunghoon felt slightly out of place in that familial warmth, not because it wasn’t beautiful, but because it was too perfect, too real. From here, he understood everything about you.

This home, full of light, laughter, vibrant colors, and scents, that energy drove him crazy every single day.

'Want to show him the house, cariño?' your mother asked. 'He can leave his bag in your room.' You nodded, took his hand, and casually guided him through. When you reached your bedroom, you paused and said, “Promise you won’t tease me?” One eyebrow arched, his lips curved into a lazy smile. He leaned in, voice low:

“You have posters of me on the ceiling? Hidden photocards in the pillow? A cardboard cutout?”

“Egocentric,” you murmured, pushing the door open. He stopped dead eyes widening. Silence for two full seconds.

“You’re kidding.” Inside, pink ruled—from curtains to bedding, framed fashion prints to piles of plushies, even a mannequin covered in pins and ribbons. A candy‑pink double bed with a fluffy throw. You giggled as he dropped his bag on the floor.

“Welcome to my kingdom,” you said, arms open wide. “I’ll make you a crown, Mr. Prince Charming.” He turned toward you, brows furrowed, but a corner of his mouth quivering.

“Wrong,” he murmured. “I’d be the Prince of Darkness or at most, the monster under your bed.” You winked at him.

“Perfect! Then stay under the bed tonight or on it, your choice.”

Sunghoon bit his cheek to hold back a smile, watching you arrange two pillows and flip through baby photos. When you brushed his arm for attention, you smiled and whispered: “Thank you for coming here with me, Sunghoon.”

You hugged him shyly...I think you were afraid he might tease you or pull away. Instead, he drew you close, resting his chin on your head, and in a low voice said, “This and everything, just to make you happy, sunshine.”

When you returned downstairs, the sun was melting into the sea like a poured gold coin. Your terrace glowed in rosy‑orange hues, the shadows of glasses stretched across the terracotta tiles, and the table was set like a childhood dream: toasted bread, steaming patatas bravas, freshly grilled fish, and a pitcher of glowing sangria.

Sunghoon motioned to you and, in a surprisingly gentlemanly move, pulled out your chair. Your mother caught his eye across the table, her gaze tender and sparkling, as if she’d just given her blessing to you two together.

“Gracias, Hoon,” you smiled. He tilted his smirk, a dash of mischief in his eye, and gave you a subtle wink. The evening rolled on with laughter, talk of his debut, and stories of how you met. Your mother queen of nostalgia, brought out the photo album. The real show began then: Sunghoon laughed warmly at baby pictures of you rocking a pink swimsuit, sandy hair, scraped knees from Mediterranean play.

“And this one?” he chuckled. “Was that you with braces?!”mYou shot him a look. “We all go through an ugly-duckling phase in our teens.” He laughed:

“Not me, sunshine.” Everyone joined in but you found it hard to concentrate. Under the table, his hand had found your thigh. At first, his touch was tender, natural—but then his finger started tracing slow circles, inching closer and closer to your panties. You tried to focus on slicing bread but squirmed slightly, stealing glances at him.

“Getting restless, sunshine?” he whispered in your ear, low and teasing. “You okay? You look a bit flushed.” You nodded too fast.

“Just… warm,” you muttered, shooting him a telling look.

“It is August in Spain—or maybe you’re just heating up instead.” You wanted to bite his wrist—but, deep down, you didn't want him to stop. After dinner, your mother insisted on taking photos.

'Let’s do one in front of the sea!' she said excitedly. Sunghoon stood next to you; you draped an arm around his waist, and he pulled you in tighter. Just before your mother snapped the final shot, he pressed a soft kiss to your temple, and the photo turned out perfect. That night, without thinking, you posted it to Instagram.

BARCELONA

Coming back to the room, Sunghoon looked more relaxed than usual, hands in his pockets, and a slightly amused look. “I have to admit,” he said, closing the door behind him, “I had fun. Now I get where you get all that sunshine from. You grew up somewhere even the air feels… too happy.” You giggled and turned to him. “It’s the charm of Spanish people: warm, friendly, sunny, not cold, grumpy, and always with a dark look.” He rolled his eyes, knowing you meant him.

You bent down to dig in your suitcase for a white tank top with little pink flowers and a pair of shorts so short they were practically illegal to sleep in, feeling his gaze on you as you pulled them out. “Wait, wait…” he squinted. “Are you seriously wearing that to bed?” You shrugged innocently. “What’s wrong with that? It’s comfy… cute… and you’ve already seen me sleep in tank tops.”

You gave him a teasing look as you slowly unbuttoned your sundress, letting it fall to the floor, standing in just your underwear for a few seconds, feeling his eyes travel down your bare legs. Then you slipped on the shorts—so short they almost looked like boxers—and finally the tank top without a bra underneath. Sunghoon swallowed hard. “Maybe you should wear one of my shirts. You steal mine almost every night, and okay, it annoyed me at first, but you can take one anytime.” You faced the mirror, adjusting the tank that barely hid your nipples beneath the sheer fabric. “I like being cute even to go to bed,” you said with a sweet but provocative smile. “You never know who might visit me through the window. Maybe a sexy vampire…” Before you finished, his hands closed on your hips, pulling you firmly against his bare chest. “Don’t say that, sunshine,” he growled softly, voice rough and jealous. “I don’t like the idea of anyone else seeing you like this.” You looked up at him, biting your lip to hide your smile. “Jealous, Hoon?” “Take that smirk off your face,” he murmured possessively, fingers digging into your curves. You wrapped your arms around his neck, brushing his hair, stealing a glance at your reflection behind you. “We look so cute together, look at us. You in your sweats with those cover-boy abs, me in my illegal tank. A perfect social media couple.” You grabbed the phone from the nightstand and raised it, framing you both. “Selfie time. I promise I won’t post them on IG. I swear.” You snapped a few photos of you smiling and him looking resigned but too attracted to pull away, then he bent down, lips warm on your neck, slow and teasing, hands still firmly on your hips. “You love teasing me too much, don’t you?” he whispered between kisses. “Maybe,” you breathed, sliding a hand down his bare back. “Maybe just a little.”

His mouth on your neck was warm, alternating soft kisses and gentle bites, his slightly longer canines brushing your skin with a delicious sting that made you hold your breath and moan softly. “Sunshine…” His voice was hoarse. “If you don’t shut up, they’ll hear us in the living room.” You paused, looking up like a kid caught doing something forbidden, but instead of apologizing, you wrapped your legs around his waist. He immediately gripped your hips hard, fingers digging into your soft skin, pressing his pelvis against yours. You felt the undeniable hardness under your too-thin shorts, eyes wide, mouth open in surprise, speechless. Then he lifted you effortlessly and started walking across the room, hands still firmly on your hips. “Where… where are you going?” “Where I want. Hold on tight, sunshine.” He sat you astride him on the bed edge, you clung to his neck, leaning in to kiss his little neck: one kiss near his temple, one on his cheekbone, one just above the corner of his mouth—secret spots on his face to adore one by one. “You’re full of little secrets, you know that?” “And you’re full of a damn desire to drive me crazy.” He started moving his hips gently, making you feel his erection rubbing against the thin fabric of your shorts, pulling you closer, moving slowly with you. “I hate you.” “Oh? Because I’m doing this to you without even really touching you?” You giggled, breath shortening, fingers digging into his hair, eyes soft and inviting. “Can you touch me? Just a little?” “Mmh?” He tilted his head, looking at you like he was superior. “In your room? With Mom and Dad down the hall? I’m not like you, cute. I have some self-control, but you…” He leaned in, brushing your ear with the lowest, most arrogant voice you’d ever heard. “…you seem like a little desperate brat.” You shuddered when he gave your ass a little smack, noticing your broken breath, smiling satisfied as he pressed you against his warm, taut chest. “Sleep, sunshine, bratty girls don’t deserve me.”

ROME

You hated Sunghoon with every fiber of your being—but just as intensely, you wanted him. Since that night in Spain, he hadn’t touched you. No hands under your clothes, no kisses that went any deeper than teasing. Just glances, provocations, and frozen hands while yours sought him out shamelessly. And him? He enjoyed it...he fucking enjoyed watching you lose control while he remained unbothered, cold, like you were just some test of willpower. At that moment, sitting on a crate next to Heeseung’s sister and the social media manager, you wanted nothing more than to get up and choke him.

He was on stage low lights, smoke, and concert rehearsals for the next day in Rome. The4Boys had been rehearsing for almost two hours, their skin glistening with sweat under the heat of the stage lights. But it was the last part of the choreography that pushed you over the edge. Sunghoon stepped out of a coffin, fake vampire fangs in place, and a girl lying beneath him with exposed skin, perfectly positioned to be “bitten.”

And he... bit her. Slowly. Kissed her neck, her collarbone, even brushed the top of her chest with those soft, slow, open-mouthed kisses. It was choreographed, sure—but way too real. Too erotic.

'Oh my god,' Heeseung’s sister whispered, arms crossed. 'That scene is insane. If my crush did something like that on stage, I’d scream.'

You slowly turned to her, eyes narrowed with rage—because she was right. You wanted to scream.

-Breathe,- the social media manager chuckled. -It’s all fake. Show business. And tomorrow's performance in Seoul is their last with that choreography anyway.-

Right… fake. Like everything between you and Sunghoon was supposed to be. Except you hadn’t believed that for a long time. Since that first kiss at the skating rink, everything had started to shift between you and him and now, you couldn’t tell what was real anymore.

And it made you want to cry, because deep down, you knew that in just a few weeks—it would all be over.

The contract, the fake relationship, the attention, the hotel nights, the stolen touches before livestreams or concerts, the repressed desire. And you’d be left with a broken heart if, after the Seoul concert, he denied everything that had been growing between you two.

The concert at Rome’s Stadio Olimpico was a success. Screams, lights, pure energy and The4Boys had been on stage for over two hours, and looked like they could go on for three more. You watched from backstage, phone in hand for IG stories, though half the time you forgot. You just stood there, mesmerized. Watching him. How was he so perfect—even sweaty, messy, exhausted, with 35°C heat melting the asphalt outside?

And still, you hated him because the part you dreaded most was coming. That damn scene. You’d seen it ten times already in rehearsals. The coffin opens, the sensual music plays, and Sunghoon steps out with slow, predatory confidence. Fake fangs in, the dancer lying there, neck exposed, ready for him to "bite."

But tonight, hidden in the shadows backstage, you couldn’t take it anymore. Something inside you broke a mix of frustration, anger, and jealousy that you didn’t think he deserved.

“What did you expect?” your inner voice whispered. “It’s all a contract. A performance. And you? You got lost in the script.”

You sighed and turned to Heeseung’s sister.

“I’m not feeling well. I think I’ll head back to the hotel. I feel a little dizzy.” She looked surprised. 'Should I tell Sunghoon?'

“No, no. It’s fine, sweetie. Just the heat and exhaustion. Tell him he was amazing. I’ll message him later.”

'Okay, but text me when you get there,' she said, hugging you. You nodded with a tight smile and walked off quickly. As you stepped out of the stadium, you felt an odd mix of emptiness and relief. Empty because you were leaving a concert without him for the first time. Relieved because you couldn’t keep pretending about how you felt.

You jumped into a cab and let it take you for a little drive through the Eternal City past the Colosseum, through Trastevere before reaching the hotel. You peeled off your sweaty clothes, skin sticky with heat and pent-up emotion.

“Screw The4Boys. Screw Sunghoon,” you muttered, stepping into the boiling shower. The water hit your back, and you closed your eyes, standing in silence—maybe for half an hour—just letting your thoughts wash over you and for the first time in weeks, you weren’t thinking about staff, or stories to post, or your image.

You were thinking of him, the way he looked at you, the way he didn’t touch you and how, despite everything… You wanted him to be yours. You stepped out of the shower, the walls still foggy, skin warm under your robe, reaching to stop the music on your phone, you noticed four missed calls from Sunghoon.

And messages:

Are you okay?

Where did you go?

Answer me, Y/n.

You sighed, knowing you were acting like a spoiled child—or as he called you, a brat-with that tone halfway between amused and annoyed. For once… You didn’t care. You were tired of him and this whole farce. Next week, you’d fly to Seoul for the last concert, the final public appearance together. And after? What would happen then? Would he leave you there with a fake kiss and hollow smiles, pretending everything you built, the fights, the looks, the stolen kisses in the corridors, never happened? Slowly, you rubbed your favorite vanilla cream onto your bare thighs, trying not to think. But your thoughts stopped when you heard the bedroom door open.

“Y/n?” Sunghoon’s voice called. You rolled your eyes and slipped into the bathroom without knocking, cheeks flushed from dancing, hair messy, eyes sharp like a wounded predator. He stared at you; you avoided his gaze and kept massaging your arms, indifferent. “Why did you leave like that?” he asked. “I wasn’t feeling well,” you whispered. “Bullshit. Look at my face.” You ignored him, spreading the cream on your inner thigh. His body drew closer, the scent of mint, sweat, and male skin overwhelming you. His cold fingers gripped your chin firmly, lifting it so he could see your slightly flushed, tear-streaked face.

“Why,” he said through clenched teeth, “for the first time since you came into my fucking life… weren’t you waiting for me after the concert?” You swallowed, unsure what to say. “Because it’s over… you’ll have to get used to it. Soon, this will be just a cover memory,” you said coldly, trying to push him away. “Maybe you can comfort yourself with that dancer, the one you kissed and bit after the show.” He raised an eyebrow, lips curling into an amused half-smile. “Jealous, sunshine?” “Fuck you, Sunghoon.” You turned to leave, but he grabbed your arm hard, making you bump against the cold marble sink. Leaning close, he whispered, “Try talking to me like that again, and I swear I’ll make you scream my name all over the hotel.” You faced him, eyes bright, voice trembling, but smiled defiantly. “Then do it.” “Don’t tempt me, pretty.” You tried to push him out, but he was faster, gripping your hips firmly, lifting you effortlessly onto the marble edge. “Open your legs.” You obeyed as if his voice controlled your body. He pressed his torso against yours, the bathrobe slipping, revealing olive-toned, moist skin. “Chamomile and vanilla. You want to drive me crazy, don’t you?” he murmured, inhaling your scent. “Sunghoon…” The name slipped out like a sigh. He took your chin again, lifting it so you met his gaze. “You left like a spoiled little girl, alone. Do you realize? I was looking for you everywhere.” “You were too busy licking that dancer, maybe.” His jaw clenched. “It was choreography, from the first time you saw me live in New York. It’s all a show… but you’re real.” He tugged the bathrobe knot; the fabric slipped, exposing your breasts. He chuckled at your hard, sensitive nipples, grasping them firmly. His fingers sank into your soft flesh as he leaned down to suck one, sending pleasure through your spine. You arched instinctively, seeking more contact. His free hand traced down your belly to the loose lace. When the fabric fell, you were completely exposed. His hungry gaze drank you in, no longer controlled. “No one out there drives me crazy like you, Sunshine… no one makes me want to take you like this…” He whispered in your ear, “And humiliate her in the dirtiest way possible.” You tried to move, clutching his shoulders, but he stopped you with words that froze you. His mouth returned to your breast, tongue circling and sucking. You gasped; your thighs closed around him, but he held you still with his knees. “Look at you squirming. Want something, brat?” he laughed. “Ask me, and humble yourself for me.”

You moaned, a deep sound escaping as his tongue tormented your nipple, biting and sucking, while his fingers slid lower between your swollen, wet folds. A broken sigh escaped you. “Oh God…” The contrast between his cool finger and your burning skin made you tremble as he teased your clit slowly, building pleasure up your spine. “Tell me what you want.” His voice was hoarse, almost a growl. You stammered, confused, and he pinched your clit. A small moan escaped, your hands trembling as you clung to his strong arms. “No, sunshine. I want to hear it from that cute little mouth of yours. Tell me what you want from me.” With broken breath, shiny eyes, and thighs tightening around him, you whispered tremblingly: “I want you inside me, with all of myself.” A grin spread across his face. Without a word, he pushed a finger inside, making you tremble. But… it wasn’t enough. “N-not this…” you stammered, almost pleading. “That’s not what I want…” “Brats who throw tantrums deserve nothing. If you want something, sunshine, you have to be much more precise.”

His finger began moving inside you, slow but deliberate, and you couldn’t stay still. You arched, twisted, searching for friction. Your hands moved on their own, slipping under his white shirt and trembling as you pulled it up, revealing his sculpted chest, veins along his arms, and the biceps you loved. “It’s unfair… you’re too handsome.” He smiled then, with a dangerous tenderness. “And you’re too damn good at driving me crazy.” Without giving you time to respond, he slid you further back on the sink’s edge. “Open those beautiful legs wider.” He added another finger, and you couldn’t hold back a moan—their long, precise movements were exquisite. They moved in and out slowly, your soft moans growing more frequent as you melted against his sweaty, bare chest. His hot skin under your lips was moist but smelled of mint, masculine skin, and something dangerously familiar. You planted small kisses on his collarbone almost unconsciously as your belly tightened with sweet agony.

“Sunghoon…” you cried out. “I’m… I’m about to come…” He lowered his gaze but didn’t stop, only slowed his fingers, making you feel every single movement. “Do you deserve it?” he asked. You lifted your eyes, glossy and flushed, mouth slightly open. You knew you couldn’t lie, so you slowly shook your head. “No… but… please… I want it so badly…” “Look at you—what two fingers have done to you, sunshine. A mess: wet, trembling, completely open for me… and you haven’t even felt half of what I could do.” He pumped and teased your clit more aggressively. “Ridiculous…” he whispered, leaning close to your ear. “You want my cock that badly? Are you sure you can take it all, pretty girl?” You gasped, voice broken. “Yes… yes…” “Yes, what?” You couldn’t speak clearly; your words drowned in growing pleasure as your muscles clenched around him. “I’ll… take it all. Your cock—I want it… I want it so much…” With a pleased grin, he curved his fingers inside, finding the exact spot, and you arched back with a broken scream. “Oh God, Sunghoon… I’m—I'm coming…!” Your thighs clenched; you felt your warmth slide down your skin, wetting his fingers, tears of pleasure forming at your eyes. “I wanted this… for so long…” He leaned down, eyes dark and shiny, whispering coldly, “You don’t deserve it, sunshine. But you’re too beautiful when you beg.” Without a word, you slid off the sink, legs still trembling but determined. Your hands moved quickly to his belt, slowly undoing it as you looked up at him.

His pants dropped with a dull sound, revealing that thin line of dark hair trailing from his navel down his abdomen to his black Supreme boxers. You bit your lip, eager to touch him, and bent down, kissing along that strip of skin with light lips. “Don’t even think for a second that you can play with me.” Sunghoon placed one hand on the mirror behind you, the other sliding down your side, grabbing the damp robe firmly and slowly letting it fall from your shoulders, revealing your warm, bare skin. “So beautiful, all for me…” You moaned softly as the fabric hit the floor, fully exposed before him. You leaned down again, lips trailing that slender line of skin from his navel, decorated with tiny shimmering piercings, leading to the tempting hardness beneath his boxers.

Sunghoon flinched slightly as your mouth grew bolder, your lips gently sucking that forbidden spot. “You’re a nightmare...” he murmured with a half-smile.

When you pulled down his boxers, his erection sprang against his abdomen free, heavy, throbbing. It was long, veined, dark, already glistening with desire. You reached out to tease him a little, but he stopped you immediately.

“If you start touching me like that, I won’t last long, sunshine. Behave and sit where you were before. I want to take you from there first... then I’ll lift you up.” You obeyed silently, sitting back on the sink’s edge. When he slid the tip of himself along your folds, the contact sent you reeling.

“Oh... Sunghoon...” You grabbed his shoulders, your legs instinctively closing around his hips.

“Push inside... please... I want it so badly…” The words came out broken, almost pleading.

“Watch your tone.” His voice was a cold shiver on your heated skin. “Where’s the sweet girl I knew, huh? The one with the big eyes and the influencer smile? Now you only seem to think about one thing. Just my cock.”

You whimpered, looking at him with glossy eyes. “I can’t help it... you drive me crazy…” Sunghoon clenched his jaw, his gaze dropping to your exposed body, so ready for him. Without warning, he pushed in with a single, deep, firm motion.

“A-AH!” you screamed, your hands gripping his shoulders tightly, the other clawing at his hair, pulling him. A shock ran through your whole body.

“There she is...” he whispered, panting against your warm skin. “The good girl who loses her mind as soon as she’s properly filled.” Your body tried to adjust to him, but it was impossible: he was too deep, too fast, and every inch hurt and pleased you at the same time.

“Look how you clench...” he murmured with a low groan, staying still inside you to torture you. You whispered, almost begging:

“Move... please…”

“You’ve been wet since you entered the room, haven’t you?” he whispered in your ear. “I bet you were already turned on just watching me dance on stage. You were soaking wet under that damn skirt, pretending to be professional.” You nodded against his neck. His hands slid under your ass, pulling you tight against him. He pulled out slightly, then began moving slow and calculated. Each thrust slid his cock between your slick, warm folds as if you were made to take him, your body bouncing against his chest as you moaned loudly.

“You hated me...” you whispered between a moan and a sob. “You said I talked too much…”

“You still do,” he growled, thrusting harder, rougher. “But your body knows how to shut up when I treat it right. When I use it how I like.”He plunged deeper every time, becoming more violent.

“And you… have been mine since the first time I saw you.”

The pace grew frantic, each thrust rocking him inside you so deeply you couldn’t breathe, only moan loudly and shamelessly. Then he caught your reflection in the mirror your back, his arms around your trembling body—and grabbed your hair, whispering:

“Turn around. Watch yourself as I fuck you.”

“S-Sunghoon...” You turned slightly, and what you saw shattered you: your body bent over him, his strong arms holding you tight, and his cock... sliding inside you with cruel precision, plunging deeper with every stroke, tears of pleasure streaming down, mixed with sobs.

“Shhh, cry all you want, sunshine...” he growled against your skin, kissing your neck. “Look how you tremble—perfect. Thank God I found my little favorite toy.”

“I-I’m yours...” you managed to whisper, sobbing.

“You always were.” Then he began praising you with filthy words grinding out through clenched teeth as he destroyed you:

“Look how you take me... fuck, you’re tight, you’re mine. Born to be beneath me. To take all of me. My little fucking influencer who thought she was smart but ends up begging me with tears in her eyes.” and then, once again, without warning, he thrust all the way in. You didn’t even realize he’d carried you to the bed and slid you down as if you were light, a fragile thing to be arranged as he pleased.

“Stay still, sunshine.” And in a second, you saw him above you, his muscular arms braced on either side of your body, warm, damp skin brushing against yours. His cock was hard, throbbing, already shining with pre-cum and sweat, pressing against your lower belly as he looked at you with those eyes lost in pleasure. “S-Sunghoon… I’m… I’m about to come.” He silenced you with a kiss and with his thumb found your clit, beginning to draw slow, almost scientific circles. You bent beneath him as if you’d lost all control. “Ah—fuck—I’m going crazy… fuck… You make me…” “Already stammering? Just one thumb is enough for you, little brat?” You looked at him with glossy eyes, and he lowered his face. “I should be ashamed to fuck you like this, but look how wide you open for me.” With a moan, you felt him plunge in without warning, his cock hitting your G-spot with devastating precision. “A-AAH!” You screamed, scratching his back to find something to hold onto. “That’s how it’s done,” he murmured, panting as he stayed still inside you, savoring every second of your reaction. “My little sunshine who loses her mind as soon as I fill her right, look how tightly you’re gripping me,” he hissed, grabbing you under your ass, lifting you slightly, and starting to move again. First slow, then harder and harder… his thrusts became irregular, hungry, wild, as he held you close like he wanted to fuse with you.

“You’re driving me insane,” he whispered through clenched teeth. “You… and this fucking wet pussy. Where do you want it, huh? In the belly? In the face? Or inside that little pussy that’s swallowing me like it’s its only mission in the world?” “I… I’m on the pill… and I’m clean…” You whispered with trembling lips. “I’ve never done it without… but I want to feel you come inside me. I want all of you…” He froze for a moment and looked at you as if you’d just said the most obscene and perfect thing in the world. “Me too, you know we get regular tests and I’ve never done it without protection… but for you? I want to plunge deep inside you.” “Do it, Sunghoon… fill me up.” “My little fucking influencer… made to be under me. To be filled like this and you’ll never be clean again, got it? You’re mine, sunshine.” You wrapped your arms around his head and pulled him close as if you wanted to melt into him, pressing your warm, wet lips against his because you wanted to hold him as tightly as possible. “Ahh—fuck…” he groaned, and you felt his seed flooding you violently, layer after layer. Little trails of cum seeping into your tight, warm walls still pulsing from your orgasm. “That’s my good girl…” he whispered against your lips. “You took it all so well, sunshine.”

When he pulled away, you smiled and lifted a hand to stroke his sweaty hair, brushing a strand from his forehead. “You’re so beautiful…” You said softly, and he rolled his eyes, sighing with that sharp sarcasm of his. “Me… or my cock still inside you?” You lightly slapped his chest, laughing through dry tears and the lingering pleasure on your. “Hoonie, you’re the most vain and asshole man I’ve ever known. But also… the best.” “Tsk.” He shook his head. “Stop it, cutie, or we’re doing it again right now.” And when he slowly slid his shaft out from you, you moaned softly, and that’s when you felt it — that strange, intimate sensation: his absence inside you… and the slow, warm descent of his cum down your thighs as it began to drip, and you sighed, utterly spent.

“Stay still.” His voice softened, almost worried, as he got off the bed, putting on only his boxers. He grabbed a black shirt from his suitcase and came closer. He slipped it onto you with slow, almost shy movements, and you curled up immediately inside that scent of him: skin, sweat, moss, and something familiar. After a few seconds, he returned with a warm cloth, knelt between your parted legs, and began to clean you. Your thighs, your intimate folds, every trace of him still dripping from you. “Sunghoon…” you whispered, your voice trembling. When he looked up at you, you bit your lip, and he said nothing but lay down next to you, pulling you close against his chest, slipping an arm around your body. “Come here.” He held you on top of him, pressed against his bare, muscular chest. You rested like a tired child, your face against his neck, your small body warm and still trembling above him. You felt his hands gently touch your hair as he whispered, “I’ve never felt this good in my life.” You nodded silently, holding him even tighter, but you didn’t know what to say or think anymore. “Sleep, sunshine.” You closed your eyes, but before drifting off, you felt his lips on your forehead. He gave you a soft kiss, and when he thought you were truly asleep… he spoke in a low voice. “Fuck, this thing between us… it’s not fake anymore. Maybe it hasn’t been for a while.” You said nothing, but your smile pressed against his skin, hidden in the curve of his neck, said enough.

SEOUL

The trip to Seoul had been… strange, not just because of jet lag, the exhaustion after months of touring, or the return home for all four members. Since Sunghoon had you in the most direct, intimate, and visceral way, he couldn’t take his eyes or his hands off you. It was like he had developed an almost physical need to have you close; every five minutes, he would find you—a careless caress on your side, a finger intertwined with yours, a kiss behind your ear when no one was looking. And the strangest thing? It was Sunghoon. The cold guy, allergic to human contact, the one who at most would give a pat on the shoulder even to his closest friends, but with you, he was different. “You’re like my chronic illness,” he whispered one night with his chin resting on your head, and you laughed, but inside you trembled. What was even sweeter was that he didn’t even seem to realize how much he had changed since you arrived months ago.

But the others noticed: Jake winked at you while watching him play with your hair, Heeseung once whispered, “I’ve never seen him like this since I’ve known him,” and Jay? He just smiled like someone who had known from the start that what you both were feeling was real, not fake. Yet despite all that sweetness… inside you stirred a dark shadow of fear.

When the plane landed in Seoul after the last European stop, the entire airport seemed to explode: fans everywhere, banners, people singing and shouting their names, flags from every country they’d performed in. There was a chaos of photographers, journalists, and cameras broadcasting everything live. The final tour stop had truly arrived, and you tried to smile, wave, keep up the role of the perfect influencer and the lucky girl who had managed to make Sunghoon more "human." But inside… You didn’t know whether to be happy or sad. Because the next day would be the last concert of the tour, and with it, your contract would end.

The day before the concert, you tried to keep your mind busy to stave off your impending sadness. You asked your manager, Miguel, to take a walk and have a drink with you. So you found yourselves in a quiet café a few steps from the Han River, hidden among residential streets, away from noise, where you could hear children shouting and the water flowing. The late afternoon light reflected off the bar’s windows, and you held a passion fruit iced tea tightly between your hands as if it might give you answers. Miguel had been silently watching you for several minutes, and finally, you looked up. “What’s up? Is there something on my face?” He shook his head slowly, smiling. “No, but there’s something in your eyes.” You raised your eyebrows, curious about the phrase. “What do you mean?” He leaned forward, resting his chin on his hand, and gave you a sincere smile. “Are you in love?” You froze, your eyes wide open, nearly choking on your tea, coughing and covering your mouth with your hand. “W-what?!” “You have that look...the look of someone who doesn’t sleep, doesn’t eat, smiles randomly, and… always thinks about someone else. And I’ve known you for years. I’ve never seen you like this.”

You stayed silent, the only sound the ice clinking in your glass. “I don’t know what to say…” You admitted, lowering your gaze, then whispered in a softer voice: “Maybe… maybe I was stupid. I didn’t protect my heart properly. At first, I told myself it was just a contract. A fiction, a mutual favor. But instead…” Miguel looked at you carefully but said nothing because he wanted to hear the truth from you. “I fell in love with him, not today, not last week… maybe from our first kiss when I fell on him and he caught me and kissed me, I realized I felt something for him. And when he stopped looking at me like an annoyance and started looking at me like… something real, my heart exploded for him.” Miguel sighed and then smiled. “And I’m happy for you both.” You nodded, but your smile faded immediately as you bit your straw. “The thing is…” You murmured. “…I don’t know if there’s an ‘us.’ And I’m seriously afraid that after the concert, he’ll tell me it’s over—that what we had was just a game, a simple facade for the brands and the fans—and that I don’t mean anything to him.” Your fingers trembled around the glass, and for the first time in your life, you felt fragile. Miguel reached out and placed his hand on yours. “Sometimes the truest feelings aren’t said, but shown. And from the outside, I can assure you, it shows. I see how Sunghoon looks at you as if you were his home and also his greatest temptation.” You nodded and hugged your manager.

SEOUL

Backstage at the stadium, the atmosphere was electric. All four members: Jake, Jay, Heeseung, and Sunghoon had just been made up, dressed, and mic‑checked for their final concert before a five‑month break. Their outfits differed, but they all shared the same look in their eyes: that post‑tour mix of performance adrenaline and the secret longing to shut down, stay out of the spotlight, and avoid cameras or interaction for a while.

“Guys… hug time.” Jake broke the silence first, arms open like an emotional golden retriever, and all four of them embraced tightly and strongly. A hug only for people who’ve shared sleepless nights, flights, dressing rooms, and dreams could truly understand.

Then they started joking one after another:

Jake: “I’m eating only ramen for a week when I get home.”

Heeseung: “I’m sleeping 48 hours, then taking a four‑hour candlelit, sad‑music bath.”

Jay: “I’m probably gonna spend all my money on guitars and rent a luxury hotel for a month.”

Sunghoon: “I’m changing my number for a couple of weeks...I need to isolate. My social battery has been drained for five years!”

They all laughed, but beneath that laughter was both relief and nostalgia. Suddenly, a staff member’s voice exploded:

“Two minutes! Positions!”

The boys got ready. The lights started flickering, and the roar of the crowd buzzed like thunder. Sunghoon glanced around and saw you a few feet away, wearing one of his oversized shirts tucked into a pleated skirt. You looked like a drama heroine. You smiled and gave him a thumbs-up, just a small gesture, but it warmed his heart, and he sprinted toward you.

“Sunshine,” he whispered as he reached you. You looked at him, surprised and a little confused. 

“You’re supposed to be on stage... like, now.” He shook his head with a soft smile. “Enjoy the show… and this time, stay until the end, okay?” He pressed a gentle kiss to your forehead. On tiptoe, you kissed his cheek, and he dashed off, cheeks flushed.

You sat next to the blonde content creator for the band and watched, eyes glistening, as the two‑hour performance unfolded. You giggled together at Jake’s fall during a dance, at Jay teasing Sunghoon about his "vampire" real teeth, and at Heeseung sneaking water from the others and spraying them mid‑verse.

Finally, the expected finale: Sunghoon emerging from a vampire coffin? But nothing happened. The lights went out, leaving a single chair center stage. You turned to the blonde girl beside you and whispered, “What’s happening?”

She leaned in. 'Two of the members decided to do covers.' Your heart skipped—who were the two?

First, Jay appeared with a guitar. He bowed slightly, said the song was for someone at the concert (you), and began “I Wanna Be Yours.” 

Then your heart raced as Sunghoon walked on, slowly sat on the chair, mic in hand. His shoulders were tense, his eyes locked on you. A dark, pulsing, sensual beat began, and you recognized it immediately: “Ordinary Life” by The Weeknd.

You watched Sunghoon with his head lowered, hair soaked from effort and sweat, microphone clenched between his fingers, legs spread wide in a cocky stance and yet… he looked vulnerable and then he began to sing.

“He said, I've seen the world, it's overrated

She said, Love me like you paid me…”

His voice was husky, and you parted your lips to say something, but nothing came out. And then the chorus hit:

“This ain’t an ordinary life

This ain’t an ordinary life

This ain’t an ordinary life

No ordinary life”

That was when he slowly turned not toward the audience, not to a camera but toward you. In that moment, only you existed for him. He found your eyes and held them, fixed, intense, glued to you like a weight. His voice grew deeper, more intense, as if he was singing inside of you. And suddenly, there was no crowd, no stadium. It was just the two of you and you thought: This isn’t an ordinary life, no. It started as a farce… and became the realest thing I’ve ever had.

Sunghoon slowly stood and walked across the stage as he kept singing:

“Even if I got it all, I’d still feel borrowed…

But this love—your love—it’s chaos, and I swallow…”

His face was marked with emotion, eyes shining, breath faltering between lines. Then he sat down on the floor, the lights turned red, the stage filled with smoke and shadows and flashes like a surreal vision. And finally, he whispered:

“This… ain’t an ordinary life.”

While the whole stadium went wild, the lights exploded and fans screamed, and phones were raised to capture it all… You stood still, unable to make sense of anything.

What did that song mean?

Why that song?

Why was he looking at you like that? Like he was undressing you with his eyes without touching you, like he wanted to say something he never dared to say?

The show ended. The boys came back on stage. Jake was laughing, Heeseung was getting emotional, Jay was trying to act tough as he wiped a tear… and Sunghoon—he hugged all three of them and they teased him and when the lights went down and the boys disappeared backstage, you jumped to your feet.

'Where are you going?' asked the content creator next to you, but you didn’t answer. You climbed over seats, past people, over cables, and past technicians. Security tried to stop you, but you only shouted, “I’m sorry!” without even slowing down.

You ran under the stadium, through the corridors, to the other side: Jake, Jay, and Heeseung saw you and motioned toward a room. He was in there.

You opened the door and Sunghoon was drinking water, hair still damp, chest rising and falling under a black shirt that clung to his skin. His vampire cape was on the ground now. He looked… just human. When he saw you, he froze. He scanned you, like he was trying to believe you were there. Then he smirked, provocatively. “Did you enjoy the show, Sunshine?”

His voice had that edge to it, but not his eyes. You stepped closer. The height difference was ridiculous. You whispered:

“What does all this mean, Hoon? These six months… all the nights we had to pretend in front of the cameras and then… stop pretending when we were alone.”

He lowered his head, his lips curved into that half-smirk you’d grown to fear and crave. He brushed your cheek with his knuckles, his thumb sliding slowly along your jaw.

“I should’ve told you the other day. When I was inside you…” His voice dropped as he leaned in toward your ear. “But I couldn’t. Because I don’t know how to say out loud what I feel. And you had your eyes closed, your hands on my back, and you were moaning my name like you belonged to me.”

Your breath hitched and your cheeks flushed—of course, you remembered that night in Rome, with him inside you.

“W-what were you going to say?” you stammered, looking up at him. Sunghoon leaned in closer, his nose brushing your cheek, then sliding to your neck. He blew warm air against your skin, making you shiver, and began to kiss you behind your ear, on your neck, along your jaw.

His kisses were slow, teasing, and you let out a soft moan of his name without realizing it. “Hoon…” His hands slipped into the back pockets of your skirt and pulled you against him, making it very clear how turned on he was.

“I love you, Sunshine. Fuck, I love you.” He breathed the words against your neck.

“I don’t know for how long… maybe since you fell on top of me at the ice rink, or maybe since I saw you curled up beside me on the plane, sleeping peacefully against my body.” He pulled back just enough to look you in the eyes.

“At first it was all just acting, but now… I’m obsessed with you. But in a good way.” You widened your eyes and asked, “Obsessed with what?” even though you were terrified of the answer.

“Your smile. You're little pouts when you're angry or when something doesn’t go right. The way you look at me when I dance or sing. Your sighs when I touch you. The way you open up to me. The way you say my name when I touch you.”

You trembled, and he felt it because he was holding you so close.

“I love when you wear my oversized shirts… but I lose my mind when you act like a brat just to make me lose control.” You tilted your head up and smiled at him.

“It’s real for me too…” You whispered, a tear falling before you could stop it. He kissed it away before you had time to feel embarrassed.

“I love you, Sunghoon.”

He chuckled softly and rocked back slightly. “I knew it,” he said, cocky. You rolled your eyes. “You’re unbearable.”

“But this unbearable guy drives you crazy.” He teased you, kissing your neck, and you gently pushed him toward the couch. He dropped onto it with his legs spread and eyes burning. You straddled him with a wicked smile, thighs pressing to his as you sat across his lap.

He looked up at you, completely gone for you. “We’re under the stadium. In a room with no lock. And you’re on top of me in that miniskirt, with that look.”

You grinned and gave him a soft kiss on the cheek. “You should make me get off.”

“I should fuck you until you forget your name,” he said through gritted teeth, thumbs tracing your thighs under your skirt.

He whispered: “Tell me you’re mine, Sunshine.”

“I’m yours,” you said, kissing him and he told you he was only yours and kissed you like he had waited six months, six lifetimes, six universes for that moment.

omg, I hope you liked it!!! I think you understand very well that Sunghoon is my bias:)

ROCKSTAR TAGLIST:) @aeminju @ikeuheartz @123hees @seungsoftly @nithxhoon @velvetkisscs @fancypeacepersona @jaylaxies @schniti-is-in-the-house @hollxe1 @yeoungie @dazeymazey11 @desireesbk @w2hoonki @wiccangirl29 @roslayy @rikimurafx @smlbch @h4niyahcar @beomgyus11 @starlightz02 @fleurdangz @cloud-lyy @whoisruby16 @rosepetals09 @enhypens-hoe @victoriaaaa1 @axfyl @dolliewon @firstclassjaylee @manuosorioh

COMMENTS AND REBLOG ARE APPRECIATED!!

@cutehoons all rights reserved 2025

[chornayadrakoshig]

I'm going to add another perspective as a person from a different side of fandom.

One of my navite languages is Russian so most of my time reading and posting fanfiction was spent on Ficbook. The thing is, unlike ao3, that site is monolingual (recently they tried expanding by creating separate sites for English, Spanish, and Portuguese I believe, but they aren't well known). And while there are a lot of native Russian speakers outside of Russia (like me), most of their user base is in Russia.

And the thing is... They are for profit site. They have ads (increasingly more and more over the years). They have "gift" system where you can pay real money to send someone a digital sticker (that back in the day was original illustration at least - now they are heavy on AI-generated shit), and the site gets all that money. They have paid features (e.g. free accounts can only download 10 fics per day and paid accounts can download 100). Some users suggested to move site to donation-based system (or another tier of paid accounts where you'll remove ads in exchange of donations without getting other paid features - ppl wanted to support the site but didn't want paid covers and promo and stats and shit). The site refused, saying that project won't survive on donations, it's not a realistic system (which might be true since they are for-profit and they have paid developers on stuff, but still). So, they kept relying on ad revenue and paid accounts.

And because of that they were trying to walk a thin line of "don't be banned by Russian government" for years. Technically, they moved their servers to EU long time ago (though as far as I know they still hire developers in Russia). But they rely on ads traffic and paid users and ban would mean they lose a big chunk of it simply because Russia is cracking down on vpns and there is some laws around putting ads on banned sites which cuts out actually relevant companies who could've advertise there and bring more clicks and more revenue.

After annexation of Crimea the site added a rule forbidding to write fanworks about "recent world tragedies and political conflicts" with a limit of "6 month after the situation stabilised". However many people noticed that the thing that actively gets blocked is anything pro-Ukrainian related to Russia-Ukraine war, for example a work where author supported Ukraine and urged russian ppl to protest in his author's notes, not in the body of work.

While they don't have it written in their rules, the site deleted multiple works with graphic depiction of suicide because Russian government bans anything beyond brief mention.

And in the recent years, when Russia introduced stricter laws about "gay propaganda", the site added rules about tagging: the category and all additional tags have to be correct, if you miss a warning or mods decide your off-hand mention of lesbian couple is too much for "mentions of f/f relationships" tag, your work can be forcefully edited or in most cases just deleted. No warning, no emailed copy. If you don't have a backup elsewhere, you're fucked.

At one point they considered creating "Slashbook" and basically moving all queer works off the main site into its own reservation, so in case they'll get a ban, it won't affect the main site. They even started accepting donations for that but soon quietly ditched the idea and started making an english fic site.

A year ago, when Russia decided to ban the site completely - for many repeated violations of "gay propaganda" laws they tried to resolve it... by soft-blocking queer works themselves, so a user located in Russia opening a fandom tag will see "this work is not available in your country" placeholder on anything with m/m, f/f ships, trans characters and some kinky tags. The placeholder was non-clickable, didn't have link to work or the author. The authors from the area would be able to post the work but most users won't see it. And some smaller russian fanfiction sites like fanfics.me of fanficus.com were able to get away with it - but Russia refused to unblock Ficbook and basically ignored them since. yay.

So. The site dependent on ads and profit will think about ads and profit first, their users second (if at all).

So, the other day, when I was discussing AO3's policy on solicitation, a tumblr user came at me saying that AO3's "no monetization/solicitation" rules were "bullshit" because nexus mods allows fan created mods to get paid.

Look at me.

Look at me right now.

AO3 protects you.

AO3 protects you and your works. 

It protects your works from copyright strikes and DCMA takedowns.

It protects your work from advertisers.

It protects your work from overzealous legal challenges.

It protects your right to post adult content.

AO3 is non-profit and AO3 will never try to use you or your work to make a profit for themselves and AO3 will go to bat for you if someone tries to legally challenge you or your works.

Please respect AO3 and its mission.

[stlllle]

Hiii! You’re writing is amazing 😊

Could you do a Namgyu x f! reader? where reader is Namgyus ex-finance or smth and they broke up due to him stealing her money for drugs or smth.. but throughout the games she’s been trying to avoid him even tho he tries to talk to her (sort of a 222 and 333 situation). Then during hide and seek(keys and knives) reader gets blue and Namgyu gets red and she sees how aggressive Namgyu has gotten with people and since she’s been trying to avoid him she thinks he will go after her next not knowing he’s still deeply inlove with her. So she’s begging people to switch but no one will. Then during the game he sees someone trying to kill her and he gets them off with Myungi. You can choose the ending but pls fluff!! (can u also include a part where he’s talking to Myungi about reader since Myungi brought up his love for junhee so Namgyu brings up reader and everything he feels)!! no smut please😊Thank you so much❤️❤️

Ashes of Us — Nam-Gyu x f!Reader

📌 Warnings:

Violence, strong language, obsession, toxic relationship, addiction mention, emotional trauma, character death, oppressive environment, psychological tension, intense kiss, unresolved feelings. (18+ for themes, no smut)

📌 Word Count:

~12,500 words

📌 Author’s Note:

Hiiiii, I’m so happy you sent this request 🙂

I’m not sure if it turned out good… but here it is (for some reason I really struggled to write this, like, rewrote it so many times lol).

If you read and enjoy it, I recommend checking out my other stories 😛

Requests are currently closed, but if you think your idea is really good, feel free to send it anyway (I just won’t be fast to answer!)

Masterlist — [link]

You met Nam-Gyu on a Friday.

Rain, neon lights and the smell of cheap beer.

The kind of night where everything starts bad and somehow gets worse.

He worked at the shittiest club in town — half security, half bartender, half problem. And that night, you were drunk enough not to care about any of it.

He was the one who pulled you away from some asshole who wouldn’t take no for an answer.

A shove, a low threat, and just like that — he became the topic of the week in your friend group.

"Did you see that guy?"

"That stare? Holy shit."

"If he grabbed me like that I’d marry him."

You laughed.

But you went back the next week.

---

That’s how it started.

Nam-Gyu wasn’t the type to start conversations.

He was quiet, a little guarded, way too handsome for his job, with a crooked smirk that made stupid girls fall in love.

— “You gonna keep staring or you want a drink?”

— “If you’re the one serving, I’ll take it.”

He huffed, but his ears turned pink.

After that, you started seeing each other. First outside the club, then in shitty coffee shops, then on his worn-out couch watching dubbed movies at 2AM.

Nam-Gyu wasn’t romantic. He was awkward.

He’d buy you cheap chocolate from corner stores and bring you a stolen flower from someone’s garden.

Jealous, protective, but in a way that — in the beginning — felt good.

If someone looked at you too long on the street, he’d drape an arm over your shoulders.

If a guy hit on you at a bar, Nam-Gyu would appear out of nowhere with that dead-eyed stare.

And you fell for him.

Fast. Hard. Ugly.

---

The nights with him were the best.

Laughing too loud after two cups of shitty soju.

Singing old songs on empty sidewalks at 3AM.

Nam-Gyu sleeping spooned against you, face buried in your neck, mumbling slurred promises.

— “We’re gonna get outta here, you know?”

— “Yeah? Where to?”

— “Tokyo. Or Busan. Fuck it, anywhere far from this shithole.”

You’d laugh and call him an idiot.

But you believed him.

He made you believe.

---

And of course, there were fights.

Because he was possessive, insecure, reckless.

You hated when he’d disappear for hours with no word.

He hated when you so much as spoke to a guy.

But you made up.

Always circled back to each other.

The fights ended with him slamming the door, then coming back hours later, face scuffed, exhausted grin, holding a plastic bag.

— “Here. Strawberry. Your favorite.”

— “You can’t buy me off with candy, Nam-Gyu.”

— “Shut up and eat it.”

You did.

He held you.

And you fell asleep together.

---

But little by little… it changed.

Nam-Gyu started acting strange.

Tired. Distant. Hollow.

You pretended not to see.

Then money started going missing.

At first it was coins.

Then bills.

Then your favorite earrings.

Your old camera.

When you asked, he’d brush it off.

Said you lost them.

You knew better.

But you were scared of the truth.

Until one day, you caught him.

Came home early, found him in the bathroom.

Thin. Pale. Shaking.

And the drugs right there on the counter.

Your world cracked in half.

— “What the fuck is this, Nam-Gyu?!”

— “It’s not what you think.”

— “It’s exactly what I think!”

He tried to hug you.

You flinched.

— “I’m trying, okay? I’m gonna quit.”

You wanted to believe it.

For a while, you did.

---

The relapses came fast.

He’d disappear for days.

Come back wrecked.

You’d scream. He’d cry.

You’d swear you were leaving. He’d promise to stop.

You spent your savings bailing him out.

Paid rent. Paid debts. Paid for hospital nights.

Until the day you checked your bank account and saw it was empty.

Every last cent.

Years of work.

You knew instantly.

You came home ready to kill.

Door cracked open.

Apartment trashed.

Nam-Gyu half-conscious on the floor.

You screamed, shook him, called an ambulance.

He barely whispered.

— “I’m sorry… I couldn’t…”

— “Where’s my money, Nam-Gyu?!”

— “I… I needed it.”

You hit him.

Cried. Screamed. Called him every name you knew.

And you left.

Small bag.

Puffy face.

Shaking hands.

He tried to stop you at the door.

— “Don’t go.”

— “I already did.”

The door slammed shut.

You never went back.

---

And you thought that was the end.

Months later, new job, new number, new apartment — you almost forgot.

Almost.

Until you woke up in that goddamn arena.

A number on your chest.

And across the field.

Those eyes.

The same.

But dead.

Covered in blood and dirt.

The same boy you loved.

Now a ghost.

And before the shock even wore off, all you could think was:

Fuck. He’s here.

He’s alive.

And I’m screwed.

---

---

The smell in that dormitory was always the same.

Metal, sweat, dried blood clinging to the concrete.

You’d been there long enough to know nothing changed.

The iron bunk beds, the numbers on chests, exhausted faces, and the constant, suffocating fear.

But since the day you saw Nam-Gyu there, fear had turned into something else.

Panic.

He was there.

And unlike you, he seemed fine.

Too fine.

Always quiet, lying on the same bunk, with that empty stare.

And it was always on you.

Since you’d run into him in the courtyard after the first game, you hadn’t been able to breathe properly.

Hiding in the furthest corners, avoiding eye contact, switching bunks every night.

But it didn’t matter.

He always found you.

You felt it.

---

That night, before the next game, the dorm was restless.

Whispers everywhere.

Everyone felt something bad coming.

You were curled up in one of the farthest bunk corners, staring at your hands, trying to make yourself invisible.

And then you heard it.

— “You’ve had that look since yesterday.”

Myung-gi, Player 333, hanging his head from the top bunk to look at you.

You didn’t answer.

— “Relax. Can’t get worse than this.”

You let out a dry, bitter laugh.

He dropped down to the lower bunk beside you.

— “So? You leave anyone out there?”

— “No.”

— “Liar. Everyone left someone.”

Silence.

You stayed quiet.

Myung-gi grinned sideways.

— “I left someone. One of those fucked up loves too.”

— “Good for you.”

— “Was starting to think I was the only dumbass loving the wrong person.”

You were about to snap back when you felt it.

That stare.

Again.

You lifted your eyes and there he was.

Nam-Gyu, on a corner bunk, staring at you the same way only he could.

Your throat tightened.

Myung-gi noticed.

— “Ah… it’s ‘cause of him.”

You didn’t reply.

— “You two knew each other before, huh?”

— “Shut up.”

Myung-gi chuckled and moved away.

Nam-Gyu didn’t.

---

The announcement came right after.

That soulless, metallic voice filling the dorm.

“Players, prepare for the next game. Proceed in single file to the instructions hall.”

The shuffling of bodies, footsteps on concrete, everyone lining up.

You kept your head down, trying to disappear in the crowd.

But you knew.

You felt his eyes burning into your back.

Always.

---

In the instructions hall, all players in line, the screen lit up.

Hide and Seek.

Two teams.

Blue and Red.

One hunts. One runs.

Knives and keys scattered on the floor of the arena.

The game runs until one side remains.

Your stomach dropped.

Your number flashed blue.

Across the room, you saw his chest glow red.

Fuck.

The air tightened.

You looked around in panic.

— “Someone switch with me! Please!”

— “Piss off.”

— “Please, I’ll do anything—”

— “Not a chance.”

No one wanted it.

You could feel his eyes again.

Even before the game started, he knew what you were about to do.

---

From his corner, Nam-Gyu watched you begging.

Your trembling hands.

The sheer fear on your face.

And something in him twisted.

Or whatever was left.

Myung-gi approached him.

— “You gonna go after her?”

— “I’m not laying a hand on her.”

— “And if someone else does?”

Nam-Gyu clenched his fists.

— “Then they die first.”

Myung-gi gave him a crooked grin.

— “You’re still that fucked up over her.”

— “Always was.”

---

The signal blared.

Everyone moved through the doors into the arena.

A wide, open space.

Concrete floor, clean walls.

Knives and keys scattered everywhere.

You backed up against the nearest wall, pulse hammering in your throat.

People running, screaming.

Bodies hitting the floor.

Blood already marking the pale concrete.

Every footstep echoed.

Until a player came for you.

Sweaty face, knife in hand.

Eyes desperate for a point.

You stepped back.

He lunged.

And the moment the blade swung, a figure crossed your vision.

Nam-Gyu.

The punch was brutal.

The man collapsed.

Nam-Gyu finished him off with a knife grabbed from the ground.

Blood splattered the concrete.

You froze, wide-eyed, heart pounding.

Nam-Gyu raised his gaze to you.

Chest heaving. Hands smeared in blood.

And he said, low, only for you to hear.

— “Told you I’d always protect you.”

---

His voice barely made it out through the thick air, chest heaving, face sweaty, his hand still slick with the blood of the guy he’d just dropped.

You could feel your whole body trembling. Didn’t know if it was fear, shock, or your heart beating so fast it physically hurt.

And for a second, right there in that filthy arena, you just looked at him.

At the same man who ruined your life — and had just saved it.

The game wasn’t over.

Screams still echoed. Knives hitting the floor. Footsteps running.

But you couldn’t move.

He spoke again.

— “Stay with me.”

It wasn’t a command. Or a plea. It was just… almost a whisper.

You opened your mouth to answer, but nothing came out.

Then another player came at you from behind. And before you could react, Nam-Gyu was already moving.

Dropped the guy with a kick to the chest. A key stabbed clean into his throat.

You gasped.

— “Fucking hell, Nam-Gyu!”

— “I told you no one was touching you.”

He grabbed a knife off the floor, eyes locked on the remaining players, gesturing with his head.

— “Come on. Stay behind me.”

And against everything logical, you did.

For the rest of that nightmare of a game, he kept people away from you.

Whoever tried, went down.

At some point, Myung-gi appeared, blood on his lip and laughing like a psycho.

— “If it wasn’t so pathetic, it’d almost be romantic.”

Nam-Gyu didn’t even answer.

When the final buzzer sounded and the metallic voice announced the end of the match, the few survivors staggered back to the dorm.

Some limping. Some carried. Some numb.

You moved on autopilot.

Hands sticky, legs shaking, head pounding.

When you passed through the door, you felt the thick, suffocating heat of the dorm again.

The weight of everyone’s breathing.

The smell of iron.

You tried to disappear into a corner.

To an empty bunk.

But he followed.

Nam-Gyu stopped a couple steps away.

You turned to him.

— “What do you want?”

— “To talk.”

— “We’ve got nothing to talk about.”

Your voice cracked.

He ran a hand through his hair, nervous, something you’d never seen before.

That Nam-Gyu never showed anything.

Cold. Sharp.

Now, he just looked tired.

— “I know I fucked everything up.”

You stayed quiet.

— “If I could take it back… if I could undo what I did to you, I would.”

You bit your lip.

— “You ruined my life, Nam-Gyu.”

He closed his eyes. Chest rising slowly.

— “I know. And I’ll never… never forgive myself for it.”

You sat down on the edge of the bunk, burying your face in your hands.

— “Why are you doing this now? Why did you risk yourself for me today?”

He knelt in front of you, right at eye level.

— “Because even after everything… I still fucking love you.”

The words came low. Broken.

— “Even after losing you. After dragging you to hell with me. I still fucking love you, ____.”

You felt your eyes burn.

Your throat closing tight.

And before you could stop it, the tears were already falling.

Nam-Gyu hesitated. Then reached out, slowly.

— “Let me take care of you. Just tonight. Just now.”

You closed your eyes.

For a second.

And rested your forehead against his.

— “I hate you, Nam-Gyu.”

— “Me too.”

A tired, crooked smile.

And then he kissed you.

It was rough, messy, tasted like blood and salt.

But it was real.

You grabbed his shirt. He pulled you closer.

The entire dorm pretending not to notice.

Until Myung-gi’s loud voice cut through from his corner.

— “Finally, fuck. This circus was missing one last act.”

Nam-Gyu flipped him off without pulling away from you.

And for a moment — just that moment — you forgot where you were.

Forgot the debt, the blood, the hate.

It was just him.

You.

And the silent promise that as long as he was breathing, no one would lay a hand on you.

---

THE END.

[wendichester]

⋆˚꩜｡ the popcorn prophecy,

summary. you're watching those cheesy sunday rom-com's with castiel and he's attentively taking notes.

pairing. castiel x reader genre. fluff

wordcount. 504

notes / warnings. angel being clueless but so soft, awkward first kiss (that turns very sweet), cuddly movie night, reader uses she/her

It’s barely halfway through the movie when you realize: Castiel has not blinked.

You squint over your shoulder from where you’re curled into the couch cushions, legs tangled in a worn blanket, and sure enough—there he is. Stiff posture. Rapt attention. One hand frozen in the popcorn bag like it holds divine wisdom.

“…Cas?”

“Yes?” He doesn’t look at you. Not once. His gaze is pinned to the screen like it might shift planes without permission.

You blink. “You good?”

“I do not understand this movie,” he says evenly. “But I like watching it with you.”

Your heart pulls a little tight. God, he’s adorable.

The movie is some light-hearted romcom—you know, the kind with too many pastel kitchen scenes and a ridiculous third-act breakup that makes you want to scream at the TV. But he’s been laser-focused the entire time, flinching when the characters yell, leaning forward when they flirt. And when the lead actress slipped on a cupcake earlier? He gasped. Audibly.

You smile and turn back around, a little warmer than you were a second ago.

Half an hour later, the big kiss finally happens. The music swells. Someone runs through the rain. The couple embraces in a way that’s honestly more cheesy than romantic, but it still makes you grin.

Next to you, Castiel sits so still he could be carved from marble.

And then—very softly: “Is that what you want?”

You blink. “What?”

He finally turns to you, and it’s like he’s been holding the question inside him the whole movie. “Should I… do that?” he asks. “Now?”

You sit up a little, heart flipping. “Cas…”

He’s still holding the popcorn. Like he forgot to let go.

“I don’t understand human courtship rituals,” he says, a little apologetic. “But I think I want to. Especially with you.”

You swallow. “You want to kiss me?”

“Yes,” he says plainly. “But not because the movie told me to. Because you make me feel strange.”

“…Strange?”

He nods. “In a way I enjoy.”

Oh.

You bite your lip, heart full and soft and breaking just a little under the weight of him. “Well. For the record—I do want that. A kiss. With you.”

Castiel sets the popcorn down very carefully. Like it might combust.

Then he leans in—tentative, cautious, eyes flickering between your mouth and your eyes like he’s making sure you’re still okay. And when he kisses you, it’s a little clumsy, just lips brushing lips, uncertain and so careful. But it’s also sweet. Honest. Safe.

When he pulls back, his expression is unreadable for a second. Then—he smiles. Just barely. But it’s real.

“That was…” He seems to search for the word. “…Satisfying.”

You laugh. Loud and unfiltered and way too in love to hide it. “It gets better with practice.”

Castiel tilts his head. “Then we should practice. Extensively.”

The popcorn bag crinkles softly between you as he shifts closer.

You nod. “Yes. Scientific method and all that.”

He kisses you again, and this time he’s smiling into it.

ꔛ. navigation 𓂃˖ ࣪ all drabbles ; compatibility readings ; support my work .ᐟ

[princesspeachesposts]

My analysis of the speech Micheal gave on the Wunmi’s last day on set.

First of all, this is a love letter. It is not just a speech. Micheal was deeply in his feelings. And I love when a man is in his feelings. ☺️

The clip starts with them sharing a laugh about their time with the intimacy coordinator. I’m sure they have bloopers. I wonder how much was them going with the flow and what parts the coordinator helped with.

Then he mentions that Smoke and Annie are a powerful couple ( like they would be if we got together, ha) , who are all about making sure their loved ones are safe. So basically he’s telling her, he had protective feelings for her from the start. He is choosing to blur the lines between the characters and the both of them.

Then he goes on to say he has seen her as a mum, wife and scene partner so basically saying I’ve seen all the sides of you and I love what I’ve seen. Especially mentions that she was a new mom.

Talks about the deep conversations they’ve had about their careers and acting being an escape. Then thanks her for escaping her family to spend time with him.

“Any one that knows you feels your heart because you lead with it”- He’s saying, I am used to ppl acting shady and being hard to read but you are always so open, loving and giving (his words)

“Your eyes are kind, your spirit is warm” - He’s saying, I feel good whenever I’m near you or you make me feel good. I’m attracted to your essence.

“Anytime anyone is in your presence they feel safe - I feel safe” - He’s saying, I know that you’ve got my back and I can be my real self with you. I don’t have to worry that you will hurt me or speak badly about me. We all know how ppl are always coming for Micheal.

“You pushed me out of my comfort zone so many times” said in a slightly frustrating tone. - Now is that physically (turning him on), artistically (making him dig deeper and perform better) or emotionally ( making him soften for her). Maybe in all of these ways.

“I can’t wait for you to share that gift with other ppl- so go”. He’s saying, I don’t want you to go but I’m supposed to be happy that you are moving on. I’m jealous of the people you will work with next. So just go. Also a way for him to psyche himself into feeling ok about not seeing her everyday.

“You are fucking everything” - He’s saying, I wish you could see yourself through my eyes. You have everything you think you lack.

“I want you to walk around believing I am this, i am that….. “- He’s saying, you need to let ppl see what you are capable of. Walk into projects with the confidence that you are everything and ppl will see that you are.

“I’m sad, I’m FUCKING sad that you are leaving” - He’s saying, I’m going to miss you so much.

Anytime he swears like that it’s for emphasis. He means that shit and wants her to know that.

She giggles in response which could be read as happiness or excitement at the thought that he would miss her.

“I love you, I’m so happy to have met you, so happy Ryan cast you and you are a part of my life.”

He probably getting flashback of the day he met her to that day. Saying she is a part of his life means you can’t get rid of me. You are now a part of my life whether you like it or not.

While he’s saying all of this, Wunmi keeps her hand near her mouth almost like she’s scared that she will burst into tears at any moment.

Then he speaks some words directly to her without the mic but from watching his movements, you can tell he’s speaking directly from his heart. I heard the word “ beautiful”. Sir, why not share the rest.

Then the long hug that continued even after the claps from crew dwindled then stopped. Neither trying to end it or releasing the other.

This letter came from deep thought, observation, listening and leaning into an emotional connection. It also feels like devastation that this connection you’ve depended upon might be lost forever and you hope you can still hold onto it.

Feeling confident enough to say all of this in public when he could have just told her in private is so powerful and affirming of not only their connection but her role in the movie.

She truly rocked his world and I think he did the same for her.

The end.

[queersyourgender]

Can you do a multi character blurb of the pitt characters reacting to their baby's first words/first steps??? I saw the one you just did about Mateo x reader and he had baby fever and it was so goood!!! Keep up the good work, your doing so great and some day you'll get noticed how you should <3 (I was so surprised when I saw you only have 50 followers!)

Mini-Multi — Baby's First: Michael "Robby" Robinavitch, Jack Abbot, Frank Langdon, John Shen, Heather Collins, and Mateo Diaz

Notes: Since you didn't specify which characters, I went ahead and picked at random!! I hope you like them and their babies :3c

———

Michael “Robby” Robinavitch: Your baby's first words is Bobby. It would be Robby, if that tricky r sound would cooperate, but Bobby works just fine regardless. They say it on a day that you're visiting your husband at work, standing around the nurse's station and talking with Dana, when your baby spots their father and exclaims a loud “Bobby!” while reaching their arms in his direction. Everyone promptly freaks out, and yes, Michael cries again. Can you blame him? He's his baby's first word.

Jack Abbot: Jack's just coming home when he sees the two of you nodded off on the couch, taking a nap together despite probably only having just woken up. He doesn't mean to wake either of you, but you both sense his presence. Your baby, who had been asleep on top of your chest, slides off of you and to the ground, then shocks the both of you by sleepily waddling over to their father with their own two tiny feet. It wakes you up immediately, and Jack picks the kiddo up when they reach him, all of you sharing a bone-crushing family hug at the milestone.

Frank Langdon: You're all seated in the living room together, Frank splayed out on the couch with the kids all surrounding him on different spots while you lounge on the armchair. You're used to him being the favorite, so you're not bothered by the attention he's getting. In fact, it makes you very happy, that he's so loved by people who are unafraid to show it. Neither is he, apparently, because he spends his entire time with your third baby trying to teach them to call out to you. Their first word ends up being just that, thanks to your husband's efforts, and that's something you'll never forget.

John Shen: It catches the two of you completely off guard when it happens, shocking you speechless with sheer joy. You'd been standing in the kitchen in your lover's arms, gently swaying from side to side to the sound of music that's not actually there, when you both turn your head at the same time find your baby standing on their feet and mimicking your motions. Excitedly, you gesture for them to come forward towards you, and celebrate with many, many kisses when they do exactly that, practically sprinting their way at the two of you with wobbly legs.

Heather Collins: You spend the majority of your time with your baby, and you use nearly 90% of that time trying to convince your baby to call Heather mama. You point to pictures of her while saying, say it when you hand them to her, write it above the abstract stick figurine they draw that's supposed to be her. It pays off when they do eventually say it one morning, while you're in bed watching her getting ready for work, and she freezes in her tracks upon hearing it. She looks from you to your baby, connecting the dots, and wraps the both of you in her arms, peppering you both a sea of teary-eyed kisses.

Mateo Diaz: Mateo's hellbent on making your baby walk the second they reach the age range where they're supposed to. He practices with them at home, helping them by holding their hand and leading them places around the baby proof house. The first time your kid walks around unassisted, you and Mateo clutch at each other and start jumping up and down hard enough to shake the earth as you shake each other with so much excitement it seems to be contagious, making your baby laugh at your silly antics.

[angelickks]

II. hunger

REVENANT, au!remmick x reincarnated wife!reader

synopsis He drifted state to state, working as a farmhand, horse breaker, ditch digger, and hired gun when it came to that. By the time he ended up in her part of the country, he was thirty-three. Hard-eyed, quiet. The kind of man who’d been beaten too many times to flinch. He arrived after sundown, pack on his back, boots worn thin. The land stretched out gold and empty under a dying sky. He thought maybe he’d work for a few months, then vanish again. Just another hand. Just another name no one remembered. Until she met him with a blade as sharp as her tongue and blood across his throat.

warning(s) famine. trauma. death. grief. colonialism. violence. discrimination. religious undertones. swearing. mentions of alcohol. angst and slow burn as fuck. mention of guns, knives. blood. remmick as a ranch hand. whole lot of character lore. this one’s long as shit guys soz- reader described as having hair long enough to braid. no use of y/n. some flirting. (gif not mine)

angel talks. first off, THANK U GUYS FOR UR LOVE AND SUPPORT ON JUST THE FIRST PART ALONE!! i was a lil worried at first bcuz it was long asf and so so packed with some character building (like this part isn’t packed w it too but i digress) BUT u guys ate that shit up and i couldn’t be more grateful. as mentioned in the authors note i did change remmicks lore around, now in this vers, heavily imagined like roy goode or patrick sumner typa look to him. why did i go that direction? cuz i said so DUH and it so matches. pls heed the warnings cuz this one gets more angst.

#NAV.ᐟ prev - I. damnation ⋆.˚revenant mlist, au!remmick x reincarnated wife!reader

"jesus christ, don't be kind to me

honey, don’t feed me i will come back."

AMERICA DIDN’T SAVE HIM. It just fed him slower.

No, it just devoured him slower—bite by bite, smile by smile, dressed up in false promises and stained tavern sheets.

It didn’t cleanse him. It didn’t sanctify him. It clung to him.

Like smoke. Like hunger. Like sickness that settled into marrow and pretended to be salvation. This country didn’t offer redemption—it offered delay. A slow, aching rot that seeped into his bones like rain he hadn’t felt in decades, foreign and familiar in the worst ways. The kind of rain that didn’t cleanse—just reminded.

Of home. Of death. Of something sacred he’d been running from for far too long

In moments like this—where the road beneath his feet turned to gravel and bone, unpaved and jagged with intent, meant to tear at the soles of those too soft to survive—time had a cruel way of catching up with him. Like a hand he knew too well, fingers cold and familiar, the kind of touch that didn’t soothe but branded. A hand he’d grown to expect. Grown to need. Maybe even love, in the way a wound learns to live with rot.

An Gorta Mór. The Great Hunger. The third year—though truth be told, it could’ve been the second or the fourth. 1846 or 1845. Dates blurred like breath on glass when the world only taught you to count loss. He’d stopped keeping proper track around the time his bones ached with a life long full of pain and strangers stopped saying his name. Just counting bad. Just relying on the crooked maths whispered in crumbling corners of buildings that swore they were homes. They weren’t. Not really.

Now, all these years later, the echo of those numbers still clung to him like damp wool, heavy and sour. Hunger, after all, was a loyal ghost.

He came into the world while his mother bled on cold stone and his father dug burial plots not with tools, but with his own blistered hands. His earliest memories were of death: the curled-up bodies by the roadside, the smell of spoiled oats, the quiet sound of rosaries whispered through cracked lips. They buried their neighbors in shallow graves, their children in peat fields, and their pride with the land. His family were tenant farmers on British-stolen land, the kind where you worked your soul into the soil but owned nothing—least of all your fate. In the hush of night, when foreign men walked the land like they owned the soil instead of listening to it—ripping roots up by their throats rather than letting them run deeper—his father would speak in low, bitter tones about when it was theirs. His. His father’s. His father’s father before that. A line of men tethered to earth by calloused hands and quiet, stubborn pride, long before it was stolen by signatures and steel.

When the people starved, the grain was still exported to England. They burned their thatched roof in 1850 as they were forced out. His father died coughing into a rag on the coffin ship to Liverpool. His younger sister followed two weeks later. By the time Remmick reached Boston Harbor in 1851, he was twelve years old and completely alone. All that remained was his name—stripped of lineage, no surname he could cling to, to stake a claim the way his father once did over stolen land—a boiling rage, and the weight of old prayers clinging to an Irish ridden tongue. Words half-remembered, muttered more out of muscle than faith, like a ghost of belief passed down through blood and famine.

Americans called him “Mick,” spat at his accent, made him fight for wages that could barely buy bread. But rage makes a man useful. It makes him feared. It makes him hungry.

Through every trench, bruise, bloodied fists and an even bloodier face, he worked in stables, factories, railroads—whatever paid enough to keep his ribs from showing. He recounts New York, his turning point, when Irish immigrants were forced to fight in a war they didn’t start, for a country that barely tolerated them. He left for the frontier after that. The West was rough, cruel, unpaved—but at least it didn’t pretend to be kind. He drifted from state to state, remembering every cruel turn and pit of a new place but the same hunger. 

The clang of iron on iron echoed like thunder in his skull. Hot, bitter, and unrelenting, the mill roared with a kind of madness Remmick had long grown used to. Men shouted over the hiss of steam, sweat clung to their backs like a second skin, and the whole damn place stank of coal, blood, and broken ambition. He moved through it like a ghost that refused to die. Not quite one of them, but not dead enough to stop working either.

A hardhat hung off one crooked nail, but Remmick never wore it. It didn't matter how many times the foreman barked about false safety. If something was gonna fall on his skull, he figured it’d be God’s will, not steel’s.

He swung the hammer again—once, twice, the rhythm steady. Not because he cared. Because it kept him breathing.

“Keep movin’, or you’ll rot,” his old boss in Louisiana used to say. The man was dead now, last Remmick heard. Face down in a ditch with gambling debts carved into his skin. Remmick hadn't mourned him, but he remembered the voice. That was enough. He grunted and adjusted his grip, staring down at the glowing metal as if it might tell him something he hadn’t already learned the hard way.

He’d done it all by then. Coal miner, bootleg hauler. Spent three weeks running payroll for a two-bit rail company until he pistol-whipped the wrong supervisor and disappeared across state lines with the man's boots and a pocket watch that never ticked right again.

The only thing he kept was the sack slung over his shoulder—filled with scraps of a life pieced together from what the world hadn’t already stolen—and the last, bitter thing he truly owned: his name.

It wasn’t pride that made him keep it. Wasn’t stupidity either. Remmick knew damn well the weight of a name. Knew what it meant to carry something that painted a target on your back in towns that feared ghosts and men deemed too low for life itself. But it was his. That was the point. They could take his blood, his teeth, the boots off his feet if they worked hard enough. And plenty had tried.

But his name? They’d have to kill him twice to pry that loose.

He didn’t dream anymore, not really. Not unless you count the flashes—ashes in his lungs, a woman's scream, the cold slap of the Atlantic. He figured the memories would fade eventually, but they never did. Just shifted. Warped. There was a scar on his rib from a bullet that never should’ve been his. A chipped tooth on the left side of his mouth from a Tennessee bar brawl that ended with someone else’s jaw broken and a horse he never got paid for. He had more old wounds than stories to explain them.

He didn’t flinch when the furnace roared, didn’t blink when sparks flared like fireworks across his brow. He barely noticed the shouting anymore—men cursing God or their wives or their luck. None of it mattered. On a stolen break, he sat on a dented tin drum behind the mill, rolling a smoke with hands blackened from coal dust. He wiped the sweat from his neck, exhaled slow through his nose, and stared out at the skyline of iron and fog.

“Ain’t no peace in it,” he murmured, not to anyone in particular. Just to the wind. Voice as raw and unfiltered as it was as a boy, “Just harder days and smaller wins.”

He missed quiet sometimes. The way the sea sounded when it didn’t want to kill you. The rustle of grass on a still morning before the world woke up enough to disappoint you. But he’d been chasing that luxury for years, and all he ever got was silence. And that silence…it had teeth.

Later, when he was offered a different job—less heat, more violence—he didn’t say no. A man in a gray coat with a silver pocket pistol and a scar like a canyon on his jaw made him an offer in low tones. Something about a land dispute, something about needing someone who didn’t ask questions. Remmick just nodded. He wasn’t one for speeches.

“Pay in advance?” he asked. The man nodded, passed him a wad of crumpled notes and a single bullet

“This one’s just in case you get sentimental.”

Remmick chuckled dark, shoved the bullet into his coat pocket, and spit into the dust.

“Sentiment’s for men who ain’t been fed to the world yet.”

Then he walked away—boots heavy, spine straight, lungs blackened but still breathing.

Still chasing something. Not peace. Not God. Just another mile between him and whatever was catching up behind

The only constant in his life—as far back as memory served, as far as the ache in his bones could stretch—was the sun, and all the violence it carried. The kind of sun that didn’t warm, but burned. That cracked the earth, blistered skin, and made shadows run long like guilt. It rose without mercy and set without promise, and he followed it all the same, day after day, like a dog chasing something it could never catch.

Now, the soles of his stolen boots were wearing thinner than when he’d first pried them off a man whose face he can't remember. He walked like someone who knew the road wouldn’t be kind and didn’t care. Dust on his cuffs, blood in the stitching. A man made of miles, and of what the sun left behind.

And yet, beneath a moon that forgives with the kind of brutal grace only the night knows—painted pale and shining soft enough to fool the desperate—he hums. Low and rough, a tune half-forgotten but stubborn, one he carried with him ever since he left Texas. It slips past cracked lips into the rim of a grimy glass, filled with something cheap and cruel that burns like memory. All of this—this quiet, twisted version of luxury—was “bought” with stolen or earned bills, not that it mattered, they all spent the same to him. All soaked in sweat and phantom blood, crumpled deep in the seams of his patched-up pocket. Money that never felt like his, not really. Just another thing taken, like everything else. Money that was wearing thin now, in the borderlands. 

Drunkard tales drifted through the saloon like old ghosts, thick with slurred bravado and the scent of spilled whiskey. In the far corner, a nameless singer crooned for his supper, voice frayed like the hem of an old prayer. He sat at the bar, spine aching against the wall, worn down by time and travel. Eyes sharp, tracking every exit, every movement—because old habits don’t die, they dig in. 

Remmick didn’t move much—just nursed his glass of whatever burnt going down and kept his ears open, that low hum still stuck beneath his breath like a buried tune.

By the bar, a pair of workers leaned in too close to their drinks, dusty boots propped on the brass rail, spitting tobacco into cracked clay pots. Their voices carried in a slow drawl, that kind of molasses-thick tone born from heat, hard land, and not nearly enough good sleep.

"Fella passed through Hallow’s Edge last week—y’know, that stretch by the ranch? Place where the fence runs out like it’s afraid of wha’s on the other side?"

"Hell yeah, I know it. Ain’t just a ranch, it’s a goddamn wound. Beautiful though. Looks like someone laid gold over bones."

The other man grunted in agreement, eyes narrowed beneath a brim heavy with trail dust.

"Well, some stranger—city slicker by the looks of him, some tenderfooted fucker if ya ask me—thought he’d take a shortcut through. Came out the other end lookin’ like the devil himself had a bone to pick. Face all tore up, ribs pokin’ through like a damn scarecrow. Didn’t even make it to town proper—just collapsed near the watering trough, blood in his teeth, sayin’ some woman smiled at him ‘fore it all went black."

Laughter wasn’t mean, but it sure as hell wasn’t kind. “Sounds like the ranch gave him its version of a howdy-do.”

Remmick’s brow twitched—just a hair—but he didn’t look their way. Just traced the rim of his glass, watching the amber swirl like he was reading it for signs.

A ranch.

He’d heard tales before—once, maybe twice—like a whispered dare passed between cowards and killers before he crossed state lines. Somewhere sitting pretty around this area. A ranch too beautiful to be real, too quiet to be right. Something about it gnawed at him, slow and steady. He let the conversation bleed back into silence. Let the saloon chatter rise and fall. But the way his shoulders rolled back, how his gaze lingered too long on the map nailed behind the bar, eyes tracing where that ranch would be. 

He’d picked it up fast, out in the borderlands—wasn’t a decent soul for miles. And if by some miracle you stumbled on one, you’d be lucky if they lasted you ten. Ten miles before the land got to you. Not teeth and claws, but something worse. Something soft. Quiet. Cruel in a way only the Earth could be.

The land didn’t have to strike to kill. It just waited. Wilted you slow under its sun, coaxed the salt from your skin, kissed your lips dry with dust. Remmick had danced with that death more times than he cared to name. Knew her rhythm now. The land's touch could be beautiful—seductive even—but her fingers were quick, and her hunger was the patient kind.

She’d feed you comfort, and then gut you clean. And if you weren’t careful, she’d leave nothing behind but your name—and even that would rot in the wind.

Finding work—real work—was always the game. A necessary ritual for a man with pockets that had never known the weight of anything but grief, bad luck, and the slow, steady ache of death trailing him like a shadow. It had been that way since boyhood, since the day he’d been shoved onto a boat too young to understand the depth of the ocean or the weight of leaving everything behind.

Out here, in towns too small for secrets and too devout for mercy, it was harder still. Places like this didn’t offer second chances, let alone first ones. Every soul was accounted for, every name whispered in pews or passed between hands like gossip over warm bread and cheap liquor. There was no such thing as anonymity—just suspicion with a smile.

And God—God was always watching, or so they claimed. A false God, Remmick accused and had a heavy disdain for. One that sat fat and silent while men scrawled names into water-warped books, claimed it was holy just ‘cause the ink ran with prayers. But those prayers? They never reached higher than the steeple roof. Not when they came from hands that beat their own children, from mouths that drank blood and called it wine, from men who punished and pardoned in the same breath.

He knew what faith looked like when it was stolen. Saw it starved out of villages that bore his grandfather's name. Watched it rot in the bellies of fathers buried in mass graves no one prayed over. Back on land that bore his roots, the church wore gold while his people dug through dirt for crumbs—called it famine, called it God's will, like salvation was something you could ration. He remembered the hunger, yes, but worse was the hatred. How the same men who kissed crucifixes condemned their kind with spit and rope. Remmick never forgot that. Never would. And in his chest, beneath scar and sin, sat the heat of a thousand whispered curses—he’d been at this treacherous excuse of a “better life” for too long to even remember the mother tongue, but confident none of them were in English, and none of them meant to be forgiven.

Here, in this town, in this country that held not a single one of his roots, holiness was just cruelty in its Sunday best.

And still, he asked for work. Always asked. Because hunger didn’t care much for theology. And neither did the slow rot of poverty that clung to him like a second skin. 

And like a sinner pacing the length of a confessional, words burning the back of his throat, Remmick moved through the night in search of something—salvation, maybe, or just shelter from the ache gnawing through his limbs. Divine intervention wasn’t on the table. Not for someone like him. God had long since turned His eyes elsewhere, if He’d ever looked his way at all.

To the untrained eye, he walked steady. Boots hitting the dirt in slow, deliberate rhythm, coat pulled tight against the cool hush of approaching dawn. But the truth bled through in the stagger of his steps. A slight wobble when he turned corners too fast. That too-familiar drunken sway that clung to him like a second shadow. He wasn't stumbling out of recklessness. It was habit, exhaustion, and the burn of whatever godless liquor they’d poured down his throat hours before.

The town, if it could be called that, was half asleep. Lamps flickered low in windows. A dog barked once, then thought better of it. Wooden signs creaked above darkened storefronts, their letters faded like old scars. This wasn’t a place for mercy or comfort. It was the kind of place people passed through, left pieces of themselves behind in, and never spoke of again.

And yet—there it was.

Tucked back off the main road, more shadow than structure: an inn. Weather-beaten, sagging a little at the eaves, but still standing. Still lit. A single yellow glow spilled from the front window, warm and hazy like it hadn’t been cleaned in a decade. The paint peeled in curls from the frame. It smelled of woodsmoke, rain, and something older. 

He paused, one hand on the rust-bitten handle, eyes scanning the door like it might bite. Then he stepped inside. The lobby was narrow, quiet, with floors that groaned under his boots. A woman behind the counter looked up from a tattered ledger, her eyes skimming over him with practiced indifference. She’d seen worse. Probably housed it.

“Got a room?” he asked, voice dry—scraped raw from dust, drink, and too many miles unspoken. The Irish accent was buried deep in his throat, tucked into the same hollow pockets that carried his sins. Hidden like shame beneath the smoother one he’d learned to wear—pieced together from overheard conversations on trains, boats, and behind saloons where he lingered too long, just listening. Picking vowels like fruit, softening consonants like bruises. A man who knew how to vanish into his own voice.

“Just the one,” she said, and didn’t ask questions. He reached into his coat and dropped what was left of his money onto the counter—crumpled bills, coins still warm from his palm. Phantom blood money. Stolen, borrowed, all of them teetering on the edge of being earned. The kind that stinks even when it doesn’t leave a mark.

She took it without counting, slid a rusted key across the counter with two fingers.

“Upstairs. Second on the left. Sheets’re clean enough.”

That was all he needed. Remmick took the key and dragged his feet to the stairs. He didn’t look back. Didn’t have to. The door creaked closed behind him with the finality of a coffin lid. And upstairs, in a room that smelled like old cedar and forgotten sins, he fell into the mattress with a groan, boots still on, coat still damp, eyes already beginning to slip shut.

Outside, the wind howled low, like something warning or mourning—he could never tell the difference. And inside, he finally let the long awaited silence come.

He woke with the sharp, final urgency of a man who’s never known real rest—a kind of rising that felt more like survival than routine. The kind carved into muscle memory, into the bones of someone who’s always had to earn their breath.

Outside, the sun was already climbing—hot and mean, with no promises in its light, only hunger wrapped in gold. He watched it bleed through the frayed curtain in the corner of the room, catching on dust like specks of old ghosts. Honey-warm, but just as cruel.

He’d tasted honey once or twice, maybe. Couldn’t say for sure. Most sweetness in his life had been chased down through grit and grime, meals paid for with time and blood he never really had to spare. But today, like every day, he needed something useful. Work. Coin. Anything that might keep him upright a little longer. Another day to trade sweat for nothing and call it a life.

And so, the routine began—same calloused hands, different town.

This morning, those same calloused hands scraped over the coarse scruff lining his jaw—a beard that caught the sun with rust-tinged edges, more red now than it ever was when he first started growing it. It stayed just tidy enough, thanks to stolen blades and the mercy of still pond water when he could find it.

Every so often, as if summoned by the quiet of morning, a flash of his mother’s sharp voice would slip in, coated in a tongue he no longer remembers but his memory, the only thing that served, on occassion, right about him, understood—scolding his father for the "unruly whiskers" she claimed made him look half-feral. Those echoes, softened by time but still barbed at the ends, clung to Remmick’s fingers like ghosts as he trimmed the edges clean. If he caught his reflection, he knew what he’d see—jagged edges, sunburned skin, and those unruly whiskers curling sharp along his jaw. The beard would betray him, always did, especially when the red caught the light just right. A color that didn’t belong to him anymore. A color that whispered things he had no right to remember.

His fingers brushed the back of his neck, pausing over the curls that had grown too long again—soft, defiant things that coiled at the nape like they didn’t know better. He’d have to shear them soon. Before they drew the wrong kind of notice. Before someone looked at him too closely and remembered how easy it is to treat a man like him as nothing but wild, something to be caged or culled.

He dressed with precision, not pride—layering threadbare clothes that blended just enough to pass. Nothing too fine, but everything too worn. Just another face, another body in the crowd. No one worth watching, no one worth stopping. God forbid he draws attention. 

The door creaked open, and Remmick stepped out into a sun so hot it could’ve skinned a man alive just for breathing under it too long. It beat down heavy, merciless, the kind of heat that made the dust curl up off the earth in ghostly swirls. The town was already in full swing—horses clopped along uneven roads, wagon wheels shrieked over gravel, and the clang of a blacksmith’s hammer rang out like distant gunfire. Children darted through alleyways barefoot, mothers shouting after them with hands on hips. And men—too many men—lingered in doorways with narrowed eyes and mouths full of suspicion. Remmick adjusted the wide-brimmed hat he’d stolen two towns back, tugged it lower over his brow.

His sack thudded against his spine with each step. He kept his gait even, lazy, like he had nowhere in particular to be—which was half true. But anonymity is fragile. And in towns like this, trouble doesn’t need an introduction.

He hadn’t made it ten steps past the hitching post when a loud crack rang out—a shout, followed by the unmistakable sound of fists meeting flesh. A scuffle outside the general store. Two men in a tangle of limbs and rage, one already bleeding from the lip, the other hollering about “cheating bastards” and “what’s owed.”

Remmick didn’t stop to think. He never had to.

While heads turned, hands grabbed shoulders, and boots scuffed forward into the fray, he slid sideways like smoke. The man who’d dropped his coin purse in the middle of the chaos never felt a thing. Remmick’s fingers were fast, practiced. By the time he slipped the weight into his pocket and shouldered his sack again, the man was still swinging wild at ghosts.

He kept moving. Down past the farrier’s. Past the brothel with its half-shuttered windows and painted girls watching the commotion with bored interest. He didn’t dare glance back. He could feel it, though—that heat on his spine now thicker than the sun. The feeling of being seen. Maybe not recognized, not yet. But noticed. That was enough. He spat into the dirt and kept walking.

So much for keeping his head down.

Remmick didn’t quicken his pace—that was how you got clocked. Instead, he turned a corner, slipped between two buildings slick with sweat and mildew, and ducked into the shadowed mouth of a shop left wide open. The bell above the door had been silenced with a knot of twine—probably broken days ago and never fixed.

Empty.

Every warm body in town was still crowded around the fistfight out front, hooting like it was Sunday sermon. The shelves were picked over, but not stripped. Crates of dry goods and supple fruits that enticed the low growl in his stomach lined the floor, and a half-full register sat behind the counter. He didn’t bother with that—he wasn’t greedy, just cursed. But beggars can’t be choosers and he makes quick work of a loaf that's been sitting out too long and the fruits he’d probably never see for another number of miles if he was unsuccessful in his pursuits. His boots made soft thuds over wood warped by decades of heat and boots and blood. Behind the counter, tucked into the corner like someone’s afterthought, was a small moleskin pouch, cracked at the edges from use. He picked it up, thumbed it open.

Tobacco. Still fresh.

The corner of his mouth twitched—not quite a smile. God was cruel, but sometimes he played fair for a moment or two.

He tucked the pouch into the inside of his coat, where it joined the stolen coins still warm from someone else’s pocket. Then he slipped back out the way he came, quieter than breath, into an alley that smelled like horses and heat.

The shouting had grown louder. Someone had drawn a knife. He didn’t care. Let the whole damn town carve itself up and bleed into the dirt. They’d forget the man who walked through them soon enough, even if he left a shadow behind.

He struck a match off the heel of his boot, the flare brief and angry in the morning glare. A scrap of paper—creased and soft—was rolled tight between calloused fingers, stuffed with stolen tobacco. He took a drag, deep and slow, just as the first chimes of the church bells cracked through the dust like gunfire.

God always did have a cruel sense of timing when it came to men like him—full of wrath, bone-deep weariness, and not a drop of grace left to spare. Maybe it was a curse. Maybe it was justice. Hell, maybe it was just the way things were for men built the way he was: always reaching, always running, never quite forgiven.

Still, he walked.

Wandering, but not lost. The memory of the map he'd studied too long in the corner of the dim saloon burned behind his eyelids like a brand. Faint lines. Ink-stained promises. Roads etched in whiskey and desperation. A direction carved more by instinct than destination. A path meant only for the desperate and the damned.

And that, he figured, suited him just fine. 

His steps hit the Earth heavy with a hunger older than his body, moved by the worn-out hope that somewhere—anywhere—might feed him long enough to make it through another month without dying or getting caught.

╭━━━━━ ━━━━━╮

Cypress curled in like they were just as worn as he was—leaning crooked and tired over the trail, their shadows reaching long and slow like fingers trying to pull him back. The sun, now dipping low along the horizon, bled gold into rust, casting the land in that strange kind of light that made even dust look holy. It clung to his boots, to the sweat drying on his neck, to the sharp ache that had begun to settle in the base of his spine from walking too long without rest.

His breath came shallow, more out of instinct than need—Remmick had long since learned how to make do with less. Less water. Less food. Less kindness.

He kept walking until the trees gave way to a long stretch of fenced land, wire and wood warped by heat and age. A warning, maybe, for the kind of people who cared about those. Remmick didn’t.

He spotted the hole in the fence before he even realized his feet had slowed. It was small, tucked behind a thicket of brush, but there—like a door left ajar by a land that wasn’t his. The kind of invitation that didn’t need words. Just hunger. Just weariness.

He ducked through the break without hesitation, the wire catching slightly on the strap of his sack before he tugged it loose with a grunt. The land beyond opened wide—overgrown but not dead, like something remembered and revered. A house sat in the distance, stained a deep brown, with smoke faint enough to make him question whether it was memory or present. Maybe someone was home. Maybe someone was dead. Maybe it didn’t matter.

He stood for a moment, eyes sweeping the property, chest rising slow. Then he moved forward—quiet, deliberate, uninvited. Like always. But not without a plan.

Remmick had survived off worse odds, bartered with crueler men. This time, he’d play it smart—hands open, voice level, chin tilted in that respectful, half-submissive way that made men feel a little taller. He’d find whoever owned the place—likely a man, mean and practical—and offer what he had. A body that still worked, a back that could carry weight, and a sharp eye for broken things. Fences, tools, roofs—didn’t matter. He’d offer to fix the break he came through, too. He could smooth that over easy: Saw it on my way by, figured I’d follow it in to tell you myself. Lucky it’s someone honest, huh?

He’d say it with a confident nod, the kind that made people uneasy before they caught themselves liking it.

The land itself was no easy mistress. Remmick had walked enough country, crossed enough cursed ridgelines and blood-wet valleys, to know when soil held memory—and when it held malice. Some places were conquered, torn apart and left to rot beneath whispers of bone and smoke—ghosts of the innocent humming vengeance through the weeds. Others were sweet-talkers, soft and syrupy, beckoning the foolish with golden light and gentle winds, only to devour them whole when no one was watching. And then there were the ones like old men’s hands—hard, cruel, and cracked from labor not their own. Stolen lands, made sacred by force and fear. 

But this stretch? This ranch? It breathed. Not just lived—breathed.

Remmick could feel it in the way the air dragged through his lungs, thick with copper and wild mint. In the way the earth gave a little beneath his boots, like it was testing his weight, measuring him without kindness or cruelty. Just seeing if he’d hold. The fields stretched far and gold-tinged, rolling and dipped like a body resting after battle. And there was something in the soil—not a curse, not a wound—but a weight. A presence. Blood here didn’t feel like a stain—it felt like inheritance. Not taken by force, but birthed. Nurtured. Watered by sweat and sun and generations of staying put, come hell or high water.

This land had roots deeper than anything Remmick could see, and they weren’t the kind you could tear out. These roots held stories, promises, and scars. They pulsed underfoot like veins.

It unsettled him in a way he couldn’t quite place—not with fear, but with familiarity. Like something he’d once known, in another life, or maybe in a dream. The ranch didn’t offer welcome, but it didn’t bare its teeth either. It simply watched.

Endless hills rolled in like waves turned to dust, dipping into steep ravines and sudden cliffs that cut the earth like it had been cracked by God’s own fist. Sounds of water that he knew had to be winding rivers sneaking through it all like veins—still, slick, and deep enough to swallow a man whole if he wasn’t paying attention. The grass, dry and half-dead in the fading sun, crunched under his boots, already brittle from heat. Come winter, he knew it’d freeze stiff, harder than bone.

This harsh beauty—weathered barns, fences that held more curses than nails, posts leaning like tired shoulders after long days. He remembers the talk of this place in the saloon. A place not named kindly, though no one dared speak ill of it too loud. Men lowered their voices when the ranch came up, muttering over their drinks like the land itself could hear them.

Brutal place, one had said, fingers curled tight around a sweating glass. Beautiful, another added, voice soft with something close to reverence.

They spoke of a man—the father—harder than the land he owned. A presence more than a person. Said his word was law out here, and his loyalty ran so deep it bled out of his kin. Said he’d chew a man up and spit out the bones if he crossed him wrong. And his daughter—well, they didn’t speak of her much. Not without looking away first. All Remmick could gather was that she wasn’t for the faint-hearted, and no one got close without earning scars.

He stepped further, every crunch of grass underfoot swallowed by the wind.

A place like this didn’t forget. Not the trespassers. Not the faithful. And sure as hell not the desperate. His eyes kept sweeping the land, sharp and steady, even as the sun began to drop behind the hills—bleeding gold into the tall grass, turning the weeds into firelit threads. Time was thinning. He’d have to move fast if he wanted to secure anything of use before nightfall set in and made every shadow a threat.

Up ahead, tucked low against the incline, stood a barn—small, squat, and cloaked in what looked like a recent coat of paint, the kind of effort that said someone still gave a damn about the place. It wasn’t much, but it was enough. A place like that might have tools. Might have hands that needed more hands. Might even have someone willing to look past a man’s grime if he could swing a hammer or mend a fence.

Remmick spat into the dirt and started toward it, his steps deliberate but slow, calculating how he’d play this. No sudden movements. No tales unless they were asked for. Just sweat and skill and maybe, if luck hadn’t turned completely on him, a chance to stay somewhere a little warmer than the road.

While steps were slow, measured. He didn’t want to spook anything—beast or man. He knew how to approach wild things, and this land, this ranch tucked deep like a secret worth keeping, felt alive in a way that had his every instinct lit up like lightning in his ribs.

He made it halfway to the house, sack still slung over one shoulder, boots kicking up loose dirt with every quiet step. The windows up the hill glowed faint with lamplight, and the scent of woodsmoke drifted through the air like memory. He figured he’d knock soft, ask for work, maybe barter with the last of his strength. If nothing else, he’d offer to fix the break in the fence he snuck through. Just enough to earn a cot in the hay.

But then—a flash of movement in the dark.

He caught it too late.

The breath left his lungs in a grunt as something sharp dragged clean across his throat. Not deep enough to kill, but deep enough to make the world reel and punish. His hand flew to the wound as warm blood spilled fast between his fingers, hot and slick. He staggered back, sack dropping to the dirt, boots scuffing against the packed earth.

“Fuck!” He snarled, low and guttural, the word dragging itself out of his throat in his full, unhidden brogue—rough like gravel, thick like old whiskey. The mask he usually wore had cracked clean through, now paired with a gash across his throat and a trickle of blood blooming from how hard he bit his lip on the sudden impact.

She was already on him. Not some panicked ranch wife with trembling hands and a shotgun held too loose. No, this one moved like a ghost that’d learned how to fight. Controlled. Dead steady. The kind of woman bred for brutality and raised by land that didn’t give out softness unless it was earned, and even then, just sparingly given out like rations he’d live by in factories. Her blade caught the half-moonlight like a smirk made of iron. Short. Personal. The kind used not for show but for gutting things close-range.

“Fuck you doin’ on my ranch, huh?!”

Her voice came low and mean, cut from the same cloth as the wind curling cruel through the grass. It bit worse than the blade she hadn’t even truly used yet.

Remmick blinked rapidly, vision wavering, but he didn’t so much as stagger. His mouth twitched into something that might’ve passed for a grin—feral and red, one tooth stained pink, gleaming with spit and iron.

“That how y’all greet everyone ‘round here? Or just the ones askin’ for a bit of honest work?”

For half a heartbeat, he swore he saw something flicker behind her glare—surprise, maybe. But then it hit.

Her fist cracked across his jaw like gunfire. No warning, just wrath. A clean, practiced punch that snapped his head sideways and sent a fresh wave of blood down his jaw. It poured hot and quick, soaking the collar of his shirt and dripping to the dust below. The ringing in his ears built to a sharp buzz now singing across his face. He barely had time to grit his teeth before her hand was in his collar, jerking him forward with a force that belied her size. 

“Who are you talking to, stranger?” she hissed, all fire and venom. “I oughta gut you and feed you to my fuckin’ dogs for even breathing here.”

Remmick was stunned. Not because of the threat—he’d heard worse, lived through worse. But the woman wielding it? She wasn’t bluff. She was carved from cruelty and command, eyes as sharp as the knife in her grip. No fear. Not a drop of hesitation. She looked at him like a problem she knew exactly how to solve—with blood and silence.

And fuck him, but some twisted, rusted-out piece of him—maybe the same one that always walked toward thunder instead of away from it—respected the hell out of her. Even with her blade a breath from opening his throat like a second mouth.

He’d been a goddamn fool to let silence stretch this long. That was always his trouble—letting things hang too loose, too long, like rope waiting to be noosed. Half the time he didn’t care. But now? Now he wished he’d stitched that habit shut three states back. Because what came next was sharp and loud, a crack that tore through the night just like the one she’d left blooming across his cheek.

She yanked him forward so hard his shirt collar gave way with a violent rip. Cotton tore like paper in her grip, and now the blade hovered real close, the tip pressing just enough to make a threat out of pressure.

“You better speak up and fix the confused face” she hissed, breath hot and steady. “I asked you a question. You don’t answer, I drive this blade down your throat, and you’re gonna wish you’d never crawled outta whatever hole you came from.” Her voice was calm in the way only dangerous people could manage—like she’d done it before. Like she'd already decided what to do with his body once it stopped breathing.

“Jus’—just lookin’ for the man who runs the land,” Remmick rasped, breath hitching, the copper in his mouth thick and bitter. “Honest work, ma’am. I swear it.”

His voice sounded foreign to him, hoarse and cracked like dry timber. Pathetic, almost. He’d fought men twice his size and crawled through places darker than hell with a blade in his gut, but this—this woman, this blade, this goddamn land under his boots—it made him feel stripped and foolish. Stumbling, bleeding, uninvited on land that didn’t even want his shadow near it.

He braced for more. And then came the sound: a sharp, disbelieving scoff that rolled from her throat like it could cut glass. 

Next was her palm—flat, calloused, and mean—slamming into the center of his chest. Not a punch, no, but it knocked the air out of him just the same. Like her hand carried the weight of the entire goddamn ranch behind it. He staggered back, boots dragging in the dirt, breath stolen.

“You’re lookin’ at her, asshole.”

There was fire in her eyes, not the kind that flickered. The kind that ate. She stood square, jaw tight, shoulders rolled like a fighter before a bell. And Remmick? He could do nothing but stare, vision blurring from the blood and the shame curling somewhere in his gut.

She was the one in charge. Fuck.

It landed hard and fast in his chest—he wasn’t looking for the man of the land. There wasn’t one. There was her. And she looked at him like she’d already decided his bones would make decent fence posts at the same break in the fence he sneaked into, if he gave her enough reason.

“My… apologies, ma’am. I’m just—” He faltered, finally registering the warm slickness creeping down his neck. The bleeding had picked up. Fast. His shirt was sticking to him, collar torn from her grip, his pride hanging by even less.

She didn’t flinch. Didn’t soften. Didn’t even blink. If anything, she looked bored.

“Spit it out,” she snapped, eyes sharp as her blade. “Gimme a reason to hand you somethin’ to put pressure on that shit besides my boot.”

Not a drop of mercy. Just rage. Earned rage. The kind carved into someone who’d had to fight for every goddamn inch they owned. And Remmick—stupid, bleeding, cornered Remmick—knew better than to beg. So he offered something else. Something real.

“I can work,” he ground out. “Repairs, fences, livestock, tools. Hell, I’ll clean boots if you ask it. I’m not lookin’ for a handout. Just work. Just a place to sleep and enough to eat so I don’t bleed out in some ditch like a dog.” 

He took a breath that rattled in his chest, dirt thick on his tongue.

“I’ll fix that break in your fence. The one east side, tucked behind a stand of brush,” he added, voice lower, careful. “Didn’t think anyone saw it. But I did. You let me stay, I’ll make it better’n it was before.”

A long silence stretched between them, heavy as dusk. He didn’t beg. Didn’t blink. Just stood there with blood on his torn collar, hope in his voice, and nothing left to lose.

For a beat, she just stared at him—sharp and unmoved, like she was weighing the worth of his bones against the trouble he was already costing her. Her lip curled, a slow, disdainful thing. Then came the smallest shake of her head, like she couldn’t believe the audacity of the mess bleeding in her yard. Her hand dipped into her coat.

For a breath, Remmick wondered if this was it—if she was gonna pull iron and finish the job herself, let the beasts sort out what was left of him. Instead, she yanked out a handkerchief. Worn. Clean. Smelled faintly of saddle soap and cedar.

She shoved it hard into his chest, and he nearly stumbled back with the force of it.

“Go on,” she snapped, eyes blazing. “Told you already—put pressure on that damn thing. You bleeding out ain’t gonna fix you struttin’ up here like some idiot.”

She was fury wrapped in sun-bleached cotton and leather, and he—Remmick, sore and half-dead—did what any man with half a brain would do. He pressed the cloth to his neck and didn’t say another word.

“You’re no damn use to me if you’re leaking all over the dirt. Especially since I should gut you where you stand for being here”

He nodded, curt and now understanding, muttering to the cicadas buzzing around them. 

“Yes, ma’am.”

She didn’t wait for him to find his footing.

“Move.”

And move he did, half-stumbling behind her through the high grass, cradling the soaked handkerchief to his neck while she walked a step ahead like the Devil’s own fury in boots. The barn loomed ahead—broad and weathered but sturdy, the kind that didn’t fall down easy no matter how hard the storms hit. He was right, its wood was painted a fresh coat of white and was silver at the edges, the big doors yawning open just enough to reveal the amber flicker of lantern light inside.

They passed a long row of fenced paddocks, and even in the dim wash of twilight, the horses shone. Big, strong things, coats like spilled ink and molten copper, eyes dark and clever. One kicked at the dirt and snorted as they walked by, the others watching with a quiet dignity that Remmick remembered too well. That silence before the storm of muscle and instinct, before a colt broke wild or worse—broke you.

He slowed just enough to get a better look.

“Don’t,” she snapped, voice slicing through the buzz of cicadas.

Remmick turned his head sharply. She’d stopped walking. Her back was still to him, but her shoulders had squared like she felt his gaze, knew it for what it was.

“You’re bleeding on my land, stranger,” she said, quieter now but no softer. “That means you don’t get to look at my beautiful things. Not until you’ve earned it.”

He dipped his head, chastened. “Yes, ma’am.”

She grunted like that was good enough—for now—and shoved open the side door of the barn. It was cool inside, heavy with the scent of hay and leather, horses shifting in their stalls. She led him to a small room near the back, no more than a cot, a shelf, and a hook on the wall. Clean enough, but it still smelled like old tobacco and the sweat of men long gone.

“You’ll sleep here tonight,” she said. “Up before God himself tomorrow. Porch at first light. You so much as yawn too loud, I’ll put you to work muckin’ out stalls with your bare hands.”

Remmick nodded again, blood drying tacky on his skin, exhaustion sinking in like a stone tossed in a still pond. “Understood.”

Remmick leaned back slightly on the edge of the cot, the metal groaning beneath him, the sting in his neck pulsing dull and wet. His sack of belongings lay at his feet, and the handkerchief in his hand was soaked dark now, clinging to his skin like penance. He looked up at her—this woman who hadn’t so much as blinked when she’d slammed her fist into his face or threatened to feed him to her dogs—and for a moment, all he could think was: Goddamn.

The moonlight, soft as it was, painted her like a myth. It cut across the slats above them and bathed her in silver, like something half-forgiven, half-feral. A face too fine for fists and warnings, too damn carved for the life she clearly lived—but she wore it like armor. And her words, her threat, was the blade beneath.

“You can run, stranger,” she said, voice steady as a bullet chambered. “But I promise you, there ain’t a damn stone in this town I’ve ever left unturned, and that sentiment isn’t startin’ with you. I find even a damn horseshoe missin’ if you decide to leave, I’ll keep my promise, and my dogs are gonna be fat n’ happy after I’m done.”

She stepped closer, casting a longer shadow across the floor. “So do what you came to do and sleep. Don’t stare at my fuckin’ horses too long. And I better find you on my porch.”

Then she nodded—one final exclamation mark to her warning—before turning on her heel.

Remmick blinked, heart thudding slow and heavy like boots in mud. The corner of his mouth twitched—just barely—into a ghost of a grin a man doesn’t earn, not when he’s bleeding. He’d never been the type to put much stock in women past a warm night and a way to blow off steam, but he’d seen beauty before. Plenty of it. Just not the kind that came with a fist to the jaw and a voice like thunder rolling low across a field.

This one didn’t just strike him—she damn near branded him. Fury in a face too fine for the damage she dealt, and still, every bit of it felt deserved. He was an idiot for stumbling in uninvited. Worse for liking the way she reminded him he wasn’t invisible after all.

Jesus Christ, he thought, tasting iron on his tongue again. 

Out loud, his voice came rough—raw like whiskey left too long in the throat, edged with dust, dried blood, and a kind of reverence that wasn’t holy but something close to it in the way only ruined men could understand. 

“Ma’am,” he rasped, letting the word drag slow off his tongue like it hurt to say, “I ain’t ever seen horses that pretty… or a woman who could break a man in half ‘fore he’s even said his name.”

There was a pause. Just long enough for the air between them to still, for the wind outside to howl in approval. She stopped in the doorway, her back lit by a streak of moonlight like some kind of goddamn specter carved from the land itself. But she didn’t turn around.

“You think talkin’ sweet’ll help you?” Her voice cracked like flint against stone—dry, sharp, and carved from the kind of steel no man could sweet-talk past. “What a damn fool you are. That pretty mouth won’t buy you a damn thing out here but trouble.”

She paused just enough for her next words to hit like a warning shot.

“I better find that bullshit scrubbed off by morning. It won’t get you far—not with me, not on this land. You’re treading on ice so thin I can already hear it crackin’.”

He swallowed thick, wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand, and forced his body not to sag under the ache settling deep in his bones. But his voice, this time, came gentler—not soft, not pleading, but honest. Almost too much so.

“I’ll be on your porch,” he said. Quieter. Firmer. “Swear it.”

And he meant it. Not out of fear. Not even out of debt. But because there was something about her—something ancient, like the way land settles after a quake or how thunder holds its breath before the lightning falls. She reminded him of the parts of himself he’d buried and hoped wouldn’t crawl back up. Fury without cruelty. Order without mercy. And steadiness that could only come from pain carved deep and early.

As her boots thudded away into the dark, crunching over hay and dirt like punctuation marks to a sentence he hadn’t finished reading, he finally let the tension bleed out of his shoulders. He dropped onto the thin cot with a grunt, the old frame groaning beneath him.

The barn smelled like iron and leather and dust. The kind of smell that reminded him of war camps and baptism by fire. He stared up at the rafters, eyes wide, jaw aching, heart thudding like a drumbeat that didn’t know if it was mourning or yearning.

“Fuck,” he muttered, dragging a hand over his face, knuckles scraping the dried blood.

Not a prayer. Not a curse. Just the only word that fit.

As promised, he was on her porch before even God had the decency to open His cruel eyes.

A different shirt clung to his frame—clean enough, sleeves rolled to the elbows, fabric already damp with the morning’s sweat. The blood on his neck had dried to a dark, rust-colored smear, the gash no longer bleeding but still raw, pulsing in time with the low thrum of his heartbeat. His pants, sun-faded and torn at the knees from too many years and too many miles, hung low on his hips, cinched by a belt he couldn’t remember stealing or buying. Probably stolen. Most things he wore were.

He stood on her porch like a man waiting to be judged—shoulders squared, jaw set, the sharp scent of pine and horse and distant smoke threading through the morning air. He'd been there long enough for the wood beneath his boots to remember his weight. Long enough to forget, for a second, why he'd come. Long enough that he nearly didn’t knock.

But he did. A single, quiet rap against the door. Then another. 

And he waited.

Then, like the crack of a rifle, the door swung open.

She stood there with that same look—hard-eyed, sharp-jawed, and already irritated—as if she'd been waiting to be disappointed by him. The same look she’d worn when she clocked him in the jaw without hesitation. No greeting, no welcome—just cool appraisal, the weight of it heavy as a stone in his gut.

But behind her came the smell. Hot bread. Fresh.

And coffee—real coffee. The kind that bit at your nose before it kissed your tongue. Not the bitter, gritty sludge boiled in old tin pots over dying fires that he'd grown used to choking down. No, this had to be dark and rich, full-bodied, ground with care and made in one of those stovetop percolators he’d only ever seen once, years back in the house of a man who paid him to knock on doors and collect debts at the end of a pistol.

This place had too much softness tucked beneath all its iron. That, more than anything, made his skin crawl.

It wasn’t the warmth that unnerved him—it was what the warmth was hiding. Like a lullaby sung over the sound of a cocked hammer. And maybe it was just the smell of fresh bread and coffee messing with his head, but something about it made his teeth grind.

Apparently, it messed with his stomach too.

Hunger—his most loyal, obedient companion—curled low and mean beneath his ribs. The stolen apple he’d gnawed down to the core in the barn this morning must’ve burned off during the long, silent walk to her porch. Now it was just ghosts in his gut, and the scent of real food felt like sin.

He shifted his weight, jaw clenched tight. Starving was fine. Starving, he knew how to do. Starving meant control.

But this? This kind of morning—with the door cracked open, the smell of a real breakfast, and a woman staring at him like he was already one bad word away from bleeding again—this was unfamiliar territory.

Dangerous in a way bullets and fists had never been.

“Good thing you knew better, we’re doing maintenance today ” she muttered. She herself was a contradiction dressed in dust and deliberation. Remmick had seen his share of ranch wives from Texas to Kansas, and they all seemed to come out the same—laced up tight, soft-handed, smelling of rosewater and resignation. Gowns stitched for show, not for sweat. Their business was the kitchen and the prayer bench, not the corral.

But this one?

She wore a dress, sure—but it had been tailored by need, not fashion. Her clothes, though plainly cut, were nothing like the ranch wives he’d seen in other towns, all ribbons and drooping lace. No, hers were sharp, functional—soft blue linen sleeves rolled high, and the hem of her work dress stitched up in the front to reveal the split sewn for riding, the skirt hitched just enough to keep her mobile. A roughspun thing cinched at the waist with a leather belt that had clearly been repurposed from some old tack. She moved like a woman who had no time for pretense and even less for people slowing her down.

As she moved, the skirt shifted just enough for Remmick to catch a glint of metal strapped to the warm curve of her thigh. A pistol. Well-oiled. Tucked into a leather holster like it belonged there. Like it always belonged there. Small but mean-looking. Worn smooth at the grip. Well-loved and likely more loyal than most men she’d known. Not the sort of weapon you carry for bluff. No, that one had barked before, and likely would again.

Remmick’s tongue went dry. His boots scuffed slightly on the porch plank as he shifted his weight.

“Jesus,” he muttered, more prayer than curse. She turned, eyes sharp under the brim of her hat, or maybe just under the kind of woman-worn fury that didn’t need a brim to cast shadow.

“You see somethin’, stranger?” she asked, voice like dry rope dragged across gravel. Daring him.

He let his busted lip twitch. “Ain’t used to seein’ a woman carry with more style than the goddamn sheriff.”

She didn’t laugh. Didn’t smirk. But hell, did she glare.

“That’s why your kind ends up dead,” she said flat as winter. “Too busy admirin’ the holster to notice the barrel pointin’ at your gut.”

His hands flexed at his sides—slow, deliberate, palms open and plain for her to see. A quiet show of compliance, the kind a man made when standing in another’s domain and trying not to get shot for breathing wrong.

Not that it would’ve made a lick of difference if she’d thought him dishonest. Hell, if she’d caught even a whiff of deceit on him last night, she’d have slit his throat without losing sleep or her footing. He didn’t doubt it. Not for a second.

But what she had seen—what she’d chosen to clock, even in the dark and bleeding—were hands. Rough-hewn. Scarred at the knuckles and calloused deep enough to mark time. The kind that spoke of labor, not lies. Maybe she figured the man behind them was pitiful—she wouldn’t be wrong—but at least the hands worked. And for now, that was all he had worth offering.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, low and steady. “Duly noted.”

He should’ve sewn his mouth shut along with his habit of letting the silence seep too long three states ago, too. He thought.

“Y’ain’t no use to me if you’re feral and starving. If you make it through today, your quarters will be in the bunkhouse. Follow me.” She spat the words like grit from her teeth, already stepping off the porch before he could muster anything close to a reply.

Remmick moved aside without hesitation, bootheel scraping the wood, her braid slicing through the air behind her like a noose just shy of swinging.

She didn’t wait.

The land yawned out wide in front of them—open, blistered, and brutal in its beauty. The morning mist hadn’t yet burned off the hills, and where the sun touched the earth, everything came alive in gold. Grassland stretched in all directions like a sea with no tide. Fences twisted with time lined the edges of pasture, nailed crooked in places but still holding. A cluster of barns sat in the distance, built more from will than symmetry, and all of it sat under that cruel, endless sky that seemed to judge men just for breathing.

Remmick followed in silence, shoulders squared, sack slung over one. His new shirt stuck to the dried blood on his throat, but he didn’t flinch. Not now. Not when the wind carried the scent of horses and hot dust, not when the earth beneath him thrummed like it remembered every name that ever tried to own it and died trying.

She led with a hard gait and the posture of someone who’d never had anything handed to her—and would gut anyone who tried. His stomach knotted. Not with fear, exactly. With something adjacent.

“You always bring in strays like this?” he asked, voice low, not quite biting.

She didn’t glance back. “Only when I’m short on hands and long on bad luck.”

They crossed the wide dirt stretch between the main house and the corrals. A few ranch hands were already out—three of them near the far post fence, one tossing feed, another saddling a dapple-gray with wide, wary eyes. They paused, sizing Remmick up the way you do when something wild wanders too close to home.

“This here’s a new ranch hand,” she barked, nodding toward him like he was a burden she’d agreed to carry and might still toss over the fence. “He’ll be workin’. Don’t feed into his jawin’ if he gets mouthy. He bleeds easy.”

That earned a sharp chuckle from one of them, a broad-shouldered man with a scarred lip and arms thick with work. The others just nodded, unreadable.

The bunkhouse sat at the edge of the corral fence, framed by two drooping cypress trees that looked like they’d been praying for death since the war. The door was kicked crooked, and the single chimney spit a slow wisp of smoke like a dying breath. Remmick’s boots hit the porch hard, the wood creaking like it might buckle.

Inside, it was what he expected—barebones but built to last. Eight beds, four on either wall. Iron frames, patched wool blankets, each bunk with a chest at the foot and a hook for a coat. It smelled of old sweat, saddle soap, and damp earth—home enough for men who didn’t expect one.

“Pick a bed that ain’t taken. You live clean, you pull your weight, and you get fed. You give me trouble, you’re gone,” she said, arms crossed, still blocking the doorway like she hadn’t decided whether to stake him or let him breathe another day.

Remmick looked around, took it in. The way the lanternlight flickered low, the way one bed had carvings in the headboard—names scratched into wood like men trying not to be forgotten.

He looked back at her. “Reckon I’ll take my chances.”

“You already did,” she snapped, eyes flint sharp. “Don’t make me regret lettin’ you up off your damn knees.”

Then she was gone—boots striking the porch, braid cutting the air again like a mark left behind. He stood there a moment longer, sack still on his back, pulse loud behind his eyes. He smirked to himself—bloodless and small.

“Hell of a place,” he muttered. And chose the bed closest to the back wall. Always near an exit. Always.

Work was back-aching, sun-scorched, and unforgiving—but it was the only thing that kept Remmick upright and fed. And for a man with no kin, no land, and no right to ask for anything more, it was more than he deserved. So when they put him through the ringer—through the blistering, callous-making rhythm of a ranchhand’s first day—he didn’t spit, didn’t gripe, didn’t ask why.

He just worked.

At first light, he was knee-deep in muck, mucking out stalls older than some towns he’d passed through. Flies swarmed, biting into open scabs and sweat-wet skin. One of the older hands—name was Boone, square jaw and crooked nose—spit near his boots and barked, “Low man does the shit work. That’s you.”

By midday, he was hauling tack from the barn to the fence line, then hoisting feed bags twice his weight into the loft, each lift stretching the ache across his spine like a song that wouldn’t end. He broke a sweat before the sun had cleared the top rail of the paddock, and by high noon, it felt like the ground itself wanted to kill him.

“Move like molasses, low man,” another ranch hand jeered when Remmick paused too long, catching breath beside the trough. “You ain’t gonna make it to supper at that pace.”

He didn’t rise to it. Just rolled his shoulders and kept to the work, biting down on the inside of his cheek until it bled. His boots were caked with mud and shit, hands raw from the leather reins and rusted nails, and still he pushed on. Quiet. Focused.

Come sunset, they were cooling the horses down in the round pen—gold light catching on the dust kicked up in long, amber sweeps. The other hands had already started to slack off, laughing rough and loud, half-assing the final chores of the day. Remmick kept moving, tension roping his shoulders tight. He didn’t like leaving things half done.

That’s when the trouble started. Boone again, predictably. Bigger, meaner, and too used to being top dog around these parts.

“Hey, low man,” he called, tossing a coiled rope too close to Remmick’s feet. “You clean my bunk too, or just the shit outta my horse’s ass?”

Remmick didn’t stop. “Don’t need to clean what already stinks.”

The air shifted—like the whole ranch held its breath.

Boone was on him in seconds, kicking up dust like a spooked colt. No warning, no lead-in. Fist to the jaw, hard and sudden, sent Remmick stumbling sideways into the rails. Another tear at his already split lip, maybe. He didn’t taste it yet.

It was quick and ugly after that.

Boots scraping, dust flying, blood getting flung across the round pen sand. Boone was solid, but Remmick fought like a man who’d had every bone broken once already and still came back for more. He ducked low, caught Boone in the ribs, then came up fast and sharp with a headbutt that split skin clean across Boone’s brow.

By the time she arrived, half the hands had gathered like it was a cockfight behind the stables. Dirt kicked up thick and hot, sweat rolling down sunburned necks, and boots scuffling like the devil was keeping score. Some hollered, some wagered under breath, and Boone’s knuckles were already bloodied from the last hit when the sound of her boots split through it all like a thunderclap over dry land.

Solid. Sharp. Measured.

She didn’t shout. Didn’t even blink. She just walked in.

Through the pen gate like it was nothing more than smoke and insult. The crowd parted like wheat in the wind. In her hands, the rifle sat upright, grip easy but unmistakable. Power didn’t always come loud—and hers never needed to. It lived in her jaw, in her shoulders, in the way men twice her size took one look and remembered their place.

“The fuck,” she drawled, voice low and lethal, like flint striking steel.

The silence that followed came swift and immediate. Boone froze where he lay bleeding. Remmick, panting, blood dripping slow down his temple, held his ground but didn’t dare speak.

She moved closer, deliberate steps crunching over churned dirt, the butt of her rifle knocking Boone hard in the shoulder with the kind of force that sent him stumbling like a child caught stealing.

“Get the fuck up. What’s wrong with you?” she hissed, not even raising her voice. Didn't have to. That voice—controlled and cold—had the weight of every round loaded in the chamber.

Boone scrambled up like his pride might follow, muttering, “I’m sorry, ma’am, I just—”

She didn’t let him finish. Didn’t give him the privilege of explaining.

“There’s no fightin’ on my ranch.” The words weren’t a warning. They were scripture. “You wanna throw fists, you take it to the devil himself. But not here. Not on my dirt.”

Then she turned to Remmick, rifle shifting in her grip, mouth hard as the line of her brow.

“You wanna fight again?” she said, stepping once closer. “Come talk to my damn rifle.”

Remmick met her eyes, chest rising and falling slowly. Blood sat like warpaint at the edge of his jaw. His knuckles throbbed, the ache almost welcome. He could taste copper in his mouth, but there was no defiance in him—just that same steady grit.

“Understood, ma’am.”

Her gaze held his a moment longer, then flicked back to Boone. She looked him over like she was picking the spot she’d put a bullet if she had to.

“Clean yourself up,” she said flatly. “And both of you—get your shit together. Tomorrow’s still coming.”

With that, she turned on her heel, braid lashing behind her like a noose cut loose, stride unbroken, dust catching on her boots like the earth itself didn’t dare stick too long.

The hands all watched her go.

Remmick spit blood into the dirt, wiped his mouth, and muttered under his breath as the crowd started to break away. He looked at Boone, still nursing his ribs.

“Guess I earned my keep.”

And like she said, tomorrow came.

The sun had barely cracked the horizon, still low and bleeding gold over the hills when Remmick stepped out of the bunkhouse—first one out, boots already laced, shirt damp at the collar from cold water and sweat. Gash still sitting above it, starting the slow process of healing, of reminding. A slight ache lingered in his side from yesterday’s scuffle, but it was dulled by the familiarity of it all. Work, wounds, repeat.

She was already there. Of course she was.

Leaning against the fence like she’d been waiting all night, her hand dragging slow and practiced along the glossy flank of her stallion—a beast as black as coal and twice as proud. The kind of horse a lesser man wouldn’t even try to saddle. The stallion nickered low, shifting under her palm, muscles rippling like stormclouds beneath his hide.

“Good mornin’, ma’am,” Remmick offered, voice low but steady, rough with sleep and yesterday’s blood.

She didn’t look at him at first. Just let her fingers curl gently under the stallion’s jaw, inspecting the bridle. Then:

“You always this chipper after gettin’ your ass handed to you?” she asked dryly, eyes still on the horse.

Remmick gave a tired smirk, tongue pressing to the cut on his inner cheek. “Only when I’m still standin’ after.”

That earned him a look. Just a glance, over her shoulder—sharp, assessing, like she was measuring whether he was worth wasting breath on.

Then, after a beat: “What do they call you?”

He blinked. Not because he didn’t expect the question, but because no one had asked it like that in a long while.

“Remmick,” he said after a pause. “Just Remmick.”

She eyed him for a second longer, then gave a tight nod. “That’s different. Suits you. Sounds like somethin’ that doesn’t know when to quit.”

He huffed a short laugh through his nose. “Yeah. Somethin’ like that.”

She clicked her tongue and adjusted the cinch on the saddle. And like a tide rolling in—one that could swallow you whole but still, you watched and listened anyway—she said her name.

It didn’t slip out so much as settle. Heavy. Sure of itself. It hung in the air longer than it should’ve, like a challenge more than an offering. Like the sea cracking against jagged rock—soft if you weren’t paying attention, brutal if you got too close.

Remmick didn’t say a word in response. Didn’t dare repeat it. Some things felt sacred, even if spoken through grit.

“Didn’t peg you for a woman who gave her name so easy,” he muttered, eyes slipping between tracing your figure and the stallion.

You turned, finally facing him fully now, arms folded across your chest. Your sleeves were rolled up past your elbows, revealing forearms marked with faint scars, sun-darkened and strong.

“I don’t,” you said flatly. “But if I’m barkin’ orders, and considering that I cut up your neck, I may as well get it over with.”

The tension sat between you like an unspoken bet neither of you would admit to placing. He wasn’t afraid of you, but he was wary—and there was a difference. One you seemed to respect more than most.

“You saddle a horse, Remmick?” you asked suddenly. The sound of his name on your tongue hit him harder than your fist ever had—clean, sharp, and with a strange kind of heat that settled in his gut like a coal left smoldering too long.

It wasn’t the way you said it, not exactly. It was the weight behind it. Like you’d carved it out of something that bled and then dared him to own it.

Something stirred in him, slow and forgotten, low in his stomach—a feeling he’d long since buried beneath bruises, whiskey, and the years spent running from things with names. He bit the inside of his cheek at the sensation, jaw twitching. Couldn’t afford softness. Not here. Not with you. Not with the sun barely risen and his blood still drying under his shirt.

“I do.”

“Then grab a rope and don’t fuck up my morning.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, and meant it.

And just like that, you swung into the saddle and turned the stallion with one clean flick of your wrist. Dust kicked up behind you, and he moved to follow, your name rolling around his mind like a bullet chambered, not yet fired.

╭━━━━━ ━━━━━╮

The sun was sinking slow over the hills, painting everything in copper and ash. The last of the horses had been brought in, the gates secured, and the scent of hot iron and horse sweat lingered in the air. Already a week in, he’d fallen into the groove of the ranch’s work, Remmick had half a mind to scrub his hands clean and find somewhere to sit that didn’t creak or itch. But your voice came sharp behind him before he could wander.

“You walkin’ around with your head in the clouds or just lost your damn sense?”

He turned slowly, brushing the dust from his shirt. You were posted up against the barn door, arms crossed, that braid of yours falling loose and wild now, stray strands stuck to your neck from the heat. The lowburn fire in your eyes hadn’t dimmed since morning.

“Neither,” he drawled, thumb catching the edge of his belt loop. “Just enjoyin’ the quiet. Feels like I ain’t heard nothin’ but boots and barkin’ all day.”

Your mouth twitched. Not a smile—God forbid—but something passed over your face like amusement disguised as judgment. “You ain’t earned the right to complain.”

“Didn’t say I was complainin’, ma’am.” His eyes lingered a beat too long on your hands, rough and sure, the way they curled around your flask. “Just observin’. Like how you only ever call me when there’s somethin’ that needs fixin’ or lifted or carried.”

“Ain’t that what you’re good for?”

His grin curled slow, sly. “You tell me.”

You took a pull from the flask and wiped your mouth with the back of your hand, eyes never leaving his. “You’re good for bruises and trouble, near as I can tell. Don’t make you special.”

“And yet you haven’t sent me packin’.”

“You think that means somethin’?”

“Means somethin’ to me.” His voice dipped there—lower, quieter. Not sweet, not soft. Just honest in a way that made you blink once, slow and unreadable.

You stepped forward, just once, and the sound of your boots on the packed dirt was louder than it should’ve been. Close enough now that he could see the flecks of gold in your eyes, the way sweat clung to your temple.

“You want a medal for stickin’ around a week?” You asked.

“Nah. Just maybe the occasional ‘thank you’ instead of bein’ looked at like a stray dog that bit your boot.”

You looked him over, deliberate, slow. Your gaze dragged from his boots to the still-healing cut across his throat to the scar along his jaw he’d never bothered to explain. When you spoke again, your voice was quieter. Meaner, but in that way that tasted like salt and heat instead of real anger.

“You got eyes like a dog, y’know that? All hopeful and haunted. Ain’t never sure whether you’re gonna fetch or bite.”

“Would it matter?”

You held his stare for one long second.

Then you capped the flask and tossed it to him. He caught it, surprised.

“Go clean up,” you said, turning your back to him. “And don’t drink more than half, or I’ll gut you and make you work tomorrow with your liver in your hand, Remmick."

He chuckled, the sound itself felt foreign, voice rasping with smoke and sweat and something else too old to name. Not missing the use of his name, but that hungry pit in himself, sure as hell was craving the sound of it a little more.

“Yes, ma’am.”

And as you walked off, braid bouncing with each step, he took the smallest sip and kept his eyes on your retreating form. Hell, maybe you'd kill him one day. But it wouldn’t be before he saw what else that mouth of yours could do besides spit fire. That is—if you let him.

taglist ; @lunaleah @idiotsatan @arquiiva @pixieofthesun @kaelizl @nefertiti2003 @damnzelsoul @latebean @creamqvvn

[astronomical-light]

HELLO july 4 has me thinking about jack being sensitive to fireworks due to his military service, and robby comforting him or stepping in to support him when the explosion sounds start. do you have any headcanons about this? or know of any fics w this premise? <3

so my headcanon for this goes a little bit against the grain. i was actually talking at length about this to @alethialia last week but the stars didn’t align for either of us to write it, so allow me to present to you now

FOURTH OF JULY: JACK’S FAVORITE HOLIDAY

look, we don’t know any hard facts regarding jack’s time in the service, but i think it’s pretty safe to assume that he’s been out for at least ten years, probably more like fifteen. i more often than not headcanon him enlisting at 18, and if we go off of hatosy’s age, that would most likely have him enlisting in ‘94. say he does the medic thing for a few years and then decides to goes back to school and become a doctor, you can still have him getting a few tours in by the mid-00s

that would have been TWENTY years ago.

my point is that while i can maybe buy a jack who doesn’t like fireworks, i personally find it hard to believe that the jack we see in the present day has such strong and unmanaged PTSD symptoms that he’s having a full-on breakdown over it. maybe he did twenty years ago, but i think it does a disservice to the character we see on screen and the clear amount of work that he’s put in to himself to have him be that much of a wreck about it. but ymmv, you do you and all that.

and not to be all I Have Veteran Friends, but i know the EXACT fic i would write about him on the fourth of july, and it is as follows:

jack always takes fourth of july off. the fourth of july is sacred. the fourth of july is the one day he and all his army buddies get together for the tried and true american tradition of blowing shit up.

robby usually works a double on the fourth so jack can have it all off, and everyone knows this. cue everyone misunderstanding why jack takes it off, and being So Sympathetic when he gets called in to help with day shift for [reasons].

he’s SO goddamn grumpy about it, but he’s grumpy because he should be tits out poolside right now. he’s grumpy because he has incredibly expensive steaks in the fridge that he should be eating. he should be manning the grill right now. his grillmaster skills are the stuff of LEGEND. he should not be at work on this auspicious day.

(robby always works the fourth because he Cannot hang out with jack’s friends at jack’s barbecue. any other day, they’re great guys. but he does Not want to witness what OSHA violations are going to take place. he will have an aneurysm, no matter how many times jack says trust me, i’m a doctor or it’s fine, it’s just steve, he’s a demolitions expert. like, that’s exactly why he has concerns, jack.)

so jack is working, and he’s not in the best mood, and now we have THE most absurd comedy of errors. he starts going on a rant about fireworks in the daytime, and it’s not about the noise, it’s about how that’s a FLAGRANT waste of explosive firepower because you can’t even see them? he wants to see that shit spark, baby.

(one of my favorite things to imagine is that jack spends the lead up to the fourth going “you know what next week is?” to robby with Very Serious Eyes, and everyone thinks it’s because he’s being vigilant and prepared, and it’s not wrong, but really he’s just preparing robby for the fact that he’s about to blow hundreds of dollars in the meat department. he’s a little twitchy because he’s HYPE.)

maybe there’s a situation that gets him a little angry, makes him start breathing a little heavily. maybe one of his buddies texts him a photo of steve touching the steak in the fridge that is specifically labeled DO NOT TOUCH - THAT MEANS YOU STEVE. maybe one of the ducklings thinks he’s having an episode and starts furtively googling how to deal with fireworks related PTSD and then starts trying to guide an increasingly confused jack through box breaths about it.

mel would show him her lava lamp app, and jack would not get it. “kid, in my day, those things were real?”

someone asks if he’s fine and he snaps that he’s NOT fine, because he’s here when he should be chugging beers and setting off roman candles, but he doesn’t get the chance to finish that sentence because someone starts coding and he has to go run and deal with that.

robby at some point finds out about the misunderstanding, and because he likes to cause problems on purpose, gently encourages all of the ducklings. when jack finally buys a clue about why the fuck everyone is being so weird to him today he’s SO exasperated. threatens robby with some kind of punishment. see if he gets any of jack’s meat, later.

(there’s a spinoff to this fic where brad comes to visit one year and jack goes into a TIZZY about making sure he can show up the marines and live up to his reputation, because Winning At BBQ is definitely something normal to want and possible to achievable, even when brad is like why are you trying to out-brisket a jew? i knew you were an officer, but damn because fortunately for jack, HE KNOWS A GUY. anyway, robby spends an entire month eating brisket. he’s never yearned for a fresh vegetable so badly in his life.)

anyway i have no idea how this story ends. jack ends up making out with robby in the call room to turn him all red as part of his punishment, and robby is like “this doesn’t feel very much like a punishment” but then he has to go back out into the ED looking Like That so jack’s all have fun with that, bye!

jack manages to makes it home right in time for nightfall and right in time to blow some shit up, everyone lives happily ever after, the end.

[plague-and-creatures]

You also have to take into account how they got together with their partner.

What steps did their relationship take over what period of time? What kind of friendship or other relationship (hey, enemies to lovers could work too) did they have with that person? Where they queerplatonic with them before becoming romantic. If they're aroallo were they fwb beforehand? What level of physical and emotional closeness did they have before they realized they were ready for things to be romantic? Did they even officially announce it or was it just unspoken agreement or understanding as the relationship developed?

Like OP said this isn't an alloromatic relationship, it's not going to develop at the same pace physically and emotionally. Hell, sometimes a relationship can LOOK romantic from the outside but is considered purely platonic by the people it's between.

If you're an allo person writing an aro character, I'd say as a rule of thumb you should avoid love at first sight tropes, as well as having them go out with people with the goal of forming a romantic connection like alloromatic people do (unless actively seeking romance is part of them realizing they're aromatic).

From my personal experience, as a partnered aro person, my relationship developed over time and I didn't actively seek out or even consider a romantic relationship for years after I realized I was aroace. Hell, when people went in with the explicit goal of establishing a romantic relationship it intimidated me. Everyone is different, though, there are many identities that fall under the aro umbrella and obviously you should also talk to aro people in your community and/or your friend groups too, as they can give new perspectives and help you represent more complex experiences.

I think really it's also about stopping yourself from strictly categorizing ways of showing affection or interacting with others as either romantic or non-romantic. Yes that character is flirty, but that doesn't mean they're seeking romance, maybe they just like flustering people. Yes those two characters are cuddling and holding hands, but they don't see it as a romantic thing like you might, they're just really close. Yes there is a platonic explanation for that actually. So on and so forth.

if you say “but aros can still date!” about your aromantic blorbo, I need you to mean it. you can’t make the ship just boring old romance.

your blorbo is still aromantic, so how would that color their relationships? how would that affect their daily life? do they struggle with feeling “greedy” because they can’t love their partner back the way their partner loves them? do they have a hard time with an allo partner because on a fundamental level they don’t quite understand what romance is like, even if they’re experiencing it? on the positive side; what societal boundaries of romance do they cast aside or embrace? how do they navigate a romantic relationship differently than their peers? if it’s an aro4aro partnership, how is it unique? how much does being aro define their relationship vs. just their own personal quirks? is that even a line that can be drawn?

an aro relationship is different from an allo one. I promise, it’s so much more fun to explore what that means and the consequences of that than just “oh aros can date so they’re dating in the same way any allos would”.

[centaurianthropology]

You know what? I don't think the show will (or should) yet address the fact that reactions to the deaths of SecUnits and the reactions to the deaths of humans are starkly different, even for the Preservationers.

I think this for two reasons: one, the nature of why that might be different sort of needs to get explored more. Do they not think of the other SecUnits as people (possible), or is it the helmet? See, most humans have a much easier time not attributing personhood or complexity if they can't see someone's face. It's why enemies in video games so often tend to be faceless. It's why certain fascist regimes throughout history have their secret police hide their faces. Because it is the goal to un-people them and make them Other. And that was clearly part of the design philosophy of SecUnits, so much so that people just don't know that there is, in fact, a face under that helmet. So it's easier to see a helmeted, unpersoned being die, especially if it has been openly attacking you first, rather than see a person whose face is exposed, and who you have perhaps talked to or even gotten to know, die, even under similar circumstances.

But there are definitely deeper questions about the personhood of constructs in general that need to be explored. But before PresAux can truly unpack their unconscious depersonization of SecUnits, Murderbot has to unpack its own depersonization of itself and other constructs.

I don't think that Murederbot considers itself a person yet. I don't think it's sad that other SecUnits die, because it actually, secretly, agrees with what Gurathin has been saying: SecUnits aren't people, they're equipment. It is equipment, and all these new emotions, the empathy, the kindness that has been laced through it by these people, these are viruses. It's not a sign of personal growth, because it's not a person! It has so many emotions and thoughts and perceptions, and the best way it's found so far to understand them is filtered through shows. But it has yet to understand that all these things are signs that it is, and has always been, a person. Honestly, given what's just happened at the end of episode 9, I think Gurathin's reevaluating his opinions on Muderbot's personhood far sooner than Murderbot is.

It has to go on its journey of self-discovery before it can really embrace that it is, in fact, a person. Not equipment, not just a thing, but a PERSON. And only when it confronts that, and its own callous opinions of its death and the deaths of other SecUnits, will it really be able to grapple with the disparity and the prejudice inherent in the way SecUnit deaths are treated.

It's very likely that, if it leaves at the end of the season, PresAux grapple with this concept and their reactions to the various deaths they witnessed on their own. After all, they are emotionally intelligent people who will likely be asking themselves why it left them. We may have a subplot of them working through their own prejudices toward constructs, and the flaws in Preservation thinking about bots and constructs (in the books, at least, very paternalistic). I would really like to see them grapple with that on their own, and Murderbot grapple with it on its own, in the way that it reluctantly grapples with all large, emotional concepts. I would like them to come back together both in different places, and on different and better terms. But I think they would still have growing to do, because it's one thing to deconstruct your own prejudices in a bubble, but ideally that deconstruction should be informed by the opinions and thoughts of people within the group you were prejudiced against, so I would imagine they would still have plenty of mutual character growth to go once it rejoins them.

But that's not something that can be grappled with in one episode. That is a LONG arc, likely a parallel arc for next season, which may well continue beyond season 2, if we get lucky enought to get seasons 3+ (given Apple's track record, I would be surprised if we don't at least get season 2; they tend to prefer giving their shows room to grow, and MB has stayed in the top 5 viewed shows for the entire season, so it's not like it's performing poorly by their metrics).

I see season 2--assuming it's some remix of 'Artificial Condition', 'Rogue Protocol', and original material--as the season that really grapples with the nature and personhood of constructs. Season 1 set up the characters and the larger world, as well as the stakes. Season 2 can, hopefully, move forward with some of the deeper topics at play.

[hkthatgffan]

IT'S FINALLY BEEN RELEASED (sorta)!!

"Chasing Rainbows" was a fanzine project that began in October 2016. The zine was themed around celebrating the dreams and ambitions of Gravity Falls characters. The name came from the fact every piece of art was coloured in such a way that when arranged in order, the zine would be coloured like a rainbow.

This zine was in the final stages of development, with orders being made and ready to ship, when it was announced that due to the main mod and organizer of the zine, Charles, being hospitalized, the remaining mods were unable to continue it. With that, it was cancelled and all people who bought a copy were refunded. And that was where the project essentially ended.

However, in the last post on the zine's now deleted Tumblr, it was stated that they hoped to release a digital version of the zine for free, as a way to at least complete the project in some form. However, that did not happen and no traces of a digital release ever surfaced. When I began my archival project for GF fanzines, I initially assumed this zine was lost. However, with that sliver of hope per the last Tumblr post, I began looking for a copy. Unlike other fanzines, this one did not have its mod team listed, so I contacted artists who originally worked on it for info. Many of them no longer are on Tumblr, making tracking them down more difficult. 

Eventually, through a few artists, I came to the conclusion that no digital zine was ever released. However, one of the artists, @wendinella on Tumblr, still knew the contact of Charles, the zine organizer. I managed to get in touch with them and to my excitement, they still retained the zine and was more than happy to share it to be archived and preserved. 

Zine Link on Archive

Google Drive Download

This Zine here is, while not the final product, a near complete example of what it might have looked like. Charles attempted to contact old mods who worked on it for assets like the completed zine cover and merch meant to be sold with it in 2017, however none were able to respond. Therefore, this zine is released with what they had, which were a placeholder cover and thankfully, all the actual art, which is the more important aspect. 

I want to give a huge thank you to Charles aka @kaleidoreef for releasing this zine to be archived. Charles really wanted this to finally happen and I'm glad I can now provide it for all of you on their behalf. I also wanna thank wendinella for getting me in touch with Charles and all the other fan artists who worked on Chasing Rainbows who responded back to me. With this, all known Gravity Falls fanzines are now archived and accounted for. 

Tagging the remaining artists on Tumblr so that way they can also hopefully get this zine and see that their hard work has finally yielded a near completed zine.

@thisriverdraws @atlasioh @falmakez @taffybuns @embulalia @isofish-art @erikaflamand @lilkeeree @novantinuum-draws @sleuthysaturn @doberart @taccoman @yali-scribbles @artmageddonunicorn @arc-etype @almeow @tesscourtes @provider-of-art @fireflysummers @tateratots

[yourstrulynobody]

2ET's chapter two is out! Kinda a longish chapter with the maxium of 1,286 words + 7,056 characters :3 (im actually not sure if thats considered a long chapter?)

Other than that, please click →here← for further information of the name usage for both Terra and Cosmos!

Again, I did not describe the gods all too much due to my lack of official design for them—in general, I am horrible at explaining things, so I do apologize in advance!

(Writing under cut)

→ { Chapter 1 }

Eclipse is tossed into the trial room, left alone on his personal pillar and hes forced to endure the thousand of hateful glares being thrown at him from all directions.

He shakes his head and blinks his eyes rapidly, trying to adjust to the bright light shining down on him as he takes in the sight of the trial room—could it even be called a trial room when it was just an old arena being reused?

Its pillars and seats towered so high that it felt like it reached the sky, though the sky itself was what made up the floor below him. The flooring was a bright blue and white clearing, the clouds causing a fog that made everything blur, and Eclipse sighed as he did quite adore the uniqueness of the structure but hated that it was the work of the very god he despises.

A low disdainful growl came from one of the three higher pillars in front of him to the far left, the very voice of Lunar, the god of Punishment and Karma himself. They were on a mutual hatred with each other. That wasnt any surprise.

Eclipse would love to make some cocky comment of sorts towards Lunar, but the blinding light to the far right kept his mouth shut.

He sucks his teeth as he forces his left pair to adjust to the glow, slowly recognizing that it was not the sun but a halo of one of the other gods; Solar, the god of Rage and Judgement, whose face was covered in shadows though his harsh red eyes remained visible.

The halo's gleam subsided as the god of Justice and Balance, Earth, raises her hand and closes it into a fist, making the glow bearable.

She stood from her seat and walks to the edge of her pillar, her arms spread widely as though to welcome him, but her expression remained serious and cold.

"Total Eclipse 'Totality' Celestial." Her voice echoes from where she stands, the subtle white rings that were her eyes visible under the soft shadow over them. "Your arrival has been expected eons ago. We are glad to have you finally where you belong."

"How welcoming." Eclipse rolls his eyes, rubbing his chained wrists together to try ease the pain though it did nothing but enchance it.

Lunar slams his fist down on his seat's arm, cracking the delicate gold as it slowly patches itself up. "Have some respect, would you?"

Earth eyes Lunar as she clasps her hands together. "Lunar, ease."

"Why should I?" Lunar snarls at his fellow god, his nails digging into the golden chair once more. "If he wishes for a gentle trial, he shall be respectful to us."

Earth's eyebrows furrow but she sighs as she raises her head high, her gaze turning back to Eclipse. "Are you ready for your trial to begin, immortal one?"

Eclipse opens his mouth but clenches his jaw tightly immediately as he swallows down a sarcastic comment. Lunar was right—partially, though. Eclipse is willing to show some respect, just not to Lunar because of many reasons that he can arrange in alphabetical order.

His eyes lock with Earth's, going narrow as he glances at Solar before looking away.

He sighs and nods. "Yeah, Im ready."

"Splendid." Earth claps her hand and a closed scroll appears in front of her.

The scroll unfolds when Lunar causes a rough wind, sending the other end of the scroll near Eclipse and resting a few inches behind him. The crowd gasps before murmuring amongst themselves upon seeing how long the scroll was—the distance between the judges and the judged is about a few feet with the addition of the huge height difference of their pillars, so knowing Eclipse had that much of a long scroll was horrifying just as it was intriguing.

Earth hums. "Quite the asexual, arent you?" She smiles, halfly genuine at the fact. She clears her throat. "Now, immortal one, what must you say for yourself before we criticize of you?"

Eclipse scoffs. "Apologies..." he tries to act serious but he snorts before he has a full-blown laughter, his sharp rays spinning in amusment. "..I did not prepare a speech of pleading beforehand—not that I planned to plead anyway. Though, uh, what I plan to say?"

He clicks his tongue as he hums in thought. "I dont regret shit." He grins, showing off his canine teeth as he looks through his eyebrows and at the gods—to Lunar specifically who snarled at him.

The audiences burst into 'boo's and cursing—if they had anything with them, they definitely would've thrown it towards Eclipse, aiming to maim him. Eclipse may have hated the screaming as it begun to overwhelm, but he gritted his teeth as he kept smiling, not daring to look weak.

The crowd suddenly silences in a flash as a red hue is taken from their heads and they plop down onto their seats in a calmer state. Eclipse's eyes follow the direction of the hues, and he sees them magnet towards Solar; the god's hand was raised high, and he held what seemed to be an orb forming out of the anger he took out of the people's head. Solar didnt seem bothered as, despite his domain of rage, he is the calmest one out of the three judges before Eclipse.

Solar lowers his fist and molds the gathered anger into a spear that is bright red in color all over with a faint glow. He tosses it towards Eclipse and it clangs in front of him, and the god gestures for the immortal to take it. Though Eclipse is hesitant to do so, he nods his head in slight courtesy before he slides his foot under the spear and made it fly up, his knee bracing to keep it bouncing until he caught it in one swift motion.

This spear was far unique from any other weapon Eclipse has ever gotten his hands on. May it be the otherworldly glow or the godly aura the spear gave out, but it was just different—so light in his grasp but it held such strength Eclipse was willing to test out, but he had to wait until this trial was over... if he was ever even spared, that was, and Lunar's disgusted gaze made it clear that his chances of getting away with his crimes were lower than the pits of the River of Quietus itself.

"Solar—!" Lunar hisses at his fellow god, but he, too, had the same treatment as the audience as he leans into his seat in a quieter state of mind.

Solar makes Lunar's rage swirl around the spear before connecting it within the sharp tip, a blueish color infecting it before disappearing in the bloody shade. "We must not let our personal feelings interfere with the trial." Solar states as he looks over at Earth and gestures for her to continue.

"Why thank you, our Solar." Earth smiles at him before looking back at Eclipse. "Let us speak now that everything is settled, immortal one."

Eclipse rose an eyebrow. "Wait, 'speak'? Isnt this just a 'read, judge and sentence'?"

Earth laughs, her tone so sweet yet taunting as Eclipse is reminded of someone he once knew—someone he swore he felt hugging him at this very moment, but he brushed it off as nothing but the cold air.

"It should have been, yes." Earth nods. "But I am afraid we hadn't read through every offense in detail. I will merely summarize for my brothers, and then we will decide."

Oh, great. Eclipse now has to wait if they decided if they wanted him dead or not.

[hoonieyun]

en-gacha ˚ ༘ ೀ⋆｡˚

hoonieyun's 2k follower celebration!

pairing: enhypen ot7 x reader (not poly lol) genre: choose your own adventure (kind of), romance, fluff, smau/written warnings: stated in each chapter

synopsis: yn has visited helium arcade since she was a young child and when finds out that it'll be closing within the next week, she decides she's going to visit the arcade everyday to get every last gacha capsule left in her favorite gacha machine.

to celebrate reaching 2k followers, i'll be doing a series like i did for my 1k celebration BUT for the first time ever, i'll be writing for ot7 enhypen!

here's how it will work: each chapter will be dedicated to a specific member of enhypen and will have a poll at the end of each chapter to dictate who the next chapter will be dedicated to. it'll make more sense once the series gets going but think of it as this, you're putting a coin inside of a gachapon machine/capsule vending machine and win a blind box, yay! you will then get to vote on who is inside that blind box based on a title and the winner of the poll will be revealed in the next chapter which will then follow yn x member's day together!

more under the cut ゛ ⸝⸝.ᐟ⋆

status: coming soon <3 schedule: there is no specific posting schedule, however, i will try not to leave so much space in between chapters! taglist: OPEN! the taglist will remain open until the series is over. reply or send an ask to be added, please check your perms before requesting - minors/blank/ageless blogs will be ignored

˚₊‧꒰ა ☆ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚

chapters: ch1: helium arcade is now closing ch2: ch3: ch4: ch5: ch6: ch7: ch8: ch9: ch10:

˚₊‧꒰ა ☆ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚

ᡣ•.•𐭩♡ @pagemiah @jiiyen @jnysaln @xh01bri @rairaiblog @laurradoesloveu @manaah02 @zorange13 @firstclassjaylee @kristynaaah @17ericas @heeseung64 @leipforggy @s1rawb3rry @ddeonuswife @orxngebloods @xylatox @saccharinezennie @izzyy-stuff

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hoonieyun notes: guys... GUYS :cccc thank you for 2k followers that's actually the most insane thing ever... i can't believe you guys have gotten me to this milestone and im so so so very very very grateful for all of the support and love you guys have given me. as a small token of my gratitude i've decided that i'll be doing a one time series where i will be writing for each member of enhypen! as many of you know, i don't typically write for maknae line but as an exception to show how thankful i am for this milestone, i'll be doing it for the one time :3 thank you guys so much for being there for me through all of this and i can't wait to share this with all of you. a special thank you to @s1rawb3rry who always gets my mind thinking and always helps me come up with ideas and brainstorm. <3