#white lacquer with color

[icanseenewyorkcityfrommyhouse]

Open Family Room Example of a large minimalist open concept marble floor and black floor family room design with a bar, white walls and a wall-mounted tv

[elyxir]

Open Family Room Large minimalist open concept marble floor and black floor family room photo with a bar, white walls and a wall-mounted tv

[teamodiyemeyenkiz]

Modern Family Room - Open Family room - large modern open concept marble floor and black floor family room idea with a bar, white walls and a wall-mounted tv

[payetafamille]

Basement Underground

An illustration of a large, modern, carpeted basement without a fireplace and multicolored walls.

[youthguk]

Encore 2: Intermission

“Some scenes only happen when the lights go down.”

pairing: idol! jungkook x editor! reader

genre: smut, ex lovers, second chance au, angst with smut, toxic ex au

summary: You’ve worked too hard to become untouchable. He still knows exactly where to touch. After one night of stolen pleasure, you’re determined to walk away — but Jungkook isn’t ready to let you go again. Between silk sheets, half-spoken regrets, and a black-tie dinner where flirtation becomes revenge, your past and present spiral into something dangerous. It was supposed to be physical. But feelings don’t follow the script.

warnings: explicit sexual content (multiple scenes), oral (f + m), fingering, rimming (f receiving), protected sex, angst, unresolved feelings, toxic relationship tension, emotional breakdown

w.c: 10k

author's note: ugh, this part really broke me🖤 writing and creating stories takes a lot of time, and no matter how much i love doing this and jungkook, i would love your support and feedback 🖤

part 1 | part 2 (you're here) | final part 3

You stand in front of Seo In-kyung’s office door in borrowed heels and smudged eyeliner, praying your face doesn’t betray the night carved into your body.

The morning light bleeds through the glass walls like scrutiny. Her office is pristine — sharp angles, a curved leather chair behind a white marble desk, walls lined with editorial archives and thick matte prints. A minimalist arrangement of white orchids sits perfectly still in one corner, untouched by dust or emotion.

You knock.

“Come in.”

Her voice cuts through like the heel of a Louboutin.

You step inside, clutching your tablet too tightly. Your hair is pulled back — barely — in a low twist that you smoothed with shaking fingers in the backseat of a cab thirty minutes ago. Underneath the oversized Saint Laurent blazer, your dress is the same one from last night. You're hoping it passes as intentional. It doesn’t.

Seo In-kyung is already seated. Flawless. Impeccable. A navy Mugler blazer sharp enough to slit throats, heels lacquered, wrists bare. She doesn’t smile. She gestures to the chair opposite her without looking up.

You sit, spine straight. For a moment, silence.

“You really outdid yourself, Y/N.”

She’s flipping through a printed copy of the BTS campaign spread — full bleed photos, minimalist layouts, editorial perfection. The same layouts you stayed past midnight refining. The ones you pushed through legal, color, and styling approvals with nothing but caffeine and willpower.

She taps her manicured nail on the cover.

“This,” she says, “brought the entire industry back to us.”

You exhale. Just slightly. “Thank you, Director Seo.”

“Don’t thank me,” she says, eyes still scanning the page. “Thank your instinct. You were right to strip it down. No gimmicks. No clutter. Just tension.” She turns a page. “Even Jeon looked like a man worth remembering.”

You freeze. But she doesn’t elaborate. Just closes the folder, places it gently beside her, and finally looks at you.

You wish she hadn’t. Her gaze is cool. Calculating. The kind that scans and files away. You feel it — the mess behind your eyes. The mascara you didn't have time to fully erase. The faint redness at your mouth. The scent of a man that no water could completely wash off.

She leans back in her chair. “Fondo di Luce.”

You blink. “Sorry?”

Her fingers tap the marble. Once. Twice.

“It’s an international art and fashion initiative,” she says. “A luxury gala held annually at Villa Fioretta, Lake Como. Private guest list. Couture-only. Funded by Dante Seo’s Light Fund and Vogue’s European partners.” A pause. “And we’ve been invited.”

Your breath stirs.

“I want you to represent Vogue Korea,” she says.

Silence blooms between you. “Me?”

“Yes. You pitched this campaign. You shaped it. People in Milan want to meet the girl who made the cover go viral.”

You feel lightheaded. Not from panic this time — from the taste of possibility. Of respect. Of validation earned, not handed.

Your mouth opens to thank her but then she speaks again.

“Don’t get too comfortable.”

The room shifts. Your spine locks. Her gaze hardens. She doesn’t blink.

“I don’t tolerate editors who sleep with clients,” she says. Voice smooth. Flat. “It’s unprofessional. It’s disgusting. It makes us look like we earned our place on our backs.”

Your blood turns to ice.

“You, Y/N, are better than that. You’ve proven yourself. Your instincts are rare.” A pause. “It would be a shame to lose someone like you because she couldn’t keep her legs closed.”

You don’t breathe. You can’t. You nod once, eyes fixed on a nonexistent spot on her desk. She stands.

“That’ll be all.”

You rise mechanically. Thank her. Bow. And walk out of the office with your pulse screaming in your ears. The moment you step into the hallway, Kara is there. Perched by the espresso machine in the break corner, sipping an oat milk latte with glossy lips and smug silence. She doesn’t say anything.

Your fists clench. Your face burns. You want to tear the smugness off her face and throw it back at her in headlines.

Instead, you walk past her — heels echoing like threats — and your phone buzzes in your pocket.

You check it.

Unknown Number

Still quiet, hm? Should I send someone to pick up my jacket or do I get a kiss as collateral?

Buzz.

I’ll take the kiss.

Buzz.

…or both.

You delete the thread. Turn off your notifications. And get back to work.

You don’t cry in the hallway. You don’t clench your jaw, or turn on your heel, or demand Seo In-kyung look you in the eye when she delivers the kind of warning she never would’ve given to a man. You don’t remind her that half the board she answers to built their careers on affairs with photographers, designers, founders — powerful men who never had to answer for the women they fucked.

You just breathe.

Measured. Controlled. Counted down like pills in the morning. You walk back to your desk with your back straight, your heels clean against the tile, pretending you don’t feel the ghost of his hands still pressing into your hips. You can almost hear him still — that teasing, velvet-coated filth, low and smug against your skin. You hear it in the vibration of your phone every hour since sunrise. You hear it in Kara’s eyes every time they rake over you. You feel it in the way your own body responds when you close your eyes at night — when your fingers trail down beneath the sheets and it’s his name that sits between your teeth, no matter how hard you bite down.

You tell yourself it was just sex. A one-time indulgence. A lapse in judgment that began and ended in a penthouse no one else has to know about. You tell yourself it was closure — that there’s no gravity to the way he held your face in his hands like he still knew how to ruin you. That the ache still curling inside your chest is nothing but delayed shame.

But the problem is, it wasn’t just the sex.

It was the way he looked at you like five years hadn’t passed, like you weren’t a stranger in that room, like you were still the girl he used to know in a borrowed hoodie and scraped-up Nikes, standing in a dingy kitchen, editing your first column with red pen on a ten-thousand-won table. It was the way he kissed you with a hunger that felt older than his fame. It was the way he let you bite him, claw him, curse him — and still whispered “come back to me.”

And now you're here. Perfectly poised in the office you fought tooth and nail to climb into, barely holding yourself together while your editor-in-chief — a woman born with the title stitched into her spine — calls you brilliant and disposable in the same breath. She will never know what it feels like to be called a genius on Monday and a whore on Wednesday. To be handed praise with a choke chain wrapped around it. To have your best work reduced to who you might have let touch you after hours.

She can talk about dignity. She can afford to. You, on the other hand, know exactly how fragile power can be when it’s built from scratch.

✦✦✦

The message comes barely an hour after you walk out of Seo In-kyung’s office.

You didn’t even say goodbye.

You don’t open it. You don’t need to — the preview alone is enough to make your stomach twist. You swipe it away, fingers rigid, and tell yourself that it doesn’t mean anything. Not the message. Not the sender. Not the way your name still looks when it rolls off his voice, even in text.

That night, another one arrives.

Was it the blazer? Should’ve left you something softer.

You laugh, once. Quietly. Then delete it like it burned you. You don’t respond. You won’t. Because if you let yourself type anything — a word, a punctuation mark, the space before a breath — you won’t stop. And you’ve worked too hard, pulled yourself too far out of the wreckage, to let one night drag you back into the ruin you barely crawled out of.

But the texts don’t stop.

Sometimes they’re careless. Teasing. Written like he’s still in your bed with your thighs pressed against his hips and your nails in his back. Other times, they’re sharp with weight, like he doesn’t know which version of himself you’ll tolerate — the boy who left you, or the man trying to come back.

You never reply. But you read every word.

And at night, when the world finally stops demanding your time and your poise and your reputation, when the silence of your apartment feels too loud to ignore — you remember how he touched you. You remember how it felt to let go of everything for one hour, one night, one man who once shattered you so completely that you forgot what it meant to breathe without him.

You touch yourself like it means nothing. But it’s his voice you hear when your fingers slip lower. It’s his mouth you imagine when you bite your own shoulder to muffle the sounds. It’s his hand around your throat when you finish — sharp and soft at once — and it’s his name that almost slips out, pressed against the inside of your teeth like a secret you’re still ashamed of wanting.

You don’t look at your phone after that. You tell yourself it was just sex, you’re smarter now.He’s just another mistake in a long line of things you’ve learned how to survive.

And when another message arrives — two days later, right as you're finalizing your flight details for the gala in Lake Como — you don’t even read it.

You just close your eyes, and try not to remember how he looked at you when he came.

✦✦✦

You arrive at Incheon International two hours before your flight, slipping through security behind oversized sunglasses and an air of quiet efficiency. The blazer you’re wearing is Dior this time — borrowed from the archive rack, boxy at the shoulders, sleek across your hips. Beneath it: a slate-gray satin blouse tucked into wide-leg ivory trousers, pressed razor-sharp. You look like someone who’s going to Lake Como for work, not for war.

It isn’t until you reach the boarding gate that you see the line of black masks, tailored airport coats, and hush-voiced assistants clustered like chess pieces around Gate A7.

BTS.

Of course.

Your stomach doesn’t sink. It knots — tight, controlled, slow — like the warning of turbulence long before the plane leaves the ground.

You keep walking, silent, graceful, aware of every click of your heels on the polished floor. You don’t let yourself search for him. You don’t have to. You feel him before you see him — a presence that presses against your awareness like heat against skin, impossible to ignore.

It isn’t until you’re lowering yourself into your business class seat, reaching for the strap of your carry-on, that you finally glance up — and meet his eyes.

Row 2. Aisle seat. Black mask, black cap, rings on both hands. And staring at you like he hasn’t blinked in days. You look away.

The plane boards slowly. Assistants murmur. Photographers keep their cameras off. The boys move like shadows, trained to blend, to disappear behind the shape of fame. You keep your posture perfect, legs crossed at the ankle, your tablet open with your flight agenda already pulled up — even though you’ve read it three times.

He doesn’t approach until you're halfway into the sky.

You excuse yourself from your seat, nod politely at the stewardess, and head down the narrow aisle toward the lavatory — slow, deliberate steps in heels that whisper money and control. The tiny hallway near the restrooms is dim, quiet, muted beneath the drone of altitude and distance.

You don’t expect the hand on your wrist.

It’s not rough. But it’s firm — and you know that grip. You’ve felt it around your waist, your neck, your thighs. You turn slowly, breath already caught halfway between fury and something far more dangerous.

He's right there. Closer than he has any right to be in this narrow corridor with no eyes but yours and his. The door to the lavatory is behind you. His body blocks the path. His scent — soap, leather, the faint trace of your perfume still clinging to his jacket from days ago — wraps around you like memory.

You keep your voice cold.

“Do you seriously think now is the time?”

He doesn’t answer right away. Just looks at you, face half-shadowed by the cap, eyes hungry in a way that makes you press your thighs tighter, just to feel something grounded.

Then, finally, he speaks — low, rough.

“I keep dreaming about the way you moaned my name.”

Your stomach tightens. You don’t blink. You lift your chin instead “That’s all it was. A dream.”

But his eyes drop — once — to your mouth, and then lower. “I remember the way your legs shook. That wasn’t dreaming.”

You inhale sharply, but your expression doesn’t change.

“You should go sit down.”

“Or what?” His voice dips lower. “You’ll pretend again you don’t want me to fuck you right here?”

His hand doesn’t move. His body doesn’t touch yours. But you feel every inch of him like a scream in your skin — heat, memory, friction.

You smile — slow and cutting. “I’ve learned how to control myself. You should try it sometime.”

His gaze flickers. Just slightly. Then he leans in — not enough to touch, but enough for you to feel his breath near your neck, his voice low and ruinous.

“I’m not the one squeezing my thighs together.”

You hate that he’s right. You hate that your heartbeat is in your throat, that your body is already lit from the inside out. You hate that you want to kiss him. Bite him. Tear him open. But you won’t. Because you’re not that girl anymore.

You step aside, brushing past him with a look that could frost steel, and say nothing as you return to your seat. You don’t check to see if he follows.

You don’t breathe again until you’re halfway through an article you can’t remember reading, with his gaze still burning a hole into the back of your neck from three rows behind.

✦✦✦

The wheels touch the tarmac just past four in the afternoon, and the landing is smoother than expected, the kind that glides into the runway with practiced quiet, as if even the aircraft has been told to behave. Outside the small window, the northern Italian sun pools in long, soft ribbons over the hills, stretching across the landscape like liquid gold, tinting everything it touches with the kind of warmth that doesn’t burn — only stuns.

You disembark without ceremony, your sunglasses still in place, your coat folded over one arm, and your expression carefully blank. The assistant from Vogue Italia is waiting beside the hangar — her posture perfect, clipboard in hand, dressed in cropped white linen and flat shoes that probably cost more than the flight. She greets you by name, with polite English and a smile that’s too curated to be real, then leads you across the quiet concourse, past shuttered photographers and a cluster of sleek black cars idling behind a discreet security perimeter.

Your name is listed on one of the placards. Y/N — Vogue Korea.

So is theirs. BTS.

You don't react — not outwardly. There is no visible shift in your posture, no flicker in your gaze. You’ve already taught your body how to lie better than your words ever could.

The assistant ushers you toward a waiting Mercedes, its interior cool and leather-scented, the seats butter-soft beneath the press of your thighs. A silver tray holds still water, a lemon wedge perched just so. Your phone buzzes once in your lap. You don't check it. Not yet.

The drive from the airport is postcard-perfect in a way that feels intentionally cruel — narrow country roads wrapped in vine-laced stone, the distant glimmer of Lake Como revealing itself in flashes between tall cypress trees and crumbling terracotta villas. Each bend in the road opens into a view more breathtaking than the last, until you almost forget where you're headed and why your chest has been tight since the gate at Incheon.

The car finally slows as it pulls through ornate wrought-iron gates that gleam with gold filigree under the light, winding up the long private drive that spills into the front courtyard of Villa Fioretta. The estate rises from the hill like it was carved directly out of the cliffside — all creamy limestone and tall shuttered windows, manicured terraces spilling over with ivy and white flowers, and delicate copper details that catch the dying sun like jewelry. It looks like something you’ve seen on a Vogue Italia cover in a past life, or maybe a perfume ad from the early 2000s, the kind where everything was just slightly out of reach, and nothing ever truly belonged to you.

As the driver comes around to open your door, you exhale once, slow and silent, and allow your face to settle into something calm and beautifully unreadable.

Inside, the villa is all elegance in hushed tones — soft marble beneath your heels, pale walls washed in ivory and cream, every piece of furniture chosen for quiet power rather than comfort. The concierge greets you by name and with reverence, offers you a key card embossed with the letter “F” in deep matte black, and explains with the expected level of practiced charm that you’ve been placed on the fifth floor, lake view, courtesy of Fondo di Luce, and that a welcome aperitivo will be served on the lower terrace shortly after six.

You nod, thank them, and enter the elevator with the same stillness you’ve been wearing since you boarded the flight. It’s not until the doors begin to close that he enters behind you.

You don't need to look to know it's him. The presence is immediate — heavy, hot, undeniable. His cologne clings to the air, low and sharp, the same one you woke up wearing four mornings ago in his bed, still tangled in his heat.

He doesn’t speak. Neither do you.

The silence in the elevator stretches, long and taut, the kind that drapes itself over the walls like velvet, pressing in on all sides. You keep your gaze forward, focused on the panel, the floor numbers blinking upward. You can feel him beside you — not touching, but close enough to undo you all over again if you let yourself lean even an inch in his direction.

The mirrored wall reflects the shape of him — rolled sleeves, black slacks, tattoos visible where the cuff is turned, sunglasses tucked into his collar like he never needed to hide. He’s looking at you. You don’t return it.

The elevator stops at five.

You step out first. The hallway is quiet, dimly lit, touched with the kind of warmth that money doesn’t have to brag about — just suggests. He follows.

Your room is halfway down the hall. You can hear the soft tread of his boots behind you, steady and measured, but it’s the silence between you that rattles louder than any footfall.

You stop at 506. Slot the card into the reader. The green light flashes. Still, you don’t turn.

"If you're going to say something stupid, Jungkook," you murmur, voice calm but edged, your hand resting on the doorframe like it might hold you steady, "don’t waste it here."

The door unlocks with a soft click. You step inside and let it close behind you without another word.

You never heard his footsteps retreat — which is exactly why your hands are still shaking when you set your bag down on the velvet bench at the end of the bed.

✦✦✦

The evening descends in a soft, golden hush, the lake catching the last streaks of sunlight and bending them into mirrored ribbons that stretch across the manicured garden lawns. The terrace is already glowing by the time you arrive — dozens of floating candles bobbing in the villa’s pool, crisp white tablecloths draped over stone tables, wine glasses catching firelight like they were designed to burn. Waiters move like shadows through the crowd, balancing trays of Campari spritzes and white truffle canapés, slipping between conversations spoken in Italian, French, and English laced with old-money vowels.

You’ve dressed for the kill.

The gown you chose is a strapless black number that ends just above your mid-thigh — sculpted to your body like it was designed for this exact kind of dusk, this exact kind of attention. The satin clings in all the places you used to hide and now let sharpen you. Your back is bare, your collarbone glistens with a soft sheen of skin-warmed perfume, and your heels are high enough to demand silence when you walk. The neckline dips low, the hem even lower, and there’s a part of you that knows—without even needing the confirmation—that if Jungkook looks at you tonight, it won’t be casual.

You tell yourself you wore it to feel powerful. You tell yourself that it’s just about proving a point.

But deep down, beneath all the polished rationality and strategic poise, you know it’s a lie. You wore it to tempt him. Or maybe to punish him. It’s hard to tell the difference anymore.

You glide through the terrace like you belong to it. Conversations flicker as you pass — Vogue Paris, L’Uomo, a few senior figures from Condé Nast and K-Media International — all familiar faces from the inner circle of fashion and luxury publishing. You smile, you nod, you take a glass of wine with the hand not gripping your clutch, and you keep moving.

He’s here. You haven’t seen him yet, but you feel him. You’ve felt him since the moment you walked in — like a change in air pressure, like heat blooming in places that should be cold. Each time a new shadow approaches, your chest coils tight, your gaze flicks once, and you brace yourself.

The first time you actually see him, he’s standing on the far end of the terrace near the balustrade, surrounded by three men in Tom Ford tuxedos and a woman from Vogue Italia who is laughing too easily at something he hasn’t said. His hair is pushed back, exposing the sharp line of his jaw, the silver hoop in his ear catching the light each time he turns slightly, and his shirt is unbuttoned just enough to make your mouth dry. He looks devastating. You don’t look twice.

You spend the next hour performing avoidance like an art. Each time he moves in your direction — and he does — you change course. A conversation with a photographer. A compliment to someone’s emerald earrings. A turn toward the pool just in time to keep a table between you. He’s watching. You know he is. And you never let yourself look back.

Until you meet Dante Seo.

He arrives like an entrance — tall, olive-toned skin that speaks of Italian summers and Seoul winters, his suit perfectly fitted in bone-white silk with a single black brooch gleaming on the lapel. His hair is dark and swept back with the ease of someone who doesn’t try hard and never has to. His smile is clean. Curated. Dangerous.

“You must be Vogue Korea,” he says as he offers his hand, eyes tracing over your form like he’s calculating how many men in the room already hate him for standing beside you. “No one told me you’d be this stunning. I’ll have to send my regrets to our editor-in-chief for not coming in her place.”

“Y/N,” you reply, slipping your hand into his. “Campaign editor. But I suppose the title doesn’t matter so long as I’m stunning.”

He laughs — low, indulgent — and motions to a pair of older executives hovering behind him.

“You all remember Jeon Jungkook, I’m sure?” Dante glances sideways, eyes sparkling. “The face of Vogue Korea’s revival, the star of the cover that’s been circulating Milan for two weeks straight.”

Your spine tenses.

“I think it’s fair to say Korea brought us something exceptional,” one woman offers, sipping from her wine. “He was brilliant. Magnetic. I hadn’t seen that kind of restraint from an editorial in years.”

“I think that was more the editor’s eye than the idol’s,” Dante says, looking directly at you now, one eyebrow lifted with the kind of mischief that always ends in trouble. “Tell me, Y/N. How did you convince a man like that to surrender so completely?”

You force a smile, swirl the wine in your glass, and answer coolly.

“Sometimes all it takes is silence.”

More laughter. More praise. More commentary on how sharp he looked, how he carried the shot, how Vogue Korea must be so proud. The room keeps saying his name. Over and over, like it means something, like it doesn’t still taste like sweat and regret and begging on your skin.

You excuse yourself twenty minutes later, your glass half-full and your teeth aching from how hard you’ve clenched your jaw.

The moment you step back into the villa’s interior, the noise blurs. You walk past the grand staircase, through the velvet-draped hall toward the elevator, your heels muffled against the thick cream carpet, your throat hot from wine and words you didn't say.

You don’t notice he’s following you until you reach your door. The moment you slide the keycard into the reader, he’s there.

One hand planted against the door beside your head, the other grazing your hip, his body closing the space so completely that all you can smell is him — clean, woodsy, sharp with the memory of what he did to you last time.

You turn slowly, your back brushing the wood. His breath is hot against your cheek, his voice low and intimate, like a confession laced with filth.

“Do you want me to say it?” he murmurs. “Do you want me to say I couldn’t stop staring at your thighs all night? That I imagined dragging this dress up your legs while the whole fucking party watched?”

Your body tightens. You keep your voice steady.

“Move.”

He leans in closer, lips brushing just beside your jaw.

“I saw how you avoided me. Like I was the one who begged. You think I don’t know you wore this dress for me?”

You swallow. Hard. His fingers trail lightly along the line of your jaw, down to your mouth, hovering there as if waiting for a tremble he already knows is coming.

“I could take you right here,” he whispers. “I could make you cry with my fingers before you even reach the bed.”

You hate the way your knees weaken. Hate the thrum building between your legs, the ache in your stomach, the heat spreading low and sharp like fire beneath your skin.

You should say no, open the door and disappear into the room and lock it behind you.

But when you meet his eyes — dark, hungry, full of something wild — you fumble the key, and he catches it with a smirk, sliding it into the lock like he’s been there a thousand times before.

And when the door opens, you step inside without a word. Not because you forgave him. Not because it means anything.

Only because your body stopped asking for permission the moment his mouth said your name.

✦✦✦

The door shuts behind you with a heavy, soundproofed click, and the moment it does, you feel it — the shift in air, the sharp electric drag of his presence right at your back.

You barely make it three steps into the suite before his hand circles your waist and drags you back against him. You don’t gasp, you don’t whimper, but your body tenses with something that has nothing to do with fear and everything to do with the ache that’s been clawing at your stomach since the moment he stared at you from across the terrace like he wanted to fuck you blind.

His mouth finds your shoulder first — soft, open, hot — pressing through the thin fabric of your dress, kissing along the slope of your neck while his other hand skims down the silk curve of your thigh. You smell wine on his breath, wood and heat and hunger, and he’s already hard against your ass, pressing into you like he can’t believe you’re real again.

“Fucking knew this dress was for me,” he breathes against your skin. “Knew it the second I saw you.”

You turn your face slightly, just enough to graze his jaw, your voice calm even as your blood roars beneath the surface.

“And what are you going to do about it?”

His grip tightens.

“This.”

He spins you — smooth, practiced, fast — and pins you against the suite wall, just beside the blackout-curtained window, one knee between your thighs, your heels barely catching grip on the polished wood floors. His hands are under your dress in a second, sliding up your thighs, growling when he feels just how little you wore beneath it.

“Fuck,” he mutters, voice low and guttural. “You didn’t wear anything for me?”

“Maybe I wore it for someone else,” you murmur, tilting your head, letting your lips brush his but never touching fully.

His teeth graze your chin. “Don’t fucking test me tonight.”

“I thought you liked being tested.”

He laughs — dark, breathless — and you both know you’re seconds from snapping. His hands glide over your ass, gripping, kneading, dragging you harder against the bulge in his pants. You rock your hips back, just once, just to feel how badly he wants it.

And then you pull away. “Sit.”

His eyes flicker, and you see it — the surprise, the interest, the way his breath catches just slightly before he obeys. He backs up toward the edge of the king-sized bed and lowers himself slowly, legs spread, cock straining against the fabric of his tailored black trousers.

You follow him. Drop to your knees between his legs like it's a throne, not a man.

His eyes are already half-lidded, hands braced on his thighs, watching you as you reach for his belt with smooth, practiced fingers. You undo the buckle with no urgency, and when the leather slides through the loops, he hisses under his breath like it’s your mouth around him already.

When you reach into his boxers and pull him out, you exhale softly — not from surprise, not from awe, but from the rush that starts between your legs at the sheer weight of him in your palm. He’s hard. So hard it makes your mouth water. The tip’s flushed, leaking, pulsing against your skin.

He looks like he wants to say something — maybe a tease, maybe a curse — but the second your lips close over the head, all he does is moan. Long. Deep. Raw.

You don’t rush.

You swirl your tongue around the tip, one hand still stroking the base, the other flattening against his lower abdomen to keep him exactly where you want him. You suck slowly, carefully, letting your mouth shape around him like you’re molding heat out of gold. You glance up — and the sight of him nearly undoes you.

His head is thrown back, mouth parted, hands gripping the edge of the mattress now. The muscles in his thighs are shaking under your palms. When you hollow your cheeks and take him deeper, his hips jerk, his voice cracks.

“Fuck— Y/N… don’t… I’m gonna—”

You pull off with a wet pop, licking your lips like a threat.

“You’re gonna what?”

He opens his eyes, looks at you like you’re the devil himself, and chokes on a groan when you go down again — this time deeper, wetter, your tongue pressed under the shaft, saliva dripping down your hand. You let your mouth contour around him, let him feel every inch of heat and slick velvet you can give.

“Please,” he whispers, eyes clenched shut now. “Please don’t stop. Please—fuck—just like that—”

The begging shocks you. It makes your core throb, makes you grind your own thighs together as you take him deeper still, lips stretched wide around him, hand working what your mouth can’t reach. You love the way he sounds, the way he begs, the way this man — who fucked you like he owned you just days ago — is now unraveling in front of you with your name gasped like a prayer.

You pull off again, let your lips drag down the side of his cock, tongue licking up the vein, and you whisper:

“You taste better than I remember.”

He grabs your shoulders, dragging you up fast, lips crashing against yours like he’s trying to climb back into control.

“You’re going to fucking kill me,” he mutters, voice shaking. “Get on the bed. Now.”

You don’t resist. Because you want it too — filthy, breathless, and only getting darker from here.

He doesn’t let you move far — his hands are already on your thighs, on your waist, pushing you back until your legs hit the edge of the bed, and he shoves you down with a grip that’s firm but reverent. He follows immediately, kissing you deep, tongue filthy in your mouth, his taste mixed with the sharp salt of his own arousal. You moan into him, still breathless from the way he sounded minutes ago — the quiet begging, the desperation, the way he came undone just from your mouth.

But now he’s reclaiming the space.

He pulls away, eyes black, chest heaving. You barely register your own dress being pulled up, bunched around your waist, before he drops to his knees between your legs and drags your soaked thong down with both hands — slow, savoring the way the fabric clings to you, the wet string pulling along your folds.

“Fucking perfect,” he mutters, and you feel it in your spine — that growl, that tone, the sound of someone starving.

He spreads your legs wide, pushes your knees up, and leans in with no ceremony. His mouth finds your clit in the same breath as his fingers gripping your thighs, pulling you closer to the edge of the bed until you feel like you’re going to slide off entirely — right into the heat of his mouth. His tongue flicks once, then twice, then circles until your hips buck.

“You’ve missed this,” he says against your cunt. “This pussy remembers me.”

You try to argue. You try to speak. But your breath stutters when he sucks your clit into his mouth and moans like he’s tasting sugar.

Your hands fly to his hair, gripping the soft strands, anchoring yourself. You can’t stop the sounds that escape you now — soft, sharp gasps, your head falling back as he devours you, his mouth relentless and wet and so good you can’t think straight.

And then he slides lower.

At first it’s a tease — his tongue licking below, over the tight ring of muscle, making your thighs twitch. But then he spreads you wider, his thumbs parting your ass, and before you can process it, his mouth is there, licking into you with slow, filthy indulgence.

You moan — loud, uncontrolled, broken — and your entire body tries to lift off the bed. He holds you down.

“Jungkook—” It’s the first time you’ve said his name like that tonight, and it cracks at the edges. “What the fuck—”

He doesn’t stop.

He eats your ass like he’s done it before, like he’s memorized you, like he owns the right to taste every inch of you. His hands slide up your thighs, gripping hard enough to bruise, and when his tongue drags back up to your clit again, your vision blurs.

And in the haze of your unraveling, one thought claws through everything: he knows exactly what he’s doing.

Your hips grind up into his mouth, chasing the friction, chasing the high. And when he slides two fingers into you — slow and deep — your back arches, your moan breaks apart, and your orgasm hits like a wave dragging you under.

He doesn’t stop until you’re trembling beneath him, thighs twitching, cunt fluttering around his fingers.

When he finally pulls away, his mouth is slick, his eyes feral, and he climbs back over you like a man who hasn’t eaten in days.

“You good?” he whispers, voice raw with pride.

You glare at him, chest still rising and falling, and mutter, “You’re disgusting.”

He smirks, kissing your collarbone, licking a stripe up your neck.

“And you’re wet.”

He’s on you before you can gather your thoughts — his body pressing you into the mattress, heavy and solid and far too familiar. His chest brushes yours, warm skin meeting your peaked nipples, and the friction makes you hiss between your teeth. You try to push him back, just enough to reassert something, anything — but he catches your wrist and pins it to the bed beside your head.

“Don’t,” he murmurs, eyes locked on yours. “Not when you’re this wet for me.”

You scowl, but it’s weak — half-hearted, half-turned-on, and he knows it.

“Shut up.”

“Make me.”

He leans in, licks into your mouth like he owns it, and then slides his cock slowly through your folds — hot, heavy, dragging along your slit until you’re whimpering despite yourself. You feel him reach for a condom, hear the crinkle of foil, and then his hips notch forward, the thick head of his cock pressing at your entrance.

“You still feel like fucking heaven,” he groans, and when he pushes in — slow, so slow — your nails dig into the sheets.

You gasp, head falling back against the pillows. He’s big. He always was, but this time it feels deeper, sharper, like every inch is a punishment you didn’t see coming.

“God—” you breathe, blinking up at the ceiling. “Why the fuck do you still feel this good?”

“Because your pussy remembers me,” he says through a ragged exhale, hips still rolling forward. “Because it’s mine.”

You clench around him at the word — mine — and hate how much it turns you on.

“You really think one night erases years?” you bite, trying to pull your voice together, but it’s breathy and cracked.

“No,” he whispers, pressing a kiss to your jaw. “But it reminds you.”

He bottoms out, and the sound you make is caught between a moan and a curse. Your legs wrap around his waist instinctively, trying to pull him deeper even as your pride screams at you to shove him off. He feels too good. It’s too hot. It’s everything you didn’t want to feel again, wrapped in silk and sweat and his goddamn voice.

He starts to move — slow and deep, every stroke dragging across every nerve ending you have.

“You’re clenching,” he growls in your ear, licking down the side of your neck. “You missed this. Missed me.”

“I missed being fucked,” you shoot back, voice shaking. “I could’ve found that anywhere.”

He snaps his hips once — hard — and your gasp betrays you. Your hands fly up to his back, nails digging in.

“You’re lying,” he pants. “You never let anyone fuck you like this. Never let them see you like this.”

You hate that he’s right. You hate that you’re already close again, already tightening around him like he’s the only man who’s ever made you come this hard.

“You’re so fucking pretty when you come,” he murmurs, brushing sweaty strands from your face. “Wanna feel it again. Wanna watch you break.”

You pull him closer, arch your back, and mutter into his neck:

“Then make me.”

That’s all it takes. He fucks you harder now — still deep, still deliberate, but with that edge of hunger he’s been holding back all night. His pelvis rubs your clit with every thrust, and when his hand slides between you, fingers circling your swollen nerves, you see stars.

You’re writhing now, moaning his name like a warning, and he’s kissing you through it, swallowing your sounds, your curses, your surrender.

And when you finally come — tight and fast and gasping — he moans something filthy into your mouth that you’re too far gone to understand. You feel him tense, feel the thick roll of his hips as he buries himself one last time, and then he’s groaning through clenched teeth, coming with your name against your lips.

For a moment, the room is nothing but breath and sweat and silence. Then you turn your face away. And the next wave starts building.

You should’ve gotten up. You should’ve pushed him off and walked into the bathroom, should’ve wrapped yourself in a robe and poured a glass of water and reminded yourself who you are now — not nineteen, not in love, not wrecked by the memory of a boy who never said goodbye.

But instead, you stay. Lying there, trembling in the aftermath of an orgasm that still echoes in your spine, your thighs slick and sore, your heartbeat pressed somewhere up in your throat.

Jungkook shifts beside you, his palm still on your stomach, his breath still hot against your shoulder. You can feel him stirring again, thick and half-hard between your legs, and before you can talk yourself out of it, you’re moving — rolling onto your side, facing away, pulling the sheet off your skin like you’ve surrendered to something you’ll never admit out loud.

He presses up behind you, his chest flush to your back, his mouth trailing down the slope of your shoulder with reverent hunger. One hand slides over your hip, gripping it as if anchoring himself to reality, the other skating down between your thighs to find you still soaked.

“Still dripping for me,” he mutters, voice hoarse with lust. “You love this.”

“I hate you,” you breathe.

“I know,” he whispers, pushing your legs apart. “That’s why you’re letting me do this again.”

You want to scream at him. You want to tell him to shut the fuck up, to get out, to stop twisting everything into something so ugly and true — but then the head of his cock is sliding between your folds, and your breath catches in your throat like betrayal.

He pushes in slowly, and the stretch burns — not painfully, but beautifully, the kind of fullness that makes your spine arch and your mouth fall open. His hand finds your throat from behind, just a gentle pressure under your jaw, guiding your gaze up to the full-length mirror across the room.

“Look.”

You shake your head.

“Look, Y/N.”

Your eyes flicker open. And what you see takes the last bit of air from your lungs. Your body — flushed and glistening, breasts bouncing gently with each slow thrust, his chest pressed to your back, his hand wrapped around your throat. His face — focused, wild, desperate. Yours — wrecked.

“Fuck,” he groans, picking up speed. “You look so fucking good like this.”

“Shut up,” you bite, but it’s weak, broken, your voice shaking.

He pulls out, slaps your ass once, then sinks back in deep. You whimper, your head falling forward, but he doesn’t let you look away.

“I want you to see what I do to you.”

You do. And that’s the problem. Because it’s not just the sex. It’s the way your mouth falls open when he rolls his hips just right; your nails claw the sheets when he says your name like a curse and a prayer. The way your eyes can’t lie in the mirror — how wrecked you are, how undone, how his.

“You’re just a dick to me,” you spit, desperate, cruel.

But he only groans and fucks you harder. “Then why are you dripping down my thighs?”

He reaches between your legs again, fingers finding your clit, circling fast and filthy, and your body convulses around him, your moans high and breathless. He fucks you through it, relentless now, slamming into you as your muscles clench around him.

The mirror fogs. Your eyes blur. And when you come again, it’s with his name on your tongue and your pride somewhere back in Seoul.

He follows moments later, hips stuttering, curses tumbling from his mouth as he spills into the condom with his forehead against your shoulder and your scent all over his skin.

The sound of your own heart, thudding against your ribs like a warning.

You pull away first. Walk into the bathroom without a word, leaving him in the bed where he just ruined you all over again.

✦✦✦

You take your time in the shower, as if hot water can rinse off regret. You wash his hands from your thighs, scrub the taste of him from your mouth. You tilt your head back and let the water hammer against your eyes until it’s impossible to tell what’s tears and what’s steam.

But none of it works. Because when you walk out of the bathroom wrapped in a robe that still smells faintly of jasmine, he’s still there. Shirtless. Sitting on the edge of the bed, elbows on his knees, hands clasped between them like he’s praying to something he stopped believing in a long time ago.

You walk to the desk in the corner, grab your phone, place it face-down, and then turn around — arms crossed, face unreadable.

“You should leave.”

He looks up. And he doesn’t move.

“Jungkook,” you repeat, slower now, sharper. “This doesn’t change anything.”

He rises, but he doesn’t close the space between you. His voice is low, frayed at the edges.

“Stop pretending it was just sex.”

You laugh — bitter, quiet, worn thin. “Don’t flatter yourself.”

His jaw clenches. “You felt it too.”

“I felt your cock inside me,” you snap. “I thanked you for the orgasm. What else do you want?”

“That’s not what it was.”

“You’re right,” you say, folding your arms tighter. “It was nostalgia. A stupid, warm, familiar fuck. That’s all. It’s easy to miss someone when you’re lonely.”

He steps closer. “I don’t believe you.”

“You don’t have to.”

There’s a pause. A thick, excruciating silence.

“You and I…” he says, softly now, like the words might shatter in his throat, “we were made for each other. Even our bodies—”

“Oh, right,” you cut in, vicious now, unable to hold it back. “You’d know. You’ve had so many to compare.”

His mouth opens. Closes. For once, he has no clever retort. You press forward, rage slipping between the cracks of your voice.

“How many, Jungkook? Since me? How many fans, idols, influencers, pretty things to fuck between tours? Don’t act like I was unforgettable when you replaced me every goddamn night.”

“I didn’t replace you,” he says — broken, breathless. “I was just trying to forget.”

“And did it work?”

“No.” His voice cracks. “No, it didn’t. I was stupid. I was young and insecure and fucking terrified. I hated myself for what I did. I still do.”

You shake your head slowly, tears stinging the corners of your eyes, the robe cinched too tightly around your waist now.

“You don’t get to do this. You don’t get to walk out when things get hard and come back years later with apologies and expect me to what— forgive you? Believe that you’ve changed?”

“I have changed.”

“Good for you.”

He takes a trembling breath. “I don’t want to be defined by the mistakes I made when I was twenty.”

You inhale sharply — then exhale through your teeth like it burns.

“You think I wasn’t twenty too?” Your voice rises, high and brittle. “You think I didn’t feel lost? I moved to Seoul with you. I started everything from scratch. My job. My name. My future. I met people too. Rich ones. Brilliant ones. Men who would’ve killed to touch me, to claim me, to give me the fucking world—”

He flinches.

“—but I never said yes. Because I wanted to go through it all with you. I was building something. A life. A career. A future. And I wanted you beside me.”

Tears fall now. Hot, fast. You don’t bother to wipe them.

“But you left,” you whisper. “No explanation. No closure. Just silence. Like I meant nothing.”

He takes a step toward you while you step back.

“You broke me,” you say, and your voice finally cracks — full and sharp and agonizing. “You left me alone in a city that already hated me. You made me beg for your attention without saying a word. And I still had to show up to work. Smile. Climb. Watch my dreams come true with no one beside me to see it.”

“I should’ve been there,” he chokes out, eyes shining now. “I was a coward. I didn’t deserve you then. But I want to be the man who does now. Please—please just give me a chance to prove it.”

You stare at him and your heart is breaking. But you shake your head.

“Every time I look at you,” you whisper, voice like shattered glass, “I see the version of myself you left behind. Nineteen. In love. Hopeful. And you stole her from me. You robbed my nineteen year self of her happy future.”

His lips part, trembling.

“I’ll never forgive you for that.”

He doesn’t move. Just stands there in the quiet of the room that still smells like sex and sweat and the bitter rot of everything they’ve broken again. His eyes are red-rimmed now, chest rising like it physically hurts to speak — and maybe it does.

“I love you.”

He says it softly, like the words themselves might vanish if he says them too loud. Like he doesn’t quite believe they’ll land.

Your lips part, barely. But you don’t answer. Not at first. You just stand there, arms wrapped tightly around your waist, robe clinging to damp skin, trying to shield yourself from a wound that’s already been split open at the seam.

“I never stopped,” he whispers, stepping closer, not enough to touch, but enough for you to feel the warmth of him, even now. “Even when I fucked up. Even when I disappeared. Even when I hated myself for it.”

You blink once. Your throat tightens. And then you speak — slowly, like every word is a blade you have to pull out of yourself to hand to him.

“No.”

He freezes.

“No, you didn’t love me then,” you say, voice low, calm, terrifying in its precision. “You loved how I made you feel. How I adored you. How I was yours when you wanted me, and gone when you didn’t.”

His breath hitches, but you go on.

“And now you’re doing it again. You’re confusing lust with love. Familiarity with fate. You’re looking at me and thinking this means something more than it does, because you want it to, because it makes you feel less guilty.”

“It does mean something,” he argues, stepping forward like he’s desperate to close the space. “You and me—”

You shake your head. “You don’t get to say that. Not anymore.”

He opens his mouth, but you lift your hand — not to strike, not to touch, just to stop him.

“I don’t believe you,” you say, and you mean it. “And even if I did… it’s too late.”

You turn then, slow and sharp, like your heart is finally made of steel instead of longing, and you gesture toward the door — toward the end of the night, the end of the echo, the end of whatever illusion he came here chasing.

He doesn’t move at first. But when he does, he doesn’t say anything else. Just walks to the door with quiet steps, like the weight of everything he never said is finally too much to carry.

The door opens and shuts behind him with a soft, final click.

And in the silence that follows, you don’t cry. You just stand there, still barefoot, still breathing, staring out across the lake through the glass windows as the lights of Villa Fioretta shimmer back at you in the dark.

And for the first time in years, you let yourself whisper the truth. He broke you. And you’re still not sure if you’ll ever recover.

✦✦✦

Villa Fioretta sparkles like something out of a Renaissance painting — golden lanterns swinging in the breeze, shadows stretching long over the polished marble as the evening unfolds with practiced luxury. The terrace for tonight’s formal dinner is carved into the cliffside, overlooking the dark silk of Lake Como, each table draped in white linen and framed with tumbling white roses. Candles flicker in crystal holders. Soft jazz rolls under the clink of silverware and laughter that never reaches the eyes.

You arrive later than planned.

Hair pinned. Makeup fresh. The kind of dress that breathes elegance from the front and vengeance from the back — low-cut, high-slit, sharp where it needs to be and soft where it shouldn’t. Midnight navy satin hugs your waist, drapes over your thighs, whispers down your legs with every step you take. On your ears: diamonds. Around your neck: a pearl choker — delicate, pointed, surgical.

No one would know that you didn’t sleep last night. Except maybe him.

Jungkook sees you before anyone else. Of course he does. He’s already seated when you arrive, across the long dinner table, dressed in black-on-black with his hair slicked back and his jaw clenched tight enough to crack. His eyes meet yours. Then drop. Then return. He doesn’t look away after that.

You let your gaze sweep past him like he’s any other guest — beneath you, behind you, not even worth remembering. Because tonight, you’re not here to feel. You’re here to make sure he does.

“Ah, Y/N.” Dante Seo stands when you’re led to your place, a slow grin blooming on his face like he’s waited the whole day for this exact moment. “You’re late.”

You slip into the chair beside him without apologizing. “I had to recover from a… long night.”

His eyes spark at that. You don’t let them linger.

Around you, the table is littered with people who make headlines for a living — stylists, designers, fashion house CEOs, cultural editors from every Vogue in the western hemisphere. BTS is here too — seated near the far end, spaced out perfectly so the illusion of randomness doesn’t look like security protocol.

You don’t look at them either. You focus on Dante’s hand as it grazes yours every time he reaches for his wine. You focus on the warmth of the candlelight on your collarbones. On the way people lean in when you speak.

“You truly spearheaded something magnificent,” the director of Vogue UK says, dabbing at her lips. “That October cover… everyone’s talking about it. Jungkook’s never looked so refined.”

“Or so raw,” someone else adds. “There’s something vulnerable in it. Almost like…”

“Like he was seen,” Dante finishes, smiling sideways at you. “That was you, wasn’t it?”

You sip your wine.

“That was my job,” you reply coolly. “To see him as something more than a headline.”

Your words hang between you, and Jungkook doesn’t speak even once.

But you feel him. Every time Dante laughs too loud. Every time Dante leans too close. Every time his hand brushes your thigh under the tablecloth and you don’t move it away. You feel Jungkook watching like it’s a punishment. And maybe it is.

Because he doesn’t look powerful now. He looks like a man barely holding himself together — knuckles white against the stem of his glass, jaw so tight you know it aches. And still… he says nothing.

Dinner ends slowly. Plates are cleared. Dessert is offered. Liqueur appears in tall, thin glasses, and conversations bloom into something silkier, messier. Looser.

Dante leans toward you again, the scent of spice and ambition warm against your cheek.

“I have a bottle I’d kill to open with you,” he murmurs. “Private cellar. Ten minutes. Just us.”

You smile without showing teeth. Your heart is thudding like betrayal behind your ribs. But you nod.

“Lead the way.”

You stand. And that’s when he stands too. Jungkook.

You pretend not to see him following, just a few paces behind, not fast, not loud — but steady.

The hallway is dim, the sconces casting long shadows across marble walls as you and Dante make your way toward the private wing. At the turn, Dante checks his phone — a call from someone downstairs. He excuses himself for a moment, promises to be right back.

And then you feel it — the heat behind you. A presence you’ve memorized in your bones.

He says nothing at first. Just breathes. Then, softly — like a ghost afraid to be exorcised, “You don’t have to do this just to hurt me.”

You turn, slow and sharp, and there he is — no stage, no audience, no press-ready expression. Just Jungkook. Tense. Broken. Bare.

“I’m not doing anything to you,” you reply. “I’m leaving.”

“With him?”

Your smile is tired. “He asked nicely.”

His voice drops, rough and unsteady. “He doesn’t know you.”

“No one does,” you whisper. “Not anymore.”

His eyes close for half a second — like that one cut sliced too deep.

“You don’t mean that,” he says, almost to himself. “You’re just angry. You’re trying to prove something.”

“I’m proving I can walk away from you now.”

Jungkook steps closer. Just one step. Barely enough to touch. His breath hits your collarbone.

“If you walk out with him right now… I’ll never stop thinking about it.”

You blink. But your voice doesn’t break this time.

“Then think about it.”

“Please,” he says — and it’s not performance, not charm, not strategy.

It’s desperation. Raw. Quiet. Real.

“Please don’t do this. Not like this.”

You hesitate. Just a second. But it’s enough to break you.

“Don’t ask me for anything,” you say, voice soft and surgical. “You already took everything that mattered.”

And when Dante reappears at the end of the hall, you turn without another word.

Your heels echo across the marble as you disappear down the corridor. You don’t look back.

Not even when Jungkook breaks in the silence behind you.

.

.

.

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[owlespresso]

a gentler shade of green. jing yuan tags. a/b/o, spice beneath the cut, fluffy, jing yuan getting a little jealous for the lovely @lorelune, who also writes many delightful things that you should check out!

Mid-afternoon sunlight suffuses the Luofu with lush springtime warmth. The pleasant weather brought the citizenry out in droves, the air riddled with a myriad of different scents. An overwhelming amount especially when combined with the riotous chattering of the crowd. As unfortunate as it is to have to cut your daily market trip short, you can come home safe in the knowledge that Jing Yuan will be there to receive you.

You like to swing buy the markets and grab yourself a little treat, before visiting his offices. He never asks, but you always make sure to bring some of his favorite sweets, a courtesy that makes him melt every time, makes him beg you to settle on his lap. Offers you have to, unfortunately, decline lest you scandalize his poor employees. 

He’s taken a rare day off. And a day off typically entails lounging in bed until late morning or early afternoon, clinging to you like a child clings to their favorite plush toy. Extricating yourself from his grapple hadn’t been easy, a feat only managed after petting him for five straight minutes and assuring him you would be back within the hour. 

You snake back onto the property through the side entrance. A narrow pathway slides along the western edge of the estate, leading out unto the gardens. The cherry blossoms are in full bloom. Chrysanthemums and azaleas and an array of colorful tulips line the paths, swaying in the delicate breeze. The urge to lay and roll around in the veritable field of flora is nearly crushing. You willfully resist the temptation, slipping into his bedroom through the glass sliding door beyond the wooden deck. 

It’s exactly as you left it. One nightstand on each side of the bed. A lacquered vanity. A small seating area with two, comfortable chairs. An extravagant overhead chandelier that’s typically ignored in favor of a standing lamp in the corner. And one Jing Yuan, who manifests as a lump beneath the duvet. 

Said lump shifts the moment the door clicks shut behind you. His head pokes out from the thick covers, shaggy bangs thrown over his eyes. His glossy mane of snow white is frazzled from being pressed into the sheets–one side noticeably more so than the other. 

“You’re back,” he says, voice nice and rumbly with sleep. The scent of him is thickest, here. Your shoulders slump with an instinctual sort of relief, as though your body realizes it is home. His lips part with a yawn and his arms stretch above his head. The rippling muscle of his torso emerges from the sea of silks, his pecs fatty and arms thick. His nipples pebble in the comparably chilly air of the open bedroom. A mottling of bluish-purple spans across part of his right shoulder, and you nearly flush. Had you really bit him that hard, yesterday?

“How was the market?” he asks, looking at you through low-lidded eyes. Glowing amber peers out from beneath frayed hoarfrost lashes. The smile that pulls at the corners of his lips is sleepy and content.

“Crowded,” you huff, gently placing your bag of tasty goods on the nightstand. 

“Hm. I can tell,” Jing Yuan says, and does not elaborate when you send him a questioning glance. You turn away to peek into the bag, searching for his favorites. You typically keep a firm policy of no food on the bed, because the idea of getting crumbs on those expensive sheets is blasphemy to you… but a single chocolate-covered strawberry couldn’t hurt. 

Jing Yuan, ever the master strategist, spots the opening and exploits it wholly. His broad arms wrap around your midsection and tug you backwards. It’s not just a pull. He brings you straight off your feet, dropping backwards onto the mattress. The undignified sound that leaves you is better left uncatalogued for the sake of your pride. You both collapse in a heap with your back to his front.

“Jing Yuan!” you hiss, giving his forearm a harmless little smack. He laughs quietly in your ear, a brush of warm air caressing your sun-warmed skin. His iron-clad grip breaks apart, one large palm setting on your hip. The other lands atop your stomach, hot and calloused.

“My apologies,” he says, amused and very much not sorry. “In my defense, you afforded me a very considerate opening.” As he spoke, he moved one of his thick thighs to settle in between your legs, raising it by bending his knee. 

The entire, hot length of him presses up against your back. The position very quickly becomes more obscene than you expected–his throbbing cock pressed tight to your bottom. The hand on your tummy slips beneath your blouse to pet your warming skin. The scent of him is thickest here, in his bed, blankets all rucked up and pillows unevenly spread across the mattress. “Did anyone bother you, while you were out?” Jing Yuan inquires, and makes it very difficult to answer by kissing you behind the ear. You exhale. That familiar, tingling sort of warmth begins to settle between your thighs. He wraps you in his pheromones. The dense shroud of his scent renders you hazy when paired with the unmistakable, yet understated possessiveness of his touch. Every possible qualm is brushed away by the smooth baritone of his voice. 

Jing Yuan does not ask if other alphas touched you. He does not demand to know who you were with, doesn’t stake his claim with the immediate urgency a younger, less experienced alpha might. He coaxed and nudged, knowing you will come to him on your own terms, eager to find solace in your alpha’s protective embrace. 

“No,” you say, after a long moment. 

“That took awhile. Are you sure?” he hummed. A low sound kicked up in his chest, a syrupy purr that reverberates beneath your skin, settling your overwrought nerves. The hand on your stomach makes the journey south. His big fingers dive beneath your waistband, past the soft hairs of your to seek your (admittedly quite wet) cunt. 

He fingers you open with an unbearable amount of patience. More playing with your sodden folds than actually attempting to do anything. The meat of his palm slides against your clit and suddenly–the space between your bodies feels so much hotter. Your head lolls back onto his shoulders, breath escaping you in small pants. Your hips grind into the thick digits, hands skimming over the sheets in desperate search of something to grab.

And then he stops. The abruptness of it makes you whimper, hips continuing to grind even as he withdraws his hand. 

“I didn’t hear an answer,” he teases. Evil, evil man. Devious felon. It feels like a betrayal, almost. You trusted him with your pleasure and he ruthlessly has stolen it away. 

You would love to tell him as much, but then he lifts his hand to his mouth and you can hear the rasping of his tongue as he swipes your juices off each finger. The sheer obscenity of it makes the hairs along the back of your neck raise. 

“Jing Yuan,” you say–plead, despairingly. Much to your embarrassment, you sound like you’re about to cry. You throw your arm across your eyes. Is it not enough to have you trembling in his arms? Must he torment you so? You can hardly recall the initial question, fogged with pleasure and overly-warm. 

He laughs, sun-bright and charming enough to make you forgive him. He rocks his thigh against your cunt, and you arch your hips, mindlessly chasing the friction. 

“You’re alright,” he coos, slipping his fingers back into your trousers to tease your sopping cunt. Two slip inside, embarrassingly easy. He resumes his steady pace, palm grinding against your clit with every pass. 

The pads of his fingers press against the soft, upper wall of your cunt. He adds a third–and curls them–and that’s what makes the coil snap. You break into your first orgasm with a broken little whimper. Your toes curl and your eyes shut tight. You keep rolling your hips, each grind sparking another wave of liquid hot pleasure. His fingers remain sheathed inside of you, just to feel the way your walls spasm.

He pulls out when your whining turns to the pained side of overstimulated. The room settles into a contented quiet, only disrupted by the soft sound of your panting. Your eyes flutter shut, legs fallen open around his thighs. His cock, rock-hard and throbbing, presses to the small of your back. But he doesn’t make any move to alleviate the strain. Instead, he presses his face into the crook of your neck and breathes you deep. His touch returns to your stomach, clean hand petting at your hips, your stomach. 

The myriad of scents which clung to you upon your return have been dissipated, banished like wispy, loathsome spirits. Is that why…? You begin to wonder, but quickly and contentedly decide it doesn’t matter. All that matters is that you’re sated, and warm, and resting limply in his arms.

[bloodyknucklesforme]

Pomegranate | Nikolai x F!reader

Chapter 1

After a series of misfortunes you've found yourself in debt to Arno, a human trafficker operating in London. You work at his club, dancing and escorting, only to find yourself deeper and deeper in debt. One night you arrive at Nikolai's. He's handsome, abrasive, gross, tender at times and he might be the most dangerous man you've ever met.

cw: cw: dark fic, dubcon/noncon, reader is being trafficked, human trafficking, cockwarming, body inspection, piv, Nikolai is evil but also kind in his own weird way

Masterpost

"Clothes off... all of them," A thick Russian accent said from the intercom. You looked up at the camera in the corner. He must have seen you hesitate, "I already paid. Don't waste my money."

It never got easier. The degradation and humiliation of stripping for strange men, being used like a toy and forced to pack yourself back up into your box till next time.  It'd been almost a year now. As you dropped your coat to the floor your anger and shame hit the ceiling. You'd trusted your ex, he promised to help you when you lost your job, when you couldn't pay rent, when you needed to borrow money. You moved to London for better opportunities now you were in some stranger's house waiting to be used. You'd lost track of how deep in debt you were to him and his 'friends'. 10k? 20k? It made your stomach clench.

"Don't cry. You'll fuck up your makeup." is what those cunts back at the club would always say before you got in the car to a client's.

Marcus, your ex, now trafficker, hammered it in that this was a very important client. Probably another criminal. A rich one at that. His house was more of a warehouse. Large, stretching for almost an entire block. Nondescript from the outside beyond the vault like door and fancy keypad, one you were given a code to on the way there. 

"Turn around," he ordered when the last of your clothes hit the floor. Checking for a wire or weapons you guessed. Knowing you were being watched like this made your skin crawl but it was better than being groped immediately on entry.

The room you were locked in was more of a safe room with steel walls and thick doors. One leading outside and the other leading further inside. No windows, just the camera, an intercom panel and a white gift box that sat on the floor. 

"New clothes in the box. Put them on."

It was a too small lacy bra and matching too small panties. A washed baby blue, all mesh so you were fully exposed. There was a loud buzzer and the door unlocked.

Inside was nice. Made to look like a palace. Wood floors covered in large red patterned rugs. The walls had large paintings you recognized from an art history class years ago. You couldn’t tell if they were real or not. The details were obscured by the darkness. There was only one light on in the hallway, a door was opened down the way. It was a maw that beckoned you toward it. 

You stood at the threshold. The living room was equally extravagant. The walls were painted a wine red lacquer, almost mirror like. The ceiling had complex molding, painted the same color as the walls. The windows were all blacked out with heavy velvet curtains. It felt cold in this room. To the left was a large bar with more bottles than you'd ever seen in your life. To the right was a large couch and projector screen. Soviet era antiques were scattered about. It felt more like a palace than a home. A palace for some dark god, one that ruled pain and death. 

"You're prettier than the photo." You jumped at the voice. He was so quiet you didn't notice him on the couch. He was big, obviously tall but muscular with wide shoulders. He had a layer of fat that only worked to increase his intimidating stature. Dark hair slicked back with a widow's peak. Stubble covered the bottom part of an aged face. He wasn't old, older yes but whatever business he was in had aged him around the eyes. Dark eyes that hid any emotion from you.

He snapped his fingers and motioned for you to walk over. He had a cigar in the other hand. The smell filled the room. 

"Good. You follow instructions. More than I can say for the last one Arno sent me." He motioned for you to spin around again, giving your ass a light spank and laughing when you yelped. "You fuck anyone else today?"

"No," you shook your head. He blew cigar smoke at you, watching the silver bisect around your middle.

"Good. I'd hate to waste more time cleaning you out. They never do a good job at that." He put his cigar in the ashtray beside him. "On your knees."

"What's your name?" He asked, making space between his legs for you. You answered softly, a lie. Never give them anything was what another girl told you. Give anything and they’ll take until there’s nothing left. Even your bones could be used to pick teeth. He held your chin between two fingers, moving your head around like a doll. "Open your mouth."

He leaned forward, looking inside you. A thumb hooked over your bottom row of teeth. It tasted like tobacco and sweat. You'd learned to hold back gags long ago. 

"I don't like girls with rotten teeth." He ran a finger over your teeth, top and bottom, occasionally pressing on one.  He frowned, "Stop shaking. I'm not going to hurt you."

A lie, most likely. Men always said that before fucking you, like they could believe you were there willingly, like they didn't pick you out of a catalogue of girls. You clenched your fists in your lap and willed the fear out of your bones. Docile thing, something to be eaten to the core. You were always good. Arno controlled his girls with an iron hand. You’d heard the beatings other girls got when they disappointed. There were clients who had girls sent to them yet never returned them. Disappointing girls got sent there. Sacrifices to the gods of gold. Arno always wore gold.

"I like girls who like you." He pulled his fingers out of your mouth and pushed your jaw shut. "I paid to have you till morning. Make it worth it."

He leaned back with a sigh, grabbing a remote and turning on the projector. A hockey game flicked onto the screen, the noise from the stadium coming from speakers you never saw. 

"Is there...uh...anything you want me to call you?" Men liked all sorts of names. Daddy, Master, Sir. Rarely creative, often repeated. Some used their real name but not many, no one wants the risk of their whore becoming too mouthy. 

He looked down at you, like he already forgot you were there.

"Sir, when you answer my questions. Kolya, when I fuck you." He undid his belt and spread his legs wider. You knew your job. He picked up his cigar again as you undid the zipper on his pants.

He laid a hand on the back of your head, pressing down your hair. "Just keep me warm for now. Don't want to miss anything."

You took a deep breath before taking him into your mouth. He was thick and uncut. Intimidating even half hard. He didn't push as you worked your throat open, slowly bobbing your head. Sometimes men would ply you with liquor, help you to relax a bit more. You wish he had. The mix of salts from precum and skin filled your senses. A hesitant hand moved to rest on his thigh for leverage. He didn't shake you off. 

You glanced up at him when you took him to the hilt. Hoping for some sign of approval, not for your ego but the sake of your security. Men in pleasure were less likely to be agitated. 

"Good job, Kotenok." He rubbed his knuckles across your cheek, gold rings cooling your skin. He let you rest against his thigh, nose tickled by his dark pubes. Cigar smoke, the drone of the tv and the blood rushing around your head started to calm your nerves. Maybe tonight wouldn't be as awful as you thought.

He thrusted lazily during every commercial break. A hand holding your head steady against his thigh. He chuckled when you gagged. Everything was in Russian so you couldn't follow the game beyond his angry or excited, more so angry, ad libs.

He finally sighed and turned off the tv. He tapped your cheek softly.

"Kotenok, I need you to make me feel better about my team losing."

He made you walk ahead of him, directing you towards his bedroom. His dark eyes dug into your spine. A step below you and still a head taller. This is what a deer feels when the wolf stalks it. 

His bedroom was dark, a single lamp sat on the side table. The walls were a lime washed white. The bed was antique, made of carved dark wood. The sheets were white silk with a matching comforter. It was unmade. More paintings lined the walls haphazardly. When you were younger you used to cut pictures from magazines and tape them up to your own bedroom walls. He had seemingly done the same. 

You crawled onto the bed, swaying your hips as enticingly as you could manage. A hand wrapped around your ankle and pulled you back to the edge of the bed. You yelped as his hips hit your ass, cock bouncing against your cheeks.

"Remember  what I told you, Kotenok?" He pulled your panties down, calloused hands scraping against your thighs. "What to call me?"

"Kolya."

"Good girl." He dragged a hand down your back, knuckles bumping every ridge of your spine. You tried your best not to fidget under his touch, not to let the chill of the air or tickle of his fingers get to you. You heard clothing hit the floor behind you. You stared ahead, picking out one of the paintings to focus on. 

A young woman stared back at you, perched in a carriage and dressed in black, a feathered hat on her head. She looked upset, like you were unworthy of looking at her and you should avoid your gaze. 

Two fingers felt around your entrance. A shiver ran down your spine. You weren't wet enough, you knew that. You clung to the comforter, waiting for pain. 

"I told you to stop shaking. I said I wouldn't hurt you." He rubbed a hand across your ass. He sounded annoyed. You closed your eyes and pressed your face against the silk. It smelled clean and floral.

There was the snap of plastic and cold fingers prodding at your cunt.

"Shhh...I don't break the things I buy." He didn't admonish you for hiding your face as he scissored you open. He was almost tender, rubbing your hip with slow circles. His fingers curved to press against that soft spot inside you, pulling soft whines from you. "There we go, Kotenok."

You were pulled back again till your pelvis was hanging off the edge of the bed, toes curling around the plush of the rug. He ran the head of his cock between your folds, nudging at your entrance. He pushed in slowly, groaning loudly as you whimpered and fidgeted. Despite the preparation it was a stretch and burn. He held you down by your hips.

"Good girl," he purred with one last push. The head of his cock bumped against your cervix , causing you to clench in pain. It only spurred him to start thrusting. Your face dragged against the sheets as he rocked your entire body. His thrusts were hard and deep, like he wanted to mark the inside of you. 

"Close your eyes and let it happen. Most of them don't last long anyways," a girl said to you early on. You didn't remember her name or face anymore. 

You forced out moans every time his hips smacked against your ass. Arching your back so he could think he was pleasuring you. There was a modicum of pleasure, chasing it was too much effort, especially with unreceptive partners.

He wrapped an arm around your waist, hand dipping between your thighs. He pinched your clit till you cried out. His chin tucked against your shoulder, pushing his full weight against you. His body was hot and the thick hair on his chest scratched at your skin. 

"I don't like liars, Kotenok." He rubbed harsh circles till you moaned and shuddered. He hissed, "Cum on my cock or be quiet."

His other hand grabbed your shoulder and hauled you back up with him. Your back still pressed against his chest. Still rubbing your clit, he hooked an arm under yours and rested it between your breasts while holding your chin and forcing you to look upwards. There was a mirror on the ceiling. He smirked at you in the reflection. You dug your nails into your thighs, tears springing up in your eyes. It was horrific and erotic and disgusting and ugly and it made you wet. Some last threads of dignity snapping under the image of him fucking you. 

"Say my name," He panted.

"Kolya...please...Kolya."

"Want to come on my cock? Beg me for it." He licked your ear.

"Kolya please...please Kolya. I want to come. Please. Kolyaaaaa!"

You watched yourself as he forced you up to your peak, clenching around his cock. He laughed harshly and smacked your pussy. He held you up as your legs failed to support you any longer. You came hard, grabbing at his arms, manicured nails digging into his muscles. You would have thrashed about if he hadn’t had such a tight grip on you. 

He growled something in Russian before biting down on your shoulder. He filled you to the brim, his cock twitching inside your still clenching pussy. His cum was a familiar warm that leaked out around his cock and down your leg. He let go and you fell face forward against the bed.

"Catch your breath. I still want my money's worth." He patted the back of your thigh. You hiccuped softly as you regained sense. Limbs feeling heavy, your whole body stretched to its limit. 

You turned your head as he sat down a carafe of water and two glasses on the side table. 

“Need any?” He asked, filling his own glass. You nodded shyly. It was the first time you really saw him naked. He had a litany of tattoos across his chest and arms, too dark to make out details but you could see angels, skulls, cyrillic writing, a fighter jet, the virgin mary and a star on each of his knee caps. Near his groin was a pentagon with letters you couldn’t make out. A gold chain with an Orthodox cross hung around his neck. A layer of black body hair covered him, darkening everything even further. 

“Thank you.” You gulped down your glass, water dribbling down your chin. He wiped it away as he took your glass.

“On your hands and knees now,” He said, pushing back his hair. You faced the woman again, glaring back at her as you presented yourself to him. The mattress dipped behind you. He said something in Russian before pushing back inside you. 

You lost count of how many times he fucked you. You were pliant and submissive, following his lead as he bent you into whatever position he wanted. He was more virile than you expected. More gentle than you anticipated with a grossness you expected. The next time you asked for water he spit his glass into your mouth. He pinched and pulled but never bent you so hard you broke. Gagging, crying and cumming but never sobbing or screaming. 

You woke up sore. Dried cum and bite marks covering your body. He was sitting in an armchair in the corner, watching you sleep. He was already showered and dressed in a silk robe. 

"You’ll shower before you leave. Scrub well." He slapped your ass before shutting the bathroom door and locking it from the outside. 

Another extravagant room. Oxblood tiles and heated floors. A large marble counter and a mirror taking up most of the wall behind it.

It was a large shower but more importantly the water was hot. Not warm but hot. You could have cum just from feeling the jets against your skin. The body wash was luxurious - sweet and woody. You scrubbed well. These kinds of men didn't want their DNA wandering all over the place. 

There was a towel left for you but no clothes and your lingerie from last night was missing as well. He did leave a cup of tea for you on the bedside table. There were painkillers too. You took it all in one scalding gulp. 

You kept the towel wrapped around yourself as you walked back downstairs. You found him through the one open door in the hall.  He was sitting at the dining table, typing on a laptop, cup of espresso cooling next to him. 

"Come here, Kotenok." He tugged your towel till it fell to the floor. He tapped the inside of your thigh till you spread them. "Don't start shaking again. Need to make sure you cleaned up well."

You bit your lip. He spread you open with two fingers, tilting his head as he inspected you. You yelped when he forced a dry finger inside you, moving it around and dragging it against your walls. He pulled it out and stared at his finger for a moment before sticking in his mouth. 

"Good girl." He nodded and got a money clip from his pocket. "I like you. I'll see you again in a week."

He handed you five hundred pounds. You stared at King Charles in disbelief. You'd been tipped before but never this much. You would have to hide it. You didn’t know where but you had to. If he kept tipping you like this it could make a dent in your debt to Marcus and Arno. 

"Thank you, sir."

"Did I ask you a question?" He didn't look away from his computer.

"No...umm...Thank you, Kolya." An offering of affection, appease the god and receive bountiful gifts. 

The corner of his mouth twitched into a smile. An actual smile. 

"If Arno takes that from you, tell me. That's your money. I paid him enough as is. Now go get dressed. Your car is here." He pointed back towards the front door.

You hurried off, afraid to go back to Marcus and Arno but also too scared of what Kolya would do if you delayed. 

Here is the rewritten part 1! Part 2 will go up in the next few days. If you have any questions, comments, thirst messages about this fic please send them. I love talking about Nikolai and his Kotenok.

[autumnmobile12]

Finishing Touches on Malicious Compliance

Fanart for the Endeavor Agency Annual Christmas Party because I just felt like it.

It's kinda weird drawing them with the height differences in mind and showing how tall Touya is compared to the women in his family. We know Fuyumi is 5'3" and Touya clocks it in at 5'9". Rei doesn't have an official height listed, but we can see in the family shot she is a little shorter than Fuyumi. So I put her mother Grandma Himura's height about the same at 5' exactly.

Also, I don't know if there was an attempt to contain Touya's fluffy hair, but if there was, I think the ladies gave up pretty quick.

Part 2

...

With Touya wearing a woman's kimono, this seems like a good time to bring up gender identity. In the Ambush Sim AU, he does identify as male, but he is not opposed to wearing feminine clothing for comfort/practicality purposes, or in this case, pure spite. So I suppose that's a characteristic that skews more demi-masculine(?) orientation. Except I think if anybody tries to pin down exactly how Touya identifies, all they're gonna get is a shrug because he is long past the point of caring about labels. When it comes to gender identity and which public restroom to use, Touya is very much in Camp 'Just Wash Your Hands When You're Done And We'll Get Along Fine.' So while wearing a woman's kimono may have started out as malicious compliance against his father, it may also have served as some self-realization for him. Here, he's a teenager who missed out on three years of mental/physical/emotional development and figuring himself out. And he has a very encouraging and understanding grandmother.

In any case, I hope I'm using the demi-masculine term correctly. I know someone in real life who identifies as demi-feminine, and she said this was accurate, so I'm trusting her opinion.

...

You would not believe the amount of research I put into drawing their kimono accurately according to situation/season. Because kimono do have seasonal patterns/colors and are varied by formality, age, and sometimes marital status of the wearer.

So breaking down the kimono in the fanart to the best of my understanding:

All three of them are wearing homoungi, a semi-formal to formal kimono that is typically worn by guests to formal parties, such as a wedding, graduation ceremony, dinner party, etc. Since the Endeavor Agency Christmas party is a company event, I figured it would be considered semi-formal. Homoungi are generally characterized by having a pattern along the hem, sleeves, and over the left shoulder seam.

The kimono colors:

With winter colors, shades of red are popular, but otherwise, more neutral colors work just as well. Since Grandma Himura is an elderly widow, I thought dark green would be a good choice since it's not flashy and more what you'd expect a dignified older woman to wear. (That's a cultural thing, not my personal opinion!) The pattern on hers is bamboo stalks and leaves. Fuyumi's kimono is white with bare branches and camellia blossoms. Touya's is a wintry blue (actually, that's same color as the rindou flowers) and has a roughly drawn yukiwa motif. Yukiwa is a Japanese pattern made to resemble snowflakes or flowers.

Obi:

Again, neutral colors/patterns. Or at least ones that complement the kimono. Fuyumi's scarlet one matches the flowers. Touya's is black lacquer (urushi) with abstract silver embroidery. Grandma Himura's obi is white for snow with abstract flowers in silver embroidery.

Kanzashi:

Again, winter-themed hair pieces, so Touya's is a carnation arrangement hana-kanzanshi and Fuyumi has a camellia. Touya's also wearing a wisteria kanzashi, which I don't think are considered winter flowers, but I like the look of them, so they were included. If you look closely, they also have little bells. Grandma Himura's is mostly hidden because of how she's standing, but she's wearing a tama-kanzashi and a kushi.

Deepest apologies for any inaccuracies above. I am not a kimono expert and I did the best I could with what I had to work with.

...

I realized something rather sad while drawing this. In The Summer Camp Ambush Simulation, it's mentioned Grandma Himura died a few weeks after Touya's eighteenth birthday, so he can't be any older than sixteen or seventeen in this fanart. Since I don't think he made any public appearances so soon after returning home, he's more likely seventeen years old here.

Seventeen years old, it's Christmas, and he has a January birthday. So Grandma Himura dies in maybe two months after this, and I swear I did not intentionally set it up to be that tragic!

[starlit-typewriter]

Genshin SAGAU, Creator of Teyvat, but not Humanity Part 5

This chapter was like pulling teeth, I swear I switched POV's like 3 times.

Thank you guys so much for reading! Just as a heads up future chapters will be much much slower to update since real life hast decided to reassert it's presence. That being said, enjoy!

Warning for Spoilers up to 4.6

Masterlist | Prev Part | Next Part

~~~

The sharp edge of a sword hovered extremely close to your face. Its wielder's furious golden eyes stared you down.

“Who are you, how did you get here?” They demanded, their floating companion hovering behind their shoulder anxiously, watching this exchange.

For some reason, even though your life was being threatened, you struggled to feel any sense of fear or urgency. That’s probably something you should revisit when you didn’t have a sharp weapon pointed at you.

But you did, so you should pay attention to that, shouldn’t you.

Oh, but you haven’t, you’ve probably been silent for a while, getting lost in thought.

You redirect your attention back to your current situation. 

You are in this fancy bedroom you don’t recognize, whilst being threatened at sword point by a pretty teenager you don’t recognize.

Great, go brain, you can do things!

You took a deep breath, preparing yourself for an explanation.

“I don’t mean any harm,” you say, slowly. 

The teen in question didn’t seem to believe you. They narrowed their eyes further, actually they were really pretty. Not just the teen themselves, though they are quite pretty, but their eyes sparkled like molten gold, not a common eye color at all.

Now that you think of it, are golden eyes even real? Don’t you need contacts to get golden eyes?

Oh wait, you’ve gotten off track, you’re being threatened.

They were saying something, their mouth was moving and you missed all of it.

You blinked, “sorry could you repeat that I didn’t hear it,” you asked politely, hoping they wouldn’t get mad at the request.

Oh looks like they did, considering how they’re clenching their teeth, they don’t look particularly pleased with you.

Well, you suppose it is rather rude to ignore someone mid confrontation.

Why were you in a confrontation anyways, you weren’t a particularly confrontational person, you liked to avoid drama whenever possible.

You probably shouldn’t be here, you realized. It’d be nice if you were somewhere else, like a nice park or a meadow or something.

Just as you finished your train of thought your surroundings changed.

The chirping of birds and the warmth of the sunlight distracted you from your earlier train of thought. 

You were in a lovely meadow, with beautiful golden flowers and a gigantic tree with blue crystalline branches.

It seemed rather empty though, which was a bit of a shame considering how nice it is, but you were hardly going to complain about having the entire place to yourself.

You started walking through the meadow, when a slight pain in your foot distracted you.

You checked to see that you were pricked by a rather sharp piece of gravel. 

That’s weird, why are you barefoot outside? Now that you think about it, your clothes are rather strange.

It’s this white flowy garment, reminiscent of the clothing worn by Ancient Grecians. 

But you weren’t cold at all, it was honestly quite comfortable. 

Wait, what were you thinking about again.

Oh right, you’re talking a walk in this pretty meadow!

~~~

The Wanderer, or well, Hat Guy as people now know him sighed as he flipped through a tedious book about the Origins of the Production of Wood Lacquer in Inazuma and its Effects on Weaponry. 

Unfortunately for him, I was there, does not count as a citable source if he doesn’t have the receipts to prove it. Now he has to sort through all these old books to find one with the information he needs to prove his point.

Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a familiar figure examining the shelves.

It seems that they noticed him too, judging by the white haired fairy’s flailing. How troublesome.

“What are you doing here,” she whispered fiercely, at least she had enough decency to not raise her voice in a library.

He looked over at his piles of books and papers covering his workstation, and then back at her, wondering if she actually expected an answer to such an obvious question.

She seemed to realize that too, considering the sheepish look she adopted. “Well, you can’t blame me for being curious. You don’t seem like a big library kind of guy.”

“I’m not,” he replied curtly, turning back to his workstation. “Trust me, if I had it any other way, I wouldn’t be here right now.”

Yet somehow, him turning his back to them and ignoring their presence wasn’t hint enough of his lack of enthusiasm to engage in conversation with the two, since they ended up hovering over his shoulder, attempting to read his papers and more importantly, distracting him from his work.

He swears, if he could get a headache, he would. He ends up slapping his hand on top of his notes, disrupting their reading and whipped his head back to give them the most annoyed glare he can.

It doesn’t work, because of course it doesn’t.

Instead the Traveler just gave him a smug smirk, they did this on purpose to annoy him, which makes it worse because he fell for it.

“What do you want,” he gritted out, knowing they won’t let him have his peace until they’re satisfied.

“I need to speak with Nahida,”

Wanderer scoffed at that, “then why are you bothering me? Did the Matra turn you away at the door and now you're begging for my help to get you in?”

“Not at all,” the Traveler smiled, “I just wouldn’t mind your insight on the topic as well,”

“Plus we couldn’t find her in the Sanctuary of Surasthana, ” Paimon chimed in.

He couldn’t stop himself from pulling a face at that inane statement, “Why would she be in the Sanctuary of Surasthana?”

“It’s where we’d meet up with her before,”

“That’s because she didn’t have any rooms or offices of her own,” he explained slowly, like he was talking to a child, well he probably was considering the intellect of the white haired one. “Why would she willingly go back to her prison of 500 years when she now has the resources of all of Sumeru to build herself a new place.”

The white haired fairy in question made an exaggerated face of revelation that he couldn’t help but roll his eyes at.

He looks at his notes longingly, well not quite longingly, it’s still quite annoying, but its bound to be less troublesome than whatever the Traveler has planned.

Sighing to himself, he gathered up his notes and research and headed to the exit of the House of Daena, the Traveler and Paimon hot on his heels.

The three made their way up the winding paths of the Akademya. The puppet ignores all the glances and whispers garnered by the students and visitors alike, and moves as fast as he can without breaking into an outright run.

It doesn’t take long for them to arrive at The Dendro Archon’s new residence. Designed by the Light of Kshahrewar himself, its a beautiful structure with many windows and balconies, designed to be everything the Sanctuary was not. 

He headed straight in, the Matra having long gotten used to his frequent comings and goings with the Dendro Archon. He honestly doesn't know what reasoning they’ve decided on to explain why Lesser Lord Kusanali spends so much time with him, and honestly he couldn’t care less. It’s simply the fact that they couldn’t keep their mouths shut and now he has to deal with complete strangers coming up to him in an attempt to learn more about her.

He could hear the other two, awing at the architecture as they made their way in. Privately he did appreciate the architect's tact in designing this building. Whilst still made in the classic rounded Sumeru fashion, he managed to avoid any references to the Sanctuary of Surasthana, ensuring that there weren't many large empty spaces or darkened ceilings.

He knew she still avoided the building whenever she could, even though she rejected his proposition to have it torn down. It’s a curious relationship, for whilst it was her prison for so long, it was also the only place she knew and could call home.

Regardless of the matter, it wasn’t for him to pry.

Before long he had reached her office, offering a cursory knock before barging his way in. If she had a problem with his way of entering her rooms and offices she would've long told him to stop, but she didn’t so he didn’t.

It was a lot messier than he’d seen it last. Papers and reports scattered around the office, stacked in messy piles on her desk.

Lesser Lord Kusanali blinked up at him from where she was seated, before breaking into a smile when the Traveler and Paimon walked in.

She greeted them with enthusiasm, moving out from behind her desk to talk to them properly.

He tuned out the rest of their small talk, it was nothing more than empty pleasantries to fill the air before they got the actually important parts that were relevant to his presence.

“-ject Stuzha,”

He blinked, focusing back onto the topic of conversation. 

“Hmm, I must admit I haven’t seen many records on this project before,” the Dendro Archon said, her expectant gaze turning to him. 

He couldn't help but bristle slightly at the attention. “I’ve already given you most of the information I have about the Fatui.”

“Most is not all,” she replied simply, “and besides, from what the Traveler just said it seems to be something they’re mobilizing all their forces on.”

Logically he knew that it would be in everyone’s best interests if he told them all he knew about the project, but old habits die hard. The Tsaritsa’s court was nothing more than the world most extensive chess game. Every action and movement had to be calculated to give the player the best advantage, every scrap of information hard won. 

As much as it rankled him to admit, he was only the 6th Harbinger and the Director only gave out as much information as was strictly required, no more no less. But he did have some information, some he was given, some through sleuthing and others through his own conjecture.

He warned them of that before launching into an explanation of what he had seen and figured out.

“From the timing of things, it is clear that Project Stuzha is related to the gnosis, especially since the only one of the seven that they’re missing is the Pyro Gnosis.” His audience nodded at that assumption.

“It’s also related in some way to the state of things in Teyvat and the survival of humanity as a species. As things stand, Teyvat is becoming more and more inhabitable for regular humans. With ley line disorders, abyssal energy and dead godly remains lurking about. Project Stuzha is supposed to fix that, permanently.”

“But how,” Paimon interrupted, her head darting back and forth in confusion. 

“No idea,” he shrugged, “All I know is that it has something to do with the Abyss.”

“The Abyss? I thought that place had nothing but monsters and dead gods?”

Wanderer shook his head at that, “That’s just a common misconception. There’s actually the remains of an entire world down there. A human world.”

Both the Traveler and Paimon looked shocked at that statement. 

He’d already shared this information with Lesser Lord Kusanali so she didn’t look surprised, but she was deep in thought.

“I didn’t know that there were entire realms banished to the abyss, and I thought Enkanomiya was creepy.”

“It wasn't banished,” he refuted, “From my investigations, it seems that the civilization was built and founded there.”

There was a moment of silence as they contemplated his words.

“That brings up more questions about the origins of humans,” Lesser Lord Kusanali commented, “Irregardless of that, I believe you had another question for us Traveler?”

“Oh right!,” Paimon chimed in, looking over to the Traveler who stepped forward.

“We’re looking more into the blessings that keep happening and we'd like to hear your opinion of it.” They paused, looking between the two of them.

“Ah,” the Dendro Archon paused, looking at Wanderer.

“The thing is, we've already tried,”

“And failed.” He couldn’t help but add, to quash any hope that the duo may have.

“What do you mean by failed!” The fairy gasped.

“Well, that’s not exactly the case,” she tried to reassure. “It’s more like, there weren’t any results where we were looking. ”

“That’s just another way to say you found nothing!”

“Actually Paimon, finding nothing gives you a lot of information about where it is found!” She explained. “The thing is, the blessings we experienced aren’t connected to Irminsul in any way, so we can conclude that it originated from somewhere outside of Teyvat.”

”Does that mean that it can’t be tracked?” The Traveler asked, 

”Hmm, well from our experiences, it’s quite easy for those who’ve been blessed to recognize each other since they can feel each other’s blessing, but the range for that is no more than the size of two Sumpter Beasts.”

That was an irritating experience, having to stand in the middle of Sumeru City for hours as that annoying forest watcher had to try to find him through only his blessing. It took over half the day before they concluded that the energy of the blessing was far too weak to use as a tracking mechanism.

Thankfully, any experiments they had were benign and didn’t involve anything close to what he imagined that damned doctor attempted to inflict on Tartaglia before being shut down by the Tsaritsa. 

If that were the case he’d probably have hated the flame flickering in his hollow chest a lot more. 

Well, hate is a strong word. He didn’t deny that having the blessing made him a lot stronger than he ever was previously and on some level is grateful for its calming warmth. But a private part of him wished it had appeared to him sooner.

Logically he understood that the blessings were in some way connected to the Traveler and that they hadn’t appeared until well after his appointment as a Harbinger.

But the other small quiet part of him wonders just how different his life could’ve been had this blessing appeared before that. 

Would he have been able to save Niwa, or that little boy. Maybe even the Sho-

No

He can’t go down that train of thought.

What’s done is done and all he can do now is attempt to make amends and move on.

He tuned back into the topic only to find them talking about some kind of dessert they had in fontaine. Ugh.

He waited,

And waited,

And waited some more.

…

This conversation was taking too long.

And he isn’t even in it!

“Can I leave,” he butted in, realizing that their conversation is never going to go back to anything useful.

“Oh I’m sorry, are we interrupting your incredibly important work about glazeworks or something,” Pamon mocked.

Ignoring her he turned to the Dendro Archon who looked delighted. 

“You’re still working on the new essay?” She exclaimed, clapping her hands together in delight. 

He felt his eyebrow twitch in irritation. “I would’ve had it done a week ago, if someone actually let me use accurate sources,” he snapped.

“Oh come on, it’s not so bad. Besides, how are you going to explain how Hat Guy knows so much about ancient Inazumen weapon crafting techniques that have been lost to time.”

“You could vouch for me,”

“But that wouldn’t be fair to all the other students now would it.”

He took a deep breath, remembering how he’d already tried and failed to argue his case a week prior, “so can I go or what?”

“Oh course, what kind of Archon of Wisdom would I be if I prevented learning and research!”

He took that as his cue to leave, stomping out of her office, faintly hearing the fairy commenting about how she’s surprised that he’s actually doing his schoolwork.

As if he’d let some inconsequential mortal get better grades than him.

Besides, being the top of his class means that he won’t have any irritating students come up to him and ask if he needs help or offer tutoring.

Of course, being top of his class also means that there are now people coming to him to ask for tutoring or help. 

But at least those are easier to turn away.

Hopefully he doesn’t get interrupted anymore today, if so he should be able to finish this reference by tonight. 

~~~

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Things are heating up huh!

I wonder where our dear creator has found themselves. Oh and don't worry too much about their state of mind, that will come up again soon!

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[w1w2]

Warming You Up

Kim Taeyeon x Fem!Reader

Part 2 of The Slowest Heartbeat

Word Count: ca. 12k

Synopsis: What begins as business slowly spirals into something far more complicated, something neither of them planned for, but both keep choosing.

English isn’t my first language so I apologize in advance for any mistakes.

♡ Enjoy! ♡

Taeyeon had expected elegance. Maybe something sleek, minimalist and cold. What she hadn’t expected was this.

The car rolled slowly through a narrow, tree lined road that curved discreetly up a private hill in Seongbuk-dong, an area known for its seclusion, wealth, and old money hush. The gates didn’t open until her car was nearly on top of them, part of the landscape itself, tall iron worked with subtle patterns, the kind only noticed if you were truly looking.

And then the villa revealed itself.

It was modern in shape, clean lines, bold geometry, white stone and steel but softened somehow by age and silence. As though time passed differently here. It didn’t show off, it watched.

A staff member met her at the door, bowed politely, and then disappeared down a side hall, leaving her standing beneath a soaring ceiling and an arched skylight stained by the soft hues of the setting sun. The foyer smelled faintly of lavender and parchment.

Y/N appeared a moment later. Barefoot, dressed down, if such a word even applied to someone like her, in a soft silk blouse the color of moonlight and loose beige trousers. Her hair was down, not pinned or sleek or formal. Just free.

“Welcome,” she said simply.

Taeyeon took a breath, glancing around. The space felt timeless.

The floors were stone but not cold, every object seemed to belong exactly where it was, nothing out of place, nothing performative. Antique pieces reflected Taeyeon’s uncertain expression. Sculptures, small marble busts and strange, delicate figurines sat on carved pedestals. The air carried a kind of stillness that had nothing to do with silence.

“You live in a time capsule,” Taeyeon murmured.

Y/N only offered a small smile, already turning to lead her deeper into the house. “I live in history,” she replied. “It makes the present feel less fragile.”

They passed down a long hallway, lined with floor to ceiling bookshelves. Many of the spines were leatherbound, cracked with age, some bore no titles at all. The occasional framed oil painting broke the line, landscapes rendered in muted, somber colors, and portraits of figures that looked out with eyes just slightly too real.

Taeyeon slowed as she took it all in. “Are these originals?”

“Most of them,” Y/N said casually. “Some were gifts, others I’ve collected.”

Of course she had.

Y/N stopped at a tall wooden door and opened it with a quiet push.

The music room.

It was wide, spacious, and breathtaking. Floor to ceiling windows lined one side, revealing a backyard that was both manicured and wild, geometric hedges bordering clusters of untouched trees. The sun had dipped low, casting long shadows across the floor like brushstrokes.

At the center sat the Bösendorfer.

It gleamed, sleek and black, but softened by time. Not showroom polished, no, lived in.

To its left stood a few glass cases, their contents lit softly from within. An old violin, its neck chipped and lacquer fading, a wooden flute with a patina of use, a lyre that looked like it belonged in a temple, not a Seoul villa.

Taeyeon stopped short, her breath caught somewhere in her throat.

“Okay,” she said, her voice quiet. “This is wow.”

Y/N didn’t move to explain, she simply stood there, watching Taeyeon absorb it.

Then, softly, “Come sit.”

She crossed the room and sat gracefully on the small bench beside the piano. Taeyeon hesitated, then followed, lowering herself beside her with slow reverence, half expecting the instrument to sigh under her weight.

Y/N slid open the key cover. The ivory had yellowed slightly, not from neglect, but age. She touched one key, then another, a quiet, haunting arpeggio blooming in the space between them.

“It sounds like it remembers,” Taeyeon whispered.

Y/N glanced sideways. “It does.”

The moment lingered.

“Would you like to play?” Y/N asked.

Taeyeon nodded, heart fluttering slightly for reasons she couldn’t name. She placed her fingers on the keys and let them settle, like greeting an old friend.

Behind her, Y/N moved to pour tea into two ceramic cups. The clink of porcelain was soft, deliberate.

As the first few notes of a familiar melody filled the room, the villa seemed to exhale around them.

The room had settled into a reverent hush, the kind of quiet that made sound feel sacred. Outside, twilight deepened, casting a blueish tint through the towering windows. The trees beyond swayed in slow motion shadows, the air almost too still, like the world itself was listening.

Taeyeon let her fingertips drift across the keys of the piano. They weren’t the gleaming, uniform white of rehearsal rooms. The instrument felt alive, not in the way modern pianos did, bright and polished, but in a quieter, humbler way. Like a companion waiting for someone to remember how to speak its language.

Behind her, Y/N moved soundlessly. She poured tea with slow, measured grace, from a porcelain teapot painted in delicate cobalt blue. The scent of osmanthus and black tea curled softly into the air.

When she returned, they sat side by side on the long bench.

Y/N handed her the tea, their fingers brushing for the briefest moment.

Taeyeon stilled.

The touch wasn’t cold, not exactly. But it wasn’t warm either, not the kind of warmth you expected from someone sitting beside you in a softly lit room. It was neutral, not lifeless, but different. Like touching skin that had forgotten heat.

She didn’t react, just took the cup, sipped quietly, eyes on the keys again.

Y/N stared ahead at the piano. “It belonged to a French composer,” she said softly. “He used to only write at night, said the moon pulled better melodies from his fingers.”

Taeyeon glanced at her, studying the calm lines of her profile. “You say that like you knew him.”

Y/N’s lips curved faintly. She didn’t deny it. Just said, almost lazily, “Some people’s stories stick.”

But it was too easy, too smooth.

There was something in her tone, too familiar, too exact. Like memory, not research, like she wasn’t recalling a fact, but a friend.

Taeyeon felt it again, that strange edge she could never quite place around Y/N. Not threatening, not obvious. Just off. A hum beneath the silence, a wrong note played too perfectly.

She didn’t say anything.

Instead, she set her tea down and let her fingers fall into motion. A melody rose, soft and slow, almost mournful. It didn’t belong to any song she knew. It just emerged, like something the room had been waiting to hear again.

Y/N listened in silence, hands clasped around her cup. Her gaze wasn’t on the piano, it was on Taeyeon’s hands. And when the music finally faded, she spoke without moving.

“You play like someone trying to remember something they’ve never been taught.”

Taeyeon blinked. “Is that a compliment?”

Y/N didn’t answer, just smiled, unreadable.

Something on the nearby shelf caught Taeyeon’s eye. She rose from the bench and crossed the room slowly, heart still humming from the strange intensity of the moment.

“Is that a clavichord?”

Y/N stood too, following her gaze. “Good eye.”

She stepped forward, lifted the dust cover with the kind of reverence most people reserved for sacred objects. The instrument was older than the piano. Smaller, stranger.

Taeyeon approached. “Show me?”

Y/N nodded once, silent.

She stood behind Taeyeon this time, not beside her.

Taeyeon barely noticed the space between them at first, until Y/N reached forward and positioned her hands on the keys.

Their fingers touched and Taeyeon froze.

Not because of the contact, but because of the lack of sensation. Y/N’s skin was smooth, but there was no warmth to it, no heat, just pressure. Like the presence of something human shaped, but not quite human tempered.

“This one’s tricky,” Y/N said, voice low near her ear. “The pressure has to be feather light. Otherwise the tone dies before it breathes.”

Taeyeon nodded slowly, not trusting her voice.

The closeness should’ve been intimate, should’ve sparked something familiar. A body behind hers, a breath on her neck.

But there was only that strange stillness again, like Y/N’s body moved, but didn’t live in the same rhythm.

Still, it wasn’t unpleasant.

Taeyeon let her fingers press gently, following the guidance. The clavichord made a faint, whispery sound, like a ghost of a note. She smiled at it, at the odd beauty of the thing.

Y/N shifted slightly behind her, breath steady but not close enough to touch. Taeyeon turned her head, slowly, and found Y/N already looking at her.

Their eyes met.

It wasn’t a glance, it was a pause in time. Something deeper flickering beneath it. Curiosity, hesitation, maybe longing, maybe fear. The space between them felt small and electric, thick with unsaid things neither of them had quite figured out how to name.

Taeyeon’s chest tightened, her mind scrambled for logic, but her body stilled. She wasn’t sure if she was about to move closer or if Y/N would. The room itself seemed to hold its breath.

Then, gently but suddenly, Y/N stepped back, the connection snapped like a thread pulled too tight.

“I’ll make more tea,” she said, turning without looking back, her voice calm but cool. Already walking toward the far end of the room, she moved like she needed distance before anything could change.

Taeyeon remained at the clavichord, her hands still resting on the keys, as the faintest note faded beneath her fingers, like something half formed that would never finish.

When Taeyeon left later that night, the world outside had gone still, blanketed in that specific kind of silence that settles over Seoul just past midnight, when even the city seems to exhale.

From the top of the hill, Y/N stood framed in the doorway of her villa, unmoving.

Her gaze followed the soft red glow of Taeyeon’s taillights as they dipped out of sight beyond the trees. The hum of the engine faded slowly into nothing, all that remained was the distant rustle of wind through the high branches and the faint clink of porcelain cups still cooling on the table behind her.

The door clicked shut with a gentle finality.

She didn’t move for a long time.

Her fingertips, still ghosted by the brush of Taeyeon’s skin, curled slightly at her sides. It hadn’t been anything dramatic, not even deliberate, just the softest contact, flesh against flesh. But it stayed with her like heat she couldn’t shake, even if her body didn’t register temperature like a human’s.

A phantom warmth, a human memory she wasn’t meant to keep.

Y/N pressed her back against the door and closed her eyes.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Curiosity, maybe, fascination, even fondness, in rare moments. She had felt all of those before, across decades, centuries. But this?

This was dangerous.

Taeyeon was different.

It wasn’t just the voice, or the eyes, or the way she moved so freely through the world. It was how she looked at Y/N without hesitation, how she spoke to her like she wasn’t something cold and ancient, but someone real.

And Y/N had let her.

She had let Taeyeon into her world, into her space, her quiet, carefully controlled routines. Had allowed those tea evenings to stretch longer each time, had watched Taeyeon smile in her chair like she belonged there. Like Y/N belonged too.

It was foolish.

She walked slowly to the far end of the room, her bare feet silent against the polished floor. The tea was cold in the pot, untouched since she left it to avoid what had almost happened. She poured herself a cup and didn’t drink it.

Instead, she stared through the windows at the reflection of herself, just a shadow in the glass, caught between the interior light and the night beyond.

Her heart beat once, then nothing again.

Y/N sighed, quiet and bitter.

She couldn’t do this, not with a human, not with someone like Taeyeon. So bright, so vividly alive. The weight of Y/N’s existence would eventually show itself, the absence of a pulse, the unnatural stillness, the way time bent differently around her.

It always did.

And if it didn’t?

Then worse. She would care too deeply and Taeyeon would grow older, and Y/N would not. Or something far more terrible would happen, something instinctive, something irreversible.

No.

She set the teacup down and turned away from the window.

It had to stop now, before either of them mistook the soft weight of connection for something safe, before Taeyeon thought she could stay.

It began with a message, short, unceremonious.

“Can’t do tea tonight, overbooked. Raincheck?”

Taeyeon read it twice, then locked her phone without responding. It wasn’t unusual for Y/N to be busy, and it wasn’t the first time plans had shifted last minute, but something in the tone, the stiff phrasing, the cold finality, felt wrong. There was no warmth, no humor, none of the subtle undercurrents that usually colored Y/N’s words when they spoke alone.

The next message came a day later.

“Sorry, things got moved. Will reschedule.”

No punctuation beyond the period, no follow up, no date offered.

No attempt, really.

Still, Taeyeon tried to give her the benefit of the doubt. She told herself it was work, that Y/N’s schedule was brutal on a good day, and the closer they edged toward the company’s next major cycle, the more likely it was that chaos would swallow any personal life she had left. 

But the excuses began to stack, not just in messages, but in behavior.

In meetings, Y/N no longer met her eyes. She sat on the far side of the room, her posture impeccable, her expressions unreadable, as though she’d constructed an invisible wall around herself that no one was meant to cross. The casual presence, the subtle glances, the passing comments that once made their encounters feel private despite the setting, all of it was gone.

At first, Taeyeon thought she might be imagining it. But the difference was too deliberate, too measured. Y/N wasn’t just busy, she was creating distance, every reply was dry, every interaction felt filtered, sterilized. She still showed up, still performed her role flawlessly, but whatever spark had flickered between them had been hidden away like something shameful.

Taeyeon found herself checking her phone more than she wanted to admit. She scrolled back to older threads, rereading the messages they’d exchanged when things were light, curious, intimate. She remembered how easily they’d talked before, how Y/N would ask things no one else asked, about music, about emotion, about what it felt like to be looked at by thousands and still feel alone.

Now that Y/N had gone quiet, Taeyeon felt that aloneness creep back in like a draft under a closed door.

She tried again.

“Still free for Friday?”

Y/N left the message on read. A full day passed before she replied, and even then it was just.

“Let’s aim for next week. Things are moving fast.”

It was vague enough to say nothing at all, and final enough to shut down further questions.

Taeyeon stared at that message longer than she wanted to, her thumb hovering over the keyboard before she gave up and put the phone face down beside her. She didn’t want to sound clingy, didn’t want to push too hard, but something wasn’t right, and pretending otherwise was starting to feel foolish.

She didn’t understand what had changed. Nothing had gone wrong at the villa. At least, not obviously. If anything, the air between them had been full of unspoken things, undeniable tension, a warmth that felt new and dangerous, the kind of quiet only shared by people on the verge of something else. Taeyeon hadn’t imagined it, she was sure of that.

And yet Y/N was retreating.

With every unanswered message, every meeting conducted with calculated distance, every polite smile that felt like a placeholder, Taeyeon felt the line between them stretch thinner, more brittle.

She didn’t know what she had done or if she had done anything at all, but she felt herself slipping from a place she hadn’t even fully stepped into yet.

And that, more than the silence, more than the cancellations, was what stung the most.

The executive conference room was suspended in that rare moment of early calm, a kind of stillness that felt borrowed, temporary. Morning light filtered through the tall glass windows, tracing quiet shadows over the polished table and the spotless rows of chairs arranged for yet another high stakes meeting. Everything was in place, pitch decks glowing softly on the screen, neatly stacked PR folders, bottled water lined like soldiers at each seat. It all looked ready, but the room hadn't exhaled yet.

At the head of the table, Y/N stood alone, tablet in hand. Her fingers moved across the screen with mechanical precision, though her eyes seemed distant, not fully focused. She looked as she always did. Controlled, composed, every detail of her tailored blouse and pressed slacks sharpened to perfection. But there was something off in the stillness of her stance, the angle of her shoulders, the rigidity in her spine. Like someone holding herself up against something unseen.

The door opened behind her.

Taeyeon walked in without knocking, without pausing. The soft click of the door closing behind her cut the room off from the outside world like a blade.

Y/N didn’t startle, but there was a flicker in her gaze as she looked up. “Taeyeon,” she said, her voice crisp, neutral. She might’ve been reading off a schedule. “You should be at rehearsal.”

“I have ten minutes,” Taeyeon replied, stepping forward.

She didn’t raise her voice, she didn’t need to. The air between them was already thick with something unspoken, weeks of questions buried under carefully worded texts and sidelong glances in passing.

“You act like you care,” Taeyeon said, the words steady but edged with something rawer underneath. “But then you vanish.”

Y/N said nothing.

Her hand, still holding the tablet, didn’t move. Her face didn’t betray anything, no anger, no guilt, but her silence wasn’t neutral either. It was tight, measured, braced.

Taeyeon stepped closer, watching her.

“I thought we could trust each other,” she added. “But I don’t know what’s real now.”

Still, no answer.

But this time, Y/N’s gaze faltered for half a second, dropped to the floor, then back up. There was a flicker behind her calm, like something cracking just beneath the surface. A breath caught in her throat, the tiniest clench of her jaw. 

Taeyeon saw it, and she held on.

“Why are you scared of me?” she asked, quieter now. Softer, but no less pointed. “Why are you avoiding me?”

That did something.

Y/N’s lips parted, a breath escaping, like she might actually answer.

Taeyeon waited, hopeful, afraid of pushing too hard. She saw it, something in Y/N’s expression that didn’t quite match the polished surface. A shadow of conflict, pain, maybe regret? But still, no words came. Y/N’s gaze dropped to the tablet again, lingering there like a shield, and then drifted back up, carefully blank.

The silence between them thickened. It wasn’t awkward, it wasn’t empty, no. It was heavy. The kind of silence that comes when everything that needs to be said is clawing at the walls, but the door won’t open.

Outside, the hallway stirred to life.

Footsteps approached, voices echoed closer, casual, loud and unaware.

The first assistant appeared at the door, then someone from the legal department, another team member with a laptop bag slung over one shoulder. They entered chatting, checking their watches, setting things down. Oblivious to the storm that had just passed through the room.

Y/N stepped back, just slightly, enough to reposition herself at the head of the table, back in place. 

Untouchable again.

Taeyeon didn’t move, her heart thundered in her chest. This was it, her window had closed.

She looked at Y/N one last time, hoping for anything, a glance, a whisper, a sign.

Y/N looked at her, too. Briefly, the look was unreadable, except for one thing. She’d heard her, every word. But she wasn’t going to answer.

Taeyeon swallowed hard. She nodded once, barely.

Then turned and walked out.

The door clicked behind her, far too softly for the way her chest felt, tight and aching, like the moment had collapsed in on itself. She’d opened the door. She’d offered the truth.

And Y/N had let it pass.

The late afternoon sun cast a warm, golden hue over the secluded estate as Taeyeon's car approached the entrance. The villa, nestled amidst rolling hills and dense woodlands, stood as a testament to elegance.

She hadn't announced her visit, there had been no response to her messages, no returned calls. The silence had become unbearable.

She needed answers.

Taeyeon pressed the buzzer at the iron gate, her heart pounding with anticipation. Moments later, the gate creaked open, granting her access. She drove slowly along the winding driveway, taking in the serene beauty of the estate.

Parking her car near the entrance, Taeyeon stepped out, her footsteps crunching softly on the gravel. She approached the grand door, its surface adorned with intricate carvings. Before she could knock, the door opened, revealing Y/N standing in the doorway.

"Taeyeon," Y/N said, her voice calm but distant. "This is unexpected."

"I needed to see you," Taeyeon replied, her voice steady but tinged with emotion.

Inside, the villa was hushed and cool, the temperature a few degrees below comfort. Not cold exactly, just enough to raise goosebumps if you stayed still for too long. The warm light of late afternoon filtered through the towering windows, casting narrow bands across the dark wood floors. The transition from outside to in was jarring, like stepping into another time, another world. The silence between them was immediate, heavy, and oddly formal.

Y/N led Taeyeon through the corridor without a word. Her barefoot steps made no sound on the polished stone, her presence composed to the point of dissonance. They passed through a high ceilinged hallway lined with glass cases and framed sketches, until finally they entered the office, low lit, walled with bookshelves, a fireplace unlit though it still smelled faintly of woodsmoke.

Y/N gestured toward the settee across from her own and sat with practiced ease, like she’d done this exact choreography a thousand times. Taeyeon didn’t sit right away, she looked around, taking in the room, the artifacts, the weight of everything Y/N surrounded herself with. There were ancient things here, priceless things, objects with history buried in them, and still none of it explained the woman sitting across from her now, distant as ever.

Eventually, Taeyeon sat, hands clenched in her lap, shoulders drawn tight.

"You’ve been avoiding me,” she said, quietly at first. “And don’t say it’s your schedule.”

Y/N didn’t flinch, but her eyes didn’t meet hers either. She kept them trained on something far beyond the walls, something Taeyeon couldn’t see.

“I’ve been busy,” she replied finally, smooth, flat. It was the kind of excuse you offered to someone who didn’t matter.

Taeyeon laughed under her breath, bitter and soft. “That’s all I get? After everything?” Her voice rose slightly. “I send you messages, I try to talk to you, and you act like none of it happened.”

Y/N shifted slightly in her chair but said nothing.

Taeyeon leaned forward. “Don’t do this, don’t sit there and pretend we were never—” she stopped herself, teeth catching on the word. “Whatever this was. You let me in, Y/N. You let me see parts of you, you invited me here. You touched me like it meant something.”

There was a flicker then, barely perceptible but Y/N’s expression faltered. Just for a moment her posture stiffened, her gaze faltered.

“You’re not being fair,” Y/N said, barely audible.

Taeyeon stood abruptly, the movement sharp. “You don’t get to say that,” she snapped. “You disappear for days. You send these clinical messages, you walk past me in hallways like I’m no one, like none of it mattered.”

Y/N looked up at her now, eyes steady, voice composed. “It wasn’t nothing but it was complicated.”

Taeyeon’s chest heaved, frustration climbing her spine like fire. “You keep saying that "complicated" like that excuses the silence, like that makes it okay to treat me like a secret you regret.”

Y/N stood, slow and deliberate, hands still loose at her sides, her expression was unreadable, but her body was coiled, like she was holding something back.

“I didn’t regret it,” she said. “But I shouldn’t have let it happen.”

Taeyeon stepped back, reeling. “Why? Because you felt something real for once?”

Y/N’s jaw tightened, but she didn’t answer.

“You keep everything locked up,” Taeyeon continued. “You give me scraps, pieces. Just enough to keep me around but I feel like I don’t know the real you.”

That hit.

Y/N’s face didn’t move, but the air changed. Something in her cracked, invisible but audible in the silence that followed. She looked at Taeyeon like she wanted to say something, something meaningful, maybe even true, but the words never formed. She just stood there, still and rigid, as if bracing for something worse.

Taeyeon’s voice wavered now, the edge softening. “I'm falling for someone who won’t even let herself be known. You hide behind this persona, this perfect facade. But I see the cracks, I feel them every time I’m near you. You act like you're untouchable, like none of this can touch you but it does. I know it does.”

Still no answer.

Y/N lowered her gaze. Her hands curled into fists at her sides.

Taeyeon stepped forward, tears just beginning to burn in her eyes. “I was willing to wait, I was willing to take it slow, I didn’t need everything at once. But I needed something, something real, not just the curated version you feed everyone else.”

Y/N met her eyes now, and for the first time in days, it wasn’t with detachment. It was sorrow, ache, fear. So much fear.

But still, she didn’t speak.

And that silence, that refusal, was louder than any answer Taeyeon had dreaded.

She took a shaky breath, jaw clenched. “Right,” she said quietly. “Got it.”

She turned, blinking fast, pushing down the well of emotion before it could breach the surface. She made it to the threshold of the room, but something made her stop, maybe stubbornness, maybe desperation. She didn’t turn back, didn’t look at Y/N, but her voice came softer, cracked.

"I can't do this," she said, her voice breaking. "I can't keep chasing shadows."

The confrontation still burned in Taeyeon’s chest as she moved down the hallway, the chill of the villa creeping up her spine with every step. She turned a corner, distracted, wiping at her face with the edge of her sleeve before her composure fully slipped, when someone appeared from a side hallway, a young man in uniform, no more than twenty, arms full with a silver tray of delicate porcelain and an untouched teapot. The collision wasn’t violent, just awkward and sudden, but it was enough to send the tray tilting.

Everything happened at once.

The tray clanged to the floor, a porcelain cup shattered with a high, brittle pitch. The teapot followed, splitting into jagged white fragments across the stone, the faint aroma of jasmine rose in a thin, ghostly curl of steam before the scent of hot tea was overtaken by something sharper. 

Iron, salt, blood.

Taeyeon’s hand throbbed.

A shard, almost invisible in the chaos, had sliced across her palm as she instinctively tried to help, a clean, deep cut that immediately bloomed red against her pale skin. She hissed quietly, gripping her wrist, watching the blood bead and spill over her lifeline like it had been waiting for an excuse to escape.

Then the shift happened.

The servant boy, still crouched amidst the broken pieces, froze, not in shock, not in embarrassment. But in hunger.

His eyes locked onto her hand, not in apology, but in fixation. His chest rose and fell faster. Too fast. For a second Taeyeon thought he might be about to faint. But then she saw it, his lips parting, the glint of something inhuman behind his teeth, not just sharp.

Predatory.

She took a small step back, pulse suddenly thundering in her ears.

“Hey,” she said, quietly, breath catching, “Are you alright?”

He wasn’t.

He lunged.

But he never reached her.

The blur was impossible to track. One second, he was inches from her, the next his body crashed against the far wall with a sound that sucked the air out of the hallway, plaster cracked behind him. A painting trembled on its hook.

He dangled there, suspended by a single hand at his throat.

Y/N.

She hadn’t made a sound when she moved, no warning, no footsteps. Just appeared, as if the walls themselves had exhaled her into the space between danger and disaster.

She didn’t shout, didn’t snarl, but there was no mistaking what she was.

Her face had shifted, not in a grotesque way, but subtly, eerily, like the lighting had changed across a portrait and revealed the subject's true expression. Her eyes were no longer dark, they were deep and ancient and wrong, pupils blown wide, irises catching light that wasn’t there. Her mouth, slightly parted, revealed fangs, not oversized or cartoonish, but delicate, curved like an animal’s, precise and terribly real.

Taeyeon couldn’t breathe.

She stood frozen, watching Y/N hold the boy, this creature, off the floor like he weighed nothing, like her arm wasn’t even straining. Y/N’s other hand hovered slightly, not in hesitation, but in control. She was calculating, containing herself. Because she could’ve done worse, because she was choosing not to.

Finally, she released him.

“Control it. Get out,”

He collapsed in a heap at her feet, gasping, clutching his chest. Y/N didn’t even look down.

She turned to Taeyeon.

Her expression didn’t soften, her eyes didn’t change. But she stepped forward slowly, as if not to startle her, though every part of the moment had already ruptured into something Taeyeon couldn’t contain.

Y/N reached out and gently took her bleeding hand, taeyeon didn’t even resist, some part of her was still in shock, limbs stiff, breath shallow, heart hammering. She watched as Y/N pulled a folded white cloth from her pocket, and began dabbing at the blood with calm, almost ritualistic care.

She didn’t speak, didn’t explain, didn’t apologize.

The silence sat heavy between them, filled with the scent of iron and tea, the faint crackle of a painting still settling back into place on the wall, and the weight of everything Taeyeon didn’t know.

When she finally found her voice, it was hoarse, dragged from the pit of disbelief.

“What the hell are you?”

Y/N paused, cloth pressed to the edge of the wound. Her hands didn’t shake, her eyes didn’t flinch. But she said nothing.

Taeyeon’s throat tightened. “I just saw you throw someone across a room. I saw your face. Your teeth, your eyes—”

Y/N gently wrapped her hand in the cloth and held it still.

Taeyeon yanked it back.

“No. Don’t treat this like I tripped and skinned my knee, don’t soothe this, don’t act like it’s normal.”

She backed away a step, voice rising.

“You’re not human. Are you? You’ve never been. All this time, and I thought, god, I—”

Y/N opened her mouth to speak.

But the words didn’t come.

Taeyeon shook her head. Her voice dropped to something colder. More cracked.

“You’ve been playing at honesty. Giving me little truths, but not THE truth. You let me open up to you, trust you, care about you, and all the while, you were hiding something that could’ve killed me.”

Still, Y/N didn’t deny it, didn’t argue, didn’t retreat.

She just looked at her, as if waiting. As if knowing that no defense would make sense right now, as if the cost of explaining had already been calculated and accepted.

Taeyeon’s voice trembled, not just with fear now, but with something sharper.

“I gave you real pieces of myself,” she said. “And you gave me leftovers. You let me fall for someone who doesn’t even exist.”

Her eyes burned. Not from anger anymore, but from betrayal.

Y/N stood silent.

Because maybe there was no easy answer, because maybe the truth had waited too long, and now it was sharp-edged and ugly and unfixable.

And this time, when Taeyeon turned to leave, her hand bandaged in expensive linen, her heart unraveling in a house that suddenly felt too old and too strange, Y/N didn’t stop her.

Didn’t chase her, didn’t say her name.

And the other woman didn’t look back.

Taeyeon didn’t remember the drive.

She remembered getting in the car, barely. Remembered gripping the steering wheel harder than she should’ve, her knuckles bone white, Y/N’s embroidered cloth pressed tight to her hand like it might keep the truth from leaking out along with the blood.

The road home was a blur of stoplights she didn’t notice, intersections she crossed on muscle memory. Her chest felt too tight for air, like her lungs had folded inward on themselves. Everything was too much, the headlights in her mirrors, the vibration of the tires on the road, the quiet of the car that suddenly felt accusatory.

Her mind raced, but it wasn’t coherent thought, it was fragments, flashes. The boy’s face twisted in hunger, the way he lunged for her like instinct had hijacked his body. And Y/N, god, Y/N appearing out of thin air like a nightmare made flesh. Her strength, her speed. Those eyes.

Taeyeon had asked a question. She’d demanded the truth.

Y/N hadn’t said a word.

All this time, she thought the silence had been grief, or guilt, or hesitation. But it had been distance, deliberate, constructed. Like Y/N was trying to stay human on the surface while keeping something monstrous just beneath it, something old, something dangerous.

And Taeyeon had wanted her anyway.

She didn’t know what that made her now. Naive? Stupid?

The bandage pulled slightly as she turned into the garage beneath her building. She winced, more from the echo of Y/N’s hands tending it than from the pain. There had been a moment, just one, when Y/N had held her hand so gently it almost made Taeyeon forget what she’d just witnessed. Almost.

She parked, turned off the engine, sat there for a full minute, forehead against the steering wheel, breathing through clenched teeth.

Then she got out.

The elevator ride was quiet, her reflection in the metal walls looked pale, drawn. Not like someone who had just walked out of a lie, more like someone still trying to figure out if she’d ever really walked into the truth in the first place.

Her apartment floor was dim, soft lighting humming along the baseboards. Her car keys were still in her hand, fingers trembling slightly around them as she turned the corner.

And stopped.

Y/N was standing at her door.

The sight hit her like a second impact, one she hadn’t braced for.

She looked different in this light, less composed. Hair pulled back hastily, no jacket. Just a soft black sweater and dark jeans and her usual stillness, but stripped of its polish, like the weight of what had happened had worn her down in the short time since they'd last spoken.

At her feet was a tote with a first aid kit and, absurdly, two bags of Haribo gummies.

Taeyeon didn’t move.

Y/N met her eyes, but didn’t approach.

“I need to take care of your hand,” she said softly. No preamble, no explanation. Just that.

Taeyeon blinked at her. Her voice felt far away when it came. “How did you get here before me?”

Y/N’s expression didn’t shift. “I ran.”

The words hung there, heavier than they should’ve been.

“You ran,” Taeyeon echoed, hollow.

Y/N nodded. “I needed to be here when you got back.”

A pause, longer this time.

Taeyeon’s hand was still bandaged in the same cloth. Blood had soaked through in places. Her pulse still fluttered at her wrist like it hadn’t settled since that hallway.

She didn’t unlock the door, but she didn’t walk away either.

Y/N bent slowly, deliberately, and picked up the tote. “Let me fix it. Please.”

Her voice didn’t sound like a command. It sounded like a request from someone who never asked for anything.

Taeyeon stared at her. Every part of her wanted to scream, to run, to not let this woman step into her home.

But she typed the code.

The door opened.

Y/N followed.

Silently.

The apartment door shut with a quiet click behind them, but the air inside was anything but calm.

Taeyeon stepped inside first, dropping her keys onto the counter with more force than she meant to. Y/N followed, slower, setting the tote gently down on the coffee table like it might shatter. Neither of them spoke.

Taeyeon didn't sit.

She stood there, heart still racing, her hand clutched protectively in the other.

Y/N pulled out the first aid kit and the candy without ceremony. She looked small in the space, composed, yes, but not in control. For once, she seemed like a guest, an intruder in someone else's warmth.

“I owe you the truth,” she said quietly.

Taeyeon let out a soft, disbelieving laugh. “You think?”

Y/N didn’t flinch. She knelt to open the kit, unspooled a fresh roll of gauze, and looked up, not just at Taeyeon, but into her. Like she was finally ready to be seen. “You asked me what I am.”

Taeyeon didn’t respond, not yet. She just watched.

“I’m not human. I haven’t been for a long time.” A pause. “I was born in 1117.”

The silence between them crackled.

Y/N looked down at her hands, fingers steady even now. “You know the name Lee. You’ve seen it on buildings, contracts, old legacy foundations. You’ve read articles wondering who really controls the industry, where the money comes from, who pulls the strings behind the curtain. That’s me. It’s always been me.”

Taeyeon’s breath caught. “You’re the Lee. Not just someone working for them.”

Y/N nodded. “I started with shipping routes and spice. Now it’s digital infrastructure and entertainment conglomerate. I don’t need to chase power anymore. It just arrives.”

She stood, holding the gauze out gently. “Let me see your hand.”

Taeyeon hesitated, then extended it, partly to have something to focus on, partly because even now, part of her wanted Y/N close.

Y/N’s fingers were cool against her skin. Not cold like the dead, but unnaturally cool, like stone left in shade. Taeyeon realized, in that moment, that she could feel the difference, could feel that Y/N’s blood didn’t race, and didn't surge. Her touch was too still.

Y/N unwound the bloodstained linen and began to clean the wound with silent care.

“I didn’t want this,” Y/N said after a moment. “Any of it. I didn’t choose to become what I am. But centuries passed, and I adapted, survived. Watched everyone I ever loved disappear into history.”

She didn’t look up. “That’s why I pushed you away.”

Taeyeon’s jaw clenched. “No. You pushed me away because you were afraid.”

“Yes,” Y/N said. Finally looking up. “Because I like you. Too much. And that’s the problem.”

Taeyeon pulled her hand back. “So your answer is to lie? To hide? To make me feel like a fool?”

“I was trying to protect you.”

“Bullshit.” Taeyeon’s voice rose, but it cracked at the edges. “You didn’t protect me. You made decisions for me. You controlled what I got to see, what I got to feel. You gave me crumbs of a life and expected me to be grateful.”

Y/N stood now, gaze hard. “What else was I supposed to do? You’re mortal, Taeyeon. You’ll grow older, you’ll change, you’ll die. And I will look exactly the same.”

Taeyeon stepped closer. Her hands trembled, her voice didn’t. “Do you think I haven’t felt every second of it whenever you looked at me like you wanted something and then shut yourself down before I could give it to you?”

Y/N’s jaw tightened. Her whole body was still, too still, statuesque, unnatural. “This doesn’t end well.”

“It doesn’t have to end at all,” Taeyeon whispered. “Unless you want it to.”

“I can’t let myself want you.”

Taeyeon’s eyes glistened. “But you do.”

For the first time, Y/N stepped back.

“No,” she said softly, voice tight. “I don’t.”

It was a lie, so obvious it landed like glass breaking.

And still, Y/N didn’t move further. She stared at Taeyeon like that would make it real.

Taeyeon didn’t flinch. “Then why are you here?”

Y/N didn’t answer.

“Why did you show up at my door before I could even get home?”

No answer.

Taeyeon’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Why are your hands shaking now?”

Y/N closed her eyes like the words hurt.

Then Taeyeon stepped forward, close enough to hear it, that impossible, nearly absent heartbeat. A slow, distant echo, as if her chest remembered how to beat but didn’t care to keep up.

Taeyeon reached up, brushed her fingers against Y/N’s cheek. She felt the cold, the way her skin didn’t flush with heat.

“I feel alive when I’m with you, seen,” Taeyeon said. “I think you forget that you look human, you speak like one, you’ve worn this life so long, you’ve tricked yourself into thinking you don’t want to be loved anymore. But you do.”

And Y/N broke.

Not loudly, not visibly, but her breath hitched, and her shoulders dropped, and something inside her just gave, like the centuries had finally cracked and let her feel again.

Taeyeon leaned in. Slowly, carefully. She wasn’t asking, she was offering.

Y/N didn’t pull away.

Their lips met, not desperate, not soft, but necessary. Like something overdue finally arriving. The kiss wasn’t fire, it was slow, aching, devastating. Y/N’s lips were cooler than Taeyeon’s, but they trembled against hers. She kissed her like it had been a hundred years since her last breath.

Taeyeon’s hand cupped the back of her neck. Y/N’s arms wrapped around her waist, and for the first time, Y/N held on.

When they pulled apart, Taeyeon didn’t step back.

She looked into Y/N’s eyes, still wide and dark and endless.

“I’m not scared of what you are,” she whispered. “I’m scared of you running again.”

Y/N’s voice was barely a breath. “You should be scared of staying.”

“Then I’ll stay scared.”

Y/N didn’t appear in Taeyeon’s public world. No red carpets, no blurry Dispatch shots leaving restaurants or sneaking out of the houses, no subtle hints in interviews or cryptic Instagram captions. 

It was how it had to be. 

Her face hadn’t graced a camera in over a hundred years, and she intended to keep it that way. She existed just outside the frame, arriving in black cars, slipping through back doors, blending into shadows in a city that never questioned the rich or the strange.

To the world, Taeyeon remained single, focused on her art.

But in private?

Y/N was everywhere.

Her coat began appearing on the hook by Taeyeon’s front door, a pair of boots sat quietly beside Taeyeon’s. Her books, first just one or two, then whole stacks, migrated to the shelves, titles in Latin and French and languages that no longer existed. She started leaving her favorite teas in the cabinet, a particular brand of incense tucked into a drawer, her toothbrush beside Taeyeon’s.

Zero, Taeyeon’s little dog, adored her. He always knew when it was her behind the doors, tail wagging before they even opened, he followed her around with unshakable loyalty, curling at her feet as she read, letting her cradle him in her arms like a baby when she spoke to him in low, amused murmurs. Sometimes she told him stories Taeyeon didn’t hear, sometimes Taeyeon would catch her smiling, genuine, unguarded, as she scratched behind his ears.

When Taeyeon was gone for shoots, rehearsals, promotions, Y/N stayed.

She fed Zero, walked him at dawn, cleaned, and waited. Cooked things she didn’t eat, just to have something warm waiting on the stove when Taeyeon came stumbling in, bone tired and glitter worn. She didn’t need much sleep, but she stayed in the bedroom anyway, curled beneath the blankets like she wanted to pretend she was human again.

And Taeyeon let her.

Because there was something grounding about her presence, something still. Y/N didn’t fill a room, she settled into it. She made the air quieter, not heavier, like a gravity that never pulled too hard, but never let go either.

Taeyeon’s bright apartment began to chip away at Y/N’s carefully curated detachment. Her house, sleek and expensive, was all steel and glass and perfection. The sunlight poured in freely through the vast windows, gleaming across concrete floors and high ceilings. But emotionally? It felt more like a museum than a home. Every item was placed with intention, every surface spotless. The kind of space you admired from a distance, not one you fell asleep in with the TV on.

That started to change.

Y/N found herself buying flowers, not pristine bouquets, but messy, bright arrangements Taeyeon liked. She ordered a rug, plush and soft, she let Taeyeon stack records near the living room speakers and didn’t complain when Zero left paw prints on the flooring.

She even let Taeyeon place a photo.

A candid polaroid of the two of them, Taeyeon grinning, Y/N mid eye roll but visibly smirking, framed in wooden and completely out of place. Taeyeon had placed it on the nightstand without a word, daring her to remove it.

She never did.

And slowly, impossibly, this centuries old creature who had lived in silence, who had designed her world to avoid attachment, became part of someone else’s everyday life. Not just a presence, not just a secret.

But a rhythm.

Y/N hadn’t joined her on the Girls’ Generation comeback tour. That had never really been on the table, she stayed behind the way she always did when the world turned its gaze too directly on Taeyeon.

Silent, watchful, absent. A ghost written into the margins of Taeyeon’s life, always just out of frame. 

She didn’t belong in the noise of cameras or screaming crowds. Her place was in the quiet, the after, the in between, the dark velvet corners where no one ever looked.

So Taeyeon didn’t expect her in Europe, or any other stop.

She barely had time to think between flights, rehearsals, performances, and hotel rooms that blurred together in a haze of stage makeup and caffeine. Her body was running on autopilot, her smile practiced, her movements muscle memory. Exhaustion crept behind her eyes, and her voice, though she fought it, was frayed at the edges.

By the time they reached Paris, it was afternoon. The sky was gray, threatening rain, and Taeyeon limbs felt heavy with the weight of the tour. Her hotel suite, predictably high end and impersonal, greeted her with polished wood, and expensive silence. It looked like a place where rich people came to sleep alone and leave without ever unpacking.

She kicked off her shoes with a sigh, half-mindedly reached for her phone, and then saw it.

There, resting on the nightstand with the kind of ease that implied ownership, was a note. A simple, elegant card. Her name written in ink that looked too deliberate to be printed.

She picked it up with slightly trembling fingers.

A car will pick you up at 7. Wear something warm. Don’t ask questions. —Y/N

Taeyeon stood there for a full minute, staring at the message. A tiny huff of breath escaped her lips, not quite a laugh but not quite disbelief either. She shook her head, ran a tired hand through her hair, and muttered under her breath.

“Dramatic as ever.”

Still, her heart did something strange, not fast, but full. She hadn’t realized how cold the world felt until it flickered warm again, even for a second.

She changed into something simple but soft, a wool coat, dark jeans, scarf tucked at her neck, and met the clock exactly. When the elevator dinged in the lobby at 7:00 PM sharp, a black car was already waiting outside the hotel entrance. The driver didn’t speak, only nodded politely and opened the door.

The city swallowed them in slow motion.

Gone was the loud, commercial glitter of the tourist Paris she remembered from past visits. This route was different. Older, quieter. Narrow streets curled through neighborhoods untouched by time, the kind of places only locals knew. Wrought iron balconies leaned toward each other like secrets, ivy dripped from window boxes, yellow light from antique street lamps pooled across the cobblestones, softening every harsh edge into something dreamlike.

Taeyeon sat in the backseat, cradling her hands together in her lap, her fingers twitching occasionally. The silence inside the car wasn’t uncomfortable, it was charged. Her eyes flicked to the window, but her mind was already ahead, trying not to want too much from whatever this was.

Then the car stopped.

And when she looked up, her breath caught.

The building before her was old in the way that demanded reverence, six stories of pale Parisian stone, every detail handcrafted, every window reflecting the soft golden glow of the street. It wasn’t showy or towering, it was elegant, restrained, permanent. Time hadn’t touched it the way it touched everything else. If anything, time had stepped aside and let it be.

Near the building's entrance, just beyond the glow of the streetlight, stood Y/N.

A long black coat wrapped around her figure, hair pulled back in a way that made her face sharper, cleaner, like a portrait half-shadowed. She wasn’t smiling wide, she never did, but there was something in her expression that was almost fond. Something flickered behind her dark eyes.

She looked like a memory, a prophecy, a question Taeyeon had been carrying for months.

The car door opened.

Taeyeon stepped out slowly, eyes locked on hers. “You own this?” she asked, voice low, more curious than surprised.

Y/N tilted her head, a slight twitch of her lips betraying amusement. “I own the whole street,” she replied simply, as if talking about owning a pair of shoes. “But this building’s special.”

There was no arrogance in her voice, just truth. Casual in the way only the very old or the very rich could be. But her eyes never left Taeyeon’s, not for a second.

She stepped aside, holding the door open for her.

And for the first time in days, Taeyeon didn’t feel like she was arriving at another stop on a tour.

She felt like she was arriving somewhere.

There was no elevator, of course there wasn’t.

Y/N didn’t say a word about it, just glanced over her shoulder as she started up the first flight, one hand trailing the old iron banister. Taeyeon followed, already feeling her breath shift. The stairs curved like a ribbon wound through time, worn smooth in the middle from decades, maybe centuries, of quiet comings and goings. The climb was silent but not awkward, it felt sacred somehow, like each floor was shedding part of the world behind them.

By the time they reached the fifth and final level, Taeyeon wasn’t winded, but she felt the climb settle into her muscles, a quiet reminder of the day already behind her. Y/N paused just outside a deep blue door, pulled a key from her coat pocket, and turned it with a slow, familiar twist.

What opened wasn’t just a room, it was a memory that hadn’t happened yet.

The apartment unfolded in warm, dusky layers, tall ceilings and wide windows framed with gauzy curtains that moved slightly with the winter air. The wooden floors gleamed underfoot, scratched in places, uneven in others, like they’d held stories too heavy to be scrubbed clean. Books were everywhere, a low bookshelf carried nothing but vinyl records, next to a turntable that looked older than any of their fans. A flickering fireplace sat tucked in the corner beneath a mantle lined with candles, small figurines, and a single photograph that Taeyeon didn’t try to examine.

The scent of bergamot drifted through the air, clean, citrusy, anchored by something older. Like a library and a forest, like permanence.

Taeyeon stepped in slowly, taking it all in.

It wasn’t minimalist or trendy, it wasn’t trying to impress. It simply was real and alive.

Y/N shrugged off her coat with casual grace, revealing a soft knit sweater, then crossed the space with that same feline movement she always had, measured, silent, like the room recognized her weight.

“I come here when I want to forget time exists,” she said, barely above a whisper. Her voice didn’t echo, it folded into the space like it belonged there.

She led Taeyeon down a short hallway and into the bedroom.

And that was where the rest of the air left her lungs.

White curtains fluttered from a cracked window, catching the cool breeze. The city stretched out just beyond, glittering with its usual arrogance, and there, perfectly framed like a secret, was the Eiffel Tower. Lit up in gold, timeless, unapologetic. Paris pulsed beyond the glass, a city that never slept, and yet inside this room, time was suspended.

Taeyeon stood frozen, arms folded against herself.

“God,” she breathed. “This is insane.”

Y/N didn’t answer right away. She just stepped beside her and handed her a glass of deep red wine, no label, no story offered, and watched her.

“I’ve had this place for nearly two hundred years,” she said eventually, like it was a footnote. “But it’s never felt like this before.”

Taeyeon looked over at her. “Like what?”

Y/N’s smile was soft. “Like someone might remember it after me.”

They didn’t go back out, there was no need. The city could wait.

Y/N moved, not with urgency, but with the quiet certainty of someone who knew exactly what came next. She crossed the room and opened a narrow cabinet near the fireplace, fingers grazing over a small stack of vinyls until she found the one she wanted. The paper sleeve was worn, yellowed at the corners, and when she slid the record out, it caught the light like something sacred. She placed it on the turntable, a soft crackle, then music.

Slow, scratchy, full of breath and brass. Jazz, the kind that didn’t ask for attention but stole it anyway.

It wasn’t just ambiance, it was memory, a bridge between noise and stillness.

Taeyeon kicked off her shoes, the tension of travel and performance still stitched into her limbs. Her body was tired, but her heart buzzed with something sharper.

Need, maybe, or relief. She stepped onto the rug barefoot, felt the warmth in the wood beneath.

Y/N turned toward her. No words, just eyes meeting, the music filling the space between. And then they were close, closer. Bodies brushing, hands finding their place like they’d done this before, not choreographed, but known.

Taeyeon let her forehead rest against Y/N’s shoulder for a beat, just breathing her in. Then Y/N’s hand found her waist, slow and certain, thumb sweeping beneath the hem of her shirt like she needed to confirm this was real. Her other hand cradled the back of Taeyeon’s neck, fingers spreading into her hair, anchoring her.

Taeyeon’s hands slid along Y/N’s arms, then down to her hips. She pulled her closer until their torsos aligned, the soft give of their bodies syncing in lazy rhythm. They swayed, not dancing, not exactly, just moving together. The record turned, saxophone unraveling softly in the background.

Then a kiss. 

Gentle at first, just a brush. But then another, longer, deeper. The kind of kiss that hummed with memory and ache. Taeyeon’s hand slipped under the back of Y/N’s shirt, palm against skin, cool and familiar. Y/N trembled, not from cold, but from contact, and Taeyeon felt that tremble like an echo in her own spine.

They didn’t rush, didn’t speak. Just small gasps, the sound of breath shared and stolen. Taeyeon kissed along the line of Y/N’s jaw, slow and reverent, like she was reclaiming something that had been too far away for too long. Y/N’s fingers curled into the fabric of her shirt, holding on, not out of fear, but need.

Eventually, the music faded into silence, but they didn’t stop.

Their mouths found each other again as they moved toward the bed, navigating the dark by instinct. Taeyeon pulled Y/N’s sweater up slowly, kissing each inch of exposed skin as it rose. Y/N answered in kind, unfastening buttons, fingertips skating over ribs, hips, the small of her back.

By the time they reached their destination, they weren’t in a hurry, but they weren’t uncertain either.

Y/N lay back against the sheets, the faint golden glow of the Eiffel Tower beyond the window catching on the arch of her throat, the curve of her shoulder. Her skin was cool, as always, but beneath Taeyeon’s hands she warmed, breath hitching when lips met collarbone, when fingers found the small, quiet places that remembered her best.

Taeyeon moved over her like she was learning a song she already loved, slow, deliberate, reverent. Not in pieces, in wholeness.

Much later, they lay tangled in sheets that still held the warmth of skin and the weight of everything unsaid. The window remained cracked open, letting in the crisp breath of Paris night. Below them, the city murmured, soft traffic, distant voices, the occasional laughter echoing off stone walls. It was a lullaby neither of them needed, but both listened to.

Taeyeon rested her head on Y/N’s bare chest, her body curved against hers like it had always known the shape. Her fingers moved slowly, aimlessly, tracing the hollow of Y/N’s collarbone, then the soft slope of her neck.

Under her palm, Taeyeon could just barely feel it, that impossible heartbeat. Faint, measured. So far apart it didn’t seem real, like waiting for thunder after distant lightning, but each beat echoed into her like a promise. Not frequent, but present.

“You got colder again,” she murmured, her voice hazy with sleep, the words settling between them like dust.

Y/N’s hand moved through her hair gently, fingertips cool and slow against her scalp. “Sometimes it happens when I'm nervous,” she said, as if that were an ordinary thing to admit.

Taeyeon tilted her head slightly, lips brushing the underside of her jaw. “You’re nervous?”

Y/N didn’t respond right away, her gaze stayed on the ceiling above them, though her fingers stilled in Taeyeon’s hair. The silence lengthened, not empty, just tense with thought, with things coiling behind her ribs, waiting.

When she spoke, her voice was quiet, careful.

“I love you.”

Just that, not dramatic, not dressed in metaphor. Just laid down like a card she hadn’t meant to show.

It hit Taeyeon like gravity, not sudden, but heavy. Inevitable.

She froze, lips parted slightly. Her chest constricted around her next breath. “You—”

“I shouldn’t,” Y/N said quickly, eyes finally falling to hers. “I didn’t mean to, I didn’t plan for this. But I do. I do, and I don’t know how to stop falling deeper.”

Taeyeon stared up at her. The shadows in the room moved gently across her face, half darkness, half moonlight. And in that moment, she just saw her. The woman who cooked silently in her kitchen. The one who left notes in the margins of books. The one who stood in doorways watching her sleep like she still couldn’t believe she was real.

The silence that followed wasn’t awkward, it was massive, it was breathing. Holding space for something bigger than fear.

Slowly, Taeyeon lifted herself, her palm pressed flat over Y/N’s heart, not searching, just feeling. Then slowly, she lowered her head back to Y/N’s chest, arms sliding tighter around her waist.

“I love you too,” she said finally, voice soft but solid.

Y/N didn’t say anything. But her hand moved again through Taeyeon’s hair.

“And I know you love Zero just as much as I do,” Taeyeon added. “Especially after you canceled that whole meeting just because he wouldn’t eat unless you held his bowl.”

Y/N smiled, lips against Taeyeon’s temple. “He’s dramatic.”

“So are we,” Taeyeon said, and they both almost laughed.

Then quieter, almost an afterthought. “Zero was right, by the way.”

Y/N tilted her head slightly. “About what?”

“The first time he met you,” Taeyeon said, lifting her chin to look at her. “He liked you right away, he already knew.”

Her fingers brushed along Y/N’s jaw, light and sure.

“He knew we were going to be something more.”

And there it was, no dramatic crescendo, just truth, soft and unshakable, settling between them like a vow.

The magic of Paris didn’t fade, but life crept back in like fog, soft, slow, inevitable.

When Taeyeon returned to Seoul, her schedule resumed with its usual storm of recordings, rehearsals, fan events, and cameras. The world expected her to keep glowing, and she did. But now, the light had a new source, a quiet one, one that didn’t ask for credit.

Y/N stayed close, she slipped between the cracks of Taeyeon’s world with practiced ease, always present, never public. She spent more nights at the apartment, her things now a permanent fixture, her scent embedded in the pillows. Zero curled at her feet like he’d always known her.

But with routine came friction, intimacy uncovered things distance had once hidden.

The fight happened on a random Thursday. It wasn’t explosive, it was a slow burn, ignited by something small, as most things are. A comment, a look, an unanswered text that Taeyeon hadn’t even realized mattered.

Y/N had been quiet all day, and Taeyeon, exhausted from a twelve-hour shoot and frayed from too many people needing too many things, snapped.

“If something’s wrong, just say it. Don’t freeze me out like I’m supposed to guess what I did.”

Y/N had blinked at her, calm and cold. “I’m not freezing you out. I’m giving you space.”

“I don’t want space, I want honesty.”

“And I want time to process before being cornered into performing feelings.”

It escalated from there, old insecurities bubbled up. Taeyeon accused Y/N of disappearing when things got hard. Y/N accused Taeyeon of wanting control, not connection. The room felt too small for their words.

But even in anger, they stuck to the one rule they’d made early on, spoken quietly that night in Paris. 

“We don’t go to bed angry, we don’t sleep until we fix it. Even if fixing it is messy.”

So when the apartment fell quiet, neither of them stormed off, they didn’t slam doors. Instead, Taeyeon curled on one end of the couch, arms crossed, breathing hard. Y/N sat on the floor nearby, legs drawn up, forehead pressed to her knees.

Eventually, Taeyeon exhaled, voice low. “I’m scared you’ll vanish again. That one day I’ll wake up and your coat won’t be by the door, and you won’t come back.”

Y/N looked up, and something in her face softened. “And I’m scared I’ll mess this up because I’ve forgotten how to be with someone who doesn’t leave.”

They sat in that fear together, let it breathe, let it sting.

Then Taeyeon slid off the couch and onto the floor beside her. She reached out, fingers brushing Y/N’s hand.

“Okay,” she said. “So let’s mess it up together, but not like this. Not tonight.”

Y/N nodded once, slow. “Not tonight.”

Later, tangled in blankets that still held the heat of arguments and the chill of reconciliation, Taeyeon murmured into the quiet, “We're not perfect.”

Y/N replied, her voice almost a whisper, “Good, perfect is boring.”

They fell asleep like that, not really fixed. But choosing each other again.

Always choosing, even when it hurt.

It had been a year and a half since the first kiss, a year and a half of hidden mornings, of fingers brushing in darkened corners, of learning the shape of each other in silence and light. It hadn’t been perfect. There had been arguments, tension, nights when the gap between them felt centuries wide. But through it all, they kept choosing each other, again and again, until choosing started to feel like habit, like breathing.

The night it happened, Taeyeon was tired to the bone.

The snow had followed her to Y/N home, soft and constant, blanketing the city in quiet. She stepped into the villa after another late-night recording session, her hair damp with melted flakes, her fingers curled around a paper tea cup that had long since gone cold. Her eyeliner was smudged at the corners, her shoulders sloped in that way that only came from being needed in too many places at once.

She didn’t expect anything different.

Y/N rarely waited by the door, she was usually tucked away in the living room with a book or sprawled across the couch with Zero dozing beside her, always giving Taeyeon the space to arrive before filling it with anything.

But tonight was different.

Tonight, Y/N met her at the door.

She opened it before Taeyeon could reach for the handle, like she’d been standing just on the other side, listening for the sound of footsteps in the snow. The light from the hallway spilled into the night, catching the edges of her pale features and the faint tension in her shoulders. She looked beautiful, untouched by time, as always, but there was something else in her face tonight. Something open, something almost fragile.

Taeyeon blinked, caught off guard. “You’re waiting.”

“I was listening,” Y/N said softly, her gaze sweeping over her, the messy eyeliner, the chapped lips, the quiet weariness. “You always make a sound when you shift your bag to your left side. Like your shoulder’s sore.”

Taeyeon smiled tiredly. “It is.”

“I know.”

And then she stepped back, just enough to let her in. The door closed gently behind them, muffling the cold.

Taeyeon paused, standing in the entranceway, taking in the space that had changed without her realizing it.

There were shoes by the door, hers, not tucked away like a guest's. Her scarf hung beside Y/N’s coat. A photo of the three of them, her, Y/N, and Zero, framed and resting on the hallway table. The scent of sandalwood and vanilla hung in the air, mingling with the faint aroma of something still warm in the kitchen.

It didn’t feel like a gallery anymore.

It felt lived in.

She turned, ready to comment on it, to make a joke maybe, but Y/N was watching her with a look that stopped her in her tracks. Quiet, intent, like the moment had already started without her.

And then she spoke, barely above a whisper, but it hit Taeyeon with the force of something irreversible.

“Would you like to stay?”

Taeyeon’s lips parted, breath caught somewhere between surprise and wanting.

“Not just tonight,” Y/N added, stepping closer. “Not just sometimes. All the time.”

It wasn’t a plea, no. Y/N didn’t beg. But it wasn’t casual either, the words trembled under their own weight, centuries of solitude pressing against this one moment, asking if it could finally end.

Taeyeon didn’t say anything right away. She just looked at her, like really looked.

And then she nodded.

Not once, not quickly. Just a slow, quiet movement that felt like surrender, like a promise.

“Yes,” she said, voice catching slightly in her throat. “I’m tired of leaving and switching houses. Zero too.”

Y/N exhaled, the kind of breath you let go only when you realize you’d been holding it forever.

They didn’t do anything grand that night, no boxes, no champagne. Just two people claiming a space that had already started becoming theirs a long time ago.

They rearranged rooms slowly over the next weeks. One lamp, one drawer, one toothbrush at a time. Taeyeon added color to the guest room until it didn’t feel like a guest room anymore. Zero got his own corner in the living room, a bed by the window, surrounded by plush toys and a spot he had already claimed as his nap kingdom.

They cooked together, burned rice together, laughed over spilled wine and broken dishes. Y/N started writing, sometimes in a leather-bound notebook, sometimes on the back of receipts. Taeyeon left lyrics on sticky notes in the kitchen. They made tea for each other. 

The villa stopped echoing.

The walls, once too clean and too perfect, started to carry the faint sounds of a life being lived.

And though the city outside never knew Y/N name, Taeyeon no longer cared.

Because home wasn’t the skyline, or the fame, or the crowd. Home was a space where someone like Y/N had chosen her.

And she had chosen back

It was one of those rare quiet nights, the kind that slipped in between chaos like a secret. Outside, the wind whispered against the glass, soft and steady, carrying the smell of rain before it fell. Inside, the world was still. The movie played low on the TV, some old black and white classic Taeyeon barely remembered the title of, she wasn’t really watching.

She was listening.

Y/N sat beside her on the couch, long legs stretched out, a blanket pulled halfway over them both. Her posture was lazy, elegant. One arm slung across the back of the couch, the other resting against Taeyeon’s thigh. Taeyeon’s head lay cradled on her shoulder, tucked beneath the line of her jaw, where she could hear the faintest sound of her heart.

If you could call it that.

It wasn’t like hers. Y/N’s heartbeat didn’t tick in time with anything normal. It came slow, leisurely, as if it had forgotten urgency altogether. One dull thud every few minutes, like a drumbeat echoing in a vast, empty cathedral. Her skin was cool under the blanket, cool even in the warmth of their home. Taeyeon had grown used to it, sort of.

There were still nights it caught her off guard, the sharp contrast between their temperatures, between their rhythms. But it didn’t bother her anymore, it only reminded her that time didn’t touch Y/N the same way it touched everyone else.

And maybe, she thought, maybe that didn’t have to stay true forever.

She adjusted slightly, the edge of the blanket shifting, and reached for the remote, turning the volume down even lower, just a murmur now.

“Can I ask you something?” she said quietly, not lifting her head.

Y/N’s fingers moved lazily against her leg. “You always can.”

Taeyeon hesitated, just a breath, just long enough to hear the next slow beat of Y/N’s heart.

“If I wanted you to turn me,” she started, voice gentle but certain, “would you?”

The silence that followed wasn’t loud.

It was delicate.

Y/N didn’t jerk away, didn’t react with fear or anger. She simply stilled. Just slightly, just enough that Taeyeon felt it in her bones, like the pause before something monumental shifts.

“I’m not saying now,” Taeyeon added quickly, her words trying to soften the blow she might have just dealt. “I know I still have time. I want to finish my career properly, I want a few more concerts, and a few more albums. I want to leave the stage right.”

She lifted her head slowly, eyes searching Y/N’s face, not demanding, just open.

“But after that I think I’ll be ready to disappear too. If that means giving up the spotlight, the timelines, the whole human routine. I’d do it. I would, I’d choose it. I’d choose you.”

Y/N blinked once, then again. Her expression didn’t crack, but something in her eyes, something old, something wounded, flickered.

She didn’t answer right away.

Instead, her hand slipped quietly over Taeyeon’s, fingers threading through hers with a kind of reverence, like holding something breakable. She brought it to her lips, and with excruciating tenderness, kissed each finger, one by one, slow and deliberate, like a ceremony.

“You always did know how to scare me,” she murmured.

Taeyeon didn’t flinch, she only looked at her. Certain, steady.

Y/N leaned in then, finally closing the space between them, and kissed her, not fast, not hungry. But deep, grounded. A kiss that didn’t ask for anything and didn’t promise too much. A kiss that held, that acknowledged, that sealed.

Not now, not yet. 

But someday.

Yes.

And when they pulled away, their foreheads touched, and Taeyeon’s eyes fluttered shut. The decision had been made. Quiet and irrevocable.

Y/N would carry the weight of eternity a little differently now, because it would no longer just be hers to carry.

[melondecarabia]

hey there 👋 may i suggest a smut one with alan as a follow up of your hc? we are DEPRIVED here ;) dom reader x unexperienced-touchstarved if possible. go wild with it for the rest, whatever you feel

˙⟡ like a prayer 

alan x dominant fem reader 

smut, comfort 

mdni! 

authors note: and i did go wild. this is what listening to madonna in the morning does to you. also, this is my first full length smut fic.

tw: insecure and touchstarved alan, passing out, heresy? SMUT! crying

This is a cycle he started himself, so why is he nervous? 

He's the one who insisted on fixing the door of the dorm. 

He's the one who insisted it wouldn't be trouble. 

Even after only a few days of speaking to each other, it was clear that you'd be the type of person to pay things back, even with insistence that it wasn't necessary. And that could've been a simple, one time exchange. But, overhearing that your couch was unstable, only one passing memory of sharing fresh, homebaked bread was enough to start the cycle. 

"Hi Alan! You hungry yet? Let me tell you, I got a good deal on those soup ingredients-" It's too sudden to give a reaction. The friendly smile distracts, the excited voice makes a staggering blow, and the guiding touch is a knockout. But he doesn't make any attempt to shake it off, even if the warmth feels like a thousand needles. Because it feels like fitting punishment. 

Words or actions aren't needed here. In fact, you specifically tell him to relax on the chair you've pulled out, leaving his shoulder to sting like a bleeding cut in the absence of warmth. It's both frustrating and calming to watch you wipe down the kitchen counter, with nothing to do but stare at the action. 

That plain white t-shirt makes you look like one of the angels depicted downstairs. "Alan? Do you want croutons with your soup?" He's never been religious, but something about that question is connected with communion bread in the moment. Wait, there's a question being asked. "Yeah. Yes, sure." And that's all that the leaden tongue he's got can do right now. Ah. This table needs a new coat of lacquer. 

˙⟡

Alan acts like a skittish stray whenever you two are alone, but keeps coming back. At least the plates set in front of him always get thoroughly cleaned, and there's yet to be any complaints. Would he keep silent about his dislikes or uncomfortability? Hopefully, the answer is no. The sleeves of the slightly crumpled shirt on him are rolled down, even with the warm weather. 

˙⟡

Alan hadn't even noticed the figure slightly crouching closeby. He feels the need to sever eye contact to avoid any disrespect. It's much easier to look at how the white cotton falls on- oh. No bra? Uh- "The desk. One of the legs- it's loose, right? Yeah." Please have mercy. In an effort to not choke on a deafening heartbeat, he gets to fetching the toolbox set atop a wooden wardrobe. It'd be better for the both of you if you'd just… let him fix everything in the dorm while you're away. And never say anything about it. Ever. 

˙⟡

The reaching motion reveals the skin between cuff and glove, blooming with shades between violent purple and nauseating green. "What happened?" It's an obvious reason to express concern, but Alan flinches like a little bird. People call the tall man dangerous, yet he acts scared to be eaten alive by you. Well, that's sort of reasonable, what with some desires yet to be said out loud. His mouth moves without sound, but freezes with a light touch to inspect the bruises. 

˙⟡

The only thing being processed between pierced ears at the moment is the thumb lightly resting on the pulse point of his thick wrist, and the sound of the deep sea that only Alan could hear right now. A sudden need for water becomes clear. 

˙⟡

His face has changed color from pale and sickly to strawberry red concerningly quickly. That, combined with the unresponsiveness to questions about the origin of your concerns, gives reason to call for some help. "Hello? You look like you're about to pass out. Sit down for now, okay?" At least he won't fall over and hit his head now. With that out of the way, the phone is left back in- 

"Alan?" A gentle grasp motions for you to stay. Well, it could hardly be described as a grasp, as the delicate touch barely even registered at first. "Don't." Not a command, but a soft plead. The vacant look changes with the brush of three digits against heated cheekbone, to something resembling more the face of a man seeking salvation. 

˙⟡

He already felt selfish the first time you'd said his name. He's a greedy monster, for even considering to reach out a hand to stop you. But all that this body can do at the moment, is lean in to get as much contact as possible. A bolt of lightning strikes at the gentleness of a palm on his cheek, and the electric shivers shut down any protesting thoughts. Only the warmth of your presence matters here. For the first time ever, the world is quiet. 

˙⟡

He seems satisfied with kneeling on the floor, and is no longer changing into concerning colors, as far as his face goes. The forearms, on the other hand… "Sweetheart? Could you tell me where you got those bruises, please?" A brief furrow of brows gets schooled back into neutrality within a second. You flick away a newly forming droplet as apology for breaking the silence, which gains a pleased hum. "Was sparring. Nothing much…" A reluctant mumble. The only person he regularly spars with is Sho, and even if the blond had managed to land a surprise kick or punch, they don't bruise like this. Time to play bad cop for a bit. "Sweetheart. These don't look like they came from a fight. What really happened?" 

˙⟡

Every lie, no matter how few he's told you, always get caught. Angels really are all-seeing. Or was that just god? "Car jack gave out. Nothing's broken." He had sighed the confession, and at the moment, he hoped you wouldn't say anything. He hoped you'd never see him again, and he hoped that you'd look at him forever. He hoped that you'd leave right now, and he hoped that you'd stay in place together. The slightest glimpse of a worried face had his eyes screwing shut. He prayed you would forgive him for thinking about you. 

Another hand joins to grasp his jawline. Both brows are caressed with feather light touches, and Alan fears he might go blind if he looks at you again. Pity would stab, and disappointment would kill. But this needs to be resolved, and your face as the last image his eyes see was already something desired late at night. The heaviest boulder in existence knocks the breath out of his lungs, and settles at the pit of his stomach with the vision of a smile. It's grounding, even with the helium replacing oxygen at the moment. "Alan." A fond voice. "You're important to me. Please, if you won't do it, let me take care of you. I want to." 

What expression can a person make when witnessing a miracle? Disbelief? Wonder? What takes over is the clarity of acceptance. 

All of the monstrous strength that came with an infernal encounter is stripped away. It's scary, but you're here. "Okay." And weakness takes over, all power spent to lean on clothed thighs. He can't bring himself to stain you with touch, but those thoughts melt away when his hair is blessed by soft caressing. "You're so beautiful. I want to look at you for the rest of time." 

˙⟡

A sound of confusion for your statement. His dark eyelashes glitter with dewdrops, and you can't stop speaking now. 

"Soft lips," Your thumb swipes at the slightly cracked, yet plush lower lip. A swipe of tongue wets it just after being released. 

"Pretty eyes," It continues to travel just below the lashline. Fluttery movement gives a kiss of thanks. 

"Handsome nose," Eyes cross when his gaze follows the movement trailing the bridge of it. His heartbeat follows the rhythm of the words being spoken. 

"Cute ears," A new, softer blush settles all over as the piercings move lightly when you fiddle with his lobes. This may cause a problem. 

"A lovely neck," The problem is rising faster than expected, especially as your hands trail to his clavicle. 

˙⟡

"Wait." A last attempt to stay sane. There's already a strongly contrasting hardness to the softness you're offering, and he can't let it break whatever image you have, even if it's false. Now, to choose. How does he hide it? Shuffling his knees was clearly the wrong answer, as your keen eyes already stare down. Damn it. "Sweetheart?" Eye contact is out of the question right now, so a nod will have to do as acknowledgement. "Would you let me admire you more? Hah? You clearly saw the, well, his excitement? But your expression hasn't soured, like it should've. "If you want to continue, just nod. I'll take care of you. If you don't, just shake your head. We can do something else. We could have dinner or watch a movie." 

Alan's not that smart, but this question would be difficult to answer, even with all the wisdom in the world. You seem to notice the hesitancy to choose. "I would like to sleep with you, Alan. I want to do everything nice, unpleasant and boring with you, for the rest of my life. You deserve everything good." Static fills the room. "I love you." And there's only certainty and affection in your eyes. Your face. Your whole being. So, he'll believe in you. 

With little movement, he accepts. Alan is glad he did, as the smile on your lips widened, and met the one on his. Soft lips… and a flavor of peach. A marathon is easy work, but the kiss has him gasping for air after 10 seconds. "Don't wanna hurt you." That would shatter him. "I know you won't. If you're scared, just grasp your hands together like this. Okay?" Your hands bring his own together to something like a prayer. Fingers lapping over the others. It's fitting, in this building and position, in front of you. 

˙⟡

A wordless instruction makes the man move, to face your place on the bed. He's tall, even like this, and the head of dark hair almost reaches to chest height. All attention is concentrated on the movement of hands trailing from knees to tied waistband. A hitch of breath can be heard when the knot is pulled open. Cute. "Come a bit closer, okay?" Even with the wonders of the anomalous world, you've never seen his eyes shine quite like this, as the clothing moves to uncover your intimacy. 

˙⟡

Alan's mouth is both dry and filled with drool at the same time, and is swallowed down slowly. This is like a familiar dream, but a tightening of the left hand assures it's real. A motion of recently bared leg makes him jump, then sigh with relief as it settles between his own, and a gentle hand guides him to rest on the top of your thighs. Even if clouds can't be touched, the silkiness is what he's always imagined the texture to be like anyway. The sudden rocking motion of your calf against his erection pulls a deep gasp, but gets suffocated by hiding his face in the valley formed below. 

˙⟡

A groan forms when you keep repeating the motion, and he finally lifts his head to seek mercy. Even through the thick uniform slacks, his size is clearly significant. So, in order to prepare, your left leg remains in place for his hips to keep grinding against, and the right is lifted up on the bed. "Wanna eat me out?" There's already a faraway look present, but it's broken with the question. An eager nod gives the sign for needed instructions, and you move his head to look where the white of the t-shirt ends. Just as you're about to explain, a broad tongue interrupts by settling on the opening and dragging upwards. It takes a moment to gather your words back from where they left with the sigh caused by that. "Just like that. Focus on that spot, yeah?" Index, middle and ring fingers help point to the gathering of nerves. "It's really sensitive, and makes me feel good. Get me to cum once, and we'll move on. Okay, sweetheart?" There's a growing want to squish his cheeks, and that's what you do, before clutching the sheets to stay grounded. 

˙⟡

The taste is salty, but not like sweat, or even tears. It's really good. Tough to keep going though, as when his tongue digs deeper to get more, the distracting movement below starts again. Hah… really concentrating all focus on continuing his mission, Alan squeezes his hands together for some clarity. Trailing back up to the point that had been highlighted, your leg moves a bit stronger against the drenched fabric. It felt good… but he needs more of everything. So, wrapping his lips where his tongue stopped, a harsh sucks triggers a moan of satisfaction. You liked that… so the action is repeated, again, and again, with the feeling of pressure building up on both sides. Every nerve is on fire, all senses are stimulated. Scent, taste, touch, hearing, and even sight as he catches your pleased expression even through blurring eyes. 

˙⟡

He's making so much noise down there… A pleasant jolt strikes that thought down as the wet muscle starts lapping up slick before it can drip down. Rewarding Alan with a different angle to rut against, the slightly coarse appendage goes even deeper, with the bridge of his nose hitting a sensitive spot. Both of your hips are stuttering as an oncoming sign of being close to the finish line. There might not be experience on his part, but determination is clearly enough- he gives a loud groan as response to being squished between your thighs. 

˙⟡

Just a bit more. Hands squeeze together even tighter. Just a bit longer until… The pressure is increasing in the pit of his stomach, just above where he can't stop his hips from rolling. Needs more of this… And another harsh suck coats his tongue with more of your flavor, and a last movement against each other sparks a flash of light that knocks him out for a few minutes. 

˙⟡

Just barely awake, the man is drooling in your lap with heaving shoulders. His focus is starting to come back, after a few minutes of getting to play with his surprisingly soft hair. There's still a twitching motion against your calf. "Good job, honey. Thank you." What an adorable smile he gives after a few kisses against his forehead. You'd give him a thousand more, every day. "What-uh, what's next?" This shade of pink fits him so well. "Sit on the bed, okay?" After a moment to process the request, he settles against the sturdy headboard. You take the opportunity to shed the last piece of clothing to some dark corner of the room. Now, to uncover him… 

˙⟡

Alan was already satisfied once, but the sight of your bare chest somehow gets him even harder. He's managed to keep his hands together all this time, and not even a hint of bruise red can be seen on you… It worked. Good. "May I undress you?" You're glowing. It's easy to picture snow colored wings to frame this image- right, all his clothes are still on. With a nod, one by one the buttons of his shirt are opened. The cool air sends shivers all over, but static takes over with your fingers trailing the path down to the waistband, which is completely drenched by now. "Haaaahhhhh…" The warmth of a palm sends out a shockwave, a complete opposite against the cold fabric. He leans back, and sets focus on the ceiling. A button opens, followed by the zipper. Now, the last thing covering him is a pair of dark gray boxers. "Lift your hips a little, please?" Immediate action is rewarded with freedom, as the clothing is pulled down. A sigh of relief… broken by a low moan from himself, as a soft hand wraps around his dick. 

˙⟡

Huh. The flushed tip nearly slapped his own belly button, and the shaft itself struggles to stay up under it's own weight. Alan's nearly crying… He should cry a bit more, in your opinion. Not from sadness, though. From pleasure. With only the unbuttoned uniform shirt and vest remaining, they've shifted aside to reveal muscle cushioned by smooth flesh. The skin under your index finger shivers, and then jumps as when it reaches a pebbled nipple. Satisfying. Crossed hands rest just below his heaving ribcage. "Alan? Lay down, so your head is on the pillows, okay?" Did you just hear a whimper? 

˙⟡

You're settled just above his dick, which has started to twitch to the tune of a thundering heartbeat. So much is happening, and already has happened, yet it feels peaceful. The hands that brush against his chest feel more intense than a thousand beatings, and he's comforted by it. Hah- you're grabbing his dick. Okay- 

All coherent thought leaves Alan's head immediately. All he can do to stay on the mortal plane right now, is to clasp his hands together even tighter. His abdomen caves as tears well up. He might die right now. Just a glance down- you're not even halfway down, but the pressure is at 80% already. Haahh. 

˙⟡

He's shaking like an autumn leaf right now, and there's a few teardrops rolling down already. Almost there… The burn of the stretch is noticeable, but not impossible to handle. Certainly worth it for this view as well. Huh? A look back up confirms it. Soundless cries are accompanied by tears and a heaving chest for each movement you make. The two of you are almost completely connected, so… you drop down the rest of the way. A warm feeling gathers inside you, and it's not just the emotion of love. 

˙⟡

Can't see anything but stars… Ah. Is that ceiling…? Was it a dream? Where- Still here. A white ring has formed where you stretch around him. Focus. Focus on your hands. Okay- so unfair. Both of your hands are playing with his chest, squeezing, rolling, and pinching. Alan realizes he might, and most likely will, pass out very soon. Working out hasn't helped in the slightest with this situation. The room is a bit dim, with the only sources of light coming from the kitchen and faded sunlight through the window, but they illuminate your silhouette. The unshed tears left make everything a bit hard to see, but the halo crowning you is clearer than anything could ever be. "Alan." A distant voice echoes. 

˙⟡

He's silent, but reacts with a smile. Not the usual, subdued one. This one shows off sharp canines, and his brows aren't furrowed, but instead relaxed, despite the flowing tears. There's no prettier smile in existence, you realize. Or sight. Or sound, which is the low groan he makes in harmony with the first roll of your hips. Love and lust may be clouding the air here, but it's the truth to you. Flushed cheeks, comparable with rosy afternoon clouds, and tears, to rival stars in the cold night. Alan's chest heaves with stutters at the feeling of velvet dragging him to heaven. Pressure builds back up with each up-and-down, and as much as you'd like to keep staring at him for days on end, there's no stopping now. 

˙⟡

Alan's not a masochist, but the pain that increases with each moment closer to another orgasm feels really damn good. He lifts his head in hopes that you'd give another kiss. Was it said out loud, or did you hear his prayer? Not sure, but the sweet kiss you set on his lips is so fulfilling, his eyes roll back, and he manages to reach ecstacy yet again. 

˙⟡

You can feel his body shudder and relax with a final groan. And with a couple movements, you join him in the bright light that only appears behind closed eyes. 

˙⟡

It takes a good ten minutes of breathing to even consider moving. The silence gives a good moment to admire his sleeping form. Alan really looks like an angel. But, instead of wings, dark eyelashes flutter with each light touch to his jawline. 

Unfortunately, the need to drink water keeps growing. The motion to get off of his hips is stopped by a large hand on your thigh. 

…those pleading eyes are lethal. 

[chic-a-gigot]

La Mode illustrée, no. 11, 17 mars 1901, Paris. Costume de promenade avec jaquette ouverte ou fermée. Modèle de Mmes Brun-Cailleux, rue de Verneuil, 54. Ville de Paris / Bibliothèque Forney

Ce costume, fait en covert-coat rouge grenat, est garni de bandes piquées. La jaquette ajustée, pouvant être portée ouverte ou fermée, est faite avec un col rabattu, taillé en pointes et orné de biais de satin noir; des biais semblables cerclent également les manches ajustées. On ferme la jaquette au moyen de boutons d'or et l'on complète le costume par une chemisette en surah crème.

La calotte du chapeau canotier, en paille maïs, est entourée d'un ruban de velours rouge grenat; le devant est garni d'un gros chou en soie maïs et rouge.

Ombrelle en soie crème, brodée de rayures rouges et montée sur une tige en bois blanc laqué, terminée par une poignée de fantaisie.

—

This suit, made of a garnet-red covert coat, is trimmed with quilted bands. The fitted morning coat, which can be worn open or closed, has a turned-down collar, cut into points and adorned with black satin bias binding; similar bias binding also encircles the fitted sleeves. The morning coat is fastened with gold buttons and the suit is completed with a cream-colored surah chemisette.

The crown of the boater hat, made of corn straw, is surrounded by a garnet-red velvet ribbon; the front is trimmed with a large corn and red silk bow.

A cream-colored silk parasol, embroidered with red stripes, mounted on a white lacquered wooden stem, finished with a decorative handle.

[cloversnstrawberries]

Can you make a part two of platonic yan wesker with B.O.W teen reader??? It has to be one of the best fics I have ever read

HELLO YES!! I AM ACTUALLY WORKING ON IT AS WE SPEAK :)) and i have,,, a little teaser to share since it's taking a little while longer,, nyehehehe...

"eschatological hope" platonic!yandere!albert wesker & B.O.W!teen!reader [pt 2 teaser] ! !

part 1 !

warnings; mentions of child/human experiments, guns, canon typical violence + body horror, non-consensual body modification (the scientists altered reader with a virus strain </3), and there might be more i missed, if so, please lmk!!

w/c; 416

It could be... worse, you've decided. You could've ended up in much worse conditions-- for starters, you could've ended up dead, or mutated beyond recognition. Apparently, you're the only one in that facility to have considered anywhere near a success.

Still, your life was far from good-- if it could even be called that at this point. It was far from what the life of a normal person your age should be experiencing. You should be outside, sitting under a big tree and reading a book (like they do in movies), or staying inside and playing on your family's SNES (like you realistically know teenagers do).

But here you were, stuck in yet another facility. You'll at least admit that this was a massive upgrade from where you'd previously been, sure,

Deep down, you knew that-- no matter how pretty the cage is, even if it's covered in jewels and gilded gold; even if it sparkled in the sun and let you have a view of the outside world...

It was still a cage. Even if the sterile white tiles of the lab were replaced with lacquered hardwood floors, and the madness-inducingly white walls at every turn were replaced with different wallpapers and paint colors from room to room.

There were no other kids here-- you never saw anyone except the man who'd... rescued you. Even if it doesn't seem like much of an improvement, going from captivity in one place to the other, this was living like royalty compared to what you'd experienced prior.

Cramped bunkrooms, guns pressed to your back at any chance-- kids coming in and out, making friends only to never see them again; or witness them transform into something entirely unlike themselves. For their bodies to tear and morph, until they no longer looked like your friends.

Until they no longer looked human.

...And you guess, in the end, you don't like quite human either. You're much better off then any of the other kids, and on the surface you could almost pass as entirely human--

Except for your eyes.

They were reflective, like a nocturnal animal's were. Like the critters that sometimes rifled through your trashcans, and you mom would hand you a broom and tell them to get out of there.

But for a placed called Raccoon City, there was a hell of lot more opossums then there every were raccoons. You'd only every shooed away raccoons a couple of times-- hardly saw them for the most part, actually.

[niteshade925]

April 20, Beijing, China, National Museum of China/中国国家博物馆 (Part 7 – Ancient Chinese Food Culture exhibition/中国古代饮食文化展):

Happy Chinese New Year and Lunar New Year to everyone in advance! Wishing everyone success in the Year of the Snake! 祝大家蛇年吉祥，万事如意！

CNY and LNY traditions vary by region, but the one thing that is definitely shared by everyone is that there's bound to be a family feast on the Eve (which for this year will be the 28th of January), so today's post will be quite fitting. Let us begin with alcohol-related artifacts:

The Alcohol (酒/jiǔ)*:

Liao dynasty (916 - 1125) gold wine vessel, where this type of vessel is named zhihu/执壶. Typically when you see similarly shaped vessels in Chinese period dramas, wuxia or xianxia shows, or animated shows, regardless of the material, it's always a wine vessel. The detailed low relief motifs of bird and flowers was crafted using repoussé and chasing techniques, together called zanke/錾刻 in Chinese:

*Note: although in this post I will be alternating between using "wine" and "alcohol" as the translation for jiu/酒, jiu can refer to all types of alcoholic drinks, and usually a descriptor will be added before jiu to create a new word for a specific type of alcoholic beverage. For example, wine would be called putaojiu/葡萄酒 in Chinese (lit. "grape alcohol"), and cocktails would be called jiweijiu/鸡尾酒 in Chinese (lit. "cocktail alcohol"). The names of traditional Chinese alcohols are descriptive in other ways, for example baijiu/白酒 (lit. "white alcohol"; actually it's colorless) and huangjiu/黄酒 (lit. "yellow alcohol"). Beer is called pijiu/啤酒 (lit. "beer alcohol") in Chinese, where pi/啤 is a homophonic translation of the English word beer.

Liao dynasty gold wine cups decorated with gold filigree, depicting clouds and birds:

Liao dynasty gold wine jug with a short spout in the shape of a beast head. The overall shape with flat ridges arranged vertically all around the vessel is called gualeng/瓜棱 (lit. "melon ridges"), so named because it resembles the shape of a ribbed melon.

China has a long history of making and drinking alcohol, which started at around 7000 BC. In the very beginning, alcohol was only produced in small amounts, so its use was reserved for ceremonies and celebrations. From roughly Han dynasty (202 BC - 220 AD) to Northern Song dynasty (960 - 1127) was the time period during which traditional Chinese alcohol making had matured. The famous Tang-era (618 - 907 AD) drunk poet Li Bai/李白 lived during this period of time.

Warring States period (476 - 221 BC) bronze wine jug inlaid with gold and silver:

Qing dynasty (1644 - 1911) enamel wine cups:

Beishan Jiujing/《北山酒经》 or "The Classic of Wine" by Zhu Yizhong/朱翼中 of Northern Song dynasty. This book covered the history of alcohol in China, and described alcohol making methods of the time, specifically the methods used to produce alcohol on a large scale.

8 Types of bronze wine vessels from Shang (·1600 - 1046 BC) and Zhou dynasties (1046 - 256 BC):

The Tea (茶/chá):

China also has a long history of growing and drinking tea, being the country where the beverage originated from. Specifically, tea drinking first started in what is now Yunnan province, developed into a culture in Sichuan, then spread to all of China and beyond.

Qing dynasty duck-shaped tin teapot:

Qing dynasty Qianlong era (1736 - 1796) lacquered teacup, decorated with a poem by the Qianlong Emperor, the same poem as the jade gaiwan/盖碗 from the jade exhibition. The technique of decorating here is called diaoqi/雕漆, where different colored lacquer were layered onto the object, and then patterns would be carved into the thick lacquer, revealing the layers of colors.

A flowchart of the tea preparing and making process in Song dynasty (960 - 1276), called diancha/点茶, which influenced Japanese tea culture. Because of the complexity of the diancha process, it was abandoned in Ming dynasty (1368 - 1644) in favor of simply steeping tea leaves in water.

A video showing the Song-era diancha tea making process. This exact video also plays in the exhibition:

The Food (食/shí):

A Western Han dynasty (202 BC - 8 AD) small bronze hot pot, called a ranlu/染炉. Contrary to the modern Chinese hot pot where food cooked by boiling would be dipped in a bowl of room temperature condiments before eating, during Han dynasty people liked hot condiments, so this small hot pot was actually specifically for heating the condiments as people ate.

Various lacquered food containers from different dynasties.

Left: Western Han dynasty lacquered food container replica; when the original artifact was unearthed, it contained what seemed to be flatbread.

Middle: Ming dynasty 5-layered stacked lacquered food containers, held together with buttons, and decorated with diaoqi technique.

Right: Qing dynasty begonia-shaped lacquered fruit container, also decorated with diaoqi technique.

Qing dynasty tin tripod hot pot. This is a traditional Manchu hotpot, and its structure is quite similar to the classic Beijing style copper hotpot (I couldn't find anything that confirms a connection between the two, however). Both have a central chamber in the middle for charcoal (heat source), and the cooking is done in the heated water around the central chamber. The two biggest differences are the presence/absence of the tall "chimney" structure above the central chamber, and the material used. The reason this hotpot is tin may be because copper was mostly used to mint coins during Qing dynasty.

These two books were actually on display over at the Science and Technology exhibition, but I moved them here because that post was getting a bit too long. Since both books are about agriculture, they fit into this post quite well. The book on the left is Qimin Yaoshu/《齐民要术》 by Jia Sixie/贾思勰 in Northern Wei dynasty (386 - 534 AD), translated as either "Essential Techniques for the Welfare of the People" (the more accurate translation imho) or "Essential Techniques for the Peasantry". It is an encyclopedia on a wide range of agricultural and food processing techniques. The book on the right is Nongzheng Quanshu/《农政全书》 by Xu Guangqi/徐光启 in Ming dynasty, translated as "Complete Treatise on Agricultural Administration". This book is also an encyclopedia that covers agricultural techniques, but also has long sections covering what to do in response to floods and famines.

Pretty interesting and self-explanatory chart on when some crops, vegetables, and fruits were introduced to China (arranged in chronological order). As one can see here, Chinese cuisine had changed a lot over the past ~3000 years, and much of the changes took place during periods when trading activities increased and new produce were introduced. The best example of this is the introduction of hot chilis in late Ming dynasty, which directly resulted in the famous mala/麻辣 flavor profile of Sichuan cuisine and heavily influenced many other Chinese regional cuisines (Hunan cuisine, Guizhou cuisine, Anhui cuisine, etc).

A diagram explaining the seating arrangement in a palace's main hall in ancient times (top half), and the seating arrangement around a table in Southern and Northern China (bottom half). In all of these cases, the seat facing south (which also faces the entrance in traditional halls) is always reserved for the person of highest status, kind of like the seat at the head of the table. For the bottom half, the numbering indicates the order of seniority and/or inferiority (1 is the highest status).

Some examples of famous dishes from different dynasties, these are arranged in chronological order if going top to bottom, left to right:

Finally, some bonus pictures to serve as the conclusion to my brief trip to Beijing. This oil painting of the Great Wall was in the lobby of the museum, I thought it was pretty neat.

A peek at the Zhengyangmen/正阳门 gatehouse. Zhengyangmen is the southern gate (front gate) to the inner city in imperial times, today it's the only gate of the inner city that still stands.

A closeup of the Zhengyangmen gatehouse. I think the caihua/彩画 (the colorful painting on the building; also called caihui/彩绘) here had some restoration work done on it in recent years? It looks a lot more vibrant than the caihua on other historic architecture.

This is the last museum post (long post) of the 2024 China series (PHEW), and the final posts will all be fairly short, most of them about the food I've had. See y'all after CNY/LNY!

[love-you-likeallfire]

Sunshine and Roses

Chapter 5- Girl on Fire

First chapter, Previous chapter

Haymitch and I are holding hands as we step off the train.

The lights flash — harsh, hungry — and the air tastes like electricity. The platform is a blur of Capitol officials, stylists, and cameras already scrambling for the best angle.

Effie is a hurricane of color and nerves, hustling Katniss and Peeta toward the recreation center without a backwards glance. They're gone in seconds, swallowed by handlers.

But Haymitch doesn't let go of my hand.

I file this kind of action away under Capitol romance, the fake narrative we’re supposed to sell — Panem’s golden couple, still so desperately in love six years after the wedding of the century.

And yet.

Sometimes, I wonder how far the lie really goes.

How much of it is reflex.

How much is real.

Because Haymitch only lets go when he physically hands me off — palm to palm — into the sharp-clawed care of my stylist, Fabricia Vellore.

The prep room smells like steamed linen and overpriced polish, the air scrubbed clean until it feels sterile against my skin.

I stand under a flood of white lights in front of a floor-length mirror, adjusting the hem of my dress while Fabricia circles me like a shark with a pincushion strapped to her wrist.

Her nails are lacquered the same molten orange as the silk and tulle she’s wrapped me in. Every few seconds, she lets out a pleased little hum, the sound sharp and self-satisfied.

“You’re citrus perfection, darling,” she trills, yanking the waist tighter until I can barely breathe.

"Like something you’d sip at an evening party. A Tequila Sunrise, perhaps."

I glance at my reflection, barely recognizing the girl staring back.

The layers of burnt orange and amber fall like molten waves just below my knees.

The heels Fabricia insisted on — nude, high, vicious — make my legs look impossibly long.

The neckline dips just enough to show off the Capitol’s 'improvements' — the ones I never asked for — and the fit skims the new edges they carved into my body until it doesn’t feel like mine anymore.

It’s not obscene.

It’s... tasteful.

Tasteful in the way Capitol citizens like best: provocative enough to gossip about, polished enough to pretend it’s admiration, not possession.

I smile —

That same polished, hollow smile I used on the Victory Tour.

The one I practiced until it didn’t feel like a blade against my teeth.

Innocent. Mature. Golden. Untouchable.

Panem’s Princess.

Fabricia hums again, adjusting a fold of tulle near my hip like she’s reposing a statue.

Satisfied, she spins me toward the door with a flourish. "Go, darling! Go make them weep with how radiant you are!"

I step into the hall —

And there he is.

Haymitch leans against the opposite wall, arms folded, one foot braced lazily behind the other.

He’s dressed in a deep blue jacket that should make him look overdressed, out of place.

It doesn’t.

It fits him unfairly well, despite the obvious lack of effort: the slightly rumpled collar, the tie half-assed around his neck, the faint look of irritation like the clothes personally offended him.

He’s fiddling with the knot now, picking at it like a man faced with a puzzle he has no intention of solving.

"Here," I say, already moving toward him. "Let me."

He grunts — a sound halfway between permission and annoyance — but doesn't pull away.

I slide my fingers under his collar, fix the knot properly, smooth the line of his jacket.

The fabric is cool under my hands; he’s warm underneath.

The faint scent of soap and coffee clings to him, along with something sharper — a trace of whiskey. Something entirely him.

"We’re gonna survive talking to Capitol citizens for a whole hour," I murmur, fussing with his lapel. "So you’ve got to remember—you’re head over heels in love with me, even after six years of marriage."

His mouth twitches, something not quite a smile flickering across it.

"Head over heels, huh?"

"Mmhm," I hum lightly. "Hopelessly."

He huffs a breath — almost a laugh — but says nothing. I step back, he offers me his hand again, and I take it and we fall into stride together without needing to speak.

Not even ten minutes later and we’re there.

The City Circle.

The heart of the Capitol, the stage for all its glittering, grotesque displays.

An hour until the tributes arrive.

The square buzzes with anticipation, glittering gowns and sharp-creased suits flashing under the midday sun. Capitol elites mill around in clusters, sipping jewel-colored cocktails and flashing diamond smiles.

Haymitch still hasn’t let go of my hand.

It’s not romantic.

It’s not tender.

It’s just —

A tether.

Steady. Warm. Real.

I can feel the beat of his pulse against my skin, a quiet counterpoint to the pounding noise of the crowd.

I hold onto it as we do the rounds like we’re supposed to.

Smile, nod, laugh at the right times, pretend we’re sickeningly in love.

Shake hands with people who wear more makeup than I did at my crowning ceremony.

Haymitch plays along better than usual — tossing dry quips at high-society types, looking at me in a way I’d swear was real if I didn’t know better.

But he’s quieter tonight, in a way that sets my nerves on edge. So I watch him closely as we move through the throng, brushing shoulders, hands grazing, never quite breaking contact — until suddenly—

We do.

I turn from one Capitol woman — shrill, caked in powder, dripping pearls — and Haymitch is just — gone.

Gone.

The breath catches in my throat, sharp and stupid.

It’s just a crowd.

I know he’s nearby.

I know that.

But something inside me crawls anyway —

Fingers twitching, chest tightening, the colours too bright, the noise too loud.

I start scanning.

Frantic.

Flicking from one head to another, searching for a flash of blond hair, that slouching, unimpressed posture.

And then—

"Well, if it isn’t Panem’s Princess herself."

The voice — warm, teasing — cuts through the rising panic.

I spin around, and—

“Finnick!”

And then he’s hugging me, folding me up against him without hesitation.

He smells like salt and clean linen and something bright, something wild and free the Capitol hasn’t managed to strip from him yet.

I let myself fold into it, just for a second.

When he pulls back, he grins, that easy, reckless grin that once broke half the hearts in Panem.

"You look like a Tequila Sunrise," he says, sweeping me up and down. "A very expensive, very intoxicating Tequila Sunrise."

I laugh —

A real laugh —

Surprising myself with how easy it comes.

"That’s exactly what Fabricia said! I think she’s some kind of genius honestly, one with too much time on her hands."

Finnick chuckles, soft and genuine.

"You look beautiful, Ember."

"Smooth one, Odair." I tug absently at the hem of my dress, grounding myself. "Should I be worried about you sweeping me off my feet?"

"Wouldn’t dream of taking panem’s princess away from her prince" His grin softens into something warmer.

Finnick looks unfairly good too — a dark green ensemble with pale sea-glass accents that scream District Four but whisper Capitol darling.

He wears it like armor.

Like bait.

The same way I wear this dress.

"How’s Mags?" I ask, glancing around for her tiny silver figure.

"Running circles around the stylists." His eyes gleam. "Already told Caesar Flickerman she’d sponsor someone if he shut up for five minutes."

I laugh again, softer.

Mags — mute and still sharper than anyone here — remains undefeated.

"She’s my hero," I say.

"And how’s the husband?"

He winks as he says it, teasing but the weight behind it is real.

Finnick knows.

Knows everything.

Knows what Snow tried to do to me — what he did do to him.

He knows what Haymitch is to me, what he isn’t.

“He’s fine. I think” I say “probably hitting up a waiter for drinks or something”

He watches me carefully, not pitying — just aware. Gentle.

"You doing okay?" he asks, voice low.

My smile tightens. "I'm fine."

He nods, not believing me, but he lets it go.

"Annie asks about you," he says. “All the time."

My chest pulls tight. I can picture her — hair tangled, barefoot on the beach, book open on her lap.

"Tell her I think about her more than she probably wants me to."

He smiles. "She misses you. She’d like to see you again."

"I’d like that too," I murmur.

Then carefully, he leans in, just so I can hear.

"You’re still doing the list thing?"

"Yes, Finnick," I sigh, exasperated but fond.

Finnick’s gaze lingers on me — not heavy, not pitying. Just knowing.

Because understands counting days and promises like talismans against the dark.

"I should find him," I say suddenly, scanning the crowd again. "Haymitch."

Finnick nods. "Go. But hey—"

He grins, wide and wicked.

"If you vanish again, I’m stealing your crown. And your stylist."

"Just you try it," I shoot back with a smirk, already moving.

But the smirk fades fast as I weave through the crowd because something’s wrong.

I can feel it.

The air’s too heavy.

The crowd too loud.

My skin prickling like a warning I can’t explain.

I find Haymitch halfway up the staggered seating, —close enough to be seen, to be captured by the endless sweep of Capitol cameras, but never important enough to be the centrepiece. Not unless you’re selling something. Fame. Drama. Death.

I move carefully through the rows, feeling the sharp buzz of dozens of lenses turning my way as I go. Smile here. Tilt your head there. I slide into the seat to Haymitch’s left, smoothing the cascading layers of silk and tulle beneath me, careful not to wrinkle the illusion Fabricia spent hours stitching onto me. My prosthetic arm, too polished, too perfect, rests heavy and foreign in my lap. I cross my ankles and fold my good hand over the other, willing myself to seem serene. Controlled.

Haymitch doesn’t move. Doesn’t even glance at me.

He just sits there—stiff, knotted, brittle—with his hands braced against his knees like he's holding himself together by sheer force of will. Like if he lets go, even for a second, the pieces of him will scatter across the marble floor, and no one will bother to pick them up.

There’s no drink in his hand.

No easy, sloppy smirk. No muttered curses.

Just silence. Tense. Heavy.

And that tells me more than any words ever could.

Because Haymitch Abernathy without a drink is a man standing on the edge of something sharp and terrible. A man who remembers too much.

I don’t speak.

Not yet.

I just sit there and watch him, my heart twisting painfully in my chest.

Watch the way his jaw tightens with every cheer that goes up from the glittering audience. Watch the way his shoulders curl inward like he’s trying to shrink, to make himself smaller, less noticeable, less here.

Finnick once told me, in a rare, hushed moment, that there'd been an accident during Haymitch’s own parade. An accident the Capitol never spoke of, but one they never really forgot either. He didn’t tell me the details—said he wouldn’t. Said it wasn’t his story to tell.

But I saw the way Finnick’s face looked when he mentioned it.

I know whatever happened, it left scars that never really healed.

And maybe it’s selfish, but this year... seeing Haymitch like this, so silent, so frayed at the edges—it hurts more. Cuts deeper.

Because I know him better now.

Because he matters more now.

The cameras sweep the stands again. I catch a glimpse of my own reflection on a massive screen—a perfect, poised Capitol darling.

I hate it.

But I know the game.

So I move. Slowly. Carefully.

I reach over with my right hand—the one that still feels like mine, still has scars and heat and blood—and lay it gently over his.

He jolts. Just a tiny twitch.

That old panic flashing through him, so fast most people wouldn’t even notice.

But I notice.

I always notice.

For a breathless second, I think he might pull away.

But then—

His hand shifts. Turns under mine. And his fingers, rough and calloused and trembling just slightly, lace through mine.

It’s slow. Uncertain. Like he doesn’t quite trust himself to do it.

But he does it anyway.

Our hands stay there, knotted together between the gleaming fabric of my dress and the worn fabric of his jacket.

Not Capitol theatre.

Not a calculated move for the cameras.

Just...

Us.

I squeeze lightly, brushing my thumb over the ridge of his knuckle. A small touch. A steady one.

He doesn’t say anything.

He doesn’t need to.

The anthem blasts through the stadium, a bombastic explosion of sound and hollow patriotism.

I stiffen instinctively, the training of a thousand public appearances snapping into place. Sit straight. Smile small. Look proud. Look loyal.

The first chariot rolls into the City Circle. District 1- A shimmering feathery monstrosity of pink and glitter and false promises.

The crowd roars as if they’re witnessing a coronation, not a parade of doomed children.

I barely register it.

District 2. Gold metallic . District 3. Silver sequins. District 4. Turquoise blue tunics.

Each one more garish than the last, dressed like walking stereotypes of their industries.

The Capitol eats it up.

Cheering. Screaming. Applauding the spectacle.

And then—

Finally.

The low rumble of hooves.

District 12.

Our district.

I brace myself for the usual unimaginative costume that every district 12 tribute has been forced into, myself included. The grim coal miners outfits, the soot-streaked cheeks, the itchy and questionably sturdy hard hats.

The Capitol’s favourite joke.

But instead—

They’re on fire.

Literally.

Katniss and Peeta glide into the Circle, flames crackling at the edges of their black suits. The fire clings to them like living things, devouring the fabric without harming them, licking along every movement they make. They shine against the dark marble, the low burning embers turning them into something fierce, something untouchable.

The crowd erupts. Screams, gasps, frenzied applause crashing like a wave against the walls of the Circle.

I hear it distantly, muffled under the roaring in my own ears. Under the swell of panic I am so hard to breathe through.

They’re not laughing.

They’re not mocking.

They’re watching.

Beside me, Haymitch shifts, leaning forward slightly, his hand tightening around mine.

I glance at him and he still looks like he’s waiting for disaster, his eyes keep moving from the teenagers to the horses pulling the chariot, but there’s something else there too.

Pride humming off him, subtle but fierce.

A glimmer of hope.

The aching need for this—this one small, blazing chance—to mean something.

The anthem fades into silence as the our district chariot rolls to a stop.

Snow appears on the high balcony, arms spread wide, voice rolling over the Circle like smoke.

“Welcome. Welcome. Tributes, we welcome you. We salute your courage and your sacrifice. And we wish you... Happy Hunger Games. And may the odds be ever in your favor.”

I force myself not to flinch at the words.

I force myself to keep smiling.

The tributes are herded offstage, swallowed by the marble guts of the city.

The cameras linger a moment longer, soaking up the glitz and madness before they, too, turn away.

Haymitch exhales.

A long, tired sound.

His shoulders sag.

His grip loosens.

Slowly, he releases my hand.

He runs the same hand through his hair, across his jaw, as if trying to shake the weight of everything off his skin and then he stands.

There’s a server nearby, gliding between the rows with a tray of champagne flutes.

Haymitch grabs one. Downs it in one breath and grabs another.

I rise to my feet and watch him, feeling both lighter and heavier at the same time.

“Feel better?” I ask, falling into step beside him as he starts toward the corridor that leads backstage.

He snorts, dry and humorless. “Not even a little. But I’ll take what I can get.”

I nudge his shoulder gently with mine.

“Come on,” I say, unable to keep the excitement out of my voice. “Everyone’s talking about District 12.”

For once, they’re not mocking.

They’re not pitying.

They’re watching.

Tag list (if you want to be tagged just let me know, and sorry if I forget anyone): @maddiesreadinglog

[tanuki-kimono]

Most formal outfits for upper ranks samurai - Sokutai and Ikan formal court dress

(as worn by upper-ranked samurai of the Edo period - great charts by Nadeshico Rin). You can find more about samurai ranks and their regulated attires under the tag "samurai kimono".

The Sokutai

束帯 Sokutai is the most formal attire worn by Edo period samurai of the 4th rank and above.

It first appeared during Heian era as a ceremonial court dress worn by 公卿 kuge (nobility/Imperial court) and 殿上人tenjôbito (courtiers/court official​s). Usage was kept well into Edo period by both the Imperial court and the Tokugawa shogunate.

The intricated garb includes:

冠 Kanmuri - hat, with distinctive 垂纓 suiei "tail" hanging in the back. Materials could include silk, lacquer or horsehair and were strickly regulated

袍 Hô - a round-necked robe with large boxy sleeves. Colors and patterns were strickly regulated.

Shown here is a pattern used by the Shôgun, the 葵に丁子唐草 Aoi ni chôji karakusa (cloves with arabesques, and hollyhock leaves - which is the Tokugawa crest)

笏 Shaku - flat ritual sceptre

平緒 Hirao - a wide flat braid wrapped around the body with ties left hanging up front. Colors and weaves were strickly regulated

(飾)太刀 (Kazari)-Tachi - (mock) long sword for ceremonial use

表袴 Ue-no-bakama (or omote-bakama) - white overpants, shorter hakama pants worn over the aka-ôkuchi

赤大口(袴) Aka-ôkuchi(bakama) - red underpants, a tad longer than the overpants

下襲(の裾) Shitagasane(no-kyo) - visible train part of an inner robe worn under the 袍 hô. During Edo period, train lenght got up to 1丈 (around 3 meters/10 feet).

襪 Shitôzu - a type of ancient socks (construction is different than tabi - they don't have a sole for ex.)

石帯 Sekitai - leather belt used in ceremonial court dress, covered in black lacquer, and decorated with stones and jewels

The Ikan

衣冠 Ikan - while still very formal and worn by Edo period samurai of the 4th rank and above, ikan looked much more simpler than sokutai.

First used for nightime duties (夜間宿直) in Heian era, it gradually came to be worm during daytime too. From Muromachi period and onwards, it had become the work uniform of the Imperial court.

Like sokutai, it uses the hô+kanmuri, and wearers were allowed to carry kazari-tachi. Yet, note how the pants differ from sokutai ones: those are large bouffant pants called 指貫 sashinuki (or 奴袴 nubakama).

You can also note that wearer here is not holding a shaku scepter: it's a folded 檜扇 hiôgi (formal folding fan made of cypress also of Heian history. Those were unpatterned as painted ones were for women).