#who let's be real will not end up happy lol

[hannieehaee]

LO$ER=LO♡ER (teaser)

18+ / mdi

summary: jihoon's been pushed aside and ostracized from the moment he was born. completely alone, with no family and only a handful of friends, he's been too beaten down to expect anything good with the shitty cards life has dealt him. when he's presented with his new coworker, it's hard to not fantasize about her, but he'll never actually allow himself to believe she could ever look like him with anything but pity — just like everyone else.

content: loser!jihoon, antisocial!jihoon, sociallyawkward!jihoon, insecure!jihoon, sunshine!reader, jihoon is basically just a complete loser with horrible luck who's never felt true happiness (sorry), mentions of bullying, mentions of jihoon's sad past, sunshine!reader, slowburn, lots of worldbuilding but its just so u can feel sorry for jihoon lol, coworkers au, pining, miscommunication, afab reader, smut, sub!jihoon, virgin!jihoon, handjob, body worship, nipple play, dry humping, penetrative sex, etc.

(^ no actual content warnings in the teaser)

wc: 1.9k (teaser); 14k (full fic)

RELEASE DATE: february 10th!

or you can check it out on my patreon today by subscribing!

a/n: i put together every form of loserism and created this jihoon

masterlist

Every week was the same.

Jihoon would get up, fix his overgrown hair the best he could, and take the train over to work.

This was as far as he'd gotten in life; an overly repetitive existence with no sense of joy within it.

He should've been happy. Things were better now. Being 27 with a stable job and no real issues in his life should be something to be grateful for, yet Jihoon found himself being completely displeased with his life.

Surely there must be more to life than this, right? A lonely and loveless life that appeared to be leading him nowhere. But still, things were better than before.

It was hard for Jihoon to speak of his childhood, much less his teenage years (or even his college life). It was all too grim. He'd grown to accept it, to let it all go, but the past had made him who he was, and he knew his current self was to blame for his loneliness. For his lack of love.

And so he continued his daily routine, living day after day with no change in sight. He accepted this with a flat smile, grateful that things were just fine. Not good, not great, not even varied, but just fine.

This week, though, finally had something different. But to Jihoon that was usually bad news.

Were you bad news?

You were the brand new thing in his life.

It was your first week in his office. A brand new face. A very pretty face.

Jihoon never thought about such things. He'd never had any romantic experience in his life. He had a long distance girlfriend once, but even that didn't work out. Too much distance, too many lies, too many complications. Jihoon just wasn't made for love.

So he never thought of such things again.

It was rare for him to even see a pretty girl on his day to day. His morning commute was far too early and filled with people way too old for him to even look in the eye without feeling disrespectful. His workplace, although consisted of a variety of people, was not a place where he felt very welcome initiating friendships or anything of the sort. Cliques had ended in high school, he thought, yet he found himself at the bottom of the food chain among his coworkers. He wasn't liked and was deliberately avoided by everyone around him.

Until you came along.

Finding you beautiful was no surprise to Jihoon. It was the most obvious thing in the world. Putting appearances aside, you were sunshine personified. Smart, confident, hardworking, gentle, nice, beautiful. You were everything anyone could ever want. At times Jihoon even wondered whether he wanted you or if he just wanted to be like you.

You'd caused an immense impression in him within the short time in which he'd known you.

He hadn't really gotten to know you on a personal level yet. But you had extended him an olive branch upon the first meeting, which was a memory that had implanted itself on his mind. It was rare for Jihoon to come by good memories.

This was the first time he'd felt accepted in a very long time. Yet the fears of it turning around and slapping him in the face (like in so many prior instances) was too big for him to really consider you good news in his life.

It was kind of embarrassing looking back at it. Jihoon hadn't been expecting you (how could he have?), but you suddenly showed up at his cubicle accompanied by one of his coworkers, Doyle.

Doyle wasn't someone Jihoon thought too much about — or at least he tried not to. He was the classic high school bully, except in a corporate-world wrapping. Jihoon had dealt with bullies his whole life, he'd become desensitized to it by now. Still, it bothered him to see him standing next to you. He hadn't met you yet, but he was immediately disheartened by the new girl at the office looking buddy-buddy with someone he considered an adversary.

What had been surprising to Jihoon, though, was your complete disinterest in Doyle's obvious advances.

It was pretty often that Doyle would attempt to assert his dominance by putting Jihoon down in front of other coworkers. He'd tease him and patronize him in front of anyone to see in order to show others who was in charge. And it was not Jihoon, that was for damn sure.

Jihoon got up as soon as he sensed a presence at his cubicle, somehow managing to stumble over his feet as he did so. When he looked up, he was not expecting you, yet there you were. Beautiful, smiling down at him with genuine interest in your eyes. You didn't know him, but you had kindness in your eyes. He could tell.

He stumbled over an introduction as Doyle interrupted him, telling you Jihoon's name and position at the company for him. Unwarranted and once again showing that if he so wished, he could speak over Jihoon.

But you'd interrupted him in return, turning to Jihoon to extend your hand with that smile never leaving your lips.

"Hi, it's really nice to meet you," you'd smiled as he felt fire at the mere handshake.

"Hi, I, uhm, I'm Jihoon. Lee Jihoon. I didn't realize we had someone new coming. It's nice to meet you. You- If you need anything, you can always ask me," he slapped himself mentally when he said it. He stuttered his way through it like a fucking loser. His immediate attraction to you was too obvious. Doyle's smirk as he stood beside you told him all he needed to know.

"Oh, that's so nice, thank you! I'm right next door. Well- right next cubicle, so I'll probably take you up on that sooner or later," you laughed at your own attempt of a joke.

Jihoon couldn't help chuckling back, ignoring Doyle as he patted your shoulder, laughing along. Jihoon noticed a short-lived discomfort in your eyes at the action, one which died when your eyes went back to him.

Was he imagining it, or were you showing preference towards Jihoon?

"Well, let's not bother our little Jihoonie here any longer," Doyle interrupted once more, "It's almost lunch time," he leaned in to tell you, looking down at Jihoon, "We all usually go to a burger joint nearby — Jihoonie here likes to stay in, so we try to stay out of his way."

That wasn't entirely true.

Once upon a time, Jihoon did attempt to join the rest of his coworkers in outings, but he was always alienated. After a few too many slights about his hair, his height, his weird choice in clothing, or even just his personality, he decided to stray away from anything that wasn't strictly professional when it came to his coworkers. He was always the butt of the joke, so he made the decision to isolate in the office with a cold sandwich he packed for himself every day.

Sometimes his friends Soonyoung and Mingyu from accounting would join him, but there was usually not enough time to see them during regular working hours. This left him alone most of the time.

Your face seemed to deflate at Doyle's words. Whether it was out of pity for Jihoon or annoyance at Doyle's overzealous confidence around you, he wasn't sure.

"Oh, I actually brought a packed lunch," you told Doyle before turning to face Jihoon again, "Would it be okay if I stay in with you?", you looked at him with expectant eyes.

"You wanna, uhm, have lunch with me?", he asked dumbly and you nodded, "Y-yeah, that'd be nice, yes," he attempted a shy smile, succeeding when you returned it.

Doyle cleared his throat, interrupting the silent smiles you and Jihoon were sharing.

"Well, I could stay in with you if you want, I-"

But you interrupted him again.

"That's fine. I don't wanna get in the way of your plans. Jihoon will make fine company," you said politely, stepping away from Doyle to head over to your desk, popping back next to Jihoon with a brown paper bag.

Doyle looked dumbfounded for a few moments before masking it with a tight smile. Jihoon simply stood there as you pulled up a chair and settled it on Jihoon's desk, paying no mind to Doyle.

"I guess I'll leave you two to it. I'll keep showing you around after lunch. You have my number if you need anything," Doyle made emphasis on that last statement, offering you what looked like a genuine smile before giving Jihoon a look that told him he still felt victorious in the end.

"Thanks, Doyle! Bye!," you smiled back before turning to Jihoon.

Lunch was incredibly awkward for Jihoon. But that wasn't your fault. You'd been incredibly nice, asking him questions and keeping the conversation going despite the mumbly, shy mess Jihoon was. The conversation was entirely carried by you, with you surprisingly taking an interest in him. Every word, every gesture, they all led him to believe you were genuinely nice.

At the same time, he felt entirely delusional.

It wasn't often that people were nice to him, so it was likely he was building it up to be more than it actually was. You likely did not want to stay in with him, but after Doyle brought up that Jihoon was the only one in the office during lunch break, you had no option but to join him since you also planned to stay in. However, you were a good team player, Jihoon believed. Not many people would sacrifice their lunch to stay in with the black sheep of the office just to rid yourself of any possible awkwardness. Jihoon knew damn well many previous coworkers had gone out of their way to avoid him before.

But despite the belief that you simply pitied him, Jihoon missed your time spent together the moment it ended. He felt shy and blushed bright red at every single word uttered from you, but it had been the nicest interaction he'd had in a long time (a long, long time).

That had happened last Wednesday, repeating itself on Thursday, Friday, and then a whole weekend was spent with Jihoon solely thinking about you. Time that he usually spent reading or playing chess online was instead used up to think about you. It was mostly to overthink every tiny interaction and panic over it, but it was was still preoccupied by you.

But he also thought about other things.

How beautiful he found you to be. How nice, funny, hardworking, smart and riveting you were (despite this being an assessment he'd made in less than a week of knowing you). This was Jihoon's first crush in ... he couldn't even remember how long.

And it was terrible.

Every crush he'd ever had had turned out terribly. Harmless elementary school crushes turned into pranks pulled by his classmates in order to embarrass him. Prepubescent middle school crushes became false confessions that led to public embarrassment. Hopeless high school crushes were nothing but a farse that led him into giving up altogether.

Throughout his practically non-existent love life, Jihoon had always been met by nothing but discouragement, sometimes by simple rejection and other times by harassment from people who believed him to be unworthy of being liked. These were memories he did not like to relive, but the resurgence of feelings for someone brought them all back.

And so he was unsure of how to feel. He was unsure of whether to let himself like you or recoil, unwilling to even try.

...

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[accio-victuuri]

cpn catch-up: of interview clues, mushrooms, flowers 🍄🌸

at the rate cpns are raining down on us, you only blink and boom you missed alot. lol. so this is my attempt at catching up before weibo night comes in tomorrow.

gege had a really good interview for his portrait magazine interview! it’s nice to know his thoughts on certain topics. he is definitely calm and in a good space. the next month/s will be chaotic for him due to loch promotions but i’m confident he can deal with it 🫶🏼

for his wonderful interview, i wanna list down a few cpn-y points…

1. in the beginning he was talking about what changed and he said he was more composed/calm and self-focused. adding that before he was conscious of what others thought of him, but now, he relies more on his own judgment. this is ( atleast to me ) exactly how yibo has been lately, especially with being calm. you can totally see that during live events and in just the way he expresses himself.

yibo has always been someone who didn’t care much about what others think of him, and i’d like to cpn that this kind of attitude transferred to xz. their relationship also influenced that, they are secured with who they are so none of the outside voices matter anyone.

love that for them!

2. both of them exercising for strength and not necessarily to be thin.

3. i like how fans are playing up the real life yizhan AU of xz as a bakery owner and yibo as a race car driver.

4. there was a part of him talking about his best when he experiences challenges in acting. that kind of drive, they are so similar! they are not afraid to do things over and over again till they get it right. and no matter what happens, they know they did their best.

5. when xz said that he is lucky and happy 💕

of course there are a lot of factors that contribute to that. i will not disregard his own growth as a person from his personal experiences cause he went through ALOT for the past five years. but it surely helped that he has someone on his side to help him.

there may be more but as a fan this was such a good interview. proof that he is happy with where he is right now, it’s not perfect. he still has fears of failing but his disposition is so much stronger now.

from something serious, let’s move to clownery. the mushroom in the loewe shoot 😂😂😂 if you saw their ig post about yibo that was included. makes us think of the mushroom that wakes up at 4:00 AM

do they know about this? HAHAHAHAHAHA!

and lastly, yibo sent a flower arrangement to Hu Jun as a gift for his play. and we noticed that one of the flower/s is the same as what xz received before. is it a type that he likes to send for congratulations?

-END.

[bestalbertcamuslover]

“Not all men. Nah, who am I kidding? All men”

︶⊹︶︶୨୧︶︶⊹︶︶⊹︶︶୨୧︶︶⊹︶︶⊹︶︶୨୧︶︶⊹︶︶⊹︶︶

✯ pairing: Sebastian Vettel x GF! Reader ✯

✯ content warnings: none✯

 ︶⊹︶︶୨୧︶︶⊹︶︶⊹︶︶୨୧︶︶⊹︶︶⊹︶︶୨୧︶︶⊹︶︶⊹︶︶

She was pacing the living room, phone pressed to her ear as she chatted with her best friend. The conversation had taken its usual turn into juicy gossip, her friend recounting the latest drama with one of her coworkers.

“So, he goes on three dates with her, right? Three! And then just ghosts her. Like, how do men even function like this?” her friend said, exasperated.

She hummed in agreement, rolling her eyes even though she couldn’t see her. “Yeah, men are just... ugh, they’re all the same sometimes.”

“Sometimes?” her friend shot back. “Girl, always. Every single time.”

That made her laugh. “Okay, fine. Men are always like this, gosh.” she paused for a beat, then added with a mischievous chuckle, “Not all men. Nah, who am I kidding? All men.”

Her friend cracked up on the other end of the line, and she joined her, the two of them feeding off each other’s energy. “God, you’re so right,” her friend said. “Anyway, I’ll catch up with you later. Thanks for the laugh.”

“Anytime,” she said, smiling as she hung up and slipped her phone into her pocket.

The room was quiet now, except for the soft rustle of pages turning. She glanced up, seeing Seb on the couch, book in hand, but the amused grin on his face told her he’d heard every word.

“So,” he said, setting his book down and folding his arms. “All men, huh?”

“Wait, you were listening?” she chuckled, “to my very private top secret conversation?” she joked.

He grinned wider, his blue eyes sparkling with mirth as he teased back, “Well, I must say, I learned some rather…pertinent information about the male species today. Seems we're all just a bunch of clueless, womanizing ghosts.” He chuckled softly, standing up from the couch.

“I stand corrected,” she started, her grin wedding with the banter, “queer men are usually not like that.” 

Seb laughed and walked over to her, slipping an arm around her waist. “Queer men, huh? Well, I guess that means I'm still in the doghouse then,” he joked, giving her a playful squeeze.

Seb grinned mischievously as he pulled her closer. “But hey, if all men are really that bad, why do you keep hanging around this one?” he teased, his blue eyes twinkling with playful accusation. “Maybe you secretly enjoy the thrill of being surrounded by such a charming rogue.”

“Okay, okay, maybe not all men,” she finally conceded, “but always a man.”

Seb chuckled and shook his head. “Well, I suppose that's fair. I mean, let's not forget who was chasing after who in the beginning,” he said with a playful smirk. “I seem to recall a certain someone keeping things casual, while I was the eager one wanting to make things serious. Sounds like you were the real rogue there, love.”

She chuckled slightly, as there was true in his words. “Okay, maybe you're like the exception,” she admitted, smiling.

Seb grinned triumphantly and pulled her in for a quick, playful spin. “Now you're talking! I guess even the most die-hard cynic can find a decent bloke now and then,” he teased, giving her waist a gentle squeeze before releasing her.

“Die-hard cynic? Me?” she said, her faux offense evident in her tone.

Seb winked playfully as he took a step back. “Well, you know what they say —the more cynical they are, the more they need a good man to prove them wrong,” he quipped with a cheeky grin. “And lucky for me, I seem to have succeeded in my noble quest.” Seb's grin softened into a more tender smile as he reached out to gently tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear, his fingertips lightly brushing her cheek. “But in all seriousness, you know I'm just happy to be the exception to your rule.”

 ︶⊹︶︶୨୧︶︶⊹︶︶⊹︶︶୨୧︶︶⊹︶︶⊹︶︶୨୧︶︶⊹︶︶⊹︶︶

✯ authors note: I just loved the quote “Not all men, but always a man” Also the images are a little random lol

English is not my first language, and I hope you liked it <3

[bloodspick]

featuring: scuffed designs, @wreckowafer's yunie, and elsie relationship chart rambles under cut

robin -> elsie feels indebted to her. they have an odd relationship of caretaker (or protector)/victim that is reversible. robin is older than elsie and used to look out for her, though in monetary means, elsie is the one taking care of it.

it's created a relationship where robin is incapable of finding fault or able to express any negative feelings towards elsie she might have. each other's therapists, unfortunately.

elsie -> robin genuinely cares but doesn't truly feel anything romantic towards robin. wants her to be well yet isn't emotionally available or exactly around a lot of the time. guard dog that doesn't fully understand play or how to comfort, finds robin's trauma suffocating yet understands no one else can truly be there for robin that isn't her

(c!)sydney -> elsie fully infatuated and in love. have been close since they were children, even more so than robin was given elsie was a fellow churchgoer. unaware of elsie's less legal skill-sets, jobs, or even understands who she really is, but her acceptance of whom he is made him very happy (or so he thinks, at the very least) thinks she's smart and hardworking, unaware of all things orphanage.

elsie -> (c!)sydney while elsie wasn't religious before being orphaned, jordan's care as well as the environment of the temple made her fond of the whole thing. reconnected with sydney as she often stayed late in the school library to avoid going back to the orphanage. finds sydney cute and endearing, someone fond and nice to be around. isn't sure if this is love, but it's the closest thing to the real deal, right? thinks it's funny to tease him lol

kylar -> elsie obsessed with elsie when she rescued her from bullies. pictures her as this perfect fairytale prince, yet someone who couldn't possibly do any wrong and needs kylar to care and protect her. it's constant contradictions with how she thinks of elsie. fawns over her all the time. ignores elsie's questionable jobs and thinks she'd make both the perfect stay-at-home wife who could hone her gardening skills without issue, yet pictures her as the ideal breadwinner whom would spoil her without complains. deeply jealous of the fact she seems to be busy most often than not, and chooses to ignore the potential fact elsie might be cheating on her. her darling isn't capable of something so scummy like that, right?

elsie -> kylar deeply, deeply afraid of kylar ever since she saw her to be the one stalking her and stealing her clothing. only got closer to her out of a fear of any potential danger kylar could do to her. finds her pitiful and pathetic above anything else, nowadays, or even a bit of a burden. nonetheless, likes her enough as to keep her around. she's useful, too, after all. learns to stay quiet and let kylar do whatever she wants long enough as to not make her cause troubles in her routine.

whitney -> elsie sexually obsessed with someone whom seems unobtainable. doesn't fully understand her. both tries to subdue her through sexual attempts as well as awkwardly hanging out with her outside of school when he catches her sneaking out at night. weird relationship where they are begrudging equals. whitney is the closest to knowing elsie as she is, yet is emotionally inept as to not say anything about it.

elsie -> whitney finds him deeply, deeply irritating. fought nail and claw anytime he tried to accost her, to the point she'd rather jump the fence, or use the secret tunnels to avoid him whilst leaving school. figured that if she were nice to him, maybe he'd return the favour. ended up accidentally becoming his girlfriend in his eyes. has no clue what to do about it. they 100% fuck (whitney thinks it's because they are in love. elsie because she is, very unfortunately, attractive to him). (she wants him to stop calling her a slut. that implies people pay her.)

also, to clarify: elsie doesn't have a main li nor does she really consider any of them her one true partner lol. it's not cheating for cheating's sake, she sees it as wanting to please/make most of the main hindrances in her life happy and make the most out of her relationships for her facilitated survival

doesn't even truly sees it as cheating because she has a wack sense of romantic love aye. isn't ever touching eden, gh, or bw ever sorry she values her autonomy all too much for them

[oaxleaf]

i want gwen and alice to kiss. and i want it to fuck up everyone withing a ten kilometer radius of them. do you see the vision?

[hexxter]

Player 2:

- not even out yet

My brain:

OK but Player 3 would be lit

They could be Sora, Yozora…

Or a background faceless character we didn’t knew about in the games till will point out later

They could be a character in Quadratum as they’re pretty much dead so

They could have their heart resting in another’s person (subject x for example)

Idk just give me Player 3.. Player 2 is confirmed dead anyway 😔

[supersecretnerd]

Ok so these designs are cute as hell, the Internet is just mean

I have too many thoughts about a game I still need to watch

[todayisafridaynight]

would it be okay if u told me why u like aoki😭/gen😭😭😭😭BEEN TRYNA LIKE HIM FOR SO LONG I JUST CANTT but i love ur art so much so i still consume it otherwise lol

i liked tohru adachi in high school and tbh i think that alone is enough of an explanation for why i ended up liking aoki

[loafbud]

The first Splatoon game turned 8 yesterday!

[gunpowder-gemini]

Controversial statement since I know it's super popular (at least on booktok for whatever that's worth) but I finished Acotar and it was mid

[yeahxsurexokay13]

wrong guy, lando norris

summary: fans think yn is dating max, but they've got the wrong guy [bsf!reader]

been a min since i posted! honestly, these just take me way too long and i usually end up abandoning them because i start hating them halfway through from overthinking lol. hope you enjoy this one though (: xx

y/n.y/l 📍 Ibiza, Spain

Liked by riabish, carlossainz55 and 159.870 others

y/n.y/l we only argued 3 times, cried 2, and got lost 1 (personal record)

view all 579 comments

user9 right so who argued? who cried? and most importantly whO IS THE SHADOW?

user14 can we talk about how u're LITERALLY glowing in that first pic? u look so happy, girl!!

user20 the vibes on this dump… rich people's holidays just hit different.

iamrebeccad ✓ Beautiful girl 😍

y/n.y/l 🫶🏼 miss youu!!

user4 “cried 2 times” is actually impressive ♥︎ by author

user55 lando and max just casually being brothers in the fourth pic 😩❤️

user81 that shot is just *chef’s kiss*!!!! Glad we can always count on this queen for hq content

user63 Okay so I’ve been staring at this shadow pic for like 10 minutes, and I can’t figure it out…

user33 my money’s on max bc that hug pic of them earlier too… feels very coupley.

user63 idk friends to lovers agenda thriving tho

user3 Max and Lando with the face masks are killing me 😂 ♥︎ by author

user6 max or lando? place your bets now. i’m team max but i’ll die on this hill if i'm wrong

user2 which you are, because it’s definitely Lando

user8 guys they’ve literally known each other since forever and go on these friends holidays all the time lmao this is just FRIENDSHIP GOALS. stop romanticising everything!!!

user24 then explain the head kiss?

user8 friendly head kisses???

user24 friendly kisses?? in this economy? be serious. that’s couple behaviour

user12 smells like a third wheel in here…

y/n.y/l sorry, that's just me. i am the third wheel🙋🏼‍♀️

user13 she really said 'stop shipping me with my best friends' lol

user44 max and lando with the face masks in the water might be my new favourite photo of all time

user16 ngl that's not bad statistics for a week long trip ♥︎ by author

user11 If it’s Max, I’ll cry. If it’s Lando, I’ll cry harder. If it’s neither, I don’t know what I’ll do.

user18 i’ve been following these three for years and i’m still trying to figure out if that last slide is supposed to be romantic or not….? HELP I AM SO CONFUSED

user22 what book is that? i need recommendations!!

y/n.y/l just for the summer!!! LOVED it x

user10 i can’t believe she was so chill about posting thAT LAST PIC!??!! miss y/l!!! SPILL NOW

maxfewtrell ✓ Why are you saying 'we'? Pretty sure you were the one who did all of those

landonorris ✓ classic move, shifting the blame

y/n.y/l @/landonorris @/maxfewtrell the getting lost part was definitely a team effort

user1 I need to go on a trip with friends like this ♥︎ by author

user5 being that close to lando AND max and surviving the friendship without catching feelings was too good to be true let's be honest

pietra.pilao 😍😍

y/n.y/l 💞💞

user7 so when’s the next ‘friends holiday'? asking for a friend (me)

15 August 2024

maxfewtrell ✓

Liked by landonorris, y/n.y/l and 98.982 others

maxfewtrell The real girlfriend reveal, for the record 🫡

👤 pietra.pilao

view all 398 comments

user1 WAIT WHAT

user6 so it really wasn’t Y/n??

pietra.pilao ❤️❤️ ♥︎ by author

user4 omg she's the girl who commented on yn's holiday dump!!!

user3 We owe Max and his gf an apology 😭 She’s stunning, btw

user2 omg u two are so cuteeeeeeee! happy for u max :)

user5 your gf is so pretty 😭😭😭

y/n.y/l P!!!! 💕💕

y/n.y/l you two make a better couple than you and I ever would anyway 😂 ♥︎ by author

user9 WHY DIDN’T YOU SAY THIS EARLIER?! we’ve been spiralling for WEEKS

user12 actually he's been saying it from the beginning. we just didn't want to listen 😂😂

user8 max: “here’s my gf. leave me out of y/n’s business”

user12 OK but pietra is STUNNING!! Max, you’ve been hiding her for how long?!

user7 the way he had to clarify this because of us is actually hilarious. sorry, Max.

user11 OMG I feel so dumb now we really had y/n in a whole relationship she wasn’t even in 😭

29 August 2024

y/n.y/l

Liked by oscarpiastri, sophiaaemelia and 289.034 others

y/n.y/l outtakes from ai·bee·thuh

view all 930 comments

user1 AAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!?? MYSTERY SOLVED IG

user12 I THINK THIS MIGHT BE THE GREATEST THING TO HAPPEN TO MY FEED THIS YEAR I AM NOT EVEN JOKING

maxfewtrell ✓ So Lando gets the cute video and I get the passed out in the car pic? Playing favourites, I see. Noted.

user8 Max calling out Y/n for favoritism is peak sibling energy

user33 i can't believe we were full on shipping them not even a week ago omg

maxfewtrell ✓ Also, can everyone stop tagging me in that shadow pic now? Like, I’m good, it’s definitely not me 😅 ♥︎ by author

user11 pietra honestly deserves a medal for surviving this holiday with these three omg

user17 GUYS I WAS ALREADY PRETTY SHOCKED AT LANDO'S VIDEO BLOWING A KISS I HAD NO IDEA WHAT I HAD COMING

pietra.pilao Special week 🤍 ♥︎ by author

user81 the lift photo with the McDonald’s bag is so relatable. even on a fancy holiday, you gotta have your nuggets ♥︎ by author

user25 turns out Max wasn't lying when he said y/n wasn’t his headache... lando’s the lucky one 😂

user10 and y/n and pietra? they do ✨besties ✨ better than anyone ♥︎ by author

user19 can we get a ‘whoops, my bad’ from the ppl who saw them in Ibiza and STILL missed the fact that Pietra was there?

user2 they literally had a front row seat to the full gossip and still didn’t catch on !!!!! like hELLO? u had one job

user14 THE SOFT LAUNCH TURNED INTO A HARD LAUNCH REAL QUICK I AM SHOOK

alexandrasaintmleux ✓ Ahhh loveeee 🩷🩷 ♥︎ by author

user26 both boys punching above their weight fr. i said what i said.

francisca.cgomes ✓ ❤️❤️😍 ♥︎ by author

user16 The way Max is sleeping in that last pic has me wheezing ♥︎ by author

user3 lando is literally holding y/n like he’s never letting her go boy is WHIPPED

user29 WE'RE GOING TO SEE "LANDO NORRIS' PARTNER" UNDER YN'S NAME NOW WHEN SHE WATCHES FROM THE GARAGE what a time to be alive

user7 not the way y/n is casually posting a McDonald’s bag in a robe and THEN dropping the most beautiful couple pic with lando

user5 waIT SO THE BOY KISSING HER HEAD IN THE SHADOW PIC WAS LANDO??? WE WERE ALL WRONG. I NEED TO LIE DOWN.

maxfewtrell you know, it truly baffles me how this was barely even considered

y/n.y/l no one believed in me enough to be able to pull f1 race winner lando norris. humbling.

user20 YN I - 😭😭😭😭💀💀

user38 it was a couple’s holiday the whole time 😭😭 I need a moment to recover

user9 this fandom’s clownery knows no bounds istg.........

user21 not me crying over the hard launch of the year when I was just admiring Max’s sleeping face 5 seconds ago

user24 Ibiza really gave us everything: friendship goals, couple goals, and max in a food coma

user18 IT WAS LANDO KISSING HER HEAD. I feel so betrayed by my own theories and also pretty disappointed in myself i couldn't tell it was his shadow

landonorris ✓ I see you saved the best for last ���

y/n.y/l ☺️☺️

y/n.y/l omg guys i wasn’t being dry i just don’t know what else to say with all you watching 😭😭

1 September 2024

[reidrum]

like i would | s.r

pairing: spencer reid x bau!fem!reader

a/n: ok im gonna be honest idk how i feel about this one, i just wanted to finish it and put it out so apologies in advance if its not the best lol. this was requested with the prompt "i bet he can't fuck you like i can"! feedback and reblogs are always appreciated ! thanks for being paitent while i got this one out <3

cw: 18+ minors dni, smut, fingering, munch!spencer, jealous!spencer, unprotected p in v (wrap it before you whack it), reader's bf has a name which i hate in fics but its so hard to write this trope without a name so, afab!reader,

summary: a confession about your sex life makes it's way to the one person you'd hope wouldn't hear, and now he's determined to rectify the way you've been wronged

wc: 4.5k

_____________

you were a great asset to the bau. it was why you were personally recommended by emily to transfer out of sex crimes, the skill set you brought alongside the field training you had proved to be vital for the team’s success lately. you were also a great asset to the team. the bau was notorious for having people turnover fast, and you knew they were apprehensive with newcomers. but you managed to hit it off with every single member, one more than others.

spencer reid did not expect someone like you to join the team. not that he didn’t have faith in your talents and skills, he’s read your file and obviously knows you’re more than qualified to be here. he just did not expect someone who looked like you to join the team, someone who didn’t look beaten down by the horrors of the world and still believed in pots of gold at the end of rainbows. 

it didn’t help that you were so beautiful he literally would feel his heart ache when you walked in. like literally, would have to rub his chest to soothe the pain. and as spencer would, he would logic out his feelings with science because that’s all they are, scientific chemical reactions in the body. but what he felt in your friendship, what he felt when he was lucky enough to be in your presence, was something no textbook, theorem, or equation could explain.

so imagine the size of the fucking hammer coming down on his head when he finds out you have a boyfriend who: 1. is not him, and 2. is an actual real life bozo.

apparently you’d been seeing damon from organized crime for about a month now, that’s what he heard from penelope, and you ‘claim’ to be super happy. 

spencer doesn’t buy it.

he’s seen the way your ‘relationship’ operates, and he’s got the facts to back it up. damon never lets you get a word in when you’re in group settings, even purposefully talking over you when you’re clearly attempting to speak. majority of the time he’s condescending about your job as a profiler for the bau, saying that him and his team bring down drug rings, but you guys ‘just read their horoscope or whatever and decide the killer.’

it made spencer’s blood boil hotter than the sun. he couldn’t figure out why you put up with it, and why you continue to.

the final straw that broke the camel's back about his disapproval on your relationship choices, is what he overheard on the jet one time on the way back from a case.

the girls were talking in the back of the jet, unaware of spencer’s very awake mind despite his visibly sleeping body.

“i don’t know guys,” you had started with a sigh, “you think it’s weird right?”

“that your own boyfriend won’t go down on you? yeah hon, that’s fucking weird.” emily strikes.

“what did he say exactly?” jj asked.

“he said it increases the risk of STIs on the mouth? and doesn’t like the feeling of thighs crushing his head? and that even with all the … grooming … it’s still unnatural ?”

emily gagged while jj continued, “um…but do you like…on him?”

“yes! he literally won’t touch me unless i do!” you rage whisper.

“i am about to give him an organized crime to deal with,” emily half jokes, “what an asshole, why are you still with him?”

“i don’t know, he’s still nice to me i guess, and maybe i’m just being dramatic. or maybe i’m just not someone people go down on, who knows.” you sigh.

spencer stops listening, he can’t hear you talk so poorly of yourself. not when it’s so far from the truth yet you’ve been indoctrinated to think it’s accurate. how anyone could take advantage of you like that is beyond him, but it did light a fire inside of him and made him determined to help you realize you deserve so much better. if that happens to be him, then who is he to fight that?

—

spencer doesn’t get his chance to prove it to you for another two weeks, when you’d come over to his apartment for a movie night after getting in a fight with damon, your date night being canceled and leading you to spencer’s doorsteps, all dolled up with tears lining your eyes asking to come in.

he doesn’t even have time to be mad at your shithole boyfriend when he’s ushering you inside, offering you to sit on the couch while he goes and put a kettle on the stove for tea.

“i’m really sorry to just show up like this, spence.”

he doesn’t even blink before calling out from the kitchen, “don’t apologize, i’m always here for you. anytime and anywhere.”

you give him a soft smile before returning your gaze to the soft glow of doctor who.

he returns cradling two mugs in one hand and a pack of haribo gummies in the other. spencer doesn’t care for gummies, he’s more of a chocolate guy, but he knows it’s your favorite. so he makes sure to keep a couple bags in his apartment for you.

“my favorite!” you gush. his heart warms at your smile as he sits next to you on the couch. you naturally gravitate towards him to lean your head on his shoulder, and it’s automatic for spencer to wrap an arm around your shoulders to pull you closer.

the whirs and whooshes of the tardis fill the silence for the next hour as you visibly become calmer than when you first arrived. he decides this is a good time to ask, “do you want to talk about it?” as he turns his head to look at you.

“i don’t know,” you say quietly popping another gummy in, “i’m starting to believe it's just a me problem. like, maybe i’m just objectively not a great partner, and that’s why we keep getting in these fights. you know this time, he said i’m not worth all the effort and stress i bring him and that because of me he’s gonna bald at 29? i’m not a scientist like you or anything but even i know that, at least, can’t be my fault.” you end with a chuckle.

spencer knows he should probably comfort you in this time of honesty you’ve graced him with, squash your insecurities like a pesky bug on the windshield, and tell you how beautiful you are in as many words it’ll take for you to believe it (and he knows a lot of words).

but right now? he’s just fucking pissed.

not at you, never at you. at your situation, yes. at that sorry excuse of a partner let alone agent, immensely.

so he can’t help what escapes his mouth next, “why do you let yourself get treated like shit?”

you look up at him in surprise, at both the cursing and what he said, “what?”

“you’re constantly talking about how awful he treats you, and yet everyday you still go back to him knowing it’s going to repeat the next day. i just want to know why you don’t respect yourself enough to not let that happen to you.”

pulling away to sit far from him on the couch,  you start letting the annoyance show on your face, “spencer, that’s not fair at all. you think it’s my fault? do you really think i want to feel like this?”

“yes!” he shouts, “you seem like you do with how much you crawl back to him everytime, and everytime you let him back in.”

“okay, i think i should go,” you stand up and grab your things, “it was a mistake to come here, goodbye spencer.”

he grabs your wrist before you can get too far, “i just have to know, what is it?”

“what’s what spence, let me go.”

“what keeps you going back to him, it can’t be because you love him. it’s obviously not because you’re happy with him,” he lets out.

“you don’t know anything about me or my life, spencer!” you snatch away your arm and start heading towards the door.

“it’s definitely not because the sex is good, because i know it’s not.”

any emotion you had on your face wipes away like an etch a sketch, staring blankly at the door, hearing the man you’ve harbored a crush on since you started at the bureau years ago, telling you he knows your sex life is abysmal.

your voice comes out small, “h- how would you know that?” you don’t dare to turn around, knowing that if you did any resolve you held onto, any denial of emotions you’ve stripped from yourself would come pouring out like a broken dam.

the couch groans at a loss of weight, and the floorboards creak closer and closer to you.

“i heard you, on the jet.”

you’re especially glad he can’t see the blood draining from your face. if your heart already wasn’t at your feet, it’s most likely six feet under at this point. 

he heard you?

“when you were talking with the others about how he doesn’t reciprocate, and won’t sleep with you unless you get him off.” he continues.

the room is getting hotter by the millisecond, temperature about to be comparable to the sun’s core. it’s one thing to have just anyone hear the intimate details of your life, but spencer? the man to which you’d been using damon to get over?

the only sound that can be heard is your increasingly heavy breathing, and spencer feels like he’s caught a fish on his line and is ready to reel you in as he inches closer to you.

“you’re okay with that? not being taken care of in the way you deserve?”

his presence is merely nanometers behind you, the ghost of his fingers looking for landing on your hips. when you don’t move away, and he hears your breath hitch at the contact, he sets his hands more earnestly on your curves as he leans down to the nape of your neck.

“just don’t know,” kiss, “how anyone,” kiss, “wouldn’t want,” kiss, “to give you everything.” kiss.

your head lolls back onto his firm chest as he whispers in your ear, “cat got your tongue, sweetheart? you were so mouthy not even five minutes ago. be honest with me, has he even ever made you come?”

the whimpers escape you without warning and you find a single decibel of voice to speak, “spencer…” hoping the whine would dissuade him to let it go.

“uh uh, i asked you a question,” his arm tightens around the front of your waist to press back and fully feel him, “answer me.”

your lexicon has depleted except for the one word you know he’s desperately waiting for you to say, and the one he knows is the answer. yet you know the second it leaves your mouth, everything changes. and maybe you’re okay with that.

“no.”

spencer hums lowly, “has anyone made you come?”

“no.” you say again, softer this time.

“should we change that?”

this was not what you expected when you came to see him after your failed night out. the amount of processing you’d done in the last year to essentially not be thinking about spencer 24/7 was extensive. and you were ready to render it all useless in a matter of seconds.

so you let the strap of your bag fall down your arm and hit the ground with a thud, and finally turned around to look the good doctor in his eyes. while his voice held traces of anger and frustration, you came to see his eyes were full of reassurance and comfort, the spence you always knew to prioritize your wellbeing more than anything.

he looked down at you and slid his hand to up to cup your jaw, and he hears the smallest murmur, so delicate yet so full of want leave your lips.

“yes.”

that was all spencer needed to catch your lips in a heated kiss, moving your body to the closest wall as he places a hand behind your head to protect you from the wall’s impact while the other pins your waist to the wall.

you move your arms to wrap around his neck and keep him pinned to you with no escape, like he’d ever want to. his lips detach from yours and make a descent towards your neck again, taking deliberate effort to locate the sensitive spots.

he finds one just behind your ear and spends time sucking and bruising up the spot, relishing in the soft whimpers leaving your mouth. while you’re lost in the sensation on your neck, you don’t notice spencer move one of his hands closer to the button of your pants, effortlessly (and impressively) opening it up.

detaching from your neck with a heavy pant, he moves back to lean against your forehead with his own and look you in the eyes to ask, “is this okay? we can stop if you want, i didn’t mean to be so forw-“

“please don’t stop.”

he searches your eyes for any conflict and finds none, considering it the okay to continue his downward descent. he returns his lips to the second home they’ve made on your lips and starts to push your pants down over the curve of your ass, leaving your panties on.

the flash of purple lace underwear glares at him when he glances down, and suddenly he remembers what got him in this position in the first place.

“were you wearing this for him?” he lets out condescendingly, “you really think he deserved to see you like this?”

spencer’s fingers brush against your front, leaving your heavy breaths hitting him in the face. you can’t think of anything to say. hell, you’re not even sure if you know any words right now. all you can offer is a pathetic moan, and spencer doesn’t think that’s enough.

“come on, don’t get all shy now. what were you expecting him to even do, hm? thought you said he didn’t care about making you feel good.” he taunts as his middle finger traces the outlines of your cunt through your panties.

you shudder at the contact, leaning your head back against the wall as he refuses to break eye contact. he’s waiting for you to say something, raising his eyebrows expectantly as he’s slowed down his movements on you. taking a shallow breath you open your mouth, “h-, he didn’t care, just thought if i ke-, kept looking nice he’d wanna, fuck, do something.” you moan out.

“and did he?” he moved his hand back up to slowly slip into your panties.

his finger dips all the way down to your entrance to gather your wetness and spread it all the way back up to your clit, your mouth dropping open as you let out a whiny, “no.”

“what a shame.” he dips a finger into your hole and you let out a pornographic moan.

he drags his finger in and out slowly making sure to watch your face as it contorts in pleasure. once he feels you’ve gotten used to it he slips in a second finger, increasing the pace and moving his thumb to circle your clit again.

“oh fuck,” you cry.

“baby, you’re so tight.” he whispers. the way you clenched around his two digits made feel almost pussy drunk, and he wasn’t even inside you yet. he starts to wonder if damon was doing anything really to prioritize your pleasure, and it only just worked him up more. he felt more determined to bring you to finish, so he picks up the pace and increases the pressure on your clit.

you drop your head to his shoulder no longer being able to hold yourself up anymore, the sensation of his fingers on you taking over, loose whimpers and moans falling out of your mouth every other second.

“spencer…shit, i’m gonna come…”

“let go for me, baby.” he whispers in your ear.

the pleasure barrels through you like a wrecking ball, knocking the wind out of your mind and body. your legs turn into jelly and you almost fall before spencer holds you up. you try to regulate your breathing into his shoulder, hoping to calm down before you look up and meet his eyes again.

he makes that choice for you when he gingerly lifts your head up, his eyes silently asking if you’re okay. you don’t even bother responding before softly pressing your lips to his again, hoping he can feel your response to his silent question.

the kiss picks up in urgency, and soon his hands are back to exploring your body again. they slide down to the backs of your thighs while he murmurs a small, “jump.” and lifts you to wrap your legs around his waist. without breaking the kiss he walks you both to his bedroom and places you on his bed with care.

his fists flank you on both sides as he leans down to kiss you, and he moves further down kissing along your neck and chest. you reach down to the bottom of your top to pull it over your head, leaving you in the purple lacy bra that matches your panties.

he detaches from you and stands at full height, gazing at the sight of you spread out on his bed with your hair framing you like a halo. he can’t even help himself when he says, “you look so beautiful, angel.” the blush rises to your cheeks, and you beckon him to come back down to which he happily obliges.

spencer moves down further towards your hips, and his lips ghost over the lace band spreading along your waist. his fingers play with the fabric and he moves his face to be directly in line with your clothed cunt. your breathing gets heavy, and you anticipate what he’s about to do.

“wait, you don’t, you don’t have to do that, spence. i already came.” starting to feel a bit guilty at the man above you potentially feeling obligated to do this, as you realize that if he heard you on the jet, he heard about the one thing damon refused to do for you.

“sweetheart, i’d love to keep making you feel good as long as you let me, okay? you gonna let me make you feel good?” he breaths, pressing chaste kisses to your inner thighs.

you give a slight nod and he gently pulls your panties off your legs, marveling at the light glistening off your cunt. he kisses up the plush of your thighs before pausing right where you need him the most. you look down at him and meet his unwavering eyes full of love.

he places a long kiss to your core before licking a long stripe. you moan out languishly, the euphoric feeling taking over every sense in your body. you’re unable to comprehend how you went so long without feeling this, it almost feels criminal. and the way spencer was eating you out, felt like this was doing it for him too even though you were the one getting pleasured. 

it turned you on even more to know he was getting off on how much you were enjoying this. your head was spinning off into another realm, and the only thing tethering you to this reality was the grip of your hands in his hair. his tongue made circles and shapes all over your cunt before dipping down to thrust into your hole.

your thighs shake and threaten to clamp shut on his head, and he uses his wide hands to wrap around your thighs to hold them in place. “oh my god fuck, that feels so good…spence…please..” you’re not even sure what you’re begging for, but of course, spencer does when he adds a finger into your hole and moves his tongue to focus back on your clit. the combined sensations were enough to tip you over the edge for the second time tonight, your release glistening on his chin as he moved back up to kiss your lips again.

your heavy panting tries to bring you back down from your high, a mix of sweat and the taste of you lingering everywhere. 

spencer smooths your hair back as he moves his body to lie next to you, “i think, damon’s a fucking loser, if he doesn’t think that’s worth doing.” he says between pants.

you hum in agreement, or just in acknowledgement at whatever he said since you’re still reeling from the endorphin release. hiking your leg over his body to straddle him, you clumsily reach for his belt and attempt to undo the clasps to reach his growing member. you pull his pants down and palm him through his boxers, reveling in the broken moans falling from his mouth. you start inching downwards when spencer grabs you by the forearms and flips you over so you’re back on the bed staring up at him.

“not tonight, sweetheart. it’s about you right now, wanna make sure you know what you deserve.”

“but…” you pathetically respond.

“i don’t know what that neanderthal tells you, but sex is not transactional. i think if i ever see that guy again, i’d punch him for making you think otherwise.”

the words go straight to your core, turning you on even more. spencer takes note of how your pupils widen and your chin tilts up towards him.

“besides,” he presses his crotch to yours, “the sex wasn’t even that good with him, right?”

you moan out again, unable to find words to satisfy his question. he leans back up and off the bed to fully remove his boxers and you finally get a good look at what was underneath.

holy fuck, he was huge. you propped yourself on your forearms to get a better look at him, and watched as he lazily stroked himself while he sauntered back over to you. the image was so lewd, you hoped you could borrow some of his eidetic memory so you could hold on to this moment forever.

his face held a smug smirk at your awestruck one, and he felt his ego inflate even higher, “by the looks of your reaction, i’m guessing he’s never been much of a, challenge, for you in bed has he?”

you dumbly shake your head no, “definitely not as big as you.” you whisper, more to yourself than him.

his smirk grows wider, “don’t worry, baby, i’ll take real good care of you.” he says as he climbs over you to line himself up to your entrance.

you feel him slowly start to push in, the sensation of being split open growing bigger by the second. your brows furrow and your eyes are shut tight as you wait for the pressure to turn into pleasure.

if spencer thought you around his fingers had him pussydrunk, what he’s feeling now has to be close to pussy poisoning or something because he cannot think of anything in existence that feels as good as the walls of your cunt clenching around his cock. it’s taking everything in him to not break, to just fuck you senseless and reach his peak.

once his hips are flush with yours and he’s fully settled within you, he waits for you to give him the okay to move.

you, on the other hand, have never felt more full ever. damon was not nearly this big, nor has any other guy you’ve been with. it’s a bit of a miracle on how it fit inside you, and how it felt better than anything you could’ve imagined. the pressure and slight pain subsides, and with a slight nod spencer takes the cue to start moving.

the first thrust has you both moaning out in harmony together, and he sets the pace nice and slow so as to make sure you’re comfortable.

but it's not enough for you, you need him to fuck you.

“spence…harder.”

he stills at your word, leaning up so he’s perpendicular to you.

“whatever you say, princess.”

and he starts pounding into you, hips rutting at a pace you can’t even keep up with. the whimpers and moans gush out as the familiar coil begins to build within you. he taps your leg to lift it up over his shoulder to allow him deeper access, and he’s able to reach that one spot you’d heard about from all your friends, on reddit, in movies. you had no idea this type of feeling even existed, and spencer was hitting it with precision every single thrust over and over.

“fuck,” you whine.

“that feel good, baby?” he teases, “the way you’re squeezing my cock so tight, i doubt that fucker ever made you feel like this, huh?”

your tits bounce with every thrust, and the deepened angle has you reaching your climax fast. spencer feels it too and drops his head to whisper in your ear.

“i bet he’s never fucked you like this,” he continues his taunt, “he’d never be able to fuck you like i can, make you come three times in one night like i can.”

you whimper, “spencer,”

“say it, sweetheart. say no one’s ever fucked you like me.”

he was trying to kill you, death during intercourse would be a crazy way to go out but it’s a fate you’d be willing to accept. nonetheless, you comply.

“never ever, fuck, been fucked like you, baby.”

spencer has never felt more satisfied, “good girl, now come.” and with a final thrust he lets you reach your peak as he releases himself into you.

in the midst of groans he gingerly pulls out of you and you whimper at the loss.

the next few minutes are just filled with the sounds of yours and his heavy breathing, before spencer leans over to you, “was that too much?”

still in your daze you let out a soft giggle, “spencer, i think you’ve ruined all men for me.”

he smiles back, “i meant what i said, damon’s really stupid if he’s not willing to do all that for you.”

you intertwine your hand with his, “you know, i never really liked him anyway. i was just using him to get over you.”

“me?” he says incredulously.

you nod, “i didn’t know if you would’ve felt the same so i just tried to move on to someone else, stupid i know, but i don’t know it made sense then.”

he pulls you closer to rest in the crevice of his chest, “i have been into you since the day you walked into the bullpen, and letting you slip through my fingers is a mistake i will never make again.”

you hug him tightly before groaning out loud, “shit, i have to tell damon it’s over now don’t i.”

“i mean, i could tell him if you want.”

“spence, no. i think you might kill him.” you laugh, “i can do it, i just don’t want him to get all ‘organized crime’ on me.”

“just tell him i have a gun.”

“so does he?”

“mine’s bigger.” he smirks.

you roll your eyes, “well, yes.”

[sexlapis]

[◉°] … LEVI & Y/N BEING A COUPLE FOR 10 MINUTES STRAIGHT … 900k views

⪩　 　  ₊　    🌸 　 　✧ 　 　⁺

꩜ actor!levi x gn!actor/actress!reader

⤷ they’re called delusional all the time, but your fans just know that leviyn is real!

sfw, fluff, protective levi, mean fans (comments on weight), swearing, unwanted groping (this is mostly happy i swear), violence (levi ofc), use of ‘brat’ (cliche i know)

a/n: i missed my man. this is the most ideas i’ve ever had for this little series lol.

masterlists

from the actor!character series:

actor!toji masterlist

actor!nanami & y/n being a couple

*

꩜ first clip

after a decade long run, the successful series of ‘attack on titan’ had finally come to an end, and behind the scenes interviews of all the cast members were released.

it’s really no surprise that levi’s interview gained the most attention & popularity.

“it was an honour working with such great and talented people for ten years and i look forward to the legacy that this series will leave. i have no regrets about partaking in this show and i will forever feel it’s impact.”

the interviewer lets levi’s meaningful answer marinate for a few moments, before completely ruining the effect with just one question.

“which of the cast members will you miss working with the most?”

levi clears his throat, eyes squinting, “i..i will miss working with all of them…obviously.”

“it’s y/n though, right? i mean, isn’t she your favourite?”

levi blinks at the interviewer behind the camera.

the interview cuts to behind the scene clips of you and levi; of levi grudgingly giving you a piggy back ride, to you surprise kissing him on the cheek and running away while he blushes and scowls, letting you steal his food and to the most recent one, of the last day on set where he finally accepts your request to give him a hug after ten whole years.

levi looks back to the camera, “no. no, i don’t have “favourites”.”

꩜ second clip

a blurry TMZ clip of you stumbling out of the after party of an awards show (you and levi both left empty handed) with levi by your side, making sure you didn’t fall over.

he wears his slacks and his white, button up shirt and his suit jacket appears to…be worn by you?

you walk like a baby deer, babbling and giggling inaudibly in levi’s ear. he just nods at you, only mildly annoyed and focuses on holding onto your waist to make sure you don’t topple over.

a patent, black limousine pulls up in front of the both of you and levi opens the back door and helps you in, despite your drunken objections. he guides you in by the top of your head, making sure you don’t hit it on the car ceiling and gets in after you before the it drives away.

꩜ third clip

you, sasha and connie make a late appearance to an ‘attack on titan’ cast interview, being more than 20 minutes late (that being all sasha’s fault).

“and- oh, look who finally decided to show up!” exclaimed jean as you and your peers make your late arrival.

the cast cheers and applauds your trio sarcastically, you’re a little embarrassed but connie and sasha revel in the attention, mock bowing and blowing kisses.

you stroll over to where levi sits, with his arms folded and legs crossed.

you look at him.

he looks at you.

“what?” he asks in his default mood of annoyance. “there’s no space here.”

“yeah there is.” you responded, your eyes dropping down to his lap.

levi pauses, his mouth opening and closing like a fish, his face painted with an expression of incredulousness.

and then he sighs in utter exhaustion, giving in and spreading his legs. you smile gleefully, plopping your full weight in his lap.

despite his ‘annoyance’, you both sit like this for the rest of the interview.

and all of your fans are just both so confused and so happy. because they were not prepared for levi, ever so stoic and astute, to just allow you to sit on him and just accept it.

you’re going to make him go grey early.

꩜ fourth clip

a fan recording of you and levi attending NY fashion week and just as you both stand up and begin to take your leave, you are stopped a handsome gentleman.

he speaks to you animatedly, and you smile and laugh with him.

levi on the other hand…is not so friendly.

he simply glares at this random man, unblinking, arms crossed and he seems to be impatient and…maybe a certain other emotion?

the conversation comes to a close. the stranger gives you a small business card and you thank him and say goodbye. the man also waves to levi, but levi simply responds with a stiff nod and walks away with you.

you both walk through the crowd. you turn to him, looking at his face, and you wrap your arm in his one, leaning on you and smiling. he visibly sighs and relaxes, discreetly rubbing your hand with his own.

꩜ fifth clip

you and levi are at a new years event, along with other actors and actresses, including the ones from ‘attack on titan’.

it is ten minutes before new years, and it is freezing - it is 3°C at most.

you and historia are huddled together, absolutely shaking and teeth chattering in the cold.

that’s until levi walks towards the two of you and appears to notice your situation.

he shrugs off his long black coat, leaving him in only his suit, and drapes over yourself and historia.

your head whips to where he stands.

levi clearly tells you, “you should’ve worn a jacket!”

and you respond, with a wide grin on your face, “seems like i didn’t need to.”

historia thanks levi vehemently and you kiss levi’s cheek.

even from metres away, the blush on his cheeks is so very visible.

꩜ sixth clip

it is halloween! you enjoy halloween, always posting a costume of yourself on your instagram every year!

this year, you dressed as a cute vampire. your hair was slicked back and you had fake fangs on your canines. you were a doll!

on your story, you post a video of you.

and levi.

you are recording yourself walking and you come up behind levi, shoving your phone in his face so you both are in the frame.

levi rests on the couch with his eyes clothes.

but he is wearing a costume too.

levi never celebrates halloween. let alone wears costumes outside of acting.

how did you convince him to do this?

“leviiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii…” you growl with face menace, grinning wildly.

“hm?” he hums, barely even paying attention to you.

“i vant to vsuck vour vlood vleeeeviiiiiiiiiiiii…” you chime in jest, opening and closing your mouth to show you fangs.

levi opens one eye, side-eyeing you with immense suspicion. “get away from me.”

“vnoooooooooooooo, vlevvvvvvvvviiii,” you drawl again, opening you mouth an ample amount, and slowly closing in on his neck, “i vant to vsuck vour vblood-”

then his grabbing your hairline and holding you back, causing your eyes to squint and your face to lift.

“are you gonna stop?” he asks. his expression is blank as he scowls.

“nope!” you croak, your voice compromised by the position you’re held in, “vyourr vbloood vvlevvvvvviiii…”

the video cuts to another.

levi is running away from you, his bat cape flapping behind as you chase him.

the camera moves erratically as you manically cackle, “vgivve me vyour vblood vlevviiiiii! vlet ve vsuck vour vblooddd!”

this game of cat and mouse continues until you pounce on him and the video abruptly ends.

in the end, you get a photo with levi, that he willingly partook in, with you biting his smooth, pale neck.

it is safe to say your fans went crazy that day.

꩜ seventh clip

a viral paparazzi clip of you and levi walking out of the set for the movie you’re both working on.

as you walk with levi, an odd man wearing sunglasses comes up behind you and gropes your ass.

you can’t help crying out a loud, “hey!” in complete shock that someone would do that so shamelessly in front of so many people.

levi turns to, wondering what happened. you tell him that, ‘that man’ touched you inappropriately.

he doesn’t even waste any time.

levi storms up to the man, who has the sense to try and walk away, and sucker punches him in the nose.

everyone gasps as the man falls. he clutches his bloody nose, groaning and writhing.

“disgusting scum.” levi spits at the thing crying on the ground.

cameras flash all around you and levi.

levi guides you to the car, opening the passenger door for you and swiftly getting in the drivers side and speeding away.

while he received mostly support from your fans, he also received backlash for “inciting violence” and “not setting a good example”.

he did not care. in his own words, he would “do it again” if he had to.

꩜ eighth clip

a fan q&a was held with the cast of ‘attack on titan’ for the season finale, and fans could ask any questions they wanted!

unfortunately, because they are not interviewers, they lacked the skills usually used by people in media.

and the shame.

after levi answered a question, the host picked out another fan who had their hand raised to ask a question.

“hi, i have a question for ______.” said the fan.

you say hello and then she proceeded to ask, “how much weight did you gain between seasons 3 and 4?”

your looked shocked at the audacity of her to ask such a question and the fans seem to be in agreement, shouting in surprise and even booing the fan.

the host tells her, “please, do not ask inappropriate questions to the cast please.”

“huh? can she not answer questions or…?”

the cast look around awkwardly, glancing at you in concern.

you pick up your microphone to speak. “uh-”

but before you can get a word in, levi is already speaking for you. “can you ask good questions? or…?”

you choke on your spit, and the crowd cheers and whoops, and your cast members laugh and clap as the rude fan is guided out by security.

“tch, these people…” levi curses, “no more shit questions.”

the crowd howls but levi is being dead serious.

the q&a goes on, and levi places his hand on your knee as questions are being answered, seemingly making sure you’re okay. you nod and give him a small smile.

꩜ ninth clip

a clip, recorded by you, of levi working out for his role in a new thriller film.

you wolf whistle, panning down levi’s shirtless body as he does pull ups, “ooh la laaaa!”

levi grunts, dropping down and wiping his head with a cloth. “stop that.”

“an attractive male in his natural habitat - the gym. the attractive male-”

levi snatches the phone from you.

you whine and he points the camera at you, turning the table on you. you are also clothed in gym wear.

“aren’t you supposed to be exercising too? you brat.”

“uhmmm…i’m here for uhhh…moral support?”

cut to you barbell squatting, with levi spotting you from behind.

“ugh! levi i can’t anymore! it’s too heavy!”

“are you serious? it’s ten kilograms.”

“yeah that’s heavy!”

“five more and then you’re done.”

you grunt but power through, doing all five before throwing the barbell onto the floor.

“impressive,” he compliments, “for you.”

you collapse to the floor and give a thumps up to the camera and say, “he loves me, really.”

levi huffs.

he does not deny it though.

*

a/n: i miss him so much i need him back and animated again :’)))

[0mg-bird]

Lover’s Rock~ S. Reid

Spencer Reid x Fem Reader

Summary: Spencer isn’t the only one that stands out in the crowd, but maybe that’s a good thing, because that’s what leads him to you.

Warnings: I didn’t really proof read, I’ll do it later lol. 18+ content towards the end. Um Reid is such a dweeb and adorable???? Fluff, mentions of alcohol and embarrassment. Reader is so twee (can we bring twee back or no?) idk she makes questionable fashion choices.

Really, this wasn’t your thing.

The bar scene, the club dresses all the girls where, the high heels and the whole game of cat and mouse that all the guys want to play. But you’re here, you made an effort to appease your best friends who claim you have no social life.

The entire night so far, they watched you strike out with the guys they motioned over because in their mind, you’re desperate and lonely and lame.

Okay, maybe that’s more of your headspace than theirs, but they’ve been offering you pity glances this whole time.

You’ve made a decision a while ago that maybe there was no romance out there for you. You were just born with some aspect that made normal, sane guys physically run away, and maybe that’s fine. You were really good on your own. And it never did feel right when you had a guy, if it didn’t feel like the movies, it wasn’t worth it.

Right?

Okay, maybe you should settle, at some point, you’ll be too old to marry and you’ll just keep working, with no real life and take care of Shelly, your goldfish. Maybe it won’t be perfect, but it’ll be someone to share things with.

You let out a huff and watch the ice melt in your drink, not bothering to smile when your friend tells you to brighten up.

Normally, you’re a ray of sunshine, but something about getting rejected four consecutive times is raining on your parade.

An entire bar full of happy people in their element, and it’s just you, sticking out like a sore thumb, especially when your friends go dance with a few guys they hit it off with.

Too busy looking at the buckle on the ankle strap of your heel, you are sinking somewhere in your mind, to a place where you aren’t listening to cheap song lyrics of and realizing that table is stickier than you thought.

“Where’s Reid?”

“Reid.”

“Spencer!” Penelope smacks his shoulder, pulling him from the trance of his eyes on the book pages.

He looks up from the corner booth, seeing his team has returned with drinks.

“Are you seriously reading right now?” Morgan criticizes, placing a beer in front of the younger agent.

Spencer doesn’t know why he does this, beer tastes like a plowed hay field in his opinion. But he takes the drink in gratitude and before he can explain that he was just trying to finish the Russian publishing of ‘Crime and Punishment’, Morgan rips the book from his hands and tosses it to Emily for safe keeping.

“I- what was that for?” Spencer questions with a unjust squeak, feeling rather sad.

“Look around, kid, do you see how many fine ladies are here? You don’t need to be sitting here with your nose between the pages of Little Women.” Morgan states as a matter of fact.

“Yeah, nobody puts baby in the corner.” Penelope agrees.

With an airy scoff, Spencer looks to the other members for help, but they all seem to side with Derek.

He gains a defeated frown.

Spencer didn’t want to be here in the first place, now he’s being forced out into the public to socialize. There has to be a law against this, he knows there’s not because he knows everything, but he is certainly going to try and create one.

“Oh come on, Spence, why don’t you try to get a date?” JJ asks, meaning well, but the laugh that comes from Emily makes him want to recoil.

“C’mon, I’ll help you.” Morgan offers, pulling him from the booth seat.

“Yeah, that never really works well when you try to be my wingman, you usually end up with all the phone numbers.” Spencer claims, pressing his lips into a line.

But like some mock savior, Morgan stands behind Reid as they wait by the bar.

“What about her?” Morgan would point out.

To which Reid would respond with some variation of ‘she’s too much’ or ‘she definitely has a boyfriend three times my size’.

After fifteen minutes of this back and forth, Morgan is seriously regretting he forced the hermit out of his shell.

And that’s when a rowdy group finally leaves and clears the path of vision to you.

Still sat at a high table with one leg crossed over the other, you wiggle your foot as you doodle on a drink napkin.

Reid misses whatever Morgan says, and in that air of silence, the agent follows the vision.

“Okay, now we’re getting somewhere.” Derek chuckles, clapping Reid on the shoulder. “She’s pretty. Go talk to her.”

“What?” Reid looks away. “No, no, I don’t want to disturb her.”

You let out a very bored sigh.

Derek’s brows furrow. “I know you’re some boy genius but you really are dumb sometimes. Everything about that girl is screaming ‘put me outa my misery’.”

Spencer tilts his head slightly, watching you rub your eye and then frown at the way you smudged your already smudged eye liner.

“Okay, maybe you’re right.” He nods. “But…what do I say?”

Derek grins. “Compliment her, ask if she wants another drink, strike up a conversation. It’s easy, man.”

Spencer gets an uneasy feeling in him, but he still braves through it. “Easy for you, maybe.” He mumbles before running a hand through his hair and takes a step towards you.

“Go get her, tiger!” Morgan encourages.

When he returns to the team with the happy news, Penelope asks if Spencer’s gonna do good.

“Oh, definitely not, we’ll be lucky if he doesn’t trip over his own feet on the way over there.” Derek answers, laughing.

But Spencer makes it to you without a stumble, yet his whole plan leaves his mind when he gets to you.

You’re gorgeous, too pretty for him.

“Nice legs.”

Did he just say that?

You look up at him upon hearing his voice, your wide eyes confused.

“I’m sorry?” You question, not sure if you heard this stranger correctly.

He’s a rather handsome stranger.

“No- I mean I like your legs- tights! Not your legs, you have nice legs of course but that’s not- your tights are nice- cool! Different?”

Oh god, he should just walk away now. He’s already messed this whole thing up and surely you think he’s an idiot.

While he’s got an embarrassed look on his face, you look down at the red lace tights you wear under your skirt, something your friends questioned as a fashion choice.

“You really like them?” You ask, voice soft to his ears.

He stops his rambling.

“Yeah, of course I do, I think they’re cool.” He smiles softly.

You can’t help but grin bashfully.

“Every guy I’ve talked to tonight thought they were a little weird, but that’s okay, I kinda like weird.” You admit, watching as he shakes his head.

“People say my socks are weird all the time, don’t feel bad.” He comforts, pulling the material of his pants up so you can see his mismatched socks with funky colors and prints on them.

“Those are cool.” Your approval eases him, giving him just enough reassurance that you aren’t going to scream for help in the next two minutes.

“I’m Dr. Spencer Reid- sorry, force of habit, uh, just Spencer. I-I’m Spencer.” He introduces with the smallest of wave.

Still smiling more than you have the entire night, you greet him. He repeats your name like it has some special meaning, and you’ve never loved the sound of it more.

“I was going to get a drink, what are you having?” He asks, looking at your sweating glass. “Vodka soda? Cherry sour?”

You blush. “It’s actually a shirley temple…I just ate all the cherries out of it already.”

Without hesitation, he nods. “Okay, I’ll be back.”

He leaves you at your table, and then your brief moment of sunshine is clouded once more by doubt. What if he doesn’t come back? What if he drugs your drink and then you wake up in an alley somewhere, missing your wallet and phone and your tights that he thinks are so cool?

This was a bad idea. Dating isn’t for you. He seemed so nice and he’s so attractive but that should have been your first red flag and-

Oh. He’s coming back.

With two shirley temples.

He places them on the table and waits for you to grab one, then he grabs the other and takes a sip.

“You mind if I sit?” He asks.

Feeling a little silly for assuming he was out to maim you, you nod.

“I seriously doubt my friends remember I’m over here, so feel free to stay.” You joke at your expense.

He sits across from you, sparing a glance over his shoulder at his team who make it very obvious that they’re staring.

You study his profile, a shaggy haircut that falls across his forehead, all tousled in an effortless way. His jaw line is defined, round brown eyes that flick back to you. When he catches you looking, he grins once more.

It’s never been so…easy, having a ‘get to know you’ conversation. Questions come without second thoughts, you find yourself laughing, actually laughing.

Playing with your straw, you try to calm your facial expressions, your cheeks are starting to hurt from beaming so much.

“So, Dr. Reid, huh?” You ask, making him let out a small huff of embarrassment.

“That’s what the PhD’s say, yeah.” He scratches the back of his neck, suddenly feeling really dorky about his immense amount of education.

It’s not dorky to you. Every guy you’ve talked to tonight dropped out of community college because ‘it didn’t align with their career paths’ of selling protein smoothies or working in some ‘underground’ record store.

But here Spencer is, explaining he’s on the behavioral analysis unit for the FBI and he tells you about all the degrees he has. All you can think about as he talks of universities and the academy is, knowledge is such a sexy look on a guy. Sure, you’ve never really liked the underachieving stoners, but usually you’ve been with guys who seem to say “you like school?” when you talk about working towards your Masters degree.

“Wow.” Is all you can say for a moment, clearly shocked and, well, impressed. “I really wasn’t expecting that.”

“That’s what most people say.” He nods, picking the cherry in his drink out by the stem and offering it to you.

By your thankful eyes batting up at him, he’s tempted on going behind the bar and bringing you all the maraschino cherries they have. He quickly turns the conversation around to focus on you so he can focus on something other than the stained color on your lips.

“What about you? What do you do?” He asks.

Compared to his job, yours seems too normal, too mundane. You almost want to avoid the question, never once have you been unsatisfied with your career but now you can’t help it. What if Spencer doesn’t like you because you don’t work for NASA?

That’s ridiculous, because to Spencer, your job makes his adoration grow.

“Oh, I’m just a teacher.” You say, fiddling with a stem in your mouth.

Spencer gains a soft smile. “You could never just be a teacher, teacher’s are important. Well, unless you’re a sucky teacher.”

His joke earns a bubbly giggle and he decides he’d like to hear that sound forever. It’s moments like this that he’s glad to have an eidetic memory.

“I don’t think I’m a sucky teacher so that’s good, my students seem to like me.” You state, pushing your hair behind your ear and dropping the knotted stem onto a napkin.

Spencer finds himself leaning a little closer, body naturally gravitating to your pull. “What do you teach?” He asks.

“I work for my schools gifted children program, so I basically teach kid geniuses advanced core curriculum because they’ve tested out of their normal classes.” You chuckle, oblivious to the way Spencer’s heart warms.

He remains quiet for a bit too long, just staring at you with an honest look, one that makes you feel like you’re turned inside out and bared for him. The panic rises again, you think you must have said something to ruin it.

“I know it’s nothing special-” You begin to say.

“No.” He interrupts, a sure tone. “I-I think it’s great. Really, that’s not an easy job.”

Deep breath out, you’re put at ease.

“I constantly have imposter syndrome, these kids are twelve and bringing up philosophies and mathematical formulas I have to go home and study because I haven’t even learned them yet. Honestly, sometimes I don’t even think they need me there.” You joke lightly, half meaning it but masking that slight insecurity by finishing off your drink.

“They need you.” Spencer assures, an expression showing he’s never been more sure of something. “Believe me, you’re probably the only person they see in a school day that understands them.”

Brows creased, you shake your head, holding his rather intimidating gaze for such puppy dog eyes.

“What makes you so sure?” You question.

Spencer takes in a breath. “Because I know what it’s like to be twelve years old and telling a grown adult about Fermat’s Last Theorem.”

Sometimes, the world has a funny way of putting two people together. For years, you’ve wandered through life and on a random Friday night, feeling a little flushed from the Summer air, here is Spencer Reid, the man of your dreams.

Your friends left some time ago after you assured them you were fine to be left at the place you were just complaining about being. You don’t mind being left with Spencer, in fact, you’re dreading the time you have to go home because it means this moment is over.

“I really would like to live in New York.” You exclaim, somehow have fallen into the rabbit hole of dreams for the future.

“New York’s really cool!” He agrees. “Did you know that they have a homicide rate of 4.48 percent right now? It’s been declining since the nineties.”

You must make some sort of surprised face because his eyes go wide and he quickly tried to recover his odd statement.

“Sorry, my job isn’t really full of happy statistics. But mostly we just find dead prostitutes in alleys in New York.”

His blushed cheeks make your heart flutter in its beats.

“I’m glad I’m not a prostitute.” You giggle, making him chew his bottom lip for a moment.

“Yeah, I’m glad you’re not either.”

By the time the team gets their coats back on with the intention of heading home, they look across the room to see their quirky doctor friend is partaking in very friendly body language.

“Oh my god, look at him.” Emily laughs. “He’s finally using that big IQ of his.”

Penelope, who comes to hold onto Morgan’s arm, grins rather proudly. “It’s like a butterfly finally coming out of its cocoon. It’s…beautiful, actually.”

Derek laughs down at her. “I think that last long island ice tea was a bad idea. Come on, baby, let’s get you home.”

“Good luck, my fine friend.” She calls in the general direction of you and Spencer, but the two of you don’t notice.

JJ ties her hair up and starts to take a few steps forward.

“Where are you going?” Penelope questions.

“To let him know we’re leaving?”

“No!” The team seems to exclaim, all shouting that she cannot disturb the moment Spencer worked rather hard to get to.

She just holds her hands up in defense, then follows after Emily as they leave the bar.

Spencer of course notices the way Prentiss leaves him with an encouraging thumbs up. It makes his get a little bashful, but he nods a goodbye and watches the door shut once more. His attention is brought back to his hand on the table, well, more to the way your pinky brushes against his. You continue to talk about mutual interests and what your apartment in New York would look like, a slight ramble to you that shows you’re very aware of the slight contact.

With some kind of placebo courage he can’t even blame on alcohol, he lets his fingers crawl between yours like that’s where they belong.

The team would definitely laugh at this teenage display, but to the both of you, it’s the perfect amount of reassurance, soft enough to not be too scary.

The attraction is there, Spencer forces himself to profile it just so his negative thoughts can’t prove him wrong. You’re smiling at every word, your eyes seem to stay dilated and focused on his, and he isn’t sure if you even realize the way your heel brushes his ankle every so often.

His profile, often never wrong, is what helps him reach across the slight space to tuck your hair behind your ear so casually as he tells you about his minuscule music taste.

After a few flirty comments, you force yourself yo look away from him just so you can het your breathing under control. Upon this action, you read the watch on his wrist and a frown sets on your lipstick stained lips.

“I should go home before it’s too late to walk.” You sigh, not wanting this moment to end.

He nods. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”

Those round eyes he’s starting to really adore look up at him and you chew your lip, almost like you’re waiting for him to do something. Say something.

It takes him entirely too long to figure out what to do. Morgan would be ashamed.

“C-Can I walk you home?” He asks in a rush and in eagerness.

You nod like that’s the best idea you’ve ever heard.

That’s how it leads to you leaning against him like it’s something you do often, walking in step as you ramble on and on about what you have to do to get your classroom ready for the new school year. He listens without annoyance like most guys would, then tells you about books he has that he thinks you might enjoy, books he could part with so you could give them to the students whose reading levels are above what the school provides.

He’s so caring and considerate, making sure he walks closest to the street, lets you be off in your own world and makes sure you don’t run into anything as you constantly gaze up at him. All the way to your building and up the stairs to your apartment door, the two of you are as comfortable with each other like two old friends would be.

That’s what makes your head spin. You just met Spencer and already feel like he’s been in your life for hundreds of years.

You pull your keys from your purse, you unlock the door but don’t make a move to open it.

“I’m really, really, happy that I met you.” You whisper to him as he slightly crowds your space in the door way.

“I am too.” He agrees, heart beating a little faster as your hand presses gently to his chest.

Don’t be crazy, you just met her, she doesn’t want a stranger trying to kiss her, tell her good night, call her tomorrow, maybe you can plan for something next weekend-

His thoughts don’t stand a chance when you wrap your fingers around his tie and gently tug him to your lips.

It’s smooth and warm and has your eyes shutting and your lungs exhaling. His gentle hand cradles your face while the other flexes against your hip.

It just feels so…

So right.

With the slight tilt of your head, the goodnight kiss deepens, you’re molded against him.

His lips part, coaxing yours to do the same, and the feeling of your tongue against his has you slightly teetering backwards. You lean against the door for support, hands roaming into his hair.

You’ve been wanting to run your hands through it all night.

He’s desperate in his movements, like he’s a starved man and you’re enjoying every second of it. His thumb runs over your jaw, you’re pushing away any space between you.

When you decide you’re going to pass out from the lack of oxygen, you pull away, sucking your bottom lip to savor the taste. Spencer still holds your face in his large hands and matches your shallow pants.

It’s all so much. You’re hot, brain a little foggy, but still so sure of this situation.

And you soon find yourself saying something you’ve never ever said after just meeting a guy.

“Do you want to come inside?”

Spencer seriously thinks he misheard you.

“Yeah- yes. Yes, I do.” He nods.

A laugh escapes your lips, one he swallows up as he embraces you once more, trying to help you open the door. His arm around your waist makes sure you don’t stumble and fall as the two of you finally get inside.

He looks around the space. “I like your apartment, it’s nice.”

“Thank you.” You mumble against his lips, pulling at your jean jacket and tossing it to the couch.

It’s dark, causing you to back into a side table. The both of you laugh, but neither of you bother to reach for the light switch.

You guid him towards your bedroom, pushing him through the ajar door. The open window leaves the room painted in a low light, the breeze is cool as you clumsily fall onto the mattress with him.

“I never do this.” You state, a huff leaving your lips as he rolls you onto your back.

“I don’t either.” He agrees, mouth wandering down your jaw to your neck.

You fiddling hands make a home in his hair. “Like I really don’t do this. I don’t even go to bars, let alone take home strange men- not that you’re strange. But don’t think I am a casual hookup girl, because I’m not, I just- there’s a connection, right? I’m not alone in this?”

He pulls away, looking down at you with a loopy grin. “You’re rambling, that’s a sign of nervousness.”

“I am nervous!” You exclaim with a breathy laugh. “You’re just…you’re really great.”

His thumb traces your bottom lip. “You’re really great too.” He whispers. “But we don’t have to do anything.”

“No!” You say a little too boldly. “I mean, no, no I want this. Do you want this?”

With a nod, he assures you. “I want this too.”

Maybe you should be more shy and self conscious about this, but when he’s being so kind, all your nervousness leaves. The two of you stumble through the awkward bits with laughter and jokes, and it makes you realize that something so serious doesn’t have to be so uniform.

Really, you’re having more fun than you’ve ever had.

“Spencer?” You gasp, dangerously close to falling off the bed at how the two of you have rolled around.

“Yeah?” He asks, head buried in your neck, trying not to get too ahead of himself as he continues his deep pace between your legs.

“You’re kinda pulling my hair.”

Immediately he moves his hand, apologetic.

Hands dragging up his chest, you try to shimmy away from the mattress ledge. Spencer notices the tragedy that’s about to strike, opting to back off of you completely so you can readjust.

You gasp at the loss of contact. “A little warning next time would be appreciated.”

“Sorry, sorry.” He stammers, gripping you in a feverish way, mouth back to yours.

You don’t exactly know how you ended up on top, but you look at him slightly frightened eyes.

“Is this a no?” He questions, only concerned with making you comfortable.

He’s the complete opposite of selfish, he proved that the second he started you off with his tongue against your core.

“No, not if you like this? I just…I don’t know if I’m good at this.”

He nods in understanding. “Okay, no problem.”

You protest as he goes to move you. “Can I try? Will-will you help me?”

God, he could marry you.

“Yeah, of course sweetheart.” He whispers, kissing you gently.

The butterflies in your stomach are all twitter pated.

Or maybe you’re just extremely turned on.

Spencer is a great teacher, it’s you who jumps the gun at things.

“There you go, angel, slow.” He breathes in your ear, finger tips pressing into your hips as you slowly push down, letting his tip enter you. “Just go really slow, okay?”

You try to do as he says, easing him into you slowly, but by some urge to rush satisfaction, you sink all the way onto him without warning.

“Fuck! That wasn’t slow.” He grits, a hoarse moan escaping from the back of his throat, his grip on you almost bruising.

“S-sorry.” You try to say, but the sheer pressure you feel at this sudden angle has you shuddering and crying out softly. “I’m an overachiever.” You try to joke.

“Holy shit, you want an A+ or something?” He chuckles, trying to calm himself down, running through mathematical formulas in his head so he doesn’t finish just like this.

“Spence, I need- it’s a lot, I need-” You whine out, not having the heart to feel embarrassed for sounding so needy.

“I know, I know. Fuck, do you have any idea how good you feel?” He questions, swallowing hard as he guides your hips forward slightly.

“I can’t really think at all when you’re sitting in my cervix right now.” You claim, quickly overwhelmed by pleasure as you find a rhythm against him.

Sucking on your throat, he mutters something you don’t care to listen to.

“This is- is it supposed to be this good?” You moan, trying not to dig your finger nails into his shoulders.

“I think we just fit perfectly.”

With each movement, you become more comfortable and confident, soon that friendly softness is replaced by lustful roughness. Through it all, Spencer remains caring, even when you tell him he can be a little rough with you.

Never in your sex life have you wanted more and more, even when it finishes.

Even after the two of you can’t find the strength to pull any more orgasms from each other, you lay beside each other, Spencer hasn’t bothered to pull out of you yet, perhaps he’s too spent.

“So.” You clear your throat, tracing his features. “How do you want to play this?”

He hums, dragging his fingers up and down your side. “What do you mean?”

“Guys usually leave after this stuff, right?”

His brows furrow, anxiety comes to ripple through him. “Do you want me to leave?”

Staring at his tired eyes, you shake your head. “No, I want you to stay. Forever. I’m thinking about chaining you to the headboard.”

He chuckles. “I’ll save you the effort, I will gladly stay.”

A sweet smile is returned to him.

At some point, the two of you clean up and fall asleep the second the sheets are pulled over you.

Spencer is convinced it’s all a dream until he wakes up to the sun warm over his skin. He rubs his blurry eyes and rolls over in the bed that is not his, met with your bare back. Slowly, he reaches for you, kissing your shoulder to rouse you.

His phone, still in the pocket of his discarded pants, rings again and again, forcing him to retrieve it in his boxers.

Of course it’s Hotch.

Of course he needs to get to the office. On a Saturday. After the night he just had.

“I should call the authorities, there’s a cute intruder in my room.” Your sleepy voice says from bed. “Oh wait…you are the authorities.”

He likes the way you can make yourself giggle.

“I have bad news.” He says, tracking down his clothes. “My boss just called me in.”

He hates the frown you have.

“That’s a very unfortunate thing.” You nod.

He buttons his pants, then slides his shirt on as he comes to your bedside.

“I should get going so I can go home and change.”

His warm hand presses to your cheek.

You turn to kiss his palm. “Is this goodbye?”

“No. Definitely no.” He assures. “I’ll call when I can, okay? Maybe we can get dinner or something?”

You could sigh heavenly at the way he’s just so dreamy.

“That sounds nice. I’d kiss you but I might have morning breath.” You smile.

He kisses you anyway.

And after leaving the team waiting in the round table room, he appears refreshed and in a very good mood.

He takes his seat, all eyes on him.

“Sorry I’m late, good morning.” He clears his throat.

“Good morning indeed.” Morgan chuckles, sliding him a cup of coffee.

“You okay, Reid?” Rossi asks, eyeing the agent.

“I’m great.” He smiles.

“Is that a hickey?” JJ exclaims, reveling in the way he quickly grabs for his neck, only to realize she’s joking.

“Real mature.” He mutters, knowing the entire day is going to be jokes made at his expense.

He doesn’t mind though, not when he knows his reward for all of this is you.

[starlightkun]

⇢ word count: 16.3k ⇢ genre: fluff, college au, brother's best friend trope, christmas/holiday themed, baseball player!jisung, rich kids!reader and chenle, part of my 2024 hallmark movie marathon ⇢ warnings: chenle and reader are annoying as hell together lol (they love each other but would die before saying ily), everyone’s parents suck!, only minor proof-reading bc i wanted to post for christmas, FAKE pro baseball players mentioned (idk anything abt baseball and was not going to research any real baseball players and be wrong abt them ok) ⇢ extra info: this is part of my 2024 hallmark movie marathon, three short, unrelated fics starring jisung all with cheesy hallmark christmas movie-esque premises. there’s no continuing plotline between fics in this series, they’re all standalone fics ⇢ author’s note: ok so this one isn’t exactly “short” but as always, i got carried away. im just happy i got this one out in time and it didn’t end up being 20k+ lmao. anyway, this is my last fic of my 2024 hallmark movie marathon, and of 2024, and i hope you guys had as much fun reading them as i did writing them! happy holidays and i will be back with even more fics in 2025! ⇢ 2024 hallmark movie marathon

“I know what you’ve been trying to do this whole time. You’re not ‘very into baseball,’ you’re into Jisung.”

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 20

Clicking the ‘submit’ button for your last final paper of the semester, you let out a sigh of relief. You were done, for now. The time in the corner of your laptop read 10:58 p.m. You’d submitted with an hour to spare. Usually, you hated cutting it so close, but four of your five classes this semester had assigned fifteen-page papers, and you wanted to take your time researching, outlining, drafting, and editing all of them before the deadlines.

There were only a few other students scattered around the library so late on the last academic day of the semester. One table away from you was another student, a boy who had also been hard at work on his laptop for the greater part of the past four hours. You had seen him around campus, not in any meaningful way, but enough that his face was familiar to you. And tonight, you had been stealing glances at him—when he let out a groan or a sigh that rang a little too loud in the dead silence, pushed his hoodie off his head to reveal his dark hair and handsome features, or stood up from his chair to go to the vending machine around the corner and walk around the library to stretch his obscenely long legs. Yeah, you’d done a bit of ogling, you also needed a break every now and then.

He was still typing away at his laptop when you had packed up for the night and were heading out, your path taking you right by his table. You were never usually this bold, but maybe it was the rush from finally being done with finals week, or how late it was, but you found yourself stopping next to the end seat the cute boy was occupying.

Upon realizing that you were there, he looked at you with wide, uncertain eyes, slowly taking his headphones off. “Hm?”

“Are you going to be here till closing?” You asked him knowingly, a playful smile on your lips and bag of gummy candy in your hands. You had bought it during a vending machine break earlier in the night but never ended up opening it.

“Oh, I don’t know,” he smiled sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck. “I’m hoping only another thirty minutes…”

“Here.” You offered the candies out to him. “I’m done for the night.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.” You set them down next to his laptop. Not wanting to take up any more of his waning time left to submit his assignment, you started off towards the exit again. “Good luck. Have a good break.”

“You too…”

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 21

“You didn’t get his number?!” Your roommate gasped in horror after you told her about the cute guy from the library. She had been asleep when you got home last night, and now the two of you were packing in preparation for your respective winter break plans. Sooyoung was heading back home while you and your brother would be driving to meet your parents at your family’s winter house in the mountains.

“Or his name,” you confirmed sadly. “I mean, the poor guy only had an hour left of the semester to submit whatever he was working on, there was no way he would’ve wanted me wasting it.”

“You have got to find him when we get back.”

“I’ll try,” you agreed.

There was a long honk from outside your dorm, and you rolled your eyes before peering out your window. Sure enough, your brother’s sleek black SUV was outside.

“Alright, I’ll see you in two weeks, Soo.” You hugged your roommate goodbye. Before you could even grab your bag, there was another obnoxiously long honk, followed by a series of shorter honks.

You immediately videocalled your brother.

Chenle picked up, already complaining. “Y/N, hurry up! You always take forever—”

“Shut the fuck up!” You retorted, flipping off the camera. “You’re so fucking annoying, I swear to—”

He laid on the horn again, and you could hear complaints start up outside from other people yelling at him to shut the fuck up. Then, you swore you heard another voice in Chenle’s car, quietly suggesting that he stop, but it was too indistinct for you to properly identify.

“Who was that?” You squinted at him suspiciously.

“I told you I was bringing a friend—”

“I know, I meant which one?”

“Get your slow ass down here and find out, or we’re leaving you!” With that, he hung up.

You pocketed your phone with a quiet scream, then turned to your roommate. “Ugh! Can you believe we’re related?”

“Yes,” she answered immediately, not even looking at you.

Hauling your stuff downstairs by yourself, you were a little out of breath by the time you shoved the front door of your dorm open. Your duffel bag started slipping down your shoulder, and as you readjusted that, you weren’t even looking out for the uneven slab of concrete that you knew stuck up in front of the entrance. Your toe caught on it, and you let out an unfortunate ‘eep!’ as you tripped forward. Your bag slid off your shoulder again, catching on your elbow and swinging around, the weight making you stumble a little more. You stayed upright, and you were thankful that only your brother and his friend saw all that. Yeah, Chenle was going to tease you for the entire three-hour car ride, and Mark or whoever was coming with would definitely get in on the ribbing, but you had plenty of dirt on them too. It was the natural order of things.

“Clumsy ass,” Chenle yelled at you from the car, the driver’s side window rolled down. You flipped him off on instinct. “Jisung, go help her before she hurts herself.”

Jisung. That was a new one. Admittedly, you didn’t know all of your brother’s friends, you two ran in different circles at school. You were usually introduced them in passing if you happened to run into each other at events, or some you knew from before college, like Jeno and Jaemin, the twins who lived next door to you guys growing up, or Mark and Donghyuck, who you all went to high school with.

A car door opened and closed before a tall figure was walking around the front of the car to meet you on the sidewalk. You blinked in surprise as you recognized Chenle’s friend that was approaching you, and not because of your brother. The cute boy from the library was standing in front of you, seemingly having a similar sense of déjà vu as he froze, hand already outstretched, reaching for your duffel bag.

“Hey again,” you chuckled, putting your bag strap in his hand. “Did you get everything turned in on time?”

“Yeah, I did.” Jisung unfroze and smiled at you, and you swore the sun seemed dim in comparison. “Thanks for the candy, by the way. Completely forgot to tell you that.”

“It’s okay, you were busy.”

“I’m Jisung, by the way.”

You nodded towards your brother’s car. “I had guessed.”

He rubbed the back of his neck. “Right.”

“I’m Y/N.”

“I had guessed,” he quipped back.

Chenle honked again, then yelled, “Come on!”

You rolled your eyes. “Pain in the ass.”

Chenle popped the trunk for you from his seat, and Jisung put your duffel bag in among their things that were already packed, then he took your suitcase to put away as well. As you opened the passenger door, your brother immediately shook his head.

“Nuh-uh.”

“What?” You looked at him incredulously. “I always get shotgun!”

“And Jisung gets carsick in the backseat.” He pointed at the boy standing awkwardly behind you. “I’m not having him puke all over my car. You’ll survive the backseat for once.”

Hating his condescending tone, but with no other option, you graciously stepped aside. Jisung gave you a quiet ‘sorry, thanks’ as he opened the back door for you. After buckling yourself into the middle seat and Chenle starting his music, everyone was ready to go.

“Y/N, Jisung,” Chenle made introductions over his shoulder, jabbing his thumb between you two. “Jisung’s on the baseball team and was in my bio lab last semester. Y/N is my annoying little sister.”

You kicked the back of his seat. “By ten months. As soon as you popped out, Mom and Dad were so disappointed they immediately decided to have another kid.”

“Regret saying yes yet, Jisung?” He asked his friend smugly.

Jisung, meanwhile, had been staring straight ahead at the road, clearly feeling uncomfortable as he didn’t want to get in the middle of your typical bickering.

“Ignore him, Jisung.” You leaned forward between their seats over the center console, your tone much more friendly. “So you’re on the baseball team? Do you have an athletic scholarship or something?”

“Yeah, yeah, I do,” he answered hurriedly. “Uhm, it’s the only way I could afford to go here. Full ride as long as I keep my grades up.”

You all did go to a rather expensive private university—your parents were alumni, they wouldn’t have sent you anywhere else, of course.

“Wow, so you must be really good, then.”

“I mean, I don’t know—”

“A full ride, I would think they only give those out to the best players, right?”

“Well—”

Chenle cut in, “You’re making him nervous, Y/N. Back up, for fuck’s sake.”

You didn’t back up. “Am I making you nervous, Jisung?”

“No, it’s fine,” he rushed to reassure you, finally turning around in his seat to face you. He let out a squeak as soon as he did, probably not anticipating that you’d be as close as you were. He sat back in his seat, propping himself up against his seatback on his forearm. “Uhm, it’s just that this is only gonna be my second season. Still a rookie, you know. I don’t think I’m that good.”

Jisung sort of reminded you of a little hamster when he was nervous like this, and your lips twitched with amusement. He really was cute.

“When’s baseball season?”

“Practice officially starts in January, first game’s in February.”

“Don’t you get cold out on the field?”

He shrugged self-consciously. “I mean, we’re moving around a lot. And we have hand warmers and stuff for when we’re on the bench.”

You kept eagerly asking him questions. “What position do you play?”

“Pitcher. I’m a switch pitcher—I can pitch left or right-handed—so they like that.”

“So it’s a surprise for the other team?”

“No, you have to declare which hand you’re going to pitch for each batter beforehand,” he admitted, then quickly tacked on, “But it still kinda throws them off!”

You hummed thoughtfully. “What about when you’re hitting the ball?”

“I could do either, but I prefer my right.”

“You’re never this interested in my friends,” Chenle interrupted accusatorily.

“Because I already know like, way too much about the twins, Hyuck, and Mark. Wish I could unlearn some of it, actually,” you snorted. “And you’ve been trying to get me into sports for our whole lives. What’s the problem?”

“Basketball,” your brother corrected you. “I’ve been trying to get you to watch basketball with me. Jisung plays baseball. Wrong sport.”

“Stop talking to me like I’m five,” you snapped, kicking his seat again.

“Stop kicking my seat like a five-year-old and I might,” he retorted.

You scowled at the back of his big head.

“I can see you pouting in the rearview mirror.”

You rolled your eyes and crossed your arms, flopping back against your seat.

“Saw that too.”

“Wasn’t trying to hide it!” You snipped back childishly. Turning your focus back to Jisung, who was looking out the passenger window, you asked, “Is he like this to you, Jisung?”

“Don’t answer that,” Chenle directed him before the other boy could open his mouth. “She’ll tire herself out.”

“Oh, you’re insufferable!” You spat. “Talking about me like I’m not even here! Or like I’m Daegal!”

“Well, Daegal is actually trained.”

“Pull the car over, I’m going to beat your ass!”

“Hey!” Surprisingly, it was the soft-spoken Jisung who raised his voice over the sounds of you two fighting, shocking both of you into silence. He continued, “Chenle, you’ve been antagonizing Y/N ever since we pulled up in front of her dorm, man. Then you act like she’s crazy for being pissed off at you. It’s honestly pissing me off.”

Chenle huffed loudly, drumming his thumbs on the steering wheel, before he finally said, “Fine. Sorry, Y/N.”

“Yeah, whatever. Thanks for apologizing because Jisung told you to.” You unbuckled and scooted over to the seat behind Jisung, buckling back in and looking out the window at the scenery rushing by.

The car was silent other than Chenle’s music, which he turned up as you pulled out your phone.

[you: i found out cute library guy’s name]

[soosoo: omfg the cia has nothing on u]

[soosoo: SPILL]

[you: i didn’t stalk him, turns out he’s my brother’s friend. his name is park jisung and he’s on the baseball team]

[soosoo: your brother’s friend that you’re going to be ALL ALONE WITH in the mountains for the next TWO WEEKS???]

[you: not ALL ALONE, chenle will be there, remember?]

[soosoo: unfortunately]

[soosoo: WAIT i found him on the team’s roster online and WHEW GIRL]

[soosoo: attached image.]

It was a screenshot of Jisung’s athlete profile on the university’s sports page. The small ID photo he had on there honestly did him no justice.

[soosoo: how is ur brother always friends w the HOTTEST GUYS who ALSO PLAY SPORTS????]

[soosoo: i need him to hook me up fr]

[you: don’t tell me ur thinking abt jeno and jaemin rn]

[soosoo: always]

[you: u don’t need chenle to hook u up if u rlly want, im friends with them too??]

[soosoo: YOU WOULD????]

[you: but you’d have to pick one]

[soosoo: god i am not your strongest soldier]

[you: exactly what i thought]

At the mountain cabin, you three were the first ones there, of course. You parents wouldn’t be arriving until Christmas Eve due to their work schedules. The house was already decorated like something straight out of a Hallmark movie—lights, red and green bows, candy canes, baubles, and other decorations all throughout.

“Wow,” Jisung breathed out, stopping in the foyer and turning around, his eyes wide as he took it all in. “Your parents are really into Christmas, huh?”

“Not really.” You had also stopped to watch his slow circle of awe. “They pay somebody to set it up.”

The wonder dropped off his face and was replaced with confusion, his brow furrowing. Chenle yelled for him from further in the house, and you jerked your head for him to follow. Your brother was at the threshold of the hallway where all your rooms were located.

“Yours is there,” Chenle pointed Jisung to one end of the hallway as you slipped by him to head to the bedroom at the other end. “Y/N’s is on the other side.”

“We share a bathroom,” you called over your shoulder as you opened the door. “Don’t use all the hot water in the morning!”

“And I’m upstairs.” Your brother indicated to a small ladder between Jisung’s room and the bathroom in the middle. “I got the loft. Won it in rock-paper-scissors almost two decades ago.”

“You cheated!” You reminded him loudly from where you had started unpacking your things in your room.

“Sore loser!”

“Sore winner!”

“Anyway, holler if you need something.”

You were still unpacking when there was a soft knock at your open door. It was Jisung leaning in your doorway.

“Hey,” he greeted you quietly.

“Hey.” You smiled at him brightly. “Bathroom’s the middle door. We both have doors that connect to it, so knock before we go in? Even if the light is off?”

“Yeah, sounds good.”

Jisung continued silently watching you unpack, then finally blurted out, “You egg him on.”

“Huh? Who?”

“Chenle.” He held his hands up in front of him defensively as you opened your mouth. “I know he started everything back in the car, but you didn’t help.”

You sat back on your feet in front of your open suitcase and dresser drawers. “Yeah, I know I’ve got a temper problem. I need to work on it.”

“I didn’t say anything in front of him because I kind of got the feeling that he was being extra mean because I was there.”

“When we’re hanging out with friends that we kinda share, like Jeno and Jaemin or whoever, it’s fine. You know, they met both of us at the same time. But I think when we’re with people that are his friends, it’s different,” you explained, gesturing to an armchair in the corner for Jisung to sit in while you talked. “We were always in the same grade and stuff, so obviously people assumed we were twins. That’s also why he really gets on the ‘little sister’ thing. When we got to college, we were both relieved to finally be different people, you know? Have different friends, different things that were ours.”

“You seem to understand him really well.”

“Known him my whole life,” you pointed out. “And just because I understand why he acts like this doesn’t mean it still doesn’t piss me the fuck off.”

“To answer your question from the car, no, he doesn’t treat me like that. He’s sarcastic, sure, but not like that.”

Zipping up your empty suitcase, you started on your duffel bag that was on your bed. “Sorry you had to deal with us like that, even more so that you had break us up. I’m sure the next two weeks were flashing before your eyes, huh?”

“Honestly, I’m just glad you didn’t actually start beating him up,” he chuckled.

“Me too, that would’ve been embarrassing.” You added, “For him. To get his ass beat in front of one of his buddies.”

He looked out the room down the hallway, checking to see if Chenle was coming, then admitted, “Don’t tell him, but I was sort of calculating how many swings to let you get in before it would look unreasonable for me to not intervene.”

“Oh really? And how many would you have ‘let me’ have?” You grinned, using finger quotes over ‘let me.’

“One good punch and a hair pull, I think.” He looked to be sizing you up, a teasing glint in his eye. “You seem like you fight dirty like that.”

“Could claim you didn’t want to hurt your friend’s little sister, let me get a few more in.” You mimicked punching and kneeing the air. “At least let me knee him in the balls.”

“I’ll consider it in the event you two do actually brawl while we’re here.”

You looked up at the ceiling, thinking about your brother up there somewhere. “Eh, we’ll make up properly soon. One thing about us, we fight a lot, but it’s never for that long.”

“Okay, now I’m worried about the next two weeks.”

You laughed, maybe a little harder than his joke warranted, but you couldn’t help it—he was cute, he was funny, and he was making your chest feel tighter and your head spin faster the longer you were around him.

“Why are you in here?” Chenle had appeared in your doorway, looking genuinely perturbed at the visage of Jisung sitting in your chair.

“Because we’re talking?” You answered for him. “Or is he only allowed to talk to you while he’s here and I have to take a vow of silence?”

“Pretty much, yeah,” he snickered, walking in and flopping on your bed.

“You first.”

“You want to do lunch in town then get the tree?” He checked the time on his phone. “Mom and Dad know how much you like Christmas tree shopping so that’s the only thing not done.”

“Or is it just another responsibility to pawn off on someone?” You snorted, opening the door into the adjoining bathroom to put your toiletry bag away.

Your brother’s distant voice called after you, “Even if it is, we can still have fun!”

You took a deep breath, and came out of the bathroom with a smile on your face. “You’re right. Let’s do it.”

“Ew, stop that, it’s creepy.” Chenle threw a pillow at you.

You caught it and chucked it right back at him. “What? Smiling?”

It hit him in the face before falling to the floor. “Yeah, exactly. I’m done trying to cheer you up, keep being a little Grinch, it suits your face better.”

You climbed on the bed and grabbed a pillow to smack him with it. “Quit being fucking rude!”

He laughed and cackled, rolling away from your pillow attack until his eyes went wide with panic as he went right over the edge of the mattress and landed on the floor. It was your turn to burst into laughter at the sound he made, and when he started groaning and complaining, you knew he was fine. Jisung was also laughing from his seat.

You finally gathered yourself enough to peer over the edge of the bed, looking down at where Chenle was sprawled out dramatically like a cartoon character that had been crushed by an anvil. As soon as he looked at you, he started giggling too.

“What about this one?” Mr. Song, the elderly man who had run the Christmas tree farm in town for as long as your family had been coming for the holidays, was showing you around to the various trees they had for sale.

“Ah, too skinny.” You shook your head. “We have a lot of ornaments. And a vaulted ceiling too, so we can get a taller one.”

“Right, of course. How could I forget?” His eyes crinkled fondly as he walked you around by the elbow. “You and your brother have gotten so big, Y/N. I remember when you two were up to my knee. Always playing hide and seek in the trees.”

“We used to think you were Santa Claus,” you giggled, gesturing to his big, bushy beard. “We told everyone we knew that we got our Christmas tree from Santa every year.”

“Good to see that Chenle and your boyfriend get along so well.” He nodded to where Chenle and Jisung were throwing snowballs at each other. More accurately, Jisung was pelting them at Chenle with scary precision, and Chenle was doing his best to throw some back in between peals of laughter.

“Oh, Jisung is Chenle’s friend from school, he’s not my boyfriend,” you clarified quickly.

“My mistake.” Mr. Song patted your arm.

After circling the next one Mr. Song showed you, you were content, inspecting how dense the branches were, the height, and general shape.

“Guys!” You yelled out to get Chenle and Jisung’s attention. They ceased their (unfair) battle, meandering over to you. “What do you think?”

Chenle gave it a once-over before nodding. “Great pick as always, Y/N.”

“Is that going to fit through the front door?” Jisung asked skeptically, trying to fit his arms around it to gauge the size.

“It will,” you promised as Chenle pulled out his checkbook.

Two of Mr. Song’s grandsons brought the tree up to the cabin in their truck, and you had to open both front doors all the way for them to carry it in. They got it set up in the corner for you, and you sent them on their way with an extra cash tip.

“We’ve got to let the branches settle before we can decorate it,” you advised Jisung. “So we’ll do that tomorrow.”

“Y/N’s got a whole thing about the tree,” Chenle added from one of the couches, turning the TV on.

“Smells nice,” Jisung piped up.

“Did your family have real trees or artificial ones?” You asked, taking up the other couch.

Jisung seemed to momentarily panic about where to sit, before taking the empty space at the end of Chenle’s couch, facing you. “A fake one. It came with the lights already on. Easier for my mom to set up.”

“One or two?” Chenle asked abruptly.

“What?”

“Two!” You answered, and Chenle immediately played a movie from whatever streaming service he was scrolling through. You went to fill Jisung in, “It’s a game we like to play. One of us will assign numbers to things in our head without telling the other, and you have to reply with a number without really knowing what you’re picking.”

“I couldn’t decide which movie to watch,” Chenle added.

“So, instead of a coin flip, you used Y/N?” Jisung clarified.

“Sort of. You can do it for more than two options. Like…” You tilted your head back and forth as you tried to think of one on the spot. As soon as you had, you perked up. “One, two or three?”

“Three?”

“Hot chocolate it is.” You stood up from the couch and headed towards the kitchen.

Jisung turned in his seat to keep you in his eyesight. “Wait, what were the options?”

“That’s part of the fun.” You smiled. “Sometimes you never know.”

A few minutes later, you came back into the room with three mugs of hot chocolate, and handed one each to Chenle and Jisung before sitting back on your couch.

Several movies, rounds of various video games, and large pizzas later, you were beat. Standing up from your couch, you stretched and started grabbing everyone’s plates.

“I’ll get these if you guys put the food away?”

Chenle gave you a thumbs-up, his eyes locked on his phone screen.

“Night!” You tossed back over your shoulder as you traipsed out of the room.

“Night!” Your brother echoed.

“Goodnight!” Jisung replied.

As soon as you were bundled up in your blankets in your room, you videocalled Sooyoung. She picked up, the familiar scenery of her childhood bedroom in the background.

“Hey!” She beamed. “How was day one? Kill Chenle? Make any moves on cute library guy?”

“We know his name now, Soo!” You laughed.

“But a nickname is so fun and mysterious!”

“I did almost kill Chenle in the first ten minutes of the car ride,” you groaned. “Jisung surprisingly came to my defense.”

“Your brother’s friend took your side against him? Wow…”

“He’s really sweet, he’s making an effort to be my friend too.”

“Friend? Or something else?” She waggled her eyebrows.

“I don’t know, it’s been one day,” you giggled, rolling over onto your back. “Anyway, how’s your family?”

You stayed up chatting for another hour before finally going to sleep, giddy with thoughts of what could happen tomorrow.

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 22

In the morning, with no alarm for class to get you up, you woke up, rolled over, and went back to sleep several times. Eventually, you decided that it was time to get up, and slowly shuffled out of your room. Chenle was already up, by the stove cooking something. Jisung was nowhere in sight, probably still sleeping.

Upon hearing your footsteps, he looked over his shoulder. “Morning.”

You grunted back.

“Mom called.”

You made another noise of acknowledgment, still rubbing sleep out of your eyes as you lumbered over to your seat at the table. Your brother set a plate of pancakes down in front of you, and you squinted up at him suspiciously. Typically he would’ve made you get your own plate, or more likely, make your own food. Actually, it was kind of weird that he was up before you. He must not have gone back to sleep after talking to your mom. It wasn’t unusual for her to have called early in the morning—your parents’ work took them all around the world, and often the only free time they could find had them calling at odd hours.

“They’re not going to make it for Christmas, Y/N,” he told you softly, still standing next to your chair.

“Of course,” you scoffed, lip curling with distaste as you picked up your fork.

“They’ll be here on the 26th, and we can do everything with them then.”

“Are they staying for New Year’s?”

His silence was all the answer you needed.

“Of course,” you repeated with more venom in your tone than before, dropping your utensil back down onto the table. “What the fuck else should we have expected? Honestly, why do they even fucking bother?”

He put a hand on your shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

“No, Chenle, don’t apologize for them.” You patted his hand. “It’s not your fault.” Pushing your chair back, you stood up. “I’m not hungry right now. I’m going out back.”

“I’ll save your plate.”

Shoving boots on your feet and pulling a heavier coat on, you opened the door in your bedroom that led directly out onto the back patio. It had snowed last night, so you had to shuffle through the fresh layer to get to the swing seat back here. The cold morning air bit at your nose and cheeks, and you tucked your hands into your pockets to keep them warm—you’d forgotten gloves. Sighing, you watched your breath fog up in front of your face, until your tears overtook your vision and you couldn’t see anything past them.

You pulled your knees to your chest on the porch swing, pushing your face into the thick material of your pajama pants. Why did it still hurt so bad? They did this all the fucking time.

The sound of feet crunching snow came to your ears, and you wiped at your face as you looked up at who was approaching you. It was Jisung, two steaming mugs in his gloved hands.

“Uhm, Chenle said you weren’t hungry. Does cider count?” He offered one out to you.

You chuckled, accepting it, grateful to have something warm to wrap your chilly fingers around. “No, it doesn’t. Thanks, Jisung.”

“It’s pretty out here,” he commented, looking around at the scenery. “Or not, if you want me to go back inside.”

You laughed again, gesturing to the empty half of the porch swing next to you. “You can stay.”

Jisung brushed off the snow from the rest of the porch swing before sitting down. He wedged his mug of cider between his legs and you watched him curiously as he started taking his gloves off. He offered them out to you, making you shake your head.

“I’m fine, I’ve got the cider—”

“So do I.”

“Then how about this.” You plucked one glove from him and put it on your right hand, which was holding the handle of the mug. Your left cradled the body of the mug, where all the warmth was. “Glove goes on the colder hand.”

He chuckled, slipping his remaining glove on his left, and wrapping his right hand around the mug. “Innovative.”

“Thank you.”

The smile faded as he turned more somber. “I’m sorry to hear that your parents’ plans changed.”

You took a sip of the cider, staring out at the still landscape of snow-covered trees and mountains. “Me too. You think I would be used to it by now.”

“Chenle was talking about maybe going to this ice-skating place later. If you’re feeling up to it.”

“That’s what’s nice about having him. No matter how much stupid shit we fight about, we’ve at least got each other when they do stuff like this.” You half-smiled to yourself. “You know, sometimes I think they did that on purpose. Had two kids instead of one so they wouldn’t feel guilty about leaving us alone all the time.”

The tears had come back, and you wiped at them with your bare hand, not wanting to soil Jisung’s glove that he had given you. Shaking your head at yourself, you said derisively, “I’m sure I seem pathetic to you. Rich girl crying in her family’s winter vacation home because mommy and daddy won’t make it for Christmas.”

“I don’t think you’re pathetic.”

You turned your gaze to Jisung to find him already looking at you, so sincerely, too. Swallowing down more tears, you asked, “Why aren’t you home with your family? I’m sure you’d much rather be with them than stuck here with us.”

“My parents are divorced. Every year, my dad and his wife go on some cruise for Christmas, and my mom spends it with my stepdad’s family. They say I’m welcome there, but they’re all strangers, except my mom.” He shrugged half-heartedly, blowing across the surface of his cider. “I know it’s kinda my fault too, I’m not making an effort to get to know them or whatever. But I just… don’t want to.”

“How’d you end up coming along with Chenle then?”

“Last year I stayed at school for Winter Break. Met Chenle in the spring, and when Winter Break plans came up this year, he was appalled at the idea of me eating at the dining hall for Christmas dinner.” Jisung chuckled, and you smiled fondly, able to imagine your brother’s horrified face. “It wasn’t even an offer, he decided for me.”

“Well, I’m glad you’re here instead of eating dining hall food by yourself.”

“Me too.”

“And I’m sorry your parents suck too.”

“Shitty parents club.” He held his mug out to you.

You clinked your against it in a commiserative toast. “We need Chenle out here for our full membership.”

“Yeah, but this swing only fits two people…”

You smiled a little as you sipped your cider. “Then I guess it’s just us for right now.”

Jisung smiled back. “Guess so.”

That afternoon, as promised, you three went ice skating. The local nature reserve had a lake that always froze solid, and would rent out ice skates and sell hot chocolate and other treats to earn a little extra income—free admission if you brought your own skates. You were the first one to get your skates on, and shuffled onto the frozen lake excitedly. There were a few other people out here—couples, families, groups of friends—but the area cordoned off for ice skating was big enough that everyone had plenty of room to spread out. A wide smile immediately spread across your face. Chenle knew you well, which was a blessing and a curse. He knew exactly how to push your buttons and cheer you up.

Speaking of, your brother smoothly skated up next to you, smug look on his face. “Better?”

“With a head that big, I’d hope you’d have a good idea every so often,” you teased, lightly bopping him through his beanie.

“Ungrateful.” He snapped one of your earmuffs against your head, not hard enough to hurt.

You two had been milling back and forth waiting for Jisung, and you looked back over at the bench where you’d all been tying up your skates to find him still sitting there, fiddling with the laces.

Chenle followed your gaze. “What is he doing? He had them tied when I got up, I thought he was right behind me.”

You shrugged, exiting the ice to stop in front of Jisung on the bench. “You alright?”

“Yeah, I just—” Jisung swallowed, squinting and scrunching up his nose nervously. “I’ve only been ice skating once, and I was a kid, so…”

“You don’t know how,” you finished.

“I mean—Yes.”

“Come on.” You offered out your arm out to him.

He waved his hands as he refused. “I’m going to do something stupid like fall and end up breaking your arm or—”

“No, it’ll be fine,” you assured him. “Seriously, I did ice skating lessons as a kid.”

“You did?”

“You’re in good hands, I promise.”

Jisung grabbed your arm, and using both you and the bench as leverage, stood up. He looked around warily as you patted his back.

“There you go, you got it. Now, you get to walk until you get to the ice.” As you coached him through the basics of operating his skates, you slowly guided him closer to the edge of the ice. You stepped onto the ice first, keeping a hold on both of his gloved hands for him to cautiously join you, one foot at a time.

“You didn’t think to tell us you’ve never skated?” Chenle questioned dryly as he joined you two.

“I have!” Jisung defended himself. “Once…”

“Well Y/N can teach you,” he offered you up. “She used to do lessons, till she got kicked out.”

“Wait, for what?”

You rolled your eyes at your brother just having to bring that up. Nudging Jisung forward to start moving his legs, you began relaying the story, “I called my coach a bitch to her face and refused to apologize.”

“Just because or…?”

“First of all, I was seven, so impulse control wasn’t even in my vocabulary. Second of all, she called another little girl in the class fat to her face! She had just gotten a new competition dress, it was this really pretty purple one with sparkles and stuff all over it, and the teacher told her she shouldn’t wear it because something about the pattern made her look bigger or something ridiculous. A seven-year-old! She’s just lucky she didn’t get an ice skate to the face!” Your rant picked up steam and volume as you continued, feeling freshly pissed off as you recalled the incident.

Jisung frowned, looking troubled as well. “That’s awful.”

“I know! Honestly, I’m glad I got kicked out. I hated that woman.” You pulled him away from a divot in the ice. “Watch out. Don’t want your blade getting caught in that.”

“Thanks. You seem to have retained a lot.”

“I didn’t get very far before I was booted,” you scoffed. “But I guess we still went to rinks and out here pretty frequently, so I haven’t lost the basics, at least.”

“So are we decorating the tree later?”

“Yep, should take the rest of the day.”

“Seriously?”

“We’ve got a lot of ornaments.” You snickered at his wide eyes, looking to your other side where Chenle had been skating for confirmation. Instead, your brother had disappeared. Confused, you scanned the figures on the ice, finally spotting him far ahead of you, skating backwards at an impressive speed. “He left us.”

Jisung finally detached his eyes from where they’d been glued on his feet, chuckling when he saw Chenle as well. “He’s not very patient, is he?”

“Not a virtue he was born with, no.” You turned your attention back to Jisung. “Think you’re getting the hang of it?”

His grip tightened on your arm. “If I say yes, are you going to let go of me?”

“No,” you laughed. “Not until you’re ready.”

“Oh, thank God.”

“But let’s try this.” You moved to hold both his hands, skating backwards in front of him. “Okay?”

“You can’t see behind you,” he said, nervously glancing between your face and over your shoulder.

You checked over your shoulder. It was clear, and you redirected your path to make sure you weren’t heading directly at the next closest people. “I’ve got it.”

“I feel like I’m leaning forward too much, how do I—Wah!” The distinct clank of Jisung’s skates hitting each other rang out, and he fell forward.

Not wanting him to faceplant into your skates or the ice, you braked and tensed your arms to try to keep him up. However, since you had braked and he obviously did not, his forward momentum sent him catapulting directly into you. His arms wrapped around your waist as his legs scrambled against the ice trying to find his footing again. You readjusted your hold on him to clutch him under the arms in an attempt to keep him up, but with all the layers that you were bundled up in and the slippery ice, it was a losing battle. You were a good skater, but you couldn’t haul him back to his feet like this. So you decided to just let the two of you slowly descend, squatting down until you could plant your butt on the ice and kick your feet out on either side of Jisung, careful not to hit him with your blades.

“You alright?” You asked him, pulling his beanie back from where it was entirely obscuring his eyes.

“Please tell me I’m dead,” he groaned, the half of his face that you could see was completely pink and his eyes were squeezed shut. His head was pressed against your middle as he was still clinging onto you.

“No, you survived that,” you laughed. “And so did I. No broken arms or other bones.”

“Will you kill me anyway?”

A spray of ice showered both of you as Chenle stopped next to you guys, proceeding to double over with laughter. “Clumsy ass.”

“Nice, thank you,” you scoffed, wiping off the cold ice from your face, then a couple drops that had gotten on Jisung’s cheek. “Anytime you’d like to quit being an asshole and help us up.”

“I don’t know, you two look pretty cozy to me.”

Jisung somehow turned even redder, squirming in your grasp. “Y/N, I’m sorry!”

“Chenle, shut up!” You scolded your brother. “You’re making Jisung freak out and he’s going to hurt himself!”

“You make him sound like a scared prey animal,” he snickered. Letting out a sigh, he patted his friend’s back. “Alright, Jisung, come on.”

With Chenle’s assistance, Jisung got to his feet, and you were then able to stand back up on your own. Brushing snow off your legs, you shivered, and saw that the entire front of Jisung’s pants were soaked through thanks to the ice, and you could feel that the back of your own had suffered a similar fate.

“I think that’s enough ice skating for today,” you declared. “My ass is quite literally going to freeze off if we stay out here any longer.”

Jisung nodded quickly from where he was clinging onto Chenle to stay upright now. “I’m skated out.”

“Good thing my car has heated seats then,” Chenle said, beginning to drag his friend back towards the exit.

After a hot shower and in a fresh change of warm pajamas, you were in front of the Christmas tree with all of the boxes of decorations for it. You had already wound the lights around it when Jisung joined you in the living room, hair still damp from his shower—he’d given you first shower out of guilt.

“Hey, you know where Chenle is?” You asked, flipping open boxes of ornaments. Chenle’s loft bedroom had a private bathroom, so you figured he’d be out by now.

“He got a call—Mark, I think,” Jisung informed you.

“Oh, that’ll take an hour,” you snorted. “You can help me. Put any ornaments that have Chenle’s name on them aside, he gets to put those up whenever he’s done.”

“Any ornaments with your name are yours to put up?” He guessed, reaching into a box and pulling out an ornament in the shape of a bear with a Santa hat on. The white band of the hat had ‘Chenle’ written in cursive.

“Yep. Everything else is fair game for you. Quick tip, any bear ornaments will be Chenle’s. That’s his parent-assigned motif.”

“Got it. And what’s yours?”

You held up the honeybee ornament that you’d just fished out, letting it dangle and twist in the air, the yellow gems catching the light. “Bees. They had a theme, kind of.”

“I’ll keep an eye out.” He reached up to hang a blue and gold ornament on a higher branch, though you could feel his eyes on you as you put your own up on a middle branch. Finally, he blurted out, “Are you sure you didn’t get hurt earlier?”

“Yeah, Jisung, I’m okay,” you chuckled. “Really, we were both wearing so many layers we were practically bubblewrapped.”

He visibly relaxed. “Okay, good.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah. But I crashed into you, not the other way around.”

“True, but you had a much less graceful descent.”

He visibly grimaced, a bashful smile on his face. “Mm-hm. Thank you for bringing that up again.”

“Pretty sure you brought it up again,” you teased, nudging his arm with yours as you reached in front of him to hang an ornament.

“And I would love to change the topic now.” He grabbed an ornament in the shape of a snowman.

“What’s your major?” You decided to save him this time. “You and Chenle had bio lab together, but I know he took bio for non-majors, so you’re not a STEM major either…”

Jisung made a buzzer noise, and you blinked at him in surprise. He cracked a grin as he said, “Cybersecurity.”

“Ah, so you’re a baseball jock and a little computer geek…” You nodded slowly, grabbing another ornament. “The duality of man, truly.”

“Geek?” He repeated incredulously.

“What? I think it’s cute.” You giggled and put up the glass snowflake in your hand. Then, you turned back to him hopefully. “Ooh, actually, my laptop gets possessed sometimes ever since Chenle clicked on one of those sketchy porn pop-up ads when we were fourteen. You don’t think you would be able to take a look at it sometime, would you?”

Jisung visibly sustained whiplash at your words, his head jerking back and eyes going wide before he furrowed his brows. “Wait, what? How old is your laptop? He did what to it? What do you mean it gets possessed? What exactly does it do?”

“Uhm… it’d probably be easier to show you.”

“Y/N, this thing is old enough to drive.”

You put your hands on either side of your laptop’s screen as if you were covering its ears, giving Jisung a stern look. “Sh! You’re going to hurt her feelings!”

He continued to look at you over his glasses, entirely unamused. This was the first time you’d seen him wear them—even in the library, he’d had contacts in. Now, with him wearing his casual clothes, glasses, sitting on your bed and attempting to fix your laptop, you felt like you were going to lose it, truly. Especially when you’d catch a whiff of his shampoo, and you’d have to stop yourself from leaning in to follow the smell of cinnamon.

“Seriously, why do you still have it? Chenle has the newest Macbook,” he asked, fingers flitting across the keyboard.

“Because it works fine!” You insisted, removing your hands. “I get the internal stuff cleaned out regularly, and make sure all the software is updated and everything.”

“It still gets software updates?”

“It just… gets possessed every so often.”

“I wouldn’t call the occasional possession ‘working fine.’”

“When it’s not possessed, it works great! And it doesn’t even happen that much, only like, once a month.”

“Once a month since you were fourteen?” He squinted at you in disbelief where you were sitting on the opposite side of the laptop screen. “And you kept the damn thing?”

“No, once a month now,” you clarified. “It happened the first time when Chenle clicked on that porn ad, then maybe once a year for a few years after, and slowly started happening more and more often.”

“And he was watching porn on your computer because…?”

“So it wouldn’t be on his internet history.”

He snorted. “Of course. I should’ve realized.”

“Can I watch?”

“Oh, uhm, sure?” He readjusted to make room to his left side on the mattress, angling the laptop that way as well.

You shuffled around to the other side of the computer, dropping to lay down on your front, propping your chin up with your elbows to observe. Tilting your head, you rested it against Jisung’s knee that was next to you. His hands froze over the keys, and you lifted your head back up, looking up at him through your eyelashes.

“Sorry—Is this okay?”

“Y-Yeah, you’re fine.” He nodded quickly and pushed his glasses up as he returned his attention to the screen.

Leaning your head back against his knee, you settled in to watch him work on your laptop. You couldn’t follow what exactly he was doing to the computer, opening and closing different windows, folders, and applications. You zoned out, watching his hands and fingers deftly move over the keys instead. He was muttering to himself under his breath, his low voice pleasant to listen to even if you couldn’t make out the words he was saying. This close to him, you could smell the cinnamon better, and were starting to think that maybe it was actually a body wash or cologne.

“Y/N?” He said your name, making you snap out of a daze as you realized he was calling for you. “Hello?”

“Hm?” You perked up a little.

“We need to do an exorcism.”

That woke you all the way back up. “Wait, what?”

“Complete reset. Wipe everything and redownload the OS.”

“But I have everything on there!” You pleaded, stretching your hands over the keyboard to prevent him from doing anything else. “We’ve been through so much together! You can’t kill her!”

He sighed regretfully. “Is there an electronics store or something around here? We can get an external hard drive to back up all your personal stuff.”

“There’s a mall like an hour away. Chenle and I need to go gift shopping anyway so we can go tomorrow!”

“Why did I hear my name?” Chenle’s voice came from further down the hallway. He must have finished his call with Mark. Your brother poked his head into your room, briefly pausing when he saw you and Jisung. “I thought you guys were decorating the tree…?”

“Remember how you downloaded a virus trying to watch porn on my computer in high school? Jisung is fixing it for me,” you said pointedly, never missing an opportunity to bring that moment up. “But we need to buy something. I was telling him you and I need to go gift shopping anyway, so we can all go to that mall tomorrow.”

“Please tell me the thing you’re buying is a new laptop.”

“Never! She’s going to outlive you if I have anything to do with it!”

“Based off the fact that it sounds like a jet engine taking off right now, I’m pretty sure that was a threat on my life.”

MONDAY, DECEMBER 23

“Okay, so you’ll need at least this much storage for the files that you have right now,” Jisung explained, motioning to a few different options of hard drives that the electronics store had. He then gestured to a few more. “But if you really want to have her until Chenle’s dead, you might want to consider some more storage.”

You grinned, bumping his shoulder affectionately. “You said ‘her.’”

He covered his mouth as he let out a sputtering laugh, his cheeks turning pink. “Oh God—I didn’t even realize. That’s—Ah, you’re rubbing off on me.”

“I like that one,” you declared, pointing to one hard drive that was a similar colorway to the laptop case you had.

“Yeah, that’s more than enough storage.”

After purchasing your hard drive, you and Jisung headed out of the electronics store together. Chenle had already gone off to gift shop on his own so you and Jisung couldn’t see what he bought you.

You turned to Jisung. “Want to help me shop for Chenle?”

“Sure.”

The two of you meandered around the mall, popping into stores that seemed promising from the outside. As you passed by a jewelry display in a window, you tapped on the glass in front of a pair of earrings.

“Those are cute,” you commented, slowing down but not stopping entirely.

“You think so?” Jisung questioned, looking at them over your shoulder as you kept walking.

“Mhm.” You nodded, then clicked your tongue. “I’d get them, but I already have a pair like them.”

“You do?”

“Yep.” Keeping your gaze on the passing storefronts, you said levelly, “I don’t want to assume anything about what you think of me, Jisung, but I want you to know that I don’t expect a present from you. We only properly met two days ago.”

“Yeah, that’s… really reasonable,” he chuckled, the relief evident in his voice.

“Seriously, if you fix my computer, that’ll be the best Christmas present I get this year, hands-down. I don’t care what expensive crap my parents get me or surprisingly thoughtful, niche thing Chenle somehow manages to find.”

“I didn’t realize how much my computer exorcism skills were worth.”

“To me, they’re priceless,” you assured him. “I wish I had something to offer in return.”

“Hey, you already taught me how to skate,” he insisted, nudging your arm.

You tilted your head side-to-side contemplatively. “One could argue whether I was successful at that…”

“Completely my fault that the lesson got cut short, not yours.”

“Alright, alright. I suppose a computer exorcism can be our quid pro quo for ten minutes of ice-skating lessons.”

“I didn’t pay much attention in my high school history class when Mr. Yoo was talking about the bartering system, but I’m pretty sure those two things are equivalent, yeah.”

You burst out laughing, covering your mouth and squeezing your eyes shut as you started to go a little light-headed from how hard you were laughing. You were still walking forward alongside Jisung, and felt him grab your arm and tug you towards him at the same time he warned, “Watch out.”

You couldn’t see whatever you must’ve almost walked into as you were still trying to sober up from your chuckle fest, covering your face as more giggles bubbled up every time you tried to close your mouth. Jisung kept you right next to him, guiding you through the mall crowd with a gentle but steadfast grasp on your arm, not letting you bump into anybody or trip over anything.

“Are you really still laughing?” He asked, and though his words were exasperated, his tone was overly fond, letting out a soft laugh of his own at the end. “I don’t think it was that funny…”

You narrowed your eyes playfully at him, shook his hand off you, and suppressed your giggles to say, “Fine. I don’t think you’re funny at all and I hate you, actually.”

Jisung’s mouth parted as he stared at you in shock, and you couldn’t keep the bit going for very long when faced with his adorable look of being totally caught off-guard and floored, even if both of you knew it was all a joke. You grabbed his arm this time, your laughs getting muffled in his sweater as you buried your face in his shoulder and leaned against him for support.

“Oh my god, you looked like I ran over your dog or something!” You gasped for air between guffaws, apologetically rubbing his arm.

“You’re…” He trailed off, letting out a sigh instead, reaching for your purse that was on your arm and now awkwardly crushed between you two with you holding his arm. “Here, I’ll take that.”

He had already been carrying your shopping bags that you’d been acquiring from the various stores, and you now stopped to wordlessly shimmy off your purse for him to shoulder on his opposite side from you. You reattached yourself to his arm that you had been holding, and though his cheeks were turning pink, he had a small smile on his face as he looked down at his phone to check the time.

“Did your family assign you an animal too?” You asked him, your eyes getting caught on a kiosk of Christmas ornaments as you continued your journey through the mall.

“What?”

“Like how my parents decided when we were born that Chenle’s a bear and I’m a honeybee,” you explained, quickly looking back over to Jisung. “Did you ever have an animal or something that was like yours?”

He scrunched his nose as he thought, then shook his head. “No, not that I can remember. I always had a bunch of different stuffed animals.”

“I think you look like a hamster,” you informed him. “Especially when you do that with your nose.”

“Do what with my nose?” He questioned, his nose unintentionally twitching and scrunching up again as his eyes flitted around nervously.

You giggled, squeezing his arm tighter as you couldn’t help but coo over how cute he was. “That!”

He covered his nose with his hand, and though it obstructed half his face, you could tell he was pouting behind it.

“I didn’t mean to make you self-conscious, I’m sorry!” You apologized, grabbing his hand and trying to pull it away from his face. “I think it’s really cute!”

He stubbornly kept his nose concealed. “You still haven’t told me what it is…”

“You just scrunch up your nose sometimes, like this—” You imitated it, doing your best not to make it look like you were mocking him. “Seriously, it’s adorable! Please don’t ever stop, I might die!”

Jisung’s eyes crinkled and he dropped his hand back down as he chuckled. “Well we can’t have that.”

Your phone buzzed in your hand then, and you saw that it was your brother calling. “Mm, hold on, it’s Chenle.”

“Hey, where are you guys?” Chenle asked on the other end.

“We’re still on the first floor,” you told him. “By the pretzel stand. Where are you?”

“What have you two been doing? I’m on the third floor; I’ve been through the whole mall already. I’m done,” he scoffed. “Stay there, I’ll come to you.”

“I had to get my hard drive first, remember? You got a head start.”

“Anyway, are you done?”

“No, I have a couple more people to find gifts for.”

“Alright, hold on, I see you.”

You craned your neck looking for Chenle, still with your phone to your ear. “Damn bitch, how many old ladies did you take out on your way here?”

“Only two,” Chenle’s voice came through your phone and from directly beside you at the same time. He was loaded up with shopping bags on both arms.

You jumped out of your skin before rolling your eyes and hanging up the call. “Did you see a place that sold bath bombs and stuff?”

“Yeah, second floor, directly to the left off the escalator.”

“That’s my next stop, SooSoo loves that stuff,” you declared.

“There’s a baseball specialty shop on the third floor,” Chenle stated, eyes lingering on where you were still holding onto his friend’s arm. “If you want to go check it out, Jisung?”

You perked up, giving him an enthusiastic smile. “That sounds awesome! You totally should.”

Jisung turned to Chenle and nodded. “Yeah, sounds cool. Let’s do it.”

“I’ve still got a couple people on my list, so I’ll call you guys when I’m done so we can meet up and go,” you said, reaching for your purse that was still on Jisung’s shoulder. He handed it back to you, and you hurried off to take care of your final errands.

Back at the house, you watched on with bated breath as Jisung performed his laptop exorcism. The screen turned on, which already was good news. After a few more progress bars, you eventually saw your homescreen and looked at him with guarded hope.

“I still need to transfer your personal files back over. And you won’t know if it worked unless it just never gets possessed again, but…” Jisung gestured to your laptop with a certain finality.

“Ahh, thank you! Thank you!” You cheered, hugging him.

“O-Oh, you’re welcome,” he mumbled, hesitantly hugging you back.

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 24

Christmas Eve was ushered in with a fresh snowfall overnight, and maybe the Christmas spirit finally possessed you, because all three of you were outside playing in it like little kids. A rather lumpy snowman had already been built and decorated with various rocks, sticks, and kitchen utensils. Snow angels were scattered around, and Chenle had just thrown the very first snowball, hitting Jisung squarely in the back of the head.

You laughed incredulously as the pitcher turned around and calmly started packing snow between his hands.

“Are you stupid?” You snickered at your brother, who was also preparing another snowball.

Before he could finish readying that one, Jisung wound up and launched his snowball, nailing Chenle in the face. You weren’t even focused on your brother as he desperately wiped the snow off his face with both hands, however, your eyes still watching Jisung, who was chuckling to himself. You’d been too preoccupied at the Christmas tree farm to really watch any of their snowfall fight that had happened there, and obviously hadn’t gone to any of Jisung’s games before, so this was the first time you’d seen him really use any of his pitcher skills. While it wasn’t a proper pitch, the practiced ease and skill that he clearly possessed even in doing something as silly as throwing a snowball was admittedly really attractive.

Chenle had taken his loss and grabbed a stick to start writing something in the snow, a good distance away from where you and Jisung were, his back to the two of you.

Stepping deliberately closer to Jisung, you said, “That was really cool, Jisung.”

He fidgeted with making sure his beanie was down over his ears. “Ah, I mean, it wasn’t a real pitch or anything—”

“Then can you teach me how to pitch for real?” You requested sweetly. “I’m very into baseball these days.”

“Uhm, y-yeah,” he agreed, clearing his throat and nodding. He stooped down to pack more snow between his hands into a round sphere, then held it out for you. “Here, that should be the right size.”

You graciously accepted it, then looked at him expectantly.

“Do you prefer to throw with your left or your right?” He asked.

You held up your dominant hand holding the snowball, and he nodded.

“Okay, uhm, you should stand with your feet like this.” He demonstrated the correct positioning himself, and you copied.

Jisung went through the basic steps with you, making minor adjustments here and there, and you were actually finding it sort of interesting, outside of the cute boy teaching you something he was passionate about. Learning a new skill or something to that effect. When he was showing you how to actually move your arm when throwing, you were genuinely trying to do it per his verbal instructions, but apparently there was still something wrong with the way you were doing it. And so he walked behind you, covering your gloves hand with his. You could feel his warm breath on the back of your neck, and his other hand grabbed your opposite shoulder to correct your posture as he manually moved your arm through the correct motion. Slow at first, talking through it.

“Feel how it’s different than what you were doing?” He asked, doing it again, a little faster this time.

But you were long gone, your brain white noise and your vision blurring a little bit (but that was mostly due to the cold wind hitting your eyes). He still smelled like cinnamon, and you wanted to listen to his voice all day. Jisung could read you a car manufacturer’s manual for all you cared.

“Mm, mhm,” you agreed absentmindedly.

“Alright, I’m going to step back and let you throw your first pitch.” He patted your shoulder and did just that, leaving you feeling even colder.

You momentarily panicked as you grappled in your short-term memory for anything that he had just been saying. Taking a deep breath, you closed your eyes, deciding that you would probably suck anyway, and to just fucking do it. Trusting your gut and muscle memory of what Jisung had just been walking you through, you did your damndest to throw that snowball in something akin to a pitch.

Amazingly, the snowball actually hit the trunk of the tree that you had been aiming for, and you stared at it in disbelief, hands hanging down by your side. Jisung clapped, the sound dampened by his gloves, but his cheers were surprisingly upbeat for how soft-spoken of a guy he was.

“Wow! That was a really good first pitch!” He congratulated you, holding up both his palms for you to high-five. “So awesome…”

You high-fived him, but stayed holding onto his hands, wide smile overtaking your features. “Thank you.”

“I—You’re welcome.” He held onto your hands too, throat bobbing up and down as he swallowed.

“Jisung!” Chenle yelled out, reminding the both of you of his presence. “Can you get my phone? I made Daegal out of snow and I want to take a picture. It should be charging on my bed.”

“Yeah!” Jisung called back. He gave you a regretful look, letting your hands go to trudge back up to the cabin.

Rounding on your brother, you stomped over to him, observing the admittedly cute snow-Daegal for a moment before addressing him.

“You can get your own phone,” you scoffed, crossing your arms.

“I thought I might hurt Jisung’s feelings if I told him to leave to his face,” Chenle replied nonchalantly. He looked at you over his large-framed sunglasses. “I feel like I have to warn you, as your big brother—”

“By ten months.”

“—about Jisung.”

You gave him a sour look, knowing that he knew that you wouldn’t be able stop yourself from asking a follow-up question to a statement like that. “What about him?”

“I know what you’ve been trying to do this whole time. You’re not ‘very into baseball,’ you’re into Jisung.”

You immediately got fired up, hands balling into fists at your sides. “Don’t you dare start pulling the ‘my friends are off-limits’ card now. You’ve never—”

“Hey, I like Jisung.” He held up his hands defensively, an amused smirk on his face. “If I had to make a tierlist of my friends for you to date, he’d be like, the only one in S-tier.”

You snorted and rolled your eyes. “Do you have a fantasy draft of boyfriends for me too?”

“I’m genuinely trying to help you here, alright?”

“So, what? Does he have a girlfriend or something?”

“Not exactly…” Chenle sighed. “Right before we left, during finals week, he met this girl in the library and just absolutely fell head-over-heels, okay? Like, he’s never even looked once at all the girls who show up to his games, but this one says three words to him and gives him some candy and he’s a goner. I don’t get it.”

It took everything in you to suppress your giddy grin and instead cock your head, playing dumb as you asked, “Wait, did he even get this girl’s name?”

“No, he never got a chance since they were both working on finals stuff,” he answered. “Anyway, I’m just trying to warn you. You’ve got to compete with the romanticized version of mystery library candy girl that he has in his head.”

“Mm. Tough competition,” you nodded with mock solemnity.

“I’m serious, Y/N. He called me at like midnight walking back from the library to tell me about it. He’s got it bad.” As if suddenly realizing everything he had just told you might dampen your spirits, Chenle’s entire demeanor shifted, and he gingerly patted the top of your head. “But uh, you’ve totally got this. I’m rooting for you, lil sis.”

“Right. Thanks… big bro,” you replied with intentional stiltedness, softballing a punch to his shoulder.

That night after dinner, you all sat down around the Christmas tree for your family tradition of opening one present on Christmas Eve. You sifted through the presents under the tree, some of which were ones that had been shipped here ahead of time by your parents or other extended family, others from Chenle.

“Hmm… one or two?” You asked, your eyes on two particular gifts.

“One,” Chenle and Jisung answered unanimously.

You grabbed the one that had been under your left hand, returning to your seat next to Jisung. Chenle had already picked his box, and fished out a gift bag, plopping it in front of Jisung. He seemed surprised, blinking down at it.

“But—”

“I got you more than one gift, dummy,” Chenle cut him off, already guessing what his confusion was about. “Go ahead.”

“No!” You stopped Jisung. He looked at you with alarm as you snatched the gift bag away, putting it back under the tree and replacing it with a different, much smaller one instead. “Open mine.”

Jisung looked even more confused, and slightly betrayed. “I thought we agreed we weren’t doing gifts…?”

“Yeah, but then I saw this and…” You smiled sheepishly. “Just open it!”

Shaking his head, he pulled out the tissue paper, then removed the object at the bottom of the bag. It was wrapped in more tissue paper to protect it, which he carefully wrapped, revealing the ornament that you had bought yesterday while you were split up. It was in the shape of a hamster popping out of a present box, and as soon as you saw it at the mall kiosk, you knew you had to get it for him.

Jisung turned it over his hands, looking up at you still a little confused, but with a smile. “Wait…”

“It looks just like you!” You giggled, taking it from him to hold it up next to his face. Aiming your next question at Chenle, you asked, “Doesn’t it?”

Your brother started laughing, reaching forward to tweak one of Jisung’s cheeks. “Ha, she’s right. How adorable.”

Jisung pushed his hand away, rolling his eyes. His gaze softened when he looked back over at you. “Thank you, Y/N. It’s great.”

“Hang it up!” You urged, giving it back to him and gesturing to the tree.

He got up on his knees to reach forward and affix it to an empty branch, between a bear ornament and honeybee ornament.

“Okay, Y/N, you next,” Chenle directed.

Ripping the wrapping paper off the small box, you were met with a small jewelry box, and took that lid off. Inside was a pair of ornate, bejeweled earrings, a little flashy for your taste. You checked the card.

“Great-Aunt Ying,” you announced, and Chenle let out an ‘ahh’ sound in understanding. You put the lid back on the box and set it aside. “SooSoo will love those.”

“Who’s that?” Jisung asked curiously as your brother started unwrapping his present. “Not your great-aunt.”

“Sooyoung, my roommate since freshman year,” you explained. “She’s also like, my best friend. And those earrings aren’t really my style, but I know she would wear them like, all the time, so I’ll just give them to her when we get back.”

Chenle’s box was a bit larger than yours had been, and was similarly stylish. He turned it over to shake the lid off and make the contents fall out all in one go, catching the fabric that fell out in his hand. Holding it up, it was a tie in what looked like a nice material, a monochrome and not exceptionally busy pattern on it.

“Another tie, wonder who it’s from…” he snorted, picking up the card. “Oh, Great-Uncle Feng. Surprise.”

“Does he think you’re eating all the ties he gives you or something?” You snickered.

“I think he’s so old he forgets he’s given me a tie before and thinks I don’t own any.” Chenle then offered it out to Jisung. “You need a tie? If not, I’ll ask the other guys.”

“I would need a suit first…” Jisung admitted, rubbing the back of his neck.

Chenle stared at him in disbelief, then sighed. “Okay, so we’re getting you a suit when we get back to school.”

“What do I need a suit for?”

“Don’t you have formal stuff that you have to go to for baseball? Awards or press conferences or something?”

“That’s maybe once a year. I just rent a suit!”

“Jisung, don’t say another word, you’re going to kill me.” He put a hand over his heart as if it were going to give out any second.

You chuckled at their antics, starting to clean up the trashed wrapping paper. “Christmas movies?”

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 25

You felt like a little kid, unable to sleep the night before Christmas morning. It was after midnight, so it technically was Christmas now. And even thought you knew that neither Santa nor you parents were coming, you were still oddly giddy. You had already videocalled Sooyoung to recap the developments of the day, but you were still replaying everything in your mind, kept up with thought of Jisung. How it felt being that close to him when he was teaching you to throw a snowball, the information that apparently he was just as smitten with you after the library as you were with him. Even Chenle’s unofficial blessing put your mind at ease—not because your brother determined who you dated, but he knew Jisung better than you did and was brutally honest, so if he said that he liked Jisung for you, you knew he meant it.

Pushing your covers off, goosebumps immediately popped up on your legs that were now exposed to the cool air. You treaded over to the bathroom door. The light was off, but you still knocked. When there was no response, you opened it. You didn’t stop there, however, continuing on to the opposite door, which you knew led to Jisung’s room. Taking a deep breath, you knocked softly on that one too.

You heard the rustling of sheets and quiet padding of footsteps before the door handle twisted and opened, Jisung on the other side. He looked down at you, nose scrunched up in bewilderment.

“Hey, is everything okay?” He asked, rubbing one of his eyes behind his glasses.

“Yeah. Uhm, sorry, did I wake you up?”

“No, I uh, I couldn’t sleep, actually.”

“Me neither.”

“Oh.”

There was a pause, and you fidgeted with the ends of your longsleeve. “Do you want to hang out for a bit? Since we’re both up…”

“Oh! Y-Yeah, sure.” He stepped back from the door, motioning you in. “Uhm, come in.”

“Thanks.” You stepped inside, and he closed the door behind you.

The bedsheets were rumpled on one side, so you sat down on the other side, pulling the blanket over your chilly legs. Jisung watched you, frozen halfway from the bathroom to the bed for a second.

“I’m cold,” you told him, turning your phone on.

“Of course, right,” he breathed out, snapping out of his trance.

He climbed under the covers as well, putting a headphone in his ear opposite from you and pressing play on a video on his phone. Curious, you peeked over at his screen to see what he was watching. It looked like a bunch of clips of professional baseball pitchers.

“It’s my favorite pro pitcher,” Jisung blurted out, pausing the video again. He had apparently noticed you snooping at his screen. “Well, that’s currently active. He’s a lefty, and he does this thing on some of his pitches where he gets this spin and—”

You blinked as he had abruptly cut himself off in the middle of his sentence. Tilting your head, you asked, “What? Why’d you stop?”

“You’re not really interested in baseball, are you?” He questioned, turning his eyes down to his lap. “You’re just being nice.”

“Hold on—”

“It’s okay, you can go back to what you were doing, I don’t want to bore you.”

“Jisung,” you giggled, turning over on your side fully to face him. “You really haven’t figured it out?”

His brow furrowed and he pouted slightly as he seemed to genuinely be confused. “Figured what out?”

“I’m interested in baseball because I’m interested in you,” you said bluntly, watching the gears turn in his head before his eyes widened.

“Wh—Oh. Really?”

“Mhm. But Chenle did warn me that apparently you’re head over heels for some mystery girl that you met in the library during finals week who gave you candy,” you teased, letting out a wistful sigh. “So I have no chance…”

Jisung dropped his phone to cover his face with both hands, letting out a noise of embarrassment from deep in his chest, shaking his head. “Oh my God…”

“I told SooSoo about you too,” you informed him. “After the library.”

He opened his hands to peek at you meekly. “Really?”

“Really.”

Jisung glanced upwards, and you snickered.

“Chenle’s not like that. He’s not going to care unless you’re a dick to me.”

“Because only he gets to be a dick to you?” He joked, slowly removing his hands all the way from his face.

“Yep. Same for the girls he dates. Nobody gets to be a bitch to him except me.”

“So, now what?” He asked nervously, glancing around the room.

“Now, you’re going to finish telling me about your favorite pitcher,” you stated, scooting over until you were snuggled into his side, head resting on his shoulder so you could see his phone screen better.

Jisung grabbed his earbud case from the nightstand, bringing the other one out. He offered it to you, and you put it in as he turned his phone back on. He restarted the compilation, but didn’t press play yet, instead launching back into his explanation from before, excitedly talking faster now.

“So this is Hwang Myungjun. Like I said, he’s my favorite pitcher that’s in the league right now. He’s a lefty and—you’ll see it in this video, but—he does this really cool thing on some of his pitches where he can get this certain spin on the ball and…”

You listened to him go on and on with a smile on your face, breathing in the warm smell of cinnamon.

In the morning, you stirred a little, sighing and pulling the covers up to your nose. Covers that smelled like cinnamon. Opening one of your eyes, you were greeted with Jisung already wide awake, sitting up against the headboard, staring at you from behind his glasses.

You rubbed your eye and yawned. “Christ—Did you sleep at all?”

“Yeah, we get up early for baseball conditioning, so I don’t really sleep in even on days off.” He rubbed the back of his neck, ears turning pink. He cleared his throat awkwardly. “Good morning…”

“Morning,” you mumbled, yawning again. “Sorry for falling asleep here.”

“It’s okay. Sorry for talking you to sleep.”

“No, it was nice. I like your voice.” You pushed yourself into a half-sitting position. Pecking his cheek, you added, “Merry Christmas.”

His face flushed as he smiled down at his hands. “Merry Christmas…”

Climbing out of bed, you stretched your arms over your head, then wrapped them around yourself. “Anyway, I should emerge from my own room. Just because he doesn’t care if we date doesn’t mean Chenle needs to think something other than watching baseball compilations happened in here last night.”

Jisung squeezed his eyes shut and nodded his head. “Good idea.”

“See you in a few.” You bid him a momentary farewell, opening the door to the adjoining bathroom.

Shuffling back into your own bedroom, you almost screamed when you saw a figure sitting on your bed in the dark. You grabbed for the closest thing in your reach, a candlestick on the dresser next to you, ready to swing. The figure turned on the lamp next to the bed, and you saw that it was Chenle, still contemplating hitting him anyway. You decided to set your weapon down, however.

“What the fuck?!” You hissed, stalking up to your bed and grabbing a stuffed animal to chuck at him instead. He caught the stuffed bee, holding it to his chest as he smirked at you.

“Something you want to tell me?” He raised an eyebrow. “About where you’ve been?”

You followed his line of sight between you and the bathroom door that you just came out of. “What are you, the piss patrol? Can’t a bitch pee in peace around here?”

“Toilet didn’t flush, sink didn’t run,” he immediately shot back. “Also, I’ve been in here for the past hour.”

“Don’t be weird about it—” You held up a finger in his face threateningly, and a victorious grin immediately spread across his features. “Jisung and I talked about how we felt, and I fell asleep in his room. Nothing else, okay?”

Chenle gave you a look that told you he didn’t entirely believe you, but he didn’t press you any further. “God, how am I going to choose between being your brother of honor and his best man?”

“We haven’t even gone on a date!” You grabbed a pillow and tried to pushed it over his face to shut him up. He narrowly saved himself from being smothered, cackling as you resorted to smacking him with it instead. “As if I’d even ask you to be my whatever you just made up! You’ll be lucky if you even get an invite, I swear to—”

The door to your room was thrown open from the bathroom, Jisung looking around the room wildly. “Y/N! Are—”

You stopped your assault on your brother to smile breathlessly at Jisung. “Oh. Hi.”

“I heard you yelling, I wanted to make sure…”

“I’m fine,” you reassured him. “Thanks, Jisung.”

“I know!” Chenle announced loudly. “I know everything, Park Jisung! Last night, you and my little sister—”

You succeeded in smothering Chenle this time, muffling whatever obnoxious things he was about to spew.

After breakfast and opening presents in the morning, Jisung excused himself to go call his parents. Chenle tsked, turning the gaming console on to start up one of the new games he’d gotten and tossing you a controller.

“He tell you how he ended up coming with us?” Your brother asked, his gaze on the screen.

“Yeah. His dad goes on a cruise and his mom is with his stepdad’s side of the family. So he would’ve just been at the school if you didn’t bring him,” you replied, only paying half-attention to the opening cutscene.

“At least ours pretend to make an effort,” he scoffed. “His mom didn’t even offer to pay for his plane ticket.”

“Hm?”

“His mom and stepdad live on the other side of the country. They technically ‘invite’ him to Christmas every year, but he’d have to get himself there and back.”

“So it’s hardly a genuine invite.”

“And you know what his stepdad does?”

“What?”

“CEO of that logistics company that Mom and Dad are always talking about. The big one.”

“Shit, really? And he can’t be bothered to pay for his wife to see her own son once a year?”

He clicked his tongue. “Apparently not.”

A few levels into the video game, Chenle’s phone lit up with a text. He paused the game, and sighed upon reading the message. “Jisung says we can eat lunch without him. He’s suddenly not feeling well.”

You winced. “I take it his phone calls didn’t go well.”

“You go check on him. You can handle crying people better than me.”

You nodded in agreement, getting up from the couch. Outside of Jisung’s bedroom door, you listened carefully first, just in case he was still on a call. It was quiet, and you knocked softly.

“Jisung?” You called out. “Can I come in?”

“Sure,” he replied, his voice sounding far away.

Opening the door, you saw him laying on the bed on top of his covers, his back to the door. You stayed in the doorway, asking, “Do you want to be alone?”

“No.”

You sat down on the bed behind him, still giving him his space. “Do you want to talk or do you want quiet?”

“My dad didn’t even pick up,” he muttered. “And my mom—God, I got to tell her about school for all of five seconds before she started gushing about how her grandbabies are learning how to write or whatever. I’ve never even met those kids, honestly, I don’t give a fuck about them. They’re not even her grandkids, they’re her husband’s. Apparently, one of them is on a little league baseball team. When she started saying I could teach him how to pitch when I come to visit for summer, I pretended the call was dropping and hung up. ‘When I come to visit’—I live with my dad in the summer because he didn’t move away from me.”

“I’m sorry, Jisung,” you said, feeling the hurt in your heart as his voice tightened and cracked.

“It’s funny, they used to have these-these blowout fights every year about who got me for Christmas,” he sniffled. “And now that they moved on and got their new families, they couldn’t care less about me.”

“Lucky for me and Chenle, then. Because we got you this year.”

He laughed, finally rolling over to face you. He wiped at his eyes, but you still saw the tears that had run down the side of his face. “You really mean that?”

“Of course I do.” You gently stroked his hair, brushing some of it out of his face.

Jisung scooted closer, until he could pillow his head in your lap instead, his eyes fluttering shut as you resumed your ministrations. “I’m glad you guys got me too…”

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 26

A knock on your bedroom door woke you up. It opened, and somebody who was neither Chenle nor Jisung peered in.

“Merry Christmas, sweetie,” your mother hummed lightly. “Are you up?”

“Mm, yeah,” you grunted, pushing yourself up against your pillows.

She came over to press a kiss to your forehead. “Good morning.”

“Hi, Mom. Merry Christmas,” you smiled up at her, letting her take your hand in hers. “Did you and Dad just get here?”

“A few minutes ago. Your father’s getting Chenle.”

There was a loud thunk from above you, followed by a yelp and two very familiar and similar laughs that you recognized as your families’. You chuckled as your mom rolled her eyes fondly.

“I think he was successful,” you snickered.

“We’re going out for breakfast when you’re ready,” she informed you, squeezing your hand before letting it go.

“Mmkay.” You yawned as she headed for your door. “I’ll let Jisung know.”

She paused, tilting her head. “Who?”

“Didn’t Chenle tell you his friend was coming? Park Jisung?” You pointed at the room next door.

“Oh, I thought he was bringing Mark for some reason.” She looked at you with concern. “Does Jisung like basketball too?”

“I… don’t know? He plays baseball?”

“Oh. Hm.”

“So, what are you studying, Jisung?” Your mother asked, stirring sugar into her coffee.

The five of you were at a diner in the small town at the base of the mountain, you, Jisung, and Chenle packed into one side of a booth and your parents on the other. The car ride had been filled with you and Chenle filling your parents in on your various happenings from this semester, but now your parents seemed to have zeroed in on the newcomer.

“Cybersecurity,” he rushed to answer.

Both your parents seemed impressed by that. Your dad spoke next, “And what do your parents do?”

“He’s got an athletic scholarship, Dad,” Chenle cut in before you could. You both knew what he was really asking about.

“Full ride,” you added proudly. “Baseball. He’s the pitcher.”

“Really?” Your dad’s interest was piqued—he was a bigger sports fan than your brother.

“Yes, sir,” Jisung replied.

“The school doesn’t give out full athletic scholarships frequently. You know that?”

“No, sir, I-I didn’t know that.”

Your dad took a sip of his own coffee, regarding Jisung like he was evaluating his investment portfolio. “So what makes you so valuable?”

“W-Well, uhm, I-I don’t—”

“He’s ambidextrous,” you answered for him. “He can pitch with both hands.”

“Switch pitcher?” Your dad hummed thoughtfully. “You know who the best switch pitcher in the history of the league is, right?”

“Kim Beomjin, sir,” Jisung replied firmly.

“Has he passed your test, yet, Dad?” Chenle scoffed. “Come on, stop treating him like he’s interviewing at the company.”

“I was trying to get to know—”

“You were being a bit much, dear,” your mother interrupted your dad’s attempts to defend himself.

“Alright. My apologies, Jisung.”

“It’s fine, sir, really.”

You didn’t understand why your mother had asked if Jisung liked basketball until you got back to the house. Your parents had brought a few more presents with them, including, kindly, a couple for Jisung. Except they hadn’t been expecting Jisung, they had been expecting Mark, which evident in the gifts. Both Chenle and Mark loved basketball, so the matching jerseys for their favorite team would’ve made the perfect present, if it had been Mark receiving it.

“I’m so sorry, Jisung,” your mother kept apologizing, clearly embarrassed at the mistake.

“No, I-I like basketball too, ma’am,” he tried to reassure her.

“It’s a requirement for being my friend,” Chenle helped him out. “If only I could’ve made it a requirement for being my sister.”

“If we got to pick, I would’ve made not being annoying as fuck a requirement for being my brother,” you retorted.

“Language!” Your mom scolded you, at the same time that your dad warned Chenle to “Be nicer to your sister!”

Your parents were gone again after dinner, leaving in a flurry of hugs, kisses, and promises of celebrating Christmas together properly next year. As soon as he’d shut the door behind them, Chenle turned to you, cynical disbelief on his face already.

“No way,” he chuckled and shook his head. His phone rang then, and he tutted. “Gotta take this. I’ll be in my room if you need me.”

Jisung was already in the living room, and you plopped down next to him on one of the couches, dropping your head into your hands.

“Your parents seem nice,” he said quietly.

“Mhm, they’re really great when they’re here,” you agreed bitterly. “Sort of makes it hurt worse. It’d be easy to just hate them if they left us all the time and changed plans last-minute and were awful when we did see them. But they do all that shit, and then I see them and it’s good. And it makes me start thinking that maybe it’ll be different, maybe they’ll really keep their promises next time.”

“I get that.” He seemed to be choosing his words very carefully. “But maybe this time you just don’t get your hopes up. Might be easier on you.”

“Yeah, probably.”

With a sigh, you sat up, turning into Jisung’s side and snaking your arms around his waist. He wrapped his arms around you as you buried your face in his chest, one hand cradling the back of your head. His other hand slowly rubbed your back, encouraging you to relax into his embrace even more.

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 31

The morning of New Year’s Eve, the three of you were sitting around the kitchen table silently eating breakfast scrounged together from various leftovers and the singular grocery store trip you’d taken since Christmas. Then, there was a knock at the front door, and with your cereal spoon sticking out of your mouth, you gave Chenle and Jisung a bewildered look. They, however, didn’t seem put off at all.

“Y/N, can you go see who it is?” Chenle asked you, returning his gaze to his phone screen.

“Are you expecting someone?” You retorted. “You go answer it.”

The knocking came again, more insistent this time.

“Y/N! Just get it!” Chenle demanded loudly.

“Fine! Fine!” You got up, stomping over to the front door.

Opening the solid wood door, your jaw dropped when you saw six figures on the other side, before you were tackled in a hug by the one at the front.

“Surprise!” Sooyoung squealed, nearly squeezing the air out of your lungs.

“Soo!” You gasped, hugging her back. “What are you doing here?”

“We were invited!” Jaemin informed you cheerily, grabbing you for a bear hug next.

“We’d never pass up an invite to a Chenle-Y/N party,” Jeno’s eyes twinkled as he pecked the crown of your head.

“Especially a New Year’s Eve party,” Donghyuck added.

“Since when have we been throwing a New Year’s Eve party?” You spluttered, still in delighted shock as you took in all of your friends standing in your foyer.

Mark hugged you too. “Chenle texted us a couple days before Christmas to see if we could make it for New Year’s.”

You grabbed your roommate’s hand, bewildered the most by her presence. She wasn’t friends with Chenle or any of the other guys standing there, to your knowledge. “But how did you…?”

“Jisung’s idea,” Chenle had joined you all, standing at the threshold of the foyer with the baseball player. “We figured out that Renjun and Sooyoung were in a study group together this semester and…”

You’d spotted Huang Renjun, one of Chenle’s friends from college whom you’d met several times before, hanging back on the fringes of the group. You smiled at him before beelining for Jisung, throwing your arms around his neck and kissing his cheek a couple times in your excitement.

“Thank you!” You were smiling ear to ear, so much that your cheeks hurt, but you couldn’t help it.

“You’re welcome, Y/N.” Jisung returned the hug, rubbing your back. “My late Christmas present to you.”

You let him go to hug your brother next, hooking your chin over his shoulder and squeezing him so tight you felt like your chest might burst, and you hoped he could feel how much all of this—how much he—meant to you. Despite everything you may say or do to each other. “Thanks, Chenle.”

“Of course,” he whispered, hugging you back just as tight.

“SooSoo, I’m serious, not that much has happened!” You promised, laying on your bed to watch as she got settled in your room. She had of course insisted that you filled her in on every details of everything that’s happened between you and Jisung, including things that she had already heard before since you two talked almost every night. “It’s only been like a week, and my brother is literally here.”

“We all saw those little cheek kisses earlier,” she replied pointedly. “You’re at least going to kiss him at midnight, right?”

“Maybe,” you giggled, quite literally kicking your feet as you thought about it. “Onto you—You just spent three hours in a car with them, have you figured out if you want me to set you up with Jeno or Jaemin?”

“We took two cars. I was in Renjun’s with Donghyuck,” she informed you with a desolate sigh.

“Why did you—”

“He offered because he knew I didn’t know anybody except him, and I didn’t know how to explain why I wanted to go in the other one!”

“Foiled once more by empathy and kindness.”

“I’ll figure it out before we go back to school!”

“Maybe you can get one of their numbers on your own before then.”

Despite the reputations that ‘Chenle-Y/N’ parties carried amongst your friends, and your friends also bringing enough alcohol to host a full-blown kegger, the event itself was pretty low-key. You’d gotten the firepit on the back porch going, food ordered, music going throughout the house, and had already completed several different games.

You were fixing yourself a cup of eggnog in the kitchen when you spotted someone out by the firepit. Pouring another mug, you took both out with you. Jisung looked up when he heard the back door open. He smiled as he recognized that it was you, scooting over on the bench to make room for you to sit with him.

“Eggnog?” You offered a cup out to him. “I didn’t spike it, but I can go add something in if you really want.”

“No, this is perfect,” he chuckled, his laughs rising as white wisps in the cold air. “I’ve been thinking…”

“About?”

“Were the three options hot chocolate, cider, and eggnog?”

It took you a second to catch up, but once you had recalled your first night in the mountains, you burst into laughter, nodding. “Yeah, those were the three options when I made you pick a number.”

He smiled, taking a sip of his drink. “There was something else, that I was thinking about.”

“Oh?”

“Are-Are we going to kiss at midnight? Do you want to? I know we haven’t gone on a real date or anything—”

“I do want to kiss you,” you admitted. “Do you?”

He nodded hurriedly. “Yes, god.”

“You still seem… fidgety. We can wait, if you—”

“That’s not it.” He set his cup of eggnog down, and you did as well. “I want to kiss you. I just don’t want the first time I do to be in front of a bunch of our friends.”

You smirked, tilting your head curiously. “Are you asking to practice before?”

He blinked. “I don’t think I was before, but I definitely am now.”

You snickered a little, leaning in and gently touching your lips to his in a feather-light kiss. He let out a small sigh against your lips, one of his hands coming up to cup your cheek and pull you closer, sealing his mouth over yours. Everything was warm, no matter the fire or the cold wind or the thick jacket you were wearing, you were being heated from the inside out.

When Jisung pulled back, he had such a dazzlingly soft smile on his face that you couldn’t help but stare, wanting to burn that image in the back of your eyelids forever. He moved to duck his head shyly, but you grabbed his face.

“I think we might need some more practice before midnight,” you teased, nuzzling your nose with his affectionately.

“Mm, of course,” he agreed humorously, kissing you again. And again, and again, and again.

⇢ 2024 hallmark movie marathon

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