#wish there was a way to control the lighting on the models themselves

[binhourly]

Coming To Terms (+18)

Summary: What could go wrong when your love life involves bad sex, good imagination, and a best friend who seems like the answer to all your unspoken desires?

Word count: 11k

Tags: College Setting / Rom-Com / Slice of Life / Friends to Undecided

Pairing: Baseball Player!Kim Seungmin x Fem!reader

Trigger Warning:  Emotional Distress / Harassment / Stalking / Physical Intimidation (Seungmin is captain of the baseball team, his bat is practically his weapon) / Explicit Content / Men Being Pathetic / Aggressive & Threatening Behaviour / Vanilla Intercourse In The Beginning & Middle / Protective Sex / Crude Language / Character Re-imagined / Underwear Play / Verbal Aggression

Songs: i. Look At That Woman by ROLE MODEL ii. Love Is Embarrassing by Olivia Rodrigo

ALSO READ HERE

NOTE: Shoutout to the jerk who inspired one part of this scene—who wouldn’t leave me alone after he rejected me, got angry because I was unaffected by it, and alluded that if I cared about him enough, I would be heartbroken. Then he proceeded to trap me inside the girls’ bathroom. Hope campus security tasers you next time, you fucking weirdo. / excuse the ending. I was sadly a victim of school work overload and anything I wrote fell flat and I can't be bothered trying to re-work it the 100th time. so, yes it doesn't make a whole lot of sense and seems really rushed . . . live laugh love seungmin.

NO ONE was completely perfect—hell, if there was one thing you were sure about, it was that your own crappy life meant you also counted toward that same damn list too.

It wasn't about being uncritical, either. You had a lot to be angry at, starting with your new project partner, Felix, who insists he's clinically diagnosed with a gaming addiction, so it's crucial he takes 'Call of Duty' breaks in between studying.

It just came down to being hopeful, and having a lot of it.

For instance, if someone had waved a bunch of red flags in your direction, you'd notice it, maybe indulge in a small wiggle of your fingers back, because for some stupid reason, you have a bad habit of thinking their flaws, (controlling, inability to take accountability, lack of empathy) would magically iron themselves out over time. Or, your personal favourite—they'd burn the cloth enough it changes the alarming colour.

Spoiler alert: they never do. And now you're stuck with your mistake literally punching you in the gut—but more literal than metaphorical.

“Making you feel so good,” your boyfriend slurs into your shoulder, his awkward thrusting between your legs making the sentence appear as if he's hiccuping. “Changing—argh—your life.”

Dongmin was that small wish you sigh out at the end of a grace, something you know you're not supposed to say but get overwhelmed with the selfish need to want more. When he showed up, it was almost like the universe had heard you and decided, without any strings attached, “You know what? Sure, here's your dream guy.”

And god, was he absolutely perfect—and clearly your karmic invoice.

The first few weeks, he practically won your heart over by carefully remembering tiny details about your interests and insisted on carrying you on his back to ease the digging pain in your shin after your first date. (Looking back now, you can admittedly say you brought down your impenetrable wall too quickly, because the only way he changed the trajectory of your life was finding out he had the bedroom finesse of a teenage boy who giggled at genital diagrams in health class.)

Then the lights flick off, and he transforms into something clumsy but not inexperienced... just one-sided.

You've tried everything to loosen him up—lingerie, role-play, and toys—but at this point, sex to Dongmin was sticking it in, swirling it around a few times trying to chase his own high, and you're stuck watching a firework fizzle out just as the show's supposed to start. You know, a little “oh” that quickly becomes a “wait, that's it?”

He lifts himself up off you, a sheen of sweat clearly building down his chest after what has been barely two minutes. It gives you a better view of Dongmin, though, and you think to yourself you could work with this. Watching him rest his hands firmly on your raised knees and press them further apart to spear deeply into you would definitely build up that sweet pressure.

And sure enough, whines sob out of you so desperately, like a starved woman thankful for a grain of salt. “Baby, f—feels so good.” Your face flops to the side, mouth agape and drying the drool that slides down your chin. "Right there—ah uh!—keep it like that," you instruct him, hoping for what could possibly be your first orgasm.

This was it, his redemption arc; all it needed now was a friendly push. So, your fingers tickle past your bouncing breasts, landing at the base of your clit where you planned to rub circles while he fucked you into the mattress.

“Don't do that,” Dongmin objects through a grunt, swatting your hands away despite your quiet gasp of disappointment, entrapping them both above your head. He leans forward, stopping his thrusts. “I can make you cum with just my cock.”

Sadly, that hasn't happened yet, and it was hard to be hopeful when you knew exactly how it was going to end. He resumes, and just like you expected, Dongmin repositions himself, and the tight lull around your pelvis disappears, literally fucking retreats back into a little cobwebbed corner.

With him snuggled back into your shoulders, it allows you to catch sight of the ceiling, dissociating into several different thoughts. One that whispered loud asked if this was your punishment. Six months he made you wait. Six months of feeling like a princess before he finally gave in, and by then, you were so locked in emotionally that there was no way out. You liked him—loved him, even.

Damn.

“So close! Gonna... uh ah—cum." Dongmin grips your hips hard enough it leaves an unwanted ache, and before you could mouth out profanities for getting carried away, a hot feeling stews inside you along with a huff of air that sounds like he's struggling to breathe.

He came, how shocking.

He doesn't collapse next to you, just opts to awkwardly move over at the edge of the bed before treading to the rubbish bin in the corner, ripping the condom off his softening penis. It leaves you naked, swaddled in sheets, just quietly taking in that his day had now just become more bearable, while you'll spend the next week coming up with excuses to keep him away from any spacious surface to fuck against.

Dongmin climbs back by your side, his presence now not so pressuring. “You were so good, baby.” He trails his hands up your arm, making a shiver slither down your bare spine. “How was it? Was it any good?”he adds, his voice soft and hopeful.

For a brief moment, you consider telling him the truth—that he could touch up on a few areas to get better in bed. But even thinking about it made you shrink, like you were holding a fuse you lit yourself, waiting for the wick to burn the last inch before selfishly handing it over to Dongmin.

But, like always, at the last second when your people pleasing tendencies kick in, you throw all your weight to soften the explosion.

“It was perfect,” you whisper, the lie slipping out smoothly. His hands squeeze your thigh in response, a splitting grin spreading across his face.

“Really?” His eyes light up, pressing kisses into your cheek.

If life has taught you anything, it's that perfection is a myth. You knew that before Dongmin, and you sure as hell know it now. Sure, Dongmin was bad in bed, but who’s to say there wasn’t something about you that bothered him just as much? Maybe he loved you enough to let it slide. Maybe you were willing to do the same. And maybe—just maybe—it wasn’t about love at all, but about not knowing if you’d ever find something better.

“Yeah! You were amazing,” you lie again, and this time, it comes a little easier.

Spoiler alert, your mind whispers.

SEUNGMIN misses the next pitch, the ball ricocheting off the chain-link fence surrounding the batting cage with a hollow clang. "Wait—hold on." He turns toward you sitting cross-legged outside, eyes narrowing in focus at something other than his baseball training. "I'm sorry, did I just hear you complain about your boyfriend's... swing?"

You couldn't even remember when you let that secret slip.

One second, you were watching Seungmin wind up his bat over his shoulder for another hit, the end-of-the-day heat tinting his white ace uniform a baked yellow, and the next, words were tumbling out like you were in some kind of truth-telling trance. Shit.

Trying to act as nonchalant as possible, you shrug your shoulders. "I'm being serious."

Seungmin rests the length of his bat across his shoulders, arms slung causally over each end, trying his best to look moderately stern—or at least like he's mulling it over and coming up with helpful solutions. "What makes you think I'm not?" he says, raising his eyebrows in mock confusion.

But you weren't fooled for a second. You'd known the athlete for a total of three years, which gave you enough time to spot the signs—the barely-there twitch at the corner of his mouth, the bite down on his bottom lip.

"Relax..." Seungmin drags out his words, adding to his infamous bratty attitude with a classic eye roll that basically says you really should know better. "I'm not that evil to make fun of you for something that's—y'know... beyond your control. If I'm going to shit on someone, it'd be him for underperforming."

"But I don't think I want you throwing jabs at him," you start by saying, holding off from speaking further until Seungmin repositions himself away from you on the plate, giving you the perfect sight of his messy brown tuffs sticking out from under his cap rather than his judgy eyes, as he takes another practice swing. "It's wrong when he's been nothing but sweet to me."

Then came the ball shooting out the machine, a sharp clang, and instead of his usual clean hit, the ball bounces off his bat at a crooked angle, spiralling down into what could've been foul territory if this was a real game.

Seungmin spins back towards you, a clear sign of disbelief in his eyes at his second out ball. "See? This is what happens when you say stupid shit," he mutters, adjusting his cap backwards to give you the full extent of his annoyance. "It's like you're sucking all my talent away, one word at a time." He raises his bat, taking a few loose swings in the air as if to shake off your bad luck.

“Am I not allowed to defend my boyfriend?" you reply, an ache of defensiveness prickling your chest.

Seungmin lets out a low laugh, the kind that’s meant to sweetly correct your faults without fully crossing the line into being a downright douche—and maybe the way his teeth peek halfway underneath his pink lips could make you forget it was supposed to hurt. Or that it only came after you announced Dongmin was, in fact, your boyfriend.

“You can," he says, his tone a sharp lash despite its simplicity. Now that you think of it, Seungmin does seem more affected by your troubles than you expected. "But maybe save it for when he's worth defending. Like, when you can move past telling people he makes you happy just because he makes you laugh."

What the hell did Seungmin know about relationships? If this were any other Friday night—where the summer heat feels thicker from the countless bodies pressed up against each other and the cold beer does nothing but flush everyone's faces, the only contribution to a committed relationship Seungmin could get behind was being with a girl long enough until the song blaring out from the speaker ended. And then? Onto the next, all blurring together, sifting through the entire alphabet as the night dragged on.

Was she a Bora? Maybe a Susan? Not that it mattered. It always played out the same—Seungmin weaving through the crowd, a little disheveled, a little fucked-out, his familiar scent of citrus clinging to his skin like an afterthought. And then your heart tucks, knots, flips, only for you to turn around and realise—no, he’s not looking at you. Just another random girl brushing past drowning in his cologne.

So yeah, maybe Seungmin had a point. But what weight did his opinion really hold when it’s coming from someone who valued blowjobs over real, tangible connections. 

You press your hands behind you, leaning back slightly with a pouty lip, confused about what you were really frustrated about. "Not everything has to meet your weird, unrealistic expectations with your perfect checklist."

Seungmin scoffs, “No, but it’s the one thing you’re spiralling over right now.”

You sit up abruptly, mouth open, ready to argue—because obviously, he’s wrong—but nothing comes out. Because, unfortunately, he isn’t.

Seungmin smirks, like he was waiting for you to get caught in your own logic. “Oh? No defence? That’s new.”

You scowl, picking your legs up before hugging your knees to your chest. “I just—” You huff, looking away. “You don’t know everything, okay?”

“I don’t need to know everything. I know you.” He points the bat at you like it’s an extendable pointer in some lecture you definitely didn’t sign up for. “And I never said anything about being perfect. But he’s not exactly giving you something that sticks. Y’know, the stuff you can’t let go of.”

Your brows pinch together. “That makes no sense. People let go of bad things all the time.”

Seungmin snorts. “Right. But people still go back to their exes just to fight, or hate-fuck each other into oblivion. Not because it’s good for them—because it’s unforgettable. It gets under your skin and stays there.”

You blink, caught off guard by the weight of his words. He steps back onto the plate, kicking his cleats into the ground, clearing out the backed-up dirt trapped inside the rubber.

“Dongmin has it all backwards,” he continues, more thoughtful now. “He gave you perfect first. No mess, no complications.’” He tilts his head. “And you think that’s a good thing?”

Your lips press together. “It is a good thing,” you insist, but even you hear how defensive it sounds.

Seungmin scoffs, unamused. “No, it’s suffocating.” He flicks his gaze back to you. “Or in your case, it’s got you sitting here, trying to convince yourself you’re the problem. Like you should be grateful to be with him.”

Your stomach twists—because, again, damn it, he’s not wrong.

"You sound pretty sure about that," you say, almost smiling but finding yourself hesitating. "Where's the perfectly formatted, alphabetical citation to all these theories, huh?"

Without missing a beat, Seungmin turns to you, his eyes—typically the blackest jade—now transforming into the softest chestnut under the sun, properly toasted to taste so sweet and earthy. "I am the citation. A living, breathing, walking HTTPS link."

You don't disagree; it's not like you can with his never-ending scroll of experiences. Of course, he knew more than you—the baseball player practically had every single girl on campus twirling their hair, waiting for the chance he might pick them again (the same crowd you were once among, quietly shoved in a corner—before you met Dongmin)

While Seungmin prepares for the next hit, you take a minute to fully come to terms with what's been said. Dongmin did give you everything, and you were more than grateful for that, but did he do anything that really snagged at your mind constantly? Sure, he occasionally bought you things or always let you eat the last bit of every delicious sweet because he was kind, thoughtful, and never gave you a reason to doubt him—but that was just it.

Sometimes, there'd be moments where you'd get so caught up in studying you'd forget to call or text him for days at a time, and it didn't bother you. When a girl was clearly flirting with him at the library—right there, barely a shoulder away from you—it didn't make you feel a thing—not jealousy, not irritation, not even the faintest twinge that the world could shift off its axis if he did ratify her advances.

All you could explain is the way the morsel memories managed to only piece together when you remember Seungmin happened to be there at that time, slithering right down into the seat beside her in his beige trousers and white dress shirt (his knight in shining armour away from his usual baseball uniform), hair clipped short and skimming the top of his forehead, stealing her attention away from Dongmin. And it worked, aggravatingly enough.

The girl completely forgot about your boyfriend. And you... well, you couldn't remember much else because you were too prickly from anger to realise the crack of a notebook slamming shut, echoing throughout the library, was from your own. Heads all turned. Yours stayed on the way her fingers had drummed on the empty space of his forearm where he rolled up a fourth of his sleeve, needing nothing but to leave before you flat out collapsed.

Later that night, Dongmin kissed your lips swollen, breathlessly mouthing how much he loved seeing you jealous over him. And if he believed it, you let yourself believe it too, because of course that's why you were so sensitive.

You move closer to the fence, letting your fingers curl around the wires. "Okay, what's your controversial hot take on this? What would you want me to do?"

Quickly, Seungmin replies—"You dump him. Obviously."

You reel back. "Have you not been listening to me this past hour?"

"I have. That's me taking everything in as your very supportive friend and giving you the most logical advice," he says with a deadpan expression.

Crossing your arms, you stare at the side of him, letting it trail down to his uniform tucked into his white trousers. "I don't like that one."

Seungmin adjusts his grip on the bat, keeping his eyes trained on the ball machine, waiting for the next surprise. "Okay... because you're basically teetering on the edge of sexual insanity, you can have my next thought free of charge."

You arch an eyebrow, hating the way he pauses for dramatic effect.

Seungmin bends his knees further apart, his voice dropping just enough you can feel it pulsating in-between your legs.

"Next time, think of me during sex."

You choke on absolutely nothing.

What the actual fuck? You weren't too sure you heard him correctly, and it explained through the way you racked your eyes to the side inconspicuously to see if anyone else had overheard and displayed an equally horrified look to his statement, just a smidge of utter disbelief. But you were the only one short-winded, a little hypnotised.

"That's... That's really gross—and seriously, just—weird, and wrong... you can't be—"

If he wasn't so focused, Seungmin would've done his infamous shrugs, completely unbothered as usual. "Just saying, I've got a 99% success rate of giving people what they want."

You barely have room to retaliate before the machine fires, the sound of his bat whooshing into your ear and a crack echoing across the field instantly playing out. Unlike the last two, the ball soars higher—farther—and as you follow the little white comet in the air, it hits the end trails of the field which felt weirdly coincidental to Seungmin's statement, because if this was like any other game where the fence wasn't placed around the playing ground, with an arena filled with students, the ball would have been called out as a—

“Home run,” someone mutters from another section, greatly impressed at his swing.

THE NEXT time you have sex with Dongmin is right after your last class on a late afternoon.

It wasn't spontaneous nor romantic, but you figure that being with someone for as long as you have it's already given proof that he loves you, which cancels out the need for heart-shaped petals on the bed and replaces grand gestures with stale, pre-planned texts.

Dongmin: Need you right now, baby

Dongmin: Think you can make it in 10?

Your eyes flick quickly between the two messages, your nose scrunching the lines of your face, which suggested your clear irritation at his wish. But as natural as it came, so did that same nauseating feeling that you were being too judgmental—a little too mean when he hadn't done anything even mildly wrong for you to turn him down.

You: If I run I could probably get there in 6

You: But I won't do it without a little please ;)

Shoving your phone into your back pocket without checking his response, you start walking to the student dormitories, appreciating that, even though the bigger problem is only minutes ahead, it still leads you under the campus's brick arch into the sprawling oval field where students lounge on the grass during their breaks. It gives you a moment of false peace—that maybe, just maybe, you're like everyone else, heading out to do anything but have mediocre sex.

When you slip inside his room, it only takes a quick peck on the lips to kick-start his libido. You'd barely leaned back before he nudged closer, his hands racing to your face before smothering you in a deeper, hungrier kiss.

It completely took you by surprise how feverish he was being. It was impossible to think straight when his tongue was basically poking every corner of your mouth, while his hands were sneaking under your shirt, ignoring the sweat build-up on your back from your little walk.

Dongmin had just sat through a three-hour lecture about marketing strategies—did product placements make him this horny?

You giggle into his mouth at the ridiculous thought, and it's like someone shoved a drain stopper into Dongmin's rushing sink of hormones.

He pulls back, frowning slightly, eyes wandering in a way that showed he was clearly offended that you weren't taking his sexually aroused state seriously enough. "What's funny?"

Your face heats. "Nothing! I'm just—" you hesitate, bringing his face closer, peppering the trace of his lips with quick kisses to coax him out of thinking too deeply. "I'm just being silly."

It works in your favour because Dongmin gets caught up in the web of your so-called addicting taste, his arousal taking over without a second thought. His hips fall into this automatic rhythm, rutting into the open space between your legs like it's instinctive—like he doesn't even realise he's doing it.

You sigh into his mouth, deciding to enjoy the little bits and pieces of pleasure you can grab before things inevitably go south. If you were going to make this work, foreplay would have to be your life line. Because the biggest misconception about sex is that it's rarely as groundbreaking as foreplay. What most girls really want is the build-up. The kissing, the grinding, the maddening tease of never quite getting there.

It's the burn without the release.

"But I want to know," he insists with an incredulous look, head angling away, leaving a huff of an aggravated moan in the air from you.

You bite your lip, stalling, before blurting, "I'm just trying to figure out what got you so..." Your words trail off as your hands flap in the useless space between the two of you, miming something you can't quite put into words. "Like... this."

Dongmin lets go of you, the feeling from earlier while briskly walking around campus—free—climbing back into your chest. Without a word, he moves to the bed, slumping down with his legs parted just enough to make the tent in his pants... obvious, arms bracing behind him on the mattress.

"It's Seungmin," he says finally, voice low and dejected, like the mental image of the baseball player pained him.

You blink. Seungmin? Your Seungmin?

The statement hits you like a curveball to the face, the hard-stitched leather completely derailing whatever thoughts were left swirling around in your pretty but concerned brain. The confession was so unprompted that it left the words tumbling out of your mouth without proper discretion.

"Seungmin made you hot and bothered?"

"What? No!" he blurts, eyes widening in complete horror. "That's not—how did you even come to that conclusion?"

"I don't know!" you rush in, pointing an accusatory finger towards Dongmin. "We were just swapping spit, and I asked you a question—I mean, you can't really get the wrong idea when you build it up like that."

You hadn't intended to be funny, but the response made the hard marks in Dongmin's features soften enough before he lets out an involuntary exhale that borders on an amused laugh.

Still, something lingered. The sight of Dongmin, typically so composed, with an endless amount of patience in his tool belt, sitting there so visibly nerved and upset felt... different. The open window that haloed a buttery tint above his head couldn't pin back that same warmth.

You pad across the room, steps deliberately slow, allowing yourself to stop between his parted thighs. This was a new experience. Within the time frame of your relationship—which would be exactly a year, a month from now—you'd never really had to deal with this. And that's not to say you were unwilling to help swat away the eventual clouds raining above his head, it was just that after spending so many perfect days, having something other than that unsettled you, like seeing a flower wilt at its peak in the middle of spring.

And maybe that's why you didn't ask him what was wrong. You weren't sure how. Instead, staring down at him, you nudge your knee into his open ones. Once. Then again. A little harder each time, until his lips twitch slightly, smearing back that familiar smile.

"You're annoying." Dongmin clasps his hands around the back of your knees, murmuring softly, and it's supposed to reach deep—the feeling of his touch—but it barely tingles.

"And you're a little grumpy," you shoot back, nudging him again for good measure, and before you can process it, Dongmin uses the leverage of having his hands at your weak point to his advantage, and in one fluid motion, he lifts you up slightly despite being in a sitting position and pulls you down onto the mattress with him, a familiar weight pressing above you.

This would've been the perfect moment to capture inside a cute mason jar and hold up as a reminder each time you got that nagging poke in your gut that doubted if you had any real connection with your boyfriend. But despite the compromising position, the only thing disrupting your thoughts was how you could bring the conversation back to Seungmin without indirectly implying anything.

"What does Seungmin have that I don't?" you say playfully, intending for his reply to be as predictable as the baseball player not having a set of perky tits—the typical train of thought for boys in their early twenties.

"He has you."

There's a beat of silence. "What?"

To keep the mood moderately light-hearted, Dongmin blows hot air onto your face, the rush gently moving a strand of hair away from your eyes. "I bumped into him earlier today," he answers finally, voice dazed, keeping his stare trained on the roundness of your lips as if they're the most fascinating thing in the room. "It was weird because he usually avoids me, but he wanted to talk to me about something."

You nod your head in a vague attempt to look attentive, but your mind escapes this current reality and transports itself back two days ago at the baseball field, where Seungmin looked aggravated by the combination of the sun and the coach's reliance on his skills, and you happened to carve the first smile into his lips after telling him how Dongmin has failed to make you cum.

It wasn't like Seungmin would've told Dongmin. He was many concerning things, but the most valuable quality he had was the tendency to lock your most humiliating confessions behind an impenetrable vault. But that didn't mean his unprompted hangout with your boyfriend was sheer coincidence. It was a built idea, one that probably came to him in the morning and continued to amuse him for hours before he spoke to Dongmin. You can picture it so clearly—every little comment Seungmin would've made laced with his trademark brand of backhanded politeness, each one just toeing the line between friendly banter and deliberate belittling—enough for him to fully relieve himself of his quiet hatred for your boyfriend.

"There's a fundraiser his team needed help promoting to get sponsors, and apparently I have just the right qualifications for it," Dongmin explains, the request shockingly normal.

"And that should explain this?" You blink up at him, his weight growing more suffocating the longer it's pressed into you.

Dongmin chuckles lightly, his fingers lazily coiling a strand of your hair as he speaks. "Yeah—well... the conversation somehow, kinda drifted... towards you."

There it was. The sudden rush of tingles sweeping through your body, sitting uncomfortably hot on your cheeks at being mentioned when you weren't present, wondering what Seungmin had possibly said. And why you grew more lightheaded at the sound of each syllable in Seungmin's name being spoken in your thoughts. No, it's definitely not from that.

"How come you never told me you spent last Christmas holidays with his family?" Dongmin's voice cuts through. From the way it squeezes past his lips, it tells you more than enough that the question was only a placeholder for something else he was worried about.

You fidget slightly under his gaze, your fingers playing with the silver pendant dangling from his necklace. "Because... I didn't think it was important. We weren't together then, and Seungmin and I were already good friends. It wasn't unusual for us to do things like that with our families."

The furrow of your brow appears at seeing the bare distaste on his face at hearing about your friendship with the baseball player. "Hey... if I could go back in time, I totally would've said no. Like, 'Sorry, I can't come. Why? Well, it's because the gravitational pull of my future boyfriend's aura is too strong and he wouldn't want me there.'"

Dongmin was never possessive. He was more the type to find pleasure in flaunting you rather than keeping you hidden, so hearing the comical inflection around the scenario made him feel sheepish enough to drop down and smush his face into your neck.

"That's not what I meant," he mumbles, his lips brushing against your skin. It takes a moment for him to string together what really made him upset—or rather horny. "Just with the way he talks about you... it's different. Like he's known you forever, and will forever know you better than I do." Dongmin huffs, the pout in his voice strong. "I can't compete with that. All the stuff we do now—getting coffee together, staying up late to help you study—it doesn't feel like it's enough in comparison. I know it sounds stupid, but I'm supposed to be your boyfriend, but wherever Seungmin is, I'm... falling short somehow."

That's why he was bothered. The stories made Dongmin jealous, which led him to do the only thing that could reassure him that Seungmin couldn't follow—sex.

"Why would you think that?" you ask, voice gentle but angry. "That's far from the truth, or—or the reality, even." Holding onto his head, you pull Dongmin up enough to look at you. "Have I known Seungmin a lot longer? Sure. But I've never thought of him that way. If anything, me choosing you should already tell you who I wanted."

Dongmin smiles faintly, the soft, content look on his face a dizzying comparison to his sharp canines. He believes you like he always does. But that's the problem, isn't it? With everything you've said behind his back, the lie should be apparent. Because within your boyfriend's insecurities, there's a truth to it—not consciously at least, just in the way there's always been a stupid crack that opens wider every time Seungmin is mentioned, and you've done nothing but ignore the water at your feet.

Yet he stares at you with so much unguarded affection, it twists your stomach into a knot that will never unravel.

"I love you," he says then.

Overwhelmed by the sudden confession, you pull him in, pressing your mouth to his in a kiss so desperate it puts his previous hormones to shame.

It's not like you weren't expecting this—how could you not? You'd spent the last few months rehearsing those same three words in your head, tonguing around each letter to get rid of the uncomfortable taste it came with. And maybe he was ready for that, but you weren't. So, this was the best you could do for now without giving him something flimsy, and like so many other times, you squeeze your eyes tight, trying to find that trapdoor in your mind and disappear down it, to a wonderful place where all the memories of Dongmin should fill in.

Seungmin. Your thoughts whisper.

The next few minutes, there's a hurried struggle to remove all of your clothes, and by the time your underwear rolls up in a ball beside his bed, Dongmin is already inside you, huffing pleasurable moans into your gaped mouth each time he feels you clamp around his cock.

"God! Keep doing that," he urges you.

You had no control over why you kept tensing around him—whether it's your body's intrinsic search for something more. And you don't figure it out until your mind slips again before you can stop it, and, like a metal detector, the thought of Seungmin's name is the sand-crusted jewellery, and you clamp down once more.

No, it's not about Seungmin. You're sure of it. Absolutely, hundred fucking percent.

Dongmin presses closer, his pace less magnifying and more like he couldn't commit to finishing a thrust. "You're so perfect," he whispers into your shoulder, but the words barely ignite anything.

Perfect.

That word was the bane of your existence. All you did your whole life was believe that every relationship dripped down to one single thing—perfection. But maybe Seungmin was right. Perfect didn't leave room to grow. Perfect didn't let you argue over the dumb things, laugh too loudly, or cry over the important ones. Perfect didn't let you mess up and make it better. Perfect was a plain room, and Dongmin had locked you inside it, too afraid to decorate.

Imperfection meant freedom, and you felt it in every harsh word Seungmin ever threw your way, in every argument that left you winded, in every moment you ached for him to pull you back. That heart-wrenching need to keep him close, to hear the rawness in his voice when he asked for your forgiveness.

Seungmin.

You shut your eyes, wrestling back your brain tooth and nail to focus on the moment—on Dongmin rutting into your core with a determination to leave a clear indent of his cock inside you, on his hands on your hips, his soft grunts—

Seungmin.

Again, his name skids into your head like a car caught spinning in the rain. But it's too late to banish the thought, because your mind has already conjured up the image of Seungmin at the batting cage—cap backwards, sleeves rolled up, arms flexing each time he swings his bat, with the lethal combination of his slit eyebrow and that cocky little smirk lingering after every comment.

You whine out loud, your body betraying you as it holds onto the memory of what Seungmin said, but to make it seem like you're putting in the extra effort to not commit mental infidelity, the "Next time, think of me during sex" line sounds a lot like an impression of Dobby the elf.

And, dear God, that doesn't even work,

"Oh—oh, fuck—fuck, fuck, fuck!" you gasp out, your voice higher in pitch than you'd like. The familiar feeling of a tight pressure builds low in your belly, but it doesn't ebb away like it normally does, and your whole body continues to roll in heat, before your back arches sharply, and the sudden crash of pleasure is unexpected but so deliciously good.

Dongmin finishes soon after, and whilst you both sit in complete silence on the mattress, bathing in your post-orgasm sweat, you shortly come to terms with two new predicaments in your life.

One, being that you actually came thinking about Kim Seungmin.

Two, being that you actually fucking liked it.

THE SUN was barely in the sky when Seungmin—who seemed to have been taught to express all of his frustration outwards—ordered the entire baseball team to run a hundred miserable laps around the campus field to make whatever was floating around his mind less pressing. They all fell behind one another but in disorientating lines, the soles of their cleats cutting into the damp morning grass.

On a normal day, Felix would've been out there too (doing his usual half-assed attempts at the warmups). Instead, he was currently lounging inside the dugout, relaxing his legs but firing his thumbs as they rapidly tapped on his phone screen.

No one—absolutely no one—was getting any sympathy out of Felix today.

"Eat a dick! Actually, eat two motherfucking girthy ass dicks and choke on it!" Felix curses with the volume of a grandparent on a phone call—just loud enough to reach beyond the glow of his fluorescent screen. In the blonde boy's defence, playing Call Of Duty was just as exhausting when you get teamed up with shitty shooters.

Seungmin, who had been monitoring the boys near the dugout, turns back to stare past his shoulder, arms still crossed in front of him with an intense scowl, as if to silently explain to Felix that whatever had pissed on his mood originally, he had managed to lift his leg and make it worse. "Remind me again why you can't practise today?"

"I actually woke up with a deadly cough," Felix responds, voice thick with offence and a badly constructed lie. "If you don't believe me, you can call up coach during his meeting and he'll tell you how it sounded pretty contagious. Enough to keep me benched until next week."

A muscle ticked in Seungmin's jaw. "Then why are you sitting here? Go be sick in your own bed."

"Can't," Felix says, a needle deep in his voice, as if the explanation to whatever he was doing should've already been threaded together by now. "If I go back now, I won't be able to use 'practice' as an excuse to get out of finishing the group assignment I've got with (Y/N). If I'm here? I'm sick but committed."

Even from where the blonde boy was sitting, he still caught onto the way Seungmin's mood turned into something closer to irritation, the kind that felt a little too personal. Now, Felix had seen Seungmin mad plenty of times (he had that one incident to refer to—when their actual pitcher, Jisung, threw out his arm right before a match and Felix had been shoved onto the mound as the last-minute replacement. And, well, as everyone could've guessed from someone with only shortstop experience, every ball he fired went sailing high and dangerously close to the batters' faces. After about the third near-decapitation, the umpire didn't buy the "bad aim" excuse anymore and disqualified their team for allegedly trying to take out the competition), but this was different, like he had forgotten Felix was naturally carefree because it seemed to involve a certain someone.

Oh. Now that's interesting.

"Did you ever pause and think she's basically running herself into the ground because you can't bother to lift a finger?" Seungmin presses further, his typical mask of pretending everything you did hadn't affected him one way or another slipping.

"Woah, I figured this reaction would've come out of Dongmin sooner or later." Felix grins, knowing better than to speak the devil's name within the circumference of Seungmin. Why? Well, nobody knew. Dongmin had been what most people called plain, from the way he looked down to his major. But there was a reason why the ace player always tightened his fist, ready to swing first at the mention of that name. And maybe Felix had his own suspicions.

Stepping back into the open field, Seungmin speaks quietly, but a dangerous sort that gives his words a bite. "Him? That asswipe is just another growing problem for her to deal with on top of everything else."

With a dismissive eye roll, Felix starts another round, the very obnoxious sounds of murder coming out of his phone not as loud as the barking orders Seungmin dishes out.

Whatever. The blonde boy was a nutrition science major, not a goddamn psychologist to pinpoint his issues. Actually, he did know, and thought that sleeping with every moving organism on campus because you can't have the one person you wanted was beyond stupid, but Felix had no intention of caring.

Suddenly, the shrilling vibration of a phone is felt underneath his thigh. "Someone's phone's ringing!" Felix announces, shifting slightly because, somehow, the rectangular object had ended up in the most uncomfortable spot, all while simultaneously concentrating on his game.

"Who is it?" Seungmin yells out, squinting his eyes at Felix.

"How would I know? I'm kinda in the middle of beating my highest kill score here," the blonde boy fires back, his tone making it sound like he's the one being inconvenienced.

There's a mere second of peace before the phone buzzes again, shooting tingles down Felix's leg.

"They're still calling, and it's vibrating against my ass," he grumbles. "Dude, if I move, it might buzz right into my rectum."

Shifting in the opposite direction to get the phone to slide out from underneath him, he manages to dislodge it just enough to catch the end pieces of the caller ID.

"Wait, hang on. The vibrations are spaced out. I think they're texting."

Exasperated, Seungmin responds, "Felix, I swear—"

"Oh, shit." From the awkward angle he twisted himself into, where he managed to support himself on the bench with only one butt-cheek, Felix finally reads out the mysterious caller, his interest piquing now that he knew whose phone was suffocating under him this whole time. "It's from (Y/N). Actually, scratch that—it's from (Y/N) with a red heart emoji."

That finally gets Seungmin's attention, immediately stopping his coaching. "What does she want?"

Something tells Felix he's about to interfere in the same business he pledged never to care about. But who could blame him for eavesdropping, or wanting small context clues? Felix swipes up and exits out of his screen, picking up the coverless phone.

Clearing his throat, he reads aloud: "Please, I need your help." Full stop. "Dongmin won't leave me alone." Full stop. "I'm in building 56 toilets. Meet me there and I'll explain everything." Full stop, end of text."

Felix hadn't noticed when Seungmin barged back into the dugout, eyes wide and laser-focused. He only realised the ace player was there when bags and equipment started getting thrown around in a frenzy.

Standing up with an alarmed look, Felix spoke with a quiver in his voice. "Whoa, whoa, what're you doing?"

Seungmin grabbed a baseball bat nestled inside one of the team's bags, and the blonde boy quickly jumped to his own conclusion. "Oh my god—wait, wait, wait! Is that for me?"

He swallowed and raised his hands defensively, finding Seungmin's hurried breaths through his nose far scarier than any horror movie Felix had ever watched—which, for reference, wasn't a lot.

“Look, I know what I said before about procrastinating and just being an all-around idiot, but I did start the project! I swear I'm halfway done, actually! And I don't have a problem with (Y/N). I think she's a really sweet girl—very studious—"

Seungmin levelled the bat to Felix's face, his withering glare the only restraint he had left. It conveyed all the anger he held for the blonde boy, wordlessly warning him that if he ever disrespected you again, Seungmin wouldn't take it lightly.

"That's great, Felix. Wanna test how far your responsibilities can go?"

Felix watched as Seungmin roped the coach's whistle off his neck before chucking it at Felix's chest, leaving him to instinctively put his hand out to catch it.

"Take over. Keep the team running laps until I'm back, or have them do drills."

"Wait, what? You're not serious?"

Perplexed by the new shiny toy in his hand, Felix's panicky eyes tread straight, following to where Seungmin jogs away, his hand fisting in the middle of the bat shaft. "Dead serious," Seungmin calls back, not even sparing a glance. "Don't let anyone stop."

The sun settled high into the sky, a summer morning more believable now with the widespread of uninterrupted blues. Jeongin, the team's known head case player, skids to a stop mid-lap, his chest heaving as he braces his hands on his knees, black hair glued down by his over-pouring sweat. "What's happening? Are we stopping?"

This morning, Felix happily skipped to practice with a fake cough and the dreams of playing electronic games until the afternoon. But now, the weight of his newfound authority felt a lot heavier than the stupid little whistle in his hand. "Maybe... no... I guess—look, I don't know how this works."

The baseball team surrounds Felix in seconds, centring him like a yolk inside an egg, and maybe that metaphor hit too close to base, because all their eyes glazed over with pure intent to pass on all their anger from Seungmin's morning boot camp onto Felix.

     Great.

SEUNGMIN COULDN'T stop feeling angry. Even with the very concerning text messages you'd sent, his skin tingled with so much annoyance as he rehearsed exactly how to bring up the fact that you'd been ignoring him for a week.

What made it worse was that the ace player was just the right type of insufferable—someone careless and casual with people's emotions because, well, they weren't his to deal with. He never chased after answers—God, nothing was more pathetic than running around trying to piece together an explanation. He'd much rather wait until they cracked first, coming to him with whatever drama they had bottled up.

But then he thought back to that day in the small theatre room no one used anymore. You'd been sitting in one of those carpeted red chairs out of a row of twenty, minding your business, before looking up, spotting him, and abruptly shoving your lunch back into your bag like his presence ruined your appetite. Then, just like that, you were gone, leaving without so much as a single word—except maybe for that hiss of pain after you missed a step and fell to the floor, giving yourself rug burns.

Now, the irony was that the same guy who swore he'd never run after someone, was practically chasing after you, breaking every one of his rules, because waiting wasn't an option.

When Seungmin reaches Building 56, he barely spares the elevator a glance—it would take too long. Instead, he flings open the emergency exit door and takes the stairs, skipping two steps at a time.

Coming up the last staircase, the noise of someone crying hits him first. Who it belonged to was hard to figure out, as a huge crowd of students flooded the main corridor, their curiosity clearly outweighing their need for personal space. The hallway was so packed that some had to squeeze past the emergency exit door, spilling into the stairwell just to get enough room to watch whatever was going on.

"Fuck... Seungmin's behind me."

The whisper was barely audible, only meant for that person's friend to hear. But like dominos, heads started turning, shoulders stiffening, and within seconds the crowd perfectly split down the middle. It might've been the bat clenched in his hand that scared them enough to move, but something told the baseball player they were shoving him out, knowing well enough he had something to do with whatever was on the other-side.

When Seungmin broke past the last person, the centre purposefully emptied out in front of him. All he saw was a sobbing Dongmin, hunched over on the floor like he'd taken a severe beating to his stomach. "I can't leave, not until you talk to me!" Dongmin yells out, inching his head upwards, noticing the low-hanging snot dribbling past his reddening lips.

This was so humiliating. Seungmin had to resist the urge to just turn around and leave Dongmin there to choke on his own spit. But he obviously couldn't—not when you were basically stuck inside the bathroom and Dongmin couldn't stop yelling at the door.

He immediately heads over, a glowered look on his face. "What did you do to her?" Seungmin speaks in an accusatory tone.

"To her?" Dongmin croaked out, the crack in his throat making it clear he couldn't believe Seungmin was so quick to point the finger at him even when he looked miserable. "What about what she did to me? She ruined me."

Seungmin shook his head in disbelief, his grip tightening on the bat as Dongmin lurched forward, finding his balance on his folded knees like a desperate man pleading his case. "All we did was have sex—really, really great sex—and then she broke up with me an hour later. Over text."

Dongmin motions to the bathroom door, his expression twisting wildly as if he were handing the ace player the key to some grander mystery. But Seungmin didn't care whether or not he was telling the truth. Not even a little.

"She's the fucking problem!" Dongmin spat, his voice cracking with frustration.

"Careful with the fucking swearing," Seungmin shot back, giving him a warning look—a little head tilt paired with a raised brow. "Now, I don't know what you thought was going to happen, but you're obviously not in the right headspace to fix this—not like this, and definitely not with half the school watching."

"If you're telling me to leave, I'm not going." Dongmin shook his head furiously, his fists clenching at his sides. "She needs to come out here and give me a good, believable reason why she broke up with me. Something that makes sense."

Seungmin's lips twitched into the faintest smirk, his voice dropping into a mutter as he leaned forward slightly. "I can think of one already."

Before Dongmin could respond, Seungmin took a step closer and crouched down, levelling their eyes. His tone turned dangerously calm, the edges of his words razor-sharp. "Here's what's going to happen. First, you're going to stop crying. Yeah, that's step one. And then, you're going to sit here quietly like a good boy while I go in there and talk to her. After that, we'll get to the bottom of this—without me having to use my bat on you."

Dongmin flinches a little, fear caught in his brown eyes. "That's a joke... right?"

"For now." Seungmin's response made the fight in Dongmin's posture cripple.

He stands up, walking towards the bathroom door. The door didn't have one of those outside handles you could yank on—just a push plate—but he could picture you on the other side, probably bracing it with your whole body, determined to keep Dongmin from slipping in.

Seungmin doesn't bother knocking. Instead, he leans in close, lowering his voice as he quietly calls out, "It's me. Can I come in?"

Quickly, the door flings open. "I'm so glad you came!" you exclaimed, not giving Seungmin the opportunity to see the state you were in before pulling him into a hug that was equally aggressive, as the ace player felt his back smack against the now closed door.

All his previous anger almost dissolved at the feeling of your body against his. Almost. You finally release Seungmin just enough to look at you, and it takes all his willpower not to visibly wince at the fact one of your false lashes hung unnaturally close to your cheek, and your lipstick was smudged enough to suggest either an emotional breakdown or a very aggressive make-out session. Or maybe a weird combination of the two.

"You got a little," he starts slowly, vaguely pointing to it, before giving up and motioning to your entire face. "Something everywhere."

You gasp, dramatically spinning to the bathroom mirror. "Oh, God." You peel off the struggling lash and place it delicately on the sink. "I didn't even notice until now—do you think I looked like this while talking to Dongmin?"

"Isn't he your ex-boyfriend now? You're way past the point of that being your priority." Seungmin says it pointedly. There's something unreasonably satisfying about saying it out loud—ex. He does it mostly for himself, but the way you react to it, how your hand stills mid-wipe as you clear away your messy eyeliner, meeting his gaze through the mirror like you're equally caught off guard, excites him.

You blink, exhaling sharply before turning back to him. "How much did he tell you?"

The baseball player shrugs, taking the opportunity to lean his bat up against the wall. "I just heard that you guys broke up."

"That's a lie." You quickly correct him, sounding breathless, like you still haven't caught up with the whole situation yet. "Dongmin’s been telling the whole school that I couldn't even let his post-nut clarity settle before I called it off. You know, just say you do..."

Seungmin doesn't answer right away. He's too distracted by how utterly out of place he looks here. The girl's bathroom mirror isn't even high enough for his build, cutting off the top of his head completely, but when you're reflected in it, everything frames you just right, allowing him to catch the way your fingers tighten around the sink behind you, white-knuckled, like you're holding onto your embarrassment there, over the idea of him knowing anything at all.

"Yeah, okay. But that's not why I'm here." Seungmin shifts against the doorframe, arms crossed, voice completely void of concern. "I couldn’t care less about his problems. I came here with a solid proof getaway plan, and it's yours if you tell me the real reason why you ghosted me for a week."

That's a lie. Obviously. He didn't have a plan—at least, not a good one. But he would've helped you regardless, no matter how much you refused to explain yourself. Because Seungmin knew you. And if you were willing to subject yourself to the absolute humiliation of having your sex life on display outside a public bathroom, then unlawful assault was about to be the least of your worries.

You don't miss a beat. "You're not being serious."

Seungmin cocks his head, cap pressing against the short strands of his fringe, an unimpressed scowl settling across his face.

"Need I remind you," you say, tone clipped, "that there's a fully grown man outside this door, crying so hard he stops momentarily to gag, and he won't let me leave?"

You throw a finger toward the entrance, as if the pitiful, hiccupping sobs weren't already obvious enough. As if on a comedic cue, Dongmin whimpers out a weak little, "Hello?" from the other side. Seungmin—who had, up until this point, been resting against the door—responds with a sharp kick against it.

The baseball player doesn't even acknowledge it before moving on. "Did he get jealous about our friendship or something? Told you not to talk to me anymore?"

—"What? No, god, no."

—"Did he... like... finish in seconds instead of minutes?"

—"That would've made you so happy."

—"Is he gay?"

—“No—stop it. I'm not answering anymore.”

—“If he didn't do anything, did you do something?”

—“What does that even mean?”

—“I don't know, you tell me.”

Seungmin had enough sparring words in him to keep going until you broke, but after his last comment, you didn't even try to reject him. That, combined with the heavy silence stretching between you in the already-cramped bathroom, was enough for the baseball player to come to his own conclusion.

You did, in fact, do something.

And from the looks of it—your real lashes clumped together with wetness, not from sadness, but raw, unrelenting frustration. Like you were pissed at yourself for trying so hard to hold yourself together, only to break anyway.

Seungmin sighs deeply. He decides he'll tuck his own stubbornness faraway for now. The baseball player pushes off the wall and reaches for your wrist, noticing a not so inconspicuous tug back from your arm, as if his very hands were lit on fire and even being mere centimetres from him could leave deep burns. Either that or you were still very much angry that Seungmin’s default setting wasn’t to help you, but to clear away his own agenda.

“We won't do this here." Seungmin grumbles, tugging the cap off his own head—it's his most worn item to date, safely perched on his nightstand every single day since freshman year, ready to grab whenever he heads out the door—and smoothly places it over yours. But he doesn't stop there. His fingers linger at the brim, purposely tugging it lower so the edge dips past your eyes, effectively working to block the view of anything really.

"There." He steps back, watching you awkwardly try to beam up at him from beneath the shadow of the cap. It stuns Seungmin for a moment when he notices his chest tightening. Oh. “That's your magical cloak. Now you don't have to see them, and they don't get to see any part of you."

You purse your lips, clearly thinking. "Okay, that solves one issue," you say slowly, lifting your hands and flailing them dramatically in the open space in front of you. “But, um... I can't see shit, which is terrible if I also need to, y'know... walk.”

“Just trust me.” Seungmin says it simply, darting his fingers out, keeping his growing irritation to a minimum as he watches you hesitate yet again. "Keep your head down and watch only my hands. Nothing else."

He moves closer to the bathroom door, but pauses when he feels a different kind of heat bloom against his palm. He whirls back with a final look of surprise, only to find the brim of his hat staring back at him—attached to what looks like a rather convincing Sim character, standing frozen, waiting for the next task.

“Ready?”

There's a large intake of air. “No... does that mean we're fucked already?”

THERE ARE shards of glass slicing up your lungs as you rest against a darkly coated wooden desk—metaphorically this time, of course. The whole idea of Seungmin being the school’s golden arm had momentarily escaped you the second he bolted with you in hand. If you had remembered—instead of worrying about Dongmin grabbing onto your ankles—you wouldn’t have agreed, and maybe you wouldn’t be here, tasting iron in the back of your throat. Stupid.

When you finally manage to look up, a hand pressed into your side to keep the stitch from fully forming, the setting around you forces a breathy laugh from your lips, thick with irony.

The boy’s locker room.

How fitting that just minutes ago, you had Seungmin trapped inside the girl’s bathroom, and now he’s returned the favour—stepping past rows of open lockers and the souring smell of sweat, just to lock you up inside the coach’s office.

“Was your boyfriend always this pathetic?” Seungmin is the forgetful one this time. He stands with his back against the door, as if the large window panel beside it hadn’t already given away the perpetrators inside the tiny room, with a certain weight in his eyes despite his joking tone. It makes you wonder whether it’s just another one of his calculated questions, designed to get you to say exactly what he wants.

You gulp before stating, matter-of-factly, “You mean ex-boyfriend.”

And saying it should hurt—should feel like a sharp reminder that there’s now a gaping hole in your chest. But instead, it gets mistranslated in the way you tip back to sit further up on the desk, letting your Mary Jane-clad feet swing from a table that’s probably seen more balled fists slammed down in anger than anything else.

“No. That’s why everything he’s doing now surprises me.” The second the words are out, they hang wrong in the air. You’re doing it again. Giving him the benefit of a doubt he’s never earned. Instantly, your mouth curls, and before you know it, you fall into Seungmin’s trap one way or another. “Actually, you know what? Yeah. He’s so fucking pathetic.”

You lock eyes with the baseball player, gripped by this strange urge to unload a year’s worth of frustration onto him—the same way his coach expects his bat to hit a home run every time. And you don’t know if it’s because he looks strong enough to take it, or because you want to see if he’ll break. See if he’ll finally get angry at you.

“Dongmin has been pathetic since the night I tried riding him and he panicked about me bending his shrivelling dick into some weird flesh origami. He’s selfish and stupid. Always has been… he just did a really fucking good job of making me think he wasn’t.”

You scoff, doing everything to stay light and calm under these weird circumstances. Though the room still clings to a quietness that leaves no room for peace—just an overbearing pressure that reminds you Seungmin is very much here, listening to you blurt out your sex horror stories—still watching you.

His face doesn’t shift. You regret ever taking his sarcastic nature for granted, because you would’ve killed to see his lips wobble with the control to keep himself from smiling. But there’s not a smirk.

Then he says it—low.

“Who was it?”

Your pulse stutters. It’s a vague question, and you could, all the more, ask him to explain himself clearer, but you knew what it had to be after the commotion in the toilet—so did your body, which involuntarily thinks about the time it stung with pleasure underneath Dongmin, thinking about Seungmin—and all you can muster as a response is… nothing.

You watch nervously, suddenly turning into a gladiator in an arena, eyeing the stalking lion that pushes off the doorframe, rounding around the desk. It was quite possibly the hottest Seungmin had ever looked. But you knew the reason why he kept walking closer—halting just where your knees tied close together—was because you had already given your confession in reverse, and all he was looking for was proof that he wasn’t going insane.

Instinctively, your mind wills your legs to part—just enough, a silent invitation for Seungmin to close the space between you. But he’s already made that decision himself. His hands brush the sides of your knees, guiding them apart before stepping in, like he’s been waiting for this moment longer than you’ve been dreading it.

The hem of your skirt hikes up with the movement, the cool air licking at the heat between your thighs—your body betraying you, aching to buck into the rough fabric of his pants.

“Seungmin,” you breathe, though you don’t know if it’s a warning, or a plea. It sounds too soft. Too wanting. Like you’re asking for something neither of you are ready to name.

His fingers haven’t stopped swiping at your skin. “What did I do?”

“Nothing. It was nothing.” That was a lie. But it felt easier than trying to explain the truth—that it wasn’t him fucking you senselessly into the mattress that pushed you over the edge. It was worse than that. It was the image of him smiling, soft and stupid. Or the quiet outline of his back turned toward you, relaxed and unguarded, like he was waiting for you to come wrap your arms around him.

That was what ruined you. Something so devastatingly ordinary that it cracked the floor beneath you wide enough to fall straight through it.

Straight into him.

He laughs, puffing hot air into your face. “Bullshit. You haven’t been able to look at me for more than a second.” There’s a note of patience in his throat. “I knew it was me… even before you got with Dongmin.”

By now, the desperate need for him to hold you is confused with the want to punish him.

“If you knew—” You shove him a little. He doesn’t budge, and it does nothing but anger you more when you feel him inch his fingers under your skirt, dizzyingly close to where your hips meet your thighs, like he’s testing how much you’ll let him take while you’re still mad at him.

And he takes, and takes.

“If you knew, then why’d you mess with me so much? You could’ve left me alone. But instead, you slept with every girl who looked your way. Paraded them in front of me like I wasn’t even—”

“Because I wanted you to stop looking at me like I was something you could actually love,” Seungmin says harshly. “I’m not good at this. I don’t know how to do relationships without disappointing someone. So yeah, I might’ve fucked girls who didn’t matter—sue me. You also used Dongmin to bury everything you felt for me.”

Your jaw is tight, glaring intensely. “I did love him.”

But by now, the button of Seungmin’s jeans is pressed firm against the heat of your core, and you can’t think back on any shared memory between your ex-boyfriend that had the opportunity to come this close to being this shattering. No, there had to be one. Was there?

When he speaks again—his voice barely a breath, inches from your wet mouth—it doesn’t sound like a confession.

It sounds like a fucking verdict.

“Enough to picture my face while he was fucking you.”

Then there’s a moment—just one—where your mouths finally collide (with the lone clumsiness of forgetting the baseball player’s hat and colliding with the brim first before anything, chucking it to the side), hands grabbing and kneading your body with such force. And Seungmin’s mouth—fuck—his mouth leaves a small cluster of fires that drop into your belly, igniting and burning down the lining of your stomach until all that’s left is a hollowed-out ache in the shape of him.

You whimper when his fingers dip low, hooking under the thin bands of your underwear. He tugs—up—and the fabric wedges tight between your folds, pressure zeroing in on your clit so sweet and sharp it knocks the breath out of you.

“Ngh—ah—” you gasp, legs twitching and opening wider. He settles back, eyes blown out and taking you in.

Then he drags one finger down. Slow. Feather-light. Tracing the tension he just created. From the peak, right over the swollen fabric, down, down—until he’s pressing deep over your clothed entrance, and it’s enough to break something loose inside you.

“Was this how you looked like thinking about me?” You moan in response to his lewd question, your hips jerking forward, chasing the friction like it’s the only thing that makes sense anymore. It’s pathetic how quickly you’re spiralling. How fast he reduces you to this before he’s even inside you.

And that terrifies you.

Because this was real. It wasn’t the dissociating images you conjure up to distract you from the stale rhythm of someone trying to love you the right way. It was Seungmin, with his teasing mouth and bruised heart, being consumed with his very own desires and satiating it the only way he knew how to.

It was imperfect.

“I can’t do this.” Your hand slips up, resting lightly against his arm—just enough pressure to still him. Seungmin stops, confusion flashing across his face, then fades into something softer. He doesn’t speak—just watches you, waiting.

“I trust you as my best friend. I always have.” You glance away for a beat, then back up at him. “But this... what we’re doing—I don’t trust you with it. Not yet. It has to grow naturally. I need to know it’s real. That this isn’t just... hormones or timing or some ego trip because I came thinking about you.”

There’s still an unclear want to give in to him while resisting him. “I don’t want 20 minutes of something intense that disappears by morning. I want to know we’re both in this for the right reasons. That we’re risking the friendship because we actually want each other... not because it feels good to be wanted.”

The silence stretches. “I’m not saying don’t try. I’m saying... if we’re doing this, I need us both to mean it.”

This is the part you forgot how to do. The part that got buried after a year of being Dongmin’s perfect ‘yes man’. Always agreeable, always softening your edges to fit the version of you he could manage. You spent so long smoothing over his messes that the idea of setting a boundary felt foreign.

So no—choosing yourself doesn’t feel like some glowing act of self-empowerment. It feels like rejecting the one thing you’ve been aching for. It feels like standing in front of someone you’ve loved in too many complicated, unspoken ways... and saying not yet.

“If that’s what you need, I’ll try.” It’s not a promise, but it’s enough. Seungmin leans back, helping you readjust your underwear, the wetness making sitting all the more uncomfortable, though it entertains the baseball player. Perhaps it’s a small payback from all the shitty treatment he’s gotten from his coach.

“Just… don’t hold the first three screw-ups against me,” he adds, mouth twitching into something not quite a smile. “I’m more practice than presentation. Not really the flowers and teddy bears type.”

A small laugh tumbles past your lips, appreciating the familiarity in his tone. “No. You’re more ‘boy’s locker room and lending your girl your baseball jersey after marking her up in it’ type.”

That gets him. A blink paired with a slow raise of one slit brow—like he’s filing the image away in his memory cabinet in real time, just in case he needs it later for inspiration.

Your phone buzzes with perfect timing, eliminating the growing awkwardness. Fishing it out and lazily flicking open your screen, Seungmin doesn’t ask at first. Just watches. But the second your features quirk—

“Who is it?” he says, not too casual, distracting himself by bending and picking up his baseball cap, dusting it off against his thigh that was too close to his growing bulge.

You glance up. “Weird... it’s Felix. He just sent me his part of the project. I’ve been chasing him down for a week.”

Seungmin leans back against the window, arms crossed again. “Guess guilt finally won.” He says it flatly, but there’s a flicker of something beneath his words—amusement, mostly. Like he’ll bring this moment up in a couple of days, preferably around Felix, coaxing him to outwardly say who had played a big role in successfully getting him to help you.

You type a quick reply, shooting off a sarcastic thank-you message with one hand. A beat later, your phone dings again. But this time, the sound doesn’t come from your device.

It comes from somewhere outside the door.

Seungmin pieces it together quickly. “Felix?” Craning his head back to peer out through the office window, the ace player watches parts of his fellow teammate become visible behind a row of lockers, hand poking out within the darkness, holding up a lit phone.

“I was gonna knock,” comes Felix’s unmistakable voice—a little nervous and rightfully grossed out for someone who eavesdropped from outside the coach’s office. “But things got wild really quickly… so I tried breaking the ice over text.”

[betweenujb]

acquainted

ceo!momo x supermodel!sana

warnings: smut, dom/sub, posessive momo, implied overstimulation

Momo had just finished closing one of the biggest deals of the year for her company when she felt her phone buzz in her pocket. She had silenced all her notifications except ones from Sana, and her wife knew that she was in a meeting so it must have been important. Excusing herself, she checked her phone only to see a text that sent her blood pressure through the roof.

sweet girl: i know you're busy with a meeting baby but one of the models is getting a little handsy with me

lover: no, sweetheart. it's not a problem at all. i'll be there in five minutes

The words that Momo typed out were loving and full of nothing but care for her wife, but inside she felt like she was going to explode. Every person who worked with Sana and every person who worked for Momo, all the way down to the cleaning people, knew that her wife was off limits.

Momo was beyond pissed and every single person at the photo shoot site knew it. The second the doors flung open and the people on the site turned their heads, it went silent. With every step Momo took, it felt like a dark cloud was descending on them, the woman's heels reverberating in through the room.

Momo's eyes scanned the male model's faces, jaw clenched. Usually, she had no issue with the male models. They knew to keep their hands to themselves, and they knew the consequences if they didn't. Usually, they didn't have a death wish.

Maybe I'm being too lenient, Momo thought as her sight homed in on the one who was harassing her precious Sana. The bastard who was touching Sana only moments ago still had a smirk on his face that Momo wanted to smack into next week. She pushed her way past the other models and stood centimeters away from him.

Being short didn't stop Momo. In fact, it made her feel even more powerful. Seeing six-foot-tall men cower under her look let her know she was the one calling the shots.

Momo grabbed the model's tie and pulled him down to her level aggressively enough that he stumbled. Her eyes were almost black with rage as she leaned in and whispered, voice barely audible. "If you aren't out of this building in the next 20 seconds, I will make your life a living hell. If you ever touch my wife again, I will make sure you go home in a fucking body bag."

This was all the warning the model needed. In 10 seconds, he bolted out of the building, barely grabbing the bag he brought with him. Momo took a deep breath, only turning around to face Sana once she saw the door slam behind him.

Like a switch had flipped, Momo's expression was gentle again. Her hands were gentle as she wrapped them around Sana's waist. She gave her a quick kiss before walking to one of the chairs behind the studio lights. With the snap of her fingers, the camera crew was back to work.

Fortunately, the rest of Momo's work for the day involved phone calls to other fashion CEOs and modeling agents. She'd be damned if she left Sana's photoshoot before she was done.

+

"Sweetheart do you know who that dumb fucker worked for?" Momo asked, monotone as she tapped her finger against the steering wheel.

Sana glanced up from her phone, looking up at the roof of their car as she wracked her brain for a company name. "I think he worked for some small sub-company under Dior or something like that."

Momo silently nodded and took Sana's free hand in hers. She intertwined their fingers and placed a gentle kiss on the back of Sana's hand. "I'll make sure to have a word with his agent."

The slightly aggravated tone in Momo's voice caused Sana to blush a bit. She had always been susceptible to Momo's controlling and protective nature. Whether it was firing someone because they forgot her sweet girl's coffee or practically wiping them off the face of the earth because they accidentally brushed against her ass, it caused Sana's nerves to go haywire.

Deciding to see how far she could push Momo before they got home, Sana leaned over the center console, her dress revealing enough that Sana's lacy bra was peeking out from underneath. She put on her pout that she knew had Momo wrapped around her finger and brought their hands up to her lips.

"I tried to tell everyone on the set what he was doing," a small kiss to the tips of Momo's fingers, "but they didn't seem to care. They were too busy telling me to pose better," the flat of her tongue pressing against Momo's index finger, "and they wouldn't do anything about him, so I just let him keep going."

Sana's words dug their way into Momo's brain. Her wife knew what she was doing and even if nothing she said was true, it still made her grip the steering wheel until her knuckles were white. She glanced at Sana, that oh so fake innocence written across her face making her fold fast.

Momo pulled her hand out of Sana's grasp and grabbed her face, fingers digging into her cheeks. "If I knew you wanted to be such a slut then maybe I should have just left you to deal with him alone."

Sana gulped. She knew that it was only an empty threat, but it was enough to make her desperate for more. It wasn't often that Momo would get rough with her, but when she did, it made her see stars every single time.

+

They barely made it through the doors of the penthouse before Momo picked Sana up in her arms, slamming her against the wall in the entryway. Momo's hands on Sana's hips were almost bruising, her grip was so tight. She leaned up to Sana's ear, breath hot and low as she muttered, "You're not going to be thinking of anything but me and my name once I'm done with you, sweetheart."

Sweetheart. Just with one simple name, Sana was putty in Momo's hands. Momo's to play with and fuck until she could barely walk in the morning. But that wasn't Momo's problem. Especially not when her wife decided to tease her like that in the car.

"Momo please..." Sana gasped out as Momo's hand bunched her wife's dress up, hand dipping into her panties. Momo didn't care that it was a $5,000 dress. She could just get Sana a brand new one with the wave of her hand.

Sana's breath hitched as the heel of Momo's hand pressed against her clit. It was providing her with just enough pressure to have her squirming in her wife's arms.

Not wanting to drop her to the ground, Momo set Sana down and immediately dragged her to their large bedroom. She aggressively picked her wife up, throwing her in the middle of their king-sized bed. Momo almost lost her composure seeing Sana's dress ride up, revealing the large wet spot on her wife's panties.

The lust in her eyes and the need to prove she was better than that bastard could ever be, Momo wasted no time in taking her clothes off. She threw her suit jacket, shirt, and tie behind her, leaving her in just her pants.

Sana's mouth watered at the sight as Momo stalked over to the edge of the bed and crawled up to where she was. Sana tried to reach her hand out to touch any part of Momo's bare skin she could. Her hands only had the chance to ghost over Momo's toned abs though as her wife grabbed her wrists, pinning them above her head.

"You really want me that bad, sweetheart? You sure you don't want that bastard touching you earlier to keep going?" Momo's voice was thick with desire. She wanted Sana as much as her wife wanted her, but she couldn't let her movements falter.

Sana vigorously shook her head, doe eyes staring up into Momo's dark ones. "No, Momo. Only you. Need you inside of me!"

"What's the magic word, sweet girl?" Momo's fingers brushed over her panties, applying the lightest amount of pressure to her swollen clit.

"P-please! Please Momo!"

"Was that so bad, sweetheart?" Momo asked, not giving Sana even a second to answer before she plunged two fingers deep into her wife's tight, wet heat.

Sana's body jerked as her hips thrusted into Momo's hand. The slight sting of being stretched so suddenly was just what she needed. "Oh, fuck!"

The smirk on Momo's face barely hid the amount of pleasure she was getting just from having her fingers inside of Sana. The way her fingers were being squeezed and sucked in, Sana's body was desperate for more.

"Barely even touched you yet and you're already so loud, baby." Momo let Sana's hands go, but Sana knew better than to move them from the headboard. She bucked her hips up into Momo's hand, the sheer force of Momo's fingers plunging in and out of her enough to make her dizzy already.

Momo pulled the top of Sana's dress down further, the fabric ripping more and more with each harsh tug until Sana's breasts spilled out. "What a slut. Barely even wearing a bra." Momo shook her head and leaned down, gently biting and sucking the stiff nipples through the thin lace.

Sana's body was on fire, her moaning only growing louder as Momo pushed a third finger into her. It was taking everything in her to not reach down and claw at Momo's back to release some pressure, but she knew that if she did, Momo would never let her cum.

Momo's fingers were thrusting in and out at a furious pace, her thumb pressing against Sana's clit. "Whose pussy is this, baby? Is it that dumb motherfucker's?"

Momo and Sana both knew the answer to such an oh-so-obvious question, but Momo needed to hear Sana. Needed to hear the whines and moans she let out as she fucked into her sweet girl.

"Only yours, Momo! Your pussy!" Sana's face was a shade brighter as she barely got her words out in between Momo's thrusts. That little coil in the pit of her stomach was getting tighter and tighter and she knew she wasn't going to last much longer.

"That's right, sweetheart. My pussy. Mine to fuck and fill up." The lewd, wet noises of her fingers pumping in and out of Sana combined with Sana's ear-piercing moans were almost enough for Momo to go over the edge herself. But this wasn't about her. It was about making Sana cum over and over again until she learned her lesson.

"Momo! Gonna- so close!" Sana could barely keep her eyes open as the coil in her stomach got tighter and tighter.

"That's it, sweet girl. Cum for me." Momo's voice was much softer as pulled Sana’s excuse for a bra off to lick and suck on her breasts.

The combined sensations were too much and quickly, Momo's fingers were being squeezed to death, Sana's cum flooding out of her and covering her wife's fingers as she screamed her wife's name over and over again. "Momo! Momo! Momo!"

Sana's breathing was labored as she closed her eyes, her body shaking as Momo's fingers gently pumped in and out of her. She felt like she'd just been shot out of a cannon and when she felt Momo's fingers leave her, she thought that was it.

When Sana felt the flat of Momo's tongue against her sensitive clit, her breath caught in her throat, hands flying to tangle into Momo's hair. "F-fuck. Can't. No more."

Momo just shook her head, replacing her mouth with her thumb as she looked up to Sana, her eyes dark with greed and a sweet smile plastered to her face. "This is what you wanted so bad, baby. You're gonna cum for me as many times as I want like the little slut you are."

[tf-titania]

TFOne Gladiator Headcanons

(Was going to post this after the poll finished in case “no” somehow won but I sincerely doubt it’ll more votes and I’m very excited to share)

This is pretty long so I’ll put most of my headcanons under a read more! Thank you to everyone who voted yes to me making this! It’s nice to put all my thoughts in one place uwu

-what makes a gladiator-

Majority of gladiators in Iacon are cogless

Those who aren’t cogless are usually criminals who were given the choice to fight for their freedom instead of going to prison or are so despicable that they were going to be executed and are given the choice to at least fight for their life instead

What determines if a cogless bot will be a miner or gladiator is size. Everything made for miners is small, from their living quarters to the actual mines themselves so if a cogless bot is too big then they’re assigned as a gladiator

-rankings-

Gladiators are divided by weight class and rank but rank has more influence than size

There are 3 weight categories;

Light weight (gladiators who are about the size of an average cogged bot)

Medium weight (above average size)

Heavy weight (much taller than average, Titania is in this category because she taller than Sentinel)

There are 5 ranks;

Apprentice

Intermediate

Advanced

Elite

Champion

There’s only ever one Champion but every fight with the Champion is considered a Champion Ranked fight

Ranks are determined by wins, the more wins you have the higher your rank

And the higher the rank the more dangerous the fights are

Technically none of the fights are to the death except for one’s with criminals sentenced to death

But despite this many higher ranked fights do lead to someone offlining, especially Championships

This is because the crowds of those fights tend to cheer for it and if gladiators don’t comply with the crowds wishes they’ll likely be punished by managers

-managers and rations-

Managers control everything that happens at The Pit. They control what ranking you are, who you’ll fight, what recharge station is yours, even rations

Managers are not nearly as physical as Mining Supervisors are with the miners but they do regularly abuse their power. Usually by withholding rations as punishment or demoting one’s rank despite not losing a fight

Rations are determined by size and rank. The larger gladiators will get more rations because they need to energon to function but higher ranked gladiators will get extra rations as a reward

Many higher ranked gladiators will hide their extra rations for a rainy day, and when the managers aren’t around it’s common for them to share their hoard with those being punished

-living situation-

Gladiator living quarters are divided by rank, the higher the rank the nicer it is

Apprentice ranked quarters are very similar to the miners’ living quarts

Intermediate quarters have assigned storage spaces and slightly more personal space to decorate than Apprentices

Advanced quarters get dividers between recharge stations for privacy as well as storage and even more room than Intermediates

Elite quarters have actually walls and doors creating individual rooms, this means it’s only possible for there to be a total of 9 Elite ranked gladiators

The Champion gets an even bigger room than the Elites do and their door can lock but the password on lock can be overridden by any Manager’s code

-income-

Gladiators also make no money from fights, it all goes to the managers so if a gladiator wants money they have to make in other ways

The most common way for gladiators to make money is modeling, they’re considered celebrities to other bots so it isn’t difficult to find such jobs when you’re of higher rank.

Lower ranked gladiators have even less options for making money unless they’re deemed extremely good looking

Suggestive or straight up nsfw jobs pay the most if a gladiator is Elite or Champion ranked

For lower ranks such jobs usually pay barely anything but at times are the only available jobs

Criminal gladiators are banned from finding a source of income altogether

-movement-

Gladiators have very limited access to the rest of the city

The transport train the miners use is too small for gladiators and the roads of the city only appear before alt modes making them also inaccessible to gladiators

There’s one transport train for gladiators but it has very few stops and only does one round of stops a day

The Gladiatorial Pit

The Business District (not to be confused with The Shopping Districts, The Business District is available for modeling gigs and other sources of income)

The Lower Shopping District (this is the district for cheap shopping, usually used by lower income and cogless bots)

Iacon 5000 starting arena

The Upper Shopping District (only available to Elite and Champion ranks)

Mangers may punish gladiators by scheduling them in such a way that they can’t leave the pit for days, sometimes weeks

-miscellaneous hcs-

The favored Prime among most the gladiators is Megatronous

Gladiators tend to have an advanced understanding of first aid, regularly do their own medical aid and usually avoid going to a professional for injuries

This because they have a skewed idea of what a serious injury is due to the high pain tolerance they’ve built up and because Managers discourage it since they have to pay for it, not the gladiators

It’s common practice for new Champions to leave one thing in their room that belonged to the previous Champion, usually a picture, if they change the room at all

This tradition has causes one wall in the Champions room to be full of pictures and memorabilia of all the previous Champions

The Elite ranks usually have a stash of high grade that they share for special occasions, such as the rise of a new Champion. This is to celebrate the win the victor and to grieve the departed

Most Champions become very reclusive after winning their title

-after the events of tfone-

After the events of the movie the pit is in chaos. The gladiators just learned that not only did Sentinel force them to fight and sometimes kill each other but they were also born with cogs

Managers are hiding and making a run for the exits knowing they’ll likely be the first targets for the gladiators anger

There are a couple of gladiators who try to calm down the riot but they’re unsuccessful

Titania, the current Champion, allows those wishing to not participate in the riot to hide in her room… and any Managers that can make it…

After the riot a majority of gladiators join the Decepticons as they resonate with Megatron’s anger

[dailycharacteroption]

Infinite Tech Witchwarper (Witchwarper Alternate Class Feature)

(art by Methiston on DeviantArt)

I do love a gadgeteer hero, someone who always has the right equipment for the job on hand, even when it doesn’t always make sense.

An interesting subtype of the gadgeteer hero, however, is the “arsenal” hero. Typically a “battle mage” of some kind, their whole gimmick is that they have a weapon and/or armor set for every situation, often conjuring them to their hands to replace whatever armament they previously held or wore.

And with the witchwarper, a spellcaster that literally calls upon objects and energies from alternate realities, it only makes sense that there would be some among them that utilize their talents in such a way!

I doubt that this specialization would manifest by accident, so I imagine that those that wield this power trained themselves to focus on weapons and armaments when they tap into the possibilities of other worlds and realities. Perhaps they are soldiers or mercenaries, or they desperately wished for a weapon to defend themselves when they were in danger, and their power awakened and answered.

Either way, their gifts have given them a way to answer any question that their foes and the hazards around them may ask.

With an expenditure of magical energy, these mages can conjure a suit of light armor (with upgrades if resolve is also spent), a basic melee weapon, or a sidearm. Though these armaments may resemble familiar models, they are extradimensional in nature and as such the skill of the mage and the amount of energy they expended determines their damage output and defensive capabilities, allowing them to tailor the armor with the upgrades they need, or the weapons with the damage type and special properties they need.

The greater the magical energy they expend, the more potent their creations become. Armor gains elemental resistances, additional upgrade slots, greater durability. Meanwhile, weapons gain critical hit effects, additional properties, and increases to their damage output.

With this specialization, this version of the witchwarper is less a battlefield control specialist and more a secondary combatant able to tailor their gear to the situation at hand, especially if you’re using the enhanced version of the class that gets a lot of extra uses of infinite worlds. I recommend combat feats to flesh out their ability to stand alongside more combat-focused classes, as well as spells that can hamper and damage foes to make hammering them hard with your conjured weapons as well as your more real mainstays easier. From there, make a list of useful armor upgrades so you can quickly pick them out when going on the defensive.

I said before that these weapons and armor may resemble familiar models  despite using a level-generated stat line, but they don’t have to if you do not wish. You might wield armor that resembles medieval designs, or weapons that function but are very different in terms of design aesthetic, such as an electrical pistol that is accompanied by deafening peals of thunder when fired, or a staff that bleeds flame along it’s length. Feel free to be creative with it!

Hoping to starve them out of advanced resources, the Jolin Corporation blockaded the planet in hopes of quelling the copaxi revolts at their facilities. However, they sorely underestimated the flexibility of the coral-folk. Not only have their biotechnicians begun replicating the advanced tech of the outsiders in biotech form, but more than a few copaxi guerillas have a knack for warping reality, conjuring living weapons from their imagination to fight the company’s occupation.

In order to learn about the mysterious weapon-conjuring mercenary the party has repeatedly encountered, they need to sneak into a server room owned by the corporation that he seems to be connected to. Doing so means braving the automated defenses, including a serpentine hybrid tech guardians, an arcane asp!

The recent string of killings that have occurred seem to have no connection at first, but as one looks into the details, one begins to realize that the murder weapons are all strange and unique devices, leading the investigators to conclude that the wielder must be a tinkering weaponsmith, have raided a warehouse of experimental designs, or perhaps strangest of all, is making them up as they go.

[kazeharuhime]

Taking a bit of a left turn on the usual formula since I'm running low on traditional plants in the compendium (theoretically still have enough to make it through, but motivation towards those remaining is low).

Haven't talked a whole lot about Buddys (tis the species name so funny spelling) here lately, so a lot of this info may come out of left-field or be hard to contextualize, but here goes.

Flower Buddy Lilypods

Also known by their more scientific name, Flowering Amicans, Flower Buddys are a unique species of Buddy that are born from Lilypods, as featured here. As they're an accessory to Flower Buddys themselves, Lilypods deviate from the traditional model of flora categorization quite a bit, and as such aren't typically listed in flora compendiums. Nevertheless, seeing as they are very much like flora, they could be counted in an annex of an extended compendium in theory.

Lilypods are found naturally in the Flower Buddy Dimension. The first Flower Buddys grew there inside their Lilypods and emerged into the world proper along the coast of Reline Ah, where the Flower Buddy Dimension is connected to. Flower Buddys used to be a lot more outgoing, sailing to many different places on their Lilypads and sleeping in their pods at night. However, after the first Shadow Buddy War, the Flower Buddys retreated back to Fuline Ah and hid there for many years. Some millennia later, brave new Flower Buddys emerged from their dimension and began to explore again. Though there are thought to be others still living on the continent in seclusion, brave explorers are still few. Though they emerge now and then from their dimension, Flower Buddys are still scarcely seen worldwide in JI proper.

As for the Lilypods themselves, Lilypods can be manipulated by the Flower Buddy born from them and have two forms: Pod and Pad Form. Pod Form is featured above as is the Lilypod's default state. When Flower Buddys wish to use their Lilypods to sail without their natural reeds getting in the way, they can will the reeds to recede back into the center of the Lilypad. They can will the reeds back up when they wish to sleep or hibernate within their Lilypods, and can control the internal environment of the pod depending on if they want to sleep for a night or much longer.

Being an extradimensional plant, Lilypods' needs are quite different from a traditional plant's. They are sustained primarily by the dimension itself, sometimes even while outside it, though they may change to a darker shade of green and act a bit more 'sluggish' when apart from their home dimension. When in an environment suited to their needs, they can also rely on it for nutrition in a similar way that they do in their home dimension. They prefer a medium temperature, rich sediment, dispersed light, and for their roots to always be submerged in water. When any of these conditions are not met, they can rely on their connection to their home dimension to provide for them, but as mentioned before, may change appearance and act 'sluggish' by comparison depending on how out of their element they are.

Lilypods can only spawn in their home dimension, and do so independently of Flower Buddys themselves. Flower Buddys themselves bear children the normal Buddy way via Heartegg (though there is scarce documentation about this due to Flower Buddys' reclusive nature and dubious success rate, especially with non-plant species partners) and may select an empty Lilypod for their child to mature in back at the dimension. For this reason, Flower Buddys developed this way may or may not know who their parents are as they emerge from the Lilypod fully mature. That said, not all Flower Buddy pairings choose this method, or may only make use of it for the duration of fetal development, so some Flower Buddy hybrids may indeed be raised by their parents in a more traditional manner.

The Flower Buddy dimension itself is an expanse of water and mist with no discernible sun, though it may still have a day-night cycle that corresponds with JI's day-night cycle. Anything else in the dimension is constructed by Flower Buddys or whoever else has found their way there, typically Flower Buddy partners. There are no other known flora that grow there aside from Lilypods, though there are likely microorganisms and perhaps fish, but there has not been much research in that area as of yet.

[hncproject]

ᚐ✦⸻ Virtual Reality

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⸻✦ I got to draw in VR using OpenBrush. Drawing in VR is something I dreamed of doing for years! It was a new experience. I'm always open to new experiences.

✧The VR room was booked for about 2 hours. I used the first 30 minutes to figure out how to use OpenBrush. I explored the backdrops, brushes, colours and controls. I could've chosen a plain white background but it was a little too overwhelming and too bright. Having no structure also confused me. it made me restless, making me walk, spin, sit and stand too much. I chose to switch the backdrop to something else: a pedestal. It was darker and had a structure I could interact with, clearing me of the previous issues.

✧ The pedestal was very empty. I wanted to decorate it and then draw a faerie or a "iela" (singular "iele") in the middle. I modelled grass, shrubs, stones, and 2 poles. All of that took an hour! I don't know how to use VR in a time efficient manner yet.

I only had 30 minutes left to draw a body... I only got as far as drawing the silhouette. If I had more time I would've asked to book the VR room again, but I had other things to prioritise, like making a logo or deciding a mascot for my brand. I added the fairy lights and bubbles in the last 2 minutes to add a point of interest.

✧ VR is complicated. I wish I had more screenshots of the process, or a 360 video of my work, but that wasn't possible. Not my fault, but the systems fault. Technicians informed me of it and I couldn't argue against it.

✦ Since I didn't get to finish the "iela" in VR, I drew her on paper. Below is the scanned drawing. The poses are inspired by sculptures such as Aphrodite and a goddess resembling Persephone.

✧ Once I scanned the drawing, I edited it in photoshop, further refining and touching up some places

✧ The reason for choosing these poses was the same reason starbucks advertises themselves with a mermaid. Tricking people into finding these drawings cool because "thats Aphrodite's pose!"

✧I'm glad I tried artistic nudity too but It's not for me. I just couldn't find myself drawing nudes all the time, especially not for this project. If I'm supposed to show my inner dimension I should make a brand to represent that. Nudity represents vulnerability. I don't enjoy being vulnerable to people, no matter how hard I'd want to stop the objectifying of women

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✦ What was progressive out of this experiment? I got to work with a new medium. That's always nice. I also did some self reflection and considered which way I should take my brand's identity. Even if I pushed an idea to the side, realising the direction of my brand is vital.

[soir-rouges-esprit]

xxviii.a: The Viper, I walk down the street, feeling more than just a pep in my step, I seem to notice the eyes that once watched in sorrow and empty empathy … now glared in envy, watching from a distance, wishing on takebacks and reversals, as to change my fate as of theirs … However … my greatest strength comes at the cost of others and their lack of foresight, their terrible planning and asset management, their mistakes in this dance of witty tango, leaves me the space to analyze them as if I were a grand torturer peeling them like a lemon, only to squeeze their juices into their eyes for added extra effect; slowly … they attend their own wake … slowly… I see them for who they are, what they want, and the dirty shitty little core at their center … slowly, yet eventually. Can't hide that soul from me, no one ever has … no one ever will, it is my one gift from birth, that stains the light in my eyes … my curse. I walked down The City streets, I put my hands in my hair and slick it back as to clear it from my vision, for I'll need that sight of mine soon, no obstruction. I meet at the end of the street, and at the entrance to the birthplace of a terrible being, one of legends told to children at night as to scare them off from wrongdoing … another told to up incoming monsters themselves as an example of what's possible … District: New Salem, also known as Salem's Lot, New Salem's Lot or just Salem. The geological stranglehold upon my childhood memories … and where The Viper's Den … Mrs.Van. and a host of bad memories and connections were located. She was an elderly Vietnamese woman, who ran The Vipers, the Vietnamese mafia, that controlled a large portion of pretty much any and all illegal activity you can really think of, importation and distribution of pretty much any and all drugs, hosts of illegal weapons, and even people through human trafficking … just to name a few of her many … “talents” … she was about as bad as it got, and Me and The Jester … just so happened to be her “Sons” (Unofficially adopted from the streets) which realistically meant … we were her damn property to use as she pleased to further her crime empire … of course with special permissions and access to her resources, especially information brokerage throughout The Rat Aways. (Black market/crime web) But by no means or way of understanding, was our situations/relations with Mrs.Van a benefit to us … well, unless you were an outsider looking in, greener than Mother natures happy trail and down right fuckin stupid. We couldn't rightly walk into certain places any longer in the past when we were hot on contracts/jobs, Me and The Jester made the lucrative work of drug/gun trafficking an art form … not to mention the petty theft turned grand larceny. We were … model citizens … of a City that threw out civil decency and any amount of at least reliable social safety nets. She to Me and The Jester, was without a doubt a heavenly savior when we were young, she had saved me and him both from poverty, giving us not only work and a way to earn a wage to eat not just for us but for example The Jester and The Knights father during those hard earlier days … but actively hosted Me many times, during my little runaways in my youth, or well more so … my straying, or open disregard of my general whereabout moments of which there were many of … during my youth … caused by too many to count let alone remember (Traumatic brain blockage most likely) vile reasons. So she was … special … and now, without necessarily explaining the rest of the very complicated history between me and her specifically … it was my turn once more to knock on the she-devils door. I walk into Salem, down the streets I still knew like the back of my hand, straight to The Vipers Den. I walk to the front door, knock three times … and wait in anticipation, and extreme fear/anxiety … It felt lightheaded almost from it all. Then … the door opens and it’s one of her cronies named Cadeo a younger Vitamnese kid who was newer to the whole organization, probably Trafficked straight ... [To Be Continued]

[isabellarosestudio5]

Week 5-6 BREAK Notes: List of oxymorons

Inspired by works of Hannah Wilke and Ken Lum. Upon studying Wilke's SOS Starification Series, I came back to the old contested idea of the beautiful female artist- that one 'cant have a body and a brain' (Wilke), at the same time.

Having been in both the classical ballet and fashion modelling industries, I have often wondered whether this would come back to haunt my career as an artist. Whether or not my work will be taken seriously in light of having a relatively conventionally moulded body/face. Also what is curious is the protest of acknowledging ones own 'beauty' (which personally I think takes many forms and pertains to each individual differently), but for a woman- to acknowledge your own beauty is perhaps vain? selfish? obnoxious? Perhaps less so in light of various recent body-positive social media movements. But still, society much prefers the woman who is beautiful yet is completely seemingly unaware of that very fact. Even despite perhaps, as a beautiful woman, society will go out of its way to compliment you on that. You still must remain unaware. If someone gives you a compliment, it would be absurd to reply "thanks, I know". Even perhaps dangerous in terms of the then expected backlash and judgement from the compliment giver themselves- who potentially wishes to remain some sort of discoverer, shedding light on something new and unseen, but now appears to be somewhat shocked that you did in fact already know.

Patriarchy/Capitalism loves a pretty woman, but not a pretty woman who is self-aware, because in that self-awareness lies an unfortunate power to potentially control and turn the tables on the patriarchy itself. Something I'm sure women have been using to their advantage for years in spite of being allowed access to any real seats of power. (of course less so in recent times). So, the response to the self-aware woman then becomes to shame, shun, belittle, make her anxious, doubtful, self-conscious, in the hope that she might give up that power once more with little effort, and if not- perhaps then they turn to violence.

Oxymorons:

bittersweet

awfully good

cruel kindness

pretty bad, pretty ugly

civil war

devout atheist

dull roar

found missing

friendly takeover

good grief

jumbo shrimp

living dead

old news

new classic

sweet sorrow

Experiment:

From the mouth of a vapid doll?

vapid doll?

My vapid doll?

Layout options:

Other thoughts:

[conniejonescoach]

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[5banus]

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[huge-enthusiast]

Miraculous fic recomendations!!

This is just an excuse to show all my bookmarks? Yes. Yes, it is. I'm pretty sure most of this fics are really popular, but try see if you find something you didn't knew about!

All of the fics will be rated Teen and up audiences or lower. Also if I don't put the author's tumblr is because they didn't put it in the fic or/and I couldn't find it.

Pairing: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug

knowing you by emsylcatac (they are not really the author of the fic but that's the account that says in the fic, the actual author doesn't have an account).

After dropping their transformations months ago, Marinette and Adrien see each other for the first time after being apart. They've both left too much unsaid and have to work to pick up the pieces of their confused hearts.

Chapters: 1/1

Post-reveal but mostly ladynoir, light angst with happy ending.

the last day on earth by Reiaji

The first time Marinette sees Chat Blanc, she's fourteen years old. The second time, fifteen—the third time, seventeen.

The closer she grows to Adrien, the harder it is to save him.

Chapters: 1/1

Post-reveal lovesquare, kinda heavy angst, hopeful ending.

tell me something i don't know by carpisuns (@carpisuns here on tumblr)

Do you think it still means something? To love someone, even if the universe said you had to?

The odds of having a soulmate are about negative one billion (or something like that). But somehow, like they always have, Marinette and Chat Noir find themselves together. They’re ready to finally tell each other everything, but it turns out that even soulmates have to keep secrets, and while their bond draws them together, duty forces them apart.

Chapters: currently 17/28 (WIPs can be exhausting but this one is 100% worth the wait!)

Mostly marichat but almost all of the lovesquare sides make an appearance, soulmates au, mostly fluff but it can get angsty if it wants to.

One Thing After Another by SKayLanphear

Marinette notices that, sometimes, Adrien acts a little out of the ordinary--like the time he stood in a cardboard box for no reason, or when he actually hissed at Nino. It's only when she starts to notice the similarities between Adrien and a certain feline that she begins to get suspicious.

Basically, Adrien acts like a cat when he probably shouldn't.

Chapters: 15/15

Mostly adrienette with one sided reveal by Marinette's side, miraculous side effects (by both sides wich is really cool!), it's fluff with a lil tiny angst for drama.

This would take some getting used to by Codango (@codango here on tumblr!)

Adrien peeked out from behind the chimney even as the magic of his own Chat Noir mask fell away.

She was still visible, her dark hair bobbing under the street lamps a couple blocks away.

“Marinette.”

Adrien blew out a confused breath. His fiery Ladybug… was the quiet little mouse who sat behind him in class?

“What. The.”

This… would take some getting used to.

Chapters: 8/8

Adrienette with one sided reveal by Adrien's part, awkward flirting, just fluff, nothing to worry about.

comfort food also by Reiaji!

In Marinette's house, cooking is a language of love, and Marinette loves Adrien more than most.

Chapters: 1/1

Adrienette with a little of ladynoir, super super fluff, a lot of insight into Marinette's chinese heritage.

The right side of his face by walkingonthestars (@hamsternamedmarinette here on tumblr!)

Marinette and Adrien are able to remain in their new seats in the back of the room at the end of Chameleon.

Chapters: 1/1

Adrienette, fluff with light angst.

it's a long way forward so trust in me by aloneintherain (@captainkirkk here on tumblr!)

“You’re not the only strong one around here, Chat,” Marinette said. She looked a little winded, but she wasn’t struggling to hold him up.

This close up, he could see the freckles on the bridge of her nose. He could see how that smug smile lit up her eyes. He could feel the strain of her arms—and wow, okay, he really wasn’t the only person around here with muscles.

Six times Marinette carried Adrien (plus one time he carried her).

Chapters: 1/1

All the sides of the lovesquare! Fluff with LOTS of mutual pining.

a fight that you were born to lose also by aloneintherain

When the prosecution starts throwing around the word victim in reference to Adrien, he has to stuff his hands under his thighs to keep himself from bolting out of the courtroom.

Adrien had felt unsafe during those last few weeks, but, until he had woken up and seen Father silhouetted in his bedroom doorway, that had only been paranoia. Father was controlling and cold, but he wasn’t hateful. Adrien was isolated. He was often hungry. And some weeks ago, when he had snuck out to visit Nino, sitting thigh-to-thigh on his bed while Adrien cried in that silent, crumbling way of his, he hadn’t argued when Nino put a hand on his shoulder and said, tentatively, That’s abuse.

But Adrien remembers being small and Father touching his hair after he’d aced another test; Father holding his scribbled drawings like they were something precious, and framing them around his office; Father, dressed as Hawkmoth, his eyes wild behind the mask, lashing his sword against Adrien’s baton; Father, collapsed against Mum, crying into her ashy hair.

Adrien finds out Gabriel is Hawkmoth, and Gabriel gets to bring his long-waited plan into action.

Chapters: 1/1

This one doesn't really focus in the ship that much as is an Adrien character study and an exploration of his relationship with his father, but they're still there so I put them here. Really heavy angst (this is one of this fics that haunt me in the middle of the night) with a happy ending. ❗TW: parental abuse, eating disorders❗

Supercut by LNC

Marinette loves her friends and Adrien can't deal.

Chapters: 1/1

Post-reveal lovesquare, again light angst, an exploration of Adrien's insecurities, Marinette Dupain-Cheng deserves the world, happy ending.

Madame Snare by jettiebettie

“Sounds like a lot of work for nothing. She should take this as a sign to have a relaxing weekend with no responsibilities.”

“It's a lot of work she put her whole heart into. It wouldn't be right for it to go to waste,” Adrien whispers to him. The look on Marinette's face is enough to cause Adrien's own heart to ache. If anyone deserves the satisfaction and pride from a job well done, it's her.

“Too bad there isn't anyone else who can walk in those death traps,” Plagg says. Adrien hums in thought, tapping his chin.

“I could.”

Chapters: 1/1

Marichat, episode-based, Chat Noir in a dress!!!, light angst but it's mostly just idiots being idiots and a lot of fun.

in the same sun by peachcitt (@peachcitt here on tumblr!)

"It’s hard to believe that I saw you last at the peak of summer, when the sun was close and warm - and so were you. It should go without saying that I miss you. I miss you something terrible."

//

"It’s been seven months to the day since I’ve seen you. I wish you were here more than anything else."

Two letters, signed with initials instead of names, found in Paris, France.

Chapters: 1/1

Ladynoir, just angst, that's it, written like letters. No ending, just pain.

an uncurtain discovery by Missnoodles (@ladyofthenoodle here on tumblr!)

When he returns from school on Wednesday afternoon, Adrien discovers the darkness in his own home. He struggles to come to terms with it. To his utter mortification and delight, Ladybug is nearby to rescue him.

(He does not discover that his father is supervillain. That will happen on a different Wednesday.)

Chapters: 1/1

Ladrien, it says it's crack, and don't get me wrong, is super funny, but I also found it sad as fuck?

An Open Secret by Kasienda

Adrien whirled around toward Marinette. She smiled at him.

He couldn’t smile back. He stared at her like the dumb blond model that he was often accused of being.

Something shifted in her expression. And her warm open Marinette smile transformed into Ladybug’s grin. He was looking at Ladybug right now.

He knew Ladybug’s name!

Her name was Marinette Dupain-Cheng.

And he couldn’t say anything! Not to Marinette! Not even to Plagg, who had confided two weeks prior that Master Fu was growing increasingly paranoid since the location of his home and hideout had been compromised. Their master had apparently decided that Chat Noir and Ladybug would have to give up their miraculouses if they ever discovered each other’s identities.

It wasn’t fair!

...

A fic where they both know, but can't openly talk about it.

Chapters: 4/4

Post-reveal... but is it? Mostly adrienette and ladynoir, fluff with light angst and them being absolute idiots at hiding their secret identity.

golden (like daylight) by okayanna (@anna-scribbles here on tumblr!)

Friendship, Adrien decided, shaking off the mental image of Marinette’s hurricane eyes and hesitant mouth, parted in a small, careful “o.” He had a very strong friendship with Marinette. That was all.

or

Adrien thinks a lot about words, love, and Marinette Dupain-Cheng.

Chapters: 1 + epilogue

Adrienette but has lots of ladynoir, another Adrien character study because I hate myself, it tries to not be angst but the writing will punch you in the guts and make you cry, it's so good.

Strangers in the Bright Lights by poodles (@ladybeug here on tumblr!)

Adrien is about two drinks in when he sees a girl at the end of the bar wearing black cat ears. It's kind of weird, so he watches her, and although it's crowded he can see her face when she turns around. She’s wearing a Chat Noir mask. He takes a quick look around- nobody else is wearing a mask. Just her.

Adrien finishes his gin martini and heads over to her. He could use some company tonight anyways, he hasn’t told anyone he’s back in Paris and Nathalie won’t arrive in town for another month. And it’s been a rough day, okay? A rough move! He’s not sure he wants to be back yet, and he spent most of the day in the Agreste mansion sorting through some photographs of his father he found in the study. Maybe he wants a drink and some stranger to tell him he’s pretty! That’s not a crime, is it?

Chapters: 1/1

Adrienette but it's also ladrien??? I think??? It's super super angsty but they're both drunk the entirety of the fic so it's also really funny.

Pick-Up and Chase by also SKayLanphear

After she accidentally trips into Adrien and apologizes about "falling for him," Marinette learns that he's no match for cheesy pick-up lines--whether they were unintended or not. And while she finds it flattering that he turns into a flustered mess with only a few words, Marinette comes to regret making him uncomfortable. That is, until she learns he's Chat Noir. At which point the phrase "just deserts" becomes a permanent fixture in her everyday plans.

A story in which Adrien is flustered, Marinette is smooth as glass at dropping lines, and Chat Noir gets the romance he was always asking for--even if he doesn't quite know how to handle it.

Chapters: 10/10

Adrienette with one sided reveal by Marinette's side, it doesn't say it in the tags but I'm pretty sure the characters are much older than they actually are in the show, so much fluff and so much flirting.

Pairing: Alya Césaire/Nino Lahiffe

Nino Has Done Nothing To Deserve This by GuardianKarenTerrier (@guardiankarenterrier here in tumblr)

It's nothing, really- just an innocent comment, a joke. But when they hear it, Nino and Alya come to a realisation.

There were, in retrospect, dozens upon dozens of hints. Now that they're suddenly aware of all their friend's flimsy excuses and rushed explanations, they're not only sure how they've missed it, they're not sure how anyone else has either. They realise that it had to be magic protecting their friends- and that same magic has ceased to work on the two of them.

Well, this means they'll just have to start watching over their friends themselves.

Chapters: 7/7

This is more a found family fic than anything else, Alya and Nino are the mom friend, has light angst but it's mostly identity shenanigans in the most bizarre way. ❗TW: eating disorders❗

christmas lights by demistories

Nino checks up and down the street, checking to make sure there’s no raging akuma headed his way before he crosses quickly and ducks inside the small café. He closes the door quickly before the icy air can blow inside and tugs his beanie down over his ears. He spots Alya sitting alone in the corner.

Chapters: 1/1

Just fluff!! Really short but really sweet.

hold on, i still want you also by Missnoodles!

Written for the @thedjwifizine ! Wich I also recommend if you wanna binge a lot of djwifi fics while also looking at amazing art!!!

Five times Alya ran into her ex, and the one time he stopped being her ex.

Chapters: 1/1

Light angst with a happy ending! I don't really like the ex-lovers to lovers trope but this one is the only exception.

I will continue to expand the list in the future! But by now I hope I was helpful in the search of new fics!

[andiappear]

Brahms/Reader Fluff

Title: Touch Rating: G Warnings: None Author's Notes: Pure fluff. Reader is incidentally gender/body neutral. This is also available on AO3, but tumblr hates links. I go by slxsher there, though.

"Good boys keep their hands to themselves," you remind Brahms gently, pausing in your reading aloud as you feel his hand rest on your thigh.

He makes a disappointed noise and keeps his hand where it is for a long moment, until he realizes you're not going to continue reading to him as long as it remains there. Once it is resettled in his own lap, you murmur a quiet "Thank you," and continue where you left off.

Brahms's head rests on your shoulder and has been the entire time you've been reading to him, and where his hand had been was only just high enough to no longer rightfully call it your knee, but you try to keep firm in your boundaries. To say that Brahms could be mercurial was an understatement, and you think that having hard lines on acceptable behavior helps keep control when his disposition sours.

Right now, though, he is sweet and calm, and if you didn't need your hand free to turn the pages of the book, you'd have half a mind to let him hold it, to give him a bit of extra contact on your own terms. "Touch-starved" is another term that does not near do Brahms justice, and while he has other obvious desires that you are reluctant to indulge yet, he seems to most desperately want simple contact and affection. It makes your heart shatter thinking about how long he went without it.

Eventually, you finish the chapter you are reading, and it is time to get a start on making dinner.

“One more chapter?” Brahms asks, his voice at the edge of a whine.

You shake your head as you place a bookmark and close the book, setting it aside. “Neither of us like it when dinner is late,” you say simply, “We’ll read more tomorrow. Why don’t you come help me cook?”

Brahms thinks for a moment, not usually eager to help with anything, but he’s especially clingy today, so he agrees with a nod, taking your offered hand as you stand from the sofa and accompanying you to the kitchen.

Part of you wishes that you’d thought to make a heartier lunch so you could suggest just a salad for dinner, but you had been busy in the morning and didn’t notice how needy Brahms was until you’d sat down with your sandwiches at noon. Brahms doesn’t care to be in the kitchen when the stove is in use, so to let him stay close for as long as you could, you take the time to prep everything you’d need before starting anything that would require flame. You give him the job of chopping vegetables, which he does without complaint. You’re sure to thank him and heap on the praise. Although you can’t see the smile beneath his mask, you can just see the crinkles at the edges of his eyes that tell you it is there.

Eventually, you do have to actually cook, and Brahms ushers himself out of the kitchen, but he doesn’t stray too far. Once tonight’s cottage pie is in the oven, you find him already in the dining room, hunched over a notebook. You think he sketches sometimes, and you’re pretty sure he tries his hand at musical composition, but you try not pry when Brahms is doing something by himself. It isn’t that you aren’t curious, but you can’t expect Brahms to respect boundaries when you don’t model the behavior yourself, and you figure that if he really wanted you to see his work, he would show it to you proudly. You do make your way over to him though, and put a hand on his shoulder.

“Your back is going to hurt if you keep sitting like that,” you say, your tone light and teasing.

“I’ll be fine,” he insists, his defiance playful, although Brahms does straighten up at your comment, mostly to lean into your touch.

You keep your hand resting where it is as you let out a fond sigh. “Dinner won’t be too long. A few more moments and you should go and wash up,” you murmur, idly thumbing over a seam on Brahms’s shirt.

Brahms nods, assuring that he will, and you reluctantly take your hand away, returning to the kitchen to check on the meal.

The rest of the evening is quiet, you and Brahms sitting next to each other as you eat dinner, and him even offering to help you with dishes after. Granted, he does little to actually help, but he does dry a few things after you’ve washed them, and you can’t bring yourself to mind his presence at your side while you do the work. After, you draw Brahms’s bath and leave him to it. He’s mostly stopped asking you to join him or help, aware you’re not going to give him what he wants like that and that you know he is well capable of bathing himself, and that holds tonight. He does ask if he can use your shampoo, which you allow, pleased enough that he actually asked this time that you would have let him even if he hadn’t been so good today. You take your turn with a quick shower once Brahms is done with his bath, not wanting to leave him waiting for his goodnight kiss for too long, not tonight.

Once you’ve dried off and dressed in your pajamas, you make your way to Brahms’s room, knocking at the door frame and waiting for Brahms to invite you in, which he does quickly, before stepping inside. “Ready for bed?” you ask.

Brahms is already sitting on his bed with a book in his hands, but he quickly sets it on the nightstand and climbs beneath his covers, lying down and looking up at you. “Kiss?” he asks in turn, as usual.

“Of course,” you assure as you walk over to the bed, turning off the light and leaning over Brahms, “You were so good today, Brahms. Thank you.” You pull up the covers to tuck him in and lean down. Usually, you give your goodnight kiss the forehead of the mask, occasionally to the cheek, but tonight, you hesitate for a moment. Brahms had been so good all day, and so obviously needy. Instead of going for the mask, your lips press into Brahms’s hair at his temple.

The sound Brahms makes at getting a kiss he can feel startles you, but you don’t pull back immediately, letting the touch linger as you try not to think too hard about how little Brahms has experienced this sort of affection lest you find yourself tearing up.

When you do pull back, Brahms allows it, not trying to pull you close like he would some nights when he was being handsy, but he stares up at you with wide eyes. “Stay?” he asks, so quietly you almost don’t hear him.

You pause at the question. You know you should say no. You were the one who set rules about sleeping in your own bed and Brahms staying in his. “Is everything alright?” you ask, wanting to know why if there’s a reason he’s so desperate for touch today, as if there was one he could have that would make it easier for you to deny him.

Brahms shakes his head a little. “I’m fine. I just… would like it if you stayed… Please stay?”

Your resolve crumbles, overcome with the need to comfort Brahms, and you nod. “Just for a little while, until you fall asleep?”

“I’d like that,” Brahms says, watching you as you lay down next to him on top of the blanket to keep some barrier between you. It is obvious that he wants to touch you, but he’s holding back, afraid to scare you off or push you away now that he’s getting what he so desperately desires.

“Good night, Brahms,” you murmur, draping one arm across his chest, your hand resting in the middle of it. He echos you and brings a hand up to lay over yours, lacing your fingers together hesitantly. He relaxes when you allow it and it isn’t long before his eyes shut and his breathing slows as he drifts off to sleep.

You’d said you’d only stay until he fell asleep. You know you should pull away and go to your own room for bed, but with your hands linked and his comforting warmth beside you, you think maybe falling asleep next to Brahms like this wouldn’t be so bad.

[myrmeraki]

time for me to speak on OFMD ep 9 and the Act Of Grace bit! cause oh boy oh boy i love the golden age of piracy!!

so the Act of Grace was a real thing, an act passed by the king that any pirate wishing to give themselves up *within the year* would be forgiven and pressed into privateering instead. (i believe it was september 1717-1718?) and many pirates, including those like stede bonnet and jack rackham, took the pardons and then quickly said “fuck no” and turned back to piracy.

in real life both stede bonnet and blackbeard sought out pardons and later turned to piracy. as the story goes blackbeard sent stede out to receive his pardon and then left with his ship, marooning a lot of his crew on a nearby island (starting to sound familiar?). blackbeard went into privateering but by the end of the summer was fully back to pirating. i think stede did the same? anyway they don’t see each other again, but i have no doubt that will change in the show.

the idea however of time-based pardons and the mutability of ones role in opposed societies is one that a lot of pirate media plays with. and in OFMD i think its a very real allegory for self-acceptance and brings to light the ways stede and ed operate as characters and how they change.

for ed this is partially liberating and partially suffocating. this is a choice to follow the man he loves into change side by side, leaving behind quite literally the image of blackbeard. this is about “what ed wants”. at the same time he can’t be happy here, under control, and as soon as he thinks stede reciprocates his feelings he’s all right with leaving. assimilating into society was only ever a lesser of two evils in order to stay with stede.

for stede himself, it’s like being thrust back into a nightmare. it forces him to reconcile with who he is as a person, if he has both abandoned his family and life as a society man as well as his life as a pirate captain. he has hurt people as a society man, he has hurt people as a pirate, and so he sees any happiness as unjust. for stede this doesn’t open up his options so much as tell him exactly how he has to suffer given that he doesn’t fit in Anywhere.

the pardoning it is an opportunity to be fully accepted into society, with the price of fighting it’s war of course, along with written abandonment of your former self. you sign away our name and admit that you were wrong, everything about who you are is not as it should be, and you must change to be assimilated. you leave and deplore place where gay men can live lives in partnership and a nonbinary person can interact with their gender purposefully.

piracy exists as a very real and viable life-model that creates structure around gender and sexuality that directly opposes the cisgender and heterosexual form of life in society. taking those pardons even if they eventually abandon them means a real reckoning with existence in opposition to heterosexual norms. its about what happens when ed and stede are confronted with who they are, who they have been, and what they want. and when they both are on different paths and pass each other like speeding ships in the night, its about how that breaks them.

[mochikeiji]

Enough For Me

Request: "Congratulations on 1k!!! you deserve it, you’re a really good writer. Can i request prompt 12 “please don’t cry” angst to fluff with yuuta from jjk. thank you, congrats."

12. "please, don't cry."

↠ Pairing: Okkotsu Yuta x Reader

↠ Warning: angst to fluff

↬ Word Count: 1.5k

↳ from Go! Go! Gogatsu Event

When did every thing become so loud?

One minute you were similing. Laughing loud with a hint of the obvious enjoyment masked on your features. Then second you're staring to nowhere but silence greeting you. An expression so dim that the light in your eyes wasn't present as well. Left at the forest training grounds, the others had already gone back to their dorms. You told them you were staying for a bit for extra training when in reality, you were looking for an outlet without anyone witnessing your hour of vulnerability.

Stupid clan and their elders. As disrespectful as it may sound, you understood now why Gojo despises them. Loud it was to the point it deafens your ears; the murmurs of a child cast away from the bloodline because of the mockery it holds. A no good sorcerer was never welcome in families like yours. People would still chew on your head even when you have your backs turned on them. So frustrating it was to shoulder a burden of their devilish gossip and expectations.

At first it was alright. You handled it well. But to the extent where one of the higher ups brought it up during a meeting? How many people know of you and the disappointment you carry?

Gojo had his fist clenched that day. Maki understood you more than anyone, having to be someone who ran away from her clan as well. Inumaki and Panda did their best in comforting you, telling you that humans are weird to drag other humans down when they're the same race. That was just being so entitled, said Panda. You however, convinced your comrades you were fine. You were used to it. And it was fine.

It didn't matter what other's say as long as other's knew you for what you weren't, right?

That doesn't mean you couldn't help but become overwhelmed of the impact they had on you. Like knives forcefully shoved their ways through your heart. The pack of negative energy should've been enough to form a large curse that could take you.

Loud it was indeed. To have so many people shit their way into your life when you only wanted to live yours and not bother theirs.

You gulped down the heavy lump in your throat. Caught up in the fog of profanities from the world. Who were you kidding, you weren't Maki who can handle all this thrown at her. Tumbling and falling, that was all you knew about yourself in your whole life. The nails that grip in your palms pierced through the skin as blood trickles down, no amount of pain could level the amount of pent up emotions you buried in your heart.

Perhaps you've were born in the wrong time and place. If only you were a simple civilian, maybe life wouldn't be so bad. A loving family would be there, instead of the ones that were throwing their unfulfilled dreams to their children and controlling of their destiny.

The look in your mother's eyes will forever haunt you. Looking already as tired as you were, her eyes spoke more emotion than you could ever endure as loveless, empty ones met your teary gaze that very day.

"I only wanted a daughter who could've done so much for me as I've given her life after birth."

Your heart throbs, soon you were down on the dirt covered ground on your knees. The weight of her words colliding in the world you swore was a safe space for you. It shouldn't matter. Not when they've cast you away and yet, no matter what there is, she was still your mother.

And still the pain is as fresh as ever coming from the one you used to call, "family."

As loud as your world was, your cries were louder and clearer this very night. As if with all your might, you wanted to scream from above on how this was truly unfair. Wanting someone— anyone to hear you curse at the world you were forced to live in. It hurts your lungs, it was indeed hard to grasp small bits of oxygen when your insides felt like they were shrinking from the compact.

You wish you could scream at your mother that deep inside you still loved her. Even as a child who never received the motherly love they deserved, you loved her dearly. It was by instincts and the remains of your vision as a baby, being held in someone arms in hushing your cries.

The surface felt so firm unlike you remembered how it was when you were young. Yet the warm embrace felt nostalgic as it shielded you from the cold blistering wind of the night, you find yourself searching against the surface without a care of any danger or anything anymore. You wanted to be comforted for once. To not feel alone.

"Please don't cry."

Small hushes drowned out your sobs, an arm wrapped firmly around your waist while the other pets your head at the outmost caring matter. Curling closer, your hand held the one on top of your head. Taking in the rough texture, but reminding yourself that someone was now here in your time of need. Here after being away most of the times.

"Yeah, it's me." sensing your troubles as he averts his gaze away from you as if he was embarrassed. "I heard what happened. I managed to finish up much just to get here." next to him was the blade he carries around. Probably less hazardous as to why he place it down.

"Yuta.." sobbing as you clutched on the white material he wore. He immediately reverts back to soothing you in your distressed state. Something about the way he holds you only made you tear up more. It broke his heart in pieces to see you hold onto him as if he was the only person left to anchor yourself. And here he thought he had it worse back then, your body language brought this resemblance to the girl he used to hold just as he was doing now.

"Shh, I promise you that none of those words said about you is true."

Easier said, he knew that. It was easy to reassure someone of their thoughts, but it's not that easy to erase. The mind is a wondrous and torturous place to be in. Old memories can be dug out to the surface and you'd still feel the emotion like it just happened yesterday. Oh if you had Yuta's vision of you, you'd believe in his words.

A strong role model like you is exactly the reason why Yuta aims to be the strongest as well. To help people realize that strength isn't found in the words of other human beings, but within yourself. Yes, it's a harsh world we live in. Those who feel lowly amongst themselves would drag those above them. And those who feel the surge of entitlement snarls at those below them.

But no matter who it is that doubts you, and your potentials, there would always be someone behind you, with the glimmer in their eyes, you are their hope and inspiration in some ways.

That is what Yuta murmurs next to your ear, your cries now subsided to focus on his voice. "You're doing great. We've seen it. I've seen it." facing you with his boyish smiles, you wondered how'd this guy who came looking like a ragged mess become someone twinkling brighter than the stars above the night sky. It was contagious, it made you smile so minimal.

"There's that pretty smile." chuckling, he pats your head softly like treating a little kid. Yuta knows deep down that he can't fully resolve the thoughts inside of you— one of these days you'll have these moments again. And it saddens him because he's often away from you. Yet he's breathless at the fact that you're able to hold yourself off with all these tormenting you.

"You're amazing, darling." came out lower than a whisper before his lips closed in with yours. Last time he kissed you boy was he sweating buckets. He wasn't even as bold as now to be able to initiate first and pull you flush against his chest. But the erratic pace of his heart still was the same as ever. The loudness that had clouded you vanished. All you could hear now were pleasant chorus played by the crickets of the night and the wind lacing together throughout the atmosphere.

He promises to do much more with you for the time being. Help you mend the wounds no one can see and assist with the battles you two could only share and understand. One day as he stated before he would walk through the doors of your clan and prove to them that you were the diamond in the rough they've thrown but he's found.

You were his own butterfly. Beautiful to his eyes, you bestowed your wings; and to yours you cannot see but for people to admire.

"Give yourself more credit. You've done so much, my love."

© all content belongs to mochikeiji. Please do not repost or copy, ありがとうございました!! (=^･^=)

[animeomegas]

Hi!!!, first, congratulations on 1000 followers!I wanted to ask you something, could you make a list of omegas that would have worse self esteem during pregnancy.if you can't don't worry, have a nice day and again congratulations.

(Hey, thank you so much for your congratulations!! Hmm, I’m sure I can make a little list~)

Warnings: Insecurities of all sorts, mentions of sex.

Insecure over appearance:

· Itachi – Itachi is worried about how skinny and sickly he is. He’s always been on the small side but pregnancy has stopped him being able to keep much food down, and so he just kept getting smaller and smaller. It’s a small insecurity at first, but he does find himself staring at his reflection and wondering if his mate finds him attractive. Itachi goes a long while without sex because of how sick he gets during pregnancy and after birth, and that feeds the insecurity that his alpha doesn’t find him attractive.

· Tamaki – He’s completely fine until he gets lost in a rabbit hole on some parenting and omega focused forums. He finds all these posts from other omegas about how their alphas don’t find them attractive anymore, and about how they’ve stopped having sex. Now, Tamaki is extremely sexually needy during his pregnancy, so he’s suddenly paralysed with fear. Has his alpha been forcing themselves this whole time? Have they just been doing it to please him without enjoying it themselves? He cries about it quite a bit until his alpha finds out and knocks a little bit of sense into him.

· Asmo – Asmo puts so much effort into his physical appearance. He’s very proud of it and he’s very reliant on his appearance to carry his self-esteem. So, a drastic change of any sort would be extremely distressing. He buys every cream and treatment imaginable to stop stretch marks, and acne etc. but things still change with his body. And because Asmo views his worth through looks, he assumes that his alpha does also. He tries to hide, to turn down sex, but of course, this alerts his alpha immediately to the fact that something is wrong. He never really gets over the insecurities while he’s still pregnant, but his alpha can minimise the effects with copious love and praise.

· Julian – He’s extremely insecure as it is, constantly questioning why his alpha finds him attractive at all but being pregnant adds enough layer on to the pre-existing insecurities. He always tries to reassure his alpha that they don’t have to touch him if they don’t want, that they should leave the room before he gets changed or when he’s bathing because they probably don’t want to see him like that. His insecurities run very deeply, just like Asmo’s, so they can’t be fixed, but they can be helped with lots of comfort and reassurance.

Insecure over abilities (e.g., being weak physically etc.):

· Sasuke – The fact that he can’t go on missions or train pisses him off. And as the months go by, he’s gaining weight and losing muscle definition and it freaks him out because he feels like he’s losing who he is which drops his self-esteem. Training has been a part of his life for as long as he can remember. Just design some softer workout routines for him with a mednin and remind him that he can still practice throwing kunai before he loses his goddamn mind.

· Bakugou – The physical condition of his body changing isn’t that big of a deal for him. He has a very small tummy, especially considering he’s pregnant with twins, and he knows he can bounce back after the birth because he’s super dedicated to his physical routine. What he’s not so confident about is the slipping control he has over his quirk. He has (had) an iron clad control, and the random explosions while pregnant are so embarrassing. Not to mention the disruption that his quirk causes in his nest. He has to replace so many cushions which makes his instincts go wild because significant changes to an omega’s nest while pregnant is distressing. If his friends tease him about the loss of control, he gets genuinely mad about because it’s something of a sore spot.

· Jumin – Jumin tries to keep his life while pregnant as close to his life before being pregnant as possible and in many ways, he nails it. He buys copies of his favourite suits and has them tailored every other week to fit his growing stomach. He buys non-alcoholic wine and drinks it with a grimace. He schedules lots of massages to keep the aches and pains away, so he feels normal. But there is one thing that isn’t so easy to keep normal: his emotions. Now, this fits into this category rather than the one below because Jumin gets insecure about how his emotional control impacts his ability to work. His emotions had never impacted his career before, but now he can’t help but tear up when he gets overstressed, he can’t work long hours without getting lonely and wanting to go home, he can’t take business trips because he doesn’t want to leave his nest for too long. It makes him feel a little like he’s lost himself because these things are things he’s been doing with ease for his entire life. He’s quite irritated by it and it damages his self esteem somewhat.

Insecure emotionally (e.g., unsure about being a good parent etc.):

· Tamaki –Tamaki also makes it onto this category. His insecurities are very specific, but he worries about being a bad role model socially for his pup. If his alpha is very socially adept, I’m not sure he would worry as much, because he knows that his pup can learn from their other parent, but if Tamaki’s alpha is also a little shy or prefers not being around people, then he gets really worried about it. Him being so shy and anxious has really impacted his life and he really doesn’t want it to impact his pup in the same way. He really worries that he’ll be a bad influence in that regard. (but the prospect of an extremely extroverted child is an equally terrifying concept in a different way haha.)

· Lucifer – He is very worried about being a good parent because all he can focus on is the past times when he wasn’t a good older brother. I mean, Satan hates him, and that’s as close to a father/child bond that Lucifer has, so surely that must mean he’s not cut out to be a father? He’s not good at emotions or reasonable punishments or showing affection or… well, point is he doesn’t think he has what it takes to be a good parent, when all he’s ever had is a shitty father himself, and all he’s ever been, is a shitty older brother that drove his family apart.

· Levi – Levi is insecure about most things that have to do with himself, so it’s not surprising that he gets very insecure about being a good parent which drops his self-esteem to an all time low. He can’t even watch any anime that focuses too much on parent/child relationships because he can’t help but compare himself every time, and he works himself up into a mini panic. It’s difficult to calm Levi’s insecurities but his partner can help him somewhat.

· Hawks – Keigo is very insecure about his abilities to protect his pup. His has this conspiracy theory that the hero commission will try to kidnap his child. They were furious when they found out he was pregnant during the peak of his career and they pushed him heavily towards abortion. Keigo leaked the pregnancy news to the public to force the commission’s hands, but he’s still so paranoid that they’ll stage a 'tragic accident' for his pup to force him back into hero work, or try and kidnap and raise his pup as they raised him. He doesn’t have any proof, per se, but he’s terrified that he can’t protect his pup so he really doesn’t like to leave his alpha’s presence. When he’s close to his due date, he’s too insecure with all his conspiracy theories clouding his mind to even let his alpha shower by themselves.

· V – Jihyun sort of convinces himself that he’s cursed when it comes to looking after people (Rika, Saeyoung, Saeran), so he’s very upset by the prospect that he’ll probably fail at raising his child too. He originally says that he wants to give the pup up for adoption to save them, but eventually you talk him around and start working through his problems. He just doesn’t thing he’ll be a good role model. The longer he waits to have children after the more traumatic events of his life, the less these issues crop up.

Miscellaneous:

· Aizawa – Shouta gets insecure when people pay too much attention to him being pregnant. He doesn’t like people giving up their seats for him on public transport, he doesn’t like his students and colleagues asking invasive questions, he doesn’t like those awful shop attendants that try to shoehorn him into buying baby supplies he doesn’t need. He wishes people would just treat him normally. (and he absolutely starts to activate his quirk every time someone tries to touch his tummy without asking first.) But yeah, all the eyes and attention makes him super uncomfortable and it makes him overanalyse everything he does which does impact his self esteem.

· Light – Light has a very specific insecurities while pregnant which revolve around the fear that he’s lowering himself by carrying a pup. All his life he’s had people tell him that because he’s an omega, he should give up on all his dreams and have pups and stay home instead. It really doesn’t sit well with him that he’s doing what all those awful people told him to do (at least it feels that way to him). He feels ashamed and he hates it. He avoids everything stereotypical while pregnant. He’ll kick you in the face if you try to rub his feet, he does everything in his power to avoid giving in to cravings, and he doesn’t make a nest. It all takes a serious toll on his health but it would take one hell of a stubborn alpha to get him to bend on any of that. It puts a strain on the relationship.

[whorevader]

And every one of these answers is total bullshit, because it's the characters internalizing and automatically assuming responsibility - reflexively due to being made to assume responsibility for so long - for circumstances outside of their control.

Anakin wasn't particularly ill-suited to being the Chosen One, and he didn't fail to properly be the Chosen One due to some intrinsic and nebulous wrongness within him. The role he was made to play and position he was put in was, in itself, the reason for these failures. He is responsible for the ways he lashes out at others as a result, but the failures themselves - not saving his mother or Padme, not helping Ahsoka, wanting to pursue his own happiness beyond the role the Jedi prepare him for, having fears, having traumas, having doubts and expressing them, sometimes rightfully - are not actual failures. They are shortcomings according to the expectations of others who devalue him as a person.

Obi-Wan, similarly, puts his perceived failures down to his inability to meet expectations. In this case, the expectation is to accomplish the goals of the council and manifest the Light's intentions by modelling what they wish Anakin to become, and correcting adverse behavior to shape Anakin into a Jedi better equipped to serve his purpose. His assignment, because that is what their relationship is founded upon, the Council's assignment of Anakin to Obi-Wan as a duty, evolves into a bond of personal care, as is natural. Thus when Anakin falls, and before that, whenever he simply wavers or is scolded, Obi-Wan feels responsible on a spiritual, professional, and personal level, despite the fact that the expectations themselves, as well as the prescribed means of achieving them, are not healthy or fair.

And Padme has been a world leader since fourteen. She was made to spill blood and condemn people to die not just in her name but due to her decision-making as an authority figure. She accepted enormous power and privilege for the sake of furthering her ideals and helping others, then naturally made mistakes with magnificent costs. If you were bullied as a fifteen-year-old and still feel like people are lying when they seem to like you as an adult, understand what it would be like to watch people die to keep you alive so you might live and lead your people as a teenager. I had more thoughts on Padme but my best friend is calling me I'll come back to this later maybe.

One of my favorite ways to try and understand a character is to ask myself, if I asked this character what they thought their biggest flaw was, what would be their honest answer? And then looking at exactly how wrong they are and why.