#without someone barging in | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

lymtw · 2 months ago

Text

Toji can't ignore the sounds of your moans and whimpers through the wall. He's sitting on the couch, in the living room, unable to do anything about it, because you're still mad at him, and he's frustrated as hell, because he's so painfully hard, that he can see his dick twitching against the front of his sweats. He refuses to take care of it himself when he knows you're only a room away. To his convenience, you're already in the mood—clearly—but to his inconvenience, you're punishing him. You're scattering his name into your moans to throw salt in the wound, to really make it unbearable, and truthfully, it's getting to him.

Toji reached his limit when he heard you let out a sharp gasp, followed by the sound of those cries you let out when you cum hard. He strides over to your shared bedroom, opening the door to reveal your naked lower body, and your tank top scrunched up over your chest. His breath hitches, the throbbing in his pants intensifying as he rakes his eyes over your frame and absorbs the entire sight of you.

"You're really gonna get yourself off to the thought of me, when i'm right outside?" His incredulous tone doesn't do a good job of hiding the desperation that led him to barge into the room where you're splayed out so indecently.

"Mhm..." you hum, blissfully. You release a heavy, satisfied sigh. "That's exactly what I just did, 'cause you're on a time out," you say, tugging your shirt back down and pulling up your underwear, before sitting up to search for your shorts. "Don't worry. I finished. I'm done torturing you."

He can't let it be over. This normally wouldn't be enough to satisfy you. From what he heard, it seems like you only came once.

"Baby, no," he almost whines. He's outwardly desperate for you, having gone way too long without being allowed to touch you, intimately. "Let me. Please," he says, climbing onto the bed. His hands make contact with the skin of your bare legs and glide over the length of your shins, continuing their way up to part your thighs to make room for him to wedge himself between them.

"I did what you asked of me. Said I was sorry and repeated after you to call myself dumb." It was such a silly moment that made the storm in your mind subside for a minute or two.

Toji resists the urge to smile when he sees you suppressing the curl of your own lips. His hands go to your waist, not stopping there. The warmth of his palms travels up your edges, meeting the sides of your breasts and briefly palming the tops of them, in order to get to your shoulders. He grips your shoulders, using them as leverage to guide you back down to the bed. Focus is embedded into his features as he takes the thin material of your shirt between his rough fingertips and peels it off your skin until he reveals the gorgeous view of one of his favorite parts of your body.

Like a domestic cat, he lays his body on you, and plants his face between your breasts. It doesn't take long for him to begin appreciating your chest, pressing multiple slow kisses to your skin. He's basking in the softness you withheld from him.

"What else do you want from me, doll?"

You let out a small, quiet sigh, through your nose. You feel a little irritated with yourself for not even putting up a fight against his affection. You always say you're not going to let him touch you for a certain amount of time, as punishment for the dumb things he does, and yet somehow it always ends up this way—him nuzzling into your chest.

"I want you to stop being a jealous maniac," you say, the words coming out softer than you intended them to, as you welcome defeat and run your fingers through his soft, dark locks.

"Mm-mm, anything but that," he responds, muffled by your warm skin. His hands caress your body, rubbing your waist and massaging your hips in a manner that would induce relaxation under different circumstances. You can't let yourself fall into that comfort until you've talked things out.

"Toji, you flashed your gun at someone who mistook me for somebody else." You attempt to keep yourself composed in order to communicate the issue efficiently. There's no need to raise your voice when you have him right there, lying comfortably on your chest.

"Mhm, I did that," Toji confirms, before planting a soft kiss on the inner side of your right breast. "The dickwad must have been real blind if he had to get so close." He feels your chest rise with a deep inhale, then hears you let out the breath. With that, he knows you're still upset and he has to further elaborate on his actions. "He had his filthy paws on you and everything. I did what I thought was best to get him to fuck off."

You hum in mere acknowledgment. "Uh-huh, that's definitely the way to go about it. God forbid you verbalize your discomfort before threatening to use a bullet."

You feel a warm puff of air on your chest, similar to the sigh you let out, but less audible, and then a kiss directly between your breasts.

"I was right next to you, ma. He was looking at you in a way that he shouldn't have been. He looked at you the same way that I look at you. You don't need that from anyone else. And that stupid ass thing he said about supposedly feeling like he's seen you somewhere? He clearly said it to get a good look at you from up close."

"You really are insane, aren't you?" You ask, rhetorically, stilling the hand that's on the back of his head.

"Doll, I hate the idea of pulling the gun out in front of you. I don't ever wanna have to use it and scare you in the process, but he was actively trying to steal you from me. If he were just ogling you from afar, I might've acted differently, but he touched you. He fucking touched you. Who does shit like that?"

Toji can feel his blood boiling again, so he refocuses on your chest. He doesn't want to think about what happened anymore, when he's in his happy place, where he knows he belongs.

"Alright, Toji. Take a deep breath." You softened your voice to simmer down his emotions. You resumed the movement of your fingers carding through his hair, aiding him in calming down more.

He does as you say and releases a heavy breath. It's riddled with his discontented feelings. "You're supposed to be mine," he mumbles, before finally latching his lips around your nipple.

Toji needs reassurance, too. Him being an attractive, enormous, hulking man, has nothing to do with how secure he feels around you, his lover. It's easy to think that because he manages to turn heads wherever he goes, that he'll be fine when you get those same reactions, but the way you have him now, is proof that insecurity can reach even him. He needs to know that he's not going to lose you so easily, especially to someone as ridiculous as the man who managed to unsettle him.

You look down at him as he takes all the comfort he needs from your chest. "I'm all yours, Toji. You're the only one who will ever get a pass for that kind of psychotic behavior."

He hums, releasing your breast, before resting the side of his face down on your chest. "You make it sound like i'm toxic towards you."

Your chest jumps as you laugh, a gesture that makes Toji lift his gaze to look at you. Your expression managed to make him lighten up a little more.

"You're crazy, but I love you, regardless."

He groans, the sound cushioned by your soft skin. You're the one thing that holds up his sanity, yet somehow you're also the one who tests it by saying things like that to him.

"Let me have you," he says, his kisses beginning to trail up, towards your neck. "Please, let me have you, mama."

"Are you gonna keep threatening people when you get jealous?" You ask, your lips curling as be continues to kiss your delicate skin.

"Mhm," he confirms. "Like I said and you said," he speaks, into your neck, "you're mine. If people don't know it, i'll make sure they get it on the first go. There's no need to make mistakes."

You laugh. "Your possessiveness is intense."

"You're not a joke, to me," he says, looking at you. His expression is as serious as what he just said.

You grab the rolled up fabric of your shirt, with the intention of covering yourself. The ambience has gone more serious and it feels wrong to be so exposed in the moment.

"Don't cover yourself, yet. I want you, baby. Please." His knuckles graze your cheek, affectionately. Despite your chest being out on full display, his attention is centered on your face. He's reading your expression. You were laughing a few seconds ago and now you're as still as him.

"Be nice to me. I don't want you to be rough, this time." It's back to back gentleness with the way your voice reaches him and your smile manages to soothe the remaining sting he's feeling. It's like you're showing him the way you want him to handle you. "I'm yours, Toji. No amount of speed or aggression from your body against mine, will have an impact on the fact. Okay?"

He keeps his eyes on you for a couple more seconds, like he's letting your words sink in and fully envelop him. He repositions his hand, so that he's cupping your cheek, and a couple slow strokes of his thumb against your skin gave him the courage to lean down and kiss you. The second his lips meet yours, he wants more. Infinitely more. He's chasing kiss after kiss from you, utterly drunk on the feeling of your hands pulling him closer by his shirt. He'll consume you, at this point.

"Hm?" You hum, still awaiting his response.

"Got it, baby," he says, before connecting his lips to yours once more. He peppers the rest of your face with kisses, luring giggles from you at the barrage of affection.

This isn't the first time Toji has been revoked of his 'you privileges', and gotten them back, instantly. This has occurred many times in the years that you've been together. Going into a relationship with him, you never thought he'd be the jealous type, much less the type who would threaten someone's life over getting overly cozy with you. The first time he pulled something similar to this, it was a little frightening. You knew he kept a gun on him sometimes, but you figured it was strictly for life or death situations.

You were wrong.

Some weirdo was getting too comfortable with you, hand wrapped around your wrist and all. You clearly remember Toji being visibly bothered, because someone thought they could just swoop in and steal your focus from him. He watched for a minute or two as the man took in your beauty and complimented you on every aspect of your appearance. He really did his best to get you to follow him to his table, and though Toji thought the whole thing was a pathetic attempt, he couldn't help the feelings that began to bubble up as the man squeezed your arm. Toji did a dog whistle to grab the man's attention, and when he looked, he lifted his shirt, just enough to show the grip of his gun. Your stomach twisted and you felt like your heart was going to lurch out of your chest. The stranger just stood there for a second, looking at Toji, condescendingly, as if to insinuate that he knew he was bluffing, and when Toji reached for and grabbed ahold of the gun's handle, that same cocky man paled. He didn't even have to pull out the whole gun—the man had walked away by the time he had the grip in his hand— but you remained worried that he would notify someone about what happened, so you and Toji left.

To this day, Toji still scares people that way when he notices them invading your space in a manner that doesn't sit right with him. You're not scared anymore, when he does it, but the frustration of having to ditch wherever you are, in fear of being ratted out by whoever Toji threatened? It's still there, and you feel it every time. You know he does it out of love for you, but sometimes you wish he would take a second to talk to you, before he even thinks of hurting someone.

Toji has kissed your entire torso, by now. Your chest wasn't exempt from his attention, despite the amount of time he already spent on it. If anything, he refined the love he gave it with purposeful movement and significance towards every spot his lips brushed.

He nears your lower abdomen, wet kisses placed beneath your navel, going lower and lower until you can feel his breath being filtered through the front of your underwear. His hands go beneath the elastic band, cupping your hips without restriction as he kisses your clothed pelvis.

Your breathing picks up the slightest bit when his lips meet your slit through the thin layer. His tongue comes out and he does an experimental swipe of it against the fabric. You feel the space immediately heat up, from your arousal and from the warm wetness of his tongue, itself.

"Stay still for me, mama," he murmurs, kissing your inner thighs after spotting the quiver in them. "You nervous?" He asks, with a small curl of his lips.

"Of course, I am." You look into his eyes as you confirm it. You love him so dearly, that even after the years you've spent together, you still feel lightning coursing through you when he has you this way. This electric feeling doesn't prevent you from letting yourself enjoy what he gives you, nor does it hinder you from touching him and making him feel good. You don't become more hesitant towards him, because by now, you're well aware that your love for him coexists with butterflies. They reside in you, and are able to be lured out by him at any instant, despite your knowledge of the fact that he would gladly be someone's cause of death if they don't keep themselves in check around you.

"Love you," he says, kneading your hips as he leans in to press a few more warm kisses to your thinly veiled cunt. His eyes dart up to your face when you don't respond—he's a little lost on why you didn't say it back— until he sees how despite the way you just admitted to your nerves, he has you entirely at ease. You have a hand flat on the sheets, occasionally moving against the material beneath it, while your other hand rests on your stomach. Your chest is steady and your attention is on the ceiling, your expression serene—ethereally so.

His hands run down your hips, warm palms squeeze and feel up your thighs, gaining your eyes on him again. "You're not gonna say it back?" He asks, his voice deep enough to make the ache between your legs just that much more intense.

"You already know I do," you say, contrasting his demeanor with a giggle. He looks like a needy puppy with that glint that presents itself in his eyes.

"Mhm, doesn't mean I don't wanna hear it, again, or do you not love me, right now?"

You're caught by surprise with that one, a small, almost inaudible gasp, leaving you at the words. "I love you all the time, Toji. I love you now and I loved you earlier when I was pissed. It's not going away."

He's a little more impatient for you, now. His movement doesn't speed up, but his heartbeat is in his ears, and there's a tremble in his hands as he reaches for the elastic of your underwear. He pulls the garment down, wanting to smell and taste you more clearly. His cock jumps at the sight revealed. You're still so wet. He lets out a shuddered breath, now that your lower half is completely bared for him. His mouth comes closer and closer and his tongue comes out, making contact with your throbbing cunt for the first time.

"Toji." The sound is soft—unexaggerated—as his tongue laps at your warmth, tasting the sweet wetness that coats it. He could stay like this for hours, worshipping your entire body, while you touch him and gift him the prettiest sounds ever. He can't get enough of you, which is why when it looks like you're going to close your legs, he pins them down, entirely. His hands splay over your thighs and he keeps them there, because he isn't going to fight to give you the pleasure you deserve. He'll love on you until your body is begging him to stop, because he knows that your mouth can be misleading, at times.

He's taking it slow, just like you wanted him to. The most stimulation comes from him lightly sucking on your clit for brief moments at a time, just to hear your moans get the slightest bit louder. Every time he releases your sensitive pearl, he goes back to running his tongue through your drooling slit, the tip of the muscle nudging your clit, causing it to throb with need. Each graze of the wet warmth, makes you wonder if you should ask him to go faster, though you were the one who asked for this gentleness. You don't want to seem indecisive or come off as doubtful that he can make you cum this way. You know he can, but god, you want so much more. You feel like you're the one who's going insane with every flick of his tongue.

"That good, mama? Or do you want it slower?" He gives you a teasing smirk. Toji knows how you are. You say you want him to be soft and gentle with you, but when the time comes, you want more than what's given to you. You delve into greediness as seconds turn to minutes. You both have nowhere to be. Time is yours, and Toji intends to take advantage of that. He's going to fulfill your needs the way you want him to, but that doesn't mean he loses awareness of your little ticks. He feels the small twitches of your legs beneath his hands every time you feel his nose bump into your clit just before it gets hit by his tongue. He sees the way your hips sink into the mattress and your body quivers when they rise, again.

"G-Good. Don't go any slower," you respond, holding your voice as steady as possible.

"Mm... Faster?" He asks, his tone so calm yet sultry, that you can't tell if he's patronizing you. He doesn't miss the way light flashes, briefly, through your features. In an instant, you regain your composure. A simple hum is offered in response—a wordless brush off of his suggestion. The sound makes Toji smirk. How stubborn of you.

"I won't hold it against you," he says, pressing a kiss to the crease that joins your pelvis and your thigh, leaving an echoing feeling of need in your core. "Just say the word, ma." He presses more kisses to your skin, as if he's trying to persuade you to let him devour you.

"Mm-mm, this is good."

It's not what he's trying to get out of you, but he can keep going until you're hanging on by a measly thread.

He continues on with that same pace—licking, suckling, prodding—so gently, luring the cutest little mewls from you. It took a little longer, but eventually, your body started trembling with impending release.

"I'm gonna- Toji," you cry, tightening your fists around the sheets as he slowly circles his tongue over your clit, focusing on it entirely. Your moans grow needier and needier as you near the edge through such delicateness. The anticipation is killing him. He wants you to be louder. You wouldn't hate him for bringing you more pleasure, would you? It's a risk he's willing to take.

Without another doubt, he's messily making out with your cunt, causing more of your sweet nectar to drool out at a more rapid pace. Your breath hitches, a sharper rendition of his name cried out. Your hand reaches downward and grabs a fistful of his hair, tugging on it as he continues to ravage you. Your moans sound absolutely filthy. He doesn't detach his mouth from you for a single second. His hands finally release their pin on your thighs, allowing you to fully suffocate him when they shut around his head. His arms hook around your thighs, a harsh grip on them to keep you from scooting away from his relentless mouth when you cum. It's another strong, orgasm, that has you arching your back off the mattress and squirming as he continues devouring you through the intense sensation. Your hips roll in an attempt to get more of his mouth on you. Only when you start whimpering and attempting to twist out of his hold, does he ease up. He goes back to the original pace, soft kitten licks through your slit to lap up every drop of your sweetness, earning small twitches from your body, due to the sensitivity you feel.

You release the hold you have on his hair and relax your legs, unbending them and letting them fall comfortably on the bed. He finishes you off with a few kisses, thin strings of his saliva and your cum sticking to his lips, before snapping every time he loses contact with your cunt. His warm palms caress your thighs—a comforting gesture, as your sounds come to a halt and all that is heard is your breathing.

"You're so impatient," you playfully chide, a breathy laugh following.

"You wanted more," he responds, one more kiss placed on you before he licks his lips clean. "I'm really good at reading you."

"Yeah? You think so?" You ask, a teasing grin on your face.

"I know so," he responds. "Wouldn't it just be the worst if we've been together this long, and I didn't know almost everything about you, by now?" He repositions himself, now sitting on his knees to start ridding himself of his own clothes.

You manage a hum and a nod as you watch Toji pull off his shirt.

"Good thing that's not the case, and I do know basically everything about you. Down to the way your body reacts to me— the signals you create that let me know you're gonna cum all over my tongue, when your pretty mouth can't form words."

"So vulgar," you say, through flustered giggles.

"You can take it, mama," he teases, a smirk growing on his lips as you watch him pull off his sweats. His eyes stay on yours, as he kicks them off, letting them slide off the bed and onto the floor, before crawling back between your legs. You can feel his clothed hard-on pressing against your core as he takes your lips in his again. He's addicted to the feeling of your warm body against his.

His hands come down to cup your waist, his fingers molding into the soft flesh with every squeeze they offer. He pauses the make out, small breaths leaving him.

"Baby," he says, his voice almost a whisper, his lustfully darkened eyes narrowed on your starry ones. "I'm gonna kill the next person who hits on you in front of me." He goes back in for a few more quick kisses. "I'm not joking. I can't keep sparing them."

"Shh... All yours, Toji," you murmur, softly, pulling him back in to continue the flow of kisses. Your hand goes to the nape of his neck, the other settles on his shoulder. You hear him groaning quietly into the kisses as he continues grinding his hips into yours.

"Fuck, doll," he groans, pausing his lips on yours once again. "I need you."

You laugh, a warm sound that just adds on to his desire to have you. "So, take me, baby. I'm ready for you."

He gives you one more peck, the slyest smirk playing on his lips as he watches you lean forward for another one, only to be met with nothing.

"Ass," you grumble, playfully shoving his chest.

He chuckles, a deep rumble of a sound as he sits back to remove his boxers. He's not even ashamed of the mess of precum that accumulated in them. If anything, he's surprised he was able to hold in his load this entire time. Pleasantly surprised, because every drop will go to you, as always.

One minute you're sitting up to fully remove your shirt, pulling it up over your head, the next, in what seems like a flash, you're pushed back onto the bed, hands pinned above your head.

You giggle, looking up at him with a lingering smile. "Gentle."

"Mhm," he hums, leaning down to kiss your neck. "So gentle." Two misleading words that don't prepare you for the sensation of his teeth sinking into the crook of your neck.

Your bubbly laughter homes into his ears when his tongue runs over the indentations, luring a huff of a laugh from him.

You feel his cock run through your slick folds, his hips moving back and forth, slowly. Quiet breaths fill the silence that takes over the intimate moment. Toji runs his length through your slit one more time, before finally pushing his tip in. You gasp, feeling his cock begin to drive into you.

"F-Fuck, baby, let me touch you."

"In a minute." He sounds so calm and collected, but you can feel the grip he has on your wrists tighten and the bluntness of his nails pressing into your skin.

"No. Please."

"In a minute," he repeats.

"Pretty please?"

"You're so conflicting, mama. Love that you're begging, but at the same time, you're not listening." His hips draw back and thrust right back into you, his cock filling you up entirely, again.

"Oh fuck. Okay. Please, Toji," you whine.

Toji hums dismissively and picks up a rhythm that manages to get you to stop thinking about your pinned wrists. He lures soft, little moans out of you, listening closely as he plants warm, wet kisses on the side of your face, from your temple to your jaw.

"Just let me be good to you, baby. Alright?"

You hum, nodding your head.

"Yes?"

"Please, yes."

His thrusts become even more precise as he focuses on bringing pleasure to both of you, deep groans and grunts blending together with your higher pitched moans. A few minutes pass and you feel the pressure on your arms ease up, your hands free to roam without restriction. The first thing you do is cup his jaw and bring him in for breathy kisses. You keep your hands on his face and he lets you turn his head in every which way to cover him with kisses. Your affection is intoxicating, and he can't get enough of it. He lets out a breathy laugh when you practically have a make out session with the scar on his lips, your melodic sounds of pleasure released against the strike as he continues to fuck into you. The last kiss you leave on the cicatrix is a big one. One that makes the obnoxious kissy sound and everything. He swipes his tongue over his scar, as if he's trying to catch remnants of the sugar you coated it with.

"Love you," you say, eyes darting over his handsome features and the lovestruck expression they create. You feel the way his hips stutter against you, his abs tensing with restraint before he recomposes himself. You glide your hands up and down his arms and repeat yourself for him. "Love you so much, Toji. I'm yours."

"Fuck— I fucking love you. You're all mine. My baby." He mutters more inaudible curses under his breath, his grip on your waist getting harsher and his thrusts growing quicker, with every sweet confirmation you offer. You whimper, nails digging into his biceps as you withstand the feeling of his cock relentlessly brushing that spot within you that makes you melt beneath him.

"Oh fuck, i'm close." He groans, feeling the way your walls spasm around him at the words. "Yeahhh, you want it, huh, baby? Want my cum?"

A shaky breath leaves you, your face observed up close and personal by Toji, through lust-brimmed, enamored, obsessed eyes. You squirm under all of him— his zoned in attention on you, his touch, his hot, tacky skin, his cock buried inside you—dragging in and out of your soft walls, in a manner that has your toes curling to the brink of actual pain. His fingers find your clit and rub it in rapid circular motions, causing your body to jolt at the sudden intensity of the enhanced pleasure.

You look up at him with your sparkling eyes. "Please... P-Please, Toji? I want it. Want you," you utter, as he brings you closer to your own orgasm.

"Fuck, okay. Okay, baby, gonna give it all to you." His hips pick up their pace a little more and he buries his face into your neck. You can hear the string of grunts and shuddered breaths that pair with his unraveling, right beneath your ear. Deep moans and pants flow past his lips, and his nails begin to leave crescent shapes on your sides. You feel his hot breath on your neck, the open mouthed puffs of air accompanied by the lewd sounds of him filling you with his warm, creamy cum. As he continues rutting into you, riding out every second of his orgasm and then some to get every last drop of his cum into you, he bites your delicate skin, the placement only a few centimeters above where he bit you the first time. He stays there for a few seconds, breathing heavily through his mouth and nose, before he loosens his bite, the gesture transitioning to sloppy kisses over the wet, saliva-coated indentations.

"Cum, doll," Toji mutters, feeling the way your cunt flutters around him when his fingers relocate your throbbing bundle of nerves. Your head sinks back into the pillow, allowing him to drag his kisses up the column of your neck, to feel the vibration of your sounds beneath his lips. Your nails go to his shoulders, dragging across the toned area of muscles, surely leaving behind some scratches. You cry out in utter bliss, your force of an orgasm echoing through your entire being. "There you go, mama," Toji purrs, in response to your body releasing the tension that came with the intensity of your pleasure. You tremble, your small, rapid whimpers and breaths evolving into full blown, unholy moans. "So, so pretty," he drawls out, engraving yet another one of your euphoric expressions into his memory. His fingers leave your clit, and his hips slow down to the point of merely grinding into you, to lure those final little whines out, before stilling entirely.

You shut your eyes to focus on calming your heaving chest for a few seconds, and when you open them again, you have the prettiest pair of green eyes staring down at you. You give Toji a lazy smile and a laugh, a sight that makes him feel warm and fuzzy inside. His heart races as he absorbs the visuals of your post-orgasm haze. Your luminous eyes devour him, that little satisfied smirk on your face is everything— god, he loves that you laugh even more at the way he can't stop staring at you.

Just like that, Toji is reminded of what got this sight revoked from him in the first place. He still doesn't feel like he's in the wrong for wanting to murder anyone who has far from just friendly intentions with you, but as you caress his face and hold his gaze with that tender look in your eyes, his desire to kill those who openly lust after you, becomes entirely justified in his mind. He's lost all reason to hold back. There's no longer any part of him that would feel remorse or guilt, even if you can't look him in the eyes for days after the matter. He'll grovel as much as he has to, to get you to give him your eyes, again. You'll just have to agree to disagree on this, because yes, you come home to him, you sleep in the same bed as him, you kiss and hold him, the body concealed by your clothes is a secret between you and him, you get tangled up in sheets with him and the lot of it— but he can't risk losing you to someone who's possibly better than him and searching for all the exact things you have to offer. You're for him, as he is for you.

Toji doesn't care how clingy he appears when you finish getting cleaned up and ready for bed. You carelessly toss yourself onto the mattress and pull the blanket over your body while you wait for Toji, who took the steps and walked around the bed to make it to his side. He finds your body beneath the covers and immediately rolls on top of you, adhering himself to you, again. His head rests on your chest, his arms wrapped tight around your body.

You're already prepared to give him the intimate aftercare that comes with days like this. You don't mind that he's heavy and that he's crushing you or that he's taking up all your space, again, after having been so close to you a little while ago. You'll do this is many times as you need to for him to understand that he's wanted and loved by you.

You press a kiss to the top of his head, and murmur a quiet 'love you'. Your fingers run through his damp hair, your nails gently scratching the back of his head, while your other hand rubs his back. You feel the extra warm skin of his shoulders, where you paid no mind to the pressure your nails applied on it, earlier.

"Does that hurt?" You ask, lightly tracing a couple of the mildly inflamed lines. He hums in denial, but you let up, anyway, and continue to just rub his back.

He groans quietly at your soothing touch, nuzzling further into you. "I'm yours, too, ma. All yours," he mumbles. "I don't want anyone else and I don't wanna see you with anyone else."

You smile softly at his admission. "You're more than enough for me, Toji. There's no one I want more than you— no, there's no one I want other than you," you correct. "You know how much I love you?"

"Mm... How much?" He asks, waiting for you to give him a number or even just an elongated 'so much', but instead, you surprise him with:

"I wouldn't be able to tell you."

He chuckles. "Really?"

"Yeah, really. If you want something accurate, I'll never shut up."

"Good thing I like when you talk my ear off. You wanna give me an inaccurate idea of how much?"

You hum like you're in thought, a giggle following when he pinches your waist, encouraging you to tell him. "I love you a lot, Toji. So much more than I will ever be able to say or show. We would have to conjoin our minds for you to understand exactly how much I love you, but even then, once our minds separate, your estimate will be entirely off again."

He lifts his head off your chest, and waits for his eyes to adjust to the darkness of the room. The moonlight seeping through the spaces between the curtains is the only source of light that allows him to get a mediocre view of you. "That's inaccurate?" He asks, looking at you with clear disbelief when his eyes finally adjust. You nod, smiling through the warmth that spread on your cheeks. "Now, I wanna know how much you love me, with complete accuracy. I have all the time in the world to listen to you, baby. Just keep talking to me." He presses a kiss to your cheek before lying back down on your chest and wrapping his arms around you, again.

You hugged him as tight as you could for a few seconds. The sound of you straining yourself made him laugh, because not only did he not let out a single groan, but you tired yourself out even more. You rested your arms on his back and just shut your eyes. It was the warmth and weight of his body on you, the feeling of his arms keeping you firmly against him, the security, that managed to lull you to sleep. Toji dozing off was simpler than that, because all he needs to be able to sleep soundly, is for you to be around.

12K notes · View notes

hesaysweshouldhavegirlsatwelton · 6 months ago

Text

Can’t help but love taking naps

#i love naps #I love sleeping in general #I go HONK MIMIMIMIMI #and then wake up in a grump when someone barges In my room without permission

0 notes

caelum-in-the-avatarverse · 6 months ago

Text

Fandom can do a little gatekeeping. As a treat.

So I finally decided to archive-lock my fics on AO3 last night. I’ve been considering it since the AI scrape last year, but the tipping point was this whole lore.fm debacle, coupled with some thoughts I’ve been thinking regarding Fandom These Days in general and Fandom As A Community in particular. So I wanna explain why I waited so long, why I locked my stuff up now, and why I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m a-okay with making it harder for people to see my stories.

Lurkers really are great, tho

I’m a chronic lurker, and have been since I started hanging out on the internet as a teen in the 00s. These days it’s just cuz I don’t feel a need to socialize very often, but back then it was because I was shy and knew I was socially awkward. Even if I made an account, I’d spend months lurking on message boards or forums or Livejournals, watching other people interact and getting a feel for that particular community’s culture and etiquette before I finally started interacting myself. And y’know, that approach saved me a lot of embarrassment. Over the course of my lurking on any site, there was always some other person who’d clearly joined up five minutes after learning the place existed, barged in without a care for their behavior, and committed so many social faux pas that all the other users were immediately annoyed with them at best. I learned a lot observing those incidents. Lurk More is Rule 33 of the internet for very good reason.

Lurking isn’t bad or weird or creepy. It’s perfectly normal. I love lurking. It’s hard for me to not lurk - socializing takes a lot of energy out of me, even via text. (Heck it took 12 hours for me to write this post, I wish I was kidding--) Occasionally I’ll manage longer bouts of interaction - a few weeks posting here, almost a year chatting in a discord there - but I’m always gonna end up going radio silent for months at some point. I used to feel bad about it, but I’ve long since made peace with the fact that it’s just the way my brain works. I’m a chronic lurker, and in the long term nothing is going to change that.

The thing with being a chronic lurker is that you have to accept that you are not actually seen as part of the community you are lurking in. That’s not to say that lurkers are unimportant - lurkers actually are important, and they make up a large proportion of any online community - but it’s simple cause and effect. You may think of it as “your community”, but if you’ve never said a word, how is the community supposed to know you exist? If I lurked on someone’s LJ, and then that person suddenly friendslocked their blog, I knew that I had two choices: Either accept that I would never be able to read their posts again, or reach out to them and ask if I could be added to their friends list with the full understanding that I was a rando they might not decide to trust. I usually went with the first option, because my invisibility as a lurker was more important to me than talking to strangers on the internet.

Lurking is like sitting on a park bench, quietly people-watching and eavesdropping on the conversations other people are having around you. You’re in the park, but you’re not actively participating in anything happening there. You can see and hear things that you become very interested in! But if you don’t introduce yourself and become part of the conversation, you won’t be able to keep listening to it when those people walk away. When fandom migrated away from Livejournal, people moved to new platforms alongside their friends, but lurkers were often left behind. No one knew they existed, so they weren’t told where everyone else was going. To be seen as part of a fandom community, you need to submit to the mortifying ordeal of being known, etc. etc.

There’s nothing wrong with lurking. There can actually be benefits to lurking, both for the lurkers and the communities they lurk in. It’s just another way to be in a fandom. But if that is how you exist in fandom--and remember, I say this as someone who often does exist that way in fandom--you need to remember that you’re on the outside looking in, and the curtains can always close.

I’ve always been super sympathetic to lurkers, because I am one. I know there’s a lot of people like me who just don’t socialize often. I know there’s plenty of reasons why someone might not make an account on the internet - maybe they’re nervous, maybe they’re young and their parents don’t allow them to, maybe they’re in a bad situation where someone is monitoring their activity, maybe they can only access the internet from public computer terminals. Heck, I’ve never even logged into AO3 on my phone--if I’m away from my computer I just read what’s publicly available.

I know I have people lurking on my fics. I know my fics probably mean a lot to someone I don’t even know exists. I know this because there are plenty of fics I love whose writers don’t know I exist.

I love my commenters personally; I love my lurkers as an abstract concept. I know they’re there and I wish them well, and if they ever de-lurk I love them all the more.

So up until last year I never considered archive-locking my fic, because I get it. The AI scraping was upsetting, but I still hesitated because I was thinking of lurkers and guests and remembering what it felt like to be 15 and wondering if it’d be worth letting a stranger on the internet know I existed and asking to be added to their friends list just so I could reread a funny post they made once.

But the internet has changed a lot since the 00s, and fandom has changed with it. I’ve read some things and been doing some thinking about fandom-as-community over the last few years, and reading through the lore.fm drama made me decide that it’s time for me to set some boundaries.

I still love my lurkers, and I feel bad about leaving any guest commenters behind, especially if they’re in a situation where they can’t make an account for some reason. But from here on out, even my lurkers are going to have to do the bare minimum to read my fics--make an AO3 account.

Should we gatekeep fandom?

I’ve seen a few people ask this question, usually rhetorically, sometimes as a joke, always with a bit of seriousness. And I think…yeah, maybe we should. Except wait, no, not like that--

A decade ago, when people talked about fandom gatekeeping and why it was bad to do, it intersected with a lot of other things, mainly feminism and classism. The prevalent image of fandom gatekeeping was, like, a man learning that a woman likes Star Wars and haughtily demanding, “Oh, yeah? Well if you’re REALLY a fan, name ten EU novels” to belittle and dismiss her, expecting that a “real fan” would have the money and time to be familiar with the EU, and ignoring the fact that male movie-only fans were still considered fans. The thing being gatekept was the very definition of “being a fan” and people’s right to describe themselves as one.

That’s not what I mean when I say maybe fandom should gatekeep more. Anyone can call themselves a fan if they like something, that’s fine. But when it comes to the ability to enjoy the fanworks produced by the fandom community…that might be something worth gatekeeping.

See, back in the 00s, it was perfectly common for people to just…not go on the internet. Surfing the web was a thing, but it was just, like, a fun pastime. Not everyone did it. It wasn’t until the rise of social media that going online became a thing everyone and their grandmother did every day. Back then, going on the internet was just…a hobby.

So one of the first gates online fandom ever had was the simple fact that the entire world wasn’t here yet.

The entire world is here now. That gate has been demolished.

And it’s a lot easier to find us now. Even scattered across platforms, fandom is so centralized these days. It isn’t a network of dedicated webshrines and forums that you can only find via webrings anymore, it’s right there on all the big social media sites. AO3 didn’t set out to be the main fanfic website, but that’s definitely what it’s become. It’s easy for people to find us--and that includes people who don’t care about the community, and just want “content.”

Transformative fandom doesn’t like it when people see our fanworks as “content”. “Content” is a pretty broad term, but when fandom uses it we’re usually referring to creative works that are churned out by content creators to be consumed by an audience as quickly as possible as often as possible so that the content creator can generate revenue. This not-so-new normal has caused a massive shift in how people who are new to fandom view fanworks--instead of seeing fic or art as something a fellow fan made and shared with you, they see fanworks as products to be consumed.

Transformative fandom has, in general, always been a gift economy. We put time and effort into creating fanworks that we share with our fellow fans for free. We do this so we don’t get sued, but fandom as a whole actually gets a lot out of the gift economy. Offer your community a story, and in return you can get comments, build friendships, or inspire other people to write things that you might want to read. Readers are given the gift of free stories to read and enjoy, and while lurking is fine, they have the choice to engage with the writer and other readers by leaving comments or making reclists to help build the community.

And look, don’t get me wrong. People have never engaged with fanfic as much as fan writers wish they would. There has always been “no one comments anymore” wank. There have always been people who only comment to say “MORE!” or otherwise demand or guilt trip writers into posting the next chapter. But fandom has always agreed that those commenters are rude and annoying, and as those commenters navigate fandom they have the chance to learn proper community etiquette.

However, now it seems that a lot of the people who are consuming fanworks aren’t actually in the community.

I won’t say “they aren’t real fans” because that’s silly; there’s lots of ways to be a fan. But there seem to be a lot of fans now who have no interest in fandom as a community, or in adhering to community etiquette, or in respecting the gift economy. They consume our fics, but they don’t appreciate fan labor. They want our “content”, but they don’t respect our control over our creations.

And even worse--they see us as a resource. We share our work for free, as a gift, but all they see is an open-source content farm waiting to be tapped into. We shared it for free, so clearly they can do whatever they want with it. Why should we care if they feed our work into AI training datasets, or copy/paste our unfinished stories into ChatGPT to get an ending, or charge people for an unnecessary third-party AO3 app, or sell fanbindings on etsy for a profit without the author’s permission, or turn our stories into poor imitations of podfics to be posted on other platforms without giving us credit or asking our consent, while also using it to lure in people they can datascrape for their Forbes 30 Under 30 company?

And sure, people have been doing shady things with other people’s fanworks since forever. Art theft and reposting has always been a big problem. Fanfic is harder to flat-out repost, but I’ve heard of unauthorized fic translations getting posted without crediting the original author. Once in…I think the 2010s? I read a post by a woman who had gone to some sort of local bookselling event, only to find that the man selling “his” novel had actually self-published her fanfic. (Wish I could find that one again, I don’t even remember where I read it.)

But aside from that third example, the thing is…as awful as fanart/writing theft is, back in the day, the main thing a thief would gain from it was clout. Clout that should rightfully go to the creators who gifted their work in the first place, yeah, but still. Just clout. People will do a lot of hurtful things for clout, but fandom clout means nothing outside of fandom. Fandom clout is not enough to incentivize the sort of wide-scale pillaging we’re seeing from community outsiders today.

Money, on the other hand… Well, fandom’s just a giant, untapped content farm, isn’t it? Think of how much revenue all that content could generate.

Lurkers are a normal and even beneficial part of any online community. Maybe one day they’ll de-lurk and easily slide into place beside their fellow fans because they already know the etiquette. Maybe they’re active in another community, and they can spread information from the community they lurk in to the community they’re active in. At the very least, they silently observe, and even if they’re not active community members, they understand the community.

Fans who see fanworks as “content” don’t belong in the same category as lurkers. They’re tourists.

While reading through the initial Reddit thread on the lore.fm situation, I found this comment:

[ID: Reddit User Cabbitowo says: ... So in anime fandoms we have a word called tourist and essentially it means a fan of a few anime and doesn't care about anime tropes and actively criticizes them. This is kind of how fandoms on tiktok feel. They're touring fanfics and fanart and actively criticizes tropes that have been in the fandom since the 60s. They want to be in a fandom but they don't want to engage in fandom

OP totallymandy responds: Just entered back into Reddit after a long day to see this most recent reply. And as a fellow anime fan this making me laugh so much since it’s true! But it sorta hurts too when the reality sets in. Modern fandom is so entitled and bratty and you’d think it’s the minors only but that’s not even true, my age-mates and older seem to be like that. They want to eat their cake and complain all whilst bringing nothing to the potluck… :/ END ID]

“Tourist” is an apt name for this sort of fan. They don’t want to be part of our community, and they don’t have to be in order to come into our spaces and consume our work. Even if they don’t steal our work themselves, they feel so entitled to it that they’re fine with ignoring our wishes and letting other people take it to make AI “podfics” for them to listen to (there are a lot of comments on lore.fm’s shutdown announcement video from people telling them to just ignore the writers and do it anyway). They’ll use AI to generate an ending to an unfinished fic because they don’t care about seeing “the ending this writer would have given to the story they were telling”, they just want “an ending”. For these tourist fans, the ends justify the means, and their end goal is content for them to consume, with no care for the community that created it for them in the first place.

I don’t think this is confined to a specific age group. This isn’t “13-year-olds on Wattpad” or “Zoomers on TikTok” or whatever pointless generation war we’re in now. This is coming from people who are new to fandom, whose main experience with creative works on the internet is this new content culture and who don’t understand fandom as a community. That description can be true of someone from any age group.

It’s so easy to find fandom these days. It is, in fact, too easy. Newcomers face no hurdles or challenges that would encourage them to lurk and observe a bit before engaging, and it’s easy for people who would otherwise move on and leave us alone to start making trouble. From tourist fans to content entrepreneurs to random people who just want to gawk, it’s so easy for people who don’t care about the fandom community to reap all of its fruits.

So when I say maybe fandom should start gatekeeping a bit, I’m referring to the fact that we barely even have a gate anymore. Everyone is on the internet now; the entire world can find us, and they don’t need to bother learning community etiquette when they do. Before, we were protected by the fact that fandom was considered weird and most people didn’t look at it twice. Now, fandom is pretty mainstream. People who never would’ve bothered with it before are now comfortable strolling in like they own the place. They have no regard for the fandom community, they don’t understand it, and they don’t want to. They want to treat it just like the rest of the content they consume online.

And then they’re surprised when those of us who understand fandom culture get upset. Fanworks have existed far longer than the algorithmic internet’s content. Fanworks existed long before the internet. We’ve lived like this for ages and we like it.

So if someone can’t be bothered to respect fandom as a community, I don’t see why I should give them easy access to my fics.

Think of it like a garden gate

When I interact with commenters on my fic, I have this sense of hospitality.

The comment section is my front porch. The fic is my garden. I created my garden because I really wanted to, and I’m proud of it, and I’m happy to share it with other people.

Lots of people enjoy looking at my garden. Many walk through without saying anything. Some stop to leave kudos. Some recommend my garden to their friends. And some people take the time to stop by my front porch and let me know what a beautiful garden it is and how much they’ve enjoyed it.

Any fic writer can tell you that getting comments is an incredible feeling. I always try to answer all my comments. I don’t always manage it, but my fics’ comment sections are the one place that I manage to consistently socialize in fandom. When I respond to a comment, it feels like I’m pouring out a glass of lemonade to share with this lovely commenter on my front porch, a thank you for their thank you. We take a moment to admire my garden together, and then I see them out. The next time they drop by, I recognize them and am happy to pour another glass of lemonade.

My garden has always been open and easy to access. No fences, no walls. You just have to know where to find it. Fandom in general was once protected by its own obscurity, an out-of-the-way town that showed up on maps but was usually ignored.

But now there’s a highway that makes it easy to get to, and we have all these out-of-towner tourists coming in to gawk and steal our lawn ornaments and wonder if they can use the place to make themselves some money.

I don’t care to have those types trampling over my garden and eating all my vegetables and digging up my flowers to repot and sell, so I’ve put up a wall. It has a gate that visitors can get through if they just take the time to open it.

Admittedly, it’s a small obstacle. But when I share my fics, I share them as a gift with my fellow fans, the ones who understand that fandom is a community, even if they’re lurkers. As for tourist fans and entrepreneurs who see fic as content, who have no qualms ignoring the writer’s wishes, who refuse to respect or understand the fandom community…well, they’re not the people I mean to share my fic with, so I have no issues locking them out. If they want access to my stories, they’ll have to do the bare minimum to become a community member and join the AO3 invite queue.

And y’know, I’ve said a lot about fandom and community here, and I just want to say, I hope it’s not intimidating. When I was younger, talk about The Fandom Community made me feel insecure, and I didn’t think I’d ever manage to be active enough in fandom spaces to be counted as A Member Of The Community. But you don’t have to be a social butterfly to participate in fandom. I’ll always and forever be a chronic lurker, I reblog more than I post, I rarely manage to comment on fic, and I go radio silent for months at a time--but I write and post fanfiction. That’s my contribution.

Do you write, draw, vid, gif, or otherwise create? Congrats, you're a community member.

Do you leave comments? Congrats, you're a community member.

Do you curate reclists? Congrats, you're a community member.

Do you maintain a fandom blog or fuckyeah blog? Congrats, you're a community member.

Do you provide a space for other fans to convene in? Congrats, you're a community member.

Do you regularly send asks (off anon so people know who you are)? Congrats, you're a community member.

Do you have fandom friends who you interact with? Congrats, you're a community member.

There’s lots of ways to be a fan. Just make sure to respect and appreciate your fellow fans and the work they put in for you to enjoy and the gift economy fandom culture that keeps this community going.

#ao3 #lore.fm #fanfiction #fandom history #gift economy #caelum rambles

6K notes · View notes

chahnniesroom · 13 days ago

Text

night again

pairing: bang chan x female reader

summary: in hindsight, visiting chan's studio right before a comeback isn't one of your best ideas. what was supposed to be a pleasant surprise leaves you spiraling into self-doubt, wondering if chan even wants to be in a relationship with you at all.

word count: 6.4k

tags/warnings: angst, hurt/comfort, misunderstandings, insecurities, reader not eating due to stress

a/n: the long awaited 'he calls you clingy' fic! title is from the english translation of 또 다시 밤 (twilight)

read it on ao3 | masterlist

You love your job. It's challenging for sure and the expectations from upper management are often unforgiving, but you’re proud of how hard you've worked and everything that you've accomplished in the past few years at your company.

As you've gained experience, you've slowly been given more and more responsibility. You've grown out of your junior role and though you're thrilled by the pay raise and prospect of being a team lead rather than being led by one, it's also daunting.

When you and your new team are assigned an important project with tight deadlines, you're determined to prove yourself. It's implied that you're going to have to have to dedicate a significant amount of time to finish it and while you're no stranger to long hours, it means that any plans you have of seeing your boyfriend, Chan, are out the window.

The timing is not terrible, Stray Kids has a comeback scheduled in about a week so you didn't think that you would be able to spend that much time with Chan anyway, but you usually try to surprise the boys at one of the music shows with a cake and some home cooked food.

Luckily, you've already been planning for this. Although nothing had been confirmed, you had expected that this project would be awarded to your company and you've already been trying to spend more time with Chan than usual in preparation for the busy season ahead for both of you.

Still, you can't help but agree with your best friend at work after she complains how little she's going to see her partner this month. Jinjoo doesn't know who your boyfriend is, but the two of you are close enough that you’ve shared that you have one and that work takes up a lot of his time. You've gushed to her about the sweet things that Chan has done for you and you've admitted that you think he's the one.

“You should bring him dinner sometime!” she exclaims when you mention you're not sure when the next time you'll be able to see Chan will be.

“Well, he’s really busy-” you start to say.

“That’s the beauty of it. I’m sure he would appreciate if you brought him food at work, especially if he’s anything like my partner and gets so caught up with work that they forget to eat sometimes,” she insists.

“That’s true.”

“Just trust me, Y/n. I wouldn’t be telling you this if I wasn’t sure that it’d work. My partner loves when I do this. It’s literally the perfect way to take some time for each other before you’re both too busy. Even if he's super busy, his work can't be bad enough that he’s not allowed to eat, right?”

You agree somewhat reluctantly. You're still unsure about whether or not Chan would appreciate you barging in unannounced, but it is a cute idea and Jinjoo's confidence is enough to convince you.

The next day after work, you head to the company and order takeout for a late dinner for you and Chan, picking it up along the way. It reminds you of earlier in your relationship before you had gotten your current position and when Stray Kids were just gaining popularity. Both of you enjoyed having more casual date nights that provided more privacy as opposed to going out to fancy places and it makes you even more excited to see his reaction.

About a year after you started dating Chan, he insisted that you get a pass to get into JYP Entertainment without having to fill out a visitor's form and have someone pick you up. It has definitely come in handy more than a few times, although you try to limit the number of visits you make. Even though you're allowed to be there, it still feels intimidating to be in the building, like someone is going to recognize that you're not an employee and accuse you of being a sasaeng.

Luckily the late hour means that you make it to Chan's studio without having to interact with anybody except the security at the door, who had waved you through without a second thought. You had double checked with Felix earlier in the day to make sure that Chan didn't have any schedules or dinner plans, so you directly knock on his door without texting or calling him beforehand.

“Y/n?” he asks, a bit baffled when he sees you. “Did we- Did I forget that we had plans tonight?”

“No,” you say, a little nervous for some reason. It's just Chan, you tell yourself, but it doesn't make you feel any better. “I didn't think that you had dinner yet and wanted to see you.”

“Oh, I see. Come in,” Chan responds slowly, still processing your sudden appearance. “I just have something that I need to finish up-”

“It's fine! You can work,” you assure him quickly. “I don't want to interrupt you too much, I just wanted to drop by since I don't have plans and wanted to make sure that you're eating well.”

Chan’s studio isn’t messy at all, but he still gets up to clear some space on a side table for you, before returning back to where he has Cubase opened up. You pass over his food and feel relieved when he immediately digs in, but your appetite seems to have vanished, you can only get yourself to pick at your meal.

Chan is short with his responses all evening and continues to work on his laptop, even while eating. It throws you off a bit, you thought that he would be able to get to a stopping point and at least make a bit of time for you, but you did tell him that he could. Even so, you're determined to make the most of the last time that you’re going to see them for a while. You know they’ve been super busy the past few days, or more like the past few weeks, but still you had thought he would be a little bit more engaged or at the very least seem happy to see you.

Finally, after half an hour of eating with minimal conversation, you decide to broach the subject that’s been on your mind this entire time. Chan’s finished his food and you know that you won’t be able to get yourself to eat anymore, so you shuffle everything off to the side and inch closer to Chan.

“You know that client we’ve been trying to work with for a while?” you start tentatively.

Chan hums noncommittally, continuing to type on his computer. Not quite the reaction that you're hoping for, but you forge on anyway.

“We got awarded the job! It’s a great opportunity for the company and everyone is really excited, but-”

“Y/n,” he interrupts. “I’m sorry, that’s amazing and all, but you know that it’s not a good time for me right now. I have something I really need to work on and now that you’ve finished eating, can we please not bother with the small talk?”

“Oh,” you say, a bit caught off guard. Chan has never been the type to cut you off when you're speaking. “No, yeah, I get it. Uhm. I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, just-” he sighs, sounding frustrated. “Next time can you please ask me when you want to visit in advance so this doesn’t happen again? You chose the worst timing to come by. I just need some space, from all of… this,” he says, waving a hand between the two of you.

“Sorry, I know it��s a busy time, but I just wanted to see-”

At that moment, an alarm on Chan's phone goes off, interrupting you. When he turns it off and notices the time, he swears lowly, unlocking his phone and typing out a message to somebody. You’re scared to break the silence. Less than a minute later, someone knocks on the door.

“Come in,” Chan calls. When Changbin and Jisung step into the room, they eye you curiously. You keep your head down and try to prevent your hands from shaking as you stand and start to haphazardly shove away all your belongings and the garbage from your dinner into bags.

“Noona, it's good to see you!” Jisung says brightly, although his smile dims when you make eye contact and can only manage to weakly return the smile. “Sorry for interrupting you two.”

“Hi Hannie,” you reply quietly, not wanting to make conversation, but not wanting to be rude.

“It’s okay, Y/n was just leaving,” Chan says, his obvious annoyance making things even more awkward.

You say bye to the boys quietly and apologise as you shuffle past them to the door.

The handles of the bag from your dinner are digging into your hand painfully and your purse can’t close with the way that you’ve thrown everything into it. You only take a few steps before you have to stop for a moment to save a container from falling and decide to put down everything and reorganise it all.

When you crouch down, you take a second to mentally berate yourself. Everything you had worried about had come true. Instead of being a pleasant surprise, you had come across as a nuisance.

In your rush, you hadn't fully closed the studio door behind you and you're close enough that you can just barely pick up the conversation that happens inside.

“Sorry,” you hear Chan say faintly. “I don't know what's been going on, but Y/n has been… really clingy these days. She just showed up today without asking and I hate-”

You leave before he has the chance to say anything else. You look like a mess for sure, you had just grabbed all the empty containers without bothering to put them back into the plastic bag, your jacket is partially dragging on the ground, and your purse is hanging off your elbow, having slipped off your shoulder. You're pretty sure you hear an empty drink bottle clatter to the floor behind you, but you don't look back to check.

You don't have it in you to care, you just need to leave.

Even waiting for the elevator feels humiliating, so you bypass it and stumble down the stairs. You dump the garbage into a bin on the first floor, not bothering to sort it properly, and step out onto the street, bee-lining to the nearest subway station.

The ride home passes by in a blur.

It hurts, of course it hurts.

Honestly the reason that your relationship had worked out so far was because you weren’t the kind of person that needed a lot of attention. You understood that both of you were busy and were content to just exchange messages every couple of days because you knew how important Stray Kids was to Chan. Of course you did, they were just as important to you.

If Chan wanted space, well. You were more than capable of giving it to him.

In fact, your upcoming schedule had been the reason that you had wanted to meet up in the first place, the source of your so-called clinginess. You’d never been called that before. You were hyper-independent and tended to get lost in your own mind, easily distracted by different thoughts. It had gotten to a point that most of your exes had complained at least once about you being distant or inattentive.

With Chan, you had been determined not to be the same. It had been difficult at first, to make the effort to send messages throughout the day. You had to convince yourself not to spend too long drafting replies in your head and try not to worry that you were bothering him, especially if you knew that he had schedules at the same time that you were texting.

By the time that you make it to your apartment, your pain has faded into a mixture of resignation and numbness. You don't want to talk to Chan about how you feel, it's your clinginess that he didn't like in the first place, and you don't think you'll have time or the energy for a long, emotional conversation in the next few weeks anyway. If you keep your distance for a while, it just benefits both of you, you tell yourself. You won’t be a distraction to Chan as Stray Kids has their comeback and he won’t be one to you as you take on this new project.

As much as you want to spend the rest of your night overthinking- something you’ve done more than you’d like to admit- you know that you have a busy day at work tomorrow. Feeling a bit like a zombie, you force yourself to shuffle through your usual nighttime routine, swallowing a melatonin pill before climbing into bed.

Normally, you would send Chan a good night message. Actually, normally you would have sent him a message the second that you arrived home. It was something that he was insistent on starting from early on in your relationship, wanting to make sure that you were safe.

Tonight, you just turn off your phone, plug it into its charger, and sleep.

—

In the morning, you allow yourself to wallow in bed for 5 minutes, before you get ready for work. You’ve never been good at eating breakfast and today’s no exception. Your stomach turns uneasily at the thought of food so you only force yourself to drink some water before you leave.

Your team at work has agreed to get to work earlier than usual just to get a headstart on everything. Though you’re more of a night owl, you’re grateful to find that deviating from your usual routine means that the subway is empty enough that you can find an empty seat, a luxury that you’ve rarely experienced.

It feels eerie to walk through the streets of Seoul when the sun has just started to rise and you’re relieved when you finally make it to your office.

Unsurprisingly, you’re one of the first to arrive. You’re grateful for the time that you have to unpack your things and make a much needed coffee before the rest of your team shows up.

“How did it go last night?” Jinjoo asks you excitedly when she comes in.

“Uhm, it was okay,” you reply noncommittally. “He was definitely surprised.”

“Oh,” Jinjoo pouts at your lack of enthusiasm.

“I mean, it wasn’t bad,” you backtrack, hating to see her disappointed. “It was just so short, he was kind of… busy. But that’s what I expected anyway so that's fine I guess. Thanks for suggesting it to me though! I really appreciate it.”

“That’s good,” Jinjoo brightens. “At least you got to see him one last time.”

“Oh yeah for sure! I think that after seeing him yesterday, it’ll be easier to deal with how busy we’re going to be for the next few weeks,” you say truthfully.

It’s not a lie, you justify. For the first time since you started dating, you’re not looking forward to the next time that you’re going to see Chan.

You know that your communication is about to reduce to an all time low for the next few weeks, and while you had originally been worried about how Chan would react, now you’re thinking that he’s just going to be relieved not to hear from you. You’ve never thought yourself to have been overly chatty with Chan during the day though, preferring in-person conversation over texting and knowing that he’s generally not available to read your messages anyway, much less send you a reply. It seemed that you were wrong.

Luckily your team now has to use a shared box that you’re required to put your personal phones into during working hours and only have a little bit of time during lunch and dinner breaks, if you take them, to fish them out. It’s a policy that your company enforces when teams are working on confidential projects and you can’t blame them due to past litigation that they’ve been involved in after a former employee leaked sensitive information.

For once, you're glad for this excuse to not look at your phone, even if you feel a little bit naked to look at the side of your desk or reach into your pocket and not have your phone there. You’re relieved to bury yourself in your work and forget all about your personal life. Even though your project is just starting, you feel like you're already behind.

When you're finished work for the day and take back your phone, you find yourself reluctant to check your notifications. It's only when you're waiting for the subway to arrive at your station that you finally force yourself to take a look.

No new messages or calls from Chan.

You’re not sure what you expected, but somehow you’re still disappointed.

You get back to your apartment late, you had wanted to finish a couple of things before you left the office and it had led to you being one of the last to leave. You had also stopped by the convenience store closest to your place, not having the energy to cook anything for yourself.

You pick at your dinner half-heartedly. You're used to eating alone, Chan often had his meals at odd times due to his schedules, but tonight the silence feels more oppressive.

It haunts you, the tail end of the overheard conversation. You have no idea how Chan was going to complete the sentence, but your mind unhelpfully fills in the blanks with worse and worse suggestions.

He hates the timing of your visit.

He hates that you visited at all.

He hates that he has such a clingy girlfriend.

He hates that you are his clingy, annoying, bothersome girlfriend.

He hates you.

In moments of clarity, you can recognize that it's not true. That's not the Chan that you know and he would never say something like that about anybody, least of all you. It's just hard when a small part of you has never really been able to believe that someone as talented and amazing as Chan would want to date someone as unremarkable as you.

You find yourself falling into a new routine, waking early, working overtime, and trying not to cry yourself to sleep. You succeed most of the time, you keep yourself occupied by thinking about work and you're so physically exhausted by your long hours that you fall asleep the second that you get into bed. Luckily, your coworkers are just as overworked as you are and it’s easy to blame your declining condition on the project. Weekends don't help you rest at all, you've committed to your manager that you can work on Saturdays and Sundays are spent completing the chores that you've neglected during the week.

You still talk to Chan sometimes, either right when you wake up or on the way home after work. The conversation is stilted though, both because of the long delays between messages when you text and the limited time that you have when you call. It's enough of a difference that Chan asks you multiple times if everything is okay. Even though you try your best to assure him that you're fine, just busy, you're sure he knows that something is off, although he doesn't question your further.

Most exciting is the day that the new Stray Kids album releases. You've already heard most of the songs for this comeback, perks of dating the member that's the most involved in the writing and production of the album, but it's different now that they're available to the public too. You make sure to organise your schedule so that you're on break when the music video drops and you send a number of messages in the group chat that you have with the group cheering them on. Usually, you try to take a day off to deliver some food to them at the music shows, but you've had to settle for arranging with one of their managers to treat them to a meal.

You can tell when they get breaks because when you check your phone after work, notifications from the members are all in the same blocks of time. It's mostly them thanking you, taking pictures of the food you sent, flowers that they've been gifted, and letters from fans. They have a short promotion period this comeback, but it's packed with different interviews, performances, and fanmeets. At one point, Felix even sends you a picture of Chan sleeping slumped over on one of the waiting room couches. As much as you're relieved to see that he's able to get some rest, the picture has your stomach twisting uncomfortably.

You're proud of Chan, of all of the boys. They've worked so hard and each comeback seems to be more and more successful. Even if you're not confident in what's going to happen with you and Chan in the future, you want to celebrate with them while you still can.

—

After almost four weeks, your project is nearing completion and you've never been more grateful to have a deadline arrive.

You only have a couple more days left until your last submittal is due and after getting off work, you want nothing more than to collapse into bed even though your stomach has been growling the whole walk from the bus to your building. You had caught a significant mistake in a document right before it was going to be sent to a client and the whole afternoon had been spent trying to fix it in time. Your team had just barely managed it, but your head has been pounding for hours and your whole body is tight with stress.

You’re not quite sure how you make it to your apartment, your exhaustion has made you clumsy. You struggle a couple times to enter in the code to unlock your door and trip over a pair of shoes that are scattered in the entryway.

You manage to catch yourself before you fall, then squint back. Yes, you haven’t had the chance to tidy your apartment in a couple weeks, but you’ve never been the type to leave your shoes on the walking path.

A light is on, further in your apartment. You know for a fact it wasn’t like that when you left this morning, it would have been obvious since you've been leaving before the sun rises. Someone else is here.

You stare at the light for a few seconds in disbelief, then slowly reach to grab something, anything that you might be able to use to defend yourself. Your shaking hands close around a full sized umbrella that you keep beside your closet.

You’ve already made enough commotion that there’s no way the intruder didn’t hear, but you try to keep your footsteps light as you creep down the hall to where your kitchen is. It’s stupid to try and confront them, but the idea of someone in your space, potentially taking your things, is enough to inspire a sudden bout of bravery.

You hold your breath as you turn the corner, launching forward to attack the second that you see someone. You recognise the figure halfway through your swing, and though it’s too late to fully stop, you manage to pull back enough that they’re able to easily catch the umbrella before it hits them.

Chan wraps his arms around you then eases the umbrella out of your hands, resting it against the wall. You sag into his embrace, adrenaline draining away, leaving you exhausted again.

“Chan?”

You've missed this. His warmth, his comforting scent, the reassuring steadiness that he always provides. You can almost pretend that everything is fine.

“Sorry for scaring you,” he says, sounding more amused than apologetic.

“You should be,” you grumble into his shirt. “I could have seriously injured you if I didn't realise it was you!”

“I don't think that was going to be a problem.” Even though you can't see Chan, you can hear the grin in his voice.

“Hey!” You lightly smack his arm. “You take that back!”

“Fine, fine,” Chan acquiesces, holding up both his hands in surrender. “I'm very glad that I didn't have to experience the full power of your self defence.”

“Yeah yeah,” you huff. “What are you doing here anyway? Other than trying to give me a heart attack, that is.”

“I made you dinner,” Chan says shyly, turning pink.

“For what?” you ask suspiciously. It's easy to fall back into the banter that you typically exchange with Chan, but you can't help but be a bit wary these days.

“No reason. I uh, just haven't seen you in a while,” Chan says sheepishly, scratching at the back of his neck where it’s now flushed red. “We had so much preparation to do and then all our schedules… Anyway, I wanted to surprise you, so I thought I could cook for us.”

Now that he's mentioned it, you can see that he's set your tiny kitchen table and that there's a couple of pots on the stove. Chan doesn’t cook often, but he’s expressed a desire to learn before and you’ve taught him how to make a few of your favourite recipes.

You stare at him for a moment, lost for words.

It's only been a few weeks, but you feel like you've forgotten how to act around Chan. Instead of a comfortable silence, it's almost awkward, neither of you knowing what to say.

“Oh,” you say finally, touched and still a little shocked that he's actually here. “That's- that's so nice, I just- is it okay if I wash up a bit quickly first?”

“No, yeah, of course. I'm sure you had a long day,” Chan says. “Go ahead, I’ll- the food should be reheated anyway so I’ll get on that. Take your time.”

You skirt around him to go to the bathroom, taking a moment to splash yourself with water. This feels like a bizarre dream and you wonder for a moment if you’re making this all up. But when you leave to go to your bedroom, Chan’s still there, puttering around in front of your kitchenette. You change your clothes slowly, mind racing as you try to puzzle together why Chan has decided to visit all of a sudden.

You eventually settle on the most logical reason that you can think of.

He’s finally decided to break up with you.

You’ve figured that this was coming for weeks by now, but somehow it still hurts. Instead of feeling resigned, it feels like you’re shattering into little pieces. You twist your work blouse into a tiny ball as you try not to cry, even though you know the fabric is going to wrinkle terribly. You finish cleaning up in a daze, already drafting what you're going to have to message your manager later. There's no way that you're going to be in any shape to work tomorrow if you’re right.

“Y/n?” Chan calls eventually. You know you're procrastinating leaving your room, but you want to put this off for as long as possible even though you know it’s just delaying the inevitable. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah,” you reply with a heavy heart. “I’m fine. I'll just be another second.”

You can tell that Chan doesn’t quite believe you. He hovers around you when you emerge from your bedroom, knocking away your hand when you try to pull out your own chair from the table.

He's set the table, going so far as to fold little napkins under your utensils. There's even a tiny vase with your favourite flowers as a centrepiece. All this effort just hurts more.

“You look exhausted. You got home so late. Where were you?” he asks.

“I was at work,” you reply stiffly. You know that if you try and say any more, your emotions are going to spill over and you're either going to scream or cry. Maybe both.

“So late?” Chan's forehead creases with some sort of emotion. You can't quite tell if it's concern or scepticism.

“You're not the only one that has a demanding job.”

“Y/n, you know that's not what I meant-”

“Sure,” you say. “Whatever, let's just eat. Thank you for the food.”

You don't want to deal with this. You're so tired.

You have no idea why Chan’s dragging this out longer than it needs to be. Why he’s forcing you to sit through a meal with him like he’s not about to break your heart. Chan is one of the kindest people you know, he’s probably trying to make this easier for you, giving you one last nice memory, but it just feels cruel.

Chan reaches out, stopping you before you can pick up your chopsticks. He stares at the way his fingers overlap each other around your wrist.

“You’ve lost weight,” he says quietly. You look away, watching steam curl from the bowl of rice that has been set in front of you instead of returning eye contact.

“I’ve been busy.” Is all you can say in response.

You don’t want to tell him that you’ve been basically subsisting on iced americanos and various convenience store meals in part because of your work schedule, but mostly because of your lack of appetite. Every time you thought of Chan, it made your stomach turn and well, everything reminded you of him. You hadn’t realised how much it had actually affected your physical condition until now though.

“You're not taking care of yourself,” he scolds you. You can feel yourself bristle at his comment even though you know it’s true. “I haven't been around to take care of you either. I'm sorry.”

“Chan,” you protest. It has been weeks since you last saw him in person and you’ve spent more time that you’d like to admit micro analysing your relationship, but you still can’t make sense of his behaviour, especially how he keeps switching between criticism and tenderness.

“What?” he asks in genuine confusion.

“Why are you here?”

“I missed you,” Chan says, sounding hurt and confused. “I haven’t seen you in so long.”

“I just- I don’t understand what you want from me!” You run your hands through your hair in frustration. “One day you don’t want me around, we go weeks without seeing each other, then you’re at my place cooking me dinner? You said you needed space, I gave you space."

“Woah woah woah, what do you mean I don’t want you around?” Chan asks, alarmed. “When have I ever said that?”

“You made it pretty clear that you didn’t appreciate it when I went to bring you dinner that day,” you start.

“No, baby!” Chan stands up abruptly before you can say anything else. He falters when the loud scrape of his chair causes you to flinch back. He slowly walks towards you and kneels in front of you, reaching out to hold your hands in his. His eyes are wide with earnestness. “Of course I wanted to spend time with you. I always want to be with you.”

“So why did you call me clingy?” you ask in a small voice. Gone is your anger, replaced with a self-consciousness that you can’t hide. You look away as tears prickle your eyes.

Gently, Chan lets go of your hands and cups your cheeks instead, turning your face so that he can see you better. His thumbs swipe under your eyes, brushing away the tears that have managed to escape.

“Baby,” he says, sounding even more upset and angry than you feel. “I'm sorry. Did someone tell you I said that?”

“Nobody had to tell me, I heard you say it myself!” you burst out, pushing Chan away. You know that you’re being dramatic, that you keep oscillating between different emotions, but you don’t care. “That day, in your studio, you told Han and Changbin that I was really clingy.”

“You heard me talking to Binnie and Hannie?” Chan asks slowly.

“I didn't mean to eavesdrop,” you sniffle. One of Chan's hands shifts and he carefully tucks behind a lock of hair that has fallen in front of your face. The gentleness makes even more tears well up.

“It's okay, I think I know what you overheard now. It must have hurt, right?”

You can't muster up a response, choosing instead to just nod slightly.

“I’m sorry, I'm sorry,” he soothes you. “Can I explain myself?”

You pause for a moment, then slowly nod again.

“I don't mind that you're clingy, actually, I like it. I shouldn't have used that word. I like that you want to spend time with me, Y/n,” Chan says carefully. “I like that you take time to visit me, even though I know that your work is busy too. I think that it's cute and thoughtful that you think of me and try to take care of me by bringing me food. I know that you intentionally take the time out of your day to text me because you know that I like hearing from you, even though I might not see it or respond right away.”

Chan pauses for a second and you use it as an opportunity to pull away slightly. His hands tighten briefly, before he lets them fall away, giving you the space to process.

It's not that you don't like what Chan is saying, it's just hard to reconcile it with the thoughts that have been eating away at you for the past few weeks. You still don't understand what you overheard though, how it fits into all of this. When you voice your concerns to Chan, he sighs, before continuing to speak.

“I don't know what I did to have someone as caring and thoughtful as you in my life.” You want to protest, but Chan carries on before you can say anything. “It's just that- you visited me without notice and were the sweetest person in the world. I wanted to spend time with you, believe me, I did, but I can't just ignore my deadlines when the rest of the members are relying on me. It makes me feel like garbage when I can’t give you all my attention. That's the thing I hate the most. That I can't be the boyfriend that you deserve. That I can't show you how much you mean to me the way that I want to.”

It makes sense, in some sort of twisted way. You know that similarly to you, Chan often feels insecure. It had taken a while before you had been able to convince him that you really did want to be in a relationship with him even with all of the difficulties that were associated with being an idol. You hadn't realised that your visit had fed into his worries that he wasn’t enough.

“I didn't know,” you say quietly. “I'm sorry.”

“Hey, I didn't tell you how I was feeling and that's on me. I’m the one that’s sorry, you have no reason to be. I should have been clearer about what was going through my mind and it wasn't any excuse for the way that spoke to you. Even if I wasn't at my best, I can't believe that I made you feel like I didn't want you to be around.” Chan shakes his head and you can tell that he's beating himself up about it. This time, you're the one that reaches out to him, grabbing one of his hands in both of yours.

“I am sorry that I put you into that position, though. I got caught up in the idea of how fun and romantic it might be, that I didn't give enough consideration to your schedule. Even though I wanted to surprise you, it would have been better to check with you beforehand. I don't ever want you to have to feel like you have to choose between me and work.”

“It was a really nice surprise,” Chan agrees. “I wish that I hadn't been so wrapped up that I wasn't able to enjoy spending time with you. I really hated not being able to see you these past few weeks.”

“It was really hard for me too,” you admit.

“I missed you so much. I missed your beautiful voice, hearing your laugh, seeing your smile. I missed all the texts that you usually send, they make me feel like I'm not as far away, that I'm a part of your day too. You kept saying that everything was fine and- I know it's hard for you, especially during comeback periods when I'm not as responsive. I didn't want to pressure you into messaging me more often if I'm not able to do the same.”

“No, it's not that. It doesn't bother me. Work was, is still really busy for me,” you explain. “I was trying to tell you that day, but-”

“But I basically shut you down,” Chan realises. He laughs bitterly. “I’m just the worst, aren't I? No wonder you were so confused by why I was here.”

“I thought you were going to break up with me tonight,” you whisper. Chan looks devastated by your statement.

“No- you know I wouldn't-” Chan stumbles on his words in his haste to correct you.

“I don't think that anymore,” you reassure him. “I understand everything now, it was just that we didn't communicate well and I assumed… It's okay, we're together now, this won't happen again.”

“I promise that I will make it up to you. I love you and I will prove it to you in every way possible. And I'm going to start right now. You still haven't eaten yet, please go ahead.” Chan moves back to his abandoned chair and doles out a portion of the stew from the pot that's on the table.

“I am really hungry,” you confess. Your stomach chooses that exact moment to growl loudly and the two of you can’t help but burst into laughter.

Just like that, it feels like things are back to normal.

You know that there's still more that you and Chan have to talk about. The two of you have only scratched the surface on your insecurities, communication, and how those things led to such a significant misunderstanding.

But tonight, it's enough that you get to share a meal with the man that you love.

read it on ao3 | masterlist

2K notes · View notes