#you show up on my activity page the most

[legowerewolf]

L - Lock Me Up by The Chalkeaters

E - End Up Here by 5 Seconds of Summer

G - Glitter & Gold by Barns Courtney

O - Old Me by 5SOS

W - Werewolf Boyfriend by Disko Warp and Fright Ranger

E - Everybody Talks by Neon Trees

R - Ready to Run by One Direction

E - 18 by One Direction

W - Welcome to Jurassic Park by John Williams

O - The One Moment by OK Go

L - Legends Never Die by League of Legends and Against The Current

F - fake town baby by UNISON SQUARE GARDEN

and now to @ folks... @farisyawritesfic @notdeadjack @wolfina-darkmoon @souldagger @photosynthefish-12 @darkestday828 @copper-and-smoke @powersandplanetaries @elrond50 @chibi-chaos @blessphemy @empyreanwilliwaw

Rules: pick a song for each letter of your URL and tag that many people.

Tagged by @sailforvalinor, and thank you this looks like fun!

Remember and Proclaim (Andrew Peterson)

All I Ask of You (Jackie Evancho)

Innocence (Nathan Wagner)

Níl Sé'n Lá (Celtic Woman)

I Still Need a Savior (Billy Sprague)

No Strings (Ed Sheeran)

Take Me Back Road (Tim & the Glory Boys)

How Great is Our God (Chris Tomlin)

Everything Sad is Coming Untrue (Jason Grey)

El-Shaddai (Amy Grant)

Voice of Truth (Casting Crowns)

Endlessly (Amaranthe)

Not Alone (Red)

I'm an Open Road (Paul Brandt)

Never Leave Your Side (Sam Tinnesz)

Good to Be Alive (Skillet)

Hoo boy, can I think of sixteen people?

@griseldabanks @kraytwriter @kingofattolia @catkin-morgs @clawedandcute @nerdychristianfanboy @steampunk-archer @sergeanttomycaptain @smhalltheurlsaretaken @scribblermerlin @authortobenamedlater @stainedleather @mrtobenamedlater @mrgartist @get-loved-nerd @a-fount-of-blessings (Ignore if this is a repeat tag. Unless you want to do it again. Up to you. :)

[neil-gaiman]

hi neil. i've held off on writing this message for a bit because i didn't know if i could get it out or not.

i work in a senior healthcare facility. not a nurse or anything, i actually just serve food to the residents, but it's given me the ability to get to know a lot of the people that live there. because of this, i was able to befriend a wonderful lady named sally. she would always come talk to me while i served up the meals, and we'd have nice chats. she spent most of her time reading books, since she didn't like to do many of the activities with the other residents, and since she loved books with mystery and suspense, i loaned her my copy of american gods, thinking that she'd enjoy it. and she did! i loved it when she'd come talk to me about the chapter she'd just read, our little chats about wednesday, just everything. i was happy that she liked the book.

our chats kind of tapered off after awhile, and we didn't talk as much. she's had my book for well over a year now, which i hadn't minded, but she eventually started picking up our chats again, about the book. but she was talking about how she had just started reading it and that she was really interested in it so far. i came to realize some time later that sally was actually just finally showing signs of dementia, which was saddening for me to hear, but it's one of the heavy realities of working in a facility like this. she had always struggled with some memory and speech issues, but i'd always chalked it up to her older age.

anyway. i am saddened by this onset, but at the same time, i am also finding some strange comfort in knowing that she will come up to me at breakfast, wanting to talk to me about american gods, because she's forgotten that she's already read most of it, and she just reads the first few chapters over and over. she doesn't leave her room without it, she brings it to the table with her every day. when she leaves the facility with her family for an outing, she brings it with her. i am just. so comforted knowing that your book i loaned her a year ago is a source of joy and delight for her, and continues to be so over and over. i know i'll never get that book back, and i won't ever try to get it back from her, even if she stops reading it. i want her to keep it.

i now have a streak regarding losing my books that you've written, i'm two for two now, haha

idk. i'm just really kind of overwhelmed today by all the emotions surrounding it and i'm just happy that you wrote something that she likes so much, and that we talk about it even though she doesn't remember that we've talked about it a dozen times before. i love each and every chat with her so much, and i want to keep having them with her for as long as i can. thank you for your work.

Some of the happiest hours of my life were spent with a friend with advanced Parkinson's dementia, sitting on his porch with him, both of us reading. And he read the same few pages over and over and it was okay.

[melonthesprigatito]

I think of this post all the time.

the wordgirl fandom is so funny there sure are only 20 of us

[heywriters]

Rescued Writing Links!

When cleaning out the HEY, Writers! Pinterest I moved some links here. The internet has changed a LOT since I started collecting these, so some links may include outdated info. All were still active when I made this, but it's been in my drafts for a hot minute.

Protip! In Firefox, check to toggle reader view when reading these (mobile: the page icon in the url bar; desktop: same icon or hit F9). This removes popups, ads, screen clutter, and often has an audio option.

Survivors of Internet Decay Award!

These active sites featured most often in my collections so they get the top of the list.

Helping Writers Become Authors

Mythcreants

Bryn Donovan

Getting Started (Ideas & Intros)

How to Start Writing a Book: Learn One Writer’s Process | Marian Schembari

How to Start a Story: 30 Opening Scene Examples | Bryn Donovan

Don’t Panic! What to Do When You Have Too Many Story Ideas | Faye Kirwin

How to Write a Killer First Chapter | Rae Elliot

How To Write A Captivating Opening Sentence

Outlining

How to Create a Flexible Outline for Your Novel | Faye Kirwin

Protagonists

How to Write Believable Characters | Bridget McNulty

4 Ways to Write a Likable Protag at the Start of the Character Arc | KM Weiland

5 Tips for Writing a Likable "Righteous" Character | KM Weiland

I Hate Your Protagonist! Want to Know Why? | KM Weiland

The Secret to Writing Dynamic Characters: It's Always Their Fault | KM Weiland

A Protagonist’s Moment of Realisation

Antagonists

Blurring the Lines: What Are Anti-Heroes and Anti-Villains?

Antagonists: Inner & Outer Demons | Kristen Lamb

How to Write Multiple Antagonists | KM Weiland

Character Building

The Epic Guide to Character Creation, Part 1 | Kylie Day

Pick Up A Bad Habit | Maggie Maxwell

How To Write Characters from the Opposite Gender | Rachel Poli

Top 4 Tips for Using Backstory in Your Novel | Diana Anderson-Tyler

Depicting Background Characters | Chris Winkle

Scene Building

The 5 Elements Of A Good Scene | Amanda Patterson

A New Way to Think About Scene Structure | KM Weiland

2 Ways to Make the Most of Your Story’s Climactic Setting | KM Weiland

8 Things Writers Forget When Writing Fight Scenes | Lisa Voisin

Descriptions

Master List of Facial Expressions | Bryn Donovan

Master List of Words to Describe Voices | Bryn Donovan

Master List of Physical Description for Writers | Bryn Donovan

Writer’s Guide to Serious Injuries and Calamities | Bryn Donovan

How to Ground Your Reader (in the setting) | Rachel Craft

The Forgotten Fifth Sense | Writer's Relief

Never Name an Emotion in Your Story | KM Weiland

Show, Don't Tell: How to Write the Stages of Grief | Ruthanne Reid

100 Words for Facial Expressions

Dialogue

How To Write Good Dialogue: Ten Tips | Irving Weinman

Seven Dialogue Don’ts | Jason Bougger

10 Keys to Writing Dialogue in Fiction | Katherine Cowley

Points-Of-View (POV)

What Every Writer Ought to Know About the Omniscient POV | KM Weiland

Motivation & Support

What New Writers Need To Know About Fear | Bryan Collins

How to Discover Your Writing Process with Gabriela Pereira | Kirsten Oliphant

Editing & Revising

18 Overused Words to Replace When Writing | Oxford Tutoring

An Easy Way to Immediately Improve Your Character’s Action Beats | KM Weiland

Want More Depth to Your Writing? | Sacha Black

How Much is Too Much Backstory? | Ellen Brock

Why Your Writing Sounds Weird (And What You Can Do About It) | Joe Brock

Self-Editing for Fiction Writers | Jenny Bravo

Favorite Revision and Editing Tricks

Short Stories & Flashfic

How to Write a Story a Week: A Day-by-Day Guide | Emily Wenstrom

How Flash Fiction / Microfiction Can Help With Your Writing | Rhianne Williams

Worksheets & Downloads

Writing Worksheet Archive

If anyone out there loves making lists and wants to transport this to another site, you have every right to do so! Just let me know in a reblog so I can share it here again :)

---

HEY! Writers' Links

Tip Jar! If you enjoy my blog and advice, support me on Ko-fi!🤗

Follow me on AO3 for fanfiction

Visit my Pinterest & Unsplash for visual inspiration

[cookinguptales]

You know... I had an experience about two months ago that I didn't talk about publicly, but I've been turning it over and over in my mind lately and I guess I'm finally able to put my unease into words.

So there's a podcast I'd been enjoying and right after I got caught up, they announced that they were planning on doing a live show. It's gonna be near me and on the day before my birthday and I thought -- hey, it's fate.

But... as many of you know, I'm disabled. For me, getting to a show like that has a lot of steps. One of those steps involved emailing the podcasters to ask about accessibility for the venue.

The response I got back was very quick and very brief. Essentially, it told me to contact the venue because they had no idea if it was accessible or not.

It was a bucket of cold water, and I had a hard time articulating at the time quite why it was so disheartening, but... I think I get it a little more now.

This is a podcast that has loudly spoken about inclusivity and diversity and all that jazz, but... I mean, it's easy to say that, isn't it? But just talking the talk without walking the walk isn't enough. That's like saying "sure, we will happily welcome you in our house -- if you can figure out how to unlock the door."

And friends, my lock-picking set is pretty good by this point. I've been scouting out locations for decades. I've had to research every goddamn classroom, field trip, and assigned bookstore that I've ever had in an academic setting. I've had to research every movie theater, theme park, and menu for every outing with friends or dates. I spend a long time painstakingly charting out accessible public transportation and potential places to sit down every time I leave the house.

Because when I was in college, my professors never made sure their lesson plans were accessible. (And I often had to argue with them to get the subpar accommodations I got.) Because my friends don't always know to get movie tickets for the accessible rows. Because my dates sometimes leave me on fucking read when I ask if we can go to a restaurant that doesn't keep its restrooms down a flight of stairs.

I had one professor who ever did research to see if I could do all the coursework she had planned, and who came up with alternate plans when she realized that I could not. Only one. It was a medical history and ethics class, and my professor sounded bewildered as she realized how difficult it is to plan your life when you're disabled.

This woman was straight-up one of the most thoughtful, philosophical, and ethical professors I've ever had, one who was incredibly devoted to diversity and inclusion -- and she'd never thought about it before, that the hospital archives she wanted us to visit were up a flight of stairs. That the medical museum full of disabled bodies she wanted us to visit only had a code-locked back entrance and an old freight elevator for their disabled guests who were still breathing.

And that's the crux of it, isn't it? It's easy to theoretically accept the existence of people who aren't like you. It's a lot harder to actively create a space in which they can exist by your side.

Because here's what I did before I contacted the podcasters. I googled the venue. I researched the neighborhood and contacted a friend who lives in the area to help me figure out if there were any accessible public transportation routes near there. (There aren't.) I planned for over an hour to figure out how close I could get before I had to shell out for an uber for the last leg of the trip.

Then I read through the venue's website. I looked through their main pages, through their FAQs to see if there was any mention of accessibility. No dice. I download their packet for clients and find out that, while the base building is accessible, the way that chairs/tables are set up for individual functions can make it inaccessible. So it's really up to who's hosting the show there.

So then and only then I contacted the podcasters. I asked if the floor plan was accessible. I asked if all the seats were accessible, or only some, and whether it was open seating or not. Would I need to show up early to get an accessible seat, or maybe make a reservation?

And... well, I got the one-sentence reply back that I described above. And that... god, it was really disheartening. I realized that they never even asked if their venues were accessible when they were booking the shows. I realized that they were unwilling to put in the work to learn the answers to questions that disabled attendees might have. I realized that they didn't care to find out if the building was accessible.

They didn't know and they didn't care. That, I think, is what took the wind out of my sails when they emailed me back. It's what made me decide that... yeah, I didn't really want to go through the trouble of finding an accessible route to the venue. I didn't want to have to pay an arm and a leg to hire a car to take me the last part of the journey. I didn't want to make myself frantic trying to figure out if I could do all that and still make the last train home.

If they didn't care, I guess I didn't either.

If they'd apologized and said that the only venue they could get was inaccessible, I actually would have understood. I know that small shows don't always get their pick of venues. I get it. I even would have understood if they'd been like "oh dang, I actually don't know -- but I'll find out."

But to be told that they didn't know and didn't intend to find out... oof. That one stung.

Because.... this is the thing. This is the thing. I may be good at it by now, but I'm so tired of picking locks. I'm tired of doing all the legwork because no one ever thinks to help me. I'm tired of feeling like an afterthought at best, or at worst utterly unwelcome.

If you truly want to be inclusive, you need to stop telling people that you're happy to have them -- if they can manage to unlock the door. You need to fucking open it yourself and welcome them in.

What brought all this back to me now, you may be asking? Well... I guess it's just what I was thinking to myself as I was tidying up my phone.

Today I'm deleting podcasts.

[formula-nyoom]

Grid Graduation

Platonic!Grid x Fem!Reader

Summary: Being a racecar driver and actively pursuing a higher education is a feat in and of itself. You didn't let your career get in the way of going to college. But when racing seems to prevent you from attending your graduation ceremony, your fellow drivers decide to take matters into their own hands

A/N: Congratulations to all the people that are graduating this month or next month! I hope you guys have amazing celebrations. And to my fellow college students who still have a year or years left to go, we’re going to get through it, even if it seems like hell. I know that the color of the graduation gowns can vary by college or are usually black but I went with dark blue because that was the color of my gown when I got my associates degree. 

~~~

Some people would say it's stupid to try and get a bachelor’s degree while being a race car driver. 

“You already have a career. Why would you spend all your free time off track pursuing something you don’t really need?” is the question that was constantly asked to you during interviews. Your answer: because it was important to you. It’s common knowledge that karting and racing takes up most of a driver’s life. And while most drivers are able to pursue basic schooling and education during their karting days and early single seater days, once a driver makes it higher up the racing ladder, pursuing an education becomes second to trying to be the best race car driver on track. 

You on the other hand felt that your pursuit of racing should not get in the way of your education. And thankfully with the ability to take online classes, you didn’t have that worry. 

“You’ve refreshed that page five times in the last 30 seconds.” Alex said as you two sat in the drivers lounge. It was media day so thankfully neither of you had to worry about racing and instead your worry was focused on something else.

 “Can you blame me? I’m supposed to get sent an email that tells me whether or not I graduate today and I’m dying to know.” You said, refreshing the page again. You had finally completed all the required courses you needed to graduate and get your bachelors degree. Now you were just waiting for the confirmation that all the hard work, all the study sessions you had done between and after races, and all the all nighters was worth it. 

 “Have you gotten the email yet?” You looked up from your laptop to see Logan approaching with Oscar behind him. You refreshed the page again.

 “Nope. Still nothing.” You let out a frustrated sigh. All the other drivers knew about your pursuit of a college education while also being a race car driver. They had been nothing but supportive in your efforts and could tell how worried you were about having to wait for your college’s final decision on you graduating.

 “The email will come eventually. Staring at the screen isn’t going to help.” Oscar said. 

“I suppose you’re right.” You said, refreshing the page again. You were about to close your laptop, putting the matter temporarily to rest, when the page loaded and showed you had a new email. It was from your college.

 “It’s here!” You exclaimed. You were about to open the email when you paused your finger over the mouse pad.

“I don’t think I can open this. What if they deny me? Or what if this email tells me that I still have some courses that I need to pass to graduate?” You started nervously chewing on your bottom lip as worst case scenarios started to run through your head. Logan placed a reassuring hand on your shoulder

 “(Y/N), you’ve been working your ass off the past couple years to get this degree. They’d be stupid to not let you graduate.” Logan said. 

 “I can read the email for you first if you want.” Alex offered. That seemed to calm your nerves. You handed Alex the laptop and waited with bated breath as he opened the email. Anticipation started to build as it seemed to take forever for Alex to read the first line of the email

“Congratulations (Y/N) (L/N), you have met the requirements to graduate!” Alex exclaimed.

 “Really?” You grabbed the laptop and read the first line of the email that did indeed confirm that you were graduating. Logan and Oscar started to shake your shoulders in excitement as you started to laugh from happiness.

 “I’m graduating!” You exclaimed. Logan, Alex and Oscar let out cheers of excitement as you read the first lines of the email again.

“What’s with the excitement?” Charles asked as he and Max entered the driver’s lounge.

 “(Y/N) got the confirmation that she’s graduating college.” Alex said.

“Congratulations!”Max said. He ruffled your hair while Charles gave you a hug. You were practically beaming with happiness as you started to read the email out loud. 

“Congratulations (Y/N) (L/N), you have met the requirements to graduate! We commend you for this amazing accomplishment and we’d like you to attend the graduation ceremony on….June 7th.” Your voice trailed off after reading the date and your smile slowly started to drop.

 “Are you gonna go?” Oscar asked. You shook your head.

“I can’t. We’ll all be in Canada for Free Practice.” You said. It was true. Your college’s graduation ceremony was the same week of the Canadian Grand Prix.

 “Do you think your team will let you go?” Alex asked. “I mean, you’ve done Canada multiple times and you’ll do it again. But you only really graduate college once, especially considering you're a race car driver.”

 “I don’t think (Y/N)’s team will let her go. Free Practice isn’t something you can really miss.” Max said. He was right. Attending a graduation ceremony seemed like a trivial matter compared to your career. 

 “But (Y/N)’s worked so hard for this. Surely her team will understand.” Logan said.

“No, it’s…it’s ok if I miss the graduation ceremony. I’ve been given confirmation that I’m graduating and will get my diploma in the mail later this year. That’s enough for me.” You told them. But that wasn’t really true. You would have liked to attend the ceremony. If not for just the celebration but also for the sense of normalcy away from the racetrack and responsibilities of being a Formula One driver. 

 “Well we can still celebrate right? Maybe get all the drivers together for a dinner?” Charles suggested. You smiled a bit.

 “Yea Charles. A dinner would be nice. This is still a cause for a celebration. Even if I can’t go to the official one.”

Dinner with the other drivers was a nice celebration. It helped you forget about not being able to attend the graduation ceremony for a while. But the week of the Canadian Grand Prix seemed to bring up that fact again. It seemed the media wanted to remind you too.

 “Well, before we start taking questions, I’d like to say congratulations to you, (Y/N). It was recently let known that you’ve graduated college and now have a bachelor's degree.” The media commentator for the drivers press conference said to you as you sat on a couch next to George, Lando, Lewis, and Zhou. 

“Thank you. If I didn't have to be here in Canada, I'd actually be attending the graduation ceremony, which is happening tomorrow. But racing takes priority.” You smiled to hide some of your disappointment, but the other drivers seemed to notice.

 “I’m sure you and your family are proud of all your efforts. Maybe some of the drivers too?” The interviewer said, motioning to the drivers next to you.

“I’m insanely proud of (Y/N) for what she’s accomplished. She’s shown that racing shouldn’t get in the way of pursuing an education.” Lewis said.

 “I will say, (Y/N) has worked harder than anyone else on the grid.” Zhou said. 

“She won’t admit it herself though.” George said, nudging your side. You shook your head.

“In terms of something like this, even if I can’t attend a graduation ceremony, I’m proud of all the work I’ve done.” You said.

 “Well, I hope you celebrate or have already celebrated what is an immense accomplishment.” The interviewer said.

 “Me and the other drivers on the grid actually went out to dinner to celebrate the day I found out I was graduating to make up for the fact that I can’t attend the ceremony. It was a really nice dinner and I’m glad I have friends to celebrate my accomplishments with.” You smiled at your friends sitting next to you. They smiled back, but for a different reason. 

Despite your efforts to hide your disappointment, your fellow drivers could tell how upset you were about not being able to attend your graduation ceremony. And while the dinner was indeed nice, they wanted you to have a proper celebration for such an immense accomplishment.

That’s how George and Lando ended up knocking on your driver’s room door after interviews and media responsibilities were done for the day.

 “Hey guys. What���s up?” You asked as you opened the door for them.

“Put this on.” Lando handed you a bag with what you assumed had to contain clothing.

 “Why? What is it that you have handed me?” You gave him a skeptical look.

“Open the bag and find out.” Lando said. You did as he instructed and pulled out something made of dark blue fabric. At first you thought it was a dress, but unfurling it revealed to be a graduation gown. You tried not to frown. The only need for something like this would be for graduation photos, which you had already taken. But Lando and George were insistent and you decided to amuse their idea for now and put it on.

“Now what? You want me to get into a race car and drive around the track in a graduation gown?” George and Lando just laughed.

 “I don’t think the FIA will allow that. At least not in just the gown.” Lando said.

“Of course you can’t have the gown without the cap.”  George handed you a graduation cap with a tassel in your team color. The cap was decorated with a little race car on top that had a diploma trailing behind it. 

 “What’s…what’s all this for?” You asked, while putting the cap on. You don’t know why you decided to put the cap on, but did so anyway.

“It’s for your graduation ceremony of course.” Lando said. You frowned.

 “There’s no way I can attend that ceremony.” You said.

“We’re not talking about your college’s graduation ceremony. We’re talking about the one that’s happening right now.” George said. “Come on.”

George and Lando ushered you out of your driver’s room and started to lead you somewhere. You still looked at them with confusion. 

 “We already celebrated during that dinner.”

“But it wasn’t a proper ceremony.” Lando said, leading you towards the track entrance. By now, you were starting to suspect what George and Lando were up to. It wasn’t confirmed until they led you to the start line.

“You guys did not….” Rows and rows of chairs were set up on the track with a makeshift aisle in the middle. Each chair was filled with one of your fellow drivers or members of your team. Tears started to well up in your eyes at the realization of what was happening. 

 “We wanted you to have a proper graduation ceremony.” Lando said, wrapping an arm around you and pulling you into a side hug. Now you were trying really hard not to cry.

 “C’mon. Everyone’s waiting for you.” George said. He and Lando walked you past all chairs, the drivers and team members applauding you as you walked past. 

Lewis and Fernando were standing at what was designated the stage and greeted you with a hug and a whispered “congratulations” as you approached. 

 “Shall we get started then?” Lewis, who had been designated the commencement speaker, said to get everyone’s attention. Everyone quieted down and took a seat

“We are gathered here to recognize the immense accomplishments of (Y/N) (L/N) in her pursuit of a higher education in the form of a bachelor's degree. Not only has she strived for what many have wanted to achieve, but did so while also managing the life of a Formula One driver. That is something not many can do.” Lewis said.

 “I now ask for Fernando to present the graduate with their diploma.” Fernando walked over to you and handed you a piece of paper, then the two of you shook hands as formality of a traditional graduation ceremony while George quickly snapped a photo. You looked at the “diploma” that was handed to you and couldn’t help but let out a laugh. It was a diploma template that you could find on the internet that included your name and the name of your college. Though the official seal had your team logo on it. 

“I now ask the graduate of 2024, to move your tassel from right to left and signify your newfound graduation status.” Lewis said. By now, it was getting really hard to try and keep the tears in as you moved the tassel from right to left. Lewis smiled.

 “It is my pleasure to present (Y/N) (L/N) as the grid’s graduating class of 2024.” Everyone stood up and applauded you. At this point you couldn’t keep the tears in any longer and started to cry but also cheer. Lewis pulled you into a hug, followed by Fernando, then Lando and George and it got to the point of just being a big group hug full of drivers.

 “Go on, toss the cap!” Logan exclaimed once the group hug broke away. Chants of “Toss it! Toss it!” started to echo till you took the graduation cap off and tossed it into the air, signifying that all that hard work was worth it.

[eunimaybe]

౨ৎ — jungwon dating idol you

idol!jungwon x fem. reader | things he do when he’s dating you as an idol

genre: fluff, est. relationship | wc. 0.4k ♡ a/n: this has been sitting in my drafts for AGES. not my best work, but i still wanted to post it ^^

jungwon would be trying so hard not to look your way at any ceremonies and award shows to prevent any rumours or scandals. when he bows because your group passes by, he will be staring at his shoes and refusing to meet any of your eyes. — more under cut!

he definitely gets shy when you show up on the big screen, and he’s lowkey vibing to your songs as he watches you dance. probably melts on the spot when you smile at the audience. (he likes telling himself that it’s for him and him only.)

jungwon wouldn’t be showing it, but he probably gets so excited when you and his promotion schedules and activities clash, because what do you mean that he gets to see you for five seconds as you pass by him for your performance in music bank?

jungwon is most definitely asking the staff if he can please please please have a dance challenge with you for his/your latest comeback.

jungwon would definitely collect your photocards, probably trades and buys from your fandom under an anonymous name and makes you sign every one of them.

he also collects your albums and has them in a little drawer and flips through them when he’s bored. (he may or may not have tabs on your pages)

jungwon has a whole playlist with every single one of your group’s songs and has your parts perfectly memorised. he will not hesitate to sing along when the song comes to your part when he’s in the car or in his room.

jungwon is an avid viewer of your fan cams and he leaves comments complimenting you.

jungwon probably watches ship edits of you and him on tiktok whilst giggling and blushing. he’s down bad for your fr.

jungwon is always getting into online fights with your haters, he can be a menace if he wants to be.

jungwon constantly tiring his members out by talking about you nonstop in the dorms. y/n this and y/n that. the members have had enough.

he also gets really sad when he sees you flirting with your fans.

he would just randomly crash at your dorm or practice room without notice in the middle of the night.

jungwon just loves you sm <3

[ellecdc]

Wolfstar x bookworm!reader

What about reader, Regulus and Barty have their own little chaotic book club and Wolfstar often have to go in search of reader as Barty happens to enjoy switching the location of said meetings.

Wolfstar Sirius, ends up dragging reader away for cuddles and reader ends up reading to them, running her fingers through Sirius's hair as he needs extra affection

Hope this inspires you, I hope you feel better soon, sending all my optimism your way 🫶

you guys really came through with the cutest wolfstar requests - thank you and I owe you my life

poly!wolfstar x bookworm!reader who has a book club with Regulus and Barty...much to Sirius' chagrin

CW: fem!reader, Sirius being a sucky baby, Barty being a shit disturber, Regulus being exhausted, Remus being there for the drama

Remus didn’t bother looking up from his book at the sound of his dorm room door slamming open unceremoniously followed by the sound of Quidditch equipment falling in a heap on the ground because he didn’t need to; it had Sirius written all over it.

Not only would Prongs never treat his equipment with such disrespect and disregard, but he also always came back from practice far too excitedly.

“Fucking hells, Prongs is working us hard.” Sirius grumbled as he fell face first spread-eagle onto his bed. 

“Rough.” Remus gruffed back, knowing better than to try to say anything even remotely supportive of James’ coaching methods, but also not feeling particularly sorry for his boyfriend, seeing as he actively chooses to be on the Gryffindor team every year.

“Where’s our dolly?” Sirius mumbled into his bedding. 

Remus failed to smother a smirk as he flipped a page in his book. “Reading.”

Sirius’ head popped up at that as he looked at Remus bemusedly. “Then why isn’t she here reading with you?”

“Because she’s reading with her book club.”

Remus’ response was met with a small bout of silence.

A very small bout.

“Why aren’t you in the book club?”

Remus finally let his book fall to his lap in order to consider Sirius. “Because I’m not reading the same book as they are.”

“Who’s they?”

“Sirius.” Remus warned.

“Remus.” Sirius returned without hesitation. 

The two boys stared insistently at the other; Remus fighting the urge to laugh at how petulant Sirius looked with his hair still all windswept and falling out of the bun he’d thrown it in for practice. 

“Who’s they?” Sirius repeated with faux casualty. 

“Regulus and Junior.”

All faux casualty was thrown out the window as Sirius slammed his hands onto his bed and sat up on his knees quickly. “You’re sodding kidding me!” 

“‘Fraid not, Pads.” Remus offered as he turned to look back down at his book.

Sirius was having none of that as he accio’d Remus’ book into his hand.

“You let her leave with Regulus and Junior!?”

“What do you mean let, Pads? I’m not her keeper.” Remus scolded. Sirius looked like he really wanted to argue with that point, but also knew better. 

“Well…this is just not right at all!” 

“What makes it wrong, Sirius? That she’s not here to cuddle you?” Remus asked flatly. 

“Yes!” He shouted in exasperation as he headed towards the dorm room door, and whilst Remus found his boyfriend quite exhausting right now, he couldn’t pass up the show this was guaranteed to provide. 

Any tension that dissipated from Sirius’ shoulders as he spotted you in the library quickly returned when he also spotted his younger brother and his brother’s best friend sitting along with you. 

Regulus rolled his eyes and snapped his book shut abruptly knowing full well that Sirius’ temper tantrum was about to force their book club to a close, but Barty simply smirked at the promise of some drama. 

“Sorry, but I’m afraid this book club is closed; we’ve already hit our quota for Black’s.” Barty jeered as Sirius approached your table.

“Sod off, Junior.” He grumbled quietly.

“Hi Siri! How was your practice?” You asked cheerfully; Remus almost laughed at the way most of Sirius’ ire melted away at the question.

“Long.” He pouted, causing you to coo in sympathy.

“James working you too hard?” You asked tenderly, taking his first two fingers into your hand from where his hand was dangling dejectedly beside you. 

“Oh cry me a sodding river, Black.” Barty scoffed. “Now would you skedaddle please? We’re trying to have a tantalising discussion on the ins and outs of the literary masterpiece Alice in Wonderland.”

Remus couldn't restrain the laugh that bubbled out of him at that. “Are you guys actually reading Alice in Wonderland?”

“Yes.” Regulus sneered defensively. 

“Treasure thought I’d love it.” Barty explained haughtily. “And she was right.”

“I don’t give a thestral’s arse what you’re reading, Junior; I want my girlfriend back!” Sirius barked, earning him shushes from surrounding students. 

Barty looked like he was thoroughly enjoying the verbal sparring that was no doubt growing to near physical sparring levels when Regulus rolled his eyes and stood. “Barty, please; I really don’t feel like fielding one of my brother’s meltdowns.”

“Maybe I feel like fielding one of your brother’s meltdowns; did you ever think about that, Regulus? Salazar, you Black’s are so selfish.” He spat with vitriol; and though he continued berating his friend, he did in fact collect his book and his notes and stand from the table, continuing to jeer at Regulus as they exited the library. 

“I’m sorry we interrupted your book club, lovebug.” Remus placated as you turned to consider your two boyfriends. 

“I’m not!” Sirius argued quickly. “I wanted my post-practice cuddles.” He pouted, the end of his sentence trailing off as Remus noted the slightest dusting of pink on his cheeks. 

Your face softened as you looked at Sirius with equal parts love and teasing. “I’m terribly sorry, Siri.” 

“Well…thank you.” He mumbled. 

“Come on then.” Remus offered with a laugh, patting Sirius on the bum roughly. “Let’s go for our post-practice cuddles then.”

You stood from the table, accepting Remus’ hand as you did.

“No, none for Moony.” Sirius whined petulantly, causing Remus to scoff indignantly. 

“Why not!?”

“You have not been sympathetic nor helpful in the slightest to my plight.”

“I came with you to fetch her!” Remus defended. 

“No.” Sirius started, throwing him a glare that held little to no malice. “You came to watch me argue with Junior and Reg.”

“Same thing.” Remus muttered quietly, earning him another glare from Sirius.

You squeezed Remus’ hand twice as you bumped your elbow into Sirius’ side, encouraging him to throw an arm over your shoulders. “What book would you like to read, Sirius?” You asked him sweetly. 

And that’s how Remus found himself laying on his bed alone as you and Sirius laid in his bed; Sirius’ head propped on your chest as you read from the beginning of Alice in Wonderland and played with his hair the way he liked equally in his human and animagus form. And Remus couldn’t find it in him to be particularly perturbed when the two of you looked so sodding sweet.

[ybklix]

LUST

☾⋆⁺₊ pairing: OT8 x fem!reader ˖⋆࿐໋ 𝒔𝒚𝒏𝒐𝒑𝒔𝒊𝒔: Lee Minho plans a little getaway with his closest friends, their wives, and you, his girlfriend and most adored and prized possession, right after he intentionally reads your private diary and leaves him wandering with your writing about something particular.

𝜗𝜚 ࣪˖ 𝒈𝒆𝒏𝒓𝒆 — 𝒘𝒂𝒓𝒏𝒊𝒏𝒈𝒔: MDNI 18+, smut, cuckolding, mention of age gap, cheating, est. relationship, pet names, edging, overstimulation, multiple orgasms, orgasm denial, daddy, dreg, corruption & praise kink, impact play, handjob, oral sex, fingering, clitplay, boob play, slight roleplay, gangbang, double penetration, bukkake, unprotected sex, creampies, cumplay, & more !! ̊ ̟ ꒷꒦ ̊ ̟ ꒷꒦ word count: ~15k

ʚ⁺˖ 𝔴𝔢𝔫𝔱𝔬𝔟𝔢𝔯 ˖ ⋆ ˚｡⋆୨୧˚ (𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗸𝘁𝗼��𝗲𝗿 '𝟮𝟰) ₊˚🕯️♱‧₊˚. 00: THE INTRO

main masterlist ; taglist ⭑.ᐟ

a/n: happy and spooky october! my very first kinktober event! (and ot8 lmk what u think:3) i tried to put a tiny plot lol

“I decided to take a couple of days off, well, starting with this weekend at least” expressed your boyfriend calmly, turning the page of his book, disinterested.

You sat up, turning your body to see him and slightly loosening the grip of his arm over your shoulder as you lifted your head from his chest and watched him happily and confused.

“Why is that…?” you asked him with a smile on your face.

Your eyes sparkled and Minho, your boyfriend, saw them directly, causing him tenderness, you knew there was something about him, you noticed something different from the first instant since you knew him so well, it was the first thing you noticed in the morning, but for some reason, you didn’t ask him and now you felt like you were about to know the reason.

“I just… want to relax, I haven’t done that in a while, even before my birthday” he expressed, with his typical tone that you knew so perfectly, that there was something more in-depth in his short and simple answer.

Also, he wasn’t the kind of guy who brings up the topic of his birthday and doesn’t seem fazed by surprises.

You squinted your eyes for a moment and watched him, every faction of his perfect, chiseled face, watching him closely and you knew what a lousy liar he was, Minho wasn’t making eye contact with you all of a sudden and was about to burst out in nervous laughter.

“It’s okay love” you finally replied, genuinely happy for his decision, “you know how happy it makes me that you take these breaks and be with me, it’s to be with me, right?”

He smiled warmly at you, tenderly showing his front teeth and hugging you again as he finally closed his book. You melted at his expression and countenance, you really loved every part of him. You were both there, on a quiet Sunday on the couch reading placidly, Minho sitting and you lying on his chest, enjoying each other’s warmth and company. But in a way, he was a little unsettled and you hadn’t noticed that yet since he was acting so natural and calm.

“Of course I do, honey, I adore being with you… I’ve planned to go to the cabin, shall we?”

You nodded happily, pulling your face closer to him.

“I love the idea…”

And before you could kiss him, he spoke again saying:

“And have the boys come with me…”

Minho blinked suddenly waiting for your answer, but you pulled away from him a little and quickly thought that’s what all the mystery surrounding him during the day was about.

“Oh, you’ll go only with t…”

“No love, I want us to go, them and I thought I’d invite their wives.”

You didn’t know what to say for a moment, you just stared at him for a few seconds and you could think that it was his cabin anyway, his own property and he could decide what to do with it at his own will, so you just smiled, deep down a little disappointed because you had already got the idea into your head to spend a weekend alone in the relaxing forest with your boyfriend, an activity he really loved; but you respected him a lot, absurdly a great amount that you used to be so modest with him to what led you to be submissive to him, something you have discussed previously, in that you may have different opinions and you were more than free to express everything with him, yet you didn’t know exactly why you couldn’t accomplish it. You loved the cabin, it was so spacious, it was literally a big house, the landscapes were beautiful and Minho had it very well kept as it was like his own sanctuary. There was this idea that if he didn’t have to be a civilian and functioning adult with a job in the city, he would live in the quiet of the forest without thinking about it, but it was a few hours outside the city and its access was not so easy. He always offered you his cabin as a way of escape for inspiration in your new work, but he was busy all the time and couldn’t stay with you there, causing you fear and uncertainty to be alone in the forest so you just politely declined every time.

“It’s okay, Minho, it will be fun” you replied kindly, giving him a quick kiss anyway.

You felt the softness of his lips for a brief moment, thinking about that homely, adventurous, and manly side you loved about him, he adored his typical ‘man activities’, being outdoors, camping, fishing, building things, giving you instructions when you didn’t know how to do something he knew almost automatically like fixing a car, putting together a piece of furniture and all those little things he took care of, sighing softly, every now and then letting out an aghh in a whine and looking at you with his big eyes in a falsely disapproving joking way to continue to help you anyway with all his willingness and affection, all those small and simple actions in huge contrast to how you met him, so formal, academic and modestly. You loved him so much and he loved you too.

“I knew you’d like the idea, princess. Do you want me to buy you a new wardrobe to go into the woods this time? It’ll be cold and the last time we went it was summer…”

Your cheeks turned warm quickly, something about him spoiling you too much, buying you and giving you everything, absolutely without whining and you without even having to lift a finger, still caused you some shame, you wanted to earn it, you had been unemployed for months now after graduating, but Minho was supporting you and he used to tell you that you shouldn’t think like that, you did work hard, in writing your new book… but simply, you didn’t manage to finish it. He has given you everything and so many opportunities that even the slightest thing shocked you, despite your already long-standing relationship.

“I’ll see what I can buy myself…” you wanted to emphasize the words buy myself, implying that you would use the money they used to pay you from time to time when you sent the manuscript of some chapters.

“Buy all you want, use my card, dear” he sentenced with a smile, “Do you want more coffee?”

You didn’t even reason his question and nodded somewhat stunned, the next thing you saw was your boyfriend get up from the couch to grab your cups on the nightstand before you and walk to the kitchen. You followed him with your eyes, you wanted to be so grateful to him in such a way that he could feel it and touch it, he kept telling you that he knew you were grateful and that your final art will be a delicious reward for him, but sometimes you felt the need to do something for him… but you couldn’t think of something concrete, not like the things he did for you. You also thought, as you leaned your body back against the couch, how much he loved the cabin, and his 7 closest friends, so when he mentioned ‘the boys’ you knew exactly who Minho meant. You met them over time in your relationship, at reunions and birthdays, you got to be at the birthday party of Seo Changbin, Han Jisung, Lee Felix, Kim Seungmin, Bahng Chan, and the upcoming was Minho’s, you met the rest of his close group, Yang Jeongin and Hwang Hyunjin. Only four of them were married, Chan, Changbin, Seungmin and Hyunjin, and of those four, all except Chagbin already had children, about the others, you really did not know their love situation. But you also knew their respective wives and to be honest... They seemed to you, like women with eccentric but empty personalities, and it was not as if you took the time to know perfectly well Minho’s best friends, you only knew their occupations and their approximate age, all of them were older than you, even the youngest was a decade older than you.

Suddenly curiosity flooded you… why would Minho suddenly want so many people on his property, Minho was so reserved and enjoyed solitude, and his home being invaded by 11 people sounded so exhausting, even for you who hoped not to be the main hostess, you thought that he definitely had a reason and you wanted to find out what it was about. Minho on the other hand was nervous, it was more than obvious that there was a reason but he didn’t feel completely confident about sharing the idea with you… without you calling him sick. A very very sick man, invading your privacy and abusing your trust, but since just a few days ago the disturbing idea did not leave his mind and he wanted to act slow, seeing the result of his craziest thoughts.

๋࣭ ⭑๋࣭ ⸙ ᨒ↟ ⋆｡°

“Do you want to say goodbye to our privacy for the weekend?” you mentioned cheekily, moving dangerously close to Minho.

It’s been five days already, since your boyfriend prepared each one of them with every little detail to go to his house in the forest and make a good impression as a host, with his closest friends and some of their wives.

He frowned in confusion, small dewdrops falling on his straight, short, dark hair, as he closed the back door of his SUV where he had stowed all the luggage.

“Huh?”

“I mean… I love fucking in the cabin with you and now we’ll be with more people around” you commented, pouting a little.

Minho chuckled, incredulously running his tongue along his cavity, amused by your comment, he looked so fucking good, his face just awake, still him in all his senses.

“God, y/n, it’s seven in the morning” he smiled amused with his hands on his hips, almost indignant, “You’re thinking about sex this early?”

You blushed, “Mmm, I’m kinda horny.”

“Wasn’t last night enough?”

You denied frantically, wrapping your arms around his body, “I can never get enough of you…”

Minho released a chuckle, returning your tight embrace, wrapping his strong arms around your lower back and drawing you into his body as an adorable but mischievous smile graced his pretty face and he looked at your countenance in amusement.

“Mmm, okay, but we can’t be late, it’ll be quick…” he mentioned in a low, thick voice, moaning softly in jest as he walked around moving your body trapped in his arms, alerting all your senses.

You were glad, you smiled happily moving the muscles of your face and raising your ears on the spot, being touched by Minho always put you in a perfect mood.

“We’ll be right on time” you replied, lost in the closeness of his face, lips, and soft chin.

“It better be because that fucker Seungmin is always on time.”

You laughed, somewhat stunned letting yourself be carried by his steps to the entrance of his home, where once inside, Minho pushed you against the door and took your lips passionately, surprising you a little, you tasted the fleshiness of his lips and his fresh breath from his oral hygiene just a few minutes ago, his left hand held your cheek while with the other he squeezed your waist tightly; you had dressed so cute and autumnal that your boyfriend had to kiss you after seeing you all dressed up, hair and make up done, dressed in your denim mini skirt, sweater and thin scarf while he was telling you in your ear and between kisses how cute you looked, how much he loved you and how you looked like a cute little doll like that, completely ruining the random lip combo you had chosen, he also got horny seeing you like that, with your mini skirt and such a candid look, getting even jealous for slight seconds that his friends would also see you like this every day, since you weren’t confident enough with them to walk around in your comfortable and loose clothes inside the home, so you had packed different and elaborate outfits with all your necessary makeup, Minho was heated halfway through your kissing session, but unlike you, he knew how to calm down and didn’t ask to do it right there, but it certainly left you wanting more, with your poor core muscles tingling restlessly, but you just watched as your boyfriend stopped, pretending to be shocked and busy, saying he had to get everything into the car and if you would help him, leaving you pining, but right now he was kissing you with much more intensity than a few minutes ago, his body was getting closer and closer to yours to the point where you could feel the hardness of the door on your back and the stiff denim of his crotch with his hard penis trapped in it, rubbing against you.

It took you small seconds to keep up with him, his lips and tongue moving nimbly across you and you couldn’t help but feel the typical tingle in your bottom, enjoying the moment and fantasizing about how much you love sex and intimacy with your boyfriend. It wasn’t something you used to remark on, but your mind kept spinning on how much of an expert Minho was with you, it wasn’t like you were the most expert at sex either since, after all, he was the first with you in everything and he was the only person you knew sexually, but he made you feel so great, he knew exactly where to touch you and how to drive you crazy, if that made you young and naive you didn’t care, you loved every moment of the day you got to explore with him, explore the endless desire and pleasure you had until you were panting after you climaxed so intensely.

Minho loved every part of you, he used to ignore the fact that you were younger than him and were slightly a doll to him, so moldable and manipulable to his desire, but he put that aside —or at least he convinced himself to do so— and was quite the gentleman with you, because he loved you, even though sometimes, most of the time, he notices the way you love to be treated a little rough in bed, driving him absolutely wild, fantasizing in all the ways you both could get to fulfill both of your fantasies. In fact, he notices every detail about you, it is inevitable for him not to be aware of you and to be deeply obsessed with you, your relationship started that way, with piercing glances from him to you in places where he should have been professional and kept his posture, but you were the fucking temptation in person, making his life miserable the time he couldn’t have you.

But now, he had you all to himself, all the time, every moment you both desired, Minho adored every inch of you, he praised the ground you walked on, he loved that you were his and taking you around as his most special person and his most prized possession and award, nothing took away his smug smile every time he held your hand in public, he adored possessing you so his deep kisses trapped every part of you as you felt the warmth of his organ separate from you to go down to your neck, gently pulling the thin fabric of your scarf, causing you to tingle and shiver but the feeling didn’t stop, as you suddenly felt his lips on your neck, breathing in your scent, kissing your skin, losing himself in the pure paradise that the sweetness of your being was giving him.

Minho took a deep breath, his libido on edge and his cock throbbing at your slightest proximity, he was losing his mind, he wanted to bite your skin, to revel in your sweet moans of his teeth mistreating your docile young skin but he held back, like a man aware in his senses, but lately he has been holding back a lot when it came to you, one part of him wondered why and the other knew exactly the reason, with a slight prickling sensation in his chest, Minho has been thinking too much about it.

“Fuck, bunny, I can’t fuck you right now, but I’ll be quick and take care of that needy part of you” he whispered into your neck, his heaving breath rocking you, “We can’t be late…. or, fuck it, do you want me to fuck you now?”

His right hand traveled from your waist to your pussy, cupping it for a moment, sending a pang of sudden surprise arousal through your body, you bit your lip, still with the feel of his on yours, with his taste and the madness it was taking you to feel the tip of his nose brush against your neck.

“It’s okay, Minho” you answered without thinking, and without even reasoning a single word he had said, you weren’t thinking clearly, your hormones were high, and you just enjoyed the pressure of his palm on your clit.

“Yeah, what?” he murmured in amusement, pulling away from you to stand in front of you, with a half smile, enjoying your docile expression of pleasure.

You looked up at him into his huge, completely dark eyes which watched you expectantly. You blinked to try to reason but he pressed his hand against your center again making you release a soft moan.

“We’ll be late…” you replied with difficulty, your face was turning red, you were starting to get hot, “You can do whatever you want…”

“Say what you want, now” he ordered, his sudden switch surprised you but you liked it at all, he sounded so serious.

“Can you take care of me quickly, please” you almost gasped in supplication.

“You just love when I make you feel good, don’t you?” he replied haughtily with a smile on his face, giving you a fleeting kiss.

Minho quickly slid to the floor, staying right at the height of your skirt, which he lifted it and his smile somehow got bigger as he saw you wearing tiny protective shorts under it, something in him quickly fantasized about the fact that you were not a bad girl looking for evil, you could be spontaneous and naughty and only wearing your underwear underneath, instead you were protecting yourself as you would be at least almost 72 hours along with more men.

“Good girl” he whispered, panting and mumbling, yanking roughly at your shorts and panties.

You watched Minho, glancing down at him from above, you couldn’t deny how incredibly aroused you were and of all the areas of your body that cried out to be touched, it was in more desperation your sweet throbbing cunt, you wandered between your thoughts and his lewd acts; if only you had ignored the fact that Minho had to receive his friends and decided to be completely filled by him, you would already be naked, pressed against his body as the two of you created more tension, as he prepared your body well before fucking you hard because Minho loves to have you so wet, messed up before finally inserting his well-endowed manhood into you, it was something so common with him, but no, instead, before you could even process it, your handsome boyfriend captured your pussy in his mouth, leaving you stunned and gasping, kissing your area dirtily and nimbly, his lower lip and tongue caressing your folds, labia and clit, his upper lip rubbing on your pubic skin, sucking finely. You thought about how much you enjoyed having him eat you whole and, that if he decided to do it with the same delicacy and passion with which he always gives you oral sex, you would only drag out your orgasm and that might lead you to fall behind with your journey, but you were so needy all of a sudden, that a little bit of your boyfriend’s magic and movements in your desperate spot was enough for you just now.

Minho looked into your eyes raising his gaze and did not take his mouth away from you, he closed it, daintily brushing his lips to gently kiss your mons pubis and moved towards you again, parting your folds and losing himself in your pulsing clit, sucking on it, not caring about your skirt in his mission, as it was tight enough to stay stuck above your hips. You intertwined your hand in his soft hair, enjoying your boyfriend’s warm cavity in your slick. Minho was equally or worse exasperated, so he couldn’t help but torture himself further and in one swift movement he unbuttoned his jeans with one of his hands and pulled his cock out, almost grunting with your pussy in his mouth at the sensation of his hard piece of flesh exposed, pumping in pleasure, he stroked it, filling his hand with his own precum and began to masturbate gently, while with you he remained somewhat rough.

His suction increased in intensity, making you let out a squeal and then bite your lip, his tongue was increasing in speed, his licks were more constant and deeper, you were building your orgasm magically, but you lost your mind as you felt his fingertips caress your folds and then run them more roughly through your wetness until they sought your entrance, teasing you with a single finger, then inserting two, effectively thrusting them inside you, you were a mess of sighs and heavy breathing but you let out an audible moan again as you felt his third finger in you and the gentle nibble of his teeth on your sensitive area.

You were both in bliss, his cock being stimulated by himself to orgasm but not missing a beat in you, finding himself multitasking as he satisfied you with his hand and mouth. You began to shudder, feeling the tense climax in every inch of your body, his fingers were filling you, his tongue licking you all over making incredible shocks of pleasure come to you as you looked into his eyes from time to time, his whole pretty face buried in your core as he struggled with himself masturbating. You gasped in exasperation as you moaned his name, you loved moaning his name, stroking his hair, watching him satisfy you. Your stiff muscles ached but your core was being divinely pleasured and without warning, you cum on your boyfriend’s magical fingers fucking your insides.

Minho pulled his fingers out to taste every part of you one last time, jerking his cock hard until he squeezed and expelled every drop of cum loaded in his sizzling arousal, groaning through his teeth as he ran his thick tongue naughtily cleaning every part of you, making you slightly restless again and hard to recover from your orgasm, because you knew it was a little provocative game Minho liked to play on you, but before you could become aroused again, he broke away from you, raising his face to look at you, his mouth glistening from you, smiling genuinely happy as if he had tasted something finely delicious.

“Go on, princess, go get cleaned up, I’ll do the same and meet you here at the front door to go, okay?” spoke Minho softly.

You were both agitated, but satisfied that you couldn’t have asked for anything better before starting your little adventure in the forest of which you had no idea what you were in for or about to do so in the meantime you kept calm about it, but the more you thought about it and the closer and closer you got to your destination, you were terrified of the idea of looking like an immature girl who was all the time next to her boyfriend because she didn’t have enough confidence with the rest of the people who would be there, because the more you thought about it the more absurd it seemed to you the matter or the reason for such a weekend. You tried to look on the bright side, but deep down you hoped it wouldn’t be a long or tedious weekend at all.

You two went to get cleaned up and returned with big smiles to get into Minho’s car and drive a little over two hours out of the city to officially head into the woods. You fixed your makeup on the way as Minho drove, gently squeezing your thigh as he gave you a smile and headed off on his way to his property, you returned the sweet gesture with a smile and excitedly, did your best not to sleep, talked the whole ride with Minho and had fun selecting music.

“Play something from IU, baby” commented your boyfriend watching you holding your phone to handle the music, then looking back towards the highway.

“IU…” you replied playfully, squinting your eyes and pouting at him, annoyed.

Minho laughed and the rest of the ride was so enjoyable, you were a little sleepy but it was enough for you to see the attractive profile side of your partner and suddenly you would blurt out something that came to your mind. But in moments of silence, when the music was the only thing that accompanied you, you thought about the situation, it was obvious that Minho wanted to spend some time with his friends and he would leave you with the wives of his best friends but… what the fuck could you talk about? You were a recent college graduate, your hobbies were so normal and banal to those of a young girl your age, but from there also came your uncertainty and insecurity that you would be judged and that they would think of you exactly the same but with Minho, if you are young and your vision or ambitions were oriented differently, then what were you doing with Minho, but it was an answer that you could respond surprisingly with the most cheesy and even childish words, but because you loved him, the support was mutual and that’s why you were with him.

“Maybe… this weekend you can finally find inspiration, sweetie.”

You hummed in response as you nodded softly as he interrupted your thoughts, but right after hearing that you went back to diving into them and the constant worry you had about writing something; Minho noticed your silence immediately wanting to remedy the problem.

“Oh, my dear, I wasn’t telling you that to pressure you, you have time, enjoy, I love you” he said worriedly, speaking fast and controlling his impulses to let go of the steering wheel to hug and touch you.

“Oh, it wasn’t that” you replied unconcerned and somewhat guilty that you made him feel bad, “It’s okay, I’m sorry, Minho. Thank you.”

All the things Minho did for you. Or at least you always thought so. You just wondered if you could ever give it back to him.

Some time later you arrived at his house, your excitement and nerves grew once the tires of his car passed through the forest dirt and on a cool, beautiful October morning, two lovers stood in front of the house you never thought held surprises for you.

The cabin, as Minho used to like to call it, looked the same as you remembered it the last time you went, in the summer just a few months ago, but the atmosphere was cooler, the sky was gray and it was adorned all around by the beautiful autumn color palette, it was cozy, it was absolutely all the essence of your lover Lee Minho in one property.

“I’ll take the things out, hon. If you want to sleep you can go inside, it’s all ready, the housekeeper left it spotless” he added, coming up to you to hug you and pin you against his car door.

“It’s okay. I’m not sleepy, really” you wrapped your arms around his neck, “Besides your friends could be here any minute.”

And just as you said that, you both could hear perfectly besides the sound of the wind and leaves flying, the sound a car driving up to your direction. You both turned your head to the left waiting for the car to show itself, until it did a few minutes later.

“Was he coming behind us and we didn’t see him?” added Minho amused, not releasing his grip on your waist.

You didn’t react, you were so comfortable with your arms on his shoulders that you both watched in anticipation as the car parked and the people got out of it.

Kim Seungmin. Just the person Minho had said would arrive first. Minho had all these characters as best friends. Kim Seungmin, superstar baseball player married to the model and creative director and manager of one of the most famous girl groups currently, basically she was a socialite and businesswoman, Jung Jisook, but better known as Kim Jisook legally taking her husband’s last name.

You felt the woman’s judging look as she lowered her Chanel sunglasses from her face, watching as you and Minho continued like two lovebirds cuddling. You felt bad for a small moment and slowly stopped hugging your boyfriend, who also gently pulled away from you to move closer to his friend.

“Fuck, Minho, I’m early again” Seungmin said suddenly, putting his hands on his hips falsely indignant.

“Nice to see you again, Minho, the house is beautiful and you have the lake for yourself, amazing. I want a lake house too now” added the woman happily, approaching your boyfriend to greet him, “Thank you for inviting us.”

“How are you Jisook? It’s good to see you too, and don‘t worry, my house is your house. How’s Jungmin?”

Jungmin, the Kim’s little two year old boy. You haven‘t met him yet.

“My sister is taking care of him by herself these days” Seungmin replied, “Why did you bring us here again?” he joked, “Ah, by the way, nice to see you again…. Y/n, I’m Kim Seungmin in case you don’t remember.”

You let out a giggle, you were absorbed by the situation around you that you had even forgotten to speak.

“Hello” you replied shyly, waving your hand, “Mr. and Mrs…”

“Seungmin, please” he interrupted you with a smile to which you nodded, he looked straight at his wife, waiting for her to do the same.

“Jisook” she replied despondently.

You bit your lip nervously, you understood and felt her slight disdain for you as before you, in Minho’s life there was someone else, his ex-wife Miyeon, who you were very much aware is still a close friend of his best friends‘ current wives.

“Well, settle in, make yourselves comfortable, Y/n will show you to your room."

“You seriously have rooms for everyone? That’s great” Jisook added, “Honey we should get something like that, wouldn‘t that be fun?”

“The forest at night?” her husband replied, “No thanks, Minho likes it because he’s a maniac.”

You laughed at his comment and waited for Seungmin to put their bags down. You watched him carefully, you had to confess that each of Minho’s friends had their own particular charm and, each of them were really attractive men. Seungmin had innocent looking, droopy-kind eyes, short black hair and a manly, elegant and slim build, with a clean and slightly boyish appearance.

You finally opened the house and led the Kims into the room your boyfriend had previously indicated. You saw Jisook inspecting the place as she walked in and somewhat awkwardly you were about to leave them alone when a “Thank you, y/n” from Seungmin stopped you for a second.

You didn’t know if you were crazy, if you were seeing things that weren’t but Seungmin’s tender and kind look at you changed for a second, his dark eyes were shining and you could notice how he subtly checked you out, somewhat mischievously. You smiled and walked out, frowning and wondering if it was all in your imagination.

But there were so many of their intentions that you didn’t know, Minho’s big little secret baiting you, you were the main attraction, the real reason for those men‘s stay at Lee Minho’s cabin.

You rejoined Minho outside the house, watching each of his friends arrive, taking surprise after surprise as you watched each attractive man walk through the door of the house behind you as you directed them to their room since that was the task Minho had assigned for you.

Next, Seo Changbin, who complained when he arrived and did not think he would be early, but it was all arranged by his wife who wanted to be near the lake; he was an aeronautical engineer with a PhD and a professor at the prestigious university where Lee Minho himself was also a faculty member; accompanied by his pretty model wife and owner of a women’s sportswear line, Seo Chaeryeong. Changbin, in addition to mathematics, loved to keep his image healthy and exercise, so his appearance was muscular and his eyes were so uniquely shaped.

Next, Lee Felix, arriving alone, something about him looked anxious but happy, he was a handsome, freckled, big eyed man with long, blond, dyed hair, he arrived confident with a blue designer suitcase, Felix was a programmer who worked importantly designing video games or something like that you understood from Minho. Right behind him came Hwang Hyunjin, a painter who owned galleries with his wife Vittoria, an exclusive interior designer, who had, together with Hyunjin, been involved in much of the cabin’s interior for years now.

Later at about the same time, Bahng Chan, owner of a boxing academy, which Minho attended, and chief of police in the city, together with his wife Miah, who you had no idea what she did but lived a good life with Chan. After him, Yang Jeongin, the youngest of your group of friends, editor-in-chief of a major fashion magazine, arriving with a huge smile and charisma, secretly being one of your boyfriend’s favorites.

At this point you were exahusted, you didn’t expect to see so many people all of a sudden, you had forgotten your social battery, but finally, your boyfriend’s best friend, Han Jisung, the handsome Han Jisung, producer and composer of major entertainment companies, could not be missed.

They were all, the house was certainly full, a few hours had passed and you were already starting to judge each one with a bit of your writer’s mind, but you decided to ignore it, letting yourself be carried away by the simplicity of the time. Minho had planned it all, cooking for you, getting together for lunch, setting up around the house so you could relax, you were having a good time leaving the fact that you felt highly judged by the four women older than you.

The first day went so well, you went to sleep with Minho kissing him sweetly good night but… the nightmare came the next morning, when your boyfriend distanced himself from you to spend some time with friends and you were forced to spend time with the eccentric and millionaire women, at first it went well, Chaeryeong, the youngest after you, invited you to run early along the forest, which you accepted, when you were about to do so, her husband was outside, preparing some things with the other guys, setting up camping tents because apparently they would be spending the night outside today and after she gave Changbin a quick kiss and started jogging, he gave you a half smile and you couldn’t help but feel watched again, just like the first day Seungmin did, in fact you have been feeling watched, heavy gazes on you.. but you thought you were starting to get paranoid, they didn’t bother you, but they confused you too much… why were they looking at you, as if you were in the spotlight and suddenly they wanted to eat you with their eyes.

You didn't give the matter a second thought, you came in from your little exercise, clearing your mind by jogging through the trees, feeling the cool air hit your face, leaving you breathless and in a cold sweat. You went back to the cabin, showered and dressed up again this time slightly more comfortable and natural, you thought you were going for a quiet afternoon, but your boyfriend forced you to spend the rest of the afternoon with the women in the town 40 minutes away.

You couldn’t believe it, there you were, in Hwang Hyunjin’s car while his wife was driving, you didn’t know if Minho was waiting for them to become your best friends overnight, but it was absurd… they were something unbelievable. You didn’t want to judge them as women blinded in the perfect life and glamour, but they were exactly that, you didn’t blame them, if you had the necessary money god knows how unbearable you would become too, but, being with other people, seeing the sunsets and the sunrise from a new perspective, all those little factors that were making you become yourself again little by little, you were inspired.

You arrived, spent a nice night under the stars and a campfire, eating smores, telling absolutely everything, each one was so talkative in their own way, you could feel why Minho appreciated them a lot, but the robots at their sides didn’t help them at all, you wanted to love them, you wanted to feel in the closeness and trust of women, but you had such neutral opinions about them, they judged with their eyes every time they laughed loudly and you understood that sometimes it was annoying, but not to be reflected that way all the time. The camping tents were in vain, in the end everyone went to sleep inside, that night Minho surprised you, being overly affectionate all of a sudden.

“Look at the view” he said, hugging you from behind, sniffing the smell of your hair as he pointed to the window.

Darkness and more darkness, only a pine tree being dimly illuminated by the light outside. You never stopped to think how scary it looked at night because you were all the time accompanied by Minho and you felt completely safe.

“It looks scary” you spoke your mind.

“It really does, a little bit” he spoke in your ear, turning you unexpectedly to face him.

You looked into his eyes, you understood exactly what was going on.

“I need you” he confessed to you.

Your cheeks turned pink, you were a little shy to have sex because it was so likely that they could hear you, in that case, Felix, Jeongin and Jisung who slept in the same room near yours.

“I don’t know, Min, I don't want to be vulgar and be overheard…” you expressed apologetically.

Minho’s mind spun around, vulgarity, noise, scandal, it was all he could think of lately.

“If you don’t want to do it princess that’s fine, but if you want to do it we can be so, so quiet” he whispered, seducing you as he brought his face dangerously close towards you.

You kissed him. And he got his way that night, it wasn’t like you refused either and, with a hand over your mouth, trying to cancel out any noise coming from you, you and Minho fucked that night. The forest was silent, your muffled moans and Minho’s withheld moans decorated that night.

๋࣭⭑๋࣭⸙ᨒ↟⋆｡°

The next morning you woke up without the silhouette of your lover by your side, you took a shower and got ready to go downstairs for lunch but everything was particularly quiet that Sunday morning, your last day of adventure.

You looked around a bit scared, it was as if there was no one else in the house, giving you chills, lunch was ready, at least yours, set on the kitchen island, but there was no one there, but suddenly Minho’s presence managed to scare you a bit.

“You’re awake, baby. Come, we’re outside, have lunch here with us.”

Minho spoke softly to you, giving you a kiss on the cheek and taking the plate of food, the glass and the cutlery to head towards the back area of the house where Minho had a sort of balcony or small living room outside to relax. You were glad not to be alone for a moment, but the strange feeling inside you returned when you saw that it was only his seven best friends sitting there. You felt the piercing gaze of each of them with every step you took.

“Hey, Y/n” Chan greeted you to which you smiled nervously, sitting down.

“Hi” you replied to everyone in general.

You just wondered where their wives could be and how seeing you there alone among them all was questionable, or was it just your mind making you think that.

You were a little shy, yet you dared to look at each of their faces, it really seemed as if they knew something you didn’t, they were hiding something.

The rest of your lunch none of the wives showed up and you felt so shy to ask, but none of them felt shy with you, questioning you down to the smallest detail.

You didn’t understand what was going on, but they did.

๋࣭ ⭑๋࣭ ⸙ ᨒ↟ ⋆｡°

Finally back home almost at dusk, you couldn’t help but think about the way you met Minho and that maybe that’s one of the main reasons why you were getting disapproving looks from wives, you knew it was wrong, it wasn’t the best of cases but it happened, you released sparks and your love was born unexpectedly. You had met Minho in a somewhat unfavorable way, in your last winter at the university before graduating, Lee Minho was your professor. At first there was nothing but sighs and complicit glances that you thought were only coming from you, but you didn’t know you were driving Minho crazy and over time… it was inevitable, you got closer and closer to each other on winter break, he took you on clandestine dates, showed you his home, showed you his heart and a side of him that he didn’t think would ever come out again after his divorce, but by January he was already confessing to you that he had never flirted or fallen in love with a student… that the fatality of the situation was inevitable… but that if somehow you both had to try, you didn’t hesitate, at that point you were so immersed in him, everything had his name written all over it and it was perhaps because he was your first great love. You started dating secretly until you graduated and by June he offered you to live with him to which after thinking it over, you accepted and everything with you had been wonderful so far, everything could have been perfect if it wasn’t for your constant feeling of stagnation at work.

You looked at your boyfriend’s profile side and reenacted in your mind the slightly weird moment when he almost forced you to spend with his 7 best friends, you knew you shouldn’t take it that way, but all the women leaving and leaving you alone with 8 men was a situation you were left to think about… but you were so sweet and naive that you didn’t have the slightest idea of the thoughts that ruled the mind of the one you used to think of him as a sweet and tender lover, Minho’s thoughts.

Minho had a degree in languages, literature, in grammar, courses and postgraduate degrees in publishing and among countless other things that surprised you, his family owned a popular and old publishing house which only further developed Minho’s passion for literature and one of the things that made him fall in love with you was your sensual and unique way of writing, the way you chose the words to develop the perfect paragraph of whatever it was you wanted to put forward, the subtlety of your eroticism in words, for when you were both secretly lovers you used to write short stories from a compilation of these in a book he published under his publisher under a pseudonym you both chose, the thrill of something so morally wrong, the ephemeral and forbidden sex in his office, all that motivated you so much, but now he lived with a broken heart that you couldn’t find something concrete to write about so you could have your first book.

Minho saw you frustrated even though you tried to hide it, and on several occasions he witnessed how much you used to write in a notebook, by hand, to which he curiously asked you one night what it was about, to which you nervously answered that it was just your personal diary.

At first he didn’t care, he thought it was cute the way you still wrote by hand, when even he couldn’t keep that level of commitment, but one night, a Saturday night to be exact, a week before he proposed to visit his house in the forest, you went out with one of your friends leaving him alone, so he came into your office, really without any purpose, he saw the chair in front of your desk and remembered how tenderly nervous you were when he found out you had a personal diary, suddenly, curiosity invaded him: Minho knew he shouldn’t, that he was invading your privacy but he was so curious to know, he shared all his secrets with you, but how many of them you kept.

And then, he looked for your diary, finding it after searching, you had hidden it. He wasn’t going to sit down and read every page of your privacy as if it were the damned newspaper, he was just curious about what you were saying most recently, to which, that night, with his heart racing, he opened the journal and read, with a smile as he visualized your calligraphy on the paper.

I have had fantasies. I honestly don’t know why if sex with Minho is wonderful. It’s just… at first it was these dreams, so hot I’d wake up in a daze, with wetness in my panties, feeling it so real, but I’d forget them right away, they were blurry memories of this one and sometimes I just thought they were dreams where I recreated something sexual with Minho, sex on the couch, sex in the kitchen but, god, I sound like a perverted, sexually frustrated older woman in her declining sex life, but, I had this encounter, with one of Minhovs best friends ...

Minho’s heart almost stopped beating for a second and he turned pale when he read that, continuing in panic with the reading, almost wanting to close the journal and not thinking that it could be about what he feared the most, an infidelity. He read on.

… and I think from there, for some reason my subconscious has gone crazy. I was always a firm believer that dreams sometimes had meanings, sometimes they were random products of your mind… but the fact that you imagine even when you are asleep seems incredibly fascinating to me, I always liked dreams, even if they are nightmares, it’s just that, it’s an indicator that your brain never turns off even for a second, I don’t know, it’s something difficult to explain that fascinates me too much. The point is, I ran into one of his best friends while I was doing some grocery shopping and we had a nice talk and I couldn’t help but think how different he was from Minho but the way I liked him so much, he is so handsome, I must admit, he has an exceptional charisma and I think from there my fantasies have grown, I think he is the one I dream about.

Minho stopped reading for a second to look at your manuscript in disbelief. While thousands of not so friendly thoughts ran through his mind: who were you talking about? What the fuck was that all about? Did you like a friend of his? Who? What was going on?

For a moment I had the idea of writing about that, about a woman who frequently has fantasies about her boyfriend’s best friend, but I don’t know, I hope to elaborate and not fall into cliché, besides, what purpose can it serve? Will it be a book about infidelity? Am I unconsciously being unfaithful to Minho? I know minho is not like that, that if I tell him the idea and show him a draft he will be brutally honest and judge as a critic and not as a boyfriend, but I am so uncertain, what if he thinks it is something that happens to me, something I am somehow becoming very familiar with, or am I just overthinking it?

I talked about it with my friends, they told me it’s normal at the same time yes and at the same time no, they laughed at me saying that after all I just wanted to fuck his best friend, but then they argued something that left me thinking more than I already was.

First times and only loves. Minho is the only thing I know of love and I love him. But, it was also my first sexual relationship and my friends argued that it’s only because I’ve never tried another man other than Minho before.

I thought it was absurd, I love him, everything with him is great, the way he touches me and makes me feel, I can easily say that I want to be all my life with him, but the idea had already been embodied in me, they were right, he has been the only man, but it is normal that only sometimes I think what will it feel like to explore with more?

I don’t want to leave him, I love him, I don’t want to cheat on him either, but I’m young and I want to experiment. But I’m also young and I don’t think clearly.

The more Minho read, the more dizzy he became, the next thing, he was astonished, words written by you of an explicit description of everything you would like to do, or at least, everything you dreamed of with a man who was not him. You described him as stronger, firm and rigid fingers going through your core, strong thighs hitting your body every time he penetrated you… god, Minho read absolutely everything with frightened eyes, he wished he didn’t.

Curiosity killed the cat. Minho had stopped fantasizing about other women because with you he had it all… but your argument drove him crazy, he did have experience with more women, but for you Minho was everything, he didn’t know whether to be flattered or confused.

He knew it was wrong and he shouldn’t have read it in the first place but, the stunned left his body after a couple of days and something in him was ignited, the fact that you were so sexually turned on and wanted to try all kinds of sizes… his thoughts weren’t exactly sweet, he imagined your sweet face while you were being fucked, wasn’t that what you wanted and craved so much?

If you wanted to experiment with more men, why not do it with what he already knew and had full trust in.

The idea was unhinged and he didn’t know how to put it to his friends, until he said it, so suddenly and in a serious tone as he used to be, a simple and classic Minho, gathered in tranquility, he blurted out:

“Mmm, I think we should fuck Y/n.”

His friends looked at him puzzled, doubting if they had heard right. They knew how special you were to Minho, why would he offer something so insane? Or was it a joke?

It was a crazy idea, but in the end, they all agreed.

On the other hand, on the way Minho questioned you if you had felt good and if you had noticed the unhappiness and frustration on his friends’ faces about the marriage, you found it strange because you idealized marriage so much and expected it to be the most sacred thing, hoping that one day you could unite your life forever with his.

๋࣭ ⭑๋࣭ ⸙ ᨒ↟ ⋆｡°

And then you were seduced to another weekend in the forest, you were happy as your writing had flowed so naturally and your boyfriend’s gentle proposal filled you with excitement again.

“Let’s go one more time to the cabin, finally without so many people” he mentioned to you spontaneously, while you were tending the garden in autumn as he gave you a resounding kiss on the cheek.

There you were again, but just as you arrived you got the huge surprise that you already had visitors.

“What is this? I thought we would be alone” you said to Minho before getting out of the car.

You weren’t upset just confused by his strange behavior lately.

“Relax, princess. It’s just 3 of my friends, they adore you, come on.”

Minho was quick to get out of the car. It seemed as if Bahng Chan, Hwang Hyunjin and Lee Felix were waiting for you. Again you felt inside you that feeling that they were planning and hiding something you had no idea about.

You greeted them. You tried to be okay but it bothered you that Minho was telling you half the things, or so you felt.

“Hi, Y/n, what do you want to do today?” greeted you sweetly Hyunjin of which you were a bit confused.

Minho gave him a withering look as you both walked towards the entrance. Everyone was nervous but tried to hide it.

“Campfire? Camping? A movie?” added Chan.

“Go to the lake with me” interrupted Felix.

You looked at them strangely because just a week ago your talks were still a bit formal, you didn’t talk much like you could say that with all the confidence, but you didn’t take it badly, you liked them, you saw the kindness of their intentions, or at least you thought so, they were nice men worthy of Minho’s love so, you liked them too.

“No” Minho replied almost annoyed.

“I’m fine, thank you, what can we do Minho?” you asked innocently.

You managed to raise the gazes of the other men, seeing how you sought Minho’s opinion on everything.

They remembered that moment in the backyard of Felix’s house where Minho summoned them when he told them about his crazy idea.

“She's… pretty and submissive, it’s cute, she seeks my approval but honestly I’ll could never be able to say no to her.”

“Too pretty I’d say” Changbin added amused.

Minho gave him a dirty look.

“And she asked you that she wanted to be fucked by 8 guys and you couldn’t say no to her?” joked Seungmin.

“No. It’s not like that, it’s just, it’s something I know.”

“Who in the world asks his friends if they want to gangbang his girlfriend?” provoked Seungmin.

“Shut your mouth, Seungmin, if you don’t want to participate then forget this” Minho spat.

“Oh no, I’m in” he quickly replied scoffing.

The rest of the friends laughed.

“Then why the fuck do you have to…” Minho was about to comment but was interrupted by Felix.

“What do you know, you said you knew something.”

Attention went to the freckled man but once as soon as Minho warmed up his vocal cords to respond, all 7 pairs of eyes focused on him.

“I read something from her, how she’s young and currently has been fantasizing about being with more men because…. shit, I don’t want to stir up your dirty fantasies, but-”

“As if this wasn’t dirty enough already” Jeongin muttered with a grin. Minho continued.

“… I’m the only man she’s been with, she has no other experiences besides me so, I don’t know, it came to my mind to give her more experiences, me, deciding with whom, maybe it’s fear so she won’t go and cheat on me with some idiot I don’t know.”

“Then it’s better that she cheats on you with your idiot friends, how thoughtful” Jisung spoke, joking.

But the idea that you were inexperienced flew in the heads of each of the men, they always wondered how Minho could have you, but now the most important issue for them was that now they could have you too. They were more than delighted.

Eight guys for you alone seemed so aggressive to Minho, so he divided his group of friends, Chan, Hyunjin, Felix and him on Friday; Jisung, Changbin, Seungmin and Jeongin would arrive early tomorrow.

The afternoon went fast. The men were so ready, but you had no idea.

During dinner, somewhat early, you felt Minho’s hand provoke your center under your skirt, caressing your thighs, squeezing your clit. You hadn’t thought about sex until Minho touched you.

Although you had to admit, seeing Chan always turned your cheeks red, because he was the one you fantasized about. Chan was so cute, he had a cute and contagious laugh, his face changed harmoniously every time he smiled, he was attentive, you got to know him a little more at the supermarket, when he had left work and was doing his shopping. But… none of his other friends were bad at all, if you looked at them in detail, it was hard to say you weren’t attracted to at least more than one, or all of them, you felt like a little slut but, you were young and they were handsome men.

After that, you tried to watch a movie, but after 20 minutes they all went outside with the weird excuse of wanting to go get some air, you watched them confused leave and you were just left with your boyfriend, sitting on the couch.

“Uh, it’s going to start raining, they should go inside” you said, suddenly remembering the weather forecast and the sounds of thunder falling recently.

Heavy rain was coming, and not just meteorologically.

“Y/n” Minho spoke softly to you, placing his hand on your bare thigh.

Your attention returned to him, you were turned facing the direction the boys had left a short while ago.

“Yes?”

Minho sighed, nervous, you put your hands on his back worrying immediately, you were about to speak but he said.

“I have this crazy idea, if you don’t want to do it that’s fine. Seriously, we can forget I said it…” you looked at him scared, every faction of his face lit up by the TV as the movie continued to play, “I want you to experiment more, I want you to be free to try other men.”

You couldn’t believe what you were hearing, it was as if he had entered your head for a second, you turned pale. Minho looked into your eyes, his eyes were shining, they were bigger and pleading as you looked at him scared.

“You have every right to do it” he continued, “But I don’t want it to be behind my back or with any asshole. If you want to do it, that’s what boys are for.”

You looked at him puzzled.

“What?”

“You don’t want to have sex with other men? Isn’t that what you’ve been fantasizing about? Honey, I’m telling you seriously, you can tell me anything, your every thought and desire and I’ll see about fulfilling every one of them.”

You wanted to scream noo! Logically at those questions, but you kept quiet… how did he know so much? Is it true that after all Minho knows you so perfectly that he could now read your mind?

You bit your lip, your world was spinning thinking about what he was implying that you should have sex with his friends. He was right, you thought, the idea was crazy and you should forget he even said it.

But… was it true? Or were you dreaming?

A loud thunderclap made you a little jumpy. You needed him to be clear.

“Minho, I- … what do you mean?”

“That if you want to try more men and have sex you can do it now. Chan, Felix and Hyunjin are waiting for you” he replied slightly cooler.

You felt a cold breeze hit your skin. If you said yes… you were really going to have sex with them, if you said no, nothing will happen.

“Are you for real?” you replied in disbelief.

“I never joked for a second with you, my baby” he gave you a quick kiss on the lips.

You were perplexed.

“I know it’s hard to think about it, you can take as long as you want…”

“And if I say yes?” you replied uncertainly.

��Then you’re going to have the experiences you wanted so badly.”

The rain came down heavily all of a sudden. The boys went into the house giggling and slightly wet.

Your heart raced, you heard their voices and laughter approach and in the adrenaline of the moment, you responded.

“Yes, okay. I accept.”

Minho squeezed your thigh and smiled at you. The three men entered the room slightly wet with huge smiles plastered to their faces, you made eye contact with each of them and then averted your gaze, thinking that all this time they were here so they could fuck you.

You couldn’t hide the fact that this strange situation excited every part of you, but then you thought that two of them are married, but one of them is Chan, you were going to try him for the first time. You bit your lip, your mind told you that you should feel remorse but you were not the least bit guilty of being Hyunjin and Chan’s mistress for one night.

๋࣭ ⭑๋࣭ ⸙ ᨒ↟ ⋆｡°

You prepared yourself. You were nervous, rambling about the situation that you even took a shower, went back to fix your hair and put on makeup. You knew it was just sex but your mind kept thinking about it, not the dirty act but, what it will be like itself.

Minho came into the room. You were ready, you wanted to look your best for the other men waiting for you downstairs.

“Are you sure you want to do this, sweetheart?”

A flash of lightning illuminated the dark forest. You smiled and nodded, letting yourself be escorted by your boyfriend.

Minho turned on the house lights. He set up the main room, pushed aside the small table to leave the spacious carpeted floor space clear.

The three men sat waiting for you, leering and hungry for some of your young skin.

You sighed and Minho led you to the front of them. From left to right, Hyunjin, Chan and Felix. The rain was still echoing outside as you heard your loud heartbeat even in your ears, you were aroused like you had never been before that you were even afraid to tremble from the excitement built up in your body.

Their appearances, the way they were different and sat differently, their respective looks towards you… everything made you shudder.

“Well” Chan spoke, ”can we begin?”

You nodded softly.

“You look beautiful, Y/n, by the way” Felix suddenly blurted out making you blush.

“Rules” warned Minho, ”we won’t do anything she feels uncomfortable about, as soon as she asks to stop or that she doesn’t like something, we listen to her, okay?”

The men nodded.

“She’ll love it” Hyunjin stated with a smile.

“Who do you want to start with, princess?” spoke Minho to you.

The question took you by surprise, Minho saw your innocent confused face.

“Oh… you can start with yourself and, teach us” whispered your boyfriend seductively, tugging at the hems of your sweater to take it off and leave you in your bra.

The thermostat was on in the house, yet you felt a sudden chill on your exposed skin.

Chan and Hyunjin bit their lip, one hand resting on their thighs as they stirred restlessly, uncomfortable from the large erection trapped in their pants. Felix averted his gaze shyly, but then stood in awe watching the spectacle.

You noticed the bulges in each of their crotches and yours began to throb, you thought how dirty it was, fucking four hot men at once, you had never had another experience beyond Minho and now you were going to have three more at the same time. You were wet and restless.

Minho pulled your skirt down, letting it fall gracefully to the floor, leaving you half naked in front of them.

“Fuck, you’re beautiful” Hyunjin murmured, finally stroking his erection.

“Take off her bra” ordered Chan in a thick voice.

You truly felt like a doll, letting yourself be undressed. Minho removed your bra and couldn’t resist the sensation of massaging your breasts with both of his two strong hands. You bit your lip.

“Shit, Minho, don’t touch her yet” Chan complained.

Felix watched you with wide eyes, scared but he was so excited, he wasn't sure if he wanted this, he was a little shy, but as soon as he saw you spread your legs and exposed you to the sun, he was ready to give you a little kiss.“Come here, babygirl” ordered the older one.

Minho slowly let go of you and you obeyed his action by moving closer to him.

“Sit on that end and start touching yourself for us, show us your sweet beauty, baby doll.”

You listened to Chan and watched as he pointed to the edge of the couch, to one side of Felix.

You almost moaned at the sensation of your slick fluids, you were so wet and the manly voice that was ordering you around was making you more and more sick. Felix watched you with wide eyes, scared but he was so excited, he wasn’t sure if he wanted this, he was a little shy, but as soon as he saw you spread your legs and exposed your glistening pussy, his cock throbbed and his mouth salivated, you look so appetizing he wanted to lick you whole.

The four men moaned softly at the sight of your exposed pussy as you pulled the fabric of your panties aside. You leaned back against the armrest of the couch and acting on a voracious instinct for pleasure, you looked down at your exposed intimate area and began to touch yourself, then looked up at the other men.

You massaged your clit, felt your slick and let yourself go, trying to hide your shyness. You watched each of them closely, Hyunjin and Chan’s slitted, piercing eyes, in contrast to Felix’s big, kind eyes, almost as cute as Minho’s, who was standing there watching the show you were giving his friends.

You moaned and closed your eyes letting yourself go, you slipped two of your fingers in and they became engrossed in the softness of your digits sliding into your wet entrance; their limbs ached, asking to be touched, while you enjoyed yourself, thinking that something else might be filling you right now. You quickened your pace without thinking, about to bring yourself to orgasm, but Minho interrupted saying.

“Stop” he walked over to you, squatting down in front of you, ”Kiss me baby, then show the boys how you do it.”

You looked at him confused. You were shaking, a mess, you never thought you would be this excited in your life. You took Minho’s lips who kissed you wildly, leaving you breathless. Then you felt yourself being taken by someone else, you stood in front of Felix and the man kissed you shyly, enjoying the act.

Felix’s lips were a different sensation than Minho’s, his timing, his tongue on you that you lasted some time with him, Felix was not able to control himself with you, he wanted you too much. But suddenly, a big hand grabbing your forearm and pulling you away from the blond boy.

Chan took you with ease to settle you on his lap, sitting right on his erection for your pussy on it, taking your hips, pressing you down as he kissed you sensually and made you grind on his cock. You were breathless, your pussy throbbing hard, again enjoying a different and greater sensation of his erection on you, his hands on your body and his lips and tongue exploring you.

When you came to Hyunjin you felt once again like a toy which was being passed between boys, but Hyunjin did not take you desperately like the rest, he took hold of your hand with which you had been masturbating and brought the fingers you were pleasuring yourself with closer to your entrance, to put them in his mouth and suck them erotically while he looked into your eyes.

“Mmm” said Hyunjin happily with a tender expression of pleasure, “You taste just as I thought, so fucking sweet, baby.”

Finally he took your face between his big slender hands to kiss you, his lips were fuller to the rest, his tongue was slow but skillful, you felt like you were slowly going to heaven.

You had the feeling that you were about to be destroyed.

Chan noticed how lewdly Felix was watching you while you had your moment with Hyunjin, Chan wanted to have some fun, letting the younger one decide first.

“What do you want to do, my little mate?” said Chan amusedly to Felix.

Felix swallowed nervously, looked at Chan and then returned your gaze to you. Felix said in an exquisite thick voice.

“Let me eat her.”

You shuddered. As you pulled away from Hyunjin. Your lips were already swollen, each one of them adoring your tenderly agitated expression.

“Okay” Chan spoke, biting his lower lip and licking them afterwards.

“Babygirl, come here, settle in.”

Chan took you by the hips again and sweetly gestured for you to position your body with your knees on the couch, given the view of your ass to Felix, your torso passing over Chan’s thighs and your face and arms reaching towards Hyunjin.

“Well, enjoy yourselves. You know what to do” you heard your boyfriend say.

You could imagine what this was about and it made you nervously worked up. Felix was the first to expose his cock, you turned your eyes towards him and could see him stroking his exposed member, to pull down your panties and settle in to bury his pretty face in your core, licking your folds and searching for your clit. You moaned as you felt his warm tongue on you and Chan ran his large hand down your bare back enjoying the view, his hand was gentle but it burned in every part he touched you, you were lost in pleasure, you were reaching levels of arousal you never thought you were capable of feeling.

Chan sought your entrance and teased it with his fingers while Felix kept pleasuring himself on your pussy, you began to shudder and lose strength.

“Fuck” muttered Hyunjin excitedly at the pornographic scene of his blond friend licking your pussy and your submissive position.

Hyunjin pursed his lips and released his cock as well. His was right in front of you, it was big, erect, veiny, its pink tip was covered with his white precum. You felt dirty but you loved every second of it.

“Come on, sweetheart, you can take it.”

You stopped looking at his cock to look him in the eyes and then lowered your gaze again. You moistened your lips and took it between your hands, it felt so good, Felix kept stimulating you and Chan started playing with your breasts while still caressing your back and ass, squeezing it hard at times. You licked Hyunjin’s glans and when you opened your mouth wide to take his hard cock fully, Felix thrust his thick tongue inside you, teasing you uncontrollably. You gasped with Hyunjin’s big cock in your mouth, Felix was stimulating the rest of your cunt with his free hand while he couldn't help jerking off.

You were losing your temper, you wanted to explode in your orgasm, but you continued to taste Hyunjin’s cock, licking his entire length, running your lips along it feeling its thin skin and notorious veins, being accompanied by the sweet gasps of that young artist. Hyunjin grabbed your hair, giving you support as you took his shaft, bobbing your head, but you were getting more and more breathless, your eyes began to glisten, you were so close, you were being distracted by the sensation of your nipples being pinched and your breasts being fondled and how very sticky the oral sex Felix was giving you was getting.

“You’re doing it so good princess” Minho’s voice came next to your ear, “You’re so cute taking Hyunjin’s cock so well, good girl.”

Your eyes searched for his image, you were sure your expression was a mess, you didn’t understand how he looked so cute and peaceful as he witnessed the dirty act of his girlfriend’s mouth being filled by his best friend’s dick. It was sick, twisted, it was so fucking hot you had no self-control.

You were collapsing, losing strength, and struggling not to drop your abdomen onto Chan’s thighs. You whimpered with Hyunjin’s cock in your mouth, drooling, with Felix’s tongue inside you and his fingers on your labia and clit, you collapsed in your first climax, making your body quiver. You pulled Hyunjin’s cock out of your mouth for a moment to enjoy your orgasm, took a breath and moaned loudly. Felix felt his hard penis throbbing and in a low moan he cum in his hand as well.

“Aw, baby girl’s first orgasm of the night," Chan spoke tilting his head as he appreciated your trembling body, “Good job, Felix.”

You were weak but skillfully aroused. Your chest was rising and falling with difficulty, you were dizzy between so much pleasure but your mind kept asking that now how would they have fun with you.

He placed you in front of him on his lap again and whispered in your ear:

“Now you’re going to ride daddy’s cock, yes, baby girl?”

His words rocked you. You nodded with big, bright submissive eyes, driving him crazy.

Chan left you in his old place on the couch, stood up and began to undress. Minho plopped down beside you, all watching the little spectacle of the older man undressing.

“Ah, this dude can’t keep his clothes on” Minho commented amused.

You turned to see him, he was also so agitated and excited that you felt bad that you didn’t have him and could attend to him.

When Chan pulled down his pants and boxers to take them off you were engrossed. He was huge. You bit your lip and subtly denied, feeling afraid and insecure, that was going to break you in two, it wasn’t going to fit. But, remembering your boyfriend’s big thick cock there was a good chance you would enjoy it.

“Come here.”

Chan carried you in his arms. You automatically wrapped your legs around his waist, his body was strong, he had big pecs and marked abs. You looked into his eyes… you had never been this intimate and vulnerable with anyone but Minho… now you were being shared with his best friends.

Chan carried you with one arm while his available hand held the base of his erect cock to rub his soft glans on your pussy. You moaned as you were teased and you fliched in surprise.

“Fuck, it’s big” you suddenly blurted out between a sigh, causing a smug giggle to come from Chan, you looked up at him still surprised and blushed.

“You cant take it, babygirl.”

And the next thing you felt was his cock sliding inside you making you whimper. The others watched the act of your body weakening and shuddering as you held tightly to his neck, how your entrance stretched adjusting to Chan’s size as you whimpered louder and louder the deeper he got inside you.

“You feel so good” moaned Chan feeling your walls wrap around his cock completely, “Fuck you Minho, he had all of you to himself?” he mumbled.

His cock slid in easily, you were so wet, you shivered hugging yourself to his neck, resting your face on it, you were as full as you had ever been, slightly fuller than Minho made you, the bulge of his cock was noticeable in your lower belly, Chan came deep inside you, staying a few seconds without moving so your walls could get used to him. “Can I move now, little one?” he whispered sweetly to you.

You nodded quickly, sore but excited, "Yes, please… daddy."

Chan’s ears turned red as he heard you call him daddy and fill him with his fantasies. He grabbed your buttocks and began to control your body over his cock, going up and down slowly, giving them the erotic view of your sensitive hole being penetrated, of his glistening cock thrusting inside you, capturing the arousal of each of you, causing their hands to go to their respective penises and begin to masturbate at the grotesque image of your entrance being abused by Chan’s big cock as you both moaned in pleasure. Even Minho couldn’t take it anymore and pulled his erect cock out to stroke it at the image of your body being absolutely fucked by someone else.

Chan was tearing open every part of you, his pumping cock bouncing into you, his thrusts were gentle, slow and deep, manipulating your body up and down in a sweet rhythm, at that point you were both a mess, your breasts and hard nipples rubbing against his marked pecs as fluids from both of you slid along his cock, trickled out of you onto the floor and stained his sensitive testicles every time you had him deep inside you.

“Shit” gasped Chan, ”Come join in, someone can take her from behind.”

The phrase altered your senses amidst the whimpering mess you were being.

“Is that okay with you, angel?” Chan asked you again breathlessly, “Fuck your beautiful ass?”

You looked him in the eyes, Felix and Hyunjin were already to the side of you with their hands stroking their cocks.

“Y-yes.”

You answered, not sure what could happen. You looked around for Minho with your eyes, he was sitting there watching absolutely everything.

“Good” Chan replied, giving you a tender smile disappearing his lips for a second.

Chan pulled out of you suddenly making you whimper, his cock touched his abs as it was loose. Chan didn’t hesitate, he laid down on the carpet, dropping you down sitting on his cock with your labia between his rigid member.

“This way we’re going to fill you completely,” Hyunjin said.

Chan lifted your body to slip his wet cock between your ass, trying to prepare it before they could enter you that way too. You bit your lip at the sensation, you had long felt the knot in your stomach but you were only prolonging your climax. You became restless and nervous again.

“Fuck, nobody has any lube?” commented Chan somewhat exasperated.

He didn’t want to hurt you, at least he didn’t want Hyunjin to, as he positioned himself behind you and Felix stood in front of you, leaving right in your face the sight of his stiff cock.

“It’s okay, I’ll be gentle” moaned Hyujin, getting on his knees close to Chan’s thighs.

Chan pushed you gently and you quickly understood it was to take his cock again, he lined it up with your entrance as you slowly let yourself fall on top of him, causing you to sigh. You shuddered as you felt Hyunjin’s tip moisten your rear area, rubbing his precum, he parted your buttocks with his hands digging into your skin and entered gently, making you scream louder than Chan’s penis in your vagina.

You whimpered, closing your eyes tightly and biting your lip as the male presences took guilty delight in your suffering. Hyunjin moaned in ragged gasps at the extremely tight sensation of your conduit.

You held yourself tightly in Chan’s abs, whimpering each time you felt his cock deeper in you. You had never had anal sex before and it was burning like hell itself, but the lust in your body was greater than your pain.

“Is it okay, baby doll, are you liking it?” whispered Hyunjin slightly concerned.

“Yes” you whimpered.

Hyunjin was also big and within moments, you were being penetrated on both sides.

"Move slowly, Hyun, let her adjust a little" cautioned Chan.

They both began to move in you leaving you hoarse and breathless, Chan lifting his pelvis and pounding your pussy while Hyunjin buried himself into you, they started slow but their pace gradually increased, leaving you with the most unique experience you were ever going to forget. Chan held you firmly by the hips and Hyunjin squeezed your right buttock with his hand while another hand played naughtily with your breasts.

Then you looked at the blond boy’s genital area, his stubble pubic area with tiny freckles on it, you were transfixed, thinking how uniquely beautiful Lee Felix was, you looked into his eyes before taking his cock and did your best to please him while two of your holes were being completely filled and used.

Your movements on his cock were imperfect due to the constant pounding of Chan and Hyunjin against your body that was driving you crazy. But Felix didn't stop panting, he loved it, he stroked your hair more delicately to how Hyunjin took you a few moments ago. You felt dirty, used and aroused, all your possible entrances occupied and each of them dripping in some fluids, your cheeks were shiny from the little tears shed. You were on the verge of collapse again, once again, your body could no longer hold it in.

On the other hand, Minho smiled happily, happy that lust won on that rainy night, he was in glee at the dirty image of your little body destroyed among men, he was as happy and excited as a young hormonal boy discovering his favorite porn. He was happy to have been able to fulfill your fantasies.

Chan babbled things that left you in the clouds, the moans of the three of them set fire inside you and the situation again seemed like a dream, a very dirty one.

Each of the best friends were enjoying it like they had never experienced sex before, everything was full of lust and passion, a sweet young woman at the beck and call of the pleasures and dark fantasies of men in search of forbidden sansations.

You pulled Felix’s cock out as you felt it quiver in your mouth and happily let him cum on your tongue. You became somewhat foolishly confused letting yourself be carried away by Chan and Hyunjin’s thrusts and whimpered again letting yourself release in the most intense and long lasting orgasm. You wanted to collapse in surrender, but both men continued on you some more until moaning and cumming hard inside you.

“Good girl-” Chan mumbled.

“Fuck, she’s full of cum now” Hyunjin smiled happily.

They both pulled out of you to contemplate the collapse of your twitching muscles expelling their glistening semen.

You finally felt yourself breathing, you thought you had tachycardia, you were out of your senses waiting to recover. You saw Minho approach you, again with his cock sheltered in his pants, with a calm expression and suddenly he carried your weak and naked body in his strong arms, you breathed in his scent and saw him with some embarrassment with your already flustered face.

“You did very well my princess. I love you” he whispered and gave you a tender kiss on your forehead, “Do you want to try something new tomorrow?”

Your boyfriend carried your exhausted body to the warm bathtub that he had already prepared, taking care of you after the unexpected night you had.

๋࣭⭑๋࣭⸙ᨒ↟ ⋆｡°

The next morning you didn't know how to act. It was strange, but the first thing you saw when you came downstairs were Minho's other friends at the entrance, Yang Jeongin, Kim Seungmin, Han Jisung and Seo Changbin. You greeted them shyly with a smile, as it was obvious what awaited you next as soon as night fell.

You went to the kitchen, where you heard voices, finding the men who saw you naked and vulnerable a couple of hours ago, the same ones responsible for each of your sighs and pleasure that crazy, rainy night. Everyone sat down to breakfast but it was obvious that the main course they wanted was you right now.

Chan, Hyunjin and Felix left in the afternoon, confusing you, but you quickly realized it was someone else's turn. None of them wanted to lose you from the spotlight, but just four of them got away with it.

Just when you were alone, in the quiet of the balcony reading a book, not paying attention and with your mind spinning trying to process what the fuck was going on; Minho went with Chan to buy you some birth control pills at the town pharmacy because you had forgotten yours and that was the perfect time for the four of them to take you and lure you into a little game.

They told Minho before they left you, “We'll take care of her.” Minho wasn't stupid and knew of the high probability that they would end up fucking you without him being there, which annoyed the hell out of him, but he would see a way to arrange it, that night.

“Want to play baseball?”

That sentence from Seungmin was a total lie and you knew it, still you followed him into the woods, in an area far away from the house, not only him, but the three other guys followed him too.

“Shit, Seungmin, do you know where we are?” mentioned Jisung annoyed.

Seungmin innocently looked around and stopped in his tracks.

“This is the place.”

Everyone remained silent.

“Oh no, we're lost,” Jeongin added dejectedly in jest.

The four of them watched you, again with leering and hungry looks, you wondered for a second... why you had to follow them there, but it wasn't as if your legs were moving on their own.

“Isn't that right, little one? You're lost but you have the good fortune that four kind men will help you get home, only if you obey and thank us, or we could help each other.”

Your breath shortened, you understood Changbin's dirty game perfectly. You saw Jisung, Seungmin and Jeongin, then turned your focus back to the closeness of Changbin and his strong grip on your waist.

“And how will I ever be able to thank you?”

Changbin flashed a half smile, “Just be a good girl and obey our directions so you can get home.”

You nodded, “Kiss Jisung, he's waiting for you” he softly ordered you.

Jisung opened his eyes in fright once you approached him, surprised that he is the one you were going to initiate with. You kissed him, letting yourself be carried away by the sensations of other lips on yours and in the heat of things, the excitement and pleasure traveled fast in your bodies, you were being fucked by Seungmin and his long cock while doing your best to give a good blowjob to Jisung who was holding on to your body, as both of your hands were busy masturbating Changbin and Jeongin, whose long and nimble digits found a way to play with your clit.

It was a very different baseball game than how you thought.

But your actions had consequences. There you were, in a different pleasure session very distinct from last night, this time Minho was part of it, no longer being sweet and attentive to you, he was spanking your ass hard, forcing you to confess everything you did in the woods with his friends in the afternoon, until you were sore, your ass burning with pain and your eyes shining. His friends enjoyed the spectacle of the game of your pleasure and suffering.

“Take her, guys” Minho said coldly and pushed your body, not so exaggerated but you didn't put up any kind of resistance so he almost threw you. Seungmin came closer to you,

“See? You're nothing but just a fucking slut desperate for some sex. Isn't that so? Look how fucking needy you are.”

His words turned you on, it was the disdainful tone he used and the annoyed expression on his tender face, plus he suddenly started to finger you.

“Should we take turns...? I wanna fuck her” Jisung commented somewhat confused causing Minho to let out an unexpected giggle.

“I'll go first.”

You sighed as you listened to Changbin and let him take your body to the couch, moaning at the pain in your ass at the slightest rub. He spread your legs apart and began to taste your center, rolling your eyes.

“You're rewarding her that way and I think it was clear what a bad girl she was” Seungmin said.

Changbin pulled away from your pussy just at the sweetest moment, controlled your body with ease, turned your body quickly and started to fuck you hard making you squeal.

“Right, you're a little whore” Changbin moaned, spanking you harder on your already red and hurting ass.

You whimpered in pain but his thick cock felt so good around your walls.

“Fuck you, Changbin” Jeongin expressed somewhat frustrated.

Everyone took Jisung's idea, the next one inside you was Jeongin who pulled on your hair as he penetrated you in a delicious pace, the next one was Seungmin, who kept spanking your ass and his body slammed into yours at every deep thrust. And the last one was Jisung, he flipped your body as he fantasized about the movement of your tits while he fucked you hard, he was the one who left you the most breathless and the only one who managed to cum in you.

The others unloaded their cum on your chest as they vigorously pulled their cocks, making you feel dirty and humiliated, but it was something new that you liked.

๋࣭⭑๋࣭ ⸙ ᨒ↟ ⋆｡°

Sunday night was the high point of that crazy weekend that seemed to have no end. All it took was telling Minho:

“Why did you split up your friends? On you-know-what…”

“I thought eight guys was absurd.”

“Maybe it's not at all.”

And there you were, naked with eight needy, stiff cocks eager for you. The best part, was the men who carried it. You adored seeing their distinct and attractive faces and bodies begging for you, from the sensations they were giving you.

This time all eight of them were naked, looking so intimidating waiting for the next move. You were a helpless little deer in the woods, surrounded and in the sights of hungry beasts.

Hyunjin was the first to approach you, putting on a show for his friends as his mouth feasted on your breasts and his hand worked fast on your core, then his hand focused mainly on your clit as Jeongin's fingers were sunk deep into you after Hyunjin had happily invited him.

You slowly watched the silhouette of everyone approaching between your blurred vision due to the high level of libido in you and your body trembled in excitement, trying to think in what way they would make your body enough for each of them.

You were still in awe, not understanding the reason that brought you there, but just enjoying and letting yourself be carried away by the lust of the moment. But you had no idea that it was all caused by the domino effect of Minho's curiosity that led him to read your diary that night.

꒷꒦︶꒷꒦︶ ๋ ࣭ ⭑꒷꒦ ꒷꒦︶꒷꒦︶ ๋ ࣭ ⭑꒷꒦

𐙚TAGLIST: @rylea08 @hann1bee @iovecb97 @armystay89 @lolareadsimagines @lailac13 @ayyonoona @do-you-remember-summer-127 @wildtokay @korthbum @oddracha @hyune-sssne @velvetmoonlght @shadowhunterathene @compersian @binniesbabe @strayywayy @mallielovssyou @isabel-018

lmk if u want to be added for more kinktober, or if i omitted u oopsi, and pls have an age indicator! also I can’t tag some u :p but there’s ur username w luv

[stardust-maple]

Edit: look I didn't do a good job explaining what these were for the first time so I've got a second edit at the bottom of the page that explains things better.

-----------------

I made my own pain and fatigue scale charts. Because I'm so adept at overcoming my symptoms the normal pain scale doesn't really work for me. I adjusted my numbers so that I could change the number into something I could tell a doctor when they inevitably ask me to rate my pain.

[Image Description: Pain Scale Chart with rainbow gradient background for each row, starting at red and ending at blue.

Row 1: Mine Drs Pain Scale Description

Row 2: 10 X I am not leaving my bedroom or bathroom, someone needs to bring me food and I need something to dull the pain or the pain will cause tears.

Row 3: 9 X I am not leaving my bedroom and bathroom for anything other than food.

Row 4: 8 10 Speaking is difficult. It is no longer practical to do activities outside of the bathroom or bedroom, but they can be done with assistance.

Row 5: 7 9 Necessary care activities are sacrificed. Academic activities and social activities can no longer be tolerated.

Row 6: 6 8 My pain is tiring. Paying attention is difficult. All activities require pacing and extra effort.

Row 7: 5 7 My pain is so distracting it is making me tired. It is hard to think. Necessary care activities are no longer all doable.

Row 8: 4 6 My pain is so distracting it is making me tired. It is harder to think. Necessary care activities are starting to be limited.

Row 9: 3 5 I can continue to do most activities

Row 10: 2 4 My pain bothers me but I can ignore it most of the time

Row 11: 1 3 My pain bothers me, but I can ignore it most of the time.

Row 12: 0 2 I am aware of my pain only when I pay attention to it

Row 13: X 1 My pain is hardly noticeable

Row 14: X 0 I have no pain. END Image Description]

[Image Description:

Fatigue Scale Chart with rainbow gradient background for each row, starting at red and ending at blue.

Row 1: Mine Drs Fatigue Scale Description

Row 2: 10 X Can barely sit up, needs assistance to get out of bed. Holding conversations is impossible. Laying down for most of the day is necessary. It is difficult to eat. Focusing is strenuous.

Row 3: 9 X Able to walk and stand for short distances. Holding conversations is difficult. Laying down for most of the day is necessary. It is difficult to eat. Focusing is strenuous.

Row 4: 8 10 Able to walk and stand for short distances. Holding conversations is difficult. Sitting for long Periods of time is difficult. It is difficult to eat. Focusing is strenuous. Preparing a meal isn’t possible.

Row 5: 7 9 Holding conversations is difficult. Sitting or standing for long Periods of time is difficult. It is difficult to eat. Focusing is strenuous.

Row 6: 6 8 Sitting or standing for long Periods of time is difficult. It is difficult to eat. Focusing is difficult. Preparing a meal is difficult.

Row 7: 5 7 Standing or walking for long periods is difficult. It is difficult to eat. Focusing is difficult.

Row 8: 4 6 Standing or walking for long periods is difficult. Focusing is difficult.

Row 9: 3 5 Cooking for longer than 15 minutes is extremely challenging.

Row 10: 2 4 Not everything can be done in the day. Activities are slowed down. Difficult mental challenges are sacrificed.

Row 11: 1 3 Tiredness makes it difficult to enjoy fun activities.

Row 12: 0 2 Things take more effort than usual, but everything is still doable.

Row 13: X 1 Slightly tired but still able to carry on as normal

Row 14: X 0 Not tired at all

END Image Description.]

Feel free to use them yourself if you like them!

---------------

Edit p2:

So these charts I made them for showing people and using them to talk about my pain. The numbers are just sort of a reference point . The words are what's important. The fact that it is a relationship is what's significant.

I've got chronic pain and chronic fatigue. I'm never not in pain and I'm never not tired. These are based on the main pain and fatigue scales that I usually get shown at places that aren't specialized in treating pain or fatigue.

I use these when talking to my family, using the number that relates to the mine side. I use these with my non pain doctors who don't treat my pain or fatigue. I use the Drs number when talking to Drs. Anything that in those X spots is also 10. Drs don't like pain larger than 10 because they think you're faking it.

I made these after getting covid. It was about a year later and I still couldn't describe my pain in terms of the standard scale because I couldn't conceptualize pain properly because covid had completely broken my internal perception of pain intensity. Because I went from never having gone to 10/10 or ever being there for very long to about 2 weeks of what I could only describe as 13/10 pain. It was logarithmically higher than anything I my brain could process. And my brain didn't process it. I just sort of cried a lot, slowly.

If you are ever using a personalized pain scale or something you found online with a doctor you should show them what you're talking about. You need to make sure they understand you.

I posted this because I was having a hard time saying that while I was at a 3 in terms of abilities, I was in just as much pain as when I had been previously at a 5. I needed something that showed what I was talking about.

It feels very strange adding all these disclaimers so far after, but I've been thinking "it's too late" every time Ive realized someone might use it in a way that wouldn't help them. And then ignoring the problem for a while.

We've got 3k notes on this. People keep looking at it. The disclaimers are nessesary. I'm sorry they weren't there before.

I just remembered that I specifically made this because I needed to be able to point at a number and have my parents be able to know what that meant. They don't have training in the pain scale. They don't know what it means. But they do know what I mean now when I say I'm at a 6. They understand me.

The point is, this says that it's used for talking to doctors and it's really not. It's for my family mostly. And my PCP who keeps asking what pain I'm at and I just need to say a number that communicates the thing she wants to know (that's why the Drs thing is on there. That's the number she needs. She doesn't care. It's weird. She's weird.)

But it is mostly for my family. It's for describing how I'm doing.

Do not use this in emergencies!!! Do not use this with pain specialists without showing it to them!!!

[clovers-housetree]

Activities for Regressors Without Caregivers! (or just fun regression activties!)

(Although you're always welcome here if you'd like any form of comfort anyway! ^w^)

This one's kind of a long one, after the few tips I list, I've mentioned an app I use called Finch, which will be talked about below the cut.

Since that's the case, I'll put my little ending message here instead:

Knowing how to take care of yourself can take a lot of work and practice, but I believe it's worth the effort, because then you'll be a happier and healthier you! Especially if you can find ways to make it fun!

I'm more than happy to be here for you and offer my support in any way I can, anyhow! I'm proud of you for doing what you can, I know it can be very hard.

I myself don't have a caregiver for when I regress, so most of the time I end up taking care of myself! Here are some fun activities and things I do when I regress to keep myself calm and happy! ^w^

Paci mentions/pics not long after the first section for those of you who'd rather not see 'em.

♥ Arts and crafts! I absolutely LOVE coloring and making bracelets with beads, something not too complicated for little hands, but also something fun!

With coloring, you can buy coloring books, or draw something of your own to color in- even printing out a page you find online, coloring digitally, or tracing over something to color in could work! I prefer coloring more than drawing personally because I don't draw all the time, but I bet I could learn a little thing or two from the artists around here!

For bracelets (and other jewelry), strings can be hard to knot with little hands (at least they aren't those small, slippery clasps!!), but the beads shouldn't be too hard to handle if you're careful! Even just planning out patterns is fun!

Here are some My Little Pony bracelets I made, and the decorations I did for my pacis!

♥ Making playlists! Dancing is fun, and a good way to get the zoomies out, but you can just make playlists for any occasion! I have playlists that help me pet-regress, songs with sounds I like, adventure playlists... (Well- a lot of these are still in progress, but- you get the point!)

I also love those playlist videos on YouTube! Animal Crossing, Super Mario Galaxy, Minecraft and music box music are typically my go-to to help me settle or just make for comfy background music! Here's one of my favorites, shadowatnoon has lovely Nintendo music mixes!

♥ Playing with your plushies! You can take them on adventures, or make your own!

Like Toby, climbing The Great Pillow Mountain!

(This is Toby by the way, he's one of my best friends and a VERY good hugger!)

You can play games with them, too! Toby's REALLY good at hide and seek... Maybe you can find him for me? :0

♥ Finding shows to watch! I really like Paw Patrol and Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles at the moment. Plus, you can look at agere content and fics from shows you like! People make really cool stimboards and moodboards, for example, and I like reading through all the fun stories people write!

Here's a silly picture of Rocky I found! :3

Finch

Finch is a self-care app where you take care of your very own little bird friend by taking care of yourself!

You can set daily goals, or for each day (or more specific ones as well I think.). By completing these goals, you give your bird energy to go on adventures! They usually come back with a funny little story or silly questions, because they're learning, too!

Through completing these goals (or daily, at least), you can get Rainbow Stones, which you can use to buy clothes for your bird, make them different colors, or give them furniture for their house!

They're also LGBTQ+ and disability-friendly!! :3

This is my little bird, Honeydew! You're welcome to friend me as well if you'd like, my code is: Z3E2T7VRK6

It's helped me learn a lot about taking care of myself and keeping track of my goals, and I get little rewards for it! I've used the app for several months now, and it's helped me out a lot!

"Fluttershy protects this blog! SFW interaction only, please and thank you! ^w^"

"Wouldn't show a kid? Doesn't belong here!"

[certifiedlovergirlsstuff]

ballad about death | s.r. x liaison!fem reader

“no wonder you can’t get a date.”

you know morgan spoke it as a tease after spencer mentioned the new pages left at a scene were from an 1800 ballad about death, it still wasn’t a nice thing to say.

sitting in the chair across from his you swatted your case file at his knee. “hey!” a shocked expression at the action, you just narrowed your eyes at him with a tight mouth.

“enough. back to the debrief.” hotch’s stern tone pulled back the focus onto the active case. after discussing a few more things, everyone settled into their own world for the next three hours.

leaving behind derek you moved to join spencer on the couch as he flipped through the pages of a book. “can you really read two thousand words a minute?” keeping a low tone to not disturb anyone, also you wanted to keep it between you and spencer.

spencer’s fingers stopped their running and he lifted his eyes away from the pages, “actually it’s twenty thousand, but yes i can read that much in a minute. usually finish most novels within ten to fifteen minutes.”

you grinned at the knowledge, “is it usually novels or do you ready anything?” adjusting yourself to lean on your side, one knee propped on the cushions.

spencer nodded, “i read anything. also in six other languages. it’s fun to read certain works in their original form, sometimes the full story doesn’t translate.”

you perked up, “can you speak them or only read them?” “both, but elle prefers when i don’t speak spanish.”

your lip twitched, “can you say something? let me hear your favorite one.”

spencer looked down at his marked page then back up to your waiting face. he said something slow and his voice deepened just an octave, a whisper of an accent popping through on his last word. your lips parted at the mysterious sentence.

“what’d you say?” mesmerized on spencer’s pink cheeks. he scrunched his face for a moment, “that- that flowers are quite beautiful.”

you hummed, “they are. lillies are my favorite.” flashing a small tattoo of the plant on your inner wrist. spencer’s lip twitched, “sunflowers are my moms. used to keep a fresh vase in the living room.”

“you were her first sunflower. bet you always lit up her room.” shuffling closer towards spencer, head leaning against the back rest.

“some- some days.” he reached a hand to tuck some rouge hair away. “can i ask you a question?” brows pinched in thought.

“you just did but i’ll allow another.” grinning to make sure he knows it’s a joke. his eyes drifted back to his book and he bit into his bottom lip. you grew concerned, “hey, what’s wrong?” knocking a foot gently into spencer’s.

“do- do you think it’s true?” sounding broken. “what’s true?”

“that i can’t get a date.” oh you were gonna smack derek. “of course not,” moving closer across the couch, only leaving an inch of space left. “he’s jealous he didn’t think of the answer.”

spencer grumbled, “no he’s not.”

you insisted, “yes he is. knowledge is so attractive for the right girls. he has to show off his body just to get ladies.” you were almost tempted to just yell ‘i find you attractive! i want to date you!’

but instead you just sighed and said, “the right person will appear when the time is right. sometimes you have to let the universe take its time. but the wait will be worth it in the end.”

[iomoru]

Hey!! Love your work!! Since your request is open, can you make a Reader that like to talk a lot x character who's relatively busy, the scene is like reader was talking but then stops cuz she thought that character was busy doing something (example: doing paper work) so they weren't listening, but they actually were listening and they answer reader?, I DON'T KNOW IF IT'S CONFUSING OR NOT!!! (any character you want btw)

Unexpected Attention

A/n: I'm so sorry for not being able to do your req sooner, I got so busy in school activities I didn't even notice I had something inside my inbox- (I couldn't chooses single character so yeah 🧍‍♀️)

Genre: Modern! Au, Fluff, Gn! Reader, Second Person, Proofread

Chars: Cyno, Alhaitham, Wriothesley, Neuvillette, Ayato

Summary: You have a habit of rambling about the most random things whenever you're around him, even if he’s preoccupied with work or other tasks. Thinking he’s too busy to listen, you cut yourself off mid-conversation. But to your surprise, he’s been listening the whole time and isn’t about to let you stop now.

Cyno:

Cyno was at the small table in front of you, buried in the pages of some ancient text. His brow furrowed in concentration as his fingers lightly traced the lines of his book. You knew he took his research seriously, so you kept your voice light and casual, not really expecting him to be following along with your rambles.

“—and then I saw this cat trying to chase a squirrel, but it just ended up—” You trailed off suddenly, catching yourself. He was probably deep in thought about something much more important.

“Why did you stop?” Cyno asked, eyes still on the text, but there was a faint smile tugging at his lips.

You blinked, caught off guard. “I, uh...I thought you weren’t listening.”

“I was,” he said simply, finally looking up, his gaze soft. “The cat didn't catch the squirrel, right?”

You laughed softly, realizing he had been paying attention all along. “Yeah, exactly. It just gave up and sat there, sulking.”

Cyno chuckled, marking his page and closing the book. “Sounds like it could use some tips. Keep talking, I’m still listening.”

Alhaitham:

Alhaitham’s fingers flew over the keys of his laptop, the soft clicking punctuating the silence between your words. He was working on some project probably something that required more brainpower than your ramblings about the latest TV show you’d been binge-watching. As you got to the part where the plot took an unexpected twist, you hesitated, realizing he might not even be tuned in.

“You know what, never mind,” you mumbled. “You’re busy, I don’t want to bother you—”

“Why are you stopping?” Alhaitham’s voice cut in smoothly, his eyes still on the screen, but there was a small quirk of his lips. “I want to know how it ends.”

“You do?” you asked, eyebrows raising in surprise.

He glanced at you briefly, his expression unreadable but somehow fond. “Yes. It’s more entertaining than this report I’m working on, so continue.”

You grinned, heart fluttering a little at the thought of him actually listening. “Alright, but don’t blame me if you get too distracted.”

Wriothesley:

Wriothesley was sitting at his desk, pen in hand, as he reviewed some documents. The steady scratching sound echoed in the room as you sat nearby, talking about something entirely unrelated. Maybe it was your plans for the weekend, or how you’d run into an old friend from high school. His eyes were trained on his paperwork, so you figured your words were just background noise to him.

Mid-sentence, you stopped, feeling like you were just talking to yourself. “I’m sorry, you’re working. I’ll shut up.”

Wriothesley’s pen paused, and he looked up at you, raising an eyebrow. “Why’d you stop?”

“I mean...you’re busy.”

He shook his head, leaning back in his chair. “I’m never too busy for you,” His lips curved into a soft smile. “Besides, I want to know what happened after you saw your friend.”

Your heart warmed at his words, and you couldn’t help but smile back. “Oh, well, they told me this funny story about—”

Neuvillette:

Neuvillette sat quietly across from you, flipping through legal briefs or something equally as complex. His serene expression made it hard to tell if he was absorbed in his work or if he was listening to your musings. You were deep into telling him about a random fact you’d learned earlier that day, but then you faltered.

You sighed, glancing at him. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt. You’re probably focused on something important.”

He glanced up at you, his soft gaze meeting yours. “What makes you think I wasn’t listening?”

You blinked in surprise. “You were?”

Neuvillette nodded, his voice gentle. “Of course. You were telling me about the history of that statue, right? It was quite fascinating.”

Your face lit up as you continued, and he leaned forward slightly, a faint smile playing on his lips. He never seemed to mind your random tangents, and that made you feel like the most important person in the room.

Ayato:

Ayato was typing away on his phone, likely dealing with something work-related even outside of the office. You were in the middle of a rant about a new recipe you wanted to try but stopped when you realized he hadn’t looked up in a while.

“Okay, I’ll stop bothering you now,” you mumbled, feeling a little silly.

Ayato looked up, confusion crossing his face. “Why stop? I was listening.” He set his phone down and leaned his chin on his hand, looking at you with that signature, mischievous smile. “I’m curious now. What was the secret ingredient you wanted to use?”

You bit your lip, realizing you had underestimated him. “Um...it’s actually saffron. You know, to give it that rich flavor.”

His smile widened, and he nodded. “Interesting choice, i’ll have to try it once you make it.”

You grinned, your heart light as you continued explaining the recipe, knowing that despite his busy schedule, Ayato always made time for you.

A/n: I BADLY wanna write more but I'm so buried in stupid school activities

© ²⁰²⁴ ɪᴏᴍᴏʀᴜ ✰ do not repost, translate, plagiarize, use to train ai, or share my work on other social media platforms.

[slut4msby]

hq boys & twitter porn <3

+ tags & warnings; fem!reader, smut

+ a/n; surprise!! im back, did yall miss me? but hey yes im back to posting probably a bit more irregularly than before but im here!! ive been lurking tumblr but this is my first post in like forever so yipee :3! also this is like my first attempt at writing anything remotely smutty so enjoy!

he knows this could ruin his career, he knows that if he’s caught he would be in so much trouble but he just cant help it! not when you look so pretty under him, begging to have him inside of you as he teases your pretty little cunt.

“missed you so much” you mumble a blabbering mess. you couldn’t even comprehend the words leaving your mouth nor did you care at this point, you only had one thing on your mind, him.  “want you so bad, please” you whimper staring into his eyes.

his phone camera was facing your pussy in all its glory, wet and needy practically begging to be filled by your boyfriend. he made sure not to get either of your faces in it as tempting as it is for him to watch when he is away, when he craves his pretty little girlfriend the most.

he was teasing you and you were well aware of this fact as he slowly rubbed your clit in circles forcing moans and whimpers to leave your mouth as you laid there, your craving for his cock growing unbearable.

“good girl” he says reassuringly, “love those pretty little noises baby.”

“wanna cum on your cock, please” you moan out, as you pull your boyfriend closer to you, “just want you inside me.”

“so needy,” he teases pulling his hand away and slowly inserting his thick cock inside of you. he stops recording, discarding his phone away, “don’t think we need that anymore, i wanna fuck you freely pretty girl.”

and that he does, with his full attention on you & only intention of making you feel pleasure.

+ bonus

the next morning you wake up beside your boyfriend, sun shining over his perfectly sculpted body adorned with scratches and marks from the activities from the previous night as he lays there his phone in his hand, his eyes glued to the screen.

when he notices you have woken up, he shows you your shared twitter page with the video from last night pinned.

“look baby! we’re going viral, always knew you were a model” he says placing a light kiss on your forehead.  as you lay under your boyfriend watching his hands toy with your bundle of nerves, you notice a singular frame of your nightstand, in the background decorated with the photo of the two of you.

this is gonna be a hard one to explain.

©slut4msby.

oikawa tooru, kuroo tetsuro, MIYA ATSUMU, suna rintaro, sugawara koushi, semi eita & ur fav <3

[asahicore]

real me, real you - psh

pairing. sunghoon x fem!reader (ft. jay... sorry)

synopsis. You’re your school’s popular pretty smart girl, but with a twist - you lead a completely different life at home, where you are messy, lazy and foul-mouthed. Only your family and best friend Sumin know about this, until Park Sunghoon, of all people, finds out. The resident cold and arrogant heartbreaker of your school decides to blackmail you into doing his biddings - but you can’t say no, not even when he asks you to be his fake girlfriend, otherwise he’ll ruin your reputation. But as you and Sunghoon get closer, you realize that maybe he’s not so bad after all, and you may be more similar than you'd originally though - all while your old childhood friend Jay watches from the sidelines.

genre. fake dating, high school au, very slight love triangle action, fluff and angst

warnings. this is the first thing i ever wrote so there may be slightly cringe and awkward things but i didn't wanna change anything lol, hoon is a meanie at some point and everything is dramatic and very fanfic-y, mild childhood trauma for both of them &lt;3

word count. 22.9k

author's note. @end-hyphen genie this one is for you... i hope you still like this fic after all this time lol ! as i said in the warnings i only changed a few typos and punctuation from the original but i decided to not make any major changes bc i think it's nice to see what my writing was like when i had just started out!! hopefully i've improved lol, also this was not inspired by true beauty!! i've never seen the show nor read the webtoon. i was inspired by two mangas called switch girl and kare kano (or his and her circumstances) which have this plot of a girl being two different people at school and at home. anyways hope u guys enjoy this and if u do pls lmk <333

Nobody was supposed to find out.

You were the most popular girl in school, known for your looks, good grades, and kind personality. You had a nice group of friends and the whole school at your feet, students and staff alike. As the student representative, you had an image to keep up and needed everyone to think you were perfect; and they did. So you always wore a smile on your face, kept your head up and made sure your uniform was creaseless, all while maintaining the highest scores in your year. Always being friendly to your peers and helping them out prevented anyone from thinking you were a stuck-up goody-two-shoes. You made high school look like a breeze.

But such a life didn’t exist. Who was happy waking up at 6 a.m. every day and dedicating all of their time to schoolwork and student life? You certainly weren’t. What you thrived off of was having everyone think you were. Hearing whispers in the corridor of, “She’s so pulled together!” or “I wish I had her life”, now, those skyrocketed you to heaven. The cherry on top was a nod of approval from a teacher or an “outstanding job again, Y/N” as they handed you back your graded paper. Your favorite color had become the red of the pens your teachers used to write A+ at the top of the page. 

You’d always been academically gifted, but as you heard those words more and more, you’d started craving them and doing everything to hear them again until they started controlling you instead of the other way around. Everything you did needed to be perfect. And that was how you had created this persona of the perfect girl who had it all together at the ripe age of 17. But that’s exactly what it was; a persona. 

As soon as you stepped off the bus and waved goodbye to your friends, you became another person. Or more accurately, you reverted back to your natural self. You weren’t an evil person by any means; it wasn’t your intention to actively deceive everyone at school, it was more of a side effect of keeping up appearances. Only your family and your closest friend Sumin knew what you were truly like: greedy, messy, short-tempered, self-centered, and sometimes downright insufferable. Your younger siblings, Sunoo and Yeeun, liked to joke that you had a button you switched on and off whenever you left the house. When on, you were the sweetest girl ever, but when off, all your vices crept up and let themselves known to the world, or rather to your family. You didn’t mean to make them suffer, but after a long day of being perfect, you needed to blow off some steam; if they had to be your metaphorical punching bag, so be it. 

When Sunoo entered high school, you made him swear he wouldn’t say a thing to anyone. You trusted him and knew he wouldn’t let your secret out - it was too entertaining for him to see you act perfect at school and reveal your true self at home. There was no risk of anyone finding out - you were so intent on keeping the act up that nothing ever slipped you. It had been that way since middle school, and your senior year of high school was going to be no different.

Nobody was supposed to find out, so what was Park Sunghoon doing right in front of you in the frozen aisle of the corner convenience store, just when you happened to be bare-faced, with thick glasses on and a pimple bright red from just having been popped, in your comfiest pajamas, and a tub of Ben & Jerry’s in hand?

“Kim Y/N? Y/N, is that you?”

You froze in place, not knowing how to react. There was no way this, your worst nightmare, was actually happening.

When you regained your senses, flight seemed the best way out of this. You avoided Sunghoon’s curious gaze and curtly replied, “No, sorry, I don’t know who that is,” before walking away, iron grip on the ice cream.

But the boy was quicker than you and grabbed you by the wrist, forcing you to turn around. “It is you! Come on, Y/N, aren’t we friends? Do you not recognize me or something?”

If it wasn’t for the panic coursing through your veins at that moment, you might’ve laughed at his question. How could you not recognize the Park Sunghoon? Along with Park Jongseong and Sim Jaeyun, or Jay and Jake as they liked to be called, he was only the most popular guy in your year - hell, in the whole school. The three of them had gained attention from freshman year as the three handsome soccer players. Jake and Sunghoon had been attached at the hip since kindergarten, Jay joining them sometime in middle school when he came back from his year abroad in Seattle. 

Your parents and Jay’s had been college best friends and you two had therefore grown up together, and even used to be quite close. You’d grown apart when he joined Jake and Sunghoon’s friend group, and although you still got on well, there was always a bit of an awkward atmosphere when you caught up with each other.

The three friends had quite different personalities but their complicity and shared history made them stick together. Jake was known for his academic achievements, rivaling yours, and his friendly personality; Jay, for his surprisingly funny antics once you got past the somewhat menacing appearance (which he blames on his resting bitch face). Sunghoon, on the other hand, was as cold as ice, so much that he’d earned the nickname of ice prince, but girls continued to swoon over him due to his incredibly handsome features. When turning down girls, Jake and Jay always tried to let them down gently, but Sunghoon wasn’t one to hold back: he’d laugh in their face or straight up say no, staring them right in the eyes. Most confessions ended in tears (not his, obviously), but girls kept on testing their luck, thinking they might be the one to melt the ice prince’s cold, dead heart.

Clearly, you weren’t Sunghoon’s biggest fan.

His behavior had always made you wonder why Jay and Jake were friends with a person like him. They went back a long time, but how did Sunghoon not become a nice and approachable person like his two best friends? They both seemed so genuine, but he looked like he was hiding something. This was what had made you weary of him; you knew all too well how easily an image that was the opposite of reality could be created. So on one hand, you sort of felt for him, thinking he might be in a similar situation as you. But on the other hand, you couldn’t help but feel some kind of jealousy: if you acted the way he did, you wouldn’t receive half the admiration you did. Hell, you’d probably be hated for it - no one likes a girl that’s both successful and bitchy about it. 

One thing was sure, though, and that was that you wouldn’t call the two of you friends, as he just had.

“Y/N? You okay?”

The pure panic in your eyes must’ve made Sunghoon realize something was wrong. He released you and looked you up and down, trying to take your appearance in. The Y/N he was seeing right then was worlds away from the one he was accustomed to at school. 

You realized there was no ignoring him, so you collected yourself and faced Sunghoon. “Uh, yeah, hi, Sunghoon. Sorry, I just wasn’t expecting to see anyone I knew here.”

He chuckled. “Yeah, no wonder. You look quite… different from what you usually do,” he said, voice laced with sarcasm.

This whole situation got you dumbfounded. You usually knew exactly what to retort when somebody messed with you, your friend or a classmate, but this time, you were completely speechless. You just wanted to escape.

“Well, it was nice seeing you Sunghoon, but I need to get home.” You pivoted on your heels and started walking again, but Sunghoon had other plans.

“Aw, come on, so quickly? We barely got to chat!” He followed you through the aisles as you picked up the remaining ingredients on the list your mother had given you as quickly as you could.

“I didn’t know you needed glasses. Do you wear lenses at school?”

“Yes. I need them to see.”

“I figured.” You could hear the smirk in his voice, and your shock was slowly morphing into anger. Were teenage girls so blind that they’d have a crush on someone with such an abominable personality, no matter how angelic his face was? 

“I really like your outfit, by the way. Looks super comfy.” And as if your embarrassment couldn’t grow any bigger, he added: “Too bad you got a stain on the shirt.”

You looked down at yourself and noticed a huge grease stain on the collar of your shirt. Admittedly, you didn’t always have the best table manners. 

You swore under your breath. It was quiet for a couple minutes as you arrived at the register and paid for your items, Sunghoon still on your tail. He had apparently given up his purchases to focus solely on tormenting you. When you walked out of the store, you thought he might finally be done. But of course, he wasn’t.

“You know, my sister has this really effective pimple cream she uses. Do you want me to ask her what brand it is?”

That was it. You sighed deeply. “Alright, Park. What do you want?”

When you turned to face him fully, arms crossing over your chest and an obviously tired expression on your face, the mischievous glint in his eyes made you realize something. That idiot was enjoying this. 

Indeed, he beamed down at you. You had probably never seen him smiling so widely. “Wow, Y/N, didn’t know you could have such an attitude.”

You stayed silent and continued staring at him, waiting for an answer. He mirrored your pose, out of instinct or to irritate you, you weren’t sure.

“You know, when I moved to this neighborhood before the start of school, I was definitely not expecting to see Perfect Miss Y/N out in her pajamas buying ice cream. I thought you were more into, I don’t know, rescuing puppies from fires or something. That sounds like something you’d do in your free time.”

“Well, is there anything wrong with what I’m doing?”

“Oh, absolutely not! Just a surprising sight. Makes me wonder what the rest of the school would say…” He looked intently at you, clearly waiting for a reaction. You weren’t about to give him one, though.

You chuckled and rolled your eyes, shifting your weight on your right foot. “Yeah, like anyone would believe you if you said you saw me looking anything else other than perfect.” It might’ve sounded arrogant, but that was the image people had of you. Even your friends asked you how you did it - if only they knew the truth.

At that, his smile got even brighter. “Don’t worry about that, I won’t need to tell anyone. I’ll just show them!” He pulled out his phone, showing you a picture of you in your god-awful pajamas searching for your favorite flavor of ice cream.

He watched as your face fell, taking your silence as an opportunity to go on. “You were so engrossed in the tubs of ice cream that you didn’t notice a dashingly handsome and tall young man very obviously taking pictures of you.”

This put you into panic mode again. It might have seemed foolish, but you hadn’t worked for years to create a perfect version of yourself only for a stupid boy to destroy it all with one picture. 

You sighed and lowered your head, taking a moment to think. You didn’t know Sunghoon that well, but you didn’t put it past him to send that picture to everyone and ruin your image in the process. You opted for honesty instead of bluff. You took your glasses off and looked back up at him; even if you couldn’t see him as well without them, maybe he’d see the despair in your eyes better.

“Park. I mean, Sunghoon. You can’t show that picture to anyone, okay? You have no idea how bad I need to keep up appearances. It’s really important to me, so just delete the picture and let’s never talk about this again, yeah?”

You tried smiling at him, but his expression infuriated you. You could tell he had something else up his sleeve. “Now, Y/N, why would I do that? If I’m gonna do something for you, you should do something for me.”

You weren’t sure if you wanted to hear the rest of his thoughts, but you needed to know. Eyeing him suspiciously, you told him to go on.

“Well, I can’t think of anything right now, but I’ll let you know when I do, okay? I’ll see you around, Y/N.” He flashed another one of his smiles, patted your head, and walked away, just like that, leaving you standing outside the convenience store on your own, a melting tub of ice cream in your plastic bag. At least for now, you were safe.

Right?

—

“You saw Park Sunghoon? As in, the Park Sunghoon?” your little sister Yeeun asked, looking at you with huge eyes. You two and Sunoo were sitting on your bed, sharing the ice cream by eating it directly from the tub.

“Yes, that’s literally what I’ve been saying this whole time. How do you know him anyway? You’re still in middle school…”

“Are you crazy? He’s famous in our whole school district! I wish we had cute boys in my school as well,” she sulked, pouting.

“That’s not the point, Yeeun,” Sunoo chimed in, then turned to you. “Well, this is either bad news or the start of a beautiful romance.”

“Sunoo! Take this seriously! I’m in a huge dilemma right now.”

Your siblings shared a knowing glance and snickered.

“Hey! I’m right here. I’m not overreacting, you know. If he does send those pictures around, I’m done for.”

“Oh, come on, Y/N, you’d be so much better off if you could be yourself at school. I see you there almost everyday, and the way you laugh always sounds so fake. Nobody would care if you forgot to put makeup on one day or had a crease in your shirt. If anything, it’d make you look more human.”

You could see where Sunoo was coming from, but you chose to ignore it. You sighed deeply. “You guys just don’t get it. They all see me as this perfect, put-together girl. If I showed them even a glimpse of the truth, everything would shatter. It’s too late to go back now.” You ignored their pitying looks and took another big spoonful of ice cream.

It was their turn to sigh. As always, it was impossible to reason with you. Deep in your thoughts, you added: “You know, there was something really off about him today. I’d never seen him act that way before.”

Your siblings looked at you questioningly. “He’s always so cold and distant towards everyone. I’ve only seen him smile when he’s laughing with Jake and Jay or when he makes fun of someone. But just now, he kept smiling at me like he was having fun. He even patted my head when he left.”

At that, Yeeun swooned dramatically, hands over her heart. You looked over at her and said, “I’d be swooning too if it was any other guy than Park Sunghoon. I’m more confused than anything right now, he was a completely different person from when I see him at school.”

They exchanged another look. “You guys stop doing that!”

“Well, it’s just that that sounds an awful lot like someone I know,” Sunoo replied. Realization hit you and you scoffed, mildly offended. At least you were nice to others at school and didn’t act like an asshole with a superiority complex.

“Anyway,” he continued, “what will you do about Sunghoon?”

“I’m not too sure. I guess all I can do is wait and see whatever it is he could want from me.”

“Yeah, do that, and then date him, please. If I can’t have him as my boyfriend, then I’ll have him as my brother-in-law,” Yeeun joked. You didn’t have it in you to retort anything back and started laughing along with her. 

If everything did shatter, at least you’d have your siblings to make you laugh.

— 

The next day, you made your way to the bus stop after your daily morning routine: jogging, showering, eating a filling breakfast, choosing the perfect accessories for your school uniform, applying just the right amount of makeup and going over your subjects and tasks of the day. As always, efficiency is the key. You had become so used to this routine that your body did it on its own, which let your mind wander wherever it pleased. Usually, you’d use this time to prepare yourself for the day ahead, but today, the only thing on your mind was Park Sunghoon. What was that boy up to? Was he up to anything, or did you completely imagine his mischievousness yesterday? In any case, you hoped it would all be over soon. 

You got on the bus and sat down next to Sumin. Your close friend group at school consisted of her, Park Sieun, Lee Heeseung and Choi Jiung, but she was the only one who knew about your secret. You had been friends for so long that you hadn’t even been able to hide it: she’d seen you from all angles, both before, during and after your transformation to who you were now. It was nice having someone else than your siblings to rely on and tell everything to. 

“Minie, you’ll never guess what happened yesterday. I ran into Park Sunghoon at the convenience store next to our apartment unit.”

She raised her eyebrows in surprise, but her reaction wasn’t as big as you thought it’d be. She smiled and said, “Huh! I knew he’d moved to our neighborhood, but I wouldn’t have thought he’d live so close to you that you’d even shop at the same place.”

She registered your confused expression and continued. “Didn’t you hear? He moved out of his parents’ house at the end of summer. Something about a huge fight with them that made him move out. But there are always so many rumors about him and his group that I don’t know what to believe.”

“Oh,” you mumbled, unsure what to say. Now that you thought about it, Sunghoon had mentioned moving in your conversation yesterday, but you were so preoccupied with him seeing you in your wild state that you hadn’t paid much attention to his comment.

“Wait, did he do something? Your face is telling me he did something.”

You got closer to her face and gestured for her to do the same. With lowered heads and in hushed tones, you said, “He saw me on off-mode.”

She gasped and jolted back in surprise, eyes wide and eyebrows shooting straight up. “What?”

You shushed her and pulled her in by her shoulders. “He even took pictures.” Your grip tight, you held her from jumping again. “That’s not even it. You know how he's always really cold and distant?”

“You mean how he’s always being a douchebag?” She scoffed. “Yeah, I know.”

You remembered that Sumin had been one of the first of many girls who shot their shot with Park Sunghoon, only to get rejected. You both grimaced at the memory that always left a bad taste in your mouth.

“He was completely different yesterday. Kept following me around the store and, I’m not sure, teasing me? Like trying to get a reaction out of me? In a weird half-friendly half-bully way.”

“Hm, you’re right, that doesn’t sound like him,” she mused. “It does sound like a stupid teenage boy though, which I guess he is, no matter how hard he tries to pretend he’s not.”

This is what you loved about Sumin. She could see right through people, and never hesitated to say what she thought of them, especially when they acted the way Sunghoon did. Sure, there were some personal feelings attached there, but she had quickly gotten over them when she realized how much of a douche he was towards everyone else.

When the bus stopped to pick up some more students, Heeseung hopped on. You quickly told Sumin to keep it a secret, at which she smiled and made a motion as if zipping her lips and throwing the key. If you told your friends about Sunghoon, you’d have to tell them the truth about how he had dirt on you, but you wanted to keep your friendship clean. You chatted the rest of the bus ride away and tried not to worry over Park Sunghoon too much.

When you finally got to school, you, Heeseung, and Sumin made your way to your classroom to join Jiung and Sieun. Before you could get there, however, Jungwon, an underclassman you had talked to a couple times for student council meetings, called out your name. You told your friends to go on without you and turned to the younger boy.

“Jungwon! Hi, what’s up?”

He seemed flattered that you had remembered his name but quickly got on with his business. “Um, I’m not sure why, but Sunghoon told me to come and get you? I’ve never talked to him, I think he just picked me randomly and assigned me a task…”

You sighed. Park Sunghoon truly was something. “Thanks for telling me, Jungwon. I’ll make sure he gets an earful for this, he has no right to boss students around like that.”

Jungwon’s eyes doubled in size as he frantically waved his hands in dismissal. “No! No need to do that, I don’t want to get in trouble with him. I’m just here to relay the message.” At that, he scurried off, and you headed towards Sunghoon’s homeroom. 

When you walked in, a few people were in the room, some girls gossiping with each other, a couple students doing some last-minute revision for a test. You found Sunghoon sitting at his desk, snickering with Jay and Jake and hoped that the subject of their laughter wasn’t you. They noticed you approaching and the two decent boys greeted you; the other one eyed you, that mischievous glint back in his eyes. What could he possibly have in mind?

“Hi, guys.” You smiled at Jay and Jake and reflexively stood closer to Jay. “Sunghoon, Jungwon said you wanted to see me?” you asked, trying to keep your impatience at bay.

“Oh, was that his name? Well, thank heavens for him, ‘cause I forgot my lunch at home. Would you be a sweetheart and go buy me something at the cafeteria? You know how everything runs out as soon as lunch period starts, and I get really cranky when I’m hungry.”

You stared at him, wide-eyed. His two friends’ reaction wasn’t very different from yours. Go buy him lunch? That’s what he wanted you to do?

“What? You don’t want to? That’s too bad, cause there’s a picture I think everybo-”

You cut him off before he could finish. “No! Of course I’ll do it! Can’t have our star player go hungry, now can we?” You cringed at your own words and Jay eyed you suspiciously. Sunghoon beamed, and Jake’s eyes darted back and forth between the two of you in pure confusion. “Um, any preferences?”

His smile got wider. “A tuna mayo would be amazing. Thanks, Y/N! You’re the best!”

“Sure…” you mumbled and quickly walked away, more bemused than ever. You checked your watch. You had 10 minutes before the first bell rang, and you could not be late for class, which meant you needed to hurry. 

You got back to Sunghoon’s classroom just a minute before the first bell. To your dismay, the class was almost full, and girls had gathered around him, trying to get his attention, but he seemed unbothered by their presence. You braced yourself and walked towards him. As your presence rarely went by unnoticed, most eyes were on you and Sunghoon. Not only were you two some of the most popular kids in school, you also happened to be handing him his lunch, a never-seen-before sight between the two of you. 

“I also got you banana milk, for good measure…” 

What had seemed like a great idea a few minutes ago, something to appease the devil in him, now felt like the biggest mistake of your life. The girls around him started whispering left and right and you weren’t sure whether they felt bad for you, sensing an incoming rejection, or wanted to tear you to shreds for even trying. 

The whispers grew even louder when Sunghoon took the sandwich and milk from your hands, thanking you with a smile. You’d be lying if you said your heart hadn’t done a small jump in your chest at that moment. As much as you hated to admit it, if looks were the sole factor for popularity, then you could definitely understand why Park Sunghoon was so loved. His face looked like it had been carved by the gods themselves. When his eyebrows weren’t turned in a frown, his eyes looked almost sweet, especially when he laughed. His two moles gave him so much charm, the curve of his nose was so delicate and his pink lips looked so, so soft… 

You cleared your throat and smiled back at him before turning around to walk to your own classroom.

“Wait, Y/N!”

You turned back around, all eyes on you. You could feel Jay’s eyes burning holes into you. Sunghoon was still smiling. You thought you’d seen him smile more in the past two days than you had in all the years you’d known him.

“I’ll see you later.”

—

And indeed see him later you did. You always hung back a bit after classes ended to get homework done or work out student council issues. Being in an empty classroom brought you some peace and quiet, very different from the busyness and noise of your home. You couldn’t even focus in your own room, your siblings or parents always barging in to disturb you. The after-school janitors now knew you by name and saved cleaning the classroom you were sitting in for last. 

You had been barely sitting there for 5 minutes, nose buried in a math problem, when Park Sunghoon graciously strode in, swung the chair in front of you around and sat on it, arms crossed over its back as he peered at you. You didn’t even bother to look up at him as you spoke. “What, Park?”

“Oh no, back to last name basis already?” he joked. You didn’t laugh. He cleared his throat awkwardly. “Wow, tough crowd. Anyways, thanks for the sandwich today.”

This made you look at him. Or rather, shoot daggers at him. “Yeah, what the hell was that all about? Did you have to pull that little stunt in front of everybody? You know what our school is like! Rumors are gonna start spreading like wildfire.”

“I already told you,” he said with a defensive tone. “Forgot my lunch, everything was gonna run out, didn’t want to get hungry later,” he said as he shrugged, completely ignoring the latter part of your complaint.

“And you couldn’t have gone and gotten it yourself?”

He beamed. If it wasn’t so damn beautiful, you probably would have started getting tired of his stupid smile already. “Why would I do that when I could get you to do it?”

You sighed. “I knew you weren’t the nicest guy, but I didn’t know you could be such an asshole, Park.”

If you hadn’t been staring him down so intently, you might not have noticed the falter in his smile, so quick it was.

“Oh, come on, Y/N. If anything, I’m doing you a favor by not sending out to everyone that picture you so desperately want to keep secret. Thing is, doing that wouldn’t benefit me in any way, except for getting the satisfaction of seeing everybody realize you’re not as perfect as they think you are. Whereas holding it over your head allows me to do basically anything I want with you. And that, that is just so much fun,” he beams, lowering his voice into a whisper for the last sentence.

What a psycho, you thought. You just sighed once more and returned to your textbook, too weirded out to say anything back. You hoped the silence would make Sunghoon realize how creepy what he had just said was. 

It was quiet in the room, only the sound of your pencil scratching your notebook could be heard. Sunghoon sat in the same position and watched you working. He often saw you like this, focused and benched over a desk, in the library or walking past your classroom. But it was always in passing, and looking at you so closely made all the world’s difference. He could see how you scrunched your nose when the problem got particularly difficult, or how your smirk as you solved another one made your left dimple appear. He also liked the annoyed looks you gave him every once in a while, as if his presence was disturbing your focus. He wasn’t sure what it was, but there was something about seeing someone who always went about their way with such purpose sitting in such silence.

He decided to break that silence. “You know, Jay was asking about you earlier.”

You kept your eyes trained on your notebook but abruptly stopped writing, your pencil leaving a small scratch on the paper. This didn’t go unnoticed by Sunghoon. “Did he?” you said, trying to sound as uninterested as possible, although you couldn’t help but be curious. Ever since Jay and you had grown apart, there was always a part of you wondering what he was up to, how he was doing, if he thought of you once in a while or reminisced about the good old times as you sometimes did. 

“Yeah. I mean, everyone did, but I didn’t really care,” he answers simply, and even though you’re itching to push him to say more, you stay quiet. “You’re right, by the way, I do know the people in our school. The rumors have already started spreading. Up to you whether you wanna deny them or not, though,” he said with a smirk.

“Don’t even think about it, Park. There’s not a chance in hell I’ll let them think we have a thing going on. I have a reputation to uphold, you know.”

He chuckled. “Trust me, I know. Anyway, he wanted to know why you did that for me. Guess he was jealous you didn’t do it for him, too.”

“Why would he be?” you asked, trying to make the question sound as innocent as possible. 

“Well, you two go a long way back, right?” he asked tentatively, as if testing the waters.

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Then it was probably weird for him to see his childhood best friend and his best bro interacting out of nowhere, even though we’ve both seen each other around a lot and nothing has ever come out of that. Don’t you think?”

A beat passed as you thought about it. “Yeah, I guess that’d look weird to him,” you replied, trying to keep the disappointment out of your voice.

You quickly wrote down your last answer, packed up your things, and stood up. “Well, I’m off now. I’ll see you around, unfortunately.”

Sunghoon, surprised at your quick departure, scrambled to get off his chair and chased after you. “Do you want me to drop you off? I’ve got a car, you know. Much more glamorous than the bus.”

You turned around and looked at him. “I’d rather get hit by said bus than get in your car, Park.”

He stood there, watching you walk away with a smirk on his face as your ponytail swayed from side to side. This was going to be a challenge. You were going to be a challenge. 

Thing is, he loved a good challenge.

—

Back home, you flopped down on your bed and buried your face in your pillow. You laid there for a few minutes, taking some time to gather your thoughts and try to understand Sunghoon’s actions. It was of no use; you weren’t a mind-reader, and he seemed impossible to figure out. He could make you do basically whatever he wanted to, and he decided to make you get him lunch, creating rumors along the way? What could he possibly get out of that?

Your reflexions were quickly interrupted, however, by a flurry of incoming messages on your phone. Someone had posted a photo of you handing his banana milk to Sunghoon on your school’s Instagram account - because apparently, your school was so obsessed with gossip that they had created an Instagram page just for it. The photo had blown up among your peers and it made you wonder if people really were that bored with their lives.

People you barely knew but that felt entitled to knowing your relationship status were DMing you, asking about today’s events. You quickly got tired of it, so you texted your worried and confused friends that you didn’t feel like talking tonight and would catch up with them tomorrow. You opened your textbook, deciding that studying would be the best and most efficient distraction.

When your parents called you and your siblings for dinner, you still weren’t feeling great. Your family quickly registered your annoyed expression and could only hope for the best. You already weren’t the easiest to live with, but when you were tired, you just got a hundred times worse.

“So, how was everyone’s day?” your mom asked cheerily.

Yeeun’s eyes lit up instantly. “Mine was great! I met a really cute boy. His name is Nishimura Riki and he just transferred from Japan.”

“Oh, that’s nice!”

“You’re too young to be thinking about boys, Yeeun.”

Your mom and dad had replied at the same time, then gave each other a stern look.

“I’m not thinking about him, Dad, just looking,” your sister replied, earning a chuckle from your concerned father. 

“Mine was alright. I guess the start-of-a-new-year excitement has already worn off. After a week,” Sunoo said with a sigh. 

Your mom turned to you. “What about you, Y/N?”

“It was fine.”

The sharpness of your tone changed the atmosphere in the room at once. You ignored the looks your family exchanged and continued eating your food, eyes not leaving your plate.

For some reason, Sunoo thought it’d be a great idea to chime in. “She’s not happy because she had to buy Park Sunghoon his lunch and everybody went crazy over it.”

“Sunoo!” you protested. Your parents didn’t need to know about this sort of stuff.

“Park Sunghoon? Is that someone we’re supposed to know?” your dad questioned.

Yeeun scoffed. “Uh, he’s only the most popular and handsome guy at Y/N and Sunoo’s school, dad. Duh.”

“Right. Duh,” your dad said, imitating your sister’s tone.

“And why did you have to buy his lunch, Y/N?” your mom asked.

“Because he saw what she looks like when she’s not at school,” Sunoo said, not even giving you the chance to reply yourself.

“Sunoo!” you scolded again.

“And now I guess he’s using that against her to get her to do what he wants? Right, Y/N?”

You glared at your brother and let a beat pass. “Right,” you reluctantly admitted.

“Lucky…” your sister mused, expression like she was daydreaming about being Sunghoon’s personal assistant.

Your dad ignored your sister and looked straight at you. “That’s inadmissible, Y/N. You can’t let him do that.”

“Your father’s right, sweetie. It’s not right,” your mom added when you stayed silent.

With everybody’s eyes on you, you felt obligated to reply. “It’s fine. It’s not like he asked me to do anything crazy. I’m sure he’ll stop soon enough.”

“You know, boys that age, they’ll do anything to get a girl’s attention,” your dad warned. “Just ignore him and he’ll go away.”

“If she ignores him, he’ll tell everyone what she’s really like,” your brother explained.

“And what’s so bad about that? I’m sure it’d be easier if you stopped lying to everyone.”

Everyone suddenly stopped in their motions, wondering why your mom would say something so true yet so controversial. You looked up at her. “What’s so bad about that? What’s so bad? I don’t know, maybe the fact that I’ve worked so hard all these years for everybody to like me and look up to me only for a stupid picture taken by a stupid boy to ruin everything,” you said all in one breath, voice coming out harsh. You were tired of having to explain the same thing over and over again - your parents just didn’t understand why you did what you did.

Your mom opened and closed her mouth again, knowing it was useless trying to talk sense into you. It never ended well when you had this conversation.

“Who put mushrooms in this anyway? You know I hate mushrooms,” you said before filling up your bowl and taking it to eat in your room, making sure you’d slammed your door behind you.

—

On the bus the next day, you tried to explain the events of the previous day to your friends.

“There’s nothing really to it. He just asked me to get him lunch so I did, and when I handed it to him, his whole class was there and saw everything.”

“I get that, but I just don’t understand why he made you do it in the first place, or why you agreed,” Heeseung said, “it’s so unlike the both of you to do something like that.”

You hadn’t even thought to come up with an excuse for your and Sunghoon’s yesterday - your friends were definitely super confused, but you didn’t want to tell them the truth, so you had to quickly find something to say that was somewhat believable, and change the subject.

“I have no idea why he did what he did, but I didn’t want to cause a scene so I just agreed. I don’t really care, to be honest, I just wish it didn’t have such consequences. People seem to think we’re characters on a stupid Netflix coming-of-age series or something, when we literally just go to their school.”

As soon as you’d turned your phone back on this morning, it started pinging with all the messages that had flown in since last night. People were talking about it everywhere: Kim Y/N, highly sought-after bachelorette, had offered Park Sunghoon, notorious rejecter of girls and breaker of hearts, a sandwich and a banana milk, and he had taken them. What’s more, he had been seen at lunch heartily eating them. This was serious.

You didn’t think things could get any worse until you got to school. You were used to random people coming up to you in the hallways or in class for help, except today they weren’t asking for help at all - they were asking what was up between you and Sunghoon, as though handing him a tuna mayo was like asking for his hand in marriage. Most of them were just curious, but some, especially his fanclub members, had an aggressive tone to their voice, which you weren’t used to. If people started liking you less because of Sunghoon, you were going to kill him.

But you had to hold onto that thought, because an all too familiar voice had suddenly called out to you on your way to class. You took a deep breath and turned around, watching him take long strides towards you. You immediately became aware of the amount of people in the hallway and realized you couldn’t talk to him like you had the previous day in front of everybody. You mustered the fakest smile you could and greeted him.

“Hi, Sunghoon. What can I help you with today?”

He smiled, obviously enjoying the fact that you had to be nice to him. “I’ve got my sports bag because of practice later tonight. Mind holding onto that for me for the day?”

Your fake smile turned a bit crazy as your eyes widened in disbelief. "Don’t you have a locker for that, Sunghoon?”

“Yeah, but it’s so much more fun if you’re the one to hold it.” And with that, he threw the bag in your direction, leaving approximately 0.5 seconds to catch it. “I’ll need that later today. Meet me in front of the locker rooms after school, yeah?”

He didn’t bother to wait for your answer and walked away, Jake and Jay following closely behind. Jay sent you a questioning look, to which you could only reply with a shrug. If it wasn’t for all the students in the hallway, you would’ve been yelling Sunghoon’s ear off at that point. Unfortunately, that wasn’t a possibility, so you just smiled to your friends who were looking more confused than ever.

“Let’s just go to class, guys.”

—

Throughout the whole day, you could feel people staring at you, then at the bag you were holding, then starting to whisper among themselves. You tried your best to concentrate in class so you could momentarily stop pondering over what Sunghoon’s evil master plan might be, but everyone seemed bent on making that usually simple feat impossible. When 3:30 p.m. finally came around, you bid your friends goodbye and headed to the boys’ locker room. Every boy walking in eyed you suspiciously, unsure as to what you could be doing there. Of course, Sunghoon had to take his sweet time to get there. 

Staring at the opposite wall and planning Sunghoon’s murder in your head, you hadn’t noticed Jay and Jake arriving. Jay signaled for his friend to go inside the locker room and told him he’d join him in a minute. He waved his hand in front of you to get your attention, a smile on his face. You sighed in relief at the familiar sight of your friend.

“Hey, Jay. Sorry I didn’t see you.”

“You okay, Y/N? You look like you’re about to murder someone,” he said, slightly amused.

“If only you knew,” you mumbled.

He noticed the bag in your hand. “You waiting for Sunghoon?”

“Yeah. If only he could hurry up a little bit. I’ve got stuff to do.”

There was something about Jay that made it impossible to lie to him. Maybe it was the fact that you had known each other for so long, way before you’d turned into what you were now, that made you feel as though showing a side of you that gets annoyed and impatient and doesn’t smile all the time was okay.

Jay looked at his feet before looking back up at you. You were still staring at the wall but your murderous thoughts had somewhat calmed. “Mind telling me what this whole thing with Sunghoon is about?”

You turned to him and were about to fumble for an answer when someone interrupted you. “What whole thing with me?”

Whew. Saved by Sunghoon. You didn’t like that it was thanks to him that you could get out of answering Jay, but at least you didn’t have to come up with yet another stupid excuse.

Jay turned his attention to his friend and stood up straighter. “You know, making her get you lunch or hold your bag all day. There’s dozens of girls who’d be more than happy to do that for you, so why Y/N? She doesn’t have time for this stuff.”

You looked at Jay with surprise. Sure, you were friends, but you hadn’t thought he’d defend you like that in front of Sunghoon.

“Well, Y/N’s just such a nice, reliable person. No one better to ask to do those things.” What a reason, you thought. He turned to you and took the bag from your hands. “Thanks, Y/N. I’ll see you outside in a couple minutes.”

“Huh? What do you mean? I’m leaving,” you said, body already headed towards the other direction.

“What? You can’t leave before practice has even started. Go to the benches outside, we’ll be out in a few.”

You were about to open your mouth to protest, but he cut you off. “You don’t want to?” He started pulling out his phone. “That’s funny, because there’s a pict-”

“I’ll be on the benches! See you soon!” you quickly said, pushing the two boys inside the locker room, Sunghoon smirking, Jay looking at you in utter confusion.

Girls sat in a few different groups in the bleachers. You recognized the girls in one of those groups, so you decided to sit with them. As you approached, they quickly looked at each other and then back at you, expressions half-friendly, half-what-the-hell-are-you-doing-here. 

“Hi guys! Mind if I join?”

“Hi Y/N! No, of course not, come sit,” Jake’s girlfriend, Yujin, said. 

“Are you guys here to watch practice?”

“Yeah! I’m here on girlfriend duties for Jake. These two are just here for the eye candy and to keep me company,” Yujin explained.

“Yeah, but mostly for the eye candy,” added her friend Wonyoung. 

“What about you, Y/N? I’ve never seen you here,” asked the last girl, Gaeul.

“Oh, um, Sunghoon asked me to come, actually.” You regretted your words as soon as you’d let them out. They all ooh-ed at your response, making you blush, which just egged them on. This was nothing to blush about, Y/N. You’d just made the rumors get a hundred times worse with one sentence.

“The whole school’s been talking about you two, you know. Anything you wanna share? Don’t worry, we can keep a secret,” said Wonyoung with a wink. You chuckled awkwardly.

“Oh my gosh, yes, tell us!”

“Guys, don’t make her uncomfortable,” Yujin chimed in, smiling at you. You returned her smile, grateful, once again, that you didn’t have to explain your new link to Sunghoon. “Look, practice is starting.”

You turned your head towards the field as the soccer players started doing laps as per the coach’s instructions. Your eyes immediately drifted towards Sunghoon without you even realizing it. His lean figure hypnotized you. The last time you had had PE with him was in freshman year, and puberty had hit him like a fine, fine truck. You couldn’t take your eyes off of him as he lightly jogged next to his friends, chatting like it was nothing. You weren’t being very subtle with your stare and he eventually noticed you, sending a wink your way. This made you snap out of your reverie and you scowled at him, as if he could make out your annoyed expression from such a distance. You turned back to the girls, who were giggling at you.

“Wow, those were some serious heart eyes you were giving him, Y/N,” Gaeul giggled.

You opened your mouth in mild shock. “Was not!”

“Sure, whatever you say,” she replied knowingly. “Well, look all you want. Warm-up is the best part. It gets boring when they actually start playing.”

“No way! Watching them play is my favorite part,” Yujin disagreed.

“Yeah, that’s cause you’ve got someone to root for,” retorted Wonyoung. She looked at you slyly. “Well, I guess Y/N does, too.”

You scoffed. “Believe me, I will not be rooting for him.”

You started staring at him again, this time with a glare in your eyes. From their silence, you deduced the girls must’ve judged it a better idea to not question you too much. After the boys were done with running exercises and stretching (which you had enjoyed watching a bit too much, if you spoke truthfully), they started playing. The coach split the boys into two teams, Jay leading one and Sunghoon the other. It was a very close game. You could never tell who was leading, although that might have been due to your extensive lack of knowledge in the sport. All you knew was that you desperately wanted to see Sunghoon lose; that might put him down a peg. What you told yourself, however, was that you wanted Jay to win. So when he scored a goal, you surprised the girls next to you, the boys on the field and yourself as you jumped up and down, cheering for him. Realizing what you were doing, you quickly sat down and sent him an awkward thumbs up.

Jay tried to hide it, but he was blushing. Hard. Truth be told, he had noticed your little eye contact moment with Sunghoon during warm-up and hadn’t particularly enjoyed it. So seeing you cheer for him like that made him swell with pride, which only grew when Sunghoon scored and you barely reacted. 

When the game was over, you thought you might be able to finally go home and start studying. But Sunghoon had other plans for you, as always these past couple days. Heading towards the showers, he motioned for you to come down from the benches. As you did, Jay walked past, and you smiled at each other.

“Good game.”

“Thanks, Y/N.” He continued walking as Sunghoon reached you.

“What about me? I scored a goal, too.”

“Oh, did you? Didn’t even notice," you said, looking at your nails. The polish was starting to chip - you’d need to reapply a layer tonight.

“Whatever. Wait for me, yeah?”

“What? No! I gotta go home!” But your protests were in vain, as he completely ignored you. 

You waited outside the school with Yujin, Wonyoung and Gaeul. After a little while, Jake, Jay and Sunghoon joined you guys, having successfully showered and not smelling of sweat and dirt, thank God. Yujin was dropping her boyfriend and her friends off, so they bid their goodbyes and headed towards her car. Sunghoon and Jay also started to walk towards the parking lot, leaving you standing alone, not sure what to do. Sunghoon turned around and looked at you with a frown.

“What are you doing?”

“I don’t know, what are you doing?”

“I’m dropping you and Jay off.”

“Oh,” you mumbled, taken aback. “Didn’t know I was just supposed to guess that.”

As soon as Sunghoon started to drive, you noticed the awkward air between the three of you. Luckily, after years of being a people-pleaser, you had become somewhat of an expert in making small talk, which helped prevent a silent ride. You don’t think you could’ve gone through that without a mental breakdown.

Because you and Sunghoon lived closer to each other (and we all know the consequences of that), Jay was dropped off before you. “I’ll see you guys tomorrow at school,” he said before giving you a last glance.

“Bye, Jay.”

“See you, bro.”

Thankfully, you only lived a couple minutes by car from Jay’s and hoped the rest of the car ride would be peaceful. Which was really stupid of you to hope for, because you were in the car with Park Sunghoon.

“So, Park Jongseong, huh?” he said, eyes trained on the road in front of him. Even though he was trying to keep his tone light, you thought you detected a slight harshness to his gaze.

“What about him?”

“I don’t know, you tell me.”

“There’s nothing to say. We’ve just been friends for a long time.”

It was silent for about five seconds. “You really feasted your eyes during warm-up, huh?”

“Shut up, Park.”

“No, it’s alright, I get it. I’d do the same.” He laughed at his own joke that wasn’t really a joke. Why was he laughing, anyway? 

You looked at him. His face was so different from all those times you’d seen it at school. His eyes, rid of the harshness you’d seen earlier, crinkled at the edges and had an amused glint in them. His smile dug pretty dimples into his cheeks and you let your gaze linger long enough to notice he had sharp, vampire-like canines, which were surprisingly cute. You didn’t know why he was showing you a side of him he never showed anyone, except for his close friends, you assumed. You weren’t sure what overcame you, but you chuckled with him. 

“So, do you already know what task you’re gonna give me tomorrow?” you asked, genuinely curious.

“Hmm, haven’t really thought about it yet. I’d rather keep it a surprise, anyway. Keep you on your toes.”

“Pfft. What a great surprise.�� He laughed again, and you couldn’t help but join him. He was unusually giddy that day, but you didn’t want to complain. This was a thousand times better than the arrogant Sunghoon with his I’m-better-than-all-of-you facade. What you didn’t know was that he, too, liked your snarky, no-nonsense side infinitely more than the model student, pretty girl persona you had created for yourself.

Finally at your house, you got out of the car and headed to your house after waving goodbye to Sunghoon. He rolled his window down and leaned out of it.

“Y/N?”

You turned around. “Yeah?”

“About your task tomorrow…”

“…Yeah?”

“I’m sure you’ll love it.” He gave you an umpteenth wink, rolled his window back up and drove off.

You weren’t so awful to your parents and siblings that evening.

—

The next day at school, you were wondering why Sunghoon had said you would love your task. Because you were, in fact, quite loathing it. He had found you studying during your free period after lunch and dragged you to the part of the library where it was okay to talk a bit over whisper level. You were currently going over a scene in The Tempest which you had seen in AP English Lit last year and clearly had no time for. But obviously, that wasn’t a problem to Sunghoon, who just wanted to get a passing grade on his English essay without putting in too much effort. 

After twenty minutes of going over the same five lines, you were about to give up. “Look, Sunghoon, I don’t mind helping you. I’ve tutored dozens of students before so I’m used to it. But you’re not making any effort! If you want to get it, you need to at least try.”

“But it’s so boring,” he whined, not unlike a child. “How am I supposed to find any meaning in this? It’s just stupid people doing stupid stuff on a stupid island.” You cringed at his words and hoped Shakespeare wasn’t listening in on this conversation. 

“It’s not stupid. It’s about power, and being punished for chasing it, and it’s a metaphor fo-”

“Ugh!” he groaned loudly. “You know what, I don’t care enough about this. Just write the essay for me, okay?” He got up and left, again not waiting for your answer. You wanted to protest, but you know what would happen if you said no to any of his requests, so you just quickly got to work.

Everyday over the next couple of weeks, Sunghoon would find something for you to do. Most days, he’d just get you to buy him lunch (although he thankfully had started paying you back) or carry his stuff around like the first two times. He didn’t ask you again to tutor him, however, so you had gotten used to sitting in an empty class together after class, you doing his homework for him and attempting (and failing) to explain it to him, and him alternating between playing on his phone and looking at you. Although it’d flustered you at first, not used to having someone stare at you while you were trying to concentrate, you’d grown somewhat okay with it - all of your complaints were ignored anyway. One time, he even got you to work on his science project with him, a weirdly-shaped volcano he needed to paint and decorate before actually putting the chemicals in. You’d be lying if you said it hadn’t been fun painting it together, occasionally ‘accidentally’ getting paint on the other’s hand or cheek instead of the volcano. 

You went to see him at practice two to three times a week, although you weren’t sure what use that had for him. If anything, you were probably the one who enjoyed yourself more. Perhaps, after being forced to spend so much time with him, you had started to soften up to him. And, perhaps, that made you appreciate his good looks even more. You couldn’t deny the effect his damp hair, stuck to his forehead with sweat, had on you. 

The rumors hadn’t died down, but people had started getting used to seeing the two of you together around, so they didn’t ogle their eyes at you everytime you and Sunghoon had some kind of interaction. Not liking that you couldn’t control people’s opinion of you anymore, you were still a bit bothered by them, but Sunghoon’s little posse of fangirls didn’t seem to be. They’d been the one to question you the most, and you got a few nasty looks in the hallway, but the gossip around school hadn’t stopped them from keeping on following him around, harassing him from morning to afternoon by going to his homeroom at breaks, sitting at a table near him at lunch, and going to see him at practice. Their group had dwindled down, though; most likely, some of them thought you two might be dating and had finally realized they didn’t stand a chance with the one and only Park Sunghoon. Thank God you had your friends and now sometimes Yujin, Wonyoung and Gaeul around you during those times, otherwise, you’d probably have been jumped. Spending so much time with him had kept you a couple times from your friends, which they’d complained about, but sensing that they couldn’t do much about it, they let you be, even though they hadn’t gotten a satisfactory explanation yet.

One person who didn’t want to, or rather couldn’t let it go, though, was Jay. He still couldn’t figure out why you’d started spending so much time with Sunghoon, seemingly overnight, and it created an unpleasant, sour pit in his stomach. Out of all the people you could’ve decided to form a new friendship with, why’d it have to be his best friend, meaning he saw you more often now than before, but not because he was the one you had come to see? Why did you never get him banana milk for lunch, and why’d you only start coming to soccer practice because Sunghoon had asked you to? He’d tried to ask both of you about it, but you always gave him half-assed excuses that didn’t make much sense. 

He realized what he was feeling was jealousy the day you came into their homeroom before the first bell rang and asked Sunghoon how his science project had gone. You’d never asked him how his science project, or any of his projects or tests, for that matter, had gone. He recognized it as the same feeling he had harbored when he had come back from the US in middle school and saw you dating Choi Soobin, or when Lee Heeseung had joined your tight-knit group of friends in freshman year. You and Soobin had only dated for three weeks and a half because you had a relationship-terminating argument over mint chocolate ice cream, and you and Heeseung had never become more than friends, nor had the intention to. But Jay didn’t care about that; all he saw was that there were boys around you that weren’t him. He had never acted upon those feelings, dismissing them as over-protectiveness for someone he had known since forever, but seeing Sunghoon and you laughing together hit too close to home. He couldn’t ignore how he felt because he was reminded of it everyday, but he didn’t know what to do with these newfound emotions.

And what’s the best thing to do whenever you don’t know what to do? Talk to your friends. Or well, in this case, your friend. He didn’t wanna talk about you to Sunghoon. He was a firm believer of bro code, but he didn’t wanna bottle up his feelings like he had all these years. So he went to Jake and told him everything, from your childhood friendship to Soobin, Heeseung and now Sunghoon.

“I know it’s stupid. It’s this whole cliché of, you only realize what you have when you lose it.”

“Well, you haven’t really lost Y/N, you know. It’s not like Sunghoon and her are dating.”

“I guess not, but he clearly likes her. It’d be a dick move to go after her now that they’ve got something going on.”

Jake hesitated for a second, debating whether he should say what he was thinking, but ultimately deciding it might be better to do it. “You know, I’m not sure that he does. You know what Sunghoon’s like. He’s never very honest about his intentions. I don’t wanna bring the subject up with him, cause I don’t wanna cause any drama, but it’s so suspicious to me that he’s suddenly spending time with Y/N when he’s never mentioned her all those years and when he rejects all these girls all the time.”

“I think it’s weird, too,” agreed Jay. “I just can’t seem to figure it out. And I’m a bit scared for Y/N, to be honest. Remember that girl in freshman year? They’d gotten along really well when he suddenly dropped her. I still remember his cold-ass stare when he turned her down. It even chilled me, man.”

“God, yeah, I always forget about that. He may be a jackass to all those girls, but when you know what he’s really like like we do, it seems so unlikely that he’d do something like that.”

Jay sighed and looked out into the distance. “I just hope he doesn’t hurt Y/N.”

Jake looked at his friend, thinking how to phrase his next sentence. “Like I said, I don’t wanna cause any drama… but, man, if you don’t want him to hurt Y/N, just don’t let him. If you make a move on her, you might get to her before he does. Better to do that now than to have to pick up the pieces, don’t you think?”

Jay mentally thanked the heavens for gifting him with a friend like Sim Jaeyun. “Yes, that is much, much better.”

He was going to stop sitting on his feelings and finally let them see the light.

—

But before that, Sunghoon had another one of his requests for you. You were sitting together in an empty classroom after school as you often did these past weeks. For you, today was an ordinary day, but the boy in front of you had something else in mind. He wasn’t saying anything but you could feel his nervousness and it was starting to make you feel anxious as well.

You lifted your head from your notes and looked at Sunghoon who seemed lost in his thoughts. “What is it, Sunghoon?”

This made him snap out of his reverie. “Um, nothing.”

“Well, seeing how you’ve been tapping your foot at the speed of lightning ever since we got here, it doesn’t seem like nothing.” You crossed your arms over the table and looked at him more intently, eyes asking him to tell you what was on his mind.

He sighed, giving in. “I was just thinking… there’s something I wanna tell you.”

“Go on. “

“I need you to date me.”

Your breath caught in your throat. Park Sunghoon… needed you… to date him? Was he asking you out? The way he’d worded it was a bit odd, but you didn’t put it past him.

Taking in your silence and wide eyes, he quickly added: “Not in that way! I, um, need you to be my fake girlfriend.”

Oh.

So he wasn’t asking you out. You weren’t sure why that made you so upset, but you tried to keep the disappointment out of your eyes and voice.

“Right,” you said, tone a bit harsher than you’d meant it to, “and why would I do that?”

Sunghoon smirked lightly. “Well, first of all, you don’t have much of a choice.” You rolled your eyes at that. It’d been a few days since the reason why you had started hanging out in the first place had come up, and you didn’t like to be reminded of that god-forsaken picture. 

“And second of all… I guess I should be completely honest with you.” This piqued your interest, and you leaned back on your chair to listen to him. 

“When I saw you at the store and took pictures of you, I wasn’t really thinking of doing anything. Maybe just get a laugh or two and tease you about it. I even told you outside the store that I didn’t know what I was gonna do. To be honest, I didn’t really think there was anything you could do for me that I’d need to force you to do. So I thought about it all night. And I asked myself, what’s the thing that pisses me off the most at school that you could change?” he looked at you expectantly, as if you could figure it out. You just shrugged.

“It’s those girls that keep following me around. All these years, I’ve acted like a giant asshole with them and still they think they have a crush on me or whatever. And I’ve never liked any of them, they’re all so superficial and ask me out without having ever talked to me before. So I thought, hey, maybe if I have a girlfriend, they’ll leave me alone. Which is why I made you do all those things for me.”

“So that they’d think we were dating?” you asked, trying to take all this information in. You’d sort of known it this entire time, but Sunghoon blatantly admitting he’d been using you hurt nonetheless.

“Yeah. But obviously, you always denied the rumors, so it hasn’t worked as well as I thought it would. It still did a bit though. So I think, if we take it the next step, and actually pretend we’re dating, it should really work. But I need your full cooperation on this, okay?” He looked at you, hopeful eyes and hands in prayer.

You sighed. As he said, it wasn’t like you had much of a choice.

“Please, Y/N? I really want them off my back.”

“Fine, Park, I’ll do it. But this better be the last thing you make me do.” You couldn’t help but sound cold. This made you rethink these past few weeks’ events. Were you the only one actually enjoying spending time together?

“Thanks, Y/N. And yeah, of course. You won’t have to carry my bag or get my lunch anymore if you want. Maybe it’ll be more believable if I do that for you.”

You had focused your attention back to your homework, wanting this conversation to be over as soon as possible.

“I’ll also pick you up in the morning, so you don’t need to take the bus.”

You hummed in response.

“Um, and I’ll also drop you off after school and after practice…” Sunghoon trailed, troubled by your silence. You hadn’t been so cold since the first couple times you two had talked, and he hated the idea that that might be because of what he had just said. So he took a chance.

“You know, Y/N, this doesn’t change anything. I wouldn’t have made you do all those things if I didn’t like spending time with you. You’re really nice to be around,” he admitted shyly.

You were far too flustered to lift your head and let him see your face. You just grinned and murmured, “Whatever, Park.”

—

Sunghoon kept his promise and picked you up in the morning. He called you at exactly 7:55 a.m., saying he was waiting outside and you rushed out of your house, piece of toast still in your mouth. In the car, you two went over what being in a fake relationship would involve.

“We just need to be seen around together, right?” you proposed, hoping your lack of experience wasn’t showing.

Thankfully, Sunghoon had no idea what being in a relationship, fake or not, entailed either. “Yeah, I think. And maybe…” he hesitated. 

“Maybe?” you prodded, hoping he wouldn’t (or actually would, but you’d never admit it) say what you thought he was about to say.

“I don’t know, like, hold hands, and… kiss.” The last part had barely been audible, but you’d still heard it.

“Kiss?” you echoed, voice almost a shriek. “I don’t think we need to go that far, Sunghoon.” A little voice in your head was saying that you’d really like to go that far but you made it shut up.

He was blushing profusely but didn’t want to drop the subject there. “At least on the cheek, or something. We do have to make it believable.”

And there it was. The little sentence, reminding you none of this was real. Seemed like that was a pattern in your life.

You looked out the window. Sunghoon glanced over at you, cursing himself for always saying the wrong thing. He was trying so hard to drown his blooming feelings for you that he kept on hurting you in the process. This whole fake-dating plan was the perfect excuse for him to spend more time with you without having to come to terms with his feelings. 

“C’mon, Y/N, it’ll be fun. Promise.” He nudged your arm playfully, making you look at him. His smile was contagious; you could never help yourself but start grinning when you saw his face light up like that. Maybe he’s right, you thought. Maybe this won’t be so bad after all.

When you arrived at school, Sunghoon told you to wait for a second. He got out of the car and quickly walked around to your side, opening the door for you. You hated how your heart fluttered at the sweet gesture, reminding yourself it was just for show. The important part was that it fooled everyone else, and it did - as you took Sunghoon’s hand, letting him help you out of the car, and walked with him hand in hand towards the school gates, you could feel all eyes on you. You could hear whispers of see, I told you they were dating! and defeated no ways. 

You realized you didn’t care about what anybody might be seeing, which was a first for you. You’d always made sure everybody saw you exactly the way you wanted to see them. As he was the most popular guy in school, dating Park Sunghoon at once helped your reputation and put you on many girls’ bad side. But holding his hand, you felt as though there was some kind of barrier protecting you. You’d never felt so exposed and so safe at the same time.

You noticed Jay standing next to the gates, looking particularly antsy. He’d texted you that morning, saying there was something he wanted to tell you. Usually, you’d have stayed up, overthinking what that could be, but what with today being the day you’d announce yourself to the world (your school) as Park Sunghoon’s (fake) girlfriend, you had had other things to worry about. You gestured at Sunghoon towards Jay. Your friend only saw you when you were calling his name, standing right in front of him.

“Oh, hi, Y/N! I-” 

He immediately cut himself off when he saw yours and Sunghoon’s interlaced fingers. Embarrassed, you took your hand out of your fake boyfriend’s, opting for holding onto his pinky instead, not realizing that it was a much cuter action that made one boy’s heart flutter and the other’s fill up with sadness.

“There was something you wanted to tell me?” you asked with a small smile.

“Uh- yeah, but it’s not important, actually. We can talk about it later.”

“Oh, you sure?”

“Yeah, don’t worry about it.” He returned your smile, hoping to make the situation less awkward. It was very obvious he didn’t want to say whatever it was he needed to tell you in front of Sunghoon, which you had both understood.

Sunghoon spoke up. “Right, well I’ll see you in class, Jay. Y/N, I’ll walk you to yours.” And with that, he started walking, holding his friend’s gaze for a few steps. You turned back to look at Jay for a split second, trying to decipher what had just happened, but Sunghoon grabbed you by the waist, making you look up at him in surprise, and breaking Jay’s heart even further.

—

Once Sunghoon and you got to your class, you felt as though you were in one of those movies where the boy drops the girl off at her house after their first date. Except that this was in a crowded school hallway two minutes before the first bell rang. What you had in common with that girl from the movie, however, was that you were freaking out over what your boy was going to do next. In the car, you’d ended up agreeing to a kiss on the cheek, but you hadn’t realized it would be happening so soon.

As you two hovered around your classroom’s door, you looked at each other and giggled. Damn, you were selling this well. So well that if you could have ascended out of your body and looked at the scene as a third party, you’d probably have barfed all over yourself. 

You were still holding his pinky. You could tell he was too hesitant to do anything now that you had reached the classroom, and so you mustered all of your courage, stood on your tippy toes and softly pressed your lips to his cheeks. (You were pretty sure you’d heard gasps around you.) Your courage went as fast as it came, and as realization hit you, you quickly squeaked “bye, Sunghoon” and practically ran to your seat. The boy stood there for another second or two, hand going to his cheek where you had just kissed him. He walked happily to his own classroom, completely oblivious to the stares he was receiving.

Heeseung, Jiung and Sieun were looking at you in disbelief as you approached them. Sumin, on the other hand, looked like she had paid no attention whatsoever to the scene.

“Y/N,” Sieun teased in a sing-song voice. “Care to explain what just happened?”

“Don’t tell me you’ve actually managed to make the oh-so-great Park Sunghoon fall for you?” Jiung asked jokingly. 

You looked down in an attempt to hide your grin. You usually did that sort of stuff to appear humble when someone complimented you, but this time it was completely genuine. The mere thought of Sunghoon made you all giddy inside. “Um, yeah, he actually asked me to be his girlfriend last night.”

Your three friends gasped dramatically and Sieun pulled you into a hug, as if you’d just received an award of some kind. Heeseung and Jiung patted your shoulders, congratulating you.

“Sumin? Did you know about this?” Sieun enquired, turning to your friend.

“What? Oh, yeah, Y/N called me last night,” she answered, briefly looking at you before turning back to her phone. Sieun looked at you, surprised, not understanding Sumin’s reaction to what seemed like happy news.

You had indeed called Sumin the previous night, and the call had gone similarly to the way she was behaving this morning. Although you usually told her everything, this time, you didn’t want to share the fact that you and Sunghoon were only fake dating. You found yourself actually wanting it to be true - and you thought it’d be easier to believe it yourself if everyone, including your best friend, did too.

“Minie! I’ve got some news,” you’d said as soon as she picked out.

“Ooh! Hit me,” she’d replied with as much excitement in her voice as you.

“So…” you’d started, already giggling. “Sunghoon’s just asked me out. I haven’t told anyone else, I wanted you to be the first to know.”

There was silence on the other end of the line. After a while, you added, “Minie, you still there?”

“Huh? Yeah, um, that’s nice, Y/N, I’m happy for you,” she said, not sounding happy at all. There was no trace of excitement left in her voice.

“Yeah, thanks,” you replied, voice ten times smaller than a minute ago.

“I’m sorry Y/N, but I’ve got to go, my parents are calling me. I’ll see you tomorrow.” She hung up suddenly, giving you no time to say bye in return. You were completely confused. Was Sumin bothered by you and Sunghoon dating? Other than a reminder about his past behavior, she hadn’t said anything when you two were getting closer. So what was wrong? You’d hoped you’d find out the next day at school, but the way she was acting didn’t help at all.

You snapped out of your flashback when Heeseung nudged you, faking a pout. “Not fair! Why did she get to know before we did?”

You forced a smile and said you’d known you’d see them the next day and thought it was better to tell them in person, and that you had just wanted to rant to someone quickly. Your teacher came in as the bell rang and everyone went to their seat. During class, you tried getting her attention so you could ask her if she was okay but she kept her attention on the teacher the whole time. 

After that, as time went by, you kept up your charade of being the perfect student as usual, adding to that of being the perfect girlfriend to Sunghoon. Time with him passed by so quickly: you hadn’t realized you were more than halfway through the semester until you needed to wear a thicker jacket outside and the leaves had started falling, covering school grounds in shades of brown. The plan had worked: he was finally left alone by his admirers. Sumin had stopped being weird after a few days, saying she had had some problems with her parents but hadn’t gone into more detail. Everything was as great as it had ever been: good grades, good friends and a good boyfriend. Well, fake boyfriend, which you needed to remind yourself a bit too often, on the days Sunghoon didn’t do it himself. You felt a pinch in your heart every time he said something like, “there’s my fake girlfriend!” when it was just the two of you, or “great job today, Y/N” after dropping you off.

One day as you arrived home, Yeeun was waiting outside your house, trying to catch you red-handed. She dragged him inside by the arm and you panicked, not wanting him to see how you lived. But your messy room and invasive siblings didn’t scare him off at all; on the contrary, he smiled one of the biggest smiles you’d ever seen on him, canines and dimples on display. Your mom made him stay over for dinner and it was probably the happiest dinner you’d ever had. The idea of bringing someone home and having them see your habits and odd family dynamics had terrified you for the longest time, but you felt so comfortable around Sunghoon that it felt as if he was part of your home as soon as he’d stepped foot inside. You didn’t feel the need to hide anything from him.

After dinner, he helped your parents clear up the table and even washed the dishes, even though they kept insisting he didn’t have to do anything. He had completely won them over. They sat at the table and watched you two laugh together in the kitchen. They looked at each other, knowing they were thinking the exact same thing: their daughter hadn’t looked this happy in a while.

When you were done cleaning up, you two headed to your room under the pretense of needing to study. 

“Alright, but keep the door open!” your mom had yelled after you, making you groan and Sunghoon’s face turn crimson red.

You really had planned on studying - there was a big test coming up and you couldn’t afford to get a bad grade. When you got your physics textbook out, Sunghoon groaned in protest.

“What? You seriously want to study right now?”

You sighed. “I don’t necessarily want to, no, but I need to. And so do you, may I add.”

“We’re not even in the same physics class!”

“Yeah, but we both have Mr. Cho, so I know you’re gonna have a test as well.”

He rolled his eyes and dramatically flung himself on your bed. “Fine.”

When he didn’t move for a few minutes, you guessed what he had meant was that he’d let you study but wasn’t going to do it himself. But after ten minutes, he suddenly got up. “I’m bored to death, Y/N. The test isn’t in another week. Show me what you do for fun,” he said, on the verge of desperation. It had only been ten minutes, but you felt bad having him over and not entertaining him.

“Well, I do have a Switch…” Sunghoon’s eyes widened in awe. “I guess we can play Mario Kart.”

He almost squealed in joy at that. You just chuckled at him, not knowing he was such a fan of car video games. 

“I’m gonna crush you, Kim. Get ready,” he said, already looking victorious.

You smirked, not wanting him to get his hopes up. “Oh, it’s on, Park.”

As expected of a pro player like you (on non-schooldays, you could stay up all night playing this game), you won every single round. Sure, he gave you a run for your money, but you always came on top. He took it surprisingly well, congratulating you each time. After your fourth win in a row, you wiggled your face in front of his with a devilish smile, as you couldn’t help but torment him a little. But he wasn’t smiling. At first, you’d thought he was finally getting mad he kept on losing; but then the proximity between you two hit you. You noticed his eyes flicker momentarily to your lips and had backed off immediately.

“Um, if we go for another round, I’ll go easy on-”

He cut you off by putting his hand on your cheek, making you turn to look at him. You’d daydreamed about this moment before, but you hadn’t imagined your heart beating this fast or the butterflies eating away at your stomach. He was now fully staring at your lips, and you couldn’t look at anything else but his either. Too scared to move an inch, you felt him get closer and closer, so close that his lips were almost on-

“Y/N, mom says it’s late and Sunghoon needs to- AH!”

Sunoo had walked in, eyes riveted on his phone until he looked up and saw you and Sunghoon suspiciously close to each other. Sunghoon practically leaped off of your bed in surprise and you flung a pillow over your face, not believing you had almost kissed Park Sunghoon but that your stupid little brother had ruined everything.

“Sorry! I’m sorry!��� the culprit squeaked before running away. You and Sunghoon looked at each other. It was awkward for two seconds, then you both erupted in laughter. 

“Alright, guess I should get going then. Um, thank you so much for tonight. I haven’t had a family dinner in a while, and… Well, it was really nice,” he admitted shyly after you’d calmed down.

“Of course, Sunghoon. I’m sure my parents would love to have you over any time.”

You walked him to your front door, where you exchanged goodbyes and I’ll see you tomorrows. You watched him take a few steps, then turn back and jog towards you. He stood in front of you for a second, then leaned down and placed a kiss on your forehead.

“Bye, Y/N.”

You were too stunned to say it back.

—

After the almost-kiss, it felt as though something had changed between you and Sunghoon. The event had somewhat revealed your feelings: you both knew you wanted to kiss each other. But since those feelings hadn’t been acted upon, the transition from fake-dating to real dating couldn’t happen as smoothly. Well, it could, if you two stopped acting like idiots and told each other how you felt. But the author wanted to get a couple more thousand words in, so it had to wait.

You’d gotten used to Sunghoon’s little requests at school, but you definitely hadn’t anticipated a phone call at past 11pm on a Wednesday night. 

“Sunghoon? Why are you calling me so late?” you asked, groggy voice because of sleep. Since you woke up so early to get ready in the morning, you always went to bed around 9:30 to 10 p.m. Sunghoon was making you lose precious minutes of slumber.

“Late? It’s barely midnight, Y/N.” You groaned. “Whatever, put on some clothes and come outside! I’m waiting for you.”

“You’re what?” you whisper-screamed, suddenly feeling very awake.

“I’m waiting for you! Hurry up!” 

As always, he hung up without waiting for your reply. You couldn’t really turn him down anyway; although you were somewhat obligated, you had stopped seeing it that way and started doing things for him out of your own volition. 

Not wanting to get out of your pajamas, you just threw on a warm sweater, a scarf, some socks, and headed down the hallway on your tiptoes. Your parents weren’t the strictest out there, but you still didn’t wanna get caught sneaking out, and with a boy, at that. After putting on your shoes, you left your house, closing the door behind you as quietly as you could.

The late October night was a bit chilly, but you had wrapped up warm enough. Sunghoon was indeed waiting for you outside, wearing a denim jacket over his gray sweatshirt and matching sweatpants. 

God, he looked good.

“Finally! Took you long enough.”

“Quit it, Sunghoon. Just tell me why you wanted to see me.”

“There’s a place I wanna show you. Come on,” he said, taking you by the hand. You felt tingles in your palm and fingers wherever his hand touched yours. How could something feel so natural yet make your heart race so at the same time?

“Are we walking there?” you asked.

“Yep, it’s not too far. We’ll be there in five minutes.”

Those five minutes felt like five seconds walking with Sunghoon. You chatted and joked around the whole way, not letting go of each other’s hand. You hadn’t even noticed you had reached your destination until he stopped walking.

“Here we are,” he said, facing the building, which made you turn in the direction he was looking.

“The ice rink? What are we doing here?” you asked, confused. It was 11:30 pm; surely, the rink would be closed.

“You’ll see!” he said, heading towards the entrance. To your surprise, he pulled out a key from his pockets and opened the doors.

“What? Sunghoon! How do you have a key to the ice rink?”

“I’m chummy with the janitor. I just need to let him know when I’ll be coming and he doesn’t tell anyone,” he replied, an easy smile on his face, as if this was the most normal thing in the world. He led you first to the shoe rack, helping you find skates your size, and then to the benches next to the rink’s entrance. He knelt in front of you and helped you put on your shoes, doing the laces for you. 

He looked up at you, a glint in his eyes. “I’ve never taken anyone here, Y/N. I know your secret, so I thought I’d show you mine.”

You didn’t know what to say, surprised at the sudden confession, so you just looked at him curiously as he took ice skates from his backpack and laced them up.

He stood up, turned to you and said, “Ready?”

You followed him to the doors leading to the ice. He stepped inside without a trace of hesitation, but you were much more doubtful about your ability to stand on the ice without falling instantly. He turned around and saw you looking helpless. He took your hand in his, helping you step onto the rink. 

“Don’t worry, Y/N. As long as I’ve got you, you won’t fall.”

“Don’t let go of my hand, then,” you said pointedly.

Too focused on not slipping, you didn’t see his smile. “I wasn’t planning to.”

He helped you get your footing, skating backwards in front of you and holding both of your hands. After a few minutes on the ice, you got brave enough to skate on your own, and you miraculously managed to stay on your feet. However, after a while, your bravery turned to hubris, and you dared attempt a spin, resulting in you miserably falling on the ice, butt first. Sunghoon was worried for a second until he saw you laughing uncontrollably. You looked at him, wide-eyed, and said, “This is so much fun, Hoon.” You were so exhilarated that you hadn’t noticed the nickname slipping from your lips but the boy’s cheeks and ears turned redder than the bruise you had surely just earned yourself. Thankfully, if you commented on it, he could just blame it on the cold. 

He helped you up, and you skated on as if nothing had happened. This went on for another thirty minutes, you skating hand in hand and occasionally falling together (but most of the time, just you falling on your own). Sunghoon had been so nervous before bringing you here; he was scared you’d think his hobby was unmanly or lame, as he’d been made to feel. But seeing you have the time of your life, all his worries dissipated. This place was like a second home to him, and bringing someone into your home was always nerve-wracking, but he thought you fit perfectly in it. 

When you told him you were getting tired and wanted to sit for a while, you skated back together to the benches and he gave you some water from his bag. You sat in silence for a while, waiting for your breathing to come back to a normal pace. 

You broke the silence first. “So, why’d you take me here? Not that I’m complaining.”

He hesitated a second before speaking. "I used to come here all the time as a kid.” He didn’t look at you when he answered, keeping his gaze on his hands. “My mom would take me. She left us for another man the summer before middle school started. She left me alone with my asshole father.”

You let out a small gasp, not expecting such a confession. You placed your hand on his back for comfort and said, “I’m sorry, Sunghoon.”

He quickly glanced at you, a half-smile on his face. “Don’t be. Anyways, he had to somewhat start taking care of me now that my mom wasn’t there to do it.” He chuckled darkly. “I guess his idea of taking care of his son was forbidding him from doing the one thing he loved. He thought it was a stupid sport for a boy. He stopped all of my lessons and made me sign up for soccer, even though I hadn’t ever said I wanted to do that. I still came here from time to time, but I didn’t wanna risk getting caught. God knows what he’d have done if he saw me here.”

You weren’t sure what to say. You felt as if no words would be enough to express how his story made you feel. “I- it’s awful, what he did to you. No parent should ever make their child feel as though their passion isn’t worth it. If it’s any comfort, even though you were mostly helping me, I thought you looked ten times better on that rink than scoring any goal. And that’s saying something.”

He finally looked at you and grinned. “Thanks, Y/N.” He seemed to be thinking for a few seconds, and then continued: “I’ve had a lot of time to think about it, and I think that’s why it’s hard for me to open up to people and make lots of friends. I only trust Jake because I’ve known him forever and I can’t really get rid of him now,” he said with a chuckle, “and Jay, well, Jake took to him instantly in middle school so I guess I didn’t have a choice there either, and he’s not so bad anyway. The more people I let in, the more likely I am to get hurt. It’s much easier pretending I don’t wanna have anything to do with anyone than try. 

“I guess it’s also why I talked to you on that day. Sure, I ended up thinking you could help me with all those girls. But at first, when I saw someone like you, who looks like they have it all together, who’s actually the opposite in real life - no offense - it reminded me of myself. And I thought, maybe she’d understand. Which is why it was so easy to be myself around you.”

You took his hand in yours and pressed it slightly. “I’m glad you were.” You didn’t feel the need to say anything else, hoping it was enough.

“Now, your turn. What made you the person you are today?” he asked with a grin, trying to approach lightheartedly this heavy subject, which you appreciated.

“It’s all about making people think you’re someone else, isn’t it? Because, depending on who you are, they’ll treat you differently. I found that out as a kid, because I, too, have a tragic childhood backstory.” He gasped jokingly.

“It’s not as bad as yours, so sorry about that. Back in primary school, I already had this… attitude that I have today. I had quite the ego, and I didn’t want anyone doing better than me at school. I didn’t care about how I looked, if I was the prettiest girl in class or had the cutest shoes. I was the smarty-pants of the class, basically, and a lot of the kids teased me for that. But I also didn’t let myself get trampled over, and fought back, quite aggressively at that, so I was somehow the nerd and the troublemaker at the same time. I didn’t have the best reputation, but I did have a friend. Jay. Or Jongseong, at the time, before he got too cool for his real name,” you joked. “The thing is, I didn’t see him as a friend. Sure, I was only eight or nine, but I really liked him. And the day I was planning on confessing, I saw him hold hands with the prettiest girl in our class. So I never told him, and then he left for the US a few months later.

“During the time he was gone, I had a complete makeover and actually started caring about my appearance, especially when middle school started. So now I had academic validation from teachers, which I had craved since forever, and both female and male validation from all the girls telling me how pretty I was and all the guys liking me. The people who were in my primary school and went to the same middle school told them how I used to be, but nobody believed them, and if they did, they didn’t care, so everybody just gradually forgot about it. And I just got addicted to the validation, which is why I always studied harder and tried to be prettier, even when it turned into a complete lie. I thought that if I could make everyone believe I was perfect, then it didn’t matter what I was like in real life, so at home, I just let myself completely go. And even now that I’m aware of all of this, I still can’t stop.”

Sunghoon looked at you like you had just slapped him. “So, you used to have a crush on Jay?”

You looked at him in exasperation. “Seriously, Hoon? That’s what you get from everything I just told you?”

He smiled shyly. “Sorry. Thank you for telling me.” You sat there in comfortable silence for another few minutes, still hand in hand. Then, Sunghoon got up, grin on his face.

“Wanna see something cool?” You nodded at him, returning his grin. He headed back inside the rink.

You thought he was gonna show off by doing some fancy trick. But he started gliding on the ice, and you couldn’t believe what you were seeing. He took long strides that looked as natural to him as walking. He spinned one, two, three times, and continued skating as though it was nothing. You were completely mesmerized. You already thought he was out-of-this-world beautiful, but his beauty was brought to another level when he skated. His elegant moves rendered you breathless. When he skated back towards you, you were looking at him with only awe and admiration in your eyes. 

After what he’d told you and what he’d just shown you, you couldn't help but get a little emotional. You engulfed him in a hug as soon as he’d stepped out of the rink, your arms around his neck and his naturally coming to your waist. Your hands came up to his cheeks as you leaned back to properly look at him.

“That was- wow. That was amazing, Sunghoon. Thank you for showing me.” You could see the gratefulness in his eyes. There was something else there, and whatever it was, you knew you were looking back at him with as much of it. It was only you two in the building, but it might as well have been the two of you in the whole world. 

All too similarly as in your room, his gaze went from your eyes to your lips, and you couldn’t help but mirror that. This was the perfect moment. You inched your face closer, letting him close the gap between you. Your lips touched and it was as if everything fell into place. The kiss was shy at first, neither of you sure what to do, your mouths moving at a slow but steady pace. But as your hands traveled from his cheeks, to his jaw and down to his neck, and you felt him sigh in the kiss, something unclicked in you, making you want more. You deepened the kiss, and he returned it with just as much force. Your right hand came to grab at the nape of his hair and his hands gripped your waist tighter. After minutes or hours, you broke the kiss in need of some air. Your eyes met again and you smiled at him, relieved it had finally happened. 

You thought he’d have a similar reaction, but he suddenly looked panicked. Realization hit him like a truck. He liked you. Far too much. And even if the kiss and these past weeks told him you might like him back, it scared him. He’d unlocked his heart for you but couldn’t let you keep the key. Otherwise, he’d let you open it more and more and more until there he was completely bare in front of you, and you decided you didn’t like what you’d found and left him. Just like his mom did. Just like everyone eventually does. Just like his dad never even tried.

He took a step back. His panic was rubbing off on you. You called out his name, but he quickly got his bag and said, “Sorry, Y/N, I have to go. I’ll um- I’ll see you.” He took a few steps, turned around, and said, “I think you should take the bus tomorrow morning. Sorry.”

He started walking away. A few steps before he’d be out of your view, he turned back around. He hated the look on your face, how sad, confused and helpless it was all at once. Above all, he hated that he was the reason behind it. But he told himself it was better to leave you now than be left in a few months when you got bored of him, and started walking again without another word.

—

You walked home alone. It was a dark November night, and you were shivering from the cold and from sadness. Try as hard as you might, you couldn’t figure out why Sunghoon had reacted like that. The past month had gone so well, you were only getting closer and more comfortable with each other. The only logical conclusion you could come to was that kissing you had made him realize he didn’t like you. Thankfully, you didn’t live too far from the ice rink and you got home in five minutes. Lost in your thoughts, you couldn’t even be bothered to be quiet closing the front door and walking to your room, and you woke Sunoo up.

At first, he looked like he was about to scold you for making so much noise; but upon seeing your disheveled state, he started worrying. 

“Y/N? What’s wrong, why are you only coming home now? Where were you?”

You couldn’t hold it in any longer. You fell in your brother’s arms and started crying your heart out.

He held you for a little while, but not wanting to wake the others up by staying in the hallway, he said, “Come on, let’s get you in your room. You’re freezing.”

He left for a few minutes and came back with two cups of tea in his hands. He joined you on your bed. You had calmed down a bit and took a sip of the tea, already feeling warmer.

“So, tell me everything.”

And you did. Not just about what had happened at the ice rink, but everything before that: how yours and Sunghoon’s relationship was fake, which you hadn’t even told your siblings, but that it hadn’t kept you from falling for him, and how you really thought he felt the same way. When you got to the part where you told each other about your stories, Sunoo grabbed your arm in surprise, and said, “I can’t believe you told someone about that. Good for you, big sis.”

You sat in silence after a few minutes when you’d finished telling him everything, you, still reflecting on your evening, and him, trying to think of something good to say. He took a deep breath, and started: “You know, this might be completely useless, but I feel like there’s no point trying to figure out why he did that. We’re not mind readers, and assuming things will just go wrong. I think the best thing to do is just ask him tomorrow, or whenever you’re ready to face him, really.”

You looked at your brother fondly. “How can you be so stupid sometimes, yet so wise right now?”

Sunoo and you talked for another minute, but when you yawned for a good seven straight seconds, you both agreed it was time for bed. Before you fell asleep, you told yourself that tomorrow morning, you’d find Sunghoon and make him be clear with you. You at least deserved that.

—

Heeseung and Sumin were clearly surprised to see you the next morning in the bus, but you told them you didn’t want to talk about it and they didn’t push, although it very obviously had something to do with Sunghoon. As you rode the bus and psyched yourself for your conversation with him, you had no idea he was currently in the midst of a heated argument with Jay. The latter pushed him with force, making Sunghoon’s back hit the classroom wall behind him.

“What the fuck did you just say about Y/N?” Jay asked, venom in his voice and fury in his eyes.

Despite the pain, Sunghoon smirked, wanting to rile up his friend even more. “I said, Y/N’s just as stupid as all the other girls. She probably thinks she’s so much better than everybody, but in the end it was so easy making her fall for me. It was almost boring, really, how easy she was.”

Jay pushed him again. “Don’t fucking talk about her like that.”

“Aw, little Jay is getting upset over his little Y/N? You sad that the girl you like actually likes an asshole like me?”

Jay hadn’t had many reasons to get angry in his life. This was making him discover another side of himself; he didn’t know he could get this angry. He didn’t know rage could fill up his veins like that and make him want to destroy absolutely everything around him, but above all, the person in front of him who’d he considered a friend all these years. On the verge of losing control, he reared up his fist, before Sunghoon said:

“You know what’s even sadder? She used to like you, too.”

His arm dropped. “What?”

“Yeah, in primary school. Didn’t you think it was weird how different she was before and after you left? Her little heartbreak made her change everything about herself just so that people would like her. And now all she can do is lie to everyone. I pity her, really. And to think that she thought I liked her. What an idiot.”

That was the last straw. Jay punched Sunghoon square in the nose, making him stumble back a few steps until he hit the wall again. He held onto his bloody, and possibly broken, nose and looked Jay straight in the eyes, still smirking. Thinking his job was done (but not sure what the job was in the first place), he walked away, heading to the nurses’ station. The scene had gathered quite an audience outside. It was less than ten minutes to the first bell, so already quite a few students were there, but no one had dared to venture inside. Jake, arriving too late to prevent any damage, looked wide-eyed back and forth between Sunghoon walking out and Jay standing inside, fists clenched by his side and panting from anger.

Sunghoon barely spared him or anyone a glance as he left the room. What he did notice though, were a crumpled tuna-mayo sandwich and a banana milk on the floor, looking as though someone had dropped them.

What had he done?

—

You had already run back to your friends and were currently crying for the second time in twelve hours in Sumin’s arms. It was the first time ever you cried at school, and probably also in front of your friends, spare Sumin, so it was a curious sight to most; she took you to another room for privacy. 

There, you practically told her everything you had told Sunoo the night before, including the fake dating.

“Wait… so, you and Sunghoon weren’t actually dating?”

You nodded, embarrassed by your lie.

“I- Why didn’t you tell me, Y/N? How could you fool everyone like that?”

You looked up in surprise at your friend’s harsh words. You probably deserved them, but you weren’t used to hearing her speak in such a way, nor to the cold stare she was peering down at you with. 

“I don’t know… I’m really sorry…” you mumbled, ashamed.

She scoffed. “You should be. I just- I just don’t understand how you can already be living such a lie, and still add onto it. It makes me wonder how I’m still friends with you.” The bell rang right at that moment, and she got up, saying, “Let’s go to class. You wouldn’t wanna be late.”

You followed her, but you felt sick to your stomach. Usually, you could always hide your discomfort or sadness, no matter how bad your period cramps were or how serious an argument with your parents had gotten. But this time, it was too much, and fifteen minutes into the class, you asked the teacher to go to the nurse. Not used to you needing to leave class and trusting that it was for a legitimate reason, your teacher let you off and you quickly packed your bag and left. 

When you got to the nurse, you sat down in front of her and said you weren’t feeling well and wanted to go home. For the same reasons as your teacher, she said she’d let you but needed to ask you a few questions before about your general well-being. You answered them quickly, wanting to get this over with as soon as possible and just go home. 

When you finally were able to leave, you only took a few steps out of the nurse’s office before someone grabbed your wrist, making you turn around. Sunghoon, who was resting in the room next door, had heard your voice and gotten up as soon as he’d heard you leave. His nose was covered in bandages and his eye had started swelling and turning blue, and you mentally thanked Jay. You ripped your arm out of his grip and continued to walk away without a word. You were too tired to argue.

“Y/N, please, hear me out.”

This made you stop in your tracks, but you didn’t turn around. “Hear you out? I’ve already heard enough, Sunghoon. No need to explain, you made it very clear what you think of me.”

You started walking again but he doubled you and blocked your path in the narrow hallway. 

“Y/N, I’m sorry, if you’d just give me a minute-”

“I don’t care that you’re sorry, Sunghoon! Sorry doesn’t cut it. I trusted you. Actually trusted you. You out of all people should know how hard it is to do that. Or was that a lie too?” Seeing him in front of you, your sadness retreated to the back of your heart and you were left with only anger. 

“It wasn’t, I prom-”

“That doesn’t mean anything to me anymore.” You pushed past him and walked on. And this time, he let you go, even though the only thing you wanted him to do was make you stay. You so desperately wanted to hear him out and forgive him, but you knew you couldn’t do that. You had too much dignity, and it would only end up hurting you even further. 

So you didn’t shed a tear the whole way home. When you finally got to your bed, you didn’t have the energy to start crying. You fell asleep, tears quietly rolling down your face. 

—

You slept the whole day, waking up to a soft knock on your bedroom door. It was your mom, telling you Jay was here to see you. Everyone had been surprised to see you already at home when they came back from work or school, but they knew better than to wake you up.

“I’m surprised, you know. He’s gotten so handsome.”

You rolled your eyes at her. “Just tell him that I’m not feeling well and he should go home, please.”

“Oh, I’ve already tried to, honey. The boy is adamant on seeing you.”

You sighed. “Fine. Can you bring him here, then?”

A few seconds later, you heard another knock, and Jay opened the door just enough to peek his head through, asking if he could come in.

“Well, you’re already here, so might as well.”

You sat up and gestured for him to sit down on your bed.

He looked around, taking in the messiness of his surroundings. “You know, I thought your room would be much more… organized.”

“Didn’t Sunghoon tell you? I’m a big, fat liar who hides the truth from everyone,” you said sarcastically.

“About that… did you hear everything he said?” You hummed in response. “I’m so sorry you had to hear that, Y/N. I don’t know what happened to him. He’d never said anything like that about you, and then, all of a sudden… What an asshole. I can’t believe he was my friend.”

“Was? You shouldn’t end your friendship over me, Jay.”

“Are you kidding me? I can’t be friends with a guy who talks about anyone like that, let alone you.” After a few minutes of silence, he asked, “Did um- did anything happen, for him to say those things?”

You sighed deeply. “I’ve already told this story twice in the past few days, so I’ll give you the short version, but basically, we were fake dating, and I started really liking him, and I thought he did too, until we kissed, and he left me completely stranded, and then the next day I hear him say all those things.”

Silence again. You suddenly remembered something Sunghoon had said that you had completely put to the side: Jay likes you. At least, according to Sunghoon. You didn’t know if it was true, but judging by his disappointed face, it looked like it. Seemed like all of your friendships were going to hell.

“Oh,” he simply said.

“Yeah…” you murmured back. 

“Well,” he turned to you, “that just confirms to me that he’s an asshole. Cause no guy in his right mind would turn you down, Y/N. I know I wouldn’t.”

He looked straight at you as he said that. Yep. Jay liked you. It was a nice feeling, but it was also about ten years too late. 

“Do you- do you know what I’m trying to say, Y/N?” he asked, gulping.

You hesitated for a second before saying, ”I think I do, Jay. I have to say, your timing isn’t great.”

He chuckled a bit lifelessly. “Yeah, I guess right now isn’t the best time to say this.”

“I also meant, you know what Sunghoon said, earlier? That I liked you before you left for the US? That was true.”

He looked at you, mouth agape. “Oh, was it…” His head hung down in defeat. “I can’t believe I’ve been such an idiot. I feel like it’s my fault that Sunghoon hurt you like this. If only I’d been just a bit earlier…”

“None of this is your fault, Jay. Please don’t think that. It’s mine for thinking Sunghoon could actually like me back.”

Jay took a deep breath. “God, as much as it hurts me to say, Y/N, I think he did. Or does, actually.” You furrowed your brows at him. “Sunghoon, he has this thing where he goes into retreat mode as soon as he gets too close, too personal. It’s a stupid defense mechanism, and when he realizes he’s let you in a bit too far, he snaps everything closed and hurts you before you can hurt him. At least, that’s how he sees it, I guess. He’s done it to Jake and me a couple times, and it takes some getting used to, but he stops after a while. When he knows for sure that you won’t hurt him.”

You didn’t know what to do with this information, so you just stayed quiet, which Jay took as a sign to go on.

“I’m not saying forgive him. Believe me, if I could smack him into space and never let him see you again, I would. But I think maybe, just maybe, and you don’t have to if you don’t want to, hear him out.”

You smiled at him. “You’re a good friend, Jay. And I don’t mean just to me but to Sunghoon as well. I hope you know that.”

Jay tried to ignore the pinch in his heart at the word ‘friend’ and smiled back.

“Oh, there’s another thing I needed to show you.” His tone was suddenly much more apprehensive, and he looked both sorry and scared to say whatever he was about to say.

He pulled out his phone and searched the thing in question. Before showing you anything, he warned, “Nobody knows who did this. It was sent out to the whole school on a library computer-”

Expecting the worst, you snatched Jay’s phone from his hands. And there they were. Pictures of you from your primary school years, recent pictures of you in your comfortable clothes, at home or in close proximity to your house. Sent out to the whole school, as Jay had said. You were horror-struck. You could feel all the years you had spent perfecting your image and maintaining it crumbling around you as though they were paper. Charismatic smiles and trendy accessories had been your brick and mortar, but a sledgehammer had hit them, destroying your foundations further with each swing.

And that sledgehammer had a name: Bae Sumin. You’d figured it out in an instant. You’d been friends your whole life, she was the only one apart from your family to know about your true face; only she would have access to such photos. You knew it wasn’t Sunghoon because the pictures he had taken that day weren’t there.

If what had happened with Sunghoon had made a crack in your heart, then this had shattered it into a million pieces. The person who you’d trusted the most, who you’d thought would never do anything to hurt you, had done the worst thing anybody could do to you.

“Y/N- are you okay?” Jay asked tentatively. You had forgotten he was there.

“Um, yeah, yeah- I think I just need to be alone for now, if that’s okay.”

“Are you sure? I don’t mind staying a while.”

“Sorry, Jay, but I’m sure.”

He looked at you for a few seconds. He’d never felt more distance between you two, not even when you had been oceans apart. “Alright. Call me if you need anything. I mean it.”

You smiled a tiny, tiny smile in response and he left your room. On his way out, your mom hugged him, saying it was nice to see him again and that he was welcome anytime, and he thanked her.

As he walked home, he couldn’t help but bitterly laugh to himself. Even when he confessed, he hadn’t been able to say the words he’d wanted to tell you this whole time: I love you.

—

You didn’t go to school for the rest of the week, the only stain on your perfect attendance record. All of your friends had tried to reach you, asking if you were okay, and you replied in a few small messages, telling them you’d be back when you could. Other people had contacted you, asking if those pictures were real. You obsessed over your school’s gossip Instagram account: the past few days, all the posts had been dedicated to your pictures and Sunghoon’s and Jay’s fight. You had ten missed calls from Sunghoon and seventeen from Sumin. You ignored each and everyone of them, only giving Jay, Heeseung, Sieun and Jiung the time of day. 

On Sunday morning you woke up, already dreading going to school the next day. You could already picture the nasty stares and whispers you’d get in the hallways. You thought about facing Sumin and Sunghoon again, and you thought the worst thing possible would be to have to do it at school. So you decided to wait until they called you again, as you knew they would, and finally picked up their call.

Sumin contacted you first, at eleven in the morning. You agreed to have her come over to your house to talk. When she appeared at your front door, you realized you weren’t sad, angry, or disappointed; you were just confused. You didn’t understand why she’d done it. Looking at her face, you couldn’t imagine her sitting down at that computer and sending out those pictures, writing the comment This is what Kim Y/N is like in real life.

You let her in and walked to your room, your siblings’ eyes burning holes into her soul the whole time. You sat down on your bed, sighed, and said, “Go ahead.”

“Thank you for letting me come here and explain myself. I don’t know what took over me, Y/N. Well actually, I guess I do. Jealousy, as stupid as it sounds.” She chuckled at herself. “I’ve always tried to hide it, but I’ve always been a bit jealous of you, Y/N. You’re the prettiest girl, the smartest, the nicest, and I’m just the best friend. That’s all anyone knows me as. Everybody loves you, yet I know it’s all a facade. And I’m not saying that to be mean, because I know you’re an amazing person even without all the glamor. And when I saw you with Sunghoon, I mean, you saw how I was. I didn't fight with my parents. I was so, so jealous. You hadn’t shown interest in any guy since Choi Soobin and all of a sudden you were dating Park freaking Sunghoon, and he knew about your quote-on-quote ‘real’ face, so I couldn’t even comfort myself that he didn’t know who you really were.”

“Wait- why would you be jealous of Sunghoon and me?”

She took a deep breath. “You remember, freshman year, when I confessed to him and he turned me down?”

“Yeah, but I thought that was in the past.”

“Do you also remember that guy I told you about later on, who I’d gotten really close with but completely shut me off when I thought we were about to start dating?”

Something clicked, but you didn’t want to face it. “Yeah…”

“Well, surprise surprise, they were the same person. Ha. I got mad at you for lying to me, but I did the same thing.”

“Sumin… Why did you never tell me?”

“I’m not sure. When we were in that talking stage, I could’ve bragged about it to anyone, you know, that Park Sunghoon was actually being nice to me, but I didn’t. I wanted to keep him my little secret. And then I confessed, and we all know how that ended.” A beat passes as she takes a deep breath, shaking the bad memory away. “I am over it, it was more than three years ago. Maybe there was a nice part of me that thought he had changed, because you seemed happy with him, and I didn’t want to ruin that. But maybe there was another part that hoped he might hurt you like he did me. And that’s such a shitty thing to do, I know. I should’ve told you when I saw you get involved with him. I can’t believe after all these years, he did the exact same thing to you that he did to me. What an asshole.”

You were staring at the wall in front of you, feeling empty. Why did everything have to happen at the same time? You were just drained of any willpower.

“This doesn’t explain the pictures,” you said plainly.

“Right. When you told me you were fake dating, I guess something snapped in me. I couldn’t believe it was another lie, I thought we had gone past the stage where you hid things from me. So that, plus jealousy, I just went a bit crazy, I think. I really wasn’t thinking, Y/N, and I promise you with all my heart that if I could go back and undo everything, I would. I’m so, so, so sorry. I regretted it as soon as I hit post.”

You looked at your friend and knew she was telling the truth. You believed her, and yet you couldn’t quite look past it.

“I know you are, Minie. It’s just… what am I gonna do now at school? Everybody must hate me.”

“I won’t lie, some people haven’t been saying the nicest things, especially Park’s fangirls. But God, Y/N, and please don’t take this the wrong way, but who cares? They’ll talk about it for a week, two at most. Your life at school won’t be the same, but you’ll still have all of us. I’ve talked to Heeseung, Sieun and Jiung, and they’re not the tiniest bit mad at you. They’re just worried to death. A bit confused too, but mostly worried. And you know what? Even Yujin, Wonyoung and Gaeul, who I’ve literally never talked to before, came to ask me how you were. Jay and Sunghoon are barely on talking terms but they always team up when it comes to practically verbally assaulting anyone they overhear talking behind your back. Jake has to hold them back sometimes but he always glares at those people too. You don’t wanna see Jake Sim glare, I promise you. It’s so scary,” she says in a confessional tone, visibly shuddering just at the thought of angel-faced Jake looking angry, and you can’t help the small chuckle that escapes your lips.

Her face softens as she places a warm palm over your hand. “We all love you and care for you so much, so screw literally every single other person in that school. They don’t matter.”

There was something refreshing about Sumin’s words. The idea that you could live your life without worrying about other people had always been in the back of your head, but you always told yourself you were in too deep to go back. Now that you had been forced to, you understood why you felt so empty: the immense weight of having to keep up a persona, had been lifted off your shoulders. You would only have to carry yourself, and not a second person, which made you feel weightless. You’d just have to get used to it and come to enjoy that feeling.

You took your friend’s hands in yours. “I want to forgive you, I promise I do. And I will. I just don’t know if I can do that right away. I’ll need some getting used to this new life.”

“I completely understand, Y/N.”

“But that doesn’t mean I don’t want you around anymore. And you know what, I’m sure one day I’ll look back at this moment and thank you.”

—

Sumin left a few hours later and you were now waiting for Sunghoon to call you. You waited and waited, until your phone rang with a small ding: he wasn’t calling you, but had sent you a message. A very, very long message. You were very tempted to reply with a I ain’t reading all that. I’m happy for u tho. Or sorry that happened, but you thought it might not be the appropriate moment. 

You opened the message, which had come after thirty unread texts, and started reading, slightly appalled by the lack of paragraphing.

Dear Y/N, 

Is this how you start a long text? I would much rather be telling you this than writing it, but someone hasn’t been picking up my calls. Sorry. I probably shouldn’t be giving you much attitude right now. Where do I even start? The ice rink, I guess. Asshole move #1, obviously. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have left you like that. That kiss was really really good and I really really liked it. Because I really really like you. And I think I’ve known that for a while now, but the kiss confirmed it. And I was happy for a second, but then I panicked. There’s no other word for it, I panicked. I’ve never liked someone this much before and I was so scared. I still am. I’m terrified shitless. But I know that my fear is completely irrational, and that you’re literally the best person on Earth, which is why I’m writing this. I know it’s cliché to say my mom left me and now I think everybody will. And my first reaction to that is to hurt someone before they can hurt me, which is what I did. But as much as I wanna fight it, it’s always there at the back of my mind. You can even ask Sumin about it. Should I be saying that? I feel like I might as well. I was an asshole to her, and I’m so angry at myself that I did it again with you. I didn’t mean a single word of what I said about you to Jay. Not a single one. You’re not stupid, you’re the smartest and most amazing girl I know, and I never pretended I liked you, because I never had to. I think I just wanted Jay to punch me, really. I wanted him to run to you and make sure you were okay, because I was too scared to do that myself. But I regret doing that so much. I hope you know that. And bless Jay, he’s a real one. He told me to get my shit together and talk to you. I can tell he’s still mad at me but still wants to make things good between us. I was already trying to call you before he said that, but I probably would’ve said something stupid that would’ve made things worse. And I can’t afford that, Y/N, I really, really can’t. You get me like no one does and being with you is the most liberating thing ever, I’m never myself more than when I’m around you. You just bring out the best in me. Well, except for that thing I did. Which I promise I’ll never do again. I am so extremely sorry, and if you wanna hate me for the rest of your life, I completely get it. But I would also be very happy if you didn’t. I hope I’ll see you tomorrow at school. I really miss you.

Your Hoon

You wiped away the tears that had formed in your eyes and typed back:

You’re such an idiot, Park.

I’ll see you tomorrow.

—

The next day, as you imagined, was mostly hell. You’d decided not to dress up as usual: there was no point trying to look good after this, it would only make you seem more ridiculous. You put less makeup on, not bothering to hide your eye bags, and didn’t bling your outfit up with accessories or fancy shoes, opting for your worn-out Converse you’d had since your feet stopped growing. On the bus, where people usually ignored each other, you could already feel the gossip being told about you. You avoided people’s gaze like the plague and sat down next to Sumin. You laid your head on her shoulder and sighed.

“I already wanna go home.”

She laughed, “I know. We’ll be with you the whole day, so don’t worry.”

You spent the bus ride catching up on what had happened when you were gone (nothing much), and although there was some awkwardness there, it was nice being with your best friend. When Heeseung got on, he practically screamed your name and suffocated you by means of greeting.

“I’m so glad you’re back. You know, I think you look really cute in those pictures. All these people are just jealous they don’t look as good as you even when you don’t dress up.”

Sumin shot daggers with her eyes at him and he cringed, saying, “Sorry, I shouldn’t have mentioned that.”

You reassured him, saying that it was fine since it was all you were going to be hearing the next few days. “Might as well get used to it.”

It was somewhat easy to ignore the stares coming your way when you walked into school with Heeseung and Sumin flanked at your sides like bodyguards. When you reached your classroom, Jiung engulfed you in a hug and Sieun was almost crying. How the hell had you gotten such sweet friends? 

In the hallways, some people tried to get reactions out of you by calling you out, yelling liar! or you can’t fool us anymore. You couldn’t ignore them as they were very much in your face. When at lunch, a table of girls next to you was very clearly talking about you in the nastiest way possible, you took your tray and were ready to get up and leave, but a very familiar voice stopped you in your tracks.

“You think it’s funny talking about someone like that?” Sunghoon was practically screaming at the girls. “You think you’re any better than her? I bet you do the exact same thing but are just glad someone else got called out for it.” You weren’t sure if that made you feel much better, but you appreciated the effort.

“As a matter of fact,” he continued as he pulled out a chair and got up on it, his voice getting louder, “I’ve got something I wanna say to everyone.”

Somebody whooped (probably Jake) and you tried to get Sunghoon to come down from the chair, but he just smiled his radiant smile at you and turned to look at the students in the cafeteria.

“All of you who judge Y/N are hypocrites. You wanna tell me you’re all as perfect at home as you are at school? That you never relax a little bit? Sure, she pushed it a bit far- (hey! you grunted in protest), but nobody shows who they truly are to everyone. We all judge each other in this stupid high school, so Y/N did what she had to do and protected herself. If anything, this should make you respect her even more. And it’s not like she did anything wrong to you. She didn’t use her popularity against anyone, so you better not use this against her.”

From the crowded tables in the cafeteria, somebody yelled “Nobody cares!”

Somebody, whose voice you thought you recognized as Jungwon’s, joined in: “Yeah, what is it about you seniors and thinking the whole school revolves around you? We still like Y/N!”

Sunghoon, taken aback, simply said, “Oh. Alright. Well, you better keep it that way then!” and got off his chair. 

He turned to you, already a pleading look on his face and said “Y/N, I’m so sorry-”

But you cut him off right away. “I know, Sunghoon, I know. I think this proved it.”

“I really wanna make it up to you. So just tell me what you want me to do, and I’ll do it. Buy you a house, move to another country, you name it. I’ll do it.”

You chuckled at him. “You don’t need to go that far.” You looked down, then back at him. “I think I just want to pretend like nothing happened. Like it was all a huge, awful fever dream. Even if I can’t forgive and forget right away, I don’t think I want you out of my life while I figure it out.”

He let out the biggest sigh you’d ever heard. “My God, you don’t know how happy to hear that, Y/N. Thank you so much.”

“Thank you for defending me just now. That was… definitely something.”

He smiled down at you. "I did my best. Too bad those sophomores ruined everything.”

You could feel eyes burning into your sides, so you turned your head a bit and noticed that your friends and the table of girls that had just been gossiping were staring at you, some of them teary-eyed. When they saw you notice them, they all turned back to each other and pretended that they were having some other conversation. You and Sunghoon chuckled, and you realized how much you had missed him.

Yes, Sunghoon and Sumin had hurt you, but you were a strong believer of second chances. Even if it was hard at first to stop thinking about Sunghoon’s voice when he had said those things or Sumin’s intentions when she posted the pictures, they’d made it up to you in any way they could and you’d reciprocated that by being completely honest. No more trying to look perfect all the time; you were human and were allowed to have low moments. Your grades even dropped by two points, because you’d started spending more time with your friends than with your textbooks. You’d spent whole Saturdays at the ice rink with your now real-boyfriend Sunghoon, and had invited the whole crew. Heeseung was surprisingly good at it. You had even caught your little sister Yeeun on a date with the cute Japanese boy she’d talked about. 

As promised, Jay came once a week or every two weeks to have dinner with your family; Sunghoon always insisted on being present. The tension between them had turned into friendly competition, and you could tell the two friends were glad to have each other back. 

You’d never felt so free. Your relationship with Sunghoon felt like uncharted territory and home at the same time; so daunting and exciting yet so comfortable and relaxing. You kept the PDA at a minimum at school, but when it was just the two of you, your whole body never failed to heat up, even in the cold of the ice rink. He had been nicknamed the ice prince, but he was so, so warm.

In the end, everybody found out. But you had Park Sunghoon by your side, so it was alright.

permanent taglist: @zreamy @sunghoonmybeloved @lalalalawon @sd211 @w3bqrl @raikea10 @wntrnghts @moonlighthoon @4imhry @rikisly @loves0ft @iamliacamila @theboingsuckerasseater9000 @chaechae-23 @baekhyuns-lipchain @hyuckslvr @vernonburger (ask to be removed/added!)

© asahicore on Tumblr, 2023. please do not repost, translate, or plagiarize my works. support your creators by reblogging and leaving feedback!

[markscherz]

Can I ask how you feel about your Tumblr fame?

I get the impression you just made this account for normal casual funsies reasons, but it kinda blew up by happenstance. If that's right, I'm curious if now you feel like it's kind of a more serious thing, where you have an opportunity to sorta act as a science communicator with a reach you otherwise might not?

Or maybe something else? You gonna see if you can somehow leverage your Tumblr fame to get research funding? Deputize us to harass polluters and developers destroying habitats? Crowdsource name ideas for new species?

It's a bit bizarre, in that it has very little real-world-ness to it. I showed my mother the ongoing tumblr celebrity poll, and she was like 'how many people could possibly be interested in frogs?', to which I replied 'well as of today about 46,000 and counting'.

I have always had an unhealthy relationship with fame. I spent most of my teen and young adult life fawning after it, as is I suppose very often the case.

More after the cut…

I always really wanted to be famous, but I was never really interested in changing who I was or what I represented in that pursuit. That is to say, I wanted to be known for what I was already doing, or for things that were already interesting for me, rather than things that might have much higher chances of success but require more effort or be less in line with the things that I am interested in.

I had my first brush with virality in 2012, when a poem I wrote went a little viral (largely thanks to StumbleUpon). I remember the rush of seeing how much attention it was getting, and staying up late to keep refreshing the page as the visitor numbers went up and up and up.

But not long after that, I had some closer encounters with fame and people becoming famous. That was extremely eye-opening. I witnessed first hand how strongly that can affect someone's life, for good and for bad. That experience also made me realise, quite jarringly, that famous people are still just people; that celebrity is something extrinsic to them; that they also wipe their own butts (if they are able); and that in many cases, it is a substantial inconvenience if not downright pain in the ass for them. I think this is why we see so many of the big celebrities having mental health crises or trying to live as much of their lives out of the public eye as possible.

That experience pretty much stifled my desire to achieve fame, and really changed my relationship with it. I should add that I could say much more on this topic, but nothing so coherent or insightful as John and Hank Green, who have given me so much clarity on this topic over the years through their thoughtful commentary on youtube and their podcasts.

Anyway, in spite of the fact that fame itself doesn't really appeal to me anymore, I do still have a problem wherein I quickly became addicted to the microdosing of euphoria associated with every reblog and like and follow. So I put huge efforts into social media in order to try to gain traction in the space that I felt I could really compete in—Very Niche SciComm™—and build up a following.

Tumblr was the first platform where I felt that really succeed; I managed to fight my way to a few thousand followers with a thick queue of regular posts about herpetology and other science. At that time, there was a great community building up in the rudimentary private messaging system—I am still friends with several other tumblr bloggers from that era (none of whom I have ever met in person). From that early time (2013), I think my most successful post was probably this one about germination of 32,000 year old seeds—a post that, as of today, has 836 notes, but at the time felt huge and exhilarating.

As I went through gradschool, I got more and more active on twitter, and less and less active on tumblr (by the time I wound down, I had about 8,000 followers on tumblr). This was partly because of the pornbot takeover on tumblr, which meant I basically could not go on the platform in public or at work, but also because the audience and interactions are just fundamentally different. Twitter had a different kind of vibe and energy than tumblr, and there were real SciComm experts there, who were doing it just completely differently. More importantly, I became more focussed on doing outreach aimed at colleagues, rather than non-experts.

Then, in 2017, I hit headlines for the first time. The description of Geckolepis megalepis made it big on social and traditional media, and I had my first experience with real media attention. I had a flurry of late-night phone-calls with journalists in the US. This was a different animal altogether than the few viral posts I had had until that point. It was extremely stressful, but exhilarating. Then in 2018, our chameleon fluorescence story made similar headlines, and in 2019 the Mini frogs, and in 2021 with gecko fluorescence and the smallest chameleon.

Seeing my name on the BBC News website and in the New York Times and National Geographic—those things have been the most surreal moments of near-fame I have experienced so far. The number of followers on social media is quite difficult to conceptualise, but seeing your own name in a media outlet that you consume regularly, or have grown up with, is more palpable.

In any case, I continued to run with twitter as my main platform for years, because I found the interaction with colleagues and other academics highly stimulating. In 2021, I even posted a twitter thread about a different species of frog from Madagascar every day for the full year. All this work was ultimately greeted with mediocre success; I just crested over 10,000 followers a few months before the Musth takeover. But then the platform became basically unusable. And in the fallout, I came back to tumblr, where, just by chance, I happened to find a post about the Mini frogs and reply to it and it went properly viral and now here we are. In the space of a year, I went from having 8000 followers to having >46,000.

How do I feel about that? It's bonkers. I think it is great that so many people are interested in hearing the Good News about frogs and other creatures. But I also feel like I am not really on the same playing field as most of the others in that poll mentioned above, in that I do not have any of the celebrity that several others have. And I know for a fact that there are fanblogs with far, far larger followings than I have. But perhaps that is the great thing about tumblr; that the playing field is somehow levelled…

What's the point of this ramble? Well, first I guess it is to outline that I have given fame a lot of thought over the years, and I have a long-standing and complicated relationship with it, and take it quite seriously. Second, to illustrate that I have been working on as a science communicator or person in outreach for many years—it has kind of been my social media brand since I started gradschool in 2013. And third, to kind of outline how we got here, because I often feel like you have to know where an arrow has come from in order to figure out which direction it will continue to fly.

You asked if I would somehow try to leverage my tumblr fame to get research funding—I already do that. In fact, my social media activity had a signfiicant role in landing me my current job, and will continue to help me achieve tenure. Outreach is an important part of my job, and funders like it too.

I would love to have the community-building power and tenacity of the brothers Green; Nerdfighteria has achieved some incredible things over the years, and the power of that community is now being seen at an unprecedented scale in their battle for equitable access for tuberculosis diagnosis and treatment. But I do not have that in me; this platform is the wrong one for community activation, and my community is still too small for that. Moreover, it is not organised or structured, in the way that I think effective deputisation would require.

As for the crowdsourcing of name ideas, that is currently off the table. I like to try to name things on my own or with my colleauges; it is a very good part of the process. And I have yet to hear a suggestion for a Mini species epithet that I had not already come up with myself, so I am not convinced that this would really augment the experience.

So for now, I hope that the main way I use the platform, and the power that comes with a few thousand followers, will be to spread the Good News about frogs and other wonderful animals, and the other kinds of science happening around us (and occasional other off-topic content). I hope that you are encouraged to explore the world around you, and to do your own reading to find out more about the subjects that interest you. And also I will continue to try to make meme-worthy content, because it does nice, if addictive, things in my brain when I get the clicks.

Thanks for asking, anon, and sorry for the Wall of Text.