#I DID NOT PROOFREAD THIS I WAS TOO EXCITED

[meggvilla]

♡ got wood? - nic love island s7

based on ep 12, black y/n, cussing, kitty kat eating, dirty talk, pet names, kissing, ass slapping lol… repeated words? i’m not a good writer so pls spare me, this turned out a lot longer than intended, NOT PROOFREAD!

you stand next to olandria and huda in a cropped blue flannel with extremely short jean shorts, a furry top and furry boots. you cheer and clap as your couple, nic, goes up. he blows a kiss towards you while he grabs the fake axe.

“which boy is actually pining for someone else?” he reads off. ace hums loudly. nic looks at ace, “target acquired.” he says and shoots ace with the machine. he walks over to the axe to grind station and lays down.

you raise your brows softly meanwhile ace looks at you with an evil grin, “my boy nic, he’s been seeming to be a little excited with… you know, iris coming into the villa. so i think iris would be great, wouldn’t it?”

you laugh softly and nic looks at you, “sorry, baby!” he shouts. you wave him off as iris walks over. you shake your head, watching they do the challenge.

“it wasn’t a pleasant sight but it’s a challenge! i did have to grind on jeremiah so…” you say with a laugh at the confessional.

“okay! would you like to pick a beaver from my basket?” paige asks nic. he looks towards the guys, “i need yalls help.”

“number three, my lord!” taylor says.

“two! two, my lord!” ace says.

nic picks up number two and turns the name tag around, “y/n! come here, beautiful!” he says with a big smile. he walks over and picks you up. you scream and go into the cabin with him.

he shuts the door and puts you down, “hey,” he smirks. you smile softly as he grabs your ass and pulls you closer. his lips connect to yours, slapping your ass softly. he grunts into the kiss while you wrap your arms around his neck.

his tongue enters yours, “all mine,” he growls. you bite his bottom lip when you pull away. nic shakes his head, “come ‘ere,” he mutters. he pulls you back into a very steamy kiss. you hear mainly ace and chelley shouting in the back.

“it sounds nasty in there!” ace shouts. nic pulls away and fixes your hair, “i got you, baby… ready?” he asks. you nod, squealing as he throws you over his shoulder.

you two walk out and everybody shouts, “oh my God!” “oh shit!” “nic gettin some tonight!”

nic flexes and slaps your ass hard after, your feet kick. you roll your eyes and giggle shyly, covering your face. nic daps all the guys up, like a couple of teenagers.

later that night, the tension of the challenge died down and the islanders were all calmed down. you sit with olandria and huda when nic walks over. he smiles at you all, “i’m just gonna…” he grabs your hand softly and lifts you onto your feet.

“steal this girl for a quick chat. don’t miss her too much,” he says to huda and olandria. you wave bye as his arm slithers around your shoulders.

“you look good,” he kisses your temple. you smile, “stop..” you wore a two piece blue and white stripped outfit with white heels and your hair fell onto your shoulders.

you two walk into speakeasy. low red lighting. velvet seats. fake bottles. music plays softly in the speakers. you nod your head, “wow… you know, this place feels a lot warmer when i’m here with you.”

nic furrows his brows and sits next to you, “who else have you’ve been in here with?” he asks gently and twirls your hair. you smile, “chelley.”

he groans, “noo! chelley’s stealing my girl,” he says. you smile sweeter, “be quiet… hey nurse, check my temp. i’m getting a little warmer,” you tease.

nic rests his hand on your waist, pulling you closer. “yeah?” you nod and stare up at him, “lock the door…” you whisper. nic hops up and locks the door, dimming the lights a bit. he sits back down, “i need you.”

“work for it.”

nic holds onto your thighs as your legs are thrown over his shoulders. he stares up at you, your skirt rode up to your waist. he sucks on your bud. hungry.

your head is thrown up, low shallow breaths coming out. nic licks from your hole up to your clit, “you taste so fuckin sweet…” he growls. you tremble as your legs close on his head. he continues to stare at you and spreads your legs apart, “cmon.”

he moans into you, tongue moving in lazy circles around your clit before flattening out and flicking it softly. he lets go of your thighs and drags his hands up to your top. he rubs your nipples through your shirt.

you twitch, “nic!” you say, a little too loud. you cover your mouth quickly. it was overwhelming— wet, hot, messy. his tongue slides down to fuck your hole, then back up, teasing and devouring you.

“been thinkin’ about this since you walked into this villa.”

you finally look back down at him, your fingers claw into the couch, “mm.. nic— oh my gosh… baby!” you squeal softly.

he nods, “that’s right,” he mutters while coming up and rubbing your clit with his thumb. “say my name when you cum on my tongue,” he says before going back down and eating you.

you cum hard, you blacked out for a second. thighs trembling, hips lifting off of the couch as he held you down and kept licking you through it. slow and steady until you were whimpering and twitching.

he finally comes back up, lips wet and face smug. “we have to do this again.”

you sit back up, “i hate you,” with a shy smile.

♡ girls reaction

the next morning, you were sitting at the vanity. fluffing your hair and putting on setting powder. at least, trying to keep your face neutral.

chelley turns to you, “bitch! don’t even try to act all innocent. after you came back from the little chat last night, you were glistening!”

you squeal and cover your face, “stop!”

olandria twists in her chair, her lipliner almost falling out of her hand, “you came back from speakeasy with your legs wobbly!”

you scream and slap the table, “shut up!” you laugh. huda hums, “i heard yall! me and jeremiah were just trying to pass by and we hear moans and whimpering!”

“oh my goodness!” amaya squeals.

“okay.. did he eat it or was he.. folding you?” chelley asks. you smile, “bitch… he was… devouring.”

hannah and iris shout loudly as nic walks in. olandria shushes all of the girls as he walks over, “morning, morning. how are we all?” he asks.

huda smirks, “we good.”

you smile at him while he puts your plate of food down, “here you go, baby,” he says. he kisses you, “hurry up! i wanna see you in that bikini!”

he walks out as amaya screams, “he’s hooked!”

[nezuswritingdesk]

aspen's first bowlcut

tags: domestic fluff, family content, just overall fluff and happy stuff, papa zayne and mama reader (in this fic, reader is gender neutral but gets called mama by aspen), part of my lads parenting au, possibly ooc zayne, not proofread

a/n: helloo everyone! based on the polls last time , the zayne parenting au won so that means we'll be able to see little aspen once more with his father! for anyone new here or unfamiliar as to who aspen is, he's zayne's eldest son (based on my parenting au which you can read here if you wanna know more about him). additionally, this post was inspired by this one i made early onto my acc)

i'm sorry that it took so long for me to finish it, im still stuck in writer's block and i was still busy with uni augh and i kept on rotting instead of writing, im sorry it took too long i hope its okay

wc: 1.0k (1,092) words

content warnings: a very cute little boy, the overall asian childhood experience of a bowlcut, zayne thinking about his growing baby boy whos still a tiny marshmallow in his eyes,

“Mama!” Aspen calls out to you.

 You had placed his younger sister, Aurora, down for a quick afternoon nap, and was heading back to the living room when he called. Little Aspen sits down on the floor, legs cross, and his hazel eyes going through photos of his father, Zayne , that his parents–Aspen’s grandparents, had sent from when Zayne was little. 

“Yeah sweetheart, whats up?” You answer, approaching him. You sit down beside him, your eyes going through the various photos of your husband as well.

 Aspen holds up one to you. It was of Zayne, perhaps when he was around the age of five, his round cheeks makes him look like a chipmunk storing food, his bright hazel eyes shine through the decades old photo, but what made Aspen curious is Zayne’s hair.  It was a bowlcut. 

“Mama, why is papa’s hair like that?” He asks. 

“Like what, honey?” You ask back. He points at the photo again. You nod your head. 

“That was papa’s hair when he was younger,” You explain, “I remember when he came to play with us and your uncle Caleb starts to laugh at his face. He calls papa Coconut head.”

“ Papa nut?” He asks. 

You stifle a laugh, “Something like that, hon.” 

“ I want that.” You pause, trying to see if you heard it properly. Aspen, your sweet respectful and kind boy that looks and acts like his father, wants a bowlcut. Just like his father when he was little too. 

“A bowlcut?” 

He nods. “Can I, mama?” 

“If you want so, honey. You can get a haircut like that. Do you wanna surprise papa with it?” 

He nods excitedly, clapping his hands. “I wanna have coconut hair! I want coconut hair, mama!” 

You smile, nodding along. “Are you sure about that, honey?” 

He nods, certain of his decision. You nod along, telling him that he can get his haircut during the weekend, giving it time to settle before heading back to kindergarten on Monday. 

Aspen couldn’t wait till Saturday. 

All he talked about was his upcoming haircut to anyone who’d listen- his parents, Aurora, his teacher, his best friend, Thalassa, anyone. His eyes light up with excitement, counting down the day till he can get the haircut he desires. 

On a Saturday afternoon, you brought him to the hair salon you’d brought him since, asked the usual hairdresser Aspen liked, and waited patiently with other waiting parents, kids, and everyone in between. Aspen sits down in a blue car, looking ecstatic.

“What haircut do you want kiddo? Did you bring a picture?” You can hear the hairdresser ask Aspen. Aspen looks to your direction, his black hair tousling as he glances over at you with the same excitement he and his father have when a tasty macaron was offered. 

“Can you show it to them, mama?” Aspen asks. You nod, getting up to stand behind him and get the old photo of Zayne that he insisted as reference. The hairdresser cracks a smile before nodding. 

“You want a bowlcut like your papa, kiddo?” The hairdresser asks him. He nods. “I want coconut hair! Like papa!” 

You and the hairdresser laugh again. 

“Alright then kiddo, let’s make that possible.”

The hairdresser begins to work through Aspen’s thick hair, a gift from both you and Zayne. Aspen tries his best to stay still, occasionally giggling from the feel of scissors brushing past against his hair. He talks to the hairdresser, telling him everything that had happened the past few days– how he read books, played with his sister, the shows he liked on TV, anything to keep the hairdresser company and with a bundle of stories. 

You had been bringing him to the same hairdresser and salon since his first haircut, making him comfortable and assimilated with others, resulting in his little chatterbox self breaking free from his usual quiet and shy nature. 

After a few minutes later, the hairdresser takes the cape off Aspen’s neck. 

“Tada, a bowlcut like your papa!” The hairdresser beams. Aspen gasps in awe, his eyes glued to the mirror as he admires his new haircut. His bangs went across his face, and the length was equal. It made his chubby cheeks even rounder like a round marshmallow.  A very cute marshmallow. 

“I look like papa!” He beams, “But like…mallow papa…” He squishes his cheeks, gasping again before looking at the hairdresser once more, “Thank you!” 

You helped him down from the chair, paid the salon and left a tip to the hairdresser before leaving the salon, hand-in -hand with him.

“You like your hair, baby?” You ask, heading over to the bakery you and Zayne would meet up at. Aspen nods, his head bobbing. 

“I love it mama!” He beams, his smile reaching the ends of his cheeks. You nod, glancing down at him. He had that same smile Zayne has when he too was little, even if your husband claims that your son got yours. 

“I love it as well, it makes your cheeks even rounder like a cute marshmallow,” You remark, ruffling his hair, “Let’s go to your dad and sister, and get a macaron for your new haircut.” 

“Yay!” Aspen beams, walking alongside you as you both headed to the bakery where Zayne and Aurora were waiting. 

“Papa!!” Aspen beams, letting go of your hand as he runs to Zayne’s direction. You chase after him, calling his name but Aspen is faster, and immediately sits beside his father. 

“Look papa!” Aspen smiles, “Same hair!” 

Zayne laughs, ruffling his hair gently. Aurora was looking at her brother with a surprise and a bit confused expression, perhaps surprised by his haircut.

 Zayne smiles, seeing his son’s content and happy expression, knowing how much he loved the haircut. He observes Aspen’s eyes, the same hazel ones as his but is so full of life and excitement. He observed the way he talks, bubbly but gentle and kind. 

The same things Zayne was when he was younger.

 The same manners and personality that his parents adored, that his friends cherished, the same things you and the children love. 

All in the small body of a four-year old boy that he and you call their son. 

“Papaaaa” Aspen calls out to him, breaking Zayne’s train of thought, “Do you like my hair?” He asks softly. 

Zayne smiles, his vision a bit misty. He hums, softly placing his lips against Aspen’s forehead. 

“Mhm…we have the same hair now, Aspen. We have the same hair now.” 

[todidot]

The Development of Four and Legato's Friendship in LU Doppelgänger AU: Part 1

Ok so if you are here and you don’t know what LU Doppelgänger AU is—you are in the wrong place because this is basically me screaming about it for multiple pages! If you are still here despite that disclaimer—welcome!

Part 1 since this is already way too long. This covers events from Puppet Show to Velveteen Rabbit!

@starlight-eclipsed is the writer for the series and I strongly recommend giving it a chance! The series gave me severe brain rot hence this entire post so give it some love if you enjoyed me screaming about it here!

(Also shoutout to Kit_Kat_Weirdo_27 on ao3 on chapter 1 of Matrioshka Brain for causing this! They made a comment mentioning Four and Legato’s relationship which triggered this entire thing!)

Four and Legato's relationship is one of my favorites in the LU Doppelgänger series and it's partly due to the exploration of Four as a character.

Four in Linked Universe

When comparing the main series–Linked Universe which will be referred to as LU throughout this–Four isn’t particularly close to any member of the group. He’s a good teammate—willing to lend a helping hand or listening ear but there is no one that he regularly seeks out in LU.

Though that can change thanks to some recent developments in LU (e.g. Wild knowing about the Four Sword’s ability and Four and Wild subsequent reconciliation, Four, Wind, and Time teaming up in the dungeon). In general, Four doesn’t have many individual conversations with members and mainly interacts with everyone in larger group settings. We know that he is close to Twilight on account of Four knowing about him being Wolfie. He and Twilight also go exploring the town in Divine Dark Reflections pt1 so they do seek each other out to explore together occasionally. He is also seen working with Legend and Hyrule to create Wild’s new sword the first time. Additionally, if the doodles are canon, Time would be privy to Four’s ability to shrink to Minish size. He and Time are seen fighting as a duo in some fights and make use of their size difference well so there is familiarity there as well. However despite all of this, we don’t really see Four consistently interact with any one character. He gets along well with each member but he doesn’t seem to be particularly close to any of them individually. 

(We don't see him interact as much with Wind, Sky, or Warriors but in larger group settings they seem to get along fine. He is seen bandaging Sky in one doodle though! He, Wind, and Legend also get into an argument during Sunset Arc about Twilight's usage of Twili magic.)

There is a chance of Four and Wild becoming closer though since Wild is now the only character aware of the Four Sword’s ability and they’ve gone through a major fight and reconciliation. That sort of event usually helps characters in understanding the other better and the vulnerability revealed usually aids in bringing people closer. Furthermore, the dungeon trio of Time, Wind, and Four has the potential for some more insight into how Four interacts with other members of the group. 

Four has an interesting role in the group dynamic in the sense that he’s in an ambiguous age region. He’s a young hero but he doesn’t showcase it in the way that someone like Wind does. He’s got his own pride but it’s been tempered by experience and patience. I honestly view him in a similar way to how Four perceives Legato in LU Doppelgänger AU.  In an ask that Starlight-Eclipsed answered on tumblr, Four believes Legato is older than he appears because "Legato doesn't think like a child" specifically how Legato thinks in the long-term and how his worldview isn't centered around himself--which isn't bad but just a symptom of a developing worldview. This same line of thinking is applied to Four in LU because he's small but he's too mature, self-assured, and considerate to be a truly young hero. It’s evident in how the other heroes treat Four in LU as well. We see the older heroes trying to protect Wind early on in the series and he calls them out on it but Four doesn’t get the same treatment.

I think a good example of how mature Four is  in the comic is in the swords comic in which Four protests against picking up the Master Sword. In that comic, he calls out the other heroes for pushing him for his reasoning because they're also hiding secrets. However, once he sees everyone's reaction to his words, he defuses the situation—soothes the tensions by being lighthearted about it which gets Wild and Legend to join in. He has high emotional intelligence and is able to stand up for himself without increasing tensions within a group. He’s very familiar with working with individuals with colorful personalities and knows when to assert himself and when to lighten up. It’s a very good scene demonstrating Four’s maturity.

Though he definitely has his childish moments like in the comic when your fish story turns into a “fish story” in which he is regaling his adventures to the group without telling them he spent it being very very small. Generally though, Four’s ability as a hero is never called into question and his age is rarely commented on. 

Four and Legato in LU Doppelgänger AU

Anyway I think that's enough on Four's relationships in LU, now let's talk about his relationships in LU Doppelgänger AU! Most of his relationships with the others are the same with the exception of Wild and Hyrule and this is directly due to the addition of Legato into this adventure. In the LU, Four is on good terms with these two heroes but he isn't especially close to them. Wild's weapons and his treatment of them step on his pride as a blacksmith and he takes that as a challenge to make a sword that can hold up against Wild's treatment. Four creates this sword with the help of Legend and Hyrule but outside of this interaction, these characters aren't seen talking together often. 

In LU Doppelgänger AU, Four has Legato.

Legato and Four have many similarities though Four isn't aware of all of them currently. They're experienced heroes who have been on multiple quests but more importantly they've been on quests in which teamwork was a core lesson. As such, they both came into this adventure with a solid understanding of how to work in a team and navigating conflicting personalities. This helps them integrate in the team and generally get along with others. They also have some shared interests: mainly weaponry and magic enchantment. Furthermore, Four's a career blacksmith with a Minish magic background and Legato had a (unfinished) blacksmith apprenticeship and a broad magical expertise. This results in the two of them being able to bounce ideas off each other about their differing expertise and filling in the gaps in the other's knowledge. 

Most importantly, there's an equality between the two of them. Four is currently the only hero with suspicions that Legato is older than he appears--much like Four himself--but regardless of that, Four never treats Legato as a child. I think that is partly that Four is able to see past Legato's physical appearance and judge him based on his actions since many of the other heroes see his short stature and general positive disposition and assume that it's because Legato is young without looking too far into it. Admittedly, Legato is playing into that assumption but he's honestly not doing much to sell the act and just relying on the others' biases.

Puppet Show

In chapter 1 of Puppet Show, Legato receives a Jabbernut from Four. This is the first meeting of the entire group so everyone is wary around each other and trying to create order. Legato, in particular, is going through it in that chapter. Comparing chapter 1 of Puppet Show Legato to the Legato we see later on in the series, it is immediately obvious that he is reeling from the situation. Albeit, Legato’s version of freaking out is all internal with only a few physical signs but he is definitely worried that he just potentially erased the version of his brothers that Legato–as Legend–went on this adventure with originally. Physically, Legato is withdrawn and observes the group instead of conversing with them and fidgeting throughout the entire chapter. When he does contribute, he’s noted to be mumbling instead of his usual outgoing and friendly behavior in later installments. While the fidgeting isn’t necessarily a sign that Legato is anxious since he picked up the habit from his most recent adventure–it combined with his unusual silence demonstrates how unnerved by the whole situation Legato is. Moving on towards his thoughts throughout the chapter, there is this constant grief that underpins all of Legato’s thoughts. 

Legato’s first assumption was that this was a dream since he mentions already checking if was having another dream adventure. Legend is immensely haunted by Koholint Island and Marin so that speaks volumes on just how much Legato is freaked out. He’s constantly getting the fact that these aren’t his brothers thrown into his face during the entirety of chapter 1 of Puppet Show and it hurts him deeply. He knows the story beats already but the others don’t and it shows. They don’t know him. They’re winded after the encounter with the first black-blooded monsters. They’re not his brothers. But, they look like them and he misses them so much. He’s constantly comparing them to his group and the loss of them drags down his enthusiasm. After the encounter in the woods, he stays behind to clean his blade and he comes to the conclusion that he will stick around to ensure that this group will stay together because collectively, the group heals and supports each other. Legato won’t risk destroying his brothers even if they do not know him. 

Anyway, Legato is going through it and no one has noticed since they don’t have a baseline expectation of Legato’s behavior. But this is very telling on what sort of mindset Legato is entering this adventure with. Legato is sticking around because he cares about his brothers but he doesn’t really see himself as part of the group. He’s just a tag-along that isn’t supposed to be there but is. 

Due to Legato’s prior experience with his group–now referred to as Chain ver. 1–he already knows some secrets and vulnerabilities of the other heroes so while he is grieving, he also has a generally positive and empathetic perspective of the new group–now referred to as Chain ver. 2. 

Four, on the other hand, has none of this. This is the first meeting after all and he has no expectations of any of the other heroes yet. Legato remarks that Four gave him a jabbernut in chapter 2 of Puppet Show, though the actual action occurs during chapter 1 off-screen. Legato specifically mentions that Four walked up to Legato and offered him the jabbernut while Legato was hanging back from the group discussion. At that point, everyone was speaking different languages due to how vast the time between each era is so Four took the prerogative to ensure stable communication once he came to the conclusion everyone was non-hostile. Legato isn’t a special consideration at this point and Four is literally the only hero that can solve the language issue given the fact that jabbernuts only appear in his games. But based on how withdrawn from the group Legato was initially, Four most likely noticed that he was uncomfortable with the presumably unintelligible conversation going on and most likely wanted to solve the issue without drawing attention to Legato who clearly didn’t want the attention. 

Admittedly, that is mostly speculation since we don’t know Four’s reasoning but based on how he views his duty as a hero and his maturity, he would probably feel some obligation to help out Legato during the first meeting. It isn't a special consideration for Legato as an individual though but just an extension of Four’s duty as a hero. It also demonstrates Four’s practicality since at this point he has already determined that everyone is friendly and it will be easier for them all to be able to properly communicate. Four is a hero whose adventures have taught him the value and importance of teamwork and that’s evident in the way he gets the group on the same page with the jabbernuts. 

Four and Legato's relationship starts in chapter 3 of Puppet Show when Legato tells Time that he has some magic items Four might want to experiment with to make a traveling forge. Legato makes this overture because he knows that later on in Four is supposed to make a sword for Wild and wants to give the group the extra support and time to prepare for it. Four doesn't know that of course but it's what prompts Four to start interacting with Legato. Regardless of why Legato offered Four his magic tools, the action demonstrated some key information about him. 

It shows that he's observant since he made note of Four's occupation which presumably happened during the introductions or in the indeterminate amount of time it took for Chain ver. 2 to reach Lon Lon Ranch. 

It shows his ability to plan ahead and foresee potential obstacles like a weapon breaking or general weapons maintenance.

It shows how considerate of others Legato is seeing as he's offering the use of his own materials to help jump start this project.

It shows that Legato has some familiarity with blacksmithing as he understands the importance of temperature control and the tools of the trade. 

All this together shows Four that Legato is a considerate teammate who might also share knowledge on his specialty. Naturally, Four ends up with a positive impression of Legato and while they haven't directly interacted at this point, Four has enough information to be curious about Legato. 

The consequences of Legato lending Four his magic tools is immediately evident in chapter 4 of Puppet Show. While the group is a few days out of Lon Lon Ranch, Four notices that Legato is on edge. This is because Legato is waiting for the Postman's appearance but once Legato mentions that everything has been too quiet, Four takes that response seriously and gets ready for a fight. Legato quickly clears that assumption but it's a good indication for the level of respect between these two even early on. Four and Legato aren't close but Four trusts him as a fellow hero and even if Four hasn't noticed anything yet--he's willing to listen to the perceived warning.

Additionally, Four being the one to call out Legato's restlessness is interesting because it demonstrates that he's watching Legato and that the two of them are presumably walking close together. This might just be because they're the smallest in the group and as such have been assigned to walking in the center of the group for easier protection as shown in LU but it does show that Four is interested in Legato and is a good teammate. Once the Postman has gained everyone else's attention, Four approaches Legato again. Notably, Legato is being quiet during this segment and allowing the rest of the group to discuss the Postman's presence and essentially has it play out as it does in LU. 

Early on, Legato sticks to the background in group discussions. He doesn't really want to make any drastic changes at this point and is content to let everything play out as if he isn't there. He's very much in the mindset that he's a tag-along. Except Four goes out of his way to interact with Legato. He bumps Legato's shoulder in order to get his attention and makes a comment about Legato getting his "weird thing" and sticks by Legato's side once the group gets moving again. Four then thanks Legato for lending him the ice and fire rods and then mentions what Legend and him were able to figure out with them. This then prompts Legato to ask questions on how magic interacts with blacksmithing and results in the entire group learning about Legato's magical expertise. Now this scene is important to Four and Legato's relationship because it demonstrates how Four is able to get Legato to interact with the group. As mentioned, Legato is okoy with fading into the background in the beginning especially during these calmer moments but Four notices that Legato is withdrawing from the group and gets him to re-engage. Now Legend has done this in chapter 2 of Puppet Show by sending Hyrule to Legato when Wind was busy talking to Wild but Four does it more discreetly and gets Legato to address everyone in the group. Do I think Four is consciously taking into account these factors? Maybe a little bit because he's definitely crafty enough and prioritizes team dynamics enough to go out of his way to get Legato to integrate into the team but he's also probably just interested in Legato as a person by now. 

So this conversation provides this information to Four about Legato:

 Legato definitely has some background in blacksmithing because he was aware that magic could potentially alter the effects.

Legato has a broad and in-depth knowledge of magic (elemental, time, magic deflection, etc.)

Legato has a tendency to retreat into his head.

All of these make Legato an appealing person to talk to about magical craftsmanship. He might not have the same background blacksmith knowledge as Four but he can cover the usage of magic in enchanting weapons. Furthermore, Legato mentions having some rare crafting materials like fairy dust that could have caught Four's attention so Four now has more motivation to get to know Legato on account of them both having interest in aspects of craftsmanship. It also informs Four that Legato isn’t likely to get into arguments with others and that it might be difficult for Legato to engage with everyone. Four was in the clearing when Legato and Wind came back from their water run in chapter 2 of Puppet Show and most likely saw how Legato retreated once his companion was gone so it is possible that Four noticed that Legato does better in one-to-one interactions compared to large group conversations. 

Additionally, chapter 4 of Puppet Show is when Four and Legato start having friendly physical touch. Examples of this are Four bumping Legato's shoulder to get his attention, and Legato later reciprocating by jabbing Four in the side for laughing at everyone's reaction to Legato's magical knowledge. We know that from from later on in LU Doppelgänger AU, the other heroes aren’t used to initiating physical contact with each other by the time that Legato gets axed by the Shadow courtesy of a comment from Starlight-Eclipsed on chapter 1 of Matrioshka’s Brain to t4d0. So, it is significant that Four feels comfortable with Legato at this point to initiate contact first. Legato has an easier time than the other heroes on account of his familiarity with their alternate selves (Chain ver.1) but Four doesn’t have any of that background. Four’s ease with Legato is purely based on their interactions now. 

 If you go through LU, while Four isn’t self-contained completely, he occasionally slaps/pats people on the back but that happens twice throughout the entire comic and he only allows someone to touch him in a friendly manner outside of a life or death situation only directly after Twilight enters the room after being cured and stabilized. Even when reconciling with Wild, he offers the item without ever touching Wild. So these friendly touches, Four has with Legato this early on in the story is an indication of Four's growing comfort with interacting with Legato.

Baby Doll

Alright so now that we’ve established that by the end of Puppet Show Four and Legato are friendly with each other and that Four is growing more comfortable with Legato we can move onto Baby Doll!

Baby Doll is not a very Four and Legato centered work but it does establish Legato and Four interacting with each other outside the scope of what we observe. It’s essentially sets up Four and Legato spending more time with each other in the background of the greater narrative.

In chapter 1 of Baby Doll, Four and Legato briefly interact near the end of the chapter when Chain ver. 2 begin discussing their inventories. Four and Legato briefly interact when the group’s attention is drawn towards Legato’s sword Caladbolg. Four leans in to examine the sword and comments on how cumbersome such a large sword is for Legato but he still manages to wield it. It’s a small interaction but it is evidence that Four and Legato are comfortable enough with each other that the other can intrude into their personal space. 

There is a funny comparison between LU and LU Doppelgänger AU in this chapter since in LU, Four is the one compared to Time’s large sword and the group jokes about it. In LU Doppelgänger, Legato is the person whose height is being compared to his almost disproportionate sword. It’s a fun little difference between the series and draws a small parallel between both characters!

Later on in the same chapter, Legato goes to join Four and Wild's discussion on the advantages of different weapon types which reinforces the conclusions that Four most likely drew from Puppet Show. At this point, Four has probably gotten a good grasp on Legato's magic and weapon interests and realize that the pair have a few common topics outside of hero work to share! 

There's also some implied hangouts between the two characters in chapter 2 of Baby Doll as Legato starts the chapter by coming back from getting water for the group with Four. I can't imagine that the two of them wouldn't talk to each other during this so we know that they are getting to know each other more. After all, when Legato went on a water run with Wind—the two of them ended up talking more about their respective lives and bonding. Furthermore, given how much Legato already cares about Four—there is no way he wouldn’t try to get closer as he is “speedrunning his found family arc.”

After comforting Wild, Legato goes out of his way to tell him to leave Four and him out of the tampered food which makes sense since neither was involved in messing with Wild but also shows Legato going out of his way to look out for Four which was something that Legend nor any other hero does in LU.

So while Baby Doll doesn’t have many Four and Legato interactions, it does show that the pair are gradually becoming more comfortable with each other. Legato already comes in with a high level of comfort with the others but Four is showcased to be more willing to intrude into Legato’s personal space and include him in conversations about weaponry. 

To Dance on a String

Now we're going to discuss the work that really cemented Four and Legato's relationship: To Dance on a String.

This is the work in which we get the first major Four and Legato hangout and it is a turning point in their relationship. I would consider this work to be when Four and Legato go from just being friendly with each other to genuinely being friends. 

In chapter 1 of To Dance on a String, Chain ver. 2 arrives in Legend’s Hyrule and the group is quickly divided into groups to explore the town. Four goes out of his way to ask Legato if he wants to partner with him and find the town’s blacksmith. Legato is surprised at the offer and notes that he usually gets paired with whoever is left which demonstrates that this is the first time that Four has initiated a proper hangout with Legato. Four doesn’t usually go out of his way to seek out specific members in the group in LU—we see him with a few characters but have no idea if he is the one initiating these encounters. Furthermore, most of these encounters with the other heroes in LU are centered around some sort of task rather than something to just unwind or low stakes. There’s always some kind of purpose behind those encounters—Twilight and Four went into town to figure out what time period or unusual activities they could find in Divine Dark Reflections pt1 and he enlists Legend and Hyrule to work on the sword that Wild presumably needs to fight with. When it’s downtime and there’s nothing urgent to be done, Four rarely seeks the other heroes out. So Four’s decision to seek out Legato to do a low-stakes activity in Legend’s presumably safe Hyrule is very telling on how Four views Legato. Four wants to spend time with Legato in a context entirely separate from their roles as teammates and as heroes. He wants to get to know Legato as a friend.

(I want to clarify that I’m not saying Four is only using the other heroes but he tends to be a bit more reserved compared to some other heroes. This results in him taking a backseat in some of the group interactions unless he has significant reason to enter the conversation. There is nothing wrong with Four only usually seeking company when it is easier to get a task done with more people but the task tends to take more priority in those situations. There is an exception when Four and Twilight are investigating the town since they have a heart to heart conversation in which Four comforts and advises Twilight and reveals a little about his own experience as a hero so these interactions are still bonding activities. I just think that most of the time Four focuses on whatever goal rather than bonding with the other character(s) in the interaction.)

Furthermore, Four is offering for the two of them to go find the town’s blacksmith. While there are definitely some practical purposes for finding a blacksmith, restocking arrows for example, blacksmithing is a topic that both Four and Legato have brought up with each other. Four is a career blacksmith and Legato has proven time and time again that he understands weaponry and the magical side of weapon and tool creation. It shows that Four has been paying attention to Legato’s interests! 

Additionally, while Legato and Four start off their outing with the goal of trying to find the blacksmith—they aren’t very focused on finding one throughout the chapter. They get sidetracked into a conversation about enchantments—Legato’s specialty. Four is curious about Legato and he knows that Legato is passionate about magic based on his answer on Wild’s usage of time magic in Puppet Show. He’s letting Legato talk and fill up space—something Legato only does on occasion in the group. Remember, Legato still views himself as a largely inconsequential tag-along to this version of his brothers. He stayed because he didn’t want to accidentally ruin the bonds that come from this adventure for any of the others. While LU Doppelgänger AU follows Legato and how he is making changes to the timeline, Legato at this point wants the timeline to follow as closely to how it was when he adventured with Chain ver. 1 which means he actually sticks to the sidelines during big events early on. That’s why it’s so important that Four let’s Legato guide the conversation while only chiming in to add an anecdote or ask for clarification. Four has noticed that Legato retreats into himself and has repeatedly gone out of the way to get Legato to interact with everyone and the fact that he’s doing this outside of a larger group setting indicates Four’s care to Legato as a friend more than a teammate. 

Their conversation is cut short when Legato notices Hyrule and Wild up ahead and he runs after them causing Four to follow suit. With practically no words, Legato conveys to Four about a plan to surprise the Explorer duo and Four joins in readily. Four doesn’t know what Legato has planned for the duo but he’s down for whatever scheme Legato has concocted. Four is so playful in this moment—something we don’t get to see as often in LU. Of course, Four and Legato don't spring a surprise on the Explorer Duo since they are having a serious heart to heart about the differences between eras. The two are resigned to simply waiting for Wild and Hyrule to move on so they can leave without having intruded on their talk when Wild mentions in a roundabout way that Legato is lucky to have grown up in an era so plentiful. Wild says that Legato’s insistence on teamwork and his adventures are so strange compared to what he’s used to. He inadvertently looks down on Legato’s experience. 

And that hurts Legato.

Deeply.

Legato just shuts down after hearing Wild say that about him and Hyrule’s sort of agreement. He’s unresponsive even when Four repeatedly calls out to him. He’s spiraling badly and Four yells out Link to finally shock him back to awareness. Four’s remarkably gentle with Legato once he’s gotten his attention since this is the first time Four has seen Legato ever shut down like that. He can tell that Legato isn’t okay despite Legato’s reassurance but is hesitant to push him. 

Anyway that’s when everything goes to hell in a different way as the knights descend upon our tiny duo and they have to flee the scene! During their encounter with the knights, Four is initially confused and outraged as to why the knights have decided to attack them and fights back. Legato manages to grab Four while the knights are disorientated and gets them to safety by using his speed boots. Four doesn’t know where they’re going at this point besides “away” but he trusts Legato to get them out of this mess. Which shows a remarkable sense of trust that has built between the two of them over the course of this adventure—since Four complies with little questioning.

Four is aggrieved by the entire situation and his indignation and insults towards the knights gets Legato to laugh after everything. Unfortunately, this means that Legato is going to have to Talk about his Feelings now. 

Now we are going onto the scene that really sold Four and Legato as a duo to me—Four listens to every argument Legato comes up with in defense of Wild and Hyrule and advocates for Legato against Legato himself. 

Four tells Legato that he’s earned his title as a hero. Four tells Legato that he’s allowed to be hurt by what they said despite them being Legato’s friends. Four reminds Legato that all of them were only able to get so far because of the help they received from others. Receiving help isn’t shameful and that actually gets through to Legato. 

What sells Four and Legato’s friendship to me, is just how much both of them support and understand each other. Legato drags Four out of his shell just as much as Four drags Legato back into the world. Legato got Four to agree to a prank toward Wild and Hyrule because he knows that Four wouldn’t pass on an opportunity to mess with someone. Legato got Four to talk with the others early on by introducing Four’s blacksmithing ability as a useful skill for the group. Legato extended his hand towards Four first. Four continuously reaches back and pulls Legato into the larger group right with him. Four treats Legato’s presumed two adventures with respect even if Legato only ever jokes about them. Four listens to Legato’s warnings and interests. Four cuts through Legato’s self-depreciation with so much care for Legato. 

The reciprocity of Four and Legato’s friendship is what makes these two my favorite duo in the entire series.

Now this isn’t the end of this post! We’re moving onto chapter 2 of To Dance on a String!

In the aftermath of chapter 1’s emotional conversation, Four and Legato decide to stay out in the fields outside of Legend’s Hyrule. The pair are eventually found by Wolfie and Legato makes some allusions about Wolfie being Twilight without being too obvious that gets Four too laugh at Twilight’s expense. 

There’s a noticeable ease between Four and Legato after everything. Legato is mostly honest with Four about how he feels after anything. He’s emotionally exhausted and he tells Four that “Today sucked.” Four and Legato joke about the previous event and there is a general light-hearted atmosphere between the two of them as they travel to Legend’s home. 

What’s important to notice here is that Legato is honest with Four. Legato is a person who has repeatedly avoided talking about his emotions throughout the series. While not referenced directly here, Legato had an emotional reaction towards a physical change he undergoes on Wild’s Hyrule that Warriors and Hyrule stumble upon. This is in chapter 3 of Porcelain Veneer and noticeably, Legato does not explain to either heroes why he had such a bad reaction. He skirts around the actual issue there but is honest in the aftermath of his conversation with Four. Today sucked is a small line but Legato’s being honest about how he feels. 

Upon entering Legend’s home, Legato and Four are confronted with Time who asks if they are okay and then immediately follows up with frustration at the two of them for disappearing for 3.5 hours after confirming their condition. Four is annoyed at the perceived slight against his and Legato’s ability to handle themselves. Time and Four start to argue before Legato intervenes and tells Time it was his fault that they were gone for so long. Legato claims incompetence on his part—telling Time that he panicked and grabbed Four and ran from the knights. Legato tells Time that Four and he got lost in Legend’s Hyrule. 

Time drops his interrogation of Four and Legato and tells the two that Wild made food which Legato awkwardly declines stating that he’s tired and is going to bed early. This is very out of character for him and Four is immediately on high alert but doesn’t confront Legato on his actions. 

Four is right to be concerned by Legato’s retelling of events because it inaccurately portrays what happened. During that fight, Legato pulled Four out of the way of an incoming arrow since Four hadn’t registered the knights as a threat yet. Legato breaks the horde around Four by using his Deku lead to blow two of the three knights into the street while Four deals with the last one. Lastly he was the one that navigated the town to get them away from the knights. So while Four could have dealt with the knight any himself—since he could split to get a numbers advantage—Legato still significantly contributed to the fight. Legato doesn’t explain any of this to Time and instead puts all the blame onto himself when in reality the only reason everything went so smoothly was because of Legato. So Four, who knows all of this and knows that Legato took Wild’s words badly earlier in the day has some very important reasons to be concerned by Legato’s recounting of events. Legato is none of what he described himself to Time and it shows that Legato’s perception of himself has been negatively affected by Wild and Hyrule. 

In clarification from Starlight-Eclipsed in the comment section of chapter 2 of To Dance on a String, they state that Four is taking Legato’s explanation of the events and his subsequent actions as evidence that Legato took what Wild said about him to heart—that Legato is incompetent and irresponsible. This worry is further compounded by Legato skipping a meal to go to bed—something Legato always fights about normally. 

Now seeing as how Four and Legato were friends prior to this event and then became even closer afterwards, Four is going to harbor some negative feelings about Wild and Hyrule due to how they hurt Legato. He won’t allow these feelings to negatively impact the group as a whole but he is siding with Legato. From his understanding, Wild and Hyrule hurt Legato. They were not aware of his presence there but they went behind Legato’s back and diminished his accomplishments which negatively impacted Legato’s self-esteem. His opinion on the two heroes has been lowered after the events of To Dance on a String and will influence how he treats these two heroes as the series progresses. 

Four is a good friend and a good teammate. Legato is both his friend and his teammate. However, from this point on, Wild and Hyrule might end up as just temporary teammates due to their actions.

Velveteen Rabbit

Velveteen Rabbit covers what happens shortly after the To Dance on a String as the work opens with Chain ver.2 leaving Legend’s Hyrule. There are not many Four and Legato interactions in this work but it does demonstrate the impact of what happened in the previous one. Since Legato took the blame in order to prevent a fight between Time and Four, protecting Four again–similar to when he reminded Wild that neither Four or he were involved with messing with Wild’s belongings, it has been decided that two are currently banned from partnering. Which is a shame because it was neither Four’s nor Legato’s fault for what happened in To Dance on a String. 

Four is annoyed at how Chain ver.2 are not taking his experience as a hero seriously after what happened but he doesn’t start an argument about it. Once again, Four is demonstrating his maturity and his experience with teams by not making a scene and acquiescing to the ban. He’s willing to wait it out in order for the team to work smoothly. Now that Four is unavailable, Legato searches for someone else to partner with but Wind–the other person Legato is close to–asks to join Time in order to sort out timeline confusion so Legato is last to find someone to pair with. Legato and Sky do pair up together but that only occurs once everyone else pairs up so it is proving Legato’s earlier statement that no one chooses him during group outings. The only time someone has reached out to Legato unprompted was Four and while Legato definitely loves the other heroes, it is telling that Legato usually has to pair up with whoever is last. 

Legato and Four don’t interact until the end of the work when everyone regroups. This is when we see a major divergence from LU.  Chain ver. 2 are discussing cultural differences when they start talking about the properties of gold. Four is telling Twilight that gold is the most malleable metal to work with when Wild chimes in that the gold weapons he’s used to are strong. There’s nothing inherently wrong about Wild explaining his experience with gold weapons but Four becomes visibly annoyed at the comment and fires back that Wild is being hypocritical considering how he just lost his sword. This prompts Time to confirm that statement and then ask Four if it would be possible to craft Wild a new sword. In LU, Four would have offered to start working on a sword for Wild if he wasn’t already working on one but here Four flatly refuses. He tells Time it would take too long to craft one which is true but he doesn’t offer to even start crafting a new sword for Wild. Legato notes that this is uncharacteristic of Four and this difference is because Four has a lowered opinion of Wild in this timeline.

Essentially, Velveteen Rabbit is a showcase of how Legato and Four’s friendship has altered the timeline. It demonstrates Four’s maturity in how he deals with the questioning of his abilities after leaving Legend’s Hyrule but also his defense of his friends–in this case, Legato. Four’s decision to not make Wild a sword despite it being a presumably net positive for the group since they would have all members at full capability showcases just how important Legato is to Four at this point. Four is putting Legato’s pain above providing Wild with a new sword that would have been made to withstand Wild’s fighting style. Four isn’t massively harming the group in that decision seeing as Wild can scavenge for a sword and has ranged weapons to draw from but his dissatisfaction with Wild is immediately evident to anyone familiar with him. In some ways, it shows a childish side to Four that we only really get to see because of Legato. Childish in how he’s addressing the problem but his heart is in the right place. 

In conclusion

The first five works in LU Doppelgänger AU essentially set up Legato and Four’s friendship. Puppet Show covers first contact and Four and Legato gradually come to understand and warm up to each other. Baby Doll establishes that Legato and Four are spending down time with each other outside of the viewpoint we have access to. To Dance on a String showcases the events that cement Four and Legato being genuinely good friends as it allows Four to see Legato’s vulnerability and help deal with Legato’s self-esteem issues. Legato also gets the opportunity to be honest with someone about what’s going on even if he doesn’t share the totality of the situation. Velveteen Rabbit demonstrates how much Four values his friendship with Legato as he prioritizes Legato’s pain over supplying Wild with a proper sword. 

Legato and Four work so well as a friendship because they both push the other into more active roles within Chain ver.2 and allow each other to be vulnerable, childish, bold, and respected despite their appearances. Through their relationship in LU Doppelgänger AU, we are able to explore more sides to Four and Legato has someone who will call him out on his self-deprecation and spiraling while supporting him.

[old-skyguy]

Look.

Ace Attorney fandom.

I know why people don't like Turnabout Bigtop. I am among the people who dislike Turnabout Bigtop.

But I GET why people like the case. I'm not going to be one of those annoying people who just blindly dump on it because I hate those mfs too.

Thing about Bigtop isn't that it sucks. Thing isn't the weird grooming stuff (though that is a huge part of it). It's not that it could've been good.

It's that - in my personal OPINION - it could have been *great*.

I think it had the potential to be one of the best third cases in the trilogy. It had everything; a fun and goofy setting fit for a pretty dang goofy lawyer game - where the environment itself had jokes and quips and one-liners and mishaps and tomfoolery written all over it, it had the previous case introducing a very interesting and important plotline that gave background for one of the more well-loved characters while also introducing an equally fucked up and lovable new one who was a child forced into a shit childhood of naivete in a CIRCUS with another character who was very naive and childish - whose interactions could have been funny and cute and reflective of said shit from the previous case (seriously she becomes such an important character in the 4th case, WHY would they not include her in this one for some character development? How did they fuck up letting a CHILD explore a CIRCUS?? That would have made the interactions flow MUCH better).

They had a pretty good, sympathetic killer imo, a morally dubious victim, an asshole of a client (who was pretty flat admittedly in-game, but I like his weird, topsy-turvy reasoning for it in the anime. Also, I think Max being kinda a dick would have bode well for the themes of Farewell since most of his clients up to this point have been like...nice? Not nice, but sympathetic, but him having to defend someone who's innocent but a prick would have shown him that just because someone is an asshole, doesn't mean they deserve to suffer for it and that they have the potential to grow as people, which is almost a complete foil to what Matt was. Ultimately, I would have loved the contrast of them as clients and I think it would have also served as character development for Phoenix, especially with his low-empathy tendencies).

They just didn't think that far ahead. They just didn't execute it well enough. They just decided to make three of the adult characters fight for the hand in marriage of a teenage girl. (Bat's part of the story was actually kinda good if he was just YOUNGER, I think him doing that for Regina would have been a stupid thing someone in the circus would do to impress their crush. Damn you Ace Attorney and your weird treatment of underage girls!!)

It just flopped and that's ok.

Even though it kinda sucked, it can still mean something to me.

Also I'm a Moe Curls apologist. I liked him, shut up.

[eruditic-akechi]

slowly sliding a little paper slip through the slot of the door to your ask box (it is my desperately pleas to hear your daindottir thoughts & opinions. any and all. how did they meet. what is their dynamic. what the fuck did Rhine do to make this man borderline homicidal towards her son. DETAILS PLLLEADE!!!!!)

this is a can of worms that is being opened as we speak I AM SO INSANE ABOUT THEM literally my 6k fic is about them GRAWHHHHHHHH I'm gonna be referencing that a lot because I like it and yeah j;fdaklssjfsafhiojgojgjgijodsgkgfosdkfdfjkewaleroigjorijg

ALSO WARNING YALL NOW THAT I HAVE BEEN PICKING AWAY AT THIS FOR OVER A MONTN (update many months :/)NOW AND SOME LORE BOMBS MAY CONTRADICT MY CANON BUT I AM NOT GOING THROEHH TO FIX THIS RN IDC IDC IDC!!!!!

they first met very young, but it was just a random chance encounter. Rhine, being a child prodigy with alchemy, was sitting on the ground and mixing things together to see what happens. Dainsleif made the fatal mistake of asking someone with ADHD what they are doing, so he listened to her explain as she mixed everything together to make a flower sprout from her hand (like Albedo's character story fjfjdsfhjs). She gave it to him, and he almost got in trouble later because his mom thought he went to the surface while playing😭.

As for when they like,,, met fr fr, I'm making the executive decision to say that Rhinedottir was, to some extent, state-ordained when it came to alchemy. I don't care that perry hairy says that more emphasis was on mechanical shit during her time; she's built different enough that she was probably the exception because if anyone made Khaenri'ah food independent, it would be her. So, one of Dain's baby knight-in-training duties was to make sure she didn't kill herself or others in her pursuits (and other people interested in alchemy were MAD mad about her getting special privileges and recognition so he made sure she left the lab and got home in one piece). Unfortunately, the propaganda and rumors started EARLY, to the point that the whole ass adult knights of the royal guard were too scared to fully show Dain where her lab was. A literal like,,, 15-year-old had them in such a tizzy that they were like, "Uhhh yeah... if you go straight a little longer, it's the first door on the right. Bye now!" So this lil 13-year-old boy was scared shitless, thinking he was going to have to interact with an antisocial monster... just for it to be a pretty girl who may sound like a crazed scientist with the way she talks about alchemy but is otherwise reserved and kind. (And lonely enough that she was excited that she had someone by her side) He really didn't understand why mages and sages AND KNIGHTS were so wary of her.

They hit it off fairly quickly. He looked at her as if she were a normal person and he let her talk about her work. He was patient with her, and cared about her wellbeing. He was her first friend. After getting through a thick layer of apprehension, she was sweet and funny. And she was interesting. So very interesting. (also, between her being an early bloomer and dressing/acting like she was a few years older... she was a pleasing sight in his pubescent eyes😔 it didn't help that she was also considerably taller than him for a good while... his eyes were at the perfect height if ya catch my drift) Their friendship came to be so naturally that they didn't even realize how close they had gotten over time. Dain was eventually assigned actual duties, but he still made sure she got home safe, and spent most of his breaks in her lab. Some nosy neighbors claim that they stopped seeing him walk back after dropping her off,,, not that they'd ever admit to that.

Dainsleif caught feelings very early on. It started as purely physical attraction, but the more he got to know her, the more he was drawn in. ESPECIALLY after she started trusting him more than anyone else, seeking him out for comfort, and indicating that she misses him if he has to be gone for periods of time. Alas, Rhinedottir seems content with the current state of their relationship, so he doesn't confess out of fear of scaring her off.

LITTLE DOES HE KNOW she's also whipped, even if it did take considerably longer. She'd never say anything because she thinks she fell for basic human decency, and she'll never admit it, but she's scared of finding out that she finds people more important than they find her... maybe he's just being nice, and here she thinks she has a chance. So, she keeps quiet as well, even as these newfound feelings make her feel like the little girl she was never allowed to be. She has such a schoolgirl crush on him, quite literally giggling, swooning, and kicking her feet as she smiles into her pillow on the nights she does end up alone because she'd never let anyone actually see her like this. It's obvious to literally everyone but them that they love each other. Anyone can see the way his gaze softens when it lands on her, and literally who else is allowed in her lab unannounced and faces no consequences? At some point, she meets her only other friend, Alice, and all of these things are the most obvious to her. She wants to strangle them both for being oblivious. Alice is the #1 wingman, but it flops every time 😭😭she literally gave homeboy some of the flowers she brought for Rhine to study for the sole purpose of giving him a way to be romantic, but they both became too awkward.

After multiple years of friendship growing into a very thinly veiled romance, they became friends with benefits, which made things easier for them because they could put off the big scary feelings talk a while longer. But Alice flipped a lid after seeing marks on Rhine's neck because she thought they finally confessed, but noooo, of course, they only skirted around the issue. Then she tried to pry details out of Rhine... she was obviously only innocently asking about her best friend's sex newfound sex life,,, (she was partly genuinely curious in a friend way, but she also had a crush on her by that point)

Literally everyone else thought that they had been dating for years, and after a while, they stopped correcting people unless they had to, which, when paired with Rhine being shameless at times and not particularly trying to cover up her battle scars, REALLY had people thinking they were together.

Idk the exact circumstances in which they actually started dating,,, like I've changed my mind on when it happened far too many times, but surprisingly I think it was Rhine who actually started the conversation. She accidentally blurted out "what are we?" and the rest was history.

AND now that they were finally officially together, everything felt so much more different than before, even when nothing really changed all that much... they WERE practically dating since they were teens,,, but the officiality of the label was nice :) the (relatively) short time they were actually together was the best time of Rhine's life because she had someone to love, a best friend, she always had her apartment AND food on the table, AND she was able to do her alchemy with very loose reins as long as she showed some agricultural progress,,, which allowed her to put a lot of her work energy into her own personal endeavors! Including making a son the only way she could have biological children! and obviously he knew full well about her,,, situation,,, so he was cautiously supportive of her research because he figured she knows what she's doing,,, tbh he was probably also excited when she got to the homunc stage because she said she was gonna make it as close to a natural human as possible, which meant having two DNA sources,,, and she couldn't even provide all the ingredients herself :/ so!! they were gonna be parents together!!! [if i talk about alchemical stillbirth anymore tonight I might get assassinated so yeah... but that happened and rhine was DEVASTATED she had a full breakdown. it was kinda scary for both dain and alice to witness. then they fed him to durin as a badass funeral because he deserved it for progressing MUCH further than any other attempt (project paper doll thoughts are starting to seep into this i hear the guns cocking)] then they try again with albedo and even though he was successfully "born" his father never got to see him out of the flask :/

BECAUUUUUUSSSEEEEEE the whole time Rhine was messing with abyss and forbidden knowledge juices and was becoming increasingly unwell and unstable. but she was able to hide her (increased) mental instability up until immediately before the cataclysm. HOWEVER COMMA, her continuously declining physical health was a different story. He had to watch as she developed a cough, which would only get worse and worse, and weird dark "rashes" on her arms that would occasionally make it difficult for her to use them, and she would always refuse to go to the doctor (because she knew what was causing this. and the doctors hopefully wouldn't). Eventually, she'd be coughing up blood from the force of her cough, the rashes on her arms would spread and get a more scaly texture, she'd be in pain more often than not, her general mobility suffered, she'd get headaches and migraines randomly, and even the occasional fainting spell, but she was determined to take care of it herself. Then the cataclysm happened. During that time, Albedo was born or hatched or whatever, and Dain really wanted to see his son at least once before he was called down to fight against the gods, but by this point Rhine was completely delusional. This time around, forbidden knowledge exacerbated both her work related desires and her desire to be a good mom, but she started to believe that EVERYONE was out to hurt Albedo and only she could protect him, so she refused to let anyone even near her lab when, even just a few weeks before, both Dain and Alice were allowed to see eggbedo. Their last interaction was them fighting over if he should be allowed to see HIS son, but even though he was frustrated with her, he felt bad for her. She had such a wild, fearful look in her eyes, almost like a mother beast protecting her young. She was actually afraid of something happening to Albedo, and it was a level of fear he had never seen from her before and he knows she's gone through some SHIT! He's literally seen, in real time, a trauma response panic attack from her and even then she conveyed less fear than she is right now. He leaves her alone. The next day, she's gone. All the necessities from her place are missing and Albedo is gone too. Their last interaction was an argument. They never got to say a proper goodbye... they didn't even know if the other was alive for quite a long time. It'd make sense if either of them did die... Dain could've died in battle before the curse, and the heavens could've seen Rhine as too much of a risk to keep immortal.

but yknow,,, 500 years pass and Dain has been known to prowl mondstadt at least a few times,,, and he somehow knows everything. so he heard rumors about the new alchemist with the knights whose name is Albedo. and he just Knows. Firstly from the name, because Rhinedottir is uncreative with her names and the first of any of her phases will be named after their stage (Durin was named Nigredo agenda!! it somehow became durin after the cataclysm. Dain was allowed to pick Elynas's name since she was out of ideas). Secondly, who else would be able to completely change the way alchemy was viewed and talked about except for the offspring of the woman who did the same 500 years prior? He doesn't seek him out because he has no idea what Rhine has become since their last encounter. Does Albedo even know he has a father (no.)? Did Rhine feed him lies about other Khaenri'ahns? Dain didn't want to start a fight or worse... clearly she had taught him her methods, he figures as he watches, from a distance, as Albedo sprouts a flower from his hand the same way his momma did as a girl. He fears Albedo could bring about a second cataclysm if he's not careful with it, and as they say hindsight is 20/20, so he knows what to look for. He has learned that Rhine's illness was from her tampering with the abyss and forbidden knowledge. He also, unknowingly at the time, watched as his own brother and his brother's friends became more and more lured in by the abyss, so he's seen the range of its impact. He keeps his eyes and ears peeled for the first sign of Albedo falling down the same path because, as much as it would hurt him to hurt his own son, he will dispose of Albedo before he can repeat what his mother has done. He can't lose another family member to the abyss.

[reignpage]

Is Two Really Better Than One?

Summary: in which Nanami's wife gets hit with a curse and he comes home to two wives, not one... Warnings: smut, married couple/established relationship, f!reader, threesome, dom!nanami, mention of being used as a sex toy, cunnilingus, penetrative sex, spanking, paizuri, spitting, doggy, dual ride/double cowgirl position, cum eating, fingering, dirty talk, degradation, praise kink, slight size kink, slight yuri action, voyeurism/exhibitionism?, totally inaccurate use of the curse science or whatever, not proofread - like literally not at all sowwy Word Count: 4.6k

Nanami is flabbergasted. 

When he came back home after a long hard day’s work, he was impatiently waiting for his wife’s loving embrace and reviving kiss. There’s a routine you two follow and he upholds it like a knight pledging allegiance to the crown – arrive home at 6pm, you greet him, he takes a shower and changes into comfortable clothes whilst you prepare dinner, and then you dine together. He expected you to be at the front door with an excited grin and open arms, just as you did yesterday and the day before that.

What he wasn’t expecting, however, was two wives waiting for him. 

“Ken! Make her go away,” you scream. 

The other you snarls, “No, you go away.”

Apparently, you’ve been hit by a spirit splitting curse – it fragmented your soul into perfect halves. There is no ‘original wife,’ just two different parts of the same woman he loves. At least, that was how Shoko explained it on the phone. How long the effects will last is indeterminable, though Nanami’s simply glad it’s a harmless consequence and not something more disastrous.

“I want her ugly ass gone, Kento,” you growl.

And other you shrieks. “Excuse me? I am literally you. If I’m ugly, so are you, idiot.”

“Yeah? Well, somehow, I’m just prettier, so suck it.”

Sitting in the living room, he loosens his tie and stares up at the ceiling. He supposes it really was just too much to ask to have peace and quiet in his life, to be able to catch up on some rest and sleep, and have dinner with his wife, his only wife. Right now, the two of you are smacking throw pillows at each other’s faces, exchanging limp blows over his body, and insulting one another.

This animosity is unfounded. She is you and you are her. You are both his wife, with the exact same body, personality, past, hopes and dreams. And yet you’re at each other’s throats like there is a long feud between your warring families. Nanami sighs again. “Please, stop fighting. Let’s just get on with our evening and wait for the effects to subside.”

Both of you press close to him, taking a side each. You cling to his arm, cradling his bicep between your breasts, seeping warmth into his skin through his work shirt. Nanami clears his throat. You smell nice – always do – but right now, the scent of you is engulfing him from all sides. Other you pokes his chest. 

With an accusatory tone, you question, “Why aren’t you pushing her away, Kento?”

He leaves a kiss on your head, hoping to soothe your irritation. “I could never push away my wife, darling. I’d sooner die.”

“But I’m your wife.”

“No, I’m his wife.”

Nanami wraps his arms around the both of you, rubbing comforting circles on your backs; if he doesn’t do something, he might just come out of this with no wife. “You are both my wives. Just as beautiful as the other and just as ferocious. So, there’s no need to fight, alright?”

“Oh my god, what if we’re stuck like this forever? I can’t share you, Ken! I won’t. And! What if you start to like her more than me? I’ll kill myself.”

Gaze softening, he holds you tight. “That won’t happen, my love. It just wouldn’t. I’m confident things will go back to normal soon enough and you’ll be whole again. That’s our biggest concern, not ‘who will I prefer.’ That’s a silly thought; I love you in all the possible shapes and forms you come in. I could never choose just one side of you to love, it’s simply impossible.”

A moment of silence passes. 

“He is such a sweet talker, isn’t he?” You ask yourself.

You reply with a chortle. “The absolute sweetest. Thank god we put up with his grumpy ass before he fell for us.”

His heart swells. To watch you two get along fills him with so much pride and he can’t quite explain it. Perhaps it’s because he loves your smile, the way your cheeks get so plump with the force of it. Maybe it’s because he knows how long you’ve struggled to reconcile with the need to love yourself, truly, and how you find it torturous to confront yourself and see all those flaws he thinks creates your perfect soul. 

Maybe it’s simply because he loves you so much; there’s no need to question it.

“Ugh, get your hands off my husband!”

“No, you get your hands off my husband.”

And Nanami sighs again.

On and off, you two keep bickering, momentarily being quieted by his hushed commands to behave before starting up again shortly after. Slowly losing the will to fight, he accepts his indefinite reality. His house might never know peace again and he might never truly clock off work even once he returns home. It seems, outside of the office, he also has to manage stubborn individuals and rising tension. 

Still, it’s not so bad, he thinks. Having two of you is a blessing; he’s always encouraging you to eat more with the rationale of wanting more of you to love, after all.

But, his reasoning at this moment isn’t so pure.

The feeling of your plush bodies in his grasp is distracting. Two sets of your breasts are bouncing against his sides and in his face with every move you both make. Hands rove all over his body, staking their claim, and teasing the skin underneath his clothes. Nails scrape against his thighs, digging in when you try to control your anger, using him as the punching bag. He needs to keep his cool, to maintain control so he can ease your worries and dispel trouble at any time. But damn it if it isn’t taking a lot of effort to stand his ground. 

“Ken,” one of you whispers in his ear, lips brushing the shell, “you’re hard…”

Looking down, he comes face to face with solid evidence of your observation. How embarrassing – his wife was hurt and is facing an indubitably anxiety-provoking situation whereby she might never recover as whole from again, and despite that, he’s aroused. What kind of man is he?

What kind of terrible husband would be so self-centred?

“We can help… if you’d like.”

The kind that’d be married to you, apparently. 

Speechless, Nanami can do nothing but sit back and let his wife unbuckle his belt whilst the other unzips his trousers. One has a look of complete glee when she finds his hard cock already leaking and the other sports a focused expression, working her hand up and down his length. You really are his wife, split or not. No one could ever touch him so seductively, so enticingly, already threatening to shake his entire foundation with simple grazes. 

He should stop you both, should establish boundaries and get on with dinner. Instead of giving into baser instincts, he should lead by example and ensure your safety and wellbeing by being patient. But…how can he when your velvety palms play with his balls, fascinated by the weight of them?

“Come here, sweetheart,” he mutters, losing all grip on reason. He discards his glasses. “Come give Kento a kiss.” 

Two heads rush to his face. They collide with a bang. Hissing, you throw aggravated looks at each other. “He meant me.”

“Uh, no, he meant me.”

Tutting, he cradles both of your faces and brings one up to his lips. He lays a kiss where you bumped your head and then another to your mouth. Slowly and gently, he indulges in your taste, swallowing your breathy moans and teasing your tongue with his. Then, parting ways, he pushes your head down, eager to feel those juicy lips wrap around his throbbing cock. 

He meets your gaze. “You too, love.”

Mirroring the ministrations, he loses himself in the steamy kiss, groaning into your mouth when the you that’s licking his cock from the base to the very tip slides her wet tongue on the slit. Fuck, he needs more. He needs to feel you. 

A hand of his slides down your body, groping a breast, tweaking the nipple, before it ventures further down to between your legs. You’re soaked. Pussy lips swollen, he wastes no time in working two calloused digits inside. Wet, tight, and hot, he can’t get enough of how your cunt clenches around him. 

“Ah, Ken! So good. Thank you!”

The wife that’s drooling on his balls pouts. “Me too, Ken. Make me feel good too, please.”

He smiles. “My sweet wives, always so polite. Tilt your hips this way, darling, show me your pretty pussy. That’s it. And you, sweetheart, let me kiss your beautiful breasts.”

Now, both of his hands are being thoroughly coated in your wetness, squelching their way inside your pulsing canals. Mouth full of your breast, sucking and flicking your hard nipple, he lets himself be consumed by your scent, your warmth, your softness, and the wondrous sounds of your barely subdued whimpers and squeals. 

Being weighed down by your body, the reminder of your love and need for him, of which reflects his own for you, is the purest form of bliss he never would have thought he was deserving of. There is nothing more rewarding than drawing out your pleasure, than curling his fingers in just right against that gummy spot inside you that pushes out even more sloppy juices, and washing away your fears and worries. 

In this moment, as both of your hips are grinding down onto his hands, he wishes there was another of him. He can meet all your needs at once, overwhelm you with his body and drive you crazy. Then, there’d be no need to be jealous or possessive. Though…Nanami has a dark realisation that perhaps the sight of a cock that isn’t really his pushing its way inside your body would drive him to madness and not the pleasurable kind.

“Fuck, Ken! I’m gonna–”

“Cum!”

You orgasm at the same time as your other half, juices flying and soaking the sofa underneath your bodies. Speckles land on his creased trousers, drowning his hands and dribbling juices down his wrists. Nanami throbs, cock jolting in the cold air.

Slumped over his body, one of your heads perks up. “Hey, uglier me, wanna give him a boob job together?”

“I’m ignoring that insult, bitch, but yeah, whatever.” You roll your eyes and then land a peck on Nanami’s cheek, giving him a wink.

Getting down onto your knees, you force his legs to spread wide to accommodate yourselves. A little frazzled at seeing you two collude and leave him out of the decision making process, no word of complaint can manifest before he throws his head back, unable to stand the sight of impish joy all over your irresistible eyes doubled as you watch his cock bob once and twice. 

“Ugh, isn’t his dick so pretty?”

The kitten licks you leave on his frenulum are your answer. Then, you both wrap your breasts around his cock, nipples kissing each other and his sharp intake of breath elicits giggles. Up and down, you rub his heated length with your supple breasts. His fingers thread through your hair, unable to keep his hands off you. 

“Is it good, Ken? Do you like it?”

Nanami groans. “Y-yes, it feels amazing, sweetheart. You’re so good to me…always so good to your husband, aren’t you?”

Giggling again, you two exchange grins, feeling mighty proud of yourself, he supposes. And he knows he can cum just like this, that his cum will spurt all over your faces and breasts. It’ll coat your plump lips and you’ll be able to taste his salty spend. Lightheaded, he gasps for air, intent to get his bearings, to not let you two have your way with him, but then you surprise him one more time. 

Lips locked, you two make a big show of moaning into each other’s mouths, tongue twisting together in an obscene display that has his heart thumping faster and faster until he’s sure he’s losing his mind. 

You might never stop surprising him no matter how long he’s loved you. 

He can’t take it anymore. The smell of your sweetness, the evidence of your euphoria coating his skin, the doughy blanket of your breasts around his cock is driving him insane. He needs you and he needs you now. In agile haste, he stands and takes his clothes off all while you both watch. 

“I-I need to be inside you, darlings.” There isn’t enough space on the sofa for what he wants. So, with a grunt, he lifts you two and carries your bodies up, biting back a smile when you squeal and giggle, into the bedroom. You both bounce into each other’s embrace when he drops you off on the mattress. “Strip.”

Clumsily, you remove every article of clothing. Your arms get caught in your shirt and your panties get tangled around your ankles. “Ugh, Ken, help.”

“I’m here. I’m here.” He helps you two out, wrangling your clothes off. “There we go, honey. Upsi-daisy.”

Though he might never admit how pleased he gets when he’s needed, he’s sure you know. There’s no way you don’t. You feel the evidence of it when he pins you to the kitchen counter to fetch the plate you’re reaching for and you surely see the way his eyes darken as you place a foot on his lap, wordlessly asking him to clasp your heels on for you.

As soon as your clothes are off, he pounces – sloppily swallowing your wet moans, he devours you and then the other you, swapping and switching till he gets frustrated and gasps for air. 

“Oh, sweetheart. I love you so much. All of you. In every life, in every time. Always.” You’re lying so prettily for him. Whatever he has done to deserve you today, he hopes he’ll do it again and again so he may never part from you, not even in death. His hands don’t know where to stay, exploring, groping and squeezing and pinching wherever they please. There’s so much of you he wants to feel at once and it’s like an urge he can’t fight. The need to be with you, to please you, to immerse himself in your essence wholeheartedly is choking him up, calling forth tears in his eyes. “God, if only you could see yourself from my eyes.”

“Ken, I love when you get all emotional, I swear, but please just fuck me already.”

He gulps. “Yes, love. I will.”

“No, wait, fuck me first.”

“Wait your fricking turn, oh my god.”

Another fight breaks out. 

Nails are out, hands are flying, hair is being pulled. Kento huffs. He’s trying to get in between you two without using force, without accidentally hurting you, and just as he’s about to pull you apart, a resounding SLAP!echoes. It’s a grating noise that steals his breath. In a flash, he’s got you behind him and you pinned to the bed. 

“No.” Nanami growls. Breathing hard, he shakes off the sudden anger coursing through his veins. Wide eyed, you just watch him release his punishing hold on your neck that he didn’t even realise he had on you. The scolding fire in him doesn't disappear. “No one hurts my wife. Not even you. Understand?”

You nod frantically. 

“Good. You know I hate to punish you but you won’t disagree when I say you need to be reminded of the rules, would you?” You shake your head. “Use your big girl words.”

“I need to be punished, Ken. I need to be reminded of the rules.”

Satisfied, he leans back on his haunches and beckons the other you to his front. There’s a mark on your cheek and it makes his chest squeeze painfully. “Oh, look what you’ve done to your pretty face. My darling wife and her penchant for violence. You’re going to give me more grey hairs.”

“I hope so; you’ll be a silver fox. Yum.”   

A fruitless frustration builds inside – it’s akin to that cuteness aggression you claim overcomes you often, he thinks. Well, he won’t deny himself any longer. He tugs your neck and kisses you. It’s rough, it’s messy, it’s sloppy. And he does it all while keeping his eyes on the you that’s in near tears. “Why don’t you -hah- show my wife how to be a good girl? Show her the reward you deserve.”

“Okay, Ken.”

Leaning back into his firm, sturdy body, you hiss as the threatening stretch of his fat cockhead pushes through the tight ring of muscles at your entrance. Slowly but surely, he’s worming his way into your pulsing cunt. Nanami grunts when he finally bottoms out, balls constricting with the labour of keeping his cum in his balls and not in your pussy prematurely. This is all far too much for him. To be thrusting into you, holding you upright by your arms as you watch his cock shine with your juices, is an insane fantasy he never even dreamed of, but it is his reality and he damn sure will make the most of it. 

“Ngh, tell my wife h-how you’re feeling, sweetheart.”

Breathless, you try to talk despite the delirium-inducing pleasure he’s ramming into your tight cunt. “G-good. I feel good. Ken’s so big a-and I’m feeling so full. Fuck, Ken, fuck me harder.”

The sound of skin slapping, the squelching of your pussy, and the heady moans and grunts are all going straight to his head. Overstimulated, he clutches your breast for a tether, grounded by the weight and the softness. His pace quickens. “Like this? Hmm? You like this, darling?”

“Yes, Ken! Fuck, I’m close. More, Kento. Fuck me more.”

Over your shoulder, he watches you writhe and squirm on the bed, a hand squeezing your breast the way he is and fingers pumping inside your needy cunt at the pace his cock is working its way into your other half. Impatient, you whine. “Hurry, Ken. I want your cock too.”

He licks his lip. Sweaty, eyesight ever so slightly blurry, and growing closer and closer to his climax, urged on by the tight pulsing of your pussy, he continues thrusting inside. “Behave. Can’t you see I’m -ah, fuck- p-pleasuring my wife? Bad girls don’t get to touch, do they? They don’t get to have their cake. And. Eat. It. Ngh. Too!”

To highlight his point, he lets you slip through his grasp. You fall on top of yourself, bouncing breasts pressed tightly against each other. Your face is buried into the crook of your neck, uncaring about how loud your moans are. Nanami finds purchase against your slippery ass and holds it still as he fucks his cock into you, using you as a glorified cock sleeve. 

“Give me something. Anything, Ken. Please. Pleasepleaseplease.”

Nanami grunts. “Open up.”

A fat drop of his spit lands with a plop onto your awaiting tongue. You gulp it down eagerly. Your fingers work themselves inside your cunt even faster, unperturbed by the weight of yourself pinning you to the bed, sweaty and shaking. Dare your husband say, you rather like it. His cock pulses.

“Soon, honey. Just be patient, a-alright? And then I’ll -hah- fill you up. Just have to -ngh- make my wife cum first.” 

Expert hips grind into your tight pussy, cockhead hissing your g-spot and stretching out your gooey walls again and again. If he had it his way, he’d never leave your cunt, but he has a responsibility to make you both cum. He can’t be selfish.

“Ugh, hurry up, you whore,” you mutter into your ear. Then, he sees your mischievous hand trail down your other’s spine until it descends between your legs. When the moans get louder and the clenching of your pussy steals Nanami’s breath, he can only assume you’ve taken matters into your own hands.

You cum around his cock with a scream. 

Hips stuttering, his orgasm soon follows. “Ah, f-fuck! So tight. So fucking good.”

His choked groans are all that can be heard as you lay limp. He too falls to the bed, lying beside your bodies. That had to have been one of the strongest orgasms he had ever had. Never a dull day with you. Just when he thinks he’s got you all figured out, you prove him wrong. What a privilege it is to learn all about you every day for the rest of his life.

“Hey, my turn!”

Brushing back his blond locks, he chuckles to himself as he watches his cock throb back to life. It seems his body has adapted to be sure he can attend to his wife’s needs. Both of them. “Get up here, sweetheart. Take what you want.”

Excited, you shove your other half off and rush to straddle your husband’s hips. You don’t wait; his cock slides inside with ease from your juices. “Oh, god, yessss. Fuck, Ken, I can feel you in my lungs.”

Bracing himself by holding onto your thighs, he can do nothing else against the desperate bouncing of your ass. The pleats inside of your perfect pussy are attempting to wring him dry all over again and Nanami’s abs flex with the building pressure. His cock is still recovering and it’s sensitive but you don’t care. Now, he’s the one being used like a mere toy. 

“S-slow down, honey.” He hisses. “Hah, slow -hngh!- d-down.”

“Hmm, shit, Kento. Y-you’ve gotten so big…” Ignoring his pleas, you must be referring to the layer of fat that’s grown on his body, thanks to the delicious food you’ve been cooking for him. Wholly embracing married life by skipping visits to the gym in lieu of staying longer in bed with you, he’s realised that his clothes no longer fit as they did. It’s embarrassing for a man who prided himself in being fit and put together but it gets you so wet and so needy, he doesn’t dare change a thing. “I want to -ah ah ah fuuuuck- drown in you.”

His chuckle is punctuated by the grunts that your incessant bouncing is forcing out of him. “If it’ll make you happy, my love.”

You clench down. 

“Ah, don’t -oh fuck- squeeze so tight.” He reaches for your clit, thumbing at it. You yelp, hips bouncing faster. Looking so absolutely beautiful, he can’t keep his eyes off the recoiling breasts in his line of vision. Suddenly, his mouth is suffocated with something hot, wet, and delicious. “Hmmph!”

You’ve sat on his face, leaning forward on his stomach, clearly keen to be involved once more in the fun. Submerged in your scent and taste, he doesn’t hesitate to slurrrrrrp! up your juices. He can taste his cum too and it dribbles down his chin. Cunt wrapped around his cock and another leaking wetness right into his mouth, Nanami swears he’s in heaven, delirious with the devastating gratification of pleasuring his wife. “Ride me faster…my face…my cock…that’s it, dear…doing so -ngh- great for me…my -hah hah- perfect wife.”

Lapping up your juices, he throbs when you squeal on his tongue.

“Is that how I really sound when you eat me out? Ew.”

Other you growls. “And is that what I really look like when I ride you?”

SMACK!

SMACK!

“Don’t t-talk badly about yourself. I won’t have it.”

Rubbing your sore ass, you mumble, “Mmm, sorry, Ken.”

“Yeah, s-sorry.”

Soon, you three work back into a punishing rhythm. Nanami hates to be so strict, but he can’t bear to hear you be so mean to yourself. It makes the hairs on his arms stand. If his eyes aren’t rolling to the back of his head, he’d lecture you about the importance of loving yourself. Again. But he can’t string full sentences together. Not right now. Now when you’re all so close. 

Your clit is bumping against his nose whilst his tongue pierces your cunt and he wonders if you can both feel the specific kind of bliss the other is – a cock kissing your g-spot, filling you up, and your pussy being thoroughly ravished by his greedy mouth. 

“Yes, Ken, suck my clit…hmm, just like that… yes yes yessss.”

“Fuck, Ken, your cock feels so good. I love it! More more more. I need it.”

Whatever his wife wants, he’ll oblige. Planting his feet, he fucks up into you, jostling your body. You shriek. His pace is relentless, merciless, and they push you further and further until your climax nears. Off balance, your face falls in between other you’s breasts. Whatever you’re doing to those tits he loves so much is making his wife’s eyes roll to the back of her head too. 

Nanami’s nearing his end. He needs you to get there first. Always. “Come on, sweetheart. Make me –ah make Kento– proud, won’t you? Let me h-hear, feel a-and taste my darling wife -hah- cum.”

“Yes, Ken!” You both screech.

And soon after, your husband finds himself covered in a flood of your juices. 

“FUCK!” 

“SHIT!”

“OH GOD!”

Nails dig into his skin, scratching and stinging. The grip you have on his cock tightens until he’s robbed of his breath and forced over, hips pumping up into your scalding cunt. Your moans are muffled between your breasts when his searing cum paints your walls white. 

Clinging to each other, the three of you black out. 

Minutes or hours later, Nanami is the first to wake. Bones aching just a little, he has a quick flash of thought that maybe he’s getting too old for this curse business. A curse-less day with you is more than enough to zap him of energy all while reviving him simultaneously so would it be so bad to give up the other part of him so he can dedicate his life to all of you?

He groans. His muscles are a little sore with a slight shake to them —the good kind. What a blessing it is to be pushed to his limits with you. Gazing down, he sighs in relief at what he sees.

Finally, the sight that greets him is not anomalous or extraordinary – it’s just his wife, singular and whole, draped naked across his lap and snoring. He’s trying to catch his breath, staring down at your sleeping form. “I’ve -hah- tired you out, huh? Poor thing.”

No doubt you’ll ask him if he enjoyed having two wives to service him later, and he’ll answer honestly as he always does with you; it wasn’t having two wives that he found pleasure in, it’s having two of you. There’s more to touch, to taste, to love. A challenge he wouldn’t ever shy away from.

Just as he wanted, he’s covered in sweat and your juices, owned by you in every way possible. This is how he’d like to spend the rest of his life if he could: attending to your needs and drawing out a grin even in your sleep. He pets your head, a shaky smile on his lips. Your eyes flutter open. 

“There’s my beautiful wife. Hi. I’ve missed you, darling.”

Groggily, you ask, “Am I fixed now, Kenny?”

Bringing up your face to his, he skims his nose against the tip of yours. “You were never broken to begin with, my love.”

“That’s sweet…can we go eat? I’m hungry.”

Petting your pussy and seeking out your heat as if his fingers are magnetised to it, he whispers against your lips, “You can take one more round, can’t you, honey? For me? For Kento?”

You both know it won’t stop at just one round. 

It never does. 

And thank fuck.

[highdramas]

ok but first or second year resident flirting with jack’s wife knowingly or unknowingly that she’s jack’s wife and jack is losing it over the whole thing and keeps giving the newbie death stares from across the room whenever the newbie is near is wife and dana sees this all go down from the nurses station and just prepares for jack to go ape if the newbie crosses a line

rookie mistake | dr. jack abbot

pairing: jack abbot x f!attending!wife!reader

warnings: language, age gap (unspecified, but reader is late 20s/early 30s and jack is mid/late 40s), jack defends you because you are his lovely wife <3

word count: 1.8k

notes: if you are under 18 do not interact with my work or this fic. ANON THANK YOUUUU FOR THIS REQUEST <3 i adored this one <3 this is a continuation of ring of fire set in the future, but it's not necessary to read to understand this fic. if you would like to, though, you can find that here <3 not proofread so apologies for any errors!

on monday, you resign yourself to cut the newbie some slack. i mean, alex doesn't know, and if he did, you're almost certain that he would knock that shit off immediately. but... there's a small part of you that finds it a little bit amusing. and maybe you should be good and hold your hand up and say the words that would make any wise man run far, far away: "sorry, kid. you know your attending? yeah, that's my husband."

but that would just be too easy.

tuesday, you're ultimately surprised by the gumption that he has to continue to flirt with you. he says your name like he's purring it, and you can't help but scrunch your nose up slightly, looking up at the board to see where your skills are most needed. the amusement has mostly dissipated, being followed by a certain brand of annoyance that only a twenty five year old boy can draw out of you.

you roll your head to look at your forty nine year old man, coming out of the trauma that had come in thirty minutes ago, only to find that his gaze is already on you. his cheeks are slightly red, hands on his hips, eyebrows screwed up in that way that indicate to you that he's weighing his options about what the best course of action is, here. you wave at him with your fingers, and the new resident, alex, follows your gaze. he gives a big toothy grin to your attending and it takes everything within you to keep your face as neutral as possible. "man, abbot's a cool fuckin' dude," he says under his breath with a truly earnest reverence, and it almost makes you feel bad. almost.

"he's the best of us," you say, and it's entirely truthful. you can tell that jack is still cued in on your conversation. you slide your glance back over to him and wink before you look back to alex.

"yeah." he doesn't take a beat to look back at you with that unbridled hunger that he had been throwing your way through both of the shifts you'd worked together. "so. what're you doing after all of this?"

with raised eyebrows, you shrug your shoulders. "i have an idea or two." he looks just a hair too excited, and your face drops. "not like that. you know, if you want to be a doctor, you do need to actually have an attention for detail." you raise your left hand, revealing the gold band that you wear when you're working. “less flirting. more charting. go.”

when you look over at abbot with a slight exasperation, he just raises one eyebrow at you, and offers a tentative thumbs up– almost a question.

you give him a thumbs up back.

–

the next day, alex was going around to every person that you both worked with, attempting to get intel on you, and your love life.

dana scoffs when she hears the words come out of his mouth. “i mean, he can’t be all that. there’s no way he’s better than me. i was a diver at duke! i had a full ride!” the words are said with such true arrogance that even dana has to laugh.

“oh, kid, if only you knew.” she claps him on the shoulder and points her finger at him. “i’m only gonna tell you this once, alright– after that, you’re on your own. and don’t say i didn’t warn you.” she looks at him down the bridge of his nose– a remarkable feat, considering alex is nearing 6’1. “you don’t want to try your luck. you feel me?”

“but–”

“ah– what did i just say? you don’t want to try your luck. believe me.” she claps that same shoulder again. “and if you do, i knew nothing, and had nothing to do with it.”

you lean against the counter, very obviously eavesdropping, not like you really care– when abbot slides up beside you. he looks over his shoulder at alex, who is, of course, already looking at you. when he meets abbot’s gaze, his eyes go wide and he turns right around, going back to north-11 to finish up with the norovirus patient that jack had put him on. following jack’s line of sight, you can’t help but smirk as you watch alex take in a big gulp of air, slap a mask on, and step into what you’re sure is a hell made entirely of shit and vomit.

“you know,” you say lowly, your elbow brushing jack’s. “that is just mean.”

“all interns get a noro case when they come in,” he says seamlessly, looking between the board and the patient notes that he’s trying to wrap up. “it’s textbook.”

“his first day was three days ago. you usually give it at least a couple of weeks before you start sticking them on noro or food poisoning.”

“not all interns flirt with my wife, relentlessly, in front of me.” jack puts his undivided attention on you.

“oh my god.” you’re smirking. you’re smirking, wide, at your computer. when you look over at jack, you say, “you’re not seriously jealous of the kid?”

“it’s about respect.”

“i don’t think he’s even picked up on us yet. which is hilarious, in and of itself.” you finish up with your chart and put a hand on your hip. “no one’s telling him.”

“he keeps this shit up, he’ll be hearing it from me.”

you hum and pat your hand on his chest. he catches it, his thumb rubbing at the ring you wear. “you’re sexy when you’re jealous,” you say under your breath, close enough to him that you can get away with a little workplace flirting.

“i’m not jealous.”

–

he is jealous.

he’s jealous when he watches this kid– yeah, you may only be five years older than him, but he doesn’t linger on that fact too long– blatantly flirt with you. he gets jealous when alex leans in slightly towards you during shift, just a little too close than is friendly while you review patient notes and ongoing care. but then, he watches you do your little semi-awkward shuffle to the left, and he can’t even help his smirk. and then you look over your shoulder, make this face that says, can you believe this guy? and suddenly, it’s not that he’s jealous. it’s just that he loves you.

but then, on that thursday, alex touches you.

at first, you don’t even notice what he’s done. a little piece of hair has fallen into your eyes out of the tortoiseshell clip that you love so much– the one that jack picked up for you at a cvs because he knows how much you love tortoiseshell. and it’s so faint that you barely even register it. but it doesn’t matter. because you may not have realize, but jack certainly has.

alex’s hand hasn’t even dropped from where he’s tucking that loose piece of hair behind your ear when jack surges up, dana hot on his heels. “woah, woah, woah, let’s all cool it–” dana starts, but it’s no use.

jack puts a firm hand on alex’s shoulder, squeezing tighter than necessary. certainly firm enough to drive home his point. “hey, buddy,” jack says lowly, just enough so that alex can hear him loud and clear, without causing a scene that draws the attention of the entire emergency department. he has that sort of simmering intensity that always makes something swirl in your belly. “look, i’ve tried to be cool, man. i really have. but i’m only going to tell you this one time before i pull in a favor with gloria so that you complete your residency somewhere else. keep those grubby fucking hands off of my wife.”

mortification is an understatement for what you assume alex must be feeling. his face is beet red, eyes darting between you and abbot so fast you’d want to get him in for a head CT if he kept it up any longer. “i– holy shit– i did not know.”

“i know you didn’t,” jack says with a resolute nod. “but now you do. so keep your hands to yourself and we won’t have a problem.” he pats alex’s back once, and you cover your mouth with one hand and peer over at dana with wide eyes. she, can only shrug, roll her eyes, put her readers back on, and turn back to the charge desk. “go get a sandwich from the bin and take ten minutes. go.” 

alex looks at you and you feel bad, almost. you smile at him and say, “next time, if a woman says she’s not interested… take it at face value, before jack abbot has to get involved.”

“yes, ma’am. it will not happen again.” alex gives one last nod to jack, like a nervous teenage boy, before he’s off running towards the staff lounge with his tail between his legs.

jack rubs a hand over his face. you bite down on your lip, look at him, and you start to chuckle. soon, jack’s laugh begins to mix with yours, coalescing until you’re leaning against the charge desk with tears clouding your vision, his dimples fully out and on display.

“man,” he says, shaking his head. “i feel a little bad.” he says, his laughter still holding him by the sleeve, begging to tug him back under.

“you should be. you’re scary,” you say while his thumb catches one of the stray tears on your cheek.

he snorts. “i’m about as scary as a kitten.”

“i dunno. i think our friend would beg to differ.” you lean into him and squeeze his arm before you force yourself to pull away– you like to exude some semblance of professionalism at work. even if the thing you want to do is drag your husband to the on-call room and ravage him for defending your honor.

“yeah, well. guess i reserve it for special circumstances.” he crosses his broad arms over his chest and looks you, up and down. they land on your face and soften. “i love you, kid.” the way he calls you kid, versus alex, makes your chest squeeze. an old habit from your residency, a reminder of where you were and how far you've come now.

the fondness that you feel for him never gets smaller. the longer you've been with him, from that time where you were his resident, smoking weed on his living room floor and wondering if there was a world where this could all work... the thing that always remained true and steady was how much you liked jack. right down to his bones, you liked him.

how can you capture that all in a sentence?

you don't know. but you settle on, "i love you," emphasis on the most important word there is.

[queenie-the-court-jester]

yandere bunny hybrid x reader

A/n: the Intro was rushed because I got too excited to write the smut. Not proofread 🌺

Tw: noncon turns to dubcon, androgynous breeding kink, little dirty talk, he's a horny bastard. Mommy kink but it can be applied to any gender. Slapping body parts, he has a minor lactation kink. Mdni please!

★you met the little furball while you were out on a evening walk. It was the middle of winter and being cooped up inside the house all day was starting to get a little claustrophobic

★you didn't notice him at first since he blended in with the snow. Stopping mid-walk when you heard a weak little whine coming from behind you. Slowly turning around, you saw a pair of red eyes staring at you from beneath the snow

★approaching them slowly, you could finally see him more clearly. Milky white skin turning a light blue due to hypothermia. He didn't have the strength to run when you picked him up. Patting his head, you headed back home.

★giving him a warm bath and setting him next to the fireplace, you slowly nursed him back to health. He was very reluctant at first, but your touch was too comforting to pull away from. He hasn't felt this safe since he was just a baby bun! He stayed with you nearly the entire winter

★midway he starts to get himself familiar with your home, peeking under furniture and into rooms, he seemed to understand you when you'd ask him questions in English

"what's your name little fella?"

"cotton.."

★eventually you had to let him go back into the wild, just a month before spring arrived. He was reluctant but with enough convincing he finally left. Looking back at you from the forest edge, watching you wave goodbye with that beautiful smile he loves

❣️cotton who goes into heat early because he can't stop thinking of you. Burrying himself in his burrow, humping the air. Nothing is as soft as you and your bed. Nothing can make him feel as safe as your touch does

❣️he shoos any females who wish to mate away. Claiming he already has a mate. Oh he wished you'd come into the forest looking for him, to take care of him again as he fills your tight little hole up with his cum

❣️he spends most of his time shamelessly masturbating to the thought of you. His entire heat cycle has been on loop since he left, so finally gathering the balls he heads back to your cottage. Watching you from a distance, lazily stroking his already sensitive cock.

★just minding your business, you don't notice the certain bunny hybrid approaching slowly. You don't have much time to react before a familiar mop of white hair tackles you to the ground. Desperately humping your clothed sex as he whines and grunts.

"cotton!? What the hell are you doing!?"

"hah- nhg need.. mate.. pretty mate.. need to breed! Ohh!"

★you tried pushing him off, but when did he get so strong!? Pining your arms down and ripping your clothes off, wasting no time in lapping at your genitals. Eating you out like a starved man, sucking and nipping your inner thighs until he's sure you're nice and lubed up

★he carefully pressed the tip in, but he doesn't last long as he slowly sinks deeper into your gummy walls. Letting go of your arms and roughly grabbing your hips, which were sure to bruise later, brutally fucking your brains out. Slapping your chest and privates as he grinds his cock deeper

★he keeps going even after he's ripped multiple orgasms out of you. The pleasure slowly chipping off your resistance. Leaving you a blubbering moaning mess under the bunny. A pool of his cum under where your sexes kept meeting.

★it doesn't matter what gender you are, he's determined to breed you until you're swelling with his children. He couldn't wait to suck and bite your chest once it was swollen with milk!

"gonna be so pretty- mph! So pretty, all swollen 'n fat with my babies.. gonna be a good mate, right? G-gonna give me lots of 'em right? Oh ohhh! Cumming again! 'Yer squeezing all my cum out! Mommy!!"

★let's just say that you should get use to your new roommate husband, because now there's no way of getting rid of him. Ever.

[foreid]

ೀ ⦂ — ❝ 𝑺𝑶 𝑾𝑬𝑨𝑲 ! ❞

᭢༘۠ summary: you had no intentions of staying in the delta for much longer than you needed, but something, someone held you back. the longer you stayed, the more involved you became.

what lies ahead: smut, age gap, poc!reader, pet names (sugar, peach, darling, baby), sorta slow burn, thigh riding, fem!reader x bo, dirty talk

wrds: 2.9k

a/n: this was supposed to be a blurb... but my writers block was cured half way through so! i grant you, 2000 words. i was tired of not seeing any more fics of this delicious man + i love age gaps so much and also.. no shade.. but a lot of the fics were not very inclusive in their writing so. hehe. - per usual, not proofread !

clarksdale wasn’t your ideal hometown, you knew when you had the chance to leave, you’d take it. but your father’s death gave you a sudden epiphany. before you knew it, you were on the closest train to mississippi from new york. 

things really hadn’t changed. you were only up in new york for a few years, enjoying the urban life of the city compared to the rural places you grew up in. and your accent suddenly drifted away over the years you were up north.

the heat, though. that you did not miss. not in the slightest.

your blouse was low-cut and your skirt high against your hips, only exposing a bit above your ankles. letting some sort of summer breeze hit the exposed skin.

at the train station, you were greeted by your ‘uncle’ smoke. the entire trip to clarksdale, he wouldn’t stop talking about how big you’d gotten. how excited everyone was to see you.

smoke and stack weren’t exactly your uncles, but they grew up living beside your father, and they claimed that even as a baby, you were always able to tell them apart. 

so clearly, they were family.

the delta heat was bothering you way too much, maybe it was the lack of nutrition in your system, but you felt like if you kept walking, you’d collapse in an instant.

after a sit-down with the woman your father was married to, you needed some sort of pickup. the entire time, all she did was undermine you and act as if she was more upset about his death than you were.

escaping out of that house was like a breath of fresh air. 

you recognized the majority of the layout, even a familiar “bo chow & co. delta” something else was beneath the bright letters, but they piqued no interest in you. 

as long as there was some food you could get into your system.

pushing the door open, your brows furrowing when you noticed that there was just a teen girl running the counter. whatever.

navigating yourself through the store, there was a small section, honed with ritz crackers and regular saltines.

you sighed in defeat and grabbed the box of ritz, tucking it beneath your arm.

when you stumbled up to the counter, the little girl was replaced by a man who looked to be about a few decades your senior.

for some reason, you were growing embarrassingly nervous.

he was undeniably handsome, a baby blue collared shirt sat on his chest, sleeves rolled up to his elbows and exposing the thick muscle that you could tell was built through years of work. the blue of his shirt was accompanied by a light lavender apron which covered his striped suspenders.

when you stepped closer to the counter, his attention was stripped from the notepad in his hand and straight to you. what was a stoic, brow-furrowed, concentrated expression, softened into something you could only explain as relaxed. you swore that he had cracked a smile, corner of his lip twitching.

“ain’t you the city mouse? y/d/n’s kid?” he asked as he started to calculate your crackers. the 

you had no idea who this man was, but clearly, he knew you, and it made your brow raise in enticement.

“yeah. do i know you?” it wasn’t said with the intention of being disrespectful, mainly curiosity. it earned a soft chuckle from the other man, shaking his head as he laughed, his smile bearing teeth. “nah. doubt it. yer daddy was a good man, though. helped me build this place up.” he southern drawl was thick and smooth, sensual in a way that you’d never heard before.

it made you swear hearts were forming and bulging out of your sockets.

all you could do was hum out in agreement, nodding in response. “yeah. i’m just in town for the funeral. not planning to stay here any longer than i need to.” you answered honestly, tapping a quiet rhythm against the material on the counter.

there was something past his eyes that you couldn’t wrap your finger around.

intrigue or irritation. 

it was almost impossible to get a read on him.

he laughed again at your words, leaning against the back counter with his arms crossed in front of him, staring at you with a cocked brow. “what? clarksdale ain’t up to yer city girl standards anymore?” it wasn’t said with judgement, more so as if he was interested in what you had to say. unlike any other man you’d ever met.

“guess not. i grew out of it.” simply just shrugging, giving him a quick look over from where you stood across the counter, noticing the wedding band along his left ring finger. “married? hm, so that little girl here earlier, your daughter, i presume.” you mused, hand instinctively moving to fidget with the silver necklace that sat just above your cleavage.

the man’s eyes were quick to glance, then back up to your eyes.

“married, one could say that, yeah.” he quickly dodged the topic, looking away then to you. “listen, ‘m sure y’r daddy wouldn’t have wanted you to leave so soon,” he paused like there was a preposition sitting against his tongue for you. “stay and work f’me for the summer. promise to make it worth your while.”

the promise was far from empty, and there was a sudden drop in his voice as he stood closer, resting his forearms against the counter.

if you had half a mind, you’d think he was flirting with you.

 ╴⊹ꮺ˚

the longer you stayed, the hotter you were. 

a realization struck you the same week, you had no clothes, causing you to take a trip to whatever boutique there was in town.

bo had given you a place to stay, in return which you take care of regular things in the store.

managing storage, holding great customer service, and cleaning up every now and then. he claimed you were the best employee he ever had, which you always brushed off because you were the only employee outside of his daughter, whom you had managed to break down and befriend. despite the age gap between the two of you.

in your time working for him, you realized you never saw grace much because she owned the same association but for whites.

one quiet night, you stood behind the register, bent over with your forearms holding you up. you messed with the kinky curl of your hair in front of your face, bored out of your mind as the sun went down. 

you watched as the grandfather clock face told you the time was a little past 7:30, making your eyes roll at how much time was left until you had to close.

honestly, you had no idea why you agreed to stay. maybe it was the little convincing and charming face that was asking you to, or the fact that every part of this town had your childhood written around it, painting nostalgia every time you walked around. 

the door to what you grew to know as the storage room flew open, and an evidently exhausted bo chow stepped out. 

the way the door slammed behind him was enough to knock the neighboring shelves off the walls.

it drew your attention right to him. “rough day?” a stupid question, but it just slipped out, creating an even more hollow silence between the two of you.

“g’nna close up early, tonigh’. not really in the mood right now.” his answers were short and distant; there was definitely more to them, but you hated prying, as much as you wanted to. 

as he flipped the small sign at the door and locked up, his hand lingered against the handles.

in a blink, he was pulling a cigarette to his lips, lighting it as he walked towards the register, standing behind it, near you.

his proximity was close, way too close.

the silence was enough to drown you both, and it was toxic, along with the strong smell of his cigarette.

“you smoke, sug’? bet ya they ain’t got cigarettes as good as these up in the city.” bo teased you, a dynamic you grew familiar with the weeks you’d been here. 

all you did was shake your head in response, quickly running your tongue against your lips that were suddenly growing dry.

if there was one thing guaranteed, it was that he always managed to grow some kind of gut-punching feeling in the pit of your stomach. you weren’t accustomed, but you knew you’d have to get used to it.

every time he discarded the smoke out of his nose or from between his lips, it hit you right in the face, choking a cough out of you. each time you coughed up, he stifled out a laugh, letting more smoke escape his lips.

this moment felt too intimate, a soft blush dared to creep up against the caramel tint of your skin. despite the dark lighting that fell through the store, he noticed it. and that added more fuel to the fire.  

“y’know, darlin’, i’ve been studyin’– and if i had half a brain, i’d think y’fancy me.” bo’s voice had dropped an octave and he was growing a few inches closer than before.

you could hear your heart beat in your ears and taste it on your tongue, eyes wide in shock as if you had heard him incorrectly.

lips parted in shock, all you could do was stare up at him through your lashes and let out a shy “huh?” in disbelief.

it wasn’t that he had gotten your actions lost in translation. you were beyond attracted to him, but you were so used to men disregarding you and being mistreated simply because of how you differed to all the paler women up north.

a still silence fell, and the cigarette sat still between the corner of his lips, eyes entranced solely on you. “c’mon. don’t gotta play dumb with me, peach. ‘m much older than you. i can tell when a girl's got a lil’ crush.” his voice was hypnotizing, like melted butter being spread across toast. 

and that fucking accent.

“i– you’ve got it mixed up, mr.chow–” your voice betrayed you, sounding much more desperate than intended. his name rolling off your tongue like some sort of sonnet. 

it earned a soft smile from him, a free hand cautiously sliding to your back, stabilizing you against his chest. your hands instinctively pressed against his chest as if you were going to push away, which wasn’t the case.

bo discarded of his cigarette, pressing against it on the floor to make sure it was out, then his attention was all on you. the way your eyes were big and full of longing, full lips parted in shock.

you were so sweet and he was beyond ready to ruin it. the good girl act you had and the way you addressed him, it hit a weak spot he didn’t even know he had. 

 ╴⊹ꮺ˚

seconds fastened into minutes and you two were tangled into a sensual yet sloppy make out session at the foot of the store, your backside pressed against the edge of the counter, his hands grabbing at anything they could.

bo was beside himself, enjoying the noises you made against his lips and the way your body was flushed against his as if you were scared to let go. 

“ya taste as good as you look. so fuckin’ sweet.” his voice rang between your ears, thick and slow, the praise taunting you by pooling even more arousal against the sheer texture of your undergarments.

he managed to be delicate, cautious but sensual and hungry at the same time. 

the harder he kissed you, the more you became slack in his arms.

it was safe to say you were far used to this kind of physical attention, you just hoped that it wasn’t obvious.

your hands stayed their place flat on his chest, momentarily sliding up to his shoulders and back, as if you were massaging him, too anxious to move anywhere else in worry of making the wrong move.

when the kiss came to a stop, bo was the one to stop it, a trail of both your saliva’s connecting you two, making him let out a soft, breathless laugh. his hand stood it’s place on the small of your back, teasing a bit lower but not fully.

the way he was staring at you was different than any look he had given you before, his eyes were low and the look behind them was short from respectful and it lit some kind of fire in you.

because the longer he stared, the hotter you grew. before you could form another thought, you were wrapping an arm around his neck, tugging him down to kiss him again, your free hand setting against the counter behind you for stabilization.

while the kiss grew, he parted your leg with his knee setting your hips to adjust and sit on top of his leg. the more his lips ate at yours, the more he pushed his knee against your core, spiking a peak of pleasure throughout your entire body, earning him a moan from you that was muffled by his mouth.

you felt him smile against your lips, consequently feeling a lot of other things. your body simultaneously betrayed you, your hips realizing that the friction of his limb beneath your cunt brought a different kind of pleasure, causing you to slowly rock them back and forth against him.

as he pressed your body against the counter, with a free hand, bo began to unbutton your blouse until it was sliding off your shoulders. when your breasts were exposed to the humid air of the shop, he wasn’t short to latching his lips against them.

the pleasure became way too much to handle, body heating up and hips rutting faster against his thigh as he helped, shifting his leg up higher each time you rode. his tongue flicked against your aching bud, drawing strangled moans from deep in your throat.

he was abusing your chest, biting, sucking, and lapping his tongue against any exposed peace of skin while his free hand gripped your ass cheek, helping you move your hips.

the more you fucked against his leg, the better everything felt. the sensation of his mouth and his thigh was making you beyond dizzy.

you could barely make up any thoughts. “tha’s it, baby. finish all over me. j’s like that, sugar.” bo was muttering now in your ear, fingers playing with your nipple as he kissed against your neck.

the barrier between your reasonable thinking and lust were completely broken and everything you did was past you. hands gripping at his clothed back for stability as you fucked yourself against his leg.

you were a shriveling, hot, and moaning mess. it felt way too good, the way he managed to rut your hips for you against him, his hot breath against your neck and his words of encouragement that you could hardly understand.

that was when you felt it, the thick knot in your stomach snapped and you let out something that would only be identified as a yowl.

“there ya go, princ’ss, jus’ like that.” bo grunted against your jaw, licking a stripe against the side of your neck then biting down gently against the skin.

he kept moving your hips for you until your automatic movements became staggered.

you rode your orgasm with pride, back arched and jaw slack as strings of moans left your lips. whatever you were staring at before quickly became splotched into white sparks as your eyes rolled into the back of your head.

coming down from your high, your body grew limp against his, his hands caging you in as he held you, slowly removing his leg from in between yours. 

he placed a soft kiss on your temple after moving hair behind your ear, soft curls sticking onto the sweat at the sides of your face. you looked like a mess, curls frizzy from the peak in humidity and lips stuck apart, a bit of drool sitting on the corner of your mouth.

it made a soft smile twitch against his lips.

“you good?” bo asked you quietly, speaking in a low tone as if him speaking louder would startle you. 

all you did was hum a soft ‘mhm’, your forehead velcroed to his shoulder, resting there as everything you just did hit you like a bus.

bo could read the room, despite not being able to see your expression. “ain’t got nothin’ to be embarrassed about. i liked it jus’ as much as you did.” he admitted, not any sign of dishonesty in his tone.

and it was true, because as you stared down, you noticed the harsh tent peaking through his slacks, accompanied by a wet spot right at the tip of it.

your head quickly perked up, looking up at him through your eyelashes as you palmed him through his pants. causing him to tense up in surprise, brows raised when his eyes met yours.

“what’re we going to do about that?” a rhetorical question but it made him suck his bottom lip between his teeth, shaking his head.

he pressed another kiss on your lips, breathing against your mouth as he spoke up. “yer g’nna be the death of me.”

[pbpressure]

the hat stays on | p.b

pairing: paige bueckers x fem!reader

warnings: smut, a lick of fluff, fingering, reader gets some really good head, overstimulation, dom!paige, sub!reader, degradation (reader absolutely has a humilitation kink), praise, spanking, spit, strap sex + riding, and there's some tears but it hardly counts as crying, i think that's all...let me know if i missed anything!

wc: 4k-ish

summary: to see paige being celebrated for all that she's accomplished this season sends your emotions into a frenzy. but there's one thing you can't seem to shake...the hat she's given to celebrate that final four ticket punch. and how badly you want her to bend you over while she's wearing it.

author's note: my april fools prank is that i’m posting this after saying i was gonna disappear! i was just waiting for this season's version of post elite 8 paige and obviously we know the impact of her in a hat. here’s something to hold you guys (and myself) over for now, managed to put this together literally within a few hours and did my best to proofread but forgive me if anything slipped!

as always feedback is appreciated <3

enjoy! x

if there was ever a time to be ravenous, realistically it wasn’t now. but you couldn’t help it.

after paige and the team punched their ticket to the final four, the way that the crowd erupted was electric. the confetti, the speeches, the hugs, the tears. it was monumental. but as emotional of a moment it had been, you could only focus on one thing.

paige in that stupid hat.

her entire demeanor changed when it hit the top of her head. as usual she was all jokes, but there was no denying that you were yearning to be beneath her just as she was right now. 

you’d stood back and waited for what felt like hours.

interviews, pictures, congratulations from friends and family. it rightfully couldn’t wait, so that meant you had to.  

but when paige is finally done and she locks eyes with you from across the hall you feel like you’re the only two around.

walking over as calm as you can manage to avoid looking dramatic, you immediately are engulfed in her arms. she lifts you from the ground momentarily and spins around, not missing the way you giggle, chanting “you did it!” with the gummiest smile imaginable on your face.

“babe, oh my god i’m so proud of you!” you squeak from excitement, still partially buried in her chest.

she kisses the top of your head, pulling you back from her body so she could get a good look at you.

“thank you for coming, baby, it means the world to have you here right now.”

“you know i wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

when you finish your sentence, voice low and filled with admiration, you watch paige’s gaze soften even more. 

then she’s bending down to place a kiss on your lips.

it’s gentle, sweet, and when you both pull apart you can’t help but smile again. feeling the love radiate off of her.

but then you look up beyond her eyes, immediately catching sight of the reason you’d been so eager to sit and watch her do media for an hour.

“it’s the hat, huh?” paige breaks your thought, raising her eyebrows all too knowingly.

you nod, licking your lips unintentionally and smirking when you watch her eyes flutter downwards and then back up. 

“you like?” she asks again, voice dripping with pride.

“oh, you have no idea.” you grumble, rolling your eyes playfully and lowering your hands to her hips.

but she knew exactly what she was doing.

paige can feel you squeeze her slightly, signaling that there was more desperation behind you’d said.

you stand up on your toes, getting as close to her ear as you can before she meets you halfway. covering your mouth with a single hand, the next few words to leave your mouth aren’t a shock at all.

“i want you to fuck me in it. i need you to.”

and before you can return to your true height, paige is the one grabbing your hips now, holding you so you remain close and it’s her leaning towards your ear this time.

“then when i get home, you better be laid out and waiting.”

your eyes go wide, not having expected that to be her response. but you compose yourself, pulling away from her completely and nodding. you squeeze her hand out of habit before turning and getting out of the arena as fast as possible.

you knew you’d have plenty of time to get back before she did, but you were rushing for your own sake.

you’re not sure how much time passes, but as soon as you shut the door behind you you’re already shedding layers of clothing. 

stopping when you’re just in your bra and panties you lay on the bed, the air in the room biting at your exposed skin.

you stare at the ceiling for god knows how long before you hear the door once again being unlocked, then it opens and closes.

the sound of paige’s footsteps made you swallow hard, the anticipation eating away at you.

when she enters the room you almost don’t want to lift your head to look at her, but you have to and you’re glad you do. 

her skin is still flushed, she’s wearing the same shirt, just with sweats instead of her uniform shorts. the sweats hang low on her hips and you know that if she raises her arms just slightly your eyes will be met with the waistband of her underwear.

and of course the hat stayed on. she essentially promised you that it would.

you press your thighs together unknowingly, trying to relieve the pulsing between them. but she’s not pleased with that, crossing the room in just a few strides until she’s stood in front of you. 

with a strong hand she smacks at your knee before placing the same hand between them and pushing outwards until your legs fall open again. 

“i wish you could see yourself right now,” she utters, chuckling. “legs spread, pussy begging to get fucked. it’s a little pathetic.”

you don’t say anything back, but you whine and reach your hand out for her. that’s smacked away too.

“use your words, c’mon.”

“paige, please? i waited all night, i even laid here like you asked.” your voice is barely above a whisper, but it sounds distraught enough.

the same hand that had just swatted yours away is now tracing up and down your right leg. her touch is feather light, you feel goosebumps raising to the surface of each spot she grazes.

up and down your knee, the outside of your thigh. up your hip back down and then towards your cunt that was sopping wet without a doubt. she ignores that though, trailing her fingers up and down the inside of your thigh now.

you’re panting, try not to make too much noise. but also growing extremely impatient.

“i’ll tell you what,” paige blurts out, pausing her hand as well. “let’s see how long you can go without tappin’ out. i’ll decide when and IF you get to take my dick tonight.” 

you whimper, already thinking about the various ways you wanted to protest. but she doesn’t even let you begin.

“or i could leave you here like this? go celebrate with my teammates and let you figure out how you’re gonna cum.”

“no! please, do something.” you beg, leaning up even further on your elbows.

paige bends down until her nose is kissing yours, you can feel her breath mingling with your own jagged ones.

“you’re begging already? this sound be fun.” she says, the grin on her lips as arrogant as ever.

you don’t get much time to gather yourself again before she’s on her knees in front of you. she wasted no time hooking her fingers into your panties and pulling them down your legs. 

when your bare cunt is exposed you get the urge to shut your legs, but the thought is long gone when you hear paige hiss below you.

“you’re this wet already and i haven’t even done anything. i must really get you hot, hmm?” she laughs. it almost enrages you but then you’re reminded of your current position.

“i’ve only ever gotten this wet for you.”

your voice is shaky, but she can hear you loud and clear.

“i know.” 

she wraps her arms around your thighs completely, pulling you closer. then her mouth is on you in a heartbeat.

“shit! p-paige slow down,” you don’t even believe those words leave your mouth. but after waiting so long, you think you’ve got a good three minutes in you before you cum. “FUCK!” 

she says nothing, tongue messy and fast between your folds. the sounds that quickly fall onto your ears only adding to the way she was doing a number on you.

you feel a gush of wetness leak from you and paige groans against your clit, tongue quick to lap it up.

you’re a mess, you try your best to compose yourself but it’s no use. 

“p, you’re so good! fuck, d-don’t stop.”

she had no plans to stop, but when you beg her not to she is certain that she won’t give up until her jaw is on fire.

you crane your neck to sneak a peek at her and you choke on a moan.

the only thing you can see is her head slightly bobbing.

of course covered by her hat.

you reach down, hands looking to grip onto something the best they can manage. you’ve got one hand cradling the side of her head and the other on top of it.

“just like that baby, i’m so close!” you yelp, head falling backwards into the mattress once more.

“i know.” she says for the second time tonight. except this time to emphasize she pulls back completely, taking a breath and forcibly ejecting a wad of spit from between her lips. it falls in a hot glob onto your clit and you think your heart stops for a moment.

you gasp, back arching off the bed completely.

“oh my god! paige–“ you mewl, eyes rolling so far into the back of your head that you swear you’re unconscious for a split second.

the lewdness of the act is what pushes you over the edge. you cum, so much that you should probably be embarrassed. but you couldn’t even blame yourself.

paige was meant to eat pussy. she knew how good she was at it too, never missing the opportunity to get between your legs.

you feel a slight sheen of sweat covering your entire body and your toes curl, your body trembling slightly. static in your limbs.

when paige doesn’t pull away you cry out, trying to pry her head away from you. this earns you another smack on your thigh.

she pulls away, lips glistening and the remnants of your first orgasm all over her chin.

“already? you’re done?” she asks, out of breath herself, and her eyes blown out now.

“n-no i just need a second.”

“that’s not what the deal was. don’t push me away again unless you really want me to stop. because i will.” she pants, her head lowering again.

opting to say nothing and save yourself you’re biting your lip so hard that you’re sure it’ll draw blood. 

paige begins lapping at your cunt again, intending to leave nothing behind. you feel her using two of her fingers to part your folds, ensuring that the tip of her tongue would reach every inch of you.

those same fingers circle your hole teasingly, only to slip in with ease.

your throat burns from how vocal you’ve already been, but that doesn’t stop you from whimpering when you feel paige’s digits knuckle deep in you.

“you’re so deep baby, fuck! j-just like that i–“ whatever else you were gonna say dies on the tip of your tongue when paige curls her fingers upwards. 

without pulling her fingers from you she rises from her knees slightly, wanting to watch you come undone for a second time.

“i think i know this pussy better than you do, what do you think?” paige asks, groaning at the end of her sentence when she feels how you clench around her fingers.

“yes! yes, yes, yes!” that’s the only thing you can come up with, her fingers are jamming against that spongy spot inside you over and over. you can’t think.

“give me one more, i know you can.” she demands, not at all considering that you’d deny her that.

you open your eyes for a split second and immediately close them when you see her already looking right back at you. 

“i-i can’t p! please.” you plead, already sure that your second orgasm was seconds away.

“take it.”

and you do, almost knocking her over with the way your lower body starts to thrash around.

thankfully she’s grounded, and much stronger than you. when she catches herself she had to hold you down until your orgasm started to subside.

in the midst of finishing you have no idea what you’re saying but it doesn’t matter, paige knows she’s doing everything just right.

she slips her fingers out of you and watches your cunt intently and it contracts around nothing at all. 

she can feel how wet she is herself and realizes that as much as she’s enjoying watching you fall apart, she needs to hurry up and fuck you because she had half a mind to cum in her pants.

noticing how your breathing starts to return to normal, she’s quick to leave the bed. 

you feel her get up, but you don’t question it. opening your eyes and blinking to adjust to the light in the room. failing to realize just how spent you were, tears blur your vision. you don’t even remember crying.

but when your eyes land on paige approaching the bed again, you easily spot the addition that she’s carrying.

her strap.

your stomach is hot once again, and you do your best to avoid eye contact. but it doesn’t matter because she’s quick to grab you by your chin forcing you to look at her.

“we’re not done, and i know you can. so i don’t wanna hear it.”

not trusting any real words to leave your mouth if you had opened it, you gulp. pleading to the girl in front of you with just your eyes.

she’s standing at full height over your body, the silicone hanging on her hips. you feel yourself getting antsy, itching to satisfy her in whatever way you could.

you ignore your limbs screaming in exhaustion and struggle to kneel in front of her. you sit there for a second, staring. again stuck on how annoyingly good she looked in that damn hat.

“well?” she urges, clearly growing impatient with you. “it’s not gonna suck itself.”

you take her in your hand, now angled towards your parted lips. 

it’s heavy when it hits your tongue and you moan at the familiar feeling, the vibrations traveling straight to paige’s clit.

gradually taking inch by inch into your mouth you don’t stop until you’re gagging, your nose meets the base of the harness. paige’s hand is in your hair, assisting you in bobbing your head up and down her cock just the way she liked it.

she lets out the occasional sigh of satisfaction, cooing at the way you look up at her with tears in your eyes. she thrusts forward until the tip hits the back of your throat. 

more tears.

“you look so pretty like this.” she confesses, the hand in your hair moving to cradle your cheek. but she thrusts into your mouth again, throwing her head back at the gurgling sound that leaves you.

forcing you to pull off of her with a pop she guides you to sit on your knees fully before nodding her head and singling for you to turn over.

a small puff of air leaves your lips when you’re flush against the mattress in the new position and you don’t even need her to ask you anything else before you’re rising onto your hands and knees, back arched.

“good girl.” she hisses, her hand coming down hard on your ass cheek. 

you gasp, body jolting at the contact. but you can’t help the way you wait for another one. getting off on the sting as long as paige was the one inflicting it.

she’s leaning over your body until her front is pressed against your back and her mouth is right next to your ear.

“i know you like this shit, that’s the only reason why i do it.” she starts, spanking you again before she keeps talking. “i love you enough to fuck you like i hate you.”  she kisses your neck. it’s hot, wet. and when she pulls away you already miss the feeling of her lips there.

you whine, pressing your hips back to grind against her. this earns you one final spank, and she laughs this time when your body jerks forward.

when the tip of her is prodding at you, your mouth waters at the familiar feeling.

you choke on a sob when she thrusts forward once, immediately bottoming out. your two previous orgasms made the intrusion painless.

she only pulls back and forces her hips forward twice before her pace picks up, and you have to fight to hold yourself up.

“swallowing this shit whole, damn.”

“i-it feels so good, p! fuck– you’re perfect.” you ramble, just caught up in how deep you could feel her.

“maybe i should take a picture, so you can look back at it later?”

you moan, almost nodding too. not even sure what you could’ve possibly said in response.

“yeah? you like that? need you to remember just how good i fuck you, since you were begging for it so bad.” 

her hands are on your hips for leverage and now she’s plowing into you. you feel your tits beneath you  with each strike of her hips on your rear.

paige is holding out, but barely. the end of the toy that’s inside of her is the relief she finally needed. each time her hips meet yours her clit throbs a little more. 

when you hear how she’s struggling to hold in her own noises you look over your shoulder.

“like what you see?” she pants, words punctuated with a thrust.

“p-paige, i don’t know how much longer i–.” you basically plead, reaching down to fondle your clit with trembling fingers.

“doesn’t matter. take it.”

your head lulls forward, and you almost topple over at the force in which she was fucking you.

when she angles her hips slightly you have to claw at the sheets attempting to pull yourself together. the moan that leaves your mouth is pornographic.

you’re a babbling mess, begging to cum and shaking your head from side to side, knowing it was zero use.

you didn’t want her to stop, so she wasn’t going to.

“am i fucking you dumb, baby?” she groans, throwing her head back when she notices you reaching down to play with your clit.

she can’t tell if you’re nodding or if she’s just fucking you that hard and you can’t stop your head from bobbling, but she loves it.

“i know you’re almost there, c'mon. give it to me.” she says, close enough to the edge herself.

and you don’t need her to say much else before your head is buried into the mattress and you’re crying out for her like she’s not right behind you.

a puddle of spit grows beneath you due to the fact that you can’t keep your mouth closed.

her thrusts slow but they don’t still, and at this point you think you’re gonna pass out.

“pussy’s so pretty, just begging for more and more. no matter how much you swear you’re done.” paige pants, her hands leaving your hips and she pulls out of you before turning you over on your back again. 

she uses her strap to slap your clit that’s as swollen as ever.

you try to shut your legs once more but her hands force them open.

then she takes two of her fingers, coating them in the mess leaking from you and brings them to her lips.

your mouth falls open in disbelief, and she winks at you before pulling her fingers from her mouth.

she leans down, and you know she wants you to taste yourself. when her lips meet yours you moan into her mouth, her tongue shoved between your lips immediately.

you feel greedy, sucking on her tongue and you don’t know if you’re trying to taste more of your cum on her lips or just so eager to finally get another kiss from her.

she pulls back from the kiss abruptly with a smack. of course she’s smiling, full of herself. both of you have swollen lips and chins that show with a mixture of saliva and the rest of your release from before.

then she’s sitting beside you, her hands on your legs before she forces you on top of her. 

you feel like dead weight but she can handle it.

“gotta give me one more baby, i want you to ride it.” she utters, her voice is low and she’s clearly not asking, but telling you what’s about to happen.

you weakly plant your knees on the sides of her hips, your thighs already burn, your cunt is puffy and still coated with the remnants of a few minutes ago.

“last one, you promise?” you plead, your head so heavy that when you lift it to fully look at her your neck aches.

“promise.” she chuckles, helping you situate yourself over the tip of the strap once more. 

you can’t help the way that your hands push her shirt up, revealing her toned abdomen. you tut in disbelief at just how perfect she was, biting your lip.

before you can sink down she places a hand on your hip, stopping you.

you look up at her in a mix of confusion and protest. just as eager for her to be inside of you as she was.

then you watch her lift her head from the mattress, just so that she could remove the infamous hat from her head. only for her to place it on yours.

your cheeks feel hot, and you’re waiting for her to signal you to sink down onto her. 

all it takes is a tilt of her chin before you’re lowering yourself slowly, hissing at the feeling and then throwing your head back when you realize just how deep inside you could feel her.

the burn is intense, but it sets your body on fire in a way that is indescribable. you swore you could feel the tip of her strap kissing your ribs.

careful not to let the hat fall off of your head you hold onto it by the brim with one hand, starting to rock your hips.

paige wasn’t going to rush you this time. she just wanted to watch you use her to get off.

“you look–fuck, b-better in it than i do.” she managed to say, stuttering when she felt her puffy clit being shoved against the part of the harness that was currently connecting both of you.

“doubt it.” you groan, already starting to feel that familiar heat in your gut for the fourth time tonight.

paige’s hands are gripping your hips, ensuring that you keep a steady rhythm. her moans were getting louder, breathier, and they mixed with yours to echo off the walls. 

you know you’re making a mess on her when you feel  your ass getting wetter and wetter everytime it meets the base of her cock.

“you’re doing so good for me, baby. f–fuck, you’re a pro. my pro.” 

every bit of praise from her lips is fueling you to bounce faster, and grind your hips down harder.

“my good girl.” she whispers, watching how your eyes squeeze shut. you’re riding her like your life depends on it. 

just like she wanted.

“i-i’m close p..i’m so close baby, shit!” you cry, reaching down to grab her hand and place it on your chest. she doesn’t need you to say anything else before she’s tweaking your nipples in each of her hands, reeling in the way your body reacts to such a little thing.

“yeah? cum for me, pretty girl.” she practically begs, knowing that the moment you’re gone, so is she.

those last two words are enough for you. your entire body goes numb, the pleasure coating you from head to toe. you can tell paige is cumming too just from the way that her hands fly back down to your hips and hold you there, ensuring that the end of the toy that’s inside of her continues to press against that spot that both of you know all too well.

you look down to where the two of your bodies meet and you have to look away, knowing that this could go on all night until you were physically unable to move anymore.

you fall forward onto her, not pulling the strap out of you just yet. needing to marinate in all that had just happened. 

when you do finally lift your hips until it falls from between your folds, both you and paige are watching as it smacks onto her stomach, your release glistening on her skin.

she has to assist you in laying next to her, but does it nonetheless. you help her in removing the harness from her hips and you toss it off to the side, just wanting to be tangled up with her already.

you feel yourself grinning when she places her arm around you, realizing that the hat was still on your head.

you didn’t dare lift your hand to remove it, and neither did paige. clearly you both had enjoyed it quite a bit, maybe even too much. 

regardless of who it was on.

[catchastarorten]

—“This one’s mine.”

Pairing: Hwang Jun-ho x VIP!fem!reader

Summary: after being pestered by your own brother, you agreed to accompany him to the island to watch the games, only to find yourself helping a waiter—Jun-ho—who was being eyed by a creepy panther-masked VIP.

Warnings: your sarcasm, mentions of death/violence in Glass Bridge, your brother is a VIP, brother & sister bickering/you put him in his place because he's being annoying, the VIPs—panther masked VIP being a weirdo, you save Jun-ho tho, English isn’t my first language, mistakes should be present, not proofread, sorry!

Word count: ~ 2.6k

The golden fox mask felt heavy on your face, pressing against your skin in a way that made you want to rip it off and toss it across the room. But that would be improper, wouldn’t it? A VIP must maintain decorum. At least, that’s what your insufferable little brother kept reminding you.

Speaking of him, he was sitting beside you, his wolf mask barely concealing the delighted smirk on his face as he leaned forward, watching the players stumble and fall to their deaths on the Glass Bridge. He laughed—actually laughed—when a man made the wrong choice out of the two and jumped, crashing through the wrong glass panel, screaming all the way down.

You sighed, swirling the drink in your glass, watching the liquid catch the dim light. It was infinitely more interesting than the so-called “game” before you.

How had you let brother dearest drag you here? Oh, right. He had whined and pouted and gone on and on about how you never did anything fun with him. You had rolled your eyes so hard it was a miracle they hadn’t gotten stuck in your skull, but against your better judgment, you agreed.

And now here you were, surrounded by a bunch of snobby men—your presence wasn’t nearly enough to balance out the testosterone levels—draped in velvet robes, sipping on the finest liquor, and betting on desperate people fighting for their lives.

You suppressed a yawn.

“This is so much better than another charity gala, isn’t it?” your brother drawled, nudging your arm. “You have to admit, this is real entertainment.”

“Yeah, watching poor people die really warms the heart,” you said dryly.

“Don’t be such a bore, sis,” he said, rolling his eyes. “This is tradition. You should be honored to be here.”

Oh, you were honored, alright. Honored that your parents left everything to him, making sure he had enough money to play dress-up with his rich little friends while you had to fight for your own wealth. Not that you needed their inheritance, but the principle of it still burned. He got to be the spoiled prince while you had to claw your way up in the world. And now here he was, wasting it all on cheap thrills.

The Glass Bridge game was nearing midway. The players were hesitating, trying to strategize their way across. The VIPs around you were buzzing with excitement, shouting bets, clapping, drinking like it was the biggest sports event of the decade. But all you saw were walking corpses, their fear so thick in the air it nearly masked the expensive cologne in the room.

You took another sip of your drink, letting the burn coat your throat.

“At least pretend like you’re having fun,” your brother whined. “People are gonna think you’re some kind of a… prude.”

“Oh no.” you responded mockingly.

He huffed, crossing his arms like a petulant child. If there was one thing he hated, it was not getting his way. You could practically hear the gears turning in his spoiled little mind, trying to come up with a way to make you enjoy this, but his thoughts were interrupted when the other VIPs erupted into cheers and groans. You just exhaled through your nose, staring at the mess.

It was the players on the glass bridge, arguing, too afraid to jump. One shoved another forward, out of desperation or malice. The man screamed as he plunged to his death.

“Ugh, finally,” your brother muttered. “I hate when they hesitate. Just jump, you cowards!”

You turned your head slightly, studying him. Did he even realize how pathetic he sounded? Lounging in a silk robe, sneering at people who had nothing? He wouldn’t last a minute in their position.

“You should play,” you mused, tilting your head. “Next year.”

He snorted. “Please, I would dominate these games.”

You smiled behind your mask. “Would you?”

Your brother scoffed. “You doubt me?”

“I know you,” you said. “And you wouldn’t make it past the first round.”

He looked genuinely offended. “I’d make it to the finals, at least.”

You leaned in, voice dropping. “Tell you what. If you join next year, I’ll bet against you. Just to make it interesting.”

He rolled his eyes, muttering something under his breath. But you saw it—the flicker of doubt, of fear. As much as he enjoyed watching, he knew very well he would never survive playing.

And that? That was the only entertaining thing you’d seen all night.

A moment later, your eyes flicked toward the Panther-masked VIP, whose frustration over losing a bet had quickly turned into something much more unpleasant. His focus had shifted from the game to the waiter standing stiffly beside him—a waiter who, you observed, wasn’t moving quite like the other servers.

You weren’t an idiot. The way that waiter hesitated when he was called, the way his shoulders were a little too tense, the way his hands remained perfectly still as if not used to serving—it all screamed of someone who didn’t belong.

That was because he wasn’t really a waiter, it was Jun-ho disguised as one, though you didn’t know that. He had taken down one of the servers moments before the VIPs arrived on the island.

And now, the Panther-masked VIP was ordering him to sit beside him and take off his mask.

Jun-ho—recognizing the sharpness in his tone—tried to resist, his voice calm. “I need to serve the other guests, sir.”

The Panther VIP scoffed, waving his hand dismissively. “Oh, come now, the others won’t mind if I keep this one for myself, will they?”

A chorus of laughter and amusement rippled through the room, the other VIPs agreeing without a care—“he’s all yours!” one of them laughed. Your brother even chuckled beside you, raising his glass as if this was all just another part of the entertainment.

You, however, did not find it amusing.

Before Jun-ho could be forced into something he clearly wanted no part of, you lazily raised your hand and gestured toward your glass.

“I need a refill,” you said smoothly.

Jun-ho’s eyes darted toward you, wary but sharp, understanding immediately that you were giving him an out.

Your brother groaned, shifting beside you. “Come on, sis, let him have his fun—”

Your hand shot out, swatting him hard against his arm before he could finish his whining.

He yelped, rubbing his arm. “Ow! What the—?”

“Shut up.”

He opened his mouth like he wanted to argue, but the look you gave him through your golden fox mask was enough to make him think better of it. He slumped back into the couch with a huff, grumbling under his breath.

The Panther-masked VIP tsked in annoyance but didn’t say more as Jun-ho bowed his head slightly and stepped away from him, making his way toward you. You could see the tension in his shoulders ease, if only slightly.

As he reached your couch, he carefully took your glass and poured you another drink, his movements slow and precise. Up close, you could see the way his jaw was set tight, his eyes flickering with restraint.

You leaned in slightly as he finished pouring. “You okay?” you murmured, just loud enough for him to hear.

Jun-ho hesitated for the briefest moment before nodding once. “Thank you,” he said quietly, placing your glass back into your hand.

You didn’t reply, just took a slow sip while he stood beside the couch you sat on.

However, the weight of the Panther-masked VIP’s stare was suffocating. You didn’t even have to look to know that he was still watching Jun-ho like a predator eyeing its next meal.

Annoyed, you turned your head ever so slightly, locking eyes with him through your golden fox mask. You raised your glass in a slow, mocking salute before downing the rest of your drink in one smooth motion.

The message was clear: Back off.

Unfortunately, subtlety was wasted on men like him.

“Come back here,” the Panther VIP drawled, waving his fingers in a lazy command at Jun-ho.

Jun-ho’s grip on the bottle in his hands tightened slightly, his body as still as a statue. It was subtle, but you caught it. He didn’t want to go back over there.

So, before he could even think about stepping forward, you reached out and grabbed his forearm, holding him in place. Your fingers pressed firmly against the fabric of his uniform—a silent message that he could stay with you.

You sat up straighter, your voice cutting through the noise.

“This one’s mine.”

The room went quiet for a beat.

Jun-ho stiffened beside you, clearly taken aback. You didn’t mean it in the way it sounded—he wasn’t a possession. But these men only responded to power plays, and if that was the language they spoke, then fine. You’d speak it fluently.

Your brother let out a low whistle beside you, his amusement clear. “Ohhh, big sis is getting bold.”

You didn’t even hesitate—your palm struck his arm again with a sharp thwack.

“Ow!” he rubbed where you smacked him.

“Shut up,” you muttered, leveling him with a glare. “If you don’t stop embarrassing yourself, I’ll give you a real beating in front of all these people.”

He grumbled something under his breath, soothing his arm, but he didn’t push it further.

The Panther VIP, however, was not so easily prevented. “Come now,” he chuckled, though there was irritation beneath his voice. “You can’t hoard all the fun.”

“Sure, I can,” you replied dryly.

A few of the other VIPs laughed at that, enjoying the exchange. The Panther VIP let out a breath through his nose, clearly displeased, but he wasn’t about to pick a fight with another VIP. That was the unspoken rule—annoyance was fine, but outright challenging each other was bad form.

Jun-ho turned his head slightly, just enough to glance at you. You met his eyes for a brief second, and then you stood up, keeping your grip on him firm.

“We’re leaving,” you announced.

Your brother groaned. “What? Where are you going?”

You didn’t even look at him as you responded, voice utterly monotone. “Somewhere that isn’t here.”

More amusement rippled through the other VIPs, some watching with interest, others indifferent as they returned their attention to the game. But as you turned to leave, you felt it—that silent, looming presence watching you.

The Frontman.

He didn’t say a word, didn’t move to stop you. He simply observed, his masked face unreadable.

You met his gaze for a long moment before turning away, leading Jun-ho out of the room. No one stopped you. No one dared to stop you.

And just like that, you stole the only honest man in the room away from the wolves.

The moment you got him alone into a dimly-lit, empty room, you could feel the tension radiating off of him. Jun-ho wasn’t stupid—he knew he didn’t belong here, and he knew that you knew. His shoulders were taut, his breath controlled but just a little too shallow, and his hand was subtly reaching for something. A gun, maybe. A knife. Whatever he had managed to smuggle in.

You raised your hands slowly, showing you had no weapon, no ill intent. “Relax,” you said, your voice calm, softer even. You let go of his arm, stepping back to give him space. “I’m not going to turn you in… or whatever you’re thinking right now.”

Jun-ho’s sharp eyes flickered with suspicion. “And why should I believe that?”

“Because if I was planning to sell you out, I would’ve done it back there.” you tilted your head slightly, crossing your arms loosely. “Would’ve let that old man have his fun.” you said with a hint of distaste at the thought.

That gave him pause. He studied you, his gaze flickering over your golden fox mask, as if trying to gauge whether you were lying, or just the need to understand why a supposed VIP was helping him. You didn’t blame him for being on edge. This entire place was a slaughterhouse dressed up in gold. If you were in his position, you wouldn’t trust anyone either.

“You don’t belong here,” you stated plainly, watching for his reaction.

“And neither do you.”

That actually made you laugh, just a short, soft chuckle. “You’re not wrong.”

He hesitated. Maybe because your mask didn’t hold the same predatory amusement as the others. His fingers twitched, like he was still deciding whether to draw his weapon, but then he let out a slow breath.

You sighed too and gestured toward the door. “You should go. Before someone actually does come looking for you.”

Jun-ho didn’t move right away. He just stood there, looking at you like he was trying to solve a puzzle. And for a brief moment, you could tell—he wanted to ask.

Who are you?

Why are you helping me?

What’s under the mask?

But he didn’t ask. He just gave you a small nod before slipping out the door, disappearing like a shadow. You shut the door.

You exhaled, rolling your shoulders as you turned back toward the empty room. Not even a minute later, a knock came at the door. You raised an eyebrow, opening the door, meeting the presence of a square-masked guard, who stepped inside.

“The Frontman sent me to check on you,” the guard said, his voice hollow under the mask. “Where’s the waiter?”

You gave him a blank look. “What waiter?”

The guard straightened. “The waiter you left with.”

You tilted your head, voice dry. “Oh. Him.” you shrugged lazily. “I got bored. Told him to get lost.”

The square guard didn’t buy it. “Where did he go?”

You sighed, as if this was the most exhausting conversation of your life. “Am I his babysitter?”

The guard didn’t move. He was pushing. You didn’t like being pushed.

So you took a slow step forward, closing the space between you and the guard. He stood his ground, but you could feel the slight hesitation in his stance as you slowly backed him up against the wall.

When his back hit the surface, the shift in atmosphere was instant. You weren’t loud. You weren’t aggressive. But the weight of your presence—the empty, unreadable calm of someone who knew how to lie—was enough to make the guard tense.

You tilted your head slightly, a slow, empty smile forming under your mask. “What exactly are you suggesting?” you murmured, voice smooth as silk. “That I’m hiding something?”

The square guard stiffened.

“Because that would be a very bold accusation to make against a VIP,” you continued, voice dropping to something almost sickly sweet. “And you wouldn’t want to insult a guest, would you?”

There it was—the slight shift in his posture, the hesitation and hint of nervousness.

“I—”

You stepped back, your fake smile still in place. “Good talk,” you said dryly, dusting off your robe like this was nothing more than an inconvenience. “Tell the Frontman to send someone more competent next time.”

The square guard didn’t argue, he just quickly stepped away from the wall, stiffly nodding before leaving the room without another word.

You sighed as the door shut behind him, rubbing a hand against the side of your neck.

This whole thing had been a drag, but at least you’d managed to do one decent thing tonight.

[jaylver]

WE CAN'T BE FRIENDS (WAIT FOR YOUR LOVE) — P.SH

SYNOPSIS: Loving someone was easy, but losing them without knowing the truth was far from easy. How Park Sunghoon returned into your life wasn’t the same as what you had in mind. The heartbreak you experienced over the years he was gone had materialised and was haunting you wherever you went. Dealing with your emotions wasn’t enough when Sunghoon was there, waiting for your love. You knew you had two choices to overcome this: either to regret loving him and lose him yet again, or to rediscover your love for him.  

PAIRINGS: writer!sunghoon x editor!afab!reader

GENRE: exes to lovers, angst, romance, slow burn, forced proximity

WARNING(S): mentions of drinking/alcohol, profanities, (lots of) miscommunication

WC: 25k

PLAYLIST: we can't be friends (wait for your love) by ariana grande, back to friends by sombr, the great war by taylor swift

AUTHOR'S NOTE: first fic of 2025! a quite lengthy one too! can't believe time is passing by so quicky, and i haven't been posting since november TT hope you enjoy this one where i (tried my best) to pour every emotion into! please leave a feedback and reblogs are greatly appreciated! muah xx

masterlist | © jaylver 2025 all rights reserved

How did you end up standing in front of your first love after years of not crossing paths?

It should've been just like any other day where you came to work with a cup of coffee in hand, waiting for the day of endless typing and proofreading to end, but somehow, the universe always had a way to surprise you. This surprise, however, was an unfortunate one that would take years for you to recover from. 

“Y/N, meet Park Sunghoon, the author of ‘Chaconne’,” your boss, Miss Lee was smiling ear to ear at eight in the morning at the prospect of having one of the country's biggest authors to be in her publishing house. “Sunghoon, this is Y/N L/N, chief editor. She'll be working with you for your new novel,”

No matter how you tried, you just couldn't reciprocate her enthusiasm. Even if you tried to put on a smile, the muscles on your face failed to cooperate with your mind and it only resulted in a deeper frown forming instead. There, standing before you wasn't the famous author that made a name for himself through his breakout novel, but in actuality, it was your first love, Park Sunghoon.

The same man who left you stranded when you needed him most. The very man that broke your heart and left it in pieces. Those teenage years spent together praying for a future where you and him would chase your dreams side-by-side had gone to waste. To you, it looked as if he was the one who succeeded the most out of the two of you. Was it resentment or anger? It didn't matter what it was, after all it was no use denying that there was an underlying grudge you held for the man who achieved everything he wanted after leaving you with no explanations. After those long years of not seeing him in person, fate managed to play him into your life. How funny.

Sunghoon doesn’t look equally excited to be working with you either. He, too, had an expression that was far from enthusiastic. There was a slight tinge of guilt that you sensed, unless it was a figment of your imagination that told you so. He could barely meet your eyes, an uncomfortable unfamiliarity about him hung in the air. 

No, he wasn't the same Park Sunghoon that you knew. He was probably a stranger. Despite knowing him well in the past, you couldn’t bear to cling onto the small hope that he was who he used to be. If he was, he wouldn’t have left the country without telling you in the first place and proceeded going no contact till the point where the news became your source of confirming he was alive and well, living too well while basking in fresh money from his newly published book. 

“N–new novel?” you looked over at Miss Lee, trying your best to mask the panic in your voice. Out of many publishing houses, must he really choose the one you worked in? What happened to the one publishing his previous books? The question marks were probably written all over your face at some point.

“Yes, a new novel,” Miss Lee affirmed, the unwavering smile sitting perfectly on her expression. “Sunghoon here is planning to publish his new book next year. It’s called ‘Wait For Your Love’. Isn’t that exciting? Anyway, I’ll leave him to you to explain the content, you’ll be working together starting from today onwards. By the way, meeting starts in five minutes, we need to discuss everything about the new book,”

“Right, I’ll get ready,” you watched as your boss disappeared into her own office, heaving a sigh of relief now that she was out of sight and you could finally drop the act of being nice. If anything, you were feeling everything but nice. You met Sunghoon's eyes almost in an instant, the awkward silence filling the space between you and him only made the atmosphere worse. 

Out of decent respect, you bowed your head a little and left to head back to your own workspace, hopefully taking advantage of that five minutes to sort out your thoughts. You took one step forward just to be stopped by him calling your name. The sound of your name coming out of his mouth was something that you dreamt of for ages. However, hearing it in reality seemed to have crushed every part of your fantasy.

“Hey Y/N,”

You turned around, slowly and cautiously. In that split second, a million possible scenarios played out in your mind. Maybe he was finally going to explain himself for leaving you, or what if he was offering an overdue apology? An unmistakable feeling of anticipation and hope swelled in your abdomen. It was all wishful thinking.

There was a faint smile on his lips. The look in his eyes said otherwise with an icy barrier that prevented you from reading him further. He truly has changed. Other than the freshly dyed hair and being a couple inches taller, he remained physically the same man from your past that returned to your life recently, the only difference was that he wasn't someone you knew anymore. 

“I look forward to working with you,”

He was the first to draw the line. 

Just as he's always done, from the point where he disappeared from your life till pretending as if you weren't his first love, he's drawn an invisible line that you failed to realise, an indicator for you to know that you were no longer needed in his life. 

You tried to swallow the lump growing in your throat, blinking back the tears piercing your eyes, the corners of your lips twitching in spite. “Right. I hope everything will work out smoothly.”

Truth be told, you wished you had quit your job instead of facing Park Sunghoon once again.  

There wasn’t a day in your teenage years transitioning to your early 20s where you hadn’t wondered what exactly went wrong, specifically between you and Sunghoon. 

There were countless times you found yourself stuck in endless thoughts of whether it was you who was the one that drove him away. How could he do such a thing to someone he loved? Was it ever truly real? The hurt you experienced was immeasurable, it left a deep cut that was taking forever to heal. Over the last four years since Sunghoon’s departure, you were practically spending your days alone. You were too afraid to get close to anyone to start a serious relationship, neither having the energy to attend those stupid blind dates your friends proposed. All of them were deemed worthless to you anyway, because as much as you hated, dreaded to admit it, some part of you still longed for Sunghoon. 

Now that he was actually here, back in your life, crashing into you and your already fragile mental state with no prior warning, you didn’t think the same as before. You wished he had kept his distance from you. Actually, you wished he had stayed far away in the foreign land he was residing in. 

Luckily for you, it was another Wednesday with a cup of coffee drunk halfway sitting next to your laptop, overly preoccupied with a pile of work to settle to even think about Sunghoon for a second, that was until you were met with your actual task which you should be tackling instead of doing other things in order to avoid it. The bright screen of your laptop displayed the bolded italic letters, ‘WAIT FOR YOUR LOVE’. Just from the title alone, it ignited an odd sense of ill feelings that dreaded you to scroll down further. 

“Hey,” Yunjin tapped you on your shoulder, pulling a chair to sit next to you. She was your coworker that has transcended the tier of being just work friends. You could still remember the first time she introduced herself to you where she accidentally spilled coffee over a newly bought carpet in the office and proceeded to get away by lying. From the point where you promised her you wouldn’t snitch, you somehow built a strong friendship with her.

“What’s up? Lunch break isn’t until an hour later,”

“I know that,” Yunjin broke out in a small smile at the fact you thought she was about to pull you to some new cafe she found. On the contrary, food wasn’t on her mind. She nodded to your laptop, the screen on display with Sunghoon’s name under his book title. “I want to ask about the author,”

“Sunghoon?” 

Yunjin raised an eyebrow at you, looking both inquisitive but also interested. "You say his name so naturally,"

"Do I?" you unconsciously bite the insides of your cheek, a habit you’ve grown to have whenever you are anxious. His name alone was enough to send a wave of anxiety through your bones. It also didn't help that Yunjin pointed out how his name rolled off your tongue like second nature. “Whatever. What's up with him?”

“Were you guys … from the same highschool?” the pause in Yunjin’s sentence before finishing it whole almost caused your heart to stop. You expected her to confront you about your past with Sunghoon knowing how well she utilises social media to her will. Did she manage to dig up your past that you tried so hard to escape from?

“We were,”

“Did you know him well?”

What’s with the sudden interrogation going on?

“Somewhat,” you supposed being vague was the safest way to dodge her question, and it seemed she had taken the bait too.

“I saw you in his old post. You were with him and a bunch of other people too,” Yunjin shrugged, mentioning that ever so nonchalantly, but all you could do at that moment was feel the horrors of knowing she’s seen the picture of you and him together. You were more surprised he kept a remnant of you in his account that he barely posted on. Now that he had gained a reputation for himself, you expected him to have deleted his old posts, but you were wrong. 

“Oh, right. We had mutual friends,”

“Is that so? What was he like? I’m down to get some inside scoop of a famous author’s past,” she raised her eyebrows, displaying a cheeky smirk that told you she was up to no good. Between work gossip was definitely one way to fuel passionate energy for the rest of the day.

“He’s…” what could you even say? Tell the truth about how great of a person he was to you or lie and say something he wasn’t? Either way, that version of him solely existed in the past, there was no longer any credibility to your words if you were to compare the person he was in present times. “He’s alright, I guess? Don’t know him that much,” 

Lies. 

“I was thinking you’d have much more information on this guy. He was in America for years before coming back. No one really knows him much, huh? There’s barely anything about him,”

“I guess you can put it that way.”

Avoidant couldn’t last forever. It was proven by Sunghoon’s presence and his draft waiting for you to be edited once you got back from lunch. The screen was still stuck on the front page just as you’ve left it, only then finding a small bit of courage to scroll down to where the main content lied. Staring at the number of pages you had to read through had pulled a groan out of you, and oddly enough, whether it was a coincidence or not, the three numbers of the total pages was also the date of your birthday. Maybe it was a strange coincidence the same as angel numbers were, except you chose not to believe in whatever hidden meaning it has behind it.

Adjusting the pillow behind your back, you settled into your chair for some hours of reading. The story began with two characters in their youth who befriended each other after an interesting accident, getting closer as they spent more time together, and before you knew it, feelings developed. All of those brought a saddening sense of reminiscence to you, every feeling evoked from his words was strangely familiar, even the characters and storyline were somehow relatable in some ways. How weird. 

The more you read his story, the distance between you and the screen of your laptop only becomes smaller. You couldn't believe what you were comprehending and the things your eyes were reading. It was a retelling of your life story with Sunghoon that was replaced by fictional characters that had turned into a plot that Park Sunghoon could manipulate into whatever he wants. The confession between the characters, their first date, them in college together, every one of those specific scenarios were exactly what you experienced in the past.

Were you just a short, momentary phase in the story of his life?

This was the story that he's planning to publish? Was he playing some sick joke on you by coming to your publishing house in the first place? To let you know that he's written a story about how you and him first met leading up to the part where he left? If this was a way of him explaining his side of a story through fictional characters in some alternate universe, then it's a shit way of saying sorry. 

Slamming your laptop shut, you swallowed down a groan that was threatening to escape. You closed your eyes, wishing you could stop thinking about the draft that brought back a flood of memories that you missed. Even then, you couldn't help picturing those moments you had together, there was a bitter taste in the roof of your mouth at the constant haunting of Park Sunghoon. 

You had no choice, there wasn't any other way to face this. So, your hands moved according to their will, picking up your phone and finding the contact under the name ‘Author Park (BLOCK AFTER)’. One press of a finger and it started to ring. For the first time since his reappearance, you didn't feel an impending sense of doom or even the slightest of weariness. Blinding rage at his audacity played a role in it. 

“Mr Park, I have some things to discuss with you about the draft.”

Sitting before your ex lover, now a renowned author that you're working with was a foreign and incomprehensible concept. 

Agreeing to meet up at a cafe was probably a good choice. The awkward silence between you and him was masked by the loud conversations in the vicinity. He took a particularly long, loud sip from his cup, earning a furtive glance over the laptop from you. 

“Mr Park, I think there are some … issues about the plot,” you slid your laptop over to him, making sure he's reading every highlighted sentence along with your careful annotations and remarks. 

Other than the obvious fact that he was basing the story off of his life with you as a focus, there were actual plot developments that you needed to address with him. One of them was a major plot hole where the main character, Lee Eunhyeok, disappeared out of the blue, thus introducing a new character as a second male lead for a certain time being. How cliche. 

Sunghoon pushed your laptop back over to you, an impassive look on his face that you couldn't read, unable to determine what he was thinking or even feeling about your opinions on his story. Sure, you wanted to write out every curse word you knew and pour your heart out the moment you finished analyzing the story, but for the sake of keeping your job and staying professional, you would rather not do so. 

You took his silence as an initiative for you to continue, scared of any possible outburst, though you knew it was unlikely with Sunghoon's personality. Despite the fierce look he had on all the time, he has a gentle heart that would never change. 

“Mr Park, I think you shouldn't—I mean—reconsider making some adjustments to the part where Eunhyeok leaves Saeon's life and a new lead appears. It's quite a massive plot hole that might be deemed unfavourable,” you were trying your best to remain as courteous as you could. Frankly, the thought of the main character disappearing and making his appearance years later was hitting too close to home. But why should you be surprised at this point onwards? Sunghoon was the one who took inspiration from the pain he caused, not even bothering to add some closure for the characters that neither you nor him got.

Fingers drumming softly on the wooden table, Sunghoon seemed to be collecting his every thought as he stared at you for a split second then averted his gaze to a potted plant that sat at a corner. A sigh escaped his lips. "You're right, Miss … L/N," there was a hint of reluctance when he spoke of your name with formality, as if it somehow pained him to act unfamiliar with you even though he was the first to push you away. “I'll make some adjustments and send them to you over the weekend,”

You nodded slowly, not expecting him to have gone with your idea that easily. Job's done for the day, you thought. You had pictured him to be a little more resistant towards your constructive criticism or at least fight back with an argument, but he didn't do either of those you envisioned. 

“Thank you for your time today, Mr Park. I'll take my leave now, and I'll see you at the next meeting.”

The sharp scrap of your chair against the floor filled the silence that followed. You had your laptop packed up, your bag held tightly in your hands, prepared to leave at once to escape whatever this awkward and suffocating situation. You were already standing, ready to take your leave when Sunghoon said your name, the ring of it sounding just like the last you've remembered in the past. Soft, careful. 

“Y/N,” he started, following suit to stand as well, seemingly much more intimidating compared to him sitting. You held your breath, not daring to let out a single word that might interrupt what he was about to say. As much as you hated to admit it, you still held onto a ridiculous amount of hope that some miracle would happen to you and Sunghoon, especially at times like this where Sunghoon reminded you of the person you once knew. 

“H–how have you been?”

You blinked. Once, then twice. It was something out of a scenario you've imagined one two many times. How have you been? Are you doing well? Those sort of questions were what you armed yourself to face if you happen to run into Sunghoon with the condition that he somehow had the decency to talk to you. Well, this was playing out exactly how you wished for it to be. Answers such as 'I'm doing good, great, fantastic actually. I'm the chief editor too' that you prepared for this day only ended up dying in your throat. 

How were you to answer his question either? It was simply agitating to see him acting as if nothing had happened. Pretending like he hadn't ruined your life before this then coming back to play the role of an old friend, what was he truly hiding? You wished you could understand, you wished you had a reason to understand.

“I'll be done with the next round of editing before our team meeting.”

There was nothing left to hide the coldness in your voice and the sadness that flowed in your irises. Just as he had done before, it was your chance to draw the line as well. The more you created a distance between you and him, the closer he was trying to get to you. 

Maybe everything would've hurt less if you went back to the days where you were stuck wondering whether Sunghoon remembered you rather than pretending like you don't know each other at all.

“You're seriously going to stay here to complete your editing?”

The clock had struck five o'clock on the dot, just in time for everyone to pack up and leave for the day, except for you. It was a new week, another day in the office, yet you couldn't stop thinking about the last private meeting you had with Sunghoon at the cafe. Him sending his newly edited draft to you over the weekend only spurred you into further madness as though he's announced his existence was not a figment of your imagination. He was a thorn stuck to your side, annoyingly and frustratingly stubborn. 

That perfectly explained why you were feeling a massive block when it came to editing his story. Nothing could go through your mind when you read through his freshly edited story that contained new content and back stories. Your brain was as blank as a sheet of paper. The moment you thought of his story, you'd think of him, and that pathetic 'how are you' which you brushed off. 

Who told you that it'd be a great idea to say you would be done with the editing before the meeting in two days? You were suffering the consequences of your own actions now that you were stuck with a non-proofread script.

Bidding farewells to your colleagues was almost as if you were bidding your freedom goodbye as you watched them leave one by one until nobody else was there except for you. The worst part of all was that you were the one willing to stay back, because you knew if you brought your work back home, nothing would be completed after a long day at work.

The sun outside of the window eventually set, the dark hues of pink and purple faded into a bleary black sky with stars accompanying your lonely figure. It should be dinner time for you, you should be thinking of what you eat, but fatigue was the only thing pricking you and enticing you to sleep.

So, that was exactly what you did. Head laid in your arms, you slept before your laptop that was wide open, not even bothering to shut it off even though the brightness was bothering you. A power nap, that was it, a ten minute recharge that would spring you back into action then you'd only think of dinner, right!

Wrong.

You've slept for an hour. It was past eight, close to nine, and the sole reason you got to know was because someone had woken you up. That 'someone' happened to be Park Sunghoon. At times like this, you couldn't but think if he was simply a part of your dream, but then his feathery touch was too much for it to be just a dream.

“Y/N?”

It took some effort for Sunghoon to shake you awake until he heard a groan from you, one eye opening just the slightest to realise where you were and who you were facing. Though groggy, your back straightened out of pure shock and impulse, 

“Sunghoon—I mean, Mr Park?”

The small falter in his expression went unnoticed by you in your haggard state, still unable to get the sleepy state out of your system. Sunghoon, however, felt a pang of disappointment at you maintaining your formality, though he chose to shake it off. 

“What time is it?” 

“It's close to nine,” 

Nine? Your eyes nearly popped out of their sockets at the thought of your power nap turning into a full blown nap time that turned another day into unproductiveness. A sigh left your lips, deciding to let go of your mistake, and your focus was now on Sunghoon, who you just realised was squatting in front of you. At this angle, you could finally see his face fully. The mole of his nose sat prominently as it always did, the faded freckles which decorated the expanse of his cheeks were a telling of how time slipped past both of you. 

“Drink some water,” he handed you a bottle of mineral water, making an attempt for you to stop your gaze intensely lingering on his skin that made him crawl in discomfort. You carefully accepted without any questions asked, taking a big gulp.

“What are you doing here?” You set the bottle down on your desk, piercing eyes following his every move as he stood up to his full height. You didn't mean to cut straight to the point, but your bluntness definitely caused a slight rise of awkward tension. 

“I texted you and you didn't answer, so I called you, but you didn't pick up either. I asked your colleague and she told me you're here,” his hand reached for his shoulder and rubbed it softly, an unconscious habit of his whenever he got embarrassed or uncomfortable.

“You called?”

His eyes widened a little, just a fraction that you didn't seem to have seen. There was an abashed smile to his face. “I—uh—wanted to ask you something,”

“Is it urgent?” You shifted in your seat, back aching from the sleeping position, but it didn't bug you as much as the reason behind Sunghoon's sudden appearance.

“No, not exactly …” he muttered, trailing off for a bit and pressing his lips into a thin line as he figured what to say after. “I just wanted to see you,”

The silence was practically deafening. What Sunghoon failed to realise was the weight of his words that befall onto you. As simple as a slip of a tongue that confession might be, in the context of the history you had with Sunghoon, nothing about what he said was simple or casual. 

“Have you eaten dinner?” Taking advantage of your lack of response, he managed to switch the topic even if it pained him to see his words rebounding off of the walls you built around yourself. 

“I haven't,” admittedly, you had the urge to run away like how you always did whenever you were met with an awkward situation, but given the effort Sunghoon was putting, you gave him a chance. Besides, your stomach was about to betray you for the hunger you've put it through. 

“Me too,” a beat passed, his hand that once rested on his shoulder travelled to the back of his neck, the sound of your breathing was loud enough to fill the quietness lingering in the air. “Do you … want to grab dinner together? I can pay,”

There was an edge to his voice, as if he was trying his best to persuade you into joining him for dinner. Was it desperation that you saw flickering in his eyes or were you just mistaken? You didn't understand why he was bothering to get close to you after years of being apart that he caused to happen in the first place. 

“You don't have to be so nice to me,” it was quietly uttered, another unconscious barrier you put up against him. 

Sunghoon averted his gaze away from you, looking out of the window and letting out a small sigh. He turned back to you, a hint of hurt present in those once shining eyes of his. “But I want to.”

There you were, sitting opposite him once again in a restaurant close to your office which you frequented, waiting for your food to arrive as another round of spine crawling silence sets in between you and him. Should you be the first to speak? You couldn't figure out what to say, or where you should even start. The many unexplained questions that lulled in the air contributed to the quietness. Neither of you were willing to budge, not one bit. 

Sunghoon let out a rather strained cough, then proceeded to take a big gulp out of his glass of water. You regretted not ordering any drinks, you needed something to gulp down for some faux confidence as well. 

“I just wanted to ask you how your progress is doing,” Sunghoon spoke out of the blue, breaking the icy silence that formed. “That's why I texted you in the first place. I added quite a lot,”

The feeling of your heart dropping to the pits of your abdomen shouldn't be bothering you, but it unfortunately did after Sunghoon revealed the reason for his visit. You were to blame for expecting something more from him, thinking he might've come to tell you a more important thing that wasn't related to work. Alas, you were disappointed to know he wasn't there to explain himself. You should expect less from him. 

“Oh,” you bit back a frown, remaining tight lipped. “Quite frankly, I haven't really started yet. I'm having a little editor's block,” you bowed your head, smiling apologetically.

“Don’t be sorry, I understand. I experience writer’s block too, it’s only natural to be stuck sometimes,” he waved his hands frantically, a panicked expression plastered on his face. The small details as such made your smile progressively sadder, every little thing about him was the same as it was before, reminding you of his specific habits and motions he’d do at different times. “It’s not the content that’s the problem, right?”

Everything about the content of his story was a problem to you. How he managed to feign ignorance about the inspiration of his story despite being the creator behind it was astounding to you. You hated it. You hated pretending everything was normal, that he was just someone you’re working with and not your first love. In the end, you remained as a coward that was scared to confront him anyway.

“I haven’t fully reviewed it yet,” you said dismissively, hoping your food would arrive sooner just so that you could stop this conversation from progressing. 

Sunghoon hummed in acknowledgement, nodding a little. “What do you think about the story so far? Or about the characters?”

If you could let out a scoff at that moment, you would’ve. The sheer audacity of him to play games with you was an indirect slap to your face. There was no way he had zero idea of what he was doing or the meaning behind his words. What was Park Sunghoon doing?

“I think Eunhyeok is an asshole,” your eye contact never once wavered, neither were you backing down from the fight he initiated from the start. “He abandoned Saeon when she needed him most, then disappeared without a trace just to come back and expect her to accept him back. It’s quite confusing, really, his character and the way he thinks,” you swallowed, pausing for a second to gather yourself. “I just wish I could understand him,” you put on a small smile in an attempt to diffuse the tension right after seeing Sunghoon's furrowed eyebrows. Surely you didn't touch a nerve … right?

“I agree,” you tried to mask your shock from his response, thinking he would've attempted to redirect the conversation away from the fact that you indirectly called him an asshole. The smile he had on his face was small, but it had a twinge of guilt and sadness to it. “Saeon went through a lot because of him,”

You were glad your hands were out of sight from Sunghoon with the way they were clenched into tight fists, turning nearly white, indents of your fingernails were probably formed on your palm. “I'm sure what she needed most is an explanation from him,”

“Do you think she hated him at some point?”

There was a suspenseful pause that gripped onto your skin, finding yourself unable to open your mouth to say something, literally anything. He had struck bullseye at landing on your weakest point: the unspoken grudge you held against him for leaving. 

“I think she has always hated him ever since he left without saying anything.”

If there was a hole that would swallow you whole during dinner and teleport you back home, you would've climbed into it as quickly as you could. The atmosphere surrounding you and Sunghoon throughout dinner could only be described in one word: unfortunate. Stemming from the unresolved tension created from the short conversation you had while waiting for your food, neither of you wanted to talk anymore, both of you were still soaking in the responses from all the questions asked. 

“Thanks for the dinner. I can pay you back—”

“There's no need, Miss L/N. I was the one who invited you out for dinner anyway,” he shook his head, smiling. “Treat it as a token of gratitude from me for your hard work,”

“Well then, thank you. I appreciate it,” for the first time ever since his return, you smiled with full genuinity instead of those awkward, half sincere smiles you put on out of courtesy.

Sunghook waved his hands, shaking his head a little. It was a common thing for him to do as a response to people thanking him. Another part of him that stayed the same. “How are you heading home?”

“I drove to the office today, and my car's just around the corner. I can walk back,”

“In the dark? I'll drive you back to the office,” his words had a finality to it, determined to not take ‘no’ as an answer.

“You don't have to. You've already paid for dinner,”

“And put your life at risk? I'm not doing that, especially not to you, Y/N,” 

You didn’t know what came over you when he uttered your name with some ounces of emotions you never knew he would still harbour for you. Longing, desperation and guilt, a total mix of tragic feelings that bled through his voice and piercing into your heart. He had no rights for showing you his weakest parts after all the things you’ve been through because of him. 

“Fine. I’ll come along.”

The car ride lasted no more than ten minutes, yet that short duration you spent in his car felt longer thanks to the uncomfortable atmosphere that never went away. Years ago, you’d never once thought Sunghoon’s presence as bothersome, not even the slightest, it never occurred to you that one day you’d find yourself wanting to implode instead of spending another passing second next to him. 

The line drawn between you and Sunghoon for the sake of professionalism was turning into a blur. Sunghoon was doing his best to salvage whatever that was left of your ruined relationship while you put everything in maintaining a tall wall between you and him. His efforts, to you, were in vain despite his determination. No matter how he tried, nothing could return to how it was back then. 

You and Sunghoon couldn’t be friends. 

“Thanks for the ride,” you unbuckle your seatbelt once the car comes to a stop, turning to look at Sunghoon with an appreciative smile. “And also for dinner,”

“Like I said, it’s nothing. I hope you’re not overworking yourself,” there it was, the shred of worry and care that overstepped a boundary you set. It would’ve hurt less if he was cold to you, and yet, he was still the same as ever, soft hearted and always looking out for others. For once, just this one, you wished he gave you a reason to hate him, but he was only making it difficult for you. “I’ll see you at the next team meeting,”

“Right. I’ll make sure I’ll have some progress in the editing,”

Sunghoon nodded, another round of silence filled the spaces around you and him. You took it as your queue to leave. “I’ll get going now then. Drive safe. Goodnight,” you reached for the handle, hoping to get a breath of fresh air and away from the stifling tension that has yet to be resolved, but a hand stopped you. It was Sunghoon. 

You looked down at his hand that rested on your shoulder, then you met his eyes that widened in both shock and panic. He retracted his hand away, averting his gaze for a moment from pure awkwardness and letting out a cough to diffuse the situation. 

“Is there … anything?” You stared back at him, curiosity filled your expecting gaze. Sunghoon didn't respond at once, choosing to stay quiet for a few seconds without taking his eyes off of you.

“I … I just wanted to say I’m sorry,”

“What?”

Sunghoon's jaw was tense, his grip on the steering wheel was tightening as each second passed, knuckles gradually turning white. He knew he couldn’t turn back on his word now that he’s said it. “I'm sorry for the pain that I've caused, for letting you go so easily and giving up. It's just … there’s a reason behind all this,”

You should've ran out of the car right before he had the chance to stop you. 

A part of you had high hopes for where this was heading, that you were finally getting the apology and explanation that you deserved, but the other part has long given up on wanting or needing to know. You find yourself struggling between the two, yet you knew what you had to do.

“You don't get to do this right now,” you murmured, barely audible enough for him to catch and almost as if you were saying it to yourself.

“What?” 

“I don't need your apology,” you found some courage at last, your tone combined with the straightforward response was harsh and absolutely throat-cutting for Sunghoon to hear. Unbeknownst to him, your heart was breaking despite being the one to say the cruel truth. “Let's just maintain this professional relationship while your book is still in progress,”

“Y/N, please—”

“You know we can’t be friends,”

You should be used to the amount of uncomfortable and suffocating silence by then, but nothing could prepare the sting you got from your own words. It was painfully true, the fact that your connections with him couldn’t just be “casual” or platonic, neither was it easy to shift from something deeper to something more casual or distant. You couldn’t see him as a friend, not after having history together, one that was too deep to disregard.

Sunghoon couldn't even get the rest of his sentence out, mouth closing to digest what you had just thrown into his face: a reality ever so cruel and blunt where the pain of being together overwhelmed the pain you experienced while apart.

“But I'd like to just pretend … that maybe we can—that we have a chance,” 

“What chance is there now when you never once gave me a chance from the start?” You brushed a hand through your hair in frustration, mentally chanting positive affirmations to yourself so that you wouldn't be the first to break. “Look, I–I think we should talk about this some other time, maybe after we're done with your book. You should sort your thoughts out first. For now, let's just be professional,” you paused, gouging his reaction that was hard to decipher. “I'll get going.”

Sunghoon didn't respond, mainly because he couldn't bring himself to, feeling as if his lips were sewn shut from either embarrassment or a mix of guilt and shame. He merely nodded, and you took it as a sign to leave, closing the door shut in his face as you slipped through his fingers once more. 

He could cling to his papers and pen, writing as many stories as he could with the perfect ending that he couldn't recreate in his reality, but in the end, it wouldn't bring him back to the time where you were by his side.

We can't be friends. Sunghoon just had to accept the fact that he was at fault for letting you go even if you didn't know the actual truth behind it.

Things weren't the same as it was before.

Hell, it never once was the same between you and Sunghoon in the present ever since he came back, but the entire interaction that night only turned the dynamic into something worse. Throughout the entire team meeting with Sunghoon in the room, you couldn't fix your attention on anything. Your mind would often drift to Sunghoon and the memory of his desperation or the part he almost revealed the truth constantly plagued you with the reminder sitting at the other end of the room. 

Right, the truth. He wanted to tell you about it, or it was implied that he wanted to. You were close to finding out the reason behind his erasure from your life. Alas, it was your ego that won over your heart, choosing to let Sunghoon bathe in the consequences of his actions first before you could reach your desires.

���How was work? You look extra dishevelled these days,” Minjeong, your roommate and life-long best friend since high school, brushed a finger through your hair, then took a seat next to you. 

“Thanks,” you mumbled at the last part she added, suddenly craving for a beer to drown away your sorrows. “It's just some work stress,”

“Didn't you mention you were editing Sunghoon's book?”

“I did,”

“How's it going? Sunghoon, that's what I mean,” Minjeong was picking her words carefully, you could tell. She was the only person to have seen you at your lowest point when Sunghoon left, being the witness of you and Sunghoon's relationship throughout high school and even coming to your defence by dialing his number the entire night that he left. The least you could do was be honest to her about how you felt when it came to Sunghoon. 

“It's … rough,” you exhaled sharply through your nose, letting your true exhaustion bleed through your voice. “His new story's about me … about us, actually,”

“No way!”

“That's why I'm going insane,” you groaned, throwing your head back to lay your head on the headrest of the couch. “I'm reliving our every moment together through editing his story,”

“That's evil,” she shook her head, placing a hand on yours in an attempt to provide some comfort. “I'm going to beat him up if I see him. How could he do that to you? And also for leaving without telling any of us,”

“He tried to explain himself the other night, he apologised too,”

Minjeong scooted closer to you, eager to dig out more information from you. “Then? What did you say?” She pressed on, staring closely with full expectations. 

“Nothing. I didn't really accept his apology and I told him I'll hear him out another time,”

“What?” She shrieked, body fully jerking backwards from the shock that coursed through her. Somehow, she managed to regain her composure. “You know what? Good on you. I would've done that too,”

“Would you?”

Several changes of expressions flashed across her face, ranging from deep consideration to disgust. “Maybe?”

You chuckled, shaking your head knowing there was little to none truth value to that. “Is it a mistake? Drawing a line and keeping a distance?”

Minjeong pursed her lips thoughtfully, crossing her arms. “Honestly, you're entitled to do that until you're ready and your heart is fully healed. After all, he was the one who broke it in the first place.”

The whole entire situation was pathetic. Minjeong has already seen you losing it over Sunghoon in the past, you couldn't believe she would be getting a part two as well. However, you and her were no longer in your teen years, which meant Minjeong had an excuse to drag you to her favourite club as a getaway even if it meant you had to be stuck in hell.

“How is this going to make me feel better?” You were referring to the bodies of people dancing in one place, the stench of alcohol and smoke lingering in the air, the unfavourable vibe of being in a club itself was present with the loud music screaming into your eardrums. 

“Get drunk, then there's no need to think anymore,” Minjeong pointed to her head, giggling, but it was more to herself. 

“You're a really bad influence,” you mumbled, clutching onto her forearm for both physical and mental support.

The place she led you off to was the bar, ushering for you to take a seat next to her designated spot (you had no idea how and why she had one). You let her take the initiative by ordering her favourite drinks, then listened as she poured her heart out over the loud music that distracted you. Her plan was working. At least the music was too loud for you to hear your own thoughts.

“I didn't think this would be your favourite club,”

Minjeong made a face, shrugging. “It's one of my favourites. A colleague brought me here, and even though it's not the best, I still find myself coming back. It's weird,”

You hummed, finding her words ringing in your mind, feeling oddly close to your heart and the emotions you had. “That's lowkey really deep. Are you drunk already?”

“Ha-ha,” she let out dryly, completely unamused, but still cracked a smile after. “I wish I was. This is a call for some more drinks!”

You were mostly on the sidelines trying to control Minjeong with her alcohol intake, consuming only a few shots and calling it a night to be the designated sober one. At that point, you wondered if it was you or Minjeong that needed to destress the most judging from the difference in manner.

The time has come for you to end your night and find Minjeong to take her home before she ends up regretting it in the morning. The dance floor was packed with people, it took you barely a minute to give up your search and give yourself another five minutes to catch your breath. You lingered around the area, walking past booths occupied by groups of people.

There was a particular group that attracted your attention, a voice piercing through the loud music which you knew too well who it belonged to. Minjeong wasn't on the dance floor grooving her worries away, instead she was busy screaming at someone drunkenly. You were going to ban her from coming out ever again.

You rushed to the booth, seeing Minjeong's back while a man loomed over her figure. Was it her ex? There was no reason for Minjeong to get herself into fights when she was too cowardly to raise her voice up at someone in the first place. It didn't matter, all you needed was to pull her out of there or else something worse might happen.

“You fucking bastard—”

“Minjeong!” You yelled over the music, hoping that she somehow managed to hear you in her drunken state. Grasping onto her arm, you made sure she was intact physically. She was fine, eyes a little bloodshot and makeup slightly smudged, but other than that, she was fine. 

“I'm sorry—” you turned to the person she was yelling at, only to find yourself unable to continue speaking. You were not fine. “Sunghoon?” Minjeong hadn't seen her ex, it was your ex that she ran into.

“Y/N,” your name left his lips in a hushed, breathless manner, as if he was having a hard time comprehending that you were there and that you had actually said his name without some formality that he scorned. Despite that, the cold, piercing look in your eyes never wavered once while you stared at him.

“I'm sorry about Minjeong. She's a little drunk,” you wrapped a hand around her waist, letting her lean onto you for support as she slipped in and out of consciousness, blabbering incoherently. 

“I figured. I didn't expect this to be my first time meeting her again, especially not here,” he sighed, dropping his gaze to the floor for a moment, pondering. “I didn't think you'd feel … that way about me,” he looked up at you, this time with an expression you couldn't read.

Your eyes widened a bit, mostly in panic and confusion. “What? What did she say? She's drunk, don't take her words seriously—” you averted your gaze over his shoulders for a split second, catching some of his friends looking, but you didn't miss the girls that were in the group, particularly a girl that sat next to an empty spot you assumed to be Sunghoon's. She was the same girl you saw on one of his friend's posts online, posing next to Sunghoon in almost every group picture they had.

You sucked in a sharp breath, rushing to say something before Sunghoon had the chance to do so. There was a gutting feeling to you that you hated, it wasn't foreign, more or less something you've grown to adapt around Sunghoon after he came back into your life. “I'm sorry, I didn't mean to ruin your—” you couldn't help but spare another glance behind him, the girl was staring right at you, “—fun. I'll be leaving, please don't take any of her words seriously, she's drunk. I'll tell Minjeong to apologise in the morning.”

“Y/N, wait—”

It was cruel for turning away and practically running into the crowd with your drunk friend to escape your ex, you'd admit it, but you'd rather get blackout drunk than to face Sunghoon for another second with his friends around. The chilly night air was welcomed into your lungs once you stepped out into the open, realising it was almost one in the morning. Minjeong was slightly more sober after you forcefully had her chug a bottle of water. She was seated on a curb while you looked through options to call a cab. 

“Y/N,”

What you expected was Minjeong calling for you, but the last you recalled, her voice wasn't deep and masculine. Your head snapped towards the source only to be met with the same person you were trying your hardest to get away from. The exhaustion was clear in his face, the worn out expression he had paired with the lingering smell of alcohol hung on him definitely got some pity points out of you. You sighed, your voice suddenly trapped in your throat as you didn't know what to say. Unlike you, it seemed Sunghoon did know what he would like to say.

“Are you really going to leave like this?”

“What?”

“Are you going to continue being cold to me?” Sunghoon's breath was shaky, the question he held in for far too long was actually leaving his lips, the slight smell of alcohol traceable. “Do you hate me?”

“I—” lost for words was what you were experiencing. The amount of times you've pictured yourself having a confrontational conversation with Sunghoon ended up turning into a waste. Nothing could've possibly prepared you for the moment where it actually happened, and you were the complete opposite to what you imagined yourself to be. “I–I don't hate you,”

“Then why are you treating me like you do?”

There it was. He had successfully touched a nerve. “Are you seriously asking me that? Sunghoon, you were the one who left me without saying anything. You came back thinking I'm going to be jumping when I see you? What do you want me to say? That I forgive you?”

“Can you please give me a chance to explain myself,”

“No, Sunghoon. Actually, I wish life was back to the times where I find myself thinking about you instead of having to face you. It’s much harder this way—to live pretending like we don’t know each other, to know you left me and embarrassed me, to make me feel like I’m not enough for you. So, no, Sunghoon, I want to move on and you’re only making it harder to,”

You were almost catching your breath at that point. The pain in your heart was much bigger than the feeling of your fingernails digging into the skin of your palm. It was impossible to hide your vulnerability by then, your upper lip was quivering and the hairs on the back of your neck were standing upright. 

The whole situation was laughable, you were going into a state of frenzied disbelief and shock, something not even alcohol could induce but purely from the audacity of Park Sunghoon. “Okay, I admit it, I never got over you, so what? But I've learnt to live with the pain of knowing you're never coming back,” you were turning into a pile of pitiness, your voice becoming smaller just as how you felt as you poured your heart out. “Why are you back in my life, Sunghoon? I never asked you to come back,” the last part nearly came out as a desperate sob, the amount of mental fatigue was overwhelming. 

Sunghoon opened his mouth just to close it after a beat. He was speechless, practically unmoving from the effects of your emotions slapping him in his face. Defeated, that was how he looked, shoulders slumped and eyes brimmed with tears that were threatening to flow out at any moment. “I never … I never meant to let you go in the first place. I should've never left, but I was too selfish,”

Your frown deepened, practically etching fine lines into your skin. “What? What do you mean?”

“It was my father, you knew how he was, always obsessed with the family business, he was the one who made me pick. Either I was going abroad or he was going to force me into a marriage with another woman to strengthen the family's business,” he let out a laugh, sounding nearly maniacally as he ran a hand through his dishevelled hair. “Funny, isn't it? Sounds almost like a plot from a movie. But that was exactly what I had to face, and I know it's selfish. It's just … I didn’t want to lose you completely, and I didn’t want to make it harder for you so I left without telling you. It was one of the worst decisions I’ve made in my life, I realised I still lost you in the end,”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Feeling betrayed was an understatement. Certainly, that was a tough pill to swallow. You thought Sunghoon's father, despite being the cliche epitome of a rich, strict businessman, had accepted you as Sunghoon's partner. Instead, it was the contrary where he rather Sunghoon marry someone on his ‘level’. For a second, you mistook yourself for the main character in some low budget film.

“I thought it would be easier if you hated me instead,”

“Well, congrats, you got what you wanted,” you scoffed, taking a step back when he tried to get closer. Distance was what you needed in that moment, not closure in any shape or form, all you wanted was to be away from him. “I'm sorry that happened to you, but I don't think anything could change or fix the damage that's already been done,”

“Wait—”

You were already backing away from him, another excuse for you to run away yet again like a coward that didn't wish to face reality. Wasn't this what you wanted after all? The real truth being revealed on a random night where Sunghoon was slightly buzzed and your friend was on the verge of blacking out was the last you wanted. There was no space for you to absorb the truth, so you chose the easier way out by running away. 

Calling Minjeong's boyfriend, Jaehyun, was the best decision you made right before Sunghoon appeared. He seemed to have answered your prayers and arrived just in time to pick the two of you up. You did feel bad for calling him this late in the night, and you swore to buy him lunch as a way to pay him back. 

By the time you hoisted Minjeong up, wrapping a hand around her waist and letting her place her support on you, Sunghoon had already made a few cautious steps towards you two. You met his eyes, body facing him despite the weight that was about to crush you, not that it could compare to the weight of his gaze that fell onto you. 

“Sunghoon, let's talk about this another time, please? I need time to think, and editing your book isn't helping all that much with this whole … pile of something,” you were making wild gestures with one hand, a frenzied look to your face. “Go back to your—” you paused, the faint memory of the girl coming back to your mind for a beat, “—friends.”

Sunghoon couldn't respond, all he did was watch your figure disappearing into the car of some other man that he didn't know. You left him out in the street, many unspoken frustrations that were unable to be poured out through alcohol stuck with you like a sore thorn. Jaehyun turned to ask if you're alright, but you shrugged it off, though knowing you were the complete opposite of just 'fine'.

You didn't know how to forgive Sunghoon. That is if you could even find the courage to forgive him in the first place.

Whoever initiated a team dinner with Sunghoon should be out there watching their backs. 

You hadn't seen Sunghoon ever since that night. The last time you heard his name was when Minjeong told you about her lengthy apology to him, and that was it. He didn't turn up to the publishing house either, most times you had to communicate through email—yes, email—in order to get a hold of him. That was how bad it got, straight till the point where your boss asked you of his whereabouts. You could tell he was reluctant to show his face again. Just the same as you were in avoiding him. 

That was until a scheduled team dinner at some fancy restaurant to celebrate the progress of Sunghoon's soon published book. The hours leading up to it was dreadful to say the least. You hadn’t felt this way since your petty fight with Minjeong over the last slice of pizza. It was the horrible gut feeling where you knew you had to either confront or be confronted. Both of which were equally despised.

“Once this book is out, our workload will be less,” Yunjin stretched her arms, letting out a yawn while adjusting in her seat. “I’m glad everything is in its final stage now, all there’s left is the printing, and it isn’t our job!” she laughed gleefully, shooting you a knowing wink that you responded with a smile.

Once everything was over with Sunghoon’s book, would the ties between you and him finally become severed? Was there a chance that after this fateful reunion, things would return back to normal? For him to come into your life and mess things up again then leave was quite unfair for you. There was no other chance but to find a way out of this, as much as you hated confrontations. 

Speaking of confrontations, the seating arrangements seemed to have set you up for a perfect opportunity. Not only was it a roundtable, but Sunghoon was also somehow pushed to sit to your right, leaving you no space to run like how you always did. 

“Heard the food here is good,” Yunjin whispered to you, flipping through the menu with a happy smirk, totally in blissful ignorance of the blaring ‘SOS’ screaming in your eyes. “I think I’d like to order this one…” she trailed off with the look of gluttony, whereas you were aimlessly staring at a specific bowl of rice in the menu, trying to not make it obvious that you were bothered by Sunghoon’s presence.

The longer you sat there pretending he wasn’t literally next to you, the more suffocated you felt. This wasn’t the way to go. You knew that you had no choice but to be the person to speak up first, to officially break the ice and ease the odd tension even if you weren’t the type to do so. It was either that or a lifelong torture of living with the truth that you left the relationship to die.

You breathed in deeply, pressing your lips into a thin line. “Hey, Sunghoon—”

“Sunghoon!” your boss announced her presence with a shout of Sunghoon’s name, barrelling into the room and making a bee-line towards the man sitting beside you. As expected, your voice was naturally drowned out by your boss, his attention was focused on your boss’s attack of praises and excitement. There you were, stranded and shrinking back into your shell. 

That was what you got for trying.

You shouldn’t be bothered by the constant glances from Sunghoon all throughout dinner, but you were. Living up to your reputation of being stubborn, you persisted to ignore his advances. The glances, the occasional accidental skin contact, you feigned ignorance to all of them. Being the first to reach out and failing, you no longer dared to do it again, and instead, Sunghoon was forced to come crawling back.

At the end of the night, the team insisted on having drinks at a bar downtown, but you decided to call it a night and declined their invitations. They didn’t know you had already promised Minjeong to a session of binge watching ‘Sex and the City’. The front of the restaurant was crowded with you and your team, still stalling for time by having lengthy conversations before making the journey downtown. 

“Hey,”

You spun around, quick enough for the wind to be knocked out from your lungs, abruptly facing Sunghoon head on with nowhere to hide. It was hard to place a finger on it, yet you had a feeling he was hiding his emotions despite always wearing his heart on his sleeves. Was he trying to create an imaginary boundary? 

“Hey,” you said softly, slipping a hand into your pocket to hide your nervousness and easing the chills running through you. “How have you been? I … didn’t see you in a while,”

“I’ve been fine,” he nodded, following with a pulsating silence that was eating you alive. He kept his answer short and simple, leaving room for discomfort only. There was a moment of uncertainty, not knowing which one of you would be the first to speak. That was until Sunghoon took the initiative to start the conversation. “Look,” one sharp inhale of a breath, he steadied himself. “I’m sorry for the other night, really sorry … for dumping all of that on you,”

“It’s fine. I think it was time for me to learn the truth,” you shook your head, looking at anywhere but him. “This is probably not the best place to talk about this, but after you avoided me for a while, I had lots of thoughts about … us,”

Sunghoon winced at the harshly thrown word, ‘avoided’, even though it was mostly true. He stayed silent, aware that there was no rebuttal to deny that he had done that. “I can’t bring myself to forgive you completely, Sunghoon, I hope you understand that. It may take time … for the wound to heal,” you paused, the tension in his shoulder yet to disappear as he waited for you to continue. “But I don’t want us to end. I missed you, I really do, and I don’t want to lose you again,” 

The wall was starting to crack, emotions began to stream into his eyes like watercolour on a wet paper, the conflicted furrow of his eyebrows spoke louder than words did. “You won’t lose me again. Never. I’m here to stay,” he reached out for your hands, and you let him, powerless against his touch. At that point of time, you were glad you were standing in a corner and away from your coworkers. 

“I still love you,”

Those words came out of his mouth almost like a spear to your heart. Despite knowing deep in your heart that he always did, hearing it from him was different compared to your imaginations. You froze, shell shocked and wide eyed. The only sound you were hearing was the hammering of your heart against your ribs. He still loves you. His voice echoing those exact same words played in your head, and for a moment, you wondered if you had even heard him correctly. Maybe you had misunderstood, or perhaps your mind was playing tricks on you.

Your eyes searched his face, hoping for a sign that he was joking, but there was none. His expression was serious, vulnerable even, and that made it all the harder to breathe.

The weight of it pressed down on your chest, too much to bear, yet too real to ignore. Your mouth opened, but no words came out. You were scared to say anything, to confess that you weren’t on the same wavelength as he was, to admit that the spark of your love for him wasn’t as bright as his. There he was—still standing before you with all those unspoken feelings laid bare.

This couldn’t be real. Not after everything…

“I’m sorry,” he dropped your hand, momentarily panicking from your lack of response, eyes widening at what he had just said. “I shouldn’t—I—you’re probably uncomfortable—I don’t know—” he turned into a stuttering mess, and again, an invisible wall started to build between you and him again. 

You shook yourself out of the state you were in, sheepishly mustering a smile that did nothing to salvage the situation at hand. “It’s alright, I’m totally fine and I’m not uncomfortable at all. Just a little … shocked,”

Sunghoon attempted a smile that ended up too stiff and asymmetrical, his body language was blaring red. Oh God, how did this turn from bad to worse? He ran a shaky hand through his hair, his voice quiet, almost to himself. “I didn’t mean to make you feel weird or anything... I just—” He stopped himself, breathing out in frustration, unsure of how to put his thoughts together. “I don’t know how to explain this... I guess I just thought... maybe... if I said it out loud, it wouldn’t be something I regret not saying later.”

He shifted uncomfortably on his feet, glancing down at the ground before looking back up at you, his face flushed with embarrassment. “I’m sorry if that was too much. I didn’t want to make you feel like... like you owe me anything. Or like I’m putting pressure on you.” His eyes flickered away for a moment, his voice dropping to a near whisper. “I just—honestly, I didn’t know how else to handle it.”

You swallowed, similarly not knowing how to handle his sudden outburst of a confession. 

“You don't have to say anything, I understand. I'm not expecting you to reciprocate, all I want is for you to know,” Sunghoon wore a sad smile, an attempt to mask his actual feelings. To you, he was easy to read like an open book, it was hard to know the truth and pretend that you didn't. 

“Sunghoon—” you started slowly, bracing yourself to say whatever that came to mind, ignoring the confused thoughts playing in the back. What were your actual feelings when it came to him anyway? 

It was never truly hatred to begin with. Resentment was probably the most fitting. As time passed, with the interactions you had together, everything boiled down to be a confusing mess. You didn't know what Park Sunghoon meant to you anymore.

“Sunghoon! We’re leaving for the bar! Come on!”

The voice of your colleague calling for him interjected at the right time. You were saved from having to reply while Sunghoon was saved from knowing the truth. Either way, you didn't wish to be confrontational at all, not when your thoughts were in a mess from his sudden confession. 

You and Sunghoon exchanged a brief look, an awkward one where you both realised it's time to depart. More likely, it was an official end to the conversation that either of you wanted out of for separate reasons. 

“I—I think—” Sunghoon nodded over to your colleagues, offering half a smile. 

“Right, right, you have to go,” you let out a small laugh to fill in the still air. “It's alright. Go, have fun. I'll talk to you soon.”

Sunghoon casted a rather reluctant glance at you as he walked away, whereas you stood rooted to the ground watching him leave. Your words rang in the back of your mind, you doubted if you'd ever get the chance to talk to him again, especially after the entire conversation you had.

The night ended up turning into a sleepless one as you tossed and turned in bed, wide awake and haunted by the face of your ex together with the words he said. All you wanted to do was address the problem in the room, not creating a larger one that blew up in your face. He still loved you after all this time, while you only grew larger resentment in that period of his absence, it just seemed unfair to you for not knowing. 

A loud knock on your front door brought you away from your string of thoughts. It was then followed by your door bell ringing, alternating between the two and it became an annoying combination that assaulted your ears in the dead of the night. Groggy, and rather annoyed, you got out of bed to check who was bothering you through the peephole. 

The figure on the other side of your door was slumped against the wall, eyes barely open. Yet, there wasn’t any mistake in recognising the person that terrorised you both day and night. “Sunghoon?” you half-shouted, scared to open the door as you didn’t dare to face him, maintaining your position at the peephole, monitoring his every movement. “Hey, are you okay—” your hand was nearly on your doorknob until he spoke, sounding sluggish but panicked.

“Don’t. Don’t open the door,” he was almost begging you, the desperation in his voice was evident, and so was the fact that he was very likely drunk out of his mind. You wondered what exactly was his thought process when it came to calling a cab straight to your place. The hand you had on the doorknob remained there, but you didn’t have the strength to turn it. “I … I just wanted to hear your voice,”

“What?”

There was a moment’s worth of silence. You took a look through the peephole, seeing Sunghoon slumped against your door, unmoving. You thought he was unconscious and had fallen asleep somehow, but when a choked sob sounded past his lips, you figured it wasn’t that simple. You called out his name again, palm pressed against your door, feeling rather helpless, but also too much of a coward to burst straight through your door and face him crying.

“I–I’m sorry, I’m a mess, fuck,” he mumbled, still audible for you to hear and distinguish the pain in his tone, as if every word he said to you was physically tormenting him. “I’m just scared,”

You paused, slightly dumbfounded. “Scared? Of what?”

“Of losing you,” he sounded as if he had given up on trying to hold the truth back, letting his vulnerability take over the lonesome hanging in the cold night air. “I tried so many times, to fix things, to make us … us again, but I think I’m just fucking things up instead,” his hands curled into a fist, resting on your door. “I know I’m selfish for wanting you back, I’m aware that I don’t deserve you … but I can’t let you go,”

You couldn’t let him go either. Despite the initial burning hatred and resentment you had for him and what he did, you realised those feelings gradually dissipated the longer you were with him. All those times where he poured his heart out, revealing the truth and what not, you came to a conclusion at last: you had finally let go of your past grudges. Although it was true that you weren’t as cold as you were to him, you still found yourself having a hard time opening up to him. The trust that was built over the years was broken the moment he left, as for now, time was what you needed.

“Please … please … Y/N,” Sunghoon let out a sob, louder than the last, the alcohol seeping into his system and taking charge. After all these years, Sunghoon remained an emotional drunk. Some things never change, do they? “I won’t ever leave, so please … don’t leave me too,” 

A deep sigh left your lips unknowingly, your hand fell from the door knob, suddenly breathless and powerless against yourself. You’ve never seen Sunghoon in such a state, weak and pathetic in contrast to his composed self. The walls you tried so hard to maintain between you and him were crumbling in front of you, before you knew it, you had fallen into a deep hole that you couldn’t crawl out of. There was no turning back, not after you pulled your door open, facing a pair of blood-shot eyes.  

Sunghoon didn’t expect you to actually open the door, to witness him in a dishevelled state that was embarrassing to the human eye. Even in his drunken mind, he could remember your every feature that seemed to have engraved itself into his memory. There was a round of silence, you were trying to gouge the situation standing before you while Sunghoon was stunned into quietness. 

Thinking straight wasn’t your first option, instead you did something you would only dare to do if you were drunk. You reached out for Sunghoon’s arm, grabbing onto him and pulling him in with every ounce of your strength. He crashed softly onto you, and at a speed faster than he could process, you embraced him into your chest, wrapping your arms around his larger body. 

You could feel him freezing into your embrace, the touch that was once so familiar to him needed some time to get used to. It didn’t take long before he melted into you, letting his head fall onto your shoulder and engulfing you closer to him with his arms. The position was oddly intimate, but you didn’t mind it at all. Your hearts were much closer than it had been in years, both physically and mentally. In fact, you hadn’t felt this way in a long time, a specific feeling that only Sunghoon could rekindle. 

No words were exchanged, but you understood much more than before. Sunghoon’s arms tightened around you, scared that you were a figment of his imagination, that you were going to leave just as he had feared. Your hand reached for his head that rested on your shoulder, slowly and carefully making the initial move to stroke his hair. 

“I’m not leaving, Sunghoon,” you whispered, hoping that he was sober enough to process your words and take it into account. “I’ll always be here,” you paused, blinking away a sudden wave of tears that threatened to fall out of nowhere. “Just … just don’t leave me, you jerk,” 

He removed his head from the crook of your neck, pulling away ever so slightly, just enough to face you, barely minding the small gap between you and him. “I promise, I promise I won’t ever make the same mistakes. I’ll be by your side for as long as you need,”

His words, though shaky, settled in your chest like a comforting weight. For some reason, he managed to say the right things that caused the past to wither away gradually from your mind. But the reality of the moment hit harder than you expected. You weren't sure what would come next or if you could fully trust him again, but right now, in this fleeting moment, it didn't matter.

Neither of you dared to break eye contact, holding each other tightly, terrified to let go. All of a sudden, those past months where you acted cold to one another seemed to be much further than imagined, as if it never happened. You stared deeply into those saccharine eyes, searching for any sign of doubt, but all you saw was sincerity, mixed with exhaustion and regret. A part of you wanted to pull away, to keep your distance, but you didn’t. For once, you let yourself breathe, let yourself lean into this fragile connection, even if it was built on broken trust.

“I forgive you, Sunghoon,” you started off slowly, cautiously, picking your words one by one. “But, you’ve got a lot to prove, and I don’t know if I can forget everything right away,” you paused, feeling a tightness in your throat, “maybe we can start over. Maybe.”

Sunghoon’s eyes softened, the momentary glaze over his eyes were gone, a telling sign that he was somehow much sober than earlier on. A faint, genuine smile tugged at the corners of his lips. “I’ll prove it to you. Every day, if I have to.”

You nodded slowly, still unsure of everything but knowing one thing for certain: this was not the end. There was too much history, too much love, even in its broken state, for it to end here. You and him couldn’t be friends, not when there was something more than that existed between the two of you. 

As cliche as it sounded, you knew fate had a play in hand. There was no denying that life led him back to you. Despite all odds, there you were, holding onto the warmth of his embrace, discarding the questions left to be answered after for a glint of hope. A fragile hope that, perhaps, things could still be fixed, even if they never fully returned to what they once were.

For now, you stayed in his arms, while he couldn’t bear to let you go, waiting for your love to return the way it used to be. 

In the next month, with Sunghoon’s book being officially published, the office had turned increasingly busy managing the marketing, promotions, sales and much more. Each department was scrambling to settle the piling work, including the editors, who were thrown into the mix to help out the rest of the team. That meant you were equally busy too.

First, it was the book launching party. 

Sunghoon seemed to have a loyal local fanbase, garnering a full house that sat patiently waiting for him. The cheers were indeed loud once he entered the room, his handsome face paired with great writing skills definitely was one way to be favoured by the crowd. He took a seat on the chair situated in the middle of the mini stage.

“I’m grateful that you’re all here to celebrate the launch of my new book. I believe it’s one of the few books I’ve published here since coming back from America,” he paused, eyes flickering, tongue darting out to wet his lips. “It’s also a book that I wrote based on my experiences here … ” in a room filled with strangers and staff, he managed to find you in the midst of them, eyes locked onto you and the silence somehow thickened. 

He averted his attention back to the crowd, and cleared his throat, his voice was noticeably softer now, as if he was choosing his words carefully. “… I wrote this book with a lot of personal feelings, a lot of things that I’ve been holding onto, and some of those feelings, well…” He let out a quiet, almost imperceptible sigh before his eyes flickered back to you, the intensity unmistakable despite the crowd around you. “Some of those feelings are about a person who's meant a lot to me. One I might never be able to fully explain how much they’ve impacted me, and sometimes…” He hesitated, then smiled faintly, the kind of smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes, as if he was hiding something. “… sometimes you just hope they’re listening. Even if they don’t always know it.”

The room was still, the noise from the crowd seemingly muted. It felt like the world had narrowed to just the two of you, that the people in the vicinity had disappeared. His words hang in the air with unspoken weight. Sunghoon’s gaze softened slightly as he looked at you, the faintest twitch in his lips betraying the emotion in his tone.

“I guess, in the end,” he continued, lowering his voice just a little more, “it’s the things you can’t say out loud that end up being the most important to you.” He quickly shifted his focus back to the audience, his smile returning, but the brief crack in his composure lingered like a delicate thread between you both. “So, that is why I dedicate this book to my first love,”

The shock didn’t just pass through the crowd of readers, but also in the group of staff standing around you. You were lucky that nobody else noticed his tunnel vision that was trained on solely you. It didn’t need a second thought to know that he was referring to you. Just as you were his first love, he was also yours, it should be a no brainer that the book he wrote about the two of you was dedicated to you. 

Sunghoon cracked a smile, breathing out a small laugh to ease the collective shock in the room. “I hope this book resonates with you, for those who experienced an unforgettable romance with your first love and stay up thinking about the endless possibilities. Pour your regrets, sadness and anguish into this book,” 

His gaze wandered over the crowd, but you could tell he wasn’t really looking at anyone, he was making an effort not to stray his gaze to your figure. However, old habits are hard to die. His eyes, those familiar eyes, drifted back to you once again, the intensity of his stare never breaking, making the room feel even smaller, forcing you into an imaginary corner.

“Sometimes, the people who mean the most to you… are the ones who leave you with all the things you wish you could’ve said,” Sunghoon continued, his voice barely above a whisper now, but still reaching you as if the words were meant only for your ears. “But I think… I think that’s what keeps the memories alive. It’s not about the things you lost, but the things you never got to say.”

His hand hovered over the microphone for a second, fingers brushing it lightly, and for a brief moment, the faint tremor in his hand betrayed the calm composure he was trying to maintain. The air between you felt charged, an unspoken tension that made it hard to breathe.

“I guess we all have our regrets. But it's how we carry them, how we turn them into something meaningful, that makes all the difference,” he said with a slight shrug, a soft, almost sad smile tugged at the corners of his lips. His gaze lingered on you for just a heartbeat longer before he shifted his attention back to the audience. It was then you could breathe properly again. 

The tension remained in the room, thick and unspoken, as the silence stretched just a bit too long before the next round of applause broke it. His speech was moving, sure, but to you, the meaning behind every word was deeper than what it seemed, following you around throughout the day like some pesky itch.

The event rolled by with questions answered, a short reading session and book signing. You and your team were tasked to run around setting things up, making sure everything was in place so that the event would run smoothly. Thankfully, it did, and your hard work had paid off. Being occupied for most of the time, you momentarily forgot about Sunghoon and what he said, unbeknownst to you, it was sitting in the back of your mind waiting for you. 

At the end of the day, you and your colleagues were working hard to clean and put things away, loud laughs and noisy conversations filled the empty venue, replacing the crowd from hours ago. The atmosphere was only heightened when Sunghoon made his presence known, hands carrying multiple bags of take out coffee. “Thanks for the hard work! Here’s some coffee, my treat,” loud hollers followed suit in celebration of free drinks, he bowed to those around him, lending a helping hand to carry the boxes while the drinks were taken from his hands. “I’m having a small party tomorrow night to celebrate the release of the book, and I hope every one of you will be there too. Don’t worry, food and drinks are all prepared,”

The thought of another celebration had pleased your colleagues and brightened the entire mood despite the tiredness. Coffee was passed around just as the job was done. Instead of heading home immediately, everyone chose to stay for a little more to chat and finish their coffee. You, on the other hand, lingered in a corner to arrange the books in a box. In reality, you were mostly using it as an excuse to hide and think. Turns out, Sunghoon’s words never left your head once, and the intensity of his eyes had burned itself into your memory. 

It was then you were startled by a tap on your shoulder, basically spinning around to see who it was. Speaking of the devil … Park Sunghoon stood right before you, a cup of coffee in one of his hands, the other retracted in a blink of an eye. Seeing him right after thinking about everything he had said felt like a whiplash, or quite close to a slap to your face. 

“Coffee?” he extended the coffee cup towards you, wearing a wry smile. 

You accepted his coffee, taking a quick sip to hide the embarrassment from showing on your expressions. “Thanks,” you replied, lowering the cup from your face, swallowing at the unexpected awkwardness that grew between the silence. One glance at him, you met his eyes, the silence suddenly became less uncomfortable, a smile tugged at the corner of your lips. “Hey,”

Sunghoon couldn’t help smiling, being much more transparent with you than yourself. He shook his head, amused. “Hey,” 

“Good job today, Author Park Sunghoon,” 

“You too, my dear editor,” 

The softness in his voice and the genuine smile he had shouldn’t have tugged at your heart strings, but it did, no matter how much you tried to ignore it. The moment you decided to break down the walls and opened your heart to him was when you realised there was no turning back. 

“I’m expecting you at my party tomorrow. No backing out,” he continued, pointing a finger sternly at you. 

You let out a quiet laugh, mostly at his action, totally unaware of the fact that his eyes wavered for a second, his smile faltering at the realisation that you were laughing, and it was because of him, even if it was merely a giggle. “I’ll be there, don’t you worry,”

Sunghoon cleared his throat, coughing a little to bring himself back to reality. “I can’t wait,” he was casual when saying that, but to you, it only made you wonder what exactly he meant by that. 

You bounced on the balls of your foot, hands crossed, waiting for the right time to speak your mind. It seemed the opening to that conversation was there for you. “So … that was a nice opening speech,”

Sunghoon’s eyes slowly turned wider at the realisation, recalling all the things he had said in his speech, wincing—more so cringing—that he had to be reminded of it. He was stalling, holding back and contemplating his next response. “I meant everything I said,” he inhaled sharply, searching your face for any message to decode. “This book … it’s more of a letter to you. The things I wished I said, they’re all in there,”

“I know,” you set the coffee down, your fingers lingering on the warmth of the cup, trying to steady yourself. “Of course I know, I read it all,” you heaved a breath, unable to tell if you were picking your words correctly. “You’ve got a funny way of asking for forgiveness,” you tried to smile, making an effort to lighten the tension. 

Sunghoon’s gaze softened, responding with a weak smile, but the attempt was futile once you saw him looking away, suddenly avoiding your gaze. For a moment, you could see the vulnerability and hurt in his eyes. He was no longer the confident, composed man he tried to project during his speech. Instead, he was just… Sunghoon, your Sunghoon. The man who had once meant everything to you, now standing before you, laid bare in a way that you weren’t sure how to respond to.

“It was probably a shit attempt at it, wasn’t it? I couldn’t even face you properly until this book,”

“I mean, it did somehow work, didn’t it?” 

Sunghoon’s eyes flickered up to meet yours, finding your response a complete 180 to what he had in mind, a flash of surprise crossing his features before he let out a small, self-deprecating chuckle. His shoulders seemed to relax.  

“You think so?” he asked, his voice laced with both uncertainty and a hint of hope.

You nodded, a soft smile tugging at the corner of your lips. “Yeah, I do. To be honest, I was surprised that you wrote about us in the beginning—actually, I was pissed, to be precise—but the more I read, I could tell you were trying to find a way to fix us through the characters. I’m glad you actually did try, and it wasn’t just in writing. That means something to me,”

Sunghoon stared at you for a moment, as if processing your words. He seemed to be searching for something more—more validation, more understanding—but when his gaze softened, he looked away again, as though the vulnerability was too much for him to bear at the moment. There was an unspoken desire for something that you and him shared in that second, a mutual comprehension passed through the air, which was going back to the way it always has been, to stop the awkward, uncomfortable silence and return to the times you were carefree with one another.

“I never wanted to be the guy who hurt you,” he said, his voice low, close to whisper, more so a silent confession in disguise. “I never wanted to be the one to screw things up so badly that I’d lose you. But I did, didn’t I?”

“Yeah, you did,” your answer was blunt, piercing through the stillness. Sunghoon’s gaze snapped back to you, his expression unreadable for a beat before his lips parted, as if to say something in response. But he paused, swallowing the words. Instead, he let out a slow breath, his hand reaching up to rub the back of his neck. You studied him for a split second, carefully reaching out and placing a hand lightly on his arm, a small gesture of reassurance. “But I thought we’d agree on putting it in the past, to start afresh,”

Sunghoon’s eyes softened as your hand touched his arm, the familiarity of your touch brought a sense of assurance to him, easing the tension that had built between the two of you. “You’re right. What matters most is right now, and the future,” he placed his hand on yours, a gentle smile gracing his features. “I’m just happy,”

You raised your eyebrows in question, head tilted slightly at his random outburst. “About what?”

“That we’re … us again, even if it’s not fully,”

A breath of sigh escaped your lips, a faint smile rested on your face, eyes sparkling just the slightest under the bright lights. “Took us a while, but at least we're here,”

Sunghoon nodded, his fingers brushing against yours, the intensity of his gaze was unwavering. There was a lingering spark straying in the air between you and him, the entirety of this—him being so close to you, basically holding your hand—was far from casual. If anything, it was hard to ignore the sound of your heart beating hard in your chest, or that tingling sensation up your spine. 

“H–hey, this coffee’s pretty good,” you slipped your hand away from his touch, turning your head to the other side so that he wouldn’t see you panicking. Heat crept up on the back of your neck, spreading to your cheeks, painting you a blushing mess. It was a curse to be too aware of what’s happening to you. “So, tomorrow’s party. What time does it start?”

“Seven,” Sunghoon replied simply, squinting his eyes at you, noticing your change in behaviour. He got closer to you, leaning in to scrutinise your face, unaware of the gap barely existing between you and him. “Are you okay—”

“Great! Fantastic, actually,” you breathed out, forcing out a laugh to cover the fact that you were far from just ‘okay’. “I’ll see you tomorrow, alright? I need to finish some stuff and head home. Great job today,”

“You don’t seem that great—” Sunghoon stood firmly with his deduction, only to be met with your dismissiveness. Unlike you, he was blissfully oblivious to the effect his insignificant actions had on you, and that it wasn’t just a friendly interaction between two ‘friends’.

“I’ll get going now, bye!” you held tightly onto your coffee, waving at him with a tight lipped smile. 

“Bye?” That was the last thing you heard before slipping into a storage room, the confusion in his voice still ringing in your ears. You left a very dumbfounded Sunghoon stranded, all to find yourself breathless after the whole conversation that seemed to have sucked out every bit of your social energy.

The realisation has finally hit you and was slowly sinking in. This was the first time you felt your heart racing again after years, the type where you get giddy and nervous over a small interaction till the point it becomes hard to breathe. That was what Sunghoon did to you, your first love, your first heartbreak, and the first to mend your broken heart once more. 

Just as quick as your hatred grew over the years, the feelings you had for him were equally fast in returning back, the same feeling that never once left, staying stubbornly rooted, waiting for you to discover it again. 

You would admit, Sunghoon did pick a perfect place to have his private party. That wasn’t the point though. The focus was mainly on the restaurant being the favourite restaurant that you and Sunghoon would go to in your high school years. This time around, you had access to the bar unlike before, which seemed to be forever ago. That showed how long you’ve been avoiding places which reminded you of him, something you wouldn’t admit to.

The place was the same as you remembered, the dim lighting accompanied by jazz music playing in the background, the entire venue provided an ambiance that proved to be the reason why you loved it there in the first place. It was hard to deny that you were feeling nostalgic the moment you stepped in, bringing back many memories whether you liked it or not. 

On the way to the private room, you walked past the spot that you and him claimed, a table by a large window. The memory of you dragging Sunghoon here every weekend, hogging the spot by the window, ordering a set meal to share came rushing into your mind. Mixed emotions bubbled in the depths of your heart, secretly longing for those great old days to return even if you knew it was impossible. However, it was possible to start something new now that you weren’t on bad terms with him, and that was how you remained hopeful. 

You were brought back to reality once you realised you had stopped in your tracks, staring blankly at the empty table, reminiscing about your past like an idiot. Embarrassed, you rushed away and found the private room while cringing without a pause, finally feeling more relieved when you saw your friends and colleagues. 

“Hey!” Yunjin wrapped an arm around your shoulder, pulling you into a low effort side hug to which you reciprocated. The mood in this room was similar to the outside. The same dim lighting complimented by a soft background music, trays of food already prepared, catered by the restaurant itself. There was a banner hung 

“Look who’s here, our dear editor,” her attempt to hype you up was responded with cheers from the group, earning an exasperated eye roll from you. “Enjoy this party, okay? You’ve worked hard,”

You had indeed worked hard for this book. Having to put up with the realisation that it was written about you, then needing to deal with your ex in the whole process of it, you surely deserved a Pulitzer prize just for your efforts. You simply nodded at her words, knowing that nobody here would ever find out about the truth behind the story in Sunghoon’s book and the experience you went through because of it.

“I’m going to go grab a drink, excuse me,” you smiled politely at the rest of them, then carefully escaped from the circle of your colleagues and out of the door, releasing a breath of relief that you didn’t know you were holding in. Walking out into the open space of the restaurant, it was much busier and larger than you recalled it to be.  

You settled yourself into a stool, glancing around and seeing most of the seats were occupied mainly in pairs. Were you the only one alone here? More reasons to be drinking. Being completely lost in thought and spacing out at the bartender making drinks for the customers prior to you, you didn’t notice a figure slipping into the seat next to you, sneaking a glance at you and proceeding to follow your line of sight.

“They’re a bit busy, aren’t they?” 

You didn’t even flinch at the sudden intrusion, already knowing who it was without needing a second guess. Turning your body to face the person next to you, you stared at him with a deadpan expression, completely unfazed. “Hey,” Sunghoon greeted you softly, smiling sweetly at you, as if your presence had graced him, disregarding the pointed look you shot at him. 

“I didn’t see you just now,” 

Sunghoon pursed his lips, resting both his arms on the counter, leaning into it, shying away from your gaze for unknown reasons. “I was walking around here,”

“Leaving your own party?”

A snort came from him in response, the corners of his lips were pulled higher than a second ago. He was amused, shaking his head at you. “I came here to relive the same feeling I had years ago,” a second of silence passed, as if he was letting his words sink further into the open wound. “The same feeling I have whenever I’m with you,”

You couldn’t tell if your heart skipping a beat was a normal reaction or whether it should be one. However, one thing’s for sure, it wasn’t something that occurred to you on a daily basis. There was a hint of unspoken yearning buried deep in those pupils of his, the additional mention of the past only brought a shift in atmosphere around the two of you. “I walked past our table,”

You were unconsciously holding your breath in, waiting for his reaction, unknowingly looking forward to what he has to say. He didn’t respond immediately, seemingly deep in thought at that fleeting moment, an unreadable smile on his face. “So did I,” he shifted in his seat, adjusting to his comfort, his body was now facing towards you more. “It’s still the same as before,”

“I remember those times we were here,” you said slowly, tip-toeing on the edge, testing the waters to make sure it was safe enough for you to dive into the topic. “I would drag you here so many times till the point where it became our go-to dating spot. You didn’t even try to fight me about it and accepted it,” you couldn’t stop yourself from smiling at the mention of those fond moments, letting a genuine, wide smile naturally creep itself onto your lips.

Sunghoon never once took his eyes off of you, scared that even if he blinked for just a second, he would miss the look of your smile, the carefree smile that you allowed yourself to express around him unlike before. His attention squared in on you, memorising every part of you like life depended on him to do so. “I remember,” he nodded mostly to himself, pressing his lips in a flat line. “I knew I stood no chance anyway,” he laughed, resisting the urge to fully burst out laughing at the change in your reaction. 

You crossed your arms, scoffing, but still remained a lighthearted smile. “Hey! You’re saying it like I forced you,” 

Sunghoon shrugged, choosing to rest his head on his hand, the look in his eyes were unwavering, making you gradually turn smaller under his gaze. You couldn’t describe it, yet you knew it was there, existing in the air. There was something between you and him in that second, in that conversation, and it was far from being just a casual talk. “I just wanted to be wherever you were,”

His words hung heavily in the space between the two of you, almost uncomfortably so, adding another layer to the thick tension that seemed impossible to get rid of. It shouldn’t hit you hard, the simplicity of his words shouldn’t be something you interpreted differently, but the only thing it did was sink deeply into your skin, prickling you just the same as needles did. 

He searched your face for any sign of a response, whatever it could be, but you failed to react, both physically and verbally. Your mind betrayed your senses, rendering you helpless against Sunghoon, against your fragile heart. There was desperation painted in the edges of every feature, calling out for you to give him a sign, any sign, to assure him that he hadn’t crossed any invisible line.

You opened your mouth, wishing you had a proper response ready, but in reality, you had no idea what you could say to him. He was the same person you were with in this restaurant many years ago, yet it only seemed you were sitting with someone you could barely breathe around. You realised it then, a picture clear as light, that no matter how you tried to start afresh with him, you couldn't brush off your past together, not when deep connections and feelings were still present. 

“Excuse me, what would you two like to order?”

Your attempt at trying to say something was futile. A part of you was glad that you were interrupted by the bartender, the other part just wished you had the courage to reply to him instead of freezing and cowering whenever he makes your heart jump. The bartender’s appearance was the only chance you had in breaking eye contact with Sunghoon, diffusing the heavy load pressing in on you, releasing a shaky breath. 

“One cosmopolitan and one scotch on the rocks,” Sunghoon stole a glance at you, noticing your expressions falling, deciding to take the initiative to order on your behalf. He casted another look at you, seeking approval to which you nodded in validation, mind already wandered off to someplace else. That wasn’t what surprised you, in fact, it was him knowing your usual drink order despite barely drinking together. 

The bartender wasted no seconds in getting to work, leaving you and him alone once again to bask in the aftermath of the conversation. There was a moment of silence weighing on the both of you, waiting for either one to break it. You chose to be that person, wanting to fix the cracks you caused for turning everything into an uncomfortable mess. 

“How … How did you know? My order, I mean,” 

Sunghoon shrugged, leaning his weight onto the counter, keeping both his arms resting on the surface of it. He remained facing forward, not immediate in turning back to look at you. “The team dinner. You ordered a cocktail, and Yunjin said ‘again?’, then I heard you saying it’s your usual order,” he stated plainly, as if it was common information that everyone should know. “You’ve always drunk the mocktail version of it when we were together too. How could I forget …” his voice faltered, fading into the faint chatters around you. 

“Right,” you breathed out, fiddling with your fingers, keeping your gaze on him, even if he wasn’t ready to meet yours. “You …” you stopped, the words were suddenly stuck in the back of your throat, hesitating to come out. “You still remember everything about me, even after all these years apart,”

Sunghoon didn’t say anything at first, waiting for a few seconds to pass slowly, agonisingly, silently suffering in his head while you couldn’t find a way into it. He dropped his head, breathing in deeply to fill his lungs with air, ignoring the way his heart clenched. He finally turned his head, meeting your eyes that were begging for a reply. A weak, half smile was all he could muster. “Of course I do,”

I still love you.

Those words automatically translated themselves into your head. The same sorrow, grief, and even longing hung in his voice, cutting deep into your heart. You stared at him, recalling the last time you were here with him, innocently thinking that everything would last in the future. If only you could turn back in time to tell yourself that you would be sitting with him in uncomfortable silence instead, looking at each other for some sort of a sign that never worked.

“Here are your drinks,” the bartender cut in, placing your drinks down in front of you, the pink of your cocktail shined under the lights hanging over your head. You and Sunghoon both expressed your thanks in return, hands reaching out for your drinks and wasting no time to take a big gulp of them. 

Setting your glass down, you stole another glance at Sunghoon, watching his face scrunching up at the strong taste of his whiskey, a quiet hiss followed after. You never knew Sunghoon would be a guy who likes whiskey, it was something you couldn’t picture. It only made you wonder what else you did not know about him, what he grew to like or hate over the years, or if he was still fully the Sunghoon that you personally knew. 

“So, how were your years in America?”

Sunghoon pulled a face, both a reaction to your random question and also a response signalling that it wasn’t a positive experience. He sighed, using one finger to trace the mouth of his glass. “Lonely, I guess?” He wore a smile that was enough to tell that there weren’t many happy memories regarding his years abroad. “Truthfully, I never really connected to the people, the culture and the country. I figured my heart was still stuck here,”

You nodded, absorbing his emotions like a sponge, feeling a tinge of sympathy for him. Those years of cursing him and holding a severe grudge against him, you’d never once thought that he was hurting too, that he had to go through something he didn’t want in the first place. The resentment was built up from the lack of knowing and misunderstanding. Years, valuable years were wasted over being kept in the dark. “I wonder how things would’ve turned out if you never left,”

Sunghoon partially stiffened, not expecting the topic of possibilities to be thrown into his face, a sensitive subject that he often mulled over about. “It would’ve been different. For starters, we wouldn’t be here talking about what-ifs,” he laughed, though it was weak. “I couldn’t settle down. It was hard, knowing that I left many people I care about here,” there it was again, a pause that made you hold your breath, counting down seconds till his next word. “And that I left you too,”

You offered a brief smile, one that fell just as quick as it appeared, finding yourself having no energy to try and fake one. The hurt in your eyes mirrored his, the difference lied with the reason behind it. “What matters most is that we’re both here now, right?” your hand unintentionally crept closer to his, twitching in wishful thinking that you could just hold him, even for a second.

“You’re right,” he hummed in agreement, the look of affection flashed across his expression for a quick second, just in time for you to be totally oblivious to it. “At our favourite spot too,”

“Well, cheers to that.” you held up your drink, staring expectantly at him. He chuckled at your actions, finding it rather amusing. A genuine smile pulled at his lips, he held his glass up, clinking it with yours to produce a short-lived sound. Shared laughter poured from the two of you, mixing into the taste of your drinks, the unbearable atmosphere from earlier on was long forgotten.

The night was young as everyone would say, just like your coworkers who yelled for more drinks once you and Sunghoon returned. Nobody questioned it, neither did they notice you and him disappearing for a strangely long time. You were certain, no one else could sense the lingering yearning you grew to have after your drinking session with him, or the way you stared at him from across the room for longer than a second, minutes even. 

Everyone was oblivious, too engrossed in the luxury of partying to take a hint, while you and Sunghoon were overly aware of each other and the burning ache you had for one another. 

Sunghoon has been officially reintroduced back into your life as days go by. Before you knew it, he had imprinted himself onto your day-to-day life, returning to the times where his presence alone was a norm to you. You didn’t question it when he picked you up from work, called you out for lunch or even dropped by your house for a casual dinner. None of those seemed out of the ordinary to you anymore, though it did take months for you to get used to the dynamic.

“So, what are you writing nowadays?” It was another Friday evening in Sunghoon’s car, sitting in the passenger seat after work, contemplating your choices for dinner. You looked over at him, watching him maintaining his concentration on the road ahead, taking more than a minute to process your question.

He raised his eyebrows, pursing his lips, thinking of his response. “I haven’t been writing. Well, not yet,”

“No wonder you have so much time to pick me up for dinner,” you snarkily muttered, feeling his eyes roll without having to confirm it personally. 

“Is this your way of thanking me?”

“I’m very grateful for my personal driver, Park Sunghoon,” you said dryly, poking his shoulder teasingly, stifling your giggles. Sunghoon took a brief glance at you, but he said nothing in return, shaking his head and smiling to himself. “Where are we going now? It’s a bit too early for dinner,”

“It’s a place I’ve been wanting to go for a long time,”

You frowned, confused at the lack of information and vagueness behind his reply. “What?”

“It’s a botanical garden. I heard the flowers are blooming,” 

The confusion in your face didn’t entirely dissipate, only increasing at the fact that he had a whole plan to bring you to a garden in the first place. This was completely out of character for him, you didn’t recall him being someone who liked gardens or nature. “Are you … stressed?”

“Why’s that your first assumption? I’ve just been doing some thinking, that’s all,” his fingers drummed slowly on the steering wheel, the music in the background seemed to be drowned out the longer your conversation went on. “I’m fine,” he turned to cast a reassuring smile, a sign asking for you to trust him and move on from the topic. “I was thinking we could get some fresh air and a nice scenery,”

“You sure do have many things up your sleeve.”

Sunghoon didn’t say anything in response, merely shrugging with a silent smile on his face. You glanced out of the window, letting the music overtake the space between you and him, watching the evening sun slowly set now that it was spring. Thinking back to last spring, everything you were experiencing currently was a complete one-eighty to then, you wouldn’t even be sitting with Sunghoon in his car at that time.

The chilly air bit at your skin, the only warmth provided was from Sunghoon as he walked closely next to you, shoulders occasionally bumping each other, but neither of you dared to acknowledge it. Even with the sun hiding behind the horizon and sunlight was scarce, the flowers in bloom were as beautiful as you had in mind. 

“Thanks for bringing me here,” you kept your eyes trained on the flowers and plants you walked past, not sparing a glance at him. You were afraid that if you did, that if you met his gaze for just a second, you might not be able to contain some hidden emotions that you’ve been trying so hard to hold back.

“What’s with the sudden gratitude?”

“No idea, I’m just grateful that you bring me to places that I thought I’ll never go to,” you stopped in your tracks, right by a small land planted with tulips of different colours. “I get to experience new things with you all the time,” you turned to face him, a genuine smile accompanied by your sparkling eyes was enough for his heart to swell in satisfaction, though he did not let it show on his expressions.

“I’m glad then,” he hummed, staring at the tulips with newfound interest, unfazed by your lingering eyes at him. “They’re really pretty,” he nodded at the flowers, the variation of colours were dimmed down by the dark, but it happened to be oddly more fascinating under the street light.

“Yeah, they are,” You wished, at that moment, in that split second, that you could tear your eyes off of him. He was just as delicate as those tulips, the prettiest you’ve ever seen. Spellbound, that was what you were. Your heart was only increasing in speed, inconsistently skipping a beat at the thought of him. How long were you and him going to stay in this state where the lines between being friends and lovers were blurred?

He seemed to sense the energy coming off of you, or maybe it was your unwavering gaze that pierced into his soul. Turning his face, he met your eyes at the right moment, an electric wave passing through the air around you. “Why are you staring at me like that?”

Freezing like a deer in headlights, you realised he had caught you in the middle of the act. You were shameless, but thoroughly embarrassed, feigning ignorance that he could possibly see through. “Huh? Like w–what?”

“I don’t know,” he was relentless, even if he didn’t say it, you could feel his stare on you, pressing you to fess up. Classic Sunghoon, he knew what he was doing and he enjoyed teasing you, the grin on his face was clear evidence. 

“It’s just because—” you paused, fighting inner thoughts to come up with an excuse. Seeing the smug look on his face while he stared expectantly at you for your answer was close enough to induce an annoyed eye roll in you that you managed to hold back. “I’m cold,”

Sunghoon tilted his head to one side, making a face that sent a clear message: he wasn’t fully convinced. Nevertheless, he didn’t sound it out, wordlessly peeling the scarf off his neck, then proceeded to wrap it around yours. An action as simple as this shouldn’t have caused you to freeze, automatically holding your breath until it ended, but it did. 

“Why didn’t you bring an extra layer? You don’t do well with the cold anyway,” he focused on fixing the scarf properly before averting his eyes back to you, to meet yours, a hint of sincere worry along with disapproval in them. A gust of wind that came after brushing against the strands of his hair softly, the mole on his nose resembled a lone star in the sky.

“You’d be cold too,” your hand flew to the scarf, mindlessly touching it, as if you were still in disbelief that he had personally put it on you. 

“I’ll be fine,” he waved your concerns away, shifting on his feet. “How about we get out of here and have dinner?” he threw an arm around your shoulder, an action so natural as if it was a muscle memory, slowly moving you away from the flowers and back onto the walking path.

“Sounds good.” All you remembered from that moment on was an awakened feeling which made its presence loud and known, staying with you for longer than you thought: love. It was quietly creeping up on you and waiting for its turn to get into action. The urge was becoming stronger as time passed. With Sunghoon’s being there in your daily life, you could barely avoid him, holding back was just a torture. 

The torment was becoming worse when he sent you home that night, relentlessly denying your rejection in walking you to your door till the point where you had to give up for the sake of avoiding an argument. He was stubborn, adamant that he was going to see you safely go. Sunghoon was making it harder for you to escape his grasp, even though he was completely unaware of your internal turmoil that struggled to come to terms with your actual feelings.

“Thanks for walking me back. You didn’t have to, genuinely,” you were at your doorstep. It was already late, the corridor was empty, leaving you and Sunghoon to some privacy. He shrugged, hands in his pockets, posture relaxed.

“I want to, Y/N,” he said earnestly, shaking his head at you, occasionally averting his gaze away. “Let me do this for you, okay?”

“I don’t want to trouble you,”

“How is it troubling to me when I never once complained,” he raised an eyebrow at you, trying his best to get his point across. You knew he was right, there was no chance for you to fight that. After all, he was the one insisting. It was you that wasn’t used to his act of service, though it’s been the same since you first knew him. 

“Fine. You win,” you scoffed, yet your smile betrayed the annoyance in your voice. The staring game you had with him lasted longer than it should have. You could point out every delicate feature of his that you liked from the top of your head with the way his face was basically imprinted on your mind. That was when you realised his scarf was still wrapped around your neck, giving you an excuse to look away from him. “Oh, I just remembered,”

You grabbed onto the scarf, pulling it off of you in a swift motion, but instead of giving it back to him immediately, you took a step forward, closing the distance between you and him. Sunghoon didn’t move, barely budging one bit, his eyes following your every move like a hawk, breathing turning more shallow as seconds passed, anticipating your next move. 

You ignored the sound of your heart pumping noisily in your ears, trying your hardest to avoid his gaze, focusing on the scarf alone, moving your hands quickly to wrap his scarf around his neck, making a loop to secure it tightly on him. Even then, you didn’t dare to look at him, choosing to turn your head towards the empty corridor. “Your … scarf,” you didn't remove your hand from the cloth that was properly placed around his neck right away, another additional layer creating a barrier to his heart. 

“Thanks,” Sunghoon said slowly, his eyes searching fervently for yours, only to be avoided at every given chance. He could feel the heaviness weighing in the air, an invisible string tied around the two of you was getting tighter, pulling you closer to him. A chill ran up your spine when you felt his stare intensifying, as if he was desperately calling for you to stop avoiding his eyes. “Hey,” he whispered, drawing your attention back to him. “Look at me,” 

His words were a powerful command despite his gentle tone, convincing you to follow without a second thought. You met his eyes, blinking faster as if it could magically make him disappear. Those brown irises stared back at you with furrowed eyebrows, wandering every crevice of your face until he could find the reason behind your avoidance. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. I really am,” you assured him, attempting to sound as believable as you could, adding a smile to the equation so that he wouldn’t question you further. It was true, you were flustered simply because of him, and no, you didn’t want him to know, but it was hard for you to hide. “I should go, shouldn’t I?” you were about to drop your hand from his scarf, but his hand appeared, grabbing onto yours, holding it close to his heart.

“Stay. Just a little longer,” his voice was low, a quiet confession escaping his lips no matter how he tried to hold it in.  

A genuine smile replaced the one you forced earlier, pulling the slightest chuckle out of you. “I’ll be seeing you tomorrow anyway,”

“But it’s different tonight,”

So, you weren’t overthinking all along. There was truly something in the air at that moment, undeniable and alive, forcing you and him to acknowledge it even if you didn’t want to. From the second you stepped onto that garden with him, you knew you were in deep trouble. Those feelings you suppressed for months, denying their truth, had only returned to bite back at you. It was then you rightfully realised it: you still had feelings for Sunghoon. You still loved him, but you were scared, terrified that you had missed your chance considering months had passed.

You decided to do something that you could never imagine yourself doing in a million years. Taking advantage of the situation along with the momentary silence, you leaned in, inching your face closer to his, letting everything occur naturally. Sunghoon has always been sharp, quick to get the memo, this was another testament to that fact. Closing his eyes, he tilted his head, bending his body just enough for you to reach him without any challenge. 

This was it. You were about to kiss Park Sunghoon. The months worth of built up tension, silent cries of desperation, a hidden confession you couldn’t bring yourself to say, all of those were going to be melted into this kiss. A kiss that wasn’t as simple as it seemed to be. Instead, it was a promise, a seal to an end to the push and pull that the two of you were stuck in. Just a little bit more, you could practically feel his lips—

“Y/N! What are you doing out there?” the voice of your roommate, Minjeong came from behind the door. Unexpectedly so, the door was ripped open after, your soon-to-be-evicted roommate was standing there, hand on one side of her hip, staring accusingly at you and Sunghoon as though you were guilty of a crime. 

You pushed yourself from Sunghoon, slipping your hand from his, almost choking on your spit from how fast you tried to remove any remnants of the ‘almost kiss’. The suspicions were only more obvious, but you couldn’t be bothered to care about that, thoroughly embarrassed and cringing on Sunghoon’s behalf. Being caught by a roommate wasn’t a bad thing, unless that roommate happened to be Minjeong, your best friend that cussed your ex out, and also listened to your endless rants about him. Now, that was the problem.

“Minjeong, hey,” your tone was the complete opposite to your eyes that were furiously shooting daggers at her. “This isn’t the right time to appear,” you mumbled quietly to her, nodding over at Sunghoon without being too obvious. Disappointment with a pinch of confusion was what you could describe her expression at that precise moment, withholding any judgements that were saved for later. “I’ll come in after I say my goodbyes, okay?”

Minjeong had no other choice but to close the door even though it was written all over her face that she was against the idea of leaving you alone with Sunghoon. Once you heard the door closing behind you, that was only when you let out a sigh of relief. Facing Sunghoon again made you wish a massive black hole would appear to swallow you up. He, on the other hand, was smiling at you. Whether it was out of awkwardness or he was just secretly laughing at you, there was no telling which one it was. 

“Sorry about that. She has really … bad timings,” you bit the insides of your cheek, fiddling with your fingers anxiously. Kissing him meant no return, but a close call of a kiss was far worse when you could barely explain yourself.

“It’s nothing. She’s probably worried about you,” Sunghoon shook his head, offering an assuring smile that did nothing to soothe your anxiousness. Well, there was your attempt at going for a kiss that ended up in a ditch. “Don’t worry about it,” his eyes flickered between your fidgeting hands and your face, noticing the change in your expressions. He reached for your hands, holding them tightly in his. It was sudden, but not too surprising. “I know,”

You looked up at him, a glint of hope sparked in your eyes, your heart picking up speed, threatening to escape your chest. He … knew? Sunghoon was unwavering, a look of determination flashing across his features. “I know,” he repeated, doing everything he could to ease your worries. Even with the lack of explanations, you understood him, needing no more than that to know he has been aware of you and your heart all along. “Let’s talk about this tomorrow, okay?”  

“Alright,” you squeezed his hands, a way of thanking him and also for a seek of reassurance. “Let’s leave this for a proper time,” 

Sunghoon nodded, rubbing his thumb softly against your skin. “It’s getting late. You should get going. I think Minjeong is too protective over you,”

You scoffed, the thought of your roommate only haunted you with those new memories. “She just needs some time,” you were referring to the time at the bar where she nearly skinned Sunghoon alive if you hadn’t interfered at the right moment. Who knew what she would’ve done with her out of her mind? “Anyway, goodnight. Text me when you’re home.”

“I will. Goodnight, Y/N.” 

Minjeong was relentless, practically hunting you down for every single information possible once you entered your supposedly safe home. She was still mildly unconvinced about Sunghoon even though she was willing to hear you out, worried he might break your heart once more. Instead, you were convinced you were the one breaking your own heart from holding back longer. 

There were many things you were scared about when it came to starting a relationship once more, fearing the existing uncertainties and doubts hidden behind the curtains to stand in the way of you and Sunghoon. However, there was one thing you were wholeheartedly certain about, and that was you loving Sunghoon in every stage of life.  

You were a mess.

Ever since that night, you were sure you had left many things hanging and unsaid. The kiss that was meant to happen turned into dust right before you, making the complications between you and Sunghoon worse than it originally was. Not to mention, you haven't seen Sunghoon since then either. The promise of seeing each other the next day went into the gutters when the two of you were coincidentally roped into matters from your jobs. It didn’t stop there. Your busy lives resulted in days of not seeing each other, taking a turn from your usual routine.

Truthfully, there were times where you wanted to pour your heart out over a text message. The overwhelming thoughts you had accumulated in the days you and him were apart was eating you alive. ‘Hey … I think I like you’ surely, a message such as that wasn’t going to suffice. You were stuck in a limbo, going back and forth between having the confidence of confessing to none. In a nutshell, you were petrified out of your mind to face your fear: coming to terms with your feelings. 

Tossing and turning in bed has become a habit when the worries seem to pile up with time. You still had the last message of Sunghoon stuck in your mind as you lay awake, considering the meanings behind it that you were convinced you were overthinking about. ‘Let’s meet tomorrow, no more excuses this time, it’s a must’ since when did he turn into such a clingy person? Or was there some ulterior motives hiding up his sleeves this time around?

You slipped out of bed, pulled a hoodie over your head and headed straight for the front door. It was an impulsive decision to be leaving the comforts of your home in the middle of the night, you knew that, but you also needed some fresh air to think. Your feet brought you to a spot you’ve neglected for a long time, the overhead bridge close to your home. It has been years since you last crossed it, either choosing the long way to walk or drive just so you could avoid the memories resurfacing. 

The overhead bridge was the place you would often cross to head home when you were in highschool. Coincidentally, you and Sunghoon were connected by that bridge. He lived on the other side of it, creating many excuses that walking home with you was on his way home as well, knowing it was the complete opposite, but eventually you gave in, which ended in you and him going on many adventures after school. At the end of every day, your time with him ended on that overhead bridge, though you spent at least half an hour purely talking before going your separate ways. 

Now that you were there again, you found it much surreal that years have passed and nothing has changed. It was as if the memories you made there with Sunghoon were frozen in time, that this place has become an artifact which proves the existence of you and Sunghoon’s relationship. Just by standing there, you could see every scenario you experienced playing out right in front you. There was once where you and Sunghoon did nothing but just share your secrets until the time of your curfew arrived.

“You’re here?”

You wondered if you had accidentally thought about Sunghoon too hard to the extent of you vividly hearing his voice in your head. Overlooking the quiet cars passing by on the road under the bridge, you didn’t turn your head immediately, listening carefully to the sounds of footsteps approaching first, only then you dared to look over to the direction of the source. 

“You’re here too,” your eyes weren’t tricking you, even though you doubted yourself for a second. His figure in the dark was dimly illuminated by the street lights, the familiar rhythm in his steps exposed himself to you. He stood beside you, resting his arms on the railings, staring up at the night sky.

“I couldn’t sleep,” he replied, shoulder brushing gently against yours, mindlessly leaning closer to you. “I thought of coming here. I live near my old home anyway,” he shrugged, averting his attention back to you, an intensely inquisitive look flashing across his face. “What’s your reason?”

“I needed to think,” about you, about us, specifically. 

“Something’s keeping you up?” 

“Well …”

“Or is it someone?”

He surely knew how to read minds, didn’t he? 

You masked the initial shock from showing, covering the guilt of hiding the truth and turning it into impassiveness. However, your silence with the addition of avoiding his gaze gave away the impression that you were, in fact, hiding something from him. He could read you like a book, painfully so. 

“I’m right, aren’t I?” Sunghoon continued to egg you on, crossing his arms, moving his face closer to fix his eyes on you, scanning your expressions to determine an answer. “Is it someone at work causing trouble?”

“Not exactly. There’s no one, Sunghoon. I’m just worried about work,” you waved him off dismissively, hating that the person you had in mind happened to be the same person questioning you as well. Sunghoon leaned back a little more, creating a small space between you and him compared to earlier.

“You’re not seeing anyone?”

You raised an eyebrow at that, frowning just the slightest. “No. Are you?”

He shook his head, exhaling quietly. “I don’t think I’m interested,”

“What does that mean? You’re going to stay single forever?” you teased him, nudging him a little, yet internally, you contemplated the meaning behind his words. Did you truly lose your chance?

“It means, I’m not looking for anything now. Well, at least I haven’t found the right person anyway,” he shook his head, sounding equally dismissive as you did. “How … Why did you think of coming here out of all places? I thought there’s a nice park below your apartment complex,” he was quick to change the topic at hand, although you found it odd, you didn’t complain. You didn’t want to know more when your heart was already fragile because of your worries over him.

“I thought it’d be nice to revisit an old place,” you breathed in deeply, appreciating the quietness of the night, leaving you and Sunghoon in your own bubble, the world seemingly revolving around only the both of you. “I haven’t been here in many years,” 

“So, did coming here after all these years somehow cleared your mind?”

“Not exactly,” you were being completely truthful this time. With Sunghoon’s sudden appearance and the resurgence of old memories, you were far from sane and having your mind straight. However, him showing up right at the moment of you thinking about him was a sign and also a confirmation to your everlasting questions. “But I did find an answer,”

“Oh, really? That’s good then,” Sunghoon glanced away, unaware of your eyes lingering on him, focusing on the way his chest moved up then down, letting the comfortable silence engulf you and him. You didn’t mind the fact that his side was basically pressing into yours, the warmth from his body provided an invisible blanket wrapped around you. The sudden sound of a yawn coming from him disrupted the ambiance, his sheepish grin met your amused chuckle.

“Ready to sleep?”

“Seems like it,” he let out a genuine laugh, looking a little apologetic. Sunghoon rested his head on his arms, glancing up at you, a soft twinkle in those eyes as if you were his world, cradling you in the reflection of his pupils so that you wouldn’t leave his sight for even just a second. “I’m not ready to leave yet,”

“We’ll see each other tomorrow anyway, you demanded it,” you pointed a finger at him, watching his smile turn wider at your direct call out. “Do you have something planned?”

“Of course, I do. Who do you think I am?” he was confident in whatever he had in mind, the smugness in his face said it all. You could see it wearing off in just a split second, letting a slip of his actual emotions. “I thought it could make up for the days we didn’t see each other,”

You blinked mindlessly, allowing the meaning of his words to marinate in your mind, processing the weight of it all. Flickering eyes stared back at him, you put on a nervous smile that was trying its best to hide the fact that you were panicking about the urge to say something you wouldn’t. “You’re acting like we’re something,”

Sunghoon shrugged, raising his eyebrows at you, not showing much of a change in his expressions. “But we’re not exactly nothing, aren’t we?”

“Touche,” you nodded, suddenly grateful that it was mostly dark enough to hide the flush in your face. “Get your beauty sleep tonight, I’ll see you in the morning. It’s the weekend, you should be sleeping in,”

Sunghoon straightened his spine, holding onto the railings, shifting on his feet. “Fine, fine,” he was rather reluctant, doing double takes between the night scenery before him and you, his eternal sunshine. “So, I guess this is a goodbye for the night,” he tilted his head slightly, staring at you with a sense of hesitation, as though he wasn’t ready to part.

“It’s a temporary goodbye, don’t be dramatic,” you clicked your tongue, narrowing your eyes at him.  

Sunghoon laughed softly, mostly humoured by your reaction. He lowered his gaze onto the floor for a few seconds, hiding the affection that filled his irises, before he met your eyes once more, an unreadable look took over instead. “Goodnight, Y/N,”

You smiled, a sudden wave of deja vu hit you, the memory of your past coming back to you in a rush. There you were, at the same place, together with the person that was there by your side years ago, an identical replay of your nightly routine where you bid each other goodbye before parting ways. 

“Goodnight, Sunghoon.”

Sunghoon slowly nodded, taking a few steps back, his eyes never leaving you once. He raised his hand, waving goodbye, to which you reciprocated, an uneasy feeling creeping up on you knowing you had yet left things incomplete, the things you wished you said were buried in your heart again. The moment he turned his back on you, you wondered if you had missed your chance of saying what’s on your mind.

From wanting to settle your emotions quietly, and very much alone somehow turned into an answer that was always there for you to discover and realise: you were not going to let Sunghoon slip away again. You opened your mouth, hoping something, anything would just come out and pull him back, but there was nothing. He was getting farther, with every step he took, you followed, your feet instinctively bringing you closer to him, your heart naturally seeking for him.

“I love you,”

The eight letter word poured out from the deepest parts of your soul, reaching his heart through a single thread connecting you and him together. It wasn’t the first thing you had in mind, and yet, your heart confessed the secret it's been holding onto for far too long. You stopped in your tracks just as Sunghoon did, the silence becoming deafening when neither of you said anything in response. You couldn’t tell what he was thinking, hell, his face wasn’t even facing you. There was only room for you to imagine his reaction in that fleeting moment. 

“I love you,” you repeated, a little more louder this time, as if saying it once wasn’t convincing enough. In your case, you were still in denial that it ever left your lips. Lowering your head, you could only place your attention on the ground, not having enough courage to face him. “I thought that if I don’t say it now, I’ll never get to say it again. I’ve been thinking about us, and I didn’t want to lose another chance, another year without you. I was scared I’ll lose you completely, that your heart would be someone else’s—”

Heavy footsteps cut through your voice, a sense of urgency followed with every step taken to get to you. You couldn’t finish your sentence, mind instantly turning blank when you saw his shoes directly in front of you. Still, you didn’t look up, you couldn’t bring yourself to, not until Sunghoon’s hands met the side of your face, palms resting gently on your cheeks, tilting your head upward, lips crashing into yours without any prior warning.

The initial shock gradually withered away, you closed your eyes, letting yourself melt into him. The walls were no longer there, you had fully, wholly given your heart to him, no longer afraid of him breaking it again. The feeling of his lips wasn’t something you’d forget easily. An overwhelming amount of desperation, longing, and love that the both of you had were silently exchanged, the vulnerability was raw, finally understanding that you could fully love one another without anything standing in between, not even the past and the grudges it held.

A choked sob left your lips, the tears were flowing before you could find the strength to hold it in. Sunghoon only deepened the kiss, pulling your trembling body closer to him. There was a weight of his emotions as his lips moved against yours, you could feel it, the desperation of his own to heal whatever pain that was inside of you. 

You pulled away for a moment, gasping for air, the heaviness in your heart becoming more apparent, the tears flowing down your cheeks were met with Sunghoon’s thumb, softly caressing the expanse of your face, wiping away the tears that brought pain to his heart. “I thought I was okay, but I’m not. I’m still in love with you, Sunghoon. I’ve always wanted to tell you this, but I couldn’t find the right time, and I was scared I’d lose you … again,”

Sunghoon stared at you with an infinite amount of admiration, as if you were the sun in his darkest days or the prettiest painting in an art museum, the only person that was made for him, an undoubtable fact that he was wholeheartedly certain about. You were his past, his present, and his future, a mark in every timeline there is in his lifetime. “I love you too. I haven’t stopped loving you, and I don’t think I ever will. You’re my person, you’ll never lose me,”

His eyes were red, brimming with tears, but he didn’t allow a tear to fall, maintaining a smile, though it was weak. You held onto his hand, feeling it shake under your touch. Intertwining his fingers with yours, you gave his hand a reassuring squeeze. “You’re my person too,”

“I wish … I wish I could give you back the years you’ve spent resenting me,” his voice was weak, defenceless against the emotions that overwhelmed him. “I wish I could’ve been there, so that you didn’t have to be in pain because of me,”

“It’s okay, Sunghoon, really. The past can’t hurt us anymore, and it doesn’t define us either,” your hand travelled to his face, cupping his cheek. “What matters most is we’re us again,”

Sunghoon breathed deeply, letting out a shaky breath. His eyes flickered, a faint smile appearing in the midst of his tired face. “So, does that mean we’re officially back together?”

“Yes, we are. Back to how it always was,”

He slipped his hand away from yours, instead, he threw his arms around you, pulling you into his embrace, holding onto you tightly. A part of him was scared that everything was just a dream, that you would disappear in any moment. “You’ll always be a part of me, a part that cannot ever be erased,”

“That’s good, because you also make up a big part of my heart.”

His laugh was enough to erase the bittersweet pain that you felt from erasing the past and starting a new path with the person that took up most parts of your life. He was always there in your life even when he became a memory, there was no way in hell you could ever replace him, not in a million years, not in this lifetime of yours.

From the day you saw him again, you had a feeling he was never leaving, not anymore. After all, the ones that were meant to be a part of your life would come back to you, while those that don’t would never cross paths with you ever again. In Sunghoon’s case, he was the one that was meant to be in every stage of your life, whether it was physically or just mentally.

You and Sunghoon could never be just friends, because the two of you were already predestined to be lovers. 

“You’re going to let that go, right?”

Just because you and Sunghoon were officially back together didn’t mean that there was a change in your dynamic. You were still continuing on with your life as usual, Sunghoon had started writing his new book, and once it’s time for you to get off work, his car would already be there to pick you up. Nothing has changed except for the title of your relationship with him. 

Telling Minjeong about it should’ve required a mental preparation beforehand. There you were, in your apartment, eating take out with an addition to the duo, Park Sunghoon, who was being interrogated by an old friend. You were the bystander having to witness everything unfold, occasionally getting embarrassed by Minjeong’s antics that Sunghoon found amusing in the contrary.

“Right, that time in the bar where you came up to me and cussed me out,” Sunghoon laughed, clapping his hands at the memory. It was hard not to let out at least a giggle at that. Somehow, the most complicated times of your life were far, far away from you, becoming a laughable memory for you and your friends to reminisce about.

“I was drunk!” Minjeong tried to fight back, knowing it was a losing battle against her.

“It was funny, I’ll give you that,” Sunghoon pointed his chopsticks at her, shaking his head when Minjeong started to mumble incoherent things under her breath. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to hold it against you. You’re an old friend anyway, and I get where you were coming from,”

“I never got to formally apologise to you though, I swear it was eating me up. How about I pay for our drinks the next time we go out?”

“Sounds like a deal.” Sunghoon nodded in satisfaction, glancing at you to catch your reaction, eyeing you stifling a laugh. He raised an eyebrow at you, to which you shook your head in response to his unspoken question that you understood without a doubt. His eyes lingered on you for another beat before looking away, a faint smile resting on his lips.

Dinner ended with a new promise to meet up for drinks that was enthusiastically met with collective agreements. Instead of the usual routine where Sunghoon walked you home, you decided to follow him till a certain distance from your apartment complex. Despite his rejection, you still clung onto him, leaving him no choice but to let you walk him home, even if it was midway.

“Thanks for joining us for dinner,” you had your arm looped around his, sticking your side to his, close enough to be compared to a koala clinging onto a tree branch. 

“I was scared she’d come for my head,” Sunghoon jokes, but realistically speaking, you shared the same worry as he did, knowing how Minjeong disapproved of him after your breakup up till the time he returned, the memory of her confronting him at the club was concrete evidence to back up your worries.

“I was scared for you too,” you laughed even though you promised yourself you wouldn’t slip, unaware of the look he had in his eyes. Sunghoon smiled at you, not because he found your response funny, but seeing you laugh was all he needed for his heart to feel full from contentment. 

“I made a dinner reservation at our usual spot for tomorrow. I’ll come pick you up after work,” Sunghoon was always pulling the most spontaneous plans when you least expected it, this time wasn’t an exception either. 

“It’s specifically our table, right?” you remembered that night at the restaurant where you and Sunghoon escaped the entire party just to be with each other, ignorant to the fact that you and him were building something stronger than the whiskey he had. 

“Who do you think I am?” 

“Right, the one with many tricks hidden up his sleeves,” you heard him chuckling under his breath, not before long realising that you were already at the foot of the overhead bridge. The both of you slowed down your steps, eventually stopping, standing before each other, hands still tightly holding onto one another. 

“I guess it’s time to end the night,” Sunghoon squeezed your hand, not missing the frown slowly forming on your lips. 

“Can’t you stay a little longer?” 

“If I do, I don’t think I would even make it home. Is that your master plan?” he pulled your hand, closing the distance, letting you fall into his embrace without a pinch of shame. You, on the other hand, weren’t expecting his bold action, landing with your hand planted on his chest, heat crawling up the back of your neck till your face. “I’ll make sure tomorrow’s better than tonight,”

Steadying yourself on your feet, you made sure to land a slap on his shoulder first before thinking of a response. Sunghoon simply smiled, seemingly proud of his own impulsive act. “You promise?”

“I promise,” he pinched your cheek, eliciting a genuine laugh from you, a smile appearing on his face right after as if it had turned into a natural response. For a moment, the two of you stood there with barely an inch in between, thankful that there wasn’t anybody around to intrude, basking in each other’s warmth. Neither of you were ready to say goodbye, though knowing it was inevitable. 

“I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?” you whispered, as if seeking a kind of reassurance that only Sunghoon’s confirmation could provide.

“Of course,” Sunghoon squeezed your hand one more time, assuring you once again. His touch was gentle, the gaze he had on you was something irreplicable,  just as his feelings were for you. “Goodnight, Y/N,”  

“Goodnight, Sunghoon.”

He kept his eyes on you for another moment before he slowly let go of his hand, leaning in to press a kiss on the top of your head. As he backed away, waving, you watched him with his promise swelling in your heart, some sort of anticipation building on its own, already looking forward to the plan he had in store. 

You knew that as long as you had him by your side, spending the rest of your days with him in your life, your world was going to be much brighter than it had been with him in it. 

( © jaylver all rights reserved. do NOT copy, plagiarise or edit my work and repost whatsoever. once discovered will be exposed and blacklisted. )

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[humanjarvis]

my happy is your happy

synopsis: luke thinks sylus should make more friends. but does he really need them?

tags: fluff, kinda comfort?, unintentional family dynamics (idk what came over me i didn’t expect that to happen), potential unrealistic use of sylus’s evol bc what does “energy manipulation” even mean, reader is protective of sylus, sylus overhears, asterisks to denote pov shifts bc i didn't want to use dividers pairing: sylus x reader word count: 774

a/n: it’s been like 2 days of people calling sylus a friendless loser on twitter and that’s fine but IIIII don’t think ur a loser, sylus. wrote this on a whim in the last 2 hours, questionably proofread

“Have you ever noticed that Boss doesn’t have any friends?” Luke’s youthful voice rings out, putting a swift end to your peaceful night of reading on the couch. 

Folding your half-finished book over your lap, you look up at his masked face, raising an eyebrow. “He has you.” 

Luke scoffs. “I don’t count, obviously.”

“He has Kieran.”

“We’re practically the same person. Try again,” he says, waving a hand dismissively.

“…He has Mephisto,” you offer, an innocent grin on your face. 

He doesn’t even dignify that one with a response. 

“He's still in his 20s, for God’s sake! Don’t you think he should go out more? Party a little, meet some new people?” Luke asks, gesturing wildly with his hands. 

“Not if he doesn’t think he needs to,” you say simply. 

*** 

Sylus had just stepped out of the shower when he overheard your tired voice from the living room. Not if I don’t think I need to…what? he ponders, mulling over the possibilities. Increase their monthly allowance? Install lasers into Mephisto’s eyes? Entrust Onychinus to the twins in my will?

“But no friends?” Luke asks dramatically, snapping Sylus out of his thoughts. “None? Not even one?”

Oh, Sylus thinks. That. 

Realizing you were defending his…comfortable lifestyle, Sylus feels something warm and tight and slightly wistful squeeze in his chest. Smiling to himself, he shrouds his body in the dark wisps of his Evol and moves closer, watching the rest of your conversation with interest. 

*** 

Exasperated, you run a hand through your hair. “Luke, I think you’re overthinking this. Not everyone wants to go out and party and meet people. What about Sylus makes you think he wants to go out and party and meet people? You put him in a room full of cheap club music and cheaper beer, and he’s going to evaporate into thin air. Or cause a mass casualty incident,” you say, only to be met with silence. 

Sighing, you start again. “Look, I understand that you care about him and want to make sure he’s happy—I do too—but Sylus’s happy isn’t Luke’s happy. It isn’t Kieran’s happy, or Mephisto’s happy, or even my happy. It’s his. He’s the only one who can decide what makes him happy, and he’s the only one who can decide if he is or not.”

When Luke’s mask droops—a telltale sign of a pout appearing—you switch tactics. “And maybe it’s not that he doesn’t have friends. Maybe you guys are just enough for him—did you ever think about that?” 

At this, the beak of his mask perks back up, and you know you’ve got him. 

“You think we’re…enough for him?” he asks, a hint of wonder in his voice.

You nod. 

And then you try to ignore the way his hands twitch in excitement, fighting with all you have to keep your giggle from surfacing. 

“That’s…” he clears his throat. “You know what? You’re right, Y/N, my bad. You’re really smart, you know,” Luke responds gruffly, an incriminating wobble in his voice. 

Smiling, you stand up to pat his hooded head. “I know.” 

“Well,” he starts, a new vigor in his steps as he heads toward the door. “I’m gonna go find Kieran. We just got this huge shipment of explosives that w—”

“Nope!” you interrupt. “You’re not getting me in trouble again. The less I know, the better.”

Shrugging, Luke disappears into the hallway, and you shake your head fondly. 

“What a heartwarming conversation,” a deep voice rings out. 

Jumping from shock, you whip your head around. “Sylus?!” you whisper-yell. “How long have you been there?!”

Emerging from the shadows of the bedroom behind you, Sylus strolls toward you, a soft smirk on his face. 

“Just long enough to hear your passionate defense of me,” he quips, wrapping an arm around your waist. “How much is your lawyer fee?”

Embarrassed, you swat his chest, bowing your head slightly. “I know he meant well, but I just…don’t like it when people try to take your life out of your hands,” you admit quietly. “It makes me sad.” 

“Well we can’t have that, can we, kitten?” he rumbles, rubbing his hand up and down your back. “Let me cheer you up—I very much enjoyed hearing you speak up for me.”

Lifting your head up, you look into his warm garnet eyes. “You did?” 

“Mm,” he hums, pulling you closer. “I do hate cheap beer, and you all are enough for me. You know me very well,” he praises, pressing a soft kiss to your lips. 

“But for all your expertise, you were wrong about one thing,” he whispers against you. “My happy is your happy.”

[classyrbf]

aaaaa plzzz do nanami getting a boner when y/n is speaking to him and they end up fucking? (Established relationship)

<33

YOU TURN ME ON! — NANAMI KENTO

SYNOPSIS...nanami is so easily turned on when it comes to you, he can’t help but get hard at the slightest things

INFO...nanami x fem!reader, established relationship, reverse cowgirl, praise, spanking, creampie, not proofread

OTHER...likes and reblogs are appreciated

thanks for the request anon!

“So how was your day?” You asked your husband as he loosened his tie, a long sigh leaving his lips as he slipped his jacket off.

“The usual. I don’t wanna bore you,” he chuckled. He sat at the edge of the bed, removing his shoes and tossing them to the side. He could feel the bed dip behind him as you wrapped your arms around his neck, kissing his cheek. His eyes closed shut, embracing your warmth. “How was your day, darling?” He asked.

You hopped off of the bed in front of him, grabbing his shoes from the floor and placing them on the rack. “Well, I went to the mall today!” You smiled.

“Yeah? You buy anything?” He grabbed your hand, rubbing his thumb over your knuckles while he stared at you in adoration. He couldn’t be more lucky to have you as his wife.

“Actually, I did. There was this cute dress that I wanted. You remember the one I showed you?” You asked. He nodded in response, a small smile creeping up on his face. “Well I found it in my size, and it was the last one. But, Ken, it’s so much prettier in person!” You said with excitement. Running over to the closet, you pulled the dress off the rack and held it up. “What do you think?”

“I think the color goes great with your skin. Makes it glow,” he explained. He could see the smile widen on your face. He loves when you get excited about the little things in life.

“Awe thank you, Ken,” you giggled, turning around to put the dress back on the rack. His eyes scanned over your figure, the shorts that exposed your legs, the tank top you wore making it obvious your nipples were hard. “Ken!” You shout.

“Huh?” He looks up at you, blinking away his confusion. He could feel his slacks slightly tighten as he shifted in his spot on the bed.

“I was talking about the new bed set I saw in the mall. Did you hear me?” You walked over to him, straddling his lap.

“I’m sorry, love, I didn’t. Please, tell me again.” His hands rest on your waist, gently caressing your skin as you began talking again. He stared at you as your mouth moved, going on and on about how you think it’ll match the room. “You should’ve gotten it,” he said.

“I know, but I wanted your opinion first!” You whine. “After all, you sleep here too.” You peck his lips. Nanami let out a small groan, pushing his hips back. “You okay?” You ask, looking at him with concern.

“Yeah, it’s just…um…” Nanami let out a breath, trying to hide the fact he got turned on just from you talking about your day and walking around the room. It was quite embarrassing. But with each passing second you were on his lap, he was getting harder. “Darling, I’m sorry, I’m hard.” He looked up at you.

“Oh…oh!” You laugh, hiding your face in his neck. “Ken, it’s nothing to be ashamed of,” you say.

“I know, but you didn’t even do anything sexual, I just don’t want to make it seem like I’m some kind of perv—”

“What’s wrong with a man being attracted to his wife?” You question, staring into his eyes.

“Sweetheart, please don’t look at me like that…fuck,” he whispers under his breath. Within seconds, you push Nanami onto the bed, catching him by surprise. Your hands are moving quick to undo his belt. “You don’t have to—”

“Shush, Ken,” you demand, pulling down his pants. His cock springs free, already dripping with precum. “How are you so hard already?” You giggle, feeling arousal pool in your panties.

“You turn me on, darling.” He props himself up on his elbows as you remove your clothing, kicking aside your shorts and panties. Your crawl onto the bed, faces inches apart before you plant your lips on his, tongues moving against one another, biting down on his bottom lip. “Fuck, I love you.”

“I love you too, Ken.” You peck his lips once more before turning your back towards him, angling yourself above his cock. You lift your hips just so enough so you can slowly sink down, feeling the stretch. A small gasp leaves your lips, a groan escaping from your husband.

“Fuck you’re so warm and tight,” he breathes, his hands coming up to squeeze your ass while you bounce on his cock. He’s entranced at the way his dick completely disappears into your cunt, sucking him in without hesitation.

You start to pick up the pace, growing more comfortable as your hips move faster, your juices dripping down his shaft. “Ah! Yes!” You hold onto his legs for support, while he watches the way your ass ripples against his dick. “Shit!” You wince, throwing your head back.

“Atta girl. There you go, sweetheart.” He lands a slap on your ass, guiding it up and down his cock. “Oh fuck, you always you always make me feel so good,” he moans. Your pussy clenches around him as you continue to slam your hips against his.

You reach your hand down to rub your clit in circles, adding to the stimulation as his cock hit your g-spot over and over. Pleasure coursed through your body, aching badly for an orgasm. Whimpers and moans from you and Nanami filled your bedroom, along with the sound of skin on skin. “Ohhh, Ken!” You whined. “Shit, baby!” You panted.

“You’re doing so good for me. Look back at me, darling, I wanna see my pretty girl.” His brows furrowed slightly as you milked his cock, he could tell you were getting desperate to cum. “There’s my girl. Keep looking at me while you ride me.”

You bit your bottom lip, muffling some of your moans and whimpers, trying your best to keep the exact rhythm you had going. Nanami cursed under his breath, eyes darting back and forth between your face and your ass. He couldn’t get enough of you. The way his tip kissed you cervix and bumped your sweet spot each time made your head spin. The curve of his dick making you arch even more.

Thick fingers squeeze the plump flesh of your ass, stuttering hips still set on riding him. “Fuck…s-slow down, sweetheart—ah! You’re gonna make me cum.” He grabs at your hips, a weak attempt to slow down your movements, but you’re so set on fucking him, feeling every last inch of your husband. You don’t care how much of a mess you make, how loud you get. It turns you on knowing your husband gets so worked up about the little things. A groan leaves his lips, head falling back in bliss as you practically ride him to cloud nine, his orgasm approaching just as quickly as yours.

Your little pants and whimpers fill his ears, eyes set on your husband glossy eyes, so fixated on the way your pussy is suck him in. His abs tense up, hand squeezing down on your ass and pulling you flush against his pelvis as he cums inside of you. The sheer feeling alone sends your orgasm raking through your body, quivering. “Oh my god!” You gasp, eyes fluttering shut. You slowly lift your hips before bringing them back down, fucking his cum into you.

“Yes, yes, just like that, baby,” he coos, watching his cum ooze out of your sweet cunt. “Goddamn,” he sighs when you finally stop riding him. His dick twitches at the missed sensation of your gummy walls.

“If I knew just how easily I turn you on, I would’ve done this more often,” you tease, placing a wet kiss on his neck.

“Should’ve known already, pretty girl.” He playfully smacks your ass, earning a small laugh from you. “We’ll clean up in second, just give me a few.”

[sobbingscripter]

Tags: [mlw][mdni][part 2 of this][fingering][edging][daddy kink][hair pulling][missionary][knees to the chest][passionate][begging][subtle breeding kink][whiny dick][doggy style][pussydrunk man>>][could see him as a girldad][not proofread]

"And— And— I saw a clownfish. Like, like Nemo. And I saw crabs. And— and I saw the big, big fish that's like—" Riot's tiny arms outstretch as far as they can, eyes wide and emphatic, "bigger than this."

He stands in the kitchen, sock-clad feet pittering after Alfred as he continues to break down each and every sighting of the aquarium. The older man stares down at him, grin stretching to no end because it reminds him of when Bruce was no taller than his knee, breaking down each thing he saw at galas and events in the late evening hours when he was supposed to be asleep.

"I thought you were going to the museum." Alfred hums. "Why the change of plans?"

And Riot hums, rocking back and forth on his feet. "We wanted to go, but someone took a painting so we didn't. So we went to see the fishies."

"And what was your favourite part?" Alfred hums softly, weathered eyes crinkling at the corners as he watched the way chubby fingers carefully grab different utensils from the different dish washer compartments, holding them out to for Alfred to pack away in the cupboards far too high.

"The touch tank!" Riot chirps, before letting out an excited gasp. "So many fishies. And—" Tubby hands flail excitedly. "And sharks."

Alfred hums almost thoughtfully.

"And did you get to touch the sharks?" Alfred questions, so animated and inquisitive and the giggle Riot lets out is the most heartwarming sound he's heard in a long while.

The sound of a child being simply what they are;

A child.

Not a vigilante, not a hero.

"No, silly Grampy." Chonky hands cover his mouth as he giggles. "The touch tank had the sea cucumbers, and the starfishies."

Alfred melts. Scooping Riot up in his arms, lithe muscles shifting beneath the flesh as he rests the boy on his hip before moving into the lounge, staring Bruce dead in the eye.

"I am 'Grampy', Master Bruce." Alfred gleams, the apples of his cheeks rising and Bruce simply scowls, before looking down at Riot who watches him with wide eyes. Head tilting before covering his hand with his mouth.

"Daddy?" Riot's voice is tiny as he holds his arms out to Bruce, making grabby hands as his eyes well up.

The room goes dead silent, Duke's hand moves to cover his mouth, eyes darting between Bruce, Riot and Dick. Because the tea is piping right now.

And you let out a snort, raising your glass to your lips. "You can't con these ones, baby, they have the money for DNA tests."

And Riot huffs, tiny fists wiping away fat tears before he hops down from Alfred's hip, giving the older man's hand a sweet, and affectionate squeeze before he moves towards you, soft footsteps carrying him towards you, and he stands between your thighs, hands bracing on your legs and you huff.

"Never let me have anything." You murmur under your breath, before one of your hands rest beneath Riot's chin, while you let him have a sip of your juice. Tiny hands clasp around the cool glass, although your hand remains on it to prevent a little accident.

And Dick's just so... Smitten.

Brilliant blue eyes locked on the way your thumb so carefully brushes away a stray droplet of juice, pretty eyes locked on the chubby features of your baby as he, undoubtedly, judges the Wayne household. All except Alfred, probably.

Dick brushes back long, muscular fingers through his hair, easing back against the backrest before extending his legs, crossing them at the ankles and his tongue runs over his teeth when he watches the way Riot plants himself next to you.

Looking at everyone.

Before zeroing in on Duke.

"Signal."

Riot's singular utter makes the room go silent. Dead silent, and shared glances are shared, before Duke lets out a laugh, elbows braced on his knees and he leans forward.

"What makes you think that, little man?" Duke hums, tone light and easy, despite the fact that his brain is moving at 1 000 000 miles a minute.

"I haven't seen a lot of black people in Gotham."

The words leave the little boy's lips and you nearly spit out your juice before looking at Riot, eyes wide and lips pursed to hide a laugh that you know might be distasteful.

"Riot, baby, no. Don't—you could've mentioned literally anything else. Like the slight glow, or the black and yellow shoes or anything else." You pinch the bridge of your nose when Riot lets out a giggle in response.

"But m'funnier."

ִֶָ𓂃 ࣪ ִֶָ❄️་༘࿐

"You should've told me about him." Dick's voice is a quiet murmur and you simply let out a sigh, your fingers deftly folding a tiny pajamas set, as well as several pairs of underwear and socks, stuffing them into a Spiderman backpack.

It's something you've been hearing all day. In the quiet whispers of wind rustling the branches of the trees, the crunch of gravel beneath each of your footsteps as Dick would carry Riot on his hip, watching as the little boy points out the different breeds of dog that were scattered in the park.

Fuck, you even heard it in the bubbles let out by different fish as you walked past tanks because never in a million years, had the thought even crossed your mind, that Dick would be ecstatic to be a dad.

You didn't think of the way a smile would stretch so effortlessly on his stupidly perfect face whenever Riot would point out something, you didn't think of the way he'd be so happy to take pictures of his son in front of different tanks. You didn't think of the way his breath would visibly stutter when Riot would ask for his first family picture, and you didn't think of the way his eyes would meet yours as you both blew raspberries against the giggling and rosy cheeks of your baby.

"I don't know, Ri—" "Don't call me that, please." Dick breathes out softly, blue eyes softening as he looks down at you, taking the balled up socks from your hand and setting them back down, and his hands move to hold your hands. And Dick forces you to look at him, as he guides one of your hands to cup his cheek.

The warmth of his palm isn't something you've forgotten. Just like the length of his fingers. Musician's hands, if anything.

"Don't talk to me like you don't know me."

Dick's voice is soft as he tilts his head, pressing a kiss to your palm. "You know me. You knew me twice on your couch last night." Dick adds, the offhanded comment bringing a reluctant smile to your lips and he hums out a chuckle, before stepping closer to you, forcing you to crane your neck backwards. And Dick cups your face in his hands.

"Don't shut me out." He speaks so softly. "Not again."

The way Dick looks at you nearly makes you melt, all soft eyes and warm palms, cradling your face like you're the most precious thing to walk the Earth.

And Dick swallows.

Long lashes fluttering so prettily, before his tongue darts out, dragging across his pinkened bottom lip.

"Open up to me..." He breathes out, so sweetly. "Please, baby."

ִֶָ𓂃 ࣪˖ ִֶָ❄️་༘࿐

"That's a good girl... There she is, open up for me more, pretty..."

"Dickie...."

Your voice is a hoarse whimper, legs tossed over Dick's broad thighs, your panties and pants abandoned across the surface of whatever furniture was the nearest as dextrous digits continue to push past your gummy walls.

Your nails dig into his thighs, lashes fluttering with each curl of his fingers and moans slip past your lips whenever his lips brush against the curve of your ear. Tracing the shell with his tongue, before pulling your lobe into his mouth, teeth brushing against the sensitive skin.

"Nobody's taken care of this pretty pussy since me, huh?" Dick coos softly, fingers pulling out of you only to give you those delightful, teasing smacks against your neglected clit, watching the way your thighs burn to close. And he does it again.

Light smacks that make your hole clench around nothing, whines slipping past your lips.

And you nod your head weakly, toes curling in your socks and Dick croons to you, so sweet as he presses a kiss against your pulse.

"Shhhh, it's okay, gorgeous. Daddy's home."

His fingers circle your clit so attentively, brilliant blue eyes darkened by lust and want, watching as your face screws up and your hips buck in his lap, pleasure nearly blinding and he's not even making you come yet.

Dick's prolonging it because well, you just look so pretty when slick oozes from you, puffy pussy glossy with your wetness, eyes teary and your bottom lip is wedged between your teeth.

Your face is flushed, rosy cheeks with beads of sweat gathering at your temples and Dick hums softly, pushing his middle finger into your needy cunt. All the way to the knuckle, before pulling out all the way, just to trace your gooey slit with the tips of his fingers.

And you whine.

"Dick, please." The sound of your voice so weak has Dick straining against his boxers, his lashes flutter and he lets himself breathe, just to get a hold of himself.

He's a bit of a people pleaser and God, does he wanna please you.

And Dick swallows, before nodding his head, shifting you off his lap and instead, guiding you to rest against the backrest, thighs spread obscenely wide and your feet resting on the seats on either side of you.

And Dick's head dips low, taking a deep breath of the scent of you. Your slick, your pussy, everything. It all just makes him so dizzy that he leans forward without a second's notice, tongue curling against your clit and Dick moans when your fingers find purchase in his hair.

Lovely digits curl around the thick locks and he hums, nodding his head.

"That's it, baby." He hums. "Pull my hair."

Dick's whimper is hypnotic when you tug on the raven strands, guiding his face back to your pussy where his lips wrap around the sensitive nub, suckling at it so earnestly.

And your hips buck and twitch, hands readjusting their grip and instead, grabbing the back of his head, moving him closer.

"That's it, pretty. Make yourself feel good— Come on my fucking tongue."

Your feet leave the surface of the sofa, knees nearly pulled up all the way and Dick's having the fucking time of his life when you tug him this way and that way by his hair.

Dick's tongue dips into your core, prodding around the gummy insides as the ball of his nose grinds against your clit and you're coming. Clenching around his tongue, tangling your fingers in his hair and wrapping your thighs around his neck.

The sounds you make are melodious, gasps, and breaths leaving you like you ran a marathon, all as he continues to lap at your slick cunt like a fucking animal in heat.

When Dick lifts his head, his pupils are dilated and the lower half of his face is glistening with a sheen that puts dewy makeup to shame.

Dick practically looks like he's glowing from the inside.

And he's definitely glowing when he brings your knees up to your chest, urging you to keep them there while he fumbles with his belt.

"Spread your pretty pussy for me, yeah?" Dick breathes out, eyes locked on where a peace sign has two of your digits tucked on either side of your folds, pushing your pussy lips apart and he groans at the sight of your hole.

Warm, inviting and so, so pretty.

"That's fucking perfect, baby. You're perfect." Dick's breathing heavy as he taps the flushed head of his cock against your clit, watching as your belly flexes and tightens, right before he sticks his tip in.

You're warm. You're gooey. And you're so fucking perfect, wrapping around his cock like the perfect pair of socks. And Dick whines when you squelch around him, each sinking inch making him so much more desperate to feel you come on his cock.

When Dick's balls rest against the curve of your ass, you get a feel of just how fucking heavy they are, muscular hands keep your knees anchored to your chest. And he swallows, panted breaths falling from his lips.

Dick pulls out halfway, and only halfway. Because it's damn near painful to be out of your wet heat and he's pushing back in, grinding against you each time your flesh meets his.

His head dips, long, tongue kisses pressed against your lips while his hips thrust into you, slow and meaningful, and so, sooooo fucking deep. His tongue moves against yours, the only sounds being Dick's breathy groans and the sound of skin hitting skin. Alongside the wet sounds of his tongue, wrapping around yours with the same kind of skill he eats pussy.

You can taste yourself on his tongue. But you're not too focused on that when his prettily curved cock is dragging against that spot that makes your toes curl and your eyes flutter shut, panted breaths leaving you.

"I w'na—... Mm-fuck, you're so tight, oh my god." Dick moans against your lips, pulling away to rest his forehead against yours, hot breaths fanning across your features as he looks down towards where you're split open on his fat cock. Glistening pussy taking him like you were made to.

"I wanna—" Dick swallows, a shaky breath leaving his broad chest before he pushes down on you, forcing you further into the cushions, "—wanna be a f-family."

Your breath stills in your lungs but you don't speak, simply nodding your head, urging Dick to continue as he fucks into you, feeling the way your walls flutter at the trembles that line his voice.

"I wanna— fuck, please." Dick's face presses into the curve of your neck, his arms instead coming to wrap around you, his hips beginning to snap rather quickly into you as he brings you closer. Your thighs remain against your torso, the sting in your hamstrings is apparent but not as apparent as the battering your cervix is taking.

"Please, please, please. Be with me."

Dick begs. His hips fucking into you at an almost inhuman pace, your toes curl and your vision becomes speckled and you whimper, a breathless gasp taking you over as you approach your second orgasm.

And fast.

Your mind hits a blank, your tongue threatening to loll out at the way Dick fucks you brainless, all while begging to be a family. Your belly is in knots and you're making a creamy ring at the base of him, a sight that would have Dick going crazy if he wasn't too busy hiding his rosy face in your neck.

And you nod mindlessly. "Uh huh..." You mumble weakly when you feel the sensation of Dick pulling his cock out of you, still wet with your slick and still so hard as he carefully guides you to instead, go on your hands and knees on the sofa.

Dick's knees dig into the cushions, his cock slowly sliding into you once again as the curve of your back deepens, a downright demonic arch that has him biting down a whimper at the sight alone.

His veiny hand travels down the curve, tracing the dip in your spine before grabbing the hair at the nape of your neck, fisting his fingers and tugging you just a bit back, enough for your head to lift from the cushions and your arch to deepen.

"Really?" Dick chirps so sweetly, his hips rocking into yours and his tip leaks copious amounts of precum that has him wondering if he already came.

And you nod weakly.

And you feel as Dick leans forward, pressing a kiss to the crown of your head before straightening back up, his hands moving to bracket your hips.

And with your bleary ass peripheral vision, you catch a glimpse of Dick steadying himself, planting one foot on the sofa for the stability he needs.

"Now, let's... Expand the family, huh?" Dick mumbles, his voice just a bit slurred from the pussydrunkenness.

"Give me a little girl this time, okay?"

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[thebestsetter]

Rin likes black.

Call him emo or depressed or cringe or whatever works best for you. He uses ONLY black things.

His shirts are all black. He shows up to practice wearing the team's black kit. His car is black. He answered a interview saying that his favorite color was black (although he disliked the question and thought it was unecessary - he's here to talk about football, goddammit!) Hell, even the Keychain on his black backpack is a black and white sad face.

He likes black. Actually, scratch that. He loves it.

So, his team can't help but feel confused when he suddenly comes to practice with the team's pink kit, which he swore ("cross my heart and hope to die" kind of thing) that he'd NEVER wear. He even said it was because you accidentally washed it during laundry day it was still not dry. (Ha. As if. He had like 10 of those).

And then he came with that same kit the other day. And the day after that. And the day after that day too.

And, suddenly, things weren't so black anymore.

His backpack, which now was adorned with pink hello kitty stickers, had a smiley pink and white Keychain attached next to the black and white one. His car had pink details on the leather seats, and his shoes were black and pink.

It was strange, to say the least. That was until they couldn't really take it anymore. Seeing a pink hair tie around his wrist hut the final nail in the coffin.

"So... uhm... Rin." Isagi started, Bachira and Nagi curiously watching behind him "If I remember correctly, you said before your favorite color is black, right?"

"It is" Rin deadpanned.

An uncomfortable silence settled between them while Rin waited for Isagi to answer and Isagi waited for him to say something else. It was quickly interrupted by Bachira's excited "Ask already!"

"But... uhm... I see you took a liking to... pink things. Why's that?"

"Oh" Rin clearly wasn't expecting this question. He stared into Isagi's eyes and then looked down to tie his shoelaces "I don't like pink"

"Huh?" Nagi made a noise behind them, and just then did Rin notice those two

"But you have lots of pink things now!" Bachira said, getting behind Itoshi and shaking his shoulders, obtaining an eyeroll from him

"I dislike pink" he shook Bachira's hands off and sighed "I wear it only because my girlfriend loves it"

"Fair enough!"

"Oh."

"Okay, well, that actually makes sense"

"Owwnnn, is Rinnie so in love with his girlfriend that he wear pink just for her?" Seriously, who called Shidou here anyways?

But what made Rin hate him even more was the fact that he was right. He did wear pink only for you.

He was getting tired of you nagging at him for only having black shirts (and he also loved your smiling face when you saw him dressed like a Barbie doll, but that's on second thought or at least he likes to pretend it is.)

Don't get me wrong, black is still his favorite color. But you're his favorite thing in the whole world, so take a guess on who wins this one.

Black: 0

You: 1

Quick note: Rin loves when these two things are together. So imagine his reaction to you on a black dress on your 1 year anniversary. Bro almost fainted.

I hate school somebody HELP ME

Not proofread cause I'm sleepy and lazy. Deal with it.

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