#especially when it comes to this kind of stuff

[awrkive]

NEIGHBOR BLUNDER, pt. 6 — JJK (m.)

in hindsight, you should have seen it coming. had always known your luck – or lack of it, thereof – and the universe's meticulous plan of your downfall made it easy for you to get tangled up in a series of unfortunate events, which presents itself as the neighbor that lives across from you, jeon jungkook.

PAIRING jungkook x (fem) reader

GENRE r18+ (fluff, angst, smut) MINORS DO NOT INTERACT!

CHAPTER WORD COUNT 14.6k

CHAPTER WARNINGS/MISC neighbor!jk, bsf!jimin, accountant!oc, software engineer!jk, jk and jimin are chaebols lol, minjoon boyfriends <<<<3, as usual, super dreamy jk 😞 arguments,, lowkey,, emotional constipation like always, kinda angsty if u squint. Also jungkook kinda abuses the fuck out of 23278648 pet names available in the world even eye laughed... SPOILER AHEAD DONT READ IF U DONT WANNA KNOW [ explicit sexual content: mature language, very indulgent bl*wjob scene lmfao, a teeny tiny bit of c*mplay, fing*ring, c*nniling*s, penetr*tive s*x (p in v), c*wgirl s*x, protected s*x, multiple org*sms, jungkook has a filthy mouth 🫤😑😑 ]

NOTES i dont have anything to say except enjoyyy!! let me know your thoughts in my inbox gimme ur theories gimme ur keeb smashes gimme ur 2746th "i want nb jk so bad" 🤓☝🏼💓💓

[ SERIES MASTERLIST ] // [ MAIN MASTERLIST ]

You like to think of yourself as a reasonable person. You make okay decisions, even though it takes you a few weeks and a thousand debriefs. You can’t buy something off the rack without going through 10-year-old posts on Reddit, and you certainly are very keen with people you let into your life – given your two to three friends. 

The point is, while you may be a bit of a klutz, you take your adult life kind of seriously, and especially your relationships.

You were so sure that what happened back at the motel with Jungkook when you were stranded was going to be this whole… one-time-thing. That you both were just horny, stuck in a weird situation, just heat-of-the-moment lapse in judgment, and afterwards he would tell you to forget about it. And if he did, you’d accept it. It might crush you a little bit inside, but you know you’ll be fine to keep going on with your life even though that might have been the best orgasm you’ve had since forever and you’d like to experience it again.

What surprised you the most wasn’t that it happened. It was how you felt the next morning. 

There was no regret. 

When you opened your eyes – bleary and barely awake because of the little hours you got in – Jungkook wasn’t in bed. He was coming back through the door with a bag of pastries and coffee from what you assumed was the local bakery. He told you everything was handled, his car and your stuff, and you could take your time getting ready. You’d head back once you were set.

You fell asleep again on the ride home. Jungkook walked you to your apartment and bid you a kind smile when you said goodbye. 

And nothing happened after. No awkward texts. No slow fade. And you were just so ready for the worst thing to happen. Like him suddenly going MIA on you or something… 

But now it’s the day after, and you’re together again in his car after he texted you to ride with him on the way home after work – cramped up in the driver’s seat with you on his lap.

Frantically making out. 

“Oh,” you let out a soft moan, carding your fingers through Jungkook’s hair, not even caring about how you’re messing up his hairdo.

A needy, impatient sort of heat builds between you two. His mouth is on yours, hands exploring like he couldn’t decide where to start. Another moan slips out from you he cups the swell of your ass through your trousers, and a rush of frustration bubbles up in your chest.  

God, why didn’t you wear a skirt?

“You smell good,” Jungkook murmurs into your neck, kissing a slow trail up to your jaw before groaning as you rock against him, grinding against the growing bulge pressing up through his slacks. 

“Y-yeah?” you mumble, tugging at his tie and popping open the first three buttons of his shirt. Your fingers graze his chest, warm and solid and stupidly inviting. 

“This is the scent you wore back at the party.” He untucks your blouse from your waistband, his warm hands sending shivers down your spine when they travel across the span of your back.

Yeah. And also the scent you exclusively use for special, big occasions. Because in the true broke girl tradition, there’s always that unreasonably priced perfume you keep in your vanity while you spritz the hell out of the cheap one. You’ve only used it a total of ten times ever since you bought it a month ago, the eleventh time being now… which is just a regular day in the office.

But being in Jungkook’s lap and making out with him in his car is not regular day in the office. So maybe you lucked out on spraying that expensive perfume – totally because it was just there on your vanity, by the way – and not because you were expecting something to happen today.

Totally.

“Uh, yeah,” you shift on his lap. “It was on sale.” 

Which is probably information he did not need and a total bald-faced lie. 

He hums, kisses dropping down to your sternum, hands getting heavier under your clothes. You take his face in your hands again to press your mouth on him, your moan getting swallowed by his eager reciprocity, both in the movement of his tongue inside your mouth and his erection that’s making you wet your panties as you rock your hips against him. 

Jungkook’s fingers trace the cups of your bra. “Can I?” He asks, mouth agape. You don’t even know what he meant, you just nod. A second later and he’s squeezing your breasts in his palms.

“S-so you wanted to drive me home for this?” you arch your brow at him playfully, grinding against his lap and relishing in the warmth of his hands on your chest. God, you wish he’d do something about your bra soon. 

Jungkook chuckles, nipping your jaw. “No. I wanted to ask you to come over to my place to have dinner.”

As if that triggered your intestines, your stomach suddenly growls – quite loudly in the confined space of his car and around the quiet parking lot of the building. 

Jungkook freezes, staring at you. 

You shut your eyes close in embarrassment, groaning. “Ugh, sorry. I haven’t eaten at all today and you mentioning dinner is making me remember that.” 

“Oh…”

Jungkook reluctantly watches you as you carefully leave his lap, completely halting your previous activity. He grips your hand as he helps you transfer to the passenger’s seat, looking at you as you put your hair up and tuck your shirt.

He adjusts uncomfortably in his seat, clearing his throat. You can’t help but eye the very obvious outline of his dick in his pants, and it’s very huge, alright, making you grin. 

“I hope that’s not gonna be a problem.” 

Jungkook takes in the mischief in your eyes and scoffs playfully, shaking his head as he starts the ignition to drive. 

You spend about thirty minutes in the shower – which is definitely not at all your usual routine – but it did the job. You smell like raspberries now, and the outfit you pulled on afterwards looks casual enough for Jungkook not to suspect what’s going on underneath. Just an oversized shirt and pajama pants. Innocent. Normal. 

But you have on a lacy pair of white thong… just in case something does happen tonight. At least you’re the least bit prepared… 

When you look at your phone, it’s already 10:15pm, and Jungkook told you to be over at his place at 10:20. You check yourself in the mirror one last time and head straight to the kitchen where you grab the plastic container of a batch of choco-chip cookies you baked the second he dropped you off earlier.

You’ve perfected the recipe now, you’re sure of it. 

But just as you make a beeline for your door, a sudden warmth gushes between your thighs.

An all too familiar feeling by now. 

Oh no.

You dash to the bathroom, tug your pajama pants down, slide off your panties and – yep. There it is. A bright red stain against the flimsy white fabric that went right through the pants.

“Goddamn it,” you mutter, frowning. Of all the nights to get your period, of course it had to be this one.

You had showered. Prepped. Put on the g-string. And you were this close to maybe – possibly – having sex with Jungkook. You hadn’t said anything about it, not outright, but come on. That impulsive make-out session in the car earlier? The way he kept adjusting himself? The tension practically humming between you?

Yeah, something was definitely going to happen.

Well, probably not anymore.

Grumbling, you toss your pants into the laundry and rummage through your cabinet for a pad. You move like you’re trudging through emotional mud, begrudgingly pulling on a clean pair of a less sexier granny panties and fresh bottoms.

So much for that.

It’s not like you had any of this figured out anyway. No “so, what happened” talk, no conversations about the night at the motel or whatever is… happening now. And now your uterus has decided to sabotage you. Amazing. 

Still, cookies in hand and spirits only mildly deflated, you head out of your apartment and make your way to Jungkook’s porch. 

He opens the door on the second buzz, greeting you with a grin that makes your stomach flip. Even more so when you realize he’s wearing sweatpants. Grey sweatpants. Ugh. This man.

“Hi.” 

“Hey, come in,” Jungkook says, eyeing the plastic in your hand. “What’s that?” 

“Cookies.” you bring it up to your chest. “I made them real quick so it’s not a lot. But I can assure you it’s better now and you definitely won’t get food poison.” 

He chuckles, leading the way to his living area. “You say that as if I got food poisoning the first time.” 

“Maybe you did and you just didn’t tell me.” 

He shakes his head, still smiling. “You know you didn’t have to bring something, right?” 

“Uh-huh.,” you mutter, following him in, “but since you’re making dinner, I thought I could take care of dessert.” 

The moment the words leave your mouth, your face scrunch up. 

Jungkook pauses just long enough to glance back at you, amused, before shaking his head again with another soft laugh. 

What? What did he think you meant by that? Geez… 

Comfortable silence settles between you, the soft clinking of wine glasses and the distant narration of some random BBC documentary filling the space. You teased Jungkook again about his massive TV – said the faces look so big that it’s just kind of funny – but really, it’s kind of cute the way his ears flush red when he gets shy talking about his stuff. 

You talk. About work, mostly. Jungkook’s been pulling longer shifts, taking on more than usual. You tell him about your days have been the same lately, just mindless repetition. He compliments the cookies you brought, and after a bit of coaxing, admits the first batch you made for him weeks ago were kind of bad. You laugh and pretend to be offended.

It was nice. 

Somehow, you talk about everything and nothing. Not once either of you mentioned the motel. Not the kiss in the parking lot. Not even a vague nod to the tension that’s been following you around like a ghost. 

And maybe that’s the problem.

It feels like Jungkook’s waiting for you to jump the gun first. But how the hell are you supposed to do that? How do you casually bring up the fact that he kissed you like he meant it? How exactly are you going to talk about the night you shared a kiss with the man you think you’ve liked for so many weeks now? How are you going to talk about how he made you orgasm to sleep because it was the best you've ever had since and it was so much better than the scenarios you’ve made up in your head? And god, those scenarios didn’t even live up to the very real thing. 

You want to bring it up. God, you need to. Not because you’re hopeful that this night would lead to something – but because you just need to know if he would want to do that again sometime.

But something in you is scared that Jungkook will suddenly speak up and tell you the night was a mistake and you both should get over it.

But you also know that kiss in the parking lot must’ve meant something. The way you just jumped at each other like you weren't in a public space and Jungkook not minding one bit must’ve meant that he wanted it too.

That maybe, just like you, he can’t help but notice the thick tension up in the air as you sit on the couch so close to each other, his familiar scent overwhelming your senses, and the way he looks so cozy in his white shirt and… grey sweatpants. Ugh. You swear you weren’t going to pay any attention to it as soon as he opened that door, but how could you not when he just looks way too effortlessly good and you know exactly what it's hiding–

“You want some more?” 

Your thoughts are cut short when Jungkook suddenly speaks, looking at your wine glass. 

“Uh…” you glance at the clock. “No, I should probably get going. It’s almost 11. I have work tomorrow– we have work tomorrow,” you chuckle awkwardly, glancing at the wall clock across the room. 

Just like that, you go back to your shell again, overwhelmed by your anxiety and fear of rejection. 

But for a brief second, Jungkook looks disappointed by your response, although he’s quick to wipe that off with a smile. 

“Okay. I’ll walk you out.”

Okay. Well maybe you didn’t really want him to say that at all. 

Hiding your disappointment this time, you stand up from the seat and let Jungkook talk you into leaving the wine glasses on the coffee table as opposed to bringing it to the kitchen yourself, as Jungkook insisted he’ll take care of it once you leave. 

Jungkook’s hand lingers on your lower back as you stand by his door, ready to say goodbye. 

“Thanks for the dinner.” you say quietly.

“You’re welcome,” Jungkook smiles. “We can do this again sometime.” 

“Sure. Why not?” 

“Alright. See you tomorrow, then?” 

You halt your steps, lips curling into a half-smile. “That flatters me.” 

Jungkook leans on the doorframe, crossing his arms across his chest. “I was hoping so.” 

You bite back a grin, nod, turning to leave. But…

“__—”

“Jungkook—”

Your head snaps quickly to his direction, and you both stare at each other in surprise. Jungkook’s gaze melts into a soft look.

“You first.” 

“No, you first.” 

“___,” he says with a chuckle, coaxing. 

You take a deep breath, bracing yourself. 

Just take the chance, something in your head tells you. 

And you took the bait. 

“This is going to sound incredibly stupid,” you start, voice low and hesitant. “but what happened back at the motel — I’m not sure if we’re allowed to talk about that again — but we kind of kissed this afternoon and I… I don’t know what that meant. I guess what I’m trying to say is… I wanna do it again sometime. If you’re willing,” you voice wavers, trying to look into his eyes but the weight of your words crawl deep in your skin it makes you scared to even make eye contact. “But if you’re not, then that’s totally fine. We can forget it happened.” 

Silence stretched for a beat too long. Panic starts to rise in your chest – until Jungkook steps forward.

“If I’m willing?” He echoes, blinking like he’s not sure he heard you right. 

You nod, wary. “Y-yeah…?” 

He steps closer, and your breath catches. 

“Do you know how much I’ve thought about you since then?” He takes a tentative touch to your hips, and when you don’t say a thing or make a move to pry him off, Jungkook takes a hold of you to pull you closer, making you gasp quietly. “Everytime I close my eyes, all I can think about is how I’ve held these hips as I licked you, kissed you, and touched you. I’ve never been one to give in to my wants as easy as the way you made me when we walked back to my car this afternoon because all I wanted to do was to have a taste of you again, even though I would’ve liked for us to talk first. That means I can’t have enough,” Jungkook studies your face as he leans down, gaze so full of want, but there’s a certain control under his hold. It makes your breath hitch.

“And you want to know if I’m willing?” Jungkook tacks on, lifting his hand to caress your cheek, gaze dropping from your eyes to your lips. You anticipate his next words, but when he presses you closer – that’s when you feel it. The hard-on he’s sporting under the grey sweatpants you’ve been fantasizing about ever since you walked in on his apartment.  

“Oh…” you gasp, reaching for his shoulder as you feel your knees slightly buckling. 

Then, Jungkook chuckles, amused. But it’s dark and rich, and his boner is still very much pressing to your stomach. 

In the heat of the moment, you stand on your tippy toes and kiss Jungkook. 

He seems to be surprised at it first, but his arms slowly make their way around you to hold you as you tighten yours around his neck, letting out a soft moan when his tongue prods in. 

You stumble inside, Jungkook walking you back inside his apartment all the while not breaking the kiss, and the next thing you know, he’s kicking off the door shut, hands travelling down to your legs to carry you across his apartment. 

You yelp at the sudden way your feet get lifted off the ground, but Jungkook carries you with a certain grace as if you’re nothing but paperweight – hot tongue swirling around your mouth like kissing you was a lifeline. 

He lays you down gently on the couch, trailing kisses along your jaw. When you grab at the hem of his shirt, he sits back to quickly rid himself off the material. 

You bite on your bottom lip as soon as you see what’s on display. Wide chest, narrow waist, toned abdomen, and sculpted arms with ink. You would’ve liked to admire it more but Jungkook quickly goes back to kissing you after taking off his shirt, hands roaming all over your body as if he can’t quite decide where to put it at all. Then, he kneels in between your spread legs, slowly settling himself down on the floorboards. You watch with half-lidded eyes as his lips leave trail kisses down your neck to your sternum, until his hands slide your top off your stomach, kissing the exposed skin. 

Your hands settle on his soft locks, where you admire the way he moves down your body, huge hands splayed on your skin, making you ache in between your legs.

Your eyes blow out as you remember exactly what’s in between your legs. 

Fuck. 

Before Jungkook can kiss you there, you grab at his shoulders. “Jungkook,” 

He looks up quickly, fringe going in different directions, biceps unconsciously flexing at your touch. “Hm?” 

Even though it pains you, you tell him, “We can’t tonight…” 

“Ah, that’s alright,” He looks up at you in genuine concern. “You’re not feeling okay tonight?” 

You shake your head. “No… that’s not it,” You make a face, feeling annoyed all over again. God. Hot sex was on the table. And your period just ruined it. “I got my period. My cycle usually starts at the end of the month.” 

Jungkook nods in realization, squeezing your hips in understanding.

“Sorry, then. Should I get you something? I think I may have ice cream in the fridge.” He raises a brow, eyes drifting off to his kitchen. 

You take his cheek, grabbing his jaw gently to make him look at you. 

“Actually… I was thinking we don’t have to stop.” 

His eyes may have lightened up, and Jungkook takes your wrist to press a kiss to the side of your hand. 

“Yeah, I don’t really mind as long as you’re comfortable with it. We’ll put on a towel— okay, I can see on your face that’s not what you meant.” 

“No…? I was thinking I’ll give you a blowjob instead.” 

“Ah…” Jungkook nods again. “Are you sure? Don’t you have cramps?” 

You chuckle. “Not yet. It’ll kick in on the second day,” You nudge him with your foot. “Come on up here.” 

“You’re sure? We don’t need to do anything, baby,” 

Baby. God. That nickname had always been so generic but there’s something about the way it rolls off Jungkook's tongue. 

“I’m sure.” 

Jungkook gives you one of his million dollar smiles and kisses his way back up until your lips meet again. 

“Can I?” You nod when Jungkook tugs at your shirt. With your permission, he slides your top off, hissing at the sight of your bra-cladded chest. 

He goes down to lick your nipple through the material, and you grab his hair when you feel him give you a slightly harsh nip. He licks it again, as if offering some sort of silent apology. 

When he pulls the cups down, that’s when you push him to the side making him fall to the couch, and you take that time to kneel down this time in between his spread legs. 

“Put this on your knees first.” Jungkook hands you the throw pillow on the couch. You take them and fluff them under your knees, and when you finish doing that, you attend to Jungkook’s very taunting grey sweatpants, tugging it off him. He helps you slide the pants off together with his boxers – and you have to fight the urge to take it slow when his hard cock springs free. 

You’ve seen it before, have held it – but those moments felt so brief that they almost didn’t feel real. So when you see it up-close, so girthy and standing tall against his abdomen with the angry red tip slightly leaking, your breath gets caught up in your throat. 

“Fuck,” Jungkook lets out a low groan when you begin teasing kisses to his thighs.

His gorgeous, thick thighs.

God… you wonder how it would tense up with your feet resting on them as you bounce up and down on his huge cock. 

But you watch the way they clench when your lips get nearer to where he aches; watch as they tense under your touch when you place your hands there. And you watch Jungkook – most especially – as he looks down at you with hooded eyes, dark with want, his chest heaving under the tension. 

“Is this what you want?” You ask, blinking at him meekly. His mouth opens to speak, but you don’t let him say another word as you let a glob of saliva fall down to the crown of his cock. You adjust your position in between his thighs, getting more comfortable but also pushing your ass out as you wrap your hand around the base. 

Jungkook hisses when you twist your hand, gingerly spreading the wetness of your saliva around him. He lets his back fall to the back of the couch with a light thud, and you smirk when you see his abs clench. 

“You’re killing me here, __. Don’t tease.” 

You give him a non-committal hum. You meant to tease, but touching him like this feels like all your thoughts have suddenly gone to mush, and you’re left with only want – the want to pleasure him, to get him to let out those little huffs and grunts like when you two kissed…

You languidly move your hand around his shaft, humming at the way his tip oozes out more wetness which makes it easier for you to stroke him. You can’t help but watch in fascination as he seems to continue to grow around you. So hard and veiny… almost needy, the way he breathes heavily above you.

“Baby, fuck… you’re so pretty, god—” Jungkook’s words get cut off when you lean down to close your lips around the head, sucking at the softer tip before you take more of his length. “F-fuck…” Jungkook rasps, fingers gathering your hair in a makeshift ponytail when you start bobbing your head up and down.

He feels big. Warm. But you smile to yourself when Jungkook shifts on the couch at the sensation. It felt good to have him squirming like that beneath your touch, to have him keening like this. 

Gripping the base, you twist your fingers around the remaining length you couldn’t put in your mouth, jacking him off. From there, you start picking up your pace until Jungkook’s a panting mess. You’ve never pegged him as the type to be so… vocal. But it felt good, and at this point, you just want to see him let go of himself, even as he grips your hair tighter by every second that passes. It didn’t hurt enough to be uncomfortable, the force was just right – and it felt like he’s holding on to every muscle of his to not use too much force on your head by the way you can feel his other hand hovering over your hair. 

“Ah, __… baby, shit. Yeah, you’re taking my cock so well– shit…”

You pump him faster, and every now and then, you would suck at the tip gingerly, kiss the veins around his rock hard dick, roam with your tongue, and test the waters and massage his balls. Soft groans escape past his lips, hips arching off the couch.

“Shit— baby, fuck,” 

You hum, pleased with that. Your tongue teases the underside of his cock with every downstroke, just to hear him swear. You lick off the glistening juice off the head, lick around the ridge, and tighten your grip around the base, sinking your mouth up and down faster.

“God, your mouth is–aghh– Jesus fuck baby I’m gonna–” 

You slurp noisily around his cock as you try to take him deeper – and at one point you actually feel him hitting the back of your throat but you were careful enough to adjust your angle and continue to suck him up and down. Jungkook’s gasps increase in speed and pitch, and you can feel him trying to get you off him when he tries to pull your face away from his lap. 

“Baby, you gotta–” 

But you don’t even let him finish that thought when you grip his thigh with your other hand, sucking his head that gets him keening again.

“Shit, shit, shit __ I’m going to– f-fuuuck,”

Jungkook shoots his hot cum in your mouth, and you didn’t really expect it to be so… much. The first wave felt heavy, but as his thighs spasm, his dick continues to squirt some more, and you open your mouth to catch them all. 

“Fuck.” 

You pull back with a wet pop, opening your eyes to meet Jungkook’s stare. Your fingers are still around his length when you lick around your lips, noting the way his eyes darken at the sight of you in front of him like this – kneeling in between his legs and licking his cum. 

His chest heaves up and down, and he looks like he was about to say something when you suddenly slack your jaw to present your mouth to him – your mouth that’s now painted white with his cum. He watches you carefully as you close your eyes and swallow.

“Jesus.” 

“Didn’t know you were religious like that.” you say as soon as everything’s gone in your mouth, giving him a cheeky smile. It’s a bit salty, not terrible, though you kind of expected that.

When you look at Jungkook, his mouth opens and closes like fish in water. You beat him to it when you rise, crawling up on his chest to press your lips to his. 

You realize he might be one of those guys who didn't like it very much when their partners kissed them on the mouth right after giving them a blowjob – but Jungkook only slides his arm around your waist, deepening the kiss, dipping his tongue in your mouth until you’re settled on his lap again. 

“You’re a fucking dream.” Jungkook says before kissing you again. 

You giggle in his mouth, pushing him away slightly. His eyebrows knit in confusion, but he doesn't really look like he’s processing anything. 

“You know I realized something about you,” you plant a sweet kiss on the side of his lips. “You don’t cuss at all, but you do it a lot during sex.” 

Jungkook’s expression contorts into a frown, as if that was news to him. “Do I?” 

You chuckle. “Yeah.”

“I didn’t know that–” then as if cutting off his own thoughts, he dives in for a kiss again. He pulls away for a second, caressing your cheek and thumbing your jaw before staring at you. “God, you’re gorgeous. Pretty girl.” 

“Thanks.” 

“I think my brain’s broken right now. I don’t have coherent thoughts.” 

That makes you laugh. You pat his chest and notice the way Jungkook reluctantly lets you get off his lap, watching with hooded eyes as you rise to your feet. 

“Well, I’ll have to get going. It’s—” you glance at the wall clock. “almost 12.”

Jungkook takes your wrist, and you have to be very brave to not look at his lap because he still hasn’t pulled up his pants yet and his dick is still very much on display. And you weren’t really kidding about having to go because you do have an early day tomorrow. 

“Do you really have to go?” 

You pout. “I have to.” 

He sighs as if that disappointed him. “Okay… let me walk you out.” 

Jungkook – finally – pulls his pants up, brushing his fingers through his hair as he rises to his feet. He doesn’t bother putting on his shirt, though, and you don’t comment on it, figuring he’d stay inside anyway.

But when you see him slipping into his slides to follow you out, you press a hand lightly to his bare abdomen and laugh. “Hey, it’s literally, like five steps away. Go back inside.”

He pauses, brows furrowing in slight confusion before glancing down at himself. “Let me just grab my shirt, then—”

That makes you giggle. “Brain still broken?” 

“I think so…” he trails off then looks at you. “Hey, come here,” he doesn’t wait for you to do so though, just reaches for you to pull you by the waist, pressing you close to him. He leans down and gives you a slow kiss. You could actually feel air being taken away from you when he pulls away, his smile as gentle as the hand that rubs your back. “Thank you, and good night. See you tomorrow?” 

You nod, feeling your cheeks flush. 

“Okay. Night. And see you tomorrow.” 

With a small wave, you turn toward your apartment, not daring to glance back as you head to the door. But you can feel his gaze on you, watching as you slip inside. 

It felt like Jungkook wanted you to stay longer…

But the ache in between your thighs was starting to get uncomfortable, and honestly, you really needed to change your pad. 

Because the wetness there? Yeah, it definitely wasn’t just your period.

“So… is my laptop dying or…?” 

“For the third time; no, your laptop is not dying,” Jungkook gives you a playful shake of his head. “It’s just laggy because you watch a lot of porn on it and you turned off your antivirus for some reason.” 

You gasp. A dramatic one. 

You give Jungkook a scandalous look before sitting down on the couch with him, peeking over what he’s doing on your device. Frankly, you don’t like it when people touch your things – especially your gadgets – because you had a lot of private stuff in them. But thirty minutes ago, your laptop randomly shut down while you had been doing some excel spreadsheets. In a weird coincidence, Jungkook called you the same time it happened. So you told him about it, and he offered to swing by and take a look. He was a tech guy, after all… and anyway, getting it fixed at some shop would have been expensive. 

“I don’t watch porn!” you protest, glaring at him. 

Jungkook just blinks at you, looking unconvinced. Then he shrugs. “Okay.” 

“And what do you mean antivirus? I don’t even know I have one,” you mumble, placing the bowl of freshly cut watermelon on the coffee table. You fold your legs underneath you and inch closer to see what he’s actually doing. He’s been at it for a few minutes now, but all you see are lines of text and windows you can’t even pretend to understand.

“Yes, you do. And you did turn it off,” he says, gesturing at the screen. It’s full of stuff that might as well be in a foreign language. “These are malware. See this? Classic spyware script. You probably clicked on one of those fake play buttons with a hot singles ad or something.”

You give him a baleful look. He snorts.

“You’re not funny. And I watch porn on twitter like a normal person– okay sometimes maybe I do watch on shady websites but why do you even know that? And why are you interested in my porn.” 

“You watch porn on twitter?”

“Mostly, yeah.”

“Hm. Interesting,” he nods and turns to the screen again. “Well, I wanna know what you like.” 

You almost fall off the sofa. “Like you want me to give you a list of porn accounts?” 

Jungkook actually laughs at that. “What? No. I mean, I'm interested in the porn you like.” 

Oh.

“Uhm, I don’t particularly like anything,” you say, although maybe you immediately think of those videos where the woman is on the guy’s lap and he fingers her hard in front of the camera – but other than that, not really. You aren’t some freakazoid about porn. Most of the time, you were fine getting off with pure imagination. “I don’t like BDSM though, I think.” 

Jungkook nods, but his eyes are not really on you and instead focused on your laptop as he does things. “Hmm.” 

Your head snaps in his direction. “What do you mean, hmm?” 

Jungkook meets your stare. “What?” 

You study his face, narrowing your eyes. But he just looks at you in confusion, although there’s a little smile tugging at his lips. You drop it anyway, reaching for the watermelon cuts on the coffee table and start eating them as you watch whatever magic Jungkook is doing on your device.

“Anyway, I pirate a lot of movies so there’s that.” You thought that would be helpful to share. Those sites do have a lot of those pop-up ads, and you’d really rather endure that than have some big fuckass streaming corporation steal from you every month. 

“I know, I’m just teasing about the porn websites,” Jungkook chuckles when you glare at him. “I could share my streaming accounts with you. I think I have everything.” 

Your eyes light up almost instantly, but then you manage to catch yourself. 

“Uh, no, you don’t really need to do that…” 

He hums, goes back to your laptop. You don’t think about it too much when you pick up a watermelon and hover it over his mouth. Jungkook doesn’t hesitate to eat it off your finger, and you don’t  expect the way he sucks the juices off, tongue swirling around your digit while looking into your eyes. It feels like the whole moment took a minute, but in reality it was really only a few seconds, and Jungkook’s back to doing his thing on your laptop. 

Oh. 

Oh… okay. Well. 

You feel the blood rush to your cheeks as you drop your hand to your side, absentmindedly eating your watermelon bites.

Ugh. When will your period end?! Given, it’s only really day two, and you probably have two or three more days to go but ugh… 

Your thoughts are interrupted when Jungkook suddenly speaks, rising to his feet. 

“All done. I installed a better antivirus, and I logged in my streaming accounts so you don’t get malware again. Also turned off some useless background programs because you had too many running– and I recovered your excel file,” he says, and you give him a grateful smile as you take your laptop and bring it to your chest like it’s your baby. Jungkook chuckles at the sight. “I have to go to the toilet, though. Want to order in and watch something when I’m back?”

“Yeah, sure! Toilet’s over there,” you point to the far right direction of the apartment and watch Jungkook disappear into view to enter the bathroom. 

You’re hacking away on your laptop when a phone starts buzzing on the coffee table. 

Jungkook’s phone. 

You hesitate. You don’t want to knock on the bathroom door just to hand it to him, but you don’t feel right ignoring it either. 

The buzzing stops, and you feel relieved for all of one second when it suddenly starts again. 

You lean slightly over – not really reaching, just peeking – to see who it is. What if it’s work? What if it’s important? You could tell him about it when he comes back… 

The screen lights up with a name: Dad.

You gasp. Just a little.

The bathroom door creaks open behind you and you straighten up like you weren’t doing anything. Jungkook walks out, toweling his hands on his jeans.

“Oh, hey, someone's calling you.” 

He gives you a curious look before he crosses the room. You try not to watch too closely as he picks up his phone, but you see it; the way his brows knit together, the way his stance and tone shift when he looks back at you. 

“I need to take this real quick” He gestures to the phone. You nod.

He walks far enough that you can’t really make out the conversation, but when you take a peek to look at him, he looks so serious. You’ve only ever seen serious Jungkook when he was at work. 

A few seconds later, he returns – apologetic eyes, hand rubbing the back of his neck.

“Hey, I got called into work just now. I’m sorry we can’t have dinner tonight.” 

Oh, so you were right! It was a work thing. Still… you wonder why his dad was the one calling.

“No, it’s fine! It must be super important,” you say quickly. “Maybe we can have dinner tomorrow instead?” You say, smiling up at him brightly. 

Jungkook breaks into a smile. Then, out of nowhere, he steps closer and leans down to press a kiss to your lips. 

You’ve been doing a lot of that lately. Kissing, that is. Just this morning, he drove you to work and you made out before he even started the engine. Then later. After parking, his hands wandered a little too much before you swatted him off, gently reminding him that your breasts were feeling tender from your period.

“I’ll see you tomorrow.” 

Then just like that, Jungkook makes his way out of the apartment, and you don’t even know that you’ve been smiling like crazy until the black screen of your laptop catches your silly expression. 

You miss Jungkook. 

Okay— well. It’s just been two days, really. Well, more like today is day two. So it’s actually just been a full day. But there were no texts yesterday, and there were certainly no calls either. You haven’t seen him come out of his apartment, and you hate that you’re starting to worry. 

You were debating whether to send him a message or not when suddenly, your doorbell rings. You weren’t expecting any visitors, especially not today when it was still so early in the morning and you have to go to work soon! But maybe it was your landlord, complaining about something again…

You groan at that, snatching your bag from the counter, planning to head straight to work after dealing with whoever it is. You slide your shoes on, ready for that condescending landlord tone only to freeze when you open the door.

“Jungkook,” you gasp, acting like you’ve just seen a ghost. And he seems to think so as well, cocking his head to the side at the unusual greeting. “You’re here.” you blurt out. 

“Yeah, I went back to my place last night but only for awhile. We launched a system yesterday and something broke in production. QA didn’t catch it, so now we had to roll it—” as if he thought he was sparing you with some boring talk, he cuts himself off and smiles at you instead. “I had to work overtime. I’m sorry I missed dinner last night.”

“Eh, don’t worry. It’s not that serious. I know you're extra busy these days. Anyway, are you on the way to work?” Jungkook nods. “We should go together, then.” 

“I was just going to say that.” 

You step out of your apartment, and Jungkook waits for you to lock up before you both walk side by side down the stairs. You don’t know why but somehow, having seen him today and walking with him to his car where you’re gonna be riding in together to go to work was giving you a sense of contentment that you missed yesterday. Okay, so maybe this was a thing that was starting to grow on you. And maybe being with Jungkook genuinely makes you feel happy – giddy, for the most part. But it felt silly to have missed him when it was only really a day…

But you didn’t really want to dwell on that. It wasn’t Jungkook’s obligation to drive you to work everyday, and you certainly aren’t entitled to his undivided attention when you know exactly just how hectic his work schedule is. You couldn’t ask him to make time for you, even though you would like that.

“Oh!” Jungkook startles beside you when you suddenly halt. You look at him, wide-eyed. “Jungkook, it’s September first today!” 

Jungkook checks his phone, brows furrowed. “Yes…?” 

You eye him incredulously. “It’s your birthday!” 

At first, the words didn’t seem to register, but Jungkook slowly nods. “Ah yeah, it’s my birthday today.”

“Why do you sound so unexcited?” You pout. 

He chuckles, stepping closer to brush away a stray of hair you hadn’t even noticed had fallen across your face.

“Baby, it’s just another day.” 

You feeze at the word. It’s the first time he called you that outside of you two… fooling around. It slips naturally from his mouth in that situation, but hearing it in this very non-sexual context was kind of throwing you off-balance – because this moment wasn’t supposed to feel intimate. Not like that, anyway.

Looking away, you say, “Still. You should do something to celebrate. Oh! I think… oh…” your eyes widen at the thought of throwing him a mini-party tonight. Obviously, Jungkook doesn't make a big deal of his birthdays, based on his response. But you thought about baking him a cake. And cookies! He liked the cookies you made last time! And you were practicing cakes these days so maybe it’d be nice to make him a small one. You turn to him with hopeful eyes. “Are you free tonight?” 

Jungkook hesitates, but he smiles down at you. “Yeah, I’m free tonight. Why?” 

You grin. “You’ll have to come to my place to find out! Oh, it’s gonna be fun. Ugh, I wish we can invite Jimin…” �� 

You’re honestly proud of yourself for not breaking down when the piping tip you bought turns out to be the wrong one. The blue icing on your apron now looks like abstract art, and there’s enough sugar on your kitchen floor to summon an army of rants.

You just wanted the cake to be perfect. The cookies already were – but the cake, maybe not so much. And it was fine! It tasted fine! But the decorating sucked and at this point you just kind of wish Jungkook would look past the awkward lettering and appreciate the effort behind all these. 

You didn’t have much time. He texted you after work that he couldn’t drive you home. He had to stay late, which actually worked out because it gave you the extra time you needed to prepare. 

Although for the record, this wasn’t even a real surprise. You just made baked goods. And you cooked some food. And by cook you scratched off the chicken shop’s label and put it in the microwave to heat it up by the time you finished cleaning up your place since Jungkook was gonna be here by 11pm. 

Which is why, at 10:40, you rush to the shower.

When you’re done, you step in front of the mirror to check yourself out. You’ve rummaged through your closet and found an old lingerie you don’t remember ever putting on. You remember it as one of those “feel-good” purchases awhile ago. 

It’s nothing special, really. Just your usual black lace two-piece. The bra’s light and sheer, made of floral lace with thin straps that sat neatly on your shoulders. There are little pink bows too on them, which kind of made it cute. It didn’t offer much coverage, what with your nipples poking through the fabric – but that seemed to be the point. Meanwhile the panties are just as bold; crotchless, cut daringly open in the center, but softened by the same delicate lace. The set originally had garter straps and thigh-high stockings, but you thought that would be an overkill so you opted out of it. 

You cover it up with a casual white dress, spritzing on the La Belle perfume Jungkook always seems to like a little too much. 

There, everything’s done. Your period’s gone too, obviously, (day four, thank god) almost as if it knew not to ruin this night for you. 

When you head out of your bedroom, you pick your phone up from the kitchen counter to dial Jungkook’s phone. 

He usually answers on the first or second ring, but this time, he doesn’t. Wasn’t unusual or anything, given how busy he is… but you do frown when the ringing ends and there’s nothing that comes next but his voicemail.

Your frown deepens. You shift from one foot to the other, glancing at the clock. It’s past eleven now. Fifteen minutes past, to be exact. 

Jungkook’s not usually late to things.

You sigh, trudging to one of the chairs in the dining area where you prepared the food and cake for him. You also bought wine and lit up a candle.

You stare at your phone for a solid minute before you pick it up again, deciding to send Jungkook a text. 

You [11:16pm]: hey!! are you running late :> 

You chose to add the emoticon in the end so the text doesn’t feel too mysterious or broody or serious. Really, you aren’t mad, maybe a little upset now – but maybe Jungkook’s just in the middle of something… what was that again? Someone breaking in production, whatever that meant…

But the clock turns 11:25, and there is still no sign of Jungkook on your phone – and even more so on your door. 

You [11:25pm]: are you busy? sorry if im bothering you! 

Then on second thought, you added:

You [11:26pm]: oh no pls dont tell me you forgot.. 🙁

Maybe he did forget. You hadn’t reminded him of it when you talked earlier. Did you have to? He said he was free tonight, so you kind of assumed… 

You sigh again. 

The chicken was turning cold and so was the other food on the table. 

You pick up a cookie to nibble on it, thinking of why Jungkook would forget. Or why he wouldn’t text you back or return your call. 

At eleven thirty, you stand up from your seat, suddenly feeling so… so silly. Silly about the food. Silly about the cake. Silly about your dress. And most especially, you feel silly about the lingerie that’s hidden underneath. 

How silly. To plan all these in expectation of what… Jungkook’s company? 

But it was his birthday. And you wanted to throw him a party, thought it would mean something to him, even though it’s not that much. But you did go through a lot of trouble to put this all out… but he also didn’t ask you either. So really, you have no right to feel upset over him not making good on his promise. 

Wait, did he promise anything though? No, he didn’t. Not really. He just said he was free tonight. No promises. Maybe his schedule changed again and he needed to work overtime. 

You start putting away the food in the fridge, not even having the energy to eat something for dinner. You go back to your room, stripping yourself off and changing into some comfortable pajamas before throwing yourself on the bed. 

Still no texts.

It’s 11:42pm when it comes. 

You hate how fast your body reaches for your phone to see who it was, lighting up when you see Jungkook (Unit 446) on the caller ID, even more so when you answer it. 

“Hey, I got your texts. I’m so sorry, __—”

“It’s fine!” you nibble on your bottom lip as you try to contain your excitement. “Are you coming soon?” 

“I– no, ba—” you flinch involuntarily when you hear him cut himself off. You were so sure he was going to call you baby, but he corrected himself quickly. “You remember the thing I mentioned this morning? The rollback didn’t go as planned. I’m working overtime tonight again so I can’t really go…” 

“Oh…” 

“Did you plan something? It’s just my birthday, __. Maybe we can go somewhere tomorrow?” Jungkook chuckles on the other end of the line, and for the first time it didn’t make you feel giddy or whatever. 

You pick on the bed sheet before answering. “Uh, no. It’s not anything big, actually. I just made you some cookies. And ordered some food. But anyway I just ate dinner first because you took so long,” the lie rolls off your tongue easier than you expected. His laugh made you feel shitty. You know he didn’t mean anything by it – but it just made you feel so… so unimportant.

And suddenly, you want to downplay the whole thing. Because clearly, he thinks it’s no big deal.

“Hey, are you upset?” His tone shifts — gentler now.

“Ah, no. Sorry. I’m so tired and sleepy,” you fake a yawn and snuggle on the bed. “Maybe we can talk tomorrow when you’re here?” 

Tomorrow is now your least favorite word. You’ve heard it too many times from him lately. 

Jungkook doesn’t say anything for a few seconds.

Then you hear him sigh. 

“I’m sorry again, I swear I’ll make it up to you.” 

“No need to!” you tell him, making sure to say that as cheerfully as possible. Jungkook doesn’t need to. It’s not like you were dating or something for you to be upset over him bailing on you. “Really, it’s fine. Hey, I’m really, really sleepy now. Good night?” 

“Okay, sorry. Sleep well, __. Tomorrow, okay?” 

You hum, not sure if you believe that. Maybe tomorrow he’s going to have to do overtime again. Maybe tomorrow he won’t be here again.

Whatever. 

It wasn’t a big deal. 

You end the call, but before you can drop your phone onto the nightstand, you type out one last message.

You [11:45pm]: happy birthday! 

You didn’t get much sleep last night. Not like your body clock has ever been particularly reliable, 

This morning, you didn’t really think that much about it when you put the cake in a container and dropped it off at Jungkook’s door on your way down the stairs. You figured you could’ve eaten it, but you made it for him and anyway… it was his birthday and you still think he deserves a cake. He didn’t exactly seem like he was celebrating last night.

You took the bus to work. Nothing unusual, nothing exciting. Just another day dragging your limbs through the same monotonous rhythm. Your brain feels like it’s moving on autopilot by the time you tap your company ID at the building entrance and wait in line for the elevator. 

Slipping inside, you wedge yourself into a spare corner, arms crossed as the lift fills and empties floor by floor. Eventually, it’s just you and one other woman left. She steps out when the elevator dings, cradling her phone against her shoulder as she barks something stressed into the line.

Instinctively, you lean forward and press the hold button, stepping onto the side when you take notice of someone going in, only to realize it was Jungkook. 

It’s funny, really. Somehow, he only ever seems to appear when he’s the last person you’re ready to see. 

“Oh– good morning, Mr. Jeon,” you say, dipping your head in a polite little nod. The words sound awkward even to your own ears, stiff. You’ve never had to think about how to interact with him in the workplace.

Judging by the slight flicker on Jungkook’s face, he thinks it sounds weird too. But he recovers quickly, offering a faint smile as he steps in. 

You return his smile, just as polite, and inch a little further to the side – so far that your back nearly presses to the elevator wall, creating an unnecessary gap between you.

The silence is noticeable. Tense, but it’s civil at least. You glance at the floor numbers blinking overhead, half-hoping this ride doesn’t last long.

Then Jungkook shifts in your periphery. 

“Hey, about last night—”

The elevator dings. 

It’s your floor.

You step out quickly, almost too quickly, heart tapping a little faster than it should.

You don’t look back.

You didn’t expect to get a text from Jungkook that night. 

Jungkook (Unit 446) [9:37pm]: Do you wanna drive home together? 

You made a mental note to give him a reply but it’s thirty minutes later that you remembered about it.

You [10:11pm]: hey sorry I just got home

Jungkook (Unit 446) [10:14pm]: Okay Jungkook (Unit 446) [10:14pm]: Please come over tonight? I’m cooking 

You [10:16pm]: i'm not sure if I can You [10:17pm]: i’ll try to. I brought home some work :/

He doesn’t give a reply after that.

And maybe that – weirdly – made you irritated. He’d texted first, and he’d asked you over. You gave a soft no, not even a hard one, and he didn’t even try again? Just left it like that?

You sigh and close the lid of your laptop. For once, you hadn’t lied about being busy with work. It was just a few reports you figured you could finish now to make tomorrow lighter and easier. It was nothing really urgent. 

But you do feel sort of guilty about it.

Your door buzzes, and you have second thoughts whether or not you ordered dinner. 

When you open the door, it felt like deja vu.

“Jungkook.” you say, blinking.

“Are you still working?” He’s in his work clothes, though the sleeves of his button-up are slightly rolled now. It looks like he just got home not long ago.

You glance at the laptop on the coffee table. “No, I just finished…” 

“Okay, then I have a question,” Jungkook steps inside, and you unconsciously take a step back at that, looking at him curiously. He watches you carefully. “Are we okay?”

Caught off guard, you stammer when you say, “I– yeah! Sure, why wouldn’t we be?” 

He doesn’t say anything for a beat, then, “You seemed a little off this morning. I thought maybe it was about last night.” 

You try to wave it off, suddenly nervous about Jungkook being so straight-forward. Usually, men were so emotionally stunted as you are and never faced their problems head-on.

“No, I mean, it’s fine. You were probably so busy. It wasn’t a big deal.” 

“But it did kind of matter.” 

You exhale, shifting uncomfortably. “Okay, maybe I was a little upset. But it’s not like I’m mad mad.” 

“I figured,” Jungkook says, voice soft. “And I get it if you don’t want to hang out tonight, but I still wanted to try. I know I’ve flaked twice now, but I meant what I said, about making it up to you.” 

You shift your weight from one foot to the other. “With food?”

He smiles faintly. “With food. Amongst other things.” 

That earns a chuckle from you. You’re not over it – unfortunately – but something about the way he’s standing there, almost cautious, makes it hard to keep your walls all the way up. 

“So,” he asks gently. “Will you come?”

Taking a deep breath, you unintentionally look down at your socks. 

“Only if there’s wine…” you say softly. 

Jungkook’s smile spreads. “There’s wine.” 

You sigh and start toeing your slippers off. “If it’s terrible, I’m leaving in five minutes.” 

“I can live with that.” 

Inside Jungkook’s place, the lights are unusually dim, the apartment warm with the scent of garlic and something buttery. A jazz record plays at the far corner, and you only noticed then that Jungkook owned a vinyl player – which you kind of didn’t expect – you sort of pegged him as the type to not have time to listen to music. 

Meanwhile, he goes straight to the kitchen counter, where you watch him by the stove, plating food like a professional. You realized he had been cooking, and that’s why his tie was a little loose and his hair kind of a muss. 

You don’t really know what to say, so you try to break the silence with, “Uhm, wow.” 

Jungkook glances at you, mouth lifting at the corner. “I try sometimes.” 

The obvious faux humility makes you laugh. You know exactly that he knows you’re impressed by the whole thing. 

And you haven’t even eaten his food yet.

Walking in slowly to the dining area, your eyes skim over the table where there are real wine glasses, cloth napkins, and a lit candle.

“So what’s the occasion?” You ask, sitting on the chair, watching Jungkook as he heads towards your direction, bringing in the food he was preparing. You smile up at him. “Guilt?” 

He chuckles under his breath, and you’re almost glad that the joke lands.

“Maybe. Also I figured you deserve a proper dinner, made by me. Since someone went out of their way to make me one.”

You hum. “Can’t believe you stood me up on your own birthday.” 

He brings the plates over and sits across from you. “I cooked,” he says. “Try it before you decide if I’m forgiven.” 

You eye the food, a little surprise at how he mustered up a risotto with seared scallops, and of course perfectly plated. Like he’s just so good at everything he does… wait, did Jungkook go to culinary school? You’re starting to think that.

“You know how to make risotto?” 

“I know how to do a lot of things,” he meets her gaze.

Yeah, you know that was a hundred percent true…

You take a bite, careful not to let any expression slip while Jungkook watches closely, not really digging in on his own plate.

And as expected, the risotto’s annoyingly good. You didn’t doubt it from Jungkook, though. Being good at cooking was just one of the many qualities that made him so… so whatever. 

“Okay, fine. I’m mildly impressed,” you comment, sipping on the wine to hide the small smile tugging at your mouth. Your very expression contradicts your words, and you know Jungkook can see through you.

He leans back in his chair, obviously satisfied. “Mildly?”

“You still missed your birthday dinner. That knocks off some points.”

He gives you a small smile. “I really didn’t expect it to be a birthday dinner, baby.” 

You shrug off the nickname by having more bites of the risotto. You wonder if Jungkook was being deliberate when he said that, or if it was just going to be a thing between you now. 

“You didn’t ask… and well, I was going to surprise you.” Now you pout at the memories of last night again. “There was chicken.” 

Jungkook looks at you in surprise. “You cooked?”

You eye him. “Yeah, I scratched the tapes off the takeout boxes and put it in the microwave.” Jungkook laughs, the crinkles on the sides of his eyes showing. It makes you smile to see him like that. “Well,” you say eventually, “you’ve redeemed yourself a little.” 

Jungkook leans in again, riding along, “Only a little?” 

“We’ll see if there’s dessert.” 

Jungkook smirks, and you both continue to eat. 

After awhile, he glances at you. “You’re not mad,” he says, as if treading softly. “But… you were disappointed, right?” 

You shake your head. “No. I just—” You see Jungkook raising a brow. “I just thought it’d be nice. I don’t want to make a big deal about it, it was your birthday! Now I feel bad ‘cause it’s like I’m making this all about me.” you chuckle at the realization.

You look at Jungkook when you realize he’s not really laughing with you. 

You flinch a little when his hand reaches out to yours. His thumb caresses your knuckles as he tells you softly, “Hey, I know it would’ve been nice. I’m really sorry I missed it.” 

“It’s fine…” it’s a good thing Jungkook lets go immediately.

But you find yourself wanting to share with him that you baked him a cake too. About the lingerie… but that felt stupid now. Wait, did he even get the cake you left at his porch this morning? 

As if he read your mind, Jungkook suddenly rises up from his chair.

“Wait a second,” he walks past you, disappearing into the kitchen. He opens the fridge and comes back into view with a single slice of cake.

Your cake. The one you made for him. 

You stare. “Is that—?”

“You left it outside my door this morning,” he says, placing it on the table. You blink up at him, mouth slightly open. “I thought I’d save it, you know? In case you ever stopped pretending you didn’t care.” 

It felt a little pointed, but with the smile on his face you’re not really sure. 

“You really don’t play fair.” 

“Not trying to.” he says simply with a small smile before sitting again. 

“So. Is this your apology routine? Fancy dinner, smooth jazz, and then hoping I forget you bailed?” 

He smiles into his own glass of wine. “If I wanted you to forget, I wouldn’t have brought out the cake.”

You raise a brow. “You brought that out to make a point.” 

“I did.”

“You’re kind of smug about it.”

“I’m good at making points,” he says, “Especially when someone keeps insisting nothing’s wrong.” 

You frown, somehow not really liking the confirmation that he does think you’re making a big deal about this. 

“I said I was fine.” 

“You keep saying that,” his voice is quieter now, but a little edged. “But you’ve been smiling like it’s your job since you got here. And I know it’s not real.” 

You recoil at that, not expecting to be called out. The sudden shift of the atmosphere is palpable as you lean back on the couch. 

“What do you want me to say?” you let out a humorless chuckle. “That I was upset? You hurt my feelings?” 

Jungkook’s expression changes, but his voice doesn’t falter. “I wanna know how you feel.” 

You look away. “Do you want me to admit that maybe I cared more than I should?” 

“I didn’t say that.” 

“But you mean it.”

He leans forward, "I mean,” he starts, “that it wasn’t nothing. You made me dinner. You planned something for me. That’s not small. And I want you to know that I want to apologize when I make these mistakes.” 

You don’t really think it through when you say, “It’s not like we’re together, Jungkook.” 

That makes him pause. You can’t find it in you to take it back, because… it was true, right? The whole thing felt like… like you were a couple in a fight. And you aren’t.

“Still not an excuse.” he says after awhile. 

You let out a breath, almost a laugh, frustrated. You wish Jungkook hadn’t brought it up, and you wish you aren’t reacting the way you are right now.

“You know, you didn’t seem bothered about it when we talked on the phone.” 

“Because I thought you were okay.”

“Well, surprise,” you flash him a tight smile. “Turns out I’m not as chill as I thought.” 

His voice lowers. “I never thought you were chill.” You can’t help but glance at him sharply. “I thought you were trying really hard to seem like you didn’t care, because maybe you thought I might not care back.”

That lands harder than it should, and you feel your throat tighten.

“I should go,” you stand up, not wanting to have any more of this conversation. You wish Jungkook would just drop it. You told him, you were upset – but he’s making a big deal about it. 

Jungkook stands up too, stepping closer to you. His height looms over you, but his presence feels calm and collected. 

“You could,” he says in that deep voice. “But you won’t.” 

You take in a sharp breath when he presses until you can feel the heat of his body. You’re confused about the sudden turn of events, but there’s something about Jungkook right now, his voice dropping low, his gaze… almost as if…

“Oh?” you decide to challenge him, not wanting to waver.

“You stayed. And now you’re standing this close,” he says, gaze dropping to your mouth. “Looking like you want me to make you forget why you were upset in the first place.” 

You swallow, suddenly feeling heated in that other way. 

“A-and if I do?” 

One hand brushes past your hip, and you stand there grounded, unconsciously holding your breath. 

“Then you let me.” 

You kiss him first – not really sure why and how it happened – but you do, on instinct. Wrapping your arms around his neck and pressing your lips to his. It’s fast, and there’s frustration from you bubbling under, heat blooming behind your ribs like a fuse finally lit. 

Jungkook kisses you back harder though, catching you on time – always catching you on time – walking you backwards into the living room where he lays you down on the couch, hovering over you.

His voice is rough against your skin when he breaks away to whisper, “Are you still upset?” 

Your hands grip his shirt. “I would be if you don’t continue kissing me.” 

That makes him smile, murmuring, “You’re a brat.” 

“Do you like it?” 

He inhales a sharp breath against your jaw, nipping. “I really do.” 

In an instant, his hands were around your waist, your back pressed against the back of the sofa. Your breath hitches when his mouth drops to your ear, making your knees weaken slightly.

“Do you– do you kiss everyone you disappoint like this?” you mutter, hands sliding under his shirt where you feel his abs clench.

“No,” he says, lips peppering kisses down your neck, voice low. It sends shivers down your spine and makes your thighs clench together. “Just the ones who microwave chicken for me.”

It earns a chuckle from you – sharp, breathless – and tug the collar of his shirt, starting to undo his buttons until sculpted chest is revealed. You’re about to pull the material off him when Jungkook catches your wrist.

“Still upset?” he asks.

You click your tongue. “Maybe.” 

He grins. “Good.” 

He kisses you again. Slow this time, like he knows you’d let him now. And you do. Your fingers dig into his shoulder as he deepens it, tongue brushing yours in a way that makes your head fog over. He tastes like wine and smugness… but you find you like it. Jungkook moves in such a way that screams he knows exactly what he’s doing. 

His shirt is off in a second, leaving him in his slacks and belt, mouth moving lower over your throat, your collarbone, until they reach your cleavage made easily accessible with the neckline of your camisole. You arch into the touch without much thinking, and when Jungkook whispers against the peak of your nipple if he could take your shirt off, you nod. 

“Sorry, this isn’t my proudest bra ever,” you tell him, fingers slipping through his hair. 

Jungkook chuckles. “I’m gonna take it off, anyway.” 

He lifts you up effortlessly, squeezing your ass as you yelp but helping you wrap your legs around his waist. Before you can say anything, he shuts up with a searing hot kiss, and you let him carry you to the bedroom with ginger steps, like he’d done it a hundred times before in his head. God, you hope he did just like you do. 

You don’t know how exactly it happened but your bra is off the moment he lowers you down on the bed, tugging the cups off your chest and letting his hand take reign on one boob while he licks the other one with his hot tongue, swirling it around your nipple that makes you gasp and shift on the bed. 

“Oh, Jungkook…”

Crawling over you, you meet his heavy gaze as he asks, “Are you sure about this?” 

If the heat in between your thighs is any more indication of how sure you are, he can check. But you tug him down by the waistband of his slacks to tell him, “I’ve been sure.” 

“Just checking, because once we start…” he murmurs, gaze dropping on your lips. As if he can’t help it, he closes his mouth around yours. Then his hand slides down, feathery touch causing goosebumps all over your skin. It stops on your inner thigh where you take a sharp breath because he was so close to where you wanted him to be. 

“I want you now,” you say, a bit irritated. 

He chuckles, dark. Low. He retracts his hand and smirks when you give him a glare. 

“I wanna take my time with you, sweetheart. Don’t rush me.” 

To prove his point, he kisses you again – hot and passionate, but also aguishly slow like he’s savoring every brush of your tongue and he has all the time in the world for it. 

You’re flushed beneath him, breathless as his hands wander all over your body. He nips the skin of your neck, obviously teasing, leaving goosebumps on his trail. When his hand cups the heat in between your legs, your hips unconsciously buck, your grip on his shoulders tightening at the contact. 

“I should’ve come to dinner,” he murmurs, kissing the corner of your mouth. 

“Y-yeah,” you manage, “you should’ve.” 

“I can’t believe I missed this yesterday.”

You gasp when his thumb presses on your mound, feeling like you’ve been electrocuted by the touch. Jungkook seems to take note of your oversensitivity, as he watches you with your mouth hanging slightly open.  

“Don’t worry, baby. I plan to make it up to you real good,” he leans back for a second to tug the waistband of your pants, and you don’t hesitate to lift yourself up a little to help him slide it off your legs together with your panties. You bite your bottom lip as you observe him watching the way the material clings to your pussy at the slickness. A smirk tugs at his lips. “I guess I’ve made you wait too long, didn’t I?” 

Your reply dissolves into a sharp inhale as he puts two of his fingers in his mouth and wedges them in between your folds, leaning down to plant a kiss on your parted mouth. His fingers move inside you, curling in slow rhythm, his thumb teasing just enough to keep your hips lifting off the bed.

“You’re so soaked, and I haven’t even touched you properly yet,” he slowly slides them out, smirking when you whimper at the loss of contact. He inserts them again, this time taking on a steady pace. His fingers make you feel so full, just like they did back at the motel – and you wouldn’t dare lie to yourself and say you haven’t been looking forward to this again. By the way you can’t keep the soft moans escaping past your lips, Jungkook must’ve known too. 

Slick sounds bounce off the wall, and you try to keep it to a minimum by minimizing your moans and pressing the back of your hand to your mouth but Jungkook catches your wrist quickly, as if he knew what you were about to do.

“No, baby, let me hear you,” he says, pinning your hand up against the headboard. “I want to know how much you want this, how much you like my fingers fitting right in your pussy,” he looks down, then unexpectedly, he brings his soaked digits up to your face. Your cheeks flush in embarrassment when you see how wet they are with your juices, whimpering when he inserts them in his mouth with no second thoughts, licking them obscenely. You whimper when he shuts his eyes close, looking intoxicated. 

“Shit,” he hisses, “Tastes just as good as I remember it.” 

“J-jungkook,” you whine, wanting him to do something already. 

“I know,” he smirks, a little smug. “Should I go faster? Is that what you like?” 

“Please…” you cry out, holding on to his wrist.

He chuckles darkly and just as when you were about to say something else again, he curls the same fingers in you, but this time he plunges them in and out at a faster pace. At that, you don’t hold back the moans you’ve been keeping trapped in your throat. 

Legs tensing, Jungkook continues to fuck you with his fingers, moving like an expert; determined to make you fall apart – and you’re nothing but soft cries, heated, fingers tightening around his wrist as your orgasm creeps up your toes to your spine. 

“F-fuck…” you sigh when Jungkook dives in your chest again, nipping and sucking at the flesh you were sure he was going to leave marks. “Feels so good, Koo…” 

He hums against your skin, curling his fingers and digging in deep that your thighs shake uncontrollably. But Jungkook’s hold on your hip is firm, not enough to hurt, but enough to keep you from thrashing underneath him at the overwhelming pleasure. 

“Yeah? You’re making such a mess on my hand, baby,” he husks out.

“S-sorry.”

He chuckles. “You’re beautiful,” He breaks away from your tits to stare at you. Moving away some of the hair that has gotten on your face, he says, “Are you close?” 

“Yes, god, yes. Please, I’m so close…” 

You can feel yourself about to reach your climax, so you move your hand to seek relief to your clit. But Jungkook catches you off-guard when he moves further down your body. You let out a lewd moan when he licks along your slit, sucking in your folds – your juices making a wet, spongy sound as he slurps. When he closes his mouth around your clit, you cry out and grab his hair quite harshly. 

But Jungkook only hums against your pussy, the vibration only making you drip more. He ravishes your nub with his tongue, quick and steady, and so are his fingers in and out of your pussy. 

“Oh my god,” you moan, body convulsing at your impending orgasm, shutting your eyes close and focusing on the way his tongue tugs at your clit. “Kook, I’m coming, fuck, I’m gonna cum—” 

He pulls off with a smack only to tell you “in my mouth” before going back to business again. You listen to his small grunts, his hums, and until then, you feel your body spasming when the coil at your stomach breaks.  

Jungkook puts his hand on your lower stomach, pressing you down as you wriggle underneath him, thighs shaking at your orgasm. He licks until you’re pulling his head out of your mound. He takes his fingers out of your spongy walls, spreading your wetness instead around your folds, as if calming you down from your high.

“Good, baby, good…” he murmurs, gripping your thighs to steady you. Then he leans down and presses kisses over them.

You let your back relax on the mattress, shutting your eyes close and catching your breath.

You hear a drawer pull open, and when you finally open your eyes, you see Jungkook with a condom pinched in between his fingers.

“I’m not done with you yet,” Jungkook skates his fingers through his hair, and you suddenly got the urge to jump him right then and there when you saw the sheer wetness on his jaw, his sculpted chest and the abdominal muscles that sit perfectly on his stomach, his tattoo sleeve – he looked like an absolute dream then, but you knew you were in for a ride when your eyes cast a look at the erection inside his slacks. Jungkook makes quick work of unbuckling his leather belt, and the way the metal clink with each other scratches a part of your brain that screams want, want, want and maybe Jungkook caught on, because he follows your gaze to the belt, clicking his tongue when he throws the leather away somewhere on the floor.

“Next time, sweet girl,” he says, sounding like he meant it. You can feel your cheeks heating under his gaze and the implication of his words, chest pounding as he unbuttons and unzips his pants together with his boxers. 

“I…” You watch in quiet fascination when his rock hard dick slaps against his lower abdomen, biting your lip at the sight. It was just as long and girthy as you remember it.

He hums. “You want to play next time, we’ll do that. But eyes up here first,” Jungkook instructs, and you do look at him when he says so, feeling your legs clamping together at his slightly commanding tone. He tugs your legs to pull you closer to the edge of the bed, and so you lift off the mattress slightly and rest your elbows against the soft sheets. Jungkook smiles at you as he kneels between your spread legs, “You look beautiful like this, baby. Do you know how much I’ve been wanting to do this?” he asks as he rips open the condom, pinching the tip and putting it over his cock in quick succession. 

“I’ve been waiting for you…” you say, not really sure what you mean, touching his chest because you can. He’s so warm and so big, and your pussy aches at the thought of him finally entering you.

It felt greedy, to want to cum again when you just did not even a full minute ago.

“I know,” he strokes his cock for good measure, and you let out a soft gasp when he hikes your leg over his hip, nudging your other leg to the side. He inserts a finger in your pussy, hissing at your wetness. “Fuck, you are soaked, baby…” 

“Put it in,” You whine, chest heaving up and down as you watch Jungkook with half-lidded eyes. His hand wraps around his dick, strokes it for a moment before gripping near the tip and bringing it closer to your aching heat. 

You moan when the first inch of his cock goes in, mouth gaping at the intrusion. Jungkook’s eyebrows knit as he adjusts your leg higher on his hip, pushing deeper. 

“Look at me,” he instructs, “You can take it, right, baby? You’re so wet, so pretty…” 

“I– yes, yes– shit,” you let out a shaky breath, “you’re s-so big, fuck,”

“You’re taking it so well,” he murmurs, voice low and dripping with honey. He gives a gentle, almost subtle thrust that almost knocks you out of the bed.

“Yes, yes, fuck… give it to me, Kook, I want you so bad…”

“Yeah? I’m gonna move in a sec, angel, play with your tits for me.”

You nod your head and do as told, letting your hands wander all over your body before fondling your breasts, moaning instantly at the pleasure. 

“Tell me if it hurts,” is what he says before he slips an arm beneath your waist, holding you up, a shudder escaping past his lips when he slowly pushes more past your tight walls. You choke out a moan, a broken sob coming out of it when he finally bottoms out inside of you.

“Ah…” 

He hisses, fingers digging at your waist as he withdraws from your heat and only the tip of his cock is in you, the scene with it sitting on your soaked pussy enough to send him into an overdrive. 

“You’re so fucking tight holy fuck,” he seethes, forcefully snapping his hips back into you and finally picking up a pace that makes you whimper and cry out pathetic little moans, mind becoming fuzzy at the thrusts of his cock in your entrance. 

Your walls clench at the glide of his cock against you, feeling him falter at the little stunt. But you can’t help it. Your body is on fire as Jungkook lets out a guttural groan, pulling you flush against his cock until the thin hairs around the base of his dick are tickling your skin. Your elbow shake as it loses balance, but Jungkook is quick to catch you just on time, leaning down to hover over your body, but it only makes the angle of his fuck deeper, and maybe he meant to do that too. 

Your hands are quick to wrap around his shoulders as you feel the tip of his cock prodding against your cervix like he’s going all out, your hips jumping as he rams back inside. 

He repeats the movement like a graceful dancer, thrusts deep and purposeful, pulling out wailing sounds from you you begin to worry if the neighbors could hear. He tucks his head against your neck and presses a kiss on the junction between your neck and shoulder, rocking his hips into you, pistoning into your squelching heat. His body is so close, so warm, sweaty skin gliding against yours.

“Fuck, fucking hell, baby – fuck, you feel so good,” Jungkook growls, finding your mouth and kissing you again. His hips snaps back into you once again, and you both swallow each other’s moans at the contact, letting your bodies rock to the sound of your fucking. His hand is on your chest immediately, squeezing everywhere until it settles on pinching your nipple between his fingers. 

“Jungkook– ah, baby— fuckkkkk,” You shudder, feeling your pussy quiver at every snap and every withdrawal, and when he brings his hand to your clit and rubs it in quick circles, you screw your eyes shut, feeling that familiar wave again for the second time that night. 

“Jungkook–” 

“You’re gonna be a good girl and come for me, sweet girl?” Jungkook rasps out, sweaty forehead coming into view as he jackhammers into your pussy with ease, welcomed by your never-ending slick. You never thought you’d see Jungkook like that, fucking like a crazed caveman, looking like he can’t get enough but also straining himself a bit to not hurt you – because of course he wouldn’t. 

“Fuck me harder, Kook, I need it– need you to… need you to—”

“Yeah?” he rocks harder, faster just like you said, and you can honestly start to feel the slight pain on your chest as they bounce at the speed, your hand flying to grab at your chest. 

“I’m so close,” you cry out, unconsciously reaching for him and feeling like you’re on edge. Jungkook takes your hand and encloses it around his, thrusting into you once again before whispering against your skin to let go. 

As if that was a magic phrase, you feel something inside you snap. 

“Good girl, I knew you’d come for me, you always do,” Jungkook slurs. You could feel your cum dribbling out of your pussy, creaming his cock, but Jungkook continues ramming himself past your clenched lips and into your spasming hole, grunting against your skin, mouth leaving random, open-mouthed kisses. 

He drills on, and his cock still feels so achingly hard, seemingly not anywhere near completion yet. You’re nearly mush beneath him from your current release, but you push through it as you press your hands to his chest, forceful enough to send him tumbling a little. He’s caught off-guard by that, and you take that to your advantage as you maneuver yourself to push him completely on his back, his cock sliding out of you. 

He bounces off the mattress a little, looking at you curiously as you straddle his waist. Your sensitive pussy shudders at the cold of the AC in his room, and you feel like your bones have been liquefied, but you don’t let that deter you from taking ahold of his still, indeed, hard cock and sitting on it. 

Jungkook inhales a sharp breath as he watches you bounce on his cock, the head disappearing and appearing in your entrance, like a show he would want to replay over and over again. And you’re determined, stretching your body and leaning back to rest your palms on his thighs for support as you take his dick, switching to a back and forth motion.

“Oh, Jungkook, god – oh my god,” and although it was supposed to be for him – for him to cum – you can honestly feel yourself about to snap again, especially when Jungkook reaches forward to rub your tit, caressing your tattoo underneath with that hungry look in his eyes, and settling on your hips like he’s enjoying the little show you’re putting up for him. 

“That’s it baby, bounce on my cock – you’re doing so we…ll,” he encourages, but there’s a slight break to his tone at the end. “Shit, keep going – fuck. I’m so fucking close– you look so good,” 

You swallow the saliva trapped in your throat to pick up your pace, feeling lightheaded at the overwhelming feeling of his cock prodding against your cervix everytime you go forth. His dick brushes past your clit everytime you move, and you throw your head back when you feel him starting to thrust upward. 

“Are you close again, baby?” Jungkook asks, gripping your hips tight as he meets your ministration. You bite your lip at the question, only whimpering when Jungkook bucks his hips harshly. “Cum for me a third time, pretty girl. Cum with me.” 

“Jungkook, I can’t, I’m so sensitive. I–”

“You can, angel. And you will.”

You mewl when Jungkook reaches for your pussy with his other hand, quickly finding your clit to rub against it again, and that pushes you to the edge quickly – orgasm snapping on an instant just like that. 

Jungkook’s hips stutter, breath caught in between a curse and your name, like the sound of you undid him completely. It was a sound that you heard three days ago when he came in your mouth.

“Fucking hell,” he hisses, hips faltering at his orgasm. “Shit…” 

You drop your body unceremoniously onto him, the exhaustion hitting you all at once.

Wrapping his hands around your body very gently, you feel Jungkook kissing the side of your head, making you shut your eyes close. 

“Jesus.” you blurt out, whole body spent.

“Didn’t know you were religious like that…” He says with a chuckle, caressing your hair mindlessly.

You snap your head quickly to look at him at the familiar words, narrowing your eyes. Jungkook only presses a kiss to your shoulder as if that was some sort of apology, and you let it go with a playful shake of your head.

“Do you still feel bad about missing dinner?” You ask with a smile on your face. 

He let out a low laugh, and the vibration through his chest feels warm against your skin. 

“I’m working on making it up to you.” 

“Does it really involve making me cum three times in a single night?” you arch your brow. “I think you’re overcompensating.” 

Jungkoo gives you a nonchalant shrug. “Maybe.”

And before you can say anything, he flips you over and kisses you again, which makes you giggle into his mouth.  

all right reserved © awrkive, 2025. no reposts, modification, translations, and copying allowed. if you enjoy my work/s and have the extra means, please consider supporting me on ko-fi <3

[cameronsbabydoll]

Hiii!! First of all I love love love ur blog!! Especially puppy!reader ૮ ⸝⸝> ̫ <⸝⸝ ა

If you have time and if you want to,,, could you pleaseeee write something about puppy at the pool/ beach and like how she would act in the water and stuff?? I'm on vacation rn and that's all I've been thinking about •́︿•̀

puppy!reader at the pool & beach

a/n: divider made by me! if used pls give credits!

🫧 puppy!reader at the pool...

she gets so excited on pool days she can’t sit still. wakes up before rafe. puts her swimsuit on backwards. already holding her floatie in her mouth like a chew toy.

obsessed with pool noodles. but like… she doesn’t float with them properly. she just hugs them like plushies and kicks her legs and makes little barking sounds.

constantly calling out to rafe from the shallow end.

“rafe!!! did you see that flip!?”

(it wasn’t a flip. it was a splash.)

“rafe watch me hold my breath!”

(it’s 3 seconds. he claps anyway.)

she wears water wings, even though she technically knows how to swim. the pink kind. with glitter inside.

she’ll get sunscreen in her eyes every time. every. time. cries about it. rafe has to pat her eyes with a towel while she sniffles.

gets too cold too fast. lips turning blue, shaking like a little soaked pup. rafe wraps her in a beach towel and holds her on his lap even though she’s soaking wet and shivering against him.

begs for pool snacks like juice pouches, string cheese, popsicles. will definitely ask rafe to open a juice box with his teeth because hers “aren’t strong enough.”

🐚 puppy!reader at the beach...

wears heart-shaped sunglasses and a frilly two-piece with a matching skirt. her whole bag is filled with sea shell-shaped lip balm, glittery hand sanitizer, and a plastic shovel for digging.

digs a little hole and lays in it. like a puppy bed. tells rafe “i’m nesting.”

(he doesn’t ask questions anymore.)

she chases seagulls. barefoot. with squeals. rafe is constantly yelling “come back here” as she runs off mid-sentence.

collects broken shells like they’re diamonds. she’ll walk over with a chipped gray thing and go, “rafe look at this one, it’s sparkly on the inside,” and he’ll pretend to care while she puts it in his pocket.

she gets sunburnt on her nose no matter how much sunscreen rafe puts on her. he has to hold her still like a wriggly toddler to reapply it every hour.

when she gets sleepy, she curls up on the towel next to rafe’s lap and just lets herself doze off with sand still on her knees and a sticky popsicle stick in hand.

rafe brings baby powder to get the sand off her skin and gently dusts it over her legs. she giggles and calls him her “beach daddy.” he groans.

[hinge]

Hinge presents an anthology of love stories almost never told. Read more on https://no-ordinary-love.co

[blueberryismilk18]

Scandalabra x (GN) Reader Drabbles/hc’s?

Spoilers for Scandalabra

NOT PROOF READ

I have noticed a lack of Scandalabra content so I will try to provide

I apologize for anything that is slightly out of character especially for the Jon Wick parts.

🕯️Scandalabra would make a great boyfriend. He is a man whom enjoys scandals.

🕯️ That being said he’s a listener, on top of being a talker, yeah remember mentioning your favorite food to him don’t be surprised it appears on your table. (And a very upset Mitchell Linn and Daisuke) 

🕯️With that it’s one of the ways he shows his affection. And sharing secrets, to show his more vulnerable side. He is almost always open about stuff… almost..

🕯️In all seriousness he does enjoy some Princess treatment he absolutely adores it. It makes him feel.. special. That he’s worth something, even if his sass and snark won’t let him admit it 

🕯️Though he will do the same right back, it’s just in his nature (despite how annoying his ramblings are) he has a deep and profound feelings for you. He truly wishes to understand why you don’t leave him out like the others (though he does find it kind of hot when he sees you flirting with the others. Like Rebel said themself he’s kinda a “cuck”)

🕯️when he sees you hanging out with Maggie he feels a wave of panic, especially when he finds out it’s regarding him.

🕯️It scares him to no end. The though of you hating him, the though of loosing the one person he didn’t drive away. He had been very open about himself, let himself be vulnerable to you. For a moment the walls he let you break down had built up once more.

🔍Once you and Maggie confronted him about being not who he says he was angry, scared, and sad. He is confronted about being Jon Wick. And he has no other choice but to admit it, his life before.

🧨He couldn’t look at you in your eyes for a few long moments. He felt small, he had mental prepared himself for the worst. He knew it could come. But when he met your eyes he saw nothing but love.

🧨To you Jon Wick or Scandalabra whatever he chose to be, he knew you would stick with him. 

🧨As Jon Wick he would protect you, forever and always. 

🕯️ Even as scandalabra he would always keep an eye on you. He would go to the ends of the earth for you. His love has no end.

[stygiusfic]

this post got around a fair bit more than the handful of notes i could have expected! i originally made it as a reminder to myself of what has worked for me, because in the past when i've been trying some new habit and then broken it/lost momentum for a few days, it's easy to feel like once i've fallen off the horse i'll never get back on it.

i've been on and off and back on this particular horse consistently over the past few months, and i'm reblogging to say:

the best method is the one that makes you excited to write.

a fair number of the notes are some combination of "i should try this". like adding it to a to-do list. and i know this may not be the intent but the best thing you can do for yourself is to get rid of "should". throw "should" in the garbage.

"should" cannot apply to things you do for enjoyment. "should" is for obligations, for tasks, for the watchful pressure of The Correct Way to Do Things. "should" is not for things you look forward to doing; "should" is for things you look forward to having done.

but 99% of writing is the "doing" part, so you kinda have to look forward to it and find joy in it, otherwise why bother?

i know that's easier said than done. believe me, i'm still in the trenches. but on those days when i can't hype myself up for the "doing", it's more fruitful in the long run to be kind to myself and give myself the day off, without blame, without shame. and that means there is fewer negativity associated with writing, for me, so i can enjoy it more on the days i do want to do it.

seriously, if you take nothing else away from the method in my initial post, take this:

figure out at what point in the day your mind is best able to focus and enjoy being creative without outside pressures. it's early morning for me, but could be late at night or during your lunch break for you.

doing other stuff, especially physically active, while puzzling out problems does help. a staring contest with the blinking cursor on your document will NOT help, in fact it'll do the opposite, you won't solve it and you'll only build frustration (bad feelings you'll associate with writing, that will make you less likely to want to write). so many times i'm stuck on a sentence and i get up to take out the trash or do dishes and the solution comes to me.

figure out how to increase the positive feelings associated with writing. for me that's daydreaming at other times so my excitement is at the forefront of my mind when i sit down. you may prefer to put on a specific playlist or light a candle. whatever works!

you can skip any number of steps, if they don't help you. i'm not the boss of you. tailor your experience.

if you miss a day, or a week, or a year, you aren't a failure. that horse will be there waiting patiently for you to get back on it. (i fear this is where the analogy breaks down, considering... horses).

in order to succeed, you need to set yourself up for success, the way that works for you. it can take a while and a lot of trial and error to figure out how to set yourself up like this, but it's worth it.

good luck, and happy writing!

early morning writing hack (real) (it's been working for about a month now):

think about the scene you're going to work on that morning not when you sit down to write, but the previous evening. this is daydreaming but with purpose. think about what might happen and how the characters feel about it. get excited. don't write a single word.

go about your evening normally, doing whatever else you do. your subconscious is a slow cooker and while you do other stuff, it's working on your idea for you.

get up early, like an hour before you'd need to start your day if you were cutting it close. everyone else in the world is snoozing their alarm, so no one can bother you rn. you're free! no one can judge your writing, not even you!

(optional i guess but it really helps me) unless the first few words of your scene are already clear in your mind, warm up. I've abandoned the idea of warm-up drabbles or whatever the hell people recommend. instead, I pull up a story by someone whose writing I love, and I type out a fragment of it in a blank doc, reading the words out loud as I go. this wakes up my writing brain as I become aware of how their prose and dialogue work their magic, when and where they reveal new information, how each detail leads to the next. I'd advise doing this with work that is of high quality and purposeful, so you can learn their tricks, but I'm not the boss of you.

write!!!!!!!

don't stop to judge if it's good or not!! it's too early for that shit!! if the draft sucks you can fix it later but you need the draft done first!!

do stop once yesterday evening's daydreaming prep has run out and you're out of steam. (sometimes the momentum can reveal the next part of the story you hadn't actively considered yet, but don't depend on it.) if you hit a wall where you have no idea how to continue, or it's still too vague to put words down, trying to push through will only bring frustration. and even if you do manage to write a bit more, the chances you'll end up scrapping it later because it doesn't fit are significant. just call it there, you're done.

take a minute to appreciate what you accomplished. you now have words you didn't have yesterday. you won the day, and meanwhile everyone else is still asleep, the absolute losers

if you use a word tracker, go ahead and input your word count for the day. maybe you got a lot done, or maybe you didn't; it's a victory either way. on mornings when I've been struggling, writing and then erasing and writing again, if I'm too pissed off to check the word count I just put down a symbolic number, like 50 words. it may not look like much, but when I look at the month's stats it feels good to have proof that I showed up and did the thing even when it was hard.

now you can start your day. and frankly at this point I don't give a shit how annoying my day is, because I already did the thing I care about getting done, so I'm not going through work resenting every task for stealing brain juice I could've used for writing in the evening. "I'll write when I'm done with work" is the ADHD hubris devil speaking.

and now it's the evening and you're free to daydream again!! and use absolutely zero brain power!! wheee!!

[nostalgebraist]

When you finish writing a big story and you became very close the characters, was there a time after where you were like "i kind of want to revisit these characters again, but i should probably just let the story be, they deserve to rest" Im not talking about wanting to write a sequel, is more about still coming up with fun ideas for them, maybe a little scene or something, but choosing not to do anything with it because it'd feel disrespectful to the ending you gave them?

This doesn't happen to me, no.

The reason is that, once I finish the story, my sense of "being close to the characters" suddenly vanishes. And, although there are rare moments where it (briefly) returns, it mostly stays gone.

I can't remember if I've ever talked about this in detail before, but – when I'm in the process of writing a story, especially near the end, the characters feel "real" to me in a very strong and kind of uncanny way.

I don't actually believe that they exist as independent entities from me (much less sentient ones), but it does almost feel like that's true, when I'm in the thick of the writing process.

I have no trouble intellectually distinguishing fiction from reality, even in the state I'm describing. But my emotional and intuitive relationship with my characters, when I'm in that state, is pretty similar to the one I have with real people I know in real life. And there are a bunch of... uh, mental phenomena?... associated with this that I'm slightly afraid to describe because I worry they'll sound like hallucinations or delusions if I don't add a lot of caveats.

For example, when I'm alone in a room writing (especially if I'm writing in the middle of the night), I sometimes feel like it's not just me in the room, that the character I'm writing about is "there with me," in much the same way I'd be aware of someone real person's presence if I knew they were in the room but didn't happen to be looking in their direction. Or: sometimes I feel like the characters' voices are "flowing through me," that I'm merely taking dictation from them – and will sometimes even think to myself: "man, I'm so grateful that the character is helping me write this part, because if I tried to do it all by myself there's no way I would get it right." And it takes a moment before I realize, wait, no, I am writing it by myself – at least in a literal and physical sense.

Basically if you read this post, and then sort of read between the lines of it under the assumption that I'm downplaying how weird the experience actually is because I'm worried an accurate account would make me sound kind of unhinged... then you will have roughly the right impression of what the writing experience is like for me.

Whatever is going on here, it feels like it's probably on some kind of spectrum that also contains stuff like tulpas, multiple systems, and maybe also the way that children can sometimes get really deeply wrapped up in their imaginary play. I don't know how common this stuff is among writers (maybe it is common but rarely talked about?). It's not something I've experienced anywhere else in life; I don't experience it with other people's fictional characters or stories, or with fantasies I have that aren't associated with a work in progress, and I don't remember ever experiencing it before I started writing fiction as an adult.

Anyway, as I said at the top, the moment I finish writing a story, this phenomenon simply turns off, suddenly and completely. The transition is very noticeable when it happens, and makes me feel something akin to grief or loneliness over the brief span between the moment it starts and the moment it is fully completed – like I've just lost a bunch of close friends at once.

With Almost Nowhere, I remember a very specific feeling – on the evening of the day when I finished writing – that the characters were "departing 'into' the finished book," reverting to a lesser existence as "mere words" rather than "real people," as though they had been plastic toys animated by Terra Ignota's Bridger, and were now turning back into toys again. It made me sad, for a little while, but once they'd fully "lost their reality" I no longer cared, because it was that same sense of reality that made me care, and now it was gone.

So, to finish answering your question: I don't feel an urge to return to my old characters, because it feels intuitively obvious that doing this is impossible. That anything else I wrote about them would be inauthentic, somehow, in a way that the original work wasn't. They were "there," before, but they're "gone," now. This difference is very stark, and very hard to ignore.

(As I noted above, they do sometimes "come back" to me – very rarely, and very briefly, but that is enough for a proof of concept. Perhaps, if I were to try, I could find some way to "bring them back" for longer intervals. But I doubt I will ever try that. I feel a bit afraid of the concept for several reasons – for one thing, the "inauthenticity" I just mentioned squicks me out and I'd prefer not to come too close to it, and I also have a baseline wariness of doing stuff that seems too much like messing around with my own mental health. There's also a "catch-22" involved here, where I don't feel motivated about the characters the way I used to, and that means I'm not even motivated to do things that would generate that motivation. The "target" of the effort won't appeal strongly to me until I've already gone to the trouble of obtaining it, which means the effort doesn't feel justified in the first place.)

[pink-nightmare-lab]

✨🦇General!Lilia Vanrouge one-shot🦇✨

Summary: reader is a diurnal* fae and is curious about the nocturnal fae so she goes to their territory to satisfy her curiosity

*Diurnal: basically the opposite of nocturnal, in other words, most active during the day

Other info: reader is female and a faerie🦋

Side note: might turn this into a fully fledged fanfiction with multiple chapters, also, I don't know the word count but it's long

Also, everything is purely made up, I took some inspo from the Tinkerbell movies and used my own imagination, so yeah, nothing canon here but HOLY MOLY, it took me so long to finish this

You live in a beautiful village surrounded by big trees where fae of all kinds flutter by or walk, going on about their day while the warm sun shines through the trees and illuminating the village in a golden glow, flowers blooming in every corner and magic flowing through the cores of the trees protecting the village.

You were a diurnal fae, to be exact, a butterfly faerie, wings as soft as silk and delicate like the wings of the small butterflies fluttering by, there was nothing better than to fly around and feel the breeze caress your skin like a gentle kiss.

It was widely known that faeries have conflicts with humans for centuries now but even amongst faerie kind, conflicts exist too, for one, nocturnal and diurnal faerie don't seem to get along too well and usually stay out of each other's skin just to avoid unpleasantries.

Yet no matter how often the others warned you and told you all sorts of stories, you always wanted to see the nocturnal fae up close out of sheer curiosity, after all, what if they aren't as bad as everyone says they are?

It's dawn when you slowly arise from your slumber, stretching and letting your wings flutter before getting out of bed, the village slowly coming to life to proceed with their daily tasks.

Today or rather tonight will be different, tonight you're venturing outside the territory of the diurnal faeries and into the lands of the nocturnal fae, yearning to learn more about them since books don't cover much about them.

You put on a beautiful floral dress and your hair up so it won't bother you for today's flower caretaking amongst other butterfly faeries in the nearby meadow.

You flutter towards your closet and grab a dark brown cloak and stuff it into a bag for later, after all, nobody should see it's you and with those big wings of yours that resemble those of a monarch butterfly, they'd stick out like a sore thumb, especially in the dark forest of the nocturnal fae territory, big bright orange wings would certainly be an unusual sight over there.

Once you're ready, you flutter towards the meadow, some already there and tending to the moon flowers, preparing them for an upcoming festival, pollinating them with a special pollen and making sure no illness befell at least one of them.

While you scatter the pollen on the flowers, you carefully observe the guards, ever so often hiding beneath the big flowers to take a better glimpse at them, listening in and trying to memorise their patrolling pattern, technically, it wasn't forbidden to leave the village at night but when your reasoning is to visit the nocturnal fae and try to become friendly, well, that's another story.

When it finally becomes evening, it's time to get ready, you put on a cloak and wait around a certain area around one of the exits for guards to walk past and go towards another area to patrol.

It's your cue to leave and you quickly do so, not the fastest by foot but it worked, you only hope that nobody saw you else you'd be in trouble and then the mayor would be upset and then the ministers when they heard one of their subjects decided to dare to go to the nocturnal faeries.

You take off the cloak once you're a good bit away from the village, you decide to flutter towards the edge of the forest for the rest of this small trip till you reach the edge of the forest, staring into the other side, it looks much darker and dangerous yet it's no time to go back now after planning for so long for this adventure of yours.

From what you've heard, nocturnal faeries are rather "scary" looking, sharp fangs, horns, scales and just overall roughness, that they're pretty mean although that's debatable since you've met plenty of mean diurnal faeries in your life but oh well, those were just rumours, you don't know what exactly to expect but at least it's one step closer to get friendly with them.

Aside from curiosity, you had another reason for this trip...

A while back, you overheard guards whispering amongst themselves, the trees surrounding the village are growing weaker and need a special kind of pollen to restore their strength but their problem was that the remedy lied within the territory of the nocturnal faeries and they're oh so stubborn to ask for help in that regard, instead, they tasked scholars to find an alternative solution.

If those trees die, everything around them does as well, your village is highly dependent on that but most importantly, the moon flowers on the meadow are of highest concern but what makes them special is that they have healing properties and that they bloom the strongest on the third full moon during the festival, without it, aiding the injured would take longer and finding a healer might end up being too late.

To you, the answer was obvious, to negotiate with the nocturnal faeries, asking for help and offering something in return, it couldn't be that bad... but then again, you've never met an actual nocturnal fae.

As night grows closer, you put on the cloak, trying to blend in, the forest seems so much darker compared to the ones in your territory, the tree leafs rustle in the wind and the owls sing their songs, it's hard to see without a light but if you lit up a light it could alarm the wrong type of creatures, so instead, you depend on the moonlight to guide you.

After walking for an hour, you spot a distant light emitted from a campfire but then you also heard... screeching and growling? you're not sure if you're hearing dangerous creatures or actual nocturnal faeries after all but nonetheless, it's an opportunity to see them up close.

You lower yourself and walk along the bushes to try to get closer till you're close enough to peek through the bushes and see what you've found.

Your eyes widen at the sight, real nocturnal faeries! But from the looks of it, soldiers.

Their masks are put aside and they're resting and talking, you hold in a gasp at the sight, such sharp fangs, piercing eyes with a slit shaped pupils, longer pointy ears and as you've heard, some indeed have scales and horns, the rumours about them looking more rough and predatory certainly wasn't a lie and yet... there was something ethereal about them.

To your confirmation, that growling and screeching is indeed just them talking, such an odd yet curious language, you thought.

You decide to stay hidden and keep observing, clearly, it's very important! You were just about to take out your journal but then you remember just how good of a hearing they have so perhaps alarming them wouldn't be so smart, writing can wait but... if their hearing is that good, what if they already are aware of your presence? No, that can't be, else they would've already noticed by now.

You have a clear goal in mind, observe, plan and negotiate (hopefully), after all, finding the remedy yourself and just taking it would be thievery, so you can't do that, you'd be punished and you aren't exactly fond of that.

You spot a fae much smaller and slimmer than the rest, his skin was a beautiful shade of pale, he had sharp fangs like the rest but his red piercing eyes truly captured your interest, his long hair flowing in the gentle night breeze.

Judging from the way the others interact with him, he seems to be someone highly important but it was difficult to really tell if they'd listen to reason were you to actually approach them, you could make nothing of their screeching.

They truly sounded and looked so different from the faeries you're surrounded by all the time yet you couldn't help but look at them in awe, you want to know more about them and get to know their lives and everything else.

Now stuck in a dilemma, you're sure that approaching them head on wouldn't be the smartest idea, they'd probably just shoo you back to your home but you somehow need to at least befriend one of them.

After some more observing, you internally sigh, it's no use to keep watching them so you slowly back away and try to get away without getting noticed.

Once you successfully get away, you continue to walk deeper into the woods in hopes of spotting the sister tree of the ones surrounding your village but that advantage is cut short very quickly.

One step and suddenly a rope snatches your ankle and pulls you up, dangling you upside down.

You did not expect this whatsoever and now you're stuck hanging upside down, also having made quite the noise with the amount of leaf rustling due to the trap.

Your hair is a mess, the skirt of your dress hanging down, revealing the shorts beneath them, your bag fell down alongside your cloak, letting you wings free and making you less hidden.

You curse inside, trying to figure out what to do now while you meekly tried reaching for the rope holding your leg, your wings flutter in frustration.

"first you're snooping around and now you're stuck dangling like freshly caught prey, I must say... I've never seen your kind venturing into our territory, alone nonetheless" a deep voice from behind suddenly speaks up.

You freeze, unable to look behind you but you can tell that it must be one of the soldiers you saw earlier.

"Such beautiful wings, diurnal faeries truly live up to their names, you look like a soft delicate flower, like something that doesn't belong here"

You feel a hand gently caressing your wing, you gasp and slap him with your wing, it was gentle and didn't harm him but it was enough to startle him and to tell him to stop.

After a moment of silence, he's in front of you and you're met with those piercing red eyes again that you saw earlier, he looks like he's thinking with a stern face.

"Tell me, who are you and what are you doing here?" he asks sternly, leaving no room to back away.

"I'm just here for help, I need something that can only be acquired here!" you say after composing yourself.

"and pray tell what it is you're looking for? Not often does your kind come here, nonetheless all alone like yourself, a bit naive if you ask me" he replied unimpressed.

You huff "I came here with a purpose, thank you very much..." you reply back a little sassy.

He keeps looking at you sternly, letting you know he won't help you if you don't tell your intentions first, very clearly as well.

"Okay look... my village has these special trees with magic and they're growing weaker... there's a certain type of pollen that can make it strong again but the problem is, the sister tree carrying that pollen grows here, in your forest, nowhere else and those trees are super important to us..." you explain and the sigh, talking while hanging upside sure is exhausting.

He hums and then just looks smug "I see how it is, we have a little thief here"

You gasp frustrated "I'm not stealing! I'm here to negotiate with your kind! I was hoping to talk with any of you, get friendly and well, get the pollen since the higher ups refuse too!"

He looks contemplative before responding "I truly don't know if you're naive or actually brave for coming here but let me be clear, you can't just waltz over here, expecting to simply 'talk it out' with the first faerie you see, not to mention, we aren't on friendly terms"

You look a little defeated but still keep your composure "...at least please let me down?"

He sighs and cuts the rope, making you fall down with a groan, slowly getting up and reaching for you bag and cloak.

He watches you gathering yourself and evening out the skirt of your dress and removing a few leafs from your hair before looking at him.

"Look, in case you didn't realise, we're in the middle of a war with the Silver Owls, we don't have time for something like this, we're busy protecting our lands, including yours, so you better fly back home and stay out of danger, let the higher ups handle it" he replies while looking around, listening to his surroundings.

You look frustrated but quickly keep shut once he looks at you sternly once again.

He sighs and looks less serious "I've been gone long enough from the camp, it won't be long till someone comes looking for me, you're lucky you came across me, you should better hurry back home before anything dangerous can happen, I can't protect you just because you decided to have a little adventure here, I have my duties to attend to"

You put on your cloak and bag but before you can go, the nocturnal fae calls out to you again.

"the name's Lilia Vanrouge, general Lilia Vanrouge, in case we cross paths again, little lady"

Clearly he knows just as well as you, that this won't be the last encounter.

Once you reach your home without alarming the guards, you sigh, sitting down on your bed, thinking about your encounter with Lilia, it was a rocky start but you know you'll have to come back.

Nonetheless, you start writing down on your journal, everything you found out so far, but you must admit, despite their rough and predatory features, they are quite handsome.

You smile and put the journal away, getting ready for bed for another day of planning the next move.

"You're finally back, general, was it a Silver Owl?" Baur asks once he sees Lilia return.

"No, just a lost deer, nothing to worry about" he dismisses, before heading to his tent, the feeling of your wings still lingering on his mind.

[hinge]

Hinge presents an anthology of love stories almost never told. Read more on https://no-ordinary-love.co

[dioslesbianwife]

Could I request cuddling headcannons with stardust crusaders??????

🙏🙏🙏

sure! thank you for requesting and i hope you enjoy :333

Jotaro Kujo

Pretends he hates cuddling. “Yare yare daze… it’s too hot. You’re clingy.”

But he’s the first one to pull you into his lap when no one’s looking.

Tucks your head under his chin and grumbles “Don’t move.” (you’re not gonna)

His arms are so solid around you. You feel protected instantly.

Will fall asleep holding you with his hat still on, hat tilted over his face.

Lowkey hums under his breath when he’s especially comfy.

You shift too far away and he tightens his grip like “Did I say you could leave?”

Cuddle Rank: Bear Trap. Once he’s on you, you’re not escaping.

Joseph Joestar 

“Hah! Come to Grandpa Jojo”

Sir. Please.

Big spoon energy but also likes when you lie on top of him like a weighted blanket.

Talks SO MUCH during cuddling. Mostly dumb stuff you couldn’t care less about.

Makes jokes while rubbing your back. You laugh in spite of yourself.

Super warm body. Surprisingly comforting despite being chaotic.

Will absolutely doze off and snore right in your ear. You just accept it.

Wakes up confused with drool on your shoulder like “HUH?! WHAT TIME IS IT?! WHO ARE YOU??”

Cuddle Rank: Warm, loud, affectionate, and kind of annoying. But it’s love.

Polnareff

DRAMATIC CUDDLER #1.

Literally throws himself on top of you like “Mon amour~ I have arrived~!”

Tries to make it sexy but is secretly the biggest cuddlebug ever.

Loves spooning. LOVES playing with your hair while holding you.

Constantly kisses your temple, cheek, forehead- any spot he can reach.

If you cuddle on the couch, he insists on a movie or music in the background for the vibe.

Whines if you get up. “You’re abandoning me?? For snacks?? Without me??”

Cuddle Rank: Annoying French Man™

Avdol

Quiet, warm, stable cuddler.

The type to gently pull you into his lap and read a book over your shoulder.

You fall asleep against his chest and he instinctively adjusts the blanket.

Mutters comforting things like “You’re safe now. Rest easy.”

Big hands rubbing slow circles on your back = instant sleep.

Smells like incense and cinnamon. You get addicted to it.

He’s the guy who says “No pressure,” but is so good at cuddling you melt into a puddle every time.

Cuddle Rank: Emotional support heater. Calm, grounded, 10/10.

Kakyoin

Shy about it at first. “Oh, do you wanna- ? I mean, if you’re cold.”

Once he gets comfortable?? Cuddle mode activates.

Likes to hold your hand or play with your fingers while cuddling.

Loves when you nap on his chest and he can just stroke your hair, totally smitten.

Will blush if you compliment how warm he is.

Might talk about random stuff like constellations or facts he read while you cuddle.

Falls asleep with a little smile and refuses to let go of your hand.

Cuddle Rank: Sweetheart gentleman who turns into a clingy marshmallow.

Iggy

Does NOT want to cuddle you.

You are not worthy unless you have food.

That said… if you smell nice and your lap is soft… he might curl up there.

Glares at you the whole time like “Don’t get the wrong idea.”

Snores. Loudly. On his back, legs twitching.

If anyone comes near you two, he growls. “This human is mine now.”

God forbid you move- he’ll act like you just crushed his soul.

Cuddle Rank: Cute but demanding. Will fart and blame you.

[scrapyardboyfriends]

Episode Thoughts…

That was a great episode. Much better than yesterday I think. It’s nice seeing Robert about the village more and settling in.

The nightmare at the beginning made me so sad for him. I like that they’re still showing it though. That gives me hope they’re going to continue to explore it and I still want my prison flashback episode. But no, I loved Vic coming into calm him down. And that hug 😭

The faces Robert was making while Vic was inviting him to lunch with John were amazing. Definitely reminiscent of him in the White’s kitchen during the break up era. Very fun.

The lunch would have been ten times funnier if Aaron was there and I really need it to happen at some point but obviously it was the right thing to do not to include him. Haha. I like that Vic knows they’re just playing along for her. The synchronized smiles bit was funny.

But ugh…fuck you John. Trying to making him feel bad about not having money and asking Gabby about a job at the Hide knowing that wasn’t what he wanted and knowing she wasn’t going to give it to him. Especially when you’re the reason he doesn’t have the job he’s good at right now. John’s stupid little “be confident, you’ve got this”. Robert should have punched him again.

I feel bad that Robert has to deal with Vic begging for work for him though. But to his credit, he did accept the farm job. He is accepting help, which feels like growth. I did kind of like the Jack mention of him saying Robert wasn’t cut out for farm work and that being the one thing Robert could agree with him on.

That said, I support farmer Robert. Bless him though, only wants to do farm work if Aaron’s around. Haha.

I do like that he keeps winning over the new people though. First Caleb with his tenacity and business sense and now Mack with putting in a hard day’s work. Because they both and pre written him off based on what other people had said but then he’s able to prove his worth. I’m so proud of him. Look at our boy making friends.

Kind of reminds me of 2014 with Aaron a little. Aaron had heard all the Robert stories from people but he got to know the real Robert because he gave him a chance and the rest is history.

I loved that little Mack scene at the end though when he started be sarcastic about John and Robert perked up and was like “finally someone doesn’t worship him!” And his smile when Mack said it was nice having him around. I just want them to be besties at some point. Please!

I do think it’s interesting that they’ve brought up Vic feeling responsible for Robert being in prison twice now. I wonder if they’re going to go more into that if they’re digging into his trauma or if that’s just some establishing stuff to tie things together and remind the viewers why he was in prison.

Anyway…it really was a good episode for him. Big fan.

[cdaae]

I think masqueradenyc is realizing they’ve dug themselves into a weird hole and if they don’t start sharing more posts and getting more non-phans to talk about it, they’re not going to be able to afford to extend. They’ve priced a lot of people out by starting at $200, especially people who would have gone more than once, and they cut a bunch of people out with the age limit, and there’s some people old enough to go who dont want to go on principle now because they’re mad that there’s a limit. The marketing for this show was fun but not very good marketing when so much of it was stuff that disappeared and was only available to people who could make it within these small time windows. Fun for us, but not very good at spreading the word beyond the phandom who was the main group watching, going to the drops, and keeping it kind of contained. They also went almost two weeks without posting and they really needed to keep the buzz going in order for their posts to keep spreading. They’ve posted twice on tiktok but they’re not getting very far with that either. They worked too hard to be mysterious, it’s gonna bite them in the butt. Even playbills video is now buried and wasn’t actually that helpful for marketing because there was no info to share to get people interested in getting tickets and you can’t string the general public on with “it’s coming soon”. If they look at it and there’s no dates, no cast, no tickets, they’re gonna just forget about it

[mon-amorie]

‎ ‎ ‎ ... ‎ ( ‎ Hotline ‎ ) ‎ P.2

scene ‎ ─── ‎ on campus where anonymity breeds honesty, a late-night confessions app becomes your escape. a place where students anonymously share voice notes or texts about anything—stress, confessions, poetry, love, lust, loneliness—all sacred. naturally, you become drawn to a certain user, his words resonating deeply, almost bleeding through the screen. compelled by an unspoken connection, you send a reply

⠀⠀⠀⠀ ‎ ‎ ( pairing ) ‎ hyunjin x f!reader ‎ ( genre ) ‎ college au, slow burn, fluff, slight angst, academic burnout, profanity, contains mature content ‎ !mdni! ‎ ( wc. ) ‎ 28.7k‎ / ‎ part one. ‎ back to nav.

゜・．・ note! ‎ ─ ‎ wasn't meant to be two parts but here we are… continues right where we left off. again, hope you enjoy the rest of this fic, please let me know what you think. lots of love, nana

‎ ‎ ‎ Sometimes you wonder how life decides which moments will stick with you and which ones will slip by without a trace.

You move through your days on autopilot. Same streets. Same jokes. Same half-slept nights. Most of it blends together, bleeding into itself until time loses its shape.

But once in a while, something shifts. Something small hits different. A glance, a word, a silence. And before you even recognize it, it’s lodged itself into memory. Quietly, stubbornly. Like it’s always been there.

You’ve been noticing that more lately. The way small choices stay with you. A class you almost skipped. A seat you almost didn’t take. A person you never meant to notice. Not the kind who explodes into your life like a firework, but the kind who settles in like background noise. Steady, persistent, impossible to unhear once you’ve tuned in.

And you keep insisting it’s not about him.

That’s not the story you’re telling. That’s not who you are. You don’t get caught up like this, especially not now. Not when you’re this close to the end. This was meant to be the quiet stretch. Head down, eyes forward. No mess. No rewrites. No new beginnings when you haven’t finished the last chapter.

But there he is. Showing up in the quiet moments. Slipping into your thoughts when the noise dies down. Not loudly, just enough. Like a lyric you didn’t mean to memorize. Something you never meant to keep, but now can’t seem to let go of.

And it’s not just him.

It’s the people. The places. The way the city feels different now that you’ve walked those streets with someone beside you. It’s the group chat arguments over snacks and midnight jokes that feel more like lifelines. It’s the late walks back to your dorm, the dumb stuff that somehow started to matter.

The filler scenes, turning into plot points.

Some nights, you think about the version of you who didn’t show up that day. Who stayed home, missed the train, never walked into that room. That version wouldn’t know what she missed. And somehow, that’s what lingers. How easy it would’ve been to let it all pass you by.

You try not to dwell. Try to keep your eyes on what’s next. But even when you’re not thinking about it, it’s still there. A quiet thrum beneath everything else. A soft pulse at the edge of your vision.

Because some things don’t leave. Not really.

You remember coming back to your dorm that night, still riding the sugar high, cheeks sore from laughing, your shoes swinging from your fingertips because it felt easier than wearing them.

You texted him, almost hesitating before hitting send. Added your name, just in case he forgot.

lemme know once u get home safe

He replied a few minutes later, simple and low-effort but enough.

dw, i did :) hope you did too

And that was it. No fireworks. Just a tired smile pulling at your lips. Something small and instinctive, like muscle memory. After that, things started to shift. Not all at once or dramatically, but you noticed.

Poetry class came quicker than you were ready for. You barely had time to sit before the professor told everyone to trade assignments with their partner. You didn’t know what to expect from his writing. Maybe something vague or careful. But it wasn’t.

It was raw. Stripped-down honest in a way most people avoid, especially when it counts for a grade. Nothing overly poetic, nothing trying too hard. Just real. The kind of truth that sneaks up on you because it sounds so much like your own.

There were no names. No clues pointing anywhere. But you read it once, then again, hoping—maybe even aching—for it to be about you.

And across the room, he was doing the same.

Because somewhere between the scrawl of your handwriting and the way you wrote about fleeting things like they mattered, he saw a version of you he hadn’t quite seen before. Even if the poem wasn’t about him. Even if it was about no one in particular. The way you noticed things, that was enough to make him wonder. To make him hope.

Class ended too fast. You lingered, slowly packing your notebook under your arm, half-stalling when you felt a soft tap against it.

You looked up, and there he was. Eyes lowered, voice quieter than usual.

“I liked yours,” he said, like it was no big deal. Like it didn’t settle directly into your chest.

You smiled without thinking. “I liked yours too.”

He nodded, half-shy, half-pleased, and ducked his head like he didn’t want you to see the smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. But you caught it.

After that, the weeks moved differently.

Late-night texts started coming more often, drifting into your mornings. Inside jokes started stacking up like little souvenirs tucked in your notes app. In class, he moved seats to sit beside you, brushing it off like it just made more sense. Like it wasn’t a decision he spent way too long overthinking.

You started walking to the bakery after class together, usually because he “didn’t want to go alone,” but you both knew that wasn’t really why.

The first time it happened, Minho caught sight of the two of you through the bakery window. He didn’t say anything at the time, just raised his eyebrows slightly and filed the moment away.

The next day at work, he gave you that look. The one that says I see you, but he won’t spell it out unless you make him. Sharp-eyed. Half-amused. But he let it be.

Maybe that’s why, days later, you found yourself walking beside him, the night before his birthday, trying not to laugh too hard while you fake-argued over his cake choice in a bakery that smelled like butter and sugar and something too soft to name.

You’d been there longer than expected, hovering near the glass display while the cashier wrapped up the box behind the counter. He kept second-guessing the cake, flipping between mousse and tiramisu, then back again like either one was life-altering.

You didn’t help. You just stood beside him with your arms crossed, making quiet noises of judgment every time he pointed at something with too much frosting.

“Be honest,” Minho said, eyeing the mousse like it had personally offended him. “If this was for you, what would you pick?”

“I wouldn’t wait until the night before,” you replied, not looking at him, pretending to study the croissants instead. “That’s what I’d pick.”

He scoffed. “Okay. But if we’re already here?”

“Probably the strawberry sponge,” you said. “It looks lighter.”

“Lighter? It’s cake.”

You shrugged. “Some of us like feeling joy without a stomachache.”

He gave you a look. Flat, unimpressed, familiar. “You’re exhausting.”

You smiled, not denying it. There was a comfort in how easily he threw those words around. Like he didn’t need to mean them. Like he trusted you’d know the difference.

In the end, he still went with the mousse. He stepped aside to pay, and you watched him from behind, absentmindedly peeling the paper off a stray straw wrapper. There was something familiar in the way he stood. Slightly hunched like he was trying not to take up space. The kind of posture people carry when they’ve always expected to be overlooked.

You wondered if he knew he didn’t have to do that around you anymore. Probably not. You’d tell him someday. Or maybe you wouldn’t. It didn’t feel urgent.

He reached for the box as the cashier slid it across the counter, then turned to you with that little victorious tilt of his head like he’d proven a point.

You didn’t know what point it was, but you let him have it. “Happy early birthday, I guess,” you muttered. “You’re welcome.”

“You didn’t buy it.”

“Moral support counts.”

“You argued against the cake the entire time.”

“That is my version of support.” He rolled his eyes and nudged you toward the door. You went, still smiling, shoes soft against the tile as the night pressed in just beyond the glass.

“What’s wrong with chocolate mousse?” he said again, pushing the door open with his shoulder as you stepped out into the cool air.

“Nothing,” you shrugged, falling into step beside him. “It’s just… predictable.”

He gave you a look. “You’re predictable.”

You stared at him, unimpressed. “Wow. That’s your comeback?”

“Works every time,” he said, smirking just enough to be annoying.

You scoffed under your breath and bumped your shoulder into his, not hard, just familiar. 

You both paused at the curb, unhurried, the kind of stillness that didn’t ask to be filled. Traffic hummed softly in the distance. Someone laughed around the corner. The cake box was balanced in his hands like something fragile, though you knew it wasn’t. He glanced over at you, then back at the sidewalk ahead.

“So,” he said, dragging the word out like it had weight. “You and Hyunjin, huh?”

You blinked, caught off guard. “What about us?”

“Don’t play dumb,” Minho said, switching the box to one hand so he could nudge you with his elbow. “You’re always looking at each other like…” He paused, squinted, raised his hands like a director setting a frame. “Like you’re in a coffee commercial.”

You rolled your eyes hard enough to feel it in your neck. “Shut up.”

He laughed, really laughed this time, the sound echoing off the buildings around you like it didn’t want to stop. You didn’t join in, but you smiled, eyes trained on the sidewalk, the corner of your mouth pulling without permission.

“I’m just saying,” he said, softer now, his voice dipping back into something closer to normal. “It feels different. In a good way.”

You didn’t respond, not immediately. Just let the words settle. They didn’t need an answer.

And even with all the teasing, even with your careful deflections and the way you’d trained yourself to shrug things off before they got too close, something about what he said stayed with you. Not because it was surprising. But because it wasn’t.

It almost slipped away the night of his birthday.

Almost.

Expensive Korean barbecue had been bought without a second thought for his birthday dinner. The kind that sizzled and smoked under the warm hum of conversation, where the metal vents overhead pulled in the haze but never quite cleared it.

The table filled slowly with side dishes and voices, overlapping in the easy chaos that only happens with people who’ve known each other long enough to speak without thinking.

There was no order to the meal. Someone was always flipping meat too early, someone else was stealing pieces off the grill before they were ready, the tongs passed around like an afterthought. Drinks were poured messily, small glasses raised over and over until you lost count of who was toasting what. Laughter caught in the smoke. The air was thick with it. Heat, hunger, happiness. Everyone leaned in a little closer than usual. Like the warmth might escape if they didn’t.

Even Jisung had shown up, slipping through the door with an apologetic grin and that flustered energy that always made you wonder how he got anywhere at all. “I was here the whole time,” he said as he pulled up a chair, like anyone believed him. Someone booed. He bowed deeply like he was accepting an award. A cheer went up anyway. It wasn’t about truth. It was about presence.

New faces filtered in as the night went on, pulled in by text invites and word of mouth. People you barely knew a week ago were suddenly offering you shots and asking for your star sign. Stories flowed as easily as the drinks. Everything felt loose. Safe. Time was forgotten, or maybe just ignored. Someone ordered more food even though no one was really hungry anymore. No one complained.

You’d disappeared somewhere between courses. The noise had started to feel like a blur, so you slipped out, taking the chance to give Minho his gifts before anyone else noticed.

The key ring was quiet. Just his cat’s initials, pressed into the leather with a kind of permanence that made it feel older than it was. You knew he’d like the weight of it. The simplicity. The usefulness.

The camera, though, was a different story. You weren’t sure what possessed you. Maybe it was the way he talked once, quietly, about wanting to travel more. About not remembering things as well as he used to. You didn’t say any of that when you handed it to him. You just gave it over and said, “Don’t lose it.”

He squinted at the box like it might bite him. “...You’re so annoying,” he muttered, barely above a whisper, but his mouth twitched at the corners, just enough. He turned away like that would hide it. It didn’t.

Later, he hooked the keychain onto his keys without a word. And the camera? It was out before dessert. The first photo was crooked. Everyone was laughing too hard to sit still, cheeks pink and eyes half-shut, someone’s chopsticks caught mid-air. The flash bounced off the smoke. You didn’t need it to be perfect. It just needed to exist.

Someone, probably Chan, slipped away to grab the cake. When he returned, the chocolate mousse you’d argued over was topped with a single sparkler, hissing and spitting light as everyone scrambled to find their phones. Minho groaned, already dreading the attention, but the sparkler hissed louder, forcing him to play along.

The birthday song that followed was a mess. Loud, chaotic, completely off-key. But no one cared. He blew out the sparkler with one sharp breath, muttering something about wishing for new friends, but his grin gave him away.

No one touched the cake until he’d claimed the first slice. Even then, people kept stealing bites from his plate. He let them.

And Hyunjin… well, Hyunjin never wandered too far.

He didn’t make a point of it, didn’t draw a line in the sand between you and the rest of the group. He just moved naturally, sitting beside you like that was the only available seat, brushing your leg under the table like it wasn’t the third time.

His hands moved without hesitation. Reaching for side dishes, refilling water, nudging napkins your way when your fingers were too sticky to grab them yourself. He didn’t make a show of anything. That’s what made it worse. Or maybe better. You didn’t know.

At some point, his arm found the back of your chair. It didn’t drop there all at once. Just settled gradually, like it had always been there.

You didn’t lean in. You didn’t move away. It just was. The kind of closeness you don’t question until later, when you’re lying in bed trying to figure out if it meant something or if it just meant comfort.

By the time the group drifted into the night, the city had cooled. The streets breathed easier after the warmth of the restaurant. Everyone was buzzing. Soft, sleepy chaos.

Chaeryeong had started humming some old K-pop song and pulled you into a half-dance, your feet barely cooperating as you stumbled across the pavement, laughing too hard to remember the lyrics. Jisung joined in just to be annoying, singing the wrong words on purpose until Minho shoved him half-heartedly. 

Hyunjin didn’t say anything. Just stepped forward and gently took your bag from your shoulder, like it was the most normal thing in the world. His fingers brushed yours when he did. You didn’t comment. Neither did he.

Someone bought snacks from the convenience store, and the group huddled near the glowing machines outside, unwrapping candy and sipping canned drinks like the night would never end.

Seungmin passed out gum to whoever wanted some, and Minhyuk argued with Chan over the best flavor of chips until they realized they’d bought the same ones anyway.

Voices got quieter. Jokes got lazier. Eventually, people started leaving in waves. Early classes. Train schedules. Work in the morning. Excuses, all of them. But no one wanted to say goodbye first.

There were hugs, loose and off-balance. Arms wrapped around shoulders. Heads knocked together in clumsy affection. Sleepy promises: “Let’s do this again soon,” “Don’t forget to send me the pictures,” “Text me when you get home.” No one believed they’d follow through. But no one questioned the sincerity of it, either.

Hyunjin hugged you too. Brief, like the others, but different somehow. His arms wrapped around you with a quiet care that caught you off guard. Not tight or stiff. Just enough to notice. His chin brushed your shoulder before he stepped back, his hand lingering on your arm a second too long before slipping away.

You didn’t say anything. You didn’t need to. But the squeeze—quiet, careful, almost an afterthought—stayed with you. Long after everyone had gone. Long after you made it home. And somewhere between peeling off your shoes and sinking into your bed, it hit you.

You hadn’t felt this light in a long time.

The thought stopped you cold, settling deep in your chest. When was the last time life didn’t feel so heavy? When was the last time your shoulders didn’t carry the weight of everything you were afraid to drop?

It startled you, that kind of softness. The way gratitude can slip in without warning and leave you breathless. The way joy can feel so fragile you’re scared to look at it too closely, in case it disappears.

Because truthfully? You’d been close. Close to unraveling quietly while everyone else clapped for you, so sure you were okay, so convinced you had it all handled.

And it was absurd, wasn’t it?

You had it good. You had friends. You were about to graduate. Things could be so much worse. And yet, the weight never left you. The guilt for not being happier, the constant voice in your head whispering that a single low grade was a sign you were stupid, that a single bad day meant you were doomed to fail. It was exhausting.

But nights like this… nights where nothing big happened, where no one was asking anything of you, where you could just exist with the people who had quietly become your people—

Nights like this reminded you: maybe you weren’t as lost as you thought.

𐪞

The invite came quietly. No fanfare. No shared calendar link or group poll. Just a message dropped in the lull of a late afternoon. That odd hour when everyone’s half-busy, half-bored, still reflexively checking their phones like something might change.

It was the kind of thing you said yes to without really thinking. And maybe that was what made it feel good. Like no one was trying too hard.

By the time you got there, the sky had folded into that muted kind of blue that feels nearly grayscale. No sun, no rain, just air. The street was hushed, tucked somewhere between dinner and dark. 

Jeongin’s apartment sat on the second floor of a modest building, the kind with narrow stairwells and doorbells that buzzed too loud. The front door stuck a little at the hinge, but the light spilling out through the frosted window was already warm. Yellow and soft like butter on rice.

He opened the door with one foot, a half-eaten bag of chips tucked under his arm, and a wooden spoon between his teeth like it was the most normal thing in the world.

“Wow,” he mumbled around it, stepping back to let you in. “You showed up before Chan. Historic.”

You kicked off your shoes and nudged them into a neater pile. “He’s probably circling for parking.”

“Or napping in the car like the ancient man he is.”

The door creaked again just as Jeongin said it. Chan walked in, holding two bottles of iced tea in one hand and shooting Jeongin a look that could’ve curdled milk.

“Say it again,” he warned, slow. “I dare you.”

“You’re late,” Jeongin shrugged, grabbing one of the bottles like it had always belonged to him. “Did you have to stretch before walking up the stairs?”

Chan set the other bottle on the counter with a thud. “Don’t ask me for help moving your couch ever again.”

“No promises.”

Jisung showed up a little while later, headphones still hanging loose around his neck and his hoodie halfway unzipped like he’d run the last block.

Then came Chaeryeong, breezing in with a knit tote bag and zero explanation, like she'd already lived this night once before and had just decided to return.

Not everyone could make it. But the ones who were free came. That was enough.

There was no plan. No itinerary or playlist waiting. Just a couch with too many blankets, something bubbling on the stove that smelled like ramen but richer, and the vague suggestion of a movie no one would watch until half the group was already horizontal.

You sat on the edge of the counter, swinging your legs lightly, watching Jeongin stir something into the broth. Garlic, maybe. Or sesame oil. Whatever it was, it made the kitchen feel like a small, warm world of its own.

Then, without hesitation, he dumped what could only be described as a reckless amount of chili flakes into the pot.

You blinked. “Is that… safe?”

“It’s not about safety,” he said, as if you’d asked something deeply philosophical. “It’s about respect.”

“You’re literally cooking instant noodles.”

“And they deserve to be treated with dignity.”

He handed you the first bowl. No fancy toppings, no garnish, just a glossy broth and a single perfect egg, soft-boiled to that exact kind of tender that makes you question your whole technique. You took a bite.

Of course, infuriatingly, it was good.

The rest of the night folded in on itself like that. Quiet movement, half-finished conversations, laughter that didn’t demand attention. At some point, Jisung booted up Little Nightmares on the TV and tossed you the second controller.

“Do not let me play this alone,” he said, already adjusting the brightness.

You squinted at the menu screen. “Is it scary?”

“It’s eerie,” Jeongin said from the floor, one socked foot propped up against the coffee table. “Not jump-scare scary. Just unsettling.”

Chan glanced over with a raised brow. “You screamed during the opening cutscene last time.”

“There was a loud door slam,” Jeongin argued, deadpan. “That’s a reasonable reaction.”

The game started slow. Long corridors, shadowy figures, the kind of atmosphere that made you hold your breath even when nothing was happening. You and Jisung traded the controller back and forth. He was better at jumping puzzles. You were better at not panicking when things chased you.

Chaeryeong curled up beside you on the couch, her legs folded under her and a blanket draped around her shoulders like she hadn’t even asked, just taken it. She kept gasping at all the wrong moments, even when the screen was dead quiet. 

Chan sat nearby, one arm lazily slung over the back of the couch, giving half-hearted directions in that dry, detached tone only older siblings seemed to master.

“Go left,” he said. “No, your other left.”

It felt like a long exhale.

There wasn’t any pressure to be interesting. No one was trying to one-up anyone. The light from the screen flickered across everyone’s faces, soft and shadowed. Jeongin leaned his head back against the wall at one point and closed his eyes. Jisung stopped narrating his every move. The quiet came not from boredom, but comfort.

Then someone broke it just enough to ask, “Ice cream?”

Jeongin perked up immediately, eyes blinking open like he'd been waiting for someone to say it.

“Yes. I bought weird flavors. You’re all trying them.”

He disappeared into the kitchen and reemerged with five small tubs, their labels strange and half-English. One had a taro root and sea salt on the front. Another was just called “black milk” in minimalist silver font. There was a pale green one that smelled faintly like rice, and a pink-speckled mystery that turned out to be lychee-strawberry.

“Jeongin,” Chaeryeong said, eyeing them with suspicion, “these look cursed.”

“They’re elite,” he said, already handing her a spoon. “You have no taste.”

“Taste is exactly what I’m worried about.”

You tried the taro one first. Creamy, a little salty, a flavor you couldn’t quite name. Not bad. Just unexpected. Jisung made a dramatic face after trying the lychee, but still reached for a second bite.

Chan didn’t say a word. Just passed each container with quiet efficiency, sampling everything, finishing his scoop before anyone else even commented. You caught the small hum he made when trying the black milk, like he wasn’t planning to admit it was good.

Now the apartment smelled like soy sauce and cold sugar, savory hanging low in the walls, sweet clinging to the air. Someone had turned the game volume down, and music played again. Not loudly, just some leftover track on loop at the tail end of a forgotten playlist.

The voices in the room softened. Jisung ended up half-sprawled on the rug, thumbing through a game on his phone with the screen turned low. Chaeryeong was scrolling through something, showing Jeongin a picture every few minutes with a quiet laugh. 

You stood slowly, brushing your hands off on your jeans, and began gathering the empty bowls without needing to be asked.

You moved into the kitchen. Rinsed each bowl under warm water. Stacked them gently. Let the faucet run and felt the heat seep into your palms, grounding and quiet.

The rest of the apartment hummed behind you, dim and cozy, but out of reach for a moment. The light in the kitchen buzzed faintly above you. You paused, listening to the low murmur of voices and laughter. Let yourself breathe.

Then, soft footsteps.

And Chan’s voice behind you, casual, like he hadn’t just been watching you slip away.

“Need a hand?” he asked, already stepping in like he wasn’t waiting for permission.

You shook your head, barely glancing over your shoulder. “Almost done.”

Still, he moved beside you, picking up a dish towel and drying what you handed off without a word. For a minute or so, that was all it was. Quiet movements, the occasional clink of ceramic. 

Then Chan spoke, still not looking at you.

“Tonight’s been nice.”

You hummed in agreement. “Jeongin’s place has good energy.”

“That, or he hides the chaos well.”

You smiled faintly. “He does put effort into pretending he doesn’t try.”

Chan laughed under his breath, low and knowing. “Takes one to know one.”

You handed him the last bowl, the water now running clear. The sink hissed as you turned it off, wiping your hands on a nearby towel. For a second, it felt like that was it. Like maybe he’d nod, thank you, walk back out to the others.

But he stayed where he was. Still leaned against the counter, his expression thoughtful. Something quiet passed behind his eyes before he spoke again.

“You’ve been kinda… quiet tonight,” he said, carefully. “Not in a bad way. Just… not all here.”

You didn’t answer right away. It wasn’t the kind of question you could dodge, but it also wasn’t the kind that demanded anything specific. So you just leaned back against the edge of the sink, arms folded loosely over your stomach, and looked at the countertop.

“I think I’ve been stuck in my own head,” you said eventually.

Chan didn’t press. He waited, the way people only do when they care.

“It’s not like anything’s wrong, exactly. I’ve just been feeling…” You trailed off, trying to find the right shape for it. “Small. Lately.”

He tilted his head a little, brows drawing together. “Small how?”

You breathed out through your nose. “Like I’m not enough. For someone. Or even just… in general. Like there’s this version of me I keep trying to show up as, and sometimes I’m close, but sometimes it just feels like I’m cosplaying. And I can’t tell if that means I’m changing or faking it.”

Chan was quiet for a moment, his thumb rubbing lightly along the seam of the dish towel in his hands.

“Is this about Hyunjin?” he asked, gently.

You hesitated, then nodded. “Not in the way people probably think it is. It’s not… about him, not really. It’s how I feel when I’m around him. How I start second-guessing everything I say, everything I do. He never asks me to. He’s never unkind. But I keep wondering when I’m going to mess it up. When he’s going to realize I’m just…” You faltered, then finished in a breath, “someone he thinks is better than I am.”

Chan’s voice came quiet. “You think he’s looking for perfect?”

“I think I’m scared he’ll see how not-perfect I am. And maybe decide that’s enough reason not to stay.”

That landed in the space between you, soft but heavy. You didn’t mean for it to sound so fragile. It just was.

Chan nodded slowly, resting his arms along the edge of the counter. “Can I say something kind of lame?”

You gave him a look. “You’re asking me?”

A smile tugged at his mouth. “Fair.”

He let a small pause bloom between you before speaking.

“I think… the hardest thing isn’t showing up as the version of yourself you want to be. It’s showing up as who you actually are, even on the days you’re not proud of it. Especially then.” His voice stayed low, but there was conviction there. “If someone’s gonna love you, they have to meet you where you are. Not just where you shine.”

You looked at him, quiet.

“And sometimes,” he added, “we think we’re failing just because we’re feeling more than we’re used to. Doesn’t mean you’re doing something wrong. Doesn’t mean it’s not real.”

You let that settle in.

Then, from the doorway, Chaeryeong’s voice chimed in, casual, like she’d only caught the last part but still meant every word.

“He’s right, you know.”

You turned to see Chaeryeong leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed, her expression open. Warm.

“If you weren’t enough,” she said simply, “you wouldn’t be this scared of losing something real. You feel this way because you care. That’s not nothing.”

The silence that followed wasn’t uncomfortable. It wrapped around the three of you like a blanket someone forgot to fold. Loose, lived-in.

You let out a breath of a laugh, brushing your fingers along your temple.

“You two suck at lighthearted kitchen chats.”

Chan arched a brow. “You’re the one who started washing dishes like it was a metaphor.”

Chaeryeong grinned. “Come on. Jisung’s trying to freestyle over the Little Nightmares soundtrack and Jeongin’s threatening to throw him out.”

You nodded, eyes a little shinier than before. “Okay. Just a sec.”

They both left without needing to say more.

And you stayed for a moment longer, letting your reflection blur in the kitchen window, letting the echo of their words settle somewhere soft in your chest. Then you turned off the light and followed the sound of laughter back into the room.

‎

‎ ‎ [A year ago, campus housing]

The air in the dorm was thick. Thicker than the humid nights Hyunjin had grown up with, thicker than the weight that sat in his chest whenever things felt off and he couldn’t name why. It didn’t move. It just sat there, low and oppressive, like it had been waiting. The kind of heat that had nothing to do with weather and everything to do with what was about to break.

Julie stood across from him, arms crossed tight like she’d been bracing for this all day. Her mouth was set, not trembling, not apologizing. Just drawn into that flat, unreadable line she always pulled when she wanted to win something. A conversation. An argument. The upper hand.

Hyunjin’s hand twitched at his side. He wasn’t sure when the shouting had started. Maybe it hadn’t. Maybe everything just got louder inside his head until it spilled out without meaning to.

“Are you even listening to me, Julie?”

His voice cracked. Not out of anger, not entirely. It sounded too raw to be that. It echoed around the small room, bouncing off the barren walls like it didn’t belong to either of them. Her face didn’t change. Not really. If anything, her eyes sharpened, like she was waiting for the next thing to get annoyed at.

“No,” she snapped, like it was obvious. “Not when you’re saying shit like that to my face.”

Something in him pulled taut. His shoulders tensed, his jaw clenched, and for a second, all he could do was stare at her like he was seeing someone else entirely. He wasn’t the type to raise his voice. He hated it. Hated how it made him feel afterward. Gutted, guilty, spent. But this… this was something else. This was the kind of hurt that didn’t have a neat place to go.

He stepped forward before he could stop himself, voice low now, rough with disbelief. “So that’s it? We’re just going to pretend those messages didn’t exist?”

Julie didn’t blink. Didn’t flinch. She shifted her weight slightly, like she was tired of standing. Like this whole thing was dragging out longer than she thought it would.

“I already told you,” she muttered. “It’s not what you think.”

He laughed once. Short, bitter, humorless. Ran a hand through his hair, gripping the strands at the root like it might keep him from saying something worse.

“You told your friends you were using me.” The words came out quieter this time, but sharper. Cleaner. Like a blade.

Julie’s mouth tightened. Her gaze flicked, just briefly, off to the side. That was all it took. A small, reflexive tic. But he caught it.

And in that sliver of a second, he felt it: the shift. That maybe she hadn’t expected him to find out. That maybe she thought she could talk her way around it, just like before.

He took a breath, trying to steady the part of him that was shaking. “You told me you loved me.”

The silence that followed stretched thin, pulling taut between them. She didn’t respond. Just looked down at her nails for a second, then back up like she was waiting for this to end.

“Was that bullshit too?” he asked, softer now. And that softness, that ache in his voice, was the worst part of it. He hated how small he sounded. Hated how much of himself still wanted her to say no.

But she didn’t.

“I don’t know what you want me to say.”

Her voice was flat. Unmoved. Like he was asking too much from someone who had already given him everything they were willing to part with.

And maybe that was true. Maybe she had never intended to give him anything real in the first place.

Hyunjin swallowed. His hands were cold now. Everything in him recoiled, slow and silent. He looked at her. Not at her face, but at the distance between them. At the absence of something that should’ve been there.

He thought she was the one thing he hadn’t ruined. That even in the middle of everything else falling apart—assignments he couldn’t finish, expectations he couldn’t meet, friendships that slipped through the cracks like sand—she was the one thing that felt solid.

And she let him believe that. Let him pour himself into her, piece by piece, even when she had no intention of holding it.

“You didn’t love me,” he said, not accusing anymore. Just filling in the empty spaces. “You loved the attention. You loved knowing someone would pick up when he wouldn’t.”

Julie didn’t deny it. Not out loud.

She just looked away, toward the window. Always the window. And something in him broke for good. He felt it go. The last thread between them, so thin it didn’t even make a sound.

“Was any of it real?”

It came out small. Like something he already knew the answer to. Julie’s eyes flickered again, briefly, and maybe it was guilt. Maybe not. But she didn’t answer. She didn’t say yes. She didn’t even say no.

She said nothing.

And silence is the cruelest kind of confirmation.

He nodded, slowly, as if his body had finally caught up to what his heart had already figured out. Everything in him hurt. But it was a quiet kind of pain now. A steady, dull thing.

He memorized the shape of it. Her standing there, arms still crossed, face turned away like this wasn’t worth her full attention. Like it was easier not to see the damage if you didn’t look at it directly.

“Right,” he said, and it was the only thing left. No anger. No desperation. Just the clean, hollow sound of acceptance.

He turned toward the door, his feet moving through something heavy. He paused, hand on the knob, still stupid enough, still human enough, to wait. Just in case she said his name.

Just in case she said anything.

But the room was quiet. Too quiet. Just the dull whir of the air conditioner and the sound of his own breath shaking in his throat.

So he left.

Didn’t look back. Didn’t check if she turned to watch him go. He didn’t want to know.

The door clicked shut behind him. That was the only sound left. One final punctuation mark at the end of something he’d been trying to hold onto with bloody hands.

And just like that, it was over.

𐪞

‎ ‎ ‎ Sometimes Hyunjin wondered if there was a word for it. That strange, hollow weight certain memories carried.

Not the loud ones. Not the ones that came with fireworks or shouting or door slams. Just the ones that hung in the air long after they were done. The kind that folded themselves into your ribs, quiet and permanent, like furniture rearranged in a room you barely recognized anymore.

After Julie, everything felt like that. Not sharp, not dramatic. Just... dulled. Like life had been turned down a few notches and left humming in the background.

He never really told people how bad it got. How the walls of his room started to feel like they were pressing in. How his own voice sounded foreign when it cracked down the middle from trying too hard not to cry. How there were nights when the silence swallowed him whole and spit him back out with shaking hands and swollen eyes.

Chan was the only one who ever saw him like that. Really saw him. Sat next to him on the floor when it all caved in, a takeout box unopened between them, his hand resting gently on Hyunjin’s shoulder like it could hold him together. He didn’t say much. Didn’t have to. Just passed him a tissue when the tears came again, and said, “You’re not weak for feeling it.”

That helped. Not all at once, not in a movie-moment kind of way. But enough to breathe again.

And now, he’s here. Not broken, but not whole either. Just quieter. Still soft in the places that matter. Still watching the world with those wide, wondering eyes like he’s waiting for it to surprise him.

Because that’s the thing about Hyunjin. He’s always seen the bigger picture. While most people rush through moments, he lingers. Notices the way light spills through half-closed blinds and paints shifting patterns on the floor. The way strangers on trains unconsciously mirror each other’s posture, like some quiet choreography playing out in real time. He notices the poetry in things others overlook.

He’s the kind who gets lost in thought mid-conversation, not because he isn’t listening, but because a part of him is busy folding the moment into something sacred. A hopeless romantic, not in the rose-colored sense, but in the way he believes there’s meaning tucked into everything. Every word, every glance, every almost.

He used to fall in love with the idea of people long before he truly knew them. Built whole lives from passing glances, imagined conversations spun from nothing, fell hard for moments that barely existed. And the thing is, he always knew better. But knowing didn’t stop him from wanting.

He doesn’t say it aloud, but sometimes, when the night stretches long and quiet, he wonders if that’s why the hurt always feels so sharp. So intimate. 

Because he opens doors too wide, too soon. Because he takes people at their word, believes in the good before it’s proven. And lately, he’s been questioning if maybe love, real love, isn’t found in grand gestures or loud confessions.

Maybe it’s softer than that. Maybe it’s a presence that lingers after the noise fades. A warmth that doesn’t demand attention, but never leaves. And lately, almost without meaning to, his thoughts keep circling back to you.

He didn’t mean to think about you so often. Didn’t mean for your name to come up when nothing in the conversation had anything to do with you. But it did. In the way someone mentioned your favorite drink. In the way the wind picked up a loose thread from his coat and reminded him of that afternoon you stood beside him at the crosswalk, too absorbed in your playlist to notice the world was already watching.

You never did try to be anything for anyone. That’s what he noticed first. The ease in your silence. The way you didn’t fill it with empty words. It wasn’t loud. It wasn’t sudden. It was just there. Your presence, slipping in until it felt like it had always been part of his day.

Some nights, when the city is too loud or too quiet, he lies on his back and lets his thoughts run. Wonders what version of his life he’d be living if Julie hadn’t said what she said. If he hadn’t walked out. If he hadn’t met you.

He doesn’t regret leaving. Not even for a second.

But he does think about what came after. The silence. The rebuilding. The cautious way he started laughing again. And how, eventually, it wasn’t just Chan who pulled him back.

It was you, too, without even trying.

He doesn’t know what this is. What it could become. He’s afraid to name it, to hold it too tightly and watch it slip between his fingers. But it’s there, anyway. In the small moments. In the pauses between words. In the part of his chest that doesn’t hurt as much when you’re around.

And that has to mean something. Even if he’s not sure what yet.

Maybe that’s why, days later, he found himself sitting across from you, tucked away in a restaurant he hadn’t meant to find.

It had been one of those nights, wandering with his hood up, earbuds in, the city folding and unfolding around him in quiet waves. He passed by the place without noticing at first. Then doubled back. The windows were fogged over, the light inside low and warm. There was something about it. Something soft. He took a photo of the front and sent it to himself with no caption. Just in case.

The message sat in his notes for three days.

He wrote it once, then rewrote it. Took out the heart emoji. Added a period. Deleted the period because it suddenly felt like too much. The blinking caret stared back at him like it knew he was stalling. Like it was waiting for him to stop lying to himself.

Eventually, he just sent:

hey, wanna try this place i found? food’s good, i think you’d like it :)

No extras. No expectations. Just enough to leave the door open. He hit send before he could lose his nerve, flipped his phone face-down on the bed, and tried to distract himself by pretending to clean his room. Mostly just moving clothes from one end to the other and half-heartedly looking for something to wear.

You replied eleven minutes later.

sure. when?

That was all. But it was more than enough to keep him from spiraling. It was a yes.

By the time the sun dipped below the skyline, his room looked like a battlefield—sweaters tossed over chairs, half-folded jackets strewn like fallen soldiers, the floor littered with evidence of indecision.

Nothing felt right. Everything was either too casual or trying too hard. He changed twice, then a third time, then circled back to the first option. In the end, he settled on the black sweater. The one worn soft from years of late nights and train rides. Frayed at the cuffs. The kind of thing he wore when he wasn’t sure who he was supposed to be.

The wireframe glasses came next. Not really for vision, more for image. They made him feel grounded. Like someone who hadn’t spent twenty minutes pacing in front of a mirror. A silver chain, subtle but intentional, rested against his collarbone. His hair wouldn’t cooperate no matter what he did, so he stopped trying, letting it fall into his eyes.

Chan lounged at the edge of the bed, legs crossed like a retired stylist on break, phone in one hand, canned coffee in the other, offering commentary without being asked.

“Don’t slouch. Wear cologne. The soft one. And stop checking your phone—she said yes. She’s not gonna ghost you in the next ten minutes.”

Hyunjin made a face. “Do you ever shut up?”

“Nope,” Chan said cheerfully. “Also, bring mints.”

Meanwhile, your room wasn’t much better.

You told yourself it wasn’t a big deal. Said it out loud. Twice. Just to hear it bounce back like it might stick this time. Just dinner. Just food and conversation. Just two people going to a place and walking back separately. That’s it.

You repeated it like a mantra while tearing through your closet like it had personally offended you. Sweaters hit the bed like confessions. Nothing looked right.

Still, you tried to keep your cool. Tried not to check your reflection every five minutes. Tried not to smooth invisible creases out of your sleeves like your nerves were stitched into the seams. You told yourself it wasn’t nerves. Just habit. Just something your body did when your heart got loud.

Chaeryeong was on facetime the whole time, half-buried in her pillow, chewing something and watching with her patented judgment-disguised-as-apathy expression.

“Leave your hair alone,” she mumbled.

“I’m not touching it.”

“You are.”

You sighed and reached for your lip balm.

“I swear, if you change your top one more time—”

“I’m not—”

“You are. One more outfit and I’m hanging up.”

You didn’t. But you thought about it.

Somewhere in the chaos, the group chat had lit up like a warning flare. Jisung had decided, completely unprompted, that this was a date and was now sending unhinged emoji combos by the minute.

good luck tonight 💅😳🖤👀

Changbin, for some reason, was now deep-diving Hyunjin’s social media and sending timestamped screenshots with wildly fake personality analyses.

You muted the chat for your own survival. Maybe they were wrong. Maybe it wasn’t a date. Technically, that was the truth. But also… that kind of missed the point.

Whatever it was, it mattered. Enough to make your hands restless. Enough to make you care. Enough to make you wonder what it meant that he’d asked you.

By the time you stepped out the door, the sky had already dipped into indigo. That early kind of twilight where the world feels in-between. Half-awake, half-dreaming. You didn’t rush. There was no reason to. The plan was simple: meet him at the restaurant. That’s all. 

But then fate, or something like it, stepped in.

The train rolled into the station just as you reached the bottom of the stairs, its doors sliding open like they’d been waiting just for you. You stepped inside through the nearest set, eyes down, thoughts already drifting ahead, imagining how the night might go—

And walked straight into someone.

“Oh—sorry—” you said automatically, the word halfway out before your gaze lifted.

Hyunjin had come in from the opposite side, head lowered like he hadn’t expected to see anyone familiar. His eyes widened slightly, just enough to register surprise, but not enough to make it awkward.

You stood there, caught in the slow current of passengers drifting past, neither of you moving, not just yet.

Then—

“Hi,” he said.

His voice wasn’t loud, but it settled into you like it belonged there.

“Hi,” you echoed, the smile forming before you could stop it.

You slid into the nearest seat, and he followed without hesitation, settling beside you like it had always been the plan. Like this moment had been penciled into the day, just waiting to be discovered.

His shoulder brushed yours as he adjusted his sweater, a quiet shift. He glanced over, just once, his lips curving slightly, like this coincidence was something he’d secretly wished for but hadn’t dared to expect.

He was definitely writing about this on Hotline later.

The train lurched forward, and still, neither of you moved away. No words at first. Just silence, thick and alive with all the things neither of you needed to say yet.

Outside, the tunnels swallowed the world whole. Black walls and blinking lights replaced the cityscape, leaving you inside a capsule of motion and stillness. Your reflections ghosted across the glass, blurred by movement and streaks of passing light. You were aware of every small thing—

The steady rhythm of the train beneath your feet.

The scent of his cologne. Cedarwood and something softer tonight, like rain evaporating off pavement.

He looked good. Not in the practiced, “trying” kind of way, but in the way people do when they feel most like themselves.

Clean layers. Soft knits. A hint of silver at his collar. Glasses he only wore when he forgot to think too hard. You turned slightly, letting your gaze linger for half a second longer than you probably should’ve.

He caught it. Met your eyes.

“You look nice,” he said, quieter than the train.

You blinked. He wasn’t smiling, not fully. His mouth curved at the edges like he regretted saying it, but didn’t want to take it back either.

And still, he meant it.

You looked down, the smile finding its way onto your face anyway.

“You too,” you said, and you meant that, too.

He looked away first, but not far. Just enough to settle into the seat beside you again. And you leaned back, close but not touching, feeling the air shift with every turn the train made.

The rest of the ride passed in silence, but not the empty kind.

It was the kind that filled in all the quiet spaces. The kind that said I see you, even without the words.

And now, you’re sitting across from him, warmth pooling around your table as the low hum of the restaurant folds in around you.

The place doesn’t try too hard. 

The lights are soft, drawn low enough to feel like dusk even indoors. The ceiling bulbs flicker gently, casting halos onto the worn tables, while faint music flows under the quiet clatter of forks and conversations too low to catch. 

The air smells faintly of grilled meat and something sweet, maybe burnt sugar, drifting from the kitchen. The window beside you is fogged at the edges. A contrast to the cold slipping through the seams of the city just beyond the glass.

Hyunjin reaches for the water pitcher and pours into both glasses, fingers steady even though his pulse isn’t. You watch the way his hands move. Precise, a little careful, like he’s focusing on the smallest task so his nerves don’t give him away. 

He slides your glass toward you, thumb brushing the condensation as he lets go.

“Thanks,” you say softly, breaking the surface of the silence.

He nods, eyes flicking up for a second, then back to the table like he wasn’t quite ready to be caught looking. “You been here before?”

You shake your head, curling your fingers loosely around the cool glass.

“I found it by accident,” he says. “Weeks ago, maybe longer. Didn’t go in. Just… saved the spot.”

You raise an eyebrow, half smiling. “Why?”

He doesn’t answer right away. Just exhales through his nose and shrugs, like he’s considering if the truth would sound too much.

“Felt like the kind of place I’d want to come back to. With someone.”

That’s all he says. Nothing dressed up. But it lands anyway.

The server takes your orders and disappears, leaving just the two of you again, seated across a narrow table, both pretending not to notice how close the space feels. 

Hyunjin shifts slightly, settling into the seat like he’s still figuring out how to sit in front of you. 

One arm rests along the edge of the table, fingers tracing absent-minded circles around the base of his water glass. The other drifts up to adjust the wire-thin frames on his nose, then drops back into his lap. You notice—he doesn’t check his phone. Neither do you. 

You glance over the rim of your glass. “What did you eat today?”

He blinks at the question, caught off guard. Then scoffs, lips quirking upward. “What is this, a wellness check?”

“Sort of. I’m trying to gauge how weird your order’s about to be.”

“Rude,” he mutters, but he’s smiling now. “Okay… cereal.”

You raise a brow.

“But like—a healthy cereal. With almonds. Fiber and stuff.”

“That’s not a meal. That’s bird food.”

“It had protein.”

“So do actual meals.”

He narrows his eyes, mock-offended. “Okay, then. What did you eat?”

“I plead the fifth.”

He huffs, triumphant. “That’s what I thought.”

Your drinks arrive—his red wine, your cocktail. You clink glasses without a word. No toast. No performance. Just a soft, familiar tap of glass to glass, like this is something you’ve done before. 

He takes a sip, thoughtful, then nods toward your drink. “Is it good?”

You slide it across the table without answering. He tries it, then returns it just as easily, no comment, no hesitation. Like the kind of thing you do on instinct. Like the kind of thing you don’t think twice about.

There’s a faint trace of gloss on the rim now. You notice it. You pretend you don’t.

When the food arrives, the atmosphere softens even further. The clink of silverware, the low thread of music humming under the conversation, the murmur of voices from nearby tables. It all folds into the background like the night has exhaled. The table feels smaller. Not cramped. Just… closer. More intentional.

Mid-bite, you gesture toward his plate. “Is that the truffle thing?”

He nods, still chewing, already reaching for his glass.

“You hate mushrooms.”

“Truffle’s not—” He pauses, sighs, defeated. “Yeah. Okay. I’m learning things.”

You reach across the table and take a bite from his plate. No warning. No explanation. Just muscle memory.

He watches it happen. Doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t protest. Just lets it unfold, like this is something you’ve done before, a hint of a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

“It’s good,” you declare, mouth half-full. “A little rich, though.”

“You just ate half my dinner.”

“For science.”

“You’re exhausting.”

You grin, hiding it behind your napkin. He laughs, quiet and easy, thumb running along the edge of his glass as he looks at you, like he’s adding this to some private catalogue in his head.

Conversation meanders, through half-serious debates, fake hypotheticals, and stories that lose their point halfway through. You find yourselves laughing over a class neither of you even care about, which somehow leads into a saga about someone in Hyunjin’s building who tried to organize a “silent hallway hour” via the group chat.

Hyunjin has thoughts. Strong ones.

“You can’t just mandate silence after 8 p.m.,” he says, shaking his head like he’s personally leading the resistance. “That’s not wellness. That’s fascism.”

You snort, trying to stifle a grin. “You’re very passionate about this.”

“I live there. I have rights.”

The laugh escapes before you can stop it. Loud and full, the kind that makes your shoulders shake and your eyes crinkle shut. The kind that starts in your chest and refuses to be polite about it. You lean back in your chair, hand half-covering your face, trying to breathe through it, failing spectacularly.

When you peek up, Hyunjin’s watching you.

And this time, he doesn’t look away.

Not right away.

There’s a slow tug at the corner of his mouth, like he’s trying not to smile too much, but failing just a little. A soft, crooked grin creeps across his face, like he’s quietly proud of himself for making you laugh like that. 

Then his gaze drops. Thumb tracing the rim of his water glass. Like he doesn’t quite know what to do with the warmth still rising in his chest.

The conversation trails off. Not into awkwardness, into quiet.

A good kind. One that settles around you like a blanket. One that doesn’t demand anything.

You both pick at what’s left on your plates. He nudges his toward you without a word. You steal another bite, shamelessly this time. He doesn’t blink. Just lets you.

You slide your drink over to him without thinking. He finishes it slowly, still listening to you talk, still half-listening to the hum of the restaurant around you. No commentary, no question. Just an easy exchange. It’s only when he pushes the empty glass back in your direction that you realize what happened.

You raise an eyebrow, slow and theatrical.

“What?” he says, all innocence, as if he didn’t just finish your entire drink like it belonged to him.

“You finished it.”

His mouth drops open in mock offense. “You gave it to me.”

“Temporarily.”

“I was doing you a favor.”

“You’re very generous.”

“I try.”

The restaurant has dipped into that quiet lull. After the plates have cleared, after the noise of dinner has thinned out into murmurs and clinking glassware. Most people are lingering now. Not eating. Just being.

And you feel it too. How your limbs have gone soft and loose, how the air between you feels warmer than the candlelight alone can explain. It’s not just the drinks. It’s this. It’s him.

Hyunjin leans his cheek into his hand, eyes on the flickering candle between you.

“Would’ve been weird if we hadn’t run into each other on the train,” he says suddenly, voice softer now.

You nod, slowly. “Yeah.”

“But also… not weird. I don’t know.”

You tilt your head, watching the candle melt lower. “It felt like something that was gonna happen anyway. Even if we didn’t plan it.”

He doesn’t answer at first. Just watches you. Quietly. Thoughtfully. Then drops his gaze again, like the words sat too heavy in his chest to carry all the way out.

Neither of you finishes the last bite.

You lean back, the candle burned nearly to its base. Somewhere deeper in the restaurant, someone laughs too loudly. Outside, the windows have fogged again, softening the edges of the world. Inside, the two of you stay still a little longer than necessary.

The server comes and goes quietly, clearing the plates and dropping the check without a word. Neither of you reaches for it. Not yet. You’re both sunk back into your chairs, the weight of the night pressing gently down like a hand on your shoulders. Standing up feels like an idea someone else should think about.

Hyunjin takes another sip of his wine, still nursing it like he’s not quite ready for the night to tip into whatever comes next. The candle between you has burned low, casting soft shadows that flicker across his face.

“You’re definitely tipsy,” you murmur, watching him with a tilt to your head.

He scoffs. “You’re tipsy.”

“Am not.”

“You just narrated my wine pour in your head. I saw it happening.”

You stifle a grin behind your glass. “It was elegant. Deserved a voiceover.”

He lets out a laugh, soft and surprised, eyes flicking to the fogged-up window before settling on you again. “You always do that,” he says, quiet, not teasing. Just observing.

“Do what?”

“Say stuff like that. Like it’s a joke. But not really.”

You set your glass down gently, meeting his eyes. “Maybe I mean it.”

He watches you for a beat, something shifting behind his gaze. “Maybe you do,” he says, softer now. He bites the inside of his cheek, like he’s already second-guessing himself, but doesn’t take it back. Doesn’t try to smooth it over.

The quiet that follows isn’t uncomfortable. But it’s different. Heavier. Charged with something new.

And then, like it just slips out of him:

“I like you.”

You blink. “Right now?”

He smiles, slow and a little sheepish. “No. I mean… generally.”

“Oh.”

He shrugs one shoulder, looking down as he fidgets with the edge of his napkin. “Just figured I’d say it before I changed my mind and pretended I didn’t.”

You study him for a moment. The way his ears are slightly pink now. The way his knee is still pressed lightly against yours under the table. The way he won’t meet your eyes, but doesn’t move away either.

“I like you too,” you say. Soft, steady, like it’s weather. Like it’s always been true. He looks up, eyes searching.

“No offense,” you add, a grin tugging at your mouth, “but it’s been kind of obvious.”

His mouth twitches. “Wow.”

“I mean, you gave me half your dinner.”

“You stole it.”

“Semantics.”

He laughs again, low and real. You’re both smiling now, soft, a little glassy-eyed. There’s no act to it. No edge. Just the relief of the truth finally being spoken.

“I’m blaming this on the wine in the morning,” he mutters.

“You haven’t even had that much.”

“I know. That’s the worst part.”

You tap your fingers gently against the base of your glass. The candle between you flickers low, its flame thinning like it’s growing tired, like even the light knows the night is winding down. The quiet has returned, but it’s not empty.

It’s full of breath. Of waiting. Of things almost said.

You tilt your head slightly, voice low, casual. Too casual to be accidental.

“Are you gonna kiss me?”

His eyes lift to meet yours. Wide, but not startled. More like surprised by how easily the question left your mouth, like you’d asked if he wanted to split dessert or stay a little longer. No hesitation, no edge. Just curiosity.

“Do you want me to?”

You shrug, but your gaze doesn’t move. Doesn’t blink.

“Maybe.”

Something shifts between you. Subtle. Like the moment inhales.

He leans forward, slow, careful. Like he’s giving you time to pull back. To say just kidding and laugh it off.

But you don’t.

And when he kisses you, it’s not fireworks. Not fireworks at all.

It’s quiet. Intentional. A touch of warmth, like the space between your faces had always been meant to close this way. It’s brief, almost unsure at first, like you’re both testing the weight of it. But then you lean in without meaning to, and his hand grazes your cheek, gentle and grounding. Like he didn’t plan it, only knew he needed to do it the second it happened.

You both pull back at the same time. Just a breath’s distance. And neither of you says anything. You don’t have to.

You’re still smiling, but not the kind of smile that comes from adrenaline or surprise. It’s the other kind. The softer kind. Like everything inside you just clicked into place.

Okay. Settled.

Hyunjin exhales, long and quiet, like he’s been holding that breath since the appetizers. He leans back in his chair, barely biting back a smile.

“Okay. Yeah. We’re blaming that on the wine.”

“Obviously.”

He raises an eyebrow, the smirk creeping back in. “But just to be clear, if you steal food off my plate again, that kiss is now the price.”

You snort, resting your elbow on the table. “That’s extortion.”

“It’s fair.”

“I’d do it anyway.”

He lets out a soft laugh and tosses his napkin onto the table in defeat, like the matter’s settled. His grin hangs on his lips, lazy and crooked, like it’s not leaving anytime soon.

The candle gutters out.

You don’t move. Not yet.

The quiet folds in around you again, but it feels warmer now. The restaurant hums softly in the background. Murmured voices, clinking glass, someone laughing two tables over. 

Eventually—

“Who’s paying the bill?” you ask, voice low and syrupy, like you’ve just remembered the concept of money exists.

Hyunjin raises a brow, amused. “Rock, paper, scissors?”

You smirk. “I’m already winning.”

“You kissed me. That’s cheating.”

“I kissed you back. Big difference.”

He groans dramatically, grabbing the check like it wounded him. “Unbelievable.”

You smile, sitting back in your chair, watching him. Letting him.

Outside the window, the city keeps moving. Lights flicker. A bus hisses to a stop. People pass by with takeout bags and lives you'll never know. But right now, in this tiny pocket of time, you're not missing any of it.

𐪞

You leave the restaurant slowly, like you’ve both forgotten how to move with purpose. The air outside has cooled, but not in a way that urges you in. It’s the kind of night that hums instead of buzzes.

The sidewalks are mostly empty. Streetlamps spill their gold onto the pavement in wide, soft circles. You fall into step beside him without thinking.

At some point, Hyunjin slips his hands into his pockets, bumping your shoulder lightly as you walk. You nudge him back without a word. He grins sideways, the corners of his mouth still caught in that same half-smile from dinner.

“Your train’s this way, right?” he asks, tipping his head toward the station.

You nod, and he follows. No hesitation.

The station is nearly empty now. Just the low, echoing hum of the tracks far below, like the city’s breathing in its sleep. You move toward the platform, stopping just shy of the yellow line, and he stops with you. Not too close. Just enough that the warmth between you doesn’t feel accidental anymore.

“I still think you cheated,” he murmurs suddenly.

You look up at him, a brow raised. “On what?”

“Winning the bill standoff.”

“You let me.”

“I was being a gentleman.”

“No,” you say, eyes narrowing playfully. “You were being defeated.”

He lets out a soft laugh, shaking his head like he’s going to argue but decides not to. The train rattles into view before either of you speaks again, all noise and light and cold metal sighs.

Inside, the car’s nearly empty. Just a few passengers scattered like ghosts. You slide into the corner seat on the long bench, curling slightly toward the window. Hyunjin sits beside you, close. Close enough that his knee touches yours, and this time, he doesn’t move away.

There’s a kind of lightness between you now. Not drunken, not giddy. Just a quiet buzz. Post-confession. Post-kiss. That sweet, suspended warmth after I like you has landed in the air and found a home.

He doesn’t look at you right away. Just lets the moment settle. Then his pinky grazes yours. A brush so light it could’ve been nothing.

But it isn’t.

So you turn your hand over, slow and certain. Let your fingers slip into his. He looks down, blinking like he’s not sure he’s allowed to smile that wide. But he does. A little dazed. A little undone.

Neither of you speak. Two stops pass like that. Quiet and full.

When the train slows again, brakes hissing against the tunnel walls, you bump your shoulder against his. “This is me.”

He stands without question. Follows.

The walk from the station is short. Four blocks, maybe. You talk the whole way. Tell him about your cursed laundry room. The dryer door that only closes if you whisper affirmations to it first.

“You’re lying.”

“I wish I were.”

He laughs, loud and sudden, and nearly trips over the curb, which only makes you laugh, too.

By the time you reach your building, you’re both still catching your breath. You swipe your key card, and the front door clicks open with a soft beep. No roommates. No lights on. Just the warm, familiar quiet waiting inside.

“Home sweet home,” you say, flicking on the light low.

Hyunjin steps in behind you, slow, eyes scanning the space like he’s committing it to memory. He doesn’t comment. Doesn’t need to. Just slips off his shoes and lines them up neatly by the door before following you into the small living room.

You both ease down onto the couch, angled toward each other but not quite touching yet. You tuck your legs underneath you, settling against the armrest. Hyunjin mirrors the motion a beat later, his knee brushing lightly against yours as he leans in just enough to close the gap.

He glances over, voice soft. “Is this okay?”

You smile, the kind that doesn’t need effort. “Hyunjin. You’re here. You’re fine.”

He exhales like he’s been waiting for that answer since the train.

His hand drifts to your knee, fingers tracing idle shapes there. Not asking. Just existing. Your hand finds his again, thumb brushing the ridge of his knuckles, and for a second, you both just… stay.

The silence isn’t heavy. It hums. Light, like the kind of quiet that only happens when two people are finally still in the same place. You both laugh at the same time. Half surprise, half nerves, and it breaks the air open in the gentlest way.

“You’re looking at me like I’m supposed to do something,” he murmurs, smile curving.

“You’re the one who kissed me first.”

“Oh, so this is my fault now?”

“I didn’t say that.” You raise an eyebrow, teasing. “But you’re not exactly innocent.”

He tries not to laugh. Tries and fails.

And then he kisses you again.

This one lands differently. Longer, slower. Not rushed, but more sure. You respond without thinking, hands curling into the collar of his sweater, pulling him a breath closer. He still smells like cedarwood, but now there’s something familiar layered beneath it. Your shampoo, maybe, from earlier. It makes you smile against his mouth.

You pull back slightly, noses brushing, and he’s already smiling too. A little dazed.

“This is probably the weirdest version of a first date I’ve ever had,” you say softly.

“Weird how?”

“Weird you’re still here.” You trail your fingers lightly along the edge of his jaw. “But I don’t hate it.”

That earns a quiet laugh, low and real. He slides his hand to your waist, this time letting it settle there like he means to. Not hesitant. Not waiting for permission.

Still, no one names this. You don’t have to.

You’re already leaning in again, both of you grinning against kisses that refuse to stay brief. They deepen gradually, like falling asleep with someone warm beside you. Natural. Unforced. Gravity, not urgency.

His hands drift, one finding your waist, the other threading through your hair, and the way he moves feels intentional. Affectionate. Like he’s not just reacting, but listening to every breath you make, every sound that catches in your throat when his fingers trace a little slower, a little lower.

You break apart again, breathless, eyes still closed for a second longer than necessary.

“I’m still blaming the wine,” he whispers, forehead almost touching yours.

“You didn’t even finish it.”

“Tragic.”

You nudge his chest. He catches your wrist, presses a kiss there. Just one, soft and brief, then lets it fall back to your lap.

What happens next isn’t a moment so much as a shift. A quiet agreement passed between glances and proximity. A warmth already set in motion.

You stand up, fingers curling into his sleeve as you lead him down the short hallway toward your room.

You’re both laughing a little too much, stumbling over your own shoes in the low light, trying not to knock into the desk or your bookshelf or each other. And somewhere in the shuffle, Hyunjin’s hands find your waist, fingertips settling like he’s been waiting to hold you like this.

The laughter fades, but the smile lingers.

“I can’t believe we actually—” you start, but trail off when he presses his forehead to yours instead. Close, quiet. Not rushing you. Just there.

His mouth brushes your jaw, then the edge of your cheek. Gentle. Familiar. Like he’s learning you through smaller places, softer angles.

You thread your fingers into the back of his sweater, pulling him in. He exhales near your temple, hands sliding to your hips, thumbs brushing beneath the hem of your shirt.

He pauses just enough to meet your eyes. “Still good?”

You nod, sure. “Yeah. Still good.”

His hands lift the fabric slowly, giving you time. When he sees no hesitation, he helps you out of it completely. The rest follows—yours and his, layers exchanged for something quieter.

It’s not rushed. Not perfect. He laughs under his breath when he nearly loses balance trying to toe off his socks, and you giggle as you set his glasses gently on your desk.

“Do I look better now?” he asks, breathless.

You give him a look. “You look like someone I probably should’ve kissed ages ago.”

That stops him for a beat. Then he smiles, small, and leans in again, this time letting his mouth find your shoulder instead.

The backs of your knees hit the bed, and you sink down together. Slow, careful. He watches you as you lie back, gaze lingering like he’s memorizing something.

And when he touches you, it’s not rushed or greedy. Just intentional. He trails soft kisses down your collarbone, the curve of your chest, the space just beneath. Every movement feels like a question he already knows the answer to, but still asks, just in case.

His hands find your thighs, grounding and gentle, fingers playing lightly with the lace at your hips. When he settles between them, he looks up first, checking, always checking.

You nod. And then—he simply ruins you. Not with urgency, but with care.

He takes his time. Draws down the last layer with slow precision, every movement unhurried. He kisses the skin around your thighs first, following your breath like a guide. When his mouth finds you, it’s with quiet purpose.

There’s a moment. Your fingers threading tighter in his hair, your breath catching on a whispered “Don’t stop.” And he doesn’t, not even close.

It’s not showy or a performance. It’s honest.

And when you fall apart beneath him, he doesn’t speak. He just stays there, kissing the inside of your thigh with a slow steadiness, forehead resting against your skin like he’s letting the moment settle in his bones. His breath slows. Yours does too.

You tug him back up, not into a kiss, but into you. Into the soft space between bodies that don’t need to explain anything. Your foreheads press together. His hand finds yours, and your fingers lace without effort.

He stills when you do that. Looks at you like he’s not sure what you’re asking, but knows he’s already saying yes.

You don’t say a word. Just shift a little closer.

It’s enough.

There’s no tension, no second-guessing. Just two people meeting somewhere in the middle. Letting the quiet between them stretch into something fuller. He exhales, shoulders relaxing, and lets you guide him without resistance. His touch stays soft, deliberate, like this isn’t new, just unspoken until now.

And when it happens, when the rest of the space disappears, it doesn’t feel like something decided. It feels natural. Like the next line in a sentence you’ve both been writing together all night.

He moves with you, not over you. Present, open, giving. A kiss to your shoulder. A thumb brushing your knuckles. A hand steadying your waist with reverence, not control. It’s not about pace or pressure or performance. It’s about attention. The kind of closeness that knows how to listen.

And when your breath catches, a laugh halfway tangled in a gasp, he smiles through it, like he understands exactly what that means. He doesn’t pull back. He stays with you, mouth warm against your jaw, and you let him.

By the time it’s over, the air between you is quiet again. But not empty. Just full in a different way. You stay where you are, still tangled up, still touching. You don’t say anything.

You don’t have to.

Afterward, you're both half-buried in blankets. Legs tangled beneath the sheets. The kind of closeness that makes it hard to tell where one person ends and the other begins. Your breaths have finally evened out. The air between you hums with the kind of quiet that only comes after something tender, something earned.

The room is quiet except for the hum of the city bleeding through the window and the soft rustle of fabric when either of you shifts. Hyunjin is propped up on one elbow, head resting in his hand, watching you with a look that falls somewhere between dazed and quietly triumphant.

“You’re staring,” you murmur, smiling into the pillow.

“I think I earned it.”

“You really did.”

The laughter that follows is quiet, worn thin at the edges. Like all the nerves between you finally fizzled out, leaving nothing behind but this: limbs tangled, hearts quiet, hands brushing in the dark.

Beneath the covers, his fingers find yours. Threading gently. Holding, not gripping. Like he’s done it a thousand times already in some dream neither of you talked about.

It’s late. Too late, probably. But neither of you brings up leaving. Or staying. Or what any of it means.

Eventually, Hyunjin shifts, reaching over the side of the bed where your clothes are still scattered, careless and content. He fishes around until something buzzes under your sweater.

You watch through heavy lids, cheek pressed to your arm. “Tell me you’re not checking the group chat.”

“I’m not,” he replies, tapping away anyway.

You squint at him. “Liar.”

He flashes the screen toward you, smug as ever. Just one message sent. One emoji: a thumbs up.

You blink. “That’s it?”

He shrugs. “They’ll get it.”

You huff, rolling your eyes as your smile pulls deeper into your cheek. “You’re so annoying.”

“And yet,” he says, leaning closer, brushing your wrist with his thumb, “here you are.”

You don’t answer. Just let your head fall back against the pillow, laughter catching quietly in your throat before it fades into something softer.

You feel him settle back beside you. Closer this time. One arm around your waist, the other reaching again for your hand beneath the sheets like it’s instinct. Like it’s already habit.

And somewhere, across town, Jisung is already blowing up Hotline:

‎  ‎  quokka1409 • now — I TOLD YOU GUYS IT WOULD HAPPEN TONIGHT. Y’ALL OWE ME. I WANT RECEIPTS. I WANT APOLOGIES. I WANT A FRAMED CERTIFICATE OF PSYCHIC ACCURACY.

Mutuals are confused. But anyone who knows him knows exactly what he’s screaming about.

Back here, the world doesn't pause for anything. The streetlights outside keep blinking. A train groans against metal in the distance. Life keeps moving, indifferent.

But here, you fall asleep with his hand in yours, a quiet smile stitches into your cheek. No questions, no regrets.

Just that impossible, glowing calm of knowing you’re right where you’re meant to be.

゜・．・ hope you enjoyed! want to support?

part one • follow/reblog • leave a request • my other works

🏷️ ‎ @kkatsvy‎‎ ‎ ( ty for the support on starting this acc, love you sm )

[hinge]

Hinge presents an anthology of love stories almost never told. Read more on https://no-ordinary-love.co

[alexanderlightweight]

Hi! I'm a huge fan of your writing(you're low-key why I downloaded Tumblr so I could read more)! If you were up for it I'd love to read more from your to be or knot to be universe, or literally any of your freak4freak stuff! Thank you so much for writing, and I hope you're having a good day<3

hi! that is very sweet and i hope you're enjoying it! and i'm still just very happy and a little surprised how much people enjoy my malec verses (it's not a self-confidence problem i promise! i'm just still surprised ppl like the same stuff as me)!

i also hope you are having a good day too!!

here is some more of to be or knot to be last part here'

i hope you enjoy it and i am having a delightful time because i have a puppy who keeps pretending to get scared by something out the window so he has a reason to come climb in my lap (he doesn't need a reason? but like he's very particular about how things are done and he especially likes it when i comfort him if i think he's been scared?) but it did take me about 6 different instances to realize he was laying down sleeping, would wake up and feel lonely, boof at nothing and then look to see if i was watching him and then run to me 'so terrified!'

now that he's laying next to me, i'll sometimes kind of watch him and he'll wake up, look to see if i'm paying attention and most of the time he can't tell i can see him? so then he'll boof first and then jump up like he had a nightmare.

it's really ridiculous. i love nightshade so much tho

<3 lumine

Magnus pulls Alexander to him, enjoying the hitched groan as metal tightens and Alexander’s forced to come closer. Nephilim blood is a potent ingredient and yet instead of collecting it for use, Magnus licks it away.

Alexander’s fingers are covered in blood and under that are small, tiny little cuts. Magnus sucks each digit into his mouth to carefully clean away the blood and viscera, letting magic heal the wounds.

“You took too long.”

Alexander’s laugh at his reprimand is breathless, the look in his eyes wild and his boy swallows heavily against the martingale chain. The hunger in Alexander’s eyes only grows as the metal around his neck bites further into his skin and Magnus is tempted, so very tempted.

Yet warlocks have certain traditions that Magnus wants to follow.  Not only to give Alexander every legitimacy and protection as his mate, but also to ensure the Clave has as little authority or ways to meddle as possible.

Magnus has no interest in shadowhunter politics, except in the ways it will help his own people.  The kind of influence and access to information he’ll have thanks to a shadowhunter mate isn’t something to be taken lightly.  Alexander is a threat for the Clave and they’ll know it immediately.  Even if Alexander never expressly commits treason, just going against them as publicly as he’s doing makes Alexander dangerous.

If his mate gets to keep the Institute, then Magnus will do everything in his power to support his boy. Including join Alexander not perhaps in an official position, but even just as his mate,  supporting him and being seen around the Institute.

Alexander has certain privileges as a shadowhunter Commander that won’t disappear simply because the Clave hates his mate. Magnus has seen some of the papers and strategies that Alexander has gone over and they’re good.

Good enough that Magnus can boldly state that it’s better not to have his mate for an enemy, simply by the measure of Alexander’s own merits. The Clave probably know that, which is yet another reason they’ll be both  furious on wary.

“How long is your leave?” Magnus asks and his voice is hoarse with want but he holds himself back, managing not to twist the loop of Alexander’s collar and instead just leaning forward.

Alexander meets him, their foreheads pressing together as they both sigh in the relief of being close enough to share breath again.

“A minimum of three weeks. I wasn’t sure how long warlock mating instincts require so I set the maximum at five.  If you need longer then I’ll take sick leave or resign if they refuse.”

The steadfast way Alexander makes it clear that Magnus is his priority has Magnus sighing with delight and nuzzling Alexander as he pulls him closer.  The blood grows tacky between them and the thrill of Alexander being covered in it turns into disgust that his boy is still covered in such unworthy filth.

A snap of his fingers and Magnus cleans and strips them both, it probably isn’t needed and he could have simply cleaned their clothing — as evidenced by the fact that Alexander’s collar remains and is now pristine — however he wants to.

Alexander grins, something delighted and awed in his expression as he brings one of Magnus’ hand up to nuzzle and then kiss his palm.

“There are a few rituals we need to do, before we share a rut.” Magnus rubs his other hand down the curve of Alexander’s arm and then tangles their fingers together. “So while I will share a bath with you, I’m afraid as tempting as you are, I cannot fuck you just yet.”  Magnus can’t help the chuckle he lets out at Alexander’s bewildered and crestfallen expression.

“Don’t worry kitten, we can start the rituals tomorrow. It won’t be long Alexander, I promise.”

AN:

alec: ... i should have left the institute even quicker. this is terrible. my self-control is going to be both better and worse being around magnus

magnus: oh he's so cute when he's flustered. this is going to be delightful.

magnus is 100% treating this like foreplay and alec is too caught up in the shock/whiplash to realize he's getting played (in a good way and magnus isn't lying about the rituals he's just also enjoying himself) and alec's still getting used to Magnus and Magnus' scent and him and his magic and he's catching up but it'll take him a little bit. like he'll definitely figure out how to tease magnus but he's still learning how to breathe around magnus atm so... he needs a bit.

alec is going to be suffering... but like, not in a bad way

alec wants magnus there, as his mate, as his alpha, respected and capable of ordering (and being obeyed) by alec's institute because it's another way for alec to show that he belongs to magnus. so completely that what is his to rule also belongs to magnus to a certain degree. like obviously magnus can't tell them orders contradictory to the claves or alec's, but yeah. alec basically has a set of standards and if clave cant meet them, he wont stay. magnus is more important to him than that. and so are his own persona priorities and instincts

[norriszn]

with The Nortrell Primer coming up soon (it's coming up soon i prommy), i wanted to start sharing a few things i've pieced together, a few things that didn't quite add up at the time, especially during that twitch stream from about 3 years ago, when lando was live answering some questions from subs/viewers with max, cause i didn't know all the stuff i know now ofc.

and when i say "a few things" i really mean a lot of things but they all lead back to the same thing: the day max saw his best friend for the first time. which, for the record, wasn't the first time they spoke and it wasn't the first time they officially met.

it was just the first time max saw lando like really saw him and, for some reason, remembered.

LANDO'S TWITCH STREAM | lando and max talking about karting days

april 14th 2022

as many as you know, they both began karting early, on separate countries but with the same goal. they didn't end up on the same team (ricky flynn motorsport) until 2012, and it wasn't until 2013 that they finally competed against each other in the same class (kf-junior) during the WSK euro series.

in this clip, they talk about how they got started in karting, which eventually leads to max sharing the story of the first time he saw lando on track.

full transcript:

max: "what made you get into karting?" erm, i went to the singapore f1 race in 2008. loved it, loved the sound. and then i tried karting after school once and just fell in love with it... lando: awww max... and kept going back every day. and then i just started racing. i'm not going to go into that story really. it's take ages. i just liked it when i tried it. and then i kept doing it. lando: i did mine... we went to a car race after school on friday, mate. max: yeah? lando: and then my dad went round asking different people if they have any spare suits and boots. and i think we've still got the suits and boots that i got. it was like a blue suit and i mean, at the time, right, i must, it's 2007. so i must have had like a kids 13 size shoe, mate. kids 12, maybe not even that. max: kids 12. lando: kids 12 or something, and these are like size 3, size 4 shoes, which are way too big for me. imagine me in a bambino, right? (the bambino karting class is for kids aged 6–8, using smaller, lighter karts made just for them) how small i was within a size 4 shoe! max: i first saw you -we didn't know each other at this point- but i remember watching, i don't know why i was at pfi (as in pf international circuit). you were just driving around in this little comer (as in comer cadet), like tiny, mate. and i just remember watching for a few laps. lando: yeah, you're watching me, yeah? max: yeah, someone said "that kid... he's just won or something" so i was like oh. lando: oh, really? max: yeah, it was... you had the...that... your first helmet with that black and orange one on. lando: i'm not going to lie i never won a race in cadets. max: i don't know, they said you've... i don't know... you were first(?) [inaudible for me] lando: i think they just said i was goated. max: yeah, probably chatting to the team boss, picking you up. lando: i was probably like 5 years old. max: you were erm... lando: i must have been what? max: you had the black and orange lid on. lando: yeah, so i must have been 8, 9. max: yeah. lando: but i mean, i was freaking tiny at 9 years old. max: you're whizzing round, mate. you're so small. their friend: max, you've been following borris around since he was 9. max: yeah. lando: he's just an absolute fanboy, really. max: i'm day one fan, mate. their friend: watch his fanboy. he's a hidden fan girl. he's a double agent in disguise. max: (to his friend) you're the fan girl, mate. you've recently discovered discord and gets in every day. lando: he's freaking every day waiting on discord for us to join, mate.

okay, now let's set aside how they got into karting for a second and just focus on what max said. because it's kind of wild. he knew lando before even really knowing him. max didn't know who he was, but he remembered him. remembered the way he drove. remembered the way someone told him that lando won and remembered how tiny he was.

max remembered him long before they became anything to each other.

and of course, lando, being very lando, laughed it off and said "you were watching me, yeah?" in that confident way he does when he's just trying to wind max up... but because he's also so lando, you could practically hear his brain gears turning mid stream, and, as always, once his brain starts going, his mouth doesn't exactly wait for permission to follow.

that's when he said two things that stuck with me:

first, that he never won a race in cadets, as in comer cadets class.

and second, that he was probably around nine years old at the time.

and that's what made me revisit all of this. i remember watching that stream and thinking: there's no way max is making that up. no way someone just randomly told him a random kid (lando was random kid abck then) had won when he hadn't. like… who lies to a kid's face like that? (who would lie to this face? not me)

so i went back. i started digging because earlier this year (big 2025), when the 2019 rookies (george, lando, alex) started "closing up" in the formula (n)one standings again, i remembered they used to race in the same karting series: the super one series (s1 to f1). and that little spark sent me down the rabbit hole, and eventually, i ended up writing a big post about it in april but i finally posted like a week ago (this one right here).

and here's what i realised: lando norris is an unreliable narrator.

i don't blame him tho... memories from that age blur, results get mixed up, wins feel smaller in hindsight. but still. lando... let me hold your hands (The Big Paws) when i say this... you were the comer cadet 'o' plate winner in 2010.

there is literal footage. there is photo evidence.

lando norris wins comer cadet 'o' plate 2010

via tvkc on fb reposting 4motor yt vid

earlier this year, adam norris posted what looked like a karting memory (note)book on ig and the front cover was a photo of little lando norris, small enough to look like he barely fit in the frame, holding a massive trophy. that pic as far as i can tell, was taken the day he won the comer cadet ‘o’ plate, at none other than pf international circuit, the very same place max said he saw lando for the first time.

age 10, "karting is what i love doing an my ambition is to win the formula 1 world championship" via adam_norris_pure_electric on ig (this pic is not part of adam ig feed anymore btw :/)

so far, everything lines up pretty well... that race lando won was in june 6th 2010, which means both he and max would've been 10 years old, not 9 like lando said in the stream.

so… was it that exact date, that exact circuit, where max first saw lando? ermmm, well, max said lando was wearing a black and orange helmet. and while lando was wearing a helmet that looked similar, it wasn't exactly black and orange on that day.

he did have a black and orange lid back in 2009 when he was racing in comer cadets (yes, he raced in comer cadets back in 2008, 2009 and 2010).

and how do i know lando did wear that black and orange helmet? because there’s a book — published over fifteen years ago by none other than jane eyes and steve illott, callum illott’s parents.

now, if you're reading this (and i'm not just screaming into the void), you might be asking: why would callum’s parents publish a book? well, simple — callum was also racing in the comer cadet class in 2009.

jane and steve put together that book — and a few others — filled with photos from every round of the championship, each with little captions underneath.

and this particular book was focused on lando and his older brother, oliver. and in those photos (which i'll include below), you can clearly see lando in 2009, wearing — you guessed it — a black and orange helmet.

comer cadet season 2009 by jane eyes and steveilott via blurb books uk

if you're wondering how i even found this book: i stumbled across it years ago just by googling “lando norris karting 2009 cadets” but it came back to me this year when adam posted a pic of a page of it back in february.

@.lando @.olivernorris1 Good photo jane_eyes_ilott via adam_norris_pure_electric on threads

(adam's name is a recurrent name in this post. lando might joke that max was his og fan but truthfully? one of his biggest fans has always been his dad. kudos to adam.)

in that post, adam tagged callum's mum, which makes it pretty likely that he was flipping through that exact same book.

let's keep going.

lando that year he didn't win a single race, didn't take the 'o' plate, and finished 14th in the championship standings.

and here's the key part: in 2009, max was still living in malaysia. we know this because on november 22nd, 2009, max raced in the red white sangari invitational kart prix, where he finished 5th. so he couldn’t have seen lando racing in the uk that year.

so... is max an unreliable narrator too? maybe. or maybe he just remembered the helmet a little differently. it's far more likely he saw the chrome and orange helmet lando wore in 2010 and remembered it as black and orange. they were similar enough, especially in motion. it happens.

taking all that into account: the dates, the location, the helmet, the timelines... i feel pretty confident saying NOW that in june 6th in 2010, at pf international circuit, max saw a tiny little boy who would eventually become his best friend :') smol frens !!!!

that was the moment. that was the origin story.

and lando doesn't even remember it lmao.

incredible.

oh, and if you want to make all of this even more insane, check the 2010 MSA drivers entry list. you'll find norris siblings names, and yes callum illott (he raced that year too!)but keep scrolling and you'll spot a slighthy familiar name: edward jones.

super one msa series 2010 entries (26.2.10) via super one british kart series news

now, if you're asking yourself who's edward jones???? just click here (that's ed's ig carrousel from last year, you can see lando, max and tom as well <3 because those are his friends and ed is a racing driver now btw)

it's actually insane to think about that maybe max didn't just see lando for the first time that day. he might've seen ed too, one of his closest friends.

alexa, play invisible string by t swift!

that's all. bye.

WAIT. one more thing:

please don’t take this to twitter. i've done my best to stick to what's public: things max has said himself, karting pages pdfs and published books. nothing way too personal.

the last thing i want is for anyone to make max/lando/ed uncomfortable or start harassing them with questions.

if i see this out of context on that hellsite i will cry and i will delete everything and then i will relocate to the moon. bye <3

[blackened-angel]

Recently I came across interviews with Adi Shankar and guess what, he's still a liar and a narcissist.

Some time ago he said in a podcast (source: AEW’s Kenny Omega & Adi Shankar Breakdown “Devil May Cry” on Netflix) that he was unhappy that Capcom were making DMC5 because he wouldn't be the one to revive the "dead" franchise.

Recently, he bragged, because, after all that's what he's known for, that its because of him that DMC5 reached 10 mil copies.

While it is true that people bought games because they saw the shitty cartoon (not gonna call it anime, even he said that it's not anime in one of the interviews), it doesn't change the fact that he is a fucking loser who wants you to think that he achieved something grand for Devil May Cry and that you should be grateful and praise him. Unfortunately, he will not be getting that for me, because I don't don't stand for narcissists like him, especially making a mockery of a franchise I like. He can keep saying dumb shit and we have the right to call out his stupidity.

Also, he got community noted, like DMC5 was close to 10 million units before the show came out, if only they counted the sales for Special Edition according to what it says.

It still doesn't change the fact that he's pathetic because I checked his Twitter and oh my God, he had quite a few posts where he was congratulating himself. He wants you to believe that he's now some authority figure that has made a massive contribution to DMC and wants to be credited as if he took part in the creation of the series and whatever happens for DMC, like I dunno, collaborations or merchandise or you have to thank him because he made them happen T_T

Look, I know he's a dumbfuck who only does rage bait and wants attention. It still doesn't change the fact that not everyone will consider it cute and that we should cut him slack. Him saying idiotic stuff isn't a good strategy.

Shankar wasn't happy that he couldn't be the savior of Devil May Cry when he heard about DMC5, that he took the opportunity of that announcements regarding the units sold to tell people that you must be grateful for him.

Like I mentioned in the beginning, some interviews have been made and I've pointed a contradictions that I've made before.

I will only use his own statements and you are free to contradict me. I wouldn't have made this post without having receipts. You can verify the websites I mentioned and if you have seen other interviews, you can mention them because I'm not that crazy to read stuff about him. I just saw some excerpts on Twitter and I looked into them.

Okay, so there are 2 recent interview, one from Deadline and Esquire.

What I noticed is that he changes his story about how he got the rights for Devil May Cry. I wrote about this before but I'm mentioning again here. It has been established that Shankar only brags and wants us to regard him as a savior and when I read what he said in the Forbes interview, it fitted with his behavior.

A long time ago he said in this Twitter post that he wanted to make an adaptation for Dino Crisis but it was Capcom who suggested Devil May Cry and Shankar didn't even knew that DMC was on the table, as he said.

But in the interview on the Forbes website he claimed:

Again, wanting to present himself as some kind of warrior, that he fought for us...

Moving on, there are other statements that I found weird about this story regarding how apparently his mission was to get rights ONLY for Dino Crisis but in other interviews he claims that it was always about Devil May Cry.

It was Capcom who came with the suggestion to offer DMC, not that he asked from the start. That's what I gathered from the interviews.

You may think it's unimportant, but I still find it weird why the story is changed.

Now, I want to move on to comment on his fucked up statement that should convince you-although there have been many signs where he proved to be unprofessional and come off as a douchebag who didn't want to produce something out of love for the series.

This is from the Esquire website interview.

Why the fuck is he comparing the shitty cartoon with Arcane? There shouldn't be any comparison with another IP!

It's obvious what were his intentions. This is why I don't have any respect for him.

So many must have coddled him only to be repaid with lies and a product that I can't say it was made for the fans.

I think what I posted on twitter when is relevant. I made this when I heard what he said in that podcast.

To those who got introduced to DMC through the adaptation, while you may enjoy it, just know that you got an inferior product that wasn't made with respect to the series and its fans.

As a final note, can we stop calling it anime? Shankar said it himself.

You may not like the only anime from 2007, but I prefer it to the product made by a narcissist that wanted to make something to surpass another product unrelated to the series and told lies.

At least the anime had Bingo Morihashi, the scenario writer for the games (3-5).

So yeah, let me know your opinions.

[bullet-prooflove]

Do you have any NSFW headcanons for Charlie and Emery that you’re willing to share? I get it if you’re keeping a few things up your sleeve and saving for later

The few things off the top of my head under the cut because this turned into a much bigger post than originally thought.

Equality/Professionalism

It’s a very equal relationship despite there being a professional power imbalance. Charlie works very hard to make sure that there is no feeling of coercion from him in that respect. However there are sometimes when he has to pull rank and I mean, firm voice ‘that is not fucking happening’ and Em will be forced to obey even though he can see in her eyes it’s the last thing she wants to do.

How that plays out in the bedroom – They need to reset the balance.

Em is probably still pissed off when she gets home and he intentionally goads her to break the stalemate. Saying stuff like, ‘if you need to rough me up a little, slap me around to vent that frustration, go for it Em. I get off on that kind of shit.’ It turns into rough sex where it’s almost vying for control, like a fight without words. Buttons getting torn off, his lower lip being bitten, fingertip bruising. He is just as bad, pulling her hair, jamming her thighs open with his hips. Shit gets broken from the ferocity of these two going at each other. When he finally gets inside her, he’s not gentle and neither is she, he’s getting scratched up and bitten as they fuck the shit out of each other on his desk, the coffee table, the floor, wherever they end up.

Switch:

Charlie has to be dominant in his professional life, he’s a force of nature. He has to be responsible for so many people and he knows exactly how to use the carrot and the stick to achieve his goals. That kind of thing can take a real toll on a person so sometimes he needs to be taken care of, he needs to have that control stripped away so that he can relax. That’s part of what Em saw in him during that first night they had together.

While he’s not into restraints he does like the physicality of being pinned down especially if he’s struggling to get out of his own head. He likes the sensation of his wrists pinned above his head, Em’s whole body pressing against his because it makes him feel safe but also plays into the ‘being taken’ aspect. He’s not giving up control, it’s being taken from him in a safe environment.

Edging is a bit of thing for him, it’s having someone else be in charge for once. He never begs but he’s very vocal about what he’s feeling in the moment.

He enjoys praise but terms like ‘Good boy’ and ‘you’re doing so well’ don’t work for him, they’re too childlike.  It has to be more adult and specific to him like ‘you getting off on that Charlie? You like how my tongue feels on your cock?”

On the other side of this sometimes Charlie has a dominant side that comes out to play too. Sometimes this can be situational, eg: they’re at a cop bar separately for retirement drinks and he sees someone hitting on Em. That need to claim her, its fucking strong and the fact he can’t do it openly drives him a little crazy. He’ll orchestrate a situation to get her alone, it could be a smoke break, a secret text summoning her to the coat check, a dark stairwell or bathroom. It’s very much about getting her off, reminding her why she’s with him so depending on time, location and the mood he’s in < this usually depends on who has been doing the flirting with her.

Another detective: She gets to ride his fingers and then wait for his cock until they get home because that man is no match for Charlie. He knows getting her all worked up is gonna make her leave earlier so he can have her entirely to himself.

Ranked officer: More threatening because of the professional proximity and power dynamic. Em is not a good little girl but there’s a certain balancing act women have to play sometimes when a male superior officer makes a move so it doesn't decimate their career. Charlie understands that and fucking hates it. Going down on her shows he loves and appreciates her, even if she has to play that game. – you can bet after this he is running interference with that asshole knowing he’s had her coming on his tongue.

Fireman: Fucking hates them esp since one of Em’s exes was one. Will end up fucking her into the wall because seeing one flirting with her makes him completely feral. If it's the ex, it becomes 'he can't get you off like I can, can he honey?' as he's pumping into her. You can bet, he’s smirking afterwards as the night continues, knowing his cum is dripping into her panties.

Roleplay:

The glasses led to a little professor fantasy that they both didn’t know Em had. It started with Charlie doing paperwork at her house and then her climbing into his lap, commenting that maybe she’d been a bad girl and wasn’t making the grade. And maybe… just possibly there was someway she could earn it? That tapped into something Charlie did not know he was into. It ended in a little spanking, a lot of cock sucking and him coming all over her tits.

There are so many more thing I have to say but I realised how long this post was getting. If you have any specific qs about their sex life, feel free to pop them in.

[aihoshiino]

That Ai and Miyako post made me remember how back when chp 154 drop, some people were claiming that hikaai devalued Ai’s bond with her kids. Like????? Insane line of thinking.

I'm actually sort of in two minds. I defo don't agree that Ai's relationship with Hikaru devalues the one she has with the twins because. well, they're very different relationships above and beyond anything else. But I do think that this sounds like maybe a poor articulation of a critique that I do otherwise agree with - that the specific way Ai talks about her feelings for Kamiki in 154 is inconsistent with the Ai of volume 1 and, if taken at face value, does weaken what is otherwise an extremely efficient self-contained arc in relation to her feelings about the twins and how that guides her to her cathartic confession of love with her final words.

Akasaka falls into this bad habit in the latter half of OnK of like… I guess the most concise way to sum it up would be flanderization but of a relationship dynamic as opposed to a single character (tho I guess you could argue it's flanderization of both characters in relation to their dynamic, but that's picking nits). I've talked about this before in relation to Gorou and Sarina but tbh you can kind of see it all over late stage OnK when you know to start looking for it - where Aka tries to sell the emotional depth of a relationship by massively roiding up the intensity of it to near soap opera levels and rather than making it more interesting, it just ends up flattening out what already WAS interesting because the nuance gets lost in all the noise. GRSR are the worst victims of this mostly because the series relies SO heavily on getting you invested in that relationship that a lot of its beats flop all the harder if you aren't but HikaAi get some of it too.

Some of this comes down to the fact that we just don't really know a ton about how the HikaAi relationship really played out. I've talked about this in more detail before but the long and the short of it is that the 154 DVD is basically the one and only time we get Ai's actual perspective on the relationship and a lot of the stuff she says here is just, like… weirdly overly effusive in ways that don't one hundred percent line up with how she expresses herself in volume 1. And to an extent I give Akasaka a pass on that because he obvs didn't have the exact details of the HikaAi dynamic in mind when writing volume 1. But this does really feel like him falling into that trap of roiding up an emotional beat to the point where the nuance is lost. The DVDs are already such an awkward plot point bc they're so transparently utilitarian and there's never really a good in-story justification for Ai choosing to make them, but it especially doesn't help that the way she talks on the DVD is so obviously written to be the most hurtful and impactful thing possible to Hikaru.

And I think for the most part it does broadly work - the main issue is that depending on how you read some of what she says, it sort of retroactively centers Hikaru in her decisionmaking regarding the twins in a way that I think does kind of cheapen her immediate connection to the twins and her decision to selfishly pursue her own happiness if you take it at face value. It's not necessarily impossible to thread the emotional logic if you make the attempt but I dislike that I have to in the first place and I wish we'd gotten more insight into what caused the shift in her mindset between when the DVDs were made and when she called Hikaru.

The actual real problem is like. Literally this one part:

It would be one thing if this was being voiced as a genuine question that Ai was struggling with but her big happy smile and the way she immediately undermines it a moment later makes it clear this is a rhetorical question and that she is essentially saying without directly saying that she did love Kamiki and she knows it.

And like... that makes no sense, right??

Ai being able to so confidently and assuredly say that her "I can't love you" to Hikaru was a lie speaks to a level of understanding and security in her feelings that does not at all line up with the Ai of volume 1. The whole point of her conflict there - hell, of Ai's arc is general - is that Ai has been so starved of genuine human connection that she doesn't even recognise feelings of love in herself even as she experiences them. Her emotional palette has been so forcibly muted that she's effectively gone colourblind.

That's why she so scared of expressing her love to Aqua and Ruby - she literally has no idea what it feels like because she has no frame of reference. She assumes that it would be a lie if she said it specifically because she's never been able to speak a truthful "I love you" before.

So it's not that Ai having loved Hikaru undermines her love for the twins or anything - it's that Ai being so certain and at ease with the fact that she did, at this point in time. I do think that ultimately undermines vol1's conclusion for her purely because it's inconsistent and there's no attempt in the story to sew these inconsistencies up. Like I said, it feels like a symptom of Akasaka wanting to produce the maximally emotionally effective beat and either not realising or not caring that it didn't make sense for the arc he was writing.

To be clear, I do still love 154! It's still one of my favourite chapters in the series and I think it's overall very effective and definitely a better conclusion to the revenge & Hikaru as the antagonist than wtfever Aka decided to do with 160 onwards. It just has its issues like basically everything else in this manga past a point.

[leebrontide]

Hello!

I'm Lee (any pronouns), a middle aged queer writer from the midwest of the US. It's been a bit, so I'm doing another writeblr intro, to find more potential writeblr folks to chat with!

What I write:

- Mostly scifi! I have a bit of fantasy brewing in a collab project, but mostly, scifi.

- Queer stuff. Lots of different types of queerness.

- Community. Both in the group-hugs-and-support variety and the extreme-mess/everybodies-traumas-keep-smashing-into-each-other variety. I have training as a family therapist and am endlessly fascinated by interpersonal dynamics. This is the meat of my work.

- Grounded worldbuilding. My main project right now is near future scifi that diverges from our timeline around 2001. I'm enjoying the hell out of playing the US I know with some very key tweaks that changed society. I know a lot about medical systems, criminal justice systems, and legal systems and like using fantasy and scifi elements to show them as I know them. But like, in a way that should appeal to people who give 0 shits about US institutions.

- Disability stuff. Not that after-school-special shit. I am just tired of characters being generic pretty dolls whose physical attributes don't impact how they move through the world. That means not only writing a variety of different disabilities, but also different bodies. My characters aren't "inspiration porn" or just waiting around for less disabled characters to come save them. They are messy, with a wide array of relationships to their limitations and the things they use to cope with those limitations.

- YA into new adult. Not exclusively, but mostly. I really like taking characters from YA into early adulthood. Not just a standard coming-of-age arc, but the actually moving from a self-concept of a dependent teen into someone with legal responsibility for themselves, jobs, college, etc. Especially when combined with all of the above. I love a nice long character arc with lots of sub-arcs along the way.

What I have out, now.

- I have two books out so far, Secondhand Origin Stories and Names in Their Blood. I'm working on book 3 in that planned 5 book series now, which is currently titled Brittle Idols.

- I have a free monthly newsletter called Shed Letters where I talk about psychology, tech, queerness, storytelling, and the creative process, plus whatever random topic I've been researching for my books recently. Also contains pictures of my three very photogenic cats.

- Newsletter subscribers also have access to a novella I wrote that goes between Secondhand Origin Stories and Names in Their Blood, that's about an fictional AI (the only kind I like) trying to decide on a body for themself.

- I also draw and animate, with my first and still in-progress animation project being a "trailer" for Secondhand Origin Stories.

What I'm looking for

- writeblrs - especially writeblrs that aren't JUST writeblrs. I want to feel like I'm meeting people, at least in some manner, rather than just hearing about a product in process. That doesn't have to mean deep confessions or private information, but honestly I'm not likely to remember you for your writing project alone. Sorry. Please show me what else you care about!

- Bonus points for queer or disabled scifi or fantasy writers.

- I am white for most intents and purposes but I always want to find more AOC who write sci fi.

- Also always excited to meet more YA authors- especially the currently kinda sidelined YA scifi.

- People who care about where society is going but aren't posting that everything is doomed and pointless. I mean you post whatever you want but I don't need that on my dash. That shit is not helping me help.

I sometimes do ask games? It's fun when I have the time. It'd be fun to have more folks to do them with, provided those folks are patient.

Please interact if this has piqued your interest!