#she won't go down without a fight

[livelovecaliforniadreams]

#Lucy Chen #1 Bug/Animal Defender 

[thevoidstaredback]

Weeks Ago

Me: Shifts at the theatre have gone up for the week before, the week after, and the week of your knee surgery, including the day. Is that going to be a problem?

Mom: No. Go ahead and sign up for them; I'll arrange ways for you to get to and from work

Me: Alright

Monday Morning

Me: How am I getting to work tomorrow?

Dad: You work tomorrow?

Me: Yep. I told Mom and she said she'd figure stuff out

Dad: It'd be easier if you called out. Is it too late?

Me: It's a little short notice, but it should be fine (it was)

Today

Me: How am I getting to work today?

Dad: You work today?

Me: Yep. The rest of this week and all of next, barring Sunday and Monday

Dad: That would've been nice to know before. Where?

Me: The theatre

Dad: What time?

Me: Today and tomorrow, 5 to ~9. Friday, 5:30-9:30

Dad: I don't know how we're gonna get you home; I don't think I can leave your mom alone for that long. What time does the train leave?

Me: 4:00

Dad: Call your sister and see if she'll bring you home. We'll leave here at 3:30 to catch your train

Me: She won't. She doesn't drive at night

Twin: I'll bring you home tonight as long as I leave now so I can get some sleep in before work tonight

Me: You sure? I can ask a friend

Twin: Yeah, I'm sure

[forcedhesitation]

I MISSED THIS ENTIRELY MY FIRST TIME AROUND....THIS IS SO DAMN PRECIOUS?!!

[pa-pa-plasma]

i don't get people who think other people's pets are theirs. like where does that type of fucked up even come from

[patchwork-crow-writes]

The Roaring Knight encounter at the end of Chapter 3 is a masterclass at showing you that the REAL protagonist of Deltarune isn't Kris - it's Susie.

This doesn't really make much sense at first glance - you can't even really FIGHT the thing on equal footing without the Shadow Mantle, and to even get that Kris has to go through a harrowing gauntlet and fight a whole OTHER secret boss that doesn't even use the battle mechanics we've grown accustomed to. Kris Suffers to get that item, the one thing that can let them stand up to the Knight's merciless assaults. Hell, the game won't even let you retry if you lose until you have the Mantle in your possession. You would therefore assume that the Mantle belongs to Kris, and that they are the ones who should wear it.

And yet. Even when you don't have this item, who stands up to defy it? Susie. Who stops it from doing... whatever it was trying to do to Toriel, TWICE? Susie. And who gives chase across the boundary between light and dark, across the entirety of hometown, to stop it from abducting Undyne? Why, it's Susie. Her actions are those of a hero standing up to a terrible villain of unknowable power, and she does it without a shred of hesitation, even faced with the very real prospect of being killed.

And if that were it, it'd be kind of boring. But that's not it at all, because the reinforcement of this idea continues into the fight itself. Because if you can keep Susie alive for five turns, she starts monologuing against the boss, telling it how much it sucks and that she'll always have her friends behind her.

The Knight is presented to us as unknowable, invincible, unstoppable. Regular attacks bounce off of its absurdly high HP, it cannot be Checked like a normal enemy, attempts to reason with it fall on deaf ears. And yet, what's the one spell that can meaningfully hurt the Knight, to the point of temporarily disrupting its form? Susie's Rude Buster.

And then, when you throw yourself at the Knight again and again, trying to figure out its weakness, trying to outlast its brutal onslaught, it hits you - the Shadow Mantle does NOTHING for Kris in this fight, but it does EVERYTHING for Susie. Susie's the one doing all the damage. Susie's high HP perfectly compliments the shadow mantle's protection against the Knight's more absurd attacks. Ralsei has no way to meaningfully contribute to the fight at all, and while Kris can use Hold Breath to give the SOUL a boost, their utility begins and ends there. The most that either of them can really do is to act as TP and healing bots for Susie, and to equip weak armours that have beneficial effects, such as the TwinRibbon, Silver Watch, Blue Ribbon, TensionBow and Lodestone - the effects of these items persist regardless of whether the character wearing them is DOWNed or not, and, you guessed it, are equipped not to help them survive, but to allow them to support Susie even when incapacitated.

Then you start seeing it in other areas. Who is it that facilitates change in the other characters - Ralsei, Noelle, Berdly? Susie does, each and every time. She effortlessly upends their own myopic views of the world, defying them to change and be better, without even really realising that's what she's doing - is it any wonder that EVERYONE in the main cast seems to have a thing for her? She's magnetic in the way that heroes are, not despite her brashness and short temper but BECAUSE of them - because she cuts so effortlessly through the FICTIONS that other characters cling to, the stories they tell themselves about who they are, what they can do, and how they ought to be. Susie shatters those preconceptions and offers an alternative - live how you want to live, make the choices that you want to make, and let no-one else ever tell you who you are.

Susie is the hero of Deltarune, and the Roaring Knight's fight encapsulates why perfectly, without ever once drawing attention to the fact. It's sheer genius on Toby's part and I salute the skill with which it conveys those ideas in such an organic way.

[deepspace-scenarios]

[scenario/drabble] In shining armour

LIs get protective when a stranger purposely bumps into you. (they're livid but they're on a date so no murder is allowed)

Genre: fluff

SYLUS

The moment the stranger shoves past you, Sylus’s grip tightens around his car keys. “I'll be just a moment, sweetie,” His voice is calm, measured.

And then he's gone. He disappears in a cloud of mist, and reappears close to the offender to cut them off. It happens all too quickly- a shift in the air, then a strangled sound, and the heavy thump of someone hitting the ground with a weaker, muffled groan.

When Sylus returns back to you, he ruffles your hair gently, taking care to tame any messy strands before he drops his hand.

“Sylus, did you just-” You grasp at words, trying to piece together vocabulary about the past twenty seconds. He watches you fondly as you pat his jacket down in your frazzled state, as if the minor tussle would have done anything at all.

“But I thought you don't pick fights with people that aren't worthy." Is what you settle for telling him.

“While that is true,” he murmurs, “I end fights with those who overestimate themselves,”

_____

XAVIER

You gasp in the aisle as the stranger jostles you, sending you stumbling backwards into a bookcase.

Xavier’s hand is suddenly at your elbow, steadying you- but his gaze locks onto the offender with an uncharacteristic sharpness. He then quickly pulls your cap lower, “Eyes down,”

And in a blink, he's gone.

“Watch it,” he you hear him say calmly. There's a rusle of fabric as the stranger turns, confused, only to see a bright flash, and a yelp.

Xavier guides you away from the bookstore without a backward glance.

“Strange,” he muses, fingers lingering at your back, “How they needed just a bit more light to watch where they're going,”

You raise an eyebrow at the barely-concealed threat in his words, but you can't help but smile when he pouts at you.

"What? I was protecting you,"

You tap his nose lightly, effectively erasing his pout. "And what a way to describe it, my favourite hero,"

_____

ZAYNE

Zayne’s arm snaps out like a barrier when the shopper rams into you with their shopping basket.

“Watch your trajectory,” he says coldly, his gaze already scanning you for injury.

The stranger scoffs- until Zayne steps closer, his voice dropping. “Apologize.”

They flee instead.

“Coward.” Zayne adjusts his glasses as he glares into the distance.

And then, with a softer voice and a hand on your elbow, he asks- “Are you hurt?”

“No,” you reply, a grin finding its way onto your face at how he's looking at you with that familiar, gentle concern. “but my heart is beating fast, doctor Zayne,”

A frown touches his brows for a brief moment- and then he speaks.

“I would rule out a medical anomaly. It's likely a physiological response to unexpected events,”

“My diagnosis- Zayne being too attractive when he shows his protective side,” you quip, a small bubble of laughter escaping when he pinches the bridge of his nose to hide a smile.

Yet, his hand remains at your back long after, a silent promise of protection.

_____

RAFAYEL

You are just lowering your arm from an interactive wall display, when someone pushes past you to get to your spot.

“Excuse you!” Rafayel’s voice rings across the gallery as the attendee excitedly places their own palm against the glowing wall.

He swoops in, draping himself over your shoulders like a human shield.

“Hey, you! She isn’t interactive art, you brute!”

The stranger stammers an apology under his glare.

“Honestly,” he huffs, steering you away and towards a different exhibit, “some people have the grace of a horseshoe crab,”

But when he holds you, his touch is gentle. “You’re my masterpiece,” he tells you. “No one gets to leave fingerprints on my cutie.”

The way his grip tightens on your waist tells you he won't hesitate to protect at any cost in the world.

_____

CALEB

Your ice cream cone hits the concrete just as the stranger gets past you.

In one fluid motion, Caleb steps around you, stopping the stranger in their tracks. His reflexes make the movement seem smooth and effortless.

“You okay?” he asks over his shoulder, voice light- but his stance is anything but. The stranger mumbles an apology under his sharp gaze.

Once they’re gone, Caleb exhales, ruffling his hair. “Damn. And that was stracciatella.”

When he pulls you close, the warmth has returned to his eyes. “Next time,” he murmurs, lips at your temple, “I’m using gravity to stick ‘em to the sidewalk.”

“Caleb-”

He grins. “Should we try a different ice cream flavour, or are you still feeling like stracciatella?”

[cherryyluvs]

Hi just first wanted to say I love ur writing, it's so nice to read as if am really seeing it physically. Anyways I wanted to ask if you could write a starfire type reader where she first meets mark and how their relationship grows . Exploring his friends and parents reaction to her power , tamaranean background and personality. I know damn well cecil will be exhausted finding out there's another alien race with so much power . thank you again for ur work in the invincible fandom cause there's so few amazing writers. 😘😘

Ahhh thank you so much!! 🥹💖 That means the world to me!! I LOVE the idea of a Starfire-type reader I don’t know much of her but I tried my best (♡ˊ͈ ꒳ ˋ͈) hope you enjoy!!

Mark first meets you under a.. Chaotic circumstance. An alien attack and he is already in mid-fight when you swoop in. Blasting through enemies, striking, and flipping with this effortless grace. Mark is immediately like Σ(°□°˶) !! So powerful, he can't take his eyes off of you. He's already impressed but also slightly intimidated. “Uh… who are you?” But you can't understand him yet, titling your head blinking in confusion. “You don't understand me, do you?”

Without hesitation you float towards him, placing your hands gently on his cheek and kissing him. Mark freezes. His eyes widened. You pull back, lips turning into a bright smile. “Ah! Now i understand”

“What just happened?”

“In my homeworld, Tamaran, lip contact is a simple custom to learn any language”

“simple..??” Mark is completely flustered while you're acting like kissing him was the most normal thing in the world.

He starts seeing you around more often, you being curious about Earth. Everything from human customs to food. Mark ends up becoming your unofficial guide. You’re fascinated by Earth’s food, the first time Mark takes you out for burgers, you literally hover out of your seat from excitement. “This is delicious! May I try yours?” and before he could answer you, steal a fry from his tray. Acting like fries are the greatest discovery of your life. (˵ •̀ ᴗ - ˵ ) ✧ Mark becomes curious about Tamaranean culture and one day you got him to try something from your home plant – Zorkaberries. Presenting them to him proudly, a small bowl of deep purple berries in your hand, Mark would eye them suspiciously. He hesitated for a moment before picking one, and popping it in his mouth. The flavor being bittersweet “Whoa, this is really good?”

“Of course! They are Zorkaberries!!” giggling, floating closer and patting his back “do you wish for more?”

Tamaraneans are naturally affectionate so you're constantly touching mark. Holding his hand, brushing your fingers through his hair, and hugging him from behind. It's second nature to you. The more you two hang out and go on dates the more you start falling in love, he loves how blunt you are and have no problem telling Mark exactly how you feel — even if it flusters him.

When you first met his parents, Debbie and Nolan. You were extremely polite, immediately hugging her and complimenting her home. Offering to help with dinner which she is surprised but pleased by. During dinner time you speak of tales of your planet, your people, how you come from a warrior race and noble family. Nolan, on the other hand, is suspicious of you. He recognizes how powerful you are and the fact that you come from an alien race puts him on edge. His Viltrumite instincts are definitely twitching, wary of you but you remain cheerful and unbothered.

Cecil is immediately rubbing his temples because 2 Viltrumites is already bad enough – now there's Tamaranean on earth? Just what he needed, but deep down he knows you could be an invaluable ally , keeping a close eye on you to ensure you're not up to something.

As for mark friends ? William thinks you're super cool, saved him from a villain once and he won't stop yapping about how you carried him bridal style. Amber loves how sweet and down to earth you are, obsessed with helping you pick out earth clothes and doing ‘girl stuff’ together. Eve is immediately fascinated by you, she recognizes your power level and asks you about your planet and your culture. “So you guys can fly and absorb sunlight? That's insane”

“It is quite convenient!”

Bonus:

Afterward, Mark’s brain is still trying to catch up. Mark (to himself): “She’s a literal princess. And she kissed me. To learn my language. Okay.” (꜆꜄ᴗ͈﹏ᴗ͈)꜆꜄꜆

[y0-yo-yo]

DCxDP: Amity Park aka uncanny Valley

Who ever thought that a family road trip across the country was ever a good idea? Especially when the family concerned is the Waynes!

...plus a Brown but you can't really talk Waynes without including Stephanie Brown

Bruce had a gala to attend in Chicago during the summer vacation Dick jumped at the opportunity to do a family road trip and try his newest car/van

was putting a Damian Wayne in an enclosed space with a Tim Drake a good idea? No. Was Dick going to argue with Bruce at least thrice a day? Maybe Will Jason be even remotely happy to be part of this trip? Probably not and will all the kids fight to choose who is in charge of the radio? Most definitely, but it'll be fun!

At first everything was awful,Bruce made them wake up terribly early, for once that Tim had slept that night! (albeit for only three hours which was plenty if you asked him) to leave even before the sun was up

Then it became alright, the eight seat car was spacy enough to not get into each other's personal space, everyone started to sing along to music and exchanging playlists

Dick had an awful amount of dico and 80's music, Bruce played his dad rock while Steph and Jason talked white girl music

They started their trip by going through Pennsylvania, taking pictures and joking on how Batman should be a local super hero there instead than in new Jersey,then they headed for Washington DC, it was fun visiting the hall of justice as tourist even tho they all knew the place better than the guides,then they went through Kentucky where Dick really wanted to visit the 'longest cave in the world' and comparing it to the bat cave (Bruce was unimpressed)

And finally they'll drive right through Illinois to get Bruce to Chicago and escape before he tries to get them to join the Gala

And then the car broke down in the middle of nowhere.

The sun would set soon but it was still really hot as we were in early August.

"the GPS say the closest city is a fourty five minutes walk" Annonce Duke while Dick,Tim and Bruce tried to find what's wrong with the car

"We could easily do the journey" Damian says placing a draw two making Steph, too invested in this game of uno with Cass and the demon brat frown

"in this heat!? Do you want us to die of a stroke?" The blond replied placing a plus two as well

"It looks like it's our only choice guys...the car won't start anytime soon better get to a town and buy some new parts" The eldest said from the front of the car

"can't we just call a cab or something?"

Asked Stephanie

"privileged behavior" Duke replied back to back "plus I don't think there's cabs in bumfuck nowhere...I ain't never even heard of 'Amity Park', plus, if they did they wouldn't have eight seat"

"wait Amity Park?" Asked Tim who was swiping grease on a now ruined travel towel "I have family who lives there..." He said thoughtfully

"maybe you can ask them if they have a place to stay for the night? There's only cheap motels in this town and I don't really wanna catch bed bugs" Duke says still on his phone

"oh wow now look who has privileged behavior!" Stephanie snort a smirk on her lips as she add a plus four to Cass's

"uhm can we go back to the part of Tim having living family members? That own a house? Why would you make up one if you had family in the state?" Dick ask "and why do you live with us?" Added Damian because, of course he would

"well... it's not like we talked a lot, I saw them...maybe two times in my life? And they were definitely my parents type of neglectful so going to them wouldn't have changed much"

"...do they also have a kid?" Bruce ask and before he got the chance to talk more he got shut down with a "no you can't adopt more kids!" From all his children

"but yes they do have a kid, we got along great from what I remember...but except sparkly pink dress I don't remember much..." Tim clarified

"I vote we still ask them for a place to stay or at least a ride, if they're Drake's family they should at least have a limousine or mansion no?" Steph asked eager to find a good bed once more

"I don't know...I haven't talked to them much... especially not after my mother's passing...I don't even know if I still have their number" Tim think his voice a little lower, he did think about his mother's sister and her family when he was still living alone in the Drake mansion but thinking back on the blurry memories of being forgotten for hours on end with his cousin didn't really make him want to reach out

"it's okay if you don't want to Timothy, we can find another way" Bruce says in his paternal voice placing a reassuring hand on Tim's shoulder

"no,no it's okay, a call won't hurt right?"

Tim looked through his phone and he, in fact, did have his cousin's number saved, he stepped away from the car to make the call. He was a bit nervous and a bit ashamed, he had a cousin his age that lived in similar conditions as him and he never thought to check up or call,and now that he did it was for a favour, they hadn't talked in over ten years and he couldn't really remember what they were like, hopefully they hadn't grown up like their parents as a stuck up asshole

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

Samantha Manson wasn't a family person,

She didn't care for them,they didn't care for her.

She labeled all her extended family members under "family" as contact names and usually wouldn't pick up when they'd call, not that they did regularly

Yet,she was in a good mood today so when her phone light up and her ringtone rung she picked up

"uhm Hi Sam...antha?... it's Tim- Timothy drake?Wayne? I uhm- our moms are sisters?"

Was the anxious voice that waited for her on the other side of the phone

Huh...

Huh.... Timothy ? Oh fuck Timothy ! Was she a bad cousin to have forgotten one of the only kids her age that she got along with in her family?

Well got along is a big word they just stuck around each other the two times their families were attending the same galla but it was fun for once...if she remembered correctly

It was still a time where he mother was the one dressing her up in those awful sparkly or floral dresses with cutesy hairdo...a goth's nightmare Sam got shivers just thinking back on it

"Yes I remember you Tim Drake...what can I do to help?"

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

"okay so, my cousin say she can come pick us up as long as we don't care for basic road safety?"

Tim said coming back to his family who had all migrated to sit at a picnic table near the car

Jason Dick and Damian who had left for a gas station a few minutes ago to grab some snacks and see if they had anything to fix the car came back at the same time dropping bags of chips, candy and other bar chocolate

The comment about road safety made Bruce frown (hypocrite) but all the other kids could not care less

"so...we're not getting picked up by a limousine? Or is it more of a bus bar type of thing?"

Stephanie ask resulting on her head being bonked by Dick

"no the real question is what's your cousin like?"

"I am not spending a car ride with a snobbyer version of Tim"

Jason added making Damian nod in agreement and Tim roll his eyes

"To be honest, I don't remember much? She didn't sound snobby on the phone?"

Tim guess trying to make a mental image of what Samantha may look now, she probably let her dark chocolate brown hair grow? Or maybe she cut them? Would she still wear floral prints and sparkles? Probably not she hated them as a kid

"and how are her parents?"

Bruce inquired not without warning glares from his kids

"I remember even less! But Sam said they weren't home so..."

"hn"

Bruce narrowed his eyes but didn't say anything

"really all I remember about them is the fakest laugh and sparkly pink dresses"

Tim sighed

"sparkly pink dress? Are you trying to kill my rep?"

A new voice joined in the conversation making everyone at the table jump save from cass who had noticed the presence long ago

All but turned to see this goth girl wearing an all black dress with at least three layers of clothes and even more in accessoires

She smiled at them with teeth a little too sharp for comfort

"hi I'm Samantha Manson, but please call me sam! I hope you won't mind but my car might me a little cramped"

She said in a friendly voice beeping her car key bringing her car, a hearse, back to life radio blasting the latest song she was listening to and making her headlights bath them in light really tieing the whole spooky vibes together

Yeah...the kids are gonna like this girl.

[lqveharrington]

Gentleman | R.L.

summary: remus lupin is the perfect gentleman.

pairing: remus lupin x fem!reader

includes: fluff, you and sirius are practically siblings, rem defending his girlfriend, someone gets pushed off a boat

a/n: all my inspo literally comes from the music i listen to 😭

James had invited the entire group down to the lake for the summer because it was the last summer before the last year of Hogwarts. He thought it should be memorable, and everyone loved the idea. His parents allowed him to borrow the lake house and boat, but only if everyone's parents were okay with it. Of course, your parents trusted you with your friends. The only rule was to stay in separate rooms from your boyfriend. Oopsies.

As the Potters’ boat slowed to a calm stop, the summer wind continued to blow through the air, the clouds nonexistent in the blue sky. The sun shimmered across the lake water and the radio played the top hits of the month, the sound drowning from the talking of the boat’s riders.

When Sirius had enough of all the chitchat, he quickly shed himself of his top and jumped into the lake water, splashing Marlene who was trying to tan on the boats end. She cursed him out and threatened to pull the ladder away when he splashed her again.

Witnessing the entire interaction, you hid a laugh behind a smile and left the girls to sit beside Remus who was sitting underneath the shade of the boat. You tucked your legs underneath your lap and leaned your chin on his shoulder. On instinct, his calloused hand found the space underneath your calf and gently squeezed even when talking to James. You admired his face glowing in the sun for a beat, eyes following the scars that were left behind from bad nights before he finally turned and met your loving eyes.

“Hey.” You murmur and grin when you felt him press a soft kiss to your lips. “Sirius just went into the water." He hummed and kissed you again, making you hum and separate once more. "You don't want to join him?”

“And leave you here all by yourself? What type of man do you think I am?” He thumbed your leg and felt for the rushing blood, ensuring there was a pule and that you were in fact real. It was a habit he was quick to have learned because of a full moon incident a year ago.

You shrug and rest your cheek on his shoulder instead, watching the gulls fly by and circle the food James was grilling. As he tried fighting them off with tongs, Lily and Dorcas began to draw sunscreen images on Marlene's back, not bothering to cover up their giggles.

“You don’t want to join the girls?” Remus tilted his head and scanned your side profile, following the contour of your face. He memorized every single bump and crease, gingerly tucking a piece of loose hair behind your ear when you looked back over at him.

You raise a brow at his guilty smile and analyze his mannerism, rubbing the one bit of sunscreen into his cheek. "What?"

“You just wanna stay in the shade with me, don't you, dovey?" He brought his hand up and gently cupped your cheek, pulling you close enough so he could press a kiss to your temple.

“Of course, wherever you are, I follow.” You grin as a blush creeps up your neck, not realizing Sirius had gotten out of the water and rolled his eyes at how affectionate the both of you were being.

“You two are so gross." He covered his eyes before shaking his head like the dog he was — ridding himself of all the water he brought up with him.

You groaned when you got hit with the water, glaring at the long-haired boy. He stuck his tongue out at you which you retaliated with your middle finger. You swore that Sirius had a secret hatred for you since you began dating Remus over a year ago.

Sirius gasped at your gesture and put a hand on his chest, returning the finger. Remus rolled his eyes at the both of you and gave you a pointed look, making you cover it with your hand.

"Prongs, do something! The lady won't go down without a fight!" SIrius complained and popped a soda can out of the cooler, leaning against the railing of the boat.

“Mate, I don’t know what you want me to do.” James threw him a confused look and reached inside the cooler to hand Lily her own can. "Besides, I can't do much here."

“You could toss her over board." Sirius muttered loud enough for you to whip your head toward him and glare.

"You were being mean first!" You move to stand only to be pulled back down into your seat. From the corner of your eye, you saw Remus pursing his lips in thought, making you sigh. "Rem—"

“Sit.” He practically commanded, rolling his eyes once more when you crossed your arms and legs in annoyance. But when you noticed his quick wink, you realize what he was going to do.

You smiled slyly toward Sirius when he met your eyes again. The poor unsuspecting bloke. Sirius gave you an annoyed look and went to say something — probably insulting all women — when Remus pulled him aside.

Assuming Remus was going to hangout with him instead of you, Sirius stuck his tongue out before yelping in surprise as Remus pushed him off the boat. Your eyes widened with a smile, stretching your neck to see where Sirius was flailing. The three girls burst out into laughter at the predicament and quickly moved away from all the splashing water, grabbing a polaroid to take a picture before he could get out. James just shook his head in disbelief, clasping his arm around Sirius’ and helping him up.

Remus tossed a towel in Sirius' direction before sitting beside you again, kissing the side of your head like nothing happened. You gave him cheeky smile and laced your hand with his.

“What a gentleman.” You chide before letting out a noise of surprise at the feeling of his lips on yours, dropping your hand to lay flat on his chest.

“Some gentleman you are.” Sirius muttered as he dried himself off. When he realized Remus was staring back at him with an unimpressed look, he took a huge step back behind James and quickly apologized. “Kidding, I’m kidding.”

You send him another death glare before staring up at Remus with soft eyes as he thumbed your palm, a small smile taking over your face. "You know we're probably going to get pranked anytime soon, right?"

"As long as I spend quality time with you, I think I'll be fine. Besides, he won't try anything too bad." Remus tilted your head up with his index finger. "I'm a gentleman anyway."

©lqveharrington - all rights reserved. do not copy, translate or share my work on other media platforms

[heedeungism]

𝐛𝐮𝐬𝐲 𝐰𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐧.

•°. *࿐ PAIRING ― riki nishimura x fem!reader •°. *࿐ SYNOPSIS ― in which riki is smitten with you and your sharp tongue. •°. *࿐ GENRE ― one-shot, friends-to-???, fake dating, angst, fluff, crack, rich kid au, highschool lacrosse au •°. *࿐ WORD COUNT ― 20.9k (yeah, i went kinda crazy) •°. *࿐ CONTENT WARNING(S) ― violence(fighting), cursing, high school, mc has a shitty ex-bf, cheating(not riki obviously), almond grandma(mentioned), a singular cigarette is smoked, mc is shorter than riki, riki can also pick mc up, suggestive jokes, kys jokes, mc has hair (texture and length unspecified, but can be put up), objectification of girls(not riki tho), mc objectifies boys back, dreamy riki, not suggestive or smutty but mc is absolutely a horndog, mc is her own worst enemy, mc using riki to get back at her ex but he likes it, i did not edit this lmao •°. *࿐ EXTRA NOTES ― inspired by euphoria and my hs experience, riki is a loser and a lover, implied that mc is 18, eunseok(riize) is an absolute asshole in this sorry guys i needed a villain, enha are all in the same grade, mc wears makeup and has a manicure of an unspecified length, mc has sick lore, also shoutout to my hg @1ntaks for digitally holding my hand thru this <3 •°. *࿐ SOUNDTRACK ― busy woman by sabrina carpenter, hiss by megan thee stallion, low by sza, i did something bad by taylor swift, without you by lana del rey, agora hills by doja cat, girls like me don’t cry by thuy, only girl (in the world) by rihanna, safety net by ariana grande, snooze by sza

part two

AT THE BEGINNING OF 2024, you lost for the first time in your life.

Finding your boyfriend of two years making out with a girl you know too well as Lee Nayeon, your best friend, on the Carrara marble countertop of your family home that you had trusted her to take care of for eight days while you were in New York was not on your New Year’s resolution. You had planned to stay to see the Times Square Ball Drop with your mom and stepdad, but you realized you’d prefer to spend it with your boyfriend.

He didn’t seem to share the same sentiment, considering he has his tongue down the traitorous bitch’s throat. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

She screams, both of them startled by your appearance and scrambling off of each other. You feel an urge to slam her face into the precious marble they were defiling, but you stay where you are. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

“It isn’t what you think, babe—“

The speed at which Nayeon’s eyes filled with guilty and horrified tears fuels your rage, and behind you, Bahiyyih appears.

“Look who’s back—oh?” She stops beside you, arm hovering to wrap around you until she sees what you’re seeing. “Eunseok? Since when were you back from Stanford?”

“Since he’s been fucking Nayeon, apparently.” 

The barbie-haired girl’s eyes widen, and as she looks between the two she notices the same things you’re painfully aware of. Nayeon’s smeared lip gloss, her tears, Eunseok’s undone jeans, and the sparkly residue on his mouth. “Oh…”

Nayeon’s whimper as she slides off the counter snaps you out of your daze, “You’re crying?” The angry tears forming in your eyes go unshed as you walk closer to her, “You fuck my boyfriend, and you’re fucking crying?”

Anger turns to fury when the boy in question gets between you and her, pleading to let him explain, his hand grabbing your elbow to pull you away, only for you to jerk away, “Okay, I won’t touch you, just let me explain—“

“How long?”

“What? Babe, this isn’t-“

“How long have you been fucking him?” Your question is directed at who you thought was your friend, who avoids looking at you as she silently weeps. Scoffing, you realize you won't get a straight answer and choose to reel in your urge to beat her face in with one of your stepdad's bowling trophies that’s on display a few steps away. “Get out.”

“Babe, let me—“

The attempts at holding in your temper are lost on you, quickly forgotten as you walk over to the fireplace, grabbing the fire poker hanging up and holding it up. Nayeon lets out a scared, oh my God, while Eunseok tries to calm you down, demanding you put down the weapon. Instead of that, you walk past them, out the front door, ignoring Bahiyyih’s, “No, no, no—”

Eunseok’s red Mustang sits prettily in the driveway, and you can hear him realizing what you intend to do, but it’s too late for him. You slam the poker down onto the hood of his car, “Get. Out!”

“You crazy bitch, what is wrong with you?!” He screams, and you find yourself screaming back.

“Take your side piece and get. Out!” You slam the poker down again, and in minutes he’s got Nayeon in the passenger seat and is peeling out of your driveway like it’s on fire.

If rage had a physical human form, you would be it. Clenched jaw, a deadly weapon in your hands, and a white-hot fury in your eyes that promised to make those two regret crossing you.

The amount of junk food you have consumed in the last week would’ve sent your almond grandmother into an early grave. Your other friends had been visiting as often as possible to keep you from being alone in your thoughts for too long, offering to take you out or go shopping, yet the thought of possibly seeing either of those backstabbing fuckers in public made you sick to your stomach.

Pride didn’t allow you to cry, so instead of sadness and heartbreak, which you definitely felt but would never admit to, you felt pure seething fury.

“So I’ve been thinking,” You take a drag from the cherried slim between your fingers, exhaling towards the sky as you lean against the side of the pool.

From her spot on the lawn chair sunbathing, Belle says. “You can’t kill them.”

“I can, you’re just a party pooper.”

“The party should not include going to prison for murder.” Her statement makes you roll your eyes, “You aren’t built for prison, babe.”

“Well, that I can agree with,” You sigh, the water shifting around you as you turn to face her, arms resting on the edge, “but that wasn’t what I was thinking about.”

Pausing, you take one last drag from your cigarette before smothering it into the stone, “One of the things about him that pissed me off to no end was his temper, right?”

Remembering the many conversations and rants had and heard, Belle nods, “Mhm.”

“So what if I date someone I know will piss him off?”

“If that’s what you think will help you heal, then…” She trails off, and you groan.

“Why can’t you just say it’s an amazing idea?” 

“Girl…” Sighing, she asks, “I just don’t think a third party should be involved.”

“He already got one involved, so why can’t I?” 

Making a face that screams, well you’ve got a point, Belle then adds, “I think you should find someone who pisses him off but they should be aware of your plans. Don’t lead someone on.”

A cunning smile grows on your glossy lips, “I’m not.”

“Oh, so you already have someone in mind?” She gathers with a growing smile of disbelief, “Please tell me it isn’t one of his frat brothers.”

You grimace at the thought, “Ew, no. The only one of them remotely dateable is Wonbin and that’s meeting the bare minimum standards.”

Shrugging, Belle offers, “At least they're hot?”

“Hot does not equal dateable, plus I hardly believe any of them would date their friend’s ex anyway.” Shaking your head, you push yourself out of the pool and sit on the ledge to let yourself drip dry, “What about one of the lacrosse guys?”

“You say no to a frat boy but not a lacrosse player?” 

“I know, I know, but at least I have eyes on them instead of hoping they're being loyal in another city.” You put a hand above your eyes to block out the sun, “Me knowing the coach kind of helps, no?”

“If loyalty is your goal then good luck, bitch.” Belle snorts, sipping from the pink bendy straw sticking out of her Dr Pepper bottle, “Lacrosse players are mansluts.”

“I know that, but…” You push yourself to stand, grabbing the towel Belle holds out when she hears the sound of your feet leaving the water, her eyes still closed and covered by a pair of Prada sunglasses, “I have a few options.”

“The only, as you put it, ‘remotely dateable’-“ she emphasizes those two words with quotations using her perfectly manicured fingers, “-lacrosse players are Jay and Sunoo. Jay is taken and Sunoo friendzones every apretty girl he meets.”

“I don’t know, Jungwon’s cute.” You think aloud, placing a hand on your hip, “He’s just a tight ass.”

“And therefore undateable.” She finishes for you. “What about the baseball team?”

“Eunseok plays, I’m trying to not be reminded of him.”

Belle hums in acknowledgment, “Let me look at the Lacrosse team's insta.”

You pull the claw clip out of your hair as you wait, patting your body dry until she holds out her phone for you to look at. Taking it with your dry hand, you examine the team photo.

You recognize the majority of them, rolling your eyes at a few familiar ones before your eyes land on one particular member of the team you don’t recognize. “Who’s number 10?”

Handing it back, you walk over to the oversized Hall & Oates shirt you’d stolen from your brother’s room(he left a lot of his clothes when he moved out, something about ‘finding his style). You hear the tap of her nails on the screen a few times before she answers, “Some guy named Niki? Or Riki? He doesn’t have any posts on his profile but in the photos he’s tagged in he’s called either of those names.” She gasps, a cackle escaping her lips, “Some of these are his mom tagging him in baby photos, please come look!”

Leaning over, you peek at her screen, “Oh my god, I would die.” You can’t help but giggle as she scrolls, this woman’s Instagram is a gold mine of childhood photos of this guy. “Okay, I feel weird looking at his baby photos, show me the other ones he’s tagged in.”

“On it.” Belle affirms, “Let’s go inside, too.”

“Okay, so-“ Belle stands before a whiteboard, one that your stepdad used to use before upgrading his office to have a massive one mounted on the wall, a pink dry-erase marker uncapped in her hands as she looks down at her phone for reference. After a quick text to the group chat, a brief summary of your plan was explained when everyone got to your house, and it seemed that everyone was invested. “-are we all in attendance.”

Jongseob is eating cereal in the white tufted chair in the corner of your room, Eunchae is in the bean bag, and Bahiyyih is on the floor between them, lined up like a good audience. 

“We’re making a pros and cons list for Riki Nishimura,” Belle announces, writing his name on the whiteboard as ‘Niki’ between the two names, “feel free to interject when you have a pro or con to list.”

“Con,” Jongseob raises a finger with his mouth half full, swallowing before saying, “His nickname is stupid.”

“Opinions don’t count, stupid.” Eunchae rolls her eyes, earning the finger from the boy in the chair.

“But like, why is his nickname Niki?” Hiyyih asks, and Jongseon lets out a nearly intelligible ‘thank you!’.

“I assume it’s because there's another Riki on the team,” Belle guesses, and the three nod. You sip the Baja freeze you’d had them pick you up on the way to your house and hum.

“Make an ‘unsure’ column,” you instruct, and she does so, writing ‘nickname kinda dumb’ under it.

“Pro, he’s on the Lacrosse team so he’s fit,” Belle starts, writing it on the board under its labeled column.

“Con, he’s on the lacrosse team.”

A chorus of agreement accompanies it to its column.

“Pro, from the photos he’s tagged in and the team photo, he’s at least 6’.” Eunchae adds, Belle nods and writes ‘tall’.

“How can you tell?” Jongseob asks, and she rolls her eyes like his question is the most idiotic thing she’s ever heard.

“Because I pass Heeseung in the halls from 5th to 6th period and in these photos, this guy looks a little taller than him.” She explains, and you hold a hand up when Jongseob opens his mouth to insult her.

“Con, no instagram posts.”

“Pro, I just found a pic from Jake’s insta and I can see him in the back. He’s got abs.” (Thank you, Bahiyyih.)

By the time the sun has set, the whiteboard is packed, the pros heavily outweighing the cons. You had even searched the large group chat you were added into on Snap in freshman year full of girls you barely know who dated around and kept each other informed, and found his name zero times. 

“I think he’s the one.” You sigh.

Jongseob snorts, pulling the cherry soda vape from his lips and asking, “Why do you think Eunseok will hate him?”

“He hates Lacrosse guys ‘cause he didn’t make the team, I figured it would hit a soft spot.” You smile and shrug.

“Hold on, the plot thickens,” Bahiiyih announces, eyes on her phone screen. “Do you guys remember that guy Nayeon had a crush on in freshman year?”

A chorus of confirmation causes her to grin, “I’m pretty sure it was this guy.”

You push yourself off your bed to peek over her shoulder at record speed, “No fucking way. How do you know?”

“I backread in the group chat, and she sent a picture of him, look!” She turns her phone for everyone to see, and from the slightly blurry and oddly angled photo that she obviously tried to take secretly, you can certainly see a resemblance, “Am I hallucinating, or is that him?”

“No that definitely looks like him,” Belle agrees, turning her head to face you with her jaw slack and a look, “He’s the one.”

“How are we gonna convince him to fake date you, though?” Jongseob asks, and you roll your eyes.

“Leave the planning to those qualified, Seob.”

You, all things considered, would call yourself a professional at annoying men. From years of experience before your brother moved out, you learned every which way to annoy him, and more importantly, boys in general. You are also smart enough to understand that his best friend, Jungkook, is your ticket to getting closer to the lacrosse team, aka Riki, even if you have to deal with Jake’s flirting and Heeseung’s annoyingly beautiful smile, you will get through it purely out of spite. 

When you get to school extra early the day before the semester is set to start, parking your car and turning your sights to where you knew he took the team to practice in the mornings, and where you knew he would be even if he and your parents got back from New York just last night. “A hoe never gets cold.” You mumble the chant to yourself over and over as you turn off your car’s engine and the warm air stops blowing. 

You curse rather loudly when you open your door and are met with a frigid breeze that makes your body clench to preserve its warmth. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

With your school bag on your shoulder and a thick white puffy jacket lined with fleece that keeps your torso warm, you speed walk toward the field, which the student parking lot happens to be in relative close proximity to. 

The sight of you approaching is enough to stop a good half of the players in their laps around the field, a typical start to Jungkook’s diabolical training regimen. The distraction you pose catches the man of the hour’s attention, and when he turns to face the source, he seems shockingly displeased. With a barked order to keep running thrown at the stopped players, he turns to you again and asks, “What are you doing here?”

Your lips part in dramatic offense, “You seem unhappy to see me and I don’t appreciate it.”

Rolling his eyes and pulling two hotpacks from his bag on the ground and handing them to you, he repeats, “What are you doing at school so early?”

Shrugging, you shove your hands into your jacket pockets and glance at the team, catching the eye of Sunoo and winking as he passes by. “I’m bored and single. What better way to spend my time than watching lacrosse players train in frozen hell?”

Jungkook’s face tells you he’s far less than impressed, and he seems at a loss for words. You decide to let him in on your plan, not seeing any harm in doing so.

“Okay, I’m trying to ruin Eunseok's day, every day, by reminding him I have a hotter, taller, and more athletically skilled boyfriend than he ever was or could be,” You start, “And I’m calling in a favor.”

“What favor? You don’t do shit—“

“Okay then, tell me more about him or I’ll tell my brother about what really happened to his Audi last Christmas.” The Audi in question had a large scuff on the back bumper that Jungkook had paid you three hundred dollars to take the blame for, which while your brother was upset, you knew he’d be far angrier if he knew the truth. Jungkook knew that too.

If the cold wasn’t already doing the job, you would say he lost all color in his face. A sweet smile forms on your lips, and you take the moment of his speechless horror to take another glance at the team. 

When you meet the eyes of the familiar boy in a dark red hoodie with the number 10 on it you feel your face warm up involuntarily. Instinctively, you swallow the nervous lump in your throat, something that’s never happened to you, and quickly turn back to the coach (not before catching sight of the slight tug at the corner of #10’s plump lips). “So?”

Jungkook sighs, “Which one?”

“Number 10.”

Immediately, the man shakes his head, “Nuh-uh.” At the raise of one of your eyebrows, he quickly explains, “He’s one of my best players, I don’t need him being distracted by my best friend’s kid sister.”

You roll your eyes, “If you have a better option for me, then please, do share.”

“What about Jungwon?” 

“Tight ass,” You say barely a breath later, eyes watching said player jog past, lingering on his backside as he moves away, “In more ways than one.”

“Okay, stop.” Jungkook says, disgust on his face, “What about Taehyun.”

“He’s Dr. Evil and Jungwon is his mini-me, they’re both so strict they’d never agree.”

He makes a face, point heard, before suggesting one last player in a last-ditch effort, “Jak—”

“If the name Jake Sim leaves your mouth I’m setting your Mercedes on fire.” 

His mouth shuts automatically, and he sighs. 

“So, tell me about him.”

“Why don’t you go ask?”

You give him a look that read, don’t be fucking stupid.

“Ugh, fine. What do you wanna know?” Jungkook caves, blowing the whistle around his neck, signaling the team to start the next warmup, pushups. 

“What’s his favorite color?” You ask, obviously pulling his leg considering the grin on your face.

“Nishimura!” He immediately calls, and number 10 looks up from his position on the ground. You don’t look longer than a moment, your spine straightening up automatically when his eyes meet yours once again, “What’s your favorite color?”

You don’t look, but you can bet money that he probably looks confused considering your brother’s best friend tells him to ‘just answer the damn question’, and then you hear his voice. 

“Black.”

Fuck, this is bad. The little shit in you wants to say that black isn’t technically a color, that it’s the absence of such, but the thought of looking at him and saying something like that makes your palms go clammy and your heart beat out of your chest. His voice is deep, and with the exertion in it from the warmup, you think you might just have to throw yourself into an active volcano.

“Mine is green, coach!” 

“I didn’t ask, Huening.” Your lips flatten, your hand flying to cover your mouth as you try not to giggle. Instinctively, you look at Kai, whose ears have gone red in embarrassment, and you take pity.

“I like green too, Kai.” You say loudly for him to hear, and his head perks up to look at you.

“I like blue!” Jake pipes in, all too eager to include himself.

“Nobody asked, Jake.” Jay grunts, on his hundredth push-up and losing patience.

Jungkook blows the whistle again, “Burpees.”

“You’re a monster.” You muse, watching the team lose all faith in a heavenly being as they do what he says. Every jump grants you the sight of rock-hard abs, so you're not really complaining. 

“Stop ogling the team, it’s gross.” Jungkook hisses, “What else do you want to know?”

“Girlfriend?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Type?”

He makes a face, “I don’t know. He’s a teenager, probably anything that breathes in his direction.” 

“Age?”

“Turned 18 in December, the team threw him a pizza party.”

“Beginning or end of December?” You ask quizzically.

Rolling his eyes, Jungkook huffs, “Why does it matter?”

“I need to know if I’m dealing with a Sagittarius or a Capricorn. Please, please, tell me he isn’t a Capricorn.”

“Jesus Christ…” Thinking about it, Jungkook answers, “I think it was in the first week?”

A sigh of relief leaves you, “Thank god. I cannot stand an earth sign.”

“I’m an earth sign.” 

“And it took me ages to forgive you for that.”

“Okay, go away.” Jungkook shakes his head, obviously annoyed and desperate to get rid of you.

“But I’m not—“

“Nishimura.” Dread fills you, and before you can stop him from opening his mouth again, number 10 stands up.

“Yeah, Coach?”

“Walk this one to her car.”

Confusion is etched on his pretty face, but he nods, jogging over as you curse at Jungkook quietly enough for him and the lord to hear but not the approaching lacrosse player.

When he stands just a few feet away, waiting for you to start walking with him, you turn to face him and feel a jolt in your stomach. He’s tall. 

You already knew this but seeing it with your eyes is a different experience than seeing photos of it. Get a grip, bitch.

Offering him a condescending smile, a defense mechanism to keep yourself from humiliating yourself by showing how affected you are, you shoot your brother’s friend the finger and begin to make your way off the field.

You pass Riki, not even sparing him a look as you do so, but listening to make sure he’s following. With his much longer legs, it isn’t long before he’s walking just slightly behind you, not at your side but close enough for you to sense his presence. When you make it to your car in what felt like awkward silence to you but was probably nothing to him, you heave a sigh of relief when she unlocks and you open the door. 

Not sitting yourself inside yet, despite the cold and the fact your body hurts from it, you turn to face him.

“This yours?” He asks. God, that voice again.

You hum in confirmation, “Her name is Manon.” 

“Nice name.” He compliments, and you tilt your head, looking between his eyes and glancing down to his mouth every so often. He swallows almost unnoticeably, “What’s yours?”

Resisting the urge to ask if he truly didn’t know, you conclude that would sound far too conceited, and tell him your name. 

He tries it out, and you can see the tip of his tongue flick across his teeth before he says, “I’m Riki.”

“I know.” You say shamelessly, “You can go back to practice, now.”

If you didn’t know any better, you would think the slight smirk that tugs at his lips is of annoyance, but with the way his eyes look down your face every other second, you know exactly what you’re doing. He blinks, turning his body slightly to walk away, “Yeah.”

You wait until his back is to you to slide into your driver’s seat, quickly pulling your phone out to text the group chat.

bitchqueen: guys this is bad

bitchqueen: he’s HOT

bitchqueen: i can’t do this 

Glancing back up to see if Riki left, you sigh in relief when he’s nowhere to be found. You look back down when your phone dings. bellenotdelphine: eunseok bought nayeon a van cleef bracelet

bitchqueen: okay bitches im back

myrootcame2005: ur resolve inspires generations

Going back to school wasn’t so bad, or at least it isn’t as bad you thought it would be. You were the only licensed driver in your friend group, and as such you expected to have a full car every morning, picking up Belle first as she lived down the street, and then Jongseob and Eunchae, who grew up neighbors in a neighborhood you pass on the way to school. Bahiyyih usually gets a ride with her brother, though she does complain his truck still smells like the musky car freshener he spilled back when he got it.

After parking and putting on your shoes that you’d taken off because you hate driving with them on, you had Belle hand you your backpack from at her feet and the four of you exited the car into the frigid weather. “Jesus fuck, why is it so cold?”

Belle huddled by you as you sped walked to the school doors, where you finally took notice of the stares directed your way. Ignoring the staring was the easy part, having a freshman walk up to you and ask, “Hey, is it true you destroyed your boyfriend’s car with a crowbar?” was hard to avoid.

Belle seems ready to tell them to fuck off but you smile sweetly, “It was a fire poker, actually, and destroyed is a strong word. Also, who the fuck are you?”

You got in enough trouble with your parents when they found out, these people could at least get the facts right. When the 14 year old boy opens his mouth to answer, you make a face, “I don’t actually care.”

Ignoring that encounter, you would say it was a relatively normal day. AP classes already gave you packets and mounds of homework, but with the semester classes you took last year you only had 5 periods of the day before being allowed to go home, perks of being a senior, you guess. The fact almost every class you had was an AP class was a definite downside, though.

The only AP class you didn’t have happened to be Medical Microbiology, which you had dreaded to take but it was the same teacher you had last semester for A&P who loved you enough to exempt you from the final without you having to submit the form like everyone else, and luck was on your side it seemed because while you were seething to find that Nayeon was in your 5th period class, the sight of the seating chart and the name labeled next to yours made you decide to postpone ingesting whatever deadly chemical Mrs. Wilson had in her locked cabinet.

Nishimura, Riki

The short curly-haired woman seemed overjoyed to see you, of course, and like clockwork you handed her a small pink box containing her favored cookie from the shop down the road, earning yourself a nice sidehug. 

You know a way to a teacher's heart, which had made your high school experience better than most could imagine, though Mrs. Brooks from Pre-AP English freshman year was a cunt and you gave up on making her like you within the first month. Sitting down at your seat, which happened to be somewhat close to her desk, you were looking down at the packet she’d left stacked on the table by the door for students to take from as they came in when you felt a tap on your shoulder.

Growing up with a brother gave you a good understanding of how boys worked, and when you saw no one in your periphery, you looked to the opposite side, seeing the familiar lacrosse player. You dread small talk, though when the late bell rings as he sits down, you thank the heavens you don’t have to. 

Moving your hair off your shoulder, you took a pink mechanical pencil from your matching pencil case as Mrs. Wilson started speaking.

“Hey.” He leans ever so closer, whispering to get your attention, “Can I borrow a pencil?”

The raised eyebrow you send his way makes his raise his own, and you roll your eyes, grabbing one of the orange ones you never used and handing it to him, when you notice his look between the two pencils, you say, “Can’t risk you taking one of my good ones.”

He rolls his eyes this time, but starts writing his name with it anyway. At first, he uses his right hand, but ten minutes into the lecture about the staining process, he switches hands.

It isn’t annoying until he starts intentionally brushing your elbow with his own, and you know it’s intentional because when the word you’re writing comes out jagged and you look at him, he has a smug look on his face while avoiding meeting your eyes, snickering softly when you erase the word you deemed too ugly to continue writing. You turn in your seat, facing away from him and rotating your paper with you as you cross one leg over the other, it was easier writing this way anyway.

With your new angle, you can see Nayeon glancing over every now and then in the corner of your eye. 

Now, to say your reputation wasn’t ruined but in fact reinforced by everyone finding out about what you did to Eunseok’s car, was a factual statement. You didn’t like the term ‘anger management issues’ which is what the therapist your mother made you see last year used to describe your behavior. 

In your humble opinion, Jaclyn Delvacchio deserved the bruise you left on her brow bone and is honestly lucky you didn’t get a good enough hit in before the history teacher pulled you off of her, maybe she should’ve kept her mouth shut about Eunchae’s braces.

Then, there was Kaley Graham in your freshman year, a sophomore who told you to stay away from your then-situationship, Eunseok, to which you responded to her threats by grabbing her head and slamming her face into the window of an active classroom. You thought the photos of her face smashed against it were funny, the school and your suddenly-present father did not.

So really, you’re already labeled a crazy bitch, violent, ‘untameable’(as you'd heard uttered by boys you wouldn't touch with a twenty foot pole). You might as well act like it.

When the bell rings 45 minutes later, you breathe a sigh of relief, finally time to go home.

You don’t notice he’s waiting for you until you’ve gathered your things and taken your keys out. He leans against his desk, waiting for you with observant eyes that land on the key-fob in your hand before moving up to your eyes. “Free period?”

You nod, “as are the next two.”

He whistles low as the both of you walk out, “I didn’t get any free periods, you’re lucky.”

“Lacrosse?” You ask, and he nods with a small grimace.

“And I failed Chem last year, so I’ve got to take it again.” He sighs, “I’m not great with all the math.”

“AP?” You ask innocently, and he snorts.

“God no. Regular.” He states, raising a brow as he adds, “Did you take AP?”

You hum, nodding, “Yeah.”

“So, if I come to you with a radiation equation, would you help me?” He asks in a way that almost feels teasing.

“It’s called a nuclear equation, and I suppose I could be persuaded.” You stop in front of the double doors at the front of the school, and from how others are rushing through the halls you assume the bell is going to ring soon.

“Could I try to persuade you after lacrosse practice? I’m gonna be late for Chem.” He says, though his tone is anything but worried, just like the smirk on his face.

“There’s a cafe next to the nail salon down the road, I might be there when lacrosse practice is over.” You hint, before turning to leave without another word.

After texting the group chat about the plan to meet up with Riki after his practice ends, you felt good. Flirting came easy, especially when you wanted something, which obviously was the case with him, but you weren’t oblivious to the fact he was flirting back. 

hueningbarbie: damn u act fast

bitchqueen: i'm just a girl who knows what she wants and gets it ;)

hongchae: do you think he’ll agree?

bitchqueen: if he doesnt i think jake is my only other option

bitchqueen: killing myself means i let them win

bellenotdelphine: jake is NEVER the only option

bellenotdelphine: hang in there queen

You sit in a worn out booth facing the big wall of windows lining the front of the hole-in-the-wall cafe. Part of you regrets choosing it considering Gloria, the old lady who always takes your order and brings you your food, seemed all too excited when you said you were waiting for a boy that wasn’t Eunseok. 

You try not to look up every time you see a car pull into the strip center of cafes and food joints, only glancing when you see a black Jeep pull into the parking spot next to your car, quickly acting like you weren’t looking when the familiar lacrosse player hopped out of it with wet hair and the same sweatshirt with his jersey number and name on it.

It isn’t until he slides into the booth across from yours that you look up from the menu you weren’t even reading, “How was practice?”

He sighs, leaning back into the booth and you feel his shoe brush yours, “Coach had me on offense,” he says, rubbing his side with a wince.

“Want some tiger balm?” You ask nonchalantly, reaching into your purse to pull out the small container of it you keep to help with the pain you get from looking down and taking notes, not to mention scrolling through social media, too.

He takes it with a whispered please, and you try not to watch as he moves his hand under his shirt to rub it in. Bahiyyih was right.

“Any drinks, mija?” Gloria appears beside your booth with a knowing look on her face as she looks between you two, “and you?”

“Dr Pepper, please.” You order with a smile, and she affectionately rubs your arm with a nod before looking at Riki, who repeats you.

When Gloria walks away to get the drinks, Riki seems curious, “I come here a lot.”

Nodding, he says, “I figured. What’s good, here?”

“Oh, everything is good. Do you recognize anything on the menu?” When he shakes his head, you try not to act offended, and say, “The enchiladas are really good, but if you’re picky I would get the tacos.”

“Mm, I’ll get an enchi-“ he struggles to mimic your pronunciation of the word, and you laugh quietly.

“Enchiladas?” You ask with a cheeky smile, and he scrunches his face up in shame, “It’s okay, it’s hard to say.”

“You’re good at it.” He states, not an opinion, a fact.

“I am.” You agree, and the smile on his face is enough to send your heart into your throat. Get. A. Grip. “Like I said, I come here a lot.”

“So, what do I have to do to persuade you to help me pass Chem?” He asks after Gloria sets down your drinks and takes your orders(sending you a hidden wink as she turns to walk into the kitchen), and you realize now's the time to bring up your plan.

“So, I actually have a proposition for you.” You admit, and he leans forward a little, curious to hear it. When you say it, albeit a slow and awkward version of what you intended to say as the nerves got the better of you because of that damn look in his eyes, you swear you almost see his face drop a little. 

“So you want to…fake date? To make your ex jealous.” He sounds unsure, and you quickly shake your head.

“Not jealous, I kinda just want to ruin his day...everyday.” You state, “I’m the crazy bitch, you’re the hot athlete. Match made in heaven, right?”

He seems to take the ‘hot’ comment well, crossing his arms and tilting his head, “So, what are the rules? If we’re dating, do we have to go all out or just spread the word?”

“Spreading the word only works for so long,” you say, pleased by his question, “Kissing is a bit much, especially since it’s only been a few weeks since I dumped him. If we move too fast everyone will think you’re my rebound. We should take it slow.”

“So…” he thinks for a second, “Holding hands?”

You hum in agreement, “Get me flowers, too.”

“What’s your favorite kind?” The question shouldn’t throw you off, but it hits you rather suddenly that you’d never been asked that by a guy, especially not Eunseok. 

“Lilies.” You say, “And baby’s breath.”

He nods, taking a mental note of that just as Gloria comes out with your food. The enchiladas were a win, he devoured them like he hadn’t eaten for years, though there was a pause in the process when he insisted on trying the salsa you had poured generously over your own food, which was far too spicy for him, to your delight.

You exchanged numbers outside of the restaurant after paying(he had picked up the bill before you could grab it), and as you were putting a name to his number, he leaned down and pressed a kiss to your cheek. 

Laughing at the look on your face, he subtly motions behind you, and when you glance back you find about five girls no older than 16 piled into a Corolla and staring, but snapping their eyes away and hiding when you meet their gazes.

Turning back to him, you swallow the sudden lump in your throat when you see he’s already looking at you.

“Good catch.” You cough, ignoring the smug smirk growing in his face, “I’ll text you.”

“Okay.” He says, waiting for you to move away before he does, and you find yourself sucking in a deep breath and turning to get into your car.

“So he agreed?” Belle asks from the passenger seat of your car, “I told you, teenage boys are easy.”

You pull into your parking spot in the school lot, pulling down the ugly parking pass they make you hang from the rearview mirror that you always tuck back up when you leave because it's an eyesore, “We tried to work out the technicalities last night but I fell asleep on the phone.” 

Eunchae gasps as if scandalized, “You fell asleep on the phone with him? That’s so cute.”

You groan, “I know, it’s embarrassing!” Getting out of your car, you try to withhold a groan when you immediately spot Jake practically skipping over, a cheeky grin on his face. Shit.

You don’t hide your displeasure when he calls your name, shooting a giggling Belle the finger before turning to give him attention you know you’d regret, “You and Niki?”

“Is that any of your business?” 

He starts giggling, the grin on his face widening as he starts hopping around like an excited puppy, “No way! You gotta tell me how he fi—“

“Jake!” A girl from the cheer squad calls his name from across the courtyard, and he whirls around to wave with a flirty smile.

By the time he turns back to you, you’re already walking away with the girls. “We’re talking about it in 2nd!”

“No we’re not!” You call back, waving your hand dismissively. Eunchae snorts, hooking her arm with yours as the three of you walk through the entrance. Jongseob had come in early with his other friend group for club prep, so his presence is sorely missed. 

“Do you think he’ll get you flowers?” The junior on your arm asks, and you shrug.

“I mean, maybe.” Your answer makes Belle roll her eyes.

“Manifest it, or…” She stops in front of your 1st class of the day, ready to drop you off, and a grin overtakes her face, “Bitch.”

You step closer to see when she sees, and at your assigned seat is a bouquet of the same flowers you told Riki you liked, pink and white lilies with baby's breath sprinkled in. Habitually, you bite your lip to withhold the smile, sliding your arm out from Eunchae’s and walking in.

The girl who sits next to you, Hikaru, has an almost fox-like grin on her face as she sees you finally arrive. She says a few things that you hum in response to as you pluck the tiny folded card from between the blossoms, opening it and allowing Belle and Eunchae to peek over your shoulder to read it with you. “Shut up!” Belle practically squeals.

For: Pretty

“God.” You sigh, closing the note and grabbing the bouquet from Eunchae who had picked it up to smell them, “I wonder where he got these.”

“I don’t know but they look expensive.” Belle muses with a grin and you hum in agreement with a smile.

A text tone dings from your phone, a familiar one that makes you groan. When you look at your screen your jaw clenches and shifts.

spermdonor: lunch? we need to catch up.

You suspect your mom told him about how you get off early now, cursing the woman mentally as you send back a simple thumbs up to her ex-husband. 

Between 1st and 2nd period, you had put the bouquet in your car to avoid walking around with it, and you’re so very thankful you did with the annoying grin on Jake’s face as you sat across from him in College Algebra.

“You and Niki.” He repeats with a cheeky raise of his brows, his grin unaffected by the look of utter distaste on your face at his presence.

“What about Riki and me?” You ask monotonously, clearly unimpressed with the prompt.  

“You guys datin’?” He asks cheekily, clearly already aware that you went on a ‘date’, but wanting to hear it from you.

“If I say we went on a singular date will you leave me alone?” You ask with a sigh, using your knuckle to massage your temple.

Jake shakes his head with a shit-eating grin, “Not a chance.”

You groan softly as the bell rings, and the sigh of relief is quickly smothered with your hopes of escaping this period without having to answer a question as a familiar substitute walks in, Mr. Morrell, a nice old man who usually just lets everyone do their own thing. He’s your mortal enemy now, you’ve decided.

The moment he announces those wretched words, ‘free day’, your fate is sealed.

Jake is snickering like a freak, leaning over his desk as if you aren’t just a few feet away from him, “You and Riki.” He giggles, and you look at him as if he’s possessed and it disgusts you.

“Please, leave me alone.” You say with a bit more emotion than your last few words.

Jake is too busy giggling like a little girl to listen or even hear what you said, nearly cutting you off as he asks, “Where was your first date?” 

“The Mexican place next to the nail salon down the street.” You answer monotonously, just wanting to get it over with at this point.

“Did he pay? He paid.” Jake asks then nods to himself as he says the last statement.

“Yes, he paid.” 

“Ooo, did he kiss you? Nah, Niki’s way too pussy to do that—“

You cut him off with an invisible twitch of your brow, “He gave me a solid kiss on the cheek.”

It’s as if you’ve broken the already clearly leaking dam of pure giddy delight. He’s practically squealing with a breathy and high-pitched ‘naur way~’, whipping out his phone you assume to text their group chat. He’s bouncing in his seat, and you make a face as you pull your desk an inch away from his desk to stop feeling the movements.

You open your coloring book you bring with you to classes when you have no other work, you have other work but you’d rather not do that while Jake giggles and grills you.

The rest of the period is filled with him asking questions you either answer shortly or choose to not answer at all. (“Do you think he’s the one?”)

You of course could not see was that across the campus Riki was hiding his phone in his lap wanting to sink into a hole and die as Jake spams the team group chat like a live tweet of his, though strongly condemned by him, weirdly thorough interview like your barely started kind-of-relationship is his favorite sitcom.

“Thank you, lord.” you sigh as the bell rings, freeing you of your torment as you grab your gathered and organized bag to pull over your shoulder and hasten out of the classroom before Jake can get you. (Yes, like a boogeyman.)

It seems you can’t catch a break as you find out Park Sunghoon is in your 4th period. Park Sunghoon, jersey number 23, goalkeeper of the Decelis Demons. Also, you’ve decided, another mortal enemy. 

You don’t even know how you hadn’t noticed him all semester or the semester prior, given how awkwardly talkative he is. Sitting beside you with a cute but unsettling smile, holding out his hand like he was meeting a celebrity, which you weren’t exactly complaining about but the smile was weird. He was almost just as bad as Jake, if not worse simply because he freaked you out a bit. Seriously, why is someone so beautiful so fucking weird. His moles look like constellations but something about his vibes unsettle you.

It isn’t like you don’t have weird friends, you’ve watched Jongseob stuff fifty chile-coated gushers into his mouth purely because Eunchae told him he couldn’t. Weird usually isn’t the issue, except it is in this scenario. 

Escaping him and getting to go to your teacher’s aid period was like a shining of heaven’s pure light on you. You find yourself grading papers in the back of the classroom while your freshman-year Latin teacher plays Hercules in New York on the projector, a purple glitter pen in your hand as you go through the stack of exams.

“Hey,” one of the freshmen a cluster of desks away calls to you in a semi-hushed voice, halting the movement of your glitter pen and directing your attention to them, “your boyfriend’s waiting at the door.”

‘I don’t have a boyfriend’, parts your lips before you suddenly remember that Riki exists and halt before it can leave them. Looking to the closed door of the classroom, you find the boy in question peering through the small window in the door, and raise an inquisitive brow.

He only waves at you, a clear signal he wants you to come out and talk to him, part of you wonders why he knew where you were but memories of the phone call the night you both agreed on the whole ‘fake dating’ thing, exchanging school schedules and discussing preferences, come back to you and you nod lightly.

Mrs. B looks up from her laptop as you cap the glitter pen, “Don’t be gone too long.” 

Shooting her a smile and a small ‘yes ma’am, thank you’, you get up from the desk and shoot the snickering freshmen a weak glare as you walk to the door, opening it just enough to side step out of the room and shut it behind you.

“Hey.” is the first thing he says, his voice is deep despite its softness, mindful of the other classes going on in the language hall as well as the other teens clearly trying to get a good look at him as the door closes behind you.

You say it back just as softly, “Hey.”

He smiles just a bit, a boyish quirk of his lips that has your heart picking up, get a fucking grip, bitch. “I’m sorry about Jake and Sunghoon.”

The mention of them has you pressing your lips together with a nearly-sympathetic smile, “It’s okay.”

“No, they’re…a lot.” He chuckles softly, though his words are still genuine, “I don’t want you to get scared away.”

Something in your heart flutters, “Don’t worry about it.” You say with a soft laugh that has his eyes darting to your smile. “Sunghoon was…weird, but I already knew that Jake’s a pest, so…”

He laughs at your words, head shaking slightly, “Still, I’m sorry about them.”

“It’s fine, really.” You say with a shake of your head. A student exits the Spanish class down the hall, pausing at the sight of you and Riki before walking in the direction of the bathrooms. 

Riki spares them little more than a brief glance over at the sound of the door shutting behind them before his gaze is back on you. God, why is he looking at me like that, you think just before he speaks again, “Do you bowl?”

The question catches you off guard, and you tilt your head and ask, “Like do I know how or do I do it often?”

“Both.”

“Kinda and no.” You answer, “Why?”

He brings a hand up to rub the back of his head, your eyes darting to the way the sleeves of his t-shirt stretch to accommodate the movements of his arm and a few veins are visible up his arm, “Some of the guys and I were going this weekend, I…figured I’d ask.” 

His words are finished with a bit of hesitance that you have little time to linger on as you question with a slight laugh, “Did they ask you to bring me?” 

You see a slight pink tinge to the tips of his ears as his elbow drops yet his hand lingers on his trapezius, creating yet another visual that has you wanting to repeatedly slam your forehead into the wall beside you. He shakes his head slightly, “No, I, uh, wanted to bring you.”

The words are said with a soft laugh like he’s a bit embarrassed with himself, and you find your teeth catching your bottom lip to hold in the despicable grin that you know should not be growing on your face right now. You just broke up with your long-term boyfriend, wake up.

If Riki’s eyes dart to your lips, you don’t see it as you glance to the door of your class. “Then…yeah. I’ll come.” 

Your answer has his lips forming a pretty grin that he quickly covers up with a bite of his bottom lip and a nod, taking a step back as he prepares to leave, “Cool. I can pick you up, yeah?”

Yeah, you can. You nod, “Just text me.”

“Yeah, I’ll text you.” He finishes with another nod, and you giggle softly at his repetition. His eyes soften at the sound, another thing you don’t notice as you see the student returning from the bathrooms, glancing your way every so often as they approach the closed Spanish class door. 

Riki sees them too, and as they look over again, he leans down to press his lips to your cheek in a quick but sweet kiss, “See you next period.”

He shoots you a swift wink as he backs up again, and you put it together that he kissed you because of the third party in the hall. You exhale a soft response as he turns to jog off, clearly not meant to be gone from class as long as he has been, “Yeah.”

As soon as he turns the corner and you’re alone in the hall, you close your eyes for a long blink to bring yourself back to Earth. A soft curse leaves your lips as you turn back to the door to re-enter the Latin class, heart racing and hands slightly clammy. 

Clammy. 

The fact that a boy is making you feel so damn juvenile with the way you can’t help but react to his words and face and voice and eyes—

The walk to 5th period fills you with a sense of dread before you remember who else is in that class. Mrs. Wilson greets you happily as she sets up the activity for the day on the projector, which alerts you to the fact someone is standing by your seat who doesn’t belong there.

Riki has a look of confusion on his face as he looks up at Nayeon, clearly a bit confused by whatever is leaving her lips. The teacher’s greeting alerts the both of them to your presence in the doorway, where you paused at the sight of her. The corners of Riki’s lips quirk up at the sight of you, but Nayeon looks like she’s about to puke.

You don’t even speak. Something about the sight of pure panic in her eyes gives you a boost of serotonin but the fact that she’s standing in front of your ‘boyfriend's desk, speaking to him. Oh, you’re pissed. 

Yes, you are aware he isn’t actually your boyfriend and the two of you hadn’t even discussed publicly referring to each other as such, but the principle still stands. You want to punch her face.

Unfortunately, Mrs Wilson would be quite upset if you slammed Nayeon’s head into the whiteboard, and you like your teacher too much to debate starting a fight in her class. 

Your eyes follow Nayeon’s every move as she hastily removes her hands from where they were on his desk, avoiding your burning stare as she moves to her own seat. 

Walking to your desk, you smile at Riki as if what just happened has zero effect on you despite the burning fury in your gut, and sit down beside him. “Hey.”

Your soft greeting has him saying it in kind, shifting in his seat to lean back and see you better, “You know her?”

His question has you tilting your head in a faux innocence, “Mhm. Why?”

Riki has a slight knowing look on his face as he watches your reactions, “She had a lot to say about you.”

“What did she say?” You ask as if it’s a simple question, like you aren’t dying to know and anxiety isn’t clawing at your chest making it harder and harder to make your hands not shake. 

He shrugs with a purse of his lips, a slightly cheeky smile forms on his face as he asks, “You jealous?”

A scoff leaves your lips and your eyes roll before you can even think to hold the sass back, “Jealousy implies she’s better than me in some way.” You say with a defiant cross of your arms, “and she is not.”

“Then why’d you glare so hard?” He asks, clearly amused by both your words and body language.

You think, why did I not tell him about Nayeon?

The answer? Eunseok and Nayeon’s little affair had more of an effect on you than you would like to admit. Anxiety claws at you everytime you even imagine Nayeon interacting with Riki, and the fact that you just walked in on her saying something to him that your pride won’t allow you to ask him about just makes it all so much worse for you. 

The truth is that the irrational part of your brain, the one that often wins the battles against its more logical other half, made the thought of Riki knowing you were betrayed by your best friend all the more sickening to imagine. It’s embarrassing. Humiliating. 

“I wasn’t glaring.” You argue, and Riki raises his brows as if to say ‘really?’ before he huffs softly in amusement and the bell rings.

“Yeah, you were.” He says with a lingering curiosity in his gaze before he looks to the board as Mrs Wilson starts class. Your first instinct is to argue, to be stubborn like you always are, but the lingering anxiety in your chest makes you want to never speak again just to find some kind of peace.

The entire time you take notes you aren’t truly absorbing any information, your brain is stuck on every possible thing that Nayeon could have said to him and how you’re gonna find out without directly asking either of them if possible.

You feel sick and he’s not even your real boyfriend.

Oh, fuck.

Between realizing you want Riki and remembering that you have to go to lunch with your father, you simply didn’t have enough time to achieve as much mental preparation as you’d like before lunch. The Italian restaurant you find yourself sitting inside with a menu in your manicured hands is a relatively ‘fancy’ establishment, at least if the $35 fettuccini alfredo was anything to go by.

Your dad is the one paying, so you aren’t all that mad about the prices considering the look in his eyes is enough to ruin your enjoyment of the basket of breadsticks between the two of you. If you thought it would make a dent in his bank account you’d order another plate of mozzarella sticks just to spend his money, but the satisfaction just wouldn’t be there. 

Punching his face might feel better.

“Am I gonna have to put you in anger management again?” His anger is hushed and composed, but the shift in his jaw and the patronizing look of disappointment on his face belied his composure. Always being hyper-aware of how people view him is one of the things you hate about your dad. His attitude takes a higher spot on the ‘Why You Hate Your Dad’ pyramid, though. 

“You can’t ‘put me’ anywhere.” You bite back as you dip the breadstick in your hand into the small bowl of marinara, “Eunseok deserved it.”

“You don’t get to decide what people deserve.” He argues, still so patronizing.

The feeling of being talked down to is one you're all too familiar with when it comes to your father. The man can’t accept his own faults, one of which being how shit of a father he was and is. You roll your eyes as you take a bite of your breadstick, half-drowning his words out with your own and the other half remembering every single thing coming from his lips to throw back in his face next time he cries about how you never reach out to him. 

“Eunseok is a smart and successful, young man. And you throw it all away for—“

Ah, you almost forgot how much more your father likes your ex than you. Offering him internships, a place at his firm when he graduates, none of which he’d ever even mentioned to you. You wouldn’t ever work for or with your father, but the fact he had never spoken a word about any chances to help you gain experience like he did your ex was as infuriating as it was unsurprising.

“I didn’t throw shit away.” You snap, “He cheated on me, you keep skimming over that detail, father.”

“I’m not skimming over it, it’s irrelavent.” He exhales, trying to calm his slightly raised voice, “And you know I hate it when you call me that..”

“Irrelevant? Oh, I’m sorry, should I have stayed with a boyfriend that sleeps with my best friend?” You scoff, sipping your Dr Pepper, “And if you wanted me to call you dad, you should've acted like one.”

“Hey.” He warns, yet you only roll your eyes. “Reaching out goes both ways—“

“I know you did not just say that to me.” 

“—and I am your father, so you speak to me with respect.” He finishes, voice raising slightly in frustration before he settles it back to a more composed volume.

“No.” You shake your head, “That’s not how shit works.”

“Yes,” He bites back sternly, “If you want me to keep funding your life you’ll—“

Normally, you let your father say whatever it is he wants to say, tell him you really don’t care what he thinks and then for about a month he doesn’t text you. Then it’s ‘I want to improve our relationship’ and ‘I feel like you’re drifting away’. Today was not a normal day, however.

“Then cut me off.” You say with a shrug, “You can’t hold that shit over my head like I ask for the money you send, which you only send because you know you’re a shit father and you feel guilty.”

He doesn't respond, his jaw shifting, so you continue. 

“And considering the fact that you are a cheater yourself, why the fuck would I listen to a word you say when it comes to my own love life?” You ask, not really caring that you aren’t exactly speaking quietly, “Eunseok deserved a fire poker to the face, and I used it on his car instead. Which is what Mom should have done when she found you with the nanny.”

“Quiet down, you’re making a scene.” He hisses, and you tilt your head and look around as if you give a single fuck. “I already took care of Eunseok’s car, which will be taken out of your allowance—“

Your eyes narrow at his words, “You paid to repair his car?”

Your father doesn’t skip a beat as he continues, “—Yes, I did. And you don’t get to throw the biggest mistake I’ve ever made back in my face—“

“Yes, I do.”

“—No, you don’t.” 

“Yes, I do.” You argue back stubbornly, continuing before he can speak over you again, “And you paid for Eunseok’s car, the same boy who fucked one of my best friends for months while actively dating me and you don’t see a single problem with that?”

“His parents were discussing pressing charges—“

“That’s when you tell them to go fuck themselves.” 

He sighs at your words, clearly sick of your temper (which you inherited from him), “You need to start handling your emotions better, you’re graduating this year.”

“I have literally witnessed you throw a chair in anger, get someone else to say that to me.” 

He seems ready to respond, when the waiter comes with the food, and you speak before he can, politely asking if you can get a to-go box for it instead. Your father doesn’t seem to have the guts to speak as the waiter glances between you both unsurely before nodding, “Of course.”

He takes the dish back and the moment he is out of ear-shot, your father says, “We aren’t done talking.”

“I am.” You shrug, clearly not willing or planning on sitting here any longer than you have to.

The waiter is back out with your to-go container wrapped in a bag that has mint-chocolates inside as well as a complimentary box of breadsticks that you’ll probably eat while crying your eyes out later. You ignore the stern orders from your father to sit back down, thanking the waiter with a polite smile and promptly walk out of the restaurant. 

The tears of frustration start falling the moment you’re in the safety of your car, a soft curse leaving your lips as you put the bag of food in the passenger seat and pull out of the parking lot, turning ‘this is me trying’ by Taylor Swift all the up as you drive the highway back home. You ignore the texts from your father, as well as the calls.

You’re at the red light before turning into your neighborhood when Riki’s caller ID shows up on the screen of your console, and you debate even answering, but wipe your eyes and clear your throat as you press the green answer button, “Hello?” 

Your voice is more stable than you expected it to be, and Riki responds in kind, “Hey, I just got out of practice—you okay?”

“M’fine, what’s up?” You say with an attempt at a sneaky sniffle, the thought of him knowing you’re crying is too humiliating. Part of you is disappointed he somehow could tell that something was up. The other part of you, the vulnerable and hurt teenage girl with daddy issues and a yearning to be listened to and understood, begs to just break down. 

He doesn’t seem to buy it, you hear the sound of keys jingling and then a car door opening and shutting, then he’s speaking again, “You sure?”

The light turns green, and you finally turn into your neighborhood, “I’m fine.” It’s almost a snap, one you instantly regret as you quickly say, “Sorry, just—“

“It’s okay,” He assures, and you feel even more guilty, more tears threatening to fall as your bottom lip trembles again. You’re pulling into your driveway as he continues, “Wanna talk about it over lunch?”

“I just got lunch with my dad, actually,” You say with a soft, bitter laugh, voice wavering and a soft curse leaving your lips the moment it does, “Fuck, sorry, this is just weird.”

He seems a bit panicked by the way your voice only turns more tearfilled as you apologize, “Hey, don’t worry about it, seriously—“ There’s a sound like a knock on the other end, and you hear him whisper something like ‘go away’ before he’s continuing, “—sorry I teased you earlier today, I, uh, thought I made you mad so I was calling to make up for it.”

A soft sob leaves you as you laugh with it, “I’m not mad about that, but I did wanna talk about it,” You sniffle, “About Nayeon, I mean.”

“You don’t have to, I was just messing with you.” You can imagine him shaking his head slightly as he speaks, “She didn’t really say much, just asked if we were dating.”

“What’d you say?” You find yourself asking.

He hesitates before answering, “Yeah.”

It sends a weird hot jolt to your stomach and your worried lips turn into a girlish smile that you quickly wipe off your face, “That’s okay, y’know. I’m pretty sure my friends have been telling everyone you’re my boyfriend, so the whole ‘taking it slow’ shit is out the window.”

He chuckles on the other end and it flips your stomach like a fucking pancake, “Great, I’m not that type anyway.”

(There’s a feral voice in the back of your conscience that screeches like it’s a beast gnawing at the walls of its enclosure.)

Your teeth catch your bottom lip and your eyes shut like you’re trying to come back to Earth and not hang up out of pure flustered reflex. You force out a response, “Just means we have to make it more believably genuine.”

“What’s your plan, pretty girl?” 

Oh, you want to bang your head into the steering wheel. “Do you mind coming over? I wanna discuss it in person but I just got home.”

You jaw slackens in shock at your own words, looking into the rear view and mouthing at yourself; Bitch, what the fuck��

“Yeah, sure. What’s the address?” His response is so natural and unperturbed the catastrophizing your brain has done in the last second slips away and you silently scream.

A second later you respond like normal, “I’ll text it to you.”

“Okay, I’m on my way, then.”

When the two of you hang up after a few more words, you realize what you have done and quickly turn off your car, grabbing the food and your purse and hastening into the open garage, struggling with the doorknob and pressing the garage door button before entering. 

Your room isn’t messy, per say, but your duvet is covered in cat fur, and you don’t even know if Riki’s allergic to them or not. “Gus, can you move, please?” You ask your cat as you begin to pull the duvet off your bed but he remains unmoving on the end of your bed.

He blinks at you slowly, and you sigh. 

After taking too much time carefully moving the duvet from under your cat and hurriedly tossing it into the laundry room while grabbing your spare to put on the bed instead, the doorbell rings.

With one(at least three) last look in the mirror to check your appearance, still in the outfit you changed into for lunch with your dad, you open the large iron front door.

“Hi.” You greet softly with a slight smile, and Riki has one himself that almost looks shy.

He bites his bottom lip and says back, “Hi.”

As you let him in, you look down at the door handle, waiting for him to step inside before shutting it behind him.

As his eyes move to assess his surroundings with slow steps, you catch up to him, grabbing his sleeve and pulling his hand from his pocket as you tug him along toward your room with unhurried steps. He lets you, though you hear the chuckle under his breath.

“That’s Gus. I hope you’re not allergic to cats.” is the first thing that leaves your mouth as you pull him into your cleaned room(though you’ll have to un-ass your closet later), and he gasped softly.

The voice that comes out next is higher in pitch and softer as he hesitantly approaches your loafing cat, who sniffs his fingers for a second or two before headbutting them. You witness Riki practically melt as he coos at the feline that happily receives his pets.

“Wanna guess his full name?” You jest, and he hums, looking over at you curiously but not halting his petting of Gus. “Gazpacho.”

Riki looks elated by the information, grinning so prettily you want to use the vintage lotus lamp on your nightstand to beat your head against, and he softly goes back to cooing, “Hi, Gazpacho.”

A giggle laugh leaves your lips that you quickly cover with your mouth and a quick avert of your gaze, eyes landing on the whiteboard against your wall. The fucking whiteboard.

“Oh, fuck.” leaves your lips before you can stop yourself but you’re already moving to grab the object of your doom, “Don’t look, close your eyes.”

Your demands are met with pure boyish defiance, and his eyes follow your movement to your closet door, opening it just enough to toss the whiteboard inside and quickly shutting it. “You saw nothing.”

He slowly pulls away from Gus with a growing suspicious smirk, “I’m scared to ask.”

“It’s just a whiteboard, nothing of consequence written on it, or anything.” You say with a purse of your lips.

“A whiteboard?” He questions with a tilt of his head.

You nod, moving away from your shut closet door and taking the opportunity to change the subject, “My stepdad’s a physicist.”

“Ooh, that’s cool.” He says with a thumbs up, taking the moment to move his eyes around the room as he had been distracted by the cat, “This is a nice house.”

“Thank you,” You respond softly out of instinct, “My mom’s a big lawyer too, so….”

“Ah, right, I think Jake mentioned that once.” He nods, sitting in the bean bag(you’ll have to break the news to Eunchae later).

You hum, sitting on the edge of your bed beside Gus and petting him, “What do your parents do?”

He has a slightly shy grin on his face as he says, “They own a pretty big dance studio.”

“That’s super cool.” You compliment with a tilt of your head, “Do you dance?”

If you could audibly coo at the redness blooming on the tips of his ears as he nods slightly you would, but you settle with a giggle that has him squeezing his eyes shut in embarrassment, “I do, yeah.”

“I did ballroom for like, ten years.” 

It’s as if you’ve revealed a hidden treasure, and he asks, “Do you still know how?”

You immediately hold up a defiant hand, “I am not showing you, and it’s been years.”

He whines, hands moving to clasp pleadingly, “Aww, c’mon, I’ll take you to my family’s studio and show you mine.”

This piques your interest and you ask before you can think about it, tone playfully flirty, “Taking me to meet your parent’s so soon?”

He chuckles softly, voice still so low, “Like I said, I don’t like slow.”

It takes a few more minutes of pointless chatter(and many more flirty remarks that make you want to scream into your pillow) before you get to the core of your problems today; Nayeon.

“Okay, wait, so—she and your ex…were together?” He reiterates to better understand, and you nod, and he then asks, “In your house?”

“Why do you think I took the fire-poker to his car?” You shrug, and he has a half-grin on his face.

“I thought that rumor was exaggerated.” He admits, giving you an appreciative once over like he’s impressed, “You’ve got a temper, huh?”

“I’ve never overreacted in my life.” You say with a slight raise of your hands.

He nods with a slight smirk as if he absolutely believes you, “‘Course not.”

“Anyway, she had a major crush on you in freshman year, literally fantasized about your wedding and everything,” You blissfully expose, “And I already had my eyes on you so it all worked out.”

He nods with a hum and slight smirk, “I see, so I’m sweet revenge.”

“The sweetest.” You playfully flirt, and his eyes turn into shy crescents.

“So, who were your other options?” He asks after a few seconds to let the pink on his cheeks fade, and you grin.

“Jealous?” You mimic his tone from earlier in the day and he rolls his eyes.

“Yeah, I am.” The admission falls naturally from his lips and your gut flips, “Curious, too.”

“Jungkook didn’t want me to choose you.” You respond with a tight smile.

His eyes widen, “Coach knows?”

“He’s got an idea.” You respond with a slight shrug.

“Did he suggest anyone else?”

“Jungwon,” You answer easily, snickering softly when he groans and throws his head back, “but he’s a tight-ass, he’d never agree.”

Riki snorts, and with a shrug says, “You’re pretty, I think he’d come around.” Your raised brow has him quickly changing the subject with a curious tilt of his head, “You already had your eyes on me, though?”

His question is cheeky and paired with a matching grin that makes you roll your eyes and fight nervous giggles as you say, “I never said that.”

“Really? ’Cause I heard you say it.” He seems much too determined to not let you move on from the subject but your mother loves to compare you to a mule in regards to obstinance.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” You shrug innocently.

He leans forward slightly in the beanbag, his elbows resting on his knees, and that grin of his only widens. “You’re a terrible liar.”

“And you’re annoyingly persistent,” you counter, but there’s no real bite behind your words. You stand up, moving toward your desk under the guise of rearranging things that don’t need rearranging, mostly to avoid his knowing gaze.

Riki tilts his head, watching you with amusement. “You know, if you’re trying to throw me off, it’s not working.”

You glance over your shoulder, trying not to crack under the weight of his attention. “Throw you off from what? I’m just tidying.”

“Right. And I’m just here for the cat.”

“Good. Gus loves the attention,” you quip, folding your arms over your chest as you turn back to him.

“But I’m not done yet,” he says with mock seriousness, shifting in the beanbag like he’s settling in for the long haul. “What’s so bad about admitting you’ve been into me? I mean, look at me.” He gestures to himself in a way that’s more playful than cocky, but you still roll your eyes so hard it’s a miracle they don’t get stuck.

“Wow, humble too,” you shoot back, but the warmth in your cheeks betrays you.

“Hey, just stating facts. Can’t help it if you have great taste.” He pauses, letting the silence stretch just enough to make you squirm. “Besides,” he adds, his voice dipping lower, “you’re kind of making it obvious now.”

Your hands find your hips in defiance. “How, exactly?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” he muses, standing up slowly, his movements deliberate as he closes the distance between you. “The way you got all flustered when I asked if you still know how to dance. Or how you won’t look me in the eye right now.”

You refuse to back down, lifting your chin as you meet his gaze. “I’m not flustered. And I’m looking at you right now, aren’t I?”

He smirks, leaning just a little closer, his tone teasing. “Sure you are. But you’re still not answering my question.”

You blink innocently up at him through your lashes and you swear you see his eyes dart below your nose. “What question?”

Riki lets out a soft laugh, a mix of exasperation and amusement, as he shakes his head. “You’re impossible, you know that?”

“I’ve been told.” You shrug, trying to look nonchalant, but the proximity is starting to get to you.

He watches you for a moment, his smirk turning into something softer, though no less mischievous. “Alright, fine. I’ll let it go. For now.”

“Oh, how gracious of you.” Your sarcasm earns you a grin as he steps back and flops dramatically into the beanbag again, sprawling like he owns the place.

“Gotta keep you on your toes, don’t I?”

“More like get on my nerves,” you mutter, though the twitch of your lips gives you away.

“Same thing.” He winks, and you hate how charming he looks doing it.

The smirk he gives you as he leans back has your stomach doing somersaults, but you refuse to let him see you sweat. Instead, you turn your attention to Gus, pretending to be more interested in your cat than in the boy currently making himself at home in your life—and your head.

As Riki lounges back in the beanbag, his eyes drift lazily around the room again, lingering on the neatly arranged desk and the wall beyond. “You’ve got a pretty organized vibe for someone who just tossed a whiteboard into a closet like it was a bomb.”

You freeze mid-pet, your hand hovering above Gus’s head. “You’re still on about that?”

“I mean, it’s a whiteboard. What kind of secrets could it possibly hold?” His tone is teasing, but the glint in his eyes says he’s not letting it drop.

You debate lying, but the little smirk playing on his lips tells you he won’t believe you anyway. “Nothing important. Just… research.”

“Research.” He repeats with an arched brow, “Like, ‘solving world hunger’ research or me research?“

You groan, dragging your hands down your face. “I hate you.”

“Now I really have to see it.” He starts to rise, and you spring to your feet, blocking his path to the closet.

“Riki, no.”

“Riki, yes.” He steps closer, towering over you slightly, his grin widening as you try to stand your ground.

“Don’t make me sic Gus on you,” you warn, pointing toward the loafing cat.

“Gus and I are best friends now. He’d never betray me.” Riki gestures toward the cat, who yawns dramatically like he’s staying out of it.

“Traitor,” you mutter at Gus, which earns you a laugh from Riki.

“C’mon,” he cajoles, his voice dropping into that infuriatingly soft tone that makes your heart do weird flips. “What’s the worst that could happen if I see it?”

Your resolve wavers, but the idea of him actually reading the whiteboard is too mortifying, “I’ll have to kill you.”

His grin only widens at your threat, his dark eyes glinting with amusement. “Wow, straight to murder, huh? Didn’t realize you were so passionate about…whatever’s on that board.”

“You have no idea,” you mutter, crossing your arms in an attempt to look intimidating. It doesn’t work. Riki’s grin turns smug, like he knows he has the upper hand.

“Now I really need to know.” He leans closer, and the proximity sends your heart into overdrive. You can practically feel the heat radiating from him as he tilts his head, his voice dipping into a teasing drawl. “What if it’s, like, a shrine to me or something?”

The gasp you let out is equal parts offense and panic. “You think way too highly of yourself.”

“I don’t know,” he teases, tapping his chin as though deep in thought. “I’ve heard people do wild things when they’ve got a crush.”

“Bold of you to assume—”

“You’re avoiding the question again.” He cuts you off, smirking as he steps back just enough to lean casually against the end of your bedframe, his arms crossed. “What’s on the whiteboard, really?”

You hesitate, the words sticking in your throat. There’s no way you’re admitting to the utterly ridiculous pros and cons list your friends talked you into. Not yet, anyway.

“It’s… study stuff,” you finally say, your tone lacking conviction. “School projects, maybe some physics equations. Boring things you wouldn’t care about.”

“Physics equations?” he repeats, clearly unconvinced. “Yeah, because I look like the kind of guy who’d buy that excuse.”

“Hey, I’m trying here,” you snap, which only makes him chuckle again.

“I can tell. You’re terrible at it.” His grin softens slightly, the teasing replaced with something that feels a little too close to genuine. “Relax, I’m just messing with you. You don’t have to tell me.”

You blink at him, surprised by his sudden shift in tone but immediately suspicious of it. “Really?”

“Sure.” He shrugs, though there’s still a playful glint in his eyes. “But now I have leverage. You’ll owe me later.”

“Owe you for what?” you demand, but the smug look on his face says you won’t get an answer you like.

“For letting you off the hook, obviously.” He straightens and gives you a wink before heading back to the beanbag like he didn’t just upend your entire equilibrium. “Don’t worry—I’ll think of something good.”

You stare at him, your jaw slightly agape, as he makes himself comfortable again. Gus hops onto his lap, clearly picking sides, and Riki’s attention shifts back to your cat like nothing happened.

“You’re infuriating,” you mutter, though you can’t quite keep the fondness out of your voice.

He glances up, his smirk softening into a smile that’s entirely too charming. “And you love it.”

You hate that you do.

The week passes by with a dreadful speed, and after four whole days of anxiety-induced stomach aches, migraines, and a few breakdowns in the dark privacy of your room at midnight, it is the weekend. 

It is the weekend, and Belle, Hiyyih, and Eunchae bear witness to a minor crash-out.

“I’m gonna puke.” You mumble, sitting on the ottoman at the center of your walk-in closet with your face in your hands as the older two walk around you, going through your options for an outfit.

“Keep that shit in bitch,” Belle says without looking away from the clothes hanging in your closet, pointing a finger blindly at you in warning, “You puke, I puke.”

Eunchae moves towards your hunched form from her spot on your bean bag(which she moved into your closet to sit on), snickering softly as she sits beside you and brings her hand to rub circles on your back. “There, there.”

A part of you wants to snap at her that she isn’t funny, but the act is weirdly comforting so you let her continue. Bahiyyih speaks from where she is in front of your shoe shelf, “Why do you have so many shoes?”

“My mom gets sent them monthly by some guy she was a lawyer for a while ago,” You exhale as you drop your hands into your lap, eyes still closed as you contemplate opening them ever again, “She hates wearing pumps now so she gives them to me or regifts them.”

“What if you wear these?” Hiyyih holds up a pair of Louboutins, and you open your eyes to see before looking at her like she’s crazy.

“Not only is it bowling and I’m gonna have to change shoes anyway, but I’m not wearing a So Kate for something that isn’t even a date, Hiyyih.”

She pouts her bottom lip as she puts them down, and Belle pulls a top from the collection of them hanging in your closet and holds it up in question towards you. After a few seconds of staring at the article of clothing, debating if you remember looking cute in it or not, you nod and she tosses it into the ‘maybe’ pile. 

Two seconds later, you’re hunching over and blindly grabbing a pillow near you to scream into.

Eunchae pats your back again, her snickering turning into full-blown laughter. “Feel better now, drama queen?”

You lift your head just enough to glare at her over the pillow. “No.”

“Good,” Belle says, tossing another shirt into the ‘definitely not’ pile without even showing it to you. “Because if you puke or scream again, I’m calling your mom and telling her you’re being insufferable. She might take those Louboutins back.”

“That’s not funny,” you mumble into the pillow.

“It’s a little funny,” Hiyyih chimes in, holding up a sequined crop top like it’s the Holy Grail. “Okay, but seriously, what about this? It says ‘I’m fun,’ but not, like, too fun.”

Eunchae tilts her head at it. “It also says ‘I moonlight as a disco ball.’”

You groan, sitting up straight and snatching the crop top out of Hiyyih’s hands. “Why is this so hard? It’s bowling! I should just wear sweatpants and call it a day.”

Belle spins around with the precision of a K-drama villain. “Don’t you dare. Do you want to show up looking like his cousin who just rolled out of bed, or like the mysterious, unattainable enigma that you are?”

“Unattainable?” you ask with a hesitant furrow of you brows.

“Yeah, unattainable, as in: unattainable by anyone else but him,” Belle clarifies, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “You’re playing the long game, babe.”

“You say that like this is some kind of psychological warfare,” you deadpan.

Belle shrugs. “It kind of is.”

Eunchae raises a hand like she’s in class. “But what if he’s bad at bowling? Like, gutter ball after gutter ball bad? Do you let him win or destroy him?”

You pause, genuinely considering it. “Destroy him, obviously.”

“Bold choice.” Hiyyih nods approvingly, tossing a pleated skirt into the maybe pile. “What if you’re bad, though?”

You gasp. “That’s not even an option.”

Belle smirks. “So confident for someone who hasn’t touched a bowling ball since middle school.”

“You’re supposed to be helping me, not roasting me!” You grab the nearest pillow and launch it at her. She dodges with ease, laughing as it smacks into the closet door behind her.

“Roasting you is my way of helping you,” Belle retorts, unfazed. “It’s called multitasking.”

Eunchae picks up the discarded pillow and hands it back to you, patting your head like you’re a distressed pet. “There, there. At least you’ll look cute while you embarrass yourself.”

“Why are all of you like this?” You drop your head back into your hands, half tempted to cancel the whole thing.

“Because we love you,” Belle sing-songs, pulling out a denim jacket that you forgot you even owned. “Now shut up and try this on. We’re on a schedule, ho.”

You sigh, begrudgingly taking the jacket as the three of them continue their chaotic brainstorming session around you. It’s not helpful in the slightest, but somehow, it makes you feel a little less like throwing up again.

By some miracle—or maybe just the collective force of Belle’s bullying, Eunchae’s comfort, and Hiyyih’s endless suggestions—you finally land on an outfit. The moment you pull the halter top over your head, the three of them fall silent, which is either a very good sign or a very bad one.

“Okay, that’s cute,” Belle finally declares, hands on her hips like she personally designed the top. “It’s giving effortless, but still hot enough to make him sweat.”

“It’s super cute on you,” Hiyyih chimes in, tilting her head as she appraises the outfit.

“It is,” Eunchae adds, grinning as she slides off the bean bag to circle you.

The cropped halter top clings just right, the rich color complementing your skin tone and making you feel…hot. Paired with the baggy jeans that sit low on your hips, the whole look is casual, but not too casual. You glance at the mirror, adjusting the jeans slightly and eyeing the way they pool at the hems over your socked feet.

“Am I pulling this off?” you ask hesitantly, smoothing the fabric of the top.

Belle snorts. “If he’s not staring, I’ll be personally offended on your behalf.”

Eunchae pretends to swoon dramatically, throwing herself back onto the bean bag. “The mysterious unattainable enigma strikes again.”

“Okay, but shoes,” Hiyyih cuts in, crouching by the pile of options at your feet. “You’re wearing sneakers, obviously, but which ones? The Nikes or the New Balances?”

You glance down, debating for a moment before pointing to the Nikes. “They’re cleaner.”

Belle raises an eyebrow. “Barely. When was the last time you cleaned your shoes?”

You glare at her, picking up a sneaker and threatening to launch it her way. She holds up her hands in mock surrender, moving to pull a jacket from the rack as she says, “Make sure you bring a jacket, though. It’s cold as shit.”

“Or she can not bring one and Riki can lend her his.” Eunchae suggests with a cheeky grin.

Belle promptly tosses the jacket into the back of your closet.

You roll your eyes but can’t help the small smile tugging at your lips. The nerves are still there, bubbling under the surface, but with your friends around—and an outfit that actually makes you feel cute—you start to think that maybe, just maybe, tonight won’t be a complete disaster.

riki 🙈: im here

“We’re seeing you off,” Belle declares, handing you the Prada bag she just stuffed your lip combo into. Hiyyih trails behind her, spritzing your neck and wrists with your favorite perfume.

The dread must be plastered all over your face because Eunchae immediately starts snickering from where she’s leaning against the doorframe. “We just wanna see his reaction.”

“To me or to you guys making kissy faces at him from the porch?” you deadpan.

The chorus of giggles that erupts from your three friends is all the answer you need.

“Oh, come on,” Belle says, looping her arm through yours as she drags you toward the front door. “We’ll behave.”

“You behaving is a scientific impossibility,” you mutter, trying to resist, but she’s got the strength of someone fully committed to the bit.

“Hold on,” Eunchae pulls something out of her hoodie pocket she must’ve forgotten was there until just now, uncapping the small bottle and holding it in front of your lips, “Open.”

You obey with a slight furrow of your brows, and she sprays it into your mouth, giggling when you flinch slightly in surprise and grimace at the strong mint taste. Eunchae grins, unzipping the bag on your shoulder just enough to slip it in before closing it, “To prevent food breath.”

The moment Belle opens the front door, your breath catches at the sight of Riki leaning casually against the passenger side of his Wrangler, hands tucked into his pockets. The golden light of the setting sun highlights the faint smirk on his face, his jewelry glinting as he shifts.

"Lord have mercy," you mutter under your breath.

You didn't expect him to show up in sweatpants and a hoodie, but you weren't prepared for this either. The necklaces layering his collarbones and the glint of piercings--does he have an eyebrow piercing?—are almost too much. You quickly shove down the spiral threatening to start and glance back at the three traitorous girls behind you.

Their kissy faces drop immediately, though Eunchae barely suppresses her laughter. 

With a playful shove to Hiyyih—who stumbles into the porch pillar but resumes her antics without missing a beat—you flip them all a perfectly manicured middle finger and step off the porch.

As you walk toward him, you swear the faintest blush tinges his ears. He waves briefly at your friends before straightening and meeting your gaze.

"You look good," he says, voice low and easy.

"I know." Your response is swift and confident, though the smile on your face is warmer than intended.

The moment is interrupted when the backseat window of his car rolls down, and Jake's grinning face is revealed. Your smile drops.

"Why is Jake in your car?" you deadpan, your smile dropping.

Riki groans, dragging a hand over his face. "Dude, I told you not to be weird."

Jake looks offended. "I didn't even say anything!"

"Seeing your face is enough," you reply flatly. Jake pouts dramatically while you shoot Riki an accusatory glare. "You could've warned me."

"If I did, you would've come out frowning," Riki whines playfully. "You have such a pretty smile."

From the backseat, Jake's obnoxious "ooooh" echoes, accompanied by giggles that make Riki's blush spread down his neck. Still, he keeps his composure enough to open the passenger door for you.

"What a gentleman~," Belle teases loudly from the porch.

Eunchae waves at you, practically bouncing with glee. You shoot Belle a glare, mouthing "kill yourself" as you accept Riki's hand and climb into his lifted car.

"Bye, Manchae," you call, snapping your attention away from him as he closes the door. You're too aware of his cologne and the lingering warmth of his hand. He looks way too good.

Riki salutes your friends playfully before circling to his door. Through Jake's open window, you hear Hiyyih shout, "She likes Dr Pepper!”

"And winning!" Eunchae adds.

"And tongue," Belle finishes just before the window rolls up.

You cringe. Riki's amused laugh is confirmation he definitely heard that. "I hate her so much," you mutter, pulling the sun visor down to touch up your lip gloss to dostract yourself.

You're halfway through the motion when you notice Riki hasn't started driving yet. Turning, you catch him just as he’s looking back at the road, his hand on the gear shift. (There’s something attractive about the fact he drives stick.)

Jake's giggle breaks the silence. "Oh, shut up, Jake," you snap, not necessarily to defend Riki—though it only makes Jake laugh harder. “Why couldn't your other friends bring him?" you grumble, swiping the gloss over your bottom lip.

"He's my neighbor," Jake says cheekily.

"I would've made him walk," you reply, clicking the gloss shut and shoving it back into your bag. "Or Uber."

"That's just cruel," Jake protests, but you shrug.

"Sucks."

Riki snickers and nods. "Okay, he'll Uber next time."

Jake looks appalled. "Bro."

"You're annoying me too," Riki replies, barely glancing back as he rests his hand lazily on the gear shift.

You pointedly ignore the way his rolled-up sleeves expose a line of muscle up his forearm, a vein standing out as he moves to grab his phone charger. "Play your music," he says, holding the cord out to you.

Jake gapes. "Bro, you never let us play our music."

"That's because you guys have shit taste," Riki says without hesitation.

Your lips twitch, a sliver of pride blooming in your chest.

You connect your phone, Sabrina Carpenter's Taste filtering through the speakers. Jake perks up. "Oh, I actually like this song."

"You better," you reply, humming along as the music plays.

Riki bobs his head lightly to the beat, his usual laid-back energy soothing you as the drive continues.

"Who else is bowling with us?" you ask, turning the music down slightly.

"Jay, his girlfriend, and Heeseung," Riki answers casually.

You hum in understanding and turn the volume back up, inhaling the soft musk of his cologne mingling with your perfume. The scent is annoyingly pleasant, calming in its own way.

By the time he pulls into the parking lot and finds a good spot, the sky has dimmed to a deep navy. Riki is out of his seat in a flash, jogging around to open your door before Jake even unbuckles himself. His hand lingers on yours as he helps you down, his fingers interlocking with yours naturally.

Jake trails behind you two as Riki leads you toward the neon-lit entrance, the muffled sounds of bowling balls and laughter drifting through the glass doors. 

Jay, a pretty girl you are pretty sure was in your art class in freshman year, and Heeseung are standing near the entrance, and you wish you could hide behind Riki from their gazes that immediately find your intertwined hands.

You send a smile to the only other girl reflexively, and she sends the prettiest one back. She grins excitedly as the three of them meet your trio halfway once you enter the door that Riki holds open for you to enter first. 

(You wonder if these are manners his sisters and mother taught him or a previous girlfriend—wait, no you don’t.)

“I told you it was her!” She smacks Jay’s arm, and he winces with a soft laugh, clearly used to his girlfriend’s antics. Her approach is welcomed as she explains, “He was saying Riki was lying.” 

“About?” You question curiously, an easy smile on your glossy lips.

She giggles as she answers, “You being his girlfriend.”

“Okay, that’s enough.” Riki says lowly, clearly embarrassed by the subject as you snicker at his misfortune.

“I’m Gaeul, by the way.” The girl states with a giggle as she pulls you from Riki with her elbow hooked with yours, and you barely glance back at your ‘boyfriend’, who’s being patted on the shoulder by Jay. “They’ll handle paying for everything, let’s get some snacks.”

“Oh, okay.” You say softly before smiling with her, delighted that she brought up food before you had to ask Riki about it. You aren’t ashamed of eating, or shy about doing so in front of him, but having another girl who also seems to prioritize food was immensely comforting to the anxiety in your gut. 

She grins as the two of you step into line at the concession counter, “I’m also glad I got you away from the boys for a second, they’re so…”

“Boyish?” You finish, and she laughs softly.

“Yeah.”

“Girl to girl,” You start, moving up in line with her, “I don’t think I’m gonna be good at bowling.” 

She gasps joyfully, “I suck!”

You laugh at her clear excitement that she’s finally not alone in that aspect, “But that means the boys are better than us.”

She rolls her eyes at the mention of them, “Riki and Heeseung are the really good bowlers,” There’s one more person between you two and the counter now, “I love my boyfriend, but he and Jake suck compared to those two.”

“I don’t want to lose to Jake.” You sigh, “It just doesn't seem ethical.”

“Riki’ll handle him.” She snickers softly, “You should've seen him at practice when Jake and Hoon messed with you.”

Your interest is piqued, but the person in front of you finishes paying for their food and you are forced to put your questions aside as she begins ordering and you realize you don’t even know what you want. 

You’re skimming over the menu above when your phone dings in your purse.

riki 🙈: what size shoe do u wear?

Quickly typing an answer, you glance between your phone and the menu, and Gaeul turns to you, waiting for you to add to the already sizable order with how much the four athletes can eat. “Oh, I can pay for myself—“

“Riki already venmoed me enough to spot you,” She interjects with a soft giggle, and you feel your cheeks burn.

“Oh,” You let out before shaking your head and looking at the waiting cashier, “A large drink and a basket of cheese fries, please.”

Gaeul hands you the stack of cups she’s handed, and you startle slightly when a hand and arm appear in your vision, plucking the cups from your hand. When you look over your shoulder you find a smirking Riki, “I got this. Go sit.” 

You huff softly, fighting your smile that threatens to grow even wider, “I can fill up my own drink.”

“I know, but I wanna do it.” He states with a nod like it’s the most natural thing in the world, and you can’t do much more than glare weakly. He only chuckles softly as Gaeul finishes paying and realizes he’s with you, “Go. Dr Pepper, right?.”

You look away from his cheeky smirk with a shift of your jaw, and you lose the fight against the grin now on your face, “I hate you.”

He only huffs softly in amusement as you walk away with your arms crossed, making your way to where you spot Heeseung’s orange hair. There’s a pair of green bowling shoes beside another bigger pair that are red placed on the bench seating, and Jake has a grin on his face the moment you sit down to put them on.

“I am not above hitting you in the head with a bowling ball, Jake.” You say as you pull the white sneakers off your feet to put on the bowling shoes, not even soaring the Australian boy a glance as his mouth shuts, clearly rethinking speaking.

Heeseung snorts, “Shit, you are violent.”

You look up from your bowling shoes at the Lacrosse captain, who’s grin drops and he quickly looks away, acting like he wasn’t just laughing. Jay shakes his head with a laugh, “Thank you, for shutting them up.”

You give him a smile with a scrunch of your nose, “My pleasure.”

The moment Riki and Gaeul return, you’ve barely gotten your shoes tied. You’re still shooting looks at Jake, who’s pretending to look anywhere but at you while Jay wheezes softly into his hand. Riki raises a brow, setting a tray of drinks and snacks on the table. “What happened now?”

“She threatened Jake’s life with a bowling ball,” Heeseung informs him with amusement still clear on his face.

Riki pauses mid-sip of his drink, glancing at you with a mixture of amusement and disbelief. “Already? We haven’t even started the game yet.”

You shrug innocently, tugging the laces on your bowling shoes tighter. “He looked like he deserved it.”

“I didn’t even say anything!” Jake argues with a whine, and you roll your eyes.

“You had that stupid look on your face.”

“Not defending him, but that’s just what Jake looks like.” Jay interjects with a finger raised to make a point, and Gaeul smacks his hand lightly with a disapproving shake of her head despite her snickering.

Riki sits beside you, handing you a large cup full of what you assume is Dr Pepper that you immediately taste to prove your theory, humming happily and smiling as you thank him. His smile mirrors yours as he begins to put on his own bowling shoes, and you grab your purse, which you had initially placed to your left, from between the two of you to place it elsewhere.

“Here,” He says softly, grabbing your purse from you to put on his other side with his jacket, which he had shed at some point between entering the building and sitting down, and you mutter a soft ‘oh, thank you’ that has his soft smirk widening just a bit before he focuses back on tying his shoes.

You’re somewhat thankful that they seemed to have agreed on teams instead of each of you having your own scoreboard, though seeing every ‘x’ between your ‘5’ points was embarrassing enough. 

Gaeul seems wholly entertained by the gutter ball she just achieved as you cheer for her from your seat between Riki and Heeseung, too distracted by the fun of the game to see the goosebumps on your arms. You’re leaning forward to pluck a fry from the basket of them on the table when you feel a warm something draped over your shoulders. 

Riki is standing for his turn before you can even react, but across the table Gaeul turns to hide her face in Jay’s shoulder to poorly muffle the high pitched squeal she lets out. You ignore the heat rising up your neck, catching the fry between your teeth to slip your arms into the jacket sleeves.

Jay and Gaeul seem to be the only team playing purely for fun, because Jake and Heeseung are neck and neck with you and Riki on the scoreboard and your ‘boyfriend’ looks less than pleased about it. 

It’s near the last round when Jake scores a miraculous nine points that you mentally prepare to accept defeat, looking up at Riki who had just gotten back with your refilled cup, “Horrible news.”

He raises his brows, looking at the scoreboard and cursing under his breath. It’s your final turn, and while you hadn’t completely embarrassed yourself with your subpar bowling skills you probably weren’t good enough or lucky enough to score anything higher than six points. At the moment, HeeJake is in first place.

Gaeul is cheering you on with her back against Jay’s chest, and Riki leans down, resting a hand on the edge of the table beside you, his face just close enough to make your heart race. “No pressure,” he says softly, smirking. “But if you lose, we’re never hearing the end of it.”

You roll your eyes, trying to act unimpressed. “Great pep talk. Truly inspiring.”

He snickers softly, straightening back up as you stand with dread clear on your pretty face. Heeseung pipes up, “Give her a good luck kiss, Romeo.” The glare you shoot the Lacrosse captain only makes him snicker with his hands held up in mock-surrender, “Was just a suggestion.”

The feigned smile you give him has your fake boyfriend plucking your drink from your hands (how did he knew you had an urge to throw it at Heeseung’s face, you’ll never know), and his hands move to your shoulders to walk with you to edge of the lane to grab a pink 7lb bowling ball.

Riki’s grip on your shoulders lingers, and he leans down slightly to murmur near your ear, “Just—aim in the middle.”

You glance at him over your shoulder with a withering look, choosing to ignore his proximity, “Like that isn’t what I’ve been doing.”

“Could've fooled me—ow! Okay, okay,” He’s still laughing despite rubbing his chest where your punch landed, much too cheeky for your liking but his smile is too…something for you to want to wipe it off his face, “You’re better than Jake.”

You shoot him a skeptical look, but it’s hard to ignore the encouragement in his eyes. Taking a deep breath, you grip the heavy pink ball tightly, positioning it at your waist. Riki steps back, hands on his hips, his smirk still in place.

“Alright, show us what you’ve got, baby.”

“Oh, shut up.” You grumble softly, shooing him away to get his heart-fluttering grin out of your face, and as you pull his oversized sleeves up your arm to keep it from getting in the way you give yourself a mental pep talk.

Don’t lose, bitch.

It doesn’t help that your nails make putting your fingers in the three designated holes a struggle, and the moment the ball is released into the lane, veering left toward the gutter before God herself takes control and it curves back toward the center and slams into the center pin, you cover your face.

Strike!

Gaeul practically shrieks in excitement as the pins scatter, “Yes, girl!”

You blink, lashes fluttering as you process the cheering as well as groans from Jake, and you gasp, “Holy shit!”

Riki’s joyous laughter is infectious and warm, and you let out a soft shriek that fades into giggles as his arms wrap around your waist and he lifts you off your feet in a hug, “Hell yeah, baby!” 

The moment your feet are back on the ground, Gaeul is before you with her hands up for high fives, practically bouncing in excitement for you. It’s practically second nature to you as you match her energy, too high on your miraculous win to notice Riki’s hands lingering on your waist.

Another thing you fail to notice in your moment of joy is a familiar couple just a few lanes over, one party too distracted by the ruckus to pay any attention to the game her boyfriend and his friends dragged her to join.

She watches you smile and laugh as Riki helps you out of your bowling shoes, and her eyes follow you as you walk toward the restrooms with the light blue Prada bag she had always wished you would give her. It isn‘t fair.

You sigh softly as you place your bag on the sink in front of you, unzipping it to grab your lip combo to touch up in the mirror before going back out. As you uncap your lipliner with a muffled click, you hear the bathroom door open but don’t think much of it at the moment.

It isn’t until you look into the mirror, leaning forward slightly to see your lips better, that you see who it is.

“Can I help you?” You ask her reflection with a tilt of your head, tone less confrontational than it should be, but you’re trying to keep your good mood and Nayeon’s face is threatening to ruin it.

She scoffs softly, yet keeps a safe distance, “Do you even like him?”

You look away from the mirror to really look at her, ignoring the satisfaction that her slight flinch brings you, “Excuse me?”

“You moved on fast.” Nayeon states, and you scoff with a smile of both fury and amusement at her audacity, “Is it even real, or did you use daddy’s money to get him to date you?”

The tilt of your head should have been a sign for her to shut her mouth, but she continues when you don’t respond like usual, “But I guess moving from one guy to another is just like you.”

She’s just trying to rile you up, it’s obvious. 

You shake your head with a soft and bitter laugh, looking back at the mirror to continue what you had intended to do, the lip pencil gliding over the edges of your lips and the pad of your ring finger blending the harsh edges. 

Her jaw shifts in the reflection as you cap your lip-liner and exchange it for your lip gloss, and you send her a condescending smile, “You done?”

“You bitch—“ Her words are cut off by another person entering the bathroom, and as you swipe the gloss over your lips, you pause when you see it’s Gaeul.

She glances at Nayeon, but her main focus is on you as she says, “Ready to go?”

You hide your confusion at her question with a pretty smile, closing your gloss and stuffing it back into your bag before you walk to her, shoulder checking the audacious bitch on your way out, “Yep.” 

Gaeul’s arm hooks at your elbow as you both exit the bathroom, and you sigh in relief at being out of that situation before you remember your prior confusion and she explains without you needing to ask, “Your ex is at our table antagonizing Riki, I figured if he’s here she would be too.” 

Your brows furrow and you quickly pick up the pace of your stride with fury souring your mood once again. When you turn the corner, your gaze zeroes in on Riki, who’s leaning back in his seat seemingly unbothered by whatever it is that Eunseok is saying to him, and Nayeon hastens past you to join her boyfriend’s side.

Eunseok’s eyes land on you the moment his girlfriend puts herself on his arm, and they follow you as you approach Riki without even a glance his way until he speaks, “You move on fast.” He snorts, soft and bitter, “Didn’t expect you to open your legs so fast considering how long it took you to put out.”

You ignore him, though the anger in your gut is boiling hot as your gaze moves to Riki, who you find is already standing now, his jaw shifting yet no other sign in his body language that he’s as pissed as his narrowed eyes say he is. Jay, Heeseung, and Jake all watch, though from their body language you can tell they’re not exactly about to stand by if your ‘boyfriend’ decides to throw a well-deserved punch.

His gaze moves to yours the moment your hand finds his, softening as your fingers intertwine with his and you mutter, “Let’s go.”

He nods wordlessly, his willingness only pissing Eunseok off more as he laughs mockingly, and you feel Riki’s hand tighten around yours, “Already got him trained, huh? He like how mean you are?” 

“I do, yeah.” Riki responds for you with a smug smirk, “She’s got a hell of a bite.”

The second meaning to his words isn’t lost on you, and you find the way Eunseok bristles at the comment amusing enough to not get mad at Riki for it later considering the two of you obviously hadn't done more than hold hands. (You hear Jake choke on his drink, too.)

“Bro, it’s your turn!” Calls a familiar male across the bowling alley, Sohee. 

You take the moment of brief distraction to shoot a pointed look at Jake, who gets up from his seat to play peacemaker with Heeseung.

Jay seems to motion for Riki to leave while they’re distracted by the two, and you shoot Gaeul an apologetic glance that she receives with a shake of her head and a look that reads ‘don’t be sorry’ as Riki leads you out of the building.

The moment the frigid air hits you, you tug the sleeves of his jacket down your arms again and shiver slightly. “He’s such a dick.” You sigh softly, “I’m sorry.”

Riki shakes his head as the two of you stop just a few paces outside the entrance, “Don’t apologize.” His hands move to rub at your arms to help you warm up, and the sight of both of your breaths visible in the cold has you moving to take his jacket off to give to him, but his hands cover yours the moment they start pulling at the open zipper. “I’m okay.”

“Riki, it’s cold as shit.”

“All the more reason for you to keep the jacket.” He argues back with a soft smirk, “Really, I practice in the cold every day.” 

“You’re active, then. Not standing around,” You fuss, and he tilts his head slightly in acknowledgement before a cheeky smirk grows on his face.

“‘You worried about me, pretty girl?”

“Oh, stop it.” You groan with a poorly concealed warm laugh, and he catches your hands as you weakly swat at his chest, pulling you closer. “Riki.”

Your soft mutter of his name has his eyes shutting and his head falling back with a soft groan escaping his lips, “You’re so mean, baby.”

“It isn’t fair to you.” He doesn’t seem pleased by your statement, shaking his head and leaning forward to press his forehead to yours.

“Just a kiss.” He pleas softly, his nose brushing yours and you inhale sharply, “Just one.”

His words flip your stomach inside out, and as you sigh his name again he leans in.

“Oh shit!” The sudden exclamation has you and Riki both startling away from each other, Jake grinning like a maniac at the doors with Heeseung, Jay, and Gaeul behind him. “Fuck, did I just ruin a moment?”

You groan, turning away from them to begin walking to Riki’s Jeep, arms crossed to protect yourself from the cold and your mind in utter shambles because—

What the fuck?

Jake gets a ride from Heeseung home according to Riki, who had unlocked his car for you to get in while he said goodbye to the others. A part of you regrets not saying goodbye to Gaeul, but the thought of spending another second under their gaze at that moment felt suffocating.

The silence in the car is loud. Not awkward loud, but loud enough that every glance out the window and every shift in your seat feels amplified. Riki’s hands stay firmly on the wheel, his fingers drumming against the edge of the leather cover as he fiddles with the turn signal.

“So,” he starts, his voice casual but slightly strained, “you’ve got a mean bowling game for someone who swore they’d lose.”

You glance at him, catching the way the passing streetlights make his jawline look sharper. “That’s because I hustle. Low expectations are a great strategy.”

He huffs a small laugh, his lips twitching into a smirk. “Guess I’ll keep that in mind for next time.”

You lean back against the seat, trying to ignore the fact that your heart still hasn’t settled since that moment at the alley—the one where his face was too close, his breath too warm, and you almost forgot this whole thing was fake.

“So… next time?” you tease, arching a brow. “How much more mortifying teasing can you handle?”

“Depends,” he says, keeping his eyes on the road. “How long does it take to make your ex think he lost the best thing that ever happened to him?”

Your laugh comes out before you can stop it. “It’ll probably never happen, I just like to see him squirm.” The weight of his words sits in the air between you, heavier than it should be. You turn to look out the window, feigning interest in the row of darkened houses you pass by. 

“You know,” he says after a beat, his voice quieter now, “I don’t think they’re worth this much effort. Your ex and… her.”

You blink, surprised at his shift in tone. “Well, thanks for that motivational speech, Riki. Really helps my self-esteem.”

He shakes his head, glancing at you briefly. “That’s not what I meant. I just mean… if they couldn’t see how good they had it with you, that’s on them. You don’t need to prove anything.”

The sincerity in his voice catches you off guard. You open your mouth to reply, but the words don’t come. Instead, you study him in the dim light, wondering—not for the first time—why he agreed to this in the first place.

“Why are you doing this, Riki?” you ask softly, your voice barely above a whisper.

He hesitates, his fingers drumming lightly against the steering wheel. “I told you, I need you to help me pass Chem.”

You narrow your eyes, not convinced but also not ready to push. “You haven’t even asked for help past me giving you my old notes.”

He smirks again, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes this time. “They’re just that helpful. Don’t overthink it.”

And maybe you don’t, because overthinking means dissecting the way he’s looking at you now in the faint glow of the dashboard, like he knows something you don’t.

The car slows to a stop in front of your house and you fiddle with the hem of your halter top, trying to figure out how to say what’s been sitting heavy in your chest since the bowling alley. “Riki,” you start, your voice softer than usual.

He hums in acknowledgment, already looking at you.

You take a steadying breath. “I don’t think… I’m ready for a real relationship.”

That gets his attention. His hands shift in his lap, his expression unreadable. “Okay,” he says after a beat, his tone cautious. “Where’s this coming from?”

You shift in your seat, suddenly finding the dashboard very interesting. “It’s just… you’ve been really good to me this past week, and I feel like it’s not fair to you. I mean, you’ve made it pretty clear how you feel, and I don’t want to lead you on or—”

“Hey.” His voice is calm, steady, and it makes you pause. “You’re not leading me on. I knew what I was getting into.”

“Yeah, but…” You trail off, frustration bubbling up because the words in your head won’t come out the way you want them to. “It’s not just about you. It’s about me, too. I don’t think I’m ready to deal with… all of this. Not after everything with him. It’s too much.”

He doesn’t say anything right away, which somehow makes it worse. The silence stretches, and you’re about to apologize—again—when he finally speaks.

“So, what do you want to do?”

“I think we should stop,” you say, hating how small your voice sounds. “The fake dating, I mean.”

He nods, almost imperceptibly. “If that’s what you want.”

“It’s not—” You stop yourself, biting your lip as your eyes burn. “I just… I don’t want to hurt you. You deserve someone who’s all in, and I can’t be that right now.”

His lips twitch into a faint, almost sad smile. “You’re thinking too much about me again.”

You frown, confused. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

He shrugs lightly, his eyes moving away from you briefly before they settle back on yours. “It means you’re allowed to put yourself first, you know. I’m a big boy; I’ll survive.”

“But—”

“No buts.” He cuts you off gently, an easy smile still on his face. “If this is what you need, we’ll stop. No hard feelings.”

The simplicity of his response hits harder than you expected. It’s so Riki—quietly selfless, always willing to go along with what makes you happy.

You hate how much you suddenly want to reach across the console and kiss the life out of him. But you don’t. Instead, you swallow the lump in your throat and force a smile.

“Thanks, Riki.”

His smile doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Anytime.”

You watch him exit his car, circle around the front, and open your door for you while holding a chivalrous hand out just like before. A part of your heart aches with the knowledge he’s still doing this despite not technically having to, and you smile softly as you accept his help. His hand doesn’t linger in yours as it did before, though.

The walk to your front door is silent, and he halts just before the step onto your porch, his hands in his pockets, you pause before approaching your door, turning to him. With the few inches that the porch gives you, meeting his gaze is easier. “Tonight was really fun, ignoring the end of it,”

He chuckles softly, “Glad you had fun, pretty girl.” 

If he didn’t mean to let the name slip he doesn’t show any signs of panic or regret, only meeting your nearly-level gaze with warmth.

There’s a moment before you turn your body only slightly towards the front door, “Goodnight.”

His hand catches your elbow gently as you begin to turn away from him, pulling you back yet giving you time to pull away if you so desire, and you don’t.

His lips meet yours in a kiss that’s softer than you imagined it’d be. His hand moves to your cheek yet pauses just before his skin touches yours, lips sweet and slow against yours. 

It’s over before you can kiss back like you want to, his lips parting from yours with a soft smack that makes your stomach flip. 

“Goodnight.” He bids in a low mumble, barely an inch from your lips when the words leave his and he takes a step back with a soft smile that makes your heart twist painfully, “See you Monday.”

You can only nod, forcing a slight smile and turning to punch in the door code with shaky hands and a heavy, aching heart.

part two.

©heedeungism : do not rewrite, copy, repost, or translate any of my works without my permission.

[mediocre-writing]

—̳͟͞͞♡ — "I won't be able to pay the rent this month" Lando Norris X Fem!Reader

This is short but I couldn't help but write it lol

When Y/n saw this trend, she couldn't imagine anyone more perfect to do this than her boyfriend.

Lando is lying on the bed using his cell phone, and she enters the room with the cell phone in her hand and the recording already on, she holds the cell phone as if she were using it, but prays that the camera is catching his face.

"Lando." She says, getting on her knees on the bed next to him.

"Hi, kitty." Lando says without taking his eyes off his phone, but with one hand caressing her leg.

"I won't be able to pay the rent this month," she says, and that finally gets Lando's attention.

Lando stops the video and looks at her with just his eyes.

He knows his girlfriend is joking, Lando would never let her pay the rent considering how much more he earns than her.

They even had some fights about it, but they came to an agreement that Lando would pay the rent.

He loves his girlfriend's independence, she's always been like that, but he wants to take care of her, pamper her, that wasn't a burden for him, it was a privilege.

"No?" He says with a half smile.

"No, I did the math and it really is impossible."

Lando drops his phone and leans on one elbow, getting very close to her face, sighing in fake frustration.

"It turns out that I won't be able to either, I was going to tell you but... I was afraid you would kick me out." Lando says this and Y/n smiles when she sees that he joined in on her joke.

"What do we do now?"

"I guess I'll have to sell pictures of my body." Lando says this, and Y/n can't control her laughter.

He watches his girlfriend smile and he just wants to keep those moments in a memory box.

"Lando! How am I going to post this now?" She says still laughing and stopping the recording.

"Was it a joke? So you'll be able to pay?" Lando says, lying down again and pulling his girlfriend on top of him.

"If my boyfriend lets me." Y/n says laying on Lando's chest and closing her eyes.

"Never, my baby doesn't need to worry about that." He says kissing her head and closing his eyes too.

"I love you Lan"

"I love more."

[talaok]

Old Man

Pairing: Joel Miller x f!reader

Summary: Joel needs glasses but won't admit it, and there's only an amount of teasing a man can take before he decides to show you just how much of an old man he is.

warnings: unprotected p in v sex, creampie, hair pulling, (joel gets a lil rough)

Ellie was the one to start it all,

I mean it's not like you hadn't noticed, but she was the one that started with the jokes.

Not very honorable of you to blame it all on the 14 year old, you knew... but still, just to get the record straight, you weren’t the one to tease him first.

“Gimmie Granpa” she had chuckled one time, grabbing the piece of paper where Maria had written down the recipe for her 'world-famous' casserole from his hands.

"Hey-" He'd protested,

"You can't see shit, man" she giggled, "Stop trying to fight it- you're getting old buddy"

And well from then on things had... escalated.

You'd yet to see a day where the poor man wasn't made fun of because of it, but truth be told, he really did need glasses.

You'd even suggested it to him more gently, in the comfort of your own room, away from Ellie's prying eyes.

"y'know baby, there's nothing wrong with getting glasses"

He'd looked at you as if you'd just told him to go fuck himself.

"Don't look at me like that" you'd smiled, rounding the bed to intertwine your hands behind his neck "It's for your own good"

"I don't need glasses"

"no?" you'd bit down a grin "you sure?"

"'m sure alright" he grumbled

"I bet Tommy would know where to get you a pair if you asked"

"darlin'"

"yes, baby?" you'd asked, hopeful

"I don't need 'em"

And you really did want to keep on trying to convince him, but then he'd kissed you and well- it must have slipped your mind.

Unluckily for him, not for a very long time.

He was in the bathroom, trying, or more specifically struggling, to open a bandaid for your injured finger.

It wasn't anything serious, just a little cut, but as you'd disinfected it, he'd insisted on covering it up, only of course you hadn't expected it to take so long.

"Baby, what's wrong, you can't find them?"

But the answer to your question was right before you as you entered the bathroom.

As I said, he was struggling.

A laugh bubbled up your throat as you took in his focused expression, the frown on his forehead, the squint in his eyes...

"Let me do it"

"No I can do it I just-" he tried to get it open again, failing miserably.

"Joel-" you smiled, walking up to him "let me" you said softly

And with a sigh, he surrendered, handing you the poor, tortured bandaid

"I could have done that" he grumbled as he watched you do it in a split second.

"Sure you could, old man" You grinned to yourself, carefully applying the bandage to your finger.

"What did you just say?"

A soft, breathless gasp fled your mouth-

He'd moved right behind you, and his hands were now on your waist.

"Jesus babe" you laughed,

"What did you say?"

His voice was rough, and his eyes... something had shifted behind his eyes.

You watched his reflection in the mirror before you as you answered

"I said I'm sure you could"

"Mhh" he hummed, his head lowering until he could dive into your neck and inhale your scent "The other thing"

"what other thing?" you feigned innocence, enthralled by his demeanor, by the almost predatorial look in his eyes

"You know what"

"no I don'-"

But you didn't have time to finish, he'd already grabbed you by your hair, pulling your head back until his mouth was ghosting yours

"you called me an old man, darlin'?"

He was a different man from a minute ago.

This was the Joel Miller people feared, the one that killed without remorse, the one that fucked you rough- the once that a sick and twisted part of you revered.

"Baby I was jokin-"

"didn't look like it" he growled, his clothed hard-on pressing into your ass making you whimper, "you think I'm an old man, babydoll?" he murmured, his grip tightening around your hair "I'll show you how much of an old man I am"

Next thing you knew, your upper body was flushed against the sink's countertop, and your shorts were at your feet, together with your panties.

You watched from the mirror as he freed his cock with the hand that wasn't holding you down, and then you felt it-

"will you look at that" he chuckled darkly, the tip of his dick sliding between your folds with ease "you're makin' a mess for an old man, babydoll"

"J-Joel" you whimpered

"no no darlin'" he cooed "You've brought this on yourself- now you're gonna be good and take it, alright?"

When you didn't respond, he yanked your head back, forcing you to look at him through the mirror

"alright?" he bent down, growling in your ear

"y-yes"

"try not to be too loud," he whispered "You wouldn't want people to know how much you like getting fucked by an old man"

You had no time to respond, to tell him how much you didn't care, because he'd already pushed himself fully inside of you, and the only thing you could do was scream.

"you can't help yourself can ya?" he muttered, watching your face contort in all sorts of bliss-induced expressions "The old man gives it to ya too good, 's that it?" he groaned, feeling your walls squeeze around him

"look at me" he ordered, pulling your hair again, making you open your eyes and watch him as he ruthlessly slammed inside of you "Look at the old man who's fuking you, darlin', don't be rude" he grinned

The sound of his skin against yours reverberated through the bathroom, and god it was nasty.

"f-fuck" you tried to speak, tears tarnishing your vision

"I know, I know" he pretended to care, getting up from where he was pressing his torso onto your back, using a hand to get you to remain flush against the sink "I'm going too slow, ain't I?"

Oh shit

Oh fucking shi-

If you thought he was going hard before... you hadn't seen anything.

You couldn't fully create one single thought in your mind as he picked up his pace, as he started literally slamming into you fast and hard enough to break you in half.

"I'm jus' an old man after all babydoll, ain't I?" he breathed, one hand still on your back while the other was still forcing your head up to look at him "You'll understand if I can't fuck you as hard as you'd like" it was like he wasn't hearing how loud you were moaning, how breathless your whines and gasps where each time his dick hit your cervix "what's that?" he mocked "you need it harder darlin'?"

"J-Joel-" you whined, begging, pleading for what you weren't even sure

"shh I got you baby" he cooed, bending down to whisper in your ear again, slowing down his pace just to thrust so fucking deep and hard into you you swore you saw stars "I know my old man's pace ain't enough for you doll"

But it was- Oh it was more than enough.

And yet he didn't care- he was going even harder, even faster, even deeper, and you... you didn't even remember your name anymore.

You could feel the thickness of his cock as it slammed into you over and over and over again, the way it would hit the most hidden spots inside of you, the ones only Joel had only ever been able to find, and then-

And then you could hear his grunts and strangled groans as he fucked you within an inch of your life, as his hair fell to his forehead and tears streamed down your face and your eyes struggled to remain open, struggled to keep on watching him as he fucked you from behind with enough force to break the fucking sink you were on.

Until it got to be too much, until you felt your stomach tighten and the fuse lighting, until he hit that secret spot once again, and all you could do was close your eyes as bliss took over your body, as waves of ecstasy washed over you.

"look at you" he groaned "coming all over an old man's cock" he breathed, your walls squeezing him too good to do anything else but follow suit "letting an old man come deep inside of ya"

It took a long moment for either of you to wake up from the sex-induced haze, but Joel was in much better shape than you, so it was him who came back earlier.

he begrudgingly pulled out, enjoying for a moment too long his own handy work before he helped you up, picking you up bridal style once he realized how useless your legs had become.

"baby" you murmured, before he could place you on the bed "You know I was joking right?" you said, leaning up to kiss him, your mouth catching his in a sweet, gentle kiss that contradicted completely the way he'd just ruined your ability to walk properly

"You're not an old man" you promised

"mh?" he hummed, kissing you again just because he could

"yeah" you smiled, melting into the kiss for what felt like an eternity

He was holding you gently, watching your eyes as they begged to close.

"good" he hummed against your mouth, watching it twist into a devious little smirk as a spark ignited in your eyes

"Although I still think you should at least consider getting glasses-"

"darlin'" he stopped you immediately "I suggest you stop talkin''"

"or what?" you bit down a grin, laughing softly

"Or Tommy's gonna be real mad when you tell him you can't make it to patrol tomorrow 'cause your legs don't work"

[thankskenpenders]

Thoughts on two specific areas of the writing in Sonic X Shadow Generations

The best new 3D Sonic game in over a decade (or even two, depending on who you ask) dropped late last year. And I didn't write anything about it! Sometimes life happens. Well, I've finally sat down to finish Shadow Generations, and by now everyone has already been singing its praises for three months. This is the rare instance where the entire Sonic fandom, and even mainstream reviewers, are in agreement on something. The level design is the best it's been in a long, long time and the cool factor is off the charts, embracing Sonic's peak cringe era in an incredibly confident way. It's great. If you're even reading this post, you probably don't need me to tell you that. So I won't!

No, what I'm really interested in here is the writing. Because this is me we're talking about. But I actually don't want to talk about the main narrative of Shadow Generations, which is really solid little story about Black Doom trying to mold Shadow into his perfect soldier. No, I'd like to zero in on two other aspects of the writing here: the revisions made to Sonic Generations, and Gerald Robotnik's unlockable journal.

The updated Sonic Generations script

The new package mostly presents Sonic Generations how you remember it. There are some tweaks, but it's not a major overhaul. Graphically, I don't think the game has been touched much, if at all. I certainly can't notice any difference without a side-by-side comparison, despite playing it on a PS5. The most notable update is that the game's script has been rewritten by Ian Flynn.

Naturally, this caught my attention. Generations always had a nothingburger story, so with Ian rewriting Pontac and Graff's lame dialogue there was nowhere to go but up. (I don't like to pin the blame for those games' stories entirely on them, as a ton of it was dictated to them by Sonic Team, but, well, I don't think they're very good dialogue writers.) But it's less a complete rewrite and more like Ian was brought on as a script doctor for some minor touch ups here and there. Many lines of dialogue are completely identical to how they were originally written in 2011, and many others only have slight wording changes. Ian was clearly not allowed to request additional scenes or extend the ones that already existed. He has to match the original beat for beat so that they can reuse 99% of the cutscene animations. Don't expect it to be a whole new experience compared to the original.

Still, I think the new script is an improvement, albeit a minor one. Various things have been tweaked to maintain characterization consistency. Cream calls Sonic "Mr. Sonic" instead of just "Sonic." Instead of calling Sonic "buddy," Rouge uses the pet name "Blue," like she tends to do in things like the IDW comics. Espio doesn't have to remind you in the dialogue that he's a ninja, and he no longer has a line making it sound like he has some kind of soul reading power. I also like that Modern Sonic now actually has responses to what his friends say when he rescues them, rather than being silent like Classic Sonic. They won't blow you away, but they make Sonic feel a little more engaged with everything.

In general, the altered dialogue just seems tighter to me, and some of the more childish or trite wording of Pontac and Graff's script has been altered. Here, let's actually make a direct comparison, just because this stuff is interesting to me as a writer. Here's a couple lines from after the Egg Dragoon fight late in the game, in the original script:

Modern Eggman: Ooooh... I can't believe this! I was supposed to beat you this time. Modern Sonic: Aw, I'm sorry! I didn't get that memo. I beat you every time! [Turns to Classic Sonic] No, seriously, we beat this guy every time. It's like it's our job or something!

This is a simple exchange. Eggman is mad that he lost. Sonic is unflappably confident because he always beats Eggman, and he explains this to his younger self. But the wording here isn't particularly good. Eggman's simple and direct wording makes him come off like a little kid who's mad because his older brother beat him at Mario Kart, rather than a mad scientist who just had his plans foiled. It's making light of the situation.

And I've never liked Sonic saying "It's like it's our job or something!" That doesn't feel like a thing Sonic would say, it feels like a thing an outside observer would say about Sonic. This is a frequent problem with so-called "MCU dialogue," where quips meant to echo the commentary of a casual, somewhat disinterested audience are inserted into the story itself so that the writers can be like "See? We get it. We're genre-savvy, too!" It also just reminds me of bad Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric lines like "Rings! It's like they're made for me!"

And then here's Ian's rewrite:

Modern Eggman: I recalibrated everything! This was supposed to be my time! Modern Sonic: Oh, please, keep dreamin', Egg-head. I beat you every time. [Turns to Classic Sonic] No, seriously, we beat him every time. Our score card's flawless.

Eggman's still mad about his defeat, but the line "I recalibrated everything!" makes it more specific. He put all this work into the engineering side of his latest scheme and got tunnel vision, thinking if he got his creations just right there'd be no way he could lose. "This was supposed to be my time!" also turns it into a time travel pun, which is a bonus. He's still pitching a fit over losing, but it feels more like Eggman pitching a fit, rather than sounding childish.

And then instead of saying that beating Eggman is "like his job or something," Sonic says he's got a flawless score card against Eggman. He doesn't take Eggman seriously as a threat—at least, not to his face. He acts like it's all a game. But he conveys this in a way that feels truer to the character, rather than feeling like the words of a real world observer poking fun at the tropes of the Sonic series.

Is this amazing, A+ dialogue that blows me away? No. Again, it's not a completely different scene from the one we already had. Ian had to fit the beats of what was already there. He couldn't go all out and write an all new story confirming his longstanding headcanon that the Time Eater is a remnant of Solaris or whatever. But the wording here makes the existing story land a little better and feel truer to the characters in subtle ways.

But to me, the main change is that the Sonics and Tailses seem to have a more solid understanding of what's going on with the timeline and the Time Eater, compared to how idiotic they sometimes seemed in the original game. Which is good! No more standing outside Green Hill and wondering why it seems so familiar. Thank god. As part of this, yes, there are a few more references to past games in the dialogue, like Sonic briefly being confused about the fact that they're time traveling without the Time Stones, or South Island and Westside Island being acknowledged as the normal locations of Green Hill and Chemical Plant. Yes, ha ha, insert joke about how Ian loves references here. Look, it's Sonic fucking Generations. It's a game built entirely out of nostalgic references. Just own it! And, again, in this instance Sonic and Tails come off as less stupid when they make it clear that they do, in fact, remember their adventures from presumably less than a year ago in-universe.

Eggman, too, seems to have a better understanding of the powers he's toying with. Where in the original vesion his focus was simply on going back in time to undo his previous defeats and he seemed kind of oblivious to how much the Time Eater was actually fucking up the universe, here Eggman says he wants to use the Time Eater to give himself complete control over the entire timeline. Eggman also makes way fewer references to his own failures and shortcomings. Of course he won't admit that Sonic has defeated him time and time again. To him, he's never truly lost—Sonic just keeps delaying the inevitable total victory for the Eggman Empire.

So, yes. The new Sonic Generations script is better. It won't blow anyone away, but it's better than it was. It's been elevated from "kinda lame" to "fine." No, if you really wanna see Ian flex his ability to breathe new life into old Sonic stories, look no further than...

Gerald Robotnik's Journal

Hoo boy.

The story of what happened aboard the ARK has always been... a bit confusing, to say the least. Fans with encyclopedic knowledge of the script for every route of Shadow '05 may disagree, but it's the truth. We've had all the pieces to understand the story for a long time now, but that info was given to us out of order by a pair of unreliable narrators—Gerald, who became a vengeful lunatic shortly before his death, and Shadow, who was subjected to multiple rounds of amnesia and altered memories. Some of the ambiguity left by Sonic Adventure 2 was cleared up in Shadow '05, but that game also retconned in a bunch of new elements to Shadow's backstory (aliens!) that lead to further confusion. Not to mention the fact that that game had multiple routes and only revealed the truth about Shadow if you sat on the ultimate final boss battle for WAY longer than the fight would normally last. Or the fact that Sonic X made its own tweaks in its telling of the story. Or the fact that none of these things ever had the best English translations. I can't blame anyone who hasn't played those games in two decades for not remembering the truth about these characters and getting some details mixed up.

What we needed was something to piece together all of the info we have into one coherent backstory, told in chronological order. And thanks to Shadow Generations, we have that, in the form of an official journal tying together what we knew from Sonic Adventure 2, Shadow '05, and Sonic Battle into the tragic tale of Gerald's rise and fall.

Ian Flynn was the perfect man for the job here as the guy who started his career by tidying up the mess that was the first 159 issues if Archie Sonic. This is what he excels at: taking disparate bits of weird Sonic lore from multiple different sources, boiling them down to their most interesting elements, and connecting it together in a way that will make the audience see the dramatic potential he's always known was there. Rather than feeling like a cynical exercise in franchise building, going back and explaining things that never needed explaining so that people can add more bullet points to the wiki, he puts a new spin on things that retroactively enriches those past stories. The story here means something to the characters involved and gives us a better understanding of them as people, rather than as plot devices to motivate Shadow.

(And, of course, Ian didn't do this journal alone. He wrote the story, but I also have to give a huge shout out to Evan Stanley, who made the final product. All of her handwritten journal entries, sketches, and "photos" included throughout. The physical damage done to the journal over the course of 50 tumultuous years, passing from Gerald to Eggman to a certain special someone at GUN. The way Gerald's handwriting gets less and less legible as his mental state declines. So much love was put into what could have been a mere text dump in a menu, and it really elevates it to the next level. Congrats on officially getting hired by Sega, Evan, you've sure as hell earned it!)

The main idea the journal conveys is that Gerald was under a lot of pressure from a lot of different parties—GUN, the President, his colleagues aboard the ARK, Black Doom, even his own family—and boy did it get to him. The known incidents aboard the ARK mentioned in previous games are put together here to form a story where everything slowly spirals out of control as Gerald keeps compromising his morals to further his research, thinking he'll eventually find some way out of all this because he's a genius. I won't recap that whole story here (if you haven't already played the game and read the journal entries, I would highly recommend at least reading it on the Sonic wiki), but I'd like to highlight my favorite elements of the story, as Ian tells it here.

1) The Eclipse Cannon

Here's something that never quite made sense in Sonic Adventure 2: why does the ARK have a laser that can blow up the Earth built into it? It was supposed to be a peaceful research colony. Sure, Gerald went crazy and swore revenge on the Earth, but, like... when did he have an opportunity to go back up to the ARK and modify it? Did he have someone else do it? How? The ARK was raided by GUN and shut down! And then they arrested him, held him in prison for an unclear period of time, and executed him by firing squad when he was no longer useful! It doesn't add up. Shadow 'the Hedgehog '05 would give its own answer by introducing the Black Arms and saying that the Eclipse Cannon was always supposed to be a secret trump card against the Black Comet. But, like... we know that's kind of a bullshit answer, right? You don't need enough power to blow up a whole planet just to destroy a comet.

Well, the new journal retains what we already knew, but it paints a much more complete picture.

See, long before Gerald ever made a Faustian bargain with Black Doom, he had already made one with an even greater evil: the military. GUN gave Gerald much of the funding for the ARK, Gerald's personal utopian research station in space, but it didn't take long for GUN to start pressuring him to design them weapons. Gerald tried to get GUN off his back by personally contacting the President of the United Federation, and the President gave him an alternative: how about, instead, you just use your genius brain to figure out the secret to immortality for us, so our soldiers can be immortal? Gerald was initially sickened by the notion and found it completely absurd, like chasing a shadow... but given no other option, the sarcastically named Project Shadow soon began in earnest. (Maria would later put a more positive spin on the name after Shadow's awakening, pointing out that a Shadow can show us the direction of the light, like she says in the game itself.)

Of course, this search for the ultimate life form didn't go very well, and without any results on that front GUN kept hounding him for weapons. Gerald would throw them a bone here and there to get them off his back. His research on Chaos resulted in the Artifical Chaos prototypes, which he worried would be used for warfare but could at least theoretically be used for search and rescue missions in floods, in his mind. But that wasn't enough. So he gave them Chaos Drives to power their mechs. And that still wasn't enough. He's got Emerl. He'll give them Emerl. They're not impressed by Emerl. They'll shut the whole ARK down if Gerald doesn't give them something big.

Fine! GUN wants something big? Gerald builds a huge fucking laser cannon into the ARK. However, as a middle finger to GUN, Gerald makes it so powerful that it would destroy the Earth if it was ever fired at any target on its surface. In other words, GUN now has their ultimate weapon of mass destruction, fulfilling his contract, but they can never actually use it. Oh, the delicious irony. (And also Shadow will blow up the Black Comet with it in 50 years yada yada yada.) Is this perhaps extremely shortsighted and naive of Gerald, to believe that such a weapon would never actually be used just because of the risk? Of course. But hey, that's Gerald for you. And I love this as an answer.

(Also, this, uh, kinda echoes something from real life! Remember the bit in Oppenheimer where he says all nuclear war will become unthinkable, and Edward Teller responds "until somebody builds a bigger bomb"? Yeah, Teller went on to conceptualize a superweapon codenamed Project Sundial that would have been able to kill all life on the planet, as the ultimate deterrent for war. This was never made for obvious reasons, but hey, there's a basis for this sort of thinking outside of heightened sci-fi! There's a whole Kurzgesagt video about this if you're interested.)

2) The Biolizard

The Biolizard is, of course, brought up as the initial failed prototype of the ultimate life form, from before Gerald met Black Doom. We don't really learn all that much about it that we didn't already know, but I just love the way it's framed in the story.

As you can see above, we actually get to see a picture of Maria holding up the cute little salamander that would end up mutating into the Biolizard through Gerald's experiments. (Researchers want to figure out how to replicate salamanders' regenerative abilities for humans in real life, too, so this was a natural starting point for the project.) And then, after it grows to a monstrous size and goes out of control, Gerald has to lock it away in an unused sector of the ARK. He needs to keep the poor thing alive for his research into harnessing Chaos Energy, building life support systems directly into it, but he doesn't have the heart to tell Maria what happened. So it just becomes this first dark secret weighing on his conscience. The Biolizard becomes Gerald's Tell-Tale Heart beating beneath the floorboards of the ARK. I love that.

3) Lost Impact was the breaking point for the ARK

Remember the level Lost Impact in Shadow '05? The flashback level on the hero path where Shadow is running around fighting Artificial Chaos enemies on the ARK 50 years ago? Yeah, that wasn't just a random incident. That was important, as we now know due to its placement on the timeline.

See, Emerl's rampage aboard the ARK that was chronicled in Sonic Battle and Dark Beginnings set off a domino effect. Emerl riled up the Artificial Chaos, causing Gerald to lose control of them. They became violent, and so Shadow had to stop them, as depicted in Lost Impact. The thing is, that incident sent an SOS signal to GUN telling them that shit was going down on the ARK. Gerald didsn't fully understand the trouble he was in and assumed that he'd simply be reprimanded by the higher ups, or maybe face legal action. But, well... the next time he heard from GUN, armed troopers were raiding the ARK.

So Lost Impact was the straw that broke the camel's back. I just really like that detail.

4) Maria

And, of course, there's Maria herself. Maria has often been more of a symbol than a character, this perfect embodiment of everything that's good and pure in this world who gets killed to motivate Shadow and Gerald's revenge plots. But I really like the wrinkles this journal adds to her and Gerald's story, and their relationship. This is the most fleshed out they've ever felt.

For one, the journal leans into the idea of Maria's intellectual potential. The rest of the Robotnik family is all geniuses, after all, and she was proving to be a really bright kid. She excelled in her studies on the ARK, and she even helped design Shadow's jet skates and inhibitor rings. When Maria died, the world didn't just lose a symbolic personification of purity. She genuinely could have been a hugely influential scientist who did so much good for the world. That's what Gerald wanted for her. But we'll never know, because GUN killed her.

Speaking of her family, their presence isn't just mentioned for the sake of fleshing out the Robotnik family tree. It's mentioned that as Gerald struggled to find a cure for Maria's illness through his genetic research, he faced mounting pressure from his family. They didn't want Maria to be up on the ARK forever. They wanted Gerald to hurry up and find a damn cure, or otherwise just send her back home to Earth so she could be with her family again. She'd been up on the ARK for so long that Gerald's coworkers started thinking that she had been born up there. Eventually she gains a baby sister on Earth who she's never met. A rift forms between Gerald's two sons, and he's unable to really deal with it because he's so consumed by his work. There's this sense that the family is falling apart, and that everyone is dreading the possibility that Gerald will never find a cure and that Maria will just spend her final years up in space and die far away from her family, because Gerald just couldn't let go. If that happens, it'll break the whole family. But he can't stop now. So he just keeps working. Curing Maria is the only way to win his family back, in his eyes. It can't all be for nothing.

But my favorite detail regarding Maria is this one paragraph:

Maria is growing into a lovely young woman. It breaks my heart that someone as bright and energetic as her is diminished by disease. There are no visible effects, and I've caught my fellow researchers muttering to each other, doubting her illness. It is infuriating. I find all my reason and restraint vanishes when she's slighted.

This is SUCH a great addition to the story! It's always been true that Maria doesn't really seem all that ill, just looking at her in cutscenes. With this one little comment, Ian flips that issue on its head and turns it into a story about invisible disability. She doesn't act like she's in chronic pain, so she must not be, everyone thinks. And this really, really gets to Gerald, as does the pressure from his family. He's dedicating his whole LIFE to saving her, and they think she's faking it?! It's such a small addition, never referenced elsewhere in the journal, but it adds so much flavor to the story, as does the implied family drama. It grounds Gerald and Maria and makes them feel more like real human beings, rather than being pure archetypes. It's just enough info to let my imagination run wild filling in the blanks.

You also get the feeling that Maria being such a walking ray of sunshine was the only real source of joy Gerald had left in his life before Shadow was awakened, and the only thing keeping him from snapping under pressure sooner. All this stuff just keeps piling on, everything's spiraling out of control, but at least Maria is keeping her chin up, right? It makes so much sense that losing her would make him go off the deep end when it's framed like this.

It's just... man, I never thought I'd care so much about Gerald and Maria. But that's the Ian Flynn touch. After years of less than stellar Sonic writing that seemed to be embarrassed of itself, I'm so happy to have new games coming out that fully embrace the history of the series like this, making its world feel so rich and real instead of just serving as an excuse for a string of platforming levels. I don't even like Shadow '05, but I'll be damned if Ian and the rest of Sonic Team didn't make something amazing by "yes, and"-ing Shadow's cringe past here. Sonic has truly reached levels of "we're so back" never thought possible.

[rafayelxsylusho]

It's 5am and I keep finding more of your amazing shots to continue reading!!!

I love your *at the same time* fics, Sylus, Zayn and Caleb are my favourites so I almost died when I read theirs, it was mind-blowing.

I wanted to request one with Sylus and Zayn, I do love some snowcrow action ❄️🐦‍⬛

Here is some snowcrow for our broken hearts after the main story update from today.

Enjoy!!

Headers: @bc.lay on Tik Tok

TW: Smut

❄️🐦‍⬛

"You're either drunk or plain stupid"  Zayne retorts, his eyes narrowing as they remain fixed on Sylus. He doesn't seem impressed by the man's boldness.

Sylus just laughs, a sound that should be illegal, you think to yourself. He leans back, one arm slung casually across the back of the couch behind you, his fingers far too close to your thigh.

"You've never been with a man, Doctor?" Sylus asks, arching a brow at Zayne. There's a smirk playing at the corners of his mouth, a gleam of challenge in his crimson eyes.

"I like women," Zayne answers shortly. His tone makes it clear that Sylus' sexuality is of no interest to him. He's not looking away from Sylus, his gaze hard and assessing. Assessing and calculating.

"Is that so?" Sylus purrs. His hand slides a fraction of an inch higher up your thigh. "How interesting. I could have sworn I saw the way you were looking at me, Doctor. Like you wanted to put me in my place."

Your heart races as Sylus stands abruptly, his predatory gaze never leaving Zayne's face. He takes a step towards him, then another, until he's standing right in front of Zayne. 

"And I beg to differ," Sylus says as his hand moves to the front of Zayne's pants, palming the obvious bulge straining against the fabric. "Look at how hard you are right now. You can't tell me you don't want this."

Zayne lets out a choked sound, half groan, half whimper, as Sylus gropes him. His hips jerk slightly into the touch before he seems to regain some semblance of control.

"Fuck...wait," Zayne grits out.

Despite his words, he makes no move to stop Sylus' wandering hands. If anything, he seems to be fighting the urge to push his hips forward, to demand more of that touch.

Sylus just chuckles "Oh, I don't think you want me to wait, Doctor." he murmurs. With deliberate slowness, he reaches for Zayne's belt, the leather creaking as he starts to unfasten it.

His belt falls open with a soft clatter, and Sylus slips his hand inside Zayne's pants, palming the hot, hard length of him.

"We can't..." Zayne whispers through clenched teeth.

"Why the fuck not?" Sylus curses, his brow arching sharply. 

Zayne turns to you, his eyes dark and intense as they search your face. Do you want this?"

You swallow hard and nod, pulse racing as you meet Zayne's eyes. The intensity there makes it clear that he won't proceed without your full consent.

Meanwhile, Sylus leans in close to Zayne "She's not saying no" he points out. His hand squeezes Zayne's cock almost punishingly. "In fact, she looks like she wants to be filled in every way possible. Doesn't she?"

"You know this is fucked up, right?" Zayne asks, a note of disbelief coloring his tone. Despite his shock, he can't deny the heat building at the idea of the two of them sharing you, pleasuring you. It's wrong, but it would be so very right.

Sylus just laughs again and he crooks a finger at you. "This is the first time I'm going to be with a man as well" he admits, no shame in his voice. "And I'm not opposed to it, on the contrary" His eyes glint as he beckons you closer.

You stand on shaky legs, drawn to Sylus like a child to a toy. Your feet carry you to him until he can wrap a hand around your wrist and pull you against his body. You gasp as he spins you around, pushing you down to your knees in front of Zayne.

"I think I'm going to enjoy this... a lot" Sylus purrs, his voice a sinful rumble that you feel in your bones.

Zayne's breath comes faster, his chest heaving as he stares down at you with hooded eyes. He inhales sharply as you suddenly yank his pants and underwear down, exposing his hard, fat cock to the cool air.

He lets out a strangled groan as your small hand wraps around his length, your fingers barely able to encircle its girth.

"Y/N..." Zayne gasps, his head falling back as you start to stroke him. Slowly at first, feeling every ridge and vein as you move your hand from the base of his shaft up to the swollen head. His hips twitch forward, seeking more of your touch.

"Such a needy little thing", Sylus murmurs. "So eager for a cock" His hand joins yours at the base of Zayne's shaft, wrapping around your smaller one. Together, you stroke Zayne, squeezing and caressing his hard flesh.

"You like this, don't you?" Sylus goads.

But he doesn't wait for an answer before tangling his fingers in your hair and pushing your face forward until your lips brush against the head of Zayne's cock.

"Suck it"

You part your soft lips and extend your small pink tongue, dragging it slowly around the swollen head of Zayne's cock. You can taste the salty tang of his precum, feel the velvet softness of his skin, the thick, pulsing heat of his arousal. A shaky moan escapes your lips as you savor his essence, your eyes fluttering closed.

Zayne lets out a strangled groan, his hand coming up to cover his entire face as he fights the urge to thrust forward.

"That's...fuuuuck..."

"That's it, kitten" Sylus' fingers tighten in your hair as he pushes your head down, encouraging you to take more of Zayne's cock into your mouth. "Take him deeper"

You feel the head of Zayne's cock pushing past your lips, stretching your jaw as you start to take him in inch by inch. You swirl your tongue around him, savoring every throb and twitch of his shaft.

"Get him nice and wet. I want to see you choke on his cock."

Zayne's hips jerk forward slightly, seeking more of your heat, as a litany of curses spill from his lips. "Shit...fuck...Y/N..., you have to...have to slow down..." But his body betrays his words, craving more of you, your mouth, your everything.

You look up at him from beneath, hazy eyes filled with lust and adoration, as you start to bob your head. You take him deeper on each pass, relaxing your throat to accommodate his thick girth until your nose is pressed against the hair at the base of his shaft. Tears prick at the corners of your eyes from the intensity of it, but you don't stop. You can't.

Zayne's brows furrow in concern when you gag on his cock, when he sees tears spill down your cheeks he immediately pulls back to give you room to breathe. His thumb brushes gently at the tears, wiping them away. "I don't want to hurt you"

Behind you, Sylus lets out a chuckle "Go sit on the couch like a good boy" he orders Zayne with a smirk. "Let me show you how to properly fuck her face"

You look up at Sylus, cheeks flushed and eyes wide "Or..." you whisper.

Sylus reads the unspoken challenge in your gaze and grins. Without a word, he drops fluidly to his knees before Zayne, taking your place. He looks up at Zayne through his lashes, a sinful glint in his eyes.

"Or", Sylus murmurs, "you can practice with me."

And then, before Zayne can react, Sylus leans in and takes his hard, throbbing cock into his mouth. He doesn't hesitate, doesn't tease, but simply swallows Zayne down.

Zayne's eyes widen in shock, a strangled groan tearing from his throat "Wait..." But Sylus pays no mind to his half hearted protests, instead starting to bob his head, sucking Zayne with ease.

Zayne hesitates for only a moment before Sylus' ministrations prove too tempting to resist. With a groan, Zayne tangles his fingers in Sylus' hair and starts to thrust his hips, driving his hard length in and out of his hot, sucking mouth.

Zayne grunts, head thrown back in ecstasy, fingers tightening in Sylus' hair as he starts to thrust harder, faster, chasing his pleasure as Sylus works his cock with single minded focus.

You watch, enraptured and incredibly aroused, as Sylus hollows his cheeks and sucks Zayne. You can see the thick outline of Zayne's cock stretching Sylus' mouth and it makes your core clench with need.

Suddenly, Zayne pulls Sylus off his cock with a wet pop. Sylus gasps in a sharp breath through his nose, a string of saliva connecting his lips to Zayne's throbbing tip. 

Sylus grips the base of Zayne's throbbing cock tightly, giving him a warning squeeze as he takes him back into his mouth.

He starts to suck Zayne again, head bobbing faster, cheeks hollowing with intensity. The sound of his slurps and gags fill the room. It doesn't take long before Zayne's control starts to fray at the edges. His grip on Sylus' hair tightens, fingers curling and uncurling.

"Fuck, Sylus, I'm...I'm close," His hips jerk forward, seeking more of Sylus' heat even as he tries to hold back. "Shit, I'm going to...I'm going to cum!"

Sylus pulls off Zayne's cock and once again grips the base tightly.

"See this is why we have to train this big cock," his voice sounds rough from the thorough sucking. "You're so eager to cum everywhere aren't you, Doctor? Down my throat, inside her tight little cunt, her pretty ass and her prettier face."

He gives a slow, deliberate lick up the underside of Zayne's shaft, making him shudder and curse under his breath. Sylus chuckles darkly, enjoying the power he holds over your Zayne.

Zayne turns to look at you, his eyes hazy with lust and desperation "Fuck yes"

You watch as Sylus' tongue darts out again, the erotic sight makes your walls clench with need.

"That's enough, Sylus," you state firmly, your voice breathier than intended.

Turning to Zayne, you give him a smoldering look. "Get on your knees next to him."

Zayne doesn't hesitate, immediately kneeling beside Sylus. They both stare up at you with hungry eyes as you strip, revealing your naked body to them. Their eyes roam over your curves, taking in every dip and swell, their chests heaving with anticipation.

You sit down on the couch, crooking your finger at the two men. "Crawl to me," you purr, "Both of you. Come take what's yours."

Zayne and Sylus exchange a glance, before they turn their eyes back to you and without a word, they start to crawl towards you.

Their eyes never leave your naked body, drinking in the sight of your bare breasts, your hardened nipples, the glistening folds of your sex. You can see the bulge in Sylus' pants, clear evidence of his arousal. Zayne's cock bounces with each movement, flushed a deep, angry red.

They come to a stop before you, kneeling at your feet, waiting for your next command. The sight of them, both strong and powerful men, reduced to kneeling before you makes your clit throb.

You spread your legs wider, baring yourself completely. The action draws an appreciative groan from both men as they drink in the sight of your glistening pussy. Their eyes follow the movement, darkening with lust at the delicious display.

"Zayne," you breathe, pointing at him. "You can take me to bed." 

Then you turn to Sylus and bite your lip "And you Sy... You can stay there and watch"

Zayne rises, cradling you against his broad chest as he carries you towards the bed. He lays you down gently, his eyes roving over your naked body with a hunger that makes your skin prickle. He joins you on the bed a moment later, the mattress dipping under his weight.

"You're so beautiful," Zayne murmurs, trailing reverent fingers along your collarbone, down the valley between your breasts.

"Don't keep her waiting too long"  Sylus teases "I do hope you can last long enough to satisfy our girl properly"

Zayne just smirks back at Sylus, a challenge in his eyes, before turning his attention back to you. 

His fingers dip between your thighs, brushing teasingly over your slick folds. You gasp, hips canting into his touch, already aching for more.

Zayne holds up his glistening fingers, coated in your slick, and shows them to you. "See how wet you are"

He leans in closer, his eyes searching you intently. "Is this all for me," he asks, the question rhetorical but tinged with a hint of curiosity, "or is it for Sylus?"

"Both! "you moan breathlessly in response, your body trembling with need and desire. You're aroused by both of them, by the thought of them touching you, tasting you, filling you in every way imaginable. The idea of them working together to bring you pleasure, sends jolts of electricity crackling through your nerves.

Zayne's eyes darken at your admission, a smirk tugging at his lips. "Greedy girl".

He settles himself between your spread thighs, pushing your legs up and back, opening you fully to him, then takes himself in hand and notches the thick head of his cock against your dripping entrance.

"Fuck, sweetheart" he rasps, fighting the urge to thrust forward and bury himself inside you in one go.

He starts to push forward, his cock stretching you open as he slowly sheaths himself inside you, filling and completing you in a way that makes your toes curl.

"S-so big," you whimper, back arching off the bed as you take him. "So deep."

"You were made for my cock" Zayne growls, finally bottoming out, his hips pressed flush against yours. "Like it was carved to fit you."

Zayne pulls nearly all the way out before driving back in, starting a deep, steady rhythm. Hips rolling in a sensual dance as he takes his pleasure from your willing body. His hands grip your thighs, holding them open and exposing you fully to his touch, to Sylus' eyes.

Each drive draws a breathy moan from your lips, your walls clenching and fluttering around him.

"Oh fuck," you cry out as pleasure crashes through you in relentless waves. "Fuck, Zayne!"

"I know," Zayne grunts, his voice sounds strained with the effort of holding back, of being gentle. "I know, you're doing so well, so fucking good for me"

His praise makes you melt, your body going pliant and yielding beneath him. Your moans spill freely and you squeeze your eyes shut.

"Breathe sweetheart. You can take it"

Sylus scoffs "Of course she can fucking take it, she takes my cock wonderfully"

"I'm sure", Zayne agrees "But I'm the one fucking her now."

Zayne leans down and captures your mouth in a kiss, his tongue delving deep. At the same time, he shifts the angle of his hips, driving into that spot inside you that makes your toes curl and eyes roll back in your head.

"Right there," you keen, fingers scrabbling at his back, nails digging into his skin as you cling to him. "Don't stop, Zayne! Fuck me just like that!"

"So fucking tight and wet and perfect. Ungh, I can't...I'm going to..."

"Yes, yes, yes!" you wail, your body bouncing with the force of his thrusts, tits jiggling hypnotically. "Cum inside me, Zayne! "

"Sweetheart, fuck, I'm cumming!" He slamming into you one last time before burying himself to the hilt. His cock throbs and pulses as he starts to cum, painting your insides with thick, hot ropes of his seed.

You feel each spurt of his release, your body milking him for every last drop as you reach your own peak.

 "ZAYNE!" you scream, back bowing, eyes rolling back in sheer ecstasy as your pussy clamps down around him.

Zayne's hips give a few more lazy rolls as he works himself through the aftershocks. "You're mine now y/n"

"Ours" Sylus confirms "She belongs to both of us now, so I hope you don't mind sharing"

Zayne pulls out of you with a low groan. He takes in the sight of his seed spilling out of you and feels a deep sense of satisfaction.

With a gentle touch, he brushes your hair back from your forehead, tucking a few stray locks behind your ear.

"Wait here, sweetheart" Zayne murmurs, pressing a tender kiss to your lips before rising from the bed. He walks to the bathroom, the muscles of his firm ass flexing with each step.

" I got a towel for..."

Zayne walks back to the bedroom and freezes in the doorway, eyes widening as he takes in the sight before him. Sylus is nestled between your thighs. He looks up at Zayne giving him a lazy smile.

"I'm just cleaning up your mess"

Sylus turns his attention back to you and groans at the sight of Zayne's cum leaking out of you. He leans in and drags his tongue through your folds, moaning at the taste.

Zayne's cock twitches and starts to swell again as he watches Sylus clean up the mess he made, his tongue delving deep to lap up every last drop. The sight sends a fresh surge of blood rushing south, his shaft rising to attention once more.

Sylus seals his lips around your clit and suckles "Mmm, you taste so good together" he murmurs against your flesh, the vibrations making your thighs tremble.

Sylus gives your clit a parting kiss before rising gracefully to his feet. He turns to face Zayne "I want to see you fuck her again. I want to watch you take her over and over until she's a drooling, cock drunk mess."

Zayne strides over to the bed, his thick cock bobbing with each step, hard and ready for more. He settles back against the pillows and calls for you.

"Come here"

You don't hesitate, crawling up the bed until you're poised over Zayne's straining erection. The feeling of his him pressing against your folds again makes you shiver in anticipation.

"You look so pretty like this" Zayne whispers, gripping your hips tightly, guiding you down onto his cock.

With a breathless moan, you sink down onto him, your walls stretching to accommodate his girth as he fills you in one smooth stroke. You both groan at the sensation, your body trembling as you adjust to being so thoroughly stuffed full again.

"Oh god, Zayne!" you cry out, hands braced on his chest. "You're in so deep!"

Zayne grunts, hips flexing slightly, stirring his cock inside you.

"Can I move?" you breathe out, voice quivering with need. "I need to move, you feel..."

"Good?"

"Sooo good, Zayne"

"Move y/n, ride me"

"I want you to feel good Zayne"

"I'm buried deep inside your tight little cunt y/n, I'm already in fucking heaven"

You start to move, rising up until just the tip of Zayne's cock remains inside you. Then you sink back down, taking him to the hilt in one smooth glide.

"Oh fuck, yes! Just like that" his fingers dig into the flesh of your hips as he guides your movements.

You set a steady rhythm, breasts bouncing with each roll of your hips, your arousal allowing you to slide smoothly along his length. The sound of skin slapping against skin fills the room.

"Fucking hell, look at her go" you hear Sylus say "She's dripping for it."

"I'm too sensitive, I'm gonna cum again!" you cry out, your hips starting to move erratically as you chase your rapidly approaching climax. "Please Zayne!"

"That's it, Y/N. Don't fight it," Zayne orders as he starts to thrust up to meet your downward movements.

"Oh god, oh... I'm cumming!" you scream, throwing your head back in ecstasy.

Your pussy clamps down on Zayne's shaft as you gush and spasm above him. You scream his name over and over, your vision whiting out from the intensity of your orgasm.

Zayne doesn't stop his thrusts even as you come down from your high, determined to work you through the aftershocks.

He sits up abruptly, strong arms pulling you flush against his chest.

"Sylus deserves a turn," Zayne murmurs, nipping at your bottom lip before soothing the sting with his tongue. "Don't you think, sweetheart?"

As if summoned by the mention of his name, Sylus presses his chest against your back, the heat of his skin seeping into yours. You feel the heavy length of his erection nestling in the cleft of your ass. When did he get naked?

"I can't come again," you whine weakly, your body still trembling "It's too much, too soon."

"We'll see about that" Zayne and Sylus say in unison, identical smirks playing at their lips. They exchange a look over your head.

"We'll be gentle," Sylus promises as his hands start to roam over your body. "At first."

"Spread her open for me"

Zayne reaches around to your ass, strong hands gripping the soft globes tightly. He kneads the supple flesh, thumbs digging into the meat of your cheeks as he starts to spread you open. Your ass yields to his touch, the tight ring of muscle slowly widening as he exposes you.

"Fuck, look at that," Sylus growls as he presses the swollen head of his cock against your back entrance. "So pretty, all puckered up and begging for a cock."

"Oh god!" you whimper, fingers scrabbling at Zayne's chest

"Wider, Zayne," Sylus commands, voice strained with the effort of holding back as your incredibly tight rear entrance stretches around the thick head of his cock. "I need more room to play"

"Like this?" Zayne asks, spreading your cheeks as far apart as they can go, thumbs digging into your soft flesh.

"Fuck yes, just like that"

"Ohhh, it's so big!" you cry out, back arching as you feel Sylus' girthy cock stretching you "I feel so full"

You try to close your legs to ease the intense, overwhelming sensation but Zayne stops you.

"Uh-uh, none of that"  Zayne scolds, gripping your thighs tightly and pushing them back open, holding you in place.

"This ass is mine," Sylus' hand comes down to grip your cheek hard "Just like the rest of you."

He spits crudely into the valley of your ass, the warm saliva dripping down the cleft and pooling around where he's slowly impaling you on his cock. 

Zayne leans in to capture your lips in a filthy kiss, tongue delving into your mouth and tangling with yours once again.

"I'm halfway in" Sylus grits out as he fights the urge to slam the rest of the way in.

"I want it all, Sy," you whimper against Zayne's lips "I need you both"

Sylus smirks at your desperate pleas, hips surging forward to bury himself to the hilt in one brutal thrust. Your ass swallows the last of his length, tight walls clenching and fluttering wildly around the intrusion.

The combined groans of pleasure echo through the room as Sylus hilts inside you, heavy balls nestling against your ass.

"Fuck me, this is incredible," Sylus gasps, head falling back in bliss at the exquisite sensation. He gives a couple of experimental pumps, relishing how your body yields to his dominance.

The sudden, intense stimulation sends both you and Zayne into a fit of desire, bodies writhing against each other as Sylus starts to set a rhythm. 

"You like this, don't you, kitten? Are you ready for more?"

"Please Sy...I-I need it" you cry out, head lolling against Zayne's shoulder.

Zayne chuckles and reaches down to roughly palm your tits, pinching and rolling your nipples between his fingers.

"What was that kitten?" Sylus murmurs hotly in your ear "Use your words if you are going to beg for it."

"Please fuck me harder. I want to feel you in my fucking stomach! Fuck me stupid with your cock until I can't even remember my own name! Please, please, please! I'm begging you!"

"Good fucking girl"

At your shameless begging, Sylus and Zayne start to move. Their movements match and complement each other perfectly, Sylus slamming into your ass as Zayne fucks into your pussy.

"Oh god, I can feel you both" you breathe out, eyes wide with shock and awe as you feel them pressing against each other through the thin wall of your pelvic tissue, separated only by a thin barrier deep inside you.

The sensation is indescribably intense, the dual stimulation of two cocks stretching and filling you in ways you've never experienced before. The knowledge that these two men are claiming you so completely, in every way imaginable, sends your arousal skyrocketing.

Sylus and Zayne groan in unison as they feel each other through your walls, the knowledge that they are pleasuring you together pushing them closer to the edge.

"Oh...oh fuck, it's too much!" you wail, feeling your climax building at a breathtaking pace.

When Sylus reaches around to flick your clit with expert precision and Zayne latches onto your nipple, sucking hard and grazing it with his teeth, it proves to be the final catalyst your overstimulated body needed. Your climax crashes over you like a tidal wave, every nerve ending igniting with mind numbing ecstasy.

"OHHHH FU...,OH GOD, I'M CUMMING!" you scream at the top of your lungs, your voice echoing off the walls. Your pussy clamps down HARD on Zayne's cock, silken walls rippling and squeezing him like a vice. At the same time, your asshole clenches and flutters wildly around Sylus, gripping him like a hot, slick fist.

With synchronized grunts and groans of pure pleasure, they both surge forward one last time, burying themselves as deep as they can into your spasming holes as their own powerful climaxes overtake them.

Sylus hilts deep in your ass. His cock pulses and throbs, painting you with thick ropes of cum. He grips your hips hard enough to leave bruises, holding you in place as he fills you with spurt after spurt of his release.

Zayne slams into your cunt, his cockhead flaring and pulsing as he shoots his own heavy load. Your greedy pussy milks him for every drop, walls rippling and squeezing as it sucks his cum deep into your core. He bites down hard on your nipple, muffling his groans against your breast.

Their combined releases trigger aftershocks of pleasure that wrack your entire body, leaving you shaking and mewling weakly between them.

Their hands grip your trembling body tightly as they ride out their orgasms. They hold you in between them, their softening cocks plugging you up, not allowing a single drop of their release to escape your stuffed holes.

You collapse against Zayne's chest, utterly spent and boneless, your body still twitching. Sylus drapes himself over your back, both of them panting harshly as they try to catch their breath. 

"You're heavy, Sy"

Sylus chuckles breathlessly against your neck, nipping at the sensitive skin. "Sorry, kitten," he apologizes, but makes no move to lift his weight off you. If anything, he seems to press down harder, enjoying the feeling of pinning you beneath him. "You didn't seem to mind a few minutes ago when I was pounding this perfect ass and fucking you silly"

Zayne smirks, one hand coming up to gently tilt your chin towards him. "He's right, sweetheart. You were screaming for more just a little while ago. Now you're complaining about a little weight?"

"Mmm, I guess I can't complain too much about being the filling in a Sylus and Zayne sandwich, right?"

[be-it-so]

My favorite headcanon about gods and the mortals is that gods never understand how fragile humans are and don't understand how deep god's touches go through mortal's skin. (or simply don't care)

Athena will make Diomedes's grip on his spear stronger pushing his fingers tighter and almost breaking his bones. She fixes his position making his stance perfect, but human's body was never able to get into position this perfect so his muscles will be tearing and his bones will be cracking just to be instantly healed. When Athena removes her hands, his body will be covered in bruises.

Odysseus will always feel burning and at the same time freezing gaze on his back while Athena watches him across the battlefield. His ears will be filled with her breath and whisper, that will ring in his head long after she ended speaking. She will help him shot an arrow, and he will feel his joints moving in the way they were never supposed to move.

When Apollo turns all the spears and arrows away from the Hector he will still feel them digging into his flash. Apollo will raise him from the dust again and again, and Hector won't be able to stand without hearing god's voice in his ears and feeling god's burning touch on his shoulders. He closes his eyes and still sees the light.

Helen will stand tall to speak up to Paris, and Aphrodite will place her hands on Helen's shoulders to remind her of goddess's presence and this flaming grip will weight as heavy as ten years of war. Aphrodite will wash Helen's face so her skin will shine brighter and eyes will haunt every man in the room, and the only thing Helen feels is her skin freezing from the coldness of Aphrodite's hands.

And those touches won't end with battle or even with war. Every time Diomedes fights he will feel his body taking the exact position Athena once made him in, his limbs will come into shape they were never meant to be in, without deforming cause Athena already fixed them, once she already designed him according to her vision. Every time Odysseus lies his words will echo in his head just like Athena's words did before, every time he uses a bow, arrow in his hands will feel like a burning torch or like an ice, and his joints and tendons will sing in a perfect copy of the song Athena made them perform inside his body on the battlefield. Every time Helen will square her shoulders to feel herself more confident she will feel burning touch on her chin pushing it up and freezing breath in her hair. She will look at her husband and shadow of tight grip on her shoulders will become shadow of sharp nails digging into her skin, holding her in place.

Even dying at Achilles's hands and falling to the ground Hector would still hear an order in his head telling him to get up and fight, his own blood running down a neck will feel like Apollo's hands forcing him back to his feet.

No mortal ever forgets a god's touch.

[ang3ltine]

𝐇𝐨𝐰 𝐒𝐪𝐮𝐢𝐝 𝐆𝐚𝐦𝐞 𝟐 𝐖𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐧 + 𝐌𝐲𝐮𝐧𝐠 𝐠𝐢 (333) 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐃𝐚𝐞 𝐡𝐨 (388) 𝐰𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐭𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭 𝐲𝐨𝐮!!

۶ৎ 𝖥𝖾𝖺𝗍𝗎𝗋𝗂𝗇𝗀- 𝖲𝖾 𝗆𝗂 (380), 𝖭𝗈 𝖾𝗎𝗅 (𝗀𝗎𝖺𝗋𝖽 11), 𝖩𝗎𝗇 𝗁𝖾𝖾 (222) , Hyun ju (120) , 𝖬𝗒𝗎𝗇𝗀 𝗀𝗂 (333) 𝖺𝗇𝖽 𝖣𝖺𝖾 𝗁𝗈 (388)

𝖶𝖺𝗋𝗇𝗂𝗇𝗀𝗌: none except for some suggestive comments/themes by Se mi and No eul

𝖺𝗎𝗍𝗁𝗈𝗋'𝗌 𝗇𝗈𝗍𝖾𝗌: this freaking app crashed while I was editing ughh!! Also check out latest fic here!

𝐍𝐨 𝐞𝐮𝐥:

- She's kind of stand off-ish at first if she doesn't know you, it'll take her a while to fully trust you.

- If you're in the games and she knows you? She's going to try every way possible to make contact with you during interactions throughout the games with secret notes.

- Sometimes she'll stuff it an a bread that's being served to you or just straight out give it in your hand when nobody is looking.

- She honestly prayed to herself that you wouldn't try to get yourself eliminated and doesn't want to be the one to kill you.

- Not really into nicknames but if you were super close to her then maybe she'd call you 'babe' or 'love.'

- Very protective and will get somewhat pissed if other participants in the games are flirting with you. Would definitely shoot them when she has the opportunity and will have no regrets.

- Lokey, she would try quickies with you in the women's washroom (if she had the chance) and would walk out like nothing ever happened. Leaving you shocked but satisfied <3

- No eul is a quiet yet assertive girlfriend who cares about you deep down but won't outwardly say it. You don't have to worry with a partner like her because you know she'll always have your back!

𝐒𝐞 𝐦𝐢:

- Oh Lord, be prepared because you're in for a bumpy ride.

- Se mi is the ideal girlfriend. She treats you like a freaking princess and would give you cute pet names like 'darling' or 'angel.'

- She looks intimidating at first but was the first to approach you with a smile and would be very attentive. If she knew you before joining the games, she'll be cross at first but will try everything to keep you safe. Will hold your hand and keep you close during mingle or when the massacre night happens.

- Would try to keep people like Thanos from interacting with you without having to resort to violence. However, if they persisted then they'd get a string of snarky remarks from her, shutting them down completely.

- This girl is major tease just to get a reaction out of you. Will whisper the most obscene things into your ear and would walk away , leaving you high and dry. Super into pda but if you're not comfortable with it then she's cool with it.

- Heated makeout sessions/quickies in the washroom stalls. Se mi doesn't really give a fuck if they get caught, she just wants to have you writhing under her grasp and would glady give whatever you wanted.

- Se mi is an amazing partner and you'd have alot of patience with this girl because of her constant teasing. But she's also very loving and caring. So expect nothing less from your raven haired girlfriend and show the same love in return ♡♡

𝐉𝐮𝐧 𝐡𝐞𝐞:

- Jun hee would keep to herself at first and will seem shy and reserved. Main reason is because she doesn't want to draw too much attention to herself, since she's pregnant with a child.

- If she knew you before the games , she wouldn't want you to help her as she feels like it would be a burden to you. But you reassure her that it's ok and that you wanted to help.

- You're the first one to approach her and she couldn't be more grateful. She'd treat you so nicely and would compliment you alot. Super appreciative of your help and will try her best to make you happy despite her condition.

- You'd make sure she got all the provisions necessary for her and gave her extra food or you would offer her your pillow to her for more comfort. During the fight at night, you put Jun hee's safety before yours, not letting a single scratch land on her.

- You two are the sweetest couple in existence and the old lady that takes care of you both will treat you like her own children. Would be super proud to see that Jun hee is getting the love that she deserves.

- Jun hee has a hard time expressing her feelings but is a super kind and attentive girlfriend.

𝐇𝐲𝐮𝐧 𝐣𝐮:

- Hyun ju treats you like a trophy, someone who deserves to be treasured and well looked after.

- Tries making it up to you if she knew you outside the games and will apologise profusely for leaving you without a word.

- That's exactly what she did when you first asked her to be her partner during the 6 legged race game. She was almost brought to tears as nobody else wanted to join her.

- Will protect you with her life and also encourages you to be brave so you wouldn't have to rely on others so much. Is super proud when you overcome your fears.

- Is grateful that you're so willing to stand up for her if anybody badmouths her. Saying that you think she's really pretty and you don't want her to compare herself to other girls.

- As she's skilled with a gun, she'll have you hide behind her as you guys make your escape. Not wanting you to get hurt or injured in any way possible.

- She's the tall quiet girlfriend who likes being observant but will stand up for you no matter the circumstances. Plus she's the best cuddle buddy!!

𝐌𝐲𝐮𝐧𝐠 𝐠𝐢:

- Realistically, you would avoid him but he's Lee Myung gi. He's going to give you many reasons to convince you that he's not just a fraud. That he's willing to change for you.

- He would also give you the princess treatment. Treats you like glass, making sure you're safe and well protected. Will also keep you away from Thanos, especially if he tried hitting on you. (Que the brawl in the washroom)

- Is an absolute diva but you're here for it. You hype him up when he tries standing up for you or someone else , like Min su (player 125). Will roll his eyes at you if you scold him after a fight, but agrees not to do it again.

- Has a soft spot only reserved for you and wouldn't care about anyone else unless he really wanted to. Always has an eye on you, but during the mingle game. You wouldn't dare leave his side.

- During the fight at night , he would keep you close and fight off those who would try and harm you. You both would survive with only a few bumps and grazes/bruises.

- Nonetheless he's most definitely a black cat boyfriend, fiesty but overall loving.

𝐃𝐚𝐞 𝐡𝐨:

- Treats you like his equal and showers you with love!! Is very friendly and outgoing when it comes to you.

- His group would adopt you like their child lol. They accepted you straight away and lokey shipped you with Dae ho. Seeing how sweet and caring he was when it came to you.

- You help him through his panick attacks and he's super grateful for it. Would fly to the moon and back for you if he could.

- Would love it when you brush your fingers through his hair and give him cute hairstyles. Will wear them proudly with a bright smile on his face, even if he got comments for how weird he looked xd.

- If anyone tried hitting on you, he'd try his best to defend you and keep on reminding them that he's a marine so they shouldn't mess with him!

- He's a golden retriever boyfriend that is loyal and humble. Is a very giving person and if you guys survived the games, you'd both live happily together in your shared apartment.

- Loves it when you run your fingers through his hair, also when you style his hair! Will wear it proudly with a bright smile on his face, despite getting weird look from others.

- Is super grateful if you talk him through his panic attack during the shoot out when they try escaping.

- Dae ho is a golden retriever boyfriend for sure, sweet, playful and super loving!! Please treasure him and not break his heart, he deserves the world ♡