#so she's my guardian in a way for a while

[fairyyofshampoos]

The contrast between public image vs true self

- or the core theme of the movie «Kpop demon hunters»

⚠��� Spoiler Warning: This analysis contains major spoilers for K-pop Demon Hunters, including character arcs and the ending, read at your own risk and thank you for your attention, hopefully this will give you some more insight.

Before diving into how this theme shapes the film's characters and narrative, we first need to understand the K-pop industry itself - an industry built on illusion, perfection, and suppression.

I. The cult of perfection

At the heart of the K-pop industry lies a meticulously curated image of perfection. Idols are expected to look flawless, act politely, remain scandal-free, and constantly exude positivity, regardless of what they're experiencing behind the scenes.

From a young age, they are trained not just in singing and dancing, but in self-policing: how to smile through pain, how to speak without controversy, and how to behave like a product rather than a person.

But behind this shiny exterior lies a reality often hidden from public view. Many idols suffer in silence under the weight of:

Mental health struggles

Burnout and sleep deprivation

Loneliness and isolation

Repression of one's identity (dating bans, hiding sexuality, masking trauma)

The system demands that anything not aligned with perfection be either discarded or hidden - swept under the rug for the sake of image.

In that sense, being a K-pop idol and being a demon hunter in the movie are not so different - both live double lives, expected to protect the world while sacrificing their own truth.

In my perspective, the two major figures in the film that represent this oppressive system are - Celine and Gwi-ma.

Celine - the group's mentor, stands firmly by the "never show weakness" ideology. She instructs Rumi to keep her half-demon identity a secret, even from her closest friends and fellow group members. Celine's intentions may stem from protection, but the effect is the same: Rumi must suppress her truth for the sake of image, reinforcing the idea that authenticity is a liability.

Gwi-ma - the demon king and the villain of the movie, mirrors the darker, more exploitative side of the industry. He doesn't just feed on fear - he weaponizes it. He uses people's deepest insecurities against them, turning them into tools for his own gain.

This can manifest in different ways:

Stripping people of their souls to gain power

Tempting them into soul-binding deals, transforming them into demons

This allegory is chillingly close to reality. In the real world, some artists quite literally sacrifice their lives to the idol system - drained by impossible expectations, endless schedules, and the inability to be human in a world that only values performance.

Gwi-ma's demonic deals feel eerily similar to what some idols go through: giving up pieces of themselves for fame, validation, and survival, only to slowly lose who they are.

But not all control in the industry looks like outright abuse. Sometimes, it comes disguised as guidance, care, or tradition.

In this light, Celine - Rumi’s guardian and mentor represents the conservative face of the industry. She’s not like Gwi-ma, who openly feeds on pain and insecurity. Celine is veiled in good intentions and legacy, believing she’s protecting Rumi by telling her to hide her demon side and uphold the image of perfection. Her motto is simple: “Never show weakness.”

And that’s exactly what makes her so dangerous.

Celine isn’t trying to destroy Rumi - but she is trying to erase or fix parts of her.

She’s a stand-in for the real-life managers, producers, and executives who claim to “know best,” silencing idols’ identities, emotions, and struggles in the name of professionalism and survival.

While Gwi-ma is the industry’s dark side personified - exploitation, dehumanization, manipulation, Celine is the polished exterior. She is the system trying to preserve its legacy, no matter the human cost. And her belief that Rumi must hide her truth for the sake of the group reflects the way real idols are often discouraged from speaking up about their trauma, sexuality, illness, or dissent.

Celine’s role reminds us that harm isn’t always loud or monstrous. Sometimes, it’s dressed in smiles, and quiet expectations.

Il. Persona vs Reality

In the K-pop world, every idol is assigned a role - sometimes by their company, sometimes by the public, and often both. These personas help make the group more marketable: the cold, mysterious one, the bright bubbly one, the clumsy maknae, the charismatic leader. It's branding - but for a human being.

Over time, these personas start to become cages.

Idols aren't just performing on stage, they're performing off it too, carefully maintaining their image in interviews, on livestreams, and even in private moments caught by hidden cameras or fan interactions. The longer this act is kept up, the harder it becomes to remember who they are beneath it.

The characters opposing the ones that represent the system, and suffering directly under their influence - are the victims: Rumi and Jinu.

Rumi - the Crowned but Caged

Rumi wasn’t just chosen to be a star, she was born into it.

Her mother was a member of the Sunlight Sisters, a past generation of demon hunters whose fame and legacy still cast long shadows. After her mother’s death, Rumi was raised by Celine, her mother’s groupmate, who shaped her into the centerpiece of the next generation: Huntrix.

From the beginning, Rumi was destined to lead. The responsible one. The strong one. Her image, particularly in the mv for Golden, presents her as almost mythical, untouchable - clothed and poised like nobility. She’s not just an idol. She’s a symbol.

Rumi’s persona is not one she chose. It was placed on her like a crown - and like a crown, it’s heavy. She must live up to the memory of her mother, the expectations of her fans, and the control of Celine. And all of this, while hiding the truth of who she really is: half demon.

Even among her closest groupmates, Rumi is taught to hide the parts of herself that don’t fit the image. Because in the world of idols, difference isn’t beautiful - it’s dangerous.

Jinu - the Haunted Performer

400 years ago, he was a poor boy with nothing but a dream and a bipa. Then came the voice: Gwi-ma, the demon king, whispering promises of power, fulfillment, and freedom from suffering. Jinu accepted. And from that moment on, his life was no longer his own, but at the hands of a devil, to do as he pleases.

The truth of what happened is fragmented. Jinu offers Rumi a version in which he lived with his family in a palace until his transformation forced them into exile. Gwi-ma, however, offers another: that Jinu left them behind to feast alone, turning his back on them out of selfishness. The past is uncertain - but what is clear is Jinu’s torment.

In many ways, Jinu is a symbol of the performer who’s lost touch with who they used to be. He’s played the part for so long, he no longer knows what’s real. But something in Rumi starts to crack through the mask.

In my honest perspective, Jinu is a fool.

A fool for believing the sweet words of a devil who dragged him into hell.

A fool for listening to the very voice that shames him, haunts him, and convinces him he’s a monster.

And perhaps most tragically - a fool for hesitating. For spending the entire film suspended between two choices: to keep following Gwi-ma’s orders or to stand beside Rumi and fight back.

He never fully chooses. He deepens his bond with Rumi - they sing together, share moments of quiet understanding, even sing a duet called “Free.” But all the while, he’s still stealing souls, still feeding the very monster that keeps him chained.

And maybe that’s the most painful part of all:

Jinu wants freedom, but he doesn’t believe he deserves it.

He thinks the past owns him. That redemption is for someone stronger, someone purer.

So he stays on the fence - torn between guilt and longing, between who he was and who he could become.

Jinu isn’t the cold villain he pretends to be - he’s a scared, broken boy who made a mistake, and keeps making it again and again.

III. The cost of being authentic

At the heart of the movie lies a painful truth: becoming your true self in a system that profits from illusion demands sacrifice. For both Rumi and Jinu, the path to authenticity is paved with betrayal, guilt, and the loss of everything familiar. Their arcs begin in isolation but end in collision - where honesty, no matter how flawed, becomes the only way forward.

Gwi-ma, the demon king, doesn’t enslave with brute force. He marks his victims with glowing patterns - symbols of repressed fears, insecurities, and shame. These marks are deeply metaphorical: they reflect how the K-pop industry often treats an idol’s humanity as a flaw to be concealed. In the real world, these “patterns” mirror mental illness, trauma, hidden identities, or even the simple fact of growing up - all things that can result in an idol being blacklisted, exiled, or torn apart by public scrutiny.

Gwi-ma weaponizes guilt. He manipulates memory, twists truth, and gaslights his victims into thinking they are the problem.

This is the dark side of K-pop personified: the voice that tells you you’re only loved when you’re perfect - and disposable when you’re not.

Jinu, caught in Gwi-ma’s grasp, spends the entire film torn between two versions of himself: the selfish monster that Gwi-ma insists he is, and the boy Rumi sees - someone capable of change. He listens to the voice that shames him and uses his past as a leash. And in doing so, he keeps hurting the one person trying to free him.

Rumi, on the other hand, is marked too - but hides it. Half-demon by blood, she’s taught to suppress every trace of it. Not just by Gwi-ma, but by Celine, who enforces a “show no weakness” policy, insisting she preserve the perfect idol image at all costs. But when the truth inevitably comes out - on stage, under the lights, in front of her members, Rumi is forced to confront what she’s spent her whole life avoiding: the fact that perfection was never hers to begin with.

The film’s climax doesn’t revolve around a final battle alone - it’s built around music, with each key song symbolizing the emotional journey of its characters.

“Your Idol”, performed by the Saja Boys under Gwi-ma’s control, is a chilling anthem of seduction and consumption. It reframes the idol as savior, obsession, and parasite all at once. With lines like “I’m the only one who’ll love your sins” and “Thank you for the pain, ‘cause it got me going viral”, the song reflects the toxic co-dependence between idols and fans, where personal suffering is exploited for engagement, and authenticity is replaced with spectacle.

By contrast, “This Is What It Sounds Like” is the antidote. Rumi sings not to entertain or seduce, but to confess. It’s a song about brokenness, honesty, and finding strength not in illusion, but in truth. Her voice trembles. She admits her shame, her fear, her failure. But she does it openly and that act alone begins to undo everything Gwi-ma built.

Where “Your Idol” thrives on manipulation, “This Is What It Sounds Like” is liberation.

It’s what happens when someone stops trying to be what the world wants, and simply says: this is me.

The most powerful moment in the movie is not the slaying of Gwi-ma - it’s what precedes it. After everything, it’s Jinu who returns in Rumi’s moment of weakness, not as a hero, but as someone finally choosing to break free from the voice that’s owned him for centuries. He gives her his soul - not because he thinks he deserves redemption, but because she believed in it for him.

Jinu: “You gave me my soul back. And now… I give it to you.”

This act of sacrifice becomes Rumi’s power. With his soul, she defeats Gwi-ma. And from that act of truth, a new honmoon is formed - not golden, polished, and performative like before, but rainbow-hued: multi-coloured, real, and whole.

IV. Conclusion

K-pop Demon Hunters isn’t just a story about fighting demons. It’s about fighting the ones we carry inside us - the ones fed by perfectionism, guilt, fear, and shame. It shows how the K-pop industry, for all its glamour, can often demand silence over truth, masks over identity.

But it also shows that healing doesn’t come from fitting the mold. It comes from breaking it.

Rumi and Jinu’s stories prove that authenticity isn’t free, it costs you everything false.

But in return, it gives you something far more powerful:

A voice that’s finally yours.

A past you no longer have to erase.

This is what it sounds like.

[pesky--dust]

I would like to speak about Abigail’s age.

On the Hannibal Wikia we may see that she is nineteen years old, but this isn’t ever stated in the show, is it? Let me explain the way I see it.

We know that G.J. Hobbs was killing university students for eight months. When Will saw the field kabuki left by Hannibal, he realised that the killer has a daughter who would be leaving home soon.

Moreover, Marissa in Potage says about people at school talking which means that she and Abigail are still in high school. In Oeuf Hannibal asks Abigail, if she thought about going to the university and Abigail states that her father was killing girls from the universities she wanted to attend.

So... all of that would probably mean that she is supposed to graduate for the high school soon enough.

However, Hannibal and Will somewhat become her legal guardians. I guess it may be so because she was running away from the facility she was in, but! Given she and Marissa were still being high schoolers makes me think that Abigail could have been younger than nineteen years old?

I'm kind of basing it on my own experience which is pretty common in my country. Namely, they scare us with the finals and the choice of the university as soon as we start high school, and so we go with our teachers and classmates, but also with families to the universities that are close in order to check out whether we would like to study there. It starts on the first year of the high school.

I doubt that Abigail would be in the first year of high school but as far as I know, in the United States you typically finish high school, when you are eighteen years old. Since we know that she and Marissa were still supposed to be in the high school, I would say that Abigail didn’t turn eighteen years old yet.

My guess is that she had her birthday while she was supposed to be dead, after Savoureux and before Mizumono.

[estellan0vella]

It's a Fine, Fine Life: H.H Hwang Hyunjin x fem!reader

WC: 17.3K

CWs: Staged Violence, Youth Caregiver, Mild Emotional Burnout, a child being a menace, Hyunjin being a pabo

General Masterlist SKZ Masterlist

The front door to the Alpha Phi frat house explodes open with a thunderous bang that makes the wall vibrate, and Hyunjin barrels through it like a man possessed, a stack of papers clutched in one arm and a rolled-up script in the other. His face is practically split in half by the size of his grin, cheeks flushed pink with excitement, eyes sparkling with the fervour of a man who just saw God.

“I HAVE ARRIVED WITH THE BEST FUCKING NEWS YOU’VE HEARD ALL WEEK.”

In the living room, the TV screen glows with the bright cartoon fires of Overcooked, four avatars running in manic little circles around a cluttered kitchen. Changbin, Minho, Jeongin, and Seungmin are currently yelling instructions at each other while desperately trying to serve dishes on time.

On the couch, Chan has Jisung curled in his lap and Jisung is wearing one of Chan’s oversized black hoodies, sleeves swallowed by his fingers, a drafted article open on his phone as he reads aloud occasionally and nudges Chan with his elbow.

“Babe, tell me if this line’s too direct, ‘Either way, someone’s lying.’ Is that like too on the nose?”

“No, baby. That’s the whole fucking point.”

Jisung hums. “Okay, but I kinda wanna soften it. Like poetic or some shit.”

Chan raises an eyebrow. “You’re writing an exposé on financial fraud. Not a sonnet.”

Hyunjin leaps over the back of the couch and lands between them, nearly kneeing Chan in the stomach. “GUYS. LISTEN TO ME.”

“FUCK,” Chan grunts, steadying Jisung, who flails slightly. “Hyun, I swear to god-”

“Guess what just got posted on the drama board?” 

Jisung squints. “A cease and desist letter?”

Hyunjin scowls. “No. The CASTING. For the MUSICAL.”

“Wait,” Minho mutters, twisting to glance back. “Why the fuck are you vibrating like that?”

“Because I’m walking on clouds! Riding unicorns! Dancing with fairies! I’m fucking radiant right now.”

“Why?” Seungmin asks flatly.

Hyunjin practically throws the script down. “It’s Oliver! And I got the role I wanted. I’m the love interest of my crush. This is fate. It’s karma. It’s divine fucking intervention.”

Felix looks over. “Wait, wait, remind me again. Who’s your crush? You change it like once a month, man.”

Hyunjin clutches his chest and sighs so deeply it sounds painful. “L/N Y/N. The prettiest girl on Miroh campus.”

Jeongin tilts his head. “Isn’t she the girl from your freshman jazz elective? The one you literally never spoke to?”

Hyunjin flings a slipper at him. “Shut the fuck up, Jeongin. That was because I was shy, not uninterested.”

Changbin snorts. “Wait, hold on. Is she the one with the kid?”

“Yeah,” Hyunjin nods quickly. “Minsu. He’s three. She brings him everywhere. She’s his legal guardian or something. Raises him by herself.”

Jisung raises a hand slowly, blinking. “Not to kill the vibe or whatever, but I saw the 1968 Oliver! movie when I was like, ten. And I don’t remember there being a major romance subplot?”

“I’m Bill Sikes!” Hyunjin announces proudly. “And Y/N is Nancy. The lovers of the story.”

Chan, Jisung, and Felix exchange a look. Jisung mouths what the fuck? Felix mouths back does he know the plot? and Chan mouths clearly not.

Minho claps once. “Holy shit! Good for you, man.”

Changbin grins. “Congrats! That’s huge!”

Jeongin nods eagerly. “You get to be romantic with your actual crush, onstage. That’s wild.”

“Hyun,” Felix says carefully, sitting forward, elbows on knees. “Honeybuns. Have you read the script yet? Or like, the book? Or seen the movie?”

“There’s a book?” 

Jisung gasps. “YES.”

Hyunjin frowns. “Okay, so what happens?”

Chan opens his mouth, closes it, then finally says, “Uh, so near the end, Bill Sikes beats Nancy to death. Like with a metal pipe or something.”

The script falls out of Hyunjin’s hands like it’s been cursed. His mouth opens in silent horror.

“You’re fucking lying,” he whispers.

Chan, Jisung, and Felix shake their heads slowly, mournfully, like they’re announcing the death of a beloved pet.

“Nope,” Felix mutters. “Straight up kills her behind London Bridge. Just absolutely wrecks her.”

Minho, Changbin, and Jeongin all pale.

“What the actual fuck?” Changbin hisses.

“You’re joking. Tell me you’re joking.”

Felix already has his phone out. “Hold on. I can show you.”

He finds the clip from the 1968 movie and turns the volume all the way up. The scene starts innocently enough, Oliver hugging Nancy on the bridge, and then Bill Sikes storms in, grabs both of them, and flings Oliver to the side. Nancy fights back, brave and desperate, but he drags her behind the stairs and beats her.

Hyunjin covers his mouth. “Oh my god,” he breathes. “I have to kill the love of my life.”

“You’re acting,” Minho says.

“That’s not the fucking point!” Hyunjin shrieks.

“Okay,” Jisung says, raising a finger, “let us, the knowledgeable ones, break this down for you.”

“Yeah,” Felix adds. “Nancy’s first song is called It’s a Fine Life, and it literally goes ‘Though you sometimes do come by, the occasional black eye, you can always cover one, while he blacks the other one, but you don’t dare cry.’ Like. She’s hiding abuse.”

“She’s a sex worker,” Chan adds. “And she’s in love with her abuser. Or at least, dependent on him. You spend her next solo screaming run, bitch, run!”

Jisung nods solemnly. “Then, after he murders her, Sikes tries to escape over rooftops. He rigs a rope to swing between buildings, gets shot, and accidentally hangs himself. Just fucking dangles there.”

Hyunjin stares at them in horror. “So, not only do I beat a woman to death, I die in the dumbest way imaginable?”

“Yup,” Jisung says.

Chan claps him on the shoulder. “Not the romance arc you thought it was, buddy.”

“Bill may have had feelings,” Felix says, “but his actions? Abusive as fuck. Manipulative. Possessive. Not love.”

Everyone turns to stare at him.

“What?” Felix shrugs. “I had to do an essay on this in Year Ten.”

Chan sighs. “Bill is her lover. Her abuser. Her pimp. All rolled into one.”

“What the actual fuck? I thought this was going to be like, a Victorian La La Land thing. Not a snuff show”

Minho sits up straight. “Okay. Fuck this. We’re watching the whole fucking movie.”

Hyunjin slumps on the floor, dazed by the devastating knowledge that his dream romance role is in fact a cautionary tale about abuse and murder.

And he hasn’t even gotten to act one.

The rehearsal room smells like fresh coffee, printer paper, and the faint sweat of anxiety. It’s the first day, and the vibe in the room is a strange mix of nervous tension and barely restrained excitement. 

Hyunjin walks in, sipping from a tall travel mug, like he wasn’t up until 2 a.m. the night before watching the entirety of the 1968 Oliver! film while screaming into his fists. He’s dressed like someone who didn’t plan to make an entrance but ended up doing it anyway, black hoodie that hangs off his tall frame, blue baggy jeans that fall over his thick-soled black platform boots with just enough chaotic sway, and that short, spiky crop of black hair left to fall however the hell it wants. 

His eyes scan the room quickly, clocking the other cast members chatting in clusters. Hyunjin doesn't care about any of it because his gaze finds you instantly, and suddenly, everything else is static.

You're sitting on the floor off to the side, legs tucked underneath you on a folded blanket. A light blue ribbed knit cardigan wraps around your frame, the long sleeves covering your wrists except where they slip up slightly as you turn a page. It’s tied at the front with a thin bow, the neckline dipping in a soft V that reveals a fitted white tank top beneath. Your skirt brushes your mid-thighs as the chunky chain necklace with the little heart pendant glints in the light every time you move. Your ponytail bounces slightly when you nod along to whatever the tiny human in your lap is saying.

That tiny human, of course, is Minsu. Your three-year-old brother is curled in your lap, totally engrossed in his Optimus Prime, Bumblebee and Megatron figures battling each other. His white sneakers light up every time he kicks his heels against the blanket. 

And right now, you’re voicing Megatron in a gravelly imitation of a villain, dramatically declaring, “Bumblebee, you insolent rust bucket, I will crush you beneath my titanium fist!”

Minsu giggles, delighted. “No, Meggy! No crush Bee! Bee zooms!”

He wiggles out of your lap, scooting forward on all fours before he sets up his figures for an epic battle. He starts arranging them carefully, putting Megatron slightly to the left, Bumblebee centre-stage, and Optimus is overseeing the chaos.

You sip from your Ravenclaw travel mug and glance over your script, distracted just enough to miss Hyunjin coming closer until he’s crouching beside Minsu.

Minsu’s head pops up like a meerkat, eyes going wide. He shoves Megatron into Hyunjin’s hand like it’s a gift from the heavens.

“Hi! You play! I’m Minsu!”

Hyunjin blinks at the toy in his palm, then smiles. “Hey, Minsu. I’m Hyunjin. I’m gonna be working with your sister.”

“Hyuni, look! Shoes!” Minsu stomps his feet twice, and the soles of his sneakers flash in rapid pulses.

Hyunjin gasps, eyes widening like he’s never seen anything cooler. “What the fuck! Your shoes light up? Dude, that’s sick.”

Minsu beams. “Is light shoes! They flash!”

“I see that,” Hyunjin nods solemnly. “I’m impressed.”

You glance up over the rim of your mug at the sound of Minsu’s delighted giggles, take in the sight of Hyunjin crouched next to your brother, boots planted, hoodie sleeves pushed up as he makes Megatron lunge toward Bumblebee with a low growl. 

“Meggy gotta lose,” Minsu instructs seriously, tapping Hyunjin’s hand. “You make Meggy fall. Bee strong today.”

Hyunjin raises his eyebrows. “Damn, alright. Didn’t know Megatron was getting his ass beat this early in the morning.”

Minsu giggles again and flops dramatically onto the blanket, arranging Optimus above like a judge. “You do Meggy voice. Big voice.”

“Big voice?” Hyunjin repeats. “Like scary big?”

“Yah!” Minsu insists, making little fists and flexing his arms. “Scary!”

“Okay, okay.” Hyunjin clears his throat and lowers his voice dramatically. “You dare challenge me, Bumblebee? I am Megatron, ruler of all Decepticons!”

Minsu slaps his knee and cackles. “Better than Y/N Meggy. She no can do deep voice. She sound silly.”

You set your mug down slowly. “Excuse the fuck out of me?”

Minsu gasps, tiny hands flying up to cover his mouth, but his eyes are sparkling with mischief. “You make Meggy sound like silly sausage!”

You gape, utterly offended. “You’ve been letting me voice Megatron for like twenty minutes. Why the hell didn’t you say anything before?”

Minsu shrugs, not the least bit sorry. “Hyuni better.”

“I see how it is.”

Hyunjin is on the verge of tears, laughter shaking his shoulders as he picks Bumblebee up and makes a ridiculous little spin in the air.

“Meggy can’t win!” Minsu declares again. “Is Meggy lose day!”

“You heard the boss,” Hyunjin says, laying Megatron flat on the floor in a dramatic, slow-motion collapse. “Megatron, defeated by the mighty light-up shoe king.”

Minsu cheers, throwing his arms up in victory before he grabs both Optimus and Bumblebee and starts making them kiss with obnoxious smooching noises.

You blink. “Dude. What are they doing?”

“They in love,” Minsu explains simply, then uses Megatron’s limp body as a bench for the two other robots to sit on. “Meggy is chair.”

Hyunjin chokes on his americano.

You reach down to ruffle Minsu’s hair. “Jesus, Min. What shows have you been watching?”

Minsu shrugs again. “Optimus kiss Bee. Bee say I love you. Meggy say okay.”

You shake your head and go back to your script, sipping your tea, trying to focus on Nancy’s first line. 

And Hyunjin, without really meaning to, starts hoping this read-through goes on forever.

Two hours later, the room is a mess of stacked chairs, half-drunk coffees, abandoned scripts, and that particular brand of exhausted silence that follows a full-length table read. Most of the cast are busy packing up, voices lowered now that the adrenaline’s burned out. 

You’re crouched by your bag, wrapping your empty tea mug into a thin plastic bag so the dregs don’t soak through your purse and Hyunjin is halfway through stuffing his empty travel mug into his backpack when Minsu’s voice pipes up behind him.

“You’re pretty,” 

Hyunjin straightens, glancing over his shoulder, one brow raised. “Thanks, little dude.”

Minsu tilts his head thoughtfully. “Are you a lady? Or a man? Or a lady man?”

You freeze.

Hyunjin chokes so hard he starts coughing, shoulders shaking as he laughs into the crook of his arm. He doesn’t look offended, but his face is a mixture of startled amusement and pure what-the-fuck delight.

“Minsu!” you snap, nudging his leg lightly with your foot. “That’s rude. Say sorry.”

Minsu instantly pouts, shoulders tensing, his whole little body bristling with the beginning sparks of a full-blown tantrum. His lower lip wobbles. His fists clench. He lets out a tiny warning whine.

Minsu stamps his feet, fists flying, face crumpling into the reddest expression of sheer injustice known to mankind. “I NOT WANT TO SAY SORRY!”

He flings himself onto the floor, his tiny fists banging the linoleum. Someone across the room stifles a laugh and looks away. Hyunjin freezes, halfway between kneeling and standing, wide-eyed as he watches the scene unfold like he’s witnessing a live-action documentary on the toddler species.

With a sigh, you sling your bag over your shoulder and reach down to grab your wallet. “Guess me and your new friend will just go get ice cream without you.”

Hyunjin gets the memo immediately and falls into step beside you, slinging his own bag over his shoulder and strolling toward the door like it’s the most normal thing in the world.

“This is gonna be so fucking fun,” you say loudly, stepping over Bumblebee with exaggerated care. “Just the two of us. No tantrumy little gremlins in sight.”

“Oh my god, yes,” Hyunjin agrees just as dramatically. “Peace. Quiet. Toppings. I love that for us.”

Minsu, now mid-scream, flails harder.

Clearly, that tactic isn’t working. The volume hasn’t decreased. In fact, he’s somehow found an entirely new octave.

“Y’know,” you say thoughtfully, turning slightly to glance at Hyunjin, “Apparently, there's a monster in this rehearsal building.”

“Oooh, I’ve heard about them,” Hyunjin says, catching on fast. “Some fucked-up little monster ghost thing. Real vicious. Lives under the floorboards. Only comes out when it hears children screaming.”

“And do you know what it eats?”

“Little kid toes,” Hyunjin says, dead serious. “Only tantrum toes, though. Screaming ones. It’s very picky. Comes out with big, hairy hands and starts chomping on your pinky toe first.”

Behind you, the crying pauses. You and Hyunjin just keep walking, speaking louder now.

“And once it eats the toes, it moves on to the rest,” Hyunjin says ominously. “Snatches ‘em up like popcorn. No sympathy. Just chomps and crunches.”

“It tried to eat a first-year who screamed during a vocal warm-up.”

“True story,” Hyunjin nods solemnly. “It only spares polite kids. Polite kids are sacred.”

Behind you, there’s a shuffle. Then a sniffling hiccup. Then the unmistakable sound of a small child scrambling to gather their toys in a panic.

“Sissy poo!” Minsu wails, his voice suddenly terrified. “Don’t leave me! Don’t leave me in here! It’s scary! Monsters will eat my toes!”

You hear the zip of his backpack, the clatter of plastic toys being shoved inside, and the rapid patter of feet behind you.

When you finally turn, Minsu’s running full tilt toward you, face red and blotchy, tiny arms outstretched. You crouch just in time to catch him. He barrels into your chest, breathing hard as you scoop him up.

“You done tantruming now, you little shithead?” 

Minsu nods, lip wobbling as he sucks his thumb quietly. “Sorry for saying you a lady man"

Hyunjin snorts. “Apology accepted, my dude.”

You straighten up, Minsu clinging to you like a baby koala, head tucked against your neck.

“I’ll see you later, Hyunjin,” 

“Hang the fuck on,” Hyunjin says, narrowing his eyes. “I was promised ice cream. You’re not ditching me now.”

You laugh, shifting Minsu on your hip. “Come on then. Let’s get sugared up.”

The walk to the campus cafeteria ice cream bar is short, and Hyunjin makes the most of it, keeping Minsu distracted with a running monologue about his boots, the monsters in the floor, and which flavour ice cream is scientifically the best.

Once inside, you juggle your wallet and Minsu while ordering three bowls of ice cream. You don’t even bother ordering vanilla because you know what’s coming.

“Vanilla’s honk shoo,” Minsu says as he rests his cheek on your shoulder. 

“Noted,” you mutter, tapping your card.

You find a table and set the ice cream down before grabbing napkins and wet wipes. You gently wipe Minsu’s hands and face, but the moment he sees Hyunjin’s ice cream bowl, he launches himself into Hyunjin’s lap.

Hyunjin looks vaguely panicked but doesn’t protest. Minsu immediately plunges a hand into Hyunjin’s bowl, snatching one of the little wafer sticks and chomping it like a lollipop.

“Hey! That was the best part, you tiny thief!”

Minsu, entirely unbothered by the outrage, starts plucking toppings from Hyunjin’s bowl like it’s a buffet. Marshmallows, gummies, even the crumbled cookie bits disappear into his mouth at lightning speed. 

“He’s gonna make me cry in public,” Hyunjin says mournfully. “Like actually. I’m gonna break down over a bowl of fucking ice cream.”

“Honestly? Fair. He’s a menace.”

“He’s a monster,” Hyunjin agrees, trying to angle the bowl away. “A beautiful, terrifying monster.”

Minsu giggles, face lighting up with evil delight as he dives face-first into the whipped cream.

“Jesus Christ, he’s in it. He’s in the bowl. You’re gonna suffocate.”

You spoon another bite of sherbet into your mouth, watching as Hyunjin tries to defend the last surviving cherry from Minsu’s advancing fingers. It’s karmic, you think. The universe’s way of balancing things. Because someone like Hyunjin, handsome as fuck, with that stupidly flawless bone structure, that spiky black hair that somehow looks perfect without effort, shouldn’t also be good with toddlers. It’s not fair. It’s cheating. The guy’s already tall and charming. Why does he also get to be nice?

But you don’t say any of that aloud. You just smile into your spoon and watch as Minsu steals Hyunjin’s last gummy worm with all the grace of a gremlin in a candy store.

A loud knock disrupts the chill in the Alpha Phi frat house like a gunshot in a library. 

Minho straightens, grabbing the remote to pause the TV. “Who the fuck is that?”

Jisung peeks toward the door without moving from his perch half on Chan’s lap, half off the couch. “Food delivery?”

Chan shakes his head. “We didn’t order anything. Did we?”

Felix holds up his phone. “I ordered coffee an hour ago, but that got here twenty minutes ago, remember? Seungmin drank it.”

“You left it unattended.” 

“I’ll get it,” Hyunjin offers, grabbing his phone and bag. “I’m leaving in a sec anyway. I’ve got the fight scene choreography with Y/N.”

That one sentence is all it takes for the living room to erupt into chaos.

“Ooooooh,” 

“Gettin’ some extra stage combat practice, huh?” 

“Bet it’s not the only thing getting dramatic,”

Hyunjin flips them all off as he walks to the door, the sound of his chunky boots thudding softly against the hardwood floor. His outfit is doing the absolute most, and he knows it, sleek black leather biker jacket layered over a black turtleneck, paired with oversized, acid-wash cargo jeans that sit low on his hips, tucked into chunky black boots.

He pulls the door open. You’re standing there, hand-in-hand with Minsu, and he doesn’t even get the chance to say hi before Minsu launches forward and wraps himself around Hyunjin’s legs like a tiny backpack.

“Hyuni!” 

“Hey, buddy.”

You’re dressed like the cover of a high-fashion pastel magazine, white satin crop top with a deep V neckline, covered by a cropped pink cardigan, and a pink and white gingham mini skirt that barely reaches mid-thigh. A silver chain belt with tiny heart-shaped charms loops low on your hips, matching the layers of necklaces around your neck. Your white stiletto ankle boots click on the concrete, and your bag is covered in charms, including one very clearly handmade by Minsu out of beads and macaroni.

“Hi,” you say. “You mentioned you live in a frat, there’s like eight of you, right?”

“Unfortunately,” Hyunjin replies.

“Any of them trustable with a kid? We’re doing the fight scene today, and I really don’t want him to see that. His sitter bailed like forty minutes ago, and I didn’t know what else to do.”

Hyunjin thinks quickly. Chan. Obviously. Minho, too. Felix, for sure. Jisung, maybe, if Chan is around. Jisung unsupervised is chaos incarnate. But a supervised Jisung? Fine.

He nods. “Three and a half.”

You snort. “Good enough.”

“Come in,” he says, stepping aside. “We’ll lump him on Chan. Chan’s basically a dad already.”

You hesitate. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Hyunjin waves it off. 

Minsu toddles in ahead of you in jean shorts, a white t-shirt under a loose, unbuttoned denim shirt, little white sneakers squeaking slightly, and his cap on backwards. His backpack is bouncing as he marches in like he owns the place.

Hyunjin leads you into the living room. Seven sets of eyes turn at once.

“Guys,” Hyunjin announces, gesturing to you, “this is Y/N and her younger brother Minsu. Y/N, Minsu, these are the idiots. Chan, Changbin, Minho, Jisung, Felix, Seungmin, and Jeongin.”

He points at each of them as he says their names. You nod politely, giving a small wave. “Hi.”

Minsu walks straight up to Chan, who’s sitting on the couch in sweatpants and a hoodie and promptly climbs into his lap.

Hyunjin dumps Minsu’s bag next to them. “Babysitting duty. Three hours max.”

You raise your hand. “No allergies. Toys are in his backpack. Spare clothes too. His sitter cancelled, and Hyunjin said this was fine.”

Chan blinks down at the three-year-old beaming up at him and poking his face. “It’s so fine. I love kids. They love me.”

“If you run out of ideas, put on Transformers. He’s three. Shiny things catch his attention.”

“Cool,” Chan nods, still being aggressively prodded by Minsu.

Within moments, Minsu has cracked open his backpack and started showing off every single Transformer he owns. Jisung, Felix, and Minho are immediately roped in.

“Make fight fun, not honk shoo.”

Minho blinks. “Honk shoo?”

“He means boring,” you explain. “Like the noise you make when you snore.”

Jisung gasps. “I’m using that. Forever. In my articles. ‘The way the police handled the evidence was complete honk shoo.’”

Felix nods. “Genius.”

Seungmin crosses his arms. “What if he’s a shithead?”

“Tell him there’s a toe-eating monster in your basement,” you say casually. “Or something. I don’t know. I make this shit up as I go. Just nothing under the bed or in the closet. I need him to sleep in his own room.”

"Got it,"

You glance at Minsu. “Also, don’t believe him when he says he can pee alone. He can’t. Someone needs to take him, sit him down, and make sure he stays seated. He might aim at you on purpose. He thinks it’s funny.”

The room goes silent, and Minsu beams. “Wee-wee on walls!”

Chan, Minho, Changbin, Jisung, Felix, Seungmin, and Jeongin all stare at the child in horror.

“I need to wee-wee now,” Minsu announces.

Everyone turns to Minho, and Chan sighs. “Minho. You’re a vet science major. You’ve handled worse.”

Minsu perks up. “Yeah! Mimo!”

Minho groans, but he scoops the child up. As Minho disappears down the hallway, Minsu babbles nonstop. “Mimo, one time I do wee-wee on mirror and it go splash! Splash-splash! An’ sissy poo scream so loud. An’ I laughed and then da floor get wee-wee too but is okay! Clean with sock! I use my sock!”

Minho nods along. “Incredible. Revolutionary.”

“I do wee-wee in kitchen trash too one time,” Minsu says proudly. “I say it’s surprise. Sissy no like surprise.”

You shake your head fondly as Minho vanishes into the bathroom with him. “Good luck.”

“Bye!” you call, pushing the door open with Hyunjin beside you.

The door slams shut behind you, and silence reigns until the bathroom door opens and Minho emerges holding Minsu’s hand. Minsu is freshly washed, beaming, and talking a mile a minute.

“I do wee-wee in da bathtub one time. Sissy say NO MIN, and I say it’s like swimming pool. But small. And I wee-wee in da potted plant! An’ in da hallway corner! An’ under sissy’s bed but she no find it ‘til it go stink.”

“Okay. No one lose sight of this child. Not for a second.”

You and Hyunjin stand centre stage in the near-empty theatre space, the black-painted floors polished and slick under the fluorescent lights, the muffled thuds of movement echoing in the high ceilings above. The makeshift prop staircase looms to the side, a crude but functional stand-in for the grandeur of London Bridge, and a few stacked chairs and crates mark out blocking for future ensemble scenes. 

For now, it’s just the two of you and a professional fight choreographer with a clipboard and the calm, slightly unhinged demeanour of someone who’s seen every possible rehearsal injury and is no longer fazed by anything short of decapitation.

The director appears from behind a curtain, arms crossed, and eyes you carefully from where you stand with one hand on your hip.

“Miss L/N,” he calls, voice echoing. “Do you have trousers today?”

“Nope,” you answer simply, glancing down at your legs. “I’ve got safety shorts under the skirt though.”

He nods once. “Right. Good. Let’s not have a repeat of the Juliet rehearsal incident from last semester.”

“I was nowhere near that production,” 

“Still,” he mutters, then waves at the choreographer. “We’ve got a fight specialist here to walk you both through the motions. Just follow her lead.”

The choreographer, a woman named Sunyoung with steel-grey hair tied into a tight bun and a body built like she could bench press the entire cast, steps forward and claps once. “Alright, bitches, let’s learn how to fake murder!”

Hyunjin straightens instinctively, eyes wide. You suppress a laugh.

“First things first,” Sunyoung says, pulling a bright purple pool noodle from her duffel bag, “Hyunjin, this is you. This is your murder weapon. For now.”

She tosses the pool noodle to him, and he catches it with both hands, then looks down at it with something between horror and confusion.

“This is the weapon that beats me to death?” you ask, staring at the foam tube.

“Only until he learns to mime the blows properly,” she says cheerfully. “We don’t use the real prop club for rehearsals until you both can get through the sequence without looking like drunk raccoons fighting in an alley.”

You snort, and Hyunjin holds the pool noodle up like a katana. “Do I get to name it?”

“No,” Sunyoung replies without missing a beat. “Alright. So we’re gonna start with blocking. Y/N, you’re leading Oliver to meet Brownlow. They’re not here today, so just imagine they exist, which shouldn’t be too hard since Brownlow is about as lively as a bag of wet towels.”

You step into your starting position, pointing toward the staircase with a flourish. “Right this way, sweetheart. Mr. Brownlow’s waiting just upstairs.”

“Beautiful,” Sunyoung says. “Hyunjin, you’re gonna come in from behind”

Hyunjin snickers and pads a few steps behind you, trying to make his steps quiet despite his combat boots clunking like anvils on the stage floor.

“Grab her by the arm,” Sunyoung instructs. “Don’t yank. You’re a bastard, not a linebacker.”

Hyunjin’s hand wraps gently around your forearm. His fingers are warm, and you glance over your shoulder at him with mock surprise.

“Oh!” you gasp. “A violent man in black leather? What a shocking twist.”

“Focus,” Sunyoung barks. “Y/N, you struggle. Pull away. Maybe get a slap in.”

You jerk your arm back and twist, pretending to stumble.

Hyunjin’s eyes widen slightly at your ferocity, but he stays in character, holding on just tight enough to be convincing.

Sunyoung steps forward. “Now we’re gonna add the next part. Hyunjin, you drag her to the staircase. Y/N, you fight him. Claw, grab, kick. Scream if you want. Just keep it real.”

She demonstrates quickly, hooking her arms over Hyunjin’s shoulders and pretending to pull back, then ducking and twisting to break his grip. Her movements are fluid, controlled, and aggressive in all the right ways. Then she shows you how to use your nails against his jacket, sliding down as if you’re being thrown, her heels scraping along the floor in a slow, staged fall.

You nod, watching every move.

“Okay,” you say, stretching your arms and shaking out your fingers. “Let’s try not to accidentally knock my teeth out.”

Hyunjin positions himself again, and you brace, then act. You kick back into him as you twist, one arm wrenching free, then grab at his jacket as he mimics dragging you toward the prop staircase. The two of you fall together in practised chaos.

“Nice,” Sunyoung says. “Now the real fun. Hyunjin, first blow. You’re not actually hitting her, but I want commitment. Swing like you mean it. Y/N, you’re gonna react like it caught your side.”

She steps behind the staircase to demonstrate the angle, how the audience will only see the weapon coming down, your twitching legs, and hear the sound effects layered on top of it. She hands Hyunjin a set of foam marks to follow, stuck to the floor where each blow should land in space, not on you.

“Hit those. With force. We’ll add the sound cues later.”

Hyunjin nods. His jaw tightens, his expression serious. You see him roll his shoulders, resetting.

You shuffle into position behind the staircase, lying on your back. Sunyoung adjusts your legs, shifting your knees to angle just right, your foot tucked in, toes pointed outward.

“Y/N, when he swings, you’re gonna twitch. Just little flinches. Then full-body shakes. The sound will cue you.”

She hands you a small earpiece, already synced to the system. The first beat echoes in your right ear.

You jump.

“That,” Sunyoung says. “Every time you hear that, you move. Got it?”

“Copy that,” 

Hyunjin lifts the pool noodle, positions himself above the prop space, and waits.

“Three, two, one, go.”

Thunk.

You twitch violently, one leg shifting.

Thunk.

Your shoulder jerks. Your foot slams once against the stage.

Thunk. Thunk.

You writhe, arms flailing briefly before slapping back to the ground. It’s horrible and weird and a little disorienting. You feel sweat prickling along your spine.

Sunyoung holds her hand up. “Good start,” she says. “Y/N, you’ll keep twitching for thirty seconds total. Being beaten to death isn’t fast unless it’s a vital organ. Which it’s not here. We want realism. But we don’t want to scar anyone. This is college. No one paid to see a snuff film.”

You nod, still breathing hard. “Got it.”

Hyunjin lowers the pool noodle, and it flops around sadly in his grip. “I swear this thing is mocking me,” 

A snort escapes you, then a giggle, and then you’re full-on cackling behind the prop staircase, legs still bent at disturbing angles, laughter shaking your stomach. “I’m sorry,” you wheeze. “It’s just this noodle. It’s supposed to be death and it’s fucking flopping like a sad dick.”

Hyunjin raises the noodle and flops it downward with exaggerated force. “Die! Die!”

“Stop it,” you laugh harder. “You’re gonna make me pee.”

Sunyoung doesn’t even blink. “If she pisses herself, rehearsal’s over.”

Hyunjin straightens up, snapping into a mock salute. “Yes, ma’am. Maximum death, minimum piss.”

“Let’s run it again!"

The spring sun is warm but lazy, hanging high in a cloudless sky over the quad at Miroh College like it’s got nowhere else to be. You’re sitting cross-legged on the grass, your stiletto heels kicked off to the side, one leg lazily jiggling as your fingers flip through your battered Oliver! script. 

Minsu is perched comfortably in the cradle of your crossed legs, a little kimbap lunchbox balanced on one of his chubby thighs as he happily munches his way through lunch. He’s dressed in blue dungarees over a white t-shirt, a matching blue cap sitting backwards on his head. 

Your cardigan flutters in the breeze, tied loosely at the front to show the soft pastel pink lace bralette beneath. Your pants are high-waisted gingham and a pearl belt cinches the waist, and even though your heels are currently off, they sit beside your oversized tote like a fashion-forward threat. 

You're scribbling down notes beside It’s a Fine Life, when Minsu suddenly starts talking with his mouth full.

“Jisu, Mimo, Fefi,” he says proudly, spraying a fleck of rice that lands on your page.

You glance down, not even surprised. “Bless you. Try again, buddy.”

He slurps in the bite like a gremlin and swallows dramatically. “I sayin’, Jisu and Mimo and Fefi, my bestest friends now. They played with me all day. ALL DAY.”

“Wow, all day?”

Minsu nods fiercely. “We do Transformers. Jisu say it so cool he almost cry.”

You laugh. “He almost cried?”

“Uh-huh,” Minsu says, very serious. “And then he show me snack cupboard. It BIG. It got fishy chips, choco pies, honey butter, and ALL the gummies. So many gummies.”

You arch a brow. “He gave you sugar?”

Minsu nods like he’s been knighted. “Mimo say I get crazy eyes and then I do my transformer voice and I go ZHOOOM and Fefi fall down, he fall down right on butt!”

You grin. “They sound like good babysitters.”

He hums in agreement, then drops his chopsticks into the grass and leans forward, whispering in a conspiratorial tone, “I know so many swear words now.”

You glance sideways. “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah,” Minsu nods. “Jisu say ‘fuck’ and ‘shit’ and ‘motherfucker’ when he drop rice cup and Mimo go ‘hey!’ and then Fefi say ‘fuck it’ and then laugh. I say it too. Fuck. Shit. Motherfuck.”

You gently wipe a smear of kimchi off his chin as he beams proudly.

“I still like poophead,” Minsu adds thoughtfully. “Poophead is funny.”

“Always a classic,” you say, flipping the page in your script. 

He starts humming something that might be the Paw Patrol theme, watching it on your phone with kimbap still clutched in one hand. But then he suddenly turns to you with wide eyes and says, “Mimo, help me with all the wee-wees.”

You blink. “All the what?”

“Wee-wees!” Minsu chirps. “I do SIX wee-wees, sissy. SIX!”

“Six? In three hours?”

“Uh huh.” He nods solemnly, like a war veteran. “First wee-wee, Mimo say okay, let's go bathroom, and I run and he say no run or you pee pants. I sit. I wee-wee normal. No walls.”

“Fantastic,”

“Second wee-wee, I say I don’t need go but I do,” he continues, licking rice off his fingers. “So Mimo go again and he sing me song so I don’t get bored. I try wee like robot but it not work. I just make noise and giggle.”

You stifle a laugh. “Okay.”

“Third wee-wee, I do fart that so big, Mimo go ‘AH FUCK’ and he cover nose and he go BLEHHH.” Minsu demonstrates the gagging in full dramatic glory, retching and clutching his stomach. “He say I stinky butt and need jail.”

You can’t hold it back this time, you laugh so hard your pen falls from your fingers.

“Fourth wee-wee, I wee-wee on Mimo’s sock,” Minsu says, unconcerned. “I thought I finish. I stand up. But SURPRISE! Wee-wee come again and go on sock. Mimo go ‘ah fuck’ but not mad. He say sock go in spinny washer and he do nakey feets after.”

You nod slowly. “So Minho walked around barefoot?”

“Yeah!” Minsu laughs. “He got hairy toes!”

You bury your face in your hand.

“Fifth wee-wee,” Minsu continues, “I try wee in kitchen pan. Jisu scream. He say ‘what the shit!’ and ‘oh my fucking god no!’ and ‘this kid is feral!’ Then Channie come. Channie say no pee near snacks. That not good.”

“Correct, snacks and pee don’t go together.”

“Last wee-wee, I hide behind couch. I say I secret. Mimo see and go ‘nooooo!’ and he pick me up and run and I almost wee but he make it. He say I crazy.”

You just stare at your brother. “You are crazy.”

He shrugs, unbothered, and shoves another piece of kimbap in his mouth.

You sigh deeply, adjusting your script, but then Minsu gasps and jumps off your lap, hands still full of lunch.

“Hey! Where are you going, you gremlin?!”

Minsu doesn't answer, his little legs pumping fast. He’s abandoned his lunchbox and he's running with full toddler energy like the goddamn wind, but his target is clear. A group of five figures has just stepped onto the quad from the path behind the art building, all holding drinks in takeaway cups. Hyunjin, Minho, Jisung, Chan, and Felix. They’re laughing at something Jisung’s saying, shoulders bumped together casually.

Hyunjin is wearing an oversized plaid shirt, mostly unbuttoned, revealing a teasing sliver of collarbone and toned chest. His ripped jeans hang loose on his hips, and his sneakers are pristine and blindingly white. A black cap shades his face, paired with chunky sunglasses that make him look like he just wandered off a fashion shoot by accident.

Minsu’s squeal cuts through the air like a firework.

“MIMO! FEFI! JISU! CHANNIE! HYUNI!”

All five of them pause, turning in unison. Minho blinks. “Is that-”

“IT’S MY BOY!” Jisung yells.

Minsu launches himself at them, still chewing, arms flailing as he throws himself into Jisung’s legs first. Jisung barely catches him without dropping his drink.

“What’s up, little man?!” Jisung laughs, spinning him around.

Minsu squeals and flails in joy, bouncing from Jisung to Felix, hugging his knees, then to Minho, who scoops him up with practised ease.

“I bring lunch!” Minsu announces, mouth still full. “Kimbap!”

Chan ruffles his hair, and Hyunjin watches, smiling widely under his sunglasses. He excuses himself with a pat on Felix’s shoulder and walks across the grass to where you’re still sitting, kimbap box abandoned beside you.

“Hey,” he says, sliding his sunglasses up.

“Hey,” 

Hyunjin squats and grabs a roll from Minsu’s lunchbox, popping it into his mouth. “Oh my god. This tastes so fucking good. Who made this?”

You raise your brow. “Me.”

He nods seriously, already reaching for another. “Marry me.”

“That easy, huh?”

“Feed me like this again and it’s over for me.”

Just then, Minsu turns and gasps. “MY LUNCH!”

Hyunjin freezes mid-bite, the kimbap halfway to his mouth. Minsu points at him like Caesar at Brutus, betrayed.

Minho gasps dramatically. “FOR SHAME! BOOOOOO!”

Minsu nods aggressively. “Bad Hyuni!”

You sigh. “Hyunjin will buy you pizza.”

Hyunjin sighs. “Yes. Lots of pizza.”

“With cheese?” Minsu asks, eyes big.

“Extra cheese,” Hyunjin says solemnly. “Cheese-stuffed crust.”

Minsu beams.

Chan leans in. “You should ask for ice cream too.”

Minsu gasps. “I like ice cream!”

Felix stage whispers, “And fizzy drinks.”

“Bubble drinks!” Minsu cries.

Hyunjin nods, utterly defeated. “Fucking fine. Bubble drinks too.”

Chan glances at you. “Y/N, you wanna come to the frat house? Hyunjin can order the food there. We can keep Minsu entertained, and you can work on your script.”

Minsu drops to his knees in the grass. “Please! Please! Please! Please!”

You sigh, but you’re already smiling. “Alright. Let me pack up.”

Minsu throws his arms in the air in celebration and runs screaming back toward the others.

You walk through the frat house front door alongside Hyunjin, but the chaos has already begun ahead of you. Minsu is practically flying down the hallway, gripping Chan’s and Jisung’s hands as tightly as his little fingers will allow. Every few steps, the two of them swing him up between them, Minsu’s delighted squeals echoing off the walls each time his feet leave the ground. 

“Higher!” Minsu yells, completely fearless.

“Jesus, kid,” Chan mutters, laughing. “You trying to touch the ceiling?”

“UP!” Minsu demands, wriggling. “I FLY!”

“Flight achieved,” Jisung says solemnly as they swing him again.

“Do you hear how smug he is?” you murmur to Hyunjin as you trail behind, arms crossed. “They’ve turned him into a monster.”

“He was already a monster,” Hyunjin points out, pushing open the door to the living room. “We’ve just enhanced his powers.”

Inside, Jeongin is slouched over one arm of the couch with a bowl of cereal that absolutely isn’t from today, Changbin is lying flat on the floor dramatically like he’s been murdered by laziness, and Seungmin has his head thrown back against the sofa, scrolling through his phone with a face that says he's already emotionally checked out of the day.

The second Minsu enters, everything explodes into motion.

“JJ!” Minsu yells, darting over to Jeongin.

Jeongin lifts one arm lazily in a wave. “Sup, little menace.”

“BinBin!” Minsu screams, launching himself at Changbin’s side.

Changbin groans like he’s being tackled by a small rhino. 

“Minnie!” Minsu grins, flopping down onto Seungmin’s legs.

“I don’t get paid enough for this.”

“You don’t get paid at all,” Jeongin replies, still eating.

“That’s the problem.”

You and Hyunjin plop down onto the couch together, shoulder to shoulder. You reach for your tote bag to grab your script. Hyunjin’s already grabbed his from the coffee table, flipping to the Oom Pah Pah scene.

“Okay,” you say. “You know I hate the way I deliver this line, right?”

He grins. “I’ve heard you say it thirty different ways, and you hate all of them.”

“That’s because I sound like a drunk pigeon,”

“I don’t know,” he says, tapping the top of the page thoughtfully. “I think it’s more of a cockney flamingo.”

You laugh, poking the side of his ribs. “Fuck you.”

The two of you fall into that familiar rhythm line by line, flipping through the pages, swapping ideas, mocking each other’s dramatic voice choices, debating the emotional arc of a pub song, and snorting every time Hyunjin does his terrible imitation of your falsetto. The rest of the room fades into background noise, even though the frat is anything but quiet.

Minsu is content and thriving in the centre of it all. Chan has poured him some pineapple juice in a plastic cup and is now crouched in front of him like a very patient babysitter-slash-best-friend, nodding along as Minsu monologues about Optimus Prime. Jeongin is showing him how to scroll through photos on a tablet, and Changbin is helping him stack tiny blocks into a tower that will definitely collapse in ten seconds.

Every time Minsu knocks over a tower, he howls in laughter like he’s just heard the best joke of his life.

“Hey, buddy,” Minho says suddenly, crouching beside Minsu, “you're wiggling pretty hard. You need to wee-wee?”

Minsu freezes for a second. “No, Mimo.”

“You sure?” Jisung asks, narrowing his eyes like a detective.

Minsu squirms. “I need to wee-wee! Really bad!”

“Shit, shit, shit—” Minho grabs him like a football and bolts. “Emergency!”

“Go, go, go!” Chan yells like a field medic.

The rest of the room just dissolves into laughter as the sound of Minho’s feet thunders toward the downstairs bathroom. You and Hyunjin don’t even look up, still locked in a semi-serious argument about Nancy’s choreography.

From the hallway, Minsu’s voice echoes. “Mimo, Mimo, it coming out!”

“Jesus, sit down! Pants down first!” 

“I was having fun, Mimo! I didn’t wanna stop to wee!”

"You know what’s not fun? Peeing on the floor.”

“I no wee on socks this time! Look! All in toilet!”

“Good job, bud.” 

“Uh oh,” 

Minho groans. “What now?”

“I need poopy.”

You can all hear Minho’s defeated groan through the wall.

In the living room, everyone erupts into laughter again. Jeongin nearly spits his cereal, Changbin actually rolls onto his stomach, wheezing, and Seungmin just mutters, “He’s a biological weapon.”

But you and Hyunjin? You’re still in your little bubble, pointing at lines, half arguing over whether Nancy should spin or stomp at the bridge.

Then comes the sound of dry heaving.

“I stinky butt!” 

Minho retches again. “Oh my god, Minsu. What the fuck did you eat?!”

“Rice and juice!” Minsu giggles.

“I think your kid’s trying to kill Minho,” Felix says from the floor.

“He’ll survive,” you mutter, scribbling a note in the margin.

A few minutes pass. You're in the middle of debating whether a spin would be too dramatic or just dramatic enough when Minsu’s voice returns.

“Mimo, you wipe my poopy bum bum now.”

There’s a pause.

“Alright, little man,” Minho groans.

“Wipe proper, Mimo! Or itchy!”

“Yes, boss man.”

“Hurry! I wanna play!”

“Can’t wipe faster than I’m already wiping!”

Ten minutes later, the bathroom door creaks open. Minho emerges, peg on his nose, holding Minsu’s hand like he’s walking him away from a war crime. Minsu, meanwhile, is beaming.

“Hyuni!” Minsu yells, running into the living room. “Pizza!”

Minho removes the peg and gasps dramatically like he’s been underwater for an hour. “Oh, sweet fuck, fresh air.”

Hyunjin finally looks up from the script and stretches. “Alright, alright, I’ll order.”

He grabs his phone and walks toward Minsu.

“Alright, boss,” he says, crouching to eye level. “Give me your order.”

“Cheese!” Minsu says instantly.

“Obviously.”

“Cheese crust!”

“Got it.”

“Bubble drinks!”

“Fizzy drinks,” Felix corrects from the side.

“Fizzy drinks!” Minsu yells.

“And-” Chan leans down and whispers, “Ice cream.”

“ICE CREAM!” Minsu repeats, raising his hands like it’s the gospel.

Hyunjin mock-salutes. “Understood. Sugar overload incoming.”

He places the order. Everyone relaxes, sprawling out on the couches and beanbags. You scoot over slightly to make room for Minsu when he clambers into your lap with a little grunt.

Pizza arrives fast. You’ve barely finished rewriting Nancy’s third verse when the doorbell rings, and Chan nearly dislocates his shoulder racing to the door. Boxes are opened, sauces are spilt, and the TV is switched on to the animated Transformers series like a religious ceremony.

Minsu sits proudly in your lap, tiny hands full of pizza. He immediately starts sucking the cheese out of the stuffed crust with disgusting enthusiasm, dipping the rest of the slice into garlic sauce with such intensity you'd think he was painting the Mona Lisa.

Jisung watches for a while, then leans over. “So, how much of raising a kid is winging it?”

You take a long sip of cola. “All of it. You think I knew how to potty train an eighteen-month-old? Did I fuck. I made that shit up. Shit hit the walls. Literally.”

Minsu giggles. “Poopy walls!”

Minho nearly chokes on his soda. “Like actual shit on the walls?” 

“Like, piece de reshitstance. Little finger smears, everywhere.”

Felix’s face twists. “You poor thing.”

“I was sobbing,” you say. “Like full ugly cry. And then Minsu sees me crying, and starts wailing because I’m wailing, and the two of us are just in the bathroom surrounded by shit and pain.”

Changbin stares. “How did that even happen?”

“Someone wanted potty independence,” you say, staring directly at Minsu.

Minsu grins proudly.

“So,” you continue, “I let him. He toddles out of the bathroom, all smug, and there’s shit from the base of his back up to his fucking shoulder blades. I go into the bathroom thinking, okay, I’ll wipe him down. What I find is-”

“Don’t say it,” Seungmin warns.

“Horror,” you say. “Literal horror.”

Hyunjin whistles. “Jesus.”

Minsu giggles. “I did it! I made poopy paint!”

Everyone laughs again. You bury your face in one hand while Hyunjin gently pats your back like a trauma counsellor.

And honestly? For a chaotic night with a toddler and a house full of barely functioning college boys, this isn’t half bad.

The theatre is buzzing softly with scattered movement, but the seats are empty, except for the front row, where seven college boys are squeezed together. Minsu is planted firmly in Jisung’s lap, his little green dungarees slightly wrinkled, sneakers lighting up every time he kicks his feet. 

“I sit here,” he tells Jisung, beaming. “You hold me.”

“Forever and always, boss,” Jisung replies with a grin, adjusting Minsu’s weight so the kid can bounce a little as he watches the stage.

Originally, the plan was to leave Minsu at the frat house. Chan had promised snacks, Minho promised fun wee-wee times with songs, and Felix had bribed the toddler with bubble drinks and ice cream. But none of it worked. Minsu had clung to your leg like a koala, eyes filling with fat tears every time you took a step toward the door. So now, the entire frat is at the theatre, serving as Minsu’s personal fan club-slash-childcare team.

Chan’s got the Paw Patrol movie queued up on Jisung’s laptop for the death scene, and Seungmin is already arguing with Felix about who’s going to hold the snacks. Minho, as expected, has stationed himself two seats away like he’s waiting for another possible emergency toilet dash.

You, meanwhile, are backstage. Lacing up your heeled Victorian boots, checking the tightness of your crimson bodice in the mirror, fingers flitting over your neckline to adjust the gingham trim at the cuffs. Your curls are pinned up in a perfectly dishevelled style. The dress is a deep red, and the striped underskirt adds just enough movement when you spin. You feel like Nancy. You feel alive. Also slightly itchy, but you’re pretending that part isn’t real.

“Hey,” Hyunjin calls from the other side of the dressing curtain, his voice muffled. “You alive in there or did the corset claim a victim?”

You step out and there he is: Bill Sikes in the flesh. The top hat is crooked, his coat is shredded at the hems, the maroon scarf makes his neck look longer. He’s got those fucking gloves on and every step he takes is heavy, deliberate, like a man used to making others flinch. His shirt’s tucked haphazardly into those loose trousers, the sash frayed like hell, and he still somehow looks good. It's fucked.

“You look like you’ve mugged three people and robbed a bread shop.”

He grins. “You look like you murdered your last five husbands and buried them in the gin barrels.”

The lights dim, and the show begins.

Minsu’s eyes widen the second the opening scene starts. The stark workhouse setting, the echo of metal bowls, the cry of a little boy asking for more. Minsu leans toward Chan, whispering, “Why he in trouble? He just hungry.”

Chan sighs. “Yeah, kiddo. The people there are kinda mean.”

Minsu frowns. “That’s poopy.”

Felix nods seriously. “Very poopy indeed.”

Scene by scene, the story unfolds. Oliver walks to London, “Why he walking so far?” Minsu asks, voice squeaky, and he meets Dodger. The guys take turns whispering answers, trying not to disturb the rehearsal while still keeping the toddler entertained.

Then comes Hyunjin’s first scene. The crowd onstage parts for Bill’s entrance, dark and looming. He stalks across the stage like he owns it, delivering the goods to Beomgyu’s Fagin. The room chills. The frat boys boo half-heartedly.

“Meanie,” Minsu says, but then he spots you entering the tavern set, walking straight toward Hyunjin.

Minsu shrieks, “SISSY POO!”

Hyunjin visibly flinches onstage as you try not to laugh mid-entrance.

You saunter up to the makeshift bar, pour him a tin cup of gin, slap it down, and launch into It’s A Fine Life. The lights are warm, and the tavern ensemble joins in, the energy growing with each bar of music. 

You bounce across the floor in your boots, tossing flirtatious smirks toward Hyunjin, who leans back in his seat and watches you like a predator. You twirl, flash petticoat, and Minsu is ecstatic. He claps off-beat, legs kicking wildly in Jisung’s lap.

“THAT’S MY SISSY!” 

More scenes pass. Then: the apartment scene.

The set is dim. You’re on stage, humming as you fuss over a pan of imaginary eggs. You move like a woman used to being quiet in her own home, hoping not to wake a storm. Then, Hyunjin emerges from under the blankets, voice thick with sleep.

“Nancy, I’m tryin’ to sleep,” he growls. “Go to Fagin’s. Get the cash.”

From the audience, Minsu gasps dramatically. “WHY HE RUDE?! SISSY POO MAKE GOOD FOOD!”

Minho leans over. “Bill’s a meanie, bud.”

“BOO!” Minsu says, full volume.

You keep playing, voice trembling with just the right touch of desperate hope. “You do love me, don’t ya?”

Hyunjin sits up, dragging the sheets, his tone flippant. “’Course I do. I live with you, don’t I?”

“That’s meanie love,” Minsu declares. “Not nice, love.”

Felix covers his face to keep from laughing, whispering, “Nancy should listen to you, kiddo.”

You don’t look at the audience, but a tiny smile curls at your mouth before it disappears behind Nancy’s mask.

A scene later, you’re with Jiwoo’s Bet, waiting at the hideout to grab cash for Bill. The lights glow golden as you’re joined by the kid playing Oliver and the boys playing Fagin’s crew. You start singing “I’d Do Anything.” You twirl Oliver, sing to Dodger, and ruffle one of the pickpocket kids’ hair.

In the audience, Minsu goes still. “MIMO,” he whispers urgently. “That’s my sissy poo. Why she dance with stinky boys?”

Minho clears his throat. “They’re acting, bud. It’s pretend. It’s her job.”

Minsu squints suspiciously. “But they stinky sausages.”

“Very stinky,” Minho agrees, deadpan.

Minsu leans back dramatically, crossing his arms. “I bet Y/N thinks they stinky sausages too.”

“She definitely does,” Minho assures him.

Satisfied, Minsu goes back to bouncing.

Minsu is practically vibrating in Jisung’s lap, cheeks flushed with excitement as he watches you step into the spotlight, the music swelling beneath your feet. The theatre goes quiet as you begin to sing As Long As He Needs Me, your voice soft at first, trembling with the weight of Nancy’s heartbreak. 

Minsu’s little hands grip Jisung’s shirt tightly. “Why sissy sad?” he asks in a whisper.

Jisung clears his throat, keeping his voice low. “Because her boyfriend’s a dick, little man. She still loves him, but he’s a real fuckin’ asshole.”

“Ass-hole,” Minsu repeats carefully, nodding with the gravitas of a toddler who has just discovered the world is unfair.

Jisung mouths ‘fuck’ to himself and just strokes Minsu’s back, eyes still on you.

You don’t even notice them. You let Nancy’s pain pour out of you, tears catching in your lashes as you sing about loyalty, love, and devastation. Hyunjin stands in the shadows just off-stage, face unreadable as he watches. You sing like you’re begging, not performing. And by the end, when your voice cracks just slightly on the final “as long as he needs me,” there’s a deep, collective exhale from the guys in the front row.

Minsu claps with all his might. “SISSY POO IS BEST!”

Seungmin quickly wipes at his eye. “Dust. Shut up.”

From there, the play surges forward. Oliver is kidnapped in the marketplace, ripped from Mr. Brownlow’s loving care and dragged back to the criminal underworld by Bill Sikes. The cast moves through the scenes with practised urgency, transitions flowing smoothly. The tension builds, and you reappear backstage, breathless as Nancy.

You plot with Brownlow, hiding in shadows, voice hushed and urgent. You’re going to sneak Oliver out. You’re going to save him.

Minsu is now curled between Jisung and Chan, a stuffed tiger clutched to his chest, eyes wide as he watches you prepare for the final stages of your doomed plan.

And then, it happens. The lights brighten. Music crashes in. Oom Pah Pah begins.

The energy in the room shifts on a dime. You twirl into the tavern set like you own the world, skirts flying as the ensemble joins in. You slap the countertop, pour fake gin, and pull Jiwoo into the crowd as you begin to sing. It’s brash and joyful, and the contrast from your last solo makes it hit ten times harder.

Minsu sits up straighter. “SISSY SINGIN’ AGAIN!”

“Yeah, buddy,” Chan says, grinning. “This one’s got dancing.”

“LOOK!” Minsu points with excitement as you hop up onto the fake bar and belt out the chorus. “LOOK! SHE SPIN!”

He’s completely enraptured, little fists waving in the air, eyes shining like he’s watching the greatest show in the world. Which, in fairness, he is. You’re electric, laughing with abandon as you lead the tavern in distraction, all the while scanning the crowd for Oliver, keeping one eye on the back door for escape.

The guys watch too, even if they’re starting to squirm. They know what comes next.

And sure enough, the music fades. The lights shift cold and blue.

Chan and Jisung act immediately. Jisung pulls the laptop from the bag like it’s a defibrillator and sets it on his lap. Chan puts the kid-friendly headphones over Minsu’s ears as Jisung whispers, “Paw Patrol movie, buddy. Brand new. You ready?”

Minsu’s eyes widen. “New one?!”

“Brand new,” Jisung confirms.

Within seconds, Minsu is fully hypnotised by the flashing colours of the Paw Patrol movie, headphones firmly in place. Jisung places one hand on the back of Minsu’s head, another across his forehead like a protective visor, making sure Minsu won’t glance up even for a second.

On stage, Oliver is walking with you to London Bridge. You crouch next to him, whispering lines full of desperation and quiet hope. Just as the embrace ends, Hyunjin storms in from the opposite wing.

He grabs Oliver roughly, shoving him aside.

“Let him go, Bill,” you say.

You shove him back.

The fight escalates. He grips your arm, yanks you backwards, and the pair of you disappear behind the faux stone staircase. The frat guys see only your feet, one boot kicking, the other twitching. The sound cues start: dull, gut-wrenching thuds. Your cries. Bone-hitting-flesh sound effects from the speakers. The guys in the front row all shrink in their seats.

“Fuck, this is worse than the movie,” Changbin mumbles, hands covering his face.

Minho is wide-eyed. “I didn’t think they’d actually do the sound effects. That’s so fucking realistic.”

Jeongin peeks through his fingers. “Why do her feet move like that?”

Seungmin groans. “Because she’s dying slowly, that’s the fucking point.”

Felix mutters something in horror as another blow sounds, and you let out a groan that echoes through the theatre.

Still, Minsu is perfectly content in Jisung’s lap, laughing softly at something Marshall is doing onscreen. He has no idea what’s happening on the stage ten feet away. Jisung holds him steady, keeping his vision locked downward.

Then the scene ends. The lights dim.

Hyunjin stumbles back onstage, running. A mob of cast members gives chase. There’s shouting, chaos. Bill Sikes climbs the scaffolding, slips. The rope catches him around the middle. A loud BANG goes off as the gunshot hits him. He dangles, limp, caught in midair.

“God that was fucking bleak,” Seungmin says, still partially hiding.

Chan looks over. “Minsu good?”

Jisung nods. “Totally. Think he thinks the pups are in danger or some shit.”

Minho mutters, “Wish we were watching Paw Patrol.”

The rest of the show picks up. Oliver is reunited with Brownlow. Fagin slinks away with Dodger, planning their next thefts. The message is clear: bad people stay bad, but maybe the good can still find peace.

And then the music strikes up again. Oom Pah Pah plays one more time.

The lights explode with colour. The full cast bursts onto the stage, singing and dancing with reckless joy. You are front and centre, spinning with your skirts flowing, grabbing hands and laughing with genuine glee. The show is over. It’s celebration time.

Minsu looks up, eyes wide. His mouth drops open in pure joy.

“OOOOOOH!”

Hyunjin dances up to you and grabs your hand. The pair of you spin in unison before he dips you low, one arm firm around your waist. You’re laughing as you belt the final line, and the cast behind you harmonises the last oom pah pah! with a triumphant cheer.

Minsu loses his shit.

“HYUNI AND SISSY POO!” he screams. “THEY DANCE! THEY DANCE!”

Chan starts laughing. “He’s gonna pass out.”

“They look like the final scene of a rom-com,” Jisung says through a grin.

“MIMO!”

“Yeah, bud?”

“Are they gonna kissy?”

Minho snorts. “I don’t know, little dude.”

“They should.”

“Maybe later. You should tell your sissy poo that.”

Minsu nods seriously. “I will.”

Minho chuckles. “Wait till she’s brushing your teeth tonight, okay?”

Minsu holds up his pinky. “Pinky promise.”

Minho links pinkies with him and whispers, “You’re a menace.”

Minsu beams. “I a little menace.”

The bathroom is warm and quiet, the soft hum of the fan buzzing lazily in the background. You’re sitting on the tiled floor in your red plaid pyjama shorts and camisole, cross-legged with Minsu curled in your lap. He’s in his favourite Bumblebee pyjamas, the little hood with antennae flopping every time he shifts. You’re gently brushing his teeth, one hand steadying his squirming body and the other keeping the brush moving.

“Spit,” you say, holding out the pink plastic cup. Minsu obliges with an overly dramatic pppthhhhhh sound, completely missing the sink and hitting your thigh.

You groan, wiping it with a towel and shaking your head. “You absolute feral gremlin.”

He just grins, wide and proud, toothpaste on his chin.

“Fank you, no more toofies,” he declares and flops back against your chest like he’s finished a great battle.

You’re brushing his curls away from his forehead when his little hand pats your arm. “Y/N,” he says, his voice thoughtful.

“Yeah?”

“Are you and Hyuni gonna kissy?”

“Wait. What?”

Minsu tilts his head and repeats. “You and Hyuni. Gonna kissy?”

You stare at your three-year-old brother like he’s just recited Shakespeare in Latin.

“Excuse me?”

“I ask Mimo,” he explains, utterly unbothered. “But Mimo no know. Mimo say ask you.”

Of course he did. You can already picture Minho’s smug face. You press the heels of your palms into your eyes, trying not to laugh or die.

Minsu makes a dramatic kissy noise. “Like this,” he says. “Mwah. Mwah.”

“Oh my god,” you mutter, dragging your hands down your face. “You’re three. Why are you asking about kissing?”

Minsu shrugs like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “You pretty. Hyuni pretty. Kissy, no?”

You don’t know whether to laugh, cry, or throttle Minho. Instead, you just sigh and wrap your arms tighter around Minsu, brushing back a curl that's fallen into his eye. “Oh, kiddo. If only life was that simple.”

He frowns. “But do you like Hyuni?”

You hesitate. There’s no point lying, not to him. “Yeah. I like Hyunjin. He’s really nice, isn’t he?”

Minsu nods solemnly. “And pretty too.”

You chuckle. “Yeah, he’s very pretty.”

“He got nice hairs.”

“He does have nice hair.”

“And big shoes.”

“Yep. That too.”

Minsu sits up a little, serious now, tiny hands pressed to your cheeks. “If you like Hyuni and he pretty and you pretty, then you do kissy!”

You squint at him. “Is this what happens in your three-year-old brain?”

He nods. “Yes.”

“Well,” you say, lifting him a little to wipe his face, “maybe you should let grown-ups figure out their own weird grown-up shit.”

Minsu scowls. “You not gonna kissy ‘cause you a scaredy chicken.”

You stare at him, betrayed. “Excuse me?”

“You hear me!” Minsu flaps his little arms. “Bawk bawk! Chicken!”

“I am not-” You can’t even finish because now he’s pecking at your shoulder with his lips like a chicken, full-on clucking into your collarbone.

“You chicken!” he crows between pecks. “Bawk bawk!”

“Okay, that’s enough,” you say through wheezing laughter, scooping him up. “Time for bed before I sell you to the circus.”

“You too scaredy to kissy,” he mumbles smugly, letting his head rest on your shoulder as you carry him to bed.

You settle him into his little bed. His nightlight glows softly, casting little robot silhouettes across the wall. You sit beside him, running your fingers through his curls as he watches you sleepily. You hum, low and quiet, the same lullaby you've always used when you can’t think of anything else. 

You smile gently and trace the tip of your pinky down the bridge of his nose. It’s something you figured out by accident when he was two and sick and wouldn’t sleep. For some reason, that soft, repetitive motion calms him instantly. And it still does. Within seconds, his breathing deepens, mouth slightly open, a soft snore building behind his tiny nostrils.

“Night, little menace,” 

It’s not even 8:30 in the morning when Hyunjin, groggy and shirtless in a pair of grey sweatpants, opens the door of the frat house and finds you looking like you've lived through a natural disaster. Your hair is scraped into a messy bun that’s leaning hard to the left, your halter crop top twisted at the side like you lost a fight with a toddler, and your light blue high-waisted pants are crumpled around your sneakers like you've sprinted in them.

Then there's Minsu, practically vibrating beside you in his bright red t-shirt and yellow shorts and a little cap perched crookedly on his head. He looks like a human Winnie the Pooh who’s been fed espresso.

You raise one exhausted hand. “Please. Reprieve. Coffee. Need. Tired. Cried before nine. I’m too pretty for this much suffering.”

Hyunjin snorts, stepping aside without a word and gesturing you in like you’re being smuggled out of a war zone. “What happened?”

“Your favourite tiny terrorist woke up at six,” you groan, dragging yourself across the living room like you’re wading through quicksand. “Threw a tantrum because I wouldn’t let him have ice cream for breakfast. Then demanded to see his Mimo and screamed until I almost lost my hearing. I cried. Like, actual tears.”

Minsu doesn’t even look back as he gallops into the living room, eyes already scanning for Minho. The second he spots him curled up on the couch, he climbs straight into Minho’s lap like a cat with a vendetta.

“Hi Mimo!”

Minho, still blinking sleep from his eyes, instinctively wraps an arm around Minsu. “Hi little dude,” he says, his voice still raspy.

You collapse face-first into the loveseat with a groan that sounds like you’ve been exorcised. Your voice is muffled by the cushions. “End me. I’m done. I surrender. I give up. The child wins. I’m out.”

Minho leans down to Minsu and whispers, “What did you do to your sister?”

Minsu leans in close and whispers back, “I needed see Hyuni for kissy plan. So I made Y/N tired.”

Minho nods slowly like this is a perfectly reasonable explanation. “Nicely done, dude.” They fist bump in silent conspiracy.

Meanwhile, Jisung appears from the kitchen like a guardian angel holding out a canned caramel latte. “You need this more than I ever will,” he says, placing it in your limp hand.

You lift your head slightly to peek at him, eyes half-lidded. “God bless your gay soul.”

Minsu hears it. His head perks up immediately like a meerkat

Jisung glances over his shoulder. “Chan! She’s required full gay healing powers. That’s like, crying since sunrise levels of damage.”

Chan appears a moment later, tousled hair and bleary eyes, clutching a cupcake box like it’s an offering to a deity. “You cried already?” 

“I cried walking up Greek Row,” you mutter as Jisung pats your hair. “I cried at 6:12. Then at 7:00. He pissed behind the couch at 7:30 and that was it. I decided to come here. I couldn’t survive another fucking second.”

“Oh, honey,” Chan says with pity, popping open the box of cupcakes. “These are from that insane bakery Jisung and I gatekeep. We never share these. That’s how dire this is.”

Jisung nods solemnly.

Chan peels one of the cupcakes and practically feeds it to you, pushing the soft sponge into your mouth.

“There, there,” Jisung croons, stroking your forehead. “So brave. So strong. For real, I would’ve just abandoned him at a firestation.”

You try to speak, but all that comes out is a broken “fuck.”

Across the room, Minsu is curled up happily in Minho’s lap, chewing on the edge of his cap and looking thoroughly pleased with himself.

Then he turns up to Minho. “Mimo?”

“Yeah, bud?”

“What’s gay?”

Minho freezes like someone just put a gun to his head. “Uh-”

You wave your hand in the air without lifting your face from Jisung’s lap. “Have fun explaining that one. He screamed for his Mimo all morning. I’m clocked out, bitch. This is your circus now. Minsu is your monkey.”

Jisung cackles. Chan starts peeling another cupcake.

Minsu blinks up at Minho with wide, innocent eyes. “You tell me?”

Minho clears his throat, looking like he’s considering just running out the door. “Right, okay, uh- So- gay means when a man bear likes another man bear.”

Minsu tilts his head. “Man bear?”

“Yeah,” Minho says. “Imagine two bears. But they’re both guys. They live in a cave. A gay cave.”

Chan and Jisung start snickering.

“They snuggle?” Minsu asks.

“Yeah, they snuggle.”

“Like sleepy snuggles or naked snuggles?”

Jisung chokes on his laughter, and Chan grabs a pillow to cover his face.

Minho powers through. “Mostly sleepy snuggles. But sometimes they also bake cupcakes and watch cartoons together.”

Minsu considers this. “So… like Jisu and Channie?”

Minho sighs in relief. “Exactly. That’s exactly it.”

Minsu’s face lights up. “So they’re man bear gay cave boys!”

Chan groans. “Please don’t let that be my new title.”

Minsu taps his chin. “I love Mimo and Fefi and Jisu and Channie and Hyuni and BinBin and Minnie and JJ. So I gay?”

Minho runs both hands down his face. “No, bud. You love us ‘cause we’re your friends.”

“But I love a lot.”

“You’re a very loving kid.”

“So I half gay?”

Jisung wheezes. “Oh my god.”

Minho sighs. “No. There’s no math involved. It’s just about who you wanna snuggle forever.”

Minsu’s eyes go wide. “Forever?”

“Yeah.”

“Do man bears in gay cave get tired of cupcakes?”

“Sometimes.”

“Then what?”

“Then they order pizza.”

Minsu gasps. “With cheese?”

“Yes,” Chan says solemnly. “Always cheese.”

Minsu nods with all the gravity of a small pope. “I like gay. Man bears sound nice.”

You finally lift your head from Jisung’s lap, grinning weakly. “That’s it. He’s gone. He’s joining the man bear cave.”

Minho drops his head onto the back of the couch with a groan as Minsu continues his questioning.

“Do man bears watch Paw Patrol?”

“If they want to,” Minho mumbles.

“What if man bear wanna be Skye?”

“Then he can be Skye.”

“What if Skye is girl?”

“Man bears can like girl pups. It’s about feelings.”

“What if man bear wanna wear pink?”

“Then he wears pink, Minsu.”

“Even glitter pink?”

“Yes. Even glitter pink.”

Minsu is quiet for a moment, tapping his fingers against his knee. Then he says, “Can Mimo be man bear too?”

Minho looks like he’s seconds from bursting into flames. “Sure, bud. I’ll be whatever bear you need me to be.”

Minsu lights up like a lightbulb. “I be baby bear. You be big bear.”

“Deal,” 

Jisung claps his hands together. “You handled that with more grace than any straight man I’ve ever seen.”

Minho groans. “I am never having kids. Ever.”

Hyunjin, curled up in the beanbag, has been giggling the entire time, wiping tears from his eyes. “That was the most deranged conversation I’ve ever witnessed.”

You lift the caramel latte in a slow, tired toast. “Here’s to the man bear gay cave.”

“Cheers,” everyone mutters, even as Minsu starts chanting it like a war cry.

“Man bear gay cave! Man bear gay cave! With cupcakes and cheese!”

“Please,” Minho begs the universe, “knock me out.”

Minho's salvation comes in the form of Hyunjin standing up to go to the kitchen. Without even a beat of hesitation, Minho seizes the moment, leans close to Minsu’s ear, and whispers, “Kissy.”

Minsu’s mouth parts in slow-motion understanding like he’s just recalled an ancient prophecy. His big eyes flick to Hyunjin’s back as he rounds the corner toward the kitchen, and without a word, Minsu slips down from Minho’s lap like a ninja sliding off a rooftop. He tiptoes after Hyunjin, sneakers lighting up every few steps in bright red flashes, giving him away entirely, but his face is determined.

You, meanwhile, are unaware of the chaos brewing in the next room because you’re currently buried under Jisung’s throw blanket like a corpse. Jisung is feeding you banana slices, and Chan is massaging your temples like you’re a stressed-out housewife who’s just returned from the battlefield.

“I don’t wanna move for twelve years,” you mumble, mouth full. “If a meteor hits, I’ll just die. That’s okay. At least I’ll be lying down.”

“We won’t let the meteor get you, angel,” Jisung says as he adjusts the blanket around your shoulders. “We’ll kiss it to death.”

In the kitchen, Hyunjin is halfway through pouring cereal when Minsu suddenly appears beside him, tugging on his sleeve. “Hyuni!”

Hyunjin looks down, grinning. “Hey, little man. You hungry?”

Minsu shakes his head vigorously. “No! I wanna know why you no kissy my sister!”

Hyunjin nearly drops the cereal box. “I- what?!”

Minsu’s eyes sparkle with mischief and sincerity all at once. “She wanna kissy you! She tell me!”

Hyunjin stares, heart trying to escape his chest cavity. “Wait… what?”

“She likey you!” Minsu announces proudly. “Like how Jisu like Channie! She said so! She say you pretty and nice!”

Hyunjin sways slightly, leaning on the counter. For a second, he forgets how to breathe. He’s been pining after you since freshman year, since you shared that jazz elective. That crush didn’t just stick. It fucking settled into his bloodstream like oxygen.

“You want to kissy Y/N?” Minsu asks, eyebrows raised, toe tapping like he's waiting on a business deal to close.

Hyunjin nods, too stunned to speak.

“Go! Kissy kissy! Smoochie smoochie!” Minsu declares, pushing at Hyunjin’s knees like he’s trying to herd a large sheep toward destiny.

Hyunjin laughs and ruffles Minsu’s hair. “Okay, okay, jeez. No pressure, right?”

Minsu beams and sprints behind him like a bodyguard escorting a VIP back into the living room. As soon as Hyunjin walks in, you lift one sleepy eye to glance toward the noise and immediately spot Minsu grinning like a criminal behind Hyunjin’s legs.

You sit up slowly. “What the hell did you do, Minsu?”

Minsu claps his hands. “You two can kissy now! Hyuni know you wanna kissy him! He wanna kissy you! Say thank you!”

Your soul leaves your body for a moment. You turn your head toward Minho with deadly calm. “Minho. You can keep him forever.”

Minsu beams. “I help you! Say thank you!”

“No,” you reply.

Minsu stomps his foot. “Say thank you!”

You stick your tongue out at him. “Make me, gremlin.”

He gasps, betrayed.

Hyunjin, trying very hard not to laugh and betray his own amusement, clears his throat. “How about, instead of a kissy right now, a date? Maybe tomorrow?”

You slowly lower yourself back into Jisung’s lap and cover your face with your hands. “Let me die first. Then yeah, date sounds cool. Maybe in the afterlife.”

Minsu is undeterred. “Now kissy!”

“No!” you snap.

And that’s all it takes. The tiny stormcloud that is Minsu explodes into a full tantrum, flinging himself onto the floor like a possessed worm, shrieking about how you’re a “stinky meanie” and that you “no say thank you for kissy plan” and that he “worked hard like a big brain baby.”

“Oh god,” you groan, grabbing a pillow and smothering your face. “Let me suffocate in peace.”

Chan winces. “That’s a Category 5 tantrum.”

Jisung strokes your hair. “You’ve got maybe thirty seconds before the glass breaks.”

Minho, watching this unfold, slowly starts to back away. You lift your head just enough to narrow your eyes at him. “No way, bitch. He’s your problem today.”

Minho freezes. “Fuck.”

Then, in an act of desperation, Minho switches sides. He crouches beside Minsu and starts patting his back. “You’re right, bud. Your sister is so mean. She’s the worst. You worked so hard on that plan. I’m mad for you.”

Minsu’s cries lessen just slightly. “She not say thank you”

“She’s rude,” Minho nods solemnly, mouthing sorry at you while validating Minsu’s spiral. “Awful. Just so rude.”

“She mean to me and she look bad!”

Minho cringes but nods along. “Yeah, she looks awful.”

“Poopy bad.”

“Exactly. The worst.”

You glare at Minho as he keeps mouthing sorry while Minsu continues, “She look like poopy ratty lady!”

That does it. You flop back on the couch like you’ve been shot.

Jisung gasps dramatically. “How dare you? She’s beautiful!”

Chan immediately starts stroking your cheek. “You’re a goddess, baby.”

Hyunjin has turned to face the corner, shoulders shaking with laughter. You can practically hear him wheezing.

Minsu’s tantrum eases completely now, satisfied that his Mimo understands the full extent of the betrayal.

“I get you another drink!” he shouts, and before you can stop him, he’s dragging Minho to the kitchen, leaving you lying on the couch like roadkill.

You sigh, rolling your head toward Jisung and Chan. “You two beautiful gays. Listen to me.”

They both sit up straighter, eyes wide. “Yes, ma’am?”

“Don’t adopt,” you whisper. “Don’t get a surrogate. Just be two man-bears in your cave. Even if all your family members die and there’s no one else left, don’t raise a baby bear. Do not subject yourselves to being called ratty poopy gays after years of feeding and diaper changing. Don’t do it.”

They nod solemnly like they’re receiving sacred instruction.

“Ratty poopy gays,” Jisung repeats softly, horrified.

Chan locks pinkies with him. “Just us. Beautiful gay bears with unshattered self-esteem.”

Moments later, Minsu and Minho return. Minsu proudly hands you a canned latte like he’s just retrieved the holy grail. “Here! Your hair messy too. Fix it. Then you look less poopy!”

You accept the drink, stare at it, then look at the two gay bears beside you.

“No kids,” Chan says immediately.

“Never,” Jisung agrees.

Minsu is oblivious, bouncing on the balls of his feet like he’s fixed all your problems.

“I come on date with you and Hyuni!” he declares with delight.

You bolt upright. “Absolutely not. You will be having a sleepover with your Mimo.”

Minho’s face drains of all colour. “Wait, what?”

You don’t even blink. “You heard me.”

Minsu screams with glee, throws his arms around Minho’s legs, and starts babbling about movies and popcorn and sleeping on the floor.

Minho stares at you with pure betrayal.

You sip your canned latte. “Your circus. Your monkey.”

Minho groans, but when Minsu hugs him and calls him the “bestest Mimo in the world,” he melts. “Yeah, bud. Sleepover.”

Minsu throws his hands up in the air like he’s won a prize, and Minho scoops him up with a resigned sigh, hugging him close.

Hyunjin barely finishes unlocking the frat house door when it swings open to reveal you standing there, hair loosely curled, face framed by soft tendrils, minimal makeup glowing naturally under the morning light. 

You’re wearing a black tube top that hugs just right and a high-waisted olive green cargo-style skirt with oversized pockets and a belt slung casually at your waist. A pair of classic black high-top Converse completes the look, and you give Hyunjin a lazy little smile like you haven’t been racing around for the last forty-five minutes trying to get Minsu dressed, fed, and packed.

Hyunjin blinks once, taking in the sight before looking down at Minsu, who’s standing next to you, vibrating like a wind-up toy ready to pop. He’s wearing a blue and red Paw Patrol onesie with matching slipper boots that make soft shuffling noises as he bounces on his feet. His overnight bag hangs awkwardly from one shoulder, bulging with toys and snacks and what appears to be a roll of duct tape for some reason.

“Holy shit,” Hyunjin mutters under his breath, still absorbing the double impact of adorable chaos and glowing beauty.

You squint up at him. “You better be reacting to the outfit and not the gremlin.”

Hyunjin snorts. “Both. Honestly, both are kind of melting my brain.”

Minsu bounces in place. “Hyuni! Sleepover!”

Hyunjin crouches down to Minsu’s height. “That’s right, buddy. They’ve got a whole setup inside. Pillow fort, snacks, cartoons, the whole nine yards.”

“YAY!” Minsu squeals and sprints past Hyunjin into the house, slipper boots sliding slightly against the floor as he skids into the living room. 

Inside, Minho, Jisung, Seungmin, Jeongin, Changbin, Chan, and Felix are waiting around a ridiculously elaborate pillow fort. It looks like an IKEA showroom exploded. There are fairy lights strung across blankets, a mountain of cushions, a popcorn machine in the corner, and Paw Patrol blasting from the flat screen.

Minsu launches himself toward the chaos like it owes him money. “Mimo! Minnie! JJ! BinBin! Jisu! Channie! Fefi! Sleepover!” He practically vibrates with joy as each guy greets him with high-fives and fist bumps, shouting greetings right back, matching his volume and enthusiasm with impressive accuracy.

You watch the scene unfold, arms folded across your chest, smiling in disbelief. “Okay, so where are we going?” you ask, turning toward Hyunjin.

Hyunjin, still recovering from watching Minsu crash into Jeongin with the force of a meteor, looks at you with a crooked grin. His outfit mirrors the sleek utility aesthetic, black cargo trousers paired with a black button-down shirt that’s worn mostly open, showing off a fitted white tank underneath. A thick black belt wraps around his waist, accentuating the clean lines of the ensemble. Chunky black boots complete the look, and his naturally spiked hair sticks out in all directions like he walked through a wind tunnel and decided to own it.

“Because your three-year-old brother is not your responsibility until tomorrow morning,” Hyunjin says, motioning toward the chaos inside, “I’ve decided we’re doing something involving alcohol.”

Your eyes widen. “Real alcohol?”

“Very real. And also... pottery.”

You gasp like you’ve just been handed the golden ticket to Willy Wonka’s Boozy Pottery Emporium. “You hear that?”

Hyunjin raises a brow. “Hear what?”

You tilt your head, feigning serious listening. “That’s my panties dropping.”

You don’t realise Minsu’s just around the corner, picking a toy out of his bag.

Hyunjin snorts so hard he nearly doubles over. “Jesus fucking Christ.”

And with that, you both slip out the door, leaving chaos, cartoons, and one very impressionable toddler behind.

As soon as the door shuts, Minsu glances up from his toy haul and blinks. “Why are Y/N’s panties dropping?”

Seven full-grown men freeze like deer in headlights.

Jisung, the first to recover, goes, “What the actual fuck.”

Minho makes a strangled sound. “Okay! Uh- who wants to play Paw Patrol?!”

Minsu ignores the distraction, eyes narrowed with the focus of a war general. “Why panties drop?”

Chan looks around the room, lips pressed into a hard line. “Alright. Damage control time. Fast. Go.”

“Panties drop when you sneeze really hard,” Jeongin tries.

“That’s hats,” Seungmin mutters.

Felix starts rifling through Minsu’s overnight bag. “Distraction! Distraction! Where the hell is the Rubble truck?!”

Minsu won’t let up. “Why she say panties drop for Hyuni?”

Changbin gestures wildly. “It’s- uh- it’s a phrase. Like- Like rain! It means love rain. It’s raining love. In panties form.”

“WHAT THE FUCK DOES THAT EVEN MEAN?!” Jisung cries.

“SHUT UP, I PANICKED!” 

Minsu is now laser-focused. “Is panties like hugs?”

Felix whimpers. “Someone answer this or I’m calling child services on myself.”

Chan takes over like he’s running a hostage negotiation. “Listen, Minsu, buddy. That’s a grown-up thing to say. Only grown-ups say it.”

“Why?” Minsu asks, head tilted like a confused puppy.

“Because if little kids say it,” Minho begins carefully, “the grown-up police come.”

Minsu gasps. “Police?”

“Anti-panty police,” Jeongin says grimly.

“They show up,” Jisung nods, “and they take away your toys.”

“Your cartoons,” Seungmin adds.

“Your Paw Patrol episodes,” Changbin finishes with a dramatic whisper.

Minsu looks like he’s just been told Santa Claus died. “My Paw Patrol?”

Chan nods solemnly. “Gone. Forever. No more Chase. No more Rubble. No more Ryder. Just... silence.”

Felix starts to look genuinely guilty. “Guys, we’re gonna give him a complex.”

“Worth it,” Minho hisses. “We can’t let him repeat that phrase in public. Y/N will cry in the street. She’ll give up on life. She’ll dissolve into dust.”

“Why panties drop?” Minsu tries again, quieter this time, like he’s trying to test the waters.

“You say that again and the anti-panty police are gonna eat your toys,” Jeongin says with the stone-cold confidence of someone who has worked retail during holiday season.

Just as Minsu’s face begins to crumple into genuine toddler heartbreak, Seungmin leaps into action, pulling something out of his backpack.

It’s a brand-new Chase plushie, tag still on.

He thrusts it into Minsu’s arms. “HERE. FOR YOU.”

The tantrum, which had been building like a pressure cooker, dissipates immediately. Minsu gasps, clutches the toy to his chest, and squeals with joy, eyes lighting up like Christmas morning.

“Chase! New Chase! Fefi got me new Chase!”

Felix glares at Seungmin. “You had that the whole time?”

Seungmin shrugs, grinning. “It was too funny. I wanted to see you all suffer.”

“YOU FUCKING GREMLIN,” Chan yells, throwing a pillow at him.

Minho drops his head to the floor dramatically. “I lost six years of my life to that conversation.”

Jisung flops back onto the couch. “I think my soul left my body.”

Jeongin looks at Seungmin with genuine awe. “You are both my hero and my villain.”

Minsu, completely oblivious to the emotional destruction left in his wake, climbs into the pillow fort, new plushie in one arm and an apple juice box in the other. “Let’s do sleepover! Yay!”

And with that, seven grown-ass men collapse into various forms of exhaustion around the living room as Minsu resumes singing the Paw Patrol theme song at full volume, utterly thrilled with life.

Hyunjin and you have only been gone twelve minutes.

It’s gonna be a long fucking night.

The evening is warm, the sky still streaked in violet and gold, and the buzz of a Friday night crowd hums behind you. You follow Hyunjin down a quieter side street, away from the traffic and neon lights, to a tucked-away pottery studio glowing softly through frosted glass windows. 

"So you booked us a pottery class? You trying to Ghost me?"

Hyunjin smirks, already pulling open the door and gesturing dramatically for you to step inside. "Only if you promise not to drop your panties when I touch your hands."

“Don’t flatter yourself. I wore my good panties today. You’re not getting near them unless you pay the toll.”

Inside, the space is cozy but sleek, modern wood paneling lining the walls with clusters of ceramic pieces on display. The receptionist beams as Hyunjin checks you both in. He’s reserved the private room in the back, it's quiet, softly lit, and there’s a low table with a full pottery wheel, two stools, and two bottles of chilled soju already on ice.

“Oh, he’s serious,” you mutter, sinking into the stool while eyeing the instructor, a short, energetic woman who introduces herself as Nari and begins explaining the basics of clay handling, wheel speed, and structure. 

You're half-listening, half-watching Hyunjin, who already looks like some tortured artistic genius as he rolls up his sleeves and starts forming the clay into something shapely and even. It's not fair. He looks annoyingly good doing anything.

You, meanwhile, are pouring yourself a glass of soju and topping it off with a splash of wine from the open bottle nearby. “What is this? Bougie alcoholics anonymous for art majors?”

Hyunjin snorts. “Some of us are actually taking this seriously.”

“I’ve had a toddler screaming at me since before sunrise most days. I deserve alcohol, art, and attention.”

Nari chuckles as she finishes her brief tutorial, gives Hyunjin a subtle ‘good luck’ look, and leaves you two alone. You immediately spill a bit of your drink on the table, sigh, and slide your hand into the clay like you're digging through a bog.

“Wow,” Hyunjin says, deadpan. “Are you trying to murder the clay or seduce it?”

“Both,” you say proudly, massaging the sticky mess. “This is abstract trauma. It’s gonna be titled ‘My Three-Year-Old Pisses Behind The Couch At Seven A.M.’”

He laughs and shakes his head, clearly trying not to smile too hard as he leans over to inspect your creation, or lack thereof. “Okay, I can’t let this happen. I need to intervene. This is offensive.”

“Oh no,” you say dramatically. “You’re gonna get behind me and guide my hands, aren’t you?”

“I literally am,” he says, gently placing his hands over your sticky ones. “I’m saving the clay’s life.”

His chest is warm against your back, the smell of whatever woodsy cologne he put on tonight threading through your senses. You pause, feeling the steady way his hands wrap around yours and start guiding you through a smoother, more confident shaping motion.

You squint at the clay, wobbling under the pressure. “This is the most action I’ve had in years.”

“Don’t start.”

“No, seriously. I’ve got cobwebs where my G-spot is. You try gaining a half-brother at eighteen and suddenly becoming a full-time guardian. Boys do not line up for that shit. I’m like a single mom but without the hot divorcee backstory. There’s just me, a very small man with a bladder control problem, and a paediatrician on speed dial.”

Hyunjin laughs against your shoulder, his breath warm, his hands still gently guiding yours on the wheel. “You know you’re completely insane, right?”

“You chose to go on a date with me. So what does that say about you?”

“That I’ve had a crush on you since jazz class freshman year, and I’m incredibly patient.”

You freeze just slightly, blinking at the spinning wheel in front of you. “Jazz class? No fucking way.”

“Yeah,” he says, voice lower now, still casual but sincere. “You were always the only one who could actually follow the rhythm. I looked like a confused ostrich next to you.”

You laugh again, but this time it’s a little warmer, a little more real. “I thought you were just really intense about plies.”

“I was really intense about watching you do plies,” he mutters, and then immediately ducks his head like maybe that was too far.

You glance sideways at him, eyebrow raised. “Well, now I’m going to have to schedule another pottery night just so I can recreate this moment and record your face.”

“You’re impossible.”

“You love it.”

“...Yeah,” 

You blink, but before you can say anything, your over-focused attempt at shaping the clay suddenly warps and collapses inward like a melted ice cream cone. Hyunjin groans dramatically.

“Oh, look, it’s your heart when I don’t text back,” you say, trying to salvage it.

“It’s the clay’s way of asking me to stop flirting with someone who handles ceramic like she’s squishing literal shit.”

You grin, leaning back against his chest again. “Still not the worst date I’ve ever been on.”

“Tell me the worst.”

“Had a guy ask me mid-dinner if I was still breastfeeding my kid. Minsu was one, and he knew I was the legal guardian. He thought I was just an extremely youthful-looking mom. I asked for the cheque while he asked if he could call me ‘mommy’ in bed.”

Hyunjin chokes on air. “What the fuck.”

You nod solemnly. “I have not recovered.”

He’s laughing now, shoulders shaking behind you as you both lean over the messy wheel, still barely salvaging the misshapen lump of clay. “Okay, in comparison, I’m feeling like an absolute dream right now.”

“You are a dream. A clay-covered, slightly-too-handsome dream with annoyingly perfect bone structure.”

“I will accept that compliment, even though you’re mostly complimenting my genetics.”

“I’m a single guardian,” you say with a flourish, throwing your arms up and nearly flinging clay. “Let me objectify you.”

You both laugh, and it hangs in the space between you, soft and genuine. The wine is starting to hit your system, your shoulders loosening, and for the first time in a long time, you don’t feel like you’re carrying the entire world on your back. Just maybe a small, slightly lumpy ceramic pot and the full attention of a boy who knows how to make you laugh even when your life is a chaotic whirlwind of juice boxes and tantrums.

You reach for your drink again, sloshing it slightly but still sipping happily. “So, what are we naming this disaster?” you ask, gesturing to the clay blob.

“‘Hope and Regret,’” Hyunjin says instantly. “Subtitle: ‘How She Seduced Me Over a Soju Bottle.’”

You snort into your cup. “Please. You were already seduced. You booked a private pottery session.”

He shrugs, feigning casual. “I have to admit, I was kinda banking on the sexy pottery moment.”

You grin. “And did it meet expectations?”

“Exceeding. Except for the clay. The clay is in mourning.”

You tilt your head, mock-pouting. “So you like me for my jokes and trauma, not my art skills.”

“And your stunning fashion sense,” he adds, eyeing your skirt and tube top. “Very no-nonsense hot girl energy.”

“High praise from a man dressed like a K-drama villain with a heart of gold.”

“I’ll take that.”

The music playing from the studio speakers swells into a slow, jazzy tune, and Hyunjin glances at you with a raised eyebrow. “We finished our pots. Wanna dance?”

You pause. “Here? Now?”

“There’s no one watching.”

You narrow your eyes, finish your wine in one long sip, then push back your stool. “Only if you lead.”

“Oh, I always lead.”

You roll your eyes but let him pull you into a clumsy sway in the middle of the pottery room, half-laughing as he spins you slowly in the dim light, your shoes scuffing against the wood. And for a second, just a second, it feels like the version of life you’d never thought you’d have again, carefree, young, selfish in the good way.

“Thank you,” you murmur, your voice soft now.

“For what?”

“For booking this. For letting me forget I’m raising a toddler for a few hours.”

Hyunjin’s smile turns gentler. “You’re more than just that.”

“I forget sometimes.”

“Well,” he says, spinning you one more time before pulling you close again. “I won’t let you.”

You don’t say anything back, but you rest your head against his shoulder. And for the first time in a long, long time, you let yourself just breathe.

When you and Hyunjin get back to your apartment, the hallway smells like someone down the hall just burned ramyeon, and your arms are loosely linked as you unlock the front door. The moment it swings open, the lived-in warmth of your home washes over you like a soft blanket, soft yellow light from the hallway lamp, toys shoved halfway under the couch, and the distinct trail of small shoes and half-shed clothes leading toward Minsu’s room. It’s quiet. Peaceful. You’re unused to it.

Hyunjin steps inside behind you, slipping off his boots as you toe off your sneakers with a dramatic groan. “Home sweet semi-chaotic home,” you mutter, gesturing broadly like a tour guide who’s lost her patience.

He follows you into the small living room, and immediately his gaze gets caught on the little museum of Minsu you’ve unintentionally curated. Marker-drawn masterpieces cover the fridge and spill onto the walls nearby, most of them done on cheap paper that’s curling at the corners. 

You know exactly which ones are from the ‘unsupervised’ era because they’re directly on the walls, one is just a blue scribble, another is a red monster with big triangle teeth and what looks like either tears or sweat drops flying off its head. 

Hyunjin grins at the chaos. “Okay, some of these look like cursed relics.”

“Oh, fully,” you say, flopping onto the couch for a second. “This one,” you point to a drawing taped eye-level to the wall. “Is called ‘Y/N said the F-word and then stubbed her toe.’”

He laughs as he walks toward the hallway and pauses by the picture frames along the wall. One after another, candid shots of you and Minsu smile back at him. There’s one of you at eighteen, holding a six-month-old Minsu with big eyes and a full head of curly hair, your face blotchy from crying but smiling through it anyway. Another from when he turned one, cake all over his face. Another from when he learned to walk, arms up like Frankenstein as he waddled across the living room. You’ve got your hands just out of frame, cheering. Hyunjin lingers on that one the longest.

“You’ve always done this alone?” he asks softly, turning to you.

You nod, grabbing a throw pillow and hugging it to your chest. “There wasn’t anyone else left, not really. It was me or the system. And I wasn’t about to let him grow up without someone who gives a shit.”

Hyunjin walks past the hallway and stops at the doorway leading to the kitchen. On the doorframe, there’s a long vertical chart drawn in permanent marker, height lines labelled in messy handwriting. Most are labelled ‘Minsu’ with various dates, almost month by month. But far above them, at the exact same height, are lines labelled ‘Y/N.’ 

“Why are you still measuring yourself?”

“Minsu demands it. He insists it’s only fair. I try to tell him adults don’t grow but he doesn’t give a shit.”

“That’s commitment,” he says, stepping back to admire the doorway like it’s a museum exhibit. “You really do build your whole world around him, huh?”

You shrug, not defensive, not apologetic. “He’s my family.”

Hyunjin nods thoughtfully, turning back to you. “You’re doing really well with him. Except for the pissing-on-the-wall thing. That needs work.”

You groan and throw the pillow at him. “You’re awful,” you say, laughing as you kick off your shoes. “You know what I want right now?”

“More sex?” he says, wiggling his eyebrows dramatically.

You snort. “No. Although, yes. But no. What I want is a night of uninterrupted sleep in my own bed, with a beautiful man next to me and no one screaming ‘Mimo’”

Hyunjin taps his chin like he’s considering. “You know what? That can be arranged. Maybe even a beautiful man who watches a movie with you and drinks wine like a classy, exhausted adult.”

You groan in delight, standing up and stretching as you walk toward the kitchen. You reach for the fridge, which has been baby-proofed with a lock you bought online at 2 a.m. one desperate night after Minsu opened it and ate a raw egg.

“I hate that I have to unlock the fridge like I’m sneaking into Fort Knox,” you mutter as you twist the child lock open and grab a bottle of chilled white wine.

“I can’t believe you child-locked alcohol,” Hyunjin says, trailing after you.

“You wanna explain to a three-year-old why he can’t drink the grown-up juice that smells like juice but makes you sleepy?” you say, uncorking the wine like a pro and pouring two glasses. “I didn’t think so.”

You hand him a glass and clink your own against it. “To questionable parenting and fine alcohol.”

“To mildly traumatised clay,” he replies, smirking.

You both head into your room, wine glasses in hand. Your room is cosy, a little messy, with a basket of tiny socks in the corner and a dresser with a makeup mirror rimmed in warm yellow fairy lights. You flop onto the bed with a long sigh, and Hyunjin sits next to you, toeing off his boots with a satisfied grunt.

You reach for the remote and turn on the TV mounted on the wall. A cheerful, high-pitched voice immediately explodes through the speakers. Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. 

“Sorry, sorry,” you groan, fumbling for the remote. “I forgot to switch it-”

“No, no, wait,” Hyunjin says, hand on your wrist. “What if we reclaim it?”

You blink. “What?”

“You watched this as a kid, right?”

You shrug. “Yeah, kinda."

“Then let’s watch it now. But for us. Not for a three-year-old. We’ll drink wine and watch Mickey Mouse like the emotionally complicated adults we are.”

You grin, touched in a way that surprises you. “You’re my dream man.”

“I know.”

You snuggle back into the bed, shoulders brushing as the theme song starts up. You take a sip of your wine and laugh at how ridiculous it is, two twenty-somethings curled up with alcohol watching Mickey Mouse like it’s Oscar bait. But somehow, it feels exactly right.

He leans his head against yours halfway through the second episode, and you don’t move away. The wine is warming you from the inside out, and so is the feeling of someone sitting beside you, not because they have to, but because they want to. Because they like your jokes, your mess, your weird fridge art and sharp mouth and all the soft, tired parts of you.

It’s the kind of night you’ll remember when things get hard again. When Minsu won’t eat anything but ketchup packets, or when he screams in the middle of the night for someone you can’t be. You’ll remember this. You’ll remember that you are still young. Still allowed to want things. Still allowed to be loved.

And when Hyunjin bumps your shoulder gently and whispers, “This is kinda perfect,” you smile.

“Yeah, it really is.”

The morning sunlight is barely warm when you and Hyunjin show up at the frat house, each carrying an iced latte, sunglasses on, steps lazy with satisfaction and sleep. You’re in white linen trousers that swish with each movement, a black halter top hugging you just enough for comfort, and your hair is loosely tied up, still slightly damp from the shower. 

Hyunjin’s dressed in grey sweatpants, a white tank top that clings to him in that annoyingly perfect way, and fresh white sneakers. He’s somehow managing to look like he just walked off the set of a Calvin Klein ad, while you look like someone who’s finally had eight hours of sleep and a night without a toddler kicking you.

He sips his coffee and nudges your arm with his. “Ready to see the aftermath of the Great Sleepover?”

You groan dramatically. “If he’s drawn on anyone’s face with permanent marker, I’m just walking away.”

The door creaks open, and immediately, you're greeted by chaos. Actual, living chaos.

Minsu is sitting trouserless in Changbin’s lap, wearing nothing but his Optimus Prime t-shirt and a pair of slightly skewed Paw Patrol underwear, swinging his legs happily as Changbin feeds him spoonfuls of what looks like cereal with rainbow sprinkles on top. You blink.

“Why is he pantsless?” you ask, more to the universe than anyone in particular.

“Morning!” Changbin says with the haunted look of someone who has seen things. “He said pants were itchy and he didn’t want to wear them anymore. I gave up. I’m just a spoon delivery system now.”

Jisung is in the corner, curled up like a ball of post-trauma noodles, full-on sobbing while Chan kneels beside him, trying to coax him out of it like he’s talking down a hostage. His shirt is wrinkled, hair in wild tufts, and you’re not sure whether his sobs are from exhaustion or something worse.

“Jisung, honey, are you okay?” you ask, cautiously stepping closer.

He shakes his head without looking up.

Chan looks at you helplessly. “So, uh. Minsu forgot where the toilet was. And he didn’t wake any of us. He found a pan.”

You squint. “He pissed in a pan?”

Jisung wails louder, full-on face-in-knees despair.

Minsu, chipper as ever, looks up from his cereal and chirps, “Wee-wee and poopy pan!”

You drop your iced latte. “Oh no.”

Hyunjin is snickering behind you, not even pretending to be helpful.

“He wasn’t in the room when I woke up,” Jisung gasps between sobs. “I thought he’d been abducted by raccoons. I checked every room. Every single room. Then I went into the kitchen, and he was there. On the floor. Shitting in the pan. And he smiled at me. He smiled.”

“Oh, you poor gay,” you murmur, dropping beside him to pull him into your arms. He latches onto you like a drowning man clinging to a life raft.

“I have so much respect for you,” he whispers. “You do this every day. You’re a hero.”

“Thanks, baby,” you say, patting his head.

Chan sighs and scrubs his face. “We just… we threw the pan into the Sigma Chi garden. We didn’t know what to do.”

You start laughing so hard you nearly cry.

Minho is lying on the rug, head casually perched on Felix’s ass like it's the world’s firmest pillow, watching cat videos on his phone. Felix doesn’t even seem to care; he’s scrolling TikTok like it’s a normal Sunday morning. Jeongin and Seungmin are tangled up in a blanket cocoon on the other end of the couch, both mindlessly scrolling as if this is just any other post-apocalyptic morning.

“How was your date?” Jisung asks from your arms, voice muffled against your shirt. “Make me feel better with adult romance stories.”

You lift your chin proudly. “Amazing. There was wine and pottery. I almost had a spiritual awakening. Like, near-tantric orgasm levels. Then we had some adult bonding, and I had a real orgasm.”

“Ooh, that’s hot,” Jisung says, sniffling.

Then Minsu, completely unfazed, cheerily asks, “What’s orgasm?”

The room freezes.

Every single person goes silent. Then chaos. Felix stands up and bolts out the front door. Minho immediately fake snores and goes limp on the rug. Jisung crawls under the couch. Chan vanishes behind it. Seungmin dashes up the stairs like his life depends on it. Jeongin heads to the basement. It’s like a fucking fire drill.

You and Hyunjin flee to the kitchen, iced lattes in hand, crouching behind the island like two fugitives. Changbin is left alone in the living room, Minsu still cheerily perched in his lap.

“BinBin?” Minsu calls. “What’s orgasm?”

“Oh shit,” Hyunjin breathes, covering his mouth to muffle his laugh.

You lean against the cabinets, red-faced, shaking with giggles. You both listen as Changbin valiantly tries to distract the three-year-old with cereal trivia and wild improvisation.

Behind the kitchen island, Hyunjin nudges your shoulder. “Be my girlfriend?”

You blink, a little startled by the sudden shift, but your heart stutters pleasantly at the soft smile on his face. He’s still crouched, hiding like a child who’s broken a vase, but there’s something serious in his eyes. You beam. “Okay.”

He leans in and kisses you, just a warm, smiling kiss that tastes a little like coffee and a lot like relief and affection.

“Yay! Kissy!” comes a high-pitched squeal, and you both turn to see Minsu peeking around the corner.

You groan, tilting your head back against the cabinets. “You still sure about this ‘me being your girlfriend’ thing?”

Hyunjin laughs. “I think I’ve never been more sure.”

Minsu rushes over and clambers into Hyunjin’s lap like he’s a beanbag chair. He immediately tries to reach for your latte.

“Hey, little gremlin,” you warn. “That’s mine.”

“But it yummy,” he argues, trying to sip it through the straw while Hyunjin holds it out of reach.

“Tell you what,” Hyunjin says. “You tell me about your pan adventure, and I’ll share one sip.”

Minsu’s eyes go wide. “Okay! So, I woke up and needed wee-wee and no toilet! I go looking and looking and then ta da! Pan!”

He throws his arms out like a magician revealing a trick.

Hyunjin chokes on his sip of coffee. “You really just picked a pan.”

“It shiny pan!” Minsu insists. “And I sit down and go wee-wee. Then I go poopy. Then Jisu find me! I say ‘Hi Jisu!’ and he scream like monster! Then Channie throw pan over fence! So fun!”

You and Hyunjin exchange a glance, trying desperately not to burst into laughter. Minsu beams, utterly delighted by his retelling.

Hyunjin wraps one arm around your waist and presses a kiss to the crown of your head. You lean into him, warm and content, resting your cheek against his shoulder as Minsu babbles on.

“Hyuni,” Minsu says seriously, eyes wide and hopeful, “you play with me lots now?”

“Yeah, little man,” Hyunjin says, smiling. “Lots.”

Minsu looks between the two of you, blinking slowly like he’s processing something big, then whispers, “Y/N, we keep Hyuni?”

You glance at Hyunjin, who looks back at you with a crooked smile that makes your chest ache a little. You whisper back, “Yeah, Min, I think so.”

Minsu grins like the sun.And in that messy kitchen, crouched behind the counter with an iced latte, a half-naked toddler, and a beautiful boy who looks at you like you hung the damn moon, it’s hard not to feel like, yeah, maybe it is a fine, fine life.

3/07 - 5PM GMT - 18+ Patreon Post for It's A Fine, Fine Life

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Proofread and hyped by the fabulous @hwangjoanna <3

[thefloatingstone]

"And Then There was Silence" by Blind Guardian is a 14 minute song that documents the events of the Iliad poem by Homer.

Although the song shifts POVs multiple times throughout it, it's meant to represent the Prophet Cassandra's premonition of the fall of Troy.

Somebody actually combined the song with lyrics on screen with the movie "TROY" which is NOT a good movie (if only because it completely leaves out a lot of the gay relationships of the original) but it helps explains the lyrics within context of the Iliad itself.

The OP says: "The lyrics also mention some scenes from the Trojan cycle which did not make it into the movie. Most notably, these are the sacrifice of Iphigenia (1:21) and the Judgment of Paris (5:16). I considered using classical paintings and mosaics to illustrate these scenes, but in the end I decided to keep a more consistent imagery by only using scenes from the movie."

Lyrics in text below the cut because it's FOURTEEN MINUTES LONG

Turn your head and see the fields of flame

He carries along From a distant place, he's on his way He'll bring decay (Don't move along cause things they will go wrong The end is getting closer day by day) In shades of grey We're doomed to face the night Light's out of sight

Since we've reached the point of no return We pray for starlight, we wait for the moon The sky is empty, alone in the unknown We're getting nowhere

We have been betrayed by the wind and the rain The sacred halls empty and cold The sacrifice made should not be done in vain Revenge will be taken by Rome

We live a lie Under the dying moon Pale faced laughs doom Indulges in delight It's getting out of hand The final curtain will fall Hear my voice There is no choice There's no way out You'll find out

We don't regret it So many men have failed, but now he's gone Go out and get it The madman's head, it shall be thine We don't regret it That someone else dies hidden in disguise Go out and get it Orion's hound shines bright

Don't you think it's time to stop the chase Around the ring Just stop running, running Round the ring Don't you know that fate has been decided By the gods Feel the distance, distance Out of reach

Welcome to the end Watch your step, Cassandra, you might fall As I've stumbled on the field Sister mine Find myself in darkest places Find myself drifting away (Death's a certain thing) And the otherworld, the otherworld appears

Find myself, she dies in vain Cannot be freed, I'm falling down As time runs faster, moves towards disaster The ferryman will wait for you, my dear

And then there was silence Just a voice from the otherworld Like a leaf in an icy world Memories will fade

Misty tales and poems lost All the bliss and beauty will be gone May my weary soul find release for a while At the moment of death I will smile It's the triumph of shame and disease In the end (Iliad)

Raise my hands and praise the day Break the spell, show me the way In decay The flame of Troy will shine bright

The newborn child would carry ruin to the hall The newborn's death will be a blessing to us all

Good choice, bad choice? Out of three you've choosen misery Power and wisdom you deny Bad choice, bad choice War is the only answer When love will conquer fear

So the judgment's been made To the fairest, the graceful says Badly he fails

(Warning) Fear the heat of passion, father king Don't let him in, don't let her in Desire, lust, obssession, death they'll bring We can't get out once they are in

She's like the sunrise Outshines the moon at night Precious like starlight She'll bring in a murderous price

In darkness grows the seed of man's defeat Jealousy I can clearly see the end now I can clearly see the end now I can clearly see the end now

The thread of life is spun The coin's been placed below my tongue Never give up, never give in Be on our side so we can win Never give up, never give in Be on our side

Old moon's time is soon to come

Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide Nothing to lose, like one we'll stand We'll face the storm created by man

Roar, Roar, Roar, Roar

(Troy, Troy, Troy, Troy) And as the lion slaughters man I am the wolf and you're the lamb

Hallowed Troy shall fall Round the wall Faith is shattered, bodies fall

Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide Nothing to lose, like one we'll stand It's all for one and one for all All we live for will be wiped out

I feel that something's wrong Surprise, surprise they're gone Full moon, your time goes by A new moon's still kept out of sight

(We live) Misty tales and poems lost (We die) All the bliss and beauty will be gone May my weary soul find release for a while At the moment of death I will smile It's the triumph of shame and disease In the end (Iliad)

Raise my hands and praise the day Break the spell, show me the way In decay The flame of Troy will shine bright

Roam in darkness Spread the vision We will be lost if you truly believe

Troy in darkness There's a cold emptiness in our hearts That they've gone away And won't come back

They'll tear down the wall to bring it in They'll truly believe in the lie Lie, lie With blossoms they'll welcome the old foe

The vision's so clear When day and dream unite The end is near You'd better be prepared

The nightmare shall be over now There's nothing more to fear Come join in our singing and dance with us now The nightmare shall be over now There's nothing more to fear The war, it is over, forevermore

No hope, the blind leads the blind Carry on, though future's denied Mare or stallion, there's far more inside We're in at the kill We'll cheerfully die

Misty tales and poems lost All the bliss and beauty will be gone May my weary soul find release for a while At the moment of death I will smile It's the triumph of shame and disease In the end (Iliad)

Raise my hands and praise the day Break the spell, show me the way In decay The flame of Troy will shine bright

Holy light shines on

So the judgement's been made We're condemned though the trial's far ahead The crack of doom Father, your handsome son is heading home

Still the wind blows Calm and silent Carries news from a distant shore (Heading home) (repeat 2x)

Out of mind Can't get it Can't get it out of my head Sorrow and defeat Sorrow and defeat

[cloverandstuff]

MiziSua are so fucking complex

There are a few things to talk about. Mainly regarding the pattern of the videos and the relationship so far between MiziSua.

So far, Alien Stage has given all three main couples an 'introduction video'. These help to explain a basic understanding of the characters and their relationship. All-In for HyuLuka, Black Sorrow for IvanTill, Till the Unknown for MiziTill and My Clematis for MiziSua.

Then we have the 'Climactic Videos' which act as the climax for their relationship lore. It's either done in the form of revealing truths or choosing avtions that fundamentally change the way we view the relationship. They add more depth and complexity to the relationships [Cure for IvanTill, In a Blink Gone for MiziTill and Wiege for HyuLuka]

Keeping this in mind, Karma will likely add a lot more lore upon MiziSua. It seems likely that it will go in the opposite direction of te orevious two, and instead choose to reveal aspects that made the relationship unhealthy and force the audience to recognise it's tragedy in that.

The core theme that MiziSua have is that there is a ton of worship symbolism in it. My Clematis was meant to convey to us how much Mizi truly loved Sua, and held her presence -her existance, on a pedestal. She was her Goddess, her Universe. It was meant to be romatic and pull us to root for them. Make the ending hit us more hard.

The recent comics make it clear that this was not a healthy perception for Mizi to have. Mizi lacked control and autonomy for a very long time. She clung to the idea of Anakt Garden as a way to be surrounded by people who would not tower over her. In fact, she enjoyed the feeling of being stronger than Sua in some way. She would never hurt her, but she gained comfort in knowing that Mizi wouldn't be hurt or controlled by Sua.

Mizi's way of loving is heavily influenced by her upbringing. She both imitates the way her Guardian treated her, while also trying to avoid the way that she carelessly hurt her at times. She is cautiously gentle, treating Sua like she is something that is so fragile, and easily broken.

Sua is a very silent character. She has the least lore from her POV, only beat by Till. She is someone who we know little about, but she haunts the narrative constantly. She is aware of death in the same way as Ivan, with a numb and silent resignation to it. She was treated by a doll by her Guardian, with her sister also treating her like a beauty with no brains, stating that she would die in a place like Alien Stage.

She was used to being treated like a doll, but the way Mizi treated Sua was more so like a fragile Goddess which was the kindest love she had been given. She, for all that she was aware of, did not know what healthy live looked like. Mizi treating her so delicately was normal and kind in her eyes.

In turn, Sua saw how fragile Mizi was. How much people could break and make her. She knew how much she meant to Mizi, how much Mizi's mental state would crumble if anything happened to her. But she was also just as selfish, and chose to sacrifice herself anyway.

[falafels]

Partaking in WIP Wednesday!!

I don’t actually know what that means but anyway here are all of my aftg fic ideas that I either have in progress (material document) or in the incubation stage (intangible string of concepts that sometimes flashbang me in the mind while i’m out)

-Seeing Double: Nicky POV with some snippets or stories from when he became the twins’ guardian. this one i have actually posted a chapter of over on ao3 and chapter 2 still in progress but aaron threatens to kill himself to a customer on his first day ever having a job and andrew punches a hole in a load bearing wall so he can use it as a climbing foothold to reach the rum and chocolate nicky keeps on top of the cupboard

-Leave tonight or live and die this way: Mary Hatford story!! so named for tracy chapman fast car because i love tracy chapman fast car. follows mary from about 6 months after she and nathan got married, lore on inner circle, lola malcolm bashing, nathan wesninski playing jump rope with the line between diva and deranged (hints of Lestat if im being quite honest), mary believing herself to be the sole brain cell possessor while in fact having 30% custody of it at best, and french bashing.

-kevin post psu fic where he moves to boston for his pro team and doesn’t know anyone, gets hammered at the first bar he finds and it turns out to be a college bar near harvard and there’s a trivia night going on. even face down on the bar kevin still grumbles corrections and someone there is highly amused by this so insists he join their team. and they like him so he’s invited to their library study session that week too. and kevin likes them so he goes along to it and realises they’re all harvard nerds and don’t have a clue who he is. and he makes actual friends based on something other than exy, but they all think he’s also a student and he doesn’t correct them. eventually they’re at a bar for a trivia night kevin couldn’t make and see a tv on and an interview of some sports thing and one of them squints and is like holdup. is that KEVIN?? scared of mice, sends emails to authors about typos in their books, probably needs glasses, drinks milk by itself KEVIN? anyway yeah don’t know what to call that one or do with it but i will get to it

-another kevin post psu idea, this time by a few years. again it’s just me inventing friends for kevin. so this one is he gets traded across pro teams (as happens) and it wasn’t that he particularly likes where he was before or who he was with, but he knew the city and he knew the deal, even if his teammates didn’t really like him. anyway, he gets traded across the country and swapped with another player, maybe a USC graduate or at least someone who would have fit in there. and that person reaches out to him to see how he’s settling in or adjusting or any of that, which is very nice but kevin would usually give the fine thanks 👍 or ignore, but he’s drunk and alone enough that he responds and calls them back. and they end up on the phone for hours. that seems to be the last of it and kevin is like ok one (1) person knows i am Cringe and i Feel but we’ll never speak again it’s fine it’s fine until the person checks in again the next week and kevin finds that it’s actually quite nice to have someone know you a little bit and genuinely care how you are, and they talk more about the transfer and kevin tries to impart wisdom about the city he was in (bookstores here and here, gyms here and here but don’t go to that one it’s shit, they sell good smoothies on fifth but don’t walk back down west ave. or you end up in a sea of high schoolers ditching and they are so so mean). and maybe eventually there’s some kind of pro exy event they’re both at and they get to hang out? epilogue where they’re traded to the same team? idk this is again just indulgent that i want kevin to have a friend

-Renee fic! untitled but it’ll probably be an ethel cain lyric when i find one suitable. one of the people incarcerated following the trial against the gang she grew up in is released on parole, disappears, and suddenly three little girls turn up dead. and she knows it’s him, of course it is, but nobody seems to be doing anything. and he’ll be working his way over to her, she’s part of the reason he went to prison, but he’ll kill a path there. so renee sets aside her crucifix necklace and decides to kill him first. god’s sword arm? or a matter of hunting? she doesn’t like to think of it as either, but she leaves palmetto with her knives and a look on her face nobody but andrew has seen before, calmly assures them she’ll be back in a few weeks at most, and dives headfirst. it’s like one of those moments where you hit the water so hard you think you’ll never breathe again, and it slows down a bit, and something changes. after grappling with the ‘healed way to kill someone’, renee gives herself more and more permissions to shift back into natalie shields behaviours, but catches herself before she catches the guy. she recognises that she’s doing that formulaically, but that ultimately what she’s trying to achieve here doesn’t actually conflict with any one of her values, and when she kills him it’s with a bible in her rucksack and a sparkly purple cat charm on her keys. idk a lot of the specifics of that might change but i chew on renee a lot and i think we all should.

-aforementioned jerejean au where jean is a firefighter and jeremy is at the seminary training to be a priest. not quite fleabag shit because i could never do that to jean, but very unlikely and somehow working. jeremy im giving you religious problems because i think they would suit you. jean im giving you being hot and sweaty and saving people because im a pervert. also something i like there about first responder/last responder. and how that’s kind of what each of them need? jeremy is the final breath and the calm reassurance, but there’s something in him that wants to run and scream and yell and have the stakes be as high as they can, be able to do something with an instant material result. jean is always under the most pressure he possibly can be, trying to keep everyone alive, and sometimes secretly wants a moment of quiet that he doesn’t think he deserves and would feel horribly guilty if he got. anyway jean being vaguely amused by closet adrenaline junkie trainee priest and jeremy fascinated by the tall french firefighter who refuses to forgive himself for being alive.

and i think that’s all of them for now!! my notes app is just this with various scenes and lines that i want to put in each one but would need to write 6 chapters to get to. bummer ANYWAY if you made it this far i am sorry and ily and i hope u have a great day <3

[rdthoughtdaughter]

Hello! I am basically asking here what YouTubers or female created media is out there that you recommend? I am tired of media just being pain/death/torture of a female character or like with popular female/youtubers streamers having constant sexual and pornified jokes or even having to deal with misogyny or the same issues in female written books. Is there any way to avoid it/do you have recs? Sorry if my question is convoluted I have headache at the moment

Hello! Do not apologise for your question, I found it delightful. That’s actually a great topic to speak on. Ok, so I will share my media consumption, but to all fellow radfems watching, please share yours as well! I would love recommendations.

Starting with YouTube. Can’t say that I’m an avid watcher, but there are some female channels that I follow & watch:

1) Emmy’s Existential Zone. It’s a ‘renowned philosopher and psychologist who has worked as an existential therapist since 1973’. What I like about her videos is that they are always colourful, often with natural setting. She talks about life in a very simple yet striking language. Also, it’s just great to see women aging naturally and gracefully ;)

2) Leah’s Fieldnotes. A little bit of everything, vlogs, ramblings, skincare, art. Love Leah 🫶🏼🙌🏼

3) The CottageFairy. I’m very passionate about nature, so I found the content of this lovely woman immersive. To live so in tune with nature is my goal in life.

4) Dr Octavia Cox. An educational content, literature related. Found her when I was preparing to A Levels, she is great. Dr Cox makes her videos on some specific topics from a particular book. I love the category of videos where she explores the riddles from the books. For example, I was always curious on why did Mr Wickham elope with Lydia, when she was penniless, he always had grand ambitions of becoming an Alfons. She explored it in detail with quotes, in a very engaging manner. Look her up!

5) maleeka, is my guardian angel. She shares her life lessons, I suppose it’s a philosophy type of content. She has a very pleasing storytelling skills and she is a talented editor, or to be honest, she’s just talented period. I find it more befitting for me, than say wizardliz. Because of her I have a favourite quote :«You are the sky. Everything else- it’s just the weather” -Peña Chiödrön

6) Inayah. An endearing woman, who speaks about most poignant of the matters. Always a fascinating setting, love when she talks while working on flowers. She’s very outspoken and has a great vocabulary. Love her.

7)LabrysArchive. Made by a legendary radfem, it’s a project where you can see the most different archive videos on radical feminism. Doing the goddesses’ work.

I was also a huge fan of Sophia Esperanza, she was sharing spiritual videos about self acceptance and living with nature. Unfortunately, she deleted her videos for some reason :(

Regarding books, I personally love everything made by Jane Austen. Besides her books being absolutely brilliantly written, I’m also always amazed by the context of her books as well. To write so many interesting, free thinking women at that time? In 18th-19th century? A role model.

If you want to find a pool of feminist literature, or just female literature I recommend ladielabrys2’ linktree, she has a radical feminist library, with all kinds of topics. <3

[teethmongerrr]

Helloooo!!! The ask about tenna's history with the dreemurrs made me realize: what's mettatons whole deal and/or backstory? Like we don't have the ghost or the robot body stuff with him, so how does he meet alphys? Are we keeping the whole dysphoria and 'not having the right body'? (beams him with my transgender ray.) What's his relationship with his family like? sorry if this is unorganized, didn't really know how to word this one, keep up the amazing work!!!! I'm loving everything about this au!! :3

No apologies required this is good..

AND OF COURSE HES TRANSGENDER‼️‼️‼️

I would never take his transmasculine swag from him that’s sacrilege… important…

BUT ANYWAY LOL. He had agoraphobia inducing levels of dysphoria pre-transition ( though , I don’t think that level of dysphoria just goes away completely post transition. He’s way better now but it still bites him sometimes) but I think he’d go out every once and a while (accompanied by Napstablook typically)

I Like to imagine him and Alphys had a sort of a platonic meet-cute in a video rental store. Like going for the same movie when there’s only one left or something tee hee. And they end up watching it together at Mettaton’s and forming a pseudo human fan club (more of a film/show Fanclub. They watch movies and tv together idk LOL)

I struggle making an equivalent to her LITTERALLY designing and making his body… but the idea that she just drew him as an anime boy once or something and then he had a moment like… wait… what if I did that…. And she tells him it’s possible. Like…. What if her support alone builds him the same way. Guys. Is this thing on. Guys. Gripping the mic. Guys.

As for his relationship with his family, I can only really. Imagine him living with his cousins.. and I think the three of them had been living together for a while. (I don’t know where the parents are it’s one of those things I’ll have to think about) but I think that Napstablook is a bit older and was Mettaton and Mew Mew’s legal guardian for most of their tweenage - early adulthood years.

And Napstablook does their best obviously but being a sensitive pushover (no offense) and pretty young to be taking care of the two of them adds some struggle.

I think Mettaton, very opposite to how he lives his life now, spent a lot of his childhood trying his best to be easy to manage. forgettable.

There was a big strain in his relationship with his family that was nobody’s fault in particular. Suffocating himself out of pure habit, on a long term corked spiral until he met Alphys and he knew he had to change or die. The massively built fear of the feelings of it all making him feel like the only option was to vanish and come back someone else.

Currently he has come back that new person and told them everything and apologized. Mew mew still gets bitter but over all forgives him and Napstablook is very understanding and is more so sad that they couldn’t figure out how to reach out to him before he left.

YA! Hope this answers your question….

[rosieveltsworld]

Whenever you feel like you're having a bad day, just now that Jonathan Sims had it worse.

Alright I know the other characters had sad backstories or background info too, but sincerely with all my heart, Jon's life was way more heartbreaking than ever...and so I decided to make it even worse.

Some of the parts aren't canon, but mostly some are, this story is just a Headcannon, it's a concept because maybe I'll post it on AO3...maybe.

Jon's life was already hell, he lost BOTH of his parents at such a young age, 8 years I think and he completely just became isolated with himself. Buried himself in so many books and he did have friends in the neighborhood, he just wasn't close with them, more likely he didn't have the same interest as them. They always call him the weird loner kid who reads books all the time and Jon was almost teased for this behavior his whole childhood.

After witnessing his own bullies death by the web, the poor boy was even more traumatized and haunted by what happened. Can you fucking imagine walking home in complete fear, shock, guilt, and just overall traumatized.. witnessing that when he was 8 EIGHT FUCKING YEARS OLD!!!! That is not something a child should see. He was haunted by this all his life, it's no wonder he always stays home and reads books. Jon became a Cold and Stoic person because of the loss of his parents, children growing up with only their guardian in this case, Jon's grandmother, can lead them to have a difficult childhood. No matter how they're raised, kids with no parents will have a missing piece inside them, which is why Jon acts the way he acts, distant, cold, alone, quiet, always serious, rarely taking jokes. Especially if he already has Survivors guilt because of witnessing the death of someone he knew. Jon his whole life was always bullied or teased by the other kids for not being "Normal".

It was always like that, and he never fought back not because he couldn't..because he just didn't want to, what's the point of fighting back? There isn't because he'll always be hated by everyone around him. A Fear is attracted to someone who's at their lowest and Jon...oh poor Jon...he was the victim of it. When I tell you, I don't care how fucked up I sound with this Headcannon story...he wanted that. He wanted to be an Avatar of...Any Fear, because at least, at least..

He was hated because he was a Monster. not because he was just a kid trying to live normally while trying to forget his own trauma.

Jon wanted it, while staying in the hospital he always wondered what would've happened if he just became...an Avatar of one of the 14 fears. He wondered how it would've been easier..why? Because at least it would make him forget who he was, what he did, and everything that completely broke him. After all he's still just and was always, A Man. Listening to The Magnus Archives, Jon was the only person I know, that was truly innocent. Sure he was an ass in S1 but seriously, he's the way he is because of his past, "Ohh but being an ass doesn't excuse what he did" what did he do? Hm? Let me ask, what exactly did he do wrong? In S1 did he cause the Prentiss attack to happen? In S1 was he really blamed for Sasha's death when that was all Elias? In S2 was it really wrong for him to be so paranoid after finding out that Gertrude's body was living dead decaying in the tunnels? Sure it was wrong to stalk his friends but Sasha hacks to find info about her friends for 'Fun' and yet people are okay with that? Hacking and Stalking is literally still a crime. And don't blame Sasha, I'm not blaming her, it's just that what she did was still an invasion of privacy. In S2 could Jon have done anything, ANYTHING, wrong? No, he didn't murder Jurgen Lietner.."Ohh but bee he destroyed the table and set the Not!Them creature free" how could he have known? Also not to mention he was being tormented by Michael, and no one helped him. He isolated himself sure, and maybe didn't tell anyone because he wasn't close with any of them except for Martin probably, but honestly anyone in that situation would try and do anything to stop what he was doing yet no one did.

In S3 he was staying at Georgie's house and so far she's been the only one I believe to be the most reasonable, the most smart, and Good character. Sure she didn't want to get involved most of the time, but that's the good thing, Don't get involved unlike someone named, Melanie King. Listen I like Melanie, but I also cannot stand her, sure she had some troubles too with her life but that doesn't excuse the fact she blames Jon for everything. Literally everything, Tim and Martin (mainly Tim) warned her about not taking the job but she signed in anyway and blamed Jon for her fate. "It was because of the bullet-" I want to stop right there because Incase you didn't fucking listen properly, She literally said multiple, MULTIPLE times that she does not like Jon, never has. She generally does not like him, she was already aggressive before the bullet towards Elias but after he was gone, she took it out on Jon who had no part in anything. He just stayed with Georgie, that's it. And then he was framed for perhaps killing Jurgen Lietner because the body was in his office, and then Daisy literally threatened to kill him before Basira stopped him. Listen for Daisy I can understand her, she just wants to protect herself and Basira, nothing more that's all she wants that's why she acts aggressive, while Melanie didn't have a proper excuse to blame Jon and get mad at him for almost everything.

In S4 it gets even worse for Jon because now everyone..hates him, they avoid him, except for...Daisy. Daisy was practically the third person to care about Jon besides Martin and Georgie, georgie yes she got angry at Jon but at least she apologized for it and realized what she said was wrong, for Georgie I can excuse it. Daisy was Jon's only friend at that moment there, she was his friend...a true good friend despite everything, Daisy also cared for Jon, that's why he felt guilty when he had to leave Daisy behind.

A little side rant, I was surprised that Jon didn't become the avatar of the Lonely, considering he's more fitting because he was alone mostly the entirety of his life, besides Georgie and his grandmother. He was always alone in his office, and had no interest in friends whatsoever, so I wondered why the lonely didn't marked him.

In S5 here comes more of blaming Jon for an apocalypse he caused because apparently he was supposed to control or stop Elias from taking over his words and mind and causing it to happen, seriously why HASN'T ANYONE UNDERSTAND THAT HE COULDN'T STOP ELIAS?!! WHY DIDN'T ANYONE TRY STOPPING THEMSELVES?! You think it was SOOOO easy but it wasn't. The Eye, The Beholding is a LITERAL God, while Jon was a single Human Man.

Anyway that's mostly just the summary of my Headcannon of Jon's full story, who cares if anyone calls me a "Jon Glazer" I will defend him for the rest of my life because truly, truly, compared to both even Cecil and Arthur he had the most tragic and traumatic story to me at least. I can't even imagine how many illnesses he has because it was never mentioned, but God...it had to be so much, because the things he had to go through, the isolation, the blame, the framing, the bullying, it was just too much for him.

And for the Melanie fans out there, I don't care what you say I just don't like Melanie in general, there is nothing for me to like about her besides her personality and her designs but her actions are what made me not like her. Sure she wanted to survive and just wanted to kill Elias, sure she had a bad past with her parents, and her grandfather, but still doesn't excuse her behavior for blaming Jon for everything.

Y'all can hate me for what I say in this, but a reminder that some of these are not canon just a Headcannon of Jon's backstory. And even if you hate me or leave hate comments or replies in this post, I don't care, I really do not care. And if you assume I hate Melanie then go ahead, just assume because that's what most people think it was. I don't hate Melanie, she's in my 10 favorite characters, I just don't like how she treated Jon, but that doesn't mean I hate Melanie fans, I don't hate any fans of any character, I love all of them, it's just that I have very different opinions on each character, so I do hope you understand that.

[azzifudd10]

Somewhere To Land

Chapter 25: In Her Words

Wednesday Morning – Paige’s Apartment

Azzi sat on Paige’s couch with a binder in her lap, a legal pad beside her. Eli was playing with soft blocks on the floor, occasionally babbling to himself while Paige stretched her bad hand gently, watching over both of them.

Azzi stared at the folder.

“I can’t believe they showed up like that. Like this is a negotiation.”

Paige looked over. “They wanted to intimidate you. Make you feel like they’re in control.”

Azzi’s eyes narrowed. “They’re not.”

“You’re damn right they’re not.”

Paige came to sit beside her, her tone quieter now. “What are you working on?”

Azzi opened the folder. “Proof. Every document I have. I called my old landlord to get the lease that shows Eli’s been living with me from the beginning. I have his doctor’s records. Daycare forms. And…”

She reached into her bag and pulled out her phone.

“…Tasha’s messages.”

Paige’s brow furrowed. “You still have them?”

“I never deleted a single one.”

She opened the conversation and scrolled to a pinned message. Her hand shook slightly as she turned the screen to Paige.

Tasha:

If anything happens to me, Az, I don’t want my parents anywhere near him. You know what I went through. I want you to raise him. No one else.

Paige read it twice, lips parting slightly. “Azzi…”

“She meant it,” Azzi whispered. “She made that choice with everything she had.”

Paige reached for her hand. “This is exactly what we needed.”

Flashback – 9 Months Ago

The hospital room was dim. Tasha’s face was pale and damp with sweat, a small, perfect baby cradled against her chest.

Azzi sat in the chair beside the bed, eyes wide, overwhelmed.

“I’m naming him Elijah,” Tasha said, smiling tiredly. “Eli, for short.”

Azzi blinked back tears. “He’s beautiful.”

Tasha turned to her, suddenly serious.

“I need you to listen.”

Azzi straightened.

“If anything ever happens to me,” Tasha said, “I want you to raise him. You, Azzi. Not my parents.”

“Don’t talk like that.”

“I’m serious. I’m writing it down. You know what they did to me. The pressure, the shame, the way they cut me off when I told them I was keeping him.”

Azzi felt her heart squeeze. “Tasha—”

“I don’t want him to grow up in a house where love is conditional. Where appearances matter more than people.”

Azzi’s voice cracked. “You really trust me that much?”

“I don’t trust anyone more.”

Present – Azzi’s Apartment

Tim and Katie sat at the kitchen table with Azzi and Paige, a spread of documents in front of them. Birth certificates. Insurance records. Photos. Journal entries.

“I found a note Tasha left in her keepsake box,” Azzi said, voice small. “It wasn’t a legal will, but she wrote it right after Eli was born.”

She handed it to them.

To whoever needs to know:I want Azzi Fudd to be Eli’s legal guardian if I can’t be here.She’s the only one who truly understands what love without strings looks like.Don’t let them raise him the way they raised me.– Tasha

Katie held it to her chest. Tim ran a hand down his face.

“She was so scared,” Azzi whispered. “And she still chose to fight for him in the only way she could.”

Paige nodded. “And now we fight for both of them.”

Later That Night – Azzi Talking to Eli

Eli was curled in her lap, arms wrapped around a plush turtle.

Azzi swayed gently, voice low.

“You know, Mommy never got to ask for this life. Not really. But I was given it, and I will never stop being grateful.”

She looked down at him, brushing a thumb along his cheek.

“Your mama — your first mama — she was brave. So much braver than I think even she knew. And she wanted you to grow up free. To be loved loud. To feel joy without earning it.”

Eli blinked at her, babbled something that vaguely sounded like "buh-puh" and reached for her hand.

“I’m going to protect that dream,” Azzi promised. “For her. For you. And for me, too.”

She pressed a kiss to his forehead, and a second later, Paige peeked around the hallway corner.

“You’re still the best storyteller,” she said softly.

Azzi smiled at her. “He’s got a lot of story to hear.”

 Paige’s POV, Friday Morning

She was walking back from the lobby, coffee in her good hand and her phone buzzing in her pocket. Azzi had gone back across the hall to get Eli ready for daycare.

The moment she opened her door, she saw the envelope on the floor.

It had been slipped under the door.

No stamp. No return address.

Just her name.

She picked it up, heart already sinking.

Inside was a typed letter:

To Ms. Paige Bueckers,

We understand you are currently residing near Elijah and his guardian, Ms. Fudd.Please be advised that your involvement will be closely scrutinized during the upcoming proceedings. Your status, lifestyle, and legal relationship to the child are not formally recognized.

We encourage you to refrain from direct involvement moving forward.

– Kline & Barker, Attorneys for Mr. and Mrs. Wright

Paige stared at it for a long time.

Then she folded it in half, walked across the hall, and knocked hard on Azzi’s door.

When Azzi answered with Eli in one arm and her purse in the other, Paige didn’t even hesitate.

“They’re trying to scare me off,” she said, holding up the letter. “But they don’t know who they’re messing with.”

Azzi’s eyes flicked over the page. Her jaw set.

“Then let’s make them find out.”

[fayflutter]

No More Capes-Miraculous x Invincible AU

Thanks for all your feedback, especially from my friends @thefcguy and @natedogx15

I'm making some big changes to my In Her Shadow AU (aka my Miraculous bad ending next generation verse) into No More Capes AU.

(Just a sidenote, I will be basing this AU on the Invincible the show, NOT the comics as I have not read all the way through the comics yet and lot of my knowledge comes from the show. So this AU will focus on Invincible the show rather than the comics. Just for any Invincible comic fans out there who complain that I’m not adhering to the comics’ timeline).

Background

Ladybug, Chat, and the Miraculers have been fighting Chrysalis for years. Meanwhile the world recovers from Omni-Man’s betrayal and the countless battles fought by Invincible.

Using his dimensional abilities, Angstrom Levy accidentally causes a bridge between the two worlds, permanently merging them together. Then the alternate Marks attack, making the Miraculers' world much bigger and more dangerous as they work with heroes of the Invincble verse to stop the Marks.

As they grow accustomed to each others' worlds, heroes like Invincible, Atom Eve, the Immortal and others having to put on kiddie gloves when it comes to akumas since they're still ordinary people being held hostage by their own emotions and manipulated by a person who uses evil butterflies and Ladybug who can magically reverse any damage done in a fight (not the weirdest thing in the universe, but definitely takes some getting used to especially when the Miraculers are constantly jumping at the sight of a butterfly). While the Parisian heroes are getting used to seeing blood and broken bones and death as akumas never resorted to such violent methods before. Even Chrysalis is surprised by how aggressive and destructive her akumas have become. The Miracle Cure can heal the damage done by akumas, but the countless lives and destruction caused by the alt Marks? That can’t be reversed (aka a cartoon made for kids is introduced to a 17 and up animated show and vice versa).

The Miraculers start getting government support and aid as well as from the Global Defense Agency. Provided that they hand over some miraculous for…scientific research (aka they want to study the Miraculouses and the kwamis). As the Guardian, Marinette is reluctant to give the Miraculous to GDA so the Miraculers instead decides they'll hand them over once Chrysalis is defeated and the butterfly miraculous is retrieved, safely in the Miracle Box (aka the Miraculers are stalling until they can come up with a different solution then handing over magical reality bending jewelry to GDA).

Unfortunately, things go from bad to worse when Ladybug’s secret is leaked online about Gabriel and Hawkmoth. It’s too late to get the original story deleted and the backlash is bad.

The people of Paris can no longer trust their saviors, losing faith in their heroes. If Omni-Man could lie and murder the Original Guardians of the Globe, if Ladybug could lie about a villain, who can they trust?

Some of the Miraculers quit, go rogue as vigilantes, or retire as they feel they no longer can work with someone who lied, not just to the people of Paris, but to her own allies.

Adrien breaks up with Marinette. Even her closest friends like Alya who knew Marinette was Ladybug are betrayed by this revelation and distances themselves from her.

Basically, Marinette is a mess. She is alone, lost, and breaking down, everything is falling apart around her.

Finally, one of her friends reaches out to her with a message to meet up. Before leaving, she stores the Ladybug Miraculous in a safe, secure place in her room (she’s so afraid that someone might steal them right from her ear, she won't even wear them out anymore).

She doesn’t even see the blow coming before everything goes dark.

The Present

Cut to a couple decades later, the people of Paris have moved on (yet the scar of betrayal remains), the akuma class grieves Marinette and continued on with their lives. Those who knew her secret of being Ladybug kept it, some secrets are better hidden.

Elodie Trommeline-Duparc, (the adopted daughter of Jean and Austin T (thank you to the anon who suggested making her related to Jean and for @booksrbetterthanpeople for getting me hooked on Jean/Austin T :)) and her friends are sneaking into (not breaking and entering as they haven’t technically broken anything yet) into an abandoned, decrepit bakery in the middle of the night for content for a friend’s Zoo channel (you know, like dumb teens do).

As they are walking around, Elodie stumbles upon a box with a pair of earrings inside and, against better judgement, takes them. After a series of events, she reluctantly becomes the new Ladybug and has to step up to stop a resurgence of Chrysalis and her akumas.

Only, Elodie already has a secret of her own.

Elodie Trommeline-Duparc is only half human.

She’s been hiding her powers and her true origins her whole life.

Faced with new akumas, villains, and even threats from the stars, Elodie aims to bring hope back to Paris and assemble a new team to finish what her predecessor started.

[madamescarlette]

NEW EDEN ICON THIS SURE IS AN EVENT

🙂‍↕️😁💛 Yes, it's been almost a year (to the DAY, I checked!!!) that I had Nora as my icon but I thought it was a rightful time for a change!!!

Frieren's been my companion for the past week as I've been re-reading and sometimes I don't know how to give tribute to how much a character means to me except to make her my avenue of communication for a bit, so, well! Here she is, my darling, in all her contemplative state.

(💛💛💛💛💛 much love to you my girl hope life hasn't been too heavy on you lately!)

[charafansmile]

Whenever I say I dont like found family being turned into actual family please know I am NEVER talking about asgore and undyne.

[cherry-treelane]

I find it so ironically funny when hardcore Debbie defenders use the defense that she was just a victimised teenage girl (agreed) and then proceed to slander Fiona and express their hatred for her character and lack of sympathy

as if being an adult magically absolves an individual of the horrifying trauma that precedes them and screws up their mentality and actions

funnily enough these people get mad at others for "expecting Debbie to be an innocent angel and hating on her for acting out as a result of trauma" (also agreed, debbie does deserve more sympathy, she can't be expected to grow up to be a perfect saint when she's been through so much) yet seem to hold Fiona to the same unattainable standards and put her on a pedestal as if she wasnt a child that was forced to intensely grow up while never actually being raised

like lets put this into perspective and remember that fiona grew up surrounded by corrupt morals and insanely screwed up behaviour yet still emerged as messed up, yes, but surprisingly good considering the situation she was in??? she had to navigate basic things such as morals and being a good, responsible person on her own. imagine how difficult it must be to lead a bunch of kids, including yourself, with no previous role model or good example of your own to follow. most of the time, she always tried to do what she thought was best and would have the most desirable outcome

[darabeatha]

@megitsuneko said ; ✿ can i hab for dante and moriarty lily pwease / from : 𝐏𝐑𝐄-𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐁𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐇𝐄𝐃 𝐑𝐄𝐋𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒𝐇𝐈𝐏 𝐌𝐄𝐌𝐄 𝟎.𝟐

; 𝐃𝐀𝐍𝐓𝐄

FRIENDSHIP.     childhood friends  /  work buddies or coworkers  /  family friends  /  friends with benefits  /  smoking buddies  /  adventure buddies  /  fake friends  /  recently friends  /  party buddies  /  friendship of need  /  dying friendship  /  circumstantial friendship  /  partners in crime  /  old friendship  /  [ your muse ] is the good influence  /  [ your muse ] is the 'bad' influence  /  [ my muse ] is the good influence  /  [ my muse ] is the bad influence  /  opposites attract  /  ride or die  /  frenemies  /  roommates or flatmates  /  penpals  /  exes to friends  /  enemies to friends  /  other

ROMANCE.     childhood sweethearts  /  [ your muse is mines ] childhood crush  /  [ my muse is yours ] childhood crush  /  exes  /  exes to lovers  /  forbidden lovers  /  highschool sweethearts  /  secret relationship  /  opposites attract  /  long distance  /  unrequited [ from your muses side ]  /  unrequited [ from my muses side ]  /  unrequited [ from both sides ]  /  skinny love  /  friends to lovers  /  enemies to lovers  /  spurious relationship  /  power couple  /  newly entered  /  soulmates [ metaphorical ]  /  soulmates  [ literal ]  /  awkward  /  turning toxic  /  toxic love  /  cheating [ on your muse ]  /  cheating [ with your muse ]  /  other 

FAMILIAL.     siblings [ half ]  /  siblings [ step ]  /  [ my muse ] is an older sibling figure to your younger sibling figure  /  [ my muse ] is a younger sibling figure to your older sibling figure muse  /  [ my muse ] is a parental figure to yours  /  [ my muse ] is a child figure to your muse  /  guardian figure  /  legal guardian  /  adoptive child  /  foster child  /  [ your muse ] is taken under mines wing  /  [ my muse ] is taken under yours wing  /  other

ANTAGONISTIC.     dangerous to each other  /  dangerous to others  /  unpredictable  /  rivals  /  petty  /  developing into sexual or romantic tension  /  based off family matters  /  based of off circumstance  /  based of professional matters  /  based off misunderstanding or lies  /  conflict of ideology  /  betrayal  /  hero - villain dynamic  /  enemies  /  fight club  /  friends turned enemies  /  lovers turned enemies  /  exes turned enemies  /  other 

; 𝐌𝐎𝐑𝐈𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐘

FRIENDSHIP.     childhood friends  /  work buddies or coworkers  /  family friends  /  friends with benefits  /  smoking buddies  /  adventure buddies  /  fake friends  /  recently friends  /  party buddies  /  friendship of need  /  dying friendship  /  circumstantial friendship  /  partners in crime  /  old friendship  /  [ your muse ] is the good influence  /  [ your muse ] is the bad influence  /  [ my muse ] is the good influence  /  [ my muse ] is the bad influence  /  opposites attract  /  ride or die  /  frenemies  /  roommates or flatmates  /  penpals  /  exes to friends  /  enemies to friends  /  other

ROMANCE.     childhood sweethearts  /  [ your muse is mines ] childhood crush  /  [ my muse is yours ] childhood crush  /  exes  /  exes to lovers  /  forbidden lovers  /  highschool sweethearts  /  secret relationship  /  opposites attract  /  long distance  /  unrequited [ from your muses side ]  /  unrequited [ from my muses side ]  /  unrequited [ from both sides ]  /  skinny love  /  friends to lovers  /  enemies to lovers  /  spurious relationship  /  power couple  /  newly entered  /  soulmates [ metaphorical ]  /  soulmates  [ literal ]  /  awkward  /  turning toxic  /  toxic love  /  cheating [ on your muse ]  /  cheating [ with your muse ]  /  other 

FAMILIAL.     siblings [ half ]  /  siblings [ step ]  /  [ my muse ] is an older sibling figure to your younger sibling figure  /  [ my muse ] is a younger sibling figure to your older sibling figure muse  /  [ my muse ] is a parental figure to yours  /  [ my muse ] is a child figure to your muse  /  guardian figure  /  legal guardian  /  adoptive child  /  foster child  /  [ your muse ] is taken under mines wing  /  [ my muse ] is taken under yours wing  /  other

ANTAGONISTIC.     dangerous to each other  /  dangerous to others  /  unpredictable  /  rivals  /  petty  /  developing into sexual or romantic tension  /  based off family matters  /  based of off circumstance  /  based of professional matters  /  based off misunderstanding or lies  /  conflict of ideology  /  betrayal  /  hero - villain dynamic  /  enemies  /  fight club  /  friends turned enemies  /  lovers turned enemies  /  exes turned enemies  /  other 

[celestie0]

gojo satoru x reader | oneshot smut [18+]

title. around the clock

Hooking up with your little brother’s babysitter? That sounds more like a bad porno than a sensible decision.

ᰔ pairing. babysitter/boxing au - underground boxer & babysitter!gojo x college student!reader (f)

ᰔ summary. when underground boxer gojo satoru becomes a little strapped for cash, he gets a day job as a babysitter for a five-year-old kid named yuuji who most definitely has adhd (but that’s besides the point). the kid’s mom gave gojo two rules, and two rules only: don’t accidentally kill my son, and do not flirt with my daughter. he’s pretty sure he’s got a good hold on the former, but he’s got no self control over the latter.

ᰔ warnings/tags. 18+, fem!reader, smut, casual sex, lil bit of fluff, lil bit of crack, slight age gap (reader’s 22 & gojo’s 27), cum play, creampie, unprotected sex, praise kink, slight degradation, gojo is a sleazebag that cares?, sort of porn-coded smut except there’s a lil bit of lore so it’s kinda porn w plot, uhh having sex with risk of getting caught, gojo beats people up at night & then plays father figure to a 5 y/o during the day, mentions of violence/alcohol/drugs/blood/cigarettes

ᰔ word count. 12.6k

a/n. hiiii friends jeez it feels like FOREVER since i've posted some good ol' smut (still has plot tho xd)...hopefully you enjoy n see ya at the bottom! lmk if i missed any warnings! if you asked to be tagged but didn’t get tagged it’s bc you have your tags off aaa :( even when some ppl tried to fix it i still couldn’t tag them i’m sorry!!

alsoooooo so very much love to @starmapz for beta reading this for me :”) really helped me w my posting nerves haha. she is also a wonderful jjk author pls go check out her works!! 💕 ART CREDITS: @/3-aem

➸ masterlist

2:34 pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): heyy um i’m sorry if this comes off kinda rude i just am kinda bad with this but i was wondering if you could text my mom for questions about yuuji’s care instead of me?

2:46pm Gojo Satoru: Oh 2:46pm Gojo Satoru: Yeah, sure

2:34 pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): sorry i know my mom doesn’t know much ab how to take care of him bc i was the one that took care of him for a while but i just really want to separate myself from that guardian role now that i’ve transferred to NYU yknow? :/ i think it’s not my place anymore. i just wanna be big sis now haha

2:46pm Gojo Satoru: I get it. Sorry if I was making you uncomfortable with my texts

2:48pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): no no not uncomfy by it, thanks for looking after him. it’s just i’m kind of busy n stuff so it can be distracting 

2:49pm Gojo Satoru: Ok, got it

2:52pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): and it was kind of an issue with his last babysitter

2:53pm Gojo Satoru: Oh?

2:55pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): yeahhh like he would keep textinf me n stuff uhh kinda weird things… i told my mom about it and she was super pissed so she fired him

2:55pm Gojo Satoru: Weird things?

2:56pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): yeah he was always “accidentally sexting me” n like he sent me a dick pic once sooooo yeah

2:56pm Gojo Satoru: Who tf 2:56pm Gojo Satoru: I’ll go beat him up

2:57pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): oh no no its fine lol 2:57pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): please dont beat anyone up 2:58pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): i’m not saying you’re like him tho i just think maybe less texting unless its an emergency okay?

3:00pm Gojo Satoru: Are you sure because I will totally go beat him up for you

3:01pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): NO I DONT WANT YOU TO BEAT ANYONE UP FOR ME 3:01pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): also no offense but you dont look like you could beat someone up

3:01pm Gojo Satoru: WHAT 3:02pm Gojo Satoru: Tf you mean “no offense” that’s literally the most offensive thing you could say to a guy

3:04pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): yeaa i mean you have muscles ofc but in the ‘ohhh i wanna look good for instagram’ way and not like real man muscles yknow

3:06pm Gojo Satoru: Ok princess next time you visit home and go on one of your stupidly large grocery hauls I’ll make sure you carry all those groceries in by yourself 

3:06pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): NO 3:07pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): I WAS JUST JOKING 3:07pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): YOURE SO STRONG TY FOR ALWAYS CARRYING THE GROCERIES INSIDE 3:08pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): PLEASE KEEP CARRYING MY GROCERIES INSIDE

3:09pm Gojo Satoru: Nah 3:09pm Gojo Satoru: Should we be texting right now? I’m not sensing any emergencies here

3:11pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): pls. my groceries :(

3:16pm Gojo Satoru: I’ll let the kiddo know you say hi 👋🏼 

The irony of it all was that, if Gojo really wanted to, he absolutely could beat the shit out of someone. And he has, hundreds of times, pseudo professionally. Although that isn’t something he’d admit to you, out of fear that you might relay that info back to your mom who would then become mortified that she’s entrusted her five-year-old son’s life to the hands of an underground boxer. 

But he needed the money. A night-time job didn’t really make daytime money, not when they could easily replace him with the next dude the second he gets knocked out of the ring more than twice, let alone if he let it happen once. And although he sometimes made large sums, it wasn’t stable income. He needed a back-up plan, and so babysitting it was. 

The babysitter working nights at unsanctioned dojos and gyms located in the back of cartel blocks, knocking teeth out of men twice his size, would put any decent mother into a coma or induce some episode of syncope, hence why it wasn’t something he put on his resume before he got hired. Not that he even needed to provide a resume; your mom seemed desperate to cover the position as fast as possible, that promotion at work was moving faster than she wanted to, and Gojo’s beneficial attribute that he possessed as a candidate to look after her son, compared to all the other potential hires, was that he had a penis.

He likes the kid. Yuuji. He’s got kind of a short attention span, and makes Gojo weary of his age. Hold up, that makes him sound like he’s geriatric, he’s really only the ripe old age of twenty-seven, but the immortality and infinite stamina that a five-year-old boy has on him is enough to have him huffing and puffing at the end of every single evening shift he takes on with the rascal. 

Fighting is all sprint, and no stamina. Sure, there might be some more seasoned boxers that might disagree with him, but for someone as young as him in the field, it’s the tactic he’s been forced to gain. If he draws a fight on for too long, he'll get killed by a forty-two year old man with steroids clogging up his adipose tissue and enough  testosterone to grow a full-body beard by the time the sun starts to set. No, his strategy is to knock them out within the first fifteen seconds. Use their weight against them, and whatnot. A tactic he’s found has worked, since he’s been undefeated thus far. 

He can never wrap his head around it. The drug lords that run the rings who’ve gained millions the night before from selling crystal meth only to lose it all the night following in the second Gojo hooklines a solid punch to their betting boxer’s chin, making them see God & their Momma before they tap out (if they’re even able).

He doesn’t pocket much money from it, not anything compared to what the men who bet on him end up making at least, but it’s a decently solid sum. How lucrative it really is depends solely on what he thinks the value of his life is.

It’s not unheard of, boxers dying in the ring. Turns out, rich drug dealers care very little about the sheep they’ve captured to perform their entertaining little stunts. But Gojo wasn’t doing all of this to feel some sense of work-life pride, no, it was just sustenance. When basic needs are not met, humans resort to the most animalistic of all behaviors, and while he’s not proud of what he does, he can’t deny the fact that it’s turned him into an adrenaline junkie that gets a rush in his veins every time he knocks a jaw loose.

But balance was key. And hence why he’s a boxer by night, babysitter by day. For at least four days a week, he gets to pretend he’s the king’s most trusted appointed knight, or he’s the radioactive tyrannosaurus rex that wants to tyrannize all the other dinosaurs, or maybe he’s the evil power ranger (he always forgets which color that one was) that is determined to make the world a living hell by smashing mr. potatohead against the bunk bed post a billion times for all the other toys to see. Or whatever other imaginative hyperfixations Yuuji imposes on him in the later afternoon once he’s had his bowl of spaghetti-O’s and is ready to play. Lately, the kid’s been really into space. They’ve got all sorts of space toys these days. Back in Gojo’s day, he just had a good ol’ Buzz Lightyear.

“One rule, that’s it: don’t accidentally kill my son. Actually, one more rule. Don’t flirt with my daughter.” 

There’s a part of Gojo that believes your mom kind of knows he’s up to shady shit at night, otherwise why else would she clause for him to not flirt with you if she didn’t read the slight swell to his eye and the healing gash across his cheek as anything other than this boy is trouble and I want him nowhere near my too-good-for-him daughter of reproductive capacity since that’s the exact tale of how I became a single mother in the first place. Or maybe he inherently looks like he’s up to no good? He’s not sure which angle is more offensive, and which one was more flattering. Well in any case, she entrusted Yuuji’s life to him, despite acknowledging the plausibility of harm, and that means she overall thinks positively of him, right? ……right?

The first night he met you, it was awkward to say the least. Gojo spends most of his nights performing deadly stunts for middle aged men with potbellies, and most of his days hanging out with a five-year-old (one who he’d argue is his only friend at this point). Sure, he’s got some people he sees occasionally back in his high school hometown when he can brave hearing about how everyone’s in college now or doing a masters or they’re working respectable nine-to-five day jobs meanwhile he has to lie to his Pops that he’s been working in insurance for the past two years. Listen, in fairness, he probably makes the same amount of money as an insurance broker would anyways, but he can’t exactly own up to the identity of his craft. 

Anyways, the point is, he’s not used to seeing other people his age anymore. There’s the occasional hook-up with girls he hasn’t seen since Mrs. Tracy’s homeroom period back in sweet two-thousand-sixteen, or his twice-a-year hangout with Suguru where he only learns the day of where he's visiting from since the guy moves around more than Gojo can keep up with. But save for that, he mostly just sees your mom and then Yuuji. 

So seeing you standing in the kitchen for the first time when he went to put Yuuji’s half-finished GoGurt back in the fridge was startling to say the least. When the sight of a woman startled him, he knew he needed to start getting out again.

You were on your tiptoes, reaching up to grab at something over the fridge, and wearing these ridiculously short shorts to where he could see the curve of your ass, his line of sight trailing down the skin of your bare legs. He couldn’t see anything of your form above your shorts, given you were wearing an extremely baggy t-shirt with NYU on it in big bolded university letters. As far as he knew, you were a senior at NYU, studying psychology, made dean’s list consecutively for the past three years given the way your mother posted all your stellar transcripts up on the fridge (he gets that she’s proud of her daughter, but doesn’t that kind of stuff usually end in grade school?) But other than that, it was all the information he had on you.

“Here,” he said, pressing his front to your back, maybe just to get a feel, as he reached over to you to finally grab the box of cereal you were swatting for, the one that he purposefully placed at the back because Yuuji learned how to climb counters recently. “Is this what you want?”

He had heard you gasp, spinning around on your heel fast, staring up at him with wide eyes like you weren’t expecting some random man to be in the house right now, and your first instinct ended up being to grab the knife out of the kitchen knife block and lunge it straight at his torso.

If it wasn’t for his boxer reflexes, he’d have ended up at the ER that evening. Or dead. All depending on the strength you could pack into a stab. But instead, he deflected it, though not without a gash to his torso through the fabric of his shirt, one that you spent the rest of the evening profusely apologizing for and eventually mending to with cotton balls and neosporin. 

“I didn’t know you were my little brother’s babysitter,” you mumbled with a small wince on your face as you dabbed ointment on the wound while he pulled the hem of his shirt up to his shoulder. He’s never had an injury tended to before. It was nice.

“It’s fine, I get it, totally acceptable response to seeing a random dude in your house.”

He remembers the curl of your eyelashes while you stared down at his bare upper half, something he imprinted on his memory rather than the concern in your face as your fingertips traced the scars across his chest. He hoped they made you feel better about the one you just slashed into him, because after all, what was one more? 

He knows he shouldn’t have, but he kissed you that night. Two minutes before your mom came home, and right after you bid him goodnight with one more apology, he backed you up against the door of your bedroom, his hands on your hips pulling you towards him, and his lips pressed against yours. Something seamless, from candid conversation that was heading towards an end, to full fledged making out against white-painted wood, his teeth nipping at your lip and he wondered just how touch-starved those university boys were leaving you given the desperate way you’d clinged to his shirt for dear life as he deepened the kiss.

The moment only lasted one minute and fifty-seven seconds, and in the remaining three, your mother’s key pushed into the front door and he had to pull away. Always, on the dot, 10PM, she was home. It was how he knew he had two minutes left to make a move in the first place.

So much for no flirting.

6:57pm Gojo Satoru: Bahahah I accidentally forgot where yuuji’s epipen is 6:58pm Gojo Satoru: [sent a photo] 6:59pm Gojo Satoru: Turns out this can-o-soup was just covering it in the cabinet

7:01pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): ??? why did you need to find his epipen

7:08pm Gojo Satoru: Oh he accidentally took a bite of my pad thai 7:09pm Gojo Satoru: I freaked cuz I thought it had peanuts in it but I remember I asked for it without any  7:09pm Gojo Satoru: shit’s crazy

7:10pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): WHY THE FUCK DIDNT YOU TEXT ME????????

7:12pm Gojo Satoru: YOU SAID YOU DIDNT WANT ME TEXTING YOU UNLESS IT WAS AN EMERGENCY ?

7:13pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): SATORU YOU THOGHT HE ATE SOMETHING W PEANUTS IN IT AND YOU FORGOT WHERE HIS EPIPEN WAS THATSS A FUCKIGN EMERGENCY

7:15pm Gojo Satoru: THE KID IS DOING FINE HES ALIVE JESUS LEAVE ME ALONE 7:16pm Gojo Satoru: [sent a photo] 7:16pm Gojo Satoru: See. he’s chill 7:17pm Gojo Satoru: with intact airways might I add 7:18pm Gojo Satoru: Also isn’t he a little too old to still be watching baby sensory videos?

7:20pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): yeah my mom thinks he has adhd :(

7:22pm Gojo Satoru: oh

He tried to keep his word though (although he doesn’t recall ever giving it) out of the respect he had for your mom. She was a hard-working lady, single mom of two who went from working three jobs to now being a major administrator at a big law firm near the outskirts of town. It was an underdog story if he’d ever heard one, and he loved an underdog story. 

But a little texting here and there wouldn’t hurt, right? Or so he thought, until you told him to cut it out with the contact. Maybe you were just trying to be the good one in this situation. After all, hooking up with your little brother’s babysitter? That sounds more like a bad porno than a sensible decision. Still, he’ll eventually get your replies to his which shirt should Yuuji wear to the park? and look, the toothfairy gave him the butt of a joint and a couple thumbtacks for his front tooth. he’s ecstatic texts, although in a less timely manner than before when you weren’t trying to preserve propriety. And when you’d occasionally visit every other weekend, he’d do his best to keep his hands in his pockets, and you’d fill up your nights with hangouts with your hometown friends to avoid spending too much time with him at the house. A silent agreement to not fuck each other, it was. 

4:55pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): send pic of yuuji pls i miss him :(

5:04pm Gojo Satoru: [sent a photo]

5:08pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): IS THAT BLOOD?!?!?!?!

5:09pm Gojo Satoru: chillllllll it’s fake. We’re working on his halloween costume

5:09pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): WHY DOES IT HAVE BLOOD?!?!?!?!?!?

5:10pm Gojo Satoru: He wants to be a baby xenomorph and I'm his parasitic host. You know that iconic chestburster scene from the old school alien movies? yeah

5:12pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): satoru please for the love of god just dress him up as a dinosaur or something

5:13pm Gojo Satoru: I’m not the one that came up with the idea, okay? It was him

5:14pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): because you let him watch adult swim with you before putting him to bed. you’ve deranged his brain.

5:14pm Gojo Satoru: He needs it. Builds character.

Gojo was living a double life, and if someone asked him, he’d say it was less of a Clark Kent way and more of a Bruce Wayne way, although in reality, he knows it’s close to neither. He’s no superhero with a concealed identity fighting crime, he’s a con artist that’s tricked a hard-working woman into hiring him just because he’s trying to save up enough money to get the fuck out of this godforsaken town, given he’s not knocked dead before then for the crime’s amusement.

But Yuuji looks up to him now. And Gojo’s grown attached to him too. He taught the kid how to tie his own shoes and piss inside the actual toilet like a real man. And that kid’s the only thing that’s made him question any of this. Maybe that’s what dads feel, suddenly held to all this impossible responsibility and the pressure to stop doing stupid shit so that you’ll stick around to see your kids get older. The thought that there are eyes on you now, eyes that are innocent and hopeful and learning, and because they know nothing at all, you feel the responsibility to protect them from everything. For fucks sake, remind him to never become a dad. 

“Do you like my sister?” Yuuji had asked him out of nowhere one afternoon after he just got home from preschool, stacking a blue cube over a yellow one at the dining table.

“Uhh,” Gojo starts. He wondered if your mom had put a wire on the kid, so his answer was as diplomatic as he could manage. “Yeah, she’s cool. You’ve got a cool sister.”

“But. But.” Yuuji stutters, trying to find his big boy words. He stretches up higher to reach the top of his stack of blocks, but he only has so much arm real estate at the age of five. “Do you like her like you wanna kiss her?”

Gojo grabs the block from the kid’s hand, for a moment questioning Yuuji’s decision to want to put a blue block over another blue block, but he figures aesthetics are the least of a kid’s concern, and so he places the block where Yuuji wanted it. 

Why does the kid know what kissing is anyway? Do kids know that kind of stuff at that age? Isn’t a kiss to a five-year-old just something their mom gives to them before they head off to preschool for the day? And not something that happens between adult men and women? Maybe he should stop watching that adult swim in front of him.

“No. I don’t want to kiss your sister,” he says, again, because he is suspicious of a wire. It was a lie and then some, because he wants to do a lot more than just kiss you.

Gojo lifts the RedBull he was nursing up to his lips and watches Yuuji in the corner of his eye as the kid stares at his growing stack of blocks with a concentrated expression on his face, his chubby fingers squeezing tightly into little round dimpled balls, like he’s putting together all his tiny brain cells together to form another coherent thought before turning to face Gojo on the chair.

“It’s ok. You can kiss her if you wan’ed to. You can marry her too,” Yuuji says.

Gojo almost spits out his RedBull. He barely manages to swallow it, a broken cough immediately leaving his throat when some of the liquid goes down the wrong pipe and he’s smacking a fist against his chest to knock the sanity back into himself.

“Where the fu—…where the flip did that come from?” he asks, blinking back tears from the rasp in his throat.

Yuuji’s small shoulders sulk as he sits back on his heels. “I want a papa.”

Oh fuck that hurt. Jesus christ, there was nothing more sad than that. Yuuji has literally never known what it’s like to have a dad, since his had left before he was even born. Gojo’s not really close to his old man by any means, but he had still been a fatherly figure in some pivotal moments when he had needed it growing up. Kids need their dads. And he’s seen enough people lose their way without one to know that the value of them is really underestimated.

He’s also kind of shocked that Yuuji really did think of you as his motherly figure. Maybe since it had always just been him and his dad, Gojo learned how to self sustain from a young age, and he and his dad became accustomed to just looking after their own interests to avoid the headache of tending to one another. My land is my land, and your land is yours, and there was the occasional Saturday night spent together with his dad’s millions of beer bottles emptied dry on the carpet in front of the 1992 box TV as the two shared a greasy pizza from the place down the street. That was the extent of family solidarity that he knew.

But he can’t imagine being barely eighteen and having to take care of your little brother all by yourself because your mom was too busy trying to put food on the table and was too poor to hire a babysitter. Your mom tried so damn hard to keep you away from the single teenage mother life, but somehow ended up giving it to you by proxy in the end anyway. It was no wonder you wanted space now that Yuuji’s a little older and your mom can afford a babysitter. No matter how much you might love your sibling, being their effective guardian out of pure necessity had to have taken a toll.

Gojo clears his throat before he speaks. “Buddy. If I married your sister, we’d be brothers. I wouldn’t be your dad.” 

Yuuji’s eyes light up at the word brother. “Brothers? Me and you?”

“Yeah. Bros.”

The kid giggles, all bubbly with cheeks rounding fully and eyes sparkling. Gojo reaches out to ruffle at his hair before Yuuji gets down onto one stubby leg at a time from the chair then bolts towards the kitchen.

“Juice!!” he yells somewhere around the corner out of sight.

Gojo sighs, staring at all the toys he pulled out for Yuuji to play with, all left in a scattered mess across the table. He gets up out of his chair and heads towards the fridge. “Yeah, yeah. I’ll get you your juice, you little demon.”

The conclusion he comes to, and it might read like an obvious one, is that kids don’t really know the reality of life, hence why adults hide so much from them. 

This is what he thinks of tonight when he wraps his worn out boxing tape around his hands and his wrist, tightening it with his teeth, and he can smell the sweat and grime from them. The back of the underground gym had an old dated locker room, and as Gojo stretches his neck side to side while sitting on the stiff metal bench, he eyes the peeling red paint of the locker in front of him, blurring vision making it look like spilt blood. 

His phone pings with a text. He shuffles inside his duffle bag to look for it while his other hand scratches at his bare chest.

1:07am yuuji’s sis (no flirting): hhhhhhhhhiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii 1:07am yuuji’s sis (no flirting): omgomgomg sor y i’m 

He blinks at the screen, confusion flashing across his face. He types one letter, but then he sees three dots and a speech text bubble in the bottom left, so he waits for you.

1:09am yuuji’s sis (no flirting): i drunk :(

The corner of his mouth ticks up slightly. 

1:09am Gojo Satoru: Yeah I can tell

1:10am yuuji’s sis (no flirting): at a apartyyyy

His eyebrows raise slightly, the thought of you tipsy on some frat party couch flashing through his mind, yet of all things you could be doing at that frat party, you’re texting him? Must be a really boring party.

1:11am yuuji’s sis (no flirting): whyyy are you aawake?

1:12am Gojo Satoru: Couldn’t sleep 1:12am Gojo Satoru: Don’t you have a midterm in the morning?

1:14am yuuji’s sis (no flirting): wtf hwo do you knwo that

1:15am Gojo Satoru: Your mom keeps your schedule posted on the fridge

1:15am yuuji’s sister (no flirting): im so fucked;’;(((

He snorts. He’s got a bit more life experience than you, five-ish years to be exact, more than enough time to master the no-hangover hangout, but just before he can offer you some advice, he sees another text from you. 

1:16am yuuji’s sister (no flirting): can i tell u smething 

His gaze flits up to the ceiling briefly, and he hears commotion outside the thick walls of the locker room. The previous fight was over, and fast. The guy must’ve been knocked out in under twenty seconds tops, which means that Gojo was next up against whatever superbeast just beat him up. 

1:17am Gojo Satoru: Sure

He stands up, placing his phone down on the bench before he flexes the muscles in his arms a couple times to get the blood flowing into them. And there’s the noise of another ping. Actually, four.

1:14am yuuji’s sis (no flirting): sonetimes 1:14am yuuji’s sis (no flirting): i thikn of  1:14am yuuji’s sis (no flirting): when u kisse me 1:14am yuuji’s sis (no flirting): *kissed me

His eyes widen slightly, irises dry to the ashy cigarette smoke from outside lingering in the air, and his heart rate picks up a bit. An adrenaline junkie with close to no fear in his veins due to the way his amygdala’s been fried to a crisp from years of boxing, yet he’s got his breath hitched from the memory of your soft lips against his. It makes the blood rushing through the muscles of his arms rush somewhere down south instead.

Loud banging on the door of the locker room jolts him out of his trance, and he’s stiff around the edges once more.

“Satoru! You’re up, man,” he hears Danny, the fight coordinator, yell at him from the other side of the heavy & poorly-installed steel door.

Gojo sighs, glancing down at the texts on his phone. To respond, or not to respond. You’re off your face, clearly chatty from the alcohol, and he knows for certain you’ll regret every life decision you’ve ever made once you wake up in the morning and see the self sabotaging behaviors you’ve engaged in tonight. He knows that responding to you might put you at ease rather than straight up ignoring you, but the feeling will pass, and he has a match to win with no more room left to stall.

He makes his way out the locker room, pushing past the crowded halls of people underneath dim flashing club lighting, some dudes angrily jerking to face him when he pushes past them with a stiff shoulder, only for their eyes to widen when they see just exactly who pushed them. 

There’s strippers in the ring, doing some routine for pre-match, and Gojo narrows his eyes at the man he sees laying back over the rubber boundary rope, head tipped back up to the ceiling with a wicked grin on his face. So that was his opponent? He’s never seen the guy before. Was he from a different district? Different district talent was tough, you had no background info on them, while they’ve been preparing to be here for weeks. Hence why boxers tend to do better when they visit a different district than they do in their own. There have been rules made to limit these types of fights, mostly over outrage that it was unfair to bid on them, but they were also usually more entertaining to watch. Gojo’s got a sick feeling to his stomach as the strippers clear the ring.

“Hey,” Gojo calls out, grabbing Danny by the back of his collar and dragging him towards him and away from the girls stepping down onto the floor, “what’s in for this fight?”

Danny glances up at the ceiling. “Tarp’s bettin’ tonight, so it can’t be anything less than ten grand for you. I’d say tops fifteen?”

Gojo narrows his eyes further, then glances off into the ring again. The man stands up, and Gojo gets a better look on his face. He’s got short hair, neon green in color with a dark fade underneath and tattoos all over his face. But those eyes. They were freakishingly red, and it made him uneasy. He knows the type. The type of boxers that do this to genuinely hurt people for thrill. Make no mistake, Gojo understands he’s made himself out to be like that too, gaining some kind of rush out of this profession, but this type of fighter was different. The type to literally continue smashing a dude’s face into the floor until they’re a bloody mess even minutes after the winning call, and no referee to stop it because that’s the kind of action the spectators wanted.

Danny reads his line of sight. “That’s Gale. Newton’s new boxing toy. Came outta nowhere about a month ago. He’s undefeated so far in his district, and Newton specifically wanted to see you up against him tonight,” Danny tells Gojo, resting his elbow up on his bare shoulder. “Chances are he’ll compete with Tarp for final bid if you win this one. I’m talking twenty-five grand in the next if you can knock him out in this.”

“Uh-huh,” Gojo acknowledges, rolling his shoulder so Danny’s elbow falls from it. Forget the money, he just wants to make it out of this alive.

He sets his foot up on the square, ducking through the dividing boundary straps and the tacky caution construction tape that the gym thinks creates an exciting ambience. He hears the static of the speakers as the announcers call out Gojo’s name, then this other guy, loud bass club music booming through Gojo’s chest as he tries to take a few deep breaths through the thick air of this low-ceiling arena. 

The dim overhead lights flickered, casting shadows over the makeshift ring, and the crowd pressed tight around at every perimeter area, yelling and pushing, one even tosses a beer bottle on the square and it shatters, spreading glass all across, a few shards reaching Gojo’s feet and he looks down at them with a shudder. A fight immediately breaks out in the crowd over something related or possibly entirely unrelated, and he’d have no way of knowing as he swipes the shards away with his heel.

The influential men always sat up on higher seating, off towards the back in their own VIP section where they suck in the smoke of fat cigarettes and peer through 100% tinted sunglasses to assess the boxers they’ve bid thousands on. The light reflects off the golden grills of their teeth with every snarl at any passerby that gets too close, like a lion in its den. That’s what the sanction was called. Lion’s den.

Gojo sighed, eyeing the twisted grin of this Gale guy across from him. Was that his real name? Usually, foreign district guys get nicknames. Gojo’s always thought the nicknames were tacky, and he’s accumulated some of his own over the years, but to his ears, none of them ever really landed, although The White Fox admittedly was kinda nice. Reminded him of throwback shooting games. 

He sucked a breath in through his teeth, holding his hands up in front of his chest in weak fists, storing energy in them in the form of pure anticipation alone, and then the bell rang.

His opponent lunged towards him immediately, fists flying in a barrage of reckless strikes, and Gojo’s eyes momentarily widened in the briefest moments of hesitation he had been allowed before ducking and dodging every one of this guy's shots, then jumping a step back to create distance.

Fuck. He was fast. Not just boxer fast, athlete fast. There was a difference. And it wasn’t a good one to be up against.

Gojo picked up light on his feet. He couldn’t win this one fast, that much was certain. One single careless or reckless move, and he’ll get tackled. He knows that by the malicious look he sees on that guy’s face, grin wide like he’s some cannibalistic beast. 

Stepping back towards the center, Gojo purposefully set himself up for Gale to swipe a vicious hook towards his head, before Gojo last minute ducked down, crouched to the floor, and swung his leg out to knock the guy off balance by his ankles, and he falls onto his back with a loud thud!

There’s a moment of momentary silence from the crowd, right before Gojo put the man in a torso-lock, twisting him in a way a human body should absolutely not be twisted, hearing the grunts of pain and the crack of spine even through the shouts of the crowd.

He can hear it. Kill him! Knock his fucking teeth out! Snap his neck like a goose, man! FIN-ISH HIM! FIN-ISH HIM! FIN-ISH HIM!

He feels like throwing up. 

Gojo looks up at the referee, who wasn’t really a referee, just there to run the clock when there was action and only barely stop it before near death. “This is enough, right?” he asks.

The referee nods. “1-0, next round.”

Gojo lets go of his opponent, leaving him there to heave for a moment before he gets up onto his feet again. Just needs one more, and he’s a winner. Ten grand in his pocket, and he won’t have to come back here for a couple weeks.

Gale gets up, swiping at the spit that had trickled out the corner of his mouth down to his chin, and he had an enraged look on his face. The second the bell rang for the second round, he exploded forward towards Gojo with even more fervor than before, gritted expression with a thirst for violence fueling the storm of punches he was throwing towards Gojo but he tried to remain calm, light on his feet, swiftly duck and avoid before he can find another opportunity to clear a sharp, clean jab right to the ribs—

sometimes, i think of when you kissed me

Gojo misses his strike, leaving his guard wide open, and Gale takes the opportunity to land a solid punch straight to his jaw, sending his mouth guard flying straight out of his mouth into the air, and knocking him backwards onto the ground with a thud and then he finds himself staring up at the rusting metal ceiling and a ringing in his ears that almost matches the roar of the crowd.

His head is in a haze, dizzy like where one second could feel like a millennia. He feels a soreness underneath his chin, a pain that radiates to his mouth, and he briefly swipes his tongue over his front teeth to make sure he still has all of them. 

What the fuck was that? That intrusive thought. There’s no intrusive thoughts allowed in life or death situations, not when he was always just one smash to the head away from a permanent concussion. But, fuck, he can’t help it. Can’t help thinking of you. Even when his vision has gone blurry and he should really be weary about what happens next in this ring, his mind’s just thinking about you, at some frat party, tipping back shots of tequila and waiting for a text-back in response to your tipsy ones. Were you even waiting up on him? Have you already passed out on the couch, or were your friends dragging you back to your dorm? Or are you fucking some other dude right now? Has he got his hand up your top, squeezing at you, sleazily feeling you up before spilling beer all down your shirt, and are you kissing him back with the same enthusiasm, your phone now somewhere long slipped between the cushions of the couch and out of sight?

Even though it’s still sore, he tenses his jaw. Grinds his teeth, even. Tasting blood somewhere along the line of his gums, he realizes his lip is split. He licks at it, the flavor of copper more rich on his tongue, and he clenches his fists tightly. Why’s he thinking of that right now? It just pisses him off, the thought of you with some other dude. Maybe that’s what he needs to win this fight. Spite. Although he’s not sure why the guy across from him at the ring has to pay for it.

He lifts his head up off the ground, and while it felt like years he had been down, a glance at the timer tells him it’s only been a solid four seconds. A solid four seconds that his opponent had to fully charge a lunge towards him with the look of death in his face, raising his elbow up into the air in time with his leap, ready to come straight down, and Gojo’s eyes widen at the sight above him from where he’s still lying on the wood.

“Shit—” he cusses, rolling his body over to the side so that the dude falls straight down onto the floor rather than elbow Gojo in the fucking ribs, and then he gets back up on his feet. 

Stakes were high, he has to end this, he has to end this now, and he flexes the muscle in his right bicep, channeling everything he has into this one blow, and before Gale even really has a chance to turn around and face him again, Gojo’s already three-fourths set up a knockout undercut that he drives straight up the guy’s chin, with so much force it has him lifting up off the floor, a vertebrate stretch to his spine before he’s sent flying backwards and slammed against the tight rubber lining of the ring to where he was half hanging over it.

The room fell silent for a split second, then erupted in a roar as the referee fell to one knee beside Gale, checking him for any semblance of consciousness, and when he found none, he waves the match off. 

Gojo’s eyes flit up towards the lion’s den, the only opinions that he really needed to care about were sitting in those mahogany chairs with glasses of scotch swirling around in their hands, and he sees some of them looking straight at Gojo before leaning towards one another and discretely talking about something he can’t make out because he doesn’t know how to read lips.

He feels someone tug at his arms from behind, pulling him to crouch down and he balances back on the balls of his feet. He glances down through the ring at the floor. Danny was leaning against the wooden surface of it. “Dude. Go.” He jerks his head towards Gale, who still laid there sprawled across the now stretched out rubber perimeter bands. “Go fuck him up. Knock a few more teeth out, I don’t know, get some more blood out of him.”

“What?” Gojo huffs, yanking his arm away from Danny’s grip. “The fuck are you saying?”

“I told you, man, Newton’s here and he’s got his eye on you. Go give him a show,” Danny says, “do it.” And when he sees clear frustration on Gojo’s face he sighs. “Twenty-five grand, consider that, will you?”

Gojo sneers at the man, an awful taste in his mouth as he spits blood towards Danny’s feet. “Go fuck yourself on his cock if he wants a show that bad.” And then he ducks underneath the bands and hops back down onto the floor, pushing past people who were trying to grab at him and pull at him and lift him up and even throw him down until he made it through flashing hallways and back to the locker room.

He shuts the door behind him, sliding the bolt lock into the frame so no one can follow him inside, and then he leans his weight back against the chilling steel before tipping his head back until it hits the surface too.

He lets out of a few deep breaths, then stares down at the sting he finds over his knuckles. Red and blistering from the last punch he delivered, and he’s almost certain he broke a bone in his hand. Fuck. It was bleeding across the cuts, too. He had to figure out a way to get it all healed by tomorrow, as if that was humanly possible, just because he doesn’t want Yuuji questioning him about it.

Yuuji. For fucks sake, when has he ever thought about the kid this much? When has he ever thought about much of anything when he’s out here or in the ring? He’s a babysitter by day. He’s a “part” of your family when the sun is up and normal functioning society is breathing their lives into the clean air. That’s it. He’s no five-year-old’s caretaker in front of all these primetime drug lords, and he certainly shouldn’t be thinking of you when facing big, burly men he’s aiming to rough up, all within the dead hours of night. So then how come these thoughts are on his mind at all times, twenty-four-seven, around the clock?

He heads further into the locker room, glancing down at the bench where he’d left his phone, then picks it up, neck craned all the way down to glance at the screen as he holds his phone by his hip because he doesn’t have any energy to pick it up any further towards his eyesight. 

He sees your messages. You never sent any follow-up ones, just your horrendously typed out sonetimes, i thikn of when u kisse me *kissed me across the span of four texts, and Gojo runs a tired hand down his face.

He tips his head back to groan at the ceiling, guttural with no basis other than a release of all the pent up frustration of every sort, then he types in a couple messages to you,

3:23am Gojo Satoru: That’s nice 3:24am Gojo Satoru: I think about fucking you all the time 

—and then tosses his phone into his duffel bag to call it a night.

⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘

You’re awoken to your alarm blaring heavily, and you whack your arm across your nightstand table beside your tiny twin-size bed to hit the snooze button, then rub your eye with a loose fist while smacking at the residual taste of alcohol you have on your tongue. 

“Mm…” you mumble to yourself. And then the thirst hits you. The overwhelming, intense, unquenchable thirst that leaves your mouth feeling like the Sahara desert before you grab your twice-dented Hydroflask from the nightstand, twist the cap off and chug about twenty ounces of water in one breath. 

You let out a deep exhale and fall back into bed, your hand resting on top of your water-filled tummy, and you stare up at the ceiling of your dorm. 

Last night was horrible. You knew you shouldn’t have gone to that frat party, especially given you have an exam in—you checked the time on your phone—about an hour, and an hour was not enough time to recover from the raging hangover headache that’s pounding through your head. But your roommates insisted you went, and so go you did. You never knew what to expect, always torn between shaving your pussy before you go or throwing on a stained pair of sweatpants to keep the guys away instead. Sometimes, it was a combination of both. But last night, you ended up drinking more than you usually do, and that always led to poor, poor, poor decisions, in which all the sense of pride you had in yourself was washed down with the puke that you hurled into the upstairs toilet. 

You grab at your phone again, briefly seeing that your friends had sent you some photos from the night. You immediately swiped off to the side to dismiss the notifications, because as far as you were concerned, you never wanted to see those photos in your life.

And then, in the briefest of moments, you saw a familiar name in your notifications that made you heart skip a beat.

Gojo Satoru (yuuji’s babysitter)

With an immediate gasp, you pulled your phone to your chest and held it there, blinking up at the pale yellow ceiling, your heart picking up in rhythm.

Oh fuck.

That was right.

You drunk texted him last night.

You drunk texted your little brother’s hot babysitter.

Fuck.

Mortified was an understatement, possibly because you don’t even remember what you said, and so you don’t even want to see what he replied with.

You groan, rubbing both your hands across your face then kick your sheets back with your feet like a child having a temper tantrum because you were so embarrassed you had even texted him at all last night. I mean, he was hot. A little older than you, really gorgeous eyes, tall, and, yeah, you gave him shit for the Instagram muscles thing, but that’s only because you thought he’d find it cheeky that you were trying to humble him despite the fact that he’s more toned and ruggedly sculpted than any other man you’ve ever met. You didn’t want to have a flustered schoolgirl attitude because it would just seep through to his ego.

In any case, he was hot, there was no denying it, so can you really blame yourself? But still. There was collateral with this. You had to see him every other weekend. He knows your family, even your extended since they invited him to Thanksgiving dinner a couple weeks ago. A high-risque drunk text recipient if he ever was one (of course he has been, look at that face). Why couldn’t you have just drunk texted ECON160 guy from last semester who Clit DJ’d you underneath your desk at the back of the lecture hall instead?

The thing that made you nervous about Gojo Satoru was that he was just so…confident? Like, in that I was raised to be this way confident and not that I fought inner demons my whole life to barely end up this way confident, y’know? Never had to fake it ‘til he made it, he just was. At least that was the kind of energy you got from him, and unfortunately for you, it was nerve wracking but enticing all at the same time.

You sigh. “Stupid. Stupid. Stuuuuuupiiiiidddddddddddd. You. Are. So. Stuuuuuupiiiiddddddd,” you sigh, running your hands through your hair to grip at the strands.

You pull your phone away from your chest, and finally brave yourself to read the texts from your notifications screen, but not without blurring your vision a little to further stall. And then you finally refocus it to read them. The first one you see has you gasping—

3:24am Gojo Satoru (yuuji’s babysitter): I think about fucking you all the time 

It has heat spreading across your cheeks, and you blink at your screen, then quickly swipe up to read the previous messages with rushed glides of your index finger on the screen to see that he had sent it to you in response to your barely coherent texts about how you still so often think about that time he randomly pressed you up against the door of your bedroom to kiss you that night you first met him.

I think about fucking you all the time

At 3 in the morning? He decided to send that text at 3 in the fucking morning? That was the devil’s hour. What’s he trying to tell you? 

Oh come on, you’re not stupid. And you know he isn’t either. The sexual tension was palpable, it was there since the day you two met and you almost stabbed him, and also everytime you were visiting the house, and his shoulder brushes against yours when he’s trying to get past you in the kitchen, or when you’ve got Yuuji in your arms and the kid is clinging to Gojo’s sleeve because he wants him near him at all times. There’s even sexual tension over the phone, in those stupid texts he sends you all the time about meaningless child care stuff, and honestly, those little updates made your day.

But… you don’t know much about him, and your mom would kill you if she ever found out you wanted him. And she’d probably pulverize him if she found out he ever made a move on you. Cremated without leaving a trace behind would be an understatement. She thinks he’s no good and she thinks you’re too good. You know she’s warned him before to not get close to you, as if she was pre-emptively expecting him to try to get in your pants like it was some canon force of the universe, hence why he’s probably so fucking awkward around you whenever she’s there too. Like if he accidentally got caught staring at your ankles, your mom would light him on fire, so he’d rather not risk it by just avoiding looking at you at all.

Your mom has always been protective of you. Your father was a deadbeat, one she thought she loved, only to watch him leave. And she had to raise a baby all by herself. He re-entered your lives right before you graduated high school, knocked up your mom again with Yuuji, and guess what? Left again without a trace. To be doubly humiliated by a man is a fate you wouldn’t wish on any woman, but that’s exactly what your mom went through. It was a wake-up call for her, though. No more living paycheck to paycheck like you had been your whole lives up until Yuuji was born. The kid doesn’t even know how lucky he is with everything he has right now. Your mom worked her way up the corporate ladder and made something of herself and now you guys were comfortable, so it was safe to say she had some sort of right to look after her daughter, of whom she simply doesn’t want to follow in the same naive footsteps of her youth.

You get it. She wants to break the generational cycle. But it made being with men tough on all fronts, let alone dating. You could never bring a guy home because he’d never be enough, even if he cured cancer or could make you orgasm while doing a sixty-nine handstand. And while her overbearing paranoia over what you do or where you are or who you’re with has since dimmed slightly since you officially moved out to finish your last year of higher education at NYU, you can still feel her disappointment from a hundred miles away when you’re making out with some random frat guy on his beer-stained couch at eleven AM on a Tuesday.

But you got to college. You’ve already made it this far. You’re on dean’s list. You graduated high school as salutatorian. You’re the most highly decorated cello player in the state. You won Miss County pageant when you were sixteen for your philanthropic efforts towards feline leukemia. You did online community college for three years so you could stick back after high school and help your mom raise Yuuji, which meant that you had to forfeit your scholarship to Cornell. You’ve spent your whole life being good, you just wanna be bad for a little bit.

And if bad meant fucking the hot and mysterious babysitter, then so be it. 

You pick your phone up, begin blasting what the hell by Avril Lavigne on your dorm room bluetooth speaker, then type a message to him that says—

10:34am you: do it then

—then shove your phone under the sheets and belt out the lyrics aaaall my life i’ve been good, but now, ahhhh i’m thinkin’ what the hell!!! while kicking your feet and clutching your pillow.

⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘

Gojo has no clue what divine entity has overcast their gratuitous spirit over him on this blessed Monday afternoon, but he’ll thank them for it later once his balls are empty. 

He’s got you on your back, sprawled across the couch in the living room, the first fuck being a rushed one that you offered him with before he has to go pick Yuuji up from circle time at preschool, which wasn’t ideal, but he’s delirious at the sight of you underneath him right now. Your little NYU shirt, a tighter one this time, bunched up over your bare breasts, otherwise entirely naked other than the flimsy panties dangling at your ankle, and the view of the tip of his cock looking hot and heavy against the velvet of your cunt, slowly pushing in, feeling the warmth of your walls squeeze around him paired with the sweet moan that leaves your lips, makes him fall forward with a bracing hand dug into the cushion by the side of your head because the sensation feels so fucking good he can hardly keep himself upright.

“Fuck, you’re so tight,” he grunts, pushing himself in further to try and bottom out but he’s still got a couple inches he needs you to take, and so you curl your hips upwards towards the cieling to make more room for him, practically putting yourself into a mating press and soon enough he’s balls deep, “you on any birth control?”

“Uh-huh,” you moan, eyes closed and head tipped back with one hand squeezing your own tit.

“I can cum inside then, yeah?” he asks you, pushing your knees to your chest, slowly drawing his hips back and you squirm underneath him.

“Let’s get there first, and then we’ll discuss,” you breathe out.

“I’ve been there for the past ten minutes, baby. I could cum at any second with the way you look and feel,” he informs you flatly, because it was just the truth and you had to know it, then he feels himself twitch inside, slowly working up to a languid rhythm, almost fearfully like your mom’s going to pop out somewhere around the corner with a camera crew ready like one of those retro TV shows just to humiliate him on national television for not keeping it in his pants like she’d told him to. 

“Harder,” he hears you whisper, and he rolls his eyes shut to just focus on the feeling. The feeling of your nails grazing down the skin of his chest and his abs, tracing the scars he’s collected over the years, and he feels you tightening around him. He leans down to kiss you, fucking you properly now with the squeak of the couch springs echoing across the room, your hums of moans seeping through his lips until he’s fully taking them on with an open-mouthed kiss of sloppy tongue. 

The fact that it was wrong felt right to him, and he realizes in this moment he’s lost all sense of control. He wasn’t just an adrenaline junkie that liked to rough up dudes, he was an adrenaline junkie that wanted to fuck you against all better judgement or moral compass. The way your tits were bouncing, the slap of skin on skin, his balls slapping against your ass while you wrap your legs around him tighter, all convincing him that any consequence made it worth it.

“Good,” he groans the praise, pinning your hands above your head as he rams his hips against yours, your cute moans and squeals sounding like literal music to his ears and he feels heat spread all the way up his neck, “goooood, keep squeezin’ me like that, fuck.” He slows down momentarily, just to take a moment and watch, really look and see the way his length disappears inside of your pretty self with every push forward, and then he works back up to a relentless pace that has you tipping your head back with a slack jaw and eyes closed tightly shut, sprained expression of pleasure spread across.

“Oh, oh my god, Satoru—” you mewled and he felt dizzy from the sound of his name from your softly parted lips.

“Fuck, I’m gonna—” His hand finds it’s way between your legs, calloused pads of his fingers brushing against your clit and you jolt underneath him, gasping as your hand shoots out to dig your nails into his bicep for purchase. “I’m gonna cum, better tell me where you want it.”

“In me,” you moan, “nowhere else.”

He presses his mouth against your cheek in a lazy smile, “Atta girl,” he drawls before pushing your ankles down as far as they’d go near your ears, folding you in half and then reigns all hell into your cunt. He should really care a bit more about your pleasure, but testing your flexibility like this with both his hands holding you down was doing sinful things to his brain, and besides, you had yourself covered with the messy circles you were rubbing over your clit. It was hot to see that too, your nimble pretty fingers so close to the place where he was pounding into you. 

“Oh shit, shit, shit—” he grunts when starts to see blistering white in his vision, balls straining with a pleasure that was almost painful. The moment he finishes feels like hot flashes in his brain, a heat like the cum he begins to paint inside your walls in time with your release, thrusting over and over and over, each one more staggered as he lets off a long, drawn out groan that comes from deep within his chest with the feeling of you milking him dry and the sound of you enjoying every second of it. He can’t remember the last time he came this much or this hard and even after coming down from the high, he feels the remnant pulse of your orgasm around his now half-flaccid dick.

He leisurely pulls out, hearing you let out a soft whimper as he marvels at the sight of his cum slowly dripping out of you and down towards the couch, before he scoops it up with a couple fingers and pushes it back inside. You grip his wrist tightly, but you weren’t stopping it, that motion of him plunging it all back into you.

“Want a taste?” he asks, casually.

“Mhm,” you nod, face looking flush.

He pulls his fingers out of you, coated with sex, then plugs your pussy with the fingers of his other hand because he kinda likes the idea of you walking around all day with him inside of you, so he doesn’t want it getting out. He’s then pushing his other fingers past your lips, pleased to find he’s met with not even so much as a grazing of teeth, and he grins, “bet you take a dick in your mouth as good as you take it down here.”

Your furrow your brows at him, the pout of your lips seen in the way they were puckered to lick his fingers off clean, and when you release the suction with a smack of your tongue and his fingers were wet from your saliva now, his eyes narrow with desire. You push his face away with the heel of your palm to his forehead. “Flattery won’t make me suck your dick.”

“Alright. So? How is it?” he jerks his chin towards your face, pushing against your hand with his forehead until he’s hovering over you again, “taste good?”

“It’s cum, Satoru.”

He shrugs. “Bad?”

“No,” you say, and you can’t make eye contact, “good.” You sigh. “Hot. I don’t know. Salty, sweet. I’m the sweet. You’re the salty. And this conversation is obscene.”

He kisses you, capturing your lips softly, tongue darting out to taste what’s on yours. “I like it that way. Dirty. Nasty. Obscene, whatever.”

There’s the slam of a car door heard from the driveway, and the two of you instantly make eye contact with round eyes.

“Sa—” you stutter, “Satoru.”

He gets up off the couch in a panic, and heads to the window of the living room fully butt-ass naked, then peers through the blinds to see—

Your mom was making it up towards the front door, rustling with her keys in her purse. And the last thing he sees before he turns around to face you is her pushing the keys through the lock.

“Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit,” he cusses, finding his boxers off of the floor, hopping on one foot with his cum & slick coated dick flapping around and slapping against his thighs unceremoniously as he tries to get one leg in through them and then the other. You’re trembling as you hook your panties back into place, pull your shirt back down your torso, and even in his extremely panicked state, he’s still sad he can’t freely stare at your tits anymore. You’re rummaging for your skirt in a haste, looking everywhere for it, and he finds it underneath the coffee table before tossing it to you and then he side-to-side hops towards the coat closet while he pulls his sweatpants up over his ass, in time for you to quickly run and shut the door of the closet closed just before the front door of the house swings open.

The inside of the coat closet is dark, barely enough space in there for a six-foot-four two-hundred-and-twenty pound man, but it’s better than being balls deep inside his boss’s daughter on the couch when said boss just came home from work.

He hears conversation on the other side of the door, albeit muffled, and he presses his ear to it to hear better while he tucks his dick into his boxers from where it was hanging over the waistline.

“Mom! You…you’re home so early,” he hears you squeak out.

“Yes,” your mom says, “The rest of my meetings today are online, so I figured I’d come home when there’s less traffic.”

Gojo feels you lean against the coat closet door.

“I see, I see, how was your day at work?” you ask with a tremble in your voice.

“Fine.” And then nothing. The silence could mean that was all she had to say, since your mom wasn’t really a woman of many words, or it could be a silence that means she’s suspicious about something. “Darling, why is your skirt flipped up and tucked into your panties? Your whole butt is showing.”

Through the wood of the door, he hears you softly gasp. “Oh, um, I just went to pee. Must’ve—…must’ve got caught when I pulled it back up.” 

“I see,” your mother says, and Gojo can hear her dropping her heels down near the shoe rack at the entrance. “You know, I really don’t like those short skirts you wear often. Maybe it’s just your generation, but I think it looks tacky and cheap.”

“Mom,” you say, in as stern of a voice as you can manage without sounding embarrassed.

Your mother sighs. “In any case, where is Satoru? I still would like him to go pick up Yuuji. I don’t have the patience to sit in preschool & daycare traffic right now.”

“Oh gosh, I don’t know,” you chirp, and then he hears you let out a small oh no before you lean even more weight against the door, this time somewhere lower, and he realizes you’re pressing your ass against it. His eyes narrow with a small frown, and then he realizes— his cum must still be trickling down your thighs. You couldn’t put your panties on fast enough. 

Shit. That’s hot. A little fucked up, but hot. He feels his dick harden against the fabric of his boxers, and he rests his forehead against the door, fringe stuck to his forehead with sweat as he slips his hands down his sweatpants and then gives his cock a firm squeeze. The thought of you discretely swiping his cum up your inner thigh and smearing it against your thin panties so your mom doesn’t catch sight of it dripping down your legs has him slowly working up to a rock-solid erection, and he almost lets out a broken grunt from the feeling.

“What?” your mother says, “what do you mean you don’t know?”

“I’ve just been watching TV this whole time,” you say, “last time I saw him…he was…um, in the backyard pulling weeds?”

He lets out a small scoff through his nose at your cover-up. Cute. And not bad. 

Your mother sighs loudly, and he glances down at the strained veins on his dick as he tugs it through his hand, the tip rearing and appearing flushed and dripping with precum. God, you were just on the other side of this door. Less than a few inches away, and he’d be inside of you. 

“I’m going to take a shower. Go find him and tell him to pick up Yuuji soon. But before then, change into something less revealing,” your mother says in a more or less detached tone, and he can hear the stomps of her footsteps up the stairs from above him in the coat closet.

The two of you wait at least a solid minute, and just when the coast is clear, he hears you turn the knob of the coat closet and slowly crack it open.

“Okay, I think she’s in the shower, I hear the water running,” you whisper at him, “you can go now—” You glance down towards his groin, your jaw dropping. “What—…Satoru, why the fuck is your dick staring at me right now?!” you whisper-hiss at him.

He pulls you into the coat closet, pushing your front against the door to where it clicks shut, and you gasp when his hands pin your wrists crossed behind your back and his dick presses into the plush of your ass.

“You talkin’ to your mom while your pussy’s stuffed full of my cum was the single hottest thing that’s ever grazed my lizard brain,” he tells you, flipping your skirt up and hooking your panties to the side, his index finger briefly brushing against your entrance to find it still leaking from the way your walls were pulsating from his words. And then he aligns his tip to your entrance. “Now keep quiet while I do this, ‘kay?”

“Oh—” you gasp, your cheek pressed against the door as you arch your back and push your ass out for him, “okay—” you say, barely vocalizing the first syllable before he’s already stuffing himself inside of you with one solid glide of a push, making you yelp loudly and he has to instantly cup a hand over your mouth.

“Shhhhhh,” he hisses at you, immediately starting to pound you from behind, “told you to— fuuuck,” he catches sight of his length covered with a mix of your glassy arousal and his white cum, now starting to cream at the base of his cock, “jesus christ—” he breathes out, squeezing the flesh of your ass harshly with his other hand and you let out another yelp, “I told you to fuckin’ keep quiet.”

“I’m—mff,” you muffle against his palm, “I’m trying but,” your hips move back in time with his, “feels good, feels too good,” you mewl, and his hand desperately yanks up the fabric of your shirt so he can squeeze at your breast.

“Yeah?” he grunts, hypocritical for telling you to keep it down when he was slamming his hips against your ass with so much fervor he wouldn’t be surprised if the sound was reverberating across the entire house, “you like it when I fuck you while your mom’s all clueless just up the stairs?” His rhythm falters, feeling his release building, and his hand reaches in front of you to rub your clit, making you drop your head against the door with tightly closed eyes. “Gets— you—wet, doesn’t it?” he torments you, his lips near your ear as he slams his hips against you harshly with every enunciated syllable. 

“Mhm, mhm,” you easily agree, or maybe that’s because it’s all you can really articulate, and he angles his hips up so his balls slap more fervently against your clit, making you scream into his palm while he picks up the pace of the circles he draws on your clit and in one, two, three— beats of his pounding heart, he feels you come undone around his cock, gushing wetness leaking out of you, he can feel the mess of fluids splattering on the skin of his thighs due to each of his heaving thrusts as he cusses out a fuuuuuuckkk before spilling his cum inside of you, a short-lived and thicker release this time that has you mewling from overstimulation, and in a few following thrusts, he’s given you everything he had to give.

His eyes open, he wasn’t even aware he had shut them in the first place, and he glances down at where the two of you were joined. Rings of arousal coat the length of his half-pulled-out dick, and the second he retreats all of it, a bulging push of his cum seeps out of you, dripping and pooling all over the hardwood floors.

“Holy shit, I wish I could take a picture of this,” he says, taking a step away to commit the sight to memory, your legs trembling and still slightly spread, ass pushed out and when you wiggle it a little, he lets out a huff of an exhale because he just can’t believe how sexy you are. Are all college girls like this? He’s never been to college, his old man’s been trying to get him to go for years, but maybe this is what finally convinces him.

“No pics,” you breathe out once you catch your breath, standing up straight slowly, “that’s my one sex rule.”

He takes a step closer to you, flipping your skirt back over your ass while you shimmy your shirt down to cover your chest. “That’s the only rule you have? Anything else goes?” he asks.

You spin around to face him, his eyes briefly flitting down to the still exposed skin of your midriff. “I have a feeling I’d be making up more specific rules if it was with you.”

He smiles, his hands grabbing your hips before pressing you up against the door again. “I also had a rule. It was to not fuck you. Wait, no, to not flirt with you. Which, technically, I didn’t do.”

You blink your eyes at him. “You’re kidding, right?”

“What?” he asks, genuinely confused, “I didn’t.”

“Huh—” you scoff, “how do you think we got into this situation in the first place?? You didn’t just say wanna fuck? You were insufferably flirty with me.”

“Nahhh nah nah nah nah, baby, that’s not flirting,” he tells you, thumb running circles over your hips, “that’s, like—…I don’t even fuckin’ know how it worked on you to be honest, I was just being stupid.”

“Oh okay so I’m stupid.”

“I never said you were stupid?”

“Well you said you were being stupid so me falling for it must mean I’m stupid.”

“Pshhh. You’re cute. Pulling weeds, by the way? Adorable.”

Your hand slowly roams up the front of his shirt, the fabric bunching at your wrists until you uncovered up to his collar bone, and you stare at his skin. He tries to not let the way his heart’s beating faster show through the heave of his chest. 

“Why do you have all these scars, anyway?” you whisper to him.   

“Too many girls tryna stab me,” he tells you.

You roll your eyes. “Seriously.” Your thumb traces the one you had left on him. 

“I—” He stops himself.

Does he tell you? Should he tell you? What, just because he’s seen you naked and you took his dick like a queen he’s supposed to open up to you about these things now? He doesn’t know. Maybe he could? Maybe you already suspect what he does at night. And if not, at the very least, I’m an underground boxer might make you think he’s hot? At the very worst, you’ll report him to the cops and he’d get fired as your little brother’s babysitter then thrown into jail, but not before the busted cartel gets him first.

“Maybe I’ll tell you some other time,” he says, his hand wrapping around your wrist and pulling it from his chest, “no hyper personal details until you’ve had my dick in your mouth at least once or twice. That’s my one rule.”

You snort. “I could’ve guessed that rule from a mile away.”

He hums. And then there’s the sound of steps creaking down the stairs above the two of you.

You both make eye contact, eyes widening, internally yelling at each other: how the fuck did we get into this situation twice?!

This time, Gojo opens the door and stumbles out of the closet, leaving you inside of it, just in time for your mom to come down the stairs.

“Satoru. I was looking for you,” she says as she rounds the post. “Have you picked up Yuuji? He has to go for his swimming lessons soon.”

“Ah, nope, was just about to head out,” he says, letting out a cough to diffuse tension, “sorry, I was—” he points his thumb over his shoulder to behind him, “…pulling out some gnarly weeds.”

She narrows her eyes at him. “I see. Well, thanks. If you want, I can add a gardening stipend to your paycheck. Let me know.” And he’s not sure how to respond because he’s not sure if she’s joking. 

He heads out the door, the keys to your mom’s minivan in his palm as he throws them up into the air and catches them a couple times. And just before he gets inside the car, he turns on his heel to face the house and pulls his phone out of his pocket to type in a message for you.

3:22pm Gojo Satoru: Send over those me-specific sex rules soon

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[the end]

a/n. hope u enjoyed im shitting bricks posting this bc i haven't posted a oneshot smut since february but thanks so much for reading i appreciate u!! i got way too invested in the whole underground boxer thing 😂😂 but the fact i managed to keep everything under 12k is an accomplishment to me bc if u read my other fics you know i’m a yapper LOL i have another kind of a similarly written smut oneshot n it’s a lil angsty (totally different au tho) i’ll probs post that one next but yea i really like, hmm, i really like exploring entire characters within a short amount of time i enjoy writing the obscure lore drops xd it’s been kinda fun so far anywho much loveee hope to see u around! <3

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