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wintrbears · 1 month ago

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All is Fair | JJK

Summary: The Dragons, led by your brother, occupy the East side of the city while the Wolves occupy the West. There is only one rule, and technically, you didn't mean to break it. Stay away from the Wolves.

Pairing: Jungkook x Reader, Namjoon x Seokjin (only by reference)

Genre: Biker Gang AU, Fuck Buddies to Lovers, Romeo and Juliet, Hurt/Comfort, Angst, Smut, Fluff (if you close one eye and tilt your phone)

Word Count: 20.4k+

Warnings: minor character death, major character death (not jk or oc), murder, graphic suicidal ideation, dead bodies, depression, reference to drunk driving, orphans/orphaning, running away from home, stealing, beatings, punching, kicking, screaming, crying, nightmares, night terrors, stitches, punctured lungs, major physical injuries, facial scars, hospitals, piercings, tattoos, graduate school, libraries, studying, blood, guns/gunshot, knives, gang violence, motorcycles, gay men(?), rivalries, drinking, pet names (baby, pretty, bug (non-romantic)). SMUT: kissing, fingering, oral sex (both receiving), penetrative sex, unprotected sex (she's on bc), cream pie, coming on skin, cum eating/feeding, choking, spanking, spitting, dick riding, missionary, doggy, big dick!jk bc I always strive for accuracy, masturbation (m), grief sex, semi-public sex, ok that's all folks lmk if I missed any.

Author’s Note: I actually cannot believe I didn't write for two years and then pumped out almost 40k words in a single week. My fiancé misses me, you guys. But anyway this fic... oh this fic. It's very heavy but my entire heart is buried in this so I really hope you take the time to read it. Every single character (member?) means so much to me and I hope you come to love it as much as I do. P.S. for plot reasons JK doesn't have any hand tattoos you'll see what I mean. OK pls lmk what you think it makes my heart so happy bye love you :)

When you inevitably fail your exam, no one will be to blame except your brother and his delinquent friends. The noise-canceling headphones he gifted you last Christmas are doing fuck all against the pounding bass of their music downstairs. They’re the expensive kind, too. You know because they still had the security tag on them Christmas morning. He broke it off with pliers before handing them back to you with a dimpled smile.

Finally having enough, you stomp down the stairs to confront your irritability at the source. Not many of them are home tonight. Just Namjoon and his three closest underlings: Seokjin, Yoongi, and Hoseok. He’s the youngest among them and somehow still wound up the leader.

The Dragons, your brother’s notorious motorcycle gang, are far greater in number than the four downstairs. Ten bikers live here at the house with you, but when the gang rides in total there’s about twenty five men. There are some drifters, but no matter the number they are a force to be reckoned with on the road.

“Hey,” you yell over the music.

Namjoon gestures for Hoseok to turn it down and ushers you forward with a wave of his hand.

“What’s up, bug?”

“Can you please keep it down? I’m trying to study,” you answer.

“Oh, we’re sorry,” Seokjin responds. “You were so quiet we forgot you were up there. You’re usually down here annoying us.”

You roll your eyes. The four of them have been friends for the better part of a decade. They’re the only gang members allowed to tease you. If someone else tries it, Namjoon takes their head.

Your brother is extremely protective of you without being controlling. You appreciate his ability to recognize your adulthood while still wanting to keep you from harm. You can attest without a shadow of a doubt that Namjoon will do whatever it takes to keep you safe. His determination to protect you is how you wound up with the Dragons in the first place.

“Why don’t you go over to your study buddy’s house?” Hoseok suggests.

Right… your study buddy they still believe is a woman. The study buddy they assume helps you study instead of fucking you dumb.

“We don’t study at her house. We study at the library.”

This is a partial lie. You “study” at the library, in his car, in the school janitorial closet, and anywhere else he can get his hands on you. Ironically, your grades have never been better. Call it a lack of stress.

“We’ll keep it down, bug,” Namjoon assures you. “Sorry.”

Once you communicate your appreciation, you travel upstairs again to continue studying. You hear the music turn back on, but this time at a much lower volume.

Phone lighting up on your desk, you lean over to see a familiar name. Jungkook’s ears must’ve been ringing because there’s a photo of his finished study guide on your screen. You reply to his text complaining that you’re not even halfway done yet before turning your phone over so you can actually focus.

You didn’t predict meeting someone like Jungkook this year, or ever, really. When this semester of your Master’s program began you weren’t looking for anything, especially not a fuck buddy. You only ask Jungkook to be your study buddy in the first place because he’s the smartest person in your class by a long shot. Coincidentally, you only spend the early months of the semester as study buddies before advancing to fuck buddies. Sometimes you still actually study together, but it’s few and far between.

Despite Jungkook thoroughly wrecking your body every time he touches it, he’s probably the nicest guy you’ve ever met. No matter the hour he’ll answer questions about assignments or explain complex topics you can’t wrap your head around. He lends pencils to strangers and one time you swear you saw him saving a cat from a tree.

You still remember the first time you laid eyes on him.

It’s brutally hot for the first day of class. The city is scorching with record-breaking temperatures even in September. The vents are located at the back of the large classroom so you find an empty desk in the back corner to occupy.

You’re preparing for the first lecture by placing your essentials on the desk and plugging in the charger for your laptop. Distracting yourself with color-coordinating your highlighters, you miss most people entering the room.

Someone upstairs is looking out for you, though, because when you glance at the entrance it’s at the exact moment an absolute Adonis is walking in. He has wavy black hair that just kisses his cheekbones but is longer in the back, huge starry brown eyes, a button nose, and pretty pink lips accompanied by a tiny mole just under the bottom one. He’s wearing a long-sleeve white shirt, baggy jeans, and big black combat boots. To make matters worse he’s sporting black half-rim glasses.

You quickly realize your mistake in gawking at him because he makes eye contact with you, thus giving him permission to take the seat next to you. Precisely as the unspoken rules of classroom etiquette dictate.

He greets you with an amicable bow before plopping in the chair that shares your desk space. Using your peripheral vision you watch him lay out his supplies and open his laptop.

You’re wearing a crop top and are still too warm, so you’re downright shocked at his outfit choice. He doesn’t even roll his sleeves up.

“Are you hot?”

The words are leaving your mouth before you can stop them.

Your companion looks at you, eyes wide, questioning whether you’re talking to him or not. When he realizes you are, he glances down at his attire. Then he chuckles.

“That’s a bit forward, don’t ya think?”

If you could crawl into a hole and die, you would.

“I didn’t mean it like —”

He’s cutting you off with a wave of his hand as he laughs off the miscommunication. There’s an awkward silence before he continues the conversation.

“To answer your question, yes I am,” he says. “Not like that, though.” He winks at you and it takes everything in you not to audibly moan.

Despite him admitting to being warm he does nothing to remedy it. You’re not his mother nor his girlfriend so you don’t question him.

That’s the last time you speak that day, but over the course of a few weeks you partake in small talk and learn each other’s names.

You initially ask him to study together the week prior to your first exam. He enthusiastically agrees and you settle on a time before exchanging numbers. The study sessions continue on a weekly basis even once you take the exam.

The night your relationship shifts into uncharted territory is one you’ll never forget.

Jungkook is sitting beside you as he copies notes from a PowerPoint lecture into his notebook. The sound of his pencil scribbling on the paper is familiar now. You're absentmindedly scrolling through last week’s readings to find your previous highlights. The professor surprised you today by announcing there would be a quiz on the article and now you need to re-familiarize yourself with it.

Leaning back in the chair with a huff, you cross your arms over your chest. Jungkook peeks at you from behind his hair. He chuckles before setting his pencil down.

“What’s wrong?”

“Don’t wanna do this anymore,” you pout. Jungkook coos at you sarcastically and you hit his arm with your shirt sleeve in protest. “Shut up, nerd.”

“What do you wanna do instead, huh?”

You eye him from your position until you find an answer. Rather than verbally replying you lean forward and gently steal the glasses from his face. You slip them on and glance around the library to see if you can tell the difference.

“Damn you are — oh.”

Any semblance of thought dies within you the second you look at him again. Like an actual comic book character, removing his glasses magically gives him a Clark Kent to Superman-esque makeover. He’s sitting taller with his shoulders back, his doe eyes are sharp and dark, and instead of his normal dorky smile he’s smirking at you. You actually look around again to see if he stood up and someone took his place.

To be frank, you aren’t entirely sure what happens next. One moment you’re at the table together and the next you’re in the Historical Fiction section and Jungkook is on his knees pushing your skirt up and pulling your panties down so he can make out with your cunt.

The worst part is that amongst the chaos, you’re still wearing his fucking glasses. In fact they rest on your nose through the whole ordeal, all the way until you’re coming on his tongue with a cry of his name. He doesn’t take them back until he’s rising to face you and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

Thus begins your first ever situationship, although that doesn’t seem entirely correct. You and Jungkook aren’t in that weird headspace where neither of you know what the other wants. You mutually agree it’s just sex until someone decides to either move on or move up to boyfriend and girlfriend status.

The latter option is definitely tempting. Jungkook treats you well and fucks you even better. Which are pretty much the only two prerequisites you have for a relationship. But your current dependence on the Dragons prevents you from choosing that route.

There’s a knock on your door which pulls you from your reverie. Namjoon’s face peaks around the corner.

“We’re heading out to deal with some Wolves. Be back soon,” he informs you.

“Be safe,” you reply.

He assures you that he will before shutting your door. Anxiety flickers awake in your stomach and travels through your nervous system. Of all the gang activity that surrounds you, this is the shit you hate the most. Stupid boys doing stupid boy things.

The Dragons occupy all the territory East of the large river which slices your city in half. The territory on the West side of the river is owned by the Wolves. There are straggler factions and out-of-towners who sometimes come into the fold, but they’re nowhere near the size of the two gangs. Naturally, the Dragons and the Wolves despise one another and their history dates back long before Namjoon became the leader. He inherited the rivalry amongst many other responsibilities and now he perpetuates it without knowing why it exists in the first place.

You already know when you see Namjoon tomorrow he’ll have split knuckles and bruises on his skin. It makes you sick to your stomach. This life is far beneath what your brother deserves and what he’s capable of. You want so much more for him and for yourself as well. Getting your Master’s degree is the first step in liberating you both from all the violence and decay which surrounds you. Namjoon risked everything to save you as children, and you vow to return the favor one day, even if it kills you.

Contrary to popular belief, you don’t fail your exam the next day. In fact, you leave the classroom with a spring in your step now that your stressor is behind you.

Jungkook watches you ahead of him with a twinkle of admiration in his eyes as you skip towards the parking lot.

“You know, we’ve been doing this for a while now and I’ve never even been to your place,” you say.

“My place…” Jungkook clicks his tongue. “I don’t think you’ll like it very much.”

“Why not?” You stop short and cause Jungkook to barrel into you. “Hold on, you don’t have a girlfriend, do you? Or wait, do you still live with your mom or something?”

“No, mom’s gone,” he answers.

You turn around to face him when you hear his response. He’s saying it nonchalantly but his eyes are swimming with sadness and maybe even guilt.

“Jungkook, I’m so sorry,” you reply. He shakes his head, waving your condolences away before reaching out to pick a fallen leaf from your hair.

“It’s okay. It was a long time ago,” he adds. “And no, no girlfriend. Only you, pretty.”

“So then…” You rock back on your heels. “Can I see your place? I promise I’m not judgmental like that. I mean, there’s a reason you’ve never been to my place, either.”

Jungkook thinks it over for a moment as he drags you by the hand towards his car.

“Not yet,” he finally answers. “Soon, hopefully.”

You accept his response albeit a little disappointedly. It’s not even about you getting into his business like that, you’re just sick of the tight spaces the two of you are forced to hook up in. You’ve never even seen the guy fully naked before because you’re always pulling your clothes aside just enough to get the job done.

He denies it but you know he’s got abs under there and you’re dying to finally get your mouth on them.

Sure, you complain, but when he opens his car door for you to climb into his backseat you’re doing so without another word.

You don’t fuck right away because the parking lot is still packed and you’re not trying to catch a charge. Namjoon would kill you before you even get the chance to stand before a judge.

Instead, Jungkook shows you his newest Pokémon game on his Switch and hands it over to you so you can play. You giggle as your adorable water type does its victory dance after demolishing your opponent. Jungkook watches over your shoulder and directs you when to block and which attacks to use. Somehow, it all feels more intimate than when his cock is in your mouth.

Which is precisely where you two end up about an hour later when the surrounding cars have all left.

Jungkook’s backseat isn’t big enough for you to kneel on the floorboards so he’s lounging across the seats with you kneeling between his legs. You honestly prefer this position because the leather is far more forgiving to your knees than the carpet. His pants and boxers are around his thighs as you bob your head up and down his beautifully large and veiny cock.

Your man is a head pusher through and through and so you welcome the familiar feeling of his fingers against your scalp as he guides you deeper until your nose is brushing his pelvis. He doesn’t force you down around him or fuck his hips into you. The grasp on your hair is moreso for control and because he loves to feel you while you pleasure him.

You gag when his tip touches the back of your throat and you stay there for a moment, letting him feel you swallow around him before returning to his tip and swirling your tongue around it. Keeping your tongue out so it caresses the underside while you move up and down, you continue your movements at a steady pace.

Jungkook groans, his head hitting the window with a dull thud.

“Oh, pretty, you have no idea the things you do to me,” he praises. He uses his grip on you to make you look at him. You moan around his cock when your eyes meet and he yanks on your hair in appreciation. “S’fucking good.”

This man loves a good blowjob and you love to please him. Every time you’re on your knees for him he praises and worships you and your sweet mouth for the euphoria they bring him. He tastes delicious on your tongue and if not for your human need to inhale, you would go all night.

It only takes a couple more messy slides of your tongue down his shaft and your hand playing with his balls before he’s coming down your throat in thick, hot spurts of white. You swallow every last drop, continuing to move your mouth from his head to the base, before finally coming up for some much needed air.

Sitting back on your heels, you place your hands in the space between your knees and bat your eyelashes at him. You know he likes it when you look all innocent despite the nasty things you do together. If things were different, if you were able to be with him in the confines of a bedroom and savor your time together, you’d put on a pretty white set with bows all over just to drive him crazy.

Jungkook clocks your behavior with a tilt of his head, his tongue pushing against his cheek before he yanks you back and flips you over so your ass is facing him. His hand slowly traverses your back before stopping between your shoulder blades to push your face into the leather. You arch your back for him and wiggle your ass to really get him going. You can’t see him anymore but you hear the fond, deep chuckle. He pulls down your tights and panties in one go before flipping your skirt up so he can see you properly.

He grabs your ass in his big hands and pulls your cheeks apart to spit on your hole. Your eyes roll back at the feeling of it dripping down your folds. Hips pushing back against his hands, Jungkook just laughs at your neediness before slapping your ass.

“Oh fuck,” you curse.

He tsks at you disapprovingly.

“You that cock drunk, pretty? I haven’t even touched you yet,” he says.

“I know,” you say through gritted teeth.

He bends down to lay across your back and bites on your earlobe before soothing it with his tongue.

“C’mon, baby. You know I always take care of you.”

He doesn’t allow you to reply before he’s thrusting his cock in and nudging his head against your cervix. Your hands clutch desperately at his seats, fingernails making indentations in the leather, as he rears back before doing it all over again. This man makes you fucking delirious and you wonder if you’ll ever get enough. Lord knows no other man will ever successfully replicate the pleasure he provides you.

Jungkook’s pace is relentless and steadfast and it isn’t long before the friction of his cock sinking in and out of your walls brings you to a climax. He’s an overachiever, though, and he doesn’t let up even as he feels your pussy pulsating around him as you come. He soldiers on, tilting your hips to make you arch even further and send his cock deeper inside you. You feel him in your stomach and it has you drooling where your face is crushed against the seat.

You pathetically moan out a sound that closely resembles his name as he abuses your hole.

Your next orgasm hits you much faster, riding the wave of your first to bring stars to your eyes yet again. Your cunt squeezes Jungkook impossibly tight when you come and it causes him to shoot his load inside you and stuff you full of him. This man’s cock is too good to ever be obstructed by a plastic barrier. You’re on birth control and neither of you sleep with anyone but each other, so raw it is.

When you exit the car to move to the front seat, the stars have appeared in the sky. Jungkook drives you home, or what he believes is your home, and bids you goodnight. Once his car is out of sight, you pivot and walk the familiar route to your actual house.

It’s normal for you to arrive home this late, even before you met Jungkook. Namjoon never questions where you’ve been or you were with, which you appreciate. He understands you need independence and will contact him if you’re ever in trouble. He doesn’t need to study your every move when he only has one rule for you, anyway: stay away from the Wolves.

The next day you're lounging in the living room with your ankles crossed where they rest over the arm of a chair. You’re reading for a different class than the one you share with Jungkook, trying to get the assignment done now so you can enjoy your night.

Your peace and quiet is disturbed when Namjoon walks in looking supremely pissed off. His jaw is clenched and since his hair is pushed back you can see the veins popping out in his forehead.

“Joonie?” You call for him as you sit up. “What’s going on?”

“Fucking Wolves,” he growls. He paces back and forth a couple times before stopping in front of you. “We’re meeting at the river tonight. You need to come.”

“Why?”

“Because word on the street is they’re going to use the meet-up as a distraction to raid the house,” he answers. “I need you with me so I know you’re safe.”

“Wouldn’t it make more sense to call off the meet-up?” You argue.

“No. I want them to come. So I can rip them to fucking shreds and send those assholes a message,” he explains.

You have no reason or room to question him, so you head upstairs to change. Whenever you’re going to be in the presence of gang members, whether Dragons or Wolves, Namjoon prefers you dress a bit tougher than your normal girly outfits. He knows these men and the way they think, so anything, no matter how small, to show them you mean business is a good thing.

Throwing on cargo pants, combat boots, and a leather jacket over your t-shirt, you use the darker half of your eyeshadow palette and put your hair up. All for show.

You’re exiting the house as the sun sinks behind the clouds. Namjoon hands you the extra helmet before swinging his leg over his bike. He watches you put it on and adjust the strap before he slaps your eye shield down with a laugh. You shove his arm before swinging your leg over and joining him on the motorcycle.

The familiar thunderous sound of the Dragon’s motorcycles coming to life is deafening even through the helmet. It’s about fifteen bikes in total and the remaining gang members will guard the house and catch any Wolves trying to break in.

Seokjin, Yoongi, and Hoseok are directly behind you and Namjoon. One by one they signal to your brother they’re ready to go. You adjust your placement by scooting closer to your brother’s warmth and wrapping your arms around his middle. Your fingers twist around the zipper of his open leather jacket to hold onto him. The engine roars to life and you feel the bike kick beneath you as it rears to go.

“Good?” He asks.

“Ready as ever,” you confirm.

Kicking up the stand with his heel, he signals with his hand before leading the bikers away from the house and onto the dark pavement of the road. The wind sweeps over your bodies in waves as Namjoon speeds down the backstreets leading into the city.

You don’t ride much anymore, but whenever you do it’s always exhilarating. The heat of the bike beneath your legs, your brother’s comforting presence in front of you, and the air wiping around you as it nips at your clothes. Tipping to the right along with Namjoon as he takes a tight corner, you watch as the city grows closer. The monumental buildings and yellow lights along the river make it look beautiful and more peaceful than you know it is.

When you reach the river, the Wolves are already there waiting. The rival gang members lounge on their parked motorcycles as they speak to one another. It can’t be all of them, since you know their numbers closely rival your own, and there aren't more than twelve here. It pisses you off when you realize they really are planning to raid the house tonight. If you find out a Wolf was in your room there will be hell to pay.

Namjoon kills the engine and removes his helmet, shaking his dark hair from his eyes. You follow suit and step off the bike as he pushes the stand back down. Your brother shoots you a look you already know means “stay close to me.”

The agreed upon location is just outside an abandoned warehouse where everything in sight is slowly deteriorating. The road has gigantic potholes and cracks and if you go close enough to the water some of the gravel has already caved in and is eroding. The two gangs congregate near the water’s edge where it laps against the shore and sprays water onto the road.

When the dust settles, Namjoon stands ahead of his gang where he is toe-to-toe with the Wolves’ leader, Bangchan. You move quietly through the rows of Dragons until you’re off to the left, farthest from the water. The position hides you enough to avoid unwanted attention but is still close enough to Namjoon in case of an emergency. Seokjin, Yoongi, and Hoseok stand at the back and sides, respectively, creating an invisible wall of your brother’s closest allies.

Your eyes maneuver over the crowd of Wolves one at a time. Without their leather biker jackets which bear the insignia of each group, it would be impossible to tell them apart. They’re just a bunch of boys pretending to be men.

None of them particularly stand out to you except —

Head whipping back for a double take, the movement is so quick your ponytail snaps harshly against your skin. Your eyes slowly open wide, your mouth dropping open just enough for a sharp intake of air. Because amongst the crowd of Wolves, off to the left next to a shorter blonde guy is…

There’s no way.

He certainly looks like Jungkook. His hair is falling down in soft waves just like Jungkook’s does and his unmistakable doe eyes are front and center without his glasses on. But this guy has a lip piercing and eyebrow piercing. His ears are decorated with pretty silver hoops and a dangling chain. The doppelganger is wearing a navy blue cut off, which reveals to your eyes that his entire arm, from wrist to shoulder, is covered in tattoos. Dark, colorful, intricate tattoos that look like they took years to build into the sleeve it is now. This can’t be the reason Jungkook only ever wears long sleeves and weirdly refuses to ever roll them up… can it?

You squint to make sure you’re seeing him correctly in the dim light. Jungkook must have a twin he never told you about, right?

But no, that isn’t the answer, because his eyes land on you and widen dramatically. His mouth drops open before it snaps shut and his jaw clenches. From across the concrete where you stand you can see how his entire body is taut with tension.

What. The. Fuck.

The blonde guy next to him notices the change in the air, nudging him with his elbow. Jungkook shoots him a hard glance before returning his gaze to you.

Part of you wants to cry, and part of you wants to scream. All of you wants to run to him and demand an answer. This guy is a straight A graduate student. What the hell is he doing running around with a bunch of delinquent motorcycle gang members?

The sound of your brother’s voice steals your attention away.

“That’s not what we do here,” he says to Chan. You’re unsure what it’s in response to.

“Hmm,” the man opposite him muses. “No I guess not, but you bring your girl around? That’s a little dangerous, don’t you think?”

Namjoon’s jaw ticks and his teeth grind together at the mention of you, but he hides it well. You only notice the movement because you know what every tick and twitch of his means.

“Not my girl,” he corrects.

“Oh that’s right, I heard you have a baby sister,” he replies. “What’s your name, sweetheart?” Your eyebrows lift when he calls out to you, but you know better.

“Don’t speak to her,” Namjoon responds in your stead.

When you glance at Jungkook again he looks irrevocably angry, a deep frown messing with his pretty features. His fellow Wolf seems concerned at his mysterious attitude.

Right now, you’re telepathically begging Jungkook to make eye contact again. To offer some explanation even with just his eyes. Sure, you don’t know much about each other’s lives outside of school but the feeling of betrayal slinks under your skin nonetheless. Mostly because of the fucking tattoo sleeve he’s been hiding from you.

His eyes do eventually meet yours, but his expression is cold. Is he upset at you for keeping this part of your life from him, too?

The low grumble of taunts and heckles from both gangs indicates their playtime is over. When you look across the street, Jungkook is already climbing on his bike and putting on his helmet. You know without uncertainty now that it is in fact Jungkook, since a large purple “JK” emblem is painted onto his helmet.

Namjoon is quick to gesture you over to him. Your eyes meet Bangchan’s as you walk to the bike, and it disgusts you how he drinks you up and undresses you with his eyes when you pass by.

You scoff before getting back into position behind your brother and securing your helmet in place.

Jungkook is fucking reeling. He barely waits for the rest of his gang to peel away on their bikes before he’s taking off down the street. Jimin follows close behind him, the older biker probably still wondering what the fuck is going on.

Rides are normally Jungkook’s way of clearing his head, but tonight all he can think and feel is his blood pumping with adrenaline. You are the last person he ever expected to be involved with a gang. It’s almost enough to make him laugh; all you wear are sexy little skirts and shirts with cartoon characters on them. You’re girly and adorable and should be spending your time at the mall, not in the underbelly of this messed up city. Although, if your involvement begins and ends with your brother, he imagines you don’t have much choice.

Jungkook makes it back to the house in record time, leaving everyone else in the dust. He is quick to cut the engine of his bike and toss his helmet aside so he can get inside. His hands run through his hair over and over as he trudges into the house, pulling at the ends as he grits his teeth.

The door slams shut behind him and he yells into the air with his head thrown back. Taehyung is rounding the corner from the kitchen when he hears it. He should be at the Dragon’s Lair right now ransacking the place, but Chan called it off when he found out the Dragons knew what they were planning.

“Uh, you good?”

“No,” Jungkook sneers. “No, I’m not fucking good, Tae.”

Taehyung is about to probe him with more questions when Jimin flies through the door.

“What the fuck was that, kid?” Jimin sets his helmet down on the table and walks over.

“You guys remember the girl I was telling you about?” He asks. They both nod. “Yeah, well. She’s the leader of the Dragons fucking little sister.”

“Oh, fuck.”

“Holy shit.”

“Jungkook, what the fuck are you doing sticking your dick in someone involved with the Dragons?” Taehyung accuses.

“I didn’t know, Tae! I didn’t know until I saw her at the meet-up tonight,” Jungkook explains.

“And she saw you?” Jimin asks.

“Oh yeah,” Jungkook laughs incredulously. “She looked shocked as hell and like she was about to cry.”

Taehyung and Jimin share a look while Jungkook practically rips his hair out from how much he’s combing his fingers through it.

“You know you… can’t see her anymore, right?” Jimin poses the question cautiously. “If Kim Namjoon ever found out you’ve laid a finger on her he will fucking end you.”

“I know,” Jungkook grunts out. “I fucking know, Jimin.” Jungkook paces the room a couple times. “Fuck!” He slaps his hands against his face before groaning into them.

“I mean, I know the pussy was good but it will be fine, right? It’s not like you were dating her,” Taehyung adds.

Jungkook just glares at him from between his fingers. He doesn’t think he can talk about this anymore without losing his goddamn mind. He tells them goodnight without any further explanation before trudging down the stairs.

He slams his door and chucks his leather jacket on a chair once he’s in the confines of his bedroom. He wants to scream again, but he doesn’t, tries to take deep breaths instead. The air feels thick and his shirt is suddenly too tight.

His head is pounding with a headache that just sounds like you, you, you.

The same you who is always on his mind, day or night. The girl he never rushes when you study together because he likes to watch the gears turn in your pretty little head. The girl he admires from his periphery as you doodle in your notebook. You, who he wants to kiss more than anything but he doesn’t because he’s terrified of scaring you away.

Jungkook falls to his bed and covers his face with his hands. He’s in pure, unadulterated agony. His knuckles press into his eyelids as he groans. Lately, he’s been picturing so much for you and him. He daydreams about holding your hand and taking you out on dates and making love to you in his bed. It feels like there’s so much potential now shot in the face and gone in an instant.

He knows he can’t continue on with you. It would be dangerous and reckless. Yet he wants to, he wants to so badly he can feel the need in his bones.

He punches his pillow once, twice, and then sits up. He shakes his head as if that could dispel his thoughts of you. No, nothing will ever bring him to forget your brilliant smile, your sparkling eyes, your soft skin. Or the way you moan, whimper, and cry when he’s making you come and fucking you nice and deep. Jungkook doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to fuck someone who isn’t you again. No, you’ve completely and utterly ruined his body and mind.

“God fucking dammit, Y/N,” he groans into his hands.

He rips his shirt off over his head before falling back again. His chest is hot with anxiety and his nerves crackle with fear of the unknown. His heartbeat is thumping like a beast in a cage.

Jungkook decides to let his frustration out in the best way he knows how. He kicks his pants off and pulls his boxers down, spitting into his hand to lube himself. A sigh of relief breaks from his chest as soon as he feels his hand around his cock.

He’s not hard yet, not even close. But it’s stupidly easy how fast he gets his blood rushing down to his cock by merely thinking of you. The memory of your voice alone is enough to make him throb.

You looked so gorgeous tonight he thought he was going to totally lose it when he first saw you. The smokey makeup and ponytail were a first for him. He loves the way you look normally, but your sultry eyes and grungy outfit made him want to do nasty fucking things to you. If he could've, he would've bent you over his bike and took you right there in front of everyone. Your goddamn brother included.

His hand falls into a familiar rhythm as he strokes himself. He grunts when his thumb presses down on his head and swipes his precum across it. The rough skin of his hand is nothing compared to your mouth or pussy, but it’s enough to satiate him for now.

“Oh, pretty,” he moans into the air.

His mind conjures images of you for his pleasure. Just yesterday when you were on your knees for him and the other week when he fucked you against the rattling bookshelves of the library. Finally, the first time he ate you out and you cried his name into your hand to keep yourself quiet. You were wearing his glasses that night and he remembers thinking even then that you’d be the end of him.

“My baby.”

Jungkook is coming all over himself before he knows it. He grunts and pants as he fucks himself through his orgasm. Your name leaves his lips in a desperate huff as he finally lets go of his cock and wipes his hand on a nearby towel.

There’s two days before he’ll see you again in class. Jungkook has two days to decide whether or not he’s willing to go up against Dragon fire for you.

Your leg bounces anxiously beneath the desk as you wait for Jungkook to enter the classroom. It’s been two days since you found out he’s a Wolf and your mind has done nothing but spiral. You’re unsure how to feel or even what you have the right to feel.

Is it technically a betrayal when neither of you knew about one another? It’s not like you asked him if he happens to be affiliated with any gangs. You should’ve. You freaking should’ve because now it’s biting you in the ass.

When he does finally enter, he looks like the normal Jungkook again. No piercings. Tattoos covered. Sexy nerd glasses on. It pisses you off more than it should.

He doesn’t say anything to you as he takes his seat and you don’t dare to steal a glance at him. The two of you move in tension-thick silence before the professor starts the class.

It’s a grueling hour and a half as you refrain from looking over or touching him. Normally, he forces his leg up against yours until you finally give in and play footsie with him. If not that, you gently graze his arm up and down, absentmindedly, as the professor drones on about whatever topic he’s covering that day.

Class ends as your professor erases the chalkboard behind him. You stand abruptly and speed walk out of the room. If he doesn’t want to talk to you, then you won’t talk to him. It’s simple, and you pretend your heart isn’t shattering in your chest.

The call of your name stops you in your tracks. When you look back, Jungkook is jogging after you. When he reaches you, he stands at an awkwardly long distance away. Your eyebrows lift and you gesture with your hand for him to get on with it.

“Can we talk?”

You don’t reply, just turn on your heel and walk in the opposite direction. That is, the direction of the parking lot. He follows behind but leaves an obnoxious amount of space. It’s infuriating how his obvious respect for your boundaries gives you butterflies. He unlocks his car with a click and you aggressively plop down in the front seat. Making a show of crossing your arms over your chest and flipping your hair from your eyes.

Jungkook slides into the driver’s side with ease and turns on the heat before turning towards you. You look at him expectantly but he gestures for you to start.

“You’re in a gang,” you state matter-of-factly. “You have tattoos, an entire sleeve, I might add. You have piercings. You’re a fucking Wolf.”

Jungkook nods, licking his lip before he responds.

“That’s all true, yeah,” he says.

“What the fuck, Jungkook?” You finally face him. “You’re a graduate student with your entire life ahead of you. What are you doing running around with those losers?” You groan in frustration. “I mean, you’re like a delinquent Hannah Montana or some shit.”

Jungkook smiles at that. He does a once over of your face before inhaling.

“When my parents died I didn’t have anywhere to go. I was already 18. I grew up with Jimin and he offered me a place to stay at the Wolf’s Den. Rest is history,” he explains. You watch his eyes as he tells his story. “I didn’t plan on going to college. I barely passed high school, anyway. But my parents left me money and put instructions in their will that it was to go to my schooling. I couldn’t let it go to waste. Couldn’t let them down.”

Your hand is grabbing his before you register yourself doing it. Rolling up his shirtsleeve to his elbow, you finally reveal his tattoos before your own eyes. Your fingers trace the intricate details of the artwork. He grabs your wrist in return and you feel his hand shaking.

“How did they die?”

“Drunk driver,” he answers.

“I’m so sorry,” you whisper. You pull his shirt back down and lace your fingers with his. “But I’m sure they’re very proud of you.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” he admits.

You take his face in your hand and force him to look at you.

“Jungkook, you're the top of our class. You can be anything you want to be or do anything you want to do.” you say. “If that’s not something to be proud of, I’m not sure what is.”

“It doesn’t matter. It’s not leading anywhere after this,” he replies.

“Why not? Do you seriously want to be involved in this stuff forever? The violence and the rivalries and all the bullshit,” you ask as your voice raises.

“I’ve never known a life other than this, Y/N! The Wolves are my family. I don’t have anyone else,” he matches your volume.

You pull away from him with a huff. You’re not sure why you’re so determined to convince him to do something more with his life. But if you have to guess, you imagine it’s because you’re trying and failing to do so yourself.

“You have me,” you admit quietly into the air between you. It’s a weighted confession. A piece of your true feelings on display for him to see.

Jungkook’s hand cradles your jaw and he looks at you so adoringly that you want to shy away. His thumb is brushing back and forth across your cheekbone. It’s the most gentle affection he’s ever shown you.

“Yeah,” he breathes. “I have you.”

He’s kissing you before you even register it. You moan happily against his lips as they move delicately across your own. Jungkook usually handles you like wants to break you, but the way he kisses is the exact opposite. His mouth and his warmth are mending things he wasn’t the one to break. Your hands snake around his neck to pull him closer and he moans when your fingers thread through his hair.

It’s only your first kiss even after all the time you’ve spent together. It’s magical and romantic and you never want it to end.

Jungkook grabs you by the waist to pull you into his lap. Your back hits the steering wheel and the horn honks. You giggle into each other’s mouths but never once stop kissing. You’re both smiling and it causes your teeth to clash, but not even that stops you.

Jungkook deepens the kiss, his tongue tracing your bottom lip before slipping it into your mouth. It tangles with your own as he pulls on the hair trapped between his fingers.

“I shouldn’t be doing this,” he admits against your lips. “Your brother… he’ll kill me.”

“Then why are you?” You murmur before trailing kisses across his sharp jaw.

“Because I want you too bad to stay away,” he answers. “I want you all the time, baby.”

Your lips meet his again and the kiss grows desperate. Shifting in his lap to move closer, you run your hands up and down the planes of his chest.

“You have me, Jungkook. I’m yours,” you reveal.

He pulls back with a shake of his head.

“Not just like this. Not just sex. I want movie dates and sleepless nights. I want to hold your hand and take you out to dinner. I want all of you, Y/N.” He pushes your hair from your face. His eyes are brimming with adoration and melancholy. “But I don’t know how to do that when you are who you are.”

Your hands grip his shirt as your head falls against his chest. You release a shaky exhale as your mind shuffles through the millions of emotions in your head. It settles on sorrow. Jungkook holds you close to him, cradling you in his arms.

“I don’t want to lose you,” you confess. “I care about you so much.”

You feel Jungkook pressing a kiss to your hair and it makes you squeeze your eyes shut in pain. He’s everything you could ever want and yet nothing you can ever have.

“I care about you, too, pretty,” he whispers. “So, so much.”

“If this is the last time…” your voice trails off, but Jungkook understands.

He maneuvers you over him and works to move both your clothes out of the way. All while kissing you again and again anywhere he can reach. Your lips, cheeks, nose, jaw, chin. He’s trying to savor this and commit it to memory before it’s gone forever. Before you’re gone.

His fingers move along your slit, gathering your wetness before bringing it up to your clit. You moan into his mouth and buck your hips against his hand. He expertly massages your pussy in a way only he knows how until you’re wet enough to take him.

Jungkook stops kissing you momentarily so he can see what he’s doing when he lines himself up. His cock enters you slowly, but you can feel every ridge and curve of him as you sink down deeper into his lap. He kisses your neck as you begin to bounce on him. Your nails bite into his skin as you use his shoulders for leverage.

It doesn’t take long for you both to come, Jungkook’s seed warming you from the inside and bringing forth your own orgasm. The entire time you never once stop kissing, because you’re making up for lost time and saying goodbye all at once.

Except the goodbye never comes. There’s an attempt, and you go one time seeing each other without hooking up, but that’s the only time. The next time you’re in class together, almost the very second it ends, Jungkook is pushing you into an empty classroom. He kisses you until you can’t see straight, then eats you out and fucks you on the professor’s desk. After that, you both realize you’re too weak for each other to ever stay away.

Things go on like that for a while, a few months at most. You don’t talk about the massive elephant in the room when you’re together. Just touch and kiss each other to your heart's content like it isn’t the most dangerous game you’ll ever play.

The realization that Namjoon is aware of your entanglements comes after he suggests a ride together down to the bay, a familiar place you used to go as teenagers. You don’t question it because it’s been a while since you’ve spent some real time together and your brother is a bigger softie than anyone is allowed to know.

You ride along the shoreline together before he stops the bike in the middle of some abandoned buildings a few yards from the bay. Ships are docking for the night and some children play around the rocky shore with their parents close by.

“Aren’t we going over there?” You ask, pointing to the usual spot.

Namjoon shakes his head.

“Gotta show you something first,” he tells you.

Taking your hand, he leads you towards one of the buildings. You watch him quizzically as he pries open one of the rusted doors and holds it open for you. He stands back to allow you to take in the scene.

You don’t realize it’s him at first because his head is down. All you notice is two Dragon lackeys holding someone taut between them as they wait for instruction at the center of the room. But then he pushes against their restraints, grunting and tugging on their arms as hard as he can and you gasp in horror.

You’re running to him before you can think twice. Your hands instinctively reach out for his face, lifting it so you can see him properly. He already has a swollen black eye and a busted lip.

Your pupils shake as tears form in your eyes.

“Let him go,” you command.

Namjoon walks in slowly and takes his time examining the scene before him. Maybe this is a test to see if the rumor he heard was true. Clearly, you failed.

“Can’t do that, bug,” Namjoon says from behind you. “Wolves who touch what doesn’t belong to them pay the price.”

“It’s not like that, Joonie,” you snap. You push some of Jungkook’s hair away from his face. He’s looking at you like you’re the only thing giving him air to breathe. You shake your head, hoping he can read your mind that is screaming I’m sorry.

“What’s it like then?” Namjoon crosses his arms across his chest.

“He’s in my graduate class. I didn’t even know he was a Wolf at first,” you say.

Namjoon steps forward so he’s next to you and tugs on your arms so you let go of Jungkook. You take a tentative step away, not recognizing the look in your brother’s eyes.

“Hmm, and when you found out… what did you do?”

“I…”

“When you found out the man you’d been sleeping with was a goddamn fucking Wolf, what did you do, Y/N?” He shouts.

He’s never spoken to you like this. Has never even raised his voice at you. You don’t have an answer for him. You can’t look him in the eye and admit you willingly betrayed him.

Namjoon sneers at your silence. He motions for the men to drop Jungkook and he falls to his knees with a grunt. Your body involuntarily steps towards him until Namjoon shoots you a murderous glare.

Jungkook looks up at the leader of the Dragons from where he kneels before him. You can’t see his expression, but you can tell from his body language he’s resigned to his fate.

Your brother throws a punch to Jungkook’s face and it connects with a crack. You can’t stop yourself from looking away and snapping your eyes shut. Jungkook spits out blood before Namjoon is forcing him by the jaw to look up at him again.

“You really thought you could get away with it, didn’t you?” Namjoon punches him in the same spot again and you bury your face in your hands.

Your brother is relentless in his assault. He just punches and punches until his knuckles split and Jungkook’s face is covered in blood and open wounds. You don’t look up. Your head is too heavy with the guilt to even attempt it.

You’re sobbing into your hands as you listen to the bone-crushing noise. It repeats and repeats like Satan’s broken record. You’re completely helpless to do anything but stand by in terror.

Namjoon lets go of where he’s holding him by his shirt and Jungkook immediately falls over, catching himself with his hands as he pants and tries to inhale through his busted nose and mouth.

Instantly, you’re on your knees in front of him, cradling his head to your chest as you try to wipe the blood with your shirt.

Jungkook groans into you, his hands weakly coming around your waist to hold onto you. You’re crying so hard you can barely see straight, but you force yourself to do anything you can to help him.

“Y/N,” Jungkook moans against your shirt and you bend your head to kiss his hair. “S’okay.” His words only bring forth more tears.

“No, it’s not,” you sob.

Namjoon pulls you away from him by your arm before nodding at the two men. The Dragons begin to kick and punch Jungkook in his ribs, chest, and stomach. It only takes a few hits before Jungkook’s weight gives out and he crashes to the floor. They continue relentlessly.

“No! No, please!” You turn towards your brother while still on your knees. The sound of Jungkook being beaten is piercing your eardrums and throwing off your equilibrium. “Please, Joonie, make them stop.” You grab onto your brother’s legs and sob against him. “Please, I’ll do anything. Just stop hurting him.”

Namjoon forces your head up. He looks so disgusted at your pathetic display of affection for someone he’s raised you to hate.

“Why should I?” His voice is pure venom.

“Because… because I love him, Namjoon,” you admit for the first time out loud.

Your brother’s eyes turn razor sharp. He gazes towards where his men are still having their fill with Jungkook’s battered body.

“Stop,” he orders them. The room goes eerily quiet. Your heart only continues beating because you can hear Jungkook wheezing out breath. He’s still alive. That’s all that matters. “I’ll stop if you swear to me you’ll never see or speak to him ever again.”

“I swear, Namjoon,” you reply without missing a beat.

“If you disobey me,” he threatens. “I won’t have a choice, do you understand?” You nod. “Say you understand, Y/N.”

“I understand,” you shout back.

He steps away from you and you collapse onto your hands. Grabbing you by the shoulder he yanks you up and orders his men to leave first. You don’t look back as he drags you from the warehouse and shuts the door behind him.

When you return home, you run upstairs to the safety of your bedroom. Cradling your phone in your shaky hands, you find the number Jungkook input for emergencies only. Namjoon deleted Jungkook’s contact from your phone as soon as you left the warehouse, but he doesn't know you have a different Wolf’s number, too.

The phone rings three times before someone answers.

“Hello?” You’ve never heard the voice on the other end before.

“Is this Jimin?”

“Who’s asking?” He sounds rightfully suspicious.

“Listen, I know I’m probably the last person you want to hear from right now, but you have to go to the warehouse district by the bay. Jungkook he’s… he’s hurt really bad, okay? He needs your help,” you explain through fresh tears. “Please, you have to help him.”

“Is this who I think it is?”

“Please, Jimin. He’s in the building with the blue door and green-tinted windows,” you tell him. “Hurry.”

You cut the line before he can ask you anything further. The only thing you can do is fall into your bed and wail as you pray his friends make it in time.

Jungkook can’t move from his spot on the cold concrete floor. He tries; tries using his hands to pull himself up but he just falls back with a thump. His breath is coming out of him in thin wheezes and every time he inhales he feels a sharp tug as his lungs. He knows he’ll die here if someone doesn’t find him, which is highly unlikely.

Despite his injuries causing every nerve ending in his body to sizzle and burn, all he can think about is you. Your sobs and pleas and how quiet your voice was when you admitted you love him. It’s pathetic how undeniably happy he was in that moment even as his lungs were caving in and his ribs were splintering.

You love him enough to let him go. Jungkook doesn’t know if he himself is that strong. If in your place he would be able to swear the same way you did. He hopes so, that somehow a piece of your virtue has rubbed off on him through your time together.

He hears the door creak open and his first thought is that Namjoon sent his goons back to finish the job. But then he’s being lifted from the floor and familiar voices filter in through his waning consciousness.

“Fuck, kid,” Taehyung curses as he rolls Jungkook over to examine his injuries. “What did you get yourself into?”

Jungkook grasps at his side as the pain splinters across his back and chest. The pain is scalding and it radiates across his entire body in waves that threaten to pull him under.

“Is he breathing?” Jimin’s voice rings out.

“Yeah. His eyes aren’t open, though. Don’t know if he even can with how bad his face is,” Taehyung explains to his companion.

Jimin curses when he sees his younger friend’s condition. He has to look away for a moment, unable to tolerate seeing his little brother like this.

“I’ll fucking kill those bastards,” he grits his teeth, sneering.

“No, you won’t,” Taehyung sighs. “This is penance. Jungkook is lucky he’s alive right now.”

The two men end their conversation to help Jungkook up from the floor. It isn’t easy. There’s blood everywhere and Jungkook screams in agony as they jostle his broken body around to carry him. He’s heavier than both of them combined and if it weren’t for Taehyung’s recent time spent at the gym, it would be physically impossible.

Taehyung ends up carrying him back to back, with Jungkook lying as flat as possible while Taehyung takes slow, heavy steps towards the door. Jimin carries his feet gently behind them since their similar heights leave the bottom half of Jungkook’s legs dragging on the floor.

Somehow, they make it out and get him into the backseat of the car where they’ve laid towels and sheets down to soak up the blood. Jungkook groans endlessly as the car flies through the city streets towards the hospital.

His friends know he has an emergency fund set up by his parents they can use to pay for his admission. If he didn’t, his fate would be up to whatever member of their gang has the most medical experience.

Jungkook spends the next two weeks in the hospital. By the time he’s discharged he still can’t open his left eye, has more than 100 stitches, and is wrapped up like a mummy to help his bones and muscles heal. His ribs punctured his lungs so he’s on medication to insure he can breathe properly. He’ll be sequestered to his bed per doctor’s orders for at least two months. Luckily, the semester just ended, so he won’t miss any classes while he’s recovering.

His gang members take care of him and help him in any way they can, but they can only assist with his physical injuries. There’s nothing anyone can do about his broken heart.

He lies in bed day and night, just staring at his ceiling as he daydreams about you being here to care for him. Your warm hands brushing his hair out of his face and your lips pressing a peck to his cheek. Jungkook swears he can hear you giggling as you tell him he “still looks handsome, even like this.”

Jungkook knows in his bones that you were a mistake. He should’ve cut things off when he had the chance after he found out who you are. And yet, he can’t bring himself to think of you as such. It’s impossible for him to regret even a single moment of the time he spent with you.

Every minute he’s awake he wonders what you’re doing and if you’re alright. Are you enjoying your time off from school? What activities and hobbies do you enjoy when you’re alone? Are you missing him the way he’s missing you?

It’s ironic, but he also hopes you aren’t still angry with your brother. Being a leader means doing what you have to do and Jungkook hopes you can forgive him. He knows how much Namjoon means to you and he can’t live with himself knowing he’s the thing that’s driving a wedge between you.

When he’s asleep, he dreams of you, and there are varying types of them. There are beautiful, soft, soothing dreams where he just gets to hold you and listen to your voice talk about nothing at all. Ones where he gets to confess that he loves you, too, and that he wants to be with you more than anything in the world. Then there’s the sexy, unbridled, wet dreams that have him gasping and sweating when he wakes up. He dreams of you on top of him as you whisper how much you need him into his ear. There’s another where he’s pounding you into his mattress as he kisses your neck, shoulders, and tits. He doesn’t even know what your actual breasts look like; he never got the chance to see you like that. One night his mind combines both the hard and soft and he dreams up an entire day spent with you. Where he takes you out for dinner and a movie, then brings you back to his place to worship your body, falls asleep with you on his chest, and then wakes up to do it all over again. Jungkook wonders if he should just sleep all the time so he can be with you.

His reality without you is bleak, grave, and dark. There’s no light in his world anymore and he doesn’t know how long he can go without seeing you or hearing your voice.

Jungkook makes a full recovery before the next semester starts. Luckily, he doesn’t have too many scars on his face anymore from the incident. When he looks in the mirror, it finally looks like him staring back again.

On the first day of classes Jungkook prays you’re in the same one again, but he doesn’t see you anywhere. His eyes constantly scan the hallways and classrooms for any sign of you, but to no avail. It’s killing him not knowing where you are.

He spends his days anxiously bouncing his knee below the desk as he attempts to listen to his professors. Sometimes, he’ll see a glimmer of someone who could be you, only to find out it’s not, and fall back into his usual disappointment.

By the time he does see you again, six months have passed. He wishes the reunion had been happy, or that it was even a reunion at all. Instead it’s just him, standing at the entrance of the building as he watches you race in the opposite direction before hopping into a car with a Dragon.

When he gets home he enters with his head down. After getting his first glimpse of you in six months, he isn’t ready to converse with anyone from his gang.

But he doesn’t get the chance to head downstairs right away.

His gang is congregated in the living room. There’s an intense tension in the air Jungkook doesn’t know how to name. He steps into the room and it feels like the air gets sucked out of it. As if everyone is suddenly statues in a graveyard. Jimin and Taehyung eye him carefully as he walks forwards towards their leader.

Bangchan is conversing intensely with some of his right hand men, but he turns towards Jungkook when he notices him approaching. Chan clears his throat and grabs the younger man’s shoulder, then he speaks a truth that has Jungkook’s heart sinking in his chest.

“Kim Namjoon is dead.”

You’re a zombie among the living and you have been for some time now. Ever since Jungkook was forcefully ripped from your life, you’re a shell of the woman you once were. The time off from school moves like honey dripping from a spoon as you spend every waking moment wondering how he’s doing. You don’t even know if he’s alive or not.

There’s a tsunami of relief that moves through you when you find out he’s alive and fully recovered. You only know because you hear some girls in the library talking about him once classes start back up. The jealousy from their whispers about him doesn’t have anywhere within you to take root. The soil of your heart is salted and rotting.

Every single day you fight the urge to go to him, but you refuse to risk his life again. The pain of missing him is incomprehensible. You feel it in your heart and lungs as they work overtime to soothe the ache of being apart. But none of it even comes close to the nightmares and memories of hearing his bones break and his breathing wane. Night terrors overtake you for months following the incident. Images of him bleeding and broken in a heap on the floor while you stand helpless to stop it.

You haven’t spoken a single word to Namjoon since that night. He tries, but you shut yourself in your room or leave the house entirely. You haven’t heard your brother’s deep and melodious voice in six months now. You’re uncertain if you have the strength within you to forgive him. Maybe one day, once the Dragons and the Wolves are just a distant nightmare you never have to experience again.

The day starts like any other. Yoongi drops you off at the university and you thank him before heading to class. The topics and lectures are boring, per usual, as you doodle in your notebook alongside the actual notes you take. You’re out of focus these days but you manage to keep your grades up. It’s hard without your study buddy.

The call comes a little before your last lecture is supposed to start. It’s Seokjin, and you know something is wrong as soon as you answer.

“You need to come home. Something’s happened,” he says.

“Seokjin, I don’t —”

“It’s Joonie,” his voice breaks.

Your heart sinks into an abyss so deep you’re certain it will never rise again.

You’re running before the call even drops. The last thing Seokjin tells you is that Yoongi is waiting for you at the entrance. Propelling your feet forward even though you want to collapse, you bolt out of the building and make it to Yoongi’s car in an instant.

Yoongi is speeding off before the door has had time to shut. He doesn’t say anything. Just stares straight ahead with tears rolling down his face like rain.

When you reach the house, the silence seems to stretch infinitely. There are no birds chirping or trees billowing in the wind. It’s absolutely stone cold silent. You wonder if the apocalypse came while you were in the car. The door to the house creaks open and the sound of people breathing and the AC blasting is somehow deafening in comparison.

Your feet move on their own because your mind is too busy hiding from what it knows is about to come.

Namjoon is lying on the couch with one arm falling limp over the edge of the cushion. He looks like he’s taking one of his infamous naps. The ones that always happen after he’s been reading for too long. The only thing missing from the scene is an open book lying across his chest. You stop a few feet away and stare at his chest, the one you spent your entire childhood lying on and slapping whenever he made you angry. You will it to move with your mind, imagine it rising and falling and attempt a manifestation of the sight into reality. After counting to ten without seeing it rise, you collapse.

A scream rips out of your throat as you bring your forehead to the hardwood floor beneath you. Your entire body is shaking so violently that the zippers on your clothes rattle. Someone who smells like Hoseok comes behind you, holding you up against him as you sob hard enough to make yourself sick.

“No,” you wail helplessly into his shoulder.

Hoseok releases you when you begin to push against his hold. You crawl towards your brother on your hands and knees. When you reach him you caress his face and push his hair out of his eyes. He hates it when it gets in his eyes.

“Joonie,” you whisper to only him. “Joonie, you gotta wake up.” You gasp for air. “I need my big brother. Please, please, for me, you have to wake up.”

He doesn’t respond. You already know he can’t. It doesn’t matter. You’ll speak nonsense to him until his body begins to decay.

Throwing yourself on top of him, you cry into his bloodstained clothes. He’s still warm even though he’s hard to the touch. You aren’t sure if there’s a scientific explanation or if your brother’s soul is just so warm that it left behind a signature.

No one moves. Every member of the Dragons just watches in agony as you mourn your brother. Their beloved leader.

You want to die. You want to take one of the switchblades amongst the men in the room and slit your throat. Let your blood congeal with your brother’s and have them bury you together.

Namjoon probably wants to force his way out the afterlife, barreling through anyone in his path, even God himself, just to yell at you for even thinking about it. He raised you to be strong, but you don’t know what strength is without him.

His three best friends help you up once your cries subside into dry whimpers. They help you walk, one with his arm around your waist, the other two with their arms around your shoulders and arm, up the stairs to your room.

As gently as three gang members can, they lay you in your bed. Yoongi takes your shoes off for you and Hoseok pulls the blankets over you.

You grab Seokjin’s hand before they have a chance to leave.

“Please don’t… don’t move him yet,” you croak through your sore vocal chords. “I need to be there. It should be up to me how we… how we bury him.”

Seokjin assures you they won’t as tears fall from his eyes. The two of you share a meaningful glance. A secret only the three of you shared and will be buried along with your brother.

Your tears put you to sleep. It’s completely dreamless. Just black, empty darkness that feels infinite. You wonder if this endless void is your new reality.

The sound of knocking is what wakes you up. You’re still in delirium as you sit up and attempt to find the source of the sound. When you do, you gasp, pulling the covers away and springing from the bed.

You push your window up, reaching your hand out for the guest hanging onto your ledge with his fingertips.

Jungkook steps into your room one leg at a time, ducking down so he fits through the opening. When he stands to his full height, you think you’re still dreaming. It isn’t until he speaks that you realize you aren’t.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers. “I had to see you, I couldn’t —”

Your mouth clips his sentence in half. Hands tugging at his shirt, you pull him into you as you kiss him. He’s still as a statue at first, confusion evident in the way his brow creases. But then you feel his hands on your waist and he pulls you closer, matching the rhythm of your mouth against his.

Your foreheads touch as you exhale into the air between you. Eyes still closed, you let the feeling of him and his warmth take you under and into his current.

“I missed you,” you say. Jungkook’s hands squeeze your hips. “I missed you so much, Jungkook.”

Your head drops to his shoulder as you cry. He pulls you into him and holds you there with his hand against your head. He combs his fingers through your hair and kisses down the side of your face. Anything he can think to do to bring you some sort of comfort.

“I’m here, pretty,” he tells you. “Not going anywhere.”

He guides you over to your bed as your breathing levels out again. You sit next to one another and Jungkook caresses your hand. Every once in a while bringing it to his lips to kiss your knuckles one by one.

With your free hand you grab his chin, turning his face back and forth before you breathe out a laugh.

“You’re still so handsome,” you say after analyzing his features. The scars embedded in his honey skin are faint. “I almost forgot how handsome you are.”

Jungkook shakes his head.

“I knew you’d say something like that,” he responds. He pulls you closer so your knees touch. The silent moments between you are comfortable. You don’t need to speak, just be near. After a while Jungkook licks his lips and says, “I’m so, so sorry about your brother, Y/N.”

Your hand grips his fingers harder as reality slowly creeps back in.

“I…” you have to inhale before you can continue. “The last time I ever spoke to him was that night.”

Jungkook’s eyes widen and then soften into something that looks like guilt. As if him being brutally beaten was his own doing.

“Baby,” Jungkook calls to you.

You shake your head. There is no going back now and you aren’t sure you would if given the chance. Maybe just to tell Namjoon you love him one more time, but nothing further. His death doesn’t take away from him hurting you.

“I didn’t know if you were dead or alive until classes started again,” you tell him. “I had nightmares every night about what they did to you. The way your bones sounded when they —”

“Hey, don’t do that. I’m right here. I’m fine,” Jungkook reassures you.

“You weren’t fine, though,” you snap. “I wasn’t fine. He took you from me, Jungkook.” You wipe the tears from your cheeks. “I told him my feelings for you and he still made me stay away.”

Jungkook doesn’t have a response because he knows everything you’re feeling isn’t black and white. The grief is mixing with the anger and the sadness into a devastating combination of emotions. So he holds you instead, pulls you across his lap so your thighs are resting on either side of him. Brushes his fingers up your back in a soothing pattern while you rest your head on his shoulder.

After a while of comforting silence, your lips find the mole on his neck. It’s just a tentative kiss at first, but then you’re kissing him harder and sucking on the sensitive skin at the junction of his neck and shoulder. His hands caress your hips tentatively, fingers reaching up and brushing against the skin beneath your top.

“Pretty,” Jungkook sighs. “We don’t have to —”

“I need you, Jungkook,” you say as you face him. You don’t mean it sexually, even though sex is exactly what you’re asking for. The need to feel him close is just so great, that his touch is the only thing that can quell it. It’s been so long since you’ve seen him, heard him, or touched him, and you’re desperate to feel his heartbeat beneath your fingers just so you know he’s here and he’s alive. “Please, baby.”

Jungkook nods and kisses you slowly, tasting you on his tongue as your hips begin to grind against him. His hands guide you across his lap in slow circles. You feel him growing hard, causing you to moan into his mouth. He deepens the kiss with his tongue, cradling your neck to keep your head still as he chases your lips.

Your hands find his shoulders and use the leverage to grind down harder against the evident bulge in his pants. You groan at the feeling of it rubbing against your clit through your clothes. Jungkook growls deep in his throat when you pick up the pace. His lips are all over you. He kisses down your face and across your jaw. Sucks on your neck and drags his tongue along your hot skin before biting into your jugular. Your gasp slowly morphs into a moan.

Jungkook moves away for a split second so he can tug your top over your head. His eyes drop down to your covered chest to see what he’s been dying to all this time. He cups your breasts in his hands, massaging and pushing them together before bending down to kiss the tops of them.

You reach back to unclip your bra and Jungkook moans as it falls away. He’s never gotten to see you like this before; feel your soft skin under his hands like this. Now unimpeached, Jungkook takes one of your nipples in his mouth while twisting the other between his fingers. You throw your head back as you pant in ecstasy.

“Jungkook,” you whine as he gives your other breast the same attention. “Feels so good.”

When he’s done, he kisses his way back up to your lips. Your hand tangles into his long hair and your nails scratch at his scalp. Your free hand tugs at the hem of his top. Jungkook chuckles at your silent signal before removing his shirt with one hand.

Seeing him unobstructed for the first time is pure heaven. Hands tracing over his shoulders and down his chest, scratching your nails across the abs you knew he had. When he pulls you close, the skin to skin contact you’ve been aching for is like jumping into a pool on a hot summer day.

Jungkook’s warm hands are sprawled across your back as your pussy moves expertly against him. Part of you wants to just keep going like this until you both come in your pants, but most of you wants him naked and beneath you in your bed.

Jungkook obliges without needing to be told. He lifts you enough to lie you back and crawls over you, pushing your thighs apart with his knee. You reach for him and he kisses your fingers before meeting you again at your lips. His hands are working your jeans off you while he ravishes your lips and jaw.

When they’re off, he sits back on his heels to look at you. This is the sight he’s been waiting for and he doesn’t want to miss a second of it. His hands grip your thighs and he squeezes to watch your flesh move between his fingers.

“So beautiful, baby,” he praises you. He starts kissing you again at your collarbones before inching down slowly. After his mouth leaves your breasts he kisses down your stomach. “I love you,” he whispers directly into your skin. You aren’t sure you heard him right, but then he repeats himself as he kisses across your hips. “I love you… I love you… I love you.”

It comes out of his mouth like a prayer and you’re his only deity. Bittersweet tears roll down your cheeks at his confession. Your fingers thread into his hair as he finally reaches your pussy. He kisses you once on your mound before pulling your underwear down your legs so he can taste you.

He kisses you slowly, reverently. At first it’s so soft and light you barely feel him, but then his tongue swipes across your folds and you moan desperately. His hands grip the back of your thighs to pull you closer, burying his face into your cunt. He groans in pleasure, his mouth and tongue alternating between licking and kissing you while his nose teases your clit.

“Fuck, I missed you,” he grunts as he dives back in for more.

You’re a complete mess above him. Hair strewn haphazardly across the pillow, nipples swollen and erect, panting out breaths with dried tears all down your face.

Jungkook moves to suck on your clit and then kitten licks at it, using a finger to push your hood back and drive you into oversensitivity. You cover your mouth with your hand to scream into it. Your hips chase his mouth and he lets you. He just moans into your cunt as you ride his face.

Jungkook grips you tighter to still you, not letting you grind anymore so he can go into overdrive against your hole. He fucks you with his tongue and then licks all the way up to your clit before staying there. He flattens his tongue against the nub and moves his face back and forth. Pulls back and spits directly on it before rubbing it in with the tip of his tongue.

Your orgasm pulls you beneath the waves of ecstasy and you welcomely drown in it. It happens without warning, but Jungkook already knows. He knows your body like it’s his own and he growls as you come on his face and he drinks every last drop.

Gasping for any air you can find, Jungkook kisses across your thighs and bites at your flesh. You grab him by the shoulder to bring him back to you. You taste yourself on his lips, your cum smearing across the bottom half of your face.

Your hands are quick to undo Jungkook’s belt and pull down the zipper of his jeans. You start palming him through his boxers before his pants are fully off. He groans into your mouth before kissing your neck and biting at your earlobe, letting his tongue trace the perimeter of it.

You want to see him fully and appreciate him in all his glory, so you use your legs to wrap around his own and flip him onto his back. He looks a little shocked at you doing anything even remotely dominant, but the fire in his eyes tells you exactly how much he loves it.

His neck is your first target as you lick the sweaty skin and press wet kisses all over his throat and shoulder. As your lips move down his torso, your hands follow closely behind, digging your nails into his skin and creating red marks in their wake. He grunts and bucks his hips as you finish your assault on his delicious abdominal muscles. Your eyes roll back when you count eight of them.

You pull his boxers down and off, all without ever breaking eye contact. Crawling back over him, you take in his entire body laid before you for the first time. He’s so beautiful you could cry.

Pumping his cock with your warm hand, you move to taste him when he stops you with a hand to your shoulder.

“No, pretty,” he starts. “It’s not about me tonight. Just wanna make you feel good.” You pout and he soothes you by sitting up and pushing your hair away from your face. “Will you let me?” He kisses you softly, but with all his devotion. “Let me make love to you?”

You close your eyes and nod. He kisses the skin of your eyelids adoringly before lying you beneath him again. Jungkook doesn’t waste any time. His cock is teasing your clit while he swipes through your folds to lube himself with your cum. He thrusts into you slowly, letting you adjust to the feel of him again after so long apart.

Your nails rake down his back and across his shoulders as he splits you apart on his cock. You can feel him throbbing deep inside your walls and it’s as though your entire body was created for this very moment.

When you don’t show any signs of discomfort, Jungkook begins thrusting in and out of you at a steady pace. He lays on top of you with his forearms carrying his weight. His body is so familiar and yet everything feels brand new.

Your legs wrap around his stupidly tiny waist and an actual laugh escapes you. His questioning eyes find yours.

“What do you have such a small waist for, huh? It’s unfair. It’s smaller than mine,” you explain.

Jungkook tsks at you before kissing your cheek.

“Your waist is perfect,” he says. “You’re fucking perfect.”

His thrusts are slower than normal, but just as deep. The motion pushes you up the bed each time he enters your pussy and Jungkook has to use his hands to protect your head from hitting the headboard. He grinds his hips down in conjunction with his strokes and it forces his cock right into your g-spot.

Your moans are just one endless stream of sound because it feels too heavenly to do anything else. His name filters between them to create a melody meant only for his ears.

His body is bringing you forms of pleasure you’ve never experienced with anyone else and yet you care more about the feeling of his warm body against yours. It’s his skin and sweat, the goosebumps on his arms, his hair tickling your face, that truly means the most to you. He’s here in your arms, heart beating up against your own and it almost brings tears to your eyes again. You almost lost him.

You aren’t able to focus on your sentiments for much longer because he pulls back and lifts your ankles to his shoulders and then bends you in half, the back of your thighs touching his chest.

“Oh fuck, baby,” you gasp. The push and pull of Jungkook’s dick at this angle has your nails nearly puncturing the skin of his shoulder.

“I got you, pretty,” he states.

He kisses your calf next to his face and you feel warm all over. Through your legs you can see the way his thick cock comes out coated in your essence before it disappears into you again. Jungkook is watching the same way you are, his mouth open in awe of how well your pussy sucks him in over and over.

The position is too good for your mind to fully comprehend, but you need him closer. You want your skin pressed together as one in every possible place it can. You grab at him and he gets the message, letting your legs fall back to his hips. His elbows are next to your ears as he stretches your hole open for him repeatedly.

His cock fills you so perfectly that you feel every ridge and vein against your velvet walls. The friction is debilitating and sends your mind into a frenzy. You’re crying tears of pleasure that Jungkook kisses away before devouring your mouth. Gripping his ass, you thrust up against him in an attempt to sink him deeper inside you even though you swear you feel him in your stomach already.

It’s not enough. Nothing with Jungkook will ever feel like enough when your body wants him so insatiably. But right now, you need more.

“Jungkook,” you pant. He makes a sound of affirmation as he mouths at your jaw. “Stop playing nice.”

Jungkook lifts his head to look at you. He raises an eyebrow and tilts his head to give you a chance to take back your instruction. You stare him down with a matching intensity instead.

The sound of his deep chuckle is right next to your ear and your heart races in anticipation.

In an instant, your hands are forced above your head by one of his own, crossing your wrists over each other and lacing his fingers between the ones he can reach. He pushes at them once, as if telling you not to try anything. When you open your mouth to moan, Jungkook crashes into your lips and spits into your mouth. You’re gasping as you swallow his saliva. His free hand teasingly traces your skin from your hip to your knee, creating fiery goosebumps along your flesh, before he grabs you by the knee and forces your leg up higher on his hip, creating an even closer angle.

He rears back slowly, leaving just his tip in for a lingering moment. Jungkook waits until you whine pathetically at the emptiness, your hips bucking up in desperation. Your pussy clenches around nothing as it begs for him to come back home. Once there are tears pricking at your eyes and he thinks you’ve waited long enough, he slams into you so hard your vision goes out.

He clasps his hand over your mouth before you can scream. His pace is downright fucking demonic as he pistons his cock into you. You’re screaming and drooling against his hand as tears wet your cheeks. You cannot comprehend how this is the same man who kissed his love into your stomach and hips. You worry you’ll look up and his eyes will be glowing red with the fires of hell.

This is months of being separated coming to a head. All the fear, rage, depression, and guilt pooling in your stomachs and physically manifesting into a miasma of pleasure. Every thought and worry you felt for one another is pouring over your bodies like acid, burning you in a scorching heat that only the other can quench.

You’re close and Jungkook can tell by the way your cunt flutters around him. His mouth replaces his hand as he kisses you, letting go of your hands above your head so he can grasp your hips. Your arms snake around his back and into his hair, tugging on the strands to pull him away so you can kiss the veins popping out in his neck.

“Need to feel you come, pretty,” he grunts.

A breathy moan is your only response because words are failing you. Jungkook angles your hips up so his tip is kissing you in just the right spot. His thrusts have slowed again but are deeper than ever, so passionate in his pursuit to pleasure you that your orgasm pulls you into a different plane of existence entirely.

Your hand grips Jungkook’s hair impossibly tight as your pussy spasms around him. Jungkook groans loudly, his head tipping back as you come around him.

Jungkook usually loves to fill you up and watch it drip out, but for some reason the need to paint you in his seed overwhelms him. He pulls out and fists his cock as hot spurts of cum fall across your stomach, tits, and thighs.

You moan appreciatively at the feeling and watch in awe at the way it drips from his tip and onto your skin. Instinctively, your mouth opens as you stare into Jungkook’s fucked-out eyes. He hears your message loud and clear, using his fingers to scoop some of his cum from your belly before feeding it to you. You suck it off his fingers without breaking eye contact until you roll your eyes and moan at the taste of him.

Jungkook is panting, his chest rising and falling in ragged breaths as he stares at the mess he made of you.

“Fuck, pretty,” he exhales.

You sit up on your elbows and smile at his artwork across your body.

“You could always lick it off of me, ya know,” you suggest.

Jungkook laughs.

“Don’t get me going again, my love,” he responds. “I’ll fucking ruin you.”

“Is that a threat or a promise?”

Jungkook’s eyes darken and he runs his hands through his hair. After taking a moment to stare you down, he steals your hands and pins them above your head. His lips are touching yours by just a hair when he responds.

“It’s a promise… for another day,” he states.

You pout and he kisses it away before finally leaving you to find something to clean you with. You nod your head towards your en-suite bathroom and he comes back with a warm towel.

You run your fingers through the front of his hair as he delicately wipes his own cum from your soft skin. When he’s done he bends down to kiss your stomach before returning the towel to the bathroom.

When he returns you’re sitting up and pulling a baggy shirt over your head. Jungkook slips on his boxers and sits next to you, pulling your feet into his lap and caressing your ankles.

Fingers fiddling in your lap, you chew on your lip as you think about the path that lies ahead. There is still so much left unanswered and it terrifies you.

You have to bury your brother and the Dragons need a new leader. Your only tie to the gang is now gone. The gang would never kick you out of the house, but without Namjoon you have no reason to be involved in this world. But you also have nowhere else to go.

Then there’s Jungkook, who is a longstanding member of the very gang who is probably responsible for Namjoon’s death. It’s not like they would welcome you into their fray even with him gone. Everyone knows you’re his sister. You love Jungkook and you want to be with him more than anything, but you don’t know a way around all the obstacles still in your path.

Jungkook gently tucks a stray hair behind your ear, his eyes silently questioning if you’re alright. You affirm him with a nod.

He leaves soon after because you still have so much to sort out. Although, not before putting his number back into your phone and kissing you goodbye. He tells you he’ll see you at the university and you can talk more then.

When you return downstairs, Namjoon is covered by a white cloth. You, Seokjin, Yoongi, and Hoseok sit in the kitchen and discuss burial plans. Yoongi has a family friend who runs a funeral home. You finish deciding on the details and a quiet tension fills the room as you all realize what you need to discuss next.

“So, how do we go about finding out who did this?” Hoseok starts the daunting conversation.

“It was obviously the fucking Wolves,” Yoongi snarls.

“Yeah, but not all of them,” you say. “The gang as a whole would never do something so stupid and reckless.”

“You think it was some rogue member?” Seokjin asks.

“That or a small faction who is itching to start a war,” you respond.

“Well they got what they wanted,” Yoongi says as he crosses his arms. “I’m going to Bangchan tomorrow to challenge them to a brawl. On the condition that if they give up the coward who did this, no one else gets hurt.”

“You think it will work?” Hoseok questions.

“Wait, you want more people, our people, to possibly get hurt?” You don’t see the logic in it. The Dragons are already down and out without your brother. A massive brawl between the two gangs will only make things worse.

“Someone has to be punished, Y/N,” Yoongi answers. “I’ll let them decide if it’s one or all of them.”

You know that Yoongi’s decision is final. He was Namjoon’s right hand man and is most likely to take over as leader. But that doesn’t mean you won’t do whatever it takes to stop it from happening.

Jungkook finds you after your classes end for the day. You run straight into his arms when you see him, wrapping yourself around his neck and inhaling his familiar scent. His hands sneak below your shirt and rub soothing circles on your waist and back. He kisses you before you go somewhere private to talk.

Sitting down outside the large double doors of the university, you reach across the wooden table to take his hands. It feels odd, but soothing being here together again after months of not crossing paths. When you glance around, you see the same path you took as you were skipping ahead of him after taking an exam. In the opposite direction, there’s a small cove where Jungkook fingered you and kissed you like he needed it more than oxygen. That was shortly before the incident with your brother. The prettier memories of your relationship are all around you.

Inhaling deeply, you squeeze his hands before telling him everything you know.

“There’s going to be a fight in three days unless the Wolves give up the person or people responsible for Namjoon’s death. If they do, the brawl is off,” you explain.

Jungkook is playing with your fingers as he listens to you.

“That won’t work,” Jungkook states. “We would never give up one of our own even if he did do something as cowardly as murdering someone in cold blood.”

“I know,” you agree. “That’s why we have to figure out who did this before then and give them up ourselves.”

“It won’t be easy, pretty,” Jungkook admits. He lets go and leans back before sighing and running his fingers through his hair. “Everyone knows about you and I. They won’t let anything slip around me or my friends.” You chew on your bottom lip as you contemplate your options. Jungkook watches you before taking a deep breath. “If the brawl goes down… you know I’ll have to be there, right, pretty?”

You nod with a far away look in your eyes.

“I know. That’s why it has to work. I can’t lose you, too,” you whisper without looking at him.

Jungkook kisses the back of your hands, tilting his head to bring your attention to him. His pretty doe eyes are hesitant, not wanting to leave you like this, but you assure him you’re fine before standing.

He still drops you off at the same spot to avoid any unnecessary tension if he’s spotted near the house. You kiss him goodbye through the driver’s side window before venturing home.

Upon returning home, you notice the classical music playing from the stereo before anything else. You recognize the song and already know who’ll be there before entering the room. Seokjin sits with a bottle of whiskey in one hand and a glass of ice in the other. Everyone else must either be out or in their rooms. You sit next to him and gesture for the bottle. He passes it unceremoniously over to you.

“We swore Yoongi in tonight,” Seokjin tells you.

“He’ll do good,” you reply. You look at the bottle and swirl the liquid around inside. “He’s always been prudent.”

“Yeah,” Seokjin sighs.

You put the bottle down and reach for Seokjin’s arm instead. Squeezing it, he looks at you with glassy eyes.

“I miss him already, too,” you breathe.

Seokjin flashes you a hollow smile.

“There was still so much we wanted to do together,” he muses. Seokjin looks down at his hand, stretching his fingers out and flexing it. “He just bought us matching rings. We were gonna wear them on different fingers so no one caught on.”

“Bought? My brother?”

Seokjin genuinely smiles at that.

“Can you believe it? He said he didn’t want something like that to be stolen. That I deserve to be paid for,” Seokjin explains.

You relax against the chair.

“Yeah, that sounds like him,” you say.

“I know you two weren’t on good terms at the time, but it doesn’t change how deeply he loved you,” Seokjin continues.

“I know,” you reply.

“He didn’t…” Seokjin sighs, mulling over his next words carefully. “He was pissed about you sleeping with a Wolf, don’t get me wrong, but he didn’t do what he did out of cruelty. He was our leader. If he looked the other way and people found out, they would've started to doubt his ability to do whatever necessary for the gang.” Seokjin sits forward to meet your eyes. “I know that doesn’t make it any better, but I wanted you to know. He only ever wanted two things for you, Y/N. To be happy and to be safe.”

“Jungkook does both of those things for me,” you say.

“Good,” Seokjin smiles.

You squeeze his arm one last time before leaving him alone with the whiskey bottle.

Time soldiers on with each tick of the clock, every second bringing you closer to the inevitable truth that this brawl is going to happen. Jungkook tells you he’s doing his best, but the truth is harder to scrounge for than originally anticipated.

The truth comes too late.

The night of the brawl, you do what you swore you never would and drive Namjoon’s motorcycle down the unfamiliar streets to the Wolf’s Den. You’re wearing his biker jacket, too. The Dragons had it cleaned and the patches re-embroidered before gifting it to you.

Jungkook meets you at the back of the house and sneaks you into his room in the basement. Despite your terror about tonight, finally seeing his room brings a smile to your face.

“I like it,” you say as you run your fingers down the leather jacket on his chair.

Jungkook takes a seat on the bed while your eyes comb over the pieces of him scattered around the room. A picture of him and his parents, a drawing of an adorable white dog who looks like a cloud, his boxing gloves. It’s comforting being so entirely surrounded by him.

Pulling you by the waist, Jungkook brings you to stand between his legs. His hands caress you from your thighs to your stomach before he leans in and kisses your navel, then rests his forehead against you. You comb your fingers through his hair, admiring the pretty black strands. He hums peacefully at the feeling. Being with him like this makes it easy to forget reality looming on the other side of the door, lying in wait for you to return to it.

“You’ll stay back as much as possible, right? Avoid the big guys?” You ask him.

Jungkook sighs, leaning back on his hands and tracing over your features with his eyes.

“Pretty, you know I can’t do that,” he responds.

Nodding with your lip between your teeth, you avoid his eyes. Anger and fear mix together in your stomach and make you want to be sick. Your brother is dead and now the man you love is on the precipice of the same fate. You already lost him once and you refuse to do it again.

“So, you just…” your sentence dies in your throat. There aren’t enough words to explain the heaviness you feel.

Jungkook stands and brings you to his chest. You hit him to make him let you go, but your body is already betraying you and melting into his embrace. You bury your face into his shirt, inhaling his scent and letting it envelope you in familiarity.

“Please, don’t go,” you beg him. “I love you, Jungkook. I can’t –,” you cut yourself off before your emotions can drown you. “Just… please.”

Jungkook’s fingers use your chin to bring your lips to his. It’s a quick kiss, barely a peck before he moves to kiss the corner of your mouth and then your cheek.

“I love you, too, Y/N. I love you more than I can even comprehend, but this is my family we’re talking about. I have a responsibility to them, too,” he tells you.

You don’t fight him on it anymore. There’s no strength left within you to do so. Your mental fortitude is cracking and crumbling into ash all around you. Most of all, you don’t want what could possibly be your last moments together to happen in anger.

Harsh banging forces you apart as someone tells Jungkook it’s time to go. He cradles your face in his hands and kisses you ardently. It feels like goodbye and tastes like grief. You use his lips as an altar and pray to the angels and the saints and maybe even the demons to keep him safe and bring him home to you unscathed. You promise them you’ll be joining them soon if they don’t.

Jungkook sneaks you back out as the Wolves gather in the road on their idling motorcycles. He leaves you with a final kiss to your lips and forehead, where he whispers how much he loves you one more time.

You watch helplessly as your eyes trace his figure moving further and further away from you. He throws an arm around who you can only assume is Taehyung as Jimin follows closely behind. You don’t look away until you’re unable to follow him any longer. His bike carrying him away from you along with the rest of his gang.

A twig snaps, or maybe fate pulls at your shoulder, and you look up just as a few stragglers are heading to leave. You recognize the familiar face as though you last saw him yesterday, and not over a decade ago. The blood in your veins courses through you at sub-zero temperatures and freezes around your organs.

Realization slams into you with the force of a brick wall. You need to tell the others that you know who took Namjoon from you.

Running across the yard as fast as your legs can carry you, your hands shake as you work to secure your helmet. Your leg swings over the leather seat and you throttle the engine. The bike roars to life and you don’t waste a second before taking off down the street.

One motorcycle can get somewhere a lot faster than twenty five can, but they already have a decent head start.

Your heart is pounding so loud you can hear it in your ears as the buildings fly by in streaks of blurry light. It rained earlier and the water from the road is whipping up at your legs. All of your senses feel overloaded by the anxiety taking root within you.

You have no clue what you’re going to do when reach the gangs, and if the fight has already started, it will be too dangerous to intervene.

Jungkook flashes across your mind, and you can already picture the expression of worry and concern he’ll have when you arrive. He’s going to be so angry with you for putting yourself in harm’s way, and Yoongi, Seokjin, and Hoseok will be the same. You can’t concern yourself with their potential anger right now. All that matters is getting to them.

The brawl is taking place at the old salt mill which still stands on the edge of the city. It’s a massive open air factory built on acres of farmland. The last time you saw it, the steel walls were beginning to tear and the foundation cracking.

Despite its dilapidation, it’s the perfect location for fifty or so men to beat and kill each other without anyone noticing.

The monumental building comes into view in the distance and as you approach you see all the motorcycles lined up along the road.

Parking next to the familiar motorcycles belonging to the Dragons, you grant yourself the reprieve of a single deep breath before diving headfirst into the danger ahead.

The engine has barely begun to cool when you throw your helmet off. Your feet propel you forward across the wet pavement towards the factory. Your shoes meet puddles as you run and the water splashes against your bare legs.

Looking down at your attire, you almost scoff. Namjoon would be so mad at you for not looking the part. You’re about to run into a room of fifty armed men wearing a pleated skirt and frilly pink blouse. At least Namjoon’s jacket still resting on your shoulders makes you look a little bit tougher.

You can just make out the figures amongst the processing equipment and huge piles of salt left behind by the manufacturers. The mountains of salt surround the two gangs and make it look as though they’re in the center of an arena. As you move forward, you see Yoongi and Bangchan standing in the space between the two gangs.

They’re probably discussing the “rules” and deciding which weapons will be allowed. It’s a pointless conversation to make themselves feel better. You’re certain that every man in there brought a gun to this knife fight.

“Wait!” You shout when you’re in earshot, traversing over rusted machinery and scattered salt. You speak again once you’re inside. “Stop!”

Yoongi is looking at you incredulously, his eyes burning with a protective fury. Seokjin and Hoseok mirror his expression from where they stand on the far right and left of the Dragons. Your eyes catch motion in your peripheral vision, and you see Jungkook already moving through the crowd to get to you.

Yoongi grabs your arm and tugs you back into the crowd of Dragons, standing so that his body is shielding you from the Wolves across the room. He opens his mouth to no doubt scold you and demand an explanation, but he doesn’t get the chance. A cacophony of noises and voices stops him.

“Hey –”

“Get off me.”

“What the fuck are you doing?”

“Dude, what the hell.”

“Heesung –”

Your eyes widen in horror as you take in the scene over Yoongi’s shoulder. He sees your expression and turns to follow your gaze.

The Wolves have all moved back into a U shape which highlights two figures standing to the left, next to a massive pile of salt. The flood lights on the ceiling bounce off the bright white and bathe the two of them in an unnatural light.

Jungkook jerks his right arm back to get the man holding him across the shoulders to let go. He grunts and tries to elbow him in the stomach, but stops short when he feels something cool and sharp press against his jugular.

There’s a silver glint from where the light catches on the blade pushing against Jungkook’s throat. Your eyes snap shut involuntarily as a paralyzing fear overtakes your nervous system.

“Y/N…” The man sing-songs in a tone so eerie it creeps up your spine like weeds.

You didn’t think this through. Didn’t account for what Heesung would do when he’s backed into a corner.

“Heesung, please let him go,” you beg cautiously, not wanting to make a single miscalculation. “He doesn’t have anything to do with this.”

A wave of confusion crosses over Jungkook’s face at your familiarity with his fellow Wolf.

Heesung laughs at your plea and the knife presses harder against Jungkook’s skin. A single bead of blood trails down his throat.

Jungkook knows he’s stronger than Heesung, that he can overpower him with ease, but he can’t bring himself to fight when he sees you across the room. You’re shaking, your eyes so sorrowful it breaks his heart, and your lip trembles where it’s clenched between your teeth. He has something to live for now, someone to come home to, and he can’t risk Heesung’s knife going anywhere it shouldn’t.

“Doesn’t he?” Heesung retorts. “He is your lover, yes? So I should kill him, too, just like I killed Namjoon and leave you with no one so you’ll be just like me.”

His confession permeates through the air, stunning both gangs into a weighted silence. You feel Yoongi go stiff by your side.

“No,” you whimper. “You can just take me instead. That would be enough, right? Enough revenge? Enough penance for what we did to you?”

“Y/N,” Jungkook snaps at you, but Heesung shushes him.

Heesung studies you for a moment before shaking his head, the knife pressing down again and making Jungkook gasp for air.

“No, Y/N. Nothing will ever be enough,” Heesung snarls.

Time seems to slow once the words leave him, because before anyone in the room can even take their next breath, a gunshot rings out.

“No!”

Your scream is nearly simultaneous with the gunshot itself, following it by only a millisecond.

Your view of Jungkook and Heesung gets forcefully taken from you in an instant. The only thing you see is blood splattering and dispersing into the air where their heads were a moment ago. The ricochet and a body falling to the floor sends salt up into the air and covers the entire scene in a white cloud.

There are no words for the emotions that overtake you in the moment before the blood and salt settle. It feels like fear at first, but the word is too small in comparison. Panic, terror, dread, none of them are heavy enough. Grief moves in like fog across the morning air. You wait with bated breath to see if it will break and the sun will peak through the clouds.

Someone coughs, and then they stumble out from the cloud of salt with ragged breaths and wide eyes. He’s covered in blood splatter, the thick liquid matting down his hair and soiling his shirt, but it’s clear none of it is his own.

“Jungkook!”

Your feet can’t bring you to him fast enough. When they do, you throw your arms around his neck as your entire body shakes. Jungkook is still delirious, the gunshot throwing off his equilibrium. But then he feels your warmth against him, grounding him, and his arms latch around your waist.

“It’s okay. I’m alright,” he assures you. His hand sinks into your hair as he pulls you closer, causing your back to arch into him and your heels to lift from the floor. He kisses across your temple, cheek, and hairline.

Your very soul releases a sigh of relief as you sink deeper into his embrace.

The sound of a pistol chamber clicking back into place catches your attention. As the salt slowly falls to the ground like snow, you turn your head to see Seokjin standing behind it. He’s cleaning the gun with a rag as he looks at the body before him in disgust.

“Seokjin,” you say to grab his attention.

He looks up at you with the tiniest of smiles on his lips. If you didn’t know the features of his face you wouldn’t be able to notice it. It’s solemn and peaceful, like he’s finally laying something to rest.

“Didn’t mean to ruin the fun, but that asshole was really pissing me off,” he states. “Can we call this an eye for an eye and be done, Bangchan? I’m not sure you want someone willing to kill one of his own in your ranks anyway.”

Bangchan looks so utterly confused at the whole display that he has to shake his head before gathering his thoughts.

“Yeah,” he finally answers. “We’re done here.”

His words give way for the Wolves to mosey out of the factory, their whispers of confusion following them out to the road. Yoongi tells the Dragons to get home, too, before making his way over to where you’re still clinging to Jungkook.

“You want to tell me what the hell just happened?”

Jungkook squeezes your waist, nods and tells you it’s alright, before letting you go and joining Taehyung and Jimin near the exit. You watch Jimin grasp his shoulder and pull him in for a hug. Taehyung messes with his hair affectionately.

You ride home on Namjoon’s motorcycle while his friends lead the way. No one speaks until you’re sitting in Yoongi’s room together, passing a bottle of whiskey around. You only begin to talk after taking a slow, poignant sip of the liquor.

“You guys already know Namjoon and I ran away from home because our parents were physically and verbally abusive. But we swore never to tell anyone about what happened the day we left. Namjoon couldn’t bring himself to say it out loud even if he wanted to,” you begin before taking another burning sip of alcohol. “We left just after midnight and snuck out of the house down the fire escape. Our neighbor, Mrs. Lee, spotted us as we were climbing down. She realized what we were doing right away, so she grabbed me so we couldn’t run. I fought against her so hard, but she just wouldn’t let go.” You place your hands between your knees to stop them from shaking. “Namjoon shot her so we could get away. He didn’t have a choice. Our parents would’ve killed us that very night if he hadn’t.” You exhale somberly. “We only realized as we were running down the street that her son was outside and saw the whole thing. We grew up with Heesung. He was our friend. It… it was never meant to happen that way.”

“Oh, Y/N,” Hoseok grabs your hand and it makes you smile just a hair.

With Heesung’s death comes relief, and your hunger for vengeance is satiated, but the cruelty of fate still nips at your subconscious.

Heesung and Namjoon are two sides of a tragic coin. Neither one deserving of the cards they were dealt, and bound by the lingering strings of a tragedy which became their demise. The domino effect of a lifetime worth of decisions now ends with you, the last one standing.

“You and Namjoon both endured far more than you deserve,” Yoongi says. “But that’s all behind you now, and that Wolf of yours seems to make you pretty happy.”

You laugh and it feels real for the first time in a while.

“I think we can make an exception to the rules, don’t you?” Seokjin asks his new leader.

“Yes, I believe so,” Yoongi agrees.

Yoongi tells you Jungkook can visit as long as you’re with him the entire time, and he doesn’t leave your room. He allows it because you’re his best friends’ little sister and he loves you like his own. You’ve been through so much in your life already, and he isn’t going to keep a source of happiness from you. You’re so thankful that you force him into a tight embrace, which he pretends to begrudgingly accept, when he’s actually more than happy to return the affection.

Jungkook comes over, with permission this time, the very next day. You lie between his legs on your bed while he shows you how to drift in Mario Kart. You’re downright terrible at it, and he has to place his fingers over yours to prevent a loss on his account. When you inevitably do lose, and his overall ranking drops, his tongue presses to his cheek as he stares you down.

The next thing you know, he’s taking the Switch from you and gently setting it down on the nightstand before turning his attention back to you. He moves his hands down your body from your hips until he reaches your inner thighs and tugs your legs apart. His fingers are quick to find their way to your folds, touching you over your underwear. Your head falls to his shoulder as you moan softly.

“I should piss you off more often,” you muse.

His fingers are just running up and down your slit over the lace of your panties and it’s both not enough and too much simultaneously. He pushes down, causing the fabric to rub against your clit and you gasp, your hand gripping his arm to keep yourself steady.

“I wouldn’t try it,” he warns. His lips are right against your ear and the deepness of his voice sends shivers down your spine. Then he’s kissing your neck and your mind becomes too hazy to reply.

Jungkook moves your underwear to the side as he’s sucking on your neck and pushes into your cunt without warning. Your other hand curls around his head and grabs onto his hair. It’s pathetic how wet you already are, but the squelching sound your pussy makes as his fingers pump in and out is worth the embarrassment.

You’re restless, needing more of him than he’s currently providing you.

“Wanna ride you,” you tell him between your moans and sharp intakes of air. Jungkook is more than willing to oblige your request.

Which is how you end up on top of him, his cock meeting your cervix repeatedly as you alternate between bouncing up and down and grinding against his hips. His hands are everywhere at first, tracing your outline and massaging over any skin within his reach. But then his right arm, which is so beautifully decorated in tattoos, traverses the familiar path of your chest, stopping to pinch your nipple, before wrapping around your throat.

“Oh, fuck,” you moan as your head tips back. The position gives you such a beautiful view of him and his tattoos. You remind yourself to ask him about them soon. A pretty tiger lily is staring you in the face, but then Jungkook squeezes your throat and it becomes a blur of orange and black.

“Always so good for me,” he whispers while sitting up. His lips find yours, his arm securing you to him so you can bounce on him easier. His hand is still on your throat, softly squeezing the sides of it to pleasure you without harm. “My pretty baby,” he says once he moves to sucking on your earlobe and down your neck, just above his own fingers. "Always take my cock so fucking well."

He makes you come twice, because he just loves you that much, before fucking his cum into you as he thrusts his swollen cock into your cunt.

Once your pussy is battered and filled to the brim with his cum, you fall over onto his chest. You can feel him softening inside you, but don’t want to lose the feeling of him just yet.

Jungkook kisses you slowly, licking across your bottom lip and pulling at it with his teeth. You lazily make out as your hands traverse his naked chest. His fingertips create goosebumps where they skim along your spine. You could stay like this forever without a single complaint.

“I love you,” he whispers on your lips. He says it so quietly, as if he’s trying to hide the proclamation from the rest of the world and keep it just for you.

You’re smiling when you kiss him again.

“I love you,” you parrot.

After he finally does pull out, you lie naked together under the covers as Jungkook plays with your hair, twirling it and attempting a makeshift braid while you draw shapes on his skin with your fingers. It’s quiet and peaceful inside your mind for the first time in a long time. Jungkook kisses your forehead and you look over at him with a smile.

Jungkook licks his lips and pulls you up with him until your backs are against the headboard. He finally asks you to enlighten him about why he had a blade to his neck the night prior. You relay the story to him as you did with your brother’s friends.

Jungkook looks rightfully shocked, but he processes his own emotions quickly to offer you comfort instead.

“I’m so sorry you had to go through that, pretty,” he says. “If you ever wanna talk about it some more, you know I’m always here, right?”

“I know,” you affirm. “I’m here for you, too.”

“God, we’re both fucked up,” Jungkook chuckles.

You nod in agreement.

“It doesn’t have to stay that way, you know,” you propose. “We graduate next year and with Joonie gone there isn’t anything left for me here. I’ll stay until I can afford a place of my own, but then I’m putting this life behind me.” You readjust so you’re looking at Jungkook directly. “And I want you to join me. You’re so fucking smart, Jungkook, and anywhere would be lucky to have you.”

Jungkook hums, tilting his head as he thinks over your words.

“I don’t know what I want right now, pretty, but I do know that I wanna be wherever you are,” he confesses. You’re smiling at him as though he hung the stars in the sky himself. “Is that enough for now?”

Your eyes flit over all the details of him. His wavy black hair, big chocolate brown eyes, and the piercings decorating his pretty lips and eyebrow. He looks so different from the boy you met at school and yet everything is so irrevocably him. You smile, bending down so your noses touch.

“It’s more than enough,” you tell him.

732 notes · View notes

celestie0 · 29 days ago

Text

gojo satoru x reader | fake marriage au [18+]

in holy matriphony ch9. counting sheep

ᰔ pairing. fake marriage au - neighbor&realtor!gojo x nurse!reader (ft. choso x reader & suguru x reader)

ᰔ summary. gojo satoru is your extremely annoying next-door-neighbor who you're pretty sure is the most insufferable man you've ever met. given the fact that you exclusively work the night shift at a chaotic emergency department, just got broken up with your boyfriend of 7 years, and have been taking care of your sick mother ever since her multitude of diagnoses, yet somehow your neighbor is the main source of stress in your life should speak volumes. but when your mother's medical bills start to skyrocket to more than you can manage, and you learn that said neighbor of yours has the best private health insurance plan in the country, you ask him to enter a matrimonial agreement with you for the spousal benefits all in the name of saving a few hundred thousand dollars. but you'll have to see if suffering cohabitation with him is worth any amount of money.

ᰔ genre/tags. fluff, smut, angst, enemies to lovers (sort of), annoyances to lovers (that's more like it), small town romance, fake marriage, next door neighbors, lots of bickering, suburban shenanigans, slow burn, mutual pining, gojo likes to play house but you don't, hatred for the american healthcare system, gojo always forgets to mow the lawn, jealousy, an insane amount of profanity, mentions of cigarettes, depression/anxiety; btw slight age gap bc gojo in this fic is 34 n reader is 29

ᰔ warnings. reader in this fic has a sick mother w alzheimer's & cancer so there is secondary medical angst!!

ᰔ chapter. 9/x

ᰔ words. 20k

a/n. hellooo my lovely ihm readers!! thank you so much for tuning into another chapter of ihm :'') it means sm to me. as always i don't have much to say here lol but i'll see you at the bottom for some notes!!! hope you enjoyy. apologies for any typos or mistakes i was in a bit of a rush editing this lol

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Counting sheep.

It was the only thing that helps you sleep now.

For as long as you can remember, it was how you ended every night.

You’re not exactly sure when the habit started. Was it when you graduated nursing school and began to work the night shift? And you were awake at 3am, feeling stranded at sea in your own home on your days off, with 15mg of melatonin in your bloodstream yet it still was never enough to put your thoughts at ease or your bones to rest.

Or was it ever since your mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s? How about cancer? Was that when it became too terrifying to close your eyes at night because you feared you’d miss something that wasn’t meant to be missed?

There are days where you do feel tired. You feel sluggish, wearisome, somewhat feverish. Tonight was one of those nights. Wearing a white lace nightgown, one far too big on you as the hem drags across the fabric of the upstairs loft, you cross your arms across your chest to keep yourself warm as your fingers soothingly rub the taut skin over your elbows.

It was the dead of night, no light other than the pale moon casting its glow onto the surface beneath your feet through the windows as you put one step in front of the other, meandering towards the master bedroom.

Gojo isn’t home tonight. He’s away for the weekend for some conference for work that his brokerage firm sent him on. Something about new foreign sales techniques and investment strategies. He shared the brochure with you so that you didn’t have to ask too many questions, but you would’ve preferred the conversation with him over lines of text to read. Two months ago, you would’ve preferred the former. It’s funny how fast things can change.

You almost wish you worked every night. At least when you’re at the emergency department, you’re surrounded by life, even in the face of death. There’s fluorescent lighting above you, the beeping noises of machinery, the airy sound of the overhead announcements at every hospitalist callback, code call, and triage update. Your coworkers were there along with you, that sense of camaraderie making it easier on you.

But on your nights off, you often find yourself wafting around the halls and rooms of the house, almost like a ghost haunting every corner, finally coming out of hiding in the safety of silence. There are nights where you do this for hours. Seriously, hours. Until your calves hurt and you’re starving but can’t bring yourself to do anything other than the routine foot in front of the other.

You finally push into the master bedroom with a weak palm on the door, the inside air chilly to your senses, and you figure that you’re not truly a ghost if you know what cold feels like.

The bed is neatly made up, as Gojo had tidied it up before he left, and as it always is in the hours where he’s not resting in it. You wonder if he sets it up right after waking up, if it’s some sort of ritual for him.

Without thinking, without glancing at any other corner of the room as if you’d find something waiting in one of them that would frighten you, you slip into the heavy covers that are foreign to you, but the familiar scent of him envelopes you in its entirety, relaxing every bone in your body.

The warmth is welcome. Head heavy on the pillow, you close your eyes.

You wonder what sort of sights your mother is seeing right now. Is she also asleep? Is she peacefully dreaming? You wonder if she remembers you in her dreams, at the very least.

One sheep, two sheep.

You wonder what sort of sights Choso sees right now. You’re scared to find out. He would always be a phone call away for you on nights like this, where you couldn’t sleep. And on some, he would be right there with you. How does he spend these hours of the night now if not to comfort you? Does he feel it as less of a burden now?

Three sheep, four sheep, five.

You wonder what sort of sights Gojo is seeing right now. And when you can’t picture anything at all, besides the dusty fan of a hotel room hanging from the ceiling, you realize you don’t know him. Even laying in his bed, surrounded by the ghost of his presence, surrounded by the proof of his life in this room, you realize you don’t even know what his favorite color is or how he likes his eggs in the morning. Or if he ever thinks of you sometimes, too.

Six sheep, seven. Eight. Nine.

Ten.

Eleven.

Twelve sheep.

You’ll be better tomorrow.

Thirteen.

Fourteen.

Fifteen sheep.

Happier. You’ll be happier.

Sixteen, seventeen, eighteen.

Tomorrow will be better.

Nineteen, twenty.

Tomorrow, you’ll be a better person.

Twenty one, twenty two.

Someone new.

Someone you’re happy to be.

Twenty three.

It’s a promise.

——————

“Hey. Did you sleep in my bed while I was gone?”

You glance up from where you’re leaning your hip against the kitchen island, completing this morning’s crossword puzzle because of course Gojo is the only person in the neighborhood that actually picks the newspaper up from his driveway.

“Five letter word for communications device? Any ideas?”

“Phone. Now answer me.”

“Mmm….nope, starts with an r.” You tap the eraser end of the pencil to your bottom lip, deep in thought.

“Radio.”

“Oh! Thank you,” you say before you set the paper down on the table and scribble in the letters. “And no, I didn’t. It’s the same way you left it, no?”

“I always tuck the corners.”

“Of fucking course you do.”

He sighs, turning around to face you, leaning back on the kitchen island as his espresso machine rumbles quietly before slowly dripping out a shot. “Just be honest with me, y/n. Because if it wasn’t you, I’m going to need to get cameras installed everywhere around the house.”

You sigh. “Yes…I slept in your bed.”

“How come?”

“Change of scenery.”

“Really? That’s it?”

You let out a slow exhale.

You know what sucked about having slept in Gojo’s bed?

Is that you slept like a baby.

For the first time in such a long time, you slept just fine.

And the slightest dusting of a blush brushes across your cheeks when you realize it’s probably because the scent of him on those sheets was in some way comforting to you.

You wish you could write it off as some weird pheromone biological response,

But you had a professor in college who told you that humans have no such thing as pheromonal responses.

You simply like the way he smells.

You glance up at him again. He’s stirring something into his cup of coffee now.

“I don’t know. I’ve been having trouble sleeping lately,” you say, and by lately, you mean years, “and just…felt like trying something different would help.”

“And did it?”

“What?”

“Did sleeping in my bed help?”

Your eyes widen, not expecting the direct question.

“I–...” you start, “...yes, actually. It helped a lot.”

He shrugs his shoulders. “Alright. Just sleep in the master then.”

“What–...but–”

“I’ll sleep in the guest bedroom. It’s all the same to me.”

You blink at him, confused because you thought he meant sleep…together. As in, in the same bed. And even if that wasn’t exactly what he meant, he still one-hundred percent would’ve at least tried to tease you about it. So you’re surprised that he didn’t.

You straighten your spine up, narrowing your eyes at him slightly, contemplating his words and his offer, and push your hand into your hair and scratch at your scalp. And scratch. And scratch a little bit more.

Gojo watches you the whole time.

“Uh,” he starts, “I mean this in the nicest way possible…but don’t you think you should wash your hair? It looks a little…”

“Mm?” you look at him, wide-eyed, “a little what?” You ask with innocence as you continue to scratch your scalp.

“You’re really going to make me say it?”

“Say what?”

He sighs. “It looks a little greasy.”

A soft, offended gasp leaves your lips.

“Wh—......What?!?!?”

You hate him with a burning passion (most of the time), yes, it’s true.

But, and it’s torturous to admit this to yourself, he’s right.

You do have a tendency, and a somewhat misfortunate habit, of neglecting washing your hair when you’re busy.

You’ve worked five night shifts this week, ran back and forth between your mom’s hospice because she had a UTI and became septic again, you’ve been running around trying to get everything in order in your house so that you can sell it as soon as possible, and every night when you get home, you sit down at your desk only to be reminded of how much debt you’re in. You’ve barely had enough time to think about yourself, and although you never neglect a daily shower, it’s possible that you may have forgotten to wash your hair while you’re in there.

You let out a huff of hair, narrowing a glare at Gojo before crossing your arms across your chest. “I seriously cannot believe you’re insinuating that I look ugly.”

“Woah, woah, woah,” he says, setting his mug down in order to put his hands out in front of him in vindication, “I never said you were ugly.”

“You just said my hair looks greasy.”

“You still look nice, just…. a little greasy. Like a french fry. But who doesn’t love french fries?”

“Satoru!”

“I’m joking,” he laughs, “well, not about your hair being greasy. But, what I’m saying is, you still look hot. In your own…weird way.”

“I seriously want to slap you.”

He crosses the distance between the two of you in one stride to where he’s now standing in front of you, and you blink up at him in a panic when his hands slide across the island countertop on either side of you, caging you into it.

“Go ahead,” he says with a boyish grin on his face, dangerously close to you as his gaze flickers down to your lips.

“Has this weird attraction of yours towards me only begun simply because I threaten to physically injure you all the time?” you ask him, narrowing your gaze further as you look up into piercing blue eyes that look darker to you somehow, more dilated.

“No, I’ve always thought you were hot,” he says, his gaze moving up to make eye contact with you, as if he really wants you to know he’s being honest, “since the day I met you.”

Your heart feels like it’s beating a mile a minute in your chest. “Then why do you always roast the hell out of me?”

“Because I like to,” he says, gaze dropping to your lips again, and this time his tongue passes over his own, “and because I know you can take it.” He leans further into you, that scent of his that you like so much sending your head into a dizzy haze to where you can’t even think, the heat from his body felt against your own. “Not a lot of women can.”

Your blush doesn’t just reach your cheeks, it’s a heat that you feel spread across your entire body. “Th–...That’s offensive to women.”

He tilts his head at you, now studying the slight sheen to your lips. “Can we just skip the part where you rant about the patriarchy so I can kiss you already?”

You push your palm up against his chin, entirely swerving the kiss, making sure his face is looking straight up towards the sky so he knows exactly where you’re going to send him if he ever calls you a french fry ever again, and then say, “go fuck yourself.”

“What–”

You duck underneath his arm that was still caging you into the kitchen counter, swiftly moving past him as he stays still in his confining position, blinking at you with dumb blue eyes as you stomp across the living room towards the front entrance.

“I’m leaving,” you shout out, “and I’m taking your car,” you grab his keys, “And I’m–” You see his wallet at the foyer table, flip it open, and pull out some bills, “and I’m taking a hundred-and-twenty bucks. Don’t ask questions.” And before you could even give him a chance to verbally express any confusion, you’re out the door, and slamming it shut behind you.

——————

“Hana, please, I’m begging you. I’ll even pay for brunch!” you say into the receiver of your phone as you stroll the ashy paved sidewalks of Dayton county’s downtown during a rather busy Saturday afternoon. “Your French boyfriend’s uncircumcised penis can’t be that fuckin’ good for you to blow me off like this when we’ve had these plans for weeks!”

You hush your voice towards the end of the sentence because you remember that you are quite literally in public.

“I know, I know, I’m so, so, so sorry,” Hana’s voice comes off somewhat distant in the phone, “he just looks so pale, and he’s been running an insane fever, I’d hate to leave him like this.”

“Yeah, okay, whatever happened to hoes before sexy Frenchmen, I’ll never know,” you sigh into the phone and then hang up on her, but right as you pull the phone from your ear, you trip over a crookedly lined cement panel on the ground, gasping as you stumble forward, barely able to steady your feet but at the expense of your phone slipping out of your hand and devastatingly towards the hard, rocky ground–

Before it gets caught about six inches above the surface by a rather large, masculine hand.

You blink at the sight, then trace the hand up into the arm, and eventually up into the face of the person that was sitting at this outdoor cafe’s table, and just so happened to have enough arm wingspan to prevent you from having to sell your kidney in order to buy a new phone.

He blinks at you with deep purple eyes, his lashes splaying over his upper cheeks as he glances down at your phone again, as if he himself is surprised by his own reflexes, before his gaze flickers up to yours again.

You straighten your spine, now looking down at him. He looks painfully familiar. Glossy long black hair underneath a sun high in the sky, half of it tied up and out of his face, but with some strands that have escaped the confinement, tendrils that frame his sharp jaw and complement his complexion. He sits cross-legged, dressed in all black with some sort of sophistication that makes him easily look like an outcast in a run-down town like this, but he doesn’t seem to even remotely hide the fact that he doesn’t belong.

And that’s when you remember.

That he doesn’t belong here.

“Ah! It’s you,” you exclaim.

His eyes widen slightly as the recognition of you flashes across his face as well.

“The mysterious man who drinks pulp-free orange juice made for kids,” you continue.

He blinks a couple times before his face relaxes into an easy smile. “Weren’t you eyeing the same carton?”

“That–” you stutter, “……...it’s very possible.”

He lets out a short exhale through his nose, somewhat reminiscent of a laugh.

“Here,” the man says, stretching his arm out towards you to hand you your phone, “I would really put a case on that, though.”

You take the device from him somewhat hesitantly, the pads of your fingers brushing against the side of his palm. You notice he doesn’t really let go of the phone until he’s sure that it’s in your hand.

“I know…” you say, assessing your phone for scratches, which you hope he doesn’t take as an insult to the efficacy of his reflexes, “they’re just kind of expensive,” you blurt out, immediately regretting it. Because what kind of cheap-ass do you look like, now?

“More expensive than having to get a new phone?” he questions.

“That’s fair. Although, I don’t enjoy being lectured about the wellbeing of my belongings by strangers,” you say.

“Sit, then,” he offers, gesturing to the chair in front of him across the grated black round cafe table, “let’s get acquainted.”

Slightly stunned by the proposal, yet weirdly inclined to oblige, you breathe in deeply, and then let the air out slowly as you slip into the chair across from him. Well, your plans got cancelled anyways, might as well take this opportunity to better understand this mysterious entity that has arrived in your town.

“I’m Suguru,” he says, extending his hand out to shake, and you accept it, “Suguru Geto.” The handshake is firm but you can’t help but notice that his hand feels cold to the touch.

“I’m y/n,” you say, “it’s nice to meet you. Well, formally, I guess.”

He presses his lips into a thin smile. “Likewise.” He leans forward a little, uncrossing his legs, then points towards the inside of the cafe. “Want a coffee? On me.”

“You know what, yes. I’ll have an iced vanilla latte,” you say.

It was at least somewhat of a courtesy that you ordered a quick drink to make, and one that was cheap. It really shouldn’t matter, since you would’ve just used one of the twenties that you stole out of Gojo’s wallet before you left, but it was merely a polite gesture, anyways.

“So, y/n, do you live nearby?” he asks as he takes a sip of whatever he was drinking, all you know is that he ordered it hot.

“Yes, just a few miles away,” you say, “I’ve lived here my whole life.”

“Really?”

“Yup! Dayton county, born and raised,” you chirp.

“Hmm,” he hums pleasantly, “don’t tell me you’ve lived in the same house your whole life too.”

“You’re not going to believe this.”

He laughs. “You’ll have to show me around town.”

You tilt your head at him. “You’re just visiting, right? From…” You search your mind for the memory, or if he had ever told you at all.

“New York,” he says before taking another sip. You entertain a sip from your own coffee too, wanting to match his pace.

“Oh, right, and were you able to visit those old friends you were here for?” you ask him, the memory of the conversation coming back to you somewhat.

“Ah, not really. I’m…well, I guess I’m searching for someone.”

“Searching for someone?” you snort, “what are you, Christopher Columbus? It’s the 21st century, you can’t just call them?”

He laughs again, fuller this time, coming from his chest. It’s a smooth sound, stable and sturdy. “You’re kind of charming. And way too direct.”

“Oh, I–...” you blink at him, your shoulders dropping slightly, “...I just like to get to the point.”

He laughs again, more of a close-mouthed chuckle as he glances down through the grates of the table’s surface towards the ground.

“What?” you ask, somewhat impatiently.

He shakes his head, the motion swaying some of the tendrils of dark hair that frame his face, and he brings his cup of coffee to his lips again. “Oh, nothing,” he says softly before taking a sip, “you just remind me of someone I know.”

You swallow gently, the furrow to your brow relaxing slightly. His eyes don’t meet yours, just continue to cast his gaze at the ground, but he has a rather melancholic look on his face. You love to get answers, and you love to be nosey, but you also know when a question shouldn’t be asked.

“As for why I don’t just call them,” he says suddenly, sitting up straighter in his chair, crossing his legs, pushing his shoulders back and settling into his chair more, “I don’t really think they want anything to do with me anymore.” He answers candidly.

“Why look for them then?”

His gaze flickers up towards you. “y/n, can I ask you a question?”

“Sure.”

“Do you think people can change?”

“That’s a rather cryptic question to change the topic of conversation to.”

“Just humor me for now.”

“Well, I think it goes without saying. Of course people can change.”

“Right?” he says, as if he didn’t ask the question out of skepticism, but rather to affirm his own belief. “Well, anyways, let’s just say I’m here to make amends. Tie up loose ends.”

Closure. This man wants closure.

“I don’t necessarily want to bore you with the details,” he says, “but it’s likely I won’t be leaving town until my business here is resolved.”

“What if it takes forever?”

“It won’t,” he says.

“But what if?”

As his eyes bore into you, they look muddy. Less of that purple-ish hue that you see when light reflects off of his pupils, and you notice that it has nothing to do with the light, but rather the yellow that has sunk into the irises of his eyes.

“It won’t,” he says, barely above a whisper, his smile dampening as he sees right through you.

You feel the need to change the subject.

“You know,” you say, “you’re, like, the fourth person I’ve met in the past couple of years that has come here from New York City. What’s up with that?”

“There’s a mass exodus,” he says, “out of there.”

“Really?”

“No. My lame attempt at a joke.”

“Oh,” you say dryly, “let’s, um, let’s not attempt those anymore.”

He smiles at you, like he knew that would be your exact reaction to a sloppy joke thrown into the song and dance of a first-time conversation. You dislike how well he reads you.

He leans forward on the table, setting his elbows up onto it, gaze boring into yours. “Not a huge fan of pulp-free, by the way. Just thought I’d try it.”

“So you like it with the pulp?” you ask.

He nods his head.

“I knew it. I knew you were a sociopath. Totally have the face for it.”

You find a strange pleasure in your ribs at the genuine laugh that evokes out of him.

——————

You let out a soft sigh of relief as you stroll down the streets of downtown, swinging the bag you were carrying around with the rather jovial pep to your step. You’ve been needing new shoes for a very long time, especially since being on your feet for twelve hours straight during shifts does hardly anything good for your early onset plantar fasciitis. And with the little pocket change you stole from Gojo, you now had a new pair of New Balances as well as…..four dollars and fifty-two cents left in your pocket.

It’s a bit of a windy but rather sunny day, the breeze rustling the branches of the trees that lace the otherwise nicer part of town. The part that houses all domestic tourism, likely a grand total of fifty people a year if the county was lucky. It was safe to say Dayton Council doesn’t place a lot of emphasis on hospitality towards outsiders, or tax dollars for that matter, but if you were to ever show someone new around the place, it would be to this particular more well-kept street downtown.

As you walk past a coffee shop, you catch a waft of jalapeno cream cheese bagel, the fresh scent of carbohydrates rousing a grumble from the pit of your stomach, making you aware of the fact that you were hungry. Despite the fact that you just recently parted ways from the mysterious Pulp-Free Orange Juice man hardly an hour ago, and that lemon loaf you ended up getting on your way out was still metabolizing in your bloodstream. But you realized you still wouldn’t be opposed to a cream cheese bagel at the moment.

The jingle of the little bells above the cafe’s entrance ring in your ear as you step inside, the A/C unit blowing a harsh puff down on you as it attempts to keep the heat of late August away from the cool interior. The place didn’t appear busy, but as you approached the register to place an order, a woman who was standing in line caught your eye.

She was dressed in a black suit from head to toe, with a feminine flare at the seams of her sleeves and silver silk lines running down her pants, elongating what was a very flattering figure, making her appear taller than the lift that the three inch heels of her shoes already do. And a closer look has you realize they’re Louboutins. She was easily taller than you, even without the heels. Her shoulders appear angular from the blazer of her suit, but you can tell they’re frail underneath the fabric. She has pin-straight mid-length hair that falls just past the curve of them. The ends of her hair look healthy, as if freshly cut, and she lifts her hand to toss some of it back with a delicate flick of her wrist, the gold-plating of her small watch catching your eyes. Her gaze is set upwards towards the menu, a small crinkle to her brow as she studies the words. Sophisticated and feminine were the words that came to mind as you looked at her. But the more you stare…the more you trace the feline lift of her eyes…the more you notice the slight pout of her lips…you just swear that you know her from somewhere. But–...but where?

“Excuse me, are you waiting in line?” some dude from behind you calls out.

“Ah.” You glance over your shoulder at him, “no, sorry, go ahead.” You step aside for the guy to get into line, directly behind the woman in the suit.

After taking a couple of seconds to look at the menu, you decide on what you had already decided on before you had even entered the premises–a jalapeno cream cheese bagel. You wonder if you should get something to drink too, but wait patiently in line as the old couple at the register finish ordering.

The guy who had lined up just ahead of you had sparked up a conversation with the woman in the suit. You can tell he’s trying to make friendly, if not flirty, conversation with her, and you roll your eyes. Really? Dude’s ass-crack is peeping out from the low hang of his washed out blue jeans, and his turned-backwards baseball cap on his head makes him look like that creepy middle aged guy that loiters around a skate park to sell some kids some crappy weed. What on God’s Green Earth has given him the bravado to flirt with a woman like that? Out of his league wasn’t enough to admonish the audacity. But you witness the disaster regardless.

“You from ‘round here?” you can hear him ask her.

She doesn’t even turn a single degree to look at him, just continues to stare forward with her hands folded in front of her, a chic black clutch dangling from her shoulder. “Ahh, no, just visiting.” Her voice is soothing, a little soft, one that makes it hard to eavesdrop, but you were determined.

The man looks over his shoulder behind himself towards a group of guys seated at one of the tables, and he flashes them a grin, before he turns back forward and takes a step towards the woman.

“Damn, they’re takin’ kinda long, huh?” he says to her, directly behind her ear.

“I suppose,” she says, shifting her feet forward a little to create distance.

“Well, I always say the wait’s better with a pretty view,” the dude practically purrs, dipping his nose towards the crown of her head, but far enough to where she wouldn’t get a sense of just how close he was to her. “Which is you, by the way. If it wasn’t already obvious.”

You see her shoulders rise and drop with the sigh she releases before she shifts her weight towards her right leg, crossing her left one over the other, balancing on one heel as she attempts to contain her composure. Your blood starts to boil on her behalf.

You hear the table of men off to the side laughing loudly in witness. As if in slow motion, the man’s hand lifts from his side and reaches out to grab her by the waist, “c’mon sweetheart, gimme something to work with here–”

Before you can even step in to yank him off of her, to your surprise, and likely the surprise of everyone else in the cafe, the woman elbows the man in his ribcage, making him recoil with a hurt gasp backwards, and then she swiftly spins on her heel, lifting her leg to kick the dude straight in the face, the pointy toe of her shoe digging straight into his cheek before she sends him flying off towards the left and crashing right into the table of men that had been watching this entire time.

You blink in awe, staring at the woman who gently places her foot back down onto the ground with a level of balance only a ballerina would possess, and she dusts off her hands with a disappointed look on her face. Then she turns back around to continue looking up at the menu as if the whole cafe wasn’t staring at her.

You hear the growl of one of the other men at the table, offended by the emasculation his buddy just faced, and he lunges towards the woman while her back is facing him, and in a moment of no higher-thinking, you lift your bag of New Balances and swing it so that it smacks the guy right across the face to attempt stopping him from getting any further. But all it does is smack against his cheek rather ungracefully, and then now he’s glaring at you instead.

“Uh-oh,” you say, sheepishly staring up at this tall, burly, bald man that looks like he could powder steel to dust if he wanted to.

He makes a move to grab your shoulder, and you can see the woman in your periphery reach out to try to pull you away from him, but then you remember–

You’re an ED nurse.

How many times have you had to tackle a patient because security wasn’t doing their job?

How many times have you had to roll over a patient by yourself because the techs were too busy playing hooky in the break room?

You pull your fist backwards, winding up a punch with a white-knuckled grip, fingernails digging into the skin of your palm, and it all happens in slow-motion–the moment where you slam your knuckles right into the man’s jaw with all the force you can muster, and it seems enough to where you knock out a tooth and mutilate the cartilage of the bridge of his nose.

“Oh–” you stutter, blinking with wide eyes as the man entirely recoils, hunching over, screaming a strain of profanities to himself as he holds his nose which was now bleeding all over the cafe’s floors. You glance at your hand and see blood on it as well, then up at the woman who was now staring at you with wide eyes too. Along with the rest of the cafe.

“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” the man screams over and over again, and when he lifts his head to look at you, he’s crying. Straight up tears streaming down his face with a quivering lip.

Another one of the men lunges towards you to avenge the second man who was trying to avenge the first man, and this time, you flinch backwards, tripping slightly over your ankle, giving the man enough time to almost grab your arm but in the blink of an eye, you see the woman step in front of you and she knees him straight in the sternum, making him fall backwards.

It’s at this point where the rest of the residents in the cafe finally intervene, grabbing and pinning down all of the men in the midst of this cafe altercation, so that they can’t try to hurt the two of you anymore.

You turn to the woman, eyes wide, ears ringing slightly from the adrenaline, and then you say– “thank you.”

“Gosh, no, thank you,” she says with a small laugh, politely shaking her hand in front of her as if your gratitude was the last thing necessary.

“No but seriously,” you say to her, blinking with wide eyes in awe as the chaos of pinning the men down in the background continued, hearing people shout threats to call the police, “I mean, your reflexes–...and that crazy kick! That was black-belt level of self defense.”

“Ahhh thank you,” she says, hanging her head a little in modesty before nodding, and you notice not a single one of her hairs is out of place, “I am actually a black belt in Tae Kwon Do.”

“Wow,” you say, “that’s really amazing.”

She smiles at you, then neatly tucks some of her hair behind her ear.

And she still looks so familiar.

So uncannily familiar, and yet you can’t quite place it.

Never someone you’ve met…but just someone you know somehow.

Like you’ve seen her somewhere.

But the feeling in the pit of your stomach was an unwelcome one, and not a curious one.

“Is your hand okay?” she asks you, her brows furrowing with worry as she glances down at it. You see the men being carried outside the cafe by a bunch of the other patrons.

“Oh! Yes. It’s the other guy’s blood, not mine.”

She grins at you. “You’re the cool one.” She glances over to the right at the register where the guy who was manning it was staring at her in awe. “Here, hold on one sec.” She then crosses the distance with flawless balance on her heels and a swaying set of silky hair as she makes her way up to it.

You awkwardly stand where you are before she comes back out with a small cup of water and some napkins. She grabs your hand in hers and gently starts dabbing a wet napkin to your hand to wipe the blood off of it. The gesture is somewhat tender to you with the way that she takes care in doing so. Gentle swipes of wet napkin over the valleys of bone, meticulous enough to where no red pigment dares to threaten the pearly french manicure that adorns her nails. When she’s close to you, you catch a waft of the delicate lavender perfume on her clothes.

“There! Lovely, all better,” she says, then reaches into her purse for some hand sanitizer. “But seriously, thank you,” she says, “I wasn’t expecting that other guy to lunge at me. If it wasn’t for you, that would’ve ended badly.”

“Oh, of course,” you say, “it was actually really satisfying getting to punch the shit out of someone.”

She laughs. It’s contained. “I’m glad.”

“Excuse me, ladies?” a voice towards the right calls out, and you both turn your heads to see a police officer standing there. And when he makes eye contact with you, your eyes widen. “Oh. It’s y/n.”

“Ah,” you say to him, “Leon.”

Leon was Choso’s patrol partner for most shifts, and his right-hand-man more or less. They were good friends, and have been coworkers for the past three years or so. Given you were Choso’s girlfriend for the entirety of his career as a cop so far, you’ve gotten to know a lot of his fellow deputies. From being his plus-one at Christmas parties, and BBQ picnics, and dropping into the Police Department for lunch with him on his grueling weekend shifts. Y’know. The typical girlfriend stuff.

“You’re the one that punched that guy?” Leon says with disbelief as he points his thumb over this shoulder behind him. You glance through the glass panes of the cafe and see a police car outside and another cop placing those men in handcuffs.

“Yes. What about it?”

“Damn. Would hate to see what the place looked like when Choso dumped you.”

“I’m the one that dumped him!!!!” you shout a little too loudly to vindicate yourself.

He pulls a spiral notebook out of the velcro pocket of his black vest, then clicks the pen to his chest before placing his wrist on the paper. You’re almost surprised he knows how to read and write.

“I’m going to need some testimony from you two,” he says.

The woman’s phone starts ringing in her pocket, and she says softly, “yes, just excuse me for one moment,” before she steps off to the side to take the call.

Leon glances at her over his shoulder. “Who’s your friend?”

“Huh?

He jerks his chin towards her general direction.

“The woman you’re with. She single?”

You roll your eyes. “Out. Of. Your. League. Seriously! What the fuck is up with you penis-havers?!”

You didn’t understand why you were being particularly protective over this woman against the sloppy men of your hometown, but it was almost like you couldn’t help it. You’ve spent most of your life knowing that you live in one of the most forgettable, unsophisticated, lame and unheard of places in the entire country. You felt it was a duty to at least protect the visitors to this town against any of its regular bullshittery, including its residents, of whom you know very well.

Leon sighs, as if this behavior from you was no surprise, likely because it wasn’t, and then he presses his pen to paper again. “Alright. Just give me the story.”

You finishing recounting the incident to Leon, and when the woman comes back, she finishes telling her side as well, then Leon walks the two of you outside to get assessed for any injuries by the paramedic he brought with him on stand-by, and aside from a small band-aid the paramedic places over your knuckle, the two of you had left unscathed, and then the place becomes vacant of any lawful authorities.

“Um,” the woman says, wincing a little, then points towards the ice cream shop next to the cafe. “Please? As a thanks? I feel bad.”

You give her a soft smile. “Sure.”

The two of you entered the store, and you stand near the back of the store as the man behind the glass scoops together two cones of ice cream for the woman, and even though she tried to pay for them, she ended up getting them for free by the starry-eyed college student working behind the counter. Pretty privilege, you thought to yourself.

“Here,” she says, “this one is yours.” And she extends her arm out to give you your ice cream cone as the two of you leave the store.

“Ah! Thank you,” you say, graciously accepting it, somewhat awkwardly, but it felt like a reward.

“It’s dripping,” she says, voice soft in a slight panic as she sees that her cone is dripping too.

You both lick off whatever cream was threatening to roll down into your hands, and just as you taste sweet sugar on your tongue, you hear a loud engine rumble next to you, along with the crunch of tires underneath rough road as a man in a truck drives by the curb, rolling his window down to yell, “DAAAAAAAMNNNN SLUTS!!!!! Y’all make that ice cream look gooooooood, fuck!”

Your jaw drops. Pure rage fills your every bone and you start chasing the car down the road, yelling “IT’LL LOOK EVEN BETTER SHOVED UP YOUR FUCKING NOSE YOU DIRTY FUCKING FREAK!!!”, then hurl the ice cream cone at his car, aim perfectly hitting his passenger side mirror, covering it in vanilla, before the cone bounces off, falls to the ground, and you hear the kick of his engine again as he speeds away.

You’re huffing and puffing, panting even, as you stand at the edge of the curb and notice that there are quite a few townsfolk staring at you with amused looks and wide eyes.

The woman in the suit appears in your periphery, and she’s laughing. “You’re so–” she’s hunching over a little now, “you’re so funny, oh my god.” The laugh was hearty, full of spirit, unlike the prim and curated one she has given you so far.

You exhale a puff of air and stand up straight. “I’m so sorry. Some of the men in this town are so degenerate and fucked in the brain.”

“No, no, no, it’s fine,” she says, letting out some more laughs as she swipes under her eye to collect a laughter-induced tear from the corner of it, and she checks her finger for any smudge of makeup underneath it before she smiles and gleefully swats a hand at you. “I’m used to catcalling.”

You blink at her.

“Oh! I mean–...because I’m from the city!” she clarifies, suddenly stiffening. “Gosh, not because I’m beautiful. I just realized that was a little self-centered to say…And now I feel self centered again for clarifying that it wasn’t self centered. Oh gosh. I promise that I am not self centered.” She lets out an awkward laugh then tosses her hair over her shoulder rather elegantly.

You awkwardly smile at her. “No, um, I mean, I don’t think it was self-centered to say. And besides, you are very beautiful.”

“Thanks,” she smiles. It’s a pretty one, rounding out her eyes into crescents. “You as well.”

There’s an awkward silence.

“Ah, I just realized I never introduced myself. I’m Sylvie,” she says, stretching her hand out for you to shake it. You’re a little surprised by the gesture but you accept it. She gently squeezes your hand. “And you?”

“y/n,” you say.

As a group of men walk by down the street, you notice that a few of them glance Sylvie’s way, gazes lingering for a moment, but she doesn’t seem privy to it at all, even when those gazes turn into blatant staring before they’re no longer in proximity to stare for any longer. And you can see why. She’s insanely pretty, and in that way where it’s something she was simply born with and never taught to question. Classically beautiful, rather than the trendy or posed kind. And the men in this town aren’t exactly used to seeing a woman like her in a place like this. Like locals who can sniff an outsider from a mile away. Or a vintage birkin. Like the one hung over her shoulder.

“Would you like to sit down?” she asks.

You blink at her. “Sure.”

For the second time today, you find yourself sitting across a stranger in outdoor shop seating on a rather sunny Saturday afternoon. The person that is seated across from you also feels familiar to you in the same way that Mysterious Pulp-Free OJ man did to you as well, but you still can’t quite place where you’ve seen her before.

She uses a spoon to scoop up the ice cream from her cone, bringing it to her lips, somewhat dainty when she pulls the spoon out of her mouth, now clean of any cream. “So, y/n, what do you do for work?” she asks you, eyes flitting up to yours.

“I’m a nurse,” you tell her simply, “what about you?”

“I’m in investment property management for high-profile clients.”

You blink at her, gently scooping up some ice cream from your cup. “Oh.” It sounded like an elevator pitch that rolls off her tongue with the ease of a million past recitations. “Kinda like real estate?”

“Yes, I mean, my line of work is a little adjacent to that, but yeah! I started off in general real estate and then moved into more of the investment property space as opposed to primary residence.”

You nod slowly, wondering if she always speaks about her job with buzz words like she’s constantly at a job interview. “My husb–...uh, my neighbor is a realtor,” you say in an attempt to connect.

“Oh!” she chirps, tilting her head at you, “that’s interesting.”

“Mhm.”

“I’m actually here because I heard there was a bit of a realtor shortage in the area.”

“Oh? So you’re looking to move here?”

“Ahh, maybe.”

“I see. Just a heads up, you won’t find any high-profile clients here. The last celebrity that visited this town was Adam Sandler, and he was only here because he got lost on his way to Seattle.” You wave your spoon around in the air. “I only know that because the local news covered it for like a week.”

She laughs. “Yeah, I’m…I’m still thinking. Still deciding. It’s nice being in New York, but…” She glances off towards the street in thought, her eyes lidding ever so slightly, lashes briefly dusting her high cheeks, “there’s a future for me here in this town.”

“Mm,” you hum before placing your spoon on your tongue, briefly questioning why someone would choose a small town like this over one of the biggest metropolitan cities in the country, especially when she looks and acts and talks like a city girl through and through, but you suppose to each their own. “You know, you’re the second person I’ve met today that’s visiting here from New York. Strange phenomenon.” Maybe there really is a mass exodus as Mr. Pulp-Free OJ so poorly joked about.

Her interest is piqued. “Oh, really? Who was the other person?”

“Well, I originally met the guy at a grocery store. But I ran into him again today and actually had a chat with him, but now he’s only become even more mysterious to me than the first time I met him.” You sigh. “He’s kinda hot, though. And by ‘kinda’, I mean really.”

“Ohhh,” she coos, setting her napkin down on the table and setting her chin in the palm of her hand held up by her elbow, “if you’re single, you should ask him out the next time you see him.”

You let out a girlish laugh, shaking your head somewhat bashfully as your gaze flits downward, like you’re a teenager talking about boys with your friends at a sleepover. Sylvie’s eyes twinkle at hearing the sound. “Maybe I will.”

Your eyes flit up to the sky briefly.

Are you single? I mean, you are fake-married. But what does that mean if you were to hit it off with someone while you were in this diplomatic arrangement? Is there exclusivity in this situation? Or was there room to see other people? You have no idea. And you don’t really know how Gojo would feel about it, either.

You two continue to chat, suddenly moving into a conversation about how shitty of an ex-boyfriend Choso was, and Sylvie is entirely enthralled by all the drama, but you realize she doesn’t really give up much info of her own. Nothing above the surface level & vague “one of my friends” this or “hahaha same” that. But either way, you kind of feel like you’ve made a new friend today, and the feeling is nice.

As you listen to Sylvie talk about what the weather's like in New York City, you twirl your hair around your finger, and then Gojo’s words from earlier this morning flash through your mind, making you instantly grimace with anger.

Sylvie blinks at you. “Oh, sorry, did I say something wrong?”

“No!” you quickly clarify, “sorry, I was just thinking about my hair.”

“Your…hair?”

You sigh. “Yes.”

“What about it?” She tilts her head. “Looking to get it cut?”

“Well, yes, that too, but also–” You pause. She’s a woman. Surely she could at least relate to the feeling of forgetting to wash your hair every now and then, and then feeling somewhat embarrassed by it. But given that her own hair looks like she just stepped out of a salon, along with every other inch of her body looking prim and perfect, you become more and more doubtful as the seconds pass that she could relate to you on that front at all. But you decide to give it a shot, anyways. Friendships are built on vulnerability, are they not? “I’m just a bit bothered by something my…neighbor said to me this morning.”

“Oh? What was it?”

“He said my hair looks greasy. Like a french fry.”

“Seriously?” she says with disbelief, “what a jerk!”

Your face lights up and you lean forwards towards her, delighted in for once finally sharing in the same distaste for Gojo that no one else seem to have. “I know, right?! Like, what the actual fuck.”

She shakes her head. “Men.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Well, what do you think?”

“What?”

“Shall we go get you that haircut?”

You blink at her. “R…Right now?”

“Yes!” she chirps. “What better thing to do on a Saturday than a haircut and a fresh blowout?”

There’s a feeling that swells in your chest. It’s a mixture of excitement and a mixture of fear. Where you’re thrilled to indulge in some of the finer things in life, but also worried that you’ve never come to deserve any of it.

“Come onnnnn, y/n,” Sylvie says as she leans further onto the table, both of her elbows on the surface with her hand folded over the knuckles of the other, both holding her chin up as she narrows those sharp eyes at you. “I can tell that you want to.”

You breathe in deep, then let it out slowly.

“Sure. Let’s go.”

——————

The golf course was the kind of place that almost felt sterile in its perfection. One thing about a small semi-suburban town bordered by rural farmland properties was that they got their golf courses right. Lush green rolled out onto the hills in laminar waves, trimmed and tamed along its borders. Instead of metal fences that gate the area, there were pine trees that lined the edges, and made the place feel more natural.

Gojo adjusted the glove on his left hand, more for performance than any real need, and he squinted his eyes out into the green hilly distance. The visor of his hat was barely sufficient to block the rays of sunshine, and he tucks the handle of his golf club under his arm so that he can lift his hat off and push back some of his hair that had escaped from it.

Choso stood a few feet away, watching him. His posture was rigid, entirely contrary to Gojo’s lax state, and he had his arms crossed, hands tucked underneath his armpits as if he was still on duty and in uniform. Gojo shifts a glance his way, and he’s not sure what sort of intel Choso intends to collect with a glare like that.

Gojo steps up to the ball, exhales a puff of air, draws his club back, and swings. The ball shoots off in a clean arc, and he watches its trajectory, but barely looks where it lands before he turns his back to it and stretches his neck from side to side.

“You always swing like you’re tryna impress someone?” Choso asks.

“Am I? That felt pretty relaxed to me.”

“Explains the finish.”

“Bummer. Still ahead, though.”

Choso grumbles something underneath his breath that Gojo doesn’t quite catch, then steps up to his ball, his shoulders stiff as he lets out some disgruntled noise as if the ball personally offended him by its existence.

He tightens his grip around the club, flexing his hands open and close a few times, shuffles his feet as he gets into stance, and takes a deep breath in through his nose. Definitely more practiced and curated than whatever Gojo was used to seeing out on the field, and a lot less leisurely chatty. He lines his shot up in silence, head down, eyes forward, and then swings.

The ball takes off, high and fast, but veers slightly right on the descent. It lands with a solid thud in the rough, not far off the fairway, but certainly further than Choso probably wanted.

Gojo doesn’t say anything, at least not at first. He’s still watching the ball settle into the grass, arms folded, a sorely pleased smile at the corner of his mouth.

“Not bad but,” he says, “a little stiff.”

“Shut up.”

“You wanna drive this time?” Gojo asks, but is tossing the keys to Choso before he can even respond with—

“Fine.”

As the game goes on, and the heat starts to get to the both of them, conversation begins to fray open a bit more than it was at the beginning. A lot of it was just Choso quizzing the hell out of Gojo regarding his new wife, as if him not knowing what your favorite color is would be anything intensely incriminating in court. But even if it was, it’s fine, because he did end up knowing what your favorite color was. And also when your birthday is. And, surprisingly, which middle school you went to (your mother once showed him your 7th grade portrait on the fridge when he went over to fix the A/C).

“I just don’t get it. I mean, she hated you,” Choso says as Gojo walks up to his ball, “seriously. You know how many times I heard her cuss out your entire ancestry over that boat you leave out on your driveway? Like, I’m pretty sure she’s cast some nasty ass spell on you by now.” Gojo tightens his glove with his teeth and then grips the handle before drawing his club back in preparation to swing as Choso keeps talking. “She told me that she thinks you’re pretentious, and obnoxious, and self-absorbed, and difficult, and entitled, and sleazy, and—”

“Okay, man, I get it,” Gojo grumbles, trying to sound detached from the insults and your poor opinion of him, but when he swings, it’s way too flat.

“Damn, what the hell was that?” Choso asks, raising a hand up over his eyes to watch the arc of Gojo’s ball in disappointment. About a half hour ago, the two men would’ve taken great satisfaction in seeing the other completely shank a shot. But now, they’re rooting for at least some good competition.

Gojo sighs with irritation, then makes an excuse. “Something in my eye.”

He wonders for a moment if he should just fess up. Tell Choso, yes, the marriage is a scam. Was it not incredibly obvious for all the aforementioned reasons? But also, to urge Choso to just leave it alone. To not let some blinded rage get in the way of this little marriage scheme because, ultimately, it really benefited your financial situation. There’s no way Choso would be that petty about your alleged and swift moving on from him to where he’d genuinely put you in any real legal danger, right?

But he keeps his mouth shut, as his gut instinct insists.

“We—” He starts, unsure of how to continue, but he felt like he needed to at least address it. “We’ve got that whole, you know, opposites attract thing.”

Choso squints his eyes at Gojo, then his shoulders slump before walking up to his ball.

“What?” Gojo asks.

“Nothing,” Choso says, his tone even as he shuffles his feet apart to get into a swinging stance. “Opposites attract.” He echoes Gojo’s words. “She always used to tell me she hated that kinda stuff.”

Gojo doesn’t say anything in response, just watches as Choso’s eyes flicker with something heavy, maybe confusion or regret or irritation, but he shakes his head like he’s trying to get rid of it. Gojo clears his throat, a question formulating in his head that he wants to ask so bad, but tries to stall it by poking his tongue to the inside of his cheek, until Choso draws the club back to swing, and there’s this weird strain he feels in his chest when he finally decides to just blurt it out and ask the guy—

“Are you still in love with her?”

The choke in Choso’s form would’ve been visible from a mile away, but he carries through the swing on pure momentum alone, hurling the ball up into the air along with a stunted patch of dirt and grass which cuts the trajectory short by about half of what he was likely aiming for it to be, and he watches with a frozen frame as it lands disgracefully on sand.

Gojo blinks ahead at it.

“Damn,” he says, “that’s gotta be one of the worst shots I’ve ever seen.”

Choso huffs an exhale, his shoulders sulking as he stares ahead into the grassy hills. Gojo glances at the back of his head, and lets out a sigh after a voice in his head tells him to just drop it.

He ruffles in his pocket for the golf cart keys, but then stares up at the distance between them and their rather disappointing shots. “Let’s just walk this one.”

Choso nods.

The heat is borderline sweltering, evident in the way Choso’s wiping the sweat off his forehead with the ball of his shoulder and Gojo’s tugging at the collar of his polo to get a bit of breeze onto his chest. And there was a weird sense of solidarity in their decision to torture themselves with eachother’s company over a game of golf. It was a bit humbling, too.

“How did the two of you meet?” Gojo asks Choso as they make their way up a hill.

“She didn’t tell you?” Choso asks, offended, as if he’s surprised that he wasn’t a topic of their pillow talk.

“Nope,” Gojo says, probably because there was no real pillow talk. You two quite literally sleep in different bedrooms.

Choso sighs, a little out of breath when he responds. “We met in college. I was also a nursing major, until I flunked out of organic chemistry. So I dropped out and went to the Police Academy. We stayed together, though.”

“Ah,” Gojo responds.

“Y’know,” Choso randomly speaks up, “I would think she cheated on me.” He wipes at a bead of sweat that perspirates on his chin. “With the way the two of you got married so fast after we broke up.”

Gojo’s brow furrows as he just stares straight ahead, despite Choso layering a testing glance his way, to see his reaction to that statement, and see if it was in any way incriminating. “Nah,” Gojo says, “she’s not the type to do something like that.”

He can see in his periphery that Choso raised a brow at that. “That’s the testament? A personality trait? And not a first-hand account from you?”

It irritates Gojo. The assumption that you would do something like that. And he knows Choso wants to hear it from Gojo himself—the reassurance that he wasn’t messing around with his girlfriend while they were still together, ironically as if they were in some alternate universe where this marriage was anything other than business…but instead, he doubles down.

“Yeah,” he says, “she’s just not that kind of person.”

——————

“Alrighty,” the hairstylist behind your chair says to you as he drags the wet ends of your hair to the front of your shoulders, eyeing them in the mirror. He ruffles up some of the overgrown layers in the back, the scent of sweet apple arousing your senses as you revel in the pleasure of the cleanest your scalp has ever felt in probably ever given the intensity in which the hairstylist scrubbed it out when he was washing it.

You have never been to a wet salon. Ever. You had always just resorted to SuperCuts or anything that was less than a twenty-minute wait and a twenty-dollar bill. But when Sylvie told you she did a drive-by of this place on her way to Dayton County from the SeaTac airport, she had sworn one of her high-class celebrity clients had endorsed it to her once and so she really wanted to go. You were reluctant, probably because just stepping inside the place already made you feel like you owed them some money, given the sheer luxury that surrounded you, but it was okay. I mean, how much could a single haircut cost?

“So, what are we doing today?” the hairstylist asks as he continues to pointlessly ruffle up your wet hair. He had silver grey hair and was wearing a rather tight grey vest with a turtle neck snug to his skin layered underneath, with matching grey trousers. He smelled just as expensive as the products he put in your hair to get the oil out of it. You no longer felt like a French Fry. You felt like some crisp iceberg lettuce.

You open your mouth to answer him, but Sylvie cuts you off first.

“Ray, if you could just fix up the layers,” she says, speaking to him as if he were a lifelong friend despite the fact that she had also just met him, but the man seems to be thrilled by the friendliness from her, “and maybe some curtain bangs? Have them end here though, I think that would flatter her face.” She pulls some of your strands forward onto your face, and they tickle your nose.

You’ve never known what specifically flatters your face shape. You have been getting the same exact haircut since you were just a wee little lad. It was the one your mother used to do for you out in the backyard as you sat on a stool and felt the crunch of her scissors behind you while locks fell to the concrete of the patio. There was no further style or personality you asked of any of the hairdressers in your adulthood life, but only the small desire that they wouldn’t change too much about the shape your mother always left your hair in. It was just another small way that you felt you could cling onto the happy memories you have of her.

But you couldn’t even dwell on the sentiment for longer than two seconds before Ray was taking Sylvie’s suggestions and instruction to heart, immediately snipping away at your hair. He was sectioning your hair out into such small layers, almost microscopic, as if he didn’t want more than 100 strands in each before he made them all subject to his shears, and the process felt like hours. You couldn’t always see Sylvie in the mirror because Ray would often flip your hair over and into your face, but when you could peak at her through the strands of your hair, you could see she was watching Ray’s every move with her arms crossed over her chest as if you were some sculpture she couldn’t bear to see ruined.

By the time Ray gets around to cutting your curtain bangs, you feel like an entirely different person. Your hair was still a little damp from the wash, but you could already see the gorgeous shape in which your hair was sitting in. The layers were stunning. And you could only imagine what it would look like once he–

“Alrighty, let’s blow this out,” Ray says, grabbing a round brush and a precision hair dryer.

You could’ve fallen asleep in the chair, despite the loud volume of the hair dryer, from how lovely the gentle tug of each section of your hair against the brush felt as Ray continued to create tension throughout the strands of your freshly-cut hair. He curled the ends gently, slightly inwards, setting them with spray, all the way up to the fringe of your hair which he corrected with a hair straightener so that it all sits smoothly. And then, he turns you in the chair to face the mirror, and you’re shocked.

You seriously could not have imagined yourself looking the way you do right now. Your hair was stunning, each layer had personality, with the soft curls that have now gently fallen out but in a way that felt intentional, voluminous and alluring. You touch the ends of your hair and they feel so ridiculously soft, and pillowy, and smell so nice. And Sylvie was right. The curtain bangs at that specific length entirely flattered your face, and it almost made you look more youthful. After years and years and years of working nights, stressing out over bills, taking care of your sick mother, and having hardly any time to take care of yourself, you didn’t even know you still had the capacity to look this…pretty?

“Wow, stunning,” Sylvie says with a smile, clapping her hands together with satisfaction. “You’re a wizard, Ray.”

Ray helps you out of your seat, the three of you making smalltalk as he walks you over to the lady running the register. She asks Ray some questions about which tools he used and which products he applied, and then Ray leaves the three of you to it as he goes to clean up his station. You’re staring at the lady at the register in slight anticipation, but it was hard to stay anxious about the bill when you catch sight of your reflection in the mirror hung up on the wall behind the register.

“Alright, that’ll be three-hundred-and-seventy-two dollars,” the lady says, not even lifting her eyes once to tell you the damage as she continues to type away with long acrylics on the keyboard in front of her.

Your gaze is RIPPED away from your reflection in front of you,

And you guffaw at the register lady.

“I–...I’m–…excuse me?!” you exclaim.

Sylvie tilts her head at you, as if the cost was no surprise to her.

“T-Three-hundred-and-seventy-two dollars for a haircut?” you exhale in disbelief, “I–oh my god, I cannot afford that!”

The lady behind the register nods her head slowly. “No worries! We have a six month financing plan with a low APR.”

You cannot fathom that there are people out there who would finance a haircut.

“That…I can’t do that, I’m sorry.” God knows what your credit score looks like right now with all of your unpaid debt. And you don’t want to face the humiliation of getting rejected from a three-hundred-dollar loan in front of Sylvie. “I, um, you know what? I’ll pay it back with hard work. I’ll—um, I actually make for a really great receptionist, and social media advertiser, and I used to cut a little bit of hair in college, and I could—”

Sylvie lets out a laugh from beside you. “Oh my gosh, y/n, you’re hilarious. It’s fine. I’ll pay for it!”

You blink at her. “I–...I’m sorry, what?”

She takes a step towards the register and pulls her black credit card out of her wallet. “I said that I’ll pay for it.” She inserts her chip into the machine.

“But–...I can’t accept that–”

“Seriously, it’s fine,” she says, “I have a feeling we’ll be friends, so, we’ll just open up a friendship tab!”

You look at her with an equal amount of worry because you’re not going to be able to pay it forward anytime in the near future.

She smiles at you. “Or…just let me do something nice for you. No questions asked. As a thanks for what you did back in the cafe.” She pulls her credit card out from the machine. “And in fairness, I am the one who dragged you to this salon.” She tucks her card back in her wallet. “Let’s leave now? I’m starving.”

“I–...” you almost feel like you could cry from the kindness, “...sure.”

She gives you a smile, hooks her arm around yours, and pulls you towards her, and then you both head out onto the street with in-tune gleeful laughter in the air.

“Any good patisseries in the area?” Sylvie asks, stumbling a little, taking you along with the sway of her body as she continues to anchor you to her by her hold of your arm, but she continues to strut forward down the street as you attempt to catch up. And you realize maybe there’s a bit of strategy to a stride like this, given the speed is just enough to cause a gentle breeze to tousle the curls of your hair, making you feel like a supermodel with a fan pointed right at you. Walk at this speed more often, you make a mental note to yourself.

You glance up at the sky. Patisserie was quite the word, like something Hana would say to pretend she knows a lick of French after two months of her little fling with Jean Pierre, of whom is currently white with a fever back at her place. Normally, you would offer a belittling snort at the pretentious noun, but you find yourself matching Sylvie’s level. “There’s a suuuuuper cute one on Wisteria Street. Doucers de France!” you exclaim, and Sylvie laughs, picking up the pep to her walk as you do the same.

As you two stroll down the streets of downtown, engaging in nonsensical chatter, you’ve noticed you’re getting stared at a lot, mostly by men, and it’s starting to make you suspicious.

You turn to Sylvie, “Do I have something on my face?”

“Hm?” She tilts her head at you. “No?”

“Weird, I feel like a lot of people have been staring at me.”

“Because you look gorgeous with your new hair, silly!”

“Hmnnn???” you furrow your brow at her, but lift your gaze up to glance at two men who were walking by, both of whom had their gazes locked directly on you, even as you stared them down, all the way down the curb until they both ran into a trashcan.

Sylvie laughs, covering her mouth with a hand. “See?”

“Interesting…” you say, tucking soft strands behind your ear, “hm.” You push your shoulders back a little and toss some hair over your shoulders in a new-found confidence.

Sylvie is privy to the attitude shift, and squeezes your arm tighter, “shall we continue to Doucers de France?”

“Why yes. Yes we shall.”

The power you felt you held, courtesy of the hair on your head, was unmatched. You haven’t felt this hunted down by stares since you were in your early twenties club era. In a sense, you felt you had gained your novelty back. And you were eating it up. Well, eating up the opportunity to glare down men who stare with no shame. But at least you had quite a substantial amount of them to indignantly dissolve with a well-practiced glare. Like some game of pacman strolling down 183rd Street.

As you two approach the cafe, you nearly run into a cop that circles around the alleyway in front of the block, and the two of you come to an abrupt halt. When you glance at the cop’s face, you realize it’s Leon again, except this time he has a coffee and a sourdough donut in his hand.

“Hello again, ladies,” he says with a gaze towards Sylvie, and when his gaze shifts to you, he says, “woah.”

“What?”

“You look real nice, y/n. How come you don’t wear your hair like that more often?”

“Time and resources, mainly.”

“I see,” he says as he one-ups you with his eyes, makes some linear conclusion in his head by the state of your appearance, then leans against the brick wall. “Hey, listen, so, I know you and Choso have some crazy history, but,” he runs a hand through his hair in a way that he clearly thinks is enticing, “do you think he’d be okay if we…” He points back and forth to gesture between the two of you.

Sylvie lets out a short exhale of a laugh through her nose and glances down towards the ground, and you narrow your eyes at the cop in front of you with disgust before you hold up a hand in front of his face. “Your desperation to get laid is so very entirely unsexy to me, so shut it.” And at your words, Sylvie lets out a more audible laugh, and it’s your turn to wrap your arm around hers and pull her towards you as you two strut past a wide-eyed, indignant Leon who seems more confused than offended by your words.

Once Sylvie’s giggling fit has calmed down, she manages to say, “seriously, you’re so funny, y/n.”

“Mm?” you hum, slowing down in pace a little when you see she’s having a hard time keeping up, either because of her heels or the laughter-induced intoxication she seems to possess now, a type of giddiness that was starting to rub off on you too.

“Ahh, I don’t know, I just love the way you say exactly what you’re thinking,” she smiles, “I wish I could do that.”

Your mind flashes back to what Pulp-Free OJ man said to you earlier today. You’re kind of charming. And way too direct.

“Is…” you start, suddenly feeling slightly self conscious, and you gently tuck some strands behind your ear as if to preserve some femininity in the face of this so-called brazenness of yours, “is that a bad thing?”

“Nooooo,” she coos, like she can tell you’re taking it the wrong way, “it’s fun! It’s entertaining. It’s refreshing.” She pulls you along with her to start walking. “Makes you seem kinda foxy. Which is an attractive thing.”

“Oh.”

She smiles, something that looks a little foxy herself, and glances at you as her sleek hair flares with the wind of her pace, “Maybe we should go see if we can find that hot mysterious New York man and you can ask him out on a daaaaaaateee.” She nudges your arm with her elbow teasingly.

Your cheeks feel slightly flush at her words, and you blink at her a couple of times in consideration, but seeing how round her face is from pure glee, you’d feel awkward to show too much hesitation towards the idea of a good time, and so your shoulders settle down and your expression softens, before you return her smile and say, “mm, maybe.”

——————

“I’ve learned,” Gojo says, sitting back in his chair as he sets his feet up on the cushion in front of him, picking his bottle of beer up off the outdoor patio table in front of the country club’s recreational bar, “in my experience with women, that’s it’s better to just be honest about where you’re going or what you’re doing and let her be mad,” he sloshes the beer around by the bottleneck, “than to lie to her about it and then she finds out later and she gets pissed off more reasons than one.”

“Reaaaalllyyyyy???” Choso slurs from next to him, leaning over the frosty glass surface underneath the overhead umbrella tent of the table, “I dunno man. I’ve lied to a lot of past girlfriends and I hev–nev–... ‘scuse me, have never gotten in trouble for it.”

“Seriously?” Gojo’s eyes flit up towards the blue sky in thought. “Shit. Maybe I’m just a bad liar then.”

Choso snorts and tips the top of his bottle towards Gojo like a salute. “Yeah, I think that’s it.” And then he takes a swig.

Something bothers Gojo, and his brow furrows before glancing over to the man next to him. “Wait. Why’d you lie to them so much anyway? Is it pathological?”

Choso shakes his head, tendrils of his hair that were stuck to his forehead still slick by the sweat from the earlier sun out in the grass. His head tilts off to the side a little in a daze before he casts his gaze off towards the golf course. “Nah, nah, nah. Just the usual stuff, yaknow? ‘Cause, like, she doesn’t need to know I blew off going to brunch with her and her mom on a Sunday because I wanted to go check out McClarens at the auto strip instead. ‘Cause who’s that gonna help?” He swipes the back of his hand across his upper lip. “Instead I just tell her I took her car to get a much needed oil change. And then bam. She thinks I’m a man who knows my priorities, I'm living within my means, and I’m helpful.” Choso snaps his fingers at Gojo. “She wins, I win.”

Gojo narrows his eyes at him. “A McClaren? You’ve gotta be kidding me.”

Choso groans, slumping in his chair, his arms dangling over the rests as he peers up at the sky past the visor of his hat, bottle of beer threatening to slip down the loose grip of his hand. “When I was twenty, I thought I’d be rich by the time I was twenty-five. I’m thirty-one now, and I still drive a Honda Civic.”

“There’s nothing wrong with a Honda Civic, man.”

Choso sits up suddenly in his chair, leaning to the side towards Gojo as he squints at him. Gojo keeps his gaze set forward, taking a reasonable drink of burnt amber as he anticipates being asked some sort of intrusive question.

“Well, what about you?” Choso asks. “You’ve got a boat, a couple of nice cars. I’ve seen the suits you wear–they’re not off-the-rack. What are you doing out here in bumfuck nowhere?”

The convoluted question starts to weigh heavy on Gojo’s tipsy mind, and he’s running out of the ability to navigate it, even though he’s the one that suggested three bottles of beer at 1pm on a Saturday on an empty stomach after two hours of golfing out in the sun, as if heat-soaked lethargy wasn’t enough. Sometimes he forgets he’s not twenty-two anymore, and there are certain things his body just can’t seem to handle at this age.

“I used to work in downtown Manhattan,” Gojo says, slightly deflecting the question, “I moved here about a year ago.”

“Yeahhhhhh, I remember when you moved here,” Choso says, slumping back into his lawn chair, “I fuckin’ hated you.”

Gojo glances over at him and quirks a brow. “Huh? Why?”

“Good-lookin’ guy moving in right next door to my girlfriend?” Choso says, “terrifying. But at least she hated you, too. Well, until she married you. And I still don’t know what the fuck you did to accomplish that, but fuck you anyways.” He holds a middle finger up at him, and then sets his bottle of beer down onto the glass tablet to hold the other one up as well. As if he at least still had the decency to know he wouldn’t have the dexterity to multi-task a grip and a flip-off at the same time.

Gojo’s gaze dampens slightly, even at the hostility from Choso. It dips to where he’s glancing at the hot pavement in front of the two of them, right where the grass is pristinely cut at the border. He wonders if Choso truly believes that this whole marriage thing is real, or if he was just pretending. But why? Why would he pretend to this extent? It doesn’t make sense. But it has to look strange from the outside, right? He breaks up with his girlfriend of seven years, and then three weeks later, she gets married to her next-door-neighbor? Someone who she allegedly hates. At least Gojo hopes it’s only alleged. But that’s a discussion for another time.

Point is, there’s no way that Choso believes all of this. There’s just no way. But at the same time, he acts the part so convincingly like he does. Like he’s really distraught over his ex-girlfriend moving on with the guy sitting next to him. And if he really was distraught about it, then why the hell is Gojo the one that is sitting right next to him? Choso’s a cop. He could easily shoot Gojo if he wanted to. At the very least, that would make things a bit more interesting.

Gojo opens his mouth to speak, but Choso cuts him off,

“Why did you move out here, though?”

Gojo glances down at his hand that’s been turning the glass bottle of beer at the base as it sits on the table. He breathes in deep, catching the scent of lavender in the distance, a fragrance he finds a little too familiar, then exhales slowly.

Not a great liar, but he can manage a half-truth.

“To be closer to my family,” he says.

The heat begins to slowly dwindle in the late afternoon in passing, despite the fact that it was still a ridiculously sunny day, and it only takes one more beer from Choso before he’s got an even looser mouth and is practically trauma dumping all of the absolutely insane cop cases he’s had to deal with within the past few years, ranging from having to track down the hyena that escaped from the local zoo, to closing out a twenty year cold kidnapping case. There’s a comfort at the base of Gojo’s ribs when he realizes the biggest emergency he’ll ever face at his job is…running out of Open House flyers.

“That’s something I—” Choso takes a pause to make sure he doesn’t slur his words, “loved about dating y/n. I ever had a crazy story? Oh trrruuussttt me she had a crazier one from the hospital.” He shakes his head in disbelief, like he’s reminiscing on all of them. “And y’know, she’s stone cold emotionally so she would share it all without a bat of an eye, too.” He pretends to shiver. “She scares the shit out of me sometimes.”

“Really? I thought all of that was a defense tactic or something.” Gojo feels strange talking about you in the absence of you but he wasn’t above the buzz of a few beers either.

Choso raises an eyebrow at him mid-sip. “Huh?”

“Like, you know, she’s got a lot of stuff going on…but has a hard time talking about it…so she deflects. Or acts tough to get through it.”

Choso’s eyes widen briefly, but then he starts to shake his head vehemently in denial. “Nahhh that’s just her personality. She just doesn’t really care about most things, especially the sappy and sentimental stuff. She’s very practical. That’s why dating her was so easy when things were right between us. I didn’t have to overthink things. Like flowers or spontaneous dates or cheesy compliments and whatnot.” Choso shudders at the thought. “Because I guarantee you she’d just be bored by it.”

Gojo shifts uncomfortably in his seat, a little concerned about the derailment of this conversation, and he wonders if Choso’s had a few too many from how detached he seems to speak about you. Didn’t you guys date for seven years? He doesn’t exactly know the details since you refused to tell him, and he wouldn’t feel right getting that story from Choso instead, but his curiosity is really starting to itch at him. He barely knows you in comparison to Choso, but he knows that everything Choso is saying about you is just plain wrong. Sure, you seem to be generally irritated and weary by most things in life, but he knows it’s not because that’s just how you are as a person. It’s because of what you’ve been through as a person.

He thinks about the look on your face when you ran out of your mother’s hospice room, tears streaming dow your cheeks, at the mere mention of someone promising to look after you. And he’s supposed to believe that you don’t care about sentiments? Or that you aren’t hoping to have a shoulder to lean on?

But, who knows, maybe Gojo is overestimating how well he thinks he knows you. At least, that sounds like something you’d say to him with a look of irritation across your face if you heard what he was thinking right now.

But he hates that Choso’s making him question it—this idea he has of you. It’s that same I know her…don’t I? dilemma he feels the entire time he’s talking to your ex. He's not thrilled by the idea that he could be projecting a softer version of you that doesn’t exist just because he hopes that it does.

“Wait, hold up, you’re married to her. And you don’t know this about her?” Choso remarks as he sits up in his chair.

Gojo brings his bottle of beer to his mouth. “Just doesn’t sound like the version of her that I know.”

“That’s suspicious,” Choso says, swirling around the bottle in his hand as he stares out onto the grass.

Gojo sighs. “People can change in short periods of time. I’ve always been surprised by it, too.”

“Yeah?” Choso responds, intrigued by the statement. “You’ve got any insane emotional baggage you’d like to share?”

Gojo sets his bottle of beer down on the table, and watches as a cold droplet of water makes its way down the condensing surface. “Can’t say I want to share any of it.”

“That’s fair. I’m just glad I know that you do have some. Makes me feel better.”

“Hm,” Gojo hums the acknowledgement.

“You know a lot of these guys?” Choso asks, pointing his index finger to a group of men walking to their golf cart in the distance, his other four fingers wrapped around his drink. “You kept getting stopped between shots.”

Gojo nods. “Yeah. A lot of them are clients of mine. Or their ex-wives are.”

Choso rolls his eyes. “Self-important pricks. I don’t know how you deal.”

“My client base in New York was way worse than this.”

“Really?” Choso asks, turning his torso to look at Gojo.

“Mhm,” Gojo affirms before taking a swig, “I made better money out there, though.” Not that it bothered him much. He’d rather be homeless in Dayton County than spend another day in that city.

“Huh,” Choso huffs in consideration, “I still think it’s really strange you moved to Dayton County from New York City.”

“What’s that phrase?” Gojo says, glancing up towards the blue sky. “You’ve gotta leave the city to love the city, or something like that.”

“Well go back to the fuckin’ city and leave my girl while you’re at it,” Choso drawls, unable to fight the drag of his words this time, or keep his head up straight, really. And it occurs to Gojo that Choso’s not a very responsible drinker.

“If anything, I’d take her with me,” Gojo says, almost like he can’t help pissing Choso off.

“Fuck you. Hope that spell she cast on you bites you when you least expect it.”

“Shit. I hope so too.”

Choso is decent enough to nod a salute at that, and the two move to clink the neck of their beer bottles together, but just before contact, Choso says—

“May divorce be with you, dude.”

And Gojo curves his bottle away from contact at the last second, leaving Choso hanging, then brings it to his mouth to tip it back until it’s empty.

——————

By the time you come home from your many morning escapades, it’s close to late afternoon, and you notice your car is parked inside Gojo’s garage, as opposed to parked out on the street where you had left it earlier.

You walk inside the house to find Gojo standing at the foyer table, looking through piles of mail. It mildly annoys you that he doesn’t even so much as lift his gaze from all the paper to look at you when you close the front door behind you.

“Hey, why did you move my car into your garage?” you asked.

“I just washed it, and it’s supposed to rain overnight,” he says, ripping up one of the bills before tossing it into a pile of other shredded paper.

Your eyes widen slightly. You had been wanting to get around to washing your car for weeks, it had been, admittedly, quite dirty on the outside. But it was just one of those things that kept getting away from you…and away from you…and away from you…

“You didn’t have to do that…” you mumble, slipping your shoes off at the door.

“Yeah, I know, but–” He finally lifts his gaze off of light blue paper and drifts it over to you, and when he doesn’t finish his sentence, you glance up at him too, only to find he’s staring at you with wide eyes.

You blink back at him, wiping your cheek gently with your hand as some reflex, and then pet down the hair at the top of your head with self consciousness. “W-What?” Forgive yourself for being fussy with your appearance around him now given he literally called you a French Fry this morning.

He’s still staring at you, big blue eyes blinking with no particular rhythm, just pure surprise, and his mouth is even slightly agape.

“What?” You practically snap at him.

You see his chest sink with the exhale he releases. “Nice hair,” he says finally.

“Oh.” You totally forgot about that. “Thank you,” you say, scooping all of it to the front of one of your shoulders, twirling the delicately curled ends around a finger, “just, uh…took a quick trip to the salon today…” you continue to twirl it, “in which they gave me a quick little style…of which costed a very reasonable amount.”

He snorts. “I’m not even gonna ask.”

“Three-hundred-and-seventy-two bucks.”

“What. The. Fuck?”

“Mhm,” you cross your arms over your chest.

“Where did you even get that kinda money?” he asks with disbelief.

“That’s irrelevant,” you quickly deflect, and even though you weren’t the one that paid for it, you were still going to give him hell for it, “this should teach you not to comment about people’s appearances. I was so distraught by your rude comment this morning that I ran to the nearest wet salon and ended up being scammed into this hairstyle because of you.”

“Okay well you look hot as fuck so the only thing I’ve learned from this is that bullying works.”

“You will not be getting out of this by complimenting me, mister!!!”

The corner of Gojo’s mouth ticks up slightly, and to provide some insight into his perspective, he was simply too distracted by how nice you looked and your choice to call him mister to really focus on anything else. As much as he should probably repent for admitting it, he liked pissing you off sometimes, purely because he likes how prissy and most of all hot you were when you looked at him like you wanted to choke him to death. But he’s also not sure if you really would strangle him in his sleep, and since he can’t necessarily put you above it, a shiver runs down his spine to where he figures he probably shouldn’t push it.

“Understood. No more calling you greasy,” he says, and holds his palm up to swear on it.

You roll your eyes, but it still feels like an acceptance of the promise, until your gaze hardens with a different type of annoyance. “And where have you been all day?” you ask, trying to suppress the irritation in your voice, tapping your foot on the wood with impatience, “with Choso, I presume?”

He had half hoped you forgot about his admission to you about his plans for this weekend.

“Yes,” he sighs, “I was.” And with the same demeanor of a dog guilty of tearing up a couch while its owner was away from home, he continues, “we went golfing.”

You breathe in deep, and exhale with shaky rage.

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“Screw you,” you say, and then brush past him, storm up the stairs to the master bedroom, and then slam the door behind you.

——————

It’s rare that Gojo will go for a late night run. He really prefers the mornings—rise of dawn, that crisp fresh air, sparkle of dew in the front of his lawn from the sprinkler spray of the night before, bonus points if he got around to mowing the lawn and it ends up looking neater because of it. There’s also just the right amount of people out on the sidewalks, and they’re usually elderly couples or other fellow morning runners like him, and in his experience, those sorts of people tend to be the friendliest. The weather’s best at that time, too. Feel a little bit of heat on your back to help warm you up but it’s not any sort of abrasive kind that would have you itching to get rid of layers that you don’t have. And maybe, as with most things in life, the ego was involved. Waking up at 5am to go for a run? It just screamed put-together, and more often than not, tended to set the day up for success.

But instead, tonight, he finds himself outside in the pitch black, past 10pm actually, for his second jog of the day. Clad in black sweatpants, a black sweatshirt with the hood pulled over his head, it felt unnecessarily incognito but he can’t lie that it felt nice to run without feeling like a single soul is around you.

And also, it was strange. This feeling that something was calling him into the night. He’s not incredibly superstitious, but he definitely felt thickness in the air.

About a mile into his run, he turns a corner of the park, onto a slimmer brick-laid road surrounded by hundreds of trees that cut visibility of the parameters to a fraction, and slows down to a stop. He checks his Apple watch for the time, but when the small screen of it doesn’t light up, he’s annoyed.

Through barely bated breath, he grumbles as he pulls on the strap and says, “did I not charge this thing?”

After a few more seconds of messing with it, he sighs and shrugs, figures he’ll just run laps around the park and head back the same way he came, but when he jogs forward for less than three seconds, his feet come to a halt.

But it’s a quicker one, a more alarmed stop.

Because he sees a figure looming off to the side within the trees.

He huffs a breath, cranes his neck towards what almost looks like a statue in his periphery, until he confirms that it’s a person, and the recognition of who it is draws all the color out from his face, and rounds his eyes wide with pure shock.

He isn’t even given the courtesy of a few moments before he hears the most painfully familiar voice say—

“Hey.”

Gojo nearly feels his heart stop—no, sink—he feels his heart sink in his chest with a feeling he can’t discern. It’s a mixture of a lot of feelings, actually. Surprise, anger, confusion, disbelief. He just stands there, his chest swelling with faster breaths than when he was running, as he stares at the brooding figure in front of him.

Eventually the shock tapers off, and his shoulders drop, and he presses his lips into a thin line before exhaling slowly through his nose. His brow furrows, eyes squinting slightly to verify once and for all that the person in front of him is really who he thinks it is, and he finds that he’s not mistaken.

The figure steps out from near the trees and into the light, and Gojo acknowledges him with a simple say of his name.

“Suguru.”

The dark-haired man smiles in response to his name, it’s a forced one, one that Gojo would argue is borderline sinister but he knows that it’s not. It’s just the way he’s learned to see it now.

“It’s been a while,” Suguru says, stopping his movements to get closer when he’s satisfied with the distance.

Gojo swallows hard. “What the hell are you doing here?”

Suguru nods. “Thought I’d go for a late night stroll.”

“Don’t fuck with me right now.”

Suguru’s smile drops into a frown, acknowledging the hostility, and Gojo finds that he’s clenching fists at his sides.

Suguru sighs. “I understand the last time we saw each other, it was under unsavory circumstances, but I hope you’ll forgive me for showing up like th—”

“Just tell me what you want.”

To justify Gojo’s short temper towards the man across from him to any spectator witnessing this would require a hell of an explanation, one that doesn’t just date back to a year ago, or a few years ago, a decade ago or even two. It wouldn’t be enough, not unless he started from the beginning. But he doesn’t want to give it the time of day. He doesn’t even want to give it any more than the short-tempered rage he’s been offering so far.

Suguru hangs his head a little, studying the brick underneath him, then glances up again. “I’m here to make amends.”

“Make amends?” Gojo finds himself mocking those words the second he hears them. “Who the fuck asked for that?”

“I knew you wouldn’t be happy that I showed up like this—”

“You’re right. I’m not.”

“But—” Suguru sighs again, and it makes Gojo’s skin crawl. The way he acts like the inconvenience of him showing up was anything other than his own fault. “I mean it. I really am here to make things right.”

“What makes you think flying all the way here and showing your face to me was going to make things right?” Gojo snarled.

“When you left,” he says, “it was so abrupt. I had expected you to be angry. To cuss me out, yell at me, punch me in the face, I wouldn’t even be surprised if you pulled out a gun.”

It wasn’t like the thought hadn’t occurred to him at the time.

“I’m not saying that I know what you need to move on from this,” Suguru continues, and Gojo narrows his eyes at the man even further, “but I thought I’d at least give you the chance. The chance to get your frustrations out.”

Gojo quirks an irritated brow.

“A pass to punch the shit out of me with no consequence or witness,” Suguru says, and the words made Gojo feel like he was some pity project.

“You…” Gojo trails off, more with confusion this time rather than anger, “…want me to punch you?”

“It’s what you want, isn’t it?” Suguru says, “ever since that night. But you held back.”

“What I want is for you to never show your face to me ever again.”

“And I won’t,” he says, “I promise. I promise that after today, it’s done.” He takes a step forward. “But that’s why I offer this closure to you. Because—” He hesitates. “It’ll be the last time you have the chance.”

Gojo’s eyes widen slightly when Suguru steps into the light, illuminating some of his features, and it’s the first time he sees his old best friend fully in the flesh ever since that night. He noticed what used to be evenly toned olive skin now has a sandalwood tint, a hue that matches the dull one in the whites of his eyes, yet the bloodshot to them still shows through. He’s lost weight, with sunken cheekbones, there’s exhaustion visible all over his face. It was like Gojo was cognitively cleansed of the memory he had retained of him since the last time he saw him, now replaced with the version in front of him.

It’ll be the last time you have the chance.

All this nonsense about finally honoring Gojo’s wish to stay the fuck away from him,

It felt like a red herring to that statement.

What kind of cryptic bullshit was he alluding to?

“I don’t know what the fuck you’re on about,” Gojo says, “but I’m not going to punch you. We’re not teenagers anymore.”

Suguru’s eyes widen slightly, as if surprised by the restraint, before he relaxes and a small smile tugs at the corners of his mouth. It was too pleased of an expression for Gojo’s liking, that is until it morphs into something eerily fake when that smile only widens and he takes a step towards him.

“And if I told you I don’t regret any of it?” Suguru says, and Gojo can physically feel the muscle in his jaw tic with rage, “if I told you I stand here in front of you with no remorse at all?” He continues to take steps towards Gojo in provocation, less than three feet away now, and Gojo’s hands further condense into white-knuckled fists when Suguru makes his final stride and is now right in front of Gojo, “if I told you that I enjoyed every,” he sneeringly enunciates each word, “Single. Second of it?”

The sound of knuckle harshly colliding with bone reverberates down through the echoing pavement of the park, which was the medium for the sting of Gojo’s fist released through his best friend’s jaw, cracked so hard that the dark-haired man entirely recoils from the blow, hurled off to the side out onto an out-stretched hand to brace fall onto brick ground.

Gojo’s breathing heavy, fast, stuck still in the aftermath, his vision almost spotted white with pure rage, and yet of all the feelings coursing through his body, the most physical one of all—the one centered to the rounded bones of his knuckles—only felt numb. And soon, every other emotion followed.

Suguru exhales a shaky laugh, stumbling slightly on the ground before he pushes himself up and back onto his feet. “Wow,” he breathes out, brushing tendrils of his hair out from his face, rubbing the back of his hand down the line of his red jaw, dabbing at the blood dripping from his nose and the top gums of his mouth, and he pulls his hand away to take a look at the red pigment dipping into the valleys of his trembling hand. “Honestly, I thought I could handle provoking a couple more out of you, but,” he lets out a half-stunned laugh, “I think we’ll have to leave it at one.”

Gojo watches as Suguru tips his head back and shakes his head, that same borderline amused smirk tugging at the corner of his lips, and his shoulders slump. There was no glory in the sight, nor the feeling. No satisfaction. No release or closure. For fucks sake, he just felt worse. He felt even worse now than he did a minute ago when he wasn’t staring at Suguru’s bloody face.

He just felt numb.

“I really am sorry, Satoru,” Suguru breathes out as he tips his head back, sniffles viscous blood, and wipes away whatever had already dried above his lip, “for everything. And I hope that—” He takes a deep breath, “whatever life you build for yourself from here on out is better than the one I took from you.” He tightly shuts his eyes close. “That’s the only thing that will bring me peace in all of this.”

Gojo hears the words, but he doesn’t feel them. It’s that same dull ache throughout his body, the same one that haunts him in those moments when the nights are too still, and the mornings are too quiet. Mostly numbness, with the slightest tracing of pain as if to remind him that he was still alive.

“Whatever, man,” Gojo mutters, not even able to lift his gaze to look at the person he once called his best friend as he wipes his chin with the back of his hand, and his voice is a broken shudder when he speaks again, “whatever.”

He turns on his heel, away from this scene he can’t bear witness to anymore, and he feels as if there are anchors tied to his ankles as he drags his feet away. And away. And away. And away. And away. He couldn’t tell you for how long or how far he just dragged the soles of his shoes across brick, then concrete, then gravel, then grass. It could’ve been two minutes, it could’ve been two hours, but it couldn’t have felt any more torturous. And the whole time, he feels that enigma that he left behind at the park behind him, somewhere in the distance.

The same one he desperately tries to ignore,

One he desperately wants to hate,

One he desperately wants to despise with all his being,

But he just can’t.

——————

The clock strikes midnight as you pace around the floor of the master bedroom, the hem of your floor-length satin nightgown brushing across the flooring with each back-and-forth pivot and stride that you make, and you switch between irritatingly tucking your hair behind your ears and crossing your arms across your chest and letting out annoyed puffs of air at every other minute as your mind races an hour a minute.

You’ve been trapped up here (by your own doing) like some princess in a tower ever since Gojo admitted to you that he hung out with Choso today, just bubbling with a sense of rage that you so badly want to unleash on him but when you stepped out of the room a couple hours ago, you realized he wasn’t home, and his Apple watch was missing from the little paper crochet bowl on the foyer table, so you assumed he had went for a run. As for why he still isn’t home, you don’t know, but you feel like you simply cannot be put to rest until you tell his ear off about something as a way to release your frustration.

You know that Gojo is a social whore. And that he likes to be liked. Perhaps you just can’t relate, because you’ve never extended yourself so far to be liked by the likes of strangers. Sure, when you’re committed to having a person in your life, you do what you can to make them pleased by you, but people who you don’t even really know? Why on Earth would you choose them over yourself?

And so your lack of sympathy towards Gojo’s desire to be buddy-buddy, friendly-friendly, and innately curious about the people around him is foundational to your rage at the moment.

Why does he need to be friends with your freakin’ ex??? Is his desire to be liked by everyone he comes across really THAT large???

And, in a thought that makes you a little sad, you ask yourself—

Why can’t he add you to that list of people to please?

You stop pacing the room with the sobering thought, and glance over at the reflection of yourself in the window. You hate how defeated you look.

You know that you give him a hard time. You’re snarky and defensive and lose your temper with him perhaps a little too fast. And also fail to show any real gratitude for most things he has done for you. But it was almost like you couldn’t help it. You couldn’t help acting that way around him. And maybe it’s because you know, you just know, that if you ever harbor any semblance of affection for him, and he decides to never return any of it at all, you would be ruined. It would ruin you.

He just has that effect on people,

And you just didn’t want to admit that you wouldn’t be any sort of exception.

You let out a frustrated noise from your throat and plop down on the bed.

Ew, gross. Feelings? Were you trying to gaslight yourself into thinking that you would have feelings for him if your stubborn heart gave you the chance?

As if.

It’s so silly to even picture.

…Or was it?

You don’t know.

You just don’t know.

It’s too many emotions, all at once, and as per usual, the anger is the one that decides to stick around, and you hop back up onto your feet.

“Frickin’ golfing…” You mumble to yourself, “they went golfing together…” You pace to the foot of the bed and then up to the headboard, “I bet they talked shit about me too…”

You hear some noises downstairs, gasp a little and run out into the hallway and peer over the staircase railing to see some mysteriously dressed man at the front entrance close the door behind him. You can’t see his face since he was dressed in a black hoodie with the hood pulled over his head, but when the man pulls his sleeve back and releases the strap of his watch, you realize it’s Gojo.

Well, that was a relief. But also, eye roll, it’s Gojo. Perhaps a serial killer would’ve been more preferable.

You quickly run back into the master bedroom, push the door wide open in the process, turn on your heel so that you have a perfect view of the entrance, and cross your arms over your chest. Tapping your foot impatiently, you try to display the most annoyed expression you can manage, and you hear the third to last creak of the stairs as you see Gojo make it to the second floor and into the loft, then approaches the master bedroom.

“Good, you’re home,” you say to him with your gaze narrow in a glare, and you try to think of ways to chastise him for his actions but the best punishment you can come up with is a list of annoying housekeeping tasks, “as soon as possible, I’m going to need you to mow the lawn,” you list them off with the fingers of your hand, “fix the leaking fridge again, install that shelf in the kitchen that you promised me you’d do over two weeks ago, fix the tilted leg of the dining table, finish the—”

You didn’t notice in your yapping that he was closing distance towards you, his expression hard to read under his hood and the fringe of his hair, but before you could tell him about the unfinished paint job in the bathroom, you feel his arms slip past your waist, crossing behind you, and he pulls you in towards him.

“Eh?” you squeak out in surprise, tripping slightly over the hem of your nightgown and straight towards his chest, your cheek pressing against the soft cotton of his hoodie, and you feel him tuck your head underneath his chin in an embrace.

There’s just a brief moment of silence as you stand still in his arms amid moonlight shining through the windows of the room, and when he seems to realize that you aren’t going to push him away, he breathes a sigh of relief and pulls you in tighter, pressing his cheek to the crown of your head.

“Satoru—” you try to protest.

“You can hate me in the morning,” he says into your hair, his voice deep near your ear as you feel the rumble of it in his chest, “but just let me hold you for now.”

Your arms, that had been otherwise stiffly raised as if to not want to make contact with him, relax slowly as they drop, and a small puff of air leaves your lips.

He sounds exhausted, numb, drained. There was no mirth, or ignorance, or sarcasm or amusement in his voice like you were so used to hearing.

You lift your arms once again, meekly swallowing, and this time, you gently wrap them around his torso, and press your cheek against his chest even more as you settle yourself into him. He smelled so nice, that same scent of his that was so comforting to you, one that could soothe you to sleep. And you feel his heartbeat in his chest, and how it seems to be faster now than it was just one second before.

He shakily releases a breath when you hug him back, and if you thought he was holding onto you tighter before, you realize that it wasn’t enough for him. He holds you to him so closely to where you can’t even move, like you were a real life teddy bear for him, and the warmth of his body makes you realize how painfully human he is.

You lift your cheek away from his chest, the movement making him pull his chin away from the top of yours, and you crane your neck up to look at him, and he looks down at you too. Beautiful blue eyes meet your gaze, dull in the nighttime compared to the daylight, but still sparkling. You swear there were constellations in those eyes, millions of stars, and gazing into them was enough to take your breath away.

You can see that his chest is heaving slightly as he looks at you, and your eyes lid gently, maybe in a daze or maybe it was the softness of the moment that was gently lulling you closer to sleep. He releases an arm from your waist, his hand lifting to your forehead where he gently brushes some of your hair out of your face in a movement so tender it sends a shiver through your body, and with a strong arm still anchoring your waist, he slowly walks you backwards, until the backs of your knees hit the edge of the bed, and you fall onto it together in a clumsy tangle. His hands catch himself on either side of you as he holds himself up, hovering over you, and you bring your balled up hands to your heart to see if you can quiet the pace in which it’s beating.

Gojo’s eyes dart across your face, his brow furrowing deeply as if he’s caught in a thought—or maybe a million. It flickers across his expression, whatever the emotion was. Considering…questioning…maybe even afraid. You feel as if you can’t breathe under the weight of his thoughts.

But then he exhales. Runs a hand down his face. Whatever thought he was mulling over, he just lets it go. Drags it away with the rough of his palm and the tight shut of his eyes, before he disappears from your sight when he falls onto his back on the bed with a small grunt next to you, then stares up at the ceiling.

You blink at the ceiling now, too, a little stunned to even move or think or breathe or exist. And you feel like this moment, whatever it was, was over.

But then his hand finds your waist, palm smoothing over satin before you feel his arm curl around you, the weight of his muscle against your skin as he gently pulls you toward him and nestled up against him, your back to his chest on soft linen sheets. Firm and certain, that was the way he held you to him, and his nose nuzzles at the soft hair tucked behind your ear.

He says nothing. He almost doesn’t need to. Because you understand.

You’ll hate him in the morning. The anger tax is what you’ll call it. He’ll pay interest. But for now, you just let him hold you.

And for once, you don’t have to count sheep to fall asleep.

[end of ch9. 'counting sheep']

song of the chapter: 'quiet, the winter harbor' by mazzy star

a/n. ahhhh thank u so very much for reading :'') i truly hope you enjoyed this chapter!! it was kind of intense to write bc of all the split scenes and also all the character dynamics being explored. lot of hmm i guess nuances to juggle?? also this is the longest chapter of anything i've ever posted...so much for trying to make these chapters smaller hahah. but i loved writing the little scene in the end……….i just wanna be held by gojo until i fall sleep how hard is that to ask big shout out to my ihm beta readers leni n josie for helping me out with parts of this chapter n giving me some wonderful suggestions <3 i really appreciate and adore you guys. ahhhh ihm is 100k+ words now!!! that’s crazy!!! yippeeeeeeee also, i did mention this briefly in another post, but because of the length of ihm, i'm planning to split it into "seasons"! so the next chapter (ch10) will be the last chapter for this first part of the series, where i'll put the fic on a bit of a break as i focus more on kinda wrapping up kickoff, before i start the second part of ihm. i anticipate there will be three total parts! and i'll make a new masterlist for each of the new seasons. idk i just feel like it's kinda better to consolidate the chapters like this, so yea! hope to see you in the next oneee!! tysm to everyone who supports my fics w likes, reblogs, n comments <3 it truly means a lot to me

➸ take me to chapter ten!

taglist is open || please comment under this post to be added. if you're unsure if you're already on the taglist or will be tagged in future chapters, feel free to comment here n i'll make sure to add you! also please make sure you adjust your settings if needed so that i can tag you. let me know whenever your taglist preferences change.

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@sorilyae @akariro @mya1112 @angrygojoluvr @ducky1232

@bloopsstuff @fiftyfeetstrawberryparfait @4y3sh4 @tw0fvced @hellicify

@septemberctdfics @lumi-3 @asimpinamillion @disappointedpeaches @soupkuna

@kakarikhoe @astrokenny @samistars @imasexy-buffalo @toffeebrat

@cactisjuice @satorugirlie @suguruslovedoll @lavender-hvze @angelicscribe

@blueberry19000 @erencvlt @nappingmoon @heiejdhdh @ariasnoodles

@readerg77 @coolwitchtree @tofumiao @joemama-2 @sxnkuna

@crematedstar @celestialforce @jaegersity @gojodickbig @electrckchild

@sexys-archives @manhattanstrawberry @tvdumarvelhpsimp @mtsyik @mrswanggae

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stottlemorgan · 1 month ago

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Stupid / Arthur Morgan x GN Reader

Summary: Arthur patches up your wounds and y’all have a little cutesy moment between snarky words and smarting pain. Tags: Gender neutral reader as requested! Bits of talk about wounds, a little bloodiness, a mention of needles but it’s quick. A little mixture of cute and sexual tension. Word count: 1,084. Author’s Note: This was a request from a sweet Anon! Thank you for your request, dear, I loved writing this! I used a pic of Horseshoe bc it's cute okay I know the Murfree brood hang about Beaver Hollow but I don't careee they suck xo Ao3 Link. All photos above are sourced from Pinterest.

“Wha’d I tell you ‘bout walkin’ through Murfree country alone?”

The sting of Arthur so gently pulling the fabric of your shirt from within the gashes on your shoulder pinches your features into a wince. “Barely told me anythin’, actua–”

“I told you enough. You ain’t got no right to snark at me when you’re lookin’ a bloody mess.” He grits out firmly over you as he cleans out the wound with an alcohol saturated cloth.

“It ain’t that bad, Arth–” your muttering cuts off into a gasp before you groan loudly, gritting your teeth, your spine locking up as smarting pain bleeds through your muscle. Your watering eyes flit down to the sight of Arthur pushing a needle through your skin and he’s quick to shove your face away with his forearm, averting your gaze and shuffling closer to you on his knees, forcing his torso between your legs. The graze of his belt against your inner thighs spurls a heady shudder up from your seat and through to your aching shoulder, cutting the edge of the pain with a confusing pleasure. Arthur’s hands work steadily unlike your hammering heart as your thoughts swing between the sizzling split in your skin and the heavy press of his chest to yours. A scoff puffs against your neck and you smell the rum he had been nursing before you’d stumbled into his tent, beaten and bloody, almost tearing the flap of his tent in order to keep yourself upright. You squeeze your eyes closed, dragging a breath in through your nose.

“Ain’t that bad, is it? I hadn’t started sewin’ you up yet,” Arthur glares up at you briefly, the bristly hairs of his brow shadowing his enlarged pupils in which reflects the flickering lamplight, “idiot, drink the damn whiskey.” He nods toward the bottle of whiskey grasped in your better hand, your knuckles lightening with the force. The liquid sloshes as you shakily take a large swig, your throat constricting and trying to fight the burn. You cough hoarsely. Arthur tuts, a sound you’re all too familiar with, and he continues his ministrations. He takes his time, keeping his focus and, despite your shaking and panting, you find your own focus drifting to him. You watch the sweat on his flushed neck glimmer as his throat undulates with a gentle swallow, and you notice the barbs of stubble poking through his skin around his jaw.

Feeling your eyes cross slightly due to his close proximity, you trail your gaze upwards, over the stretching scars on his chin as he presses his lips together in concentration. Over the peek of his pink lips. Over the warm light that forms a glowing edge to the silhouette of his pointed nose. “You’re lucky he only had his knife.” He mutters close to your ear, and you curl your toes, shifting your grip on the whiskey bottle to clutch the neck. You don’t respond, feeling the thick pads of his fingers pressing against your fresh stitches, testing their tightness. A dull throb waves through your shoulder, making you take a clumsy gulp of whiskey, it spilling in a small dribble down your chin as your eyes remain fixed on Arthur’s face. On the beauty marks peppering his sun kissed cheek. On his tired eyes, so slowly blinking as your own meet them. His expression is open, curious, a silent question. What’re you lookin’ at me for?

You tense slightly, having thought he had been still examining your injury. The spasming muscle beneath your wound makes your brow pinch and Arthur’s own brow follows suit, though it’s soft, concerned. His hand drops to your arm, lingering before dropping to your thigh. If your blood were not desperately fighting to repair your wounds and turn your stomach, your face would be as flushed as your shoulder, blooming with cerise and plum. His other hand, he wipes on his shirt before moving to thumb at the driblet of whiskey coalescing at your chin. A shaky breath leaves you, and Arthur breathes it in subtly, his hand lowering to rest against the side of your neck. Calluses graze over the soft skin and the hair at your nape. You feel the whiskey bottle slip from your fingers as he takes it and places it on the floor whilst keeping the hair-prickling nearness.

“You should rest,” Arthur whispers, and the feeling of your laboured breathing against his chest brings forth a twitch at the corners of his mouth. He rubs circles into your lower neck with his fingers, urging you to relax, which your body understands. Your shoulders sink slightly.

“Okay,” you return his tone to him, and you hear his breath mirror the shake in yours. You keep your hands where they are, worried the alcohol and dizzying pain is tempting you into the realm of fools. Your fingers wriggle languidly with the itch to feel the sheen coating his skin. His eyes flit between yours, the blue of them incandescing like the setting sun reflecting upon the shimmering seas. You swallow the spit dumbly pooling in your mouth.

“I’ll check on you in the night, make sure you’re not seizin’ or feverin’.”

“You will?”

“‘Course I will–” His gaze flits to your mouth, then your shoulder, now cleansed and stitched, he shakes his head, “stupid.

“Now, c’mon. Getch’your ass up.” Arthur begins to stand with a grunt, and as he does, he pulls you up with him. You groan at the pressure of his burly arm hooking beneath yours, lifting your bad shoulder up, his other holding your waist carefully. Letting him drag your stumbling and exhausted body out of his tent and through camp, you whimper and huff with each step to which he responds with low, calming hums, trying to gentle you. He pushes the flap of your tent open with his hip, guiding you in and laying you down on your cot in a messy heap of torn clothes, which he helps you strip off before settling a blanket over you.

“Hey, wait–! I ain’t stupid–” You croak, your offence to his earlier words sluggishly making itself aware. Arthur chuckles, rolling his eyes.

“Oh, now you’re real stupid,” He pats your knee before making his way out of your tent, “Night. Try not t’roll outta bed this time, saves me the back ache.” You grunt, slurring your words,

“Night, Arthur.” The heaviness of slumber sweeps through your limbs, and soon enough, your mind, ridding you temporarily of discomfort.

Tags for my sweethearts: @thundermartini @zae-heeyyy @pinescent-and-gingerbread @frillydolle @arthurmorganist @thesweetestapplepie @thoughts-of-bear @kayyqua @thedilfdiaries - Apologies if I miss anyone, just dm me or comment below to have me tag you <3

#arthur morgan #stottlemorgan #my writing #arthur morgan x reader #arthur morgan x you #arthur morgan x female reader #arthur morgan x male reader #arthur morgan x gn reader #rdr2 #rdr2 fanfic #red dead redemption 2

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silusvesuius · 1 year ago

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deux

this tree from my new drawing looking goated afffffff 👑👑

#text #my tags are my city nobody can say ANYTHING ! to me #anyways.... iirc i wanted to get back on the self indulgence tidbit #i a 100% believe that me drawing nothing but n*lvas is literally the peak and the summit of me being self indulgent -#- i truly could not go higher with that . and i don't know how others feel about their/other's habits of ' drawing the same fictional -#- characters over and over again ' but it;s more than that Tropey shit to me #i swear the internet wants to make everything into fucking tropes and it's driving me fucking crazuyyyyyyyyyyyyyy #a bajitrillionard people on this earth with different minds personalities and skills some of who are artists online and you wanna -#- blend them into one whole soup bruh fack outta here rn.#don't even look at me Right now #you are in big trouble young man #so...... yes. also the part about improvement being a natural part of drawing the same shit all the time is Kinda true but also not #like sure.... but very lazy improvement ? Hazy ?#i don;t think you can do leaps without actually very much wanting to become 'better'#i mean i get wat people mean by that but it still makes me itch. count me out of that #Somebody reading this and thinking 'so now the person on tumblr that only draws old man on young twink action wants to talk alldat shit' -#- and maybe that person is me ..? My evil twin #everyone has an evil mind twin so it;s okay.#but yes. i love to create ☀❄💌🍧🎀 no matter what it is i'm creating and cooking up #i like my mind #all of my 'Fandom' related stuff is so vapid and removed from the source anyway mostly bc i don't like giving gay media too much credit #but also i would hate to be the guy to say 'omg i made them my OCs leeel' cos i didn't . i could never make smth like N*lvas off the top -#- of ma head. that's a brain on a different level than mine's . You know who;s work that is? our Lord's #who was kind enough to bless the brain of some employee at sk*rim hq #i say n*lvas here out of romantic context i'm just (as always) saying their dynamic is good.#Sigh. tthey're so silly #silly silly boys #silly funny jokes #ha ha's #tumblr had enough of me it just logged me out in the middle of writing these tags Omfg

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blackwidowbabe · 6 days ago

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Hot Wheels

Description: Your roommate’s hot biker friend Natasha comes to town for a visit.

Tags: biker!Natasha (bc why not?), Wanda is reader’s roommate, reader is down bad for Nat (who isn't?), gn!reader

Word Count: 1.6k

You opened your eyes to the sound of chirping birds. It was the time of year when spring was slowly rolling into summer; days were growing longer and trees were getting greener. The sun was shining brightly on the trees that lined the street you and your roommate, Wanda, lived on.

As you slowly awakened, you could hear the sound of Wanda’s playlist coming from downstairs. That only meant one thing—she was baking.

Eager for her treats, you rolled out of bed and padded downstairs. As you entered the kitchen, you saw Wanda swaying to music as she slid a tray of unbaked cookies into the oven.

“Morning,” you greeted, seating yourself at the kitchen table.

She turned and smiled, “morning Y/N.” Wanda took off her oven mitts and set them on the counter.

As the cookies baked, the delicious smell of them wafted to your nose, which made your stomach grumble. “Those smell good.”

“They’re for Natasha,” Wanda explained. “She always liked my baking.”

“Natasha?” So the cookies weren’t for you? You paused, choosing to think rationally instead of being protective over Wanda’s (albeit orgasmic) chocolate chip cookies. “Who’s that?”

Wanda’s paused, “did I not tell you?”

“Tell me about what?” You asked reluctantly, reaching for the cookie dough-covered beaters.

"My old college friend is coming over,” she answered, slightly narrowing her eyes as she watched you lick the utensils. “I’m sorry, Y/N. I thought I told you.”

You shook your head, “I don’t mind,” you told her assuredly. Interesting people never came into the neighborhood, and it never hurt to meet new people. “What’s the saying anyway? The more, the merrier?”

Wanda shot you a grateful look, relief washing over her, “thanks, Y/N.” The brunette took the beaters from you and began washing them in the kitchen sink. You glanced outside, wondering about Natasha.

If she was Wanda’s old college friend, it probably meant she was into quieter things. Maybe she and Wanda baked together, or maybe she painted landscapes—something unexciting that would fit the vibe of your town.

You and Wanda had gone to different schools. You two had only met because you needed a roommate. Ever since you’ve known her, she’d become your best friend—sweet, but totally capable of standing up for you with an attitude and a hair flip. You were forever grateful that you met her, for both her ability to cook and for being a friend in need.

As you looked out the window, the neighborhood kids ran around spraying each other with water guns. It was the perfect suburban picture. You smiled to yourself, shaking your head.

If Wanda’s friend was coming over, she would probably be just as boring as the two of you.

——

Wanda had left to buy ingredients for dinner after letting out a few Sokovian curses when she realized she didn’t have them. By this time, the sky darkened to the point where the streetlights turned on. You had been laying on your bed, scrolling, when you heard a low rumble roll through your street.

Initially, you thought it was Wanda returning. But as the deep growl got louder, you glanced out of your window to see the source. A sleek black motorbike rolled down the street—its rider clad in the same gothic color. The biker rode as if they were one with the machine, and you watched as they leaned the bike to the side to ride up your driveway.

They parked their bike and switched their engine off—leaving the environment eerily quiet. You watched the rider swing a leg off their bike with practiced ease. As they took off their helmet, short blonde hair fell out and swayed with the movement.

That’s when you realized—seeing the person approach your front door, snapping you out of your trance as they knocked—that this was Natasha.

You hastily made your way to the front door. As you opened it, you paused. Her blonde hair was free of any helmet hair—like she simply didn’t get affected by such things. She was toned—strong—and held herself with an intimidating presence. She puts the ‘hot’ in Hot Wheels...

Her plush lips quirked slightly. “Y/N?”

“Yes—” you stammered, stepping to the side to let her pass through, “Wanda’s out right now. She went to get the ingredients for dinner.”

“That’s fine,” her voice was even as she stepped through.

“Here, let me get that,” you took her leather jacket and hung it. She gave you a polite smile, and you sheepishly smiled back. You must’ve looked a little too eager to help.

“I'm Natasha, by the way.” She said, taking a seat at the kitchen table. She clearly wasn’t one to wait for an invitation she didn’t need.

Natasha. You already knew that. But you let it roll silently over your tongue anyway as if you were hearing it for the first time.

��Natasha Romanoff.” She added.

“Romanoff? Are you Russian?”

She smiled, “da.”

You chuckled, moving to sit across from her—your usual spot at the table. “It makes sense you and Wanda clicked then. She’s also Slavic.”

The corners of Natasha’s lips twitched, “has she mentioned anything else about me?”

“Well—no. Just that you were old friends in college.”

She nodded in understanding—slowly, almost calculating. “She’s told me a bit about you as well.”

“She has?” You wondered what Wanda could’ve possibly said, there wasn’t much about you that was interesting. A small part of you hoped the blonde was impressed with whatever she could’ve said.

Natasha nodded again, her smile upturned in a playful way, “all good things.”

You smiled with relief. This was the last person you’d expect Wanda to befriend—someone who radiated confidence without needing to be extra. The two of you sat in the dimly lit kitchen in a momentary silence, the noisy cicadas blaring through the open window. There was something alluring about Natasha, and you could’ve sworn that you saw her studying you as well.

Just then, the front door clicked open. “I’m back!” Wanda returned from the store carrying a packed shopping bag. She spotted the two of you sat at the table and grinned widely in recognition. “Natasha!”

Wanda set down the shopping bag and made her way towards Natasha, who stood up from her chair. They hugged each other in reunion, both smiling happily. As they pulled apart, they chatted something in Sokovian, which went way over your head. You heard Wanda speak Sokovian with her brother over video call sometimes, but you could never pick the language up on your own.

Natasha joined you back at the table as she and Wanda continued their conversation. Wanda began preparing dinner, and the atmosphere became more vibrant.

“Do you speak Sokovian?” Natasha turned to you with a curious tone in her voice. Her question snapped you out of your thoughts, and you shook your head.

“No, I’m hopeless with languages,” you admitted, “although I’m surprised you know Sokovian too.”

“Natasha’s a polyglot,” Wanda interjected with a fond smile. She began cutting vegetables on a cutting board.

Natasha gave a humble smile but didn’t deny it.

“What else can she do?” You asked.

“What can’t she do?” Wanda started humorously, “combat, hacking.”

“I’m right here.” Natasha sighed.

“You do combat?” You asked incredulously.

Natasha nodded, “I took a few courses in uni. Wanda and I did it together.”

“You too?!”

“Natasha always beat me,” she sighed, prompting a light chuckle from Nat.

“She never tried.”

——

The three of you sat around the kitchen table, enjoying Wanda’s wonderfully cooked meal.

Wanda pointed her fork at Natasha, chewing thoughtfully before speaking. “Before you leave, remind me about the cookies I have for you.” She said.

Natasha grinned with joy, “how could I leave those behind?”

“Don’t worry, they wouldn’t go to waste,” Wanda chuckled, “Y/N loves my baking as much as you.”

Natasha’s eyes flickered to yours, “are you saying I have a competitor?”

You chuckled, setting your cutlery down. “With your combat skills, they’re all yours.”

She laughed.

Once the three of you had finished dinner, you began indulging in the cookies Natasha insisted Wanda bring out for dessert.

After a while, Wanda was the first to leave for bed. She stretched her arms over head, and with a yawn, declared she was going to sleep.

That left you with Natasha. Alone. Again. The two of you sat in silence, and you wondered what else there was to ask the blonde. “What made you start riding motorcycles?” You asked.

Natasha’s eyes lingered on the the table, thinking of an answer. “They’re easy to manage.” She replied. “Have you ever ridden one?”

“No,” you answered honestly. You wondered what riding on the back of her bike would be like. Sitting behind her, your hands lingering on the dip of her waist as wind rippled past you. “Not that I wouldn’t be interested.” You added.

“I’ll have to take you for a ride sometime.”

You looked up at her, noticing how her seemingly polite offer was mixed with a suggestive undertone.

“You’ll enjoy it.” She assured, snagging one more cookie from the bowl before leaving the table. Your eyes followed her as she walked away, trailing down to her behind. A part of you wondered if she was sashaying on purpose, the other part didn’t care at all.

“I’ll hold you to that.”

Natasha glanced back and smiled as if she was expecting the answer. “Tomorrow then.”

She made her way up the stairs, leaving you alone in the kitchen, thinking about what tomorrow would hold.

#natasha romanoff #natasha romanoff x reader #black widow x reader #natasha x reader #black widow #natasha romanoff x you #marvel #mcu #natasha romanoff fanfic #natasha romanoff x gender neutral reader #gn reader

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sorryimananti-romantic · 1 year ago

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Wave

teacher!mingi x teacher!reader

summer camp/school trip au

word count: 7.8k

genre: fluffy stuff, just tooth rotting fluff for once

synopsis: when you suggest the idea of a one week trip to give the seniors a little break before their exams, you find yourself paired with mingi as the teachers in charge of your group of students, to your surprise and satisfaction. you've had your eye on him for quite a while- but so has mingi. he proves that it isn't too late for a highschool sweetheart - him.

manager-nim: @eightmakesonebraincell (we formally salute all fluff writers bc this shit was tough)

when you heard you were accepted as a part of the crew who would be accompanying students on a one week road trip

not only were you beyond relieved because you needed a break so bad

but you were also way too curious about who else made it into the crew

it hadn’t been long since you started teaching at eden high school

but it was the quickest you found your place as an english teacher

it was surprising how well you got along with the staff here considering your not-so-excellent experience at your previous school

and the students here were just students, yes, just like everywhere but

you were pretty sure this was the most adored you had been

perhaps because you were in charge of the seniors who really needed someone like you- a person they could confide their problems and concerns in

a person who would offer solutions instead of telling them that it was just a fleeting worry

a person who would notice when they were beyond exhausted with the pressure of being, well, a senior

you remember how hard it was when it was your time and you wouldn’t want your students to go through the same thing

which was why you once suggested to mr. kim that perhaps the students would appreciate a trip

it was just a casual observation you had made and when mr. kim said ‘perhaps they really need it’, you weren’t sure if he was being serious

but turns out that he was, and the preparations began

not all the teachers could join but you had to be a part of it, mr. kim said, since you suggested it in the first place

you got so busy with assuring the students that they would have fun and they had nothing to worry about

talking to their parents in case they were being reluctant to send their kid, thinking it was a waste of time

convincing the students who were taking their studies way too seriously that they needed this- they really didn’t want to be burned out when exams would be near

that it slipped your mind- another suggestion for mr. kim to take mr. song along

mr. song mingi- the history teacher- the one who made history quite fun to learn

you had specifically planned with the staff- including him- to visit a few historical sights on the road-trip

however, he wasn’t the only history teacher here so you weren’t sure if he would be tagging along

and you never got the chance to ask him

(or even if you did, you were too shy)

but the day finally came

way too early in the morning when even the sun was asleep, you were standing by the bus counting the heads

almost all of your students made it- it was a bummer that some couldn’t but you promised to take them out for dinner after you were back

it was the least you could do for them

the girls were all over you, finding your casual style pretty intriguing

they had only ever seen you in professional clothing, tied hair and reading glasses on the bridge of your nose

so with your hair down, shades hanging by the neckline of your light blue sundress

the girls were pleased, yes, but the boys couldn’t help but share the sentiment too

“miss y/n, you should wear dresses more often!”

“light blue is your colour!”

“your hair looks so good-”

“come on now,” a familiar voice boomed and if you thought the flood of compliments from your students was making you smile

the smile changed into a grin, almost a giggle when you turned to the source

the source being none other than song mingi- in a loose sleeveless white shirt with a denim outerwear and matching jeans

song mingi may be a ‘boring history teacher’ like you sometimes teased him

but that man has got impeccable style

“stop flattering poor miss y/n and find your seats, come on!”

the students laughed but obeyed and the class pres started the roll call

and you felt a little somersault in your stomach when you locked eyes with mingi

“you made it”

he grinned back. “did you think i wouldn’t?”

“i was hoping you would, actually.”

and that took mingi off guard

you weren’t always forward with what you said unlike him and he found you a bit hard to read sometimes

and oftentimes, you surprised him with your actions or your words, just like you did now

but mingi knew when to make something out of an opportunity

“well, you’re stuck being paired with the boring old history teacher. hope you don’t mind.”

“i never called you old, though,” you told him, smiling to yourself before following the guard’s orders and getting on the bus

mingi, of course, sat next to you, the only seat available

and you marvelled at the turn of events

because how long had you wished for some sort of proximity to happen?

it wasn’t easy to be alone in the school with him- not that you wanted to do anything alone with him, but

sometimes, you thought, it would have been nice if you got one-to-one interaction with him that wasn’t related to grading each other’s papers

or sharing pointers about the next exam

sometimes, he would find you alone with your head in your hands

and he would decide not to disturb you and leave a little something for you near your desk for you to spot if you, well, got your head out of your hands

a candy or a ‘cheer up!’ note

you would also find him alone in some classroom sometimes

you noticed he preferred to be alone at times so you knew to look in his classroom first instead of the staff room

he would be so absorbed in whatever he was doing

that you would simply watch him until he felt your gaze burning into his skin

and then you would pretend to have been passing by

and of course you ‘accidentally’ bought two of whatever you were going to snack on

mingi would offer you to join him but most of the times, you let him be

but sometimes, if the staff room was too noisy, you would join him

and the two of you would sit at opposite ends of the classroom doing your own work

(while secretly stealing glances but nobody needed to know that)

so now that you finally got to be alone with him

ignoring the twenty-some noisy children in the back- they could be considered background noise

you couldn’t help but play with your fingers

the bus started and mingi initiated conversation

telling you who was paired with who

each bus had at least one male and one female teacher and only two out of the four buses had two teachers

the other being jongho and gyeoul

“ah, gyeoul is going to forget she’s a teacher. i bet she’ll be sitting with the students playing uno with them.”

“jongho is going to drive the kids away with his dad jokes,” mingi tsk-ed. “but guess the most interesting pairing?”

us?

“hongjoong, wooyoung and yuqi.”

“no way!” you actually laughed out loud this time. “hongjoong’s going to regret ever planning this trip.”

“you bet,” he scoffed. “seonghwa, mina and eunha are in the other bus.”

“all the calm ones?”

“i switched with seonghwa, actually,” he admitted and you raised a brow. “seonghwa gets along with them. i get along with you. we might as well have a good time too, now that we’re here, right?”

right.

he switched to be with you

“you sure you won’t regret that decision?”

you didn’t expect his eyes to travel all over your face and his lips to curve into a smirk

“i’m sure.”

and that was your cue to check on your students

you took a round, making sure everyone was comfortable and told them all to just take a nap

there wasn’t anything interesting going to happen for a good few hours

lucky for you, the kids were sleepy

so the bus fell quiet, the driver assuring you that you both could relax too- there was another driver to keep him company anyway

so you asked mingi if he was sleepy

“not yet. are you?”

“not yet,” you confirmed.

“are you comfortable? do you need anything?”

you relaxed back, shoulder to shoulder with mingi, a small blanket on your lap. “i’m good. do you need anything?”

“not for now, nope,” he took a deep breath. “how long has it been since your last trip?”

and that was how you found yourself actually relaxing and talking to him

you told him your last trip was a while ago with your family

you didn’t want to count school trips but you told him about that too

and he told you about his experiences

just like that, you got to know each other a little better

details you wouldn’t have shared otherwise

from random facts about each other:

“i used to love reading. i became an english teacher because i would consume books like nothing else. but i haven’t read a new book in about a year.”

“i hated the idea of being a history major until one of my professors started using storytelling as a way to get us to learn about the world. i still remember the stories he’d make up.”

to gossip:

“i think i saw wooyoung checking out eunha earlier”

“don’t you think mina’s got a thing for seonghwa?”

somewhere between all of that, you got too sleepy to continue talking

you didn’t realise when you dozed off but when you woke up with a weight on your side

your heart almost stopped when you realised it was mingi resting his head against your shoulder

and quite comfortably at that

you realised you may have been resting your face on his head too

and the current position with your neck upright was sending a painful wave down your shoulder

so you decided to give in, checking the time- you could sleep for another hour

you went back to resting your face on top of his head, the bubbly smell of his shampoo lulling you right back to sleep

you woke up when you felt the bus stop and when you groggily lifted your head

you realised that mingi had been awake for quite some while, using his phone

but he never moved because you were using his head as a pillow

“oh my god,” you said, hiding your face in your hands so he wouldn’t see your flaming cheeks. “i’m sorry, i didn’t realise-”

“it’s okay,” mingi chuckled, waving his hand in dismissal. “i’m to blame too.”

you looked at him to make sure it was really okay and when he said, “your snores are cute” you chucked your blanket at him and looked around

you were making a quick stop at a rest area

you woke the kids up and told them now was the time to get snacks or use the toilet

you met up with the teachers to have coffee, everyone in good spirits having woken up from their naps

the wind already felt different and fresh now that you were a few hundred miles away from the city

with newfound energy, you all got back into your buses and that was when the fun started-

for the kids.

it was suddenly too lively and noisy, loud music blasted in the bus and a few kids showing off their dance moves, the rest cheering them on

you clapped along, reminiscing about your own highschool time

soon, you reached the first town on your list- a town known for its historical ruins

though the kids had been complaining about visiting ruins- what’s there to learn about ruins?

you assured them the trip would only get better and you kept the ‘boring’ sites for the first few days

because you wanted to end the trip on a cheerful note- the beach

as the kids crowded and started following the teachers, you took note of their complaints and unsatisfied grunts

and though panic started bubbling in your heart- maybe you shouldn’t have put this town on the list? all your anxieties faded away when a certain history teacher stepped in to save the day

“alright, remember when i told you guys about the spirit of the exiled princess that haunts a certain town? that people spot in the forest sometimes?”

“is the spirit pretty?” a boy asked, earning a bunch of snickers from the crowd

but the way mingi smirked made them all shut up

“i guess you’ll find out soon.”

you winced when the kids burst into a chorus of cheers or frightened screams and the teachers shared a good laugh at how mingi handled this

“remember- if you find a four-leaf clover, the spirit might spare you!”

and as mingi guided them along the town, sharing fun facts about the sites, the kids kept their eyes trained on the ground in chances of finding the lucky leaf

really, it was worse than a needle in a haystack

after visiting a few sites, you found yourselves in the heart of the town, at a food street

all the class presidents were instructed to make sure the kids stay in sight and that they were free to go eat whatever they wanted

the kids were simply famished and just wanted those corn dogs and fish cakes

the staff took a table in the centre and you were glad that it was a weekday today- apart from a few people, you were the only ones here

you all got some noodles and double checked on your accommodations- it was supposed to rain so you wanted to check-in before dark

just like that, it was time to go find shelter

you stuck with your group of students like every other teacher

and when you reached the lodge, you made sure everyone went to their rooms before finding your own that you were to share with the female staff

the rest of the girls were already there, removing their makeup and stretching. you smiled as you followed suit

“this trip is exactly what i needed,” yuqi slumped down on the mattress as she said. “even though today was a bit boring, the weather makes up for it.”

“well, the night isn’t over yet,” gyeoul smiled mischievously. “it doesn’t have to end on a boring note.”

she came up with the genius idea of having drinks in the backyard with the boys

mina sighed in disappointment because if gyeoul had told her earlier, she wouldn’t have removed her makeup so soon

“you’re pretty anyway,” eunha told her, grabbing her hand and dragging her out

you told them you would join after a few minutes and changed into your pjs like the rest

when you went to the backyard, you let out a surprised laugh

because the boys had already prepared drinks for all of you before gyeoul

“great minds think alike” hongjoong said

“rich coming from you because all it takes is one drink and it’s game over for you,” wooyoung said and seonghwa’s laughter boomed in the air

“you’re no good either, seonghwa!” mingi pointed at the teacher, clicking his glass with wooyoung’s and sharing a shot

you smiled to yourself- it looked like you were going to make really good memories on this trip

you took a seat between the noisy ones- wooyoung and yuqi- and immediately started regretting it

because not only were the two of them were making you drink a lot, ensuring a good hangover

but they also kept teasing everyone (including you) and you thought they were too loud

not that you weren’t having fun

you surprised everyone by joining them after a few drinks, though you couldn’t defend yourself like the two did

what a team they made

of all the people, mingi noticed that perhaps… you needed to switch seats

or the environment- he didn’t want you to get too drunk

so when he subtly motioned for you to follow him, you nodded in answer

he told the drunk lot he would get more drinks

as if there weren’t a bunch of unopened bottles on the ground

but thankfully they were too busy roasting each other to notice

and then you made the excuse of wanting to go to the toilet and left

you walked inside the hall, trying to figure out exactly where mingi had gone

you almost walked past him in the dark corridor and if mingi hadn’t grabbed your arm, you wouldn’t have known

you turned towards him, eyes wide in surprise

he immediately let go of you, not wanting you to feel uncomfortable

“wanna go see the stars?”

when he said that, you didn’t realise it would become a nighttime ritual for the two of you

because away from the city, you could see so many stars

that drunken night, you watched the stars with him in silence

too afraid to speak lest he figure out the desires within your heart

the desire to be with him, to get to know him more, to simply talk to him

but that comfortable silence definitely created a shift in your dynamics.

you didn’t travel much the next day, just explored the surroundings and made a trip to the top of the hill

taking as many photos as you wanted

capturing candids of the students and the teachers to share with them later

watching in fascination as some of the kids caught bugs quite easily

thanking the girls who made flower bracelets for all of you

and when you caught mingi smiling at the bracelet on his wrist, you showed off yours

“the boring old history teacher received a gift?” you teased

“you have to admit that they’re creative,” he laughed. “look- the boys want them too.”

the boys, in fact, wanted them. they were all queued up waiting for the girls to give them all a bracelet- or a ring

“oh, when we go back, there are gonna be so many campus couples,” eunha joined the two of you to watch the sight

really, it was pretty obvious who liked who- they wanted to receive the flowers from the person they liked

and the girls wanted to give the flowers to the person they liked

you wondered if they were so obvious… were you too?

because it was common knowledge that wooyoung liked eunha- even right now, you caught him stealing glances at her

and if you looked behind you, mina was listening to seonghwa quite intently while he rambled on about something

hongjoong, who was right there, seemed the least interested

so when you looked up at mingi, you caught him staring at you and your heart skipped a beat

“you’ve got a little something on your head- a petal.”

“where?” you ran your fingers through your hair where he pointed but it seemed like you didn’t get it

and mingi decided to take the matter into his own hands and leaned down a bit to pick the petal from near your ear

and just like that, time stopped for a few seconds

maybe you should stop really stop reading novels

even though you haven’t read one in about a year

but just like in the books, the length of the duration- despite being only a matter of a few seconds- seemed too long

as you met his eyes, the golden rays of the sun casting a warm glow on his skin

and making his dark orbs more prominent

you wished he was wearing shades right now so you wouldn’t be entranced by the way his eyes scanned your face

but you blinked, and the moment was over- he drew away and tossed the petal on the ground, smiling awkwardly

and you were so glad jongho called you at that moment, having spotted a kitten and knowing how much you liked cats

you got busy with him, burying that moment aside for the time being

that night, you came back to the same lodge

you didn’t drink this time, having learned your lesson from how bad the hangover was in the morning

but you played a few games of uno and perhaps… this was noisier than last night

because there were quite a few sneaky players in this game

gyeoul and jongho- the evil duo of the school

“have some shame,” wooyoung tsk-ed at gyeoul who grinned at jongho- only you seemed to have noticed the look they shared

the look of an underlying scheme

you were sometimes surprised by how well they got along despite gyeoul being a few years older than all of you, and jongho being the youngest teacher in the school

like attracts like, apparently. evil attracts evil

you noticed jongho mouth a number at gyeoul and you realised what was going on

they either took a peek at the other teacher’s cards since there wasn’t much space here to hide your cards properly

or when jongho had shuffled the cards… he had pulled some trick at that time

either way, you weren’t going to let the two of them win- at least not them

so you looked at mingi who was right in front of you, and you subtly let him know that the two were at it again

he stifled a smile, whispering ‘i got this’

and the tables turned when within a few minutes, he somehow tricked gyeoul into playing her wild cards but completely destroyed her

he did not win the game but to you, he was the winner

and you told him that when he asked if you wanted to watch the stars a bit tonight too before sleeping

he laughed loudly at that, almost getting shy

and that night, you talked about the most random stuff. again.

it was like you could never run out of things to talk about

after all, there was so much to talk about

the work tea

recent developments- eunha was noticing wooyoung back and seonghwa was still an airhead

you thought seonghwa was just equally nice to everyone so it would be hard to figure out if he looked at mina differently

some students tea- one of the close-knit group of friends had a falling out during the trip

mingi was sure they would figure it out on their own

but you were sure one of them would come to you or wooyoung for advice

you both were the unofficial counsellors in your school

“why wooyoung?” mingi wondered. “why not me?”

“because you, mr. song, seem a tad bit intimidating at times.”

the puppy eyes of disbelief he made in response proved you wrong

“who? me?”

you couldn’t help but laugh at the way he was looking at you

“sometimes, yes.”

“more than wooyoung?”

“wooyoung is a literal ball of sunshine though…”

mingi turned towards you, stepping closer

“do i seem intimidating to you too?”

though it was an innocent question

it did nothing to help the butterflies in your stomach

it took everything in you to shake your head no

because he felt intimidating sometimes, that was true

and if it wasn’t for his warm personality

you might not have ever interacted properly with him

mingi laughed to himself, perhaps knowing that you might be lying

and it fell silent all of a sudden

just the sound of the crickets and the rustling of the leaves

and the loud sound of your thoughts

the next two days were a blur

and you thought that when you would go back home, you would have to look at all the photos you took

to ingrain these memories in your brain

because the days were packed travelling and having fun

the bus rides were fun and now it was mr. song who showed his dance moves to the students

he was surprisingly very good- in fact- too good

you wondered if that was why he felt so chill- because he just had this chill groove to him

which showed a lot in his dance moves when he freestyled

you had to physically go and calm the girls after this because

suddenly they were seeing the boring old history teacher in a new light

you folded your arms when mingi made his way back, still laughing at the way the girls cheered for him and the boys clapped

he asked you if you liked what you saw

and that made you smack his arm and turn your focus out of the window to hide your blush admire the scenery

now it was mostly visiting a few spots such as more historical sites and shopping points

and during the day, you were usually with the girls so you could shop together

you tried the local delicacies which was a new experience for most of the people here

and visited an apple farm to help the farmers as well

since it was a packed two days, the teachers didn’t really play more uno or drink

though all of you would gather, this time in the common room, to plan what was next

but both of these nights, mingi offered you the same thing-

wanna see the stars?

you learned more about him and he about you

you learned that he has always loved to dance

and he loves karaokes- especially drunk karaokes

he learned more about your previous school experience

how they overworked you so much

combined with gaslighting, you thought it was normal and you were just lacking

he assured you that you made a good decision quitting

and commended you for taking the big step- after all, it must have been daunting

though he did not have a similar experience, he could understand you

just like that, you learned the little things about each other

and now that the trip was almost over, you told mingi that you would like to take a walk around while you watched the stars

while walking, you were suddenly reminded of the time the staff went out for dinner once

and everyone was at least a bit tipsy if not drunk

when it was time to wrap up and mingi saw that you meant to walk home

he offered to accompany you

and that was only a few months after you started teaching so you weren’t very familiar with all the teachers

though you were pretty sure they were all very nice

you told mingi that he was too drunk but he insisted anyway

and you let him walk you to your neighbourhood which wasn’t far from there

now, almost two years later, you were both taking a walk again and it was oddly reminiscent of that time

and it seemed like mingi was thinking the same when he asked you if you remembered when he first walked you home

“i never told you but i didn’t remember for a while,” he confessed, the rustling of the leaves under your steps growing louder as you stepped on the autumn leaves

you weren’t surprised, if you were honest

“it’s okay. you didn’t do anything stupid. except make crow noises, but that’s okay.”

mingi covered his face in his hands as he laughed and you smiled

“i may or may not have been trying to impress you.”

“really? it was a success. i haven’t heard many people pull off crow noises that well.”

when mingi made a face at that, you lightly punched his arm

“it really is okay. but i have one little favour to ask…”

mingi knew what was coming before you said it

and you both walked a bit further from the hotel

making sure no one was around

before mingi turned away from you and made the loudest caws

and this time, you laughed heartily

you were so absorbed in your little bubble that when you heard the sound of a door opening

probably the door of the nearest lodge who heard strange sounds in the middle of the night

you grabbed mingi’s hand instinctively and started running away from the source of the sound

the two of you couldn’t stop laughing, even as you ran

so much that it made it harder to run, actually

he took the lead and guided you to the benches to catch your breaths

and it was only after a couple of minutes when your breathing returned to normal

and the adrenaline started to wear off

that you realised the two of you were still holding hands

maybe because the muscles of your arm tensed at the sudden realisation that mingi finally noticed your joined hands

but when he glanced at you and found the corners of your lips curved in a small smile at the sight

he squeezed your hand instead of letting it go

and you looked up at him to see him shyly smiling

“what?” you asked

you couldn’t help it- you needed to know what he was thinking

“nothing, y/n,” he shook his head though he was unable to stifle his smile

“it’s not nothing,” you insisted. “why are you trying so hard not to smile?”

“it’s because i quite like this,” he finally admitted, raising your joined hands and you noticed how small your hand was in his, almost swallowed in his grip

for once, you were the one who was at a loss for words

“did i say something wrong?” mingi asked

and you wished he wasn’t so straightforward

but perhaps, it was for the better

and you thought the timing felt right too

the sky looked beautiful

the air felt like it was enveloping you in its embrace

the moon beautifully lit his face, highlighting the sharpness of his features

yet casting such a soft, welcoming glow

you shook your head, caressing the skin of his hand with your thumb in answer

there was no need for words anymore- the feelings were reciprocated, and you both could feel that

mingi made a daring move when he raised your joined hands in the air again

you wondered what he was up to now

but the last thing you expected was for him to kiss the back of your hand

it was such an endearing action that you could not help but giggle

“can’t we stay like this even when we go back home?”

an offer. a question. a confession. it was all of that and more

“i don’t think you can see many stars in the city though.”

“i don’t think i would have to look for stars,” mingi said, looking right at you

that was enough

you smacked his arm. “that’s the cheesiest pick up line i’ve ever heard. you really are the boring old history teacher, mingi.”

you started to go back, folding your arms and still giggling especially when mingi laughed loudly, rushing after you

you tried to run but damn his long legs

he caught up to you, running backwards in front of you now

you pouted as you tried to cross him, but he just won’t let you

“you haven’t answered my questions.”

you paused. you really hadn’t, huh?

he stepped closer to you, trying to read your face for a hint of what was going on behind your eyes

and you thought it was time to finally follow your heart’s desires

and test the waters without any fear

you stepped closer, surprising him

you placed a hand on his shoulder and he wondered what you were about to do

he shut his eyes when you stood on your tiptoes, inches away from him

and you took a moment to drink in the sight

before you pecked his cheek, a giggle escaping your mouth

and this time, you ran for your life

because you didn’t think you could take anything else right now

especially because you had waited so long for some sort of a signal from him

though you wanted nothing more than to hug him and stay there for the rest of the night

you let him chase you and let him hold your hand again

when it was time to separate to go to your respective rooms

he patted your cheek, looking at you with such soft eyes that you melted

and you knew, in that moment

that you were absolutely done for

the travelling time for the next day was a bit longer

which meant you got to spend more time with mingi on the bus

and it was a little awkward at first, the both of you fumbling around like the very teenagers you were making fun of not too long ago

the very teenagers that were on the bus right now

and it took you both a while to stop fidgeting and do something other than awkwardly laugh

thankfully, one of the students came forward with some snacks to share

and thus began a discussion of which snacks were better and which were mid-tier

you both were so enthusiastic about this that the students joined as well

before you knew it, you reached the outskirts of the village you were going to stay in for the next two days

and you thought beautiful was an understatement

the sea was so bright that it looked like a sheet of clear crystals under the sun

the air smelt of salt and sand and you felt a sense of relief

and so did the rest of the passengers- you could hear the soft sighs of the students

this was why you planned the trip

so everyone could just relax at the seaside

there was nothing planned for the last two days- there were a few sites so the students could divide into groups according to where they wanted to go

and the teachers would divide and tag along accordingly

the next two days were all about having fun

no more historical sights, as the kids teased mingi

though mingi retorted with a poetic ‘history is everywhere’ that earned him a few grimaces

as soon as you reached the lodges by the beach, the kids all ran towards the sea with the teachers shouting concerningly

thankfully, there were a few lifeguards since it was a tourist destination

so all of you decided to relax a little too, while still keeping an eye on the kids

that day, you all simply enjoyed being on the beach

making sandcastles, playing volleyball, swimming and collecting shells and rocks

mingi was out with his sleeveless again, no jacket covering his arms this time

you had a tough time if you were honest

and so did mina who couldn’t stop sighing at the sight of seonghwa’s long wet hair matted to his face

you could kind of relate to her, though your eyes only followed mingi

and perhaps, you were as obvious as mina now

because a certain menace came to stand next to you

“was just curious why you keep grinning into the distance. but nope. you’re just watching that fool. also, maybe wipe the drool off your mouth.”

you glared at wooyoung

“when you wipe yours. do you want to know what eunha thinks about you?”

suddenly, he’s ready to bow in front of you if necessary and you laughed

you’re both just two lovesick birds at this point and decided to calm yourself by making some sandcastles

“i never realised you got the hots for mingi too,” wooyoung said while trying to place a shell on the top of the lopsided castle.

“what do you mean ‘too’?” you asked absently, more focused on making sure the whole thing wouldn’t collapse because of a shell

“he’s liked you for the longest time, y/n. you’ve just only noticed now.”

oh.

that can’t be true, can it?

“are you sure?”

“i mean, he literally watches the stars with you every night. why else would he do that? and only with you? i like watching stars too, he knows. never offered me now, did he?”

you snorted at that

it did make sense

plus, with the events of last night… he must like you a little, right?

you decided to confirm it tonight

this time, you were the one who asked to watch the stars with him

after dinner when you made sure all the kids were in their rooms

the whole staff went to watch the stars, actually

you couldn’t miss it here- the full moon was the cherry on the top

however, you noticed how wooyoung and eunha found a spot away from the rest

mina also managed to get seonghwa to follow him- and perhaps, you thought, he really did like mina

the rest were in their own bubble

and you grabbed mingi’s hand to lead him towards the big rock you had spotted earlier

where you could have a little privacy

not that you aimed to do anything, no

you just wanted him all to yourself

was it selfish of you? yes. absolutely. but did you care?

nope

did mingi care? he followed you willingly

this time, you were more touchy with each other

while you talked about how much you had missed the beach, his fingers trailed the curves of your hand absently

you brushed the sand off his cheekbone

and he scooted closer to you

“i don’t want to go back now,” you sighed happily

you really didn’t want to- it was too peaceful here

and you had never felt more content

“neither do i,” mingi said. “but at the same time… i do.”

“hmm… are you sick of watching the stars with me?”

mingi laughed at that

“i thought by now you knew that i never watched the stars.”

your heart did a few flips at his words and you glanced at him

he was right- he never really looked at the stars

he was always watching you

“would you like to see the stars when we go back?”

“every day, if i can?” he tucked your hair behind your ear as he said

“i really like you, y/n.”

god

it’s like you’re the high school student on a trip the way you’re feeling right now

you smiled, looking away and shyly responding

“i really like you too, mingi. i have, for a long time now.”

“how long?” the goofy mingi was back

“never answering that by the way,” you said, getting up and away from him. “you cannot extract that information out of me.”

“y/n!” he yelled your name in warning and you laughed as you tried to make a dash

but he was far too quick and he grabbed your wrist

you had to put your free hand over your mouth to keep your laugh from booming across the horizon

but you could not contain it when he pulled you in to his chest

you wasted no time wrapping your arms around his slim waist

and he curled in your hold, rocking you back and forth

“you’re too tall, by the way,” you said when you realised you were on your tiptoes and he was leaning down

he parted with a kiss on your cheek, pinching your nose afterwards

sending your brain into a spiral, turning you into mush

“you’re too cute.”

no.

you’re too insane because you want to kiss him right now

and you don’t know what took over you when you did just that- pecked his lips, surprising both of you

giggling when his eyes went a little wide

your grin almost faded when he didn’t respond

but before you could say or do something, he crashed his lips on yours

kissing you deeply, once before drawing away and making sure that it was okay

oh, it was more than okay

but he decided to keep things calm, kissing you slowly and testing the waters

it was perfect in every way, more than what you ever dreamed about

you just never expected this

you and mingi on this beautiful beach, the full moon shining on you two, the waves almost washing your feet

all the four-leaf clovers you found were worth it, it seemed

now that you were sort of official

you spent the next two days with each other

without any hesitation this time

the others barely noticed the difference and you realised that it was because perhaps, the two of you had always looked at each other that way

(or maybe a certain kim hongjoong told them to shut up and let you two enjoy)

but either way, the others let you two tag together when you accompanied the students into town

you went to the local shops and this time, you bought things for your friends and family just like the students

you all had bbq before coming back to the lodges

and that night, you gifted mingi a silly pair of sunglasses

round sunglasses with wide white rims

and when he wore them, you burst into a fit of giggles

“you look like willy wonka from charlie and the chocolate factory”

“do i?” mingi asked, unlocking his phone to check

“mingi wonka. mingi wonka, the amazing history teach~”

you were pretty sure your laughter was heard by everyone on the beach as he chased you

you decided to take refuge in the waves of the sea and started swimming away from him

but he was quick to follow

and once he caught you, wrapping his arms around your waist, you laughed shyly

“someone will see us!”

but when you turned in his arms

the moonlight illuminating his face but hiding his eyes due to the glasses he still had on

you tried taking them off his face but he grabbed your wrists

“yeah, keep them on,” you whispered. “they suit you.”

“i can’t tell if this is a joke or not,” he smiled a bit

“you just need a hat and a cane to go along with it-”

and before you knew it, mingi put his hand on top of your head and dunked you under the sea

you splashed water on him in revenge

and the two of you chased each other again until he finally caught you

and this time, you thought he really did look beautiful with the damp hair and the glasses

so you didn’t try to wriggle away from his grasp when he leaned in to kiss you

the last day, everyone decided to just laze around at the beach

the kids played in the water all day

and it was a bit cloudy so the heat was tolerable too

you wore a hat, resting your back against a rock

and whoever passed by would mess up your hat, annoying you

wooyoung decided to step in to guard you

but also for advice

“would it be too much if i cook and take eunha to a private spot for a little picnic?”

you shut the book you had been trying to read and turned your focus to wooyoung

“that sounds cute, actually. would she accompany you willingly?”

wooyoung smacked your arm and you snickered. “she gifted me my favourite perfume last night.”

“so?”

“how did she know?” wooyoung folded his arms. “i’ve never talked about which perfume i wear. no one knows, but she knew.”

this time, you let out a long ‘oh’ as you pondered

“you’re telling me she did her research?”

wooyoung nodded, very pleased

“do you know what her favourite food is?”

“that’s what i came to ask.”

you both did a little planning and wooyoung admitted that he had noticed a shift in your relationship with mingi too

you asked him if you were that obvious

and almost comically, you both looked towards seonghwa

“he’s hopeless,” wooyoung concluded

for some reason, mingi was very curious about what you two were talking about

(or maybe he just wanted you all to himself for the time being)

and he told you that intrusive thought that night

it was the last night of the trip and you would be leaving for home in the morning

so you told him that he better get used to the lack of proximity

because during school hours, it would be pretty packed especially now that exams were nearer

and after that, you both would have too much to work on

“will i be able to see you often then?”

“i mean…” you began. “what are we?”

mingi’s mouth formed an o shape as he realised

that you two hadn’t really talked about this

“shall i ask you out?”

“if i have to tell you that…” you scowled at him and he laughed

digging into his pocket to extract a small box

it was your mouth forming the o shape now

he opened the box to reveal a set of matching bracelets

a pretty little silver chain, very subtle, and just how you preferred

“will you go out with me?”

you made an impressed face, accepting the bracelet

“i didn’t know you were such a romantic”

“there are a lot of things you don’t know yet”

“i’m pretty sure i don’t need to know most of those things-”

mingi only laughed this time

that night came to be a memorable one

as the trip concluded and you got back to your daily routine

you found that it no longer felt mechanical

you started off with a smile on your face

even mondays felt exciting

because you could see mingi at school

you would eat lunch together everyday with the rest of the staff

but it was official now- you and mingi

and wooyoung and eunha

the latter was more unexpected, the staff revealed

and you were flustered to hear about how obvious the two of you had been

but it was okay

seonghwa finally noticed that mina acted differently only around him

and was left confused as he tried to figure out how he felt

hongjoong and yuqi were your new enemies

they made it their life’s mission to never let you couples have a peaceful moment

at least wooyoung could fight back

you and mingi were the type to let him bully you

and the students?

they thought they were being subtle when they tried to make the two of you cross each other at the same corridor

or when they casually told you things about each other, little updates

you caught on pretty quick but you let them be

though it was all fun and jokes

hongjoong told you a little secret later on

that mingi had specifically requested to come on this trip because of you

it was endearing

after school, mingi would walk you home every night

because that was the time you could catch up with each other in private

sometimes, you would stop by to have dinner or coffee

you met each other’s families and they instantly liked you

everything was perfect

everything was perfect, just like the waves had been on that beach

calm, playful but strong

just like your love for each other

and every night before you went to sleep

(if you were not sleeping beside mingi)

you would look at the grid on your wall

at the pictures of you and mingi on the beach

and the picture of him in those silly glasses that suited him so well

and if you were sleeping beside mingi?

well

you could just look at the real thing :D

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