hobisverse

[hobisverse]

This is not helping my LADS brainrot lmao but I couldn’t help it, this was such an adorable prompt and very in character for all three boys! Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to continue making my way through Irene’s masterlist or I might just actually turn into seafoam thank you

You turned tiny! A strange Wanderer causing fluctuations affected you, and even after you defeated it, you found yourself no taller than a water bottle. Your Hunter's Watch analyzed you, determining that the effects would be over after a full day. ...but what until then? You should probably call one of the guys...

(Mainly fluff with a bit of crack)

If you spend your day with Rafayel:

Well, first of all, he laughs. He puts his hands on his knees and doubles over in laughter.

If you were already short: "I don't think your body knows how growing works."

If you were tall: "Now blankets will finally be able to fit you."

He picks you up by your middle and sits you on his shoulder. You hang onto his hair and ear, which he complains about. "I'm not gonna drop you, you don't need to grab me so tightly!" He blushes.

He takes you back to his house to "take care" of you while you're in this state. Which consists of him taking several pictures of you, to your annoyance. But seeing you angry only makes him laugh, you look too cute to be taken seriously, your tiny fists beating against his crouching legs.

In the end he relents and stops taking pictures, but then he moves on to the next activity: Making you little paper clothes. Treating you like a dress-up doll, he ends up making a whole closet worth of clothing.

When you inevitably get hungry, he orders some sushi and feeds you grains of rice and salmon bits, eating himself the rest.

He keeps you the whole time either on his shoulder or on top of a table, so he'll know where you are at all times and won't accidentally trip over you.

You get to watch him paint from a unique perspective, his eyes focused on the canvas and his breathing relaxed, even as you accidentally pull his hair while trying to change your sitting position.

At one point he just caresses your hair and face affectionately, unable to resist how adorable you look. His fingers gently trace your features.

When night arrives, he lays you down on his chest and covers you with his hand. You can hear his steady heartbeat as you fall asleep.

The next morning you realize you're back to your normal size. You're on top of him, your head still on his chest, and the hand that was covering you now on your nape.

As he wakes up and realizes, he turns red, but he doesn't even move, saying, "You're lucky your cuteness levels stayed the same even after changing back."

If you spend your day with Xavier:

He crouches, staring at you with a mixture of wonder and pity. Then he chuckles softly, but without malice.

He lowers his hand to the ground for you to step on, then brings you close to his body. You climb inside his jacket and wrap your arms around the belt across his chest.

"Don't worry, I'm here." He reassures you.

He takes you to his apartment, since your fingers are too small to activate the fingerprint lock on your front door.

He kneels by the couch, letting you hop down. He doesn't know how comfortable you'd be with him grabbing you in this state, so he prefers to let you move by yourself.

Mainly he carries you by letting you step onto his palm, or he simply lets you sit on the couch, on top of a few arranged pillows.

He lays down next to you to nap, and once you assure him repeatedly that you're fine with it, he cuddles you like a plushie.

You wake him up when your stomach growls. He offers to make something, which you quickly shoot down, so he orders some pasta from a nearby restaurant.

He smiles as he watches you struggle to eat a whole spaghetti noodle, carefully helping you clean the sauce on your mouth and hands with a napkin. He eats the rest.

Afterwards he offers some of his books for you to pass the time, but it proves to be a tiring activity, as the books are taller than you and you have to move your head almost 90° to read a line, not to mention how bothersome it is turning the pages.

He offers to read them to you, so you sit on his lap, but he ends up falling asleep while reading.

You resign yourself and decide to wake him up so you both can properly head to bed and sleep. He cuddles you again, careful not to squeeze you too hard.

As morning comes, as you find yourself turned back, your head is resting against the crook of his neck and his arms are around you.

He stirs and wakes up, smiling as he moves his head to look at you. "Even though you're not plushie-sized anymore, can I cuddle you like this again sometime?"

If you spend your day with Zayne:

Even if the situation is comical, he's still worried. He kneels down and looks you over, making sure you're fine apart from the obvious.

He even scolds you lightly for being so careless while fighting Wanderers.

He scoops you up and puts you in his jacket's breast pocket, your hands grabbing onto the edge. There's a wrapped mint at your feet.

He takes you to his apartment, looking down at you every once in a while to make sure you're still in his pocket and doing fine.

Once home, he doesn't leave your side. Well, more specifically, he doesn't let you leave his side, because now you could get hurt very easily. You're either in his pocket or on his desk, the latter only because he had some documents to finish reviewing and he doesn't want you out of his sight.

You seize this moment to play with the things on his desk, annoying him as revenge for not letting you do anything. Clicking pens, walking over his keyboard, shuffling some papers... He ends up putting you back in his pocket, sighing.

"It seems getting smaller didn't affect your ability to cause me trouble." He pinches the bridge of his nose.

He brings you to the kitchen to cook some food, and even lets you help him, although he completely turns down your idea of cutting the ingredients with your now-tiny sword.

You eat a small portion of mashed potatoes that you could swear Zayne has calculated in accordance with your size, but you don't see the math to prove it.

After eating, he asks you to check your Hunter's Watch again to make sure you'll be back to normal tomorrow, stating that it would be a hassle to take you to work, but he says it in a way that lets you know he actually cares.

Even though he rarely sleeps a whole night, this time he makes an exception for you, and goes to bed at an adequate time. He lays you down on the pillow so you'll be as comfortable as possible, bringing the covers up at your level. His face is right next to you, his eyelashes fluttering as he closes his eyes.

The alarm wakes both of you up. He blinks softly as he sees you're back to normal, your forehead touching his and one of his hands resting on your waist.

"I was starting to worry I wouldn't be able to kiss you any time soon."

[hobisverse]

Note: this is part 5 of a series. I have not written chapter specific reviews yet as of the time of posting this review (but this may change in the future). 

(The format of this post is Bridgerton inspired -- for those that may not have read the series or watched the adaptation, it is meant to be written in a third/first person format; ton refers to the general populus.)

Dearest Gentle Reader,

It is with great difficulty that I am sat here today at my writing desk attempting to review our Sovereign Ana’s latest addition to the novel series that has taken the ton by storm. Many were left wanting after the fourth chapter, waiting (im)patiently. It is this Author’s greatest honour to announce that the fifth and likely penultimate instalment in the Kanalia series. 

Do be warned that there are discussions as to what occurred during the fifth chapter under the spoiler cut.

There were tears shed during the king is a fool, borne of frustration (both inherently sexual and nonsexual in nature), relief, anger, as were there sighs of disappointment, those of this Author’s irrevocable love for one Jung Hoseok that has unsurprisingly spilled over to Lord Jung in the form of lovesick sighs, and ones that accompanied so many instances of eye-rolling that this Author’s eyes nearly became stuck permanently to the top of her eye-sockets, usually due to either pure stupidity (see note on men and their testosterone-fuelled competitions) or hypocrisy (see: “King” and “societal standards”). 

The few purely innocent moments came from the one and only Min Yeona, who, this Author is proud to say, remains fat, proud, and gummy, the latter of which can be attributed to her father. However, it should be noted that this Author found herself wondering if the babe could serve as a placating gesture ahead of the horrid, infuriating actions that were to come. If the answer to this is yes, Sovereign Ana, this Author must wonder just how (rightfully, in her opinion) incensed you think your readers must be in order to offer up a mere babe as distraction for the ton to fuss over, albeit a very effective one.

One of this Author’s favourite writing mechanisms was to include the weather as a metaphor for the increasing tension between the three main characters. If this was indeed intentional, then this Author can only smile and shake her head fondly before nodding in acquiescence, for we are all fools that have played into our Sovereign’s hands. 

There were many a times that this Author had to pause, for the audacity of man knows no bounds (see: King). Notwithstanding how tempting or seemingly well-intentioned the King may seem at times, this Author is firmly standing by her decision to condemn him without possibility of wooing back into his good graces. 

In spite of t This Author’s unquestionable love for one Lord Jung and the uncanny ability to somersault him out of wrongdoings wherever possible, she regrettably must deem him is once again in effect, as all wrongs from the previous instalment of Kanalia have been erased in part due to mention of his dreamy dark eyes and swoon-inducing low register when incensed. And several mentions of a particular slim, lithe body. And hands. And a certain feather-ruffling risque scene that will not be further impressed upon. For this Author’s well-being.

This Author would also like to let out an unladylike whoop coaxing the Queen on in her quest to achieve her happy ending as well as a similarly eyebrow-raising decision to support the loud swearing that was done as a result of too many frustrations piling up. 

...this Author would also like to begrudgingly apologise to Lord Jung’s scantily clad drinking partner who put it into no uncertain terms that she was certainly wooed by said Lord’s mysterious, brooding, grumpy demeanour that we have all come to love, but would like to ask if said drinking partner has no better things to do than attempt to unsuccessfully seduce a man who is clearly otherwise emotionally preoccupied and if she has anything else in her closet other than “clothes” that better resemble a single strand of thread. This Author does apologise (halfheartedly) on the attacking of her own sex, but surely the generously-breasted gentle lady has working eyes and ears that would alert her to the emotionally unavailable Lord Jung?

Yours Truly,

Lady Bells

kanalia | jhs x reader | chapter five: the king is a fool

banner by the amazing, incredible @kth1

⚜️summary: secrets and uncertainty plague a young queen in her arranged marriage to a kind but distant king. the farther she drifts from her husband, the closer she gets to one of his most trusted men.

⚜️pairing: queen!reader x royalguard!hoseok

⚜️rating: mature, 18+

⚜️genre: royal AU, historical AU, smut

⚜️warnings: infidelity (it’s complicated, y’all) mentions of pregnancy, fertility issues. OC struggles with depressive thoughts and episodes.

⚜️word count: 10K

⚜️notes: the queen is hot and bothered, literally & figuratively. the king puts several Ls in the disappointed but not surprised category, everyone gets drunk at some point. lord min is a terrible archer, yeona remains round and winning. the queen could melt steel with her sexual frustration, lord jung is not faring much better but at least he knows what he's doing, slightly awkward marital smut. the queen fights with everyone.

i could never have finished this chapter without these amazing authors & minds @miscelunaaa and @vyduan and one person who would probably level us all with her first fic if she decided to write one, @hobi-gif. please let me re-iterate how much it means to me that any one of you reads my stories, and it would make me endlessly happy to talk to you about it. you can talk to me here 💕

previous chapter

Hyeri is curious.

She examines the stains at the hem of your walking dress with narrowed eyes, pausing her thorough study of the red-brown splotches only to steal the occasional furtive glance your way.  

Her lips purse as she shakes dirt loose from the grooves of your walking boots. She watches the sediment fall to the floor with a raised brow, uncharacteristically quiet as she reaches for the broom to sweep the mess away.

But her bewilderment only grows as she draws closer.

The older woman’s posture stiffens as she regards you, lips pulling into a thin line as she takes in the state of your wind-swept hair and grimy fingernails. You must reek of the ill temper you’ve brought back from your ride, the smell of it as pungent as the sweat and horse on your clothes. She tests your temperament in much the same way as she tests your bathwater, query as feather-light as the fingertip she skims along the surface.

“Are you… well, this evening, Your Grace?”

“As well as I ever am,” you answer succinctly, accepting her hand and stepping carefully into the tub. Woven into the spaces between each of your clipped words is rebuke; a silent warning to proceed no further. Your handmaid, who is by no means a meek woman, has the good sense to heed it.

So Hyeri says nothing as she takes a comb to the tangles in your hair, working them apart with peach oil. She says nothing as she scrubs away the dirt embedded beneath your normally pristine fingernails. And she says nothing still when you wince at the ache in your thighs as she helps you from the bath.

When the heavy chamber door finally pulls behind her, shutting the stares and the questions safely out, you make your way to bed. You extinguish the lamp on your nightstand and welcome the shadows.

And then you succumb to the darkness that envelops you, inside and out.

⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️

Steamy heat has put an end to weeks of pleasant fall weather. 

You’ve sought refuge this afternoon beneath a tree at the edge of the castle’s sprawling open field. The oak, though grand, offers scant protection from the midday sun. A bead of sweat trickles down your neck and disappears into the linen at your décolletage. 

“Between you and me, I’ve always found hunting to be an appalling sport.”

Boram shakes her head at the scene in the distance. The King and his men claim to be training for an upcoming hunt, but by all appearances, there is little training taking place. Instead they look to be bandying about like mischievous little boys, scrambling for position in front of the straw targets with bows in hand. 

“I find it to be an exercise in vanity more than ability. Little more than male preening disguised as sport.” Boram dabs at her brow with a handkerchief and sighs. “What do you think?”

You don’t answer Boram’s question on account of your distraction. Try as you might to keep your eyes on the dashing elder Lord Kim or the charming young Lord Jeon or – heaven forbid, your husband – they wander to Lord Jung instead, over and over and over again. Your gaze pulled to his strong face as though drawn by a magnet.

He turns his head and his dark eyes find yours across the distance.

The butterflies you’ve felt in his presence before are not to blame for the unsettled feeling that comes over you now. The very sight of the man makes your stomach turn over, as though you can taste the vivid recollection of the last time you saw him. 

The memory of that wonderful ride – and of the horrible way it ended – are still bitter on your tongue. Like picking the most beautiful fruit in the orchard only to find it sour and decaying inside. 

“Your Grace?”

You blink.

“I say this to you as my friend and not my Queen,” Boram says, pausing to clear her throat. “You don’t seem yourself today. Is there anything you want to talk about?”

“Nothing at all,” you lie quickly, smoothing down the damp curls springing up around your ears. “I’m fine, truly. Though I suppose it is possible the heat is making me cross. I can barely think in such conditions.”

“Awful, isn’t it?” Boram laments, reaching over to give Yeona’s belly a tickle. The baby curls into herself like a starfish, giggling as she rolls around on the blanket. “Yoongi says it will take a rain to break it. But until then, we must all suffer.”

“And suffer we shall,” you echo under your breath, watching Lord Jung load his bow in the distance. He sets his lithe body in a precise stance then draws his arm back and releases his arrow. It flies in a tight arc and lands just below the bullseye on the target. The men erupt into raucous cheers. You resist the urge to scowl.

“As for the hunting,” you add, “I think men are just as guilty of the frivolity they so often accuse women of. Not that any one of them is likely to admit it.”

“No, I suppose not,” Boram laughs. “Men are not known to be skilled in the art of introspection.”

“They certainly are not.”

And why should they be? Men never have to stop and consider the consequences of their actions. They alone decide the rules of engagement. They are free to be as vain and as frivolous and as thoughtless as their hearts desire. Horrid, infuriating creatures.

Lord Min steps up to the target. His stance is uneven and his arrow is wild the very second he lets it loose. It flies yards from the target and lands off in the grass. The men jeer loudly.

“Poor Yoongi,” Boram winces as she watches the men tease him. “He’s never been much of an archer, I’m afraid.” But the good-natured Lord Min appears to take it all in stride, shrugging off their taunts as he trades his bow for a fresh tankard of ale.

The King takes his turn next – the lines of his body thicker and stronger than Lord Jung’s, but no less elegant. The men circle around your husband as he draws the bow back with one strong arm. He takes careful aim with his arrow and deftly plants it just above the target’s bullseye. The sound of the men’s whooping echoes across the field.

And so it goes for a while, with the men taking turns loosing their arrows to varying degrees of success.

Lords Park and Jeon both prove to be adequate archers, hitting the targets more often than not. The elder and younger Lord Kims are less skilled and spend the lion’s share of their time plucking arrows from the grass behind the targets. Lord Min quickly gives up on the endeavor entirely, opting instead to sit with his ale and heckle the others.

But the two best archers on the field refuse to be distracted by drink.

The King and Lord Jung set an arduous pace, loading and firing their arrows in quick succession. Even at a distance, even with your meager knowledge of archery, you can discern that both men are quite evenly matched in terms of skill. They load, fire, and strike their respective targets with precision.

On and on they persist – despite the brutal heat, despite the fact that the other men have begun to tire. One by one the other Guardsmen surrender, abandoning their bows and collapsing onto the grass to watch. 

“These two seem quite serious, don’t they?” Boram notes. 

They certainly do. The air of silly fun that’s sat over the group for much of the afternoon is all but gone now and what began as a diversion for all of the men has clearly become a challenge between just two. The other Guardsmen seem to sense the shift in atmosphere as well, their faces earnest as they watch the King and Lord Jung compete.

Physically, the two men are quite different. The King’s muscular arms and chest serve him well as he steadies his bow and fires. In contrast, Lord Jung’s body is lithe, sleek. He moves with an agility the King cannot. But both wear matching expressions of determination. And though this competition might have been amiable at the start, it’s now evident that neither man is willing to leave the field without a clear victor.

Lord Min calls out to them both – voice too distant for you to make out his words – and the men appear to nod in agreement. They both step back from the targets, increasing the difficulty of each shot. But it takes only a few more arrows to prove that the added distance is no hindrance to either man. Both set their stances again, both aim and fire, and both land their arrows with ease.

The Guardsmen sitting nearby fall silent, and in the absence of their racket the King’s answering growl of frustration echoes over the entire field. 

“Oh my,” Boram whispers. “I’d heard there was some tension between them, and it would certainly appear to be so.”

It certainly would. Right now, the King and Lord Jung look more like rivals seeking to settle a score than lifelong friends. 

The King’s agitation is apparent in every move he makes, in the way he jerks the arrows out of the straw targets and stalks back into position. Lord Jung’s agitation is equally apparent. He accepts a skin of water from Lord Min without so much as a thanks and hands it back once he’s drained it.

It’s a strange thing to see the handsome Guardsman challenge his King with the very same passion in which he’d defended him just days prior.

“Has the King spoken to you about it?”

“No,” you admit stiffly, “He has not. Are you determined to keep me in the dark, as well?”

“Heavens, no,” Boram protests, pulling Yeona into her lap. She hands the baby a rice cake and Yeona sets to gumming at it right away. “I would never want you to think that I’m speaking ill of the King, is all.” 

“I could never think that of you.”

There is hesitation in Boram’s face when she flicks her dark eyes back to meet yours. 

“Well, the details I have are few,” she starts slowly. “But what I know is that the King expressed a wish to see Lord Jung married again and Lord Jung, from my understanding was – ” she pauses, carefully considering her next words,“ – less than amenable to the idea.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. Yoongi says they fought over the matter. Quite thoroughly, from what I’ve been told.”

“I see,” you say, taking great care to keep your expression impassive. “And did Lord Min explain why Lord Jung is so opposed to marriage? He’s still a young man. I can certainly see why the King would think it a logical proposition.”

Boram’s lips purse as she thinks.

“I do not know that I can say. Though I consider Lord Jung to be a dear friend, he can be terribly private about some matters.”

You cut your eyes towards the field to search for the man in question. 

Does she really know Lord Jung? Do you? Today there is no sign of the man who’d leveled you with a smile in the Great Hall, no trace of the man who’d teased you about riding clothes before helping you onto your mount. The man you see now wears a strained expression as he watches the King take aim, his energy volatile like a pot ready to boil over. 

Perhaps you’d been foolish to think him so different from the King. Perhaps they are as evenly matched in the art of duplicity as they are the skill of archery.

“So what will come of it?” you ask after a while. “Will the King – make him marry?”

“I don’t know,” Boram admits. “And therein, I suppose, is where much of the tension lies. Lord Jung has already taken a bride once in service to the Kingdom. I can’t imagine he’d be inclined to do it again.”

There’s a sudden commotion on the field then, an outburst that has Lords Park and Jeon on their feet. The younger men rush to meet the King and Lord Jung mid-field, nodding as the King speaks. Both take off running at once. 

“I’ve no clue what that is all about, but I do wish they’d end this already,” Boram grumbles, watching the young men disappear behind the tree line as they go off in search of whatever it is the King’s asked for. “I don’t know how much longer I can last in this heat.”

“Nor I,” you agree, watching the King and Lord Jung speak to one another. Both men look sober, the lines of their faces hard. “But it seems we’ll all have to endure it for just a bit longer in order to humor this contest of male prides.”

Some arduous minutes later, Lords Park and Jeon make their return to the field.

The dust kicked up by the horses they ride precedes them, the ground parched from weeks without rain. Both men arrive in a cloud of grime – Lord Jeon on the King’s mount and Lord Park on Lord Jung’s– and dismount without delay, handing the reins over to their elders.

So this is how they will decide the victor.

“Well, let’s hope they keep their wits about them,” Boram sighs. “Lest they both break their legs in the heat of competition.”

“Yes, let’s,” you mutter.

The King is first to take his turn, of course. 

He mounts Jeonsa with ease despite the horse’s grand height and takes his time warming the warhorse up. The King runs his mount in circles around the target until he’s satisfied with his plan and the timing of his shot. He steadies himself against the jostling with his strong thighs, pulling his bow back to fire. The arrow hits the target just below the bullseye. 

The men, who’ve spent hours now drinking in the hot sun, erupt into a chorus of ruffian cheers. 

Lord Jung wastes no time taking to his own mount. His horse is leaner and quicker than Jeonsa, and it’s clear that he commands complete control of the animal’s every step. Both horse and rider move as one as he urges his mount faster, straightening his back to fire. The arrow hits the target just above the bullseye.

The men are getting rowdy now, egging on both competitors as they circle on their horses. Their shouting is louder, more animated, and you would not at all be surprised if there were a few healthy wagers underway. You wonder which of the men they’ve bet on. 

You wonder which of the men you would bet on before pushing the thought away and reminding yourself that you’re not particularly fond of either at this moment. 

The King circles Jeonsa around the target once again, taking his time about it. He seems to consider every circumstance surrounding his next shot – the angle, the speed, the light wind that blows east. After a great deal of circling and thought, he rears back to release his arrow.

It lands on the target, just above the arrow planted by Lord Jung. 

The shouting from the men becomes a low roar.

Lord Jung pointedly ignores the commotion, rolling his shoulders as he stares down the target, brow knit in concentration. Soon he’s urging his mount to move, the pair fluid as they circle the target. 

Just like the King, Lord Jung circles longer for this shot than he had for the first. Twice he draws back as though ready to fire and thinks better of it. But after painstaking deliberation, he finds his stride. He pulls his arm back and sets his stance. Then he releases his arrow. 

And it misses the target entirely.

It flies off the end of Lord Jung’s bow with astonishing speed, gliding just to the right of the straw and landing off in the distance. The men are on their feet now, jumping and yelling and slapping one another on their backs. Lord Jung shakes his head in disgust.

“Well,” Boram reaches for her basket, loading her things into it with haste. “That’s settled now. I certainly hope at least one of them feels better. Let’s move into more liveable conditions, shall we?”

You open your mouth to agree just as you spot the King barreling towards you atop Jeonsa, leaving the men celebrating his victory on the field behind. 

You nearly stumble over the hem of your dress in your rush to rise to your feet. Your husband is grinning widely when he reaches you, stopping his mount long enough to extend one large hand. You place your hand in his and he dips his head to plant a kiss on your fingers.

“Well done, You Grace,” you demur, resisting the urge to roll your eyes. “A hard-fought victory.”

“Thank you. I’m quite pleased with the outcome.”

The King acknowledges Boram with a smile before turning his mount to ride back to his men. You put a hand to your brow to shade your eyes and watch as they cheer for him – reward him with the adulation he’s clearly worked so hard for. 

But a thought occurs to you as you examine the scene in the distance. 

There is no sign of Lord Jung. 

⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️

The King comes to you that night – hair damp and smelling of fine soap, breath tinged faintly with ale. 

He coaxes you to your knees just as he’s done so many times before. His fingers slide against your most secret place, slippery just as they’ve been so many times before. And then he’s pushing inside you, hard and hot just as he’s been so many times before.

But there is something different about him tonight.

Your husband’s touch is rougher than you remember. His grip on your waist is harder than you remember, large hands moving from your waist to your backside to dig his blunt fingertips into the soft flesh. His thrusts are more forceful than you remember, more erratic, powerful enough to push you up the length of the bed. 

You fist your hands into the bedding and push back, refusing to allow your knees to buckle under the pressure. That earns you a low groan from the King – a sound that strikes a strange chord inside you; sends a shiver racing up your spine. You press your hot face into the sheets.

Perhaps Namjoon is still feeling the effects of an arduous afternoon in the hot sun. Perhaps he’s still in his cups after a night of drinking with his men. 

Or perhaps it is all just a trick of your mind.

⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️

Morning brings no improvement in your mood. Quite the opposite, in fact. 

You wake snappish, jarred from a fitful sleep by the sudden appearance of light in your chamber. Shafts of it – hot and harsh – stream through your windows, spill across your duvet, assault your eyes. You bury your face in the pillow in a futile attempt to avoid it, sweat beading at the nape of your neck until the uncomfortable warmth forces you to quit the bed.

But the rude manner of your awakening is only one reason for your irritation.

The other is the lingering tenderness between your legs, a dull ache you can feel with each careful step. The sensation is more an annoyance than a true discomfort, but it vexes you nonetheless. Each muted throb serves as an unwelcome reminder of your visit from the King, of the peculiar way he’d bedded you last night. 

Your face flames as you think of it.

What is he about, your husband? And what of the juvenile, chest-thumping nonsense you’d witnessed yesterday afternoon? The combative way he’d gone up against Lord Jung and the grand show he’d made of coming to you to fête his victory. Boorish, absurd behavior – all of it. 

You go about your morning ablutions in silence, unwilling to meet Hyeri’s eyes for even one moment. You are in no mood to withstand her meddling today – well-intentioned or otherwise – and so it is for the best that she helps you wash and dress in relative silence. 

If there is something the older woman means to say, she has the good sense to swallow it, murmuring only a quiet warning about the heat as you slip out the chamber door.

And heavens, how you are wholly unprepared for the heat.

It, too, has worsened overnight – the air around you nearly thick enough to drink. You hurry towards the aviary, spurred on by the promise of the shade beneath its trees, but by the time you are finally seated at your desk you are soggy and sticky all over. Slick with sweat between your thighs and beneath your arms and breasts. 

Perhaps you should have heeded Hyeri’s warning. 

The thought rankles you as you open your book and attempt to pick up your story where you’d left it. You start and stop the same sentence over and over again, the heat so tyrannical that you can barely breathe, much less think. Even the King’s prized birds refuse to fly under such conditions – opting instead to perch on the highest branches, wings lifted to cool themselves with the occasional passing breeze. 

The stillness unnerves you; makes your aggravation mount with each unbearable minute that ticks by and before long, you throw your novel down in frustration. This will not do.

Loathe as you are to spend another day confined to the castle’s thick stone walls, there is no avoiding it. You’ll not survive another half hour in this heat, which means you’ll certainly not be able to pass an entire afternoon in it. You huff as you throw your things back into your basket and stalk off towards the aviary’s entrance.

But perhaps you should have been more mindful.

Immersed as you are in this black mood, you don’t notice the brambles growing at the edge of the heavy gate. You brush past them in a hurry, only to be wrenched back by the thorns that take hold of your skirt. You tug at the material with your free hand, successful only at tearing a hole in the fine linen but unsuccessful at pulling yourself free. You drop your basket in the struggle and the contents spill out, an apple rolling to a stop at your feet.

It is then that you do something very unladylike, something that would have earned you an exaggerated gasp from your sister or a sharp rebuke from your mother. 

You swear. Loudly.

You summon all of your frustration and scream what is perhaps the most undignified word you know at the very top of your lungs, the vulgarity echoing in the aviary’s eerie quiet. And though it’s done nothing to solve your current predicament, there’s something truly satisfying about speaking the nasty word out loud, about shouting it into existence.

That is, until someone coughs.

“I take it you need some help, Your Grace?”

You clap a hand over your mouth as you whirl in the direction of the voice.

Lord Min approaches slowly, eyes sparkling with amusement as he takes in your sorry state. You’ve no idea where he came from, but at this very moment you’ve never been so horrified and grateful to see him, all at the very same time. 

“Yes, I – ” you start and stop, flustered by both your behavior. “ – I’m stuck. The brambles are caught in my skirt and – ”

“Oh yes, I see,” he says, leaning down to examine the mess you’ve gotten yourself into. He tugs at the bottom of your skirt and you wince at the sound of the fabric tearing. “You’ve got yourself quite tangled up here, haven’t you?” 

“I believe I have,” you admit with embarrassment. Lord Min gets down on his knees and begins plucking thorns and burs out of the fabric, brow knit with concentration as he attempts to extricate what remains of your fine linen dress.

You clear your throat.

“My Lord, I hope I didn’t – Well, rather, I hope you were not offended by that word you heard me say. It’s not a word that I usually use, not really. Well, not ever. What I mean to say is that I know of coarse language, of course, but I’m certainly not in the habit of using it.”

“What word?” Lord Min interrupts your rambling from his perch at your feet, eyes wide with feigned innocence. “Did you say something, Your Grace? I must not have heard it.”

The corners of his mouth curve into a cautious smile, which you return with a timid one of your own. His teasing is welcome. It brings badly-needed levity to your embarrassing situation and lightens the heaviness of this atrocious day.

“What’s this, Min?”

At once, the gesture dies on your lips.

Lord Jung comes into view by way of the same path taken by Lord Min, though his sudden appearance does not bring you the same kind of relief. Quite the opposite, in fact. 

The very moment he’s standing before you, critical gaze moving from you to Lord Min and back, you feel absolutely lightheaded with anxiety. You wonder what he must make of the scene he’s stumbled upon: Lord Min on his knees, at your feet, hands fisted in your skirts. 

“You Grace.” The lines of Lord Jung’s beautiful face are hard as he acknowledges you, his voice stiff and formal in a way that makes it foreign to your ears. He bows to you much in the same way, body rigid as he performs the required motion.

“My Lord,” you return with similar formality.

“Her Grace is stuck,” Lord Min explains, unaware or perhaps unbothered by the provocative position the two of you have been discovered in. “I’m trying to free her without ripping this linen to shreds. Could use your help, seeing as you’re standing there. Push that branch back for me?”

“Yes, of course.”

Oh, but now you feel a migraine coming on. Lord Jung squeezes into the space beside you, leaning over Lord Min to push the brambles back so that the older man may have both hands free to work. At this point, both men are too close, but he is far too close. Heat blazes a path up your neck and into your cheeks. 

Inhale, you twit. Exhale.

“Last few, Your Grace,” Lord Min announces, voice muffled by your skirts. “I think the linen will need a bit of mending, but not much more.”

“Thank you, My Lord.”

Lord Jung’s gaze connects with yours. His dark eyes, normally so warm and expressive, are flat as he regards you. In fact, everything about the handsome guardsman’s countenance is uncharacteristically severe today, from the deep knit of his brows to the way his bow-shaped mouth presses into a firm line. He looks away from you without so much as a smile.

Is he – is he angry with you?

Your mouth nearly falls open at the realization. What right would Lord Jung have to be angry with you? It was he who’d laid the trap with the promise of a perfect afternoon spent riding and he who’d sprung the trap by defending your husband’s dishonesty. 

If either one of you had a just claim to animosity, it would most certainly be you. 

The awful word you’d uttered at the very start of this ridiculous dilemma springs right to the tip of your tongue. If only you had the courage to spit it at him. Horrid, infuriating man.

“There now,” Lord Min announces. “I think we’ve got it. Hang on to that bramble for a bit longer while Her Grace steps away from the gate.”

You start forward slowly, steps mercifully unencumbered by gnarled plants. Though Lord Min has done his best to salvage the fine linen, your skirt is now covered in a fine dusting of grime, torn in places from your knees to your ankles. Hyeri will have a fit when she sees you, but you couldn’t care less about the state of your ruined dress. The only thing that matters now is quitting this place at once.

“Thank you so much, Lord Min,” you breathe, dropping to your knees to gather your scattered things. The elder guardsman helps you retrieve the wayward charcoals and papers, which you hurriedly stuff back into your basket. “I’ll be off now and won’t take up any more of your afternoon.”

With that, you rush to your feet and turn on your heels to leave. You try not to think about the scene you’re leaving behind – Lord Min puzzled by your sudden exit, Lord Jung affronted by the fact that you’d pointedly ignored him in your thanks. 

You make haste with those first few steps towards freedom, only to be pulled back once again. Only this time, not by jagged brambles.

“Your Grace.”

The hairs on the back of your neck stand at the sound of the gruff voice behind you. You turn around slowly, acutely aware of both men watching your every move. When Lord Jung steps forward, your eyes fall to the gently worn leather binding in his hands. 

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” 

You take great care to school your features, though the panic rising inside of you threatens to spill out. Your most private thoughts are inside that book. Fragments of poems and unsent letters and one horribly incriminating sketch of a man who is most certainly not your husband.

“Thank you, My Lord,” you mumble, resisting the urge to run to him and snatch the book right out of his grip. You can feel him watching your every move as you approach to accept it with unsteady hands.

⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️

A storm is coming. You can feel it.

Never mind that the sun is shining – or that the sky outside is a perfect, crystalline blue. The clouds dotted across the horizon hang in the air, unmoving. There is no wind to rustle the leaves in the trees. The calm is ominous. Foreboding.

“... think none of the people in this kingdom have ever seen this kind of display before. I imagine they’ll be quite awed by it. I’ve only ever seen it once myself, in a village far North. A strange lot, those people are. After all these years, they still dabble in the dark arts.”

At the other end of the long dining table before you sits the King. He’s been prattling on like this for the better part of ten minutes now; far too absorbed in his grand talk of the festival to note that his audience of one has yet to engage with a word that’s come out of his mouth.

“It’s strange though, to think of celebrating a Fall Festival in this heat. Though I generally prefer the heat to the cold, these conditions are quite beyond the pale. We’ll have to have just as much water on hand as we do ale.”

You make a sound under your breath that you hope will pass for discourse.

“Of course, there’s still much to be done. But the stewards assure me that everything will be ready in time. And there will be much to celebrate this year as I’m told the crops in all our holdings are faring well. The wheat has – ”

The King’s jabbering comes to an abrupt stop.

“You’ve barely eaten,” he notes, in a sudden fit of awareness. He regards you over the rim of his wine glass, curious. “Is the jajangmyeon not to your liking?”

“It is to my liking,” you insist, pushing the wheat noodles around your bowl in a half-hearted attempt to appease him. “As always. I suppose I’m just not very hungry tonight, is all.”

“I find that surprising,” the King says, as though you’d asked his opinion on the matter. “I understand you were brave enough to venture out into that awful heat this afternoon. I would have thought you’d be famished tonight.”

Every muscle in your body tenses at once.

“Oh?”

“I spoke with Hyeri this afternoon,” the King elaborates, oblivious to his misstep. “She said she’d warned you against leaving the castle under those conditions, but you’d off and done it anyway.” He chuckles under his breath as he recounts the conversation. “I think you surprise her at times with how strong-willed you can be.”

Beneath the table, your hands ball into fists.

The thought of Hyeri disclosing the details of your day to the King, no matter how trivial, incenses you. You imagine them together over tea, sharing a laugh as they trade observations about your shortcomings. Or worse – meeting with one another somber-faced as they commiserate over your inability to produce a child. 

That thought is the most insidious. Your nails dig savagely into your palms.

“Do you and Hyeri discuss my comings and goings often, then, Your Grace?” 

Your husband shrugs, helping himself to another generous serving of noodles.

“Often enough, I suppose.”

“So am I then to assume that when you ask me about my day, you are merely standing on ceremony? Surely you must be, given that you’ve already had a full report from my handmaid.”

The King sets down his chopsticks to look at you, perplexed by the contentious turn in this conversation. But he’s careful to school his features as he considers what to say next.

“Of course not,” he starts slowly. “I ask after you because I genuinely want to know about your day. It’s a consideration that I would think customary between husbands and wives.”

Is he – is he toying with you?

What on earth would His Grace know about what’s customary between husbands and wives? He is the one who’s made this marriage into a farce with his deceit and adultery. He is the one who’s held you at arm’s length from the very start in order to protect the woman he truly loves. Your husband’s hubris is as astonishing as it is aggravating. Horrid, infuriating man.

“Well I, for one, would genuinely like to know about your day, Your Grace,” you say, unable to keep venom from seeping into your every word. “So tell me then – as is customary between husband and wives – how did you pass the afternoon?”

The color drains from the King’s face. 

You should shut your mouth now and say no more, you know it – but by now you are far too consumed with anger to give much thought to the consequences of sharp words. You push the bowl of jajangmyeon away and get to your feet.

“Nothing of interest to share, then?” You raise a brow as you stare down at your husband, unwilling to look away for even one moment. “What a pity. Perhaps tomorrow.”

The King’s eyes narrow but his mouth stays shut. He says nothing in his own defense, says nothing to attempt to placate you. 

And he says nothing as you turn your back on him and walk out the door.

⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️

The first crack of thunder sounds just as you’re readying for bed. You stand at your window and watch the storm roll in. 

Black clouds build off in the distance, discernible only by the occasional flare of lightning. Each bright flash is followed by an earth-shaking rumble that satisfies you somehow, as though you’ve manifested this squall with your thoughts. The violent wind and rain it carries with it a mirror of the tempest inside you.

“Do you require anything else, Your Grace?”

Hyeri’s voice comes from behind, timid and small. She’s been tiptoeing around your chamber all evening, clearly disquieted by the cold reception you’d given her upon your return. The well-bred, well-behaved woman inside you whispers that you should turn to her, do something to reassure her, but you refuse. 

Fortified by your anger, you keep your back to Hyeri and go on staring at the storm clouds.

“No,” you say firmly. “You can retire for the night.”

“But I – ” Hyeri starts, stops, and then sighs. “Very well. As you wish, Your Grace.”

And you do wish. You wish for Hyeri to leave you – not just tonight, but every night. And you wish not just for Hyeri to leave you – but all of them. You’ve grown quite tired of humiliating yourself in this kingdom; of placing your trust in people who’ve made you into a fool time and time again. 

There is rustling as the older woman hurriedly gathers her things, then a brief pause before she slips out the door. The heavy thud that finally announces her departure brings you some small measure of peace, but it does not last.

Your bath-damp body is warm when you slip beneath the heavy duvet. Too warm. Though the storm raging nearby brings with it the promise of cool rain, it is still too far off to displace the humid air in your chamber. You toss and turn beneath the heavy covers for a while, your thin nightgown soaked through with sweat by the time you finally kick your bedding away.

So you lie there in the dark, close to feverish with heat and unable to settle down. Every time you close your eyes, you’re taunted by images – of Hyeri, of the King, of the child that never comes. What you would give to be able to quiet your mind, to have some respite from the reality of your circumstances.

But there will be no respite, not any time soon. The thunder outside is close enough now to shake the castle’s heavy walls with each new blast that rips through the sky. You feel the tremors right down to your bones, the sensation causing goosebumps to scatter across your skin. 

In spite of the heat, you shiver. 

There’s a prickling that starts at your scalp and goes right down to your toes. It makes you itch with the desire to drag your nails down your arms and legs. It makes you want to squeeze your thighs together, tight and tighter still until your agitation is gone. Perhaps that is the solution. 

You cup your breasts through the damp, thin material of your nightgown. They feel sensitive, tender — and the very moment you brush your fingertips over your nipples they come to life, pebbling against the gauzy fabric. 

You close your eyes and try to imagine that your hands are not your own. That the fingers that close around the aching buds, teasing and testing, are not your fingers. That the dormant pleasure the pressure rouses inside you has instead been roused by someone else. 

In your mind, the hand that steals between your thighs is not your own. It’s larger than yours, the fingers longer and rougher than yours. You imagine that hand parting your legs, coarse fingertips slippery against the wetness gathered at your entrance. And you imagine it caressing you there, expertly stroking the spot that makes the air leave your lungs. 

What would it be like to be touched like this? To have a lover’s lips at your neck and his hand between your thighs? To have the weight of him pressing down on you, the scent of him enveloping you – to feel his warm breath fan over your skin?

These thoughts only serve to make the ache between your legs more pronounced. But the more you attend to it, the sharper it becomes. Pleasure blooms with each inexpert pass of your fingers over that place, but in its wake your desperation grows, too. 

You whine under your breath as you touch yourself harder, faster – a heaviness building at your core that makes you feel full, overripe. There is relief on the other side of whatever this is, and you know it. 

But can you reach it? 

Your imaginary lover would know how to help you reach it. He would take you in his arms and in his mouth and leave no inch of your body untouched. He would fuse himself to you, skin-to-skin, and show you how to beckon your pleasure at will, help you realize its full potential. 

In your mind’s eye you can see him – legs and arms strong and lean, golden skin illuminated by firelight. The mouth he sets to your aching nipples would be soft, lips pretty and bow-shaped. And his hair would be dark and his eyes would be a rich chocolate and his face would be – 

A clap of thunder explodes in the sky. 

Your eyes fly open – unseeing – as you gasp from the shock of it. It leaves you trembling, body slick with sweat and limbs tingling from the sudden fear. You lie there in the dark, panting as you wait for your heart to stop racing. 

And just like that, the pleasure you’ve been chasing is gone. Quick as a rabbit. 

Outside your window the heavens weep, the rain beating against the ground like a hail of arrows. 

The dry earth enjoying a relief that always seems to elude you.

⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️

“Magnificent, Your Grace.” 

Hyeri passes a hand over the embellishments in your bodice, chest puffed with pride as she examines the dressmaker’s handiwork. Though her brown eyes have long gone dull and gray with age, they shine as she steps back to take you in from head to toe. “Just magnificent.”

It is magnificent – far and away the finest garment you have ever worn. 

Rich, plum-colored velvet embellished with gilt thread, the plunging neckline and bliaut sleeves lined with pressed bezants. You hardly recognize the woman looking back at you in the mirror, the one with her hair swept off her neck in an intricate braided bun, eyes darkened with kohl, ears and neck adorned with sparkling gold. Whoever that woman is, she is far bolder and far more sophisticated than you.

“There’s nothing like his work,” Hyeri muses, running a thumb over pattern pressed into the hem of one sleeve. “Frail as he is, it takes him ages to complete a dress. But he’s worth it. Worth the wait and worth every single won.”

You study the intertwining gold patterns stitched into the bustline. No doubt the King has paid dearly for this dress and all its fine accoutrements. The thought of your husband spending an obscene amount of money on it nearly puts a smile on your face. 

“You look remarkable in this dress,” Hyeri remarks quietly, wrinkled mouth lifting at the corners with a cautious smile. “Well, of course, you look remarkable everyday, but especially tonight.” 

Her expression is bittersweet as she reaches for you, gently tucking a strand of hair that’s fallen loose of your braid behind your ear. This newfound emotional distance has been hard on her, you know. It’s been hard on you, too. And though holding her at arm’s length has proven difficult at times, it feels somehow vital to your self-preservation.

“Don’t forget your shawl,” Hyeri says softly. “It’s gotten quite cold out there.”

It certainly has. The storm that ripped through the kingdom just days ago took the insufferable heat with it, leaving behind a pure, crystalline cold. The night sky is clear enough to see for miles. 

So you accept the shawl from Hyeri with a quiet thanks, avoiding her eyes as you slip out the chamber door.

By the time you make your way to the great hall, the revelry is already well underway. You can hear it pulsing through the slats of the heavy wooden doors, the music and commotion contained within powerful enough to stir the ground beneath your feet. The footmen posted at either side of the entrance bow deeply as you approach, then move to pull the doors open.

You raise a hand to still them, wanting a moment to steel yourself before entering the fray.

“I’m not – If you’ll just give me – ”

One of the guards steps forward to speak when your words falter.

“No need to explain, Your Grace,” he says earnestly. “Just let us know when you’re ready.”

“Thank you.” You take as deep a breath as your elaborate gown will allow. “Truly.”

You already know what awaits on the other side of those doors. Artificial smiles that hide whispers about your empty womb, honeyed and hollow words of praise from your exasperating husband. Pity too, perhaps, from those connected enough to be privy to the true state of your marriage. 

But you’ll bear it. You must. Because it’s what’s expected of you and because your political survival in this kingdom depends on it.

“Well then,” you say, smoothing down your velvet skirt with trembling hands. "I believe I've had time to collect myself."

The very same footman that had spoken to you just moments earlier gives you a sympathetic smile as he places one hand on the door’s ornate wrought iron handle. He pauses to look at you before signaling to the other footman, one brow raised as if to say are you sure?

You swallow thickly and nod your affirmation.

Slowly, the heavy doors are pulled open, creaking as they part. You step forward to enter, feeling a rush of cool air at your heels. The brief hush that falls over the great hall makes your heartbeat quicken.

But then the King stands. 

He rises to his feet and bows to you, and every person inside the great hall follows suit. You return his bow and then straighten, holding your head up high as you set off to fulfill your duty.

⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️

The King makes no mention of the tense meal you’d shared just a few nights prior. Not that you’d expected him to. If anything, your husband’s predilection for avoidance has been one of his most consistent traits. And if he’s harbored any ill feelings about the curt words you’d spoken that night, surely they’ve been washed away in a torrent of ale.

He’s already a bit drunk when you take your seat beside him – pleasantly so, if his ruddy cheeks and leisurely smile are any indication. His dark eyes are glassy as they sweep over your form, taking in the grandeur of your dress. But they linger at your bust for just a heartbeat too long and it takes all the self-control you can muster to not kick him beneath the table.

“You look fetching in that dress,” the King notes, reaching for his tankard. “The color suits you.”

“Oh? Then you’ll be pleased to know I’ve dozens more just like it on the way.”

You startle a laugh from the King just as he’s taken a drink and he splutters on it, coughing until tears gather at the corners of his eyes. “Very good of you to warn me before the bill comes due,” he wheezes.

“But of course, Your Grace.” You infuse your words with cloying, contrived sweetness, putting a hand over your heart for emphasis. “It is the very least I could do.”

The King chuckles as you turn to look out over the room. 

The tables below the raised platform on which you both dine are teeming with people, their long wooden benches bowing beneath the substantial weight. They are littered with food and drink, tankards and platters and goblets scattered for as far as the eye can see. 

You sip your wine and watch partygoers reach over one another for noodles and steal dumplings from their neighbors’ plates.

It takes a minute for you to spot Boram. She and Lord Min are tucked into a corner, cozy and close. Your dear friend is the very picture of contentment; resplendent in a royal blue gown, glowing in the torchlight when her husband presses a kiss to her temple. Your heart aches as you watch them. What you would give to have what they have – to know the fulfillment they’ve found in one another.

In fact, the Mins make for such a compelling tableau that you nearly overlook the one behind it. Lord Jung is dressed in an arresting black and gold tunic, dark hair styled away from his face and a tankard of ale in his hand. And he is not alone.

Seated close to him – so very close – is a woman. A beautiful woman, as best you can tell from a distance. Her dark red dress in perfect contrast to her shiny fall of dark hair, the garment cut to accentuate what can only be described as a generous bust. She leans in to Lord Jung as she says something, décolletage on full display when she throws her head back to laugh.

Your grip on the wine goblet in your hand tightens.

The woman is brazen, that much you can tell. Her proximity to the Guardsman is far too close to be proper, her scandalous –  if stunning – manner of dress far too self-indulgent to be benign. And though you cannot make out clearly how she’s been received by Lord Jung, the very fact that he has not sent her away is telling. Is this the woman he intends to marry, then? Or just a diversion for the night? 

You drain the wine that remains in your goblet and signal for the serving girl to bring you more.

Moments later Lord Jung, too, flags down a passing servant to fill his tankard. For a man who once took great pride in extolling his discipline with spirits, he seems to be exercising very little of it tonight. In fact, he looks to be indulging as much or perhaps even more than his fellow Guardsmen. Perhaps that is why he does not he does not move to distance himself when the alluring woman at his side places a hand on his arm.

You swallow another large sip of wine.

“It’s nearly time for the evening’s entertainment,” the King says. “I think you’ll be impressed by what’s in store.”

You cannot tear your gaze from the scene before you. You cannot stop staring at the comely woman at Lord Jung’s side – stiffening in your seat when she leans over to whisper in his ear.

“I’m looking forward to it,” you say absentmindedly, lifting your wine glass to your lips once again.

⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️

When you were a girl, barely ten years old, your father had come home from a long journey with a fantastic tale. 

He’d spoken of fire – in shades of red and green and gold – launched into the sky, embers raining down on the earth in a magnificent display. You’d been spellbound by the picture he’d painted for you, wishing desperately to see this phenomenon for yourself.

And now you have.

The King’s promise of a surprise well exceeds your expectations. Each new flare sent up over the open field is met with a hush from the crowd, followed by loud cheers and applause as it explodes into color.

“I brought them back from a village up North,” the King explains, preening at the crowd’s reception. “And though I wanted to show them right away, I made myself wait until the most advantageous time. What do you make of them?”

“They’re splendid,” you answer earnestly. “I’ve never seen anything so grand.”

The King hides a satisfied smile behind the rim of his tankard. By this point in the evening, he’s crossed the line from agreeably drunk to good and well soused – as have many of the others in attendance. You, too, are feeling the effects of your wine, experiencing that strange weightlessness that can only be brought on by drink.

And you are glad for the distraction of the fire display. 

It’s helped pull your focus away from Lord Jung and that woman. Though each time there is a brief break in the presentation, you cannot help but search the throng for any sign of them. You wonder where they are right now. What they might be doing. But then you drown the bitter thoughts with the wine in your goblet.    

The night wears on and the crowd around you becomes rowdier, louder – the ale barrels slowly disappearing one by one. Even the King is looking a bit worse for the wear. He’s sagged into the chair beside you, heavy-lidded as he watches the bright detonations that light up the sky.

You are not faring much better. A dull throb taps at your temples, no doubt the consequence of drinking too much wine, and you suspect that it will be far more pronounced come morning. You ought to retire for the evening now, while you still have some of your wits about you.

You open your mouth to say as much to the King at the very same time you catch sight of a slim man ambling away from the crowd. Though he’s hundreds of yards away and though there’s little light beyond the torches and the occasional embers in the sky, you recognize him right away. 

You would recognize him anywhere.

Impulsively, you get to your feet and utter a rushed goodbye to the King. He bids you farewell with a sluggish smile and not a moment later he’s gone back to gazing skyward, mesmerized by the lights. Just ahead, Lord Jung slinks off into the shadows, moving with an unsteady gait. 

And you follow him. To what end you cannot be sure.

⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️

Clearly, you’d given no real thought to this course of action. 

If you had, you’d not be scurrying across damp grass right now, struggling to keep your balance in your beautiful velvet dress. The heavy fabric weighs you down with each step, making each footfall precarious. In fact, if you’d stopped for even a moment to consider the implications of stealing away to pursue a man who is not your husband, you’d have ended this lunacy long before it even began.

But here you are in the dark, following Lord Jung. With only the moon to light your way.

The slender man moves quickly, unburdened by the trappings of women’s formalwear and assisted by his long legs. You lift the hem of your dress off the ground and do your best to keep up on the shadowy path. Just a short distance ahead you can make out the lines of a thatched roof and wooden fence. 

It’s the stables, you realize, and the pieces start to fall into place.

He’s come here to meet that woman. The two of them must have agreed to leave the festival and come here for a secret tryst. Were you a woman in your right mind, that realization would stop you cold and send you running straight back to the castle. But you are absolutely not in your right mind. You are dangerous tonight; fearless from the wine flowing freely in your veins.

As such, the very thought of Lord Jung arranging for a passionate liaison with this woman has the opposite effect. It infuriates you. And you’ll not be satisfied until you can see the proof for yourself and then end this fixation once and for all.

Overhead, a flare of light illuminates the darkness just as you’re nearing the horse stalls. It’s followed by the sound of sizzling gunpowder, and it draws your attention skyward. You look up just in time to see wisps of fire tumble back to the earth. But when you fix your gaze forward again, Lord Jung is gone.

What on earth?

You’ve barely begun to consider your next move before your body is moving of its own volition, jerked right off the walking path by a hand that wraps around your arm like a band of steel. Lord Jung drags you behind the horse stall with one hand and claps the other over your mouth to smother the sound of hysteria that threatens to escape.

“What. Are. You. Doing?”

He hisses the words, one by one, his low vibrato thrumming with barely-contained anger. You’ve yet to recover from the shock of being accosted in the dark and so you stare at him, bewildered and mute.

He releases you, dropping the hand covering your mouth to walk to the edge of the stables. You watch as he ducks his head around the corner to check the walking path. Once he’s satisfied you’ve not been followed, he rounds on you.

“Anyone could have seen you.”

“No one saw me,” you scowl, rubbing your forearm where his fingers dug painfully into your flesh. “They’re all far too drunk to see anything, I assure you.”

He shoves a hand through his dark hair and exhales deeply.

“What are you about tonight, Your Grace?” 

A fair question, and one you ought to have considered before dashing off into the night. But you’d been so hellbent on hunting the man down that you’d given no real thought to what you’d do if you actually caught him. You hesitate for so long that he grows impatient, closing in on you.

“What,” he repeats slowly, “Are you about?”

“I don’t know,” you admit.

“Well, you ought to know,” he growls. “You ought to know damned well exactly what you’re about before you go off following men into the dark.”

But it’s not as though you’ve followed just any man into the dark, is it? You’d followed him. The admonishment riles you, bringing your temper back to a full boil. You straighten your spine and sear him with a withering look.

“That woman tonight. At the feast. She wants you to bed her.”

Lord Jung’s dark eyes go wide just before they narrow into slits. He stalks towards you slowly, forcing you to retreat until your back is flush against the stable’s rough wooden slats. Slivers of moonlight play off his angular face, making the shadows in the hollows of his cheeks more pronounced. He’s beautiful – even like this – even when he’s so irate that he can barely keep still.

“I know what she wants,” he says, voice sinking to an octave that raises goosebumps on your arms. “What I do not know is what you want. What I do not know is why you are here.”

“So you intend to bed her,” you challenge.

Something dangerous flickers in his expression as he regards you, gaze potent enough to almost make you regret your sudden bout of daring. Almost.

“No.”

And so there is no tryst. No agreement between secret lovers. At once, adrenaline floods your veins, bringing with it a clarity that you’ve not had since you began drinking tonight. You’ve been reckless – so, so reckless – and now there is no undoing what you’ve done. 

“I’ve answered your question and now you will answer mine,” Lord Jung warns, a muscle ticking in his jaw. “What. Do. You. Want?”

All the fire has left you now. Whatever force possessed you to confront this man in this way has disappeared, leaving behind only a sickly taste in your mouth. You’ll feel more than just the wine in the morning, you know it. 

“Brave enough to follow me into the dark, brave enough to demand I explain my plans for bedsport,” he continues, brows knit as he stares you down. “But somehow, not brave enough to tell me what you’re doing here in the first place.”

“I – ” 

“Tell me then,” he goads, growing more agitated by the minute. “Open your mouth and speak. Tell me why you’re here. Tell me what you want.”

“I want you to kiss me.”

You ought to have slapped him across the face. At the very least, you would have earned the look he’s giving you right now – this frozen mask of incredulity that’s come over his face. He backs away from you slowly, as though poised to run. But he doesn’t.

“You’re mad.”

“I am not mad,” you say evenly, with a poise you’d not thought yourself capable of. “You asked me what I want and I’ve told you. I want you to kiss me.”

Another burst of color explodes in the sky. A loud cheer goes up over the field nearby, a disquieting reminder of the hundreds of people milling about just a short walk away. The commotion seems to sober him.

“Go home, Your Grace.” His words are strangled, forced. “You are playing with fire. You have no idea what you’re doing here.”

You stiffen, lifting your nose in the air. 

“I know exactly what I’m doing,” you lie.

Your insistence only serves to make him even more agitated. He begins to pace back and forth, glowering at you as he moves.

“Go back to your castle, Your Grace. Go back to your fine life and your fine things and no one will ever be the wiser.”

“I will not,” you refuse, defiant.

He delivers his last blow, the fatal one, in a voice so graveled it sounds as though the words are spoken by a stranger. And perhaps he is a stranger, this man you’ve been so infatuated with. Perhaps he’s nothing like what you’ve made him in your own mind.

“Go back to your husband,” he growls. “Your King.”

Your humiliation is both instant and acute. You burn with it, the embarrassment so intense that it nearly makes you see stars. You can hear the blood rushing in your ears, feel your heart pounding in your throat when you speak.

“The King doesn’t want me,” you say coldly. “Though I am certain you already know that.”

“The King is a fool!” he explodes, surging forward and slamming his hands down on either side of you. The outburst is violent enough to shake the horse stall and the venom in his countenance nearly makes you come out of your skin. His mouth hovers terrifyingly close to yours, so close that you can nearly taste the ale on his breath. You stop breathing altogether. 

Then he wrenches himself away from you, staggering backwards as though he’s been burned.

“The King is a fool,” he repeats. “And so am I.”

i’d love to hear from you about this chapter! you can talk to me here. otherwise, i hope you enjoyed it and only the final chapter is left 💕

[hobisverse]

This entire series has been on my to-read for such a long time that it felt a bit surreal to be laying awake last night bingeing the entire thing in one go.

My brain is still in the fog from a serious lack of sleep but let me try to do my best to string a few coherent words together into sentences.

I’ve always loved mafia!AUs but kept them at an arms’ length because it’s so easy to fall off the fine line that separates romanticising these universes (because it’s BTS, totally understandable), but Ana managed to make an incredibly difficult feat look easy. She didn’t just walk across; she ran across the line, somersaulted, performed acrobatics all on that same damn line that I’ve seen crossed so many times.

Never once does Ana let you forget that the world Guarded is set in is dangerous, but she manages to remind you gently, expressed through reactions fast enough to rival a deer’s, one-lined quips, and the overall behaviour of the men that star in this series as well as the leading lady.

It was also the intriguing concept that two people supposedly cut from similar cloths and on the same side would be enemies, but the more I read, the more I realised that that was just the tip of the iceberg. It’s so much more than just a simple enemies to lovers trope, and it really made me rethink a whole thing I had about there always being a mutual understanding between two people on the same side no matter how different their personal views were.

I found myself alternating between :] :| :/ >:( and :D a lot while reading this series because of the incredible way each chapter was written. Ana has a clear knack for drawing readers into each world she creates, and Guarded was no exception. I can’t wait to binge read it again <3

masterlist: guarded

you’ve tried to separate yourself from your infamous crime family, but a new case has your carefully-constructed world crashing down around you.  now you have to figure out how to heal old wounds and handle the new man who enters your orbit.

Chapter One: Fan Mail

Chapter Two: I’m Screwed

Chapter Three: Exotic Pets

Chapter Four: Cham-pain

Chapter Five: Italian Leather Gloves

Chapter Six: No One But You

Chapter Seven: Epilogue

part two: guilty | knj x reader

[hobisverse]

Pro tip: do NOT listen to Fix You or any rendition of BTS lofi edits by SMYang while reading this because the combination will make you cry.

I’ve spent the last twenty minutes staring at this stupidly blank page processing everything that happened in Tales of Broken Hearts (henceforth known as TOBH) and wondering how I could possibly amalgamate all the broken sentences and fragmented words floating around in my head into coherent lines of text and honestly, I spent the whole time with tears swimming in my vision and I stared and stared at this stupid blank white screen until my vision got blurry, my breath caught in my chest, and I let out a loud hiccup, my lower lip quivering and turning downwards before I pulled myself together and had to go look at a live feed of PTD day 2 to cheer myself up.

If there is anyone who could ever make me Taehyung biased, it’s Rid. Not that it’s going to happen, but the way I can feel every single word she writes overflowing with love for this gorgeous man really makes me feel….something. 

I went into TOBH with incredibly high expectations, which, in hindsight, was a good idea because if I had any lower ones, I would’ve been bowled over and lived out the rest of my life as a pancake on the floor. 

I’ll be the first to admit that I began TOBH with a :] expression on my face and not a very kind outlook towards OC, because I knew it was going to be a coming-of-age story about a rich girl and how she manages to find herself outside of her life in the town she was so desperate to leave behind but also realise that by embracing who she is as a person inside said town, she’ll discover herself and who she really is.

What I didn’t expect was for Rid to take a step outside of the cliche storyline and inject so many emotions into both OC and Taehyung, while simultaneously dodging overdone storylines/plot twists and the like as well as delivering an incredible work of art. In the interest of delivering a relatively spoiler free review for anyone who reads this in order to find out whether TOBH is a fit for them, I won’t be giving too many major spoilers.

Love is a major recurring theme in TOBH and Rid doesn’t let you forget it, but neither does she rub it in your face and shove it down your throat. Instead, she shows subtly all the different ways two humans can show affection for each other, whether it’s cuddling under a warm blanket and watching sappy movies with entwined hands, or taking a nostalgic trip to the spot that was so special despite it being out of the way and inconvenient at times, or even just thinking about the other person every second of every day.

The heartbreak hurt every fibre of my being and it felt so real, like I was watching a movie in real time. So real, in fact, that at times I had to shake myself and wonder how it was possible to translate such visceral emotions into words that make sense. But it’s real. Not one aspect is unrelatable, even if you think that it may not be so, considering OC’s financial background. 

Whispered confessions, unspoken thoughts that become clear as day with one glance into someone’s eyes, the feeling of not wanting to separate from the one you love despite knowing you have to for one reason or another. Rid brings awareness to all of these interactions that happen on a daily basis that may be too heartbreaking for other authors, but she does so tactfully and makes sure to explain from both sides that nobody is truly fully at fault, and nor should they bear the full weight of blame.

The ending, though short, was just right. It created a new chapter and provided a semi-open ending in which you can be sure that OC and Taehyung have put their speckled past behind them and are ready to move on together, moving forward from the demons that haunted them for so many years, and are ready for a fresh start. And honestly? I wouldn’t have it any other way. It boggles my mind how Rid always manages to somehow create an ending so perfect for each one of her fics, and this one is no exception.

Tales of Broken Hearts is a tale that spans years. It’s a tale that tells the story of two star crossed lovers that continue to persevere for the one thing they desire the most despite a rocky past and vastly differing circumstances that threaten to pull them apart. But it’s a tale that’s worth reading, if you have half an hour or so to spare. 

…just…don’t listen to Fix You, Stay With You, Winter Bear, Zero O’Clock, Sweet Night, or any of the songs on the official playlist. Your tear ducts will thank you.

tales of broken hearts | kth (m)

absolutely amazing banner by the one & only @kimtaehyunq​​​​​ <3

“Love has become a noun again.”

When a work trip brings you back home, you don’t expect for anyone to await your return or remember you. But despite the time apart, Taehyung still does – still looks at you the same way he used to five winters ago.

⋙ pairing: Taehyung x reader ⋙ rating: 18+ ⋙ genre: exes to lovers, childhood sweethearts; fluff, angst, smut ⋙ warnings: toxic parents, mentions of bullying, mentions of an accident & a few injuries, crying; my voice kink again, tae is the sweetest freaking person EVER; explicit sexual content: multiple (2) smut scenes (one is shorter), oral (f. & m. receiving), tiddie sucking, dirty talk, teasing, imagine tae’s super deep moans :), fingering, big dick tae implied, squirting, unprotected sex (be careful <3), cockwarming kinda, begging, multiple orgasms; maybe more lmk if i forgot something! ⋙ word count: 23.8k ⋙ a/n: oh god, i wrote this based on a dream … what, may last year? :’) and it’s finally here now !! sorry for making you guys wait, i hope you like it !! <3  ⋙ betas: ahhh so many people who helped me over the course of several months !! @missgeniality​​​ for beta’ing this TWICE and for letting me rant and talk her ears off, i’m nothing without you 🥺 @voiceswithoutlips​​​ @justasparkwritings​​​​ @opaljm​​​ for beta’ing the first draft so beautifully and​ @chemicalpink​​​ & @chateautae​​​ for reading and giving me so many suggestions !! thank you so much - ALL OF YOU HAVE MY HEART <33 !!

➳ listen to the TOBH playlist for the full experience 🤎

MASTERLIST | WIPs

Love doesn’t bloom during frigid winters.

Keep reading

[hobisverse]

OKAY it’s been released! Which means I can finally and will scream about it until the end of time, but firstly, you should know that by reading this review, there will be minor spoilers. Major spoilers, if any, will be placed under a readmore.

Update: this review turned into 1000 words lmao rip so it’s ALL going under a readmore

I haven’t read the entire series because I haven’t had the energy to do any reading in almost a year outside of beta reading, which is why this blog has been kind of inactive for a while, but once in a while I’ll be so moved by something I’ve beta’d that I have to yell about it and spread as much love as I could possibly muster for it. Granted, this is difficult since I’ve almost completely separated my beta “personality”, so to speak, from literally everything else, but Rid has done it again and I will not shut up about it.

I was quite hesitant to read this even though I said I’d beta it, not because I didn’t have the time to, but because even though it’s been three and a half years since [redacted] happened, I still haven’t healed from it and honestly, I don’t think I ever completely will, and as a result, I’ve been very hesitant to read things that involve heartbreak and related trauma.

But Ruined brought a type of catharsis to me that I couldn’t have written myself, because I wasn’t able to self insert as an author and I couldn’t really pull back with the heartbreak because I wasn’t comfortable doing so. Rid really didn’t hold back with the heartache for this one, and from the moment she appeared and Taehyung felt everything metaphorically punch him in the gut, I was in tears. In tears because it’s so...understandable. Everyone, at least once in their life, will go through some kind of heartache, and Rid really puts it out there that it’s okay to hurt, it’s normal to do so, and that sometimes, despite you doing your best, you just can’t control everything and can’t avoid certain things/triggers.

But, by continuing to read, Rid helped me realise through the eyes of Taehyung, that things will turn out to be okay, even if they might not seem like they ever will. Taehyung went through TWO emotionally traumatic phases in the span of his young adult life and only within a few years’ of each other, but still he managed to come out okay. Permanently scarred in some places, but otherwise okay. 

Ruined serves as a wonderful reminder that life is full of ups and downs and that sometimes, things happen that are completely out of your control and they turn your life topsy turvy and on its head and spit you out worse for the wear, but you always have a choice on how to proceed afterwards. It shows you that it’s okay to be emotionally numb, that “since the world began falling apart and healing earlier this year, emotions and intimacy have faded and left numbness in their wake.” And this is totally normal. You know it, I know it, Rid knows it, Ruined knows it. 

Ruined knows exactly how to hit that sore, brokenhearted, not-completely-healed spot in every person who’s gone through the process of having their heart ripped out of their chest cavity and stomped on and, not for lack of trying, wasn’t able to heal yet, not matter how much time has passed. You might find yourself wincing when Taehyung does stupid shit like inadvertently pushing OC away, but if you think one step further, would you have done the same in his shoes? It’s these little moments in Ruined that really hit home for me. I was angry at Taehyung for pushing OC away, but I was also upset with OC for not being more understanding. But after thinking a little more and trying to fit yourself into their shoes - one man, brokenhearted and carrying so much baggage and believing that he’s the only one that can solve his problem; and one woman, who only knows as much as her crush has told her, trying her best but being spurned at the worst possible moment for reasons unknown to her - would you have done things any differently? Perhaps. But the important thing is that Ruined takes all these little moments and makes them its own.

Rid did an incredible job with Ruined, and even if you read it as a standalone fic like I did (I knew only the basics of what happened in previous instalments), you’ll understand just fine all the complicated emotions that went into this behemoth of a fanfiction, the beginning and end of Taehyung’s heartrending backstory, and the uphill battle Ruined ‘s OC and Taehyung’s relationship was.

I really really recommend reading Ruined, even if just as a standalone fic. Hopefully you will understand through it that there are so many different kinds of heartache, some leading down the same road, some culminating in something else, and that there will be ups and downs - recovery, in any way, shape or form, is always difficult and never a straight shot - and that’s okay. Ruined reminded me that sometimes it’s okay to take three steps back after taking one baby step forward. What’s important is that I took that step forward in the first place, and that’s a cause for celebration in and of itself.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go cry in a corner and ignore @taegularities until the end of time ♡

ruined | kth (m)

Summary: “Does forever sound too long?”

You first see Kim Taehyung at the office you’ve just started working at – and his eyes draw you in immediately. Quiet, powerful, and confident; yet he’s wrapped in a suit of secrets. A suit you want to take off layer by layer.

⋙ pairing: Taehyung x female reader ⋙ rating: 18+ ⋙ genre: strangers to lovers; angst, fluff, smut ⋙ warnings: heartbreak and coping with it, tae panics a bit once or twice, mention of cheating in the past, mention of threesomes/fuckboy!tae, mention of therapy, pining, a coworker being an ass, crying; explicit sexual content: (soft) dom!tae, big dick!tae, grinding/dry humping, heavy making out, oral (f. & m. receiving), fingering, biting/praising, unprotected sex (soft & rough), some masturbation, some spit, finger sucking, the smut is p long wow. taehyung is the most precious being ever :( ⋙ word count: 24.4k ⋙ a/n: HI HI. i feel… so empty after finishing this 😭 thank you so much @missgeniality, @amourtae & @sugalaritae for always brainstorming with me (and harrow for coming up with this summary !!!) & @hobisuniverse​ for beta’ing this so fast, you own my heart 🥺 hope you enjoy, everyone !! <3 ⋙ NOTE: this is the epilogue to my ruin you series, but IT CAN BE READ AS A STAND-ALONE !!

⁂ part of the ruin you series (but can be read as a stand-alone!)

⁂ playlist 🎶

MASTERLIST | WIPS

Kim Taehyung is an unravelled mystery personified.

Keep reading

[hobisverse]

Oh my GOD I am SHOOK that I didn’t discover this earlier and I am so ashamed. This fic has shot to the top of my favourites list -- it’s so eloquently written, it feels so real and really took me for a ride, like I was watching a movie instead of reading something, and it...it really hurts in a way that I can’t quite describe. Perhaps it’s because I went through something that this fic reminded me of and how some wounds, even when given ample time, don’t heal as quickly as you’d like them to.

Paper Cranes gave me everything I never knew I wanted or needed, all tied up in a neat little 18.3k word package. I was daunted by the word count at first, but I was completely sucked in by the time I got to the readmore, which really speaks to how well this was written and how Aqua has a way with words that just hits just right. 

I wanted to cry, I wanted to scream, I wanted to hug MC and Jinyoung and Taehyung all at the same time, because it wasn’t ever one person’s fault at any given time, because no matter how hard you try, emotions just won’t listen to you sometimes and everything just gets away from you and all logical reasoning goes out the god damn window. 

Everything started so simply, with the new kid at school being bullied and one paper crane. That’s it. That’s all Aqua needed to create this god damn masterpiece and I will never be the same after reading this. I want to print this fic out, frame it, and put it on my bookshelf. I want to decorate my room with quotes from this work of art, so I can read it when my internet dies. I want to hold this fic in my arms and cry and coo to it, I want to hug it and tell it that it’s my source of comfort.

Aqua, if you ever see this reblog, I love your work and thank you for making my day a bit brighter. Thank you for reminding me that it’s okay to be in a reading slump but come across a huge fic, become a little scared bc of the word count, but get sucked in anyway, and finish the fic no worse for the wear. Thank you so much ♡

Paper Cranes | Kim Taehyung (M)

PAIRING: Kim Taehyung x F!Reader

GENRE: Fluff, smut, angst. Non idol AU. College AU. Best friends to lovers. Slice of life.

WARNINGS: Explicit sexual content, unprotected sex (stay safe!), so much fluff you might pass out

WORD COUNT: 18.3k

DESCRIPTION: It is said that if someone folds 1000 paper cranes, they will receive one wish. Kim Taehyung has been folding you paper cranes since he was six years old. He won’t tell you what he’s going to wish for once he reaches his goal, but even into your twenties, all you know is that he’s been wishing for the same thing every time.

You’re six years old when you receive your first paper crane from Kim Taehyung.

Your first year of elementary school is almost over—there’s only two months left until summer break, and you’ve been counting down the days until you are finally free to wake up as late as you want and play with your friends until the sun goes down.

That’s also why it strikes you as odd that there’s a new transfer student, his newly assigned seat right beside yours, being introduced to the class. His eyes are big and wide underneath a fringe of dark brown hair, and he’s cute in the way that all kids are cute—with rosy cheeks, big ears, and a shy demeanour that tells you that he would most likely rather have stayed at his previous school.

After a brief introduction of Hello, I’m Kim Taehyung, he shuffles over and takes his seat. He doesn’t really look at you, keeping his head down as he pulls his notebooks from his backpack. You see that the margins are covered in doodles, little cartoons and make-believe stories etched onto every far corner of the page.

You open your mouth to introduce yourself, but the sound of your teacher’s voice has you facing the blackboard once more. You try not to think too hard about the new boy sitting beside you, gently humming to himself as he doodles butterflies in an open meadow.

At recess, you’re playing with a few friends, doing cartwheels and rolling around on the grass. You’re giggling with your friend, Chaeyoung, when you hear a ruckus happening not too far away.

“Hey! Please, no, give it back!”

Keep reading

[hobisverse]

HOW CUTE!!!!! How you’re able to find so many unique and equally adorable emojis, I’ll never know, but I’m grateful all the same!! Thank you!

[hobisverse]

ANOTHER MASTERPIECE BY MY SOULMATE!!!!

I’ll try to keep this relatively spoiler free - 

Chapter 1 of the Chaperoning series combines equal parts hilarity, soft baby hours, and real talk in a way only Mars can pull off. I did cringe at imagining the shrieking teenagers and the incessant, chattery gossip that usually accompanies this age group, but this is largely due to the finest of details that Mars included. Every little thing was thought out well and incorporated and she breathes life into all her characters, including Namjoon’s trademark clumsiness, his innate love for books, and the way he gets distracted easily by something he loves. The way Mars also makes sure her characters realistically flawed is also something that keeps drawing me back to her fics  — nobody is perfect, including the aforementioned Kim Namjoon. Mars knows that humans are inherently flawed, but the way she writes in said imperfections makes everything natural, cohesive, and easy to read without being too in-your-face about it. Some people prefer to read about perfect characters, and that’s fine! All the power to them, but this series might not be what they’re looking for. However!! If you are such a person and you’re looking to widen your reading horizon, I highly recommend Mars’s work.

All in all, this was such a great read, and I can’t wait to see what else this couple gets up to ♡

Chaperoning (knj) - 1

next

Summary- What better way to spend time with your boyfriend than to chaperone your sister and nine of her high school friends on a trip to the mountains?

word count- 1.4k

pairing- boyfriend!Namjoon x Reader

rating- PG15

genre- established relationship, fluff, very slight angst, basically just fluff.

warnings- very brief mention of sexual harassment

a.n- so I was on a trip to the mountains and I kinda loved it. it was beautiful and I wanted to capture the beauty of nathia gali (which is in northern pakistan), so please enjoy this self indulgent mini-series! I hope you enjoy it and that if you can, you visit there! This chapter is just the prequel. Also, yes I’m posting this from the airport while I wait for my flight to see my boys in LA.

This series will also have underage drinking in the future but will not glorify it because I want to portray realistic high schoolers and not Disney high schoolers lol, but if that makes you uncomfortable please skip the chapter with it or do not read. 

Thanks for the beautiful @hobisuniverse​ and @oftenderweapons​ for beta-ing this for me. I love you both!! 😍

As always feedback appreciated, a reblog and a like goes a far way. Send me an ask! 💌

Send me an ask to be on the taglist!

-

“Okay does everyone have their passports ready?” you asked the group of high school girls gathered in front of you. Their loud chatter was uninterrupted as they nodded distractedly at your question, making you sigh in exasperation. Behind you, your boyfriend placed his hands on your shoulders, squeezing gently.

“Relax babe. They’re practically adults,” he assured you with a peck on the top of your head, the rim of his baseball cap blocking your view of the girls a millisecond too long.

“Two of them already lost their boarding passes. That’s barely adult, Joonie,” you replied with an eye roll, bending down to pick up another abandoned boarding pass to inspect the name. Namjoon peered over your shoulder, face turning a bright red when he realized it didn’t belong to one of the ten girls the two of you were chaperoning but him. You stared at him pointedly as he cleared his throat, pulling his face into a neutral expression.

“Ah. I actually meant to drop that,” he fibbed, smiling at you widely in an attempt to appease you. An attempt that was successful as you shook your head at him, endeared at his inherent clumsiness.

Keep reading

[hobisverse]

Good day

Omg what a cute avocado!!!!! I love this, thank you!

[hobisverse]

Cee, thank you so much for this drabble! It brought a smile to my face when I was feeling poorly and under the weather from surgery. I read it again and again as a bedtime story when I was stuck in the hospital and too scared to sleep and this drabble brought me comfort and made me happy when I was upset. 

Thank you for the falling pun; you know the way to my heart finger guns

pairing: best friend!Hoseok x reader | genre: fluff, friends to lovers au | rating: pg | warning: kissing? | wc: 386 | summary: your best friend confesses their feelings for you | AN: This request is for @hobisuniverse. I hope you have a successful surgery and a speedy recovery 💙

[2:57 pm]

“I think I am falling for you.”

The words come out of Hoseok’s mouth so smoothly that it stops you in your tracks. You are walking with him at the fair, eating cotton candy, and enjoying the cool fall breeze. Hoseok is your best friend, and you have secretly liked him. But Hoseok never showed any interest in you, always keeping things friendly. Until now.

“You are falling for me? Your balance seems pretty fine to me,” you joke, nudging his shoulder.

Hoseok then takes your hand, leading you to the end of the pier. The waves crash into each other, and the sun beams directly on the two of you, as if the spotlight is on you.

“I’m serious. I like you.”

You look into his eyes, and you see nothing but sincerity. You realize at this point that he is not joking; Hoseok is confessing his feelings towards you. You feel like you are elevating and that you are going to fly away with him. You have never been this happy in your life.

“That’s interesting,” you say, a small smile creeping on your face. “Why? What’s so special about me?”

“What isn’t special about you?” He asks, moving a piece of hair from your face. “You are beautiful, smart, and the kindest person I know. I see how you care for other people and how much thought and energy you put into everything that you do. I’ve known you all my life, and I realize that you are the person I want to be with. You make me feel good, and I’d like to think you feel the same.”

You can’t contain your excitement anymore, and you tackle him with a hug, sealing the deal with a kiss. His arms pull you in closer, his soft lips deepening the kiss, and you melt instantly in his arms. Your heart is bursting at the seams, and you pinch your leg, not believing that you got your dream guy.

“So I take it you feel the same way?” Hoseok asks nervously.

You beam up, raking your hands through his hair before pulling out your phone.

“Siri, why men?” You say into the speaker before letting out a giggle. “Of course I feel the same way, silly. I don’t go kissing random men I don’t like.”

[hobisverse]

SDKFJHSKJDFHSKJFHSKDJFH WAIT WAIT WAIT WAIT WAIT 

THIS IS 

SO CUTE!!!!!!!!!!

WILLOWWWWWWWW he named his BONSAI!!!! HE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is the cutest little drabble I’ve ever read (I dare you to write one in the future that will overtake this position) and it’s just??? Slice of life and I never knew I needed this so desperately in my life until now?????

I was agonising over the Mac OSX knockoff copy that is Windows 11 and ngl, was getting a little stressed over how unaesthetically pleasing (in my opinion, at least! No judgements here if you like it!) the fonts are on the login screen and this drabble just??? Melted that stress away???

Willow, if I get a bonsai, I’m naming it after you and that’s a promise xxxxxxxxx

found myself | knj

PAIRING namjoon x bartender (any gender)

GENRE slice of life? a little bit of crack.

RATING 18+ just to be safe

WC 538

WARNINGS language

SUMMARY namjoon finds himself, but not really where anyone expected

AN a little imagine for you <3 thanks to @reliablemitten @starlightindeepestnight @btsarmy9593 for the inspo and the chuckles while writing this. ur the best.

©wwilloww Do not repost, translate, or use my stories without my permission.

FOUND MYSELF

No one expected things to happen like this.

Not even him.

Maybe it was the tequila. Top shelf. Or maybe it was the lights, spraying like stardust around the darkened room. Or maybe it was the DJ, 39 and wearing basketball shorts at least a decade old.

But late one night, at approximately 3:27am, Hoseok receives a call.

Wiping the sleep out of his eyes, he answers hastily.

“Namjoon? What’s wrong?”

Hoseok can only think the worst. An accident. Or worse.

“Hyung, the most incredible thing has happened.”

The tightness in Hoseok’s chest releases.

“What’s going on?”

“I found myself. In the club.”

What follows is nothing less than a new obsession. It’s an odd one, admittedly, placed among his others: bonsai tree cultivation, reading, miniature collecting.

But it’s a shining star in his veiw.

Whenever he can, he’s headed to towards the pulsating lights and electronic dance music, like a man who’s heard the piper’s song.

What follows is something that none of his friends expected.

Namjoon leaves work in a rush when he can and heads straight to the club, dark clothes barely hiding his identity.

There, he finds a spot, alone among strangers, where he can dance. The evening passes quickly as he rotates through his large assortment of dad moves: the sprinkler, the snorkeler, and the two step, some of his favorites. When he’s feeling fancy, he’ll throw in a little more spice.

Sometimes he wears his glasses to the club, only to realize once they’re entirely fogged up and he can’t see. He spends the rest of the night dancing with them precariously balanced atop his head. This happens one time too often, to the point where he thinks he should get one of those weird glasses necklaces, so he can wear his reading glasses around his neck at the club.

The bartenders come to know him, less because he’s always ordering something and more because once you get him chatting, he rarely stops.

There’s one who’s eye he catches from across the room. He approaches one night, a grin on his face, sweat on his brow.

“Hey tiddies,” the bartender says, barely looking up. And then their eyes widen. “I mean, I mean—just hello.”

“Tiddies?” Namjoon asks, eyes widening. “You mean, like, breasts?”

The bartender laughs nervously. “Um, yes.”

“You call me tiddies in your head?”

The bartender is looking wildly uncomfortable now, and looking for an opportunity to get as far away from the very handsome, very lovely man that they’ve just now embarrassed themselves in front of.

“Are you psychic or something?” Namjoon says, leaning over the bar. “Did you know my bonsai is named tiddies?”

“You have a bonsai?” they ask.

“Yes, you want to see?” But before they can answer, Namjoon is already leaning over the bar, pulling his phone from his pocket and showing them his green glowing lock screen. “Isn’t he cute?”

The bartender knows nothing about plants, let alone what makes a tree cute, but this handsome stranger is leaning so close, his collogne so intoxicating, that they nod along, smile, and lean a little closer.

“My name’s Namjoon by the way,” he grins.

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taglist: @spicykoreantatertots @usuallynervoussheep @myimaginationsrunningwild @lucedelsole97 @heichooouuu @yoong-i @minyoongiboongi @shameless-army @frisianqueen @emmmui @rm4lyf @kelly-luvya @baby-g @madseok @elyte

[hobisverse]

ALEX this was SO well written!! I’ve been in a bit of a reading slump lately, so fics over 5k scare me, but the entirety of this went by in a flash and at the end, I found myself saying “huh? It’s already over?” in the BEST way possible.

You were able to capture both Ariel and Taehyung’s feelings perfectly and I felt their anguish and Ariel’s guilt over leaving her family, but also her understanding that for once in her life, she should put herself first, and I’M SO PROUD OF HER????????

I only hope that Seokjin, Miyoung, and Sungjin will escape with their skin fully intact and not flayed (if you’re willing to marry off BOTH your children as pawns despite fully knowing they were in love with someone other than their intended spouse at the time, what other atrocities are you capable of :||||||) and I look forward to seeing the elder Kims walk around for the rest of their life with their jaws on the floor :))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

Breathe

Pairings: Artist!Kim Taehyung x Heiress!Reader

Genre: Fluff, smut, slight angst, arranged marriage AU, runaway bride AU, make up, established relationship

Word Count: 10.7k

Summary: Running away from your arranged wedding and into the arms of the man you loved seemed like nothing but a beautiful dream. Until you did it.

Warnings: Marking, slight fingering, slight handjob, Taehyung turns out to be really into white stockings, teasing, bickering, penetrative sex, unprotected sex (be safe you guys!), creampie, lotssss and lots of kissing

A/N: She’s here! This is part 47 of my Belong Social Media AU, but it can be read as a stand alone one shot. It took me so long to write and then it just kept longer and longer, to the point i tried my best to edit it but if you find a typo or something no you did not<3. Anyway, this is the last written part for the series, so I hope you guys enjoy!

I’m bolding the first and last sentence of the smut scene so you guys can skip it if you don’t want to read it.

“We’re here” Jimin said softly, looking at you through his car’s mirror after realising you did not seem to be running towards Taehyung’s doorstep.

You nervously fidgeted with the white fabric of your dress. “I know…”

“So…” he turned around to look at your anxious figure on the backseat. “Why aren’t you moving?”

“I just… am nervous, I guess”.

Taking a deep, shaky breath in, you focused once more in the house on the countryside you had only visited once before, when everything was perfect between you and Taehyung. Back then, you didn’t think you would find yourself being in this situation — coming back to him, after having escaped your parents’ mansion before your arranged wedding with Sungjin could take place.

Oddly enough, physically getting out of there had been easier than the whole odyssey your mind had been through just so you could make that decision.

With your parents conveniently being at the venue where the wedding would take place, Jimin and Jin had escorted you to the garage, where your friend’s Ferrari was parked. Although you had ran into one of your parents’ assistants in the hallway, you had managed to convince them that you were just in desperate need of getting some air.

And then, once on the backseat of Jimin’s car, waiting for your brother to get in the passenger seat, the three of you were caught off guard by his phone ringing — your parents letting him know they were on their way back to the mansion, to make sure everything was ready before you headed out to the venue and went through with the marriage they were forcing you into.

That’s why Seokjin decided to stay behind and face them with Miyoung and Sungjin, keeping your phone with him just in case your parents tried to track it once they found out you were gone, and giving you a tight hug before you lied down on the backseat —not to be seen by the paps waiting outside the mansion— and Jimin drove off, taking you to the address he had managed to get from Taehyung before he left that morning.

So, here you were now, nearly an hour later — praying that your brother, sister in law and ex fiancé were not getting murdered by your parents as they gave them the news, and a hundred scenarios running through your mind over what Taehyung’s reaction would possibly be the moment he saw you.

Eyes softening at the sight of you and how small you looked right then, Jimin caught your attention by getting out of his car, going around it and opening the door for you. Without another word and giving you a reassuring smile, he held your trembling hands in his and helped you out of it as well — making sure you wouldn’t step on the dress that made you feel like the princess you never wanted to be, and then not letting go of your hand as he walked you over to the front door.

Once in front of it, your hold on his hand tightened, letting him know just how nervous you truly were.

“Do you think he’ll be happy to see me?” you whispered, unconsciously taking a step back — not really second guessing your actions, but being too anxious over his possible reaction.

Catching up on that, Jimin pulled you back towards him, now placing a comforting hand on your upper arm to both keep you in place and help you feel at ease.

“He literally called you last night asking you not to go through with the wedding,” he amusedly pointed out. “Trust me, he’ll be the happiest”.

You nodded your head, once more taking a deep breath as you tried to compose yourself.

And then, after Jimin knocked on the door, it was only a matter of waiting.

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[hobisverse]

take five

pairing: yoongi x reader

wordcount: 10k

glimpse: dr. min yoongi’s a board-certified dermatologist; skilled, renowned, and in-demand — oh and also, he’s divorced.

alternatively, you’re yoongi’s nurse and you have a crush on him, and he gives you five chances to ask him out — he never said anything about accepting though.

[ angst, fluff, unrequited love, so much pining ]

notes: inspired by yang seok-hyeong and choo min-ha’s dynamic from hospital playlist!! you don’t necessarily have to watch it in order to read this :D this idea has been sitting in my notes for like a year now (yikes) and i’ve only found the wILL to do it now!! took a short break because i’ve been mostly just pumping out stem koo for the past months, but here’s a yoongi piece to cleanse everyone’s palate!! this has got to be one of my favorite pieces ever hee-hee

as always, lmk what you think <3 send in feedback/requests/love to my askbox anytime!!

[ part two ]

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[hobisverse]

ISI WHAT THE FUCK????? IM???????

I would not have pegged this as your first smut because everything was hot, fast, detailed, hoooo boy fans self

WELCOME TO THE FINISH LINE INDEEDY also bold of you to assume I can drive c:

Finish Line (KSJ x F!Reader)

pairing: CEO!Jin x brat!reader genre(s): smut, absolute filth, pwp... I am sorry au(s): sugar daddy au word count: 750 trigger warnings: sexual tension, going for car rides (*ahem*), daddy kink, excessive use of petnames, fingering, spanking, clit slapping, unprotected sex (put your hubcap on b4 you rev up ok), breast play, c*m tasting, brat tamer Jin (he's mean but it's sexyyyy) rating: 18+

a/n: so i raised hell by proposing this scenario in the @bangtanbathhouse discord, and i had to write bc dilfs now have a hold on me thanks to @taesinferno. presenting to y'all, sugar daddy Jin ready to distract you from the road hehe <3 also this is my first time writing smut so pls sabdahjdbjskf go easy on me. i hope y'all enjoy! (not sure i'll write something like this again)

“I’m sorry,” Jin balks, tipping his tinted aviators down to rest on the bridge of his nose. “You want me to do what?”

His eyes scan your upset face, painted lips pursed into a pout, slowly drifting down to where the unbelievably thin straps of your baby blue silk slip dress meet the v-shaped neckline.

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[hobisverse]

mobile navigation

♡ Type

drabble | oneshot | twoshot | series | series masterlist 

♡ Genre

angst | crack | fluff | smut

♡ Member

seokjin | yoongi | hoseok | namjoon | jimin | taehyung | jungkook

Minors, defined in this scenario as anyone under the age of 18, are not permitted to interact with any smut and/or 18+ works on this page. I do not condone minors engaging with any 18+ content, therefore I will not be held responsible for their actions. I cannot and will not control how minors will act on other blogs, but due to the fact that is my blog, minors should not be interacting with works that are listed as 18+, for whatever reason it may be rated as such.

[hobisverse]

Never, Never Fall (myg)

Summary- A year after you broke off your engagement to the man you imagined spending forever with, he invites you to dinner out of the blue. 

word count- 7.9k (welp went over the 3k! 😅)

pairing- rapper!Yoongi x Reader 

rating- R

genre- angst, fluff, light smut, exes to lovers

warnings- allusions to depression, talks of low self esteem, semi-explicit smut including unprotected vanilla sex, a little (read: a lot) of crying, soft!Yoongi, workaholic!Yoongi, kindof idol!Yoongi (it’s Agust D y’all)

reading note- italics signify flashbacks.

a.n- This was commissioned by the lovely @bulletproofgucci for the army for aapi event. Thank you so much for your donation, Kristen and I hope this piece lives up to your standards! Remember you said not to be afraid to make it hurt 😉

Please consider donating and checking out the resources ARMY advocates has compiled!

A huge shout out to @hobiandsprite​ and @imyourhobiii​ for beta reading! You guys really be out here making sure I don’t sound like a dumbo 💕Also, thank you so much to @oftenderweapons​​, @casuallyimagining​​, @taegularities​​, and @hobiandsprite​​ for helping me brainstorm the ending and easing my worries through my random writer’s block.

As always feedback appreciated, a reblog and a like goes a far way. Send me an ask! 💌

-

With a hand raised over your eyes, you blocked the late evening sun as you stepped out onto the sidewalk, stumbling a little over a crack. Despite the sun still beaming overhead, the autumn air was crisp, a dry burn over your face as you walked towards the restaurant, leaves crunching under your Chelseas. 

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[hobisverse]

No Rebounds (myg) - 2

previous | next

Summary- Yoongi and you start marriage counselling.

word count- 826

pairing- husband!Yoongi x Reader

rating- PG

genre- angst, fluff, marriedau

warnings- none

a.n- Here’s part 2 where you get a little more insight into their relationship

A huge thank you to my bae @oftenderweapons​ for helping me map this series and beta reading this! Also s/o to @hobiandsprite​ for also reading this. Thank you both 🥺

As always feedback appreciated, a reblog and a like goes a far way. Send me an ask if you want to be on the taglist! 💌

-

“So Mister and Missis Min, let’s discuss what brings you here today, hmm?” Dr. Yang asked with a wide smile, her tone saccharine in a way that made the hair on the back of your neck stand in irritation. It went with her sickenly pink office, everything from the notebook in her hand to the couch the two of you sat on a shade of your least favourite colour. That is other than the accents which were a hideous gaudy gold. You always thought that psychologist offices were meant to calm one down but this decor made you more anxious.

“It’s Mister Min and Miss Y/L/N, actually,” Yoongi answered, his irk mirroring yours. It seemed that neither of you were enjoying the vibe she was putting out. “We don’t share last names.”

“And why is that?” she asked, her tone clipped and eyes pointed at you in judgement. “You have a perfectly good husband, why wouldn’t you take his name?”

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