mirophobic2

[mirophobic2]

(hey, I post fic recs, follow me :3)

best friends big sister

i.midoriya

♰ nsfw/suggestive, sub!izuku

bakugo tried to keep you a secret from his friends-he really did. facing the inevitable reaction they would have to you was not something he wanted to face right now.

he manages to do so until half way through his first year in college when he begrudgingly brings kirishima home thinking you weren't there-

it goes the same way everytime- he introduces you to someone and they immediately fall for you. sometimes he feels you do it on purpose, leaning into kirishima as he introduces himself, holding his hand for a second to long when he greets you.

he watches as you bat your eyelashes up at his red haired friend. speaking to him with a tone in your voice that sickeningly seductive. his signature frown on his face.

you do it too piss him off, you know he hates it when his friends fawn over you- it's been happening since you were little after all.

he hates how kirishima doesn't shut up about you after that- your only a year older right?? means he would totally have a chance if it wasn't for the oh so sacred "bro code."

it doesn't stop his gushing though- soon his entire friend group is aware of who you are. they're stalking your instagram during lunch. they beg him to hang out at his place in hopes of the chance they'll get to see you- to have a conversation with you.

he complains about it constantly- "shitty hairs askin' about you again." you can't help but giggle at the scowl on your brothers face- he really does get so wound up over nothing.

it's not like you don't face the same- your own friends all agree that your younger brother is insanely attractive. you don't let it get to you though- you know your both crazy beautiful- your siblings after all.

you tease him about it regularly- "when are those friends of yours coming over next kats?" and he just grumbles- something about him being forced to partner up with some stupid nerd for a project due on monday so he can't hang out with his chosen friends this weekend. your excited at the idea of a new face- a new name to tease bakugo about.

imagine your shock when none other than izuku midoriya knocks on your house door at 10am sharp that saturday morning.

he's grown. that much your sure about- he towers over you now- forcing you to bend your neck backwards to look up at him.

his face immediately flushes when he sees you-clearly not expecting you to be the one to open the door.

he feels silly- his curses at himself in his head for his stupid crush he's had on you since childhood. he's an adult now. a proper adult with proper adult problems- yet he can't seem to hold himself together when your in his vicinity.

he knew he should've just invited kachan over to his place for the project work-

his thoughts are stopped dead in his tracks when you jump on him- pulling the boy into a tight hug as you gush about how much bigger he's gotten- how much he's grown.

he's definitely not that same little boy you knew when you were younger- at least not physically. he's built- insanely so actually. you can't help but wonder how long he spends in the gym each week-maybe you should start going when he's there-

he squeaks out a quiet hi as he fumbles against your touch- he's incredibly aware of how close you two are- your tits pressed tightly against his chest. you don't seem to notice but he does.

you let him go- much to his thanks, allowing him to regain his breathe as he shakily as he asks you how you've been.

you begin to talk his ear off and he's reminded exactly why he liked you so much when you were small. your nothing like your brother, yeah your a little teasing- maybe a little mean at times but it's clear it's all in good faith. your funny, charismatic, easy to talk too and incredibly attractive.

he's in awe of you as you speak- explaining the piles of work your dealing with due to your major, complaining about your workload.

you take a second to look at him- a small hint of nostalgia bubbling in your stomach. you really liked izuku when you were younger- not just because it pissed kats off more than anything when thee two of you would interact but because he's sweet.

he's always been a sweetheart- so nice- so helpful. your reminded of how he used to trail after you and your brother as kids- constantly wanting to be around you- standing incredibly close to you as he shook with nerves.

the two boys had a falling out when they hit middle school- you were never really told why, just that your brother and izuku were not friends anymore- if they ever really were, and you being loyal to ur little brother stopped talking to the green haired boy in solidarity- much to your dismay.

you don't really know how they made up either- all you know is that the nervous boy you haven't seen since he was a young teenage is now in your family kitchen again- and he's certainly done a lot of growing up.

you don't get long to catch up before your brother is storming into the kitchen and physically pulling the other boy up to his room- ignoring your complaints about not having enough time to talk to him- bakugo knows exactly what your doing.

izukus painfully obvious crush he had on you when you were younger was no secret to you- despite not feeling the same way for the boy at the time you can admit that you maybe played into it abit when you were teens-

you would playfully push his shoulder, lean over the back of him to look over his phone- use virtually any excuse to touch him- enjoying watching the effect you had on him.

you think that's were it started- your love for attention- your reputation of flirting and leading people on. you truly believe it all started with your brothers childhood friends silly crush on you.

you retreat back to your room to get some studying done- you work for hours, finally being satisfied with the work you've done for today you decide to reward yourself with the desert you've left in the fridge.

your leaving the kitchen when izuku walks in- he's clearly ready to leave, bag his back as he makes his way to the door- stopping in his tracks when he notices you.

you've changed outfit since he saw you this morning into something more comfortable- maybe your shorts are a little too short for having visitors round but you don't pay it much mind.

his eyes however go straight to your now exposed thighs- face heating up as he trails your body. he needs to get out of there and fast. he can already feel the arousal growing in his chest. he shuffles out a weak goodbye as he begins walking again.

you stop him before he gets to the door- calling out after him. you ask for his number, you know to keep in touch? his eyes are blown wide but he scrambles to take his phone out anyway- pushing it into your hand as he looks away. you type your number in-feeling pleased with yourself and the reaction you've bring out of the boy infront of you.

you sign your contact with a little <3 and send yourself a message too double check that the numbers correct before you let him leave. closing the door behind him as he spits out a thank you and a see you later.

it's weeks before you see him again- you engage in small conversations over texts- complains about your jobs and your coursework, nothing too serious before your made aware by your mother that he and inko will be joining your family for dinner this friday night coming.

your ecstatic as you message him- telling him your so excited to see him and promising to keep him a seat next to you at the dinner table.

friday rolls around quickly and you spend the day helping your father prepare the apparent feast your serving your guests tonight.

you spend a quick hour getting ready- showering, doing your hair, freshening up your make up. your making tonight fun you decide as you do your finishing touches.

it's mitsuki who greets the boy and his mother at the door- wrapping them in a tight hug. your mothers been looking forward to this all week- excited to finally have the pair back in their home again after many years.

it's comfortable immediately- your thankful there's no awkwardness surrounding the long overdue get together.

you settle into chatter easily after the initial greetings- setting in your living room as your father finishes up on dinner- your laughing about old time-your squashed comfortably between the two younger boys, leaning more into izuku and facing him to talk to him from time to time- watching a blush rise to his face when his eyes uncontrollably look down to catch a glimpse of your cleavage.

it's not long before masaru is calling you all through for dinner, you take a seat on the left side of your dining table- ushering izuku to take the boy other seat on that side next to you, your parents take their seats ate their respected heads of the table as inko and bakugo take the seats facing you and midoriya.

you settle into easy chatter- inko flows words or gratitude towards you and your dad for the food and you smile warmly at her- you really have missed the woman.

you divert your attention away from the mother and to the son sitting next to you- he's tense. your shoulders are so close that they would be touching if you moved even slightly words him, you lightly kick his foot under the table and his eyes dart to yours quickly, you attempt to stay composed as he looks at you in shock- you can't help the small giggle that rises in your throat-

you take a look around quickly before continuing your next move- no one's paying attention, mitsuki is nearly leaning over the table to talk to inko- bakugo in between them is distracted by their conversation as your dad looks over at the scene adoringly.

you take this as an opportunity to do something incredibly risky- not just because your at dinner with your parents- because the boy next to you could totally react your advances. you don't think he will-but you keep in mind that he never fails to surprise you.

you move your leg back to his now, wrapping yours around his as you begin a little game of footies with him- he's rigid now- unmoving as he looks at you with wide eyes-

he doesn't move your leg and he definitely doesn't tell you to stop- you lean in to speak to him- almost a whisper- "are you enjoying your meal zuku'?"

his face flushed an even darker red- he's clearly not used to you being so close- the position your bodies in squeezes your cleavage even more- it feels impossible for him to rip his eyes away-

"y-yeah" he stutters out it-it's adorable how difficult it is for him to say a single word- you play dumb, pretending your not painfully aware of your affect on the boy- "what's wrong zuku-? your all red."

your taunting him- teasing him- you love to watch how his breathe hitches and his eyes snap away from your tits and to his lap- looking down in shame.

"m' fine-" he says it with a small smile- he's trying to convince you, he knows your not that stupid. you move your hand to the side of his face, gracing his cheek slightly as you lightly push his face to meet your- your noses being only a couple inches apart-

"you sure? you look like your overheating?" you say it innocently- voice mixed with false worry- you know exactly why his face is so red.

you move your hand away from his face- the other still firmly on the table and your arm closest to the boy finds its itself resting on his lap.

his breathe hitches at the contact- his eyes snapping to yours- the look of desperation on his face causes you to move your own thighs tightly together.

he doesn't answer- so instead you move your hand even closer to him- having it now resting on his inner thigh as you watch him attempt to keep composed.

"y-yes. m' f-fine. i promise." his breathe heavy as he says it, he's struggling against the the movement of your hand lacing up and down his thigh.

"tell me if you want me to stop" it's a complete whisper now- you glance around the room again to double check that no one's paying attention to the two of you- your glad they aren't- your hand isn't seen under the table and you've positioned yourself in a way that too your family it looks as if your only whispering in his ear, you'd play it off as if you were telling him one of bakugos big secrets instead of the light touches your giving his thigh.

you move your eyes to his suspiciously when he doesn't answer and the movement of your hand stops- threatening to be removed before he rushes out an answer-

"don't stop." it's quick and quiet- his voice kept low to not alert the people around you, the desperation in his voice isn't missed by you as you begin to move your hand again- closer and closer to his bulge with each slip.

your hand lightly graces the outline of his dick as you watch hold back a moan- you decide you love seeing him like this- already looking so fucked out.

it only takes a second touch of his clothed cock before he snaps his head away from yours to meet the table- biting down on his hand to muffle the whine threatening to escape his throat-

the loud noise snaps everyone's head towards izuku-you remove your hand quickly before anyone can notice and place a look of fake worry on your face as you place a hand on his shoulder before leaning down to him-

"are you okay izuku-? do you want me to take you upstairs- maybe you can lay down for abit?" it's a show- voice laced with fake concern as you deliver your performance- tricking both your mothers into a state of admiration for how sweet your being to the boy- they give each other a wide eyed look before ushering you both upstairs together- hm...

"oh yes sweetie take the poor boy upstairs- it seems your father has forgotten how badly the boy deals with spice-* your mother laughs slightly before excusing you from the table- you take the opportunity to pull the boy next to you away from the table, hand still rested on his shoulder as you guide him upstairs- his eyes unmoving as he looks down on the floor in shame.

you move him towards your bedroom door- he stops before he steps inside- "w-what are you doing?" he's whispering- as if someone could hear him from all the way downstairs.

you reply casually- "i'm taking you into my room- you need to lay down" he's not convinced when you finish your sentence so you continue- "i'll take good care of you kay'? i don't mind."

this forces him to look at you- he's trying to figure something out- he sighs before he lets you move him into your room- he's gave in- and it really didn't take much at all.

you pull him towards your bed, signalling for him to sit against the headboard as you sit at the side of the bed- your back touching thighs as you face him side on.

"you wanna tell me what happened back there?" your straight to the point- you thought it was going well? did he not want you to touch him?

"n-nothing-" you eye him suspiciously, an eyebrow raised as you reply to him. "m' not an idiot zuku- i can tell something's up."

he can't even look at you when he finally replies after a long stretch of silence "it felt t-too good." your puzzled at this- asking him what on earth he means when he says it felt too good??

his face is dripped in shame as he fiddles with his hands- you take a look at him properly- it's then when you notice a very slight wet patch at his crotch-

wait.

"izuku- baby." you take a breathe before continuing. watching as his face lights up at the nickname. "you wanna tell me what really happened when you hit your head against the table?"

you know. he knows you know and he feels disgusting- what will you think of him when you force him to admit he came in his pants from you touching his dick twice.

"i- um okay f-fuck." he can't find his words. "i-i came."

he watches your face for a reaction but you don't give him one, you don't move an itch and he feels like he ruined it- your everything he's ever wanted- for as long as he can remember- and when he finally has the chance with you he's been dreaming about for years- even if only for tonight he goes and fucks it up by being a fucking prejac.

your silent as you move your hands- slightly shocking the boy in from of you. you place your hand on the line of your trouser before looking up at him- "can i take these off?" your eyes meet his and he takes notice of the hazed look in your eyes before nodding.

you pull them down- taking his boxers with them as you admire him- his cock bounces up immediately as it's freed from its restraints- you admire it for a second- he's big- not completely huge but big. thick too-

you stare for abit- seeing the cum from before still sticky on his dick and his boxers- he's getting increasingly more nervous but he can't help the twitch in his dick as you watch him.

"can i touch you?"

his face flushes even more- "p-please" it's nearly silent, only loud enough for you to hear it.

you don't waste a second before your hands on his dick, not giving him any warning as your hand goes up and down his cock- he moans immediately-already overstimulated by your touch-

"w-wait wait!" he's struggling to speak between his moans. "if you k-keep ah fuck- if you keep going so f-fast i'll come again-"

his confession only speeds the movements of your hands- it's as if that's what you want. he doesn't have a second to think before you dip your head down to his dick and take his red tip in your mouth.

you move your tounge around his dick as your hand continues to move along what you don't have in your mouth- he whines at the feeling of your tongue before bottoming out only a minute seconds after your mouth intintally took him in.

he comes ropes there's so much of it that it's spilling out of your mouth and down your chin- his orgasm lasts him a couple of seconds before he lays his head back- still whining when you remove your lips from his dick.

he watches as you swallow him- moving your hand to collect the spilt cum on your chin back into your mouth. he could be hard again at the sight-

"zuku." you look at him dangerously- his eyes unable to leave yours- "i wanna fuck you."

he stays still. not trusting his voice to speak as he fears he'll shout his answer- yes! he wants to say-yes please fuck me but he can't find the words.

"cmon izuku- let me fuck ur pretty dick baby-" he whines again- cock now once again fully hard at the way you speak to him- your coaching him- leading him. and he loves it.

"p-please tuck me-" that's all it takes tor you to rile your dress up- moving your panties to the side as you position yourself on top on him- he sounds pathetic-practically begging you to fuck him and who are you to refuse him-

you manoeuvre your body so your straddling him comfortably- you line your entrance at the tip of dick- hovering for a second as you admire him below you- your stopped before you can move down by a right grab on your wrist-

"w-wait!" he huffs out- "i-i've never done this before!"

you want to say your surprised but your not-you could tell he was a virgin when you saw his reaction to you in those shorts a couple weeks ago-you could tell by how red he went in the face when u started playing footsies earlier- he's been screaming virgin the entire time, you can't help that it only makes you want him more.

"i know-" you cut yourself off with a moan as you lower yourself onto him- he's so thick- he stretches you out perfectly as the slight pain quickly turns to pleasure.

he's gawking beneath you- mouth wide as a chain of noises- moans mixed with whimpers leaves his mouth- he's loud. you shut him up with a kiss-worried about something hearing him if they walk by your room-

you move yourself up and down him, his head following yours to move with you to not break the kiss- he's groaning into your mouth- unable to stop the noises of pleasure slipping out of him.

your fully riding him now- setting a fast pace as you bounce yourself up and down- rolling on him as he hits that sweet spot in your pussy-

he's leaking so much precum that it forms a ring at the bottom of his dick- you thank your birth control for allowing you to safely take him raw.

he's blabbering nonsense into your mouth- "f-fuck mghh you f-feel so good i c-can't" you kiss him again- pushing your tongue roughly into his mouth-

he never imagined his first time being like this- he imagined shitty missionary with some random girl at some college party- he believes he must be the luckiest guy in the world to have you on top of him-grinding down on him.

"f-fuck baby your cocks so good-fillin' me up so good-" he whines at your praise as he feels yet another knot in his stomach- he's going to cum again- he's going to cum into your pussy-

"s-stop m' gna cum!" he makes no effort to move you off- secretly hoping you'll get caught in the moment and allow him to stay inside-

"it's okay- m' protected just cum-" you can still sense his hesitation- you ride him even faster- desperately attempting to force a third orgasm out of the boy-

"cmon baby it's okay- cum in me zuku- cum in my pussy-*

that's all it takes- he lets out a loud whine and you catch his lips in yours to try and silence him-

you ride though his high- not slowing down as you case your own realise- he's crying under you, shaking at the overstimulation

"¡ cant! it h-hurts!" tears are spilling as you ignore his pleas- "hold on for me baby oh f-fuck m' so close" he's sobbing under you now, hands grabbing your waist so hard it hurts- gripping you for dear life.

"you can take it zuku- know you can-" the poor boy is twitching his hips upwards, kisses getting sloppier and the volume of his whimpering increasing. you think he looks prettiest like this.

you feel your orgasm approaching as your pace gets sloppier- izuku is a mess under you, a mix of cum and your slick feeling heavy at the base of his cock- he can't even speak, his mouth as agape as he watches you in a trance.

you cum with a moan- "oh-oh m' cumming-" you crash down onto him, riding out your high as you feel his thighs tense up- feeling even more cum leak from his tip filling you up even more- you dip your head into his neck as you recover.

you stay there for a second- taking in what just happened- izuku is panting under you, little sobs escaping his lips everytime you move even a little, you slowly remove yourself from him and plant a small peck to his cheek-

"did so good for me zuku- gna clean u up okay? gotta head back downstairs soon."

all he can do is stare at you in awe- he's completely fucked out, he has this dazed look in his eyes that you love.

you clean yourselfs up and let izuku take his time calming down- "can't believe i was your first-" your teasing him again- the never ending blush on his face gets deeper-

"m' sorry i didn't do much-" he's immediately self conscious- he came three- no four times and he feels bad for hardly being able to hold on long enough for you to come too.

"shhh sh it's okay baby" you smile at him as the nickname rolls of your tounge. "next time kay'?" his eyes widen. next time?? what could he possibly have done to make you want to see him again?

"you were perfect for me zuku- so good." you take his hand in yours as he looks away from you- clearly embarrassed by your praise. you don't drop his hand as you lead him back into the living room where your family's now sit- mitsuki has a bottle of wine open, thankful that it means your parents wont notice your hand linked with the green haired boys.

katsuki notices though- he noticed it the second you walk though the door- he also can't help but notice the flushed look on his childhoods friends face and you drag him to sit down next to you. hand not wandering from him.

he shoots you a suspicious look as he watches midoriya sit extremely close to you- you catch his eyes and shug your shoulders at him- you'll explain another time- maybe.

part2

[mirophobic2]

𝐃𝐈𝐕𝐀 𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐃𝐄𝐑

series masterlist

♱ you are everything—dazzling, intelligent, a chemist, confident, and aware of your worth. he is spencer reid.

.ᐟ the parts are not strictly connected—it can be read out of order .ᐟ

𝐩𝐢𝐜𝐤 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐩𝐨𝐢𝐬𝐨𝐧 | 𝟔.𝟓𝐤

after losing a bet, spencer ends up on a blind date

𝐛𝐚𝐜𝐤𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐲 𝐬𝐭𝐮𝐟𝐟 | 𝟐𝐤

while examining the evidence, spencer puts all his professionalism aside because you look like a goddess

𝐩𝐨𝐤𝐞𝐫 𝐟𝐚𝐜𝐞 | 𝟒𝐤

spencer is asking you for a favor again—this time, he wants you to go undercover with him at a casino. as his girlfriend.

𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐥 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 | 𝟐𝐤

it was finally time for spencer to repay the first of the two debts he owed you and help with the work in the laboratory

𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲'𝐥𝐥 𝐭𝐞𝐥𝐥 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐢'𝐦 𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐚𝐧𝐞 | 𝟑.𝟓𝐤

you take spencer on a fake date where he gets confronted by your ex

𝐞𝐱𝐚𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 | 𝟑𝐤

thinking you got infected during the investigation, you ask spencer to examine you. more specifically, your breasts.

𝐜𝐨𝐠𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐝𝐢𝐬𝐬𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 | 𝟐.𝟑𝐤

the sight of Spencer with a child makes you see him in a slightly kinder light. which he finds suspicious.

𝐝𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 | 𝟑.𝟑𝐤

spencer gets distracted when you flirt with another agent right across from his desk

𝐚𝐬𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐩𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 | 𝟑.𝟓𝐤

spencer makes an unkind assumption about you, and for reasons unknown, you feel the need to prove him wrong

𝐬𝐨𝐟𝐭 𝐬𝐩𝐨𝐭 | 𝟐.𝟏𝐤

you've lost count of how many favors you've done for him. yet, you can't say no when he shows up at your lab...with a kitten

𝐠𝐨 𝐡𝐨𝐦𝐞 | 𝟑.𝟖𝐤

in which one spencer finds you in a place that might be attacked and tries to save your life—only for you to end up saving his instead

𝐬𝐢𝐜𝐤 𝐬𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐬𝐟𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 | 𝟑.𝟏𝐤

after finding out you’ve been going through a rough time, spencer decides to talk to you—unintentionally starting an argument.

𝐤𝐢𝐬𝐬 𝐢𝐭 𝐚𝐰𝐚𝐲 | 𝟑.𝟕𝐤

in which both of you take garcia's joke about kissing to ease the tension a bit too seriously

𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐥𝐢𝐩 𝐞𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐜𝐭 | 𝟏.𝟕𝐤

you kissed, and now he can't act normal around you, or more specifically, your lips.

𝐛𝐥𝐨𝐨𝐝 𝐭𝐲𝐩𝐞 | 𝟒.𝟐𝐤

you get injured by the unsub and reid takes care of your wound while simultaneously spiraling into strange, overthinking territory.

𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐀𝐓𝐇𝐎𝐍 𝐅𝐈𝐂𝐒

— COMPLETED —

for more, check out ⤷ romance arc masterlist

[mirophobic2]

(hey, I post fic recs, follow me :3)

┈─★ 𝘪 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨'𝘴 𝘨𝘰𝘯𝘯𝘢 𝘣𝘦 𝘢𝘭𝘳𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 ( 𝙮𝙤𝙪'𝙧𝙚 𝙢𝙮 𝙜𝙤𝙡𝙙𝙚𝙣 𝙝𝙤𝙪𝙧 .)

         ⊹ ࣪ ˖ your family sends you to spend the summer at your uncle’s ranch to disconnect before you start college. the last thing you anticipate is to fall in love with one of the cattle wranglers, a quiet yet vibrant farmhand named megan 'the kid' skiendiel.

         ˎˊ˗  🌾  ⊹ ࣪ ˖  🔓୭˚.  ⠀ ᵎᵎ ⠀ 🗝️

   ➴ pairing: cowboy! megan skiendiel x f!reader

          ➴ genre + wc: 9k, modern cowboy!au, city girl falls for country girl, megan is soooo bf in this, slow burn, explores themes of grief, friends to lovers, slice of life, small town vibes, fluff, heavy angst.

   ➴ you might want to tune in...: 𝗢𝗦𝗧: golden hour - kacey mustgraves. ♫ 𝗔𝗖𝗧 𝗜: featherstone - the paper kites. ♩ 𝗔𝗖𝗧 𝗜𝗜: feathered indians - tyler childers. ♫ 𝗔𝗖𝗧 𝗜𝗜𝗜: frances - role model. ♩ 𝗘𝗡𝗗 𝗖𝗥𝗘𝗗𝗜𝗧𝗦: harvest moon (spotify version) - lord huron. ♫

         ┈─★ a/n: i wanted to try something different and idk where i got the cowboy inspo from, but it was a blast to write. i strongly recommend listening to the music inspo as it helped me get into the small town folksy mood. hope you guys enjoy!

  cw:// farm life = mentions of animals getting injured but nothing graphic and no deaths i promise!! implied underaged drinking, some suggestiveness.

three months on the family ranch, and then you never have to hear about it again as you whisk away to college. your grandpa had never believed in the importance of education, and this was his requirement before he agreed to pay for your tuition to the very impressive university you had managed to get into. you’re annoyed that instead of partying it up with your friends, you’re spending the summer in the middle of nowhere, montana, on a ranch in the side of a mountain where the nearest town is 1 hour away and barely even has a walmart. 

“you’ve grown since we last saw you,” your uncle beams, stepping out of the beat up pickup truck to pick you up from the airport. it’s a 6 hour drive from the airport to the ranch, and you feel yourself tune him out immediately as you count down the days to your freedom.

you lull in and out of sleep on the car ride there, your uncle switching between chatting your ear off and stretches of silence. 

“there’s wifi, and cable, but it’s shit when the storms roll over so don’t get your hopes up. oh, and the water’s cold sometimes, you just gotta kick the heater downstairs. if that don’t do it, meg’s got quite the head for fixing up the old pipes, just give her a yell,” he tells you at the end of the painfully long car drive, finally seeing the farmhouse come into view. 

you can’t deny the rustic charm of the old ranch house, a fully wooden two-story lodge with sprawling tall windows and a cozy porch wrapped around the front. a forest of pine trees surrounds the area, and past the line of trees, you can see the sprawling plains as far as your eyes can follow, knowing that’s where your family’s business lies in the pastures, a centuries old heritage of cattle ranching.

“the farmhands sleep downstairs, but you’ll be upstairs in the old guest room. you shouldn’t be bothered by them unless you run into each other getting some midnight snack,” your uncle tells you, hauling your luggage inside.

you thank him for his help and lug your suitcase upstairs, feeling the creak of the wood floors beneath your feet. 

quickly, someone passes by you on the stairs, grabbing the handle of your suitcase and swinging it up and over their shoulder in one easy motion. you gasp in surprise— your uncle isn’t that old, but the suitcase is still pretty heavy, and–

“that’s the kid for you,” your uncle interrupts your thoughts. “somehow always one step ahead ready to help.”

“don’t mention it,” the girl says simply, nodding her head at you with an awkward smile. she lugs the suitcase up the rest of the steps and leaves it by your door.

just as quickly as she came in, she’s gone, a flash of ruddy hair through the front door.

-

you try to connect to the wifi, and your uncle is clueless with the password. old pete is no good, which leaves your aunt and megan. your aunt doesn’t even try before offering up megan, who takes your phone and types in the password quickly and unceremoniously.

“thank you,” you tell her.

“don’t mention it,” she nods, and you wonder if the girl has literally any other vocabulary at her disposal.

the first few days are the hardest, getting used to the noises and the creaks and living with so many other people that are up at all hours of the night, tending to the ranch. you never realized how much goes into keeping it running so smoothly.

your uncle sings praises of his team one morning over breakfast, after megan managed to fix the fridge and save everyone a trip into the city to lug a new one.

“a cowboy’s gotta be tough as nails and strong as steel, and megan’s worth her weight in gold,” your uncle tells you, waving a fork in your face.

“not a cowboy,” megan says back simply, eyes fixed down on her meal. her tone implies they’ve had this conversation before.

“what are you then?” you ask. you like hearing something out of her mouth other than a dismissal or silence with a blank stare,

“he hired me as a wrangler.” she explains, nodding over at your uncle. 

“needed a new cattle wrangler after ole pete had his first stroke,” your aunt chimes in.

megan nods, picking at her scrambled eggs. “i somehow ended up becoming fence repairman, dog trainer, outdoor plumber–”

“all comes together to be one helluva cowboy,” your uncle jumps in. megan shoots him another look– respectfully in disagreement. you like how she toes that line. 

“so if you’re not a cowboy, then what are you, just a girl who likes to get dirty?” you question

“something like that,” she says, and you see her finally crack a smile. she excuses herself, washes off her plate, and grabs a faded denim jacket by the door, slipping into the brisk morning air.

she’s still smiling when you see her head to the stables. you consider it a win.

-

you try spending time in different spots on the property, but the sprawling acres and lack of navigational skills make it extremely intimidating. you follow the sound of running water and find yourself at a small river, ending in a pond. you settle on the grass by the edge of the water, trying to read the book.

you hear the whoosh of something falling into the water, and realize you aren’t alone.

the farmhand is across from you, back turned, skipping stones into the pond. you watch her next throw skip four, five, six times across the surface of the water before sinking in.

“hey,” you greet, making yourself known.

she turns with wide eyes, clearly not aware she had company. “sorry, am i bothering you?”

“no, stay,” you wave for her to continue. “you were here first.”

you two sit in silence, you reading, her skipping stones, until she breaks the silence first.

“you ever swam in a creek?” 

“no. have you?”

“i grew up on an island,” she shares, kicking a rock away with the toe of her boot. “water all round me.”

“so you can swim?”

“you can’t?” she laughs back.

she rolls her jeans up to her ankles and takes off her boots and socks before she wades a few steps in, leaning over to rinse her face in the running water as well. you can’t stop staring.

“so what now?” you ask, feeling stupid as soon as the words leave her mouth.

“i can tell you’re not used to just taking it slow,” she tells you, and you laugh at the realization that she’s right. “we just sun bathe and listen for brucey.”

bruce, the huge white shepherd that looks more like a polar bear than a dog. you look around and realize he’s nowhere to be found.

“he’s around, sniffing for anything that shouldn’t be here,” she reassures you, as if she can sense your confusion. 

she notices the book you’re holding, and points.

“will you read it to me?” she asks shyly, squinting as the sun hits her eyes.

“you like old classics?”

“your voice is nice. it might convince me.”

you give her a quick look over, and begin to read off the page. she stays across from you, but lays to fold her hands on her lap, kicking her feet up against a rock.

the two of you lay like that, you reading to her, until the sun goes down, and you walk to the lodge together as the sun sets. you check it off in your head. another day done with.

-

you fill your time with reading, studying, and after the pond day, seeking out megan.

you find her up against one of the posts, playing a beat up ukelele in front of a handful of the cattle.

“your guitar shrunk, cowboy,” you joke, pointing to the instrument.

“it helps me when i get homesick,” she smiles, before motioning to the cattle that have gathered near her. “i think the girls like it.”

“looks goofy,” you laugh, taking out your phone to capture the moment. “island girl playing her ukelele for the cows.”

she notices you take the photo, and motions out to the wooded area. “gets prettier when the lightning bugs come out.”

“i bet.”

you don’t ask if it’s okay, but you pull your book out from your back pocket and settle by her feet, sitting on the bottom most post. you get halfway through your book, and she starts to mumble-hum, the cows approaching even closer. 

some of them kneel to take a rest at your guys’ feet, just close enough for you to reach. megan keeps playing, keeps singing, and the birds almost seem to echo her. maybe this is what people mean when they talk about slowing down. you read at her feet as she makes beautiful music until the sun goes down, and you let her drive you back home on the ATV.

-

“i think tilla-girl’s smarter, but meg’s got a soft spot for the old one,” your uncle tells you, pointing out the window as he talks about the farm dogs. you watch as megan is playing her ukelele on the porch, laying with her head propped up on bruce’s stomach, the two seeming more than content with life just with the other’s presence. “nobody else her age works on this damn side of the mountain so she’s gone crazy and started talkin’ to the dog.”

you smile. 

“i’m glad she’s got you, at least,” your uncle adds. “i think you’ll make mighty fine friends.”

you peer out the window and catch megan’s gaze as she looks back at you. she looks away, and you swear you see her cheeks flush. you smile.

“i think so too.”

-

summertimes in the mountain means hot days and freezing nights. something you have to learn when you’re off with megan fixing up one of the old fence posts on the west side of the property and feel a chill as the sun starts to drop.

“it gets cold as fuck out here,” you comment, feeling your teeth chatter.

“i like it.” she replies simply, eyes fixed on twisting the wire up to tighten the fence.  “it was hot year round where i grew up.”

“you keep talking about an island,” you note. “hawaii? how did you end up here?”

“i was running from something. not sure what. kept taking seasonal jobs until i found one that i really liked, here on the ranch.”

“and you stayed?” you question.

“i think i’m made for small towns. not much to do, but not much to worry about.” she purses her lips. “it’s simple.”

“you’re a long way from home.”

“so are you, city girl.” the beat up denim jacket falls off her shoulders with a quick shrug, and in an instant, she’s draping it over your shoulders. the warm wool lining instantly stops your shivering body. 

before you can protest, she’s offering a hand out to you from on top of the horse. you can fight the jacket, or you can fight her helping you up, but you’re not quick enough to fight her on both.

you take her hand, calloused yet soft, and let yourself get hoisted up. 

you ride in silence– well, partial silence, as megan’s hums fill the air, and let yourself breathe a little deeper.

you’ll say it’s the mountain air you’re trying to take in. you’ll say nothing of how you’re taking in the clean scent of pine and campfire smoke radiating off megan’s jacket.

-

“what do you do for fun?” you ask, handing her a screwdriver as she slides back underneath the lifted truck. you hear her grunt, metal clanging, before she stretches her hand back out and motions to the rag. you hand it to her quickly.

“when i’m done working, i'll climb trees, ride on the trail, swim in the creek.” she lists them off casually, sliding back out and wiping her hands on her jeans to get the engine oil off her fingers. “get drunk and piss off your uncle. talk to the girls.”

the girls. you love knowing this is her nickname for the cattle.

“how often do you go to the town? i’m getting bored,” you tell her.

“maybe twice a week? an hour drive isn’t something to take lightly,” she tells you, almost sternly. she glances over at you, and you see her demeanor change. “i’ll take you once this damn engine is running back up.”

“what do you do there?”

“buy some beers, dance a little, maybe shoot pool. i’ll go to the rodeo if it’s in town. maybe get dinner at the diner if i’m feeling extra special.”

she slips back underneath the truck and tinkers about. you feel yourself grow curious.

“no dates?”

the noises stop, and there’s a brief pause, but she’s back to clanging in no time and slides back out, handing you the keys and motioning for you to get into the driver’s seat.

“not interested,” she wrinkles her nose. “too busy. crank the engine for me, would you?”

“too busy drinking and talking to the dog?” you tease, doing as she says. the truck’s engine sputters and then roars to life, and megan grins proudly at the feat. 

“see, now you’re gettin’ it,” she grins, before leaning over to wipe a glob of grease directly across your cheek. 

you scream and try your best to rub it off with your shirt sleeve, only smearing it further and now making a mess of your sleeve. megan doubles over in laugher, and you kick the car out of park and into drive, threatening loudly to run her down where she stands.

both your laugher combines into a melody that sings over the chirps of the birds. you’ll realize soon enough that the sound quickly becomes one of megan’s favorites. 

-

“hey city girl,” she greets offering you a high five. 

you’re suspicious. a month with megan is enough to know that the whole quiet thing is just a front. 

you eye her, but tolerate the hi-five. her other hand comes up quickly to wrap around your arm, and she takes two giant leaps back as if to get a running head start.

a giant, fat junebug clings to your wrist. you let out a scream and try to shake it off of you.

“megan, i’m going to kill you.”

she shrieks laughing, picking the bug back up from the ground and chasing behind you with it. you’ll fight her off with a stick if you have to. bruce and tilla start barking, clearly just riled up by all your antics, and you two get lost in your own little world until the sun falls.

-

“i hate country music,” you groan, exhausted yet again by your uncle’s insistence on playing the best of blake shelton throughout the house.

“me too,” megan wrinkles her nose.

“really?”

she nods, flashing her phone at you, connected to her headset. you see the album cover of a john mayer song. 

“more of a bluegrass girl myself,” she says, setting up the table for lunch.

“oh, those are basically the same thing,” you roll your eyes, assembling the silverware.

“‘bout as different as boot cut vs skinny jeans,” she teases.

“that’s not a half bad comparison,” you compliment her. “you’ve actually got something up in that brain of yours besides horseshoes and cow patties.”

“now you just sound like a stereotype,” she laughs, making a grossed out face.

“okay,” you balk. “sorry i don’t know shit about the modern cowboy archetype or whatever.”

she laughs and takes a beat, before helping you set up the plates for your aunt to start serving. “i’m going to the rodeo today. you can sit with me if you want to come.”

“the rodeo? what am i, eight?” you laugh.

“eight, eighteen, same difference. it’s your call city girl,” she sing-songs.  “i’m taking the truck at 5 on the dot. rodeo starts at 7 and i’m not gonna be late.”

she disappears after lunch, and you keep an eye on your watch. against your initial judgement, 4:55 you’re in the passenger’s seat, and megan pops into the drivers seat at 4:59 on the dot.

“hey city girl,” she beams, clearly pleased to see you.

“hi cowgirl,” you tease back, and the two of you chat mindlessly for the hour-long drive into town.

she buys you a beer as soon as you guys get into the arena, and you have a feeling this is the entirety of the town’s population. you’ve seen more people at a college football game, and yet the energy makes you feel so, so comfortable. megan leads you down to your seats and you’re mesmerized by the barrel racing, the hog chases, the lamb wrangling, all of it.

(or maybe, you’re mesmerized by how big megan is smiling, watching it all like a kid with bright eyes.)

there’s something mumbled over the speaker, and she hands you her drink to hold. “stay right here. i’m gonna be right back.”

you nod, figuring she means the bathroom.

only to feel your heart pound when you hear the announcement of “time to hold on for your life, amateurs!” pounds over the system. oh god.

they introduce the bull, a stocky red they simply call “crusher,” and then you see the lineup of denim-toting townies that are lined up behind the pen. one by one, they get announced, they try to hold on, and they get kicked off in seconds, the roar of the screaming crowd deafening you as you stand up to get a better view.

in the cow shute, mounting the titanic beast, is a ginger-haired girl that looks a little too comfortable tucking her cowboy hat snugly onto her head. the announcer bellows from above you.

“ladies and gentlemen, the returning record holder, the tough as nails, megan ‘the kid’ skiendiel!”

“no way,” you breathe quietly, grabbing onto the railings to get a better look.

the shute opens, and “crusher” comes flying out, megan tossing an arm behind her to maintain her balance. he kicks and buckles in a desperate attempt to get her off, but megan stays steady, rocking into each kick and leaning into the bucks to avoid the whiplash.

you gasp in awe as she makes it longer and longer, eventually tapping out when he yanks sideways and sends her swinging into a nearby barrel. the derby clowns run out to redirect her, and megan makes sure to snatch her hat up from the dirt before leaping back up over the fencing. 

you sprint over to her side of the fence, adrenaline pounding.

“d’ya see me?” she beams as soon as she spots you approaching, climbing back over to the rafters. she’s breathing heavily, and the smile on her face breaks briefly as she stretches out her back. “damn, that hurt.”

“why would you do that?” you all but shriek, in complete disbelief. she looks around and points out the neighbors, the grocery store clerks, the police officers, all the familiar faces you’ve gotten used to, all cheering her on.

“not much else to do for fun around here,” she laughs, and you laugh with her, wondering what else megan hides beneath her surface.

-

two days after the rodeo is the first time she smokes around you, and you realize this girl might just have a death wish over her head.

“hasn’t anyone told you those are bad for you?” you wrinkle your nose, watching her take out another malboro from the brightly colored pack that she tucks back into her front shirt pocket.

“plenty of times,” she chuckles, kicking her feet up as you two hang out on the roof of the lodge, just outside your window. 

you give her a disgusted face and kick at her boot.

“quit them,” you say.

she holds the unlit cigarette between her teeth, eyeing you cautiously. your eyes hold each other’s gaze for much longer than either of you would admit. and then, in one simple motion, she takes the un-lit cigarette and flicks it between her fingers, sending it diving down off the roof.

“as you wish.”

“you’re gonna go get that, no littering,” you warn her, narrowing your eyes at her.

“of course i am,” she smiles, tipping her hat down in front of her eyes, and you start reading the next chapter of your book out loud.

-

you’re caught off guard at the next dinner time when you see megan folding up a few miscellaneous supplies and tucking them inside a duffel bag. you peek outside the window and see one of the horses saddled up, another bag already hanging off his back.

“why are you packing?” you question. you haven’t seen this before in your time on the ranch yet.

“bruce and tilla keep coming back the past few days looking like they fought something. i think something’s getting to the calves.” megan’s serious, but doesn’t sound anxious. she sounds calm, focused, like she knows what comes next.

“so…?” you ask. “that means…?”

“just gonna go spend a night in the fields, with the girls,” she tells you. “keep an eye out overnight.”

you feel your stomach sink at the thought of her outside overnight.

“no way megan. whatever’s getting the cows could get you,” you say worriedly.

“i’ve got two giant dogs and a flare. i’ll be okay,” she reassures you, a smile on her face. 

“you can’t go by yourself.” you shake your head, not understanding how your uncle could ever let her do something like this. “that’s so dangerous.”

“i’ve done it a million times before, and your aunt and uncle and ole’ petey have to stay to watch literally everything else,” she laughs. “i’ll be okay, y/n. it’s a quick ride back.”

“at least take an ATV.”

megan shakes her head. “the motor spooks the girls. horses keep them calm.”

you can’t shake the fear that grips you.

“let me come with you,” you blurt.

“you hate the fields,” megan laughs.

“show me what’s so good about them,” you push. 

she looks like she’s about to shut you down again, but you reach to grab her arm before she can deny you. you give her a pleading look, and she eyes you up and down. she’s silent, contemplating.

“you won’t get your own tent,” she finally warns.

“that’s fine.” you feel your heart settle, even slightly, but you’re still in shock at the whole ordeal. “he really lets you do this by yourself?”

“you say it like he’s my dad.”

“does he?” you press.

“y/n, he pays me for this kind of stuff. that’s the whole point of being a farmhand or a wrangler or a cowboy, or whatever. it’s what i’m good at,” megan laughs. “go pack a bag. i’ll go get you your own horse.”

-

admittedly, the trek to the fields was extremely easy when all you have to do is just sit and hold onto a horse without falling off. the dogs follow at your footsteps, and megan has your horse led by hers, so it’s almost like taking an uber into the middle of the woods and emerging on the side of a mountain at sunset. she checks a few things on her phone, before leading your little troop onto a grassy hill overseeing the nearby herd.

you dismount, and she ties up the horses and moves to unpack the supplies first.

“no campfire?” you ask, looking out at the sunset and knowing the temperatures will drop soon. you’re grateful she insisted you take one of her spare coats.

“not yet,” she tells you. “we have to pick a spot with less grass. summertime means fire hazards.”

she’s so careful about the fields. you admire it, how she cares about maintaining the balance. you can see why your uncle trusts her so much. everything is in good hands when megan, steadfast, hardworking megan, is around.

you watch as she expertly sets up the small tent, the rocks to contain the fire, and scans around for a handful of fallen twigs. she sharpens her knife against the denim of her worn blue jeans and offers it to you along with a perfectly shiny apple. you take it, and enjoy the silence of the birds, the crickets, your crunches, and the flick of her firestarter catching flame to the tinder. you enjoy the silence together, letting the sun fall and disappear into another evening.

the full moon against the flickering campfire is nothing short of beautiful. she pulls her phone out of her pocket and plays her old john mayer playlist: melancholy, bluesy, and so, so peaceful against the hum of the crickets and owls behind you both. she cracks open a beer, and the two of you share it as the fire only roars bigger and louder.

megan’s swaying her head along to a song, and before you can stop yourself, you’re standing up and reaching for her hand. you pull her up, and you dance there together, spinning beneath the moonlight and the stars. stars never sparkle quite this bright where you’re from.

(or maybe, they just don’t sparkle this bright without megan’s beautiful dark eyes to twinkle into.)

you’re holding hands, still swaying, but keeping a respectable amount of space between the two of you. you feel brave, and snake your arms to wrap around her neck. she gives you a look, but accepts the gesture, holding her beer can to the side while her free hand stays respectfully around your upper back.

“what are you going to do after this?” you ask, looking into her eyes as you continue to sway to the faint music.

“maybe do one more night, just to be sure,” she hums.

“i meant when you’re done with the ranch.”

“oh.” her voice rustles. “i don’t know, actually. i love the ranch.”

“could anything get you to leave?” you ask, a curious prod into something more.

megan’s eyes meet yours, and they’re widening with something unfamiliar as they search your face. her hand stretches out, fingers taking up the space in the small of your back, and you feel her ever so gently pull you closer.

“maybe,” she says, a quiet contemplation, but she doesn’t elaborate.

“hm,” you muse simply.

“could anything get you to stay?” she asks quietly. her hands, ever calm, ever strong, are shaky now, reaching for you in the dim moonlight.

“maybe,” you answer simply, reaching back for her, and it’s enough for megan to take over for the rest.

-

her hands are still shaky seeking you out in the dark of the tent, but you find it so, so beautiful how your movements are illuminated by the moon and the campfire. she’s laid you down against the sleeping bag, her kisses wanting and eager against your neck. you guide her hands towards the buttons of your shirt, then reach for the buckle of her belt eagerly.

she breaks from her kisses against your neck to let out a strained sigh into your ear, hovering above you. her fingers hesitate to undo your button.

“i don’t, um, i don’t do this often,” she breathes, looking down as you’ve undone her belt buckle and reach for her zipper.

“that’s okay,” you reassure her, stopping your movements, reaching instead to cup her face in your hand. you smile, realizing you’re staring at more than you could have ever dreamed of wanting. “just means you’ll remember me more.”

she smiles, eyes scanning over you, before she musters up the confidence to start undoing your buttons with one hand much too easily, slipping past them and reaching now for the zipper on your own jeans. you feel your body shudder with anticipation as she presses a tender kiss into the crease of your jaw.

“i’ll have a hard time ever forgetting you, y/n,” she hums into your neck, before your clothes are long forgotten, and lose yourselves into the song of the crickets and the roaring fire.

-

maybe you’re starting to like this small town.

you build a routine. 

the two of you ride into town on friday mornings, your feet kicked up on the dash of the old pickup truck as she sings along to songs on the radio and you can’t stop admiring her beautiful face as she does so. her voice is soft, angelic, and the way she holds the steering wheel with one hand so she can interlace your fingers with the other makes your heart thud.

she buys you a lollipop at the corner store and you savor the crisp mountain air mixing with the sweet artificial cherry in your nose. she strolls behind you through the aisles of the gas station, a case of beers over her shoulder and a bag of sunflower seeds in her free hand. you look back and her eyes are always fixed on you, a smile each time you look at her. you wonder if you’ll ever need anything else.

you run your errands together and she never lets you touch a single door, never lets you lift a finger, never lets your hands get dirty picking up another bag of feed or a treat for bruce.

the sunshine beats down on your face, and she’s placing her hat on your head. you’re pretty sure you remember something about this being an old cowboy courting ritual, but you lose the question somewhere in the back of your mind each time megan slips and calls you “pretty girl” instead of “city girl.”

darla at the corner store eyes the two of you questioningly. she scans the beers, the candy, the snacks, and instinctively reaches for a pack of malboros. megan shakes her head, motioning for the old woman to put them back.

“since when’d you quit the smokes?” the woman questions, arching a faded brow.

“since god sent me a better reason than just old folks not likin’ the smell,” megan quips back quickly, grinning as she forks over an exact change in cash and pivots to pull you along.

you feel your heart thud in your chest and you follow her into the truck. you start to think you might just follow her anywhere if she asked.

-

“early risers now, the two of you! i barely hear y/n come down the stairs any more,” your uncle beams gleefully.

you and megan share a knowing glance as she fries up another egg for you. it’s been probably a week since you’ve stopped sleeping in your own bed, and started sleeping in hers. you don’t think it makes a difference to correct him, so you don’t. 

(you wonder if it’s too obvious that you’re wearing her flannel and she’s wearing your t shirt, but your uncle is too clueless to notice anyways.)

when he’s not looking, you press a kiss into the back of megan’s neck as she focuses over the stove. she shoots you a look, her beautiful brown eyes taking you in, and hands you a plate. 

the two of you take your food outside and eat side by side on the porch, and thoughts of “forever” foolishly fill your head. you don’t push them away.

-

“bullseye,” she grins, shooting another tin can off the fence with her bb gun.

“nice shot, john wayne,” you tease, your legs swinging from your spot sitting on the truck as you look up from your journal.

megan puts down the bb gun and pretends to take an arrow out of an imaginary quiver, and motions as if she’s shooting the arrow at you.

“did i stick you?” she asks, motioning to her pretend bow.

“your aim’s off,” you tease, squinting at her. “little more to the left.”

she tries again, exaggerating her movements this time, and you laugh.

“i didn’t take you as the hunting type,” you tell her.

“cupid let me borrow a few,” she says, jumping up to stand on the tire of the truck and reach up to kiss you.

“oh, yeah?” you hum against her lips.

“mhm.”

“you’d love video games,” you smile, wrapping your arms around her shoulders as she looks up at you. “they’d rot your brain.”

“not much up there left to rot,” she jokes. “i’m like a walking miracle.”

“all those cigarettes and beers,” you tease.

“not even. d’you forget what i do for a living? i’ve been kicked in the head, trampled, all the good stuff.”

“and yet you survived it all.”

“i must have known something good was coming,” she says simply, taking your hand in hers and kissing your knuckles.

your chest aches, and you realize you might’ve lied. her aim was dead on, from the first stupid cupid’s bow.

-

your birthday marks halfway through the summertime, splitting july right down the middle. 

it’s small, just the few of you on the ranch, a cake baked by a neighbor and fireworks.

megan, sweet, silly megan, has had one too many beers, and you love the way her little whisker dimples deepen with every exaggerated laugh you two share. 

tilla barks like a madman, bruce simply asleep under the table as the hours sink into the night, the bullfrogs from the neighboring creek adding to the cricket’s cacophony for the soundtrack to your evening. 

everyone else goes to bed, leaving just you and the ginger to celebrate under the glow of the porchlight.

“make a wish,” she tells you, holding up the candle to your face.

“done,” you grin, blowing it out away from her. 

“good. now come here, pretty girl,” she coos, pulling you to come drop into her lap as she sits in the rocking chair. you laugh and wrap your arms around her neck. “so fuckin’ pretty, how was i ever supposed to say no to you?”

“you weren’t,” you beam, batting your lashes up at her playfully as her hands roam across the soft skin of your thighs. you had worn your nicest dress for the occasion, and megan was struggling to keep her hands to herself. you loved the feeling, her strong hands, calloused from the hard labor she was never afraid of doing, yet soft enough to leave you with goosebumps after every touch.

“was that the plan this whole time?” she questions, pressing a kiss to your collarbone, up to your jaw, and whispering soothingly into your ear. “just s’posed to come and shake up my whole life?”

“can’t believe i didn’t know someone like you existed,” you breathe, taking her in.

“walking dirt magnet?” she arches a brow playfully.

“kind, strong, steadfast.” you tell her, admiring every feature on her face: those full lips, the dimpled cheeks, the creases by her smiling eyes, the round button nose.  “you make the world feel like a safe place.”

“i’d take care of you forever, if you let me,” she assures you. “happy birthday, pretty girl.”

(you won’t admit that it feels like a confession, and your birthday wish has practically come true. a promise of the future with this girl.)

you feel a warmth in your chest as you whisk her away to your bedroom for the rest of the night. you both ignore what this means for the time you’ve got left.

-

“so you’ve done wyoming, idaho, now montana.” you list the states on your fingers. “where to next?”

you’re skipping stones at the pond, megan’s tongue poking out of her mouth as she works to try and snatch up a frog from the riverbed.

“wherever i can hide,” she says simply.

“what are you running from?” you ask, and it’s the first time you’ve ever approached the topic. you hesitate, but knowing megan has never been unkind about redirecting you, you simply suggest the goofiest things you can think of. “toxic ex? debt collectors coming for your kidney? embarrassing viral video?”

she stops, standing up straight, and wipes at her forehead with the back of her wrist. you can tell she’s debating something within her. her eyes don’t come up to meet you, but her body seems to hunch in resignation.

“dead mom,” she says simply.

“oh.” you feel your heart lurch. “megan.”

“that’s the first time i’ve said it out loud,” she admits, rinsing her hands off in the running water before taking her hat off to run her hand through her hair. she starts towards the truck, and you follow.

“i’m so sorry,” you tell her, and you wish there was a manual for what to say to people in times like this.

“it was two years ago. i just upped and left. my dad has been trying to get into contact with me about my inheritance, but i just don’t want to think about any of it.” her confession feels like it connects a million pieces, answers a thousand questions you have had of her, but all you want to do is comfort her as you see the toll it takes on her to loop you in. “sorry i don’t talk about it. hurts too much.”

“megan,” you tell her softly, your heart aching.

“no, you don’t have to be all sad. it’s perfect that i’m telling you. i feel ready.” she nods good-naturedly, hopping into the bed of the truck where the blanket is spread out. she drops with a thud and gets comfortable, before smiling up at you. “god she would have loved you, like fuckin’ crazy.”

“i bet i would have loved her too,” you tell her back gently, following to come sit next to her in the truck bed. you pause, reaching out to play with her fingertips, looking out at how she has her long legs splayed out straight in front of her. you come up with an audacious suggestion, one you won’t deny has been on your mind. “you should come to school with me.”

“no way,” she immediately recoils, wrinkling her nose. “i’m not a bookie. plus i’m way too old to be starting college right now.”

“you are absolutely not too old,” you balk. “plenty of people take a gap year or two. you’re so good and you know so much– about agriculture, about electricity, about the environment. i’ll have my grandad pay for your tuition or whatever. my family loves you, they’d be happy to. then maybe you can buy the ranch or something, and we can–”

“it’s not the money,” she shakes her head. she bites down at her fingernail– a bad habit she picked up since quitting smoking. “sorry y/n, i just i don’t want to stop.”

you can hear her implication. stopping means thinking, and thinking about anything else would hurt. you wish you could take her pain away from her.

“i won’t push you,” you tell her gently, pulling her finger away from her mouth and kissing it instead. “but i think you’d be amazing.”

“i don’t want this to end,” she says after a beat, and you can read it in her eyes.

“don’t think about that right now,” you murmur to her, reaching for her cheek to turn and capture her lips with yours. 

-

t minus one week until you leave. neither of you mention it.

you feel her stir and get out of bed much too early one morning, before the sun is even across the horizon in the window. you hear a faint whine, the creak of the wood as megan steps about, the shuffle of her boots slipping on over her feet. she steps outside the door, and you hear her return a few moments later, moving faster, footsteps louder. “baby,” you mumble groggily, reaching out to her. “come back to bed, please.”

“it’s bruce,” megan says, her voice gravelly, and her tone is enough to wake you fully and get you to sit up in the bed. her face is stony, eyebrows knitting together. “something real ugly got to him.”

you blink a few times to get your bearings, checking your phone to see that it’s barely past 1 am. you nod, getting up and reaching for her denim jacket to throw over your hoodie. “okay, let’s take him to the vet.”

“it um, doesn’t work like that,” she sniffs, and you can see her eyes watering. “vet lives two towns away, only comes into our town for clinic stuff on thursdays. y/n, he looks bad. i don’t feel good about it.”

“tomorrow— today is thursday. so we stay with him, then.” your heart aches for bruce, but even more so for megan, facing the reality of losing her best friend. you see the tears welling up in the corners of her eyes, and you can’t imagine what this is bringing up for her. you nod self-assuredly, the plan coming to you as you speak it, reaching for her hand. “we’ll take turns, meg. we’ll apply pressure, keep him warm, keep talking to him. we’ll leave at 5 and be there an hour early before the clinic even opens. it’s going to be okay.”

her eyes finally come up to meet yours, and she nods. 

you two work in shifts to do exactly that, tend to the old dog. he does admittedly look worse for wear, but you take turns speaking to him calmly and keeping him wrapped in the warmest clean blankets you can find. the first hour passes, and you reassure megan that she’s better off resting than she is trying to push through the whole night, considering she’ll have to be the one to drive them an hour to get to town.

“i did a quick scope out of the nearest pasture. this crazy old bastard killed a fuckin’ wolf and didn’t let him get to any of the girls,” megan says proudly, before letting herself drift off. you kiss her forehead and then lay a kiss onto bruce’s head, beginning to recite the lyrics to whatever stupid song you can think of, just to keep the air from going quiet.

it’s almost morning, and megan wakes refreshed and ready. you’re in awe of how she’s able to lift the massive dog into the backseat of the truck with little strain. she calls out something to your aunt and uncle before getting in the drivers seat, the early morning fog illuminated by the headlights as the truck roars to life. she reassures you that you’re okay to fall asleep, and she drapes a blanket over your lap. 

your eyes are closed for at least 3 songs, and you feel yourself about to drift asleep, before you hear megan’s tone change, and hear her whisper quietly to the dog.

“i know dude, i know. she’s a good one,” she sighs, reaching into the back seat to pet his head. “stick around a little longer so you can sniff out if she’s gonna break my heart or not, would ya?”

megan reaches for your hand, still assuming you’re asleep, and holds it for the whole hour long drive into town. 

the vet, sensing the panic in megan’s voice as she carries this ginormous dog towards him in her own two arms, offers to see bruce as soon as you guys get there, a half an hour before the clinic is supposed to open.

you fall asleep with your head on megan’s shoulder as you wait through his surgery, and she doesn’t wake you.

“he’s lucky to have you two,” the vet tells you two hours later, smiling as he hands you the leash to a wobbly but stable white dog. “most owners start to freak out and end up fighting when things get hard.”

“she’s a good one,” you say quickly, motioning to megan, and she says nothing as she kneels down to hug the groggy old creature. 

she then reaches up to grip your face in both hands, pressing a searing kiss to your lips, expressing every bit of gratitude she can muster. 

you wrap your arms around her waist and kiss her, and kiss her and kiss her, while the town still sleeps. you wonder if there’s a way to live in this moment for the rest of your life. 

-

the night before you leave, your uncle throws you a small send-off dinner. you and megan hold hands under the table the entire time.

she takes you to the pond, through the fields on a horseback ride, back and around what feels like the whole property as you savor the last day you have together.

whether it’s adrenaline or nerves, sleep can’t find you that night. megan is holding you, and you’re trying desperately to memorize the curves of her body and the feeling of her hands over you.

“meg,” you whisper quietly, and you feel her bare chest rise and fall against the skin of your back.

“hm?” she pulls you in tighter, clearly not struggling with sleep like you are.

you let out a quiet sigh, bringing her hand up to your lips to kiss her calloused fingertips.

“i think i fell in love with you,” you whisper, half-confession, half-stating the obvious.

megan merely grunts in her sleep, wrapping her arms tighter around you.

“go back to sleep, pretty girl,” she mumbles, pressing a kiss into your shoulder.

“whatever, cowboy,” you roll your eyes, trying to pull away from her grip, but it’s no use. she’s much too strong, and as it turns out, more awake than you thought.

“i’ll write you letters, while you’re gone. and you’ll write back to me,” she hums into your neck, and you feel your heart swell with how soft and sweet her voice is as she whispers these sweet nothings. her fingertips brush along your hips, along your spine, tracing the expanse of your skin as if she knows it’s just for her. “i’ll tell bruce and tilla all about what you’re getting up to, while you’re off being brilliant.”

“yeah?” you smile, turning back to try and get a look at her sweet, beautiful face.

she presses her cheek into yours, planting a kiss against your jaw. “i’ll start smoking again though. so you gotta come back soon.”

“smoking’s so bad for you,” you tell her back weakly, her warm embrace drifting you back into your slumber.

“so is being without my pretty girl,” she quips back easily, pulling you in closer. she presses another kiss behind your ear. “i love you too. come back soon.”

-

the two of you wake up at the crack of dawn to make the most of the morning before noon, when your uncle is supposed to start the journey to take you back home.

megan steals the truck to drive around the property and helps you wish goodbye to all the animals and trees you had so impossibly fallen in love with, just as easily as you had fallen in love with megan. 

she picks you flowers and pine needles to press in between the pages of your favorite book and she mentions something about a scrapbook you two should start together. you sneak a quickie in the back of the truck and laugh when your teeth clank together from how eager you both are to get your hands on each other. 

the last half hour before you head back home. you see something in megan’s eyes as she’s driving you guys back from the edge of the property to the lodge, her jaw going hard as you ramble about how the semester is going to look for you.

“we have five weeks for winter break, so i can spend that here, or you can come spend it with me in the city,” you tell her, going through the schedule on your phone. “i only have like three days for thanksgiving, so that might not be worth it unless if you come out first, but spring break i’ve got a whole week off, so i can leave the thursday before and be here by friday so we get the full week together. then, another summer. i think we can do it.”

you expect your cowboy to say something back, probably some dumb joke, or maybe even just a hum of approval, but you’re left waiting. megan says nothing, which she hasn’t done since you two first met.

“hello, earth to cowboy?” you tease, waving a hand in front of her face as she pulls the truck into the garage.

she puts it in park, and turns to face you, grabbing your hand out of the air and gently pulling it down. your heart sinks when she doesn’t hold onto it. 

she lets out a shaky breath, looking over you once more, before her eyes harden and her gaze drops to something off in the distance.

“don’t come back.” 

you feel a punch to the gut– megan’s voice is cold, too detached. this isn’t the warm farmer girl you’re in love with, this isn’t your megan.

“what?” you blink, wondering if it’s just a joke that landed wrong. you reach for her hand. “don’t say that.”

you feel your heart shatter as she pushes your hand away, shaking her head. she won’t bring herself to look at you.

“stay focused, get good grades, get a cool job,” she tells you, turning now to face the steering wheel instead of facing you. “don’t throw your life away thinking about me, trying to squeeze me in. you’re so special, y/n.”

“i wouldn’t be distracted. we can make it work, long distance isn’t that hard,” you push, feeling the hot tears threaten to spill from the corners of your eyes. 

“i loved you, while you were here,” she breathes quietly, a deep sigh leaving her chest. 

you shake your head, your body trembling from the unexpected pivot in her demeanor. it feels like a bad dream. 

“what the fuck, megan?” you barely manage.

“it’s be better that you go.” she wrinkles her nose. she sounds confused by her own words, and you keep pushing in the hopes that she’ll take it all back and apologize in no time.

“you don’t care?” you question, feeling the first drops of your tears come down your cheeks. “that’s it?”

“i care enough to not hold you back.” she pushes back, jaw hardening. “i was never going to be permanent to you. i’m just happy i could say you were mine.”

“no, you meant everything to me, megan,” you argue, reaching to cup her hand in both of yours. you reach over to grab her hand, not giving her the option to pull away this time. “don’t you think we stood a chance?”

“a small one, maybe.” she smiles sadly. “just not this time.”

you shake your head and let go of her hand, trying to wrack your brain for how to fix this. 

“okay, forget school, sorry i suggested it and freaked you out. you could move to a bigger city, and start bull riding professionally, you’re so good at it–”

“y/n,” she cuts you off firmly, but her voice has the slightest tremble to it. “that’s not what i want for my life. and it’s not what i want for yours. go share that light with the world.”

“is this because it hurts?” you question, finally leaning back, your back pressing against the passenger side door as you try to put space in between the two of you. it feels like a stranger has hijacked her body and now, you’re suffocated being around her. “your whole thing, where something bad happens and you run away from it. is this like that? it hurts to keep saying goodbye for a little bit?”

“maybe,” she shrugs weakly, her brows furrowing. you see something like anger take over her features– a first. “what, are you analyzing me now?”

“no, but i feel like a fucking idiot,” you bite back. you reach up to try and wipe the tears from your eyes before they drop, feeling pathetic as she simply watches you. “why the fuck did you let me fall in love with you if you knew you weren’t going to be able to handle saying goodbye?”

“i didn’t know,” she says softly, and you want to scream.

“yes you did,” you push back, pointing a finger accusingly in her direction. “you did you know that, you knew it was just the summer.”

“no,” she says gently, and you feel yourself go wobbly at how easy it is for her calm voice to soften you. “i didn’t know, about the falling in love. i couldn’t have ever predicted that.”

there’s a thud in the back of the truck, and you spot your uncle and old pete working together to swing your suitcase into the back of the pickup bed. you wipe quickly at your eyes to erase any evidence of this, wishing it was as easy to undo the knot in your stomach.

“y’all girls will be in touch, i’m sure of it,” your uncle says, seeing your proximity, much too chipper and not possibly able to read any further into the situation. “no need to cry that much over it, i swear!”

“we won’t be in touch,” you say sharply, and megan grabs her hat off the dashboard and pulls it onto her head, the brim covering her eyes.

“fine by me,” she bites back, before her tone softens in the slightest. she unlocks the car door, and you can both feel it. it’s the real goodbye.

she turns to step out of the door, before looking once over her shoulder. the hat obscures half her face, and you can barely bring yourself to look at her, but you can hear her voice, so gentle despite all the damage she’s just done. 

“i really did love you,” she adds.

“bullshit,” you spit, and you feel the tears coming on again. your heart feels like it’s being ripped from the crevices of your chest. “fuck you, megan.”

you see her jaw harden, and you turn away, unable to look any more without the risk of breaking into sobs. the door swings open, you hear the shuffle of two pairs of boots, and your uncle is quickly taking up the drivers seat. the engine roars back up to life, rumbling through your chest.

“cheer up, y/n,” he chirps. “the kid ain’t goin’ nowhere. you’ll see her soon enough.”

you stare up at the ceiling of the stupid truck and try to blink back the onslaught of continued sobs that threaten to break out of you. your uncle pulls the truck out of the garage, and you feel sick to your stomach as you guys start to move out of the driveway. 

on the porch, your aunt and old pete wave goodbye to you with beaming grins. tilla lays peacefully at their feet.

behind them, the rusty-haired wrangler, holding bruce by the collar as he barks incessantly, trying to pull away from her to chase after the truck. the hat obscures her face, but you see her look up and wipe at her eyes with the sleeve of her jacket. 

you burst into tears as the ranch starts to fade out of view in the rear view mirror. you cry everything out, and your uncle doesn’t try to chat you up the whole way there, letting you instead fall asleep to the hum of old country classics on the radio.

you hate the way you miss megan’s voice already. you swear off country music for the rest of your life.

-

you still feel the void in your stomach even when you’re finally back home. you wonder what it’ll take to stop dreaming of ginger hair and the smell of pine trees.

“how was your summer? i feel like we barely heard from you,” sophia asks eagerly, the two of you heading up to your dorm on move-in day. “how was your family’s ranch?”

“please do share, how was that?” lara grins, eager to get the details. “do anything fun over there? i’ve never been to a farm.”

you blink back the tears threatening to spill over and hope they don’t notice.

well, i was super bored until met this girl, and she was so perfect, and she’s a cowboy who rides horses and loves her dog and quit smoking just for me, and she rides bulls and fixes anything that breaks and plays me songs, and of course i fell in love with her, and it’s ironic ‘cause she’s supposed to be able to fix anything on that ranch and yet i got my heart broken into a million tiny pieces…

“i’m glad it’s over,” you shake your head, realizing that your summer has to be nothing but a memory for it to start to fade. “never going back to that hell-hole again.”

you get to the dorm, sophia lights a candle and heads into the shower, and you take all the pressed flowers hidden in the pages of your book and let them get eaten up by the flame, one by one. 

you get to the last page of your book, wanting to make sure you didn’t miss a pine needle by accident, and find that megan had scribbled something at the very bottom, after the print of the story says “THE END,” dated the day after your birthday.

fell in love with you reading this book to me. can’t wait for you to read it to me again. love you, pretty girl. – your cowboy

you rip the page out of the book and let it get lost to the flame. with it, you let every thought you’ve ever had of megan skeindiel— every secret she told you, every touch you shared, every picture of a perfect, peaceful future together— sink to the bottom of your heart, and bury it in gravel.

[mirophobic2]

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Let Down - K. BAKUGO

CONTENT WARNING: angst, bakugo's death mention, hurt/comfort, established relationship, childhood lovers

ZEE SPEAKS: It's 5am, probably unedited and im spiralling; this is for my own sake. also i havent read/watched this scene, i've put it off so forgive me for any mistakes

WC: 926

"when i'm older, i'm going to grow wings!" katsuki pumped his tiny fist in the air, his voice filled with enthusiasm.

"woah, kacchan! you're so cool," the girl sitting next to him gasped, her sparkling eyes fixed on her friend.

"and i promise to make you my wife, y/n." with that, the boy took off, leaving the girl a blushing mess.

he lied.

katsuki bakugo was a fucking liar, and y/n would never forgive him.

now, at seventeen, he lay on the ground, his shell shattered, blood flowing out like that of a crushed insect. it was quiet for a while. not a single word uttered in the cold, dreadful atmosphere.

then, a wail shattered the silence—a sound so gut-wrenching it could break hearts.

everyone knew who it belonged to.

y/n. none other than bakugo's girlfriend and childhood friend. the pair had been inseparable since kindergarten, refusing to do anything if the other wasn't present. it was cute. everyone who had met the two joyous kids knew they had a bright future ahead of them—one that included getting married and having as many babies as possible.

but now, that future was gone.

it ended the moment his body hit the floor, a hole in his chest.

"get up." a harsh whisper filled the air, followed by the sound of hurried footsteps.

"i said, get up." the voice repeated, snappier this time, filled with nothing but rage. "you're not allowed to die, asshole. get up!"

she was screaming now, falling to her knees, shaking the lifeless body of her boyfriend.

best jeanist approached the girl, trying to pull her away from the boy’s unmoving form.

"y/n, stop. you need to stay calm. edgeshot is doing his best," he reasoned, only to be met with a cold, tear-filled glare.

"shut the fuck up."

the words stunned him. in all his years of knowing y/n, she had never been one to cuss.

"i'm not letting him get away with this. he's going to come back. he will—he has to. h-he—" a sob ripped through her chest. "he promised! he said he'd keep fighting, that if he fell, he'd grow wings."

"he's a fucking liar."

by now, she was full-on sobbing, clutching the lifeless body of the boy she had planned a future with.

a few minutes passed, and nothing changed.

y/n buried her face in his bloodied chest, her tears mixing with the crimson.

best jeanist tried to de-escalate the situation.

and bakugo... still dead.

by now, izuku had arrived at the scene. he let himself soak in the devastation for only a moment before surging toward shigaraki, fueled by a newfound rage.

that's when y/n realized what she had been doing. instead of helping and trying to defeat the villains, she'd been wallowing selfishly.

just like izuku, she got up, ready to head to the battle—until she heard it.

the quiet and gentle call of her name. it tugged at her heart. one she could recognize in a heartbeat. y/n thought she was hearing things. there was no way he could say anything—he had a hole in his chest for god's sake!

shaking off the feeling, she continued walking.

"y/n..." there it was again, still quiet but very real.

with a heavy heart, y/n slowly turned around, her eyes filling with tears almost immediately.

there he was—bakugo katsuki, alive.

the boy she swore to cherish with her entire being, alive.

his eyes were soft, full of remorse, as they locked onto hers.

"you asshole!" y/n screamed, her voice breaking with a mix of anger and relief. she stormed over to him, face flushed with fury.

standing before him, she planted her hands on his fully healed chest, lightly punching him with all the strength she could muster. her body shook with emotion, thrashing in his arms as he held her, trying to calm her down.

"i fucking hate you! how dare you just—die like that?!" she yelled, her anger almost drowning out the relief she felt. tears blurred her vision, but beneath all the rage, bakugo could feel her gratitude. her happiness that he was alive.

"i know, baby, i’m sorry," katsuki whispered, his voice cracking with guilt. he reached out and pulled her into his arms, wrapping them tightly around her.

the force of his embrace made her body tremble, but she didn’t pull away. she buried her face in his chest, sobbing uncontrollably.

katsuki’s eyes shimmered with tears, though he kept them at bay, not wanting her to see him vulnerable. still, a single tear slipped down his cheek as he held her close, feeling the warmth of her body against his.

they sank to the ground, both of them trembling. y/n clung to him, her sobs echoing in the stillness, but now they were softer, like the release of everything she had been holding in.

"i was so scared," she whispered, her voice muffled against his shirt. "i thought i lost you... i thought i’d never see you again."

"you won’t lose me, i swear," bakugo murmured, pressing his cheek to her head, his arms never loosening their grip. "i’m not going anywhere."

they sat there for a long time, the world around them fading into the background as they held onto each other. for once, there was peace, just the two of them, wrapped in the comfort of knowing they’d made it through the storm together. no words were needed. just the steady rhythm of their hearts beating in unison.

© 2025 wonubby— All rights reserved. Please don't post my work as your own on any other sites.

[mirophobic2]

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Katsuki does his own Calvin Klein ad and the comments you see all over TikTok make you jealous!

Pairing: Bakugo x fem!reader

Tags // Warnings: NSFW, MDNI, smut, top! reader, oral (m receiving), cumflation(?), jealousy, a little fighting, LOADS of comfort, Jungkook mentioned ig? All characters are 20+

You're mad.

Extremely mad.

Ac/dc’s TNT plays on repeat from the speaker of your phone, your laptop, your TV, the Main Street screen from the building across your apartment a few stories below. And truly, every single time a replay goes on and on, each screen unsynced, your anger grows even worse inside your already too tight chest.

The reason?

Your boyfriend’s Calvin Klein ad has actually broke the internet.

It’s fucking ridiculous—The whole thing is worse than what happened with Bad Bunny a few months ago.

The comments are all over the place. Messy. Too messy. Too thirsty. Too delirious. Too fucking disrespectful.

You've scrolled through way too many edits. No scratch that. You've only scrolled through edits. With millions of likes, hundreds thousands of comments—that you've spent hours reading to their entirety. The actual video from the official Calvin Klein account has thirty, no forty million likes. Almost as many saves and shares too.

You’re naturally jealous. You knew you were bound to be even if you were the one who practically begged him to say yes to the offer and you definitely knew your boyfriend was the cause of thirst for many people worldwide.

It’s never been a problem until now. You've usually encountered the occasional ‘congratulations to whoever is bouncing on it’ edit, hell you’ve even smiled like an idiot at it, but now? After digging through comments that explicitly say ‘his girlfriend aint even deserve all that’ and ‘damn Dynamight’s gf i said LET GO’ you want to scream. Yell. Get back at him.

You can’t even bear to witness the video anymore. Only because when looking at it out of context, you feel like you can forgive him because of how hot he just looks!

It’s all over your screen; Katsuki flexing his muscles, biceps, forearms, back, thighs, torso. Letting off explosions, pulling the waistband of his boxers down just enough to tease, stomping his hero boots before he kneels completely. All while being extremely sweaty.

Seriously, fuck him and that hero work durability underwear line.

You’ve now unliked the original post out of pure spite. Then re-liked it. Then unliked it again because it felt like you were feeding the beast that's unleashing negativity and pumps jealousy throughout your whole body

You’ve closed the app, deleted it, redownloaded it, and then ended up stalking your own boyfriend like you were a crazed fan girl and not the person who literally shares a bathroom with him, only to be met with the same ten posts on TikTok—yes the one where he does push ups with you on his back and the other edit he has posted of you, even the one and only repost he has that’s of your ‘somebody point me to the best ass eater’ TikTok, where he acted like a feral beast and actually tried to bend you over. 

And then his instagram, where there are only a few yearly hero chart posts that have him as a co creator and like, three actual posts that he made himself. One from his agency, one from a school reunion and one with you smiling next to him, both bloody and bruised after a villain attack with the caption ‘you should see the other guy’.

Back to TikTok now, you take one last look at the ad before you ultimately close it, yes, for real this time, fists clenched like you’re about to march straight to Calvin Klein Japan HQ and file a formal complaint about emotional damages.

Instead, you exhale sharp through your nose and storm into the kitchen like a woman on a mission.

Fine.

If the internet wants to thirst over your man like they’ve never seen shoulders before, then so be it. You’re not threatened.

Not really. Not even a little.

You’re the one he comes home to. You’re the one who knows the exact way he likes his coffee in the morning, the brand of muscle balm he’ll pretend he doesn’t need, the scar on his side he never talks about. 

They don’t know him.

But you do.

And tonight, you’re going to prove it. Prove that you’re the most perfect girlfriend for him, that you won’t let go because someone on the internet begs you to. 

You slam the fridge door shut with the kind of force that makes the condiments rattle. Chicken breast. Garlic. Thyme. That expensive parmesan he rolls his eyes at but always eats the fastest. You’ve got all the ingredients for the dumb TikTok “marry me chicken” and honestly, yeah—maybe it’s manipulative. Maybe it’s desperate.

You don’t care. You've made it before and he adores it.

If the competition is public thirst, then your counterattack is a home-cooked seduction plan followed by a bath with that weird overpriced salt soak that smells like cedarwood, cocoa and sex. Let them drool behind screens—you’re setting the mood with candles and your favorite playlist and maybe even the nice satin robe with nothing underneath if it’s clean.

And it almost works.

It almost makes you feel better. Like maybe you’ve got the upper hand again. Like maybe you’re not going insane over a stupid fucking ad where he literally flexes his thighs and kneels and sweats on purpose. And flexes again.

Until you start chopping the garlic and realize your hands are shaking.

You stop abruptly.

You stare down at the cutting board, knife hovering mid-air, and realize your throat’s a little tight. Your chest’s a little too hollow.

Because the truth is—deep down, like deep deep deep down, where all the ugliest thoughts live—you’re not mad.

You’re scared that you’re not enough. Insecure. Like youve got any right to when you've literally grown up with him. When he’s never even bat an eye to anyone but you.

But you feel like a high school girl again. Standing in the hallway outside your class, so mad and sick of jealousy that fangirls from year one are swamping your boyfriend that you drag him by the ear into the classroom and shove your tongue down his throat. 

And damn, was that punishment from Aizawa worth it when he caught you.

No, now, it’s even worse. It’s not just the girls at school. Not just Japan. It’s the whole world.

And you're so scared that the world seeing him like that is going to remind him of what he could have. Of what else is out there. Of how easily people fall to their knees for him—not in ad campaigns, but in real life.

And what are you?

Somebody who gets overwhelmed easily. Somebody who overthinks. Somebody who can’t even watch a thirty-second ad without spiraling into a meltdown that tastes like garlic seeped deeply into fingernails and salt and the distinct flavor of not enough.

What if ‘animemencracker22’ could cook better for him or what if ‘Dynamightsleftbicep’ could massage his head better when they run him a bath? If ‘gymratgirl4life’ wanted to go out with him more and if ‘corrrrruptedlvr’ wasn’t throwing jealousy fits?

You’re not the girl in the comments. You’re not the fantasy.

You’re just you.

And even when you’re holding the knife and planning the perfect welcome-home meal and pretending like the bath you’re running later isn’t strategic—you still wonder if that’s going to be enough to keep a man like Katsuki Bakugou.

Worse, you wonder if he knows you’re trying this hard, because of your overwhelming need to feel like you deserve someone like him. 

You let the knife drop and suddenly, you’re not hungry anymore. You were never even hungry to begin with. Your fucking eyes are welling up with stupid tears that you dont want to shed. 

You’re not even a jealous person. Save for two or three times, you don’t feel like this over him. And it’s not because you’ve taken him for granted, but it’s been years that you two are together that have worked you into not thinking Katsuki could want anyone else other than you. You don’t want anyone else other than him.

But what if he’s tired. What if he feels youre the same old song stuck on repeat when he could have anyone. 30 million people in the world and you included.

The silence in the kitchen hums louder than any song on loop, only broken by the sound of your choking as you’re trying not to violently sob. The garlic’s sharp sting still clings to your fingers. The oven’s preheat light blinks like a mocking little eye. Your playlist, the one reserved for special nights, is halfway into some sultry R&B Aaliyah track that now feels like a joke.

Your arms go slack at your sides.

This was supposed to feel empowering. Sexy. A big middle finger to the comment section and the edited thirst traps and the “she doesn’t even deserve him” discourse that’s been hijacking your feed all damn day.

Instead, you feel small. Stupid. Still so embarrassingly in love.

You rub your eyes with the backs of your hands like that’ll somehow push the thoughts back in. Like that’ll make you forget the way your chest aches with that special kind of loneliness that only shows up when you’re still physically close to someone but emotionally spiraling into the trenches of your own insecurity.

You glance at the clock. Patrol should end in twenty minutes. Thirty, tops. And you push your lips together, scrunching the corners of your mouth in, pursing your lips and squint your eyes. 

You’ll push through, because even if you’re so extremely jealous, Katsuki still deserves a nice home cooked meal and a hot bath, even more often than every other day, when you stay home to handle the agency paperwork, because of your latest injury after a villain attack.

He really hasn’t done anything wrong, you tell yourself, other than being extremely hot.

So you end up cooking, with tears in your eyes and the most pouty expression and by the time you finish, setting the pan on a part of the stove that isn't hot and curl down in front of the fridge, dropping to your knees to cry your heart out—The door clicks open.

Oh. Shit.

Weighty boots make contact with the floor first. The heavy stomp of post-patrol exhaustion. Then the groan of his back hitting the door frame. You hear the soft rustle of his gloves coming off, his keys clinking in the ceramic dish by the entry.

You freeze—You can’t let him see you like this. You can’t let him be the one who finds you curled on the tile like some lovesick idiot who lost a battle to TikTok.

“Heyy I’m home” you hear and you grunt to yourself, trying not to let it be known you sniffle right after.

“…Smells fuckin’ good,” his voice calls out—gruff, like he’s trying not to yawn. “You cookin’ somethin’?”

You grunt again.

He doesn’t see you right away. But his voice gets closer. Each step across the hardwood is loud and certain and distinctly him. The kind of sound that always used to make you feel safe.

Now it just makes your stomach twist.

You force yourself to stand, too fast, too suddenly, brushing your hands on your thighs then your apron and you try to act normal when your chest is about to cave in again.

Katsuki rounds the corner, still in uniform, gauntlets off, sweat clinging to his hairline, a little dirt smudged near his jaw, where some blond scruff is starting to grow. His eyes find you instantly—and narrow.

“Babe? You okay? Say hi back”

You hate how quick he notices. How easy it is for him to read you. You’ve never been good at hiding from him, especially not when it comes to shit like this.

“Oh—uh, hey. I was,” you say, eyes glued to the counter. “Got distracted.” Still, you force a smile “im fine”

“You don’t look fine.”

You flinch. “Can we—can we not do this right now?”

The silence stretches.

Katsuki exhales through his nose, tilting his head like a puppy, eyes big with inquiry boring in yours as if he’s debating whether to let it go or push. You know which one he’ll pick. He’s never, ever been the let it go type.

“You saw the ad.”

It’s not a question. It’s not even said with guilt or amusement or defensiveness. Just certainty.

You look away. Embarrassed. “Everyone and their mama saw the ad Katsuki.”

A pause. Then a sigh. Then he rubs a tired hand over his jaw.

He walks over, slow and careful like you’re a spooked animal, and you hate it. You hate that he’s being gentle when all you want is to yell at him and fall into his arms and scream into his chest all at once.

His hand lands on your waist. Warm. Familiar. Real.

“You mad at me?” he murmurs, lips pouty in the way you just love.

You shake your head up and down. A silent yes.

“I’m mad at me too tho.”

His brows furrow. “The fuck’s that supposed to mean?”

“I shouldn’t care this much,” you mumble. “I shouldn’t be jealous of a bunch of people who don’t even know you. I shouldn’t be chopping garlic like it’s a last-ditch attempt to prove I deserve you, but I—I just—”

Your voice cracks.

Katsuki’s eyes soften, his lips too.

“You think I’d wanna be with anybody else?” he asks, so blunt it hits like a punch.

You don’t answer. You can’t.

He lifts your chin with two fingers, thumb softly brushing lines across your bottom lip— he makes you look him in the eye.

“I did that ad ‘cause you told me to. ‘Cause you said I should. And I ain’t think it’d piss you off—but even if it did, I’d still be comin’ home to you.”

You swallow hard.

“They can watch,” he adds. “They can comment. They can make all the stupid fuckin’ edits they want. But you think I give a shit about any of ‘em when I’ve got you runnin’ me a bath?”

You blink. “…You knew I was running you a bath?”

“You only play that playlist when you’re tryna seduce me.” He snorts.

Your face burns, but your chest still burns hotter, tighter. Tight-est. You’re not ready to let go of this just yet. A hug and no kiss yet are already making your head spin back to that awful insecure state. You hate overthinking every little thing, but you can’t help getting caught up in it.

“Chicken smells good,” he adds casually. “Wanna feed it to me naked?”

You shove his chest gently. Though when you look up at him, you realise you're still greatly mad at him. “Shut up. No”

“C’mere,” he mutters, dragging you into his arms again. You go willingly, burying your face in his neck, nuzzling your nose too deep into his skin. “I love you,” he says into your hair. “All of them can choke.”

“They’re your fans, Katsuki”

“Yeah yeah. They can choke on my dick”

Oh that—that makes you snap.

“Im sure they’d love to” you hiss, lurching back away from him, too mad at how willingly his arms let you go. 

You want to jab, hurt him just a little. Make him jealous just a tad. Make yourself look like you've got better options than plain old ‘_narutoswife’ in his IG comment section.

He doesn’t deserve it. No, not at all. He just came back home from work and you want to catch a toxic attitude instead of communicating. You just want to make him a little mad over you too.

“Fyi, if you remember, Jungkook did say in an interview that im his type! He called me a strong female hero! Choi San also follows me on instagram” you say, crossing your arms, your eyes shut closed and lips pursed.

Unfortunately, you end up making him mad at you. That was so foul. Especially when he was about to sue Jeon freaking Jungkook for what he said in that interview. When the fuck did you become his type even? And why would he say that on national TV about some other man’s girlfriend?

His eye twitches. Just barely. But it definitely twitches. Great!

“…The fuck did you just say? You wanna start somethin’ now?” Katsuki says, voice low, sharp, practically growling, mouth pushed to the side of his face, one brow raised in desbelief,

Your arms are crossed like a petty little shield but it’s not enough to protect you from the instant shift in the air—his energy changing the moment those names leave your mouth. You can see it, feel it, in the sudden tension between his brows and the twitch of his jaw, in the way he takes one step back just so he can plant his hands on his hips and fully absorb the ridiculous thing you just said.

“Well I am his type,” you mutter, fake-casual, even adding a dramatic upward move of your chin for flair. “He literally said so. On record.”

You double down when you shouldn’t. Because now you’ve committed, and if you take it back, it’ll only make you look desperate. You tilt your head, faux-casual, all sugar and venom.

Katsuki blinks once—slow. Like he’s buffering. Like you’ve just spoken a dialect of petty he never expected to hear from your mouth.

“I’m sorry,” he says, voice quiet in that scary way, “are we talkin’ about Jeon fucking Jungkook right now?”

“I mean, he’s not the worst,” you say, airily. “He’s cute. Built. Has manners and a Calvin Klein ad too! Like you”

“You are not fuckin’ doin this with me—” His voice spikes as he takes a step forward, fingers flexing at his sides like he’s physically restraining himself from hurling the rice cooker across the room. “You’re mad at me for a promo gig and now you’re bringin’ up some K-pop bastard—?!”

You bite your lip to stop the smirk. It’s immature. Childish. And so, so satisfying—ah the sweet feeling of getting your lick back.

His hands fly up and immediately start doing that panicked, half-feral gesture thing he does when he’s so mad he doesn’t even know where to put his anger. “You think that’s cute? You think throwin’ other guys in my face is what’s gonna make this better? You want me to start listin’ all the bitches in my DMs right now? ‘Cause I will. I fuckin’ will—”

“Oh so now it’s bitches plural—”

“They don’t matter!” he barks. But you don’t seem like you believe him. “You’re just mad and you’re not telling me the actual reason”

Your face goes hot, tears rising again. “I’m mad because you don’t get it!”

“Then tell me! Tell me what I’m not gettin’!”

“I want you to care!” you explode. “I want you to see that this hurts! That I don’t feel good enough half the damn time, and now I’ve got people with 800k followers stitching your photos sayin’ how they’d treat you right while I’m in our kitchen  trying to figure out if I’m even the one you’d want anymore if you realise there’s someone better out th—”

“Don’t you fuckin’ finish that sentence.”

His voice goes deadly low.

You glare at him, eyes blazing. “Why not? Afraid I’m gonna be right?”

“No. Because you’re not.”

His chest is rising now, jaw clenched tight. You’ve both crossed the line, bleeding all over the tile floor with your words.

“None of them matter. Just like Jungkook doesn’t matter. I don’t care about anyone else on TikTok and I definitely don’t give a shit if he writes you a song and a marriage proposal and names his next album ‘Strong Female Hero I Wanna Wife’—you’re mine. You hear me?”

You’re stunned into silence. Half because of the outburst. Half because of the fact he just said you’re his with the kind of conviction that makes your skin burn and tingles run up your back.

“…You gonna tattoo that somewhere?” you murmur, trying to deflect your way out of being completely swept off your feet. 

He steps closer, wraps a hand around your waist, nose nearly brushing yours, eyes blazing. “Gonna put a ring on it. Don’t tempt me.”

You blink at him, wide-eyed. His palm feels hot, too quirk charged against your clothed skin “What if I’m not joking?”

He narrows his eyes. “You are.”

You shrug, then whisper just slightly. “…Maybe.”

Next thing you know, Katsuki’s scooping you up like a caveman—no warning, no prep, just two strong arms under your ass, your back colliding with his chest, and your feet dangling uselessly as he stalks toward the bathroom.

“Put me down! I haven’t even plated the chicken!”

“We’ll eat it later.”

“I— but—”

“You’re so mine, and I’m about to prove it.”

He kicks the door open like a man on a mission. Your bathwater is already perfectly hot and steamy, the playlist still humming from the speaker in the corner. You barely notice it because you’re too busy clinging to his shoulders like you’re about to be ravished.

“I can’t believe you got mad at me over a Calvin Klein ad,” he mutters against your neck, lips hot and dragging lower as he sets you down only to start untying your apron, aggressive and purposeful.

“It was a very public ad, and you were nearly naked” you argue, squirming, trying to twist out of his grasp—but he’s already unlooping the neck strap, already tossing the apron somewhere over his shoulder, not even watching where it lands on the bathroom floor “Katsuki, no—”

“Sex isn’t gonna fix everything, you know,” you say, breath hitching when his mouth finds that spot just below your jaw, the one he knows makes your knees buckle. He’s too fast to start pressing hot open mouthed kisses on your neck. 

“Then let’s talk about it” he says, calm as hell. He sinks onto the edge of the bathtub like a menace, eyes smoldering, hands still locked around your waist like you might run. “You said you don’t feel enough, why’s that? What part of us did I neglect that made you feel like this?”

You blink, thinking. Well he didn’t really do anything wrong, he just. Exists. And he’s gorgeous and amazing at everything he does.

Oh god? Do you resent him for being good at everything?

“You’re deranged.” You finally respond, pouting but refusing to look at him while you say it.

“I’m in love with you.”

Katsuki’s palms rub soothingly up and down your thighs, head tilted back to look up at you ever so slightly. He's trying to pull you in closer, get you loose, comfortable. He wants you to drop this ‘being difficult’ act you've got on right now.

You follow his lead, come in closer, until your knees scrape the edge of the bathtub and your thighs the inside of his.

“Yeah but,” you pause for a second, debating on whether this is the right thing to say. “why me”

Finally, you kneel between his legs. Your eyes are locked into his, trying to study him, his expression, trying to find a glimpse of hesitation behind his gaze, even if there’s none. 

Katsuki catches the insecurity in your head, with a simple bore of his eyes into yours. And it’s bad. How he can read you so well, like he isn't confused and insecure at times too.

“Is it cause we grew up together?”

“Well that’s why your dear to me, but no” 

“Then why?”

“Cause you’re you. Simply. You’re kind and fair. Too smart and you’re too pretty. You stand your ground and stand up for what’s right. I knew damn well who I hunched on my back and tried to set off with explosions at five years old”

He catches your chin between his thumb and forefinger, tips your face toward him until you’re locked in his orbit again.

You want to cry again. Be it the memory, or the fact that you've pushed him to say this much about why he’s in love with you. You've got no reason to get jealous over people on the internet. They don’t know Katsuki like you do. They never could. Fate chose you to be the one to grow up a few blocks away from him. All your shared memories together, no one on TikTok could live them out.

No matter any Vogue cover, any Calvin Klein ad, or late night show interview, you and Katsuki are two human beings who grew up together, beat the odds of death together. Fell in love with each other to top it. So many humans in history have had this storyline, they’ve shared their first time with each other the night before setting off to war, kissed for the first time behind the bleachers in middle school. 

“I was so scared back then” you sob. Just one violent sob after another “‘m sorry babe. I'm so sorry for how I acted right now. You're just so hot that I can’t handle it. Can you like, be that bratty little five year old again?”

Katsuki huffs a breath, mouth twitching like he wants to smirk but knows better. His hands stay firm around your waist, grounding you while leaning towards you.

“Well I can’t be five again,” he says, voice rough but fond, lips already pursing as his forehead sticks to yours “but I can give you a small brand new Bakugo”

You let out a choked, watery laugh, but he’s already shifting closer, his thighs spreading so you fit better between them. One of his hands, followed by his eyes, slides up to your chest, and with exaggerated slowness, he taps a finger just above your sternum.

Tap. Then a little higher. Tap.

Then again—until two fingers are softly “walking” their way up, up, up your chest like little boots. You blink at him.

“Katsukiiii”

Tap.

The pads of his fingers rest at the hollow of your throat for a beat before lifting to your chin, tipping your face toward him like you’re fragile glass he’s been carrying his whole life.

He’s pouting. You can see it clearly now—the petulant pull of his mouth, the faint crease between his brows, like he’s upset you made him feel things and doesn’t know how to ask for reassurance without being difficult.

“You sayin’ shit like that,” he mutters, eyes flickering down to your mouth, then back up, “makes me feel like I’m not doin’ enough. Like I ain’t sayin’ it right. And I already suck at this.”

You open your mouth to protest, say you didn’t really mean it when you said that you don’t feel enough, that it was a moment of weakness, just like when you tried to tell him you’ve got options, but he presses his thumb gently against your bottom lip, quieting you, you’ve already apologised. He hasn’t.

“Lemme show you instead,” he says.

His voice isn’t cocky. Not quite. It’s soft—almost shy. Like how it was when you asked him to walk you home a week into UA, like he knows now, sex won’t fix anything, for sure, but the humanity of it, the lack of personal space between you as you groan in each other's open mouths, will help, just a little to ease the pain of your words.

“You’re my soft spot,” he adds under his breath, kissing the corner of your mouth like he’s afraid you’ll vanish off to some hot idol that does fanservice for a living, before he finishes the sentence. “Always been. N’ I don’t want you forgettin’ it. I ain’t leaving you for no one”

His fingers trace the line of your jaw now, slow and reverent. The pout still hasn’t left. You’re not sure it ever will. But now it’s paired with heat, and a pull between your legs that starts low and deep as he finally—finally—brushes his mouth against yours.

Just a whisper of a kiss. All pout. All need. All Katsuki.

You wouldn’t really trade him for anyone, either.

You can feel how badly he wants to be touched back. He always wants to be physical and touchy after an argument. You know how grounded and real it makes him feel, how reassuring it is to him to know he is still loved enough to be touched, despite words that are meant to sting.

You make a move to peck him, only right as this was your fault, and he slowly moves his lips against your own, soft, smooth. Slipping between every hollow space until you can't pull away. Seems like the chapstick you got for him last week has done wonders to make his lips so soft and plump, when they’re usually so chapped; his mouth glides against yours with practiced ease.

“M sorry” he whispers, so faint against your lips, but you still catch it.

His voice stays in your skin long after it’s said, like steam caught between your ribs, not ready to evaporate just yet.

You don’t say anything at first—just lift your hand to cradle the back of his neck, drawing tiny circles at his nape with your thumb. His eyes flutter a little at the touch, and it’s so Katsuki the way he tries not to lean into it. Still pouting, still pretending he’s not craving softness like it’s the only thing that could save him, but you know him better.

You let your other hand wander, trailing along the hem of his work top, your fingertips skating just beneath the fabric—slow, just the way he likes it. And when your hands drift to the button of his pants, you catch that tiny hitch in his breath. Barely audible. But it’s there. His lashes drop, golden. Sun-kissed. His grip on your waist tightens, not to stop you, just to hold on.

“You said you’d show me,” you murmur, your voice dipping low, warm against the shell of his ear. “But maybe I show you first.”

He doesn’t answer. Just swallows hard. And you skip the rest of the sentence ‘how much better I am than those TikTok bitches who want you’.

The button of his work cargos clicks open beneath your fingers.

It’s intimate, the quiet that settles between you. Not awkward. Not even heated yet. Just close. Bathwater is still steaming behind him. The scent of your shared home in the air—sandalwood, white musk soap, the thick smell of chicken being cooked—him. 

His cologne, faded but still clinging to the collar of his shirt. The playlist hums something slow and familiar in the background—Hot like fire, because maybe Aaliyah wasn’t mocking you a while ago—like this moment has its own soundtrack and the world outside doesn’t exist.

Your fingers fiddle with his zipper, slow and smooth. He looks down at you—heavy-lidded, and all vermillion, lips slightly parted, like he’s already halfway gone from just being touched with intention for pleasure.

“You looked so confident in the ad” you whisper as your fingers brush just below his waistband, teasing. “But this is better. This right here. When you’re a little shy for me.”

He exhales shakily, like you cracked something open inside him. And you feel it—something primal and possessive bloom in your chest.

“No one gets to see you like this but me”

“You’re tryin’ to kill me” he mutters.

You smile up at him, biting your lower lip. “No, Katsuki. I’m just trying to blow you away with my insane head skills”

He laughs, a breathy little sound, as his hands move to take off his shirt, softly ungluing his eyes from yours for only a second. You lick your lips at the way his muscles flex, so thick and bulky and by all means yours.

Suddenly, the ad pops back into your head, every shot, every zoom in. You’re overtaken by lust driven jealousy again.

No one on fucking TikTok gets to see the way his abs flex when he cums. You do.

So you work to lower his pants in fast movements, pushing the heavy fabric down until it hits the floor in shuffling sounds. 

Your hands slide lower, palms flattening against his calves, then his hips as you stick your cheek to his thigh. He watches you like you’re a sunrise—warm and tender, grazing where his skin ends with where your skin begins, or running tender, teasing circles all over his tip through his boxers.

His fingers twitch against his thighs, unsure of where to go—if he should cup your cheek, fist your hair, or just hold on to the edge of the tub before he slides down into something desperate.

And when you look up at him from where you’re knelt, his breath catches. His hand finds the top of your head, like he needs the grounding contact, thumb brushing a gentle path through your hair, and his eyes are wide with something soft and so, so red and open.

“Yesssss” he says hoarsely, half-laughing, half-moan “im about to get the best head of my life”

You quirk your brow and pucker your lips as if it’s your turn to pout now, then, you jab “Was it bad before?”

He shakes his head, cheeks already pink. “It’s always damn perfect”

His breathing catches in his chest but by now, your lips catch onto the skin of his thigh, placing a kiss there while still looking at him. It makes him go completely red now, face ears and chest flustered.

You kiss higher on his inner thigh, barely missing where he’s straining against the fabric of his boxers. Katsuki’s knuckles press into the edge of the tub now, trying to keep himself grounded, but his hips twitch when your lips ghost just beneath the band of his boxers.

He looks like he might fall apart already. Lower lip caught between his teeth, lashes fluttering low, cheeks warm and pink in the bathroom light.

Your fingers tug at the elastic slowly—like a question. And he nods, fast, almost frantic.

You hum, and finally pull the waistband down, freeing him.

He’s already hard, tip flushed and leaking, twitching a little in the cool air. And the way he watches you—mouth parted, chest rising and falling quick—is nothing short of irrelevant. He looks at you with hunger, full blown everywhere on his face, like it burns just to feel it. His hand hovers near your cheek, and you guide it up into your hair with your own.

“Keep it here,” you murmur. “I want you to touch.”

Katsuki’s thumb brushes your scalp, tender, trembling.

His thumb twitches as it strokes your scalp.

You press your lips softly to the base of his cock. Not rushing. Just placing open mouthed kisses over his length. Letting the heat of your mouth register on every kiss before you move to the next one. Then again, higher this time. Then again—closer to the tip, where he shudders and grips your hair a little tighter. Your lips wrap tenderly around half of his tip, your tongue storming out for a circular lick before you give him a little suck.

His hips shift like he’s trying to stay still and failing. Then you kiss just beneath the tip, so close your breath makes him hiss.

“F-fuck,” he hisses, hips twitching once more. “You’re—baby, you’re—”

You wrap your hand around the base of him and drag your tongue along the underside, slow, teasing, drawing a whimper from him so small and raw that your thighs clench just hearing it.

“You gonna beg?” you ask softly, glancing up.

His head falls back against the tiled wall for a second, mouth parted, so red in the face. “Don’t make me—fuck—‘m already losin’ it.”

You take him into your mouth inch by inch, slow and careful, tongue flat underneath, eyes still locked on him. You feel his thighs shake.

He moans—a rough, broken sound—and his hand fists harder your hair. You pull back with a wet pop and stroke him slowly, thumb brushing over his leaking tip. “You’re so easy to ruin, Katsuki. One suck and you’re falling apart.”

“You—you're evil,” he pants, biting his knuckle. “You can’t say shit like that when your fuckin’ mouth is on me.”

You grin, licking your lips. “It’s on you again now.”

You take him deeper this time, hollowing your cheeks, letting your tongue drag in deliberate patterns. He groans, head tipping down again to watch, jaw slack. His voice is wrecked. Raw. Low in his throat.

“Katsuki–” you pause, you murmur, pulling off again, cupping him with both hands now. ogling your eyes into his “Tell me i'm the only one who’s ever gonna make you feel this good’

Every movement you make is intentional—little flicks of your tongue, your hand twisting at the base, your lips tight around him. You don’t let him cum yet. Every time you feel him start to twitch harder, you ease back, sucking gently on just the tip.

“Babe,’s all you—” he chokes out, voice ragged. “Never gonna be anyone else but you”

“Yeah?” you breathe. “No thirsty fangirl, no fantasy, no fuckin’ ad? Just me?”

His eyes lock on yours—glassy, wild. He nods hard. “Just you.”

You glance up again. His eyes are glassy, pupils blown. He looks desperate. Like he’s holding onto the last threads of sanity. But this moment is bathed in vulnerability, raw love that makes you want to claim again and again. Katsuki’s had his moments like this, way more than you. He lets you go through with it, he even likes how jealous you are right now, but this doesn’t mean he’s not utterly and completely ruined and under your spell right now.

You kiss his head again, so sweet, and finally wrap your mouth around him once more—this time faster, deeper, your hand working in tandem. He lets out a strangled cry, almost panicked with how hard he’s trying to hold on.

“You’re mine, Katsuki. You know that, right? Doesn’t matter how many people thirst over you online.” You press your lips around him again, drag your mouth up slow, just to the tip. “They don’t get this. They don’t get you like I do.”

He looks down at you again, eyes still glassy. So red. So wrecked.

You take him deeper, your cheeks hollowed, your tongue gliding in slow circles, teasing him at every sensitive spot. The veins on the underside of his cock, the base, as he hits the back of your throat. Katsuki moans, raw and shaky and his hips stutter forward before he forces himself still. The inside of your mouth is so slippery, so warm, he’s literally going crazy with each movement.

“Don’t even fuckin’ want anyone else.” He sounds destroyed now, ruined into a slurring mess as your hand is sliding along his thigh. 

“Let me—let me cum, shit—please, let me—”

His tip kisses the back of your throat, and you gag around him, just a little—just enough for him to choke on a moan that sounds like he’s dying.

You don’t let up. You feel the way he twitches, the way his thighs tense, the way his grip in your hair tightens. He’s close. So close. You hum against him, nodding just a little, eyes locked into his in such an intimate, tender way. You take him all the way in one last time, his tip hitting the back of your throat, eliciting just a small choking sound from you, letting him fall apart in your mouth, with every soft roll of his hips into you.

He grunts. Head lolling back again, so hard that is adam’s apple protrudes enough even for you to see. His hips stutter, and he tries to hold back—but his thighs are trembling, breath breaking. He snaps his head again, desperate to look at you and he swallows now, bites his lower lip in concentration before he clenches his legs, to buck his hips into your mouth.

His hands come to cradle your head, your cheeks, like he’s afraid to let go, like you’re the one keeping him from falling through the floor. And the way you keep eye contact with him while swallowing him down your pretty little throat–It’s a killer.

You back up, worrying his tip between your soft, plump lips and that's it–He shatters. Violently and way faster than he thought he would. Clawing at your face to make you take him in once again; he bottoms out, and you… you take him in easily, like a champ.

Katsuki falls apart in your mouth with a raw, choked moan, hips bucking just once as you hold him steady, taking every twitch, every pulse, every broken sound he makes as his cum spills in ropes down your throat. You try to swallow as much as you can, eyes tearing up at the amount of cum that’s making you choke– Katsuki’s favorite sounds when you’re giving him a blowjob. He’s only urged to spill more, but this time you back up a little, letting him fill your mouth until it spills down the sides of your lips.

“F-fuck. Baby. Fuck.” He gasps like you’ve already stolen the air from his lungs, and he spasms. His hips jerk forward once, like instinct takes over.

Your eyes well up again, tears beading on your lashes from the stretch, from the pressure, from the sheer force of him.

He groans again at the sight—his cock buried in your mouth, cum spilling out the corners of your lips, glistening. His hands cradle your cheeks like he’s trying to memorize the shape of your mouth, the feel of your skin under his thumbs.

You swallow again, letting him ride it out with one last soft suck, and he moans like he’s unraveling from the inside out. His knees almost buckle.

And still, you don’t stop touching him. Your hand strokes slow at his base as you pull back with the loudest pop, letting some of the mess trail down lower at your chin, your lips swollen and glistening as you tilt your head up.

“You came so much,” you murmur, licking a drop from your bottom lip. “Were you that needy for me, baby?”

He groans as he’s still recovering, hips twitching slightly as your breath ghosts over him. His hands finally leave your cheeks, fumbling around, still shaky, down to where his pants are.

“Where the fuck’s my phone?” he rasps, breath catching on the tail end.

You blink up at him, mock-innocent. “Why do you want it, hmm?”

His gaze drops back to you, pupils blown wide, chest heaving as he glares like you’ve just personally offended him by being too hot to handle yourself.

“First, I’m taking a fuckin’ photo of you like this,” he grits out, voice still rough and low, “with your mouth all messy, lookin’ proud of yourself like that.”

You smirk, tilting your head as cum still drips slowly down your chin, your fingers catching it just to suck them clean. “So you can jerk off to it later?”

“So I can frame it,” he mutters darkly, eyes dragging over every inch of your face. “And then you’re watchin’ the ad again. Every second of it.”

You blink slowly. “But it makes me mad”

He nods. “Yeah exactly. Youre watching it.‘Til you get so fuckin’ riled up you suck me off meaner than this.”

Your lips curl. “Meaner? Baby… I was being sweet to you.”

“Exactly,” he pants, reaching for your wrist to drag you up into his lap. “I wanna see you do it when you're pissed.”

You climb into his space, knees bracketing his thighs, grinning into his mouth as you kiss him—messy, deep, still tasting like him. “Careful what you wish for, Katsuki. I might make your dick fall off”

His voice is just a whisper now and wrecked against your lips.

“Fuck yes”

Yeah… maybe the Calvin Klein ad was a good idea.

______

The water’s somehow still warm, barely steaming, and smells like cocoa and the shea butter soap he always pretends he doesn’t use until you catch him stealing it.

You’re settled between his legs, your back against his chest, and he’s folded around you—arms over your middle, face buried in the crook of your neck, breath soft and steady against your skin. You sink into him, muscles loosening all at once.

The bathwater laps at your collarbones. His thumbs trace slow circles into your stomach. And for a while, the only sound is your breathing, synced. The occasional soft swish of water when one of you shifts. The playlist outside still hums faintly, muffled through the bathroom door. Just gentle vocals and low drums. Like the score to this quiet little world you’ve made.

“Sorry I was a dick,” he mutters. His voice remains unsure of what to say in a situation like this, yet muffled against your neck. “I just—y’know…”

“Yeah. Me too. I should not have mentioned Jungkook because people online are asking how I handle all of that” you chuckle, tenderly placing a kiss at the back of Katsuki’s hands when you lift it from the water.

He frowns, letting off a sound of annoyance “asshole, he can shove that seven song up his ass”

“Oop— you listening to him now?”

“No, it’s all over the radio though” Katsuki kisses your shoulder in response. Then again, higher this time. “But I don’t care about nobody. Just you. Always you.”

You tilt your head and press a kiss into his damp hair from the side, catching just a little bit of his ear in the process. “I know, baby. I know.”

And you do. Deep in your bones. The same way you know how his eyes soften and he whines when he’s sleepy, how his jaw ticks to the right when he’s embarrassed, how his voice drops an octave when he wants to be taken seriously. You know him. Not the whored out Calvin Klein version the world sees.

You curl your hands around his forearm and let yourself melt back into him completely, the bathwater swaying at the peak of your chest now. Safe. Soothed. Held.

He squeezes you a little tighter and rests his chin on your shoulder, finally quiet. And if you listen close, you can feel it: the rise and fall of him. The warmth of his skin. The steady thrum of his heartbeat under your back. 

“So” you murmur “wanna talk about that little mini Bakugo you mentioned earlier?”

Katsuki mumbles something under his breath, eyes closed against your skin. He’s mellowed out in the split of a second, but you’re riled up at the thought when your mind returns to it. 

“‘S no use.” He whines, finally, like he’s annoyed “Our kid’s gonna look like you”

“So you'll get a mini me all over again and I won’t get the same? Un-faiiiir! Booooooo” you groan, leaning your head back against his shoulder dramatically. The water sloshes with the motion, and he huffs a tired laugh into your neck, chest vibrating behind you.

“Yeah, yeah,” he mutters, lips brushing your skin. “Like I wouldn’t be fuckin’ obsessed with either version.”

You smile. Small. Soft. Let your thumb glide along the scar on his wrist and then you swallow. Blink a few times. Then nod once, slowly, before you speak.

“Wouldn’t be so bad, would it? A little baby with your temper and my sweet tooth?”

He lets out a real laugh now, low and gruff and warm against your back. “Fuckin’ menace. Our apartment wouldn’t survive.”

“Your PR team wouldn’t survive.”

“Shit, you’re right.”

You both laugh, muffled and close, and when it quiets again, you let your fingers lace through his under the water. His grip tightens like a reflex.

And then, just above a whisper:

“You really think about it sometimes?”

“…Yeah.”

“Me too.”

He kisses your shoulder again. No jokes this time. Just silence and warm water and cocoa steam. The both of you holding that dream quietly, like something sacred. 

In his arms, now, today, midst June, after feeling threatened that strangers online will ever do better than you when it comes to him, you think of you and him, back in his childhood room, watching Spirited Away as Mitsuki would fetch you cookies and milk before Katsuki would try to shove her away and she’d pretend to be knocked over.

“Hey…We’re still naming the baby Chihiro like we promised back then, right?”

He goes still behind you. Like, dead quiet. Like you’d short-circuited something in his brain.

You almost think he didn’t hear you until you feel the deep inhale against your spine, his arms tightening just a little more around you like he’s trying to fuse your body to his.

“…You remember that?” His voice is hoarse now, barely more than a breath.

You smile, eyes still half-lidded, watching the water ripple at the edges of the tub. “Of course I do. You made me pinky swear on it, when Mitsuki said we’d get married and have kids too!”

“Shut up,” he mutters, but it’s soft, affectionate—almost embarrassed. His nose nudges your jaw like he’s trying to hide the warmth in his face. “Was a fuckin’ loser.”

“No,” you say gently. “You were just sweet. Always were.”

There’s a beat. He swallows. You feel it in his throat against your shoulder.

“…Chihiro, huh?” he murmurs, finally. “Still want that? Even now?”

You nod, and his hand floats up from beneath the water, trailing along your stomach, resting just under your ribs. Protective. Hopeful. Like something unspoken is blooming there.

“I always loved that promise,” you whisper, throat a little tight. He doesn’t answer. At least not with words.

Katsuki grins against your neck, and the sound of it, the way he breathes in like he’s grounding himself in the smell of your skin—it’s everything. It’s homely. Warm water. Summer steam. A shared name from a shared childhood.

Take that ‘tojissecondworm222’, not only do you handle all that, but everything the world’s fantasy driven Dynamight has to offer, is yours. 

Always has been.

Always will be.

~All rights reserved: @/strawberry-nugget, 2025. Please do not copy, over write or steal my work.

Likes, reblogs and comments are all appreciated equally

Dividers by @/saradika-graphics

[mirophobic2]

gaming with iida hcs 🎮

summary: the dekusquad are trying to teach iida to lighten up a bit and play minecraft with them late at night but iida is much more interested in learning from you

tw// swearing

thank you to @coledrawsstuff​ for this sweet request 💗

Keep reading

[mirophobic2]

(hey, I post fic recs, follow me :3)

inspired by this post i wrote yesterday

pro-hero! tenya iida who is dragged to a strip club by his work collegues as a part of his birthday celebration.

despite the fact he's never shown interest in going to an establishment like that before — he states that it's too rauchy and he cannot support the exploitation of women — his co-workers claim that it would be a good chance for him to loosen up and try new things. they say that going to stripclub shamelessly is one of the few perks of being a single man in his early thirties, and it's shocking iida isn't taking advantage of that. (they are also morbidly curious to see his reaction to the sort of 'degeneracy' that goes on in there.)

he's originally apprehensive, even after his collegues' reasoning, but after they take him for a fancy dinner (and treated him to perhaps a few too many old fashions) he succumbs to their fervent convincing and stumbles along with them to the club across the street.

although he doesn't remember much of what happened the following morning, one woman in partiuclar is stuck in his head. she won't seem to leave his mind.

he happily engages with all the usual club customs; he buys expensive drinks for the table, enjoys a striptease performance and showers the dancer with an obscene amount in tips that's sure to disturb him come tomorrow. after thorough persuasion from his co-workers, he even pays for an 'exclusive show' and is swiftly whisked away to one of the private rooms round the back.

in there, you try to give him a lap dance but he is a mess. his hair is dishevelled and his eyes are pulled wide — partly due to the fact he lost his glasses and is struggling to see, but also due to how tense he is. on the couch, he is sat rigidly and grips onto the armrest like his life depends on it, you're almost afraid he might pierce the pleather with his nails.

"calm down, mister." you purr, straddling his lap and seductively lowering yourself down onto his knees, "no need to worry. i don't bite." you reassure him, stroking his hair with your hand, while the other massages his neck. all while he can't take his eyes off you, they dart between your face, your tits and your stomach as you continue to grind against his leg.

his mouth is ajar slightly, and his mind is largely absorbed by the fact he can feel your clothed cunt against his thigh. it's so strangely tantalising, and it's only when you quirk a brow at him that he is reminded of how rude it is to gape at people. hence, his jaw snaps shut and he splutters, "m— mph, excuse me, sorry."

he's so cute, you think. awfully charming too. usually during the private show you would flirt with the client a bit then get up and start a striptease or a lapdance, but this guy didn't seem all that interested. you sat in his lap for a while flirting, because after he got over his initial stunned silence, he progressed to nervous rambling and kept going on and on to you about his co-workers and how they convinced him to go to the strip club for his birthday.. and how much he dislikes his birthday and birthdays in general, but this one has been surprisingly enjoyable.

you could hardly get a word in edgewise but it's not like you could escape because he was holding you by the waist firmly against his lap. so you decided to skip to the stripping part.

"i have a little something that'll make your birthday even better.." you hum into his ear, and he perks up at this, hands still stiffly planted on your waist.

"oh! and what might that be?"

"a dance." you pull back and bite your lip coyly.

"lovely. like ballet?"

. . .

a little bit strange too, you think. but alas, clearly he doesn't have much experience in strip clubs and is that really such a bad thing? you politely explain that you'll be performing a similar dance to the women he's already seen outside in the main club area, except your show will be exclusively for him. to which he is quite receptive and excited.

after that odd interaction, the private show continues as usual. you do your strip tease for him, and by the end of that he already appears ready to enter cardiac arrest. still, you begin the lap dance, and gently run your hands over his body, including his surprisingly toned chest. then you dip onto his lap and grind against his thighs. he's evidently engaged, his sharp red eyes following your every move and dissecting every inch of your body as it moves upon him. he keeps a firm grip on your waist throughout, but besides that, he's not nearly as handsy as your other customers.

once the private show is over, he exits timidly and hands you fat tip as he does so. he's certainly something special.

you did find yourself inwardly hoping that he might come back some day. however, never in a million years would you expect the guy to come barrelling into the strip club five minutes after it opened the following day.

you and all the other performers were still getting ready, but the supervisor came and informed you that there was a random guy in the front area asking for you, and strangely you knew it was him before you even came and looked.

"is everything alright, hun?"

"uh, yes."

"mkay." you nod hesitantly, crossing your arms defensively over your chest, "if you're looking for a show, the dancers don't come on for another hour."

"oh, no, it's not that." he shakes his head slightly, anxiously toying with something small in his hands, though you can't tell what it is. "it's just— i was very impressed by your work last night. you're so gorgeous and thus it was an enchanting experience, and i'm sure it would've been even better if i had my glasses on."

you snicker, "glad you liked it."

"mhm, it was unlike anything i've ever done before. i've always lived by a very strict set of ethical and social boundaries, that denote what is considered 'right' and 'wrong'. but as you've probably realised, i've come to find out those rules are entirely arbitrary, and in fact, may have been preventing me from living life to its fullest."

you nod along with his explanation. despite your crippling hangover and migrane, you oddly are able to follow his train of thought, "i'm happy to hear that your trip to the strip club has been so awakening." to anyone else, that may have come across as sarcastic, but iida could pick up on your sincerity.

"thank you. and i only tell you all that to contextualise my following actions. regularly, i would consider what i am about to do entirely nonsensical, but now i have a different outlook." before you are able to interject and ask him to elaborate, he gets down on one knee in the foyer of the club, and uncovers the mysterious item in his palm, which turns out to be a ringbox containing the fattest jewel you've ever seen. "that being said. will you marry me?"

. . .

you stare down at him, heart thumping in your chest. you were unsure what was more surreal, that a guy you met yesterday (whose name you don't even know) is proposing to you, or the fact you are considering accepting it.

[mirophobic2]

(hey, I post fic recs, follow me :3)

You on occasion lay down on Bakugo’s chest just to hear his heartbeat.

Been 4 years since the war, and you can still remember the feeling you had when you seen Bakugo’s lifeless body on the field.

You couldn’t reach him, you couldn’t save him, but you seen his chest, the way his eyes slowly dimmed, tears and blood stained his cheeks, you felt a part of yourself die a little as well.

It was a difficult transition to see him from alive to dead to back alive again, you never got around to tell him how you really felt during the time of the war. How exhausted you were, not just physically but emotionally and mentally. How you been going to therapy for the past 2 years, because the nightmares came back.

You never told him about your internal struggles post war, because you felt guilty.

You wasn’t on the line like he and Deku was, but you still played your part, having a few battles of your own to fight and if Bakugo was there to see how you carried yourself he would have been so proud, but that small bit of comparison between you and him made your problems seem so minuscule.

It was silly, but honest.

He’s on the couch now , one arm over his eyes, and the other over his stomach taking a nap, or so you thought. You had another scare while thinking for way too long. That fear bubbling up inside your heart and mind like a cloud before a storm begins you physically try to shake it off, so you go to do what you knew best to help and that was to lie on his chest.

His chest was moving very shallow, his snorts was light as it was being covered by the rain outside the window. He looked so peaceful, you examine his figure , seeing the scars on his body, as well as the big one on his chest.

You approach him slowly, adjusting to climb and squeeze between his legs, he noticed your presence before even moving, he was just waiting for you to make a move and when you finally did he stretched himself out for you to get comfortable.

When your ears reach where his heart is you slowly shut your eyes to concentrate on his heartbeat. The quiet thumping increased slightly when he wrapped his arms around your waist.

It felt so much better now. His scent and sound immediately made your body relax.

You smile a little, weakly, seeing at the calming beats of his pulse soothes you like a heavy wave of water to help you fall asleep.

Bakugo pecked your forehead, a subconscious move he does when you’re near his lips, when he held you it was almost in a way of protection. His arms being a shield from anything around you, the same way he wished to have shield you all those years ago.

[mirophobic2]

(hey, I post fic recs, follow me :3)

War of hearts

꘎♡━━━━━♡꘎ ꘎♡━━━━━♡꘎

Pairing: Minho X gn reader

Summary: An argument with your boyfriend leads to you trying to prove a point.

Genre: Angst

Word Count: 2.1k

A/N: I'm back to writing requests and Minho is so black cat coded and this request felt like a great way to show that off. Thank you for requesting it, requestee <3

_ _ _

“This is all your fault,” Minho mumbled from the driver’s seat. Beside you, he crossed his arms over his chest and glared into the distance. 

“My fault? This is my fault? Maybe if you wouldn’t have driven over a pile of glass in the middle of the street and went around it, we wouldn’t be sitting here stuck.” 

“And maybe you should have put back my spare tire after you hijacked the one I had.” 

“Fuck off!” You snapped angrily. “Is it too much to want to spend time with you? You’ve been so busy, all I wanted was one date with my-” 

“And what kind of date is a movie? When we sit there at the screen, ignoring each other, pretending we’re enjoying our time together when we’re not? You’re bullshiting yourself.” 

He leaned over to look at you. “If you would have waited until this weekend, I would have taken you out properly. Not to some stupid cheesy romance movie. I could have taken you out to dinner and we would have had a decent time together, but you’re about as stubborn as a goddamn mule.” 

Your fists curled and your nostrils flared. Your blood boiled and in that moment, you hated him. You hated Minho and his perpetual need for razor-sharp truths. The arrogance that rolled off him in acidic waves when he grew angry. 

You didn’t know how glass scattered all over the road, but you knew a piece embedded itself in one of the front tires. An angry hiss filled the air and he heard it because his window was down. He pulled over along the side of the road to find his tire slowly deflating. A sharp shard, covered in dust and grime, protruded from the tire. 

At first, he considered patching the hole, but then he realized he didn’t have his tire patching kit. He gave it to Changbin when he hit a nail coming into the company’s parking lot. He headed around to the trunk to find a spare, but the empty space mocked him. Too swept up in life, you hadn’t replaced the spare. Your own car suffered from a flat two weeks ago. You replaced it, but you’d forgotten to replace the spare in the back of his car. 

It sat at home, back behind the house, hidden away against the far wall of the garage. You planned on getting to it, but you hadn’t. Both of you were following your own career paths. It remained forgotten about and when you did remember, Minho had his car out and about. A never ending cycle that happened to catch up with you today. 

So the both of you sat stuck in the car. An empty field to your left and your right. Craving something new, you wanted to go to the theater in another town. It sounded good, but now you were stuck here. Minho called a company to tow the vehicle, but they said it could be a while before someone arrived. 

To make it worse, wind pushed gray misery-stained clouds above your heads. Your phone vibrated with a notification five minutes ago. A thunderstorm swept your way and the two of you were trapped in the middle of nowhere. You wanted to call someone to come get the two of you, but Minho refused. 

Too stubborn and upset, he sat there glaring at everything, like the empty fields with tangled weed patches that pulsed with fine lines of dirt. Freshly plowed, they awaited a new batch of seeds and another growing season from farmers’ calloused hands. The rolling skies, hung with spring humidity, and scented with an approaching ozone. 

He even glared at you and that hurt the worst. Too stressed and frustrated, sometimes he lashed out. He didn’t mean to hurt your feelings, but he couldn’t manage the whirlpool of his own. They built up and spiraled, raining down on both of you, and soaking you with misery. In the eye of his own storm, he didn’t know how to stop. 

He never meant the words, but they came out and cracked through the atmosphere. Your physical feelings, they became an afterthought more than anything. You sat here, letting his words soak your brain, causing you to feel worse. 

At first, it was a lingering hurt and a brush of sadness. His hand balled into a fist and slammed into the car horn. A sharp thud and brief beep. You flinched, sucking in a sharp breath. Hot tears built behind your eyes and then you swallowed the lump in your throat. 

“I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry I didn’t put the stupid fucking tire back, but I’m not sorry for wanting to watch a stupid cheesy romantic film with my boyfriend. I wanted to watch it with you because I hoped it’d remind you of what we’re supposed to have. So if that makes me a terrible and awful person then-” 

“Are you seriously making yourself the victim in this scenario?” 

“Go to hell, Minho.” 

“If that means I’m away from you and your childish tantrum, then it will be my pleasure.” 

You reached over, grabbed your car handle, and shoved the door open. You didn’t look to see if there was traffic, you just acted. Impulsive. Reckless. Foolish. Minho called after you, but you slammed the door, cutting off his words. 

Your phone sat in the back of your jeans. Dressed in a t-shirt and a pair of jeans, you started to walk back from the direction you came. Minho watched you from the rearview mirror of his car and huffed. “You’ve got to be kidding me.” 

He shoved his door open and stuck his head from the car. “Where the hell are you going? Get back here!” 

“I’m going home!” 

“You’re going to be soaked and catch a cold.” 

“I don’t care.” You kept walking, not bothering to turn towards him.

“So you’re walking away? What is this? Your way of breaking up with me?” 

“Sure. Happily. Consider this my good-bye.” You reached behind you and flashed him the middle finger. 

“You are such a brat.” 

“And you’re an asshole.” 

“You know what? Fine. Fine! You want to act childish? Go ahead. Have fun walking home. Don’t bother coming back into the car.” He jerked open the door, shoved himself inside, and slammed it shut so hard, it rattled the vehicle. 

Grumbles filled the interior. He glared at the sky once more, cursing the slow tow-truck. He flipped off the pile of glass on the opposite side of the road. Despite his anger, he kept an eye on your wavering form in his rearview mirror. 

He was right about one thing, you were stubborn as a mule. 

~ ~ ~ 

You lost track of your trek. One foot in front of another. One step and then another and then another and then another. Icy rain fell from the gates of heaven at some point. It restricted your view and left you feeling like a disoriented victim of waterboarding. 

Could a person drown while walking through the rain? Ice soaked your skin. It slipped down your bare arms. Your t-shirt clung to your torso. By the time you made it home, you’d barely be able to free yourself from the jeans. 

You walked and walked and walked. Along that barren road, the fields ended a distance ago. How far had you walked? One mile? Five? You didn’t know anything, but the distant roar of thunder and the occasional flash of lightning from the corner of your eye. The further you went, the more you wished you would have shut up and stayed in Minho’s car. 

The leather padded seats with the seat warmers. You could have played a game on your phone, or fell asleep while you waited. He would have cooled off and apologized. Things would have gotten better. Neither of you got into fights all the time, but when they happened, they were nasty. 

He probably blew up your phone in your back pocket. You weren’t going to answer it. Would your phone die in the rain? Was there service here? Empty sprouts of faded yellow grass. Someone either forgot to fertilize, the soil was bad, or the grass had been soaked in something that killed its growth. Regardless, puke yellow wasn’t a great color to look at while you shivered from rain. 

Your fingers shook and your teeth chattered. Droopy eyes and a tipped head. You hadn’t seen a car since you left him. Nobody passed by, so nobody stopped to ask you if you were okay. You shivered uncontrollably, quivering, trying to keep your organs warm. Why did cold rain do that? It chilled you to the bone. 

Occasionally, a foot nearly slipped out from beneath you. Soaked grass and the sopping wet bottoms of your rubber soles didn’t help. Wind picked up and your eyes squeezed shut. The direction of the downpour changed and flicked to the side. You jerked to the side, trying to hide your face from the unforgiving water. It soaked the side of your head instead. 

Beneath the roar of the untethered storm, a humming engine. You pulled back from the road, hoping the driver could see through frantic windshield wipes. You were a good distance away from the road, so hopefully, they wouldn’t hit you. With a sniffle, you stepped back further. 

An engine idled and a window rolled. “Get in the car, you idiot. You’re soaked and working on catching a cold.” 

“Leave me alone, Minho. I’m fine. I’m going home. I’ll get there at some point.” 

“There are flood warnings and the wind is supposed to increase. Get in the car, so we can go home. Don’t make me get out of this car and come get you.” 

“I thought the car was getting towed.” 

“The guy had a patch kit, so I asked him if he could patch it instead.” 

You sniffled and wiped at your face. It didn’t do anything, besides smear more water all over you. Turned away from his car, you still hadn’t faced him. He called your name and you hesitated, but finally spun around. Your eyes sat teary and red. 

“Come on,” his voice softened, “come back so you can get warm.” 

Your head tipped in defeat and you finally nodded. He pressed the unlock button and the doors clicked open. You headed around to the passenger’s seat and climbed inside. He didn’t lecture you for getting rain water everywhere. 

“I’m sorry,” he finally spoke after a few moments of silence. “I shouldn’t have yelled at you for something so stupid. I know I haven’t been the best significant other lately.” 

You stayed silent, blinking rapidly, and staring out the window. Freezing cold, your bottom lip trembled, partly because you were trying not to cry, and because you felt miserable. Your sass-filled ego had taken a nosedive as well. You were nearly twenty minutes from home by car, walking home would have taken forever. 

The gear shift moved and Minho turned the wheel. You both rode in silence until he broke it again. “When we get home, do you want to order takeout? We can get food and watch one of those romance movies from a streaming service.” 

“We don’t have to.” 

“I want to. I want to make up for being so…” 

“Dickish?” 

“Dickish, yeah. I don’t want to break up with you. I’ve never wanted to break up with you. I’ve been having a horrible time lately, but I see that I need to manage it better. You shouldn’t have felt that you had to walk alone in a thunderstorm.” 

“I don’t want to break up with you either. I should be apologiz-” 

“Don’t do that. Calling me names was valid. I deserved that.” His fingers gripped tighter around the wheel. He flicked the turn signal and let out a sigh. “I deserve far more than that, honestly, but I’m glad I found you.” 

“If I go home and dry off, can we cuddle?” 

He glanced over, letting his eyes catch yours. “Is that what you want?” 

“I mean, you don’t have to if you’re not feeling up to it.” 

“When was the last time we held each other?” 

You shrugged, unsure of the answer. 

“Okay, but if you try to tickle me, I’m going to bite you.” 

A small smile quipped up from the side of your lips. “I’m not going to tickle you. Not tonight, I don’t think I have it in me.” You reached a hand for his empty one, wanting to hold it. 

“Promise?” 

“I promise.” 

He let his fingers slip through yours, relishing in the coolness of your palm, silently thanking the universe that the rain washed away your temporary anger and he didn’t have to hog-tie you to get you back home.

| ♡.﹀﹀﹀﹀.♡ | ♡.﹀﹀﹀﹀.♡ | ♡.﹀﹀﹀﹀.♡ |

Taglist: @lia-linny @seungnishi @stellasays45 @emilyywhyy @rockstarkkami @flightlessackerman @inlovewithstraykids @velvetmoonlght @chrizrizz @ari-hwanggg @m-325 @justcallmewhatyoulike

Masterlist

Taglist and inbox rules

Ko-fi

[mirophobic2]

(hey, I post fic recs, follow me :3)

⌗ : I did NOT think y'all would like the first part so much LMAO thank you guys so much 💗💗, also describing is my worst enemy I'm so sorry if you get confused... One last thing, its mostly Bakugo and Kirishima.

IM SO ALLERGIC TO PART TWOS OH MY GODDD

part one

Tags : @afterlife11 , @odetteskies , @feralwolfkat

After that night, bakugo decided he was sick of the two of you, so he tried distancing himself, staying out of the common room, studying by himself (which he normally did with Kirishima), and ultimately avoiding interactions.

Obviously, Kirishima noticed. And frankly, he was a little hurt by it. In his mind he didn't do anything, maybe bakugo got grossed out seeing him and you kiss? Or maybe he didn't want to put up with his BS anymore.

Whatever, all that matters to Kirishima is fixing it.

Which brings him in front of his best friend's door, his knuckles hovering over it.

'knock knock knock'

Three light knocks hit the door, loud enough to get Bakugos attention.

There's a long pause before the door opens, revealing the blonde man.

"hey man, what's up?" Kirishimas head tilts with a compassionate look on his face, and Bakugos eyes soften ever so slightly. "Nothing." He replies.

"okay, well you haven't talked to me in like, a week?" The reds arms cross over his chest as he confronts Bakugo.

"so what?"

"'so what?!'" Kirishima repeats, "Bakugo, you're my best friend !" He takes a deep breath in an attempt to regulate his temper, "I don't know what I did, but I'm sorry."

Bakugo's heart aches, and he licks his teeth in annoyance. "You didn't do anything shitty hair." That raises Kirishima's confusion through the roof, so, he didn't do anything, but his best friend doesn't want to talk to him???

Bakugo's shoulders slump in regret, "I can't tell you." Is the last thing before he shuts the door, not slams like he usually does, shuts quietly like he didn't want to disturb anyone.

"then why have you been avoiding me? I don't get it.." his eyes drift down to the ground.

'Bakugo will come along'

Kirishima says in his head.

Knowing that he's very stubborn

˚₊‧꒰ა ☆ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚

Another two weeks pass, still nothing from Bakugo, you may not have been close to him, but seeing your boyfriends performance deteriorate because of this "break up" was driving you insane. Who did this man think he was shutting out the sweetest guy ever???

So guess where you are?

At Katsuki Bakugo's door. With your hand placed on your hips with a determined look on your face. You bring your hand up.

'Knock Knock Knock'

Three knocks, each one seeming rougher than the last.

There's no pause, the door opens almost immediately.

"what the h-" The man stutters

"who do you think you are?" A finger jabs into his chest as you push him back into his room, forcing yourself in as well. "What makes you think you can ignore Ejiro and get away with it? He's hurt, you insensitive asshole !"

He should have known you'd come to confront him too, but he didn't.

His lip turns up in mock disgust, actually his heart is pounding with how close you are, he just hopes you can't feel it.

"I mean seriously? You're not man enough to talk about it??" You take your finger off his chest.

"get off of me" he grabs your wrist, and pushes it. "I don't own you anything"

"not me, Kirishima." You say putting your hands on your hips, "I don't need to know anything, I don't really care, but Kirishima does, he cares about you a lot"

Bakugo chews on the inside of his cheek. "Whatever, get out."

"you'll talk to Kirishima." You demand, and he rolls his eyes, "okay, get out" you walk out turning around before he shuts the door.

You walk away, feeling a little bit better about yourself

[mirophobic2]

(hey, I post fic recs, follow me :3)

⌗ : Kiribaku x readers have me in a chokehold pls help

Bakugo stands at the island in the dorm room kitchen glaring at You and Kirishima who are sitting on the couch. Your legs thrown over his lap, and arms crosses over your chest, as he scratches up and down your shin, rambling on about his day, quietly laughing when you make a joke.

He hated PDA. Especially when it was you two. Because he couldn't tell who he wanted to be more.

He fell in love with Kirishima first, then Kirishima started dating you. And he hated you for the longest time, until one day he walked in on the two of you making out.

It took you a second to even realize the door had opened, but when you did you pulled away quickly and wiped your swollen lips off, staring up at him in embarrassment, mumbling a soft "sorry bakugo...".

Something clicked in his head, you were hot too. He didn't know what to do, he couldn't have both of you, hell he couldn't even have one of you!

it angers him to no end.

Bakugo crosses him arms and licks his teeth, he can't seem to tear his eyes away when Kirishima leans in to kiss you, he mumbles something before connecting your lips, a smile reaches yours.

"get a room!" He barks from his spot in the kitchen, making both of your heads turn to him in surprise. "Bakugo! I didn't see you there!" Kirishima says lifting your legs off of his lap to go talk to his best friend.

Bakugo tenses up, but does a good job at hiding how nervous he was to talk to him.

"what is it with you and walking in on us kissing?" Kirishima jokes leaning his torso over the island with that wide, bright, annoying smile on his face.

The blonde licks his bottom tongue in annoyance, "I don't do it on purpose." he scowls, and Kirishima laughs again. "I don't know... You seem to do it a lot." A tuff of h/c hair is spotted over his shoulder, as you wrap your arms around his waist and kiss a spot on his neck, "Im gonna go to my room, 'kay?" Your voice is slightly over a whisper, it's warm and comforting.

He watches as you walk away, "isn't she amazing?" Kirishima says, with that love sick look in his eyes. "I mean, she's everything I could have ever asked for, she's smart, and insanely strong willed" he sighs, and Bakugo turns his head to look at him, but Kirishimas eyes don't move.

Bakugo heart aches, but he scoffs "you two are disgusting, good night, shitty hair..." His feet hit the ground roughly with every step he takes towards his room.

God he hates couples, especially you two.

[mirophobic2]

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Hypothetical

WC: 461 Pairing: OT8 X reader (everyone platonic except Chan.)

Navigation

“I want Seungmin and Lee Know!” She demanded pointing at the two men who had been watching the conversation take place with amused grins. Chan and his girlfriend had been trying to break the group up into groups so that if anything were to ever happen between them they’d each have their own friends from the group.

“What? no I want Lee Know.” Chan refuted earning an offended look from Seungmin.

“Why don’t you argue for me?” Seungmin wondered, making Chan simply look at him with zero expression.

“Because Lee Know doesn’t make fun of my age. And he cooks all of the time. Also you are the exact same as her, why would I separate you two?”

Fair point, Seungmin deemed in his head before watching the argument continue.

“I want Felix.” Chan added, making his girlfriend look offended.

“Oh hell no you can’t take both Lee Know and Felix.”

“Okay you can have Lee Know then.” Chan huffed with a frown, knowing that Felix was definitely closest to him.

“I want Han.” 

“What?” Jisung asked as he walked into the room to get water looking between the two confused.

“They’re picking who out of the friendgroup they get if they ever get into an argument.” Lee Know explained with an amused grin.

“Why not let us pick a side?” Jisung wondered,  making the two scoff.

“No then it’ll be uneven.” She huffed out, making Jisung look at her oddly.

“It’ll be uneven anyway there are 9 of us.”

“Shit!” The two let out in unison.

“And why can’t we just hang out with you guys separately?” Hyunjin asked, peeking from around the corner he had been hiding behind. 

“You can have Hwang.” She said, looking away from the tall boy to the muscular one in front of her.

“No, I insist you keep him.”

“Hey!”

“I can’t have both Jisung and Hyunjin, they're both dramatic, they're worse together.”

“Honestly in what world would you ever get into an argument? You guys are perfect for each other.”Jeongin wondered, also emerging from his eavesdropping spot with Felix.

“I will battle you to the death for Innie.” She said more determined than any of them had ever seen.

“You aren’t getting Innie!” 

And with that the two broke out into a playful wrestle, each of them trying to make it to the maknae but being held back by the other each time.

“Does this mean we get two Christmas parties?”Changin asked casually as he popped out of the cabinet he wedged himself in. 

And with that the group of 8 calmed down from the banter and instead crashed to the floor laughing watching as the tiny and muscular man tried to wiggle himself out of the confines of the wood.

[mirophobic2]

“what was your approach to handling such a chaotic villian?” the interviewer asked.

“he wasn’t difficult to detain. his mannerisms were sporadic but he just needed a rough hand to calm him down.” pro hero dynamite was pulled aside after capturing a villian for a quick post-fight interview. the area had been closed off and his media team had previously advised him to participate in more interviews to gain public reaction and support. though he was more reserved and preferred focusing more on hero work than the media aspect of the job, he reluctantly agreed. his team acknowledged his distain for being involved in the media so they advised that he come off as neutral-tone as possible. it was the only way for him to tolerate the “annoying” interview while giving a decent impression. it was a bonus that he was more than camera ready since the fight didn’t even make him break a sweat.

“did you find what his objective was?”

“something about his lack of control in his life and how he never felt seen or hear-“ he had noticed throughout the interview that some of the camera crew were giggling at something behind him. it only caused him to pause mid sentence when the reporter asking him these questions began to be distracted as well.

he scolded at the crew before swiftly turning his head to see what was so damn funny.

all he saw was you and kiri red riot jumping around, on the other side of the street making absolute fools of yourselves as you try to add a comedic factor to the #2 hero’s interview. the crew expected a roll of the eyes and an annoyed scoff from dynamite, but the reaction they did receive was one they knew would get the broadcast attraction and views.

the members behind the camera widened their eyes as dynamite chuckled. a genuine laugh paired with a smile that fans online would post about later that evening, talking about the possibility of a secret charm under the pro hero’s rough exterior.

he looked back to the pair of you again, before quickly turning around and committing a full-speed sprint towards you. he only had to run halfway across the street before you and red riot panicked when you processed you were being chased and quickly turned to head back to where you two were supposed to be. the camera followed you two until you both turned to look back at dynamite with teasing smiles , and when the camera returned to the hero walking back to his place, it caught him putting his hand down after flipping you off.

standing back for the interview, his demeanor was more calm. still tense from his spontaneous run, but his eyes and shoulders were more relaxed. that didn’t change the fact that as soon as he continued to finish his interrupted answer, his tough attitude returned.

“how have you felt the last couple weeks after revealing your engagement to both of the heroes that stood behind you just then? do you think coming out with your relationship dynamic has affected you in any way related to your work?”

the boldness of the question stunned him to a impulsive response, “my personal life has nothing to do with who i am as a hero. i-“ katsuki thinks for a moment. a quick second. he continues in a calmer tone.

“my personal life has no affect on what i do physically. i am still watching the streets and saving lives because that’s what i have to do. it’s my responsibility. but the reason why i do it has recently changed. it’s not just cause i want to be the best. i have two lives that i am now dedicated to protecting and i will stop at nothing to make sure that the streets that i walk home with them on are safe.”

that clip was trending for weeks.

[mirophobic2]

so high school.

pairing: shota aizawa x fem!pro!hero, highschool sweatheart type au, friends to lovers to strangers to lovers, my storyline bc yee

content warning: some mha violence, mdni, angsty but dw comfort will come.

︶︶︶ ⊹ ︶︶ ୨♡୧ ︶︶︶ ⊹ ︶︶︶

“cause i, feel so high school. every time, i look at you.”

in which ua's newest faculty member has a history with the grouchiest faculty member on staff.

part one: so high school

part two: i can do it with a broken heart

part three: fortnight

part four: guilty as sin?

part five: the alchemy

taglist (2/50): @pixelcafe-network @mjuhgydxf @mirophobic

[mirophobic2]

Laptop Delivery - Bang Chan

Practice got a little more eventful thanks to an forgotten laptop.

It was a peaceful morning. Fresh from your shower, you padded into your kitchen, planning to grab a quick breakfast before heading to uni. But something on the counter stopped you in your tracks – Chris' laptop.  

Your heart sank. He’d stayed over last night but had to leave early for dance practice. The sight of his laptop sitting on the counter screamed trouble. Normally, he wouldn’t bring it over – it was too precious, filled with tracks, demos, and other vital material for the group. You knew his schedule was packed, and forgetting something this important could only mean bad news.

You snapped a picture of it and sent it to him with the caption:

"Forgot something?"

Still, you couldn’t shake the thought that it might be much more important. Without hesitation, you called him, even though you knew he was at practice.  

After a few rings, he picked up, slightly breathless. "Hey, baby. I’m… kinda at practice right now – what’s up?"  

"Did you leave your laptop here on purpose?" you asked, though you already knew the answer.  

"What?" His voice was sharp with confusion. "No, I thought I— wait, let me check the picture you send me."  

A muffled curse followed as realization hit. "Oh shit, no. I’ve got a meeting with some producers right after practice. I can’t believe I left it there." His tone was laced with stress.  

Chris hesitated. "I—" he started, then stopped himself. You could almost hear the gears turning in his head. He was probably considering rushing back to your place after practice, which would make him late for the meeting. Worse, you wouldn’t even be there to open the door since you'd already be at uni by then.

"I… could… bring it to you," you offered cautiously, knowing what value the device had to the group.  

"Really? Would that be possible?" His voice softened, a mixture of relief and guilt.  

"Yeah, but I’d have to leave now. I still have uni today," you said, already moving to grab your things.  

"Ah, that's amazing. You're an angel," he said warmly. "I’ll text you the room number."  

Skipping breakfast, you grabbed his laptop and headed out. On the way, you planned to stop by a bakery for something quick after the delivery, before heading straight to class.  

-----

At the JYP building, you knocked lightly on the practice room door, despite Chris’ text saying you could walk right in. The door opened to reveal Felix, his face lighting up with a grin.  

"Hey!" he greeted, pulling you into a quick hug.  

"Hi, Lix," you replied with a small smile. From across the room, Chris’ head shot up, his eyes locking on you. Relief and affection softened his expression as he quickly made his way towards you.  

"Hey," he murmured, stopping just in front of you.  

"Hi," you replied, reaching into your bag to pull out his laptop. As soon as the sleek silver device emerged, the room fell silent.  

The members froze, eyes wide. It wasn’t just a laptop to them; they knew what was inside – tracks, demos, lyrics, everything. The fact that you were holding it was proof of something bigger: the trust Chris had in you.

But before anyone could speak, Chris gently pulled you into the room, his fingers brushing your cheeks as he softly pulled your mask down.  

And then, he kissed you.  

It was natural, familia – something the two of you had done countless times before. But here, in the quiet practice room, with – unbeknownst to you – all eyes on you, it felt different. His lips were warm and soft, a silent expression of gratitude and love.  

The members didn’t move, still processing what they were seeing. None of them had expected this. Sure, they knew how much Chris cared about you, but seeing it displayed so openly caught them off guard.  

When he finally pulled back, his ears burned red, and he muttered a sheepish "I’ll call you later, okay? Thanks again", as he took the laptop from your hands.  

You, cheeks blazing, barely managed a nod as you stepped back. The silence lingered for a beat longer before you mumbled, "Y-yeah. Bye, everyone."

You turned and left, closing the door behind you.  

The moment the door clicked shut, chaos erupted.  

"YAH, HYUNG!"  

"I can't believe you just did that!"

"PDA MUCH?!”

"Channie hyung, what was that?!"

"Wow, so smooth. Too bad your ears give you away."  

Outside, you heard the screaming teasing very clearly and couldn’t help but smile, your cheeks still burning as you walked down the hallway. Chris could handle the teasing – he brought it upon himself after all.  

masterlist

[mirophobic2]

Not So Romeo

-> Your decades long family feud may finally be coming to an end. But when your sister's engagement to his brother is on the rocks, Minho asks for your help to keep the fued from kindling again.

Minho x fem!reader

fake dating!au, enemies to lovers, fluff, angst if you squint

7K

warnings: minor injury + mention of blood, cursing, kissing

another repost from my old blog <3 idk I just wanted to :) low-key proofread but don't hold me to that lol

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

It's funny your parents named your younger sister Juliet. She's not reckless or disobedient or stupid. Actually, your sister is very level headed and logical. So when she came to the family with a ring on her finger, it was a bit of a shock.

What was even more of a shock was the man on her arm.

"Felix!?"

You'd never heard your father sound so offended. There's no way your sister could logic her way out of this one. Marrying the son of your rivaling family made no logical sense!

"Juliet, why?" Your mother tried to empathize because she knew the tendency to be attracted to bad boys. But she just couldn't understand her daughter's attraction to this one.

It took months of reasoning and convincing, family get-togethers and interventions, but eventually — as much as you can't believe it – Juliet did it. She convinced your parents the feud between families had to end.

Juliet and Felix's love for each other had won over the hearts of both sides. Soon enough everyone was laughing and eating together like the feud never happened. It was a miracle to say the least. Except for one tiny detail…

Felix's older brother.

Minho.

The parents were okay. Felix was actually kinda cool. Their dog was cute. Minho was a living nightmare. No, you were not a fan of the older brother of this family and you did not intend to be a fan.

No matter how much your sister was madly in love, there was no way you were ever going to get along with Minho. The two of you just didn't make sense. He was all uptown, proper rich fuckboi vibes while you worked to put food on your plate.

For your entire upbringing, you were bred to despise him. But suddenly your family expected you to play nice? Your siblings would be married in a matter of months, and that meant everyone had to at least try to get along with everyone else. For as long as your families hated each other, as soon as love was on the table, all that history went out the window.

Except for you.

And then came the day you thought the world would surely end.

"Minho and I are…what!?"

"Dating!" Your aunt sings. "I heard about it from the uncles and it's just so adorable. Picture it! A double wedding! No pressure though, dear. Obviously you haven't been dating Minho very long–"

"I haven't dated Minho at all!"

"--no one would expect you to be ready to marry by the time Juliet and Felix do, but isn't the thought just precious? Oh, I remember when your uncle asked me to marry him. It was a Tuesday around midnight, nothing special, but then…"

It all fades to mush at that point. Your aunt could rant for days about her husband but you're not interested. Not when you've got a major problem on your hands now.

Dating…seriously? Does Minho know about this? You're kinda excited to see his reaction when he finds out. Oh god, the riot he's gonna rage. Flipping tables, cursing out family members, the absolute denial is gonna be legendary.

You know he can't stand you either. The two of you were born into feuding families; it's in your bones to hate each other.

You walk into the family room with an entertained grin. This should be fun.

There's games and food and conversation and food. Oh yeah, and food.

Your family owns a pizza parlor, and Minho's family…also owns a pizza parlor. So, the food is mainly pizza but you're okay with that. It's comfort food at this point.

You spot your sister and Felix sitting lovey dovey on the couch while your parents ask them questions and make notes for wedding preparations. It seems fun, but you'll pass on the awkward giggles and indecisive color schemes just this once.

You do hear a specific rumor growing in popularity around the gathering. Part of you believes it'll die down with time, when no one sees you or Minho acting fondly towards the other person, people will get the picture.

Standing in line at the pizza table in the kitchen, you start to double guess yourself when a certain someone saunters their way up to you to strike a conversation completely unprovoked.

"Hey, idiot."

"Go away, Minho."

"Can't."

You drop a slice of pizza on your plate and turn around. "Fine. I'll go."

"Wait wait wait!" He catches your elbow before you get too far, bringing you to a pause. "I need to talk to you."

"If it's about the rumor, don't worry. It'll die down eventually. Just ignore it--"

"Play along."

His interrupting is rude enough as it is, but his suggestion is even more preposterous.

"What?"

"Play along with the rumor," he repeats, nodding as if you'll magically understand because now he's said it twice.

You watch him for a moment, eyes narrow while your expression slowly shifts from surprise to disgust.

"No."

"Please?"

"No."

Minho shakes your elbow now, urging you. "Can we talk about this? Somewhere alone?"

You don't like the idea. It feels wrong to be alone with him standing in the kitchen let alone to purposefully leave the group setting of your families to have a private conversation. Then people probably really will start talking.

You sigh, "Make it quick."

Being dragged by your wrist into a back bedroom was not on your to do list. Chances are you're not going to enjoy this conversation either.

It is curious though, considering Minho has never shown eagerness in any shape or form before, none that you can recall at least. The way he's pulling you along and disregarding other possibly more important things he could be doing right now, your anticipation is growing.

Is something seriously wrong? And if something is wrong, what does it have to do with you? Even more, why does Minho feel the immediate need to tell you about it?

He closes the door behind you, effectively locking you into whatever it is you've gotten yourself into.

"Felix is having second thoughts."

"About marrying my sister?"

"Yeah."

"Why?"

Minho runs a hand through his hair, shaking his head while frantically pacing across the carpet. "He's nervous, cold feet, pre-wedding jitters, whatever. He's afraid that all this, you know, our families getting along isn't gonna last. Then he'll lose Juliet and the feud will start again."

"Valid," you mutter to yourself. "I don't get what that has to do with me."

"When he heard that you and I were dating, all his jitters went away."

So Minho does know about the rumor. Doesn't seem like he's been doing anything about it though, the unhelpful douche.

"Okay…and?"

"If he sees that we don't get along, he'll break up with your sister for sure."

You shrug. "That's his decision. Not my problem. If he's not man enough to marry her on his own, then fine."

"What is wrong with you?"

"Probably a lot, what's your point?"

"Don't you care about your sister?" Minho chides, coming to stand in front of your unbothered stance.

You lift your chin to see him eye to eye. "Of course I do."

"Well, I've never seen Felix this happy before. When our families were fighting, he was this depressed, angry, emo kid who never left his room and listened to jazz all the time--"

"Well, Jazz is confirmed to be evil."

"I'm serious about this," he masks his amused smile with a frown but it was there, you heard his giggle. "Ever since he fell in love with your sister, he's been a totally different person. Felix is healthy and happy now. I know he wants to marry her and I don't want to do anything to jeopardize that happiness."

Hold up, Minho has a heart? His words suggest he cares about someone other than himself, but that can't be right. You've always known Minho to not care about anything or anyone. Actually, you've never seen him this genuinely serious before in the lifetime of years you've known him.

"Wow. I had no idea your family is that close."

"So will you do it?"

"Let me get this straight. We pretend to date and be all perfect and happy to keep Felix from getting cold feet about marrying my sister."

"Right."

You blink, shifting your weight. The nervousness this idea brings you is no joke. "Okay, so when do I dump you?"

"You can dump me the moment they say I do," he says with a firm nod.

"Can I say it's because you're a bad guy who broke my heart?"

"Sure."

"Into a million tiny pieces?"

His smile is soft when he rolls his eyes. "Whatever, I don't care."

"Okay." You can't believe you're doing this. "Deal."

Stepping from the bedroom, it's like entering a whole new battlefield. You look down and see Minho with his hand held out for you to take. Instead, you shoot him a questionable brow and shake your head. Probably should have discussed boundaries before you agreed to this.

"Oh, there you two are!" Your aunt cheers when she spots you.

Minho grabs your hand and interlocks your fingers as naturally as if you'd been together for months. His smile is convincing, so much so you have to remind yourself he's not enjoying this.

"Coming!" He replies, and then mutters under his breath to just you, "We're dating now. At least act like you like me."

"I'm not paid enough for that."

Your sister calls you two over to the living area where she's cradled into Felix's side. It's when you see her there, completely oblivious and perfectly happy, that you feel a click of responsibility and determination to keep her that way.

Damn it. Minho was right for the first time in history.

Squeezing Minho's hand tightly, you lead the way over. "We're here," you chime to the rest of the family. "Sorry for the disappearance."

They all awe at your interlocked fingers, hands over hearts and sighs of agreement from your parents. It's strange to think these people literally hated each other a few months ago. They were all at each other's throats before Felix and your sister started sneaking around at night. Who would have thought two twenty-something young adults humping in the closet would have written the treaty to a twenty year long family feud.

"So the rumors are true?"

Minho is quick to reply, "Yep, that's right! ___ and I are dating. Happily."

He had to add that last part.

Felix's eyes grow ten times. "I thought it was a rumor."

"No way, haha, it's true!" Minho chuckles. You roll your eyes. Could he be a little more obvious?

Your sister is skeptical, but she shrugs and lets it roll off her shoulders. She's got enough on her mind to wonder about the veracity of your relationship with her future brother-in-law.

Felix leans over and gives her a kiss on the cheek, sparking a chorus of awe and praises from the crowd. It's almost as if you can physically see the fears and concerns actually fall from his mind. He pulls Juliet closer and she sighs in contentment.

And then they're all looking at you.

"What?" Minho asks, eyes bouncing between you and his family.

"Go on. Your turn."

"Why?"

There he is. The Minho you knew was still in there, brotherly love or whatever. His face is full of offense. The audacity of kissing your cheek never once crossed his mind when he suggested fake dating. Hand holding, sure. Sitting next to each other at the table, yeah fine. Even the occasional compliment, okay doable. Kissing!? Uhhh, wait a second.

You can't help it. Your smile is from a place of victory to be honest, because he was the one who begged you to do this and now he's the one who's gonna blow the whole operation. There's no way in hell–

There's an audible gasp from your lungs when you feel his lips touch your cheek.

"What reaction is that?" Your sister giggles. "First time getting a kiss from your boyfriend?"

She's referring to the intense blush on your cheeks and slight tremor in your eyes. You want to drop his hand, run away, wash your face, and perhaps jump off a bridge. But Minho keeps your hand locked in place, unable to let go even if you jerked.

"It just caught me by surprise is all," you say.

Minho doesn't comment but you kinda wish he would. For the rest of the evening, he avoids speaking on it, low-key acting like it didn't happen. Even more, he avoids similar situations or conversations, anything that may possibly place him in another compromising position. Appreciate the effort but the avoidance is simultaneously frustrating.

God forbid he has to kiss you again.

The thought makes you shudder. It's fine. There's no way this game of pretend will get that far. You just have to make it to the wedding and then you can dump his ass. Piece of cake.

::

Dating Minho isn't so bad when you're alone. Partially because you don't have to act like you're dating when you're alone. And mainly because you haven't had to be alone since you started dating him.

Until now.

"Hi."

"Hey."

You gesture to your grocery list of streamers and sparkles and other miscellaneous decorative materials. Pink. Because your sister would be having a pink-themed wedding of all things.

"I got volunteered," you explain, somehow embarrassed at the thought of Minho thinking you're here of your own will and want.

He holds up a list of his own. "Same. Should we just go together?"

"You want to?"

He shrugs. "Better than shopping alone."

It clicks in your mind that Minho is suggesting being with you is better than being alone. Which to someone like Minho, may not be implying a whole lot. But for some reason, it feels like his invitation to shop with you means more.

"Okay. If you're sure."

"Let's go."

He ushers you along by the waist. A bold decision to put a hand on you considering he has absolutely no right or reason to. Not that you stop or scold him. It's not that big a deal, probably just leftover from acting like a couple all day. Your heart will calm down in a few moments anyway.

The local store is packed with frantic shoppers today. Every single aisle has people rushing and digging through piles on top of piles of discounted merchandise. You're not necessarily looking forward to fighting all those people for the last streamer or sparkler.

"What's the occasion?" Minho mutters just loud enough for you to hear. He checks the list again and sighs, "Now I know why no one else wanted to do this errand."

"Yeah," you offer a nervous chuckle and he turns his head towards you.

Your eyes meet for a brief moment and, although you don't verbally express any concern, he seems to pick up on something in your eyes.

"You good?"

"Hm? Yeah, fine."

He doesn't believe you. And if he were actually your boyfriend, maybe he would call you out on it. Maybe he would grab your hand just to make you feel a little more secure in the crowd. Maybe he would lift your hand to his lips, place a soft kiss on your knuckles and whisper -- nevermind, he's not your real boyfriend so there's no point in thinking about all that bullshit.

You and Minho slip through the aisles, hands unheld, until you find the one with the streamers. He starts stacking pink streamers in his arms until you stop him with a hand on his bicep.

"What are you doing?"

"Grabbing pink streamers," he says plainly. "The list says pink."

"Shouldn't we get some correlating colors, you know, so we can do the twist thing?"

He slowly looks at you, head tilting with an amused smile creeping on his lips. "Twist thing?"

"The thing you do with streamers where you take two colors and twist them," you explain as if this should be obvious (because it should be).

"Yeah, I know what it is."

"Okay so," you gesture to the disheveled arrangement of multicolored rolls, "pick some other ones too."

Minho decides to laugh instead, covering his smile with the back of his hand and shaking his head as if you've asked for something comically unthinkable.

"What?"

"Nothing," he insists before picking up two more rolls of streamers and presenting them to you. "Pink and white?"

"Yeah, that's good. Let's also get some–"

A sudden shove interrupts your conversation and sends you falling forward. The jerkface perpetrator rushes past you just to cut someone else off in line at the register. Unfortunately, Minho's reflexes aren't quick enough to stop your forehead from crashing directly into his chin.

"Oh fuck!" He shouts, immediately dropping the streamers and cradling his jaw.

Your hands are on your head, holding what feels like a bruise forming under your skin already. Shots of pain flood your forehead and the room spins for a moment while you gather yourself.

You hiss in pain, softly rubbing the sore spot on your head. "Fucking dick." You look up to see Minho doubling over, eyes shut tight. "Are you alright?"

Slowly, Minho opens his eyes and removes his hand to reveal small drops of red from his mouth puddling in the center of his palm.

"Oh my god!?" You spring into action by removing your jacket and using the sleeve to apply pressure to his bloody chin.

He shakes his head.

"No negotiating, bonehead, just use it."

Eventually you get him to cooperate, but he doesn't look happy about pressing the soft sleeve to his jaw while his blood soaks through the material and leaves stains you know you'll never be able to wash out.

"Okay, umm, let's just get back to the house and we've got some pain relievers and bandages."

Minho nods, one eye still shut tight in agony as he moves slowly with you down the aisle.

"Fucking move, people! Can't you see the fucking blood!" You shout at people who are more concerned about getting their fifteen percent off paper plates than they are about your pretend boyfriend's bleeding mouth.

Glancing over your shoulder every so often, you help maneuver the way out of the building, his face still scrunched in pain and steps shuffling across the dirty floor.

"Oops. Sorry."

As you pass the register, your elbow accidentally knocks into the rude gentleman who pushed you earlier. He drops the drinks he was carrying with a gasp, spilling cartons of lemonade and rum all over the floor. Accidentally.

::

"It's fine now," Minho insists when you reach towards his chin with a cloth for the fifth time.

"Shut up," you sigh, angling his chin with two fingers to get a better view, "and let me check."

With you coming in this close, Minho feels his breath catch in his throat. His jaw aches but it's nothing compared to the thump in his chest stealing every ounce of oxygen. Why do you have to look so intense while checking his injury? It's not the worst thing he's gone through and it certainly won't be the most painful thing he'll ever experience. But you're so…concerned. Like you actually care.

Thankfully, his lip doesn't seem to be split too horribly. Although, his teeth are subtlety red, but that's because the previous blood was a result of his teeth painfully sinking into his tongue.

The guilt, despite your mild dislike for the boy, grows significantly when he jerks in pain at your thumb putting pressure on the small split on his lip.

"I didn't mean to."

"It's okay," he says, but you don't feel okay when he grabs your wrist and removes your hand from his chin.

"Here," you quickly make him a cup of water from the sink, "your mouth probably tastes awful."

"Yeah well, never been a massive fan of blood."

"Good to know you're not a vampire."

He offers a smirk through the pain and takes a drink, spitting into the sink. "What if I was?"

"Unfortunately, I don't think we could continue dating. Blood sucking monster just doesn't do it for me."

"Come on, every girl loves vampires."

"Not this one," you disagree with a cute tilt of your head. You take the glass from him and begin washing it once he's done.

It's odd that a conversation happens sweetly between the two of you. Minho can't think of a single time you willingly engaged with him and didn't look upset or forced. He tucks his hands into his pockets and leans against the wall.

"Okay, so what does it for you?"

"What do you mean?"

"If it's not vampires, then...?"

You scoff, "Why do you wanna know?"

"As your fake boyfriend, I feel like I should know," he claims with a smile.

"I'm not telling you."

"Because it's werewolves."

His tone is playful and enticing, what the heck? You can't help your curiosity as to where he intends to take this conversation, if anywhere. His stance would suggest he doesn't have a care in the world, but his eyes portray someone who wants to learn all your secrets.

"Did you just…that was a joke, right?"

He just shrugs, not really giving an answer but still expecting one from you.

With the atmosphere lightening every few moments, you feel an odd sense of comfort falling over the conversation, one you definitely were not anticipating. It makes you want to be honest, which you admit, you haven't felt for a long time living with your family.

You lean against the sink and cross your arms, facing him on the opposite wall of the room. "Kindness. I wasn't taught that growing up. My family...it wasn't something really modeled to me."

Minho pushes off the wall, slowly taking steps towards you, hands still hidden deep in his pockets and eyes locked onto your closed off body language. As he approaches, you feel your body putting up a wall, completely unprompted but you can't stop it.

He halts only a few inches away, about the time you can't keep up your faux unbothered expression.

"Thanks for fixing me up." His voice is low, barely a whisper. But he's close enough now it doesn't need to be any louder for you to hear.

"Considering it was my head that busted your lip, I felt obligated."

"I think you were being kind."

"You say that but…" you want to refute his comment, but you're a little lost for words being dragged this deep into his eyes. How are they so complicated and yet simply beautiful?

They bounce upward for a moment and then back down again. "Your forehead."

"Just a little bruise. Honestly, it's fine. Doesn't even hurt that much."

"Wait here," he commands and your body obeys for some unknown reason.

At least you have a few free moments to catch your breath you didn't realize was stolen.

When he returns, he's holding a small bandage between his fingers. He starts to open it but you're quick to refuse.

"You're not obligated to care about me."

"I know," he says and places the bandage over your bruise, pressing lightly to make sure it sticks without catching any of your hair, "I'm just doing my fake boyfriend duty."

You've never been so confused in your life. This is the guy your family convinced you was the worst kid in the neighborhood. He was your enemy, your roadblock, your biggest threat. From the moment you could talk, you were taught to curse his existence. It was so easy to form a negative image of him in your mind and, since you didn't know any better, you believed it.

But this isn't the Minho you thought you knew. This guy is thoughtful and funny and…kind.

What else were you wrong about?

His eyes glance at your lips once before he's taking a step back, nervously shoving his hands back into his pockets.

"Anyway, umm, I should go actually buy those streamers now."

"Yeah, we should probably—"

"We?"

You stop. "I mean, you can go by yourself if you want. I didn't mean to assume we would, umm…"

"Go together?" He finishes for you. "Do you want to?"

It's weird that you're nervous, but it's just the moment. You're all caught up in it. This doesn't mean anything. Minho's soft smile doesn't mean anything.

"Sure."

::

He doesn't see a damn difference.

"This one is Cherry Blossom, this one is Light Pink, and this one is Bubblegum," Juliet explains for the umpth time with a frustrated sigh.

Felix scratches the back of his head with an embarrassed scrunch of his nose. "They look the same to me…"

"They're not even close to the same! Bubblegum is clearly more playful, and Cherry Blossom is clearly lighter than Light Pink. What are you not getting!?"

The door opens with a small creek and immediately, Juliet rushes to greet you, dragging you into the room and towards the bed where she has three scraps of fabric laid out.

"Thank god, you're here." She points to the difference shades of pink. "What do you think?"

"Well," you take a moment to examine your options, "this one is definitely more playful, but this one is definitely lighter than the others."

"Thank you!" Your sister throws her arms to the ceiling and you can't help your giggle, unsure of what you've done exactly, but her reaction is entertaining. "Could you explain that to this doofus, please? I've got some other things to take care of."

Before you can even reply, your sister is gone, stomping out stress as she leaves the door wide open behind her.

Felix sighs and drops on the bed, head in his hands. "What am I even doing?"

"Looks like you're helping pick out curtains for the venue."

"No, I mean what am I even doing getting married?" He clarifies, shifting the atmosphere drastically. "I don't know the first thing about being a husband. I can't even tell the difference between fucking curtain colors."

Slowly, you sit down next to him. The pink is nice but you have to agree, it's a lot to take in, even for you. You're not surprised he's considering dropping everything. Juliet can be a lot to handle sometimes regardless of her rationality and charm. Minho mentioned Felix was having second thoughts, but it didn't really click with you until right now when you're viewing it in real time.

"Do you love my sister?"

He looks at you, answering without missing a beat. "Of course, I do. She's the love of my life, I can't imagine being without her."

"Well, there you go," you say plainly. "That's why you're getting married."

It seems like it would be obvious but sometimes the obvious things need to be said out loud.

Felix chuckles, feeling rather childish about his wedding jitters. "Yeah, I guess you're right. Sometimes I can make things more complicated than they need to be. Minho usually helps me think straight, but he's been out all day."

"Are you really having second thoughts?" You ask slowly.

He shrugs. "Just wanna make sure I'm doing the right thing, you know? I love Juliet, but is that enough? Our families don't have the strongest history. To be honest, when I heard you and Minho were dating, it was a relief. Felt like there's someone else on our side."

Felix has valid concerns. They sound similar to the concerns you verbalized to Minho when he suggested you fake date for the sake of your siblings. In the end, you decided to play along and now you're realizing just how vital you're getting along with Minho is to the happiness of both sides of the family.

"You love each other. And since we all love you guys, we'll learn to get along," you reply.

"You make it sound easy."

"I don't think it'll be that difficult actually."

"Easy for you to say." He runs a hand through his hair and falls to his back with a heavy sigh. "You're dating my brother already."

"Right."

"How's that going by the way?"

"Good," you answer without looking at him. The back of your head must be a less than satisfying sight because in the next moment, Felix sits up to see your face.

He leans in closer and asks with great anticipation, "What do you like about him?"

"Pfftt, lots of things."

"Like?"

Totally blank. Minho's face flashes behind your eyes but nothing concrete is there. You've never thought about it, so you're not entirely sure what to say. As long as you don't panic, you can probably make it out of here alive without blowing operation fake it 'til you make it. Just think of any answer, any answer at all!

"Umm," you swallow to buy a few moments. Maybe start with something generic. "He's handsome."

Felix lifts his brow, nodding in agreement and waiting for the rest of your answer.

"And he's funny sometimes. And he's kind…" your voice softens, "...a lot kinder than I ever realized. I like when he casually says my name in conversation, like he's just saying it because he thinks it's pretty or some cliche shit like that. He's got these gold specs around his irises that glitter. And when he stands close to me I can see them. I never knew they were there before.”

"Wow."

"Huh?"

"You're whipped as fuck."

You didn't realize you were staring hopelessly at the wall until Felix's comment brought you back to the present.

"Whatever." Embarrassed, you shove his shoulder, looking away to somewhat disguise your shy smile, although it doesn't do much when Felix's already got the moment saved for teasing purposes later.

You stand and brush off your lap with nervous energy you didn't think you were capable of.

"Bubblegum," you say in an attempt to change the subject and possibly end the conversation, "Juliet wants you to pick Bubblegum."

And with that you make your way towards the exit, towards freedom.

"Hey, ___." You turn around at the doorway. "I can tell how much you like him. Minho's a lucky guy."

You weren't expecting a sting of pain in your chest. It causes your eyelids to flutter and your heart to second guess just how much of a lie you're telling at this point.

"I guess."

::

Four months later

You're not sure why they call it a rehearsal dinner when the majority of your tasks do not include cooking dinner or in fact eating it, the main two things you were anticipating doing.

Things you have done include hanging steamers, tying a hundred bows to chairs, polishing shoes, setting up tables, arranging bouquets, and not eating anything since 5am.

The main area is packed but thankfully the back storage room is relatively quiet. You can still hear the hustle and bustle outside but at least it's significantly quieter. This is where you're currently hiding, back pressed to the far wall with the light turned off and the door barely cracked.

Deep breaths. No one can ask you for anything in here. No one can come to you with another broken table or missing guest list or ripped bridesmaid dress. Three minutes. You just need three minutes of solitude.

About half way into your three minutes, the door pushes open and a hand reaches in to turn on the light.

"Shit–" Minho startles, fumbling as he steps into the room. "___? What are you doing in here?"

"Hiding," you answer with a comical whisper. "Quick, shut the door."

Minho checks behind himself before following your orders, looking over to see you chuckling through a sigh as the sound from outside dies down again.

"You good?"

"Just got a little overwhelmed," you reply. "It seems like nothing about this wedding can happen right the first time. And I always have to fix it."

He hums in agreement, searching the room for whatever it was he came here to get. You watch him for a moment, hands behind you and flat against the wall.

You haven't been alone with him in a while. There have been times obviously, but they always happen the same way. Minho zips his lips, perhaps casually commenting on how well the two of you are playing the characters of boyfriend and girlfriend.

You've gotten pretty good at it actually, if you can brag for just a sec. Holding his hand doesn't feel foreign anymore. Just the other day, you slipped your hand into his while walking to the car. No one in particular was watching, but your dad ended up spotting it, so that was your excuse for interlocking fingers.

Minho has gotten braver too, although his actions feel natural as well. Sitting next to you at meals is a given now, he wouldn't be caught dead sitting anywhere else. You catch him looking at you during group events or gatherings, checking in when he sees you starting to drift away from the crowd, watching for your reaction to jokes and stories.

It wasn't that long ago actually, the first time he placed his hand around your waist while no one was watching. You weren't doing anything special, just cleaning some space on the kitchen counter. When you moved across the floor with a pile of plates, you felt his hand slip around your waist as he moved around you. It was subtle, short-lived, but damn it, he was there.

Surprisingly, you didn't drop the plates and cut your feet up into little pieces. You remained cool and collected, never once showing your feelings on the surface.

Yes, you've developed feelings for Minho. Crazy things happen every day. The scariest part is that you're getting dangerously used to being someone special to him, but you know it won't be like this after next week.

The dilemma comes in the form of not knowing how he feels about you. Minho has confessed several times, sure, but it's not real. You can't take anything he says to be true, not when you're around your family.

But here, right now, alone, in this storage room. You could. If you only can find the courage to ask him.

You feel the heartbeat in your chest start to quicken the longer he stays. Granted it's because he hasn't found what he wants, but you find yourself thinking of ways to get him to stay just a few minutes longer.

"What are you looking for?"

"The arch isn't standing up straight," he explains, squatting to rummage through a box of tools.

"Can I help?"

"Sure."

You're not looking super hard but he doesn't need to know that. Your hand falls into a few boxes, pushing stuff around without really paying any attention to it.

"Wedding is this weekend," you conversate, seemingly innocent but actually you're searching for an opportunity, "how are you feeling?"

"Uhh yeah, fine," he replies without looking at you. He pulls another box from the bottom shelf and starts opening it.

"How should I dump you?"

He looks up for that.

"I guess, however you want."

"And if I don't want to," you shrug nonchalantly, "what then?"

Minho stands, only a few feet from where you've completely disregarded your mission of searching boxes. It feels like he's so far though, even when he takes a step closer to you.

"They're gonna be married in two days," he reminds you. "You played your part, very well might I add. The families are stronger than ever. Just say I broke your heart and we can be done with all this."

"Should I?"

You want him to say no. Say no! But he doesn't seem to be picking up on your signals. Or maybe he is but he doesn't want to let the conversation go there. Because he doesn't like you in real life. Because his acting skills are too good to be true.

"That was the plan, wasn't it?"

Perhaps this is the longest you've stared at him directly. But it's because once this wedding is over, you won't have any more excuses to look at him openly, hold his hand when you walk, sit next to him at meals. Things are gonna get...awkward. The way they always do after a breakup, nevermind this one will be fake. Your broken heart will be real.

"Pictures! Minho!? ___!? Where are you guys? It's time for pictures!"

Minho picks up a rogue screwdriver and a container of screws from the first box he sees. "This should work."

You've never seen him run away from anything so swiftly.

::

"Okay, happy couple, let's get some lovey dovey pics here. Show some love for each other!"

Juliet and Felix look more like each other every day. Not to say their outward appearances have changed all that much in the last four months, but you've noticed your sister's nose has started scrunching when she smiles and Felix fans himself when he's shy, a habit your sister picked up in eighth grade.

Their poses are adorable, as expected. He nuzzles her cheek and she fixes his tie. They also snap a few shots of their lips brushing, two very giggly smiles shining through when he dips her low and their foreheads touch.

"Okay, next couple!" The photographer calls.

"That's you guys," your sister urges, pushing you and Minho in front of the camera.

Minho immediately falls back on his boyfriend persona, smiling fondly at nothing in particular and agreeing to whatever Felix says. Minho looks at you. It was quick, but you saw the gold specs in his eyes flash discomfort.

He's uncomfortable.

"Let's get a little closer," the photographer directs you with a wave of his hand, one eye still looking through the lens. "There we go."

You play nice for a few pictures. You'll want your sister to look back at these and see her family and Felix's family enjoying themselves and taking pictures and laughing together. You know how much this means to her, so you pull Minho close and place one hand on his chest, like a classic girlfriend.

"You look so cute together!" Juliet squeals.

The photographer straightens his camera, twisting the lens to zoom in a little more. "Don't be shy, give her a kiss."

"I don't think that's–"

"Oh come on," Felix interrupts with a glorified whine, "just do it, it'll look cute. Oh, do the same pose we did and dip her!"

Your sister is equally on board with this idea but you can tell Minho is less than thrilled. He loosens his top shirt button, a nervous chuckle nearly choking him.

Slowly, he looks at you, silently asking for consent before he just dips you out of nowhere.

You eye the camera, shifting your eyes to see your cheering sister before they land on Minho's unsure gaze. You give him a small nod.

Gently, his hand slips around your waist, circling tighter until you're pulled flush against his body. Despite your supposedly affectionate and healthy relationship, you've never been this physically close to him. He's really warm, you can feel it though his suit.

His one hand supports your lower back while the other handles your waist. Carefully, he dips you low. There's a split moment about half way down where your weight is no longer in your control. It's an inevitable moment of fighting gravity and lost balance.

But you don't feel in danger being in Minho's arms. He holds you secure, back bent but not in pain, the world tilted on its side but he's in perfect focus.

Minho closes his eyes and leans his forehead against yours. But you can't shut your eyes now. They remain open, memorizing every eyelash and ridge of his lips. He smirks like he means it, even going so far as to nuzzle your nose with his, just to finish the job of breaking your heart into a million tiny pieces.

"Alright, got it!" The photographer says cheerily, signaling Minho to open his eyes again and pick you up. "Great job guys, that's gonna come out perfect!"

Everyone seems satisfied, so things move on to the next couple. Minho ends up behind the camera again, next to the groom where he receives countless compliments.

You end up in the bathroom stall, holding back the ache in your chest and smudged mascara at the expense of wrinkling your brand new, pink maid of honor dress.

::

"I do."

"I do."

In a matter of minutes, you're the only single daughter left in your family. Juliet is happily married, now experiencing her ever after to the fullest extent, complete with a pink, fairytale wedding and perfect prince-like husband.

Felix never had any second thoughts after that either. For the rest of his life, he put Juliet first. You think that's nice but perhaps unrealistic. If only people really could be selfless like that all the time, maybe heartbreak wouldn't be so common.

Out here on the grass, you once again find yourself drifting away from the party. You already gave your maid of honor speech and greeted the guests, so your work is done for the moment. It's a wedding, there will always be a next crisis. But for now, you're enjoying your evening stroll under the stars.

Until you hear footsteps coming up behind you.

"Hey."

"Hi."

Minho begins walking beside you, hands once again stuffed awkwardly in his pockets. His jacket was left somewhere, so it's just a white button up tucked into some slacks but you're still impressed with his look. How come he has to look so good after making you hurt so much?

"Where you going?"

"Just walking," you reply, kicking up blades of grass on your way.

Minho lets the silence simmer for a moment before speaking again. "So, when are you gonna dump my ass?"

Maybe he doesn't mean to, but he's making himself sound awfully impatient. The more he brings it up, the more he's unknowingly hurting you.

"Oh…right. Umm, well I figured I could do it later."

He nods in understanding, following your slower pace. Your shoes swing from where they hang on your fingers, the feeling of cool ground beneath your toes is perhaps the only relieving thing about this conversation. It kills you inside to know that you once hated this man, and then unintentionally and suddenly grew to like him, and now you have to break up with him before you even get the chance to tell him how you really feel.

"Or not."

Minho furrows his brow at you, going so far as to stop walking, which in turn makes you pause as well. "Not?"

"Just, you know, not break up."

"Like keep pretending to date?"

You turn to face him and take a deep breath. "Or date for real."

"You wanna date for real?"

"Look, I don't know when or how it happened, but I actually started to like you, Minho. A lot. And over the last months, I've been pretending a little less and a little less because I genuinely like you. I really like you. And the thought of breaking up and breaking hearts makes me want to cry. And I know it's completely insane to think anything real could ever happen between us, but I just--"

His nose actually bumps yours by accident when he suddenly kisses you, but you can't stay upset for even a millisecond, not when his lips move with yours so passionately. He doesn't wait to pull you closer, hands making little fists of your dress.

"I've wanted to do that for so long," he confesses through a breathless whisper.

His breath is warm against your lips as he lingers, unwilling to part from you for too long. There's a sense of desperation in his kiss, the way his fingers tighten around the fabric of your dress tells you he’s been aching for this moment, maybe just as much as you have.

When he kisses you again, it’s slower this time. He’s memorizing the shape of your mouth, your taste, your texture, your essence. His hand slides up your body, skimming over your back, until it finds its place at the nape of your neck, fingers tangling in your hair. He tilts your head just slightly, deepening the kiss because he doesn't want to let go just yet.

A soft sigh in the form of his name escapes you, and he hums in response, the sound vibrating through you. His other hand grips your hip, pulling you flush against him as if he can’t stand even the smallest space existing between you two.

And just when you think he might finally break away, his lips brush against yours again, like he’s testing his own restraint and failing miserably.

You smile when his forehead presses to yours, this time with a sense of comfort and satisfaction. "Really?"

He nods, moving your head to nod too.

"But I thought you were pretending this whole time."

"I was," he admits, "pretending that I didn't want to hold your hand or clean dishes with you or take cute photos with you. Actually, I wanted to do all those things, really bad. But I wanted to do them as your real boyfriend. It really sucks knowing we're pretending to be happy when all I want is to make you genuinely happy."

His words trigger a cosmic reaction in your chest and gut, sending your heart into a flustered knot and your stomach in a swirl. And when he smiles, you just know it's because you're obviously flustered, and he likes seeing you that way.

"So…does that mean we can stop pretending now?"

"God, fuck yes, please," he borderline begs as he takes a deep inhale, breathing you in and somehow managing to bring you even closer.

The starlight above you is nothing compared to the gold specs in his eyes, the ones you treasure above everything else.

You allow yourself to be enraptured with him, wrapping your arms around his neck and angling your lips towards his precious mouth for another long overdue kiss.

::

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[mirophobic2]

Eldest Daughter Syndrome

Where being the daughter of Nolan Grayson was a burden in itself, despite him wanting the best for you.

Of Moons, Birds, & Monsters - You start to crack under the weight your father is placing on you.

Overture - You see your father’s cracks.

Nothing to Declare - Your father’s audacity.

When You’re Small - A different time.

Another You - The person you were to another Mark.

The Weak Link - Kids always seem to sense weakness.

TBA - …

Masterlist