#<- incredibly funny to me that these two are apart of this oc universe but like. their own sub genre

[lanternlightss]

today i have thought sm about my beloved oc’s mel and cerelia and i am feeling so completely normal about them (this is a lie i am so unwell)

[psychopathskinnie]

Really bad day

𝐒𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲: Ayatsuji got a case in which the murderer is my OC, but her skill prevents her from being killed

𝐆𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐞: Funny, I think?

It's my first post here and english isn't my first language, but enjoy!

The girl struggled to cross the threshold of the building. She was exhausted and never thought she would dream of returning to the Port Mafia headquarters as soon as possible. She moved toward the elevators, one of which had just opened, showing the figure of an elegant man in a hat.

- What the hell happened to you? - Chuuya looked as if he had just seen a ghost.

Well, this was not far from the truth, as the girl looked like a ghoul from a cheap horror movie. Her hair, usually pinned up in a high ponytail, was currently a huge mess glued together with blood. All of her black clothing was also glistening from the red sweat, and several trickles adorned her face. Her coat was torn in several places and she was limping through the broken heel of one of her shoes.

- The universe - she gasped out.

- What?

- The fucking universe is on to me. - She was visibly upset, which could be inferred not only from her facial expression, but also from the curses she didn't usually use.

- You look like you took part in some kind of massacre. - Through the girl's ability, incredible self-healing, he was unable to tell whether the blood covering her belonged to someone else or flowed from her now invisible wounds. - Then what exactly happened?

He followed her into the elevator, abandoning his earlier plans. Curiosity took over him. The woman pressed the 25th floor button furiously.

- I was returning from shopping when some runaway pickpocket pushed me into the street, where I was hit by a truck. - She began quite calmly.

- It must have hurt, but from....

- I didn't finish. - the girl got into his words. - After my bones knitted together and I pushed my way through the crowd of onlookers, I went on. When I reached the stairs that connect the commercial district with the port, my heel broke and I rolled right down them.

- It's about 300 steps! - pointed Chuuya. There was no trace of his earlier worry, instead a smile of amusement crept onto his face.

- My skull was smashed and my ribs had punctured my lungs. I was lying on the ground for a few minutes before everything healed together properly. - She breathed in exasperation, and when she took up the story again, there was not a hint of calm in her words. - I thought I would be able to reach the headquarters without further problems. I looked around and analyzed my surroundings, as if I were breaking through enemy territory. When I was already two streets away, a piano fell on me. A fucking piano! Like in some damn cartoon!

Chuuya was unable to hold back his laughter any longer. The girl sent him a furious look. She was already about to say something to him when the elevator door opened and the room was pierced by a bang of gunfire. The young underboss fell silent from shock. Blood began to flow out of the girl's forehead hole, after which she fell to the floor.

- Oh no! I’m so sorry! - Higuchi ran up to them, frightened. When she saw who she had shot, for a moment she felt relieved that she hadn't killed anyone after all. Immediately afterward, however, she realized that she was still in trouble, and it might even be better for her if the girl didn't get up again. - I have no idea how it happened! Gin asked me to clean the guns! This one was clearly not secured! - she spat out unintelligible words.

- I think you'd better disappear before she wakes up. It was not a good day for her.

Higuchi heeded her superior's advice and quickly moved away. He only sighed and picked up his unconscious friend, then moved toward the door to her apartment. He wondered if offering wine later to loosen up would be a good idea. Given all this, she would probably choke on it.

[lubdubsworld]

GIFT .

Genre : Brother-in-law Jungkook x OC!

Warnings : Yandere Jungkook! Non Consent. Manipulative behaviour. Explicit Sexual Content, Violence, Murder

Author's Note : I love reading Yandere fics so I just wanted to write one!! Its very different from what I usually write... So proceed with caution.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The first time I met Jungkook , it was five years into my relationship with Namjoon.

Namjoon had told me all about his baby brother, a final year student in SNU. Jungkook majored in Business , training to take over the company business . Namjoon often mentioned that it was Jungkook's offer to switch majors that had helped him pursue his own dream of being a music producer.

So when he told me that Jungkook was on a break from university and his parents were looking forward to having a proper family dinner with all of us, I was excited to meet the boy , I'd heard so much about. Namjoon was endlessly fond of his little brother and I wanted him to like me just as much.

Namjoon and I had met seven years earlier in the University Library and had become fast friends. We were both quiet, intellectually driven individuals, preferring to spend our time in the library as opposed to partying with our friends. And yet, in a twist , against our family’s wishes, we had chosen not to pursue an academically driven career either. I’d always felt out of place in my own friend group, most of my friend from Journalism being extroverted and fun loving. Namjoon for his part had only two very close friends, Yoongi and Hoseok and preferred spending time by himself as well.

So it was only natural that we fell in with each other with ease. His beautiful dimpled smile tugged on my gut, even as his gentle nature and gorgeous mind made my heart pound. I fell in love with him, between the late night laughter in the library and the soft secrets whispered against my skin, in the privacy of his bed.

“Nervous?” His voice drew me to the present, fingers inking with mine as he lightly knocked his shoulders against mine, staring down at me with a dimpled smile. I shook my head quickly, squeezing his hand gently.

“Of course not. I just want him to like me.” I whispered and Namjoon chuckled.

“Jungkookie isn’t very expressive so don’t worry if he isn’t very vocal in his affections. He’s very shy with new people but I’m sure, he’ll love you.” Namjoon reached out and lightly, brushed the hair off my face before leaning down and giving me a quick kiss.

I gripped his waist, pressing in closer, lips parting instinctively  , eager to chase the taste of him. He groaned and gripped my elbow, pulling me around to press up against the tall , lean strength of his body and this was it, this endless need to touch him even after seven whole years of being together. I moaned when he bit down on my lips, my back arching a bit to press into him.

“Hyung?”

We parted, surprised and I felt my face flame, lips slicked wet and no doubt red from where Joon’s teeth had sunk in.

What a first impression.

“Ahh… Jungkook-ah… You came out?” Namjoon looked a little flustered, dimples peeking out in an abashed smile as he laughed embarrassedly I found myself smiling at Jungkook, who looked nothing like I’d imagined.

I’d been expecting someone cute and friendly.

Jungkook was dressed in all black, tall and intimidating. He was also almost surreally beautiful, gaze piercing and steady as he stared at me. I felt an instinctive urge to hide, not missing the way his gaze trailed up and down my body, lips parting gently to reveal a pair of bunny teeth that looked jarringly adorable on a face that was , quite simply put, arrestingly gorgeous.  

He hummed, still standing in the doorway, eyes trained on me and I swallowed when he smiled , wide and open. His tongue darted out, lightly licking his lower lip .

“Hi, Hana.” He said softly and I startled.

“Hana? I’m sure you mean noona…..” I laughed nervously and even Namjoon looked surprised and Jungkook merely smiled, shrugging.

“You don’t feel like a noona.” He said casually.

I merely stared at him, not sure what he meant. Namjoon laughed a little as well, moving over to lightly hug his brother.

“Yah! You’ve just met her. Isn’t it too soon to start being a brat?” He ruffled his hair playfully before turning to me.

“Come on, Hana. Come say hi to my parents.” Namjoon walked in and I rushed to follow him, pausing when I reached the doorway. I smiled at Jungkook, holding a hand out slowly.

“I’ve heard so much about you Jungkook, I hope we can be friends…” I said sincerely and he stared at my hand, not taking it. Instead he gave me another soft smile. Before leaning down and pressing a kiss to the back of my hand, making me jump .

“You don’t feel like a friend either.” He said with a shrug , before moving away, leaving me stunned on the doorway.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Two years later :

“Seven months? Namjoon we’re getting married in seven months! How am I supposed to plan a whole wedding , with you away from the country?” I asked desperately, watching as Namjoon sat with his head in his hands. He looked stricken, regretful and pained and I felt terrible for being unreasonable but it was impossible not to feel hurt.

“I know..  I know hana, I’m so fucking sorry. But this is such a huge opportunity and its not just me : Hoseok and Yoongi depend on me. I can’t screw things up for them too.” He whispered and I exhaled.

Namjoon had been offered a chance to produce for a very high end recording label based out of the US and they wanted him to stay there for a minimum of seven months. The offer had been a complete surprise, out of the blue and the timing couldn’t have been worse. I’d been accepted into an internship at a popular magazine and it would be impossible for me to go with him. And I was so desperate to go.

We’d never been apart for more than a few days, in the entirety of our relationship and the thought of not seeing him for months made me want to throw up.

“I’ve spoken to Jungkook. He’ll help you with all the things that have to be done. And I swear that I’ll be back at least a month before the date, alright? No matter what happens.” Namjoon said firmly. I swallowed, nodding nervously.

It was true that I didn’t like the idea of being away from Namjoon. But the thought of keeping him away from a dream that he had worked so hard for, was almost unfathomable.

Besides, Jungkook was reliable and sweet. The perfect gentleman. Especially now that he’d taken over as his father’s Executive Assistant, Jungkook was incredibly good at organizing and planning things out.

With his help, I could plan out our wedding to perfection.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The next five months were spent in a haze of appointments and fittings and bookings. Jungkook had arranged for a shift in my internship hours, so he and I could spend a solid four hours every day, visiting different vendors, picking out the perfect floral arrangements, napkins, brocade and what not. And for once, I found myself completely enthralled by the idea of spending money of frivolously pretty things. Whether it was the florists or the patisserie, the dress fitting or the invitations, I felt my excitement bubbling over , amazed because marrying into Namjoon’s family meant an unlimited budget and for once, I didn’t mind being extravagant.

What was more, I didn’t miss Namjoon nearly as much as I thought I would. Because deep down , I knew that he wouldn’t have enjoyed this all that much. And I would have felt guilty , dragging him everywhere.

And Jungkook was the one to thank for all of it. He picked me up everyday for an early breakfast , followed by hours of combing the streets for ideas and appointments. He was funny and enthusiastic, eager to help me in every way and I was so grateful that I couldn’t thank him enough.

“I owe you so much, Kookie. You’ve been a life saver.” I groaned, collapsing on the couch and dropping my head back against the backrest. Jungkook chuckled, sitting down on one of the Turkish ottomans and lightly grabbing my ankle, pulling my foot onto his lap. I flushed a little, still not used to how touchy he was.

Jungkook liked wrapping his arms around my waist when we were out and about, fingers fluttering up my sides or brushing hair off my face with easy familiarity. I didn’t mind. He reminded me of my little brother back in Ilsan.

Most of the people we met assumed he was the groom and Jungkook told me it would be better to keep up the ruse because wedding planners were more comfortable when couples came together and I’d agreed, albeit a little reluctantly. I missed Namjoon and I wondered if he would mind. But when I mentioned it in passing to him during one of our daily video calls, he’d merely laughed it off.

“You’re so tense, Hana. You should relax. Everything is going to be okay.” Jungkook said softly, soft fingers digging into the curve of heel before brushing the arch of my foot. I smiled when he tugged my foot close, placing it down on the firmness of his thigh.

I gazed down at him, feeling uncomfortably nervous. This whole thing seemed oddly intimate somehow and I felt the first tendrils of guilt begin to curl around my gut. I swallowed, hating myself for tainting something that was no doubt innocent. I ought to be grateful that my future brother in law was this kind to me.

“I know. Thank you. I just miss him sometimes.” I said softly. The fingers stilled on my foot.

“Only sometimes?” He teased, eyes narrowed and tone just a little colder and I hesitated.

“I don’t miss him when you keep me company. You help me forget that I’m doing all of this by myself.” I said honestly. Jungkook inhaled sharply, his gaze flicking to mine, holding mine with an intensity that made me balk a little.

“You mean, that?” He asked quietly and I laughed at how serious he looked.

“Of course I do.  I was so sure this whole thing would be me being miserably lonely but you’ve kept me laughing and happy. I’m going to ask Namjoon to buy you something expensive and amazing when he comes back.”

“He already has something amazing. It’s the only thing I really want.” Jungkook said quietly, fingers stroking up, gently massaging my foot all the way up my calf. I groaned at how good it felt.

“Really what is it?” I asked curious.

Jungkook squeezed my knee before carefully placing my foot down , reaching for the other one.

“You’ll know soon, Hana.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

True to his word, Namjoon called me exactly a month before our wedding date.

“Guess who’s leaving the God forsaken place this weekend?”

I felt warmth flood my insides, heart racing with pure joy, tears brimming over because I’d honestly resigned myself to the fact that he wouldn’t be able to make it back on time.

“Monday i, I’ll be there. Can’t wait to kiss you, my love.” He whispered and I nodded, laughing.

Finally, Everything would be okay.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Namjoon’s flight was due to arrive late night ,somewhere between twelve and one in the morning. I’d taken a nap in the afternoon, so I could be up to welcome him back. Jungkook arrived at around seven with Takeout and flowers.

He didn’t ring the doorbell, letting himself in with the spare key I’d given him for emergencies. I found myself scrambling for my robe because I’d taken a nice long shower and slipped on a silk negligee, short and ending just over my knees . I could feel his eyes on me as I hastily tied the sash together, flustered. The robe wasn’t long either and I felt absolutely exposed, even worse than when he’d stepped into the dressing room during my fitting, offering to help me with the zipper.

“ Jungkook, what are you doing here?” I asked nervously and he shrugged, eyes still trailing over my legs, the skin bare. I felt his gaze like a caress and some instinct told me I was in danger. I shook my head to clear it. How ridiculous.

This was Jungkook. Sweet, wonderful Jungkookie. My best friend these past few months. There was no one else I could be safer with.

“I knew you’d be excited, what with hyung coming back and all. So, I thought I’d drop by and at least make sure you’re well fed.” He grinned, holding the tae out up. I smiled and nodded, moving to get plates and glasses from the kitchen.

I heard Jungkook moving around in the living room and when I went back in , I found that he had two glasses of wine ready on the table, an expensive bottle of merlot opened nearby. I smiled a bit, shaking my head.

“What are we celebrating?” I asked curiously and he shrugged.

“Namjoon hyung is coming back right? It means I’ll be getting my amazing gift tonight.” He said softly, picking his glass up and taking a sip and I rolled my eyes.

“You’re such a child. You can’t wait for a day to get your gift?”

Jungkook hummed. He looked ethereal in the dim golden light of the apartment. Like something out of a fairytale. All dark ebony hair and porcelain skin. I wondered, again….why he never dated. He was easily one of the most beautiful humans I’d ever seen in my life. And that voice.

The voice of an angel.

“I’ve been waiting for years, Hana. I’m sick and tired of waiting.” He said softly, voice low and eyes somehow dark and I tried to hold my smile.

“Well, I hope you enjoy it.” I grinned and he smiled, all teeth.

“Oh, I intend to. Thoroughly.”

I took my own glass and took a deep sip , before holding it against his.

“To no longer waiting and finally getting what we want.” I said cheerfully, thinking of the long months without Namjoon and the few hours till he would be back in my arms. Jungkook chuckled and clinked his glass against mine.

“To you, Hana.” He said simply and I blushed, surprised and flattered.

We ate the take out but just a few bites in, I felt my eyes getting heavy which was so unfair. It was barely eight. And I’d slept in the afternoon. What was wrong with me? I was supposed to be up till Namjoon came home.

“You alright, love?” Jungkook asked sweetly , getting out of his chair and making his way over when I almost knocked the glass of water over, fingers trembling. I pouted, even as his fingers curled over my shoulders, gripping lightly.

“Why am I so drowsy?” I whined in desperation and he leaned down, lightly resting his chin on my shoulder.

“You need to rest, hana. Come on, let’s get you to bed…. “

Eyes heavy and limbs turning to jelly, I could barely blink as he reached down and scooped me into his arms , carrying me into the bedroom. I felt his fingers tug on the sash of my robe, a protest building up at the action but he shushed me gently.

“I’m just helping you out of this, Hana. Rest now… Namjoon hyung will be here soon and we have a long night ahead of us, you and I.”

I could feel my mind churn at that, confusion warring with apprehension because why was Jungkook inserting himself in tonight? What did he have to do with Namjoon and I ?

Sleep beckoned and I found myself slipping into the darkness before I could fully ponder on his words.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I woke up sweaty and damp , body overheated and my head foggy. I made to move and felt my heart pound when I realized my hands were tied up to the headboard. I blinked, only to be met with darkness because there was something tied around my eye as well.

“Jungkook?!” I called out panicking and there was a low chuckle.

And then a very familiar scent.

Namjoon.

I sagged in relief.

“Joon…it’s you….” I breathed out . “ Come on, do we really have to do this right away? I wanna see you…” I whispered desperately.

Fingers brushed over my ankle and I jumped.

“Namjoon?” I whispered . The bed dipped next to me, and I felt the brush of his shirt against my bare arm. It was soft and silky , familiar because I’d bought it for him for his birthday and he’d sent me a pic of him wearing it, from the airport today.

“Okay… I’ll play.” I laughed softly. “ Just untie me… I wanna touch you..”

“Sshhh…..” A finger pressed against my lip and I startled. Throat dry, I gulped.

But I didn’t say anything, biting my lips nervously as I felt him climb over me, one knee on either side of mine, fingers curling on my thighs, lips pressing against my cheek. I sighed, relishing the soft press of his lips, up and down my neck, the damp wetness of his tongue as he licked the skin right after, teeth nipping gently and then with more force.

I trembled as soft fingers tugged on my negligee tugging the fabric up and away from my body, raising it up till it pooled near my chest. I felt the tug on my panties, yanking the fabric off and then the weight of him went away, a breathy exhale that sounded both calm and somehow desperate, his body moving down to lightly hold my knees, parting my legs.

I bent my knees, spreading my thighs the way he clearly wanted me to, hearing him groan in return. He used his thumbs to gently part the damp folds of my centre and I felt my entire body shudder at the press of his tongues against the most intimate parts of me.

Choking, I could only lay there and take it, his tongue licking the slick folds, over and over again with an almost curious insistence, like he was tasting me for the first time and I could feel his body trembling on the bed as he did. I felt his teeth tug on the hardened nub, bruising hard and yet somehow almost playful and cheeky and I found myself squirming in pleasure, wetness seeping out of me .

The tip of his finger found my slit, running up and done the length of it in a slow, gentle caress, gathering the moisture there and I trembled when he reached my clit, gently rubbing circles on the little bundle before moving back down to trace my entrance. I was so wet, getting wetter by the second and I’d never wanted to be fucked so bad.

“Please…..baby… I want you ….in me…” I choked out and he chuckled, a little mischievous and unlike him.

The finger dipped in, shallow and barely in and I whimpered in desperation.

“More.. Please…. I want more.. Want you… Its been so long…”

I felt him move back at that and then he was there, right between my legs. I felt the clink of metal as he unbuckled himself, the sound of his zipper and the rustle of fabric as he pushed his trousers off. I could feel the hard muscles of his thigh against the back of mine as he scooted closer, felt the brush of his hard length against my center, the head dipping in just lightly.

He pushed forward, driving in with so much force that my entire body shuddered in shock. And in just that second, I knew, with dawning horror…….

This was not Namjoon.

I screamed, so loud my own ears rang and  a palm pressed down into my mouth, forceful and unrelenting. And terrifyingly unfamiliar.

“Hana…” Jungkook’s voice near my ear made me choke on my tears, my mind splintering in shock and betrayal, body going rigid in terror as he pulled out , only to slide back in.

“Knew it would be worth it, keeping myself pure for you….” He crooned against my skin and I whimpered, wetness spilling over my eyelashes as I tried to squirm away, my mind body and soul only screaming for the man I loved.

“Don’t worry about anything ….Hyung’s in a better place now. “ Jungkook chuckled deeply and I felt my skin go ice cold at the implication. He moved his hand away and I coughed, choking.

“Jungkook….”

The blind fold came off and he kept pumping into me, hips moving erratically, no rhythm or grace and it was obvious he’d never done this before, obvious in the way he looked : blissed out and feral, eyes unfocused as he stared down at me. I felt him tremble and shake, before going still . I felt warm wetness flood my insides and bile rose, nausea making breathing difficult. He stayed on me and inside me, his body so large and immovable, heavy and suffocating over my own.

“what are you doing Jungkookie?” I sobbed out in disbelief and he glared at me.

“What does it fucking look like I’m doing? I’m taking what I fucking deserve….” He snarled. “ Two fucking years…. He doesn’t deserve you. Spends all his days and nights holed up in that studio of his with his friends….leaves you to fend for yourself. You deserve to be waited on, hand and foot… you deserve the world, hana…and he wouldn’t let you experience any of it. Fucking bastard….

“No… No.. God …no..” I choked out. It was the shirt.

He was wearing Namjoon’s shirt. And his cologne. The shirt I knew my boyfriend had been wearing today. How did he get it??

Jungkook brushed his fingers on my cheeks .

“What’s wrong baby? Are you worried about him? Wondering where he is…” He chuckled. “ I told you..he’s in a better place right now..”

“No… you’re lying..you wouldn’t…”

“Wouldn’t I? You know me that well , hana?” He teased.

No. No I didn’t I didn’t know him at all.

“How about this? If you marry me…. If you let me have this dream wedding with my dream girl…. “ He smirked,” If you let me love you the way you deserve , maybe I’ll take you to visit him…someday. ”

I closed my eyes.

I couldn’t process what I’d just heard… I didn’t know… if he was bluffing. What if he had actually killed-

I couldn’t believe that. I couldn’t. It would break me.

“Okay… Just…please don’t hurt him…” I whispered.

Jungkook smiled.

“Just relax Hana. Everything’s going to be okay.”

AUTHORS NOTE : THIS IS LITERALLY MY FIRST TIME WRITING SOMETHING LIKE THIS PURELY OUT OF IDLE CURIOSITY

~~~~~~~~~~~

[angelguk]

this prompt: jock!jaykay and namjoon running into each other at a party or sth and namjoon being like ‘you finally grow a pair and ask oc out yet?’ and jks just like 😧 and joons like ‘seriously dude? 😑 i’ve been waiting for you to ask her out since before i even dated her’. but make it more angst!!! namjoon is kind of an asshole here. there’s smoking, drinking and jk getting a brief lapdance. oc is a LIAR. jaykay deep in his feels tbh. roughly 1.5k. listen to all i wanted by paramore

Jeongguk's crossed too many paths with people during his life to remember every face his eyes have ever seen. But there’s one he will never forget, no matter how hard he tries to scrub the memory from his brain, ignore the muted forlorn twang in his heart, the low ache that ebbs from the base of his skull. It sparks up again despite years of never seeing the individual who caused the problem. How could he forget those broad shoulders? The sharp analytic eyes. The man whom you’d attached yourself too for a good chunk of your joint high school careers. It surprises him, honestly, because Jeongguk’s got a girl grinding on his lap but his eyes are locked on Namjoon, ears trailing after the sound of his deep laugh instead of the sweet nothings Nayeon (or Naeun, or Nayoung — he can’t fucking remember) is murmuring into the hollow of his neck.

For one, he’s fucked out of his mind. Taehyung probably laced the joint; he liked doing that shit even when it messed up Jeongguk’s trip. He should have known not to take a hit, but he was already ten shots in and nothing sounded better than smoke in his lungs. Maybe not nothing. This girl feels good in his hands, responds to the lightest of his touches, moans in his ear like she wants him to fuck her.

He could. He has before. Probably. She knows exactly where to nip his neck for this to have not been a repeat hook-up. But in the haze of the low living room lights and the spinning headiness of the drinks he’d downed, he couldn’t make out her face. It’d shift and twist and turn into an image that almost makes him want to cry because, at some angles, when the shadows form right, he thinks he can see your face. It could be you in his lap, you whimpering whenever your crotches aligned just right, you clinging to him like the sun hangs onto the evening sky.

But it’s not.

And for some unfathomable reason, Jeongguk’s ruined mind recognises that sucks.

Because it should be you.

He doesn’t know how he gets that girl off. Probably some lie that he needed to pee. In reality, he needed to breathe, because those thoughts surface with malicious intent, purposefully drawing him closer to deep dangerous waters. If he’s not careful he could easily drown, suffocated by desires he can’t even string together into a comprehensible sentence.

The night air hits sharp, seeping through his loose shirt. It grounds him enough for his steps to stabilise, feet following a slow trudge to the edge of the balcony. He doesn’t even know whose house this is. Somebody he’s probably never met honestly. But he wanted you to come. Everyone was coming out tonight. Even your elusive roommate Sohee was somewhere in some bathroom with a head between her thighs. You probably are doing that too, to be far. Even the name evokes bile from his throat, bitter and violent, full of jealousy he’d never really learnt to contain.

Lee Eunwoo. A graphic design major. Slightly taller than Jeongguk (only when Jeongguk is having a bad day) and somehow he can make you giggle like he’s getting paid for it.

You’d mentioned it so softly that Jeongguk didn’t even hear it at first. But then your cheeks had heated up, that stupid sparkle melting through your gaze. You wanted to spend the night with him, take advantage of an empty apartment, perhaps watch a movie or two.

It's obvious that you were going to sleep with him. The thought itself irked something visceral inside of Jeongguk. But he’d given you an easy smile, laughed at the modesty of your demeanour and wished you well with a tight hug. The same low buzzing of frustration that he got when you were with Namjoon was already waning through his system as he completed his sets at the gym with more force than needed.

Which is why he can’t help but release a bitter laugh into the night. Ironically, Namjoon was here while you were getting your back blown out by another idiotic guy Jeongguk did not like.

“What’s so funny?”

He can’t spin around to face him, Jeongguk knows he’ll throw up if he does. But he can’t forget a timbre like that. Not when you nearly wrote a poem about how wonderful Kim Namjoon’s voice was. A poem which you recited to Jeongguk before he begged you to rip it to shreds and never talk about again.

(Subconsciously Jeongguk had adopted a deeper voice whenever he talked to you since then. It came out more when he was drunk, but it’s not like you paid any attention anyway).

“Nothing,” he returns. He hopes Namjoon gets the hint and goes away. The bastard joins him on the balcony instead.

“No, seriously, what’s funny? You look like you’ve got a lot going on in your head.” Namjoon was always so concerned in talking about emotions and putting your feelings into words. It’s one of the reasons why you loved him and probably reason one thousand why Jeongguk hated him.

“Hello to you too, Kim Namjoon. Don’t you think we should catch up on the pleasantries before you start psychoanalysing me?” He retorts, forcing his gaze onto the other man. Namjoon looks good; golden skin, broad shoulders and his hair cropped short. There’s an ease to him that Jeongguk could never replicate no matter how hard he tried. Perhaps that’s what happens when you’re born sure of yourself. Like Namjoon was.

The laugh he receives is empty. Namjoon is busy rifling through his pockets, fingers emerging with a joint and a lighter. “Nice to see you too, Jeon. Didn’t think I’d ever bump into you after high school but the universe works in mysterious ways, doesn’t it?” The jay slips between his lips, followed by a swift flick of the lighter before a deep inhale that Jeongguk swears he feels in his lungs. The smoke floats out pretty, fading into wisps of nothing but grey as the breeze sweeps it away. Namjoon offers it cordially, a simple raise of his defined eyebrows and even though Jeongguk’s legs are melting through the floor he can’t say no.

“You sure?” The doubt tinting his tone makes him take it. His overestimation in his maintenance capabilities leads to a rather rough inhale, and an even worse hacking cough that he wants to be mortified at because Namjoon fucking laughs. But he can’t when the world feels like air in his fingertips, slowly slipping away. Almost like you feel at times. 

“You should stop taking the shit Taehyung rolls. I don’t even know what he slips in there but last time I smoked with him I thought I was on Mars.”

“Taehyung offers, I never ask.”

“You never ask for anything to be frank.”

“What?”

“You heard me,” Namjoon returns, smoke falling from his lips.

“Yeah, I fucking did. I was giving you the chance to pretend you didn’t say it.” Jeongguk’s all in his space in an instant, the itch to smash Namjoon’s face tingling beneath his skin. Namjoon doesn’t even back up, gracing Jeongguk with a quizzical look that leaves him bewildered. “You don’t fucking know me—"

“I do.” There’s a scoff that riles him up even further. Namjoon’s still incredibly unbothered as he talks. “You think being Y/N’s boyfriend I didn’t hear everything and anything about you? Jeongguk this! Jeongguk that! You know that’s the reason we broke up, right?”

That halts him, a lag in his brain as he attempts to process the words leaving Namjoon’s mouth. The older man just stares at him, the sigh that drifts in between them bordering on pity.

“She didn’t tell you that, did she? Y/N lies about a lot more things than you think, Jeon. Where is she by the way? I’ve seen all her friends but I haven’t seen her.”

“Why would you know her friends?” It’s a stupid question but in the jumble of his thoughts it’s the only thing his mind is capable of plucking out. A question that doesn’t leave him bare and vulnerable like the other one’s racing through his head.

“We don’t have each other blocked on everything. Sometimes we talk,” Namjoon supplies easily. And just like that Jeongguk crumbles. He’s not even aware of it but the first crack spears deep enough to leave the rest of him unstable, wavering as he falters away from Namjoon. You never told him any of this. As far as Jeongguk knew you ended the relationship hating him (a thought that briefly consoled Jeongguk if he’s being truthful). But apparently, you felt comfortable enough to share your life with the person Jeongguk thought hurt you the most.

“Man, fuck you.” It’s a release, to say it. Because honestly fuck Kim Namjoon. In the span of a few short sentences he’s tipped everything he’s ever been sure of upside-down, stomped on Jeongguk’s heart like it was bendable and ducked his head right into the ocean he was afraid of diving it, keeping it under until the water filled his lungs and Jeongguk ceased to function.

Namjoon shrugs, not even looking as Jeongguk stumbles back to the door. He needs to find you, ask how much of Namjoon’s words were true. He doesn’t care if Eunwoo is over he’ll kick him out if need be.

But then Namjoon opens his mouth one more time, the final nail in the coffin.

“You should have asked her out. I was waiting for you to it — she was probably waiting too.”

[nugnthopkns]

dance me to the end of love (i)

word count: 4.3k

warnings: fem!oc, cursing, potential spoilers for the west wing if you've never seen the show

series masterpost: here

a/n: hi!! i am so incredibly happy to finally be putting this fic out into the world. it means an awful lot to me and i can't wait to share the little world i've created :)) x

Magdalene is content with where she’s ended up.

Denver is wonderful. Her friends are there, her cat is there, and it’s the perfect place for a fresh start. She arrived in the city nearly six years ago – a wide-eyed University of Denver freshman and has stayed put ever since. Her hometown of Aspen holds a few too many bad memories, but is close enough that she can return if an emergency calls for it. So far she hasn’t left, too engrossed in finishing her degree and moving on. There’s a job offer lined up with the university’s library upon graduation that Magdalene is ecstatic about. It means she gets to stay right where she is – where she’s comfortable.

☼☼☼☼

The sun might be shining as she exits her apartment building, but it’s cold for March. Magdalene pulls the thick scarf her best friend Bette got her for Christmas higher up her face and walks as quickly as possible to campus. There’s a brief meeting to attend with her advisor before grabbing lunch with Bette, and then her plan is to spend the rest of the day holed up in the library working on her thesis. It’s due in two weeks, with the defence in just over a month, and Magdalene is incredibly nervous. Though she’d gone through submitting her undergraduate thesis two years ago, presenting her master’s research was going to be a lot harder. She’s heard through the grapevine that the committees are being tough this year and she doesn’t want to fail.

Dr. Williams is waiting for her in his office with a smile on his face. He’s a tall man, with thin facial features and wire glasses that box him perfectly into the intimidating professor stereotype. “Miss Stevenson, please sit,” he gestures to the chair across from him.

“Gerald,” she sighs, “You can call me Magdalene, I don’t mind. Besides, it makes you quite the hypocrite if you insist I call you by your first name but you won’t use mine.” There’s no malice in her voice, just a decent amount of teasing.

The older man scoffs but concedes. “I suppose you’re right. Well then Magdalene, tell me, how are your final edits coming along?”

Magdalene spends nearly twenty minutes detailing all the elements she has tweaked since their last meeting, from the title to the citation style. She’s out of breath by the time she’s done, rambling at an impressive speed, and takes a big gasp of air while the professor mulls over her words. Dr. Williams doesn’t say anything, causing Magdalene to shift anxiously in her seat. “Sir, is there something wrong?”

He shakes his head. “Absolutely nothing,” he beams, “Everything is perfect. It’s a shame you don’t want to continue researching. You’d make a fabulous academic.”

The compliment makes Magdalene’s heart soar. It means a lot, especially coming from the person who has seen her cry over the oxford comma. “Thank you sir, but I belong in the practical realm. Someone has to file all the documents you obsessively scan.”

She leaves the building soon after, promising to stop by after she drops off the final draft in a few weeks. It’s a bit later than she expected and hopes Bette won’t be mad. There’s nothing the blonde hates more than poor time management, but Magdalene prays she’ll understand. It wasn’t that long ago and Bette was scheduling her own appointments with advisors on how to graduate. Barn Owl Book Company is located halfway between the school and her apartment, making it the perfect spot to meet. In addition to being a used book store, Barn Owl sports one of the best cafés in downtown Denver. Bette is perched delicately at her friend’s favourite seat, a bay window converted into a small nook, and typing furiously on her phone.

“Sorry I’m late,” Magdalene apologizes, “Williams talked a lot more than I expected him to.”

Bette looks up and smiles, shoving a cup in the other girl’s direction. “As always. How is he?”

Sliding into the booth, Magdalene fills her friend in on what’s been going on in their former professor’s life. Bette graduated with a minor in Classics, and it was Magdalene's major, but the former decided not to further her education and is instead doing full time charity work for the Colorado Avalanche. Her boyfriend Tyson is one of their star players, and the two of them are so smitten it makes Magdalene sick. Conversation quickly turns from school to life, which she’s grateful for.

“So,” Bette says, “Are you in for the trip this summer? I’ve got to confirm the reservation in a week or something.”

“I don’t know Bee, I'm going to be the new girl. Asking for time off like two months into the job would be rude.”

“Linny,” the blonde whines, “Please? I want you to come.”

Magdalene scowls. Bette knows just how much the nickname sours her mood but she chose to use it anyway. “Don’t call me that,” she snaps with quite a bite. “Can someone else take my spot if I decide not to go a little closer to the date?”

“Of course! Gravy said he’d fill an extra spot if one comes up so we don’t lose the deposit,” Bette blabs before trying to switch gears entirely. Magdalene cuts her off.

“Who’s Gravy?”

If her friend is exasperated by Magdalene’s lack of knowledge surrounding hockey, she doesn’t show it. Bette calmly explains that Gravy, who’s real name is Ryan, is a defenceman with the Avalanche and a good friend of Tyson’s. She also makes a point of mentioning that he’s single, to which Magdalene rolls her eyes. Bette has a masterplan for her life – which includes her best friend becoming romantically involved with an Avalanche player so the two of them can live the better half life together. As the best friend, Magdalene is constantly barraged with potential players who are looking to date. Once she went on a few dates with Mikko, but that ended fairly quickly when the two realized they were better as friends. Every time since she’s turned Bette down as gently as possible, not wanting to get involved with anyone. Her life is just starting, and Magdalene wants to be secure before settling down.

The conversation eventually shifts to what Magdalene plans to wear for both her thesis defence and graduation. Bette is fashion savvy, while Magdalene is decidedly not. Her everyday wardrobe consists of collared button-downs and sweater vests, which is supposedly never going to back a comeback, according to Bette at least. The blonde eventually wears Magdalene down, and secures a position as stylist for the graduation ceremony. There was an attempt at the thesis defence, but the other girl insists she needs to be as comfortable as possible on such a stressful occasion.

A glance to the clock on the opposite wall has Magdalene stretching her arms and giving an apologetic glance to her friend on the other side of the table. “I should go,” she says. “I’ve got to put in some serious work on my citations today, and you know Caligula doesn’t like it when I’m gone all day.”

Bette rolls her eyes, but there isn’t any frustration behind the gesture. “I swear to god Mags, your cat has more separation anxiety than I do. Speaking of, I’m supposed to pick Tyson up at the airport and I’m running behind.”

“Tell him I say hi,” Magdalene says as she wraps her arms around Bette for a quick hug.

The two girls part ways on the sidewalk, with Magdalene heading back to campus and Bette sliding into the sleek Audi she shares with her boyfriend. Headphones find their way into her ears, and Magdalene listens to a random comedy podcast. Once tucked safely inside the library she’ll put on her favourite lo-fi playlist and concentrate, but for now she just enjoys the funny anecdotes of stories past.

It’s quiet in the library for a Tuesday, though Magdalene isn’t complaining. Her favourite table, the one she swears up and down is the only reason she ever gets anything done, is open, and she all but sprints to place her bag on the worn leather chair. While setting up her work station a few of the librarians come over to offer their congratulations for her upcoming job. News certainly travels fast around here, Magdalene thinks, but accepts their generosity with a smile on her face. They leave her alone soon enough and the tedious work of double checking the formatting of every single citation in the sixty-five page paper begins.

Hours pass, and Magdalene stays working in the library until as late as she possibly can. Caligula is going to start to worry about the length of her absence soon and his anxiety response of knocking over plants is not a mess she feels like cleaning up. She packs up her laptop and walks the short distance home as fast as possible.

“Little boots, I’m home,” Magdalene parrots in a sing-song voice as she slips her jacket off her shoulders and onto the hanger. At the sound of his nickname, the small cat bounds into the entryway. “Hi darling, did you miss me?” Magdalene gets an obnoxiously loud purr in response that she takes it as a yes. She reaches down to pick up the tiny animal before continuing further into the apartment, scratching behind his ears as she does so. The two of them settle into the respectably sized couch, where they stay for the rest of the night watching reruns of The West Wing before Magdalene falls asleep.

☼☼☼☼

“You fucking did it!” Bette shrieks as she bounds towards her best friend. Magdalene braces herself for the oncoming assault, and manages to keep them both upright after Bette jumps into her arms.

Her thesis defence had just finished, and the committee found Magdalene a worthy candidate for the Master of Information Science qualification. The presentation itself was open to the public, so Bette and Tyson sat in the front row to support Magdalene, but were escorted out for the conversation that followed. The two girls had developed a code so the news could be shared in a subtle way, though Bette threw the original plan out the window as soon as she saw her friend give a sneaky thumbs up when the conference room door opened.

“Congrats Mags,” Tyson says sincerely, doing his best not to add to the growing spectacle, but Magdalene can tell he wants to give her a bone crushing hug.

“Thank you,” she smiles softly, “And thank you guys for coming. It means a lot.” As two of her closest friends, both Bette and Tyson know that her family situation is rocky at best, and having them act as her support system means more than she’ll ever be able to articulate.

The couple shares a knowing look before engulfing their friend in a hug. “We’re always going to be here for you,” Bette whispers, “No matter what.”

Magdalene’s smile is so genuine it crinkles her eyes as she wraps her arms around Bette and Tyson’s shoulders and leads them out the door and into the sunshine. The group continues to the parking lot, where they climb into Tyson’s car and drive off campus in the direction of Magdalene’s favourite restaurant. Though she had tried to convince her friends they didn’t need to celebrate, she failed, and Magdalene soon finds herself laughing hysterically over a plate of carbonara as Tyson tells a story about the shenanigans the team got up to on their last road trip.

There’s a game tonight, and Bette has somehow convinced her into attending. Magdalene knows she should go, expand her social horizons a little, but all she wants to do is curl up in bed and sleep for three weeks. Her one condition is that she can go home straight after the game without being guilted into following the group to whatever nightclub they’ll celebrate the win or drink away the loss in. Tyson has to get ready so he drops the two girls off at Magdalene's apartment complex. She’s in charge of getting Bette to the rink, and she’ll leave with her boyfriend after the game.

Once inside the confines of her home, Magdalene promptly lies on the floor. “Holy shit,” she sighs, “I did it. I fucking did it.”

“You did!” Bette says as she lies down beside her best friend. “I’m so fucking proud of you, and Tyson is too. Even if he won’t tackle you in public to prove it.”

The comment garners a laugh from Magdalene, which alerts Caligula to the presence of others in the apartment. He pads over the rug currently being occupied by two adults, and snuggles into the small space between them. Bette and Magdalene continue to lay there, petting the cat and looking back fondly on all the times Magdalene called her friend in tears because she didn’t think she could push herself any farther. Bette was always there to pick up the slack, editing whatever section Magdalene was working on or to bring over a hot meal. Her support earned her the top spot in the acknowledgements section of the thesis.

Ball Arena is already crawling with people when Magdalene pulls into the small lot for player’s and their families. Normally she parks with the general public, but Bette insists they watch this game from the better halves box, and these spaces are closer to that entrance.

“Stop dragging your feet,” the blonde chastises as Magdalene takes her time cutting the engine. “I want to get a glass of rosé before they sell out.”

Sighing, Magdalene follows her orders. “Don’t you have a special bar in the box?” she asks while locking the car.

“Yeah, but the other girls are absolute fiends. They’ll drink it all before we get there with no remorse.”

The girls climb the stairs to the better halves box, Bette chatting excitedly about the game, but Magdalene stops just before the entrance. She’s met most of the others on multiple occasions and has nothing to worry about, but she can’t help but feel anxious. Her life is so different than everyone else’s in the space, and it feels like cheating when she’s there because she isn’t romantically involved with anyone on the roster. Bette likes to joke that she’s her better half, but Magdalene knows it’s said just to calm her nerves.

“It’ll be fine,” Bette whispers while squeezing her hand, “And if you get too uncomfortable we can find some seats in the nosebleeds.”

Once inside Magdalene’s nerves dissipate. Most of the other wives and girlfriends pay her no mind, but the ones that are especially close to Bette congratulate her on passing her defence. It warms her heart a little, and the small group Magdalene finds herself in settles down to watch the game unfold.

It’s a fairly intense one between Colorado’s division rival St. Louis. Both teams are fighting for first place in the conference, and a win for the Avalanche would put them three points ahead of the Blues instead of one. Players from both sides are amped up, and more than once a scrum at the net has turned into a dog-pile. Colorado is outplaying the other team, but have still managed to find themselves a goal short heading into the final period. At the buzzer Tyson takes the face-off and is immediately shoved by a member of the opposite team. He goes down hard, and Bette squeezes Magdalene’s hand so tightly she fears it will lose blood flow. Silence falls over the arena as Tyson doesn’t immediately get up. The inside of lip finds its way between her teeth and Magdalene bites down hard, worried about her friend. She’s so focussed on Tyson that she doesn’t notice a fight breaking out.

“Holy shit, Gravy is going to town!”

The remark is made by someone Magdalene recognizes as Gabe Landeskog’s wife, and it makes her peel her eyes off of Bette’s worried features and scan the ice for some action. Sure enough, a very tall man is laying right hooks to someone who looks significantly smaller than him on the Avalanche blue line. The referees let the fight continue until Tyson drags himself off the ice and onto the bench before separating the men and throwing them in the penalty box. Magdalene can tell words are still being exchanged from both sides of the glass, but she’s more focussed on the fact Tyson doesn’t make his way to the dressing room – a good sign that allows Bette to drop her hand and let out a shaky breath.

Nothing of great importance happens until MacKinnon ties the game with seven minutes left. It happens while the Avalanche are short handed, and the goal seems to light a fire beneath the team. Magdalene may not know much about hockey, but she’s smart enough to notice the insane amount of energy all the players suddenly have. Time ticks by slowly and before she realizes it, the final face-off is taking place. Luckily it’s in the St. Louis zone and won by Colorado. The puck is tipped back to the same player who got in the fight for Tyson, Gravy, and he one times it right into the back of the net. The buzzer goes off not a second later, and the entire team piles on top of the player who just won them the game.

Bette and Magdalene join in the shrieks of the other partners, jumping from their seats in excitement. Eventually they make their way down to the hallway outside the locker room and lean against the brick while they wait for Tyson.

“You don’t have to stay,” Bette insists, “I can wait by myself.”

Magdalene shakes her head. “No way. I want to make sure he’s okay too. What good is a friend with a black eye?”

The other girl laughs at her friend’s stubbornness but doesn’t shoo her away. Once Magdalene has made a decision it’s hard to get her to sway from it, and Bette knows better than to push. Besides, who is she to deny her friend a bit more social interaction? Magdalene has spent the past six years practically holed up in the library and deserves to stand in a crowded hallway.

The friends chat idly while they wait, with Magdalene sharing some of the most ridiculous questions she got asked in her defence interview that morning. She’s mid story when Tyson exits the dressing flanked by a man dressed sharply in all black.

“Hey guys,” Tyson greets, dipping his head to place a kiss to Bette’s cheek before doing an elaborately goofy handshake with Magdalene.

“Good game baby,” Bette compliments sweetly. She then turns her attention to the boy standing awkwardly on the fringes. “You too Graves.”

He smiles shyly, muttering out a small thanks. It’s then he seems to notice the final member of the group, and offers his hand in greeting. “Hi, I’m Ryan.”

“Nice to meet you. I’m Magdalene.”

She puts two and two together on the walk to her car. The Ryan Magdalene just met is the same who will take her spot on the trip, fought someone in Tyson’s defence, and scored the game winning goal. Though they’ve only said a few words, she likes him. He seems genuine, and those people are the rarest to find.

☼☼☼☼

Magdalene is walking across a graduation stage for the final time in two days. However, she can’t find anyone to take the third ticket. The University of Denver has a stupid rule where all graduates must have three guests attend the ceremony. Bette and Tyson are obviously occupying two of Magdalene’s seats, but she’s having trouble filling the third.

“I can ask Tys if one of the guys is free,” Bette shrugs. The two girls are sitting in the window of Barn Owl drinking iced lattes and discussing what Magdalene should wear to the ceremony.

“It’s okay,” Magdalene says, “I don’t want to bother anyone. Maybe I’ll just ask June.”

Her friend’s eye roll so far back into her head Magdalene isn’t sure they won’t stay there. “You can’t ask your boss to watch you graduate Mags! Besides, Gravy owes Tyson a favour and was already looking for something to do. I’m sure he won’t mind wasting a few hours as long as he gets drinks out of it.”

There isn’t a better option, so even though she barely knows the guy, Magdalene agrees. “Make sure he gets this?" she sighs, handing her friend an envelope with a single ticket in it. "I have to go. Caligula should be done at the vet soon.”

“Say hello to little boots for me,” Bette giggles as she waves goodbye.

Hours later, tucked into her couch with a glass of wine in one hand and Caligula playing with the fingers on the other, Magdalene realizes she invited a complete stranger to her graduation and how that could be a terrible idea. Sure, Ryan sounds like a great guy from the way Bette and Tyson talk about him, but he’s only ever spoken three words to her. Since that game she’s gone out with the team a few times, but the man with the piercing stare is yet to make an appearance. Magdalene considers that perhaps he’s more like her than his profession gives him credit for, and she feels a twinge of guilt about being worried he’d cause a scene at the ceremony.

There isn’t any more time for her to fret over the third and final guest on the list. At the last minute Bette decides there’s nothing in Magdalene’s closet that’s suitable for her to wear, so a trip to a local second-hand store ensues. While it’s nice that her friend has taken their carbon footprints into consideration, Magdalene wishes it didn’t have to happen an hour and a half before the ceremony is supposed to start.

“We have to be there in twenty minutes Bette,” she frets, tapping her foot nervously against the tile flooring.

If they can’t find whatever it is Bette’s looking for, Magdalene will have to walk across the stage in denim cutoffs and a faded t-shirt with Neil Young’s face on it, which is something she’s hoping to avoid at all costs.

“Have no fear, Mags,” she says with a knowing glint in her eye, “For I have found it.” Bette holds up a hanger that is holding a beautiful long sleeve dress adorned with a whimsical floral print.

Magdalene can’t help the gasp that escapes from her. “It’s beautiful,” she breathes, “But let’s hope it fits.”

The dress does in fact fit, and the workers are kind enough to let her wear it out of the store. Bette drives at a speed that might not be the safest to travel at in downtown Denver, but she gets to the school with minutes to spare. She shoos her friends out of the car so she can go pick up Tyson and Ryan, and Magdalene checks in with little hassle. The pool of graduates is fairly small, so she chats with a few classmates while they wait for the call to put their gowns on. Time passes quicker than expected, and soon Magdalene is being directed to her seat. She zones out while the dean gives a congratulatory speech and they go through the first few names. At one point she looks backwards into the crowd to find Bette, Tyson, and Ryan all giving her a thumbs up. The nerves she didn’t even know she had settle.

A faculty member signals for Magdalene’s row to stand up, and she smoothes her dress before dutifully following the person in front of her. Giddiness bubbles in her stomach at the thought of being done school forever. A hand from the stage crew give a cue, and Magdalene appears on the stage as her accomplishment is broadcast through the microphone.

“Magdalene Stevenson is being awarded a Masters in Information Science in Archival Studies and Records Management.” It feels so good to finally be finished that she lets a tear slip as she shakes the hand of the staff member handing her the package with her diploma in it.

The rest of the ceremony passes in a blur, and before Magdalene knows it her friends are approaching to congratulate her. Bette and Tyson wrap her in a tight hug, murmuring praise in her ears. Ryan stands awkwardly to the side before Bette drags him into the celebration. The four of them stand in the courtyard where the ceremony was for much longer than needed. Bette is crying enough to refill Sloan Lake if there is ever a drought and is yet to let go of Magdalene’s figure.

It’s only when the event staff ask them to leave so they can tear down the stage does Magdalene turn to leave campus for the last time as a student. She’ll be back in a few weeks as an employee, but deep down she knows this is the last time she’ll ever feel such a deep connection to the place.

“Victory is mine, victory is mine! Great day in the morning people, victory is mine!” Magdalene yells, quoting Josh Lyman as she skips down the path towards Bette’s car.

Both Bette and Tyson are confused at the sudden outburst, not knowing what she’s talking about, but Ryan responds without missing a beat. “Should I bring you all the muffins and bagels in the land?” His response doesn’t clear anything up, but it elicits a giant smile from Magdalene, who laughs and nods in confirmation.

Sitting in the back of Bette’s Audi, on the way to a graduation party she’s supposed to know nothing about, Magdalene decides that she wants to get to know Ryan Graves better. From what she’s garnered from Bette and Tyson he’s a class act, standing up for friends and giving good advice. He likes The West Wing and showed up to a stranger’s graduation, so how bad can he be?

☼☼☼☼

additional notes: see what magdalene's graduation dress looks like here // the quote from the west wing is from 1.02 if you were curious!

☼☼☼☼

taglist: @scrunchmakar @marcoscandellas @toplinetommy (add yourself to the taglist!)

[realisaonum]

book meme

thank you, jen @det395​ !! i feel like this meme got away from me a bit, but no shame! i love talking about books and writing so onward ~under the cut~

1- how many books are too many books in a series? 

mhmmmmm i guess it depends on the objective of the series, right? is the plan to have x number of books in the series and if so, when we finally get to the end will it be satisfying considering all the books we’ve read leading up to it? OR is the objective of the premise / characters just to exist doing whatever? both can be done well. i would say a lot rides on how much i trust the author.

2- what do you think about cliffhangers?

so this is meant for cliffhangers in a series like between books? i don’t really care if there’s a cliffhanger as long as i have the next book sitting right next to me. otherwise uh, only if the wait between books is tolerable, because at that point you need to know that the author can clear this mess up, right? there’s this other thing, like you know how if the entire series was already written, then they might release the books a month apart or a quarter apart - that could be alright too. but years in between? not especially a fan. is anyone a fan?

3- hardback or paperback?

jen, you and me are complete opposites here. paperbacks stress me out. i will go out of my way to buy a used hardcover if given the choice. of course, there are some publications i don’t mind in paperback —thinking poetry and super indie books that don’t have a hardcover release OR books where the spines are thin enough they won’t break and i won’t be holding them long enough for them to wear. hardcovers are sturdy and i don’t have to worry i’ll accidentally bend the cover in some damaging way. I am invested in keeping my books nice to the point that i create covers for my books out of kraft paper or brown grocery bags while i am reading them. this is something i started when i was in college and didn’t want these books i was hoping to probably resell get thrashed coming in and out of my bag for all these classes. My home library is probs more half and half paperback/hardcover but if given a choice usually it’s hardcover.

4- least favourite book?

i think it’s good to at least attempt to meet a book on its level. there are lots of books i didn’t like, but i wasn’t meeting them on their level and i know that so we’re ignoring those. i do however have a shelf on my goodreads dedicated to books that i have beef with so i’ll just go off on two of them.....

tana french’s the likeness for being plagiaristic shit. it is essentially poorly concealed alternate universe OC insert fic of the secret history. you’ve got french’s dublin murder squad folks and then this group they are investigating who bear a STRIKING resemblance to the greek students in tsh 🤔. this would be one thing. it is pretty well acknowledged that nothing is original and there are enough changes to The Likeness that MAYBE i could let it slide if not for this other thing: french’s book, the likeness, has lines that are just basically reworded quotes from the secret history and french positions these lines so they are said by the counterpart (essentially same!) character that gave them original life in tsh. i cannot stress this enough: you can HEAR how similar the sentences are and their core intent is always the same. it’s thinly veiled theft! it astounds me that French hasn’t been sued frankly. it is one thing to want to capture some of the genius that tartt’s debut novel holds, but it is completely lazy and disgusting theft to go about it in the way French did with this book. and YES the secret history was published before french’s book. if i could stomach how fucking goddamn boring the likeness was to read it a second time and cite every one of these offenses i would, but that’s yet a third strike against it—it’s too boring to be worth it. 

T. Kingfisher’s second book of the Clocktuar War duology : The Wonder Engine. this is a book that i feel violated the contract between writer and reader. the first book feels almost like a YA book. the stakes while described as very high are treated, as actions unfold, as very low. nothing truly irreparable happens until the climax of the second book and the fallout of that action is so off-tone of everything that came before i felt deeply betrayed. no, like, completely betrayed as in it ruined the rest of my afternoon, i am still viscerally angry eight months later, and i will never trust this author again. sure, maybe none of those actions that led to the climax were out-of-character, but there was nothing NOTHING in the proceeding action that even came close to that level of consequence. it’s a pity because right up till that point i was having a really good time. the entire vibe of the rising action to the climax of book one all the way through the rising action of book two was just a quippy fun version of roadtrip/quest - it felt like a comfort read. the abrupt tone shift had all the subtlety of dropping a graphically, brutal murder into Blue’s Clues. you don’t do that - this is a basic tenet of a writer / reader relationship. i’m not touching this bitch’s shit again.

5- Love Triangle, yes or no?

not so much. i like jen before me will scream ‘just be poly.’ love triangles that lead into poly relationships? yes, awesome will be glad i read. but i am at a stage in my life where your standard will-they-won’t-they-love-triangle is just fucking pointlessly frustrating to me. an example: i read a Nic Stone’s book Odd One Out a couple years ago and something about the synopsis or the hype made me think that it would resolve the love triangle that way, so when that did not happen i was incredibly frustrated and immediately wanted to resell the book. it’s the potential of the thing. stone’s book could have been the perfect vehicle for opening up the concept of polyamory to a ya audience but instead just really squandered that potential with weak floundering — in my opinion!

6- the most recent book you just couldn’t finish

uhhhhh i’ve got two and i’m not sure i’ve entirely given up quite yet buuuuuuuut 

fucking dune. i got really pissed off with this book. So just…setting aside the whole vaguing at a pedophilically inclined queer coded villain - it’s done so poorly, that it's almost funny? like it doesn’t (as of half way through) actually have any consequence on…anything at all and is tacked on like an afterthought to the end of his scenes. honestly it all could just be cut out entirely with no recourse to the larger story. So my actual beef with this book is the pacing is ATROCIOUS. like yo, not only do you expect me to give a shit about these Atreides cunts, when we just met them and we spend the same amount of time with them IF NOT MORE with the antagonist? but you also expect me to believe Paul was able to just convince the leader of the Arrakis people —the leader of an entire planet!!— with a single fucking sentence??? yeah, not so much. it was not set up for me to believe that Paul could do that! maybe if Kynes hadn’t died immediately after—or at least not died at that moment? baring the fact I thought he was by far the most interesting character, IF he had been convinced by Paul in that scene, it would have been great to see some actual work done around that - with a transfer or a liaise of power between Kynes and Paul and the Fremen. By not having any substantive scene that does it - it begs the question of what the fuck was the point of the character in the first place? unplumbed potential!!! over all there seem to be some key scenes missing to get the reader to where the narrative expects us to be? but the choices made of the characters we spend time with and the moments we see with them, the benefit to the larger story…is not always there. hey herbert, these words you have written aren’t doing what you want them to?? i feel like i should finish it but i reaaaaallly don’t want to :) the only thing i can say is it looks like from the trailer, villeneueve is giving space to these moments so that the viewer can foster a genuine connection with the characters? radical concept.

our lady of perpetual hunger - i started this one optimistically bc i like chef memoirs, but i am at the point where she has just given birth to her son and honestly DON’T CARE. i still haven’t officially given up on it yet since i actually fucking bought it like a dope. i certainly would not have if i knew how much NOT about working the line this was gonna be

7- book you are currently reading

Aside from the failures mentioned above, I am working on the second book in B. Catling’s Vorrh trilogy, The Erstwhile. Also very close to finally finishing Iain Sinclair’s The Last London - there’s a review of his work from the LA Times that goes “One of Sinclair’s greatest skills has always been his ability to take diverse if not chaotic source material and refashion it in a way that sometimes seems downright alchemical” which captures some of the wonder I experience when reading his work. His style and how he creates atmosphere and setting is just unique and astounding.

8- last book you recommended to someone

The Secret History by Donna Tartt. Before that I told my brother to read Eat a Peach, as we both love Anthony Bourdain and David Chang talks about him a bit here, plus it’s just a fucking great book. any book that gives insight into Chang’s methodology and paradigm is worth a shot.

9- oldest book you read

I think it might have to be Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night (which apparently according to wiki premiered on the stage a whole four months before Hamlet so that’s what we’re going with) and if plays don’t count, I don’t care. I think they count and that’s what we’re going with.

10- the most recent book you read ?

Given the previous question, the most recently published book, right? It’s gotta be the one I just finished: The First Collection of Criticism by a Living Female Rock Critic - Revised and Expanded edt., which like just came out this summer. I watched Jessica Hopper’s promo zoom, curtesy of my local indie bookstore, and went ahead and bought it. This was a great decision! It was just what I needed to read these last couple of weeks. i love there’s lots of short pieces that made the read quick and the fact that it’s non-fiction so there was no pressure of a plot or the emotional weight of character investment when I had a lot of big stressors dragging me down irl -it was such a relief. Hopper’s criticism is fun to read and there’s some real art in her appreciation of music here.

11- favourite author?

These are the top in a kind of order but not really: Donna Tartt, Jeff VanderMeer, Megan Whalen Turner, Flannery O’Conner, Chuck Palahniuk, Anthony Bourdain

Other faves very much worth mentioning: Emily O’Neill, Richard Siken, Brandon Sanderson, Warren Ellis, Nathan Englander, Stephen King, Eddie Huang, Carl Hiaassen, Anne Carson, and Iain Sinclair.

12- buying books or borrowing books?

Depends on if my library has it, of course! I nearly always see if my library has a copy first if i have never read it or the author before. If i’ve read the book before or trust the author, I’ll buy it. Like I’ll straight out buy new stuff from Jeff VanderMeer even though with him it’s either this-hits-exactly-and-is-my-new-fave or i-really-disliked-this-but-admire-the-boundaries-you’re-pushing-my-dude - so it’s always a gamble but a worthy one.

12- a book you dislike that everyone else seems to love

a little life (just bc it's torture porn elevated to art doesn’t negate the fact that it’s torture porn. Yanagihara’s project here is repugnant and the fact that this book is lauded as moving lgbt fiction makes my skin crawl)

sharp objects (good writing, compelling story, BUT typographical scarification doesn't work like that - i am not going to get into it but i know from first hand experience how Flynn described it is not accurate)

nesbø’s the snowman (what kinda dumbass detective would think THAT when a woman finds her missing father’s corpse? absolute idiocy - so obviously reverse engineered with that end in mind)

the raven cycle (fuck ronan lynch to start and then fuck him to end as well - there’s some other stuff but mostly he’s a total CUNT and if i don’t say that once a day i have probably died)

14 - bookmarks or dogears?

Bookmarks and sticky notes. Then I can place it pointing directly to the paragraph I last stopped on.

15- The book you can always reread?

This is my question because I reread all the time. ALL THE TIME. Books I reread often: The Secret History, Medium Raw (especially chapter 17 The Fury), Crooked Kingdom, The Violent Bear It Away, and The Goldfinch. Every year like clockwork (since it came out apparently) I will reread Stephen King’s The Outsider.

Other books I feel the urge to reread: VanderMeer’s Acceptance, Englander’s Dinner at the Center of the Earth, Frazier’s Nightwoods, Fresh Off the Boat, the Mr. Mercedes trilogy, the Peter Grant Series (which is queued up for another go here soon I think), any of the stories from A Good Man is Hard to Find, Sanderson’s Wax and Wayne Mistborn books, simon vs the homosapiens’ agenda, and there are two of Alan Morinis’ books on Mussar that I am technically always revisiting—when i need a reminder, i’ll jump around and read specific sections to get centered again.

16- can you read while listening to music?

Yes, but only ambient or near ambient (only usually one track on repeat) or a soundtrack I am extremely familiar with. No new music. I do usually need some audio stimulation or my mind will wander terribly.

17- one POV or multi POV?

Multi pov can certainly be done well (looking at the soc duaology and VanderMeer’s Acceptance) but working a multi-pov means there are more plates spinning, it’s more of a challenge, and some authors pull it off better than others.

18- do you read book in one sitting or in multiple days?

I don’t really do this anymore. that might have something to do with me picking up thicker books? but also i have a full time job now and let’s be real the book has to be hella good if i don’t want to put it down. the last book i attempted to shotgun was the final installment of my favorite series and it still took me two days so....i can get through a lot of books but none of them are ever in one sitting anymore.

19- who to tag:

@sybilius​ @mouth-rainboy​ @iwonderifthatisart​ @phereinnike​ @magnificentmoose​ @wambsgangs​ @moriarteaparty​ and anyone else if you feel so inclined!

Bonus Question: What’s on your to-read shelf? 

As for me, I am excited about one i just picked up, Danforth’s Plain Bad Heroines, which i might start tomorrow and I will be taking Paul Madonna’s Come to Light on my trip to see my brother this coming weekend. 

[whackmewithwhump]

Intro to The BoxCutters

Okay guys, for once I promised something and I'm gonna deliver. This is a band of OC's that I created and very much would like to put into compromising and fun whumpy situations. This is a brief overview of the band members, and their personality, but I do have quite a bit of worldbuilding and other details all in my head about this stuff. So without further ado, meet the new crew, and don't hesitate to tell me what you think!!

Chante: (26, asexual, panromantic) okay so Chante is our lead man. He sings and plays lead guitar, but sometimes he plays the keyboard, or will hop on and surprise the crowd with some other instrument.

He actually has a degree in engineering, but has always loved music. Many people would describe him as a bit of a prodigy, he's the sort of guy who can pick up and play most instruments, but the credit goes to his hard work more than anything else. He's dedicated to his craft and it paid off big time over the years.

He's incredibly friendly and open. The sort of guy who sees a room of strangers as a room of future friends. He's great at networking and making connections for the band, and is well loved by most people. He can be a little bit of a control freak sometimes if people aren't taking things as seriously as he is, and can also wear himself down by not knowing his limits.

He absolutely rocks crop tops, is a total morning person, collects guitars and treats them like his babies (can unintentionally be a bit of a snob about it), and he gives music lessons as a side hustle.

Keiko: (25, straight) Keiko is our bassist, she's a huge stoner, and an original member of the band. She's a pretty good songwriter, and has written a lot for them over the years. She's got a wicked sense of style and a wicked sense of humour. Probably the ultimate memelord of the group. She's messy in all senses of the word, gets distracted and ends up in drama. She's not afraid to stand up for herself or for others, but is very much a sweetheart. She's just a sweetheart that is incredibly blunt.

Keiko makes herself at home wherever she is. She can get comfy and take a nap anywhere. She's incredibly artistic, and usually has several projects on the go. She's got big ambition but little follow through. She has two pet rabbits, Peter and Apple Juice, and she would die for either of them and gives them the best life possible. She's a big lover of animals, including all of the critters that people are generally scared of, and would scold anyone who dare even think about squishing a bug. She's got a tattoo sleeve inspired by the Great Barrier Reef.

Lastly, she lives in a house with Tyson, they've been roommates for years, along with a rotation of various strangers. The two of them are the big trouble makers of the group, and often have a rather annoying friends with benefits thing going on with each other while they're bored. It doesn't even cause friction, because they have zero romantic interest in each other, but it's definitely not the best use of either of their time.

Sadie: (26, lesbian) Sadie is a guitarist and singer and the newest member of the band, introduced to them by Chante after he'd graduated from university. It was the two of them that really got the band up and running again. She's incredibly organized, and with Chante's executive skills, they whipped thing back into shape.

She doesn't usually sing lead, but on occasion she will. Whether she's leading or being a second vocalist, she has a really powerful and beautiful voice that brings a lot of texture and life to the sound of their music. Out of the group, her stage presence is the most different to her everyday personality. On stage she unleashes this monster of a performer, and always gives her all to put on a show. She'd be the most likely to stage dive and crowdsurf.

Otherwise, she is the most subdued and lowkey of the gang. She's not quiet or shy per se, but she has lots of intention behind what she says. Sadie is also a massive flirt, and a bit of a hoe, but we don't slutshame her. She's always getting with the ladies, and has many short term relationships, but things never get too serious before she sorta gets scared and dips.

Her style is very simple and clean cut (my drawing is kind of extremely casual compared to what she'd usually wear). She's the sort of person to iron all of her clothes, and buttons her shirts all the way to the top. She makes this very put together look seem incredibly edgy, but the mullet helps with that. Unlike Chante, she doesn't collect guitars, but has two that are reliable and that she cherishes and will use till they're falling apart. (Oh and she's a total lightweight)

Tyson: (25, bi) Tyson is our drummer. He has been a percussionist since a young age, and ended up being quite the band geek in high school because of it. He loves to mess around with the toys (percussion toys, you sickos) but his passion has always been drumming in its various forms. He gets to whack things, what's not to love? The Boxcutters were his idea, and it was his humble garage where the band got its start as angsty teens. A classic origin story.

His parents were mostly happy for him to be engaged in anything that kept him out of trouble, since he has ADHD that leans very much towards the hyperactivity side, as it often does with males, and he struggled a lot throughout his childhood with being quite disruptive. He is very competitive, and sometimes takes things too far because of this, and will never turn down a dare. Fortunately his friends are around and are pretty good at reining him in when they need to. Being the third out of four children in his family, he's always felt the need to get attention, which he usually tries to get by being a class clown sort of character, but he often doesn't know when is the right time for that stuff. On top of it all, he's a chronic oversharer. He unintentionally is rude a lot of the time, or can sometimes snap and be mean, but he almost always is willing to accept responsibility and apologize once he's cooled down.

He's great at a party and fiercely loyal, a sweetie that sometimes tries to be tough but it just ends up being very funny.

[mostlycompetentwriter]

When You Least Expect It

Pairing: OC x Seo Changbin

Genre: enemies to lovers one-shot

Word Count: around 10,000 (yeah, I’m sorry)

Warnings: Smut (near the end) and Language

Summary: Changbin and Hanna had never gotten along, but they tolerated each other’s presence for the sake of their friends. However, when Hanna begs Changbin to teach her how to play the guitar, their relationship promises much more than hostile insults.

On Sundays, I liked to watch ridiculous Australian television shows with Chan and Felix. The two boys never seemed to mind, especially since the real reason I came over was to eat my way through their monthly supply of groceries. Plus, Chan and I used to fuck when we were still in high school and that boy owed me for all the free orgasms. “You watched Gumby in Australia?” I questioned, watching the disturbing animated character as it danced across the screen.

Felix shrugged. “It was fun as a kid.”

I unconsciously shivered, leaning in closer to Chan. “That’s seriously creepy.”

“You take what you can find,” Chan remarked, shoving another forkful of ramen into his mouth.

“I remember watching Teen Titans.”

“What was that?”

“Just some teenagers who had crazy superpowers,” I explained, reaching over to take another stick of beef jerky from Felix.

He hummed in acknowledgment, eyes still glued to the TV. Meanwhile, I could faintly hear the sound of the front door opening, but it wasn’t until he was standing in my line of vision that I actually bothered to look up. “Why are you always here?” Changbin growled, reaching down to swipe away the piece of jerky I had every intention of consuming. 

“How inconsiderate,” I remarked, shifting closer to Chan with the hope that the older boy would take pity on me.

“You know what’s inconsiderate?” Changbin continued to complain. “Having you over here every morning to eat the food that I paid for!”

“I helped,” Chan grumbled, poking almost ruthlessly at his ramen breakfast.

“Changbin is just being rude,” I consoled him, pressing a tender kiss to his bare shoulder as Chan seemed to recently take a preference for wearing muscle tanks around the apartment.

“Look here, sweetheart,” Changbin growled, tone dripping with his barely concealed outrage. “You’re lucky I even let you come around here.”

I snorted because I definitely didn’t care about Changbin’s comfort. “You don’t bitch to Felix and he’s here more than me!”

“Felix actually contributes to the band,” Changbin tittered. “You don’t really do anything!”

“I keep the boys entertained,” I joked, digging my fingers into Chan’s side to wrench free one of his trademarked giggles.

“I like having Hanna around,” Felix protested, reaching over to cling onto my arm like an oversized koala. 

I gave Changbin a smug grin, delighting in the way his eyes darkened further. He was far too easy to rile up and his quick-temper was fun to ignite when I was feeling in the mood. “Changbin,” I cooed. “Why don’t you like me?”

The younger boy was obviously not in the mood to play along, but it was still funny to watch him storm away with his fists clenched at his sides. “He’s too short to be intimidating,” I declared, settling back down with Chan and Felix to watch another one of Gumby’s whimsical adventures.

You see, I met Chan and Felix back in high school because of Hyunjin, my younger brother. And although Hyunjin would never admit it, he did his best to keep me away from his friends. “You’ll fall for Chan,” he explained when I asked why he continued to sneak the two Australians out the back door.

Of course, Hyunjin was right, and I eventually slept with Chan at a ridiculously cliche high school party. After that, we started dating for a while until we figured out being friends was a much better situation. Hyunjin was definitely grateful because he could finally have his older friend all to himself, but I still hung around whenever I could. 

Chan and I also started university first, and it was nice to know someone because I was terrible at making friends. Thankfully, Chan introduced me to some guys he knew and Woojin and Minho became close confidants. They were mature and quirky, deciding we could have just as much fun with a few beers and a game of twister as opposed to those crowded fraternity parties. However, that didn’t necessarily mean I didn’t partake in the occasional late-night gathering, especially if campus icon Hyungwon had anything to say about it.

Nevertheless, when Hyunjin and Felix started school with Chan and me, things took on a new and interesting dynamic when they discovered an audition sheet for a new band. Apparently, the group was relatively new and were looking for singers and performers to join. Thereafter, we were all invited into the chaotic world of music with a strange introduction from Jisung, Jeongin, Seungmin, and, of course, Changbin. 

Now, I wasn’t musically talented in any sense so I chose to merely accompany the boys to their frequent practices in the garage of Jisung’s house. Despite his parent’s constant bombardment, it was cool to have a place far away from campus to hang out and I enjoyed interacting with the others. I found myself growing closer to the other boys, even though we hadn’t known each other for very long.

However, despite our new acquaintanceship, I still had not managed to charm Seo Changbin the same way I had with the others. I was convinced the younger boy hated me, so I tried to stay out of his way. I mean, who would want to deal with his constant mood changes or annoying laugh anyway?

“I’ve got something brilliant!” Chan interrupted my darkening thoughts as he barged into Jisung’s basement waving about several loose sheets of papers. “This one will give us a hit for sure!”

I was the first to take a look, snatching them right out of Changbin’s hands who merely glowered at me in response. “Matroshyka?”

“Exactly!” Chan exclaimed, jabbing the sheets of paper aggressively before he sat down on the edge of the couch. “What do you think?”

I nodded my agreement. “It’s really good.”

Chan beamed under my praise while I relented the sheet music to a fuming Changbin. I walked over to Woojin, inviting myself into his comfortable lap, encouraging him to wrap his hands around my waist. “How long did you stay up last night, Chan?”

I studied the dark circles under Chan’s eyes as the older boy shook his head. “It wasn’t that late!”

“It’s fantastic,” Changbin gasped, immediately racing over to their elaborate set-up of sound equipment.

“Really?” Jisung perked up, tossing aside his notebook as he joined Changbin.

Meanwhile, Chan reclined back against the couch, folding his arms behind his head. “I’m a genius.”

“That isn’t exactly your style, Chan,” I laughed, feeling Woojin chuckling from beneath me.

“This is genius though!” Jisung insisted, running his hands through his crazy dark blue hair.

“We should record it tonight,” Changbin added. “Who did you have in mind?”

“Well,” Chan started sheepishly, suddenly shy despite his earlier confidence. “I thought it could be me, you, and Jisung.”

“I don’t know if I’m ready!” Jisung fretted, and I fought the urge to walk over and invite him into my arms. Jisung lacked in self-confidence, but I always tried to brighten his mood.

“We’ll do a practice run,” Changbin nodded as if he could already hear the finished product given the ridiculous way he bopped his head.

“This is exciting!” Jeongin added the youngest rushing over to Seungmin to yank out his earphones. “We’re recording tonight!”

I yawned, tuning out their adorable gushing as I considered the amount of homework I had to finish. I couldn’t stay tonight, but I wasn’t really needed anyway. And it would probably make Changbin happy. 

Woojin immediately protested when I left his lap, reaching down for my bag. “You guys have fun tonight. I have a Chemistry paper due this Friday.”

“But Hanna,” Jisung pouted. “This is our first real recording.”

“And you’ll do great,” I said, adding a cheesy thumbs-up. 

“Less room for her to get in the way,” Changbin grunted and I glared in his direction. 

What an asshole.

Of course, it turns out that taking my English essay to the library instantly became the best decision of my life! And it was in large part due to the incredibly handsome library assistant who casually flirted with me as he helped me find all the books I needed from the list I jotted down before leaving my dorm. I was practically salivating when he asked if I could use any help writing the annoying assignment. I immediately acquiesced and spent the next several hours in literal heaven next to an actual angel. Not only did I finish my essay, but I also managed to score myself a coffee date the next morning.

Subsequently, I returned to the dorm late that evening which meant I allowed myself to sleep-in the following day. Usually, I never ignored texts from the boys, but I also didn’t want them to ruin my morning. After all, I was meeting with a man with whom I was 95% sure I would marry very soon, even if that meant a shotgun wedding at a chapel in Las Vegas. 

At least, until I opened my big mouth.

Here’s some advice: just because a literal angel tells you that he knows how to play the guitar doesn’t mean you should also admit the same skillset. As it turns out, you don’t have to share everything in common with a potential partner. But I was enamored, and I spent several minutes talking about the really cool band I was apart of even though I knew Changbin would rather drink chlorine than admit I was a member of their silly boy group. 

“You should come over and we can play together,” my angel said, and that’s when I knew I was doomed.

After we parted ways, I sought after Chan because I knew the older boy had been practicing guitar and maybe he would be kind enough to teach me a few chords. However, when I finished explaining the situation to him, Chan started laughing hysterically, pointing a finger at me as he incoherently tried to form a sentence. “What’s so funny?” Woojin asked as he entered Chan’s bedroom.

“Apparently my love life?” I grumbled, glaring at Chan as if that could possibly intimidate the older boy in the slightest.

After filling in Woojin, and a mischievous Jisung, I had to listen to the three of them cackle like old men who insisted on making a “joke” far funnier than it actually was. “Will you help me!” I pouted when Chan started to settle back down. 

“I haven’t played in years,” Chan admitted, glancing back at Jisung. “What about you?”

“I’m really not that good,” Jisung shrugged. “But I know Changbin can play.”

“I’d rather deal with your mediocre skills than ask him. Actually, you could literally rip my fingernails off and I still wouldn’t ask Changbin.”

Jisung wrinkled his nose. “That’s gross.”

“The point is,” I reiterated, flailing my arms to regain their attention. “I can’t ask Changbin.”

“Why not?” Chan shrugged. “He’s really good and I don’t think he’d mind teaching you.”

I looked at Chan like the older boy had suddenly gained an additional head. “Are you serious? Changbin hates me.”

“He doesn’t hate you,” Woojin added. “He just sort of tolerates you.”

As if that was any better, but I was desperate, which is why I found myself lingering outside Changbin’s bedroom. I cleared my throat as I rehearsed my practiced speech: “Listen, Changbin, I’m really proud of everything that you’ve done with the group. In fact, I think it might be nice to be more supportive! Maybe if I could learn an instrument, I might be able to relate more to the music? How about teaching me to play the guitar?”

I let out an exasperated sigh as I dismissed my planned verbiage, choosing instead to knock hesitantly on the door. “What?” an annoyed voice called out, slightly muffled by the walls.

“I need a favor,” I said, fidgeting with my hands and fully expecting Changbin to ignore me completely.

What I wasn’t prepared for was the sight of an obviously exhausted Seo Changbin opening the door only wearing a dark pair of low-hanging sweatpants. “Why are you here?” he muttered, rubbing the sleep from his dark eyes.

I immediately shielded my gaze, trying to ignore the flare of interest after scanning down the broad expanse of his chest. “Put some clothes on!”

“This is my apartment,” Changbin retorted, very much unimpressed with me as he stepped out of the doorway. “I was sleeping.”

“Sorry,” I huffed, stepping inside his messy room. A complete disaster, if you ask me, with weird grunge rock band posters decorating the walls and a carpet made of clothes since he obviously doesn’t own a laundry basket. “I have a proposal.”

“What?” he grunted.

“I want to learn how to play the guitar and Chan said you were pretty good.”

Changbin was quiet for a moment. “Why the hell do you want to play the guitar?”

I felt my cheeks heat up, but thankfully my hands were still hiding my face. “Is that really your business?”

“Careful sweetheart, you need me, remember?”

I cursed his arrogance. “Fine, I want to learn because the guy I like can play.”

“You’re trying to learn guitar to impress another dude?” Changbin chuckled. “Isn’t that too much?”

“You wanted to know why!”

“What will you do for me in return, sweetheart? I remember hearing something about a proposal?”

“Of course, because it would be too much for you to help out a friend,” I muttered, finally removing my hands so that I could look him in the eye. Thankfully, Changbin was hunched over, somewhat hiding his naked chest from my sight. “I’ll stop coming here in the mornings to eat your damn groceries, okay?”

Changbin brightened. “Deal.”

It was likely the first time we ever agreed on something so easily.

“I booked the music room in the library for the week,” I told him. “We can practice there.”

“Whatever you want, sweetheart,” he sighed, falling back on his bed. “Now leave me alone. I still have an hour left before our second recording.”

Ignoring his dismissive attitude, I still held tight to the small victory I had attained in our agreement. I was a decently fast learner, so I planned for a few lessons with Changbin before I was ready to play with Hyungsik, A.K.A, the beautiful librarian who had left a memorable impression. That evening, I went to the music store and rented an acoustic guitar for my impromptu lessons. I also purchased one of those Dummy books because, despite the obvious condescension, they were pretty helpful guides.

I stayed up late that night reading through the book, nodding my head as I realized that it wouldn’t be too difficult at all. In fact, with some practice, I could have probably taught myself this stuff without Changbin’s assistance. “This is too easy,” I remarked, setting aside the book before allowing tender dreams of Hyungsik to soothe me into sleep.

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

“This is the first fret,” Changbin droned monotonously while I resisted the urge to reach over and shake him because he was going way too slow. After all, I told him beforehand that I had been reading some very extensive literature on the guitar. He must have ignored me because he started from the beginning with the basic foundational stuff that even a first grader could have learned.

“Come on, Changbin,” I urged him. “I already know all this stuff.”

“It’s important to memorize the chords-”

“Yeah, but when are we going to play a song?”

His accompanying smirk was positively evil. “I thought you wanted me to teach you, sweetheart?”

“How to play songs!” I emphasized, because how deaf was this boy? I needed to remind Chan to keep Changbin out of the recording booth for a few days.

“You have to learn the basics before you can play a song,” Changbin went on, ignoring the way I rolled my eyes at his deliberate reprimand.

“I read the book already,” I sighed, deliberating whether or not it was too late to beg Chan or Jisung instead.

“Alright,” Changbin said, abruptly shoving the instrument in my direction. “Play me a C Major chord.”

Rolling my eyes, I pictured the image of the chord in my head, slowly working my fingers onto the strings. “This is what the book said.”

“It told you to crowd your fingers onto the same fret?”

“To play the B string, the D string, and the A string.”

“Okay, but your fingers aren’t positioned correctly.”

“This is what the book said!”

“I’m sure it did,” Changbin managed, openly laughing at me as if I had started speaking a foreign language. “But your fingers aren’t on the correct frets, and they aren’t holding down the strings enough.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

Changbin smirked, jerking the guitar away from my eager hands. “This is why you should watch me first, sweetheart. You might actually learn something useful.”

I resisted the urge to snap back at him because I was still 90% certain that I had been correct, but instead, I chose to fume quietly while Changbin resumed his lecture. Honestly, I endured enough of those on a daily basis with my college courses. The last thing I needed was Changbin’s nasally voice instructing me on the difference between E Minor and E Major, whatever the hell that means.

“Look Changbin,” I finally interrupted him. “Can’t you at least teach me a song?”

“What kind of song?” he asked, eyeing me curiously.

“Something romantic,” I briefly gushed, reaching over to shake his arm excitedly. “I really want to impress this guy.”

Changbin’s look of curiosity was replaced with one of revulsion. “Who is this guy, anyway? I don’t understand why you already like him so much.”

“We’re getting to know one another,” I insisted petulantly. “You wouldn’t understand. You’ve never even had a girlfriend before.”

Changbin quietly looked down, and I was slightly taken aback by the dark look that had briefly obscured his gaze. “Whatever song you want.”

I cleared my throat, a little unnerved by his unexpected behavior. “Just play something you know best.”

A familiar riff filled the tense silence between us. I snapped my fingers in recognition. “Stairway to Heaven?”

“It’s really easy,” Changbin shrugged, focused on his playing. “It was the first thing I ever learned how to play on the guitar.”

“It’s nice,” I admitted sheepishly.

I strangely found Changbin endearing at that moment, watching him play as if there was nowhere else in the entire world he would rather be…

—————————————————-

Two Weeks Later

“My fingers hurt,” I pouted, presenting Chan with the sight of my blistered hands.

“Poor baby,” he teased, sprinkling tiny kisses across the delicate skin of my fingertips.

“That’s just gross,” Seungmin complained from where he was lying across Jeongin’s lap, eyes rapidly scanning over the pages of his most recent novel obsession. 

It had something to do with a stalker.

“They used to fuck,” Jisung stated bluntly, ripping into his package of skittles, cursing when a few wayward candies fell into the floor. 

“Don’t remind me,” Hyunjin whined as he covered his eyes with his hands as if burdened with a mental image of Chan and me together.

“Who fucked up your hands?” Woojin asked protectively, ignoring the previous topic of my coital actions with Chan.

“It’s from fretting the guitar,” I said a bit smugly, proud of my newfound knowledge. “Changbin is teaching me how to play.”

“Why the hell are you learning guitar?” Seungmin asked.

“Forget that!” Jeongin interjected. “How did you convince Changbin to teach you?”

“Tell me you didn’t agree to have sex with him!” Hyunjin gasped, bolting upright from his previous position on the couch to confront me, hands grasping my face tightly.

“What’s wrong with you?” I muttered, pushing aside Hyunjin’s wayward touch. “Why would I have sex with Changbin?”

“I thought he-”

“Hey!” Jisung suddenly interrupted, clapping his hands together rather obnoxiously. He gave Hyunjin a meaningful look, one that I could not begin to decipher. But I also didn’t really care because the two of them made for a strange duo. “Let’s talk about something else.”

“Yes!” Minho finally spoke up, rolling onto the floor to glance up at me through long lashes. “Let’s talk about Hanna’s new boyfriend.”

I brightened at the suggestion. “Hyungsik?”

“Hyungsik,” Minho repeated with a poor impression of my accent. “Tell me, have the two of you fucked yet?”

“Why are ya’ll so interested in sex?” Seungmin asked, slamming his book closed before knocking it against Jeongin’s chest. 

“Why? Do you like Hyungsik too?”

Seungmin didn’t hesitate to fling the innocent chapter book in Minho’s direction. The older boy dodged easily, returning his attention to our previous subject. “Well?”

“Not yet,” I admitted with a shrug. “But there’s a party tonight.”

“Hyungwon’s party?” Chan asked, suddenly remembering that he was also apart of the conversation.

“That’s the one!” I agreed, patting the side of his face. “Aren’t you going?”

“Maybe,” Chan shrugged. “Actually, Changbin invited me earlier.”

“Changbin at a party?” Hyunjin scoffed. “Did he produce the music?”

I laughed at my brother’s witty remark. “I always pictured Changbin as the type to fall asleep drooling on his sheet music. Since when has he ever been interested in frat parties?”

“Since when have you?” Hyunjin randomly questioned, as if remembering that he was my younger brother and should probably discourage such illicit activities.

“You could come too,” I joked. “You’ll give all the pretty boys a run for their money.”

“Shut the fuck up.”

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

Nonetheless, my younger brother could never resist the promise of free alcohol.

“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” Hyunjin whined as I drove the two of us to Hyungwon’s fraternity.

“You need to get laid,” I reminded him, locating a parking spot further down the busy street, congested with student vehicles. “This place is fucking insane.”

“Yet another reminder of why I should have stayed at the studio,” Hyunjin continued.

“Relax,” I said. “Changbin is supposed to be here with Chan. Find your friends and show them how an amateur dances to 90s EDM music.”

I squealed when Hyunjin reached across the center console to slap my arm. “You’re not funny.”

“And you’re slow,” I shot back. 

The party had started nearly half-an-hour ago, which meant we were fashionably late and way too sober. I carefully pulled into the parking spot I located earlier, grumbling because I was forced to parallel park. But I was also impatient to find Hyungsik.

“Hold on!” 

“It’s your fault if you don’t keep up,” I said, reaching down to unzip my jacket to reveal the rather inappropriate blouse that I had chosen for the evening’s affairs. 

Hyunjin finally caught up to me as I carefully took the steps leading up to the front door of Hyungwon’s fraternity, teetering precariously on my 4-inch high heels. Despite the fact that the sun had only started to set, I could already spot familiar red cups decorating the banister rails. Kihyun’s going to lose his shit when he discovers this mess in the morning. 

“Changbin and Chan are somewhere in the kitchen finding drinks,” Hyunjin informed me. “Can you spare a few more moments away from your sweetheart?”

“For Channie, yes,” I agreed, allowing Hyunjin to act the part of a gentleman and hold the door for me, allowing the blaring music to spill outside into the slowly darkening evening.

Hyunjin and I did our best to avoid the main floor where the drunk Freshmen were already losing their inhibitions. We slowly skimmed the outer edge of the wall, spotting the open kitchen where a much calmer atmosphere prevailed. Chan was the first to spot us, pointing over Changbin’s shoulder. “What’s up?”

“Trying to avoid a literal mess,” I grinned, wrapping my arms tightly around Chan’s neck. “Did you find something good to drink?”

“Not really,” Chan grimaced. “There’s a punch bowl, but that shit smells like gasoline.”

“Live a little,” I joked, peeking at Changbin out of the corner of my peripheral vision. “I’m surprised you came, Changbin.”

The younger shrugged, picking at a loose string on his black t-shirt. “I like Hyungwon.”

“Really?” I snorted because I was almost positive Changbin didn’t even really like his own bandmates.

“Hyunjin!” a shrill voice punctured our small oasis. I saw my brother grimace as a petite blonde came into his line of his vision. “I can’t believe you came.”

Changbin chuckled from my brother’s side. “He knew you were going to be here, Mina.”

“Hyunjin,” the girl giggled, as if ignorant to my brother’s obvious disgust like he was looking at the personification of Evil.

“You two should dance,” I suggested, deciding to tease my brother. After all, he was the one who often bragged about his superior choreography.

“Hanna,” Hyunjin addressed me, slugging me rather harshly across my shoulder. “I thought you wanted to dance with me?”

“I’ll dance with Channie,” I countered, feeling nothing short of victorious when my brother scowled, reluctantly allowing Mina to drag him away from our small gathering.

“How do they know each other?” I asked.

“She leaves cute notes on Hyunjin’s desk in our economics lecture,” Changbin said, leaning in closer. “I think she might like your brother.”

Changbin’s close proximity was unexpected, especially given my body’s peculiar reaction, practically drawn to the mischievous glimmer to his dilated irises. “Is that so?”

“Her older sister is a total bitch,” Chan remarked, ignorant to the strange tension between Changbin and me. 

I tore myself from Changbin’s hypnotic stare. “What the hell are you even talking about?”

Chan shrugged. “Where’s your precious new boyfriend?”

I let out a gasp as I suddenly remembered Hyungsik. “I should find him and introduce you.”

“Thrilling,” Changbin grumbled, pulling back to offer the cheaply tiled kitchen floor a dirty glare.

“I’ll try and find him. You two wait here.”

———————————————————————–

My endeavors at impressive sleuthing were cut short, however, when I found Hyungsik talking in animated conversation with two of his friends. I couldn’t resist a smile as I pushed my way through the unwavering sea of students to reach him. Unfortunately, as I grew closer, I realized that he was swaying slightly, eyes unfocused as he took a long drink from his bright red cup. “Hyungsik!”

“Hanna!” the older boy exclaimed, meeting me halfway at the edge of the growing crowd. “You made it!”

His breath fanned across my face and I wrinkled my nose upon smelling the unpleasant waft of alcohol. “You’re already drunk?” I lamented, feeling a tad bit disappointed. There was no way I could introduce Hyungsik to Changbin and Chan in this condition. They would mock me for such a first impression.

Hyungsik offered me a flirtatious grin. “I think the punch was spiked.”

Nevertheless, I refused to have my evening spoiled so prematurely by my potential boyfriend’s immaturity. “Let’s dance,” I offered instead, taking Hyungsik’s eager hand and leading him to the middle of the dance floor.

I guided his sweaty palms to either side of my waist, expertly rocking my hips to the beat of the music. Hyungsik let out an uncharacteristic yell as he pulled me closer to his body, allowing more of the alcohol smell to completely blind my senses. “Are you having fun?” he shouted into my ear.

I was too young to lose my hearing.

And I gave up on Hyungsik the moment his hands started to trail messily across my backside, tossing his head from side to side like an incompetent rock musician who was well past his prime. “Come on,” I sighed, jerking away from his touch.

I decided it was time to help Hyungsik sober up from his premature alcohol consumption. I knew that Hyungwon allowed guests to stay in some of the empty rooms upstairs. My best option would be to lead Hyungsik to one of those rooms and let him sleep off his drunken stupor. 

“Weee!” Hyungsik giggled as he fell on top of the bed, letting out a grunt as he collapsed on his front.

“Yeah, what a great fucking time,” I muttered sarcastically as I yanked his shoes from his feet, allowing them to messily fall into the floor.

I made sure to leave Hyungsik a glass of water and two Ibuprofen before turning out the light. I was a good Samaritan, even when the recipient of my good graces happened to be a potential love interest who totally ruined my Saturday night and left me feeling completely deflated. Of course, I guess it wasn’t exactly Hyungsik’s fault since he was apparently unaccustomed to the ridiculous tradition of avoiding the provided alcohol at frat parties. Still, I was far more likely to kick Hyungwon’s ass tomorrow morning in our Chemistry lecture, if he could manage to drag himself to class with a nasty hangover.

Satisfied with Hyungsik’s condition, I slowly closed the bedroom door behind me, letting out an exasperated sigh. I should’ve known better than to expect a decent lay from a fraternity party. What the actual hell was I even thinking? However, my self-loathing was temporarily forgotten when I spotted a shadow lingering around the corner of the hallway. I perked up instantly, eliminating the short distance to confront whoever had decided to stalk me when I was obviously upset.

“Changbin?” I questioned and he paused in his obvious attempt to sneak away. “Did you follow me up here?”

Changbin cleared his throat as he pivoted around to face me. “I’m sorry.”

“Why did you do that?” I asked, taking another step closer. I was surprised to see an unfamiliar brush coloring the narrow aspect of Changbin’s cheeks. “Did you think I was going to sleep with him?”

“He was drunk,” Changbin offered as a retort. “I didn’t want him to hurt you.”

“Trust me,” I scoffed, “he was too far gone to do anything to me.”

“But you wanted him too,” Changbin said, an unfamiliar rasp in his tone.

“Not really,” I shrugged. “I was mad that he was already drunk.”

Changbin let out an uncharacteristic giggle that I found alarmingly adorable. “You should know that your brother is currently dancing on top of the kitchen counter.”

I rolled my eyes. “I hope someone takes a good video. He deserves the embarrassment.”

Changbin nodded, rocking back on his heels. “Are you going to leave?”

“Probably,” I said. “I need to get Hyunjin home.”

“I can help if you want?” Changbin offered, and I was quick to accept his assistance.

“Is Chan still here?” I asked him as I guided our way through the maze of intoxicated students.

“Chan left a while ago,” Changbin said, one hand reaching out to hold onto my shoulder as I led us into the kitchen where an obvious crowd had started to circle around my idiot brother.

I forced my way to the front. “Hyunjin, get your ass down here right now!”

Hyunjin glanced down at me from the pedestal he had made of Hyungwon’s marble countertop. He squinted his eyes as if he couldn’t quite discern who I was. “Hanna?”

“Yes, you asshole,” I growled, yanking at his ridiculously tight skinny jeans. “If you want a ride home, then I suggest you stop acting like a complete fuckboy.”

Hyunjin seemed to sober up at my reprimand. “Sorry,” he slurred, falling into my arms.

“Hyunjin, you weigh twice as much as me,” I grunted, whispering a quick ‘thank you’ to Changbin when he offered to burden most of Hyunjin’s dead weight.

“You guys are the best,” Hyunjin said, rubbing his sweaty hair against the side of my face as we were abruptly hit with a cold rush of air from the outside.

“Shut the fuck up,” I muttered, shifting Hyunjin’s arm around my shoulder as Changbin and I proceeded to drag my brother’s drunk ass two blocks to my abandoned car.

———————————————————————-

“Thanks for helping,” I said, tucking the blankets up higher on Hyunjin’s chest. “You can spend the night if you want. I don’t mind sleeping in my roommate’s bed if you want the futon?”

Changbin nodded, perhaps too enthusiastically. Nonetheless, I found a spare blanket and pillow in the shared closet, giving them to Changbin as a makeshift bed. I knew the futon was rather uncomfortable, but it was only for one night. Plus, I felt better knowing that Changbin wouldn’t have to walk across campus in the middle of the night by himself. Despite our frequent disagreements, he was one of my brother’s best friends, and I had started to grow closer to him thanks to our unorthodox guitar lessons.

However, the last thing I expected after settling into my roommate’s twin-sized bed was to have an entertaining exchange with Changbin:

“Do you still want a lesson tomorrow?” he asked me.

“Yeah, I managed to avoid the alcohol.”

“Will you ever let Hyunjin forget the party?”

“There’s no way in hell,” I replied, grinning at the dark ceiling.

“You want the video I took of him on my phone?”

“I would literally like nothing more.”

Fuck, were we actually getting along?

————————————————————————

“Wake up, asshole,” I grinned, curtaining my brother’s t-shirt across his face. Hyunjin let out a groan. “What happened?”

“You drank too much and decided to show off for everybody,” I said, sitting down next to him on my bed. “Would you like to watch the video?”

“Fuck you.”

“Perhaps later then?”

Changbin stepped closer, looking unusually good in his dark jeans and a long-sleeved shirt. “Should we let him sleep?”

“Please,” Hyunjin groaned.

“My roommate won’t be back until tomorrow, so Hyunjin should be fine here for a while.”

Changbin pursed his lips, rocking back on his feet. “Well…”

“Do you feel like getting a cup of coffee?”

Changbin and I were both taken aback by my request. 

“That sounds nice,” he said quietly, appearing unusually shy as he refused to meet my gaze.

Changbin and I ensured that Hyunjin would wake up to powerful painkillers before walking together to the quaint coffee shop nestled at the end of the block. “Should I treat you?” I asked. “I feel bad that you had to drag my brother’s sorry ass from the party.”

Changbin chuckled. “Hyunjin’s my friend, and I did get some decent video footage for my troubles.”

I laughed as I recalled the short clip of my brother rather unattractively swiveling his hips to a poor remix of a popular K-Pop idol song. Perhaps in another life, Hyunjin could have made a decent performer. However, given the intoxicated component to his impromptu show, I supposed he might have been laughed out of his audition.

“Vanilla latte please,” I smiled pleasantly at the cashier whose blood-shot eyes clearly exposed her late-night activities.

“I’ll have the same.”

“Are you copying me?”

“You have good taste,” Changbin said, and I paused as I processed his words.

Was he flirting with me?

Pushing that ridiculous notion aside, I found us a small table amidst the busy college students furiously working on the essays they had spent the weekend neglecting. It reminded me that I had also put off my Chemistry lab report for far too long. Yet, the idea of balancing equations of which I had the faintest understanding was incredibly unappealing. 

The sweet scent of vanilla was preferable, and I sipped at the warm beverage greedily. “Why did Chan leave so early?”

“I sort of ditched him,” Changbin admitted.

“Why?” I asked. “I mean, I know Chan can be dull, but he’s better than the majority of those people.”

Changbin shrugged. “I was trying to find Hyunjin.”

“My brother is clueless sometimes,” I said, mindlessly watching the steam rise from my cup. “I didn’t expect him to go that far.”

“He’s never been that drunk before,” Changbin added.

“No more parties for Hyunjin.”

“What about you?” Changbin inquired, a not-so-innocent look drawn across his features.

“Me?” 

“Hyungwon’s parties are always like that,” Changbin scoffed. “Your precious boyfriend should have taken you on a proper date.”

“Changbin!” I laughed, reaching over to take his hand. “You’re actually being considerate for once.”

“Call it a hangover.”

“Or,” I started with a teasing lilt. “Maybe you like me just a little?”

Changbin glanced down at our hands. “I never said I didn’t like you.”

I pulled my hand away, surprised by his strange confession. “Changbin, I’m sorry if I said something wrong.”

“It’s not you,” he insisted, struggling for the right words. “Look, Hanna, I want you to know that I don’t really care if you’re at our apartment.”

“But you always say-”

“-I know,” Changbin growled, clearly frustrated with himself. “Hanna, I need to tell you something.”

I nodded as a silent encouragement for him to continue. However, before Changbin could utter another syllable, his concentrated gaze had shifted, pointedly narrowing at something behind me. I glanced over my shoulder and let out a curse when I saw Hyungsik approaching.

“You have to forgive me!” Hyungsik immediately apologized, inserting himself between Changbin and I. Shaking my head, I had every intention of ordering him to leave after the melodrama that had happened last night.

But Hyungsik was persuasive, gently nudging a chocolate muffin in front of my coffee before flashing a dazzling smile in my direction. I swear my heart actually stopped beating for several seconds. “What are you doing here?”

“I saw you leave your apartment,” he admitted, ignoring Changbin’s glare as he pulled out a chair from the adjoining table.

I glanced back and forth between Hyungsik and Changbin. “I wasn’t exactly thrilled about last night.”

“It’s my fault,” he sighed. “I shouldn’t have trusted the liquor.”

“How much did you drink?”

“Maybe two cups?”

Fuck you, Hyungwon.

“It was spiked,” I said quietly, even though it was probably now obvious in hindsight.

“I know,” Hyungsik murmured, fingers slowly gliding across the tabletop to brush against mine. “Let me make it up to you?”

“Maybe,” I grinned, already knowing I would give in because I loved the way my heart played to a different beat around him.

“How about this Friday night? We could see a movie?”

“I’d like that.”

Hyungsik nodded, bashfully allowing his long bangs to frame his eyes. “You won’t regret this.”

——————————————————————

The following Friday, I tried to distract myself from my impending movie date with Hyungsik by requesting another guitar lesson from Changbin. “It’s early,” the younger snapped into the phone.

“I’m already in the library,” I said, running my hand along the smooth edges of my guitar. 

Changbin let out a noise of frustration. “Give me twenty minutes.”

The wait was well worth it when Changbin showed up wearing sweatpants and a hoodie, hair betraying the fact that he had obviously just rolled out of bed. “What a concept,” I remarked.

Changbin dropped his guitar case on top of our table. “Shut up.”

Thereafter, our lesson progressed smoothly, Changbin introducing me to a new series of complicated chords that only brought an immense feeling of satisfaction when I eventually mastered them. “I’m a quick learner,” I bragged in response to the impressed look on his face.

“Maybe when you can play an entire song,” Changbin grumbled, plucking at the strings of his own Savannah model guitar.

“What songs have you been working on?” I asked conversationally as I started to re-case my guitar.

“Nothing much,” Changbin said, fingers hovering around the fretboard.

“You could always play me something,” I suggested. “I’m a good listener.”

Changbin seemed to hesitate as if experiencing internal conflict, before nodding once. “I don’t want to hear any bullshit when I’m done,” he reproached snappishly, temper flaring once again.

I resisted the urge to offer a witty retort. Instead, I patiently waited as he re-adjusted the guitar in his lap, propping the curve onto his thigh. Changbin’s elegant playing soon filled the empty study room, gentle triad chords forming an unfamiliar melody. It was pleasant all the same, but I was still surprised to hear Changbin start to sing. 

Several lines of elegantly arranged lyrics that felt strangely familiar.

“That’s beautiful, Changbin,” I complimented the younger when he finished playing, enjoying his accompanying blush. “The lyrics are really personal. Did you write them about somebody?”

Changbin froze, fingers halting their movements against the strings as a wave of frightening anger settled into his features. He stood at once, rushing to pack up his guitar, shoulders tense as he worked. “I think we’ve done enough today,” he finally said, ignoring my protests.

And I could do nothing to change his mind.

——————————————————————————–

I was still shaken from my encounter with Changbin when I met Hyungsik that evening. The air between us was strangely awkward as we stood in tense silence for our tickets. It was probably my fault because I had been in a really bad mood ever since I left the study room earlier, clueless as to why I had upset Changbin. Nevertheless, I was grateful when we finally entered the theatre because it gave our unusual quietness justification when the title credits started to roll down the screen.

What was going on? Why did I feel so guilty?

It was only once we were halfway through the film that I realized I had no idea what was actually happening. The entirety of my attention had been focused on Changbin, unable to think about anything else other than the curious puzzle he had made of our last encounter together. Why had he acted that way?

After the film ended, Hyungsik and I walked outside together. “Are you alright, Hanna?” he asked sweetly, eyes full of concern.

“I’m fine,” I reassured him, even as the lie sat heavy in the pit of my stomach.

We went for coffee afterward, and I refused Hyungsik’s generosity, offering to buy our coffees in return for the movie tickets. “I don’t mind,” he had said, but I brushed him aside without really meaning to.

Hyungsik went to find us a table as I waited for our order, glancing nervously at the clock when I realized it was still pretty early. Was I about to ruin my chances with him? I wondered as I brought our coffees to the small booth by the window. Hyungsik took his order gratefully while I wordlessly sat down across from him. Did I even really care that this might be our first and last date?

“Open mic,” he said, snapping me to attention. 

I followed his gaze to the stage. “Do you want to play?”

He smirked. “Only if you play with me.”

Of course, the whole reason why I started my lessons with Changbin was for this exact moment. So, I allowed Hyungsik to drag me to the stage, handing me an unfamiliar guitar as we occupied two of the stools lining the edge of the wooden platform. “What should we play?”

“Something easy,” he said, riffing a familiar tune that I was able to easily follow, despite the strange sensation that something was clearly amiss.

It wasn’t the same without Changbin.

“You play really well,” Hyungsik complimented me, sighing when I didn’t respond. “Let’s go outside for some air.”

I readily agreed to his suggestion, abandoning our instruments as we greeted the cool night air. “I’m sorry,” I told him. “I had a really bad day.”

Hyungsik shrugged while letting out a sigh. “It’s alright, Hanna, I can tell when a girl isn’t into me.”

I perked up at his insinuation. “That’s not true-”

“It’s fine,” he interrupted. “You don’t have to force something between us.”

I sighed in defeat. “I don’t know what happened.”

“People change,” Hyungsik said. “Feelings change too, sometimes we don’t even realize how we really feel until it’s too late.”

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

Hyungsik’s advice haunted me for the rest of the evening, to the point where I could excuse my mindlessness as overthinking our earlier encounter. I was also acting completely out of character, something that Han Jisung was more than willing to take advantage of to benefit himself.

You see, I wasn’t a big fan of offering my extensive knowledge to the younger guys, but Jisung was always astute when it came to taking advantage of our dynamic. I knew he, of all people, would understand what was going on between me and Changbin. Which is why I found myself reacting to the plea for help he sent out several minutes ago via a long, convoluted text message.

“Changbin was weird today,” I later told Jisung, having agreed to proofread the younger’s English assignment.

“Hmm?” he asked distractedly, fingers tracing along with the words in his textbook.

“He played me a song,” I said. “I guess it’s supposed to be for your next album? It was really beautiful, but he was mad when I asked him if he wrote the lyrics for someone.”

Jisung glanced up at that, quirking an eyebrow. “Really?”

“I didn’t mean to offend him,” I shrugged, carding my fingers through my hair worriedly. 

“Do you remember the lyrics?”

I recalled them easily and Jisung let out an unnecessarily exaggerated sigh, looking at me like I was the one having trouble with homework. “You’re completely deaf, you know.”

I frowned at the insult. “Excuse me?”

“He wrote that song about you, idiot,” Jisung scoffed. “Changbin likes you.”

I blinked twice. “What?”

“Changbin likes you,” Jisung repeated, slamming his book closed. “I wasn’t supposed to say anything, but I’m really fed up with the way he looks at you like you broke his favorite toy. Which is his probably his electric guitar, thanks for asking.”

“Changbin doesn’t like me,” I frowned, soaking in the absurdity of Jisung’s claim. “I mean, if I suddenly went missing tomorrow, I doubt he would even notice.”

“Oh, he would definitely notice,” Jisung said. “Then again, if you did disappear for a while, then I wouldn’t have to deal with him brooding in the middle of the studio floor while I’m trying to work.”

“That’s impossible,” I insisted, even as I wavered in consideration of his claim. Because Jisung didn’t lie about these kinds of things. Seungmin? Perhaps, especially if it was for some practical joke. But Jisung? “Why tell me now?”

“I’m telling you because you’re flirting with this Hyungsik guy and Changbin hates it. You think he wrote that song because he just felt like it? Music has always been Changbin’s way of dealing with his emotions.”

“He should have told me,” I said, suddenly feeling a barrage of guilt because I really had no idea that the younger actually reserved feelings for me. Did that mean his hateful comments were actually a way to shield his true feelings? Because they had certainly gotten worse after I introduced Hyungsik.

“When would he have told you?” Jisung asked. “While you were still constantly talking about how much you liked another guy?”

“Are you trying to make me feel bad?” I frowned.

“I’m trying to tell you the truth,” Jisung tsked. “It’s up to you to decide what you do with it.”

——————————————————————————-

I didn’t bother knocking on the basement door. Instead, I knew it was better to approach Changbin unexpectedly. Because then he wouldn’t have some sort of rehearsed speech ready to counter my interruption.

“Hanna?” Changbin immediately questioned as I slowly walked up to his desk. “What are you doing here?”

“You shouldn’t have lied to me, Binnie,” I grinned, enjoying the way his mouth fell open upon hearing the nickname.

I leaned back against the desk, studying the way Changbin’s expression had morphed into one of complete disbelief. “What are you talking about?”

“You should know,” I teased him, carefully easing his chair back away from the desk, the small wheels on the bottom rolling across the linoleum floor.

I decided to act before either of us had time to think.

I straddled Changbin’s lap, encouraging his hands to fit around my waist as I slowly started pressing a trail of kisses down the side of his jawline. “Hanna?” Changbin faintly called, fingers squeezing into the skin above my hips as if trying to gain my attention.

I willingly obeyed. “Hmm?”

Changbin’s eyes widened. “What’s going on?”

I offered him a teasing smirk, leaning in close. “I know you like me, Changbin. If you wanted to keep it a secret, then you shouldn’t have told Jisung.”

Changbin cursed as I smoothed my hands across his chest. “I wasn’t going to tell you.”

“I know,” I pouted. “But how would I have known to do this, then?”

Changbin was completely unprepared for the faint brush of my lips across the seam of his mouth. But I was only trying to soften him, parting my lips sensually against his own as I allowed my tongue to trace the chapped ridges. Changbin opened wider against an instinctive gasp and I took advantage of the opportunity to lave my tongue against his own, pulling back to study his reaction.

“Can you handle more?” 

“More?”

I reached down for the hem of my t-shirt, removing the cheap fabric and carelessly tossing it into the floor. “I want to show you that I care.”

I ran my thumb across the swollen purse of his lips. Changbin’s tongue greeted the rough pad of the wandering digit. “Why?”

“Because I like you too,” I said, reaching out to cradle my hand against the side of his head, holding him in a place for another long kiss, savoring the novel sensation of his touch.

I rocked my hips forward, delighting in the way his breathing hitched, moan vibrating against my mouth. I started a pattern, pulling back and forth along the firm foundation of his thighs to distract him as my hands wandered down to the waistband of his jeans. I quickly noticed that he was already aroused, straining against the tight material, responding to my advances with willing compliance. It was all I needed to take the next step because the last thing I wanted was to move too fast. Changbin was far more sensitive than he allowed others to perceive, and I knew he had a kind heart that was far more vulnerable to the whims of those he desperately wanted to trust.

Changbin inhaled sharply, eyes wide and unblinking as he watched my fingers slowly undo his belt. “I think I’d like to feel your cock,” I admitted, making sure to whisper the words soothingly into his eager ears.

“R-really?” he stuttered, losing focus when my hand wrapped around his pulsing dick, warm beneath my calloused fingers. 

“Would you like that?” I asked him, running my vacant hand under his tight t-shirt, surprised to feel the muscle shaping his abdomen.

“Please,” he whined, fingers digging harder into my sides.

“You should have told me before,” I said, leaning back to allow myself enough space to pull up my skirt, leaving it in a thin bundle above my hips. Changbin’s hands finally smoothed down my waist, fingering the edges of my red satin panties while massaging across the waistband with rapt attention. 

“I’ve wanted you since Freshman year,” Changbin admitted, and I enjoyed this new dimension to his self-proclaimed “dark” character. A raw honesty that only continued to feed my growing attraction for him. 

I gripped his cock harder, squeezing at his sensitive tip, colored with a burning red that betrayed his desire. I shifted my panties to the side, feeling the muscles in my thighs scream in protest as I lifted myself above Changbin’s lap, lowering slowly, easy and wet.

Changbin released a faint moan, eyes threatening to shut despite his attempts to keep them open. I brushed my fingers across the flesh of their lids, feeling his lashes flutter against the pads. I brought our foreheads together intimately, allowing him to maintain the eye contact he desperately sought. “Changbin,” I softly gasped, feeling him deep inside, cock stretching my walls to accommodate our coupling.

“You’re beautiful,” he said in return, looking down at where he disappeared inside, lips falling apart around a gorgeous moan that not even his music compositions could compete.

My thumbs circled leisurely at the sharp juncture of his chin, grounding me as I slowly started to move on his lap, rolling back before pushing down hard again to stimulate a rhythm. The steady hitches in Changbin’s breathing alerted me to his pleasure, and that’s everything I wanted to give him. I moved faster, hoping to earn more of those seductive deep-throated moans from the base of his throat, watching him swallow hard as sweat started to gather on his smooth skin.

“Come inside,” I told him, noticing the way his earnest thrusts were starting to stutter, falling out of beat with the melody of our fucking.

“Are you sure?” he asked, and I was pleased that he had the wherewithal to question what might have been a careless decision.

“I’m on the pill,” I reassured him, kissing along the inviting skin of his collarbone.

“Feels good,” he panted, bangs sticking to his forehead the longer we moved together, harmonious chorus reaching its final crescendo.

His moans filled the studio when he finally came, hot and sticky inside, lips pressing grateful kisses against whatever flesh he could find. His arms held me close, as if afraid to let go, and I allowed the delicate chord to snap, chanting his name softly as my forehead fell onto his shoulder, gasping for more oxygen to recover my screaming lungs.

Silence descended between us like a necessary embrace.

But it wasn’t awkward because neither of us held onto any insecurities. Instead, we decided it was better to open ourselves to this possibility, hands exploring skin decorated with rivulets of salty wetness. Because it was easier to trust when you held mutual affection, holding their gaze to see past the depths of the surface. 

“Do you still want me out of the apartment?” I teased him eventually, just to break the quiet, clenching tightly around his flaccid cock.

Changbin’s head fell against the center of my chest, his panting breaths fanning out across my skin. “I want you in my bed.”

“Next time,” I promised him, threading my fingers through the sweat-caked strands of his thick black hair. 

————————————————————————–

“What the hell is this!”

The last thing I needed to hear upon waking up the next morning was Jisung’s shrill voice infiltrating my post-orgasm induced haze. Changbin grunted from next to me, pulling me even closer to his overheated body. “Tell him to go away.”

“Get the fuck out, Jisung,” I croaked, my voice hoarse from sleep.

“Are you two naked?” 

“Chan?” I questioned wearily, lifting my head just enough to catch a faint glimpse of his blonde hair.

“What time is it?” Changbin asked, raspy tone close to my ear.

“10?”

“Shit!” he cursed. “I have class soon.”

“Will the two of you explain what’s going on?” Jisung demanded, shrieking when Changbin left the couch, fully nude as he rummaged for his clothes. 

I simply enjoyed the view.

“What the hell, Changbin?” Chan growled at his younger friend.

Changbin promptly ignored both of his group members, pressing a hasty kiss to my forehead before rushing up the staircase, footsteps heavy as he frantically tried to make his lecture on time. Which, unfortunately, left me alone to deal with the aftermath of our passionate night.

“You and Changbin had sex?” Chan gasped. “In our studio!”

“On top of my lyrics?” Jisung screeched, pushing the aforementioned stack of papers into a messy pile on the floor.

I rolled my eyes at his dramatics. “He came inside.”

“That’s way too much information,” Chan sighed, grimacing as he picked up my clothes to toss in my direction.

I took them gratefully, working to dress beneath the thin coverage of the blanket Changbin had found last night before we passed out on the couch in the studio. “What’s the big deal?”

“Since when are you and Changbin a thing?” Chan asked, glaring down at me.

“I shouldn’t have said anything!” Jisung lamented, falling to his knees to shuffle through his papers.

“I guess since last night?” I grinned.

“Damn you move fast,” Chan tsked, joining Jisung in his attempts to re-organize his messy stacks.

“He’s a good fuck,” I remarked, laughing when Jisung started to splutter out dozens of curses as he frantically tried to finish his work.

——————————————————————————

“Why does it always have to be my friends?” Hyunjin questioned later on during lunch.

I sipped at my orange juice. “I guess you have really attractive friends?”

“It was definitely the guitar lessons,” Minho insisted. “They had all that time alone together.”

“But it’s still Changbin,” Seungmin frowned. “Is he blackmailing you?”

Jeongin gasped. “I knew it!”

“Stop it you two,” I said. “He’s not blackmailing me.”

“And did you really have to fuck in front of Jisung and Chan?” Woojin asked. “Jisung hasn’t stopped crying about it all morning.”

“We didn’t fuck in front of them,” I rolled my eyes. “You guys aren’t very supportive.”

“We’re in denial, Hanna,” Felix explained. “You and Changbin have never really gotten along.”

“It is strange,” Hyunjin agreed. “What happened?”

“He played me a song,” I shrugged, enjoying the matching looks of confusion adorning their expressions.

“Speaking of which,” Minho giggled, rubbing his hands together conspiratorially. “Changbin’s coming.”

I straightened up immediately, holding my breath as the dark-haired man stood at the edge of the table next to me. He glanced around at the others, running his fingers through his messy hair, uncombed from his hasty departure that morning. “Can I talk to you alone, Hanna?”

I anxiously followed him outside, unsure of what to expect. Changbin sat down on one of the benches lining the main sidewalk, allowing his bag to fall from his shoulder. I joined him quietly, trying to figure out the mask he had chosen to wear. “I want to talk about last night.”

I swallowed hard. “Do you regret it?”

He looked up immediately. “Of course not!”

I let out a sigh of relief. “I think I almost had a small heart attack.”

Changbin grinned, and it did wonders for the narrow aspect of his eyes. “What were you thinking?”

I bit my lower lip worriedly. “I don’t really know. It was kind of sudden, but I think I really like you Changbin.”

“What about Hyungsik?”

“He really wasn’t my type.”

“And I’m your type?” he asked.

“You must be,” I said. “I really like the way you fuck.”

Changbin scoffed. “Is that all?”

“You’re great at the guitar.”

“I’m trying to be serious.”

“I know,” I said, reaching over to poke gently at his chest. “You have a good heart. Otherwise, I don’t know how you’ve managed to put up with me.”

“I’ve had a crush on you since high school,” Changbin admitted. “It got worse Freshman year.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I didn’t think you’d feel the same way,” Changbin admitted. “You have no idea how turned on I was when you came in last night.”

“That was the goal,” I joked. “But seriously, I can’t believe I thought you didn’t care about me.”

“That was my fault,” Changbin said. “I didn’t make it easy on you.”

“It’s my fault too,” I sighed wistfully. “I always go after the wrong guy.”

“Don’t tell Chan that.”

“He already knows.”

Changbin laughed before easing in closer. “Does this mean I’m the right guy?”

I placed a quick kiss on his perfect lips. “I think so.”

“I’ll just have to prove it to you.”

“And I can’t wait,” I whispered into the seam of his lips, losing myself in our passionate embrace.

————————————————————————————–

I didn’t mind the crowds as they were becoming increasingly commonplace at their concerts. I learned how to tune out the screaming women, rolling my eyes whenever they tried to touch one of the boys onstage. I really had no room to talk since I could barely keep my hands off the dark-eyed lead guitarist who always managed to leave me increasingly desperate.

“Who’s your favorite member?” I asked one of the girls sitting next to me. She had been steadily growing drunker as the night progressed, squealing loudly whenever a new song started.

“Changbin,” the girl nodded, giggling when the man in question smirked in our direction.

But I knew he wasn’t looking at her.

“I think I like him too.”

And this time, I knew I had made the right decision.

[brinytrolls]

if you’re open to plotting something new, what are some ideas you might want to explore with someone??

i am always open to plotting!! let me see what i can find, i’ll organise it by character,,,no dancestors for now but if u wanted to plot with one of them, feel free to send another ask!! 

i dont really have any DETAILED plot ideas, these are more just starting points..sadly none of my ocs rly have future arcs planned out so these are all pretty casual...and these are not an exhaustive list! im open to any and all plot ideas so pls dont be afraid to ask!! 

for faldur,, 

he’s always open for ex matesprits or ex kismesis, as well as casual pitch flings. theres pretty much no guidelines for these ones, if it’s someone who’d be interested in him, and they’re jade or above, it’s fair game! 

an ex mate might be someone who found him too intense and broke up with him, someone who indulged his narcissism and boosted his ego til his other quads were forced to intervene, or something else entirely, as long as there was a reason they had to break up (i currently dont want him to have a red quad 4 Reasons) 

kismesis flings…hes open to anything. he hangs around bars often and will flirt with Anyone he finds attractive, so if someones open to that kinda thing its good to go. this could also lead to general friendships! he has no friends currently. boo 

on the topic of friends, book friends! a little known fact is he spends a lot of time on book forums, and someone to geek out over books with would be a nice change of pace. 

bitchy highblood friends. just like a bitchy seadweller squad would be fun, tbh. 

enemies! got a seadweller who would find him obnoxious? hell yeah! enemies is pretty open ended, i’d be willing to have faldur fucked up to teach him a lesson (within reason, he IS a seadweller and he is strong. he does fight a lot) alternatively, u got a lowblood (or highblood tbh) who needs a reason to be afraid of seadwellers? faldur attacks ppl who so much as look at him funny, so thats a valid option too

MAFIA TIES…faldur works as an assassin for when people need something really fucked up done to someone. do with that what u will

OH I JUST REMEMBERED fleet recruiters/anyone from the fleet/similar organisation who sees potential in him. faldurs constantly torn between redemption and leaving it all behind to join the fleet, so that could be interesting! 

theres definitely more but…tbh im welcome to anyone approaching me with ANY plot ideas they have! 

will do the rest under the cut bc that got LONG 

I WROTE THIS ALL OUT AND FORGOT HARREL 

BIG ONE IS just other mafia trolls!!

mafia bosses/hitmen who would hire him. who are doing jobs on the downlow, and need a cleanup guy! harrel is very good at his job so he’s highly regarded within the business 

especially mean mafia ppl. be mean to him. its part of his character hes anxious bc the mafia is mean 

no specifics, but i want harrel to just get Fucked Up. like i said, he’s highly regarded so holding him for ransom isn’t out of the question. just fuck this nerd up 

on a lighter note! he frequents record shops and jazz clubs, so maybe a musician or two with similar interests to help him get out of his shell. he needs a friend or two. 

friends from university! anyone in sciences, forensics, medical science, criminal studies…he probably studied with them! his backstory is that he disappeared from university one day when he got kidnapped by a mafia boss, and managed to wrangle his way into them keeping him alive. an old friend who noticed and is suddenly Very Confused upon seeing him again like 5 years later 

someone he went to uni with who’s now in the law industry, and the conflict that might arise from them being on two totally different ends of the spectrum…could be a fun dynamic! 

on the same wavelength: old flames from university. ex quadrants, ex hookups, ex crushes. people he was romantically involved with before suddenly disappearing 

i think thats all…

forrr sarky! 

no real quad stuff needed for him…perhaps an ex or two, but no real ideas there! 

other grubtubers to be friends with, or fans who’ve met/would want to meet him! grubtube is a HUGE part of his life and i’ve never really been able to explore it, bc he has no connections involved with it. u got a grubtuber troll who’d collab with him? a troll who enjoys letsplays? a weird youtuber superfan who’d give their right arm to meet a letsplayer? fuck yea dude all valid options 

PETTY INTERNET DRAMA. im sure theres potential

sarky IS a shifter, meaning he turns into a weird dragon monster in the dead of night on a full…moons (idk how that works on alternia,,,hello???) u got a troll who’d stop him when they catch him stumbling shirtless thru the city streets post-shift towards a local diner at 4am weirdly covered in scars and looing like he’s about to pass out?? a poor overworked diner worker wondering what the Fuck this dudes deal is when he stumbles in at 5am before cramming his face full of meat?? a troll who hangs out in the wilderness bordering the city and saw the horrific sight of this fuzzy teal bitch shifting into a giant dragon?? or just a fellow shifter perhaps?? idk theres a lot that can be done here, im sure 

apartment neighbours! disgruntled highblood a floor below him wondering why this bitch keeps scaling the building?? or someone who thinks its pretty sick, actually. 

fellow city dwellers for him to meet and befriend or annoy the shit out of…he takes the subway a lot, so they can meet there. or in some greasy food place

connected to faldur, any ex quads of faldurs that had to be intervened with and broken up, sarky was probably involved. if u want them to be bitter towards him, feel free. it makes for more interest >:3c 

florem time…………..

GET FLOREM A GIRLFRIEND 2K20…PLEASE. i just want her to have a girlfriend. its what she deserves and we all know it 

get her FRIENDS TOO....friends who will support her, and her weird hobbies. florem has a tendency to help other people and forget about her own needs, so itd be nice for her to have a friend who listens to her too... 

perhaps a troll who stumbles upon her weird troll-eating plant. a fellow enthusiast or some poor soul she has to rescue, either or 

a fellow taxidermy enthusiast....maybe a pen pal who buys stuff from whatever the troll equivalent of etsy is 

camping buddy...............she has no one to go camping with!!

im sadly low on ideas for florem but i DO want interactions with her...

veleno tiem babey

she needs a gf in every single goddamn quad.....shes 100% single 

a Bunch of highbloods who were cocky enough to gamble against her, and are incredibly mad about losing. highbloods out for vengeance 

on the same wavelength, a highblood who lost and got incredibly mad and fucked her face up, giving her all them scars....vel would avoid them for the rest of her life, but perhaps its someone who frequents the same casinos as she does so she cant avoid em 4 Extra Drama 

other down on their luck lowbloods, maybe younger ones, who need her help bc shes Experienced. she can become their Street Mom 

other down on their luck lowbloods for her to just befriend!! she frequents a shitty diner, as well as singing in a jazz club and hanging around in casinos. if youve got a lowblood who hangs around in those places they could def meet! 

i THINK thats all i got...but know i am more than open to literally Any plot suggestion ever >:3c

[slade-neko]

Took a quick break of Pokemon Sword and Shield to finally test out The Sims 4 University DLC.

I literally know next to nothing about this pack. Just what I saw in the two preview trailers. I got it thinking it’s gonna be so much fun, right?!  Well... we’ll see... I’m inserting a “keep reading” because its a looong post.

First off I wasn’t sure who to send to Uni. Ended up playing it as my main OC. 

Bought him a new University laptop and enrolled him into the Fox-trot University (or something like that.) Had to wait a full day or two before he got accepted. That’s a pretty long wait with MCCC cutting my game time to half-speed... Maybe you can do it instantly somehow, but I missed out on that if you can. Turns out you can, with TestingCheats True and shift-clicking to bypass the wait time. Good ol’ cheat codes savin’ the day, hahaha! Only wish I knew that sooner...

Anyways, he arrived at the University eventually. I easily got distracted looking around at all the sims walking around and one of his many classes crept up on him and he was late. Like really late, made it to class with only 3 minutes left for the session. That’s off to a wonderful 1st day.

Turns out it didn’t matter as they were actually just off-screen rabbit holes. Joyful fun, that is. I had signed him up for a buttload of computer-related classes thinking they’d be fun/ playable? Kinda regretting that now. What do the devs expect the player to in a single person household during a rabbit hole event? Are you supposed to just wait there in real life? Stare at the walk-bys? (Y’know I’ll admit the walk-bys were mildly entertaining...)

I even spotted Danny from NSP as the new “Health” teacher, I presume? Just look at those “painted on abs.” Go, Danny!

The classes are only a couple of hours too, so its not a terribly bad wait.

After that disappointing 1st class. I noticed my sim had a bunch of career tasks to do. 

a final exam 

term papers x2 

give presentation 

and homework x4

I misunderstood thinking he had to do it all at once, so I sent him to the study hall to spend the rest of the day doing “career tasks.” Luckily he had a cool study partner.

Finally sent my sim to his dorm to meet his roommates, but before he could do that, I noticed somehow he had got thrown into the E-Sports career and had to do some team gaming? I think I accidentally set him up with a gaming scholarship. I’m not really fond of “competitive gaming” though. Probably should’ve read through the scholarships a bit better.

Several more hours later, I ended up just sending him to sleep because it was incredibly late. Dawn of the 2nd day came and then he finally got to meet his “very epic” roommates! Probably the thing I was most excited for seeing in this expansion.

A Nature-loving hippie boy, a space bounty hunter girl, a space alien girl, and an edgy little jackal...? Oh, boy this will be interesting...

Then well that’s uhh, that’s honestly as far as I got in my playthrough...

The last few days I have been doing more extensive University play testing on my brother’s game and discovered a bunch of annoying things about University. Like how households are ripped apart and individual sims are thrown into single households for the schooling system. I completed an entire term and sims were not re-merged into their original households. Maybe I needed to wait more time after the term is over or something, but if it doesn’t actually re-merge my households that’s reallllly annoying. I don’t want to have to spend time moving sims around to get them back in their rightful households after a term at a University. 

Another annoying thing I’ve noticed is that it would seem my roommates in Uni were creating their own University outfits that were REPLACING my outfits I made for them. 

Why are these not Situational outfits? They straight up replace the Everydays I created. I can’t tell if that’s a bug or maybe an outdated mod. Seems to only affect my active sim’s roommates though, but jeez I can’t have my sims losing outfits. I spend way too much time making nice outfits on them to have my game go deleting them.

Other than those two big annoyances, the DLC is pretty fun to play. As it is now, I don’t really want to go to a University with all the headache of the cleanup duty I’d have after each term. Those two problems go a long way for me. On the positives, I really like the roommates system. It’s funny to enroll into a university and see which random sims get assigned to my dorm. As for the world, Britechester, I love it and the Universities’ designs! I personally prefer the old gothic Garreg Mach looking school way more than the modern design of the Fox-burrow university. 

[caddy-whump-us]

1 13 17 24 and 25 for all of them

“All of them”…oh no, Anon. what are you doing to meeee? I’ll do my best here. If I don’t answer for someone, ping me, because I’m hitting the high notes here but some of the OCs will have to be left out.

1. Their smile

Etienne: He can do that damn looks-at-you, looks-away smile. Sometimes smiles with his mouth just a little open, sometimes smiles without showing his teeth (one extreme other the other, usually). He’ll do that straight-mouth closed-mouth half-smile sometimes too. Charming but reserved.

Nikolai: Nikolai’s smile starts in his eyes and then spreads down to his mouth. It’s like sun coming through clouds. Boyish, charming, bright. Sometimes he’ll grin with his eyes squinted shut and his nose crinkled up. He also has a wicked half-smile with a sidelong look when he’s being sneaky~

Jonathan/Avery: Steady and warm. His smile might start off reserved but it warms up after a moment. Tends to breathe a little laugh as his smile breaks open. He’s accustomed to having to maintain a certain amount of dignity or bearing, so he has a “formal smile” (closed mouth, not too expressive) that will slide into something brighter if he’s really happy.

Julian/Nick: Shyer, smiles while looking down, eyes closed or lowered, fairly small smiles, usually only shows his top teeth (but with his head down it’s hard to see). Will sometimes do that obnoxiously cute thing where he flicks his eyes up while still smiling.

Lucien: Cold and wicked, a little provocative. He’s not as inclined to smile as some of the other OCs here. Often when he does smile, it’s an act to get what he wants: pouty smiles, suggestive smiles. He’s got some major, major psychological damage and is not inclined to smile out of happiness. He may smirk from spite or malice, he might grin a little at someone else’s suffering, he’ll smile sweetly if he thinks it’s expected of him or will get him what he wants, but he’s just not…smiley in general.

Gravesby/Riddle: Gravesby was much more expressive than Riddle: open-mouthed grins, laughing with his mouth open and eyes squinted shut, big smiles with top and some bottom teeth. I mean, he was kind of a funny dude. Riddle is more shy. Much like Julian & Nick, he looks down when he smiles. His owner likes Riddle to keep his mouth soft and softly open, so when he smiles it’s a bit like the tiny smiles makeup gurus on social media use: the faintest pulling up at the corners of his mouth, a cute head tilt, but not much more. Very small and rare smiles. 8204 generally did not smile at all.

The vampires have pointy teeth when they smile. QED.

13. Their embarrassing memory from years ago

I think Julian/Nick/Gravesby has done stuff like calling teachers “mom” a few times. Most of his cringey stories are cringey to him more than anyone else: saying the wrong thing, getting laughed at. He’s shy and he’s got some anxiety in him, so what embarrasses him may seem minor to other people.

Avery was totally fascinated with this well-known researcher who was working on campus. It was sort of Known that you would see this researcher around, but you really shouldn’t try to talk to him. He would do special lectures and presentations–go to those. But Avery was still sort of star-struck and would kind of stare (from a distance) if said researcher was walking around campus. Anyway, one day, Avery’s in a coffee shop in town, getting hot chocolate because he was trying to cut down on caffeine. There was a line forming behind him, so he didn’t get the lid on just right, and he turned around to leave and the person behind him got up to the counter faster than Avery could get out of the way, and he spilled his hot chocolate all over…this famous researcher. Naturally Avery apologized, helped clean up, paid for his coffee, &c. But, wow, he was totally embarrassed. It’ll be funny someday, but it’s killing him for now.

(Modern) Lucien got “white-girl wasted” at a party once, long before he could legally drink, and then was told what he did the next morning, which was Not Fun At All. He made a complete fool of himself, did a stripper routine on a table, was incredibly obnoxious, and probably texted an ex (among other things). 

(Vampires) Lucien would deny that he’s ever done anything embarrassing ever. But the truth is that when he’s been scolded by Viktor, he’s felt extremely ashamed of himself. And it was especially bad after he’d been in the house for a while and thought he knew what he was doing and, surprise, he made a mistake–brought the wrong book, didn’t know where something was, &c–and was scolded for it. That brings him lower than low and he’s just so ashamed of himself.

Nikolai, I think, has at times tried to be funny, but his sense of humor is a little different from a lot of people’s. He has, on several occasions, said things that are funny to him but not at all to others (that is, what he said is rude is shocking). Sometimes he likes to be brash and shocking, but he also wants (so much) to be accepted that seeing how badly something he said has gone over leaves him unbelievably embarrassed.

Jonathan said a Very Bad Word when he was a child–he couldn’t get his shoe on or couldn’t get a button to go through or something–and his mother heard him say it and I suspect she had an outsized, dramatic reaction to it (shock and tears, not anger). Jonathan’s father thinks the story is hilarious and will bring it up from time to time, sometimes with Jonathan present, and that’s pretty awkward…

Etienne will make assumptions about others sometimes, which can come back to bite him. Like talking about someone behind their back and then, whoops, turns out that they’re a well-known editor of a literary magazine or something. He also likes to think he’s the smartest (or at least the most clever) person in the room, so when his cleverness is called into question or someone corrects something he’s said, that just kills him inside.

17. Their ambitions

Etienne is all about that literary and artistic recognition. He likes to imagine what the reviewers will say about his latest novel and so on. It’s not fame he wants but acknowledgement.

Lucien, at this point, would kill someone (many someones) if that’s what it took to become Viktor’s black swan (though there are some complications to that). He wants that in-between role, and he wants to be patiently waiting for his chance at being a vampire (he’s got some deep, deep motivations for this).

Nikolai honestly wants that kind of cute cottage life that you see on Tumblr a lot. A few goats, an herb garden, a cottage, no worries, no requirements, no obligations. And Jonathan has to be there too, of course. Just a quiet kind of life out in the woods without all these social expectations and stuff. He agreed to go to the university because 1. it was expected of him and 2. it’ll get him out from under his aunt and uncle. But he really wants to get back to the woods and fields.

Jonathan, being an only child, hopes to take on the responsibilities that his parents will leave him and to do well by them. Since the setting is sort of 19th century England, there are renters and cottagers working land that his parents own, and Jonathan wants to do right by them. It’s simultaneously an expectation and an ambition. Also, he just wants to be with Nikolai, however that has to be made to happen–he’ll make it happen, they’ll make it happen.

Julian (et al.) isn’t terribly ambitious. He’d like to be content, have enough money to not worry, get to do things he enjoys, have room in whatever profession he chooses to keep up with his curiosity (the boy may end up a research librarian, to be honest). He’s got those breakfast-on-a-Saturday-with-Avery-in-their-apartment-with-big-windows ambitions. He’s just not terribly ambitious by nature, really. Things some people would identify as ambitions he sometimes thinks of as responsibilities or general expectations (good grades, good job, &c).

Avery is also not terribly ambitious. But he’d like to do some good in the course of his life. I can’t remember right off what I said he was studying, but he’d like to use what he knows to do some good for other people. I think he wanted to be a doctor at one point, but realized he probably couldn’t deliver bad news to patients and families, so he may slide on over to public health or something related.

Gravesby was still sorting out his ambitions when he was kidnapped. He was a college student, after all. He was torn between majoring in History or English and was still thinking about what the fuck he wanted to do after graduation. So his immediate ambitions were good grades and the like. Ha ha, that got wrecked.  And now Riddle has no ambitions. He’s an object, a possession.

24. What motivates them

What motivates them sort of depends on where they are in their story, you know? But I can get at a few core patterns for some of them:

Etienne wants freedom–whether physical or intellectual or creative. 

Nikolai likewise wants freedom, but it’s more of a personal freedom, a kind of freedom of self-expression (he’s been repressed for a lot of his life)

(Vampires) Lucien wants power and control–two things he hasn’t had much of in his life

Julian (et al.) is really curious–about everything, pretty much. So he’ll run into figuring things out, exploring ideas. He can be a little standoffish about trying things sometimes, but he’s curious about things all the same.

Avery (and Jonathan) is generally motivated by his relationships to others. He’s not really “the mom friend” but he is sort of the “loyal guard-dog friend." 

Riddle is only motivated by his master’s wants and desires. Gravesby isn’t there anymore, so whatever motivations he had are long gone. That’s all there is to that.

25. Why you enjoy them

I enjoy them because all of my OCs (even the bad guys and villains) are coping mechanisms. 

I got into this a lot deeper at first and it was too much. Suffice to say I’ve got some damage™ and these OCs are ways for me to cope or endure or escape.

[our-smooty]

Flowerbeds and Fertile Soil: Chapter 4

Fandom: Good Omens

Rating: Explicit

Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens, )Anathema Device/Newton Pulsifer

Tags:  Kidfic, Mpreg kind of, they can choose to present however so idk, Crowley Has A Vulva (Good Omens), Crowley Has A Penis (Good Omens), Aziraphale Has A Penis (Good Omens), Aziraphale Has A Vulva (Good Omens), OCs Galor, parenting, using your snake form to avoid confrontation, Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Pregnancy, if I missed a tag lemme know

Summary: They could do anything, go anywhere, all without the worry of Above or Bellow making a fuss. Even so, they mostly kept to their little patch of Eden, their cottage and garden and the simple life they’d carved out among the locals. Aziraphale opened a book shop in town, where he only occasionally sold any books (and the ones he did sell, were all modern and stocked specifically for that purpose). Crowley focused his attentions on the garden, and if he occasionally helped their elderly neighbour with her disobedient willow tree, then that was a secret no one needed to know. Lately, however, they had both been feeling rather restless, unbeknownst to each other. Aziraphale tried reorganizing his store, changing the way he tied his bowtie and even ate pizza –something he considered to be far too messy for him personally. Crowley had branched out into birdwatching, and then car maintenance (the human way), and even reading. Nothing scratched the itch for either of them.

Ao3 Link

My Ko-Fi

God did not play dice with the universe. She did occasionally flip a coin, though that was only to help her know which option she really favoured. There was a Plan, an idea of how things were meant to go, but sometimes She liked to step in and fiddle a bit. Other times, She thought it was best if She stepped back and let things take their course. 

That was what She had been doing with Earth for the last few thousand years. She watched, and She waited to see what Her children--including the angels and the demons--would do with what she’s given them. She created the Metatron to speak for Her, to add even more distance, and things went as they did for a very long time. 

She had Her favourites, of course. Mortals, angels, demons, there were always a select few She enjoyed looking in on when the fancy took Her. Of all of them, Her Crowley and Aziraphale were the most interesting. How they adapted, how they grew around each other and became so intertwined that even She could barely tell their auras apart. How they, or all the would-be protectors and destroyers of Earth, really understood humanity and Her creation. 

Which was why, when She decided to look in on them again a while after everything, She was gravely concerned. It seemed that they had carved out a little life for themselves, and She was happy for that. But there was discord as well. A large amount of sadness and pain had begun to emanate from them both and it only took one quick look to see why. Oh, Her poor children. So worried about doing wrong when they were incapable of it. And there, just as She glanced over, were two more of Her children, both misguided in their endeavour to uphold what they thought was right. 

This wouldn’t do. Those two, the former not the latter, had been through so much in the name of Her Ineffable Plan. They deserved a break and She would not allow anyone, even Her angel Gabriel and his demonic counterpart, to interrupt their well-deserved peace. 

God hadn’t been down to Earth in a formal capacity for millennia. She dropped in once or twice a century to try some of the food, and listen to the music; to walk among the people and truly get to know Her creations. But it had been a long time since She revealed herself in Her glory on the mortal plane. This would be a special treat for all parties involved, if not marginally terrifying. Better to choose a more comforting form, one that wouldn’t make Her children quake in fear ( even if that may have been Her goal, just a little bit, when it came to Beezlebub and Gabriel; they had both been led so far astray). 

She saw Aziraphale open the door, saw Crowley come up behind him take in the twin grimaces on their antagonist's faces. There was no more time to waste watching, She knew, and in a flash of Holy light, God was back on Earth, just a few meters down the block from one South Downs cottage. 

 “Crowley,” Beezelbub growled, looking right past Aziraphale. Conversely, Gabriel’s icy gaze was training on the angel, something restrained and dark hiding there. Crowley wanted to step in front of Aziraphale, to shield him from both their former bosses, but Aziraphale was taking up the entire doorway and refusing to budge even with Crowley’s insistent tugging at the hem of his jacket. 

“Angel…” Crowley begged, but Aziraphale wouldn’t budge. “Angel get back!”

“Gabriel, Beelzebub. What a… surprise,” Aziraphale said in his best customer-scaring pleasant-but-cold tone. “To what do we owe this visit?”

“Don’t play games with us, Aziraphale,” Gabriel drawled in his usual, unaffected tone. “You know exactly why we’re here so cut the shit.”

Honestly, Crowley wasn’t sure why both of them were on their doorstep, only that it wasn’t good. Had it really taken Heaven and Hell a decade to figure out the switcharoo they pulled with the hellfire and holy water? Or were they finally tired of all the self-indulgent miracles the two had been performing and where here to put a stop to it? 

“I assure you, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Beezlebub took a step forward, their flies buzzing around all four parties in an incredibly vile fashion. Crowley reflexively tugged at Aziraphale again even though he knew it was pointless.

“Don’t be smart with me, angle,” the way they said it was so unlike how it sounded coming from Crowley’s mouth, and it made him twitch, “don’t you think we know everything about what you’ve been doing?”

“Did you forget about the back channels?” Someone, Crowley wanted to punch that smug look off of Gabriel’s face. “We know the--frankly disgusting--things you’ve been discussing. You know that creating more of those Abominations is forbidden. I didn’t think you’d stoop so low, but I’m not surprised.”

Crowley’s jaw tightened and his teeth began to sharpen into fangs instinctually. He felt Aziraphale stiffen as well, his hands clenching behind his back in a rapid rhythm. This was not what either of them had been expecting to happen, at least, not in this way. Maybe they shouldn’t have banked so much on their ruse keeping the Powers that Be away and sorted out an actual plan. Considering who they were dealing with, there probably wasn’t much they could have done outside of trading bodies permanently and that was not an option.

“Well I never…” Aziraphale blustered. It was hard for him to get the words out, and Crowley wasn’t in the state of mind to even try. Gabriel looked like he was going to try and barge his way into their home at any second to dispatch Heavenly justice, and Beezelbub just looked thrilled about the entire thing and Crowley had no idea what to do. He tried to grip onto Aziraphale tighter, to keep him close, but he knew it wouldn’t last.

“Don’t make this harder than it has to be. You both better come quietly this time and no ‘funny business’. God knows how you managed to get out of your punishments last time, but it’s not going to happen again.” Faster than either of them could react there were restraints around their wrists. Beezlebub was smirking waving their hand and adding fabric gags to the works. Both were tied too tightly, making Crowley squirm uncomfortably as his lips were pressed into his fangs. Aziraphale didn’t seem to be faring much better, wiggling frantically against the bonds. 

“We aren’t using hellfire and holy water this time,” Beezlebub hissed, pushing past Aziraphale to grab Crowley. Behind them Gabriel did the same with the angel and Crowley watched as Azirpahale flinched at the unwanted touch. Oh Somebody was this how things were going to end? They’d barely gotten to make up, he hadn’t even gotten to kiss his angel in 2 days. “If we can’t destroy you outright, we’ll just make you wish we could.”

Crowley knew about the Pits of Hell. He’d been a few times over the years for various reasons (and sometimes no reason at all, Hell just liked to torture their employees and they were very good at it) so he knew what to expect. But Crowley had no idea of what Heaven would do to Aziraphale, could only imagine it’d been much, much worse than his own fate what with how insidiously harsh Gabriel and the other angels could be. He tried to struggle against his bonds and Beezlebub’s grip, desperate to save Aziraphale if not himself, but to no avail.

“Stop squirming you--!” A polite cough interrupted The Prince of Hell’s insult. All four beings on the steps snapped to attention immediately--it was impossible not to recognize that voice. Crowley wasn’t sure if they were about to be saved, or even further punished. 

Gabriel was the first to recover, turning around to fully face the person-shaped Almighty without letting go of Aziraphale. “Lord, it’s such an honour that you would come here to personally witness the punishment of these tra--”

God held up a hand, the face of the corporation she was wearing impassive. The grip on his arms began to slacken and Crowley realized Beezlbub was gawking at the figure in front of them. To be fair, Crowley would have been doing the same if the gag allowed; this was the first time any demon had been in the presence of the Almighty since The Fall. 

“I have already seen what’s going on here, Gabriel. Under whose authority are you exacting this punishment? Because no one has consulted me, or the Metatron, on this matter.” Gabriel looked nervous. Eyebrows rising high into his hairline, Crowley felt himself begin to, impossibly, hope.

“They intend to create an Abomination, my Lord! And you decreed after the Nephilim--”

“Silence, Gabriel. And Beezlebub close your mouth, you’ll catch flies.” If their situation had been less dire Crowley would have giggled at the way Beezlebub’s mouth clicked shut on command. Instead he stared in awe at the unimposing, but undeniably powerful form in front of him. 

“Now, if you had done things properly, and put forward your request for the Angel Aziraphale to be punished, you would have discovered, My Archangel, that My feelings on the matter are very different than yours. And as for the Demon Crowley, I was under the impression that Hell had made an oath to keep their distance, and a Demonic Oath is not something to be broken willy-nilly.” Crowley did make a hysterical noise at that, muffled as it was. Aziraphale glanced back at him and they shared a mutual look of “what the fuck is going on?”. 

“Furthermore,” She continued, “if you had taken the time to check, you would have seen that there is no Law against the fraternization of Angels and Demons in any capacity. So tell me then, why you have accosted these two in their own home, and why you have been spying on them?”

Gabriel sputtered, chocking out half-words and phrases while trying to make himself look as small and apologetic as possible. It was hilarious to watch, but not as funny as the way Beezlebub was squirming under God’s benevolent stare. 

“And you, Beezlebub. I will not pretend to order you about, but I want you to know that I am very disappointed. Is this really the kind of thing Hell is using it’s resources on or is this just a petty grudge you two have against these poor boys?” Beezlebub shrank and mumbled into their shoes. Crowley couldn’t hear what they were saying, but he had a pretty good idea. Taking advantage of their distraction he shuffled forward under his shoulder was just barely brushing Aziraphale's. His angel looked back again and this time there was a sparkle in his eyes.

“You will release them at once, and you and any other members of Heaven or Hell will never attempt to interfere in their lives again. Have I made myself clear?” Her tone was that of a scolding mother and it brought back all sorts of memories from before Crowley’s Fall. He’d often gotten into trouble and received similar reprimands. “You will answer Me.”

“Yes, Almighty,” Gabriel grovelled, staring down at his outdated shoes. Beezlebub did some more mumbling and grumbling but it seemed to be enough for God because She nodded decisively. 

“Good. Now away with you both. I would like to speak with them Myself and I will not have you spying.” With a wave of Her hand the Archangel and The Prince of Hell were banished back to their separate realms. Crowley and Aziraphale stood motionless, still bound and not entirely sure what was about to happen next. 

“Well, that’s taken care of! Oh, sorry, My dears, let me get those for you.” She gestured and their bindings disappeared. Immediately Aziraphale turned in towards Crowley just as Crowley’s arms opened, ready to receive him. God said nothing as they clung to each other; let them have a few moments to come to grips with the fact they had nearly been separated again and lived. 

“I cannot stay long, as <y presence here often disrupts Things. Are you alright, My sweet Aziraphale and My star Crowley?” She asked. Aziraphale shuddered and nodded, obviously trying to pull himself together enough to say something. Funnily enough, Crowley was able to find his voice first, though it was shaky and off-pitch. 

“Why d’You care? Dropped me into a pit of boiling sulphur not 6000 years back didn’t You?” Aziraphale made a shocked noise, his hands fluttering up to cover Crowley’s mouth, but it was too late. Crowley had spent a long time sending angry not-prayers Her way, and he wasn’t going to miss this chance to say some of them in person.

God looked pensive for a moment. “Your Falling is one of My greatest regrets, Crowley. You were so inquisitive, but also very kind, which is why I needed you down on Earth. I needed someone unafraid to ask hard questions. Besides, you would not have been happy in Heaven, you were not like the others.” 

“That’s not an apology.” He wasn’t sure where this bravery was coming from, maybe he’d finally gone over the deep end. Either way, this was happening. 

God smiled. “Would you accept any I have to give?” 

No he wouldn’t, and the fact that she knew that made him want to pout. Luckily Aziraphale had found his words in time to stop Crowley from staying anything too stupid. 

“Thank you, Lord. You help has been much... appreciated,” he said, wringing his hands and glancing behind him past Crowley and into their home. 

“But?” She asked, amused. Aziraphale flinched while Crowley grinned, proud of his bastard angel. 

“But only, I do think Crowley and I would like to sit down and recover from the whole ‘once again facing our d ooms” thing, so if I could be so bold as to ask if You had any other er, business with us?” It was phrased politely enough, but anyone who knew the angel would know that tone. Of course, She knew Aziraphale completely, but She also seemed to understand. 

“You will be able to rest soon enough. I only wanted to make sure you were both safe, and to let you know something very important.” Crowley scoffed and tightened his hold on Aziraphale almost protectively. 

“Another Great Plan?” She smiled and Aziraphale paled. Crowley couldn’t help himself from asking questions. 

“No, nothing like that. I only wanted you to know, that you do not have to be afraid of being punished by Heaven or Hell. Or Me. You have My permission to live here, on Earth, as you like. However, you like.” She smiled beatifically, while also giving them a wink. “I won’t keep you any longer. Goodbye, Aziraphale, Crowley.”

And with that, God turned around and strolled down their front path and out to the street. As She walked along the roadside and eventually out of sight Crowley and Aziraphale remained frozen in the doorway. Again Crowley was the first to recover enough to speak.

“Did God just… did She just--?” he stuttered, his legs shaking from the slow wearing-off of the adrenaline that had kept them both standing. "Did she just give us permission to--?”

“Be fruitful and multiply?” Aziraphale finished, his voice airy and slightly unfocused. “I believe she did.” 

A beat. Then Crowley unwrapped his arms from around his angel, instead bringing his hands up to grab at Aziraphale’s shirt collar. “Angel, if you don’t take me inside right now and fuck me, I’m going to scream.”

It was kind of a jump, going from fighting over how they could never have that, to jumping into bed without even discussing the logistics of things, but Crowley didn’t care. God Herself had just told them it was OK to do the one thing he thought he'd never be allowed to do, and that it would turn out alright. He had enough faith left in Her not to second guess this blessing. 

“Oh dear, are you sure? We haven’t really talked about this, and it’s such a big step…” Immediately Crowley was stepping back. Of course, he’d misunderstood, he’d jumped the gun like always, he’d gone to fast. Aziraphale noticed and took initiative, keeping Crowley close with a hand on his lower back and leading them both inside. 

“Don’t pull away dear, I only wanted to make sure. You were so upset before, and I know what She said but if you need more time I--” But Crowley was done waiting, and he mashed their faces together messily. Aziraphale made a noise of surprise, then quickly caught up to speed, taking Crowley’s face in his hands and cupping his jaw. “Really? You want to? With me?”

“Yes,” Crowley whined, rubbing their hips together insistently. “I do want to, but I didn’t think we could. But we can and I swear to Somebody we can talk more later.”

Aziraphale didn’t argue, he couldn’t really with the way Crowley was begging. They were both still a little shaky, which presented a problem when Crowley was essentially trying to wrap himself around the angel like the snake he was. It only took a few minutes before it was obvious they either had to move somewhere where they could lay down, or do it on the floor of their front hall. The second option sounded appealing to both of them just for the immediacy, but they’d spent hours picking out sheets they both liked, and it would be a shame not to use the bed at every opportunity. 

“Upstairs,” Crowley ordered, taking the angel by the hand and dragging him up to the second floor. The narrow cottage stairs were Hell to get up while Aziraphale was behind him trying to undo his belt but Crowley managed. At least their bedroom was the first room at the top. The door was open and the bed was made, their usual bottle of lube waiting on the bedside table innocuously. 

“Crowley,” the murmur of Aziraphale’s voice was sweet as honey and twice as thick. “I want to--”

“Yes,” Crowley interrupted, miricaling the buttons and fastenings on Aziraphale’s waistcoat open. “Whatever you want, I want it like that.”

“On the bed. Trousers off.” Crowley scrambled to do ask he was asked, thankful for the solidness of the mattress underneath him finally. By the time he got comfortable his skinny jeans and shirt had disappeared to Satan-knew where, and he wasn’t wearing any pants. Aziraphale eyed him appreciatively in the same way he’d size up a delicious brunch spread and it made the demon’s whole body tingle. He arranged himself in a way that he hoped was appealing, legs spread open and his arms outstretched. 

“Don’t keep me waiting, angel,” he rasped, wiggling his ass against the sheets a little. The only other sounds were the fast wooshing of Aziraphale’s breath and a faint ticking from the grandfather clock in the hall. “Want you in me, if you don’t mind.”

With a snap Aziraphale was naked too, exposing his cock to the cool air and making Crowley’s cunt clench with anticipation. A vagina seemed like a good idea for this sort of thing and he’d already had one because it looked better with his skinny jeans. It was the least effort to make the changes to his Effort this way, to tweak things to be on, more or less. “Oh Crowley, so pretty… like a flower--a rose.”

“Sssshut it!” Crowley hissed, thrusting up and down against the air. He was making his needs perfectly obvious but Aziraphale was going so slowly. “You can compliment me later but right now I want to celebrate the fact we aren’t fucking dead by shagging until I can’t walk!”

Finally Aziraphale got onto the bed, his knees coming to rest along the backs of Crowley’s thighs, their sexes nearly touching. “I intend to hold you to that, love. But for now, I’ll give you what you want.”

The Aziraphale was holding his member at the base, guiding it towards where Crowley wanted it most. Had it really only been a few days since they were last together? It felt like another 6000 years. The tip gently nudged between his folds and it was familiar and good. Normally he preferred to drag things out a bit to get them both to the point of begging, but Crowley knew he'd lose his marbles if he had to wait even a second more for Azirpahale to be inside him.

“Get. On. With. It.” His growling was made less intimidating but the fact each word came out with just the hint of a whine. Maybe he should flip them over, really give the angel a run for his money. That was his plan until Aziraphale began to move forward, stretching Crowley out in that way that made him ache inside. He could remember the first time he’d seen Aziraphale’s Effort, and how gobsmacked he’d been; trust the angel to have a pornstar cock without even an ounce of shame about it.

“You’ve very wet, darling,” Aziraphale cooed, bending over to kiss along Crowley’s collarbones. “So beautiful, my lovely boy. Always ready for me.”

“Aziraphale--!” The angel’s hands were drifting down to Crowley’s chest, his waist, his thighs. Skirting around his clit with butterfly presses as he finally shoved himself inside with a perfectly rough thrust. “Yes, Aziraphale, more!”

Aziraphale hushed him, though he was making little gasps of his own every once and awhile. “You deserve everything, my starlight.” He’s playing with the hair at the base of Crowley’s neck, a rhythmic winding and unwinding that perfectly complemented the clenching of his stomach. Crowley mewled at the praise, spreading his legs wider and grabbing Aziraphale around the shoulders. The angel smelled like sweat and their garden and his favourite tea; all things that made Crowley’s throat tight and his eyes wet. To stave off the incoming sob he turned his head and connected their lips in a hungry kiss. 

It wasn’t going to take long for either of them to cum at the frantic pace Aziraphale was setting. But that was fine because they had nowhere else to be, and nothing else to do other than to enjoy each other. They could spend years wrapped up in bed together if they wanted, though their mutual acquaintances might come looking for them after a while. Especially once their newest godchild was born, at least. 

Which reminded Crowley what they were actually doing here. This wasn’t run-of-the-mill sex, this had a purpose. When Aziraphale came he was going to… and Crowley would… Oh he couldn’t even think it without his whole body flushing. Later he’d probably laugh at himself, how excited he got over such a normal, human thing, but in the moment it only made him moan harder. Knowing Aziraphale was going to cum inside him, and it was going to take and make something that was both of them mixed together. Satan. 

“Let me--fuck!--let me ride you,” Crowley gasped, pushing at Aziraphale’s shoulders and trying to shift them. “Aziraphale let me--please!”

“Yes, yes.” And then they were flipping, Aziraphale’s cock miraculously staying inside him the whole way and wasn’t that fantastic? Crowley started a good pace, slower than before but with much more grinding. His clit--maybe a little larger than a standard human’s but he was a demon after all--could rub against Aziraphale’s pubic bone if he slowed down a little and got the angle right. It made the angel groan and lift his hips to give Crowley all the room he needed to work. 

Like a ship's mast broken in a storm, Crowley tipped forward onto Aziraphale’s chest, hips and legs still working hard to bring them to completion. Strong but soft hands wrapped around his waist to aid in their movements. Sex had always been something Crowley enjoyed, even before he and Aziraphale had finally gotten together, but it had never been like this. Like pleasure was bursting from the seams of his corporation, and then love was filling up the cracks. He found his mouth level with one of the angel’s nipples so he kissed it, a weak action to express the overwhelming surge of emotion. 

“Oh!” Aziraphale’s nipples were always very sensitive and Crowley knew that. “Crowley you’re so good. I-I’m going to come darling, I’m going to come in you--!” 

Crowley felt, actually felt, the angel come inside him. There was wetness, and throbbing, and Crowley rode him through it into his own orgasm, which hit him so hard he actually screamed. He may have slowed down time too, just a little, to extend their pleasure beyond what would normally be possible. By the time he let things go back to normal, he was shuddering, curled up on the angel’s chest with Aziraphale’s hands in his hair, stroking softly. Everything was hot and damp, but in a way that was enjoyable rather than disgusting. 

“Are you back with me, dear?” Aziraphale asked softly, continuing to pet at Crowley’s curls. “That was a wicked trick, turning off time like that. You’ve worn yourself out.”

“Ngk.” There was a burning in his legs and a breathlessness in his chest that was just this side of unpleasant. Maybe stopping time to prolong one’s orgasm was a little much for the human form he wore. “Angel?”

“I’m here, dearest. What do you need?” Aziraphale, ever the gentleman bastard, grinned. “You feel very good, so loose and relaxed around my cock.”

It was then that Crowley, in his post-orgasm glow, realized that Aziraphal was still hard inside him, rocking very gently as to not overstimulate the poor demon. The moment Crowley became aware of it, it was like he couldn’t get enough, whimpering pathetically into Aziraphale’s light smattering of chest hair with renewed arousal. 

“You know,” Aziraphale started and his voice was soft but also had a dark, foreboding twinge to it, “it can take some couples many times to, ah, conceive. It would be in our best interest to, well, to give it a go as much as we can. Unless it’s too much for you.”

Maybe it was too much, but Crowley liked too much. Too much alcohol, too much speed (of the driving, and the illegal substance variety), too much Aziraphale. He loved it all, craved it even. Determined to show his angel just how on board he was Crowley ground down weakly. Not enough to get anything done, but enough that Aziraphale would feel it. 

“I can keep going,” he mumbled, barely able to get more than a few thrusts in before his tired legs gave up. “I want it.”

Aziraphale smiled down at him and placed a kiss on Crowley’s head. “Good. Let me just--” Aziraphale tipped them sideways this time, then rolled Crowley over more so his back was against the angel’s chest. This time his cock did come out, and Crowley made a little noise of discontent as he felt come and his own slick leak out over his thighs. “Just a tick dear. Lift your leg? Good boy, thank you.”

If the angel kept going on like that Crowley wasn’t going to last, which was alright, because the demon would let Aziraphale fuck him for as long as he liked. Crowley would be happy to lay here and receive anything Aziraphale wanted to give him and to bask in the attention and love. Especially after thinking they were done for, especially after having to face the idea that one of the last conversations he would have had with the most important person in his entire was mostly an argument. The tears came back again and this time they ran down his face freely, soaking the pillow. At least he was facing away and Aziraphale wouldn’t see them. 

Then Aziraphale was guiding his cock back inside and Crowley was throwing his head back against his shoulder. If possible, it felt even better than the first time. Crowley wasn’t sure if it was the extra lubrication from Azirapahle’s cum, or the oversensitivity, but he felt like he was floating outside of himself, tethered only by the grounding span of Aziraphale’s hands around his waist and the occasional jap to his sweet spot. Everything felt so good and perfect, like pieces slotting together to become whole again after an eternity apart. 

“Love you,” he cried, unable to keep all of his messy emotions from spilling out. Crowley was a mess of tears, and sweat, and pure adoration. “Aziraphale I--oh shit--I love you!” 

“Mmm, so sweet for me Crowley. I adore you, I want--” Aziraphale whined when Crowley clenched down at the praise. “I want to--to make you--you’ll look so good, carrying our baby--oh God, Crowley!” 

Their previously slow speed began to devolve into something more rapid and desperate as they both reached their peaks. Aziraphale, ever mindful of Crowly’s pleasure trailed a hand down his chest and belly to grind his palm against Crowley’s clit. Not that it was strictly necessary; Crowley was going to come from the wet slide of Aziraphale inside him anyway. He forced his eyes to open and his head to fall back so he could both be as close to the angel as possible, and watch the moment when Aziraphale filled him with his come. 

“An-gel,” he gasped, watching the way each thrust made a little come ooze from his swollen cunt. “Angel I--please come with me--Come with me!”

Divine Ecstasy, or something close to it, shot through him in blinding waves as he came. Aziraphale shouted as well, wordlessly clinging to Crowley and once again coming inside him. Crowley was shaking violently, his eyes rolled back and it looked almost violent even though it was exactly the opposite. He was carried away inside his mind and all he could feel was pleasure and love and peaceful, beautiful completion. 

When he came back to himself his face was pressed into the pillows and he was making the most embarrassing little noises with each breath. Behind him Aziraphale was mumbling little nonsense phrases peppered with praise. Crowley focused in on that even though his body wanted him to focus on the fullness he could feel down below and the fact that Aziraphale wasn’t pulling out. He must have remembered from a few days ago, when Crowley complained and that send a thrill of confused, loving arousal through him.

“Ngh,” he forced out weakly, just to let Aziraphale know he was conscious and alright, more than alright even. “Az…?”

“M’here, Crowley, I’ve got you.” The demon sagged and flopped a hand down to his stomach over the concave expanse of his hips. Some strange emotions welled up inside him and he found himself crying again. Aziraphale must have heard the sniffles because he turned Crowley around and tucked him underneath his chin. “Shh, dear, it’s alright.”

“I’m OK.” He was, really. Things were just getting away from him a little bit. “M’happy and I love you.”

Crowley felt Aziraphale smile against his temple. “Oh good. I-I,” a pause while the angel took a deep breath, “I thought I was going to lose you again Crowley. First during our fight and then when Heaven and Hell showed up on our doorstep.”

“Me too,” Crowley whispered, tilting his head up. “I thought I fucked everything up and you were going to leave me, and then they showed up and--” Aziraphale  quieted him with a kiss, hummingbird quick and soft. 

“I know dear, I felt the same. But it’s ok now, and I’m sorry for pushing you before. I think--I believe I understand what you were worried about a little bit better.”

Crowley made a little noise of contentment and settled back down onto Aziraphale’s chest. “S’ok, it all worked out in the end.” He took one of Aziraphale’s hand and held it over his belly. “Besides, you know our kid’s gonna be half-demon right? You’ve got your work cut out for you.”

“They’ll be half-angel too, you know,” Aziraphale laughed, flattening out his hand over Crowley’s non-existent belly. “They’ll be something completely new.”

“Something we made,” Crowley agreed. “Can you believe it? I don’t think I can.”

Aziraphale’s hand wandered down, past Crowley’s stomach to between his legs. It was too sensitive, and just sensitive enough. Crowley whimpered pathetically and clung to his angel’s shoulders, not sure if he should pull away or try to get closer. 

“Well my dear, I guess I haven’t done my job well enough then, have I? I’d better work a little harder to get you do believe it.” Limp with overstimulation, Crowley could only moan and take everything Aziraphale give him, which he did gladly.

[prettywordsyouleft]

The Sex Contract [M] - Chapter 2

Genre: friends to lovers au / friends with benefits / mature content / romance / angst

Characters: Shim Changmin x Kaia Ashton (OC)

A/N: Due to the overwhelming request I have followed your encouragement to bring back one of my older stories. This was back in a time where OCs were everything and writing one chapter in each main’s point of view was the trend. I hope that even though I have edited this, that you can appreciate this story comes from my older style of writing. I definitely still read this often and find it enjoyable so I hope you will too.

Prologue | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 - FINAL

Chapter 2 – Kaia’s POV.

The difference in working atmosphere was obvious as the Korean music boomed around the trendy office the following day. Kaia had arrived home in the early hours and collapsed onto her bed, only to be woken up by a ridiculously early text message from Changmin wishing her a good day. Although she enjoyed the friendship she had made in the boy, Kaia didn’t like his schedule. She didn’t even know when he got the time to sleep.

Working for Korea Star though wasn’t as bad as it would be if she worked full time at SME. It comprised of a small team of young journalists with a mixture of racial backgrounds that produced the latest KPOP news translated into five languages around the globe. She hadn’t quite expected when she finished her degree at Canterbury College to end up halfway across the world teaching English part-time and writing articles that fuelled the fans that Changmin didn’t understand. To Kaia though, it made perfect sense. It was incredibly easy to fall in love with Korea.

“Almost finished with that piece on Miss A, Kai?” a familiar voice questioned and Kaia smiled up at her boss Minah, nodding her head. “Good. Do you reckon you’d have enough time to translate and edit another story before lunch?”

“Of course, what is it about?”

Minah leant down to her ear, though her whispering wasn’t exactly quiet. “News on TVXQ going to Japan later this week to begin promotion of I Don’t Know and Superstar.”

“I’m free, how come you didn’t give that story to me?!” cried the girl next to them, and Kaia grinned at her disgusted face. “What’s so special about Kaia that she must write about the Gods?!”

“Must you really refer to them like that, Sungra?” Kaia pulled a face. “They’re just guys.”

“Here we go again,” Abby, a brunette opposite them mentioned and Kaia smirked at her. “The debate over what to call Dong Bang Shin Ki commences!”

“Kaia will never understand that despite their name translating to Rising Gods of the East, they are considered a league above the rest.”

Kaia leant around Minah to shoot my other best friend a look. “Still at the end of the day Sungra, they sleep, eat and have bodily functions.”

“Very funny.”

“I just don’t get why everyone in this building apart from Abby and I flail like little fangirls over them. We’re journalists, not obsessed fans.”

“Technically,” Minah began and laughed lightly. “Because we source the latest news and have such an interest in doing so, we kind of are or at least we definitely are good at fuelling the obsession.”

“And if we were to look at Kaia’s wallpaper right now, I’m sure we’ll find her reason as to why she’s so blind to TVXQ.” Sungra folded her arms over her chest smugly as the room fell into laughter, Kaia’s eyes merely rolling as she took the information Minah had brought over for her to translate. Her Korean was fluent despite originating from England, having a Korean step-father had helped with learning as a young child. It had also been the reason she felt more at home in Korea than back in Kent, enjoying Asian culture and what it had to offer.

Although Kaia loved living in Korea, stepping out into the world alone at only twenty-two had made her miss the close friendships she had back at home. It wasn’t like Changmin and Sungra were her only friends, though they were the two she had grown closest to. It was a hard situation to be in; one of her best friends being a member of the group Sungra was so crazy over. There had been several opportunities to tell her but every chance Kaia had, she quickly talked herself out of it, wondering how detrimental it would be if Sungra knew the guy she dreamed over marrying in her fantasies was someone who Kaia frequently had dinner with. She almost felt guilty for it and after Sungra’s reaction when she found out that Kaia worked at SME as a tutor, Kaia had sworn she would never tell her Korean friend about Changmin.

It made situations at work a little awkward though. There had been so many times where she wanted to admit that Changmin didn’t smell like manly cologne, but could make an entire room empty in five seconds flat with his stench. Many found his eating habits endearing, whilst she would sometimes watch in horror, the tall boy eating enough for two people at times. Even with some of the other artists she had learned the inner secrets to, Kaia had to refrain from joking about the actual reality. She had learnt quickly that KPOP fans, including the girls she worked with, could be vicious about those they protected.

Kaia snapped out of her thoughts and looked at the article within her hand. Reminding herself that she would need to text Changmin later and ask why he hadn’t told her he was leaving for Japan, she then set to work, mildly aware of Sungra’s huffs every now and then.

    It seemed after the long day in the office that Sungra had forgotten all about the incident earlier. Instead, she had organised a work trip to a karaoke bar, something Kaia was still learning to be a popular night out amongst the girls. It also showed how much of a lightweight she was when it came to drinking and so she never bothered, knowing her loose lips could potentially get her in trouble if she did.

“Does my hair look good?” Sungra asked as they walked down the busy sidewalk in Hongdae, glancing at her friend expectantly. “Oh and my makeup, I never checked in the bathroom before leaving work.”

“You look fine,” Kaia assured and then smiled. “But why are you worried about that, it’s just going to be us girls in the karaoke room.”

Sungra sighed and looked at her like she had sprouted an extra head. “You never know who or what you might see when out, Kai.”

“I seriously wonder how we’re such good friends when we’re complete opposites,” she murmured and Sungra let out a huff of air.

“Not everyone can be a classic beauty like you.”

Kaia rolled my eyes. “I’m white and in an Asian country, if anything the most I get are stares and comments of look there’s a foreigner directed at me. Hardly anything to write home about, Sun.”

“So oblivious,” she chided before stepping into the karaoke place. They found the rest of the girls were waiting in the lounge area for them, greeting loudly with glasses of alcohol already in their hands. Kaia waved at Abby, noticing she had a juice and grinned.

“Ready to sing?” Abby asked and Kaia shrugged, laughing lightly.

“Reckon we’ll be able to slip out after two hours?”

Abby nudged her lightly. “Have you got a date?”

“Only with my television, I’m not missing another episode.”

“Oh goodness,” she chuckled and then nodded. “I’ll help you with your drama fix, don’t worry. Though, I wonder if you’re ever going to notice the guys around you if you keep painting the perfect pictures Korean dramas replicate.”

“You sound just like someone I know too well.” Kaia smiled. “I’ve given up on men in reality; they just don’t seem to understand romance like in books or movies.”

Abby laughed as they followed the rest of the excited group down the hallway to the private room. “Might I remind you that the men you refer to don’t exist either?”

“Leave me to my fantasies, and I’ll not press you for who you’ve been texting all day long.”

The girl blushed. “You noticed?”

“Every smile that came with them too.”

Abby groaned and flumped down on one of the sofas that were embedded into the wall, the noise already rising up a notch or two with 2NE1 being chosen as the first song to sing along to.

The night continued in that fashion, and Kaia was tired from leaping up and down to join in with the songs she actually knew well. The girls all seemed to find hidden energy whilst singing, whereas she was happy to take her early leave at nine, which left just enough time to get home and in front of the television.

Kaia was already on the bus ride home, holding onto the bar despite being in a seat. She had discovered that the driving system and drivers in Korea were frightening, with a pure love for speed. Even though she had grown accustomed to darting for a spot on a bus, she still wasn’t sure she’d ever get used to the speed everything and everyone travelled at.

Her phone began to ring around the quiet bus and she fished it out of her jacket, hitting talk without checking who was calling. “Hello?”

“You sound tired.”

“You never told me you were going to Japan,” Kaia bit back and the man on the other end chuckled. “Not that it matters too much, I’m pretty busy of late.”

“So busy you can’t come hang with me tonight since I’m leaving soon?” he asked with a voice that she knew followed with a pout.

“I saw you last night; surely you have better things to do.” Kaia smiled. “Or at least I have better things to do.”

“Like watch TV.”

“Beats playing games when I should be sleeping, Max,” she retorted, carefully changing to his stage name in case the older lady nearby was listening in.

“I remember you were there beside me playing.”

“I’m not coming over,” Kaia decided, nodding her head even though he couldn’t see it. “I’m too busy.”

“I’ll watch it with you.”

“Watch what?”

“Your silly drama, now get off at the next bus stop and give me directions. I’m already heading out to my car to get you.”

And then the phone line went dead. She obeyed his request, sending him a text with her location and wondering if she had finally stepped into that parallel universe.

Or rather, what was going to be in store for that evening.

_________________

Part 3

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[restlessmaknae]

Disastrous [pt.6]

Chapters: 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8

Genre: fluff, comedy, romcom

Main Characters: Kim Namjoon; Gu Dasom (OC)

Setting: holiday AU; friends to lovers AU

I knew that this holiday will be difficult with Namjoon by my side but I never thought that it would be this difficult.

An arranged holiday with my best friend to a breath-taking island? What could actually go wrong? In my case, the question is, what didn’t go wrong?

The next hours were spent with walking back to the bus station. The distance was long, so it took us 5 hours to get there. Namjoon said that we could have gone faster if the weather hadn’t been so hot and it hadn’t been around midday. I sometimes really felt like I could faint because as I’ve mentioned, we had no food, nor water. Luckily, we found a fountain on our way where we could drink a little but because we didn’t have money, we couldn’t even dream about buying anything. It was so humiliating. I didn’t have any kind of headwear, so I wouldn’t have been surprised if I had gotten sunstroke. Namjoon also felt a bit dizzy but he always felt it as his priority to encourage me to keep going.

I was never keen on walking or hiking or any kind of those outdoor physical activities but after our 5-hour journey, I hated even the idea of moving my pinkie for the next few hours. I’d never been more tired in my whole life and I immediately sat down on the ground when we got back my best friend’s backpack. I was just so exhausted. So, so exhausted.

“Ah, I’m so happy it’s over!” I blurted without much thinking and took a big sip of the water bottle. It felt incredibly good as my throat had been dry for hours.

Namjoon also let himself slide down to sit on the ground beside me. I voluntarily leaned onto his shoulder while he slung his arms around mine. It was beyond reassuring, it was almost like heaven. I could pacify my crazily beating heart and wildly rumbling thoughts by then, so I could finally feel at ease. He was beside me, I was beside him and nothing ever seemed more perfect than that.

“I feel like I could eat a cow right now,” I murmured out a jumble of words and earned an ethereal chortle from Namjoon.

“We don’t have enough money to buy you a cow,” he said in between laughs but I just playfully smacked him in the chest.

“Yah! Don’t make me sad, Namjoon!” I pouted like a little girl and it made him laugh even more. I adored watching him laugh because I never considered myself a funny girl and he still had a fun time beside me. I was kind of proud of that.

“I don’t want to but that’s the truth.”

“I know.”

“But I’ll pay for your dinner. Deal?” he raised his eyebrows in question when I withdrew. I knew he wanted to compensate me for losing his bag and making me super worried throughout the day, so I gave in. I didn’t want him to feel worse.

“Deal,” I nodded as excitedly as I could but I must have looked like a runner after completing the marathon. My hair was more like a bird nest and my face was all red thanks to the heat. My clothes were covered in sweat and I was happy if I could walk back safely to our accommodation on my feet.

We just sat there for God knows how long before we decided to find a cosy and fairly cheap restaurant to eat something. I was never really fond of hamburgers but when I saw that it was on the menu, I didn’t hesitate to order one. A really big one. I was hungry and my stomach was growling again and again, its weird noises an urging for me to get some food. Namjoon chose the same and we were munching away on our hamburgers without saying a single word out loud. We desperately needed those extra calories.

Due to the fact that it was already 5 o’ clock and we were hardly in a condition to continue our sight-seeing tour, we headed back to the guest house. I was never happier to see those dull, white walls and familiar bunk-bed than that particular night. I realised that a lot of mishaps occurred during our holiday and our room wasn’t even the worst of them.

“Can I sleep now?” I sneaked a glance at Namjoon like I needed his permission to go to bed. He looked at me dearly and pinched my cheeks. If the hot weather didn’t make them heat up a bit, his touch definitely did.

“Of course you can. We had quite a rough day, so you deserve a good night’s sleep,” he nodded and pointed to the bottom mattress. I hopped down without hesitation but before I fell onto the quilt, I made sure that I grabbed his wrist and pulled him with me. It didn’t take him by surprise, thus he didn’t even protest.

I wanted to doze off against his shoulder because I didn’t really remember the last time when we slept like that. We were best friends for 15 years now but our friendship started just like any other; totally unexpectedly. We encountered at a playground in Goyang and made a pinky promise that we will be together until the end. It all started with silly things that 6-year-old kids do; killing our time at the playground, sharing our toys with each other, talking about our favourite animated shows and playing hide and seek in our garden.

We weren’t neighbours but we spent a lot of time together and the more we grew, the more we needed each other’s company. I remember vividly that I always shared my fears with him while we were looking at the stars from the terrace of his room. He listened to me patiently and waited until I didn’t have anything else to say. Then, he rubbed his chin, tilted his head in contemplation and started talking about solutions how I should be more confident and face those obstacles. I never knew how that 6-year-old immature guy with the grey braces turned into a wise, philosophical teenager but he definitely changed. Puberty hit him so hard – or me, I don’t know – that I started seeing him as a man and not a boy. But soon, I felt the same way about my male classmates as well and that thought never flew across my mind again until 2 months ago.

“You know it’s funny,” Namjoon whispered as I rested my head on his shoulder. This silence wasn’t like the one before; it was serene and soft like a cloud hovering on the clear-blue sky.

“What?”

“I saw a lot of sides of you in the last 15 years but you never fail to show me new sides since we started our journey,” his hushed voice was full of awe and I didn’t really know why. I was pretty sure that witnessing how I had acted in the last couple of days was nothing but troublesome. I was whining, I was yelling at him and I was screaming because of a giant spider. What could have been so pleasant about that?

“Is that a good thing?” I glared at him, not sure what kind of answer I would get. His serious expression slowly dissolved into a nostalgic smile.

“Yes, it is. You are my best friend and it’s such a pity that we can’t spend as much time together as we used to since we started university. I guess that’s why I felt like we slowly drifted apart in the last couple of years. You know, there was school, assignments, new friends and you had Hyeonuk as well−” he suddenly confessed and I couldn’t help but flinch painfully at the mention of my ex-boyfriend.

I met Heyonuk 2 years ago at a college party and we had been a couple for 23 months when he said that he wanted to break up. That asshole. I inwardly cursed myself for ever trusting that guy, even though he was such a sweetheart until he announced that it was over.

“You felt like we drifted apart because of Hyeonuk?” I asked, almost frantically because I’d never thought that Namjoon would feel like I had chosen my boyfriend over him. He wasn’t jealous, he seemed to get along well with Hyeonuk when I was around, so he didn’t show any sign of jealousy. Or he was a really impressive actor.

“Yes, a little bit,” he admitted without hesitation. He didn’t seem nervous, he didn’t even nibble his lips but the dimples deepened with his smile. He wasn’t mad and I admired him for his understanding. It was one of the things on the endless list of what I loved about him. “But I don’t blame you. If you’re in love, you have to spend more time with your boyfriend than with your best friend.”

“That’s not true,” I shook my head immediately because I learned from my parents that you shouldn’t neglect your friends and family even if you are in love. “You should have told me if it really irritated you.”

“It doesn’t really matter anymore,” he waved his hands in an attempt to leave the subject and move on. “Hyeonuk doesn’t know what he missed when he said that you’re too dull and worthless for him,” he quoted the exact same words that my boyfriend had told me two months ago and even flinched like he was hurt.

He was the one who scooped me up after Hyeonuk said goodbye and that’s when I started developing feelings for him. Seeing how he cared about me and cursed at my ex-boyfriend made me feel touched. He never acted like that before when my relationships ended but that’s also true that none of my relationship were as long yet painful as the one with Hyeonuk.

“That douchebag,” I snorted furiously but my expression suddenly changed when I heard my best friend’s reaction. I couldn’t suppress the urge to smile as widely as possible.

“That crazy bastard,” he spluttered the words dismissively and when we met each other’s gazes, we broke into little fists of laughter. That made me remember for the good old days when it was so usual that we dissed my ex-boyfriends and his ex-girlfriends like that. The thought that we were getting closer and closer again melted my heart a bit.

We were talking for an hour or so and I wish we could speak more but I had already stifled a yawn like 12 times and when he noticed my sleepy eyes, he turned off the lights and walked up on the ladder. When I heard that he arrived on his mattress, I whispered to him like we always did when we had a sleepover at each other’s houses.

“Good night, Namjoonie.”

“Good night, Dasomie.”

His deep, hoarse voice was the sweetest melody that could cherish me to sleep.

[barbecuedphoenix]

200 Followers: 11 Things About Me

So I was re-tagged a week ago by @eldarya-scenarios. (I had no idea I tagged you twice, dear. ^_^ Having two aliases is awfully sneaky.) 

If you’re a little curious on who your friendly fan blogger is behind the Leiftan icon and the barrage of text-winks, feel free to read on. Watch out though: it’s a long post like everything else I write... 

And if not, please continue to enjoy this blog’s smart-assery and the text-winks. ;)

1) Why did you name your blog the way you did? ...Because that’s the screen-name I use for my main Eldarya account. I’m not very creative with names. :( Not to mention that it’s probably very politically-incorrect to say ‘Barbecued Phoenix’ in the faery realm. Huang Hua would not be amused. And my blog is guaranteed to be politically-incorrect as far as folklore and faeries are concerned. ;) My screen-name is actually homage to a Neil Gaiman short-story called ‘Sunbird’, which is still one of my favorites from its double serving of dark humor and culinary catastrophes. And it sounds really funny when you say it out-loud (at least that’s my opinion).

2) What was your last meal? *checks bowl next to laptop* Eh… a fruit salad I scraped together from some Rainier cherries and leftover cantaloupe slices. It’s summer here, and I enjoy my fruits. :)

3) Jeans or skirts? …I must have at least nine different pairs of jeans in my closet, half of which I don’t even wear most days. And just one pencil skirt. Because at least once in my life, I’ll need to go to a court room. So there’s your answer. :)  

4) What’s your favourite letter of the alphabet? In the English alphabet, ‘L’ is my favorite. It just rollllls off the tongue so nicely. :) 

5) Favourite fandom/shipping? I’m a mercenary crack-ship writer. Anything goes so long as characters are in-character. ;) *cough* Truthfully, I haven’t shipped anything in a fandom since I was eleven or twelve, and that was waaaay back when the cartoon series Avatar the Last Airbender premiered. I think that experience has inoculated me to serious shipping. So now, while I enjoy seeing a well-developed, well-paced canon romance (because it means the creators have really thought the story through), it’s never a huge concern for me who’s paired up with whom. Romance isn’t actually the selling point for me for a lot of stories; it’s individual character development and plot direction that counts.   And anyway… fan shipping is really a fabrication. With a bit of imagination, effort, and tactical writing, functional relationships can be spun between anything and anyone, and unraveled in the same way. Even when keeping all parties in character. So why blow a gasket over shipping? To each their own dirty little fancies. ;)

As for my fandoms… they’re a patchwork quilt of games, books, movies, TV shows, anime from a lot of different sources, and it changes every year. For the sake of time, I’ll give a rundown of just the fantasy/supernatural genres I’ve been following for a while (translating some of the titles to English when possible):  

Games: the Dragon Age series, Folklore (also called FolksSoul), Uncharted, the Persona series 

Books: Discworld, His Dark Materials, the Dr. Siri Paiboun series, the Temeraire series, The Tiger’s Wife, Brisingamen, pretty much anything done by Neil Gaiman… the list goes on. With a few rare exceptions, I’ve shifted from being a high fantasy lover (those tropes get old after a while) to an acolyte of more low-key genres like magical-realism, fantasy-historical-fiction, and satirical-fantasy.  

TV Shows: Supernatural  

Anime & Cartoons: the Fate series (even though my fanfiction ends up making fun of it 95% of the time, it’s still a really intricate universe), the Avatar series  

Movies: Practically anything done by Studio Ghibli and Tomm Moore, ‘Coraline’, ‘Corpse Bride’, ‘Therapy for a Vampire’, ‘Let the Right One In’, ‘Groundhog Day’, the very first installation of ‘The Hobbit’   

6) What’s your favourite sport? (You don’t necessarily have to play it) Favorite sport I can’t do, but love to watch: Surfing. Forget berserk football matches; give me a crazy Australian riding a tunnel wave any day. :D  Favorite sport I can do: Bicycling. I’m no Tour de France candidate, but my bike regularly takes its share of unreasonable hills and descents in the city where I live. Personally, It’s a great way to get around. ^_^

7) What’s your idea of a perfect day? Getting everything on my list done with minimal coffee and hair-pulling.  -_- Sorry… I’m still listening to the robot half of my brain. Switching over.  Start the day by making a difference and sharing a good time with both the students I see where I work, and the odd friends and colleagues I do have. Attend a really good lecture. Then take a quiet bus ride to the beach or an aquarium, where I can watch all the wildlife shenanigans I want. Tourists included. Cook something awesome for lunch or dinner, and eat it to discover that it’s still more awesome. End the day with a good book, an avalanche of blankets, and a conveniently-rainy night. And maybe a quick Skype/phone call with my dad.  ;( Oh there I go, listening to the sappy half of my brain. Switching over.  

8) What animal do you hate with all your soul? The logical part of my brain tells me I have no cause to loathe any animal for existing. But the cave-woman part of my brain still gets creeped out by a few of them…. Geckos especially. Because the house where I grew up was infested with them (like a typical equatorial house, actually). The geckos could be found on absolutely any flat surface, even the underside of the table and on the ceiling, so we always had to check right before sitting down that something cold, bug-eyed, and squirmy wasn’t going to drop on us in the middle of dinner. And they also liked to appear in other surprising places: like in your shoes (as my father found out one day while rushing to work), inside drawers, inside trash cans, crushed between door hinges, trapped in the kitchen sink, and inside the refrigerator a couple of times (worst idea ever, for a lizard).      One of the best things that happened to me on moving to this corner of the United States: no geckos anywhere. I can clean my apartment with an easy heart. \o/    

9) Can you dance? Besides some lingering muscle memory from my early days doing classical ballet... no. :(  I’d really like to take up Spanish Flamenco though. Generally, I do better with choreographed dances rather than impromptu club-dancing. As all my friends have told me. I’ve given them so many priceless memories on the dance-floor… 

10) What’s the name and age of your favourite character? (OC or otherwise) I can’t decide on a ‘favorite’ character in media; there’s too many of them. So how about a favorite OC instead? ^_^   Right now among the Eldarya OC cast, my favorite would have to be Zephania ‘Zee’ Tantiango because she’s a magnet for trouble as a protagonist very dynamic heroine to work with. (She’s 23, in case you’re interested.) Zee is actually the latest incarnation of the ‘funny-but-unlucky action heroine’ archetype I’ve spent years working on, and I’m happy with how she’s turning out so far. On one hand, she’s the typical small-town heroine who’s sharp, plucky, energetic, and more than a little kooky herself; the story never stops moving once she starts improvising in a tight situation. :) But there’s a strong undercurrent of tragedy in the way she continues to isolate herself through her pride and her decisions, especially because she’s allergic to either admitting that she’s in real trouble, or cutting herself some slack for her mistakes. There’s a lot of sadness behind that finger-snap smile. I’m still debating on whether to give her a good ending, or a bitter one. :(  No, that was not a spoiler for the fan-fiction that’ll one day hit this blog.

11) What got you into your favourite activity?(i.e how did you start?) Favorite activity? Like… a hobby?  Well the longest-running hobby I’ve ever had is writing (no guesses there). And it was more-or-less self-taught. As a kid, nobody could take me anywhere without a book in my hand, or some other adventure happening inside my own head (which made it awfully inconvenient to get my attention in a mall… but hey, I never wandered off). And writing short stories was always the most entertaining school assignment for me.  But it wasn’t until I started home-schooling at thirteen that I found the time and need to write something for myself, putting to paper those increasingly-complex sagas and fan-fictions that lived in my head (because my short-term recall just couldn’t keep track of all the dialogue and plot twists anymore; I needed to start recording my stories to make sense of them.)   And I haven’t stopped since. :)

Uh-oh. Here come… my questions. For @mentacomchocolate, @areyntheheartseeker, and @the-irish-hoor​. 

Why did you name your blogs the way you did? ;)

What would your honest personal reaction be if you accidentally stepped into a fairy ring, landed in a strange place, and got threatened by a fox-lady wielding fireballs?  

What’s your dream job in this life?  

Is there anyone you have a crush on that you’re still really embarrassed to admit? Would you like to mention them anyway? ;)  

If there’s only one book genre you could spend the rest of your life reading, what will it be?  

What are the top 5 things you geek out over? (Today, at least. ;) )

If you’ve been given a 24-hour advance warning that the world is definitely going to end (i.e. via Death Star), what will you do?

And if you’ve been given an exclusive two-person escape pod during above scenario, what/who would you bring with you to escape the planet? Would you want to?

If your friends can agree on one thing about you, what would it be? Do you agree with them? 

What’s the most embarrassing thing that happened to you this past week?  

What do you remember as your most incredible feat of endurance to date? Physical, mental, and/or social?

*looks up* ...All right, those are some weird questions. I won’t blame you at all if you ignore them. 

[juliea-moon]

Lay – Attached

Characters: Lay x OC

Type: Angst, Fluff

Word count: 1747

A/N: [3/9] Just noticed that some people re-blogged the master list, which is not really a good idea because when I update one of the links, it won’t be shown in the post you guys re-blogged. I don’t know why it’s like that, sorry.

This scenario somehow has a special place in my heart, I am still planning it out and probably turning into a full fan-fiction. Anyone interested?

“You’re mine kitten.”

I would have never thought that I would somehow get involved with the dark side of Seoul. I mean, I was a part-time bartender, who mostly worked at night at a well-known bar, which was also popular with some underground members. But I would have never thought that I would get into that kind of the mess, rather than being only on the bricks of it.

It all started when Kim Kai, a member of one of the most dangerous mafia groups K, walked into the bar at six in the evening and sat right in front of me, drowning himself in alcohol. It would have ended right there if he wasn’t a drunken talker. It was rare for someone like Kai to get drunk at that time of a day, a Monday nevertheless. The moment he opened his mouth though, I understood. Problems. Who had them not? Everyone had some kind of obstacle in his life, he was just one I would never have. A rival mafia.

He started to sputter out all kinds of information. Starting from himself to the inner circle of K; how many members they had, what they are called and what position they had. To all the plans they formed to get back at their rival gang M, for all the damage they did with their recent attack. I was lucky at that time, well I thought I was. There was no one around the two of us, who would have heard our conversation, which made me feel relieved and safe.

But I couldn’t have known that an ally of M was around, relaying the message to them that there was someone who heard of K’s plan and had important information about them. Someone that wasn’t involved in the underground scene and was just a university student working part-time at a bar. Why that person didn’t think about listening to the conversation was beyond me, Kim Kai was drunk, he would have never noticed it anyway.

I was not dumb, I heard of some of the most well-known mafia members enough to fear them. One of them being Lay. He is said to be manipulative, sadistic and most of all unforgiving. He would never do something without a reason, but he would pretty much get overboard even with the smallest things. Nobody knew how he really looked. Well, no one who is alive knew how he looked, besides his members probably.

Three weeks passed since Kim Kai spilt the beans about K, and my life went on normally. I went to work, from work home and so on. It was a good idea to work throughout the semester holidays, but even then does one need a day off or maybe even three, which I did. And it was proven to be a mistake.

Lounging in the living room comfortably, I was watching TV while eating some snacks. The best way to de-stress was to just chill, till my doorbell rang. Groaning aloud throughout the way to the door, I opened it with the coldest glare I could muster. I wanted peace and no visit from anyone. Looking up to the person, a young man greeted me, his face blank and rather cold than anything else.

“Lee Jaelin?” Nodding at him, my muscles tensed when he shoved me back into the apartment, shutting the door close. Enclosing his hand on my arm, he pulled me right into my living room and threw me onto the couch, hard.

“W-what? HEY.” I shouted. “What are you doing? Who are you?!”

Looking down at me, he raised an eyebrow. “I’m Lay.” He smirked at my paling face, before leaning further into my face. His glare pretty intimidating. “And you, Darling, will tell me everything Kim Kai told you. And don’t even dare to deny it or lying to me. I know when someone lies.”

Fear spread through my whole body, my stomach churning painfully. One of the most dangerous man was standing here in my apartment, leant over me to glare me down and threaten me. I couldn’t comprehend the situation to even cry, only shivering from his intense gaze.

Pulling my chin up to look at him, he inspected my face. “The sooner you spill the beans, sweetheart, the sooner you are out of danger. Now?” Gulping down and pulling my face away from his hold slowly, I sighed before telling him everything I knew and got from Kai. That the inner circle of K seemed to consist of six members, what chaos the attack of M created and what their future plans were. And without even noticing, Lay seemed to have made himself comfortable beside me, listening to everything I said intensely. Like he enjoyed listening to my words.

Holding all these information to myself the past three weeks made me stressed out, more than anything else. Spilling all those information now somehow relieving me, even if I was forced to say them.

When I finished, I leant back as well. I never once looked at Lay while talking, but when I turned around, his face was leant towards mine. Throughout me talking, he seemed to have watched me. A shiver ran down my back. Being watched by a cute and handsome guy was one thing, but being watched by a mafia if not psychotic and sadistic murderer was a whole different thing.

Not breaking his look on me, he stood up. “You know what happens if I find out you lied, right?”

Nodding at his words, I looked away from him. “You also know what happens if I find out that you ran to K to inform them of my visit?”

“D-does that mean you won’t kill me?” I meekly looked at him, maybe a bit too hopeful.

Lay chuckled before making his way towards the door. “See you, sweetheart. I have a feeling that this won’t be our last meeting.”

He was right, of course, he was. Because it wasn’t the last time Kai would visit the bar and get drunk again.

M was fast in creating a plan to further crush K’s tactics, successfully. K is facing incredible damage. Not just internally, but also in resources. A member being beaten up heavily, while another being captured by the police. Luckily for them, without heavy evidence or anything. Kai just couldn’t shut up about all of it, without his knowing actually pulling me into his mess. The underground was infectious. One small detail, the least important information could be your doom. I know that first hand.

Lay visited me the day after, without me actually being aware of it. My shift ended pretty late, I was only able to fall asleep around five in the morning. Which also meant that I slept a bit more than I would do normally, I woke up at one and not eleven like normally. The moment I walked out of my room, Lay way comfortably sitting on the sofa and looking through a book he probably took from the shelves right beside it.

Noticing my flabbergasted figure, a smirk formed on his face as his eyes trailed my figure. And to my luck, I was just dressed in a black tank top and blue shorts.

“If that isn’t a sight for sore eyes, good morning Darling. Or rather, good afternoon.”

“What are you doing here?” I groaned out, maybe too confident for my own good.“If you know that Kai blabbered information out again, why are you not able to know what he was actually saying?!”

Raising both his eyebrows, it was clear how amused I was making him. “He spluttered things out again? I was actually here because I missed you.” He playfully pouted. His words being nothing else, but honestly though. “I was concerned that we wouldn’t find things to talk about, but fate has nice ways of helping one out.”

No, fate had the only nice way of helping him out. And giving me a life full of chaos, as proven with the happenings following after.

Lay often visited me; sometimes just for fun and sometimes because he claimed to have ‘missed me’. It leads to a way more comfortable atmosphere around us, as much as that was possible. He never stopped to tease me, but a certain causality came into our conversation and I found myself not fooling my reactions anymore. If he annoyed me, I showed it. If I found something funny, I freely laughed. I got to meet his more human side, one he probably showed anyone rarely. It was nice to know that he had a better side, it didn’t make the fear go away though. It was still there, at the back of my mind. Which is why I hoped that after Kai’s visits to the bar stopped, Lay’s visit would cease as well. It’s been already more than two weeks since the K-member last came in, but I am always hoping for nothing. When it comes to him, fate seems to be biased.

“I don’t understand,” I said, sighing after. Looking rather ahead than at the guy sitting beside me on the single sofa. “Why?”

Turning to me, Lay raised his eyebrow. “Why what? What don’t you understand.”

“This.” I groaned out. “You.”

Lay just blinked, before smirking. “What about me?”

Huffing out, I rolled my eyes. His teasing was annoying enough.

Chuckling at my state, he grinned before reaching out and playing with a strand of my hair and surveying the features of my face. “I just couldn’t.”

I frowned. “What?”

“Look at you being all cutely confused, like a little kitty.” He smiled, almost angelically. “I couldn’t leave you. Especially after getting to know you.” He sighed, pulling the strand behind my ear. “In,” his eyes trailed down my body, “and out,” before he looked back up at me, another smirk gracing his face. “And I doubt I would ever. That means that you are stuck with me.”

“What?” I backed away from his touch.

“You’re mine kitten.” He pulled me towards himself, positioning my left leg around his waist to snake his arms around my waist and make me sit on his lap. My hands awkwardly fell on top of his shoulders, balancing myself, before he forced my face to look into his. “You know what that means? I don’t plan to leave you or let you leave me, ever.”

EXO Mafia Boss One Shot Series Masterlist