#‘but I want to see ur face’ well I want u to go away like Jesus fuck

[heejake-hoon]

Warning: mdni, overstimulation, dumbification, creampie, dirty talk...

"Awww my little cumdump, are u having fun?" Sunghoon faux cooed at ur shaking state as you were bonded to the bed frame both ur hands and legs spread open with a wand vibrator pressed securely on ur clit, it has been more than 2 hours of torture, with you cuming and cuming again u weren't sure if ur body could take it any more, drool and tears dropping messily on ur face you wanted to beg him to stop, wanted to tell him to free you, but you weren't even able to say that, so fucked up from all the orgasms he forced out of u with his toy.

"Hmmmm? Baby did I leave you dumb? Can't even answer me? What a useless fuckdoll." You wanted to cry, the humiliation making your skin heat up even more. "It's okay my little slut, don't worry about it. You don't have to do anything, I am going to take care of you. Your just gonna be a good girl and let me do as I please, yeah?" Sunghoon smirked as he turned off the toy making you sigh in relief, you weren't sure if you could take another one of his games, not after this one. He unbound u, letting u fall flat on the bed as he got up from the chair where he was sitting comfortably the entire time."Hoonie... no more." you croaked out, voice raspy from all the screaming, the only thing on your mind was sleep."You want me to stop? Okay then. I won't do anything." Sunghoon shrugged, you sighed in relief thinking he finally got bored of teasing u.But oh how wrong you were.Sunghoon grabbed your hips, lifting them up so your ass was up in the air. You were too tired to even lift your head up and see what he was doing, just sighing happily as his hands caressed ur lower back, kneading ur flesh.

Then the sound of a cap opening was heard and you realized what was about to happen, making you jerk and try to wiggle away.

"Shhhh, don't move, my princess. Be a good girl and let me fill that pretty little cunt up." You were too tired, too sensitive, you couldn't take him inside u. "Sunghoon, wait no-" you cried out, trying to get away from his hold.

"What was that? Did you just tell me no?" Sunghoon's tone suddenly turned ice cold and you whimpered at that, realizing your mistake."No, no. I- I'm sorry. I was just- no. I'm a good girl, I'm a good girl for hoonie." you mumbled, words almost unintelligible. "Mmmmm, that's right, you're my good girl. Always so sweet and obedient for me. My perfect doll." You sighed happily, glad that you could please him.

Then the next second you were crying out as you felt him plunging deep inside you."Hoonie! It-it hurts!" you tried to get away, but his hands were like iron on your hips.

"Aw baby, does it hurt? But you were begging me to fill u up earlier." You gasped at that. You did? When did you say that? You weren't even aware of that "H-how..." you whispered, confusion evident on ur face. "That's when I knew you were ready. Your body knows what it needs, and you're just too dumb to realize it. So I helped you out." Sunghoon smirked as he thrust deep inside you, making you whimper in pain and pleasure "Ah-h! S-sunghoon. It's-it's too much!"

"You're taking it so well baby. My pretty little slut." The soft kisses he gave you were contradicting so much from how hard he was pounfing you, sending you over the edge once again. "Hoonie- I, ah! Ah! Hoonie!" You couldn't even form proper sentences as he hit your g-spot with every thrust. "Come on, cum for me again, my little princess. You know how much I love your tight pussy clenching around my cock."His filthy words and his rough thrusts were all it took for you to cum, vision turning white as your body spasmed.

Sunghoon followed shortly after, pumping you full of his warm seed, filling you up so nicely, and you moaned at the feeling "So perfect. My perfect baby." He cooed, peppering your face with kisses and you smiled lazily at that.

[short666bread]

2days journal (7/16/23)

If I had a nickel for every time a dude w boundary issues begged me like, to an embarrassing degree, to remove my mask (and like, had even literally seen my face already so ?) I would have 2 nickels, which isn’t a lot but it’s extremely weird it happened twice (2 days in a row!) (it felt like living in a busted simulation)

[kalims]

he's a ten but he...

premise. sometimes certain bad habits of theirs make their overall rating just a tad bit lower—besides the fact that they keep doing it.

characters. dorm leaders

content. gender neutral reader

malleus (doesn't have a sense of space)

"look beastie, that flower is a native of ours,"

"I agree mal, but I didn't think you taking up the entirety of my seat will make me see it better,"

he blinks, then shrugs.

like i said, has NO sense of space.

if an average person would make an excuse to constantly be in physical contact with who they admire, then malleus is the complete opposite. well, not entirely but he doesn't even bother to construct an explanation as to why he's literally sat over your seat when you coincidentally get put in a table together.

if you start questioning him about it the most you'll get in a very outright 'because he wanted to.' it's not even one of those sarcastic replies he's 100% serious!

cause he believes there's no use in lying about things to be honest.. to further emphasize that, if he ever acts like he does hold fondness for you that surpasses the platonic meter but doesn't mention it he probably hasn't realized yet.

if he did he'd already walk over and bluntly tell you about it.

(I wish I could be that unbothered.)

lilia thinks it's the cutest thing though. you swear you see flashes of light for a split second from the ceiling but when you look up there's only a suspicious swinging chandelier.

^ totally has his own album full of pictures.

if malleus ever discovers it he won't even be disturbed, probably would ask for a copy 💯

since human lives, and their bodies are so fragile he'd taken it upon himself to protect you from harm. even if it means trailing behind you everywhere way too close for comfort, or standing a bees wing away.

while he is respectful most of the time, he's encouraged if you don't comment. if anything, he seems pleased you dont seem to be bothered! (and it'll get harder to tell him to stop when he's so happy the more you let it happen..)

"child of man, have you slept?"

*starts leaning his body forward, to squint at your eyes.* practically right in front of your face.

"WTF."

not even a warning or anything! but atleast he's concerned?

idia (won't even show up for anything and insists a 'virtual' date is better.')

user: where tf r u??

ghoul666: WDYM? at the dorm?

user: IVE BEEN WAITING HERE FOR 20 MINUTES

unintentionally stood you up 💀

you literally have to tell him that you're waiting for him to arrive at the specified area you discussed where your date would take place but would end up vastly irritated when he questions if you guys even did.

ghoul666: we do??

user: I'm taking my minecraft bed away from urs.

ghoul666: NO PLS

ghoul666: HELLO????

next time you log in minecraft it's probably because he begged you to play, you WILL end up seeing some kind of structure that probably took days to make. that's not even the entire thing cause the inside is entirely decorated to your taste.

in short: he constructed some kind of venue for a wedding.. even changed his skin to wear a tuxedo 😭

though he has sparked your pettiness, hence the ignoring him period. even you have got to admit that it's freaking adorable...

big sign, emphasis on please: Im sorry pls put ur minecraft bed back I can't sleep w/o u and I have to wait entire days for it to turn into morning :(

with what he's built you're sure it's 65% true.

if you do end up forgiving him, few weeks later attempting to schedule another date will only end up in naught.

ghoul666: can we not go there

user: 😐

user: you are testing my patience love

ghoul666: 😓 (he is screeching about the term of endearment part btw KABSJAJSAJA ortho would enter his room very concerned.)

ghoul666: how abt

ghoul666: mimic together? call

user: sighs

user: I'm only agreeing cause I want to spend time with you

queue more screeching from his end that you're completely oblivious to.

the only screeching you're gonna hear though is when you guys do get into call as you play, and it's mainly out of terror when his soul gets sent to the void ascending when the entity pops out of a corner and starts chasing him.

"I GOT THIS. ILL CARRY U THIS IS FINE" *screams again* but really wants to impress you so he pushes through.

unsurprisingly does carry you.

asks to match avatars right after (idia love languange)

vil (frets over you way too much.)

"vil, did you see the chocolate in the freezer?"

"oh, that? I noticed that you've already gone through the ideal number of bars this week so I took it upon myself to make sure you don't go sick on me,"

"I love you but please give it back—"

"I love you too, and no."

disclaimer: he does this for your own good 😜 (average mom excuse.)

looks out for you more than he does for his own dorm residents. everyone is wondering where he ran off to after class, especially since he's the one that scheduled the pomefiore meeting every fridays!

and to think he was the one getting irritated over the more newer first years for being late..

*shows up literally half an hour in*

why you ask? you simply shouldn't have texted him about abandoning your daily walk together through the gardens in favor of catching sleep since you called in sick (you're suspicious if crewel really did go in to check for proof, and not concern.)

vil's really feeling the absolute regret of not checking his phone during classes.. well, he only saw the message which was coincidentally sent like somehow ONE minute after the lecture started and he's only seeing it 59 minutes later.

oh you poor thing!! though the lunch break is short, he has about 5 minutes for a trip to the mirror chamber..

you'd think the 'seen' icon below your message was a weird omen for something you're not sure but it must be doom cause vil is right at the front porch of your crappy dorm. at his own expense?! looking more disheveled than you've seen him before.

if a few stray hairs was disheveled at all. more importantly, he still looked drop dead gorgeous!

you probably looked quite terrible with the blanket draped around your shoulders looking like you just crawled out of your grave, because he looked absolutely mortified at your state.

"oh great sevens.." he looked like he was faint, huffing and fanning himself with his hand. "look at you, why didn't you tell me sooner, darling?"

you blink, swallowing to make your throat less dry but your voice still comes out raspy. "I did, like an hour ago—" without your invitation whatsoever, he steps in. promptly shutting the door behind him (which surprisingly still stands sturdy.)

vil takes a hold of your shoulders before reaching his hands upwards to tilt your face around. "you should have sent earlier," he says. you keep in the comment that you were sleeping during it, and you told him about it during second period so.. "your face is so pale."

you sigh.

"yeah, I just saw. I know, I look hideous right now."

vil frowns at you, stopping to angle your face at him. "don't ever say that. I always find you beautiful even if you are.." he glances at you from face to toe, then back up. "sickly."

"... I feel offended."

"hmph, shush now. let me draw you a bath then I know something that will boost your system."

after much coaxing in his end, you reluctantly take a warm bath in the hopefully hygienic bathroom. true to his word, vil did... concoct something. though it looked pretty the random steam that flew from it was really suspicious.

the residents don't dare to question, except rook of course. who already knew what transpired! :)

epel: 😃 (atleast vil wasn't around.)

"roi du poison~ tell me, tell me! is the trickster well? have you cured them with your love?"

"rook, you have 5 seconds to get out of my face."

rook giggles away.

kalim (thinks money will buy anything, including your forgiveness.)

"here!" there's a suspiciously bright smile on his face as he hands you.. some keys?

you deadpan, jingling it in your hands. it weighs heavy than the average, probably because of the fact that it's literally made of gold. "... kalim what is this?" you emit a sigh, from suspicion and concern.

"a gift!"

"wait why does it say lot 111--"

as you can already, that was an actual, literal house. which you imagine would probably be a lots more grand, and new compared to your old baby ramshackle.

but you do love it despite it's love for falling apart at the most inconvenient of times..

fighting with kalim was rare but it was hard to even argue with him because the notion of disagreements are so bizarre to him that he unintentionally doesn't treat you seriously with your concerns, accidentally downplaying them aaaand now you're upset.

after the ranting to jamil about how you must be busy with a lot, since you haven't even talked to him in the past 2 days. all it took was a side glance to his friend in denial and jamil immediately knew.

"what do you mean they're mad!? D:"

"just.. go apologize, I don't want to get caught up in this."

if his definition of an apology is buying you an entire house...

( ^ it is btw.)

kalim really doesn't mean any harm. he just really wants to sate whatever anger you held for him <- maybe he's overthinking it but it's kalim so he's 99% sure it's his fault! even though it hasn't even been confirmed from your end he'd probably accept it whole heartedly.

he wanted you to talk to him again so badly that he wouldn’t mind showering you with houses... since your living situation doesn't live up to your kindness (sorry ramshackle love u xx)

you know what. he wouldn't even notice he's the reason you're upset at first even though he's been asking around on who put you in that mood. despite himself being the perpetrator but he didn't really know that did he?

the only reason he does is because he assumed you were just because you avoided him like some sort of.. cockroach! (he dislikes those.) and he couldn't take it anymore.

was probably 1 sec away from barging into your dorm which wouldn't take a lot of effort since one ram to the door would probably break it.

bless jamil for jailing all the carpets so kalim doesn't find them.

even if said carpets fling him off when he's riding them.

"kalim, why would you buy a literal house... and you also got a rare address paid--"

"for them! ;D"

"... you do know they'd be more offended by the fact that you'd try to replace that.., ahem. dorm, right?"

"oh... should I buy them a vehicle then?"

you only promise to forgive him once he takes back the keys, and the house entirely...

(grim begged you to keep it, 'house for him apparently.')

azul (keeps trying to offer you discounts thinking it's a good excuse to have you over.)

"I assure you. you'll find no deal better than this."

"I'm not even that hungry for sea food, actually I'm craving some--"

"you're in luck then! ahem, it's 26% off due to a special event for today."

pro tip: keep insisting to eat at other places cause he's gonna keep increasing the discount by 2% until you eventually relent. once, you made him go to the point of 75% off, it's almost hilarious if not for the fact it only worked once.

now he won't go last 50!

ahem. if you look closely you can almost spot tiny cracks accumulating with each denial you respond with, and each increase of his discount. he's grown to be wary about the bullshit 'lucky' promos you just happen to stumble on.

last time you did he practically lost a week's worth of the presumed income he's predicted cause you actually went around and told your first year friends about it... who.. in turn told some, other friends of theirs about it and you could guess.

love must hurt.. and unfortunately it's his wallet wailing.

but azul is not so easily swayed by this! for you have swayed him first! *wink wonk*

but azul has another trick up his sleeve... keeping on roping jade and floyd into it; whom are far too enthusiastic cause finally— something fun to do! someone to bother! not only have you got the most stubborn octopus having frequent suspicious 'deals' but here are his equally suspicious lackeys.

who keeps.. talking about fried octopus..

yeah, you're not sure if preaching about azul’s species is the job they were assigned.

they're fairly easy to point in the right direction anyways. the tweels have always associated you with the word 'fun' so just a little, friendly suggestion from and they were off to their merry way. mortifying every single person you come across with their sudden attachment.

one of their tricks? following you around. and just somehow, every single place you enter is just mysteriously full even though you peered inside and there was like 7 tables empty. what are they hosting? ghosts? spirits?

...

they do look like they've seen some though..

jade rn: "a shame indeed, you must be hungry. why don't we escort you back to monstro lounge?" :)

long story short you can't even reply cause the sleek eel is already guiding you around by the use of his hands on your shoulders. just to make sure you don't stray away from the destination, he says.

"didn't you say that yesterday's promo was like, a one day thing?" you quirk a brow, and you almost fool yourself into thinking he flinched.

azul clears his throat. "well—today is.. the month before you've graced octavinelle with your assistance—"

he praises himself for his quick thinking.

COME ON! it doesn't matter if you're sick of eating stir fried shrimp, or the butter one, or every single dish they serve that includes shrimp! (also do not mention that you ate somewhere else before you just decide to visit his dorm because that establishment just mysteriously got filed a non-legal business report.)

then you've got floyd chasing you around with a fork. which is more terrifying because he's holding it in a notion that would seem like he'd just stab down at you when he catches up with your little goose chase.

it's just.. you're not sure if your stomach could take another bite of the poor food he stabbed into, and is now chasing you around with.

you screech. "JADE PLEASE."

the man shrugs. "it's a free taste."

"AZUL."

"... only on a condition of course."

frankly. it took all the balls he had to actually sputter out the most simplest sentence ever, cause during the time he rehearsed that in front of his mirror it just plagued him with embarrassment but he's getting desperate.

'I'd like to take you out to dinner, somewhere else of course.'

actually, maybe obliterating any possible craving for the food of his lounge just might've been part of his plans to ask you out..?

leona (prevents you from actually being productive via dragging you down to 'nap' every. single. time.)

"I will literally fail if you don't let go of me right now."

"hmph. so what? it's not like failing a grade killed anyone."

"leona just because you've lived through a lot of fails doesn't mean I have to, we're not all rich enough to not finish school."

to which he'd retaliate that all you'd need is to marry him and you'd be set for life.

there is no winning an argument with leona when it comes to his naps. if he states that you're to be next to him as he sleeps, its final. no buts, no retaliations, cause apparently they're all invalid according to him even if you drag him to court.

rhetorically of course, that if its a comical court scene his only statements are; 'well you're wrong', 'who cares', and 'i dont care'. one way or another he's still gonna win you over and now you're fit snugly in his arms, lamenting.

and if crowley chastises you for not doing the errands (via leona's common interference.) the only thing you need to honestly do is to complain to leona about it and suddenly crowley has the kindness to forgive you for your 'laziness' then says something about enjoying your time together?

leona's work no doubt.

you suppose he does has its perks. even if most of it isn't exactly ideal.

if you're being smart then you should give him an ultimatum or something, or bribe him. but... that really has no guarantee to work either cause you're ending up defeated, or just defeated and flustered since he's somehow unconsciously flirty.

at the end of the day you can't really hate him cause the following day you find out he sent an already sleep deprived ruggie to do your work. 'so you can shut your fussing up and let me enjoy you.' he says, and you quote.

it goes something like;

"if i finish my work i'll stick by you all day."

a stready flow of confidence keeps your voice firm as you glower down at the blank-faced leona sat on the grass. he merely tilts his head, raising a brow at you and seemingly pondering from the way his eyes fly to the sky.

you'd think that maybe your plan actually worked but he merely grunts and flops backwards, holding the back of his head with his palms as he laid. and! he ignores you.

...this little greedy man... "why should i care whether or not you finish your work?" he huffs, like the evil, arrogant spawn he is but you can't really defend yourself cause said evil spawn bewitched you so much that you actually still like him.

"because you care about me?"

"...fine," he scowls, releasing a breath you'd mistake for irritation. "then, do you really think i need you to finish your work when i can just keep you right here?"

you sulk. "i'll do anything you want?"

he deadpans as if you said something stupid. "i don't need you to anything else but sit still and be pretty."

...

...

see what i mean about him eventually winning you over? yeah.

next morning there's a rebellion in savanaclaw about overworked residents and ruggie is the head of them.

"he said that he doesn't need you today." <- ruggie, steering you away.

"really?" <- you, confused

riddle (overthinks TOO HARD.)

“I'm just a little busy.”

“I understand,” riddle says.

“I'm just a little busy.” he understands.

“a little busy.” its just… a small thought…

“I'm just busy.” his mind is a hazard at this point. 

for someone as supposedly maintained as riddle—you'd think his mind is as composed as it is organized. like the pens you'd perfectly align in correlation to order of colors, or the neat pile of clothing folded neatly, tucked in some corner in your closet that is farther in since it's used less.

that's just how he is, or at least seems to be. a bundle of organized thoughts, every thought connected to another. a mind too clean to be going on haywire (when he isn't in a particular mood, that is.)

you're just busy. he thinks. you said it yourself, with that agonizingly nice smile that must be sprinkled with some kind of spell from the way it just eradicated all the protests in his throat upon sight. he isn't one to question it, he wants to help but not if you don't ask.

he can only stare with resigned acceptance at your insomnia induced eyes.

but when the curtain of darkness befalls night raven college, even in the comfort of heartslabyul is he still thinking about that thought–and he can’t help but wonder; why exactly are you busy? its not that he’s suddenly hyper aware of your lack of presence since you’ve been attached to the hip the previous week and now you’re just.

…busy…

riddle likes to think of himself as a level-headed, private person. like the boy he raised himself to be and therefore proud of. but its way past 10AM. which is usually the time he sleeps, and let me tell you that he’s never once broke the cycle for years. yet here he is, a frown of frustration present on his face as he wills his mind to sleep.

somehow closing his eyes felt forced, he immediately snapped them open once his mind decides to conjure an image of you even in the darkness his lids offers.

“THIS IS ABSURD.”

and the yell promptly woke up the entire dorm from the ferocity of his scream. (and of course gave them the flashback of their year.)

that night was one of the worst he’s ever had because he woke up with red rimmed eyes and a pounding headache that ensured his bad mood the rest of the day.

everyone noted to steer clear.

and he unknowingly steered clear of yours since you were ‘busy.’

“why are you sulking?” a voice queried, spoken as though they were eating something as they asked. a reprimand rises in his throat, but it all just dies down once his sharp eyes settle on you, slipping into the seat in front of him then raising a brow and the traces of irritation practically evaporates from his eyes.

he feels the need to cough–so he does. “i’m– i’m not.” he clears his throat, avoiding your eyes but still sneaking in glances, something he notes is that you’re still looking everytime he does. (and boring an unimpressed face because he knows you don’t believe him at all.)

guilt rises in his mind, because he feels a slither of annoyance and its the presence of pettiness that bothers him. riddle knows you’re not at fault, just his mind at convincing that you just somehow decided in the span of a day that you might not like him anymore–so he can’t help the bite. 

“why are you here?” a glance not intended to look mean.

“i thought you were busy.” he adds.

your brows raise, he spots your teeth holding your lips back from showing your grin and he feels warm. “what?” he hisses defensively, despite you not even having replied to him yet.

he leans backwards, straightening up in his seat when your chin leans forward, resting on your intertwined fingers. you flash him a smile. 

“mr. rosehearts, are you perhaps… sulking because i’m busy?”

“no!”

silence.

“no.” he repeats, weaker.

“well,” you continue, beaming. “i heard from ace that you were awake the entire night, and that you kept him awake too. are you alright?” 

he sputters. “it wasn’t because of you!”

you snort. “i didn’t even say anything about me.”

so you incline to following riddle around, poking fun at him and still trailing after the seemingly enraged red head because despite his angry protests, demanding you to go away because you’re annoying he keeps glancing back to see if you’ll follow,

so cute…….

[midnightwriter21]

demon slayer hcs: the hashira men as boyfriends

characters: tengen, sanemi, giyuu, rengoku, muichiro, obanai

AN: i don’t write for gyomei srry

TENGEN

- this isn’t just a little fling

-mans doesn’t wanna be ur bf

-he wants to be your HUSBAND

- and he’s gonna make that happen ASAP

- and when y’all get married you’re not just getting a husband

- ur getting 3 wives too

- it’s a package deal

- overprotective!!

- the way he made his wives promise to prioritize their lives over the mission

- my heart was bursting

- carries u around

- when tengen is around ur feet hardly ever touch the floor

- doesn’t matter how big or tall u are

- he’s bigger and taller

-he's big all over if ykyk

-nicknames include: sweetheart, princess, baby

- and don’t think he’s saying those to be cute

- he’s absolutely mocking you

-which brings me to…

- this man teases the HELL out of you

- but with love

- he loves you just as much as he loves his wives

- in his mind ur alrdy married

- and he is NOT letting you go

- or letting any harm come to you as long as he can help it

- 4 lifer fr

- id marry him

SANEMI

-i’ve said it before and i’ll say it again

-he’d tear it UP

-and i’d let him

- loves you so much

- doesn’t show it in public

- but in private?

- clingy as fUck

- he’s like ur shadow fr

- will follow u around all day

- hands on ur waist

- arm around ur shoulder

- holding ur hand

- he will not let go of u when ur alone

- in public he’s a lot less touchy

- but he will still stand near you

- jealous af

- every slayer knows by now to stay tf away from you or face the wrath of the wind pillar

- you belong to him

- makes sure they know it

- makes sure you know it

-hickey MASTER

-no i will not elaborate

- everybody knows sanemi is a little rough around the edges

- so there are days when it’s hard for him to open up to you

- but he does try

- he’s got a reputation to keep up!

-gotta act tough

-no weaknesses!!

- except for u

-he’s so soft for u he can’t help it

- nicknames: dumbass, idiot, & feather (my personal favorite)

-like i said he is almost always physically connected to u in some way when ur alone

-ignore him? he's throwing u over his shoulder

-he's strong he can manhandle u all over the place

-sheeeeeshhhhh manhandle me however u want sir

-claims ur super light no matter ur size

-hence the nickname "feather"

-i love him

GIYUU

-ik damn well this man had EVERONE in a chokehold from the first second he showed up

-speaking of chokeholds... ;)

-put me in one pls sir

-anyways

-awkward as fuck

-but he tries for u

-terrible with physical affection

-but we all know he's SOOO touch starved

-you'll have to initiate any type of physical touch

-and make sure he's not uncomfortable

-but really there's nothing he wants more than to touch you

-takes a very long time to say "i love you"

-but can u blame him??

-every good thing the poor man has ever had has been ripped away from him :(

-because of this he's veryyyy protective

-cause he'll be damned if the last person he has that accepts him and loves him for all he is

-is hurt or killed

-100% will die for u without a second thought

-not really a nickname type of guy

-remember he's awkward as hell

-most you'll get is a "-chan" attached to ur name

-and even that is only when y'all are alone

-but still

-even if he doesn't always show it

-you are always on his mind

-he's on a mission and walking through a market?

-he's buying you a hairpin or som

-walking through a forest and sees some flowers?

-"i wonder if she'll like these"

-AND HE'S PICKING U A BOUQUET

-ugh soft for bf giyuu

RENGOKU

-sunshine boy!!!

- epitome of golden retriever boyfriend

-all smiles all the time

-follows u around like lost puppy

-shows off for u

-yk when ur around kids and they're like "watch this" and then they jump and spin a circle lmao

-thats him

-"did you see what i just did?!"

-if u didnt...

-he's doing it again

-wants to impress you so bad

-also you will never have to lift a finger in his presence

-service bf!!

-you need the dishes washed and the floor swept?

-he's on it

-you need help styling ur hair?

-welcome to rengoku's hair salon

-will attempt to dress you in the morning

-and by dress you, i mean he's tugging ur shirt over ur head

-zipping up ur pants

-and tying ur shoes

-brags about you to anyone and everyone

-the other hashira can't have a single conversation with him without him bringing you up somehow

-compliments compliments compliments!!!

-he loves you and isn't afraid to show it

-nicknames from him: my love, my beautiful girl, sweetheart

-constantly confessing his love

-also lowkey speaks poetry for u

-some shit like

-"my light in the darkness, the one who gives me strength, you set my heart ablaze just by allowing me the privilege of seeing your smile"

-ugh he's the sweetest baby

MUICHIRO

-my airheaded angel baby

-i love him sm stop

-baby boy has a terrible memory

-that we alrdy knew

-but!

-he tries so hard for you

-keeps a little journal with notes and information about you

-so if he forgets he can remind himself over and over

-when he's on missions away from you he reads it so he can think about you to pass the time

-can not and will not remember anniversaries

-unless they're written in that journal

-will pick u flowers

-hope ur not allergic cause he's not gonna remember that

-but it's the thought that counts

-the fact that he's thinking about you at all counts

-you wanna go on a date?

-your dates consist of watching the clouds and taking naps together

-maybe a picnic if ur lucky

-no nicknames from him

-he calls you by your name

-its all he can remember

-he's the cutest

OBANAI

-like sanemi, he's a lot less affectionate in public

-however, he's not afraid to express his thoughts about you

-at least not to the other hashira

-might not be glued to your side

-but he's got eyes on u at all times

-and someone is talking about you?

-the second he hears ur name leave somebodies mouth

-he's tuned in

-and they better not say anything negative either

-mans turns murderous

-they will wake up to a snake in their bed

-will prob threaten them within an inch of their life

-don't have to worry abt other people while he's around

-cause he's got everything

-and i mean EVERYTHING taken care of

-protective but not pushy

-i feel like obanai trusts you and your ability to handle yourself

-but thats not gonna stop him from watching over you

-you're not drinking enough water?

-here comes obanai with a cup and u better drink it all

-haven't had lunch yet?

-he's sharing his with you. and will force feed u if need be.

-on a mission with him?

-he's not gonna push u behind him or anything

-but nothing is gonna get the chance to bring any harm to you either

-he's got ur back

-he's pretty vanilla with the nicknames

-nothing too crazy

-especially in public

-mostly uses ur first name

-might add a "-chan" in there every once in a while

-when ur alone he'll call you "sweetie"

-acts like a hard ass

-but he's soft for u

[onlyswan]

summary: in which you drive jungkook mad but you make his heart beat.

idol!jungkook x f!reader, est. relationship / fluff, suggestive, a pinch of angst / word count: 5k

content/warnings: tried sumn different so this is mainly from jungkook’s pov :D !! drummer!oc ur so cool & i’m stealing u from ur bf 🏃— mention of a 10 yr age gap between jk & a guy who likes oc (he’s hella pissed off) ; mentions of (car) s^x ; allusion to a bl^wj^b ; jk just got home from tour & oc is tipsy, needy, & dramatic as hell T_T ; oc /briefly/ touches jk while he’s driving & he /nearly/ loses his shit & crashes the car (he doesn’t) (i’m kidding) + to the anon who wanted to jk’s cheek scar to get a kissy here u go 🥺

> in which masterlist!

note: oc is so shot glass of tears coded especially in this… i’m glad i’m posting this after golden came out just so i could say it 🥰 this takes place after this drabble sooo the end of oct 2018 <3 if u’ve read the prev drabble too, this was when jk said those exact words in the past 🥺 wrote this in the middle of hell week so i was half out of my mind :'] as always feedback & reblogs rrr always appreciated !! 🥺

—

jungkook loves the sound of rain— the gentle knocks on every surface of the earth has always been a lullaby even during daylight.

tonight is a different story, however. it is defeaning, terrifying even. he can barely see what is infront of him, spare the occasional headlights blazing across the slippery roads. his umbrella is being stolen away by the harsh gusts of wind and the mud stains on his sneakers are well-hidden by the plain black.

and yes, he is tired; and yes, this is hard, but that is the end of it.

you’re exactly where you told him you’d wait, far behind the edge of the roof where the rainwater falls from and splashes on the ground. you stand out in his blue oversized shirt, one that he purposely left behind in your closet so he could have something else to wear when he sleeps over.

you’re too busy typing on your phone to see him crossing the parking lot; he feels his very own vibrate in the pocket of his sweatpants. however, his giddy smile fades when a man exits through the entrance door and approaches you with a red umbrella. his strides become slightly hurried then, as he watches you politely decline it with that heart-fluttering smile of yours everybody adores.

“oh no, really, i’m fine. you might need it later! my boyfriend is already coming to pick me up anyway.”

jungkook acts cool. he tucks his hand in the pocket of his sweatpants, tries to make himself appear bigger because he realizes that he would be inches shorter than the man if not for the platforms of his shoes.

“____, baby!”

upon hearing your name coming from the lips of your lover, your face lights up even brighter.

“jungkook!”

you greet him with an embrace, jumping into his arms before he can properly set down his umbrella on the ground.

“yah, yah-yah! be careful!” he chuckles as he wraps his arms around your waist to catch you, peering down to check how high your boots are for you to be running and jumping around freely.

“hey, i’m going back inside- there’s more customers coming in. make it home safe, alright?”

the stranger tries to catch your attention, and jungkook’s protectiveness swiftly kicks in when he lays a hand on you and slides it down to your lower back. your boyfriend turns you away from the unprompted touch by pulling your body closer to his side, and he is unable to control how his eyebrows knit together in annoyance.

he wasn’t planning on giving much thought to the presence of a man around you. he knows better than that. but he has never heard about this one, which raises the question of who the fuck is he to freely touch you like that?

“oh- alright! thank you, jun!”

“you better take care of ____, man. it’s dangerous around here during this time.”

he receives a rather heavy and condescending pat on the shoulder, and so, with his annoyance bubbling worse, he wears a passive aggressive smile on his face.

“yeah, of course i am,”

jun’s nostrils flare as he witnesses you sneakily slide your hands underneath jungkook’s hoodie in search of warmth.

“i’m here now, so there’s no need to worry about my girlfriend anymore.”

he nods, then forces himself to smile. “that’s good, then.”

“yeah, thanks. we’re leaving.”

“oh, okay. have a nice night!”

“you too,”

he turns on his heel and returns inside the busy establishment— but not before jungkook made sure that he saw the bruises on his knuckles that he got from his boxing sessions.

his jaw clenches as he glares at the door.

is he being petty? sure, to hell with that. he doesn’t care. he’s always been one to trust his gut, and he has a bad feeling.

he is met by a love-drunk smile when his undivided attention is at last given to you, in the form of fond eyes and affectionate strokes of your hair.

“who was that?”

“eh, new bartender,” you shrug with disinterest. “hm, i think he’s 31…? he’s nice but he keeps talking about wrestling.”

he raises an eyebrow at the mention of his age, while your lips form a sad pout.

what the hell? he thought he would be 25 at most.

“the tv has been in the same channel for the past two weeks because of him. it’s all i’ve been seeing! i don’t like it-” you whine in distress, quite frankly, a little traumatized.

an endeared smile is coaxed out of him at your adorableness, how your speech is a little slurred and how you’re looking at him like you’re begging him to do something about it.

“makes me nervous,”

his dominant hand closes into a fist.

if he only he had known. should’ve fucking punched the guy, give him a taste of what he seems to be a huge fan of.

“let’s watch something calming when we get home, how about that?”

you nod your head, eyes that twinkle with eagerness fluttering shut when he leans in for a much awaited kiss. how sweet, he feels a little more alive than before. he can smell it, even taste it— the peach margarita you started sipping on before the band’s first set. concocted by jun, he presumes. he pulls away with a small smile, licking his lips for the traces of you that clung to him.

out of the blue, you burst into a fit of giggles, weak knees buckling as your weight crashes on him.

“i missed you!”

“babe, are you seriously drunk?” he chuckles, holding you with a secure grip around your torso.

“maaaybe tipsy…? i was pretending not to be.” you stand on your tip-toes to nuzzle your face against his neck, mumbling sheepishly. “only trust you.”

—

“i should’ve accepted the umbrella.” you grunt childishly, body going limp on jungkook’s back, except for the arm holding up the umbrella that shields the both of you from the pouring rain.

“yah!” he scolds you, clearly not pleased with the words that just came from your mouth. “what does that mean?”

“i’m embarrassed! they’re probably feeling bad for you.”

the last sentence comes out as a whisper, pertaining to the side glances you’ve been attracting from strangers as you make your way to your boyfriend’s car.

unfortunately, he had to park somewhere far because the restobar’s parking lot was already full.

you jokingly complained about staining your white boots with dirt and mud, but you instantly regretted it when he bent down, signalling you to ride on his back without an ounce of hesitation.

“our shoulders always get wet when we share an umbrella,” he said. “if i carry you, wouldn’t it be better?”

“embarrassing? some would even say romantic!”

something peculiar happens then— when your lips ghost over his left cheek, planting an affectionate kiss there that lasts for seconds. you pull away with a smacking sound, giggly and bubbly, might be his favorite version of you.

“i love you,” you hum, grasping the umbrella upright before it could tip over.

he doesn’t know if you did it on purpose or not, kissing him precisely where his scar is, but his heart jumps in his chest when he feels it begin to throb.

as if the wound from his childhood has come alive. as if, once again, he is bleeding as he glares at his older brother, and he still wants to play games on the computer oblivious to the fact that it would leave a permanent scar, a brand new landmark on his body.

you mistake his silence for something else.

you frown, warm breath tickling his neck as you quietly ask. “are you still mad at me?”

he sighs, vision landing on the ground as his walking pace slows down. “no? i was wrong. i shouldn’t have questioned your decision in the first place… why would i be mad?”

you started playing the drums for your friend’s band two months ago, just as soon as he left for tour. you volunteered after witnessing how distraught they were when their drummer vanished without a trace. he learned that it used to be a hobby of yours from childhood until early teenage years, playing the drums, but it was robbed from you when your father took his instruments with him when he abandoned your home for another.

he was pleasantly surprised when he learned about it, recounted all the times your hands and fingers were drumming on any sort of surface and his head naturally bopped to the beat, but then again, you never brought it up.

isn’t ____ so cool? he would proudly say when he flaunts you to his friends, even the protocol team, who have never seen him so happy.

three times a week, from nine in the evening until midnight, your phone was propped up on an empty table infront of the stage, and him, on the other side of the globe, excitedly watched you from backstage while he was getting ready for their own show. some other times, he was in his hotel room, or the private jet. his patience has been tested by crappy wifi, nosy and noisy people, and his earphones that stopped working while you looked insanely attractive grooving to ‘why’d you only call me when you’re high?’ as you effortlessly played the drums. he showered you with compliments as you did for him. you’re working hard so he must do the same.

he arrived home from tour the other day, spent the rest of its hours sleeping. yesterday, he waited for you at school and then at work like a lost puppy, slept on your bed (if he’s being honest, the two of you didn’t do much sleeping) then woke up at 9am for work.

and he tried his best, he really did, to get out of the company early enough to catch you playing a song or two. after all, it was your last day at the job.

much as you enjoyed reconnecting with an old flame— loved the overflowing tips that came from those who were amazed by your talent (well, there were also those who were just trying to get into your pants), the moment that the old drummer got down on his knees begging to be taken back by his best friends, just like how you became a part of the band, you voluntarily stepped down.

jungkook didn’t agree with this decision. he didn’t understand why you’d sacrifice something that makes you happy for a person who fucked up and wasted what they had. you went back and forth over it on the phone until you cried, told him that it wasn’t easy for you, and he couldn’t hold you in his arms or kiss your face. he could only apologize, and it even felt insincere doing it through a screen.

maybe he’s only relieved that you no longer need to be around a man an entire decade older than he is, who is obviously interested in you and serves you alcohol drinks. no, that doesn’t sit right with him. he needs jun, or whatever the fuck his true name is, to stay very far away from his baby.

“i’m just sad that i never got to watch you perform in person.”

you rest your cheek on his shoulder, heavy eyelids slowly blinking as the headlights of a black van blindsides you.

what the fuck. too bright.

“me too…”

—

“i’m bored,” you release a dramatic sigh, stealing a glimpse of jungkook at the driver’s seat, just to see if you caught his attention like you intended.

his eyes are trained on the dashboard, however, focused on the navigation guide displayed on his phone. he isn’t very familiar with this part of the city. it took him more than an hour to arrive at the address you sent him, including the time he spent in the middle of traffic.

“forty-eight minutes, then we can do whatever you want.”

“whatever i want?”

he slows down the car, briefly turning his head to find you expectantly looking at him with wide, hopeful eyes.

“of course,” he laughs, taking one hand off the wheel to squish your cheeks together. “just tell me what it is, baby.”

he doesn’t catch the sad look that flashes across your face after you lose his touch.

“then i’ll tell you when i figure out what i want,” you say quietly.

“i thought you already had something in mind?”

“nope,” you answer with yet another sigh.

you choose to stare out the window in silence, body completely slumping into your seat in defeat.

jungkook’s senses are sharp, or he likes to believe so. “are you okay?”

“i’m okay,”

“you sure?”

“hmm,” you hum curtly, and then you close your eyes, so he decides not to press further despite wanting to.

he meets a red traffic light not long after that. and so, he hurriedly grabs the black fleece blanket in the backseat. he envelopes you in it, crossing the distance between you to softly press his lips onto yours for a goodnight kiss. he feels you respond, albeit lazily, and he smirks cockily when you lift yourself up to chase him for one more, please— desperately, to get your fill of goodnight kisses from the many nights that you missed it.

the time seems to tick excruciatingly slow now that you’re quiet. a minute is multiplied by a hundred. the steady rhythm of your breathing keeps him sane throughout dark avenues and encounters with reckless drivers of the midnight scene.

he missed you. he missed you so much, and he knows that you’re tired from university, and tutoring high school students in english, and playing the drums for more than two hours… but he selfishly wishes that you’re awake right now so he can make up for the two months that you were apart.

be careful of what you wish for, they said.

jungkook should know better by now.

“i can’t sleep,” he hears you whisper in a dulcet tone that indirectly tells him you’re in need of some love… but he isn’t given the chance to act upon that request because you’re already all over what it is that you need.

he swallows thickly, glancing down at your hand that has somehow found its way to his inner thigh— zeroing in on your red nails, can feel them faintly grazing his skin.

you’re so pretty. everywhere.

even when naked and bare.

no, especially. it’s all he can think about.

he can draw you from memory.

“____,” he utters your name through gritted teeth, heart beginning to race a thousand miles per second in his chest.

the effect of your teasing touch is instantaneous, slowly inching closer and closer to where his growing erection is. his eyes remain focused on the road, but he fears that he’ll start thinking with his dick soon if you carry on with this act a few seconds longer.

“shit, not now, baby- please- not while i’m driving.”

your bottom lip is caught between your teeth, poorly concealing a self-satisfied smirk, and you pretend not to hear a single word from his plea.

a minx, that’s what you are, always causing trouble and blurring lines in his eyes.

“____, i’m not joking around. don’t make me mad-”

his warning is cut short by-

“fuck… fuck,” he curses, filter flying out the window once he feels you tracing the outline of his hard-on, the feather-light touch of your fingers smoothly gliding across the fabric of his sweatpants, and he completely loses it when your soft palm caresses his cock, so gentle that it feels almost innocent.

okay, so he couldn’t feel it because you weren’t skin-to-skin, but he knows that your hands are soft, can feel his imagination running wilder because he has memorized the way they feel on most parts of his body.

you’re so incredibly nasty and evil for this— squeezing him lightly, taking advantage of how sensitive he’s gotten, making him tremble as pleasure shoots up his spine. his breath stutters in his lungs and he unconsciously pushes harder on the gas.

and although it means fighting every fiber of his being that painfully yearns for more, he seizes your wrist in an iron grip, placing your hand over the gearstick while his sits heavy on top of yours.

“____! behave! you’re going to get us killed!”

he watches you jut out your bottom lip through the rearview mirror, eyes hazy with lust staring down at where your hand used to be, and then his handsome face. he is evidently flushed, honey skin dusted with a rosy pink. all the way to the tips of his ears, down to his neck.

while he’s driving? really?

doesn’t this only happen in wet dreams?

you are not real.

“then pull over,” you plead. “please?”

he releases a shaky breath. you’re always so needy with alcohol in your system, drove him into total insanity while he couldn’t be here to give you what you wanted.

“no, you need to learn how to be patient… told you we can do whatever you want when we get home, right?”

wrong move.

the silence returns, and just when he thought that you went back to your journey to slumber, the sound of your sniffles fill the car.

jungkook’s heart breaks into a million pieces.

also, he wants to slam his head against the steering wheel.

you make it so fucking hard to resist you; you always get what you want. it becomes much harder when he is the subject of your desire and he loves being loved.

“haven’t i been patient enough…? i missed you so much.”

“and i missed you too!” he brings your intertwined hands to his lips, pressing them on your skin. “fuck, you have no idea how much… please, don’t cry.”

“then pull over,” you stubbornly insist, and he is so close to driving this car into a lamp post. “fuck me at the backseat.”

“can’t,” he mumbles, sounding almost pained, and he is. he wants you so bad, it hurts. “we’re going to have to do it without protection.”

“what do you mean?” you exclaim.

you rip your hand away from his, not wasting time in unlocking the glove compartment, and a sound of sheer disappointment escapes from your mouth as you collapse back on your seat.

“jungkook, i hate you!”

“well right now i hate myself too!” he cries out in frustration. “i didn’t have the time to buy more, okay?”

“and there’s not one in your wallet?”

“babe, are you serious?!”

“what?!”

somehow, his hands still expertly swivels the steering wheel as the car meets a curve.

but he feels dizzy. the ghost of your touch is still there, a promise of carnal pleasure unfulfilled.

“stop the car,” you say out of the blue, rather calmly, and that terrifies the shit out of him.

he swallows the lump in his throat, eyes switching between you and the road in panic. “huh?”

“i said stop the car, i’m stepping out.”

“babe, come on,” he moans, ruined and tormented. he reaches for your hand but you scoot further away from him, and he ignores the way his heart drops to his stomach as he kneads your exposed thigh instead. “please, don’t be like this. i just got home.”

“jungkook! if you don’t let me get off this car right now, i swear!”

the urgency embedded in your threatening voice leaves your boyfriend with no choice but to pull over to the side of the street as soon as he gets the chance.

he carries on to unbuckle his seatbelt.

“baby, stop being stu-”

he tries to reach for you, but he is rudely ignored as you hop off the car and slam the door shut on his face.

“…bborn…”

he blinks.

he inhales. he exhales.

and then he buries his face in his hands to scream… as quietly as possible.

“what the fuck was in that margarita?!”

—

jungkook steps out of the car worried sick about you. now wearing a black bucket hat, his head whips in different directions in search for the familiar shape of your body, your hair, your shirt that is his, anything.

his arm rests on top of the car door, the other on the roof, fingers drumming on it anxiously as he chews on his bottom lip.

there are mostly restaurants here, it seems. some are already closed, some are still lights on. not far away, he hears a karaoke place bursting with music and laughter. he looks up and he finds that the night sky remains barren of stars; there’s no guidance from the heavens that will lead him to you.

except for the sound of your sweet voice calling out his name.

he turns around, and he knows it’s going to sound extremely silly, but damn, you make his life feel like a movie— because you’re jogging towards him, and the universe begins moving in slow motion. perhaps it is to prevent him from falling on his knees in relief, because he genuinely thought that you already went home on your own like the stubborn brat that you are.

“____, where did you go?! you can’t just run off like that! seriously, that was not nice!”

“i forgot my wallet!” you squeal as you halt infront of him, slapping your forehead as a way to scold yourself. “i found a hotteok cart!”

his anger quickly dissipitates. he scans your face, mouth agape in bewilderment.

you, screaming at him to stop the car because there was a sighting of your favorite snack? makes sense.

he dishes out the wallet from his pocket. “wha- i thought you… you didn’t have money?”

you shake your head to answer his question.

“then how are you already eating?”

you take another bite from the hot hotteok you’re holding in a paper cup, and then you shrug.

“i was already eating when i realized it,” you point at yourself, a mischievous smile tugging at the corners of your lips. “so he let me run back here. does it look like this face would steal?”

“you’re impossible!” he bursts out laughing, the unique sound of his joy harmonizing with the mundane noises of the city.

he is thoroughly amused and in awe of your undeniable charm never failing to work its magic. if you just gave it a shot, you might be even better at him at his job.

you’re pliant as he captures your wrist, tugging you away with him so he can lock the car.

“i bought three, by the way.” you note as the two of you start walking, with you clinging to his side. “the last three then mister can go home.”

you put the hotteok near his mouth, and he pauses to take a big bite. “have you even had dinner?”

“just the four margaritas- they were yummy! or was it five?”

he clicks his tongue in disappointment, but he doesn’t get to say anything more about it because you’ve reached the hotteok cart, and he’s already handing the vendor the money.

“thank you!” he bows his head politely as he accepts the remaining two you mentioned earlier, handing them over to you.

“no, this is yours.” you speak with tenderness, giving back one of the cups to him. “then we’ll split the third one. it’s really good!”

the vendor secretly watches the interaction with a fond smile as he packs up to finally, finally end his long day working at the busy streets of seoul.

—

you’re sat together on the hood of jungkook’s car as you share a midnight snack. with caring hands, you rip the hotteok apart in perfect halves, offering the other to your lover. he accepts it in between his teeth.

“do you want drums as your christmas gift?”

“love,” you search for the words to say as you chew the food in your mouth. “i can barely fit in my apartment. where am i going to put a drum set…? not to mention that i can’t even cry without my neighbor hearing it.”

his shoulders drop in dejection, and you rub your boyfriend’s back in an attempt to comfort him.

“you must really want to see me play, don’t you?”

“i’m dying to,” he says in pure jungkook fashion, tone dramatic and thick with an accent that is entirely his. “i can’t believe there were regulars who saw you every night, while i, your boyfriend, didn’t even see you once…! even that fucking bartender… this- this can’t be right! do you think this makes sense? no, right?”

“aw, my baby,” you coo at him, jutting out your bottom lip as you tenderly cup his face.

“i don’t trust him, by the way,” he scoffs. “as much as possible, stay away from him when you visit, alright…? if i see him touching you one more time, i don’t know what i’ll end up doing to him.”

“i don’t like him either,” you giggle. “so that’s easy.”

he stares at your bloodshot eyes. damn it, you haven’t sobered up.

“____, i’m serious. he’s weird. i’m worried about you but i can’t always be here to protect you.”

you blink at him innocently. “i am too! serious!”

“you promise me?”

“i promise!”

he nods, teeth sinking into his bottom lip as he gets lost in the sea of his own thoughts. “i should talk to your friends about this, too. is that okay?”

“if that will ease your mind,” you half-smile, heart fluttering in your chest because you feel so cherished.

comfortable silence follows suit.

the hotteok is still soft and warm and sweet. if your love had to be delivered to his doorstep, it would in the form of your favorite food.

he sighs to gain more of your sympathy, basking in the attention he’s receiving from you. he missed this. he missed you. he sounds like a broken record, but it’s true.

“come ooon, don’t be sad! i’ll make it up to you! but it’s a surprise!”

“surprise?” he eyes you with suspicion. “what surprise?”

“just trust me, alright?”

you poke his cheek where his dimples are, and you witness them pop out as he copies your contagious smile.

“can i make a guess?”

“nope!”

you fit the remaining piece of your hotteok in your mouth, jumping off the hood of the car. you stand before him as you wipe your hands clean with a small paper napkin.

“don’t you dare. if you guess it right then my plans will be ruined!”

—

you’re back on the passenger seat to travel the remaining twenty-seven minutes to your apartment.

jungkook melts into the tenderness of your touch as he drives. you’re tracing the toned muscles of his arms; stroking his hair, his face, and the smell of the sticky brown sugar from the hotteok still lingers on your skin.

“when are you going to start getting tattoos?” you wonder out loud as he intertwines your fingers together on top of his thigh. “i think you’d look so pretty.”

“i’m planning on it.”

his heart skips a beat at the thought of you remembering that he wants his skin artfully inked as you absentmindedly distracted yourself with it.

he licks his lips, smiling as he looks over at you. “you really think so? pretty?”

“hm, hot, too,” you stick your tongue out playfully, and he snorts out a laugh. “but as long as you’re happy, then nothing else matters.”

“of course- wait, yah! you still need to eat dinner.” he reminds you once he recognizes the path you’re taking.

a grocery store is not more than a kilometer away, if his memory serves him right.

“what do you want? i don’t mind cooking.”

“for you to fuck me, that’s what i want. you won’t mind that, too?”

oh my fucking god.

he wishes you were passed out drunk instead so he wouldn’t have to suffer this battle between self-control and his insatiable appetite for you.

“baby, aren’t you still sore from this morning?”

“a little,” he notices you squeezing your thighs together from his peripheral, and along with it, the bruises on your knees from when you worshipped his body last night. “but i want you.”

your giggles in reaction to him frustratedly running his fingers through his hair seems to only fuel the dirty thoughts in his head. he uncomfortably shifts in his seat to adjust himself.

“can you just bring it up when we get near your house? you’re killing me over here!”

“but why? i’m having fun.” you bring your tangled hands over to your side, peppering the back of his hand with innocent kisses. “i love you. you’re so cute.”

“are you… are you seriously calling me cute after what you just asked me to fuck you?”

his disbelief is challenged by your amusement.

“why not? being one dimensional? boring. being different things all at once? sexy.”

jungkook doesn’t need to see you play the drums to know that you are the only one capable of making his heart beat like this. to feel it pounding, it turns out there’s another way besides performing, he can just be alone with you. a different type of addictive exhilaration. he isn’t at the top of the world; he free falls as it revolves around you.

you always know the right words to say, because right now, he is preening. he’s wearing a big smile, the kind that looks like he’s laughing, but he’s not— almost. the kind that reaches his eyes, shapes them into little crescent moons.

how did he get so lucky?

rehearsals in the morning be damned, he will be fucking you good all night.

you make a noise of confusion when the car swerves into the trees at the side of the road.

“what are we doing here?”

jungkook only spares you a glance. “get in the backseat, baby.”

—

taglist in the reblogs! send an ask/dm if you want to be added (or removed) :D

—

[astraystayyh]

the premise : u apply lipgloss on felix because ofc he suits glossy lips except it takes an emotional turn???? because felix is perfect sorry. this is fluffyyyy and the sanest reaction to this man being ur bf (and these pics. these pics....)

“lixie, stay still,” you giggle, body nestled between felix’s legs. He's leaning against the bathroom counter, hands propped on the sleek ebony marble as you apply a shimmering lip gloss to his lips.

“but don't you wanna know what changbin said to me?”

“of course i wanna know what creative pickup line he used on you today. of course i do, baby,” you smile and he rolls his eyes at the sarcasm dripping from your tone, his tongue poking against his cheek before gliding in (fake) annoyance over his lips.

“but…” he muses, tilting his head to the side, his hands finding your waist once again (they've been away for two minutes too long).

“but when your mouth moves i can't technically apply lipgloss to it.”

“maybe you're just a bad make-up artist,” he teases, before quickly planting a kiss on your temple. “kidding baby. you're the very best at everything you do.”

“you're actually incapable of being mean,” you laugh heartily, your thumb swiping across his chiseled jaw.

“i am very much capable of being mean,” he pouts, his eyes widening slightly, golden light spilling into his pupils— it refracts into an arrow delving straight into your heart.

“you can't say this in the softest voice and expect me to agree.”

“i am very much capable of being mean,” he repeats, only this time his timber is many many octaves lower. his voice reverberates straight through your stomach, a deep melody orchestrating the untamed butterflies in your stomach.

“this is the equivalent of a kitten throwing a punch to me,” you pull his face closer, and he shakes his head, mouth shut tightly as you reapply the glitter infused gloss on his lips, going delicately over his cupid's bow. his eyes are boring onto you, yet you don't shy away from his gaze. it is a kind one— like a blanket knitted with love thrown over your body.

“done,” you whisper, hands trailing up to his hair, blonde silky locks akin to threads of sunlight. you think he must be favored by the stars— how they stored the sun inside every component of his being for him to keep safe.

“you have the prettiest lips,” your voice is suddenly hoarse, thumb grazing slightly over his lips, ones shaped like a heart— akin to the one freckle he has right underneath his eye.

it wasn't enough for him to have the kindest soul, no, love needed to be etched onto his skin too.

“felix,” you rasp out his name.

he catches your tears before you sense them falling, swiping his thumbs delicately on your cheek. “angel?”

“you're an idiot.”

“am i?” he brings you to his chest swiftly, your nose buried in the orange blossoms and sea notes of his skin— your home, the one you'd recognize in blindness, in despair, in safety, in love.

“i wanted to apply this lipgloss on you because shimmer would suit your angelic lips and then we'd make out. but you just had to be so beautiful and pure that it makes me wanna cry.”

“I'm sorry,” he says and you giggle, more tears spilling from your eyes.

“see, this is what i mean. why are you apologizing. this is so silly and you're so perfect and i can't believe you love me.”

“well i do,” he leans away, kissing your forehead tenderly. the sticky lip gloss lingers on your skin. “i love you so much, angel. i will only ever love you.”

“promise me?” you ask in a feat of vulnerability almost foreign to your being.

“i promise.”

you believe him.

“thank you. please don't put this lipgloss near anyone else or it'll make them cry too.”

“i think that's just you baby,” he grins, his thumb swiping over your thigh comfortingly, then, his nose brushing against your own. “kiss?”

you close your eyes, a sigh of relief, of longing escaping your body. “please.”

to be loved by felix— maybe you're the one favored by the stars after all.

[kenntolog]

hihi!!

i saw ur inbox was open so could i request drunk loser gf and cool bf sukuna taking care of her? maybe them going to a party together to get her out of her shell a little? ofc it doesnt have to be that, whatever u think is good!! thanks!

𝝑𝝔 an: hey hey!! i hope u like this!! i started kinda feeling insecure about my writings ngl, i have no idea why :(( ignore any typos or grammar errors, ill edit a little later.

read more here!!

cool boyfriend sukuna is so sure that his loser girlfriend won’t even try to get drunk at the party at his teammates house, it’s actually kind of funny, because that is, in fact, true.

somehow the cups of water you are getting from the kitchen taste a little bit stronger and you ask a random girl for something more sweet and, well, drinkable for you. a not so trustworthy looking pinkish mix is then shoved into your hand and when you take a sip of it, it actually doesn’t feel that bad so you just continue.

all that whilst you’re roaming around free of sukuna, since he wanted to have some fun with the boys and you didn’t want to hold him back. sukuna himself would never think of you that way, but he still lets you be so you can get out of your comfort zone a little, without his constant support. you kind of agreed with him on that, feeling a bit embarrassed.

so of course it’s a surprise for sukuna when about an hour later geto tugs him away with a concerned look in his purple eyes, saying it’s about you and how he ‘needs to see this’. he is not drunk, since he has to drive you both home, not even that tipsy, he just had a few cups of beer and maybe a shot, so he is able to function properly. and he gets a little worried.

and then he finally recognises your face in the room, body stilling in shock as he watches you.

on top of a small table with some other girl, your arms around her waist and hers around your neck as you both sway, jump and push into each other seductively, dancing to the beat of a catchy, well-known song.

he can’t take his eyes off of you. although a little clumsy and untrained, compared to the girl’s movements, yours still make him and seemingly other people somehow hypnotised.

sukuna must admit, he is mesmerised too because you’re his pretty loser girlfriend, you know? you don’t ever do stuff like this, you were even reluctant to go to this party since it’s not your cup of tea. how come you’re so different when you’re under the influence of alcohol? he has no idea.

it doesn’t take long for you to notice him and clumsily jump down from the table right into his arms. smiling wide and bright at him with sparkly eyes as you hang off of him, letting him tug you around and just giggling into his chest while he gets a little frustrated with you because your limbs seem to be very cooperative when you’re drunk.

only your arms seem to be permanently glued around his neck, your lips pecking the sensitive skin, which kind of bothers him. that slight rasp in your honey-sweet voice, the dazed look in your eyes, your loud breathing — it makes him want to devour you…

he still has to get you home, though, so he promises himself to get back at you later.

the ride to your place is surprisingly silent. it seems like you’ve finally spent all of your energy and chose to curl on his passenger seat, looking out of the window while one of your hands held tightly onto his.

getting you out of clothes is one of the harder trials it seems; you are stronger than you look like, sukuna realises that when you pull him onto yourself while laying on the bed as soon as he finishes changing your clothes. legs wrapping around his waist along with your arms around his neck, you let him smother you into the sheets while he curses you quietly and responds to your affections with small kisses of his own. sukuna can’t resist you, ever.

washing your makeup off is a relatively easy task, yet brushing your teeth is a whole other level. sukuna wouldn’t bother if it was for himself, yet he does it for you since you’d hate to sleep with your mouth still dirty.

but you make it so hard!! hugging him close to yourself, he can barely push you away because you’re stuck as if permanently glued so he opts on cupping your jaw to move your head slightly to be able to put the brush in your mouth. you whine at the sudden intrusion, brows pinching in the middle as you try to pull away.

“‘kuna~”

“stop acting like a baby,” he rolls his eyes with a ‘tsk’ and shakes you a little.

bad idea. tears spring out of eyes as they scrunch and your still foamy mouth parts slightly in a childish cry. oh he hates to see you cry.

sukuna kisses your forehead gently as he puts away the toothbrush, “shh, sorry, ‘m sorry, baby,” he gently pats your back, urging you to spit out the remains of toothpaste, “c’mon.”

you do as he says, giving him a pouty look, and continue clinging onto him. sukuna shakes his head and offers you his hand, to which you immediately hug his whole arm and let him lead you to bed.

clinging onto him like a baby, truly living up to your nickname, you lay on top of him, clean and satisfied while sukuna slowly rubs your back. tiredness and exhaustion get the best of him, so he is unable to fully catch on to your lovely monologue filled with your honest words that accentuate your love for him, however the last thing he hears is ‘love you, ‘kuna, you’re the best’ and it’s enough to bring a pleased smile on his face.

[tetsumie]

“𝐘𝐎𝐔’𝐑𝐄 𝐒𝐎 𝐂𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐘” — 𝐏𝐓 𝟐

read part 1 here!

pairing: kuroo x reader & kenma x reader

genre: hurt/comfort

a/n: hello !! sorry for being gone for soooo long D: i wasn’t doing well and was in a really bad place mentally.. (plus burnout 😓😓) but regardless tysm for all the love in the first part of this fic! i appreciate u all sm and i’ll work on getting asks in! thank u for being so patient w me !! luv u :D

kuroo tetsuro

you woke up late today and weren't surprised that kuroo had already left for work by the time you woke up. but he did leave you a post-it note saying he made breakfast leftovers for you in the fridge.

you smile at the thought that kuroo took the time out of his day to make some food especially in the morning. however, as you're getting ready for the day, your eye catches the lunch bag that's sitting on the kitchen bar countertop.

"this idiot," you mumble, shaking your head with a smile on your face. you pull out your phone and shoot him a text.

y/n: thanks for the breakfast it was really good

tetsu: im glad :)

y/n: also you left your lunch at home stupid

tetsu: oh shit

tetsu: can you drop it off for me? i cant come home to pick up, im in a meeting rn

y/n: yeah that's fine

tetsu: thanks baby ill kiss u when i see u

tetsu: love u 2 the moon and back !!

y/n: ur so weird

y/n: love u 2 the moon and back <3

a few hours pass by and now you're taking the bus to head to kuroo's office with his lunch bag in hand. before leaving the house, you decided to swap his current lunch which was some leftovers with his favorite food, grilled salted mackerel.

you enter his office floor and are greeted by the office receptionist from the floor. "i'm just here to drop off some food for kuroo-san."

"oh yes, right this way," she stands up and opens the office door for you and points out where his room is.

as you're about to knock on his door, you hear his voice from the other side. "i'm not sure if i can come out tonight to eat kenma. y/n probably wants me home, you know how clingy they get sometimes."

your heart sinks to the floor.

has he always thought of me this way? clingy? i didn't mean to act that way? i just like being in his company. i didn't mean to be clingy. i didn't know he felt that way...

"anyways, i'll call you back kenma. i gotta get back to work. see ya later" he ends the call.

you take a deep breath, standing in front of the door, thinking about kuroo's words to his best friend. before you could even knock, the door opens and you're greeted by kuroo.

"oh y/n! you should've texted me you were here!"

you let out a laugh that sort of dies in your throat. "oh um i just wanted to surprise you that's all."

"come in, let's eat together. you can see the beautiful downtown view from here," he tries to usher you inside his personal office room.

you're a little uncomfortable so you hold yourself back from going on, "maybe another time, yeah? i gotta head back. i've got a lot of work to do with college and work and stuff."

"no yeah of course, i get it. work hard! but first..." kuroo smiles and before you can pull away, he kisses you on the head. "i'll see you when i get home. love you!"

too ashamed to even look at him as you walked out of his office, you just wave to him with your back facing him as you walked away.

you're now sitting on the bus on the way home, thinking about the way he called you clingy. "you know how clingy they get.." has he always thought i'm clingy? has he just been putting up with my annoying habits? i thought he liked the way i treated him. i didn't know he thought it was clingy.

you're trying to look back at your actions and now it's all coming back to you.

you're always trying to kiss him, hug him, cuddle him. you're always talking to him about random things from an occurrence at the grocery store to some new show you're watching. literally last night, you both were cuddling while watching a new episode of kuroo's favorite sit-com and you were running your fingers through his hair.

it all made sense.

you were clingy.

and he wanted space.

you were going to respect that.

kuroo comes home later that evening and announces himself with an "i'm home!"

you're on the dining table with the computer open, working on some new assignment and you smile at him. "welcome home," you say with a smile.

he's expecting you to get up and come over and hug him like you usually do but to his surprise, you continue to look back at your computer.

he assumes you're just busy and doesn't think much of it.

kuroo heads into the shared bedroom to unwind from his hectic day at work. he takes a shower and changes into some pajama pants and is now heading back to the living room to see what you're up to.

you're still sitting on the dining table with all your notebooks splayed out and computer open, working on what seems to be some really big project. he plops down next to you and starts squinting at the screen. he starts poking you to grab your attention from the screen.

"the mackerel was really good today."

"that's good."

silence envelops the atmosphere between the both of you until kuroo decides to speak again.

"what are you working on?"

"college stuff."

"maybe take a break now?" he suggests.

"i can't. it's due soon," your voice flat. "if you want dinner, there's some leftovers i made in the fridge."

"alright," he replies, getting up from the chair to the kitchen to warm up some food.

his shoulders droop a little. he was hoping to spend some time with you. but he is aware that something is off with you. he's not sure what it is but he knows something isn't right. you haven't given him a single kiss or even a hug since he's been back and your usual sarcastic remarks are gone.

you've barely even acknowledged his presence.

"maybe it's just an off day?" is what he convinces himself.

but those "off days" are starting to become more consistent.

you're out of bed before he wakes up in the morning and you barely talk to him when he comes home. you always end up sleeping after he falls asleep and he can't even stay up because of how exhausted he gets after work. the amount of physical affection has declined from you and every time he texts or talks to you, your replies are barely existent.

it feels like he's living by himself. when did it get so cold?

on the other hand, you think it's going well! you haven't been all up in his business lately. you're giving him the space he wants. you're hoping that kuroo is feeling much happier since you're smothering him less. sure, you miss getting to hold and cuddle him but this is what he wanted, right?

now that the week is over, kuroo is hoping to spend the weekend with you.

that morning, kuroo sets an alarm to wake up earlier than you in hopes of spending some extra affectionate time with you. however, the moment he wakes up, the other side of the bed is empty and cold.

he has no choice but to get out of bed to see where you are. there's no way you're up right now. at 7 am on a weekend? no way.

he walks out of the room and he feels his heart chip. you're sleeping on the couch, slightly shivering because the blanket you're using barely covers you. have you been sleeping on the couch this past week? why didn't i notice? kuroo begins to internally berate himself right now for letting you sleeping on the couch for this past week right under his nose.

with no hesitation, he bridal-style carries you back into the shared bedroom and tucks you under the duvet cover and comes back into bed.

however, you've already woken up and you sit up on the bed, startled. "w-what? where am i?"

he scoffs, "i brought you in our bedroom idiot."

"oh," you're now grabbing your stuff and climbing out to go back to the couch but kuroo stops you by grabbing your arm.

"where are you going?"

"to the couch?"

"but this is our bedroom?"

"no, this is your bedroom," you emphasize.

"y/n." his tone feels cold to you. "talk to me."

"we are talking, are we not?"

he starts scratching the back of his neck. "yes but you know it's not the same. what's going on baby?"

his hand to tries to reach your cheek to stroke it with his thumb but you turn away and immediately stand up from his bed. "it's okay kuroo, please go back to sleep. it's the weekend, you should rest."

his heart chips at the gesture. why are you avoiding him like this? what did he do? what happened to 'tetsu?'

"it's tetsu to you," he mumbles.

you open your mouth but shut it and cast you eyes away from his stare down at the floor.

"it's always been tetsu to you," he states.

you're still silent and he takes it as his queue to continue speaking.

"baby, everyday i come home from work and you barely acknowledge me. you're always busy doing 'college stuff' or something else. you barely hug me or even kiss me anymore. what happened? what did i do? did i do something wrong? did i overstep my boundaries? are you mad at me about something? please i wanna know what i did wrong so i can fix myself."

your heart softens at his words and you begin to immediately reassure him.

"there's nothing wrong with you... nothing has ever been wrong with you... i just want to work on giving you your space. i know that you think i'm clingy and so i wanted to work on just giving you room to breathe. i know i can be a little too much sometimes. i'm sorry for not realizing how clingy my actions were sooner. i'm sorry i-"

he immediately walks over to you and brings you to his chest, hugging you tightly. your eyes slightly widen. "don't you dare fucking apologize. it's not your fault. shit, it's never been your fault, baby. what made you even think that?"

in embarrassment, you mumble, "i heard you say i'm clingy to kenma. sorry i didn't mean to overhear."

"oh, my love," he pulls away and looks at you with a sad look in his eyes. "it's not what you think."

he sighs and he sits on the side of the bed and taps the bed space in front of him for you to sit down as well. "kenma's been trying to get me to go meet some new volleyball members to affiliate them with the jva and to be honest, i already have so much on my plate with the current affiliates, that i'm really trying to avoid going out for dinner with him. i'm trying to get one of my coworkers to go on my behalf to seal the deal but i can't find anyone willing to."

"i just used your name as an excuse. i swear on my life, i never really meant that. i never ever meant to hurt you."

still finding it hard to believe him, you mumble, "you don't need to lie.. i understand if-"

"y/n, i swear on my mother, i'm not lying," he interrupts. "every single fucking day, the only think i ever look forward to is seeing your beautiful face in my apartment. i look forward to your rambles about the new show you started watching or how the current professor you're shadowing is a douche. i love your bear hugs and i love the way you kiss me all over my face in the mornings. fuck, i love knowing that i get to go to sleep with you every night and i get to wake up to you every morning. i love you, just the way you are. please don't ever change yourself over some fucking lie i said."

"i'm so sorry y/n, so sorry for ever making you doubt my love for you," he intertwines his hand in yours and looks into your eyes. "i'll do anything to regain your trust.

he senses the hesitation in your eyes and honestly, he can't blame you. you've been harboring this guilt for a week and it makes sense that you're still feeling a little uncomfortable around him.

but to his surprise, you inch your way closer to him and hug his chest and the tears begin to fall. his body tenses and he feels so guilty about everything. he rubs reassuring circles on your back and kisses your head every few moments.

after you wipe your tears on his shirt, you look up at him and honestly kuroo hates to admit this but you still look gorgeous even with a tear stained face. he's grinning at you and begins to pepper your face with his kisses.

"love you to the moon and back," he whispers into your ear.

you chuckle and kiss him on the lips. "love you to the moon and back, tetsu."

in that moment, he swears to himself that he'll make sure that you never have to doubt his love for you ever again.

kozume kenma

as the ceo of his own startup company, a youtube streamer, and a college student, kenma can almost never find any time to himself. the only time he really feels at peace is either when he's asleep or when he's with you.

but sometimes things get so hectic and suffocating, he just wants to be alone, away from the world.

after a long day of classes, you walk into your shared apartment and you can hear kenma talking from his bedroom/home office. you try to keep quiet not disturbing him.

in hopes of cheering him up, you decide what better way to do so by making his favorite food: apple pie. you put down your stuff on the living room couch, grab the apron, and get to work.

kenma stays locked up in his bedroom for the majority of time that you're baking and a part of you just hopes that maybe he'll come out to just say "hi" or just accompany you to see what you're up to but unfortunately he doesn't.

after the pie is done baking in the oven and you've brought him a slice so he can get some food in his system because you're sure he hasn't been taking care of himself. you're hoping that maybe, just maybe, the both of you will finally get to spend some time together.

you knock on the door twice.

no response.

you knock once more and call out his name, "kenma, you busy still?"

still no response.

you sigh, realizing there was no hope in knocking, and decide to twist the knob and enter his room. you're greeted with the sight of him sitting on his gaming chair, knees to his chest, headphones over his ears, and slightly biting the eraser top of his pencil.

he must have felt the presence of someone else in the room with him because he looked away from his computer screen and his eyes widened. he slid his headphones off his ear and hung them around his neck.

"how long have you been home?" he bluntly asks.

"for an hour or two now, i think," you reply.

“oh sorry, i didn’t see you,” he mumbles.

you chuckle in response. “i didn’t think you would considering you’ve been cooped up in your room the entire time.”

“well yeah,” he says. “i’m busy.”

as he’s about to put his headphones back on and get back to work, you speak up. “i know you’re busy but do you wanna eat with me? i made-”

“can we talk later? i don’t have time for your clinginess right now.”

oh.

he puts his headphones on and indulges himself back in his work, not even registering the weight of his words.

you slowly walk out of his room, silently close the door, grab yourself a slice of apple pie originally made for the both of you, and plop yourself on the couch to watch some new show on the television.

after working for nearly hours on end, kenma finally finishes the load of work he had piled. now all he wants to do is just spend some time with you before going to bed. he walks out of the bedroom and is greeted by you asleep with the television humming in the background.

he can't help but let a small smile envelop his features. it's such a domestic sight and he wants to photograph this moment in time.

he knows he said some harsh words to you out of frustration but he hopes that you understand that he didn’t truly mean them.

he goes over and kisses your forehead and he smells the distinctive scent of apple pie and his heart softens at the thought that you made him his favorite food.

he goes over to his bedroom, grabs a blanket and lays it over you and goes under the blanket, snuggling himself closer to you. he hasn't felt this relaxed in a while and your presence is just so comforting to him.

he doesn't know what he'd do without you.

the next morning, you wake up and find yourself in an awkward position and your feel arms wrapped around your torso. you look to your left and are greeted by kenma's sleeping figure and you can't help but smile.

but you remind yourself of what he told you yesterday and you silently get up from the couch and begin to get ready for the rest of your day.

his words, "i don't have time for your clinginess right now", really had sent you into a spiral last night and you were too exhausted to think clearly. did you always come off as clingy to him? you were definitely a bit more energetic and enthusiastic than him but you never thought it was clingy?

you can't seem to think straight so you decide to maybe go out for a walk, just to take your mind off things. you just need some time alone, away from your apartment with him.

kenma wakes up only a few minutes later and he feels cold. his neck is sore, considering how he slept in an uncomfortable position because he wanted to sleep with you. however, to his surprise, he doesn't find you asleep next to him.

as he walks around the house, calling your name, a sense of urgency begins to form in the pit of his stomach.

he dials your number and it goes to voicemail.

he does it again. still voicemail.

he's about to call you one more time until he hears the jangle of keys and the door opening. a sigh of relief leaves his mouth and as you're about to turn your keys to open the door, he's a step ahead of you, opening the door for you.

"oh my god, i thought you went missing," kenma hugs you, catching you by surprise. "where'd you go?"

hesitant to reply, you say, "oh just went on a walk, that's all."

"you should've told me, we could've gone together," he states. "i feel like we haven't seen each other in forever."

"it's fine. don't worry about it."

there's something wrong and he can sense it in your demeanor. as you're heading to the master bedroom, he can see the way your shoulders slump as you put your keys back. he doesn't address your distant behavior, thinking that you're just having a rough morning and it'll get better as the day goes on.

unfortunately, it doesn't get better.

you seem to be fine but you just feel incredibly distant.

kenma's been playing games in his room all day and unlike usual, you're not in his bedroom watching him play or sitting on the bed scrolling through your phone. his gaming experience isn't the same when you're not there.

he pauses his game and goes out to the living room to see you lying down on the couch, scrolling through videos on your phone. he wants to ask why you're not staying with him but he doesn't want to make overstep your boundaries, especially since it seems like you're not in a good mood.

but that's anything from what you want.

you want him to ask you to stay in his room and keep you company. but because he hasn't done so, his word "clingy" began to scream louder in your head and to be frank, that's the only thing roaming in your head.

"do you want to do anything today?" he asks. "you know.. because it's the weekend and we can go out if you want? like going out to eat?"

a part of you began to feel guilty considering he was thinking about what you wanted to do and you hated feeling like a burden towards him. he already expressed his disapproval with you when he said he found you clingy so you didn't want to impose any further.

"no it's okay," you reply, eyes glued to your phone. "i don't want to annoy you or anything.. so i'll just go on my own or something..."

he hums in response but his eyebrows furrow as he doesn't seem to move from his spot. he can tell there's something wrong and you're obviously being very dodgy with him about the subject which is why he decides to take a seat on the couch and snatch your phone from your hands before you can even register what's happened.

"hey give me back my phone!" you sit up, stretching yourself over to grab your phone back from him in a failed attempt.

"not until you tell me what's wrong," he says flat.

you sigh, knowing that this conversation isn't inevitable. you can't avoid him forever "you called me clingy yesterday, kenma. sorry that i don't really want to hang out with you right now."

the words that leave your mouth have kenma in a state of shock. you took that seriously? you really thought he meant that? in order to ease his busy day of meetings back to back, you came home baked him some apple pie to ease him from his stresses.

and what did he do in return? called you clingy when you just wanted to spend some well-deserved time with him. god, he was being so ungrateful. his body fills with guilt when he he realizes you took his comment to heart.

“honey, i-” he starts and then is cut off with your words.

"i understand where you were coming from, i like to show my affection with you through physical touch and i know you’ve never been one to really reciprocate that," you begin to ramble. "so i’m really sorry for pushing your boundaries and i’ll give you the space that you need."

guilt is eating him away and he needs to clear the air now, otherwise you might be closed off forever and he’s not sure if he’s ever going to be able to reconnect with you.

“y/n, honey, don't apologize for this. it’s not your fault at all,” he starts. he puts down the phone onto the couch and grabs both of your hands and squeezes them assuringly. “i'm sorry for pushing you away and calling you clingy. you didn't.. you never deserve to be told that."

his hand finds its way to your cheek and he begins to rub comforting slow circles. seeing the sullen look on your face made him realize that he never wants to see you like this ever again. it was like you had lost the light in your eyes. kenma hated how he had diminished that so quickly by making you think that he didn't like your company.

he loves you so much; he could never imagine what life would be like without your presence.

a small smile begins to creep back on to your face and kenma finds himself in a slight sense of relief.

"it's okay," you finally utter out. "do you wanna watch that new episode? apparently there is so much drama now and i'm avoiding socials so i don't get spoiled..."

he chuckles, "i'll do anything with you."

he knows that he can't take back his words from before but as he's sitting on the couch with you in his embrace, he knows he can show you his love through his actions. he'll do anything to bring back that trust to you.

© tetsumie 2023 all rights reserved 

[dwaekkicidal]

Sharing is Caring

˚ʚ3racha x Fem!readerɞ˚

ʚ♡ɞ˚ summary: After finding what Stray Kids' closest female friend really does with their leader behind closed doors, Jisung and Changbin decide they want in too.

˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ word count: 6.1k

˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ warnings: fem!reader, slight angst before the first divider? But it gets resolved like immediately, fluff, nicknames used: 'baby girl, bunny, jagi(ya), and baby,' ot8✗reader mentions but smut is written for 3racha✗reader, Changbin has a fat crush on u, Chan✗reader action, Changbin✗reader action, some m✗m action: Chan✗Jisung mentions, fingering, squirting, exhibitionism, rough sex, (1½) pvssy slaps, hair pulling, overstimulation (?), readers a brat for 2 seconds, Channie is referred to as “Daddy” and Changbin as “Sir”, p in v, creampie & no protection (don't be silly wrap ur willy also pee after sex pls), blowjobs, a handjob, I think thats it?

˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ notes: an audio I heard a few weeks ago inspired this... I actually have no clue how this came out of that audio but you’re welcome (or I'm sorry)

edit; part 2 and 3 are 100% happening now! theyre both in the works & i will update this linking both parts once they are done (i wont spoil the pairs yet tho :3)

MDNI!! smut below the cut

DO NOT republish or translate+post my work!

˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ PSA: Sorry if you find this annoying, but I put so much yapping talking that I was only comfortable posting this with color-coded dialogues: If you hate it let me know so that I don’t do it again, but it kinda worked out so I kept it in instead of adding a million more words for nothing

Chris | Binnie | Hannie | You

•⑅♡⑅•⑅♡⑅•⑅♡⑅•⑅♡⑅•⑅♡⑅•⑅♡⑅•⑅♡⑅•⑅♡⑅•⑅♡⑅•⑅♡⑅•

You’re currently sitting in Stray Kids’ studio at the JYP building. Chris sits beside you in the other office chair at the desk, while Changbin and Han sit on the couch. Both staring holes into your heads as yours stare on the floor in embarrassment. They just walked in on you and Chris fucking in the studio, right in the very chair Chris was sitting in.

Speaking of, you see in the corner of your eye as he rubs his hands all over his face in frustration, his ears a very bright red. “Listen.. Normally we wouldn’t be stupid enough to do that in a public setting.. But I didn’t know you two were coming today and we got carried away..”

You glance up to see Changbin frown at the older boy, his eyes full of anger. You look over and check on Jisung, his eyes glossy. You furrow your eyebrows and lift your head fully. “Hannie..” You start, but immediately give up on your sentence when you see Changbin’s eye snap his eyes to you, the anger still prominent.

“Okay well… I don’t think that's the problem here… Do what you want, hyung. It’s your life..” Han starts, staring at you for a moment before continuing with a deep breath. “But you know how both of us feel about her. Hell. How the entire group feels about her. You have to see this from our point of view.”

Chan fixes his posture at the sentence and you look between the boys with pure confusion on your face. “Huh??”

“In my defense, I didn’t know how you guys felt until we were already messing around. We had already agreed on this arrangement months prior to the first person saying anything.”

“Arrangement?” Binnie says with the most attitude you’ve ever seen come out of him.

“We’re not dating.. We’re just…. friends with benefits. Sex with no extra emotional strings attached.” Chan sighs loudly, rubbing the back of his neck and continuing. “In all honesty, me and her talked about including you guys but we were afraid it would ruin things. Ruin the group as a whole.”

You start to feel frustrated, they're talking as if you’re not even in the room and when that's mixed with the ruined orgasm you just had, you can't help but get annoyed. “Hello?? I’m still here by the way. Can one of you tell me what the fuck is going on before I leave.” You narrow your eyes at the three of them and cross your arms. They’re caught off guard at your tone, you’ve never spoken to them in any tone outside of a sugary sweet one with pretty doe eyes. Even Changbin’s demeanor falters before he cracks his own neck. “Bunny. You haven’t noticed anything odd? How Hyunjin paints you every chance he gets? How Yongbok gives you all kinds of sweets and says that he ‘baked too much’? Not even the princess treatment that SEUNGMIN of all people gives you?”

You furrow your eyebrows at him before sputtering out, “W-Well yes, but I thought that was just normal behavior.”

Han lets out a tense laugh at that, when you turn to him he decides to continue for Changbin. “Jagiya, we don’t even do these things with each other… all of us are pretty in love with you. We have been for a long time to be honest. Though.. some of us…” he pauses before stealing a glance at the timid boy beside him. “Some of us fell faster and harder than the others. At the end of the day, you have all 8 of us wrapped around your finger.”

All the attitude and anger in your body is suddenly flushed out, replaced with confusion and surprise, “Wait..” When you think back to what Changbin said, the pieces start to click together. All 3 boys watch your reaction nervously, and Changbin lets out a slight sigh of relief when he sees the gears turning in your head. “She actually had no clue.”

“I tried to not blatantly say anything about it once I found out. But I honestly thought you knew about some of the members, baby girl?”

“I had no clue… I’m so sorry Binnie, Hannie..” You hear Han let out a sigh as your eyes watch Changbin’s, they stare into you less angrily but it makes the hurt more evident. You frown sadly at him and let your head hang, not sure what to do with this situation.

“It’s okay, Jagi. Now that I know you were oblivious about our feelings, I don’t think I’m as upset. More so at Channie-hyung for getting to you before us. But I’ll get over that feeling soon.. I don’t know about him though.”

The man in question’s eyes never leave your form, but he takes Han’s words to heart and takes a few deep breaths. “I don’t know. I’m quite hurt but Han is right. It’s honestly our own faults for not being clear with you.”

His words hang in the air for a while before you fix your posture and look over at Chris, meeting his eyes. He tilts his head at you, but you quickly turn to look between the other boys. “What's going on in your head, pretty?”

“Mm.. Well Channie did already spill the beans on what we spoke about.” You say, looking up at each boy before being met with confusion on each of their pretty faces. You clear your throat before continuing, “About… me being with all of you guys..” You pause once more to gauge their reactions, when you don’t see any negativity you finish your thought: “If you guys are okay with sharing, I don’t think I would mind dating all of you. At the end of the day I have been loyal to you guys anyways... So if everyone is okay with it, it could work.”

Chris’ head snaps to the couch to try and read their expressions. He can see Changbin thinking deeply about it and the faint blush on Han’s cheeks more or less gives him an answer. “Only if you guys are okay with it. I told you already, even before I knew about everybody’s feelings I was easing her into the idea of being with us all, whether that be through dating or her being our mutual friend with benefits.”

Han nods and looks over at Changbin, nervously watching his reaction as he mumbles out an “I’m okay with it.. Only if Changbin-hyung is too.” At the mention of his name, Changbin blinks multiple times to bring himself back down to earth. Once he realizes the outcome of this is in his hands, he gulps and clears his throat. “I… I don’t know..”

“If you need time to think about it, I’ll give you as much time as you need. In the meantime, Chris and I will stop everything we do and we’ll go based on what you guys are okay with.” Changbin furrows his eyebrows and looks at his hyung, who nods in agreement with your promise. “I told you, we spoke about this before. Many times actually. If enough of you weren’t okay with it, we agreed to cut things off completely for the sake of our friendships being more important.”

Changbin slowly nods, “I… I need some time to think about it.” You and Chris nod before meeting each other’s eyes for a moment. “Okay well, we should head home then. The song can wait, we’ve all had a long night.”

Everyone silently agrees and one by one the studio empties. You were the last to leave, but you quickly caught up to Changbin, wanting to have a 1 on 1 chat with him. “Binnie. I really am sorry. If I had known earlier then I wouldn’t have let us do this for so long without involving you guys. I feel horrible.”

He smiles softly at you, placing a hand on your head and massaging your scalp with his fingertips. “I know, Bunny. I’m not really mad anymore, I just don’t know if I can handle sharing you. Jisung and I spoke about it a few times but we thought it wasn’t even on the table.”

You nod and shuffle on your feet. He thinks for a moment before looking at you nervously, “Can you answer a question I have truthfully?” When you nod eagerly he continues, “...If you would date us all, as in all 8 of us.. Could you actually see yourself loving us all equally?”

You bite your lip before laughing nervously, “That’s honestly not even a question to me… I already love you all equally. I wasn’t lying when I said I had been loyal to you guys ‘anyways’. I turned down so many idols and random people on the street because I knew I had you guys. I knew how much I loved you all and I knew wasting time with these people to get over my feelings wouldn’t be worth it. So I sat patiently and waited to see how things would go.”

He lets out a breath that he didn't realize he was holding, letting out a light laugh of relief. “Can I hug you, Bunny?”

“Please.” He smiles and pulls you into his arms, the two of you stay in the embrace until Changbin gets a call from Chan, telling him that the taxi is outside and they’re waiting for him. You say your goodbyes and go your separate ways.

Now we wait..

•⑅♡⑅•⑅♡⑅•⑅♡⑅•⑅♡⑅•⑅♡⑅•⑅♡⑅•⑅♡⑅•⑅♡⑅•⑅♡⑅•⑅♡⑅•

A few days pass as normal, and you almost forget about what happened in the studio. When you’re lounging on the couch scrolling through a streaming site, you hear your phone ding a few times and it makes your stomach drop. You drop the remote immediately and in seconds your phone is unlocked with your text messages open.

Your hand slaps over your mouth and you squeal, not being able to contain your excitement, and you spend the next few days excitedly preparing yourself for Friday night.

•⑅♡⑅•⑅♡⑅•⑅♡⑅•⑅♡⑅•⑅♡⑅•⑅♡⑅•⑅♡⑅•⑅♡⑅•⑅♡⑅•⑅♡⑅•

When the night comes, you walk into their dorm as if it was any other day. When you meet the eyes of the men sitting at the dining table, you hesitate. All three sets of eyes look up at you, the older boys hold soft smiles while the youngest is biting his lip with red cheeks.

After some time of the awkwardness in the air fading, the four of you talk boundaries. In summary, you all agreed on:

Changbin only wants to fuck you, Chan and Jisung are open to anybody but mainly want you, and you want all 3 of them.

Specific kinks were talked about, but everyone agreed on rougher play for the night, just nothing too extreme yet. Specifically yes to spanks, rough fucking, choking, and hair pulling.

Chris closes it out with a few statements: “If, at any point, you aren’t sure to keep going, we use the traffic light system. Just ask her what her color is and she’ll respond with ‘red’ for stop, ‘yellow’ for slow down, and ‘green’ for keep going. And aftercare is a MUST. You don’t give her aftercare, you don’t get her at all.” When the other men agree, he leads you guys to the dining room where the coffee table is already moved to the side.

Before you know it, you’re sitting on their dorm’s couch, shyly playing with the strings on your sweatpants. All 3 men are standing between you and the tv, thanking every god they know that Hyunjin is out of the country for the week. Chan warily looks over his members faces, looking for any sign of hesitation. Instead he’s met with both basically eye-fucking you and Jisung already hard as a rock through his jeans. He laughs to himself quietly before looking over at you, initially looking for an unsure reaction from you as well. But when he watches your eyes jump between the other 2 and you bite your lip, he takes a breath before speaking.

“Since this would be both of your first times with her, I’ll show you all the good spots and how to play with her properly.” You roll your eyes and frown up at him from your spot on the couch. He gives you an amused smile and you watch from the corner of your eye as Changbin grabs a chair from the dining room, placing it in front of the tv so that it faces the couch. Chris swiftly pulls you to your feet before taking a seat on the chair. He pulls you into his lap and makes you face the other 2 men, who are now seated on the couch patiently waiting for the scene in front of them to unfold.

“You ready, baby?” He asked into your neck, his thick lips already placing wet kisses and his hands already pulling at the elastic of your sweats. You make a scene to hold eye contact with both men on the couch before responding to the one below you, “Yes, Daddy.” When Changbin’s eyes widen before he closes them and lays his head back, you giggle to yourself and move your eyes over to Jisung. You hear him groan and class a hand over his mouth, and when he notices your eyes are staring into his wide boba ones you smile innocently and tilt your head at him.

By the time both men recover, Chris is already pulling your sweatpants and underwear from your ankles, then moving his hands to the base of your crop top. He finally breaks away from your neck to pull it off, unintentionally showing off the red marks all over your neck to the couch. As the shirt gets pulled above your head, you hear a gasp from the couch and Chris’ voice against your ear. “And no bra? Baby.. you’re gonna kill them haha..”

You bite your lip and smile before teasing, “If they let themselves die this easily then you can have me all to yourself again.” You almost miss the way Changbin’s eyes narrow with how focused you are on Jisung’s growing pout. You hear Jisung let out a “Hey..” before you laugh and stick your tongue out at both boys. Immediately after, you feel your legs get hooked over Chris’ wide stance. 

He teases you by softly rubbing his hands against your inner thighs, nipping at your neck and ear as he does so. His left hand slowly trails up your stomach until he meets your chest and starts toying with your nipples. The hand still on your thigh trails up higher and higher until you feel him spreading your folds with his index and ring finger, using his middle finger to slide against your clit and down to your hole. You slump against him when you feel him slide two fingers in you, his thumb replacing his middle finger on your clit. You faintly hear Chris say something to the other boys about where they should try to angle their fingers. When he angles his hands the way he describes, it rips a desperate moan from your throat and your legs tighten against his.

Both boys on the couch adjust themselves in their pants at the sight of you spread so widely in front of them, Han nodding enthusiastically with each sentence that comes out of Chris’ mouth. With the fast pace his fingers set, it doesn’t take long for your orgasm to build up.

You feel yourself getting close and Chris catches on very fast. He pulls his fingers away and lands a smack to your inner thigh before grabbing your chin and raising an eyebrow at you. “Did I say you could come yet? You didn’t even ask permission.” You almost miss Jisung’s moan at the action, but quickly respond with a, “N-No, Daddy. I’m sorry Daddy.”

He tsks at you before softly running his hands along your thighs again, “Just because I’m showing the boys how to play with you doesn’t mean that our rules aren’t in place. Don’t be a bad girl and make me punish you in front of them already.”

“Yes, Daddy” you whine out as you nod feverishly, your orgasm fading away slowly. He hums before returning his hand to your cunt, playing with your folds as he gets lost in thought for a moment. You sigh and lean your head into his neck once releases your chin.

You almost say something about the lack of stimulation when Chris suddenly pushes you on your feet, keeping a hand on the small of your back as he quickly stands. He sits you on the chair but pulls you down so your ass is hanging off the chair, legs folded into each other as he puts you on display towards the couch. You feel butterflies in your stomach, remembering just exactly what Chris made you do the last time you both were in this position.

You shiver as his fingers softly caress your folds, he looks down at you with a mischievous glint in his eyes. Once he realizes that you knew what his plans were, he bites his lip and smirks down at you. When your lips open to say something, he suddenly returns the 2 fingers inside your hole to prevent words from forming. You guys hold eye contact for a moment, but once his fingers dig into your gummy spot roughly, your mouth opens in a gasp and your eyebrows raise. Your eyes threaten to close as you watch him meanly mimic your facial expression and rub against the spot harder.

Your legs already start to shake and you throw your head back against the chair with a whimper, closing your eyes when the stimulation is a little too much. A firm grip in your hair pulls your face to meet his, he places a gentle kiss to your lips before adding a third finger. He ruts them into your soppy cunt over and over again until you hear him laugh when your eyes slam shut again. You’re sure both boys can hear the wet noises coming from between your legs. You wish you could see their faces, but at this point you figure Chris is trying to put on a show for them so you don’t complain.

“F-Fuck!!! Daddyyy!! I-I can’t..” You cry out, one of your hands meets his and your nails dig into his wrist as your thighs clamp shut. He pulls his fingers out and pins both your hands against the top of the chair with his spare hand. He lands a slap on your cunt and doesn’t give you time to react before he slams three fingers back in and resumes his bullying pace.

He coos at you, pressing a kiss into your calf, “You can, baby girl…” He pauses before positioning his hand so that his palm could bully against your clit with the thrusts. His tone is much darker when he continues, “I won’t stop until you do. So you better give them a pretty view, yea?” You gush more around his fingers as and when you clench harshly, he leans down to push his lips against yours.

At this point, Han has caught on to what Chris is trying to do, and he finally can’t stand the tightness in his jeans so he removes them. He quickly pushes his boxers down and can’t stop himself from fisting his cock at the sight of your cunt and ass on display for them, your wet cunt dripping down your ass as Chris continues his pace. Changbin on the other hand, isn’t fully sure what is going on. But that doesn’t stop him from palming his bulge, biting into the pointer finger on his other hand to keep quiet.

The sounds coming from you somehow get louder and you pant into Chris’ mouth, moaning against his lips as you feel the knot snap in your stomach. Suddenly you squirt all over his arm, squealing into the kiss as Chris rides your high. He fingers into you roughly before giving you a second to squirt more, then forcing more out of you. He repeats this until you pull away from his lips and gasp desperately for air, and he finally slows his hand to almost a complete stop, letting you breathe. He softly slaps your cunt as he pulls away from you fully to admire the mess you made.

“I told you, baby girl.” He laughs, ghosting his hand over your inner thigh as he watches you glisten. He pulls away from you completely, pulling his shirt off in one go and using it to wipe your thighs down and throwing it onto the puddle you made on the floor. He pulls you back to your feet, and holds you up with both hands as your legs shake aggressively, before sitting back down and resuming the earlier position: you on his lap.

He showers your neck and your cheek in kisses as your legs stay glued shut, his thighs making sure of that as they stay against yours. One of his hands holds you against him while the other caresses your hip affectionately. He knows you’re not in this plane of existence from how quiet you are, so he tries his best to ground you with as much physical touch that he can offer.

After a short while, your soul finally returns to your body. You mumble something incoherent and he takes that as a sign that you’re still there. He giggles into your neck, trailing his kisses down to your shoulder. You feel his arms tighten around you before he’s whispering against your skin, “You alright, baby? What’s your color?”

You sigh into his hold and whisper back a “Yellow.. Just give me a minute.”

Once you deem yourself ready, you let him know. He reluctantly loosens his hold on you and clears his throat, placing a final kiss on your shoulder before looking up. “Now that she’s ready for you both.. who wants to play first?” Chris asks as he eyes dart between the boys you completely forgot about. The two in question glance at each other quickly before wordlessly deciding to keep quiet and let Chris choose. Chris nods in understanding before glancing over at the youngest and watching the way he’s slowly fisting his cock as he waits for the next move. Chris very quickly thinks back to the boundaries everybody set earlier and he smirks against your shoulder. He whispers something in your ear, just low enough so neither of the other men can hear it.

But when you smile and slide off Chris' lap, softly crawling towards Changbin on all fours, both boys on the couch suddenly fix their posture. Han almost whines at the thought of Changbin getting you first until he watches the oldest stand up and saunteer towards him. He gulps and looks up at the man, biting his lip when Chris leans down and grabs his chin to hold eye contact. “You still okay with us playing a little bit, Hannie?” Not fully trusting his voice, Jisung nods eagerly and allows Chris to take control, "Please..."

While the two boys to your right get lost in each other, you sit at Changbin’s feet and look up at him with puppy dog eyes. You even go as far as to tilt your head and rest your cheek against his knee. “Hi Binnie~” You whisper out, “Can you play with me? Pleasee?”

He curses under his breath and nods, “Y-Yeah.. Yeah we can play, Bunny.” You smile in response and bite your lip, undoing his jeans before pulling them off his legs. He pulls his shirt off as you leave soft kisses up his thighs. He shudders the closer to his crotch that you get, and breathes harshly when you place a kiss to his dick through his boxers. He sighs when you back away and pull his underwear down just enough so that his dick slaps against his tummy. You pause for a second to admire his width. He’s so hard and his tip has a mean red tint; you’re almost afraid of taking him.

Suddenly the man above you laughs and pulls you up onto his lap, letting his dick rest between you two. He quickly pulls you into a kiss, running his hands up and down your sides softly. Your own hands are running up and down his biceps and squeezing, finally relishing in the feeling of his muscles against your hands. When a hand of his slides down to your ass to squeeze, you smile into the kiss and angle your head so that you are making out even deeper. It’s very short lived however, because the hand that was squeezing your ass pulls back and lands a slap to your cheek.

You jump in against him and pull away from his lips, frowning at him. He laughs at you before landing another to your other cheek. “Those are for the little comment you made earlier about Chan getting you to himself after this.” You roll your eyes and cross your arms over your chest and snapping back, “Well soooomebody doesn’t know how to take a joke.” Changbin’s mouth opens slightly and his eyes narrow dangerously at you. If it wasn’t for the fire in your abdomen that grew from his stare, you would have been terrified and apologized right away.

You quickly think that should have been the case when a hand shoots forward and clamps around your neck, squeezing tightly right off the bat. You let out a gargled noise as his other hand lands 2 harsh slaps to your ass cheeks, massaging against them right after. “I’m sorry... What was that?”

Jisung and Chris pull a few inches away from each other at the sound. Jisung’s hips buck up into Chris’ hand and he lets out a pathetic whine at the sight of your ass cheeks already turning a darker red. The man above him lets out an exasperated laugh before saying “Oh yeah, I should’ve warned you two that she can be a stupid brat sometimes. I would say I’d teach you how to deal with it, but it seems like you got it under control already. You know what to do, baby. Be a good girl for Binnie, or else I'll handle you myself.” Changbin steals a confused glance at his hyung before returning his gaze to you, loosening his grip on your neck to give you more breathing room. He watches your eyes meet Chan's and you gulp deeply before wresting your hands on his chest.

“‘M sorry Binnie. I’ll be good now I promise.” His hand loosens the grip on your neck you all the way at your puppy dog eyes stare into his, but they stay resting against your throat as Chris speaks up again. “Not ‘Binnie’ baby.” Your eyes meet Chris’ again and he smiles at you teasingly, his hands still stroking Jisung at a slow pace that has the boy whining into his hand. You bite your lip at the sight of Jisung looking fucked out already and turn back to Changbin and retry, “I’m sorry sir. I’ll behave now.” You watch Changbin swallow thickly before leaning his head sideways and letting out a curse.

“Atta girl, baby.” Chris says, before turning back to the squirming boy below him.

Changbin quickly mutters an ‘Up’ before you climb out of his lap to stand in front of him. He quickly swaps spots with you, making you sit on the couch as he stands above you, kneeling against the cough to ground himself. He strokes himself a few times, not bothering to prepare you any more than Chan did already. He pulls your legs up and holds them near your chest, and then he finally sinks himself into you. He keeps his eyes on your face the whole time, mainly watching for possible comfort changes in your expression. But when your jaw drops at the stretch and you take over his hold on your legs, he can’t help himself from staring for other reasons. While you’re busy hugging your legs into yourself, he trails a hand to your mouth and positions his thumb to press down on your tongue. With every inch of his duck entering you, you swear you lose another piece of your mind. And after what feels like forever, his hips finally meet the backs of your thighs

He lets out a shaky sigh and lightly thrusts into you, testing the waters before pulling out farther and setting a calm pace. For a while, he softly thrusts into you, just savoring the feeling and sight of your tight cunt around his dick. It’s not until you let out a whine that his eyes return to your face. His hips stutter and he watches in awe as he pulls his thumb from your drooly mouth. While that thumb moves down to draw circles onto your clit, you look up at him pleadingly before begging so sweetly. “Please, Sir. Please I promised I’d be good. Just fuck me hard, please please please.”

From the other side of the couch, Chris’ ears perk up at the sound of your begging. He chuckles breathlessly and it takes everything in him to keep his eyes on the pretty boy who’s on his knees below him. “F-Fuck. Bin I usually have to overstimulate her for her to beg like that. You must’ve fucked her stupid already.”

Changbin’s eyes roll to the back of his head at the sentence and he starts up a rough pace, pounding into you fast before responding, “Y-Yeah? You think so?”

You throw your head into the couch at the new rhythm, nails digging into your legs at the stimulation. After squirting like that earlier, you’re not sure you can last very long and that’s made even more true by the sloppy presses you feel on your clit. Not long after this pace was set, you feel yourself rapidly approaching your high.

You manage out a: “Binnie- S-Sir, can I cum please.. I want you to cum inside… I’ve b-been good, right?” and he groans in response, nodding his head and leaning into you, his fingers never leaving your cunt and his pace never faltering. “Yeah, baby. Don’t worry, Binnie’s got you.” His body weight on your legs gives you an uncomfortable stretch, but when his lips meet yours in a sloppy kiss, you can’t find it in you to complain. Almost immediately after that, his spare hand leaves a slap to your ass, and you cum on impact. Your lips detach from his as you let out desperate wails, trying to take deep breaths while he slows his pace to make slower but deeper thrusts into you. His gaze meets your teary eyes before he dips to your neck, biting and sucking marks onto the skin. He follows suit not long after, groaning and biting harder subconsciously as he rides out his high.

You lay against each other, catching your breaths before you let out a pained whine. “Binnieee… my legs..” His mind is still foggy from that strong of an orgasm, so it takes him a second to pull away. Once he does, he softly rests your legs against the couch and massages the muscles, already knowing which ones would be hurting. He watches your mixtures of cum ooze out of your cunt, and onto the couch. He would normally freak out at such a viscous substance getting the couch dirty, but his zips his mouth shut and watches in awe for a moment. You don’t fully notice when he walks away due to getting distracted by the other end of the couch.

Chris let out a few gasps that turn to groans, signaling that he’s dangerously close. You quickly turn your head to watch as Jisung deep throats him all the way, even gagging a few times. You whine out something along the lines of, “That’s so hot..” but it meets none of their ears as Jisung’s nails rake down Chris’ thighs, his hips buckling as he cums hard. He throws his head back and holds a firm grip on Jisung’s permed hair as he thrusts softly into his mouth, quickly angling his head back towards the boy to watch him swallow around his length. Slowly the grip on the younger’s hair loosens, and you and Chris watch the boy on the floor with lidded eyes. Jisung hollows his cheeks and slowly pulls off the eldest’s dick, he matches the older’s gaze and shows off the contents on his tongue before making a show of swallowing it, showing his empty tongue after. Chris throws a hand over his eyes and whines, resting his head against the back cushion as you sit there and laugh. You and Jisung meet each other’s eyes before you wink at the boy, blowing him a kiss with a fucked out smile on your face.

By now Changbin is returning to the living room with a warm cloth, wiping you down gently before throwing it onto the pile of your clothes. Chris disappears to his room to grab shirts of his for you and Jisung while Changbin throws the scattered clothes of yours into his own hamper, and Jisung’s into his hamper. While the two eldest members run around cleaning, and preparing blankets and snacks for a cuddle session, you and Jisung embrace each other on the couch. You rest your head against his shoulder as your breaths even out. You could fall asleep at this point, but you’re quickly distracted by the boy’s bulge in his underwear.

“Hannie… you’re still hard?” You laugh. His cheeks and ears turn red before he laughs too. “Yeah… I came in the beginning, but watching you and Changbin-hyung while watching Channie-hyung come undone got me hard again. It was all just too hot..” You laugh into his shoulder but trail one of your hands to the bulge, trailing a featherlight touch that has the boy’s thighs clamping together. “Can I help you then, Hannie? Me and you didn’t get to play. I can’t go another round but I’ll happily suck you off.”

You hear a shaky breath as his hips buck against your hand. “Fuck,, Yes please, baby.” Giggling, you drop down to your knees for a 2nd time tonight, pulling his boxers down just enough to free his cock. You take it in your hands and pump it, placing teasing kisses up and down his shaft. You smirk against him when you feel his hand slip into your hair, grabbing a tight but not painful grip as a warning to stop teasing. You hum and lick a long stripe until you reach his tip, placing a final kiss there before you take him all the way to the hilt. The grip in your hair tightens as you hum and hold your spot against his pubic bone, some of the hair there tickling your nose. You hollow your cheeks and swallow around him a few times before pulling away, stroking him while you rasp out, “You wanna fuck my mouth baby?"

You swear his eyes sparkle as he nods enthusiastically. His hands quickly move to rest against the back of your head, “Hit my thigh a few times if you need a break, ok?” You nod and smile up at him, happy that he still genuinely cares about your well being. Your smile fades as he moves your head against him, slowly fucking your mouth against his dick as he lets out a sigh. You hollow out your cheeks and feel the grip on your head get harder. He starts fucking himself into your throat, using all his will power to not do it as rough as he wanted to, ‘We can save that for another day’ he argues to himself. It doesn’t take long for him to reach his high, his thighs shaking as memories of what happened less than 10 minutes ago resurface to his mind.

He goes to pull you away as he cums, but you swat his hands away and take matters into your own hands, literally. One of your hands trails up his stomach, your nails ghosting around his chest as your other hand reaches up to fondle his balls. It’s all so sudden and he chokes on his own drool when he tries to warn you that he’s cumming, but regardless you swallow every last drop. Once his hips relax back into the couch, you pull back so that only the tip is in your mouth, sucking hard to get every last drop and he lets out the whiniest cry you’ve ever heard.

As the older boys return with blankets and snacks, you and Jisung pull away from each other. Eventually everybody is settled and a movie is chosen, the four of you cuddle up to each other and relax. Han is laying with his head against your chest when he suddenly lets out a laugh that startles your sleepy form. The three of you look down at him with different confused expressions before he chuckles to himself again.

“The others are missing out sooo bad.”

•⑅♡⑅•⑅♡⑅•⑅♡⑅•⑅♡⑅•⑅♡⑅•⑅♡⑅•⑅♡⑅•⑅♡⑅•⑅♡⑅•⑅♡⑅•

[zreamy]

won't let you go (this time)

pairing: lee heeseung x fem!reader

summary: back home for good after a semi-unsuccessful first year at university in a new city, you’re looking forward to getting back into the routines of your old life in the town you grew up in but the one person you’d been desperate to see doesn’t seem too pleased about your return :(

genre: angst.. ......... fluff, smut, college au, exes to lovers, second chance romance, slow burn

warnings: minors dni, british in a way that's not vague (might be vague.. it's hard to tell when ur british), so so long, sad heeseung, long paragraphs..

word count: 36,007 .. (apparently, i'm in a competition with myself to see who can write the longest fic)

playlist: seasons wave to earth, understand keshi

author's note: writing this fic was like pulling teeth and then cooking pasta out of it.. bUT IT'S DONE !!! also one of these scenes is smth i reworked from a fic i posted to wattpad in 2021.. thanks @asahicore for the beta u rock ! and as always be lmk ur thoughts (positive/negative/anything) 🤍

fic taglist: @enhastolemyheart

Lee Heeseung had often imagined what it would be like when he saw you again. 

Sometimes, he envisioned you standing on his doorstep, playing with the cuffs of your sweater. Other times he’d dream up a chance encounter at the local grocery shop, where you’d be distracted and bump the end of your trolley into his. He’d even pictured a sun-soaked vacation, a gorgeous white sand beach where the temperature would be inching past the thirties. You, laying out on a patterned towel, lost in the pages of a book, and your pretty face obscured by its cover. Yet, even with the sun in his eyes and his poor vision, he’d recognise you without a doubt. 

Regardless of circumstance or setting, in all of his hazy daydreams, you’d look up at him with unbridled love in your eyes and say the words he wanted to hear all those months ago: I choose you. 

Heeseung had always imagined that his heart might glow in his chest, through his shirt like something from Jane the Virgin, and you’d know you made the wrong decision. 

But sometimes, typically when in an alcohol-fuelled state of despondence, these images would be rougher around the edges. Heeseung would be hot, with bleach-blond hair and thick dark brows—a walking, talking beacon of sexual energy when you’d see him. In his head, it would happen at a party or a club somewhere, and he’d be too busy talking to another girl to notice you, his arm hanging off of her, lust clear in his eyes. Somehow, even in sweatpants and an old hoodie of his, you’d still look as beautiful as always. 

“Heeseung,” you’d say, completely crushed with tears welling up in your eyes under furrowed brows. “I choose you.”

Reluctantly, he’d draw his eyes away from the girl and notice you, finally, and a smile would spread on his lips, a mean one, condescending. He’d shrug, wrapping his arm tighter around the girl and say, “You’re too late.” He wouldn’t mean it, but he’d say it just to drive you crazy. Make you beg him to take you back for months until he felt you’d suffered enough—as much as he had. 

These thoughts were few and far between and mainly followed by hot, guilty tears rolling down his cheeks because he knew it was his fault. After all, he was the one to let you go.

For now though, the little round table in Mark’s backyard seats four, and, in the arms of a balmy summer night, Heeseung chooses the seat closest to the fence. The garden light is still busted so in his seat of choice, furthest from the kitchen door, he’ll go completely unnoticed but still see anyone who might join him outside.

His phone is freezing when he takes it from his pocket and unsurprisingly holds no notifications beyond the outsiiiide text he’d gotten from Jake before the party started. Through Instagram stories, Heeseung watches the night play out from the perspective of people who are enjoying themselves while ignoring the voice in his head that tells him he could be one of those people if he tried. 

Maybe he was a fool for believing that tonight would go differently and that the boys would keep their ‘bro’s night’ promise for longer than it took to cross the threshold—but it’s not like he blames them. Maybe he was a fool for believing he would find more company than his somewhat abandoned bottle of Peroni that watches him mockingly from the glass table. 

He grimaces after taking a sip from it, remembering that he was only ever carrying it around so his friends wouldn’t feel the need to load him with shots. Now he’s not so sure that would’ve been a bad thing, seeing as he’s completely sober and aware of the tightness in his chest as he scrolls through the text thread he’s had pinned for years. Its end came abruptly; revived only by an ignored blue bubble saying: i heard you’re back home for the summer.. 

Seeing it now, he regrets hitting send even more than he did two weeks ago. Heeseung hates himself for believing the boys when they said it was a good thing that you opened the message right away. “Means she’s thinking of u 2 dude,” was Jake's message to the group chat (along with four bicep emojis and two red exclamation marks). Jay replied: i hope you guys can talk things out! And Sunghoon didn’t say anything. 

All your conversations bring up memories that hurt more than the last but he has to take a break when he reaches a text you sent last January: i had so much fun tonight, hee, idk how to thank u enough :((( i hope ur not in too much trouble.. i love you i love you and i’ll love you forever !!!

He ended up getting grounded for three weeks and lost car privileges for months after staying out four hours past curfew, but he’d do it a million times over if it meant he’d get to see you as happy as you were that night on the two-hour drive back, running your fingertips over the Sharpie autograph of your favourite author on the book’s front page—“Heeseung?” 

His jaw falls slack and his whole body stiffens. If you don’t count old videos in his camera roll, Heeseung hasn’t heard your voice in over a year. The back door slides shut and when he finally lifts his head, he wants to throw up. Even without the glow of the kitchen lights on your face, he’d still be able to make out the cute point of your nose, and the slight curve of your soft lips. Unfortunately, the breakup only seems to have made you even more beautiful and he hates himself for wishing you were having a hard time too. 

“Hey,” you say. “Can I sit?” 

Regaining his mobility, he moves his shoulders in a stiff shrug. The sound of your chair scraping the concrete makes him cringe and he hates that you chose the seat closest to him. 

“I didn’t think you’d be here tonight.” 

Heeseung scoffs, his brows furrowing defensively. “You didn’t think I’d be at my friend’s party?” 

You set your jaw. “Okay.” 

An unbearable silence follows, so heavy he can feel it sitting on his shoulders, weighing him down. There’s no way to know how much time has passed but he feels less tense when you start to hum, drumming your fingers against the table to the beat of whatever song the kitchen door is struggling to muffle. If he doesn’t think too hard about the lingering quiet, it feels like everything is okay between you two. 

His heart races when you giggle. “You still do that?” 

“Do what?” 

You smile before mirroring his expression, puffing up your cheeks and exhaling dramatically a few times. Due to the heat, nothing comes of it but you laugh anyway. “You always liked when it was cold enough out to see your breath. I remember having to nudge you every night of summer to get you to stop.”

To Heeseung, there’s something sinister about the fact that you can so easily bring up a memory you share with him. About the fact that even after what happened, his cheeks heat up just from seeing you grin. He deflates, unable to look at you, finding interest in the label on his bottle instead. It’s slightly curled up at its edge, and he runs his thumb over it a few times before peeling it off completely—with some struggle, leaving a sticky patch in its wake. Under your loaded stare, he folds it a little to make a square before trying to craft a swan or a crane (you were the one who knew these things) from the sticker. 

Your hands are just as soft as he remembers when your fingers touch his, though it shocks him so much he drops the label, immediately withdrawing his hands and, for lack of a better option, sitting on them. Even softer than your hands is your voice when you say, “I don’t want things to be so tense between us.” 

It must be easy, he thinks. For you to say something like that after dumping him. Heeseung wants to laugh, to let his head fall back and cackle from sheer disbelief; you really must have some nerve. Instead, a bitterness, raging and sour, works in his chest, choking the laughter into silence. It pushes his lips into a scowl as he lifts his head to look at you. You’re shivering with your arms crossed over your chest and Heeseung softens. Without thinking, he shrugs off his flannel to drape it over your shoulders, almost regretting it when he fixes his tongue to scold you playfully like he used to. Still too hot for a jacket, right, baby? he wants to say. This is the last time I’m doing this for you, next time you’re on your own. Heeseung figures that somewhere, in another reality where you’re still together, a version of him says these things but continues to give you his flannels and jackets anyway.

He’d give anything to be that Heeseung instead. 

Over the last year, he’s been replacing the clothes in his wardrobe. He noticed that during your time together you steadily wore every t-shirt, flannel, and hoodie he owned. Now, as you thank him with a sincere smile, he realises he’ll have to donate his new favourite shirt too. 

“What’s in your pocket?” you ask, reaching in to find out. A bleak carton of cigarettes sits full in your hands as you look over at him with wide eyes. “You smoke now?” 

“No.” Heeseung shakes his head. “Never.” 

Back and forth between your hands, the box and its contents rustle. “Really? Because this—” You pause to pull a lighter from the same pocket. “—and this tell me something different.”

“Sunghoon’s quitting again,” he explains, with air quotes around the word quitting. 

“Oh.” You let out a laugh, nodding fondly. “He’s on, like, five weeks or something by now, though, right? Surely you don’t still need to carry these around for him.”

His head tilts so quickly he hurts his neck. With knitted brows, he inspects you. Nothing about your expression seems like you’re trying to hurt him, in truth, you look like you’re being quite sincere; your eyes are wide, curious, and your lips are quirked up at the corners with an amusement he adores. “Six,” he corrects. “How do you know?” 

“He told me.” 

“You guys still talk?” 

A shoulder-dropping sigh falls from your mouth as you put the cigarettes and lighter back in his pocket, raking a hand through your hair. “You’re the only one who doesn’t talk to me anymore,” you say in a small voice. 

The five of you stuck together in high school — where he and Jay first met you, Jake, and Sunghoon — and he knew it would be unreasonable for him to expect your shared friends, especially the youngest two whom you’d known longer, to turn on you. He also figured, given how close you’d grown to Jay, and his undying rationality, that his best friend would outright refuse to shun you on Heeseung’s behalf. Even though they didn’t need his permission, he told them that he didn’t want them to feel like they had to pick sides and that he was perfectly happy for them to keep talking to you. On one condition: that none of them tell him anything about you or your life without him unless you’re hurt—a condition they’ve clearly carried out more faithfully than Heeseung expected them to. 

Bile rises in his throat thinking about all the things your friends have kept from him about your year away. His heart twists over mundane details like your class schedules and favourite things to eat for lunch, and his eyes sting with tears over the important stuff like new friends and, worst of all, new partners. 

Heeseung jolts out of his chair, knocking the table so hard with his thighs that his bottle tips over. You’re quick to catch it. “My mum’s calling,” he blurts out, overwhelmed. 

“Heeseung.” 

“I really have to go.” 

“Heeseung!” you call out, but he’s already back inside. 

You don’t follow him. 

But that was in June, and now it’s September. 

While his friends complain about the chill of autumn, Heeseung’s just happy he can comfortably wear hoodies everywhere again. In a cool lecture hall, home to his Ethics and Responsibility class for the next few months, he relishes the feeling of soft cotton against his ears as he copies the course reading list into the first page of his notebook. 

“Is someone sitting here?” 

Heeseung’s stomach sinks to the floor. Reluctantly, he lifts his head, and through the gaps in his bangs, he sees you and the way your face falls when you see him, instantly looking around the room. 

“Oh,” you say, eyes blown. “I’m sorry, I’ll just..” you trail off.

He scans the room, chewing his lip when he realises that, despite the lecturer not having arrived yet, the seat to his left, with his backpack on it, is the only empty one. “It’s okay,” he says, trying to seem nonchalant as he takes his bag from the chair and puts it on the floor. 

“Thanks,” you mumble, frowning a little as you sit down. 

In the light of day, he really sees you and a lone butterfly, one he was sure had died with the rest last year, flutters lazily in his stomach—wings buzzing against the lining, tickling him. Even with messy hair and tired bags under your eyes, you’re just as beautiful as the first time he saw you. It’s unfair, he thinks. That you could be dealing with this and still manage to look presentable. Jealousy kills the butterfly, stirring a pit in his belly at the thought that you were able to break up with him and continue with life as normal on the other end of the country, making new friends and new memories as if nothing happened. 

Even when Dr. Kim comes in and starts the class, Heeseung can’t take his eyes off of you. You haven’t lost any of your mannerisms, he notices when you stick your tongue out a little while typing notes as the lecturer says them, barely looking up from your laptop to see the slides. 

At the end of the lecture, all he has to show for it is the reading list and a couple of bullet points that seemed important as he copied them from your screen. Side by side, you silently walk down the stairs to leave the room, and the sight of Sunghoon through the doorway pulls a relieved sigh from Heeseung’s chest. 

Sunghoon’s brows raise seeing you together and he clears his throat when you’re close enough. “Hey, you two! My little study buddies,” he says in a strained voice. “First day back! First day for you, YN, what was that like?” He sounds like he’s reading from a script as he walks between you. 

Heeseung lets you answer, listening to your voice as he walks behind you down the stairs. He wonders if things will be this way forever, briefly contemplating throwing himself over the bannister so he doesn’t have to find out. If you’re uncomfortable, you don’t show it, talking excitedly with Sunghoon about the class, mentioning things Heeseung hadn’t even heard, despite having sat through the same hour-long introduction lecture as you. He trails behind the two of you all the way to the library, where Jay is sleeping with his chin on his arms and Jake is staring at the table of contents in his textbook. You cut yourself off, jogging over to the table they’re sitting at to wake Jay. As soon as you wrap your arms around him, he flinches, waking up with his brows pulled together. 

“What are you doing?” Jay mumbles, trying to shake you off. 

As Heeseung sits beside Jake, he skims over the front page of the textbook, trying to remember what tensile strength means. Sunghoon stands at the end of the table looking at his phone, and you sit next to Jay, pulling your seat a little closer and letting him rest his head on your shoulder. Heeseung looks away, trying to bury the unease building in his stomach. 

Sunghoon breaks the silence. “Can we go get food?” And suddenly, you all stand up, filing out of the library towards the Tesco Express down the road. 

Jay and Sunghoon take the lead, picking up their lunch without much thought before waiting in line at the self-checkout, while you, Jake, and Heeseung spend an ungodly amount of time weighing up options in front of the meal deals. Heeseung gets the same thing every time but looks at every single sandwich, drink, and snack option just in case before picking up his food. 

“Just cheese is crazy, bro,” Jake says, shaking his head. “What’s wrong with you?” 

Heeseung shrugs. “It’s reliable.” 

“It’s absurd.” 

You hum between the two of them, tilting your head thoughtfully. “I don’t know, I think it’s cute.” Your shoulders rise and fall in a casual shrug, almost as if you haven’t just paid Heeseung a compliment for the first time in a year and three months. 

Jake’s eyebrows raise, a grin playing on his lips as he glances between the two of you when you step forward, pulling a just cheese sandwich from the shelf too. “Cute,” he repeats. “Sure.” 

Outside, Jay and Sunghoon are sitting on a half-finished brick wall, and while normally, Heeseung would say something to interrupt Jay’s never-ending lecture series on making the most of your meal deal, he doesn’t want to draw attention to himself or the small smile he’s struggling to keep off his face. 

“Hoon, think about it,” he says, resting his giant can of Red Bull on the stepped brick next to him. “A meal deal costs £3. You get a sandwich, a drink, and a snack, all for £3. You, foolishly, bought a sandwich, a snack, and a bottle of water, you gave them money.” 

“Yeah, man, anyone who shops anywhere gives money, that’s, like, an entry-level requirement.” 

“But I’m taking money from Tesco, you get it?” 

Jake sighs, taking a seat next to Sunghoon. “You’re technically right, but you still paid for your food under a promotion Tesco created. If you really wanted to take from Tesco, you should be stealing your lunch. Also, the sandwich he got was £2.85, and there’s more water in his bottle than Red Bull in your can, so I actually think Hoon got the better offer today.” 

Beside Heeseung, you roll your eyes, wrestling with a packet of crisps while juggling everything in your hands. Seeing your struggle, he reaches over, taking hold of your drink and sandwich. “Thanks,” you mumble, smiling. You glance towards Jay and Sunghoon, then back at Heeseung. “Are they always like this?” 

He nods with a slight frown. A tiny laugh comes through your nose as you nod too. 

During the walk back to campus, as you split your sandwich with Sunghoon, Heeseung has an unsettling realisation. If he wants to get you back, he’ll have to start out being your friend. He’s not too sure what that will look like, seeing as the two of you were friends for six weeks — that he spent hopelessly in love with you — before he asked you out. All he knows is he wants to be the one you share your lunch and link arms with unthinkingly. While he assumes that your shared friend group and three out of four classes will naturally lead to friendship, things might go better if he makes an effort.

He doesn’t.

Not today at least. The second and last class of the day ends much like the first, with a heading in his notebook, and slowly reviving butterflies in his stomach every time your knee bumps into his under the desk. Again, neither of you says much as you leave the class to go meet Jay in the library. He’s awake this time, grinning at the girl across from him. 

“They’re so cute!”

“They’re talking.” 

“Yeah, in a cute way. Look at the smile on his face,” you say as if anyone could miss Jay’s grin or the way it widens when he notices you and Heeseung staring. 

Yunjin immediately looks over, waving before getting out of her seat to come over. She greets Heeseung with a hug before flinging her arms around you, gushing about how it’s been so long. Heeseung feels his brow raise when you giggle and  say, “We hung out two weeks ago.”

She loosens her hold on you, looking down into your eyes with a shocked look. “Yeah, two weeks too many. What are you doing later?” 

It feels like Heeseung skipped a chapter and his stomach hurts when he realises he has—a whole year's worth of the contents of your life. Of course, Jay already introduced Yunjin to you, of course, you’re already friends. 

Leaving you with Yunjin in the library, Heeseung and Jay walk back to their flat. They take the long route home, through the winding bike path and over the creaky footbridge by Sunghoon’s old apartment. Jay is eerily quiet, only responding in nods and hums—this silence means one of two things, he’s either too exhausted to speak or he’s saving his words to reprimand Heeseung at home. 

Outside their flat, Jay hesitates, gripping the handle tightly before turning to Heeseung. In his eyes is a familiar look, the one he typically wears before telling someone off and Heeseung bites his tongue lest he pisses Jay off even more. A few times, Jay opens his mouth but doesn’t speak, exhaling a deep sigh as he rests his head against the door. “I want you to know I’m on your side, sort of,” he says. “If it’s too hard being around YN, we can always hang out together instead, just us.” 

Jay’s key clicks in the lock and Heeseung watches, shocked. He didn’t expect that at all. 

“It’s not like it’s hard, just weird, you know?” Heeseung runs a hand through his hair, leaving his shoes by the door while Jay locks it before following him into the living room and sinking into the couch. “We have the same friends, so I can’t avoid her, but I don’t think I want to.” 

“Like I said, we can just hang out on our own if we’re on campus.” Jay pauses for a beat, clearly pleased by whatever he’s thinking about as a smile spreads on his face. “It might do you some good being around her though, like, to see why none of us want to date her.” 

The offer is generous and Heeseung spends a while considering it. But as Jay said, it probably would be a good thing to hang out with you if he wants to build the friendship he finds himself craving. 

“It might also do you some good to, you know.. start looking nice again. It’s been a year, dude, and she’s back now, don’t you want her seeing what she’s missing out on?” 

Heeseung cocks his head to the side, surprised and honestly a little offended. “Are you saying I’m ugly now?” 

“No, I’m saying it probably wouldn’t hurt to put some essence in your hair, touch up your roots, and, you know, use deodorant.” 

Reflexively, he grabs the pit of his hoodie, bringing it to his nose and sniffing furiously. The only thing he can smell is fresh detergent and he looks at Jay with a frown. “So you think I should change everything about myself basically.” 

“I hate to be the one to say it..” Jay trails off, head falling back in contagious laughter. “Seriously though, if you want her back or, at least, want her to miss you, start putting some effort in.” 

Heeseung’s eyes are wide as saucers. “She doesn’t miss me?”

“You spent the whole day together, why would she miss you?” 

“So she doesn’t.” 

“I didn’t say that.” Jay shrugs. 

Outside, a cloud moves away from the sun, letting it shine right through the window and into Heeseung’s eyes. He squints a little, groaning before bringing his arm over his face to shield himself. Jay laughs and Heeseung flips him off. “You didn’t really say anything.” 

“Are you crying?” Jay coos. 

“Sure.” 

“Too bad, I’m taking a nap. Club later?” 

Heeseung grunts in response, considering taking a nap too. 

A dramatic sigh tugs its way from Jay’s chest. “Look, it’s not my place to say, but she told me a few months ago she was miserable in first year, something about wanting to see some guy she dated in high school.”

“You knew she was coming back?” Heeseung practically jumps in his seat, sitting up straighter. “You knew I’d see her today and you let me leave the house looking like this?” It’s not like he looks bad in his oversized black hoodie and sweatpants but he might have taken the time to do more than run a hand through his hair this morning if he knew.

Jay holds his hands up defensively. “You said you didn’t want to hear anything about her unless she died. I was just doing what you told me to.” 

“I think it goes without saying that that would’ve been a nice thing to know.”

“Noted.” Jay nods. “Club later?”

Despite saying no, Heeseung finds himself at the club anyway, having a friendly dance battle with Jay while you hype them up, filming blurry videos with your finger over the camera lens. Jake and Sunghoon came out too but went off to find girls. 

Heeseung spent all of pres and the journey to the club worrying about being drunk around you. Or rather, worrying about being drunk around drunk you. Drunk you who typically gets clingy and oversentimental just looking at a bottle of vodka, or brings up old memories and uses pouty, gloss-coated lips to say things without thinking of the consequences. For better or for worse, you haven’t done any of that yet. 

Between knocking back drinks and rivalling the club photographer, you find time to make a look of disgust every time a guy comes near you, immediately shaking your head and pressing yourself against Heeseung before mumbling an apology in his ear each time, even though he tells you it’s okay. Your admirers start to dwindle when he dances with you to a song you like, letting you hold his hand and pull him closer, all while wishing he’d stayed asleep on the couch. 

It’s only when the fifth guy shows up with a stupid smirk on his face, that Heeseung speaks up. His arm finds your waist and he holds you close as he looks at the stranger. “Dude, leave her alone,” he says, angling his shoulder to him in an attempt to shield you. “She’s not interested.” The weight of his words is lost on him until the guy rolls his eyes, shrugging and mumbling whatever as he leaves. 

He saw how uncomfortable you looked after being approached and hated how long it took for you to start enjoying yourself again, so in the moment, it seemed like the right thing to do. To look after you. But now, as he stands with his hand on your waist, his skin touching yours at the hem of your shirt, he’s starting to feel like he’s crossed a line. It’s the worst possible time to freeze in place but there’s nothing he can do about it, and Jay staring at him, with wide eyes and a dropped jaw, isn’t exactly helping. 

With embarrassment burning his cheeks and neck, Heeseung finally looks down at you. You look almost as shocked as Jay for a split second before letting your hand rest on his chest, smiling. The moment feels endless until you lean up to his ear and Heeseung has to bend down a bit. “Thank you, Hee,” you say, still smiling when you pull back. 

All he can do is nod, smiling too.

Over your head, he sees Jay grinning and the heat returns to his cheeks. As if suddenly aware of your position — your hands now resting on his shoulders, chests held together by your grip on each other — the smile falls from your face as you take a huge step back, bumping into Jay while Heeseung’s hand slips from your body. 

“Let’s get more drinks!” you yell to Jay, slinging an arm over his shoulders to pull him away. 

On his own, Heeseung dances to three whole songs, only stopping when Yoo Jimin wraps her arm around him, holding him in the world’s tightest hug. “Lee Heeseung, did I just see you all over a girl?” The interaction takes him by surprise, seeing as he hasn’t actually spoken to her since before summer. “Let’s go for drinks soon, to say congrats on finally moving on!” 

This, of course, is when you and Jay finally return. Jimin notices before he does. “Be good to him,” she yells, smiling, and never letting go of Heeseung. “Bad breakup!” 

You stand there, holding two drinks so tightly your hands start shaking, causing one to spill over your fingers. A strained smile spreads over your lips as you nod. “Right! I’ll try!” 

As quickly as she appears, Jimin vanishes with a smile on her face, pleased with herself. You visibly relax, handing Heeseung his drink and swaying to the music again. Just like at high school parties, you let Jay sling his arm over your shoulders as you dance together. Back then, you’d dance with all of your friends while waiting for Heeseung to return, usually with a cup of water for you to drink, but tonight, with Heeseung standing there, it seems like he’s as good as dead according to you. 

It’s around 2 a.m. when you and Jay decide you’ve had enough, with Jay struggling to keep his eyes open. After failing to locate Sunghoon and easily finding Jake with his cap on backwards and makeup all over his mouth and cheeks, the three of you let him know you’re going home. 

As seems to be the unspoken rule amongst your friends, Jay walks between the two of you while trying to convince you both that if you had fun tonight, there’s no reason to regret having gone out. Even if it means you’ll be sitting in class holding your eyes open. Heeseung ignores him, conspiring out loud about Sunghoon’s whereabouts—getting lost on his way to the restroom or finding an ice rink out back. 

For a while, you entertain him before sighing. “I saw in the chat, he said he’s out talking to a girl he saw wearing a band shirt—Nirvana.” 

The notion is so surprising that Heeseung almost stops in his tracks. Jay voices his shock with a raised brow and an incredulous tone. “Hoon listens to Nirvana?” 

“No, but she’s pretty. I had to send him a screenshot of their popular songs on Spotify when one of her friends came over looking for a lighter.” 

At Jay’s request, you and Heeseung spend the rest of the walk back to your flat trying to name fifteen Nirvana songs. By the time you reach the lift in your building, you’ve successfully listed nine and the three of you stand inside while you look for your keys. On your doorstep, you pull Jay into a tight hug, whispering something in his ear that makes him laugh as he pats you on the back and says, “You probably could.” 

Pathetically, Heeseung hopes you’ll hug him too. With no hesitation, you do, arms locking around his neck, leaving him with flushed cheeks and a racing heart. “Thanks for looking out for me,” you whisper, lingering by his ear before burying your face in the base of his neck. 

Heeseung holds his breath, counting to twelve before you lean away from him, your arms in place as you look up into his eyes. “I’m always going to look out for you,” he manages to say. He can already hear Jay teasing him about it when they’re alone, but the smile on your face is worth it. 

In your doorway, you wave goodbye and they wait outside until they hear your lock clicking before heading home, where Jay doesn’t tease Heeseung at all. 

Turns out, getting home at 3 a.m. when he has a class at 10 o’clock doesn’t fit in amongst any of his better ideas, but still, he gets out of bed and gets ready, heeding Jay’s advice and scheduling a hair appointment on his way to class. 

As soon as he sits down, he gets a text from Jay: thinking of getting smth pierced later, come with? 

Heeseung: what is smth.

Jay: cartilage probs

Heeseung: im getting my roots done at 5

Jay: okayyyyyyy good shit man !!! tmrw? 

Heeseung: 👍👍👍

It shouldn’t surprise Heeseung that you look good, but the sight of you walking through the door in your zip-up hoodie and jeans almost knocks the wind out of him. You’re holding your notebook to your chest, stopping in the middle of the stairs and sighing when the white strap of your tote bag slips from your shoulder to the crook of your elbow. You apologise to the people behind you before rushing up the stairs to Heeseung’s row, putting your things down and slumping into the seat beside him. The room suddenly feels warmer when you take off your hoodie and next to you and your bare arms, his heart starts to race.

“Do you have, like, an interview or something?” you ask, doodling in the margin of your notebook, filling the space with pretty butterflies that make his heart race.

Heeseung, who hasn’t looked for a job in two years, panics. “No?” 

“Oh.” You nod slowly, looking away from him. “A date? Maybe?” There’s something in your voice that makes him want to say yes and see your reaction, but the look on your face makes his stomach turn. 

“No, ne—just no.” 

“You can tell me if you’re going on a date.”

“Why would I go on a date?” 

You shrug, gesturing to his outfit. Heeseung looks down at himself and the cream-coloured cardigan he’s wearing. “You just look nice, that’s all,” you mumble after a while. Suddenly, Jay’s Prada loafers squeezing his toes doesn’t seem so bad and Heeseung sits through the whole lecture with a smile on his face. 

The leaves yellowed on October first, and unfortunately for Heeseung, the last two weeks didn’t play out how he hoped they would. Of course, he knew that you flinging your arms around him and confessing your love was probably a far stretch. But this is torture. You only talk to him when the rest of the boys are around, and even then, you only say things like, what time does class start? and do you have a pen I can borrow? 

His nice outfits don’t let up, but his hair is so long these days that you don’t take any notice of the throbbing hole through his cartilage that Jay somehow convinced him to get. Or so Heeseung tells himself because his ears stick out as far as his shoulders. 

Today marks the first time he’s sat in the library during the day for more than ten minutes, and it’s surprisingly busy. Most of his library trips take place in the early hours of the morning, playing his way through the Papa’s Gameria franchise on the computer next to Jake, who spends several minutes at a time staring at his fancy engineering software before clicking the mouse and staring again. So seeing the steady flow of students come in and out, setting up camp at their tables with headphones and thick binders, while groups of friends whisper amongst themselves, leaning back in their seats and gasping every now and then feels like a culture shock.

There’s about an hour until your class finishes, and he’s been sitting here for two hours already since his Music and Identity class ended, wondering if he’s making a mistake by waiting for you. Especially because he knows you’re not expecting him to. He’s at a table right by the library’s entrance, so you’ll see him on the way out and it can feel like a chance encounter. Uncharacteristically, he’s used this time quite wisely, deciding to go through the reading he was given on the role music plays in maintaining cultural identity among diaspora communities and making notes in the margins of his handout until your class is done. 

Impatience starts to settle in after thirty minutes so he texts you to see to ask if your class is over yet. Immediately, your response lights up his screen: yeah about an hour ago but i stayed home lmao what’s up :) 

Staring down at the message, he sighs, thumbs hovering over the keyboard as he tries to come up with something to say. This goes on for a while until he realises what he’s doing and his heart clenches. How did you go from spending every waking moment texting each other to clutching at straws for a valid reason to talk? 

At the very least, the smiley face you sent is doing wonders for his declining mood. 

Heeseung settles on, “i just left office hours and wanted to know if anyone was still around haha,” before hiding his face with his hands. 

oh nooooooo :( sorry dude, you reply. how’d it go? 

In the six years he spent by your side, he’s never known you to use the word dude—at least not with him. By the looks of things, it seems like your time away was spent studying Jake’s texting patterns or a secret other thing that makes his head hurt when he thinks about it. 

Sighing, Heeseung types back: good! had a couple questions after sem but it went well! 

You react to the message with a heart but don’t reply. He doesn’t have enough time to think about what that might mean because Mark approaches the table, clutching the straps of his backpack with a grin on his face that makes Heeseung feel at ease, like a wide-eyed first year riddled with anxious excitement. 

“You look good, man. You going somewhere nice later?” Mark asks, dapping him up. 

Heeseung shakes his head. “Just home.” 

“Nice.” Mark nods, gasping after a beat. “Did you hear? I made captain!” 

“That’s major, dude, congrats! I knew you would.” If anyone deserves to be team captain, it’s Mark Lee. He was captain of the basketball team in high school and vetoed his spot to Heeseung when he graduated. Two years later, when Heeseung came to college, Mark had been enthusiastic about him joining the team too. 

“I’ve been thinking that my first official act as captain should be getting you back on the team?” Mark’s voice tips up at the end, his brows raising hopefully. 

The last time Heeseung was on the home court, he cried with the ball in his hands because he overheard someone in the crowd saying they didn’t think he could make the shot—they were right. He laughs, shaking his head. “Way too much pressure in uni basketball. Thanks for thinking of me, though.”

“I’m not giving up on you,” Mark says, crossing his arms over his chest. “Oh, I hear your birthday’s coming up, can I host?” 

“Host what?” 

Mark’s hands clap soundlessly as he laughs. “A party, obviously! Twenty’s a big one! I’ll text you the deets, alright?” he asks, though it doesn’t sound like Heeseung has a choice because Mark’s already walking away, still laughing to himself.

In Heeseung’s eyes, there’s nothing better than knocking back (more than) a few bottles of soju with friends and singing your heart out in the four walls of a karaoke room. Worried about killing the mood, he enjoys from a distance, staying glued to the booth, ad-libbing for the boys and polishing off their drinks as discreetly as he can. The table is adorned with a collection of empty bottles and buckets of feasted-upon fried chicken that still envelop the room in a mouth-watering aroma, while a green strobe light pierces the air as Jake and Sunghoon wrap up their cover of Party Rock Anthem. 

By the time Jay manages to convince Heeseung to sing something, he’s four bottles in and searching for the most heart-wrenching ballad he can find. Sofa by Crush has always been his favourite karaoke song. Even when it first came out and he was in a happy relationship; even at home, alone in the kitchen, using a broom handle as a makeshift microphone, singing until his voice went hoarse and tears stained his shirt. 

It feels like fate when the song’s title flashes across the screen in big bold letters and he knows there’s no real way to ignore destiny, so he chooses it and stands up from his seat. Weighed down by alcohol and an aching heart, he stumbles to the front of the room to stand with his back to his friends. Clutching the mic until his knuckles turn white, he takes a deep breath, letting the intro wash over him before singing. He gets through the first half of the song before practically caving in on himself, too moved by the lyrics to stay on two feet. To Heeseung’s credit, he’s always had a beautiful voice, so he’s not exactly tanking in that respect, but if he was even a tiny bit more cognisant, he’d scrape himself up from his knees and finish the rest of the song in the same light-hearted way everyone else had.

The lights shift through red and blue, casting a pretty glow over the dim space and streaking purples and pinks all over the walls—aesthetically, the room is as moody as Heeseung feels. If he had eyes on the back of his head (or picked himself and his dignity from the floor) he might notice the way everyone else in the room is struck by his sadness, with all three boys sitting in solemn silence as a drunk Jay records the whole thing. 

Tired of watching his friend fall apart, Sunghoon gets up from his seat, muttering dick at Jay for filming before taking the phone from his hands and cutting off the recording. He lifts Heeseung at the armpits like a baby and takes the mic. Clearing his throat, Sunghoon half-heartedly finishes the rest of the song while Heeseung cries into his shoulder. Their duet scores them 63 points and Jay spends the next few minutes texting. Heeseung appreciates Sunghoon’s efforts, crying more as his emotions oscillate from love for his friend to yearning for you, all while Jake attempts to lift the mood with a genuinely moving performance of Highway to Hell. From the way he’s air-drumming and bouncing his leg to the song, anyone could tell that Sunghoon is desperate to join in, but holding back for Heeseung’s sake. With a hiccup, Heeseung wipes his tears with his sleeve and throws himself out to the front, accompanying Jake with an air guitar. It’s only during the start of the second verse that Jay and Sunghoon join in, and a full-fledged rock band moment falls upon them as if gifted from heaven. 

After another hour of singing and drinking, Heeseung and Jay race up their apartment building’s stairs. Panting heavily, with his heart beating in his throat, Heeseung’s knees ache when he reaches the top — though caught up in catching his breath and the sight of you sleeping against the doorframe — he can’t even celebrate his win. 

“Huh,” Jay says when he joins him. “How’d she get here?” 

Heeseung can only shrug in response. 

Suddenly self-conscious in your presence, he stands up straighter, pushing some of his hair off his forehead. Jay moves from behind him, approaching you, but Heeseung’s too hung up on the way you hold your jacket tight around your body to do the same. He wants to though—wants to help you out, pick you up and hold you in his arms, kiss your forehead and lovingly scold you for staying out in the cold. But he’s not drunk enough to convince himself you’ll take that well. 

Instead, he remains glued to the spot, watching Jay wake you up, only mobilising when you’re on your feet, stretching your arms above your head. To you, the sliver of skin peeking out where your shirt ends and your jeans begin is a fleeting detail, lost entirely under a veil of just-risen drowsiness. Yet, to Heeseung, it’s everything. It’s enough to make him want to beg you for a second chance right then and there. But he’s not drunk enough to convince himself you’ll take that well either. 

You’re talking with Jay and there’s a crease in your brow when Heeseung reaches you. Your voices were too quiet to make sense of with the distance but now he hears you loud and clear. “You told me almost two hours ago that you guys were leaving soon,” you sigh, rubbing your neck. 

Jay snorts, missing the keyhole a few times before catching it. “Should’ve just joined in, stupid.” 

“It was boy’s night and you made it very clear that I don’t count. And when I asked what bar you guys were at, you just said doesn’t matter, leaving in ten, and, by the way, none of it was spelt correctly. It felt like you were using code.” 

“Caesar Cipher, perhaps?” 

“Pig Latin, more like,” you scoff, leaning against the wall. 

A mischievous grin spreads over Jay’s lips and Heeseung already hates whatever he’s about to say. “Ixnay on the Eeseunghay.” Yeah, Heeseung hates it. He glances between the two of you, picking up on the smile you can’t hide as you roll your eyes. 

Your gaze finds Heeseung’s and your lips curl into a frown as you look back at Jay. “Otgay ityay.” You nod firmly. 

From context — and memories of numerous private conversations the two of you used to have in his presence — he figures it’s Pig Latin, a linguistic puzzle more intricate than any the English language has ever thrown at him. 

After a beat, you nod towards the open door. “Get inside.”

You follow the boys in and lock the door when Jay hands you his keys. He quickly heads to his room, leaving Heeseung shifting his weight from one foot to the other in the living room, staring at you. Save for Jay’s bedroom, all of the lights are off. The only light shines through the open blinds, a vivid orange beam coming from a streetlight outside, casting a harsh shadow over the room. The terminator line is stark—a clear partition between Heeseung, who’s standing in the shade, and you, who stands in front of the window, backlit by the warm light. You’re glowing. Or, at least, the lighting makes it look like you are—outlining all your edges in soft orange. 

Absently, he plays with the zipper on his jacket—unsure of what’s going on or why you’re here at all. It takes a while, but the words finally escape him. “What are you doing here?” Simultaneously, you ask if he’s okay. 

Even in the dark, your smile warms the room. For you and Heeseung, speaking in unison like that isn’t anything new, so it’s not enough to rouse a reaction from him—nonetheless, he smiles too. Whether by way of drunk optimism or his own sudden acceptance, Heeseung’s starting to feel as though maybe just being by your side, making you smile, might be enough for him. 

“Jay texted me, and I wanted to check in and see how you’re doing.” 

“What did he say?” 

“That you were having a hard time.”

Heeseung nods slowly. 

“Actually, he said—” You pause to check your phone. “—Jay said, worried but hyung he is m let down. I think he meant meltdown?” 

“Hyung,” Heeseung repeats, tilting his head as if the word is foreign to him. A crease runs along his brow, Jay is way drunker than he let on.

“Huh,” you utter, tilting your head too. “I actually thought m let down would’ve gotten a bigger reaction out of you.” 

A moment passes, and then another before Heeseung says, “You can sit if you want. I don’t know if you’re going to stay long or anything, but you can always sit here.”

You smile and he can hear it, watching you take your coat off before sitting on the couch. It’s a bit of a stretch from where you’re sitting but you reach over to turn on the lamp in the corner and Heeseung sits too, as far away as he can. You look comfortable, like you’re supposed to be there and the thought warms his heart.

“You didn’t have to come here. I’m happy you did but you didn’t have to,” he says after too long. 

A frown tugs your lips down. “Of course, I did. I care about you, Heeseung, you know that.” 

Now doesn’t seem like the time to argue, so he makes a mental note to mull over this later. “I know,” he lies, his voice nothing more than a mumble as he nods. 

“Did you guys have fun?” 

Deciding it best to pretend his Crush cover went well, he nods again, smiling as he thinks about the nice parts of boys’ night. With your encouragement, he talks happily for a while about their song choices and the way they all came together in the end. “I feel like we’d get on pretty well as an AC/DC tribute act.” 

“Do you know what room you were in? There’s got to be a way for me to pull the security footage and see for myself.” 

“I actually think Jimin works there, she might be able to hook you up.”

“Jimin?” you repeat in a different tone. The shift is so subtle that Heeseung barely picks up on it, never mind placing it or knowing what it might mean. If he were any more delusional, he might think you’re jealous, but the curiosity in your voice tells him to get out of his head. 

“Yeah, this one girl in the year above,” he explains. “She transferred to humanities so we had a couple classes together last term.” 

“Oh, cool.” 

He really can’t work out your tone and it’s disconcerting. Maybe he should talk about Jimin some more. “She’s like mega smart, and really nice too. She was actually at the club that night! The girl I was talking to when you and Jay went to get drinks,” he says, suddenly remembering. 

“Good for Jimin.” 

“I think you’d like her.” He smiles. “You know, if you’re looking for friends or anything.” 

You only nod, pressing your lips together and leaving Heeseung at a complete loss for words. He watches you chewing on the inside of your cheek, playing with the thread bracelet on your wrist. “I’ve always loved your voice,” you mumble, looking down.

“I know.. You used to beg me to stay up on the phone singing for you.” Heeseung presses his lips together after speaking, mentally locking them and throwing away the key.

You nod with a smile on your face that makes his stomach flutter. “You’re, like, the best guy ever.” 

That makes sense. That Heeseung could be like, the best guy ever but not quite good enough to stay with. He mulls over your words and contemplates setting himself on fire. Standing up from the couch, he goes over to his room. From the doorway, he says, “You can share Jay’s bed, it’s too late to go home by yourself.” 

Heeseung closes his door with plans to stay inside the whole night, but only manages an hour before he gets sick of the stale taste in his mouth. He leaves quietly, and in the light from outside, he sees you sleeping on the sofa with your hands tucked under your head. His heart sinks. Without much thought, he carries you to his room, tucks you in and runs away before doing something stupid like kissing your head to go and brush his teeth. Unlike you, he’s not afraid to wake Jay up, pushing the boy over to make room for himself on his bed, where he lays awake for hours trying to figure out what went wrong with you two until his head starts to hurt. 

In the morning, Heeseung doesn’t see you before you leave, but he spends the better part of an hour with his ear pressed against Jay’s door, eavesdropping on your conversation. If you weren’t talking about him he might feel guilty about this, but you are, so.. 

“I just feel bad, you know? I don’t know how to fit into his life and I feel like I’m only making things harder for him by being here,” you say. “Harder for everyone.”

Heeseung grips the doorframe until his knuckles turn white. He’s spent too much time thinking about how to be your friend without actually trying to be, too caught up in his own feelings to see how he’s affecting everyone else. The corners of his lips droop at the thought. 

“We’re happy to have you back, Heeseung too. He’s just.. hurting, you know? I’m not sure if you heard but he kind of got blindsided and dumped by his high school girlfriend,” Jay says. 

You laugh drily and he pictures the way you roll your eyes. “Hey, uh, random Q, what do you know about Jimin?” 

Jay’s quiet for a bit. Or he’s whispering. Heeseung presses his entire body to the door as if it’ll help. “Yoo Jimin?” he asks. 

“Probably. Heeseung’s friend.” 

“She’s cool,” he answers simply. “You’d like her.” 

“So I keep hearing. What’s going on with them?” 

“Nothing really. They met at some party last year, both pretty drunk, and somehow ended up in a random bedroom where she tried hooking up with him.” Jay’s words strike Heeseung like a jolt, his heart pounds and his stomach twists. It takes a lot for him and the knot in his stomach not to burst out of the room and clear things up. The main thing stopping him though, is that Jay’s telling the truth. “But he misread the whole thing and ended up detailing your entire relationship for two hours,” Jay adds after a while. 

“And now?” 

“Why do you care?” Jay’s tone is teasing but the question makes Heeseung spiral. 

His mouth starts to dry up at the thought of you admitting that you don’t care, that you’re over him and just being nosy. Panic swells in his chest and he jumps away from the door as if it’s red hot, scrambling back under the covers of Jay’s bed and falling back asleep. 

In the following two weeks, Heeseung finds himself mastering the art of avoidance. He fills his evenings with pick-up basketball games with Mark on random courts in the neighbourhood and rushes out of class before you have the chance to talk to him. Playing with Mark is fun, but he can’t ignore the regret festering within him, a persistent thorn in his side. Fortunately for him, Jay, whether knowingly or not, presents him with a potential turning point. He’s invited you and the boys over for pres before his party, instructing Heeseung to get his shit together and acknowledge your existence. 

On the night before his birthday, the apartment echoes with your voice, yelling at Jake to get off the floor. Sunghoon’s cackles only get louder, filling the space. Behind his closed bedroom door, Heeseung catches a panicked glance of himself in the mirror, running a hand through his hair and adjusting his bangs. He lingers in his room as long as he can, trying to put off seeing you.

Jay opens the door without knocking, a lazy grin on his face and a slight sway in his stance that tells Heeseung he’s drunk already. “What are you doing? We’re waiting.” 

“I don’t know,” he admits. 

Rolling his eyes, Jay lets out a tired groan. It’s an unspoken scolding that Heeseung heeds immediately, following him into the kitchen, where Jake is messily pouring shots on the counter. He doesn’t see you anywhere, but Sunghoon distracts him, cheering and wrapping his arms around him—also drunk already. “She’s in Jay’s room, Yunjin called,” he says. “Oh, yeah, happy almost birthday, man. Twenty is crazy.” 

By the looks of things, Sunghoon’s on a mission to kill Heeseung. Twenty shots for his twentieth birthday doesn’t sound like as much fun as Sunghoon thinks it does, it sounds like a punishment or a death sentence. Heeseung — put off by the smell of vodka — manages four shots before tapping out, deciding that he’d quite like to remember tonight and wake up on his birthday without a headache.

Heeseung’s eyes widen when you show up in the doorway, a confusing sense of surprise washing over him. It’s not like he didn’t know you were here; he heard you earlier. It’s just that your sudden presence catches him off guard. His heart skips a beat and a sudden rush of nerves courses through him. He takes in your appearance, his eyes tracing every inch of you before meeting your eyes. As you run your hand through your hair, you smile at him, so pretty and genuine that he can’t help grinning back.

Your dress is beautiful, of course—black satin, he thinks, with pretty pink ribbons tied into perfect bows on the top, and you’re the only girl Heeseung’s ever wanted in his life. 

A whispered whoa falls from his lips, which seem to rest in an ‘o’ as he stares at you. You’re looking away from him now, focused on the tequila puddle Jake’s left on the counter, grabbing some paper towels to mop it up. Jay snorts beside him, nudging his ribs hard. “You’ll catch flies, Heeseung. Come on—decorum, please.” 

Heeseung clears his throat, running a hand through his hair and wiping his palms on his pants, but he doesn’t make any moves towards you. 

“Do something,” Jay mumbles. 

He nods in response, repeating do something, over and over in his head until he finally approaches you. “Hey,” he says, breathless. His heart hammers in his chest when you look up at him, beaming. 

“Heeseung,” you say. “Happy almost birthday. How’re you feeling?” 

Before he has a chance to respond, you wrap your arms around his waist, and like it’s the most natural thing in the world, his arms fall around your shoulders, holding you close. It’s perfect. Some combination of your warm scent and alcohol causes the butterflies in his stomach to rage, fluttering so frantically he thinks he might be sick. 

“Insane,” he admits. 

He can hear you laughing, feeling your chuckles against his chest. “You know, what?” You lean away from him, arms still around his waist, eyes locked on his and a soft smile on your lips. “Me too.” 

An odd weakness settles in his knees, a dizzying flutter alighting his entire body as he nods. Over his shoulder, Sunghoon calls for him, chanting, “More shots! More shots!” For a while, Heeseung ignores him, watching you until he feels his ears heating up at the top. 

“I think I have to go,” he mumbles, eyes locked on your lips. They curl up into a crooked grin, and you use a hand to pat his chest. 

“Good luck.” 

Heeseung takes a deep breath when you let go of him, taking shaky steps towards his friend, who’s grinning widely enough to show his fangs. “Sorry to interrupt, I think you could use the help though,” Sunghoon says, holding out a shot glass to him.

He shakes his head at the shot, taking it from Sunghoon’s hand and placing it down on the table. “I need a minute.” 

Sunghoon only shrugs, taking the drink himself, knocking it back with no visible reaction, and Heeseung thinks he must be a monster. “I really think you could fix things tonight,” he says afterwards, pouring another. 

Instead of taking this in stride, Heeseung decides to pretend you don’t exist after hugging you—it’ll be easier that way. To him, this looks like staring at you in your pretty dress and snapping his neck in the opposite direction when you look over at him. 

To appease Sunghoon, he takes another three shots and has to sit down, overwhelmed by the way his cheeks burn and how the kitchen starts to tilt around him. His mouth is oddly dry; a sensation that has nothing to do with you or the way you look in your dress. This time when you catch him staring, he smiles. 

Even in his beyond-tipsy state, Jay manages to ensure everyone leaves the flat before requesting an Uber. Heeseung finds himself sitting cross-legged on the pavement, for some reason, scrolling through his camera roll. 

“Car’s here, get up,” Jay eventually mumbles, nudging his back with the tip of his shoe.

With some stumbling, Heeseung stands up, dusts off his pants and heads to the car. Jay holds the door open for you, and as you slide across the backseat, your dress rides up. Heeseung screws his eyes shut, shaking his head to clear his thoughts, like resetting an etch-a-sketch. Jay’s hand claps his back as he instructs him to get in, which he does. Hesitantly, he slides into the middle seat, glancing to his right to see who’ll be joining you. 

“You’ll thank me later!” Jay calls out, closing the door. 

Before he even has a chance to shift over, your hand lands firmly on his knee, silently urging him to stay put. With a pounding heart, he complies. The back of his hand brushes against your thigh as he fastens his seatbelt, and the feeling of your soft skin against his leaves him breathless. He feels afloat when the car starts moving. A few minutes pass before you take your hand from his knee, mumbling an apology as you place it on your lap, idly playing with your fingers.

Mark lives about twenty minutes away, leaving Heeseung with something close to sixteen minutes to think of something to say. R&B from the early 2000s rumbles through the speakers in the car, vaguely explicit lyrics alluding to something he’s craving fill the space around the two of you, wrapped up in your warm vanilla scent and the fresh peppermint gum you’re chewing. To put it simply, there’s not a coherent thought in his head he could express that wouldn’t get him into trouble. 

“I didn’t know you were on the basketball team,” you say after a while. “Well, I did know, but you know.” 

“I don’t know,” he admits quietly because he has no idea what you’re talking about. 

A beat passes before you speak again. “How was your day?” 

The first thing on his mind is what falls from his lips. “You look beautiful,” Heeseung blurts out, trying to ignore the tinge of anxiety that’s irritating his stomach. “Your dress is.. It’s really pretty,” he adds, feeling as though he won’t lose anything by putting everything on the table. 

“Thanks.” You smile. “You look beautiful too.” 

Heeseung’s breath hitches in his throat and he looks down at his outfit in the dark. If Jay hadn’t interfered, he’d be wearing a hoodie and sweatpants right now, but he’s happy with the simple striped shirt and loose pants Jay suggested, even if it leaves him a little chilly. “It’s, uh, it’s actually my birthday party tonight,” he supplies uselessly.

You laugh, and it’s the best sound he’s ever heard. “I kind of just meant in general.” 

“Me too.” 

The car falls silent as he lets his head fall into the space between the headrests and closes his eyes. When you reach Mark’s house, he opens them and finds you staring with a smile. “I thought you fell asleep,” you say.

He shakes his head, sliding over the backseat and opening the door. He didn’t expect you to leave from the same side as him, but he likes the heat on his cheeks as he closes the door for you. Wordlessly, the two of you go through the gate and join Jay, Jake, and Sunghoon who are sitting cross-legged on the porch, giggling around a shared joint. He has no idea how they arrived before you did. 

Heeseung isn’t sure how he loses you guys but it’s not until his third round of beer pong that he actually notices. Lee Jeno and his red eyes are a poor shot, barely managing to throw the ball without hitting Heeseung’s chest or dropping it before he gets to aim. He almost feels bad for the guy when he sinks another one of his cups, watching Jeno frown before pinching his nostrils shut and taking a big gulp. 

Jay’s sudden presence startles him, though he’s quick to grin at his best friend. The smile isn’t returned. Instead, he leans up to Heeseung’s ear, yelling that YN’s crying before nudging his way out of the room. His heart sinks and he offers no explanation to Jeno, following Jay upstairs and into the bathroom where he finds you, sitting on the floor, crying into Sunghoon’s shirt while Jake watches with a frown, picking at his nails. 

“What happened?” 

Jake talks with a hushed tone while Sunghoon helps you up before leaving. “She didn’t say anything, she just asked us to go to the bathroom with her and started crying.” He opens his mouth to continue but Jay yanks him out of the room, closing the door. 

“I’m not, like, upset or anything,” you say after a while, wiping your eyes with the back of your hands. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’m sorry. I really didn’t want to ruin tonight for you so I told Jake not to say anything, but obviously, he didn’t listen.” 

“Jake did the right thing telling Jay, none of us want to see you upset.” 

“I’m not upset.” You hit Heeseung’s chest with a weak fist, crying more. “Why does everyone think I’m upset?”

“It might be the tears,” he offers, feeling good about making you smile. 

“Yeah, maybe.” 

“Are you using a new liner? Mascara? You still look good.” 

You take a look in the mirror, resting your hands on the edge of the sink. “Yeah, I discovered waterproof makeup in first year.” 

“Is it harder to take off?” 

“Definitely, but it’s worth it, I think, for nights like this.” 

“Yeah, right.” Heeseung nods, watching you carefully as he sits on the edge of the bathtub. It’s like being in high school, seeing you like this. Most of the parties you went to were spent in the bathroom, with Heeseung holding your hair back and trying to calm you down after throwing up. He misses all of it except the vomit. “Are you okay?” 

Catching his gaze in the mirror, you nod but look down at your hands when he says your name. “It’s just a little harder being back than I thought it would be.” 

“Oh.” 

You sigh, playing with your hair as you sit down next to him. “Obviously it’s great seeing the guys all the time, seeing you all the time, but everything’s fucked and we act like strangers and it’s killing me not being able to just..” you trail off. Heeseung is clearly drunker than he feels because it looks like your eyes are stuck on his lips. After a beat you slide away from him, moving until your back hits the wall. A mixture of frustration and something else colours your face. “I just don’t like treating you like a stranger and I don’t know how to fix it.” Before he has a chance to think or to say anything you ask him for the time. 

“It’s 12:23.” 

“Happy birthday!” you say, smiling. “Am I the first to say it?” 

“You’re always first.” Even last year, you sent a text at midnight, so Heeseung’s not sure why there’s a surprised look in your eyes or why it’s making him want to kiss you more than usual. “You don’t have to treat me like a stranger if you don’t want to,” he says carefully, trying to get you both back on track. 

“I don’t know how I’m supposed to act around you.” 

His voice is soft when he says, “Honestly, neither do I.” 

“I wish I never left.” 

“Everything happens for a reason, I guess.” Despite the small smile on his face, he’s still trying to understand what reason you had. 

An exhaled laugh comes from your nose and you nudge him. “Were you secretly trying to get rid of me?” 

“You caught me,” he sighs, holding out his hands in defeat. “I had this whole elaborate plan. I was going to fake my death, but you saved me the trouble. Thanks for that.” 

Both of you share a genuine laugh and the tension in the air eases up a bit. Heeseung’s eyes meet yours; a brief moment of silence follows. You clear your throat. “I’m sorry for leaving. I really wish things could’ve been different.” 

It can’t be your intention to hurt him by saying that, but you do, leaving Heeseung feeling the full spectrum of his emotions. A pang of hurt, of longing—hurting himself even more as he thinks about the could-have-beens. He purses his lips, looking down at his shoes. “Me too.” Sick of the tension, of his feelings, he glances at you, sitting up a little straighter. “How about we start fresh? Clean slate?” 

“Clean slate?” you echo, raising an inquisitive brow. 

Heeseung nods, determined, extending his hand for you to shake. “I’m Heeseung.”

“YN,” you chuckle, taking his hand in yours. 

He holds onto it, a playful grin tugging at his lips. “Funny, you look just like my ex.” 

Your eyes widen, amused. “Wow, Hee, you always know just what to say.” 

The two of you sit quietly for a moment, but Heeseung’s just glad you’re not crying anymore. He feels lighter now, hopefully you do too. Standing up, he holds out a hand to help you get to your feet which you take, smiling up at him as you straighten out your dress. 

“You know,” he says, clapping his hands together. “For a second there, I thought I’d need a manual on how to talk to you again, but I think we’re doing pretty well.” 

Heeseung feels pleased with himself when you laugh, rolling your eyes and nudging his chest with your hand. “Shut up,” you say, light and playful. 

“Are you ready to get back to the guys?” 

You smile at him, nodding before quickly turning back to the mirror. “Do I look okay?” 

It doesn’t make sense to Heeseung that a girl as beautiful as you could ever look just okay. Even with the slight swell to your glassy eyes, you’re the most perfect person he’s ever seen. But he can’t say that. So instead, he pulls a sharp breath through his teeth, tilting his head a bit and raising his hand in a horizontal gesture, his fingers wobbling as if balancing an imaginary scale. A  non-committal sound escapes him, a soft eh before he laughs at the way your jaw drops. 

You punch his arm. “Heeseung!” 

“Come on, you know you look great,” he mumbles, looking away to hide the flush in his cheeks. The sound of your lips spreading into a smile makes his stomach flutter as he opens the door to find Jay, Jake, and Sunghoon sitting cross-legged in the hall in front of it.

“Birthday boy!” Jay yells, springing to his feet and flinging his arms around Heeseung. 

“And YN!” Jake adds from his seat. 

Heeseung hears you saying thanks to Jake before sitting next to him. 

“So, did you two kiss and make up or what?” Jay’s attempt at whispering is futile and somehow Heeseung’s cheeks burn even more as he frees himself from his friend’s hold. 

“Kiss, no. Make up, yes.” 

“Playing the long game, I like it.” Jay grins, patting Heeseung on the back. “Sit down, let’s talk.” 

Heeseung sits in the space next to Sunghoon, holding his legs awkwardly to his chest. He’s not entirely sure what’s happening and he feels like he’s not drunk enough anymore to fully relax into it, until you leave Jake’s side, crawling over to Heeseung and resting your head on his shoulder. In the dim hall, the boys shuffle around but it’s too dark to see what they’re doing—not that he cares much at this point, letting his head rest on top of yours and closing his eyes. It almost sounds quite pretty when they start singing Happy Birthday, and Jake has a tiny lunchbox cake in his hands when Heeseung opens his eyes. Its purple-frosted TWENT-HEE is disrupted by a half-smoked joint stuck in the centre which the flash on Sunghoon’s phone provides a makeshift flame for. 

“Make a wish!” you squeal, clapping your hands. 

It takes three attempts for Heeseung and Sunghoon to coordinate the timing between his exhale and Sunghoon turning the flash off, but the candle is blown out, and, right now. Heeseung has everything he’s ever wanted. 

Almost. 

Heeseung wakes up pressed against the wall with an arm wrapped around his waist. An embarrassing surge of excitement courses through him as he thinks about your conversation and puts his hand over yours. What he’s met with is less of the softness he’d anticipated, and more of the coarse skin and defined knuckles he’s come to recognise as Jake’s hand under the duvet. It only takes a look over his shoulder to make sense of why Heeseung’s nose is grazing his bedroom wall. Behind him is Jake, who’s being spooned by you, and behind you is Sunghoon who’s clinging onto your frame for dear life, even in his slumber. Evidently, Jay’s had a successful night and with his unwavering loyalty to Yunjin, it’s not hard to figure out what happened in the room across the hall.

With his eyes pressed shut, desperate to clutch some more sleep, he hears you mumbling. “Park Sunghoon, if you don’t wake up and let go of me, I’ll kill you,” you say with a tone that frightens Heeseung and sets off a flutter in his stomach. The yelp and thud that follow seem to wake Jake up and he crawls over you to get out of bed, stretching his arms out above his head and making no effort to step over Sunghoon on the floor. You roll over in the bed, wrapping an arm around Heeseung’s waist and pressing yourself into his side. “Happy birthday,” you say through a yawn before getting up. 

He manages to mumble a thanks, butterflies running wild in his stomach and a flush creeping up his neck as he watches you leave the room, eyes stuck on the way your hips move in last night’s dress. He gets out of bed, sighing, untucking his shirt to cover the tightness in his pants before joining his friends in the kitchen. 

Hungry but unmoving, you and the boys occupy the three seats at the small kitchen table, harping on about the different things as Jake whines, begging you to keep it down. 

Heeseung’s first intense emotion as a sober twenty-year-old is betrayal. There are used dishes lying in the sink, plates, mugs, and pans — two of each — staring up at him, wafting the scent of a cooked breakfast, with no leftovers in sight, up to his nostrils. He sighs, wondering if it’s his responsibility as host, and eldest friend, to make more food for everyone, or if, as the birthday boy, he should sit around and wait for someone else to take action. Settling on the latter, he sights up on the countertop, sure to keep his back to you so he doesn’t have to see the low neckline of your dress.

Finally, Jay comes back, whistling an unfamiliar tune and twirling his keys on his finger when he reaches the kitchen. “Hello,” he says simply, leaning against the doorjamb as if he hadn’t single-handedly ruined Heeseung’s birthday. 

Sunghoon rubs his eyes, looking in Jay’s direction. “So now, if I want a nice breakfast after a night out, do I have to fuck you?” 

Jay’s cheeks flush as he looks at his feet. “I mean, I planned to cook for you guys when I got back.” 

“I don’t want your sloppy seconds,” he scoffs, slumping in his chair. 

“I do, Jay. Cook for me,” you say, gesturing toward Jay’s general direction making grabby hands at him.

With a gentle smile, he crosses the room and pats your head. “What are you in the mood for?”

“Anything,” you mumble into his shirt. 

Jay nods, going over to the fridge. He stands in front of it with his hands on his hips, completely still for almost two minutes and Heeseung only approaches him because he’s worried about the outside heat getting on all the food through the open door. 

“What are you doing?” he asks, uttering his first sentence of the morning. 

Jay clears his throat, scratching the back of his neck as he leans towards Heeseung. “I, uh, finished the eggs, milk, and bacon.” A nervous look covers his face before he continues. “And we ate your Hello Kitty pancake mix,” he adds, mumbling like he doesn’t want to be heard. 

Unfortunately, he is, and Heeseung’s mortified. “My Hello Kitty pancake mix?!” He takes a deep breath, pinching the bridge of his nose. “YN got that for me, we were supposed to make those together.” His voice is as whiny as his volume will allow, and he struggles not to stomp his feet. 

“Oh, you were? How’d that work out?” Jay’s words are cutting. 

“Okay, ouch.” 

“Dude, it was expiring next week. Plus, Yunjin just looked so cute when she saw it—I had to.” 

“What if I wanted to make them this week?” 

“You’ve had the box for two years,” Jay reminds him. “Think of Yunjin.” 

With a sigh, Heeseung actually does think of Yunjin. Although the girl he envisions is different from the one Jay wants him to imagine. 

They met on the first day of university. She had a guitar strapped to her back, and a huge amp in hand when she approached him. Her eyes were wide with nervousness or excitement; Heeseung couldn’t tell which. Immediately, she extended her free hand for him to shake. “Yunjin,” she said. 

“No.” He shook his head while pointing at himself. “Heeseung.” From the way she laughed at his stupid joke, he knew she was the next girl Jay would fall for.

Jay had a habit of falling in love with the first girl to do something nice for him on any given day. And then the next girl. But after hearing Yunjin talk about her gap year, spent learning guitar seriously, Heeseung had a feeling things were going to change for his friend. He was right. 

The memory, along with the satisfaction of having figured those two out from the beginning, brings a warm smile to Heeseung’s face. “You owe me.” 

“Yeah, whatever. I owe you,” Jay scoffs, though the slight furrow in his brow suggests genuine remorse. “Just so you know, they weren’t special or anything.. just pancakes, you know?” 

Heeseung chuckles despite himself. “Are you trying to make me feel better?” 

“Maybe a little,” Jay shrugs. To his credit, it works. 

At least until Heeseung’s stomach grumbles, a noisy reminder of why they’re standing there in the first place. He also learns the hard way that the fridge starts to beep when you leave it open too long. Jay laughs through his nose, closing the door with his elbow. 

“What are we eating?” 

Jay seems to think about this for a minute, tilting his head and suggesting McDonald’s. 

If asked, Heeseung probably wouldn’t have said he pictured spending the morning of his twentieth birthday squished between Jake and Sunghoon in a sticky booth, but he’s here and can’t find anything to complain about as he inhales his breakfast. Too caught up in the way his hoodie drapes over you, he listens half-heartedly as you all quiz Jay on his night. It seems like he’s being pretty tight-lipped about the whole thing but the dreamy grin on his face is hard to miss. 

Eventually, you all pile back into Jay’s car, with Heeseung sitting shotgun as a birthday gift, that he doesn’t get to fully enjoy because he falls asleep as soon as the car starts moving. He sinks into the front seat, a contented smile playing on his lips as the warmth of the sun and his full stomach lull him into a peaceful nap. 

At home, he thanks Jay before crawling into bed where he replies to messages before letting his head fall into the pillow.

His eyes don’t even close all the way before you come into the room. “Can I nap in here?” 

Heeseung nods, watching you get comfortable under his duvet. In a matter of seconds, you’re just an arm’s reach away, softly snoring with your back to him. Meanwhile, he spends four hours laying completely still, trying to convince himself that the heat radiating from your sleeping form doesn’t make him miss you more. 

At around 3 p.m. when everyone wakes up, you and the boys hurry away for various mumbled reasons, leaving Heeseung home alone, trying to practise his surprised face for whenever you’re all back with cake and a gift. 

You don’t return until Heeseung’s hair has started to dry after his shower, but you waste no time shuffling around the kitchen before coming back with a pretty cake and real candles with a real flame, singing for him again. With the way Jake’s rushing him, Heeseung can’t come up with a wish in time, so blows out the candles with a clear mind. 

“Woo!” Jake cheers, clapping around a wrapped present that he immediately thrusts into Heeseung’s hands. “Open it!” 

He barely gets to peel the first piece of tape before he jumps off the couch and kneels down next to him. “It’s LEGO! The Infinity Gauntlet, you know? And the best part is..” Jake pauses dramatically. “You get to put it together with your best friend, Jake! Right now!” His excitement is endearing even though he’s ruined the surprise. “The others can help too, I guess.” 

You frown at him. “I paid for the kind lady at the LEGO store to gift wrap that for us.” 

“Yeah, and she did great!” Jake grins. “Can I help you open it? Please, Heeseung, please. You’re taking forever.”

With a smile, Heeseung hands the box to Jake, letting him open it carefully before Sunghoon joins in, tearing the paper to shreds all while Jay records the whole moment like a proud father. All five of you are sitting on the floor now, covered in wrapping paper while Jake holds the LEGO set up like it’s his, blinking hard at the camera with a smile on his face, and it’s Heeseung’s favourite birthday yet. 

my girl: who wants to take me on a date?

Heeseung knows he should probably change your contact name but the notification still makes his cheeks burn in a way he thinks he likes.

jake: heeseung probably 

jake: idk tho

my girl: ok heeseung come to the museum with me for class

sunghoon: next time open with the museum thing holy shit.. i almost fucking volunteered

heeseung: when?

my girl: i would have rejected you hoon

my girl: whenever ur free !

Heeseung’s schedule always has a way of clearing up when it comes to you, and he skips pick-up with Mark to pick you up at your door that evening. You answer right when Heeseung knocks, sliding some rings onto your fingers with a smile on your face, saying, “Hello.” 

“You..” Heeseung swallows, nodding his head. He’s doing his best not to check you out but he really can’t help it when your jeans seem to fit like they were made for you. “Hi,” he whispers. 

“Hey.” 

He clears his throat, finally managing to unstick his gaze from your thighs and gestures in the direction of the stairs. “Shall we?” 

At the train station, you don’t object when Heeseung pays for your ticket, he didn’t mean to, his finger just clicked through for two tickets instead of one. He’s happy when you don’t make a big deal about it, only smiling and thanking him when he hands you the ticket. He stands close behind you, protective, letting the peak-time commuters nudge past him instead of you as you wait in line for the only working ticket barrier. You go through first and Heeseung quietly follows, trying to keep his eyes off your ass and praying that the rest of the day goes by more comfortably than it’s started. 

The train is packed too, so you stand by the doors and, again, Heeseung stands maybe a little closer than necessary, his arm above his head gripping the yellow handrail. “Why did you want to go to the museum anyway?” he asks, gulping when you look up at him. 

“I’ve always liked museums.” You shrug, playing with the buttons on your cardigan. 

“I know, it’s just.. You said earlier you wanted to go for one of your classes.” 

“Right. It’s a requirement for one of them. Visualising Culture,” you explain, looking him in the eyes. Suddenly nervous, he doesn’t trust his voice to speak so he nods, keeping his gaze fixed on yours. “Museum and Exhibition Studies.” 

“Cool.” 

“Yeah.” You nod and turn your head from him, looking through the window. 

Your eyes are stuck on the trees outside, blurring into each other, and his eyes are stuck on the side of your face, staring shamelessly for the rest of the journey. A tinny voice announces the name of the station you’re approaching, and you nudge Heeseung gently, a silent signal that it’s time to leave. Silence seems to follow you out of the station and into the museum, but he tells himself he doesn’t mind. 

For the last hour, you’ve been looking at artwork without taking note of anything or making comments, all while Heeseung observes you, wondering what you’re supposed to be doing for class. “What’s the point of this trip?” he finally asks. 

Without backing away from the painting, you turn your head to look at him, raising a brow. “What do you mean?” 

“Like, what’s your task?”

You chew on your lip for a bit before looking back at the painting. He can’t help but wonder if in all your time away you’ve been flexing some sort of elitist muscle, or if it’s come about as a result of your fancy exhibition studies class that you had to take a test to be accepted into. Finally, you lean away from the painting and use your phone to take a picture of the blurb before looking at him again. 

“I wanted an excuse to get someone to come to the museum with me and I wanted it to be you.” 

Your words are so cute and so honest that his heart warms in his chest, even as he ignores his sadness about the fact you felt like you needed an excuse to hang out. “You could have just asked me.” 

Considering his words, you frown, tilting your head at him. “You make it sound so easy.” 

“It is easy, or it should be, it’s us,” he says unthinkingly. Clearing his throat, he scratches the back of his neck. “I mean, that’s, like, the whole point of having friends, right? To hang out with them?” 

“Well.. yes. I just.. I don’t know.” 

Somehow, this makes perfect sense to Heeseung who only nods his head, moving on from the frame when you do. It’s nice watching you admire the art, to watch the soft smile that develops as your eyes scan the canvas. 

You like looking at the paintings when no one else is, to get up close and try spotting the brush strokes. You like imagining the artist and how they might have felt as they painted, and when the paint is thick, protruding from the canvas, when you can see streaks of yellow peeking through a sludgy green. You have a lot to say about the paintings and how they make you feel, and how they don’t make you feel, finding something you like in all of them.

After a while, you grab Heeseung’s hand and excitedly pull him through all the Ancient Egypt stuff, and he’s too happy that his fingers are locked with yours to worry about his aching feet anymore, and you’re so cute with your wide grin that he doesn’t have the heart to tell you he’d like to sit down. He hates you a little when the two of you take turns writing your names in hieroglyphs, and you somehow manage to maintain your neat handwriting. But you make up for it by writing his name too, drawing a pretty butterfly at the end that makes his heart race.

You start rambling about shabtis and how people were typically buried with a few, depending on their wealth and status, but Tutankhamun was buried with something like four hundred, and some of them were even painted to look like him. “Look at how pretty this one is,”  you say, grinning while holding your phone in his face with a picture of one. Your excitement peaks when you reach the big sarcophagus, and you let out a squeal when you open it and three kids run out, bursting into a fit of giggles. You’re excessively cute when you ask him to take a picture of you, and then make him take a video opening the front while you're ‘dead’ inside it. Which takes a few attempts because you’re laughing each time.

You tell him to delete those takes. He doesn’t.

Right when he’s expecting you to get out, you grab him by the wrist and pull him in with you, closing the front of it before letting go of him. Heeseung is certain he’s lived this exact moment before, but he was seventeen and you were giggling like crazy, feeling around in the dark for his shoulders to wrap your arms around before kissing him. He has no idea what he’s supposed to do or what you want him to do, and the feeling of your breath fanning his neck in the tight space isn’t helping. 

Silent minutes pass by like hours until a kid pulls the sarcophagus open. The light is blinding but Heeseung steps out, relieved, almost thanking the kid for saving him. You’re fiddling with your necklace and struggling to meet his eyes. When you do though, you shoot him an easy grin, laughing to yourself about nothing. 

“Do you want to get something to eat?” Drinks maybe?” you ask after a while, playing with the zipper on your jacket. 

Heeseung takes you to a restaurant where university students he’s only seen on Instagram walk around like they own the place. A tired-looking guy comes to take your orders before you even have a chance to take your coat off so Heeseung asks for a minute and the waiter leaves. There’s something in his demeanour though that makes it seem like you only have one full minute to make up your minds. 

“What do you want to drink?” you ask, holding the drinks menu out to him. 

Heeseung closes it, sitting it on the table. “Probably a beer.” 

You laugh at this. “You don’t have to act all manly in front of me.” There’s a soft look in your eyes like you mean it. 

“I actually like beer these days.” 

Your brows raise and your jaw drops before you utter the word whoa. 

“What?” he asks, suddenly self-conscious. 

You shrug, collecting yourself. “You’re just.. different now.” 

The very prospect of being different is shocking to Heeseung who prides himself on being pretty consistent with his behaviour. His brows knit together as he tilts his head. “Because I like beer?” he asks, scoffing slightly at the mere suggestion. 

“I mean, that’s part of it.” To his dismay, this seems to be the end of your sentence. He gives you a little nod, hoping you read his mind and elaborate like he wants you to. “You bleached your hair, pierced your cartilage, what’s next? Are you going to tell me you have a tattoo?” 

Heeseung feels his breath catch in his throat when you say the word tattoo but you don’t seem to notice. “It’s been a year,” he points out, folding the corner of his napkin, pressing his thumb against it with enough pressure to leave a defined fold and have it stick up a little when he lets go. 

“I know, it’s just.. weird, you know?” Your voice is small when you speak, soft and quiet, barely anything above the noise around you both.

Heeseung nods. He does know. 

“You’re weird too.” 

“How?” There’s a defensive tone to your voice that makes him chuckle. 

“You’ve always been weird.” 

A dramatic frown curves your lips and the waiter is back before you can object. Leaning forward slightly, he orders for both of you, the sharing platter of fried chicken, your French Martini, and his controversial draught beer. He doesn’t miss the way you raise your brows when he orders the beer, as if you’d been waiting to catch him out or something. After the waiter leaves, Heeseung meets your gaze briefly, matching the gentle smile on your lips before looking away. 

The drinks only take a few minutes and you thank the waiter before looking over at Heeseung, a mischievous glint in your eyes as you slide your cocktail over to him. “Do you want to try?” 

He nods, lifting the glass and moving the straw out of the way to take a sip from the rim. Nodding his head, he hums in approval, eyes widening. “It’s good.” 

You lean back in your seat, twirling the straw when he hands the drink back to you. “Yeah?” you ask, smiling triumphantly as if you made it yourself. “A normal person would’ve used the straw.” 

Heeseung can’t help but roll his eyes, liking the way you laugh. “Are you acting out because I called you weird?” 

“A little.” 

The waiter places the platter at the centre of the table with a small smile, that you match, clearly hungrier than you’d been letting on as you lick your lips at the sight of the chicken. Heeseung’s stomach grumbles quietly as the scent hits his nose and he feels like he hasn’t eaten in days when a plate lands in front of each of you. A comfortable familiarity settles over him when he lets you pick first, and he knows you feel it too from the sweet smile you give him before eyeing the food. You take a while considering every wing, even though all of the pieces are scarily identical, before picking one and Heeseung follows, choosing with much less care than you, but enjoying it nonetheless.

Under your light-hearted scrutiny, he orders a cocktail the next time the waiter comes around. It’s much better than his beer, and so quickly, one cocktail turns into two until both you and Heeseung are four drinks in, laughing over nothing and putting in an effort not to slur your words together. 

Time seems to pass at the same rate as your drinks, though neither of you seems to notice until you check the time on your phone and your mouth falls into a gasp. Heeseung does the same when you show him your screen, you only have ten minutes to make the fifteen-minute walk back to the station so you can catch the last train. 

He gets up to settle the bill as quickly as humanly possible before you grab him by the hand and book it out of the restaurant. Though breathless, he knows he can’t let up, running as fast as his legs will carry him as he tugs you along behind him. Somehow you still have it in you to cackle every time either of you trips up. 

Out of breath, you both slump into the first seats you find, sobering up a little after the run. He looks at you and feels his heart snag in his chest. “You okay?” he asks, huffing out a breath that pushes his bangs into the air.

“No,” you whine, pouting and resting your head on Heeseung’s shoulder. He lets his head rest on top of yours reaching his hand out to grab your own. He squeezes it gently, in a way he hopes is comforting. You lock your fingers with his before he can pull away and Heeseung’s heart starts pounding again. 

He doesn’t realise you’ve fallen asleep until the train reaches your stop and you don’t react. He doesn’t want to wake you up, nor does he want to let go of your hand, but he knows he has to. Heeseung nudges you gently, rousing you from your sleep. “Let’s go,” he mumbles. 

Stretching your arms above your head, you nod while yawning. 

You take tired steps alongside him on the short walk back to your apartment, not saying anything until you reach your doorstep when you yawn once more, looking up at him. “I actually had fun today, thanks for hanging out with me.” 

“Actually?” Heeseung raises a brow. “Did you think you wouldn’t?” 

You shrug, chewing on your lip. “I thought it might be awkward.” 

“It kind of was.” 

“Maybe,” you admit with a nod. “It was a pretty successful first date though.” Your eyes are like saucers as your hand flies up to cover your mouth. “Not in that way. I’m only saying ‘date’ because that’s what I said in the chat—I would’ve called it a date if Hoon came with me, you know? I didn’t see this as a date if that’s what you’re thinking. Because it wasn’t. And I didn’t.” 

“Mhm,” Heeseung hums with a sceptical look on his face, finding amusement in watching you scramble to correct yourself. “First dates are always awkward, baby, don’t worry.” The endearment slips out before he can help it, his heart stopping in his chest until he sees you smiling. 

“Well, yeah, but this wasn’t a date, baby.” 

“Are you sure? I mean, you made me pay for your train ticket, I paid for dinner and drinks. As far as first dates go, I’ve been a perfect gentleman all night.” 

“That you have.” You nod once, firmly. “I’m not going to pay you back or anything. And this is hardly our first date.” 

Heeseung grins despite himself. “Is this your way of saying I can bill you for our other dates? Do you have savings?” 

Your head falls back in laughter, the sound infectious as it falls from your lips. You sigh softly, straightening up after a beat and nudging his shoulder with your fist. “Stop making me laugh or I’ll do something stupid like kiss you.” 

His heart races in his chest, caught between your laugh and the thought that maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing. “I feel like if we pulled up a typical date timeline we’d be right on track for that, don’t you think?” 

“Heeseung,” you mumble, face softening. It doesn’t seem like you’re finding this funny anymore. Your gaze locks on his lips — a hyper focus that makes him press them together nervously — before snapping up to meet his eyes. You gulp. “Goodnight, thank you for today.” 

“Anytime.” 

“Don’t say that or I’ll take you up on it.” 

Heeseung shrugs. “You say that like I’d have a problem with it.” 

“You wouldn’t?” 

“Never.” 

A small laugh comes through your nose as you smile up at him. “I’ll see you, let me know when you get home.” 

“Got it.” 

Wordlessly, you open the door, crossing the threshold before saying goodnight again. Heeseung says it back, watching you shut the door and waiting for the lock to click before he leaves. 

He’s never drinking with you again. 

Heeseung feels like he’s settling into the role of your friend quite well. So well that he can spend time alone with you without the discomfort he felt in September. Maybe he’s taking liberties, bending the word friendship to suit him, but as you lie in his bed together, your head on his chest as you nap, he can’t bring himself to care too much. He knows he’ll get hurt by this at some point, but for now, he’s just happy to play with your hair and try his best to fall asleep too. You don’t stir when Jay opens the door, stopping dead in his tracks at the sight before him, tilting his head before closing the door quietly. 

Sleep never reaches him, but he pretends to yawn, rubbing at his eyes when your alarm wakes you up, making a point to stretch his arms over his head and only respond to you in a lazy mumble when you speak. “Whose idea was it to nap between classes, again?”

“I think it was yours.”

“Damn,’ you mumble, yawning again before laying back down, head returning to his chest as if drawn by a magnet. “I think ten more minutes, fifteen, and then we wake up and go back.” 

“Or we could skip?” 

The suggestion makes you jolt upright, fully awake now. You let your eyes drag over his face, and maybe Heeseung’s being hopeful or straight-up imagining things, but your gaze lingers on his lips for more than a few seconds before you gulp and meet his eyes. “Lee Heeseung trying to skip class? I never thought I’d see the day.” A smile spreads over your lips, turning into a laugh as you throw your head back. “That was funny, Hee. Let’s go.’

Heeseung’s brows furrow, watching you stretch your arms out in front of you. Was it so hard to believe he would skip class if it meant spending more time with you? His lips settle into a pout. “I’m serious.”

“No, you’re scaring me. Come on, let’s go,” you say, making no attempts to get up. 

To prove a point, Heeseung shifts under the covers, lying on his side with his back to you. “You go ahead, I’m staying.” 

You sigh but don’t get out of bed, only lying down next to him and draping an arm over his waist. “Ten more minutes.” You press yourself against his back and he feels his heart racing. As quickly as he feels it, you stiffen behind him. “I’m not crossing a line, right? Holding you like this? It’s always been easier to sleep if you’re next to me,” you say into his shirt. 

Remembering the way you would cuddle into his side during sleepovers, his heart aches, wondering if you had endured the same sleepless nights as him. Heeseung only lifts your arm to turn onto his back, pulling you onto his chest like you had been earlier. “Fifteen,” he says. 

Seeing as neither of you bothered to set another alarm, you sleep through class, only waking up when it’s dark out and Jay comes back. “I bought dinner, come eat,” he says, leaving the door open on his way out. 

Wordlessly, you both peel yourselves from bed, dragging your feet to the kitchen to wash your hands before joining Jay in the living room. Heeseung sits cross-legged on the floor by the coffee table while you and Jay sit on the couch. He’s not awake enough to fully register your conversation over the rustle of plastic takeout bags and his sudden overwhelming hunger, but you’re telling Jay to shut up, mumbling something and he lets out an exaggerated groan, clutching his chest when Heeseung turns around to hand over your food. 

With his elbows on the table, he takes a bite from his burger and has to suppress a moan. Most of your conversation with Jay goes over his head and he doesn’t realise how much time has gone by until you’re standing at the door pulling on your shoes. Given the way Jay’s lying on the couch, Heeseung assumes he’s on walking-you-home duty and grabs a jacket before stuffing his feet into Jay’s slides. 

The conversation is light as you walk together, Heeseung making sure he’s on the edge of the pavement the whole time and letting you talk about your friends. The walk has become so natural now that he only realises you’re approaching home when you take out your key to open the door to your building. 

“Do you want to meet before class tomorrow? To go over the slides we missed today?” you ask, with something behind your eyes that Heeseung sleepily interprets as hope. 

He nods, smiling at you and waiting for you to lock the door before he leaves. 

Jay’s awake when Heeseung gets back home; he can’t say he’s surprised. Heeseung only nods at Jay, who sits on the couch, but he knows his flatmate well enough to know there’s a conversation coming because the TV is off and his laptop is shut. Heeseung makes it all the way to his door before Jay says anything. “You’re in way over your head.” 

Heeseung sighs, not in the mood. “Okay. Night,” he says, opening the door. 

By the time November arrives and Jake’s birthday approaches, everything is back to normal again. Turning nineteen, Jake celebrates with a modest pub crawl that spirals into a three-day bender, leaving him bedridden for nearly a week due to dehydration and fear of a test he’d forgotten to study for. 

In standard Jake fashion, he manages to bounce back and sits across from Jay at his favourite restaurant only six days after his actual birthday. Considering the state he was in, it’s a wonder he can stomach the smell of alcohol, let alone down four cocktails without a pause. Jay and Sunghoon exchange sighs, each supporting one of Jake’s sleeping arms on their shoulders to carry him home. 

“Cover the bill and let me know the amount. I’ll transfer you in the morning,” Jay mumbles before they leave. 

You shake your head when Heeseung asks if you want to go home as well. “Unless you want to,” you say, all of your words blending together. “If you want to go home, we can. I don’t want you sitting here bored or anything.” 

Heeseung smiles. “I’m not bored, we can stay as long as you like.” You seem to take this to heart, nodding and flagging down a waiter to order more drinks. “Let’s maybe slow down a little though,” he suggests. 

He pours you a glass of water and makes you drink the whole thing, withholding your alcohol until you’ve finished the cold tteokbokki in front of you. Gradually, you become more coherent, wiping your face with your hands and sitting up a little straighter. You thank him when he pours soju for you and take tiny sips from the glass here and there, telling Heeseung about some of the friends you made while you were away. There’s Yizhuo—sweet, funny, and down-to-earth. And Minjeong—a quiet girl who needed a while to warm up to new people. You tell him about meeting her for the first time, how unsure she seemed when Yizhuo introduced you two, but by the end of the night, she was falling asleep next to you in bed with her arms and legs tangled around you. 

“Do you miss them?” It’s a stupid question, anyone could tell from the fond smile on your face that you do. 

A beat passes while you think about it before shrugging. “Not as much as I missed being here.” If he wasn’t watching you, or looking you straight in the eye, he probably would’ve missed the longing in your gaze. 

He’s never known you to be subtle after a drink, and Heeseung knows he needs to nip this conversation in the bud before either of you says something you can’t take back. “How are you getting on with your research task?” he asks, while at the same time you say, “I’m so happy to be back.” 

A short laugh slips out of you, a hand falling to the table before wrapping around your glass. You bring it up to your face but don’t drink, only looking down into it as if it’ll tell you what to say. “Are you happy I’m back?” 

“Sure,” Heeseung says noncommittally. 

You sigh, sinking into your seat a little. “I loved you. I still love you,” you mumble. “Even after all that.” 

He’s not sure what to make of this, of anything you’re saying. It’s not like you had a messy breakup or anything. At least, he wouldn’t describe his long-term girlfriend breaking up with him and asking if they could be friends after as messy. Even in heartbreak, Heeseung was a reasonable person, and any reasonable person would’ve said no. Like he did. 

“I still.. You’re still the one for me.” 

His stomach lurches violently. “Don’t say that.” He gets out of his seat quicker than he means to and leaves you at the table, tapping his foot as he waits in line by the bar to pay the bill, praying he’s right about the two of you sitting at table ten when the cashier asks. With a folded receipt in his pocket and too much to think about, he returns to the table, only putting on his coat and mumbling, “Let’s go.” 

For some reason, you don’t seem to mirror his urgency, only finishing off the drink you had left in one go and sitting for a bit longer. He takes your jacket from the back of your chair and holds it open for you, helping you into it when you finally stand up. “Thanks,” you giggle.

Heeseung says nothing. 

The silence and fresh air outside are sobering as he watches an Uber driver through the app, very slowly moving from two minutes away to one before arriving. Maybe if you hadn’t said what you said at the table, he might have warmed to the idea of a forty-minute walk alone with you, but you did say those things and even the thought of this fifteen-minute car ride is unbearable when John (4.9 stars) pulls up on the curb outside. You thank Heeseung quietly when he opens the door for you, and against his better judgement, he walks over to the other side of the car and sits in the middle seat like he used to. 

Slow R&B murmurs through the speakers as the driver pulls off while Heeseung hums along. His thigh is pressed against yours but he does his best not to think about it, only chewing his lip when you rest your head on his shoulder. He lets his head rest on top of yours before regretting it.

He doesn’t move. 

It feels a little bit like the driver is playing Heeseung’s playlist, as every song he knows and loves seems to come on one after the other, steeping him in an odd comfort in the backseat of this car.

Your hand falls onto his knee so clumsily he’s sure it’s a mistake, so sure you’ll move it back into your lap that he’s genuinely surprised when you don’t. Unsure what to do, he chooses not to acknowledge it, acting like you sitting so close to him, like the feeling that no time has passed, doesn’t make his heart clench. Slowly but surely, your hand inches up his thigh—a motion Heeseung stops as soon as he realises, his hand falling heavily over yours and pushing it back to his knee. He thinks about keeping it there, but when he feels his thumb stroking your skin, he moves his hand immediately. You’ve obviously gotten the wrong idea. For a moment, he wonders if you’ve actually gotten the right idea. You have. But it can’t happen like this. After a few minutes, you move your hand again, and like before, Heeseung pushes it back, keeping his hand over yours and reminding himself not to move his thumb.

You’re drunk. This will pass. 

Finally, the driver parks outside your building, and Heeseung’s sure his “thank you so much” holds the world’s sincerity in it as he unbuckles his seatbelt and practically leaps out of the car. He opens your door and has to undo your belt for you, helping you out and thanking the driver again. 

There’s a couple leaving the building when the two of you reach the door, and with your arms wrapped around his, he thanks them when they hold it open.

The lift takes forever to come and Heeseung pushes the up button five times before it arrives. He lets the girl in fleecy pyjamas with a takeout bag in her hand go in first before following, pressing the button reading 7 before relaxing a bit. Under the protection of a stranger, he knows you won’t do anything. The journey to your floor feels like hours as the lift drags its way up the shaft—why does nothing share his urgency? 

You don’t say anything until the elevator door swooshes shut behind you. “I love you, Heeseung. You know I love you.” You’re saying everything he’s been wanting you to say for ages, but the words make his words sting. 

“Do you know where your keys are?” he asks, though you still have a ways to go before you reach your door. 

“My pocket,” you mumble. 

Heeseung finds your keys, unlocks the door and helps you in. As much as he wants to leave, he knows if he does, you won’t take your makeup off or change, so he holds your hair back for you as you brush your teeth and wash your face in the sink quietly. 

In your bedroom, you search through your drawers, pulling out something to wear. He turns his back to you and ends up face-to-face with an old photo of the two of you from school. 

“You can look, Hee.”

Drawn to the picture, he doesn’t reply. The boys are in it too, but it feels like you two are the focus. Everyone’s smiling at the camera except Heeseung, who — with his arm around you — stares at the side of your face with a lopsided smile. Happiness radiates from his being, lighting his eyes and face.

“I want you to look.” The softness and desperation in your voice tug his heart.

“Come on ba—” Heeseung sighs. “Just get dressed, yeah?” 

You don’t say anything but he can hear the rustle of your clothes as you change. 

Jealousy blooms in his chest, looking at himself three years ago. Happy and full of love for you and your friends, for life. Everything was so easy then. His chest tightens and he has to close his eyes.

Heeseung feels you next to him, hears your jewellery falling into the clay holder on your dresser and opens his eyes, looking at you. You’re in a t-shirt he’s sure belongs to Jake and struggling with the clasp on your necklace. He knows you want him to help but he feels like he can’t move.

“I know you don’t want to hear it, but I really do want to be with you,” you say when you finally get the necklace off. “And I know I’m too late, but I didn’t break up with you because I didn’t want to be with you.” 

You’re so close the peppermint on your breath hits him like a wave. A distinct smell of citrus and summer, of Jake, comes from your body, mixed up with the scent of you in a way that makes him uneasy. 

He gets a headache trying to make sense of your words, if it wasn’t that you didn’t want to be with him, then what was it? Even back then, you didn’t elaborate, you just repeated his name and the words: it’s not your fault, over and over until they sounded made up. Heeseung can’t entertain this conversation, not now. Not when you’re drunk and looking up at him with longing in your eyes. “I think we need to get you to bed,” Heeseung mumbles, taking a step back. “I’ll get you some water.”

“But I’m here now and we can be together again.”

“You moving was never the problem. You know that wasn’t the problem.” A tear slips down your cheek and he softens immediately. “I wanted to go with you, I was going to go with you.” 

You wipe your eyes with the back of your hand, frowning. “This university was your dream. How could I let you give up your scholarship for me?”

“You were my dream,” he admits. “And it wasn’t your decision to make.” 

“You would have made the wrong one.” 

Heeseung scoffs. “Do you think breaking up was the right one?” 

Your silence is brutally telling. You squeeze your eyes shut as if trying to magic yourself out of the conversation, but it only makes more tears fall. A realisation hits him like a truck: you’re thinking about it. A painful lump forms in his throat. How could you have anything to think about? How was breaking up with him, not the single worst decision you’ve ever made? He can’t believe you could have let go so easily if you loved him. Long distance wouldn’t have been easy, but surely if you loved him, you would have made it work. You would have tried. Heeseung wishes he hadn’t asked at all.

“I do,” you say finally, opening your eyes to look at him.

His heart is heavy in his chest. “Okay.”

“Heeseung.”

“What?” 

A stomach-churning sob falls out of you. “I don’t know.” 

Another silence weighs the room down and Heeseung knows what he needs to do. He sighs. “Let’s just.. I should go.” 

You don’t put up a fight, you don’t say anything, only letting your shoulders droop before you sigh and lead Heeseung to the front door. He says goodbye as he puts his shoes on and all you do is watch as he leaves your apartment. He waits for you to close the door and lock it before walking away.

Heeseung walks all the way home and only cries when he closes his door, sliding down the back of it like something from a movie. With tears in his eyes, and his knees to his chest, he pulls out his phone to text you. I hope your hangover isn’t too bad, he types. Let’s only talk when we need to.

The two of you manage to hold this up, with you finding others to sit with during classes, and no one seeming to question Heeseung’s skipping plans or new close friendship with Mark’s group who he spends time with between classes instead. But as always, things have a funny way of going different to how Heeseung expected them to. 

After three weeks of near radio silence, Jay barges into his room with his face scrunched up. “What are you doing?” 

“Right now?” Heeseung asks, confused. Standing by the bed with the corner of his duvet in his hand, in nothing but his underwear, he thinks his plans look a little obvious. “I’m about to jerk off.”

Jay rolls his eyes, crossing his arms over his chest. “You know what I mean.” 

“Evidently, I do not.” 

“Why don’t you hang out with us anymore?” he asks, squinting at Heeseung. 

“We’re hanging out right now.”

“Forgive me if I don’t count an impromptu circle jerk as hanging out.”

“I don’t.. want to do that.”

Jay clutches his chest. “I’m crushed.” 

Heeseung studies his expression. Serious, an inch of concern pooling in his eyes. “We dated for six years, she dumped me, I turned into a shell of myself, but she moved back home and we’re all friends again, so I think things are looking up for me.”

A deep sigh leaves Jay as he sits on the bed. “What happened at the bar with YN three weeks ago when we all left?” 

“Nothing out of the ordinary.”

“What exactly counts as ordinary for you two?”

Heeseung’s still trying to figure that out. He shrugs. “Making the right decisions.” 

“So you’re okay?”

“Never better.’

“You don’t have to lie to me, you know?” There’s a sincere look on Jay’s face as he leans back on his hands.

“Which is why I’m being honest.” 

It doesn’t seem like Jay’s going to let this go, but to Heeseung’s surprise, he smiles. “Perfect,” he says, standing up from the bed and walking over to the mirror where he checks himself out. “Because she and the guys are going to be here in ten. Put some clothes on.”

He does just that, pulling some shorts over his hips and a shirt over his head before pulling the two bean bag chairs stacked next to the couch to sit in front of the TV, claiming one of them with his body by sinking into it. The cosy material is soft against his thighs and he wonders why they don’t use them more. 

Ten minutes go by like seconds when Jay gets up to answer the door, laughing at something one of you says before leading you all into the living room. He’s watching some show Jay left on, greeting you and the boys with a wave before turning back to the TV. Behind him, the four of you laugh and talk on the couch but Heeesung’s too wrapped up in an argument on screen to join in. His attention only falters when he reaches for the open six-pack on the coffee table. It’s barely out of his reach, so he turns around to take a beer, trying to ignore the way his heart sinks in his chest seeing you and Jay cuddled up together. It’s friendly, he knows that. Jay’s with Yunjin and you’re.. He’s still not sure, but it hurts nonetheless. You’re bickering over a bowl of popcorn and he only laughs when you throw a handful at him. 

The red speaker Sunghoon’s holding chimes three times when he turns it on, a Frank Ocean thudding out of it that drowns out the show he’s watching, leaving him to follow along with the subtitles instead. But he can’t focus. 

Heeseung tries to settle his heartache, comforting himself with the thought of the two of you in another reality. One where it’s him instead of Jay. Or one where you come over and sit with him, curling up in his lap, pouting because Jay’s being mean. He pictures himself stroking your hair and kissing away your pout, holding you into his chest when Jake and Sunghoon start teasing you. In this reality, however, he watches you peel Jay’s shirt from his chest and dump a handful of popcorn in the gap, cackling to yourself at the clear frustration he doesn’t verbalise. Heeseung sighs, looking back at the TV and taking a sad sip of his sad beer. 

After a while, you fall into the beanbag next to him, sprawling out over the whole thing and looking at him. “Hey, Heeseung.” 

“Hello.” 

“I’m sorry about that night.” Your voice is quiet, clearly apologetic if the way you don’t meet his eyes is anything to go by.

“Okay.” Heeseung nods and a beat passes. “I meant what I said, what I texted you.” It hurts to say but it’s for the best. He stands up out of the beanbag, making a show of stretching his arms and legs before sinking into the couch next to Jake. Over Jake’s slouched form, Jay shoots him a look, arching a brow. Heeseung only stages a chuckle, shrugging before looking at the TV again. He can’t make sense of anything on the screen. 

Sunghoon emerges from Jay’s room with a grin on his face, asking when you’re going to eat. In standard fashion, the four of you stand around Jay in the kitchen, bothering him by telling him what to do like he’s a child as he puts frozen pizza and some garlic bread in the oven. 

“The middle one’s the timer,” Jake says, pointing at the knobs above the oven door. “It’s there so you can set how long the food needs to cook for, and after you set it, it’ll go off so you know it’s ready.”

“But it’s all up to you and your discretion. You can open the door whenever you want to check on everything,” you coo, patting his shoulder.

If Jay’s actually annoyed, nothing about his smile gives it away as he nods with a clenched fist, closing the door and sitting next to Heeseung on the countertop. Heeseung’s almost too busy focusing on the way his beer heats his stomach to notice the way you watch him with a small frown from barely an arm’s length away. Sunghoon picks up on your declining mood and thrusts an open bottle into your hand. “We like to drink with—” He’s cut off by Jay taking the bottle and setting it behind you on the counter, mumbling cut it out, dude, and tugging you out of the kitchen by the arm when he notices the tears in your eyes. 

He hears Jay’s door close and nobody says anything until the timer goes off and Jay comes back alone, filling a plate with food and going back to his room. 

“Thanks for dinner,” Jake says to the back of Jay’s head, offbeat and half smiling as he washes his hands in the sink. 

Sitting at the table, he watches Jake and Sunghoon eat while pretending nothing’s wrong. 

At the end of the night, when everyone’s gone home, Heeseung gets into bed, barely managing to pull the duvet up when there’s a knock at his door. “Yeah?” he calls out. Jay appears with his arms crossed over his chest. “I don’t want to talk about it,” he says quickly. 

Jay regards him with a frown. “I didn’t even say anything.” 

“You were going to.” 

“Yeah.” He nods, and Heeseung prepares himself for a lecture. “I was going to say, I’m going home next week, for Christmas, so I was wondering if you wanted to go with me.” 

The holidays go by in a soju and tteokguk-filled blur, with Heeseung choosing to stay at home until the day of his first class of the second semester so he doesn’t have to be around you. He tells himself it’s for the good of your friend group, as he watches you all make plans in the group chat through notification bubbles, so he doesn’t leave a read receipt. 

The commute is more jarring than he realised. What had been a twenty-minute drive turns into an hour-long journey, including a thirty-minute walk to the train station ‘near’ house, fifteen minutes on the train into the city centre, and another fifteen minutes on foot to campus. He’s drenched in sweat despite the below-zero temperature and has to make a stop to the bathroom to sort himself out.

He arrives early at least, finding the room where his Ethnography: Theory and Practice 2 class is set to start in fifteen minutes. The only indicator that he’s in the right place is the lecturer’s name and contact information written in the top corner of a whiteboard, and Heeseung picks the seat furthest from the door. It’s an elective class and, judging by the nine empty chairs next to him, not a very popular one. He’s relieved at least that he’ll be able to start off the semester without running into anyone he knows, least of all you. As seats start filling up and the lecturer arrives, he’s feeling unusually lucky. 

So, of course, you show up, running a hand through your hair as you walk through the open door, apologising for being late even though there are still two minutes until the class is scheduled to begin. Of course, the only empty seat is the one next to him, which you sit in without looking at him, making an effort to angle your body away from him. Of course, the lecturer assigns a presentation for two weeks time, pairing the class with the person they’re sitting beside. Neither you nor Heeseung say a word to each other, but you raise your hand when prompted to pick a topic to cover. He can’t help his irritation at you for making the decision without asking him, but you look so nice in your hoodie with your hair tied up that his annoyance settles before it has a chance to bloom. 

“YN YLN and Heeseung Lee, we’ll do music and cultural expression,” you say, picking the topic he wanted to do anyway. 

When class is over, you’re quick to get out of your seat, pulling on your jacket and stuffing your laptop back into your bag before leaving so quickly that Heeseung has to leave his stuff behind to go after you. You don’t stop walking when he calls out your name, and too scared to make a scene, he overtakes you, leaving you with no option but to stop in front of him. 

“We should go to the library, get the research and shit out of the way ASAP,” he suggests.

You nod, crossing your arms over your chest. 

“Yeah, okay, I’m going to get my stuff.”

You follow him back to class, watching from the door as he puts his things in his bag before putting on his jacket. You don’t say anything on the walk to the library, when you get there, or when you browse the Cultural Studies section. Heeseung glances at you and you’re chewing on your lip, crouching a bit to read the spines of the books on the lower shelves. “Are you alright?” he asks with genuine concern. 

You look up at him, nodding. 

“Are you sure? Because you haven’t said anything in an hour.”

This makes you straighten up, your brows furrowing in an expression he can’t figure out. “Sorry, Heeseung,” you say, your voice weak. “I’m just trying to figure out if you think I need to talk right now.” 

“Obviously, a paired project is a situation where we need to talk.” 

You sigh, muttering oh, my God, before you look at him. “You know what, I’m going home. Let’s do this tomorrow.” 

“We have class in twenty minutes.” 

“Yeah, I’ll read the slides when I get in.”

Unsure what to say, he watches you walk away, deciding that he should just go home too. 

At the flat he hasn’t seen in five weeks, Heeseung feels slightly out of place, going straight to his room and into bed, not even getting up when he hears Jay coming home. Jay opens the door without knocking, his mouth falling into an excited ‘o’ shape. “Hey, stranger,” he says. “I thought you weren’t coming back, so I started advertising your room on Gumtree.” 

“Any offers?”

“No one as good as you.” Heeseung doesn’t have to look at Jay to know he’s smiling. “Move over,” he mumbles, lifting the duvet. 

Lazily, he rolls over in bed, making room for Jay who makes himself comfortable under the covers. 

“What are you doing, Heeseung?” 

“Trying to sleep.” 

“Talk to me, help me understand.” Jay sighs and Heeseung’s lips curl into a frown. “You’re my best friend,” Jay says quietly, with a tenderness that strikes him. 

“You’re my best friend,” Heeseung repeats like an affirmation. 

“So why won’t you talk to me?”

There’s a subtle hurt in Jay’s voice that upsets Heeseung, who shifts around to lie on his back. “I don’t think there’s anything I can tell you that YN hasn’t already.” 

“She only told me that she fucked up.”

Hearing it from someone else’s mouth makes it sound drastic, especially considering he’s the one who left. Again. But he’s too bitter to say that out loud so he bites his tongue. “Seems to be the theme in our relationship.” The words taste rotten when he says them.

“Just because you’re my best friend doesn’t mean you get to be a dick,” Jay says. “What happened?” 

It takes some time but Heeseung explains everything, letting Jay ask questions and make comments until the end when he looks away, pressing his eyes shut and saying, “Oh.” 

“Oh?”

“I don’t think I get it. Boy loves girl. Girl loves boy. Why can’t you just be together already?”

Everything sounds painfully simple when it’s put like that. But there’s too much between you both for it to go that way. It’s not like he didn’t want to be with you when you confessed, it’s that he didn’t know how he could without knowing why you left him in the first place. Without knowing what he did that was so terrible you couldn’t stand to be in a relationship with him, never mind the same area code. 

A beat passes before Heeseung speaks. “There was something wrong, and instead of trying to fix it, she just.. gave up. I would’ve done anything she asked me to. I could’ve changed, could’ve fixed things, but she didn’t even tell me.” 

“Maybe she didn’t feel like she could. I don’t think she wanted to hurt you, Heeseung.” 

“But she did.” 

“Yeah,” Jay admits, sympathy lacing the word. 

“How can I be with her knowing there’s some awful part of me she hates?” 

“It’s not like that, not really.” 

“What’s it like then?”

“I’m not sure it’s my place to say.” 

Heeseung laughs, shaking his head. “Do you keep my secrets as dutifully as you keep hers?” 

“Are you kidding? She doesn’t even know you have secrets.” Jay sounds exhausted as he speaks, and it’s the last sound to come from him until a few minutes pass and Heeseung hears him snoring. 

You didn’t reply when Heeseung texted you asking to meet in the library before class, but you show up anyway, pulling out the seat across from him and dumping your bag on the table. “I don’t know if you saw the email, but the partner work is just for the presentation.” 

“Cool.” he nods, relieved. 

“I think after that, I’ll start hanging out with Yunjin instead, so you’re not uncomfortable.” 

Heeseung frowns, shaking his head. “I’m not uncomfortable around you,” he says. “I just don’t.. get you. You dump me and move as far away as you can. Now you’re back and what? You love me again?” 

You furrow your brows, inspecting him for a moment before you speak. “I don’t love you again, Heeseung. I’ve loved you this whole time.” 

“So why didn’t you choose me? I just wanted you to choose me.” He’s too anxious to know the truth to worry about how desperate he must sound. Until he notices that the guys sitting at the other end of the tables are watching him, their brows arched sharply in a mixture of shock and curiosity. Heeseung runs a hand over his face, hoping the motion might wipe away the flush burning his cheeks.

“You wanted me to choose you over my future?” 

“I could’ve been your future, part of it. I’d never ask you to choose me over university, you know I wouldn’t. I’m saying you could’ve had both.” 

“It wasn’t as easy as that.” 

“Why not?” 

“Heeseung,” you say like it’s an answer. 

“Just tell me why you didn’t want me. That’s all I want to know.” 

The following silence makes him consider packing up abruptly and faking an emergency. He’s sure he could probably fake his death if he slumps in his chair slowly enough. 

You sigh heavily, interrupting his train of thought—now, he’s wondering if he even wants to know. “Because you would’ve put me first,” you say, avoiding his gaze. “If I stayed here or moved away, I would’ve been your top priority and I couldn’t let you throw away everything you worked for, for me.” 

“I loved you, of course, you were my top priority.” He can’t believe he even has to say it, can’t believe you might have thought you weren’t the single most important thing in his life. 

“Heeseung, you were sacrificing your life for me. You missed your cousin’s engagement party to help me study for a history test, you deferred your scholarship entry by a year just so we could go to college at the same time. How could I keep letting you miss out on your life?” 

“Deferring my entry wasn’t just for you,” he lies. “And it’s not like I missed the wedding.” 

“But I think you would’ve if I stubbed my toe.”

“Would that be such a bad thing?” 

You sigh again, shaking your head. “Do you hear yourself? You can’t keep living like that, you can’t just throw everything away. You’re such a hard worker, Heeseung, and I’d hate to see you waste that over some girl.” 

“But you’re you. You weren’t just ‘some girl’ you were my girl.” He doesn’t mean to say it but it’s true. “We were in high school and I was studying constantly; it didn’t matter back then. And you were so far away, it’s not like I could feasibly drop everything and go to you every time something happened.” 

“Heeseung.” 

“You had a choice.” 

“Heeseung.” 

The way you’re saying his name reminds him of your breakup—the pink walls of your childhood bedroom and the pictures of the two of you stuck up all over them, in frames on your desk, and stickers on your light switch. How they seemed to close in around him as he put all of his energy into staying on two feet, instead of falling to the floor and begging you on hands and knees to stay with him. 

“Why didn’t you just tell me? I’ve spent the last year and a half wondering what I did wrong, I don’t understand why you didn’t just tell me.” We could’ve tried, he wants to say. I could have changed and we could’ve tried. 

“I didn’t want you to lose that. I felt really lucky that you loved me like that, and I didn’t want to rob someone else of it, you know. I thought maybe you’d find a balance with someone someday, but I didn’t think that person would be me.” 

Heeseung has to put in an effort to stop his jaw from dropping. How could there ever be someone else? How could you ever think he could have someone else? There’s so much he wants to say, to ask, but he can tell by the way you press your lips together that you’re done with the conversation. 

“It’s not too late.” 

You tilt your head at him. “What?” 

“In your room that night, you said you were too late,” he explains. “I love you.”

“Still?” 

His heart shifts uncomfortably in his chest at the tone of your voice and the way your eyebrows shoot up. “Always,” he says. 

A smile starts to curve your lips, but it slips before it has a chance to bloom, stifled happiness that you cover with your hands, hiding your face completely. “I don’t think we should talk about this here.” Your palms muffle the words but not their impact; you’re right and he knows it. 

It’s been a year—the longest of his life, and the hard part is already over. He knows now and he’ll do anything he can to fix it. “Right.” Heeseung nods but you’re not looking at him. He’s going to fix it. For now, though, he says, “What’s our research topic again?” Despite having had Music and Cultural Expression typed into the search bar since before you arrived. 

With Heeseung’s work ethic and your commitment to being the best, the presentation goes quite smoothly. You make no mistakes, and Heeseung, distracted by how pretty you look in professional attire, manages to stumble through the script he’d rehearsed. The two of you even win the first place prize — satisfaction that you got a perfect score — and celebrate with coffee afterwards. 

Between the four walls of the campus café, you and Heeseung sip lattes that taste like temperature — still too hot to have a real flavour — and laugh with each other about something Jay said when you all hung out last night. Neither of you mentions your conversation from two weeks ago, deciding instead to fall into the patterns of your first term together: napping in his bed after class and coming up with excuses for alone time. He makes an effort to follow through with his commitments, even when you ask him to hang out, to show you that he’s different now. If you’ve noticed, you haven’t said anything about it, but Heeseung tells himself it’s a good thing while missing shots on the court with Mark, too hung up on you to focus on anything else. The only thing left is to figure out a way to be yours again and do everything he can to make sure he doesn’t lose you. 

Over your shoulder, through the window, the sun slips below the horizon, casting long shadows around the café. He takes a deep breath when he looks at you, smiling down at your phone as you take a picture of your half-drunk latte and the milky swirls still peeking through your coffee. A tangible determination settles in his chest as evening’s first stars appear in the sky, he knows one thing for sure: he has to grab the chance to be yours again with both hands, and once it’s his, he won’t let go this time. 

The café may be clearing out, but his heart is full of hope and for the time being, sitting with you as a friend is.. fine. 

You’d often imagined what it would be like if you hadn’t broken up with Lee Heeseung. 

Most of your first year was spent daydreaming about him in all of your usual hangouts. Sometimes, at drinks with your friends, you envisioned him showing up, a smile on his face as he apologised for being late. He’d slide into the booth next to you, wrap his arm around your shoulders and kiss your cheek. Other times you imagined him showing up to surprise you, sitting on a bench in the quad and grinning when he saw you leaving. He’d run up to you with open arms and a bouquet in his hand, wrapping you in a hug and whispering that he missed you too much to wait another day to see you. You would even fall asleep thinking about FaceTime calls that stayed on overnight or drunken texts after the club, misspelt I love yous and can’t wait to see yous filling your text thread. 

You didn’t tell your new friends much about him, briefly mentioning a partner you’d watched some film with or an artist he liked if they came up, and most nights were spent begging Jay to send you Heeseung’s social media posts and tell you every detail of the day they had without you. Based on accounts from Jay, Jake, and Sunghoon, it seemed like he was getting on well, a fact that — while hurtful — pushed you to try and do the same. After a month of avoiding your flatmates, you finally managed to connect with them, going to various social events around campus and rolling your eyes any time a drunk guy complimented you. 

This is why it took you by surprise to see him at Mark Lee’s party in the summer—sitting alone in the garden, in sweatpants and a flannel, looking at his phone with a deep frown etched over his lips. When you think about it, it feels like so long has passed since then and it’s hard to believe it wasn’t even a year ago. 

Being back in Heeseung’s life has been more challenging than you thought it would be when you filled out your transfer application. Especially in the weeks since you finished your presentation together, since you suggested the library might not have been the right place for the conversation you were having and never followed up on. 

Now doesn’t seem like the right time either—you’re sitting on the floor in Jake and Sunghoon’s living room with your back against the couch, sharing a blanket with Heeseung. Jay left about an hour ago to go to Yunjin’s, leaving the four of you to your own devices. You know you can’t bring it up with Jake and Sunghoon around, but you’ve had plenty of opportunities to over the last month. 

When you finished your celebratory lattes, Heeseung walked you home. The sky was a perfect inky black, and it was cold enough to see your breath, just the way he liked, so cold he offered you his jacket to wear. He didn’t say anything about it, only shrugging it off and setting it gently over your shoulders, shocking you so much that you stopped walking. The scent of his cologne, dark and woody, was overwhelming as you slid your arms into the sleeves, zipping it up and after three paces without you, Heeseung turned his head with wide eyes. You could have said it then, you wanted to say it then, but you bit your tongue and thanked him instead. He smiled, gulping when you closed the gap, you should have kissed him, he was close enough, his lips just a tip-toe and tilted head away, but you hugged him instead. 

After that, the two of you had all the time in the world together. Between your shared classes and going for meals alone. All the time you’d spend in his living room together, cosy on the couch when Jay would go to sleep. So many moments to talk, to get back together, but the words would die in your throat every time you thought them. It all seemed too cheesy or not cheesy enough, too dramatic or too casual, you couldn’t strike a balance and had no idea how to even find one. 

Last night was probably the most jarring occasion. Yunjin and Chaewon had been trying to convince you to go the club all week but you just weren’t in the mood. They seemed happy enough when you suggested hosting pres—but now you think they’d been hoping you’d be so drunk you’d just agree to go out. Yunjin brought half a litre of vodka and Chaewon brought a soup flask with enough murky cocktail in it to feed a small family. Together, the three of you drank and gossiped around the small table in your living room, with Chaewon’s phone in a glass to amplify her playlist. After taking a whiff of whatever she brought, you and Yunjin decided — for everyone’s wellbeing — to hide her flask and take shots of vodka, finishing off the cider you had left in the fridge. 

“Please come out,” Yunjin begged. “I’ll feel bad leaving you here, all pretty and drunk by yourself.” 

“I’ll feel bad too!” Chaewon added, clasping her hands. “Not bad enough to stay with you, but I’ll probably have less fun.” 

You shook your head. “I don’t even have an outfit.” The words were like music to their ears and you regretted them as soon as you said them. Both girls grabbed you by the hand, tugging you to your room and flinging open your wardrobe. Yunjin looked for a top and Chaewon for a skirt, though both of them gasped when they saw the dress you wore for Heeseung’s birthday. Chaewon pulled it from the rack, holding it out in front of her. 

“We won’t pay for anything if you wear this,” she squealed before she and Yunjin started chanting: Free booze! Free booze! 

You sighed, thinking of Heeseung and shook your head again. That dress, though beautiful, hadn’t been enough for him to lose all composure and skip the party in favour of fucking you into the mattress, and you didn’t love the idea of guys that weren’t him ogling you all night. “Anything but that dress.” 

Yunjin and Chaewon seemed sad, but you were able to distract them by bringing out the disaster cocktail the oldest girl brewed earlier, pouring each of them half a glass and ordering an Uber to come and take them away. You promised them you’d go out next time, locking your pinkies with theirs and closing the door behind them. 

Alone in your room, with nothing but thoughts of Heeseung to keep you company, you called him. He answered right away. You can’t remember exactly what you said but you remember the soft sigh he let out when you said it. You could practically see him tilting his head, weighing his options. 

“I’m trying to get a paper finished, it’s due Monday,” he said finally. 

“But it’s Thursday.” 

“Yeah, and I want to have my weekend free. If you’re still up when I’m done, I’ll come over, okay?” 

You nodded. “Okay.” 

Heeseung hung up after that and you got out of bed to clean up, hoping the time would fly. It didn’t, but your flat was clean again so you pretended not to mind. 

He called you after midnight. “Do you still want me to come over?” he asked, breathless. 

“Please.” There was a knock on your door after you spoke and you mumbled hold on before going to check it. Warped by the peephole, you saw Heeseung standing there, holding his phone to his ear and playing with the zipper on his jacket. He hugged you when you opened the door, asking if you were okay. “Perfect,” you said, looking into his eyes. 

His pretty face scrunched up and he pinched his nostrils shut with his fingers, turning his head. “Well, you smell like a distillery.”

Heeseung stood in the doorway of the bathroom while you brushed your teeth, grinning every time his eyes met yours in the mirror. Tell him now, you thought. You have to tell him now. Those thoughts nagged you as you gargled mouthwash, plagued you when you hugged him again and tortured you when he carried you to bed. 

He stiffened when kissed his jaw. “You can’t do that,” he mumbled, setting you down under the duvet. “Not now.” 

Then when? you wanted to say. “I’m sorry,” you said.

Heeseung sighed, shaking his head. “No, it’s just.. It’s okay.” 

Neither of you spoke after that, you made room for him on the bed and he lay down next to you, let you rest your head on his chest and played with your hair until you fell asleep. He was gone when you woke up in the morning but he left a glass of water and some paracetamol on your end table, along with a note. 

I had to go to class and you wouldn’t wake up :(  We’ll talk about everything soon, we have to. See you at Jake and Sunghoon’s later? 

— Your Hee. 

If you hadn’t been drunk he might have been okay with the kiss, he might have looked down at you and kissed you properly. You might have talked last night, fixed things—you’ve never regretted drinking so much in your life. 

Things are better tonight at least. You’ve been nursing the same can of cider since you arrived a few hours ago and Heeseung’s only had two sips of his beer, so hopefully, if you get some alone time, the two of you can finally talk. You’re still not sure what you should say, if you should apologise for waiting so long, for leaving in the first place. It seemed like a good idea at the time, applying elsewhere. You didn’t even think you’d get in but you knew you’d never forgive yourself if you didn’t at least take the chance. It seemed like a sign when the acceptance letter reached your inbox before the term had finished, an unconditional offer to a high-ranking university, you couldn’t pass it up. And knowing Heeseung as well as you did, you knew he’d do anything to be by your side when you needed him, you knew he’d drop everything to move with you if you let him. You’d owe him forever. It wouldn’t be fair on either of you. 

You called Jay in tears after a month away, telling him you made a mistake, that you needed to come back and had already filled out a transfer application. He convinced you to at least stay until the end of term, to actually make friends with the girls you were living with and see how you felt. A week later, he, Jake and Sunghoon showed up on your doorstep with chocolate and booze, hoping your room was big enough for all of them to stay for the weekend, it wasn’t, not really, but for three nights, the four of you slept head to toe in your bed after eating your body weights in pizza and ice cream. There was no talk of Heeseung, even though you begged them, and by the time they left, you felt much better. At the end of your first year, you quietly submitted your transfer application and shared a tearful goodbye with Yizhuo and Minjeong before finally flying back home. The boys seemed happy to have you back, even if it meant sneaking around to hang out with you—A nudge pulls you out of your thoughts, Heeseung.

“Are you okay?” he asks. 

When you look at him, it feels like the wind has been knocked out of you. His eyes are brimmed with concern, wide and beautiful, a deep brown you’ll never get sick of. His lips are curved into a soft pout, a crease running along his brow that you want to smooth out. 

Heeseung relaxes a little when you nod, but he seems unconvinced. “You sure?” 

You reach up to poke his cheek, grinning when he turns his head, trying to fight a smile. “I’m good,” you say, pressing a dimple into his cheek anyway. 

He holds your finger in his hands, unclenching your fist and locking his fingers with yours. A wide grin stretches over your lips as you plead with your cheeks to stop burning. Jake’s hand interrupts the moment, falling from the couch, limp and curled into a fist that smacks the back of your head. He’s fast asleep, not stirring at all even when Heeseung laughs. 

Unfortunately, you lose rock, paper, scissors and have to wake Jake up. He shifts a little on the couch when you shake him, whining at you to stop and scrunching up his face at you. Heeseung and Sunghoon eventually sigh, grabbing him by the arms and legs to carry him to bed. 

Both boys return, laughing about something and Heeseung sits down next to you again while Sunghoon leans in the doorway, yawning. “You two can have my room,” he says, cutting his eyes at you. “No funny business though, I just changed my sheets.” 

You chuckle nervously and Heeseung makes a show of hiding his face in the crook of your neck, much to Sunghoon’s visible dismay. He clutches the doorframe so hard you see his knuckles paling and uses his free hand to point a stern finger in your direction. “I mean it,” is the last thing he says before leaving. 

“Sorry,” Heeseung mumbles when the door closes. “It’s just so funny teasing him.” He’s grinning when he lifts his head and runs a shaking hand through his hair. “Anyway, you still haven’t told me about your group project.”

A sigh curls out of you, dramatic and loud as you let your head fall back against the couch at the thought of it. You brought it up in passing on Monday after class and spent the rest of the week pretending it didn’t exist. 

“Damn,” he mutters. “That bad?” 

You don’t have many friends in your Archaeology class, but you always look forward to it — because you’re covering Ancient Egypt — and enjoy it. But this morning, you slept in, arriving late, to find your lecturer assigning groups for a project weighing 25% of your final grade. She put the groups together based on where people were sitting, which left you, standing in the doorway fighting for breath, being added to a group of boys you shared a seminar with last term. They never contributed, and rarely showed up, constantly sending messages in the class Whatsapp group to ask if anyone had the tutorial answers. The sinking feeling that your project was doomed before it began plagued you throughout the lecture and all the way to lunch with Yunjin afterwards. Even though it doesn’t have anything to do with the story, you tell him in meticulous detail about your time with her that day. Thankfully, you’re sober so don’t admit that you spent a lot of the meal exchanging increasingly ridiculous ideas to get him back. 

Heeseung is just as beautiful and good at listening as always, nodding his head and uhm-ing and ah-ing at all the right parts. Until his gaze changes for a split second into something so soft and so sweet that it leaves a mark on your heart. “I was pissed about it earlier, but now I’m here, with you, and I want you to be my boyfriend again,” you say, jaw hanging open as soon as the words come out. 

His eyes widen, lips parting in shock. Then his brows furrow, pushing a crease into his forehead. 

“I know what you’re going to say and I’m sorry.” You start running damage control and pray that Jake or Sunghoon will wake up and come back. “I really didn’t mean to say that, especially not now when we haven’t talked about everything. But you looked at me, Heeseung. You really looked at me just now and I can’t pretend I don’t want to be with you. I’m sorry, really, but it’s your fault I said that.” 

Mortified, you cover your face with your hands. “Can you say something now?” you ask, mumbling into the heels of your palms. 

All he says is your name and a pit forms in your stomach. “God, anything but that,” you groan. 

Heeseung chuckles, which you think is a good thing. “Would it be better if I called you baby?” 

“In what context?” 

Holding your breath, you watch as he presses his lips together, humming as he tilts his head. “Term of endearment between a girlfriend and her boyfriend.” 

You lift your head, separating your fingers to see him properly through the space and the pit in your stomach dissolves into something live, butterflies fluttering in a frenzy from the look on his face. The gentle curve of his lips, the warmth in his eyes, and the slight flush on his cheeks all make your head spin. 

“Really?”

Heeseung nods so hard his hair follows the movement. “Yes, baby.” 

“Can we kiss now?” 

“Maybe if you move your hands out of the way.”

“I don’t like maybe.”

“Definitely if you move your hands out of the way,” he corrects. 

You can’t bring yourself to move, worried that the sudden motion might disrupt something, might knock you out of the moment. Heeseung laughs, so softly it sounds like an exhale, as he takes your wrists in his hands, tugging gently. With your face in full view, his eyes flit over your features for a beat before he cups your cheek in his hand, dragging his thumb over the soft skin of your lips. 

You don’t even realise he’s leaning in until his lips touch yours. There’s a rush of something in your chest, an intense warmth surrounding your heart. His lips are softer than ever, gentle as he kisses you like you might break—you think you might. Nothing is better than this, better than having Heeseung’s lips on yours after all this time. You lean into him completely, pressing your body impossibly close to his and twirling your fingers around the hair at the nape of his neck. 

“I love you,” he whispers, barely pulling away. “I love you so much.” 

You can’t bring yourself to reply, emotions too close to the surface, tears too close to spilling. Instead, you smile into the kiss, somehow holding him closer and hoping he’ll understand. He pulls back, just enough to gaze into your eyes with a look of pure affection. He doesn’t press for words, a reassuring smile tugging his lips. 

He understands, Heeseung always understands. 

Sunghoon’s sheets are soft against your skin when you wake up, tickling your nose with the scent of detergent and Heeseung’s shampoo—fresh and light. Your hand finds its way into his hair, fingers curling around the strands as Heeseung watches you with a soft smile, eyes scanning your features, taking you in. He lets his hand rest on your cheek, thumb stroking the skin there and his eyes flick up to meet yours. You feel like a teenager, a giddy smile gracing your lips, giggles tumbling out at the tickly feeling of lovestruck butterflies rumbling in your stomach. Heeseung beams, nuzzling into the touch of your hand as his eyes flutter shut. 

“If we’re going to work out this time—I want us to work out, but we need to talk,” you say after a beat. 

Heeseung’s brows raise like he can’t believe what you’re saying, his lips pushing into a pout. “We are going to work out, of course we’re going to work out.” His voice is still raspy from sleep, a deep hoarseness that’s too sexy for the cute way he’s chewing on his lip, doe-eyed and sweet as his eyes scan your face.

“I know, baby, I want that.” You nod, using your hand to push his hair out of his face. It’s so long now it’s starting to cover his eyes, the soft blond strands curling into his eyelashes. “But you have to say no to me, you know? I want you to have a life of your own, we both should.” 

“No.” 

“No?” You press your eyes shut, sighing. “What do you mean, no?” 

“I’m starting now.” 

“I’m serious, Hee, this is serious.” 

He pouts for a second before nodding. “I’m serious too. I can say no to you, I will say no to you.” 

You can’t help your scepticism, raising your brow at him as you inspect his face. There’s nothing about his expression that suggests he’s not being serious, nothing in those huge eyes seeming insincere. But you know Heeseung, you’ve been with Heeseung, and you know better than anyone, there’s nothing he wouldn’t do if it meant spending time with you, so you have to ask. “So from now on, if I text you when you’re in class or out with friends, and I tell you I want to see you, what are you going to do?” 

Heeseung sighs. “I’m going to text back and say that I’m.. busy.” His lips curl into a frown. “My heart will be super heavy though.” 

“But you’ll do it? You won’t see me until you’re free?” 

“I’ll do it, I won’t leave or anything.” 

“Do you promise?” 

“Yeah, baby, I promise.” When you smile at him, Heeseung leans in to seal his promise with a kiss, his lips meeting yours softly. 

You flinch when the door opens and Heeseung chuckles against your lips, but he doesn’t stop kissing you. Over his head, you see Sunghoon standing in the doorway, hair dripping water on the floor with a towel wrapped around his hips. 

Sunghoon sighs, loud and dramatic, his head falling back. “I specifically said no funny business,” he mutters. “Quit looking at me.” He comes into the room and lifts the duvet over your heads. 

Under the covers, Heeseung pulls away, poking his head out and laughing. “We’re just kissing.”

“Yeah, with your shirt off. Why is your shirt off?”

“She wanted to wear—”

Sunghoon cuts him off with a gasp, pulling the duvet back. “Wait, why are you kissing?”

“I can’t kiss my girlfriend?” 

The word makes your cheeks burn and you hide your face in Heeseung’s chest. His lips find the top of your head, kissing you as he wraps his arms around you. 

Sunghoon groans at the sight. “I haven’t missed this at all,” he says. “Who else knows?”

“Just you so far.”

You can hear Sunghoon grinning when he drops the duvet back over your heads and shuffles around the room, getting ready for skating. Heeseung calls you cute and holds you closer. “I’ve missed you so much, missed this,” he mumbles into your hair. “I love you.”

Dating Heeseung again is better than anything you could have imagined, even if it has only been two weeks. He’s everything you’ve ever wanted and more, and even the simple things he does make you smile so hard your face aches. Like when he picks up snacks for you after class or sends you pictures of sweet things he wrote about you in his old diary. Chaewon and Yunjin comment that you seem happier, that you’re glowing, and you can’t help the giggles that always escape and the flush that burns your cheeks when you mention your boyfriend, Heeseung.

Even under the pressure of taking on a group project by yourself, you find yourself fighting a grin in the library just thinking about him. Your class finished an hour ago and you’re doing research in the computer lab while waiting for him so you can go back home together. With a crease in your brow, you try to make sense of conflicting articles on the origin of the Great Pyramid of Giza, happy when your phone lights up with a text. 

hee: we should go on a date tonight !!! how does the fair sound? 

you: sounds good :D 

hee: ❤️

As if sensing that plans have been made without him, Sunghoon sends a message to the group chat asking who wants to go to the Spring Fair in the city centre tonight. 

you: hee and i are alr going :/

sunghoon: awesome i can meet u at hee’s in a few hours?

You really can’t find the heart to tell Sunghoon it’s a date so you decide not to say anything, only feeling worse when Jay replies. 

jay: sounds good :D 

hee: it’s a date dumbass, you’re not invited.

sunghoon: ok.. i can still go

jake: time?

With your date set and whatever else the boys are planning in the group chat, you manage to finish up your work in time for Heeseung to show up with a grin on his face as you pack up your notebook. Excitement stirs in your stomach when he locks his fingers with yours and you’ve never looked forward to the sticky heat of a night in spring as much as you are right now. 

“How was class?” you ask, squeezing his hand. 

Heeseung grins at you, swinging your hands between your bodies as you weave through tables to leave the library. “Turns out I focus really well when you’re not sitting with me.” 

“Oh, really?”

“Mm.” He nods, biting his lip. 

“I can sit with other people if it’ll help you focus.” 

“No!” he whines, loud enough to draw side eyes from the students around you before the tips of his ears burn red and he pulls you out of the library at lightspeed. 

When you reach his flat, Jay’s sitting on the couch grinning at something on his phone, so distracted he doesn’t even realise you’ve arrived until you sit down next to him. He’s got a lot to say about his mock trial and tells you everything, all while you’re cuddled up to Heeseung, with your head on his shoulder. 

You blink and the sun’s gone down, Jay isn’t around anymore and Heeseung’s arms are around your waist, holding you close. “Hey,” he says when you stir. “The boys left already, you just looked so cute sleeping that I didn’t want to wake you.” 

There’s a wet patch on his sweater where your mouth was that you try to wipe away. It doesn’t budge. And a burning flush attacks your cheeks and neck when Heeseung uses his thumb to wipe some of the drool by your mouth. “So cute.” He chuckles. “Should we get going?” 

You spend the whole journey to the city centre with your hand in Heeseung’s, trying to fight the butterflies in your stomach every time he smiles at you. It’s weird. To have been with him for so long, yet still feel giddy when he looks at you. This is new though, you suppose, to live away from home and see him whenever you want. Absence really does make the heart grow fonder and you can’t help the grin on your face at the thought of spending infinite nights like this, with him. 

The Spring Fair is alive with laughter and squeals of delight that you can hear from around the corner. Winking lights spill onto the pavement in rapid succession, somehow showing the whole spectrum at once. Heeseung is bursting with excitement, running down the street with you in tow, desperately trying to keep up with his stride and regulate your breathing. His eyes are huge when you reach the gates, scanning the area for the churros he’s been talking about for the entire walk and he gasps when he sees the stall, pulling you along with him. You have to weave through the crowd, dipping and dodging tired locals and excited tourists as you call out apologies to everyone Heeseung bumps into. The first night is always packed like this, so full it’s hard to believe the fair runs for six whole weeks. 

You share a heart-shaped churro and pose for the photos he wants to take, your heart swelling with affection as you pretend to be embarrassed when he buys matching character headbands for you both. Two years ago, Heeseung would’ve told you that headbands aren’t a good use of your money and bought them anyway, but today, he spent fifteen minutes trying on and taking photos with each character before finding the perfect pair. You can’t help but grin as he puts the headband on for you, a sense of excitement blooming inside you, so great it’s overwhelming.

Heeseung buys a blue raspberry slushy in an obnoxiously large reusable cup with two straws, and as he clutches his head with each brain freeze, chuckles pour out of you, only increasing when he pouts. 

At every opportunity, the two of you take selfies, and the grin on his face in each one warms your heart. He posts his favourite to his story, showing you all the compliments he’s getting in his DMs, all aimed at you. He seems so proud and excited to be with you, and butterflies go mad in your stomach as he reads some of them out to you, agreeing with and adding to the messages.

“You’re so beautiful, baby. I think I might delete the picture,” he says, frowning as the story replies pour in. 

The look on his face makes you laugh, struggling to talk but trying anyway. “But I love it.” 

Heeseung puts his phone away, wrapping his arm around your shoulders. “I love you,” he says, using his free hand to tip your chin towards him. He grins when you say it back, tracing his thumb along your jaw. An odd stillness hits you, in the midst of vibrant chaos. Flashes of multi-coloured LEDs dance in orange and purple strobes over his face and your breath hitches in your throat. His eyes are pretty and wide, flicking from your eyes to your mouth a few times as a flame starts to burn in your stomach, low and scorching. 

“I love you,” you repeat, tip-toeing to close the gap. 

You kiss him, slow and sweet to savour the sugary taste on his lips as they move against yours. His tongue slips into your mouth, deepening the kiss and the taste of syrupy artificial fruit, leaving you craving more, craving him. A pop goes out in the air and you flinch in Heeseung’s arms. He chuckles against your lips before he pulls away, looking up. Trails of pink and gold paint the sky above, vibrant sparks spreading everywhere as a few more go off. If you weren’t so busy trying to catch your breath, you might appreciate their beauty, but you are and the next pop only startles you too. 

Heeseung looks down at you, his slightly swollen lips curving into a grin. “How are you so cute?” he coos. “And don’t most people want fireworks to go off when they kiss someone?” 

“It’s probably a sensation thing, Heeseung.” You know it’s a sensation thing. The first time he kissed you, it felt like you were floating on air, as if Sunghoon’s basement, cold and dark, was the most romantic place on Earth. You were sweaty and nervous, sitting cross-legged on the floor next to Heeseung while the boys were sleeping. He was the one to lean in and he kissed the tip of your nose by accident.

“Yeah, yeah,” he mutters. “Come here.” His voice is so deep and raspy that it spurs the flame on, burning higher, hotter, until it’s the only thing you can think about. His hand finds your jaw again, pulling you towards him to kiss you. Of course, you can’t resist; he’s Heeseung. 

The kiss is rife with neediness, whether from you or Heeseung you can’t tell, but you’re tugging at his hair and he’s clutching at your t-shirt, both of you struggling to get enough of the other. You nip at his bottom lip with your teeth and a heady sigh falls from his mouth into yours, brewing a storm in your mind, a thick fog obscuring everything but thoughts of him.

At the sound of a forced throat clearing, you break away from Heeseung, seeing an elderly lady with a steaming cup in her hand and a disgruntled look on her face. She extends an arm, gesturing behind you. When you follow the direction of her hand, you see a bench that you’re standing right in front of. Heeseung grabs your hand, mumbling an apology and tugging you as far away as possible. You struggle to stifle a laugh at the redness of his ears against his hair. 

A huge ride swings and spins into the air, catching your attention, though Heeseung seems to be more interested in the way Jake stands by the entrance with a scowl on his face. Jake waves you over when he sees you, grinning and hugging you both like it’s been years since he saw you. 

“Jay and Hoon are..” he trails off, using his arm to vaguely gesture towards the sky. 

“Man,” Heeseung whispers, pointing a reverent finger to the sky, “R.I.P.” 

Countless fireworks shoot up noisily, painting the dark sky, and Heeseung’s arms fall heavily around your shoulders, his body warm against your back. If not for the way Jake’s flinching next to you, covering his ears with his hands and ducking slightly at the bang of each one, it might feel like the two of you are alone in the moment. Alone despite the chatter, the laughter and squeals. Just you and Heeseung. 

And Jake. 

Heeseung is amazing at fair games, especially the ring toss. But a tired-looking man in a business suit wins the Hello Kitty plush you’d been eyeing for the snotty toddler wrapped around his leg, so you settle for the Kuromi plush instead. Heeseung says it’s cuter. You agree. 

His voice is soft when he asks, “Maybe we can go on the Ferris wheel later?” This is a far cry from the boy of sixteen who fainted at an amusement park just from seeing the drop on the biggest ride there. When you look up at him, his eyes are wide, boring into you, holding the stars in his pupils with a grin across his blue-stained lips, and how could you say no to that face? 

The platform by the Ferris wheel is sticky under your shoes, making you cringe with every step you take towards the front of the line. Heeseung’s grip on your hand is tighter than you think it’s ever been when he realises that you’re next to get on. This might be the most scared you’ve ever seen him, your poor boyfriend with his overpriced Kuromi headband shivering beside you. 

You frown at the sight, reaching up to kiss his cheek. “We don’t have to do this, Hee,” you say.

He tries to play it cool, shrugging with a nonchalance that doesn’t match the fear in his eyes. “I want to,” he assures, though his voice lacks conviction. 

“Are you sure?” The way he flinches when the ride operator opens the gate gives you his answer, but Heeseung is firm in his words as he pulls you towards the cart, despite wincing when the operator locks you in. “Baby,” you whisper, touching his cheek. “It’s not too late to get out.” 

In what appears to be a display of his bravery, he makes a show of rocking the carriage — only to be told off by the operator (who can’t be older than sixteen) — and cheering (with no conviction) about nothing in particular. You can’t help but laugh, the cart shaking slightly as you let your head fall back and you only laugh harder when Heeseung gasps because of it. 

He flinches again when the ride starts moving, an unsettling creak sending you forward just enough to allow the next victims — according to Heeseung — to get on the ride. When the last of them board, the wheel sets off in a slow spin and he spends the entire first rotation with his eyes clamped shut, only opening them after a while when he thinks the ride is over. 

The wheel creaks more than what you think is necessary and he only grows more and more outwardly uncomfortable, worrying his bottom lip with his teeth and gripping the safety bar above your laps until his knuckles turn white. 

“Would it make you feel better if I held your hand?” you coo, holding your left hand out to him. 

He rolls his eyes but takes your hand in his, holding it between his palms. Seemingly at ease, Heeseung shifts slightly in his seat to close the tiny gap between you, pressing his knee into yours. 

Even in the distance, the fair’s LED lights are beautiful, melting away into flashing bokeh before your eyes as the carriage inches higher and higher. You almost forget your company, leaning over the edge to get a better look, only for Heeseung to put his arm on your arm, mumbling, “Stop it.” 

His skin is warm despite the slight chill that comes with your increasing altitude, and you wish the carriage was smaller—cramped even, forcing the two of you together so tightly that you have no choice but to become one. You sit in the quiet of the night, excitement on the fairground growing quieter as the wheel spins, agonisingly slow, until eventually it’s just the two of you—you and Heeseung: the only people in the moment. 

The only people in the world.

“Why are we even on this thing?” you whisper, squeezing his hand. 

Heeseung shrugs his shoulders as gently as he can manage so as not to rock the carriage. His eyes are big when he looks at you, holding your gaze intently. “I wanted to be romantic.” 

Oh, Heeseung, you think, pressing your lips into a frown. He’s the sweetest person in the world and just the thought of it makes your stomach flutter. “You’re plenty romantic,” you say sincerely. 

He scoffs. “Yeah, because pretending you didn’t exist for a year is romantic.” 

“Yes! Very!” You chuckle, nodding your head. 

Again, he rolls his eyes at you but he uses his hand to hold your face, pulling you in. His kiss tastes like candy floss and the blue raspberry slushy you shared earlier, lips soft, relaxed against your own. Your hand reaches for his thigh, meeting instead with the squished plushy between your bodies and you can’t help but laugh. 

With your presentation out of the way, you and the guys are all sitting in Heeseung and Jay’s living room for the first night of Spring break. You’ve just about reached your limit, cuddling into Heeseung’s side with your eyes closed, sleepily listening to the conversation. It’s unintelligible, more laughter and wheezes than anything else. 

You shift your way into Heeseung’s lap after a while, moving around to get comfortable. It only takes two movements for him to grab you by the waist, holding you still. You try again, and his lips catch the shell of your ear. “Relax, baby. What’s up?”

“Nothing,” you admit, moving around again until he sighs, relieved, you think. A wicked grin spreads over your lips when you feel him getting hard, grinding down on him a little and liking the warmth that spreads in your stomach from having him pressed against you. 

“Stop it,” he whispers, kissing the spot behind your ear. 

You heed the warning but can’t help the thoughts filling your mind, though you try to ignore them, laughing at something Sunghoon said about Jake’s ugly hat and shoes. Jake doesn’t find it as funny as the rest of you seem to.

Another hour passes by in the same way before the boys stumble into Jay’s room, calling out a slurred goodnight to you and Heeseung on the couch. You stand up first, holding out a hand for him to take and giggling when he presses a kiss to the back of it. 

In his room, he stares at a spot on the wall as you close the door, a contemplative look on his face. “Are you okay?” you ask, but he doesn’t look at you, only nodding his head with a crease along his brow. 

You kiss him, a featherlight touch of your lips against his. It’s soft for a while, sweet and sincere until he clutches your shirt like his life depends on it. Heeseung’s hands are all over you, stroking and squeezing every part of you he can reach. Overwhelming heat burns your skin under his touch. He inhales sharply through his nose when you reach for his waistband, tugging the drawstring free but he grabs your wrist, stopping you. He keeps kissing you, keeps trying and frowns when you pull away. 

“You don’t want this?” 

He tilts his head, looking down at you with concern flooding his wide eyes. “Do you think we’re going too fast?” His voice is quiet and he chews on his lip after speaking. 

“We’ve been together for six years.” 

“A month,” he corrects, looking at his feet.

As badly as you want him, you don’t want him doing anything he’s not ready for, so you wiggle your arm free from his grip, dropping it at your side. He lifts his head to look at you, brows knitted together, the sweetest thing you’ve ever seen. “I don’t want to rush you.”

“It’s not that.” He shakes his head with wide eyes. “I just don’t want us doing anything you’ll regret.”

“I’m not going to regret this, I don’t regret anything we’ve done, Heeseung,” you say, holding his face in your hands. 

He closes his eyes, nodding. 

“Do you want to stop?” 

“Never,” he whispers and the word has you falling to your knees. 

It’s hard to see his exact expression in only the dim glow of the streetlights outside, but you can clearly see the way he’s watching you. The way his eyes are lidded as he chews on his bottom lip, watching you reach for the buckle on his belt. Heeseung threads his fingers through your hair, groaning, and for a few seconds, you’re hypnotised. Too wrapped up in tipsiness and lust to move your fingers, completely focused on the way his breath starts to pick up before you’ve even done anything. You’re starting to think it might be enough for him just to see you like this, on your knees for him, wide-eyed and eager. 

Whether on purpose or not, Heeseung tugs on your hair gently, pulling you from your trance. His blunt fingernails scratch at the back of your head as you undo his belt, tugging his jeans down. He steps out of them as soon as he can, smiling when you toss them behind you. Too worked up to wait, you push your face against him. You take a minute to hold his covered cock between your lips, shuddering at the feeling of the damp spot at the top of it. Heeseung grunts, bucking his hips. He looks like sin when you lock eyes with him, licking a strip to the top of his waistband, sucking and nipping at the skin and coarse hair there. 

“Quit teasing,” he says, still keeping control of his voice. 

You blink up at him sweetly, shaking your head. “I’m not,” you mumble, pulling his underwear down. 

Heeseung’s dick smacks his stomach with a wet sound that makes you clench around nothing, and you sit back on your heels to admire him. Maybe it’s from time, or your unbearable desire, but he looks bigger, thicker, and much prettier than you remember. When you finally drag your eyes from his dick, you notice a mark on his hip, right above where his thigh starts. It’s a smudge of something dark, inky almost. You furrow your brows, licking the pad of your thumb to try and get rid of it. He practically flinches when you touch it, moving away from you. The increased distance between you and the low lighting only further obscures it—when you rub at the mark it doesn’t budge. 

“What is this?” 

“It’s nothing,” he says, sitting down on the bed and covering it with his hand. 

If it was anyone other than Heeseung, you might have thought it was a tattoo, but you can’t make sense of the thought so it slips your mind as soon as it occurs. You reach for the lamp on his bedside table, flicking it on, losing your breath at the sight of his skin glowing golden in the light, and the tip of his cock is a tempting, glossy red. You can’t help but take him in your hand, stroking him slowly. 

“Tell me, baby.” 

“It’s a bruise,” he manages through a gasp, licking his lips.

Your thumb swipes over his slit and he crumbles. “Heeseung.” 

“Butterfly, it’s a butterfly.” 

A fuzzy warmth starts to bloom in your chest, overwhelming you. “Lay down,” you say, voice as soft as it’s ever been. 

Heeseung obliges, linking his fingers with yours when you move his hand from his thigh. Under the light, you can see it clearly, dark strokes of ink forming a pretty butterfly, tiny, and heart-achingly familiar. 

“Is it..” You trail off, moving your lips around words that you can’t get out as tears sting your eyes. “Did I draw this?” Leaning over him, you get as close as you can, using your finger to trace the shape. 

Sitting up on his elbows, he looks down at you with a worried look on his face as he nods. “Do you hate it?” 

“I love it.. it’s perfect.” You let go of his hand, using the back of your fingers to wipe at your eyes. 

Heeseung sits up, letting his hand cup your cheek and looking at you. He uses his thumb to wipe some of the tears you missed before leaning down and kissing you. His lips move slowly with yours, he’s being gentle, so gentle that you hear your heart thudding in your ears. 

“Come sit,” he mumbles against your mouth, helping you up and guiding you into his lap, a whine falling out of him when you sit on his cock and you mumble an apology that you don’t mean.

“When did.. Why did you..”

His shoulders rise and fall in a shrug. “My first birthday I spent without you. I just wanted to have something for you.”

You’ve seen it and you’ve heard it from him, but you still can’t make sense of it. “But you’re.. you’re Heeseung. You’d never get a tattoo, you told me that.” 

“I’ll probably never get another tattoo, it hurt like hell,” he says, frowning. 

“You’re such a sweetheart.” You cradle his face in your hands, gazing into his eyes, your sweet Heeseung. So different yet so incredibly similar. “You’re, like, obsessed with me.”

There’s a loud adoration in his eyes that makes your stomach turn. “How could I not be?” His smile is wide even though his lips are smushed a little by the way you’re holding his face. 

Heeseung tilts his chin towards you so you kiss him, the two of you passing moans and whines between your mouths as you grind on him, his hands gripping your waist under your shirt. He shudders under you, rutting his hips against yours with a groan. He’s harder than ever underneath you, his cock hot between your thighs, pressed up against your core in the most maddening way. It can’t be comfortable for him, the friction from your underwear but he seems like he’s enjoying it just as much as you, maybe more, you think, when he starts throbbing. 

Conscious of the boys across the hall, you try your best to be quiet, though Heeseung doesn’t share your concern, his lips parting too wide to keep kissing you and his head falling back as he lets a whine out into the air. His nails dig into your skin, hips speeding up more than you can keep up with as he trembles, clearly so close to the edge that you moan at the sight of him all fucked out in front of you. You chew on your lip, watching his whole face scrunch up before falling to your shoulder, his cum leaking out all over your panties and the tops of your thighs. A grin covers your lips while your pussy aches from the heat of his release and the feeling of his staggered breath hitting your skin. When he finally sits up, sweat slicks the column of his neck and chest, a nervous look in his eyes that he can’t quite bring to meet yours. 

“This is j—” Heeseung cuts you off by covering your mouth with his palm. 

“I remember. You don’t have to say it, baby, I remember.” 

“You were so cute that day,” you say when he moves his hand. Butterflies fill your stomach when you think about it, the first time you ever did anything with each other, with anyone. He was fifteen, with cute round glasses perched on the end of his nose and teeth too big for his mouth, finishing in his jeans with you in his lap.

“You don’t think I’m cute anymore?” he asks, frowning. 

“You’re always cute.”

Heeseung grins at your words, so wide and sweet your heart races. He kisses you gently and slips his hand into your underwear, his finger trailing the length of your pussy slowly, groaning into your mouth at how wet you are. You whine into the kiss when he strokes your clit and gasp when he pushes a finger into you easily. Gradually, he adds more fingers, fucking you open on his knuckles and watching as you fall apart.

His lips move from yours, falling to your neck so he can kiss and suck the sensitive skin there. “You feel so good, baby. My sweet girl,” he mumbles, breath searing your skin. The words make you clench, your stomach fluttering relentlessly as he uses his thumb to press on your clit, the pressure enough to make you spiral. It’s all too much too fast and before long, you’re squirming and mewling in Heeseung’s arms, finishing all over his fingers. 

Immediately, an excruciating flush burns every inch of your body as you hide your face in his neck to catch your breath. His arms wrap around you and he whispers sweet nothings into your hair while stroking your back.

Ever since that night in his room, all your senses feel heightened when Heeseung is around. 

And it doesn’t help that you spend every waking moment with him. Whether in his flat or yours, you’re joined at the hip and it’s near impossible not to pounce on him. In your stomach blooms a heat you haven’t felt in years. An all-consuming flame that makes you hold your breath when he cuddles you; makes you look away when he strips before showering.

He’s taken a liking to shirtlessness, only seeming to remember that the garments exist when he has to leave the house—which isn’t often now that classes have ended. This sudden cotton allergy plagues you, burning the image of his ever-increasing muscle definition and the tattoo on his hip into your memory, so deeply they’re the only things you see when you close your eyes at night. 

Even when Heeseung’s being romantic, cooking dinner for the two of you and almost burning his finger with a match while lighting a candle, you’re thinking about him fucking you. When he goes out with the boys and stumbles into your flat, drunk, with a crushed bouquet in his hands, you’re thinking about what might have happened if you’d gone out too. If he’d finger you in the back of a taxi or take you against the door when you got back. 

Weeks go by like this until you finally reach your limit. 

There’s nothing overtly sexual about the way Heeseung’s sitting. About the way his lashes kiss his cheeks when he blinks, or the way his hair sits in a sleepy mess on his forehead. But it’s Heeseung. So these things existing on him drive you crazy. 

Given the lack of privacy in your family homes — by way of an open-door rule when visiting each other — you and Heeseung didn’t have many opportunities to have sex that didn’t involve being tangled around one another in the backseat of his car. And even those occasions were few and far between. 

With the only three brain cells that seem to function around your shirtless boyfriend and your head on the doorjamb, you begin to scheme. It doesn’t have to be elaborate—just a way to get Heeseung to fuck you without you having to bring it up. 

“What’s up, baby?” he asks, finally looking over at you. His voice pulls you out of your thoughts, with a raspiness to it that makes your thoughts run wild. From head to toe, his eyes drag over your body, his tongue coming out to run over his lips. 

Clearly, a very delicate, well-timed conversation is in order and the gears in your mind scrape against each other, turning egregiously as you try to figure out how to start the conversation. “I want you to fuck me,” you blurt out. Not the most delicate approach, but the way Heeseung’s eyes widen suggests you might be on the right track. “I didn’t mean to say that,” you admit sheepishly. 

He chuckles deeply in a way you haven’t heard in years. “So you don’t want me to fuck you?” There’s a challenge in his question, evident from his raised brow, the setting aside of his phone, and the way he sits up straight. The movement forces the duvet to slip a little, falling from above his belly button to his hips in one fell — effortlessly sexy — swoop. 

In spite of this, you can’t help but roll your eyes at him. How could you be standing there, in nothing but his t-shirt, asking him to fuck you and he’s caught up on semantics? “That’s not what I’m saying.” 

“What are you saying?” When you don’t say anything, Heeseung lifts the duvet from his body entirely, grinning when your gaze locks on his hips. His pyjama pants are sitting low enough to show off the waistband of his underwear, and they don’t do anything to hide the way his hard cock pushes against them.

Heeseung towers over you, overwhelming you and the space of the doorframe as his mouth quirks up at one corner. “You want it, baby?” he asks, his voice soft as he cups your face in his hand, using his thumb to trace your lips. 

His face dips down to yours and you can’t resist reaching up to kiss him, whining at the contact as you move your lips in sync with his. The sounds he’s making are dizzying, deep groans you feel in your chest. His hand grips your waist, pulling you as close as possible so you can feel him, hard and thick, pressing against you. 

You whimper when he pulls away, chasing his kiss, but Heeseung only chuckles. “Say the word and I’m yours,” he whispers, looking down at you with those big eyes. 

“I’m not going to beg.” 

He smiles sweetly, a soft curve of his lips summoning butterflies. “Suit yourself,” he says, leaning down to press a kiss to the base of your neck and leaving the room. 

Flustered, you follow him, flinging your arms around his waist and pressing your face into his back. “Okay, I’m going to beg.”

“I’m listening.” 

“I need you,” you mumble into his skin. 

“You have me.” 

Even though his words and the way his lips audibly split into a grin make your heart race, you can’t help your frustration. “Heeseung,” you say, pleading with him. 

He frees himself from your grip, turning around. When you look up at him, he’s watching you closely through lidded eyes, his lips parted in a soft pout that makes your heart melt. His arms wrapped around your shoulders, holding you close enough to feel him pressing against you. “I’m all yours, baby. What’s up?”

“Why are you torturing me?”

This makes him smile as he shakes his head. “I’m not.” 

“Please.”

He brings a hand up to your face, his thumb stroking your cheek and you can’t help but nuzzle into his palm. “Please what?” 

“You know what I need and I can’t go any longer without it,” you mumble into his hand. Heeseung only raises a brow and you sigh. Somehow, your want for him is greater than your embarrassment so you sigh, looking him in the eye. “If you want to, please, please, fuck me, Heeseung. Any way you want, baby, just promise me you’ll do it. I need it, need you.” 

A shit-eating grin takes over his face as he leans down to press a kiss to your forehead. “Was that so hard?” he asks, frowning when you don’t reply. “Don’t get all moody, baby, talk to me.” 

Heeseung picks you up, holding you close as you wrap your legs around his waist. Both of his hands are spread over your ass and you’re too embarrassed to say anything, chewing your lip and staring at the little mole on his forehead. 

“Need me to fuck you ‘til you can talk again?” There’s a roughness to his voice that makes your cheeks flush, but you can’t help but laugh, head falling back in a fit of cackles. 

“What are you talking about?” 

His pretty lips come together in a pout before he speaks. “I don’t know.” He shrugs, the tips of his ears burning red as he carries you to his room, using his foot to close the door behind him. “I’m rusty.”

You shake your head before kissing his forehead. “You’re perfect.”

Heeseung sets you down on the bed gently, crawling over you. “I like seeing you in my shirts,” he says, clutching the fabric in his fists, tugging a little. 

“Someone has to wear them.”

A breathy laugh falls from his lips. “What?” He tilts his head, leaning away from you to sit back on his heels. “You don’t like seeing me like this?” 

It’s hard to find a balance between missing his warmth and looking at his body. Staring at the definition that marks his chest and stomach and the way his muscles stick out over his biceps, you can feel yourself leaking at the sight of him. Your eyes catch on his waistband, on the strip of hair that’s cut off by the start of the fabric before falling to the bulge in his pants. 

“You’re looking at me like I’m your next meal,” he mumbles, leaning back over you with a deep flush on his cheeks and neck.

“I think I want you to be.” 

“You think?”

You nod eagerly, anticipation swirling in your stomach. 

“Anything I can do to make you certain?” Heeseung’s voice is thick with something you think could be enough to make you finish. 

“Whatever you want,” you say, desperate. 

He chews on his lip, considering you for a while before kissing your cheek. Once more, he sits up, tugging at your waist. “First, I want this shirt out of my way,” he says with a smile. 

Immediately, you lean off the bed to let him take it off, tossing it behind him. “Anything else?” 

Heeseung’s too busy staring to speak, taking you in hungrily with a jarring combination of lust and adoration behind his eyes. You thought you’d feel shy about him seeing you after so long, but you’ve never felt more comfortable in your life as he reaches down to lock his fingers with yours. He brings your hand up to his mouth, kissing the back of it. “You’re so pretty,” he says against your skin. 

There’s no stopping the flutter in your stomach or the smile that spreads over your lips. You tell him you love him and he says it back as he leans back down to kiss you slowly, his tongue licking into your mouth at an agonising pace, a line of saliva connecting you to him when he pulls away. 

“I want to get my head between your legs,” he mumbles, letting his hand dip between your spread thighs. “So wet already?” he asks, dragging your slick up to your clit, rubbing it with a featherlight touch that leaves a whine slipping from your lips. “Will you let me?” 

You nod. 

Heeseung smiles and you match it before he dips his head into the crook of your neck, kissing the skin there for a minute. His breath and wet mouth are hot, burning a trail down to your collarbone and chest, where he gets distracted, pulling one of your nipples between his lips.

Your stomach twists at the sight of him, his pretty, pouty lips sucking and biting at your sensitive skin, the way he’s moaning against you, using his thick fingers to tug and pinch your other breast. It takes him a while to move on but you don’t complain, even when he presses tickly kisses to your stomach. 

When he reaches your legs, he gets off the bed, kneels on the floor and hooks his arms around your thighs to pull you towards him. You feel exposed when he uses his thumbs to spread you, staring at your pussy with wide eyes, his lips parted a little until his head falls back with a groan. 

“Missed this pussy. Been thinking about it so much, all the time. So beautiful, baby.” He manages to drag his gaze from between your legs to lock eyes with you. “You’re so beautiful, baby.” His lips touch your thighs, kissing the soft skin there, sucking marks into it and biting softly. The sting is subtle but it makes you clench, a movement that isn’t lost on him. “You’re so needy, huh? You want me that bad?” he asks, looking up with a tilted head. 

You mumble the word ‘no’ and shake your head. “Need you.” The words come out of their own accord, nothing more than a desperate whine that makes Heeseung press his eyes shut. You watch as he shifts on the floor, leaning in and giving you the attention you deserve. 

Heeseung’s nose grazes your slit and you gasp at the sudden contact, flinging your head back into the pillows when he licks a strip from there to your clit, giving it a quick peck. 

You card your fingers through his hair, gripping at the strands so hard it must hurt, but he doesn’t seem to mind, going slow despite the way you’re trying to rut against his face. He kisses the spot above your clit, his tongue poking out to lick at the skin there, only hitting the bud a few times and the anticipation is enough to make you spiral. 

Time stands still, all concept of it demolished when, finally, he wraps his lips around your swollen clit, running his tongue over it with a pressure that leaves you shaking against the sheets. Moans pour out of you like water from a faucet with nothing but pleasure and Heeseung’s sweet mouth crossing your mind. 

It doesn’t seem like he’s ever going to stop, only coming up for air for a brief moment before sticking a finger into you and attaching his mouth to your clit, burying himself in your wetness. The stretch is minimal, barely registering in the waves of pleasure crashing over you, until he adds a second finger, thick and rigid as he works you open for him. By the time his third finger enters, you have to pull him away by his hair, struggling to find the words to say and settling on a whiny cry of his name.

“Hmm?” He looks up at you, face covered in slick that shines on his chin and nose, shoulders rising and falling heavily, but his fingers don’t let up, curling towards your belly button torturously slow.

“Want to cum with you inside.”

Heeseung’s eyes darken and he licks his lips. “Yeah?” 

“Uh-huh, and I don’t want you using a condom either, want you to fill me up.”

“Are you sure?” 

You nod. “I’m still on the pill and you’re the only person I’ve ever been with.”

Heeseung wastes no time standing up from the floor, watching hungrily as you sigh at the emptiness, moving up on the bed. He uses his fist to pump his cock slowly, sighing when he drags his thumb over his tip. A beat passes before he grins, boyish and handsome while crawling over you again. His face softens and his eyes burn into yours as he cups your cheek in his palm. “You sure about this?” 

“I’m sure, Heeseung, you’re all I want,” you whisper, pecking his lips. 

“Me too.” 

He uses his free hand to reach for his cock, rubbing his tip over your clit and chewing on his lip. He lets his cock split your folds, grinding his length against you, rubbing your cunt with a wet sound that fills the room. Heeseung straightens up and you moan when he spits into his palm, stroking himself before pressing the head of his cock to your entrance. You hold your breath, bracing for the stretch and crying out when he pushes in. His head falls forward with a sigh, his hair tickling your forehead.

“I missed you,” he groans when he bottoms out, his thumb running over your lips. A moan slips out of him when you open your mouth, running your thumb over the pad of his finger and sucking on it. “Missed these pretty lips, this pussy. Don’t know how I got on without it.” His words and the feeling of him inside after so long only make you dizzy, knowing that he wanted you like you wanted him. He watches you with parted lips, rocking his hips tenderly against yours. 

“Faster, Hee,” you whisper. “Harder.” 

Heeseung’s brows knit together and he slows to a pace that lets you feel single vein and inch of him as he bottoms out before pulling almost all the way out. “Can you take it?” he asks, a jarring tone to his voice that you think is a challenge. 

You nod desperately. “Please.” 

The word flips a switch for him and he speeds up, thrusting so hard, so deep that your back arches off the bed as his tip nudges your g-spot each time. Just when it all starts to feel too much, Heeseung lifts one of your legs, hitting deeper than he has before and tangling up a knot in your stomach. 

“You’re so good, baby, so good for me.” His eyes are dark and lidded, full of all the love in the world as he gazes into yours, a tangible love that overwhelms you, eating you alive along with his praise.

Sweltering heat stretches through every part of your body at the drag of him inside, the push and pull of his cock along your stuttering walls. It’s enough to make you shiver and a cry of his name rips out of you when he starts rubbing your clit again, pushing the bud in slow circles that make you screw your eyes shut. 

“That’s it. Cum for me, baby, make a mess,” he whispers and that’s as much as you can take. 

Stars flash behind your closed eyes as every single part of your body sets alight, dazed by Heeseung’s whines and the feeling of being full, finally being full, until both ends of the knot tug and tug, leaving you with nothing but a hoarse moan that dies in your throat as your orgasm hits you like a truck. 

A lewd squelch accompanies each of his thrusts as they get sloppier and sloppier, losing their rhythm and intensity. It seems like he’s right there with you though when he collapses on top of you, his head falling into the crook of your neck and his moans slipping out like music to your ears.

It’s hard not to fall apart under him, but you try your best, dragging your nails over the toned muscles of his back while telling him you love him over and over until he finishes. Both of you are trembling, fighting for breath and whining as Heeseung sloppily fucks you full of his cum. The sound is downright pornographic, loud and wet as your cum mixes with his for the first time in so long. An inexplicable intimacy so thick it hangs in the air, perching on your shoulders as he looks into your eyes. 

Heeseung slows down after a while, stopping completely but not pulling out yet, keeping you full and aching around him. When he catches his breath, he gives you a dreamy smile, thanking you before pressing soft kisses to every part of your face he can reach. 

You whine when he pulls out, missing him as soon as he’s gone. Despite your sensitivity, you want to beg him to come back, to slip back into you and stay forever, though Heeseung has other plans. He sits between your legs, dragging a lazy finger up your slit and watching with a smile as cum leaks out. You squirm against the sheets, pushing your head into the pillow when he uses two fingers to push it back in.

“Wish I could keep you full like this forever,” he mumbles absently, curling his fingers. 

All you can do is sigh happily. Long minutes go by until he takes his fingers out of you, reaching behind him for his shirt to wipe you up before leaning down to your face, mumbling against your lips to come and shower with him.

You’ve never showered with Heeseung before and a voice in your head tells you to press your cheek against the tile and let him have you again, but you’re way too sleepy for that. The warmth of the water and his big hands roaming your body do nothing to help, only forcing your eyes to fall shut as you lean back against Heeseung’s chest, willing yourself to stay awake. 

Once you’re all showered and clean, you only feel sleepier, standing on the plush bath mat in front of the steamed-up mirror. Droplets of water trickle down your skin and you can’t help but revel in the warmth of the room around you. Wrapped snugly in a soft, fluffy towel, you find yourself too tired to follow Heeseung out, slathering some of the expensive moisturiser Jay keeps in the bathroom over your skin. You peer into the mirror, though you don’t see much, and for a moment, it’s just you and the steady trickle of water from the showerhead. The bathroom smells like Heeseung’s minty shower gel and you miss him already, but you take your time anyway, savouring the moment and everything that came before it. 

You find him in his room when you’re done, tucking the last corner of a fitted sheet around his mattress. 

“You want to nap, baby?” he asks when he sees you, holding out a clean shirt for you to wear. 

“Mm,” you hum, nodding your head and dropping the towel so he can put the shirt over your head. 

“Let me just fix the pillowcases, yeah?” 

You nod, slumping into his desk chair and watching the muscles in his back shift and flex as he moves around the room, dumping the dirty bedding into his laundry basket and slipping the clean linen over his pillows. He pulls the duvet back and pats the mattress, grinning when you shake your head and make grabby hands in his direction, 

Heeseung stretches his arms above his head and comes over to you but you stop him before he can pick you up. 

“I’m going grocery shopping with Yunjin later and I need a pound for the trolley, do you have any?” you ask through a yawn. 

He scratches his chin, thinking about it. “If I do, they’re in my wallet,” he says, reaching for it on the desk and handing it to you before taking a seat on the end of his bed. 

When you pull on the zipper to open the coin slot, you find a shiny pound coin and a folded piece of lined paper. You leave the coin where it is and hold the paper between two fingers for him to see. “What’s this?” 

Immediately, he hides his face with his hands but you can still see the flush on his ears. You’re not sure what reaction you were expecting, but despite your curiosity, you won’t look at it if he doesn’t want you to. “Sorry, baby,” you say, putting it back. “Forget I asked.” 

Heeseung sighs, looking up at you through the gaps in his fingers. “You can look if you want, it’s nothing bad, just mildly humiliating.” 

Nervous anticipation settles over your body and you can’t help but laugh a little, feeling your breath catch in your throat when you unfold the crumpled and creased paper. It’s blank. You arch a curious brow at Heeseung, who, though still slightly embarrassed, gestures for you to turn it over. 

What meets your eyes on the other side leaves you stunned. There, inked in blue with delicate care yet bearing the natural imperfections of a hand-drawn butterfly, was a familiar image. It’s the very same butterfly you drew in your notebook on a spring date with him four years ago. Your fingers tremble as you trace the lines, your heart racing as you remember how he’d torn it from the page, eyes full of appreciation for the simple drawing. 

Tears well up in your eyes when it dawns on you. It’s the very same butterfly he has tattooed on his hip, a permanent reminder of your love that endured separation and time. 

Your voice is weak as you look up at him, quivering with emotion. “You kept it after all these years,” you whisper.

Heeseung smiles, his eyes full of love. “I never let go of what matters to me.” 

© zreamy (2023), all rights reserved. do not repost, translate, or plagiarise my work. do let my know your thoughts !

permanent taglist: @asahicore

[jellyluvr]

The Evans

- their fav position ⋆ ˚｡⋆୨୧˚

I think spill the t already did this but it's chill 😋

18+

° . • Tate Langdon • * . ☆ · ° . *

Definitely a bitch for doggystyle.

Anal or vaginal, he'd totally like fuck your brains out in that position.

He'd like it so he can pull your hair and get a better grip on you. And for the view of your ass ofc 💋💋

Luvs taking it from the back. Standing up, laying down.. really doesn't matter to him. Probably cup ur tits while it too

° . • kit walker • * . ☆ · ° . *

What an angel.

Based on how sweet he is he'd probably be bottom. Let you fuck him, yknow?

If he doesn't, definitely just a generic fuck. Him on top, u on bottom. Totally kinda rough unintentionally though

° . • kyle spencer • * . ☆ · ° . *

MISSIONARY!!!

He'd love missionary mainly to see your face. Maybe a few touches on your tits but yknow it's pretty chill.

Regardless of how you react to his size the show must go on.

Too big? Comforting. Slower and kisses.

° . • Franken kyle • * . ☆ · ° . *

Any position where he can get what he wants.

He'd probably have trouble even picking.

So his favoriteS would be from the back, and missionary.

Back as in turned over while sleeping until his needy ass comes along.

If it's not him, definitely you fucking him rather than the other way around.

° . • jimmy darling • * . ☆ · ° . *

Against any surface is the way to go for him

Wall, desk.. bed... even the floor.

He'd push your cheek into it while fucking you or put his hands on the wall or surface.

Basically from the back but he has a preference for it definitely.

° . • James patrick march • * . ☆ · ° . *

Missionary. No arguments about it. Missionary!!

He's definitely kinky and teasing, so he'd bring a knife in and possibly fuck you with the handle 👀 (lmk if you want a fic abt that)

Or on a surface as well, but you facing up. He'd make it to where you could see him the whole time. If you tried to look away he'd probably slap you or turn your head and keep it there.

° . • kai anderson • * . ☆ · ° . *

Anything.

Anything to feel your pussy around him.

Missionary, or against the wall.

He'd fold you and put your knees over his shoulders most likely.

Kai'd like it so he could see his dick in you, and the cum oozing out when he was done.

He would definitely nibble on your tits while fucking you too. Like no doubt.

° . • Jeff pfister • * . ☆ · ° . *

Over something.

From the back anal or vaginal like tate.

He'd like it because he wouldn't have to see your face. As mean as it sounds, you're probably just his side chick.

If you're not, he'd fold you as well. Quite rough too.

° . • Austin Sommers • * . ☆ · ° . *

With you on top of his lap.

He'd hold you and fuck you pretty rough.

Whisper in your ear occasionally, give you no mercy on your clit. 🙈

And of course, he'd definitely cum inside. Everyone knows that.

° . • peter maximoff • * . ☆ · ° . *

Ohhh...

He's not the rough type, but also not the gentle type.

Missionary. Definitely.

He'd go to your liking, take your moans and face expression as a hint to slow down or go faster.

He'd probably kiss you a lot during it. Along your neck, face.. chest. Leave a mark on you 💕

───────────────────────────────

I probably left out a few things so I apologize if so lmfao

Taglist: @kaismanwich @tatelangdonsgirll @daylas-life @hyperharlz @kaiju-superstar @howtobesasha @luttic @spill-the-t @ima0nahlol

[wqnwoos]

dating seventeen (hyung line ver.)

hyung line (95s & 96s) x gn!reader — cw mentions of food in some — written while sleep deprived (heavily) and not proofread

maknae line ver.

seungcheol

is he your boyfriend or is he your sugar daddy. unclear.

would literally pay for everything if you didn’t stop him

also just sooo soft n cuddly with you :(

sits you in his lap and when he’s especially clingy he’ll literally just hold on

like he will refuse to let go and get all pouty and whiny and starts kissing up your neck and you’re like sir i love u too but please can i just go take a piss

ALSO 😭 probably gets jealous if you’re cuddling w kkuma and not him

or if she likes you better than him… he’s never going to get over it

i feel like he’s the type of bf who would take the couch when you guys fight — like no matter how mad he is, he would point blank refuse to let you take it

pulls out all the pet names for u too, ur his baby angel love darling sweetheart and there’s nothing u can do about it!!!!!

jeonghan

MENACE

constantly teasing you omg

but like in the most endearing way possible so you can’t even get annoyed at him

big on leaning. like leans his head on your shoulder and loves it whenever you do the same

also feel like he’d love to just plop his head in your lap and have you play with his hair

like he just drags your hand to it wordlessly and if you stop for a minute he starts whining

scolds you if you don’t eat properly or miss meals and stuff like that,, he hates it so much and it makes him worry :(

do not ask him if he would still love you if you were a worm. the answer will not be the one you want.

probably replies with “i might step on you”

or even “i’d go fishing with you as bait” and then convince you — because you love him so much that you want him to eat well, don’t you???

probably squishes your cheeks at random intervals just because he can

baby talks you while he’s doing it too 😭 like “my pretty baby, so cute”

boops your nose

also makes faces at you across rooms at parties to try and make you laugh in the middle of serious convos 😭

but also the best comforter whenever you’re nervous about something; holds your hands and breathes with you :((

joshua

guys this man is sO boyfriend i don’t even know where to start. it’s kind of sickening actually

i just see him being flirty asf,,, like u guys are already dating but he’s still being so SMOOTH

also classic gentleman — holds doors for you and helps you in/out of the car

opens up all your packets and cans and everything so you don’t have to struggle

probably kisses your hand too (like ok prince charming we get it)

demands cheek kisses,, like he will just wordlessly offer his cheek to you

and if you don’t supply them he will be very upset

also hear me out: little spoon joshua

ITS A CONCEPT I MUST SHARE like i can see him being both but also just the idea of him being little spoon is cute ok

also type of bf to carry u out the car and upstairs when you’re tired (where do i find a joshua plsplsplsplsdolsdkhfje)

worst texter please just call him

teases u like HELL if u want kisses. but also supplies them in the end so who’s the real winner 🤨🤨

jun

makes grabby hands whenever he wants you to cuddle him (which is a lot)

MAKES U BREAKFAST <3

and if you don’t eat breakfast (like me) you’re about to get a lecture on the benefits of it and all the reasons you shouldn’t skip it

feeds you random parts of his meals and he literally just does it unconsciously it’s like second nature to him

learns how to make all your favourite foods too :(

giggly kisses !!!!

this is something very important to me !!! giggly kisses !!!!!! smiles into it and u guys pull away laughing and he kisses other parts of your face and u guys are still laughing and idk just giggly kisses <3

also likes to bump his nose against yours after a kiss

also random but i feel like he would genuinely be so distressed if he saw you cry like that would physically pain him :(

if he’s taller than you then probably rests his cin on your head and does that thing where he opens and closes his jaw on top of your head (idk if this is too niche or what but it’s definitely a concept)

hoshi

FOREHEAD KISSER

like would randomly cup your face in his hands and give u a big smooch on your forehead and the only reason he gives is “cause i love you”

his lock screen / home screen is almost definitely a selfie of you two doing the horanghae (with faces all squished together and smiling and

makes you do the horanghae at the end of every facetime call

buys you tiger plushies (demands to see them whenever he comes over)

also has named them all different variations of his name (hoshi, soonie, hosh, horang…)

AND omg. drunk hoshi does NOTHING except talk about you

him just sobbing into mingyu’s shoulder like “i love them sO MUCH mingyu”

(mingyu is just patting his head and wondering if it’s too late to get you to come pick him up)

i feel like he’s so cuddly too like he just squishes u in his arms -squish-

also feel like he would get so worried if you’re sick??

especially if he’s away from you

like orders delivery to your door or sends a friend over to your house to check on you and texts you every hour like “have you eaten??”

and you’re like. babe i love you but i don’t need to eat soup every hour.

wonwoo

head patter. just keeps patting your head. reasons unknown.

(probably because he thinks you’re the cutest thing to walk the planet but like whatever)

i’ve mentioned this before but i feel like he just lets you do anything

want to try on his glasses? they’re all yours. want to play games and rUIN his killstreak? go ahead!! he does not mind!!!!!

also if you wear glasses too then he’d swap his for yours just to try it

hot take but he loves having you in his lap whenever you guys are at home — scoots to the side when you’re about to sit to make u sit on him and tease you

also sits you on his lap when he’s gaming

omg if you like reading he prob recommends books to you too

like you guys just reading your books together in the same room in comfy silence wow i’m so sad

also feel like he’s another one who just squishes your cheeks when he feels like it

just does the most heart fluttering things sooo casually and randomly 😭

like he’s telling you he loves you while you guys are doing laundry or you’re making 3am ramen and he’s like wow you’re so gorgeous or he calls you cute 47374 times a day

woozi

omg best person to just like. coexist with

you guys just in his studio and he’s doing cool music things and you’re just reading or something in the corner and you guys aren’t even talking

but it’s very comfortable and sweet and it just feels nice idk if this making sense

also such a hypocrite because he’s sending go to bed texts to you knowing damn well he’s staying up for another 4 hours

pretends to cringe if you say something cheesy but also kisses you on the temple to let you know that actually he’s obsessed with you

also so cliché and overdone but that’s because it’s TRUE — makes music for you

and lets you listen to random stuff he’s making on the side (but refuses to give you seventeen comeback spoilers no matter how much you beg)

even lets you mess around with his equipment and teaches you how to use it (if u don’t know already)

one of those bfs that has an arm around u always btw

like even when you guys are with friends, 9/10 times his arm is resting on the sofa behind you

laughs extra hard at your jokes only (zendayafied!!!)

also if his members are teasing you he will defend u <3 even if you’re wrong or saying something he doesn’t agree with (like milk before cereal)

an / hopefully will do the rest of the members soon!! also i’m sorry this is so unhinged and i formatted i’m running of like 3 hours sleep but i hope you enjoy!! i’ve been xompiling this for a while whenever i cant sleep 😭

[chiyoso]

chiyo ik ur taking a break but i need... i need a jjk fan to hear this

,,,,,, g g g g gojo satoru and you getting married but ,,, but,,,, you're so irresistible you both had,,, yk,,, in the car while going to the church... only wearing your veil too....

WAIT IS THAT BAD

on another note i do hope your college life treats u well cause... yeah <33 i read that you're on medication? i wish you a get well soon mwamwamwa and nothing but luck and fortune as always hehehe

“wedding day, breeding day”

j. kaisen : gojo satoru.

gojo satoru, the strongest, and gojo satoru, the impatient. he always was, and that impatience will not stop him from dicking you down on your way to the church, just a car ride away before the event, the event of your wedding with him.

▶NOTE. i can't resist the idea, and i wanna get used to taking requests so... i'm gonna use your prompt to practice my mindset, thank you for checking up on me jiji ilysfm <33!!

“y-you just... you just couldn't wait, could you?”

“how the—fuck, how could i mamas?”

the poor driver's cheeks and ears flushed a sinful pink hearing your broken sobs, now debating if he shouldn't partake in guilt, or... keep the window down to listen to the sounds of sex behind him.

you whisper, or attempt to. “the driver- ’t-toru the driver's—” “—don't care, don't care, don't care.” he speaks out with every thrust, his moans growing and mixing with yours.

the limousine continues to drive, to the church, but in comparison to earlier's driving, it had slowed down quite a bit, benefitting your soon-to-be-husband's stability. your hamstrings were pressed against his ruffled, messed up torso, the rest of your legs hung over his shoulders.

“it's-... y-you know it's bad to see your partner before—s-shit!” you moan out arching your head against the window, letting satoru see your face.

you gave up the act once satoru brought a hand down between your legs, his thumb beginning to rub your pretty clit with a mischievous, slurred smile. “my clan wanted the publicity for this shit,”

he pauses his movement, his cock buried into yours, he could feel you tense, clenching him, feeling that lubricated twitching around him.

you look up to him dazed and puzzled, and he curls himself forward, towering over your seated form. “shocking news! the gojo heir, marrying!?”

he grins, attempting to pull his cock right out of you slowly, you were just so tight, so warm, holding onto him and his needy cock like that.

“s-shit baby,” he moves one of your legs down while he continued to hold the other over his shoulder. satoru's free hand gets occupied by his cock, stroking himself while you bit down your bottom lip to the sexy sight.

“stuck-ups, all of them,” he says bitterly with a grunt, but that bitterment melts once he moves his hips forwards again, rubbing the underside of his aching cock above your leaky pussy, stimulating hot pleasure onto your clit.

you whimper, seeing him prepare his cock again to enter inside you, but the limousine comes to a halt. his eyes dart up from you, towards the window behind; annoying, blinding camera flashes, clueless happy people, starstrucked paparazzi—and he grins once more.

“look mamas, they're all so damn eager for us,”

just like both of your warm cores, twitching against each other. “prying, dirty fucks,” he hisses once he prys open your downed leg wider to the side, giving him a gate to heaven itself.

flash one, flash two, three, and more. the amount of times a flash blinds the two of you from outside the limousine, he thrusts his cock inside simultaneously, urgently, his cock getting sucked up by your insides while embracing your leg over his shoulder. “th-that's it baby, just like that, take me all, take me all,” he sucks up a shaky inhale.

“fuck—fuck—fuck,” satoru slurrs out with every thrust, and all you could do was pant heavily, a hand covering your mouth to muffle your soft mewling. “gonna cum baby? you gonna cum? i can feel—i feel your insides taking me in so well,”

“shit mamas,” warmth coiled behind his spine, satoru's thrusts became sloppier, frantic, chasing his satisfaction, unsteady and throaty exhales more pronounced. “play with your dirty pussy,”

“play—fuuuck, fuck i'm gonna-” both of his hands clung around on your leg, hazy eyes now closing to focus on that increasing sensation of heat.

gritted teeth, allowing a small stream of drool to fall on the corner of his lips, and your body caved in to the discomfort of the position, laying limp on your side, with your face towards the front of the car, where you met the driver's eyes briefly on the rearview mirror. “s-so good ’toru, so good so g-...”

“gonna cum—gonna cum, gonna—fucking—cum, gonna fill you up, gonna fill you up so good,” he speaks in between each pound inside you, his muscles tensing up.

“gonna make you my wife with this cum-” he puts your leg down, repositioning himself frantically by laying you straight against the seat, inserting his cock inside you again once your pussy was infront of him. “s-sator-” “fuck! i'm cumming baby i'm-”

“fuuuck,” your walls clench around his cock, thrusting in one final time, flooding his hot cum inside your creamy cunt, mixing in with yours.

“p-pretty—fucking—pussy,” satoru overwhelms himself during his high, shuddering in each repeated thrusts, while you spasmed violently in your orgasm. “all mine, all mine, all fucking mi—”

flash, flash, and flash. “ah,” the door swings open merrily, muted noises from outside now, loud, blaring. multiple gasps and cussing simultaneously heard, a blinding light shining on your breeding session, on your soon-to-be husband's bare ass anyways.

annoyed, but quick, satoru removes his jacket, tossing it infront of your face, along with hiding your torso. he knew you were too weak to react, let alone cover yourself for some decency, and what kind of future spouse will he be if he let his pretty, and dazed wife be ridiculed over this?

he can see it all. not only curses, but tabloids, tabloid after tabloid, 'the gojo clan's heir, claiming a taboo before his wedding'. articles of public indency, the act of premarital sex! tarnishing the prestigious name and reputation of his clan!

his god-awful, forsaken clan.

satoru clicked his tongue, his face once pleasured, now contorting to repulsion, disgust, looking over to his shoulder for the paparazzi to take photos of his flushed, red side profile.

his hands subconsciously move down to your waist, holding you close to him while you recovered slowly, placing his badly placed attention back to yours again.

“hey baby,” he pulls out slowly, practicing retraint from grunting, biting down his bottom lip, still feeling your insides hold his cock tightly.

“h-hm?” satoru makes sure you're hidden infront of his thankfully large frame, properly placing his jacket that he gave you covering your entire bare torso, leaning down to give you tender kisses along the stream lines of your tears.

“hmhm, pretty, pretty girl,” he towers over you protectively, his thumb making circles along your abdomen lovingly.

“you don't mind if we marry with papers instead, right baby?”

NOT AT ALL SATORU. NOT AT ALL. I DONT MIND AT ALL.

taglist. @v3lv3tf0x @ainescribe @wanderingconstellations @painted-hills @screampied @meowzfordayz @deathstardiary @sleep-deprivedracoon @ciarchivez @k1an4a @pixieskie @ruanais

[midnightwriter21]

Hello :) please could I request headcanons of the hashira having a crush on a hashira!reader who’s very motherly to the younger demon slayers but shy and secretly craving affection from the other hashira 💙💙

demon slayer hcs: motherly hashira!reader x the hashira pt 1

characters: fem!reader x giyuu, rengoku, tengen, shinobu, kamaboko squad (mentioned)

AN: some of these are platonic instead of romantic.

pt. 2 with mitsuri, obanai, sanemi, and muichiro is HERE

stop because i love this

you don't talk to the other hashira much

but its not because you don't like them!

they're just a little intimidating

and you want them to like you so bad

but what if you accidentally embarrass yourself in front of them

would be my biggest fear tbh

GIYUU

this guy is just as shy as you are

awkward asf too

but seeing as you're one of the few hashira that are kind to him..

he really likes you

also really appreciates the way you take care of the younger slayers

especially the Kamado siblings

i mean he did literally put his life on the line for those two

you guys don't talk much when in each others company

really its more of a dead silence lmao

like thats a surprise at all lol

but he enjoys being in your presence

he thinks you have a very calming aura around you

and he never feels any hostility from you

if you guys are paired up on a mission?

my guy is glued to u

no way is a demon going to hurt someone as pure and kindhearted as u

not on giyuu's watch

even tho he's goin to be protective of u during missions

he knows that despite your sweet nature, ur a hell of a fighter

respects you sm

thinks of you as his only true friend within the corps

RENGOKU

i can never get enough of him i swear

he absolutely adores you

goes out of his way to talk to you every chance he gets

ur all the way on the other side of the butterfly estate?

sunshine boy is hunting you down

ur on a mission a few miles away from his estate?

he's alrdy otw

also very oblivious

you get shy when he starts talking to you

maybe you start blushing

"oh are you sick? your face is all red. i hope you don't have a fever..."

and hes putting his hand on ur forehead to check ur temperature

if he touched me id faint

admires how you genuinely care for the younger slayers

the way you encourage them to get stronger

the way you help them train

the way you make sure they're eating and drinking enough

you remind him of his mother

TENGEN

when him & his wives finally have children..

ur designated babysitter 100%

being the sound hashira he has a great sense of hearing

so he hears your interactions with the younger slayers

you're not afraid to talk to the kids

you comfort them. laugh with them, scold them, etc.

wonders why you act so differently in the presence of the hashira

makes it his mission to make you comfortable around him

u don't have to worry abt affection when tengen is concerned lol

compliments you 24/7

"you look very flashy today!"

"you are a great teacher!"

"You should become my 4th wife!"

no bc that lmfao ^

SHINOBU

you two are very familiar with each other

it's very often that you're dragging inosuke or genya by the ear to the infirmary to be treated

mostly inosuke

so she is well aware of how motherly u can be

she's a regular witness to the many scoldings given out to the younger slayers

you also asked her to train you in basic first aid

your red face and stuttered words were so cute she acted like she couldn't understand you

just so you would repeat it

loves to tease you

nothing too bad!

and never mean!

just thinks you're so adorable

really appreciates when shes sent on missions and you help out in the infirmary

wants to be better friends with you

[chappellroansdreamgirl]

ellie with a mean gf!

(prjoecting like a mf rn...)

a/n - i have been very unmotivated to write full-fleshed stuff so i'm deciding to write drabbles/headcannons for now. also THANK YOU FOR ALL THE ATTENTION ON CH.1 OF GOOD LUCK, BABE! it makes my heart smile that you guys love it so much... also😭😭...: @sweetcici11 srry that i lied and said ur fic would be out a few nights ago. i'm really trying to finish it but i don't want to rush it and it be shitty. i really want it to be enjoyable and as good as it can be. but i PROMISE you it WILL be posted... sooner or later! i also have a few more drafts to finish too, so, i hope you guys like them when they come out!!!!!

content warnings - fluff, i'm a bitch and i want to feel loved and think that someone can put up with my cuntiness😝😝 , over-usage of commas probably, i think they're low-key kind of toxic?!?!?!?! , guys i promise i'm not this bad i've just been pretty insufferable these last few days and need an outlet 😭😭 .

i wrote way more than i thought i was going to...

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

- you both hated each other at first. ...well actually, you hated her, and she was like, "😞😞" and then got used to it after a while and started being mean back 2 u!!

- dina introduced ellie to you when you both were hanging out with her. "you guys are going to love each other🥰!" ... you didn't 🤗 !

- ellie said hi to you and all you did was look her up and down, stare at her for a few seconds and then turn your head.

- everytime ellie would (attempt to) strike up a conversation you would give an overtly enthusiastic response or just stare at her like she had two heads or just blatantly ignore her. dina is over there like, '😟😟 . can we not have one good day...' when dina would leave for short periods of time and ellie was sure that you didn't like her, she would just talk about anything to get your blood boiling, our girl lllloooovvveessss to push buttons, we know this to be true.

- it got worse yet more tolerable after that. whenever she'd see you at gatherings or parties, you'd do your damnest to stay away from/avoid her. and she'd do her damnest to get you as upset with her as possible. it always ended with not-so-playful not-so-friendly banter!

- you were talking with jesse about something on the couch, and ellie came over and DELIBERATELY, DELIBERATELY... interrupted you 🤗 ! :

you shoot daggers at her face with your eyes, your jaw set hard and your eyes narrowed.

ellie tried to feign innocence, raising a brow at you after she looked over to see your facial expressions long after she felt them.. "what are you looking at me like that for🤨🤨?" , "i was fucking talking, you're being rude." , "if i have to get used to you being a bitch, you got to do the same." , you just huffed at her response and crossed your arms before walking off a few minutes after, realizing that the conversation you were having with jesse earlier was indeed over. ellie smirked to herself, victory was her's!

- she started calling you the nickname brat out of the blue... it blindsided tf out of you. here's the origin story!:

you look at ellie with a disgusted look on your face as she exhales smoke. her glazed over eyes meet yours before she offers the joint to you, out of genuine kindness. "want a hit?" she asked, forgetting how much of a bitch you were for, like, 0.2 seconds. you glare at her for a moment longer before plastering a sarcastic smile on your face, snatching the joint from her fingertips and dropping it onto the floor. you kept her eyes on yours as you stomped and smushed it into the ground.

now she remembered.

she stood up instantaneously, she was pissed. "what the fuck?!" she shouted, earning a few looks from some friends across the room. they strained their necks for a little bit before they saw you, it made sense now, and then turned back to the conversation.

you close your eyes for a slight second as a satisfied smile graced the corners of your lips. "you know i don't smoke, ellie." you responded with in a condescendingly sweet voice.

she didn't even argue with you. "you're such a fuckin' brat." she muttered under her breath before walking away. you had to try your very best to ignore the heartbeat in your pussy. (🤗!)

- she didn't get to see how much effect that title had on you that night, but she noticed afterwards.

- one time you didn't say anything to ellie during a hangout, distracted by someone you disliked more than her. ellie kind of missed it☹️☹️ .

you were brought out of your thoughts when you felt her cold hand touch your shoulder. when you noticed it was her who was doing it, you pulled back with a furrow of her brows. ellie smiled. there she was.

"you haven't said one mean thing to me since i've gotten here. are you dying?"

you scoffed as you pointed in the direction your anger was radiating from. it was a girl ellie saw here and there in jackson, sometimes she was paired with her during patrols, she wasn't crazy about her but she paid no mind to her existence.

"what?- what does this have to do with me-"

"what it has to do with you, is that you should feel honored that i can tolerate you... can't fuckin' stand that bitch."

ellie scoffed before speaking up once more, "oh, c'mon you're being dramatic. don't be a brat."

your eyes went wide for a second and as you turned away, she could see the cheek that was facing her turn an embarrassing shade of red. she found your weakness.

- when you guys started dating, no one, and i mean NO ONE, believed it. (i don't feel like writing how u two got together maybe if y'all like this enough i'll make a full-fleshed oneshot abt it😭.)

- joel saw you guys together... like, not arguing, and HER head on YOUR shoulder... he thought he got laced with acid for a quick second there... jesse felt like he missed a couple chapters and felt very sad that he hadn't caught onto it quicker... and dina was so proud of herself, "told you, you guys would love each other 😁." she's so smug, I LOVE HER!

- she constantly has to reprimand you like you're a child when you guys are around someone you obviously don't like for whatever reason. once whoever left the room, ellie'll pinch your shoulder or your thigh, whatever skin is on display at the moment, not too hard, just to get you to wince a bit. you'll make a face at her afterwards. "ow, what the fuck was that for ellie?" , "we can talk shit when we get home, don't make a scene🙄." you stress her out sometimes...

- just bcs you guys are together DOES NOT mean your attitude has gone away.

whenever ellie and you have gotten in an argument, you're always being extra sarcastic and EXTRA BITCHY just to get on her nerves.

"baby, have you seen my gun?" she asks you, breaking the silence voluntarily as she's two minutes from being late to patrol.

you don't look up to her, you keep on looking at the pages of an old magazine. "idk ellie, did you check to see if it was shoved up your ass."

she just stands there for a second like this 🧍‍♀️ , before sighing and walking somewhere else to find it. "i'll fuckin' deal with you later." she mutters under her breath, obviously annoyed. you smirk to yourself as you flip another page.

- she does love, however, that you've gotten gentler with her since the relationship blossomed between you two. very few people (dina and ellie... sometimes jesse.) can get you to stop, and ellie is proud of herself that she could add beast-tamer to the top of her list of many skills and talents.

- sometimes she has to calm you down, sometimes all it takes is a stare in your direction. ... well, it's oftentimes a glare... you're your own woman/person and a relationship will not restrict you from showing off your talents!!!!!

- ellie has to constantly keep you from getting into arguments that could harm you physically. although your craft of bitchery is amazing, you can't fight to save your life.

she'll be pulling you back like an angry barking dog on a leash.

"i could've fucking took h-" , "you overestimate yourself a lot, baby."

[amentomensmut]

I've never asked for a request before and i dont have clout to write it myself so i thought id ask since i like some of your Mike stuff but

What about something like reader and Mike are friends and he goes to a wedding her as a favor cause i like the idea that he has like a messy suit, loose tie kind of hot mess vibe and smutty things happen lol I dont have much in mind but the idea of him in a messy suit trying to look cleaned up is just like ...drool idk

Plus One

Mike Schmidt x fem!reader wc: 3.1k+

Summary: You invite Mike to be your plus one at your sister's wedding, but things go wrong during the reception and Mike uses you to take out his frustrations.

Warnings: 18+ CONTENT, okay so like reader and Mike are friends but also its kinda angry sex??? You’ll see. Manhandling (sorta), slight exhibitionism, degrading, praise, dirty talk, finger sucking, fingering (f receiving), unprotected sex (wrap b4 u tap pookies)

Note: oh my GOD this one got away from me and i'm NOT sure about it, I feel like i could’ve written this a bit better but i just started babbling and now we're here. to the person who requested this: THANK YOU.  i loved ur idea and him in a suit like makes me drool too omg. i also couldn’t help adding a little angst in here. also so nevry to post this?? so lmk what u guys think! enjoy :)

“Please, Mike. I swear this is the last thing you’ll ever have to do for me!” You plead, trying to reason with the very unimpressed looking man in front of you. You’ve been stuck in Mike's kitchen for the past half hour trying to convince him to be your plus one to your sister's wedding next Saturday. Clearly, your convincing hasn’t been successful so far. 

“The last time I did a favour for you was supposed to be the last time.” Mike says with a knowing smirk, and you roll your eyes. A few weeks ago, you went out to a bar with some friends and you may have had a few too many long island iced teas. The owner had forced your hand into calling someone to pick you up, and it was Mike's number you had dialled that night. As he drove you back to your apartment with an unpleasant look on his face, you swore to him that that would be the last favour you'd ever ask of him. How you wish you could take that back right about now. 

“Okay, well, I was drunk when I said that. So it doesn't count.” You say with a frown, crossing your arms against your chest like a child who was denied candy. 

You can’t really blame Mike for not wanting to go. Your family is…a lot. You love your family, you really do (most of the time). But, they can be judgemental. You were the kid in school who always got the hottest new toys for Christmas, and had big themed parties for your birthday every year. It had never really dawned on you that you were more well off than other kids until you had met Mike. You became friends with Mike when you were both 15. When you first brought Mike over to your house to hang out, you heard your parents whispering about him that night when you were supposed to be in bed. Your parents gossiped about the kidnapping of his brother, the suicide of his mother, and how Mike and his sister were essentially left to their own devices with their father paralyzed and consumed by grief. It made you sick to hear your parents nitpick and discuss Mike's life like it was a reality tv show. Your parents never really approved of your friendship with Mike, and they tend to not-so-subtly make that known whenever you make the mistake of bringing him up in a conversation. 

“I don’t think that’s how that works. Besides, when your sister offered you a plus one, I really don’t think she had me in mind.” Mike says as he reaches into his fridge for a beer. “In fact, I think she’d prefer you to invite that guy who works at the convenience store and catcalls you everytime you go in, instead of me.” He says, cracking open his beer and offering you a smile before he takes a sip. 

“Well now you’re just being dramatic.” You huff as you walk over to the couch in Mike's living room and take a seat. Mike follows you from the kitchen and sits down in his armchair, kicking his feet up on the coffee table. Mike sticks his tongue out at you and you have to restrain yourself from strangling the man. If it were any other wedding you would’ve just gone on your own. However, your family events tend to…take a turn for the worst. Your family's gatherings usually end with drama, and you know that even though it’s your sister's wedding, this will be no different. That’s why you're insistent on bringing Mike as your plus one, so you can have a little support if things go awry. 

“Very mature.” You say with a shake of your head, once again rolling your eyes at the rude gesture.

“Listen, I’ll go. But, on one condition.” Mike says, and you sit up straight at his words.

“What’s the condition?” You ask suspiciously, but at this point you think you’d agree to almost anything.

“You babysit Abby for a month,”

“Deal.”

“And do my laundry for a month.” Mike adds.

“That’s two conditions actually, Mike.” You scoff as you get off the couch to leave.

“So you’re inviting the guy from the convenience store then?” Mike teases, knowing he's your only option.

You turn around to face Mike, squinting your eyes at him. God, you hate that cocky smirk he does when he knows he's winning. Bastard.

“Have a suit by Saturday. I’ll be over at 10am.” You sigh, flipping Mike off as you leave through his front door.

“Very mature.” You hear him mumble on your way out.

—-----------------------------------------

“Mike, it looks like you just came back from a bachelor party. Not like you’re going to a wedding.” You say, noting the way Mike’s tie hangs loosely around his neck and the first couple buttons on his white button up are left undone. Mike runs his hands through his hair and you quickly bat them away, scolding him for ruining the hair you had just attempted to fix in the car only moments before you arrived. You can’t deny that he looks handsome. He surely looks charming with the way his gelled hair falls messily on his forehead, and the way his dads old suit fits him almost perfectly.

“Well, hopefully your sister doesn’t mind.” Mike says sarcastically as he adjusts the cuff links on the ends of his sleeves and steps out of your car and towards the church where your sister is getting married. 

The first half of the wedding went pretty smoothly. You and your sister have never really been close, so It wasn’t a surprise to you when she didn’t ask you to be a bridesmaid. You and Mike sat a few rows down, occasionally playing footsies under the pew when you’d accidentally bump feet. A kiss was shared between the bride and groom, and everyone left to go to the reception. 

You were nervous about the reception, to be quite honest. Mike could tell, and he put his hand on your lower back, resting it there as you both walked into the banquet hall. You nearly faint when you see the sheer amount of people that fill the room. There have to be about 200 people minimum. It seemed like way less in the church, you think.

“I need a drink.” You mumble to Mike, dragging him over to the bar. 

Both you and Mike order a drink, and you want to be swallowed by the ground when you hear your mothers shrill, sing-songy voice behind you. 

“Darling! I didn’t see you during the ceremony, I thought you hadn’t come.” You turn around and she pulls you into a tight hug, pressing a kiss to both of your cheeks. She pulls away from you and you notice her eyes immediately land on Mike. “Oh, and what a surprise. Mike, how are you and your sister?” Your mother continues, and you bite the inside of your cheek. 

You watch as Mike plasters a big, albeit fake, smile on his face and shakes your mothers hand. 

“Abby and I are doing well, thank you for asking.” Mike says, and you almost laugh at his cordial tone. Mike sends you a ‘help me’ look and you mouth a ‘sorry’ to him.

“Gosh, it just devastated me to hear about your fathers passing.” Your mother says, clutching her chest like she's in pain, and you think she deserves an Oscar for the way she acts like she gives a shit. “I’m sure it must be so hard for you to provide for your sister alone.” Your mother adds and you watch the smile slowly slide off of Mike’s face.

“Why do you say that?” He asks, and you suddenly regret ever asking Mike to be your plus one. 

“Mom-,” You start to say, but she disregards your voice, raising her hand as you speak to stop you.

“Well, I know you struggle keeping a job. You know, not everyone is cut out to raise a child.” If you could see yourself, you’re sure all the colour would be drained from your face. You’re left speechless, mouth half hung open at your mothers words. How could she say that? She doesn’t know him like you do. She doesn’t know how much Mike sacrifices to provide for Abby.

You look over at Mike and his jaw is tightly clenched. You brace yourself for Mike's next words, but they don’t come. Instead, you watch as he excuses himself and walks towards the mens bathroom.

“Well, he woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning.” Your mother jokes once Mike is out of earshot.

“Jesus Christ, mom.” You say incredulously as you turn to go find Mike. 

You walk towards the bathrooms, entering the men’s restroom with only one thing on your mind. Mike. Luckily the restroom is empty, save for Mike who is leaning over the counter. You slowly reach behind yourself, locking the bathroom door. You begin to step towards Mike, but you stop when you hear his voice.

“Do you think I'm not fit to raise Abby?” Mike asks you angrily, not even turning to look at you. You just stand there like an idiot, reaching down to fidget with the hem of your shirt.

“I-, no. Of course not.” You say, and the music that was loud in the hall, is now only a low hum in the bathroom. 

It’s silent for a moment, and you’re not really sure what to say, or how to make things better. You resume taking slow, tentative steps towards Mike and you stop once you’re behind him. You place an uncertain hand on his back, softly rubbing it up and down to comfort him. He lets you touch him and you hear him let out a breath. He turns around to face you and you look up to meet his eyes. He studies your face for a moment, and you inch even closer to him. 

“I’m sorry about my mom. That was inexcusable.” You sigh. If you were in Mike’s shoes, you probably would’ve left the reception entirely, and you’re not entirely opposed to that idea right now. 

“Your mother doesn’t think I’m good enough for you.” Mike finally says, and there’s distaste in his tone. You don’t say anything, you know it's true. Your family, especially your mother, has never approved of your friendship with Mike. 

“Do you think that?” Mike asks you, and you’re just now realising how close Mike’s face is to your own. You look up at him with furrowed brows and shake your head.

“No, Mike. I don’t think that.” You say quietly, and you swear the tension between Mike and you is so thick, it could be cut with a knife. You look down, but you feel Mike's hand grabbing your jaw and forcing you to look back up at him.

“You can’t even look at me when you say it. Pathetic.” Mike seethed. You let out a hushed whimper at his words..

“Sorry.” You say, but your voice sounds small. “I know you are.” He coos, rubbing his thumb back on fourth on your cheek.

“I need you to do something for me, okay?” Mike says, leaning down to speak in your ear. His voice is sweet and the switch in moods makes your head spin.

“Okay.” You nod and Mike pulls away from your ear to look you in the eyes.

“Be fucking quiet.” He says, and he presses his lips to yours. You softly gasp in shock, but quickly kiss him back as he turns you around to hoist you up onto the counter. He grabs both of your knees, opening them to make space for him to stand between your legs. He grips your thighs harshly, and you sigh when he sucks on your bottom lip. He puts one of his hands under your jaw, using it to hold your head in place as he kisses you. His lips are slightly chapped, but you don’t mind. He kisses you with fever, and you can’t deny that you haven’t thought about this. 

He kisses down to your jaw and neck, sucking the skin in a way where you know there will be bruises. Jerk. You run your hands through his hair, throwing your head back at the pleasurable feeling of his lips gliding over your skin. The hand that was on your thigh is now trailing up your leg and under your skirt. You clench your legs around his hand and he softly bites your neck, wordlessly scolding you for your actions. You reopen your legs and his hand comes up to make contact with your clothed clit. He rubs slow circles and you let out a soft whimper.

“You gonna let me fuck you?” He slurs in your ear, and his fingers move from your clit to the waistband on your panties, pulling it back and slapping it against your skin. You nod and he’s pulling you off of the counter and flipping you around. Mike bends you over and your chest meets the cold granite. You look in front of you and you can see Mike behind you in the mirror on the wall. He pushes your knee length skirt up and around your hips, and groans at the sight of you bent over for him.

“You okay?” He asks genuinely, running his hands along the sides of your body in a comforting manor.

“Yeah, keep going.” You breathe out and he hooks his fingers into the sides of your panties, pulling them down. You clench around nothing as the cold air hits your cunt. You moan softly as Mike spreads your pussy open with his thumbs, groaning at how wet you are. Without warning, he inserts his pointer and middle finger inside of you, thrusting them in and out. The lewd, squelching sounds of Mike fingering you fill the bathroom and you suck in a sharp breath as his fingers curl up into your sweet spot. 

“Apparently your pussy thinks I’m good enough.” Mike says and you look up into the mirror to see his jaw slack, watching the way his fingers move in and out of you. You can feel Mike's erection brushing against the back of your thigh as he rocks his hips with every thrust of his fingers. 

“Mike, fuck me.” You whine, and Mike takes his fingers out of you. He brings them to your lips, pushing them inside your mouth, and you can hear him undoing his belt with his other hand. 

“Thought I told you to be fucking quiet.” He murmurs and you watch in the mirror as he shoves his pants and boxers down just enough to pull his hard cock out. He removes his fingers from your lips, using your spit as lube to pump his cock a few times before lining it up with your pussy. He slowly inches himself inside of you, pushing you down onto the counter. Your mouth drops open in a silent scream and you hear Mike let out a whine at the feeling of being in you. 

He starts to pump himself in and out of you, and he pulls you up by your shirt into his chest to make you watch yourself in the mirror. He fucks into you like he can’t get enough of you. Like being inside of you isn’t close enough.

“What would your mother think? Hm? About her sweet little angel getting fucked in the bathroom?” Mike says in your ear, with a sickeningly sweet tone. It's like he just knows how to push your buttons. You let out a low moan at his words. 

“Fuck, I’ve wanted to do this for so long.” Mike adds and your legs shake when he uses the hand that was holding you up to rub your clit. You drop back down on the counter and Mike grabs your hip with his free hand, using it as leverage to bottom out in you with every single thrust. He throws his head back in ecstasy and you clench around him, signalling your impending orgasm. 

“You wanna cum?” Mike asks, and his voice is raspy and fucked out. You nod your head ‘yes’. 

“No, want you to say it.” Mike says, and you can tell he’s close by his sloppy, less rhythmic thrusts.

“Please, Mike. Please, can I cum?” You beg, your voice hoarse. The filthy sounds of skin against skin echo throughout the bathroom, and if someone has tried to enter the bathroom since you’ve been in here, you’ve been too fucked out to hear it. Thank god I locked the door, you think.

“Cum, baby, Fuck.” Mike chokes out. Your legs shake as you cum around his cock, your orgasm only heightened by the feeling of him filling you up. You bite down on your hand to muffle yourself and you swear to god you hear Mike whimper, pussy drunk as he continues to ride his high thrusting in and out of your sloppy pussy.

After catching his breath, you feel Mike pull out of you and you wince at the feeling of his cum dripping down your inner thighs. You slowly tilt your head up as you watch Mike get some toilet paper to clean himself up. He tucks himself back inside his boxers and pulls his pants up. You flinch a little as you feel him come up behind you, cleaning you up with more toilet paper. 

“Sorry, was I too rough?” He asks softly, looking at you through the mirror and you shake your head.

“No, just sensitive.” You say as Mike finishes cleaning you. You pull your panties back up, letting your skirt fall back over your legs. Your knees buckle a little bit as you try to stand straight and Mike rushes over to you, lending you a hand.

“You know, I actually think you’re one of the only people who genuinely thinks I am good enough.” Mike says, and you look up at him.

“Of course I do. I always have.” You say softly, gently touching Mike’s cheek.