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celestie0 · 2 months

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choso x reader | punk rock au [18+]

in another life ch.1 cupid's arrow

ᰔ pairing. punk rock au - bass player! choso x reader (f)

ᰔ summary. you and choso were lovers in college when him and his rock band were just nobodies with nothing but a dream, but when his band strikes a deal with an up-and-coming record label in tokyo, you make the tough decision to break up with him since you couldn’t go with him to the city. flash forward seven years, his band is the biggest rock band in the world, n you move from the countryside to tokyo with your fiancé nanami to start your new life together. but in the heart of the city, home to many, there’s one person there that still has the power to turn your whole life upside down. and when you run into him again after all those years, feelings you didn’t know were still haunting you come crashing back all at once, and you’re not sure what it is you want from your life anymore.

ᰔ warnings/tags. 18+, fluff, angst, smut, punk rock au, partying, drinking/alcohol, weed usage, cigarette usage, romance, slow burn, friends to lovers, second chance romance, time skips, love triangle, bad boy choso, slight age gap (five yrs), longterm pining, jealousy, messy decisions, you know the drill

ᰔ chapter. 1/x (probably 6)

ᰔ words. 10.2k

a/n. hellooooo aaa welcome to my new choso fic :'') i'm so excited for this one! i'm just laughing at how i cannot just stick to a oneshot idea and somehow end up planning out a fullblown series instead hahah. but anyways, i hope you enjoy! thank you to everyone that wanted to be on the taglist, i'm really looking forward to diving into this story. see you at the bottom!!

alsooo my m00tie @sykosugu and i decided to post for our fics at the same time hehe she has a really spicy suguru x reader fic called 'on the run' that i highly recommend so go check that out as well if you're interestedd <33

nav. ch1 :: ch2 (pending)

“and there was something about you that now, i can’t remember. it’s the same damn thing that made my heart surrender.”

present day. summer.

“We’re gonna miss you so, so, so much, love,” Mai groans, pulling you in towards her for a hug and you reciprocate with fondness.

Another pair of arms wraps around you, grip much tighter and you protest through a difficult breath. “Do you really have to go?” Nobara asks.

You tap on the skin of her arm, urging her to ease her hold in this group hug, and she finally relents and the three of you pull apart from one another. There’s a slight gasp from your lips as you breathe in fresh summer air. “I do, Nobie, I’m sorry. Nanami said it’s the final decision.”

You’re standing on hot concrete in front of a little countryside cottage that you’ve called home for years, but will soon just be a memory. You know which light switches illuminate corners of the rooms, and which creaking wood panels on the floor to avoid when looking for a midnight snack. It’s where you spent years studying for finals, arguing with your mom, learning how to care for Ms. Roxie, and it’s where you fell in love. More than once.

Your parents gave the house to you and Nanami once the two of you became engaged, but that blessing was soon to be given away, as Nanami received news six months ago that he was being promoted and relocated to Tokyo. Now, you have two bags in your hands, your purse slung around your shoulder, and a suitcase filled to the brim with the life you’ve tried to stuff in it. Your taxi driver has the other suitcase, because there were some things you couldn’t leave behind after all, and he’s putting it in the trunk right now.

“Nanami is so rude to take you from us,” Mai sighs, “but at least you’ll be one of those cool city girls now. So scary. I heard trends change faster there than the leaves on Rowan tree during spring.”

Nobara lets out a gasp that’s only half exaggerated. “No way! It can’t be!”

The taxi driver calls after you with a quick question, to which you answer back with a shout from where you stood. A quick glance at your watch tells you it’s time to get moving, as you’ll be taking a connecting train once you reach Tokyo that you need to be on time for. And then he’ll be there. Nanami will be waiting for you there, to lead you into the life that he’s started to make for the two of you.

“I’ll call so very often,” you promise the two of them, “and I will miss you two so very often as well.” Tears prickle in your eyes, and it seems to be contagious as they shimmer in Nobara and Mai’s eyes as well. Another group hug takes place between the three of you, harsh sun beating down with birds chirping in the distance as you try to take in the last few moments you’ve been granted of this place. “Take care of Roxie for us,” you say through a sniffle, “to you, it may seem like you’re only the bearer of food for her, but I promise that little kitty will love you two like no other.”

They both nod at you as you pull away, and you swipe at a tear that rolls down your cheek as you roll your suitcase down the pebbled walkway of your now past home.

The taxi driver helps hoist your suitcase into the trunk and places your other two bags into the back seat. You take a seat at the front with him, clicking the passenger seatbelt, and you roll down the window to wave bye with blown kisses as the taxi driver pulls away from the rocky mud road with crunching under the wheels. You watch Mai and Nobara and your home in the side view mirror until they’re no longer visible, but their voices of farewell linger in the air for a moment more.

“Alright, ma’am, bound for Tokyo!” your taxi driver chirps, his rough-looking hands opening and closing a few times to stretch out the joints of his fingers before tightly gripping onto the steering wheel again.

“Yes, Tokyo,” you murmur softly, gaze set out the window of the familiar street shops and stretches of patchy trees you know you’ll miss once you’re in the city.

“What’s your name?” the man asks, a thick country accent rolling off his tongue, with a sweetness like honey.

You turn your head to look at him more closely. The hair of his eyebrows is bushy, somewhat unkempt, and he has thick lines across his cheeks and forehead that can only mean that he’s lived a lot of life.

You tell him your name and he nods slowly as the two of you stop at a through road, a few school children hurrying past before he turns right onto the main road. “That’s a nice name. Which one of your parents gave it to ya?”

“Um. Both of them?”

He lets out a noise of acknowledgement, and doesn’t ask a further question. You smooth out the fabric of your long skirt with a hand, then toy with the band of your simple watch. Just when you think a comfortable silence has fallen between the two of you, and you think you have the luxury of losing yourself in your thoughts with sights beyond the polished glass window, the man speaks up again.

“Alright then, miss, tell me a story.”

You raise an eyebrow at him. “Pardon?”

“We’re gonna be spendin’ three hours in this car together, darlin’. It’s either I talk your ear off or you talk mine off,” he says, broad shoulders rolling backwards once as he gets comfortable in his driving position.

“Uh…do we need to talk at all?”

He glances over at you for a moment. The car wheels grind over rocks on gravel road near an agricultural field, and his fingers flex once again on the wheel. “You younger generations are so stuck in your own worlds. Entertain some conversation with the poor old taxi driver, will ya?”

You sigh, folding your hands in your nap neatly. “Alright. I don’t really have many stories to tell, though.”

“A young lady like you, packin’ up her whole life to move to a big city? I beg to differ,” he counters.

His words have you tucking your bottom lip under your teeth, a few blinks of your eyelids to process his observation of you. Your mind searches for stories to tell. Maybe that moment last week when you watched a momma duck waddle across a bridge with all seven of her baby ducklings. Or maybe you could tell him about that time you drove your car into a ditch the night of the comet festival and you swear you saw a UFO in the sky. The story you’ve been telling a lot lately, though, was the one of how Nanami proposed.

But then there’s a different story that comes to mind. With hazy images of blinding stage lights in dim venues, cigarette smoke wafting through the air, sounds of bass and drums and cheers. Smell of dry grass, the feeling of your back against a blanket, heart beating fast underneath the stars in front of a twinkling lake. And forever in your memory, the patterns of his inked skin.

“You got a boyfriend?” the man asks, suddenly.

“Are…are you hitting on me?” you ask awkwardly.

“Oh, no, ma’am,” he shakes his head, lifting his left hand up from the steering wheel and turning the back of it to face you. A silver ring adorning his fourth finger shimmers from the reflected sunlight through the window. “Happily married. Been with my missus for 22 years.”

A small smile makes its way onto your face as you relax into your seat a little, feeling calmer. “Oh, I see. I’m sorry for assuming. And I have a fiancé, actually.”

“Oh?” he chirps, stealing a quick glance at your left hand that was still folded neatly underneath your right one in your lap. “How come I’m not seein’ a ring?”

You tug at the small chain around your neck, a chill felt as diamond stone and cold metal drags against the skin of your sternum before you pull out your own promise of marriage, dangling it in front of your chest for him to steal another glance at. “I wear it around my neck. I’m a pottery teacher, so I usually take it off when showing my students any demos. I figured if I kept taking it off like that, I might lose it, so I just wear it around my neck now.”

“That’s interesting,” he comments, “It’s a real nice ring, that’s for sure! Tell me about this man you’re marryin.��

Your heart aches at the thought of Nanami. It’s been six months since you’ve seen him, since he relocated to Tokyo first, and you’ve missed him every day since. You were in the middle of the academic year at the elementary school you taught at, so they asked you to stay back, but Nanami had already accepted the promotion, thus the two of you made the decision that he would move to Tokyo first to get situated and you’d soon follow in the summer. It was a lot of stress to handle as just one person; searching for apartments on top of managing the heightened expectations from his boss from his new role, but he did it all without a complaint. Because he loves you, and that’s who Nanami was. Someone who would move mountains for you. He’s worked hard to make a place for you in Tokyo, one to call home.

“He really loves me,” you say to the man, softly.

“And you love him?”

“So much.”

“Was he your first love?”

Your breath catches in your throat from his question, a small chill running down your spine. The silence that settles could’ve lasted two seconds or two centuries, and you never would’ve known.

You lick your lips before answering. “No, he wasn’t.”

“Hmm…” the man hums. Bumpy roads are now smooth as he turns onto properly laid roads, the exit from your town onto intercity roads. “I can tell.”

“You can tell?” you ask, skeptic in your tone as you tilt your head at him.

“I can tell from your voice that there was someone else before. Someone who meant a whole lot to you, but he went away for some reason,” he says.

You’re not sure why there’s a lump in your throat from his words, a heavy thing with so much substance that it threatens to weigh your heart as well. Your eyes study the side of his face. “You’re getting all of that from my voice?”

The man’s expression is blank as if it were tabula rasa, something so different from the way you’ve felt for so long now, like your heart has been torn in two. There was something so tempting about it; the luxury of a clean slate. Of a new beginning. A fresh start. And it’s hard not to imagine how you would’ve painted things differently.

“Tell me about him,” the man says, the story he was looking for having been found. “Your first love.”

“He…” you start, shocked that you’re actually answering, but it’s like an invitation you can’t resist, “he was my first boyfriend…my first serious boyfriend. I met him the summer after high school. During a summer like this one.”

seven years ago. summer.

chapter 1. cupid’s arrow.

“C’mon, faster!” Mai exclaims, her hand wrapped around your wrist to tug you across the dim streets of downtown.

“Just— wait— Mai, please, slow down,” you’re stumbling after her, feet failing to keep up, and you almost crash right into her when she comes to a sudden halt on the sidewalk.

“This is it,” she says, staring up at the sporadically blinking neon lights of what appears to be a small venue, black marquee letters that spell out Backseat Serenade Tonight @ 10pm stand out to you in a way that feels haunting. “We’re so late, let’s head inside.”

Mai drags you inside, and the security guy is less than thrilled by the commotion as he stands in front of closed double doors. You can feel the bass of music vibrating the walls, accompanied by loud shrill screams and chants coming from inside, and the red velvet flooring underneath your feet fuel you with static as you two approach the man dressed in full black.

Mai fumbles with her purse to pull out her phone, and the man scans the barcoded tickets on her screen before giving the two of you wristbands to wear and then he opens the door for the two of you.

The inside of the venue is small but packed, minimal lighting save for moving lights that illuminate the band on stage, but it’s even harder to see anything over the heads of people with their hands up in the air. Mai’s grip on your forearm is tight as she roughly weaves the two of you through the crowd, determined in her gait but you feel the need to apologize to the people she’s shoving in the process. You’re surprised at how fast the two of you make it to the front barricades, thanks to Mai’s nimbleness alone, and your eyes raise to the scene onstage through wafting smoke through the air.

“Alright, alright, alright,” one of the band members chimes right as the final instrumentals of the song begin to fade. His hair is a pale silver under dusty lighting, pushed up from out of his face by a black headband snapped to his forehead, and his eyes are distinctly blue. He has an electric guitar hanging from his neck by a thick black strap. He raises both of his hands up into the air, waving them down a few times to calm down the crowd, and there are scattered hushes surrounding you and Mai. “This is our last song, and we just want to thank you all so much for coming out tonight! This crowd’s the best we’ve ever had!”

The people cheer in response as a light and relaxed melody begins to tune together from the instrumentals on stage. You hear Mai groan beside you. “What the fuck?! We missed the entire set?!”

Your hands curl around the cold metal of the barricade dividers and your eyes sweep across the stage. There’s a man in the far back with short black hair, bouncing his leg up and down as he’s seated behind a drum set, fidgeting with wooden sticks in his hands, and you’re puzzled by the fact that he’s wearing a very poorly fitted suit onstage. Off to the right, a man with pink hair is messing with the headphones snapped to his ears in front of an electric keyboard, spread fingers pressing down on chords, and you can vaguely see the black nail polish at the tips of his fingers. A woman with mid length blonde hair and pink highlights stands at the front, her hand wrapped around the mic resting on top of the stand. She’s laughing, tipping her head back at something else the electric guitar player says over the mic, but you’ve drowned out the words because your eyes finally land on what’s directly in front of you.

With an almost bored expression on his face, a man stands with a matte black bass guitar hung from his neck as he has one foot up on the top of a subwoofer located flush to the edge of the stage. His hair is raven black, longer at the nape of his neck with shorter layers scattered, and tendrils fall over his face. There’s a glint to his polished black shoes off of where you’re standing, and he’s wearing tight black jeans that cling to the thick and lean muscles of his calves and thighs, with a leather belt fastened around the circumference of his hips. The shirt that’s tucked into his jeans is just as tight to his skin, and a small gasp leaves your lips when you take in the sight of his arms covered in intricate patterns of ink. His right arm is practically covered from the wrist all the way up to the cut of his short sleeve, likely beyond, and his left arm has ink traveling up to his forearm only, like he’s still working on mapping it all out. You watch the way his biceps flex as he bends his arms, bringing his hands up to his face to push his hair back, and your heart is keeping fast rhythm with the music.

“Cho!” the woman at the front speaks into the mic, turning her head to look at this man who you’re sure is the most beautiful man you’ve ever seen. “You’ve hardly said a single word tonight, baby. Not that that’s unusual though. Why don’t you say a few words before we kick off the last song?”

A bunch of whoos!! and ahhhs!!! and yesss!!! scatter throughout the crowd in the form of cheers and you watch the man furrow his brows together, a scowl forming on his face. There’s a band of black underneath his eyes that runs across the bridge of his nose, with perpendicular lines resembling arrows running down his cheeks. Dark purple eyes that match the dark shadows around them glint under flickering stage lighting as he takes his foot off the speaker and walks a few steps backwards to position himself at his stationed mic.

“Fine,” he says, and you’re watching the way his lips barely brush against the mic as he speaks, “This is our last song. It’s called Lost Cause. Enjoy. Or don’t. It’s up to you. Who the fuck am I to tell you what to do.”

There’s only a slight beat of silence from the crowd before they’re cheering again, while his band members just stare at him stunned. The white-haired electric guitarist yells into his mic something like “THAT’S IT?!” before the drum player cuts him off with three taps of his sticks in the air, and then the song commences from them on practiced reflex.

The energy from the crowd is loud in the last few minutes of the show, smoke rising in the air from the machines spread across the raised stage, and you can’t tear your eyes away from the bass player. You rest your forearms on the cold metal in front of you, the sight of Mai jumping up and down in your periphery as she headbangs and shakes her hair.

The bass player’s eyes start to scan the venue within what seems to be the final chorus of the song, chin tipping up and fingers continuing to strum as he assesses the back of the crowd first, then gaze darting throughout the center, before he begins to study the front barricade. You watch his every movement, mapping the trail of his sight, and your heart skips a beat when those dark eyes finally fall on yours.

His eyes briefly flicker to your left, to continue his study of the crowd, but it’s as if his brain just registered something with a delay, and he quickly moves his gaze back to you in a double take. His eyes widen, bored expression quickly turned into one of surprise with a glint to his pupils, and you swear you’ve been struck by an arrow to your heart.

“Yaaaay! Thank you everyone!” the woman at the front exclaims, pulling her mic from the stand to walk around to make work of the crowd. The white-haired man approaches the edge of the stage with a pleased grin on his face, high-fiving all of the outstretched arms, and the man at the keyboard simply waves a few times before incessantly tuning buttons on his headphones. Drum boy hasn’t stopped playing some sort of loud rhythm as an encore. Your sight is set back onto the bass player, and he’s looking off somewhere else now. Somewhere backstage.

“Hey!” the white-haired man exclaims once he’s made it in front of the two of you. “Mai! You made it!”

She reaches out to grab his forearm, tugging down harshly so he’s stumbling and dropping one knee to the stage floor, kneeling. “Of course I was gonna make it! Thanks for the tickets,” she’s yelling over loud ambient cheers and music, “this is my friend y/n, by the way. Oh, and this is Gojo, he’s the guy I was telling you about.”

You nod at him, and try to accept his outstretched hand when someone bumps you from behind and your hand is in favor of stabilizing yourself over the divider instead.

You can barely hear the laugh from Gojo’s position on the raised stage. “Just meet us backstage! We can chat for a bit with proper introductions and all.”

As the crowd begins to dissipate with people moving through the sets of double doors out back, Gojo hops off stage to take you and Mai through a side door that leads into a hallway that lines the back of the stage. You look up into the high ceilings with metal structural poles banding between the walls, and the dim yellow lighting in small bulbs bolted to the walls like a runway remind you of movie theater exit routes.

“So, what’d you guys think of the show?” Gojo asks, his arms raised up and hands interlocked behind his neck in a casual-not-so-casual way as he sends the two of you a lazy look over his shoulder.

“Well, we only made it for one song since miss barista over here was running late from her shift,” she sighs, whacking your arm once with the back of her hand. You glance down and realize you didn’t even have the time to take your frilled and wrinkled apron off. “But, from what we did get to hear, AMAZING! AWESOME! SPECTACULAR!”

Gojo is grinning wide as he turns around to face the two of you, continuing to walk but backwards as he slaps the raised hand that Mai had in the air for him. “I’m so glad, I felt the pressure to please was high since I’ve been hyping up our shows to you for so long.”

“We’ve only known each other for like two weeks.”

“I know. But PSYCH 210 lecture at the ass crack of dawn really brings two people together, y’know.”

Mai and Gojo continue to laugh and talk about random things college-related, and there’s a stirring feeling in your chest that you’re surrounded by people older and much more well-lived than you. You’ve just graduated high school, barely a few months ago, but Mai was a few years older than you, so any time she tries to introduce you to her college friends, you feel the need to perform or be someone that you’re not so they’ll like you, despite the fact that you’re aware of the fallacy in that. And tonight, that responsibility feels much more daunting for some reason.

There are voices heard further down the hall, and as you approach, you notice the drum guy, keyboard guy, and devilishly handsome bass guy are all loitering around in that area, along with a few other people they seemed to have invited backstage.

Gojo walks up to them, grabbing onto the bass man’s hand firmly before patting him on the back, then slings his arms around the other two. “This is Higurama,” he says, rubbing the top of the black-haired guy’s head with the knuckles of his fist, “he does drums for us. And this is Sukuna,” he says, about to repeat the same gesture to the top of his head but his wrist is grabbed and twisted, “ow, fuck, fuck, fuck– sorry.” Sukuna lets go of his wrist, scowl dissipating into sadistic amusement, and Gojo’s holding his wrist, now slightly red from the burn, with a pout on his face. “He does the keyboard. And all the techno sounds. And some other stuff I’ve frankly no fucking clue about.”

The two of them acknowledge you and Mai, along with the few other people who Gojo seems to know as well, and then Gojo’s approaching the bass player again before resting his elbow up on his shoulder, leaning his weight onto him and the man just crosses his arms across his chest, sending Gojo a side-eye. “Mai, I think you two have met before, but this is Choso. Choso Kamo, our bass player. Best bass player I’ve ever known to be honest. Be careful though, he might bite you.”

Choso scowls, rolling his shoulder back once to get rid of Gojo’s resting elbow. His eyes are on yours, boring into you deep, and when he darts his tongue out briefly to wet his bottom lip, you finally notice the silver lip ring near the corner of his mouth. “Hi. Nice to meet you,” he says, hand outstretched and you shake it with a mention of your name to him. The skin on his fingers feel rough from play, a small sacrifice to pay for the talent he’s harnessed over the years from plucking at strings. His eyes sweep down you once. “Why are you dressed like Strawberry Shortcake?”

“I–” you start, glancing down at your attire and feeling the heat pool in your cheeks, “I just got off a work shift. I work at a cafe.”

“Oh,” he responds, and you notice his hand is still holding onto yours, Your eyes trail the patterns on his skin, visible in more detail up close, and you find yourself lost in every line and swirl and scale and skull and cross, the only thing breaking you out of your trance being Mai’s jab of her elbow to your ribcage.

You gasp, snatching your hand away from Choso, and when you look up at his face, there’s a hint of amusement on it.

“Babes, he was asking you a question,” Mai says, looking between you and the man in front of you.

“Huh?” you ask, suddenly flustered and you swipe your palm down your work apron to wipe the sweat that begins to perspire at your palm from the lingering heat of his hand.

“I was asking if you liked the show,” Choso says, tilting his head to the side and now he’s allowing his eyes to travel all across you in any way he wants.

“I loved it,” you respond, almost breathlessly, “it was great. I mean– we only saw, like, one song. But still, really amazing.”

“Only one song?” Choso asks, his eyebrow raising, “that’s a shame. You’ve gotta come to more shows then.”

Before you can respond, there’s a feminine voice heard down the hallway, sounding an awful lot like the one echoing off the speakers inside the concert venue, and then the blond woman who was the lead singer of the band skips right up to the group formulating in this hallway before wrapping her arms around Choso’s neck and pulling him down towards her in a kiss.

You’re standing there stunned, eyes immediately averting from the scene of the two of them in front of you, but in the corner of your eye you can see his arm wrap around her waist briefly before he pulls her away from him, and the release of her lips from his makes a sound that for some reason creates a pit in your stomach.

“Cho, baby, I just had an insane conversation,” she says, still practically hanging from his neck as she stands on tiptoes, “with this record label guy. He’s apparently hot shit in Tokyo, and he wants to offer us this city gig ‘cause he thinks we’re a potential sign-on, and–”

Choso’s hand reaches to the back of his neck, gripping around her wrist to pull it apart from her other one, and then her arms fall to her sides and her heels flatten to the ground as she blinks up at him. “That’s cool, Sana, but can we talk about that later?”

Gojo’s arms cross his chest as he leans forward, glaring at the woman. “Yeah. And as a band, not just with your lover.”

Sana rolls her eyes and scoffs, placing curled hands low on her hips. “He’s not my lover, bitch. Unless he’s my lover like you’re lovers with a blunt on a sunday– sucked off in a car ‘cause you’ve got nothing better to do.”

“That’s offensive to both of us,” Gojo grumbles but Choso just sighs, unbothered, as he rubs at the back of his neck. He makes eye contact with you again, and his expression sobers as though he forgot for a second that you were still standing there.

Sana turns to you and Mai. “Hi, I’m Sana, nice to meet you guys. Sorry, I thought you two were some of our other friends, otherwise I wouldn’t have kissed Cho in front of you. I hate PDA, trust me.”

Mai lets out an awkward laugh as she shakes her hand, and you almost don’t want to shake her hand, but you do just to be polite.

“You didn’t hate PDA that one time I was about to bag the girl I’d been talking to for weeks and you decided to grind your sorry excuse of an ass right up against me in front of her,” Gojo grumbles.

She waves a dismissive hand in the air. “Whatever, she thought you were gay anyways. Would’ve done yourself a favor if you actually grabbed my ass.”

She ignores the insulted gesture Gojo makes, cutting off whatever words he was about to spew with words of her own. “What are you girls doing after this? We’re having a post-show party, you two should come.” She glances at you. “Uh, love, I’d ditch the apron though. Unless it’s, like, some sort of fetish for you.”

You’re defeated as your arms cross your torso to grip the hem of your apron and pull it up over your head, shaking your head a bit to allow your hair to fall back into place, and then you fold the frilly article of clothing neatly before hanging it over your arm. “It’s not,” you sigh, too exhausted to be subject to the title of your occupation anymore. A small flicker of your eyes to Choso tells you he’s staring at you.

Sana shrugs. “So you pretty ladies wanna come?”

Mai shakes her head. “No, sorry, my baby here,” she says, wrapping her arm around yours tightly, “just graduated high school recently, so she’s too young for a party. I’ve got a responsibility to look after her. And throwing her into a room full of sleazy drunk punk college dudes is the opposite of looking after her.”

Sukuna comes around, leaning his arm against the wall, smirk on his face, as he eyes you like you’re something to steal. “Just graduated high school? So you just turned eighteen, sweetheart?”

Mai glares daggers at him. “Get the fuck away from her, Super Senior. You’re icky. Also, case in point proven.”

Sana whacks the back of Sukuna’s head, and he all but growls at her. “Stop being creepy,” she reprimands him before turning to Mai again. “No, I swear, it’s not like that. It’s chill, minimal alcohol. No drugs. Just a small get-together with a few of our fellow friends, and friends of fellow friends, from the music scene.” She leans against Choso’s arm, wide eyes looking up at him, but he doesn’t lean into her. “Right, Cho? No scary guys for her to worry about?”

His eyes narrow at you, raking down your figure again, and his chest moves a little faster with his breath. “I’m against it. It’s no place for an eighteen-year-old. You’re a fucking idiot for trying to invite a girl who just recently graduated from highschool to a house party. She’s practically a kid.”

Your heart sinks from his words, and you feel juvenile standing in front of him, in a way that makes you angry and embarrassed at the same time, and you can’t bite back the words in time, “Whatever, at least I haven’t been on crack since the day I was born like you probably were.”

Almost all heads in this small hallway snap to you, if they weren’t already there before, wide eyes blinking before Gojo bursts out into a laugh, which dominoes into Mai’s laughter, and you barely register the way Sana looks you up and down once before forcing a smile. Choso’s surprised expression turns into a disgruntled one as he crosses his arms across his chest, and you can’t help but watch the stretch of his inked skin over his muscles as they flex.

“I’ve never done crack, shortcake, and your lame insult only proves my point on your immaturity,” he scowls, leaning his upper body forward towards you, and his gaze briefly drops to your lips.

Sana comes in between the two of you, pressing herself up against him to get him away, and he takes an involuntary step back and now he’s scowling at her too. She turns around to face you, and there’s that forced smile again. “Uh, y’know what, sweets? Cho is sooo totally right, no place at all for a—I’m sorry, how old did you say you were?”

“Eighteen,” you say with a slight grit to your teeth.

“Oh! Yeah, no place for you, sorry,” she says, with a small jut of her bottom lip to signal a pout.

You roll your eyes at her, then glance past her at Choso who’s looking at you like he’s still got a few retaliating words for you on his tongue, but then he’s dropping his gaze to the neckline of your shirt, eyeing the shape of your breasts, even dipping further down your legs and you let out a scoff.

“You sure enjoy checking me out for someone you think is practically a kid,” you spit back.

He’s not angry this time, the corner of his mouth simply tipping up slightly into a smirk. “I meant you’re too young to drink, but you’re old enough to fuck, so spare me the attitude.”

Your cheeks flush at his comment, nonetheless made in front of a group of people who were practically strangers to you, and you’re about to give him a piece of your mind when Mai grabs your forearm and Gojo places himself between you and jerkface.

“Woah! Look at the time,” Gojo chirps, glancing at his wrist that was absent of any time-telling device but he rolls with it anyway, “should probably head out now, since the venue’s closing soon. Y’know, grab our stuff.”

Mai nods her head at you in response to his words, sending a single glare Choso’s way before exchanging some pleasantries with Gojo and then dragging you down the hallway with her towards the exit.

“Hey–” you begin to complain, her grip on you starting to hurt, and you eventually yank your arm away from her before she opens the backdoor exit. “Let’s go to that party.”

Mai sighs, leaning her back against the door and crosses her arms. “No way. Your mom wanted me to get you home before midnight,” she says as she glances at the time on her phone, “and it’s close to midnight.”

You roll your eyes. “I’m an adult now, I don’t have to adhere to a midnight curfew, like I’m fucking Cindarella.”

Mai raises an eyebrow at you from the profanity, recognizing the fact that it’s something you just forced into your vocabulary in a way that doesn’t suit you. “I already said no.”

“Take me or else I’m going to tell your mom about the nipple piercings you got last week.”

Mai hisses a sharp breath through her teeth. “You’re a bitch.”

“Take me,” you deadpan.

She tilts her head back so that it hits the metal of the door, and then she’s pushing her back against it to open it, the rush of cold wind from outside brushing past the two of you as she steps into the night and you follow her. “Oh my god, fine. But only for a little bit, and let’s get the lie straight right now–you had explosive diarrhea at the concert so I couldn’t take you home right away since you were incapacitated in the restrooms.”

“What? Why do I have to be the one with explosive diarrhea?” you ask, frown on your face but there’s a skip to your step as you follow her down the street to where she very poorly parallel parked and you open the passenger side door. She doesn’t bother answering you as she settles into the driver’s seat and her car roars to life with a few struggling turns of the key in ignition.

“No drinking,” Mai says, voice strict with eyes locked on yours, and it’s the last thing she says before she starts driving.

The house is just a few miles from the venue location, and Mai seems to have been there before since she turns the navigation off once she turns onto a street that has her driving switch to from perusal to more casual.

Gojo is the one to greet you two at the door with wide eyes and a drink in his hand. You notice he’s changed out of his stage attire into something more casual, and likely in a rush too since his hair is disheveled, and you figured that you and Mai barely got here after they did. The surprised look on his face is quick to turn into a pleased one at the sight of the two of you. “Oh sweet you two actually came,” he comments, waving a hand for you two to come inside, “figured Kamo would’ve scared you off.”

You roll your eyes, “where is that jerk? I still have a few choice words for him.”

“Babes, let it go,” Mai sighs, “Not worth your time.”

“I concur,” Gojo says, “but, if you really want, he’s upstairs putting some of my stuff he borrowed for tonight’s show back into my room. You can…” he glances down at you once, “uh. Cuss him to death? Or whatever you can manage, I guess. But just don’t fuck on my bed, please. That’s my only rule.”

“Why do you sound like that’s a rule you’ve had to make often?” Mai scoffs, amused, while your cheeks feel hot.

Gojo slumps his shoulders in some type of comical defeat. “I don’t wanna talk about it…” he mumbles, voice trailing off and turning on his heel to walk away while Mai follows him off with more follow-up questions he doesn’t seem receptive to answering.

Your eyes glance over to the staircase, studying for a moment as loud party music fills your ears before making your way over and up the steps. As you head down the hallway leading into bedrooms, the floorboards creak until your sneakers even over soft carpet, and you hear soft sounds of clattering off to the left. There’s a door that’s half ajar leading into a warmly lit room, and you deftly peek your head through the opening.

Choso stands near the foot of the bed inside a messy room, black boxes and cases and wires surrounding him as he fumbles with unplugging some sort of audio station pad from another piece of hardware. His hand grips tightly around the thick black rubber coating of the wire, and you watch the flex of his knuckles that tense the veins running up his arm, sleeve of the shirt he’s worn all night stretching to accommodate the roll of muscle at his upper arm. With a solid yank, the chord releases itself before the wire whacks him straight in the face and he grumbles a fuck under his breath and he rubs the skin of his cheek, to which you can’t help but let out a small laugh at the sight of.

His furrowed and frustrated expression turns into surprise as his eyes flicker to the entrance of the room. He stands up straight, and then there’s that bored expression again. “Oh. Shortcake. I thought I said you’ve got no business being here.”

“Yeah, about that, I’m waiting for you to apologize to me,” you say, leaning sideways against the doorframe as you cross your arms over your chest.

He sighs, eyes moving away from yours to busy himself with the jungle of equipment he’s practically drowning in, as if he couldn’t be bothered by your presence right now. “Apologize for what?”

You make your way inside the room, foot pushing aside anything sprawled on the floor that’s in your way so you can continue to approach him, and you stop just when you’re just a step away. His gaze is still set to the ground as he’s crouched over slightly, but it shifts from the speaker he was toying with to the shape of your shoes instead.

“Apologize to me for being so crass,” you say, “after we had just met.”

He slowly straightens his spine, and you’re a little shocked to find the height that he has on you. His expression is curious, eyes narrowing slightly like he has you all figured out already, and it pisses you off. “Crass is such a prissy word to use, princess. Try ‘apologize to me for being a massive dick’ or something, and I’ll start to take you more seriously.”

“Why are you so rude?” you ask, anger building up inside of you all of a sudden. “I’ve barely met you, I don’t see how I could’ve upset you in any way. Yet you’ve already insulted me in multiple ways tonight, and it’s not a cool look for you. Trust me.”

“You’re the one that basically called me a crackhead,” he counters, but there’s no real offense behind it.

“Yeah, because you called me a kid,” you say, face tightening even further with anger, “even though I’m an adult.”

He sighs, closing his eyes in irritation, and tilts his head up to look at the ceiling briefly as his mouth hangs slightly open, all as if he’s running thin of the capacity to deal with this conversation, and then he looks back down at you again. “Shortcake, I didn’t call you a kid ‘cause of your age. I called you a kid ‘cause you’re just so–” he starts, eyes traveling down your body paired with a vague gesture of his hand towards all of you, and you find yourself shifting on your feet to stand a little more poised, “you just seem so innocent and clueless and, uh, forgive me, naive.”

“You’re the clueless one here if you still think negging a girl will get you anywhere with her,” you say, hands clenched in fists at your side now.

There’s a hint of a smirk on his face as he tilts his head at you, some of his dark hair falling over his forehead from the motion and a few strands weave with his eyelashes. “I’m not trying to get anywhere with you here, sweetheart, unless you’re wanting that,” he says, voice almost purred at the end as he steps over a guitar case on the floor to get closer to you.

You’re unable to make eye contact with him when he’s close and you can smell the earthy notes of his cologne, mixed with another scent that seems more distinctly him that makes your head spin. Your gaze takes in the sight of his forearm, the one with scattered tattoos trailing up his arm but not yet fully inked in. You wonder what he’s saving the space for, and what he’s willing to let in.

When your gaze flickers up to his face again, you’re a little surprised to see his expression is softer. He suddenly holds his forearm up in front of you. Your eyes signal confusion to him, but he just keeps his arm up the same.

“You’ve been ogling my tattoos since we met,” he says, voice low, “if you’re curious, then just have a closer look.”

Your breath picks up in speed, and you hesitate for a moment but it’s true. You were curious. Your hands shakily hold onto his forearm to keep it still as you study the ink on his skin. You twist his arm as much as his joint allows, and he lets you handle him in any way you want, and you swear the snake tattooed on his skin moves as if it were alive. A dark blossoming rose with highlights of burgundy red catches your eye near his elbow, and you brush the back of your hand against it. Your fingers accidentally find his pulse at his wrist, and you find his heart is beating fast.

You run a flat palm up his arm, the skin to skin contact feeling intimate, and your fingers stop when they tuck under the fabric of his sleeve. You feel the warmth and curve of his bicep, lightly wrapping your hand around it, and you blush at the sight of how small your hand looks on him.

“What does this one mean?” you ask, not meaning for it to come out as a whisper, but you feel like his answer is meant to be kept a secret. Your thumb swipes over small roman numerals permanently etched into him over muscle.

“It’s my dad’s military tag,” he responds, voice quiet like yours.

You tear your gaze away from his skin to look up at him, and you realize he’s closed enough distance between the two of you to where his face is just inches away. From the moment you looked up, his eyes have been on your lips, and his brow furrows as if he’s fighting some voice in his head that’s testing this harmony between the two of you in this moment.

You swear he’s about to kiss you, since there could be no other explanation for the way he was looking at you, but instead he clears his throat and his face is first to distance from you before he pulls his arm back as well, and then a small step backwards. “Sorry,” he says, and he almost sounds awkward. It startles you, because it’s the first time he doesn’t sound cool or calm or collected.

“That-” you start, “...wait, what are you sorry for?”

His eyes widen, and you see the heaviness under them for a moment, “uhh…I’m actually not too sure.”

Your head feels clear now that he’s not close enough to breathe in, and you blink a few times as your annoyance from earlier resurfaces amidst the lingering energy he just broke between you two. “Start with ‘I’m sorry for calling you a kid, and then also just now calling you naive and clueless,’” you say, foot tapping impatiently, “and then, in front of all your bandmates, mocking the fact I’m not old enough to drink, and shamelessly traveling your eyes over me, and then–” your breath catches slightly as the words fail to leave your tongue, cheeks feeling hot, “and then saying–” you try again, but the thought only falls flat, and he’s taking a step closer to you again.

“And then saying that you’re old enough to fuck?” he asks, finishing your sentence for you, but there’s no remorse in his tone at all.

His hand suddenly finds the small of your back and he pushes gently so you take a stumbled step towards him, like he needed to have you close to him again. His lips brush against the top of your head, and the sensation sends a hot feeling through your chest. “Choso,” you reprimand him.

“Fuck,” he exhales, like in cynical disbelief, “my name sounds so sweet coming from you.”

It makes no sense, but you grip his shirt at his chest just to make contact with him, and you brave yourself to look up at him, wondering if he can see the hint of worry in your eyes, because he already feels like something you can’t resist.

His eyes are dark now, different from the tenderness in them before, and he’s freely studying the features of your face. “I don’t want to fuck you, Shortcake, if that’s what you’re worried about. You’re a little too good for me to do something like that.”

His words say one thing while his eyes say another, his arm wrapping around your waist to keep you close, and you’re astonished at how little he cares about the clear contradiction in his words from the way he holds you. His gaze slowly travels down from your eyes to your lips.

“What about–” you start, heart beating fast in your chest as you see the glimmer of the silver ring pierced through his lip. You bite back the words.

But he reads your mind, because his head dips down towards yours and he captures your lips in his, slow and sweet at first before pressing more firmly, more decisively with both hands flying to hold your waist. A moan muffles in your throat at the sensation of his bare fingers coyly traveling under the hem of your shirt, and you can’t help but slide your arms up over his shoulders, locking them behind his neck to pull him down closer to you, and he sighs in response as he presses your hips flush against him. The chill metal of his lip ring has the plush of your bottom lip tingling cold, and when his tongue swipes across to warm it for you, your mouth opens with ease. You taste spearmint on his tongue, and his lips curve against yours in what feels like an amused smile, large hands now slid so far up your shirt that his fingers reach the band of your bra.

“Hey, Cho, do you know where–”

The trill of a feminine voice in the air cuts through harshly, and he pulls his lips from yours but not without a moment of reluctance. You two turn your head to the door, and you see Sana standing there, eyes wide and blinking as she takes in the sight of the two of you standing in what feels like a guilty proximity from how her eyes silently curse you.

You can only manage an awkward laugh, fist shoving against Choso’s shoulder but his hands are still placed firmly on the curve over your lower back, dangerously close to the plush of your ass, and your hips are practically pinned to him while you do all you can to lean your upper body away. “Oh–sorry, this…is not what it looks like–”

“I…” Sana starts, and you can see the hurt in her expression, but she quickly corrects it, “Oh! Ah, was just lookin’ for Cho here,” she says, making her way into the room, and a harsh shove of your fist against Choso’s chest finally has him relenting to let you go. Your posture immediately stiffens when she approaches Choso’s side, and she playfully pushes his arm but the effort is weak. “Kissing girls in Satoru’s room is seriously not a good idea, Cho. That freak probably has cameras in here to make sure people don’t bump uglies in his room again after that New Year’s party.”

Choso gives her a pointed look, like he wasn’t caught up on that drama, but you’re just standing there with your eyes flicking between the familiarity of the two people standing in front of you. Why wasn’t Sana jealous? She was looking at you ten seconds ago like she was a whole lot of jealous.

“What are you looking for?” Choso asks her, and she holds her red plastic solo cup with her drink in it out for him to hold as she crouches down to the floor to sift through the equipment now surrounding the three of you.

“My lucky mic,” she says, “Gojo said it’d be here.” There’s a hint of something in her voice, something that mirrors betrayal if you’re perceptive enough.

You watch Choso lick his lips once, eyes darting to you, before he’s crouching down too to help her look. “For something that allegedly means a lot to you, you sure do a shit job at looking out for it,” he comments with a sigh before pulling out a black case from under three other ones and handing it to her. “It’s here.”

“I’m–” you say, taking a step back and almost tripping over a guitar case, “I’m, um, going to head downstairs. Mai is probably looking for me.”

Choso raises an eyebrow at you from where he’s still crouched down next to Sana, and he’s about to speak when Sana cuts him off.

“Okay. Bye,” she says, still rummaging through things mindlessly even though she had already been given what she was looking for.

Choso makes a move to stand up, like he wants to see you out the door, but Sana’s hand grabs him by his forearm, eyes still not meeting his, and there’s a beat of confusion in his eyes as he studies the side of her face. But you know what sort of look she probably has in her eyes right now, and you know only because you’re also a girl, and all girls know what it’s like when a guy you love doesn’t want you in the way that you want him. All you can do at this moment is feel sorry for her.

The atmosphere in the room begins to suffocate, and you head out of the door in a rush.

present day. summer.

“He kissed ya the day he met ya? Hmph! That wouldn’t fly with me,” the man seated beside you says, his grip on the steering wheel tightening as he shifts slightly in his seat to puff his chest out.

“Hmm,” you hum as you look out the window wistfully, memories that you had locked up for so many years opened like a pandora box that fills your chest with warmth but has your fingers trembling with anxiety because you know how it all ends. “You wouldn’t…let a man kiss you on the first day he met you?”

The driver humors you with a hearty laugh from his chest, at least. “Not talkin’ about it that way, darlin’. I’m talkin’ about my daughters. I’ve got two girls of my own. A man should keep his hands to himself the first time he meets a lady. At least that’s what I’ve taught ‘em.”

There’s a small smile that tugs at your lips at his words, the love he has for his daughters heard clearly through his strict tone. You left out a lot of the details that probably would’ve angered him on your behalf even more, so the fact he still ended up getting worked up about it has you a little amused and reflective at the same time. “How old are your daughters?” you ask, tucking strands of your hair behind your ear, watching the wind-rustled plains of grass that you two have been driving by for a while now.

“They’re a little younger than you,” he comments, his expression now a bit more serious, “one just graduated from college, she’s startin’ more school in the city soon, and the other’s still in highschool. She’s turning sixteen next week.”

“Ah, sixteen,” you muse, “that’s a confusing age.”

“You got that right,” he gruffs, “the other day, she called me on my way home from work to bring some drink called a boba. Fifty-two years of life and I never even knew there was a damn thing called a boba! Why would anyone want swirlin’ stuff in their drink?! Anyways, the shop got her order wrong, and when I brought it home, she refused to drink it, called me the worst dad ever, then stormed upstairs to slam the door on her room. I turn to my wife, and she’s shakin’ her head at me like I’m the one that did something wrong!”

You laugh, then press your lips into a smile. “I’d have to agree with her on that,” you joke, and he lets out another disgruntled noise that has you laughing again.

“Yeah, yeah, I’ve lived with my wife and those two girls for over two decades,” he sighs. “I’m used to it by now. All three are equally pains in my ass, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Your smile drops a little as you look at him more contemplatively. There’s a glimmer in his eyes as he speaks, and you realize it’s familiar, but the answer of where you’ve seen it before fails to arrive.

“My youngest,” he starts again, “she’s been listenin’ to really loud music lately.” He presses one of the buttons underneath the AC vents, static noises coming to life before he changes the output to bluetooth. “My wife says it’s some sort of phase, but I’m not likin’ the music. Always sounding tempered and inappropriate.” He plays a song from his phone paired to the car, speakers flowing with music, and a chill runs down your spine the moment the first few notes fill your ears. A song so painfully familiar, so connected to your soul it’s as if your heart still keeps time with it to this day.

“See what I’m talkin’ about?” the man says, “Lots of words about skin and cigarettes.” With a shake of his head, he lowers the volume. “She’s obsessed with this band, it’s probably a band similar to your old lover’s from the sound of it. She’s got posters of ‘em up on the wall, and she took the picture of us on our first fishing trip together out of the picture frame on her desk and replaced it with this man. This silly-lookin’ white-haired man that always looks like he’s just pretending he knows how to play a guitar. Hmph! She keeps saying ‘dad, I wanna go to their concert!’ There’s no way in hell I’m allowing that.”

You stare down at your lap, brow furrowed from the realization flashing through your head, and your thumb nervously passes over the skin of your other hand. In your periphery, you see him glance over at you once, and he sighs before stopping the music and speaking up again.

“It’s fine,” he says, “my youngest got her sister into the same band, and she likes one of the other ones. Plays bass. He’s too rough-lookin’ for my daughter. Arms covered in tattoos, he’s even got some on his face! She keeps dreamin’ about havin’ him for a boyfriend, but if she brought that home, there’s no way I’d approve. I’d scare him off with my rifle.”

Your heart is beating fast in your chest, and you realize what a small world it is. Or, you realize just how big Choso’s world must be now. So much bigger than he or any of the other members of his band could’ve ever imagined. For once in a lifetime, so rare and pure, are dreams that are fully realized.

“Gosh,” you respond when you realize you’ve been lost in your own revelations for too long, “that’s an…extreme response. You sound like my father, though.”

“Hm,” he responds, “I’m sure. Did your father approve of this lover of yours? The one that’s makin’ moves on you so fast and too soon?”

You lean back in your seat with your head hitting the headrest. It’s been years since you’ve felt like you’re being lectured or reprimanded for anything, but the feeling comes back to you at this moment as if no time had passed at all. No matter how old you get, you’ll never forget how humbling the feeling was when you thought you knew everything at eighteen, just to look back and realize you didn’t have a single clue.

You sigh. “No. He didn’t approve. Far from it.”

seven years ago. autumn.

chapter 2. the juvenile & the delinquent.

[to be continued]

a/n. eeeeeppp thank you very much for reading n supporting my new fic!! i hope you enjoyed :') still a lot more to uncover n unpack hahah i'm so nervous to start a new fic but i'm also very excited!!! i love choso sm but i also love nanami so this is gonna be interesting to write. also TYSM to everyone that wanted to be on taglist for this omg your support means the world to meeee. love you all sm.

taglist: @joemama-2 @sweetpo1son @lilluna12 @polarbvnny @4y3sh4 @sedona-the-l0bster @horisdope @ilovenana88 @thexmistress @atsushirolll @flvrrg0d @strawnanamilk @nighttwingg @indieotterxoxo @pirana10 @bakuhoethotski @tvdumarvelhpsimp @lavender-hvze @whereflowerswenttodie @alwaysfreakingout @kaitoluver @3xv5s @wrenabbadon @erwinslut @winsga18 @ynishalee @yungbloode

love u all so much!!

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honeytonedhottie · 7 months

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prepping for the next year⋆.ೃ࿔*:･🫧

welcome to a brief guide on prepping for the next year in ur life to be fruitful <333

REFLECT - take the time to look at where u are right now, look at the habits that you've picked up and engrained into ur life, then depending on where u wanna be, decide which habits to keep and which habits to get rid of. make a list if u want a visual representation

start HABIT STACKING. habit stacking is a technique that was mentioned in the book "atomic habits" which i highly highly recommend. so basically the concept behind it is starting a habit that'll trigger a domino effect of positive habits. "a technique where u form new habits by pairing a new desired behavioral change with an already existing behavior you routinely do"

EXAMPLE : in the morning the first thing i do is i brush my teeth, my brain knows that as soon as i've finished brushing my teeth, i'll reach for my head-band and cleanser and begin to wash my face. the action of brushing my teeth created a domino effect because ik that after brushing my teeth -> i wash my face

GOAL SETTING - think about ur dream life, how it feels, looks etc u already know how to manifest, if ur on my blog or around this side of tumblr chances are u probably know about law of assumption and how it works. take some time to learn and apply it so that u can manifest ur dream life. and who you wanna be (build that SELF CONCEPT)

DAY-TO-DAY - make sure that ur prioritizing ur health above all and knowing what will you be doing on the day-to-day basis? what do u want it to be like, what is ur ideal quality of life? think about habits that'd align with it. for example if something u wanna experience in ur day-to-day life is energy in surplus then you'd look at ur habits and think "am i sleeping enough" or "whats my diet look like"

YOUR CIRCLE - take a look at the people that u surround urself with, their characters, their aspirations and habits and if that aligns with the life that u want for urself. for example if ur constantly surrounding urself with someone who is lazy or toxic, you'll subconsciously be influenced by their laziness and toxicity. the saying "you are who u surround urself with" is so true! surround urself with like-minded people or people that you'd want to be with in ur dream life.

some things to practice to improve urself :

self discipline (its like a muscle, the more u exercise it the stronger it becomes)

hydration (drink some water <333)

gratitude

thinking consciously (thinking from the wish fulfilled = ur manifestation coming into fruition)

reading (or listening to audio-books if reading isn't ur cup of tea)

#law of assumption #self concept #it girl #becoming that girl #self care #that girl #self love #it girl energy #dream girl #dream life #manifestation

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ladykailitha · 1 year

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Royal Pain Part 1

Hello, everyone! Welcome to the story that has had my entire weekend on lock. Like every spare moment was writing this story. I wrote over 6000 words in two days. So yeah. Don’t worry. I’m still working on Boy With a Bat (I just need time to research season 3 so I don’t over step on the show’s timeline {like I did with “Little Runaway”}). And of course I love working on “All My Roads Lead Back to You” and will continue working on it as well. Also these first two parts are long. I don’t know if all the parts will be as long, but as you can see when you read them there isn’t a lot of places to stop (and not make them super short).

Summary: No Monster Modern AU. Eddie and his band, Corroded Coffin, have a steady gig at a bar in Indy where they play every weekend. Eddie's life takes a left turn when his regular tattoo artist, Max Mayfield, moves to New York with her boyfriend Lucas Sinclair, newly traded to the New York Knicks. Now needing a new tattoo artist, Jeff recommends "Royal Pain", which even Max agrees is a good shop. On arrival, Eddie is shocked to find Steve is the shop's artist. They hit it off, and slowly move from the barest of acquaintances to boyfriends.

***

“God damn it!” Eddie growled, throwing his phone at the sofa and snarling when it bounced to the floor.

“One day you’re gonna throw it so hard and it will break,” Gareth grumbled from behind his drum set.

It was Corroded Coffin’s weekly practice. They weren’t big or anything, but they had a steady gig at a local metal bar and it paid good money. They drew large enough crowds that they were able to play their own music.

Eddie hopped to his feet to retrieve the discarded phone from the floor. “Yeah, yeah,” he muttered darkly.

“What’s got your panties in such a twist?” Jeff asked from the same sofa Eddie had tossed the phone at. He was tuning his guitar, ear bent toward the strings.

Eddie scoffed. “Like you have any interest in my panties.”

Jeff lunged and grabbed one of Gareth’s drumsticks from the bucket he kept at his side and threw it at Eddie.

“Hey!” both Gareth and Eddie protested.

“Just answer the damn question!” Brian sneered from his place on the battered old floral armchair. “You usually like bitching, so what’s your deal?”

Eddie flopped gracelessly on the lavender two-seater. “That was my tattoo artist,” he groused, crossing his arms petulantly. “Her boyfriend got traded to the New York Knicks so they are moving there and if I want to get my dragon finished before she leaves, I better ‘haul ass’ according to her.”

Eddie’s friends winced. They knew finding a tattoo artist you could trust in a style you liked was hard. And for Eddie to lose his? That sucked. Max Mayfield was one of the best in Indy and to lose her to New York? That was even worse. But her boyfriend, Lucas Sinclair, was an NBA raising star and she went where did. Which meant Eddie had to start all over with a new artist.

Suddenly Eddie straightened up. “Hey, Jeffie!” he said. “Did you ever get that tattoo you wanted done?”

Jeff lit up. “Oh yeah!” He set his guitar aside and rolled up his sleeve and showed them his tattoo. It was of a bullet tearing through the flesh. It was fantastically rendered, where you could see the torn muscles and broken bone. It covered the scar there perfectly. “Isn’t it fucking amazing?”

“Holy shit!” Brian cried. “That is so wicked.”

Eddie leaned forward, eyes wide with wonder. “Yeah fuck, man. Where did you get that?”

“It’s this little place called Royal Pain,” Jeff explained. “The artist, Stevie is so fucking good.”

Eddie chewed on his lip, thinking hard. “Hey, can I get the number?”

Eddie was standing in front of a shop that he wouldn’t have in a million years would have even suspected was a tattoo parlor. It was a clean and bright storefront. The sign was black with a golden crown was on the R. It was a far cry from any other tattoo parlor he had ever been to. But despite his reservations, both Max and Jeff highly recommended this place and specifically this ‘Stevie’.

Sighing deeply, he yanked open the door and took two steps into the shop. The decor was nice enough, it had a ‘royal’ theme to it, he supposed, but he really didn’t look that much. Because suddenly Eddie knew who Stevie was. The name, the royal decor, and Robin fucking Buckley as receptionist.

He was going to kill Jeff. Or maybe just his next three D&D characters. Because there was no way on this insignificant planet did Jeff Lawrence not recognize King Steve ‘the hair’ Harrington. They had all gone to school together. Robin was Steve’s best friend. His soulmate if the rumors were to be believed.

He was about to turn around and walk out, Jeff and Max’s recommendations be damned. Even he wasn’t that masochistic. But he was stopped by the cheerful, “Welcome to Royal Pain! How can I help you?”

Eddie winced and rubbed his eye in frustration, but made his way up to the counter. “Munson, Eddie. I have a two o’clock with Stevie.”

Her smile grew genuine. “Not your first tattoo, I take it.”

Eddie pulled down the collar of his shirt to show of his finished dragon tattoo. “Yeah, no. Some asshole jock absconded to New York with my tattoo artist, so here I am.”

She grinned. “Stevie will be out in a moment.”

Before Eddie could chicken out, the man himself came out of a backroom, wiping off his hands. Eddie gulped. Steve looked very much the same as he did in high school. Same hazel eyes, honey hair, tight jeans and a fucking polo. This guy couldn’t have looked less like a tattoo artist if he tried. Except for one thing.

He could see tattoos on Steve’s arms. He couldn’t get a good look at them without staring but yeah, okay. Steve Harrington, tattoo artist. Who would have thought?

Steve looked up and smiled brightly. “Eddie?” Eddie nodded. “Hey! It’s so good to see you. I had hoped when I saw the name that it was you. How’s it been?”

Robin tilted her head in confusion and made an odd chirping noise.

“Come on, Robs,” Steve teased her. “You can’t tell me you don’t remember Eddie from school.”

She looked Eddie up and down and then cocked her head. “You do look vaguely familiar.”

Steve laughed. “You know, ran the D&D club, had that rock band–”

“Metal,” Eddie corrected. “Not rock, metal.”

Steve snapped his fingers. “That’s right, sorry. Oh! And stood on tables ranting about the man and how schools fail the kids they are supposed to teach.”

“You stepped on my sandwich,” she said deadpan.

Eddie’s eyes went wide. “Whoops.”

She grinned and pushed his shoulder. “Just kidding. It was Tammy Thompson’s sandwich.”

“Isn’t she the one that sings like a Muppet?” Eddie asked, with a raised eyebrow.

Steve laughed. “That’s what I said.”

Robin looked between them both and growled, “I hate you both.”

“You’re only saying that because you had a crush on her,” Steve teased.

Eddie raised an eyebrow, “I didn’t know you swung for the other team, Buckley.”

She grinned. “What can I say, I do love a pretty girl.”

Eddie shrugged and cocked his head, nonchalant. “I wouldn’t know.”

Robin wagged her eyebrows at Steve, who rolled his eyes. He turned to Eddie. “So what am I doing for you today?”

Eddie blinked at him for a moment. “Oh!” He pulled out a picture from his back pocket and handed it to Steve.

“This is the Evenstar from Lord of the Rings, right?” Steve asked, tapping the picture. “Arwen’s necklace.”

Eddie lit up. “Yeah. I’m impressed, even uber fans have a hard time remembering that.”

Steve blushed, ducking his head. “I have this friend that hosts huge parties watching the extended versions of the movies every year. Complete with full Hobbit meals. It’s hard not take in something from the films.”

“Yeah?” Eddie asked, suddenly feeling less like murdering Jeff with each passing moment.

Steve smiled back. “Actually, you might remember him. He was in your club, your final year at school.”

Eddie cocked his head. “Oh?”

“Actually, you had three of Steve’s nuggets in your club,” Robin interjected.

Eddie turned to Steve. “What nuggets would those be?”

Steve blushed again. “I used to quasi-babysit these kids. There were about seven of them, if you count Erica and Elle.”

“Which I absolutely do,” Robin crowed delightedly.

Eddie’s eyes nearly bulged out of his head as he leaned forward. “You babysat kids?”

Steve shrugged. “They were good kids and their parents worked a lot, so they just kinda imprinted on me. Like ducklings.”

“Wait...Lucas, Mike, and Dustin, huh?” Eddie asked putting two and two together. “Holy fucking shit. I loved running their characters. The ranger, the paladin and the bard.” He couldn’t believe it. He had missed out the chance to run with their friend Will, but he had come back to Hawkins after Eddie finally graduated. “Which one was Dustin?”

Steve smiled and then ran his tongue over his teeth. “Floofy hair, trucker hats, Weird Al shirts, and a huge theater nerd.”

Eddie clapped and pointed, “That’s the one!” He tapped his finger over his lips. “Which means it’s Dustin that hosts the Lord of the Rings fest, isn’t he?”

Steve beamed up at him. “Yeah. Sadly I haven’t been able to go the last couple of years.”

Robin made a sympathetic noise.

“Why not?” Eddie asked, the curiosity getting the better of him.

“Migraines,” Steve said with a wince. “Too long staring at a TV set can trigger them, who knew?”

“That sucks.”

Steve looked back at the picture in his hand. “Did you draw this?”

Eddie grinned. “Sure did, big boy!”

“And would you want me to tattoo it in your style?” Steve asked.

Eddie blinked rapidly. “You can do that?”

Robin folded her arms, looking smug. “Hell yeah, he can!”

“I mean, if you can that would be amazing,” he said breathlessly.

“Where is it going, the tattoo, I mean?” Steve asked.

Eddie tapped his chest. “Sternum.”

Steve chewed his lip thoughtfully. “That would be awesome, but have you thought about putting it on your back. Like a shadow covering your spine?”

Robin’s eyebrows shot up.

Eddie shook his head. “As tempting as that would be sweetheart, I have plans for my back.”

Steve looked a little disappointed. “And what would that be?”

“I want big black bat wings on my shoulder blades,” Eddie said gleefully. “I just haven’t found anyone who’s style I liked well enough to trust doing it.”

Steve hurried around the desk and pulled out a large three-ring binder. “This is all my work, flip through it, see if you like my style enough for me to do it for you. Because I would love to. So take a look and let me know if I could be your man.”

Eddie blinked. “Yeah, sure.”

Steve smiled brightly. “Great! I’ll go set up and I’ll call you back when I’m ready.” He practically skipped to the back room again.

Eddie opened the binder slowly and began to shift the pages. They were all amazing pieces of work that only seemed to get better the further he got into the pictures.

“These are amazing,” he breathed.

Robin leaned on the counter and stage whispered, “If you do not get his number after he does your tattoo, I will murder you and no one will find the body.” She leaned back to look down the hall. What she saw Eddie didn’t know, but she leaned back into whisper to him, low and menacing, “I am not paid enough to listen to his rom-com pining bullshit.”

Eddie looked behind her and then back at her. “I’m–I mean–what the hell?”

“Eddie!” Steve called.

Eddie slammed the binder shut and stomped to the back. He stopped short when he got to room. Again he was blown away at how opposite it was from other shops he’d been to. It wasn’t sterile white or anything like that but it was brightly lit and nicely decorated. It was a place that most ‘normies’ would feel comfortable getting their first tattoo. And he got the appeal.

Steve looked up at him with a lopsided smile as if he understood why Eddie was brought up short. “Other tattoo artists give me such shit about my set up, but it’s not about the aesthetic of what people think a tattoo shop should look like. It’s about people feeling comfortable about permanently altering their bodies.”

Eddie nodded. “No man, I get it. It’s just a pleasant surprise, you know?”

Steve grinned at him. “Thanks. Come on, have a seat. Take off your shirt. Relax.” He paused for a moment. “But not necessarily in that order.”

Eddie laughed and pulled off his shirt, tossing it on a nearby chair. He got on the lounge chair and laid back. He noticed the way Steve dragged his tongue over his bottom lip and smirked. Maybe Buckley was right.

“You’ve got a lot of great tattoos,” Steve said, wiping down Eddie’s chest with a mild anesthetic to clean the area. “Your old tattoo artist do those?”

Eddie shrugged. “Yeah, I mean most of them. A couple were stick and poke when I was high school.”

Steve raised an eyebrow. “Shit, really? I wouldn’t have guessed. They’re all really good.”

Eddie blushed. He figured Steve was just being polite because he thought it was fairly obvious which ones were the stick and poke. “Speaking of high school, I would have never in a million years thought that King Steve would become a tattoo artist. You been doing this long?”

Steve chuckled. “Yeah, I got voted most likely to run my own business, but I’m pretty sure they thought something closer along the lines of hair care or some such shit.”

“At least yours was nice,” Eddie grumbled. “I got voted most likely to still be high school at the ten year reunion.”

Steve winced. “Was that the first time or the second time they held you back?”

“First.”

“That’s harsh, man,” Steve commiserated. “Yeah, no, I’ve been doing this for the last five years. Three years at my own shop.”

Eddie raised his eyebrows. “Wait really? That’s epic, dude.”

Steve nodded. “I went with a friend of mine to see about apprenticing under Hop. He caught me doodling on myself because I forgot to bring my drawing pad and offered the apprenticeship to us both.”

“I can see why,” Eddie said. “You do some pretty impressive work. Who was the friend? Robin?”

Steve laughed. “Yeah, no...I love Robin, and she is a lot of wonderful things, artist just isn’t one of them.”

Eddie laughed, too. “Yeah, okay. That’s fair.”

Steve picked up his gun and sat down on the rolling stool. “Nope, Max Mayfield. One of my nuggets, as Robin called them.”

Eddie blinked. “Shit, dude. She was my old tattoo artist? You two really apprenticed under Hop?”

Steve hummed. “Yup.” He turned on the gun and then shut it off again. “I know you said that you wanted it in your style, but can I add my own flourishes to it?”

Eddie cocked his head. “Yeah, sure. I liked what you did with Jeff’s tattoo, so yeah. Knock yourself out, man.”

Steve grinned. “I promise you won’t regret it.”

***

Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12 Part 13 Part 14 Part 15 Part 16 Part 17 Part 18 Part 19 Part 20 Part 21 Part 22 Part 23 Part 24 Part 25 Part 26 Part 27 Part 28 Epilogue

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#My writing #stranger things #steddie #tattoo artist steve #modern au #ladykailtiha writes

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blindbeta · 3 months

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I've noticed that you are interested in stories with multiple blind characters and often propose adding more blind characters to a story as a solution. I really struggle with this because it's not as simple as that -- stories don't have infinite narrative space. The idea that every story has a large cast is influenced by the prevalence of long serialized media in fandom: webcomics, TV shows, etc. But many writers (myself included) write a lot of novellas and short stories which often only have a few characters -- maybe even only 1 or 2! Even novels don't usually have huge expansive casts -- maybe 5 main characters with some additional side characters.

Considering this, I don't understand how it's realistic for every story (or even, say, 50% of stories) to have multiple blind characters (without it feeling forced). This is compounded by the fact that most blogs that talk about other forms of representation say the same! So if I write a 2-character short story and the protagonist is a blind Latino man, does the second character also have to be a blind Latino man? It just doesn't make sense! This is just a general problem I've noticed in discussions around representation -- there's an assumption that every cast will have 10+ characters and narrative space to develop those characters, even though that's not realistic for most narrative forms.

Do you have any thoughts on this?

Writing Multiple Blind Characters in Short Stories

Hi Anon! Surprise. I write short stories as well. I have experience with this. I have never felt like my blind characters were forced or unrealistic, even with having several of them in the same story. I’ll try to explain what might help you.

First, the idea that multiple blind characters is forced or unrealistic comes from ableism. Think about why you feel there is a limit on disabled characters. If you can create stories, I would hope you are creative enough to consider the possibility that multiple blind characters could exist in the same place and time. Challenging this barrier opens up more possibilities, allowing you to explore different types of blindness, different reactions to it, different upbringings, and multiple ways of living, adapting, and navigating being blind.

Second, blind characters need access to their own community. This is where they learn how to be blind. This where they get support. This is where they might find understanding and belonging. You can find more information about community here in an excellent reblog. Also, here.

As you mentioned, I often suggest adding more blind characters when writers insist upon using stereotyped portrayals. Having multiple characters with different experiences helps to make your story more realistic and nuanced, contrary to what people might implicitly believe. Having more than one blind character is something I highly recommend because it helps with not having all your representation rest on the shoulders of one character.

For example, if you are worried a main character who has cloudy eyes might reinforce the idea that all blind people have cloudy eyes, having another blind character with a different experience may help. If one of your blind characters is naive and innocent, you might have another blind character who is brash, displays a lack of trust in others, and has a lot of shocking stories. Maybe they’re in a rock band together. They met while playing blind football (aka soccer) on a middle school team. They bonded over their pet cats and sour patch kids.

Or something.

Another important thing to remember when writing is that you have control over the story. Too many writers come to me feeling stuck because they feel they cannot change their story while also wanting to incorporate my suggestions. This makes it challenging to address implicit bias or stereotypes, much less guide writers in going in different directions.

Additionally, I feel uncomfortable with the complaints about other blogs in this ask. I feel like this isn’t really about me, nor is it something I can comment on. I will say that it sounds as if a bunch of blogs dedicated to helping people write marginalized characters are mentioning some of the same things. They are probably doing so for a reason.

However, while it helps, writing multiple blind characters won’t improve every story, which I explained in my review of the book Blind. I was not impressed with this book. I did not feel that the four blind characters were very good, nor did having them help with offsetting the portrayal of blindness as a miserable experience.

Conversely, one of my favorite blind characters is Toph Beifong from Avatar: The Last Airbender. Despite being the only blind character in the show, the writers did a good job with her. Would I have liked her to meet more of her community as she travels with the Gang? Absolutely. Even though I like her, she still never had access to her community after being isolated by her parents for so long.

So, no, you don’t need to have multiple blind characters if the suggestion bothers you this much. I even provided good examples of what to do, what not to do, and times where my typical advice was not as helpful for the resulting story.

However, please consider where these feelings stem from. Consider the origins of the idea that having multiple blind characters is unrealistic. Using the example you provided in your question, I wonder, would you say the same if both your characters were white and abled? Is there any way you can challenge the fear of seeming unrealistic? What about being considered unrealistic bothers you so much?

You don’t necessarily need to have characters in the story for them to exist. Even background characters can help. I will try to give some ideas for this:

Does your blind character have family they can talk about or remember? Are any of their family members blind?

Do they have any friends? Just because the friends aren’t in the story doesn’t mean they don’t exist at all.

Does the blind character have any formative memories or flashbacks?

Does the character who isn’t blind know any blind folks?

Your characters should have lives outside of the story. They should have memories and experiences that made them who they are. This is where you can have other blind characters. Perhaps this is how your blind character can have a community.

However, I would still like to see more blind characters interacting with each other. This is what I want as a blind person. If you don’t want to go that direction, that’s fine.

I hope this helps.

#blind #blind characters #writing blind characters #ask #scheduled post #writing more than one blind character #multiple blind characters #ableism #let blind people have friends and community challenge

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benkyoutobentou · 5 months

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Beginner Manga Recommendations for Japanese Learners

It's time, you've done your due diligence in studying. Now it's time to jump into native material. But where to start? Here are a few manga series that I've read that I think would be a reasonable place for a Japanese learner to start their immersion journey.

Disclaimer: I haven't read every series, and the manga that's interesting to me might not be interesting to you. We also all encounter different words as we go along our language learning journeys. A series that I find relatively easy might have you looking up every other word. The trick is to not get discouraged and just keep on pushing through! As with everything, it gets easier the more you practice.

消えた初恋 - ア��コ＆ひねくれ渡: This BL series follows a group of four friends and their experiences with love in high school (it also has a drama adaptation that I highly recommend! Available to watch for free on Viki). This series is so silly and just a fun time. The art has great visual gags and it's definitely a series where you can sit down and not even realize that suddenly you've gone through an entire volume and why didn't you buy more of this series to start with? It has furigana on everything, but the characters do speak pretty casually, so there's some slang and less standard language. This series is completed with nine volumes.

佐々木と宮野 - 春園ショウ: This is another sweet BL about Miyano, a high school first year, who catches the eye of an upperclassman, Sasaki. After asking to borrow Miyano's book, the two bond over a shared enjoyment of BL manga. The vocabulary is pretty simple in this one as well, but it does use quite a bit of otaku slang, which can be difficult if you've never encountered it before. It has furigana on everything, though! This series is ongoing with nine volumes and also has a spin off series titled 平野と鍵浦 which is also ongoing with four volumes.

月刊少女野崎くん - 椿いづみ: The first manga I ever read in Japanese! This series follows a high schooler, Sakura, as she confesses to her crush and classmate, Nozaki. However, Nozaki thinks that Sakura is just a fan of his shoujo manga series, and recruits her to be his assistant. This series is so enjoyably silly with a wonderful cast of characters that absolutely steal the show. There's a bit of vocabulary specific to the process of making manga, but it isn't too overwhelming. There's also plenty of casual speech and some great moments that can't quite come out in translation (bonus fact: I actually wrote a paper on this series and how humor is translated in one of my university linguistics class). It also has furigana on everything. It's ongoing with fifteen volumes.

加瀬さんシリーズ - 高嶋ひろみ: This adorable little GL series follows two high school aged girls, popular and athletic Kase and the shy gardener Yamada, as their relationship develops over their high school years. The vocabulary in this one is relatively simple with the exception of some more specific words, but those tend to pop up time and time again. This one doesn't have furigana but I think it's a great introduction to readying manga without furigana! This series is completed with five volumes, but there's an ongoing sequel series called　山田と加瀬さん that currently has three volumes released.

ささやくように恋を唄う - 竹嶋えく: This is a music based GL series about a high school first year, Kino, who tells an upperclassman, Nagi, that she loves her music. Nagi, however, misunderstands this as Kino confessing her love for her. The story follows both the relationship between Kino and Nagi as well as the trials and tribulations of Nagi's band. This is another one without furigana, but the vocabulary tends to be simple enough that I think it's still pretty accessible. It's ongoing with eight current volumes.

かけた月とドーナッツ - 雨水汐: Our last GL, this follows two coworkers, Uno and Satou, and their blossoming relationship in a society that pushes conformity and marriage on women. I really loved the way this series depicted coming into one's sexuality as an adult. Another one without furigana, but simple vocabulary regardless. A possible difficulty with this one might be the office vocabulary, though. This series is completed with four volumes.

#on one hand i feel like gls tend to be easier than bls but on the other hand i dont think i have any gls with furigana whereas i do with bl #things to think about things to think about.......#disclaimer i have not read any of hirano and kagiura #benkyou posting #langblr #language learning #studyblr #polyglot #japanese #日本語 #manga #studyinspo #studying #languages #i think im actually feeling the urge to jump back in to sasamiya......#but no... i shant.#not until the new year #i have too much to finish before then

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blue-slxt · 7 months

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Kinktober 31

🔞Minors Do Not Interact🔞

Kinktober Masterlist

A/N: Happy Halloween! We've reached the end of Kinktober! It's such a bittersweet feeling. But I'm so happy with the turn out and with all the love that you guys have shown over this past month! Writing all these prompts took a lot out of me so I'll probably take a short smut break after this. I'll still be writing in the background, but I want to branch out and do more fluff pieces and other things too. But best believe, the smut WILL be back shortly. Anyways, thank you guys for everything and I hope you guys enjoy this! I wrote this with the understanding that female Alphas have a knot inside of them and Omega males have the sheathed penis. You can find out more in this post. So just keep that in mind! I was partially inspired by the fic Howling For You by @theblueflower05 (It's one of my faves and I highly recommend it!) All characters are aged up.

Pairing: Omega!Lo'ak x Alpha!Fem!Metkayina!Reader

Warnings: Smut, P in V, Oral (M receiving), Scenting, Knotting, Creampie, Mentions of Anal, ABO, Territorial Reader

Almost everything about your attitude was all Alpha. You stood proud and strong. A self-assured, commanding presence in any situation you were in. You could be aggressive at times, but never out of any sense of malice or superiority. It was simply your nature. A pure, red-blooded Alpha in every sense. Almost.

The one thing about you that was a bit different. You had a certain…affinity for soft things. You kept your marui lined with the softest fabrics that hands could weave. Lush blankets and delicate tapestries. You loved the feeling of the plush sand beneath your feet and the sound of soft early morning waves wading into the shore. But what you loved the best? Soft moans and whimpers from soft boys in the domineering grip of your hips.

Soft Omega boys set your heart on fire in a way that was incomparable. You knew you couldn’t be with another Alpha. Not because Alpha-Alpha relationships didn't happen, but because you were too stubborn and proud to let someone try to dominate you. But something about Omega boys was just so enticing to your senses.

So when you first set eyes on Lo’ak, you immediately wanted to devour him whole. Maybe it was his scent that smelled like fresh fallen forest rain on exotic flower petals and tree bark. Or maybe it was his foreign, tawtute features that others outcast him for which made him seem more vulnerable. Or maybe it was the instant images that your mind conjured of his slim build trapped between the toned muscle of your thighs. Whatever it was, you just knew you had to have him and you would bare your fangs at anyone that dared to try and stand in your way.

You were straightforward in your approach with Lo’ak. Immediately, you approached him with all your confidence offering him an arm band that you had made to match the beads in his braids. You circled him slowly appraising and appreciating his deep royal blue skin and lean muscles. You take the chance to subtly sneak a whiff of his scent and Eywa, your mouth nearly starts to water.

“See you around, sayrìp” you said lightly dragging your tail across his thigh as you walked past him. And from that moment on, Lo’ak may as well have been a fish caught in your undercurrent. He started trailing after you everywhere like an ilu pup follows its mother.

He could be brash and rough around the edges when it came to getting along with other males in the clan. Namely, Ao’nung and his crew. But he was all velvet when it came to you. Always soft murmurs in your ear on the mornings he would find himself waking in your marui. Burying his face in your chest nuzzling his nose at your soft skin. Feather-light kisses he’d press against your neck that would turn into hands exploring down the front of your body lower and lower.

And you could be…territorial. A credit to your nature, you would turn over still half asleep and bury your face into the crook of his neck scenting him in the early hours of the day. Rubbing your own scent all over him. You had this inexplicable need to have him wear your scent at any and all times. Completely bathe him in it to ward off any other Alphas that would be stupid enough to try and move in on your precious lover. You wanted to mark him in every way and he would let you.

Today’s been particularly grating for you. Your hunt was less than fruitful. One of your favorite necklaces broke sending beads flying all over the beach. And worst of all, you saw another female looking at Lo’ak; trying to get close to him. That won’t do. Not today. Not ever. Of course, the second she locked eyes with you, she rolled her eyes in annoyance and left with a huff. She should count herself lucky that you left her with eyes to roll.

Deep breaths are supposed to be calming for the mind, but right now, they are doing little to quell the fire in your chest. Nevertheless, you put on your best face when you approach Lo’ak. Before you even reach him, he already picked up on your scent and turns in your direction. His arms reach out to you as he walks over.

“I missed you, babe. Are you done with all your tasks for the day?” he asks with his slim tail swaying giddily back and forth behind him.

The human nickname rolls off his tongue so effortlessly and it never fails to make your stomach flip. You think he is truly too good for this world as you walk into his waiting embrace.

“Something like that. It has been a really long day. Can we just go home?” you say rubbing your face into his chest while his arms fold around you and he kisses the top of your head.

“Of course.”

Lo’ak can tell on the walk back to your marui that something is bothering you. He knows you well enough by now to know that your tail only flicks like that when something is heavy on your mind. However, he also knows you well enough by now to know better than to try and make you talk about it before you’re ready.

When you reach your marui, you secure the flap over the opening to give you both some privacy. “Lo’ak, I have a problem.” You say with a small voice that definitely doesn’t fit you.

He cocks one of his brows at you waiting for you to elaborate. He watches you cautiously as you stalk closer to him.

“You see, even though everyone knows that I intend to take you as my mate, other girls are still looking at you. Trying to get close enough to smell you when I’m not around…”

Your voice gets stronger with each step closer you take. “Even though you lay with me every night and it is my gifts that you wear and my scent that lives in your skin, it’s not enough…” Your body finally presses right up against his and you keep moving forward, pushing him back against a post. His eyebrows and ears are raised looking down at you. Despite the slight height difference between you, when you get like this, it makes his breath tremble in his throat.

“Yawne, you know I--”

He’s cut off by the feeling of your fingers ghosting over his tewng and lightly tracing over where his dick was still sheathed.

“See, Lo, I really really hate it when others are trying to move in on what’s mine…I’m just bad at sharing in that way…” your long, nimble fingers make quick work of undoing the tie on his tewng and letting it fall leaving him bare in front of you. You slowly sink to your knees holding his gaze the whole way down. You tease at his slit with a quick lick from your tongue making him gasp.

“You already know I’m only yours, yawne.” He says with a quiver in his voice that has your body heating up.

“Oh, of course I do, my love. But I need everyone else to know it, too. So tonight, you can be as loud as you want to be. As a matter of fact, I want you to be.” You say teasing him even more with your mouth until his cock is fully exposed and standing proud in front of your face. Your eyes nearly cross with it coming to its full glory aimed straight at your lips.

A smirk plays on your lips looking up at him.

“Eager for me to mark you? Does the idea of it turn you on, sweet boy?” you tease with kitten licks to the tip of his dick and he flinches turning his head away from you.

“Look at me.” Your voice is firm and commanding. He doesn’t dare to defy you when you give him a direct order. His eyes meet yours in a fiery tug-of-war that you easily win when his expression softens. Fuck.

In no time at all, you suck his entire length into your throat and the shudder that racks his body is probably one of your favorite things to witness. Every suck and slurp is met with another beautiful whine or whimper from his mouth. It drives you and your need to ruin him. You keep your tongue pressed firmly to the underside of his cock and apply light pressure just the way you know he loves. His head lolls back against the post and his fingers claw at the wood looking for something to ground himself with.

Hushed whispers of pleas for more appear in the back of your head. You bob your head faster looking up at him and watch his face scrunch in pleasure while you work on him. You sneak a hand up and under to cup his balls and give a gentle squeeze and Lo’ak sucks in a sharp breath between his clenched teeth. His hips buck into your face and chase the warmth of your mouth. You loved watching him lose his composure and take what he needed from you. Watching him be so needy for release that he can’t bring himself to care about his position as an Omega and just fuck you with wild abandon was so damn sexy. You could practically feel the slick running down your inner thighs.

Hallowing out your cheeks, you can feel every ridge and vein drag against your mouth. Lo’ak starts to lose it, letting his hips jut forward and meet your movements.

“Ah…fuck” he curses under his breath watching you so eagerly take his whole length into your mouth.

You steady yourself against him and push his dick all the way into your throat until your nose is flush with his pelvis. You lightly stroke your finger up and down the underside of his balls and his face screws up in lust as his climax tears through his core.

“Haaah-ah!” His hands reflexively hold on to your hair keeping you in place for his cum to run down your throat. It coats your throat and makes you gag around him, but the sound only drags out the feeling for him.

When he releases you, you come up for air and his body falls back against the post. His legs just barely have the strength to keep him upright. “Satisfied?” he pants out to you with a grin.

You meet his expression with a mischievous smirk, “Not even close”.

You rise to your feet already untying your own tewng to discard it somewhere across the floor. Lying down on your plush sleep mat, your knees fall open and your fingers spread your slick-covered cunt open for him.

Lo’ak feels like he should be embarrassed at how quickly he’s hard again, but how can he bring himself to care about that when you’re lying there sprawled open for him in silent invitation? He’s pulled to you as if he was entranced by you and your scent. Your grin is devilish in watching him resign himself to his desires. His hips slot right into place between your thighs and he’s already dragging his tip between your folds and brushing against your swollen clit.

He lightly slaps the little nub with his dick making your hips jump and an arrogant grin finds its way onto his face.

“Lo’ak…” it’s meant as a warning, but Lo’ak takes it as a challenge.

“What’s wrong, yawne? I thought you liked being teased.”

He wasn’t wrong. You did like it when he teased you. Putting a bit of power in his hands and stroking his ego made your head feel fuzzy with pleasure. But with the kind of day you’d had, you were feeling especially impatient. Your fingers hook under his necklace and pull his face closer into yours. You can hear how his breath stutters and you see how his half lidded gaze dances around your face, lingering at your lips.

“I need this, Lo’ak.”

He smiles gently leaning forward to crash his lips onto yours. The taste of him still fresh in your mouth and it makes even more blood rush straight to his cock that was slowly breaching you. You both moan into each other’s mouths savoring the feeling of your warmth almost literally sucking him in. It’s almost as if your body won’t be satisfied until you’ve completely enveloped him into your skin.

He starts a steady pace of long, strong strokes making you feel every vein and ridge of him. His tip presses perfectly into the spongey part of your walls as he drags it almost all the way out, only to kiss your cervix when he presses back inside.

“Ohh…fuck…” your head falls back reveling in the feeling of the first real sense of relief you’ve had all day. Lo’ak takes the opportunity to litter your neck in kisses, licks, and nips. You smile deliriously to yourself as you let this beautiful man fulfill his fantasies with your body. His breath is hot and uneven against your skin as his pace picks up. The sound of skin slapping against skin gets louder the faster he goes.

Your hands claw at his back holding him close to you. The scent of his pheromones gets stronger in your nose making your eyes roll. His hands grab your legs by the backs of your knees and holds them open so he can angle his hips the way he knows you love.

“Ah! Right there! Feels so good right there!”

“Mmm, I love fucking you like this, sevin. Feel so perfect on my cock.”

Your face scrunches and you can feel your knot beginning to swell inside you. He groans above you feeling his tip meet the resistance and he tries eagerly to push past it and let you have him wholly.

“Oh, Great Mother! I’m going to cum, Lo’ak!” your voice is loud and his groans are even louder. Surely anyone in the vicinity would hear you and know, but that’s exactly what you wanted. Your hands find his face so that you can capture his lips in another kiss. It’s a messy clashing of teeth and tongues, but full of a desperation that has your pussy clenching harder around him. His strokes get longer and he puts his full weight behind every one, finally pushing past the resistance of your knot and tipping you over that edge.

“Ahhn~ Lo’ak!”

He keeps rolling his hips into you as he reaches his own release and you milk him dry.

Both of you huff out breaths trying to steady your own breathing. Sweat beads start to form on his forehead and his eyebrows are scrunched together feeling how your knot won’t let up on his poor sensitive cock. His head falls to lay on your chest and his eyes close trying to stop the spinning in his head. You stroke his head lovingly eliciting soft purrs from him.

Days later, you stand with Lo’ak and his siblings around the fire at communal dinner celebrating the first hunt of the season. Neteyam and his mate are retelling the story of one of their warrior students and how they taught him to make a clean kill when a sudden chill runs down your spine.

“Hi, Lo’ak” the most aggravating voice you’ve ever heard calls to your boyfriend beside you. You both turn to find Nìvya, the other Alpha that you caught looking at Lo’ak the other day. She completely disregards your presence despite standing right next to him.

“Would you like to dance with me?”

She’s either extremely bold or extremely stupid. Either way, you are ready to rip her throat out with your teeth when you let off a low hiss in her direction. The only thing that saves her is Lo’ak placing a gentle hand on your waist to calm you.

“Thanks, but no thank you. I’m fine where I am. Isn’t that right, yawne?” He says burying his face into the crook of your neck sweetly.

You smile while you cut your eyes at her in warning. Nìvya’s face falls and she finally acknowledges your presence by looking at you. She rolls her eyes bitterly and stomps off in the direction that she came.

Your tail swishes happily behind you, pleased with how Lo’ak handled himself in the situation. You turn your head to look at him with a satisfied grin.

“What?” he asks seeing the gears turning in your head.

“You’re so sexy when you claim me, you know that?” you whisper to him dragging your fingertips down his chest in teasing touches and pausing right above his tewng. “You wanna get out of here?”

He chuckles lightly, “What about the rest of the party?”

You push up on your tiptoes so that you can whisper directly into his ear, “I’ll let you put it in the other hole this time.”

Lo’ak’s face is completely flushed all over when you pull away to look at him again. His tail is thrashing violently behind him and his ears are standing straight up.

Clearly excited by your proposal, he quickly turns to your group and excuses the two of you. “Too much to drink and ready to turn in” was what he said.

Nobody was buying it, though. Everybody knew that Lo’ak could out-drink anybody there. But no one was going to call him out on it.

Wild giggles erupt from you when he gleefully scoops you up into his arms and sets off into the direction of your marui.

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