#I have no idea what any of this shit is about but I’ve chatted with bambinella on here off and on for a while and can’t seem to find anyone | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

neiptune · 8 months ago

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this town is fake but you're the real thing

cw: 11k wc, female reader, social media relationship, suna downloads an app that randomly matches anonymous users with each other because osamu thinks it'll help him open up more, strangers to lovers, romance, pining, so much texting, suna is as emotionally constipated as it gets

Against all expectations, it’s Osamu who managed to get under his skin.

An innocent night out to celebrate the new Onigiri Miya branch in Shizuoka, a few beers shared on a bench by the port, what started as innocent conversation about each other’s dating life soon turning into a painfully precise evaluation of why he can’t seem to find someone worth keeping around.

“You don’t really open up to them”, his friend shrugged.

“I open up to them plenty. I’ve been with Yuki for three months”, Suna refuted such harsh remark with a scowl.

“Yeah”, Samu mused, “have you ever shared anything about your friends and family? What’s the most vulnerable thought or feeling you discussed?”.

Rintaro took a moment to reflect, begrudging silence weighing more each second spent quiet.

“She met Motoya”.

Osamu rolled his eyes, “Shit, you’re right— can’t believe ya didn’t propose. Meeting Komori’s the real deal”.

“You know, if I wanted to hang out with the twin who’d be a pain in my ass, I would’ve called your brother”.

With a snort and a handsome grin, Osamu lightly bumped his shoulder against Suna’s. “Ya love us”, then his gaze softened as he took a swig from the bottle, “I’m just sayin’. Maybe a relationship is not what you need right now”.

“Then what do I need?”, despite a fiery remonstrance, Rintaro found himself leaning onto Osamu’s judgement. He’d always been very good at reading people, much like his brother, but Samu’s approach was always balanced and, most importantly, sincere. Perhaps he was right. Perhaps there was something he’s missing about himself, something that shined bright for his best friend to catch instead.

“A connection, dumbass”, Osamu lightly pat his shoulder, “it doesn’t have to be romantic. It definitely doesn’t have to be sexual. You need to find someone you can talk to”.

“I talk—”

“Someone who isn’t us. Not me, not ‘Tsumu”, he ignored Rintaro’s indignant scoff, “not Shinsuke, not Aran. You need to get out of your comfort zone with someone new. A stranger!”.

“A stranger? You want me to stop someone on the street and casually ask them to listen to whatever trauma is tied to my fear of flying?”.

“Start small”, Osamu’s eyes glinted with the excitement that a good idea usually brings, “try that app Bokuto was trying so hard to get Sakusa to download. Matchpal, was it?”.

“Sounds like a great way to have a fifty year old creep flash me with a dick pic. No, thank you”.

“I’d think about it. Ya know, we’re not getting any younger. Like ‘Tsumu said, you—”

“I should hurry up before I grow old with only my emotional unavailability to keep me company, I remember”, Rintaro finished his beer with a grimace. Osamu chuckled, eventually dropped the topic, but the suggestion remained unpleasantly hanging over his head both like a succulent fruit and a risky presage.

So now he’s slumped in the living room of the spacious apartment the EJP provides, a quiet Friday evening spent cooking some stew for dinner and facetiming his family. The tv is on as a distraction and an easy way out should things get uncomfortable. Surely Dwight will keep him grounded.

Suna’s already downloaded the app but it takes one episode and a half to muster the courage to actually tap on it.

The interface is pretty easy to navigate. It seems he’s supposed to create a minimalist profile first and then he’d be free to start a new, random chat. Users can opt out anytime or, if they wish to keep a specific person as their anonymous match, add them as a friend and pin the conversation within their personal directory. Nothing too complicated.

Suna’s patience wears thin easily and after a few attempts at picking unavailable usernames, he settles for crysnoopy. Finally, original enough at last.

Since not revealing one’s identity seems to be the point of the entire thing, he can’t upload a profile picture and instead has to select one random avatar from the default library. He picks a cartoon frog with big eyes and no mouth on a light green background.

There he is, an anonymous online presence on a stupid app. His profile only contains a nickname, he/him pronouns, age and a cute icon. No interests listed, no boundaries, not a single space where he could leave a polite note— please don’t send unsolicited dick pics. Not that he ever plans on requesting one.

Suna starts a few new chats, faceless identities either ending the conversation right away upon his dry and unoriginal hey or being as odd as one would imagine strangers in an anonymous community could be.

Lavenderhaze

-> Hi.

Lavenderhaze

-> How are you?

He sinks deeper into the nice couch pillows Atsumu forced him to get.

crysnoopy

-> hey. all good, wbu?

Lavenderhaze

-> Good, bored.

Lavenderhaze

-> Should we exchange nudes or something?

Rintaro sighs. Hesitation is laced into the delay of his thumb but eventually he taps the skip option, Osamu’s ominous words still ringing loud and clear in his head. It’s not what he downloaded the dumb app for, it’s not what he needs right now. Fuck, maybe he really should’ve called Atsumu instead.

A new chat opens after a short loading time and his nose wrinkles when he realizes that he’ll probably have to send the first message this time. The username staring back at him is original enough to make Suna take a few seconds to think of something equally entertaining to say. The whole thing is never going to work if he doesn’t take it seriously and actually puts some effort in it, right?

He looks up from his phone for a second. Then, a loud ping makes him jump.

Unfinishedusernam

-> When you shower, do you actively wash your legs or just let soapy water rinse down on them?

Rintaro almost huffs out a laugh. Original username and approach? A good enough start to ignite the hope of finally be talking to someone sane.

crysnoopy

-> I don’t shower.

A beat passes, then the small animation of a hand idly scribbling with a pencil indicates that you’re typing something back.

Unfinishedusernam

-> That’s hot.

-> Why the username?

Suna’s lips twitch, not a smile but almost. He wants to type an equally sarcastic reply, brush the question off and maybe ask something more interesting instead. But then he remembers what he’s doing and forces an honest reply out of his fingers.

crysnoopy

-> my little sister used to scream like an eagle when she cried, the one thing that always shut her up was a snoopy plush I won at the arcade.

Suna barely registers that his leg starts bouncing lightly as he watches the little hand appear on the screen once more.

Unfinishedusernam

-> I’m glad it’s something cute :)

-> Lowkey thought you were an incel

This time he really does snort out half a laugh.

crysnoopy

-> if I was I would’ve asked why your username is edging me.

Unfinishedusernam

-> Fair. So… you do shower, right?

crysnoopy

-> I promise I do.

Unfinishedusernam

-> Damn, my incel detector has truly failed me.

-> You seem suspiciously normal btw, I feel like we could have a conversation that doesn't involve dicks

Suna’s hand blindly reaches for the remote to lower the volume of the show he currently doesn’t seem to need as additional emotional support.

crysnoopy

-> likewise. wanna make it official?

Unfinishedusernam

-> Jeez, at least buy me dinner first

Rintaro’s beat to it, before he can even click on the option there’s already a colorful notification popping up on his screen, informing that he has a new friend request.

He accepts it.

It took some convincing for Samu to agree but, eventually, the spot on the pull-out couch became his. Between Hyogo and Shizuoka, with imminent plans of further expanding in Tokyo, he’s always travelling to make sure the shops are keeping their top quality standard high. The Shizuoka branch is still too recent for him to retreat back to his hometown for good, so he’s there most of the time. Suna had to call him an idiot a million times before Osamu accepted his hospitality, never one to ask for anything, always first in line to help others instead. Suna thinks he still didn’t call him an idiot enough times.

They’re both gone most of the day anyway, between the restaurant and training. The season is about to start and the trip to Osaka feels more imminent than ever, Suna knows he has to be at the top of his game to perform exactly how he’s expected to. Which means, no distractions. He does a good job at avoiding those, dating apps left unopened and the way home now shorter than usual, to circumvent his favorite bakery. Those blueberry muffins will have to wait. Samu’s healthier alternative with gram oats and bananas is one hell of a substitute anyway.

Suna loves his friend, he really does. The house feels less empty when he’s around and there’s always a homemade meal tucked somewhere in the fridge. They share breakfast when they get up at the same time and night conversations at the kitchen table if Rintaro manages to stay awake late enough to wait for Osamu to be back.

But sometimes, being alone is easier. No explanations owed for the one distraction he seems unable to give up, no curious raise of the eyebrows he’d have to confront when the familiar ping from his phone prompts an immediate reaction the wrong twin would tease him endlessly for.

He’s always been a dry texter or so his friends, teammates and relatives have always told him. Suna didn’t ever think he was supposed to make an effort to become better at written communication, or communication in general. But now, there’s you. A faceless, perhaps not entirely sane someone who makes him check his notifications way too often, insides spasming when the message doesn’t come from one of his groupchats and the Matchpal icon flashes across the screen instead.

Suna likes talking to you, so much that he often finds himself being the one to text first. It’s okay if you’ll take hours to get back to him sometimes, he knows for certain that the message is eventually going to light up his screen and that’s enough to make him smile. Sometimes you text first, at either ungodly hours in the middle of the night or during the day, if you’re bored at work. He doesn’t know what your job is, you don’t know precisely what Suna does either because, again, anonymity. The only detail he’s familiar with is that you’re often around “wearing but rewarding humans”, as you’d once put it. The one thing you know about him is that he’s an athlete, something you had briefly teased him for.

When he’s not talking to you, when parts or even the entirety of days that used to belong to him and his routine alone are devoid of your messages, Suna finds himself thinking. Or rather, imagining. There’s a lot he doesn’t know and he refuses to overwhelm you with questions, therefore his mind desperately tries to fill in the gaps to no avail. Are you spending the evening reading a book, watching a tv show? Did you cook dinner or order takeout? How happy are you that it’s been raining for three days straight on a scale of ‘I can only function if it’s sunny and bright’ to ‘leave me in a storm and watch me flourish’ ?

Most times, Suna simply plugs the charging cable into is phone, switches off the bedside light and hopes to wake up to one of your texts. They seem to be making an increasingly dangerous difference between a good day and a bad one. He’s not entirely sure it’s ideal.

Unfinishedusernam

-> The humans are testing me today. Whatever you’re doing, I hope you’re having fun!

-> Ah, look what my mom baked yesterday. Told her I have a friend who’d love these :)

-> [IMG_65209]

Rintaro, elbows resting on his knees and towel haphazardly thrown around the neck, smiles at the screen. God, he hasn’t had a blueberry muffin in over a month, but what he’s really focusing on is that you’ve mentioned him. To your mom. There’s a low, static buzz in his ears now, punctuated by the thumps of his heart growing louder. It makes you feel more real, it also makes something simmer in his stomach.

crysnoopy

-> I’m at training.

-> They look really good. Send me one immediately. How was family dinner?

He’s enabled auto-capitalization for the first time in his life, for god’s sake. The Inarizaki groupchat was so disturbed Atsumu decided to apply the same additional authenticator method used by his online banking and forced Suna to reply to a secret question. One only the real Suna would know the answer to.

He successfully demonstrated the needed personal knowledge concerning the color of Aran’s lucky underwear in high school and thus confirmed his identity.

Unfinishedusernam

-> It was nice! I love spending time with them

-> How’s training?

Rintaro finds himself wanting to give his identity shape too. It’s the first time he’s seen your hand, holding that tupperware underneath the dim light of your mom’s kitchen. He wants to feel more real for you, too.

He snaps a picture of his hand holding a half-empty water bottle, careful to hide his shoes. Not that you’d be able to immediately tell he plays volleyball from those, but just in case. You do get to see part of his legs though, shorts and their very recognizable colors kept out of frame.

crysnoopy

-> [IMG_65209]

-> Almost done, very tired

He watches as the little hand scribbles, then stops. It resumes the writing, then stops once more. His leg is bouncing again, teeth sinking into his bottom lip. He straight up jumps when, suddenly, someone loudly falls on the empty spot next to him and the bench creaks.

“We’re on a roll today, my blocks are almost as good as yours”, Washio grins, temples shining with sweat. He briefly glances down at the phone Suna almost drops when it vibrates against his palm.

“You okay?”.

“Yes”, Rintaro clears his throat, makes a show of shoving the phone right back into his bag, “you’re in shape today. Motoya too”.

“Ready for Osaka!”, Komori fist-bumps Tatsuki right before sitting next to him with an exaggerated groan, “hey, is your friend still in town? The Miya twin. We could go out tonight, get some drinks”.

“We literally leave in three days”, Suna’s fist lightly lands on his teammate’s head.

“Mocktails”, Motoya sticks his tongue out.

“I feel like I already see your faces enough. And I’m about to see them even more”.

“Rintaro don’t be a grumpy asshole, challenge once again failed”, Tatsuki rolls his eyes, “you’re always glued to that damn phone when you’re not playin’. Let’s go out, have fun, possibly get laid?”.

Suna sighs heavily. “Fine. I wanted to visit Samu’s new shop anyway, we can have dinner and take him with us afterwards”. He should get Osamu a gift, a nice plant or a maneki-neko. He’ll stop by a few shops on the way home, he decides.

“Now you’re talking!”, Washio smacks his shoulder with way too much energy, “let’s ask Nagito too, he’s gonna love some free onigiri!”.

“Hey, we’re payin’ for those”.

“Sure we are!”.

“I’m serious, you ass—”

“That’s enough gossiping, boys. Get back to work!”, by muscle memory, their legs react to coach’s boisterous voice and all three men jump up from their seats. Suna spends the rest of the late afternoon training thinking about the text message hidden in his gym bag.

It’s way past 6PM when training ends, the last half an hour was spent studying opponent videos and then simulating different match scenarios. Suna’s brain feels fried and on any other day he’d be so ready to get a massage, eat a well-balanced dinner and melt on his couch in front of a good tv show until his eyelids would grow heavy.

Instead, he takes the long way home, legs heavy as he explores different shops in search for the perfect gift. He settles for a very beautiful, handmade, porcelain maneki-neko, left paw raised instead of the right one because Suna knows Osamu will always care about having more customers who trust his restaurant rather than having more money.

The shop owner puts the gift in an elegant box and seals the bag with a delicate ribbon, he thanks the old lady with a deep bow and despite his limbs feeling heavy with fatigue, as he breathes in the cool air of the evening, Suna is content. He thinks of the message sitting pretty in his pocket as he heads home.

Unfinishedusernam

-> You have really nice hands

He didn’t open it, not yet. It’s reassuring to have the notification sitting there, untouched and polished against his lockscreen.

It shouldn’t matter that a stranger on an app is complimenting his hands, it really shouldn’t. Then why does it, somehow? Suna is happy you find his hands nice, which feels like a recipe for disaster. As he walks past his favorite bakery, he remembers you mentioning how you enjoy grabbing croissants for breakfast at times. When he told you that he was about to leave for a retreat with his team, after asking if their destination was one among Tokyo, Osaka and Yokohama, you proceeded to list all your favorite cafes, bakeries and restaurants for each of them. Just in case he had the time and wanted to check them out. As much as he tries to keep his distance, something as trivial as mentioning the correct city possibly resulting too risky, you always seem to go out of your way to reach closer. Taking the time to prepare three separate lists of suggestions while simultaneously respecting his boundaries is an effort he deems… unexpected. It feels weird in the best way. He almost wants to tell you it’s Osaka after all, give you something real, something new to hold on to. Maybe he’ll even tell you it’s volleyball.

“Coming home from another bad date?”, the unexpected quip startles Suna as he looks up from the sidewalk to find his not so friendly neighbor directing a saccharine smile at him, trash bags in hand. Not too long ago, he would’ve asked if she needed help with those.

“At least I still go on dates”, he purposefully eyes her attire, hoodie and sweatpants. Suna knows she’s just trying to annoy him, she can see the gym bag.

“With women who are blind, deaf, mute and desperate?”, she offers a sly smile and he rolls his eyes.

“That’s not a very flattering description of yourself, now”.

She huffs out a sarcastic laugh but Suna can see right through it: the irritation and the embarrassment.

“Always a pleasure running into you, Suna”.

“Likewise”, he smirks, “careful with those bags”.

Suna says goodbye with an unbothered wave of the hand despite her giving him the finger, positively happy that for a good while the chances of running into his neighbor will be reduced to zero. Osaka can’t come fast enough.

The thing is, he was surprised she lived so close when they first started chatting on a regular dating app. When Suna confirmed they were essentially in the same neighborhood, she was the one to propose a dinner right away.

Truthfully, it had been a bad day for him, for a number of reasons. Training was terrible, he was worried sick about his little sister’s sprained ankle, his own tendinitis was giving him hell and Atsumu had decided to call him to talk his ear off for an entire hour about the surprise party they were supposed to throw for Kita’s birthday. Yet, he didn’t feel like bailing on his date, so he forced himself out of the house with the worst mood.

Dinner was terrible. Awkward, tense, her growing increasingly impatient about his lack of responsiveness, him snapping at the tiniest, dumbest inputs. The entire night ended up being such a disaster she left halfway through her creamy salmon pasta, a few banknotes tucked underneath a glass of water, enough to pay half the bill. He remembers deflating in his seat, feeling terrible for five minutes, finishing his own dinner and then leaving as if nothing happened.

Suna thought about texting, maybe even apologizing, but he just never found it in himself to actually do it. It was just a bad date, bad dates happen. He’d never seen her before, or maybe simply didn’t pay enough attention to notice her presence, so there was no way he could’ve anticipated just how fucking often he’d run into her from that day onwards. She never failed to remind him of her resentment and, frankly, that ended up igniting his.

Of course Osamu’s leftovers are on his kitchen counter, neatly wrapped in tin foil. He remembers how hungry he’d feel after training, so when he knows Suna’s going to be busy until the late afternoon, he always makes sure to cook an extra portion.

Rintaro lets the gym bag fall onto the floor, right next to the couch he drops on with a groan. He’s already showered, he simply needs to change clothes and head out once more. When he checks the latest messages, his brows furrow in confusion.

Unfinishedusernam

-> Still at training?

Unfinishedusernam

-> Fuck, sorry, that was probably weird.

Unfinishedusernam

-> I really didn’t mean to sound like a creep

Suna really, actually smiles at his screen. You’re insecure about complimenting him, which is sweet. He should’ve complimented you first.

crysnoopy

-> Just got home

-> You didn’t sound like a creep, I like your hands too :)

His heartbeat picks up in pace when the hand starts scribbling shortly after, indicating that you’re online and were probably waiting for his reply.

Unfinishedusernam

-> Ugh, see? Now you feel like you’re forced to compliment me

crysnoopy

-> No I don’t?

Unfinishedusernam

-> Liar. Here, if you’re sincere, compliment these.

-> [IMG_98279]

A laugh bubbles from his throat when he opens the picture of your feet in a pair of fuzzy fox slippers.

crysnoopy

-> They’re beautiful. I’d kill to have an identical pair

-> So you have nice hands and cool slippers, good to know.

Unfinishedusernam

-> You’re a flirt in your everyday life, aren’t you?

Once again, Suna hesitates. He is, clearly he is. In all likelihood, if he knew you in real life, he would be. You’re nice, intelligent, funny, someone he can easily see himself being interested in. But it’s not what he downloaded the app for, he shouldn’t wander in flirty territory, he really shouldn’t.

crysnoopy

-> Only if they own a pretty set of slippers

When has he ever been good at following judicious advice?

Unfinishedusernam

-> Knew it. Flirt.

-> Can I ask you something?

crysnoopy

-> Ask away

Unfinishedusernam

-> Why are you on this app?

He sighs. Flirty territory is easier than honesty territory. A quick glance at the clock on his kitchen wall instills a sense of urgency as he types a reply, as raw and sincere as it gets.

crysnoopy

-> I wanted to find out if I could open up to strangers more than I do with people I actually know

He really fucking hopes Osamu is proud. Let it be known that he’s trying.

Unfinishedusernam

-> Do you think you could open up to me?

Suna exhales from his nose. This is definitely not the type of conversation he wanted to have while on a rush.

crysnoopy

-> Maybe

-> I’d like that.

He waits for a few seconds, chat gone silent. Maybe you logged off, maybe you don’t know how to reply, either way Suna feels a weight lifting from his chest. It’s true, he thinks he might have a deeper conversation with you of all people. A faceless someone who sends him pictures of stray cats and nice sunsets, who makes him smile at silly jokes. He shortly wonders if you’d like to open up to him in the same way, if being vulnerable will ever be on the table. For now, he’s okay with simply letting you know.

Osaka ends up being extra motivating.

The EJP Raijin players have been training hard, religiously respecting their schedules: there’s no time for slacking off, days punctuated by a disciplined sleep routine, physical and tactical training, cool-down exercises, refuelling afternoons and evenings spent cross-training. The synergy within the team is off the charts, they have won every single practice match played so far and the excitement is palpable as the game with the Black Jackals approaches.

Their training sessions are usually shorter. Atsumu insists it’s because they’re in better shape, Suna’s almost punched him in the face over dinner.

When he’s not too exhausted, against all odds, he enjoys spending some time with old friends and acquaintances. He knows it’s going to be a difficult game, Sakusa is a pain in the ass to block and Inunaki, their libero, is very talented. But he thinks he’s ready.

As they stroll through the city when their free days or breaks coincide, Suna is sometimes hit with pangs of a sentiment not entirely foreign. Nostalgia, regret? He can never tell for certain. He misses having his friends around, being in the same place at all times, travelling less. As he thinks of Osamu currently being the only occupant of his large, painfully empty apartment, while he shares a portion of takoyaki with an ever annoyingly loud Atsumu, when he listens to Bokuto enthusiastically detail his relationship with Keiji, he thinks he’s missing out on too many things and he’s past feeling unperturbed about it.

“Shoyo says he’s very happy in Brazil, asked us to visit soon. Ya should come”, Atsumu lightly bumps Suna’s shoulder with his as they walk by the river, in search of a good viewing spot. The colorful procession carrying portable shrines is quickly filling up the boats to be paraded up and down the Okawa river. While it’s still early for fireworks, oh and bunraku performances are about to begin on different stage boats, and the air is filled with fragrances coming from the endless rows of festival food stalls. What an unexpected fortune, to be in town for the Tenjin Matsuri.

“Not gonna crash on your friend’s couch”, Suna’s peremptory tone makes Atsumu roll his eyes.

“Why are you being so pissy today? What’s up, scared you’re gonna lose?”.

Rintaro searches for something in his friend’s annoyingly familiar, limpid gaze as Bokuto snickers next to him. He finds his own affection, honed by years of joint quarrels, reflected in it.

“Rin?”, Atsumu’s worried now, head slightly tilted to the side. Suna offers a tiny smile.

“Do you ever miss Hyogo?”.

“No”, the answer comes quick, “I miss my family, I miss my friends. Yer ugly face especially. Places are just places”, he shrugs and Suna feels his shoulders relax.

“We’re lucky, we still get to catch up”, Bokuto smiles, “it’s okay to feel sad sometimes though”.

“I’m not sad”, Suna grimaces, “t’was just a question. Shut up”.

“Aw, don’t be shy! Keiji always says owning how we really feel is important”, Bokuto offers him one of his dangos and he begrudgingly takes it.

“I feel like… you should shut up”, he gruffs out. Atsumu snickers at that and Bokuto pouts. Suna doesn’t pay attention to any of them, too preoccupied with taking a decent picture of the boats. He wonders if he’ll be able to make the fireworks look as pretty as they’re in real life, to show them to you.

He doesn’t care that you’ll know where he is, it isn’t but a small part of himself he wishes to unravel for you. It’s what you two have been doing, no? Occasionally sending each other messages that go beyond jokes and memes. You now know he has twins as friends, just how much he loves his little sister, his favorite dish. Suna knows you live close to your family and visit them as often as possible, that you always bring a can of tuna in your bag should you come across stray cats on the way to work. He knows you’re scared of the dark and can’t look at blood without feeling dizzy. You’re trusting, extremely indecisive, a fierce procrastinator, you spend too much time on tiktok and are scared to death you’re not going to be able to keep those who are important to you in your life, forever. Suna gets it, really.

He hasn’t been able to say much, you opened up to him as if it was nothing and he still can’t bring himself to share much more than comforting words and feeble details. Who cares if he likes yakisoba? He hates how detached he feels from everyone else. He feels lonely. He wishes he still lived in the same town as his friends. Sometimes he goes to sleep with the tv left on, to simulate someone else’s presence in a cold, empty apartment. He misses his family, like, all the time. The thought of getting on a plane paralizes him. He doesn’t think he’s good enough at volleyball, his team may lose and it would be his fault. He doesn’t think he’s good enough.

“Taking cute pics for your mystery girl?”, Atsumu grins widely. Suna keeps a composed facade, calmly snaps a few additional shots, but internally he’s screaming. It’s his fault for expecting a twin to keep a secret, really.

“How d’you know they’re not for my instagram?”.

“You haven’t updated your feed in a year”, Bokuto points at his phone screen, sunarin profile open to prove a point. Rintaro almost snatches it from his hand to throw it into the river below.

“She’s not my girl”, he grumbles instead, “just a random person I talk to. It was Osamu’s idea”.

“It was a good idea. I’ve been trying to get Kiyoomi on that app too, you’re both so closed off”.

On any other occasion, Suna would’ve denied that and retorted with an abrasive remark. Not this time, though.

“Yeah. Trying to improve there”, he huffs, to which Atsumu’s ready-to-take-the-piss expression softens.

“Right. So how is she? Can’t remember the last time you texted with a stranger for more than a week before they were either ghosted or became your girlfriend”.

“She’s okay. I don’t know much”.

“Everyone on Matchpal is anonymous”, Kotaro fills in Atsumu’s knowledge gaps.

“She has to be more than okay if you’ve been talking for over a month”, the older Miya insists, prodding mercilessly at Suna’s discretion.

“She’s funny”, he finally concedes, “and smart. Makes opening up to a stranger look too easy”.

“Smart? Okay, ya definitely wouldn’t be her type then”, part of the tightness in Suna’s chest dissipates as his fist collides with Atsumu’s arm.

“I think that’s the point, though. You don’t know each other and will never meet, so you can admit things you wouldn’t normally mention. Be vulnerable”, Bokuto finishes his dangos and crumples up the small disposable cardboard box they came with.

“Yes but at this point she doesn’t really feel like a stranger anymore”, Suna pauses after saying that out loud, surprised by his own words. When has he stopped considering you a faceless someone on a random app, exactly? He realizes he’s given you a voice in his head. A smile he imagines reacting to his lame jokes, when he deflects tentative personal questions. He’s given you a routine, shared most of his. You don’t feel like a stranger anymore but you’re not exactly a friend. What are you, then?

“Uh-oh”, it takes a moment to realize that the teasing sound comes from Bokuto. Crap.

“And we could meet”, Suna pushes, “Shizuoka is not that big”.

“She’s from Shizuoka? Christ”, Atsumu lets out a low whistle, “does she know you live in the same city?”.

“She never asked”, if the justification sounds odd, his friends are kind enough not to point it out. He doubts Osamu would be as lenient. Truth is, he didn’t ask either: after some time, you had just randomly disclosed the information, probably because you perceived him as a very discrete person. Which, for the record, he is.

“I’m going to ask you this question just once. Do ya like this girl?”.

“No”, obviously not, “I don’t even know her”.

“Oh? But you just said she doesn’t feel like a stranger?”, Bokuto’s eyebrows shoot up.

Suna sighs. His limbs feel heavy but it’s a different feeling than the one he gets after practice, more draining.

“He’ll figure it out”, the weight of Atsumu’s hand on his shoulder feels weirdly comforting.

I don’t know what she feels like, Suna wants to say. He settles for saying nothing, as the hold on his shoulder grows tighter for a split second.

Coach is going to have an earful ready for Motoya if he doesn’t show up on time at practice, in the morning. He’s still out celebrating-drinking with other teammates, their first Tenjin Matsuri an excuse good enough to be late. Suna doesn’t mind having the hotel room to himself for the evening, a welcome novelty: he just hopes he won’t have to drag his friend out of bed the following day.

His hair is still wet, the bed way too comfortable to consider getting dressed. You, a distraction that fills his stomach with fuzzy warmth, something that for a second makes him forget why his phone has been exploding with notifications.

It’s that stupid instagram post he decided to share after a year of semi hiatus, online presence proven only by the occasional story he’d upload. Suna feels particularly caught in his feelings today, so why not post the selfie Atsumu took by the river? His comment is pinned at the top of the section, with over 8k likes.

miyatsumu brothers ❤️

Bokuto left a heart too, Samu and Kita some of their usual simple but genuine comments. Love you guys. Miss you :). It’s easy for them, a skill he wants to master as well. It’s not enough for the people in his life to simply know that he loves them, Suna wants tell them more.

He takes a look at other comments, smiling faces with heart-eyes emojis and inappropriate compliments from strangers that make him laugh. He shortly wonders what your instagram looks like. Filled with pictures of you with your friends and family, no doubt. A feed that showcases your favorite food and places, creative outfits, witty captions and sometimes no captions at all. It’d fit you.

His phone pings again.

Unfinishedusernam

-> Osaka!!!!

-> Fuck I’m so jealous, I never got to see the festival :( did you have fun?

crysnoopy

-> I did. Some old friends are in town too, we’re playing against each other soon

Unfinishedusernam

-> Your friends are also athletes???

-> Now I feel bad, this is literally how I’m spending the evening

-> [IMG_62371]

Suna smiles upon opening the picture. You’re sitting on your couch and the hand not holding the phone is doing a V sign, a lidded tray balanced on your legs, tv channel set on a show he’s never been interested in. The lights are dim, the room doesn’t seem too big but it feels so cozy. The way a home should feel. He sees a coffee table and some lit candles by the tv unit.

crysnoopy

-> Looks like a perfect evening to me

Unfinishedusernam

-> I only walked 200 steps today.

crysnoopy

-> I’m like trying really hard to find something nice to say

-> Every morning is an opportunity to create a masterpiece called life?

-> Stop surviving, start thriving?

Unfinishedusernam

-> Fuck you for making me laugh, I almost dropped my dinner

He laughs as well, out loud, then double taps your message to like it so that you know he’s still acknowledging it, despite something more urgent suddenly prompting the quick movement of his fingers.

crysnoopy

-> Hey, remember when we talked about how you’re really scared of losing the people you love?

Suna can almost sense your surprise, it’s evident in the way the little scribbling hand appears and disappears repeatedly as you probably try to think of something appropriate to say.

Unfinishedusernam

-> Yeah?

crysnoopy

-> I feel that too

-> Most days I wake up thinking I’m a bad person

Another pause. This must be the most exposed he’s ever felt and Suna is grateful your replies are not as fast as they usually are because his hands are suddenly cold, palms clammy and disgusting.

Unfinishedusernam

-> Why do you think that?

crysnoopy

-> I don’t do enough to show how I feel and one day that could make them leave

-> Maybe stability isn’t for me and that scares me

-> I get bored easily, I don't want to commit. What if what’s regular, easy for everyone else will never be my thing?

Well, that’s a whole lot of fucking baggage he just dropped on you. His first instinct is to apologize, to ask you to just forget it, deflect with some joke about having had too much to drink and being in his feels. But he doesn’t do that. Why? What makes him want to trust you with all that? Perhaps it’s just curiosity, wanting to find out what a complete stranger would think of the thoughts that eat him alive at night. Maybe he’s hoping for some miraculous solution offered on a silver plate. Or he just wants to check if he’s able to even do the whole being vulnerable thing in the first place.

Your response comes after a couple minutes and Suna doesn’t remember the last time he felt so nervous.

Unfinishedusernam

-> How did you meet your current friends?

He furrows his brows.

crysnoopy

-> Most of them I met in school

Unfinishedusernam

-> So they made the conscious decision of being your friends every single day, all this time

-> Btw getting bored easily is okay. A bad person wouldn’t be asking those questions about himself :)

-> You can always work on what you want to improve

crysnoopy

-> You make it sound too easy

Unfinishedusernam

-> Sometimes it really is tho

-> You’re not too late, you know. Tell your friends that you love them, tell your family that you miss them

Unfinishedusernam

-> It doesn’t have to be easy right away

-> You get to make your own regular. Create your new normal

Suna exhales, reads your messages over and over again. It’s oddly comforting realizing that he is, in fact, not too late yet. Why does he always think that he is?

His phone pings again.

Unfinishedusernam

-> I think you’ll find a person you’ll want to commit to

-> That’s what I tell myself after all my failed dates anyway lol

-> Remember, be the change that you wish to see on tinder

Suna snorts, heart lighter in the hotel room he sits alone in. He could get drunk on the relief suddenly filling his chest, it feels like the touch of a cool hand over a feverish forehead.

Unfinishedusernam

-> Still there?

crysnoopy

-> I’m here

How could he not be?

crysnoopy

-> Thank you

Unfinishedusernam

-> How’s opening up to a stranger feel? :)

Good, if the stranger is you. Apparently.

crysnoopy

-> Mysteriously comforting

-> How are you failing those dates? Do I have to beat anyone up?

Unfinishedusernam

-> Nah

-> It just seems the guys I’m into are never into me

crysnoopy

-> That sucks for them

It really, truly, actually does. He doesn’t remember the last time he felt as comfortable sharing something so personal over text, it’s all so natural Suna is convinced he’d be able to do that in person as well. How would it feel to meet you? Would the magic wear out, is this so easy only because an anonymous profile on a silly app?

Sure, Suna doesn’t know your name or what you look like, but that doesn’t make you a stranger. He knows you enough for the words to almost spill out of his hands, words that press threateningly against the pads of his fingers.

He’d be into you. He’d date you. That’s what he wants to say: there’s no need to know how you look or the name printed on some documents, he knows enough. It’s a weird feeling that scares him and clouds his mind for a brief moment, as he waits for your reply.

Unfinishedusernam

-> That’s sweet of you to say!

-> Last time I went out with a guy I really liked it was a disaster

-> He also lived pretty close to me, thank god he moved now

crysnoopy

-> Well, joke’s on him. He’s missing out big time

Unfinishedusernam

-> Stop being cute, I’ll fall for you

Suna takes a sharp breath. Reading the words does something funny to his stomach, something Atsumu would tease him for.

Shit, Atsumu. The game is so close. When’s the last time volleyball disappeared from his brain like that, with the snap of invisible fingers? Can he afford being this distracted?

Unfinishedusernam

-> This dinner fucking slaps btw

-> They opened a new place in my city, add that to the list of spots you have to visit if you swing by shizuoka

-> It’s called onigiri miya

Suna chokes on his own spit so badly he thinks he’s gonna die as he abruptly sits up, coughing fit that brings tears to his eyes. He stares at his screen in disbelief, sudden reminder of how tangible and close you actually are burning like a slap in the face.

Samu picks up after a few rings, it’s late enough for him to be either still in the shop or getting out of the shower.

“Hey, what’s up? Saw your pic with that scrub—”

“Did a girl come to the shop today?”, the question is uttered with so much urgency the line goes silent for a few seconds.

“My day was great, thanks for asking! I’m okay, eating dinner on your couch right now”, the fake singsong tone makes him roll his eyes.

“I’m sorry, this is an emergency. She just told me she was at your shop today”.

“Really? Did she like it?”.

“Osamu”.

He chuckles lightly.

“Okay. First, please tell me why we care so much that she came to the shop today?”.

Suna loves his friend, he really does. Sometimes he wishes he was close enough to be punched in the face. “Stop being a dick”.

“Fine. A girl did come to the shop today”, Suna’s heart almost stops, “… along with a million others”, he deflates against the pillow once again, defeated. He knows it’s something he really shouldn’t do but he still sends the picture to Osamu, slightly cropped to leave out everything that’s not useful to the investigation. The two things his friend gets to see are your dinner and a V sign.

There’s a pause, one Rintaro swears is filled by the loud pounding of his restless heart.

“I know who she is”, Osamu speaks quietly, in a tone that leaves no room for sarcasm.

“What?”, Suna’s voice comes out thin, incredulous.

“I remember her. Came in as I was about to close the shop, bowed and begged for whatever leftovers I might’ve had. She looked like she had a horrible day, so I just…”.

“Put something together for her”, as you always do.

“Yeah! I usually don’t use those trays but I didn’t have any of the regular ones left”.

“Well, how is she?”, Suna cringes at the impatience vibrating in his voice, it makes him sound desperate. Osamu hums, it’s a voluntarily prolonged sound that makes him scoff.

“She’s really sweet. Apologized a million times, left a generous tip. I think you’d like her”.

“Yeah?”.

“Yeah, Rin”, he’s smiling, “I also think you should tell her”.

“Tell her what?”.

“That you want to meet her, dumbass”.

Suna runs a hand through his now dried hair, lightly ruffles it. This feels dangerously real now, something he could grasp if he so much as decided to hold out a hand. You’re so close. There’s something else simmering underneath the fear and Rintaro recognizes it easily. It’s an almost forgotten eagerness that he’s not entirely stranger to.

“Samu”.

“Hmm?”, he’s smiling again. The asshole.

“I think I like her”.

“No shit”, Osamu full on laughs now, jovial and relieved. Despite the annoyance, Suna feels the exact same way.

Shizuoka seemed different upon his return, an endless pool of possibilities where something would inevitably remind Suna of you. He’d made peace with the fact that he had a crush on someone he’s never met and with that truth also came an endless list of associations his brain couldn’t help but make.

Texting you first, whenever he wanted, became natural. What’s more, it was almost as if you were encouraged by his newly loosened state, that one evening in Osaka opening the floodgates of something else, something different. You trusted him with your most intimate thoughts and so did he. There was no more wondering if you were bothering each other or texting at an unconvenient time. You’d once told him you felt self-conscious about that specifically.

Unfinishedusernam

-> Sometimes I feel like I’m too much

-> Would you tell me if I was too much?

crysnoopy

-> What do you mean?

Unfinishedusernam

-> You know, if I was pestering you

crysnoopy

-> You’re not too much

-> And even if you were, I could handle you :)

You were the happiest when he had told you they’d won the game in Osaka. Heck, you baked blueberry muffins (“to celebrate!”) and asked him to go get himself one so you could pretend he was there to eat yours. And Suna did: he got up from his bed, grabbed a jacket, put on some running shoes and made his way to his favorite bakery with a dopey smile on his face. He then suggested a toast and, what a coincidence, you happened to have a bottle of white wine left unopened for the longest time. The occasion seemed worthy.

And so you both ate and drank and celebrated until his cheeks felt hot and your texts started lacking proper grammar. Suna remembers how it felt, slumped on his couch, lights low and mind dizzy as his eyes blinked and blinked and then blinked again while the message sat on his screen, black against white. He just stared at it, not entirely able to discern reality from fictitious.

Unfinishedusernam

-> I wish you were here

-> I’d probly just kiss you

Suna remembers staring at his screen as a wild joy exploded in his heart and took over his entire chest, scorching and vibrant like festival fireworks. He stared at it for so long he still doesn’t quite recall if he wrote the reply or if the reply wrote itself, because the only other solid memory in relation to that moment is drifting off with an empty bottle of wine precariously balanced on his lap.

He woke up the next morning with a sour taste in his mouth, a throbbing headache and sore neck. His phone had fallen to the floor and when he picked it up, it was with a heavy heart that he noticed you hadn’t replied.

crysnoopy

-> I want nothing more

-> I’m from shizuoka too. let’s make it happen?

It wasn’t unusual for one of you to leave the other on read and it wasn’t like Suna to hyperfixate on not receiving a reply but this time, for some reason, it felt different.

As he got up with a groan and shuffled to his bathroom to take a shower, a strange feeling of dread strangled his body from the inside, his mind running a million miles a minute. Were you disgusted? Mad, that he had kept his location a secret? That would’ve been unfair, though, and you had always proved to respect his boundaries. Maybe it was all a joke, then. You thought of all that flirting as nothing short of a game, something stupid to pass the time with a stranger online. Something that wasn’t real. Worse, something you’d never want to be real, especially if given the chance to make that happen. Fuck.

Suna succeeded in keeping himself fairly busy for a few hours that day: he cleaned his whole apartment, did some meal prep, called his mom, called his sister, even called Atsumu. Your silence kept throbbing at the edges of each minute, it became so unbearable he ended up sending you a picture of an aspirin package with a funny caption, to test the waters.

You never replied. Not that day, not the following day, a week later your chat is still painfully empty. Or rather, filled with all the messages he’s sent before giving up.

crysnoopy

-> Killer headache town, population: me

crysnoopy

-> How are you feeling?

crysnoopy

-> Hey, everything ok?

crysnoopy

-> I’m so sorry if I made you uncomfortable.

-> I was really tipsy, I didn’t mean it

crysnoopy

-> Or at least I didn’t mean to sound so pushy.

-> I’d never pressure you into doing anything, let alone meet me

crysnoopy

-> I’ll give you space if you need it, can you just please tell me that you’re okay? It’s been three days

crysnoopy

-> Okay. I’ll be here if you ever come back.

He’s so mad at you. Weren’t you the first one coming forward with all that stuff about wanting to kiss him? Why would you disappear? He’s apologized, what else can he do? Was it all seriously worth so little to you?

Suna feels as if the days are longer now, training unbearable. Instead of keeping his mind occupied, all it does is remind him of how badly his blocks suck lately. He doesn’t pick up when Osamu calls, he’d read everything there’s to read in his seemingly inexpressive tone. He’s mad at himself, for not noticing how stupidly attached he’d become. Is it normal to miss you so badly? He doesn’t remember the last time he missed someone just as much. The world is cruel in relentlessly reminding him of you: an advert you’d find funny, that movie you’d recently discussed making a comeback in cinemas, sunsets painting the sky in orange and lilacs so similar to the ones you’d send him, a pair of fuzzy fox slippers on display in a shop window on the way to the gym.

The toxic part of his brain is ruthless in reminding him that this is why he refuses to open up to new people. That this is why he never lets himself be actually vulnerable and simply plays along: it’s because he’d be left with nothing but mockery, humiliation and loneliness.

But Rintaro doesn’t want to give that part of his brain any more solidity. What he wants, is to be proud of himself. Relieved, even. He wants to feel happy for having been brave enough to take a risk, to trust, to open up. He wants to relish in the joy that the brief encounter with you, anonymous and all, gave him. So what if you never come back or talk to him again? That’s on you. He’ll miss you for a good while, will probably always wonder what you’re up to from time to time, but he’ll be okay. You gave him much more than what you’re probably aware of and truth is, he’s grateful. He just hopes you’ll always be okay too, he hopes life will treat you well. He hopes you don’t regret trusting him with your most intimate thoughts, ever.

It’s not like he doesn’t reread some of your messages, to keep himself company. The most recent ones still have the not entirely pleasant effect of twisting his insides. He’ll have to delete that folder of screenshots eventually.

Unfinishedusernam

-> I’m so glad I stumbled over you on this stupid app btw

Unfinishedusernam

-> You’re sweet, snoopy :)

Unfinishedusernam

-> Today was shit

-> Sometimes I think about how it’d be to have you here, at the end of shitty days

Unfinishedusernam

-> Stop flirting with me, it’s working

Unfinishedusernam

-> I feel so slilly

-> can you evne like someone you nevee met?

Turns out, you really can. He just never fully got around to telling you properly.

And then, one day, Suna’s blocks don’t suck anymore. In fact, they’re just as good as they’ve always been. He speaks with Osamu on the phone, a little bummed that his friend doesn’t have another trip to Shizuoka planned anytime soon: the shop is doing great, his presence is no longer required as often.

“I’ll miss you”, Rintaro still remembers the stunned silence following his words, “come back soon, shop or not”.

The younger Miya twin paused his ministrations, hands sticky with rice, and offered a surprised chuckle, “I’ll be back. Ya can also take a train every now and then, ya know?”.

“Maybe I will. Hey, next time you plan a trip to Osaka, can I come too?”.

“Hell yeah. I wouldn’t have to endure that dickhead alone”.

He talks to Kita and Aran way more these days: when he thinks of one of his friends, he simply grabs the phone and reaches out with a text, a meme or a funny reel. It seems to make them happy.

When his mom tells him that Kaori has been relentlessly asking about visiting her older brother, Suna assures her that he isn’t too busy to accomodate her for a week or for however long she wants to stay. Even if he was, he’d make it work. His mom clicks her tongue, gives her approval for a weekend only, less her daughter falls behind her homework even more. He grins when he hears Kaori scream MAKE IT TWO WEEKENDS in the distance.

Suna hasn’t seen his little sister in months and despite their relationship being exhaustingly conflictual (they are way too similar to each other and she gets a kick out of pissing him off), he loves her deeply and she trusts him just as much. Sometimes being home without him can become a lot and it’s not like she ever directly admits it but he’s pretty sure Kaori misses him, the little gremlin.

He was already 14 when she was born and little Rintaro had faced the news of a new addition to the family (a female, no less!) with infinite crankiness. He huffed and puffed and complained about having to share a room and a bathroom throughout his mom’s entire pregnancy, then a pink little bundle of dark hair and eardrum demolishing shrieks held his pointer finger in her tiny fist for the first time and he swore to guard her with his life, forever.

Suna wakes up extra early to clean the bathroom and his room, which he’s going to give to his sister, and make it girl-appropriate. He always goes on a tiny shopping spree before she visits: kitchen cabinets are now filled with her favorite snacks, there’s a colorful set of strawberry handcream, lotion and lip balm on his nightstand, a sweatsuit set neatly folded on his bed, the expensive vanilla body scrub their mom wouldn’t get her sits pretty in the shower.

He texts her before heading out for practice, demands she keeps him updated about her position. Kaori send a thumbs up and the picture of the blurred view outside the train window.

Unfortunately, as it often happens, coach announces the team is required to stay longer than he had anticipated and Suna doesn’t dare explain that he’s actually in a terrible rush because Motoya has been playing like shit and, of course, that becomes everyone’s problem.

“Get it together, man”, he hisses, way less patient than usual. Komori pouts.

“I’m trying”.

“Try harder!”, Washio snickers from the other side of the court.

It’s not until an hour later that Suna can dash through the gym doors, already forty minutes late to the appointment his sister had agreed on in the morning. When he notified her about the extra training, she didn’t falter.

-> No worries, I’ll find the house.

The train station isn’t at all far from his apartment, a mere 15-minute walk, but Kaori hasn’t visited in a few months and she’s not exactly known for her acute sense of direction. She’d get lost in her own house if it wasn’t impossible to achieve that in a small two bedroom apartment.

“Why is your damn phone going to voicemail?”, Suna grumbles to himself in the middle of the street, torn between running to the station or straight home. It’s not dark yet but the sun has set and Kaori knows very well the one thing she’s never allowed to do is turn her phone off, especially if him or their mom are not aware of where she is.

Right as he decides to head to the train station first, he hears her voice. There’s someone taller with her, which makes the hairs behind his neck stand up right away.

“Kaori!”, he damn nearly trips over his own feet as he rushes towards his sister in the opposite direction, gym bag almost falling off his shoulder while she chats with god knows who without a care in the world.

“Rin”, she stops right in her tracks, “sorry, kinda got los—”

“Why the hell is your phone turned off?”, as if to underline his point, he impatiently taps on his phone screen a few times, another call interrupted by immediately going straight to voicemail. He only now realizes how breathless he sounds.

“Battery died, I forgot my charger at home”, Kaori juts her bottom lip out. She’s the spitting image of her brother. “I was lucky to meet your friend right outside the station”, she looks up and so does he, features morphing into a horrified expression. Out of all people.

“You… what?”, Suna doesn’t know what to say. Was his neighbor even capable of smiling like that?

“It was nothing! We had fun, didn’t we?”.

Kaori nods. “We fed some stray cats on the way here. It’s so weird that you had canned fish in your bag, though”.

“I always carry some! Didn’t you see how hungry Mochi was?”.

For the following seconds, Suna is incapable of uttering another word. It becomes weird enough for his neighbor to wave a hand in front of his face, brows furrowed.

“Suna?”.

“Yeah”, he replies on autopilot, “Yes. I mean, thank you. Kaori, let’s go”, he eyes his sister’s large, pink, glittery backpack. Hanging from his neighbor’s shoulder.

“Uh, actually”, his sister coughs.

“What now?”.

“I kinda need to use the bathroom”.

“You can use it at home? It’s a ten minute walk from here, let’s get going”.

“I kinda need to use it now”.

“Kaori”, he sighs, “it’s ten minutes”.

“I live right here”, the woman from his nightmares indicates the house behind her, “wanna make a pit stop?”.

“Absolutely not”, Suna clears his throat, “she can hold it”.

“She can’t”, Kaori shrinks in herself a little, shifting her weight from one foot to the other.

“Fine, I guess we are making a pit stop”, he mutters and his sister exhales in relief, grabs his neighbor by the sleeve and urges her to open the door, quick quick quick please.

Suna watches his sister dash upstairs with a snort as he takes her backpack. It’s heavy as a rock. The hell did she put in there?

“You’re not gonna catch fire if you come in, you know”, his neighbor fixes him with a sarcastic glare as she takes off her shoes, letting her own bag fall to the floor.

“Sorry for the trouble”, he steps in at last, with a low grumble that allows a chuckle to surprise him.

“Don’t be too hard on her. She was panicking, I offered my phone but she didn’t remember your number. I asked where she was supposed to go and when she mentioned the neighborhood, I inquired about her brother’s name. Pretty lucky, huh?”, she’s not looking at him, busy taking off her jacket as well. Suna’s gaze softens.

“Yeah, really lucky. Thank you for taking care of her”.

“I also have a younger brother, I know what it feels like”, she smiles, looking at him at last, “one time we went to a festival without our parents, he thought it’d be funny to play hide and seek without telling me. I think I aged ten years that night”.

“She also used to run away so much as a kid. It’s in our blood, I was the exact same”.

“Doesn’t surprise me for some reason”.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”.

“I’m done, we can go now”, Kaori hops down the stairs, two steps at a time, then glares at her brother. Golden, foxy eyes narrowed. “You’re not being rude, are you?”.

He rolls his eyes but, before he can reply, someone beats him to it.

“He’s never rude to me. We’re friends, remember?”, Suna watches her wink with a smile so warm. Is that really the same person he runs into almost on a daily basis?

Astonished, he witnesses that little, usually quiet, reserved gremlin smile back at his neighbor. Then, remembering how important formalities are in their family, she thanks her with a deep bow. It’s only then that he notices them: fox slippers. Cute, pointed ears, bushy tales and everything.

They both jump when the steel water bottle hits the parquet flooring, Kaori dramatically clutching her chest. “Can you not be a weirdo for five seconds?”.

His neighbor (could it be…???) furrows her brows in genuine confusion. “I think volleyball finally started affecting his brain. Better take him home”.

“Yeah. Let’s go, loser”.

“Shut up, be thankful mom’s not here”, he fires back, fake annoyance to cover the fright that gnome’s actually caused. Suna’s heart is racing for an entirely different reason as he takes another furtive look at those slippers while pushing Kaori out the door, mind racing.

He is completely, absolutely unable to focus. Over dinner, he distractedly listens while his sister paints vivid pictures of boring classes, the art course their mom wants her to give a chance to, the latest fight she had with her best friend. He asks questions and fails to register the answers he gets, over and over again. It’s a relief when Kaori sprints to the bathroom, calling the shots for who gets to shower first. Suna is left rinsing the plates, with a brain that can’t think.

Would it be possible? You’re from Shizuoka. You have those exact slippers. You always feed stray cats. God, the fucking slippers. What are the chances?

He could call Osamu, ask a few questions. Instead, his sister’s voice keeps chipping away at what’s left of his sanity.

Your friend’s cool. I wish my teacher was that nice.

A teacher. Could kids be the wearing but rewarding humans you often mentioned?

He goes back to that disastrous dinner, desperately trying to recall how the conversation felt. What did they even text about prior to that evening? Was that woman as charming as you are? Fuck, he doesn’t remember a single word exchanged that evening. He just remembers being an asshole.

“I’ll be back in ten minutes”, from her comfortable spot on the couch, Kaori watches her brother march to the front door, then bend down to put on the same shoes he wore a few hours before, “lock the door, don’t burn the house down”.

“Where are you going?”, her brows are knit in confusion, never in worry.

“None of your business. Lock the door”.

“Sure, sure, bye”.

“Right now, Kaori”, something in his weirdly brisk tone makes the fourteen year old pause the show she’s watching, not without a dragged groan, and get up from underneath the blanket she had stolen from her brother’s room.

You’re so ready to go to bed early and declare the day officially concluded.

Work was tough, managing a new classroom of overexcited kids had proven to be particularly difficult. Between the increasing pressure from school administrators and the daunting task of creating engaging lesson plans for the new semester, you felt a heavy weariness threatening to swallow you whole.

As you brush your teeth, tired reflection staring back at you, he worms his way back into your thoughts once more. Saying that hearing his name and then seeing him again was unexpected would be an understatement: you were absolutely convinved (and thankful) he had moved. Where the hell did he disappear for over a month? Just to come back and show up like the annoying, irritating nuisance he is. One you can’t seem to whisk away.

Your date was one of the most disappointing nights of your life. Suna, the guy you had talked with for days, the same Suna who was so witty, intelligent and nice, was also just so blatantly uninterested. Bored. He didn’t even make the effort to ask about your day, eyes distant whenever you tried to initiate a conversation. And of course, because life hates you, you have to be reminded of that night every single day because you now see him every single day.

What’s more, you had failed the one person you’ve been able to feel interested in after that big, fat disappointment. Someone who just found himself trapped in the crossfire of your thoughts and stupid, stupid fears. Someone you were selfishly not ready to have so close. Someone wonderful who didn’t deserve your self-serving worries.

You’re already in your pjs when the doorbell rings multiple times, so insistent you almost trip down the stairs as you hurry, terrified that you’re gonna have to face an emergency with pandas printed on your pants.

“What the hell?!”, you instinctively step back as he leans forward, his entire weight resting against the doorframe.

“Sorry, I know it’s late”, Suna takes a deep breath but it’s not really needed. Prior warmup or not, he isn’t at all affected by the sprint through which he covered the distance between his house and yours. “I just had to… hey, can I come in? I’m probably gonna have a heart attack if I don’t sit down”.

You’re staring at him wide-eyed, completely startled.

“Yeah? Sure, come in! Is your sister okay? Did something happen?”, you’re quick to push the door closed as he heavily flops on your couch.

“No, no…”, Suna seems distracted for a moment, eyes scanning the room and zeroing on your tv, which is currently turned off. He stares at it for a while, then lets out a small laugh. “Actually, maybe it’s better if I stand up”.

“Suna, are you on drugs right now?”, the question is serious but his eyes, now fixed on you, don’t reveal any particular emotion besides genuine… amusement?

“I need to tell you something”.

The odd idea that he might be hiding a knife somewhere underneath that leather jacket crosses your mind for a split second.

“Sure…?”.

“When my sister was a baby, she’d cry a lot. I legit thought my ears would explode at some point”, he weighs the words carefully as he approaches you and, for some odd reason, you don’t take a step back. “She’d cry so much, all the time. And then, one day, I brought home a snoopy plush I won at the arcade. It became the one thing that would always shut her up”.

It feels like someone’s toppled a bucket of ice cold water over your head. Suna is standing so close while looking at you in a way you’ve never witnessed, a way so uncommon for him. You can’t focus on the desperation in his eyes and you’d never guess the hopefulness simmering behind a gaze that seems to be discovering you for the first time.

“It’s you”, barely a whisper, but it’s all the confirmation he needs. The relief in Suna’s exhale is intense as he wraps his arms around you and pulls you in. Thank god he does, because your knees feel so wobbly.

It’s a weird sensation, being pressed against him, hanging onto his shoulders for support. He’s warm and smells so good, of bergamot and musk. Your brain can’t quite comprehend that he’s the person you’ve been talking to for the past months.

“I missed you. I’m sorry”, he confesses in the curve of your neck and the words dissolve underneath the thin fabric of your pjs, slowly sink into your skin and bones. “I’m so sorry”, he says again, carefully pulls back to look at you, eyes searching for any sign of discomfort. Mirth flashes across his features for a moment. “Hey, are you about to throw up?”.

“No, of course not!”, you take a tentative step back but he doesn’t trust your stability and keeps a gentle hold on your arms, “why are you apologizing? I disappeared. I should be the one… I should be…”, Suna’s gaze softens, one hand rising up to touch your face but then freezing mid-air, deciding against the risk of freaking you out even more.

“Please don’t cry”.

“What?”, you retort, “I’m not crying. Ew”, but when you touch your cheek, it’s shocking to find it wet. What the fuck.

“Oh, god. Sorry, I don’t know what’s wrong with me”, a dry chuckle bubbles up from your throat, “listen, there’s no pressure on you. I’m sure this is a real disappointment so, like, we can pretend it never happened and just go on with our lives. I won’t—”

“Are you sure it’s you? The person I’m looking for is pretty clever”, he attempts a smile when you frown, familiar at last. “You think I’d leave my sister alone and race all the way here for a real disappointment?”.

“I think you just wanted to corroborate”.

Suna rolls his eyes, incredulous. “Well, I corroborated. I’m only gonna pretend it never happened if that’s what you want, because it sure as hell isn’t what I want. If you even care about that”.

You angrily wipe your tears, cheeks burning scorching hot with embarrassment. “I didn’t expect you to be so close. I freaked out. I’m freaking out right now because you’re even closer, apparently”.

“Are you disappointed?”.

You look at him, really look at him. His dishevelled hair, naturally narrowed eyes, the bridge of a perfect nose, full lips forced in a severe line. He’s searching for something in your gaze, with fierce determination. How can one person’s eyes be so penetrating? You feel naked, exposed. Vulnerable.

“No”, you reply, sincere, “no, I’m not”. If only you could feel the relief taking over his chest. “But… what now?”.

Suna feels as if he’s seeing you for the first time and, at the same time, it’s like he’s recovering something important, something precious. He’s already trusted you with some of the most important, hidden parts of himself. He hasn’t liked someone that way in such a long time and he’ll be damned if he lets this chance pass by. Again.

He’s not too late. Why does he always think he is?

You curiously watch as Suna takes his phone out and spends a few seconds tapping on it with a smile he can barely hide.

The familiar ping of a notification you haven't heard in weeks makes you stutter.

crysnoopy

-> Now we do this right.

#suna x reader #suna x you #suna rintaro x reader #suna rintaro x you #hq x reader

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fruittt-punchhh · 1 year ago

Text

Pop My Cherry!

all parts

Synopsis: your dad's best friend is none other than Toji Fushiguro, and you can't help but wonder what he could do with his hands.

Characters: Toji Fushiguro x reader.

Content: Minors Do Not Interact! smut, afab! reader, fem! reader, dad's best friend! Toji, suggestiveness, cursing, inexperienced (ish) reader, reader is a virgin but has done things ya know, female masturbation, male masturbation, mutual masturbation, getting caught in the act, reader smokes weed, alcohol usage, pet/ affectionate names, age gap (reader is 24, Toji is in his 30s), Toji calls reader (doll, slut, bitch, etc.), big dick! Toji, cunnilingus (f! receiving), fingering, just smut tbh.

Word Count: 3.7k-ish

Notes: hello again lovelies! here is pt. 4 of pop my cherry! I hope you guys have been digging it bc I def have❤️‍🔥🫶 also, reader finally gets her coochie ate🗣️🗣️🗣️can we get some w’s in the chat or some hoorays because we finally made it lmao. lemme know what you think!!! enjoy you filthy rat🐀💖🫶💋‼️ also, credits to kithsune and reveriesources for the banners! check them out!

“Poor baby, can’t even make yourself cum. You need Toji’s help, huh? Lemme show you, love”

Toji has you on your back with your knees pressed to your chest, his mouth hovering over your pussy. You can feel his breath on you as he takes in the sight before him.

“You have such a cute fucking cunt, you know that? Can’t believe no one’s knocked you up yet, girl.”

You feel your pussy clench around nothing as you try not to beg him. Anything would be better than him staring you down like this.

“T-Toji, I’m nervous. I-I’ve never done any of this before, what if I-“

“Just be quiet and let me eat, y/n. Haven’t eaten all day and I’m fucking starving.”

He trails sloppy kisses from your thighs, down to your juicy pussy. He licks a long stripe on the side of your pussy, and sucks on your outer lip. He chuckles at how you squirm. He loves watching you melt for him. He’s desperate to pound into you but he knows he’ll break you if he doesn’t properly stretch you out first. Even the most, ahem, experienced of women have a hard time adjusting to his size.

“Lemme make you feel good, okay doll? Wanna watch you come undone for me.”

Without any warning, he flattens his tongue to lap up all of your juices as he licks your entire pussy. You moan and instinctively grab a fistful of his hair to ground yourself.

“Kinky are we, huh? Gonna have to grab it harder than that.”

You do as your told as Toji eats you out like a man starved. He’s full on moaning into your cunt as he sucks on your swollen clit. You taste so fucking good for him. Like candy.

“Like w-what?”

Oh. Toji freezes before he’s looking up into your eyes.

“Yeah baby doll, this pussy is sweet like fucking candy. I could do this for hours, but I don’t think you could handle it. I need you to cum all in my mouth, can you do that f’me princess?”

You cry out as he goes back to devouring you, bucking your hips into his mouth. You feel out of control at this point. You’ve been basically edging yourself all day thinking about Toji. Now, he’s in front of you eating you like this is his last meal. You didn’t know how much more you could take. You felt that familiar burning in the pit of your stomach as your orgasm approached.

“F-fuck, mngh Tojiiiii, m’gonna c-cum”

Shit, he wanted to say something to send you over the edge, but he didn’t want to stop his work on your clit for fear of you not finishing. Besides, you tasted like fucking gold on his tongue and he’d be damned if he let a little dirty talk stop you from cumming on his face.

“Oh my, ohmygooood, m’cumming baby fuuuuck”

Your orgasm crashed into you, hard, and you thought you were going to pass out. No one has ever even touched you like this before, let alone devoured you whole. It felt sinfully good and you were cumming so quickly. You had no idea why you had waited this long to get some head, but you were surely addicted at any rate.

Toji doesn’t let you rest from your high, instead intent on overstimulating your abused cunt. He needed to taste every last drop, so he shoves his thick tongue inside your tight hole. If he could drink you until the well ran dry, he would.

“T-Toji please, s’too much, mmmmhh”

You were seeing stars at this point. His tongue plunging in and out of you, and his big nose was rubbing on your clit in a way that you thought should be illegal. You couldn’t help but hump into his face, desperately chasing your next orgasm much too soon.

Toji came up for air to take you in as you lie before him. He had to grip his cock again, nearly bruising the base of it. You had this dreamy, fucked out look on your face. Tears streaming down your temples, hair ruffled, and lips nearly bleeding from how hard you were biting them. He still held your legs taught against your chest, not giving you anywhere to run.

“It’s not too much, girl, I know you can take it. We’re just getting started, babe.” He says as he licks his lips and chin obscenely, trying not to waste any of your sweet nectar. He releases the hold on your legs, much to your relief. You finally felt like you could take a deep breath for the first time since you two began.

Your relief was cut short.

“Hold your legs up for me doll, need’ta stretch her out nice and good for me. Don’t want ya’ cutting my dick in half with that tight pussy of yours”

You obediently wrapped your hands around the back of your knees, pulling your legs back up into their original position. Of course, the original position had you bent entirely in half thanks to Toji’s brute strength, but this would do just fine. You bite your lip as you look down at him. You know what’s coming. You’ve been thinking about it for the past twelve hours and now that it’s happening, you don’t know if you should be elated or terrified.

“Good girl, hold ‘em just like f’me”

Toji looks at your glistening cunt and feels like he is suddenly 25 again, bursting with hormones and energy. Your pretty pink pussy was making a wet spot on the bed, but a little more couldn’t hurt right? He spits on your pussy, watching it drip down your clit, your folds, and inside of you. He was supposed to be ruining you, but goddammit if he didn’t feel as ruined as ever looking at your cute, helpless expression.

You yelp out as Toji lightly slaps your pussy. Not enough to hurt, but the stinging was still there. At this point, you were so desperate for him, you think you’d let him kill you if it’d meant he’d fuck you first.”

“S’probably gonna hurt, but I’ve gotta get you ready, okay love?”

(not toji being.. sweet?)

Toji runs his two fingers along your glistening slit, coating himself with your wetness. He places a sweet kiss to your clit before he’s pushing his middle finger into you, slowly.

“H-holy shiiit, ohmyg-ooood,” you choke out. It was better than you could have imagined. You fingered yourself once in a blue moon. It wasn’t your favorite past time since you could never make yourself cum that way. But this felt worlds better than what your small fingers could do. He’s barely starting pumping into you before you’re a whining mess underneath him.

Toji is rutting his cock into the mattress below, desperate for any sort of touch. You were driving him insane with those cute little gasps and whimpers. He could only dream of how slutty you’d sound when you were stuffed full of his cock.

“Fuck, look at you. Already ‘bout to cum, huh?”

You lift your head up to look down at Toji while he finger fucks you. He’s going almost too slow, but the stretch told you it was necessary. He wasn’t even eating your pussy anymore. His eyes were glued to the beauty in front of him.

He loved watching how your tight hole almost sucked his digit in, and he couldn’t imagine how heavenly you would feel clenching and sucking around his cock. He felt his mouth watering for another taste of you. He locks his lips to your clit and with a harsh suck, he starts moving his finger faster.

You were a writhing mess for him and you already felt your orgasm creeping up on you yet again. You were sure you could cum just from him fingering you alone. The sight of him taking in every part of you, watching you so closely while you whined for him; it was too much. Just when you thought it couldn’t get any better, he starts suckling on your bud and pumping into you faster and faster.

He keeps pulling away from your clit, sucking on it and releasing with an obscene pop! He keeps giving you little kitten licks to tease you while you huff in frustration. You grab a chunk of his black hair and pull him into you, forcing him to stay glued to your clit. In doing so, you released one of your legs, letting it rest on the bed as Toji devoured you.

Well now, that simply wouldn’t do. While he didn’t mind you being aggressive with him, he needed those plush thighs up and out of the way so he could consume every part of you.

“No ma’am, hold those legs or imma do it for you,” he winks, and you feel yourself losing it. You didn’t know if you had the strength to hold them anymore. The pace he was going at, his tongue feeling too fucking good on your clit. Your legs were starting to shake and they were tired, and you were scared you might clasp them together on his head whenever he made you cum next.

Noticing your failure to pull your legs back up, he takes his hand off of his long cock and uses it to shove your knees back to their original position.

“H-holy shiiiit Toj-“ you can’t even finish your exclamation before your breath is stolen from you. He pushes another thick finger inside of your soppy cunt and just goes to town, sucking and moaning on your clit.

“-told ya’ t’watch that mouth, bitch,” he says, muffled by your sweet pussy as he tries his hardest not to fuck you within an inch of your life on his fingers.

The stretch was painful, but it only added to the sensations you were overwhelmed by. Your high still hadn’t worn off, so Toji, who would normally be considered a 10/10 pussy eater, was feeling more like a 100/10.

“Mmmmh, I bet you wanna cum so bad, huh doll? Should I give it to you? Have you earned it?”

Toji smirks as he sees the look on your face. He has never seen anyone look so desperate and needy for anything in their life. As if you were a glass of water in the desert and she was dying of thirst. That look might kill him if he stares too long.

While he awaits your answer, he continues torturing your pussy with the slow thrusts of his big fingers.

“Y-yess, oh god, yes, I-I promise I’ve been good for you, sir”

Have you lost your mind?? The nicknames Toji gave you made you weak, so you wanted to try one out. What if he thought it was stupid???

Sir? He didn’t want to let on that the little nickname you just gave him had his dick spurting precum all over the mattress. You were so desperate to cum, he started to almost feel bad for you.

“Sir, hah, you must wanna cum real bad, huh? Do it then, bitch. Cum on my fingers if you want it so bad,” he says as he quickens his pace, and starts curling his fingers inside you with every thrust. He figured he had teased you enough and you looked like you’d explode if you didn’t get your release. He started sucking on your clit again, anxious to feel how tight you’d get when you came for him.

“Fuck, baby please, just-just like that, I-I’m, shit, gonna cum, ohmygoooood,” you whined. You thought it couldn’t get any better until he was curling his fingers inside of you, hitting your sweet spot with every thrust. That was the spot you would fail to reach every time you fingered yourself, so you hardly bothered with it. He kept hitting that spot, over and over again. You were going to cum any second now. Your felt your stomach tighten so much you were scared you’d burst. You knew your orgasm was approaching, but it felt so much more.. intense. It was almost like the pressure you feel when you have to pee really bad, you thought. But you had used the restroom when you came in from tanning, so surely you didn’t have to go again, right???

Toji looked up at you while he ate you, listening to your moans turn into gasps and cut off breaths. You were so close, he knew it. He couldn’t let up now, he needed to feel you cum. He had to mentally prepare himself for how tight you’d get when you were cumming on his cock later.

He speeds up his movements, not letting you have a moment without constant stimulation. He was going to pull this out of you one way or another. With one final thrust of his fingers, you were screaming.

Your pussy clenches on his fingers so tight, they’re nearly pushed out of you from the sheer pressure. He never lets up, drinking in your juices as you squirt all over his face. Jesus Christ, you couldn’t stop. You were groaning with how intensely your orgasm washed over you. You thought squirting was just a thing in porn! You never knew any of your friends to do it. But here you were, gushing around Toji’s big fingers like you were on cam.

Toji thought he might cum seeing you like this. You were screaming underneath him, attempting (poorly) at pushing his head back, your thighs squeezing together as the stimulation was beginning to be too much. Your pussy squeezes his fingers so tight as you squirt all over him. He was in fucking heaven.

“Atta’ girl, look at you. You’re ready for me now, yeah?”

“T-Toji?”

You look down at him, still shaking as he pulls his fingers out of you, the sudden loss of his warmth making you whimper. You watch as he brings his fingers to his mouth, sucking your cum off of them. He even licks his fucking palm. God, he was feral. He still wasn’t looking at you. Was he talking to your pussy?

“Shut up, girl, wasn’t talking to you. I was asking her, hah,” he laughs. He was so far gone he didn’t know if he’d be able to go another moment without your pretty pink lips on his cock.

“O-oh, s-sorry, Toj-“

He interrupts you, not giving you a chance to finish whatever apology you had come up with.

“You talk too much, brat. Need to stuff that mouth shut.” Just the thought of his dick anywhere near that pretty mouth had him feeling out of control.

Opting to keep your mouth shut like Toji wanted demanded, you (somehow) managed to sit up, crawling on your hands and knees towards him. You continue forward until he is leaning on the footboard of your bed, with his hands placed behind him, holding him up. And what a sight it was.

His cock was stiff, leaking precum all over his shirt. The sight of you crawling towards him like a little minx, tits hanging in front of him, had him going insane.”

“Come here, doll, lemme show you how good you taste”

You sit on his lap, being careful to not sit all the way down on his cock. You were still so sensitive from the orgasms he had yanked out of you. You had to hover on top of him so you wouldn’t yelp from the overstimulation.

You wrap your arms around his neck, ready to have your lips on his after such a long intermission. You close your eyes, ready for him to meet you halfway, when you feel his (still wet) hand grab your chin roughly.

“What, are you scared of it or somethin’, woman? Put that pussy on me, bitch, need to feel how good I did for ya’,” he growls, grabbing your hips as he pushes your heat down onto his throbbing cock.

He wasn’t going to last at this rate. Your hands were in his hair, tugging on it while you moan into his mouth. He had your sloppy cunt running up and down his length, covering every inch of him in your lust. He thrusts his tongue in your mouth, wanting you to taste how good you were for him. It didn’t exactly taste like candy like he claimed earlier, but it wasn’t bad. It was a little sweet, even. He was intoxicating.

Your hips were aching as Toji’s hands were bruising you from the grip he had on them. You felt another orgasm approaching, very apparent from your shaky legs and pathetic moans.

“You sound like such a little slut for me, baby. Ya’know, next time you should record it. We’d make a killing, you just sound too good.”

Next time??? You hadn’t even thought that far ahead yet. You were so lost in the moment you failed to realize that Toji may not ever be able to get enough of you. It wasn’t far from the truth to say you felt the same too, as conflicting as it was. At this point, you were too far gone and you felt too good to care anymore.

You stilled your hips, needing a break and you found it hard to talk with your pussy grinding on Toji’s lap like you were, “T-Toji, god that’s so embar-“

“I didn’t say stop, woman. Learn how to talk while I please you or we’re not gettin’ anywhere,” he says as he grabs your plump ass and rubs you against his cock again.

“S-sorry sir, I just feel like… I s-sound weird, mmmnh,” you respond, moaning as he plants a firm hand on your ass cheek, spanking you.

“Shut the fuck up little girl. Can you see what you did to me, huh? I’m about to cum just looking at you and you sound like a fucking pornstar,” you can’t help but hide behind your hands as you blush for the umpteenth time tonight.

“Don’t hide that pretty face, doll. Ya’know what? You don’t have to post it or nothin’. Just send it to me so I got something to beat off too later, okay?”

The thought of Toji pleasing himself to your voice had you melting. Maybe he’s just super pent up from work and hasn’t got laid in a while? Surely that had to be it. You were a 6/10 on a good day, and you had maybe 1% of the sexual experience that he had.

“Okay, okay yeah we can try next time, I-I guess. Would you really…. touch yourself to it? Why?” You ask, knowing that the plethora of porn available at his disposal was immense. Why would he pick a shitty homemade video of you moaning for him for jack off material??

“That’s it, good girl. You’re such a good fucking girl for me, you know that, y/n? If I had a video of you moaning on top of my dick, it might be the only thing I cum to ever again”

Toji was fucked. Since when is he this honest? To a woman he barely knew, nonetheless. It was so true, though. Having you whining for him, pleasing yourself by using his cock on cam? Pfft, he might not even need to get laid again if you got that video (false).

Your face was beet red at this point. You moaned in response to his confession. Instead of question him further, you decided to take the initiative for once. You kiss him as you finally rub your hands under his tight shirt, feeling how rock hard his torso was. He was sweaty and had just a few chest hairs and you didn’t know why you wanted to rip his shirt off so fucking badly.

“If you wanna see, all you have to do is ask, hun”

“Please Toji, I want to see all of you. Please, I’ll do anything,” you confess, because it was true. You wanted to see him just as exposed as you were right now.

“Oh, anything, huh? Even if I wanted you to suck every last drop of your cum off my cock?” If you kept grinding your little pussy all over him like this, he was going to finish well before he intended to. If you sucked him off, at least he could have a break from the constant friction you were giving him.

“Oh… I mean, yes, yeah I would. I wanna be a good girl for you, Toji,” and to be fair, you had been dreaming about how he would taste, and how quickly he’d fill up your mouth with his massive cock. Your mouth started to water as you waited for his response.

Jesus Christ. He didn’t think you’d be so quick to agree, but he also didn’t know just how wrapped around his finger you were. The thought of stuffing your throat full of him was intoxicating, and he was scared he may not last long enough to fuck your tight cunt like he needed to.

“That’s what I thought, baby doll,”

He watches your heavenly figure as you lift off of him, scooting back to come face to face with his throbbing dick.

You were impossibly nervous. You wanted to do a good job, but all the other blowjobs you’ve given before were for much, much smaller dicks. You’ve never even made a guy finish with just your mouth before, always being interrupted by roommates or your jaw being so tired that you had to jerk them off to finish the job. But you were determined to make Toji feel good after how hard he made you cum.

“Uh-uh, what do ya’ think you’re doin’, woman? Get on your fucking knees,” he spits. He knows with his extreme size and girth, it’d be much easier for you to take more of him if you were on your knees and had your throat at that angle. Plus, seeing you on your knees throating his cock was a requirement at this point.

“Okay, yeah sure, s-sorry,” you say as you step off the bed and get on your knees in the floor in front of the wall. You sit back on your heels as you wait for him, the excitement rushing through your entire body.

“Girl stop apologizing and just make it up to me, yeah?”

pt. 5

@scorpiosugar mwahahah

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tortillamastersblog · 1 month ago

Text

Where Light Bends Wrong - Part 8 | Wednesday Addams

Pairing: Wednesday Addams x reader

Warnings: none

Summary: You’ve kept your secret buried and your power quiet, until Wednesday Addams came to Nevermore and turned your whole world upside down.

Previous Part | Next Part | Masterlist

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Wednesday.

My chest tightens and I instinctively drop to my knees to make myself smaller.

Shit, shit, shit, shit.

This is exactly what I didn’t want to happen. How could I let this happen? I was being so careful! And I was making sure she wasn’t anywhere near when I came here, so how did she find it? And how the hell does she know about it in the first place?

I hear her shuffling around, and press my back against the dusty bookshelf behind me. I’m out of sight for anyone who enters the library because I’m in the back part of it where no one ever really goes, but knowing her and my luck, there’s a good chance she’s going to find me, so I have to do everything in my power to stay hidden. Even if it means crouching in the dust and getting covered in cobwebs.

I hold my breath when I hear her move closer, right on the other side of the bookshelf I’m hiding behind.

She moves away again a moment later, and I let out the quietest exhale of relief, but then I hear some tapping on the floor and my head snaps to the right.

Thing.

He freezes when he sees and my heart drops.

Oh no.

I hug my book close to my chest and just stare at him pleadingly. He stares right back for a moment, and I almost expect him to scurry off to alert Wednesday of my presence. But then, he simply curtsies ever so slightly, almost as if acknowledging my silent plea, before hurrying away when Wednesday calls out for him.

She must have found what she was looking for because I hear some pages rustling and her heartbeat skipping in delight, so I relax slightly, knowing the chance of her stumbling upon me now that she’s got what she came for is significantly smaller.

I have no idea why Thing isn’t saying anything, but at the end of the day it doesn’t actually matter. All that matters is that she doesn’t know I’m here because if she did, she’d know that I lied about knowing about this place and the Nightshades’ symbol. She’d know I lied again, which would make her question everything I’ve ever told her, and make her, once again, want to dig deeper into who I am and what I have to hide, which I can’t let happen.

I continue to cower behind the bookshelf, listening to her stuff the book into her bag before she turns on her heels and leaves. Thing, as always, hot on her heels.

I wait a couple more minutes to make sure she doesn’t return, keeping my ears trained on her heartbeat which is slowly but steadily moving further away, and only then do I get back to my feet again.

With shaking hands, I brush the dust and cobwebs off my clothes, keeping my grip on the book tight before darting out of the library myself.

I know it’s dangerous to take the book with me, but I have to know what’s going on with me and the pendant and I can’t risk returning it and then running into Wednesday again.

I come across a handful of students on my way to my room, most of them completely oblivious to me as they chat about the Poe Cup tomorrow. They are making bets and talking about all the canoes’ designs, but I don’t linger to hear any details.

My heart is still pounding in my chest from the almost run in with Wednesday when I finally reach my room, and I exhale as I close the door behind me, but then I jump again when I realize I’m not alone.

“There you are!”

I drop the book, and scramble to pick it up again, hiding it behind my back. Then I realize it’s just Enid though, and relax slightly, sliding it onto my nightstand.

Enid’s never been one to pry and judging by the tears shining in her eyes, I know she’s too preoccupied to wonder about why I’m acting all skittish at the moment.

“What’s wrong?” I ask with a frown, worry instantly weighing on my chest as her sadness and despair washes over me.

My run in with Wednesday and the book are momentarily forgotten as she flings her arms around me and sobs into my shoulder.

I freeze for a second, not used to this level of affection from her. Yes, she’s a hugger with all her other friends, but she’s somehow figured out that I’m not the biggest fan of it myself even though she does hug me on occasion when she just can’t help herself.

It’s not because I don’t like it, because I do– I crave it like everyone else sometimes– but because hugging someone usually makes it harder for me to keep their emotions from completely spilling into me like they are right now with her.

“I don’t know what to do,” she hiccups, her hands curling around the fabric of my sweater as I hesitantly hold her back. Despite the circumstances, it feels nice and makes me realize how starved for affection I am.

“Yoko’s in the infirmary,” she goes on. “G-Garlic bread incident…After you left.”

“Is she okay?” I ask with a frown, holding her tighter. My fingertips tingle, and I feel warmth creep through my hands and up my forearms, momentarily distracting me, but then Enid nods against my shoulder, bringing me back to reality.

“She had an allergic reaction, but she’ll be fine,” she says quietly, and just as another wave of warmth travels through my hands and up my arms, she sags against me and exhales shakily.

Huh.

“But she’s out of the Poe Cup, and now I don’t have a copilot,” she cries, her sobs dying down to sniffles.

I have no idea what just happened, and why her anxiety and dread have seemingly almost completely disappeared by simply hugging me, but I have a suspicion that it has something to do with my powers.

Add it to the list of things I’ll have to read up on, I guess.

“I’m sorry, Enid,” I say honestly.

She exhales against my shoulder again and lessens her grip on my sweater.

I know the Poe Cup means a lot to her, and if I could be her copilot, I would do it in a heartbeat, but I’m not part of Ophelia Hall. I’m pretty sure Weems would also consider my competing cheating because of my enhanced strength and speed.

“Can’t you just–?”

“You know I can’t,” I cut her off gently.

She sighs and I genuinely feel bad for her, but then a thought strikes me that actually makes me actually snort. Not because it’s funny, but because for some reason, I could actually see it happening.

“Why don’t you ask Wednesday?” I suggest, which makes Enid break the hug with a bewildered look.

“Are you serious?”

I nod and shuffle backward, taking a seat on the edge of a bed because I’m suddenly feeling a little lightheaded.

“She… kinda hates Bianca,” I explain. “I bet she’d love a chance to take her down.”

Enid frowns. “I mean, I guess, but do you really think she has what it takes to beat Bianca? She is pretty tiny.”

I chuckle softly and absentmindedly touch my pendant. “She may be small, but what she doesn’t have in muscle mass she makes up for with her brain. She’s whip smart, that one.”

It slips out before I can stop myself and Enid eyes me weirdly for a moment before nodding slowly.

“You’re right…You’re right,” she mumbles, hope and re-kindled excitement flickering in her eyes. She darts to the door, probably to go and ask Wednesday to help her right away, but then she stops and turns again as her hand closes around the door handle. “Thank you.”

I smile gently and dip my chin in acknowledgement, and then she’s gone, her excitement lingering in the room as I lay back on my bed and kick my shoes off.

I wake with a start and sit up as a sharp knock echoes through the room.

It’s followed by a thump that makes me look down to see my book on the floor. I must have fallen asleep shortly after Enid left while I was trying to read up on my abilities some more.

It’s strange how drained I felt after she left, and I know it has something to do with my powers and this thing called Heartstill I read about, but I don’t really remember what it actually does now. I want to reach for the book and flip it open again, but I can’t because another knock sounds on my door, followed by Ajax’s urgent voice.

“Y/N? You in there? The cup is about to start and Enid is looking for you!”

I grab my phone off the nightstand. It’s 9.53 and the cup starts at 10.

Shit.

“Uh, yeah, I’ll be right out!” I shout, hastily getting out of bed. Ajax says something about hurrying back to the others and I tell him I’ll be right there too.

I pick up the book and wedge it between the other books on my bookshelf, thinking it’s best to hide it in plain sight, before slipping my shoes back on and scrambling to the bathroom.

No matter how late I’m running, I still want to brush my teeth and splash some water on my face, so that’s exactly what I do, taking advantage of my enhanced speed while doing so. I also change out of my sweater and into a clean shirt and my striped uniform jacket to show some school spirit, before darting out of my room.

The hallways are empty and my footsteps echo all around as I hurry through the empty school until I finally make it to the river where everyone else is already assembled.

Just like at the fair, there’s excitement in the air, but for some reason, unlike at the fair, I’m numb to it. Yes, I still feel the buzz, but it doesn’t get to me like it normally would and although it’s a little alarming, it's a nice change for once.

“There you are. Just in time.” Ajax comes up to me with a smile, already dressed in his own team’s costume, and nudges me before leading me to the Black Cats’ tent.

Enid is anxiously pacing in front of it, but when she sees us approach, she stops and smiles. It looks a little pained, and forced, but it’s a smile nonetheless and before I can say anything, she pulls me into another hug.

Wow. Okay. So we’re doing this. Two hugs in less than twelve hours…

“How are you feeling?” I ask when she pulls back, waving shyly at Ajax who returns it, equally timid, before excusing himself to go back to his own team.

“I feel like throwing up,” she says with a grimace which makes me chuckle while also taking a subtle step back in case she’s being serious.

“Oh come on, you’ll be fine,” I reassure her, wanting to ask whether she managed to get Wednesday to agree to join her team when –speak of the devil– Wednesday steps out of the tent behind her.

My jaw almost drops at the sight of her wearing a similar cat costume just like Enid’s. She’s even wearing cat ears, but unlike Enid, she doesn’t have any whiskers painted onto her nose or cheeks.

She looks even tinier than usual, and her stoic face is in stark contrast to the goofiness of her costume which makes me have to bite the inside of my cheeks to stop myself from smiling.

No matter how close she came to finding me in the library last night, this is truly a sight to see and one I won’t forget that quickly either.

Enid notices my distraction and spins, her nervousness momentarily forgotten as she takes Wednesday in with a beam.

“OMG, you look purr-fect!” she gushes which makes me snort quietly.

Wednesday sighs softly with a bored look and lets her eyes roam over the sea of students around us.

“Wait, where are your whiskers?” Enid asks with a frown, which makes Wednesday’s eyes snap to her.

“Ask again, and you’ll be down to eight lives,” she deadpans and even though her delivery is cold and seemingly cruel, Enid just smiles because she, just like I, knows Wednesday doesn’t actually mean it.

She’s all bark and no bite at the moment, and if she was really upset about the whiskers, she wouldn’t have let Enid somehow convince her to wear the rest of the costume in the first place.

Seeing that the race is about to start, I step up to Enid again which makes both her and Wednesday look at me, the latter of which makes me a little nervous because her face goes from seemingly bored to unreadable.

Oh no. Did Thing tell her about me being in the library after all?

No. I’m sure that’s not it. Why would he?

I avert my eyes for a second to smile at Enid. “Good luck.”

“Thanks.” She squeezes my arm, and when I look at Wednesday again, she’s still looking at me, so I repeat the sentiment to her as well, but she doesn’t thank me like Enid did.

I frown, only to notice that she’s not answering because she’s distracted—her eyes keep darting from my face to my chest, and when I look down, I feel my stomach drop when I realize she’s looking at my pendant, which rests over my shirt.

It must have slipped out from under my shirt while I was hurrying through the school.

I panic a little and shove it back under my collar, but it’s too late. Wednesday’s already seen it, and for about the millionth time now since meeting her, that familiar spark of curiosity lights up her eyes. But what’s worse than that is that it’s not just curiosity I see in her eyes. There’s something else there that I don’t even dare to name.

Shit, shit, shit. This piece-of-crap pendant is causing me nothing but trouble.

I know panicking and tucking it away as quickly as possible is just making me look more guilty or suspicious, but what else am I supposed to do?

Wednesday’s lips part as if she’s about to say something, but then Weems gets up on the stage by the docks with a megaphone and asks the teams to head to their canoes.

Enid squeals, completely oblivious to what just happened between Wednesday and me, and drags the raven-haired girl to the docks, leaving me behind with an uneasy feeling. I try to push it down and focus on supporting the Black Cats, but it lingers no matter how hard I try to ignore it.

The Black Cats actually won. I still can’t believe it, but you best believe they did it. I know it’s solely because of Wednesday and Thing, whom I saw crawling out of the river after the race, but it does matter. They won, and Enid couldn’t be happier. She’s already made me take a bunch of pictures of her, Wednesday, and Mina next to the cup in the Quad after Weems gave it to them, before proceeding to post them, much to Wednesday’s dismay even though she doesn’t even have social media or a phone for that matter.

The celebrations are still in full swing, with fruit punch being poured out and snacks being passed around, but I’ve excused myself a moment ago and am now heading to my room for some peace and quiet.

My emotional radar is starting to recover, and I no longer feel numb to everything, so I’ve decided to escape before things get too overwhelming. I also have to get away from Wednesday because I keep catching her eyeing me. Unlike so many times before, she hasn’t actually done anything other than look, which is somewhat unnerving on its own, but I don’t want to give her the chance to do something else either, hence why I left.

I enter my room and just stand there for a moment, trying to figure out what I feel before I impulsively take off my necklace and stare at the pendant.

It looks so unassuming, but it’s made it difficult for me to stay under the radar lately, especially with Wednesday, so without thinking, I grab a small wooden box from under my bed and stuff it in there.

It makes my heart ache, not only because I feel strangely bare without the weight of it against my chest, but also because I swore to myself I’d never take it off in case I lose it. But my life is literally at stake because of it, so it has to go.

I should have taken it off earlier, I know, but until I saw that unnerving glint in Wednesday’s eyes when she actually saw it properly for the first time, I didn’t realize how much it’s actually putting me at risk.

I sigh, staring at it amidst some fair tickets, guitar picks, and little doodles Lara drew on scrap pieces of paper before shutting the box and putting it back under my bed.

It’s not exactly valuable for anyone except me because of sentimental reasons and looks unassuming enough, so I doubt anyone will take it should they, for some reason, stumble upon it.

I have way more valuable things to be taken from me, like my mason jar piggy bank on my desk.

I absentmindedly touch my chest where the pendant is supposed to rest when I lie down on my bed, suddenly overcome with a surge of emotion.

I hate how I have to hide what I am… how I have to hate who I am because if I don’t, I lose everything.

Being an Ægyrin puts a target on my back, but I have to be honest, I’m not only afraid of being hunted but also of losing everything I know again– Enid, Nevermore, Weems.

There’s so much at stake, but I don’t know how to stop my unraveling when Wednesday is nearby because for some reason I can’t help but be drawn to her.

I’m not talking romantically, because God knows she’s the least romantic person on this planet, but there’s something about her that sets all my senses and worries on edge.

If I had to describe the feeling, I’d call it instinct because worrying about her or saving her is like reflexively pulling back when getting burned by something and–

Should an Ægiryn form a soulbond…

Soulbond.

I sit up abruptly.

No… No, that can’t be… How cliché would that be?

I turn and reach for the book from the Nightshades' library, only to freeze when I see the space I wedged it into earlier is vacant.

It’s gone.

‧˚⋆⋅‧˚⋆⋅‧˚⋆⋅‧˚⋆⋅‧˚⋆⋅‧˚⋆⋅‧˚⋆⋅‧˚⋆⋅‧˚⋆⋅‧˚⋆⋅‧˚⋆⋅‧˚⋆⋅‧˚⋆ ⋅‧˚⋆⋅‧˚⋆⋅‧˚⋆⋅‧

Hi! Sorry for taking this long to update, guys. Life just got in the way and I had to re-read the entire story to decide what direction to take this thing in.

This part is only 3k words long, and I know it’s a bit of a filler chapter, but it's been a while since I last updated and I didn't want to leave you guys hanging for too long. To make up for it, the next part is gonna be longer again, I promise. <3

Tag list: @sunshinez4 @protozoario @automaticpatroltragedy @mamas-evil-hag @theallseer97 @hellenheaven @iwshemj2 @jizzuo308

#x reader #wednesday addams #wednesday addams x reader #wednesday x reader #wednesday netflix #wednesday series

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whotfelsewantedtobelynnyx · 9 months ago

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Chat, I regret to inform you that I have added a new hyperfixation…so…

Agatha All Along Incorrect Quotes!

Alice: Hold the fuck up.

Also Alice, crawling into Lilia’s lap: It’s me. I’m the fuck up. Hold me.

Rio: I have an idea!

Jen: No murder.

Rio, sighing petulantly: I no longer have an idea.

Lilia: I have a bad feeling about this…

Agatha: What do you mean?

Alice: Don’t you ever get that little voice in the back of your head that tells you if something is going to get you in trouble?

Agatha: No.

Jen: That actually explains so much.

Lilia: As far back as I can remember, I’ve always had this little voice in my head telling me to “live it up today, because there’s not gonna be a lot of tomorrows”.

Agatha: You do realize there’s medication designed to get rid of those kinds of voices, right?

Teen: A bird flew in through my window and I’m trying to befriend it.

*later*

Agatha: Why don’t you quit bothering me and go talk to your bird friend?

Teen: Matthew and I are not speaking at the moment.

*the coven, huddling together behind a makeshift shelter to shield themselves from repeated gunshots*

Alice, hastily shoving the others behind her so she can return fire: Agatha, do you have any idea who would want to shoot you?!

Agatha, squashed between Jen and Rio: Many people want to shoot me. I take great pride in that!

Jen, glaring at the group as she hands over bail money:

Alice, tapping her shoulder: What about Teen?

Jen, glaring more: I’ve got to bail him out too? Where’s Agatha?

Teen: No one called her. We used Lilia’s phone call to call Alice and Rio’s to call you. Then Rio used my phone call to vote for American Idol.

Rio: :)

Jen: Rio isn’t answering her phone.

Agatha: Here, I’ll try.

Jen: Alice and I have tried six times each, what makes you think that-

Rio, picking up on the first ring: Hey, sweetheart.

Agatha: The ends always justify the means!

Jen: Do you know who said that?

Agatha: Was it Oprah or someone nice and great like that?

Jen: It was Machiavelli. A decidedly non-Oprah like person.

Jen: I bet you didn’t even finish the thing I asked you to get done!

Agatha: For your information, I most certainly did! Got it done last night!

Teen, whispering to Agatha: You didn’t get it done, did you?

Agatha, whispering back: I don’t even know what she’s talking about.

Lilia: I am at a loss for words!

Teen, glancing at the camera like his mom like he’s on The Office: Despite being lost for words, Lilia yelled at us for the next 45 minutes.

Agatha, carrying Señor Scratchy out of the room:

Señor Scratchy: *snuggles under her chin*

Agatha, kissing his head: You are being punished. Please stop being adorable. I love you.

Teen: I got a trampoline tent for summer sleepovers!

Jen, whispering to the other adult witches: …think of all the sex.

Alice: There are two types of people.

Rio: If you wanted to eat someone, you could put a fire under it and slowly roast them :)

Lilia: …three. Three types of people.

Jen, cautiously: I can’t believe I didn’t notice this before, but…Teen, you are a little crazy.

Teen: Aren’t we all a little crazy here, Jen?

Jen: No, I mean you’re aging-ballerina, child-chess-prodigy, professional magician kind of crazy.

Teen: It’s my mom’s fault. You know, we come from a Jewish family, but she used to tell me the reason Santa didn’t come was because my room was too dirty.

Rio: I’ve come looking for trouble. And if I can’t find trouble, I WILL create some.

Alice: Do you trust me?

Lilia, smiling proudly at her: Yes.

Alice, who has been completely panicking: Wait, what? Why?!

Agatha, awkwardly glancing around for help: Er…Alice, I’m gonna be honest, I don’t know what to say to people who are crying. So I’m just gonna hope that the tone of my voice makes you think I do, okay, sweetie?

Alice, sniffling: …thanks, Agatha.

Agatha, patting her on the back with a bit too much enthusiasm: No problem, kid.

Lilia: I told Agatha about it weeks ago!

Teen: She WHAT?

Agatha: What??? Lilia says insane shit all the time, how was I supposed to know this one was true?!

Lilia: Bank accounts are a sham created by the shadow government!

Agatha: SEE?!

BONUS:

Wanda, watching from the afterlife: so…when exactly do kids grow out of that whole emo, rebellious stage?

Lorna, shrugging: I don’t know. Alice is still in it.

#agatha all along #agatha harkness #rio vidal #lilia calderu #jennifer kale #alice wu gulliver #teen agatha all along #billy kaplan #señor scratchy #agatha all along spoilers #Agatha all along incorrect quotes #alice “mommy issues” wu gulliver #agathario #we love our dangerous lesbians #we were robbed of alice getting to use her ex cop skills and I’m salty about it #agatha is a problem child #rio is a menace to society #they left her in jail #she broke out #I think I’m funny #found family #mentions of wanda maximoff and lorna wu #alice needs a damn hug #and so does teen (I can’t call him billy quite yet I don’t know why)#lilia is the friend-turned-mother-figure that alice and teen both desperately need (sorry agatha you don’t count right now)#tw: sex jokes #tw: violence jokes #really just tw: rio vidal #sometimes family is a traumatized teen; the stressed witch he designated as his pseudo mom; her psycho ex wife; her mlm friend;#a reluctant nepo baby with depression; and the crazy psychic grandma they found on the side of the road

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knight-arts · 5 months ago

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Hello Gappleduo enjoyers.

I started working on this shit 5th of November. I’m FREEEEEEE

Anyway. Something from the Fellow in the North AU, if any of you remember lol. I originally posted about it … TWO?? years ago lol. It’s named after a song of the same name by Cold Weather Company. (Which you should listen to. That’s one of my fave songs of all time. Please?) Anyway this is why Dream wears his mask lmfao. And not long after this he’ll draw a smiley face on it and it’ll make Phil laugh.

I’ve posted about it before here and here (I consider this one part of the au but more because it sparked the idea) Feel free to send me asks about this au if you’d like.

Edit: Bruh I sent it to a friend and then a group chat and none of them pointed out there was a mistake god dangit. It’s gone now tho but m a n. Man.

Under the cut: me rambling about stuff and things

Okay so uh the way I “note” things down is mostly just by rambling things to my friends through text messages and whenever I need to find them again I just look it up in the chat logs. But I did find some key notes about this au in a google docs. Tell me why my immediate reaction to something I wrote myself was just

(Image stolen form Pinterest)

“HE WHAT-”

Anyway

If I ever continue this story, fair warning that c!Wilbur is in it (Dead. Bro is completely fridged even before the story starts.) I wrote a pros and cons list of him being in here and he was several of the cons. Unfortunately I found the story to be more interesting if he was in it so. Yeah :/

Also show some love to @kyo-mei for always being willing to look over my shit and make corrections and listen to me when I ramble. They’re awesome and I love them.

Bonus: Something dubiously canon, set after the escape from the forest and done before I got a better idea of what I wanted Dream’s hair to be like

Bonus bonus: wip collage

Also also I’m not to sure how but I am now very much into TRANSFORMERS of ALL THINGS??? THE JUMP FROM MCYT TO K-POP WAS ONE THING BUT JUMPING BACK TO MCYT AND THEN TRANSFORMERS WAS ANOTHER. Anyway I read all of More Than Meets the Eye + Lost Light (comics) and uh. Honest to god cried when I reached the end so. Yeah. I’m still not over the fact that I got into the robots that turn into cars. I’m still not over that basic fact. I remember it once in a while and just get a hundred yard stare. My fave guy is a Decepticon called Soundwave. He’s cool. He’s got pets(?) kids(?). (… I’m cringe but I’m free I’m cringe but I’m free I’m cringe but I’m free) Oh and I’m pretty sure at one point I watched Rise of the Guardians and it stuck in my head enough that I made an oc about it. (I make ocs just about every new thing I get into. The one I have from Transformers is weirdly developed to a higher level than usual so I might do something with that one day. Or not lol)

Anyway

Yeah :>

#gapple duo #gappleduo #dreamwastaken #dreblr #dream fanart #philza fanart #mcyt #my art #fanart #dsmp #fellow in the north au #long post

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howlett-dekarios · 4 months ago

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𝙽𝚘𝚝 𝚊 𝚐𝚘𝚘𝚍 𝚜𝚝𝚊𝚛𝚝

▏Cage-fighter!Logan x Reader

▏Summary: Charles gave you a mission of recruiting a new mutant. Not everything went according to plan...

(Scott is an overprotective older brother)

▏Word count: 6,5k

You were surprised when Charles called you into his office. Sure, you were considered as a part of x-men, but since Scott was known for his overprotective nature of an older brother, you barely have been sent on any missions. Stuck in the mansion as if you were still a freaking student.

“You wanted to see me Professor?”

“Oh yes, come in Y/n.” He smiled reassuringly, searching through some documents on his desk. When you sat down, he stopped his previous work and focused his attention fully on you. “How are you?” Always a polite and lovely older teacher.

“Good if we don’t count how Scott has been a pain in the ass lately.” It was met with his little smirk and shake of head. “But you didn’t call me just to chat, am I right, professor?”

“As perceiving as always, my dear. I wanted to see you because of a rather delicate case.” A light sigh left him, but the smile was still formed on his lips. “You see, at the conference I attended, I met an old friend. But it can’t be seen as a good type of meeting.”

You got a slight idea about what he was possibly talking about. Magneto. All of you in the team knew how tumultuous the relationship was with these two. Old lovers who separated because of different perceptions of the world and humankind. Too divergent for them to make it work.

“I have my reasons to believe he’s planning something special for the upcoming conference on which the mutant case will be discussed.” Special was clearly an understatement for the word bad. Really bad if Charles was willing to start his defense before Magneto would do even the first step. “That’s why I need to ask for your help. I believe that Eric wants to acquire a specific mutant for his own purpose.”

“Why?”

“That’s the main reason why we need to get to him first. I don’t know.”

Not good. Even terrible if anyone would ask for your opinion.

“Why me?” Usually it was Storm who recruited new faces, shit even Scott sometimes, but never you.

“Because of your mutation, my dear. The man I want you to find is rather… reluctant when it comes to people. Not very fond of anyone reaching out to him.”

“You know this guy, professor?”

“I’ve met him once, yes. That’s why I know he wouldn’t like to see my face again. But your mutation will be very useful to get to him.”

Though both of your brothers had mutations connected with energy blasting, yours developed in completely different ways. You were an empath. A very powerful if believing Charles words. Despite not fully understanding its full potential, even now you could read people's emotions. Influence them to your will. Search through the memories that were strong enough to leave a track. Empathize, share and resonate with others' pain, ecstasy or anger. Sometimes you also could see the past through objects that people had core feelings about but you couldn’t control that particular fragment of your ability. Usually it just happens without you having any power over it. Like a passive observer drawn into the vortex of events, forced to experience them in a few seconds, like a stop-motion movie. Professors promised you that at one point you will be able to control it, but so far you haven’t made any progress in it.

“What you want me to do? Find him and?”

“Understand and talk him into coming here. While being alone he’s an easy target for Magneto to come for, but here he will be safe and out of reach.”

“That mutant… he has a name?”

“Logan.” Another sigh left your former teacher, like he was trying to recall an old memory. “The Wolverine.”

You were packing in your room when Scott came in and leaned over the door.

“You have everything?”

It was the first time for him to let you go on a solo mission. He had been trying to convince professor to let him go with you, but Charles stood his ground, persuading on you dealing with it on your own. Your brother didn’t like it in the slightest, but it was an old man who had the final word.

“Yes, Scotty.” You sighed, knowing that he was simply worrying about you.

“You sure you don’t want me to drive you there.” By drive you knew he meant the jet flight, so you only shook your head, dismissing his offer.

“I’m a big girl, Scott. I can take care of myself.”

“I know you can, sunshine.” His tone was less rigid than normally would’ve expected in such circumstances. Scott knew that the only thing he could do now was assure you about your abilities and his faith in you. Show his support and trust. “Just fulfilling my duty as an older brother.” His words made you chuckle. On a daily basis this type of attitude was rather irritating but now when you couldn’t really tell how long you're gonna be gone? It was sweet and you definitely will miss your little banters. “Remember though it’s only a recce. You find this guy, kick his ass if it’ll be necessary and call me so we can pick you up, okay?”

“Yeah, I’m the best at kicking asses.”

“Damn you are, N/n.” You both laughed at that, looking at each other. You could say a lot of stuff about him, but in times like that, you couldn’t imagine having anyone else as a brother. Especially after Alex's death. “Come here, you little monster.” You walked towards him and soon enough ended up in a tight hug. “Love you, you know it, right?”

“Love you too, asshole.” You mouthed back, smirking, your head on his chest, enjoying the warmth of his embrace.

After hours of traveling you finally got in an obscure bar in a small village in Canada. The spot where Charles told you the mutant had been last seen. The place was cramped, mostly drunk guys in their forties. To say that you weren’t a perfect fit here was a huge understatement. From the moment you entered and sat near the counter, a lot of those men were giving you curious and dirty glances.

But you had to focus on the task. While ordering a drink you heard a loud explosion of roars and got curious about the source of them. Quickly you grabbed your glass and walked over to the crowd circled around the cage, some unconscious guy had been dragged out of.

“Gentlemen! All my years I haven’t seen anything like that! Will you really allow this man to get away with your money?!”

In the meantime when the announcer cheered the crowd, the guy who was still standing in the cage zeroed a whole glass of whiskey at one. Probably won’t be any advantage in the next fight, you thought.

“I’ll fight him!” Some drunk dude yelled next to you and stormed into the cage.

His posture was bigger than the other fighter which made you bet on him. The naked chest one wasn’t even looking at his opponent when the other had made his first move, punching and manhandling him to the fence. It wasn’t a fair action, but you supposed that nothing in this dirty place could be expected to be one. The situation changed completely in the next two seconds because the former champion kicked him off immediately, receiving another round of roars and applause from drunk men around you.

“The Wolverine, everyone!”

Bingo.

You’ve waited another hour or so and the bar slowly emptied, most of the fans of amateur fights and illegal betting already gone or sleeping drunk in the corners. But the man you’ve been looking for nowhere to be seen even though he left the cage some time ago.

“You lost, doll?” The rough hand came to the back of your neck and you felt that characteristic flow of emotions pass through you. A drunk idiot who just touched you had only one particular thing in mind and you didn’t like it. His head clouded by need of sticking his dick into something, in that case: you. “Need company? It would be such a shame for a beauty like you to get hurt. It’s not safe in the city by night, you know?” A dirty laugh left him, your skin feeling his hideous breath on your neck.

“Not interested.”

“Oh come on, doll, you can’t expect to sit here all alone and not make guys believe that you long for some funny time-“

You wanted to channel his thoughts on a completely different track which would give you time to get away from him, but before you could’ve done so, you felt how that guy was pulled away from you.

“She said she’s not interested, bub. Get the fuck out of here, will ya? Night over, look for some whore to stick your dick into.” Your savior’s voice was threatening, almost wanting that asshole to try something.

But even in his drunken state the guy knew better than that, evacuating from the place as fast as his wobbly legs allows him to.

“Thanks.” You whispered relieved how it all worked out without getting messy. Wolverine only checked your posture with indifference and then sat a few stools away.

Shit, Charles was right about one thing. That guy wasn’t the chatty type.

“Gimme one bear and gonna head out, Ted.”

“Some lucky girl waiting for you or what?” Bartender laughed, opening the bottle and setting it in front of the other man. He hasn’t received any answer though. Instead Wolverine lighten the cigar, looking at the small TV broadcasting news about the government conference. The same one that professor mentioned and the one which Magneto wanted to destroy. “Anything for you, sweetie?”

“I’ll pass.” Logan retreated his eyes to you once again, taking a puff of his cigar. His judging sight drilling into your head, but then returned to the news.

You really wanted to talk or touch him to discover why he’s been like this, but before you got a chance to do so, two men approached him from the back. Judging by their facial expression it screamed trouble.

Another day of the same fucking fate. Him walking in the bar, drinking some alcohol, knocking out some overconfident morons and then taking the money he gained by making this shit show entertaining. Logan wasn’t sure anymore why he even bothered with it. At first he wanted to understand his past: flashbacks of his memory which led him to a village in Canada. But for the last few weeks he got none of it. No information, no single clue which would make his mind clear about what the fuck had happened and who he truly was. The only good thing about him ending as a cage fighter was the owner not caring about him being mutant, even being overjoyed that Logan was being his an inexhaustible source of income from the illegal gambling.

After the last fight of the day he was exhausted from all the screaming and shouting. Intoxicated assholes weren’t his problem or at least not until some dickhead would’ve decided to mess with him or kick in the balls like the last jerk who was quickly pacified not so long ago.

Though the second he saw how some drunk perv tried his luck with the young girl near the counter, he only groaned deeply, heading to help her. A place like this wasn’t the right one for a night out especially if you’re a pretty, young and innocent looking girl who’s there all alone. He shouldn’t care, you’re not his problem, probably even wanting that sort of attention if you willingly chose to spend your night here, but sometimes his morals were taking over him.

After scaring the freak away and you thanking him, he really fought with himself not to talk to you. Who knows, maybe you would propose to pay him some way. Not in money, preferably being a good laid for the night. Fuck, he really hasn’t had sex in a long time now and honestly if a sweet little thing like you would be okay with it… But he didn’t ask. That way he would’ve ended up being just another asshole.

The cigar and beer that Ted opened for him had to be enough prize for being a decent guy.

“You owe me some money.” Logan felt the scent of a man who tapped his back. The same dumbass who was so eager to kick balls in the fight. His more sane friend tried to pull him out of the idea of messing with Wolverine, but with no success. Too fucking bad. “No one man takes punches like that without the mark to show for it. I know what you are.”

“Listen, bub, you lost your money, you keep this up, you gonna lose something else.” Preferably his dick but the arm or teeth would work well enough. For most people Logan was intimidating enough not to try anything after the first and at the same time last warning. But this man obviously had to be another level of idiot.

“Watch out!” You screamed not knowing that he could sense how that dickhead took a pocket knife from his pocket before you’ve even opened the mouth. It could be considered as a cute gesture, the way you cared and wanted to warn him. Really an innocent little thing you are.

In no time Logan pinned the asshole who attacked him to the near wall, his two claws out, the middle slowly coming out, the animal anger clearly seen on his face. It was quite a shock that the guy who faced him didn't shit his pants. Well, maybe not yet.

“Keep your horses, Wolvie.” Ted, said in a calm voice. Shit, Logan really craved to just cut that fool head off but he had a deal with the owner. No killing if he wanted to stay there and get his money. That’s why he slowly retracted his claws, nodding with murderous face at guy to get the fuck out of here before he would’ve changed his mind. His blood was still boiling in pure fury but instead of ripping this place apart, Logan took out another cigar and put it in his mouth, adjusting his jacket. “See you tomorrow?” Bartender asked, but knew the answer anyway.

“Whatever.” Logan murmured under his breath and stormed out of the bar without giving you any second thought.

You knew you shouldn’t have come here again. Scott texted you last night concerned why you haven’t reached out yet. Your only answer being that things got a bit complicated but you can handle this. Apparently only quick intervention of Storm and Jean made him sit his ass down and not storm here right away.

So here you were, sitting by the same counter and drinking some coke mixed with vodka, waiting for your mission to finally come in.

“You really are looking for troubles, princess, aren’t ya?” He gave you a look full of judgment and hesitation. But something else was hidden behind it. The way he smirked, tone of his voice… almost teasingly pleasing to hear.

“Maybe I am.” You smiled back, forcing yourself to hold his gaze.

“Yesterday you got lucky, sweetheart. Tonight you may not have enough of it.” No knight on a white horse would save you. Not Logan.

“I’ll take the risk.”

It only made him smirk once again, not believing how naive you were to think you can survive in such a place.

Seeing him getting ready, warming up in that cage shirtless… it made you feel things you didn’t think were possible in real life. In the mansion you haven’t had much choice in developing your social life. Most of the guys were students, younger than you and being afraid of Scott enough not to even approach you without a good reason: training or other school stuff. Of course your brother couldn’t fully control what you’ve been doing behind the closed doors. Fuck that was probably the reason why Storm gave you a vibrator for your last birthday to help yourself with your needs on your own. But here? With Logan’s naked sweaty chest and dogtags hanging on his neck. You squeezed your legs to get some friction because otherwise you were sure about going crazy. His hair made into little kitty ears weren’t helping your sanity either…

The night had been going on very identical to the previous one. Him making a pulp out of his opponents who were stupid enough to walk into the cage. His movements were almost hypnotizing. The internal animal while fighting just to be gone a second he had a break for a sip of whiskey. Your attention was less and less focused on your main task, but you had still in mind how he had vanished yesterday.

It was a freaking stupid idea. Probably one of the most foolish and ridiculous you ever had. So just in case you’ve sent the localization of your phone to Scott, texting him to start the engine.

“Is there any person who is brave enough to stand this beast? Face him and return the money to you? Or you gonna-“

“I will do it.” Your voice echoed through the room, firstly met with silence just to make the crowd laugh.

“You sure? This is no place for little ladies like you, pretty.” Announcer laughed, trying to disarm all the tension.

“I’ll take the risk.” You repeated the same words you previously used in little chat with Logan, already walking into the ring.

Shit, you were rather confident about your fighting skills, your training partner being Colosssus of all the people in the mansion who was a good two feet bigger than you… but you’ve never faced anyone with a healing factor. It definitely was a horrible idea.

“You go easy on her, we clear?” The man with a mic whispered to Logan’s ear but you heard it anyway. “Don’t need some dumb chick’s blood on this floor and these drunk fucks to get involved.” Logan only nodded, zeroing his drink and turning around to face him.

Your outfit definitely wasn’t helping your case in being more intimidating. Some washed out jeans and black top showing your thin arms. As if this man would’ve been even intimidated by you in the first place after rescuing you yesterday.

“Listen princess, maybe it’s not about others, huh? Maybe it’s about lack of survival instincts. Or you’re just dumb. Nothing personal.” He hasn’t attacked yet, rather waiting for you to make a first move. “I’m not into playing with girls. Not like that.” Such a gentleman. “You still have time to-“

But you didn’t let him finish. Roundhouse kicked him back strong enough to make him move two steps backward. Your foot stung like hitting a fucking wall, but Logan just smiled. The grimace dark with a hint of surprise and determination. Like your move just made it all more interesting for him. His head still lowered, he run his tongue over his teeth and chuckled. You’ve tried to charge again, stroking blows and using your advantage of being more flexible and agile. Unfortunately with no success because he dodge them all. Just like he could have sensed your movement before the punch even hit. Quickly enough he had you in a headlock, standing behind you.

“You lost, princess.” He whispered, grinning proudly.

Before you were able to answer you felt that familiar wave of power flowing through you. His dogtags were pressed against the back of your neck which activated the part of mutation you couldn’t control.

Images from his life passed in front of your eyes. Him talking with some military officer, how he got his claws and all adamantium in his body. The following events: the farm and older marriage that helped him and got killed, discovering the truth about the whole intrigue he got involved into, the fight side by side with his brother and how he lost his memory. But more importantly, all his pain and anger. It all lasted only a couple of seconds but the intensity of it made you squirm, tears falling down your cheeks. Now you understood the reason why your foot hurt after kicking him. This guy had freaking metal instead of bones inside his body.

The connection broke with him letting you go, stepping back like he just got burned.

“I-I’m sorry…” You’ve coughed out, looking at him with glassy eyes. Pure fear on your face while apologizing for something you couldn’t even understand. But the only thing you’ve been met with was anger. The realization hit you instantly. You haven’t only relieved the memories from dogtags, but at the same time also linked with Logan himself. The emotions of a man whose mind had been invaded without any consent. You fucked up, because the man who stood in front of you wasn’t just a fighter anymore. It was so much more.

The dark expression of a monster who’s been set free off the leash gave you enough reason to genuinely believe you not gonna get out of it alive.

Logan’s head was on fire. Burning and stinging like he just got put a red metal inside of it. He felt like a part of his brain was cut out and squeezed into a really tight spot. For a few seconds his mind wasn’t his own.

He didn’t give a fuck if you were a woman anymore.

“Who the fuck are you?” His voice was a mere whisper. Warning of what to come clear. The next moment he pinned you down to the floor, knee securing that you won’t be able to move and his big hand on your neck suffocating you. If it was up to him, he would’ve ripped the truth out of you right there and then. But unfortunately he couldn’t. You two still had an audience. “That’s what gonna happen now, you hear me?” The small nod of your head was enough for him to continue. “You gonna pat out, leave the bar and wait for me outside. And you better pray for me to find you there, we clear?” He whispered through his teeth and you couldn’t have done anything else than to obey his orders. “Good bitch.”

All things that happened after this were just a blur for him. How the guy cheered the crowd, you running out, him grabbing his bag and storming out of the place accompanied by the yells for him to come back. It didn’t matter, he didn’t give a single fuck. He will never come back here anyway. Not after what you’ve done.

“At least you’re obedient or scared enough to listen orders. Get in the fucking car.” You were dragged to the truck. Logan opened the door for you to get in but you doubted it was an act of politeness. Probably he would’ve thrown you in if you would’ve fought him. After making sure you won’t try anything, he walked over and started the car.

“Where are we going?” You’ve asked after some time in a way of complete silence.

“Not your fucking problem.” It was his. He couldn’t stay there, not after what happened in the cage. Logan should’ve left a long time ago but your little show was the last push he needed. Now his only purpose being to get the hell out of this area as far as possible and press you enough to start talking. “What the hell was that, hm?”

“What was what? I don’t know-“

“Stop with the bullshit now, princess, or I’m gonna make you.” Logan reached for the glove box to get his cigar but the movement was so sudden that you squirmed away. He gave you a glance and saw the fear in your pale face. Traces of tears still visible on the red cheeks from the cold as you’d waited for him. Fuck, maybe he was too harsh with you. You were still young and innocent, clearly not used to the angry and dark light of man who was yelling at you. “Listen, bub, you damn well know what I’m talking about. You’ve been inside of my head. How?” His tone more gentle but still demanding.

“I don’t know…”

“You don’t know or you don’t care?” He lightened the cigar. “Who are you?”

“I’m Y/n.” You answered, less scared now he’d changed the tone. “I’m like you.”

“Trust me, princess, you are nothing like me.”

“You’re a mutant.” He gave you a quick side look but stayed silent. “The claws you’ve scared that guy with… the way you’ve won all your fights. When they come out… does it hurt?”

“Every time.”

“I’m a mutant too.”

“And you can what? Fuck with people brains without asking?” Logan was still pissed but tried to somehow stay civil not to scare you again. Seeing how you shivered something in him broke a bit. Damn he ordered you to wait for him in the freezing cold temperature with no coat… He put the heating on. “Put your hands on the heater.” He tried to move them for you, but you once again retreated. “I’m not gonna hurt you, princess.”

Not anymore. Not when he calmed down a bit. After a while when you felt warmth spread through, you decided to get back to your conversation.

“I’m an empath. Can feel people's emotions by touching them. Sometimes influence them if I’m willing to.” Or at least that what you’ve already known you could do and more importantly, how.

“So what, you can say when someone’s happy?”

“More or less. Can say and feel it. Mirror the exact amount of it. Happiness, anger… pain.” It got you curious what he had said about the claws… living in constant pain…

Logan didn’t say anything back so you’ve stayed in silence again.

“The Wolverine… you’ve chosen it.” You looked at his dogtags but he quickly hid them under his shirt. Then he realized how it wasn’t even a question.

“How do you know?” Logan edged again. He couldn’t recall the exact situation himself, only shreds of it in his nightmares, so how the fuck would you know.

“I-I…”

“You what, princes?” The grip on a wheel tightened.

“I’ve seen it… the moment you’ve asked to make them.”

“What?” The car stopped immediately, he facing you as if he had misheard you.

“Sometimes I can see the fragments of people’s past connected with objects… When we were close, I-“

“Have you seen anything else? Before it all happened?”

“No…”

“Are you fucking sure?” Months of searching, praying for any sort of clue just to find nothing. And now he discovered that the one person who could bring it all together was sitting in his car. He couldn’t let it go. Couldn’t let you go.

“I swear, Logan!” You cried, tired of his questioning.

“How do you know my name?”

“I know a person who knows you. Who can help you.” Well Charles told you that this guy wasn’t very fond of him, but since Logan lost his memory then it was no harm to try.

“How?” He was getting frustrated by how this was the only word he has been repeating since the beginning of it all.

“He’s the principal of the school I’ve attended.”

“A school?”

“Place for people like us. Mutants. He’s a telepath and one of the smartest people I know. If anyone will be able to help you, it’s gonna be him. But you need to get with me there to let him try.”

Logan was considering his options. It could easily be a trap. Not the first one he had stepped in. But your heartbeat and how genuine you’ve sounded… he doubted you were trying to fool him.

“I’ve seen you checking me out today.” The sudden change of topic got you off guard. But he had to revert his mind to something else. Destress. And the fact he was sitting in one car with an innocent little thing like you who had been wet just because of his naked torso hours ago? He won’t give up his luck. “Never seen a man’s chest before, sweetheart?” His eyes were dark again, this time not because of rage but desire. “You had been clenching your goddamn legs like you could’ve come just by the sight of it.”

He was able to smell you. The scent of your arousal hidden under these jeans of yours. He could bet that your panties had a wet patch on them. His hand moved to your thigh, thumb caressing small circles inside of it.

“It’s okay, princess, I don’t blame you. A sweet innocent thing like you craves to be taken care of, is it right?”

“L-Logan-“ Your quiet moan only proved him right.

“Shh, it’s alright, darlin’ let me do it. Let me take care of you.”

His skilled fingers opened your zipper and helped you get out of your pants, just to trail the pad of them on the wet spot.

“Fuck, princess you’re soaking. Can I take them off?” Logan asked but your nod made him chuckle. “Words, Y/n.”

“Y-yes.”

He quickly got to work, showing your panties down and throwing them somewhere in the back of the car. When he brought his fingers back on your cunt, teasing your clit, you tried to close your legs but his big hands stopped you.

“None of that, doll. Keep them nice and open for me like a good girl.” He rubbed tight slow circles around it which made you squirm and close your eyes. “That’s it, relax for me, baby.” Next second his fingers found their way into his mouth and helped smiled teasingly. “So sweet. Best I’ve ever tasted.” And without any warning he put one of it in your cunt, making you scream. “So fucking tight. Can’t even take one. You’re a virgin, princess?”

You tried to move your head, too shy to even look at him, but his other hand cupped your jaw, forcing you to face him.

“Eyes on me and answer, Y/n.”

“Y-yes.”

“An innocent little girl you are. Saving yourself for me.” Another finger joined the first one, moving deep in and out of you, stretching your walls so you would be able to take him. Him being knuckle deep made you drool, eyes rolled to the back of your head, trembling because of too much pleasure. But then started an attack on your clit with his thumb and you were completely gone.

“Logan!” You screamed, overstimulated already. “Too much!”

A smug smirk tugs at the corner of his lips, eyes half-hooded. "Two fingers is too much?" he says, almost sounding surprised. "Come on, doll, be a big girl. You could fight me but can’t take two fucking fingers?” He mocked you.

You're gasping for air, chest heaving. His thick fingers pump in and out of you, pussy frothing all over them.

"T-They're so big," you whine.

Hearing your raspy, lewd voice causes his cock to throb. He chuckles, kissing your neck, inhaling your scent. Shit, Logan was so sure that the second he will bury his dick in you, he will never get over you. Never let you go.

"You know what I think? I think you can handle one more. Just to get you starched and nicely prepared for my dick, darlin’.”

The thought of not one, not two, but three of his huge fingers has your pussy clench uncontrollably. That weird feeling in your stomach forming, the one that you so well know from all the lonely nights when you had your own hand deep in your panties. The second he forced the third one made you cum harder than ever before. You shudder, biting down on your lip as you feel the wetness all around your legs and Logan’s hand. Fuck, something was definitely wrong, you only hoped that he didn't catch that. Yet the warm liquid is coating his wrist and upper arm, all the way to his elbow.

“Fuck, did you know you can make a little mess like this, love?” He says, gesturing with his head towards his arm. He pulls his fingers out and you groan audibly at the loss, your hold clenched around nothing. “Your virgin pussy already missing me like a cheap slut, Y/n.” Seeing your face all red and how shy you became, Logan opened his pants and loved them with his boxers, showing you his already fully hard length. He quickly brought you to sit on his laps, swinging your ass back and forth just to torture your puffy clit even more. “But it’s okay, princess. That’s what we want. I need you nice and wet, okay?”

“Logan…” You choked out because of his actions and he kissed your lips just to shut you up. No matter how much he loved your little cute whines, he needed you as aroused as possible to make you take his big size.

“Shit, I hope I'm the first one who kissed you too. Too sweet and innocent to share.” His lips left the trail of kisses down your neck, sucking and biting. Wanting to mark you any way possible.

“Shit, Logan, please…” You moaned, your mind fully clouded with need by this point.

He took off your shirt, unhooking your bra and fuck him if it wasn’t the best sight he could’ve imagined. Big breasts that were perfect for his huge hands to play with as he wished. The vision of you bouncing on his dick with them in front of his face gonna be the image of what he will jerk off every time from now on.

“You’re gorgeous, love. Can’t get enough of you.” His skilled tongue sucked and licked your nipple while one of his hands paid attention to the other one, which made you arch your back.

You weren't sure anymore if you wanted him to stop or get closer.

“You ready, princess?”

Logan asked and it got you back to your right mind. You were naked in the car of a guy who you were supposed to take to the mansion as your mission. A man you’ve known for not even two freaking days and Scott could be here in any second.

“Logan, wait!” He looked at you confused. Worried that he had done something wrong. “My brother gonna be furious-“

It only made him laugh. You are a damn innocent one truly.

“I don’t fucking care.”

And with that he lowered you slowly on his cock, your scream echoed all over the truck. You have no control of how vocal you became, pain mixing with the pleasure. The thought of how much effort he put into preparing you for it… you considered yourself lucky for him being so thoughtful.

“It’s okay, princess, I got you. You are doing a good job. Such a good pussy for me. I got you, Y/n.”

Logan gave you some time to adjust to his size, knowing that for most of his partners it was a lot to take, let alone for you.

“Y-you can move.” You whimpered, putting your head on his shoulder.

“You sure, darlin’?” Your nod was the last sign of consent he needed to move you up and down his length. He was doing all the work, gripping your ass but still he left some sort of control for you to take over in case of feeling any sort of discomfort. But fast enough your body forgot about the pain of sudden intrusion, instead sinking in the spiral of pure pleasure and ecstasy. You being a moaning mess, squeezing him as a vice. “Fuck, you’re so tight. Never letting off this cunt ever again. Shit!” He groaned when you clenched uncontrollably.

When you got more confident and started moving at your own pace, his hands move to your breast again, playing with them and paying attention as being hypnotized by them. His face deepened between them, earning you another low groan murmur.

You two were so focused on your pleasure that you didn't realize when the weather outside of the car changed. Instead of a clear sky, there was a little snow storm. Just the loud sound of falling tree on the mask got you out of your trans.

“Fuck!” You screamed, frightened of what happened.

And the moment you turned back to see what was wrong, your heart sank. Not so far from the car two people were standing and looking at the whole scene. As one of them started walking closer to your door, you quickly got off Logan’s member, looking for your underwear but it was nowhere to be found. You opted for putting on your jeans and when you’ve desperately searched for your top, the leather jacket was handed over.

“Cover yourself, princess.” Logan’s tone has been definitely too calm considering how cooked you were.

“Scott gonna kill us.” Though you weren’t sure who first, you because of loosing your virginity the second you got off his radar with a guy who you’ve meant to recruit, or Logan for fucking his little sister.

“Who’s Scott?” A confusion in his voice could be cute if not for your executioner being just two steps from the door.

“He’s my-“ But then the door opened and you just sighed, pointing at Scott. “Him. Logan, this is my brother Scott.” You turned to face your sibling, forcing yourself to smile innocently. “Hi Scotty, how nice of you-“

“Out. Of. The fucking car. Now.” He ordered you, pure fury in his eyes, his voice dangerously heavy. “And you asshole… you better pray that Professor gets you before I will.”

Well, this definitely will complicate the atmosphere in the team in the future…

▏A/n: Okay, so this specific mutation and character's background (as Scott being her older brother) gonna be also part of the bigger fic that I'm currently working on. I don't know yet if this shot will be a part of their story (Logan and that oc) so that's why I'm posting it here now. Still I would be grateful if you guys wouldn't use that characters specifics in your stories <3

▏Also I just adore the thought of Scott being the protective older brother and it being the reason why his and Logan's relations are so tensed later.

▏If you wanna join my Logan's fics taglist check this post.

▏Hope you enjoyed it as much as I did! Sof

@california-boys-and-sun @r-oseie

#logan howlett #james logan howlett #logan howlet x reader #logan howlett x you #wolverine #wolverine x reader #wolverine x you #x men #xmen wolverine #scott summers #cyclops

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concreteangel92 · 1 year ago

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Be Careful What You Wish For

Noah Sebastian x female reader

18+

Warnings: Cum play, mentions of spanking, dom/sub relationship, slight humiliation kink and degradation kink (not too heavy) male masturbation, just Noah being a typical brat tamer

So this is kinda filthy even for me ahaha but it’s not massively detailed as it’s a head canon styled piece but I am working on proper detailed works as we speak so hopefully I will get those out soon.

This actually started as an idea from the other fic I’m writing but it didn’t fit into that scene properly so I decided to make it a separate piece so the thought wasn’t wasted haha and fyi the story I’m currently writing has definitely been inspired by the new tour content, that’s absolutely feeding me right now 🥵

Masterlist

•You’ve been playing up all day and winding Noah up in front of people when he’s been working

•Just genuinely being a brat because you found it funny that day

•That’s fine but Noah would 100% punish you for it when you’re alone

•You’d be face down on the counter, underwear round your ankles while counting each spank he delivers

•But what’s one more dig?

•”That the best punishment you got? I’m getting bored of it now”

•Those spanks would instantly stop

•”Is that so?”

•Oh yeah, he’s pissed now

•You’d feel Noah’s grip on your hip tighten and hear the sounds of his trousers hitting the ground

•”Spread your legs”

•Noah would have a deeper growl in his voice, clearly not impressed with your attitude, but that’s ok, he’s happy to take it up a notch just teach you a lesson

•You’d feel his fingers scissor you open with a dark chuckle “bored are we? Do you want to tell that to your dripping cunt”

•That would most definitely pull a low moan from you, now Noah loves dirty talk, but to be that vulgar is very rare, even for him

•You could feel movement behind you and hear the sounds of him groaning and skin slapping on skin

•”So my punishments aren’t good enough eh?…” You could hear his words get caught in his throat, you knew he was touching himself behind you, his other hand now not leaving your hip

•”Well lucky for you…shit….I’ve got the perfect punishment for your cocky little attitude”

•You’d keep your head on the counter, pussy aching to be touched but you know that’s not going to happen any time soon

•“Did I forget to mention….that the guys will be here…any….any minute for the afternoon?”

•Noah hadn’t mentioned that they were all coming round for a gaming afternoon, you suddenly felt a sense of fear at what he had planned

•Noah’s groans became louder as he sped up his pace, you knew he wasn’t going to last much longer

•”fuck..I’m gonna cum”

•You’d feel him release onto your heated core, Noah would quickly bring your underwear back up and press the material into your folds, making sure not to let any of his juices slip out down your thighs

•You’re eyes would go wide, a choked moan escaping your lips as you now knew what his punishment was, it felt so wrong and dirty but fuck me were you turned on

•You’d hear Noah fix his clothes and then he’d grab you by your throat, bringing your back onto his chest so he could talk into your ear

•”let’s see how cocky you are walking round with my cum in your pants, and don’t think you can run away and hide baby. You’re going to sit with us until I say otherwise, is that clear?”

•”I’m in a dress, what if it…slips out?”

•You’d receive a hard smack to your ass and then Noah turned you around so he could stare down at you

•”You should have thought about that before you decided to be a brat and telling me that my punishments are boring”

•Noah grips your chin and gives you a hard kiss

•”Be careful what you wish for baby”

•That’s the moment you’d both hear keys in the door and the guys walking in with pizza boxes, Noah pulling your dress back into place and stepping away from you

•You’d do your best to walk normally and act all innocent when everyone started chatting, trying to sit without anything ‘leaking’

•Your cheeks would have a permanent blush for the afternoon

•All the while, that cocky smirk never left Noah’s lips as he stalked your every move

#noah sebastian #bad omens #bad omens band #bad omens cult #noah sebastian davis #dom noah #noah sebastian fic #noah sebastian x reader #noah sebastian fanfiction #noah sebastian imagine #noah bad omens

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writingsbytee · 7 months ago

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HIDDEN PT. 2

TERRY RICHMOND x BLACK FEM READER

WARNINGS / TRIGGERS: SFW; minors do not interact; mentions of domestic violence; self-hate; angst; Terry is hard to read in the beginning.

SUMMARY: You’ve been working at Terry’s club for about a week now and you’re finally getting the hang of things. There might be a little jealous Terry in here if you squint. This “chapter” might be dialogue heavy. No Smut (yet!)

TROPES: grumpy x sunshine ; “touch her and die”; slow burn;

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Okaaay!! Part 2 is now available!! I hope you guys enjoy it. I’m really trying to work on my dialogue skills and some world building so bare with me. The SMUT will come soon, I just want you guys to get to know my version of Terry and Daphne.

WORD COUNT: 2.4K

PREVIOUSLY ON HIDDEN: 1

DAPHNE

“Girl! I see why you never left this job! The tips alone are enough to cover rent this month,” I said looking at the wad I already had in my mini apron.

Lexi nodded, “See, what did I say? You won’t have to go back to the hospital for a while.” I contemplated the idea, sure the break from the physically, mentally, and emotionally draining job is nice. But, helping people, caring for them, that’s my passion. I’ll go back when I’m ready. As I wait for Lexi to make the next round of drinks for the police commissioner’s table, I turn and take in my surroundings.

The club is so unique. With a sunken lounge area and the circular light fixtures it almost has a 60s vibe. But with the seductive lighting and R&B playing it feels like a jazz club. Lexi slides the finished tray of drinks my way and I head towards the commissioner’s table.

“Our favorite girl is back!” one of them shouted. They were all very close to being drunk, the drinks in my hand should do the job.

“That’s me!” I said with my million dollar smile. I could already tell what kind of men I was dealing with, pretty boys who never heard the word ‘no’. I place all their drinks down and ask them if there’s anything else I can get them.

“Aww c’mon leaving so soon? Stay and chat with us for a little while,” one of the men said. I huffed out a fake laugh, “I wish, but I’ve got to finish up my training”. They all boo’d in protest, but I just shrugged my shoulders and backed away. Breathing a sigh of relief I make my way back towards Lexi.

“Ouu girl, they like you,” she said laughing at me,

I rolled my eyes, “I don’t wanna hear shit when the car is gassed up and the fridge is full. If they keep tipping me like this they can like me all they want,” i said cleaning off the counter. The lights started to dim as someone walked on stage. Out of my periferie I see Terry’s office door open.

“Oop there go your man,” Lexi whispers in my direction. I huff out an annoyed breath, “Stop calling him that! What if someone hears you!” I whisper-shout, throwing my rag at her. Okay, so I might've developed a teeny-tiny crush on Terry. I don’t know how anyone can look at that man and not get swept up in his beauty. I keep it professional obviously, and it’s not even like he notices. Terry’s barely said two words to me since I started here. I sneak a peek at Terry over my shoulder and I feel my canine sink into my lower lip as I take in his attire.

Dressed in a simple black long sleeve and matching black cargos and timberland boots. With the gold mini cuban link chain and glasses to top the look off, he’s any woman’s wet dream.

“Damn, Daphne could you be any more obvious?” Lexi asked, laughing at me.

“Oh, shut up! Look at him, he’s too fine for his own good” I whisper, turning back toward my sister. I feel like a high school girl with a crush. I need to get a grip, fast. I grabbed the ice bucket, heading to the back to fill it up. I need to put some distance between myself and the green-eyed giant. I’ve only been working here about a week and I feel like I’m finally getting a hang of things. I bring the ice out and make my way over to my side of the bar.

Eli, the police commissioner’s son, has become one of my regulars. After his dad leaves Eli usually stays to hit on whoever is within earshot. Tonight it looks like that’s me, “There she is!” he shouted, eyes low in his liquor induced haze.

“Someone needs to get cut off I see,” I say, chuckling at Eli’s dopey grin. He groans, “Aww c’mon baaaby. Don’t b-be like that.” Eli reaches for my hand to grab my attention. Before he could open his mouth, the deep, sexy voice of my boss cuts him off.

“Eli quit harassing my staff before I cut you off,” Terry says, sliding into the seat next to Eli.

“Don’t worry ‘bout it T-man! It’s allllll good,” Eli said, his words starting to blend together.

“Annnd, you’re cut off. Eli give me your phone so I can get you an Uber,”I say, making grabby hands at Eli. He smirks peering over at Terry who looks like he’d rather be anywhere but here. “See, told you she wanted me,” he said, nudging his elbow into Terry’s ribs. I roll my eyes not wanting to satisfy him with a response. Eli’s cute, don't get me wrong, but I’m just not interested.

“Actually someone’s coming to relieve you Daphne, I need you in the back,” Terry says leaning up on the counter. My eyes widened as I looked over at Terry. He just smirks and nods his head toward the door marked ‘employees only’. I nod before wiping my hands off on my pants and head towards that door. I glance over my shoulder to see Terry whisper something in Eli’s ear before he makes his way toward me.

“Ready for your first assignment?” Terry asks as he makes his way to me.

A dry chuckle leaves my mouth, “Will it be worse than that?” I ask, pointing my thumb in Eli’s direction.

Terry’s shoulders shake with quiet laughter, “I hope not, here, c’mon they’re right through here”

I knew Terry was serious about using my medical side to help him out, I just didn’t think it’d be so soon. My mind blanks as I try to shift my focus to that of a 3 year trauma/ICU nurse. Not knowing what I’m walking into I take off my rings and bracelets as we enter the door. Terry leads me down what appears to be basement stairs and then leads me to another door. Before we go in he turns to me standing shoulder-width apart with his hands crossed in his front (REFERENCE).

s it just me or did it get ten degrees hotter in here?

“This kind of goes without saying but, you don’t say anything about what goes on behind this door,” Terry said.

With a nod of my head I say, “Of course not, now let’s see what I’ve gotten myself into yea?”

TERRY

“Gunshot wounds!? Terry, what do you expect me to do with this?!” Daphne asked, examining the semi-conscious man laying on the table. I watched carefully as she threw her locs up in a messy bun and went to work on her “patient”.

“They’re just flesh wounds, mostly just need patching up. You can do that right sweetheart?” I ask leaning back against the door. She rolls her eyes and mumbles out a ‘yeah’. That eye rolling shit is really starting to get on my nerves with how much it turns me on.

“What kind of supplies do you have?” She asks looking over at me.

I move to a storage closet on my right and open the door for her, “In here is everything you should need.” I grab a cart containing multiple drawers with the supplies she might need (reference). Once I wheel it over to her she pauses and looks at the cart then me.

“This is a hospital grade crash cart,” Daphne said, raising a brow at me. Damn, she’s pretty when she does that too.

I nod slowly, “Yes, yes it is. I figured how can I ask you to do a job without the proper equipment.”

She lets out a disbelieving chuckle, “How’d you get all this? And can you get it restocked when I’m done with him?”

“Well I can’t really tell you how I got everything, let’s just say everything has its price. I’ll have it restocked before you have to do this again”, I say.

Daphne just nods and takes a deep breath before heading to the sink, “Well, I’m going to need an extra hand in here. Do you have time or can you send someone else in here?”

“I’ll stay,” I reply with a shrug. She flashes me a small smile before instructing me to wash my hands in the sink. Once I finish I saddle up beside her and wait for instructions. Daphne hands me a pair of gloves instructing me to put them on.

“Do you have any medical training?”Daphne asks as she puts a stethoscope to Paul’s (gunshot victim) chest.

“Basic CPR and some shit I had to do in the field,” I say checking Paul’s heart rate

“What branch?”

“Who said I was military?” I ask, smirking at her.

“Terry, be serious, look at how you stand, how you always sit facing the door, and how you talk. Let’s just say it wasn’t that hard for me to tell. Hand me that syringe that says ‘Morphine’ please,” she smiled at me sweetly, pointing at the aforementioned syringe.

I feel my smirk widen against my will, “You’ve been watching me?” I ask, passing her the syringe.

She rolls her eyes yet again, “Oh don’t flatter yourself. I spent over a decade in healthcare. 25% of those people are from military backgrounds.”

“So who was it? Mom or Dad?” I ask, holding pressure on Paul’s wound while she places an IV.

“Huh?”, she asks, not looking up from her task. I can admire the way her nose scrunches and she bites her lip as she works through her task.

“Who was in the military? Your mom or your Dad?” I ask again.

Daph lets out a small giggle, “What gave it away?”

I clear my throat and her eyes meet mine. I move my index finger back and forth pointing at me then her, “Same recognizes same, sweetheart.” She huffs out another small laugh before focusing back in. I’m thinking of one thing and one thing only as we work in comfortable silence, patching Paul up. I need to make her laugh again.

“My mom, she was in the Navy. She was the best,”I say reaching for my locket that had her picture in it.

Terry nods before looking at me, “I’m sure she was sweetheart. I’m sorry you lost her so soon”. He’s got the prettiest eyes. They’re so expressive I feel like he’s saying more to me with just a look than he ever could with words.

2.5 HOURS LATER

DAPHNE

When Terry and I exit the basement his club is empty. “That was good work in there Daph,” Terry said, eyeing me appreciatively.

“Well it was a simple plug and patch like you said, you probably could’ve done it,” I say, rubbing my hand against the back of my neck.

Terry takes a step toward me, “You sore?”

“Yeah a tiny bit, it’s been a while since I had to do that. I’ll be fine,” I say, straightening my spine and shifting my hips from side to side.

“Here let me,” Terry moved behind me, placing his hands at the base of my neck. My spine straightened like a stick was shoved straight up my ass. He starts to knead the stiff muscles in my neck and I feel my shoulders start to slump. He continues to knead and massage the back of my neck. I don’t even notice that I’m leaning back against him.

“Mmm that feels nice,” I say, leaning my hand to the side. He’s so close I can feel his exhale against my neck, I know he can see the goosebumps.

“Yeah?” he says. I don’t know if I’m imagining it or not but it feels like his lips brush my neck. Before I can say anything else, there’s a knock on the door. I can feel Terry tense up behind me, like somebody poured a bucket of ice water down his back.

“Go to the back, get your stuff, and leave,” Terry said, taking a step back from me like I burned him. My mind was reeling, I just silently nodded and turned to make my way back to the locker room. Who was at the door that made him shift his whole persona? I’m putting all my shit in my tote back when I hear my phone ring from somewhere inside it. Once I find it I tap the green button putting the phone up to my ear.

“Hey Lex, I’m about to leave now,” I say, slinging my bag over my shoulder.

“Perfect, I got a ride from Princess. I put my keys in your coat pocket so you wouldn’t have to Uber by yourself this late,” my oh so considerate sister says.

“You’re too good to me. Dinner on me tomorrow, “ I say, finding the keys she mentioned. Lexi and I yap for a few minutes before we say our goodbyes. Leaving the locker room I bump right into Terry.

“Oh! Sorry didn’t see you there,” I hate how awkward and strained my voice sounds. Terry’s eyes are unreadable as he looks through me.

“Time to go, I’ll walk you out,” he said then abruptly turned and started down the hallway.

“What the fuck?” I mumble to myself. I know we aren’t best friends or anything, but I thought that Terry and I were at least breaking down that wall ‘boss/ employee’ relationship between us. I thought we could at least have some sort of civility toward one another. I follow him out towards the main floor of the club and make my way towards the door. There’s a group of men sitting in the center of the club, they all look hella shady. I pick up my pace a little bit so I can get the hell out of there.

“Daphne?,” I hear as I walk past the table. I look up toward the voice and my blood runs cold. What the fuck is Rafa’s brother doing here?

AUTHOR'S NOTE: okay, okay. I know this one is short but the next one will be longer I promise. I kind of just wanted to focus on a little bit of character building because this is going to be a series. Let me know what you guys think!

TAGLIST:

@blackgurlnhermoods @dxddykenn @kianaleani @pinkkycherrish @shallipii @greatpandagladiator-blog @skyesthebomb @gg-trini @megamindsecretlair @melalsworld @nayaesworld @theereina @shallipii @mogul93 @onherereading @blyffe @earthchica @nahimjustfeelingit-writes @kimuzostar @pocketsizedpanther @kumkaniudaku @mymindisneverhere @ms-mosley-ifunastyyy @uzumaki-rebellion

DIVIDER: @cxrrodedcoffin

#rebel ridge fanfiction #terry richmond #terry richmond fanfiction #terry richmond smut #terry richmond x reader #terry richmond x black reader #terry richmond x black oc #black fem reader #black FMC

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redflagshipwriter · 1 year ago

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Hot Ghouls in your area 7

masterpost

Chapter 7

…Jason slowly put down the book and turned it cover up, shell-shocked from that interaction. He lifted his phone and took a photo. He sent it to Roy.

“What do you see?” He typed. Jason bit his lower lip and tried not to scowl while he waited for a response.

It wasn’t that Jason was unused to conflict. Jason was great at conflict. He won every conflict! (Almost.) But what the hell had this shit been? Why had that guy been so pissy about the book? What the hell was wrong with the book that Jason didn’t see?

“Gibberish?” Roy texted back a few minutes later. “It gives the impression of wonky Cyrillic to me. But it's got a terrible energy to it. The hell is that?”

Jason looked at the cover. To his eyes, there was a serif font declaring it Sense and Sensibility Universe D version 5.

“Thanks,” he sent, ignoring the question and then the barrage of heart emojis. Shit, okay.

That answered one question. But it didn't answer enough. What the fuck had that college kid been seeing that was so offensive?

‘And why'd he think we would meet again?’

Jason pushed deep, deep down any awareness that he hoped it was true. That had been weird enough that it would bother him forever if he didn’t get answers.

He sort of hated the idea of getting his nosy family involved, but they would ask different and in some ways, less annoying questions than other groups he could poll. They'd know not to lie to him, at least. So he sent the picture on to the family group chat with the same question and grimly finished his tea.

The elderly proprietor came out then and noticed that her other customer was gone. She looked confused for a moment, scanning the seat to see if his book bag was still there. She picked up the cash he'd left on the table and then started stacking dishes.

‘He’s a regular,’ Jason guessed, honing in on the opportunity to learn more. He flipped the book open but held the apparently offensive cover down towards the table, out of her line of sight. He needed to know what had gone so wrong. Jason wasn’t normally the kind of person that cute college kids had beef with.

He'd never been in this café before, his intuition had just told him to duck inside.

“I think he forgot something,” Jason offered casually, pretending to just look up from his book. “Ran out real quick in a panic.”

The lady let out a soft “Ahhh,” of comprehension. “Something for his afternoon class, perhaps,” she agreed, looking a little happier.

“Yeah, it looked like he was getting ready to settle in for a long study session and then he bolted,” Jason lied, watching her underneath his lashes. He had been paying a little more attention than he ought to when the guy came in. He was Jason’s type, aside from the thing where he’d hated Jason’s face for no apparent reason-

‘No, actually, everyone I’ve ever been into hated me on sight.’

Ouch. As Jason digested that embarrassing truth, the owner continued talking.

“He does that,” she agreed, apparently not thinking it was odd at all for them to talk about the habits of another customer. “Tuesdays and Thursdays. He's a sharp cookie, did you know that?” She continued, and oh, she had halfway adopted this college kid, huh? There was warmth and a hint of pride in her tone.

Jason valiantly swallowed the snort. “He looks familiar, but I don't think we have classes together,” he fished.

“Mm, he's doing some kind of math and engineering,” the lady helpfully supplied. She gave Jason her full attention as she stood up from the table. “And you?”

“Modern language and literature,” Jason said, and sort of wished it was true. He didn't really have the time. Did he? Spoiler was a full-time student, wasn't she? …Huh.

While he chewed that over, the lady had drifted a couple steps closer.

“...Those are two meaningfully different courses?”

“Modern language is learning additional languages, I'm doing Russian and Greek right now,” Jason lied easily. He was fluent in both already. “Literature is mostly classics, for my purposes. I'm focusing on Regency Lit.”

She looked very interested, but she detoured away to deposit the dirty dishes behind the counter. They kept up a light conversation about books as she wiped off the table and reset for the next customer.

When she left, he finally had the chance to check his messages. There was a full-on fight in the group chat. The last message was from Stephanie. She had tagged him and asked, “Is this an optical illusion??? Like that dress?”

Ah, fuck. Jason felt a rock settle in his stomach at the confirmation that something hinky was going on.

‘I can’t read this in public if it’s saying something I can’t control or even know.’

Fucking hell. Jason scrolled back up and checked. Damian listed the correct title. Dick saw what, ‘I thought was Greek at first.’ Stephanie might have been joking but she argued vigorously that it was pictographs that started with a bird. Drake had sent “You rediscovered Minoan Linear A? Cool.” and then not participated in any follow-up discussions. Duke had sent only a stream of confused and tearful emojis.

Cass had marked it read.

“Fair enough, I guess,” Jason muttered to himself. Resentfully he put the book back in his bag.

What had that guy seen? If he’d just seen something foreign but illegible he wouldn’t have gotten so pissy about it. And who the hell had he been, anyway? Why was he so special?

Well. That was something to do with his afternoon. Jason paid up his bill and gave Phyllis his well-wishes for her doctor’s appointment tomorrow on the way out. Phyllis was a good contact, he would definitely come back for more of her jasmine tea no matter how mad that guy got at him.

…Jason really needed a name.

And found…

He headed to Gotham University and used the student computers to look up departments and then hack into the registrar. Jason flipped through photos until he found his guy: Danny Fenton, 19, sophomore double-major in the Engineering department. Good grades, no notes on his account about academic dishonesty or conflict.

'Little weird to meet two Dannys in a 24 hour period.'

Jason searched the guy online and found…

He let his mouth drop open in disbelief at the batshit insane website design he had stumbled into. The Fenton family had a website, apparently, and they had maybe let a 7 year old design it in 2008. The colors… The lack of centering… The.. the neon choices.

His eyes watered. It took a while to fight down his aesthetic grief and actually start comprehending the text.

He had expected this to be like, an online family newsletter. And it was! The link he had followed detailed “Danno going to college in the big city!!!” The boy himself looked extremely resigned in the attached photo. Seriously, Jason had seen much less mortified mugshots. The thing was, that on the same page, alongside posts about other kids going college (Jazzypants!) and someone called Alicia recovering from “supergout!” with "her eight favorite toes remaining!!!", there was also a lot of mention of ghosts.

Like, a lot.

Jason scrolled in pained disbelief. There were photos that showed extremely weird and dismayed green people obviously flinching away from a camera. A beautiful green woman with her hair halfway over her face snarled through a flood of smoke under the title “Wishywish Ghostie Interviewed: Learn what drives her generous heart!” and an ugly robot motherfucker was seen fleeing under the caption, “Skalker indicates that spook is a GHOST SLUR!”

….Was it a shit post? Just one long shitpost? It had to be a joke site.

Well. No. Jason buried his face in his hands and came to terms with the horrible fact that not only were ghosts real, he was accidentally married to one and this bombastic midwestern family already knew about it. This was his best lead for getting that 'beyond death do you part' separation.

They had been blasting the existence of ghosts for all the world to read, and it hadn’t been news. The Justice League didn’t know about this whole society. The journalism done by– Jason lifted his head to check– Jack Fenton interviewing clearly very unwilling ghosts was the only primary source that he knew of.

He took a few deep breaths. He came to terms with grief. He decided to block his family from any further involvement in this shitshow, for what remained of his dignity. And he grimly noted down Jack Fenton’s email.

Jason cleared this history and closed down his tabs, feeling a decade older than he had when he had entered the library. He ignored the sultry ‘come talk to me’ eye contact that the student worker was shooting him from behind the counter as he slouched out.

He stopped for a moment on top of the stairs to watch campus move. He saw the theatre building and the modern language headquarters from his vantage point, along with about half of the student center. There was just a trickle of foot traffic between buildings along paved paths. A few people were hanging out on blankets in the grass. An old man in a suit was taking a phone call next to a crawling rose garden.

‘Maybe I should go to school.’

Well. After this shit was sorted out. Obviously he could not go to school before he got divorced. It would be torturous to hang out with cute boys his age and be committed to some hot dead mermaid who didn’t even wanna make out with him sloppy. Loser shit on absolutely every level, goddamn.

Jason shoved his hands in his pockets and jogged down the stairs. He kept an eye out for Danny, but had no luck.

Not that he cared. It was interesting that he had a lead: Danny clearly had some connection to ghosts, and he had been able to read…

‘Maybe he realized it was a ghost’s property and he thought I stole it?’ Jason realized in a stroke of inspiration. That made more sense. If he knew enough to recognize it as ghost language or whatever, then he might have felt affronted about Jason having it.

He went through his mental checklist to pick out what he did and didn’t know. Once he felt he had a hang on his priorities, he beelined to his own laptop in his favorite safehouse and started looking into the Fentons in more depth.

It was a great lead. It was suspiciously good, in fact, he thought as he found Jack Fenton’s online family newsletter again. What were the odds that he would run into Danny Fenton in a cafe that Jason had never even been in before? It had been a total fluke that he’d entered. He’d been walking past to a favorite place and then just had the urge to try the dark little family cafe.

‘…Ah, fuck’, Jason sighed. More ghost shit. It had to be. Something about Danny Fenton’s ghost shit had registered to him now that he’d been exposed to ghost central.

#red hot ghouls #dp x dc #dc x dp #dead on main

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moonlinos · 1 year ago

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Invisible string (pt. I)

♡ Pairing: Lee Minho × fem!reader / Hwang Hyunjin × fem!reader

♡ Synopsis: With your terrible history of boyfriends during high school, you swore off love and vowed to get through university without a relationship. Things are great: you’re in your junior year, in an uncomplicated arrangement with a friend with benefits, and living in a nice sharehouse with two amazing roommates. But things begin to change once you meet Lee Minho, a student in your new class who vows to change your perspective on love.

♡ Genre: A ‘lite version’ of a soulmate AU, fluff, eventual smut, light angst, pining, jealousy, strangers to friends to lovers, friends with benefits

♡ CW: Swearing, sexual themes and discussions, mentions of anxiety/panic attacks, alcohol consumption, mentions of smoking

♡ Word count: 16.4k

♡ A/N: This is a three-part story because I can’t shut up. The second part will be posted sometime next week, and I’ll link it here. I’ve been writing all my life and have written for maaaany fandoms, but being on Tumblr as an active reader of SKZ fics made me want to write for them. So, yeah, guess this is what I’m doing now.

part II →

You are woken up by Hyunjin shifting beside you on the bed. He groans, arm reaching to mess with your already closed curtains. You chuckle.

“You know, the curtains won’t close any more than that.”

“I keep telling you your bed is in a terrible position,” He grumbles as you turn to face him with a smile. “Who thought placing a bed right under a window would be a good idea? Mornings are fucking hell here.”

You shrug. “Well, it’s not my house so I didn’t exactly have a say in that matter.”

“I told you a million times I could help you move it.”

“And I told you a million times Mrs. Choi doesn’t like for us to mess with her furniture,” You explain, turning under the sheets so you could face him before bringing your fingers up to pinch his cheek. Hyunjin scrunches his nose. “Speaking of which, you need to leave. You know her rule: no—”

“No boyfriends spending more than two days at the house,” He interrupted you with an eye roll. “I’m not your boyfriend, though, so that rule shouldn’t apply.” He shrugs.

Hyunjin has been one of your best friends since you first met over two years ago. It was Hyunjin’s first college party and one of the many times your housemates had dragged you along on a night out. His friends had dared him to try and chat you up, arguing it would be hilarious to see him get turned down by an older girl. What they hadn’t expected, however, was for Hyunjin’s clumsy attempt at flirting to be so endearing to you; his pink cheeks and bowl-cut hair made him look like a helpless kid despite his height towering over you. Before you knew it, you had spent the entirety of the party talking to him about everything and anything, only stopping once your housemate Eunha emerged from inside the house to drag you home with her as she desperately tried to dodge a rather insistent guy’s advances. After that day, you and Hyunjin became almost inseparable.

You can’t quite pinpoint when you began hooking up. It was meaningless in the best sense of the word. It was simply something that had happened. All you can remember is that Jisung had recently bleached Hyunjin’s hair after yet another dare from his friend. It had started with cuddles, which turned to kisses, which turned to touches, until you eventually slept together for the first time sometime last year after an excruciatingly stressful exam period. It had never once gotten weird between the two of you; the line was always clear: you were just friends who hooked up due to convenience. Everybody had needs and stress and shit complicating their lives, and fucking your best friend was far more practical and safe than going out to look for a random hook-up whenever you needed it.

You find yourself smiling at Hyunjin once again. His now long black hair fell in his eyes as he stretched his arms over his head.

“Yes, you’re not my boyfriend, but how am I supposed to explain what we are to a little old lady?”

“Doesn’t she always say she’s super modern?” Hyunjin raises his eyebrows at you with a chuckle. “Maybe she’d like a situationship of her own and you’re depriving her of that by keeping this knowledge to yourself.”

You roll your eyes at his words, attempting to push him off your bed. “Why did you sleep here, anyway?”

Hyunjin sits up on the bed, a pout on his full lips. “I had a shitty date. I was sad and lonely. Glad to know you were paying attention to my story.”

“Hyune,” You sigh, ‘When you tell me said story while fucking me, can I really be blamed for not remembering anything?”

Hyunjin flicks your forehead lightly. “Yes, you can. At this point, it’s like our thing to vent about bad dates during sex,” He argues before getting up from your bed, finding his shirt, which had somehow been thrown over your study desk.

“You mean it’s your thing,” Correcting him, you get up as well, turning to fix up your sheets. “I don’t even go on dates and you know that. The only thing I vent to you about is how awful academic life is.”

Once you turned to face him again, Hyunjin was busy messily tying his hair. His brows promptly furrowed as he took in your words. “Remind me why you literally never leave the house again?”

“Just don’t want to get distracted. Getting my degree is more important than getting a boyfriend.” You lie with a shrug.

Your history with relationships was something you kept secret from everyone you met after high school. You feel embarrassed, as if it was all somehow your fault. After five failed relationships where you had been the one to be broken up with or cheated on, you began to accept that maybe the problem really was you. Maybe something about you makes men want to yell at and cheat on you. Perhaps you are just bound to be a distraction until they find someone better.

Which is why you don’t date.

Would anyone go through the hassle of reading a long, tedious book if they already knew about the bad ending?

Hyunjin rolls his eyes at your answer, crossing his arms over his chest. “Your degree isn’t going to keep you company when you’re eighty and alone.”

“Well, my degree isn’t going to wake up one day and suddenly decide to leave me either,” you refute, earning an annoyed groan from your friend as you walk past him to leave your room.

“You literally never have fun, though. All you do is go to class, work, and study. You should at least pick up a new hobby,” Hyunjin insists as he follows you, walking into the kitchen-living room area. “Go out more, stop avoiding college parties like the plague before it’s too late to experience the joys of watching your friend throw up on some random person’s couch.”

You make a face at the offers, grabbing your mug from the cupboard. “Why would I want to see that? Besides, I have hobbies.”

“I meant a social hobby. Sitting in your room watching fucking iceberg videos isn’t sociable,” He explains, and you let out an aggrieved gasp. Your iceberg videos were educational and entertaining, thank you very much. Behind you, your housemate’s bedroom door opens, and you turn to watch as she stumbles out of her room, looking half-awake. “Soojung, don’t you think she should get a new hobby?” Hyunjin addresses the blonde girl, who stares daggers at him.

“If I say yes, will you two stop speaking so loud?”

Hyunjin slams one hand on the kitchen counter, his other pointing a finger at you. “See, she said yes. You’re outnumbered, now you have to stop spending all your free time holed up inside your room.”

Soojung groans, stepping into the kitchen and shoving Hyunjin to the side. “He’s annoying, but he is kind of right,” she mumbles.

Truthfully, you did feel bad about having essentially wasted three years at university by actively avoiding parties and invitations any chance you got. The only parties you did attend, however, only served as an irritating reminder as to why you shouldn’t put yourself in those situations. Parties and bars only meant desperate college boys. Desperate for sex, for attention, for a potential relationship. For someone’s heart to break. You had met Hyunjin at a party, for fuck’s sake. Who knows just how south things between you two could’ve gone if he had become interested in you romantically?

But, as much as you hate to admit it, Hyunjin is right. Your life is essentially an endless loop of studying and working. You only socialize when your roommates are home, when your few friends come over, and when you and Hyunjin hook up. But you aren’t ready to step out of your comfortable bubble of avoidance, so you settle for the best thing you can think of.

As Hyunjin rummages through your fridge like he lived there and Soojung stirs her coffee blankly, you loudly set your mug down on the counter. “An elective course,” you announce.

The both of them turn to face you with the same puzzled expression.

“The fuck?” Hyunjin questions, and you roll your eyes.

“I’ll take an elective,” you explain matter-of-factly, “The university offers a lot of great courses in things I’m actually interested in. It’ll be a way for me to get out of the house without having to watch a friend of mine puke on a couch or whatever atrocity it is that you said.”

Hyunjin slams the fridge door closed, earning a scolding scream from Soojung, and walks over to where you’re standing. He pulls you into a tight embrace, and you can hear the smile in his voice as he says, “You’re such a fucking nerd, what the fuck, but I’m so glad your hermit life is coming to an end.”

The elective course you choose is Japanese. It’s a language you’ve always been interested in learning, and while you know the class is merely introductory, you figure it will be fun to learn some phrases and expressions. You might even find yourself wanting to learn more in the future, and you’ll undoubtedly be glad you took this class during university.

Even if that means having to endure Hyunjin calling you a weeb.

You are able to begin attending classes a week after signing up; the lessons lining up with your work schedule to a T. The professor explained that, since you had joined the course late, you would likely need some guidance with phrases and words the class had already been taught. You didn’t mind, actually feeling excited in the morning despite your boring routine classes since you knew you would be doing something new you enjoyed in the afternoon instead of simply killing time around your house until it was time for you to work.

You walk into your first class ten minutes late, mentally cursing Eunha for being so good at telling stories about her weirdly entertaining life that it made it physically difficult for you to drag yourself away from her. You mouth a brief apology to your professor before scanning the room and scurrying over to the only available seat.

You sit down in haste so as to not disrupt the class any further, swinging your bag over your chair and accidentally knocking over your seatmate’s water bottle all over his side of the desk. Luckily, the bottle lands on the soft surface of his notebook, barely making any noise. Unluckily, said bottle had been filled with coffee, staining his notes a faded brown color. You silently gasp, instinctively reaching out your hands to fruitlessly try and dry the pages that are now sticking to each other.

“I am so sorry, what the fuck,” you mutter under your breath as you continue to inspect his notebook frantically. “I’ll buy you a new notebook and another cup of coffee as soon as class ends, I promise,” You whisper to him, your eyes boring holes into the stained pages as you watch the bitter liquid slowly dissolve some of the black ink. At this point, you’re rambling out of nervousness, but you can’t seem to stop, adding, “Hell, I’m so angry at myself for what I did I’d bind you a new notebook and brew you some fresh coffee myself.”

You mentally berate yourself for your word vomit. It was just your luck that you would make someone hate your guts on the first day you attended a class.

After what feels like minutes of silence from him, you are prepared for the imminent burst of rage bound to come your way, the guy’s wrath more than likely stirring inside him as he sits beside you and watches as you foolishly shake the piece of paper, hoping it will miraculously return to its untainted state.

However, what you aren’t prepared for is the small burst of laughter that leaves your seatmate’s lips; it’s quiet, but you’re close enough to him to be able to hear it.

You furrow your brows, finally mustering the courage to look up at him for the first time.

“Did you…” You trail off. You feel a strange sensation inside your chest as your eyes meet his. It was something you had never felt before, a small burst of a fluttering that briskly washed over you before disappearing just as quickly. Like a pinwheel was placed inside of you and a strong wind had suddenly started blowing. You shake your head, returning to the matter at hand. You are probably just experiencing some anxiety due to what has happened, you argue mentally. “Did you just laugh at me?”

As you finally take him in properly, the guy before you looks as dazed as you felt just now, courtesy of your minor panic attack; his lips agape and his round eyes blinking while his dark pupils are fixed on you. You two remain that way for a few seconds in an impromptu staring contest that causes the peculiar feeling to bloom inside your chest once again.

When he finally speaks, his voice is soft. “You… offered to bind a notebook for a stranger,” His lips twitch into a grin. “It was a little funny.”

You open your mouth but promptly close it, unable to come up with an answer that wouldn’t make you appear like more of an idiot than you already do. You sigh. “Sorry,” you mumble, your voice low as well. “I say stupid shit when I’m nervous.”

He waves his hand dismissively. “It’s okay. I’m—”

“You two, on the back,” your professor calls out in a louder voice, however still keeping her calm demeanor. You and your seatmate turn to look at her. “I’m going to teach a few new phrases useful for traveling now. How about you two talk after class? This is actually quite perfect. Minho is one of my best students, so he could help you catch up to where we are.” She offers the two of you a small smile, and you feel your cheeks burn.

This class wasn’t mandatory, and you didn’t need it to get your degree. It is still a class, nonetheless. Ever since high school, you’ve always hated people who disrespect their professors by brazenly talking or sleeping during class.

“I’m sorry, professor,” You muttered. Beside you, your seatmate — Minho, as he was just called — scoots closer to you and whispers something you don’t understand under his breath. You look at him, confused. He chuckles, and you feel his breath on your cheek. It makes the odd fluttering return.

“Gomenasai,” He repeats more clearly, his voice louder, “It’s ‘I’m sorry’ in Japanese.” He offers you a smile, and you soak in just how good-looking he is. Ever since you first raised your head to look at him — when the pinwheel inside your chest rapidly spun and unexplainedly made you feel nervous — you knew he was a handsome guy, but his soft smile and calm eyes made him look even more annoyingly pretty.

Before you’re able to do it yourself, your professor speaks again and pulls you out of your trance.

“In this case, Sumimasen would be a bit more appropriate,” she corrects Minho, who clicks his tongue and mutters something under his breath. The woman chuckles at his reaction. “It’s okay. This is also something you can explain to Y/N after class.”

As the class went on, you couldn’t help but notice how Minho didn’t take any notes. Your mind latched onto how you ruined his notebook and how it was your fault that he couldn’t properly study during today’s class, so you couldn’t find the courage to offer him some paper so he could take notes.

After almost an hour of unrelenting guilt swallowing you up slowly, you place your hand on Minho’s shoulder as soon as the professor announces class is over after assigning the students a small written assignment.

“We could talk outside? If you want,” you offer him, feeling the now-familiar nervousness come back, making your mouth speak faster than your brain can even think to rationalize, “There’s a bench I really like outside this building. It’s a good spot. There’s a nice shade, and it’s secluded enough that people don’t bother me when I’m studying. Or googling how to bind a notebook.”

Minho lets out a brief chuckle. “Okay. I would love to talk on your favorite bench.”

You blink at him. “I don’t have a favorite bench.”

“Hm, it sure sounded like it. You listed some good attributes of that bench,” He argues, a grin etched onto his lips.

“I told you I say stupid shit when I’m nervous.”

He raises an eyebrow at your words. “You’re nervous?”

“Of course I am. I never bound a notebook before.”

Minho lets out a hearty laugh this time, his head thrown back and his eyes turning into crescent moons before he shakes his head. He picks his notebook off the table, showing you the crinkly light brown-tinted pages. “It’s dry now. I actually kind of like it, gave the pages a sort of vintage vibe. You don’t have to bind me a new notebook,” He reassures you, placing the small book into his bag. “As much as I would love to see how that would turn out.”

And just like that, your nervousness fades away. You smile at Minho, asking that he follow you over to your favorite bench.

The two of you talked for almost two hours. During that time, Minho helped you catch up with the vocabulary and phrases you had missed in class. When you asked him how he was able to know so much off the top of his head, his lips curled into a crooked grin as he sheepishly told you that he had been taking Japanese lessons since he was in high school. He explained that because he procrastinated signing up for an elective course, the advanced class was full by the time he got to it, so he decided to go for the introductory one instead. You chuckled and questioned why he would choose to spend his time on a course when he already knew everything being taught. He shrugged and explained that it was nice to have at least one class in which he didn’t have to try and that the fact that it made him feel smart also helped.

Not even your shift at work was able to make your conversation stop flowing, as Minho offered to walk with you to the coffee shop upon realizing it was near his apartment.

That was one of the many coincidences and things in common you found to have with each other that day.

It started with ordinary things like the fact that Minho had three cats back home just like you and how he had been collecting plushies since he was a child, while you had started your own collection as soon as you had access to money of your own. Or how your favorite authors were Jane Austen and Charlotte Brontë — Minho swore you would die if you saw the special edition books he had back at home.

Then, it became a bit more amusing as you found out that Minho had worked at a convenience store chain when he first finished high school, and it was the same one you worked at for your first job after starting university. And you both had worked there for exactly a year and two months before quitting. You then told him about how you ended up attending this university after your top three choices turned you down, and his choices were the same as yours. And just like you, he also got rejected by his top three options, which led him to attend the same university as you.

You two couldn’t hide your bewilderment, eyes widening and lips bursting into laughter as these linked facts kept spilling out during your conversation. It was strange, you thought, but in a comforting way. It was almost as if you two had been living weirdly similar lives, all while having no clue about the other’s existence.

The two of you approach the small coffee shop while talking about your degrees. You try your best not to bore Minho with your ‘existential crisis-inducing psychology talks,’ as Hyunjin always put it, and you mostly listen to him as he talks about programming. He tells you that his dream is to develop cozy games that people can jump into without much thought, simply to relax. He says he knows how stressful life is and that people sometimes need something they can mindlessly do to get their minds off of shit. You resonate with it more than you care to admit, as cozy idle games are one of your favorite things to do while locked inside your room.

“So I do these freelancing gigs to make money but I’m actually set to start my first quote-unquote real job in two weeks,” he beams as you two stop in front of the coffee shop. Minho’s eyes lit up the moment he started speaking about his degree, and although you didn’t understand most of the terms he used, it is always endearing to watch someone talk about something they’re so passionate about. “There’s this guy who’s graduating soon who recruited me and a friend for a project he’s working on, so it’s not technically a job and we’ll work in his living room. I’ll still get some money and the chance to actually develop something, though, so it’s better than nothing.”

You smile at him. “If you like programming as much as your words led me to believe, I’m sure it won’t even feel like a job.”

Minho’s ears turned a faint shade of pink, and he scratched his head. “Sorry, I talked your ear off about shit you don’t even understand.”

“I think everybody likes to hear people talk about things they like,” you assure him, “It was a good talk. I still can’t believe we have so many things in common. It was kind of funny how they kept coming up.”

Minho chuckles, bouncing on the heels of his feet. “Guess the universe is giving us signs that we should be friends.”

“It seems like it.”

That day, you work with a persistent smile engraved on your lips. You can’t remember the last time you felt so good about meeting someone new. Despite your awkward first encounter, you found that talking to Minho was as easy as talking to an old childhood friend. It felt refreshing. The last friend you made was Hyunjin — whom you were so grateful to now for pushing you out of your comfort zone — and after that, you had unknowingly closed yourself off.

Minho had managed to open up your mind to the idea of letting someone in almost comically fast. And you loved that.

It’s been a month since you’ve been attending Japanese classes, and your studying sessions with Minho — which always turned into long conversations on what now had really become your favorite bench — were a weekly appointment, much like having him walk with you to work twice a week.

Today, however, Minho stopped you with a hand on your shoulder as you made your way toward your usual spot. When he asked you if you would like to study at his favorite bakery today instead, his eyes rapidly blinking as he looked at you through his bangs which had grown to slightly cover his eyes since you met him, you just couldn’t say no. He stammered as he promised that the place was even closer than the one where you worked, so you wouldn’t be late for your shift.

You smiled at his apparent nervousness, finding it endearing. You knew all too well how stressed you felt when offering something new or initiating plans with a new friend, and Minho seemed to be the same.

“Good thing you made this offer today, on my day off,” you bumped shoulders with him. “It’s almost like you knew.”

You begin walking, and Minho gently pushes you to the side so that he’s the one walking on the edge of the side of the sidewalk. You shoot him a questioning look, and he blinks at you again.

“Sorry, force of habit,” he chuckles, “My mom taught me a guy shouldn’t let a girl walk on the street side. I know it’s old-fashioned and probably made me seem like an ancient guy who wouldn’t let his wife work or something. Sorry.”

You shake your head. “No, it’s kind of sweet. I never had anyone do that with me.”

You feel the pinwheel twirl inside your chest again.

The two of you approach a familiar building together. You furrow your eyebrows as you take in the floral curtains on the windows and the pretty font adorning the store sign of your favorite bakery. You think about how it would be nice if you two came here on another day. Maybe you could use that opportunity to finally introduce Minho to your other friends.

You only realize Minho has stopped walking when he calls out your name. When you turn around, he’s standing in front of the bakery with a smile.

“This is the place.” He points toward the white door with a nod as you return to where he’s standing.

No fucking way.

“This is your favorite bakery?” You ask, although it is a stupid question. Minho nods. You play with the strap of your bag. “Okay, this is starting to sound ridiculous, but I swear I’m not lying. This is my favorite bakery, too.”

Minho’s eyes widen at your words, and his lips curl into a smile again. “Shut the fuck up.”

“I will not,” You chuckle.

Minho opens the door and the two of you walk inside, the familiar smell of freshly brewed coffee and baked goods bringing back great memories you made in this place. You often come here with your two roommates; it’s close enough to both your house and university that you can skip out on taking the bus, the atmosphere is always relaxing and comforting, not to mention the delicious cakes they sell. You smile to yourself as you remember Eunha scuffing down far too many slices of their chocolate cake after a nasty breakup a couple of months ago, tears streaming down her face so violently that the poor little old man who owns the shop appeared to check up on her.

“Their lemon cake is my favorite.”

“The lemon cake is what made me—”

You and Minho speak concurrently, with you unable to even finish your sentence before you both freeze for a couple of seconds in front of the only small table available at the crowded shop.

He’s the first one to move, pulling out his chair a bit awkwardly. “We should…” He trails off before clearing his throat as you sit down before him. “Should really make a written list of things we weirdly have in common.”

“At this point, I think it’d be easier if we made one of what we don’t have in common.”

You two settle for the obvious choice of two pieces of lemon cake with a cup of coffee for him and a glass of cola for you. Minho almost looked offended when you informed him that you hate coffee, wondering out loud why you even worked at a coffee shop before ensuring he could change your mind with just the five amazing facts about coffee he thought about off the top of his head. You shrugged him off with a grin. You couldn’t deny the irony of being a barista and having to make endless cups of a drink you despised daily, but you were sure Minho could never change your mind about coffee.

You two talked about your improvement in Japanese in the last month until the waiter returned with your order. Minho insists you’re a natural and could be on his level in a couple of years if you tried, but you roll your eyes at his compliments. You’ve never been naturally good at anything. That wasn’t about to change now.

“You know,” Minho begins once the waiter steps away from your table, looking around the coffee shop. People slowly started to leave as it got later in the day; the place was now much quieter, and the atmosphere even more cozy. “I used to think I would meet somebody in a place like this.”

“Like, in a romantic sense?”

Minho hums, still looking out to his side. You notice his side profile is really pretty, and you have to hide your smile by sipping your drink.

When he returns his gaze to you, he’s the one smiling. “Yes, in a romantic sense. Like being destined to meet someone.”

“Look at you, a hopeless romantic,” You roll your eyes with a chuckle. You never thought of Minho as someone like that. He seemed rather methodical, always following a routine and too engrossed in his codes to be preoccupied with something like love.

Minho furrowed his brows. “Why the eye roll?”

“I just don’t believe in that stuff,” you shrug with a small smile, “Stuff like destiny, soulmates, love…” You trail off, taking your spoon and poking the slice of cake in front of you. “Love has the awful tendency of being bad.”

Of course, you once believed all those things. Doesn’t everybody? But love has shown you time and time again that those are things reserved only for some people. And, clearly, you are not one of them. So why believe in it?

“It’s the most amazing thing in life,” Minho’s voice almost startled you as you were so deeply entranced in your thoughts.

You don’t lift your head to answer him, instead drawing mindless shapes on the icing on top of your cake.

“What is?”

“Love,” He replies in a soft voice. When you finally look at him, you’re surprised to find Minho’s deep eyes already looking at you, a small smile adorning his lips. “Love is the most amazing thing in life.”

You freeze.

You tear your eyes away from him, gaze focusing on the plate in front of you again.

You were careful with your rules. No parties, no bars, no talking to your male co-workers unless absolutely necessary, and no male friends unless they were in a relationship or proved beyond a reasonable doubt to only be interested in you platonically — which was what Minho was. So, why did him bringing up love make you feel so nervous?

Under the table, you unwittingly bounce your leg. This was stupid. Minho has been your friend for a month now; you see each other twice a week, and you talk for hours, always so comfortable around each other in a way that is still so new to you. He has never flirted with you or treated you in any way that led you to believe that he wanted anything more than to be your friend. You will not let your foolish trauma ruin what was proving to be an amazing friendship. He was simply sharing his thoughts on a topic. That’s all love was: a conversation topic.

You force out a chuckle as you snap yourself out of your senseless panic and look up at Minho once more. “We can just agree to disagree?”

He’s quiet for a few seconds, something you can’t quite pinpoint swimming in his deep eyes as he looks at you. Instead of breaking the silence, he scoops up a piece of cake with his spoon and raises it like a glass. You shake your head with a giggle as you realize what he’s doing, toasting your spoons together at the center of the table before you both eat your spoonfuls of cake.

“You know,” He speaks as soon as he’s done eating, his eyes having never left yours. “Love can never be bad. I don’t think so, at least. It never makes anything worse. It can only ever make things better.”

You hum and shift in your seat, lowering your gaze toward the table. The truth is, you hate talking about love. That — coupled with your shame regarding your past relationships — is the reason why you never indulge in this type of conversation, even with your own mother. But years of swallowing down your thoughts and opinions whenever the subject was brought up only caused a buildup of emotions in your throat. So much so that you only realized you were talking once you were midway through a sentence.

“Love can make so many things worse,” you affirmed, your eyes following the polka-dot pattern on the tablecloth, “Losing someone is bad enough, but put love into that equation, and it just worsens tenfold.”

Minho nods. “By that logic, you can say that having someone by your side is always good, but if it’s someone you love, it makes it better tenfold, right?”

You let out a chuckle as you realize you two could go back and forth about that subject for ages.

But it felt good to finally speak out your feelings on the matter, so you continue, “Love can’t be that great if people can so easily fall out of it and for so many different but equally stupid reasons. You’re suddenly not attractive to them anymore, or you have different opinions, or they love picking fights but hate it when it’s the other way around…” You trail off, swallowing down a lump in your throat as you speak out of experience. But Minho didn’t need to know that. You lift your eyes. “Not to mention falling in love with a new person all while supposedly already being in love with someone.”

“That’s not genuine love,” Minho shakes his head with furrowed eyebrows, as if it was his first time hearing of such things happening. “Real love is unconditional and understanding. Real love makes the person you love beautiful simply because they’re them. Real love doesn’t allow you to hurt the person you love because it feels like you’re hurting yourself as well.” His expression softens, and his eyes lock onto yours. “And real love makes it so that you can only see the one you love. You can’t possibly fall in love with someone else if you’re truly already in love.”

You gnaw on your bottom lip, nodding slowly. You hate the fact that part of you is desperate to believe that what Minho said was true. And you hate it even more that an even bigger part has already dismissed every single word that left his lips.

Desperate to shift the subject from Reasons Why My Exes Left Me — which only leaves you feeling sad and pathetic — back to Love Is Amazing, you decide to try and lighten the mood.

“Okay, but then explain to me how love is so great when you can just have sex with anyone, and it feels the same either way?” You question him with a teasing grin on your face. Minho shakes his head with a smile and eats another bite of his cake. You continue, “Be it a stranger at a party you met ten minutes ago or the love of your life, sex will always be sex. Therefore, you’re wrong, mister Love-Makes-Everything-Better.”

Minho chuckles around his mug, eyes closing as he almost spits out his coffee. His eyes are like crescent moons when he looks at you again, clearly amused by your words. “Well, yeah, of course, sex will always feel good no matter who you’re doing it with. It’s sex, and sex feels good,” He shrugs dismissively. “But sex with love is different. You aren’t just fucking, just fulfilling your own desires selfishly. Love makes sex better because you feel good simply by making the person who’s so important to you feel good. It makes you want to melt into the other person and become one with them because close isn’t close enough when you’re in love.

“Touching them feels like a gift, like heaven. Tasting them feels like heaven. Hearing their voice in their most blissful state feels like heaven. The trust and connection you feel in that moment is heaven, and that’s only possible through love. You can have sex with anyone, but you can only make love to someone you love, and those are two different things. That’s how love makes sex better. Therefore, I’m not wrong.”

As you take in Minho’s words, spoken so casually, like it was common knowledge, they leave you speechless. You watch him as he smiles triumphantly when he realizes you aren’t going to refute him — because you can’t refute him.

You berate yourself mentally as you notice the familiar feeling of arousal wash over you as you repeat his words inside your head. Not because it was Minho who said those things, but simply because that kind of sex sounded so good. Good in a way you had never once experienced before. Like heaven, as he had put it.

Your experience with sex has always been simply about fulfilling desires. You thought that was all there was to it.

Until now.

And even so, with your ex-boyfriends, it was always unbalanced. Ninety percent about their pleasure and only ten percent about yours. The first time you had a guy go down on you was the first time you had sex with Hyunjin, and by that point, you had already had five boyfriends. It felt weird when it happened, and you remember Hyunjin whining about how you didn’t have to ask him every five minutes if he was really okay with doing that. It had always been different with him, the good kind of different. He had never been selfish during sex; if anything, Hyunjin was too much of a giver, sometimes forgetting about his own pleasure in order to focus on yours. You thought that was the best sex you could ever have.

Until now.

Because, even with Hyunjin, there was never a genuine connection. It never felt like a gift to touch him and have him touch you. It was never anything more than sex, more than something you both did because it felt good and it was easy. He slept in your bed, and he cuddled you until morning came, but it had never once felt anything close to what Minho described.

You can’t help but wonder if Minho has ever experienced that. You desperately want to ask him, but you two aren’t close enough for that yet.

You also can’t help but wonder why you spend the rest of the evening raging a war against yourself as your mind is consumed with thoughts of what it would be like to experience that kind of sex with him.

It’s late in the night on the following Saturday, and your phone incessantly vibrating under your pillow rudely demands your attention just as you’re about to fall asleep. You squint your eyes as you type in your password. You sigh as you see Hyunjin’s name on your screen because of course it’s him.

Hyune: I’m outside open the door Hyune: please open the door? quick? Hyune: mrs. choi is gonna kill me if I use the intercom pls I don’t wanna die Hyune: I’m in my pajamas do you know how humiliating this is

Hyune: and I’m highkey pissed off Hyune: I WILL sleep on the bench outside your house if you don’t let me in and then I’ll die and who’s gonna live with the guilt? Hyune: you Hyune: OPENM TEH DOOR

You roll your eyes at his dramatic texts, stepping out of the comfort of your bed and padding across the floor as quietly as possible so as not to wake up your roommates. You open your front door and speed past the hallway and Mrs. Choi’s home, reaching the outside door in record time. It’s something you’ve done more times than you care to admit in order to let Hyunjin into your house. Your tenant was a sweet woman, insistent that she was modern and understanding of ‘young people’, but she despised people coming into your home any later than midnight.

You step outside, finding Hyunjin pacing back and forth like a creep in front of your house. True to his words, he stood in his checkered pajama pants and a black t-shirt. His hair was in a ponytail, the strands messily sticking out everywhere like he had tossed and turned in bed before coming here.

“You look like shit,” you speak up, causing him to jump and let out a gasp. You chuckle as he scowls at you, climbing the few steps to reach the door.

“I had a fight with Mingyu,” he grumbles as you two walk toward your front door. “He told me I spilled paint on his favorite shirt, which is fucking impossible since I don’t even paint anywhere near his shit.”

“I mean, you are a messy painter.”

Hyunjin shoots you a look as you close your front door behind you. You take off your shoes and walk toward your bedroom in silence. This was routine. Hyunjin knew the rules: no knocking on the outside door, no buzzing the intercom, no shouting from outside, keep your voice down in the hallway, no talking until you reach your bedroom. It was all automatic at this point.

His voice is louder when he speaks again inside your locked bedroom. “First of all, I am not a messy painter. The paint is messy, not me. Second of all, if Mingyu wasn’t a fucking idiot, maybe he wouldn’t leave his favorite shirt on the floor of the living room right by my art corner,” Hyunjin huffs and crosses his arms over his chest, “If that’s how he treats his favorite shirt, I feel bad for his girlfriend.”

You let out a chuckle, which is cut short by him pulling you into his arms. “Hyunjin, that analogy makes no sense.”

“Yes, it does. You treat your favorite shirt like shit, you treat your girlfriend like shit,” he states matter-of-factly before pulling you into a kiss.

This was routine. It was all automatic at this point.

Hyunjin kisses you like he’s angry. Because he is, and that’s one of the reasons why you two do this. You let out your frustrations during sex. You complain, and you let off steam until you both feel okay again. It’s been this way for a year and some months now, and you never once thought anything of it. It was beneficial for you both, so why change or question it?

But that was before your talk with Minho. Before you were awoken to the truth that you’d been having meaningless sex your whole life.

When you’re pulled away from your thoughts, you’re already laid in your bed with Hyunjin hovering over you. His lips and hands wander through your body as he mumbles things you can’t quite understand; you can only make out your name and Mingyu’s mixed with curses. You try to bring yourself back to the moment, bringing your legs to wrap around Hyunjin’s waist and bring him closer to you.

He stops kissing your neck and yanks his shirt over his head, his hair untying in the process and falling on his face like a curtain. You giggle and try to fix it with your fingers. Hyunjin pouts.

“Don’t you think I’m right?”

You frown and hope he can’t see your confused expression in the dim lighting. You truly weren’t paying any attention to what he had been saying, too engrossed in your thoughts and too busy feeling sorry for yourself. Hyunjin’s tendency to tell you about his frustrations during sex always left you a bit puzzled, but it was also oddly sweet. It was like he trusted you so deeply as a friend that he believed he could share anything with you, no matter the time.

So you nod, lightly pulling at his hair. “Of course you’re right.”

He hums and buries his head on your chest, grinding his hips into your clothed core. “Of course I’m right,” he mumbles under his breath.

Everything is a blur after that, your mind insistent on repeating Minho’s words like an annoying echo. When Hyunjin’s tongue fucked you hastily, and he murmured something about you tasting so good, all you could hear was Minho’s voice telling you how tasting the person you love feels like heaven. When Hyunjin pushed his cock into you, his hands gripping your thighs and head buried in your neck, all you could think about was how this sex paled in comparison to what you could’ve been having — what you could have already had — if only you weren’t so damn unlovable.

You knew that Minho didn’t intend to make you feel bad with his words. They weren’t targeted at you. But that didn’t stop your mind from sabotaging and putting yourself down. It was one of your biggest talents, after all.

Your body was present and responsive the entire time; you moaned because it felt good, and you kissed Hyunjin because you wanted to. But you were mentally somewhere else.

And the worst thing is, you’re a hundred percent sure Hyunjin doesn’t even notice it.

Because this wasn’t love. This was only sex.

And this was all you had ever known.

Time flies by faster than your brain can comprehend; before you know it, another month goes by. You only managed to go to your favorite bakery with Minho one more time before your work hours were changed, your shift now starting a mere thirty minutes after your Japanese class ends. He still walked you to work twice a week, but you would be lying if you said it didn’t upset you to have to let go of your weekly talks.

Minho also became busier due to his own job. With so little time to see each other face to face outside of class, most of your talks took place over text. He talked about his job with so much adoration it made you a little jealous; his partners were now simply friends he worked with, and his joy over finally being able to create a cozy game made it so that he pushed himself over his limit, often sleeping on his friend’s couch after working until four a.m. and getting through the next day on excessive amounts of coffee.

That was how you two came up with the idea of Minho dropping by the café where you work to pick up coffee for him and his friends. He would drop by at least twice every day, his friend’s house — which also served as their office — only one bus stop away.

The first time Minho came by, he had his wallet and phone in one hand, a sharpie and a block of sticky notes in the other. You eyed him curiously as he scribbled on the piece of paper while your co-worker prepared his coffee. When he was done, he stuck the note to the monitor in front of you on the counter. You furrowed your brows as your eyes shifted from the Japanese words on the bright yellow note back to Minho’s smug face. You were certainly grateful he at least had the courtesy of including the romanization of whatever he had written down. Not that it helped you in any way.

“Since our studying sessions after class were rudely taken from us, this is your extra homework. It’s all words we already learned. You just gotta think a little bit, and you’ll figure it out. You’re smart, I know you can do it,” He assured you.

Expect you weren’t that smart and ended up giving up by the time you got home that night. The piece of paper was no longer sticky on the border due to you carrying it around all day, boring holes into it as if that would magically give you the answer. You snapped a picture of it as you got ready for bed and sent it to Minho, begging him to put you out of your misery and simply give you the answer. ‘I want to drink coffee,’ he replied. You slapped your hand over your forehead with so much force you were sure the entire house had heard you. He was right; you did learn that in class. Curse the Japanese language for being so difficult.

After that, it became a routine. You waited expectantly for Minho’s visits daily, but you are extra excited today. It’s a Friday, and your birthday is tomorrow. After much pestering from Eunha, you agreed to have a small gathering at your house. It only made sense to invite Minho; he’s become one of your closest friends in the two months you’ve known him, after all.

As he walks into the coffee shop, sticky notes and sharpie in hand, you chuckle to yourself. You two chat about the development of his game, with Minho kindly using layman’s terms when explaining it to you. He also tells you about how one of his friends got so frustrated with a code that he threw his phone at a wall before immediately regretting it and crying on the floor next to Minho’s desk. Before you can get worried, he assures you that it’s just an ordinary day at the office, and the three of them end up laughing everything off at the end of the day.

After taking his order, you watch as he begins writing down your homework for the day on the small piece of paper in his hand. As you look around the coffee shop, most tables are empty, and the sun is starting to set outside the glass doors.

“You wanna come over this Saturday?” You ask Minho, who looks up at you before adjusting his glasses on the bridge of his nose. That was one thing you learned about Minho since he began coming over: he wears glasses. Not every day, but enough times for you to notice how good he looks with them. But friends find each other attractive all the time, you justify it. “You never came over to my house, and my roommates really want to meet you. Plus, it’s my birthday tomorrow.”

Minho’s eyes widen. “Your birthday? And you save that information to the end?”

“It’s not a big deal. I usually never even celebrate.” You shrug lightly. You’ve never been big on birthdays, as you just don’t see the reason why it’s supposed to feel different from any other day of the year. “But my roommate pestered me to do something this year, so I agreed to have a party.”

Minho shifts on his feet. “I… really hate parties…” He trails off.

“It’s not a party party. I promise!” You hold up your pinky finger. “It’s more of a get-together, just my roommates and my only two other friends. And, you…” You trail off, “If you come.”

Minho blinks his eyes a couple of times before tearing the piece of paper he was writing on from the pad and crumpling it in his hand. He quickly jots down something new and sticks it to your forehead.

“Minho!” You scold him, to which he laughs, his nose scrunching and eyes crinkling. You advert your gaze from him as your persistent thoughts regarding how unfairly pretty Minho is begin to flood your brain once again. You take the note and analyze it:

はい (Hai)

You smile as you understand the word, looking up at him.

“I’d love to come to your birthday party,” He beams. “Thank you for inviting me.”

To say Minho is nervous would be an understatement.

He gets out of his car twice, ready to march back inside his friend’s apartment like a coward and pretend that nothing happened both times. Only when he thinks back to how you smiled at him when he agreed to your invitation does he find the courage to start the car and drive to your house. He’d noticed for a while now how much he likes you. But it was when he agreed with the idea of going to the café you worked at to pick up coffee that it truly dawned on him that he really liked you. Minho hated taking the bus, he hated doing anything other than zoning out on the couch during his breaks, he hated bustling shops, and he hated how his co-workers both managed to have such intricate coffee orders.

Yet he agreed to that idea, even suggesting he drop by two times a day.

He noticed he’d felt a familiar small whirlpool inside his chest whenever he was with you, when he heard you talk about something you liked or saw you smile. He’s also noticed that this tiny whirlpool has been growing bigger and bigger the more he’s been around you.

But that doesn’t scare him. Minho loves love. He loves to be in love, to love someone, and to make that person feel loved. It’s his favorite thing about life. If he was honest, he missed it so much he didn’t know how he was able to live without it.

Just down the block from your house, he parks his car and gathers his phone and his present for you — clearly clumsily wrapped, even with his co-workers’ help. He feels another wave of nervousness wash over him as he approaches the house; he’s an hour late and needs to mentally prepare to socialize with people he’s never met before. Minho chuckles as he realizes a silly party makes him more nervous than the prospect of possibly falling in love.

You open the door almost as soon as he rings the intercom, and he walks down the hallway into your house door; the crooked box he’s been holding makes his hands sweat. The first thing he notices as you open the door is your styled hair with a big white bow on the back, looking much prettier than the ugly bow he and his friends managed to stick on top of his present. He smiles at the sight and scratches his ear in a futile attempt to stop them from turning red.

God, he really liked you, didn’t he?

“Thank you for coming,” you tell him with a smile. Minho notices the quiet music playing inside the house, the simple decorations, and the cake on top of the kitchen counter. He mentally sighs in relief. This truly wasn’t anything like a big party. “You’re wearing your glasses again,” you point out as Minho walks inside and removes his shoes. He subconsciously reaches his left hand to touch his wire-rimmed glasses that sit on his nose bridge. He grimaces and curses at his friend for making him stay later than he was supposed to today.

“I had no time to go home and change,” He apologizes, fingers now toying with the stupid bow on top of the box. “I usually wear contacts, but they make my eyes dry if I stare at the computer for too long, so I just… wear my glasses at work…” Minho trails off, suddenly feeling stupid, his eyes looking anywhere but toward you.

You chuckle, lightly touching his glasses for a second before moving away again. “You always come to the coffee shop wearing them, and I think you look really good,” you assured him. His eyes quickly met yours, only for you to advert your gaze this time. “You should wear them more often.”

Minho only hums, lightly nodding his head. He feels stupid all over again as the image of himself throwing his contact lenses down the drain crosses his mind.

Clearing his throat, he finally hands you your gift. You giggle at the mismatched wrapping paper and poor excuse of a bow, which makes Minho let out a chuckle and murmur an apology. You open the box, and your eyes light up when you spot the stuffed bunny you have been raving about since you two met. It was the only animal missing from your collection, but you couldn’t find the right time to save up money to buy it. Minho didn’t need to ask if you liked it as he watched your smile grow bigger as you looked at the brown bunny.

“Come, I gotta put him in my bed now,” you beamed and took Minho’s hand in yours, leading him to the living room. There, five people sat on the couch and on the floor. Minho furrows his brows as he takes in a head of light brown hair covered by a familiar beanie. “These are my friends. Eunha’s the girl with short hair on the floor, and Soojung’s the one with blonde hair next to her. They’re also my roommates,” You point at them as you speak. “That’s Jisung sitting next to Soojung; he’s also her boyfriend. And then Hyunjin, with the long hair, sitting next to Chan on the couch. Everyone, this is Minho from my Japanese class.”

With that, you pad off to your room with your bunny in tow. As Chan finally turns to look at Minho, his shocked expression mirrors his. They stare at each other for a while before Chan finally breaks the silence.

“What the fuck, that’s my co-worker.”

Minho narrows his eyes. “So this is why you had to leave an hour earlier today?”

As you come out of your room, you chuckle. “Chan is your co-worker?” You ask Minho, “I can’t believe this. He’s been our friend for longer than I’ve known you. He came like a package deal when Jisung began dating Soojung.”

“Damn, dude, you hate me so much you never talked about me to your friend?” Chan gasped, a hand over his heart. “I’m hurt.”

Minho rolls his eyes but is unable to stop a small grin from forming on his lips as the entire living room erupts in laughter. “Of course I talked about you. I talked about you and Seungmin all the time. It’s just I…” Minho shifts on his feet, shrugging. “I never said your names.”

More laughter seeps out of the group of people, including Chan, and Minho finds himself laughing along this time, shaking his head at his own stupidity.

He sits beside Chan on the couch while Hyunjin heads to the kitchen with you. He quickly asks him how he came to be friends with you in the first place. Chan explains that he’s been in a class with Jisung for almost two years, and the boy had always pestered him about ‘old people’ needing to hang out with people their age. That’s how he ended up meeting Soojung as soon as she became Jisung’s girlfriend. You and Eunha were an inevitable addition, seeing as you were not only roommates but also great friends.

You offer Minho a beer, which he declines. As much as he wanted to, no beer was worth having to take the bus back home. He silently sips his cola as he watches your group of friends chat. You end up sitting beside him on the couch, your friend Hyunjin to your right.

Minho finds that he missed getting together with people like this and didn’t even realize it. His only friends were left behind back at home, and although they were less than an hour away by bus, their busy lives prevented them from meeting in person. Minho’s favorite memories from his teenage years were having his friends over and just doing nothing for hours, talking about stupid shit until their stomachs hurt from laughing. Eating takeout on the couch with Chan and Seungmin after work came close, but they were always too tired and too stressed to entertain the idea of making jokes. Those were times when Minho realized he had really become an adult.

Jisung’s loud voice suddenly booms through the living room and startles an already drunk-looking Eunha, who murmurs something about the younger boy giving her a heart attack one day.

“I’m bored,” he grumbles, draping his body over Soojung. “Let’s play spin the bottle.”

Soojung rolls her eyes at him, flicking his forehead. “Are you a teenager?”

Jisung pouts, sitting up straight once more. “We’re in university. University students play this fucking game all the time,” he states matter-of-factly. “Don’t make me regret falling for an older woman.”

“Jisung, I’m only three years older than you, I’m not—”

“Don’t make me call you noona.”

Soojung inhales deeply before turning to face the people sitting on the couch, placing one of the empty beer bottles scattered around her feet on top of the coffee table. “Let’s play spin the bottle. But let’s do dares instead of kissing, that’s too boring.”

Jisung beams, cuddling close to her like a needy child. Minho chuckles at the sight.

Eunha scoots closer to the couple so the group is seated in a circle around the coffee table, half of them on the couch and half on the floor. Minho never had the chance to play spin the bottle, which seemed to be such a staple game of one’s teenage years. By the time his friends were off sneaking into clubs and drinking behind their parents’ backs, he was already in a committed relationship and well aware of the fact that he didn’t enjoy parties.

It seems silly, but he’s glad he won’t live past his youth without experiencing such a trivial thing.

Soojung spins the bottle, and the neck stops facing Chan while the bottom faces Jisung.

“Take your shirt off,” Jisung waves a finger at Chan, who looks somewhat disoriented. Minho chuckles under his breath just as you do the same. You two face each other and let out a hearty laugh, your arm coming to rest on his bicep before retrieving back to your lap faster than Minho hoped it would.

Soojung squishes Jisung’s cheeks and places a small kiss on his lips. “You’re such a fucking chaotic bisexual,” she giggles, “Y’know, Chan, Jisung has had the biggest crush on you since you two first met.”

Chan shakes his head with a stifled laugh and proceeds to remove his shirt, neatly placing it on his lap.

Jisung is next to spin the bottle, this time landing on Soojung, who you dare to show her most embarrassing text. After showing the group a string of texts showing raunchy screenshots of a manhwa she’d been reading at that time, all sent to one of her class group chats which included some professors, she lets out a heavy sigh and orders Eunha to spin the bottle before any questions can be asked.

This time, the neck faces you while the bottom faces Eunha herself. With a smile, the short-haired girl dares you to kiss Minho.

He feels his smile drop at the very second the words leave her lips. This was not what he had in mind for tonight.

“What?” You sputter, “Why?”

Eunha shrugs, adjusting herself so she’s seated upright and staring right at you. “Well, he’s the only one here who would be actually fun to see you kiss. Jisung and Soojung are okay with each other hooking up with other people, so that’s no fun,” she explains, using her fingers to list her reasons, “I’m not into girls, so that’s no fun for me. Hyunjin is too obvious. We all already know Chan, so it would also be boring. Minho is like fresh meat. That is fun.”

Minho’s brain begins finding a suitable excuse for why you two can’t kiss, because he’s certain you have no interest in doing it. Not only are you friends, but your reaction didn’t exactly exude excitement at the prospect of kissing him. Just as he’s ready to lie through his teeth, you turn to him and place your hand on his shoulder, a touch so soft he’s barely able to feel it through the fabric of his shirt.

“Is this okay with you?” You ask him, the tone of your voice so sweet Minho feels like it melts his every thought until his brain is nothing but a sugary pool filled with only you. So he nods because god, yes, this is okay with him.

You gingerly place your right hand on his cheek, bringing your faces closer until your lips press together. The whirlpool inside his chest spins fast, like a vortex dragging every sense of his body toward you and only you.

You remain still for a few seconds, Minho’s eyes opening slightly to search for any sign of regret on your face. Before he can even properly look at you, your lips begin to move against his — gently and carefully, like you’re not sure if this is what he wants. Minho deepens the kiss and hesitates three times before committing to placing his left hand on your waist. The giggles around the two of you nothing but a muffled murmur to him. He presses another kiss to your lips, his body shifting until he is all but caging you against the back of the couch. But just as he swipes his tongue across your bottom lip, you push him back with a smile, Minho chasing after your lips.

He blinks a couple of times, eyes zoning into your smudged red lipstick. He subconsciously bites his own bottom lip, wondering if any of the color transferred to him. The surrounding murmurs bring Minho back to the moment this time, awkwardly clearing his throat before lifting himself off of you and sitting upright on the couch. He tunes out every comment regarding the kiss to the best of his abilities, focusing his energy on slowing down his heart rate. When he catches you giggling while looking at him, your arm touching his bicep yet again, he nods, grabbing his cola bottle from the floor and taking a sip.

Minho can’t remember the last time kissing someone got him so worked up. He entered a long-term relationship at such a young age that he’s only now realizing how unaccustomed he is to kissing someone new, to the rush that comes with having your lips pressing against the ones of someone you like. It was exhilarating and a bit terrifying all at the same time. He was awkward, unsure where to put his hands, uncertain if you were enjoying yourself. He was also greedy, wanting the moment to last for much longer than it had.

This had cemented the fact that he does, in fact, really like you.

After kissing you, the whirlpool living in his heart had now fully transformed into a tiny hurricane — with great chances of growing even bigger.

Minho only notices the game has continued upon hearing your voice complaining beside him. He watches as Soojung shrugs.

“It’s the only thing I could think of, sorry.”

“But why?” Hyunjin asks, placing his cup on the coffee table. “It’s a stupid dare.”

The blonde girl scoffs. “No, it’s not. I’ve had to basically live with you two for the past year, and it’s common knowledge how easily you get a boner for her.”

“Not true,” Hyunjin retorts, although it sounds more like a question than an affirmation.

Eunha blurts out, “You once got a boner watching her stir a cake mix.”

Hyunjin opens and closes his mouth before groaning, pulling you into his lap by the waist. You apologize to him quietly, to which Hyunjin shakes his head with a small smile.

Minho feels as if he’s intruding on something private.

You sit on Hyunjin’s knees, almost falling off his lap as you clearly try to keep some distance between the two of you. Hyunjin clicks his tongue and pulls you closer to him until your back is pressed up against his chest. He whispers something in your ear, to which you lightly slap his arm as his lips upturn into a grin.

Minho is definitely intruding on something private.

At some point, you turn so you’re sitting across Hyunjin’s lap, your body now facing Minho. He can’t help but watch with dark eyes as the younger boy’s hands wander through your body; playing with the buttons on your blouse, squeezing your thighs, and caressing your skin a little too close to the hem of your skirt. He furrows his brows as he tries to understand your relationship with Hyunjin, seeing as you’re obviously not put off by his hands on your body.

Minho is so transfixed by the sight and his racing thoughts that he only realizes the game has ended when someone taps his shoulder from behind the couch. When he looks back, Chan is holding a cigarette and motioning towards the stairs that lead to the house’s terrace.

In the chilly open space above the house, they sit on a bench behind a tall vertical planter. Minho wonders who tends to the garden as he observes the various flowers, as well as some vegetables and herbs scattered around him. The terrace is small; the garden taking up all the space, an old wooden railing that overlooks the quiet street the only other thing in his sight.

He and Chan chat about school and work, as they often do nowadays. After Chan recently broke up with his girlfriend, Minho found that his friend had become much more closed off, so the list of subjects they would talk about became minimal. Chan bites his thumb before taking a long drag of his cigarette. He chuckles when he mentions being scared of graduating next year. Minho bumps his shoulder with him, arguing that being in his situation is worse. He admits that he regrets starting university late and that being in his first year when he should already be in his third is discouraging. Chan dismisses his worries, reminding him of how Minho is often the one to fix broken codes and come up with ideas for their game whenever Seungmin gets stuck.

“A degree is just a piece of paper,” Chan says, throwing his cigarette butt at a nearby trashcan. “You’re already a fantastic programmer, Minho.”

“You’re just saying that because I saved your ass today.”

Chan shrugs. “You’ve saved my ass basically every day since we started working together.” After a beat of silence, he asks, “Why did you start uni so late, anyway? You never told me.”

Minho hums, digging his brain for a way to sum up the entire story. “It’s complicated—”

He’s interrupted by footsteps on the stairs leading to the terrace. A loud giggle echoes through the open space before you and Hyunjin step into their field of vision. The long-haired boy holds you from behind, and you two stagger toward the railing.

“Wish everyone would go home already so I could just fuck you,” Hyunjin whines as he turns your body around so you’re facing him. Minho almost chokes on nothing at those words, and Chan stifles a laugh with his hand. He curses the small space as they’re able to so clearly hear everything you’re saying.

You playfully kick Hyunjin’s shin. “Don’t say it like that, Hyune, what the fuck.”

“It’s true, though,” Hyunjin continues, pressing you against the railing. He towers over you, so the only thing Minho can see from where he’s seated is your white skirt floating in the wind behind the tall boy. “I had a stressful, terrible, awful, dreadful week. All I kept thinking about was coming over and relaxing with you.”

“See, when you put it like that, it doesn’t sound so awful.”

Hyunjin clicks his tongue. “There’s nothing awful about fucking. I know how much you like it, don’t act so coy.”

Minho watches as your hands clench around Hyunjin’s gray shirt, pulling him closer and kissing him softly, much like you had done to him a few moments before.

Minho presses his lips into a thin line. He connects every dot available to him inside his head and suddenly feels pathetic.

Hyunjin being too obvious of a choice for you to kiss, his hands all over your body, his words about fucking you, the way you kissed him like it was a habit.

If you had a boyfriend, why did you agree to kiss him?

The words swarm Minho’s brain. He vaguely recalls you and Hyunjin eventually walking out of the terrace. Chan starts a one-sided conversation about one of his classes, with Minho humming after every couple of sentences to appear like he’d been listening when his head is too busy wondering how to feel about everything.

Minho recalls Eunha walking up the stairs and shouting for the two of them to come downstairs to sing you happy birthday. He recalls Hyunjin’s hands wandering through your body throughout the song, his lips pressing small kisses on your face and lips as you smiled. He recalls feeling confused, stressed, jealous, and pathetic.

Minho is only truly back to the present moment once Chan’s voice bids him a loud goodbye, and the door slamming behind him makes his senses finally return to him. As he looks around, he notices that the only people left in the living room are Jisung, Hyunjin, and you. Beside him on the couch, Hyunjin stretches with a loud groan.

“I’m gonna take a shower. D’you have any of my clothes in your room?”

You sigh from where you’re sitting on the floor, resting against the television stand. “Of course, I do. You’re always living shit behind, you’re like our third roommate at this point.”

Hyunjin chuckles, walking over to give you a small peck on the lips before disappearing into your room. Minho gnaws on his bottom lip with a bitter smile as he realizes Hyunjin will sleep over at your house. The ugly feelings return as he remembers his thoughts about you these past few weeks when he unknowingly cultivated too big of a crush on you. Even on his way here tonight, when he had chuckled to himself at his lack of nervousness in the face of potential love.

Love.

Minho can’t help but wonder why your view of love is so negative when you’re in a relationship. And, at the same time, he doesn’t dare to think about it for too long, fully aware that his foolish affection-filled brain will come up with a myriad of reasons — all where your boyfriend is the sole culprit for your distaste — and Minho knows better than to let those thoughts linger for too long inside his mind. He knows himself all too well, knows only awful shit would come out of assuming things about your relationship; the urge to beat Hyunjin senseless for being a shitty boyfriend and making you think that way about love being the worst of them.

“I’m too drunk to go back to my dorm,” Jisung suddenly speaks, his eyes glazed over as he stares ahead. “Gonna crash here tonight, too.”

Minho takes that as his cue to leave.

You walk him outside, a small smile on your face the entire time. He feels guilty not being able to reciprocate the gesture. As you tell him goodbye, thanking him for coming, you pull him into a hug. You hadn’t hugged much since you met, and Minho foolishly wants to draw you closer to him, to feel your body pressed against his just as it was pressed against Hyunjin most of the night. But he can’t do that.

“Are you okay to walk back by yourself?” You ask him as you pull away.

Minho nods, forcing out a small smile. “My car is parked just down the block.”

“That’s why you didn’t drink!” You exclaim with a giggle, “I forget that most people our age already drive. My anxiety didn’t allow me the chance to even try and get a license, so I just accepted my fate of taking the bus.”

“I could drive you…” Minho trails off. There he goes again, being pathetic. “If I have the time… You can give me a call and I’d be happy to drive you anywhere.”

You smile at him, wrapping your arms around his neck and pulling him into another embrace. Minho smiles genuinely as he buries his head in your hair.

The drive back home has Minho feeling stupid all over again as he thinks about how you’re probably in bed with Hyunjin by now. The whirlpool is back inside his chest, but it isn’t good or welcome this time. It’s agonizing and painful.

Love had never been painful. Love had never been bad.

But he had never experienced love toward someone who already loved somebody else. Although you brazenly state that you don’t believe in it, you must feel some type of love toward Hyunjin if you’re willing to be his girlfriend.

As he silently drives home, Minho finds himself agreeing with you.

Maybe love can be bad, after all.

Minho feels stupid.

This has become a constant in his life.

He had always thought of himself as a logical person. Programming had taught him that everything is predictable and fixable if you work on it hard enough. A broken code? It may take him six hours of staring at the computer to figure out it was nothing but a missing semicolon, but he will get there in the end. It was annoying and frustrating, but it was always something easily fixed.

He thought love was like that. It had always been like that with him.

Until he fell for you.

Minho was coming to terms with the fact that maybe love and programming were nothing alike. Love isn’t predictable. Loving someone who is already in love with someone else isn’t easily fixed. He can’t backspace and delete your boyfriend from the equation.

It’s been a little over six months since you two first met. Minho has consistently gone to the café you work at every day, and you two still had endless talks over text messages. You talk about everything and anything, from silly things like sharing pictures of both your growing plushie collections or your love of that particular coffee shop’s lemon cake to more serious topics like how Minho learned how to cook when he was twelve so his mom wouldn’t have to do it by herself, and now his roommates take advantage of that, or how sad you are that next year you will have to leave the house you’ve grown to love so much.

But, whether it is in person or through text, you still avoid the topic of love. You don’t ever bring up Hyunjin unless he’s part of a story you were already telling, and Minho feels his heart heavy as he slowly allows himself to imagine what it could be that led you to hate love so much.

He desperately wants to ask you, know your reasons, and make sure you’re happy with your boyfriend. But he doesn’t want to overstep any boundaries and doesn’t know how to go about it without scaring you. So he never does anything, like a coward.

Minho finds himself coming over to your sharehouse on most weekends since summer break ended. Your countless get-togethers at that house have become a hard-to-break habit. Hyunjin, Jisung, and your roommates are always assured to be there, with Chan joining whenever he isn’t overwhelmed with work or school, which was rare.

Minho had always been a hopeless romantic, always doing things for love that people repeatedly warned would result in regret. This time, it was forgoing visiting his parents and friends back home just to spend most of his summer with you. Despite not being able to pursue you in the way he truly wanted to, Minho still wanted to be your friend. You were still a fantastic person he loved to have around; that didn’t change simply because you had a boyfriend. Although he could feel a bit of his heart cracking every time he had to see you, all while knowing he couldn’t do anything about his feelings for you.

He couldn’t change your perspective of love if he weren’t allowed to love you.

In all the time he spent at your house during summer break, he ended up becoming good friends with Jisung, as you tended to stick next to Hyunjin most of the time. Minho didn’t mind it; he is your boyfriend, after all. At least, that’s what he repeats to himself every night he comes over like a mantra as he almost masochistically forces himself to watch how Hyunjin kisses your lips and caresses your skin or how you play with his hair and snuggle with him on the couch. He also endures the countless nights he’s left your house knowing all too well that Hyunjin would be spending the night with you in a way that Minho can only ever dream about.

Tonight, in particular, Hyunjin seemed to be all over you like bees on honey, buzzing around you everywhere you went, his hands never leaving your body as he pulled you closer to him every time you even slightly pulled away. Because god forbid your bodies not be touching in some way for even a split second. Before he knows it, Minho is downing his third bottle of beer of the night.

From where he’s sitting on the couch, Minho rolls his eyes as discreetly as he can while he watches Hyunjin pull you to sit on his lap on the floor as you all get ready to play a game of cards. He gnaws on his lower lip because he knows he’s being petty and borderline childish. You’re Hyunjin’s girlfriend. Of course he’s all over you, of course he wants to be close to you, of course he wants you on his lap. Minho concludes with a bitter chuckle that he is, indeed, pathetic when it comes to you.

He gulps down more of the awful-tasting cheap beer.

The night comes to a close after far too many rounds of Cards Against Humanity, with Jisung winning more than half of them. His ethics and morals fly out the window the moment the cards are handed to him, as he manages to create the most absurdly offensive phrases known to men every single time. Minho found himself groaning and yelling at the younger boy as the alcohol took over his system. He doesn’t know how much of it was simply his annoyance at Hyunjin clinging to you like a koala throughout the entire game disguised as competitiveness.

He doesn’t think he’d like to know either.

Like every night he comes over, Minho is the last person to go home. He has to call an Uber, far too buzzed to want to sit at a bus stop all alone at this time of night. He hadn’t even noticed how he kept downing his drinks until he felt the familiar buzz of inebriation wash over his body a while before the game ended. Although slamming his fist into the coffee table with a whine about how he had only been given lame cards should’ve been a sign.

As he waits outside your house by the fence, he suddenly hears the door shut behind him and your voice calling out to him. He smiles at the faint slur of your speech and the way you drag out the last syllable of his name like you always did when you were a bit drunk.

“I told you to wait for me!” You reprimand, opening the gate to stand next to him. “Look how lonely you look here all by yourself.”

Minho just shrugs with a smile, shaking his head. He did wait. He waited almost half an hour after announcing he should leave as you disappeared into your room with Hyunjin. He was still waiting, in fact, only mindlessly scrolling on his phone for the past ten minutes instead of finding a ride as he hoped you would come outside when you saw he wasn’t in the living room anymore.

You poke his shoulder, bringing his attention away from his phone to your smiling face.

“Tonight was fun, wasn’t it? Especially that last round when Hyunjin won after being tied with Jisung for the whole game,” you grinned, “Seeing Jisung make a whole damn case about how much better his card was really made my night. Think that’s the first time I’ve seen him act like a law student since I met him.”

Minho chuckles, bringing his attention back to his phone. Seeing your smile and how your eyes light up while you talk about something you like brought back the whirlpool inside his chest, which wasn’t a pleasant feeling any longer. It made him glum to think how a once beautiful feeling had turned into nothing but discomfort simply because he was lovelorn.

He hums. “You must be proud to have your boyfriend put an end to Jisung’s annoying winning streak.”

“What do you mean?”

Minho looks up from his phone, eyes wandering through your puzzled face. He furrows his brows for a second. Maybe you’re both drunker than he’d thought.

“I mean, it must’ve been nice to see Hyunjin win after Jisung basically made us all want to quit the game,” he explains, watching as your expression turns from confusion into shock before you let out a loud laugh.

Minho’s eyes widen, worried your laughter might wake up your neighbors. He gently shushes you, his arm grabbing your shoulder, but your smiling face only makes his lips stretch out into a grin. He suppresses a giggle as you catch your breath, shaking your head.

Minho smiles at you so fondly he’s certain he looks like an idiot. “What’s so funny?”

“Hyunjin isn’t my boyfriend,” you explain like it’s obvious. “We’re just friends. I thought you knew that.”

Minho only then realizes he had never once heard you refer to Hyunjin as a boyfriend, nor had any of the people around you. But his assumptions weren’t so ill-judged, either. You two acted like a couple. It wasn’t so absurd to assume that you were one.

He finds himself staring at your amused face for a few seconds before forcing himself to turn his attention back to his phone.

You acted like a couple, but you were just friends. Minho groaned mentally.

“So, you’re like friends with benefits?”

“Yeah… I don’t particularly believe in love anymore, Minho. I thought you knew that from our talk a while ago,” You chuckle, shifting on your feet. “Hyunjin is one of my best friends. We just hook up ‘cause it’s convenient.”

Minho hums, his fingers ghosting over his phone screen. “Sounds like you’re running away from love.”

He blinks a couple of times as he takes in his own words. He would have never said such a thing if it hadn’t been for the liquid courage flowing through his veins.

You shrug, moving to sit on the white bench just outside the house. “Well, yeah, that is what I’m doing. Love hasn’t been kind to me at all. I have no interest in going after it, only to be hurt again. It’s a movie I’ve watched before and I hated the ending every time.”

Minho bites the inside of his cheek, finally clicking the button to find a ride, his thumb pressing on his phone screen more forcefully than he intended. He felt angry. You didn’t deserve to settle for a friend with benefits due to convenience. Had you wanted to be in that situation, it was your every right to do so, but you were in it out of fear of being hurt.

He felt sad. He wished you didn’t equate your past experiences with love to everything it could be. Bad experiences in love were possible for everyone — even for him, who used to believe unwaveringly that love could never be hurtful — but that didn’t mean it was all there was to it. Minho desperately wanted to show you that. The good side of love, the side that made him put it above everything else in his life on so many occasions, the side that made him crave it even now when it hurt more than it felt good.

And, strangely, Minho felt relieved. It was a small percentage of the chart of current emotions he was experiencing, but prevalent nonetheless. He would be lying to himself if he didn’t admit that he felt happy Hyunjin wasn’t your boyfriend and, most importantly, that you weren’t stuck in an unhappy or toxic relationship, as he had so often feared.

His ride arrives, and he’s overcome with a wave of courage. Minho would much rather live with regret than with a constant ‘what if’.

Shoving his phone inside his pocket, he offers his hand to you, who looks up at him curiously from where you’re sitting on the bench before taking his hand. Minho pulls you to your feet and hugs you. With his hand on your waist, he pulls your body closer to him, finally holding you tightly the way he’s always wanted to do. He presses a kiss to your head, bringing his lips to your ear and whispering, “I’m gonna change your mind.”

He feels your body shake with a chuckle, but he only tightens his hold on you.

“What?”

“About love, I’m gonna change your mind,” He answers matter-of-factly, “You deserve to feel love without being afraid.”

Minho pulls back from the embrace just enough to see your face, and he’s surprised to find you smiling up at him. He smiles back.

“I will change your mind.”

Minho had just dropped you off at your house, ready to drive around aimlessly until he absolutely had to go back to his dorm, when Seungmin texted him.

Kim Seungmin: hey my sister’s engagement dinner is tonight Kim Seungmin: and i might have fucked up something in the code i was working on so now there’s a chance that you fish 100 rare fish at once 🤪 Kim Seungmin: pls pls do me a solid and fix it before chan sees it and kills me? Kim Seungmin: love you hyung 💚

Minho initially groaned at the messages, thinking of the many ways in which he could murder Seungmin and get away with it. But, ultimately, he didn’t want to go back to his dorm anyway, so he gladly turned his car around. If he was lucky, this would take hours and he would have a valid excuse to crash in Chan’s cramped living room.

He punches the code to the front door and his friend greets him with a puzzled expression.

“I forgot to do the, uh, troubleshooting for this week,” Minho blurts out. It’s the first lie he can come up with, and he hopes it’s convincing enough. Chan nods slowly. Seungmin might have saved him from having to endure his roommates on a Saturday night, but he still owes him.

“It’s all good,” Chan says with a sigh, “I’m most likely gonna pull an all-nighter designing these new characters. Anyway, how did you waste your time today?”

Minho has been taking you on what he likes to call Subtle Dates for a month now.

Chan affectionately calls them Waste of Time Dates.

Minho rolls his eyes, sitting down on his own desk. “We went to Han River and walked around till sundown, then watched the Banpo Bridge water show.”

Days like today were rare, so Minho was happy. Most weekends, it seemed as if the whole world was conspiring against anything he planned with you.

“Oh, how romantic of you,” Chan gasps, feigning amazement. “Did you at least kiss her this time?”

“You know I can’t just kiss her like that. I know she’d freak out if I tried to do anything romantic with her,” Minho taps his fingers on his desk, knowing he sounds ridiculous. But he has a plan. He just hopes this plan actually works out soon. “I don’t mind being patient.”

He hears Chan scoff. “So, you took her on another one-sided date and then drove her home so Hyunjin can fuck her?”

Minho’s fingers stop tapping on his desk, his hand coming down to slam on it before he can stop himself. He lets out a heavy sigh, and Chan mumbles an apology. But, the truth is, he knows his friend is right. Just last weekend, Minho dropped you off straight into Hyunjin’s arms, the younger boy waiting for you to come back in front of your house.

And Hyunjin wasn’t the only inconvenience that rendered it almost impossible for the two of you to spend time together. Minho had to cut most of your dates short due to Chan calling him about something urgent that only he could fix at work, or you canceled altogether because your roommate was upset and you didn’t have the heart to leave her alone like that. There were also times when Minho was too tired to even go out at all, like on the day of his birthday, which resulted in you coming over to Chan’s apartment and eating cheap takeout food with him and his two friends.

Minho found himself dealing with countless bumps in the road when it came to finding a way into your heart.

“I didn’t mean to say it like that,” Chan says hesitantly, “You clearly like her a lot.”

Minho repeatedly opens and closes the code he’s supposed to fix. He sighs. “I like her more than a lot, and I don’t even know when that happened.”

“I don’t want to see you get hurt,” His friend explains, his face disappearing behind his own computer screen. “I just can’t see what will change if you go on dates with her when she doesn’t even know they’re dates and if she’s just gonna go home and have sex with someone else. I don’t get it. What difference does it make?”

He can hear Chan scoffing, although he tries to disguise it by clearing his throat. Minho shakes his head.

“It makes all the difference because that’s not love. I wanna show her what love is, and that it isn’t always bad. I promised her that I would.”

Chan sighs, sliding his chair toward the mini-fridge by the couch. “Agree to disagree?” He asks, grabbing a bottle of water and tossing it in Minho’s direction. He grabs it mid-air, just before it hits him in the face, and clicks his tongue.

“Agree to disagree.”

Minho plugs his headphones into the computer, drowning out the noise of Chan’s pen sliding across his iPad with his brown noise playlist. But he can’t drown out the obstinate thought ringing inside his head, screaming at him that Chan is right.

Taking you out on dates — which you don’t even know are dates — doesn’t really make a difference if you’re just going to go back to your convenience with Hyunjin at the end of the day. If you think you’re just friends going out together, and you go back home at night to the comfort of sex without the love you’ve been running away from for so long, what Minho is doing truly is useless.

It’s just like when he argues with Seungmin through their codes, screaming at the younger boy in all caps about something that’s broken, even though he knows he’s going to be the one who will end up having to fix it.

Minho’s fingers come to a halt on the keyboard.

Closing his work, he opens up Google and finds the first flight he can to Japan. Almost as if he’s on autopilot, and his brain is completely shut off. He books the flight and the cheapest hotel he can find, using almost all the money he’s saved up to move out of his hell of a dorm. It might be the most idiotic thing he has ever done in his life, but he’s so in love it hurts him. And he loves love, and love with you — the thought of that alone has his heart beating at his throat. He doesn’t want to keep on with these futile attempts at trying to make you see that love is good and that, maybe, love can be good with him.

The truth is, he feels scared. Maybe even more scared than you do. He is terrified of knowing the answer, of finding out that maybe he could change your mind about love but that it would simply lead you to someone else’s arms and he would have to endure the pain of unrequited love until it inevitably faded away with time.

Minho would gladly live with that pain if it meant you were happy.

But he needed to know.

He adjusted his glasses — a childhood nervous habit that returned after he started wearing them more often since you complimented him months ago — and retrieved his phone from his backpack.

He typed and deleted more times than he’d like to admit.

Me: Hey, it’s late sorry Me: Just wanted to know if you’d be up for a trip to Japan? Me: In two weeks Me: For study purposes Me: We’d finally have the chance to use what we learned in class lol Me: Chan was supposed to go with me but he has a family thing so he can’t anymore Me: Everything’s already paid for and he said he doesn’t mind if you go in his place Me: Lmk what you think

Minho’s fingers typed as his brain came up with excuses and lies, sending more messages than he needed to. He couldn’t tell you he booked a whole damn trip with you just to see if maybe, possibly, you have feelings for him too.

He all but throws his phone across his table after turning on Do Not Disturb. He’ll need to muster up the courage before reading your answer, and having his phone buzz for anything that wasn’t your reply would just be torturous. He felt stupid, would feel even more so if you turned down his invitation. He almost doesn’t want you to answer, wants to pretend he never even sent anything.

Because it was stupid.

But love is stupid, and he is in love.

Worst-case scenario, he’s stuck with Chan in Japan for a weekend while he laughs at him.

Best-case scenario, he spends a weekend with you in Japan. No letting you go back to another man at the end of the day, no more hiding that he is taking you out on dates, no more distractions, no more inconveniences of your daily lives.

Minho opens the code he was working on again, quickly typing out:

// NOTE: Minho will fix this.

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