#Ricky horror fluff

[spookieolson]

You make everything better. (Ricky “Horror” Olson x Reader)

A/N: Felt like writing some fluff for Ricky today. Enjoy <3

Warnings: Language, light angst and fluff

Taglist: Tag List: @skulliecadaver-blog @witchyweeb34 @cookiesupplier @raydenrrobertson @sakuracyberhex @beaker1636 @lyschko666 @black-damask1999 @synthetic-wasp-570 @jilliemiw86 @tearfallpixie @vinyardmauro @thatchickwiththecamera @bloody-delusion-expert @th0ughts-pr4yers @zuberweirrd @bxrnthyfears @yournecessaryevil @arkiliastuff @abiomens

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It was another long day at work. Customers were jerks and I didn’t even get to go on my lunch break today. I was exhausted and hungry.

I trudge my way out of the mall and into the parking lot. I find my car and get in. I let my head rest on the steering wheel as I let out a groan mixed with frustration and exhaustion. I run a hand through my hair with a sigh and start the car.

The drive home wasn’t easy. People drove like morons and some idiot almost side swiped me. It seemed my bad day was only getting worse.

Finally, I arrive home and pull into the driveway. Ricky was still at the studio with the guys and wouldn’t be home for a couple of hours. I turn off the car and grab my purse and get out of my car. I walk up to the door and dig in my purse for my keys.

“Damn it, where are they?” I grumble, getting more annoyed as I can’t find my keys. “Fuck, come on!”

Eventually after some digging, I find my keys and unlock the door. I get in and throw my bag to the side. I go to the couch and sit, soon to slump against it.

I was tired.

Mentally, and physically tired.

I could feel tears prick my eyes as I hugged one of the pillows. Today was a rough day, and all I wanted to do was cry.

So, that’s what I did. I let the tears run down my face as I hugged the pillow closer, shoving my face into it. I wished it was Ricky. Ricky always made everything better.

But he wasn’t here. He was working. All I wanted was for him to comfort me, and I couldn’t have that. Not for a couple of hours. Now I was sobbing.

I don’t know how long I was crying, but I heard the front door open. I didn’t bother to acknowledge whoever it was, I really didn’t give a damn. I just hug the pillow and keep my head down as I hear the sound of footsteps. I had cried so much that my voice was tired.

“Sweetheart? You home?” Ricky’s voice calls as he gets closer. I don’t answer.

Ricky finally approaches me, and frowns when he finds me like this. He crouches down to my level and gently takes my face.

“Baby, what’s wrong? Why are you crying?” He asks softly, his voice filled with worry.

“Bad day…really bad day..” I mutter, my voice on the verge of cracking.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

I shake my head in response. Ricky nods. “That’s perfectly okay. Have you eaten yet?”

Shit. Ricky hated whenever I didn’t get the chance to eat. I gulp and look away. Ricky frowns again.

“I’m going to take that as a no.” He says with a sigh, then places his hand on my leg. “You need to eat, sweetheart.”

“Not hungry..” I mumble. That was a lie. I was starving, but I didn’t want to get up and eat.

“Uh uh. We’re not doing that. You need to eat.” Ricky stands. “Here’s what we’re gonna do. You’re gonna go take a nice shower while I make food, change into comfy clothes and then we’re gonna have a movie marathon on the couch. I’m not letting you be sad.”

That actually sounded pretty nice. I nod and sit up, rubbing my eyes. Ricky extends his hand and I take it as he helps me up. He walks with me to the bathroom and places his hands on my shoulders.

“Just relax, okay? Take your time while I cook pasta. I know it’s your favorite.”

My eyes light up a little. “Thanks Rick..”

Ricky smiles and presses a kiss to my forehead. “Of course baby, you deserve the best. Now go shower, okay?”

“Mhm..”

Ricky pulls away and leaves the bathroom so I can shower. I undress and turn on the shower. I end up taking a nice, long everything shower using all of my favorite smelling products. It made me feel a bit better.

I step out of the shower in my towel and walk into the bedroom. I put on my favorite body lotion and put my hair in a jaw clip. I change into comfy clothes and leave the bedroom.

When I walk into the kitchen, the smell of cooked pasta greets me. Ricky was almost done. I walk up behind him and wrap my arms around his torso, nuzzling my face into his back. Ricky turns his head and looks down at me with a smile.

“Hey beautiful. Have a nice shower?”

“Mhm…”

“Good. Dinner’s ready, go sit.”

I nod and let go of Ricky, a little sad to let go due to him being so warm, and smelling good too. I go to sit at the table.

Ricky plates the pasta and walks over, setting a plate down in front of me. I pick up my fork and waste no time devouring my pasta.

Ricky smiles as he watches me eat. “So much for not being hungry, huh?” I hum in response as I finish my first plate. I happily get up to grab another.

“You always make it just the way I like it, thank you.” I say as I sit back down, picking my fork up again and eating.

“It’s no trouble, really. I knew it would make you happy. It’s easy to make as well.”

We finish eating and Ricky sets the dishes aside in the sink, saving them for later. He grabs my hand and leads me over to the couch. He pulls me with him to cuddle. He sits me in his lap and wraps his arms around me. I lean into him, resting my head against his shoulder.

“You didn’t have to do this for me, Rick..” I say softly as he turns on the tv.

“I wanted to, baby. I never want to see you sad.” Ricky says as he settles on a movie, sets the remote down, and pets my hair. “It makes me sad seeing you upset.”

I nestle into him, nuzzling my face into his tattooed neck. “You always know what to say, and how to make me feel better. I love you..”

Ricky presses a kiss into my hair and pulls me closer. “I love you too, sweetheart. I’m always here for you.”

“You’re the best.”

We spend the rest of the night cuddling on the couch and watching movies until I end up falling asleep. Ricky carries me into our shared bedroom and lays me down on the bed. He pulls the covers over me and kisses my forehead. He lays on his side and wraps an arm over me. It isn’t long until he’s asleep as well.

He always made everything better.

[circle-with-me]

heal me when i’m broken

pairing: ricky olson x fem!reader

content warning/tags: 18+ MDNI!! mentions of nightmares, panic attacks, comfort, fluff, shower sex, fingering (female receiving), unprotected p in v sex.

word count: 1.6k

tag list: @deathblacksmoke @concretenoah @tearfallpixie @meekahy @cookiesupplier @lacktoesandtoddlerants @sitkowski @collective-heartbreak @catharsis-in-darkness @undead-ahead-wh0re @to-be-written @collapsedglasshouses

authors note: i wrote this from an anonymous request i received where reader wakes up from an intense nightmare and ricky comforts her. fluff and smut were requested. i hope i made your request exactly what you wanted, love. please enjoy 🩷

also big thanks to my bestie/beta reader @deathblacksmoke 🫶🏻

Screams echo around the room as you wake up in a panic. Your body thrashes underneath the sheets, attempting to escape from the horror that had been chasing you in your sleep. A muffled voice repeats your name, but you can’t focus on it. You open your eyes but you’re too blinded by fear, your chest aching from gasping for air.

The voice gets louder and a figure appears in your still cloudy vision. You feel hands grab your wrists and you fight back to break free. The figure pushes your wrists to your stomach with one hand and the other comes to your face. The thumb rubbing at your temple feels familiar. The soft lips that delicately press to your forehead despite your violent movements are not from a stranger or a monster from your nightmares. It’s him.

As his voice breaks through the ringing in your ears, your body stills. Your vision clears and his stormy eyes stare back at you dejectedly. His eyebrows knit together with concern as he pets your sweat soaked hair out of your face. He lets go of your hands, both of them instantly wrapping around him.

“I’m so sorry, Ricky.” You sob into his neck.

He places featherlight kisses to your collarbone, running a finger up and down your arm. You feel your breathing slow down; your heart no longer pounding in your chest.

“Was it the same one as last time?” Ricky whispers.

You nod, whining. He squeezes your arm comfortingly, moving his mouth to your bicep. Ricky watches you as he thoughtfully kisses the tips of each of your fingers until they stop shaking.

“Is that better?” He asks, placing his face in your hand and smiling.

You’re uncertain of how he does it. How naturally he takes the darkness inside of you and chases it away with the lightest touch. You avoided spending nights with him for so long at first — terrified he would witness your nightmares and leave. The memories that haunted you weren’t his burden to bear after all. He finally persuaded you to stay with him, all but getting on his knees to convince you.

You had one of the worst nightmares you’ve ever had that night. He didn’t bat an eye, just held you until the screaming stopped. Every tear was wiped away as they fell. Consistent reassurance was whispered in your ear that you were safe – he was there, and he wasn’t going anywhere. Finally, you fell back asleep some time later, sleeping in until late morning. You found out later that he had stayed up the rest of the night to keep an eye on you, soothing you back to sleep anytime you stirred unpleasantly.

Being loved by Ricky Olson is the easiest thing you’ve ever done.

You gently move him so that you can swing your legs over the edge of the bed. All of your muscles ache and your bones crack as you stretch. You sigh loudly, feeling Ricky’s hand come to the small of your back. He sits beside you, pulling you into him.

“Why don’t I turn the shower on for you?” He asks, propping his chin on your shoulder. “I’ll throw in one of those lavender shower steamers. Maybe that and the hot water will help you relax.”

You lay your head against him, humming in contemplation.

“Will you join me?”

“I will never say no to that question.” Ricky punctuates his statement with a peck to your shoulder, pushing himself off the bed towards the bathroom. He stops at the doorway and looks back at you. Without a word, he holds his hand out for you, gesturing for you to come to him.

You do so without protest, following him into the cold bathroom and sitting on the counter as he turns the shower on. He ensures the water is at the perfect temperature before he sets the lavender scented disk on the floor.

Ricky helps you out of your sweat soaked tank top. You hop off the counter and wiggle out of your shorts and underwear. The water burning against your skin is pleasant. You let it run down your back, the smell of lavender permeating your senses. Ricky steps in not long after, wrapping you in his arms and burying his face in your hair.

The warmth from his body heat and the water eases the pain in your body. You slump into Ricky’s arms and he chuckles as he peels you off of him to wash your hair. He lets you wash your body, now having enough strength to do so. You watch his eyes wander, following the soap suds as they fall down the slope of your breasts and descend to your stomach.

It’s obvious that he’s trying his best to keep his hands to himself. You can see the inner workings of his mind as his tongue darts out to swipe at his bottom lip. He’s unsure if this is an appropriate time given this morning’s events.

You place your hand on his chest and he glances up at you. There’s little communication necessary, just a squeeze of your waist and a slight nod from you has him lurching forward. Your lips are consumed by his, nearly knocking the air out of you when you collide together.

He backs you against the shower wall, lips attached to your neck. The hot water beats down on your bodies as you tangle together. You wrap your arms around his neck, pushing your chest upwards. Ricky takes the hint, smirking, and dips his head down, wrapping his lips around your breast. Carding your fingers through his hair, you give a playful tug. He groans, gripping the flesh of your ass. His mouth is back on yours instantly, desperate to taste you more.

Ricky’s hand drifts up the side of your thigh, then between them, his fingers running through your slit. Gasping into his mouth, you grab onto his shoulders; the sensation causing you to lift onto your toes. He swirls your swollen bud with the pads of his fingers, slotting his knee between your legs.

“Open up a little more for me, baby.” He breathes, nudging your leg gently.

You do as you’re told, giving Ricky the room he needs to slip a finger inside of you. His pace is brutally slow, languidly drawing a single digit in and out of you. The pleasure is too much, yet not enough, and has you begging him to go faster – for more, anything he’s willing to give. All he does is softly shush you, his lips firmly against yours, hips thrusting against you in an attempt to sate his own need for the time being.

Ricky curls his finger inside of you and your vision goes white. As you clench around him, he speeds up his rhythm. You cry out his name, your entire body bucking in his arms as your orgasm rushes through you. He moans in your ear telling you how good you’re doing, moving and bending with your body as you do.

“Fuck..” Ricky pants, his hard cock twitching against your leg. “Turn around, baby. I can’t wait any longer.”

Turning around, you press your body against the tile of the shower wall. Ricky grabs you by the hips, pulling you back to meet his own. He bends over you, pressing open-mouthed kisses down your spine as he lines his cock up with your entrance.

His moans are deafening as he rocks into you. He starts out slow with shallow half-thrusts. You would complain about him teasing you, but from the quiver in his breath, he’s just as affected by it as you.

You call out his name, desperate for him. He runs his hand up your stomach and to your chest, pulling you back against his own. Ricky pumps his cock deep inside of you but his pace is still devastatingly slow.

He swallows every whimper that falls from you, one hand resting on your throat while the other returns to your clit. He increases his pace inside of you only a little, but it’s enough for the coil in your belly to start tightening.

“God, I can feel you, baby.” Ricky grunts in your ear. “Let go for me.”

His words make you clench around him. His resolve crumbles a little as he fixes his arm across your chest, driving his hips into you harder. He bites down on your neck as he spills into you, your orgasm following quickly behind his.

Ricky rinses you off with the now cold water and helps you out. He wraps a towel around you and you sit on the counter per his instructions so he can detangle your hair. He combs each strand with care making sure he doesn’t pull too hard. You watch him with heavy eyes, admiring his dedication. He catches you staring, doing a double take when he notices.

“What?” He asks, huffing out a laugh.

“Thank you.” You reply simply.

“For?” His eyes don’t meet yours this time as he’s too focused on a particularly stubborn tangle.

“For being my safe person.”

Ricky stops dead in his tracks, placing the comb down next to you and focusing his entire attention on you. His eyes search yours for a moment, a small smile on his face. He places his hand on the back of your head, bringing your forehead to his lips.

“Thank you for being mine.” He whispers.

[arkiliastuff]

The Angel of Music - Part One

Ricky Olson x Female Reader

N/A : So this is one is (probably) going to be a very long fanfic that I will do in several parts. I got this idea on my mind one day, I felt very inspired about it, and thought it would fit into Ricky's vibe somehow (jhfkjdfdh). I'm very excited to share this one. I had much more fun and felt more comfortable by writting in this format, so I'm certainly going to keep it :D

Warnings : Some fluff and angst. Romantic tension (idk how to call it)

Next PART TWO | PART THREE

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It was the end of September. Autumn leaves falling from the trees in your city, with the air getting colder and rainy. Because of the cool breeze, you tried to cover up your nose and neck with your scarf. Walking in this weather didn’t bother you though, since you liked it. But you didn’t want to get sick. Your voice and throat were very important for your job as an opera singer. 

And today was another day of rehearsal at the opera. So you woke up early this morning to enjoy the drizzle. You weren’t freaked out walking there alone. You liked that spooky atmosphere. Usually you didn’t go to the opera this early. You preferred going there when the evening came and going back to your home when it was pitch black.

Your coworkers were worried about you when you did that. So they convinced you to come earlier in the morning, so you could go back to your flat, safely. Even though they did ask you if you wanted them to accompany you or drive you back home, you always declined, enjoying being alone. 

You didn’t want them to tag along because your introverted and anxious ass was too scared to ask them or even bother them with your problems. Plus you didn’t even know if you could trust them. So you made up an excuse : being alone was easier for you to be aware of your surroundings. It made you look paranoid sometimes but you were always cautious, giving a dead look to the people glancing at you.

And so your coworkers started to call you the “Lone Wolf”. You didn’t care about the nickname, if they were mocking you by saying it, you were more appreciating it. It made you look cool and mysterious.

You finally managed to arrive at the opera, easily and safely. When you saw the security guard waving at you to welcome you, you nodded your head as a salutation.

“Good morning, miss” He said to you politely.

“Good morning Alfred” You replied “ Are the others here ?”

“Hmm.. It seems you are the first of your singer co-workers who have arrived. But you’re the second to be early at the opera this time”.

“Oh ? A rival ? That’s interesting. Who is it ?”

“A musician from a metal band called Motionless in White. He asked me if he could train himself at the opera today. I said it was open for few hours before your group arrived, miss”

Motionless in White ?! Your heart skipped a beat. You’ve heard this band’s name before. It was one of your favorites you listened to during your youth. You were such a hard fan of their music.

Thank you for letting me know, Alfred. Well, I better go and start to warm up my voice. Have a nice day”

He replied to you very respectfully, letting you enter the opera. Alfred wasn’t the real security guard’s name. It was actually you who gave this nickname to him, since you were always struggling at remembering names. And the first time you saw the security guard, so respectful and polite, it reminded you of the butler in Batman’s comic books. You couldn’t help yourself but letting out your thoughts at that moment. Surprisingly, he took this nickname very well and didn’t get upset about it. He was even playing along with you. Since that day you kept calling him Alfred.

He was the rarest human being you tolerated in this job. To you, your coworkers were too much and were making you uncomfortable, with their hypocritical behavior, by asking questions about you, pretending they cared. They always ended up socializing between them, anyway. So you tried to avoid them as much as possible, barely talking to them. 

You were so lost in your thoughts, you didn’t realize you were already in front of your dressing room. You unlocked the door with your keys, but before entering, you noticed, in the corner of your eyes, something shiny on the floor. You crouched, looking closer. It was a black metallic key attached to a string. A necklace ? Someone probably lost it. You picked up the key, keeping it in your jeans pocket until you find their owner. And, in case you couldn’t find the owner, you could give it to the lost items office, which was also Alfred’s responsability. 

Once you changed your casual outfit to your scene one, a white shirt with black pants, you locked up your dressing room and headed to the main stage, with your music sheet in one hand. As you got closer to the main stage door, you heard a melody. A guitar sound.

And then, a voice. A beautiful voice. Almost divine. Someone was singing. You felt shivers running through your spine. It was so magnificent to your ears. But also it was very melancholic. As you were getting few ideas about who this musician was, you finally decided to pull the door knob, getting in.

The stage was illuminated by the chandelier, just above. Though it wasn’t the only thing that was enlightening the room. As you went down the stairs, you saw a silhouette of a man, short dark haired, sitting on a chair, playing his guitar with an intense focus. He was wearing a lot of black clothes, a sleeveless jacket that was revealing his arms covered with tattoos. You noticed he had few of them on his neck as well. As you got closer, you realized who this musician was.

Short dark hair, pale skin, blue grayed eyes… It was Ricky Olson for sure. You’ve listened to the band's music for a long time and loved a huge majority of their songs. You loved the lead singer's voice, but the one who interested you more was Ricky. Each time you could hear his voice, in a Motionless song, you were excited. His voice was enchanting. You couldn’t stop listening to it. Plus his personality was so adorable you were melting every time you watched his numerous tour vlogs. Yeah you were an absolute Ricky’s fangirl.

Seeing him alone, in front of you, at the opera of your hometown, was making you crazy. The more you were getting closer to him, mesmerized by his voice and play, the more you could feel a heat wave overwhelming your body. Your heart was beating so fast in your chest, you thought you were having a heart attack. At this rate, you were convinced that even Ricky could hear your heart pounding so much.

As he heard your thoughts, he lifted up his head, looking in your direction while he stopped playing. The sudden silence in the room made you feel a pressure on your shoulders, like you were caught up on something. You felt the urgent need to explain yourself.

“Erm… Hello.. Sorry for interrupting you. I didn’t mean to. I’m actually an opera singer who practices here.” You muttered so awkwardly, choking on your words.

Ricky stared at you with his icy eyes, perhaps gauging you, as he let you talk. But, oh my God, even like this, you knew you could die happily. His gaze on you was so deep. It made your cheeks blush.

“An opera singer, huh ? I see.” He said abruptly, surprising you a bit.

Gosh, even his talking voice was so soothing and divine. His quiet tone didn’t help to calm down, though. It was the opposite.

“Don’t worry about interrupting me” He kept saying “I am the one who came here, in the first place. Pretty unusual for a metalhead, right ?” He chuckled softly.

You were about to pass out on every word this man was saying to you. It was very bad. You loved hearing him laugh quietly, already.

“It’s fine… The security guard told me about it. You can stay if you need to… So, hum.. you are ?”

“I’m Ricky Olson, from Motionless in White. You can call me Ricky”

“I’m Y/N” You said, your voice shivering. “Enchanted to meet you. I’m a fan of your band.”

He arched a brow, a bit stunned, but he kept his sweet smile to you.

“Well, thank you ! That’s very flattering coming from an opera singer. I wasn’t expecting that at all. What a pleasant surprise.”

A pleasant surprise, he said. He gave you an indirect compliment but still… It made you smile. He said you were pleasant… You threw away this random thought coming in your mind. Come on, it wasn’t the time to make weird scenarios.

“I've been a big fan of metal and metalcore music since my childhood. So that’s not new, for me. I guess you can’t judge a book by its cover” You tried to joke nervously.

Ricky giggled as an approval. Oh God, you loved hearing his sweet and quiet laugh. It was so cute.

“Plus, metal and opera singing have more in common to what we might think. And I want to combine these two different styles, if I get the chance to perform on my own.” You added, feeling more brave to talk, all of the sudden.

“Oh really ? Well, I can’t wait to see you perform one day.” He said, with a shy smile, and then looked at your sheet. “What were you rehearsing on ?”

You almost forgot your music sheet you were holding in your hand, too absorbed and excited by the conversation.

“Oh ! Erm… It’s a musical about the Phantom of the Opera.”

“I’ve heard about it” He said, his curiosity peaked. “I watched a movie about the musical. Very impressive. Who are you playing ?”

“The main protagonist girl, Christine.” You replied timidly. “ And I need to practice the part where she follows the Phantom in his cave, below the stage.”

“Can I see it ?” He asked so politely you felt your heart melt.

You lend him the paper, not daring to look directly at him or even touching his hand by accident, even if you wanted to. You didn’t want to make things awkward for him. He didn’t seem to notice your embarrassment as he was reading the script. Just a minute after, he lended you back your sheet, a serious or a poker-face look on his face.

“If you need a partner, I can be the Phantom for your rehearsal. I have memorized his lines. They aren't that long. It’s to make it up to you for disturbing your workplace.” He said as he owed you something.

You felt your jaw drop. You didn’t even believe what you just heard. Ricky... offering his help to play the Phantom for you ?! He didn’t need to apologize or even to feel like he owed you. The opera was open to the musicians after all. You were too happy about his request. Even if it was for a few minutes long, you thought you were gonna pass out for the second time. Also you were very amazed by his photographic memory to remember lines in such a short time.

“Well, you don’t owe me anything. Don’t worry about it. But, if you don’t mind, it would be an honor for me to rehearse with you” You cleared your throat.

You saw him smile, again, looking down on his shoes awkwardly. Then, he removed his guitar and chair away, trying to get some space. It was so thoughtful and adorable of him. Did his cheeks get pink colored just now..?

You turned your back on him, slapping your cheeks to get your focusing back. You did a few voice warm ups, before getting into your character. The kind, innocent and beautiful Christine. Your complete opposite. 

You didn’t even remember how your coworkers and manager agreed to give you such an important role. They were always saying your voice was fitting her. You weren’t sure if they were mocking you or not about it. Either way, you didn’t like that role. It was putting you out of your comfort zone, making you more vulnerable than you already were.

But strangely,  in front of Ricky, you didn’t mind being vulnerable. You barely met him, for real, only for ten minutes, and yet it felt like you knew each other for ages. His presence was making you feel more at ease. Almost reassuring.

Once you were ready, you shifted to face him, waving your arms with grace as you were dancing.

“In sleep he sang to me, in dreams he came. That voice which calls me, and speaks my name.”

You spined on your feet, slowly getting closer to him while keeping singing.

“And do I dream again. For now, I found The Phantom of the Opera is there… Inside my mind.”

You paused, remembering the piano notes playing while you danced quietly. Then it was Ricky’s turn. He took a step forward to you and reached a hand in your direction, like a gentleman. You could tell something has changed in his temper. As if his aura was getting more mysterious and sinister.

“Sing once again with me, our strange duet. My power over you grows stronger yet. And though you turn from me, in glance behind. The Phantom of the Opera is there… Inside your mind.”

Oh God, you were having goosebumps when you heard him sing so low, and yet, so divine. He was so elegant by singing these lines. He was charming and elegant all the time, but this… This was different. Both of you were getting closer to each other, each time you were singing. Your turn came again.

“Those who have seen your face, draw back in fear. I am the mask you wear...”

“It’s me they hear.”

Then the part where both of you were singing along came too.

“Your spirit and your voice, in one combined. The Phantom of the Opera is there…”

“...Inside my mind…”

“...Inside your mind.”

Ricky was getting closer to your face, gently putting a hand on your back as if you were dancing together. You didn’t push him away. You were too much focused on your role and on his. He glanced at you with his blue iced eyes which was making you melt even more inside.

“In all your fantasies, you always knew. That man and mystery…”

“... were both in you.” You finished.

This time felt like the two of you were talking directly to each other and not as your characters. At least, that’s how you felt. Both of you kept singing together, your voices harmonizing. You remembered the next coming verse was the one you were the most struggling with, while Ricky was making you spin gently on your heels.

“Sing for me, my Angel of Music.” He said.

“He’s there… The Phantom of the Opera.”

“Sing for me.”

As he said, you began to vocalize gradually, getting higher and higher.

“Sing, my Angel of Music.” Ricky ordered.

You obeyed, getting even more higher.

“Sing for me.” He repeated more deeply.

You did as he said, feeling your voice getting so high pitched, like an angel would’ve sounded. It was so graceful, you even surprised yourself by doing it. You didn’t think it was possible for you. Yet, you felt you were soon getting out of breath and tried to hold on for the last part.

“Sing for me !” He said louder.

And so you gave every breath you had left in your lungs. Pushing your voice to its limits. As you were screaming. Screaming for the Phantom in front of you.

You managed to hold ten seconds of the scream before stopping. Ricky looked at you with widened eyes, impressed and captivated by your performance. You were catching your breath as you saw his mouth moving, talking to you. But you didn’t hear what he said as he was interrupted by loud applause coming from the stands, which surprised you both.

“Bravo ! Bravo ! Absolutely stunning !”

You recognized the voice. It was your manager’s, ruining this beautiful moment you had with Ricky. You knew this wasn’t a good sign for you. You just hoped that eccentric man wasn’t going to drag Ricky too, in to whatever mess he was planning…

[beaker1636]

F is For Face Sitting - Vinny

a/n: So if you didn't figure it out I kind of hinted that Lottie was a bit insecure about not being the smallest girl out there in the last part and I really played with that in this chapter in a way that I found really sweet and loving between her and Vin. So this one is a really fluffy smut and hopefully you guys like it as I took kind of a different route with this than I originally planned. I love you all and appreciate all the kid words I keep getting with this, I’ve been really putting myself out there and trying new things with this fic so all the kind comments mean a lot to me!

Also probably won’t get much posted until Thursday or Friday so sorry if you don’t get any updates for awhile!

“Are you trying to get me killed, there is no way Lottie is going to allow me to do that with her tonight,” Vinny groans as he sends the message in the chat back to Chris, wanting to fling his phone across the room.

“Why not? It’s not even that weird or anything, is it like Mia said about how she needs more confidence?” Chris responds quickly, making Vinny want to bury himself in a hole.

“She hates doing anything where she has to be on top because she is worried she’s too big, no matter how much I try to convince her otherwise it never works.  Hell last night she was off because she was embarrassed about being around all the girls in the pool because she is the only “bigger” one and she isn’t even that big.  It’s a rough subject okay,” he hits send, now worried if you found out that he said something if you’d be upset.

“But she isn’t even that big, listen, give her a really nice night with a relaxing dinner, maybe a relaxing bath and then focus on her.  Let her know all you are aiming to do tonight is take care of her and maybe you can slowly coax her out of it, remind her how beautiful she is and that you are lucky.  If you build her up enough you will be able to get her to try and might help build her confidence some… and based off comments on the photo Mia posted of the two of you you may need to do that.  People are being assholes towards her.”  Vin reads the message and immediately panics, pulling up Mia’s instagram and suddenly feeling angered at some of the things that are being said.

“Fuck, how do I fix that? If she has seen it then she’s gonna be a wreck when she gets home from work,” Vinny thinks to himself groaning, “Why do people need to be assholes?”

Rather than saying anything he decides the easiest way to get the point across that he doesn’t give a shit about any of it is to post a photo he has of the two of you that Rick caught a while ago, his favorite photo of the two of you that neither of you have posted before.  He doesn’t remember what the two of you were laughing at but the smile on your face always makes him smile when he sees it. He makes a quick caption about how beautiful you are caught in the moment and left it at that, hoping that people would get the hint and lay off you.

He smiles to himself when he sees you respond to him comment with I love you.

He sends you a quick message telling you he is going to meet you at your place in a  little bit now that he knows you are off work and that he is bringing dinner over so you don’t need to worry about anything.

Later

Vinny opens your front door and smiles when he hears the shower, knowing that you must have just gotten home from work if you are still in the shower.  Setting the food he picked up down on your coffee table he makes his way towards your bathroom, knocking before slipping in.

“Hey baby, just letting you know that I am here,” He says, trailing off when he hears what music you have playing, it is what you listen to when you are in a bad mood. “Are you okay?” he asks softly.

“I will be, give me a few minutes to have my moment and then I’ll be out,” you respond, he can tell by the tone of your voice that you have been crying, his heart falling when he knows what it is about.

“Baby, get out of the shower, we need to talk about this,” He says softly, hoping that you will listen and feeling better when he hears the water turn off, the curtain slowly opens just barely so you can reach your hand out, grabbing your towels to wrap around you and your hair before you open it the rest of the way and step out.

“Come here, let's go to the room. I want to show you everything about you that I find attractive, that others find attractive, baby,” he says quietly, reaching for your hand so he can lead you towards your room.  

He is a little upset that you don’t fight him, normally you put up a huge fight when he drags you somewhere so he knows you really are out of it.  He moves you and has you sit on the edge of the bed, facing your full vanity mirror, giving a kiss before he moves so you can see yourself in the mirror.

“Let’s start with your hands, the hands you use to take care of children all day, that you use to wipe their tears away, clean their faces, cradle them when they need some love, play with them.  The few times I have witnessed you with your class I love seeing the way you use them to take care of the kids, to take care of everyone when you can.” He gives one of your hands a light kiss before setting them on your lap.

“Vin, you don’t have to do this.  I’ll get over it eventually,” you whisper softly, meeting his eyes in the mirror for a moment while blushing.

“I know but I want to Lottie,” he responds, placing a kiss on your bare shoulder. “Your arms, the way they wrap so tightly around me and those you care about, the way you wrap them around your work kids when they run up to you when we go out and one of them sees you.  I would be lying if I said that I don’t sometimes get jealous of the kids that you hold onto all day and love on in your arms, but I am the lucky one that gets to be in them at night, that you pull into your chest while you play with my hair and we just talk or I game for awhile,” he says softly, rubbing his hands along your arms while you continue to watch him.

When his hands reach the top of your towel where it is tucked around you he notices you suck in a breath, the way you tense under his touch so he pauses for a moment. “Hey, it’s just me, you don’t need to be shy for me Lottie.”

When he undoes it he lightly runs his hands along your stomach, one of the places he knows you are really insecure about. “I love that you are soft and cuddly, you are strong.  I love that when we curl up and you envelope me in your arms that I can be comfortable as I lay on your soft belly and chest.  It brings me so much comfort when I use you as a pillow, there is a reason why I try to lay my head on you a lot when we are cuddled up in bed. I couldn’t do that with someone that is smaller, I love being curled up with you and comfortable.  My favorite place to rest my hands is on your waist when you are around me, I don’t know why it just brings me comfort.”

Before you can protest he moves so that he can leave a kiss on your lips, trailing down to make sure he leaves gentle kisses on your love handles and stretch marks, the places that he knows you are the most uncomfortable with, that you usually get annoyed with when he tries to touch them.

He stops when he gets lower to sit up and watch you again in the mirror as he settles back behind you once again, this time his hands resting on your thighs. “We’re at my favorite part, I love your squishy thighs and butt.  They look so good in your jeans when you are walking, they are so comfortable to sit in or lay my head in.  They keep you up on your feet when you chase littles all day, and I know they love getting to sit in your lap with you.  I love the way you wrap them around me when I get you all needy and you want me to just get you past the finish line already.” He ghosts his fingers towards your center when he says this, smiling slightly to himself when he feels you shudder.

“Now arguably one of my favorite parts of you, I would be lying if I tried to pretend that it wasn’t,” he smiles slightly when he hears you giggle at his words. “I love it when you get all wet and needy for me, when you draw my fingers and my cock in as you get closer and closer to falling over the edge, I love the way you taste when you let me taste you and get you going.” 

He runs a finger along your opening towards your clit, making you squirm in your spot as he begins to tease you slightly, knowing that he is getting you worked up and also raising your mood and confidence slightly. He uses his other hand to let your hair loose, brushing it away from one of your ears before leaning in to whisper, “Let me worship you baby, please ride my face tonight, take the pleasure you need from me.”

He notices you freeze up but continues to tease you, the one hand still barely grazing your clit while the other reaches around you to lightly toy with one of your nipples, trying to get you to the point you won’t think about it, that you will just let him do what he wants to do.

“Vin,” you start to say with a sigh.

“You’re not going to hurt me, if I need you to move I will let you know. Please, let me pleasure you, show you how much I love you and your body,” he asks, moving to lay down on the bed behind you.

Hesitantly you move, leaning yourself over him but not sitting down like he wants you to, nervous to be trying something new, especially when you’d be putting your weight on him.

Getting impatient Vinny grabs your thighs, pulling you down on top of him so that he can begin to tease your folds with his tongue.  Running it from your entrance to your clit several times knowing that motion drives you nuts before finally sucking harshly on your clit for a second, making you arch your back and moan at the feeling.

“There you go, rock yourself on me, take what you want,” Vinny encourages, moving his hands to your hips as he urges you to rock them as he continues to tease you with his tongue, knowing he is bring you close when you now are moving yourself, starting to take it into your own hands as you moan on top of him. 

 He moves a hand so he can slip two of his fingers inside of you, knowing that the added sensations of them working inside of you as you work yourself on top of him will set you off, and he is correct.  With a couple more swivels of your hips, with his tongue working at your clit you come undone on top of him.  

He lays his head back so he can watch you as your face tightens and you throw your head back as you ride out and slowly come back down from the orgasm he just gave you.  You slipping your legs over his head so that you can move and lay down next to him on the bed, chest rising and falling rapidly as you come down from everything that just happened.

“I told you that I would be fine, just because you aren’t the smallest wouldn’t mean you would hurt me.  I love your body baby, you do such amazing things with it and I wish you could see that… but I’ll keep worshiping you and telling you until you believe me,” he says softly, giving you a kiss and trying not to laugh when you grimace at the taste of yourself on his lips.

“I’m going to go brush my teeth and then reheat our dinner, go get dressed baby,”  he says softly, making his way back to the bathroom that you both left about a half an hour earlier so he can do that. 

When you slip into the kitchen where he is warming dinner back up for the two of you you sneak behind him, wrapping your arms around his back as you rest your face on his now shirtless frame.

“Thank you Vin, I love you,” you hum softly, feeling a lot better after all his praise and kind words. “I know I should ignore it, but it never gets easier having those comments directed at me, being the bigger one of all our group of friends.”

“I know, but you aren’t even that big babe.  And all that matters is that you and I love it and are happy, and I am.  I love you just how you are.  Now why don’t we take our food and go watch (your favorite movie)?” He asks, turning around to wrap his arms around you as well, your head now resting on his chest.

“That sounds wonderful, thank you Vin,” you say softly, following him towards your couch to go and do just that, curling up next to him the second the two of you are done with dinner so you can enjoy the rest of your night together.

[celestineveil]

Needy Theater

•┈••✦ ❤ ✦••┈•

Author's Note: Hello, Hello! It's me again! This oneshot is Ricky Olson x Original Character

Content Warning: This oneshot contains smut.

Oneshot Summary: This is a Ricky Olson x Original Character ( Ariadne ), and they are at the movies when Ricky got out of hand

Word Count: 590

•┈••✦ ❤ ✦••┈•

Throughout the duration of the play, a sense of anticipation hung in the air around Ariadne. The theater was dark, but the sensation of Ricky's hand gradually inching up her thigh was unmistakable. She attempted to divert her attention to the stage, yet Silas seemed to possess an intuitive knowledge of how to arouse her. Soon enough, his fingers found their way into the confines of her jeans, teasing her through the fabric of her panties. A sharp intake of breath betrayed Ariadne's attempt to maintain composure, prompting her to glance at him.

"What?" Ricky murmured, his expression feigning innocence as he met her gaze. With narrowed eyes, she gently removed his hand from her pants, guiding it to rest on his own lap. Hastily, she fastened her zipper, endeavoring to focus on the unfolding drama.

Undeterred, Ricky draped an arm around Ariadne's shoulders, slipping her hand beneath the neckline of her blouse to toy with her nipple. Suppressing a whimper, she bit down on her cheek, struggling to keep her attention fixed on the performance. Ricky's caresses persisted, his lips tracing a path along her neck. Overwhelmed by sensation, Ariadne could endure no more. She rose abruptly, seizing Ricky's arm and leading him out into the parking lot, where their unlocked car awaited.

Seated inside, Ariadne turned to face Ricky. "If you desire anything tonight, you'll drive us home immediately," she instructed, her tone firm. Ricky smirked in response, igniting the engine and propelling them toward their shared apartment.

Upon arrival, Ricky hastened indoors, with Ariadne following closely behind. Keys were discarded, and before Ariadne could react, Ricky had her pinned against the door, his hands restraining her. Locking eyes with her, he issued a command.

"You're mine, understood? Not a sound unless I permit it," he growled. Ariadne nodded, the anticipation building within her. Rick hoisted her over his shoulder, carrying her to their bedroom where he undressed with careless abandon.

As Ricky stripped Ariadne of her clothing, his gaze lingered appreciatively on her form. Positioning her over the edge of the bed, he administered a gentle caress to her ass before plunging two fingers inside her. Ariadne gasped, hoping her pleasure wouldn't betray her. But Rcky was attuned to her every reaction.

A resounding smack against her skin accompanied his reprimand. "What did I say about making noise?" he demanded, his voice commanding compliance. Ariadne remained silent, feeling his hardness against her.

"Good girl. Now, tell me what you want," Silas murmured, his breath hot against her ear.

"Please, I want you," Ariadne pleaded eagerly. Without hesitation, Ricky entered her forcefully, eliciting a cry of ecstasy mixed with pain. He silenced her with another slap to her rear.

"Not a word," he growled, setting a punishing rhythm that sent waves of pleasure coursing through Ariadne's body. Despite her struggle to contain her moans, Ricky's words fueled her desire, bringing her ever closer to climax.

As their passion peaked, Silas whispered huskily in Ariadne's ear, expressing his desire to assert their connection. Unable to contain herself any longer, Ariadne moaned loudly, her release imminent. Ricky's thrusts grew more frenzied until he reached his own climax, collapsing beside her in a satisfied heap.

Breathless and spent, Ariadne snuggled into Silas's embrace, feeling utterly content. "That was incredible, Ricky," she murmured, a smile playing at her lips.

"Yeah, it was," he chuckled, pulling her closer. "But I think you'll be sore tomorrow," he added, his laughter echoing in the intimacy of their shared moment. As they drifted off to sleep, Ariadne couldn't help but feel grateful to be exactly where she belonged.

[ch4p3lofbl00d]

Nightmares~Ricky Olson

Trigger warning for mentions of abuse and panic attack ⚠️

Y/N Pov:

Nightmare|

I backed away into the corner as my ex came closer to me. He raised his hand, slapping me across the face as I tried to hold back tears. I touched my cheek to see blood dripping down my face at how hard he had slapped me.

Next thing, I knew; he took out his pocket knife and cut my arm open, while pushing me against the wall, yelling "you worthless piece of shit" "you worthless, ugly, disgusting, whore" "you deserve nothing" "you selfish little slut"

He continued doing this, until he grabbed my wrist, dragging me into a closet and locking me in there "there you go bitch. Stay in there and think about what you have done. Worthless bitch"

I hid in the corner of the closet, crying in my hands as I shaked. Next thing, I knew, I couldn't feel anything and I passed out.

End of nightmare|

I woke up in a cold sweat with tears running down my face as I tried to breathe again. I quietly rocked myself back in forth, trying not to wake up, my boyfriend, Ricky, who was sleeping right next to me.

After awhile, I still couldn't calm down and I felt like I was suffocating. I couldn't breathe normally and I felt trapped. My breathes quickened as I sobbed harder; I was shaking violently as I felt being pulled into someone's arms.

Ricky Pov:

I held Y/N as I tried to calm her down from her nightmare. This has been happening a lot recently. Y/N has been having nightmares about her abusive ex and she ended up having panic attacks everynight die to it.

I hated seeing her like it. My girl being heartbroken; it made me want to beat the shit out of her ex. The man who did this to her and caused her so much trauma.

I sighed as I kissed Y/N'S head; she didn't deserve this. She was too sweet to be treated like this. Why would anyone think of doing something like that to such a beautiful girl?

My thoughts got interrupted by hearing a sad, yet soft voice say "Ricky?" I looked down at my arms to see my girl's year stained face. I moved some of her hair out of her face as I said "yes, love?" I saw more tears fall down her face, but I wiped them away as quickly as they fell. "I'm sorry for waking you up... I didn't mean to.. I'm so sorry"

As she said that, it made me feel horrible; I didn't care if she woke me up or not, all I care about if she's safe. I kissed her head as I wiped more tears falling down her face. "Love, you don't need to apologize. I'll wake up anytime you need me. All I want is for my girl to be safe, okay? Because you are safe with me and I love everything about you, my love"

I heard my sweet girl start sobbing again, so I pulled her closer to me as I ruined her back "let it all out, baby" I kissed her head again and heard slow breathing coming from Y/N. I smiled as I realized that she has fallen asleep.

I laid down with Y/N still in my arms. I kissed her cheek and whispered "goodnight, love. Sleep well" I laid her head in my chest, and slowly fell back to sleep with my favorite girl in my arms.

Thank you for reading <3 🖤

[mariocki]

Mansion of the Doomed (Massacre Mansion, 1976)

"You must trust me. I'm going to give you back your eyes, all of you. Soon. As soon as I've succeeded with Nancy, as soon as I... I discover the truth. I will share that truth with you. For the whole world! I believe in humanity, that's - that's what it's all about."

[reidrum]

the many names | s.r

a/n: i could not get the idea that spencer would have little explanations for all the names he has for you so i give you this enjoy

summary: in which the many names that spencer calls you each have a special meaning

cw: mind rotting fluff

wc: 1.1k

honey:

spencer’s childhood was anything but ordinary. graduating high school at 12, with a schizophrenic mother, and an absentee father is a combo meant to mess anyone up. the one thing he felt was constant were the sitcoms his mother would watch when she had her good days. shows like i love lucy and cheers filled his ears as he watched the picture perfect families navigate through mundane and seemingly normal scenarios. the comfort he found in these televised families, something he wasn’t afforded in his own, was a nice little bandaid on the gaping hole left by the oddities of his life.

until he met you, of course. you changed everything for him, showed him what it meant to be loved and cherished, what family really was outside of the textbook definition. as a young boy he’d always envied ricky ricardo coming home to lucy at the end of every work day, bursting through the door and saying “honey, i’m home!” the phrase itself encompassed what he so dearly longed for; a home.

so when spencer calls you honey, he means it because you’re sweet and sappy and all the things normally associated with honey. but for him, specifically, when he gets to come back from harsh cases, bursting through the door of your shared apartment yelling “honey, i’m home!”, it heals that gaping hole from his childhood little by little, replacing the wound with the home you’ve built together.

sweetheart:

for someone who absolutely loves sweet things, calling you sweetheart was an obvious title in his book. the way you cared so deeply for the people in your life, the people you didn’t know, even those involved in heinous crimes were offered some of your never ending empathy. it inspired him, to know that someone who sees the true horrors of humankind on the daily can still hold hope and love for the world’s inhabitants.

when spencer calls you sweetheart, it’s in the more domestic moments of your lives. when he asks which tea you want, when he can tell it’s been a rough day and he lets you rest in the comfort of his arms saying “it’s okay, sweetheart. i’m here now.”, when he leaves you long and loving voicemails for when you’re not able to go on cases together. spencer’s sweet tooth could probably never be satiated, but if it keeps you around forever he has no problem with that.

angel:

calling you angel is still something he finds a little ironic. he’s an agnostic atheist, has no faith in the gods or whatever power that may be. he’d always say if you couldn’t find it in a textbook then it’s not a real thing. but here you were, defying literally everything he ever knew or thought he knew. spencer thinks that if angels were personified they would surely look like you.

his job has so many moments that put him in near death situations, he’s not proud of how many times he’s felt the pearly gates come for him. but every time he was close to that end, flashes of you would roll through his mind like a movie reel and it would tether him back to this realm.

add to that, you just always happened to be there when he needed you. if he was about to drop a cup of coffee you’d be there grab it, you had his back when you were on the field together, and you’d let him talk your ear off about the most obscure topic just to see him smile.

if proof existed for the theoretical, it would be you. you were his guardian angel, and he never let you forget it.

princess:

this one was rare, only invoked in the super intimate and special moments between you both. usually in the bedroom is where you hear this one used in both sides of the extreme. on one side he says it when you’re being just so needy, so pliant and willing for whatever he wants it just makes him want to give you everything in return. on the other side, when you’re being for lack of a better word, a brat, it’s used as a tease, a taunt for your slutty bad behavior. a reminder that even though you’re spoiled by him he’s still going to give you the world.

it’s also used when you both get dressed up, for an fbi event or a party at rossi’s. it always takes the wind out of him when he sees you getting ready or you come out to show your outfit to him. it makes him feel like falling in love with you again every time, like he’s been so blessed to live a fairytale where he prevails and gets the princess at the end.

baby:

calling you baby is quite literally second nature to spencer, probably the easiest thing for him to do. it slips out all the time people might think baby is your real name. he uses it when he asks what you want for dinner, when you’re upset over something he did at work that put him in danger, when he just really wants you to watch this one russian romance film he finally got his hands on and promises you’ll love it.

you also find it really funny to play songs that you know he doesn’t know that have the word baby in it, because even if he doesn’t know the words to always be my baby to mariah carey, it never stops him from giving you the biggest smile in the universe when he listens to you belt the song to him.

pretty girl:

he didn’t even come up with this one, derek did. stemming from his nickname for spencer, when derek realized that there was something between you and pretty boy, it just became so easy to get under his skin and call you pretty girl, telling him “don’t look now, your pretty girl is coming.”. before you had started dating and spencer was just pining from afar, he would get so red in the face when derek would let the name slip.

after he finally grew some balls and asked you out, spencer adopted the name for himself to use in situations he had you alone, where he could admire you in your entirety and no other prying eyes. to use when you just wake up and the sunlight hits you perfectly like a glowing halo, or when you’re both in the office and you’re explaining something relevant to the case and you just sound so smart and beautiful, and he can’t help but truly believe that the aphrodite reincarnate is his.

[hannie-dul-set]

the psychology of strawberries — [s.qr].

SYNOPSIS. besides being your friend, kim gyuvin also holds the existence of being the worst matchmaker in history. the last guy he set you up with ended with a permanent ban from the arcade. the one before that caused you to file a restraining order. which is why when he tries to set you up one last time with his best friend, you understandably shut him down.

the problem is— why the fuck didn’t gyuvin tell you that his best friend is actually the prettiest man in the world? the most charming idiot to have graced your mortal existence? maybe if he did, you wouldn’t have to resort to pavlovian tactics and strawberries just to bag him. if he did, then you wouldn’t have to hide the fact that you’re kind of balls-deep in love with his friend.

PAIRING. shen quanrui x female! reader. GENRE. college! au, (anti) matchmaking! au, strangers to friends to lovers, eventual secret relationship. romance, humor, fluff, suggestive, older! reader, this is just lovelicky propaganda. sue me. WARNINGS. swearing, explicit language, mentions of sex, making out, making out in public, an almost car crash, stalking (not from any of the leads), erratic behavior (mostly from our lead), ricky in a floral shirt, black haired ricky and bathrobe ricky jumpscare. WORD COUNT. 21k.

TAGLIST. @lovialy @sarang-ae @khaelscafe @jenodreamer @lovelyrickyz @ciaoui @spjhyn @chwesuh-imnida @kgneptun @hanstarrs @dvalitaes @younxii @haesunflower @cyberpunksunwoo @tlnyjoong @bobabunhee @elavin @sassybakaaa @wishfulthnking @lvieee

NOTE. there is evident lack of plot in this. unless you consider thirsting over ricky as plot, then there’s a lot of plot. you’re welcome. feedback and comments are always appreciated, and i hope you enjoy!

AT SOME POINT IN YOUR LIFE, THE PROSPECT OF MEETING A NEW GUY STOPPED BEING A POINT OF INTEREST OR ANTICIPATION. It has now become a harbinger of horror, an inevitable car crash simply lying in wait. Gone are the days where you’re looking forward to the first kiss on your porch and doorstep— now, you don’t even care if you share the same hobbies or not, if you click well or not, neither if your personalities match or not.

Your only hope is that they don’t end up being a stalker or a slob or someone with severe anger issues. And there’s only one culprit for this seemingly permanent shift in your psychology.

“I’m not going on another date! At least one that you’re setting up.”

“C’mon!” Gyuvin clings onto your arm, preventing you from leaving the classroom. He’s crouching on the floor. Your face crunches up, looking down at him like he’s a piece of gum stuck on your boot sole. “This will be the last time. Please? I showed him a picture of you and he thinks you’re cute.”

The sole reason why Kim Gyuvin can get away with anchoring you by the arm with his entire body weight, why he can get away with setting you up with douchebag after douchebag, is because he’s a family friend, and you’ve known him for eight whole years. These tantrums are normal, but the sudden growth spurt he had in ninth grade makes him occasionally forget that you’re still two years older than him. You were already walking before he was even born. This bitch thinks he can make you do what he wants.

“Get off! Are you trying to dislocate my shoulder?”

The moment you raise your free arm to a fist, he releases you from his clutches and puts his arms up innocently, still crouched on the floor. You click your tongue with a sneer, brushing down your sleeve. Anyway, does he have amnesia? Has he forgotten how the last blind dates went? 

“Your friend Jaeryeong also thought I was cute,” you start. “Really cute, in fact. To the point where he wouldn’t leave me alone and I had to file a restraining order against him.”

Now, he’s finally looking guilty. Gyuvin clear his throat and jumps back up to his feet, straightening his clothes and not daring to look you in the eye. “He—he had some issues that I wasn’t aware of and I’m sorry for that— but Ricky is different! He’s not some weirdo! I promise you that he’s a good guy and he’s good looking and—”

“You said the same thing about Do Hajun,” you cut him off. “Sure, he was pretty good looking, but he got so mad at a claw machine and started assaulting it in public. I got banned at the Game Plaza, Gyuvin. I’m not allowed there anymore. I was the top scorer at DDR there. I can’t maintain my rank there anymore because the last guy you set me up with had problems with his temper.”

He looks even more guilty now. Your glare softens because it’s not entirely his fault. But this time the guy’s name is Ricky. That sounds like a fuckboy’s name. A fuckboy who probably wears snapbacks and jeans a little too low. You’re not taking any fucking chances.

“Okay,” Gyuvin breathes out. “I understand that I may have made some bad matches—”

“Some.”

“A lot of bad matches,” he corrects, sheepish. “But that’s just because so many people want to date you! If you think about it, it’s your fault for always attracting weirdos! I’m just the connecting bridge and messenger! I’m sick and tired of my friends asking me to set you up with them too!”

“So why the hell are you trying to do it again?!” Man, you’re getting tired. You asked him to meet you in your lecture hall after class because you wanted to check up on his project, but the moment he came in, he tried throwing you into the sharks once again in an instant. 

You dig into your bag for a piece of candy, unwrapping it and popping it into your mouth with an unamused expression as Gyuvin tries his damn best to market his friend to you. “This will be the last one, I promise! Ricky is my best friend and I can assure you that he’s a decent guy. He’s hot. He’s got a car. Didn’t you say before that you wanted a hot boyfriend with a car?”

“If he’s so hot then why are you so desperately trying to sell him off?”

You weren’t born yesterday. Hell, you were born earlier than this matchmaking scammer and he regularly forgets about that. “Well,�� he starts, clearing his throat. “He’s my best friend, but I need my solo time too! If he gets a girlfriend, then maybe he’ll stop showing up at my apartment every Friday night and—”

“That’s enough.”

You stuff a piece of candy into his mouth, promptly shutting him up. His eyes are wide, shock quickly morphing into a grimace when the flavor finally kicks in. Durian. Serves him fucking right. 

“Go set your friend up with someone else. I called you in here for a different reason, Kim Gyuvin.” Nothing like dropping his full name and reminding him that you’re still his upperclassman as a cold splash of water to the face. Gyuvin flinches, suddenly straightening himself. “How’s your project going? You only have two months left to finish it. I hope you didn’t forget.”

His face tells you that he forgot about it, but not totally. He’s reluctantly chewing on the candy you force-fed him. “I’ve— I’ve already picked out a place. Hadong Country in Gyeongsang. I’m planning on going there next week.”

“Alright, good.” You leave him with a pat on the shoulder. “Tell me once you’ve set the date. You should worry about your term paper instead of mine or your friend’s love life. Getting us to date won’t pull up your GPA, Gyuvin.”

“But—”

“No, that’s enough,” you shut him down. “I’m not dating this Ricky guy. That’s final. Nothing you can do or say will change my mind.”

Famous last words. Little did you know that you’d be eating that very statement by the weekend.

ONE OF THE PRIVILEGES YOU’VE GOTTEN FROM SUCKING UP TO YOUR PROFESSORS SINCE FRESHMAN YEAR IS HAVING FULL LIBERTY OF USING THEIR OFFICE AS A HANG-OUT SPOT. The air-conditioning here is better than the classrooms or students lounge. You can even raid their snack pantry as much as you want— grabbing a handful from the candy bowl, now filled with pink wrappers of some strawberry hard candy— and stuffing them into the small pocket of your bag to restock your portable stash. 

“Does Prof Yoon know you’re the one that keeps vacuuming his candy bowl?” 

The question comes from Hanbin, who’s just as shamelessly making himself a cup of coffee with the faculty’s machine. The both of you are regular freeloaders at the office. A well-earned privilege, you’d like to say.

“He knows,” you reply, snatching a box of pepero for good measure. “He lets me get away with it because I’m his favorite student.”

There’s one more freeloader. Hao is sitting on the cushy sofa set funded by the student’s tuition fees, sharing a conversation with Mrs. Lee, and the two of you join him not long after. “You three are supervising some of the freshmen this year, right?” your professor asks, and her question is met with a set of artificial positive responses. “I guess I can look forward to some of their outputs then,” she leaves with a hearty laugh and a hard pat on Hao’s back. You wince.

“Why is an old lady so strong?” he laments once Mrs. Lee is sure to have returned to her cubicle. Hanbin is feeling and probing around his spine in case it got broken.

“I hear she’s a member at the gym Jiwoong goes to,” you say. “Scary woman. Thank god we’re on her good side.”

Complaining about your professors in hushed voices while being in their office is a rare skill the three of you have mastered over the past two years. The two elicit murmurs of agreement with your statement. “Speaking, how are your kids doing?” asks Hanbin. Kids, referring to the eighteen to nineteen year olds under your care for their term project.

Hao takes your pepero stick offer before grumbling. “I don’t get why we have to supervise the freshmen when he have our own assignments and projects to deal with.”

“Because Mrs. Lee will give us extra points for our class with her if we do,” you remind. “Gyuvin is doing the bare minimum. At least he now has a location settled down.” The project is for their required course in community development. The freshmen are tasked to select a rural area in the country and do a needs-based assessment survey on it. You did the same when you were in your first year. Mrs. Lee is also the head of the university extensions office. You three have theorized that she’s just using this annual assignment to update her data inventory.

“Gunwook is too passionate. He wants to go all the way to freaking Mokpo.”

“At least he sounds hardworking,” you say, disregarding Hanbin’s stress over an inevitable five-hour drive. “Why can’t Gyuvin be the same? All he does is set me up with terrible men and barge into my family dinners.”

You say that, but everyone who knows you knows that Kim Gyuvin, despite being generally annoying, has burrowed a soft spot in your heart. Unlike Hanbin and Hao who missed a 40-point quiz for Mrs. Lee’s class to join a random play dance competition at the plaza (they won), you didn’t really need the extra points merit, so you had no intentions on volunteering to be a supervisor in the first place.

But when you caught whiff of the news that your poor, poor younger friend of eight years still didn’t have a senior-supervisor for the project, you somehow found yourself in front of Mrs. Lee’s office cubicle and signed up at the last moment.

Which is also why you’re up at 5 a.m. in front of Gyuvin’s apartment building on a weekend, no breakfast in the stomach, just to accompany him to Gyeongsang for this god forsaken community development project.

“Morning.”

Gyuvin greets you with a yawn and a heavy ruffle on the top of your head, to which you respond with a side kick to his ass when he walks past you. “You’re late,” you scold him, and though you want to continue berating your dear friend, two more familiar-looking people emerge from his building’s entrance. 

“Oh, this is Taerae and Matthew,” Gyuvin informs you offhandedly. The two give you a mix of polite nods and smiles. You sort of know Taerae because you shared a class with him last semester. Matthew is just the guy you see at the campus coffee shop at least once a week. “They’re going to be my survey assistants. More people means more ground to cover at once.”

“How’d he scam you two into agreeing?” you ask.

“He’s buying me lunch for a week,” Taerae replies.

“I just wanted to go on a road trip,” Mathew says in a tone too bright for five in the morning. 

You let out a huff of air. Your backpack is getting a little heavy on your shoulders, and all you want is to finally reclaim your lost weekend. Meaning, getting on the road as soon as possibly is priority number one. “So, are we commuting?” you ask. “We should get going then.”

“Oh, no,” Gyuvin replies. He’s already noticed your impatience, and has found himself standing behind you, taking your bag off of your bag so that you don’t snap at him for the next statement he’s about to say. “Actually, we’re waiting for one more per—”

A car horn cuts him off. 

“Well, nevermind. He’s here.”

At that moment, a way too expensive looking car drives up to the porch of Gyuvin’s college-level priced apartment building. This is looking way too out of place. Matthew lets out a whistle when the car stops in front of you. “This kid just got his license exchange and the first thing he does is show off,” Taerae snorts. What...what does he mean? Is this your ride? Is this the (at least seventy-thousand-dollar) vehicle that’ll be driving you all the way to the outskirts of Hadong County? 

The variables don’t click, but your surprise doesn’t end there. Because the person that emerges from the expensive looking ass car’s driver’s seat is— by far— the prettiest person you’ve ever seen in your twenty-one years of life.

Whoa.

Not even those thick, dark shades can obscure that god-sculpted looking face. They only make his nose bridge look even sharper, and you’re trying your damn best not to stare at those full and cherry-painted lips. Holy shit. Platinum blonde has always looked tacky to you, but now you have to re-evaluate. Oh my god. Kim Gyuvin has a friend that looks like this, and all he’s done is set you up with guys that can’t even fucking compare.

Walking statue of a man closes the car door behind him with a click. “Get in,” he says. Holy mother of god, you’re light-headed. Your brain is fuzzy. You’re about to pass out. 

“Ricky! You’re late! How dare you keep the madam waiting?!” 

Things start happening a little too quickly.

Wait a second—

“Shotgun!” 

That name.

“Fuck off! Let’s play for the seat!” 

Sounds Very.

“Rock, paper, scissors, shoot! Rock, paper, scissors—”

Very—

“Paper, scissors— shoot!”

—familiar.

“Dammit,” Matthew grumbles in defeat, joining Taerae in the backseat. You stare at the fist you have held out since earlier. Rock. Rick. Ricky. This guy’s name is Ricky. Isn’t that also the name of Gyuvin’s best friend? The best friend he was trying to set you up with? This is Ricky? This absolute god of a fucking man who’s looking at you with an ounce of confusion, still holding your fist up after somehow winning all rounds of rock, paper, scissors with nothing but a rock, is the Ricky you turned down a date with?

You were correct to assume that his name gives off fuckboy vibes. The problem is, he looks like a really, really hot fuckboy who you don’t mind ruining your life in exchange for three months of fun. Shit. You think you just made eye contact with him through his thick-ass sunglasses. He nods a little with a small, awkward smile before disappearing back into the driver’s seat. 

Fuck. He knows. He definitely knows you wrongfully rejected his ass without even meeting him. Gyuvin, that snitching son of a bitch.

“Hey.”

With a heavy grip on his shoulder, you stop the said snitching son of a bitch before he can escape into the backseat. “What?” Gyuvin raises a brow. The audacity of this guy.

“What was your best friend’s name again?”

“Ricky Shen. Shen Quanrui. Shim Cheonye. Pick one.”

“Is that...the same…?”

“Yes, that guy is Ricky.” There’s an impatient honk from the car. You pay no mind, more concerned about the absolute fucking catch you totally drove away, and that regret is seeping through you expression, failing to wiggle out from Gyuvin’s notice. “Why do you ask?” Are you regretting turning down my offer last week? his face seems to say. You want to hit him. Yes, you are fucking regretting it, but there’s no way in hell you’re giving him the satisfaction of knowing.

“It’s just a little awkward,” you say. “Can you switch with me?”

“Matt hyung’s gonna throw a fit if I take your seat,” he simply hums, opening the door to the front seat on your behalf with a courteous bow that drives you further into annoyance. “Now hop in. We’re already behind schedule.”

You’re the bigger person here so you decide against throwing a tantrum. Begrudgingly, you enter the passenger’s seat, trying to ignore aphrodite’s reincarnation sitting right next to you, and prepare yourself for the three-hour drive or torture because you totally screwed over your chance of having him.

“Woohoo! Road trip!”

“We’re here for my project, idiot.”

“Please tone it down, I’m trying to sleep.”

It’s fine, you cross your arms, wiggling uncomfortably on the soft seat. It’s totally fine. None of Gyuvin’s friends have been decent so far. Yes. You shouldn’t judge positively too quickly. Maybe the only thing this one has going for him is his face. Maybe his personality is just as shitty as the last ones and you’ve completely dodged a bullet.

A very pretty bullet. The pretty bullet is looking at you through the rearview mirror. Oh god, why is he looking at you? He’s got his sunglasses down and those eyes are practically staring into your soul.

“Um,” Ricky clears his throat. “You should put on your seatbelt.”

That rasp shouldn’t be as attractive as it is. Fuck. This man is a walking heart hazard. “O—oh, sorry!” You’re stupid. Your brain is fried. You fumble with the dumb seatbelt, forgetting how it works, and mentally swearing at yourself in the process.

“Do you need any help…?”

Fight or flight instincts kick in. You smack away Ricky’s attempt at a helping hand. His eyes are wide in shock. Your eyes are wide in shock. You want to throw yourself out of this vehicle right now. “It’s—it’s fine!” Finally, you manage to put on the seatbelt. Ricky is a mix of confusion and offense when he starts the car, more on confusion, but that’s alright. The aftermath of him pulling a k-drama move and helping you with the seatbelt would have been worse. You would have disintegrated right then and there.

Your only source of comfort is the backpack that you’re hugging for your dear life. The entire ride is excruciatingly awkward because the three boys at the back have fallen asleep— a state you also wish to be in right now, but that’s quite frankly impossible because you’re a million times more conscious about your physical appearance right now with a literal angel next to you. 

He’s not asking why you’re pressed so far up against the door. For safety reasons, you tell yourself. The air around him just subconsciously feels a lot hotter despite the air conditioning literally blowing cold air to your face.

“Would...would you like some?”

But that doesn’t mean you could stomach this awkwardness, either. Two hours have passed and neither of you have said a word to each other. You’re a fistful into your candy stash and it feels rude not to offer anything to him when he’s been driving for so long. 

You have a cautious arm outstretched, a pink wrapper dangling between your thumb and index finger. Ricky peers down for a split second, a rumble from his throat before saying, “N—no, it’s okay.” The candy disappears into the crevices of his car. You dip your head down, trying to feel around for it, and Ricky continues talking. “Um. I mean. You don’t really have to force yourself to get along with me, seonbae. I already know that you don’t really like me.”

At that moment, you snap your head up. “What?”

Maybe you should’ve been more careful because you scare the shit out of Ricky and the car swerves off the lane.

Screech!

“Ah,” he exhales, parking the car at the edge of the road after nearly killing you all. “That was close.” How the three kids in the back are still asleep is beyond you. They’ve got their necks twisted in all the weird places and you’re pretty sure Matthew is drooling.

But the source of your adrenaline right now isn’t the near death experience.

“What do you mean you know that I don’t like you?”

Translation: what exactly did Kim Gyuvin say to this guy?

“You...turned down the blind date Gyu tried setting up,” he says. Well that’s because Gyuvin never showed you a picture of his face! Instead of using useless words to try and convince you to say yes, he should’ve just sent you his instagram and called it a day. “This car ride must be awkward for you, sorry. I’ll try to get to Hadong as soon as possible.”

He’s sweet and polite too! God, you’ve completely screwed it over. You spend the rest of the car ride overthinking and feeling sorry for yourself. The moment you arrive at your destination, you eject yourself from the car instantaneously. “Alright, we’re wasting daylight. Let’s get moving!” you clasp your hands together, hurrying your barely-awake lackeys into the town. 

With five people, the surveys and interviews get done quicker than expected. At one point, while you were surveying a marketplace owner, your attention got inadvertently distracted by spotting Ricky from the corner of your eye helping out an old lady with a cart and you nearly had a meltdown. Again, why didn’t Gyuvin introduce you to him before your impression of his friends got screwed over by Jaeryeong and Hajun and all the fucking rest?

“What a sweet boy,” says the marketplace owner. He is a sweet boy. That sweet and insanely handsome boy could’ve been yours (not guaranteed).

“Hey!” Gyuvin snaps you out of your daze. You look up, crouched underneath the shade of a tree. One of the locals was kind enough to give you a tour of their plum fields in the village, but you’re a little too rattled to actually appreciate the green scenery. “The ahjumma gave us some plums to taste!”

“You’re a bad person,” you suddenly say. Gyuvin’s face distorts in offense.

“Well, if you don’t want any plums, you can just say so, meanie.”

Maybe you are a meanie, but you’re still not over everything today. While the four boys are fucking around from a bit of a distance, you’re still crouched down and absentmindedly petting a stray cat and moping. Matthew says something you can’t hear, and the three burst out laughing— only the three at first, because Ricky looks lost for a second, blinking with a dumb smile, before joining their laughter only a beat late. 

Oh no, he’s cute. Oh god, you’re falling. Oh man, you’re a goner.

“Time to go home!”

It’s around four in the afternoon when you finally finish. You’re all gathered around Ricky’s car again, ready for another grueling drive back to Seoul. “Go sit in the back. I’ll drive this time,” says Taerae to Ricky, and there starts another rock, paper, scissors battle for who will take the front seat.

Unlike earlier where you won without even realizing there was a game, you lose even after praying to all the gods you know.

“Nice!” Matthew cheers, not even giving you a shot of negotiation because he quickly disappears into the car. You’re looking at Gyuvin, painted in shock and disbelief. Before you know it, you’re wedged into the backseat, in between the two men you’d like to be around the least at the moment. 

Yours and Ricky’s shoulders are touching. This is worse than earlier. He looks just as uncomfortable as you are— arms resting on the open windowsill, head uncomfortably craned away from you and giving you a full view of the tattoo trailing down his neck. Something snaps in your brain. This is your nth breakdown of the day.

“Let me in your candy stash.”

Gyuvin gives himself the liberty to zip open the front pocket of your backpack while you’re hugging it in your seat. The sound of you swatting his hand away seems to catch Ricky’s attention, so you give up defending your property and let Gyuvin snatch a handful of the strawberry-flavored sweets from your bag. “This tastes gross,” he says with a grimace. “So artificial. Blegh.”

You suddenly hear a gasp from your left. “How can you say that?” You’re shocked to find out it’s from Ricky. He’s been relatively quiet all this time. Gyuvin sure knows how to get into everyone’s nerves. “Take it back.”

“I’ll take it back if you dye your hair black for a day.”

A harmless fist zooms in front of your face. “Now way.” Ricky is hitting Gyuvin.

“Gross, this is so gross.” Gyuvin is hitting Ricky back.

“So what.”

“I’m telling your mom about this.”

Your existence is forgotten and your breathing space in between these two relatively large men has significantly diminished. Your face is burning. You can’t do this anymore so you clear your throat, causing Ricky— who’s leaned a little too close, fist in the air mid-punch— to suddenly tuck himself back into his side of the car. 

It becomes quiet again when Matthew and Gyuvin slowly doze off to sleep.

Gaze flitting to the front, you notice that Taerae is quite preoccupied with swearing at another car that just overtook yours. You take this as an opportunity.

A slight nudge to his arm, you hold open your palm without looking at Ricky. It’s a handful of the strawberry flavored candy he was so staunchly defending against Gyuvin earlier. He might’ve rejected your offering earlier, but you’re damn bent on ending this day by fixing his impression of you, even if it’s just a miniscule improvement.

He’s got his head trained down, staring at your offering with a face laced with a mixture of surprise, confusion, and uncertainty before a hesitant hand plucks out a single wrapper from the pile. “Thank you,” you hear him say softly, and you don’t miss the tiniest smile playing on his lips when the sweet touches his tongue, poking against the inside of his cheek and you feel somewhat offended because a damn piece of candy can elicit such an expression on his face when you can’t. 

It’s not stiff like the numerous bouts of awkward eye contact you’ve been sharing without end. It’s not forced. It’s not uncomfortable.

It’s an expression that makes you feel all the more regretful because you probably won’t be seeing him ever again after this.

“Did you see that guy?! He honked at me! He fucking honked at me!”

But maybe that’s a good thing. Because maybe then, you’ll be forced to stop lamenting the chance you completely wasted. 

MAYBE YOU SPOKE TO SOON. It’s the afternoon of a Friday, not even a week after your one-day trip to Hadong County. And Fridays are your cheat days to take a dip into your allowance for some well deserved milk tea at a bougie cafe next to your university.

What isn’t part of your usual Wednesdays is the inexplicable, one in a million chance that you’d be bumping into Ricky Shen again.

“Oh.”

You’re about to enter. He’s just about to leave, pushing open the door with one hand and holding a bright pink drink with so much whipped cream which looks particularly out of place against his all-black ensemble. The only common denominator between the both of you is the look of surprise you’re both sharing.

Ricky recovers before you do. He steps aside, giving you space to walk in while holding the door open. How the bare minimum is making you weak in the knees, you have no idea. “Th—thanks,” you give him a smile and walk forward, before putting yourself to a stop and spinning around. “Oh, wait. Have this.”

You dig into your pockets and drop three pieces of strawberry candy onto his hand. You don’t miss the way his eyes sparkle. “Thanks. See you around.” He leaves. You feel like you’re on top of the world.

From now on, you’re gonna stuff all your pockets with strawberry-flavored candy (courtesy of Prof Yoon from the faculty office) until Ricky gets brainwashed that your presence doesn’t bear awkwardness or discomfort, no— you are a good person. Your presence brings with you strawberries and sweetness. That one psych class you took last semester is finally proving itself to be useful. Ricky will fall in love with you through Pavlov and classical conditioning.

Is this ethical? Probably not. Will this work? You don’t bet on it, but his cute smile makes it all fucking worth it.

That is if a miracle happens that you somehow end up seeing more of each other. You sigh, waiting for the buzzer to receive your order. You remember that Ricky is a freshman, meaning you have zero chances of sharing classes with him, and your only mutual friend is Kim Gyuvin. You’d rather kill yourself than give him the satisfaction of knowing that you have a crush on his best friend.

Well, there’s also Matthew and Taerae. After your trip to Hadong, you somehow got added to a group chat with the two of them. “Same age friends have to stick together!” says Matthew. You’re not sure if you’re already at the point of calling them friends, but you are having dinner with them later, so that’s something. But no matter how much you want to gush about your feelings for the light-haired boy, you don’t think you can out yourself to those two just yet.

The buzzer vibrates in your hands. You stand up to get your order, only to be stopped by a familiar face that you’re not quite happy to see.

“I—I didn’t follow you here, I swear!”

Your expression sours. That last time you saw him was approximately three months ago— when you threatened him with a fake restraining order after Gyuvin and Hanbin helped you move into a new apartment.

“Jaeryeong.” You feel your blood pressure rising from the mere utterance of his name. “Is a restraining order not enough for you? Do I have to put you in jail so you can finally learn your fucking lesson?”

He looks rattled. “I heard— I heard from Siyun that the document is fake!”

Well, damn. You click your tongue. You thought it’d work for a little while longer than this. Maybe you should get a real RO next time. “So does that give you the right to keep stalking me, you damn creep?” You’re getting a headache. This guy’s appearance just makes you miss Ricky even more (gentle remember that Ricky probably doesn’t give a shit about you, nor does he think about you as much as you’ve thought about him within the past six days of your acquaintance).

“I really didn’t follow you here! This was just a coincidence!” 

“Sure,” you wrinkle your nose. “Was breaching my privacy and following me all the way to my parents’ place a coincidence too?”

Maybe riling him up is a bad idea, but you’re not exactly the best at interpersonal relationships (case in point, Riky Shen). But this is also a public place, so if he does pull anything dangerous, one of the cafe patrons is likely to take a video which you can use against him. Jaeryeong has his jaw clenched, visibly grated. “Look, I came up to you today to try and clear our misunderstanding, but if you keep on being a little bitch, then—”

“Then what?”

You’re surprised to hear a much welcomed voice from behind you.

“What are you gonna do?”

The last person you expected to swoop in and save you from this clingy freak is your senior who’s been out of reach for months now because he’s dying in post-grad. 

Kim Jiwoong suddenly tucks you behind him, wearing the facade of intimidation to scare off Jaeryeong— which, for some reason, ends up working because he runs off without much of a fight. “I’ll— I’ll talk to you later!” he says before leaving. Jiwoong lets out a sigh and turns around, looking at you with both disappointment and concern.

“You shouldn’t provoke guys like that. Who knows what could’ve happened to you.”

“I could’ve handled it even without you, seonbae,” you tell him. His gaze softens. You give him a bright smile. “It’s nice to see you, too.”

You know that Jiwoong is incapable of getting mad at you. The both of you catch up in the cafe once you’ve finally gotten your drink without any further interruptions. Whatever Gyuvin is to you, that’s who you are to Jiwoong. He was your project supervisor when you were a freshman, randomly assigned by a roulette, and somehow, you two still keep in touch two years later.

The both of you settle on a table inside the cafe. “How are your classes?” he asks. You reply with a bitter grunt, and that’s enough of a response for him to laugh and understand.

“By the way,” you rouse, spinning the remnants of the drink in slow spirals. “Seonbae. You’re close with Gyuvin, right?”

If your memory serves you right, you’ve seen them talking a couple of times with each other before, eliciting your utter confusion before ultimately finding out that apparently, they attended the same local dance studio before along with Hanbin and Hao for a period of time. “Well, sure,” is Jiwoong’s reply. That was just the lead-in question to your actual main question, which is—

“How about...his best friend?” you add. “Are you close with him too?”

You can see it in his face. He’s connecting the dots. You’re fiddling with your drink cup, nervous. The moment things click, Jiwoong unleashes a knowing grin.

“Are you crushing on Ricky?”

Well, damn. He didn’t need to be so blunt about it.

“And—and—and what if I am?” Smooth. Very smooth. You clear your throat, tugging on your collar to let some air in while Jiwoong stirs his americano with the straw, chin resting on his palms, evident amusement playing on his face. “So, anyway. I’m taking that as a yes— you are close with him.”

“Sure,” he hums. You want to sock him in the face.

“Well, is he anything like Gyuvin’s other friends,” you question. “Like Jaeryeong, or Hajun, or that one guy that told me to ‘sit pretty and shut my mouth’ because that’s what a woman ought to do?”

“No, no. Ricky isn’t anything like that,” he replies. “He looks a little intimidating, but he’s a nice kid. I don’t even think I’ve ever heard him raise his voice at anyone.” Ricky does seem pretty soft spoken and it’s hurting your heart. This doesn’t go under Jiwoong’s radar. He laughs at your misery and your shoulders slack. “His only flaw is his overconfidence, I think. Next time you meet him, you should compliment his face.”

No, but confidence is attractive. Overconfidence must mean extra attractive, right? Yes? “Thanks for the tip,” you grunt. “But can you not tell Gyoob that I sort of have a thing for his friend?”

This brings Jiwoong’s brows to a furrow. “Isn’t he hell bent on marrying off Ricky?”

“Yes. Well. There was a situation.” You don’t intend on telling Jiwoong about the said situation for the sake of your pride. He looks curious, but thankfully he doesn’t try to prod. The only thing that matters right now is that Ricky is Jiwoong-approved, and that’s good enough of a reason for you to pursue him under Kim Gyuvin’s nose. “Anyway, please keep this a secret.”

“What’s in it for me?” he asks.

“The continuation of my respect,” you flatly reply. Jiwoong, again, laughs and assures you that his lips are shut and sealed.

SOMEHOW, YOU’RE INVITED TO A BARBECUE DINNER AT MATTHEW’S BACKYARD. How long have you known him? Two weeks. Who else is invited to the dinner? His friends of two years the least. You’re not sure how you ended up here. Maybe you’re more charming than you thought. Maybe that’s why you keep attracting weird men.

But Matthew isn’t weird. He’s a little loud and a little too energetic for you to keep up with sometimes, but he’s nice, he’s polite, and you’d introduce him to your cousin if he’d let you. 

You show up to his front door step with a convenience store bag full of canned beer. You’re still not sure what the occasion is, but alcohol is always a good gift. “You made it!” Matthew greets you with a half-hug, and upon entering the premises of his home, you spot Gyuvin giving you an unabashed look full of judgment while Matt takes your present out of your hands and into the cooler in the backyard.

“Since when were you two so chummy?” Gyuvin asks with narrowed eyes as he leads you to where everyone else is. 

“Scared I might replace you in your friend group, Gyu?” you taunt.

“No. I’m scared of being the middleman again if Matthew hyung falls in love with you,” is his painfully honest answer. The yard is smoky and warm, familiar faces here and there— Hanbin being one of them, who graces you with a look of confused concern upon hearing Gyuvin’s words. “Hyung, you don’t understand my pain. I keep setting her up with my friends, but they’re never good enough for her. At this rate—”

At this rate, you’re gonna be needing a warning whenever Ricky suddenly appears in front of your vision— one of the people you preemptively deemed ‘not good enough for you’ only for it to bite you in the ass.

In fact, he may be too much for you, because for a second there, you had the presupposition that he might be walking up to you. That delusion is quickly evaporated into the barbecue smoke because he’s looking at Hanbin, not you.

“Hyung,” he says. “Woong hyung needs help with the grill.”

“Oh, I’ll be right there.”

In between, Gyuvin has somehow disappeared, leaving you alone with Ricky and the unreasonable amount of feelings you have for him. It’s been a good week since you’ve last seen him. He’s wearing a thick red jacket and that same look of awkwardness whenever you’re around. “Hello,” he greets you softly with a nod.

“Hi,” you do the same. It’s excruciating. It’s painful. There’s a sizzle in the air, music from the stereos, and the loud, rambunctious noises expected from a group of eight, nine boys. Yet it’s everything quiet in between the both of you. 

But after that tense greeting, there’s a shift in his gaze, a change in his posture. He’s clearing his throat, balancing himself on the heels of his feet with tightly pressed lips resembling that of a smile— almost as if he’s expecting something from you.

Oh, you realize. Oh, he’s too cute.

Without much of a thought, you dig into your coat pockets. 

“Hao!” you call out in a hurry, running off to the long picnic table where the rest are all gathered. Your heart is racing. Your heart is racing like crazy. “There’s still two faces I’m not acquainted with yet. Who’s this?”

While Hao introduces you to Gunwook and Yujin, your eyes flit over to the spot you’d left behind. Ricky is still standing there. He’s staring down, eyes trained on his cupped palms. “Ricky, come carry the cooler!” Taerae yells out for him, snapping him out of his daze. There’s a faint tinge of pink painting his ears when he strides off, fists closed with the same shade painting his knuckles. Your pockets are a lot lighter now. If you were him, you would have quite honestly fallen for yourself. 

Dinner starts. You ask Yujin why he’s friends with a bunch of old men. “They’re obsessed with me,” is his reply, and you can’t debate with that. Not when five of them are suddenly yelling at Jiwoong for saying you should all play some drinking games to heat things up. It gets settled when Yujin and Gunwook are given glasses of apple juice, and the word ‘gorae’ is now being repeatedly thrown over the table.

One thing you’ve noticed is that Ricky is always a beat and half slow. It’s stupid adorable. Gyuvin passes the never-ending whale baton to him and he just continues the beat without saying anything, looking around like a lost cat, before letting out a noise and collapsing against Hanbin the moment he realized he just lost.

That’s it. You can’t take this anymore. He’s pocket-sized. You’re stuffing him inside your pocket. It doesn’t help that his flushed face makes him look exactly like the strawberries he loves much— matching the red of his jacket, and it’s driving you insane.

“You really do have a massive crush on him.”

Jiwoong invades your alone time once things have settled down a bit. You’re in the living room, sitting cross-legged on the floor right in front of the sliding doors to the backyard. No, you’re not sitting here because it gives you a nice view of Ricky chasing Gyuvin around with his jacket as a makeshift weapon. That’s not true at all. “Say it louder, will you,” you grunt when he takes a seat next to you, hitting the corner of your beer can with his before he takes a swig.

“I don’t have to. Not when you’re already practically outing yourself with your staring.”

You frown. “I’m not that obvious.” You double take. Then bite the inside of your cheek. “Hey. I think I’m screwed.” 

Jiwoong shakes his head with a laugh. “Ricky is cute, isn’t he?”

Case in point, him doing that scrunchy face, gummy smile, when he suddenly bursts out laughing. You nod somberly. All Jiwoong does is make fun of your demise. 

Still, you think you’re being subtle enough. Ricky is slow. He told you this was his strength and weakness when Gyuvin asked you to tag along with them on a shopping trip one time. But for someone who’s usually programmed to be in slow motion, he sure is quick to catch onto things when you don’t want him to.

“Seonbae.”

His voice is soft, unassuming. You’re both standing in front of Gyuvin’s apartment one late Friday afternoon. You’re holding open one of his hands, cupping his knuckles from underneath— something you’d never have anticipated to have the privilege of doing maybe three, four weeks prior— dropping five pieces of candy onto his palm without much of a thought. 

“Yeah?” you hum. 

He closes his hand and stuffs the fistful into his coat pocket, a completely blank and innocent face, before asking— “do you like me?”

Now, this wasn’t in your monthly fucking bingo.

You stifle back a choking noise, completely caught off guard. “H—huh?” Jiwoong was right. His only flaw is his overconfidence. You have no idea how to slip away from this unscathed. “What— what makes you say that?”

Ricky blinks at you. “You always give me snacks.” You’re pretty sure candy doesn’t qualify as snacks, but you digress. “Don’t...don’t they say the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach?”

Unfortunately for him, you’re swearing by a different psychological tactic. “W—well, I always have a lot of candy with me! For my blood sugar, you know?” you sputter out the first excuse you can rummage from your short-circuiting brain. “And...and after finding out you liked strawberries a lot, it would be rude and selfish not to give you any if I have them, right?” 

Right? Please agree. Please stop asking any more questions. Ricky is pondering over your words, seemingly deep in thought with pursed lips, until those said pretty lips part open to say, “Oh. Oh, I get it.” You don’t know what he gets, but you roll with it. “Then again, it also doesn’t make sense if you like me.”

The fuck does he mean that it doesn’t make sense if you like him? You’d kiss his face right here and now.

“You turned down that date, after all.”

Insult to injury. He doesn’t know that was the biggest regret of your life. You bite down your tongue and exhale sharply. “Ah. Don’t overthink it, Mr. Shim,” you tell him, finally knocking on Gyuvin’s door after standing in front of it for a good ten minutes. “Overthinking causes stress. Stress will give you wrinkles.”

“It’s okay,” he says, turning over the door upon hearing a click. “I’m still handsome when I’m stressed.”

You breathe out a sigh. This is the man you’re down bad for. This is the man you’re helplessly pining for.

“I think you’d be more handsome with black hair.”

Surprisingly, that statement comes from Gyuvin and not from you. He opened the door just at the right moment— an unimpressed look on his face upon seeing his unannounced visitors. “Why have my Friday night invaders tripled?” he laments. Tripled? You don’t ask and let yourself in despite his protests.

“I’m here to check on your term paper,” you inform, kicking off your shoes at the entryway.

“I’m here to play games,” says Ricky, doing the same.

“I’m here to play games too.”

For some reason, Gunwook had the same idea as you two to terrorize Gyuvin’s sacred Friday nights of solitude, but managed to act on it before anyone else. He’s already settled on the floor of the living room like it’s his own, legs outstretched, switch controller in his hands. “Hyung, let’s play!” he calls out to Ricky. Gyuvin reluctantly tells you to sit down before he grabs you two drinks from the kitchen. 

“You know what, I forgot to ask.” Gyuvin settles down two glasses of juice onto the coffee table with a suspicious eye directly zeroed in on you. “Why were you two together outside?”

“Seonbae and I happened to meet each other downstairs,” explains Ricky. Which was true. You did somehow bump into each other at the building lobby, Ricky nearly closing the elevator in front of your face in the process.

“Right. I told you I’m here to check on your paper, and I’ll be off once I do exactly that,” you tell him, mentally thanking Ricky for the save. “You had a month to write so it better be decent. Give me your laptop.”

Gyuvin smacks his tongue, but does as you say anyway, while the other two boys loiter around the floor and fuck around with Gyuvin’s switch that’s connected to the TV. They’re playing a Mario game. You pay them no mind, ignoring the non-human noises they make once Gyuvin reappears with his laptop. He warns you that this is still his first draft, but you didn’t need that premise. The first page isn’t even formatted correctly. You’ve got your work cut out for you.

“Hey, hey, move over! Let me play—”

Again, you pay no mind to the noise. It’s mostly coming from Gunwook and Gyuvin because Ricky is quiet when he’s focused— in this case, focused on hopping over some goombas. He’s got a thin pair of glasses perched on his nose, lips pursed unconsciously into a noot noot, and fuck he’s so cute, and — no, you’re not paying attention to him. You’re paying attention to your junior’s paper. You’re proofreading. Simply proofreading. You highlight some errors here and there, marking some corrections. 

Yet again, you don’t pay attention to the noise Gunwook and Gyuvin are making—

“Ah. I’m killing Gyuvin’s brothers.”

—but Ricky suddenly makes a quiet remark, and you snort very, very loudly in response.

You slap a hand over your mouth. That wasn’t funny. That wasn’t funny at all and the other two didn’t even seem to hear it. “Why are you laughing?” Gyuvin looks at you, offended by the sound you just made. “Did I write something wrong in the analysis? Why are you laughing?”

“N-no, it’s just—” Your throat rips into a cough because it’s not easy to suppress a fit of chortles. Ricky looks so proud of himself, you’re going to cry. You’re near choking and Gyuvin hops onto his feet and makes a beeline for you in a flurry.

“You’re so mean! Give me back my laptop!”

This isn’t a misunderstanding that you intend on clearing up, so you let him run off with his laptop back into his room to revise in private after you’ve disrespected his work. Gunwook stretches up too, saying that he’s off to buy some snacks outside. “Do you want anything?” he asks. Ricky is feeding you his juice and patting your back because you can’t stop coughing. “Okay. Ginger candy. Got it.”

Gunwook has left. Gyuvin is holed up in his room. And the fact that you and Ricky are alone in the living room right now isn’t helping the state of your lungs. “Are...are you okay?” Ricky, the sweet, sweet angel, asks with those giant boba eyes and soft voice. You want to bite down your sleeve and chew it right off.

“I’m—I’m alright.” No, you’re not. You’re sitting way too close on the floor, knees bumping, and the game over screen being reflected on the television right now is a perfect rendition of what’s going on inside your head right now. “Whew. I’m fine. I’m perfectly okay.”

You honestly have no idea how you’ve managed to keep it together these past couple of weeks. You don’t know how you haven’t jumped this guy yet. The video game is forgotten, and Ricky is scrolling through his phone. He’s wearing a melon green sweater which, objectively, is an ugly ass color, but Ricky somehow pulls it off and looks extra fucking soft in it and you’re not god’s strongest soldier.

He lets out a soft laugh, notices you staring, and tilts his phone and scoots closer for you to see a dumb Tik Tok video. Your shoulders bump. You make a comment that fails to register to your own ears. “By the way,” he starts. He places his phone face down on the tabletop. Whoa, this is a little dangerous. He shouldn’t be pouring all his attention into you like this. “Are you free this weekend?”

You blink. Your brain is jumping into conclusions. “Why?”

“Well,” he fumbles with the tips of his sweater paws. You’re going to eat him. “My uncle’s resort is opening a new branch, so there’s an opening party. Everyone else is coming, including Gyuvin. It’d be nice if you can come as well.”

“Oh,” you open your mouth. You’re a little surprised. “Thanks for the invite, but I don’t think I’m fit for those kinds of events, you know?”

This is quite a bit of pressure. Ricky tilts his head, failing to understand what you mean for a second, but when he does he exclaims, “oh! Don’t worry. We don’t have to join the formal event. We can just eat dinner and mess around at the beach. The actual party will be boring, anyway.”

“Ah.” He’s an angel. He’s so sweet. It hasn’t even been long since you’ve somehow been absorbed into their tight-knit group. You’re not sure how it even happened.

Well, you were already friends with half of them separately. Gyuvin has been buzzing around you since he was eleven and you were thirteen. Hanbin and Hao have been your academic ride or dies ever since you met them in the first week of classes. Jiwoong has been a force you could lean on the moment he took you under his wing for your first major project in university.

And Ricky— 

“Tell me if you want to come,” he smiles. “So I can reserve a room for you.”

Maybe this was bound to happen eventually.

“I’m done!”

Gyuvin has finally emerged from his room, stomping back to you and Ricky before slamming the laptop on the table before you. “I edited it. No more errors now. Praise me,” he says proudly. You give him a suspicious glance, sliding the device closer to you. “This one’s good, right? Tell me it’s good. Don’t laugh. Laughing isn’t constructive.”

Ricky is curious and pokes his face closer to yours, and you flinch. “You misspelled ‘debilitating,’” he says. You gasp. Ricky, once again, looks so proud of himself. Gyuvin wants to die.

“Give it back—” 

He snatches the laptop once more and starts aggressively typing next to the both of you. At the same time, Gunwook finally returns with a bag of miscellaneous snacks. “Seonbae, here you go,” he tosses a full bag of ginger-honey candy to you, which you now have no use for because you have stopped coughing.

“Thanks,” you gruffly say. When you stuff it into your bag you notice Ricky staring at you. “Do you want some?” you ask. He doesn’t answer your question but says something else entirely.

“You don’t need that anymore.”

Your eyes widen when Ricky snatches the bag of candy from you. He promptly opens it— moving quicker than you’ve ever seen him before, and rips open a piece before tossing it into his mouth. 

You’re in shock. What is he doing?

“Hey, that’s not for you!” Gunwook protests. Ricky responds by simply pelting him with another piece. Gunwook is speechless. Then retaliates by throwing a candy bar from his 7-Eleven bag to Ricky’s chest. It bounces onto his lap. Ricky grabs another piece of candy to flick at Gunwook. They start fighting. Gyuvin notices the fun and abandons his paper to join in. 

This isn’t how you planned your Friday to end up like. Then again, you didn’t plan on developing a crush on your friend’s best friend either, so you can’t really say anything else.

HANBIN HAS BEEN WAITING IN YOUR BUILDING’S PARKING LOT FOR A GOOD TWENTY MINUTES NOW. You’re already late for the event, so might as well make the most of your tardiness. I’m still getting ready, you shoot Hanbin a text. You keep messing up your fucking eyeliner, and there’s no way in hell you’re showing up to that damned, bougie ass event in front of Ricky with assymetrical eyeliner. His are always perfect and you don’t want to lose to that.

“Dude, we might miss the buffet!” 

It’s Matthew yelling at you when the tinted front seat window rolls down as you sprint— heels on, mind you— to the car. “The place is a resort! They’re never running out of food,” you yell back while throwing the backseat open and then throwing yourself inside.

You’re breathing quite heavily. “Are we ready to go?” asks Hanbin, and you shoot him a thumbs up. You’re too busy catching your breath to notice Yujin also co-occupying Hanbin’s car. 

“Noona, how long did it take for you to get ready?” he asks.

“Three hours,” you reply with a grunt. It’s a little hot so you open the windows, letting some air in. You can’t risk your makeup melting. You need to be extra pretty tonight to stand a chance against all the rich people flooding that place.

“Really?” Yujin does the same. “I can’t tell.”

You’re speechless. You hear Hanbin swallow down a giggle. Matthew isn’t even trying. This highschooler just roasted your ass. You need to put him in his place. “Why are you out here on a weekend?” you click your tongue. “You should be using this time to study.”

“I study enough already,” he protests.

“What was the Gyeongbokgung palace used for during the Joseon Dynasty?”

Yujin freezes. “Wow,” he says robotically after a significant pause, just as mechanically turning his head to the window. “The night air is so fresh.” 

You don’t grill him further because Yujin is right— there’s something different about the wind wafting through the atmosphere tonight. You let yourself sink into the carseat, let the breeze cool your cheeks, eyes fluttered close, until you reach your destination. The resort is far off from the city— the seaside, obviously, but you don’t see the shorelane just yet. Only a towering building illuminated with warm flushed lights as the car drives up to the entrance, surrounded by ferns and foliage and an air of complete refinement.

The foyer floor is so shiny that you can see the chandelier reflecting from it. Are you allowed to step on this? Is this legal?

Upon entering the function hall however, your nerves become nothing. You already see a handful of people being completely, strikingly, and obviously out of place. All for different reasons.

You see Gunwook near the live band, somehow holding a conversation with two men that appear to be twice his age. Gyuvin and Jiwoong have comparatively way too much food on their plates as they camp right by the buffet. Hao is currently talking to a security guard while a suspicious looking vase is sticking out of his pocket. The only person that would be blending in well right now would be Taerae— if he wasn’t wearing that bright purple suit ensemble.

Damn. You shouldn’t have been worrying so much about being a fish out of water. These guys are way worse than you.

“I thought you weren’t coming.”

But of course. There’s one guy that looks like he’s completely at home. 

Matthew greets Ricky’s arrival with a half-hug, and the other two boys do the same while you respectfully stand and stare. Respectfully. Yes. You pay no mind to that dangerously unbuttoned-button down under than dangerously low-cut blazer. You are the embodiment of peace and serenity and giving him your business as usual smile. “Hey,” you say. “Sorry we’re late.”

When Ricky returns your stiff smile with one of pure ease and kindness, you swoon like a fucking loser. “Yeah,” Yujin inserts. “She was taking so long to fix her face.”

Your smile stiffens further. “I did not take so long, haha, what are you talking about.”

Yujin gives you a look. “You said you took three—”

And there goes your hand over his mouth to shut him up. “Haha. Let’s go eat, Yujinnie. Didn’t you say you were starving?” Yujin muffles something out. You pinch his arm. “Thanks for the invite, Ricky! We’re off to sweep the buffet now!”

“Wait—”

You book it. Well. As fast as you can book it with these damned heels and with a large shoulder bag weighing you down because you’ll be staying here overnight for free. Does the bag match your dress? No, it does not, but you don’t know where your room is and you’re not well enough to talk to Ricky at the moment, so you suck it up and stress-eat at the buffet table with the Yujin you kidnapped. “Why were you so embarrassed, noona?” he innocently asks while stuffing his cheeks with some meat skewers. “You look pretty tonight and it’s all thanks to your hard work.”

Who has been teaching him these backhanded remarks? Who has been negatively influencing this child? You grunt and put a scoop of mashed potatoes on his plate, much to his displeasure, and continue eating your own damned meal.

“Hey, can you take a photo of me?”

The moment you’re done with your not so pleasant meal, you’re skewed away by Matthew who wishes to hire you as his photographer. After that barbecue dinner last time, Matthew swore that you take the best photos of him and his entire IG feed for the past month is credited to you. 

You look at him, displeased because you’re not wearing the appropriate attire to lay on the floor to ensure the best angles. “Go stand by the window.” Still, you take his phone from him and make do with what you can. “What’s your password again?”

“Hao hyung’s birthday.”

“Got it.”

Now, stretching your legs and getting into various lunging positions aren’t easy to do when you’re wearing a long and silky dress. But you are a woman of commitment, and your bag is weighing you further to the ground as you take a low-angle shot of Matthew. “Okay, now hold your necktie. Now look away— perfect. That’s it. Next one.” When you try to get up, gravity decides that it hates you. You wobble on the stilts of your shoes, nearly stumbling back, but you feel someone grab onto your arm and pull you up before your ass kisses the ground.

“Whoa, please be careful.”

It’s Ricky. Of course, it’s him. When you look up, he’s got his eyebrows knitted together out of concern, strands of light wavy hair perfectly falling over said eyebrows and your breath hitches in your throat a little.

He’s got his other hand held out, and he’s probably expecting you to take it to balance yourself to your feet, but you refuse to be a predictable woman.

Instead, you give him Matthew’s phone and help yourself up. “Thanks. I’m fine. Just slipped a little.” You have no idea why you’re acting coy right now. Maybe it’s because he’s being a little less cute tonight, being a little more dangerous instead— flinching the moment you feel his feathery touch on your shoulder as he removes the weight of your bag from your person, before passing it to an attendant that he calls over with a single look.

“Can you bring this to Room 207? Thank you.”

No, no, no, this is too much. This is too much for you. Why is he trying to be smooth? Why is he trying to swoop you off your feet without taking any responsibility?

“Hyung, I’ll take your photos instead,” he says to Matthew, who’s been watching the spectacle unfold and you pray to god that your unsubtle thirsting wasn’t too noticeable. Matthew doesn’t say anything about it, though. You assume you’re in the safe zone because all he’s doing is complaining when Ricky takes way too zoomed in photos of his face. “This is a new trend. Just trust me.”

“Sure? Okay, go on.”

You take this as an opportunity to escape, only to be called by Gyuvin back to the buffet table because, “have you tried their gambas?! This shit is fire!”

When an old guy took the podium, you all took this as your cue to exit— scattered off either to the beach, bar, or your Ricky-sponsored rooms. You have an entire room for yourself because there’s no way in hell you’re sharing a room with any of those stinky boys. Your exhaustion is aching for a shower, and so you grant its request, and by the time you’re done freshening up and changing into a more comfortable set of clothing, you receive a text from Hanbin that they’re all gathered at the beach.

“Ah. The wind is cold.”

Wearing a thick jacket out was the right choice indeed. You stuff your hands into your pockets for warmth, feet sinking into the sand as you watch the mess before you. They’re all either running around, drawing things on the ground, or lounging on a picnic blanket under the starlit horizon. “Sit,” says Jiwoong, tapping the empty spot next to him, and you oblige with a yawn. “It’s only eleven. Can’t believe you’re sleepy already.”

“I’m getting old,” you tell him, letting your head drop onto your shoulder as you hug your knees. The rest are by the shore or in the water. You have no energy to join in at this point.

Jiwoong makes a distasteful noise at your statement. “What does that make me?”

“A fossil.” You yawn once more, craning your neck to bury your face into his arm. “I’m so tired.”

He chuckles. “Are you fine with Ricky seeing you like this?”

“Please be quiet.” This time, you sneeze. Right into the sleeve of his shirt. Then you sniffle. “He’s not even here.” Jiwoong is disgusted. He tips you off, picks up your wrist, and uses your hand to wipe off your ‘germs,’ or so he says.

“You’re lucky he didn’t see that. Where is he, anyway?”

The question is answered by Gyuvin when his energy finally gets exhausted from splashing around, flopping onto the blanket next to you and Jiwoong. “He was still in our room when I left,” he says, out of breath. “I think he wanted to rest for a while.”

Gradually, the rest start to gather too. “We haven’t taken a group photo yet,” Hao brings up. “He’s gonna sulk if we take one and he’s not here.”

It’s as if you just got recharged with a full eight hours of sleep.

“I’ll go get him,” you say, promptly standing up. “I need to pick up something from my bag, anyway.” Total lie. Jiwoong sees right through your bullshit and his teeth are showing through his smile. You flip him off and start making your way back, stumbling when Hanbin asks if you want him to accompany you, bringing back the hop in your step when Gunwook tells him, “she’s a big girl, she can handle it herself.” You’ll get back at him for that later.

Two-one-three, two-one-three, two-one-three, you repeat the room number in your head as you go down each door in the hallway, ringing phone glued to your ear to inform Ricky that you’re going to barge into his room, but he’s not picking up. Maybe he’s asleep? Probably. There’s no response when you knock on the door and slot in the key Gyuvin gave you, and you’re met with dim lights and an eerie silence the moment you crack open the door.

“Ricky?” you call out. There’s no response.

The light from the hallway leaks in to illuminate an empty bed. Huh. Where is he? What rouses even more questions is the odd positioning of what should be a bedside table, for some reason positioned at the foot of the bed and a few feet away from the open bathroom door. There’s also a mishmash of things stacked on the table— books, folded shirts, magazines, and some of which have fallen and scattered to the floor.

But those aren’t the only things on the ground. 

You quickly bring a hand to your mouth. “Oh,” you wheeze out. “Oh my god.” You try to cover it up with a cough, but it’s too late. A snort managed to slip through. 

“Stop laughing,” he protests from the floor. How could you hold it in when Ricky is right there, lying curled on the ground while hugging what seems to be his knee, bathrobe-clad, with papers and magazines scattered around and on top of him. A memo sheet is stuck on his cheek. His back is turned to you. His buzzing phone with your contact name on it is next to his head.

How the hell did he end up here?

“Are—are you okay?” you manage to say as you crouch down next to him. He doesn’t budge when you try to roll him back. He lets out a grunt and tells you to leave him alone. “I can’t, I was ordered to pick you up. What are you trying to hide? Why won’t you look at m—”

When you finally roll him to his back, you realize why. 

“Oh no.”

Ricky’s got a hand hovering over half of his face— the wrong half because you can very clearly see the red gash running down his right temple, but that’s probably not what he’s intending to hide. He’s got his brows in a sad and shameful furrow, glaring eyes refusing to look at you, and you can see the shades of pink coral and pink on his cheeks, slipping through the gaps of his fingers. 

He’s pink. He’s so pink.

“Don’t laugh,” he grumbles. “It’s not funny.”

You might as well eat him whole, holy fucking shit.

“N—no, you’re right. It’s not funny. I’m not laughing.” 

You’re damn near about to break into a coughing fit again with how hard you’re trying to suppress your giggles. Based on the evidence laid down at the crime scene— namely his still damp hair, scanty bathrobe, misplaced furniture, and the mess of it all— Ricky was likely trying to take post-shower thirst traps while Gyuvin was still out so he wouldn’t be made fun of. 

Slipping and hitting his head on the table’s edge in the process was probably not part of his calculations. You fear you might’ve been the unintentional cause of this because you gave him a surprise call earlier.

“Let’s get you up, big boy. Grab my hand.”

Begrudgingly, he lets you pull him up. You instruct him to sit on the bed while you call room service for a first aid kit. The wound on his forehead doesn’t look serious, but you decide to apply some ointment and put a bandage on it just in case. He winces when you clean the dried blood off with water. God, he’s too fucking cute. Your gushing is ruined by an incoming call.

“Hanbin,” you greet, wedging the phone between your ear and shoulder because you’re still trying to patch up the poor boy. He scrunches his nose when the ointment touches his wound. “We’ll be there in ten minutes. A minor accident occurred. No, you don’t have to come up here. Ricky is physically well and alive.” You can’t say the same about his emotional state though. He’s been quiet and frowning this whole time. “Say hi, Ricky.”

You pass him the phone. He looks at your phone wielding hand, a contemplative expression, then takes it. “Don’t come,” is all he says to Hanbin at the other end of the line— a little too gruffly for your liking— before tossing it off somewhere onto the bed.

Ricky’s eyes snap up to look at you. Maybe you’ve been taking this situation a little too lightly.

“Is it done?” he asks in that same tone of voice, and— oh. Oh, no. You’re in a tight spot. Figuratively and literally because Ricky is leaning back against the bed, you slightly leaning into him because you’re simply, very innocently trying to bandage up his temple, and the most comfortable way to do it is having a knee propped up on the mattress, face hovering dangerously above his. 

When you unavoidably make eye contact, you flinch and feel your bones rattle.

Oh. 

Your gaze falters and your swallow down your dry throat, watching as the bathrobe slips down from his left shoulder in real time. That’s it. You’re gone. Your brain has stopped working. You’re starting to miss cute Ricky who gets excited over your strawberry candies. Where is he? Where did he go? This Ricky is a little dangerous. This Ricky feels like he’s going to fucking eat you alive.

“Y—yeah. One sec.” You’re not sure if you even managed to secure the bandage on his wound because the moment your skin touched his, you immediately flung yourself back from a ghost burn. “Did...did you hurt yourself anywhere else?” you ask. He shouldn’t be looking at you like that. Why is he looking at you like that?

The brief silence that follows swallows you whole. 

“I’m not sure. Can you check?”

Then spits you right back out because crazy fucking bastard— what the fuck does he fucking mean by can you fucking check? 

“Oh, um.” Dry. Your throat is dry. Does he want you dead? Is that it? Does it not matter whether or not you get out of this room alive? You don’t like this— whatever this is because you don’t know what’s wrong with him tonight. Did he get a concussion when he fell? Do you have to go take him to see a doctor? 

Maybe it’s you that needs to go see a doctor. Because you’re pretty damn sure that this heart rate is nowhere near normal.

Knock, knock, knock.

“We’re coming in.”

Karma acts quickly because you stumble back and nearly collapse into the floor as well. The door cracks open and you grab onto the nearest thing for balance, which, in this case, is a curtain you almost tug off from the window out of sheer force. “Ricky slipped and hurt his head,” you blurt out the moment Hanbin and a few others enter the room. Ricky’s face drops into betrayal. Self-defense. You needed a diversion.

Taerae and Gyuvin are the ones that came with Hanbin, the former taking a long look at the room and its inhabitants. “Oh,” he says after acknowledging the mess on the floor and the bandage on Ricky’s forehead. “Okay, Humpty Dumpty.”

Gyuvin lets out a snort. Ricky chucks a pillow in their direction. Thank god for their interruption because you don’t know what would have overtaken you had they come five minutes later. “No wait, did he really slip?” Gyuvin asks, a little too giddy and giggly about the whole ordeal. “Dude, did you fall over while taking thirst traps?”

And you’re subsequently kicked out of the room while Ricky gets dressed into something more decent and gets made fun of by Gyuvin and Taerae. 

“Took you guys long enough.”

You’re all back at the beach now with a grumpy Ricky in tow. Gyuvin immediately runs off to snitch on his best friend’s misfortune to the rest. He’s sulking, you notice, face down and hands stuffed in his pockets as the cool breeze flutters his hair in its embrace. “Quit making fun of him!” Hanbin scolds, and you spot Jiwoong’s expectant expression to tell him what you were up to alone in Ricky’s room.

Nothing  You were up to nothing, you send the message through your glare. You could’ve been up to something had those three not interrupted, but would you have survived that? Your eyes flicker over to Ricky, who’s trying to push Gyuvin off him— traces of the tension and danger from the hotel room completely gone without a trace that you fear you might have just been imagining it out of the sheer feeling of want you harbor for the guy.

“C’mon, let’s take a picture!”

Before you know it, you’re gathered by the shore in a bluf, feet sinking into the sand, and you feel yourself bump into Ricky at the very moment the camera flashes to capture the scene.

“Hey, this one came out nicely.”

It did. You’re not sure about the rest, but this photo deserves to be tucked into your wallet and kept in a capsule. 

Ricky is standing next to you, the tight frame leaving no gap or space in between. You’re both smiling a little awkwardly. It’s cute. You keep staring at it until your attention is pulled away by the very man himself.

“You owe me something,” is Ricky’s introduction when he saunters over to you. You raise a brow, closing your phone. Looks like he’s finally gotten over what happened earlier. Gyuvin has finally stopped teasing him by moving on to messing with the sparklers Gunwook brought. You can hear their shouts and laughter from afar, but it’s all muted down.

“What do you mean?” you ask. 

He takes out one hand from his pocket, an open palm outstretched. He’s looking at you expectantly in wait. You break out into a soft laugh and shake your head. Maybe your candy-related scheme worked a little too well.

“I didn’t think I was contractually obligated to do this now,” you hum, fishing out a few pieces of candy from your sweats before dropping them onto his hand. “Maybe I should stop.”

“You can’t just start something by yourself and suddenly stop all by yourself. That’s not fair,” he complains, accepting your offer. “You have to take responsibility.” Only if he takes responsibility for your poor and shriveling heart. His tone is light, a smile playing on his lips, and at this point— you’re sure this isn’t just a crush anymore. You might just be a little in love with Ricky Shen.

YOU HAD NO IDEA HAO WAS SO INFORMED ABOUT PROF SHIN’S MAKEUP PREFERENCES. It’s her birthday this upcoming week. You three freeloaders need to keep sucking up so you can maintain your office privileges, so you decided to buy her a present. Hanbin is unavailable, so it’s just you and Hao browsing the boutiques downtown, and you narrowed down your scope (and budget) to just buying her makeup.

You pull out a bright red lipstick from the display and show it to Hao. “What about this one?” you ask. Hao puts on a look of disapproval.

“She doesn’t like wearing bright colors. Maybe something more on the nude side would be better.”

Well damn, okay. You put the rejected stick back with the rest of its friends. The next one you pick out is also rejected because it’s glossy. “Prof Shin prefers matte,” he further reasons. And now you’re starting to question exactly how and why he knows this. Hao doesn’t humor your queries, though. You settle with a nude Laneige matte lip and a matching blush as a bonus.

“We’re done here, right?” Hao asks after you two pay for the gift.

“Hold on.” You’re stopped by a certain item on display near the check-out counter. You’re convinced that you’ve definitely gone off the deep end at this point. The thoughts blurring inside your head the moment you laid eyes on the strawberry-flavored lip gloss for sale are a little too insane, even for you. You’re not buying this. You don’t even use gloss. This is crazy.

“Thank you, please come again!”

You exit the store with your gift for Prof Shin and a new lip product. You are stressing yourself out.

The buzzing of your phone forces you out of your existential crisis. It’s Gyuvin messaging the group chat. “Hey,” you tap Hao upon reading the message. “We don’t have anything else to do right? You said you have extra gift boxes at home.” When Hao asks why, you show him Gyuvin’s message.

[gyubie cutie: no one wants to send off ricky at the airport with me? :( damn i really am his only friend].

You reply that you and Hao are on the way. You know that Ricky is leaving for a quick vacation to Shanghai today (two weeks before the semester ends, mind you) after an impulsive decision involving alcohol the other day with you and a few of the guys. At one point they suddenly became all emotional and the topic of their families were brought up. Ricky woke up the next morning with a splitting headache and a phone screen that tells him his flight has been booked. 

“Well, I guess I’ll just go,” he said over hangover soup and aspirin, as if he doesn’t have exams in two fucking weeks, and as if Shanghai is just a bus ride away. Sometimes, you’re surprised with how easy going he is. The flight is at an awkward time— Thursday mid-noon, so it’s no surprise that no one else is free to see him off. You didn’t mention anything about wanting to send him off and neither did he ask you to, so you thought why the hell would you do that unless you want to expose your ass full of feelings. But Gyuvin presented the opportunity. Who are you to turn it down?

“Over here!”

You spot Gyuvin waving at you two from a distance with outstretched limbs. You preemptively grab a handful of candy from your pocket— battle ready because it’s been getting harder and harder to pass these to him subtly as of late with the amount of eyes constantly on you— but you don’t find the mop of blonde anywhere, even when you’ve finally reached Gyuvin’s spot.

“Has Ricky left already?” you ask, brow raised. You’d be pissed if Gyuvin baited you two here only for the guy to have already left.

“No, no. He’s here,” he assures. “He’s around here somewhere. He bought some snacks not too long ago, but some girl stopped him to get his number. I lost him because seeing him get hit on made me gag so I had to look away for my safety.”

Well, that’s both assuring and not. Then you remember you have no right to be jealous because Ricky Shen, as suspiciously as he may be behaving as of late (case in point, accidentally seducing you in a bathrobe the other week), he is still not your damned boyfriend.

“Oh, there he is.”

Ricky who is not your boyfriend arrives, and the first thing he does is make you feel so fucking sorry that he isn’t.

“Whoa.”

No wonder you weren’t able to spot him right off the bat. His attention-seeking light hair is gone. No, he hasn’t shaved it— he dyed it freaking black and he looks so fucking good. “Oh, uh,” is how you greet him. The words have completely dried out from your throat. Ricky is looking at you expectantly. Your mouth is hanging open pathetically. “Wow.” Your eloquence is award winning.

He laughs. He wants you dead. “Does it look weird? I needed natural hair for visa requirements.”

“N—no,” you sputter out. Gyuvin goes on to brag that he was right that Ricky would look great in dark hair and Hao proceeds to try and touch said hair, only to get his hand smacked by the hair-owner, while you’re still temporarily incapacitated to say or do anything. You don’t get to say anything, because the clock strikes twelve-twenty, and Ricky has to go

“Have a safe flight, dummy,” Hao bids Ricky off with what you can only describe as a glomp, only to be assaulted by Gyuvin immediately after. You’re standing there awkwardly like a fourth-wheel, hands tucked behind your back because you can’t find the timing to say your farewells, and you missed the timing to pass the candy to him earlier after being so rudely jumpscared by his new look.

When Ricky finally manages to swat and push them both off, his eyes flash over to you. Your mouth curls into something sort of a smile— you’re not completely sure. Ricky takes a step forward to engulf you in an embrace.

Oh. Oh, so we’re doing this now, you think, eyes flying wide open in surprise with a pathetic squeak. “Thanks for seeing me off,” he murmurs softly, and you can feel his voice vibrating into your skin and penetrating your bones. You can’t even reciprocate because he locks your arms tightly against your own body, and you feel his fingers unclasping yours behind your back, allowing him to take the strawberry pieces you intended to give, before pulling away with a dumb grin. “Want anything when I get back?”

You try to blink away the violent shock tremors you’re feeling right now. “I’ve— I’ve always wanted to try the sun cakes there.” Deep breathes. You’re normal. You’re totally normal.

Ricky takes his carrier from Gyuvin, sending you a small smile. “I’ll buy you a hundred.”

“Don’t overdo it,” you let out a breath. God, he drives you insane. “Safe skies. See you when you get back.”

The moment Ricky boards the plane, Gyuvin turns around to ask you two what you should have for lunch. “Why are you so happy that your best friend is gone?” you ask with narrowed eyes the moment you three settle with the first food place you see at Terminal 1 of the airport. “Do you secretly hate him? Is that it?”

“He’ll be gone for two days max, give me a break,” he grunts. “And tomorrow’s Friday. That means I can get the whole evening and weekend to myself without anyone barging into my apartment.”

Your friend’s joy is reflected with how energetically he’s inhaling the bowl of stew. “Don’t get ahead of yourself. I’m gonna do a progress check on your paper tomorrow.” Gyuvin sets down the bowl, looking at you like you just sentenced him to prison. Hao is minding his own business and enjoying his meal. “What? Don’t tell me you forgot that your deadline is in two weeks. I’m checking it tomorrow, so make sure it’s at the very least decent.”

When Gyuvin tells you to stop nagging because it reflects your age, Hao had to stop you from throttling the man.

Anyway, the day passes and you’re at Gyuvin’s apartment to check on his paper. 

“Why are you smiling at your phone? Damn, she’s finally lost it,” he says over another meal. You finished giving him your feedback and decided to just have takeout dinner with him. While eating, however, you received a text from Ricky— a photo of his own meal and a thumbs up above the plate of skewers. It’s been a day, but you can barely feel his absence with how he’s been texting you every hour from the moment he landed.

[ouricky: (photo attached) touchdown ✌️].

[ouricky: (photo attached) this looks like u].

[ouricky: are u asleep yet?]

[ouricky: gyuvin told me ur at his place. tell him to eat shit for me].

[ouricky: (photo attached) dinner w my sister 👍 our meal is better than yours].

“What the hell, did you get a boyfriend?” You look up from your phone to find a very judgemental Gyuvin. “After rejecting all my attempts to set you up for romance? This is a personal attack. You’re buying ice cream later.”

If only he knew you were texting his best friend. Not that you have any intentions on telling him.

“Hey, why do you smell like strawberries?” Gyuvin asks after your meal, right when you decide to retouch your makeup as you ready yourself to leave. “Is that the candy you always bring?”

“It’s my new lip gloss,” You show off the pink bottle. “It tastes like the fruit too.”

“Whoa, that’s cool,” he snatches it from you, examining it a little too close to his face to sniff it. “Where’d you buy it? Do they have one in mango?”

While trying to convince Gyuvin that he should maybe purchase actual mangoes instead of planning on eating an entire bottle of mango-flavored gloss, you also try to convince yourself that you definitely did not make this purchase yourself to try and seduce his friend. Ricky isn’t even here. You’re not wearing it for him. You’re wearing it for yourself.

“I’m off! I’ll take you to the store next time.”

When you defend yourself and your new lip gloss against Jiwoong’s judgment the next morning, he tells you that Ricky probably doesn’t feel the same way as you do. That you probably shouldn’t think too much of it and hurt yourself with your expectations. But at this point, it’s reasonable for you to start overthinking, right? Right? What does Jiwoong know, anyway? He’s not Ricky’s mother. Ricky’s mother is on a yacht with him right now, and you know because he just sent you a video and you’re damn near the precipice of falling headfirst into the depths of thinking he might just like you too.

“I just don’t want you to get too ahead of yourself and end up getting hurt.”

Assuming you’re right and Ricky does like you back— when the hell could it have started? The barbecue at Matthew’s? That one evening at Gyuvin’s apartment? That night in his uncle’s resort? You have no idea, much like how you have no idea how you somehow got absorbed into their mess of a friend group.

But a few little texts and inexplicable bouts of skinship here and there isn’t enough to set you way too far off-the deep end. The way he looks at you might just be your imagination. Jiwoong could still be absolutely correct and you’re just tripping over your own assumptions.

You’re not that quick to listen to your intrusive thoughts. You’re still a little reasonable. That’s why you haven’t fallen to your knees and blurted out your insurmountable feelings for him yet.

What does set you off to state beyond help, however, is a sudden phone call later that same Friday evening. 

Morning, rather. Specifically at four in the morning— waking you up from your sleep by its incessant buzzing. “Hello?” you groan into the mic, voice still croaky and eyes barely open. “What’s up? Why aren’t you asleep?” You have no idea why Ricky is calling you right now. The moment you hear his voice through the line however, you feel all five of your senses suddenly snapping wide awake.

“I thought it’d be a waste to spend my time here asleep,” he says with a soft chuckle. Oh, holy fuck it’s too early for this. You’re not mentally prepared for this kind of voice from him yet— low, almost a deep rumble, reminiscent of thunderstorms and clouds, only amplified by how he’s practically whispering into the core of your being through the phone. 

You pull your blanket down and roll over to the side to give your heart a chance to breathe.

“Yet you decide to call me at four in the morning instead of doing something more worthwhile,” you click your tongue, and you only hear Ricky laugh in response. “Are you planning on extending your trip? When’s your flight?”

“No, I’m leaving later. I still have to prepare for finals,” he replies. “Flight’s scheduled at 11 p.m.”

“Ah, that’s too bad,” you say. “I’m pulling an all-nighter at the library tonight. Deadline to catch. I don’t think I can see you at the airport this time.”

“That’s alright,” he hums. “Next time you can just come with me to Shanghai.”

You pause. Wait. Wait a minute. “Haha, yeah, it— it would be nice to visit your hometown with the rest of the guys, yes.” That’s what he probably meant. You probably meant all of you— many, plural— not just you and you alone. Haha. Of course.

But when Ricky takes a while to reply, you start to overthink, start nipping on the skin of your lip so hard that blood might draw.

“Yeah,” he says after an awkward beat. “With the rest of the guys. Yeah.”

You really need to hear Jiwoong’s voice of reason right now. Because all you’re hearing is the sound of your own heartbeat inside your ears like a hyperactive drum.

“Anyway, you must be tired. I should let you sleep now,” says Ricky after ruining all your chances of falling back asleep. You can’t. The best you can do is get up before the sun and go on with your busy day so as to not think about this conversation too much.

“You should be the one sleeping,” you manage to reply. “Don’t forget my sun cakes.”

“Mhm. G’night.”

Crazy. This man drives you fucking crazy.

You don’t return to sleep after that.

“Okay,” is Jiwoong’s expert opinion after telling him what happened later that same evening, having dinner with him at a McDonald’s near the city library. He’s put his kiddie meal on pause while you were telling him about Ricky Shen and his demonic antics at four in the morning. He’s got his elbows on the table, fingers interlocked, and staring at you with a look so serious he might as well be diagnosing you with a disease. “I think you’re right,” he continues. “Maybe he does like you.”

The shriek you let out is almost inhuman. 

Jiwoong’s lips quirk into a smile and he goes back to eating. “I told you! I told you I wasn’t overthinking things! My lip gloss purchase is justified!” you proclaim. Jiwoong tosses a fry into your mouth to sedate you, and it works for a few chews until you start yapping again. “But, god, now what? He’s returning later or tomorrow. I have no idea how to face him.”

Your phone vibrates a message. “Is it Ricky?” he asks in an attempt to tease you, but all your face does is turn sour upon reading the text. “No? Who is it?”

“Woong,” you say, setting your phone on the table. “Are you busy this evening?”

He furrows his brows. “I was planning on writing my paper. Why? Is there a problem?”

“Great. You can work with me at the library the whole night.”

When you slide your phone over across the table, Jiwoong understands. 

[jaeryeong: can i see you tonight? please? it wont take long. i just need to make things right]. 

“He’s a persistent fucking cockroach.”

You grunt, taking back your phone. “You should report him,” he says, and you’ve completely lost your appetite. “Screenshot his texts and block his number. I’ll accompany you to the station if you want to handle this legally.”

“No, it’s fine,” you scrunch your nose. He’s a wimp, according to his ex-friend Gyuvin, so you’re sure he isn’t gonna hurt you or anything. And your exams are coming up, so you don’t want to deal with processing this entire thing while you’re already academically burdened as is. “Be my bodyguard for the night. If he tries anything, I can just throw you at him and run away.”

Jiwoong doesn’t approve of your methods, but doesn’t argue anyway. After eating you both finally head to the library where you’ll be cooped up the entire night— tucked in the corner in your own respective cubicles. 

Your friend’s worry starts stirring whenever he sees you check your phone every hour or so. He pulls back the desk chair upon noticing the serious look on your face, turning over to your direction in concern. “Is Jaeryeong texting you?” he asks. “Did he follow you here? Should I call the police?”

“No,” you reply. “Ricky sent me a photo of him at the airport. He’s wearing ear muffs. He’s so cute. I can’t do this anymore.” 

Jiwoong’s face falls to an expression reminiscent of death and stops talking to you after that.

Well. You have been receiving texts from Jaeryeong, but you haven’t opened them in case he gets motivated by the fact you’ve read his messages. You still don’t know how he and Gyuvin ended up being friends, but then again, Gyuvin was friends with a group of delinquents in high school. He wasn’t part of the group. He just thought their vibe was cool.

“Hey.” 

It’s twenty minutes past twelve, Ricky is probably still on the airplane, and you haven’t eaten anything since your 6 p.m. dinner. You poke Jiwoong’s arm, to which he blatantly ignores. “I’m gonna get something from the vending machine. Keep ignoring me and I won’t buy you snacks.” He says nothing but follows you when you get up, and you sneer at the man following you with a silent tantrum. “Quit sulking,” you tell him as you punch the numbers for coffee on the machine. “You’re not cute enough for that.”

“I’m sorry for not being Ricky,” is the first thing he says to you after two hours of silence. “You’re wearing that scheming lip gloss again, but he’s not even here.” You frown. He laughs and takes your place in front of the vending machine by cordially bumping his ass into yours the moment your drink falls down the chute. “Your phone’s flashing by the way. I think Ricky’s calling.”

You look down, bringing up your phone, and sure enough calling ID “ouricky” is giving you a call. 

He’s calling. He is calling you.

Your eyes flash back up to Jiwoong, widened in surprise. 

Why is he calling you?

“Did he send a message in the group chat that he arrived?” you ask, suddenly panicking as the phone relentlessly vibrates in your hand. “He didn’t, right? Why would he call me first? What time is it? Wasn’t his flight just an hour ago?”

“For someone who’s been pretty confident that Ricky likes you back, you’re sure acting funny,” he hums, leaning against the vending machine and taking a sip from his cold brew while you’re having a mental breakdown. “Answer it. Go on.”

“‘I’m scared!” you exclaim. “What if instead of saying hello I end up blurting out that I’m in love with him and ask him if he feels the same way?!”

You take too long to make a move so the phone line gets cut off. But when Ricky calls again, Jiwoong wastes no time to snatch your phone from your hands, click answer, and put the damn thing on loudspeaker for the entire fucking world to hear. What the hell are you doing? your scrunched up face says to him. Doing you a favor, his arrogant eyebrows reply. You attempt to snatch your phone back, arms in a desperate move to retrieve to device—

“Hello?”

—but they freeze mid-air at the sound of Ricky’s voice blurring through the speaker.

Jiwoong grins. You slowly get your phone back and press it to your ear. “Yes. Hello. What’s up?” You give Jiwoong the nastiest glare you can muster, but flinch back the moment you hear Ricky’s voice again.

“Are you still at the library?” he asks.

“Yeah.” You elbow Jiwoong when he laughs at your sudden switch-up. “Why?”

“Come down.”

What?

“I’m outside.”

It’s almost stupid how your body starts moving on its own. 

The cold air bites your skin the moment you break past the doors, met by the dim sky and muted sight of the empty plaza square outside the library entryway. But it’s not completely empty— no. Ricky, who’s supposed to be still on the plane ride back to Seoul, is standing five feet away from you, eyes flickering up from his phone the moment you arrive, a slow, soft smile blooming on his face and cheeks.

You see the suitcase next to his feet. Jiwoong’s words echo in your head— maybe you’re right, he said, maybe he does like you. It’s not just a maybe anymore. It’s not just your mind making things up.

Ricky, who is supposed to be in the air halfway between Seoul and Shanghai, went straight from the airport to the city library just to see you.

You’re usually the one doing dumb things because of him. This time, it’s not you. 

It’s him.

“Hey, are you crazy? Did your flight schedule change?” You stomp towards him, closing the gap between the both of you with big strides and quick steps. “Why didn’t you update us? Jesus, you gave me a scare when you said you were here.”

Ricky’s only reply is a laugh, and your intent to scold him more gets stuck in your throat and you stumble a little when you abruptly halt right in front of his feet. You look at him, batting your eyes in an attempt to blink away the possible pink and hazy filter you’re seeing him with, but it doesn’t work. He is just this pretty. He is just this dreamy. He is just soft and soft and soft when his eyelashes flutter above his big, dark irises as he looks at you, when his stained hair frames his face a little too perfectly, when the corners of his lips lift ever the slightest to resemble a smile.

“That’s not how you usually greet me,” he says. “Aren’t you going to give me anything?”

Your heart stirs. “What?” Aren’t you supposed to be the one asking that? He promised to buy you a hundred sun cakes, and you’re pretty sure those won’t fit inside his one suitcase. “Oh. Oh, wait.” You pat around your pockets, only to realize you left all your candy in your bag back with Jiwoong. 

“Sorry,” you tell him, feeling a little guilty. “I was in a rush to get down. I wasn’t able to bring any with me.”

Instead of responding with disappointment, Ricky just hums and leans a little closer. “Really?” He suddenly nudges his face into yours, noses bumping, and your eyes widen in surprise. “But you do have something else.”

He’s close. His face is hovering a little too close to yours to be smiling cheekily unaffected like that. You can feel his warm breath on your lips and you’re starting to feel dizzy. 

“It smells sweet,” he says and you think— oh. He’s not good for your heart.

Maybe it’s because he’s officially driven you to the breaking point of being crazy, or maybe it’s because the cold has completely frozen all the sane parts of your brain, but the words you’d usually keep tucked between your thoughts and confidentiality suddenly come stumbling out of your mouth before you can stop yourself.

“Do you want to know if it tastes sweet too?”

You gasp after realizing what you just said. You look at Ricky with a face aghast with surprise, jumping back because holy fuck— why did you say that? Why? You’re crazy. You’re stupid. You bite down your bottom lip and taste the dull flavor strawberry mocking the tip of your tongue. You’re insane. You have officially lost it.

If you were Ricky, you’d probably call yourself crazy too, but he doesn’t do that.

Instead, he does something even crazier by taking your offer and pressing his lips against yours.

It doesn’t register that Ricky just kissed you until after the fact, and you’re staring at him with wide, blinking eyes, lips feeling fuzzy, head afloat beyond reach, and him— at an arm’s length away— eyes averted with pink strawberries dusting his cheeks, much like the color slightly glazing his lips, as if he wasn’t the one who just pulled your trigger.

He ran his mouth about taking responsibility the other day.

You’re going to show him responsibility with your mouth.

“S—sorry, that was too sudden, I just— mmph—!”

Two months of pining after him come crashing down the moment you pull him by the collar to finish what he started and god— his lips are softer than you thought, sweeter than you thought, and it’s not just the strawberry lip gloss smudged between your teeth and tongue, melting into what you can only describe as the best fucking kiss in your entire life.

Ricky pulls away to breathe. You chase after his lips once more in a short-winded daze, only to stumble into his chest and he catches you by cupping your face to press another kiss to your mouth. “Ah. This is bad,” he murmurs between barely parted lips. “I don’t think the candy is gonna cut it anymore.”

For a second there, you thought he was gonna say that you’re a bad kisser. 

“You should greet me like this from now on.”

YOU WAKE UP THE NEXT MORNING VIA SUFFOCATION FROM THE LOVE OF YOUR LIFE AND A TEXT MESSAGE FROM A PESTERING RAT. Blurry eyes and barely conscious, you try to roll over on the bed but physically cannot with how Ricky is squeezing your torso with his arms, his nose buried against your nape as he curls up into you from behind. 

You cannot move. You try your darndest to wiggle an arm out because your phone is incessantly buzzing on his bedside table— the only thing from your belongings that you brought with you last night because your haul to the library was left behind with Jiwoong, who’s probably the one texting you right now for ditching him.

When you finally retrieve your phone however, it is not Jiwoong who’s texting you.

It’s Jaeryeong. Squinted eyes read [how could you replace me with a grey-haired twink???] and [don’t even dare try contacting me, bitch] and the first thing you feel is confusion. Then you remember that Jaeryeong is a freak and probably followed you to the library that night, and saw you making out with Ricky in front of a public educational building.

Well. At least that stopped him from bothering you again. The question now is whether or not you should tell Ricky about this. 

“I’m going to kill him.”

You do tell him, in between washing his hair in the bathroom to get the remnants of spray stains out of his hair because Jaeryeong’s comment pissed you off. “I’m gonna kill him the moment I see him,” says Ricky with a lovely towel wrap on his head. You’re looking at him through the mirror and the scary face he’s trying to put on is promptly negated by his spa-day look.

“Do you even know what he looks like?” you raise a brow, freeing him from the towel head to reveal a damp mop of light hair. You throw away the muddled towel and grab a fresh one to dry his head.

“I’ll ask Gyuvin,” he says, face covered by the towel, and you snort.

“I think we’ll have a problem with that. I was kind of hoping to keep this secret for now.”

Ricky suddenly throws his head back, causing the towel to fall to the floor and the top of his head bumps into your stomach. “Why?” he asks, upside down, big brown eyes staring right into your soul like a premeditated attack shooting you square in the chest. He can’t pull this move. That’s illegal. 

“Be—because Gyuvin is annoying and he won’t let me hear the end of it,” you manage to say. You’re not going to fold. You’re not going to give in. “You know how I turned down that blind date with you right?”

The mention of it prompts a frown to tug on the corners of his mouth and it’s the second onslaught against your heart. “Right,” he huffs, lifting his head up to turn around and face you, looking up with a displeased expression, yet his actions say all but displeasure when he tugs on the hem of your shirt, pulling you towards him so he can lock you in place with his arms around your waist.

“Quit pouting,” you tell him. It hasn’t even been twenty-four hours. You’re not sure if you’re gonna last a month with him being like this.

“Gyuvin said you thought I was ugly,” he says. “That’s why you said no to the date.” 

All the adoration you feel gets extinguished in an instant.

You have never heard a more blasphemous statement your entire life.

“I never said that!” you shriek. “That’s not true at all! I didn’t even know what you looked like until we met for that Hadong trip that day!”

Ricky winces at your sudden volume and you’re quick to simmer it down and apologize by hugging his head to your torso. “Oh god, I’m so sorry,” you say. “I turned down the date because your best friend has traumatized me with all the previous blind dates he’s tried setting up. Jaeryeong isn’t the only disaster I’ve experienced. Every single guy he’s set me up with has been trash, so I thought you’d be just like the rest too.”

Maybe this isn’t a conversation you should be having in the bathroom of his apartment, but you digress. Ricky unburies his head and looks up at you once more. “So, am I?”

Again. You’re going to fucking eat him one day. “No,” you cup his face. You’re perfect, you’re an angel.” Maybe if you’d given him and Gyuvin a shot that day, then maybe your first meeting wouldn’t have been as awkward— but either way, regardless of the situation, you’re pretty sure you’d still somehow eventually find yourself falling for this loser.

You lean down, ready to dip into a kiss, only to hear an alarming noise outside the bathroom door.

“Ricky! Why didn’t you tell us you were back?!”

Oh, for fuck’s sake.

You’re pretty happy that Ricky is quick to listen to your request because he immediately scrambles to his feet and tells you to stay inside the bathroom for the time being. “Hey, he’s not in his room,” you hear Gyuvin’s voice from outside, followed by Yujin suspecting that Jiwoong lied to them, followed by Gunwook saying that Ricky is definitely around, evidenced by his unmade bed and half-unpacked suitcase. 

“I—I think I’d have to lock the door,” he mumbles to you, holding the doorknob and ready to leave. “What if they suddenly barge in?”

“It’s okay. You should go out before they actually barge in while we’re both still in here.” 

Cue heavy knocks against the bathroom door. “Ricky! Are you in there?” Ricky grumbles out a swear and quickly slips out of the bathroom, a click on the knob, and you’re officially locked inside your boyfriend’s bathroom within the first twenty four hours of dating him.

Now, this is just great.

You have the privilege of eavesdropping into their reunion through the muffled audio on the other side of the door. “Who were you talking to?” you hear Gunwook ask.

“My...myself…” Ricky answers, and you feel excessively sorry for him so you decide to repent by cleaning up his bathroom. The problem is, even after you’ve finished cleaning, you’re still stuck inside because for some fucking reason, those three have no intentions of leaving.

“Hey, should we order some food?”

“Oh! Sounds good!”

“Let’s watch a movie, I’m bored.”

[ouricky: i’m so sorry they just won’t leave 😭]

You slump to the floor, back sliding down the shower glass. Maybe...maybe this is your karma for turning him down the first time and asking him to hide your relationship. Honestly, you should have known it wouldn’t be easy to keep things hidden from seven pairs of eyes (Jiwoong knows and has sworn secrecy in exchange of being his research lackey). It’s especially difficult considering you’re chronically touch-starved and must always have Ricky Shen around you to hold. So when you have another barbecue dinner at Mattew’s the weekend before your finals, and when Ricky— out of a newly formed habit— tries to greet you with a kiss on the face right in front of his fucking friends, you panic and end up shoving the poor boy, causing him to kiss the floor instead.

Your mouth is wide open. “Oh. Oh my god, I’m so sorry.” Hanbin and Hao hear the very distinct thunk and start questioning.

“Why...is he on the ground?” Hao looks down to see Ricky’s half-alarmed, half-confused face as he half-lifts his body off from the floor. Your face is burning. Oh god.

“He’s repenting,” you say through your teeth.

Ricky tries blinking away the shock.“...Yes...I made a mistake.”

You’re going to lock away your strawberry lip gloss from now on. It’s too hazardous. Hanbin tells you that “friends should get along” and asks you to help him set the table, leaving behind Ricky who’s being pulled back to his feet by Hao. When you see Jiwoong, who saw the whole thing, at the table looking at you with an insufferable look on his face, you flip him off.

“Are you in a bad mood today?” asks Hanbin as he passes you a stack of paper plates. “You keep butting heads with the boys.”

You’re speechless. You can’t even defend yourself if you wanted to so you resign to mumbling out a bitter apology and equally bitterly start arranging the plates on the table, much to Jiwoong’s pure and raw amusement.

When you guys start eating, you even make sure not to sit next to him. You are instead sitting next to Gyuvin, and Ricky is sitting in front of him. They’re both bickering over something again— chopstick-fighting against each other over the table while you half-listen to Matthew who’s sitting on your other side, complaining about Prof Shin and her impossible exam coverage as you clean off your plate.

“You took her class last year, right? Which lessons did she focus on?” he asks.

“Review the most recent ones. I think she just took five or six questions from the earlier lessons,” you reply, grabbing a slice of the gyukatsu you bought and heated up as a potluck, and absentmindedly place said slice on Ricky’s plate.

It gets quieter all of a sudden.

Ricky, Gyuvin, and Matthew are all looking at you— one more alarmed than the rest, and the realization drains all the blood out of your face.

“Yujin, you should try this too!” you try to play it off, placing another piece of gyukatsu on Yujin’s plate, who’s sitting right in front of you. And for good measure you do the same to all of the plates within your arms reach, all while swallowing down the desire to bury yourself into a hole, never to emerge ever again.

“Whoa, thanks.” 

This whole secret relationship thing is harder than you thought, and Ricky is very visibly sulking that you’re giving away his current favorite dish to just about anyone. Looks like you have a grown man that needs to be coaxed back into affection tonight.

Jiwoong tells you that you should just come clean and stop making it harder for yourself. You firmly refuse because even though you are having a lot of trouble and even though you definitely want to kiss Ricky and his pretty face without the fear of getting walked in on by his friends who don’t know the concept of privacy, this set-up is still better than the bane of your existence, Kim Gyuvin, making fun of you until the day you die.

The said bane of your existence treats you all out to another dinner because he finally got his grade for his community development project. He says you have no choice but to come since you’re the reason he got an A.

It’s an easy dinner. You and Ricky even agreed to arrive at separate times with him tagging along with his hyungs, and you chaperoning the children while waiting for the rest of their arrival at the chinese restaurant. The problem comes when they arrive. Specifically, when Ricky arrives because for some god damned, unplanned reason, he arrives wearing the same distinctly floral-patterned short-sleeved button down you’re wearing.

“Oh.”

He doesn’t even fucking wear florals. Why did he decide to switch up today?

Never had you thought that the day would come where you’d be begging to bring back toxic masculinity, but here you are— mouth agape, aghast, and awkwardly standing from your seat at the round table because the shirts are way too obvious to be left unnoticed. 

“Take it off,” you immediately demand. “This is absurd. Take it off and quit copying me.”

“Wow, are you two couple-shirting?” Taerae’s comment stirs a faint blush on Ricky’s cheeks. Why is this idiot blushing? 

“I’m sorry to inform you, but Rik wears it better,” says Gyuvin.

You’re thankful that the same-shirt fiasco ended there. You try to ignore Ricky throughout dinner, but god damn it, Gyuvin is right— that shirt does look pretty damn fine tucked into his slacks and framing his broad shoulders like that and it’s making you angry.

Ricky catches you checking him out from across the table and you catch him subtly smirking. Oh, what a psycho. You’re not letting him off.

“I’m going out for a bit,” you announce, standing up quite loudly with how your chair scrapes against the floor. “Need fresh air. Be back in a bit.” Thankfully, they don’t stop you when you retreat to the cluster of grass and trees and plants tucked in one corner of the outside parking lot of the restaurant. When you take out your phone and prepare to send a message, the person you intended to message has already walked into your field of vision.

Ricky leaves the restaurant not long after you did, looking around the lot until his eyes land on your little corner, a sparkle in his eyes, and he jogs his way right over to you. 

“Ah. Not today.“ 

You hold up a hand in front of your face and Ricky’s nose bumps into your palm when he leans in to get a bite of your lips. 

He scrunches his face, wincing backward, confused. “You have wronged me tonight, Mr. Shim,” you say, dropping down your hand to complete your cross-armed display of beration. “You should reflect on your actions before trying anything funny.” All Ricky does is blink at you with those pretty brown eyes and no— you’re not going to give in. You’re biting down your tongue very hard so you don’t get swayed by those dangerous weapons (said pair of pretty brown eyes).

Ricky takes a step closer, or maybe he tugs you closer to him because you suddenly feel a pull on the belt loops of your trousers, face hovering just a few inches away from yours, pressing his lips together into a pout as he tries to get you to give in to his whims, but you are immovable. You are a mountain. You are this close to squeezing your eyes shut because he’s making it very hard for you right now to not kiss his stupid face.

When that doesn’t work, he resorts to his other weapon. That is, being sickeningly shameless.

“I didn’t mean to wear the same shirt as you,” he says, voice low. “Should I take it off?”

That’s it.

You hit his chest with a closed fist. “Ow!” Then you use the same hand to grab a fistful of that darned shirt and slam your lips against his because who are you kidding? You are not god’s strongest soldier. If Ricky bats his eyes at you and tells you to jump off a cliff, you might just do it.

When you hear him grunt into your mouth— something snaps. You pull him in deeper, other hand fixed on the back of his neck, the taste of strawberries mixing with spit and short breaths and the only time you’re letting him off is when you get lightheaded from the lack of fucking oxygen.

You pull back with a gasp. Ricky is flushed scarlet and his eyes are out of focus. “Wow, um. Uh.” You wipe off the smudged lip gloss from the edges of his mouth. He looks like he’s about to pass out.

“You two are so fucking disgusting.”

The sudden sound of Taerae’s voice feels like a bullet to the head.

Your face freezes. Your neck creaks, turning to the right, and you see Taerae standing a few feet away from you two, arms crossed with a face wound up in revulsion and sheer judgment and now you feel like the one passing out. You feel five years of your life getting scraped off against a sandpaper bed in real time. You want to fucking die. “H—hyung,” you hear Ricky say. “What—what are you doing here?”

“The guys are wondering where you two went, so I went out to check,” Taerae simply says, scrunching his nose before continuing. “I really did not need to see that.”

You feel the heat running up to your forehead. Oh god. Maybe you should’ve learned your lesson the first time you got caught making out with him in public. “I—” you start, a single syllable falling out of your throat before your mouth completely dries up. What are you even supposed to say in this situation? How do you explain to Taerae that this is not what it looks like— even thought this is exactly what it looks like?

“It’s alright. You don’t have to explain. I knew all this time that you two have a thing.”

“Haha.” You’re sweating. You’re sweating so bad. You feel Ricky squeezing your sweaty hand. God, you’re totally screwed. “What are you talking about, Tae?”

“I heard your conversation in the car on our trip to Hadong like two months ago.” 

Well, shit.

“I woke up when Ricky nearly killed us all on the road. You two are the most unsubtle people I’ve ever met. Quit looking surprised. Do I have to mention the way you eyefuck him whenever you’re in the same space? Girl, you’re not fooling anyone.”

You peer at Ricky and he looks a little too happy to hear that. You’re dizzy, you’re nauseous, and you want to sew Taerae’s mouth shut right now. “Does…does anyone else know?” you ask, scared, and you tug Ricky out of your unhelpful corner and start heading back to the restaurant before someone else comes out to look for you.

“Well. I’m not so sure. They’ve never brought it up when you two aren’t around so I don’t think so,” Taerae replies, and you let out a sigh of relief. “I think Gunwook is onto you, but Gyuvin for sure doesn’t know.”

“Oh, thank god.”

Taerae raises a brow. “Why are you even keeping it from him? It’s not like he’s gonna disapprove or get mad. In fact, it’ll be his dream come true since he’s been trying to sell Ricky off since last year.”

The restaurant’s lights get brighter as you walk towards it. “I’m not hiding it because I’m scared he’ll get upset. I’m hiding it because he’s gonna rub it all in my fucking face and I have way too much pride to deal with that, thank you very much.” Ricky laughs. You shoot him a dirty look.

“Okay. I get it,” says Taerae. “You’re not a normal person either. No wonder you get along with everyone.”

“Hyung, that includes you too.”

“I know,” he huffs. You’re in front of the restaurant entrance now, and you make sure to wedge Taerae between you and Ricky for an extra safety layer. “I don’t think doing that is going to help, but whatever. This is none of my business, so you don’t have to worry about me telling anyone that you and Ricky are dating—”

“You and Ricky are dating?!”

Well, shit.

Maybe you’ve been out for too long. Because there’s suddenly seven people right in front of the restaurant doors, probably on their way to look for you, only for you to come walking back and getting absolutely fucked in the ass in the process.

Gyuvin was the one who made the very astute observation. His eyes are wide and his mouth is hanging open in disbelief. You shoot Taerae a look. He presses his lips together and feigns innocence. “Oh. What are you all doing out here?” he says. So much for not telling anybody.

“You!” Gyuvin ignores him to point an accusatory finger at you— “and you!” —doing the same with Ricky as the shock completely penetrates his facial muscles. You swallow, eyes flitting over at Ricky and the both of you share the same guilty look. “What do you mean you’re dating? What?! How?! Since when?!”

Gyuvin throwing a fit aside, what bothers you more is how completely unfazed the other six are— even Yujin. What the hell? Jiwoong is given. He looks like he’s having the time of his life. But why the hell is Matthew looking at Gyuvin like he’s about to laugh? “C’mon, man. They’ve been together since the first barbecue dinner obviously. How could you not notice?” he says, and now you’re just as alarmed as Gyuvin is.

“Seriously?!” your poor friend looks betrayed, but you’re in a state no better than him because what the fuck is Matthew saying? He’s way off the mark but have you seriously been this fucking transparent all this time?

“I don’t think so. I’m pretty sure they started dating when we went to the resort,” inserts Hanbin, and you’re absolutely at a loss. “The phone call, disappearing off together like tonight— the hotel room. I’m surprised you didn’t catch on, Gyu.” Hao agrees. Yujin nods and says “why else would you spend three hours just getting ready for a lame event,” and you want to melt into the ground.

You can’t do this anymore. You want to go home.

“No!” Gunwook butts in, refusing to be left out. “They’ve been together since that one night at Gyuvin hyung’s apartment! I bought noona a pack of candy for her cough and Rick immediately got jealous. They even showed up together. I’m telling you. They’ve been together for longer than you all think.”

At this point, you have no idea how to diffuse this situation. They’re all arguing about when or how you and Ricky got together. Jiwoong is laughing his fucking ass off. Taerae is trying his best to act like he’s had no part in this. Gyuvin looks like you’ve just twisted a knife into his back. 

“Can...can I say something?”

It’s Ricky who speaks up and puts everything to a halt. They all look at him. You look at him. He clears his throat, slipping past Taerae so he can reclaim his rightful spot next to you, and makes your face flush a thousand degrees when he shyly hooks his pinky finger around yours and says, “You’re all wrong,” he says softly. “It’s only been sixteen days and twenty hours.” 

Oh.

It’s quiet. You can’t look at him. You have your face turned down in a heated embarrassment. You physically cannot look at him and everyone else and the fact that none of them are saying anything is making things all the more worse.

Kill me. Just kill me now.

“Hyung, you’re so lame,” Yujin breaks the silence of dread. And just like that, they go on as if nothing just happened.

“Hey, did we split the bill?”

“Oh, Gyuvin paid for it all.”

“I’m riding in Bin hyung’s car!”

“Thanks for the meal! You three get home safe!”

You’re in a daze. These fuckers just gossiped about your ass and called it a day. 

You’re not sure if you should be relieved or offended that they didn’t dwell any more on the topic of your relationship. They leave you behind with Gyuvin and Ricky, who’s legally obligated to drive you both home, and it’s so eerily quiet that you want to die. “I’ll—I’ll sit in the back,” you say, oddly reminiscent of your first meeting with Ricky, and Gyuvin simply sits in front without speaking a word to you. You fear he might actually be upset that you didn’t tell him.

Oh no. You make eye contact with Ricky through the rearview mirror as he starts driving. Do something. What should I do? I don’t know! I don’t know what to do either! and you cut your conversation short the moment you hear Gyuvin scratching his throat clear, and you jolt and straighten yourself in your seat like a guilty convict on the way to the station.

You end up not doing or saying anything until you finally reach your apartment. Ricky attempts to get out of the car to walk you to your door, but you stop him with one look because you feel bad enough as is to leave Gyuvin in the car alone. “Thanks. You two get home safe,” you say before shutting the door. The moment you close it, however, the passenger door clicks open in its place.

“Hold on.” 

Gyuvin is out of the car, and you stop in your tracks to turn around and face him, pressing down your lips together because god, you feel so fucking bad. He should be making fun of you right now, not looking all serious! He should be gloating and rubbing it in your face that you should’ve just taken his offer!

He’s got his arms crossed and looks disappointed. You see Ricky peeking out from the rolled down window in concern, ready to step in in case things get ugly. “I knew you’d be into him,” Gyuvin finally says. “I told you, he’d be different.”

Wait. Wait a minute.

Suddenly, he’s grinning again. A stupid fucking devious grin and you feel your soul escaping from your body. “Did I scare you?” 

Oh no. You’re not dealing with this shit, you’re absolutely not dealing with this shit at all.

“I’m going inside. Good night.”

“You should’ve just taken my offer the first time!”

“Shut up. Shut the fuck up.”

“And you should’ve told me you changed your mind. Maybe if you did, you wouldn’t have had to wait for two months before you started dating him—”

“I’m not listening, I’m not listening!”

“This is what you get for not trusting me!”

“Leave me alone!” you shriek, stomping up to your building entrance while Gyuvin happily chases you down, and you struggle to press the right numbers on the keypad so you hiss out a swear. 

“No way. This is too good. I’m telling your mom about this,” he grins. You want to cry. “Oh, and I can take the bus from here. Ricky, come out of hiding and help your girlfriend get inside her building! She looks like she’s having trouble opening the door.”

It’s almost ridiculous how the urge to throw yourself onto Ricky overtakes you the moment he shows up, but you’re not giving Gyuvin another reason to make fun of you until the day you die. You tell Gyuvin to fuck off and he tells you to not have too much fun before finally going away. You’re tired. You’re absolutely tired, and you let out a groan into Ricky’s chest and let yourself sink into his warmth the moment you’re sure Gyuvin has left the premises. 

“It’s open,” he says, prompting you to get inside but you don’t budge.

“Your friend is annoying,” you muffle into his shirt— the damned floral shirt that started tonight’s cataclystic mess. 

“He’s your friend too.” You let out a grunt. Ricky soothes circles on your back and lets you throw your silent tantrum a little longer. “Gyuvin is right though. You should’ve just said yes the first time— ow!”

Ricky’s appalled confusion when you land a hit on his chest almost makes you feel a little better. The problem is, you did the same thing earlier and pulled him into a scandalous kiss immediately after, so he’s once again staring down at your lips like he’s waiting for it. Holy shit. Your psych class didn’t warn you about this. This is a little insane.

Your powers are too strong. The power of strawberries is too strong. But you’re not thinking straight right now, emotions at a high after the events that unfolded— so you don’t think and give him exactly what he wants, ending the night with the sweet taste of tart, and another breathless exhale brushing over his now swollen lips. “I think I’ve brainwashed you,” you say in between bated breaths. “Maybe it’s not me you like. Maybe it’s the candy and the strawberries. You should cut off on the sweets.”

“That’s not true,” he grunts, pressing in another kiss, pulling away with his teeth grazing your bottom lip with a tug. “I liked you from when Gyuvin told me about you. I like you. I like this.”

Well, that’s one way to drive a woman mad. Gyuvin was right. Maybe you should’ve taken that first chance when you had it, but it doesn’t really matter anymore because either way— you’re certain that the outcome would be the same.

“Oh, what the fuck? Gyuvin just texted.” The door is still still left hanging open, and you’re still pressed up against him when you look down to check your phone. “That son of a bitch— he sent a photo of us just now to the group chat. Is he still here?”

“Leave it.” 

Ricky pulls you back when you turn and try to look for the nosy bastard who’s probably snooping around. He tips up your chin. “One more,” he says, leaning in for yet another kiss as if your lips are the candies you always give him in bulk, like he can’t function without it anymore. 

“You’re getting greedy,” you say.

“You keep spoiling me,” he mumbles, feeling his lips graze over yours for the nth time. “You make me lose control of myself.”

Whether you met him earlier or later, you’re pretty sure you’d still end up falling horrendously for Ricky Shen. And you’d still end up doing all the same dumb things you did just to get to kiss him like this over and over again.

the psychology of strawberries. © hannie-dul-set, 2023.

[boydepartment]

three strikes - nishimura riki x fem! reader

a/n: HIIIIII this was a request from my 🧈 anon :3 i hope you love it my dear

warnings- jealousy! nothing insane tho, mostly fluff 😋 i added a small inside joke that riki would call ricky from zb1 “discount ricky” all jokes tho (pls don’t kill me)

wc- honestly over 750

MASTERLIST

“here.” you looked over to riki setting your drink down on the table, you looked up at him and smiled as he sat down across from you at the cafe table.

“did you-“

“ask for extra peppermint? yes. even though it’s gross..” riki mumbled, you giggled and sipped your hot coco. it was freezing cold at least to you and so the coco helped a lot.

“when is your project partner arriving?” riki mumbled, sipping his coffee.

you shrugged, “any minute.” setting your coco down riki watched you, he wasn’t necessarily happy over this whole project partner thing. riki knew your project partner, and safe to say he was just irritated by his presence. he didn’t know why, but he was just irked.

so when the OTHER ricky walked in, he just waved and watched as the other boy sat next to you.

“hey y/n!” he smiled, you grinned back at him.

“hey! it’s cold outside are you sure you’re bundled up enough?” you asked, grabbing your books. riki just decided to go on his phone to pass time.

“yeah! it’s crazy how quickly the weather changed huh? are you warm enough?”

you and ricky made small talk which didn’t bother your best friend. that was until one sentence.

“your hands are freezing y/n!”

riki’s eyes shot up to see the discount ricky’s hands on yours. if stares could kill a man, discount ricky would be six feet under.

“oh! yeah that’s why riki, well, my riki got me hot coco.” you let go of his hand and turned to your hot beverage.

nishimura riki would be lying if he said some pride didn’t bubble up inside him, which didn’t go unnoticed by the boy sitting next to you.

riki didn’t take notice and he went back on his phone, he just wanted your project to be over so he could walk back to the car with you and just be away from people. by people he meant discount ricky. this was strike one for his patience.

“i think we should work more on the details of the piece of art itself. like things that normal people look past in monet’s art. there’s a story everywhere.” you suggested, this art project was pretty big for your grade. and you were just relieved that your project partner agreed to do monet.

“that’s such a good idea y/n.” ricky smiled.

oh please riki thought to himself, at that point discount ricky should just get on his hands and knees and beg for your attention. that’d be way less embarrassing than kissing your ass at every little- wait what the hell

to riki’s horror, discount ricky, was readjusting your beanie so your hair didn’t get in your face. this pissed him off, strike two of his patience gone. riki was the one who spent HOURS trying to crochet you that beanie last year and now he’s going to have to make you another one because discount ricky’s grimy hands touched it! riki felt his eye twitch, he ended up making eye contact with the boy next to you. a smirk ghosting his features.

riki wanted to kick his shin under the table or maybe throw his hot coffee-

“i think we should also choose one of monet’s less known works aswe- oh ouch…” you mumbled rubbing your hands, whenever you wrote or sketched too long your hands would hurt. riki always took notice of this so he looked up proper hand massages- safe to say he could be certified- WHAT THE SHIT?

discount ricky grabbed your hands and started massaging them.

strike three

“can you get your hands off her?!” riki finally snapped, “god at this point it’s revolting! i’m right in front of both of you!”

your eyes widened as you watched you best friend actually lose his temper, yeah you’d seen him bicker but this was different.

“what are you two dating?” ricky asked, if you were in a tv show you’d see the angry lightening bolt hit both of them. this was not good, you quickly packed your bags and grabbed your best friend. apologizing to your project partner.

“what’s his fucking problem?!” riki stomped through the fresh snow to your car.

“what’s his problem?! what’s your problem? what the hell was that?! are you okay?!” you had a million questions. and they were flying out.

“i- what- how is this my fault!? he had his grimy discount ricky hands all over you! only i’m allowed to do that as your best friend!”

it was really hard to take him seriously as you finally got to the car laughing. you leaned against the hood trying to catch your breath.

“y/n this isn’t funny!” he stood right next to you.

you finally caught your breath, “i’m sorry where did the nickname discount ricky come from?”

“well obviously i’m the better one way more deserving of, um hello, touching your hair, massaging your hands because im youtube certified, AND THE COLD HANDS THING?! he was flirting with you shamelessly in front of me!” riki swung his arms around like a crazy person trying to explain that the end was near.

your hat fell slightly as you laughed again which riki fixed gently before speaking again, “then he’d smirk at me like he knew he was getting on my nerves! like that discount version of ME KNEW HE WAS MAKING ME ANGRY!”

“should i take my hat off and give you sanitizer? since you touched my discount ricky infected beanie?” you asked, unlocking the car and throwing your backpack in the back. you turned around and bumped into riki.

“actually yeah take off that hat. i will sanitize it and crochet you a new one.” riki grabbed the hat off your head and gave you his own beanie.

“should i sanitize my hands too?” you asked giggling, going to open your door but slipping on black ice.

riki immediately caught you, “um guess who couldn’t catch you- discount ricky. i’m clearly better for you so.”

you started laughing again, hitting his chest playfully, “you’re acting like a jealous boyfriend.”

“is that a bad thing?” riki asked quickly, suddenly unsure of himself.

you shook your head no, “it’s cute.”

riki smiled down at you; it was obvious he was at least a little smug.

“you know what he didn’t contaminate?” you asked, still giggling, your eyes flickered from riki’s eyes to his lips. immediately he got the hint and took his chance.

discount ricky is out and nishimura riki hit a home run

[spookieolson]

I gotta ask for high school ricky headcanons for reader going on a first date w/ him bc fluff content needs skyrocketing

This is gonna be so cuteeeee!

High School!Ricky “Horror” Olson x Reader headcannons!

Warnings: Fluff, fluff and more FLUFF!!

Tag List: @skulliecadaver-blog @witchyweeb34 @cookiesupplier @raydenrrobertson @sakuracyberhex @beaker1636 @lyschko666 @black-damask1999 @synthetic-wasp-570 @jilliemiw86 @tearfallpixie @vinyardmauro @thatchickwiththecamera @bloody-delusion-expert @th0ughts-pr4yers @zuberweirrd @bxrnthyfears @yournecessaryevil @arkiliastuff

••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

-You’ve had the biggest crush on Ricky for as long as you could remember

-Ever since he cracked a joke to you in freshman year during band class, you were SMITTEN

-He has everything you could possibly want in a man!

-He was funny

-He was sweet

-He was talented asf! (Seriously, that man could SCREAM, AND play multiple instruments??)

-And he was SO good looking to you

-One day, he invited you to watch him practice with his band in his garage (for those who don’t know, Ricky was in a screamo band!)

-Of course you accepted, why wouldn’t you??

-You ADORED watching him play

-The way his fingers moved along the strings of the bass

-You totally didn’t dream of those hands around your throat at one point 🤭

-Ricky snuck glances at you here and there and totally lost focus for a moment thinking about how pretty you looked

-His bandmates teased the shit outta him

-Once practice was over, Ricky went “Fuck it” and asked you out for ice cream

-You happily accepted

-So, here you two goofballs were, sitting on a bench, eating ice cream.

-Then, he looks at you

-“You’ve got ice cream on your face.”

-“I do?”

-“Mhm. Lemme get it.”

-Without warning THIS MFING MAN LICKS THE ICE CREAM OFF OF YOUR CHEEK

-Your face was BRIGHT RED

-You were internally screaming

-Now, it was your turn to say “Fuck it.”

-You go in and peck his lips quickly.

-Now Ricky was blushing.

-A few awkward seconds pass, Ricky takes your face and kisses you.

-After a sweet kiss, you both confess your feelings for each other

-“Same thing tomorrow? Watch me play then get ice cream?”

-“Absolutely.”

[mins-fins]

WATCHING HORROR MOVIES WITH ZB1

PAIRING . . . zerobaseone x gn!reader

GENRE . . . fluff

WARNINGS . . . no actual warnings! some may just be longer than others

WORD COUNT . . . 963

NOTES . . . my brain feels like a puddle istg.. please note that yujin's is written platonically!!

kim jiwoong

this man is NOT scared

like you'll be the edge of your seat literally jumping at every sound and he'll just sit there like "😐"

you always get jump scared and you continue getting closer to him

"do you seriously find this scary?", "the literal grudge is on the screen jiwoong".

he doesn't get your fear

he probably does get scared on some occasions though

but very rare occasions if were being honest

you think he is WAY too calm and he thinks your WAY too overdramatic

"we should watch the sequel!", "ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL ME KIM JIWOONG!?"

he laughs whenever you get scared

zhang hao

he is just as scared as you

scratch that- he's probably MORE SCARED than you

you'll be ten minutes into the movie and he's already clinging onto you for dear life

this man is a scaredy-cat (did you see that haunted house video?? he literally is)

he hides his face into your shoulder half the time because he's scared of something appearing on the screen

"y/n is the jump scare over yet?", "it was over five minutes ago hao".

he hides his eyes for most of the movie

at this point you get less scared because he's scared so now you feel like you have to watch the movie for him

"that movie was too scary!", "you didn't even watch the whole thing!", "well the parts i did see were scary!"

sung hanbin

he's probably not scared

well not that scared

he probably gets startled from time to time but he keeps up a brave front for you

you are literally the biggest scaredy-cat around hanbin

and he tries his best not to laugh

you are literally COWERING in fear and he has to cover his mouth to not giggle

"are you making fun of me, hanbin?", "no" as he is literally fighting for his life trying not to laugh at how scared you are

you get mad at him and literally die trying to watch the rest of the movie

and then he says sorry and comforts you before you go to bed so you don't have any nightmares

"i'm still mad at you", "well you better be grateful that the grudge won't come grab you at nigh—", "HANBIN!"

seok matthew

he's scared but also not scared??

matthew is probably the kind of person to make random comments during the movie because his mind is just full of thoughts

"do you think the nun is just misunderstood?", "you mean the evil spirit from the conjuring?"

you just sit there, scared out of your mind, and he sits there, also scared out of his mind but also super confused

but when he gets super scared he will literally almost jump out of his seat

"that wasn't even that scary!" he says as he's clinging onto your arm for life

"so what did you think of the movie matthew?", "can we watch a romcom next time please?"

kim taerae

he is VERY scared

you cannot tell me that this man isn't a scaredy-cat

he's in the same boat as hao 😭

he'd try to convince you he's not scared then get jump scared two seconds later

"you look like your enjoying yourself", "oh screw you y/n"

covers his eyes every two seconds and only peeks after all the scary noises are gone

"babe seriously, the jump scares are done", "your just trying to make me open my eyes"

he forces you to sleep with him and the lamp on because he gets too scared of the dark

ricky shen

he's half and half

ricky probably doesn't get scared easily but there's gonna be that one part that startles him

like you'll be afraid the whole time and he's just kinda sitting there, trying to grasp what's going on

"i don't get why they're walking into a house that's clearly haunted!" as your suffering from watching this movie

he probably doesn't understand why your so scared

"it isn't even that scary, y/n", "yeah the grudge on the screen is totally not scary ricky"

he laughed at one part and you stare at him like he's a psychopath

kim gyuvin

oh he's definitely not scared

gyuvin probably watches horror movies alone at night

he probably giggles while watching them too

when he sees that your scared he looks at you like your insane

"what do you mean your scared? it isn't even that scary!", "the literal ghost girl coming out of the tv screen isn't scary to you gyuvin?"

he laughs at every scene he's not supposed to laugh at and it's crazy

"i'm kinda scared of you, you know?", "next time maybe you should put on an actual scary movie"

park gunwook

gunwook is brave

doesn't mean he's not scared though

gunwook probably isn't that scared but he isn't not scared

for the most part, gunwook isn't disturbed

there are some jump scares that get him though

"that wasn't even scary!", "i saw you get startled gunwook"

but most of the time gunwook isn't scared

he laughs once then immediately takes it back because he knows your gonna question him about it

"i mean.. it could be scarier", "are you trying to kill me, gunwook?", "…maybe"

han yujin

he pretends to be brave

but he's actually pretty scared

yujin is not slick with the way he's trying so hard not to jump from his seat 😭

"you look scared", "i'm not scared! shut up!"

yeah no he's definitely scared

at this point, your less scared than him

he could literally be clinging onto your arm and would still say that he's not scared

"are you sure your not scared?", "no why would i be scared of the literal grudge on the screen?"

[arkiliastuff]

The Angel of Music - Part Two

Ricky Olson x Female Reader

N/A : Here's the Part Two of "The Angel of Music" aka "Phantom Ricky of the Opera" xD. Sorry it tooks so long >< I struggled a bit on writting this part, so I prefered to make it a shorter than the first one. But worry not, the third part is coming pretty soon 👀. Hope you'll like this one, though !

Warnings : Some fluff and angst. Romantic tension (idk how to call it)

PART ONE | PART THREE

─━────༺༻────━─━━─━────༺༻─━─━────༺༻─━

As your manager was getting close to the stage where both you and Ricky were, you couldn’t help but let out an irritated sigh. Ricky looked so confused about the situation but remained cautious as the gray-haired man, probably in his fifties, was approaching. Yet, his stress was rising in his chest as he was thinking whether to leave now or not. You suddenly, but softly, leaned close to his ear.

“The man walking towards us is my manager” You whispered to him, filling in advance the blank in his thoughts. “He isn’t someone I really appreciate. You’ll soon understand why”.

Ricky listened to you, without saying a word as the manager came to you.

“Y/N ! That was fantastic !” He said joyfully “I think I’ve never seen you perform like that before. You were really into your role, this time ! Should I be thanking this young man for helping you out ? Oh ! But where are my manners ? I’m Alfonso, Y/N ‘s opera manager. It’s a pleasure to meet you, young sir.”

“Hello. I’m Ricky Olson” He replied shortly while shaking firmly your manager’s hand.

As your manager was getting into a monologue with Ricky, flattering his singing, you didn’t say another word. You were too embarrassed by the situation and Alfonso’s eccentric behavior. Even seeing him talking with Ricky was making you cringe. Despite you trying to not take it personally, it hurted you to be ignored by your manager. 

Ricky put a sudden hand on your back to support you, as he saw you felt awkward and in distress.

“But she’s the one who sang the most. If there is someone you should be praising, it’s definitely Y/N. I didn’t do anything.” Ricky kept saying while looking at you “ I just lended a hand to help her during her rehearsal. She did this amazing performance on her own.”

Red was coloring your cheeks as you turned your head to Ricky, not expecting this move from him. You felt your shoulders getting more relaxed though, thanks to his supportive move and soothing words.You looked at him shyly but with grateful eyes, too stunned to speak. You just murmured an almost inaudible “thank you” that you hoped Ricky heard. Your manager arched a brow, with a smirk, while caressing his beard with amusement.

“Well, Y/N, it seems that Mr. Olson holds you in high esteem here. I admit you did an amazing job here. You can be proud” Alfonso said, almost surprising you too until he came back to talk with Ricky. “Either way, I was wondering, Mr. Olson, since I heard you have a beautiful singing voice, will you be interested in joining our troupe to fully play the role of the Phantom ?”

Straight to the point, huh ? you thought to yourself, tired by his sense of business.

“Sir, I think Mr. Olson cannot—” You began to speak, but your manager stopped you in your sentence by raising a hand.

So annoying. Ricky saw that lack of respect towards you, which irritated him more.

“Well, I’m afraid I have to refuse your offer, sir ” Ricky said the most politely possible. “ I’m a band musician and we’re very busy touring, so we don’t have too much free time to stay too long in cities we visit during our breaks”.

“But maybe you could…”

And again your manager started to insist a little too much on Ricky. He tried to convince him about the role and kept flattering him about his singing. He also mentioned the alchemy the two of you had on stage. But no matter what , Ricky said no, he couldn’t do it.

You knew that way too well. As the guitarist from Motionless in White and as a busy man himself, he didn't have time to play a role at the opera. You were well aware of that. You also knew they had a lot of shows that were going to happen soon in October and November and even later in the year. How could he be available anyway ? Deep down, you felt a bit sad. But, come on, you were just a fan like the others. He couldn’t make an exception for your pretty eyes. He did that only to help you and because he’s genuinely a kind person.

You zoned out from the conversation a little but you came back to reality as you saw Ricky picking up his guitar and being pissed off by your manager. Oh no. He was going to leave mad. You had to ease the situation and stop your manager being so forceful.

“Listen Mr Alfonso, he can’t participate in our show. He’s a busy musician and you should respect his decision to refuse” You said bitterly, getting a bit mad yourself.

Your manager looked at you with wide opened eyes, completely in shock you dared to speak against him. You didn’t even dare to look more at him as you shifted on your heels facing now Ricky who was ready to go.

“Need a ride to walk you back ?” You joked.

His face got more relaxed as he chuckled softly to your joke and then he nodded.

While both of you were walking back to the entrance, you looked at Ricky, still worrying about the situation earlier.

“I’m sorry if my manager bothered you just now” You said “He’s very stubborn when he finds the “perfect representation” or “the perfect actors”. He doesn't know how to quit when people are saying no to him, which is very problematic.”

“It’s fine. He was indeed very irritating.” Ricky sighed “I understand what you told me before. He’s for sure a peculiar one.”

Both of you laughed softly until you accompanied him to the doorway. As you got closer to it, you felt your heart was breaking. You feared this moment, wondering if you could ever meet again. It was uncertain but you wished that to yourself. Ricky looked at you with a soft smile on his lips that made you melt inside.

“Well, I guess this is where I leave.” He said “ Thank you for walking me back. It was nice meeting you. I had fun too.”

“Yeah, same here. I can’t believe I got the chance to meet you here. Thank you again for your help. In return, I’ll do my best to prevent my manager from leaking anything about you coming here.”

“I appreciate that.” Ricky replied.

Both of you stood on the stoop, facing each other as an awkward silence was settling between you. Timidly, you took few steps forward, bouncing on your toes.

“Is it okay to ask for a goodbye hug ?” You asked, blushing coyly, already regretting your demand as if you were crossing an invisible line.

You had a feeling you weren’t going to see him soon, so you wanted to give it a try. But was your request even justified ? After all, you weren’t even close to him or you didn’t know him personally. Maybe it was selfish of you to ask that. Even for a second. What were you even expecting ? He was probably going to refuse anyway. That’s all you were expecting in the end.

Ricky stared at you, with so much intensity in his eyes, processing your request very carefully. You felt so embarrassed about his silence, fearing his final sentence.

“It’s okay, you can say no—”

Without saying a word, he opened his arms and hugged so reservedly, you barely felt his touch. He just patted your back few seconds before breaking the embrace. You didn’t expect him to actually agree to your request and make the first move. You were too stunned to speak, your mouth half-opened, realizing what just happened.

“Well, here you go with the goodbye hug” He said nervously and almost stuttered in his words. “I should go now. Goodbye Y/N !”

As you were waving at him, still processing the hug he gave you, you remembered something. The lamp in your mind got lightened as you saw the back of his sleeveless jacket with a key pattern. The key necklace ! The iconic necklace that Ricky always wears. You remembered old pictures of him, wearing it during live concerts.

“Wait Ricky ! Wait for me here ! I’ll be right back !” You shouted at him as he was getting away from the opera.

You just saw him turning around in your direction as you ran fast like you could to your dressing room. You unlocked your locker, full of your outfits from this morning, looking for your blue jeans pants. You searched in its pocket and found the precious key necklace. You squeezed it and held it firmly in your hand before running again. You ran outside, like your life was depending on it, to reach a confused Ricky who saw you out of breath. You caught your breathing back while lending your hand to him.

“I believe this belongs to you, right ?” You exhaled.

He looked at you and then to your hand. His eyes widened, realizing what you were holding, and showed a sign of relief on his face.

“My necklace…” He whispered “I don’t remember when it fell, but thank you so much for giving it back to me. It means a lot.”

He smiled at you with an infinite gratitude in his eyes. You were glad your cheeks got red because of your running so he couldn’t see you were blushing.

“N-No problem” You simply reply.

You bounced back on your feet, saying goodbye again to him, before going back nervously to the opera. Your heart was about to burst and you couldn’t stay outside any longer. You had more than enough time spend with Ricky. You were already very grateful for it. There was no need to run any much longer to him without making it weird.

When he saw you getting back inside, Ricky finally left without being able to unravel his happy smile on his lips.

One month later, this meeting has been on your mind for a while. It gave you a lot of serotonin, sometimes you were giggling on your own, sometimes you were remembering stuff you said and regretting you said it that way. But besides that, it gave you more energy to tolerate your coworkers and manager.

The rehearsals were getting longer and longer as some of the other singers were struggling, and so do you sometimes. Despite the fact you had your confidence back, you couldn’t help but stutter on the lyrics and felt your voice was cracking on “The Angel of Music” part. Plus, your teammate, who was playing the Phantom, didn’t help you focus. He wasn’t taking his role very seriously. He was pissed off by your  performance whereas you were doing your best, and mostly annoyed by the numerous rehearsals you did today.

“Come on ! This isn’t that hard !” He shouted at you, very fussed.

“Well, if you could be more serious and supportive about it, that would be great for me to handle ! This part is very difficult for me to sing with my voice cracking on the notes !” You replied getting irritated yourself by his asshole behavior.

He shrugged, not really caring about how you felt.

“Stop crying about it and just practice more. Ugh... anyway I need a coffee break” He mumbled leaving the stage.

You pinched your nose, exhausted by rehearsing with your coworker all day. You checked the time and saw it was 9pm. Way too late. It was time to go. Without seeing anybody around, you picked up your stuff from your dressing room and left the opera. It was completely dark outside and cold, just lightened by the lamps. You saw Alfred outside, taking a cigarette break and told him you were going home. Today’s rehearsal lasted more time than it should have.

You didn’t see any improvement at all with you and your coworkers' performances. You had no idea what was happening lately but it felt like nobody was really in the mood ? And your manager didn’t help at all, stressing all of you as the day of the representation was approaching. But you still had time though, it was going to be at the end of November, so there was no need to stress out. You didn’t give any more thoughts about it as you walked fast to your home, while listening to your music.

Once you arrived, you threw all of your bags and stuff on your couch and went straight to your bedroom, lying down on your bed. You let out a tired and fed up sigh. Gosh, you were trying your best to not punch your coworker in the face today. You didn’t want to work with him specifically, in the first place. Yet again, your manager didn’t let you have a choice. If only Ricky could have stayed instead…

Thinking of him, you grabbed your phone and started to check your social media if anything new happened. You just got logged on, and you saw a post from Motionless In White’s official account. They have posted pictures from a concert they were in, just a few weeks ago. They were stunning as always. You were mindlessly swiping until one picture caught your attention. One with Ricky on it, playing his guitar, so focused, despite few strands on his face. His visage was enlightened by a blue neon light with an orange neon light as a contrast. This picture was gorgeous. You were in complete awe.

You were too hypnotized by Ricky’s face, losing yourself in your own thoughts. You were remembering your unexpected encounter with him at the opera, also him helping you while playing the Phantom so well… If only Ricky was your opera partner, perhaps the rehearsal sessions would have been better. No it wouldn't have. If Ricky was in front of you again, as the Phantom, you’re not sure if you could keep it cool once more. 

Strangely, last time, you didn’t feel nervous. Even if it was your first time meeting him, unofficially, outside of Meets & Greets that you went and felt embarrassed as hell, this time you were more at ease. Maybe it was the adrenaline of performing with him that helped you stay in your character. Why was your mind playing tricks on you, right now ? Probably because you were tired.

As you were about to log off from your social media,  thinking about which meal you were gonna make and taking a shower after, your phone suddenly buzzed. It surprised you.  You weren’t expecting anyone talking to you that late. You slided into your private message as you saw a new friend request notification.

As you were reading the mysterious unknown’s nickname, your vision got blurred when you realized who it was.

rickyxolson_ : “ Hey Y/N. I hope you’re doing alright. I know it might be unexpected or strange to receive a message like that from me. But last time we met I didn’t dare to ask for your phone number or anything. So yeah.. I tried to find your account here, and you just came in my friend's suggestions. I really enjoyed meeting you and talking to you. So I was wondering if you could accept my request so we could keep in touch ?”

Your eyes widened as you were reading his message.

“W-What in the Tumblr fanfiction is that ??” You let out a scream, shouting at your phone like it could hear you.

Your heart was pounding so fast, you had to breathe very slowly and deeply to calm you down. But how could you be calm ?! THE Ricky Olson you met, at the end of September, was sending you a message ? You had to read his message again to make sure it was real. You even pinched your forearm skin to double check you weren’t dreaming. It hurted you a bit, so guess you were fully awake. This was way too real for you. It didn’t stop you panicking though. You were freaking out. As you were reading Ricky’s message for the third time, you asked to yourself : 

“What should I do ?”

[beaker1636]

I'll Be Home For Christmas - Ricky Angst

AN: I am really proud of how this one came out, I genuinely love it! Thank you for the request @tearfallpixie ! I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!

“What do you mean that you won’t be here in time for Christmas?! This is why I didn’t want you to book a flight home on fucking Christmas eve?” 

You want to yell, to scream out your frustration and grief towards your boyfriend, who is telling you yet again that he is missing something important to you but instead you find yourself getting quieter, almost in a whisper as you fight back your tears from his news.

“You-you promised me that you would be home for Christmas after having to miss our anniversary, my birthday, Halloween, and Thanksgiving. Rick, you fucking promised me,” you mumble, lip trembling as you try to keep your tears back.

“I know I did baby, we’re all currently trying to figure out how to get home.  It’s not our fault that the flight was canceled, it just happens unfortunately.  In fact Chris is currently fighting with someone trying to figure out what the fuck we can all do to get home. Ryan, Vin, Chris and I were all booked on this flight and are stuck here.  I know I promised you to be back for your favorite holiday, I’m so fucking sorry and wish I could do more right now,” you can hear the remorse and frustration in his voice, that he was just as upset as you are.

You let out a sigh before responding, “It’s part of being with you, I have to accept that, I am working on accepting that, but it’s hard Rick it is really hard.”

“I know baby, I know.  At least we are taking time off after the holidays for our next album so I will be home for a while,” he says, sounding sad as well which just makes you feel worse.

“Yeah, I hope you make it home soon.  Rick, I’ve got to go, mom is calling me,” you say softly. “I love you.”

“I love you too baby, I’ll keep you updated,” he answers before hanging up.

Your mother isn't really calling, you just need to end the call before you say something that you will regret during your emotions at the time.  You have to take some time to think about what is going on in your mind before you speak about it, not wanting to take your frustrations out on your boyfriend. 

You make your way to your bed, laying down on his side before you give in, letting your tears finally escape your eyes as a couple sobs escape as it all finally hits you.  Grief from missing him so much the last couple months Anger because he is missing another important thing. Anger because he promised you and broke it. Frustration from spending your favorite holiday alone. But most important, and probably the hardest thing is the loneliness that you feel.  

Your anger winds up winning as everything runs through your head, angry at yourself for trusting his words when he has failed you before.  And angry at yourself because he failed at keeping his promise.

You groan in annoyance, getting up and finding yourself in your living room.  Glaring at all the decorations that are mocking you, at the tree you had to decorate yourself this year.  You let out a growl before you begin ripping all of the ornaments off the tree, crying and frustrated.  Letting a couple break as you drop them while throwing them in a bag so you can be rid of the thing.  When that is done you tear the tree back down, taking it and the ornaments back down into the basement.  You wind up taking everything down in a fury, pissed off and annoyed and hurt.  So fucking hurt, you debated going home with your family but he fucking promised you.

You thought taking everything down would make you feel better, because then you wouldn’t have to sit and look at them when you know you won’t enjoy your Christmas now.. But instead it has made everything feel more real, breaking your heart even more as you sit on the floor where your tree once stood bawling, questioning if your love for Rick will always be enough to get you through the loneliness and heartbreak that you feel so deep.

Meanwhile

Chris walks back to the group, looking a little less pissed off than he was when he went up to the poor lady working the desk, but also frustrated.

“Okay, I got somewhere with her, we may still have a chance at getting home.  The airline has a flight to Philadelphia that leaves in 6 hours out of an airport that is a 4 hour drive away and she was able to get the four of us on it.  So if we can get a rental car, drive to the other airport in time, take the flight we would land in Philly at about 2 in the morning and would all get home around 430 if we can get someone to meet us at that airport to drive us home.  So let’s all start calling all the rental car places around here and see if we can find one last minute on a holiday and make this happen,” Chris says, giving a hopeful smile to his bandmates and friends.

Rick lets out a sigh, praying to a god he doesn’t believe in that they can somehow make this happen and get home for Christmas before pulling out his phone and starting to make calls.

They have no luck and now 15 minutes later Ryan is calling the last place, all feeling defeated and awful when he finally has a breakthrough.

“I’ve got one, it’s a car so we will be cramped with all of us and our luggage but it’s better than nothing.  They are holding it for me so let’s get a taxi and get there before its too late,” he exclaims, getting up from his seat.

Everyone cheers, thankful that they finally found something that will work, hoping everything goes as planned and despite the fact they’ll all be exhausted they will finally be on their way.  Eventually getting to the rental place and now on their way, Ryan drives.

Everyone’s moods have lifted at the prospect that they may have pulled this off and be home in time to be with their families.

While sitting in the car headed towards the new airport Rick’s mind wanders towards you, he tried calling you but you didn’t answer him.  He hopes that you are alright, able to hear you trembling when you speak and it really hurts him to know that you were hurting, especially when he feels like it is all his fault. But the part that killed him the most, that broke his own heart was when you said that it was part of being with him, that you have to accept that.  He honestly hates that he puts you through that, it is hard on him but he knows it is worse on you because you are stuck at home alone when he is off.  You had moved away from your family for him, so you are truly alone and he feels awful that he might not even be there for you at the holidays.  He would do anything if he knew he could erase all your pain and grief, but he knows he can’t.

He hopes that you aren’t taking it too badly, that you will be happy when he surprises you in the morning.  He also selfishly hopes that you are sleeping when he arrives home, that you will wake up and find him in your bed and get the gift he knows that you want the most this year, himself.

Back To You

You find yourself sitting on the couch, feeling a little numb as you continue to look around the room at the emptiness.  You and Rick should be getting home from the airport about now and instead you are sitting here, waiting for him to arrive but knowing he probably won’t tonight, which brings you back to your sorrow. 

You had things all planned for tomorrow, knowing he would be tired and sleep in, you planned to make a big breakfast for him in bed with all his favorites, but not until later in the day.  The two of you would have a lazy day, watching movies curled up together before enjoying a nice dinner.  You had already picked up both his and your favorite Christmas movie from the store, had bought everything, hell you even got some new lingerie for that night once the two of you were relaxed and ready to ahem spend time together.  You had everything figured out for a nice holiday and now you are alone. 

Your mother even begged you to come home for the holiday and you said no because you wanted a nice time with Rick, being his first day home from tour and now you wasted what could be a nice trip home. 

You get a call from him but you don’t answer it, given the time you figure it is bad and that you’ll be disappointed all over again, plus you just don’t want to for a moment, needing this time to figure out what you want.

You finally give up, deciding that you want to go to bed and forget about everything.  You can deal with this tomorrow, maybe if you are lucky he will be home tomorrow night and it won’t be a complete waste of the day.

The Next Morning 

Rick finally arrives home around 5 in the morning, thanks to Vinny's mom who spent her night picking them up from the airport and giving everyone a ride to their houses.  He makes sure to give her a smile and huge hug as thanks before grabbing his bag and making his way up the walkway.  He lets out a huff, before trying his hardest to unlock the door quietly so that he doesn’t wake you up.  He stops in his tracks when he notices that there is no tree up, no decorations anymore, and he knows how much time you spent putting everything up.  You facetimed him the entire time to try and make him still feel like he had a part in it with you. He sighs in disappointment before making his way into the bedroom to be with you.

His heart breaks when he sees you sleeping on his side of the bed, holding his pillow to your chest. He can tell that you were crying, your eyes slightly red and puffy in your sleep.  He shuffles out of his jeans and shirt, quietly sliding on a pair of sweatpants to sleep in before laying down behind you and wrapping his arm around you, smiling when you instinctively roll over and nuzzle your face in his neck but not waking up.  

When you wake up around 9 you are confused at first, you can tell someone is holding you before you even open your eyes.  You shoot up, concerned that someone has broken in, or who knows what but then you notice it is Rick and can’t help the excited squeal that escapes your mouth.

You can’t believe he made it on time, he told you he wouldn’t and you thought you would be alone.  You just watch him sleep for a while, not wanting to move and risk waking him up because you know he had to have arrived late.  But also because you can’t believe that he is currently home, in bed with you.

He stirs after a while, slowly stretching before opening his eyes and looking at you where you lay curled up in his side.  Rather than speaking he moves some of your hair, which is a mess from sleeping, out of your face before leaning in and giving you a soft kiss, both of you lingering in the kiss, not wanting to separate after finally seeing you for the first time in a long time before he finally sleepily pulls away with a smile.

“Merry Christmas Y/N,” he says quietly, neither of you moving nor having the desire to.  He just gave you your favorite Christmas gift, himself, and you couldn’t be happier to be laying here with him, having a lazy morning.  It may not have been the big breakfast and everything you had originally planned but this?  This is better.

[itsmattchou]

we are diamonds shining today !

pairing: kim gyuvin x gn!reader warnings: reader implied to be shorter than gyuvin (and being cute and adorable), worrying about exams, mentions of food, scary place wah, gyuvin is s t u p i d, yujin is anti love!!!, implied suggestive something idk, english isn't my first language!!! genre: fluff, crack synopsis: 5 "first times" with kim gyuvin. notes: LATE HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO GYUVIN!! pls dont flop pls dont flop

the first time he kissed top of your head. it was a rainy wednesday, barely a month into your relationship with gyuvin. like always the two of you spent the lunch break together, just the two of you at your secret spot. while gyuvin was munching on carrots bugs bunny style, you confided in him about you being scared of the exam that was going to be written in a few- the bell rang- the exam that was going to be written now. you stood up and told gyuvin to please bury you once the exam was done, but he just shook his head and moved to stand in front of you, his hands placed on your shoulders rubbing soothing circles.

"you're going to do well, don't worry about it. i believe that you can nail it." he then placed a delicate kiss to the top of your head, succeeding in cheering you up.

the first time he tried sacrificing you. gyuvin was known for being a scaredy cat and hater of everything scary. he despised horror movies with a passion, whenever he sees someone playing a video game he exits as fast as possible, and he would hate halloween too if it weren't for the sweets making up for it. but you being his cute and adorable partner, managed to drag him into a horror house at the fair. it only took you half an hour of talking into him, a teddy bear and a months supply of cotton candy! but once you entered the building, the 6 foot man named gyuvin hid behind you as if he was a little child, only occasionally peeking over your shoulder.

suddenly, skeleton shot out from behind a corner, startling you and gyuvin. but your boyfriend wasted no time in screaming, "take them! take them instead! i'm too young to die!"

the first time he canceled a date. going on dates with gyuvin was one of your favorite activities. i mean, obviously, who wouldn't enjoy spending even more time with that boy? you two always took turns planning the dates, and the date you were supposed to go on tomorrow was planned by gyuvin. but in the evening your boyfriend called you and apologized to you a billion times before he confessed that he had to cancel it. of course you weren't pleased, asking him for the reason- but what he explained to you bummed you out. gyuvin liked to gift you flowers, mostly on dates, sometimes even for no occasion at all. turns out he never got those flowers from a flower shop, but his mothers garden instead. mrs kim, busy as ever, only that day had the time to finally take care of her garden again, only to find the mess gyuvin left behind when he straight up dug the flowers out of the flowerbeds to gift them to you.

"she grounded me! can you believe this?!" gyuvin complained on the one end of the line, while you were speechless on the other end trying to figure out how to slap gyuvin per telephone.

the first time he said "i love you". you going out with gyuvins friends wasn't unusual. matter of fact, spending time with his best friends was incredibly fun. sometimes, when you were having another playful fight with gyuvin, you'd just tell him that you liked spending time with ricky, gunwook and yujin more than spending time with gyuvin, resulting in gyuvin falling to the ground and rolling around dramatically, screeching something about you killing him in a ruthless way. it was another day of spending time with your boyfriend and your boyfriends boy friends and you five went to the arcade together. after hours of competing against gyuvin in multiple games (you won of course), you two went to buy some drinks as he asked you in a joking manner if you still preferred to spend time with his friends, and you told him the truth. of course you loved spending time with him more than anything and you'd choose him over ricky, yujin or gunwook any and every day.

gyuvin softly smiled at you before he blurted out an "i love you". it would've been a really emotional and romantic moment between the two of you if it weren't for yujin who suddenly popped out behind some corner, making gagging noises.

the first time he let you do his hair. it was another rainy day, a saturday this time though, and gyuvin was going to spend the night at your place tonight- leaving the door to your room open just a crack for the sake of your mothers sanity and wellbeing. you two were watching some silly romance movie gyuvin picked for you to watch, cuddled up on your bed with gyuvins head on your chest and his arms around your waist, and your hands in his hair, playing with it. you really liked gyuvins hair- he'd sometimes even accuse you of only dating him for it- and playing with it was a habit, even a must at this point. you weren't really paying attention to the movie, rather admiring your boyfriend, as suddenly a scene in the movie piqued your interest. the girl was styling her boyfriends hair in silly ways, while the boy was mumbling about not deserving that kind of punishment- only to be upset the second she offered to leave his hair in peace. with a grin on your face you called out your boyfriends name who only sighed dramatically loud in response, already knowing what you were gonna ask for. but of course you ended up convincing gyuvin to let you do it too, he just loved you too much to say no.

"please don't make me end up bald!" gyuvin whined while you were braiding his hair. you scoffed and told him to just keep on watching the movie without paying any mind to you, promising him to not cut his hair off (even with no scissors or razors in reach).

[trsrina]

horror movies with ricky

written in second person pov, gn reader, fluff, established relationship, requested

!! mentions of horror, not proofread

- okay first of all, as we all know, this man isn’t scared of anything so watching horror movies to him are a piece of cake, he would not flinch at all

- so when he’s with a s/o that doesn’t handle horror as good as him, he would find it adorable

- it’s a friday night and you’re comfortably laying on the couch of your boyfriend’s penthouse, warmly wrapped up in blankets and your head leaning against his broad chest

- ricky’s fingers pressed against the tv remote, flicking through different shows and movies, trying to find a movie for you two to watch

- “how about ‘the nun’?” “hm? oh sure, whatever you like,” you were already feeling drowsy under the warm lighting in ricky’s penthouse and the absence of the sun as the clock reaches 8pm, ricky’s words went in one ear and out the other

- it seemed like ricky wasn’t aware of what the movie was about either as the first few minutes of the movie played, you realised something was off and your brain awoke

- throughout the first quarter of the movie, as jumpscare after jumpscare played on ricky’s 100 inch television, the proximity between you and ricky slowly disappeared as you inch closer ricky with your head smothered in his embrace, slightly jumping when terrifying images appeared on the wide screen

- upon feeling your little jumps against his chest, ricky’s focus reverted back to you, his eyes leaving the tv screen to peer down at your petrified state

- his gaze softened seeing your state of vulnerability and his hand automatically reached to grab the remote, pausing the movie. seeing as the movie was paused, you internally let out a relieved sigh and you looked up at ricky with a confused expression. the reason why you stayed quiet throughout the movie though you were beyond terrified is that you didn’t want to stop ricky from enjoying the movie

- “why did you stop it?” you asked ricky whose hand was softly caressing your cheek, “you’re obviously scared, sweetheart. why didn’t you say anything earlier? let’s get you to sleep, hm?” ricky flashed you his warm smile as his hand trailed up to pat your head, he sat up and before he could stand up, you stopped him, “you don’t need to stop the movie just because of me. i can watch it if you want to,” you pouted at him with your eyebrows furrowed

- “you matter more than that movie. let me tuck you into bed,” ricky carried you in his arms to your shades bedroom, shushing you from letting out any more objections and lovingly leaving a brief kiss on your head

- “come on, go to sleep,” ricky was sitting up straight by your side on the bed while you were laying in your shaded bed, laying on your side and facing ricky whose hand was once again tangled in your hair, softly caressing you

- “how can i sleep peacefully when every time i shut my eyes, that nun appears in front of me?” you peer up at him and puffing out your cheeks upon your feeling of frustration

- ricky chuckled before leaning down to pepper your face with kisses and he left no skin untouched by his lips from your forehead, nose, cheeks to your lips. your breath was taken away upon feeling his expression of love, both shock and shyness washing over the fear which was previously haunting you

- he let out a chuckle as he sat back up into his original position, “anything else, your majesty?” lovingly smiling as he looks down at you, “hm, maybe i’ll sleep better if lovelicky acts cute for me,” you smirked as you teased him, knowing very well that ricky can never resist nor decline your wishes

- ricky lets out a tired sigh before reaching up his hand to poke his own cheek, cutely saying, “your lovelicky is here,” he internally cringes as he looks down, beyond humiliated as you silently make fun of him, trying to your best to suppress your giggles as to not make him even more embarrassed as he already is

- “happy now?” “yes, yes, very happy,” you closed your eyes as you tried to fall asleep but you couldn’t help but giggle as the scene of ricky acting cute keeps coming to mind, “i can see you giggling, you know?” ricky softly pinched your cheek, you opening your eyes again as you whine, “i’m just having a really good dream,” “really? you said you couldn’t fall asleep because you’re still scared and now you’re giggling happily? do you want to watch that movie again?” ricky teased you back as he leaned down to face you with barely any distance between your faces. you protested against his offer and pushed him away as you insisted you could fall asleep and at last, you two ended up watching a kdrama on your laptop together as you couldn’t fall asleep after ricky’s numerous attempts at calming you down