#also. like. Flashing Lights in this show are NO JOKE. I’m glad I don’t have a problem w that because they were incredible:)))

[captaincleverusernamehere]

AAAAAAAAAAA. I am so happy this was amazing.

A little sad I couldn’t see Elizabeth Teeter of course but this Lydia was amazing. Also, possibly known fact but I thought this was just on a case-by-case basis, turns out it’s kind of not, Broadway actors spit a LOT while singing. This is to say I may have felt a drop from Alex Brightman fhdgffhgjdhd

Also, The Final Haul:

The thing in the middle is a piece of confetti (yes, One, those things are Long.) from the end lmao.

[targaryenimagines]

My Khaleesi

Dark!Daenerys Targaryen x Fem!Reader

Word Count: 2,586

Summary: Daenerys claims more than the Iron Throne on the day she takes King’s Landing.

Warning(s): Smut and G!P Daenerys.

Notes: Wasn’t sure if you wanted Dark!Dany (in a sense) or not, but decided to just do it that way for this one shot! If you’d like another one with a non dark Dany, I’ll be more than happy to do that. Also, this is definitely the most graphic smut I’ve written… I apologize if it’s bad.

Series Masterlist

Ash still falls from the sky like distorted flecks of snow— rubble shifts under foot as you make your way through the courtyard of the Red Keep. You didn’t have to turn your head far to see the destruction that had been wrought across King’s Landing, a destruction that had come at the hands of the woman you love the most in this world.

Fire and blood had come to Westeros, you think, side-stepping a charred corpse. And penance seemed to have been paid in full.

The sights, along with the smells, that assault you the farther you trek into the once great city aren’t something that sits well with you, nor does the knowledge that Westeros had pushed Daenerys, your Dany, to this point. That all of her grief: Viserion, Jorah, Rhaegal, and Missandei, along with all of her men that she lost in the North, had forced her spirit into shattering so completely.

I don’t want to be Queen of the Ashes…

A saying that had constantly been thrown towards Daenerys, that had been used as a means to control her, keep her in line, and what better way to do that then remind her of her father’s legacy, a tale that’s haunted her ever since she discovered it, and had been continually repeated until Daenerys spouted it out as if she was simply talking about the weather. Her drive, the passion that had carried her through Essos, slowly being driven out of her the longer she spent in the toxic landscape that is Westeros; forever surrounded by the tales of her ancestors, by the fear and hatred that the people she saved showed her, at the clear refusal to ever accept her as anything more than a Targaryen Whore.

Rounding the corner of yet another hallway, you pause just outside of the throne room, or what you believe to be anyway, and think over everything that had transpired. Think of the darkness that had seemed to have only grown in intensity since the Night King had been dealt with. Would Daenerys, after all of this, still wish to see you? Would you still have a place by her side?

Only one way to find out…

With a deep intake of breath, you step fully into the debilitated area that had once been a source of great pride— at the head of it all being the almost legendary throne itself, a mass of melted together swords, and standing before it?

Daenerys Stormborn of House Targaryen, Queen of the Seven Kingdoms.

At the sound of your approaching footsteps, Daenerys turns from her perusal of the throne, and a warm smile quirks her lips at your nearing form.

“Ñuha jorrāelagon,” she murmurs, adoration clear within violet eyes. Slim arms wrapping around your middle the moment your close enough for her to grab. A single gloved finger gently tracing down the expanse of your cheek, rubbing away the hints of ash that still remained. “I’m glad to see you unharmed. I don’t know what I would have done if that hadn’t been the case.”

You lean into the hand still resting on your cheek, a happy smile of your own making an appearance. “Burn down the rest of Westeros?” A dark look flashes through violet eyes, your joke suddenly taking on an all too serious light that you desperately wanted to veer away from. Bumping into her slightly, you disentangle from slim arms, warmed by the smallest bit of hesitance she had at letting you go, you step closer to the throne. “This is it? The Iron Throne?”

Daenerys settles next to you. “It is.” She touches the arm of it with an almost reverent air. “After all these years, all the trials and tribulations that I went through, I’m finally here. A Targaryen is finally the holder of the Iron Throne once more. I’ve brought honor back to my family.”

“You’ve honored them for years already, Dany. You simply being alive is honor by itself.” You angle your head, not surprised at all to see that she had already been looking at you. “This just exemplifies you into the ranks of Aegon.”

Violet eyes gleam with an almost childlike wonder, the hand closest to you touching your cheek with the same reverence she had shown the throne. “Aegon had his wives, he had his queens.” She steps away from you, taking her rightful seat on the throne. “Something that I’ll be in need of moving forward.”

Your head dips. “Anything I can help you with?”

Daenerys chuckles lightly, the sound rumbling from deep within her chest like one of Drogon’s roars. “There is, Y/N.” Gesturing for you to come closer, a command that you listen to without question, she gently maneuvers you into a kneeling position before her, slender fingers tangling themselves within the strands of your hair. “Say yes.”

“Your Grace?”

“Say yes to marrying me, to becoming my wife and queen.” Her holds tightens, forcing your head to tilt back. “Say yes to becoming mine and I’ll make sure everything you could ever want becomes yours.”

A small smile twists your lips upward. “Everything that I could ever want already is.”

At the words a small growl escapes Daenerys, her head dipping downward to press a heated kiss to your lips, maintaining that you’re kept in place by the iron-clad hold she still has on your hair. And, like with everything else, Daenerys didn’t hesitate in conquering what is hers, tongue barely brushing over your bottom lip before she plunders into your mouth, taking you for everything you have. The taste of you, the submission in which you’re showing her, along with the location no doubt, makes Daenerys almost frantic in her need for you.

Barely pulling away, giving you both a moment to breathe, before she’s claiming your lips once more— it’s wet, filthy in a way that makes your mind fog over in lust, and you can’t quite get enough air into your lungs through your nose, something that constantly ensures her scent is all that you’re surrounded by, but you wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. Wouldn’t want to be in any other position than where you are now; kneeling in front of your Khaleesi, her pleasure becoming yours.

Finally, with a ragged breath, Daenerys fully pulls away from you, a thin trail of saliva still connecting you both, before she shifts too far back and it snaps in half. Violet eyes, blown nearly black in lust, pin you in place as Daenerys slowly undoes the buckle of her pants, and jerks it down, the actions clear on what she expected from you. And, without preamble, or any sort of prompting, you help Daenerys with removing them, gently taking off her boots, before pulling her tight-fitting pants off her slim legs. The sight that greets you once you look up almost causing your mouth to dry up completely.

Daenerys Targaryen sat in all of her glory, bare from the waist down, her thick member jutting out from the apex of her thighs. The look in her eyes, in the darkness that lurks just out of reach, tells you all that you need to know, how your Khaleesi wished for you to service her next. Something you didn’t have a problem with doing, damn the consequences of potentially being caught in the wide open throne room.

Taking her into your hands, feeling her warmth, and the way that she twitches ever-so-slightly at your touch, is a heady sort of power that you’re never going to get used to.

Taking her into your mouth, jaw stretched wide to accommodate her girth, feeling the way she arches into the wetness it provides, hands tightening even further into your hair, the wonderful concoction of pain and pleasure, fuels you more than anything ever could.

Bobbing up and down, taking her deeper and deeper into your throat, listening to the breathy sighs she lets loose whenever she completely bottoms out, is a drug you never want to get off of. Her flavor— musky with just the barest hint of sweetness and something spicy— spreads across your tastebuds, your tongue lovingly swirling around the tip of her cock, taking in as much of her as you possibly could.

“Iksā doing sīr sȳz syt nyke.” The Valyrian praise escapes her in a low snarl, hands now guiding you in the exact way she wanted, your own simply being braced on her thighs as you let her use you. “Issare iā sȳz riña syt nyke. Ñuha sȳz riña.”

All you can do is moan in response, mouth completely stuffed full of her, but the vibrations makes her tense even further, another snarl rumbling from deep within her. You know that she’s close, can tell by the way her thighs were beginning to tremble underneath your touch, and the quickening of her thrusts, and your head moves even faster because of it— wanting nothing more than to feel her release down your throat, for your tongue to be coated by her cum.

“Issi ao jāre naejot gūrogon ziry mirre? Gūrogon everything bona nyke tepagon ao?” Daenerys groans out the question, clearly fighting with herself to not succumb just yet to the pleasure of her release. Peering up, you’re instantly met with darkened violet eyes, a rosy hue predominant across fair cheeks. Clearly waiting for a response, all you can do is gurgle around the cock currently in your throat, hoping that your eyes gave her all the answers she needed, which, by the tightening of her hands, absolutely did. “Sȳz riña.”

Within the next moment, jets of Daenerys cum shoots out, going straight into your stomach as you desperately swallow to make sure you don’t lose any of it. The feeling of warmth as her seed settles deep within you is one you’ve long since grown familiar with, but the possessive heat in her eyes as she watches you swallow it all down is definitely new. A reaction that causes your own arousal to come to the forefront of your mind finally, wetness clearly coating your thighs, waiting for your Khaleesi’s touch.

Daenerys pulls her cock from your mouth a moment later— the still hard length shimmering with the combination of leftover cum and saliva— allowing for you to take a deep lungful of air at last. Remnants of her still on your tongue.

Her thumb brushes across your bottom lip, briefly pushing into your mouth for you to suck on, before she retracts her hand and tugs you up onto her lap. Slim arms bracing your lower half perfectly against herself, settling her own body more fully on the Iron Throne.

“You did so good for me,” she murmurs, trailing slender fingers down your thighs. Nowhere near where you needed her the most though. “Do you want to continue?”

You nod. “More than anything, Khaleesi.“

Daenerys hums at the old title, hands gripping your hips in a hold that you know would leave bruises, lips ghosting across your jawline and down your neck.

“You’re mine, right?” Teeth nips into the sensitive flesh beneath your pulse point. “No one else can have you this way, fuck you the way that I can, or hear the beautiful noises you make when you fall apart.”

“Only you, Dany,” you whisper, nuzzling your nose against hers. “It’ll only ever be you. I’m yours completely.”

There isn’t need for more words after that, Daenerys simply hikes your dress higher up your waist, tearing your small-clothes away completely, before rubbing her hardened member against the wetness that has collected between your legs, a deep groan escaping her at the feeling of your clear want for her.

Within the next heartbeat, she’s buried to the hilt within you, a sharp keen being ripped from your chest at the feeling of complete fullness, the delicious stretch as your body tries to acclimate to the feeling of her, and begins to rut roughly into you. Hands slide from their place on your waist to settle on your hips, guiding you up and down as you begin to bounce in response to her thrusts.

A breathy moan falls from your lips, arms wrapped tightly around Daenerys neck, tugging her closer to you, continuing to ride her in complete abandon, wet slapping noise, intercepted by occasional grunts and moans, filled the air, echoing out across the empty throne room. A part of you thinks that you might even be able to be heard down below, the ripped open wall next to the throne offering an excellent siphon to the noises, but then Daenerys twists her hips in just the right way and everything, that doesn’t have to do with the mind numbing pleasure she gives you, vanishes from you mind in an instant.

Nails make crescent moons in the soft flesh of your hips, bruises no doubt already forming on your lower abdomen from how hard Daenerys was thrusting up into you, but the knowledge that your Khaleesi is marking you in such a way, that she’s lost parts of her control because of you, makes you not care in the slightest— you were hers, completely and irreversibly. Her pleasure was your own.

With another strangled gasp, your head falls to her chest, still clad in her formal garb, the metal cool against the heated expanse of your forehead, no longer being able to keep yourself upright. You could feel your climax approaching— coming faster and faster as Daenerys brushed against the spot within you every time she pulled out. Your core clenching around her desperately, trying to keep her within you, milk her for all that she’s worth, and the tight constriction causes a strangled sound of her own to resonate from your Khaleesi.

Feet planted firmly into the floor, she begins to piston fully into you, your body arching into her, allowing her to move you as she saw fit, clearly chasing her second release and your own.

“I’m going to mark you in a way that no one ever has.” Feverish violet eyes meet your own, strands of silvery-gold hair sticking to her heated cheeks, torn from their intricate braids, as her grip on you tightens more. “You’re going to bear my children, you’re going to continue on the Targaryen name. Would you like that?”

You moan. “Yes.”

The thought of carrying her children, of continuing on the Targaryen Legacy, filled you with a sense of purpose, a sense of warmth.

Pushing your head further into her chest, you plead. “Do it, Khaleesi. Claim me.”

With a ragged snarl, Daenerys’s hips stutter and before you know it jets of warmth fill you up, going straight to your womb. The feeling triggers your own release, a broken moan leaving you as you milk Daenerys for everything she has, everything that she’d be willing to offer. Harshly panting, Daenerys settles back onto the throne, hands gently running down your spine, holding you as closely as she possibly still could, still buried inside of you.

“Thank you,” she whispers, nuzzling you before she presses a kiss to your damp temple.

You sigh, content in her arms. “Always.”

Pressing another kiss to your head, Daenerys angles your face in order for you to look at her, the open look of adoration on her face one that’d only ever be reserved for you and her son.

“My beautiful love, my lovely wife.” She drops a chaste kiss to your lips, her hips beginning to move once more. “My eternal queen.”

“My Khaleesi.”

[bragganhyl]

i really want to kiss you right now for the smut prompts!

Yay, thanks Ella 💖 here is uhh 5k words 😅 of Edér and Gaura getting nasty with each other

sooo... yeah be warned for graphic description of them having sex under the cut, don't click on the readmore if you don't want to read it and if you still manage to do that, you have about 2k words of preamble so you have time to click away before anything steamy happens

but if you do want to read it then I hope you have fun with it 😁

‘Apologies, Watcher, this will take longer than I initially thought,’ Zamar glanced up at Gaura, but his eyes didn’t carry the same sense of guilt that his words implied. The Defiant was visible behind him, its hull half-stripped away and in some spots, replaced with a darker, more durable material. ‘I can’t say I have ever worked with blackwood before, I’m trying to make sure you leave with a hull that was better than what you had coming in.’

‘You’re attitude is admirable,’ the Watcher replied, not only commenting on the shipwright’s conviction towards his client, but the gleam in his eyes, betraying how much relished the opportunity to work with the unique material she brought him. ‘So how much longer are we talking about here?’

‘About 2 or 3 more days,’ Zamar stroke his beard as he eyed the ship. ‘No additional charges,’ his lips curled to the faintest and most fleeting smirk Gaura has ever seen.

‘Alright, I’m sure the crew won’t mind a longer shore leave,’ she glanced at The Defiant again and sighed when she glimpsed the setting sun behind it. ‘I sure don’t.’

‘Glad to hear it,’ he gave a curt nod. ‘I’ll get back to it, if you don’t mind.’

‘Of course, thanks for letting me steal a minute of your time,’ Gaura said goodbye with a smile, that faded as soon as she turned away.

Edér was waiting for her a few steps behind her. Her heart sank as she watched him in the slowly fading sunlight, smoking, waiting, a tender half-smile still tugging at his lips.

The Watcher was meant to spend that day on him, and with him. However, once rumor spread about The Defiant being equipped with a new hull – which meant that her crew was going to be stuck ashore for the next few days – it seemed that everyone who could ask the Watcher for help in the city, showed up to do so. Running a few errands didn’t seem like something that would have taken long and the treks from one side of Neketaka to the other seemed like they could also serve as romantic strolls. But what seemed one thing looked really different in the light of the setting sun.

‘Gods, I am so sorry,’ Gaura closed the distance between her and the farmer and wrapped her arms around him. ‘I thought I’d be quicker handling these things.’ She lightly butted her head against Edér’s armored chest.

‘Hey, don’t be like that,’ he hugged back, squeezing her for a moment, as if her bad mood was something he could expel from her physically. ‘You heard Zamar, we got a few more days than planned. Could just take a rain check now and… I don’t know, we could go out tomorrow?’

‘I’m spending tomorrow with Aloth.’

‘Right, I forgot,’ he let out a quiet sigh as he thought, ‘the day after tomorrow?’

‘I’ll be meeting with Flaune. And after that with Onekaza.’

Edér was silent for a moment. His jaw felt tense and he didn’t notice he tightened his embrace. ‘Right.’ His sigh sounded heavier now. Gaura pulled away just far enough to look up at him.

‘I’ll be free the day after that,’ she flashed an encouraging smile at him. ‘And the day after that.’ She lightly cupped his face.

The veteran squinted at her, pretending to ponder her offer, but he never had the patience to deal with facade, not even with his own. ‘Can I have both days?’ The question would have sounded like a joke if his touch didn’t betray his reluctance to be apart from her.

‘Now you’re just getting greedy.’

‘Nah,’ he let go of her, ‘one day for you and me,’ he began as he peeled her hand from his face and took it into his, ‘one day for you, me and Aloth. What do you say?’

‘Hmm,’ now it was Gaura’s turn to feign disinterest, ‘I am going to counter that offer with… one and a half of those days,’ she ran a finger along the metal scales protecting Edér’s torso, ‘and on top of that, the last day of the shore leave and whatever is left of tonight.’

Edér chuckled. ‘Yeah, I was hoping we’d do more than just climb a mountain.’

‘Good, let me buy you a drink,’ Gaura said as she took the first step towards the Wild Mare, pulling the farmer along.

The two of them passed by massive braziers being lit, and shopkeepers putting away their wares for the night. The bustle of Queen’s Berth didn’t die down with the daylight, it merely shifted. The district felt distinctly less bureaucratic and business-like in the evening. The last remnant of the day was Ivorr the Bright, saying the last prayer before the sun set fully – a goodbye to the light of his god.

‘Thine hands, whose grip pulls me out of darkness. Thine ears-’

Gaura felt a tremor in Edér’s hand. When she looked to him, he merely smiled at her and pulled her close with a single tug. He lifted a finger to his lips.

‘Thine heart, bright as the dawn, giving me warmth when I’m raw.’

Edér winked at her at that line. The Watcher turned away, failing to stifle a fond but nervous chuckle. Often, she would find herself grateful that she couldn’t truly blush. In that moment, she cursed her hair for betraying her fluster at his incidental but no less reverent confession. His adoring laugh coming from behind her didn’t help matters, nor did his thumb lightly caressing her hand as they made their way to the Wild Mare.

They were lucky. The tavern wasn’t quite yet full and so the two of them could find a free table for two in a dimly lit corner. It had an awkward vantage point: the stage was only partially visible and the bar seemed to have been obscured entirely there, but Edér didn’t seem to mind, in fact he eyed the one thing fully, and clearly visible from there with a mischievous grin – the stairway leading to the upper floor. The Watcher was also glad they could find a spot that offered the illusion of privacy in the crowd, and she wasn’t exactly in the mood to hunt for another table. She just about gestured to Edér to offer a seat, when he spoke up.

‘Why don’t you stay here while I grab us something to drink?’

Gaura chuckled at him making the same offer she intended to make. ‘I’m supposed to be the one apologizing to you,’ she reminded him, patting him on the chest. ‘I’ll go get it.’

The farmer, however, grabbed her wrist just as she was about to move past him.

‘You’ll get your chance, don’t worry,’ he left a kiss on her knuckles. When the Watcher opened her mouth to retort, he left another on her palm and he pulled her close. His free hand traveled down her back, gently, comfortingly. ‘Just had an idea, that’s all,’ he explained with a shrug.

‘Uh-oh.’

‘You’ll like it, I promise,’ he kissed her on the cheek. ‘And if you don’t, then we’ll be even,’ he joked, earning a light punch in the shoulder.

Gaura squinted at him. Whatever Edér had on his mind, all he could read from his face was that fond half-smile of his that she saw by the shipyard. It didn’t feel right not to indulge him after the patience he’s displayed for the whole day.

‘Alright.’

Edér’s smile widened as he left her by the table. The Watcher sat down for the first time that day, and she suddenly became very aware of the muscles in her legs. She stretched as she sat, trying to fight the dull, burning sensation in her limbs, wondering if she could maybe convince the farmer to spend a little more time in the tavern before they went on to climb to Periki’s Overlook where they rented a room. But then she remembered that it was exactly what she’s been asking him all day long – just a little more time. She pinched the bridge of her nose as she sighed. She only vaguely heard Edér approach in the growing crowd. She straightened her back and reached out to take her pint once he got within reach. Edér pulled his chair close to her, close enough that as he sat down, his thigh brushed against hers lightly, but just firmly enough for her to feel… intent behind the touch. Maybe even need. He took out a small vial and drank its contents, grimacing, and then washed it down with a large gulp of ale.

‘Not so fast,’ Gaura grabbed his wrist for a moment, ‘you don’t know how the ale would affect the potion’s magic.’

Edér raised an eyebrow. He looked into his cup, then at the Watcher’s hair. He put down the ale and reached for the curve of Gaura’s neck. He caressed her with his knuckles and her flames harmlessly caressed him back.

‘Seems to be working fine,’ he said as his lips curled to a smirk. His hand on her slid down to her collarbone, to her chest, to her belly. He then guided it to her waist as he leaned in to leave a kiss under the Watcher’s jaw. Then another and another. Each more intense than the previous one. Gaura tensed up in surprise. Her gaze darted to different points in the room, looking at one person or another, but it was difficult to focus on anyone but Edér and the gentle touches of his mouth that got her heart fluttering for him.

‘Edér, we’re in public,’ she chuckled awkwardly.

He paused. Time seemed to have frozen for a short while. ‘Yeah…’ the farmer sighed resignedly and pulled away, ‘sorry, Honeycake.’ He reached into his pockets again. ‘I suppose we really oughtta keep this kinda thing upstairs,’ he said as he placed a simple, tagged key on the table.

Gaura blinked at the key while Edér took another sip of his drink, snickering into the cup. The thought of the two of them having some time truly alone got her biting her lip. Relief slowly spread in her chest and washed over her limbs. An involuntary laugh bubbled up from her. Sometimes she forgot how well he knew her, how observant he was and how easily he could lift her spirits. Although that might have said more about her than him, she mused.

‘Is this why you insisted on getting these drinks?’ She couldn’t hide her grin.

The farmer nodded as he swallowed. He kept his gaze fixed on her, his joy and adoration was blatantly apparent in his eyes.

‘You know, you could have just asked, I could’ve handled it for you,’ the Watcher shrugged and picked up her cup, her fingers lightly brushing against the key. She lifted it to her lips, trying to stifle her carefree and excited giggle.

‘Wouldn’t have been much of a surprise then,’ Edér was about to reach for the back of Gaura’s head, but she lifted a finger, urging him to wait while she downed her pint. The farmer laughed at her impatience and at the feeling of her leg brushing against his.

She slammed her cup on the table and grabbed the key once she finished. ‘You couldn’t even keep that surprise to yourself for a minute,’ she teased him, her free hand lightly rubbing his thigh. There was a faint hum hiding in Edér’s laugh as he leaned close.

‘Been watching you all day, dealing with all sorts of things, doing all that talking,’ he reached below her chin and let a thumb linger by the corner of her lips, ‘and looking really really pretty doing all that.’ His gaze stayed on those lips for a few excruciatingly long moments. ‘You’re gonna have to forgive me but… I’m running out of patience.’

‘Good,’ Gaura said breathlessly, ‘I really want to kiss you too. Right no-’

Her last word was interrupted by Edér crashing into her. Gaura could feel his kiss in her teeth and she had to fight with every fiber of her being against an urge to climb on his lap then and there, to claim the thigh brushing against her for her own pleasure. The fingers lingering on his knee moved upwards and the farmer lightly groaned into their contact. The Watcher felt the flames on the back of her neck flutter at the sound and with a last ditch effort she forced herself away from him.

‘Finish your drink,’ she stood up and took a few steps towards the stairway leading to the brothel level of the Wild Mare. She took a quick glance at the key in her hand, trying to read the tag while she walked when she felt a familiar presence by her side.

‘That ale wasn’t all that good,’ Edér hooked his arm in hers and leaned to her ear, ‘and it ain’t the taste I want.’

Gaura sped up her steps hearing that. The two of them hurried upstairs and the people working and lingering there, and made their way straight to the room that the key belonged to. The Watcher opened the door and let Edér in. She stepped in after him, laughing in excitement, hastily locking the door, trying to ignore the hands on her hips and the breath on her ear.

And then the lock clicked.

The Watcher was pressed hard against the door. The only thing separating her from it was the hand traveling up her chest while another pulled her hip close to Edér’s lap. A sloppy kiss landed behind her earlobe. Another a little lower. Gaura reached behind, over her shoulder, her fingers found those soft, straw colored strands and gave them the gentlest tug. They were both already panting, maybe they shouldn’t have rushed up those stairs, she mused, impishly grinning at herself as she guided the hand on her hip forward, down between her legs. She felt a little guilty about her impatience as she began moving against that broad palm, she was after all meant to make up for the day to him. But Edér only responded with the faintest of groans and by pressing her even tighter against himself – and against the rough metal scales separating them.

The Watcher twisted herself, trying to face Edér, only to notice the same frustration on his face that was building in her. She laughed as she reached for the straps keeping his pauldron in place. The farmer hastily followed her lead. Bits of his armor came off him, one by one, until he was only covered by the light fabric of his clothes underneath.

Gaura once again was against the door, her thigh lightly held up against Edér’s hip, her hands digging deep into his hair, her mouth locked in a forceful, insistent, ravenous kiss. She moaned faintly into the farmer’s mouth, only for him to pull away, letting the last note fill the space between them.

‘For once, we don’t need to keep quiet,’ he grinned down at her.

‘When do we ever keep quiet?’

A self-aware chuckle left Edér at the question. ‘Never. And I feel real guilty afterwards.’

The Watcher softly chuckled. ‘And how do you think I should feel?’ She lightly pressed against his chest and stepped forward. He let her guide him to the bed, his gaze never leaving her face, his eyes never showing anything but his craving for her closeness. He barely heard the question over his heart beating in his ear, pounding under her hand for her.

‘Dunno, how do you think you should feel?’ His question ended in a quiet yelp as Gaura pushed him onto the bed. Before he could gather his thoughts again, she was already on top of him. Before he could speak again, her lips were already on his.

He melted into her kiss. His hands came to her hips and pulled her down as he sat up. His touch felt like a question and a plea and the Watcher answered with exactly what he wanted. He quietly groaned into her mouth as she started grinding against him again, then he pulled away, as if merely feeling her movements wasn’t enough, he needed to look, he needed her occupy all his senses. He bit his lip as he watched her hips roll. His hands moved again, one downwards, fingers biting into her encouragingly, while the other reached for the laces of her vest. Gaura chuckled, her voice rang deep and hoarse with desire as she pushed him back down on the bed. Edér blinked up at her in surprise but his expression quickly changed as he watched her remove her vest first, her knees hugging him a little tighter as if anticipation was getting the better of her, despite her slow movements. A breathless curse left him when she took her shirt off next. He felt a little foolish feeling as hypnotized as he did, as if he never saw her before, as if he didn’t know every last inch of her body. And yet, she was beautiful like the sunset by the shipyard.

Gaura, however, didn’t let him admire her for long. She moved lower so she could lean over him and take his shirt in her mouth. She laughed as she pulled it to his neck with her teeth. Edér gasped when he felt her mouth move to his pecks next, showering them with sloppy kisses – too hungry not to let a few gentle bites mingle with them, too indulging not to show his nipples some special attention, too self-satisfied not to have them resonate with the Watcher’s giggles as she grew drunk on the sounds she was drawing out of the farmer.

‘I’m thinking I still haven’t properly apologized for wasting your time today,’ Gaura let her tongue guide her down his chest, to a spot over his hipbone. Edér pushed himself up slightly and his movements formed a roll on his side that she couldn’t resist nibbling. The farmer laughed at the feeling only for his laughter to turn into a groan once the Watcher’s hand found its way to his bulge.

‘And here I was planning on spoiling you…’ He watched as she undid his pants and pulled out his cock.

‘Plans change, as we both learned today,’ she left a small kiss on his shaft, her eyes curving over her smile. ‘But it’s up to you,’ while Edér was trying to remember how to breathe, she ran her tongue along his length, stopping at the head, while her hand began pumping him, ‘do you want me to stop?’ She asked, still smiling, her lips brushing against him, her eyes fixed on him, waiting for the answer she already knew.

‘Of course not.’

Gaura’s mouth closed around him, stifling a satisfied hum. In a few moments she found a decent enough rhythm, if the sounds coming from Edér were any indication, even if her pace was a little hurried for the Watcher’s taste. She couldn’t help it though. Not after a day of feeling him close and yet never close enough. Her flames rippled as she moved further down along his length. Breathing became her sole focus. Her hands moved to the farmer’s thighs as they tensed up, his body answering her, ready to close whatever distance was left between them.

‘Come up for air.’

Gaura glanced up at him. Edér’s hand lightly closed around her horn. She pulled away just as the veteran sat up and he pulled her on his lips immediately. She spent a moment catching her breath resting her forehead against his once he let her go.

‘Don’t think you realize how pretty your mouth is,’ he said as he guided her back to his lap, ‘or how good it feels.’

When the Watcher took him in her mouth again, she didn’t move. She didn’t have to. Edér’s thrusts were light and slow. He held her steadily by her horn, keeping her gaze on him and in turn he didn’t look away either, even though it took every bit of his strength not to sprawl out on the bed, eyes closed, head thrown back in pleasure until she made him come undone. It all felt very selfish, it all felt very generous, whatever he was actually being, Edér knew Gaura would forgive him for it.

Soon, however, he felt a familiar heat on his thighs.

‘Dammit,’ he guided Gaura away from him. ‘I uh… I started to feel your hair.’

The Watcher nodded as she wiped her mouth. ‘You still got some potions, right?’

‘I think so,’ Edér hastily patted his pockets, failing to notice her sitting beside him, undressing. By the time he found a vial, she was already bare, sitting cross-legged, and leaning back leisurely.

‘Do you need help opening the bottle?’ She cocked her head with an impish smile that put a smirk on the veteran’s face as well.

‘Dunno, it might taste nicer from your hand,’ he said, but downed the potion regardless. He tossed the empty vial aside and shimmied out of his remaining clothes. His eagerness to touch the Watcher again was visible in his movements which drew a melodious laugh out of her. He kicked his pants off with a curse but at least, she still found it funny, her laughter still echoed in the room as Edér closed the distance between them. She still laughed as he pushed her legs apart. And then his fingers found her slit. She grew quiet then. ‘My turn,’ he broke the silence.

The Watcher gasped as Edér began rubbing her again. ‘Wow, you’re wasting no… time,’ her last word was barely louder than a sigh as she felt a pair of fingers pushing past her folds. She knew she craved him, she felt the heat of her need pool in her belly as she pleased him, and yet she wasn’t quite aware how badly, how intensely she wanted him until she felt him within her. Even the lightest of his touches could’ve set her nerves ablaze, but Edér was determined to give her more than that. His touch was careful, but firm, gentle, but Gaura could still feel his strength. A soft whimper left her lips which was answered with a kiss landing on her forehead.

‘Just had a hunch that you needed me,’ he glanced down at his fingers easily sliding in and out of her, the light tremors running through Gaura’s legs, her muscles tensing by her hip as she fought the urge to rock herself against him, ‘I’m getting the sense that I wasn’t wrong.’

‘You really weren’t,’ the Watcher felt like her arms were about buckle under her. Edér noticed it too, and gave her shoulder a light push. He pulled his fingers out of her only long enough to get on top of her, but even those few moments of absence felt immense and strangely anguishing. The farmer seemed to have been spurred on by those few moments as well. His touch felt more insistent, a little more forceful. His gaze was dark and twinkling with desire as he looked down on her. He left one last kiss on her lips before he moved on to her chest, to the glowing mark shining in the center of it. Gaura could’ve sworn every last one of her flames flared up when the farmer kissed her there, savoring the feeling of those same flames lapping at him harmlessly. All the while his hand kept moving, his friction kept building that sweet, sweet pressure that got the Watcher squirming under him, arching herself towards him. She needed him closer, and closer still. Meanwhile Edér continued following the unseen trail of his own kisses down her chest, down her belly, until he finally reached her clit.

Gaura could barely handle the contrasting sensations lovingly assaulting her senses. The relaxed, tender touches of Edér’s tongue, opposed to the swift movements of his calloused fingers. The feeling of his coarse mustache rubbing against her along with his soft lips. Her hands came down to his hair, and she couldn’t decide if she merely wanted to hold him, to let her touch express the feelings she couldn’t put into words, or to keep him in place as she began to move against him. Her body made her decision for her. She heard a satisfied “mm-hmm” coming from Edér and even without looking she could tell, he was smirking up at her. His free hand came to her thigh, his fingers bit into her, not to stop her from grinding, but to spur her on.

‘Fuck, I love you so much,’ the Watcher moaned. Her words echoed in her mind, like a chant to the rhythm of her heart. She loved him. She loved him. She loved him. Her pace was slower than Edér’s but her rhythm followed his, until she lost her sense of time, until she only sensed him as if he was being seared into her soul.

She was being kissed. Slowly, deeply, lazily. Gaura smiled against Edér’s lips. She wrapped her arms around his broad back, her thighs hugged his hips as they gently rolled against her. He wasn’t done with her.

‘I love you too,’ Edér said as he pulled away just far enough to look the Watcher in the eye, just long enough to see her face as he entered her.

Gaura beamed at him. She bit her lip as he pushed further into her, enjoying the feeling of being stretched. Her belly felt hot with arousal again. She pulled Edér down on her, giggling in his ear, that grew louder when he heard the farmer curse in response. Her laughter softened to a melodious moan as he began moving, thrusting into her at a relaxed pace.

‘Love it when you sound like that,’ Edér left a sloppy kiss on her cheek.

‘I love it when you make me sound like that.’

Hearing that, the farmer reached below Gaura and lifted her by her waist slightly. She gasped when she felt the new angle. Each of his movements ignited sparks within her, and soon she found herself clinging to him, moaning his name into his ear. Edér slammed into her hard with a groan as an answer, stealing the Watcher’s breath away.

A moment later, the world seemed to have shifted and Gaura was upright, kneeling at the edge of the bed with Edér, straddling Edér, moving with Edér. He held her with an iron grip, one arm around her shoulder, another around her waist, trying to keep her in place as he kept thrusting into her hard. But even as close as he held her there was just about enough room for her to move still. She rocked against him, meeting him with slight motions of her own and that slight, sweet added friction nearly pushed Edér over the edge. He cursed loudly and the Watcher answered with an adoring laugh. The farmer pulled her down on him hard, turning the last notes of her laughter into a moan. He did love it when she sounded like that, and she did love it when he made her sound like that.

Edér looked up at the Watcher as if he couldn’t bear to look at anything else. Gaura cupped his face, lightly kissed his forehead over and over, whispering against his skin.

‘I needed this, Edér. I… I need you.’

The farmer picked up the pace. It wasn’t long before Gaura felt her senses growing overwhelmed for him again. She couldn’t keep moving, she could only hold him close as she was consumed by the ecstasy he invoked. She heard her name. Edér held her as if he was desperate to lose himself in her and as if she was the only thing that could stop him from doing so. With one last hard thrust he found his release and for a few moments that stretched infinitely he remained as he was: on his knees, holding his beloved.

The Watcher blew a kiss on the farmer’s hair. Edér let out a breathless chuckle at that. He pulled out and lightly shoved Gaura off himself. She gasped, surprised, while he leaned over her, laughing, leaving one sloppy, forceful kiss after the other on the large, glowing crack in the middle of her chest. That got her laughing too. Edér looked up at her at that.

‘I love you.’

Gaura gently caressed his cheek. ‘I love you.’

Edér rolled off her with a groan. For a short while they laid next to each other like that, staring at the ceiling, their legs dangling off the edge of the bed, their silence only being broken by the muffled sounds coming from the other rooms in the brothel.

‘Apology accepted, I take it?’ The Watcher spoke into the empty air. She felt the bed shift next to her and a moment later she felt a broad set of fingers turning her face towards Edér.

‘I wasn’t really mad at you. You know that, right?’ He smiled at her adoringly. ‘Even if there was anything to forgive, I would’ve forgiven you by now.’

Gaura returned his smile. ‘I know.’

‘But if you want I can pretend I’m real angry at you, so that we can stay here a bit longer to work things out,’ he plopped back down on the bed with a sigh. ‘Not really in the mood to climb a mountain, right now.’

The Watcher pushed herself up, chuckling. She let her fingers trace the hair on Edér’s chest. ‘The night is still young.’

‘So… wasting more time here, it is,’ the farmer took her hand and lifted it to his lips. He got up a moment later and hastily slipped on his clothes. ‘Dunno about you, but I’m kinda thirsty,’ he chuckled as he turned around and winked at her. ‘Be back in a minute.’

Edér left as the Watcher sat up and followed him with her gaze.

‘No time is wasted on you,’ she told the closed door.

[winderlylandchime]

2/2 ‘I will pay him to shut up. I’m broke as a fucking joke but bro i am willing to work my tushy on every corner to make him shut up. Pretentious fucker. I’m so happy Brian isn’t this cringey. *mocks ethan* alone jerking off. Oh fuck off. HE WAS IMAGINING HIM KISSING HIM. I WILL LITERALLY VOMIT RIGHT THIS SECOND, this is gonna sound weird but Bri looks better when he gets head. This guy makes funky faces. (THE KNOCK JUST HAPPENED) imagine if its brian!!!!! He needs help with more posters or some shit! OH MY GOD ROSES! OH ETHAN LOOKS LIKE HE JUST SAW HIS OWN LIFE FLASH BEFORE HIS EYES….spoiler alert it was a very boring one. HIS MUUUUSE? OH ETHAN IS SCARED- OH FUCKS SAKE BEN! WHY DO YOU RUIN EVERYTHING!’ *Mikey is now being dramatic with a needle* ‘Mikey whatcha doing? Dude, why cant you just be dramatic over boyfriends the same way everyone else is? Dye your hair red and get a buzzcut! FINALLY BEN! Now go back to boring and call it a day’ And we are back to Justin ‘ow ow Justin that has to hurt. TELL HIM! YES HE IS A LIAR! OH YOU MISSED HIM? FOR A DAY?! OH ITS JUSTINS FAULT AGAIN LIKE USUALLY?! (Ethan says thee line) OH YOU KEEP YOUR BRIANS NAME OUT OF YOU CHEATIN MOUTH! EXACTLY YOU NEVER FORGAVE HIM BC HE DIDNT DO SHIT WRONG! HE WAS HONEST FROM DAY ONE! YES LEAVE! SHOVE THAT RING UP YOUR ASS. Oh i have a few ideas what you could do without Justin. *does middle fingers at Ethan* HAHAHA FUCK YOU MARACAS BOY! JUSTIN FINALLY SAW THE LIGHT! *pauses tv* you know what we need now? Brian and Justin to bump into each other and for him to see Justin’s bleeding hand. Yup. I could do this shit for a living!’ He is literally smiling so big and he rewinded the scene like 2 times. Each time he smiled more and more while also laughing at Ethan. *raises his soda in the air* ‘lets all have a toast to Ben’s failed attempt at trying to be less boring. Glad you saw the light, big guy.’ ‘NOW HOW DID BRIAN KNOW HE DIDNT SLEEP AT HO-oh his clothes are the same. BRI YOU ARE ABOUT TO BE SO HAPPY! GUESS WHAT HAPPENED? THEY BROKE UP! (Ted just thanked Brian) dude, stop acting like you dont care for your friends. I get that its part of your schtick but dude come on. you most certainly did it for Teddy! THERES POTENTIAL IN THIS BROMANCE!’ ‘Oh fuck you Justin, you were buddies with him last episode but now youre saying he’s acting like total shit, i mean okay true BUT COME ON. And Debbie, maybe you could understand it if you, oh I don’t know, stopped blaming him all the time and being rude to him one second and the next you love him! Im still mad at you acting like you dont know that he loves Justin!’ Melanie just said she’s pregnant ‘oh no. Oh no. This is gonna be the worst thing since…quick name something bad. Mike is gonna be a dad. Oh that’s…i dont wanna say bad but i am coming up short on any other word’ ‘BRIAN! (Btw every time he says that when he comes on tv he literally points to the tv like he’s shocked he’s in the show..imagine that one Leo Dicaprio gif) HEY! brian is a good dad! *looks at me in wonder* Do you think backrooms are still a thing? Are they even legal? OH MY GOD ITS BLONDIE! JUSTIN!! HES IN THE BACKROOM! HES IN THE CLUB! FINALLY!! I hated how he acted that he was too good for it. AND LOOK HOW FAST BRI BRI SAW HIM! of course you are gonna fuck next to hi- OH JUSTIN SAW HIM *starts hitting me all excited* THEY ARE LOOKING AT EACH OTHER! THEY ARE FUCKING AND LOOKING AT EACH OTHER!!! DID YOU SEE THAT SMIRK? OH JUSTIN ISNT EVEN TRYING TO LOOK AWAY! *stands up and starts showing his shirt* TEAM FUCKING BRIAN! I KNOW THATS RIGHT! *screams literally on top of his lungs* I WANNA FEEL YOU FROM THE INSIDE?! OH THEY ARE SICK FOR THAT!’ He is now staring at the tv with his hands in his hair smiling while credits roll..’oh i gotta call mom! I gotta tell her! This is big news, shit i gotta call (friends name)! I gotta tell him all about this! I knew this shirt would work, you all thought i was crazy but it worked!’ And now he is giving mom the full run down. She is stuck with him on the phone bc she ignored his calls so he guilt tripped her

Your brother's reaction to THEE SCENE is everything. It is perfect. 10/10 would read that a million times over, no notes. (Or, this being tumblr, 1k notes post)

Brian and Justin to bump into each other and for him to see Justin’s bleeding hand. <- WHY WERE WE ROBBED OF THIS

THEY ARE LOOKING AT EACH OTHER! THEY ARE FUCKING AND LOOKING AT EACH OTHER!!! DID YOU SEE THAT SMIRK? OH JUSTIN ISNT EVEN TRYING TO LOOK AWAY! *stands up and starts showing his shirt* TEAM FUCKING BRIAN! I KNOW THATS RIGHT! *screams literally on top of his lungs* I WANNA FEEL YOU FROM THE INSIDE?! OH THEY ARE SICK FOR THAT!’

That is all of us right now.

I LOVE that your brother immediately wanted to tell everyone. No one cares but he still wants to share the good news.

[frenskcup]

Itadori's Kitchen

Summary: think of Julien Solomita's cooking vids, specifically the one where he bakes a cake w Jenna. This plus Yuuji and Fushiguro :) no romance, just reader interacting with them in a highly specific scenario.

Warnings: silly goofy times, cursing

A/N: uploaded this on AO3, but thought tumblr users might enjoy it

The red light of the camera blinks to signal the start of the recording.

“Am I in focus?”

You step towards the camera to look at the viewfinder. Itadori’s scrunched-up face shows up on the screen with the background blurred. Giving him a thumbs up, he smiles and claps his hands.

“Awesome! Thanks for agreeing to this. No one else wanted to help out.” His little frown adds to his pity party.

“Don’t sweat it. Didn’t have much else to do today. Kugisaki dipped on our movie plans to drag Maki with her to the shopping center,” you say, rolling your eyes at the memory of her reasoning being the spring sales starting and not wanting to look through the ugly garments after the first day. Itadori rummages through the drawers of the kitchenette to find whatever utensil he needs.

“Well, no need to fret! I, Itadori Yuuji, shall be your entertainment!” he declares with spatula and wooden spoon held towards the ceiling. You chuckle at his excitement as he winks at you.

“Okay, okay. So what’s on the agenda, head chef?” you ask while grabbing your phone for the list Itadori had sent you a few hours before when you agreed to help him film for his YouTube channel.

“Well, I usually have Fushiguro help me stay on track with the ideas I have lined up on that list. I try to put them in an order that makes sense.”

The said list is composed of the standard ‘film intro,’ ‘make cake,’ and ‘get friends to try’ formula most of Itadori’s videos followed. The occasional ‘fart noise’ or ‘insert meme here’ was scattered in the list. It seemed easy enough to follow.

“This is doable. So I’m just your help? Or can I talk with you?”

Looking up from your phone, you see him struggling with putting the apron over his head. You wait it out and watch him try to stick his arm through the head loop. Visible confusion washes over his face when he realizes this. He sees a flash towards him and looks at you, a grin on your face and phone in hand.

“It feels like Fushiguro never left,” Itadori sighs, trying to fix his apron.

“Oh, I’m Fushiguro now? I guess I have to act all emotionally unavailable and pretend I’m uninterested in everything, huh?” you joke.

“Ah, don’t forget making me think I’m doing something wrong by giving me very vague responses,” he says matter of factly. “You act like you don’t even watch my channel!” Itadori says like you’ve told him his chicken meatballs are awful and also spit on them. His hand clutches his chest in pretend pain.

“Excuse you, I am Chef Itadori’s number one fan!” you retort at him, pointer finger showing up in the viewfinder.

“Says who?”

“Says my damn username!”

Itadori gasps, his hands coming together and sparkles appearing in his eyes.

“Show me! Show me! Show me!”

“Okay okay! Jeez, give me a second to pull it up,” you tell him. It’s almost like trying to get an overly excited puppy to sit and stay.

“Wait! You gotta show the camera, too! As proof,” he orders, threatening you with his wooden spoon.

“Here, look. My profile name is exactly what I said.”

Itadori leans over the counter to get a better look. His eyes squint to try to see the small text. The smile on his face after seeing your username rivals the sun and the ring light set up next to him. He does a little dance and makes you show the camera the screen.

“It’s actually “Chef Itadori’s Number One Fan,” guys! Pog!” he shouts.

“I’m glad I’ve entertained you so much. Now, entertain me with your baking, Chef,” you command. “I’m gonna sit my buns in this chair and watch. I feel like I’m in Jun’s Kitchen. Let me sniff that flour, nya.”

“Okay, dry and wet go together to form the superior cake batter. A cake batter to dominate the baking industry. I am the cake boss, now,” he says to himself whilst mixing the ingredients in a bowl.

“Oh yes. Bakeries around Tokyo are trembling now that they feel the power of your batter. You’re too powerful.”

“Thank you for noticing my magnificent batter and my baking prowess. They’re both quite impressive, yes?” he asks, accidentally flinging batter on the floor when gesturing to you. “Oh.”

“Which one of us is cleaning that up before Demon gets to it?” you ask, fully knowing that it’s you who’s going to do so. Damn Fushiguro and his very adorable, yet abnormally large canine.

“Well, you’re the sous chef here. How can I, the executive chef, be responsible for such a menial mess when I’m in charge of this powerful batter, the one to dominate and destroy all cake batters.” Itadori seems to be in his own world as he finishes his statement.

“I knew it,” you deadpan, standing up to get a paper towel. Itadori dons a playful smirk, satisfied at the outcome of his actions.

The layers of cake are carefully set into the small oven. Curse Japan’s lack of full size ovens. Itadori and you laze around on the couch, waiting for the timer to ring.

“So what do we do now?” you ask, sitting with your legs on the back of the couch.

“I guess just wait. We never film the little break that’s in between the prep and the decorating.” He looks towards the ceiling with pursed lips. “Do you wanna go annoy Fushiguro to let us play with Demon?” He knows the answer before he asks. Your struggle of an attempt to swing your legs around the couch confirms it.

“Where’s the damn dog?”

“Okay, now let’s decorate!” Itadori yells while throwing his arms up.

You move the camera towards the different sprinkles and icing splayed on the counter. Somehow, Itadori convinced Fushiguro to join in the fun, on camera. How would the viewers react to the appearance of the illusive cameraman?

“Yo, you want the day off after this? I’m willing to edit,” you offer, panning the camera to the two of them shuffling about, trying to kick the other’s foot. Itadori’s head shoots up and he grins.

“Bet! I need a break after doing all the work today.”

A slap to the head knocks the smile off his face.

“And what am I?” Fushiguro asks flatly. His face holds no emotion.

“You’re the eye candy. Duh,” Itadori states like it’s the obvious, wrist flicking an offset spatula with sass to match.

“What do you think this is? A magic show?”

“Well-” another slap.

You hold back your laughs at their interactions and struggle to hold the camera still. If Kugisaki was here, it’d be even more chaotic. Itadori’s little frown tells all as he starts to ice the cake with a crumb coat of blue icing.

“I guess someone isn’t getting a piece of cake later. And it’s not my fault in the slightest,” Itadori says with lips pursed. His concentration on not ripping any cake out has his eyes squinting as if it’d help his hands.

“Like I’d want to eat it, you big baby.” Rolling his eyes at his friend’s childish antics, Fushiguro grabs an offset spatula to help smooth out the icing.

“God, I hate it when dad and dad fight,” you groan behind the camera. They both look at you, one with disappointment and the other, distress.

“Look what you’re doing! Tearing this family apart? How could you?” laments Itadori. With puppy dog eyes, he stares at Fushiguro and pouts.

“Look what you’re doing. Tearing this damn cake apart,” Fushiguro deadpans, pointing out the obvious hole that has been left by Itadori’s distracted hand.

“Ah! My cake!” You share a look with the spikey-haired man, both of you shaking your heads while Itadori tries to salvage what’s left of the spongey cake to patch the hole.

“Hey, if this cake goes sideways, we can always turn them into cakepops or whatever-balls with icing.” You slowly pan the camera to the hole to show how Itadori is trying his hardest to make it look like nothing happened.

“But that’s not what this video is for! I made a cake. How could I betray those who depend on this cake for their mental wellbeing?” He slams his hands on the countertop while exclaiming.

Barking comes from the living room, Demon clearly upset at being woken up by the chaotic pink guy on the verge of fake tears. Fushiguro looks at his roomie before starting to count.

“Oh no…” Itadori’s eyes go wide. He carefully sets the tool down and books it for the window, narrowly avoiding Fushiguro’s grasp.

“No! Not there! I just-” you yell to the flash of pink, running towards him in false hopes of stopping him.

A crash of clay sounds out from the fire escape.

“Put my plants outside.”

Your defeated face looks toward the camera, exhaling deeply with hands on hips. Demon runs to the window before slipping on the hardwood because of lack of traction. Both you and Fushiguro wince as the dog smashes into the wall before scrambling to chase Itadori once more.

“Cut the camera! Deadass!” shouts the man in the window.

[sminiac]

hello i love reading ur bf!xikers 🫶

i wanted to ask if u can write bf!seeun?

if requests are closed just ignore this ask😅

💌 — Oh my gosh I’m so glad! Of course, I gotchu!!! <3 (Y’all don’t understand how geeked I get receiving reqs, like I’m literally rolling around on the ground every time a new one comes in like a dog in grass)

Bf!Seeun who loves pretending to be a stranger that’s attempting to— and failing miserably at flirting with you just to see how you’d handle the situation. He’ll get these random and sudden bursts of inspiration for a new ‘scene’ that he’s hurriedly jotting down before the thought dwindles into smoke and slips from his grasp, then whenever he sees you next he’s whipping out his notes and “Okay babe, how about this.” He’s so cute, gets so serious about it, but at times he’ll catch himself giggling at your answers if they’re syrupy sweet, “Ahhh cute!” You can hear his voice in your noggin, can’t you? and now you can’t seem to get his hands off of you.

Ex: At some point this becomes a running joke in the dorm, the boys even jump in to help you deconstruct the question at hand and map out what the most effective yet petty method there is to satisfy your silly boyfriend, they’d even critique you on your answers 😭 “He’d want you to be more blunt.” “Maybe throw in a good grimace, yeah! Like that!” “Mm, be a little more mean, that guy doesn’t seem nice.” and you’re like: “Who doesn’t seem nice??? This is still Seeun talking????”

Bf!Seeun who is so a: “But Y/n said” type of boyfriend, and it’s never anything you’ve explicitly told him to do or to not do, it’s simply suggestions to help keep his health in check, or what skincare products to avoid, nevertheless he’s still— “Sorry, Y/n told me I need to go to sleep earlier tonight.” Whenever he’s asked to hangout with a few of his members, and “Y/n said that you shouldn’t mix those two serums together or it’ll irritate your skin.” Basically unsolicited advice, but you always know what’s good for him, wouldn’t it be unfair to keep your helpful tips all to himself? When him and his members are out shopping he’s always, “Y/n said those weren’t the best quality, I wouldn’t waste my money.” And it’s always so casual, just rolls right off his tongue without any forethought, the boys would get a good giggle out of it but almost always take his word for it because Seeun’s Y/n just knows best.

Bf!Seeun who I feel like loves having matching clothes/accessories! Like whenever he’s looking to buy a lil something for himself he’s always looking to buy a lil something for you too, and it’s always the exact same pieces. Does it every time he’s going abroad so that you’ll ’remember’ you have a very sweet boyfriend, as if you’d ever forget?? he’d be so annoying it’s so cute🤭

Ex: Seeun is a proud owner of those custom “I ❤️ my girlfriend” shirts, and he isn’t afraid to wear it in public!! he’s always making sure to pack it whenever he’s catching a flight just in case these girls try something. I feel like he’d also love those cute bff necklaces/bracelets, like the ones they sell at Claire’s yk? Would unironically wear it, showing it off any chance he gets.

Bf!Seeun who would repeatedly be found cuddled up to you in his bed during the mornings before the two of you were officially together by a handful of his members, and for the longest time he swore that the two of you weren’t a thing, stupidly the 9 all believed it to be true, not having the capacity to doubt him for a second, because they’re busy people, that was until they filmed the video in their dorm where everyone was being exceptionally annoying in attempts to wake all of the members up, and naturally he let his guard down when they decided to wake you next, and being startled out of your sleep by their loud noises and flashing lights surely couldn’t be enjoyable. Sweet boy, he didn’t have the heart to let you continue being scared, especially if you’re sensitive to loud sounds, forgetting that there was cameras set up and recording he quickly went to you, notably dramatic as he pulled your head gently into his chest, pecking small kisses into your hair, he had turned to look over his shoulder to scold the boys into silence, except it wasn’t his complaints that made them comply, it was that Seeun just kissed you? on the head? Seeun was holding you, comforting you, in his bed?

Ex: They realized soon after, because sure Seeun can be affectionate, but not quite like that. When they all got over the initial shock that Seeun does in fact have a partner the members were all quick to apologize, acknowledging that you were still new to being around them and they should’ve left you out of their chaos, they were all incredibly relieved to know that you weren’t terrified but merely jumped when they suddenly bursted back into the room and that Seeun was just being overly protective :,) Yujun will never let this go though, because of all people, he didn’t know?

Bf!Seeun who is always figuring out new ways to go about showing his love for you :(

Words of affirmation? With him you learn to find the sweetness in his simplicity, i think the feelings would be much too complicated and big to put exactly into words that he becomes overwhelmed it, sweet boy just adores you so much :( and it would take a while for you to realize, but once you become more familiar with eachother you’re always “awww🥹” when he’s just simply running the pads of his fingers softly under your chin, or he’s wrapping his arms around you, head moving to rest in the dip of your shoulder, nuzzling at you with this warm feeling spreading throughout his chest that he physically can’t stop himself from clinging to you.

Acts of service? Absolutely, the type to throw your towel in the dryer so it’ll be nice and warm when you come out of the shower/bath. This might also be completely random but bear with me, you know how some public restrooms have really unreliable locks? He’s so willing to be on door duty for you if you’re feeling a little wary, and he takes it very seriously, isn’t shy about telling people “My girlfriend’s in there, sorry!” Like he’s just so trustworthy 😭

Gift giving? Sometimes he goes out of his way to buy you the most atrocious, silly looking plushies and he thinks that he’s so hilarious for it, can’t stop giggling when he hands it to you. But he’s also always on the hunt for those cute Sanrio ones too, the type to not really know a lot about it but if he sees a familiar character he’s like “Y/n knows that one” and is so quick to buy it.

Quality time? When I think of Seeun the thought of him having the habit of following you everywhere pops up, like he’s so “where you going?” Every time you get up, so quick to follow you even if he doesn’t know where you’re headed, he’s so cute just silently trailing behind you, especially with his height I’m tearing up. Loves sitting in the bathroom with you while you shower, sometimes busied by whatever it is that’s on his phone, but I feel like he’d rather sit and talk to you, making you laugh, it’s hard to not get soap in your eyes when he’s distracting you by trying to be funny.

Physical touch? He loves hugging you from behind, such a cozy feeling, long arms draped loosely over your shoulders, chin resting on the crown of your head if the height difference calls for it. I feel like he’d have a habit of holding your finger, STOP because it’s such a small thing of him to do, like you walking in public with this tall, stoic looking guy cutely holding onto your finger with all 5 of his 😣 also head pats!! whenever you’re talking, cuddling, coming up to him for a hug he’s always gently patting at your head, soft subconscious smile on his face when you start talking :(

[blondrichclosetwitch]

Don’t forget me.

The beautiful ones, they hurt you every time.

Paint a perfect picture, bring to life the vision in one’s mind.

She is white and rare and full of all kinds of harm and stalks the perimeter all day long.

Everybody is always losing somebody.

And I’m just waiting now, for my time to come.

So good it’s scary with everything against you, sweetness.

When you see someone dyin, you see all your days flash in front of you. That’s how the light gets in.

But daddy, I miss them.

But I never wave bye-bye.

But I’ve got what it takes to drive you insane.

Don’t you stick together and one of you just fall apart. And once you take out all the garbage that’s in your brain?

forget about your future.

Mama don’t understand it.

One was named Laurie.

And I’m so glad that you were fired.

It’s a show all on its own.

But the darling is dead.

Such were the grounds for divorce, I know.

“ Ghost, ghost, I know you live within me, feel you as you fly.”

Worse than your lying, caught my dad crying.

I went into a restaurant looking for the cook.  I decided to have ___ _____ arrested and went looking for a cop. 

“Hi sherene—it is time for you to face the truth. do I need to say it?  you looked the other way. that’s wrong.”

It’s web was also unique in that it had many layers, like floors in a building.  one could almost call it an altar; it produced sounds of wailing, crying. Tiny wails, tiny cries. The baby would get scared, and search frantically for their mother.

“Mummy come back, the water’s all gone.”

I know they said the end is near.

You are not like the regulars. The masquerade revellers, drunk as they watch my edges glisten.

I’ll show you every version of yourself.

My mama said it’s good to be factual.

And my mama said “Baby don’t ride that crazy horse.”

And my mama said that love’s all that matters.

“Watch them smile, and die together.”

“Our romantic second chance is dead. “

In the future, there will be a terrible cost for all that we’ve left undone.

Quit your antics, put them at the foot of the bed, and set it on fire.

So you are seething with laughter. Was it really all just a joke?

Where the baptized drown, naked in the cold sun, breathing, life-like fire. 

Listen: the death bell.

Do you hear that?

 No one recites them these days for the shame. 

She might start an institute.  See how the universe works? It takes my hurt, and help me find more of myself. It’s a gift and a curse. 

The truth is people never really change.

Tried my best not to be disgraceful but you led me down a rabbit hole.

Doomed to fall…smashing their evil empire up against the wall.

Everybody’s wants can’t make it past the windowsill.  one of these days these days will end. 

“… and there you are, sitting, as usual, with your golden notebook, writing something about someone who used to be me. ”

Have I become one of your problems?

‘Cause I love this curse on our house, #2.

Every step you take, I’ll be watching you.

Every game you play.  every smile you fake. Every claim you stake. Tell me, will love be there?

“Fell into another Hole again. It feels like I’m sleepwalking.”

Well, she and her husband, they split up.

I guess it’s two years gone by now.

Glory days: they’ll pass you by in the wake of a young girl’s eye.

[razorblade180]

Dragonslayer week Day3: Double Date

Yang:Jaune Arc! Are you prepared for most sensational date of your entire life!?

Jaune:…Isn’t it just a club and bar?

Yang:Jr’s is an experience. Good food, drinks, nice vibe when you’re not fighting everyone, and goes on all night!

Jaune:What was you said?

Yang:It lasts all night.

Jaune:We both know that’s not what I was talking about.

Yang:*smiles* Stop worrying. I’ll have your back if anything goes wrong.

Jaune:Oh I know. I just think you might be overhyping this.

Yang:Your mom is overhyped.

Jaune:Wow! That’s what we’re doing. *pinches her face* Aren’t you the older child?

Yang:I’m also the fun one. Now come on! Play your cards right on the dance floor and lots of things could last all night.

Jaune:*red* I know you’re baiting me, but I accept the challenge.

Yang:That’s the spirit?

xxxx

By the time they arrive everything is in full swing. Loud music, flashing lights, and the smell of fun chaos.

Yang:Today you become a creature of the night!

Jaune:If you drink too much will you hit me if I try holding your hair back?

Yang:That’s a bridge we’ll cross if we get there. I know my limit! Just relax, feel the freedom and danger.

Jaune:Your mom.

Yang:Not that much freedom.

Jaune:Umm, not a joke.

He turns her around to show Yang that her mother is sitting at the bar in a red dress and whiskey in hand, laughing next to someone they can’t see.

Yang:Welp…this is the worst. Let’s leave.

Jaune:Hold on, I’m interested now. Who the heck was able to make your mom dress up? She looks great!

Yang:….

Jaune:Just like her beautiful daughter. The resemblance is striking.

Yang:Nice save, but I rather not see my mother live her life care free without-

People in front of them shuffled about. One of them moved just enough to reveal Tai to be the one having a drink with her.

Yang:Dad!? Oops- *covers mouth*

Tai:*looks their way*…..

Yang:….

Raven:? Tai? Something wrong? *looks* ….

Yang:….

Both women immediately try leaving in opposite directions but Tai and Jaune grabbed their respective dates and started walking towards each other despite the minor struggle.

Raven:Nooo!

Yang:This is not the quality time I imagined!

Jaune and Tai: But it’s gonna be hilarious!!!

Raven and Yang:For you!!!

And it was! Jaune and Tai started chatting immediately while mother and daughter were red with embarrassment.

Yang:….

Raven:…So, great minds think alike?

Yang:I wish I was dumb.

Raven:*slides drink* This will get you there.

Yang:!?

Raven:What? Your father isn’t watching. Your date stole him.

Yang:Yep, he does that. Men and women flock to him. It’s the dorky smile.

Raven:I think I know the one.

Tai:*laughing with Jaune*

Raven:*red* Glad to know apples do fall near cheers. You be good to him, or you’ll go through hell trying to get him back.

Yang:How’s that going? It looked well. Dad seemed happy.

Raven:Hope so. I’m in a dress! Heh, guess some sparks don’t fade though. I’m shocked he said yes to my date.

Yang:Be good to him this time. I want him home by nine; and no funny business! That’s my pride and joy you’re messing with.

Raven:Hehe, yes ma’am.

Yang:*smiles*

Tai:I think they’re getting along?

Jaune:Then our plan worked. A job well done. *raises glass*

Tai:A toast to old and new flames. Now then, let’s kick things up a notch. Think you can out dance me?

Jaune:Loser pays their tab. You’re either be a good dad and husband or I’ll look like a great boyfriend and potential son-in-law.

Tai:You’re so smart! I’m in!!! *runs to dance floor*

Jaune: *follows happily*

Raven:Our type is odd.

Yang:Our type is perfect.

[moonctzeny]

love to hate me

request:  celebrity! jaehyun + enemies to lovers + “don’t you want to know how i feel?”

pairing: friends to enemies to lovers! jaehyun x female reader

genre: smut, angst, fluff... this fic has it all folks

word count:  7.514k

warnings: toxic behaviour, public sex, light restraining, jaehyun pulls a ‘white boy punching the wall’ at some point 

summary: “You and Jaehyun meet as SM trainees, developing a friendship until he debuts and you deicde to leave the company and pursue a solo career. When you reunite again in a music show and he acts like he barely knows you, you stubbornly begin a series of hate-brimmed sex rendez-vous. Your touch-and-go relationship continues on, until a song collaboration will force you both to deal with all your repressed feelings for each other”

a/n: this is the longest it has ever taken me to finish a fic.. I have a love-hate relationship with this (no pun intended XD). I hope whoever requested this likes it!

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

Of-fucking-course you had to bump into him out of all people at the vending machine. All you wanted was a drink to refresh you before you got up on stage, and now you have to deal with Mr. Too Good For This World and his relentless teasing. His eyes, lit up by an amusement that was also evident in his smirk, stayed glued on your body, raking up and down at it for a second too long. Not that you didn’t like it.

“Stare much?”, you bark at him in hopes of snapping him out of his trance, and push through him to punch in the code of your favorite drink. But alas, he always had a comeback ready on the edge of his lips.

“You look ridiculous”, he states and you have to admit that your outfit, though fitting for the Halloween special of today’s music show, was way different than anything else he had ever seen you in. Reincarnated as Dorothy Gale for the night, your stylists had chosen a short, light blue checkered dress, with red stilettos that gave a sexy twist to the character’s ruby slippers. Hair neatly braided in two pigtails, decorated by ribbons and topped off by glittery pink makeup. The image of innocence. Jaehyun had to laugh.

“Says the man dressed up as Woody”

It was unfair, you admitted, how good he looked in that stupid outfit. His hair was gelled back, a few strands framing his handsome face strategically. The yellow shirt fitted him like a glove, its bright colour lighting him up as well. And those jeans, tight in all the right places, just melted over the muscles of his thighs. The ones that you’ve come undone on one too many times.

“So”, he lilts, giving you a once over before lowering both the volume and pitch of his voice, “want a ride?”

You scoff, sparing him an incredulous look, “on what horse, cowboy?”

He doesn’t reply, only points with his eyes to his crotch that is undeniably sporting a visible tent, and you gasp when you see the outline of his dick twitching under your stare.

“Jesus Christ, Jaehyun”, you mutter with a disgusted look on your face before picking up the almost forgotten beverage that the vending machine had barfed out for you. The boy mentioned, however, was unfazed.

“They don’t call me Woody for nothing”

Almost choking at the drink that was supposed to calm you down, you catch his eyes rolling at you through your third cough. Well, that ruins one of your favourite childhood movies. “Don’t pretend to be a prude. Now are we going to fuck before you get on stage of not?”

You can clearly remember the first time you met Jung Jaehyun alone. You always spotted him somewhere in the SM buildings, joking around with his future bandmates, barely ever without company. As a fellow vocal trainee, he introduced himself to you as Yoonoh, filling up the awkward silence while your vocal teacher prepared the music sheets for the both of you to rehearse.

You were thankful the two of you always got paired up together. Jaehyun was charming, easy to be around, funny. He was a model SM trainee with the otherworldly looks he possessed, almost impossible for anyone’s eyes not to follow him when he entered a room. Radiant porcelain skin, soft brown locks, and a dimpled smile that made your heart melt in seconds.

You can also clearly remember the first time you had the privilege of hearing him sing. Jaehyun had a beautiful baritone voice, one that contradicted his flower boy image but matched his manly personality perfectly. The four walls of the small practice room resonated with his sound, that was stable and smooth like honey. The lessons were challenging but Jaehyun made them bearable through spending time with him. Maybe it was your shared struggles, or how you were always tired and vulnerable when you saw him. Maybe it was those damned dimples, but your heart always beat faster when you were around him.

“Sometimes I get discouraged”, he confides in you in that same room, hours later, early into the morning now. The vocal lesson stretched on longer than expected, leaving you two sitting on the floor, sharing a cup of lemon-honey tea to soothe your vocal chords. You let your head rest to the leather couch behind you as you stare into his handsome features one by one. What time was it? Shouldn’t you be back at your dorms by now? It didn’t matter, this was one of those moments when time seems to stop and life seems unreal. When the only thing that you care about is the person standing next to you, and whatever it is they have to tell you.

 “I fear that I will never get to debut. There’s handsome guys all over the company. I just don’t know if my skills are enough.”  

You thought he was crazy for thinking that way, wanted to scream at him that he’s just perfect and more than enough for the company, or for anything in this world for that matter. But Jaehyun was reserved, the type to always mask his true feelings behind a smile and you were more than glad that he finally opened up to you, that he saw you as someone trustworthy. You didn’t want to dismiss his feelings, so you just pet his hair while you listened to his concerns.

 As you mindlessly gaze at the rainy weather outside, a couple of droplets following their own path down the froggy window remind you that time does run by. Even if every day seemed the same, following the same routine, going to the same classes over and over again.

Jaehyun had this sad look that contorted his pretty face and you hated it, reaching up to massage away the wrinkles between his eyebrows. You don’t know which godly creature made the hourglass of time freeze this moment, nor did you know why Jaehyun leaned forward to capture your lips into a kiss. Maybe it was his way of saying thank you for keeping your ears and heart open for him, for listening to him when he needed it most.

It felt so lovely while it lasted, two young people leaning on each other during an uncertainty that anchored them far away from their emotional shoreline. But life as a trainee isn’t a fairytale and falling in love can have serious ramifications. So you promise to each other that this will be a one time thing, and then you never speak of this night ever again.

Unsurprisingly enough, Jaehyun got to successfully debut, yet you didn’t have the same luck. The company had plans of focusing on their new boy group, thus postponing your debut for an uncertain amount of time. It was hard for you to decide to switch labels, to throw away the years of hope and dedication you had pinned on this company but the faith you placed on yourself was stronger.

It’s years later when you finally get to promote as a solo artist in a different company, and you are happy to say that the decision you made all those years ago was the right one. The exposure you got wasn’t the same as being in a Big 3 company, however leaving SM entertainment has its pros. Flexible schedule, less scrutiny, great creative freedom over your work. 

This wasn’t the first time you have come across your old trainee buddy. Jaehyun had multiple comebacks in a year, so it was only natural that his group’s and your promotions would sometimes overlap. You were only a rookie, and NCT turned out to become pretty popular, so of course the wins were always tied to their names.

The first time you walked past him in the hallways, dark makeup and professional styling making you both almost unrecognizable, you expected a wave, small talk, maybe some reminiscing of the old times. Instead, you got a cold stare or at best, an arrogant smirk coupled with a “Do better next time”. It was shocking to you how much Yoonoh, the boy with the shy smile and awkward social skills, would turn into such a stranger.

How you always ended up sneaking out with him to have a quickie in one of the ready rooms, was beyond you. He rushed you inside before checking both sides of the hallway, cautious to hide from any curious eyes. The coast was clear and Jaehyun doesn’t like to waste time, so he pins you against the door he just closed behind him, face dipped in your neck. You can feel his fingers dancing on the skin of your thighs, eager to explore what is hidden under your frilly skirt, and their delicacy in contrast to his feverish kisses sends a shiver down your spine.

One pretty whine from your lips, then two, three and you can feel Jaehyun smile deviously against your neck. The softness is too enticing for him to resist, so he nips at it skillfully, trying to get a reaction out of you. He recognizes that you have plenty of talent as a singer, yet the symphonies you sing out for him in those little sessions seem to be his favorite.

“Jaehyun, cut it out. I’m going on stage in like, 20 minutes”

“Turn me on then”

Wasn’t he the one that basically flashed you in the middle of the cafeteria for just existing? Isn’t it his hard on that digs against your lower stomach? The demand made you mad, and you wanted nothing more than to entice him with a nice blowjob, only to take a big, strong bite off that cock of his. But see, you had a full face of makeup on and your career is way more important than a fuckboy, so you’ll have to get creative.

Flipping him around so that he’s the one trapped between you and the door, you start to suck on his collarbones , then nibble at the tender flesh. He seems distracted enough by it so that you open the button of his jeans and fully remove his belt from their loops with no objections. Palming him over his boxers to keep him entranced, you manage to bring his wrists together, wrapping the leather around them, then lastly fastening them in place.

His eyes widen in shock when he realizes that he’s too late, wiggling his hands in a futile attempt to free himself. Your laugh is sadistic, making the hairs on his arms stand on edge and you gloat in the effect you have on him. 

Giving your palm a good lick, you form a ring with your fingers, wrapping them around the base of his member. He hisses and drops his head back, thudding loudly against the wall. His cock enlarges and reddens as you move your hand up and down, changing the pressure according to his reactions. Jaehyun isn’t one to express himself freely but there is not much he can do to stop the low moans leaving his lips. Not when you rub circles over his tip with the soft skin of your palm.

He looks so fucking good, all squirmy and desperate and trying to hold himself from saying ‘please’. You almost want to keep going, squeeze him more until he whines and begs to cum, and admire the white beads dripping from his slit and covering your hand. Almost.

You halt your movements with a last strong stroke, crossing your arms over your chest as you stare back at him. Jaehyun tentatively opens one eye to see why you have stopped, only to come across that bratty smile that he loves as much as he hates.

“You should have dressed up as a siren. Seducing people before they realize you are a man eating bitch”

“If you want someone to jerk you off you can go ask one of your little fangirls. I want to get fucked.”

“Let me go then. And you’ll wish you never did”

You scoff at his cockiness, nonchalantly freeing him from his constraints, and the way he immediately has a hold of your jaw reminds you of a predator eyeing its prey. His eyes have a crazy look in them, moving frantically over every part of your body like he can’t decide what to grab onto first. He decides on your hips, bending you over a table full of snacks and makeup tools and flyers of today’s schedule.

“You think it’s funny to tease me like that?”, he asks you with a peremptory voice that signifies you’d better shut up.

You hear shuffling behind you and assume it’s him slipping on a condom, so you make yourself more comfortable on the wooden surface. A hard slap on your ass jolts you alert.

“I asked you a fucking question”, Jaehyun presses brusquely and flips your skirt fully over your ass, pulling your panties down until they’re bunched up right over your knees.

“It’s fun”, you moan out, breathless both from the pleasure and the stinging feeling on your right cheek, “What are you gonna do about it?”

Was the room occupied by one of the artists that have already been on stage? Or will they barge in at any moment to find you bent over and pussy dripping for Jaehyun to finally dive inside you? He chuckled at the sight of you, eyes feasting off your naked body, your ass up just the way he likes it. Not so innocent anymore, huh?

He doesn’t reply to you, aligning himself against your slit and bottoming out in one go instead. Involuntarily, you let out a small screech, the sudden stretch catching you off guard.

“You better stay quiet, siren. Or maybe you would like it if people found us like this? Saw how good you take my cock whenever I ask”

You wanted to bite back at him, but the only sound you could make was a guttural moan. It was embarrassingly loud, and you fall forward to bite your fist and force yourself to shut up. It was effective, yet Jaehyun had other plans for you, pulling your pigtails towards him in a strong grip that has you against his chest in seconds.

“Nuh, uh, uh, siren”, he hums in your ear, his panting making his voice sound huskier and smokier than ever, “How about trying to stay quiet by using your willpower alone? That way it’s more- how did you call it? Fun.” 

He slows down his pace momentarily, as if he’s giving you time to answer him. But the moment you open your mouth to talk back at him, he thrusts particularly hard inside you, forcing a whimper out of your lips.

“Fuck you, Jaehyun”

“As you wish”

Jaehyun was conceited and cocky and a dick, but he was also a good fuck. He kept at it with what seemed like all the energy in the world, fucking you against that table until you came all over him, and your legs gave out. It ended how it always did, with him moaning how fucking sexy you look and how much he hates you, and you swallowing your pride as you swallow his cum. You’d tell each other to fuck off and never bother the other again, until you meet up at the next comeback, to do this shit all over again.

And that’s how things would stay if it wasn’t for that goddamn phone call from your manager.

“...so we thought what better way to promote your new song by recording a duet with NCT’s Jaehyun?”

No, no, no this can’t be happening. No way. Anyone but him.

“Are you sure this is the only way we can promote me? Can’t I just go to variety programs like every other idol out there?”

“y/n, duets by different group members are one of the most efficient methods of promoting there is! And with NCT’s latest song topping the charts this will be a great opportunity for you. Taemin and Sunmi did it. Suzy and Baekhyun, Chanyeol and Punch-“

“Alright, okay, I get it”

“Besides, since you used to be an SM trainee they specifically asked for you. The directors made some pretty big compliments on your work”

Isn’t it a little too late now? Not like they didn’t have the chance to debut you, right? That being said, there isn’t much to oppose to decline SM’s offer; your manager is right and you know it. Saying no to Lee Sooman and giving up a popularity push like that is basically career suicide. Nor could you let your manager know about your and Jaehyun’s little adventures, minutes before you have to go on stage.

“Just send me the schedule. I don’t have to record with him, right?”

“Oh no, they’ll record his part first and then they’ll send it to us. But there will be a music video of course”

Oh for fuck’s sake.

There was this little monster of worriedness that was screaming inside your head, refusing to shut up. This collaboration isn’t going to be easy, but you didn’t want to let Jaehyun’s pettiness get in the way of your career. Fumbling with your phone in your hands, you kept removing and reinserting its case compulsively, over and over again, until you mustered the courage to take matters into your own hands.You knew his number was buried somewhere in your contacts.

you [16:35]: hey it’s me, y/n

Jung Yoonoh [16:50]: y/n who??

you [16:55]: y/n y/l/n? the girl whose guts you were inside in last week? we have a song coming up 😒

Jung Yoonoh [16:57]: oh y/n right

Jung Yoonoh [16:58]: thought you’d have deleted my number

Well you sure have deleted mine, you murmur with your blood boiling, regretting reaching out to him in the first place. 

you [16:59]: i always hoard peoples contacts

you [17:00]: old habits die hard i guess

Jung Yoonoh [17:00]: like the habit of me being inside your guts?

You gasp out after reading his last message, hands awkwardly juggling your phone until you’ve forced yourself to calm down. After waiting for a while, until your face has reached its previous temperature, you feel focused again, and type out your original intentions for this conversation.

you [17:05]: this isn’t what i texted you about.

you [17:07]: we have this project coming up and while I know we aren’t exactly on the best terms, this comeback is very important for me

you [17:08]: and i don’t want to fuck it up

Jung Yoonoh [17:10]: kitty cat, relax. maybe this is a brand new word for you but i know what professionalism is

you [17:10]: don’t you ever and i mean ever call me that again

you [17:11]: glad to see we are on the same page

You didn’t expect a message back, nor did you get one. All you could do from now on, was pray that the promotions would go smoothly and Jaehyun wouldn’t do anything stupid that would jeopardize your collaboration.

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

And the day you dreaded finally came. The first day of filming for the music video. 

You had already finished recording the song, a bittersweet balad about two lovers who lost their way, only for their paths to cross again. When you listened to the demo for the first time, it only took three notes from Jaehyun’s pre-recorded verse to spread goosebumps on your skin. His voice was deeper and even more developed than you remember. Long forgotten memories, shoved deep inside your brain so as not to leave a bitter aftertaste in your mouth, came flooding up again. But things have changed since then.

The sky was crying rain and lightning, fitting to the storm inside your head. Normally you'd be excited to film a music video, bubbling with energy and unable to contain a smile. Today, all you could do was let your teeth abuse the cuticles of your left thumb, until little drops of blood ruined the fresh manicure you got for the shoot. 

Following your manager inside the studio, you take a quick glance at all the props the creative directors have prepared. They were very intricate, filled with all different types of flowers everywhere. Some of the fake rooms looked like classrooms, two others were decorated like teenage bedrooms. It was a lot more than you have anticipated.

“The song will be part of a drama OST, that’s why the budget is higher than usual”, your manager tells you as if he was reading your mind. 

He leads you to the changing room, where you try on different outfits your stylist has chosen for you, while simultaneously being briefed on the concept of the music video. It’s kinda cheesy and cute, with you and Jaehyun posing as high-school students falling in love. Certain scenes of the drama, whose plot matches the music video’s, will intercept in between.

You’re seated on the makeup chair, sunk in the uneasiness caused by your co-star. Jaehyun had arrived a few minutes after you, his bare face more handsome than you’ve ever looked in your most glamorous state and you can’t help but stare at him. He is all polite smiles and bows to the staff, and even gives you a formal greeting. 

You’re not sure why you just can’t bring yourself to stop your legs from shaking as the makeup artist patiently tries to apply a rosy blush on your cheekbones. It’s like you’re scared that everyone will see right through the both of you, somehow enter your brain and find out that you’re replaying your last encounter with Jaehyun in the music show’s waiting room in your head. As you try to read through his expression, to see if he’s nearly as nervous as you are, you defeatedly can’t decode what’s going on inside his head. Not like you ever could.

You glance at both you and Jaehyun through the mirror, admiring the youthful makeup. Blushy cheeks and innocent eyes of two teenagers in love, masking the raw lust between two nemesi. It couldn’t stray any further from the truth.

A staff member leads both you and Jaehyun (who is refusing to spare even one look your way) back to the main set. The director is passionately explaining what he wants to see from you in your first scene, but you can barely focus with Jaehyun’s eyes burning holes through your school girl outfit. You block him out and walk inside the ‘classroom’, spotting the cameras and sitting on your designated seat, while you wait for your signal to start.

Of course, you had acted before. Yes, you had expected for the director to ask you for some more intimate moments with your co-star. But when Jaehyun passed you a “love note” from the desk in front of you, looking all blushy and shy and with his dimples showing, you felt that the role of crushing schoolgirl became a little too easy for you to act out. 

And maybe, just maybe he was feeling the same way too. He looked pretty flustered when he saw you dancing across class, shifting restlessly in his seat when you bent forward to tie your shoelaces. Whether you did it on purpose or not, was a question your ego didn’t allow you to answer truthfully.

Most of the individual shots would be handled at a different shoot, so all you had to do was get over this one day with him. That’s what you repeated yourself over and over again. And you did pretty well, smiling charmingly at the camera, with the director praising you for your “innocent look”. You didn’t miss the scoff slipping from Jaehyun’s lips but you were good at ignoring it, focusing on getting through the different scenes in one-shot. 

You were currently leaning your body against the wall, playing with your hair while Jaehyun glances down at you, like a boy that is ready to confess to his first love. 

“y/n, I need you to give me something more shy, more bashful”, the director yells eagerly, but you can barely hear him, too focused on regulating your breathing. The look your co-star is giving you right now might seem loving and pure to the staff, but you know all too well the motives hidden behind his facade. It’s the calm before the storm, the silence he purposefully keeps to make you squirm, right before he whispers the most sinful propositions in your ears. 

Reading him like an open book, you stand still as he leans closer, just enough so that no one besides you get to hear his words.

“Come on y/n, can’t you act bashful? Or is it impossible for you to get embarrassed after getting fucked against the window of a TV station’s building?”

Clearing your throat, you’re suddenly hyper aware of every single sound and movement in the room. Suffocating, even in the light clothes you were wearing, and desperately trying to mute out his words that bring you back to the day he was repenting.

“When you were pressed up against that glass, moaning my name, all exposed for anyone that simply looked up to see, you weren’t too shy, were you?”

You raise your palm to wipe a bead of sweat that has collected on your temple, and breathe deeply through your nose, as if a good pump of oxygen would cool off the sudden heat between your legs. 

“Shut up Jaehyun”, you simply hiss through your front teeth, but he isn’t done yet.

“You know I can’t hold myself when I see you in skirts. So pretty. And you love to tease me in them too, I’ve noticed. Flashing me again and again until you get to suckle on my dick”

You were sure his voice was barely louder than a whisper, but the thought of anyone accidentally prying into your conversation had your whole body raising in temperature. The heat didn’t take long to reach your cheeks and you couldn’t remember the last time your legs felt like jelly, as they do now.

“Perfect y/n, that’s exactly what I’m looking for!”

You blinked back at Jaehyun a couple times, your mind trying to process that the director is cheering you on instead of scolding you to focus. The trembling hands, the fast-paced heartbeat, your big doe eyes. Though involuntarily, you had nailed the scene.

“You’re welcome”, Jaehyun mouths at you just as the staff announces a break. He scurries off to his dressing room without a word, as if he hadn’t just spewed his dirtiest of thoughts on set. It was almost as if he was daring you to follow him, but it’s not like he had left you a choice. You were fuming.

“Jaehyun”, you called out to him strictly but he didn’t acknowledge you, only walked further inside the small room with his name written neatly on the door. He was removing some of the heavier jewellery, rubbing the red lines they had left on his neck and wrist, momentarily catching your eyes on the mirror's reflection. They were misty, unreadable, and with how unpredictable you knew he could be, you decided to close the door behind you.

“Closing the door?”, he muses and in just a few long strides he has managed to trap you between his body and the wooden surface. It is reminiscent of your last meeting at the music show, and the memory of you tying him up doesn’t help with the organizing of your thoughts. “What are you planning on doing to me in here?”

You point one finger against his chest, not enough to create any real distance between you, but it comforts you nonetheless.

“What the fuck was that out there? What happened to professionalism?”

“Relax, kitty cat. I was just helping you act better”. His eyes stayed glued on your hips, once again making you all wound up and jumpy under his stare, “And it worked. You should be thanking me”

“I. Told. You.”, you started, tapping your finger on his sternum to emphasize each word, “Never call me that again. Today’s already hard as it is, why do you have to make it harder?”

He takes one more step towards you, his chest now touching yours and your hand that separated you lands involuntarily on his right peck. As if his presence wasn’t overwhelming enough, you feel a hardness pressing against your thigh, and for a moment you worry he can feel how wet you really are under your skirt. His voice is a low, a deep rumble.

“I don’t know. Why do you have to make everything so hard?”

“You are unbelievable”, you scowl at him and free yourself from his trap. You turn to the big mirror to avoid looking at him anymore, and you come to the embarrassing realization of how fucked out you look right now. You had to get out of there as soon as possible, before you do anything stupid and lose any trace of self control left in you. But not before you gave Jaehyun an earful.

“What I meant was that I am out there, being paid to be all lovey-dovey with you. This is not something easy for me you know. It’s basically prostitution.”

You catch Jaehyun’s eyes in his reflection, and for a fleeting moment they turn a colour that you hadn’t seen them in for a long time. Hurt? Disappointment? Whatever it was, it was gone in a second, replaced by that smile that made him both irresistibly smackable and fuckable at the same time.

“Did it cross your tiny brain that maybe someone could hear you? Staff leaks information all the time! If they found out we were fucking…”

“Were? Past tense?”

“Are. Will be. Whatever.” You sigh, defeated, hiding your eyes with your palms as you face him once again. “Like I said, this is important to me. So no more dirty talk on set. Okay?”

Jaehyun avoided your glance, from embarrassment or uninterest maybe. “Okay”

You continue to sit there silently, but your head is so occupied with a million thoughts that you don’t notice. How you will get through the rest of the shooting, whether your manager is looking for you or not, the coldness of the glass Jaehyun had pressed you against that day. The only thing that snapped you out of it, was him suddenly taking off his shirt.

“What are you doing?”, you ask panicking, but you can’t dismiss the pool of excitement in your belly.

“We have a wardrobe change after the break, remember? And since you refuse to leave my changing room..”

You clear your throat, trying your hardest to rip your eyes away from his abdomen, that you’ve so keenly marked with love bites before. His naked skin must have monopolized your attention way more than you realized, as you can’t remember when he slithered his way closer to you, towering over your height.

“Stare much?”, he almost growls, arousal dripping from his voice.

Every fiber of your being wanted to lurch forward, glide your fingers through his hair and start nibbling at those pretty lips of his. The sexual tension, amplified by the argument you just had, was filling the room like a thick liquid would fill a cup. One more drop, one more second of his staring and it would overflow. It felt so real, that you could feel that drop landing on your forehead. Then another one on your cheek, and that’s when you realized that what you felt was real.

“What the-?”, Jaehyun mumbles as he stares up at the ceiling, a big wet spot staining it and allowing the water drops to slowly wet his styled locks. As you start to put two and two together, someone knocks loudly on the door, making you both jump one feet away from the other.

“Get undressed”, a high-pitched male voice that you recognize as Jaehyun’s manager calls through the door, “the rain is ruining the set. It’s a wrap for today”

———————————————————————

A soft touch on your lower back, an even softer breath making your ears tingle. A tentative kiss on your neck that’s full of purpose and makes you shiver.

And then another touch, this time more south on your body. Fingertips grazing over your sensitive clit. Easily moving through your wetness and finally dipping inside of you. That baritone voice.

“This pussy is mine, isn’t it, kitty cat?”

You look up to meet the face of the familiar voice, only to meet Jaehyun’s baby brown eyes. The pleasure was enough to make you ignore the despised nickname, flowing intensely through your body. You let out a desperate moan, gripping his arms to keep your balance. His fingers are now dragging through your walls and you clench around them instinctively, confused but enamored by his touch. You are falling apart.

“Jaehyun? What are you doing?”

“I want to make love to you”

“Love? But you hate me”

He plants another kiss on the slope of your neck, his hands picking up in pace and making you feel like you’re floating on air.

“Love. Hate. Is there really any difference when I’m here, ready to please you? Willing to make you feel things you have never felt before?”

“You already do”, you admit, only seconds away from your orgasm. The bliss is so close you can almost taste it, but for now you choose to taste his lips. They are so soft and warm that you realize you haven’t kissed Jaehyun since that night at the practice room. How you miss him. Not the group visual, not the idol, not even Jaehyun. Yoonoh.

“Yoonoh”, you moan out against his lips as the pleasure overtakes you, a low buzz humming in your ears, “mmm yes, Yoonoh”

“Who the fuck is Yoonoh?”

You finally wake up, your manager shaking you awake being the first thing you see. The sun’s morning rays are peeking through your blinds, warming your skin in lines. Your phone’s ignored alarm clock is still buzzing on top of your nightstand.

“No one. I’m awake, thanks”

Fuck. That makes it what? The fourth night in a row you dreamt about him?

“Get, up. Quickly. We’re late”

You groaned at the banging of your head that was caused by you getting up so fast. It was early into the morning, as you had to get ready for the mv’s second shooting day. The heavy rainfall wouldn’t allow for the filming to continue for another week, yet aided your growing anxiety of having to encounter Yoon- Jaehyun again. 

You felt a little stupid, like a kid that goes to middle school for the first time, anxious but full of butterflies in your stomach in the thought of seeing him again. You weren’t sure who the anger, that came with the inability to control the fresh feelings bubbling from your dream, should be directed at. Your manager for booking you this job? Jaehyun for making it his goal to have you dripping wet on set? You, for letting it all affect you so much?

You decide on the former, giving your poor manager the cold shower for forcing you to deal with the problems you’ve caused yourself. Checking your phone, you realise that you are, indeed, late, and wonder how quick you’re going to have to make your morning shower.

“Is Jaehyun and his team there already?”, you ask your manager as nonchalantly as you could, feigning mildly interested in his answer.

“Oh, they didn’t tell you? The other team asked for the shootings to continue separately”. You felt your stomach drop all the way down to your condo’s basement. And the icing on the cake: “Jung Jaehyun’s request”

Maybe your manager wasn’t as clueless to your electricity, or maybe it was your sudden impulse to pluck every loose thread of the pyjama top you were wearing that made him sense the discomfort following what he’d just said. He plops next to you on your bed, boards creaking in the silent room and you feel his rough hands patting you on the back.

“I’m sure he had an overlap in schedules and needed a break, nothing to do with you”

But you knew better, and you knew your palms wouldn’t stop itching unless you picked up your fucking phone and sent him a message. 

you [06:30]: i heard you can’t make it to set today. everything ok?

You wish you never did. The radio silence from his number was way worse than any insult, any form of teasing he could give you on set. You even tried calling him, desperate for an answer, a closure even. Maybe he was busy. Maybe the shooting took longer than expected. Maybe he wasn’t avoiding you; one of his managers uploaded his latest story on his instagram, not him. Maybe at the end of the week he would get back to you.

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

Going to his dorm unannounced was not a good idea. Waiting for someone to open the door for you, you hope his members will recognise you from your trainee days, or those rare nights Jaehyun sneaked you in when you were both lonely and in need of a… well, whatever you two were.

You’re starting to worry that whoever saw you from the peephole thought you were a sasaeng and called security, when Mark opens the door. His eyes are wide open behind his glasses, clearly not expecting you and immediately yelling for his ‘Jaehyun hyung’.

Soon, the called male arrives at the apartment’s entrance, annoyed for being interrupted from whatever it was he was doing. “What is it, me and Jungwoo are watching the season fina-“

As if Mark suddenly turned invisible, Jaehyun walks right past him, grabbing you by the wrist and dragging you to his room without another word.

Jungwoo, engrossed with the aforementioned show’s season finale on his computer screen, tries to cover up his naked torso in panic when he notices you. 

“Get out.”, Jaehyun orders him, and the younger man knows that his tone is not one to be argued with. It triggers the cold sweat that makes your clothes stick closer to your skin and forces your heartbeat to quicken, pumping blood all over your body. The door closes, leaving you both alone with only the sound of Jungwoo’s laptop still playing in the background. A lighthearted scene that is too oxymoronic against the tension that is just palpable at this point. What the hell were you thinking coming here?

“What the hell were you thinking coming here?”, Jaehyun speaks your thoughts out loud, and you wince at how empty your head is with excuses.

“Are you ignoring me?”

“What?”, he asks dumbly, hoping you would avoid asking again.

“Was it that hard to text me back? Am I such a waste of your time?”

Jaehyun seems angry at your confrontation, his bad mood escalating with every word that is leaving your mouth. He still avoids to look at you, toying with some plushies and decorations next to his bedpost. You realize you never had time to really notice them, barely recognizing them. You always entered the room blindly, pressed up against Jaehyun’s body and with his lips all over your neck, then left as soon as the sex was over. His apathy was infuriating.

One by one, you start to remove all of your outerwear, dropping your clothes on the floor until you’re left in only your bra and jeans. Jaehyun stares at you incredulously, then at the pile of clothes on the floor, unable to make out the reasoning behind your impromptu stripping.

“What are you doing?”

“Getting naked. Seems to be the only time you can actually pay attention to me.”

You reach for the buttons of your jeans, only able to unzip it halfway before Jaehyun has you pinned against the wall behind you, his fingers cool and pressing lightly against your neck.

“I-I fucking hate you!”, he cries, punching the surface to release some of the steam, and lets go of the hold on your neck almost completely. How tempted he is, to just fuck your right against that wall, pour out his anger by pouring out his cum inside you, then ignore each other like you always do.

It’s the easy thing to do, keeping the toxic circle going. All barking and fucking and no real problem gets resolved in the end. He wouldn’t even call a cab for you, preferring to be hated for something he wasn’t than to be rejected for showing the real him. You would still have no idea about his feelings towards you, going around saying how awful he was while asking for a round two. But Jaehyun was tired.

“Can’t you tell that I am trying to distance myself from you?”, he sighs and it’s the first time you’ve ever heard him sound so emotionally exhausted.

“Why do you dislike me so much? We used to be friends and then one day you-“

“Friends? Just friends?”, he interrupts you with a chuckle and a sarcastic puff through his nose, and you shake your head.

“If you also think that what we had was more special than a common friendship then why act like you don’t know me?”

“You were the one who wanted to ‘forget about anything happening and never telling a soul about it’, remember?”

“I thought we came to a mutual agreement! I was just trying to save our careers and it worked Jaehyun, you got to debut and I-“

“And you just threw away everything we had like it was the easiest thing to do! Do you ever want to know how I feel, y/n? First you want nothing to do with me, left the company without even saying goodbye. Then I try to forget about you, become an asshole to keep you out of my life and suddenly you want to jump my bones. One day you just play blind to everything, asking for professionalism and now I’m the one ignoring you? What the fuck do you want? A fuck buddy? A professional? A friend?”

“I want you, Yoonoh. Fuck, I just want you”

You’re not sure which one of you initiates the kiss. His lips are as plump and kissed as hard as you recalled, a couple of tears staining your cheeks that you didn’t realize you were holding back. It felt so right, the way his head pushed and pulled away from yours, always inviting you back to him. One hand was situated over the dimples of your waist, the other lost between your hair, untangling it gently. You decided to lay yours over his heart, feeling its tempo and calming yourself down.

You kiss for what seems like an eternity, so drunk in bliss that you can’t remember how you made it through life without Jaehyun’s taste all over your tongue. When he pulls away from your lips, you almost whine, but his fingertips dabbing at the soft skin of your cheeks feel just as comforting.

“I don’t want us to be like this anymore”, you whisper to him and he nods encouragingly, holding you even closer. “I’m sorry for not reaching out to you all these years ago, I just thought ‘What would a brand new idol want to do with a failed trainee like me’-“

Jaehyun brings your fingers to his lips, kissing all your knuckles one by one and you think you’re gonna burst at the seams. “You weren’t a failure, you were the best thing to happen to me back then”. His voice is so sincere that you don’t dare question the veracity of what he’s saying and you let him continue. “When I saw you again I was so bitter, I decided to turn off my feelings. I think I get too comfortable in that role. I put it on for me, my members, my fans even”, he stops then, laughing sadly, “it’s how I finally got you”

It was your turn to open up his eyes to the truth, holding his face between your hands and admiring its beauty. 

“That’s not true. I kept staying because I knew what was hidden behind all that armor. I guess, the sex was the only way to get closer to you”

“Not because I’m good?”, he jokes, wiggling his eyebrows and you can feel his dimples forming under your fingers.

“Eh, you’re pretty good too”

He starts pecking your neck, his smile obvious in his kisses and you squeal when he lifts you to his bed. Bouncing on the hard mattress, you let him lay his body weight over yours as he gives you a million traces of his love. 

“So, I’m guessing this means we start over?”, he asks reluctantly as he emerges from your half naked body and you hold back from cooing at him.

“I thought you loved to hate me?”

“I think I hate it, but I love you”

[wincore]

runway (m) | jung yoonoh

pairing: model!jaehyun x fashion designer!reader

words: 18.7k

summary: there are some things that come with dedicating your life to fashion: a taste for finer fabrics, a splash of love for art, and an appreciation of the human body. none of these are supposed to include the hottest model you have ever laid eyes on, or the fact that you completely, utterly hate his guts. 

genre: enemies to lovers, angst, fluff, light smut, comedy-ish

warnings: sexual content, mentions of anxiety

a/n: woohooooooo she’s finally here!!!! i cant believe this!! everything aside, i do not have first hand experience working in the fashion industry so please do take this with a grain of salt. i’m also going to pass out. good night <3

A list of things you appreciate: colours, satin, comfort.

A list of things you do not appreciate: Jung Yoonoh. Jaehyun. Whatever.

The hum of the car engine has little effect on you; you travel like this almost every day. Tall buildings, scorching pavement, the blare of traffic—it’s Seoul, after all. You sigh, more of a short expression of annoyance, scrolling down with your thumb and back up again. Since when did he get permission to post pictures from pre-fittings? And one of your works, no less. 

His feed is so messy. You click your tongue. For a model, that is. 

You open the story again and consider messaging him. It’s your cherry red coat, or rather the collar of it, golden thread sewn in swirls of patterns, and a sheer floral shirt extending all the way up to cover Jaehyun’s neck. You frown. It’s meant for showcase, not teasers. Even if the picture extends just from the curve of his shoulder to his parted lips, you can’t stand the sight of it on him. It’s not bias, you try to tell yourself. This is business. You tap your fingertips rapidly against the back of your phone. This is obviously business. 

Seoul Fashion Week is the height of your anxiety, which means you have little regard for anything else decorated around you. With a new frenzy arising in every minute of your day—you don’t have time to think, a sense of madness in the way you keep busy. Your Elixir collection is more than what you had hoped for it to be, a twinge of satisfaction sitting at the pit of your stomach. It nicely puts together everything rich and extravagant, humanity’s first love—everything you despise really, so Jaehyun wasn’t a bad choice for a model. 

You backspace on your text. Is this rude? Should you care if you’re being rude? How unprofessional, you imagine his voice saying. It wouldn’t be the first unprofessional thing you’d done.

The final text reads ‘Glad you’re enjoying my designs, but they were not meant to be publicly displayed before the official show, as common sense predicts.’ 

No, of course you’re not trying to be snarky. It’s perfectly formal. All that time writing professional complaint letters to companies for ripping off your designs paid off, you suppose.

You exit the Uber, thanking the driver quickly before you rush into the building, checking the time on your watch. It’s sunny, and hotter than you anticipated. You can only hope it’s cooler tomorrow so the heat doesn’t suffocate your models.

The company building is another madness in its own. Joohyun greets you with a quick smile, a bunch of fabrics being handed to her before she can make any conversation with you, and the rest of the workers bow in greeting before getting back to their own individual windstorms. You step over a few boxes on the grounds, beelining to your workspace so you can settle down your bag.

You’re team leader, you tell yourself, a short breath tumbling out of your mouth. Even so, you don’t do very well under several pairs of eyes on you at once. Some part of you is still the timid fashion designer, packing your entire identity into a small sketchbook.

The sunlight is blaring out of control in the place—it’s meant to be spacious and sunlit, of course, but the heat makes you adjust your collar before you can move forward. The bustle of the style and design team along with the production team in the same place is akin to a nightmare, and you trace your steps quickly.

“Guys,” you begin, fidgeting with the leather strap of your watch as you continue, “Firstly, good job.”

There’s a bunch of short cheers and clapping to interrupt before you can continue. 

“As for tomorrow…stylists, I need you to touch up the collars in all the Western-style coats. The detailing needs to be kept clean and sharp. I want the audience to be able to see it.”

You pause, your tone still neutral. “And let’s not start again on the lacing. We had that discussion yesterday.” 

There’s some nods and sounds of affirmation. 

“Production team…I don’t think I can say much to you without Doyoung getting on my case.”

There’s collective laughter and you crack a smile. With a few more rapid words, you dismiss yourself, walking over to your colleagues to help them out. You’re team leader, the one with the final say in all the designs, but you can’t possibly imagine completing it without Joohyun or the others. 

“Good pep talk there, (name),” Joohyun says, walking over to you as her hands sharp and steady as they go through the clothes rack. 

“They think I’m an asshole,” you say, breathing out. You know your words are too direct. Drunk co-workers on a Friday night are not the best place to discover facts about yourself. Sometimes even you think you sound bossy. You check the key parts for each item, knowing you’ll be doing this once again before the show.

“We wouldn’t be going anywhere without direction,” Joohyun responds, laughing as if you’d said something silly. “We’re all glad you’re here, (name).”

Words like these are so easing for a mess like you, not that you’d admit it. Joohyun has always been a sort of mother figure to you after you entered this company, followed by Doyoung. A good few years senior to you, she started out as a model before she moved on to designing. 

It’s her last year working in this place. But of course, it’s a given when she’s starting her own label (mom clothes and children’s apparel, she’d called her clothing line, rolling her eyes) and one of the most well-known names in South Korean fashion not having her own label is sacrilege (according to your colleagues anyway). She’d said to contact her when you start your own family, and maybe she’ll send a congratulations package for both you and your baby. You’d laughed. Out of all the insults you could ever receive, that was perhaps the loveliest one.

Ridiculousness aside, you’ll miss the comfort of her presence. You were still in school when your designs led you to a showcase in New York Fashion Week, your sponsor more than generous. You stepped into it too soon, too eager. It was breath-taking and awful all at once—and the first time you saw a world outside of your own. It was overwhelming. There are few people in this new world as kind as Joohyun.

The sound of your notification snaps you out of your thoughts. You swear you kept it on vibrate, a little irked at having to search for your phone when your hands are full. The notification itself brings on a stronger wave of vexation.

_jeongjaehyun:

My manager told me it was good publicity

But I could take it down for you

The ‘for you’ adds an unnecessary effect, you think as you hold back a scowl. And what does ‘could’ mean? A miscommunication with the sales team isn’t even on the list of things you need to worry about. Honestly, you don’t have time to fight him, quickly typing out a ‘whatever. it’s okay’ before looking back up.

You jump, the look on Joohyun’s face a little suspicious for what might come out of her mouth.

“It’s not a crime to text people.” She shrugs, shuffling through the rack one more time to take the clothes for transportation. 

You’re quick to jump to your defence. “I have nothing to do with him.”

Joohyun looks at you, amused. “He’s not a bad person, you know? How long are you going to keep hating him for one thing he did?”

“It’s not one thing,” you groan, averting your gaze to the clothes so as to help her. “I just- he’s so- so- oh come on. You know how I feel about him.”

“I’m just saying you don’t have any reason to. Everyone’s different from what they appear to be. Especially in this line of work.” Joohyun balances the clothes you give her across her forearms.

“So he’s fake. I hate that even more.” You sigh, pulling out the blue silk overcoat, the colour matching Joohyun’s work dress.

“You mean unreal? Models tend to be that way—don’t be so harsh on him, honey.”

You simply shake your head, words entering one ear and out the other. Joohyun presses her lips into a line but lets it go soon enough. She knows you’re capable enough to separate professional from personal and that should be enough. You’re not keeping a tab on something as warming as spite. 

You can’t believe you’d ever been within five feet of him without turning your nose. You can’t believe you’d smiled at his jokes once, even if it was just that one night. He was the godsent Prince Charming, just perhaps not yours. Paris surely had a distressing effect on you that year. 

You don’t make the same mistake twice.

You walk back to your desk to take a seat and scavenge through your belongings, most of the people already outside. Fashion Week, which once upon a time was a faraway dream, now is part of life—exciting and exhausting. It’s almost always over in a flash, your love for it whisked in peaks of bittersweet. (“You work your ass off for six months and it’s, what, fifteen minutes long?” your mother had asked after you’d brought her to one of the shows.)

This line of work is a nightmare without mental preparation. You have a degree, you have experience and yet it doesn’t feel enough, confidence easier to drain in a person than blood. And you’re not very fond of pale cheeks.

It came to asking yourself if you really have it in you for a few months—a test of sorts everyone puts themselves through at least once in their lives. At that time, your favourite professor, a bald man nearing his retirement years with the wrinkliest face you’d ever seen, had asked you just one question. 

Do you love it? 

Of course you fucking do. 

You couldn’t say that to his face, sure, but you know he saw it in you—either the effort you put out every day of the semester or the way your hands moved across fabric like a machine, your designs made with the persistence of nature. Your final year project landed you an internship at one of the largest clothing brands in Seoul and your internship landed you a job at the same. Your job, well, lead you to Jaehyun, among many other things. 

You scowl at the image of his face that appears when you close your eyes, massaging your forehead—it’s hard to not see it everywhere already, from Cosmopolitan to Vogue.

While you were biting your nails in New York, Jaehyun had flown out to Paris with Saint Laurent, one of the younger male models to show his face for the first time. He’d taken the whole place by storm, you had heard from a friend. To say half the world had fallen in love—either with his dimples or his confident walk—would be an understatement. A privilege, to be gold-plated in a mercenary world.

You’d briefly made eye contact at the airport the first time you saw him, a year later, when you were arriving in Incheon and he was leaving it. It was London, that time. For him, Milan. As much as you couldn’t believe living a fashion student’s dream, Jaehyun’s face was truly, unironically much more unrealistic. Your classmates’ gabs and gossip in sewing class had suddenly made sense. You taught yourself to not be swayed by faces, even if they look like they’re stitched together by Aphrodite and Apollo with their bare hands—friendly advice from seniors at the orientation night ‘party’. 

You’d met him formally in Paris, after you’d graduated from fashion school. He was certainly the most beautiful face in the room—and you weren’t the only one aware of it. The entire night you’d been starting conversations you couldn’t relate to, till he came along with his charming dimples and a faux connect. You were naive, and a little tipsy. The attraction was obvious, and it had been you by the bathroom pulling him in for a drunk kiss till he’d snapped out of the daze—as if it were some joke you’d been playing. He’d apologized before leaving, like it wasn’t a big deal, with silken lips parted in a gesture of remorse and a short, firm bow. It didn’t settle very well alongside the merlot in your gut.

You. You’re a big deal. 

You were alone in a room full of painted faces and he sat atop the throne they worshipped. Why had you expected any more from him—in the understanding nods or the few kind words that escaped his lips? You felt stupid. He made you feel like smiling for the first time that night and you hated him for it—you’re sure he doesn’t care either way. Or maybe he does, with the wonderfully irked responses he graces you with. 

Jaehyun made something out of himself in these nine years, just as you have. Runway supermodel to the face of South Korean men in fashion to an entrepreneur, he might as well have a documentary on him—and he would if he didn’t evade paparazzi and reporters like his life depended on it. Enigmatic, the articles wrote. You scoffed. Conceited, more like. After the initial years, he decided to settle in New York, frequently flying to Seoul and other fashion capitals for business and contractual events. Some of those occasionally include your shows.

Having Jaehyun gets more attention but it’s not like you’re a new, doe-eyed kid. Your works have been featured for popstars and foreign celebrities, and you’ve been invited to several interviews with big magazines. You’ve gone global (albeit under the brand’s name) and you’ve been to places you’d only seen pictures of in the very same magazines you looked up to. They can describe your work as unique all they want—and you don’t mean to sound fucking pretentious—but your job is nothing more than an expression of the self. It’s a part of you; you first started sewing patches onto things simply because your closet lacked colour. And eventually, you found yourself searching for more—colours, fabrics, dreams. You’re devoted to your job because you love it, you want to do it. You’re allowed to be a little arrogant about it. 

If only trying desperately to be arrogant did something about your insecurities.

You hope your works redefine themes, your need to stand out contrasting with your fear of it. Eye-catching is always your forte; this time it’s fairy tales and royalty in a mix of East meets West. 

D-1. Same feeling, new season.

The press is here, you take note. Photographers. Models. Students. Vloggers. It’s a burst of colours down there.

You hate running late, rushing down the stairs to the plaza through the crowds of people. Some recognize you, as they make their way to you but you end up walking a little faster to minimize your presence.  You curse yourself for wearing the jacket. It goes nicely with the rest of your outfit and March isn’t supposed to be this hot. You wipe the sweat from your hairline, hoping the makeup is waterproof like it said.

You consider stopping at the café for a fix of coffee but stop when you notice Joohyun holding a bunch of cups by the venue. She doesn’t look too happy about the sun, or the burdening errand of fetching coffee. You adjust her little red beret at her request, smiling at her annoyance but trying your best to keep it hidden. You don’t want to get cussed out by Joohyun. 

“Someone tell Doyoung to get his coffee,” Joohyun complains. “I’ve been waiting for half an hour.”

“I’m sure that’s an exaggeration,” you say, sipping your coffee. The taste fills your senses with a pleasant dose of energy and you hum out a satisfied note. “Why are there so many students out here? Influencers? Did we sponsor this many kids?” 

Joohyun shakes her head.  “Jaehyun just got here.”

You suppress an eye-roll. “Wonder why he still comes back for Seoul when he’s booked full for New York.”

“It’s his hometown.” Joohyun shrugs. “I’d come back too. Even if I’m paid more out there.”

You finish your coffee and duck into the fitting room, much to Joohyun’s displeasure as she’s left alone again. Doyoung’s in for an earful, you chuckle thinking about it.

It would look like a hell of a mess to anyone not accustomed to this. Everyone is a flurry by themselves alone but if you mix them with the eclectic crowd you find at a Seoul Fashion Week backstage, it’s more of a disaster. A colorful one, at the very least. 

New York was worse. You were too young, in a world that was too big. It’s a miracle you even received an opportunity from so big a name. But, you suppose, it hardly matters now.

You no longer live in a world where Seoul is far from Paris. Fashion and art are things unmarked by place of origin.

It’s easy to spot Jaehyun in a corner, two people adjusting his coat for better fitting at the waist. His makeup’s done, you notice as you get closer. Good, you think. If any makeup were to get on the fabric, you’d go feral (although you do have full confidence in the makeup artists here and their choice of product).

“Jaehyun,” you greet. Your co-workers give each other a look before excusing themselves. You raise an eyebrow, too late to stop them. They didn’t finish the looping of the belt properly, you take notice. You wrinkle your nose. Sloppy. 

“(name).” He responds with an equal lack of amusement. 

You pull the belt at his waist, Jaehyun stiffening at the contact.

“What are you doing?” he asks, looking down at you with a raised eyebrow.

“My job? What do you think, genius?”

Jaehyun presses his lips together and lets you complete the altercations. The chiffon shirt allows you to see the hazed definition of his core, a rather flustering thing to be exposed to for anyone with eyes. When you look up in a moment’s mistake, you’re reminded of why his face is everywhere. Flawless, almost. You hate it. Averting your eyes, you fix the collar so the pattern stands out more. You can feel his eyes over your outstretched hand all the way to your face, subtle as ever. If Jaehyun thinks you’re bothered by it, he’s an idiot for believing so. 

You take a step back to analyse the coat. The golden threads are flawlessly detailed, spiraling in patterns of different flowers and vines around the collar, gradually getting larger as they twine at the base of the neck. They meet the polished rhinestone buttons a little lower. You almost smile. You’d sewn each thread and each button in yourself the first time. It hardly looks the same now.

Bright red is an eyesore if you look at it longer than five minutes, you realize. The frown that’s been itching to show up finally does. Suddenly, you’re glad Jaehyun is modelling this piece. You shake your head and look back at his face, from his deep-set brown eyes to his full, tinted lips before pausing. The little Swarovski pearls line strands of his hair in a starry display, perfect in every angle of it. It’s easy to appreciate the human beauty when you see his face, and even if you claim your vehement dislike for him, you’re not a liar nor an idiot. 

How infuriating it is, to let things be. Bad blood can only dry to an ugly, unusable brown.

You narrow your eyes at the thinning layer of glitter on his peach-blushed cheeks. He doesn’t exactly need much more of it but the unevenness bothers you.

“Your makeup needs retouching,” you say, frowning. “Did you touch your face? I thought you were a more...professional model than this, Jaehyun.”

“You walked in,” he replies, casually. “I was distracted.”

You feel your cheeks colour. “That’s- that’s not a reason.”

He smiles politely. “I suppose I’ll leave you then. You must have other work to do.”

You hold back a biting remark. His playfulness doesn’t sit well with you; he’s polite just enough to annoy you and straightforward just enough to make you want to throw something at him. He could’ve directly told you to fuck off maybe—but oh no, it’s Jung Yoonoh, seamless and radiant, with only the sweetest collection of words on his tongue. You think of the first time you met, something warm in the corner of your heart. You’d mistaken it, of course. 

He didn’t care for you, or any of the people trailing after him and his silver flute, or the rest of the shallow carcass of a world so undeniably obsessed with him. It didn’t hit you till he’d left you hanging, mangled memories of something close to hurt. You’re glad you didn’t kiss him. You wouldn’t be able to get over the embarrassment, the blow to your pride had it escalated any further.

And of course, the one thing he did to make you absolutely certain of his distaste—was simply choose another designer’s work over yours when given a choice. It seems silly, unprofessional even, but the lack of response to your Fall/Winter ready-to-wear collection had been embarrassingly low, someone else’s designs sold out at an equally awful rate. You—your insecurities—wanted to blame your own failings—maybe it was the lining of the coats, or the colours maybe— the fabric? Perhaps, you hadn’t focused on comfort all too well. But it was clear, a word from Jung Yoonoh could change the minds of a fashion-forward youth as easily as his face and physique scored contracts with the biggest brands and labels. And it was clear he didn’t like you very much.

You walk over to the other models, eyes scanning down to the T. You glance over one of Joohyun’s designs, a modern men’s hanbok. The blood red paired with yellow is certainly easing on the eyes, though the shades vary from top to bottom, like a sunset. The dark grey chunky shoes fitted under dark tights complete the entire future oriental look you suppose she was going for. She’s only showcasing two of her designs this year and they’re just before the centrepiece. You shake your head, clutching the fabric of your jacket sleeve. You hate seeing other designs before a showcase, even if they’re a friend’s. 

You turn your head to make eye contact with Jaehyun across the room. It takes a few seconds but you snap your head in another direction to break the spell. 

How strange. You haven’t had nearly enough coffee to feel jittery under his gaze.

You’re forced to take a breather away from this jungle of liveliness. 

The amount of people outside the venue gives you yet another headache. Excited college students and fashion vloggers stand outside expectantly, and you give a short bow and polite ‘hello’ to anyone who approaches. You desperately want to be left alone. Even if it’s for a few seconds.

You walk quickly, your feet soundless against the floor. Your mask performs considerably (and surprisingly) well in hiding you. You consider visiting the Design Market to enjoy a seat alone and charge your phone before it’s show time.

Open spaces. You need open spaces. Suddenly, the DDP seems to be suffocating you despite its tremendous size.

“Hey!” You’re greeted with a sudden force to your right side, an arm wrapping around you. You look up to see Johnny, a wide grin on his face and you let yourself mirror it, shaking your head.

“Big day,” he says. “Want me to take some pictures? I’ve got some time between shows—lovely outfit, as usual.”

It’s strange how Johnny’s the photographer and not the model—you’ve heard he receives a lot of requests to get on the other side of the camera though he always refuses. He doesn’t visit Seoul as often, but he has much to do in uplifting the mood with his strangely effective sense of humour. The coffee-coloured shirt he’s wearing goes well with the plaid grey coat, reminiscent of Fendi’s Spring collection, and sometimes you wonder whether a job as a fashion photographer ever had much to do with his style. Johnny has always been effortlessly impressive. 

You politely decline, your mind still focused on the smooth running of things. Nothing’s ever on time when it comes to Fashion Weeks—yes, it’s called fashionably late but it just makes you annoyed. You consider ducking back to your venue, adding some final final touches and any more last-minute altercations. Years have passed and you’re still not used to it, fingers itching to do something about everything. You’re grateful the company gives you your creative space but it only makes you wonder just how far the limits are. 

Johnny accompanies you to the charging station till he’s distracted by some of the children in the latest Fendi kidswear and you make a mental note to never bring your kids to Fashion Week, if you ever choose to have them.

You breathe in and out for a few moments, feeling lightheaded before the sense of reality touches on you. People walk in and out of the stores lining the pathways, a soft buzz of conversation in the air as your eyes follow their movement. You wonder if you’ll have your own stores opened in plazas like this—here, in Seoul, and on brightly lit streets of the world outside. After all, colourful dreams are the hardest to get rid of. You sit quietly till you get a text from Doyoung asking you to get your ass over there quickly with several exclamation marks. You smile to yourself. Joohyun might have had a sour effect on him.

You arrive back at the venue, trying to tear your eyes away from anything that might want to make you fix it. You avoid Jaehyun’s eyes even more so, like you’ll jinx something right before it’s showtime. 

The buzzing reaches a peak before everything is drowned out.

The show finally starts. And it’s over. Twenty-two minutes, this time.

That’s the way it goes. You hold your breath till you’re sure it’s safe to let go, blind to everything that goes on in between. Sometimes it’s underwhelming, sometimes you can’t give a fuck when you love doing this anyway.

You breathe a sigh of joy when everyone gathers backstage, Johnny making all the models pose together for one giant group photo. It’s like a ritual for him, always finding time for a backstage picture with the models goofing off.

Jaehyun looks at you instead of the camera, a nervous shiver running through you. His gaze is not something of inconsequence, eyes piercing into you with words hanging in the air that you don’t care enough about. You think he sends you a smile, cockier than you’d like. Despite your efforts, you have to look away.

Now, what should your dear Fall collection look like? You exit by yourself, relief humming through your veins when you think of getting back to your apartment, papers to be sketched on in your hands, soft fabric to be sewn on your table. Maybe they’ll display your works in the front rows of the stores, maybe you’ll even have displays outside of Seoul. You’re not a student anymore and your job has taken you enough places. 

Even so, Paris and Milan sneak into your dreams often. You used to dream of them so much that it was hard to consider them reality—finding yourself in those streets, in between all those beautiful picture-book monuments.

You prefer Seoul, you decide after conscious thinking. You don’t have to worry about the world outside. 

Afterparties are not your thing. 

You somehow still find yourself in them, hoping to catch a drunk video of Doyoung for blackmail or make eye contact with an attractive stranger only to stop at exchanging numbers because you never find the time. 

It’s a social event. You’re supposed to be doing social things. It’s exhausting.

The last person you expect to bump into is Jaehyun, drinks in hand as he looks down at you with a greeting of surprise on his tongue. He’s wearing a simple dark Oxford button-down, two buttons at his chest undone, and tucked neatly into his pants. His hair looks untouched since afternoon, parted in messy waves, minus the pearls. The music changes to something with slower beats as you stare at each other for a few moments.

“What are you doing here?” You raise an eyebrow. There are other afterparties he could be attending. Big ones.

Jaehyun tilts his head, cracking his neck before smiling. “Charming, as always. I’m here because I want to be here, obviously. So does everyone, I’m sure.” 

“Fucking narcissist,” you mutter to yourself. You think Jaehyun might have heard you because you get a dirty look thrown your way, masked with the signature apathy across his relaxed lips.

“That’s a little rich from you,” he mumbles.

The muscle by his mouth twitches but he doesn’t say anything more. This is probably the most emotion he shows, you think. Wouldn’t his lovestruck magazines relish seeing him riled up like this? They’d still find a way to fall in love with him.

You could have, too.

No way. You tell yourself that’s ridiculous. 

You’re aware he’s booked for at least three other shows this week. It’s a miracle he agreed to yours, considering your mutual distaste for each other. You suppose it had more to do with his agency than himself but it wasn’t like you were the keener one. Jung Yoonoh is the face professionals look for and your company loves the publicity, although you keep telling yourself your designs would still shine without him. 

Jaehyun excuses himself before you can get on with any unpleasant conversation you might have. At least you have something in common—that is, trying to avoid each other as much as possible.

A few minutes (and uncomfortably snaking through swarms of bodies) later, you find Doyoung, unfortunately sober and intending to remain so, people congratulating him with claps on the back for securing the position of PR Head. You think it was supposed to be a secret, but someone higher in the ladder must have spilled early. Joohyun never attends these, and honestly, good for her. 

Afterparties are not your thing.

You shouldn’t have taken those shots but you’re on the dance floor now anyway—what more could happen? It’s easier when you’re not paranoid about all the eyes on you, dancing against a stranger with a lion tattooed against his neck. Maybe you’ll go home with him, maybe you’ll leave at the first signs of attraction. Romance isn’t quite on your to-do list, but an occasional intoxication with the skin works just fine. You could live like this for a few moments.

Your back runs into someone else’s rather forcefully and you turn around, apology bubbled up to your tongue already, mixing with the alcohol.

“Oh look.” You roll your eyes. “It’s the prince of high fashion. What can I get you today, sire?”

Jaehyun drives his tongue over his lips, quite definitely over your antics. Soft breaths leave his mouth in a rhythm irrelevant to this box of laughter and blaring music called a party. You love how he never knows how to respond—what new words will he choose to keep false dignity? If you think about it, he’s the embodiment of why you always thought everything was so out of your reach—big names, exclusive parties, not for kids like you. They were never for fashion students too honest to know their own worth.

“Jealousy isn’t a good colour on you,” he says, just loud enough for you to hear.

You scoff, a pang of annoyance sizzling through you. “Jealous? Of who? You?”

You sneer at the last part, Jaehyun’s frown deepening. Some days you just like to think you’ve won. A few moments pass between you two, the sound of pop music filling in the gaps. 

Jaehyun presses closer to you, your chests almost touching as your breath hitches in your throat.

“Do you know what makes success?” he says, head dipping lower to look you in the eye. The smell of alcohol disturbs you for a second before your heartbeat gets loud enough to drown it. You try to not focus on how his mouth is so near yours—and perhaps if you were drunk enough, you might commit a mistake against the very core of your being, something you’d been dangerously close to once.

You stay quiet, the pulsing in your ears too loud in the shallow distance between the two of you. You swear it’s always the two of you pressed up like this once you’re drunk enough, the dislike growing stronger and stronger with every breath exchanged. You’ve intertwined each other into a strange garden of contempt, easy to forget when you're facing him. Jung Yoonoh has the prettiest face in the industry, and the only one you can’t bear seeing. 

“It’s confidence,” he answers, as slow and steady as ever. “And there’s a thin line between confidence and arrogance I intend to keep. I’m not so sure about you.”

The rest of the night passes without conflict and you retire early, Jaehyun’s breath still hot against your face. Only when you collapse on your bed do you get an urge to shout, yell, anything that doesn’t make you call him up and scream at him. You have your precious dignity too, something he seems to look past. The effect he had on your breathing, the crawling over your skin—God, you hate him. You’re too stubborn to not continue doing it.

“What’s this?” you ask, your eyes darting in between the director of design and Lee Taeyong.

To say you were surprised to see him would be an understatement. You note the simple dark rimmed glasses in contrast with his light dyed hair, the mellow blue of his cashmere sweater sporting his own label’s logo—Lee Taeyong is a household name. You feel yourself shrink the tiniest bit.

This industry’s all about names, you think miserably. You meet people and you remember the ones who can get you ahead. It’s tiring.

Taeyong started his career even earlier than you did, and before he had changed his major to fashion. He’s a little older than you, though he doesn’t look it and he had begun with working exclusively on jackets. Several rejected designs later, he had popped up as one of the designers to look out for in Seoul Fashion Week. Now he has his own global label slowly turning brand, several worldwide stores and everything dreamers in the same place as you look up to. You think you’re fine here, you tell yourself despite that.

The director smiles at you, her hand gesturing rapidly at you to come forward.

“You’re going to be so happy,” she says, signalling Taeyong to continue.

“Uh, hi,” he greets.

A little awkward for a world-class designer, you think.

“I’m Lee Taeyong. You might have heard of me—”

“I know who you are,” you interrupt, ignoring the disapproving look of the director.

“Oh, that’s good!” He smiles. “I’ve seen your work—I’ve been following your work for a few years now…and, well, I’d love for you to work under my label—in a collaboration of sorts. You’ll have full creative freedom, of course! I’m just there more or less for supervision, really…”

You think you feel your heart stop for a few moments, Taeyong’s sudden stream of information fading out. The pinnacle of your career, you believe, had been Paris Fashion Week four years ago and you’d been dreaming of it ever since. This is a business contract, you’re sure, and you don’t know if you have a real choice but maybe you could take that step forward you’ve always wanted to.

“Isn’t that great, (name)?” The director interjects. “You get to work under the Lee Taeyong label. And…surprise! You’ll have your work presented at New York Fashion Week in September. They’ll hit the stores a week later.”

You freeze. 

“New York?” you manage to squeak.

“Yep!” Her voice a notch away from annoying. She’s not the first person you’ve met who sounds so goddamn manufactured. “Pack your bags, darling. You’re flying next weekend.”

You must be looking like a deer caught in the headlights because Taeyong opens his mouth to say something, alarmed. You speak before he does.

“Okay,” you say, more to yourself than them. It should be a good thing. It’s supposed to be a good thing. Even so, you feel the anxiety in your ribcage threatening to overgrow into thorns. 

“I’ll- I’ll do it,” you clarify. Looking from your manager’s bright yet stern face to the hopeful smile on Taeyong, you don’t think you have much of a choice.

New York, huh. How long has it been? You shudder at the memories, your focus a little off for the rest of the day.

Joohyun visits you a day before you leave. She places the box of chocolates on the coffee table, that Doyoung apparently sent for you. 

“You know, I’m really happy you’re getting this chance,” Joohyun says, crouching down beside where you’re splayed, trying to count the travel essentials and everything else on your messy checklist.

“He gets promoted and now he can’t even come visit me, huh?” you say, shifting to grab the box and tear off the clear wrap.

Joohyun laughs. “He’s certainly enjoying his duties. I can’t wait to boss him around again after I leave.”

Your shoulders hunch, a sigh leaving your lips. “Great. You’re leaving. Doyoung’s too busy to annoy. And now I’m a part of this godforsaken project for almost six months.”

Joohyun softens a bit, running her hand through your hair. “I heard you accepted it. All by yourself. You’ll do just fine, don’t worry.”

You feel yourself turn pink, a feeling of warmth you’ve been missing for a week. It’s cozy in your apartment, always the right temperature with a tinge of happy memories. You wish you could find comfort in people as easily as others do. Everything happened so fast, you can barely remember the conversation you had with Lee Taeyong. A few moments pass, Joohyun and you picking out chocolates before you can rummage through your suitcase again.

“I hate New York, Joohyun. Just what else can you throw into the mix to make me hate it even more?”

She freezes for a fraction of a moment, pressing her lips together before clearing her throat. “Oh. Uh. I probably shouldn’t tell you what I was about to tell you then.”

You turn your head to her, eyes narrowing. “What?”

She shrugs, eyes not meeting yours. “You know. New York. Fashion capital of the world. Lots of things to love.”

“What are you not telling me, Joohyun?”

She sighs, defeated. “A certain someone might be on the same flight as you. I was about to give you his number in case you needed help.”

You pause to think, curling your lips. “It’s Jaehyun, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

You groan, dropping your head back and yelping when it hits the coffee table. Joohyun moves to rub your head and ease the pain as you let out a stream of complaints.

“You really thought I’d call him for help?” you yell. “Him? Of all people?”

“I think you’d rather have a known face there. Besides, he’s a good kid,” she reasons, looking you in the eye. “And stop yelling.”

You quieten a bit at her glare, gulping. She adds the number to your contacts, saving it with a professional ‘Jung Yoonoh’ before she helps you clean up, advising you on how to manage your finances abroad. You know she’s trying to ease you, but how could she—after dropping this awful news on you like it shouldn’t matter at all? She doesn’t even know what happened—almost happened in Paris, or the fact that your honeyed feelings had turned bitter so easily. She’s worked with him before, you know this, when he was a much younger model and she trusts him more than you ever could. 

But maybe, just maybe she can’t see what you see—after all, she’s also part of the elite, crème de la crème of this industry, more so in this country. It’s frightening, and so vague what goes on up there, at the top of the chain; and whatever you have—it might never be enough. 

You’re you. Sometimes, that isn’t enough.

You jump at the water rushing from the shower, too cold for skin and scramble to twist the knob the other way. This time, the water’s too hot and you yelp, shutting it off altogether.

You press your hand against the shower glass, breathing heavy. You’re trying—you’ve been desperately trying ever since you landed a week ago. Change is not something you can take lightly. You miss the dim lights of your apartment in Seoul that Joohyun always warned would get you some brand new prescription glasses. You miss walking down the streets to your favourite convenience store at three in the morning to get honey butter chips. You miss picking fights with Doyoung over which detail to scrutinise during your project discussions. This project seems to have torn apart several things that belonged to you.

You can’t seem to get your head into it either—even spacing out during the meeting you had with Lee Taeyong among several other things. You can’t remember a single design detail he’d specified or what the theme was even supposed to be—a bunch of bright foggy lights replacing whatever fuzz was growing in your head. A twenty-something-year-old shouldn’t be letting homesickness affect them like this. 

You finish the rest of your shower with a heavy heart and a clouded head. 

Taeyong booking a luxury suite for you was a bit…much. Not that you’re complaining, but it gives more fuel to the profound sense of emptiness you keep drawing. There’s no intimacy to this place, no love. It’s a little hard to create things without love, and comfort.

Still, you grit your teeth and get dressed into something more comfortable for the night. If not today, then tomorrow. Something will have to give, even if it costs you—whatever the hell your parents keep telling you when you’re going through problems. What if you don’t want to be cost things? Compromise isn’t as delicate as it sounds. You try to comfort yourself, rocking yourself on the much too large couch, hugging a pillow close and trying to think of things that don’t immediately make you want to throw up.

The memories of your first visit are a little less than pleasant. You think you cried after the entire ordeal because you thought you did a bad job of talking, socializing, the most ordinary things. There are some people who are good at wearing masks—good at making copper look like gold, good at shining under dim lights, and good at using words that don’t have much meaning to their existence other than being pretty. 

You were not one of them. 

The intense need for everything to be perfect was still there, even when you couldn’t possibly have achieved it. You wanted to make things and show them to the world—what was so wrong with that? Why did being there make you feel like you could never even touch your dreams? You were so out of place, feeling completely out of touch with yourself. There were people from the top there, established and famous. It felt out of your grasp. You felt fake.

The city lights twinkle with life but there’s no sound, the windows shut tight. The ambience of the room is kept to a caramel minimum—the best you can do to honour your sweet little home back in Seoul.

The hatred for everything pretentious was born with your first step into this place, into the game that the big boys play. It showed in your designs, your choice of fabric, your distaste for certain people. You wanted reality—you wanted a taste of life in your everyday clothes. You wanted that flavour you feel on your tongue in a room full of strangers or the one on a quiet night by yourself at your apartment rooftop. You didn’t want dignified fur coat ensembles, you wanted the naive chaos you feel every day and you wanted to make it look good. It’s driving you insane just how much you feel like you’re losing now.

You take out your phone after what seems a few minutes of contemplation. 

Jung Yoonoh. Your finger hovers over the call button. What would he say if his night is interrupted by your voice?

You’d met at the airport after landing, though you were only two seats away in the plane. You’d made no error in acknowledging his presence, browsing through the inflight magazine half-heartedly. Truth be told, sometimes you couldn’t really seem to get over him. Sometimes the thought of him made you so pissed, you had no idea what to think of it. 

“Welcome to New York,” he had said shortly after you’d exited, a giant crowd of people greeting out-goers, holding up placards with names of people, in numbers you’re unaccustomed to. Or, used to be accustomed to.

You hadn’t talked since—and really, you weren’t expecting to.

You press your home button, any lingering thoughts of him vanishing at the force with which you tell yourself it’s not worth it. How is Jung Yoonoh better than anyone else you know here? He might have been living in New York for quite a few years now, and he’s probably the only one you’d feel comfortable enough to swear at—that doesn’t mean you’d actually ask for help. That doesn’t mean he’d actually help. Joohyun must have had her hopes far too high to have convinced you for even a moment.

The couch feels colder all of a sudden, and you turn down the air conditioner. This place will never adjust to you, and your stubborn little self won’t either.

You think of Jaehyun from the afterparty, loose shirt and knowing eyes, and you wonder if he feels just the same frustrated agony, if not more. You think of his parted lips and breathing words close enough to be provocative, discomfort growing at the base of your stomach. Who does he think he is? He might have the airs and dignity of someone way up in the hierarchy of society but you know what people can be like. You know envy, you know malice, and you know lies. He has to fit in there somewhere—and perhaps you would have hated him less if he did.

Even if you’d scoffed at the idea of jealousy, that might very well be the closest to what you feel, what you keep hidden in the darkest corners of your locked chest. When you first met at that star-spangled dinner, you’d felt what it’s like to watch a fireworks show or a big musical opening; but the fireworks are being blocked by skyscrapers and you’re only the helping staff at the theatre, watching from a balcony at the very back. Jaehyun was impressive with barely any words. It annoyed you so much and somehow, the only solution you arrived at was the tremendous need to understand him, pick him apart and see what made him.

No. That’s wrong. You were annoyed because you still wanted to kiss him after he’d pushed you away, his dislike steaming clear. It strikes you as gently as lightning that the only reason someone would have to hate Jaehyun is being attracted so violently to him. God, you hate making a fool out of yourself.

You pass the night in quiet contemplation, promising yourself a better tomorrow. After all, no one else is going to do it. 

You walk with your chin up as if you don’t feel the weight of the world on your shoulders. You picked out your black Harrington jacket to look at least a little more professional, but you might have miscalculated the size and the material in the equation because you look completely and utterly ridiculous in it. No one would look at you and think you even work in fashion, much less be competent in that line. 

(To be fair, you wear the same beige sweater and black corduroy pants to work and if your coworkers choose to judge you, you wouldn’t blame them.) 

It’s only been a month and somehow, it translates to forever to you. You think you’re adjusting better now, and you pat yourself on the back for it. It’s not raining today at the mercy of the skies, a tidal wave of sunlight splashing through the buildings every time you take a turn. The city doesn’t scare you all that much anymore. It’s a good day, for once.  

You lean your head against the car window, eyes trailing up and down the reflective blue of each skyscraper. You can barely see any clouds, and the sky’s endlessly the same, comforting blue. Just like back home, you think for a moment. Your eyes move back to the sidewalk, people passing by—mothers with their babies in strollers, kids clutching the strap of their school bags as they run, men and women in all levels of professional clothing. No one stops in this city. Except the fucking traffic apparently.

You sigh, glancing at your watch. Only moments ago, you were moving and yet again, you’ve stopped. The cycle keeps repeating and you’re trying to keep patience focusing on things around you that you can appreciate. 

Maybe you jinxed it when you said it was a good day.

You reach Taeyong’s studio just in time (not that you’d get yelled at or anything, he’s too nice of a guy). Your eyes fixate on the numbers that light up on the elevator one by one till it finally reaches the first floor.

You walk right into someone’s chest, an apology tumbling out of your lips as you bow out of habit. 

“(name)?”

You look up to find Jaehyun in the elevator of Taeyong’s building, a casual white shirt clinging to his frame that’s tucked into his jeans to look somewhat formal. A pink overshirt hangs at his forearm and from the windswept styling of hair and his perfected dark locks, you’ll assume he’s here for a shoot—even without it, he looks like something from a teen magazine, someone people would see and instantly daydream of. Best known for high fashion, Jung Yoonoh is still a spectacle in casualwear. 

“I can’t believe I have to see your face here too,” you mutter, getting into the elevator. You’ve had your share of moments with him.

“Good to see you too,” he says, bemused. 

You make a sound of acknowledgment, taking out your phone to turn the damn notifications off so you don’t feel it vibrate in your pocket every few minutes. You feel eyes on you for a moment and snap your head to the side.

Jaehyun has his eyes focused on the door, quiet breathing fresh against his lips and you hesitate before concluding you might have been mistaken in your perception. 

“You’re here for a shoot?” you ask, curious about his relationship with Taeyong. 

“What else can I be here for?” He says nonchalantly. 

“Sarcastic. Very nice.”  

“It’s a little weird, you trying to make conversation with me. You’re usually raving about me too much to actually talk to me.” He smiles, the dimples provoking and eyes the familiar beguiling brown. 

“I’m not trying to make conversation,” you hiss, crossing your arms. “I’m sorry, I forgot you’re only a person in front of cameras.”

Jaehyun takes a sharp breath before turning to you, a not-so-happy look on his face despite the calmness over his features. You’ve seen it enough times.

“How long are you going to keep up the pretentious this and pretentious that before you face it, really?” He looks at you with tight lips, poisonous implications in his question. “Why you love to get up in my case all the time?”

The words take time to settle in. You shake your head when you realize, a sardonic laugh leaving your lips. Of course he’d think that.

“Oh my god,” you scoff. “You’re so full of yourself. You think I’m interested in you? Don’t let what happened years ago get to your head.”

“That’s not what I—”

“Oh, what did you mean then? Pray tell.”

“First of all, stop cutting me off,” he says, taking a step towards you. A certain feeling of uneasiness runs through you when you detect annoyance in his quiet statement.

“Secondly,” he says, taking a another step forward just as your back hits the wall of the elevator, “Stop treating me like I’m the bane of your existence. I have nothing to do with you.”

He’s right, of course, but the words sting where they hit. Asshole, you think. He has no business telling you what to do and what not to do. But in this moment, you can’t fish for the correct words—you don’t have the strength to when you’re so close to each other like this, the scent of his cologne syrupy and sickening. His tall stature is intimidating, with his straight shoulders and proud jawline.

The elevator dings at the seventh floor, Jaehyun stepping away from you without a glance or care, striding out just as smoothly as on a runway.

You take a moment to breathe, unsaid words burning holes into your tongue. You wish you could’ve said something better, anything that didn’t make you feel so pathetic. Maybe you should’ve told him to stick his words up his ass, sounding vulgar being the least of your worries. You wait patiently to reach the last floor, each ding souring your mood little by little. 

You are so glad you didn’t call him that night. To think he’d ever help you knowing it’s mutual, the whole hating each other’s guts. You just can’t believe the audacity of him—to accuse you of, what, romantic feelings? In an industry where you can’t tell apart gold from copper? Where all the people warming up to you are fair weather friends and competitors? He must have let all that attention get to his head. Runway faces aren’t as easy to fall in love with as he thinks.

“(name)! Come quick!”

Taeyong’s voice urges as soon as you enter and you settle your bag down, rushing to him. His smile drops when he sees your seething figure place your bag on the desk with a loud thud. You turn to him, without a hint of sweetened formality and ask him the day’s schedule.

Taeyong gulps before responding, undoubtedly afraid of your lips, a twitch away from a scowl, but he explains nicely nonetheless.

“Can you do a rerun of these designs for me?” he says, arranging the papers on the desk. That’s how he says these need improvement. No wonder the interns love him.

Taeyong’s in his usual attire, still too chic for you but strangely comfortable to look at. You nod, immediately scrutinising them, your (almost pointless) years of training trying to give you hints as to where you went wrong. You’re not really expecting to find big flaws or anything—just details you can enhance. You’ve learned enough about Taeyong in a month and it’s that his sense of style encompasses comfort, even in the most abstract of concepts. You respect him for that. It doesn’t change the fact that you think it’s a little overdone maybe.

Taeyong laughs, breaking you out of your daze. You raise an eyebrow.

“Is- Is something wrong?” You look at him, perplexed.

“It’s just that- It’s just you remind me a lot of the fashion students.” He smiles at you.

Your shoulders droop. Amateur. New. Unprofessional.

“Oh.”

Taeyong rephrases himself quickly, waving his hands about. “I don’t mean it as a bad thing! It just means you still…love doing it.”

It sticks with you longer than you’d expect, as you work throughout the day. You think Taeyong is too nice to criticize you properly but he eventually gets the point across—stick to the theme, written in Taeyong’s dainty handwriting and pinned to the softboard. 

Secrets. 

What an atrocious concept. Firstly, it makes no sense apart from sounding like a fucking lingerie collection. Secondly, when you went over Taeyong’s designs with the layers and patches, you supposed he wanted to focus on the inside of things because everything he’d drawn was inside out. Thirdly, when you heard him explain it, you were a little taken aback to hear it was going to be all about you, us. The designers, the models, the photographers, the magazine editors—there are millions and millions of people working to make sketches come to life, for a few items of clothing in someone’s closet. It feels nice to hear that from him. You promise you’re going to perfect it. 

And perfection is your dear old friend. 

It’s what you always strive for, but end up with something else that’s a little less beautiful. You take slow breaths, removing and adding details (after all, art is in the details). But perfection can easily grow tiresome. It makes you increasingly frustrated and you don’t think you have the heart to tell Taeyong everything in his studio stresses you out.

“So, you’re working with Jaehyun?” you ask, trying to look less antsy.

Taeyong blanks out for a moment before responding. “Yes. Why? Is he- Is he making you uncomfortable?”

Uncomfortable wouldn’t even begin to explain what he makes you feel. 

“No,” you deny. “Just curious.”

Taeyong smiles. “We usually work on summer shoots together. It’s like tradition.”

“That’s…nice,” you say, trying to reciprocate his smile.

“Oh, but we’re having terrible weather so the shoots keep going longer than planned. That’s why I’m having to compromise planning time with you. Sorry about that.”

You try to keep your posture despite the mild annoyance brewing at the back of your head. Great. Now you have to see Jaehyun’s unbelievably annoying face every time you walk in. Maybe if you plead enough, you’d get permission to leave early and not want to throw some insults at him. 

You decide to walk, despite Taeyong insisting his driver help you get home. He doesn’t act like it but he’s a busy man, with side projects and interviews coming up so often you lose count. It’s no wonder he had to, and you hate using this word, hire someone for the label’s next venture. You think articles like Lee Taeyong loses touch and hires designers instead of doing his job would make him upset but he seems to genuinely not let it bother him. It’s about ideas to him. His label, almost large enough to be a brand, is for ideas; what a pretty thing to base your business around. While you thought you were a big shot back in South Korea, you’re almost nothing more than Lee Taeyong’s co-designer—assistant here.

You feel drops of what you felt years ago trickling down your throat. Overshadowed. Powerless. Imposter. Something about New York makes you want to pull all your hair out. You wish you hadn’t been here in the first place, maybe then this would seem more of a fun trip than memories weighing you down. But then if you hadn’t been here, you might not have even started.

You hug yourself at the sudden downpour, clouds kind enough for it to be nothing more than showers but you’re soaked anyway. Kind, but still a little cruel. Running under the eaves of a store, you curse yourself for not bringing an umbrella the only day you needed it. You stand there for a while, just breathing.

Real life is never like movies, is it? Cameras lie. Pretty faces lie. Sometimes you end up stuck in New York rains without an umbrella or a friend to call or a lover to protect you. You end up getting an Uber, taking awfully long to arrive due to the traffic the rain had ensued and try your best to ignore the disgruntled driver mumbling about you wetting his seats.

You still don’t know how the goddamn shower works. 

You manage to complete without either scorching your skin off or freezing it to Greenland and back—a feat much more successful than whatever you had going on for today. You slip into the absurdly soft mattress, pillows and covers swallowing you into a state of sleep.

You start the day almost pouring coffee onto Jaehyun’s spotless white shirt. And you might have were it not for immense self-restraint, and the fact that Taeyong’s eyes were trained on the two of you.

“So…are you two…a thing or something?” he asks, eyebrows furrowed.

“No,” Jaehyun responds calmly while you sputter it out.

Taeyong apologizes, a laugh following. “You seem to have worked together before. Jaehyun, you never told me that.”

“I…I thought you knew,” he answers, leaning back against the tabletop.

“Ah, well,” Taeyong shrugs. “Thanks for helping me out with this, (name). Maybe- maybe we can draw some inspiration for the collection from outdoors.”

“Of course,” you say as you smile wide, trying hard not to break the coffee mug in your hand.

If you’re being honest, you had a gut feeling you’d be asked to help with Taeyong’s (apparently) infamous summer shoot. He walks into his studio every morning with hair in a disarray, talking to more people than he might enjoy and the entirety of New York weather against him. There’s only so much time a man can have and under pressure, he’s going to have to choose. It’s easy to feel sorry for someone like him.

This should be the stylist’s job. Jaehyun stands with his chin up as you adjust the fitting, smoothing out creases and making sure the cerulean shirt is pinned right, satin feeling cool and nice under your fingers. Sleeveless is back in trend this summer, and so are low-cuts.

“Careful there,” he says when you hand brushes a little lower, just below the full-grain leather belt.

You hope your face isn’t steaming from the rush of heat but you manage to limit your emotions to a sound of discomfort, remembering the horrendous accusation he’d thrown at you. “I don’t care about your dick, twit.”

Jaehyun laughs, bending a little to whisper. “I wouldn’t mind if you did.”

“You look like you’re having a wonderful time making me uncomfortable.”

“You’re just so easy to work up.”

His dimples are getting on your nerves. You reach up to button his collar, perhaps a little too harsh because he chokes, an uncharacteristic sound leaving his mouth as he winces. You suppress a smile, glad you managed to do something about the look on his face.

The sunlight over this park feels like Christmas come early, with the way Taeyong is flitting from model to model and stylist to stylist with the intensity of a five year old after an ice-cream truck. 

“Is he- Is he usually like this?” you ask, eyes on the makeup artist getting directions from Taeyong.

“I just assumed all of you are this way,” Jaehyun, responds looking at the same sight.

You roll your eyes. “We’re not all crazy.”

Jaehyun raises an eyebrow.

“Okay, maybe a little bit,” you correct yourself, watching Taeyong almost trip over someone’s bag in order to greet the magazine’s style director. 

Jaehyun chuckles, eyes meeting yours for a moment before the two of you go about your own business.

You like magazine shoots for the most part. You never find a glass of water anywhere, but some intern or the other will definitely be there to fetch you Starbucks. There’s at least three people fussing over each model and at least two exasperated photographers trying very hard to snap clean shots. The stylist and designer look as though they might explode any minute, although the relief on their faces after it’s all over is something worth looking at. The skies are so bright and blue, you think, for a cosmopolis. The trees and shrubs lining the park are in a state of tranquility compared to the chaos it encircles.  

Magazines might not be as important in an age of social media advertisement, almost part of nostalgia now—but maybe some of you are not yet willing to deny kids the thrill of reading a magazine under their blankets in the middle of the night. It often gave hope to little boys playing dress up and little girls sewing their own clothes. 

You’d forgotten just how exhausting shooting with magazines is. The models must be having it worse but their masks don’t come off easy. If you had ever underestimated their job difficulty, it comes back to throttle you at full speed every time you’re at a shoot.

 Looking good in front of a camera is pretty damn hard. 

They don’t even get to keep the clothes, unless some asshole of a designer decides to pay them in apparel instead of actual money. Most models leave New York in debt. Men are paid even less than women. You’re surprised Jaehyun is as celebrated as he is—or the fact that he was clever enough of a businessman in launching his own high fashion-themed restaurant. You’ve heard he barely visits it, like a careless afterthought. But you’re not one to get carried away by sketchy articles on the internet. All you’ve needed are more reasons to hate him.

You sip the iced coffee, its effect pretty much worn out during humid afternoons. It’s time for a break, but no one’s willing to break momentum. You find yourself feeling a little awkward, as nothing more than a guest with creative advice, and so you sit under the comforting cool of the giant green umbrella at one of the tables. You could sink into your chair were it not so damn uncomfortable.

Jaehyun takes a seat right beside you to your surprise, offering you a box of diced mango before you fervently decline. You still think he’s an asshole. It doesn’t make any sense—why accuse you of unsaid affections and then flirt with you like he never said it? It’s not like you’re even friends, how ridiculous. There are quite a few jerks you’ve met in your life, but Jung Yoonoh really takes the cake.

“What?” you snap when his gaze gets on your nerves.

“I didn’t say anything.” He raises his hands defensively, eyes still on yours. “You don’t seem to be enjoying yourself.”

“I enjoy the air conditioned suite Taeyong booked me more than this, yes.” You sigh, leaning back. “I don’t really have anything to do.” 

“I’m assuming he booked you the luxury suite on the fifteenth floor,” he says, chuckling.

You furrow your eyebrows. It’s not impossible that Jaehyun knows Taeyong’s favorite suite to book for guests.

“The view’s pretty nice from there, right? Oh, and you must be enjoying the silence.”

“I actually like the outside sounds,” you defend. “It’s calming.” 

“Not when you’re on the third floor,” he says, shoving a piece of mango into his mouth with a fork. “All you hear is middle aged men screaming.”

You rest your elbow on the table, placing your chin against your palm. The shade is separated from sunlight by a thin line against his chest, pale blue satin glimmering where the sun meets it. Jaehyun’s eyes shine a darker hue of honey under the shade, moving to the box in his hands occasionally before trailing back to the background noise again. Taeyong really does love pretty fits, but this might just be one of the most gorgeous pieces you’ve seen this summer (and you’ve already been through all the ready-to-wear lookbooks you possibly could). A thought passes you in a breeze, that maybe it's the model making it seem that way.

“You’re talkative today,” you note quietly, the sun harsher on your cheeks than before.

Jaehyun shrugs, hurrying to finish all the pieces. He suddenly pulls a face, one you don’t see very often in high fashion websites and Instagram pages. It’s almost cute. 

“Sour.” 

You find yourself laughing, a gentle influx of peace filling the inside your chest. You quickly recover, looking back up to see Jaehyun simply staring at you, breathing. He looks caught off-guard, no camera to warn him. You straighten, your cheeks flushing with heat.

“Is- Is something wrong?”

He immediately shakes his head, more to himself than you. There’s a pause before the two of you are happily distracted. The style director appears to be gesturing at him from the other side and Jaehyun responds with a curt wave.

“You’re doing two different concepts today?”

“Three, actually.”

You raise your eyebrows. Well, they’re definitely taking advantage of the good weather. They could just photoshop it, in your opinion, but authenticity is everything when it comes to magazines nowadays. 

“Well, don’t let me hold you back,” you say, your tone dismissive. “Go get changed into whatever pretty shirt Taeyong has up next in his collection.”

“The next shoot doesn’t have a shirt,” he says, the corner of his mouth quirked upward.

You almost choke on your coffee, blaming the heat for your weak state of mind. You’re just having one of those strange days—just that, nothing else.

You finish the rest of the coffee, cup resting in your hand till you find the energy to get up and find a trash can.  

Jaehyun was right. This time the shoot’s a little too wet and a little too much skin for you to enjoy. The only thing added to Jaehyun above the waist are a dainty red scarf knotted over his neck and a small, flat hoop earring on his left ear. The velvet fingerless gloves, although you’re not very fond of them, complete a rather rugged yet soft look. You didn’t expect Taeyong to come up with something like that. 

Jaehyun’s well-developed physique, while you’ve seen it in other shoots and online articles, is completely different when you’re a few feet away from it. The dark blue cargo pants, silken, are a signature style of Taeyong but the details don’t distract you easily enough. Funny, this is the first time you’re feeling somewhat flustered in a place full of half-naked models. 

You suddenly think of reds and oranges, lilac shrubs and a hint of Burberry men’s perfume. In a way, it reminds you of the strums of the guitar your roommate used to play while you stayed up late, coming up with concepts. Cherishing, soothing—and special, just enough. The corner of your lips twitch and you take out your pocket sketchbook. It’s never too late to add a design to the collection, right? After all, you have secrets too. Maybe Taeyong was right about the outdoors for inspiration. 

Something sets into motion, subtle but sharp.

The next time you walk into Taeyong’s studio, you feel the sun on your face better. Everything seems to be fitting into place, as you smooth through designs at a pace your student self would be jealous of. When Taeyong praises your work, you feel a rush of pride smearing the inside of your chest and you finally feel like everything’s not falling apart. It feels good. It feels like you’re someone.

The days go by in what seems like barely seconds—you know what they say about New York minutes. The mustard cloth draped over your desk to the cottage blue of your curtains, the colours around you change as quickly as the wind. Sometimes they’re abstract—and other times, well, they have more to do with a stranger’s eyes, or the swirls within a coffee cup. It’s the way in which transition occurs around you, that you often forget it moves something within you too. 

You’ve put together some samples with Taeyong, most of them by yourself; the process of making is ever comforting, fabric even more so. You’ve sent the revised designs for production, feeling giddy about whatever is to come like it’s something new. (It shouldn’t be.) 

You fucking hate how different this is. Seoul is nothing compared to New York. The anxiety is nearly ten times worse, the streets are far more attractive when it comes to inspiration and the figure of Jung Yoonoh is no longer as easy to ignore. 

Even after the summer shoot’s over, Jaehyun often comes by to hang out at the studio, dressed in what you would call the simplest fucking thing you’d ever seen and still managing to look just as gorgeous. He blends in well with university students, often wearing the ugliest baseball cap you’ve ever seen, and the look of his face feels much, much worse than ever before. It’s at ease, smug even, but never failing to smile at you when you’re trying to focus. You don’t care how good of friends Taeyong and Jaehyun are—you want to tell him to leave. 

But you just can’t bring yourself to. It’s not that you don’t trust yourself, you certainly do, but whatever New York has done to you, includes making you feel a different way about him. Sometimes you find yourself pressing your legs together harshly, stiffening at any proximity with him and a pool of warmth at the base of your stomach you’d rather not feel.

It’s embarrassing to even think about it—the fact that he makes you feel that way, so hot and bothered like it’s your first time. You blame your lack of going out these few months because after all, anyone could fall in love with runway faces. It doesn’t have to mean it’s him you want. You carry on doing what you’ve been doing for the most part of your career, your best to avoid him. There are more pressing matters, and your head might just implode if you keep on worrying about things (a man, of all) you need not. 

Time passes even faster when all your thoughts revolve around the same thing.

One month. D-30. Whatever the hell you call time before the end of the world.

Your palms sweat a whole lot easier here. It’s a little weird, considering you don’t find much difference in humidity between Seoul and New York. Your heart often catches up in your throat too. Not a great feeling, your heart choking the breath out of you, but you’re used to it. You cope and you learn, that’s what it means to be human.

You pull your hand down before it reaches your teeth. The day ended in a meeting with Taeyong’s production team—everything’s running smoothly so you need not worry, he said. 

Why are those the words that make you worry the most? 

You check the time on your phone. 23:05 and a whole month to go. You better get some sleep for all the meetings you have scheduled tomorrow. You close your eyes and for a while, everything falls quiet.

You dream of New York Fashion Week. People come here to feel included. Everyone wants to be a part of something they don’t understand.

The models walk down the runway in increasingly uncomfortable outfits. You didn’t design any of them. Where are the ones you worked on? You can’t move from your seat, or turn your head from the runway, anything at all. Something’s wrong, everything’s wrong. You don’t belong here. Thunder strikes outside the venue and you wake up with a gasp caught in your throat, and the clock on the bedside table flashing 2:14.

You’ve had enough. You swear you’ve had enough.

You get up out of bed, pacing the giant bedroom, the empty spaces making you feel more and more miserable. The city twinkles with innumerous stars beyond your window, curtains half drawn so they can comfort you whenever you need—but these lights don’t shine for you, or anyone else. They shine for themselves. That’s what it means to be in New York again. 

What time is it in Seoul? Could you call your mother? Joohyun? Everyone must be busy right now—you don’t know what to do. It’s been a long time since you’ve felt so helpless. There’s a reason you’ve been avoiding New York for this long and now it’s come crashing down on you. 

This was a mistake. All of it was a mistake.

You look down at your phone, the light hurting your eyes despite being set to the lowest brightness. You think a little, and then some more. There’s no one else you can call. Even if he’s busy charming all the other employees whenever you see him, even if half the world is in love with him, there’s no one else you can call. This time you don’t stop yourself.

You tap the call button beside the Jung Yoonoh saved neatly. Tapping your foot against the floor nervously, your mind goes blank for a few seconds or so. He answers when you’re just about to hang up, breath hitching in your throat at the sound of his voice.

“Hello? Hello? If this is a reporter—”

“It’s me, Jaehyun.”

The line goes quiet for a moment and your voice overlaps his before he can begin.

“I- I didn’t mean to call so late. Sorry…uh.”

You scrunch up your face at your own voice. This is not getting you anywhere.

“Is everything okay?” he asks, voice lower.

You fall silent, unable to answer without breaking down into tears. You did not call Jung Yoonoh for that. 

“Yeah,” you choke out. “Fine. Completely fine. I just…”

You trail off, trying to get yourself to breathe.

“I’ll send you an address. Be there in an hour.”

You blink back tears, confusion adding to the burning pile of worries inside your head. 

“What?”

“Address. I’ll text you. Be there. One hour.”

“I’m not stupid, Jaehyun,” you snap, strength refilling your voice. “Why?”

“I’m not answering questions, just be there.”

With that, the line goes flat and an embarrassing amount of ‘hello’s get you to realize that he hung up. A notification pops up a minute later and you’re too groggy to decipher it, logging it to Maps instead so you can follow. It’s fifteen minutes away, you realize with a sigh of relief, so you can at least present yourself within the given constraint. 

You can’t grasp what you feel in the moment, the night air and warm streets beckoning you to leave the clamped apartment soaked in fear. You think this is unlike Jaehyun, what he’s doing, but you’re too shaken to care. You need some respite, even if it comes from somewhere you can’t picture.

“You…wanted to meet me at a Korean barbecue restaurant?”

Jaehyun’s ears turn red, as they often do when he doesn’t know how to respond to you.

“I-It’s not that I…Never mind,” he tries to explain, fidgeting with the cloth over his shoulder. “We can go somewhere else if you want.”  

We? You think, eyes scanning his face in confusion. If you want? Where’s the uncaring Jaehyun you’ve known, foreign eyes and impassive lips? He hardly looks the part he’s meant to play—a billboard face with a confident jawline and nothing more behind it. Outside of work—you don’t even know what else to call this—Jaehyun looks hardly intimidating, or abrasive. He seems different, gentle almost, although the dark circles under his eyes might have something to do with it. Maybe he’s too tired to say anything more and that’s it.

But he still came all the way here.

“Aren’t you a little…overdressed?” 

There comes the remark you were hoping to not hear. You just wanted to look nice; you’d hardly call this overboard. The loose, mustard-colored chiffon shirt cinches at the waist, paired with your nicest (only not faded) pair of light blue jeans and shoes that haven’t seen the light of day since you arrived here. You barely ever design clothes for yourself anymore but you thought you looked good in this.

“No,” you defend quickly, feeling your face grow warm. “You’re underdressed.”

You say that, but he clearly looks good in anything he wears. Could you expect any less of  a supermodel? He doesn’t seem to have dressed in as much a hurry as you had. Clad in a plain black T-shirt that’s half tucked into skinny jeans, he’s added his hideous baseball cap and a pair of navy blue shades which looks just as ridiculous as it sounds. You really think he shouldn’t be leaving his house without the help of a stylist. 

“I…I just mean you don’t wear anything other than the same sweater and pants combination to work, so… please excuse my surprise.”

Jaehyun's eyes flicker over your figure before masking it with an awkward cough. You reach out and pull the shades over his head, the look bothering you more than anything else. He doesn’t respond to it, at least not in a way that’s obvious, as if it’s the most natural thing in the world to do—you fixing his hair and unquestionably awful sense of style.

“There’s a soju place a few blocks ahead. Or if you’re not into that, there’s a noodle shop just at the edge of K-town,” Jaehyun rambles on, not meeting your eye. “If you’re looking for something inexpensive—"

“You came all the way here to give me directions?” You raise an eyebrow. You might even be enjoying this, although your inner voice bites back at you, denying it.

Jaehyun shakes his head, the red in his ears pulsing back up. “No. I…I needed some fresh air.”

“You…have someplace to be then?”

Jaehyun might not realize it, but the answers he gives always have room for teasing. Aloof. Vague. Yet somehow sweet.

“And you’ll go alone? At this hour? No, I’ll accompany you,” he says out loud, trying to play off the sudden vocal inflection. You sigh. Boys will be boys, as they say. Even if they’re twenty-six.

You let him keep you company. Though the first few minutes are painfully quiet, neither of you knowing quite what to say without starting a disagreement, you continue your walk through a city that never sleeps. It’s awkward even, being side by side without you seething at his charming, (undoubtedly) fake smile. He feels real, for once, and you don’t know how to react. There seem to be some gold-tinted cracks appearing in your reality, slowly but surely, and you’re not very good at patching anything other than fabric.

“You know, it’s actually a little relieving to see Korean letters here,” you say, sighing. You never thought you’d be so corny, but it really does feel good being here. 

Or is it him? 

“Thanks,” you add quietly, hoping he doesn’t hear. No, maybe you do. You can’t tell at this point.

“I…I know what it’s like,” he says, so softly that it almost gets carried away by the wind. He clears his throat, an ‘ah’ escaping his lips as he stops abruptly.

“We…We missed the turn,” he declares, a little sheepish as he scratches the back of his head.

You look at him in disbelief. “Jaehyun, how long have you lived here?”

“Oh, I was born here actually,” he says, tilting his face to look at you, blunt sarcasm evident on it. “How many times have you lost your way to the convenience store in Seoul?”

“Literally zero times.”

Jaehyun puffs a cheek before going back to normal and turning a hundred and eighty degrees down the street.

“Hey, wait up!” you huff at his increased pace, half jogging to keep up.

You reach the acclaimed noodle shop, your breath barely within your lungs and swearing at Jaehyun who looks like he wasn’t bothered one bit. He reaches his hand out to help you and you swat it away, chest still heaving with your hands on your knees.

“Dickhead,” you hiss.

“I don’t think I deserved that,” he responds with a widening smile. 

“Asshole,” you say, standing up straight to glare at him.

“What would Seoul say hearing their beloved designer swear like this?” Jaehyun looks almost amused, as if you hadn’t shared an awkward time together, like two teenagers who were forced to walk home together from the bus stop.

“They can go to hell,” you retort. “As can you.”

Jaehyun laughs, a strange sound to hear and you blink a few times, unsure of what to do. You wonder if it’s the night playing tricks or if Jaehyun really is an actual person, not the basket of preprocessed insults you were used to. The cracks are widening—you’re not sure if they’re meant to be patched.

Perhaps you were a little eager to enter someplace warm, but you feel immense relief in this little shop, despite the smell of chili paste and noodle soup wafting through the air. It’s a little empty; in fact, you two seem to be the only people there apart from some students at the other corner, but you sit there in your own bubble, talking with Jaehyun of all people about which singer is better. He laughs occasionally, still managing to catch you off-guard with how honest it sounds and you wonder for a moment, how nice this feels. For the first time in a month, your heartbeat seems to have settled at a normal rate.

“What?” you enounce, a little offended. “What’s so wrong about my love life?”

“You just- You just don’t seem that type,” he explains, his ears as red as the bowl.

“I don’t have time for commitments, Jaehyun,” you sigh. “It’s what happens when you’re good at your job.”

Jaehyun nods, something akin to agreement in his response. 

“So, your, uh, what is it? Training camp? What’s that about?” you ask, in between blowing your food.

“You could really Google things once in a while, you know?” he replies, bringing his chopsticks close to his mouth.

You roll your eyes. “I’m sorry I’m not one of your creepy stalkers, Mr. Jung.”

“Nothing to do with that,” he says, shaking his head. “It’s for kids interested in fashion, modeling, photography—stuff.”

“Oh? How so?”

“I just sponsor them. You know how difficult it is to get noticed in…this industry,” he explains, like it’s not a big deal. Nothing ever seems to be a big deal to him.

You nod, unable to help the smile. Maybe it isn’t a big deal, but you’re sure now that you were mistaken. Just a little bit. 

“I was lucky,” you mumble. “I can’t believe they saw those ugly embroidered patches and decided to sponsor me, oh my god. That sweater was hideous.”

Jaehyun laughs loudly. “They saw me cleaning outside my school and decided to pick me up and ship me straight to Paris.”

“Nothing’s worse than the first day.” You take another mouthful, the taste savoury and filling. 

“You know, I’m pretty sure they photoshopped my ears out in the first magazine shoot I had.”

You laugh, leaning in a little closer. “Your first year was rough, huh?”

He hums, his eyes flickering from your nose to your lips. It makes you a little self-conscious, blood rushing to your cheeks at an unexpected pace. Who knew Jaehyun could have such an effect on you? 

Your eyes flutter over his face once again.

He’s handsome. But it’s the sort of handsomeness that tells you, you don’t know much beyond it. You look back at your bowl, sobering up and completing the rest of the noodles.

It’s still midnight blue in the faraway sky as you walk down the streets. Most of the people you see out and about are those drunk off their faces from club hopping or a particularly enthusiastic group of tourists. The watermelon soju, while better with budae-jjigae and arguably the best soju flavor, somehow had little effect on you with the bitter aftertaste still settling in. The crowds in other places would make for great people-watching but you walk in a lonely street that calls for proximity. Beside you, Jaehyun sneezes, the sound of it making you jump on the quiet sidewalk.

“Jesus Christ, Jaehyun,” you huff, wincing at the sound, “you sounded like a fucking tractor.”

Jaehyun laughs, looking down at the pavement. When he looks back at you, the circles underneath his eyes seem to have darkened and you wonder if yours are the same. Yours can’t possibly be as important as his, though, and you wonder if it’s appropriate to laugh at how dorky he looks.

You find yourself not wanting to walk back into the safety of your suite. Jaehyun has a look of calm across his features, drawing over the landscape around you. New York lights don’t faze him, they only reflect in his eyes. 

The way his soft breaths fan out against his lips remind you that he is human, after all—he has a soul and body, thoughts and its beautiful intricacies. When he turns back to you, you feel those criminal feelings all over again, except this time it’s even louder. It feels so wrong, and yet you can’t help but think of the liberation that could come with his lips on yours. 

You could swear out loud, all the colorful words ready at the tip of your tongue.

“Your collar’s…”

Jaehyun’s voice trails off, his hand moving to fix your flipped collar, and when the heat of his skin brushes your neck, you try to not think of where else his hands could be, his lips could be. 

In fact, there’s a moment within where it’s perfectly reasonable for him to kiss you, the taste almost on your tongue. But Jaehyun moves away, an indecipherable look across his face.

“I should get going,” he says, “I have a- I have a shoot early tomorrow—today.”

You nod, cheeks coloring at your own unsaid thoughts. Just what have you done to yourself? Why is your skin searing, why does your stomach feel upside down and why were you so ready to give in to him? To Jaehyun? You’ve never felt want like this before, this need to press skin against skin in a manner so illicit. 

You part with a short goodbye, the sudden loneliness in your path making you want to backtrack, ask if you can go somewhere else again—maybe there’s a club nearby so you can see him through a round of shots as you usually do. Maybe the bitter feelings will return then. 

When you think of the words you exchanged over the course of so unusual a night—your former unforgiving words contradict you. You hate the realization but being so obscure in front of a camera doesn’t have to mean he’s pretentious. Maybe you were wrong. Maybe someday you’ll even admit it.

You feel a flash of heat in your face. You are not running to Jung Yoonoh—what an embarrassing thought. If the very core of your being isn’t repulsed by it, there’s something wrong with you. 

There’s something definitely wrong with you, love.

You breathe sharply, trying to organize your thoughts. As if the paparazzi wouldn’t have a treat out of this meeting you had with him if they got to know. You’d better limit it to the only one.

You bite your nails out of force of habit. It’s not going to help. You know. But there’s hardly anything else to cool your nerves.

Front row tickets to New York Fashion Week—the most mortifying dream out of all the ones you’ve ever had. The way Taeyong fidgets, you want to believe he’s in the same boat as you—it makes you thankful even. 

Even outside of New York, Lee Taeyong is known for booking out exclusively intimate spaces. There are some props for the pre-show photography, including inked sketches on giant vertical banners stuck to the walls and tables with a messy collection of coffee cans, pencils and a sewing machine. Diverse types of fabric roll off the table in long strips, gently lining the floor till they end midway to another table. It’s a mess—a mess you made look good.

You’d left that and the backstage behind now. All eyes are on the sparsely lit runway, your aspirations coating the air in a thick veil. Are you ready? You won’t know till the first model steps out and till you can elicit a response from the audience.

Jaehyun’s at another venue—career before friendship, or, heaven forbid, attraction. You’d seen the fitting, cape skirt doing daringly well with his long legs clad in black pants, and a classy vest over a ruffled white shirt. You hate seeing other designs before a show, but god, were you glad you’d visited Givenchy to meet Johnny. 

But you’re relieved even, that Jaehyun isn’t here. You don’t have the strength to face him anyway, all your energy directed into this chasm of whatever you’d call six months of effort. You want to call yourself accomplished. You want to be proud of yourself.

So this time, you remember all twenty-six minutes of it.

God, they look so beautiful up there, when they’re being looked at, seen for what they are—you’ll never get over it. There’s still hardly much to remember, except this time you’re happy to do it all over again. Effort only exists if it’s acknowledged.

It settles in quite a while later, the weight of all you’d done. You could almost cry, but that’s better left to pillows and the unrelenting skies above a midnight-coated rooftop. This is your moment. For once, you’re anything but afraid. 

Afterparties are still not your thing. 

However, you had your nicest outfit picked out and Lee Taeyong’s fancy, themed afterparties are something notorious among your colleagues. You’ve heard designers tend to go all out, wearing the best things they’ve designed even if it makes them a little embarrassed to be wearing their own work.

You feel a sigh leave your lips as you finally find a place to sit, your earlier conversations leaving you drained of social energy. You don’t feel alien—it’s strange—and their compliments feel almost warm. The music playing over the speakers is something, you’re sure, from a 60’s American movie, and while it has its own strange allure, the champagne gives you a larger dose of relief. 

In fact, if you’re not mistaken, it’s quite like the ballroom in Paris, although significantly smaller. Burgundy wallpaper and lit up crystals hanging in hexagonal shapes across the ceiling—it’d look lovely on a dress too.

Taeyong’s speech, of course, gives you a spike of anxiety with the sudden announcement of his label’s future, a brand now. He smiles on the small podium, everyone admiring his radiance when suddenly he gestures at you, the glass in your hand feeling hotter and hotter.

“…I couldn’t do this without the only designer I felt was up to this—the first designer to work under my brand, as of now…” 

You try not to blush under all the pairs of eyes that turn to you. 

“(name), thank you.” 

Success feels good. Gratitude feels even better.

Everything feels natural, as if a dream gone right. You’re no longer afraid of the world you stepped into, or the accumulation of feelings that molded you into the person you are now. The confidence you so chased after as if it were morphine, you’re going to be keeping an eye on it before it can run away again.

There’s still one little problem to your night of triumph, though. 

Jaehyun hasn’t taken his eyes off you ever since you entered, a conversation yet pending. You already know he looks good in the plainest of T-shirts, so it might be a no-brainer that he looks absolutely stunning in a suit. The crystals lining the lapels of his coat glimmer amidst the crowd he’s gathered. It’s hard to come in contact, however. He’s magnetic, almost formidable in the way he attracts attention, and you know it’s something that comes with being a man of few words. 

“You’re not enjoying the party?” you ask, taking in Jaehyun’s figure on the veranda overlooking the garden. He sits on one of the mahogany chairs, swirling the glass of champagne with a look of indifference coating his eyes and lips.

“I am,” he says, turning to face you. “Needed a short break.”

“I suppose being the most attractive man in the room needs a break,” you say, taking a seat beside him.

A wry laugh leaves his lips, as he lays his eyes on you. “You don’t seem bothered by it though?”

“I believe that pretty is as pretty does,” you say, your lips twitching.

Jaehyun smiles, furrowing his eyebrows yet still. “You think multimillionaire companies are built on things like inner beauty?”

He’s right. What’s inside is beautiful—it’s too idealistic a phrase. You sigh, adjusting your sleeve. It’s a difficult life, walking the runway no one dares to step on. 

I think you’d make that cut too, you want to tell him.

“You know the best thing I got told today?” you ask, diverting the stream of conversation. You think he’s a friend. Even if it could be the champagne talking. Even if you want something more than the innocence of friendship. 

Jaehyun raises an eyebrow. “Did Cristóbal Balenciaga’s ghost show up to compliment you?”

“No,” you emphasize, laughing at his pronunciation. “It was this girl. A student. Said she wrote an essay about me.”

Jaehyun hums, dimples marking his cheeks. “I didn’t know a student could get you so giddy.”

You laugh, looking down at your hands before resting your gaze on him again. He leans forward in his seat, strands of hair falling over his face from the rest and a contemplating look over his features. He looks much, much different from when you first saw him, and even handsomer, if that were possible. He’s grown up from the awkward boy you saw in the press release pictures of the Saint Laurent Fall Collection—he looks sharp and valiant on front covers, his shoulders broad and his eyes darling. Jaehyun is still unironically the most breathtaking man you’ve ever met. He might even be one of the sweetest, inside out. 

You look to his lips, full as ever. Perhaps you have something to confess. Secrets aren’t meant to be kept so long.

“Jaehyun,” you call, bringing his attention before faltering. It’s not like you’re the only one fawning over his smile. You get up instead, excusing yourself. “I’ll see you inside I suppose.”

“You know I like you, right?”

You turn around. “What?”

Jaehyun gets up, brushing his suit and fixing the lapels. The gentle night haze and the contrasting calls of the brightly lit party inside brush over an effect you’ve never felt before. “I…I like you. It’s pretty straightforward, I think.”

You deny it, or rather, some repressed little emotion inside you denies it vehemently. “Jaehyun, really. I admit I was a complete asshole to you and- and...it was…kind of you to accompany me that night but—”

“Stop. Don’t- Don’t call that kind. You’re not seeing the full picture.”

You stand there, unsure of what to do as you feel your chest grow warmer. Jaehyun turns his head upwards, letting out an audible breath. You can see conflict on his face, the struggle of someone still mulling over the perfect words.

“I don’t hate you. I never really hated you even if I wanted to.”

You suppose it wouldn’t be the right time to say that you might have indulged in that.

“I did,” you confess. “I hated you for a very, very long time, Jaehyun.”

“I know,” he whispers, looking straight at you. “I didn’t mean to leave you hanging—”

“Jaehyun, I don’t care about that,” you say, your voice rising, “You told me you felt suffocated in bow ties and laughed when I asked if you wanted to run away with me. I just ended up thinking you were a goddamn liar.”  

“Fine,” he says quietly in his baritone timbre, sounds of the chatter from inside numbing away. “Then let me be honest.”

“When I met you, I thought there was someone like me doing just the same—so…suddenly in the midst of everything. Even if you were a complete asshole to me. You were still real.”

He phrases it delicately, lilting, as if that hasn’t been your whole purpose here.  He’s only a breath away from you, but you don’t want to push him away this time. There’s a moment’s pause.

“Between work and myself, which is more important? For once, I thought I could answer that question.”

Your breaths are soft and shallow as they fall, trying to understand his words.

“And then you just fucking stopped. You stopped flying out and I’d barely see you outside of Seoul like you- like you gave up or something. I didn’t understand—what happened to you?”

Jaehyun looks at you with a hardened expression, ears turning red as if he hadn’t expected this outburst of truth. He gulps, Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. It’s not like him to open his mouth and let out words that are raw and honest; it makes you feel the weight even more. You were still kids that night. You’re not anymore.

“Jaehyun,” you whisper before reaching your hand out and placing it against his cheek.

It’s so hard to not take in the details. The prominence of the muscle by his mouth when he speaks, the fine lines by his nose which appear sporadically or the look of complete reverence in his eyes when he’s staring at you like this—everything those runway shots can’t possibly capture. Your eyes trail to his lips, your own drawn to it with a desire you don’t know how to comprehend—and don’t quite wish to, either.

You want to believe he made the first move but you give in so easy, it’s alarming. Your lips move against his in a rhythm new and frantic, his hands gripping you with full strength at the waist and you part your lips to allow a deeper kiss. Your hands are free to roam his perfectly styled hair, tousling it in a fashion that makes him groan, only to push you harder against the wall. 

“I should’ve- I should’ve let you kiss me that night,” he mumbles against your lips. “Maybe I…I wouldn’t have made you hate me.”

“Maybe you should shut up and kiss me right now,” you respond, your tongue pressing against his, effectively doing the job.

It’s not difficult to see stars when his hips press against yours, his hand resting on one thigh to pull it up slightly. You feel the impact of it head-on, almost moaning out loud when his fingers press harder against the back of your thigh.

“Tell me- Tell me you want this,” he breathes out when he breaks the kiss.

You respond with reconnecting your lips, your tongue sliding against his in fervent affirmations. You’ve already forfeited your modesty, there’s no reason to stop.

You leave early, getting into the car you’d booked for the night. It would be far more embarrassing were it not for the separation between the front and backseats, when Jaehyun’s hands are up your clothes and his lips rough against your neck. The lip colour has smudged by the side of Jaehyun’s lips, a short giggle escaping you when you notice. It’s not enough to halt the kissing, or feeling each other up —something that feels long overdue. You try to keep your sounds to a minimum but Jaehyun seems to not care about things as worthless as shame, at least for the moment.

“Well, you’re about as graceful as a sea lion when you’re off the runway,” you hiss when Jaehyun’s teeth prick your skin.

“I haven’t done this in a while,” he responds in a low tone, the rest of his retort pushed away by his lips against your mouth.

You don’t have time to take in the details of Jaehyun’s apartment because he’s already carrying you to the bed, your legs around his waist and continuing to kiss you as if making up for something. All those years, you could have been doing this. Maybe you do have some regrets.

The material of his dress shirt feels expensive but clothes are not what you need right now. His phone rings once but he drags a finger over it to reject the call, his mouth still pressing against your collarbone. The only sounds you hear are rugged breathing and you fumbling with the buttons of his shirt as you pull it over his shoulders. The city lights below you reach through the drawn curtains, all the unrelenting complicacies left behind in those faraway streets.

Jaehyun makes a sound of annoyance at the phone ringing yet again. He breaks apart from you, receiving the call while his fingers massage his temple.

“Hyung, I’m fine. I’ll talk to you later—”

“I was just wondering where you disappeared and you don’t even grace me with a hello?” Johnny’s voice rings clear in the all too silent bedroom.

“Hyung—”

“Wait a minute.” There’s a pause within which Jaehyun seems to tense up. “Are you fucking? Like did you leave the party to get la—”

“Hyung. I’m hanging up.” 

The coral pink spread over his ears is almost as pretty as the look of pure annoyance over his face.

“That—”

“Didn’t happen,” you complete, giggling. If someone were to tell you’d be seeing Jaehyun like this a few months ago, you wouldn’t know whether to be embarrassed or exhilarated.

You place your hand at the nape of his neck, pulling him into another kiss.

Sex is barely ever beautiful—even if it’s Jung Yoonoh over you, planting kisses from your mouth to jaw, neck to chest and whispering sweet, delicious words against each part. He certainly knows how to use that tongue of his, better than you’d expect from a boy so pristine.

It doesn’t matter if it’s not beautiful, when it’s just like a slow dance—in shared solace and love out of time. You bite your lips to stop smiling too often for it to feel as serious and indifferent as all the other times. Sometimes you feel Jaehyun grinning into the crook of your neck, the giddiness of love taking over the movement of your hips against his. The perfect anatomy of his, paired with his candied words makes you think that maybe you do fit together.

Jaehyun pushes into you at a steady pace, your fingers digging into his back and over his shoulder blades only to draw out sounds more pleasing to your ears. You let someone else take charge for once, his praising whispers of ‘that’s my baby’ or ‘you just look so good’ far too teasing but he follows through, your body barely able to respond apart from shaking and shuddering till you reach your high. 

The sound of skin against skin dies down well into the night and you get cleaned, still blissed out from making the summit of all your senses. It’s warm inside, despite turning the air conditioner on.

“Jaehyun,” you call, lowering yourself to press a quick kiss to his lips. 

“Hm?” He gives you a drowsy smile, arm under his head and hair sticking to his forehead funny.

“Did you really not hate me? Not even once?” You rest your cheek against your palm as you lie beside him.

Even under the dim lights, it’s not hard to spot the blush on him when he positively glows. Jaehyun reminds you of warm auburn and the touch of cool satin—it’s easy to make things, find inspiration in love.

“Oh my god, you were lying!” you accuse, sitting up straight. “There’s no way you didn’t hate me. I called your modeling as good as a coconut’s!”

“As you so love to remind me,” he mumbles.

There’s a brief moment before the two of you crack up, his deep laughter perfectly mismatched with yours. There’s hardly many sounds on the eighteenth floor, but maybe you’ve always been yearning for this privacy—this proximity in shared laughter and warm touches. 

“No, I didn’t,” Jaehyun answers your question after it’s quiet once again. “I thought...I think you’re…”

Jaehyun trails off, his eyes flickering over your face before fixing on your lips as his own tug into a smile. He gulps. “I think we’d be in trouble if the paparazzi saw us throwing choice words at each other, don’t you think? You were barely out of school then.”

“Me?” You laugh. “You were thinking about me?”

“And a little bit about me.” 

You fall asleep against Jaehyun’s chest with the certainty of kinder tomorrows, a thing he teaches you through whispers against the pillow and fingers playing with your hair. There’s something private in the way he holds your face, something delicate and homely running from his long fingers to his flushed knuckles and the rest of his hand as it presses against your cheek. It’s warm here, and safe, and maybe home is where the heart is, after all.

“Really? You’re not even a little bit sad I’m leaving?” you ask, placing your hand over your heart. “Who’s going to help you when you’re getting bullied in the workplace now?”

Doyoung huffs in annoyance, placing the box down beside the moving truck. “You’re the only one who bullies me in the workplace.”

You adjust the ugly baseball cap on your head, the one Jaehyun had pulled over your head in an attempt to stop you from complaining about his messy apartment. You hadn’t realized you’d worn it all the way to Seoul till the articles about your questionable choice of accessories had surfaced.

“Your boyfriend’s calling,” Doyoung says, making a face as he picks your phone up from the box near him. “I can’t even believe this. All those years of flirting and—”

You snatch it from him, glaring at him for the choice of words. He raises his hands defensively, rolling his eyes at your sudden movement.

“Are you sure you don’t want me flying to Seoul?”

“Unless you’re planning to work in a truck rental.”

You hear Jaehyun laugh on the other side of the line. Is it normal to have blood rush straight from your chest to your ears at the sound of laughter? You hope that doesn’t change.

You’d visited him a day before your flight. It hasn’t been all that long but Jaehyun certainly makes it out to be, just so he can use his cheesy one-liners. You try not to smile thinking about how he had flung his hair band out, immediately tousling his hair back into a pretty mess and struggling to keep a straight face when you’d visited out of the blue. Jaehyun wakes up at one in the afternoon when his schedule is empty and it had appalled you enough to help him out with basic chores before you left. (It didn’t end well. He kept putting his chin on your shoulder and sneaking his arms around you while you did the dishes.)

“(name)? (name), are you daydreaming again?” 

You sigh. “You can’t wait three more days, Jae? It’s, what, one in the morning there!”

“Do you want me saying something cheesy?”

“Absolutely not.”

“I don’t think I can sleep without waking up to your face.”

You pinch the bridge of your nose, unable to grace him with a response. The dreamy languor in his voice is more than recognizable and if you’re not mistaken, he’s going to be saying something highly inappropriate.

“Do you know what dream I had last night?” he asks, the smile almost evident with how suggestive it sounds.

“Jaehyun, no,” you warn before lowering your voice. “I swear if it’s another dirty dream—”

“Come home and I’ll tell you all about it. With demonstrations.”

This time you can’t help the laughter, trying to mask it with a cough only to fail. You push the back of your hand against your cheek in order to soothe the involuntary blush. Your perfume smells just like him, and you realize suddenly why he’d gifted it to you.

“That definitely makes me want to leave faster,” you quip.

“I certainly hope so.”

It’s different now, especially if you remember your feelings just last February. Change feels easy for the first time in your life. You check off your list of items, counting the boxes as they’re lifted onto the truck. It took a good amount of thinking, and a bunch of fights before you could decide. New York isn’t so bad. Not when you have reason to be there. You’d like to call it love.

A list of things you do appreciate: Jung Yoonoh. Jaehyun. Whatever.

[emiewritesthings]

doctor, doctor - jay halstead

jay halstead x fem!reader

summary: in which y/n takes it into her own hands to look after a sick jay 

a/n: i’m not gonna lie i think this is one of my fav things i’ve ever written, i would really appreciate some feedback and p.s the beginning of it is based on that scene from brooklyn 99 :)

masterlist

“okay, it’s 10 o’clock, meaning halstead is officially an hour late to work,” y/n announced as she appeared from the break room with a mug of poorly made coffee. looking around, she had immediately distracted everyone in the room with her playful smile. “okay let’s do this, theories!” she encouraged, taking a sip with excitement, but immediately regretting it as s he spat it back in the mug and abandoned it on adam’s desk as she leant against it.

“uh, he forgot to set his alarm?” antonio suggested, willing to play along with the little game that y/n had created. however clearly his answer didn’t suffice as y/n scrunched up her nose and shook her head in disappointment.

“you are a detective in a unit that just last week rescued 5 people kidnapped and used as chess pieces in a human sized version of the game and the best you could come up with is he forgot to set his alarm? pfft, disappointing, dawson. who’s willing to take this seriously?” she scoffed, brushing his idea off with a simple roll of the eyes as the group laughed at her ridiculousness. 

“maybe he has been murdered by a gang looking for revenge.” adam piped up, earning a sudden and rather forceful slap on the back as y/n cheered. her eyes looking over at antonio as she gestured towards the less experienced detective.

“yes, that’s what i’m talking about. bit dark, ruzek, but better than dawson’s,” y/n hummed, adam clearly pleased with the praise he had received by the pretty detective. “any one else wanna shot?” she offered it out into the room, suddenly the sound of rolling wheels on the chair had everyone turn to face al who was munching on a ham sandwich.

“he walked into the middle of a drug ring, slept with the kingpins daughter and is now having limbs removed, one by the hour.” suddenly an eery silence fell in the bullpen as al suddenly disappeared back to his desk and everyone was left with an image that she was sure was burned on the inside of everyones mind.

“uh, okay, someone might want to arrange a psych check for olinsky asap,” y/n mumbled, pointing in the direction where he had once been and looking around as if checking that she hadn’t been the only one to hear al’s suggestion. “anyways, all of you are wrong. clearly he has joined a motorbike gang and now makes his money on the road striking off names on the government’s hit list.” 

just as the room erupted into discussion about how idiotic this conversation was, as well as their ideas, the sound of footsteps caught y/n’s attention as she arrived at her desk. however as he reached the floor, the reason for his absence was clear.

“woah, you look like death.” adam chuckled, it immediately being silenced as jay sent a deadly glare his way. with his skin paler than normal with undertones of green, a layer of sweat draped over his forehead. jay flashed as smile at y/n as he passed, reaching his desk and collapsing on his chair with a wince. 

as everyone went back to what they were doing, y/n found herself straying her eyes away from her computer screen for longer and longer periods of time until she found herself by his side with a sickly sweet grin, pun intended. 

“i don’t wanna hear it, y/l/n.” jay mumbled, massaging his temples with his fingers hoping it would somehow sooth his pounding skull. whilst usually he had every minute of his day just to hear the woman chat away about whatever crossed her mind, he had found himself in quite the state since last night, leaving him restless and irritable.

“believe it or not, i just wanted to make sure you were alright,” y/n’s entire demeanour crumbled as she melted at the soft features of his face that came with being so vulnerable. but from the look in jay’s eyes, it was clear he didn’t 100% believe her excuse. “and to ask what the hell you think you are doing here? you are sick jay, you need to rest.” 

it was very rare that jay found himself ill. in the years that y/n had been working by the man’s side, she could count on one hand the times she had seen him with so much as a cough. in fact she had called him captain immune system for a period of time when she realised he was pretty much indestructible. y/n couldn’t deny the concern bubbling in her gut seeing him so weak.

“i’m fine,” with her eyes slitted in a look that practically shouted ‘bullshit’, jay continued. “i promise, it’s just a little cold. nothing serious, i think i’ll survive.” he joked dryly, finding it incredibly hard to look away from y/n for her eyes were filled with a warmth that he knew was an expression usually saved for those she cared deeply about. 

“yeah well, you need to take care of yourself, jay, i’m being serious. chicago can cope if you just have one day off, get your energy back.” 

y/n was reminded of the times she had the exact same words spoken to her by the exact person that didn’t seem to want to take them onboard. every time she had so much as a sniffle he would be straight over with some soup that his mother used to swear by and the name of a box set that he would put on for the two of them to watch as he sat stroking her hair in order to try and convince her body to rest. neither of them had anyone else to take care of them, so had taken it upon themselves to be that person for the other. 

“now, i’m gonna go tell voight that i’m taking you home before you infect this whole office.” before he could object, she had already ran (not literally but jay was impressed by her speed walking) to her boss’ office. knocking on the door, with a sweet smile and a sea of words running off her tongue so quickly that voight had to agree just to shut her up, y/n returned by his side. “come on, germ face, your carriage awaits.” 

“you know i love it when you talk dirty to me, y/l/n.” winking at her, y/n giggled as she supported him back down the stairs and out of the station. the two chatted away, y/n explaining how she thought al was secretly a sociopath and jay filing her in on the newest instalment of his apartment block drama until they pulled up in front of jay’s apartment building. 

as they walked through the door, jay’s arm resting around y/n’s shoulders as he struggled to find strength, they managed to reach the sofa before y/n’s body gave up. both of them letting out large breathes before looking at each other and falling into laughter. 

“you hungry, i could try making your mom’s soup?” y/n asked, as she pushed herself up to look down at the man. her hair falling down around her face and tickling jay’s skin. “i’m sure it won’t be as good as her’s but i’m willing to give it a try.” 

the way she was sat with the large window gleaming light behind her, y/n almost looked like an angel. her eyes and smile were wide, with her beauty wrapping its hands around jay’s neck squeezing until his head felt light and he nearly reached up to touch her porcelain skin. but jay had noticed the sensation way before he was blocked up with a cold.

“yeah, uh, that sounds nice.” jay agreed with a minimal amount of sass, but y/n didn’t seem to notice as she moved off the cushions and towards the kitchen. she had pretty much memorised the recipe when jay had finally given it to her on her birthday after offering to pay for it multiple times. whizzing around the kitchen, she was too busy to notice the tired eyes admiring her from afar. 

jay wished his mom was alive to see the woman that she would have loved. all the times he had brought girls back to his family when he was younger didn’t add up to an ounce of the beauty and power that y/n held in her middle finger. the way she bit back at his wit, but also had the ability to spot when he was upset from the other side of the city. she was everything her mother wanted in a daughter in law, everything she wanted for her little boy. 

“okay, give me your honest opinion. i can take it i promise.” y/n sudden appeared with a tray that held a large bowl of the semi-thick orange liquid, a glass of water and a couple pills. approaching jay, she carefully helped him up from where he laid and placed it onto his lap. “actually that was a complete lie, do not tell me the truth. i may just cry.” 

“why thank you, nurse y/l/n.” he teased.

“it’s doctor actually.” she quipped back.

jay chuckled lowly, as he grabbed the spoon and took a large spoonful to his mouth. feeling the slight sting of his tongue at the heat, it was only when the flavours hit that he was suddenly transported to an earlier time in his life. a simpler time. only this time there was y/n by his side. 

“the verdict?” she prompted, taking a seat besides him, pulling her knees up to her chest. 

“not sure whether i want to tell you, don’t think you’ll fit in this room if your ego grows any bigger.” y/n grinned as she leaned over to press a kiss against his shoulder. jay closed his eyes at the contact, feeling the ache in his body freeze for a moment as it registered the tingling sensation. “all jokes aside, it really is good.” 

“i’m glad, your mother was a smart woman.” she nodded, leaning forward to turn tv on. jay continued to spoon the soup into his mouth, as y/n chose a show that they both had started together and had refused to watch another minute without the other. y/n leaned back making herself comfortable, having already texted voight telling him that she would most likely need the entire day off, and getting the go ahead, she had no plans other than being by jay’s side for the next however many hours. 

it was sometime in the early evening and the tv continued to emit light, but neither jay nor y/n was paying any attention to the drama. jay, with his head on y/n lap, was leaning into her touch as her short, thin fingers ran through the dark strands that sprouted from his scalp. his body wrapped in a blanket that y/n had grabbed from his room, he felt completely at peace. 

“you know what, i think you are more bearable when you are at death’s door.” y/n joked quietly, as the forest green eyes were exposed back to her own. jay groaned in annoyance, realising that there was no sweet y/n without the sharped tongue y/n. a trait he adored, but at his own expense. 

“and to think i was starting to think you had gone soft on me, y/l/n.” he hummed, wishing he could forever have her giggle on repeat wherever he went, for the sound made goosebumps run down his neck and down his arms, like some kind of magic that only y/n possessed. 

“as much as i love you, i can’t risk my bad ass reputation for you.” 

although jay was sure it was just part of her banter, the moment the ‘i love you’ fell off her tongue, he found himself wide awake, unable to push past the feeling in his gut as it looped over again and again in his mind. y/n could see the conflict in his face, as he glanced up at her with something she had never noticed before. 

“you mean it?” he asked. 

“mean what?” confused, her fingers fell from his hair, making jay regret ever opening his mouth.

“do you really, you know, love me?” he knew he had committed too far to try and retreat. maybe he could blame it on the fact he couldn’t think straight, although she was like a lie detector that wouldn’t let such a bogus excuse pass. y/n blinked down at him, watching as he sat up to look at her with a hunger that needed to be addressed. swallowing the lump in her throat, y/n nodded.

“of course, you are one of my best friends, jay.” it was true, but it wasn’t the full truth, both of them knew that.

“i didn’t realise we had started lying to one another,” jay’s eyes were soft, as he reached to place his hand against her cheek, smiling as she slowly leaned into it. closing her eyes, she tried to find what direction she was looking for, but didn’t dare take the first step. without even thinking, jay jutted forward and captured her lips before they could form a single syllable. 

gently, but passionately, jay and y/n moved their lips against the others. the feeling was ever-growing as the kiss deepened and deepened until they had no choice to pull back, deprived of their ability to breath. as jay’s eyes came back into view, y/n, for the first time in her life, had lost the ability to form a sentence. 

“we just...” she began but it ran off quickly. jay chuckled.

“we did.”

the two sat in silence, examining the other one’s face until y/n found herself moving forward until she was sat in his lap, legs wrapped around his waist as she pressed her lips against his. just like before their bodies and minds were set ablaze with desire and what had remained unspoken for what felt like forever. jay had nearly completely forgotten about the illness that had put him in the care of the woman that he craved more than anything else the world had to offer. 

as their lips parted ways, suddenly the air had thinned and everything felt... normal. jay’s lips were unable to break out of the large grin mould that y/n had put them in, which was soon mirrored by the young woman. a small giggle escaping her lips.

“if i get whatever it is you have, i expect the exact same treatment.” 

“only for you, doctor y/l/n.”

[doctenwho]

Hangovers, Love and Space Vodka (PE Pt. 2)

Hello! Requests are definitely open, even if I’m awfully slow! I feel bad at how slow these are coming out especially since there’s so many in waiting, but writing just hasn’t been on the table recently. Apologies for that!

But I’ve found the time and the motivation, so I decided to get this done! Thank you for your patience! This is such a cute idea, and it always makes me happy that people like the first parts enough to request a continuation. I had a lot of fun writing it, so I hope you readers like it too! 

So, please enjoy the continuation of Purest Expression (also, you should probably read that one if you haven’t already, this fic heavily references it!) Also, I just thought the name was funny and I was in desperate need for one, so feel free to suggest others if you’ve got one!

Warnings: Talk of alcohol, but no drinking!

Word Count: 4,050

Summary: Check out the prompt above! :)

(Gif doesn’t belong to me, credit to the talented creator!)

You didn’t really remember a lot when you woke up. All you really knew was you'd drank far too much of that delicious cocktail, and that your brain was pounding in your head. This was quite possibly one of the worst hangovers you’d had, but honestly, you’d do it all over again to have another one of those space cocktails.

You rolled onto your back, lifting your hands to cover your eyes in an attempt to block out what little light managed to stream into the room. Your stomach churned at the movement, but it settled out easily enough after you didn’t move a muscle for a few minutes following your roll.  

You relaxed back into the bed when your stomach settled down, and finally uncovered your eyes, staring up at the ceiling with a bleary gaze.  

As you laid there, you tried to piece together the evening. The bits and pieces between arriving and having enough to drink that you could no longer walk a straight line.  

You knew you’d gone out on the town with the Doctor—he'd been excited to show you things. He'd raved enthusiastically about the planet, and you’d listened along as your own excitement grew too. Then, you remember finally stepping out of the TARDIS and being completely astounded by this new planet, with all its colours, music and general liveliness.  

The cute little bar wedged between two buildings; you remember that too. And of course, you remember the cocktail—you'd had two, or three, or... had it been four? You couldn’t really pinpoint it. The Doctor had said it was weaker than earth vodka, and maybe it was, but the after effects were definitely more intense to a human that human vodka was. That said you’d still be down for another drink or two before you left.  

It was well worth the pain of a hangover to taste that drink again. Just the thought of it made your tastebuds tingle.  

You let out a light laugh before rolling back over onto you side, but this time following it up with pulling yourself to a sitting position. The nausea was still there, but hardly noticeable; just a subtle warning to keep your movements slow and steady lest you start gagging.  

Your head was still pounding, but you knew that wasn’t going to go away without pain killers, so you stumbled to your feet to go find the Doctor. He’d have something that could help, and at this point, you didn’t care what planet it came from, so long as it killed the raging headache and... well, didn’t kill you.  

You found the Doctor in the kitchen of all places.  

He was perched at the kitchen table with a mug of coffee in front of him, as well as a book. He startled when you stepped into the room, breathing a light, “oh, (Y/N),” as a greeting.

You continued into the room, wobbling on your feet for just a second, “good morning,” you greeted in return, forcing a smile onto your lips despite the headache, “you don’t happen to have any pain killers do you?”

The Doctor frowned, “are you unwell?”

“Just a bit of a hangover,” you promised with a wave of your hand, “a little worse than an earth alcohol hangover, but it’s manageable. I’ll be fine, my head just really hurts.”

“Right, of course,” the Doctor nodded, pushing himself up and moving towards the cupboards. He rifled around the cabinets, reading labels of things and putting them back before he finally found what he was looking for, “these aren’t of your earth, but they are basically the same thing as your planet’s Advils. I’m sorry I don’t have anything that’ll help from your earth, I should really invest in some if I’m going to keep soliciting companions from earth.”

“Soliciting?” You snorted a laugh, which made you wince lightly, “really?”

“Well, I do tempt you humans away with the offer of the entirety of the universe, now, don’t I?” You smiled at the Doctor’s cheeky grin as he joined you at your side, setting the pill bottle in front of you to do with as you pleased, whether that was to ignore it, or take a couple, before he carried on to the counter. “No different really, I offer the universe in exchange for companionship, and I’m proud to say very few have ever declined. Now, would you like a tea, or coffee?”

“Jokes on the ones who declined, they’re really missing out,” you huffed out as you picked up the pill bottle, surveying over the list of ingredients. None looked too out of the world, but honestly, you’d do anything at this point to ease the thrum of your headache, so you uncapped the bottle, “surprise me.”

The Doctor turned back to flash you a grin from where he’d busied himself at the counter, “will do, my Dear.”

You shook a few pills into your hand from the bottle, eyeing them as if they were about to change colours or something similarly alien-like, but when none of that happened, you frowned, “how many do I take?”

“Well...” the Doctor turned thoughtfully to lean against the counter, “I’d say to start off with one and see if it does anything for you. There will be small differences from planet to planet, and we wouldn’t want you to overdose. After a half an hour you can try taking another pill if one doesn’t help.”

“Sounds good,” you popped a single pill into your mouth before you could hesitate. As if the Doctor was magic, he slid a mug of you go-to morning beverage towards you, and you washed the pill down with a sip of the perfectly prepared drink.  

You savored the taste of your drink, sighing into the warmth. When you’d had a couple sips, you put the cap back on the pill bottle and slid the bottle to the center of the table. You watched the Doctor move around the small kitchen as he made himself another coffee before joining you at the table.  

The two of you settled into a silence, thankfully. You hunched over the table, your elbows on the surface and your cheeks cupped in your palms, as the Doctor continued reading, but he looked like he was lost in his thoughts instead of actually reading.  

“How long have you been up?” you asked slowly, squeezing your eyes shut before blinking them open again to see the Doctor’s gaze on you. “You’re kinda spacing out.”

“I’ve just... some things on my mind,” the Doctor admits with a tiny curl upwards of his lips. It didn’t really answer the question, but at the same time it did. You didn’t think the Doctor had even gone to sleep. “Has the headache eased at all?”

Your mouth formed an ‘o’ shape noticing suddenly that the headache was in fact almost gone. You hadn’t even realized, “yeah,” you informed with a laugh, “almost gone. I didn’t even notice—space things are so much better than earth things; the drugs and alcohol.”

“That would be a very worrying observation if I didn’t know exactly what you were talking about,” the Doctor snorted a laugh. You laughed along too, even if the statement was completely true—it had only been about ten minutes and the space Advil was already working wonders, where as the earth stuff could take anywhere from fifteen to thirty minutes to actually kick in.  

“So,” you drawled after another string of comfortable silence between the two of you, “what’s been on you mind then?”

The Doctor eyed you up and down briefly before sighing, running his fingers through his hair and making his already untamed locks stand up at odder angles, “I was just thinking about yesterday.”

“Yesterday,” you parroted under your breath. You’d been thinking about yesterday too. How could you not be? There were still gaps in time where you don’t really remember what happened. “What happened yesterday?”

“You don’t remember?” The Doctor blinked.

“No, I do,” you leaned back in your chair with a sigh, “well, most of it, I think. But some of it... I don’t know? It’s kind of a blur. I guess the cocktails started hitting me towards the end of the evening, I barely remember coming back.”

“You were a bit out of it,” the Doctor admits sheepishly, “glad I cut you off at three drinks then.”

“I could’ve handled more,” you scoffed, smiling widely in a teasing way.  

The Doctor rolled his eyes, leaning forwards, closer to you as his voice dropped, “I do believe three is probably your limit, Love.”

You let out a bout of bright laughter and the Doctor smiled softly. You loved how easy it was to banter with the man—how the two of you were so comfortable with the other that you could tease back and forth like this.  

As if to prove his point, your head gave a warning thrum of pain that drew a shallow breath from you, “yeah,” you shook the pain off, “you’re probably right about three being my space-cocktail limit.”

The Doctor shook his head fondly at you as he settled back in his chair, “so, anything you’d like to know about yesterday? I did promise I’d tell you anything you’d like to know?”

You thought back to what you remembered about yesterday: the walk from the TARDIS to the bar, the ideal seating at the bar, those amazing rainbow cocktails that tasted like dreams. Drinking and chatting and laughing with the Doctor—splitting a plate of chips that were unbelievably delicious... and then... well, the space English the TARDIS didn’t bother translating for you.  

“What was the bartender saying to you?”

The Doctor drew in a breath as his cheeks dusted the faintest pink, “nothing important, I assure.”

“C’mon,” you pouted, cradling your half drank, significantly cooled drink between your hands as you leaned towards the Doctor this time, “you said you promised to tell me about yesterday, right?”

The man chewed at his lip, subdued, but clearly trying to figure out the best course of action, “alright, well, we... I suppose we were acting a tad bit... involved? And... some assumptions were made about us by the barkeep.”

“Involved how?” you raised a questioning eyebrow. “And... what kind of assumptions?”

“Involved involved,” the Doctor cleared his throat, eyeing your level of understanding before rubbing his forehead and adding, “uhm, romantically involved. Those were, well, the main assumptions made as well.”

You gaped for a second before a thought came back to you suddenly, “he kept calling us lovers.”

“Yes,” the Doctor managed a light, fond smile, “I did try to explain it to him: us, our companionship—but, well, he... he didn’t believe me.”

“He didn’t believe you?” You repeated back, surprised.  

“No,” the Doctor laughed, rubbing the back of his neck, “he made some pretty solid points in favor of us being romantically involved too, actually.”

“Oh yeah?” you teased, “and what points might those be?”

“Well, we were sitting fairly close--”

“As friends do,” the excuse came easily. The Doctor raised an eyebrow, but continued on like you hadn’t spoken.

“--I was hovering close to you, I suppose... A bit at least--”

“You were worried about me,” you interjected with a fond eyeroll at how wrong the bartender had been. Lovers? Come on, no way. You guys were... you were friends. Obviously. Though the thought of the Doctor hovering over you, making sure you were okay warmed your heart.  

“--we leaned into each other’s sides, uhm, multiple times throughout the evening--”

You struggled for an excuse for that one, you did tend to lean into his space, not that the Doctor ever seemed to mind. And he liked to press into your personal space as well—neither of you really cared about proximity, so you managed a one shouldered shrug, “it was just loud in the bar, hard to hear each other.”

“--and, well, he pointed out I was staring at you occasionally; odd for him to have noticed, when I didn’t even realize I was doing it.”

You couldn’t come up with an excuse for that one, eyebrows furrowing in confusion that made your breath catch in the weirdest way. He’d been staring at you? Why did that make you feel so happy?

“And then the fact that you returned the stare when I wasn’t looking. Honestly, that barkeep spent more time watching us than he did working last night, I’m sure.” The Doctor let out a playful scoff, genuinely amused that the bartender had put more time into them than his job.  

You however, were suddenly caught up in the information.  

He’d been staring at you when you weren’t looking—fondly, you were sure, if it had caught the bartender’s attention and led him to believe the two of you were in a relationship. Then there was the fact that you were staring at him in return? You’d been caught by someone staring at the Doctor? You knew you did it sometimes, how could you not? He was a good-looking, kind, compassionate man who liked your company. Just being with him made your heart speed up.

“That doesn’t mean we’re a couple,” you forced yourself to say, even if... well, you were questioning it just slightly. You knew, of course, that the two of you weren’t a couple but... “That bartender was just bored and looking too far into us, I’m sure he was doing it to everyone...”

“Of course not, surely we’d know if we were, right?” the Doctor agreed with a light grin. The grin only lingered for a second before it faltered and he chewed at his bottom lip. You were about to question it, but he spoke again before you could, “but, well, I suppose there is the song he had to go off of as well.”

“The song?” You questioned before it all flooded back—well, most of it, at least, “we were on a stage. We... we sang together. Was that a karaoke bar or something?”

“We were,” the Doctor ducked his head in a nod, “we... did. And it, well, it was kind of like your earth karaoke bar. Do you remember anything about it?”

You tried to remember, you know the Doctor explained it last night after he’d gotten the information from the barkeeper, but you still don’t really know. And you’re sure there were bits and pieces that he didn’t tell you last night as well. So, you shook your head.

“Right,” the man nodded, settling his elbows on the tabletop as he held his chin up, “well, the concept of the song ritual we were roped into performing is that you sing whatever song best corresponds to what you think about your peer. I’m not exactly sure how it works to be honest, the expression through song is just strong.”

“So, whatever I felt about you would be... conveyed through a song?”

“Yes.” The Doctor gives a light nod.

“And whatever you felt about me would... would also be?”

“Indeed,” his head tilts as he surveys you, trying to piece together where you were going with this string of questions.  

“But... we sang a duet, didn’t we?” You furrowed your eyebrows, running a finger along the rim of your mug. You faintly remembered chiming in with the Doctor’s song, instantly knowing the new lines to his song despite not knowing his lines, or the actual song. “Does that happen? What... what does it mean?”

“Well,” the Doctor cleared his throat, looking nervous. “It does happen, it’s just, well, it’s rare? I suppose. The barkeeper, just before we left, told me that the last time he saw a duet happen during the expression through song ceremony was when he was a child.”

“Wow, okay,” you bit the inside of your cheek. You had a feeling you knew what it meant, and the thought made your cheeks heat up, but you asked anyways, “what does a duet mean?”

“Well, generally speaking...” the Doctor shot you a small, crooked smile, “it means that we feel exactly the same way about each other. Exactly the same to the point that our expression would be through the same song, at the same time.”

“Wow,” you couldn’t help but repeat, “that’s... wow. So it really is unusual then? Why did it happen to us? Was it a fluke?”

“No, don’t think so,” the Doctor shakes his head, a blush rising to his cheeks as his fingers tap against the table, “something like that would be hard to fake, so I doubt it was a fluke. We chose the song—deep in our subconscious when thinking of the other... I mean... I didn’t know the lyrics beforehand, did you?”

“No,” you breathed out, fingers fiddling with your empty mug, “I don’t even think I remember the lyrics now. They were just... in my head when they needed to be. I didn’t even know your lines of the song. It’s weird that we were the people that got the duet—random visitors.”

“It was the same for me,” the Doctor sends you a small smile, “I think few people view their... companion the same way their companion views them. It seems highly unlikely that any two people can feel the exact same way...”

You’re not sure why, but there’s something different about the way the Doctor says companion this time around. Maybe he holds a different fondness than you’re used to, or perhaps some other reason, but there’s an unfamiliar warmth in the word.  

“But we did,” you whisper, looking up momentarily and catching the Doctor’s eyes before dropping your gaze back to your cup.

“But we did,” the Doctor repeats, just slightly louder than you. Like he too can’t wrap his brain around it. There’s a pause before the Doctor’s clearing his throat, forcing a crooked smile onto his lips. “Well, I promised you we head to the shops for some alcohol and other treats, didn’t I?”

The Doctor stands, moving swiftly towards the door without looking back.

“I meant it, you know?” You speak before you even realize you’re speaking. You don’t see the Doctor stop, since you’re facing the other direction, but you hear his steps come to a halt, feet planting in spot.  

He doesn’t say anything for a second, which prompts you on, “I do need you.”

He still doesn’t say anything, or move, so you stand and gather both your mug and his own, walking in the opposite direction from him towards the sink. You set the mugs in but don’t touch the faucet, instead mumbling a soft, “I want you.”

You’re not even sure if he’d still there anymore, or if he’d taken you moving as his cue to escape. You don’t turn to look, afraid to not find him there, so instead you whisper what little of your lyrics from yesterday that you remember, “come on back to me.”

Another moment of silence drags in before you hear the Doctor moving. His steps are quick, and you think he’s leaving out the door when suddenly hands are on your waist and he’s swiftly turning you around and gently pushing you against the edge of the counter beside the sink.  

You manage to muffle your surprise as his lips press against yours, soft but urgently all the same.  

You melt into his lips, eyes slipping shut as his hands leave your waist, one wrapping around your middle, as the other rises to cup at your jaw. It spurs you on too, your arms wrapping around his neck and pulling him just slightest bit close, to which he blindly follows your lead.  

You don’t pull away until the need to breath outweighs how good it feels to be kissing him.

You both gasp for breath, but neither of you pull away, lips still touching the faintest bit, “I didn’t think you even remembered the lyrics... how... intimate the duet was...” It’s the first thing the Doctor’s said since trying to flee the room.

You slowly open your eyes, catching his eyes waiting to make contact and a smile pulls at your lips. You pull away a bit, pushing your forehead against his, “I didn’t really remember the lyrics until just now, but I never forgot the feeling of singing them to you, and hearing you singing them back to me.”

The arm around your waist tightens around you, “I didn’t know you felt the same way,” the Doctor whispers. “I didn’t want to... make you uncomfortable, or chase you away. And then you woke up this morning, and didn’t remember anything with the hangover, so I... was going to let it go.”

You’re sure you make a noise of protest, maybe even disappointment, but you only assume because the Doctor lets out a chuckle before stealing another kiss that you’re more than happy to give.  

When he goes to pull back, you snake your hand up to hold him in place, mumbling softly against his lips the last of your lyrics, a message he’d sure to understand, “I love you sundown.”

The Doctor freezes against you pulling back just enough to look into your eyes before a smile creeps onto his face. You smile at his smile, watching him fondly as his head tilts in that adorable way, affection bright in his eyes, “and I, you, my Love.”

You melt at the words leaning into him and pressing your head against his chest, fitted perfectly under his chin like a puzzle piece. Your arms wrap around him, and his move to hold you against himself just as you had done to him seconds earlier.  

You stay like that for a while—you're not sure how long. You feel protected tucked against the Doctor, and it’s a feeling you’re never going to forget.  

“How’s your head?” he asks softly above you, the voice after so long of nothing by his steady heart beats startles you. The Doctor presses an apologetic kiss to the top of your head.

“Better,” you decide, nuzzling closer to him, “why?”

“Well, I did promise we’d check out the shops, if you’re feeling up to it.”

“I almost forgot about that,” you laugh, finally pulling away. The Doctor unwraps his hand begrudgingly, frowning as he does so. You let out a laugh, slipping your hand into his. “I wanna see the shops before we leave this evening. We’ve gotta get some of that vodka.”

“I see more hangovers in your near future,” the Doctor snorts as he leads you along by the hand.  

“Oh, and, we should definitely pick up a gift for the bartender from last night,” you add, ignoring the Doctor’s teasing jab at your weak human alcohol tolerance.

“Why’s that?”

“Well, without his instance that we sing, and his instance that we were a couple, none of this,” you gesture down to your interlocked hands as the two of you step out of the TARDIS and onto the busy, colourful streets, “would’ve happened.”

The Doctor’s quiet for a second as the two of you fall into step. “There’s nothing in the universe that can ever thank him enough for what he’s done,” the man softly admits, giving your hand an adoring squeeze that drives his words home.  

Your cheeks heat up as you tuck yourself in his side. He moves easily to accommodate you, releasing your hand to wrap his arm over your shoulders instead. You move your hand to squeeze around his waist, grinning as you respond cheekily, “I don’t know, Doctor, the space vodka is pretty good...”  

The man sputters at your response, glancing at you with a raised eyebrow, “I was being all cute and you’re comparing the gift of our newfound relationship to vodka?” the man questions, genuinely dumbfounded.  

You give a one shouldered shrug at his side, giggling at his reaction. It wasn’t long until the man was letting out a fond sigh, thumb stroking against your collarbone, “what am I going to do with you?”  

The tease in his words has you smiling. There really is nothing in the universe that seems equivalent to the gift the bartender bestowed to you, but... yeah, a bottle of space vodka was a nice start.  

<><><><>

Hello again! Hopefully you liked this continuation. Not sure if it kept to the prompt exactly, I got a bit carried away writing it, but nonetheless, I hope it was good! Feel free to prompt again if it wasn’t what you were looking for, as always!

I’ll try to keep up with the prompts but idk how well I’ll be able to manage between life and the other works in other fandoms. Anyways, hope you have a great morning/day/night!

[sugako]

backseat care

kyotani x f!reader  sum: getting elbowed in the face at a concert isn’t new for you, but at least this time it’s by a hot guy  cw: 18+ minors dni, nsfw, minor accidental violence (reader gets a bloody nose/split lip from kyo), mentions of blood, mentions of alcohol (but no one is drunk), slight public sex/car sex, oral (f!receiving), slight overstim, creampie, strangers to lovers wc: 2.4k a/n: i have had such bad writers block lately, but i’ve been wanting to write more kyo content for so long and i miss going to loud basement shows so why not combine both also there’s a longish intro just an fyi

the amount of pain from the limb crashing into your face isn’t all that different from what you’ve felt before. things get messy in the pit, you know that, but when you reach up to wipe the sweat from your upper lip you realize it smells a lot more like copper. just as your nose starts to leak the assailant spins around, looking as if he’s about to tell you off for getting in the way of his arm before his expression drops.

kyotani can’t believe he just gave the prettiest girl he’s ever seen a bloody nose and split lip. your head is tilted down, desperately trying to catch the blood in your palms as you cover up the bottom part of your face. the lights are flashing and it’s dark, but he feels like he can see all of you. 

“i’m sorry.” he huffs over the music. 

“it’s fine, i’m just gonna, uhh...” you choke out, lightly pinching your nose with a little wince. 

“c’mon,” he sighed, “let’s go see if there’s a first aid kit around.” he was already grabbing your arm and dragging you out of the mess of people before you could respond. his firm grip made your mind wander, momentarily distracted from the mess that was your face. 

after scrounging the dingy, cramped space for close to five minutes, he gives a defeated huff. 

“nothing?” you asked nasally, the blood finally slowing to a crawl. he shakes his head, eyebrows tightening together even more. 

“i have a kit in my car if you’re okay with that.” 

“tell me your name and promise you won’t murder me?” you breathe out, already texting the friend you came with about your little injury and that you were stepping out with a stranger. “you don’t really look creepy, but you never know.”

“kentarō kyōtani and no.” he quips back, still guiding you with his hand clamped around your arm out of the building. 

the cool night air runs right through your body, quelling the hotness that’s built up in your face. thankfully, his car is only two spots away from the exit. it’s tiny and black with two thin silver stripes that remind you of the ones that run through his hair, giving him a pseudo-mohawk.

he opens up the rear door, grabbing a box from the floor and motioning for you to sit, of which you happily oblige. under the dim light the car gives off you can clearly see his honey brown eyes and the way his eyeliner is smudged around.

“does it feel broken?” he asks about your nose, cautiously grabbing your chin to inspect the injuries. 

“no, i don’t think so. my mouth really hurts though.” you mumble out, heart racing under his calloused touch. 

“good, it doesn’t look broken. and your lip is a little split.” he rummages through the kit, pulling out a wipe that he carefully rubs along your face where the blood has caked and dried. 

“you’re pretty good at this, go to lots of rough shows?” you awkwardly break the tense quiet, trying to not move your lips much as you talk. 

“no, i play volleyball.” he says simply. it’s impossible for you to really tell whether it’s a joke or not, but out of gut reaction you laugh. “i’m not kidding,” he sighs, tossing the dirty wipe in a small trash carrier inside the car and pulling a tiny pad from the kit to press to your open lip. 

“oh, sorry, really? that’s pretty cool. didn’t realize volleyball was really a big contact sport. though i guess you could get hit in the face with the ball a lot.” 

“don’t get hit a ton in the face in Division 2 volleyball, but you can fall hard.”

another moment of silence passes when he takes the padding away from your lip and inspects your face once again. although your heart hasn’t slowed, it seems he’s just realized how close you’re faces are and how he’s kneeling between your thighs that keep twitching every time he leans in a little closer. 

“i wouldn’t expect a, uh, a professional volleyball player at a place like this.” voice all spluttery like you can’t control it. 

“you shouldn’t assume things about people.” he says simply, not moving a muscle. “your lips look better now,” he’s whispering now, the smooth vibrations of his voice echoing around in your head like a bouncy ball, “wanna try them out?” 

part of you wants to laugh at how cheesy his words are, but more of you is interested in how his lips would feel against yours. he doesn’t move a muscle, the needy feeling that’s burning inside of him can’t be seen through his eyes, but you catch it in the way his jaw tenses while he patiently waits for your answer. 

“that’s a great idea,” you whisper back as his face closes in on yours. 

his motions are gentle and measured, it’s easy to tell he’s holding back by the way his hands twitch against your waist. carefully, he’s avoiding the edge of your lip where it’s still bruised and open, but as he presses harder and harder into you, the pain grows. nothing about the kiss is nice - everything tastes of cheap beer, blood, sweat, and disinfectant, but it feels good. 

it feels as though his clawing fingers are burning into your sides, forcing you further into the backseat of the car. letting yourself willingly move back, he clumsily reaches up to snap the automatic light off in the roof, not quite closing the door all the way behind him. 

when his teeth scrape against your wound, you let out a small yelp against your own will. before the noise is even done coming out of your mouth, he pulls away, adjusting so he isn’t crushing you so hard into the seats, and cradling your face. 

“sorry,” you pant out, “just hurts a little.” 

at this angle he can see how little tears have pricked in the edge of your eyes, purely from the gentle stinging pain. it hurts his heart a little that he’s caused you some pain, but you look so pretty like this with your teary eyes and pink tongue sticking out as you quietly gasp for air. 

“let’s give you a little break, huh.” he chuckles, sitting back on his heels and grabbing your knees to hook over his shoulders. it takes a minute for your foggy brain to realize what’s happening, but as he lowers himself between your thighs, the sight makes you clench around nothing and everything clicks into place. 

suddenly you’re glad you wore a skirt. he nips up your already shaking thighs, eyes locked between your legs groaning at the pretty panties that were clinging to the slickness of your folds. he flips your skirt up, pressing your knees tighter to your body when his broad shoulders lift your legs higher. 

“please...?” you whimper when you feel his breath against you. 

“need to cum?” he questions, teasingly, mouthing over your clothed cunt. 

“yes, please, wanna cum.” hips barely jerking under him, desperate for anything. 

“pfft, i can tell. so wet already.” kyōtani mumbles into you just before he reaches his arms around your legs and rests them just above your pelvis, using one hand to pull aside the thin fabric. before the cool air could even hit your exposed flesh, his mouth came down on you, messily lapping up your slit, tasting you completely before he began to circle your clit. 

when he finally arrives at your sensitive, little bud your hips involuntarily twitch against him, begging for release. hot breaths and moans filled up the space of the car, barely escaping through the tiny crack where the backdoor wasn’t completely closed, just resting against the hinge. 

the small fear of being caught or seen urged you on, encouraging you to cum as fast as you could. not that you really needed to do much when he had such great control of his tongue and two of his fingers easily slipped past your entrance, curling against your spongey walls. 

“k-kentarō!” you squeaked out, waves of relief edging up on you, “gonna cum, please, gonna cum.” the words came out like a broken record, separated by little hiccupped moans. 

“asking permission?” his low laugh vibrated across you skin. “that’s cute.” as soon as the words were out, he went back lapping and sucking your swollen clit. 

it only took moments for you to fall into your high, body squirming under him, limbs twitching in time with the way your cunt clamped around his fingers that just kept pumping into you. all the while his mouth didn’t stop, he didn’t even hesitate. 

he just kept lapping up your clit until your nails were digging into his wrist that was resting on your tummy, sobbing out moans. you didn’t want him to stop but the feeling was overwhelming, like you couldn’t stop cumming. briefly, you wondered if it was always supposed to be like this, body and brain turning fuzzy as he finally slowed enough for you to rest. 

the little whine you let out when he took his fingers from your pulsing hole made him grind his hips into the seat. you let out a low groan as you watched him stick his fingers into his mouth and suck them clean, his eyes never leaving yours. 

“feel good?” he grumbles out, languidly flattening his tongue against you to take another slow lap. 

it’s nearly impossible to focus with the way he’s touching you, but you manage out the words you want to say. “uh-huh, want...want more.” you shyly make out. 

“more?” one of his angled brows shoots up before he shrugs and roughly laps against your clit. body betraying you, it crumbles under him, hips already bucking up into his nose again before you can reach down and drag him off of you by his short curls. 

“no...no,” you gasp, “want your cock.” 

his eyes soften for a second before the expression is replaced with something a little more feral. “why not just say so.” he hums, pants already unbuttoned, pulling them down just enough so his cock can slip out. 

you can’t help the gasp that breaks past your lips. it’s embarrassing, but he’s beautiful and you’re sure that his pretty cock could fill you up two times over. before you bask too much in the pleasantness of the moment, he reaches down to tear at your panties. 

“hey!” you yelp, unable to do much with your ankles still propped up on his shoulders. 

“eh, there was a pull in the seam anyway.” he says back lamely, leaning back in so he can loom over you, smirking when his cock slaps against your folds and you squirm under him.

“i...i liked them.” you pout, trying to ignore the burn between your legs. he presses a hot kiss against your jaw and licks up the shell of your ear. admittedly, he liked them quite a bit too.

“go on a real date with me sometime and i’ll get you a new pair.” his hips rut against yours, rubbing the tip of his cock against your still sensitive folds. 

“oh, uhh- okay, yeah.” surprised by his proposition, but already hoping you’d meet him again, you quickly agree. 

“good.” he says while he lines himself, pushing in and trying to ignore how tightly you were clenching around him. his thumb comes down on your clit, rubbing tight circles to get you to settle as he bottomed out. 

your eyes didn’t deceive you, he certainly filled you to the brim and he knew how to use his entire body. still so close from his prior ministrations you found yourself already shuddering under his touch, the coil in your belly snapping even more harshly this time as you came undone around his cock. 

he shallowly pumped into you, getting you used to the size while you squeezed and sucked him in. 

“feel so good,” he grunts, “want me to fuck this pretty pussy?”

it’s not a real question, not when you’re arching into him, whimpering and moaning incoherencies, but you quickly nod to answer anyway. his grin makes your heart race, and he hurries to pull out nearly all the way before slamming back into you, setting a quick pace from the start. 

you have the brace the back of your head to stop it from crashing into the car door as he rams you into the seats, body at the will of his harsh thrusts. mouth open in a silent scream, only choked whines crack out from your throat that he quickly swallows up with a messy kiss. 

pent up from the entire day and the ghost of the taste of your cunt still on his lips, he feels himself getting close, encouraged on by the way you keep fluttering around him. as if sensing, by the way his kiss tightens up and his arms tense, you pull away and nod up at him. 

“want you to cum in me.” you quickly assure him. 

he lets out a sharp gasp, hips already stuttering against yours as he nods back in silent agreement. swallowing hard, he rests his head against your shoulder, letting his hips fall against yours, cock twitching against your aching, gummy walls, filling you with cum. 

after his labored breathing slows and you relax under him, he presses a soft kiss to your cheek and steadily sits up and pulls out. the gasp you let out when you’re empty is nearly enough to make his cock twitch again, but he holds back. he watches as your poor cunt quivers around nothing, eyeing the way his cum slowly dribbles out of you. 

achingly, you sit up when he lets your legs slide off his arms, leaning against the car door closest to you to get a good look at him while he tucks himself back into his pants, ignoring the messy, stickiness between his legs for now. you feel the mix of cum between your legs start to seep out, tightly closing your thighs to keep from making a mess on his car seats. 

grabbing your phone from where it had fallen onto the floor, you toss it at him before grabbing your destroyed panties off the spot in the bench between the two of you. 

“put your number in. we can go shopping this weekend.” you sigh with a soft smile. for once, getting a dumb injury at a shitty show was worth your while. 

[elysianslove]

Hey, hey, hey I just saw your post of hc boys having a beautiful s/o with dimples and I loved it, so can I please request one with Suna, Ushijima, Kuroo Please, you can ignore this if you want Bye!!

i didn’t expect people to love those headcanons so much but i’m glad!!! i hope you like these <3

i’ve written these same headcanons for other haikyuu boys too: you can find them in my masterlist! 

suna rinatarō

part 2 of it’s illegal to look at you two cause you’re both just that pretty

suna is painfully aware of how beautiful you are, and suna is incredibly smug about it, to the point that it’s almost annoying

you’re always being posted on his stories and on his instagram. he likes to show you off, absolutely, but he also loves to rub it in people’s faces lmfao. he’ll take any and all types of pictures, ones of you alone with the sunset highlighting your face, you across the table from him on a date, some ramen halfway through your mouth, a selfie of the two of you where his hand’s resting around your throat 

you can’t convince me suna doesn’t know how to do makeup. at the very least, eyeliner. he will put it on you, just to have fun, cup your chin in his hand when he’s done and say some shit like, “ain’t my baby pretty?” that’ll have your stomach reeling cause wtf you can’t just!!! say something like that!!! with an expression like that!!! 

nine times out of ten he’s the one flustering you, especially when you dress up and go all out for him. 

but it’s actually when you’re most casual that his breath’s like completely stolen from him. he doesn’t know why but seeing your natural hair a little messy, barefaced aside cherry chapstick on your lips and your cheeks naturally red, your clothes completely casual, either some sweatpants or jeans and a sweatshirt, or if you’re a girl, some tennis skirt or sundress you found in your closet. it’s not that it looks like you put in no effort. it’s more that you don’t need to put in any effort and yet, here you are, looking absolutely breathtaking 

listen, like i said, suna knows you’re beautiful. he’s aware that you’re pretty, you really don’t have to tell him. he can look at your face all day. but it just really, really ticks him off when people say it to him like he doesn’t know. his love language isn’t very explicit or loud, so to an outsider, he seems unaffectionate, but that really isn’t the case. 

he hates when people assume he’s taking you for granted, because really, there’s nothing he appreciates more, nothing he’s more thankful for, nothing he loves more, than you. 

i like to think suna thinks he knows everything about you, he’s so laid back and confident in himself and then he sees you smile so brightly once and he’s like what the hell hold up??? you have dimples???? and then he repeatedly makes you smile till your cheeks hurt, and he’ll be giggling stupidly while poking at them omg

probably tells you to pierce them at some point honestly 

but he adores them so much and whenever he sees you smile really brightly he kinda sighs dreamily and his shoulders sag a little and he smiles ever the slightest he is head over heels with you on god 

ushijima wakatoshi 

ushijima considers you being beautiful not an opinion, but a straight up fact. like he will argue with anyone to the death that disagrees. he’ll just be like 😐are u blind tf 

i don’t think he’s possessive about it, honestly. if anything, he’s sort of really proud at how everyone is so infatuated with you. not for himself and for scoring you, but genuinely he’s happy for you, for getting all this appreciation 

that being said, he is insanely protective over you. yeah he likes that people always have to do a double take when looking at you cause woah! but don’t look for too long. he knows it tends to make you uncomfortable, and it makes him uncomfortable too. 

he has you as his lockscreen and he always smiles so lovingly when he reaches for his phone. don’t ask him to check the time on his phone he will get sidetracked and end up staring at his s/o’s photo for far too long. 

he also really loves complimenting you, and one of his nicknames for you is literally “beautiful.” 

omg he’ll be waiting for you, sitting on your bed, as you change into an outfit for your date with him and when you come out he looks up and just smiles and gives you a thumbs up, and says, “perfect, as always, my love.” oh my god. 

and whenever you two are alone ushijima turns 100% softer, like he genuinely just melts with you, especially when you’re cuddling him in bed and he’s just trapping you in his arms. that’s when he admires you most, with his face so close to yours. he loves to just trace your features, kissing your lips, whispering against them how he’s so lucky and you’re so pretty

it’s at a moment like that one that he notices your dimples for the first time. he’s just admiring you up-close and he accidentally tickles you so you laugh and squirm and his eyes go wide, and he looks in awe, and in the softest voice ever as he traces at the indentations, “that’s so cute.” like his voice is so low and so soft and he sounds so in love because he is so in love 

his new wallpaper is now you, but smiling brightly enough that your dimples show 

kuroo tetsurō

i stand by the statement that kuroo is an absolute dork around his crush. will probably embarrass himself multiple times in front of you. and the fact that you’re as beautiful as you are? it makes it ten times worse. like your eyes. why are they so pretty. what are words. why isn’t his brain working

okay but as your boyfriend, he’s so annoying. greets you every morning in the loudest voice ever, “how is my most beautiful, most gorgeous, most favorite person ever doing on this fine morning!” 

pick up lines. always. never ending. he sends them to you on text, instead of a cute good morning text like normal boyfriends would do. so you wake up and instead of seeing “good morning beautiful 💖” you see “are you a parking ticket? cause you’ve got fine written all over you” like kuroo baby that is so overused 

he still does it though 

also posts you just as much as suna but they’re all really chaotic pictures. things like him taking a photo in the dark with the flash on, his entire hand just covering your face, or he’ll take a picture of you as you’re choking on some food and probably make a sex joke out of it on his snapchat too. or just a picture of you sleeping really peacefully on his chest but in the frame you can also see a marker uncapped, and everybody’s comments are always like “kuroo no!” but he’s always like “too late rip”

he might not seem like it, but he is possessive. like he seems really laidback, and it’s not that he doesn’t trust you, or that he doesn’t think you can handle yourself either, because neither are true. it’s more that he doesn’t trust other people, especially because he knows how beautiful you are and how even if he’s with you people come up and shamelessly ask for you number. it’s why he’s as possessive as he is. he’s definitely gotten you a necklace with his initials on it at some point too

kuroo is always making you laugh, so him discovering you have dimples comes pretty early on. when he made you laugh hard enough that your dimples appeared, he just chuckled to himself, grabbed your face and squished it and in a higher pitched voice went “so cute!” 

now every time they appear he does that. he has to grab your face, and a lot of the times, he kisses your cheek too. not a light peck, nah, a big, wet smooch like mwah baby couldn’t resist hehe

[erule]

The frat party | t.h.

Title: The frat party

Pairing: Frat boy!Tom Holland x Fem!Reader

Word Count: 1859

Warnings: OC Elizabeth (Lizzie), fake dating/relationship trope, language, fluff

Summary: Tom and the reader met at a frat party, but a year later they broke up because of some reason. Now, rumor has it that the reader is dating one of Tom’s friends and he gets jealous.

A/N: Hello hello, enjoy the new chapter! Sorry for the waiting, guys, but I hope that I made it up to you. Just let me know your thoughts about this chapter!

If you wanna be tagged in my Tom Holland fics, just let me know in my ask box! You can also find me on AO3 and Wattpad. Feedback is always appreciated by a writer!

Taglist: @webmeupspiderdaddy​

Read chapter 1 here!

Main Masterlist

Tom Holland Masterlist

Peter Parker Masterlist

Story under the cut!

Chapter 2

Rumor has it

“So, guys, rumor has it that…”

“Stop!” Tom exclaimed, interrupting Harrison. “Everytime you say that sentence, something hurts me and I really wanna miss that opportunity today. I’m already angry at myself because of what happened with Oliver,” he said, lighting a cigarette while sitting on the edge of his bed.

“Smoking makes you even more annoying than usual, Tom,” Harrison said. Tom sighed.

“Oliver makes me like that. He’s still flirting with Y/N, even if he should know by now that she’s mine. I mean, she will be mine again. My girl,” he said, with a soft smile on his face. “Ouch”.

“Still hurts?”

“Yeah, a bit,” Tom answered, brushing his bottom lip where Oliver hurt him.

Jacob suddenly opened the door, a big smile on his face. Tom and Harrison looked at him with suspicion.

“What happened, Jacob?” Harrison asked.

“So, rumor has it that…”

“Oh, fuck me,” Tom sighed, laying his back on the bed. Harrison chuckled.

“I was saying: rumor has it, that there will be a huge frat party at the end of the year to celebrate the older students like us, that will graduate soon and Lizzie asked me to come with her,” he said, happily.

“Lizzie as in Elizabeth? Y/N’s friend?” Tom asked and Jacob nodded.

“She looked a lot like Y/N last year, I thought they were twins. Now she has changed her hair color, at least,” Harrison said.

“The most important things is that she likes me!” Jacob exclaimed. “Be happy for me just once, guys. I deserve it”.

“You’re right Jacob, you do,” Tom said, giving him a pat on his back.

Somebody knocked at the door. Harrison went to open it and found someone who Tom would have been very glad to see. In fact, he jumped from the bed instantly, throwing the unlit cigarette in the trash.

“Hey darling, what are you doing here?”

You sighed, looking at him.

“I have an unseemly proposal for you and you can’t say no”.

“A fake relationship?”

After Tom had sent his friends away, you sat down on his bed in front of him to discuss about the details.

“Look, I didn’t want to do this, but Oliver’s still flirting with me and I have to cut this. He would leave me alone only if he’d see that we’re back together, I’m sure of it. Also, you literally proposed this to me last time, so… Wow, that’s really unpleasant. It must hurt,” you said suddenly, staring at his lip. You moved a hand to reach the wound, but then you stopped. You gazed at him. “Can I?”

Tom nodded. So you brushed it with your fingertip, thinking about how much it costed him to protect you even after your break up. How much it hurt. You swallowed, melancholy threatening to eat you alive. He had closed his eyes for a second. A very long second. Like you at the party. Maybe standing this close to him wasn’t a good idea.

“Y/N…”

“So, what do you think?” You asked, withdrawing your arm.

Tom shrugged.

“I agree,” he said.

“Just like that? You don’t want something in return?”

“As you said, I suggested it in the first place, so I totally agree with it,” he said. Then, he got dangerously close to you, so close that you thought he wanted to kiss you on the lips – and, in fact, he smirked –, but he didn’t. He left you a light kiss on your cheek instead, before whispering these words in your ear: “I’m gonna get you back, Y/N. One way or another,”

You ran away from there like a wolf was chasing you to eat you.

***

You were looking at Zendaya, hands clasped in prayer, begging her to help you. You and Tom had decided to go out as in a date in order to convince Oliver that the two of you were, in fact, back together. Lizzie was already somewhere with Jacob, so you had just Zendaya left to pick the outfit for the evening. She didn’t like that kind of stuff, mostly because because didn’t agree to your plan, but you were too desperate to let it go. She would have helped you at the end. Well, that was your hope anyway.

“Please, Z,” you basically begged her.

She rolled her eyes, arms crossed, but then she nodded. You tried to give her a kiss, but she moved away.

“You know what? This will be a dumb outfit for a dumb plan,” she said, while opening your closet.

“Z, I just…”

“You know why? Because the second, the second, Tom will try to kiss you, you’ll fall for it. Again”.

“I thought that he was your friend too,” you said, showing her a dress, but she shaked her head.

“He is, but I don’t know if he’s the right pick for you. I don’t condone what you did to him,” she said and you gulped, “but he’s not exactly an angel either. He ruined a lot of relationships even before he met you. That’s who he is,” she continued.

You sat on the edge of the bed, while she was looking for something that you could wear.

“Maybe he’s not like that anymore. People grow up, Z,” you said.

“Oh, yeah? Have you?” She asked you, turning around. You swallowed. “That’s what I thought. Don’t come to me when he’ll screw things up again. Or when you will” she stated, then she showed you the outfit. You looked at it with a sparkle in your eyes. “We have found it”.

You showered, wore the outfit and prepared in less than an hour. You were trying to wear your shoes, when Zendaya opened the door to Tom. He was wearing a white T-shirt with a red flannel on it and some ripped jeans. You waved at him, while grabbing your bag. You told Zendaya not to wait for you and then you smiled at Tom, ready to go.

“Are you still smoking?”

“Sometimes,” he answered. “Where’s Oliver tonight?”

“He posted on Instagram an hour ago, so I assume that he’s still with Jacob and Lizzie somewhere in the campus,” you said, looking at your phone.

“Well, so we have some time,” he said with a smirk. He took your hand and you felt shivers running down your spine.

“What are you doing, Tom?”

“Come on darling, if we have to pretend, then we have to make it believable. What’s worse than seeing the girl you like having fun with someone else?” He asked and you noticed a lightning passing through his eyes.

Then, without even realizing it, you found yourself running with Tom all over the campus. That alone made you laugh, because you felt like a little girl. If you had to describe Tom in one word, you would have said he was light. Not because it was always sunny, but because of the way it managed to get you out of the darkness you found yourself in sometimes. He pulled you out of the darkness and made you feel alive, everytime. He was the only one who could do it. Sometimes you wondered why you gave up on him, in fact. Because you had given up on the light, you, who often felt like a full moon in a dark and gloomy sky. He brought you in a part of the campus that seemed a minigolf. Maybe he and his friends had created it, since Tom loved playing golf very much. He gave you a golf club, urging you to try your hand at it.

“I’m not a good player, Tom,” you said, shaking your head.

“I’m still chasing you, right? So I wouldn’t say so,” he replied, leaving you speechless. “I was joking. Come on, let me show you,” he said.

It seemed so cliché, letting him touch you, teaching you to play, celebrate with him every victory of yours… You could have had it, a year ago. That. Tom. All yours. But you gave up on everything. It was your biggest mistake.

“Tom, it’s time. I think that we should go back. Oliver and the others could be coming to their rooms right now,” you said. Tom seemed a bit sad at your words, but only for a moment. It was hard to see an emotion flash on his face.

He nodded.

“Whatever you want, darling,” he said.

You wanted to say something else, but you closed your mouth before you could actually do it. The two of you came back and fortunately, you found Oliver with Lizzie and Jacob still hanging out. You caught Jacob attention and waved him, while Tom was smooth to hold your hand. You turned around in order to tell him something, but he was quick. One second later, her was kissing you and there was something in your stomach, like a knot, that slowly loosened its grip. You felt a weird sensation, a sort of relief. You could feel Oliver’s eyes trying to burn Tom’s skin, Jacob saying Let’s go and your blood boiling in your veins like lava.

When Tom broke the kiss, he ran his thumb over your lips, looking at them with a sort of melancholy. Fake relationships are a beautiful dream, but waking up is from them a nightmare.

“Tom…”

“I think that he got the message,” he said, taking a step back from you. He lit a cigarette, clenching his jaw.

“This is not a joke to me, Tom. It’s not something I’m doing just for him,” you said.

“No? Then explain what all of this is to me, darling,” he replied, throwing out some smoke like it was his anger.

“Yeah,” you said, but then you bit your inner cheek.

“What’s stopping you, Y/N? What are you hiding from me?” He asked, scanning your face. “Are you ashamed of something? Maybe it’s what you did, you know, the whole cheatingthing… or maybe it’s admitting that you still have feelings for me that brings you shame”.

“No, I’m not ashamed,�� you said, determined.

“Then talk to me, darling. What’s happening?”

“I can’t tell you, Tom, I’m sorry,” you said, looking around. It was like you needed some air, even if you were outside. That secret didn’t make you breath anymore.

“What? That you liked throwing all away? That he didn’t make you feel like I did? That you weren’t done playing with me? Just tell me something, Y/N, anything would be better than this fucking silence,” he said, raising his voice.

“I didn’t cheat on you!” You yelled. Tom’s eyes grew wide. Everything around you two seemed now quiet, motionless. You covered your mouth with your hands, maybe to erase what you just said. “Fuck”.

Tom stared at you for a good couple of minutes. He looked at your tired and tearful eyes, perhaps thinking whether to believe you or not, then he did something unexpected: he put out his cigarette. He walked over to you, raking your face in his hands and looked into your eyes, this time more intensely. He looked tired and incredibly older.

“Now you’re gonna tell me everything, darling”.

[twistedmusings]

Vil Schoenheit: After RSA’S Performance

The first time he had been left speechless was because of you.

You who always knew what to say, you who always had an answer to the problem at hand.

Where were you?

A/N: What is formatting. I don’t even know.

But listen though. When did Vil get hot? I mean he has always been hot but is it now because he is sad boy? A rude boy turned sad boy? Is that why I am attracted to him now and was compelled to write this?

I don’t know but I’m in love so I’m going to run with it.

This is how Vil would react if MC looked like they were enjoying RSA’s performance.

Part 2, here!

What Vil felt couldn’t really be put into words.

His grades would say that he was one of the highest ranking students in the Language Arts for Night Raven College. Not just in regular human speech but also in fairy-dialect, animal dialect and any sort of dialect that Professor Trein would demand. Vil also excelled in prose, poetry and abstract writing.

Being left speechless was not something that was supposed to happen, not twice in a row.

The tightening of his throat would speak otherwise, as well as the sudden feeling of vertigo.

Vil could barely hear Kalim through the jovial sound of Neige’s voice, the one thing that had kept him awake for these past few weeks--no these past few years. When was the last time that he had felt so helpless? Was it when he had first met him? Neige, with his bright smile and lovable personality that made people overlook his mistakes, his very obvious mistakes. The way he wouldn’t go when it was his cue, or how Neige would forget almost every other line only to finally have the script memorized by the time it was opening night.

A children’s song.

“What even is this song! The chorus just won’t leave my head!”

He wasn’t even ready during dress rehearsal, Neige would wait until fucking opening night.

Was it dramatic to say that the whole event had haunted him? As well as the domino effect of undeserved fame that Neige had gotten afterwards?

No, to Vil, being overshadowed by this person despite all the effort that he put into each and everyone of his performances was something akin to being shot by a gun.

Over and over and over.

He had been beaten by a children’s song.

Every single commercial, every music video, every promotion and every product placement that Neige did was like a dagger carving him up from the inside out.

So when the VDC presented itself, he jumped at the chance to not just shape himself into the perfect being to defeat Neige, but to shape others to show that not only could he surpass himself but he could help others break through their own ‘ugly’ exteriors to discover their own personal beauty. And by all means he had done it, he had taken five rough and ugly rocks and turned them into polished jewels.

Polished jewels that framed the diamond he had worked so hard to turn himself into.

His grip on the audience seat loosens when something flashes through his mind.

The practices had been rather arduous, not only having to make sure that he was flawless but trying to deal with Epel’s stupid gender based ideas, Ace and Deuce’s lack of grace and even Kalim’s really really terrible singing voice. Yet something had made it even a little bit worth it.

Someone, he needed to correct himself, someone had made it a bit worth it.

The sixth potato that he had hoped to start shaping after this whole thing was over.

What could he say about you? At first glance you were truly nothing special. An uneventful, magicless person from an equally uneventful place that hadn’t even been accepted into this school but was instead made a student because of the monster next to you. You weren’t even a student, more like a glorified problem solver for the Headmaster. Ideally, Vil should have also hated your guts since you were essentially getting the same education that he had been getting when he was a first year but without any effort but there was something different about you that he had not expected.

I think you’re probably the fairest out of everyone in the school.

A small glimmer of something beautiful.

But in the end your opinion is the one that will matter to you.

You were honest. That is something that Rook had mentioned about you once he did his recon of the new manager for the VDC team. How the Ramshackle prefect really didn’t have anything to offer but that the quality that stood out the most to the hunter was your refreshing honesty.

He had modeled for crowds of adoring fans and yet he found himself pulling out his pocket mirror and fixing non-existent imperfections before talking to you. Yet even when he tried to make himself look presentable to you, you always seemed to catch him when all of his walls were down.

“You should have seen the information that I got from Riddle, Leona, and Azul. They have really gotten a reputation behind them, the Ramshackle prefect. I wonder what will happen if we keep them close~”

Vil wouldn’t admit it to anyone but there had been a brief moment that his heart skipped a beat when the news about how the VDC team would be rooming in Ramshackle. He figured it had skipped out of beat due to the horrific news that he would have to room in a dorm that had not been used for who knows how long but when he had come inside and been greeted by your smile, it was almost surreal how he had come to terms with this feeling of nervousness.

The night before the VDC had found Vil in the Ramshackle lounge, a cup of tea in his hand as he watched a video of that day’s performance. There were still minor imperfections here and there but those would be easily covered up by his own singing and movements. Epel had also improved exponentially which highly increased the probability of a successful performance and with Jami’s hypnotizing movements and Rook’s aura there was no doubt that he had this competition under his heel.

But nerves like these didn’t leave overnight.

A creak on the stairs brought him back to the present, taking a sip of his tea as he continued to look at the video.

“If you’re here to ask me about why I am awake at this hour, Rook, I would like to remind you that you insisted we review the performance in the morning which already did nothing to calm my nerves--”

"Vil-senpai?"

His head snapped up to look at you , the light of the moon masking him in shadows while illuminating you as you made your way down the staircase. He clicked his tongue and turned off his phone.

"Was I interrupting something?"

Vil shook his head, “Last minute detail check. Everything has to be perfect by tomorrow.”

You nod and walk towards him, standing next to the couch before pointing to it. Vil looked at you before looking at the seat next to him. What were you--oh. He nodded and you sat down on the other side of the love seat, both of you farther apart that he would have liked.

“Does the manager have anything they want to say to me?”

“It just gets me thinking. You have been doing this performance perfectly in my eyes. Over and over again that it makes me wonder just what you think is lacking.”

You bring your feet up to the seat, hugging your knees together as you look down at the floor, “Maybe your definition of perfect and my definition of perfect are so different.”

The Pomefiore dorm leader rolls his eyes, “Did your Heartslabyul friends put you up to this?”

“Ace and Deuce? Great Sevens no. If they did I would have rightfully ignored them and gone to bed. I’m just your manager, I’m not here to negotiate.”

“Just a manager.” Vil frowns and looks at you, “You understand that you are currently housing the Vil Schoenheit as well as six other people who happen to be under my temporary tutelage. If you and your dorm weren’t around I would have had to keep those two Heartslabyul potatoes in the Pomefiore dorm and I don’t think I could stand letting them sleep in one of our beds. Our dorm has standards, luckily yours is the most neutral place I can stand being around those two without losing sleep.”

He blinks at the snort you let out, staring as you wave your hands and apologize while trying to prevent another one from surfacing.

“That is the only straightforward compliment my dorm has received. Neutral.” you laugh again before wiping a fake tear from your eyes, “Am I allowed to take it as a compliment?”

Vil is glad for the darkness, it hid the sudden flush in his cheeks.

“Take it as you will.”

You nod and stand up, stretching and letting out a satisfied sigh when your back made a small cracking noise that had Vil clutching at his cup. Anybody else and he would have walked out of whatever conversation he was having, so why did he find that tolerable with you?

“Then let me pay it back.” you hold out your hand and for a brief moment Vil wants to take it. Clearly that was an invitation for something and it alarmed him that he didn’t mind the mystery behind it. Yet your finger pointed at the cup, Vil looking down and seeing it was empty.

Oh.

He hands it to you, doing his best to make it so that your fingers would brush in the most accidental way possible.

“In my own opinion, as well as the opinion of others, I think you are the fairest out of everyone in the school.”

The air in Vil’s lungs gets caught in his throat.

“No joke. The way you carry yourself, the effort you put into everything you are a part of. Even the potato comments are almost...endearing? Potato plants produce rather pretty flowers, right? Maybe you are just trying to get the flowers inside of us to bloom as well?”

He is staring.

He is staring and not saying anything. You had left him without speech.

“But in the end your opinion will be the one that matters most to you. I just hope that it will always be positive.” you scratch the back of your head and yawn, “I’m going to grab a glass of water and head back to bed, I’ll see you in the morning.”

Your eyes are still meeting his as a small flush adorned your cheeks, probably embarrassed by what you had just said. Or he would like to think you would be embarrassed, if this was any regular love story he would stand up and grab your wrist and keep you from running away from him before cupping your face and leaning in--

“Good night, Vil-senpai.”

"Goodnight."

You who always knew what to say, you who always had an answer to the problem at hand.

Where were you?

His eyes start looking around for your figure, hands itching and brain running slower than it ever had before. Maybe you would make it better? No, you would make it better. You would go over to him and smile before saying that the competition hadn’t even started and just because that song seemed to be moving everyone under a stupid nostalgia spell, Vil’s hardwork would shine through. Neige hadn’t taken everything from him, not just yet.

Vil feels the weight on his shoulders lessen when he looks at you only for it to double when he sees your face.

You were smiling, humming along to the silly melody as your head bobbed up and down.

Even in practice your gaze remained fixed on them, yet with Neige you seemed to feel that infectious, annoying melody and enjoying it?

“What’s wrong? You look pale.”

Had he lost you as well?

“Vil...Vil?”

The first time he had been left speechless was because of you.

“...Nothing. Don’t worry.” he turns his back to Rook, “It’s not worth seeing their performance. I will be in the waiting room.”

Vil walks away, so many thoughts clouding his head as he replays the words you had said to him.

Who the hell cared about his opinion when yours was just as important?