#and let's not mention her husband who's totally useless | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

gukyi · 4 years

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love me or we both go down | kth

summary: after going through with an arranged marriage to please his parents and secure his inheritance of the family business, kim taehyung thinks he’s got it all figured out. he doesn’t. apparently just being married to you isn’t enough, not when everybody and their mother can pick up on the fact that the two of you absolutely loathe each other. but taehyung wants his inheritance one way or another, so he decides that desperate times call for desperate measures: the two of you need to fall in love, and you need to fall in love fast.

{enemies to lovers!au, arranged marriage!au, rich kids!au}

pairing: kim taehyung x female reader genre: fluff, angst, smut (i know, crazy right?) word count: 32k warnings: oral sex (m & f receiving), fingering, penetrative sex, multiple unprotected sex scenes (they’re married y’all), fat cock tae, tae has a wife kink, lots of praise, alcohol consumption (but they’re safe), minor character death (not explicit), mentions of heart attack, slow burn like there is no tomorrow a/n: hello and welcome to the fic everyone, literally everyone, has been waiting for! i am so, so, so excited to share this with you all, especially because none other than rose @kinktae helped me write the smut, and i am literally forever indebted to her. you all better go spam rose with all the love and support you can because this fic would not be here without her and i love her so much.

also, to all my readers who aren’t comfortable reading smut, please know that the smut in this fic is not imperative to the storyline, and you skipping past it will not affect your reading experience., enjoy!

Never in your life have wedding bells felt so ominous.

The sound of them is akin to the sound of strings, of a single piano note in a horror movie, right when the film opens and someone random is about to die on screen for the sake of proving to the audience that this is, in fact, a horror movie. Make no mistake about it; these wedding bells spell doom for you, too. And the most horrific part about them is that just like that poor, helpless soul in the movie, there is no way for you to escape your fate either.

With only seconds left to go before you have no choice but to promise yourself to the man waiting at the other end of the aisle, you desperately try to think of any last-ditch efforts to get out of this. Many, if not all of them, are utterly useless.

Feigning sudden illness won’t work, because then your parents will just reschedule the wedding to a later date. Running away is fruitless. Where will you go? The parking lot?

If only you had a lover out there in the audience somewhere that could object to the marriage when the officiant says, “Speak now, or forever hold your peace.” A knight in shining armor that could whisk you out of the venue and off to a new life, far away from here. Too bad all of the people you’ve dated before hate you now.

Maybe getting married isn’t such a bad thing after all. Instead of having relationships with multiple people who will eventually despise your existence, you only have to have a relationship with one. And the feeling, as has always been, is mutual.

You bristle as your assistants do some last-minute prepping, fixing your sleeve and adjusting your necklace and making sure you don’t trip on your enormous train. They flutter around you like a swarm of well-meaning but ignorant butterflies complicit in the agenda of your family. None of them have said a word to you about the wedding ever since you arrived at the venue, choosing to talk more about things like the weather. Not that you were ever under the impression they had been hired to entertain you. Maybe they were told to not engage you, just in case you try to conspire with them.

As if they could be of any use in your wildly unrealistic escape plans.

The truth is that, unless you were to drop dead on this marble flooring right now, you’re getting married. Whether you like it or not.

The doors open.

You’ve attended red carpets, galas, award shows, and balls. You’ve had hundreds of cameras flashing in your face, the bright light capturing each and every centimeter of you. You’ve had paparazzi waiting outside the restaurants you eat at, the stores you shop at, desperate to catch a picture of you in sweatpants without a drop of makeup on. You’ve been on dates with ex-lovers that looked at you like you were a piece of meat with a credit card. And yet, for some goddamn reason, walking down the aisle in a white dress the size of Pluto, with the rest of your life waiting for you at the other end, makes you feel fucking transparent.

Face resolute, you clutch onto your bouquet so tightly the flowers feel like they’re about to pop right out of your grasp. Determined not to look at anybody in the audience, you stare straight ahead, right into the eyes of your future husband.

Kim Taehyung, for someone you have seen multiple times drunk off his ass with hickies dotting his neck and jawline, cleans up pretty well. For someone getting married, at least. He dons a simple black tuxedo that still probably costs more than the average car, his caramel brown hair is pushed back off his forehead, and his expression is firm and still. He most certainly has had an equally expensive team prepping him, but they haven’t done too bad a job. The silver lining is that he doesn’t look any more thrilled than you are to be doing this, right here, right now. But to his credit, this is definitely the best he’s ever looked, as far as you’re concerned.

When you reach him, he offers his hand out to you, a hand that you only accept for the sake of professionalism. The bouquet in your hands is handed off to one of your bridesmaids, and the two of you take your position at the front. Your train drags along the aisle, draping over the few stairs you had to climb to reach the altar, this satin trail behind you that cements you to the floor. It may as well be a ball-and-chain. It’s about as heavy as one, anyway.

This is the longest you and Taehyung have ever held eye contact. Not that you’re really keeping track of how long the two of you have met each other’s gazes, but if you had to make an educated guess, this would definitely be the victor. Most of the time you end up sneering at each other ten seconds in, but to be fair, those other times you were also not getting married. To one another. In a ceremony attended by hundreds of people. And cameras.

There can be no sneering here.

“Don’t you look nice?” Taehyung whispers, loud enough so only the two of you can hear. He has that drawling, sickly sweet tone to his voice, the one that you hate because it makes him sound like he thinks he’s so much better than everyone else. “Surprised they were able to makeup that scowl off your face.”

This, of course, brings on a hearty scowl only he can see, your backs both facing the rows of attendees. “How much concealer are you wearing to cover up all of the hickies on your neck?” You quip back easily. It’s not like the two of you are going to pretend he doesn’t waltz around at every club or bar or private venue he can find, looking for his next treat.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Taehyung grins, and if you weren’t standing in front of hundreds of people about to get married, there’s no telling what next you would do.

The two of you would probably go on like that for another ten minutes if it’s not for the officiant, who coughs once he’s ready and opens the book in his hands. Next to you, Taehyung straightens, hands clasped together at his front, and lips pressed into a neat line. You do the same. There will be no giggles, no laughter nor smiles, nor any genuine emotion at this wedding. This is a wedding for the sake of politics, for economics, for security, and anyone in attendance would be a fool to think otherwise. Especially you.

“Ladies and gentlemen, family and friends, loved ones, and esteemed guests,” the officiant bellows, listing off as many groups of people as he possibly can in an effort to both include and compliment every person in the audience, “We are gathered here to celebrate the wedding, and future life, of Taehyung and Y/N…”

Taehyung turns to you, grinning in that god-awful way, the way he does when he feels like he’s got something over you. And sure, you can’t think of any punishment quite as bad as this, but what’s Taehyung got to smile about? He’s marrying himself off to a woman he hates, kissing goodbye his days as a free-spirited, heartbreaking bachelor, and promising what may very well be the rest of his life to loving you. That is not cause for celebration.

But perhaps, to him, your suffering is enough to bring a smile to his face.

Your vows are, to put it simply, total bullshit. Your family hired someone to write yours and there’s not a doubt in your mind that his family did the same thing. This nonsense talk, this complete and utter garbage that spews from your perfectly-glossed lips, shit about how you promise to love each other until the end of your days, how you promise to take care of each other when you’re sick and accompany each other at every event, every gala, every ball. Shit about how you promise to look only at each other, promise to uphold your family traditions and become a dependable spouse.

The words don’t belong to you. But the thing is that this marriage was never yours anyway.

When the kiss comes, there’s a part of you that thinks maybe you should have psyched yourself up a little more for this. When Taehyung pulls you in, placing a stiff hand on your lower back as he brings you towards his chest, your stomach turns and shivers run down your spine. The feeling of his hand on your body, the breath from his lips brushing against your own, are enough to keep you frozen in place.

He smiles at you, almost as if to ask, “Are you ready?”

And you squeeze your eyes shut, almost as if to respond, “Let’s do this.”

When his lips meet yours, there is almost nothing. Nothing runs through you, nothing explodes, nothing strikes. But when he pulls away and cheers and applause rings out throughout the room, there is something. A little heat, a remnant of a flame, left on your lips. A little sting, just to remind you it happened.

The entire hall is cheering but nothing about this is worth celebrating. The fact of the matter is that you and Taehyung will never love each other the way that you are supposed to.

“Ugh, finally.”

The elevator doors haven’t even properly opened by the time Taehyung is loosening his tie, tugging it off over his head as he stretches his head back and runs a hand through his perfectly-styled hair. As he rakes his fingers through his caramel locks, the hairspray and gel loosens, strands falling down by the side of his face, framing his temple.

“Don’t sound so relieved,” you huff out, deciding now is as good a time as any to start getting undressed yourself. Reaching down to lift up the hem of your reception dress, you tug off your heels, already feeling lighter on your feet. Who cares if Taehyung is watching you pull off your stilettos like a defeated movie heroine? You don’t think you can walk another step in those shoes. “We still have to live together, you know.”

“Don’t remind me,” Taehyung says gruffly, brushing by you roughly as he stomps out of the elevator. “I’m just glad the fucking night is over. I swear, seeing that fake-ass smile on your face made me want to gouge my eyes out.”

You storm after him, refusing to be the helpless damsel in this situation. “Oh, like you didn’t also have that exact same fake-ass smile on your face. It almost made me think you were actually enjoying yourself tonight.”

“I was only enjoying the fact that I know you hate this just as much as I do.” It’s perhaps the only thing you will ever be able to empathize with him on. Mutually relishing in the other’s destruction. Taehyung fumbles with the keypad to the door to the penthouse for a moment before you hear the lock click, the door sliding open as the entrance lights flicker on.

The reason Taehyung’s penthouse is so clean is because he’s never lived here before. Neither of you have—Taehyung’s parents bought it just for the two of you. And as much as you absolutely despise the idea of having to live with him, at least it was not you who paid for your place of residence.

You can tell Taehyung’s never lived here before because it’s actually quite nicely decorated inside. The ceilings are high and the sleek velvet curtains are pulled open, revealing a shimmering skyline. The furniture is modern and functional, and the whole damn place smells brand new. You’ve had the unfortunate pleasure of entering the place Taehyung lived in before now, and it looked nothing like this. The furniture was worn and stained despite the live-in maid, the house reeked of five hundred different spices that wafted from the kitchen to the living room, and the bookshelves were covered with comics, graphic novels, and old textbooks.

If it weren’t for the fact that you and Taehyung are rich kids in their twenties that hate each other, you might have actually thought the place looked… homey.

You don’t have time to be impressed by the interior design and architecture skills of whoever designed this place. Right now, all you can think about is tugging yourself out of your airtight reception dress and passing out on the nearest bed. Which, hopefully, will be as far away as possible from Taehyung’s bed of choice.

“How many bedrooms does this place have?” You ask, shimmying along the floor so you don’t trip over the hem of your dress. From the looks of it, you can see one giant hallway to your right and a massive, double-sided staircase leading up.

“Enough,” Taehyung grumbles in response. The hazy stupor from all of the fancy champagne is starting to wear off for the both of you, leaving behind two grouchy, begrudgingly-married individuals who want absolutely nothing to do with each other and have no problems making that known. Whatever golden light of the evening that was making Taehyung at least a little bit more attractive than usual has faded, and now you see him for what he really is: an unceremoniously tired man in a suit. “You want upstairs or down?”

You gaze up at the marble staircase in front of you, then back down at your too-long dress. “Down.” The last thing you want is to trip in front of the man you have to see, every day, for the rest of your life.

“Fine by me.” Taehyung’s halfway up the stairs by the time he turns back around to say something else. “I’ll see you tomorrow, I guess?”

“Yeah.” There’s no point in being hostile now. The both of you are too exhausted to mean anything by it. Besides, what else can you say? Everything to complain about has already been complained about. At least the two of you managed to wrestle out from your parents the stipulation that you would not be going on a honeymoon together. Now that would have been your worst nightmare. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

It’s as good of a goodnight either of you are going to get. Taehyung heads up the stairs and disappears around a corner, and you start wandering down the hallway. All the bedrooms look the exact same other than different colors on the walls and bedsheets, but they all look serviceable to you. Clean. Empty. Far away from wherever Taehyung is.

You pick the one at the very end of the hall just to be as much of a diva as possible, and don’t even bother drawing the curtains before tugging off your dress. It’s past one in the morning, and you’re so high up you don’t think anyone will be able to see you anyway. By the time you’ve stripped naked and are tugging up the too-tight sheets tucked into the mattress, your legs are about to give out beneath you. The bed could be made of rocks for all you care. Anything to lie down on is fine by you.

Sleep comes fairly easily to you tonight. Once your head hits the pillow you can already feel yourself drifting off, eyelids fluttering shut, but you don’t sleep quite yet. Not before you can think about how this is your life now, sleeping in a foreign bed in a foreign place with a foreign husband upstairs. This is what you will be living in now. Now and forever.

Living with Taehyung is, in both the best and worst ways possible, like living with a roommate that doesn’t give a shit about the fact that they live with another person. It’s good, because you and Taehyung hardly see each other and speak even less, which was pretty much the only thing you were asking for when it came to living with him. But it also sucks, because whenever you do happen to cross paths, Taehyung acts like you don’t exist, barely sparing you a hello or even that tight-lipped smile you send to drivers on the road when they let you cross the street.

Not that the two of you ever engaged in energetic conversation before you got married. But at least the two of you would acknowledge each other, even if only to shoot a glare and a scowl the other’s way from opposite sides of a hotel ballroom. Maybe it’s just because it’s him, but you did always find yourself actually relishing in those little interactions with Taehyung. In this strange, twisted way, it seemed to provide some sort of continuity to your ever-changing life. Like no matter what happened, at least you would know that the two of you would always despise each other.

To be frank, right now you’re not sure if Taehyung even remembers he got married at all.

Nights have been a lot more sleepless since your wedding day. After two weeks, the reality of it has finally started to settle in. This is your life now. And ever since you realized that, your bed has felt much less comfortable.

“But the place is nice, right?”

You look around the living room from where you’re sat on the sleek, white suede leather couch, eyes glossing over the bookshelves, the floor-to-ceiling windows, the draping velvet curtains. From here, you can see the entire city skyline, flecks of gold from the windows of skyscrapers against a navy blue background. Slowly, as the moon creeps over the sky and the clock gets later and later, those lights will soon begin to flicker off, one by one.

“Yeah, it’s not bad.” Nothing to write home about. That is, if home were a place other than here.

“That’s good. At least you don’t live in, like, a total dump or anything,” Victoria says on the other end of the line. “How’s Taehyung?”

His name alone elicits this deeply-exhausted sigh from your lips, like it’s been ten years since you married and every day has felt worse than the last. “Fine.” You can’t really complain about anything yet, considering that you hardly ever see the man.

“Just ‘fine’?” Victoria sounds skeptical.

“Yeah,” you draw out the word, as if trying to convince yourself of its truth. “I mean, it’s like he doesn’t even live here. I barely see him. And when I do, we don’t even speak to each other.”

“That’s good though, isn’t it? You hate him.” Victoria says it like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. And in a sense, it kind of is.

“I mean…”

“I know that your life hasn’t exactly… gone the way you had planned, but isn’t this your best case scenario when considering everything?” She asks. “If Taehyung is as distant as you say he is, isn’t it almost like you never married him in the first place?”

As if on cue, you hear footsteps coming down the stairs, heels clicking on the marble as they make their way to the entrance. You whip your head around to find Taehyung, all dressed up in loose, flowy slacks and a flowery silk button-down, strolling down the staircase as he scrolls through his phone, paying you zero attention whatsoever.

He notices you briefly when he reaches the bottom, meeting your eyes with his own. He offers this measly, unenthused half-smile your way before he grabs his wallet and some house keys from the table by the entrance, opens the door, and vanishes off into the night.

If you hadn’t been in the living room, you probably wouldn’t have even realized he left. Not that you being present as he’s planning on leaving would have stopped him anyway. This is the sixth night he’s done this in the past two weeks. You could stand by the door and stare him down as he emerges from his bedroom, all dressed up for something you’re definitely not invited to, and he would offer you that same goddamn smile and walk out the door without even blinking. Who he was before you got married and who he is now are no different. Not even a ring could change that.

“I guess,” you tell Victoria. At least Taehyung hasn’t turned into a helicopter husband. “I don’t know. Maybe I just wish that I didn’t have to deal with him at all.”

Wish you could turn back time. Wish you could worm your way out of an arranged marriage before it was too late. Wish you could go back to the way things used to be.

You and Victoria talk for another couple of minutes before she regretfully has to end the call, citing both her beauty sleep and an 8AM meeting tomorrow morning as her reasons for hanging up. The moment you put the phone down, you sink back into the couch cushions, staring out the windows at the world below you.

Here’s the deal. What Taehyung does in his free time is none of your business. But also, it’s totally your business, because you are his spouse. A spouse who is an equal amount in the public eye as he is. What he does and does not do has a direct impact on what you do and do not do.

It’s no secret that when you catch Taehyung sauntering down the stairs looking like a Gucci runway model, it’s not because he’s planning on catching a movie with a college friend and then playing video games for four hours on a couch in a basement. He is going out. To clubs, to parties, to exclusive events that he’s been invited to by his equally-rich friends, all of whom are acting like he’s the same bachelor he’s always been.

And maybe that’s the real problem with your whole marriage—other than the glaringly obvious issue that it’s a marriage wholly unwanted by the two parties involved in it. Despite the ring on his finger, Taehyung is going out and pretending that nothing in his life has changed while you’re trapped at home, desperate to save you and your family’s reputation by keeping as low a profile as possible. You would give anything to march around the city all day, flashing middle fingers at paparazzi as you shop at your favorite high-end stores and frequent your favorite clubs. But you can’t, because your family’s fortune and influence is on the line.

And apparently, Taehyung’s isn’t.

It sort of makes you wonder why it was even Taehyung you ended up marrying anyway. His family isn’t any richer or more powerful than yours. Your spheres have always been sufficiently separate. What was it about him, and perhaps more importantly, his family that drew your parent’s eye? And what was it about marrying you that prevented him from saying no? Money? Prestige? Influence?

You suppose you’ll never know. But whatever mystical force that convinced Taehyung to agree to this must not be as important to him as your reasoning is to you, because it’s become exceedingly apparent that Taehyung does not care that he’s married. He doesn’t care about the ring on his finger, he doesn’t care about his public image, and he most certainly doesn’t care about you.

Perhaps you were naive for thinking this, but you actually believed marriage might tone him down a little. Might age him into a real adult with real world obligations. Instead, it’s only given you a firsthand look into who Kim Taehyung has been and always will be: a selfish rich kid.

You don’t bother waiting around in the living room until he gets back, but you are still awake by the time you hear the door creak open. Taehyung makes no efforts to hide his return. You can hear him chattering loudly on the phone as he stumbles up the stairs, can tell from his gait alone that he is most certainly wasted. You don’t want to know what he did tonight. You’ll probably be able to figure it out anyway when you wake up tomorrow morning and check your social media.

What were you thinking, marrying him? That he would change? That he would suddenly become someone that you could rely on? You had no choice when you said, “I do,” but you were at least hoping that maybe one day, one day in a long, long time, the two of you would finally see eye to eye. Maybe there would even come a time when you would genuinely love him. How foolish.

You close your eyes and try to imagine a world where you have married someone you love, someone who loves you back.

Not unlike the many nights preceding it, tonight is sleepless.

Unlike your marital status and general disposition, one thing that hasn’t changed about you is your love for extravagant events. Call you conceited, but there is something so much fun about putting on a fancy, expensive dress that you love and getting your hair and makeup done before going to an exclusive gala and posing in front of five hundred cameras.

Actually, now that you think about it, maybe your wedding could have actually been pretty good, considering it let you do all those things. It’s a real shame there happened to be a storm cloud in the form of Kim Taehyung there to ruin it. Otherwise, you think you would have rather enjoyed that day.

Tonight is the first event since your marriage where you and Taehyung are both required to show up and act like a happy married couple. Which would probably be a lot easier if you and Taehyung had exchanged more than ten words over the past two weeks. Maybe it was wishful thinking, but there was a part of you that thought you could use your arranged marriage to actually cultivate some sort of meaningful relationship between the two of you. So events like these wouldn’t be such a drain on both of you.

When Kim Taehyung comes down the stairs, he actually doesn’t look too bad. You don’t know why this sort of thing keeps catching you off guard—like you don’t expect him to look that good whenever you see him. The problem is that you can’t even chalk up the surprise to him wearing tailored clothes or having his hair done. He just looks… good.

Well, you suppose you do have to look at him every day for the rest of your life. It’s a good thing he’s attractive. At least he’s not sore on the eyes.

Taehyung and his unfortunate attractiveness aside, the two of you don’t say a word to each other as you join up at the entrance, grabbing any last-minute items like house keys, chapstick, and whatever dignity you have left to spare. You send forced smiles and tight nods each other’s way in the elevator, staring straight ahead in the lobby of your building as the car pulls up to the front door.

By the time the two of you sit down in the back of the limousine, the built-up tension between the two of you is so thick you’re almost positive that even the chauffeur can feel it through the closed partition.

If you were any more idyllic, you’d probably spend the drive over to the gala staring out the window and imagining yourself in a different life, on a train to nowhere, flowers in your hair and a journal in your hands. Or perhaps you’d be the CEO of your family’s company instead of having that responsibility passed down to a husband you don’t even want, sitting in an office at the top of a skyscraper overlooking the city. Anything. Anything but this.

But the idyllic part of you died when you realized that fantasies like that are nothing but distractions and that daydreams are for romantics and optimists and losers.

“What’s our plan for tonight?”

Taehyung scoffs. “What do you mean, ‘what’s our plan’?”

You frown. “Well, we’re married, so we at least have to act like it, don’t you think?”

“Isn’t standing there and smiling enough?” Taehyung asks, an unimpressed eyebrow raised.

You bristle. Maybe that sufficed for your wedding, but there was so much going on it was easy to distract yourself from the gravity of it all. But this event is not about you. It’s not even about either of your families. It’s about someone the two of you are, at best, distantly connected to, through work, through fame, through power. Which means that though the focus will not be on you, there will still be eyes looking your way. Eyes watching your every move.

“Do you think it will be?” You challenge. Doesn’t Taehyung realize that things are different now?

Taehyung’s lips curl downwards. “What do you expect us to do, shower each other in kisses? We don’t even sleep on the same fucking floor.”

“Maybe I just expected you to act less like a stranger and more like a husband!”

Taehyung sighs. “Don’t.” The word is clipped, short. “Don’t tell me you actually want to be married.”

“I don’t.” It’s a response that you hardly have to think twice about. “But we are, and nothing can change that.” Unfortunately. But it’s a fact that you and Taehyung have both had to grapple with over the past few weeks, and it’s becoming increasingly obvious that you are more aware of it than he is. If Taehyung could have his way, he would ignore you for the rest of his life and keep partying with the rest of his bachelor friends until he keeled over and died.

He huffs next to you, eyes staring straight ahead. You don’t think the two of you have met each other’s eyes in a week. Maybe more. They’re starting to feel as soulless as your marriage itself. “Whatever. What do you want me to do?”

“What do you think?” You cross your arms over your chest. “Just act like you don’t hate me. Can you do that?” The way Taehyung’s behaving right now, you expect that will be a challenge for the both of you.

“Only if you can. I’ll even hold your hand to prove that we love each other.”

“Fine.”

The idea of holding Taehyung’s hand makes you want to implode. The mere thought sends shivers down your spine. But it’s better than nothing, and that’s good enough for you. At least you won’t have to kiss.

The rest of the ride there is silent. You drive to this gorgeous mansion just outside the city, bathed in lights hidden amongst the bushes, illuminating both the architecture and the enormous fountain that sits in front of it. In a house this size, you imagine you could probably go your whole life without ever having to come across Taehyung. It actually makes you consider investing in a home that big.

Taehyung helps you out of the back of the limousine, a cold hand clasping your own as you rest your palm against his. You can feel the way his fingers hesitate as yours make to intertwine with his as you walk towards the entrance, smiling at whatever camera flashes you encounter on your way. If you didn’t know any better, you’d think you were holding hands with a ghost.

The moment you step inside and are ushered out of the door’s view, Taehyung’s grip relaxes on yours. For a moment, you think he’ll actually spend the rest of the night like this, a gentle hand wrapped around yours, but then he pulls it away entirely and shoves it back into his pocket. Oh. You frown quietly to yourself. So that’s how tonight’s going to go.

You don’t make an effort to reach out towards him again.

For an event concerning people you don’t know a damn thing about, everyone sure seems to know things about you. Other than greetings, you don’t think anyone’s said anything to you about anything other than your recent marriage to Taehyung. Every conversation is punctuated by a Congratulations! you do not feel that you have at all earned, considering you and Taehyung could barely look at each other on the way here.

Maybe Taehyung was right. All you really can do is stand there and smile.

“Oh, don’t tell me… Y/N, is that you?”

The champagne swirls around in the flute between your fingers as you turn towards the sound of your name, looking up to see a familiar face headed your way.

Kim Seokjin is nice enough. He’s terribly handsome and got a flawless smile, but you know better than to trust those pearly whites of his. The sight of him alone is enough to make your body tense up. There was a reason you had explicitly told your parents not to invite him to your wedding.

“Seokjin, what a surprise to see you here,” you say, forcing a smile. “I thought you were supposed to be in Switzerland right now.”

“Change of plans,” Seokjin grins back in that awful, awful way, the kind of grin that makes you feel like he’s looking right through you. “I came back early. It’s a shame, though, I missed your wedding.”

You shrug. “It was a humble affair.” It wasn’t. And you’re positive that Seokjin knows it wasn’t an accident that you didn’t extend an invitation to him or his family.

“Ah, I see,” Seokjin says, nodding his head. He turns to Taehyung next to you, who is making no effort to hide how wholly uninterested in this conversation he is, and holds out a hand. “You must be Kim Taehyung, then. I’m Kim Seokjin. Congratulations on your wedding.”

Taehyung shakes his hand firmly, the air between the three of you growing unbearably palpable.

“Seokjin’s father is the VP of News Daily,” You explain, eyebrows raised as you try to signal to Taehyung what exactly it means when Seokjin is speaking to the two of you. “And his mother is a popular journalist for the city’s post.”

Seokjin grew up in the world of media, and it seems he’s picked up his parent’s affinity for sticking their noses in places they don’t belong. You know he’s not talking to the both of you out of the goodness of his heart.

Seokjin laughs, his hand waving away the mention of his parents. “Oh, please. That’s them. I’m just a bored socialite like the rest of you.”

You resist the urge to scoff.

“Marriage treating the two of you well?” He changes the subject to what he really wants to talk about: you.

“Of course,” you say quickly, preventing any hesitation on your end. Your empty hand reaches towards Taehyung’s, fingers searching for his between the two of you. But his refusal to join hands does not go unnoticed by you nor Seokjin, who is eyeing the space between your bodies with an eyebrow raised. “It’s just been—well, it’s just been difficult to adjust to a new life. That’s all.”

If you were to describe the face of a non-believer, it would be the exact expression on Seokjin’s face. “Perfectly understandable,” he says, that same toothy smile lacing his features. “But it must be nice, you know, to marry someone you love.”

“I couldn’t be happier,” you say, almost challenging Seokjin to say something even more inflammatory. He must know that all you’re trying to do at this point is save face. Love? Ha! As if.

“And Taehyung?” Seokjin motions to your husband.

You can feel the way Taehyung is stiffening beside you. “I suppose we are both lucky and unlucky in many ways when it comes to who we love.”

It’s enough of an answer to get Seokjin off your tail. For now. He bids the two of you a tense goodbye before sauntering off to go poke his nose in someone else’s business, fish for drama, a thread of a rumor he can pick apart with nimble fingers. You wonder if anybody actually likes him.

The moment he disappears from earshot, you grab Taehyung’s wrist tightly and pull him close to you. “What the hell was that?” You hiss into his ear.

“What?” You can’t tell if he’s playing dumb or if he really is that dense.

“You!” You exclaim. “Kim Seokjin is the one person who could easily expose how fake this marriage is and you pull away from me? Right in front of him? You can’t even hold my hand for two seconds, that’s how much you hate me?”

“Who cares what he thinks?” Taehyung says. “He’s just another media rat. No one will even remember we were here tomorrow.”

“But if you keep acting like this, people will start to notice! Why can’t you just act like you don’t hate me, for one night? Is that so bad? Is it that torturous, to spend one night with me?”

“Do not turn this on me,” Taehyung orders harshly. “You’re making a scene. Come on.”

You don’t have time to shout at him for bossing you around like you’re a toddler throwing a tantrum before he drags you out of the venue, the two of you finding a back door to the building that leads outside. The cold air blows against your body, goosebumps popping up against your skin, but you find that the chilly night provides quite the respite after practically overheating indoors. Taehyung makes fire rush through your veins but at least the air can cool you back down.

Nevertheless, your conversation is not over. It’s just been moved to a more private location.

“You do realize that our marriage isn’t going to suddenly go away, right? That we’re going to have to keep doing this for the rest of our lives?” You remind him, eyebrows raised. There’s a part of you that genuinely thinks he’s completely forgotten that your marriage is permanent.

“Oh, and not holding hands for five minutes for this one event is totally going to change the course of our lives, isn’t it?” Taehyung fights back.

“Don’t act like you did the right thing,” you spit out. “You don’t have to pretend in front of me. I know you don’t give a shit about our marriage.”

“What marriage is there to even give a shit about? Just because we had a wedding and signed some documents does not mean there is a real marriage between us. Look at us,” he motions between the two of you like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “We hate each other. Is this what you would call marriage?”

“But at least I’m trying to get past that!” You exclaim. “You make it seem like being as miserable as possible is some sort of badge of honor. Do you actually want to spend the rest of your life hating the person you married? Or do you want to grow up and try and move on?”

Taehyung frowns. “What I want is for the person I married to stop acting like they’re doing me such a huge favor by pretending to care about us. Especially when all they really care about is their family’s goddamn reputation.”

“No,” you tell him sternly. You are doing him a favor. He just can’t admit that he actually needs help from you. “You are putting zero effort into this. What am I supposed to do?”

“Let it go!” Taehyung shouts. “Maybe one day we’ll actually start getting along, but right now it’s obvious that neither one of us can stand the other. I don’t need you to do favors for me. I can handle it myself.”

You look away, rolling your eyes. “Doesn’t look like it to me,” you mutter to yourself.

Taehyung cracks. “Fine. You want me to pretend that I actually care about us? I will.” Thank God. Maybe now the two of you will finally start seeing eye-to-eye. “But make no mistake about how I feel about you,” he spits. “Getting married to you ruined my life.”

You stare straight at him and his eyes are swirling, so obscured in the darkness of the night that you might even think he doesn’t have a soul at all. His pupils bore into yours and for once, for once in your goddamn life, after so many years of staring each other down at debutante balls, so many years of witty refrains and snarky insults hurled each other’s way, it feels like the two of you might actually snap.

Then, a camera flashes.

Trouble in Paradise! would be a suitable title for the front page of the city’s biggest tabloid… if anything about your life with Taehyung could be considered paradise. Unfortunately for the both of you, that is not the case.

You don’t need to keep reading the rest of the trashy article on the front page of the daily tabloid to know how much trouble you’re in, nor do you even have time to scroll beneath the terrible photo of you and Taehyung literally shouting at each other before you hear your phone ring.

You don’t even bother saying hello to whoever’s on the other end. You know it’ll go in one ear and out the other.

“I assume you know why I’m calling,” your mother’s harsh tone spits from the other end of the phone. There’s no doubt in your mind that she’s standing in the middle of her office, snapping her fingers at her fifteen secretaries as they partake in the worst damage control your family’s had to deal with since your cousin two years ago was caught with a mistress outside a high-profile restaurant.

“Can I take a wild guess?” You’re about to be scolded into the next century, so you might as well enjoy your last few moments.

“Don’t get cheeky with me,” your mother warns. “Care to explain why you and your beloved husband made the front page of the Daily Post today?”

“I know,” you sigh, a hand coming up to rub at your temples. It’s eight in the morning, you’ve barely looked at your phone, and you haven’t even brushed your teeth yet. It feels like you’re still asleep, and most certainly lack the energy to deal with this right now.

Your mother, on the other hand, thinks otherwise. “You know? You know, and you still go out and do this? For everyone to see?”

“We tried to take our argument outside,” you begin to explain, but your mother isn’t having a single word of it.

“The fact that you thought it was even appropriate to have an argument in a public setting at all astounds me, Y/N. We raised you better than that.” There’s no need for you to even see her face. You’ve grown so used to that disappointed frown over the years that it’s burned into your brain.

“Maybe you should have thought about that before marrying me off to a man I barely know so I could be someone else’s problem instead of yours,” you bite.

“We did this for your own good,” she hisses back. “You are married because we love you, and we want you to succeed outside of this family.”

“Then why do you care what the tabloids print about me?”

“Because being married does not mean you are no longer a part of this family,” your mother informs you sternly, lips smacking together. “Your marriage reflects on all of us, and you know that. What will people think of us when they see how terribly behaved you are?”

“Everyone acts like that, and you know it.” How could your mother preach good behavior when everyone, everyone you know, is just as spoiled and entitled as you? There’s no such thing as being altruistic when it comes to people like you. Being genuine, and good, and pure—that will get you ruined.

You can hear her breathing into the phone when your mother responds, “But not in public, and that is the point. We expect better from you.”

“If you were so worried about me behaving so badly, then why did you even marry me off anyway? You knew that I didn’t want to. What did you think would happen?” It’s a question you wouldn’t have dared ask three months ago. Hell, even a year ago, when it was first revealed you were to be engaged, you wouldn’t have dared open your lips. But things are different now. You’re married to a man that hates you just as much as you hate him. He is making no effort to improve your relationship and seems hellbent on despising you forever. There is no way to get out of it. And if your parents really foresaw all of that, then what was the point in the first place?

“Your grandmother.”

Your mouth shuts.

“You know she wanted to see you married before she passed,” your mother says, words clipped and biting and harsh. “She cares about you. She wanted to make sure you’d be taken care of.”

“I don’t need anyone to take care of me,” you mutter to yourself like a petulant child. In a way, you sort of are.

“If you want to stay in her will, I suggest you change that mindset.”

You freeze in your tracks. The will?

“Is that a threat?” You ask, positively dumbfounded. Are you being coerced into staying in this marriage because of your grandmother’s will?

You can hear your mother laugh, that muted, knowing chuckle of hers. “It was the deal all along, remember?”

Vaguely, you do. You remember fighting your parents tooth and nail over getting married until your grandmother revealed it was her dream to see you wed. You remember the look on her old, wrinkled face, that soft, sad smile that said she knew she didn’t have much time left. You remember agreeing, because how could you deny her? You remember her promising to remember what you’re doing for her.

“You’re kidding.”

“I’m not.”

“But—”

“That’s the end of this conversation, Y/N. You fix things with your husband or you’re out of her will. She’s made that clear. I expect you’ll make the right choice.”

She hangs up.

Well.

There are a lot of ways to describe how you’re currently feeling, and you most certainly had an expensive education that would provide you with plenty of the vocabulary, but you think the most appropriate words for the current situation would be: you’re fucked.

At least the feeling is mutual.

Hardly two minutes after your mother’s brutal phone call, Taehyung comes storming down the stairs, hair still mussed from the night prior, his own phone clenched tightly between is fingers. Even from where you stand in the middle of the living room, you can see the way his eyes are glinting with anger, the veins popping out from his skin.

“I just got off the phone with my parents,” Taehyung begins, not even bothering to spare a ‘good morning’ your way, “and they are fucking furious about last night.”

You shrug. “Join the club,” you mutter, arms crossed in front of you. What, does Taehyung really think you got off scot-free?

“Don’t act like this means nothing to you,” Taehyung says as he approaches you, footsteps calm despite his demeanor being anything but. “You’re the one who’s so obsessed with keeping up their family’s perfect reputation. You’re the reason we’re even in this mess in the first place.”

“What do you mean, ‘I’m the reason’?” You ask, astounded. Like he’s totally absolved of all blame and just an innocent third party. “You are the reason we went outside. You are the reason we had that argument, because you refuse to accept the fact that we’re actually married and there’s nothing we can do about it.”

“Right, because holding hands is really gonna show all those people how in love we are. I bet your parents are so thrilled right now.” Taehyung drawls.

“It’s a start!” You shriek. “God, you’re just so—so infuriating! You can’t accept that this was your fault, too. You just have to turn everything against me and you always, always have to get the last word. It’s like you think you’ll die if you don’t.”

“Like you’re any better,” Taehyung huffs back. “You think I’m the villain because I don’t want to pretend to be in love with someone I’m not in love with. You act like us not holding hands is going to ruin our lives. It was one event! One! It’s obvious we hate each other, so why even try?”

“What, do you expect me to just sit around and do nothing? To act like everything’s fine? Like I’m happy?” As if. This marriage is the worst thing that’s ever happened to you. “While you prance around the city with your rich boy friends, going out to clubs and parties and pretending that I don’t exist? Is that what you expect from me?”

Taehyung laughs, this loud, disbelieving sort of noise, like he’s never heard such nonsense before. “Just because we’re married doesn’t mean the rest of my life has to change. Am I not allowed to enjoy myself with my friends? Or are you determined to keep me chained to your side for the rest of our lives?”

“What I want,” you punctuate every word, “is for you to stop acting like you haven’t got stakes in this, too. You think I don’t know how your family works? What being married to me means for you? Because I do. And I know that if we were to divorce, it would be you who would get the short end of the stick. Make no mistake.”

That’s enough to shut Taehyung up for a good few seconds. And it shuts him up, because he knows it’s true. Taehyung’s family may have a little more money, a little more power than yours, but you’ve got a family intimately more connected with the media. One phone call and Taehyung may have a rather messy, rather public breakup to deal with.

“You wouldn’t,” he says, calling your bluff.

“Are you sure about that?” You say, sticking your ground. You would never really divorce him, of course, but he doesn’t need to know that.

“I am,” Taehyung says firmly. “Don’t think I don’t know what being married to me is in it for you. What is it? Money? Power? Your father’s CEO position?”

“That’s none of your business,” you snap quickly. Maybe you’re more transparent than you thought. Bristling, you straighten your shoulders and turn back to meet his eyes. “Regardless, it seems we both have a reason to stay in this marriage.”

“It seems we do,” Taehyung agrees with a thin, contained smile. “Then I suppose we can reach some sort of agreement.”

“As in…?” Your interest in piqued.

“I’ll stop going out with my friends if you stop picking fights with me all the time,” he says economically, like he’s killing two birds with one stone.

“Only if you agree to also act more like my husband when we’re in public,” you tack on, because you just can’t settle for anything less.

“Public only,” Taehyung specifies.

You scoff. “Like I’d even want to pretend to be your wife when we’re in private.”

“Good. It seems we’ve come to a deal.”

“What’s in this for you, huh?” You prod, just to be annoying. Taehyung’s right. There’s a reason you’re not divorcing him the second you get the chance. But there must be a reason why he’s not doing the same thing.

“Does it matter?” He challenges, a single eyebrow raised. “My life is just as awful as yours.”

Fair enough.

“Do we have a deal?” Taehyung asks, holding out his hand, that sneaky, devilish grin lacing his features.

Taking his hand in yours and grasping it firmly is the easiest decision in the world. His palm presses against your own, hot hand meeting your cold skin, and it feels like the two of you are finally finding some sort of balance. You look up into his eyes, burn your gaze into his pupils, watch them glint in the white ceiling light of the living room.

“Deal.”

For two people raised on the values of reading the fine print and making educated choices when it comes to business deals, you and Taehyung sure haven’t worked out any of the intricacies of the deal the two of you agreed to. Unlike those business deals your parents constantly agreed to, however, knowing all of the stipulations and provisions of your strange, strange agreement with Taehyung may prove more harmful than helpful.

Like right now.

“Wait, we don’t have to be by each other’s side the whole night, do we?” Taehyung asks you, eyebrows furrowed in a knot, as you sit in the back of a big, black van on your way to a mutual friend’s twenty-first birthday bash.

“There are going to be a lot of cameras there,” you respond.

“Yeah, outside the entrance to the damn club. You know they won’t be allowed in, so who cares?” Taehyung rebukes.

You huff out a little sigh, not wanting to get into an argument when you’re literally minutes away from your first public appearance since the whole tabloid debacle from three weeks ago. You and Taehyung could both do with being a bit more relaxed than you normally are when you’re around each other.

“Hasn’t Clarissa invited hundreds of people? They’ll all notice if we aren’t together,” you remind pointedly. The girl whose birthday party you are attending is an heiress who grew up on the money of two people with a monopoly over the current artificial intelligence market and has millions of followers on social media. There will be notable people there. And people will know the two of you, as well.

Taehyung rolls his eyes. “That’s the point, Y/N. There’ll be so many people, no one will even care. It’s her twenty-first birthday. Do you think people are going to be sober?”

You purse your lips together. He’s got a point. “How about when we are together, we hold hands. But if you see a friend or something then feel free to say hi.” Taehyung can be afforded that luxury. Especially because the chances of him not bumping into someone he knows is exceedingly low anyway.

Taehyung nods in agreement. “You too. But I won’t leave you unless I know you’re with someone you’re close with.”

“You don’t have to stay, I’ll be fine,” you say with a small chuckle. What, is Taehyung suddenly worried, or something?

“Yeah, but it would be in bad taste if I left you with someone you didn’t know well. Or alone. Just wanna make sure you’re taken care of.” He shrugs nonchalantly, turning back to look out of the window on his side of the car.

“Okay.”

You don’t really have anything else to say to that. You’re sure you can handle yourself if you’re left alone for a few minutes while Taehyung says hi, but you actually find yourself rather appreciative of his resolve to look after you. Or, at least, make sure someone else is looking after you. It’s quite… chivalrous. Strikingly out of character for the Taehyung you’ve become well-acquainted with over the past couple of months.

By the time you arrive, it’s obvious that Taehyung was right about there being so many people you two practically don’t even exist. Other than the herds of camera crews waiting outside the joint, photographing everyone that steps out of a black car to see what they’re wearing and who they’ve come with, no one seems to be paying you any attention. And in a way, that sort of nonexistence, that anonymity, it’s refreshing. Your entire life you’ve felt like all eyes were on you, like there was constantly a spotlight above your head, but here, the party centers around someone else.

Despite that fact, Taehyung keeps his promise. He keeps himself pressed closely against you when there’s not enough space for you two to stand side by side, and he makes sure to have a hand gently intertwined with your own as you weave your way through the dozens of bodies in the room. He doesn’t say anything, of course, always looking up and forward instead of beside him, where you stand, but you find that you’re actually quite relaxed with his presence. He spots a bit of a clearing near the back of the first floor of the club, where a whole bunch of leather couches are pressed up against the brick walls, where the two of you can take a breather.

“Damn, Clarissa knows a lot of people,” you say when you finally settle down, happily plucking a martini from a tray held by one of the many caterers wandering through the venue.

“I doubt she’s even spoken to half of them,” Taehyung comments. “She and I have maybe spoken once… three years ago.”

“It was enough to get you invited, wasn’t it?” You point out with an eyebrow raised.

Taehyung nods, chuckling a little. “Touché,” he says, clinking his own cocktail glass against yours.

You take a swig of the drink, letting it wash down your throat. You’re not exactly sure how else you’re supposed to survive the night. “You must enjoy this, huh?” You muse, looking up at Taehyung from where you’re seated on the couch. He’s standing next to you, looking around the room with a distant gaze in his eye.

“Enjoy what? The drink? It’s nice,” Taehyung says, having another sip.

“No, I mean this,” you say, motioning toward the crowd. “The clubbing, the dancing, the drinking. I’ll bet that if you could do this every day for the rest of your life, you would.”

“I’m honored that you think so highly of me,” he deadpans.

“Just making an observation,” you say, holding your hand up in surrender. “I mean, isn’t this what you used to do every weekend before we got married? Get wasted and party? Wake up in someone else’s bed the next morning? Muscle your way through the week just so you could do it all over again?”

Taehyung shakes his head, a knowing grin on his face. “Looks like someone keeps up with her tabloids. Let me guess, you would scroll through all of those trashy articles on your phone whenever you woke up so you could see what your future husband was doing?”

“I could have never even met you and I would know that that’s exactly what you do,” you say, even though you definitely did do those things before your engagement was announced to the public. “You’re a heartbreaker, Kim Taehyung. I don’t need to read a tabloid to know that.”

“Well, you must be quite the lucky girl, then,” Taehyung comments. “You seem to be taking up so much of my energy that I don’t have the time for that anymore.”

You place a sarcastic hand on your heart. “I didn’t know you were always thinking about me. I’m touched.”

“Don’t get used to it,” Taehyung huffs out, making the two of you both shake your heads as you chuckle to yourselves. First civil conversation you’ve had with each other in a long while, even if there may have been a few blows exchanged.

The privacy doesn’t last long. Soon after, a huge crowd of people that could honestly still pass for teenagers herds towards the back of the club, all of them wanting to take pictures with each other. You and Taehyung do your best to stay out of the way, but one of the girls recognizes him from the Elle photoshoot he did about a year ago and begins to strike up a conversation with the both of you about your recent marriage. If she was paying attention to anything the tabloids leaked three weeks ago, she doesn’t mention it. Taehyung smiles and happily answers all of her questions, and even offers to take a picture of the group for them. The conversation ends before the two of you even catch her name.

You’re standing by the line of buffet tables laid out against the staircase leading up to the second floor, no doubt as crowded as this one, when the opportunity for you to speak to someone other than Taehyung finally presents itself.

“Y/N!”

You’d recognize that voice anywhere. You turn around to see Victoria barreling towards the both of you, not even caring when she accidentally spills a bit of her piña colada on the floor as she does.

“Hey!” You exclaim excitedly. “I didn’t know you’d be here.”

“Are you kidding? I’m pretty sure Clarissa invited everyone on her, her best friend’s, her best friend’s cousin, and her best friend’s cousin’s dog’s contact list,” Victoria says with a laugh. “It’s nice to see you. I feel like you’ve been holed up in that big ol’ penthouse for weeks.”

“Damage control,” you remind her succinctly. Victoria knows enough that that’s all the explanation she really needs.

“I don’t know if the two of you have ever met formally,” you say, thinking back to your wedding, where Victoria spent most of her time schmoozing with your parents (who love her) and didn’t even engage with any of the people who Taehyung’s family had invited. “Taehyung, this is Victoria. Victoria, Taehyung.”

“Pleasure,” Victoria says in that loud, unabashedly forward way of hers, holding out a friendly hand. Taehyung smiles back curtly, taking her hand and shaking it gently, so as not to spill any more of her drink.

“Mine as well. I remember you were at our wedding.” Oh? So he does know her?

“That I was. Oh, I miss that day. The food was excellent. Tonight’s isn’t too bad either. Hope you’re doing well, the two of you. It’s nice to see you getting along,” she says, always the observer.

Taehyung’s eyes widen a little when he picks up what Victoria is not-so-subtly putting down, but you place a hand on his upper arm to calm him. “It’s okay,” you tell him. “She won’t say anything.”

“My lips are sealed,” Victoria adds.

“If you wanna go spend time with some of your friends, you can,” you say, giving Taehyung a nudge. He looks positively helpless standing in between the two of you as Victoria out-extroverts him.

“Alright,” he says hesitantly, even though you know he’s already spotted at least ten people you’re sure he’d want to spend time with over you. “I’ll come find you soon, okay? Don’t go too far.”

You nod, and Taehyung disappears off into the crowd. Not two seconds later, you hear someone else call his name in a familiar tone.

“I thought you said you hated him,” Victoria points out as the two of you watch his caramel brown hair makes its way throughout the crowd.

You take another sip of your drink. “I do,” you say.

Victoria looks at you like you’ve just told her you’ve sworn off custard-filled doughnuts.

“What?” You ask, feeling suddenly defensive.

“Nothing,” Victoria singsongs. “It just doesn’t look like that to me.”

“We just need to keep up a good appearance in public, that’s all. You know how mad my parents got when the tabloids leaked all that shit a few weeks ago,” you explain. You’re not sure what all the fuss is about. Taehyung said he would do these things. And he did. That was him upholding his end of the deal. This is you upholding yours.

“If you say so…” Victoria says, not looking at all convinced. “I guess I’m just surprised that—that you two seem to be getting along so well. Maybe you being married isn’t going to be the worst thing after all.”

You stare back out into the crowd, scanning the top of people’s heads for Taehyung’s familiar locks. In the dim light of the club, you have a difficult time finding his, squinting your eyes slightly as you look around, but eventually you spot him, dancing happily with some old friends of his you recognize. He looks like he’s having a good time. And that makes you feel like maybe, just maybe, this might end up alright.

“Yeah,” you say, though with the pounding of the bass and the alcohol already rushing through your veins, it doesn’t really feel like your voice belongs to you. You look back at Taehyung, knowing exactly where he is now, and you smile. Just a little. “I guess he’s not so bad.”

You never do get a chance to meet Taehyung’s friends that night. By the time he joins back up with you and Victoria he’s by himself, a little more drunk than when he left, and ready to go home. And for once, instead of fighting him, instead of insisting you stay an hour more just to make sure you’ve done all of your rounds, you let him take you home.

Taehyung has been spending a lot more time at the penthouse lately. Perhaps his family’s business happenings are slow, or perhaps he’s actually starting to get more comfortable with inhabiting the same space as you, but he has definitely found himself quite the rhythm in that house of yours. He even comes down to the first floor rather regularly.

When he’s home, Taehyung is a lot quieter than you thought he would be. Granted, you don’t exactly know what you were expecting in the first place, but it certainly wasn’t him ruminating in one of the home offices while the Beatles play softly on the stereo, nor was it him reading a book in French in one of those big old grandfather chairs in the living room. If you didn’t know any better, you’d probably think he was still absent in that old way of his, ghostlike and silent, like he was occupying the space instead of truly living in it.

But you do know better, and even though Taehyung is just as noiseless as he used to be, the house already feels a little bit fuller.

Perhaps the reason you’ve become so keenly aware of his presence over the past few days is because of the notable fact that Taehyung has indeed held up his end of the deal, and no longer goes out with his friends in the evening. Or at all, for that matter. Which strikes you as rather odd, because he’s the epitome of a social butterfly, a thousand contacts in his phone and a whole group of friends he regularly spends time with. Maybe his parents told him to tone down the public appearances, too. And that’s understandable, but don’t they know Taehyung? Can’t they see how much he thrives on social interaction? It almost makes you feel… bad for him.

To remedy this, you suggest he invite over his friends. Just for a few hours, you swear you won’t mind.

“Seriously?” Taehyung looks positively shocked when you tell him he can, standing in the doorway of the office he seems to have designated as his own.

“Yeah, why not?” You say with a carefree shrug. Besides, you’ve never met his friends anyway, and now seems as good a chance as any to introduce yourself. You are his wife, after all. “Unless your parents say you can’t. But it’s not a problem for me.”

“You… don’t mind if I have my friends over for a bit? Honest to God, we’re probably just going to play FIFA for three hours straight,” Taehyung says like it’s some sort of warning. Like the idea of him and his buddies from college are going to sit in the living room screaming at the television, leaving you alone to do literally anything else, is somehow bad.

You laugh. “It’s fine, really. Call them. I’d actually quite like to meet them.”

Taehyung picks up his phone almost instantly, as if you’ll change your mind in the next five minutes so he better get them over soon, and already you can see the way his face is lighting up, the way his eyes crinkle as he chats to his friends and the way his lips curl upwards when they crack a joke back. Isn’t it obvious? He feeds off of the energy of others. Who are you to deny him such a simple pleasure?

As it turns out, Taehyung’s friends actually end up being quite nice anyway.

He invites over three, because four people is apparently the perfect number for a hardcore game of FIFA on his Playstation, and they are all very handsome men you have never met before. You suppose like attracts like, after all.

“You must be Y/N,” says the first one you see when you open the door to let them in. He doesn’t look a day over twenty-one—in fact, he could probably still pass as a college student—and has rather long dark hair that drapes over the sides of his face, covering the edges of his big doe eyes. “I’m Jungkook. This is Jimin and Hoseok.”

“Nice to meet you all,” you say, stepping aside so they can enter.

The shortest one, Jimin, grins in response, and Hoseok, behind him, gives you a wave. It’s refreshing enough as is, not having to exchange formal greetings and shake each other’s hands like you do with everyone else. Hoseok even gives you a bit of a nod, too.“You, too,” he says. “We’ve heard so much about you.”

Oh, have they, now? Interesting.

“All good things, I hope,” you say awkwardly, forcing a small smile as Taehyung comes bounding into the room, ears perked up at the sound of his friends’ voices.

“Definitely. Thanks for having us over. We didn’t wanna intrude on the sanctity of your new place,” Jungkook says, gesturing vaguely to the house as a whole. He’s got this excellent, genuine grin on his face, the kind that people who are just happy to be alive always wear.

Already he’s said enough to charm the shit out of you. Who knew Taehyung’s friends could be so… friendly? “Please, you’re welcome any time. I was just thinking Taehyung was getting a little lonely.”

“There he is!” Jimin shouts excitedly when he spots Taehyung behind the two of you, looking a lot more casual than he normally does when he’s alone with you, having abandoned his usual silky button-down and wide-leg slacks for a loose shirt and some sweatpants. You didn’t even know he had those things in his closet.

“Hey, everyone’s here!” Taehyung exclaims, just as happy. He squeezes past you to give the three of them a big hug, and it almost makes you feel like you’re intruding on something you shouldn’t be in. Even though this is literally your house.

“Nice place you got here,” Hoseok comments, eyes drifting around the living room. “Very minimalist, I like it.”

“Sure hope you don’t spill anything on those nice leather couches of yours,” Jungkook says.

“Yeah, unlike Kook, who has spilled tomato soup on every shirt he’s ever owned,” Jimin jokes, earning laughs from Taehyung and Hoseok and a punch from Jungkook.

“Moved after we married,” Taehyung says simply, shrugging his shoulders. It’s an easy enough explanation for why it doesn’t look at all lived in. Here’s hoping none of them realize you sleep in different bedrooms.

“Yeah, congratulations on that, man,” Hoseok says, giving Taehyung a celebratory nudge in the shoulder. “Who’d have thought, out of the four of us, Kim Taehyung would be the first one to settle down.”

The way Taehyung’s body tenses up at that comment does not go unnoticed by you.

“Seriously, I would have never guessed,” Jimin adds on. “You’re showing us a new side of yourself, Tae. But I’m happy for you.”

Normally, you’d probably take offense at such blatant insinuations that your husband was a former playboy, especially from his equally noncommittal friends. But truthfully, it’s not like you were blind to Taehyung’s transgressions either. And what matters most is the fact that since it was announced publicly, you are the only woman he’s been seen with since your engagement.

“Me too. You seem to really like her. I’m glad,” Jungkook pipes up, sending a smile your way. You definitely feel like you don’t belong in this conversation. “I think the two of you will be good for each other.”

“Yeah, I hope so,” Taehyung says with a nervous chuckle. His eyes quickly shoot your way, the two of you meeting gazes, your hesitant expressions matching. At least the two of you are on the same page. “Alright, alright, enough,” Jungkook says. “Who’s ready to get their ass kicked in FIFA?”

“You’re on, Jeon. But when I win, you owe me a five-star dinner,” Hoseok challenges.

“Deal.”

Hoseok, Jimin, and Jungkook immediately crowd towards the couch, and you take that as your cue to leave. But before you can disappear down the hallway, you and Taehyung look awkwardly at each other, hands tied. It’s not like you can say anything to them.

The truth is that, sometimes, it’s easy to forget that not everyone else knows that your marriage is just for business. Sometimes it’s easy to forget that there are still people out there that believe you marry for love.

Isn’t it crazy to think that you used to be one of those people, too?

“Hey,” Taehyung says when you meet up at the bottom of the stairs again.

“Hey,” you respond.

“You look nice.”

You scoff a little to yourself. What, are you exchanging compliments now? “Thanks,” you say, looking him up and down. “You’re not so bad yourself.” Like he ever is.

“I knew you had taste,” Taehyung teases, and it’s the sort of comment that would have earned him a melon ball to the face back when the two of you were teenagers at a debutante ball, but today only earns him a roll of your eyes as you join hands. You don’t have anything big tonight—just a small dinner to celebrate some sort of business accomplishment for your family, which means that all you have to manage is not ending up in some sort of food fight by the end of the night.

“I didn’t have a choice, did I?” You retort easily as you get into the car.

You don’t normally speak a lot on the way to events. Not that you ever did, but even as your relationship has slowly faded from pure hatred to attempts at compromise, you both seem to relish in being able to stare out of your respective backseat windows and into the city that surrounds you. Just out of curiosity, about halfway through the ride you look towards Taehyung to see what he’s up to, and find yourself genuinely surprised to see him leaning against the window with his eyes closed. Is he sleeping? A couple more minutes of gazing at him tells you he is, because his body has gone lax and his breathing has evened out, soft snores leaving his mouth. This ride can’t be longer than twenty minutes. Has he not been sleeping well? Up in that enormous second-floor bedroom of his?

He’s awake by the time the car parks outside the restaurant, this fancy name brand steak place that was chosen solely because the biggest beneficiaries of your family’s new business deal are two sixty-year-old men whose entire diet consists of beef and beer. No cameras tonight, just a small family affair. You and Taehyung hold hands as you enter the restaurant and are led to the private room in the back anyway.

You and him are seated on the far end of the long, rectangular table, alongside all of the other adult children dragged along to celebrate something that has no effect on their lives. But it’s nice, because the space alone prevents your parents from actively speaking with you, and you and Taehyung can stay in your own little bubble, only chiming in for a toast when necessary.

“What are you going to get?” He asks you, the two of you gazing at the menu. No matter how fancy this place is, all the options seem to boil down to steak, steak, steak, steak, and caesar salad. Classic.

“Oh, so you actually care now?” You counter, an eyebrow raised in amusement.

Taehyung laughs. “Aren’t I supposed to?”

You narrow your eyes at him suspiciously, wise to his usual shenanigans. It’s hard to tell if Taehyung really means what he says, or if it’s all for show. But perhaps he’s asking because he’s genuinely curious, since no one else seems to be paying you any attention.

“The choices on this menu are simply overwhelming,” you say, motioning to the six options in front of you.

“I know, I’m so torn,” Taehyung jokes, making you huff out a little giggle. At least he’s still got that same sense of humor.

You both end up going for a pretty classic steak dinner, which neither of the two of you finish because the damn portions are the size of your head. Dinner is, in and of itself, absolutely mindless, all of your parents talking about things that don’t concern you whatsoever, leaving you and Taehyung to your own devices as you desperately try to make the night go by faster.

At one point, you notice Taehyung’s foot brushing up against yours, the leather of his loafers brushing against the toe of your patent heel. Thinking someone of it, you push back, foot nudging his back to his own chair. It’s not a second later that Taehyung retaliates, the two of you dancing around each other underneath the table.

If the two of you were any younger, or perhaps any less resigned to your fate, there’s no doubt in your mind you would be attempting to get Taehyung to fall off his chair in an effort to do the same to you. Footsie means war. But when the both of you know that, at the end of the day, you’ll still be going home to the same place, and waking up the next morning in the same house, it doesn’t feel like this is a battle.

It’s just life.

Eventually, you meet Taehyung’s eyes with a hesitant smile, shoe pressed against his, stuck in ceasefire. And for once, he doesn’t have that devilish look in his eye, that smug little grin on his face that tells you that he’s going to make you regret whatever it is you just did. He’s just smiling back at you, all pink lips, having found real fun in the little things.

And that makes you happy.

The rest of the dinner is uneventful, which, in your book, is about as good as a dinner can go. You cheers to the future of your parents’ relationship with their newfound partners and say a quick goodbye to them both, hurrying out of there before they can ask you any questions on your relationship with your husband. But you don’t spend the car ride in silence on the way back.

Instead, you say, “Have you been sleeping well?”

The question seems to catch Taehyung off guard. He was already getting in position to take a power nap on the ride home, head pressed up against the window of the car.

“What?”

“Have you been sleeping well?” You repeat. “I noticed you fell asleep on the way here.”

“Huh? Oh, yeah, I guess,” he says, a hand scratching the nape of his neck. “I mean, it’s been hard adjusting, I suppose. But I’ll get over it.”

Hard adjusting? You’ve been together for nearly three months now. Three months worth of sleeping in the same penthouse bedroom, on the same soft-as-a-cloud mattress, underneath the same weighted blanket. And he’s still having trouble?

“Oh. I mean, I just wanted to ask because you seem really tired lately.”

“I got a lot on my plate, what can I say,” Taehyung says with an empty smile, forcing a chuckle. “I’ll be fine, seriously. You don’t have to worry about me.”

“Isn’t that my job?” You remind him. “I am your wife.”

Taehyung doesn’t say anything to that. He just lets out an audible breath, the kind you let out when you’re amused and have something snarky to say, but don’t have the energy to get the words off your tongue.

The rest of the ride is pretty quiet.

When you get home, you place your house keys in the bowl by the entrance and take off your shoes, just about ready to take a hot shower and collapse in bed, when Taehyung’s voice stops you.

“Hey,” he begins, almost hesitantly. You look back at him inquisitively. “I was thinking, maybe, if you wanted, we could start sleeping in the same bed?”

You scrunch your nose up. Not in disgust, but in surprise. In bewilderment. What brought this on, all of a sudden?

“Really?” You ask, because you can’t help yourself. “I thought we liked the separate bed thing. Gives us privacy.”

“Yeah,” Taehyung says with a shrug, “but—I don’t know, it’s stupid. I just thought, you know, since we’re married and all. And it’s been three months.” He looks about two seconds away from backtracking, from shaking his head and going upstairs before you can say anything else.

“Alright,” you say quickly, nodding your assent. Taehyung’s eyes widen when he hears the word, like he had completely expected you to shut him down the moment he made the suggestion. “If that’s what you want. We can try it.”

“You sure?” He asks, that same hesitant smile from earlier lacing his features. It’s strange. He almost looks… sweet. Nervous.

You grin back at him. “Yeah, I am.”

Taehyung lets you grab some of your toiletries and your pajamas from your designated bedroom before you head up the stairs together, towards the bedroom he’s claimed for himself. Funnily enough, this is the first time you’ve been in his room. Three months of living together and you haven’t dared step foot on the second floor.

You don’t know what you were expecting when he opens the door to let you inside. Maybe a room that screamed ‘Taehyung’ a little more than this one does. One that looks like an actual human has been living here. But other than one of his classic silk button-downs draped over a chair, there’s not a shred of evidence someone has actually been sleeping here. You could honestly be fooled rather easily that the shirt, too, is just decoration.

“You can pick a side,” Taehyung says casually. He grabs his own sleepwear—an old t-shirt and some sweats—and heads into the bathroom to change.

You wonder why Taehyung has had such a difficult time adjusting. This room is about as lavish as a bedroom can get. And yet.

Sitting down on the left side of the bed, you begin to remove your own clothes, unzipping tonight’s dress and stepping quickly into your pajamas, hurrying to make sure Taehyung doesn’t catch you half-naked. How funny is that, you think to yourself. You’ve been married for three months and you still can’t bear the thought of Taehyung seeing you without a shirt on.

When Taehyung comes out of the bathroom, hair all messy and clothes all casual, he grins lazily to himself. “I sleep on the right anyway,” he comments mindlessly.

Within twenty minutes the both of you are about as ready to pass out as you have ever been, the only lights still on the ones on your respective nightstands.

“Goodnight,” Taehyung says, reaching an arm over to switch his off.

“Goodnight,” you tell him, turning off yours as well. And all of a sudden, the room is shrouded in darkness.

You fall asleep instantly.

When Taehyung wakes up the next morning, the first thing he says to you is that he hasn’t slept that well in ages.

“You slept together?” Victoria shrieks, so loud you actually have to move your phone away from your ear as you punch in the code inside the elevator for access to your floor.

“We did not sleep together,” you emphasize. “Okay, well, we sleep together, as in, in the same bed. But we are fully clothed. And not the slightest bit interested in doing anything other than sleeping.”

“I thought you said you liked having your own space,” Victoria points out. “When was the first time you—uh…” she pauses to find the right words, “shared a bed?”

“A couple weeks ago. It’s really not so bad, I don’t know why you’re so hung up over it,” you say, lips pursed. You squeeze the phone between the side of your head and your shoulder, hands full of shopping bags, the string of the handles burning your skin. Maybe you should look into getting a personal shopper.

“I’m hung up over it because, for the longest time, you have sworn off Kim Taehyung. Called him dead to you. Insulted him every chance you get.”

You scoff. You don’t need reminding of how much you hated him, how much you can’t believe you have to spend the rest of your life with him. “It’s different now. We’re married. And he said he wasn’t sleeping well. I felt bad.”

“He wasn’t?”

“Enough about him,” you say, shutting her up. You don’t feel like talking about him with Victoria anymore. “Word through the grapevine says that your parents are actually thinking of letting you start your own company?”

It’s enough to distract Victoria. For the rest of the ride in the elevator, she talks animatedly about a new streaming service her parents are considering letting her launch, under their parent business, of course, but it’s her own company nonetheless. And you’re proud of her. Proud she could do something your parents would never dream of letting you do. Proud she could make that happen.

You push open the front door with the side of your hip after entering in the security code, phone still snug between your ear and your shoulder, when you hear Taehyung call out your name.

He comes into view from the kitchen, which surprises you because you have, on multiple occasions, made fun of how much of a disaster chef he is, especially because he’s admitted to you he’s not a very good cook.

“I made brownies,” he says, holding out a plate of the chocolate treats in front of you. Instinct has you dropping your bags on the floor by your feet and reaching out, but you eye him first, suspicious.

“I have to go,” you tell Victoria, hanging up before she even gets a chance to object to your sudden departure. “You made these?”

“Yes, I did,” Taehyung says, rather proud.

“And the kitchen is… still standing?” You ask, skeptical.

Taehyung frowns at you, clearly unimpressed. “How bad of a chef do you think I am?”

“Pretty bad,” you admit with a shrug.

Taehyung pouts sadly to himself for a moment. “These are good, I swear. Nothing weird in them like vegetables or anything either. I used a box mix.”

“No wonder they look so nice,” you comment snidely, hesitant hand reaching out to grab one. They feel like brownies. So that’s good.

“Hey, I was the one who had to crack the eggs and shit. Three eggs! And not one eggshell in the bowl!” Taehyung says, clearly very pleased with himself.

You laugh at his enthusiasm, taking a bite. It’s good. And exactly what you needed after a long day of shopping. “I’m proud of you. They taste good.”

“I knew you wouldn’t doubt me.” Taehyung grins.

“They’re really good, actually,” You amend, genuinely surprised. And the best part is that you can count at least ten brownies left on that plate, which means that you get at least five more. Which, if you had any less self-restraint, you would probably eat all at once within the day.

“I��m glad you like them. They’re all for us, you know. No one else to share them with,” he says.

“Honestly, I’m probably going to finish them by tonight. You’ll have to make more tomorrow,” you say sheepishly.

“We can make some together,” Taehyung suggests.

“I’m looking forward to it,” you respond. The words come off your mouth easily, tumbling from your lips without you having to think about it. You aren’t saying them because you have to. You’re saying them because you want to. Because baking with Taehyung doesn’t actually sound too bad. Especially if it means more brownies.

“You’ve, uh, you’ve got something,” Taehyung says, gesturing vaguely to the side of his lip.

“Oh, I do? Yikes,” you say, a little embarrassed. Your hand comes up to wipe at the left side of your mouth. “Is it gone?”

“Wait, here, let me do it,” Taehyung says, reaching out towards you. He presses his palm against the side of your face, cradling your cheek and jaw in his enormous hands, and all at once it feels like your skin is on fire.

Your body freezes up at the touch, at the way his thumb swipes at the corner of your mouth, right against your lips, wiping away nothing but a goddamn brownie crumb. You look at him, look right at him, how can you look anywhere else when he’s right in front of you like this, and it feels like you are caught in his gaze, a rain droplet trapped on a web, a bee stuck in its own honey. His big, brown eyes sparkle from the ceiling lights, a chocolate sky that mirrors the food he just made for you. He looks at you and his eyes are so soft, so open, so happy to be looking right back at you. God.

“There,” he says, a moment too late.

“Thanks,” you stammer out, speechless otherwise.

You both stand there, looking at each other, wordless expressions drawn all over your faces, no idea what to do next.

After a while, Taehyung breaks the silence. “Do you wanna order takeout tonight?”

“Okay,” you nod, still a little breathless. Taehyung smiles before retreating back to the kitchen, leaving you standing in the entranceway, shopping bags abandoned by your side.

You look over to where he’s vanished. There’s a part of you that wishes he hadn’t left. A part of you that makes you want to see him again.

Phone calls from your mother are never good. The last time she called… well, you know how that went. So when you see her contact information light up your home screen, it’s only instinct that you feel your heart rate spike.

“Hello?” The voice that comes out doesn’t even sound like yours.

There’s no good way to put what comes next. Your grandmother has died. Heart attack. The paramedics got there too late. It was over before it even started.

For a moment, for a split second, it feels like everything is frozen. Like the world has come to standstill. Your mother’s voice echoes in your ears, suspended in time, the words turning into stone as they crash onto the floor. And when they do, it is as if everything comes back to life.

Truth be told, you don’t know how long you stay there, sitting on the edge of the left side of the bed, your phone resting lifelessly in the palm of your hand. It feels at once like an eternity and only a second in time. You spoke to your grandmother two days ago. You had promised that you and Taehyung would visit her soon. How can this be happening?

Your phone buzzes relentlessly in your hands, condolences pouring in from every person in your contacts, sorry’s and heart emoticons and If you need anything, I’m always here’s filling up your screen. There’s a part of you that vaguely registers your mother, alongside some of the other members of your family, trying to call you. But nothing can seem to shake you.

Until—

“Y/N? You still up here?”

You hear Taehyung before you see him. Hear his voice, hear his footsteps, hear the door creak open as he enters your bedroom. Slowly, almost sluggishly, you twist around to look at him, the mere act knocking the wind out of you. Or maybe you were already breathless.

“Hey, you alright?” Taehyung knows instantly that something is wrong.

“My grandmother died.” The words sit heavy on your tongue. There’s no point in not telling him. He’ll find out soon enough. He’s… he’s family, isn’t he?

“What?” Taehyung freezes in place. “I—I’m so sorry to hear that, Y/N. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” you say, voice weak but steady. You blink up at him, once, twice, three times, and then suddenly you feel tears running down your cheeks.

Taehyung doesn’t say anything else. He rushes to your side and sits himself down on the bed next to you, arms wrapping around your body. And you don’t think about the fact that it’s him, about the fact that this is the closest the two of you have ever been. You just let yourself be engulfed in his frame, let yourself be enveloped in his hold as the tears stream down your skin, little hiccups jolting your throat. You close your eyes and press yourself into his arms, head resting against his chest, and wish so desperately that so many things about your life were just a little bit different.

It must be at least five minutes before either one of you dares to move. Your phone begins to rattle incessantly, that familiar and insistent buzz that the both of you are hard-pressed to ignore.

“I think you should answer that,” Taehyung whispers into your skin, lips right by your forehead.

“Yeah,” you sniffle, sitting up next to him and wiping the remnants of wetness by your eyes. Well, Taehyung’s seen you cry. There’s no going back now. “You’re probably right.” You look down at the phone. It’s your father.

“I’ll be downstairs, okay? Unless you want me to stay,” he offers, looking hesitant.

You shake your head. “No, it’s—it’s okay. I’ll be fine.”

“Call me if you need me,” he makes you give him a nod of understanding before he finally gets up, hands slowly removing themselves from your skin, leaving little sparks in their wake. Remnants of warmth. Suddenly, you feel much colder. Hardly a minute later he’s out of the room, and you can hear his distant footsteps as they make their way down the stairs.

Sighing, blinking, and swallowing all at once, you pick up.

The call passes by in a blur. Your father says the will will take at least half a year to be executed, but that the funeral is already being planned. Your grandmother had hoped you would eulogize her. You agree, but you have no idea what you will say. He says Taehyung is invited but does not need to come if he cannot make it. He says a lot of other things too, about your mother, about your cousins, about your aunts and uncles and your poor grandfather, who passed five years ago, but you can’t even remember them moments after he’s said them.

When he hangs up, the tears on your cheeks have dried, patches of them left along your skin. You head to the bathroom, getting off your bed for the first time that day, and try to wash away everything that has stained the morning. A part of you doesn’t even want to bother, just wants to slug downstairs and eat as much sugary cereal as you can get your hands on, but you can’t go down there looking like this. Looking so helpless.

By the time you reach the kitchen, Taehyung is already standing there, on the opposite side of the counter island, a big stack of pancakes in front of him. They look mouth-watering.

“Hey,” he says softly. “Thought you might want something to cheer you up.”

“Did you make these?” You ask, a little endeared. That was thoughtful of him.

“Yeah. They’re still warm,” Taehyung says. He holds out a fork.

You grin.

The funeral is a week later. It sucks in every way that something can suck. But not in the same way your wedding sucked, or even the announcement of your engagement. It sucks because it’s a funeral, because you have to stare down your grandmother’s casket when a part of you still doesn’t even believe that she’s gone. Because everyone there is so sad, so melancholy, dressed in all black and looking down at their feet. Because everyone is so sorry for you, so sorry for your loss, everyone has nothing but condolences to offer you. What will those do? They won’t bring her back. They won’t change things. They won’t make you feel even the slightest bit better.

Taehyung comes. He comes because he offers, and because you want him to. You want someone whose hand to hold. Want someone to smile at you when you’re speaking in front of your entire extended family and trying not to cry. You want someone who is familiar, and warm, and there for you.

And most of all, you want someone who won’t keep the conversation going when you get home.

“Do you wanna order Chinese?” He asks, coming into the living room, where you have been sulking on the couch ever since you stepped foot inside the door.

“That sounds nice,” you force out.

“Okay. Your usual?”

“Yes, please.” You don’t bother asking how Taehyung already remembers what you like to order when you’ve only gotten Chinese twice in the last three months.

“I’ll call them.” He disappears off into the kitchen.

What you do appreciate about Taehyung is how he has defaulted to food as a comfort measure, and how the thought alone genuinely brightens you up a little bit. You don’t know each other very well—still, after three months, you couldn’t even say his favorite color—but he is doing his best, and he is trying his hardest. In some ways, you were unlucky to marry him. To marry someone you didn’t love. To be forced into a union you had no say in, with someone you had so much antagonistic history with.

But in some ways, your luck has changed. In some ways, marrying him was perhaps the best thing that could happen to you. Taehyung is snarky, a little devilish, and absolutely full of himself, but he is not thoughtless. He is not heartless. He has proven that he is willing to put in the work. That he can grow to care. To change. To compromise. And isn’t that the luckiest thing you could have gotten?

“I’m sure you’re probably sick of hearing people tell you they’re sorry for your loss.”

His voice breaks your reverie, carrying throughout the wide open space of your living room. He’s grinning honestly where he stands, slowly making his way over to you.

“Kind of, yeah,” you admit. “It’s not going to bring her back. Most of those people probably don’t even mean it.”

“Don’t say that,” Taehyung says, sitting down next to you. “I’m sure they do.”

You look at him skeptically.

“I mean, they’re sorry for your loss because that loss is causing you pain. And that sucks,” Taehyung explains, albeit a little less eloquently than you thought he would. “I know it sucks for me.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t like seeing you sad,” Taehyung says honestly, shrugging to himself.

You scoff a little to yourself. “I would have thought my downfall would be the exact thing the great Kim Taehyung would wish for himself.”

“Maybe a couple of years ago.”

You narrow your eyes.

“Okay, maybe even a few months ago,” Taehyung admits with a laugh, making you smile, ever so slightly. “But it’s different now. I like it when you’re happy. When you’re snarky and funny and a little evil. Seeing you like this… I don’t like the way it makes me feel.”

“That’s called empathy,” you point out.

“I’m trying to tell you that seeing you sad makes me sad, stop being a smartass,” Taehyung chides, and that really makes you grin. “There. There’s that smile I was looking for.”

“You’re so annoying,” you say, even though there’s no malice behind it. You give him a little push, palms of your hand pressing lightly against his shoulder as you roll your eyes.

“Only for you,” he promises. He manages to grab a hold of your wrist as your hand meets his torso, pulling you into him as he wraps an arm around your torso. You gasp a little at the sensation, head falling against his body, fitting snugly in the crook of his neck. He gives your side a comforting rub. “I’m sorry today was so shitty.”

“It was,” you agree. “But Chinese food will make it a little bit better.”

Taehyung looks positively scandalized. “What? ‘Chinese food will make it better’? But not your loving, doting husband?”

You pretend to think for a little bit, tilting your head up to the sky as you tap your chin with your finger. “Okay. Maybe that, too,” you cave after a bit of waiting, just to be extra bothersome.

“That’s what I thought,” Taehyung says proudly, looking down at you, eyes sparkling. You can feel his grip tighten as he presses you against his body, letting you rest your head on his side. It feels like the longest hug ever, like you’re wrapped up in a weighted blanket. Only it’s not a blanket. It’s Taehyung. It’s your husband.

He’s your husband.

“Tomorrow will be better,” he says, and it sounds a lot like a promise.

You nod against him, letting your eyes drift shut. Things are pretty awful right now. Your grandmother’s dead. The funeral was the saddest family event you have ever attended. You have no idea what’s supposed to happen next.

But he’s right. He seems to be right a lot these days, actually.

Tomorrow will be better.

Taehyung lets you sleep in for the next few days. Next several days, actually. Every time you wake up it’s close to noon and your husband is nowhere to be seen, the right side of the bed cold to the touch. It’s nothing to be worried about, though, because you can still see the noticeable dip in the bed from where he lies upon it, sinking his weight into the mattress. Taehyung’s an early bird and you’ve been having fitful nights ever since your grandmother passed.

Today, you pull yourself out from underneath the covers around noon, sluggish and still tired, squinting as the near-afternoon light streams through the enormous windows of the bedroom. Taehyung must have thought to keep the curtains open today.

You pull on the first casual clothes you see in your shared closet, some wide-leg sweatpants and a drapey t-shirt, and trudge downstairs like a raccoon to a trash can, hoping to fish through the kitchen cabinets to find something to eat.

Taehyung is, as far as you can tell, nowhere to be seen. You can’t seem to hear him anywhere, and a part of you wonders where he’s at when you stumble upon the note left on the granite counter.

Had a meeting downtown, be back around 1! There should be smoked salmon and some cream cheese and bagels in the fridge.

Taehyung.

You chuckle to yourself as you read his flowy handwriting, amused that he thought to let you know of, of all things, the available breakfast foods in the kitchen. You check the clock. It’s nearly noon. Which means you have just over an hour of the house all to yourself.

Having the house to yourself for five minutes is infrequent enough as it is, let alone for a whole hour. So often is Taehyung around, somewhere, holing himself up in one of the dozens of rooms or mindlessly wandering down the hallways. And for how much Taehyung is present, the funny part is that you still have no idea what he gets up to most of the time. Despite your voluntary abandoning of the separate bedroom rule, the two of you are still firm proponents of the sanctity of your personal spaces. There are rooms in the penthouse Taehyung has never been in, rooms filled with your clothes and makeup and accessories for when stylists come over before an event. A sewing room that you had specifically asked your parents for, because a part of you never let go of that childhood dream of being a fashion designer.

And there are rooms in the penthouse that you have never been in. Rooms with dark wooden doors that have always been kept closed, that you have never stepped foot in. It’s not that you aren’t curious as to what Taehyung gets up to. He could have a goddamn evil lair in one of those rooms and you would be none the wiser. But you don’t go, because he doesn’t go into your rooms. Because you two, despite all the vows you have broken, promised each other you wouldn’t.

An hour to yourself is almost a good enough excuse for you to head back up to the bedroom and take a nap. Not that you don’t get enough sleep on a regular basis, or that you even had a fitful night last night—hell, you woke up near noon today and already you want to go back to sleep—but what else is there to do when he’s not around? What new freedoms have suddenly been given to you?

You head back upstairs, much less groggy after that delicious bagel of yours, when you catch a whiff of what smells like wet paint coming from down the hallway. It’s potent and immediately invades your senses, prompting you to wonder if that has always been there, or just magically appeared. Maybe you were so sleepy earlier, you didn’t notice it.

Well, you notice it now. Unable to help yourself, you start to wander down the hallway, towards the source of the smell. God, it stinks. It takes you back to those days in middle school, when you would spray paint projects inside a tiny little classroom, have to step outside for fifteen minutes while you cracked the windows and aired it out. It gets stronger the further down the corridor you go, like a thick, smelly cloud stationed firmly within the walls of the penthouse. And then you realize where it’s coming from.

It’s an art studio.

A very messy art studio, you amend to yourself, as you peek inside. The door is wide open, and all of the windows are popped too, but the extra air circulation doesn’t seem to have made a dent in the scent. And all over the floor, the walls, and the tables are canvases covered in paint, denim jackets and pants and shirts with these wide, unafraid brushstrokes. Open cans of spray paint lie discarded on the hardwood floor stained with splotches of red, yellow, and green.

Is this what Taehyung does in his free time? Is this where he goes, this bright, sunny room at the end of the second floor hallway? Is this what he is making?

You look down in awe at the clothes resting on the floor, splayed out to maximize dry time. Abstract faces, landscapes, and words are painted onto the backs of jackets, the fronts of old white t-shirts. What hasn’t made it onto the clothes has been put on canvases instead, blurs of color mixed together in this purposeful pattern, confidence emanating from every stroke, every dot. It’s not art in the way that the gorgeous landscapes of Monet, the picture-perfect portraits of Kahlo, the messy, unplanned splatters of Pollock are. It’s art in a different way. In a Taehyung way.

Who knew he loved it so much?

You almost feel like an invader encroaching on his territory when you lean down to start cleaning up some of the mess, throwing out empty spray-paint cans and tossing out grey paint water. You don’t dare touch any of the work, don’t dare try to move it. You do what you can, washing out the brushes resting in the water and cleaning up the wet splotches of paint on the hardwood. Over time, the thick scent of still-wet paint slowly fades, disappearing out the window as the fresh afternoon air seeps in. And you stand there, in a room full of art, in a room full of pieces that Taehyung has undoubtedly poured his heart into creating, and you smile to yourself.

That’s how Taehyung finds you ten minutes later, peering into the room after declaring that his meeting had ended early.

“Thought I’d find you in here,” Taehyung says with a grin as you jump at the sound of his voice, eyes widen when you turn around to see him standing by the door.

“Oh, hey,” you say sheepishly. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

“Maybe because this is the farthest room in the house from the front door,” Taehyung teases lightly, coming up behind you. “I see you found my studio.”

“I know I’m not allowed in here,” you admit.

Taehyung scoffs. “Who says?”

“Didn’t we both agree on that?”

He shrugs. “Sort of. I think we just reached an unspoken understanding we wouldn’t invade each other’s personal space. But it was not in the fine print, no.”

“The fine print of what?”

“That deal we made.”

Right. That deal you made, four months ago, That deal, where the two of you agreed to pretend to be in love with each other during public appearances so you wouldn’t get burned at the stake by your families. Where the two of you agreed not to interact with each other otherwise because you hated each other so much.

“Oh, yeah,” you say distantly, feeling naive for already forgetting about it. It doesn’t seem to have slipped Taehyung’s mind whatsoever.

“It’s okay, I don’t mind that you’re up here,” Taehyung says, interrupting that piercing little voice in the back of your head that is asking you why on earth you forgot about that deal in the first place.

“Yeah, I—” You scratch at the nape of your neck, trying to find the words to say. “It just smelled like paint, so I wanted to see what you get up too. And it’s this, apparently.” You motion vaguely to the entire room.

“You sound… surprised,” Taehyung muses correctly.

“I guess I am,” you surmise. “I’m rather impressed, too, actually.”

“Really?” It’s Taehyung’s turn to sound surprised.

“Yeah,” you tell him honestly, looking into his eyes. “I—you know, I just came in here because the entire hallway smelled like wet paint and I wanted to know why. But I didn’t know you loved art so much.”

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me,” Taehyung points out.

You suppose that’s true. You don’t know his favorite color. His favorite song. His favorite book. For a long time, you didn’t know what he got up to on his side of the penthouse. You don’t know how he met his friends. What he studied in university. Who he has loved in the past. Who he loves now. You don’t know why he does the things he does, and why he doesn’t do the things he doesn’t do.

But you do know his Chinese takeout order.

And you do know his hobbies. Well, one of them, at least.

Who’s to say you can’t learn more?

“Well,” you start with a smile. “I’m your wife, aren’t I? Shouldn’t I begin to learn?”

Taehyung picks up what you’re putting down instantly, grinning in response. “Only if you’ll tell me things about you, too,” he requisitions.

“I will,” you promise. It’s the easiest one you’ve ever had to make.

His face is light, bright, bathed in the rays of the afternoon sun. His eyes shimmer as they meet yours, golden flecks more pronounced like this, in this gorgeous, open space, daylight streaming through the windows. Looking at him makes you feel like you are surrounded by warmth, makes you feel like the sun is opening its arms out to you. He has always been gorgeous. Beautiful. But looking at him like this, standing in the middle of a room filled with all the things he loves, a yellow halo surrounding him—he is ethereal.

Taehyung smiles. “Then I will, too.”

The hand-holding comes naturally tonight.

The funny thing is, actually, you don’t need to hold hands at this gathering. It’s not an event. Or a public appearance. It’s not even a business dinner. It’s your aunt’s sixtieth birthday party, reserved exclusively for family. Isn’t that strange? That Taehyung is, technically, family now?

For so long you had vowed to stay as far away from him as possible. Vowed to stick it to him whenever and wherever you could, do anything you could to get on his nerves, rile him up. Vowed that when you, one day, took over your family affairs, you would never, ever invite him. Make it known that he wasn’t to be a part of your life. And yet, here you are. Clinging to him despite being well-acquainted with—loved by, even—every other person in the room. Holding his hand like a goddamn lifeline.

To be fair, Taehyung doesn’t look a hair out of place here. Dressed relatively casually, a smart sweater with a collared shirt underneath it, he smiles warmly at all of your relatives and presents your aunt with a beautiful and very expensive scarf the two of you had commissioned from a designer in Italy, which she absolutely loves. She pinches his cheek and proceeds to wear it for the rest of the night.

“Damn,” you murmur to yourself as you wander around your aunt’s house, hand wrapped around his arm. “This place hasn’t changed a bit.”

“When was the last time you were here?” Taehyung asks.

The question actually makes you think for a moment. “I don’t know, maybe five years ago? Last couple of birthdays I was overseas or in school. Had to send her a card.”

“Bet your parents were real pleased with that,” he jokes, making you both laugh. At least you two will always be able to share your experiences of domineering and influential parents with each other.

“Oh, I’m sure. Just as pleased as they were when they realized how much we hated each other.” You expect that little jest to elicit a laugh out of Taehyung as well, but he just smiles tightly, huffing out a breath of acknowledgement.

“Eh, it’s not like that now, is it?” He offers up.

“I suppose not,” you muse, sitting down together on her ancient grandma couch in the living room. No matter how rich your family gets, she’ll never get rid of this thing, that’s for sure.

One thing you’ve picked up over time is that, for every second Taehyung spends basking in the spotlight, he spends an equal amount of time lingering by the wall, watching the rest of the world turn without him. He’s an observer. He is one by nature, feeling an irresistible pull to understand humans in a way only artists could ever do. He sits down next to you and watches your family in an environment where they can relax, where they can feel comfortable and be casual with one another.

Very seldom have you ever brought friends to events like these. Small family affairs. But Taehyung isn’t a friend, is he? No, he’s your husband. He belongs here just as much as you do.

“My family seems to really like you,” you point out. Not that anybody has ever harbored as much disdain for him as you. Your parents called him respectable and polite when they told you you were to be wed. Your grandmother had said he was a dashing young man. He doesn’t exactly have to reach far to be loved around here.

“That’s my job, isn’t it?” He replies snidely.

“Oh, just take the compliment,” you say with a roll of your eyes. Taehyung always has to be so difficult. “I’m surprised you aren’t nervous as hell. Last boyfriend I brought to meet my parents was shaking in his Louis Vuitton shoes.”

“Last boyfriend, huh?” Taehyung’s interest has been sufficiently piqued. “And, uh, how many of those have you had?”

You narrow your eyes at him suspiciously, smile twitching on your lips. “Wouldn’t you like to know, Mr. Heartbreaker.” Pretty rich of Taehyung to be asking you such a question when he’s probably had more girlfriends than you can count on both hands. “Not as many as you’ve had girlfriends, that’s for sure.”

“Guess I’m a lot different than all those trashy guys you’ve dated, aren’t I?” He asks, an eyebrow raised as he looks at you.

“You are?”

Taehyung nods assertively. “Well, yeah. First of all, I’m your husband. Second of all, your parents love me. Third of all, you love me, too.”

You scoff. “Don’t humble yourself. You don’t know me that well.”

“Speaking of which,” Taehyung says, eyes wide as he points to you knowingly, “how about you tell me a little fact about yourself? It’s my job to learn about you, isn’t it?”

“That is my line, watch it,” you sneer, pointing back at him. You wrack your brain for a fact that you can tell him, something more exciting than your favorite color but less weird than one of those terrible icebreaker exercises you had to do in college seminars. Something that has pertinence to who you are. Who you’ve become. “Alright. I used to want to be a fashion designer when I was little.”

Now that catches Taehyung off guard. “Really?” He says, genuinely intrigued.

You shrug. “Yeah. I learned to sew when I was really little. Been tailoring and hemming clothes all my life. But I always wanted to design my own stuff.”

“Is that what’s in your room?” Taehyung asks. “A sewing machine?”

“Bingo.”

“Wow,” Taehyung says. “I didn’t know that.”

“Isn’t that the whole point of this exercise?” You say, just to be smart.

Taehyung shakes his head, eyes rolling.

“What about you?” You ask. You can’t imagine what he’ll say. Astronaut. Veterinarian. Or, if he really wants to surprise you, a business executive.

“A museum curator.”

It is an answer that simultaneously surprises and doesn’t surprise you at all.

“Fitting,” you muse. “You could have put your own art on display.”

“Pretty sure that’s, like, super unethical,” Taehyung reminds you.

“So? You’re rich. Start your own museum. Put your own art on display. Live your dream,” you amend. “It shouldn’t be holed up in that studio of yours forever. It deserves to be seen.”

Taehyung smiles at you. “You think so?”

You nod. “Of course. You create beautiful things, Tae.” It’s the first time you’ve ever called him that. And that is not lost on Taehyung, either.

“Thank you,” he says softly, blinking as he looks at you. He doesn’t say anything else. He doesn’t need to.

Later that night, when everyone’s gotten a few drinks into their systems and Bruce Springsteen is playing low on the stereo, Taehyung disappears off towards the bathroom, no doubt because of the excellent soup that was served that night. All by your lonesome, you feel a little stranded, surrounded by your old relatives dancing on the hardwood floor of the dining room, your other cousins too young to actually spend time with.

In the commotion, your mother comes up to you, swirling a rather large glass of red wine in her hand.

“Where’s Taehyung?” She asks.

“Bathroom.”

“No wonder you were alone,” she says with a hearty laugh. “The two of you have been glued to each other’s sides all evening.”

“He’s my husband,” you offer as an explanation.

“I know, I know,” she says, shaking you off with a smile. Your mother is a lot more casual once she’s had her fill of wine, no doubt her favorite, Bordeaux. A lot more loving, too. “You really made your grandmother proud, you know? She loved you so much.”

“I know,” you say, trying not to get choked up at the mere mention of your grandmother.

“She was so happy to see you with Taehyung. It made her feel safe that you would be taken care of,” she continues on, barely paying you and your swimming eyes any attention. “She would be so happy to see you with him now, too. How much you love her.”

“I miss her,” you hiccup out, trying to compose yourself. Nothing kills a birthday party like some sad sack crying over her deceased grandmother.

“I know, darling,” your mother says, calling you by a nickname she has hardly used ever since you turned eighteen. She squeezes you tightly, a small hug of comfort. “I miss her, too.”

Someone calls your mother’s name, distracting her as she wanders off to your uncle, who is asking what the best way to cut the three-tiered cake on the dining room table is. She bids you a goodbye before disappearing towards the kitchen, no doubt ready to make the cutting of the cake an affair all on its own.

Taehyung comes back soon after, spotting you instantly as you stand around in the living room.

“Hey,” he says, noticing the wet shimmer of your eyes. “You alright?”

You nod, feeling better already now that he has returned. Now that he is by your side. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

“I hope those tears aren’t because you missed me,” he says, wiping away a stray one that has escaped from your eyes. You close them as his thumb brushes against your upper cheek, your eyelashes, opening them only when you’ve felt his touch vanish from your skin, leaving little sparks in their wake.

“No,” you say. But the night makes you honest, and a couple of drinks, even more so. “But I’m glad you’re here.”

Taehyung smiles. “Me, too.”

For all those days you have spent together, never have you and Taehyung had a night in. Which isn’t necessarily completely surprising, considering how many evening events the two of you have had obligations to attend, considering your differing work schedules and meeting times. Considering that, for a very long time, the two of you had no desire to spend any time with each other at all.

But tonight, there is nothing on your calendar. No galas, no dinners, no meetings, no schedules. There is only Taehyung, who has spent the entire afternoon up in his studio, inhaling spray paint fumes and doing what he loves. And there is only you, who has spent the entire afternoon wondering what the hell you’re going to do tonight when there is nothing else planned.

You knock on the door to his studio, catching him right as he’s finishing up another piece. This one is a single flower, painted in broad, confident strokes, bright green and red and sunflower yellow decorating the canvas.

“Hey, what’s up?” He asks, turning around to face you.

“Wanna order takeout tonight?” You suggest.

Taehyung grins.

Thirty minutes and your favorite Chinese food later, you and Taehyung have settled onto the couch, trays of dumplings and noodles and rice in front of you, an unfunny movie playing in the background.

You can’t remember the last time the two of you sat on this couch together. Maybe that night you had made the deal? Perhaps not even then. It wouldn’t at all surprise you if you found out that this was the very first time you and Taehyung have sat together on your couch, in your living room, in your house. So often is it occupied by others—Victoria, who sometimes comes over to ooh and ahh at your closet, Jimin, Jungkook, and Hoseok, who sit on this couch and play FIFA like it’s their job, your mother, when she wants to make herself at home in a place that doesn’t belong to her—but never you. Never you and him.

“This is kinda nice, isn’t it?” You ask, swallowing a bite of dumpling.

“Chinese food is always nice,” Taehyung responds over a mouthful of cold noodles.

“Not that,” you say with a sigh, “this. Sitting together. Watching this shitty movie.”

“It’s not that shitty,” Taehyung tries to reason. On screen, the main character is getting pied in the face during some weird college fundraiser. “Okay, it’s a little shitty. But it’s good background noise, right?”

You nod halfheartedly. “I guess.” Silence. You take another bite of your dumpling, not really sure how to continue the conversation. “We don’t really get to do this a lot, you know? Sit and eat dinner and watch a movie together. Like a date.”

“We’re on a date now, are we?” Taehyung muses, eyeing you snarkily.

“Isn’t that what this is?” You retort.

He shrugs. “I suppose it is.”

“Tell me another fact about you,” you request, looking over to him where he sits on the opposite side of the couch.

“About what?”

“Anything.”

Taehyung pauses, ponders for a moment. But he could never say anything wrong. Not when there is still so much you don’t know about him. Still so much you want to learn, so much you want to commit to memory. For so long you have stared at the planes of his face, the curve of his nose, the twinkle in those dark brown eyes. Those you will always remember. But what about who he is? What he loves? Those are things you still don’t know.

“The very first time I met you,” Taehyung begins, “I asked Jimin what your name was.”

“When was that?” You ask. Despite you being someone who has spent the better part of the last several years vowing never to give Taehyung the time of day, you sure don’t remember when it all started.

“That debutante ball,” Taehyung remembers fondly, “when we were fifteen. I asked Jimin what your name was because I wanted to ask you to dance.”

“Shut up, no you didn’t,” you say with a scoff.

“It’s true. You were standing there in that poofy white dress and I wanted to ask you to dance,” Taehyung points out. The fact that he even remembers what you were wearing is shocking.

Who knew. Who knew, back then, that you would one day grow up to marry him.

“And what did I say?” You demand more.

Taehyung laughs at the memory. “I came up to you, and I asked you if you wanted to dance, and you said, and I quote, ‘Who are you?’”

“No,” you say, aghast at your own behavior. Were those really the first words you ever said to KIm Taehyung?

“You did. Don’t you remember?”

You think back. Think back to every year you have ever known Taehyung, every year you have spent scowling at him from across ballroom floors, making some snide remark as you pass by each other in the hallway. Every year you have spent cursing his existence, willing him away from you so he could bother someone else. Every year you have listened to rumor after rumor of girlfriend after girlfriend. You think back and somewhere, somewhere in there, in those dusty corners of your brain and cobwebbed boxes of your heart, is that first memory of Taehyung, too.

Of him standing there in some generic black suit, black hair swept over his forehead, shoes too big. Of him coming up to you, trying to be as suave as a fifteen year old could be. Of you saying to him, instead of a hello, or even a what’s your name, “who are you?”

Of him saying—

“And you said, ‘your dream come true’.” Like a dam bursting open, the memories flood back to you all at once. “I remember that.”

Taehyung laughs out loud at the thought of him saying something so cheesy. “Unsurprisingly, you didn’t want to dance with me.”

“You were so—” you begin, but you don’t have the words. Don’t have the words to express how you felt about him that night. Don’t have the words to express how you feel about him now. Thinking about this, talking about it, it is a bridge. A bridge between what was then and what is now. A bridge between who Taehyung was and who you were and who Taehyung is and who you are. “—so unthinkable. I couldn’t believe you had come up to me and said that. I couldn’t believe you had the audacity. But something about that night made me remember you. Made me remember your name.”

“You thought about me after that?” Taehyung asks. “Is that what you’re telling me?”

“There is something about you that is unforgettable,” you say, honest and real and true. What else can you tell him? The truth is that you have always thought about him. Whether you liked him or not.

You finish your dinner and place your trays on the end tables next to you, stacking your empty bowls and plates on top of one another as the movie rumbles on in the background.

“It is kind of a shitty movie,” Taehyung admits after a while of being wholly unenthused.

“Yeah,” you agree. “But it’s good background noise.”

Taehyung laughs at your little mockery, warm and deep and from his belly. You look at him. He feels so far away, on the other side of the couch. Feels like he’s miles apart from you. You have spent countless nights clinging to his harm, hand gripped tight in his. And sitting like this, a full couch cushion of space between the two of you—it isn’t enough anymore. So you inch closer.

And closer.

And a little closer.

Until you’re pressed up against his side, legs touching as they rest neatly in front of you, backs stick straight as you stare at the television.

Taehyung holds his arm up. An open invitation.

Without asking, you lean into him, resting your head in the crook of his shoulder, in the space right underneath his jaw. You pull your feet up onto the couch and curl into his frame, pressing yourself against him. He is warm and firm and inescapable. He smells of coffee and paint and Chinese spices. He wraps his arm around you and pulls you in, as if there were any other place you’d rather be.

You sit like that for a while. Wrapped up in each other. Lazing around on the couch as the stars twinkle above your head. The movie ends and the two of you don’t even bother skipping the credits, letting them and the cheesy 80’s pop song play on, a distant soundtrack.

“I never thought any of this would happen,” you breathe out.

Taehyung looks down at you curiously. “What? This?”

“All of it,” you admit. “Us. Getting married. That stupid tabloid picture. My grandmother. This. It’s all so new.”

“New things will happen all the time,” Taehyung muses aloud. “We can’t help when things change.”

“You don’t have any regrets?” You have plenty. Regrets that you’ll never become the CEO you wanted to be in college. Regrets that you’ll never become the fashion designer you wanted to be as a little girl. Regrets that you will come to resent this marriage, resent Taehyung more than you have in years past, all because you had no choice. Regrets that your grandmother couldn’t see you now. Regrets that there were so many things in your life you could have changed, but didn’t.

“I thought I did,” Taehyung tells you. “I wanted to spend more time with my friends. I wanted to major in art in college. I didn’t want to marry you. I know you didn’t want to marry me.” He looks down and you look up at the same time, eyes locking, inches apart. “But looking back on it, I’m happy where I am. With what I have.”

“I never thought it could ever be like this,” you say, words falling off your tongue before you even ask them to.

“What?”

“Us.”

There’s no need to elaborate. Taehyung understands. He understands that, half a year ago, you both would have thrown yourselves into a volcano before holding hands with each other. He understands that getting over your hatred for each other seemed like an absolutely insurmountable task. He understands that you had never wanted to marry each other, that you couldn’t believe you would have to spend the rest of your lives with each other.

And he understands that now, things are different.

“I’m glad things happened the way they did,” Taehyung begins. “I’m grateful for us.”

You press yourself impossibly closer to him, feel his grip tighten around you. Like this, you can hear his heartbeat. Hear it thump like a drum, steady and firm and unwavering. His heart beats against his chest and you wonder.

You wonder if he can hear the way yours beats for him, too.

There were lots of things that made your night in together special. But one of them is the glaring fact that you don’t get them very often. That their infrequency makes them all the more valuable.

This has become blatantly obvious to you, because right now you are not spending a night in together. Right now you are stuck at a gala that you have to attend for the sake of business, drinking thin flutes of champagne and mingling with people you barely speak to.

The one good thing about nights like these is that Taehyung looks positively gorgeous in suits. He sort of always has, but you’d never admit that to his face. At least not until now. And as his wife, you are lucky enough to have a front-row seat.

“I can feel you staring at me all the way from over here,” Taehyung deadpans as he helps himself to a chocolate-covered strawberry from the buffet table.

You’re too obvious to have any shame about it. “What can I say, I like the view.”

“Hard to believe I was the once the one being shouted at for being inappropriate in public,” Taehyung says with a shake of his head. He bites into the strawberry and eats it all in a single go, tossing the stems into a bin nearby as you join back up in the heart of the crowd.

“It’s only inappropriate if other people hear,” you tease, letting him guide you, hand intertwined with yours, towards an empty corner where the two of you can snuggle up to one another in (relative) peace.

“I don’t think the champagne was very good for your filter, Miss Y/N,” Taehyung hisses into your ear, warm breath tickling your skin.

“Don’t you mean Mrs. Kim?” You pose, an eyebrow raised.

That seems to do something to Taehyung. It’s not very bright in here, with it being nighttime and all, but even still you can see the way his eyes darken. See the way his lips curl upwards, feel the way his grip on you tightens. It sparks something within you. Something deep in the pit of your belly.

Something that makes you want more.

You test the waters. “Mrs. Kim has a nice ring to it, don’t you think, Tae?”

Taehyung looks about a moment away from losing control. But instead of slamming you against the wall in front of all of these people and giving you what you really want, he growls out, low and powerful, “Home. Now.”

He doesn’t need to tell you twice.

You hail your car outside of the venue and it’s all the both of you can do to not jump on each other right then and there, in the backseat of this giant black van, overcome with want, with need, with everything in between. Taehyung’s leg bounces impatiently the entire ride back, and the feeling of your hand pressed against his doesn’t seem to be calming him down. He pulls you close to him in the backseat of the car, a hand resting on your thigh. You eye him carefully, as if challenging him to be any more daring. He grins.

Home cannot come soon enough. The two of you tumble out of the backseat and into the elevators, where you mash the top floor button after entering in the security access code, desperate and shameless. The ride seems to take hours, and the heat that surrounds you practically smothers you, covers you, fills up your lungs and chokes you.

There is nothing left by the time you reach your door. The moment it slams shut behind you Taehyung presses you up against the back of it, pins you against the wood as he hovers over you, eyes tracing your lips.

“Tell me something,” he demands.

“What?”

“A fact. Something I don’t know.”

It doesn’t take much thinking. “I want you,” you breathe out, watch it hit his skin, watch the way his eyes glint in the light of the entranceway. “Please, Tae. I want you.”

It’s enough for him.

This is not the first time you and Taehyung have kissed. The first time was nearly five months ago, in a chapel, at an altar, surrounded by hundreds of people. It was so unfun that you seem to have eradicated the mere thought from your memory. But you remember that feeling from that day. That feeling you got when you pressed your lips against his, cemented your marriage with a kiss. That heat. That sting.

Kissing him now—that feeling has returned tenfold. When his lips meet yours, it feels like fire is rushing through your veins, setting alight every nerve it passes, unforgiving and relentless. His enormous hands come up to cup your jaw, fingers pressing against the skin of your cheeks as they pull you close to him, keep you trapped in his hold. This is not the first time you and Taehyung have kissed but it feels like it is—it feels like there is a lotus blooming on a lilypad in your heart, it feels like you have been struck by lightning, it feels like nothing else you have ever felt before. It feels brand new.

Pressing back against him, he slowly releases you from the cage he has created against the door, spinning around so the two of you can tumble up the stairs and into your bedroom, unable to resist sneaking in pecks here and there as you make your way upstairs. Every step you take you stop, giggle as he presses you against the railing just so he can steal another kiss from you, put his hands all over your body. It’s a wonder the two of you even make it into your bedroom at all.

When you do, however, all bets are off. Taehyung presses you against the still-made bedsheets with a glint in his eye and a growl on his lips, pupils blown wide as he stares down at you, at your body.

"Aren't you a sight? Laid out so pretty for me," he purrs, robbing a breath from you.

It's a tone you have yet to hear from him. You find yourself growing impossibly hot under his stare, burning with an uncharted desire.

You can hardly wrap your brain around it. Here you are, craving the man you had spent the better half of your young adult life loathing. Maybe it’s the champagne; maybe it’s the way his fingers are running slowly up the length of your clothed torso. Whatever it is, your stomach does flips, unfamiliar to the way your body preens under his touch.

"Don't let it go to your head," you tease, simply because you could.

Taehyung hums disapprovingly, pressing kisses into your neck as he grabs one of your thighs and wraps it around his waist, riding your dress up in the process.

You sigh, exposing your neck further for him as he paints bruises into your neck. It feels like just yesterday you had called him out at the altar for his habit of sporting the very same marks you were soon to wear.

Perhaps you should have thought twice about letting the man you had married purely under business pretenses press his hips against your clothed center, but as he rolls his into yours, your mind falls blank, silencing any and all reservations you should have.

Whimpering, you beckon his mouth back onto yours, tongue meeting his wantonly.

You feel his fingers creep up the outside of your bare thigh, thrilling you in the most primal way. Reaching the band of your underwear after what felt like entirely too long, he runs the pad of his thumb against the lacy fabric.

You could scream. He is doing this on purpose. He must be. Surely he knows how badly you were aching for him? For him to fill you– whatever the manner may be.

You let out a whine before you can help yourself, frowning as Taehyung looks pleased with himself, confirming his knowledge of your prolonged pleasure.

"What's that? Did you say something?" he mocks, looking cruel and yet strikingly gorgeous as he smirks above you.

"God, you're irritating,” you huff, hips jerking up against his as he pulls at the band of your underwear, the elastic snapping back into the flesh of your hip. "Just fuck me already."

He tuts, clearly unimpressed by your impatience, "Now, where is the fun in that?"

Your eyes flutter shut as his fingers suddenly snake their way between your thighs. Mouth falling ajar, you grip his shoulders as he runs his middle finger against your clothed slit, trailing up and down your warmth. To think he was still dressed while he was touching you like this...

"No... I think I'll take my time with you," he says.

You mew against his hand, arousal forming against his long digits' ministrations. You have to hand it to him. Taehyung knows what he’s doing. The life of a bachelor has seemingly served him well.

You aren’t usually vocal in bed, but the way he’s purring words of filth to you, breath hot against the shell of your ear as he tells you how hot and slick your pretty pussy felt against his hand, has you gasping and sputtering, your own fingers wrapping around his wrist.

The fabric of your panties provides a friction that toys the line of pleasure and pain, making you thrust up to meet his motions, your humility slipping from you.

Taehyung watches you intently, cock growing hard under the constraints of his dress pants. You look better than he could've imagined, eyes watering and body shivering under his touch, his fingers soaking with your arousal. He can only imagine what you'd feel like with his fingers fully buried into you, rocking them against your velvety walls.

He lets out a groan of his own, turned on by the idea of you fucking yourself onto his fingers, whimpering out his name in ecstasy.

There’s this part of you that faintly recognizes that Taehyung has done this plenty of times before. Plenty of times with plenty of other lovers. But there is a different part of you, that part that bursts with light and hope, that reminds you that he was never married to those other ones. That his allegiance lies with you. And that thought, knowing that deep within you, he is yours, makes your jaw fall slack, pretty noises tumbling from your lips and your thighs clamping around him.

You were close, closer than you care to admit. Every touch against you is careful yet deliberate as he reads the signs of your body, the way it keens and arches into him, offering you words of encouragement as your climax finally hits.

"That's right. Good girl. Let go for me," Taehyung coos, eyes dark and focused on your writhing form.

You cry out into the familiar space of your shared room, head thrown back as you ride out the high, letting it wrack your body, send jolts throughout your veins.

You barely have time to catch your breath when he presses his mouth back onto yours, kiss still as eager as it was when you both first entered your home. You are alight with satisfaction as he pulls away to press a trail of kisses against your jaw.

"I want—f-fuck," you stutter as he finds your already hypersensitive clit once more, rolling his thumb over your now soaked panties in tantalizing circles, "want to make you feel good, too."

Admittedly, this fantasy had crossed your mind once or twice, brought on by the way he carried himself in a suit and the way his large fingers wrapped around the champagne glass; confident, collected, and entirely charming. Who are you to shy away from a man like him? He certainly has always been rather good-looking.

He pauses his motions, pulling his hand back to sit on your waist. Your dress is of the finest, most delicate satin, and after tonight's activities, completely wrinkled. You can almost hear your stylist's cries of dismay. Whatever. You have a steamer. And why focus on the dress when it’s obvious the two of you are focused on what lies underneath it?

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." You nod, skin still burning from your past climax.

Helping you back up, Taehyung stands. You lick your lips as you sit back up on the edge of the bed, watching intently as he unbuckles his belt, audibly hissing as his pants fall to his ankles, cock visibly straining against the fabric of his underwear. Thank God you don’t have to stand. With the way your thighs still felt weak and how your husband looks like a goddamn Adonis towering above you? Your legs surely would give out underneath you if you rose.

Brows furrowed, Taehyung palms over himself briefly before pulling down the waistband of his underwear, his painfully hard member slapping against his torso.

Your eyes widened on instinct. While the last thing you wanted to do was help inflate Taehyung's already large ego, you were certainly impressed at his size; thick and girthy, his tip red and shining with precum.

He couldn't help but smirk, thoroughly pleased by the way you stared at him unabashedly, chest rising and falling heavily.

"Open up for me," he orders.

And who are you to deny a request from your dear husband?

Your pretty lips wrap themselves around his engorged tip, all remnants of lipstick long gone by now. Taehyung hisses, a hand finding the side of your jaw as you run your tongue against the underside of his cock.

"Fuck, you're so pretty," he grunts, fighting off the urge to grip the back of your head and fuck your throat. As much as he'd love your have you choking and drooling all over his cock – and boy would he – he lets you set your own pace, not wanting to overwhelm you.

It doesn't take long for you to sink your mouth further down, however, clearly set on making Taehyung feel as good as you could.

A low moan erupts from his throat, digits pressing into your jaw in request to take more of him in, which you happily oblige.

You had your eyes trained on him, completely obsessed with the way he panted through pink lips, hissing slightly every time your tongue rolled over his sensitive tip.

Lolling his head to a side, his eyes meet yours, gaze primal and wolfish as he watches the way you worked his cock.

"Doing so good, love. Doing so fucking good for me,” he murmurs.

You hum against his skin at the sound of the sudden pet name, an unfamiliar feeling fluttering in your belly. You push aside the feeling, focusing instead on the way he grunts at the new sensation you had just given him.

Giggling, you pull off his cock, opting instead to press a kiss against his leaking tip, making sure to hold his eyes as you run kitten licks against it.

"God, you're such a tease." He shakes his head in disbelief.

He looks so good above you, shivering and cursing out praises on how good your mouth feels, how well you take his cock. Running your tongue along the length of his shaft, you become certain that this is a display you can’t imagine yourself ever getting tired of. But you have all the time in the world, right?

"Y/N,” he gasps suddenly, hips jerking towards your face. "Love, I'm gonna-- gonna cum."

"Cum in my mouth, please." Your voice was pleading and desperate. Taehyung had never heard such words spoken more sweetly.

"Fuck's sake."

You let out a yelp in surprise as his fingers work their way through your hair, bringing your head back down onto his cock. You relax, though, when you feel the hot ropes of his cum hit the back of your throat, your hands finding purchase on his thighs as you do your best to swallow it all down.

Pulling yourself off him, you let out a small cough, eyes watering slightly as you hadn’t managed to prepare yourself with a breath before his release. His large palm runs across the top of your head as you caught your breath, expression flickering with something unfamiliar. Could it be... fondness?

Your heart stammers at the thought as you stand, slowly stepping out of your dress, letting it drape off of your figure. Taehyung looks absolutely gobsmacked, pupils dark as he gazes at you, eyes unabashedly raking your body. He’s shameless.

You both are.

Slowly, you step towards him, fingers reaching out towards his shirt, carefully undoing the buttons as you gaze at each other, expressions unreadable.

"Tae?” You ask innocently, blinking up at him. “Fuck me?"

Your polite request makes Taehyung chuckle.

"Please?" You bring your bottom lip between your teeth, eyes blinking up at him adoringly for good measure. You reach the last button, let his dress shirt drape open. He brushes it off himself, stands there for a few seconds just to let the way you’re ogling his toned chest go to his head. At least he’s good-looking.

He sighs, probably contemplating some clever rebuttal, but eventually decides against it as his cock is already twitching back to life.

"Alright, love. Turn around. On your knees for me," He orders, making your stomach flip.

To your surprise, you are hardly in place when the warmth of his large hands finds the soft of your tummy, pressing you back into his chest as he pressed a peck to the back of your neck.

You squirm in his hold, whining as that same hand of his grabs hold of your breast, long digit rolling your nipple between their tips. You can’t help but press your ass back into him. His cock feels hot and heavy, pressing against the back of your thigh, making your pussy clench in anticipation.

You want him.

You want him so bad that you don't know what to do with yourself, shuddering as his free hand runs along the side of your ass, leaving scorching hot trails on your skin wherever he kneads into your flesh. He's touching you everywhere – everywhere but where you need him the most, and the arousal that drips down your thigh mocks you.

"Dammit, please!" You exclaim, running out of patience.

"Please what?" He says, an eyebrow arched.

You shiver, committing the way his middle finger traced your pelvic bone to memory forever.

You puff out a frustrated breath, nearly at your wit's end. "Please fuck me, Tae."

Taehyung pauses, grip on your breast and hip tightening as he lets out a moan. You let one out yourself as you feel him readjust, cock pressing against your slick entrance.

"Fuck, you sound so pretty when you say my name," He grunts. "Okay, baby. I'll fuck you. Begging so nicely for my cock."

You let out a squeak as you're suddenly pushed down onto your hands, back arching as he pushes his fat cock inside your heavenly cunt. He's thick, so thick, that you instinctively grip the sheet underneath you, fingers curled around them tightly as if it means to hold onto your sanity.

Taehyung lets out a shaky breath, angling your hips up so that you could take more of him.

"You feel—feel so good," he admits above you, and suddenly you wish you could see him. See the way his bangs stick to his damp forehead—see the way his tongue swipes over his bottom lip wickedly.

You let that thought go, however, as he thrust into you, making your jaw fall slack and eyes flutter shut. Profanities roll off your tongue unabashedly, helpless under the way his thick member pulls out of you, only to slam back into you.

You weren't expecting this. The way he stretches you out further than anyone had before. Your pussy clenches around him, reveling in the sweet, sweet burn.

He digs into the flesh of your hips, holding you steady as you mew and cry out, pushing your hips back in time to his, trying your best to meet his movements.

"Tae... fuck, fuck, fuck—"

He was filling you to the brim. Filling you tight and deep.

God, the way he was panting behind you was music to your ears. His cock pulses every time you call out his name, voice muffled and buried as you had your head pressed into the mattress, hair messy and bouncing with every hard thrust.

"S'good! Fuck... so, ah, big..." you cry out.

You feel drunk. Intoxicated off this beautiful man and the way he makes you feel a way only he can.

You nearly let out a sob as the rough pads of Taehyung's fingertips suddenly reach around you and find your neglected clit, rolling light circles on the soft and swollen bundle of nerves skillfully.

You are a mess, whimpering and drooling into your expensive sheets, and he filled every inch of you, leaving no place undiscovered. Your high nears, stewing on low heat somewhere near the pit of your belly, waiting for a chance to erupt and wash all over you. Taehyung must be close to, you realize, as his thrusts began to slow down, slamming into you roughly as if chasing after his high.

"Gonna take this load? Huh? Gonna let me cum inside your pretty little pussy?" His voice is straining, as if trying to breathe evenly but merely moments from falling apart.

If only you could formulate an intelligent response, but instead, you are a blubbering wreck, thighs shaking as they threatened to give out underneath you. But somehow, Taehyung knew. He had you. Quicking his motions against your delicate pearl, he could tell you were close too, and he was going to make sure you got there.

Suddenly, you're crying out and convulsing, tears brimming at the ends of your eyes as you feel Taehyung empty into you, collapsing onto his hands as well.

You feel his hot breath against the back of your neck as he pants, breath growing more and more even as the two of you regain control of your bodies and minds.

Pulling out of you, he plops down beside you, and for a moment, the two of you hold each other's gazes, eyes speaking in ways words never could.

Finally, after what feels both like an eternity and just a moment, you work up the courage to say something, moving closer to him as you place a hand on his chest, cushioning your chin as you rested on top of it.

"Psst," you beckon, voice hushed.

"Yeah?" His voice is husky and tired.

"I’m grateful, too."

"Huh?"

"I’m grateful for us, too."

Taehyung's gaze is soft, and it lingers on you for a second before the sides of his mouth curl up tenderly. He grins down at you, eyes drifting shut. You feel him squeeze you closer, pressing you against his skin. And then, you hear his breathing steady, see his lips part slightly.

You lean into his chest, eyelids fluttering. “Thank you, Tae.”

Not unlike the many other mornings you have awoken in this bed, when you open your eyes as the morning sunlight streams through the windows, Taehyung is nowhere to be found. The sheets on his side of the bed are flipped aside, revealing that soft outline of his body from the night before left imprinted into the sheets, a dip in the mattress where he slept. You had fallen asleep all wrapped up in each other, tangled up like vines, but must have separated sometime during the night. Distantly, you register Taehyung’s voice outside, notice his phone missing from his bedside table. He must be on an early morning call.

You check your phone for the time. Ten o’clock.

A late morning call, then.

Still basking in the afterglow of the night prior, you slowly inch your way out of bed, shivering as you pull the covers off you and scoot your legs around so they hang over the edge of the bed. You rub at your eyes until you faintly remember you did not take your makeup off last night, and when your hand comes away covered with black streaks and flecks of mascara, you wince to yourself. There goes five hundred dollars worth of a skincare routine.

After washing yourself up and applying as many serums as you can to your skin, you wrap yourself up in one of his button-up shirts, the torso so wide that it drapes over you. The tips of your fingers peek out from the ends of the sleeves, and you cross your arms lightly over your chest as you make your way to the door, ready to entice your husband back to bed for round two. What? It’s Saturday.

You peer around the door to find Taehyung standing a few feet away, facing away from you. He’s shirtless, and as his wife you have absolutely no problems ogling him, the toned curves of his back, the muscles in his arms. He’s always been a looker. You just finally have an excuse to look for yourself.

You approach him quietly, not wanting to interrupt nor broadcast your sex life to anybody on the other side who may be listening. Already, the idea of crawling back in bed together sends goosebumps along your skin, makes you giddy with anticipation. You’re just about to tap him on the shoulder, lips curled upwards in suggestion, when he says—

“And my inheritance? That’s secured now, right? Because I said I would pretend to be in love with her in public—?”

And it is as if Medusa herself appeared in this room, turning you to stone as your heart thuds to the floor, a hollow, empty noise.

You don’t hear the rest of Taehyung’s conversation. You don’t even hear the sound of your own heartbeat. This terrible, aching sound rings in your ears, silencing everything in its wake, drowning out even the sighs of your own breath. It is as if you have been frozen solid. As if you have been shot in the stomach. You stand there, feeling absolutely nothing, and all you can do is brace yourself for what is to come. Taehyung’s words were the knife but his next actions will be its removal, leaving in its wake an irreparable wound.

He turns around, casual and cool, voice still hushed. As if you were still asleep. As if you hadn’t heard anything at all. But when he twists his body and sees you standing there, staring back up at him, lips parted in shock.

“I’ll call you back,” he tells whoever was on the other side of the line, looking more panicked by the second. He opens his mouth so he can explain himself, but you don’t need him to. You’ve heard everything already.

“I should have known,” you say, feeling angry and betrayed and sad all at once. “I should have known it was all an act.”

“Y/N, wait, let me explain—”

“What is there to tell me, Taehyung? What are you going to say? That you didn’t mean it? That you thought I wouldn’t find out? That last night was just a one-off?” You demand. The heat from your veins hasn’t left. Still, it simmers through your blood, burning you up from the inside out. “That you didn’t want to lie to me?”

“It’s not like that and you know it,” Taehyung says defensively, brows furrowed. “Just give me a chance to explain myself.”

“Explain yourself? How you pretended, every day and every night, just so you could get some more money in your bank account? So you could make sure you would get your father’s business when he died?”

Taehyung bites back easily. “Don’t act like you weren’t also faking it at some point. I know you were almost removed from your grandmother’s will.”

Your tongue is bitter at the mention of your grandmother. As if Taehyung ever even knew her. “My grandmother has nothing to do with this.”

“Really?” Taehyung challenges. “So you wanting to stay in her will was just a little bonus, right?”

“Don’t,” you say sharply. “It’s different.”

“Different how?” Taehyung spits. “Because right now, to me, it looks pretty similar to what I’ve done.”

“My grandmother died months ago,” you remind him. Her will is no longer the question. It has been written, settled, and executed. There was no reason for you to continue playing along once she took her last breath. No reason—unless you wanted to. “Meanwhile you’ve been keeping your inheritance a secret from me this entire time.”

“We made a deal,” Taehyung says. “A deal that said we would both act happy and pretend to be in love because we both had things we needed to worry about. Family things. Money things. You were a part of this, just like I was. You pretended, too.”

“Well, maybe I stopped pretending!”

You can’t take it anymore. All this anger, all this emptiness, it’s been bubbling up inside you ever since you heard those first words come out of his mouth. It spills out of you all at once, an eruption from your lips, your heart��s doors bursting open. You have held his hand tightly in your own. You have pressed your lips to his. You have laid yourself bare in front of him. What is there left to protect? What part of you has not already been stained by him, by his touch, by the feeling of his fingers against your skin?

The hallway is silent, but you can hear your cry echo down the corridor. Hear the way it bounces along the walls before fading away.

“Maybe I stopped pretending,” you repeat, softer this time. You blink and already can feel the streaks along your skin, the tears falling from your eyes. “Did you ever think about that?”

“Y/N, what are you talking about?” Taehyung looks like he’s in disbelief. Like he cannot believe the words you are saying to him.

Well, that makes two of you.

“Can’t you see, Tae? Can’t you tell?” You ask, the nickname falling from your lips before you can even help it. You must remind yourself to change that, later. “I’m in love with you.”

They are words you have never said to someone before. Not even your old boyfriends. Words that you always knew you would reserve for someone special. Someone who would touch your heart and make it their own, someone who would leave imprints of their fingers against your chest. Someone who would brighten you up from the inside out, leave you bursting with light.

Ironic, that Taehyung has become that someone. When he is the one person you never thought could.

When he has proven, time and time again, that you two just cannot mix. Oil and water. Pastel and acrylic. Satin and silk.

“You don’t have to say anything,” you spit out quickly, before Taehyung has a chance to respond. “I know it doesn’t matter to you.”

“Y/N, yes it does,” Taehyung begins, desperate and pleading. “I know you heard what I said, but I swear, it stopped being an act for me, too. Things are different now, just like you said.”

“Don’t. Please.” You pull away as he reaches out towards you. Faintly, you remember that it is his shirt you are wearing. Remember that no matter what you do, he will always surround you. “Please, Tae.” You have nothing left. You can’t bear to look at him, but where else will you go? You cannot believe the things he’s said, the things he’s done, but where else would you go?

“I love you, too,” Taehyung says, and a part of you wants so badly to believe him.

A part of you wants so badly to ingrain those words into your head, carve them into your heart, let him wrap his arms around you and promise that everything will be alright. But things are different now. Just like you said. You and Taehyung are not the same people you were six months ago. Or six weeks ago. Or even six minutes ago. You are helpless and he has proven that he does not care.

“I have to go,” you say, looking away. You don’t think you could handle turning back to him again. “Please, Tae.”

“I’m sorry,” Taehyung says, and he reaches out once more but you are not there to meet him halfway. Were you ever?

“I know,” you whisper back.

You duck into your bedroom and pack a suitcase of everything you need. Being here is suffocating. Being with him is like setting yourself alight.

Victoria has no questions when you show up at her door later that day, suitcase by your side and this ridiculous bottle of Merlot in your hands. You had picked it up on the way over. You sort of figured you might need it.

“You don’t wanna talk about it, do you?” Victoria asks.

“Tell me about your streaming service,” you hiccup in response.

Victoria is happy to oblige. She even tells you that she still hasn’t picked a CFO, and that the position would be open for you if you ever wished to take it.

Funnily enough, what will become of you once your father retires and passes along the company is the furthest away from your thoughts.

You remember being so worried about that. Being so worried that, once they married you off like every good daughter should be, you would be absorbed into your husband’s life, cut out of your family’s. Your father would choose a cousin, an uncle, or even a friend to take after the business, bestowing upon you a thoughtful inheritance but nothing more than that. All of those years of schooling, finance in college, your MBA soon after, would be wasted, just so you could hang on the arm of your husband for the rest of your life.

It’s thoughtful of Victoria to think of you for the position. She knows just as well as anyone else that you would be an excellent fit. And if things were just a little bit different, you would be jumping at the offer.

But your future career plans are on the backburner, along with the rest of your life.

All you can really do, right now, at this very moment, is wait for things to change. As they always do.

“Don’t you have an event tonight?” Victoria asks about three days into your stay. She’s given you her favorite (her words, not yours) guest bedroom and an enormous closet to match, despite you only coming over with a carry-on’s worth of clothes.

You scoff to yourself. “Like I’d want to go to anything with him.”

“Have you even called your parents?”

“No,” you say, not even caring about the repercussions. There’s no doubt in your mind that they’ll be ringing you soon. And when they do, maybe then you’ll finally work up the courage to tell them what really happened. Tell them that you can’t go back there. Not yet, at least.

“I’m sorry that this happened to you,” Victoria says as she hands you a bowl of vegetable soup, homemade from a couple of days ago. You nod to yourself, sniffling as you curl into the couch cushions and wish they would absorb you whole.

There’s no need to ask her what she means by ‘this’. Everything. From your engagement to the marriage, from those tabloids to the deal, from your grandmother’s death to now. It has all been unfair. Life is unfair. And while you’ve always known that, it has been particularly cruel to you as of late.

Still, when you wake up sometimes, you can still feel him tracing over your skin. Feel his lips hovering over yours, breath fanning out over your cheeks. You turn over and expect to see him lying there, on the right side of the bed, sheets mussed as they cover his figure. You wake up and for a brief moment, for that split, split second, there is peace. And happiness. And love.

And then there is nothing.

“Yeah,” you sigh. “Me, too.”

Maybe he really does love you. Maybe things really did change. But you have always been a pragmatic person, always let your head guide you rather than your heart. The secret’s out. Taehyung had an inheritance he needed to secure. You were his path to doing so. Those things haven’t changed. No matter if his feelings did.

“Hey, look at this,” Victoria says, brows furrowed as she holds out her phone in front of you, revealing a livestreamed interview from the event tonight.

You peer over.

It’s Taehyung.

Of course it’s Taehyung. Who else would she be showing you?

He stands in a clean-cut gray coat, draping over his figure, black dress shirt and slacks underneath, belt wrapped neatly around his hips. He holds his hand up in a wave and smiles politely to the cameras, to the reporters, letting the flashes wash over him like waves in the ocean.

“Mr. Kim! Mr. Kim!” Someone calls. “Where’s your wife?”

Oh, God.

Taehyung grimaces a little, pursing his lips. “My wife won’t be joining me tonight.”

“Can you tell us why?” They shout.

“Sorry, no more questions. Thank you for asking though. She’s well,” he says, quickly ushering himself along, entering the venue so no more reporters can bombard him. When he disappears, the livestream immediately moves on to the next guest, but you hardly pay them any attention.

“Huh,” Victoria says aloud.

Indeed. Taehyung’s response strikes you as rather odd. Why would he tell the public that? Why not make up a lie, say you’re sick, or you’re overseas, or you’re just late? Why simply tell them that you won’t be there? Surely, Taehyung is just as aware of the consequences of arriving at an event without you as you are. There’s no doubt that his parents will be in contact with him soon, too. No doubt that this will leave a stain on his family. His image. It might even threaten his inheritance after all.

So why not lie?

You frown to yourself, nose scrunching up in confusion. You don’t like where this train of thought leads.

“You okay?” Victoria asks when she sees the bewildered expression on your face.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” you say. Just completely befuddled. It escapes you, why Taehyung wouldn’t just make up some sort of excuse as to reasoning behind your absence. Why he would even show up at the event at all. Certainly, going to the event without you is worse than not going at all. It prompts questions. It spreads rumors.

Later that night, you get a call from your parents, demanding to know why you weren’t there with him. You say you got sick. You plead with them not to question anything.

You wonder what happens next. You and Taehyung still have two more events this week. A dinner and a ball. What will you do then?

Taehyung goes solo for the dinner. You suppose you could have predicted that, considering his apparent willingness to arrive alone for the first event, too. He hasn’t made any efforts to contact you and for once, you’re glad for his silence. Not that you even know what he would say to you, anyway, but at least he isn’t begging you to come back to him.

The sad truth is that if he did, if he got down on his knees right in front of you and willed you to come back home, you probably would. He has always been impossible to resist. Even when you first met him, when he sauntered up towards you and told you he was your dream come true. You didn’t know it then. But he was. He was everything you would ever want.

Why would he lie?

Why would he do that?

You can’t wrap your head around it. What is he getting out of it by telling the truth? By admitting to the paparazzi, to the reporters and the cameramen, that you won’t be there with him. That you will not be joining him. Nothing, certainly. His parents must be furious. His inheritance may be on the rocks. His image might tank.

So then, why do it at all?

Could it… could it be?

Is it true?

You have loved Taehyung for a long time. Longer than you probably even care to admit. You have always held your head high at events, spoken loudly and without fear, but being with him made you feel safe. Secure. You would hold his hand and know, know that he was holding yours, too. It grounded you. It soothed your worries.

Does he really love you back?

Taehyung smiles politely and laughs when he needs to at these events, but he doesn’t look the same. Even through the screen you can see those bags under his eyes, that spark that has faded. You hardly recognize him. He looks so lonely, without someone by his side. So distant.

When you know the dinner has ended, you almost pick up the phone and call him.

Almost.

Instead, when the ball rolls around, you ask Victoria if she’s got a spare dress she can lend you.

Kim Taehyung, for someone you have seen covered in paint splotches, wearing old college hoodies, and fresh out of a restless night’s sleep, cleans up pretty well. For a married man, at least.

You wonder what the past few days must have been like for him. If they have been as empty as your own. Wonder what it was like, riding alone in a big black van to this hotel ballroom, no one to tease, no one to laugh with, no one to hold. No one to poke him awake if he accidentally fell asleep. No one to make sure he’s okay.

Taehyung stands right outside of the entrance, waving politely to all of the paparazzi, smiling as the cameras flash, giving them the time of day for a moment before he heads inside and muscles his way through another event without you.

Or so he thinks.

You spot him just as he opens his mouth, ready to repeat those same lines all over again.

My wife won’t be joining me tonight. She’s well, though.

And maybe it’s just because you haven’t seen him in nearly a week. Maybe it’s just because he is about to lie to those reporters once more, ready to face whatever consequences come his way.

Or maybe it’s just because you miss him. Miss him terribly, have been missing him terribly. Being away from him was necessary, but that didn’t make it any less unbearable. Not getting to hold his hand, see his smile, meet his eyes. You and Taehyung may not have always liked each other, but you saw him every day regardless. He became a constant in your life. Not an if, but a when. If everything went to shit, you always knew he would still be there.

And there he is.

“Wait! Taehyung!”

Taehyung’s eyes widen as he hears your voice, gaze darting around wildly, mouth parted in surprise. He looks around desperately, scanning the crowd, meeting the eyes of every single person in front of him until he finally looks to the left, sees you rushing up towards him, hiking up the skirt of your dress as your heels tap against the sidewalk.

And when he spots you, sees you running up to him, his body relaxes, a weight lifted from his shoulders as he beams back at you, relieved and thankful and filled with joy, all at once. And you know, then.

You know that everything will be okay.

“Sorry I’m late,” you say sheepishly, cheeks burning as he looks at you, takes in every inch of you, breathes you in and lets you fill him up.

Taehyung doesn’t respond. You reach out to hold his hand but he grabs your wrist and pulls you in, presses you against his body as he presses his hands against your cheeks, palms burning as they meet your skin, and he kisses you. In front of all these people, he kisses you.

And goddamnit, you will kiss him back.

It feels like lightning, like a thunderstorm, like the waves of the ocean are crashing against your heart. It feels like fire, like flames are licking at your veins, sending sparks through your blood. It feels like home.

You and Taehyung ignore the shouts of reporters, the flashes of cameras, the honks of the cars on the other side of the road. When you part, he presses his forehead against yours and lets the tip of your nose meet his. And you smile.

“Don’t be alone any longer, Mr. Kim,” you whisper, loud enough so only he can hear.

“When I’m with you, I never am, Mrs. Kim,” he murmurs back.

You wonder what those tabloids will be saying about you tomorrow.

The rest of the night finds the two of you pretty much inseparable. You wrap yourself around his arm and for the first time in a long time, he presses his hand against the small of your back, keeping you close. Like he’d ever lose you again.

One of your least favorite parts about attending balls used to be the dancing. As a young and eligible bachelorette, you would always have to lock hands with another, let him awkwardly guide you along to the music as you made the worst small talk imaginable, forcing laughter and smiles whenever he said something he thought was particularly funny.

But, like so many others, things have changed. Things are different now.

The waltz comes on and you and Taehyung are the first to reach the center of the ballroom floor, letting him rest his hand on your waist as you press yours on top of his shoulder. Let him twirl you around the room as the orchestra plays in the background, a soft, sweet, light little melody that carries you along.

“I missed this,” you say softly.

“I missed us,” Taehyung corrects. He pauses for a moment, swallowing hard. “I’m sorry for not telling you about my inheritance.”

“I’m sorry for storming out. I should have listened to you.” you respond easily. You both have plenty to apologize for. But night is darkest right before dawn.

“I should have said something,” Taehyung says with a shake of his head. “But I was just so—so worried that something would go wrong. And I didn’t know how to explain how I felt about you. I acted in the beginning, too, but then things changed.”

“They always do,” you muse with a grin.

“I couldn’t believe I had you,” Taehyung admits. “I mean, look at you. You’re gorgeous. And funny. And true.”

“Go on,” you tease, even though you do nothing to hide the smile inching its way across your face, the heating of your cheeks, the simmering of your skin.

“Oh, shut up. You know what I mean.” Taehyung rolls his eyes. “I just—I felt something for you I couldn’t explain. I still can’t.”

You don’t have to prod any further. You know. Deep within your heart, you know. There is love blossoming in his to match the garden that has bloomed in your own. The flowers that have sprouted in the ashes. He has them, too. And when those petals open and the light streams in, he will know. He will know, too.

“You make me crazy,” you tell him, whispering gently into his skin. “But I’m a better person when I’m with you. I know I am.”

“I meant what I said, that night,” Taehyung says. Makes you wonder which night he’s actually talking about. “That I’m happy that things have changed. That things happened the way they did. I’m grateful for us.”

“I am, too,” you say. And you are.

You rest your head against his chest as you dance together, swaying back and forth to the beat of the drums, to the strums of the violins, all wrapped up together like ivy, like vines. Those, too, sit in that garden of yours. Keep you tethered to his side, keep him close to yours. He holds you in his arms and he smiles, because he knows, too. Knows that that garden in your heart will soon have a matching one in his. A mirror image of who you are. Who you’ve become.

Things change. They always will. But so long as he is by your side, and so long as you are by his, you know. Everything will be okay.

It's different, this time, when Taehyung presses you into the mattress.

There is no rush. Because now you know for certain that all the time in the world is yours. He is yours forever. You are his.

The two of you are a mixture of tangled limbs and shared breaths, the feverish, irrepressible need to give yourself to each other nearly tangible. He breaks the kiss suddenly, and you’re about to break out in protest. That is, until you see him unbuttoning his shirt.

Inspired, you wiggle out of your own clothes, eyes locked on Taehyung's soft torso and the idea that you had married such a beautiful man, inside and out.

Looking back, you wonder if that was always inevitable. If you and Taehyung falling into each other had been written in the stars from day one, sealed as your fate from the moment he came up to you at that ball when you were teenagers. He was going to be a part of your life no matter what. Whether or not you ended up marrying him. But having him like this?

It makes it all worth it.

"Do you like what you see?" That old cocky smirk of his makes an appearance.

You raise a brow, choosing to omit a response as you unclasp your bra, letting it fall from your chest.

Taehyung swallows.

"Do you?" You tease.

His response comes in the form of bites down your necks and licks down your chest, stealing your breath from you.

Your clothes are somewhere dispelled beside your passionate bodies, growing cold beside the way your two hot bodies warmed one another.

"You are so beautiful," Taehyung praises, fingers coming up to cup your breast, bringing it up to his mouth.

You mewl, wrapping an arm around his shoulders as his tongue toys with your pert bud, teeth grazing it ever so often just to hear the broken gasp that'd always follow.

"And so sensitive too," he giggles, making you pout. His hands are gentle as if every touch means something. As if you mean something—no, everything—to him. And the most wonderful part is that he means everything to you, too.

"Shut up." You roll your eyes playfully, gasping as his palm comes down the side of your thigh suddenly in warning. You bite down your swollen bottom lip at the gush of arousal that dampened your underwear in response.

"Watch your tone, love. Of both our positions, you are in the most compromising one." He reminds you. It isn't a threat, and while usually, that kind of tone would thrill you, you couldn't help but want his mouth back on yours already.

"You talk too much." You flop back onto the bed with a sigh. Taehyung watches with interest as your pretty tits bounce in consequence. Extending your hands out towards him, you give him a pouty look. "Just wanna kiss you."

"Is that all I am to you? Just a pair of lips for you to mack on? I've got news for you, sweetheart, there's a brain behind these ravishing good looks." He scoffs in feigned offense, sitting back on his heels.

You giggle.

It seems as though even during the most intimate of moments, Taehyung still found a way to be, well, Taehyung. At least that hasn’t changed.

"Whatever, pretty boy. Why don't you come over here and put that mouth of yours to good use?" You purr, making his eyebrows raise in surprise.

"Oh? I don't remember you being this assertive when I was pounding you into the mattress last time."

“What, I can’t have a little fun as well?” You tease, grinning as you look up at him, raking your eyes over his figure.

"Wanna have fun, love?," He murmurs into your ears, hands gripping either of your plush thighs. "Then spread those pretty legs for me, and I'll show you exactly how much fun you can have."

God, you love this man.

You oblige eagerly, breath quickening as he helped you press your knees by your chest, leaving the wet patch in your underwear on full display.

"My pretty little wife." He sighs dreamily, making heat rush to your core.

Taehyung's cock stood loud and proud, a hot reminder of where the night would eventually lead to. Seriously, how did you get so lucky? You must've been a saint in a previous life, you decide right then. Or at least, the stars have chosen to be rather kind to you in this one.

"Gonna take these off," he mutters, mostly to himself, tugging the ruined fabric over your ass and down your legs, with your help, of course.

Despite your usual display of confidence, lying beneath your husband, spread out like this, has you feeling vulnerable and slightly insecure. But that insecurity vanishes, however, as he lets out a soft moan, fingers moving to spread your glossed lips apart.

"So fucking pretty, baby. Gonna make you feel so fucking good," he groans, leaning down to press his face near your most intimate part.

Pressing a tentatively lick against, his eyes flicker up to yourself, curious to see if you’re okay with him proceeding. And, well, it’s not like you’re going to say no, are you?

Embarrassingly, you rut against him, making him laugh as you drown in your own mortification.

"Need it that bad, huh?" He coos.

"Yes, please."

The rest of your plea is lost in a moan as Taehyung finds your clit, wrapping his pink lips around the sensitive muscle and giving it a generous suck. Your hands are in his hair before you can think to stop yourself, tugging at his scalp deliciously as his mouth makes its way with you.

Thank goodness for this apartment belonging to just the two of you as the noises that tumbled from your lips surely would've left a roommate blushing.

You're panting, begging for more even though you aren't sure how you'd even handle more. It comes as a delight and slight surprise as fingers suddenly slip inside, wasting no time to rub against your velvety smooth walls, curling themselves inside you.

"Fuck, Tae!" you cry out, eyes squeezing shut.

It was pure reflex. Up until now, you had been watching Taehyung intently, completely consumed by the way his mouth moves against you. How his tongue flicks against your needy clit cruelly. It just felt too fucking good.

You're so wet, positively dripping down his chin as he runs his hot muscle up and down the length of your pussy, devouring you like he hadn't eaten in months, and you were his first meal.

Taehyung’s nothing short of addicting, completely and utterly intoxicating, and you slip further and further to your demise with every lick he takes, every press of his tongue against your clit.

He has a hand pressed against the lower half of your torso, feeling the way you jerk and squirm as he makes a mess of you. You’re close and you know it, too, if not by the way you’re calling his name over and over again, then by the way your thighs tremble, hardly even strong enough to stay up.

"Let go for me, love. I've got you." He sounds so sweet, so angelic, despite how filthy what he was doing to you was.

His words are the push you need, and, like a rubber band that has been stretched past its limit, you finally snap, back arching off the bed as you come with a cry. White fills your vision, and your mind goes blank, only sounds of blissful static filling your ears.

His fingers hold up your quivering legs, mouth pressing kisses onto your pussy encouragingly until you simply can't bear it any longer, pushing his mouth away as you stutter out words of sensitivity and overstimulation.

“I’m going to have to request more of that throughout this marriage.” You manage to say once your vision and breath come back to you.

Grabbing one of your hands, Taehyung brings it to his mouth.

“All you need do is ask,” he replies, making you laugh as he presses a kiss to the back of your hand, always a gentleman

Not long after, you find yourself pressed against Taehyung, tongue running against his as he presses his hips into yours. He isn’t coy about his want for you, rolling his cock against your already sensitive center. Warm precum leaks onto your lower abdomen, and suddenly, all you can think about is having him inside you again.

“Taehyung?”

You don’t even need to ask. Hitching your leg around his thigh, he knows exactly what you’re seeking, lining up his leaking cock with your swollen entrance.

Pressing into you, he buries himself to the hilt, groaning out as your warmth envelopes him. You moan out so prettily for him, feeling tight and full with your first orgasm only minutes ago.

“You okay?” he hums, kissing your cheek.

You nod, ears warm at the intimacy of the moment. In many ways, this is nothing like your first time together. You are face to face, eye to eye, heart to heart. Between your bodies could be found more than just desire, but commitment. Devotion. Love.

“I love you, Tae.” You gush, sighing out as he begins to rock into you.

He falters slightly at your confession but recovers quickly, intertwining his hand with yours and pressing it by your head.

Faintly, you realize.

That was the first time you had ever told him that.

You look up at him, expecting some wide eyes or even a bit of a nervous tilt to his lips, but all you are met with is a glow. He beams down at you, and your heart swells.

“I love you, too, Y/N,” he whispers, but you hear the words in your ears loud and clear.

Soft noises fill the room as the two of you become one—hearts synchronizing with one another in silent promise.

It was a promise unlike the one you had made to each other that day at the altar, for this one was real. This one was true.

You shutter with every thrust of his hips, your abused clit finding itself in the crossfire of Taehyung’s passionate motions.

Whimpering, you cling to him, overwhelmed and emotional, like your heart was about to burst. Taehyung lights a fire in you, sends lightning straight through your core. Every word, every smile, every kiss, every touch, they send shivers down your spine, tingles throughout your skin. It’s like you’re falling in love with him all over whenever you see him, whenever his deep brown eyes meet your own.

You remember being so afraid of love that you broke up with all your old boyfriends because of it. Because you couldn’t commit, because you were worried about your career, because they just didn’t give you that spark. But lying here pressed against him, against your husband, you aren’t afraid. Wrapped up around him, tangled up in him, you know.

Between messy kisses and words of adoration, you find yourself growing closer and closer to your release. Brows furrowed and neck flushed, you come with a soft whimper of his name, coaxing his own orgasm out of him. He lets go inside you, painting you with his seed in a way that pleases you to no end.

Hand still in yours, he gives it a squeeze, pressing a kiss onto your damp chest, right over where your heart beats for him.

“I love you,” Taehyung says again when you meet his eyes, firmer this time, louder. Like he’s worried you didn’t believe him the first time.

“I know,” you say with a giggle, the words going straight to your head—and your heart.

Taehyung scowls. “What, no ‘I love you’ back? Is that what I’m hearing?”

“Well, only because you want one so badly,” you tease, pressing a quick kiss to his round button nose. “I love you, too, Tae. Always will.”

“I think I knew, then,” Taehyung says with a fond sigh, nostalgia overcoming his expression. “That first time we met. I knew you would be mine, one day.”

“You got lucky,” you scoff slightly. “But I’m glad things happened the way they did.”

“You’re my dream come true, Y/N,” he says.

“And you are mine,” you murmur.

As the two of you drift off, all twisted up in each other, so mixed up you can’t figure out where you end and he begins, you think back to that night. That ball.

“Who are you?” You ask, nose scrunched up in distaste. Before you stood a boy you had never met before, wearing shoes that were too big for him and a suit that was a touch too small.

He grins at you, running a hand through his perfectly-styled hair fringe swiped neatly over his forehead, and he says, “your dream come true.”

And so it was.

don’t forget to message me! ~ and don’t forget to message rose!

8K notes · View notes

httpdabi · 3 years

Text

The perfect neighborhood

Genre: Smut, romance

Summary: Your parents and Todoroki’s never got along and everyone knew that. It was a hate on the first sight. So, what else to expect from their children than to hate on each other too, right ?

Word count: 7.6k

Warnings: 18+ (Minors please back off), unprotected sex, public sex, creampie, vaginal fingering, a little bit of praising, dom!Dabi, multiple orgasms.

Imagine,

Warm summer night with a little bit of a warm wind touching your skin. Dark and almost clear sky, fully painted with starts, millions, billions of it, only few of a bit lighter coloured clouds covering some of them. Glass of a nice and expensive wine in you hand as you are concentrated on the small meteor shower they talked about in the news. You saw already three shootings stars, how many will you see till you go to sleep ? How could you possibly miss that ? It’s quiet, the only thing you can hear are the sounds of field crickets.

Yeah, imagine.

Now, let’s go to back to the reality.

It is summer, yeah, but the night ain’t warm, it’s fucking freezing. The wine in your hand is probably the cheapest one from the store. The meteor shower everyone talked about ain’t shit. You expected to see at least one shooting star, but the only thing you saw was a damn airplane, maybe two.. and lastly, instead of calming crickets, all you could hear was loud music and the bass hitting, coming form no one else than Todoroki’s oldest son.

So much about the night you were looking forward to. Maybe you would enjoy it, at least a little bit, but if you were being honest, the music was way too loud. It’s not like Touya did that often, but when he did, he made it sure that the whole neighbourhood has to share the small experience with him.

What you didn’t understand was, why didn’t Enji ever tell him to lower the volume down a bit ? Didn’t it bother him ? Or Rei? She didn’t look like someone who would enjoy the loud music.

Well, that wasn’t really surprising to you. If you think about it, they aren’t much better than he is. As they say. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

The Todoroki family moved in to the house next to yours, shortly after you and your parents did. You will always remember the day when your mother knocked on their door, giving them the cookies she made as a little welcoming gesture, only for Rei to give them back, saying how her husband doesn’t like sweets. You will always remember the look on your mothers face, not understanding if she’s for real.

Well, you could understand your mom, it wouldn’t hurt her if she just accepted them. If you think about it, you would probably accept it, and later on throw it away or whatever, just not to hurt the person who gave them. After all, she has kids, not like they couldn’t eat them. But yeah, it already happened, and the two families never talked after that.

In fact, if they did end up exchanging few words, it wasn’t anything good.

It wasn’t really all about the cookies tho, that was just the beginning. One time your father accidentally knocked their trashcan down, but it was really just an accident, which of course, didn’t look so to Enji, who was screaming and cursing around. The same day, your mother saw Rei throwing some old food over the small fence that was keeping your houses apart.

With that gesture, they declared a war.

Touya in the other hand wasn’t really like them, he actually did try to start a conversation with you few times at the beginning, but the two of you couldn’t even exchange two words and one of your parents would already peek thru the door and call one of you, putting the both of you in your places.

After few tries, both of you gave up, giving each other a small nod as a greeting and nothing more.

You almost smiled to yourself as you heard one of your favourite songs coming from your neighbours home. Sometimes you wished you could actually meet him and have a nice conversation with him. He didn’t really seem like someone who was starving for a good fight.

,, Sweetie, can you please go buy some chicken breasts ?’’ Your mother asked, as you were trying to ignore her, focused on the television screen, sadly the focus long gone as she was repeating her question until you stood up. That woman really knew how to piss you of.

,, Do this, do that.. I can’t sit down.. This ass, i don’t know why i have it’’ you complained loudly, pitying yourself for a moment, before you made your way out to the nearest shop. Well, you tried to look positively e at it, maybe it’s better if you watch the movie sometime later, since your mother was way too loud as always.

Ever since her friend told her about some weird ass local stereo site, she’s been walking around with her bluetooth speaker, annoying the shit out of you with some terrible folks music. Damn the person who got her the speaker.

The moment you got into the store, you thought how it’s not that bad that you got there, in fact, you needed some snacks for yourself, since your brother never heard of the word ‘’sharing’’, eating all the snacks that exist in your house.

Firstly, you made your way toward the meat section, taking your mother off the list and making sure you wont forget chicken breast, well better said, making sure you won’t end up dead at the end of the night. If you forget what she sent you for, she would most likely end up using you as the main ingredient.

Once you found it, you made your way toward the section with snacks and sweets, carrying yourself with it and putting more and more in your basket. Well truth to be told, buying all those snacks was almost useless, since you knew that Keigo will end up eating more than half of it. The only way to hide those sweets from him was putting them in your pillowcase, even tho that dog would be probably able to sniff his way to them.

Noticing that there was only two packs of Cheetos, you hurried toward them as you noticed that someone made their way to probably grab them. Sadly the moment you were about to grab at least one pack, both of them were gone, making your blood boil and once the person that took them turned around, your blood boiled even more.

Touya fucking Todoroki, that hungry piece of shit.

Nodding his head slowly, as you were about to curse him out, he just moved out of your way, walking to the way where the cashier is.

,, Do you really need both of the packs ?’’ You hissed, loud enough for him to hear you, making him stop his movements and turn around to face you once again.

,, Yes.’’ He simply answered, raising his brow.

,, Well, that’s really greedy of you’’ adding, you tried to keep your voice down and calm as possible. That was your favourite snack, and that hungry piece of shit had to get both of the last packs.

,, Yeah, says the one who bought half of the store’’ He said eying your basket. Well, he’s not wrong, but in your Defense the main reason for buying so much was your always hungry brother.

Instead of continuing the discussion, you simply tried to be the bigger and better person, and ignore him. Passing by him and making sure you are the fist one to get to the cashier.

,, Hey, wait’’ you heard your neighbours voice, as you got outside the shop. Pushing your wallet inside your backpack, you turned around to see what the fuck he wants.

,, Here, you can have one’’ Touya said, giving you one of the package. You were both shocked and confused by his sudden change of behaviour, not sure if you should take the small package or not. What if he’s trying to prank you ? What if he’ll take the pack back the moment you try to reach it and make it awkward for you?

Your overthinking came to an end as he pushed the Cheetos bag into your backpack, totally ignoring the conversation you had with your inner self.

,, Thanks I guess?’’ You mumbled, still pretty unsure of the whole situation.

,, Yeah, i thought, if our parents fight, it doesn’t mean we have to. Especially not because of a bag of chips.’’ He smiled, as both of you walked lazily toward your homes.

,, That’s true. But honestly, i was already thinking about ways to sabotage you on your way home, to get that bag’’ you joked, realising that both of you are walking way too slow.

You took your time to take a better look of him, since you weren’t really sure if that will be the last chance to do it. He always looked handsome to you, and now that you could see all of him up close, you knew instantly that he is someone you would definitely thirst over.

The usually seven minutes long walk turned into twenty minutes long one, and with every step you were getting closer to your home, you wished you could spend some time more to talk to him and get lost in his beautiful blue eyes.

,, You know Tomura, don’t you?’’ He asked, as you two stopped one block away from your homes.

,, Yes, why ?’’ You asked him back confused, not sure why he’s mentioning him all of sudden.

,, Well, he kinda has crush on your friend Nejire. So, tomorrow maybe, you two could grab a lunch with us at the break ?’’ He suggested almost excitedly.

,, Sure, but I am honestly not sure if he’s her cup of tea.’’ You said, playing with your fingers, not wanting for his friend to get his hopes up, only to end up heartbroken at the end. But hey, it was a win win situation, for him and for you. His friend could talk to Nejire, and you could talk with your neighbour.

At the end, you and Touya exchanged your numbers before you walked away from him, as he waited till you get home, trying not to make it obvious that the two of you had a nice conversation just few minutes ago.

,, What took you so long ?’’ Your mother asked, as she heard you opening the door. Trying to hide the happiness on your face to avoid the questioning, you explained how you took your time finding the right snacks for yourself.

At the end of the day, you turned on the tv in your bedroom, and decided that it’s time for you to finish the movie you started before your mother interrupted you. The focus you had before was long gone and all that was on your mind was your neighbour.

The two of you didn’t talk much or enough for your taste, but it was something you really wanted to do for a long time, so you were really on cloud nine. That same night you had trouble falling asleep, as you repeated the small conversation you had with him all over again in your head and the fact that you will spend more time with him the next day was making you even happier.

And the first time in in a while, you found yourself excited for the upcoming day on your boring university.

,, I swear to god, if that bitch looks our direction one more time, imma throw hands’’ Nejire complained, as some girls from the class, were clearly gossiping about the two of you, not making it a secret at all.

,, Ah fuck them, they ain’t worth our attention girl’’ You pointed out, making Nejire gasp surprisingly. Usually you were the one always ready for one good discussion, arguing with everyone who looked at you wrongly. But you couldn’t waste your time thinking about them, all you could think of was Touya and the upcoming break.

,, And why are we suddenly spending our time with Shigaraki and Todoroki ? Also, aren’t you in bad terms with him ?’’ Nejire started questioning you, as you opened the message you got from Touya, which was nothing more than his current location.

,, Well, long story short, we had a small chat, and he simply invited us. Don’t know why’’ you said, not being able to find a good enough reason to tell her.

Once the class was done, the two of you packed your things and made your way toward the location he sent you. It was the small cafe two minutes away from your uni. Usually, you and Nejire would spend your time at the lunch room, or library, but you had one and half hour till the next one, so the cafe wasn’t really a bed idea.

After you introduced yourself to Tormua, you sat beside Touya, making Nejire sit beside his friend.

,, What’s up?’’ Shigaraki asked casually, after the two of you ordered your drinks.

,, I wanna go home, that’s up. Not in the mood for the next class’’ Nejire said rolling her eyes playfully.

At the beginning all of you talked, but after short time as you realised that Nejire and Shigaraki are getting their own topic slowly, you decided that it was the best time to find a topic with Touya too.

,, So, how’s Fuyumi? What is she doing ? ‘’ You asked casually, like you were friends since forever with her. Probably a bit stupid of you, since you never exchanged a single word with her.

,, Ah, she found a job not long time ago, in some bakery’’ He answered, probably playing along not wanting to make things awkward.

,, That’s nice’’ nodding your head, you took a sip of your coffee.

,, Yeah, but she quit the next day, with excuse how too many guys are flirting with her and her boyfriend doesn’t like that’’ he added.

,, Well, I didn’t expect that’’ you said honestly, laughing a bit. She didn’t look like someone who’s not taking working seriously in your opinion, but again, you don’t know that girl at all.

,, Apparently the bread is not the only thing that’s hot, when she’s there’’ he laughed, making fun of his sister. Once you heard him say that you almost choked on your drink, as you started laughing loudly.

If you think about it, for some reason you really wanted to meet Touya better. Maybe it’s because your parents were so against it, or maybe because he was always so mysterious ? Before he approached you in the store, never once did he really try to make a conversation with you. Now that you were face to face with him, it really felt weird, if you could say so.

But still, you were more than grateful that you had a chance like that. You were always attracted to him, and you never tried to lie to yourself that you aren’t. Sure, you didn’t talk about him, maybe complain about loud music to your friend or brother, but there was no need for you to mention how handsome you think he is or anything.

,, Imagine how our parents would react if they saw us here ‘’ Touya said, as he placed a cigarette between his lips, smirking lightly at you.

,, Yeah, i don’t even wanna think about that’’ You smiled, as you played with the spoon that was in your cup. It’s not like your parents could do much about it, both of you are adults, but you were pretty sure that they would pretty much try to manipulate you into hating him. You could honestly already imagine them saying how you’re living under their roof, and how you have to listed to what they say.

One and half hour never passed faster in your entire life. The two of you talked like you knew each other your whole life, and not like there was a barrier between you. You already knew what kind of music he likes, but you found out what his favourite games are, what does he do in his free time. Surprisingly you found out that he doesn’t really have such a good relationship with his parents, which you didn’t expect at all. The Todoroki’s family always looked like those from television.

Also at your surprise, Nejire was really chatty with Shigaraki. Usually she’s pretty quiet when she’s around people she doesn’t know, but the conversation they had was never ending, and at the end they even exchanged their numbers.

Second day, and Touya Todoroki was all you could really think about.

Sitting with your family and watching some Disney movie was something you really loved, but that day all you could think of was the small amount of time you spent with Touya in the cafe.

,, Can you bring me the cheese balls please ?’’ Keigo screamed when he noticed that you are going to kitchen. There it goes, the snacks you bought just yesterday were already half way gone.

,, I think i lost sense of smell ‘’ Keigo added when you gave him the pack. The cheese balls usually had the really strong smell, but either way the ones you bought were a bit weaker or he simply caught a cold.

,,well, we didn’t. We can still smell you and the fact that you didn’t take a shower for ages’’ you joked, as you scrolled thru your instagram, not showing much attention to the movie your mother chose.

,, Shut up, i shower daily’’ Keigo pointed, defending himself.

As usual, your parents were the first one to go sleep, saying how work got them tired and leaving you and Keigo on your own.

,, Hey sis, do you know any cute activity for couple? Or places to go ?’’ Keigo asked, focused more on his phone now that your parents went to sleep. You knew that your brother was seeing some girl, but you could never be sure if he’s serious about it or not.

,, Oh yes, yes of course, go to hell’’ you answered with a big smile on your face. ,, ehh, i don’t know, maybe the botanical garden ?’’ You added once you realised that he’s totally serious.

The next few days you didn’t have much contact with Touya. He did greet you at uni, he even sat with you on small smoking breaks. But that was nothing much, and you were thinking about sending him a message few times, but at the end you didn’t want to force yourself on him. If he wanted to reach out, he could, he has your number, so ..

On Thursday you didn’t have any contact with him, and that day you really thought that you should keep your shit together, and not overreact. If you talked it doesn’t mean that he had to befriend you, after all he told you that it was about his friend and Nejire. But all those thoughts flied away on late Friday night when you got a text from him.

From [Dabi]: ,, You awake ? ‘’

It was such a simple message, yet your heart skipped a beat immediately.

To Dabi: ,,Yes, what’s up?’’

You replied not closing the Chatroom. At your surprise he obviously didn’t close it either since the message you sent immediately had the blue sing telling you that he read it, and not even a second after you sent it, the ‘’typing…’’ sign was under his name.

From [Dabi]: ,, Wanna take a walk ?’’

That night, when you got out of the house to meet the guy your parents always told you to stay away from, you realised how down are you for him. Just one message and you found yourself ready to piss your whole family off, as you went against their wishes.

Since the night was kinda warm, you decided to go out in your pyjamas, wearing only an oversized hoodie in case it’s a bit windy outside. Once you got out, Touya was already waiting for you on the street, looking only a bit better than you when it comes to his outfit. At your surprise he greeted you with a hug, locking you between his arms for few seconds.

That same night the two of you were on sitting in the nearest playground until the sun slowly started showing up, giving you a sign that it’s time to part your ways.

,, Are you planning to move out after uni ?’’ He asked. There was so much space on the wooden bench you were sitting on, yet he was sitting so close to you, not even an inch was between your body’s. Since it was getting later, the weather was getting a bit colder, and the feeling of his body being so close to you was helping you warm up a bit.

,, Probably, I wanted to move out this summer, but honestly, I don’t think I would be able to pay the rent even if i find a mini job. You know how high the prices are these days’’ You said, hugging your legs closer to your body as you tried to warm yourself a bit more. Having him so close to you, you almost found yourself lost in the nice smell of his cologne. It wasn’t so strong like some guys like to wear it, but it was so nice.

,, We should move in together. I think we would get along pretty well’’ Touya said, placing his arm around you casually. You weren’t sure what surprised you more, his statement or the arm around your shoulders.

,, That’s easier said as it’s done’’ you simply said, not taking it too serious in the first place.

,, Why ? We can pay the rent half-half and it would be fun. Imagine all the drama with our parents if they find out’’ he said laughing a bit. His talk and everything was so casual, you weren’t really sure if he is joking around or not.

As the two of you were talking, he was pulling you closer and closer into his embrace, and at the end the two of you were sitting on the bench like a couple. He took the excuse of the cold weather to hug you so close to himself and who were you to refuse him ? After all what could you wish for more ? The two of you looked like a couple in love that jumped out of some teenage movie, and you were sure you would spend the upcoming days thinking about it.

You did think about the fact that he might be playing around with you, but you decided just to enjoy in the moment and worry about it later. But if you only knew how much he actually liked being out with you in the middle of the night, and having you in his arms on a fresh summer night, the suspicious thought would probably go always faster than it got in your head.

What you didn’t know is, that Tomura didn’t really have some huge crush on Nejire. It was only Touya’s made up story to spend some time with you.

When he was younger he wanted to talk to you just to piss of his parents, but after short time, thinking about it, he didn’t want tot cause you any trouble. He understood that your parents were like his, if not even worse. As he was growing up, the urge to talk to you was also getting bigger and bigger. Not only because of his parents, it was more because you were getting more beautiful every day. He was 95% sure that you never noticed him lurking around on the uni. Not that he was stalking you or anything, he could form it in better words, he was admiring you. Yes, he was admiring your beauty.

He would visit your instagram from time to time, just checking up if you’ve posted some new selfies, or stories. There were some time’s when he wanted to send you a message, but he was always thinking about how would you take it?!

Once the two of you made your way home, instead of being sleepy, you were all wide awake, focused of the quiet walk and him. The whole way home, you were walking shoulder by shoulder, as he held your hand, hidden inside the pocket of his hoodie.

You didn’t have much inside of your head when you told him that you’re going inside, but he did. He couldn’t just let you go, he couldn’t let a chance like that slip thru his hands. Before you could move away, he placed both of his palms on your cheeks, as he connected his lips with your own. At that moment, he didn’t give a shit if Enji or your father could walk out and see the two of you kissing. Heck, if they did, he wouldn’t break the kiss even if his life depended on it.

Even tho you fall asleep only in the morning, you’ve never slept better. Falling asleep as you repeated everything that happened, and waking up thinking about the same thing.

,, Someone decided to finally wake up’’ your mother pointed out, once she noticed you getting inside the living room wrapped up with your favourite blanket.

,,Morning’’ you greeted your mother, as you put the water to boil, preparing the cup for your coffee.

,, Well, it’s 12:34 pm, not really morning anymore’’ she laughed. Unusually, your mother seemed to be in a really good mood for some reason. Not sure if she realised, but you were too.

That day you were motivated to do everything she asked you, hoping you’ll get a glance of Touya. You even agreed to water the flowers on the balcony. And good thing you agreed to do it, since you got a message from Touya saying how someone is hard working, and asking if you slept well. At the end of the message was a small red heart, which almost made you melt in the moment you saw it.

You weren’t sure where all of that lead to, you weren’t sure if he saw the night the same way you did or not. You were pretty much unsure about everything, but still, you didn’t want to think about it much, deciding it’s the best thing to simply wait and see what will happen.

And good thing you didn’t worry your little head about it, because before you could even tell Nejire about it, Touya had better plans, greeting you with a kiss in front of everyone in the uni. You wished you could see Nejire’s face at that moment, full of questions and shock, trying to understand what is going on. Trying to remember if you ever mentioned to her that you liked him even a bit.

,, What was that about ?’’ Nejire whispered once Touya was greeting Shiggy.

,, I’ll tell you later’’ you whispered back, trying to hide the smile that was way too visible on your face.

After the night at the playground, you were falling for Touya more and more, and even if you tried, you couldn’t hide that. Your behaviour changed drastically, wich made even your brother realise that something is going on.

Every night the two of you would meet, sometimes spending so much time on the small playground, and sometimes going out just for a bit, to see each other if the both of you had to wake up early in the morning. Even going to uni wasn’t so bad anymore, he would come to you on the breaks, bring you a cup of coffee to go, or wait for you after the uni. He didn’t tell you that, but he wanted to show everyone who you belong to, and he did it slowly yet effectively. But hey, there was no need to tell you that, you aren’t stupid, you could notice that and in fact you liked it, a lot.

One day after you were done buying some groceries, Touya saw you in your garden, spraying you with the water as he was washing his car. The smile that was on your face, got lost immediately as both of you saw your mother getting out of your house.

,, What’s up you waste of oxygen?’’ You said sarcastically, hoping your mother would buy it, deciding to ignore you, Touya just continued to wash the car, as your mother took the paper bags from you, giving him an evil side eye. That moment you understood how hard it will be to keep your relationship with Touya a secret, and what will happen when your parents find out. Not even a minute later, you’ve got a message from Touya, telling you how he got the goosebumps from the look on your mother’s face and instead of talking about it, or try to find a solution for it, the two of you laughed it out and decided at what time you should meet that night.

Around 12AM when you thought everyone in the house is sleeping, before you even got out, you were caught in the act, by no one else than your brother.

,, And where are you going ?’’ Keigo asked, biting the apple he just got from the kitchen.

,, Just on a walk, to clear my thoughts’’ You laughed it out, hoping he won’t question you much more.

,, Oh, a walk with Touya ?’’ Your brother wiggled his brows, as he laughed once he saw the shocked look on your face. ,, Don’t worry, i won’t tell mom or dad’’ Keigo added when he noticed how the shocked expression turned into terrified one.

,, You won’t ?’’ You asked surprised. You didn’t really expect of him to be the mature one, and you were pretty sure he was about to blackmail you, yet there he was, acting all grown up.

,, Nope, but you should really tell them yourself and avoid the drama,you know’’ he said, acting all smart. Little did he know that all you felt in that moment, hearing those words, was pure cringe and you didn’t really try to hide it, making a disgusted face as you walked out of the house, leaving your brother on his own. The fuck he feeling like the main character, giving you some wisdom tips, you thought to yourself as you walked to the playground.

Of course, Touya was already there, welcoming you with a warm hug and a kiss. He didn’t need much time to notice the weird look on your face, immediately questioning you, making sure everything is alright.

Sitting on his lap, you told him about Keigo and what happened, as he wrapped his arms around you, caressing you slowly. At one point, you couldn’t even keep your concentration on the conversation you were having with him, since his warm hands were slowly going under your hoodie.

,, Why are you stuttering ?’’ Touya asked, smirking at you widely. He knew very well why you were getting lost, and why you were repeating the same stuff all over again. He found it so adorable, how just a little touch made you so confused, and he had to tease you a bit about it, moving his hands up and down your waist, as he placed gentle kisses around your neck.

,, Am not.. I’m sure.. I’m pretty sure he’ll blackmail me at some point’’ you mumbled, trying to keep focused on your little speech.

,, Doll, you already said that’’ Touya laughed, nuzzling his nose into your neck. Closing your eyes, you smiled, embarrassed since he knew what effect he has on you. Feeling his hot breath brushing your neck made you feel some weird way.

,,Sorry’’ you apologised awkwardly. Touya threw his head back a bit, laughing lightly at your small apology.

,, Ahh, why you gotta be so cute tonight’’ He asked, connecting his lips with yours, not giving you any chance to answer.

He kept kissing you, and honestly, at that point you didn’t even want to talk anymore, all you wanted to do was feel the softness of his lips on yours. Usually you would be careful, and think about anything that could sell you and Touya out, but that night you couldn’t think about it at all. Even if you tried, you couldn’t force yourself to tell him to be careful, you couldn’t tell him to go easy and make sure there are no hickeys left on your neck. In fact, you didn’t give a single shit about hickeys, it was a problem you’ll think about some other time.

His touch was getting steamier, and if you were being honest, you wanted more than just kissing and few touches. He was turning you on, and there was no need to hide that. Placing your hand on the nape of his neck, and the other one over his clothed dick. You weren’t the one to do anything so directly, but being horny like that, there was no need for some subtle touches.

The groan that escaped his mouth was telling you that he liked it, which encouraged you into doing more of it. You couldn’t help but smirk while kissing him, as you started rubbing his clothed dick, not giving a shit if someone might see you or not.

,, Doll, you don’t wanna do this’’ He said in between the kisses. ,, At least not here’’ Touya added, moan escaping his lips as you rubbed his now fully erected dick.

,, I do’’ You answered. Touya didn’t need to hear more from you, in fact, he was almost praying you would giving him that simple and short answer, because he couldn’t hold himself, at all. He didn’t give a single shit about the possibility that someone might catch you. After all, he was pretty sure that no one was awake in your quiet neighbourhood, at fucking 3AM.

His kiss got more aggressive, as he pulled your shorts and panties to the side. Not wasting any time, he started rubbing your clit in circles slowly, as he sucked on your neck, leaving wet love bites all over it. Touya’s fingers pace with your moans, increasing in speed, as you played with his hard cock.

Your breathing gets heavier once two fingers enter your core, going in and out slowly. You catch Touya licking his lips, his eyes getting a darker shade, as he tried to hold himself together. Looking down at your private parts, Touya couldn’t help but to let a deep growl out, his dick almost twitched at the sight of your irritated clit, and your pussy swallowing his fingers.

You nuzzled your head into his neck, squeezing your eyes shut as you released a throaty moan when he started moving his fingers faster, hitting your spot just perfectly. Touya’s blood was boiling as he felt your tight and wet walls squeezing his fingers. He didn’t care that you stopped rubbing his dick, all he wanted was to make you cum all over his fingers. Touya curled his fingers, pumping them into you, as you planted, moaning louder and louder.

He was supposed to tell you to keep quiet, but how could he ? Your moans were like melody to his ears, and at that point he wouldn’t stop even if the whole neighbourhood got out to see what’s happening. He couldn’t help but to thrust his fingers even harder, stretching and preparing you for his dick. You bit his neck as you tried to keep your moans low, orgasm hitting you harder than ever. It felt so good, more amazing than any pleasure you bought yourself. It felt like he knew your body his whole life, like he knew how to move his fingers, and where to touch and kiss you.

A blush was spreading over your cheeks when he moved his fingers that were just a second ago to his mouth, giving them one short lick just to taste you, before he placed his left hand over your jaw, giving you a sign to open your mouth. When you did exactly what he wanted, he placed those two fingers into your mouth.

,, Suck’’ he said, moving his other hand down to your throat once you did what he demanded. He wished he could take a picture of you in that moment, eyes closed with his fingers in your mouth. If he did, he would definitely put it for his wallpaper.

Once he was satisfied, he placed his hands on your ass, giving you a sign to move yourself up a bit, just enough to pull his sweatpants and boxers down.

,, I’ll be gentle’’ he said, positioning his dick right under your core, before he started lowering you down. Touya wanted to simply rip into you so bad, but he gave his best to fight the beast that was trying to take control over him. After all, he knew that there is enough of time for that.

Nodding your head, you hid your face into his neck. A burning sensation took over your cunt, causing the faintest amount of pain. Every inch you took, was getting thicker and thicker, and once the pain was getting bigger you felt like he won’t be able to fit in. Was he so big ? Or was it just because of the pain that you were going thru ? It must have been both.

Looking down, you realised that he’s not even halfway in. He didn’t want to hurt you, pausing every other second letting you adjust to his size .

,, You’re doing so good’’ Touya prised you, placing soft kisses along your jaw. You wanted to get over it, and that’s exactly what you told him, nodding your head when he asked you if you are sure.

You weren’t really mentally prepared for the pain you felt in the moment he pulled you down his length with one move. Kissing you immediately, as he tried to calm you down.

After a minute, when the pain was almost gone, you gave him a nod, giving him a sign to move. Holding you up, Touya started sliding in and out of you. Enjoying the feeling of your walls hugging his dick. He almost closed his eyes, as pleasure took over him, but he forced himself to not do so, finding it more pleasurable to watch your face as you were turning into a moaning mess.

His dick was getting deeper and deeper with every thrust he made. The way he moved made you feel his dick fully inside you, the shape, the veins, the tip, everything, rubbing your walls slowly and hitting your g spot your fingers were never able to reach.

It wasn’t your first time, but the sex you had before was never this intense. It was slow, yet so good, and the fact that someone could catch you was making it even better. You didn’t understand how did he manage it hold your ass up the whole time, moving you exactly how you want.

Placing both of your hands on his shoulders, you started moving on your own, deciding to go a bit faster and he gladly accepted that. Placing his hands on your ass, and meeting your hips with his own, hitting you just perfectly with every move. Closing your eyes shut, you moaned loudly when he started moving his hips much faster than before. You couldn’t really manage to say that you were about to cum, but he felt that. Your walls were getting tighter and tighter, and with just few moves you were left breathless, as orgasm hit you harder than ever before.

Touya gave you a minute to calm down and catch your breath, telling you what a good girl you are and how you did so well for him, but he was not done with you. Not yet. Flipping you over, he made sure you were comfortable enough on the old bench before he entered you again.

,,Tell me if you want me to stop’’ Touya said, placing soft kisses all over your face. Usually if you had sex, you would simply have one round and that’s all, and in that round it was rarely about you, it was all about the guy pleasuring himself, cuming and leaving you without orgasm, or you faking one for his sake.

You weren’t sure if you could take it, but you wanted Touya to cum. So, you gave him a small nod, before he started to roam into you, the slow pace long forgotten as he moved his hips like in one animalistic pace. Pulling his hoodie up, you placed your hands on his back, digging your nails just a little bit with every move he made.

And with every move he made, you felt your body moving a bit. Touya loved the feeling of your walls hugging his dick so nicely, and now that you had your orgasm, they were even wetter than before, letting him slide in and out of you much easier.

Touya’s strong hands kept you steady, as his fingers were digging into the flesh of your hips. He knew that he was rough, but he also knew that you would tell him if it’s too much. He was thrusting into you deep and hard, hammering your cervix with every thrust, hitting your g spot all over again.

,, You are so tight’’ Touya groaned, as you whined, lost in the pleasure he was giving you. The feeling you felt at the moment was telling you that you were so close again, and you couldn’t really bear it. Digging your nails into his back so deep that you almost felt blood beads around the tips of your fingers. But maybe you just imagined it from all the pleasure, you’ll find out later.

,, Don’t close your eyes’’ Touya commands, gripping your jaw hardly as he fucked you harder. You tried to keep your eyes opened, you really did, and every time you would close them, his grip around your jaw would only get stronger. Your view got blurry and your moans got louder as you felt your second orgasm approaching you. Touya also feels it coming, and in that moment all he wants to do is to dump his load deep inside of you, wanting to claim you as his own.

The moment you wrapped your legs around him and moaned his name loudly was when he lost it, fucking you harder if it was even possible. ,, Fuck.. Fuck, you’re mine’’ Touya growled between his teeth, lots in the feeling of your walls getting tighter around his dick once again. After few hard and intense thrusts, he spilled his seed inside of you.

Your whole body started shaking from the orgasm that just hit you, and from the feeling of his seed that was painting your walls white. If it was someone else, you would probably tell them to cum anywhere else, but for some reason, you wanted him to cum inside you. You wanted to feel all of him.

The both of you were panting so hard, trying to catch your breath as he fucked his seed deeper into you. He hoped it won’t leek out of you, since the view might turn him on again, and he was pretty much sure that you weren’t ready for a third round.

,, You ok?’’ He asked you, still buried deep inside you. Nodding your head, you kissed him, closing your eyes as you enjoyed the last moments of the passionate sex the two of you just had. In public, where anyone could see you.

The two of you spend the rest of the night on the old bench, cuddling, talking and laughing about small things. Instead of being embarrassed that you even did it in such a place, all you felt in that moment was the warmth of his hug, and happiness, no regret or shame at all. That night you decided that it would be the best if you somehow tell your parents that the two of you are in relationship. Not sure how to do it, but both of you agreed it was for the best.

,, Anyway, i want to say something’’ You said, as you placed the knife and fork on your plate, done with the food. You could almost feel the cold sweat as the moment was getting closer and closer.

,, Ohhh, don’t wanna miss this’’ Keigo laughed, sitting back when he realised what’s about to happen.

Your parents gave you one confused look, still eating. Your father nodded his head, giving you a sign to continue as he placed the food in his mouth.

,, I have a boyfirend’’ You said, playing with your fingers nervously.

,, Oh sweetie, we know. We noticed’’ your mother said, giving you one sweet smile.

,, Yeah, it’s Touya’’ You said fast, and the smile she had, was replaced with confused look written all over her face.

,, Which Touya exactly ? ‘’ Your dad asked, forgetting to chew the food in his mouth. Before you could even give them a proper answer, a loud knock on the door took all the attention.

Your mother jumped fast, like she was expecting someone, ready to kill anyone on that damn door at the moment. Keigo couldn’t hide the excitement on his face, and you were giving him a begging look, hoping he’ll stand up for you.

,, Hey, just wanted to bring some cupcakes to our ‘’in laws’’ you heard Rei’s voice. Both you and Keigo jumped once you heard your mother screaming ,, YOU WITCH’’. The moment you saw confused Touya, standing between his and your mother, trying to calm the situation, both of you and Keigo laughed loudly.

Laughing long gone once the two women’s started pulling each other’s hair. Holding your mother back, both you and Touya realised that it will be one crazy and fun ride with your parents accepting your relationship.

But you knew very well that none of them could ruin it.

The moment Rei grabbed your mothers hair a bit too hard, pulling the fake extension you spent so much time putting on her head, Keigo started laughing hysterically.

,, Wig, snatched’’ Keigo laughed loudly, holding his stomach instead of his mother.

,, KEIGO’’ both you and Touya screamed, trying to hold your laugh, as your mothers continued to fight like two preteen girlies.

822 notes · View notes

pencilscratchins · 4 years

Note

Okay okay okay I'm obsessed with your Zukka headcanons, more please?

okay this one got long lmaOO

— zuko buys sokka many nice things. he says “my boyfriend enjoys nice things...fine silks...jewels...who am i to deny him this?”and suki says “please zuko these are the royal funds—“

— before they know the next avatar is korra, zuko hopes and prays the next avatar is a swamp bender, because he knows if they’re from the north water tribe it’ll be a whole thing and if they’re from the south he’ll literally never stop hearing about it

— in the beginning, zuko has no qualms about courting sokka. he’s the son of an ally country’s leader like yeah classic political marriage like what’s the issue (other than his own stifling awkwardness of course.)

— — sokka has the brain cell so he’s probably hesitant to jump into a relationship. they’re both public figures and gay marriage was just decriminalized— zukos already a contentious leader. not to mention, sokka has dated royalty before and the devotion to duty only lead to heartbreak.

— — — kataras the one who straightens him out. she is like “we gave our entire childhoods to these countries— don’t let some grandeur of responsibility keep you from the happiness i know you deserve”

— whenever they’re separated for long periods of time, sokka writes these gorgeous, long winded, purple prose letters about how much he loves and misses zuko, and his travels etc that are upwards of 20 pgs

— — zuko responds with “saw a frog today 👍” and sokka chokes up like “he has such a way with words”

— sokka sleeps on the right, zuko on the left

— just being around each other is enough to put them in way better moods. when one of them is gone, both are insufferable to be around.

— sokka goes on a life changing field trip with redemption arc!azula to find the stone for zuko’s engagement necklace and they bond & really connect in a weird way bc like... theyre sorta of the smartest people either of them know

— — meanwhile zuko, toph, and katara go on a life changing field trip for the metal for sokka a royal hairpiece and accidentally create probending

— sometimes it will get reeeeall quiet and sokka will just lean over and whisper to zuko “you know your great grandfathers were fucking right?”

— zuko obviously has days where he needs to just like escape and not to talk to anyone, so sokka will take the crown in his absence.

— — he spends those days doing all the shit zuko hates doing so he doesn’t have to

— sokka still struggles with feeling useless sometimes and thought it baffles zuko how he could possibly think that, he immediately will try to rectify it.

— — so zuko will show him the proof of a history textbook he had to approve, and show him every chapter dedicated to everything sokka invented, planned, or lead during the war and after to prove how important sokka is.

— sokka will be writing and when zuko sits really close to him on his right side, hell just switch the brush over to the left to hold his husband’s hand.

— when korra is first taken in by the white lotus, sokka insists they spend some time down there. zuko tutors her firebending and she loves him, but she’s obsessed with sokka who sneaks her out and teaches her sword fighting.

— not really a zukka head canon but when zuko first starts sleeping with the group at the air temple, he looks over and sees aang just levitating a few inches off the ground and is like “what the fuck” sokkas like “oh yeah that’s how he sleeps you get used to it”

— when katara finds out sokka helped toph have suyin, she’s like “it’s so touching that you want our families to be forever intertwined and for our children to always be connected!” and tophs like uh totally yeah

— — nobody tells her the interaction went “sokka be the father it’ll be funny” and sokka said let me ask my husband and zukos went “lmao do it it’ll be so funny”

— izumi ice dodges when she comes to age and crushes it, which makes hakoda and sokka both cry.

— — when iroh II wants to ice dodge, izumi refuses. she is however not supported by her fathers who are like “you did it! it’s a right of passage, izumi” “dont be a nerd, izumi”

— zuko, being a huge nerd, does indeed have iroh style his hair before their first date and sokka laughs so hard he cries

— sometime straight people will be like “oh the ladies must be sad you two are off the market!” and they will respond “our ex girlfriends are dating each other.”

— their wedding is extremely opulent, as pure sokkas request. zuko would’ve married him in a broom closet.

— zuko calls sokka “socks” and sokka calls him “zuks”

— sokka is very much that guy who wants to pretend he’s all cool but brings up his boyfriend all the time

— — “ugh it’s so hot i can’t breathe” “oh my boyfriend breathes,”

#hairasuntouchedaspartoftheamazon #zukka #headcanons #head canons #long post #read more #under the cut #you gusy encourage me too much lmao #i like how i always sneak a few gaang hc in there because i love those idiots smh #ask #not art #1k

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phantaloon-books · 4 years

Text

Things about Tower of Nero that I want to highlight to remember them forever:

Lu being an absolute badass woman, I just love her too much

Piper McClean being canon wlw, she was actually kissing another girl, we really fell in love in october

Chaos being canonically female (just chaos being mentioned as a deity rather than what's below tartarus)

nobody DIED, like no one on the good side at least?? yes plenty of beings have died throughout TOA, but nobody died in TON?? so many died in TLO and BOO, I expected to mourn someone and I didn't have too??! it made me so happy

solangelo. that's it. solangelo makes me happy.

will being incredibly supportive of nico, and instead of stopping him, going with him on dangerous adventures because he doesn't want to leave him alone. also them treating Nico's PTSD for what it is

WILL SOLACE CANONICALLY GLOWS IN THE DARK. HE'S A GLOWSTICK BABY.

also will just appearing at the gates of the throne room, glowing in rage because someone touched his boyfriend (and tried to kill his dad), and him just marching through everyone (everyone else letting him), just to pick up his hurt precious boyfriend and take care of him.

meg McCaffrey got her happy ending. she's baby, she deserves her family and her happy ending. also Lu being the mother and the 12 children being siblings?? that's one hell of a way to tell nero to fuck off and right his mistakes. we love meg.

dionysus being the best olympian after apollo. the duo content we needed, and now will never get

nico mentioning bob and how he wants to go look for him, because he can still be in tartarus

rachel still being a Total badass and hitting people in the eye with her blue hairbrush thus being iconic

meg acting as lester's anchor and only reason why he didn't let go of the ledge, not falling into chaos, is top tier 'reasons why I cried reading', because if you think about it, Meg is the first ever friend apollo ever had, and them being best friends is everything to me

also apollo choosing to go looking as lester rather than apollo because lester feels like home is on top tier 'reasons why I cried reading' too

again, the only thing apollo did in the end (once he was god again) that could be described as 'godly' was be in several places at once, fly his chariot, and get meg her unicorn

but apollo shooting fucking fire out of his hands is crazy asf, it was so cool. he really got amazing godly powers this book.

rick being bold enough to showcase abusive parenting knowing that a huge porcentage of his readers are minors, helping many realize that they could be in abusive households, and giving them a tool to reach out for help

apollo defeating nero was so satisfactory, because you realize in the end, that nero wasn't really a monster, he was monstrous, but still very much human (if only with some godly power), and pretty useless once he couldn't hide behind props and weapons, his being wasn't powerful, he was just under layers of protection

the jackson/blofis scene was so warm and loving, they really are willing to put their family in danger, baby estelle in danger, to help 'percy's friends' even tho she knew percy didn't like apollo, but she still takes in everyone who needs help, and paul being a loving and accepting husband

sally working on her SECOND novel, she really is having her best life

none of the big heroes from other series having protagonism, besides nico and will, instead giving the other kids from camp halfblood their chance to show they're just as worthy as the "heroes of olympus"

(still I would have loved to see a scene with everyone else, like the heroes of olympus guys, fighting together one last time, just for nostalgia's sake - I legit hoped to see percy and annabeth arriving with chiron in triumvirate tower, but yeah)

the arrow of dodona may have been a dumb, cringey, and slightly ridiculous thing at first, and I personally rolled my eyes everytime it said anything, but it knew what would happen from the start, and without its sacrifice, apollo would have achieved nothing. we stan one arrow

nico wearing a white cowboy hat. idky but it makes my heart swell with joy. he a gay cowboy

y'all know I love Apollo's arch, and I just gotta point this out. his trials, his time as lester, started with him falling to earth, and ended with him getting up after purposely throwing himself off the earth, towards tartarus, almost falling to chaos. that's really clever writing.

the olympians watching over him, and some actually being concerned for him rather than his progress.

poseidon not really giving a fuck about the world or council meetings anymore because percy's not there anymore

athena being the only one apart from artemis who trusted apollo could do it makes me warm fsr

lester deciding that the best way to retell his adventures is by singing is hilarious to me, he really thinks it'll solve everything

Grover not telling percy and annabeth jason died seems so funny to me, he really said "nah it doesn't matter much, field trip, yes"

"hey man" my heart broke in twenty million pieces. like I don't know where I expected to see jason. but that wasn't it. and it hurt me as much as it hurt apollo man.

(also I kinda hoped we would see nico summon his spirit or smth, but I'm actually happy nico realized that jason went by his own choice, and he was in peace, so he decided not to summon him, because it was alright. that hurt too)

kinda love how lester passes out after literally every battle. it reminds you that even tho he's apollo, his body isn't. I'm sure we all would pass out too if we did a quarter of what lester did in the span of 4 days. his body isn't made to endure that, it doesn't even have a halfblood endurance, it's a weak mortal body

the trogs were fucking hilarious. their screeches and grrs, idk there's something ridiculous and so childish about them, it's so fun

really happy that apollo never had a /real/ love interest (reyna doesn't count), cause that wasn't what his story was about. instead he got to make so many friends, and have quality time with them and his children, it's amazing

apollo being thankful people were telling him he'd grown, and was more human, because he realized that was the best thing he could have learned from his time as a mortal

also him saying fuck you man to zeus and his speech, like "no asshole dad, I did learn, I'm not going to see this as punishment, it was a great time in which bad things happened but I enjoyed it." yes, we love apollo not letting zeus win

getting to see what everyone will do now. nico and will figuring out rachel's prophecy, probs saving bob. rachel living her best life away from her parents. leo doing what leo does, always helping those who have no one else. the hunters' open storyline about this fox, possibly hinting at content? piper settling down in a quiet life is what she deserves tbh, she's earned quiet life with a cute gf, wish her the best. Frank and hazel being the best praetors, and I bet they will continue to be so. And annabeth and percy, who chose their happiness over all, at last

kinda wish we got to see someone still really miss jason after apollo becomes god again tho lmao like apollo missed jason more than the others, nico and piper being the exception. I mean, leo is fine and dandy, hazel and frank are okay, percy and annabeth are done mourning... I just we got to see any of them really mourning, rather than reading they mourned. it would have made it feel more emotional

the last conversation and the last words in general. "the sun always comes back" and "we're friends now. call on me. I'll be there for you" that shit got me sobbing my heart out. rick really managed to do right by the books and end it like he should have, unlike BOO. he took what made TLO good and used a similar formula. it's very different from "and for once I didn't look back", but it still fills you with warmth and the feeling that even though it's over, it's okay.

I'm just really emotional, this is all I can think about, but you bet I'm gonna add more when I remember

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esther-dot · 3 years

Note

According to original outline, both Tyrion and Sansa had dubious loyalty as Sansa choose her Lannister husband and child over starks and Tyrion fell in love with Arya and choosing stark. But in agot Sansa didn't marry joff instead she married Tyrion. Tyrion accepted the marriage and lusting over Sansa prove that he is still Lannister and Sansa rejecting him prove that she is still a stark. Tyrion never ceases to Lannister and never going to be an ally of starks. Sansa is always a stark.

I've never seen someone point this out before!

Children forming themselves in the image of their father or creating their identity opposed to it is such an interesting facet of the story as it exists that I'm totally fascinated it's Tyrion and Sansa who were most impacted by Martin's exploration of that as he developed his characters.

They are their father's children, as much as Ned doesn't know what to do with Sansa, and Tywin hates Tyrion.

In Sansa's case it seems Martin took the least likely child to rise and take her father's place, defying the odds. Tyrion feels a bit more like...he could not escape, no matter how much he hated his family (not Jaime), he was doomed to be a true Lannister.

@une-nuit-pour-se-souvenir has written about how Sansa is "her father Eddard Stark’s true heir both literally and narratively" (link), and that sense of destiny, the pull of her back to the North because she was meant to lead it all along, is a beautiful thing to read.

Also, I'm not going to argue that Martin wouldn't have been critical of outline Sansa (he has said some weird things about book Sansa), but she was married and had kids. What was she supposed to do? It's so strange how he would write a world in which women have so little power and then blame them for it, so I'm very grateful he changed his mind. Wish Sansa haters had never seen it.

Anyway, Sansa's refusal to kneel and her question, "And if I never want you to, my lord?" are such delightful expressions of her defiance, I don't know why the fandom thinks she's useless. There is no recourse for women, let alone prisoners of war forced into marriages against their will, and yet, laying there vulnerable and exposed, she says that. She's brave when she is afraid, nothing Starkier than that.

And of course, to really bring your point home, we have this quote in which Tyrion sees how Sansa remains a Stark even after they are wed and he is still a Lannister:

It was not enough, though. He had wrapped his cloak around her shoulders and sworn to protect her, but that was as cruel a jape as the crown the Freys had placed atop the head of Robb Stark's direwolf after they'd sewn it onto his headless corpse. Sansa knew that as well. The way she looked at him, her stiffness when she climbed into their bed . . . when he was with her, never for an instant could he forget who he was, or what he was. No more than she did. She still went nightly to the godswood to pray, and Tyrion wondered if she were praying for his death. She had lost her home, her place in the world, and everyone she had ever loved or trusted. Winter is coming, warned the Stark words, and truly it had come for them with a vengeance. But it is high summer for House Lannister. So why am I so bloody cold?

(ASOS, Tyrion VII)

We also have all those references to her courtesy being a wall (I’ve been collecting them to write about it sometime) and Tyrion wishing to get around it but he can’t. I’ve mentioned before how it’s fitting that Sansa, who bled for the North’s freedom as a prisoner in KL, would secure the North’s freedom, but I forget how Sansa’s refusal to have sex with Tyrion, her refusal to let him in, isn’t cruel, isn’t just about sex, it’s a decision that is protecting the North. I know the fandom likes to use Tyrion’s decision to not rape her as a sign of his virtue, but Sansa builds a wall to protect herself, and with it, Winterfell. A shame that’s not appreciated more.

Also, that last line feels like another one to plunk on the “Tyrion has it coming” scale. Fingers crossed!

#ask dot #sansa stark #anti tyrion #anti tyrion lannister #sansa as the north

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twinklelilstarkey · 4 years

Text

Stopping You [Part 10] - Michael Gray

Words: 8.9k+

Summary: Y/N’s recovery from both her feelings and her wound takes a step back after a specific night.

Warnings: Female!Reader. Mentions of wounds, a lot of blood, death and night terrors. Emotional cheating. Self-hate (discrediting their own sadness and feelings; hateful inner voice).

Prologue Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11

It has been a total of 24 hours.

Yesterday was a bad day. Both mentally and physically.

Polly tried her best into bringing your mood up, which worked in some way. She eased your mind by telling you that what you were feeling is completely normal, but as soon as you were alone, it was like the whole world was crashing on you.

Over crying so much as hateful questions filled your mind, you were sore at the end of the night. You contracted your muscles so much while sobbing that you could feel your wound pulsate against your skin in pain.

You questioned almost everything about your life before and after Michael left and when he reappeared. Things have changed, not just around his family, but also around you. And that seems to be one of the most confusing matters.

You never cared too much about this, but you can’t help but think about how so many things have changed since Michael came back. From your behaviors to how you function. Everything has changed in some way.

You’ve always suffered with night terrors in your life, ever since your parents left, but they were almost never about Michael. The exception being when the whole Italian/New York mafia situation went down, and Michael got injured. But other than that, it was always you, or anybody else close, that would die.

Never Michael.

You want to know what could’ve possibly awaken those thoughts and that part of your brain that makes you think like that. Could it be because you now connect him to something bad in your life? Or that when he came back, he had-

No, you’re not going there. It’s useless. It will cost you nothing pain, and it won’t grant you any answers. Might as well push that away and live your life.

Or at least try.

You bring your hot mug back to your lips and take another sip of your tea, letting your eyes fall to the ground.

Polly believes you could talk to him. Tell him about how you’ve been feeling lately. But, honestly, for what? To say that you’re falling right back in love with him just to later be thrown in the face that he does not love or feel anything for you anymore.

He. Is. Getting. Married.

It would just be simply ridiculous to do such a thing.

He doesn’t feel anything for you and that’s okay. All he feels is pity and maybe he got a little scared over you being shot, but that’s it. There are no feelings attached, no romance. No nothing. Just simply… a connection through pain, which awoke lost and forbidden memories.

Maybe this could just be your pride talking over your heart but, you just can’t believe that you’re letting yourself fall so easily. After so long of crying over him and overworking yourself to become a Peaky Blinder and just- not worry about anything in your demolished love life. All of it going to the trash because… You caught feelings for him again?

It’s disappointing to say the least.

Today, you awoke as soon as the sun made its way into the living room and since then, you haven’t done much. You walked back to your room after getting yourself a warm drink and sat by the window staring at the green grass of the neighbors’ house like it’s the most entertaining thing in the world.

A book is resting beside you. You have read a few good pages, but you can’t bring yourself to read more than 20 at a time.

Your mind is too heavy.

Voices coming from downstairs make you look away from the window and up to your door. You try your best to identify them as soon as you find them familiar.

You can hear voices and the laugher of Lizzie and Arthur. Which is awfully strange.

You scowl at the sound, and the soft patter of quick feet running around the house squeezes your heart. The kids are here too.

You rise from your seat and walk across your bedroom to the door. You open it softly and the sound of everyone’s voices is now louder. Confusion is the most prominent emotion you can feel right now, but you can’t help but welcome it better than any other one you’ve been feeling lately.

While walking down the main stairs silently, a soft gasp is heard over the loud voices. Ruby’s.

You smile at her as she spots you walking down the stairs and she quickly let’s go of her mother’s hand to run towards you.

As you’re distracted swallowing down the jab of pain at your middle while leaning down to grab her, Polly’s eyes meet you. The smile in your face is almost like a warm hug in the winter. She could get used to this sight forever.

“Look who came back from war,” Ada jokes as she spots you.

She walks towards you and her arms wrap around you as soon as you’re close enough. You lean towards her, even with Ruby on your hip, and she squeezes you in closer.

“I was so worried,” She tells you, “I’m so glad you’re okay.”

You pull away from the hug with a small smile and she gives you a wide one in return. It’s been a few weeks since you last saw her. She had left back for London not long before the whole event happened. You honestly didn’t expect to see her this soon.

As Ada moves back, everyone’s attention goes over to you. Everyone, or at least, almost everyone pulls you into a hug, sharing their words of how grateful they are from knowing that you’re still breathing.

You know they had visited you back at the hospital when you were still asleep, but nothing compares to actually seeing you move like nothing had happened. Arthur’s words, not yours.

Talking about Arthur. He was awfully apologetic while you two hugged it out. You believe he must have blamed himself for what happened, but you were quick to take that idea off his head.

You’re not about to see anybody else beating themselves for something out of their reach. Unless that’s you, of course.

Tommy and Arthur, not even 20 minutes into stepping in Polly’s home, excuse themselves and leave off to work.

The crowd in the living room doesn’t consist in much more people. Both Ada and Lizzie, and of course the kids, stayed behind and took a seat on the couch. The kids surrounded you as soon as you all sat down, while the women in front of you were distracted on talking about whatever, or rather, whoever worth of gossiping.

You listen to some of their words while being continuously pulled into conversation by Charlie as you let Ruby sit next to you, leaning to your side.

Karl is sitting closer to his mother, but looking at you and joining the conversations, nonetheless.

“What about you, Y/N?” Ada asks as she sips her tea.

“What about me?” You ask confused, obviously having no clue on what she’s on about.

“We were talking about weddings,” Lizzie explains, “Sharing our opinions on what is the best wedding. And Ada asked if you have anyone in your mind as your future husband?”

Her tone is playful more than anything. Both Lizzie and Ada expect a disgusted scowl or a roll of your eyes as an answer, but Polly can’t help but tense up against her seat at the question.

As innocent as this conversation was, it was more than powerful to push you back into your inner darkness.

“Not that I know of.” You answer, trying to mimic Lizzie’s tone.

“Oh, come on. You don’t find any man attractive?” Ada asks, putting her cup down beside her, “Not even one?”

You shake your head slowly and she stares at you with half closed eyes, almost as if she has a suspicion of some sort about your feelings towards any male presences.

“There has to be someone,” Lizzie agrees with Ada, “It’s been… what? 3 years?”

You shrug, fighting your urge to correct her since it won’t do you any justice, and the two women share a look as Polly watches all the action unfold.

“What about Finn?”

Oh god, you almost gagged right here.

Ada laughs under her breath at your disgusted yet shocked look and shakes her thoughts of that couple even be slightly real, away.

“God.” Polly scoffs out loud, making every woman rip a slight smile.

“What’s so wrong about my baby brother?” Polly asks, hands over her hips, playful grin on her face.

“Nothing is wrong,” Polly explains, “They would just be the most chaotic couple to existence. Can you imagine?”

You chuckle at her words and shake your head.

“They would burn down the church right at their wedding,” Polly jokes making both Lizzie and Ada laugh, “Probably even when saying their vows.”

There’re a few seconds of silence as the women let their giggles die down.

“Where is Finn?” Lizzie asks curious.

“Oh, Tommy has been making the boy work double the shifts now, for some reason.” Polly answers, “I don’t understand why, but they changed a lot of his shifts since their last meeting.”

“There was a meeting?” You ask confused.

Polly looks over at you.

“Yes, there was. It was only between Tommy and some of the men.” She answers with a short nod, “Nothing too important was talked about, I’m sure.”

You nod at her a little bit unsure and Charlie is quick to grab your attention back to him. He pulls you by your sleeve to look at him and he starts showing you his new toy horse, again.

You feel like you’ve seen that horse a thousand times, now.

Another conversation restarts between the women and you lean back on the couch, letting Ruby continue to play with your gold necklaces as Charlie talks his heart out about the horse that his dad gave him.

Your mind is constantly somewhere else. But this time, it focused on work. Mainly, on what the meeting could’ve possibly been about. As if any meeting with just the men was ‘not important’. They always have the most interesting meetings.

And with that train of thought, hours go by.

You were so distracted by listening to the women beside you laugh and talk, or just with looking down at the kids, that you didn’t even notice the time pass.

Your mind is still on that damned meeting, but you don’t let it get the best of you. You’re sure that the information will eventually reach you. In one way or another.

Three knocks are heard from the front door, and only Polly stands to open it. Nobody thinks too much of it. Everyone knew that eventually someone would come and pick up Ada, Lizzie and the kids.

It’s soon to be dark out, they must be almost leaving now.

“I’m sorry that we’re late.” A familiar voice sounds from the door.

Ada freezes and at the same time she looks up at you, you look up at the door. Not even 5 seconds later, Michael enters the house, followed by, of course, Gina. His blue eyes travel to the couch in the living room, and as he finds you, you’re already looking down at Charlie.

Your hand rests against Charlies’ head, smoothing his soft hair between your fingers, detangling it softly.

He forces his gaze to go back to the blonde behind him and his mother closes the front door behind them.

“Go sit. Make yourself comfortable. I’ll go make more tea.” Polly says, voice strong, not as soft as it was previously.

Ada’s and Lizzie’s eyes stay on both Michael and Gina as the couple stands in silence. They don’t find the women’s gaze as nothing more than their way to look at guests before exchanging some welcoming words, so, the tense air and shock just came unnoticed.

“Oh, hi Michael” Ada says, standing on her feet. “Didn’t expect to see you today.”

She gives her cousin a quick hug, in which he hugs back, but her eyes quickly fall on the blonde.

“And who are you?” Ada asks softly.

“Michael’s fiancée, Gina” She says with her American accent, extending her hand towards the other family member she hasn’t heard of before.

Ada shakes her hand, feeling slightly confused and shocked with her words, but, just like anyone else in this room, she’s quick to hide her emotions.

“Please, sit. I don’t want you standing all night.” Polly says to the new guests, from the kitchen door.

Michael is the first one to move towards the couches. You don’t dare to look up at him and he notices, fighting his own urge to start a conversation.

Your heart quickens the closer he gets to you and Charlie looks up at him, probably recognizing his face somewhere.

“Charlie, honey, scoot over a little.” Lizzie tells the boy.

The boy in front of you nods in response and takes his eyes off Michael. He stands on the couch and carefully steps over your lap and sits on your other side, by the arm of the couch.

Michael takes his seat next to you and you hold in your breath as your arms rest completely against one another. Lizzie moves a bit to the side and Gina sits beside her fiancée, who has his attention somewhere else.

“How are you?” Michael whispers down at you and you still don’t look up.

“Good.”

Your tone is cold and distant, which he finds extremely strange and awfully uncomfortable.

The couch is surely not large enough for 4 people, but you and Michael are having it worse than anyone else seated down on it. Lizzie and Gina have at least a few inches between themselves, while you and Michael are almost completely leaning against one another, trapped between Gina and Charlie.

Michael’s hands rest over his lap as he hears the awfully awkward conversation between the women start, not finding it at all surprising that you are paying them no absolute attention.

Ruby lets go of your necklaces for the first time and looks down at your hands.

They’re slightly sweaty over the presence of the man beside you but she pays them no mind, grabbing onto them as she eyes the expensive jewelry, surely something she loves a lot about you.

Polly comes back not too long after, and she’s quick to serve everyone another cup of tea.

You refuse any more, since you feel like you’ve already drank too much and explode your own bladder if you keep on going. And as your hand lifts to dismiss the tea from Polly, Ruby catches it.

You smile a bit at her and Michael grins slightly at the sight of the small girl being so interested in your hand. You let her twist the rings on your fingers and her gaze moves up at Michael.

His grin seems awfully contagious to her since she ends up smiling shyly at him as she continues to hold your hand up. As they do their staring contest, you look over at Charlie, who entertains himself and his mind with his new, and very loved, horse.

You sigh softly as your heart continues to beat quickly against your rib cage and you can’t tell if it’s just because you’re anxious about Michael or is it just his presence that is making you react like this.

“Have you taken your pain meds?” Polly asks.

You look up quickly as you notice that the question must be for you and a shiver runs past you as everyone’s eyes fall on you, even Gina’s.

“I will when I go to sleep.”

She gives you a disapproving look and you give her a grin in return.

“It helps me sleep.” You justify, and she sits back in her chair.

Michael grins at the exchange of words and your stubbornness and Ada notices it before continuing with her conversation.

Ruby rests your palm against hers and starts comparing both sizes.

You chuckle at her and as your body jumps at the laugh beside Michael, he looks down at Ruby to see what made you react. The small girl looks up when sensing his eyes on her and as Gina joins the conversation between the other women, Ruby extends her other hand at Michael, holding it upright.

He looks at her confused and you notice.

“She wants to compare your hand to hers.” You explain in a low whisper.

He takes his hand from his lap and extends it to her. His hands are surely bigger than yours, and that seemed to shock the small girl.

You smile as she lays her hand over his with widen eyes and Polly looks up from her tea at you, mind still on the conversation she started.

Her heart swells up at the sight. You and Michael smiling down at the girl sitting on your lap as she holds your hands up and compares them to hers. She can’t hear what you say over the loud voices and from being across the room, but she sees you saying something to Ruby, making her nod.

Michael’s smile widens at the small girl and you look up at him quickly, stealing a look before you get caught, which you don’t, not by him at least. Polly surely did, but she doesn’t say or do anything.

It’s so obvious that you still feel something for him, at least for her. But Michael seems to be unreadable, sometimes. It’s hard to figure anything out.

Gina stares at Polly while grinning at what Ada says and finds her staring at her son, she follows her gaze and clenches her jaw. The urge to roll her eyes feels stronger than her, but her bottled up rage triples at sight of you smiling.

Ruby takes her hands off yours quickly, shyly putting them close to her chest. You continue to smile down at her and as you and Michael try to retreat your own hands, she holds on to them.

Her actions are innocent, purely curious on the size of your hands, but she still leans both of your palms together, still holding them upright.

You and Michael don’t give that much of a reaction as Ruby tries to align them perfectly at the base of your palms and see the size difference from the top of your fingers.

An idea pops in your mind as your hand rests against Michael’s, and as Ruby pulls back to check the difference after so much adjusting, you slide your palm against Michael’s, so your fingers align right at the same height.

Michael chuckles at the confused look on Ruby’s face and she smiles at the contagious sound.

But as soon as the small girl notices what you’ve done, she sends you a glare, making the two of you laugh at her.

Your conjoined laughs catch everyone’s attention for a quick second and Gina doesn’t even care to take a second look. Ada smiles as she sees Ruby readjusting your palms, and, this time, it’s Michael who moves his hand, almost making his fingers only lay over half of your palm.

Ruby glares at him too and you two laugh, again.

“Alright, we’ll stop.” You tell her.

Ruby retries, but this time she has a tactic. As she makes sure that you are aligned perfectly, she holds both your and Michael’s thumb and force them to rest against the other’s back of the hand.

She leans back and stares at the difference between your hands, now happy with her achievement.

You two let her stare at the size difference with her big wide eyes, but something interrupts the sweet moment.

“Michael, honey.” Gina calls out as the conversation between everyone restarts, “Can you pass me that cup?”

Michael takes his hand off yours and you can’t help but feel disappointed at the loss of his touch. He leans forward on the couch and grabs the cup of tea for Gina from the center table, something she could easily get it herself.

You let your hand fall back to your lap and you take a sharp deep inhale, not wanting to be sitting on this couch for any longer.

You let some minutes pass, so you don’t seem like a total bitch, and when feeling ready, you lean forward on the couch, wincing in pain as your body shows to have grown sore over the lack of painkillers and from not moving at all for the past few hours.

Polly’s eyes go over to you at the sound only her seemed to notice, and you look back at her.

“I’m going to bed, I think.” You explain, making everybody get silent and look at you, “I feel exhausted.”

“Need help to find your meds?” She asks, already starting to get up, and you shake your head.

“No, no.” You hold your hand up stopping her, “Stay here. I’ll find them.”

You make sure to sit Ruby on the couch comfortably before forcing yourself up from the low couch. You fight off any sound of pain as you stand on your feet, but your face made it quite obvious.

You really should’ve taken those meds earlier.

You walk to the kitchen, trying not to show any other expression of pain, and everyone’s eyes are on you. Gina stares as you lean against the doorframe to regain your strength, yet she doesn’t feel anything in return. Not even an ounce of pity.

You stumble into the kitchen and look at the main counter, expecting the meds to be sitting right in the middle, just like you left them. But this wouldn’t be Polly’s house if they were.

Your feet get dragged as you take your time walking around to the kitchen.

You start opening every cabinet and drawer that could possibly have your meds, but there are too many to find them right away. Maybe going to bed without your meds wouldn’t be that bad.

You just need to lay down, now.

“Need help?”

You turn on your heels to find Michael by the doorway, already in the kitchen. You look away quickly back to all the drawers and try to hide any type of emotion towards his sudden appearance.

“No, I think I got it.” You answer back.

You continue to look through the many drawers and only after 2 minutes of seeing you struggle; Michael decides to move. He walks towards you and you stand still as he does so.

As he passes between you and the counter behind you, he holds onto your shoulders to make you stand back a little and let him pass. Something that surely made your skin react, but, thankfully, it all came unnoticed to him.

He opens a drawer slightly away from you and pulls out exactly what you’re looking for.

“How did you know?” You ask, curious.

“This is where she would put my meds after I got shot. It’s her drawer from stronger meds.” He explains.

How the hell did you not know that?

You walk towards him as he opens the small paper bag, taking your medicine out and handing it over to you. You take it from his hands carefully and put it down on the counter beside you.

“Thank you” You whisper at him.

You take your medicine in silence as the conversation restarts in the living room, and you try not to cringe at anything that you’re taking. Why is everything so bitter?

Whenever you’re done with one of the meds, Michael grabs them slowly and puts them back on the bag without saying anything.

He slides the drawers closed when done and you start taking the jewelry off your hands, just to start and get your way to the bed way quicker.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” He asks and you look up at him.

“No. But I’ll be.” You say sincerely before looking away and taking a step away from him, “That’s what matters.”

Michael notices your hesitation into continuing some sort of conversation, just like your slight cold tone, but he tries his best to ignore it.

“I’m going to bed,” You announce while turning your back to him and making your way out of kitchen.

“Good night.” He says as you reach the doorway.

You send him a tight-lipped smile and walk out, back into the living room. Polly is, of course, the first one to notice you.

“Did you find it?” She asks.

“Michael did.” You answer.

You walk over to her and once close, lean over and kiss her cheek. The rest of the family distracted with something else or some other type of conversation.

Michael walks out of the kitchen and you reach the stairs, after saying a quick good night, loud enough for everyone else to hear.

You jump up the steps with your rings in your hands as you bring your cold and clammy hands to your neck to try and unclasp your necklaces. Your eyes land on Michael’s as you reach the top floor and he’s staring back.

Gina calls his name in a whisper and he looks at her, breaking your eye contact. And as soon as his eyes reach Gina’s, he doesn’t hesitate into giving her a sweet smile.

As he looks back up while walking around the couch, his eyes meet nothing but some painting on the wall.

You’re not there anymore.

(…)

The sound of birds surrounds you, their soft and energized tweeting coming from the trees far away from you and some branches above you, as the warm summer wind hits your body like a warm hug.

You shift your position on the ground, laying on your stomach and looking up at the sky between the branches high up, far, far away from you.

Solitary clouds float over the bright blue sky, almost not shielding any land from the sunlight.

Your exposed back is warm, erupting into chills whenever Michael moves his hand. You close your eyes again and let yourself relax again.

A hand touches the side of your head softly and slowly you feel its fingers start to trace your hairline. You open your eyes, blinking the sunlight away, and look up at Michael.

His hand falls to your cheek as you move and a small smile spreads over his lips.

“Let me sleep,” You whine, and he finally gives you a full smile.

“Alright,” He answers in a whisper, “Sorry.”

You sigh and hold yourself up with your hands, you push your body up on his torso and his hands go to your waist. Not caring over only wearing a dress, you lay yours legs over his hips, straddling his lap while pulling yourself up.

“I forgive you.” You whisper back playfully.

You snuggle into the crook of his neck and his smell hits you like an embrace. The small bit of communication pulled you away from your sleepy thoughts and movements, but you still felt just as clingy and slow.

As you lay back against him, his arms wrap around you, pulling you close to him with everything in him. You snuggle in to welcome his tight hold and one of his hands stretches over your skin of your back.

You’re wearing a simple black dress, baggy from your waist down, but completely backless.

“Can we lay here for, like…” You pause, “Forever?”

Michael chuckles from under you and leans his head to the side to rest it against yours.

“We’ll get hungry eventually.” He answers, and you smile.

“I’m sure there’s some animals around here.” You continue to play around, smile prominent in your voice.

“I hope you know how to make a fire, then.”

You giggle into Michael’s neck and pull away slightly. His hold loosens slightly so you can move a bit and you look down at him.

“Don’t you know how to make a fire?” You ask and he frowns.

“Why would I?”

“I don’t know” You shrug, “Weren’t you like a country boy or something?”

With that, Michael lets out the biggest belly laugh ever, leaving you to smile as he cackles away at your words. Your tone had been obviously playful, but it still made it just as funny for him.

“I lived at a farm. I wasn’t a cave man!” He exclaims, tilting his head to look at you better.

“Sounds the same to me.”

He smiles at you and you bring one of your hands to his cheek, caressing it with your thumb. You lean in and give him the softest peck you could. When pulling away, you look at him in the eyes as he tries to pull you into another kiss. You let him, letting your lips rest over the softness of his as you too fall into the pit of slow and lovingly making out.

He sits up in the middle of the kiss and you sit over his legs as he does it. His hands travel effortlessly down your waist to your legs, lifting your skirt enough to slither in his hands underneath.

You pull away and look down at him as you stand on your knees, adjusting your seating on his thighs. You peck his lips multiple times before sitting back and eyeing him.

“I love you” He confesses in a whisper, eyes staring back onto yours, “so much”

“Really?” You ask, serious, leaning a little back and he frowns.

“Yeah…?”

He’s confused, but soon your playful smile reappears.

“How much, again?”

“A lot.”

“How much is ‘a lot’?” You keep going. “Like, ‘a lot’ like the size of a mountain or ‘a lot’ as in…” You think for a second, but he interrupts.

“How old are you again?” He teases about your childish words and you force your smile to disappear, just so you can scowl at him.

“Oh, fuck off” You say to him, “I was trying to be cute here, no need to ruin the moment for us.”

“Alright, keep going then” He says, “The size of a mountain or…?”

“Uhm… The size of…” You try to think, mind completely blank over any ideas. “The size of… the ocean?”

He chuckles at your final words and you grin.

“The ocean.” He says, sure of his words, no hesitation.

You stay silent for a bit.

“Which one?”

“Oh, come on!” He says, completely bored out of this conversation, making you laugh at him, “The biggest one you can think of”

“Really?”

“Yes. Now, can you please” He emphasizes the word comically, dragging it, “for the love of God, just tell me that you love me back?”

You kiss his lips over his frown.

“You’re so romantic.” You comment sarcastically.

“I know.”

You smile at him and decide not to give in just yet. The boy can suffer for a bit.

Telling him that you loved him now or in 5 minutes won’t exactly make that much of a difference.

You stand up on your feet, away from his lap, and he stares up at you while letting out a sigh.

“You gotta earn it.” You say with a playful look, making his frown break slightly.

“Oh really?”

“Yes.” You nod.

You take a step back as he stands up and your smile doesn’t disappear at all as you move away from him. Every step forward from Michael is a step back for you, making his urge to get to you bigger.

And soon, the running around starts.

You laugh as you run from him, sometimes feeling his fingers graze over your arms, making your heart beat faster with the adrenaline.

The tall weeds slap the skin of your exposed legs softly, tickling you as you ran away from your boyfriend. The scenery in front of you motivates into keeping on running, the summery flowers all open and colorfully staring up at the sky.

All you hear is your soft steps over the plants and the birds, it gives you peace. You can still hear Michael running behind you.

You let out a giggle as he’s about to touch you and out of nowhere, it stops.

The warm breeze lifts into a cold one and you look around confused.

You know that the weather can be unpredictable, but this is too radical for it to make sense.

Your hands start getting cold rapidly and soon your body is enveloped into complete body chills, your dress being nothing but useless when it comes to make you stay warm.

The breeze goes from cold to freezing in the matter of seconds, leaving you nothing but panicked.

You feel lightheaded and short of breath and as you try to warm yourself up with your own arms, soon you realize… You can’t feel your own palms touching your skin.

The sunlight fades as clouds fly their way in to color the skies a dark grey and you stare up.

You’re in a dream.

You’re dreaming.

You look over your shoulder at Michael to find him just as confused just a few steps away. He must have stopped running right as you did. But his skin, is not reacting like yours. His exposed arms, from the folded sleeves are not reacting to the cold in chills. It’s like it’s not affecting him.

He’s not the real Michael.

“What’s happening?” He asks you.

“I don’t know” You lie. You know exactly what’s happening.

Your dream is becoming a nightmare.

You look around as the wind gets harsher and your heart starts to beat more violently, just like your shortness of breath forces you into panting your way to find your peace again.

You step closer to Michael and cup his face.

He stares back at you still with his confused eyes and you kiss him. Your lips touch his and his hands come to rest over your waist as the wind continues to come at full force towards you.

Your hands feel numb, not being able to feel the texture of his suit, just like you had felt a few minutes prior. But you feel his hands, the way they rest on your waist, warming your skin under the violent and freezing wind.

“I love you,” You tell him as you pull away.

You open your eyes and you’re met with Michael’s pale face. His eyes are empty, with absolutely no light or sign of life.

You caress his cold cheeks with your thumbs, and you notice blood over his bottom lip. His hands had fallen a second ago from your waist, and you already miss his familiar warmth.

You bring your finger to wipe the blood away carefully and notice that it’s all over his mouth, coloring his white bottom teeth.

A small trail of blood starts falling off his nose and soon from his ears as well, slowly coloring your hands into the color red.

Red, hands completely filled with deep red, now that you try and wipe it.

Michael falls onto his knees and you do the same, holding him close to you even though it’s just his corpse. He’s cold and his hold is not even there anymore. His arms are by his sides as his head rests over your shoulder.

You wrap your arms around him, and the wind becomes more and more violent.

You force your eyes closed and let it take you too.

You open your eyes, and a loud gasp escapes your mouth. You’re not panting anymore, but your heart is beating quickly.

You try to sit up, but a sudden jab of pain hits you. You gasp and wince in pain but still bring yourself to do it. A sob escapes your mouth too right as you’re able to sit upright.

Your face feels wet and cold in the air of the room. You must have been crying before you woke up.

You whine in pain as you bring yourself to turn on the light beside you and as the warm yellow light illuminates the room, all you see is blood.

Your own blood, spread around your white shirt and white sheets, painting your hands just like in your dream.

“Pol-” You try to call out, but your voice breaks in a sob as pain runs through you.

You sob into the empty and silent air and try it again.

“Polly!” You sob out loud, hoping that that was enough to awake her if it’s late enough for that.

You wait a few long seconds for any sound coming from the hallway or stairs, but nothing.

“Polly!” You try to scream louder.

Polly holds her hand up to shut up Gina and the room falls silent. Michael leans forward from the railing of the stairs and looks at his mom confused; arms still crossed over his chest.

“Poll-” You cough.

Michael, before Polly could even get up, makes his way up the stairs and runs down the hall, trying his best to be fast enough to get to your room.

Your door swings open and you continue to sob as the lights are turned on.

“I don’t know what I did wrong.” You sob to whoever is at the door, staring down at your hands, “I-I, I woke up and…”

Michael shakes his shock away at the sight of your bed all bloodied, just like your hands, and walks towards you. His eyes fall to your shirt and notices from where your blood is coming from, your wound.

“Mom!” Michael shouts while looking up at the door.

Your ears start to buzz as panic starts to set in in your system and two hands move yours away from your eyes.

“You’re okay, you’re okay.” The voice repeats and you sob helplessly.

Michael sits in front of you in the bed and brings you close to him, ignoring that he’s now being covered in blood as well.

He makes you rest your hands on his shoulders so that they’re away from your eyes and starts to unbutton some of the buttons of your shirt.

Polly finally gets to the door and the sight is absolutely terrifying.

“She ripped stitches. I think.”

Polly forces herself to walk to the bed and to help Michael check your wound. He continues to unbutton your shirt with one hand only and he’s quick to rip the bandage off.

You sob in pain as he does it and both him and Polly try to look past the blood and ignore your sobs to see what happened to your wound. It opened, maybe 3 of the 9 stitches ripped.

“I’ll call the doctor.” Polly says.

Michael nods and holds you closer to him, not wanting you to move too far away. Your side rests against his chest and he wraps an arm around your shoulders, while one of his hands grabs the sheets and holds them over the wound.

You sob silently while leaning closer to him and he looks up at your face.

“Hey. You’re okay, look at me.” He whispers at you and you do it, “You’re okay. It’s not too bad. You’re safe. I promise.”

You stare at him in the eyes and he leans his forehead against yours.

“You’re okay” He whispers lower.

You nod as tears continue to roll down your face and he nods with you. Your breathing starts to slow down, and he presses a kiss over your wet cheek.

“I got you.” He whispers against your skin.

(…)

Michael sighs loudly as he walks into the kitchen and he feels exhausted.

“Is the doctor finished?” Polly asks him and he just nods, “And her?”

“Passed out before he could even start” He answers, “The doctor said to just let her sleep.”

He walks towards the sink and he turns on the water, holding his bloody hands under it. The two women standing in the kitchen are silent, watching him wash his hands carelessly while staring at the wall.

“I’ll go get you a clean shirt.” Polly says.

His mom walks out of the kitchen and he turns off the water, turning around to face Gina.

“Are we going to the hotel after this?” She asks softly.

“I can drive you there, but I’m staying here, tonight.”

She takes a deep breath and brings her hands to her head, annoyed.

“Why? She’s asleep. You can visit her tomorrow.” She tries.

“I’ll sleep better here.”

She scoffs.

“You’re fucking unbelievable.”

“I’m unbelievable?” Michael answers, bringing his hand up to point at his own chest.

“Yes!” She almost screams, “You are unbelievable! And you want to know why?” She asks, “Because no matter what I fucking do or fucking say, you will always put her before me.”

“Always, Gina? Are you serious?” Michael asks in disbelief, “You’ve been my fucking priority ever since we met, and now because I show some sort of affection towards a girl that is fucking bleeding and crying her lungs out, I’m supposedly putting her before you?”

“Yes! I don’t even know what you had with her before me!” She shouts, “Ever since I step foot into this shit hole I’ve been listening to her name and seeing her over and over again. Do you really think I believe that she’s simply a ‘family friend’?” She air-quotes.

“You want the truth?” He asks, no shouting needed, but he sounds mad.

“Yes.”

“We dated for 4 years, almost 5. I ended our relationship when in America.” He answers and Gina stands silent, “See? I can tell you the truth when you ask nicely.”

“And if you broke up why do you still like her?” She asks, ignoring his hateful tease at the end of his sentence.

“You have to be joking-”

“Are you going to say that that’s a lie?” She asks, crossing her arms over her chest, “Let me give you some of my truth, Michael. I honestly don’t give a shit about what you two went through, or if you were in a good relationship or not when with her, but you broke up. I don’t care why, but you did. And there was a time when you chose me over her. That’s why you proposed, right?”

Michael doesn’t answer her.

“So, please, for the love of God, stop being a child and move on with your life. You’ve been mopping around her, touching her all the time as if you’re dying to do it at every second of the day… Even if she does still like you, you are with me now, not her.” She spits at him, “Move. On. She’s not yours anymore, Michael. I am.”

He swallows hard at her words and looks at her emptily.

Polly makes her way back inside the kitchen, acting as if she didn’t hear a thing, but that seems to not scare off Gina from continuing.

“Are you even listening to m-?”

“I am.”

“Then say something, Michael.” She scolds, “Is it not true, what I’m saying?”

Polly looks between them as if waiting for it to evolve in any way, and simply extends her hand towards Michael, so he can grab the clean shirt.

“Is she your priority or no-”

“Yes.” Michael answers, “Y/N is my priority.” He nods, sure of himself and his words. “Yes, I’m engaged to you, Gina, but I care for her, and she will always be my priority.”

Gina bites her tongue and looks at Michael.

It honestly comes to no surprise. She had just thrown these words at him not that long ago, at lunch. He had just never confirmed it for her, and now… he did. But ‘always’? You will always be his priority? Now, that, doesn’t sit right with her.

They stand in silence and Michael leans back on the counter, finally taking the shirt from his mom’s hands. He thanks her with a look but to no avail because her eyes are not even on him.

“You’re serious?” Gina comments in slight disbelief.

“I am.” Michael confirms.

“What does that mean for us, then?” She asks.

Michael stays silent and the blonde slides off the highchair she has been sitting on, standing on her heels. Her eyes stay on him as tears threaten to swell up at her eyes.

“I’m not sure.” Michael answers truthfully.

She nods at his words and brings her eyes to the ground. She feels disappointed but mostly betrayed. Her eyes are good to show that emotion, but soon, it evolves into something else. Pure anger. Anger over the betraying words and truth, the one that just got thrown around as if it was nothing.

And Polly notices it.

“I think it’s better if you leave, Gina.”

Michael takes his eyes off his fiancée to stare at his mother, who just opened her mouth. He didn’t expect her to get herself involved in his worries, but she did.

“What?” Gina asks, bringing her head back up to stare at Polly.

“You heard me.”

Her eyes travel to Michael in hopes that he would defend her, but nothing. He’s just staring back at her, almost holding the same look as his mother.

He doesn’t want her here. He wants her to leave.

She shakes her head, overcome with emotion, and forces her feet to move. Her palms tingle with the idea of hitting something, or rather, someone, but her eyes fill with tears.

How could have she been so stupid?

She slams the front door shut behind her and the Gray family stand in the kitchen unphased.

“Rather dramatic that one, uh?” Polly asks her son.

Michael doesn’t answer her venomous comment, but that didn’t seem to surprise her. His mother walks around the counter and grabs the cup Gina used for her whiskey, bringing it to the sink so she can wash it.

It’s like this conversation didn’t affect her a slight bit.

Michael feels weird. He doesn’t regret telling Gina anything but the look she gave him spoke more than any of her words could. She felt betrayed by him, and she was holding back so many emotions and words.

He knows that if it wasn’t for his mom, Gina would be screaming at him, maybe even throwing stuff at the walls. Just like she usually does when she’s upset. But she didn’t do anything, she decided to contain herself and not scream or even curse him out.

And honestly, Michael doesn’t know what’s worse. The fact that she could be destroying his mom’s kitchen or the fact that she’s bottling up all her frustration and anger.

He thought he knew Gina before coming back home, but the trip only made him and her show their true colors. One can’t stop comparing his newfound love to his old one, and the other obsesses over the idea of power and desperately wanting to overthrow anyone in her way.

Quite a pair, that’s for sure.

(…)

You open your eyes as the lights burns your eyelids open and an involuntary groan runs off your mouth as you’re hit with the morning light right in the face. You turn your head to the side, but you’re met with another window with the curtains open.

“Fuck.” You curse out loud.

You sit up and another sound escapes your mouth, but this time, a whimper of pain.

It takes you a few seconds to connect the dots and you finally remember why you’re in pain in the first place.

“Jesus Christ.” You comment to yourself, again.

Your bloody sheets are set to the side, right next to your door, and before your mind could even try to process it, you push any thoughts of your nightmare away from you.

You pull yourself up carefully and try to ignore the tightness that you feel over your wound. You’re not quite sure what happened after the doctor appeared, but if you’re still at Polly’s house, it could only mean one thing…

It’s not as bad as it looked.

You walk to the bathroom and the sight that meets your eyes is, just, great.

Your shirt is mostly unbuttoned, bloodied, just like your bra. Some of your skin has been cleaned, but not all. Your face as some blood smeared on it, but it doesn’t surprise you. You remember moving so much when you woke up, it would be a miracle it your feet would be clean.

You throw the clothes into the bin and start cleaning yourself off. You can’t exactly bath over having to make the wound be dry at all times. But you have been able to manage quite nicely. With weird positions, for sure, but you’re able to wash your body and hair quite nicely.

You put on some washed clothes on and make your way out of the bedroom. It must be really early since the house is more than silent.

Before you walk down the stairs, you walk over to the guest’s room just to check. Finn is laying on his back over the large bed, mouth partly open as some light snores escape his lips, making you smile at him.

You take a step back and close the door back up. He must’ve gotten here after the doctor.

You make your way down the stairs easily, and as soon as your eyes land on the couch, you see Michael.

He’s awake with a mug on his hands, eyes on the carpet as he is completely lost in thought. He has a scowl over his face, hiding any kind of emotion from anyone’s eyes, and as your feet finally meet the last step, he looks up.

His scowl disappears and a slight grin appears over his lips.

“Good morning.” You say before he could.

“Good morning.” He answers back.

You walk towards him and he watches you as you carry yourself with ease over to the couch. You take a seat next to him and notice that his mug is still filled with warm coffee.

He extends the mug your way when noticing your interest and you smile, taking it.

“Thank you.” You whisper.

The hot mug burns your cold palms, and you welcome the almost uncomfortable heat into your skin. You bring it to your lips and take a small sip of the dark liquid.

You’re sitting close to Michael, sitting on top of one of your legs as you sit looking at him. You’re not wearing much more than a shirt, exposing your legs to him and to anyone in the house, but you don’t seem uncomfortable with your lack of clothing.

“Are you feeling okay?” He asks and you bring the mug down from your mouth, licking your lips at the same time.

“Yeah” You nod.

You give him back his mug after taking your generous sips and he takes it back onto his hands.

“When did Finn get here?” You ask him, curious.

“About half an hour after the doctor left.” He answers, leaning forward to put down the burning mug on the coffee table, finding it impossible to drink from how hot it is, still.

You nod at as his answer and while you’re thinking about what else to ask, he speaks again.

“You scared the living shit out of us last night.” He says, making you look back at him.

His eyes are back on the carpet and your chest tightens at the sight.

“I’m sorry.” You apologize.

“Don’t.” He says, finally looking back up, “It’s not your fault.”

He leans back on the couch and both of you continue to look at each other. The air is not thick as it usually is, it’s light and easy to breathe in. Your looks are both familiar, always taking your minds back in time for a quick second.

Your mind takes you to your dream and soon his pale face reappears in your mind. You shake the thoughts away, right as Michael opens his mouth to talk.

“Are you hungry?” He asks, “I can make you something to eat.”

You smile widely at him and bring your hands to your lap.

“Are you finally proving yourself useful around the house?” You tease, making him smile back, “I must be in a dream. Since when do you-”

“I’ve always been able to cook” He defends himself.

“Yeah, right.”

“It’s true!”

“Michael, you couldn’t even cook potatoes!”

“Couldn’t!” He says to you, leaning forward to be right in front of you, “Things have changed in my kitchen.”

A laugh escapes your lips as he smiles down at you and he stands from the couch. He gives you his hand and as soon as your palms touch, he pulls you up from the couch.

“Come on, I’ll show you my experienced cooking.” He encourages as you take small, demotivated steps his way, “Do you want me to make you potatoes, just so I can prove my point?”

“No.” You giggle, “Just- Do whatever.”

He turns around and starts walking to the kitchen, letting your hand fall from his as you stay a little behind.

“You know what?” You ask him as you get in the kitchen, making him look back at you, “Maybe you’re not as insufferable as I thought you were”

Michael laughs at your words as you say them, and he nods.

“Oh, why, thank you!” He says enthusiastically, “Aren’t you lovely right as the sun rises?”

You let out a loud laugh and he moves over behind the island counter, looking around the cabinets to look for something to cook for you.

You stare at the back of his head as he walks around and take a seat on one of the chairs.

One could get used to this.

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Hope you enjoyed this! If would like to make any questions about the characters or when the next part will be available. My ask box is always open.

#michael gray x reader #michael gray #michael gray imagine #michael gray imagines #michael gray fic #michael gray fanfic #peaky blinders #peaky blinders imagine #peaky blinders imagines #finn cole #finn cole x reader #finn cole imagine #finn cole imagines

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starlessskies94 · 3 years

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Consequence (Joel Miller x OC)

Summary: What if Joel survived his injuries from the Abby and Fireflies attack but ends up with really bad amnesia. He can’t remember his wife, Ellie, or the Outbreak; only before. How will his family bring back the man they once knew?

Pairing: Joel Miller x OC

Notes: I wanted to apologise for a stupid mistake I made in the last chapter, I mentioned that Ada fixed Joel's injury with no medical knowledge; only to remember weeks later that she's a vet as part of her character skills and I completely overlooked it while writing the last chapter so I'm sorry for that. And sorry to my lovely Adaline; because it makes total sense that she would be able to tend to his wound rather easily so I hope that doesn't spoil that last flashback too much my bad hehe

Also I apologise that it's been a while since my last chapter, I'm not going to lie this one has been a bitch to write and I'm still not 100% happy with it so I just sincerely hope it doesn't disappoint.

Chapter Twelve

Ada didn't remember falling asleep. But she certainly felt it when she woke up. Her joints cracking and popping from the curled up position she was laid in all night. Everything ached from her shoulders, to her back and her toes.

The last of her dreams faded as she rubbed the sleep from her eyes. A quick glance at the clock telling her that she had slept through the better part of a day and half and although she had slept; she didn't feel rested in the slightest. The memories came flooding back, bringing with it that weight that pushed against her chest so tightly until she could barely breathe. Everything that had happened the day before felt like a bad nightmare, where her fears and worries had all come true. Joel hated her. Had more or less disowned her and Ellie. And it was her fault. The sadness and the tears were gone leaving her numb. All she had left was anger.

Yes she had made the wrong call leaving Joel as she had but it was Tommy who had thrown her under the bus. Not giving her the time she had needed to explain. It had all happened so quickly it had made her head spin. It wasn't fair.

There was no logic or reason in leaving her home and storming through the town to find her brother in law. There was no reason to slug the poor man in the face with a swift right hook either but that still didn't stop Ada from doing it away when she saw him.

The world only came back into focus when Maria had restrained her; her vision finally clearing to see Tommy holding his bloody nose.

"What the hell do you think you're doing Ada?!" Maria cried in shocked anger. "What has gotten into you?!"

"Let me go, Maria!"

"Not until you tell me what's going on!" The blonde demanded, holding Ada's arms behind her back: her grip getting tighter the more she struggled. Tommy stumbled forward still holding his nose, spitting a mouthful of blood by his feet before looking up at his wife.

"Maria it's okay...let her go." He asked woefully. Maria just scoffed in disbelief at his request, as if it was the most crazy thing in the world. She attempted to argue but the younger Miller just waved a dismissive hand at her words; his other pinching the bridge of his nose in a bid to stop the bleeding, that was now staining it's way down the front of his shirt. The townspeople were beginning to gather, a rumble of murmurs breaking out amongst the crowd at the sight of their leader being injured by one of their own.

That still didn't stop Ada from taking another swing at Tommy. Only this one didn't make contact as Maria stopped her, twisting her arm and pinning it to her back again.

"That is enough!" She roared, staring down both her husband and her sister in law. "Now you two had better tell what in the hell is going on!"

Tommy winced against the pain shooting through his nose and jaw; turning to look at the crowd staring with wide eyes. His own falling to the floor, not quite able to look at both women in front of him.

"Maybe we'd better go inside to talk." He suggested quietly; making his way back towards his home with Ada and Maria following behind. The brunette struggled her way out of Maria's grip and reluctantly she gave in and let go; turning on her heel and barking orders at the crowd to disperse and get back to whatever it was they were doing before. They did eventually albeit hesitantly. Ada glanced over her shoulder and watched them go as she made her way towards Tommy's; her brain quickly catching up with her actions. God... what they must think of her now. She was just grateful Ellie hadn't seen it; just as grateful as she was that the teen had chosen to stay with Dina the day before. Heaven only knew what she would've thought had she heard Joel's cold words when he'd left. She tried not to think about it as she looked down at her shaking hands; her right now turning red and swelling slightly. The shame engulfed her almost as rapidly as the anger had. And now she had to face the consequences of that anger.

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"...And after that he just left? You didn't even try to stop him?" Maria asked sadly as she poured Ada another whisky into her glass. She didn't waste any time downing the brown liquid as quickly as she did her first; coughing slightly as it burned her throat.

"What would've been the point? I tried to explain things and he made it perfectly clear that he wasn't in the mood to listen."

The nausea had come back; whether it was caused by the whiskey on an empty stomach or the stress of retelling what had happened between her and Joel yesterday, Ada wasn't sure. Though she guessed it was probably the former, if her headache was anything to go by. She slumped further into her chair as a deep sigh left her lungs; everything was such a mess and she was tired of feeling so hopeless. She turned the empty glass along her hand that grasped it, her eyes red and raw from the tears and the worst night of sleep she'd had in weeks. "Maybe Joel is right." She wondered aloud. "Maybe this is all my fault and I deserve this. I'd hate me too."

Maria shook her head defiantly at Ada's words, reaching over to take the glass from her and placing it back onto the coffee table between them. "Joel doesn't hate you. And as far as blame goes...I'd say we're all at fault for how we handled this. Some of us more than others." She stated bitterly, her blue cold eyes glaring at her husband sitting across from her on the living room couch. A small rag of wrapped ice held to his face. The man rolled his eyes and scoffed, pulling the ice pack from his nose and resting it by his knee as he leaned forward.

"I already told you that I was sorry. I don't know what else you want me to say."

"And I told you to keep that damn ice on your nose to take down the swelling." She berated without taking a breath. "You had no right to go behind Ada's back like that! And Joel didn't deserve to find out the way he did either!"

She was right. Tommy knew she was right. Always was. He owed his brother a hell of a lot more than yelling the truth at him like he had. But he had just been so angry. So frustrated; it had come out before he could stop it and then it had been too late to take it back. He honestly hadn't expected Joel to react the way he did. So cold and harsh with the way he'd shouted at Ada...Tommy knew how much his brother loved her. And yet he'd all but ambushed the poor woman to get answers. He uttered another apology and sat back with the ice cooling his throbbing nose that was now beginning to bruise. He didn't blame Ada for hitting him either; he'd definitely deserved it. There were a lot of things all of them wished they could've done differently. Hindsight was a nice thing in theory but now it was proving to be painfully useless once the damage was already done.

His sister in law rose from her seat and as he watched her pace about the room, the more his guilt niggled at him. She ran her hands through her greying roots and down through the fading brunette locks that cascaded down her back, they were still shaking as she moved to rest them on her neck while she continued pacing.

"Ada..." He tried cautiously." Ada..."

"You shouldn't blame Tommy for this Maria, this is my fault." She interjected and paused looking down at the blonde who could only give the woman a look of pity in return. "I mean it, Joel was right with everything he said. I'm a fucking coward!" The couple shared a look as Ada laughed bitterly at her words. "I was too afraid to deal with what happened so I left. Because I was terrified that if I had stayed...If I had tried to help him remember, forcing him to live with a damn stranger; he'd eventually decide that life was better without me. It's stupid and it's selfish..." her voice quivered as she held back tears, her arms falling from her neck to hold herself. "...but there it is."

Maria was quick to reassure her; rushing to her feet and pulling her into a hug. Ada pulled back as she was offered an old handkerchief from the other woman's pocket. Her sniffles subsiding as she was encouraged to sit down again.

"Ada, Joel loves you. He might not remember that but it doesn't just go away. You still have a chance to fix things."

Ada scoffed out a wet sob and shook her head. "No...it's over Maria. As far as he's concerned; I'm just the coldhearted bitch that abandoned him."

"Wait...Joel actually said that?" Tommy asked aghast, his eyes wide. The woman just shrugged dismissively. "He didn't have too...Though it's nothing less than I deserve.

Tommy wished she would stop being so hard on herself. He understood her guilt more than most and he hadn't even agreed with the plan in the first place. It just hadn't sat right with him to lie to Joel about his family. But then he'd spoken to his brother and realized just how much of his memory had been lost. And it seemed that he was losing himself in it. Joel was becoming angry and bitter at the world for taking something from him, for harming him in a way he hadn't been able to control. It was eerily similar to the darkness he'd descended into when he'd lost Sarah. When he'd lost all hope for happiness and decency. There was no mercy or love. It was just a means to an end in order to survive. That wall that Joel had built around himself to keep the world out. To keep emotions just out of reach. And Tommy feared his brother falling into it again. Ellie and Ada had pulled him out of it once, he had hoped they would've been able to do it again. Now he was starting to worry he'd been wrong.

He pulled back the rag and thankfully it seemed as though his nose had stopped bleeding. He discarded the spoiled cloth on the coffee table; taking in the silence that had fallen in the room. Both his wife and sister in law sat quietly with the same tired looks and stern frowns upon their faces. No one had the answers anymore, no matter how much they pretended they did.

"Ada..." his voice was quiet but it caught her attention as she glanced up at him. "I'm sorry."

She nodded meekly and smiled. "Me too. I'm sorry I punched you in the face." He laughed; waving his hand coolly as he shrugged. "Nah, don't worry about it. I mean I'm pretty sure you broke my nose but ya know...we're good sis." Ada laughed as Maria jokingly rolled her eyes at her husband's dramatics. It was badly bruised at best, both they and Tommy knew that. But Ada appreciated him trying to lighten the mood. It was the first time in a long time that she'd truly laughed since Joel's attack. And it was nice to feel something other than grief for even a second.

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Ellie tried to keep up with the rushing of her mind the quicker her pace picked up. She'd already been home to find the place empty, the only other place she could think to check would be Tommy and Maria's to find her mother. Her sneakers skidded slightly against the porch wood when she stopped to tap on the door. Her surrogate aunt greeting her with a warm smile as she opened the front door.

"Is my mom here?" The teen asked softly. Maria simply nodded, letting the young girl inside and following her into the living room. She walked in to find her mom and Tommy sat together chuckling lowly at their shared stories and fond memories. A half emptied bottle of whiskey sitting between them, with three half drunk glasses on the table. Ellie figured the three of them must've been here most of the day. Her mom shifted when she noticed her daughter, scooting along the couch to make room for her. Ellie made her way around the coffee table towards them, wincing when she saw the state of Tommy's face. "Jeez what the fuck happened to you?" She asked in concern. But Tommy just snorted a laugh. "It's a long story, don't worry about it."

The girl scoffed, a sarcastic smile spreading across her face as sat down.

"Is everything okay?"

She couldn't stop herself from fidgeting at her mother's question, instantly going back to her nervous habit. Her fingernail beds were already sore from the hours she'd spent picking at them. "I uh...I can't find Joel. I wanted to talk to him. I stopped by the house but he wasn't there." Stunned silence filled the room at Ellie's admission, Tommy's face full of confusion when he glanced at her beside him.

"Why'd you want to talk to him?" He asked. She took a moment before answering, looking to her mom with sadness in her eyes.

"I heard what happened between you two yesterday. I know what he said about us."

"Oh sweetheart, come here." She didn't say anything as Ada pulled her into her arms, instead just snuggled further into her warmth. Her head leaning against her shoulder. Hands once buried inside her jacket sleeves.

"I just thought maybe I could try talking to him...maybe if I tell him everything he'd understand or he'd forgive us for leaving." She explained." This is my fucking fault! This happened to him because of me; because of what he did to protect me...I need him to know I'm sorry...that I'm trying to fix things. That I'm trying to make it better and when we find them we can--"

"Wait, hold on, find who?"

Oh shit now Ellie had done it. She pulled back from her mother's arms, a look of guilt pulled at her brows as she chewed nervously at her lip. She tried to avoid eye contact but was only greeted with more accusing stares from Maria and Tommy.

"Ellie.." Maria uttered disapprovingly. But she didn't answer once again, attempting to avoid the eyes staring at her.

"Ellie what aren't you telling us?"

"Promise you won't get mad?" It was a big ask. Ellie knew that when she finally took the chance to look her mother in the eye, hoping that she'd soften even just a little bit. But all she saw was worry and that only made her feel worse for lying to her.

"Ellie." She warned sternly and the girl knew she had to come clean. She took a deep breath, her head falling in defeat as she finally gave in.

"Okay...I lied before. I wasn't staying at Dina's the last couple of days...we've been staying at one of the outposts outside of town tracking the fireflies...or what was left of them from Abbey's group."

"I'm sorry you've been doing what?!" "Are you insane?!" She flinched at both her mother and Maria's outbursts that echoed together in the heavy silence of the room. She shared a look with Tommy as he flashed her a small smile of gratitude but it flickered away as quickly as it came when both women rose to their feet in a rush of anger and frustrated annoyance.

"Ellie, we've talked about this and we agreed to leave it alone."

"No you fucking decided!" The teen challenged as she snapped to her feet, her face snarling into a roaring temper that could easily rival her mother's. "Those fuckers could come back! They already found us once, what's stopping them coming back to finish what they started?!"

Ada scoffed at Ellie's argument throwing her hands up, exasperated they were having this argument yet again! She understood her daughter's worries but she was certain the Fireflies had no reason to come back. They thought Joel was dead and she was determined to keep it that way. They'd had this same conversation again and again and yet every time Ellie would always push back.

"She's right."

The girls all fell silent to the single voice that spoke up, as all eyes turned to Tommy. Maria seething at her husband and Ada downright irritated that he'd shamelessly encourage this reckless behaviour. Ellie just appreciated having Tommy on her side at least.

"Tommy..." Maria warned, her eyes pleading him to stop.

"Well she is! Do you really wanna live the rest of our lives looking over our shoulders?! Just hoping to God that those bastards don't come back. Yeah they think Joel is dead but for how long? They already managed to get word he was living in Jackson in the first damn place...what do you think they'll do when they realise that he's not quite as dead as they thought?" He paused, stopping to look at Ada as she held back her tears, her bottom lip quivering and he was quick to her side. His hand resting on her shoulder.

"Look I'm sorry... I know this is not what you want to hear right now but Ellie has a point. We can end this. If it were any of us, Joel would be halfway there already."

She shook her head, her breath catching in her throat. "No he wouldn't." She argued.

"He absolutely fucking would!" Ellie shouted. Her words stopped them all dead. Knowing looks exchanged between the adults before walking to huddle by the table. They knew Ellie was right. If any one of them in that room had been attacked; Joel would be doing everything he could to get them the justice they deserved. He'd never lay down and let them get away with it. Ada let out a sigh of defeat as she looked back to Ellie, gesturing for her to sit back down. She did, though moved hesitant at first. Ada sat silent, her mind clearing and calculating for a second as she sat with her hands rested against her mouth before she eventually lowered them to speak. "So...you were tracking those bastards...did you find any?" She asked apprehensively. Ellie swallowed hard and cleared her throat, sitting up in her seat before nodding.

"Yeah...Dina and I watched the area for hours. Most of the group left but a couple stayed behind at the hunting lodge. Two of them...I don't know their names. They were packing up their stuff. We followed them out when they went hunting for food. Managed to lure some infected on the way back..." Ellie didn't realise she was shaking as she spoke until her mother took her hand and squeezed it gently. "We stood and watched as the clickers tore those fuckers apart.."

"Good riddance." Tommy stated bitterly.

"I came back to tell you what happened but then I heard the neighbours gossiping about what happened between you and Joel, all that stuff he said. I thought I could fix it. But when I went to the house he wasn't there. So I sent Dina to ask around town if anyone had seen him and I came here." Adaline nodded slowly, taking everything in. She looked at Tommy and Maria both sharing the same lost look on their faces. They all knew what they needed to do next. It was just a case of whether they had any strength left to do it.

Though Ada never got the chance to answer; instead their heads turned to the direction of stomping footsteps and the door bursting opening to a breathless Dina, panting as she almost slipped on the doormat under her boots. Ellie flew to her feet and darted to her girlfriend, asking her what was wrong.

"It's Joel!" She gasped. "He's gone..."

#the last of us #Joel Miller #joel and ellie #the last of us part 2 #joel miller x oc #the last of us part ii #ellie williams #fanfiction #tlou #joel miller #starlessskies writes

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emilia3546 · 3 years

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Shadowsinger Part 22 - Gwynriel

ACOSF Spoilers! Do Not read this unless you have finished ACOSF and the Azriel bonus chapter*

Masterlist with all previous chapters

TW: Mentions of past SA

*****

Gwyn smiled softly at the female who showed her around, both dropping their gazes when a group of males turned the corner, and Gwyn fought the urge to squirm under their prolonged gaze,

"You alright?" Shit, she must have noticed,

"Yes. Fine, I just wish they wouldn't stare too long,"

"Take it as a compliment, it's the only way to really ignore them,"

"Oh, it's not that," it totally was that, but she wasn't going to admit it, that would open other conversations that she didn't want to have, maybe with Nesta and Emerie, maybe with Azriel, but not someone she just met, "It's my husband," she lied. "He doesn't like when other males look to long, I'd hate someone to get hurt."

"Oh. Fair enough." She fell into silence, a hint of sadness crossing her features for a moment, but she hid it away too quickly for Gwyn to figure her out, shaking her head and smiling again quickly, "Since you're not a seamstress, we'll get you to help with collecting laundry for now, Cauldron knows there's a lot now," Gwyn chuckled despite herself,

"That's the thing with armies isn't it, they do make a mess,"

"They do, especially these young boys, they have no idea that their shit gets tidied up by someone, not just magic," Gwyn chuckled again, but she didn't miss the flash of fear, undisguisable this time, "Please don't repeat that."

"Never," Gwyn promised, "You can speak freely around me,"

"No." The other female whispered, "I can't. Even if you don't tell my brother, someone else might hear, the walls are thin here, but thank you." She offered Gwyn a smile before slipping away, and Gwyn made to call after her, but had no idea what to say, she didn't even know her name. Perhaps she was used to people not bothering to learn it. Gwyn made a silent promise to herself to learn every female's name here before they left. She sighed, finding her way down the corridor, and knocked on the first door, hoping that the room's occupant would be gone, and she could just grab the laundry and run,

"Hello," the door swung open, and Gwyn stepped back, "To what do I owe the pleasure," the male ran his gaze up and down Gwyn's body, then tugged her chin up, holding on when she tried to pull away, "Don't be rude," he chastised, and Gwyn trembled, her fear not completely an act, "Come to keep me warm, huh?" she'd never be able to go for her dagger quickly enough if he decided to try anything. She blinked back the tears welling in her eyes, she could still take him down, all she needed to do was break his hold, she could easily manage that, a quick punch to his elbow joint, then she'd duck under his arm, throw a punch to the nose, a knee to the groin, she'd be gone before he knew what had happened. With a plan in her head she squashed down that fear, she wasn't helpless anymore, Azriel would have never let her do this, never brought her if he didn't think she could throw down with every male here and win. And she could win, she didn't need her dagger, she just needed to be quicker than him. She swallowed when the male tugged her face from side to side,

"Let go, please," she said, wriggling, but he only tightened his hold, ignoring her request, and ran his gaze along her body again, the entitlement in that gaze making her see red, but she held her tongue, she had to try and get out of this without drawing attention first, if that failed, then she'd break his balls.

"What's a pretty thing like you doing here?"

"My husband sent me to help the others with laundry, sir," she muttered, hating every word, but placed enough emphasis on her husband that the male let go,

"Why are the good ones always married?" He muttered angrily, "Go on then," she slipped past him, half-surprised that he'd let her go, although it was probably more for his own skin than hers, after all, if he'd tried anything more, Azriel would be forced to demand a duel. Not that she worried for Azriel, none of the males here would last a minute, but it would draw attention, attention they did not need. She subtly glanced around the room, nothing of note, she wouldn't bother searching here.

She nodded to the male as she slipped back out past him, her heart still hammering against her chest. She only relaxed once she heard the door close, the male's gaze no longer boring into the back of her head, and knocked on the next one, finding it empty, but with a pile of laundry to be collected, and nothing helpful upon a quick sweep of the room. The next few rooms were similarly useless, a few having occupants, one female, left there by her father, who didn't trust her not to 'do something dumb', in other words, run off. She seemed so bored and lonely that Gwyn did wait with her for a few minutes, offering much need conversation, her name was Laylah, she was from Ironcrest, and she was twenty, unmarried, and hated being here. Gwyn offered her own, fake, name, and explained what she was doing, suggesting that she ask her father if she could help, saying that she might well be able to simply help with clothing repair. Laylah grinned at that and agreed, waving as Gwyn left. The next two rooms each had a single male occupant, one simply waved her in, paying her no attention, the other stared a bit, but left her alone, it seemed the fake wedding band was doing it's job, mostly.

The final door on that corridor did not lead to a bedchamber, nor was there any laundry to collect, but it was interesting, an office of some sort. She slipped inside, closing the door behind her, with the bag of laundry leaning against it, there was an open window, if it came to it, she could jump out and be hidden beneath the ledge before anyone could see her. This didn't seem too important, but Gwyn rifled through the drawers, ignoring most things, but a letter caught her eye, one between the late Queen Briallyn, and someone who seemed to be a general. The letter was encoded somehow, and Gwyn didn't know enough to be able to decipher it, she glanced around the room, finding a blank piece of paper, and copied down the letter, rolling up the copy and slipping it into the bodice of her gown before setting everything back to rights, there was no trace she'd been in there when she left.

The corridor was, thankfully, empty when Gwyn re-emerged, quickly running back to deposit the laundry and continue collecting the rest of it. Most rooms she visited that day were just as useless as the first few, but there were some that she mentally marked to come back to, either when they were empty, or she had more time, or fewer eyes on her. She lost track of the time, running to get back to their room before that evening's training finished, she was expected to be there waiting, and if she wasn't there, someone would guess something was up.

The hallways were empty as she flew along them, slowing to a brisk walk when she heard voices at the end of their corridor,

"She not there?" Shit. Azriel would have to berate her now, in front of those others, whether they were the same as before or not, she'd hoped not to force him to do that,

"Amirah! where have you been?" Gwyn almost flinched at the accusatory tone, it's not real. It's not real.

"I-"

"You know what, I don't care," she leapt forwards, towards making Azriel's comforting hand on her lower back look like a shove, but relaxed, it wasn't a big deal then, "Get in there," she ran inside, hiding in the corner until the voice faded and Azriel shut the door, "You okay? Something happen?"

"Not really, just an idiot, I lost track of time, I should have gotten back earlier, I hate to put you in a difficult position."

"Nah, you didn't, you just solidified their belief in us, letting me 'scare' you inside,"

"Like you could scare me," she scoffed, "You're a soppy baby at heart, Shadowsinger,"

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah. I'm the one who does the protecting around here." Azriel laughed again,

"Whatever would I do without my beautiful little Valkyrie?"

"Die, probably," Gwyn muttered, wrinkling her nose up when Azriel leaned down to kiss her cheek, "Oi, go away, I'm trying to concentrate,"

"So, I'm distracting?"

"I think you know the answer to that," she rolled her eyes, "Listen now, I found something," all jokes died at those words,

"Show me,"

"A letter, from Briallyn to a general, I think. It's in code, I don't know how to decrypt it, I'm hoping you will."

"Let me see," Azriel leaned back in his chair and pursed his lips as he studied the letter, "It's an old code, one I haven't seen in a while, I don't remember it all, but, hang on a minute, you got a pencil?" Gwyn silently handed one over, rather inappropriately smiling at the way his hair fell over his forehead when he leaned forwards to note down the encryption he remembered. "Are you staring at me, Gwyn?"

"What can I say, you're quite useful as my eye candy," he snorted in disbelief, but silently shook his head,

"You're a menace, Berdara,"

"You can thank Nesta for that," she grinned, standing to cross the room, leaning over him, an elbow resting on his shoulder as he noted down the last few words he'd been able to decipher.

"Not groundbreaking, I'm afraid, but we do know that they're planning something. She mentioned a winged army, the Illyrians I think, so whatever the big plan is, it's been in the works a while,"

"Mhhhm, here, does that name ring any bells?"

"Don't think so, why?"

"I met a female with that name today, maybe it means nothing, but, any ideas about the words around it?" Azriel frowned back at the letter,

"Something about her father, what did you find out about her?"

"She's from Ironcrest, unmarried, lives alone with her father, who doesn't really trust her, she's restless, wants to explore the world, it seemed like her father's looking for ways to tie her down. She's still unclipped, thank the Cauldron, but she wanted to escape a bit I think, does it say anything about her role, or just that she exists?"

"Hang on," he started writing out what seemed to be a sort of dodgy alphabet, cross referencing to the letter, "You got your notes on the queens?"

"Yeah?"

"Who's married?"

"None, one is widowed, with a son."

"They want to marry Laylah to that boy."

"But she's immortal!"

"I don't think they care. She's the Camp Lord's daughter," she hadn't mentioned that earlier, "The male's a monster, he'll see this as a way to build an alliance,"

"By selling his daughter into marriage with a human, whose people hate all fae?"

"Yes. She's not a person in his eyes, just something he can use to improve his standing, to bring him closer to ruling all of Illyria, not just Ironcrest, he's never kept his ambitions secret,"

"Why am I only just hearing about this now?"

"Because I didn't think it was relevant, I hadn't even considered that it might be a part of his motivations for leaving, but if we're right," he trailed off, "Shit." he finished, "If we're right, we'll have to take her with us when we leave, can you get close to her again? Subtly try and see if she's loyal to the Night Court or not?"

"Yeah, that should be fine, but what if I can't get to her?"

"Just try, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it." She sighed and stepped back when Azriel pushed his chair out, tugging her into his lap. She sighed again and looped her arms around his neck, leaning into him as she closed her eyes. "You said there was an idiot earlier?"

"He, um, it doesn't matter,"

"Yes, it does," Azriel pressed a kiss to the top of her head, his thumb stroking up and down her ribcage, "It's clearly upset you, whatever it is, talk to me, please,"

"The great Spymaster begging, not something I expected," she laughed,

"Stop deflecting, if you don't want to talk, that's fine, but I'm worried about you, okay? You're alone out there, and someone upset you, I'd like to help if I can,"

"Az, really, it's okay, it was just one of the males making a few comments, and he just made me uncomfortable,"

"Just some comments?"

"And, um, he grabbed my face," she quieted when he stilled, going dangerously quiet, "He let go, Az,"

"Before or after you mentioned your 'husband'?" Oh shit, she couldn't lie, he'd know, and she didn't want him to think she didn't trust him, she did, but she didn't want him upset, she didn't want him to do something stupid,

"After," she whispered, turning in his lap to cup his face at the shuddering breath he drew in, "It's okay, he didn't hurt me, and he let me go, I'm fine, it's not worth it,"

"He scared you." Not a question, but Gwyn answered anyway,

"Yes." She looked away, afraid to see the disappointment that she couldn't defend herself against one male,

"Who was it?" Gwyn shook her head, "Who, Gwyn?" He softened his voice, but the threat was no less clear,

"I'm not telling you, you'll kill him, and draw attention, and bust our cover,"

"I don't care,"

"You don't care? I care, we're here for a reason, are you hearing yourself right now?" She demanded, glaring at him, but relented slightly at the fear in his eyes beneath the layers of anger, he was worried about her, and that was allowed, but she couldn't let him jeopardize their mission for her.

*****

Gwyn was right, he wasn't thinking straight, but all he wanted was to find that male, whoever he was, and tear him apart with his bare hands. This male who'd thought to put his hands on the female he loved, the female who'd time and again proven that she was the strongest person he knew. He would kill everyone in this damn palace if he had to, but he had to know who it was, at least so that he could makes sure that the male didn't walk off any future battlefield. She was still staring at him, and he sighed, drawing in a few deep breaths, her calmness helping to ground him as she rubbed her thumbs across his cheekbone,

"I know," she muttered, "I know, I wanted to break his balls, but we can't, once we have what we need, once we're leaving, then you can kill him." There was no hesitation in her eyes, she wanted the male dealt with, and she wouldn't begrudge him this, but she put their mission first, like he should. Still, the idea of letting someone who had hurt her just wander around was too much, he should put the mission first, but for some reason he couldn't.

She's worried you think less of her for not punching him in the gut, she did want to though.

Of course, she did, it's Gwyn.

She thinks you'll be disappointed.

"Gwyn?" Azriel slowly turned her face back towards him, "Are you really okay?"

"Yes. Why do you keep asking?"

"I'm waiting for an answer I believe."

"Well, I'm fine,"

"I'm not buying it, Gwyn, please, let me help,"

"I'm fine, I'm not hurt, I played the 'husband' card and he let me go, it rattled me, and he scared me, and I couldn't even deal with one male, and that's pathetic, but I'm fine. I'm fine surrounded by these types of males, I can defend myself, apparently, but today I failed, but not every female here can, and I have you to shout for, to threaten with, what if they don't? What if their husbands, fathers, brothers don't care? What if they are those males? I couldn't deal with one, and I'm supposed to be able to, and what if I panic when it really matters, what if something happens again at some point and I just panic?" She was shaking as she spoke, unable to stop the words, and Azriel just held her, brushing the tears away, letting her speak, "I'm supposed to be good at this, I can defend myself, but I got scared, and for a few seconds I lost it, I only made a plan once it was too late if he'd tried anything, he could have done anything before I'd sorted my mind out to stop him." She sucked in an unsteady breath, then another, and another, shallower, faster.

"Breathe in," Azriel ordered, "No, in," she released the breath, "Gwyn. Breathe in." She did as he said, panic flooding her gaze as she clung to him, "Now hold it," she was still sobbing quietly, but she did hold the breath, "Now breathe out." She did and immediately sucked in a shallow breath, "I want you to hold when you breathe out as well, love," She nodded, struggling to draw in another deep breath, but held Azriel's gaze, "I've got you," she breathed in, and held it, "I love you," she breathed out, and held it, "You're safe," in again, "You're here with me," out and hold, "You are the bravest," she drew in another breath, more controlled this time, "The strongest female I've ever met."

She released the breath, finally able to breathe without holding in between breaths, "I am always, always in awe of you, Gwyn, you astound me every day. Today, you found your head, you didn't let your fear win, you escaped the situation." She nodded, and buried her face in his neck, still managing those deep breaths, murmuring something to herself, but when she quieted, Azriel continued, "Every day that you don't let the fear win in a victory, each time you win out over that fear is another 'fuck you' to the ones who hurt you, each time you choose to be happy over being afraid is another day that I am in awe of you," his own tears were falling now, "Please, Gwyn, never think less of yourself for your fear, it is only with that fear that you can be brave, there is no courage without fear, and you prove every day, that I have no idea, none, what true courage is. You have that true courage, and it's part of why I fell for you, and no-one can take it from you, no-one, so promise me one thing, never forget that, never forget that your courage cannot be broken, not by anyone, and certainly not by your fear. Can you promise me that, never forget?" Gwyn sniffed, and snuggled into him again, but nodded, sending another tears slipping down Azriel's own face,

"I promise."

#fanfiction #fanfic #acotar #acosf #a court of thorns and roses #a court of silver flames #Gwyn #gwynriel #azriel x gwyn #gwyneth berdara #Gwyn acosf #Azriel #Azwyn

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prismatales · 5 years

Text

Bakugo With a quirkless Sibling

I accidently deleted this one the other day, and took advantage to edit them some more.

WARNING: Mentions of bullying, swearing attempted suicide, angst with a happy ending

• By the time Bakugo was in his last year of middle school his sister was still a toddler, barely three years old so there was barely any interactions between the two of them.

• Since the day (Y/N) was born he would be on babysitting duty when their parents couldn't find a babysitter, he wasn't a bad brother, he was distant but responsible, always making sure his sister was well-fed, clean and busy, other than that he wouldn't actually pay attention to them, too busy studying and training to be a hero. so their relationship wasn't that close to begin with.

• Their parents would often come home to find little (Y/N) sleeping on the baby seat or busy with some toy, and her brother doing his homework on the coffe table.

• When Bakugo moved into the school dorms (Y/N) was almost five years old, and when her quirk never appeared their parents realized their youngest child was quirkless. They tried to comfort the little girl who was awfully quiet as tears ran down their tiny face.

• The day after the fight with Deku, Bakugo found out (Y/N) was quirkless, he appeared calm on the outside, but when he was alone on his room the guilt he felt on the inside was immense, it was karma wasn't it? all the times he kept bullying Deku came to mind.

• He remembers that time his "friends" came home for a group project, how they had been talking shit about the boy and he didn't realize (Y/N) was listening until one of the guys pointed out the "brat" looking at them from the stairs, he quickly went to take (Y/N) to her room, not before glaring at his classmates, nobody insults his sister and gets away with it.

• He wanted to go home and talk to her, he knew what this meant, children can be cruel, but he couldn't leave school grounds because of the suspension, if he did Aizawa would extend it. he could only hope things would be fine at home.

• Bakugo was wrong.

• (Y/N)'s birthday was coming, she always got excited for her birthday, but this year was different, she barely came out of her room and wouldn't talk to their parents, somehow the other children had found out she was quirkless and wouldn't stop making fun of her, some went as far as to rip their birthday invitation in front of her as they laughed.

• Mitsuki was furious, so was Masaru, they had talked to the principal about the situation and were told the teacher was trying to make the kids stop, but there was little they could do, some of them just wouldn't listen, they had tried talking to the parents or other family members as well to no avail.

• Bakugo was desperate to see his sister, when he got the call from his parents his worry was beginning to grow even bigger. One day things just got worse.

• It was his turn to take out the trash when he ran into someone he never thought he'd see again, one of his ex-clasmates from middle school, one of his so called friends, the smug look on his face made him wary, Bakugo had a bad feeling and he didn't like it one bit. Specially when the bastard mentioned (Y/N).

• "Have they tried jumping out of a roof already?" Smoke was starting to come out of Bakugo's hands "What did you just say?!" the guy just started checking out his nails nonchalantly "Oh nothing really, i'm just saying I would check on them if I were you, I may have had a little talk with them this morning and told them what their dear brother said to one of his quirkless classmates"

• That moment nothing mattered to Bakugo, he was seeing red, this fucking extra was trying to kill a child, HIS little sister to make it worse, he didn't realize he had thrown a punch until he heard the bastard screaming in pain, he was laying on the floor holding his face, Bakugo had definitely broken his nose, that same moment Deku came looking for him, when he saw who was in the floor he was surprised.

• "kacchan, what happened?! what's he doing here?" "This! This bastard went and told (Y/N) to kill herself!" he was furiously holding the guy's shirt in a death-grip. Then he remembered one thing he said.

• I would check on them if i were you

• His cellphone snapped him out of his thought, it was his Father.

• (Y/N) had locked herself in her room and wouldn't stop crying, she wouldn't stop screaming Katsuki would hate them too, just like everyone else in school

• His heart stopped for a second, he felt his soul leaving his body from the panic he was feeling, Bakugo couldn't stay and do nothing anymore, screw the detention! (Y/N) was in danger!

• He shoved the guy towards Deku and told him not to let him get away.

• "W-wait, Kacchan! Where are you going?!" "I have to see (Y/N)'s safe!" he ran off as fast a he could.

• Meanwhile said guy was trying to run away, just for a hand to catch his shoulder and start squeezing so hard he could almost feel his shoulder was about to break, Deku had a murderous aura on him, the last time someone tried to harm a child was when he saved Eri-chan, he wouldn't let that happen again, not on his watch.

• Bakugo ran home as fast as he could, he didn't care if he was suspended or even expelled for punching a civilian, all he cared about what saving his sister, he would make sure she was safe, he promised himself to protect her.

• By the time Bakugo had arrived at his house there was a police car outside, he went pale thinking the worst, what happened?! was (Y/N) ok!? was he too late?!

• he slammed the door open to be met with the sight of two police officers, his father was trying to comfort his crying mother...

• and his little sister was in her arms, eyes and face all red and puffy from crying, but she was safe and sound.

• the weight on his shoulders disappeared, he didn't realized he was holding his breath until he let out a sigh of relief, once the adults noticed the teen's presence his parents were surprised. Mitsuki loosened her hold on (Y/N), who looked a this brother with a fear of rejection.

• "Katsuki? what are you doing here?"

• He didn't pay any attention to his Mother, quickly running up to his parents and taking his sister from his mother's hold and into one of the tightest hugs he's ever given them in all his life as he dropped on his knees. He couldn't stop the tears as he apologized to them over and over again, voice breaking as he cradled them.

• The officers explained the child had been trying to jump out of their window, and while his parents were trying to talk sense into them one of the officers was outside distracting them, the other officer had to break down the door and quickly snatched the kid away from the window and into their parent's arms.

• In a crying fit (Y/N) told the officers how the cousin of one of his classmates told them how Bakugo hated quirkless people, how he would always bully Deku in class, even telling him to jump off a roof. He told them that they should save his brother the trouble of dealing with an useless brat like them and to jump from a roof themselves. It was the guy he had punched, he had been friends with Bakugo and had been clearly jealous he couldn't enter U.A.

• Bakugo told them he had actually run into the guy and what he said to him about his sibling with little to no remorse, he also told them about the punch and that he should be in U.A. where he left him with a classmate. After taking his declaration the officers went to U.A. to take the guy in. He was going to get charges for endangering and verbally harassing a child.

• Once the officers left his parents had a talk with him, he told them the truth about the things he said and how he regreted what he said and did to Deku that day, they were angry, specially his father, and while nothing happened to Deku he would still be grounded. Bakugo couldn't disagree.

• Aizawa was furious when Midoriya came up to him dragging the bloody teen and explained what Bakugo did, the teacher was seriously considering expelling Bakugo when the police arrived and told him about the situation, hearing the circumstances made him change his mind, specially when they told him about the things the guy said to a child, once they took the screaming asshole away the teacher talked to the principal, and after some arrangements they called Bakugo's house.

• The school allowed Bakugo to stay for a few day at home, but he was still suspended, he didn't mind.

• During that time Bakugo became a totally different person towards his sister. he stopped being the distant brother he used to be and became an over-protective brother instead, (Y/N) wanted to go to the park? he would take them to the park, they wanted to play with him?, he would make sure to play with her until she got tired out. Their playtime sessions would vary from roughhousing to tea parties, Mitsuki had plenty of picture of his son sporting a tiara and sitting on the floor playing with (Y/N).

• He made sure (Y/N) was happy during her birthday party, even if most of their classmates didn't show up, he told her not to care about those extras.

• His parents decided to pull (Name) from their old school and enroll them into one where the staff had a strict anti-bullying policy, they wouldn't tolerate their kid going through more bullying.

• have you seen that video where a dad is carrying his daughter as they sing "girls like you" in the bathroom? Masaru has a video where Bakugo's doing the same thing with (Y/N).

• Once Bakugo goes back to class some of his classmates asked him about his sister, he's ready to kill Deku thinking the snitched, turns out the case made it to the news due to the severity of the situation, (Y/N)'s previous school tried to wash their hands and blame the guy, just to have proof of previous stances of bullying shoved down their throats, his sister was just one of many cases.

• He just told them (Y/N) was fine while looking at his phone, this time Mitsuki had caught her husband copying your guy's video and sent it to her son, he was trying to hold back his laughter.

• When the school festival was close his friends told him to bring (Name) so the whole classroom could meet her, he was against the idea, first because the festival was school-only, second he claimed they would be a nothing but bad influences for (Y/N). It took a lot of convincing but he ended up saying yes and got permission to bring his sister to the festival, but the moment she started saying anything remotely close to swear words he would kill them all.

• "Wait, you mean you never swear around her?" "Of course not, what kind of brother do you take me for you shitty hair?!" "who are you and what have you done to Bakugo?!" "Ah?!"

• The day of the festival everyone was waiting for Bakugo to show up with a gremlin, they didn't expect a sweet little girl so adorable that it was like you were looking at another Eri-chan. They didn't expect to see her sitting on Bakugo's shoulders either.

• "Are they adopted?" "no, why?" "cause they're nothing like you at all" "you fu--dgy Pikachu!"

• All of his classmates were clearly dotting on her, Mina and Hagakure wouldn't stop poking her cheeks, Koda was showing her his pet bunny, (Y/N) was having the time of their live hanging from Shoji's arms.

• Bakugo actually laughed when Deku tried to greet her, (Y/N) just gave him a look and ran to hide behind her brother's legs, she was hissing at him like a cat. The poor guy went into a corner.

• His over-protectiveness went off the moment (Y/N) saw Todoroki, a light blush adorning her tiny face, he just picked her pick and walked away muttering "oh no no no no no, don't even think about it"

• During the concert (Y/N) stayed with Mirio and Eri, both girls quickly became friends. They were both sitting on Mirio's shoulders and yelling joyfully during the whole show.

• (Y/N) became an honorary member of the Bakusquad. Bakugo was glad his little sister was having the time of her life and getting along with his classmates.

• Until she gave him her own nickname.

• When (Y/N) heard Deku calling her brother "Kacchan" she looked up at her brother with a confused look. Kirishima mentioned it was a nickname he gave his brother, the little girl was thinking for a moment before shaking her head.

• "I don't like it!" "oh? you don't like your brother's nickname?" (Y/N) shook her head while pouting "Then what would you like to call him?" she was silent or a minute before looking at her brother again.

• "Bakago!"

• There was a minute of silence, Bakugo fell face down on the floor, everyone burst out laughing at his new nickname. "Bakago" became his new nickname from then on.

• The day (Y/N) found out Deku called him "Bakago" once she started calling him "Bakatsuki" instead.

• Bakugo just crouched in front of her to pinch her cheeks "You're lucky you're cute (Y/N)".

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sage-nebula · 4 years

Note

the pokemon company be like *thinly-veiled misogyny*

To be honest, the sexism isn’t even really thinly-veiled if you think about it. Like off the top of my head:

— Professor Juniper was our first female professor, and it took until Gen V to get her. But whereas all the other professors got to stand on their own without needing anyone else, Professor Juniper had to have her father come in to provide answers to various plot occurrences that she didn’t know. IIRC, she also inherited her practice from him, which was also something that the male professors before and after didn’t have to contend with. It’s a miracle that this was averted with Professors Magnolia and Sonia in Gen VIII, both of whom are women.

— Speaking of female professors being screwed over, in Gen VII we’re introduced to Professor Burnet, whose practice specifically focuses on ultra wormholes and disturbances in space-time (which makes sense since she was previously working on the Dream Radar). Given how much of the plot concerns ultra wormholes, you would think that she would be the main professor of the story, or at least play a big part. But you’re wrong! Instead she’s only in one mandatory scene, and then is basically never heard from again. Meanwhile, Kukui shows up all the goddamn time even though his goal (to create a League) is literally meaningless in the scope of the overall plot. (And even that could have been cool if it had delved into the socio-political ramifications of what overthrowing Alola’s current system of government for another one would mean, but now is not the time to get into the failings of Gen VII’s plot. I’ve gone through that enough times.)

— Back to Gen V for a second, we’re also given two rivals in the first of the Unova games: Bianca and Cheren. While Cheren, the male rival, is taken seriously and has it talked up over and over how great of a battler he is, Bianca has her Munna stolen from her halfway through the story and spends the rest of the game talking down on herself and ultimately deciding that her father was right and she really is not cut out to be a Pokémon Trainer. Keep in mind that Bianca was the first mandatory female rival in the games, because while May could be a rival in Gen III if you played as Brendan, if you chose to play as her, both rivals (Brendan and Wally) were male. So on that note, our rivals so far look like:

Gen I: Blue Oak (male)

Gen II: Silver (male)

Gen III: Wally (male), optional May (female), optional Brendan (male)

Gen IV: Barry (male)

Gen V: Cheren (male), Bianca (female), Hugh (male)

Gen VI: Shauna (female), Tierno (male), Trevor (male), optional Serena (female), optional Calem (male)

Gen VII: Hau (male), Gladion (male)

Gen: Hop (male), Bede (male), Marnie (female)

So, let’s see. We only have two mandatory female rivals (Bianca and Marnie), as well as two optional female rivals (May and Serena). Meanwhile, we have twelve mandatory male rivals, as well as two optional male rivals (Brendan and Calem). To cap this off, while the mandatory male rivals (outside of the useless Kalos ones) are always treated as strong, competent battlers who have important roles in the story, our two mandatory female rivals, well . . .

Bianca: See above

Marnie: Gets battled a whole grand total of two times and has basically zero impact on the plot despite the fact that her brother is the only Gym Leader who didn’t give into Rose’s vision for how Galar should operate and use Dynamax evolution

And even when it comes to the optional ones, since Brendan is treated as the default MC by TPCi, that means May is the one who gives up training to go be a professor like her dad. (Which is the exact thing they basically did to Bianca in Gen V, except she studies under Juniper instead.) Serena at least keeps battling if she’s the rival, but jeez.

So to say there’s definite gender inequality where the rivals are concerned is a bit of an understatement.

— Moving away from the rivals, let’s talk about villains! We didn’t get a female villain until Gen VII with Lusamine, and even then she wasn’t allowed to stay a villain because I guess Game Freak doesn’t want to accept the fact that women can be evil, too. Moreover, all of Lusamine’s achievements come from the men in her life, and all of her motivations revolve around her husband. To spell it out:

- She inherited the Aether Foundation from her grandfather / father, without having founded it herself like we’re at first led to believe.

- Her husband Mohn was the one who discovered how the ultra wormholes work, not her. IIRC, he was also the primary researcher behind Type: Null’s creation.

- The reason why she does what she does is because she’s looking for her missing husband Mohn, with an added dash of “women just go crazy (and abuse their children) without their husbands!!1!!!” thrown in for flavor.

Compare this to Giovanni, Maxie, Archie, Cyrus, Ghetsis, Colress, Lysandre, and now Chairman Rose, all of whom formed their own organizations (Giovanni inheriting his from his mother is anime only and does not pertain to the games at all) and had their own goals and desires, versus relying on someone else for those goals and desires. And as if Lusamine not being allowed to form her own organization and have her own goals for her own sake wasn’t bad enough, they then had to go and make it even worse in USUM by turning her into a damsel in distress in the Rainbow Rocket plot, depicting her as not only less capable as the male villains, but also less capable than her male subordinate. Gag me.

— On that note, Oleana is sorely underappreciated by basically everyone except the Twilight Wings writers considering she’s the only reason anything Rose did got done, yet got none of the credit for herself. Damn shame.

— Stepping away from the games for a moment, Generations was a hot mess in terms of sexism. First of all, they only ever used the male MCs, pretending that the female ones didn’t exist at all, even in cases where the female MCs are vastly more popular (e.g. May, Dawn, Hilda). Second, most of the episodes focused on male characters from the series, and the ones that didn’t were either there so they could disrespect the best character in the series by not giving her the episode she deserved (Zinnia), or were told from the point of view of a male character despite that it was supposed to be a female character’s story (Emma). And lastly, there was whatever the fuck that mess with Cheryl was. It was animated in a way that made it look like an anime not suitable for anyone under the age of eighteen. Like honestly, what the hell.

— Leaf has been consistently and constantly disrespected all over the franchise. Despite there allegedly being four trainers who left from Pallet Town (counting Ash) in the anime, Leaf has never been seen or mentioned even once throughout the two decades that anime has been running. They had an opportunity to show her in at least a cameo form in the 20th anniversary movie, but they chose not to do that either, adding yet another disappointment from that movie to the list. She had no appearances in Origins, no appearances in Generations, they didn’t do what they should have done in HGSS by making her the rival atop Mt Silver if you chose to play as Lyra, she wasn’t a skin for Pokémon Trainer in Super Smash Bros. until Ultimate, I’m pretty sure they never made an Amiibo for her either, they replaced her with her Special counterpart in LGPE and her characterization absolutely bonkers to boot, and back to Masters, SS Leaf doesn’t have the Main Character designation for the theme skills that SS Red has, and is also routinely left out of any story bits that feature Red or Blue. It’s a miracle she was even included in the Battling Legends event or whatever it was. As far as TPCi seems to be considered, Kanto only has one main character and that’s Red.

— Oh and speaking of Iris, they gave her the Gym Leader theme designation instead of the Champion designation, instead choosing to act like Alder is Unova’s only Champion when he, no offense, didn’t really fucking do anything in Gen V. :’) We hate to see it.

— In the current run of the anime, the two boys (Ash and Gou) have gotten to go around and have adventures for ~50 episodes while the girl (Koharu) has had to stay home and go to school. You can argue, “She wanted that!” all you want, but you have to remember that she only wants what the writers tell her to want, and the writers said the boys get to have adventures while the girls stay home. She finally has an Eevee and will presumably go on adventures now, but we’ll have to wait and see. And don’t get me wrong, I like Journeys and I love Gou as a character, but it is absolutely a Choice to not have a female lead present in the adventures at all and it’s one that the writers deliberately made for whatever reason.

— On that note, let’s look at Ash’s female companions, shall we?

Misty: A Gym Leader who has a vague goal (water pokémon master) and is largely out of focus during her run as a primary companion. She had no rivals or in-series (as in, concrete ones she could accomplish before leaving the main cast) goals of her own.

May: A coordinator. Does have rivals and has a story, which is nice, but battling isn’t her focus.

Dawn: Another coordinator. Even more focus than May (she was written as a deuteragonist), but also not primarily focused on battling.

Iris: A battler (her Gym Leader / Champion Status is written out) who actually does get decent focus and a cool arc surrounding her connection to dragons.

Serena: A performer, which is a girls-only career path that doesn’t have battling in it at all, unlike contests. Does have a goal, but much of her character is written around her crush for Ash and at the end of the series she says that he is her goal.

Lillie, Lana, Mallow: Honestly I didn’t watch enough of SM to have an opinion on how these three were handled outside of hating how Lusamine didn’t get to be a villain in the anime either.

Koharu: See above, she’s only just now getting to be involved with things.

Now, don’t get me wrong: There’s nothing wrong with being a coordinator (and we do see male coordinators too, such as Drew and Harley), and I think that both May and Dawn are wonderful characters. But it does make me feel some kind of way that the female characters were often given the “girly” sidequest while the male main character got to go for the Gym badges, especially since AG and DP went on for a good chunk of years. None of the ladies so far have been treated as badly as Serena was (that performer stuff is just nasty, I’m not sorry), but again, it’s a deliberate choice and something to think about, especially since I feel the only reason they didn’t go that route with Iris is because of her Gym Leader / Champion status in the games.

I could probably think of more examples of the casual sexism in the series if I thought about it, but this is just from the top of my head. As you can see, there is a lot. All of this being said, and I’m putting major emphasis on this since I don’t want anyone to get it twisted—

I love Pokémon with my entire heart, flaws and all. It has been my hyperfixation for 22 years and that is not going to change any time soon. So DO NOT even dare suggest that I hate Pokémon, or shouldn’t play it, or anything like that. I will be playing Pokémon on my deathbed and nothing and no one will stop me.

But that being said, I criticize because I care. Because I wish it would do better. Pokémon is for everyone. It’s for boys, girls, nonbinary folks, and people all over the gender spectrum. But the treatment of its female characters and the abundance of favoritism shown toward the male characters leaves a lot to be desired (though at least girls are at the table, whereas trans folk are relegated to background NPCs and nonbinary folk are nowhere to be seen :/). I think Pokémon can get better—Magnolia and Sonia felt like a proper apology for how Juniper in particular was shafted, not to mention Burnet—but it’s got a long way to go.

(And also, yes, you’ve understood this right. Twilight Wings is the only anime series to not fuck up at all when it comes to sexism. You go, Twilight Wings. Four for you, Twilight Wings.)

#pokemon critical #pokemon criticism #pokemon negative #let me know if I should use any other tags #long post for ts #stabbymattress #the treatment of Ash's female companions from best to worst has been:#Dawn - May - Iris - Misty - Koharu - Serena #and the Alola girls somewhere in the middle ig I honestly didn't watch enough of that series to know

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mostlycompetentwriter · 5 years

Text

Domesticated

M/F Pairing: Y/N x Bang Chan (Stray Kids)

Genre: Married Life AU

Warnings: Smut, language, some mentions of cheating (but not with the main pairing)

Word Count: 19,922 (I might break this up later on)

Summary: Marriage was something Y/N had been dreaming about since she was a little girl. But now, ten years later, she’s married to her college sweetheart, but their relationship isn’t entirely perfect. There’s the issue of her new boss, aka her ex-boyfriend Seo Changbin, and Chan’s younger brother Felix who insists on calling her Medusa. Yet, through it all, Y/N is positive she wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world.

Notes: Y'all are really out here sleeping on husband Bang Chan and I won’t allow it anymore. Because Chan is 100% husband goals.

“Where do you see yourself in five years?”

I slowly exhaled after disregarding my somewhat passable resume, courtesy of one of those sketchy website builders, to look at the interviewer who waited for my response, pen poised over his expensive notebook. I swallowed hard as I struggled to compose myself under pressure. Because there was a professional answer somewhere in the back of my useless brain, but a dozen other responses, far more honest than his expectations, were waiting on the tip of my tongue.

Such as:

Waiting at home for my husband because all I do is stare at the clock, counting down the minutes until he walks through the door. I kinda miss when we were in college and could see each other sporadically between long lectures, grabbing lunch at the Wendy’s on South Campus. Now, the most exciting thing that happens is the occasional blow job before we pass out on the worn mattress in our master bedroom.

Sometimes Chan will host dinner parties at the house for his expensive doctor friends. He won’t spare me a single glance while I rush to fill glasses with rich-tasting wine, keeping an eye on Han Jisung because he can’t take more than three refills before he’s trying to dismantle the house. I’ll also have to ignore the really old surgeon who Chan admires because he likes to touch my ass when I pass through the living room. Maybe I was suited to be a sugar baby in another life.

On the rare occasion when Chan actually uses his cock, he’ll pant in my ear the entire time because he’s worn out from long hours at the hospital. Chan will cum before me most of the time and I’m lucky if he’s cognizant enough to eat me out so that I can finally fall asleep from my post-orgasmic haze. Heck, I’ll even take his fingers on my clit if it means an assured eight hours of sleep.

Shit, I miss being young.

I cleared my throat, deciding on the professional answer because I highly doubt Seo Enterprises wanted to hire a desperate housewife.

I was sprawled out on the couch in our living room when Chan came home that evening. I barely acknowledged his rushed greeting, watching through narrowed eyes as he ran into the kitchen. “Babe,” came his anticipated whine. “There’s no leftovers?”

“I didn’t feel like cooking,” I said, turning over to bury my face in the throw pillows decorating the cushions. It really wasn’t that comfortable since Chan insisted we get the stiff, fancy leather futon as opposed to the appealing sectional that could actually recline.

“You didn’t cook?”

Chan’s voice was closer this time but I still ignored him, sensing an impending headache. “I had an interview.”

“That was hours ago,” Chan pouted.

I sighed loudly. “The interview went great, honey, thanks for asking.”

“I’ve been at the hospital since 5 this morning,” Chan went on, weight dipping beneath the couch at the opposite end. “I didn’t even have time for lunch because Jisung almost fucked up a patient’s IV.”

“Remind me again why he still has a job.”

“Because he somehow graduated from nursing school and has a license claiming he’s qualified,” Chan said. “Plus, he’s my friend.”

“You have shit taste in friends,” I said, protesting when his hand landed a firm smack against my ass.

“Minho tried to wreck the Corvette when he ran out of cigarettes.”

“Minho is loyal.”

“He still wants to fuck you,” Chan grumped. “Ten years after college and he’s trailing after your ass.”

“Darling, you don’t have to be jealous when I’m wearing your ugly ring on my finger 24/7.”

“It was my mother’s!”

“Oh for fuck’s sake, Bang Chan,” I snapped while grabbing one of my support pillows from beneath my weight, launching it at my husband’s head. Sadly, Chan dodged at the last minute, much to my chagrin, smirking as he dug his fingers into my sides, forcing loud, high-pitched giggles as we both unceremoniously fell into the spotlessly clean floor. “Channie,” I groaned as he rolled on top of me, pinning my hands above my head before deciding to offer me a sloppy kiss with far too much tongue. “You’re fucking gross,” I said, biting at his lower lip in revenge.

“Yeah? Well, you’re fucking sexy,” Chan purred, nuzzling his head between my breasts.

“Stop it, you oaf!” I grumbled. “My period starts tomorrow. My tits have been sore all day.”

“Maybe I should have a look,” Chan teased, a free hand working loose one of the buttons on my shirt.

“And what good will that do?”

“Well, I am a doctor.”

“You just want to see my tits so you have something to jerk off to in the shower tonight.”

“Shower with me then,” Chan suggested. “I’ll fuck you against the wall.”

“Will you have the stamina?” I questioned. “You poor thing, how can you get it up when you haven’t eaten all day?”

Chan frowned at my mocking tone. “Are you turning down my cock?”

“You’re only half-hard,” I said, lifting my thigh against the tight bulge of his scrubs.

Chan let out a sigh, but his smile was endearing. “What if I order takeout? Then we can fuck in the shower.”

“Channie,” I cooed. “You always know how to talk dirty to me.”

I stand by my belief that email was now an archaic form of communication, but the number of big businesses that forced their employees to make an account @ their company name was ridiculous. But if I wanted to find a job in this big ass city, then I needed to play by the rules. Surprisingly, my most recent application was progressing with far more success than I could have anticipated, and I had read over the new email from Seo Enterprises at least half a dozen times:

Dear Mrs. Bang,

Thank you for taking the time to interview with our staff yesterday afternoon. After carefully reviewing your file with our CEO, he has asked us to schedule one last consultation. Please let us know your earliest convenience.

“That must be a good thing,” Minho remarked, digging his spoon into my ice cream since his bowl was empty and I wasn’t in the mood to argue with him.

“I guess,” I said, formulating a quick reply because I really wanted this fancy, high-paying Secretary job. I mean, sitting at home all day was definitely not high on my list of accomplishments.

“What’s the hurry anyway?” Minho asked as he licked his spoon clean. “Bang has enough money that you could just smooch off him for the rest of your life.”

“That’s not fair,” I said. “I want us to be equals.”

“Wasn’t that the point of marrying a doctor, Y/N?” Minho asked. “Otherwise, you could still be screwing around with me.”

“Except we aren’t 18 anymore,” I pointed out, frowning in his direction. “And says the guy who works part-time at his sister’s pet shop.”

“Hey!” Minho protested, shoving his spoon in my face. “I’m helping the strays. Population control and shit.”

“So what? You’re snipping some dog penises, good for you.”

Minho sat back with a disgruntled sigh. “What do you want to do after this?”

“I’ll bring Chan some lunch since he didn’t get a chance to eat yesterday,” I said. “Interested in accompanying an old friend?”

“Not really,” Minho said. “But I don’t have anything better to do.”

I maintained a long list of places that I truly despised and the hospital was number one. I always tried desperately not to let it show when I visited Chan because it wasn’t really his fault. I had a bad history when it came to hospitals and the memories lingered like the permanent smell of alcohol that Chan brought home with him on his scrubs.

“Did you see that guy in the waiting room?” Minho asked after I checked us in at the front desk. “He was seconds away from bleeding out on the floor.”

“Don’t talk about blood,” I shivered, hurrying to the elevator while frantically hitting the corresponding floor number.

“This reminding you of Freshman year?” Minho asked since he was a total airhead and missed out on the memo where I specifically told him to keep his mouth shut about that stupid Frat Party.

“There are five reasons why I hate hospitals,” I said, holding up my hand in front of his stupid face. “Don’t make me spell it out for you.”

“Is Freshman year one of them?”

“Shut the hell up, Minho.”

A quiet chuckle resounded through the empty elevator while I impatiently waited for our stop. “You’re feisty today,” Minho remarked once the doors reopened.

I ignored the nasty linoleum floors, heels clicking with every step I took in the direction of Chan’s office. “I’m eating with Chan and then we’re never coming here again.”

“Agreed,” Minho said, keeping pace with me while cringing at the gurneys being pushed through the hallways at an alarming rate.

We had almost made it to the end of the floor when I heard a lazy voice call out my name from one of the surrounding rooms. I closed my eyes because I could recognize that voice anywhere since it basically haunted my worst nightmares. He might not know it yet, but Han Jisung was the last person I wanted to run into because maybe, just maybe, he was one of the five reasons why I hated this place.

“Guys!” Jisung gushed, smiling brilliantly. “I’d hug you but I just finished cleaning piss off the floor.”

“Jesus, Han,” I said, wrinkling my nose against the overpowering smell of ammonia. “Is Chan in his office?”

“He was supposed to meet with our new superintendent,” Jisung said, grinning like a complete idiot when he shoved his gloved hands towards Minho who now looked a few beats away from losing his ice cream.

“You’re really pushing your luck today,” Minho growled at him.

“The meeting room is the last room on the right,” Jisung said, finally proving to be useful for once in his life.

I grabbed Minho’s arm because he was close to decking Jisung in the face and I didn’t need the security guards to tell Chan that I let my best friend attack one of his nurses. “Come on,” I said, urging him away from the potential crime scene.

“He’s this close to finding himself with a bloody nose,” Minho complained. “You know what’s funny? I’m pretty sure Han Jisung wouldn’t even know how to help himself.”

“You’re probably right,” I agreed, straightening the collar of my blouse as I peeked in through the tight blinds obscuring the glass wall of the room Jisung had indicated. “There’s Chan...” I started, trailing off when I noticed that he was engrossed in deep conversation with an unfamiliar woman.

“Oh, she’s really hot,” Minho remarked, wincing when I shoved my elbow into his chest.

“Commentary is not necessary,” I said, folding my arms across my chest as I tapped my foot against the floor. Who the hell did this bitch think she was?

“Jealousy isn’t a good look on you,” Minho teased and I swallowed my pride, trying to ignore the way she reached out to touch Chan’s arm.

Thankfully, Chan finally noticed me outside, offering me a cheesy wave which I refused to reciprocate as he said something to the woman. I waited outside the door, attempting my best stern expression even if Chan completely ignored my efforts, encasing me in his powerful arms. “Y/N,” he cooed.

“Chan,” I choked out, struggling against his strength.

Minho snorted at the display. “I’m going to find the cafeteria. Text me when you wanna leave, Y/N.”

I waved him off once Chan eventually released me. I sucked in a few grateful breaths while holding up the takeout bag I had brought. “Is there somewhere we can go?”

Chan nodded, reaching for my hand. “Sorry I took so long, I was meeting with the new superintendent.”

I pursed my lips at that revelation. “She doesn’t look old enough to be a superintendent.”

“She’s around my age,” Chan said and I frowned because that just made everything worse.

The hospital’s staff room was small, the smell of coffee heavy in the air as Chan closed the door behind us. “Nobody should come in.”

“Good,” I said, choosing the only table that looked halfway clean before sitting down with a sigh. “I brought you lunch.”

“Thanks, sweetie,” Chan said, gratefully accepting the bag from me while he sat down on the remaining chair. I glared at him from across the table, watching as he dug into the cheap Japanese like it was his last meal on earth. “Is something wrong?” he asked over a mouthful of noodles. Something college Chan would have never done when we first started dating, but I suppose that’s what you get with marriage.

“I saw you were pretty close with your new superintendent,” I said.

“Oh yeah,” Chan replied cheerfully, stuffing even more food into his impossibly wide mouth. “She’s super smart. Like, Harvard graduate smart.”

“Of course she is,” I murmured. “Do you like her?”

“As a boss I guess,” Chan said, still horribly naive to the real problem. I cathartically drummed my fingernails against the surface of the table.

“Are you coming home early tonight?” I asked him. “I’ll fix your favorite.”

Chan’s eyes lit up because, despite the food sitting right in front of him, he always got excited at the prospect of another meal. “Really?”

I nodded. “I’ll put the good whiskey on ice.”

Chan sat back with a dramatic groan. “Are you trying to give me a heart attack? Where is all this coming from?”

“I’m just being a good wife,” I said, taking on a dismissive tone.

Chan grinned. “Do you want something, sweetheart? You know I’ll buy you anything.”

“No reason,” I chirped. “I just want you to remember how good am I to you.”

“Of course I know that,” Chan said, reaching across the table to squeeze one of my hands. “I didn’t just marry you for your beautiful face.”

“That’s not what you said when we first met,” I reminded him cheekily, enjoying the way his ears grew red. “Should I do a reenactment?”

“That’s not necessary,” Chan said, quickly dismissing the topic. “Did you hear back from your interview?”

“Oh I did,” I said. “They want me to come in and meet the CEO.”

“What for?” Chan scoffed, returning back to his meal.

“Well, I am taking on the secretary position,” I said. “Maybe he wants to make sure I have good phone etiquette.”

“Yeah?” Chan grumbled. “Or, he wants to make sure you look pretty for him so he has something nice to look at all day.”

“And what’s wrong with that?” I asked him because I loved it when Chan got possessive.

“I don’t want some rich bastard drooling over my wife,” Chan said, chopsticks clenched tightly between his fingers.

“Yeah? Well, it works both ways, you know.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Oh come on, Chan,” I sighed. “Your superintendent was totally flirting with you.”

Chan put down his chopsticks, eyeing me cluelessly. “No, she wasn’t.”

“Yes, she was,” I immediately countered, reaching down for my purse. “I watched her the entire time.”

“Were you spying on me?” Chan asked with a smirk.

“Minho’s probably waiting for me,” I replied instead, smoothing down my skirt as I stood up from the table.

“Don’t you think that’s too short?” Chan asked, pointing at my lower section as if personally offended.

“Work hard, honey,” I grinned, leaning over the table to peck him once on the lips, offering a cheeky wave on my way out the door.

My palms were sweaty and, despite my repeated attempts to wipe off the nasty residue on my skirt, the condition persisted. Hyperhidrosis, Chan might tell me, nerdy glasses falling down his nose. I grinned at a distant memory, one of the first dates I ever had with Chan. A younger, less confident version of my husband, frantically peeling his suit jacket from his body, complaining about the heat in the restaurant, only to cower moments later when he realized his armpits were totally drenched.

“Mrs. Bang?”

I looked up at the young man bowing in front of me. “Mr. Seo will see you now.”

I nodded, holding my tongue before I let the intern know that he sounded just like a passage from Fifty Shades of Gray. Oh, shit, what if I was about to meet Christian Gray in the flesh? Some sort of young, hot billionaire with the world at his feet, buying up other companies like they meant absolutely nothing.

It was a believable scenario, and I don’t know how I managed to get my feet to work, but I followed the intern with exaggerated steps. “The boss has been looking forward to this,” the intern told me, pausing outside the office door.

“He has?” I wondered, glancing around the grandiose lobby. Did I really make that much of an impression?

“You can go in now,” the intern smiled, politely holding the door for me as I wordlessly walked inside.

Of course, I was expecting something extravagant, considering the layout of the lobby, but I was still deeply impressed by the spacious, but oddly cozy interior. Could you really call this room an office? Considering how massive it was in size. I mean, was it really necessary to basically live in an apartment when you arrived to work every day? Complete with stylish hardwood floors that looked like something out of an edition of House and Home magazine. I’d bet my entire life’s savings that the CEO hired some kind of fancy architect to design the place because those engravings on the mahogany walls were quite difficult to achieve. “It’s nice isn’t it?” a disarmingly familiar voice asked, and I found the dark figure leaning against the desk in the center of the room, sleeves rolled up to show off his impressive arms. “I was surprised to see your application, Y/N.”

Fuck, Christian Grey would have been way better.

“Changbin?”

He met me halfway across the room, now completely visible beneath the low hanging lights, tan skin washed with a comfortable glow. “Shocked?”

“You could say that,” I said, suddenly feeling like I was 18 again in college, lusting after the object of my affections.

“Have a seat,” Changbin offered kindly, extending his arm towards the matching armchairs neatly tucked around the electric fireplace.

“Okay,” I nodded, unable to take my eyes off Seo Changbin as I stumbled over my heels like a complete lovestruck teenager meeting her musician idol for the very first time.

But, holy fuck, Changbin looked good. Why the hell did he not age or turn prematurely gray? I held back a whimper, eyes looking everywhere around the room except at Seo Changbin. How did I not put two and two together when I first got the notification for the Secretary position at Seo Enterprises? I mean, what are the chances that this Seo is my Seo...Or, at least, he used to be my Seo.

“Y/N,” Changbin said, flipping through my file with lazy movements. Where did he get those pants from? They fit him sinfully good, hugging his thighs and if I look close enough, the outline of his...“How are you?”

I startled at the question, drawing my eyes up to meet Changbin’s familiar gaze. “Oh, I’m uh..” I trailed off anxiously, trying to put meaningful words together because he was making the English language harder than it needed to be. “I’ve been alright.”

Changbin smiled and I crossed my legs because that kind of smile could literally drench a girl if he wasn’t careful. “I was really happy to see your name on my list.”

“Were you?” I asked, fingers digging into the cushion of my chair.

“I’m always happy to see a familiar face,” Changbin said. “It’s been a while.”

“College,” I choked out, completely out of mind with anxiety, like the time Minho stole my phone and made me think someone had stolen it, even encouraging me to call the number only for him to hang up every time.

“You’re still beautiful.”

“Changbin...”

“I know,” he said, shaking his head. “It’s all in the past.”

“That’s right,” I said, wondering if now would be an appropriate time to snatch my resume out of Changbin’s veiny hands and flee the premises.

“And you’ve married Bang,” Changbin said, pointing to my wedding band. “Which isn’t surprising.”

“Five years,” I said, trying my best to think about Chan and only Chan despite the literal embodiment of my every erotic high school fantasy sitting right in front of me.

“This would be strictly professional,” Changbin said, holding up my resume. “You were our best applicant, but I thought you should know everything about this place before taking the position. Including me.”

“Is that so?” was all I could think to say in return to his unexpectedly thoughtful comment.

Changbin lowered my resume slowly. “The job is yours, Y/N.”

“I’d still have to talk to Chan first,” I said because there’s no way I could just start working for Changbin without Chan knowing everything about the situation. Unfortunately, I could just about anticipate Chan’s response.

“That’s fine,” Changbin agreed. “You can call us tomorrow.”

I allowed a shaky nod, wondering if Changbin knew how much of an effect he still had on me all these years later.

Chan might be one of the smartest men I know, but he was, at his core, just a man who was quite whipped for his wife. Like all men, he was a sucker for lingerie, which is why I slipped on my best matching set, squeezing myself in the little black dress that I knew he really loved.

The hem barely touched the middle of my thighs.

I was also cooking his favorite meal, the smell filling the kitchen pleasantly as I stood at the stove. My plan was quite simple: dress pretty for Chan and surprise him with his favorite food to soften him up. Maybe then he wouldn’t have a complete meltdown when I broke the news to him about my newest employer.

But I still shivered when I heard the door open. “Y/N!”

“I’m in the kitchen,” I called back to him, attempting several meditative breaths to try and keep myself together.

“Holy shit,” he cursed, freezing in the doorway as he undoubtedly took in the sight of his wife wrapped in a tight black number.

“I’m making dinner,” I said, flashing him an arrogant smile, amused by the way he openly gaped at me while still wearing his oversized doctor’s coat. A result of an excited, freshly employed Chan filling out his form request with sloppy handwriting.

“You look hot,” Chan told me bluntly, eyes glued to my body as he eliminated the space between us with a few quick-paced steps.

“I got the job,” I said, letting out a nervous giggle as I continued to push around the searing bulgogi with a shaky hand. “Consider this a celebration.”

“That’s great, sweetie,” Chan said, standing behind me to wrap his arms around my middle, pressing soft kisses to the back of my neck, roaming hands feeling my body. “I guess the CEO liked you.”

A hellish double entendre. “Yeah, he was really nice.”

“I’m glad it worked out,” Chan said, voice next to my ear. “I didn’t want you to feel pressured to get a job or anything. I’m proud of you no matter what.”

Was it his intention to make me feel guilty? “Channie,” I sighed, turning around in his arms. “I have to tell you something.”

Chan cocked a brow. “What is it?”

“The company I’m working for...”

“Yeah?”

“The CEO is someone we know.”

“Is that it?” Chan chuckled, accent thick as those adorable dimples filled out his smile. “Who is it, babe?”

“He used to go to school with us,” I tried, hoping that maybe Chan could just learn how to read my mind and save me the effort of mustering some kind of courage.

“Minho?” Chan teased.

“We’re not exactly friendly with him,” I said.

“Well, I don’t know if you’ve been paying attention, but I’m not exactly friendly with Minho.”

“You jerk,” I huffed, half-heartedly pushing against his chest. “You really, really don’t like this person.”

“There aren’t many people I really, really don’t like,” Chan said. “Come on, Y/N, just tell me who it is. Are you afraid I’ll be upset with you?”

I swallowed hard. “Yes.”

Chan’s smile vanished in a minute. “Y/N.”

“Seo Enterprises,” I said. “The company name.”

Realization dawned across Chan’s face. “Are you saying...”

“Changbin,” I murmured, looking down at my feet. “He’s my new boss.”

Chan let out a rough exhale because he knew exactly who Seo Changbin was and I’m pretty sure he associated the name with deep hatred. “Are you fucking serious?”

I winced at Chan’s tone because he had quickly shifted from sweet, caring husband to angry, sinister Mr. Bang in the blink of an eye. “Yes?”

“The Seo Changbin,” Chan reiterated. “The guy you fucked for like six months Freshman year?”

“That would be the one,” I said, forcing myself to meet his gaze before immediately regretting the decision.

“Why the hell would you take a job as his Secretary?” Chan demanded, crossing his arms over his chest. Normally, I would admire the sight of Chan’s arms stretching the thin fabric of his t-shirt, but now I was just intimidated.

“Because I really wanted the job,” I said. “And I didn’t think it was that big of a deal.”

“Oh, it’s a huge fucking deal,” Chan said, glaring down at me. “You think I’m okay with the idea of you working for someone you once told me you were, and I quote, definitely gonna marry?”

“But I’m married to you,” I tried, attempting a sugary-sweet tone that usually broke Chan’s resolve.

Except for tonight.

“Yeah,” Chan nodded, “You are, and I told you I would take care of you. I have enough money to support both of us, you don’t need to work at all.”

“Chan, you know I’m not comfortable sitting at home,” I said.

“I get that, Y/N, but Seo Changbin? I could get you a Secretary job at the hospital.”

“Channie, this is a position at Seo Enterprises. One of their biggest assets is New York Publishers! It’s like the perfect opportunity to get my foot in the door.”

“Y/N,” Chan groaned. “I can’t stand the thought of you working for Changbin under any circumstances.”

“I get it, Chan,” I said. “But it’s different than college. I’m married now, and Changbin is nothing more than my boss.”

“Does he really get that?” Chan asked. “I’m putting my foot down, Y/N. I don’t want you working for him, okay? You can call them tomorrow and say you’ve got something better.”

“But Channie!”

“No, Y/N,” Chan growled. “You can look for something else.”

I frowned once I realized Chan wasn’t going to back down. It didn’t matter that I wanted the job or that I had dressed up and cooked for him. For the first time since we met, Chan was refusing to give me what I wanted. “Chan, you really don’t have the right to tell me what to do.”

“I’m your husband,” Chan said, justifying his unfair demands with such patriarchal reasoning.

“Fine,” I muttered darkly, ignoring the way his hand reached out for mine.

“Don’t be this way,” Chan said, following me as I marched to our bedroom, slamming the door closed behind me. “Y/N!” Chan shouted against the door, knocking loudly on the wood. “This is my room too!”

“Not tonight,” I informed him tersely, opening the door only to harshly shove a spare blanket and pillow at his chest. “Goodnight, darling.”

“This is Y/N,” I said into the phone. “I’m calling about-”

“One moment, Mrs. Bang, we can transfer you to Mr. Seo right away.”

“But you don’t understand...”

“Hello?”

“Changbin!” I squealed loudly into the phone, wincing at my shrill tone.

“Y/N,” Changbin said pleasantly, voice as deep and gravelly as I remembered. “Is this the phone call I’ve been waiting for?”

“I’m not sure,” I said, making myself comfortable at the kitchen counter since I was a notorious pacer when it came to difficult conversations. “It depends on what you’re expecting.”

“I’m expecting to hear a confirmation,” Changbin said. “This is a perfect position for someone with your qualifications.”

“I know,” I groaned. “But I’m calling because I can’t take the job.”

“Really?” Changbin asked. “Can I ask why?”

“Chan isn’t comfortable with the idea,” I said.

“Is that so?” Changbin inquired, innocently enough. “I hope it isn’t because of college.”

“T-that’s not entirely why,” I stuttered because Changbin was apparently intuitive now that he owned some big, fancy company.

“I hope not,” Changbin said. “It wouldn’t be fair of Chan to keep you from a potential opportunity because of something like that.”

“It’s just a lot right now,” I said. “I haven’t had a job in a year. My last position was really good, but the company went bankrupt and I was laid off, so I’m just trying to be careful.”

“You wouldn’t have to worry about anything like that here, Y/N,” Changbin said. “This is a great opportunity for someone looking for a fresh start.”

Did he read my Facebook bio?

“I’m sure it is, Changbin, but I can’t do something that would make Chan uncomfortable.”

“But he’s not the one taking the position,” Changbin pointed out. “I can assure you, Y/N, you won’t find another position like this.”

“God, you’re good at negotiating.”

“Take the job, Y/N. I promise you won’t regret it.”

I could blame it on my desperation later, but I actually really liked the position. It promised a lot, especially considering the publishing company attached to Seo Enterprises. That would be my ultimate goal, to spend my days reading promising manuscripts while sipping expensive Starbucks coffee.

“I guess I can’t say no.”

“Then I’ll see you on Monday.”

Message to Channie

I took the job. I’m sorry but the opportunity was hard to pass up.

It only took a few seconds for Chan’s contact name to flash across my screen with an incoming call. I muted the sound like a coward, ignoring him completely while I started the ignition to the Corvette. A one-year anniversary present from Chan who was somehow more excited than I was when he first handed me the car key.

I drove to Minho’s apartment because I didn’t want to go home and I really had nowhere else to go. Plus, at least Minho was a reliable friend who really didn’t care if I crashed on his couch while he shoved cheap wine down my throat. In fact, Minho might be glad to see me since he was constantly complaining about his new hours at the shop.

“You look like shit,” Minho commented when he answered the door, standing aside to invite me inside. I shrugged off my coat, tossing it against the wall before slumping down onto the cheap sofa in Minho’s living room. The only piece of furniture he could afford in his ridiculously small New York apartment. “What happened?”

“I took the job with Changbin.”

Minho’s eyes widened in surprise. “You did? I can only assume Chan is lying somewhere on his deathbed.”

“No,” I snorted. “I took the job even though Chan asked me not to.”

“Savage,” Minho exhaled and I rolled my eyes at him.

“It’s a great opportunity!”

“When do you start?” Minho asked, feet propped up in my lap as he made himself more than comfortable next to me.

“Monday morning,” I said, mindlessly taking the remote to scroll through his limited TV channels.

“And Chan is mad?” Minho repeated, glancing at me for confirmation. “Can you really blame him though?”

“Why?” I frowned.

“I mean, Chan’s been in love with you since high school. He used to trail after you all the time, but you only talked about Seo Changbin.”

“You’re not being a good friend right now,” I said, remembering with perfect clarity the image of a sixteen-year-old Chan, hair untamed and clothes mismatched. Chan was a constant presence in my life, even if I preened after another boy who certainly had no intention of remaining faithful.

“Go home to him, Y/N,” Minho said with far more seriousness than I was used to hearing from my still immature best friend. The same Minho who couldn’t find work for an entire year after graduation because he was too busy sleeping with any woman that walked on two legs, living with various girlfriends while slowly draining his savings account.

“Since when are you the voice of reason?” I grumbled.

“Well, we all have to grow up one day.”

I hated the rare occasions when he was right.

The house was eerily silent when I unlocked the door, spotlessly clean just as I had left it which made me feel bad because it meant Chan didn’t even try to eat anything. “You always make me worry,” I muttered, toeing off my shoes as I decided to check the bedroom.

When Chan had first bought the house, he wanted it to look as close as possible to the random design I had pointed out at the local fair when we were Sophomore students. The plaque had deemed it the “house of the future” and I was enamored with the idea of the future back when my whole life was waiting right in front of me. A big dreamer who was already making wedding plans the moment Chan got down on one knee and proposed with his mother’s wedding ring.

“Channie,” I whispered into the darkness, cautiously tiptoeing my way to the side of the bed where Chan was facing away from me, sheets tucked in around his waist to leave his chest exposed. “I’m sorry.”

Chan let out a sigh. “What are you sorry for, Y/N?”

“I hurt you,” I said, choosing my words carefully. “I took the job with Changbin and I didn’t think about how it would affect you.”

“I fucking hate him,” Chan said, tone bitter and laced with venom. “I hate what he did to you Freshman year and I hate that he was the first person you loved.”

“Chan,” I sighed, sitting down on the edge of the bed. “I was really young and stupid back then. I should have never slept with Changbin. But he was just a fantasy, even when we were together, and I certainly never really loved him.” I leaned in closer, brushing his hair away from his forehead. “I’ve always loved you first. You mean the world to me and I’m sorry that I went behind your back to work for Changbin. But he’s definitely nothing more than a mistake from a past full of them. There’s nothing to worry about.”

Chan shifted from next to me, rolling onto his back. His eyes were looking at me like I was literally his entire world. “I’ll always worry, sweetie. You drive me insane these days.”

I grinned at the use of his pet name for me, reaching out to run a soothing hand along the defined lines of his stomach. “Don’t worry about me, darling, when you’re the one with a supermodel for a boss.”

“Fuck, we’re both screwed,” Chan said. “Does she drive you mad with jealousy?”

“Of course she does,” I said. “She has bigger tits than me.”

“Well, I like your tits,” Chan insisted. “Don’t even think about bringing up plastic surgery again.”

“It would be to your benefit,” I pointed out.

“And the detriment to my savings account. Plus, I don’t want some old bastard fondling your tits while he pumps silicone in your chest.”

“Of all the things to worry about,” I sighed. “Does this mean we’re okay again?”

“You could probably step on me and I would still thank you for it, sweetie.”

“What if I sit on it instead?” I asked, moving my hand down to squeeze his flaccid cock.

“Makeup sex?” Chan gasped. “You don’t have to sell yourself out like this, babe.”

“Yeah? Well, I want to,” I said while proceeding to straddle his waist, smirking when Chan’s hands instantly moved to my hips. It was almost like a magnet, the reaction automatic after years of marriage. “You’re already hard,” I teased, reaching back to palm him over the sheets.

Chan always slept in boxers which I certainly appreciated because it made the rare nights of our passionate lovemaking even more accessible. Chan lifted my shirt, groaning low when he saw that I was wearing nothing but a pair of satin panties. “This is why I’m already hard.”

“You don’t see me walking around the house in underwear,” I quipped playfully.

“It’s comfortable,” Chan whimpered, moaning when my hand found the smooth velvety head of his cock.

“Something you never did when we were dating,” I said. “I spent weekends with you in the apartment.”

“Wanted to make a good impression,” Chan grumbled, eyes closed as he rolled his hips in time with my careful strokes.

“So you don’t have to impress me anymore,” I said, glancing back at his cock, hot and heavy in my hand. “But I guess you still do.”

Chan moaned even louder at my words, fingers tightening in my wrinkled shirt. “Don’t make me cum yet.”

“Why not, darling?” I asked him cheekily, twisting my wrist just right, watching as a stuttered gasp fell from between his gorgeous pout.

“Wanna cum inside,” he said, biceps straining as he pulled me closer, kissing me with a desperation that only demonstrated just how gone he really was.

“Yeah?” I smirked, tongue tracing the ridges of his full lips. “I guess you deserve it after putting up with my bullshit all day.”

Chan nodded fervently and the sight was oddly endearing. It reminded me of when Chan and I first met in high school, a nerdy sixteen-year-old boy who had just transferred schools all the way from Australia. He had a thick accent, foreign and rich, just like the untamed mass of curls covering his deep brown eyes. Chan wore thick-rimmed glasses and he had a light dusting of freckles like the main character from Freckle Juice, one of my favorite childhood novels. He was nerdy and shy, sitting alone in the cafeteria at lunch and walking between classes with his shoulders hunched like he was afraid one of those horrible jocks would try to steal his bag again.

“Y/N!” he whined loudly, forcing me out of the memory.

“Alright, Channie, you want inside?”

I sat up on my knees to work down my panties, ignoring the way Chan’s fingers tried to interfere, pulling at the fabric like he could possibly make them disappear any faster. I grabbed the hem of his boxer shorts, teasingly pulling them down his thighs before brushing a kiss across the weeping tip of his cock, precum bitter on my tongue. For a moment, I admired his thick erection, remembering how nervous Chan was the very first time we had sex back before we were even old enough to drink alcohol.

I held his cock as I positioned myself over his lap. “I’ll do all the work tonight,” I said, listening to Chan’s sweet moans the entire time I slowly lowered myself onto his cock, enjoying the way he always filled me so deeply.

“Oh yeah, sweetie,” Chan grunted, hips moving messily as he tried to find a rhythm. “I’m gonna make you feel so good.”

“Really?” I asked, swallowing down a moan when Chan hit just right, movements growing more and more confident as I returned every thrust. “I thought I was in charge tonight.”

Chan’s hands gripped my waist firmly, eyes wide open as he focused on where we were connected. “I’m always in charge.”

“Definitely,” I said, bracing my hands against his firm chest for balance because I was weak for this version of Chan. A complete contradiction to the one I first started dating, sweetly doting as he did everything in his power to make me happy. An image of a beautifully innocent Chan looking up from his position between my thighs. “It’s good?”

“So good,” I whispered aloud, peppering kisses across the pale expanse of Chan’s creamy skin, laving my tongue against a sensitive nipple which forced a temporary break from his regular tempo.

“Don’t play dirty, sweetie,” Chan said, giving me no warning before he was pushing me onto my back, hovering over me with his irresistible bedroom eyes. His hands spread my thighs wide, giving himself more room to fuck inside, movements growing faster with every step closer to what was beginning to feel like an intense orgasm. I’m talking about the kind that I could feel between my legs for days after I tried to walk straight again. “Do I need to touch you?”

“Fuck, I think you’re doing just fine,” I said. “Where the hell did this come from?”

“You woke up my competitive side,” Chan said, hitting deep like we were suddenly 20-years-old again sneaking quickies between lectures. Back then, Chan could literally fuck me against a wall, my legs wrapped around his gorgeous hips while he knocked the breath out of my lungs. Thank god, Chan decided that college would be his glory years, working out aggressively in the gym until he had muscles filling out the places where he had previously been soft. But I would always miss his pudgy stomach, even if his ass was now something out of a porn magazine.

“Well fuck,” I moaned. “I’ll have to do this more often.”

“I’d do it all the time if I wasn’t working until 3 in the morning at the hospital,” Chan said.

“Good point, should I come in at lunch then? You can lock us in one of the empty rooms.”

“Oh shit, sweetie, you shouldn’t talk that way,” Chan growled and it was one of the sexiest sounds I had ever heard.

“I’m close,” I warned him, digging my fingers in his scalp as his teeth teased against my collarbone.

“Me too,” he said, breaths uneven as he punctuated his words with a series of harsh ruts that sent my eyes rolling into the back of my skull. His fingers found my clit, thumb pressing down hard enough to trigger one of the best orgasms I had experienced in a long time.

I tightened around his stuttering cock, moaning when I could feel his cum deep inside, warm and wet. “Shit, you’re so good at that.”

Chan pulled out slowly, eyes growing wide at the sight of his cum leaking down my ass. “Left a fucking mess though.”

“We can shower later,” I said, grabbing his arm to encourage him to lie down next to me, burying my face against his chest, scarlet-red from the exertion.

“Was the dick that good?” Chan teased, running his fingers soothingly along my spine.

“Your dick is that good,” I replied. “The genetics are strong.”

“I’ll be sure to tell my parents,” Chan said, giggling as I shot him a warning glare. “I love you, sweetie.”

“Mmm, I love you more.”

1 Week Later

Lee Felix is the spawn of the devil and nobody could convince me otherwise. Because ever since we first met, when Chan invited me over to his house for a project, Felix had decided that I was his number one enemy, deeming me “Medusa” because he was enamored with Greek Mythology. But the unfortunate nickname had stuck throughout the years, even when Felix visited our college between breaks, forcing me to sleep on the couch while he shared the bed with his step-brother.

Recently, Felix had just finished his Master’s program for some kind of fancy Philosophy degree that would probably do him absolutely no good in the real world. But Chan was proud of his baby brother, inviting him to stay with us after graduation until Felix could stand on his own two feet. The decision was met by my instantaneous protest leading to an argument that I inevitably lost because Chan was still using Changbin as a winning point. However, even before my employment with Seo Enterprises, Felix was the cause of at least 95% of our arguments and I was not exaggerating in the slightest.

The sound of the doorbell ringing was suddenly a lot louder than I remember. “Death is here,” I said solemnly, ignoring the way Chan scoffed at my claim. I followed behind him somberly as he opened the door, letting out an excited cheer when he saw Felix waiting on the other side. Felix dropped his bag and practically screamed, which would likely wake up the entire neighborhood, jumping into his brother’s arm as the two embraced right in the middle of my foyer.

“Could you be any louder?” I snarled at the younger Bang.

“Maybe I could, Medusa,” Felix shot back, eyes narrowed as he picked up his bag.

“Come on, Felix,” Chan said, nodding at the kitchen. “I bet you’re hungry.”

Felix nodded, putting on his best smile for his ignorant brother, shoving his bag harshly at my chest as he walked by. “You can take care of that for me, right Medusa?”

“You little bitch,” I muttered, meeting his glare with one of my own.

The only thing worse than going out with Felix was including Han Jisung in the equation. For whatever reason, Jisung and Felix always riled each other up, chugging down alcohol like it was fucking water or something. However, Felix wanted to see Jisung again and Chan never said no to his little brother. This is why I was currently seated next to Chan at a cheesy bar in downtown Harlem, listening to Felix and Jisung try to talk over one another as Chan looked on with fond eyes. The only good part of the night was the fact that even Chan had allowed himself to get a little tipsy which meant he was doing his absolute best to feel me up in public. I always found it amusing, knocking his hand away when his eager fingers started to trail up my skirt.

“Felix,” Jisung whined. “How can you say that?”

“Oi, there’s no way you can put Nickleback and Green Day in the same fucking category.”

I rolled my eyes at the stupid argument, smacking Chan’s hand when he started to finger the waistband of my skirt. “Chan!” Jisung pouted. “Tell him that he’s wrong.”

“Tell the philosophy major that he’s wrong?” Chan asked, accent on full display as he reached out to playfully ruffle Felix’s hair. “You can’t even answer the phone at the receptionist’s desk.”

Felix loved the attention and I hated it when he came over only to occupy Chan’s every waking hour with his never-ending thirst for affection. But I wasn’t going to let him get away with it tonight. I cleared my throat, stretching my arms back behind my head because I knew how good it would make my breasts look in the rather low-cut shirt I had chosen for tonight’s affair. I glanced over at Chan, smiling victoriously when I saw the way his eyes had glued themselves to my chest. Even Han Jisung was looking, which would normally annoy me to no end, but I was putting on my best behavior tonight. “Chan!” Felix shouted, trying to regain his brother’s attention. “Did you hear that I scored the highest honors on my research project?”

And just like that, Chan’s attention was redirected to Satan, eyes glowing with pride. “That’s amazing, Felix!”

“I can tell you all about it,” Felix said arrogantly, tossing me a cocky smile which left me absolutely incensed. “The board was so impressed, they offered to publish my results in the University’s magazine.”

“Are you serious, Felix?” Jisung asked which was an even bigger blow because the only two things occupying Jisung’s thoughts were women and alcohol.

So I decided to push my luck, tugging down my skirt before shifting over in the booth to plant myself directly on Chan’s lap, wrapping my arms around his neck before nuzzling into his warm chest. “Channie,” I cooed while glaring at Felix from the corner of my eye.

“Do you want something, sweetie?” Chan asked, smile blinding as one hand wrapped around my waist, leaving the other to tease the bare skin of my thighs.

I reached for Chan’s beer, shoving the glass at him because nothing made Chan hornier than thighs and alcohol. “Should I come to see you at work tomorrow? Like we talked about before?”

Chan’s eyes lit with recognition and I smirked victoriously when I felt him grow hard in his tight jeans. “I’d really like that.”

And to seal my victory, I leaned forward to kiss my intoxicated husband, ignoring the sloppy way he reciprocated, breath musty with the taste of beer. Felix growled lowly from across the booth and Jisung let out a wolf whistle at our blatant display. But I was on cloud nine, satisfied to have won Chan’s attention because it meant Felix was going to be quite unhappy for the rest of the night.

“Medusa, aren’t you going to make me breakfast?”

I groaned as I glanced over at the alarm clock which informed me that it was only 9:00 AM. “Fuck, Felix, go back to sleep.”

“But I’m hungry,” he whined, reaching across the bed to tug on my arm.

“It’s Saturday,” I hissed, barely clinging to the wonderful promise of more sleep which would do wonders for my hungover state.

“Chan wouldn’t be happy with you,” Felix reminded me. “Should I call him at work?”

“Get out of here you little maggot,” I snapped. “I’ll fix you some damn breakfast.”

“Now!” Felix ordered like he had every right to make demands of me, but I didn’t want Felix to say anything to Chan because that would only lead to another needless argument.

“You’re a fucking menace,” I said, throwing off my bedsheets while briefly mourning the loss of my precious sleep. But I don’t want anyone to ever say that I was a bad wife, especially when I put up with Lee Felix just to make Chan happy.

Felix was already seated at the counter when I finally drug myself out of my bedroom, groggily reaching for a clean pan from the cabinet. “You get eggs and bacon,” I told him. “I’m not a gourmet chef.”

“Whatever,” Felix said, ignoring me completely in exchange for his cell phone. Which Chan was now paying for to help “lessen Felix’s financial burden.”

“Chan,” I remember telling him. “You’ll spoil him if you keep doing things like that. He’ll never want to leave!”

“What’s wrong with that?” Chan had shot back as if the idea of living with his younger brother for the rest of our married life was perfectly acceptable.

“A million things,” I muttered now, cracking one of the eggs against the side of the pan.

“I hear you’re working for Seo Changbin,” Felix abruptly spoke up, and I could practically feel his eyes on me. “He cheated on you, right?”

“It’s really none of your business,” I informed him brusquely, grabbing a spatula while wondering if I could teach Felix a lesson if I hit him a few times.

“My brother isn’t happy,” Felix continued as if my warning meant nothing to him. Probably because it didn’t. “I think it’s a bad idea, but your satisfaction always comes first, right?”

“Why the fuck did Chan tell you this?” I gritted out while aggressively slamming the fridge closed, pack of bacon gripped tightly in my hand.

“He tells me everything,” Felix said smartly. “Because he trusts me.”

“Good for you,” I huffed over my shoulder. “I’m glad you have such a close relationship with your brother.”

“Jealous?” Felix taunted, expression smug when I roughly placed down a glass in front of him.

“Is orange juice, okay?” I asked him in a faux sweet voice.

“It’s fine,” Felix shrugged. “But whatever is most inconvenient for you.”

“What a sweet little boy you are,” I said, pouring him a generous amount. “How long do you plan on staying here?”

“Chan says I can stay for as long as I want,” Felix said, narrowing his eyes. “You don’t have a problem with that, do you?”

“Of course not,” I muttered. “Two Bangs are better than one.”

“That’s right,” Felix said brightly, taking a sip from his glass. “Ugh, does this have pulp in it?”

“Drink your fucking orange juice, Felix!”

The invention of video games was a godsend because they could occupy Felix’s attention for hours, leaving me in relative peace as I tried not to let him destroy every last bit of my resolve. I was currently having a bath alone in the sanctity of my bathroom, shoulder-deep in soothing bath salts which I kept well-stocked in the cabinet underneath the sink. The aroma was pleasant, sending me to a place somewhere far away to where Felix’s were strictly prohibited.

For the entirety of the day, Felix had been doing his best to get on my nerves. I cooked him breakfast and lunch, cleaned his disgusting laundry, and even held my tongue when he requested I drive him to the mattress store because the guest bedroom was unsatisfactory. But it had always been like this between us, ever since the day I first met Felix and tried my best to make a good impression. Unfortunately, Felix idolized his older brother, deeming any girl unworthy of his time and efforts, including myself. Of course, above anyone else, Felix thought I was the worst possible choice, reminding me every second that his brother deserved someone smarter, richer, and prettier.

Suddenly, my phone vibrated loudly on the edge of the bathtub and I hesitantly glanced at the screen, half-expecting to see Felix’s name displayed like a caution sign. Surprisingly, it was Chan who had sent me a message to ask where I was, which meant Felix had lied through his teeth and said I’d gone somewhere.

To Channie

Bathroom.

It was only a moment or two later when the door opened and Chan stuck his head inside, offering me a pleasant smile as he locked the door behind him. “You’re home early,” I remarked, vacantly staring up at the ceiling.

“It’s Saturday night,” Chan reminded me. “I thought the three of us could go out to eat.”

I groaned in protest. “What about takeout?”

“You love going out,” Chan said. “I’ll even let you pick the restaurant.”

“I have way too many problems right now,” I said. “I’m avoiding them by staying in the water for as long as I can.”

“Sweetie,” Chan said, taking a step closer. “You should’ve waited for me.”

“Why?” I asked him airily. “You’re one of those problems.”

“Me?” Chan asked, choosing to sit down on the edge of the tub. “What did I do wrong?”

“No arguments tonight,” I said, letting out a deep sigh. “This is the most relaxed I’ve been all day.”

“Aren’t you being overdramatic?” Chan asked, reaching down to flick a trail of water in my direction. “I was in surgery for 6 hours today.”

“Yeah? Well, I’ve dealt with Felix since 9 this morning.”

“Ah,” Chan sighed. “I figured it had something to do with my brother.”

“Just forget it,” I whined. “You know we don’t get along.”

“I do know that,” Chan said. “But I wish you both made a better effort. We’re family after all.”

I shivered at the idea of Felix belonging to any family of mine. “You can keep him on your side, then. I grew up as an only child, look at how much better I turned out for it.”

“You told me you had imaginary friends growing up because you were so lonely,” Chan teased.

“Asshole,” I muttered. “That’s sensitive information that I told you in confidentiality. You should know all about patient-doctor confidentiality. Didn’t you have a whole lecture on it?”

“Y/N,” Chan lightly chastised, reaching for a towel on the rack next to the counter. “Get dressed, we’re leaving in an hour.”

“You’ve condemned me to death,” I complained, watching through lidded eyes as he stretched out his arms.

“I’m serious, Y/N, at least try to get along for my sake.”

“That’s all I ever do,” I muttered to his retreating form.

Hwang Hyunjin is a willing accomplice to the devil himself who never misses an opportunity to throw out some lascivious comments about my appearance. He was Felix’s best friend and partner in crime, sharing his goal of making my life as miserable as possible. He was also coming out to eat with us tonight and no matter how much I whined to Chan, he remained adamant that Felix should spend some time with his friends. “He’s only young once,” Chan told me, ignoring the way I glared at him with every ounce of hostility that I could muster.

“Did you paint those pants on, Y/N?” Hyunjin asked the minute he sat down in the backseat next to Felix.

“I did, actually, thanks for the unnecessary observation,” I told him shortly, still focused on the staring contest I was having with Felix in the rearview mirror.

“Don’t mind her, she’s probably on her period,” Felix said and I took in a deep breath because I was very close to turning around in my seat to choke the life out of Felix’s pencil neck.

“How have you been, Hyunjin?” Chan asked, one hand on the steering wheel as he calmly navigated us through the permanent traffic of New York.

“I applied for a job with Amazon,” Hyunjin replied. “I don’t wanna brag, but I definitely nailed the interview.”

“Yeah right,” I muttered under my breath. Hyunjin had the worst people skills in the history of mankind. He was almost as incompetent as Han Jisung, but ten times worse because of his sarcastic attitude.

“You’ll get me Amazon Prime for free, right bro?” Felix giggled and I resisted the urge to mock the sound.

“I’m proud of you, Hyunjin,” Chan said. “I know you worked hard.”

��It wasn’t a big deal,” Hyunjin said. “But the chick who interviewed me was really hot and I think I appropriately swept her off her feet.”

“Big tits?” Felix asked because that’s all those stupid boys cared about.

“Of course,” Hyunjin said. “But I’m still waiting for you, Y/N, whenever you’re ready.”

Felix scoffed. “You could do better than Medusa.”

“How about some music?” I snapped loudly, reaching down for the radio knob to block out the sounds of Felix and Hyunjin’s voices.

Monday mornings were the worst thing to ever happen to mankind next to Lee Felix. I was sipping at my morning coffee, cold now because Felix had spent way too much time ordering me around the kitchen before I left home. But it was better than nothing and I desperately needed caffeine to get through the day. “Morning, Y/N,” Changbin greeted me smoothly, suit well-pressed and fitted to hug his arms and thighs just right.

“Sure,” I said in reply, trudging to my chair in slow motion.

“Are you always this lively in the mornings?” Changbin remarked, leaning against my desk as he looked through his mail.

“Just on Mondays,” I said, booting up my computer so that I could answer the dozens of emails likely waiting for me, most of which would come from annoying sponsors who wanted Changbin to be on their dumb podcast.

“Well, you still look gorgeous,” Changbin said.

My cheeks flushed at his comment. “You still need to call Mr. Kim back, he’s left another voicemail.”

“Just one call?” Changbin smirked, eyes dancing dangerously. “Have you been scaring everyone off, Y/N?”

“I did just as you asked, sir.”

“You don’t have to call me sir,” Changbin chuckled, carefully engrossed in his cell phone now as he graciously returned to his own office.

I shivered as I glanced at my computer screen. Changbin was still as notoriously flirtatious as he had been when we were younger. In fact, it might be worse now that he had finally grown into his sharper features which made him look ridiculously attractive. “I love Chan, I love Chan,” I quietly repeated to myself, even as a distant memory suddenly forced itself back into consciousness.

An 18-year-old Seo Changbin walking inside my lecture hall wearing a dark button-up tucked into the tightest pair of skinny jeans he probably owned. Every eye in that lecture room had suddenly turned to him because he was an irresistible force, impossible to ignore. “Y/N?”

Be cool Y/N, I softly chastised myself as I offered him a friendly smile. “Hi, Changbin.”

It was purely coincidental that Changbin had ended up at the same University as me, but that didn’t stop my fragile teenage heart from declaring it as something akin to fate. “It’s been a while,” Changbin said, pulling out the chair next to mine.

I swallowed hard because my mouth was as dry as a desert. “I didn’t know you were enrolled here.”

“It was my first pick,” Changbin said. “My father is an alumnus.”

“Really?” I asked, ignoring the arrival of the professor in exchange for mapping out every single one of Changbin’s gorgeous features.

“This class is just for gen ed,” Changbin said, pushing a hand through his neatly styled black hair.

“Oh, same for me,” I nodded. “I heard it was pretty easy.”

“Is that right?” Changbin asked while flashing me an award-winning smile. Roll out the red carpets because this boy was cool enough to be in an action film co-starring Tom Holland and Ancel Elgort.

But what were we talking about? “I’m majoring in English.”

“Political Science,” Changbin returned. “And Business.”

I deflated a little because, in comparison to my lousy arts degree, Changbin seemed like a certified genius. He would be educated in the art of entrepreneurship and big money while I struggled to comprehend the meaning of Great Expectations. “Have you met anyone else from high school?”

“Not yet,” Changbin said. “What about you?”

“Well, Bang Chan’s enrolled here too...” I started, only to trail off when I realized that Changbin probably had no idea who Chan was since he never paid attention to him in high school. Actually, Changbin would have been more likely to join the football jocks who liked to steal Chan’s stuff only to tie his underwear to the flagpole outside the gym.

“The nerdy Australian kid?” Changbin chuckled. “That sucks.”

“Oh,” was all I could manage since Changbin obviously didn’t know that Chan and I were friends.

“You don’t hang out with him, do you?” Changbin asked, peering at me closely like I was seconds away from losing the honor of his company.

“We have lunch sometimes,” I said, which was only partially true since I did like to meet up with Chan in the dining hall around 2:00 because it was never crowded. But Changbin didn’t need to know that I had spent the night in Chan’s apartment listening to him record one of his mixtapes because Chan had a newfound interest in music.

“You could do better,” Changbin sighed. “Hang out with me instead. I’ll treat you to the nicest fast food joint on campus.”

My heart was racing, palms clammy as I nodded my head rapidly. “Lunch?”

“Whatever you want, love,” Changbin said, close proximity knocking every rational thought clean out of my head.

It was like my best fantasy coming to life right before my very eyes, and after our lecture ended I asked Changbin to wait for me while I made a phone call to Chan. “Y/N!” came his cheerful voice from the other end. “Guess who got to dissect a liver today?”

I wrinkled my nose at the nasty image. Chan was studying to enter the medical program which meant a lot of his daily life centered around the human body and all sorts of things that could go wrong with it. “Chan,” I whined. “You’re talking to someone who can’t stand the sight of blood.”

“I know,” Chan sniggered. “Does this mean you’re not gonna want to eat lunch with me today? You know I’ll pay, of course, I got a raise at the cafe.”

“Well,” I started, desperately searching for the right words. “I actually have to meet with my professor for this essay I’ve been having trouble with.”

“No problem,” Chan said. “I’ll bring you takeout for dinner. Doesn’t your roommate have practice tonight?”

I glanced back at Changbin with a guilty conscience. Why did Chan have to be so sweet all the time? “Yeah, that’s fine.”

“No liver talk, I promise,” Chan giggled and I hung up the phone before he could make me feel even worse than I already did.

“You want to get some lunch?” Changbin asked with his hands dug inside his pockets as he stood in front of my desk.

“Like, with me?” I asked warily because I wasn’t sure where the line stood on professionalism when it involves eating with an ex-boyfriend.

“Who else?” Changbin said. “I figured we could use a break from the phone calls.”

“I don’t know...” I answered hesitantly because Chan would probably lose his shit if he discovered I went out anywhere with Changbin.

“It’s not a big deal, Y/N,” Changbin said. “My job is to make sure my employees are well taken care of.”

“I guess,” I sighed, reaching down for my purse on the floor. “One lunch together won’t hurt anything.”

But Changbin seemed awfully smug, patiently waiting for me to gather my belongings, stuffing my phone with an unanswered text from Chan inside my side pocket. It’s almost like the universe was conspiring against me, doing its very best to try and force me into the worst situations possible. Here’s an irrational thought: what if Chan happened to decide to go out for lunch today? He might find me with Changbin and I couldn’t think of a worse scenario. Of course, I suppose it doesn’t necessarily have to be Chan who finds us. For example, if his younger step-brother was to suddenly wander in the building at this very moment...

“Medusa!”

Curse you, universe!

“Felix?”

“I brought us lunch!” Felix chirped brightly, holding up a picnic basket as he waltzed right up to my desk with far more confidence than necessary.

I blinked my eyes rapidly, unable to process the idea that Felix was standing in the middle of the company’s lobby. “Is it poisoned?” I asked, trying not to alert him to any possible wrongdoing.

Felix ignored me, turning around to face Changbin with a critical gaze. “Seo? Is that you?”

“Felix,” Changbin acknowledged, frowning as if he was the last person on earth he wanted to see, and I could share the sentiment.

“Fuck,” Felix cursed, taking a step back. “You still look really young. I was surprised when Y/N told me you were her new boss.”

“I didn’t tell you that,” I said, opening the flaps of the basket only to let out a disgruntled sigh when I realized he had only brought a bag of chips and a tray of cookies.

“And what are you doing these days?” Changbin asked.

“Freelance work, mostly,” Felix replied as if he really needed to lie to Changbin about his lack of a suitable occupation.

“I forgot what you majored in,” Changbin said. “It was hard to keep up since you changed your concentration like a dozen times.”

I couldn’t hold back my laugh, even when Felix sneered in my direction. “Philosophy.”

“Interesting,” Changbin said, nodding his head. “I’m actually surprised to hear that. You never settled on anything.”

Seo Changbin needed to be careful because his charm points were dramatically increasing the more he mocked my husband’s step-brother. “I actually just finished my Masters.”

“Really?” Changbin said. “This coming from the same boy who used to party with Hwang Hyunjin at all the Fraternities, even if they were on a different campus.”

“It was just Freshman year,” Felix defended himself.

“Well,” Changbin started, “I’m glad to hear about your graduation. Y/N and I were actually just about to head out to lunch.”

I winced at his words, withering under Felix’s accusing watch. “Is that so?”

Changbin carefully studied the two of us. “I’ll be waiting in my car, Y/N.”

I grabbed my bag while pushing the picnic basket back in Felix’s direction. “I swear to god if you tell Chan about this, I’ll castrate you in your sleep.”

“We’ll see about that,” Felix growled, and that was the moment I realized that I was treading very dangerous waters.

Changbin drove us to a charming restaurant about two blocks away from the main company building. He pulled right up to the sidewalk, handing his keys to the waiting carhop as if he had done this about a thousand times. But I guess that was pretty likely considering just how well-off he was ten years later. “Impressive,” I remarked to him, reluctantly accepting his outstretched hand as he helped me out of his car.

“Yeah?” Changbin said, offering me a wink. “Maybe I’m trying to impress you.”

“You’re a dangerous man, Seo Changbin,” I told him, bowing slightly to the waiting doorman who kindly ushered us inside.

This was why the pretty girls always lusted after Changbin. When we were both still in high school, Changbin epitomized the phrase #BoyfriendGoals because he was super attractive, incredibly smart, and athletic enough to earn himself a shining record after an impressive baseball season. And I was just as mindless as the rest of the zombies chasing him down in the parking lot at school or squealing his name in the hallways between classes.

“I eat here all the time,” Changbin assured me, flashing the hostess a dazzling smile while handing her his card.

“Right this way, Mr. Seo,” the hostess curtsied, ignoring the long line of waiting patrons who apparently didn’t matter as much as my new boss as she led us to a private table. “Your waitress will be with you shortly.”

“Thank you,” I said politely, eyes wide as I took in the gorgeous chandelier dropping from the high-domed ceiling.

“Close your mouth, Y/N,” Changbin said. “You act like you’ve never been somewhere like this before.”

“Not exactly,” I said because the nicest place Chan had ever taken me was an Olive Garden and that had ended poorly after Chan accidentally knocked his shoulder against a poor server on his way back to the table causing an avalanche of salad and breadsticks.

“Bang should be taking you to places like this all the time,” Changbin commented, perhaps a casual observation to anyone else.

I narrowed my eyes suspiciously. “Chan and I prefer to keep things low-key.”

“Should I have taken you to Applebees instead?”

“How funny.”

“I’m kidding, Y/N,” Changbin said, reaching down to adjust the buttons on his coat sleeve. “You’ve changed a lot since college.”

“Since we dated you mean?” I asked with an arched brow.

“Well,” Changbin started, “if you want to think of it like that.”

“Hmmm,” I briefly meditated, studying Changbin’s expression carefully. “How else should I think about it.”

Changbin tsked, raising a hand to signal for a nearby waiter. “I don’t mean to suggest anything.”

The waiter approached our table with purposed steps. “How may I help you, sir?”

“A wine menu?” Changbin asked, nodding generously when the waiter returned with his requested selection.

“You make a beautiful couple,” the waiter gushed while he pulled out a thick leather wallet, flipping to a fresh page.

“Oh! We’re not-”

“-A bottle of pinot noir, please,” Changbin said, returning the menu without bothering to correct the waiter’s observation.

“Right away, sir,” the waiter agreed.

I held my tongue until he was further away, bothering an older couple who were probably complaining about something to do with their food. “Changbin,” I warned him. “You should be careful.”

“It was a harmless mistake,” Changbin said. “How can I possibly come between you and Bang?”

I worried my bottom lip between my teeth because it sounded less like a dismissal and more like a challenge.

The sun was already setting by the time I returned home thanks to one of Changbin’s business partners who refused to leave the office building until they had a chance to speak to him. I was low on patience, tired from an exhausting day of dealing with telemarketers insisting our company needed the latest software for our clientele. There was only a limited number of times I could tell somebody to fuck off before inevitably shouting into the other end that I was in no way interested in whatever useless product they were trying to shove down my throat, complete with some kind of scammy discount and an opportunity to be represented on their website.

To make matters worse, my feet were blistered from wearing heels all day and my shoulders ached from slouching over my computer to answer emails and monitor the progress of Changbin’s latest project. My only saving grace was the message Chan had sent me earlier telling me that he had already clocked out at work, which meant I could probably guilt him into giving me one of his trademarked messages. I mean, all I wanted to do was curl up next to Chan in bed and sleep for the rest of the day.

But it looked like my desires would have to wait because as soon as I unlocked the door to the house, I could immediately sense that something was wrong. Taking a deep breath, I cautiously walked into the living room to find Chan and Felix busy with some kind of video game on our HD TV, volume high until I walked in the room. Chan waited until I called his name, reaching for the remote to mute the TV before tossing his controller onto the coffee table. From across the room, Felix’s eyes were alight with mischief.

“How was work today?” Chan asked with a tone that I only ever heard when my husband was feeling particularly pissed off about something, and I had a sneaking suspicion it involved me in some capacity.

“It was fine,” I said, deciding to play it safe while I kept my complaints to myself.

Felix smirked in my direction, whistling to himself as he reached for his game controller. “Felix told me something interesting today.”

“Oh did he?” I asked, wondering just how much pain Felix could tolerate if I marched over to him right now and hit him with an umbrella.

“He said he tried to have lunch with you.”

“I was busy.”

“With Seo Changbin?”

Felix was definitely going to die tonight. That little snitch deserved every ounce of punishment I was starting to formulate inside my head. “He invited me out instead.”

“I got that,” Chan snapped and I knew my husband was in a foul mood. I’m talking about the kind of mood that usually sent me scampering for the safety of the bunkers. Like the time some drunk asshole rear-ended Chan’s precious convertible while we were sitting in downtown traffic. Or the time when we were Freshmen in college and Chan confronted Changbin after finding out that he had been cheating on me.

But this time the problem was me which meant I couldn’t just hide from Chan and wait for things to go back to normal. “Honey,” I attempted to reassure him. “It was just lunch.”

“Yeah? But that doesn’t seem like keeping things strictly professional to me, Y/N.”

“He’s my boss now, I can’t just tell him no.”

“Actually, you can,” Chan disagreed, now refusing to look at me. “How would you like it if I ate with my new superintendent?”

“Depends on if she offered to pay or not.”

“Y/N.”

“Chan,” I pouted. “I’m really sorry! He just surprised me.”

“It makes me wonder what else you might be doing with him,” Chan snarked.

Meanwhile, Felix calmly continued to play his video game while wearing the biggest shit-eating grin. “Are you accusing me of having an affair?”

“Why not?” Chan shrugged. “Since we’re keeping secrets from each other.”

“It was just one lunch,” I shouted. “He’s never done anything like this before. Most of the time I’m alone in the lobby taking his stupid phone calls.”

“And that’s all I should ever hear about,” Chan growled.

“You’re making this into a bigger deal than it needs to be,” I scoffed, rolling my eyes before remembering just how much Chan hated it when I did that to him.

“Y/N,” Chan addressed me sternly, deciding to abandon his seat on the couch to crowd me in the foyer. “If this was anyone else, I wouldn’t make it into a bigger deal, but this is someone you used to fuck while running around campus bragging about it to everyone who would listen...which was usually me!”

“He doesn’t mean anything to me,” I said. “I already told you that!”

“You’ve said a lot of things recently,” Chan said. “I’m not sure what to believe anymore.”

“Yeah? Well, it’s your brother’s fault since he’s always looking to cause a fight between us,” I said, glaring at Felix while he continued to play the part of the perfect little angel that Chan always considered him.

“Don’t drag Felix into this, he has nothing to do with anything!”

“Oh, don’t be stupid, Chan,” I huffed. “We fight more about Felix than we do about Changbin.”

“Stupid?!”

Oh, Jesus, Y/N, when are you going to learn to watch your big mouth? “Channie, I’m tired of fighting all the time. I feel like we’re always fighting.”

“Yeah? Well, you give me a lot of reasons to stay mad at you.”

“For fuck’s sake,” I groaned. “We never fought this much when we were dating.”

“Is that so? You think our marriage is the problem?”

I froze at his implications. At this point, Felix might as well drag out a bucket of popcorn because this was probably the most interesting drama he had watched all year. “Chan, you can’t honestly believe that.”

“I don’t know what to believe anymore,” Chan said, shaking his head. “But maybe I’ll give you some time to think about it.”

“Chan!” I whined, fighting back tears as I watched him turn his back on me. For the first time since we had met, Chan was leaving an argument unresolved, choosing to lock himself away in our bedroom while I struggled to keep myself together in the middle of our foyer.

“Goodbye, Y/N,” Felix whispered into the silent room, waving his fingers at me because he had gotten exactly what he wanted.

Felix’s birthday often turned into a multiple-day affair because he always wanted the best that money could buy. Since Chan and I still weren’t speaking to one another, Chan was taking the brunt of party preparations which meant Felix was practically over the moon with excitement. And why shouldn’t he be? He hit the metaphorical jackpot because he somehow got me in the doghouse while he soaked up all of Chan’s attention.

“Y/N,” Felix whined. “My toast is burnt!”

“Sorry,” I murmured softly, taking his plate even though the bread looked perfectly fine. Meanwhile, Chan chose not to say a word, heavily engrossed in his laptop and doing his absolute best to pretend I was invisible.

“What about this, Felix?” he asked, tilting his laptop screen so that his brother could see whatever it was that probably cost hundreds of dollars. On the other hand, I couldn’t even find the courage to ask Chan for his credit card so that I could replace the broken stool at our counter.

“That’s perfect, Channie!” Felix grinned, hanging off his brother’s shoulder like the little pest he was.

Our Amazon shopping cart was steadily filling with Felix’s party supplies. But I guess it was just Chan’s account now since he had changed the password without telling me. I tried to order a new curtain for the bathroom, only to repeatedly watch the warning screen pop-up with every refresh of the page. “Who do you want at your party?” Chan asked Felix.

“Hyunjin, Jisung...” Felix started, listing out each name while I winced every time because our house would probably end up completely trashed at this rate.

“Whatever you want,” Chan said, apparently forgetting the last time Jisung came over only to break one of my grandmother’s expensive vases. Since it was my stuff, he probably didn’t care. “I have to leave soon,” Chan said, wordlessly clicking on the ‘place your order ’ button before logging off.

“Will you be gone all day again?” Felix pouted, jutting out his bottom lip and offering his very best puppy dog eyes.

23-years-old my ass.

“I’ll do my best,” Chan promised his brother. “Do you need anything while I’m out.”

“More chocolate cereal?”

10-years-old more likely.

“I’ll see you tonight,” Chan cooed to Felix, ruffling his hair before snatching his coat from my outstretched hand, refusing to even acknowledge my existence.

Felix waited until Chan was gone to lean in across the counter. “You two are so cute, Medusa.”

“I fucking hate you,” I said, aggressively attacking the grease stain on the stainless steel pot I was currently washing.

“Whatever,” Felix shrugged. “Will you ask Minho to come to my birthday party?”

“There’s not a fucking chance in hell that I’m asking him,” I snapped.

“Why?” Felix posed the question as if he felt absolutely no shame. “I like Minho and I want him to be there.”

“Fuck off,” I retorted, drying my hands against the rough texture of the dishtowel.

Felix sniffled, reaching for his phone and holding it up to his ear. “Channie? Yeah, Y/N was being really mean to me-”

“-Jesus, fine, I’ll ask him,” I quickly interrupted the little Devil. “How old are you turning again?”

“24!” Felix grinned.

“Then act like it,” I muttered while dialing Minho’s number.

There were only two rings before he answered. “It’s too early on Saturday for this bullshit, Y/N,” came Minho’s pleasant voice from the other end.

“You sleep too much anyway,” I returned. “I have something to ask you.”

“It better be pretty fucking important.”

“Will you come to Felix’s stupid birthday party this Friday?” I asked him, ignoring Felix’s bright smile as he tried to listen in on our conversation.

“Did you buy booze?”

“I’m sure Chan will buy the little bastard all the booze he wants,” I said, pushing Felix out of the way.

“What time?” Minho asked. “I’m a very busy man, Y/N.”

“The hell you are,” I snorted. “9:00 PM. Don’t be late! I’ll be the pathetic piece of trash sitting on the couch alone.”

“It’s about time you learn, Y/N,” Felix remarked, giggling when I threw the dishtowel at him.

“Still in trouble with hubby?” Minho asked. “I hear you have to stay separated for a year before the courts grant divorces these days.”

“You’re an asshole,” I said. “Should I put you down on the guest list?”

“Of course,” Minho said. “Underlined because I’m a VIP”

I hung up on him before he could dig his grave any deeper.

“Don’t burn that,” Felix scolded me, hovering by my side to play the part of Gordon Ramsay while I sweated my ass off to cook everything on his stupid party menu.

“It’s not burnt,” I grumbled.

“I hope you’re not wearing that to my party,” Felix said, casting a critical eye over my outfit.

I reached down to adjust the waistband of my skirt. “What’s wrong with it?”

“This is a classy party, Y/N, and you look like a hooker.”

“Go help your brother or something,” I said, doing my best to be nice since it was Felix’s birthday. I could manage some form of kindness even if he didn’t deserve it.

“Chan’s fine,” Felix waved me off even though I was certain I saw Chan struggling to hang up lights on the balcony just moments ago when I went to change my clothes.

I glanced at the clock above the stove. “Your fellow party animals will be here soon.”

“You’re not cool enough for those references,” Felix told me as he straightened his tie.

“I wasn’t trying to be,” I said, wiping my forehead with a nearby towel. My makeup was probably smeared but I didn’t care. Who was I hoping to impress anyway? The only person I dressed up for was Chan and he could care less about my appearance.

And it was only a few minutes later when the doorbell started to ring. I took a deep breath to try and reassure myself that I could make it through tonight without another Advil. “Someone’s here!” Felix squeaked, knocking his shoulder against mine in his haste to answer the door.

“No matter who it is, I’ll still be in hell,” I muttered, closing my eyes when I recognized Hyunjin’s voice mixing with Felix’s.

“Y/N!” Hyunjin sang, poking his head in the kitchen as if he owned the place. “There you are! Looking all pretty for us.”

“That was the goal,” I half-heartedly quipped back, turning off the stove once I declared Felix’s stupid Tteok-bokki cooked enough.

“Your legs look good,” Hyunjin said, abruptly leaning in closer. “Are you even wearing anything under that skirt?”

“Hyunjin!” Felix shouted his friend’s name from the living room. “Come check out the decorations.”

Hyujin blew a kiss in my direction, tossing me a poor excuse for a wink. “Bye, Y/N!”

Maybe one more Advil wouldn’t hurt.

The party was in full swing by the time Minho finally arrived, greeting Felix with some kind of cheesy handshake. It was too late for me and I had already resigned myself to the futon of isolation in the living room, mourning the loss of one of my good dishes thanks to Han Jisung deciding to request something fancier than our regular set. “Sorry, Y/N,” Jisung had apologized. “I’m sure you can easily replace it.”

“Yeah, I’m sure my dead grandmother has another lying around somewhere,” I snarled in his direction, ignoring his wide-eyed look of disbelief as I searched for the broom.

Minho eventually finished his conversation with Felix, offering me a sympathetic look while occupying the last remaining chair. “Y/N?”

“Oh, I’m doing just fine,” I told him.

“You look miserable,” Minho informed me, throwing up his feet on my glass coffee table even though I had told him countless times before to keep his dirty socks on the floor.

“Chan hates me,” I said. “Felix is happy.”

“Ah,” Minho nodded. “Trouble in paradise?”

“It’s all Felix’s fault,” I sniped. “He found out I went to lunch with Changbin and told Chan because he knew it would lead to an argument.”

“He still doesn’t like you?” Minho snorted as if the idea were amusing.

“Felix has hated me since the beginning of time. He was brought to this Earth to cause me misery.”

“I’m sure that’s an exaggeration,” Minho said. “Where is Chan, anyway?”

“I don’t know,” I sighed. “If he wasn’t with Felix, then you might want to check the balcony. I think I saw him sneaking the Advil bottle out there earlier.”

Minho snickered. “You don’t even realize it, but you two are grossly similar. I’m sure Chan would have preferred a quiet dinner out somewhere.”

“Well, Felix always gets what he wants,” I said. “It’s been this way since high school.”

Minho considered me for a moment. “In his defense, Chan has always been Felix’s best friend. They’ve been attached at the hip since they were kids, but then you came into the picture. Suddenly, Chan isn’t as interested in spending all his time with Felix any more.”

“Are you saying I need to find Felix a girlfriend?”

“Y/N,” Minho said softly. “I’m just saying, maybe you need to think about things from Felix’s perspective for once. You were an only child, so you can’t understand what it means to share a close relationship with a brother.”

“Hmm, well you’re like a brother to me,” I teased him.

“Ugh,” Minho gagged. “You’ve had my dick in your mouth before, Y/N, please never say that again.”

“I was trying to be sweet,” I said. “But you ruined it.”

“Did I?” Minho smirked, glancing up at something behind me. “Are you having a good time, Felix?”

“We’re out of beer,” Felix interrupted, face suddenly mere inches from mine.

“You shouldn’t drink like a fish.”

“Medusa,” Felix tried again, holding out a ring of car keys. “Make yourself useful and buy us some more beer.”

I rolled my eyes but acquiesced. “Whatever you want, your majesty.”

I hated winter in New York City because the sidewalks were icy all the time and I was constantly in danger of rolling my ankle. Nevertheless, I tolerated the snow and wind by trading my heels for rain boots and wrapping my body in the thickest coat I owned. Normally, I might consider walking to the convenience store, but tonight I knew my fingers would be nothing but frozen icicles if I attempted that perilous journey.

Thankfully, the traffic was fairly light this late at night which allowed a relatively quick drive to the store, parking my corvette at the sidewalk. I walked inside with a muffled greeting to the store attendant, searching down the aisle to where the beer was stocked in the freezers. “He didn’t even tell me what he wanted,” I scoffed, deciding on the expensive Corona from the bottom shelf since Felix always liked things more when they cost a lot of money.

“Having a party?” the store attendant joked, accepting my debit card after ringing up the cases.

“Something like that,” I said, wondering if that was always his assumption if someone bought more than one bottle of the nasty smelling beverage.

Meanwhile, it had started snowing again when I walked back outside, popping the trunk to store the beer until I finally returned home. I switched on the ignition and turned on the heat to its fullest setting before sitting back in my seat to wrap my arms around myself, fighting off a series of chills. The action reminded me of Junior Year when Chan and I used to make late-night trips to the gas station near his apartment complex. We’d buy all sorts of unnecessary snacks, driving back together because we had planned a movie marathon of Harry Potter. Chan always complained about the films I liked, but he watched them anyway because he knew I enjoyed them.

I came to a stop at a red light, frowning when I noticed that nobody was coming in either direction. “Change already,” I ordered the traffic light as if it could possibly accommodate my request.

“I’ll teach you patience, Y/N,” Chan once told me after we waited nearly an hour in a heavy downpour outside the comic book shop because he just had to have some kind of rare edition figurine.

The traffic light eventually turned green and I rolled out into the intersection, never noticing the reckless SUV until mere seconds before it crashed into the side of my car.

I had the worst luck in the world when it came to relationships. First, there was my tired rendezvous with Minho in high school, blowing my best friend in the bathroom because he’d always fuck me with his fingers afterward. Then, there was that slimy bastard Seo Changbin who I willingly gave my virginity to, thinking he was the love of my life. That was before I found out he was cheating on me with some sleazy cheerleader thanks to a couple of photos surfacing on Facebook. My heart was instantly broken, pride in shambles as I spent an entire week hiding out in my dormitory ignoring all phone calls and text messages as I cried over a boy who never deserved my attention in the first place.

I plucked a few strands of grass from the ground next to my feet, savoring the first taste of sunlight I had allowed myself since that unfortunate discovery. Who the hell did Seo Changbin think he was anyway? Playing with my heart like that as if it meant absolutely nothing to him.

At least I wasn’t sad anymore, having spent enough time crying over the destructive boy. Now, all I could think about was smacking that stupid smug grin off his face while thoroughly purging my built-up frustrations...“Y/N?”

I turned around quickly at the sound of Chan’s voice, rising to my feet to brush the loose grass and dirt from my jeans. “Channie,” I said, nervously wringing my hands in front of me. Chan was probably mad at me since I had been ignoring him all week.

“Are you okay?” he asked instead, tone surprisingly gentle as he stopped in front of me.

“Not really,” I told him honestly.

“I didn’t think so,” Chan said, features hardening. “I’ll beat the shit out of Seo for you.”

I shook my head. “That won’t do any good.”

“But if it makes you feel better,” Chan said, reaching out to delicately swipe his thumb under my eyes. “You aren’t sleeping.”

It was more of a statement rather than a question, but I still felt the need to reassure him. “I promise that I’m okay.”

“You don’t have to lie to me,” Chan said, offering me a kind smile. “I can tell, you know?”

“Yeah you’re good at that,” I groused.

“I’m pretty good at a lot of things when it comes to you,” Chan admitted, eyes holding a pure kind of affection as they appraised me.

“I’m glad I have you,” I said, letting out a sigh as I allowed my head to rest against the center of his chest. “You don’t think I’m stupid for trying things out with Changbin?”

“You’ve always liked him,” Chan said with a bitter tone that sounded more like a jealous lover rather than a friend.

I chose not to say anything. “I hope the two of them make each other miserable.”

Chan chuckled. “Is this your form of revenge?”

“I don’t think it’ll work out in my favor,” I said, pressing myself even closer to Chan, pausing when my hand drug across his stomach. “Holy shit, Channie, you weren’t kidding about the gym.”

“Did you not believe me?”

“Who are you trying to impress?” I grinned, propping my chin against his sternum to make it easier to look into his eyes.

“It’s always been the same person,” Chan said vaguely, dimples on display as he considered me. “I hope Seo didn’t destroy your faith in relationships.”

“It wouldn’t be entirely his fault,” I sighed. “All my relationships have been complete failures.

“Y/N,” Chan whispered, brushing a light kiss across my forehead. “Maybe it’s because you’ve never tried the right guy.”

The memory was laced with something warm, an association that stood in stark contradiction to my current condition, slowly opening my eyes to a pulsing room, somehow much too bright for my pupils to adjust. Was I alive? I wondered because I couldn’t really feel anything which was certainly disarming. But then there was a familiar smell, rancid and burning, and it made me feel like I was definitely not in any sort of happy afterlife. There was also the problem of the blurry figure slowly coming into focus next to me, fiddling with an array of wires twisting together with the sounds of a machine distantly clicking in the background. I watched through hooded eyes as the now perceivable person in question handled an impressively large needle, pinching my skin painfully at the juncture of my elbow.

“Han Jisung,” I began, startling him from where he was checking the IV. “Just put a fucking needle into my arm. What hellish realm have I descended into?”

“Y/N!” Jisung squealed loudly, leaning down to press a sloppy kiss against my forehead.

“What the hell was that for?”

“For not dying,” Jisung sighed in relief. “When you came in, there was nothing but blood and glass everywhere!... Oh, and Chan may or may not have a fine against him for beating the living shit out of the asshole that hit you.”

“Why are you so loud?” I groaned, palming my forehead because the room was still swimming into focus. “What happened?”

“You probably don’t remember,” Jisung said. “It was a pretty bad concussion, but you were in a car accident.”

“I was?” I questioned, struggling to recall anything past a few minutes ago when I first realized that incompetent Han Jisung was sticking pointy objects into my veins.

“Chan was so upset,” Jisung said. “He wanted to do the surgery, but the superintendent wouldn’t let him.”

“Surgery?” I repeated. “I had surgery?”

“Cuz’ of your ribs,” Jisung said quietly as if finally realizing that he probably shouldn’t be saying all this to me at once, especially if the persistent beeping of the heart monitor was something to be concerned about.

“What’s wrong with my ribs?” I asked, somewhat panicking as I felt down my chest, noticing the thick bandage wrapped around my upper body.

“Chill, Y/N,” Jisung placated, reaching around me to adjust the monitor. “Now I can’t get an accurate reading!”

“So sorry to inconvenience you,” I said with a hoarse voice, reaching up to quickly wrap my hand around my throat. “Is there something wrong with my voice?”

“Well, you’ve been out for three days so...”

“Three days!”

Now I was definitely panicking, full-on hysteria as the heart monitor loudly detected the irregular contraction of the muscle thundering aggressively against my chest. It was enough to alert the doctor on duty, walking into my room to check on his patient, scolding Jisung harshly as he filled a syringe with a clear liquid. “Don’t worry, Y/N,” he said kindly, injecting the fluid into my IV. “Just relax.”

My eyelids fluttered closed, overwhelmed by a disjointed sense of calm that gradually pulled me back under the current of drug-induced bliss.

“Sweetie.”

My eyes flew open at the sound of his voice, the best wake-up call in the whole world. I slowly turned my head to the side, taking in the sight of my disheveled husband, eyes blood-shot with heavy dark bags haunting tight circles against his pale skin. “Channie?”

“I’m so sorry, Y/N,” Chan sniffled, fresh tears swelling his cheeks as he leaned in closer to grip tightly to my hand. “It’s all my fault.”

I considered him closely, wondering what he could possibly mean by accepting blame for whatever was causing him obvious pain. I faintly remember Jisung telling me about am accident, but it was difficult to really think back any further, like a wall had enclosed around my brain, refusing to allow anything else to come into consciousness. But Chan didn’t need to cry, he was usually the best part of my life, waking up in bed together to share sweet kisses or eagerly waiting for him to come home and swoon over my newest K-Drama obsession. “Why are you sad?” I asked him, reaching out to do my best and wipe away those nasty tears.

“You wouldn’t answer your phone,” Chan cried, heart-wrenching sobs that broke my heart with every heavy inhale. “I didn’t know where you were.”

“Is that why you’re upset?” I asked, wiping away a few mischievous curls that had wandered into his eyes.

“I found you in the intersection,” Chan whispered. “And the car...” he trailed off with a choking gasp as if the details were too horrific to describe.

“I’m here now, Channie,” I said, desperate to relieve his sadness. “I didn’t go anywhere.”

Chan nodded furiously, pressing a wet kiss to the back of my hand. “I can’t lose you like that, sweetie.”

“Well, I plan to stick around for a while,” I said, earning me a half-smile in return. “Channie,” I whispered, glancing around the room conspiratorially. “Is there anything good to eat in this place?”

This time Chan did laugh and it was the best medicine I could possibly have.

“Vitals?” Chan asked, lingering around the poor nurse who clearly wasn’t expecting this much attention over one patient when she clocked in this morning.

“I already checked them,” the nurse informed him, writing down something on the chart clipped to the edge of my bed. I sipped my water as I watched the two of them, wondering if Chan had been this overbearing the entire time.

“Temperature?”

“98 degrees.”

“Blood pressure?”

“122/75”

“Respiration?”

“Chan,” I whispered softly, immediately drawing my husband’s attention who was at my side in an instant. “I think the nurse knows how to do her job.”

The poor woman shot me a grateful smile as she re-clipped my chart, hurrying out of the room as if she couldn’t possibly escape fast enough. “Sorry,” Chan said, taking his seat next to me. “I’m just worried.”

“I get discharged tomorrow,” I told him. “Pretty sure that means I’m just fine.”

“But your leg,” Chan whined, fussily messing with the large cast, tucking the blankets in securely.

“It’ll heal,” I said, frowning as I picked at the squishy jello the nursing staff had brought in earlier. “Isn’t there anything else to eat?”

Chan tsked. “That’s good for you, Y/N. It’s full of necessary vitamins.”

I should have known better than to ask my doctor husband if I could possibly have something that actually had flavor to eat. No matter how much I begged and pleaded, Chan refused to waver from the nasty daily meals I was brought, much to my disappointment. “I’d kill for a burger.”

“Too much fat,” Chan said, turning down the idea before I could possibly try to negotiate.

“It physically hurts me to eat,” I tried. “I think they’re secretly plotting my death.”

“Y/N,” Chan scolded lightly. “There’s a reason why we serve this to patients, alright?”

I frowned at him but shoved a spoonful of the nasty substance in my mouth, earning me a pleased smile in response. “Happy?”

“You can have better food tomorrow,” Chan said, pausing as he reached down to check his phone notifications. “Minho is here,” he grumbled. “I guess I’ll go get him from the lobby before he gets lost.”

“Thank you, darling,” I chirped, accepting his brief kiss.

“I’ve seen worse,” Minho declared, ignoring Chan’s disbelieving scoff.

“You obviously weren’t here when she was first brought in,” Chan growled to him.

“How are you feeling, Y/N?” Minho asked, disregarding Chan who had gone back to check the dozens of machines somehow monitoring my every possible bodily function.

“Hungry,” I grimaced, pointing to my discarded container.

Minho lifted it curiously, bringing it his nose before he let out an unattractive grunt. “Is this garbage?”

“Don’t encourage her,” Chan said, reaching for my chart for the millionth time that day. “I’ll be right back, Y/N.”

“Okay,” I said, rolling my eyes once his back was turned.

I waited until Chan was gone before desperately reaching out for Minho. “You’ve got to help me, Minho! I can’t stand another day of jello and mashed potatoes. Get me a Big Mac and I’ll give you the number of one of my work acquaintances.”

Minho raised an interested brow. “Scale?”

“Oh, she’s definitely an 8...please!”

“That’s impossible to turn down, Y/N,” Minho grinned. “Give me ten minutes.”

I snatched his sleeve before he could walk away. “Make sure Chan doesn’t see.”

“So ask Han Jisung to fuck something up, got it.”

“You’re my best friend in the entire world. The rest of my life will be spent in your servitude.”

Minho offered me a brief salute and I solemnly nodded my head while ignoring the way my stomach growled.

It was growing dark outside and I’m pretty sure Jisung had accidentally given me too much of whatever pain medicine I had been prescribed. I could barely keep my eyes open as Chan settled next to me on his chair. “Y/N,” he said softly, picking at an invisible string on his suit pants. “I want to talk to you about the fight we had.”

My exhaustion vanished in a flash. “Okay,” I said, even though I had been hoping Chan would just forget that the fight even happened.

“I owe you an apology,” Chan said. “For acting like a jealous prick. I shouldn’t have yelled at you like that.”

“It’s my fault too,” I said. “I know how you feel about him, but I still went out anyway.”

“It wasn’t that bad,” Chan said, swallowing down the lie even though I could always read him like a book. “But every time I think about Seo Changbin, I can’t help but remember Freshman year.”

“You act like he broke your heart instead,” I tried to joke, but Chan was everything but amused.

“Yeah, he did break your heart, Y/N, and I’ll never forgive him for it. He was an arrogant bastard back then, and I’m sure that hasn’t changed much.”

“Not really,” I agreed, recalling our prior lunch arrangement.

“And I’ll never be okay with the fact that you work with your ex-boyfriend, but since you love the job so much, I can’t possibly fight with you anymore,” Chan said. “I should trust you as my wife.”

“I’m not remotely interested in Changbin,” I said. “It just sucks that he’s got good connections.”

“But if he tries anything on you...”

“Don’t worry,” I reassured him. “I would never do anything to hurt you, even if his thighs look super good these days.”

“Y/N.”

“I know, Channie,” I giggled, reaching for his hand. “Trust me, alright? I don’t plan to work there forever. Fingers crossed for a promotion to the publisher.”

“I’ll pray every night if I have to,” Chan said. “As for Felix...”

“Don’t worry about him,” I said. “I know that I should try harder to get along with Felix.”

“It’s a two-way street,” Chan countered. “I’ve spoken to him about everything.”

“You have?” I wavered. “What did he say?”

“Well, he feels really bad about the accident,” Chan said. “I think he realizes how much better things would be if you guys were on friendlier terms.”

“He really looks up to you,” I said, recalling Minho’s words from before. “I hope he doesn’t feel like I’m trying to steal you away.”

“Felix and I have always been close,” Chan said. “We both had a hard time moving here from Australia. But at the end of the day, we could rely on each other..”

“High school wasn’t very good to either of you,” I said.

“Well, except for you of course,” Chan said, attempting a smile.

“They were mean to you, Channie,” I said, “and you didn’t deserve any of it.”

“I’ve gotten over that,” Chan insisted. “But Felix always took everything harder than me. He wasn’t very social until college.”

“He should have stuck to being an introvert,” I said. “Look at the kind of friends he ended up with.”

“Are you saying Hyunjin is a bad influence?”

“Have you been around for our interactions?

“I’ve definitely noticed, Y/N. Remember what happened that one time when we went camping-”

“Anyways,” I loudly interrupted. “It seems like we both have a lot of things to work on.”

“But that’s why we talk about it,” Chan said, pressing a soothing kiss to the wrinkled crease of my forehead. “That’s what married couples do, right?”

“Ah, Channie, when did you become a walking cliche?”

“Should I be more serious, then?”

“You’re getting there with the doctor’s jacket.”

“Really?” Chan asked, sitting back in his chair. “Is this your way of asking us to try some kind of kinky roleplay?”

“I don’t know, but it might be interesting. Can I call you Dr. Bang?”

Chan was positively beaming. “You can always call me Daddy instead.”

“Darling, I think they accidentally gave you my prescription of morphine.”

If anyone were to ever ask me, then I’d tell them that signing hospital discharge papers was about as difficult as applying for a loan. “How many more are there?” I wondered, scribbling a messy signature at the bottom of the last sheet Jisung had brought for me to sign.

“I think that’s it.”

“You think?” I snorted, watching Jisung sort through each page carefully like he really had no idea what he was holding.

“Each year they add more shit for the patients,” Jisung explained. “I’m pretty sure they do it just to confuse me.”

“Everything confuses you, Jisung,” I said, patting his arm sympathetically. “Has Chan come in yet?”

“He’s on his way with Felix.”

“Goodie,” I grumbled. “Are you working late today?”

“Someone has to help since Chan insists on taking the day off,” Jisung said.

“I hope they aren’t planning on letting you do the surgeries.”

“Would that be such a bad thing?”

I kept my mouth shut, deciding to let Jisung live in his deluded fantasy world where he could somehow manage to cure patients of their ailments as opposed to causing them. Unsurprisingly, since the moment I had first met him, Jisung had always been completely sure of himself even if he was whole-heartedly wrong. For example, when we were all seniors in college, Chan refused to speak to Jisung for an entire week after the two of them received an F on their group project. Apparently, Jisung forgot to submit the lab report on time and waited an additional week before approaching the professor to politely ask if he could still bring it to her after class.

“Channie,” I tried to console him. “You know Jisung didn’t do it on purpose.”

“Yeah, but my GPA will still suffer the consequences,” Chan had sulked, whining about how difficult it was to maintain a friendship with Han Jisung.

Yet, when Chan was first hired by the hospital, Chan sent in a very persuasive reference for Jisung, encouraging the higher-ups to offer him a nursing position. The three of us went out to celebrate Jisung’s new job offer, nursing shots of bad vodka while eating rather terrible sushi. “Chan,” a very tipsy Jisung had said. “I love you so much, man.”

“Oi, keep your hands to yourself,” Chan had grouched despite wearing the biggest grin on his face...

“Y/N,” Jisung interrupted my recollection. “I think Chan just got here.”

“Finally,” I sighed. “I thought I would never be able to get the smell of alcohol out of my nose.”

“Thank God you’re here,” I said the moment Chan and Felix walked into my hospital room. “I’m pretty sure I had to sign my life away to leave this place, but it’s totally worth it.”

Chan rolled his eyes playfully. “I see you’re feeling better this morning.”

“I’ve been better for days,” I said. “But my doctor wouldn’t allow me to so much as breathe the wrong way.”

“Is that so?” Chan asked, reaching down for my discarded bag. “Your doctor sounds like a real asshole.”

“Yeah, but he’s pretty hot. I’d totally fuck him if I wasn’t already married.”

“It sounds like you have a thing for doctors?” Chan asked. “Does this husband of yours know that?”

“He probably does,” I said. “But I feel like he’ll probably leave me to masturbate on my own for months because of this dumb cast.”

“Y/N,” Chan scoffed. “It’s important for you to heal properly.”

I groaned loudly. “Why are you so responsible?”

Chan carefully handed me my bag. “Make sure you have everything. I’m going to talk to your surgeon one more time before we leave.”

It was difficult to prevent myself from protesting, finally realizing just how quiet it was with just me and Felix in the room. “Hi, Felix,” I said, awkwardly adjusting my blankets once Chan had disappeared from sight.

“Y/N,” Felix said, gaze focused on some unidentifiable point on the floor.

“What have you been up to?” I asked, trying to sound cheery because I didn’t like the look of despondence on Felix’s normally bright visage.

“I owe you an apology, Y/N,” Felix said with a vulnerable tone I had never heard from him before. “It’s because of me that you got hurt.”

“Felix,” I hesitated because this was uncharted territory for the both of us, a distant cry from our usual taunting banter. “You don’t need to do that. Everything’s fine now.”

“Your leg,” Felix whispered as an unexpected tear slid down the side of his face.

“It’s just a fracture,” I shrugged. “I’ll be just fine in a few months.”

“Just a fracture,” Felix parroted back, voice thick with emotion. “Why aren’t you mad at me? Because you should be. I’m always getting in your way.”

“Is that what you think?” I asked, surprised to hear Felix’s true feelings. “Felix, you aren’t in anybody’s way. You know I don’t really care that you’re staying with us, especially after you just graduated. I just wish you’d be a little bit more respectful.”

“Because I’ve always been jealous of you, Y/N,” Felix said. “Especially since Chan likes you more than me.”

“Felix, you know that Chan loves you. He would do anything in the world to make you happy.”

“He’s always chosen you over me,” Felix said. “He stopped hanging out with me on weekends in high school, and he even went to the same college as you even though he was accepted into Harvard and Yale.”

I was shocked by Felix’s true feelings, a rare moment of vulnerability that he was choosing to share with me. “Lixie,” I said. “Why have you never said anything before?”

Felix shivered at my use of his nickname. “I didn’t want to. You guys are so happy together and I didn’t want to hurt Chan.”

“Ya! Felix,” I frowned, “your feelings matter too. And if you really feel that way, then we need to talk about it together.”

“I’m just a burden,” Felix gruffed.

“No, you aren’t,” I insisted. “You’re part of our family, and if you’re ever feeling uncomfortable, then you deserve to be heard.”

“You don’t really mean that do you, Y/N?” Felix asked with glistening eyes. “I don’t want you to say these things just to make me feel better.”

“Felix, when have you ever seen me lying to someone just to protect their feelings?” I asked. “I always speak my mind, and this time I’m putting my foot down. When we get home, we’re having a movie marathon, just the three of us. And this weekend, you and Chan can go somewhere together out of town. I’ll have Minho stay with me instead.”

“Really?” Felix asked, swiping a sleeve under his bright red nose.

“We’re in-laws you know,” I said. “That means we look out for one another.”

“Y/N,” Felix giggled and, for once, I didn’t feel the slightest bit annoyed.

“Lee Felix, don’t you ever let me catch you crying like this again, understand?”

Felix nodded, smiling so brilliantly that I was reminded of when we were much younger and he was just an innocent little boy who idolized his older brother.

“Careful,” Chan said, holding the door wide with one hand while keeping a firm grip around my waist.

“I’m not gonna break,” I grumbled, pausing in the doorway as I let out a grateful sigh. It was a huge relief to be back at home and not stuck in that hospital room surrounded by questionable smells.

Chan carefully led me into the living room and I gave him my crutches before collapsing on the futon, ignoring the rigid fabric because I had never been happier to hug one of the matching throw pillows. “Comfortable?” Chan asked, helping me prop my leg up on the coffee table. Meanwhile, Felix lingered in the doorway, grasping my bag tightly between his hands.

“Come join us, Felix,” I said. “You’ll let out all the heat.”

Felix nodded, eyes wide as he locked the door behind him. Chan sent me a curious look as if he wasn’t sure what I was hoping to accomplish by inviting his younger brother into the same room. “I have something for you.”

I clapped my hands together eagerly. “Is it something loaded with carbohydrates and fat?”

“Not quite,” he said, handing me my cell phone. “Seo Enterprises called earlier today. I already contacted them about the accident, but I guess they need to hear from you.”

“Great,” I grimaced, dialing the number from memory. It rang for a few moments, and Chan and Felix were both messing around with the TV, probably trying to figure out what to watch. Because the only thing the two brothers argued about was whether action movies were better than romance.

“Seo Enterprises, this is Eliza speaking how can I help you today?”

“Hi,” I immediately cringed, wondering how many cool points I could possibly lose in one day. “This is Y/N, can I speak to Mr. Seo please?”

“I can transfer you right away,” Eliza spoke promptly as if she had already been prepared to receive my call.

“Y/N!” Changbin’s voice now answered. “I’m glad to hear from you.”

“Yeah, I’ve been having a lot of bad luck recently,” I said. “I guess you know about the accident.”

“I heard,” Changbin said. “How are you?”

“I’m alright,” I said. “But I might need some time away from the company. Apparently, a broken leg is a pretty big deal.”

“Take as much time as you need, Y/N,” Changbin said. “I’ve hired a temporary secretary until you’re ready to come back.”

“I don’t know, Changbin,” I said. “It might take several weeks. Maybe you should just hire a replacement.”

“There’s no need for that, Y/N,” Changbin countered. “I still believe you’re the best person for the job.”

“Well, if you’re sure...” I trailed off, shaking my head furiously at Chan when he held up our used copy of The Notebook.

“I’m definitely sure,” Changbin said. “Call me when you want to come back. We still have a lot of things I want to do together in the future.”

“You’re too indecisive,” Chan said, finally taking a well-deserved seat next to me on the futon.

“And you have terrible taste in cinema,” Felix retorted.

“Yeah? Well maybe we should just let Y/N pick,” Chan suggested, mouthing a sweet kiss against my temple.

“I think Felix should decide,” I said, cuddling up closer to Chan’s side.

“Really?” Felix asked, appearing entirely surprised that I would allow him such freedom.

“Why not?” I sighed happily. “I’ll even watch that weird anime movie if you want.”

Felix scoffed but a faint smile remained as he grabbed the remote. Chan chuckled and leaned down to press another kiss to the top of my forehead. “I’m proud of you, sweetie,” he whispered.

“It’s only because I love you so much,” I said while shrugging indifferently, but Chan could always read through me.

“Hmm, well I love you more,” he said, brushing his fingers through my hair as the opening credits rolled across the screen.

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