#been thinking about this nonstop the past few days

[screaming-cake-burner]

So guess who recently watched Klaus? It's me, I'm that person... and dang it, it was a phenomenal movie! I absolutely loved the characters and I love Jesper and how we saw him develop. I honestly haven't had much success drawing this year and just have generally felt pretty out of it but this movie made me instantly wanna draw Jesper (and then use the only marker I had to colour in his hair(Ellingboe's looking dude)).

If there's any Christmas movie I can recommend it'd definitely be this and I think I may have to add it to my favourite movie rotation

[aboutmercy]

i have genuine and severe armand brainrot.. i don’t know what to fucking doooo!!!!!!!!!!

[officialgleamstar]

i should like. settle in and try and finish that longfic i started weeks ago now. ive only really written like 1k words since the first few days i worked on it, so its been hovering at 12k XD but i could finish it today. i know i could (probably cannot but i can definitely at least write one more scene)

[kingsroad]

hey, can we have house of the dragon s2 content so i can fully ✨ immerse myself ✨ in daeron x ellyn? thanks, hbo.

[silverselfshippingchaos]

i put him on the f/o list

[wild-eyed-j0k3r]

Idk man, the baby fever lately has been insane

[melancholyhigh]

ALL MINE.

ft. leon x f!reader

synopsis. you realize you're in love with your roommate. it sucks that he's ignoring you all of a sudden.

content. 4.7k words. smut. slight jealousy/possessiveness, subby leon, dry humping, handjob, finger sucking, praise & degradation kink, unprotected p in v (riding), overstimulation, creampie, slight subspace.

note. i had mental anguish while writing this so i apologize if it's not my best. i'm also sorry for being so inactive :((

masterlist. i love feedback & reblogs <3

Leon S. Kennedy was probably the best roommate you could’ve asked for.

He had fit the criteria you hand conjured for the perfect housemate the first time you met. Leon was calm, and the apartment was pretty clean. From what you can tell, he cared enough about himself and his surroundings. 

Hell, the place looked almost uninhabited save for some trinkets and a few bits of his personality sprinkled about.

Only if you had known what you were getting yourself into when you had agreed to become his roommate.

–-

The first month of residing with Leon was great. You rarely crossed paths and never really communicated with each other due to how stressful looking for a new job was, and then proceeding to attend said job was tiring enough for you to make little social interactions.

He was relatively closed off as well. Not talking to you unless necessary or common courtesy such as a simple ‘Good morning.’

After you settled in, you noticed how much of a strange man Leon was. For one, when he did go to work, he left for weeks at a time, and in his return, he was even more closed off somehow. Leon doesn’t spare you a glance or a greeting, only grunting if you ask if he is alright.

He’s also covered in bruises and bandages, leaving you more concerned.

It made you question who really was your roommate.

In the first meeting you and Leon had, you inquired about his job, mostly to try and figure out how your schedule would work, but also with genuine interest. At the time, he merely shrugged, not answering your question point blank, telling you not to worry about it. 

He mentioned his past job as a police officer. You’d dare to ask him more about it, but you didn’t want to pry, leaving the questions for another day.

Lately, you’ve been wishing more than ever that he had answered the question instead of dodging it. In rare moments that you focus on anything else but your job, it often leads you to think about Leon and what he does while he’s away.

It annoys you too that he doesn’t tell you when he’s leaving. He doesn’t owe it to you, but some nights you think he’s getting a drink, only to return a few days later bloodied and bruised.

One night, your overthinking got the worst of you after Leon returned to your apartment in the worst condition you’ve seen in the past few months you’ve been living with him.

Up late, you were in the shared living room, wondering when he’d get home. It had been two weeks since you had last seen Leon. It was way longer than his usual business days. You had been worrying nonstop, not getting a wink of sleep. Was he dead? You’d be the first suspect on the list.

You had called him multiple times, all going to voicemail. That is until you heard the faint creaking of the front door. There he walked in, faced all fucked up. His lip busted, sporting ugly yellow and purple bruises all over the exposed flesh of his body, and a bandage wrapped around his left hand blotted with dry blood.

He was awkwardly shuffling into the room, trying not to wake, you presume. A bit late for that. 

“Where the hell were you, Leon?” your voice breaks the early morning silence. 

You see him jump slightly in surprise, almost dropping his bag. A different emotion washes through him. A mix of fright and guilt, it’s different from what you’re used to seeing him with.

Leon quickly composes himself, going back to his stoic expression. Taking his shoes caked in mud off at the front door, resting his bag down, he walks over to the kitchen opening the fridge. The light streams out, illuminating the kitchen as you follow him, awaiting an answer.

“Didn’t I tell you not to worry about it?” His back is turned to you, rummaging through the contents of the fridge.

“You’ve been gone for two weeks,” you stress with exhaustion, eyeing his injuries. “What the fuck happened to you.”

He flexes his broad shoulder before turning around to face you. His gaze pins you down before he’s back to ignoring you as he chugs the cold bottled water in his grasp. The fridge is still open, and it adds more nuisance within you.

“It’s not that bad,” he shrugs. He finally shuts the fridge close, only the moon’s light filtering into the room. “Why do you care, anyways?”

“‘Cause when you go missing, I’ll be the one locked up, Leon,” you say. He’s staring at you, trying to suppress a smirk. 

“You sure it’s not ‘cause you like me? I’m here to stay.” Is this fucker teasing you? He’s nothing like you first met him. Maybe it’s the blood loss. But to be fair, this is the first proper conversation you’ve had with him in months — you didn’t know how he actually was. 

Rolling your eyes, you ignore him, shifting your focus to his bandaged hand, blood seeping through the fabric. 

“Let me take a look at that, please,” you urge, taking his hand into yours. You overlook the questions blooming in your mind to tend to his injury.

“Okay.”

You turn the lights on, searching for a first aid kit. Once you retrieve it, you’re back in front of Leon, who’s sat patiently at the dining table. 

You roll the sleeves of your sweatshirt up before carefully peeling the fabric sticking to his bloody skin. The large gash on the back of his hand makes you uneasy. It’s deep, almost to the bone, and blood spills onto his pale skin.

“Your stitches reopened,” you tell him, cleaning the wound with a damp cloth. What did he do to warrant such an injury? “If it worsens, you need to go to the hospital.” 

“Mhm, you work with patients?” You shake your head, wrapping the wound with fresh gauze. 

“What’s your job, then?”

You scoffed, “Some office job. What’s got you busy, huh?”

“Some government bullshit.”

–-

That night the relationship you had with your roommate shifted. For the better, you supposed. 

You also bonded better with him the following morning while driving him to the hospital. He was so dramatic, yet he continued to undermine his clearly serious injury, refusing to go. The bleeding had not stopped, and you were worried it could get infected.

He was such a baby. You had bargained with him for his own health, promising to do his chores for a whole month so his hand doesn’t get amputated. 

You never really did figure out what his job was, but you guessed it was most likely confidential. It was a vague answer to your question. He could be lying, but once you’re not behind bars, you can’t complain.

You and Leon spent more time with each other.

Even though you had no idea what his job was, he did tell you why he couldn’t disclose such information, something along the lines of putting your safety in jeopardy. Wasn’t him as your roommate just as dangerous? But you didn’t bother. He had his reasons.

Leon, on the other hand, probably learned too much about you and your job. 

You weren’t familiar with the city or the people, so it was nice to talk to someone, and you may have gone overboard. You were here for a better quality of life, and it was significantly better than where you previously lived. 

You loathed your job. Your co-workers were so condescending and passive-aggressive. Not to mention, you couldn’t quit. It paid enough for you to shut your mouth. Well, not to Leon.

You’re sure he’s sick of you talking and complaining. And when you’re not complaining, you both still get along about other stuff. You mostly banter, though, because Leon is such a child.

The guy can barely care for himself, contradicting what you initially thought about him. You care for him most nights after his so-called ‘missions.’ You rebandage his wounds, scolding him for not caring about himself while he’s looped up on pain meds.

Any other night — when he’s actively not trying to get killed, and you’re not incredibly busy — you both get drunk to attempt to forget about responsibilities. Often you were spouting drunken, nonsensical rambles as Leon somehow listened to.

Ironically enough, Leon cared about your well-being more than you do. Maybe you’re delusional, but you swear he does more than a normal roommate should. It’s because you’re constantly checking up on him, you reasoned. He’s just a respectable person.

But what kind of roommate consistently asks about how you’re going? What roommate get you your favourite takeout when you’re not feeling your best? What roommate threatens to beat the shit out of your annoying co-workers?

But you’ve acknowledged that Leon wasn’t your average housemate. Not just his job, but who the fuck looks that good when they’re bleeding out?

–-

Your job has a celebration upcoming, the company’s 50th anniversary. You barely made it a year working for the place, but you want to make a good impression. You also don’t want to bore yourself to death, so why not coerce your lovely roommate to join you as your plus one?

“I’m not gonna go. Don’t you hate that place?” You stare up at him, sulking. 

“Good impressions,” you say before pleading, “C’mon, Leon, please. We can go to the bar after.”

He gives you an unimpressed look before turning away from you.

“I’ll pay for you.” You’re going to go broke because of this man. It catches his attention. 

“So desperate,” he chuckles.

“You’re going?”

“I’m gonna run you dry.”

–-

You definitely weren’t prepared to see Leon in a suit when you exited your room. He’s sat on the couch, his hand nervously running through his hair — notably slicked down with gel. 

“You that serious about making me go bankrupt?” You voice jokingly, breaking Leon out of his thoughts.

His eyes trail along your body, admiring the dress you wore — how it hugs the curves of your body — noticeably gulping as he stands up. The black suit fits his body, accentuating his broad physique and nice ass.

“I keep my promises. I hope you do too.” He says, before mumbling, “You look nice as well.”

You smile at him, ignoring the unusual feeling blooming in your stomach.

The event was indeed incredibly bland. You’re glad you bribed Leon into joining you. He’s been your saving grace. His sly quips and awful jokes have made the experience increasingly more bearable.

Your enjoyment seemed to fizzle when your co-workers wanted to converse with you. They never did before. Why would they now?

Then you realize too late that they’re not here for you. They’re there for the attractive male next to you. You watch in amusement as the girl blatantly ignores you in favour of Leon.

She’s sweet, you’d imagine, but Leon looks awkward, and there’s an uneasy feeling bubbling in your gut as she squeezes his arm in a flirting manner. The feeling is unlike what you’ve felt earlier.

You could go for a drink right now. 

The poor girl’s attempt at seducing Leon goes on longer than you’d like. He’s uncomfortable, and you admire her persistence, but it’s getting on your nerves.

Didn’t she get the memo? He’s your plus one.

You decide to interrupt their conversation, you’re not particularly proud of it, but you want to get drunk. Maybe you’re doing Leon a favour as well.

You pull him away, not offering an explanation, just the promise of getting wasted. 

When you’re at the bar, you both get settled, conversing and taking shots, all on you, of course.

Leon mentions that he understands why you hate your job and colleagues, and you laugh lightly at his claims. While you two talk, a few guys approach you, trying to get your number or asking to buy you a drink, ignoring Leon.

It wasn’t a usual occurrence, but it happened more often than not. And even though you find it flattering, it did begin to irritate you.

You politely declined their requests with an uncomfortable smile on your lips. It felt wrong to indulge in their proposals in front of Leon.

Leon’s eyes gleam with an unknown emotion as another guy approaches you. His grasp on the glass tightens, and it looks like it's about to shatter.

You once again deny the request. As you get more tipsy, your filter worsens as you half-heartedly refuse the poor guy. He walks away, visibly irritated. 

“That’s the fifth guy to ask for your number,” Leon states, taking a swig of his whiskey. His grip on the glass loosens, but his shoulders are still tense. 

You roll your eyes at his over-exaggeration. His suit’s jacket is off, revealing the white button-up shirt underneath. 

“I wasn’t interested. A few girls asked you out, too,” you declared bitterly. You’re not drunk per se, just very tipsy. 

“They’re not my type.”

“What’s your type?” Taking a sip from your drink, you observe Leon shake his head before downing his glass.

“Having fun?” you inquire, and Leon’s grateful you changed the topic.

“Liquor’s better when it’s free.”

–-

It’s the next day, and you haven’t seen Leon since. 

When you woke up, you had a pounding headache. You walked into the kitchen expecting to be greeted by an equally shit-faced Leon, but he was nowhere to be found. It was unlike him.

Usually, he’s already making fun of you for being a lightweight, and you attempt to make breakfast together. He’s probably still in bed. He did drink more than expected. It was a miracle you both got home in one piece.

You took some painkillers before heading back to bed. If you’re up to it, maybe you’ll make breakfast later. 

A few hours have passed, and still no sign of Leon. You wonder if he went to work, but that didn’t make sense. Why would he go to work with a hangover? Leon was a bit careless, though.

He was most likely ignoring you. That would be the last thing you wanted. He was the only person you cared to talk as pathetic as it sounds. Did you say something last night that upset him? He was his usual self, but you probably were too drunk to notice something off.  

He probably has work-related things to worry about. Not everything was about you. Though, you were still concerned.

You had camped in the kitchen for a while, waiting for Leon so you could confront him. You wanted to make sure he was alright.

When he did enter the kitchen, you tried to start a conversation, only for him to dismiss you entirely. He refused to respond to your troubles, getting what he needed and returning to his room. 

You thought it was a one-off thing, but sadly it wasn’t. Leon ignored you the following days, leaving you perplexed. You wished Leon would talk to you about what’s going on. Isn’t that what friends do? Communicate? Every attempt you tried to make was fruitless.

All he’s been doing was ignoring you, and it broke your heart.

His sudden indifference reminded you of when you first moved in. This abrupt disinterest in you left you staring at the ceiling in your bedroom, reflecting on your relationship with Leon. 

You despise how he’s been acting lately. 

You despise his reckless behaviour. You despise his hair that falls so perfectly. You despise how considerate he is. You despise how sweet he is to you. You despise how attractive he looks when he walks about the place shirtless, in short shorts that barely contain the flesh of his thighs and lay low on his hips when he’s sweaty after working out.

You despised how other girls looked at Leon. You despised how other guys looked at you, wishing it were him.

But you don’t hate him, far from it.

You loved his company. From the first night to the night at the bar. You wouldn’t want him to share that with anyone else. He was familiar, so it hurts that he’s been ignoring you. 

He’s treating the moments you’ve had with him seemingly worthless, the time you’ve shared — the late nights when you cared for him. The insecurities you have confided with him. Did it mean anything to him?

He most likely wouldn’t reciprocate your feelings, and you doubt he could. His job explains itself, but you’re still worried as a friend — as his roommate.

Your overthinking has got the best of you, and fuck it. You’re going to confront Leon, whether he likes it or not.

–-

You’ve been building the courage to knock on his door for 20 minutes, pacing back and forth in front of his room door. You didn’t want to make him hate you more, but his bitchy attitude made you wonder why you even liked him in the first place.

Knocking on his door, you instantly regretted it, not wanting to make a fool of yourself, but you had to face him sooner or later. The door surprisingly opens, presenting you with a tired Leon dressed in nothing but his boxers. You probably just woke him up.

When you meet his soft gaze, his brows furrow, and he scowls. It’s been a while since he’s looked at you, so you can take what you can get. 

“What do you want?” Leon dully asks, crossing his arms over his bare chest as he leans on the door’s framing. Okay, so he’s talking to you after a week of silence, granted, not like he used to, but it’s something.

“Why have you been avoiding me?” you counter bluntly, glaring at him. His facade crumbles, shoulders dropping as he frowns. He quickly recovers, scoffing and looking anywhere but at you.

“What are you talking about–” 

“I’m not a dumbass, Leon. Just why? Are you okay?” you quickly cut off his poor excuse of a response. He shakes his head, his messy hair concealing his eyes as he tries to reply.

The look you’re sending him gives him goosebumps as if you’re reading him with just a glance. You are, and it’s terrifying yet so arousing that you can do so easily. Your eyes don’t leave him, trying to figure out his problems. It’s equally arousing how much you care for him, looking through him like he’s glass. 

His composure crashes, stuttering an answer you’re unable to pick up. You stare at him, confused at his sudden nervous behaviour. 

Leon’s selfish for wanting you all to himself. He doesn’t want to hurt himself with the rejection that you may throw his way. He doesn’t want to feel like that even though your actions say otherwise. He wants to tell you that, but what he says is much more pathetic.

“God, it’s you,” he repeats. The look of disappointment that crosses your face hurts. It hurt that he’s the one that made you look so broken so quickly.

“What?” Your voice falters, but you’re curious despite the ache in your chest. You’re not surprised. Maybe, a bit shattered.

“Not like that. I mean, fuck, I don’t know how to say this.” He awkwardly scratches the back of his neck as he tries to formulate his words, a blush dispersing on his pale cheeks. 

“I was fucking mad, okay? Not at you– never at you. I hated how those guys looked at you. I know I shouldn’t feel like this. You’re my roommate, for fucks sake, but–” He continues to ramble on, and the words he spews give you whiplash. 

You’re simultaneously flattered by his words and pissed. He was acting like a prick because he was jealous. As much as you were annoyed by his immature behaviour, you couldn’t ignore the butterflies swarming your stomach.

You impulsively crash your lips into his. He stops his rambling, startled, before melting into the kiss, his long lashes fluttering close. His plush lips move softly against yours. The kiss is soft and much better than either of you could’ve imagined.

Pulling away from him, you catch your breath, huffing, “You dumb boy.”

His cheeks darken in colour, the blush leading to the expanse of his chest. He grips your hips, tugging you closer to his body. You feel his dick hardening in confined in his boxers, pressed to your lower stomach.

“Fuck,” Leon gasps softly. You tuck strands of hair behind his ear, your nose bumping together as you admire his pretty face.

“All that from a little kissing?” you breathed against his bruised lips, your fingers toying with the waistline of his boxers. “You want me to help you, baby boy?”

“Yes, please.” 

You frown, moving away from his hold. His face falls, his brows furrow in confusion as he pouts. “C’mon, Leon. You really think you’re going to get to cum that easily after ignoring me?”

“‘M sorry. I didn’t mean to. Please touch me. I– I’ll be your good boy,” he pleads, moving back closer to you, wrapping his arms around your midsection. 

“Okay, sweetheart. You’ll get to cum if you behave.”

He captures your lips in a quick kiss, moaning softly before pulling away. He takes your hand, leading you into his bedroom, and you observe the new surroundings. Even though you’ve been roommates for nearly a year, you never saw the inside of his room. Posters of bands you weren’t familiar with were on the walls of his room. 

“On the bed, baby,” you coo, and Leon shuffles on the navy blue sheets of his bed, leaning against the headboard. You crawl onto the soft sheets, straddling him as you seat yourself on his plush thighs. His warm palms shoot to rest on your waist, softly squeezing them.

He tugs you closer to him, pressing your chest flat against his. Leon gasps softly, his nipples rubbing against the coarse fabric of your tank top.

“S’much better than I imagined,” he sighs, guiding your hips so your clothed cunt drags along his prominent bulge. He groans, feeling your cunt dripping, soaking through your panties and shorts. 

You move back from him, halting your movements on his hardening cock as you’re sat on his thighs once more. Your hands grip his arms, and even though he’s stronger than you, he ceases his motion. It’s so fucking hot how this huge man submits to you. 

“You’ve thought about me in your lap?” you tease, palming his erection through his boxers. The head leaks precum, staining the delicate fabric. “Playing with your pretty cock?”

“Mhm,” he whines softly, bucking his hips to your warm touch. His head tilts back, knocking the wooden headboard quietly as he writhes at your touch. 

“Ohh, you poor thing. Cummin’ in your hand wishing it was mine,” you mock, pulling Leon’s boxers down to reveal his throbbing dick flushed pink. It aches for your touch, twitching and smearing his precum on the dark curls on his happy trail.

“Fuck, yes.” Leon whimpers when you wrap your digits around his cock, squeezing it, oozing more precum, coating your fingers as you stroke him slowly. His hips eagerly thrust to meet your movement.

“So, so pretty.” The blush on his cheeks somehow deepens at your words. His head is spinning, and not just from your touch. He roughly grips his silken sheets, bunching them up. You thought he was pretty?

“God, baby, you’re the prettiest.” 

Fuck, had he said that out loud? 

His back arches as he nears his orgasm, pleasure rushing through his body. His thighs tremble as he spills his cum, coating your hand. You don’t stop tugging on his weeping cock, living for the little cries he makes from being overstimulated.

“Don’t, m’ sensitive– shit,” Leon whines, and you finally take your hand off his spent dick, admiring his cum dribbling onto your fingers. Leon props himself up, chest heaving as he tries to collect himself.

“Did I say you could cum?” you tease. Leon’s eyes widen for a second before pleading for forgiveness.

“I- I didn’t mean to. God, I’m so sorry. I’ll be your good boy.” He sniffles softly, and you take pity on his cries. You’ll punish him another time.

“It’s okay, honey. Can you open wide f’me?” you say. Leon does as he’s told, parting his lips and sticking his tongue out. You wished you could take a picture. 

You place your index and middle finger on his tongue, pressing down. Leon wraps his lips around your fingers, sucking his cum off them. Moaning softly, he peers up at you through his lashes and gags when you push your fingers further down.

“You’re such a slut, Leon,” you say, pulling your fingers out his mouth, lips slicked with his spit. You flicked his nipples, causing him to moan loudly. His cock is beginning to harden once more.

“I’m your slut.”

“Think you can go one more round, baby?” you asked, hovering over his rock-hard cock, before sinking down. Your drenched pussy through your thin shorts stimulates his overly sensitive dick, and he groans softly, squeezing your waist.

“Wanna take care of you too, angel,” he murmurs into your ear as you grind yourself onto his erection. “Can I eat you, please?”

“Maybe next time, honey.”

“Fuck, okay. Can you kiss me?” You press your lips to his softly, and he whimpers sweetly into your mouth. Pulling away from him, you take your shorts and panties off, and they’re fucking drenched. Leon tugs your tank top off, and you giggle at his eagerness.

Your body, so soft and warm, is pressed against Leon’s. It’s almost enough to make him cum, and he’s not enough inside you yet. You slide your dripping cunt along his shaft, ensuring he’s fully hard. Leon fucking whines each time the tip of his cock nicks your entrance, begging to plunge in.

Every time the tip nudges your clit, your cunt clenches, and each flutter sends his eyes rolling to the back of his head.

“Please, angel. Fuck me. Use me– I don’t care. ‘M all yours.” You guide his cock to your entrance before finally sinking down slowly. The tip enters you with a soft moan. He’s so fucking thick. Once fully sheathed in you, you grip his shoulders for support.

“You’re all mine to use, right? F- Fuck, you’re stretching me so good, Leon.”

Your tight walls hug him so tightly, and when you bounce on his cock, each drag of his sensitive dick adds to the building pressure in his tummy. He filled you so good, reaching spots you didn’t think were possible as you used him like your toy.

Leon thrusts his hips to meet your pace, your ass slapping his thighs, making obscene sounds. He can’t get enough of you. From your tits bouncing as you rode his cock, or the expression you hold when he hits that special spot. 

It’s so much better than he has imagined.

He rubs your clit with his thumb, a broken whimper leaving him when your gummy walls clench around him tightly. The pressure in his tummy was rising, and you were no better as he played with your clit.

“‘M so close, sweetheart. Can I cum in you, please?” he pleads, his hips stuttering to meet each of your moves. His pink lips parted, eyes barely stayed open, and he looked utterly ruined.

“Yes, baby.” You trail kisses along his neck, sucking marks along the column of his throat. You’re pleased with yourself that you’re the reason he has those marks now. Each bruise you suck on his flesh adds another butterfly to his tummy. He’s all yours now.

“Cum with me, please.”

After a few more thrusts, the pressure within him bursts he cums inside you, filling you with his warm seeds. You climax along with him. Your cunt spasms around his sensitive cock, gushing its arousal, clinging to his happy trail.

You collapse on top of him, your head falling on his shoulder. Leon kisses the top of your head, nuzzling into your hair. You try to get off to clean yourself and Leon up, but arms encircle your waist, preventing you from doing so.

“Stay with me, sweetheart. Don’t want you leaving.”

You comply, laying with him, your skin, sticky with sweat and cum, clings to his as you both enjoy each other’s embrace.

[andypantsx3]

ALL IN A DAY'S QUIRK : SERO HANTA x READER

summary: Sero gets hit with a quirk that makes others see him as the person they are most attracted to. Which you really wish you had known before you opened your mouth and gave him your usual, “Hey, Sero!” tags/warnings: pro hero au, fluff, misunderstandings, quirk accident, not actually unrequited feelings, smut, thigh riding, fem reader (no pronouns but AFAB genitalia terms used), aged up characters, 5.3k

It was approximately four thirty-three p.m. when Sero Hanta returned from patrol and blew your peaceful day to bits.

Before his arrival, the Todoroki Agency had been relatively quiet, as it usually was around this time, everyone but the on-call staff winding down for the day. You’d been hearing the telltale rustling of jackets and scuffle of feet in the office behind you since the clock ticked past four.

Not long after, a couple of your friends from the analytics department had wandered over to your desk, clearly deciding they were not going to get anything else done, gossiping and stealing the candies you kept in a glass bowl on the reception counter.

“I heard Shouto’s manager is considering signing him up for a shirtless charity calendar,” Mari told you immediately, wiggling her eyebrows. “Hana from brand management said she was asked to do research on the impact the calendar had on other pros’ careers, so I think this is serious.”

She looked beyond pleased, her cheeks pink and her ears tipped red, the way they always were when she contemplated her massive crush on your agency head, Todoroki Shouto.

You couldn’t fault her–Shouto was incredibly handsome and kind, if a bit spacey–but you’d always been drawn to a different pro hero on the agency roster. Someone just a little bit taller, with dark hair and a half-moon grin, a razor sharp sense of humor, and the most inconceivably mouth-watering thighs in the pro hero business.

Not that you had been giving them attention. Much.

You suppressed the urge to ask if anyone else from the agency was being considered for the calendar, wiggling your eyebrows back. “Well I know you’ll be the first in line.”

Mari’s blush deepened, and Kimiko laughed around an orange-flavored candy, which you stocked for many reasons other than a certain tape-themed hero’s predilection for oranges, thank you very much.

“I just hope they include Uravity-san,” Kimiko said. “I mean–not shirtless shirtless, but like, god would I kill for her in a little sports bra.”

Kimiko sounded unaffected, but you’d literally hidden her beneath your desk the time pro heroes Uravity and Deku visited for an agency team-up with the Todoroki office. She’d spent the entire time peering out with big eyes, muttering under her breath, “I am so gay. So very very gay.”

You didn’t doubt if Uravity were included in the spread, Kimiko might even beat Mari out for the first spot in line.

“You both have such kind hearts,” you laughed. “So eager to give to charity.”

“I’m a lifelong philanthropist,” Mari agreed, picking up your pen and doodling hearts all over your office stationery. You noticed she colored in only the left side, and suppressed another laugh.

Whatever. You knew what it was to be that whipped, even if you’d never do anything about it.

As huge as your thing was for Sero, there wasn’t a chance in hell he returned your affections. He was incredibly friendly, but over the past few years, he’d never even given a hint that he was into you like that. He’d treated you with the same easy cheer and subjected you to the same good-natured roasting he did everyone else in the agency.

And now was not the time to go looking for more, anyway. You’d recently become close enough to see Sero outside of work and you were not about to endanger that–you’d been invited to a house party of his a couple months ago, gone to drinks with him and a couple of agency people after work, and even grabbed dinner alone a few times over the past few weeks. You’d been texting memes practically nonstop this entire week alone.

He was so much fun, always quick with a joke, a wink, or an interesting story, and he wasn’t afraid to tell things like they were. You forgot time was passing when you were with him, and sometimes when you went out, you stayed out long enough that you thought he might, too.

So you were finally reaching a stage in your friendship where Sero clearly felt close and comfortable—you would not press for more.

It was just, sometimes, when he smiled down at you with that clever, mischievous grin, your heart felt like it was experiencing some sort of medical event. Sometimes, when he put his dark hair up into a messy half-bun, those biceps cording as he did so, it felt like someone had just vacuumed all the oxygen straight out of your lungs. Sometimes, when he leaned down to whisper something to you in his most conspiratorial tones, it felt like someone had spiked your brain into a blender and pureed it into mush.

But it was cool.

You knew how to play it cool.

Mari pulled you back to earth with the promise of more gossip—this time, about her arch nemesis in accounting—and Kimiko leaned in, offering her own commentary over the unwrapping of another of your candies.

And then the clock struck four thirty-three, and Sero Hanta returned from patrol.

You heard the telltale mechanic ping of an agency badge passing checkpoint, and peeked around Kimiko to see Sero trudging through the doorway, looking strangely contemplative. He was covered in dirt and his uniform was slashed in several places, including a great deal of shredding about the thighs, which you would have been happier about if he didn’t look so unusually subdued.

He didn’t look hurt at any rate, so that was good. But you couldn’t help but call out to him.

“Hey Sero!” you said, curious about his demeanor. “How’d patrol go? Something happen?”

Kimiko and Mari turned around, and you watched as both of them seemed to freeze up. Kimiko’s hand slapped against the reception counter, the sound echoing through the room, gripping tightly as though she’d suddenly seen a ghost.

“Ur–Uravity-san,” she said, dipping into the most formal bow you’d ever seen her make. “What’s brought you here?”

You felt your mouth pull into a frown, staring at the back of her head in absolute bamboozlement. Was she seeing things? The only person in the doorway was Sero, and he was very much unaccompanied.

His helmet was propped between his hip and his elbow, so his face was clear too–so Kimiko didn’t even have the excuse of not being able to see his face, different though his costume was from Uravity’s.

Sero blinked, his mouth pulling into a semi-puzzled grin. “Uravity?”

Mari was slapping Kimiko before you could inquire the same thing, hissing, “Are you losing it? That’s fucking Shouto.” She turned back to pin you with something between a glare and a concerned, assessing gaze, as if you too had lost your marbles.

You frowned back, your own concern deepening. “I’m sorry–are you guys seriously telling me that Shouto and Uravity are here with Sero?” You peered back around Mari at Sero, quirking a brow at him. “Did they get hit with some kind of invisibility quirk or are these two experiencing some kind of hallucination?”

Maybe too much shirtless calendar talk had gotten them too hot and bothered.

Sero’s dark gaze pinned you, and he quickly came tromping over, his boots echoing on the stone flooring. He leaned over the reception counter, pointing to his face with one long, pretty finger. “Wait, you can tell it’s me?”

He smelled like cement and sweat and dust, and something vaguely minty, like he’d been chewing gum recently. You tried not to let your expression show how much you liked the look of him up close, those hooded dark eyes, his wide, charming mouth.

“Um, yes? I have eyeballs?” you wondered.

Sero blinked, leaning in closer. Your heartbeat ticked up. “You’re sure?”

“Should I not be…sure?” you asked. “Are Shouto and Uravity really with you and I’m the only one who can’t see them?”

Sero shook his head, “Nah–it’s just me.”

You frowned up at him, curious. “Then why are they calling you Shouto and Uravity…?”

Sero shook his dark head. His hair was pulled into that half-bun you loved, the way it usually was under his helmet on patrol, and all mussed from whatever run in he’d had. You tried not to think about what other activities might get his hair all mussed like that.

He smiled, something wide and conspiratorial. “Got hit with some kinda illusion quirk. People have stopped me like a thousand times on my way in to ask for All Might’s autograph, or Hawks’, and even Bakugou’s. They’re lucky it was just me, he’d have thrown a shit fit getting cut off in the street like that.”

Sero’s features shifted into something slightly more contemplative again. “But you’re somehow immune, huh?”

You frowned. “Shouldn’t you get checked out at medical, then?”

His eyes softened, and another grin made its way onto his mouth. “Yeah yeah, I’ll head right there.”

Kimiko and Mari were still gaping over at him like he was a miracle, and some strange feeling came over you, a concerned little squeeze of your heart. You grabbed Mari, plonking her down into your seat in your stead. “Cover me for a couple minutes? Just say people are unavailable and take notes and I’ll figure it out when I get back. I’m gonna run down to medical with Sero for a second.”

Mari nodded dumbly.

You pulled Sero’s helmet out of his grip, resting it in the crook of your own elbow, and gestured him down the hall with you. Sero fell into step beside you, keeping up easily with his long stride. He grinned down at you, seemingly unperturbed that he’d gotten hit with a quirk that had all but erased his identity in the eyes of others.

It was something you admired in him, his inherent good-naturedness.

You wondered why you were the only one who could tell it was him.

“Any good gossip while I was gone?” he asked, like he really couldn’t be fussed about his predicament. “I was starting to hear shirtless calendar talk before I had to head out on patrol.”

You suppressed a flush and fought down the urge to ask if he’d been asked to be in it too.

You did not need to know.

“Whatever the hell is going on with you is the spiciest bit of gossip all day,” you told him, rounding a corner and badging into the stairwell down to the medical floor. You clung to the railing carefully and most definitely did not watch his thighs bunch as he took the stairs. “Want a drink after work? It seems like you could use one, after this.”

Sero smiled, an eyebrow raising. “Trying to get me drunk, huh?”

You wrinkled your nose. “As if I’d need to be so underhanded.”

You did. You did need to be so underhanded.

Sero had to angle himself carefully through the door, his shoulder pieces liable to snag on the doorway with the breadth of those pro hero shoulders. The medic on staff took one look at him and flushed, mumbling out a name you didn’t know.

You piped in before she could say more. “Cellophane’s been hit with a quirk that makes him appear like someone else. It’s not whoever you think!”

She blinked curiously, but then nodded, probably having seen much weirder things in her time as a hero agency staffer. She gestured Sero to a cot on the side of the room. “Alright, please sit down, Cellophane. We’ll do a couple quick tests and then get you sorted with the right quirk cancellation.” Her cheeks seemed to heat again as she spoke, but she made good on her promise, disappearing down the hall, calling to someone for quirk testing strips.

Sero hopped up on the cot, swinging those long legs, grinning at you from eye-level, now. “Think I should prank a couple people before they cancel it?”

You rolled your eyes. “Only you would be having fun with this. No one in the world knows who you are!”

The corner of Sero’s mouth pulled wryly. “You do.”

“You don’t know if that could change, dude. Better get it over with before you get stuck as like, Endeavor forever.”

Sero laughed, light and airy. “Shouto wouldn’t hang with me anymore.”

You nodded. “Exactly, and none of the rest of us read the same weird manga you guys are into so you’d be all alone with no one to fanboy about it to.”

The medic returned with a thick silvery strip, pulling on blue nitrile gloves as she did so. Sero held his arm out obligingly, the lean muscle flexing in the fluorescence of the office lighting. She peeled off the backing of the strip, pressing it to Sero’s forearm, pushing it down firmly.

She attached a cable to some screened device, and you listened to the beep of various buttons. Sero watched you over her shoulder, his easy smile still in place.

Finally, the device in the medic’s hand beeped, and she pulled back, announcing somewhat shyly, “An attraction-type quirk.”

You blinked, mystified. A what?

Sero’s grin seemed to freeze on his face, and his thin brows furrowed the tiniest bit.

The medic continued, oblivious. “This quirk creates an illusion. External parties will perceive the affectee with the traits or as the person they are most attracted to.”

Sero’s dark eyes snapped to yours, widening, and you fumbled a step back, almost tripping over yourself. You threw out a hand, barely catching yourself on the counter.

No.

Oh fuck no.

If people were seeing who they were most attracted to…and you had just seen Sero the whole time…

That would mean—that would mean—and he had heard you say—

“Oh my god, I just remembered I have to get back to Mari,” you said, offering Sero a wave of your suddenly numb hand. “Can’t, um, strand her at the desk for too long. I’ll leave you guys to it. Uh, yeah. Thanks–bye!”

You quickly threw yourself out through the door, leaving Sero alone with the medic. You dashed back up the stairwell, your heartbeat shooting into your mouth.

How could this be happening? How unbelievably embarrassing was that? You’d worked so hard to play it cool in front of Sero for all this time, for years, really, and you’d finally just made it to a comfortable place as friends.

And then—and then—some attraction-illusion quirk goes and blows your cover, just like that? For real?

And he’d heard you, too. Heard you say, “Hey, Sero!” as soon as he’d come through the door, before anyone had revealed anything about who else they thought he might be instead. Before you could have possibly had any clue that he’d been quirked.

You could die of mortification.

You shooed Mari and Kimiko away from the desk when you got back, quickly readying your things to get the hell out of the office as soon as your night replacement arrived. You cleaned up all the bi-colored hearts Mari had doodled on every available surface of your desk and refilled the candy bowl Kimiko had apparently seen fit to devastate in your absence, your ears heating with the thought that Sero could catch on now, why you stocked orange candies.

God, could your replacement hurry the fuck up before Sero got back here?

But the night receptionist was predictably late, of course, and by the time you finally saw him badge through the front entrance you could hear quick, booted steps across the tile behind you.

Sero’s voice sounded over the back of your chair, just as a long-fingered hand closed around your wrist.

“Y/N,” he said, his voice more careful than you’d ever heard it. “Still up for that drink? I think maybe we could talk over it.”

The night receptionist nodded at you and Sero as he made his way over, and you gave up your chair to him, collecting your bag with Sero’s warm fingers still clutching your wrist. You slowly worked up the courage to look up at him, face heating as you took in his uncharacteristically intent expression. His face had been cleaned and it looked like some antibiotic had been applied to some of the scrapes along his jaw.

You knew then you’d trapped yourself. Though it was probably also better to get things over with now than avoid the subject forever.

“Okay,” you said, trying to keep your voice normal. “Yeah, let’s talk.”

Sero was the nicest dude ever, you had to remember that. Even when it came down to a rejection, he would still be completely kind and friendly. Probably not too much would change on his end afterwards either. You couldn’t imagine him avoiding you or treating you any differently.

“My place okay?” Sero asked as you shrugged on your bag.

You nodded, and he smiled, nearly as wide and silly as he normally did, tinged with only the slightest bit of shyness.

You’d originally planned to take him out somewhere fun, but this conversation was probably best had in private. And Sero’s place was close, an apartment only a couple blocks’ walk, in a charming little neighborhood fringed by a park and a variety of interesting bars and cafes. Sero chatted away with his usual friendly ease as you walked, still in his shredded hero costume, waving to the couple people that recognized him as you did so.

Your stomach flipped as he opened his front door, gesturing you inside under his arm. He was tall and lanky enough that you fit easily, and you caught a whiff of that minty scent again under all the dust that coated his uniform. You tried not to look too closely at the lines of his bicep as you passed under it.

His apartment was just as you’d remembered it; spacious, casually decorated in neutral tones with splashes of interesting patterns spread across the rug, throw pillows, and his collection of wall hangings. It smelled cottony and clean, and Sero gestured you to his couch as he dumped his helmet and boots in the doorway, shrugging off his shoulder pieces.

“A beer cool?” he asked as he made his way into the kitchen. “I’ve got a couple of good ones.”

“Sounds great,” you told him, listening to the sounds of him cracking the caps.

To your surprise he plopped down on the couch next to you as he came back in, handing you a bottle. It was cold, and your fingers made little prints in the condensation where you touched it.

“So,” he said, turning to you, a sly look in his dark eyes. “You wanna talk about what just happened?”

Your face flamed, and you took a quick sip of your beer to give you time to recover yourself. It was sour on your tongue, a hint of orange peel in its profile.

“No,” you told him honestly, giving him a self-conscious smile, which he returned. “I think it’s pretty clear, actually. You got hit by a quirk that shows people the person they’re most attracted to and I, uh, obviously saw, um, you.”

Sero’s grin pulled wider at the edges, surprising you. If you didn’t know better, you would think he liked hearing that. Although maybe it was a little bit of an ego stroke to hear you were someone’s fantasy man, even if you didn’t return their feelings.

“Not All Might and not Bakugou,” he said, something pleased in his tone.

You blinked at him, disturbed by those insinuations. “Definitely not,” you sniffed. “I am a paragon of taste.”

Sero laughed, his fingers flexing on the side of his beer. Then he took a sip, seeming to contemplate something as he did, and you drew yourself together, preparing for the inevitable. That was definitely a look that said he was thinking hard, probably about the best way to let you down.

But then Sero grinned back down at you, leaning in collusively. “You wanna know something?”

You could feel your brows raise curiously, even as your heartbeat picked up with his proximity. You looked down, then accidentally spied the strips of tanned thigh where his costume had torn, and had to quickly reroute your gaze for fear of staring. “That depends.”

Sero’s grin went even more sly. “I think if you’d been hit with that quirk, I’d have known it was you too.”

Your heartbeat slammed to a halt in your chest. It was only when Sero threw a hand out that you realized you’d lost your grip on your beer, his quick reflexes the only thing saving his carpet. You startled at the sudden move, making a weird arm-flinging motion somewhere between grabbing for your beer and grabbing onto him, ending up accidentally smacking him in the chest instead.

“Fuck, I—sorry!” you garbled out, stunned by his sudden proximity and the fistful of his costume you’d taken. His skin was warm against the side of your hand.

Sero blinked, looking taken aback for a moment. Then he shifted, and you heard the clink of two beers being deposited on his coffee table. You swallowed, unable to look away from him, and you watched his dark eyes rove over your face, before dipping down to stare at something just under your nose.

A shiver prickled up your spine.

“So when you—with the quirk—” you tried, but your brain had gone offline, and the right set of words were not coming to you. “Um, when you say—you would have known—?”

Sero’s grin crept back across his mouth. “I mean that I’d have seen you, because I’ve been wanting to ask you out and trying to figure out if you're into me for months.”

It had to be the shock of this admission that registered you so stupid. “You—months? Try years.”

Sero’s laugh beat back the instant wave of mortification that overcame you in the next second, when you realized what'd you'd just said. You could only smile back helplessly, equally pleased and embarrassed. He looked so good right then, too, grinning toothily, his hair a mess, his costume torn to shreds. He really was the most gorgeous guy you had ever seen, that quirk had totally had your number.

It suddenly dawned on you that you had little else to lose now, with everything out in the open. And when Sero looked like that—sly, pleased, and a little bit of a mess—you thought you were done trying to bury things.

A thrill zinging down your spine, you leaned in and pressed your mouth to his.

He’d been laughing, and you only caught the edge of his mouth, but Sero quickly corrected. You could feel his lips go slack in surprise for a second, and then he was schooling himself and returning your kiss with abandon.

Long fingers came up to take your chin, holding you firmly in place. It was so unexpectedly bold that you shuddered, kissing him harder. Your hand tangled further in the fabric of his costume, gripping onto him for dear life as his tongue met yours, twisting and teasing. It was so like him, the way he kissed. Teasing, playful, easy. Your head spun with how much you liked it.

“Aw fuck, I’ve been wanting to do that for a while,” Sero said, when he finally pulled away far enough to enunciate the words. He shifted against you, putting a large palm against your back, pulling you to him. You followed his guidance, climbing into his lap, chasing his mouth again. You wanted more—more now that you thought you could have it.

“I’ve been wanting—for years—” you said, squeaking in surprise when Sero guided you down onto a strong thigh. It was hard and thick and way too muscular to be allowed, and your breath left you in a harsh hiss. And because this was the most embarrassing day of your life, Sero clocked it immediately, leaning forward in interest.

“You—like that? My—thigh?” he asked curiously.

You could feel your face burning, like someone had just dunked it in a bucket of hot coals. “I–yes. I like everything about you. Including your thighs,” you admitted.

Sero’s hand guided you back down against him, pressing his knee up experimentally. A thrill sang through your veins at the feeling of a piece of him so warm and firm right up against your core. You barely bit back the noise you wanted to make.

“Fuck, this is weirdly hot,” Sero said, leaning in to take your mouth again. You could feel him growing hard against your knee through the fabric of his costume, as his tongue flicked against yours, making your brain go a little woozy.

His arms came around you, holding your waist as he ground his leg up into you, sending a wave of pleasure striking through you like lightning. The moan you’d been trying to hold in finally broke free of you. “Ah—Hanta!”

The sound seem to spark something in him. Sero surged up, his hands making quick work of your shirt as he kissed you, still rocking you against his thigh in a way that made you see stars. You had the wild thought that everything about him was more than you’d ever imagined it would be, from the delicate press of his fingers to the warmth of his thigh to the way the strands of his hair that had escaped brushed across your forehead. Embarrassingly fast, like he knew exactly how to play you, he worked you up to the crest of your pleasure.

You had to put a hand to his chest to stop him.

“Hanta, if you—I’m going to cum if we don’t stop—” you said.

“Oh my god please,” was his only answer, and he pulled you down onto his thigh with renewed vigor. Sparks of pleasure pricked all over your body as he kissed you again, his hands roaming every inch of exposed skin. He left bruising kisses down the side of your throat, fingers playing with your nipples.

Another few rocks into his thigh sent you right over the edge, and he held you against him as you rode it out, squirming against his thigh.

“This is the hottest thing that has ever happened to me,” he said, something in his tone making it clear he was not done with you yet.

He helped you wiggle out of your pants, freeing himself of his own costume, and laid you out over his couch, grinning. He was golden with a fading summer tan, and his smile was so wide and charming and white against the dimming light from the windows. He was gloriously lean, hard with dense, compact stretches of muscle, every single inch of him honed from years of hero work. He was perfect—so stupidly, handsomely, perfect.

Between his thighs, his cock was just as long and lean, heavy and flush with arousal. It made you dizzy to think that this man, who you’d crushed on for so long, wanted you like this—wanted you back in the same way you’d always wanted him. You motioned him closer, too eager now to be self-conscious about it.

Sero laughed, a happy noise. “Fuck, you’re so pretty though.” He stretched out over you, sliding in between your thighs and guiding himself into you. His chest pressed to yours, hot and slick with a light sheen of sweat already, and you hissed with the feeling of him slipping inside you.

You felt drunk with arousal, crazy with want. You clutched him to you as he moved, thrusting carefully at first, as if testing the feeling of you, and then more firmly. You let out soft noises you hadn't meant to, which Sero seemed to appreciate.

“God, look at you. Listen to you,” he said, grinning down at you, his dark eyes tracing over you. “I can’t believe I got hit with that quirk. This is the luckiest day of my life—you’re so cute. So—fuck—so perfect.”

He slid into a frustratingly sedate pace, strokes long and languid, stretching out almost teasingly. You wrapped your legs more tightly around his hips, trying to press him into you, but his smile just widened. He moved leisurely, setting his own pace, just on the wrong side of too slow.

It drove you insane, somehow working you up even faster than if he’d been doing what you wanted. You muffled the sounds of your own moans against his lips, gripping onto those broad shoulders. Sero’s own fingers slid down to your clit, playing with you just as lightly and teasingly as his thrusts.

You could have killed him, but all you could do was hold onto him, slurring his name appreciatively.

He worked you like that for a while, bringing you close but never too close, drawing out the feeling into something warm and fizzy, like soda left in the sun. But eventually the band of his control seemed to snap, and he began thrusting into you harder, faster. Those long, lovely fingers circled your clit with more intent as he did, murmuring a steady stream of praise.

“Please—cum with me,” he panted into your mouth, as his fingers drew ever-tightening circles over you. “I want you to come with me, Y/N. Can you—can you do that?”

You nodded frantically as his thrusts grew faster, sloppier. He was so good inside you, so good over you, his fingers such a delicious pressure against your clit. It only took a few thrusts more, a few strokes of those careful fingers, and then you were squirming against him in earnest, your veins going molten with pleasure.

“Hanta—I’m going to—!”

“Yessss,” he hissed, and then he was orgasming too, spilling out his pleasure inside of you. His hips slapped yours in a stuttering pattern, half-crazed, and you shook against him, gasping. Your heart felt like it was going to beat out of your chest as you crested the wave, until finally—finally you went limp against him, just as his own body relaxed over you.

“I want to be hit with a quirk all the time,” he said, ridiculously.

You couldn’t help but laugh, smiling into his shoulder. “Don’t make a habit of it.”

Sero hummed thoughtfully. “I don’t know. If this is what I get every time, then…” he trailed off, smirking down at you.

“I’m not going to bang you if you’re going to be irresponsible,” you told him.

He perked up, however, those dark eyes peering at you hopefully. “But you’ll bang me otherwise?”

You laughed again, pinching him lightly on the arm where you held him. “What do you think having a crush on you for years means?”

His grin went all sly and pleased again. “Then I’ll have to lock it down, of course. I haven’t spent months wondering just to let you get away. Starting with dinner this evening, maybe. Do you—would dinner be okay?” he asked. The sound of genuine, eager hope in his voice was so gratifying it made you want to kick your legs in the air.

You settled for nodding instead. “Dinner sounds amazing.”

“Then I’ll arrange the finest takeout just for you,” he said, which you knew from experience meant the empanadas place around the corner. You laughed again, feeling full already with the promise of an easy meal, and a relationship to come.

“Whatever you want sounds good to me,” you said, even as he began to slide off of you, helping you up alongside him. “You’ve had a crazy day today, empanadas sound like the perfect cap.”

Sero leaned in, his expression as mischievous and charming as always. “It’s nothing,” he said, even as he carefully held out your shirt to you again, guiding you into it in an unexpectedly gentlemanly move. You let him stuff you into it, laughing, smiling into the kiss he gave you as you emerged.

He winked at you as he found his phone and dialed, smiling as you heard the call connect. “After all, I'm a hero," he said. "And it’s all in a day’s work.”

[elllisaaa]

hello! i absolutely love your writing ☺️

lately ive just been nonstop thinking about needy bf hyunjin… like he comes home from practice with a sly grin on his face and you know exactly where he’s going. he keeps trying to tease you and get you worked up, but you hold off, trying to see if his facade will dissolve - and eventually it does, he admits how much he needs you and you just have the wettest, neediest, sloppiest soft sex ever, calling him baby and hyune as he calls you my love and angel while you cum together, chest to chest and arms wrapped around each other, emitting all the pent up love from the day. i would loveee if you could write something on this, a drabble or if possible a full piece 🫶

FEEL IT - H. HYUNJIN

-> pairing : soft dom!hyunjin x sub!reader

-> words count : 1.6 k words

-> genre : smut, established relation

-> warnings : teasing, praising, dry humping, dirty talk, unprotected sex, creampie

+ the way i'm depicting hyunjin does not represent him, it's only a work of fiction.

-> 18+ content bellow, minors DNI

-> reblogs and feedbacks are appreciated ! sorry for any mistakes, english is not my first language

-> author's note : this screams hyunjin, i loved writing this so much, these kind of intimate, steamy sex scenes are my favourites to write ! i hope you'll like it <3

-> masterlist | skz masterlist

You were always eager to go back home early when you knew Hyunjin would come by after practice. Firstly, because you were just glad to leave work, and secondly - and mostly - because your boyfriend was always needy when he just danced for hours, desperate to release the pressure, especially if he hadn’t seen you in a few days. So when he walked into your apartment with that smirk on his lips and that look in his eyes, you immediately knew what he wanted. And he would get it, obviously, but for once you wanted to tease him a little, wanted to see if you could get him to crack before you. 

As usual, Hyunjin came to where you were standing in front of the kitchen counter, cutting up vegetables for the dish you were planning on making for dinner, and his hands immediately wrapped around your waist. Soon enough, you felt his lips ghosting over the nape of your neck, his long hair brushing against your skin and making you shiver. 

“- How was your day Hyune ?

- Good, we worked well on the new choreo, but I struggled to get some moves at first.”

You hummed as you tried to stay focused on not chopping your fingers off while Hyunjin let his hands slide underneath the hem of the shirt you were wearing. He asked about your own day, but it was hard for you to concentrate when he had pressed his whole body against your back, letting you feel his already hard cock. 

“- You smell so good, my love. I missed you.

- I missed you too Hyune.”

You turned around to kiss his cheek and then walked past him to grab the spices you needed to season your vegetables. You could feel Hyunjin gaze on you, and you almost laughed at seeing the obvious frown on his face. Normally, you would let him do whatever he wanted, no questions asked. So why were you ignoring him like that today ? 

“- I’m making some fried rice for dinner, sounds good ?

- You know damn well that it’s not what I wanna eat tonight.”

Hyunjin was now pouting as he got closer to you again, not letting you get away from him as he held your waist tightly, his other hand grabbing your face. You looked up at him with the best confused expression you had in stock.

“- What do you mean ? Do you want to order instead ? Or I can make something different if you want.”

Your boyfriend groaned, slowly realizing what game you were playing. He was always the one to make you break first, to make you admit that you wanted him. If all it took was for him to tell you that he needed you, he would. 

“- I’m not hungry for food my love, I’m hungry for you. Can’t you feel it ?”

Hyunjin pulled you closer to him, your thigh now pressed against his boner, his eyes glazed by lust as you dived into them. This time, it was on your face that a smirk appeared. You finally wrapped your arms around his neck, bringing his face inches apart from yours, your lips brushing against his when you talked. 

“- I know. But can’t I tease my boyfriend a little ?

- Not when I’m horny. And not when I haven’t touched your gorgeous body in days.”

Sensing that his cheesy comment would probably earn him a side eye from your part, Hyunjin decided to simply lean down and press a kiss on your lips - something he had been dying to do ever since he spotted you in the kitchen when he got home. And you let him take control, melting against his mouth as his tongue started to dance sensually with yours. Hyunjin always kissed you in a way that left you dizzy and wanting more, in a way that had you melting in his embrace. And as one of his hands came up to settle at the back of your head, his fingers threading through your hair, you whined against his mouth, definitely wet by now. 

“- I need you Hyune.”

Your words were enough for Hyunjin to lift you up bridal style and carry you to the bedroom. He was far too impatient to care about closing the curtains, simply dropping you on top of the sheets and immediately laying on top of you, his lips finding yours again in an even messier, sloppier kiss. Hyunjin pushed your legs apart, settling between your thighs with his hard on pressing against your clothed core and he didn’t wait a second before he started to grind against you, drowning your little whimpers and his moans by passionately making out with you. 

You tangled your fingers in his hair, trying to bring him closer to you if that was even possible, bringing his lips back to yours every time he tried to step away to breathe. And Hyunjin moaned every time you tugged on his black strand, only speeding up his moves against you, the friction against your clit feeling so good after days without him. His and your lips were red and puffy by now, but it only made him prettier. 

“- Wanna fuck you so bad my love, but I can’t stop… Feels so good.

- Don’t stop, please…”

So Hyunjin didn’t, resuming his kisses with even more intensity than before. You could feel drool pooling at the corner of your lips and dripping down to the pillows underneath your head, but you couldn’t care less when Hyunjin was rutting his hips against your own, a noticeable wet spot on his sweatpants being the proof of how turned on he was. You could feel yourself clenching around nothing, aching for your boyfriend’s cock, but at the same time, you were so close to the edge that you were ready to wait a little bit. 

“- Hyune, I’m close…

- Me too… Shit, you’re gonna make me cum in my pants.”

Hyunjin’s hands left your cheeks that he was holding to grip at your waist, grinding into you harder and bringing the both of you to your orgasm. You threw your head back when pleasure overtook you, mewling his name as Hyunjin moaned yours, unable to stop himself from driving you and him to overstimulation. When you looked at him again, his face was flushed, his hair was a mess and a layer of sweat was covering his forehead, making him even hotter if that was even possible. 

“- Are you going to let me fuck you now my love ?

- Please baby”

He smiled at you while he helped you remove your shorts and underwear, already licking his lips at the sight of your glistening folds, the thought of finally burying his head in between your thighs plaguing his mind. But he could do that later, for now he wanted to feel you clench around him, and to hear you moan his name again and again. As Hyunjin got rid of his clothes too, you threw your shirt away, grabbing his hands to pull him closer to you as soon as he was naked too and his lips found yours once again. As he devoured your mouth, Hyunjin pushed his cock inside of you, drowning out your moans and his by kissing you harder. 

“- You feel so good, so wet and tight around me angel

- Feels so good too Hyune, love your cock !

- Fuck… You’re gonna be the death of me.”

Hyunjin buried his head in the crook of your neck as he snapped his hips forward, eliciting another whimper out of you. The lewd sounds he made with every sloppy thrust inside of your cunt were echoing in the room, mixing with your high-pitched whines and his pretty, airy moans. You were feeling so good, desire overtaking every one of your senses and the only thought in your mind being Hyunjin and the way he was fucking you into oblivion. 

No words were needed anymore as you wrapped your legs around his waist, Hyunjin adjusting the angle of his hips so that he could hit your sweet spot with every one of his thrusts. He was staring up directly at your face, admiring how gorgeous you looked when you were losing yourself in the pleasure he gave you. Your hands found his, intertwining your fingers to seek even more contact with his hot skin. You were both sweaty, but you didn’t care - you needed to feel as close as possible to him. And his chest pressed against yours, his forehead resting against yours - that wasn’t enough. You needed him to know how much you desired him, how much you loved him. 

“- I love you.”

Hyunjin answered with a loud moan, his eyes closing shut as his orgasm washed over him. His thrusts became even sloppier, even messier, but all you needed to cum was to see his ecstatic face, hearing his beautiful voice whining out your name like a prayer. Your nails dug into the back of his hands that you were still holding as you came, squeezing his fingers so tight it sent a tingle of pain through your body. You came down from your high to Hyunjin pushing away some strands of your hair that had stuck to your forehead. You were still trying to breathe normally again when your boyfriend kissed you lazily.

“- I love you too angel, so much.

- I know baby.”

He smiled at you, and your heartbeat that just got steady again was going crazy suddenly. Sometimes, you wondered how it was possible for someone to be this handsome. Sometimes you wondered how you ever got that lucky to get to be with him every day. 

“- Can you still make fried rice, though ? I’m really hungry, for food this time.”

The smirk playing on his lips made you giggle as you ruffled his hair even more. 

“- Only if you help me. 

- Of course my love.”

-> i don't allow any copies, reposts or translations of my work.

skz taglist (fill in this to be added) :

@minnies-babie @binwons @yoongles2025 @thicccurls @caitlyn98s @hildaortara @sharonxdevi @skz1-4-3 @bbgnyx @hann1bee @lil-kpopstan @heevllog @puppy-minnie @binniesbabygirl @lichyuu @foxinnie8 @rashid-realrashid

[otaku553]

Ok so I have been stewing this crossover au in my brain nonstop for the past few days and. I am nothing if not committed to the bit, so. Volume cover redraws :)

Here are the originals:

If you want to read more about my one piece spy x family crossover, keep reading!

So the idea is simple! Crossover reincarnation au where ASL is reborn in Spy x Family. They’re each born separately and none of them are born with the same names as their previous lives, and with no way of finding each other, they each find their own thing to do in the world.

Sabo, too used to the dangers of being a spy, eventually finds a cause to devote himself to again, in preventing war from engulfing the country he was reborn in. Ace, drawn to fire as he was in his previous life, used arson as a means to rob rich people for sustenance and survival, and is eventually scouted and hired by Garden as a fire specialist and assassin. And Luffy, though born in perhaps the poorest condition, grows up happily and takes whatever part time jobs he wants to do.

The thing about Sabo is that, as much as he seems like a young man of good repute and high standing within society, everyone in WISE knows that he is a massive nuisance. Nobody knew in the beginning how a child less than half the age of most of their veteran agents could have the same skills and knowledge in their profession. Sabo was— and still is— hyper competent, and by the time WISE figured out just how much of a menace to society he was, it was too late.

Ace forgot for the first few years of his new life that he wasn’t made of fire, and consequently, received multiple accidental burns. This did not deter him, however, from growing up to be a very skilled arsonist, well-practiced in every which way to start a dumpster fire or house fire. As a teenage he would use this often to draw attention as he robbed rich people blind. When he was caught, he was given an ultimatum by Garden: join them and receive payment for starting fires and causing problems under contract, or face the government and authorities for his crimes. Begrudgingly, he joined Garden, but eventually comes to appreciate that he can make substantial money in his element.

Luffy is Luffy. No telepathy or experimentation, no fancy schools, no gimmicks or secret identities. But he has still lived an extremely colorful life in this world, full of fascinating and kind individuals who have helped him grow up healthy and relatively happy. He goes where he is free, and he takes whatever part time jobs he wants in order to make the minimum he needs to survive.

Ace and Sabo find each other first, in their late teens, and neither of them realize that the other remembers their previous life, but both refuse to separate. (Sabo thinks Ace doesn’t remember, because Ace didn’t recognize him. Ace never saw Sabo grow up past 10, however, so he doesn’t recognize older Sabo immediately. By the time he does realize who exactly Sabo is, Sabo has backtracked and pretends to know Ace from a dream, or from somewhere else.)

Sabo’s attachment to Ace, predictably, causes problems between Sabo and WISE, but by then, Sabo is indispensable to the organization, and they make an exception for Sabo to be able to remain with Ace, so long as Ace never finds out what Sabo’s actual job is. Ace, on the other hand, hides his job because he doesn’t want his brother, who he has just found and who does not know Ace well enough yet, to know that he makes a living from killing people.

And they find Luffy sometime afterwards, prior to the beginning of the Spy x Family canon. Luffy figures out, not long after moving in with his brothers, both of his brothers’ secret occupations and the fact that both of them remember their past memories. He thinks it is common knowledge, however, and so he never brings it up.

[hoshifighting]

Heyy I love reading your blog, smut specially. I think no one write this better than you ehehehe.

So, how about pussy drunk mingyu, who's have not get to eat you out for a long time as reader's finals week is going on, so when he get the permission to finally get down. He is all giggling and happy as he fucks reader with his tongue and fingers.

Idk it just sounds cute and yet very endering for me

mingyu giving oral, after you spent weeks studying nonstop

a/n: thanks a bunch for checking out my blog!! it's dope to know that I'm giving u a good read 🥰🥰 💋

warnings: smut, pussy eating, fingering, clit stimulation.

the past few weeks had been an intense blur of textbooks, highlighters, and endless nights spent studying for your finals. mingyu, ever the supportive boyfriend, had been by your side through it all. his knowledge seemed limitless—physics, mathematics, arts—he was good at almost every subject. whenever you felt overwhelmed, he knew exactly where to find the best study sources and would send you video classes from youtube. those short videos packed all the information you needed in just a few minutes, saving you precious time.

mingyu's help had been invaluable, but he wished he could do more. every time he glanced at you, he saw the tension in your shoulders, as if you were carrying the weight of the world. he would always offer you a massage, sometimes suggesting more intimate ways to relieve stress. but your anxiety about the tests made sex the last thing on your mind, and he understood. he was patient, always reassuring you that it was okay, that he didn’t mind waiting. he knew what it was like to be a college student, after all.

finally, the day of your last test arrived. you walked into your apartment with a big smile, clutching the exam paper that displayed your high score. the moment mingyu saw you, he lifted you into the air, covering your face, neck, and shoulders with kisses.

“you did it! i’m so proud of you!” he exclaimed, his eyes shining with pride.

you laughed, feeling lighter than you had in weeks. “i couldn’t have done it without you, mingyu. you were my rock.”

setting you down gently, he looked at you with a mixture of love and desire. “you look exhausted, baby. how about you take a warm bath to get rid of all that tension?”

you nodded, feeling the stress of the past weeks starting to melt away. “that sounds perfect.”

as you turned to head to the bathroom, mingyu leaned in and whispered in your ear, his breath warm against your skin, “i’ll be waiting for you in the bedroom, to get rid of every single bit of tension.”

a shiver ran down your spine, and you bit your lip, feeling a spark of excitement. you grabbed a towel and rushed to the bathroom, eager for the first time in weeks.

the warm water enveloped you, washing away the last remnants of stress. you closed your eyes, allowing yourself to relax completely. after what felt like an eternity, you stepped out, wrapped the towel around yourself, and headed to the bedroom.

mingyu was waiting for you, as promised, lying on the bed with a look of anticipation. he smiled as you entered, his eyes raking over your form. “feeling better?”

you nodded, dropping the towel and slipping into bed beside him. “much better.”

his hands were warm and gentle as they began to massage your shoulders, working out the knots of tension. you closed your eyes, leaning into his touch. “you have no idea how good this feels.”

he chuckled softly, his breath tickling your ear. “i think i have some idea.”

you raise an eyebrow, teasingly. "and what would that idea be?" you ask.

mingyu smiles, a glint of hunger in his eyes as he lays you down on the bed, gently opening your towel to reveal your naked form. droplets of water still adorn your skin, catching the light. his gaze intensifies, and you can sense that your eagerness is growing.

without warning, mingyu's warm mouth descends on you, his lips and tongue immediately finding your clit. your mind goes completely blank, all the stress and information from your studies vanishing in an instant. your eyes roll back, and a gasp escapes your lips as he expertly alternates between flicking and sucking, his tongue dancing with precision.

mingyu has always been greedy when giving you oral, and tonight is no exception. his eyes never leave your face, studying every reaction. he knows exactly how to break you, paying attention to the way you tremble when his tongue flicks a little faster or the way your moans turn to broken whimpers when he sucks your clit into his mouth.

you expected some preliminaries, like kisses on your thighs or gentle licks, but mingyu goes straight to what he knows you need. his intensity leaves you breathless, and you can feel yourself getting wetter with each passing second. mingyu isn't a man of quickies; even with oral, he takes his time to give you the full experience. his mouth is relentless, and just when you think you can't take any more, he adds his fingers to the mix.

his middle and ring finger slide into you effortlessly, and you barely notice the initial stretch. he pumps them in and out slowly, matching the rhythm of his tongue on your clit. your back arches, and you grasp at the sheets, feeling everything twice as intensely after so long without release.

mingyu's mouth works in tandem with his fingers, and you can feel the tension building inside you, coiling tighter and tighter. his tongue and fingers play you like an instrument, and you can't hold back any longer. the wave of pleasure crashes over you, and you cry out, your body trembling as the orgasm breaks through you.

mingyu doesn't stop, his mouth and fingers coaxing every last bit of pleasure from you until you're completely spent, collapsing back onto the bed with a contented sigh. he moves up to lie beside you, a satisfied smile on his face.

"feeling better?" he asks, brushing a strand of hair from your forehead.

you nod, breathless and blissful. "much better."

he kisses your forehead tenderly.

mingyu smirks, clearly pleased with himself. "by the way, what's the formula for newton's second law?" he asks playfully.

you stare at him, completely dumbfounded. "huh?" your mind, still foggy from the intense orgasm, struggles to recall the subject you've been studying for weeks and the exam you just took today.

he chuckles, enjoying your reaction. "just messing with you," he says, brushing a kiss across your forehead. "i'll let you recover. you're too sensitive right now."

you let out a breathless laugh, and you can still feel the effects of pleasure. "yeah, i think we need to take things slow for a bit," you agree, knowing it will take a little time to ease back into the rhythm of the constant sex you two usually enjoyed.

mingyu pulls you into his arms, holding you close. "no rush," he whispers. "we have all the time in the world."

[greensagephase]

For Better or Worse - Part 2

Pairings: Miguel O'Hara x Female!Reader Summary: Overwhelmed, you seek a moment of solitude on your sister's wedding day at the garden, but you can't even have that thanks to your sister's now brother-in-law, Miguel. Word Count: 6.8k Warnings: use of y/n; no name for your sister still (I think we're just going to go with a nickname); some cussing; alcohol consumption; pesky aunts and a divorced man offer unsolicited opinions; some Spanish but translations are provided in text; a bit of arguing; suggestive content, so MDNI, please!; reader is fluent in Spanish; I think that's all A/N: hiiii, finally updating this after two months 🫠 But anyway, I just wanted to give a big thank you to @lauraolar14 for the amazing fanart she made from part 1!! Found here ! Thank you, Lara!! 🥰 Pls go and support her!! Masterlist | Spotify Previous Part

You down a glass with water and place it on a tray just as a waiter offers you another drink. You politely decline before letting your gaze wander around the elegant venue your sister and Gabriel chose for the reception, thinking how it’s truly beautiful and perfect for the wedding they both envisioned.

Your eyes eventually land on the newlyweds as they dance, a smile tugging at your lips. They’ve been dancing nonstop since their first dance, which means their feet will likely be sore tomorrow. However, by tomorrow afternoon they should be in their honeymoon destination, relaxing from the last couple of days of last minute wedding shenanigans and basking in their newlywed energy.

“Aww, sweetie,” someone says, ripping your attention from your sister and now brother-in-law. It’s one of your aunts. You offer a polite smile as she approaches, your gut warning you about her intentions. “Look at you.”

You raise an eyebrow. “Look at me…?” you state but it sounds more like a question.

“This must be so hard for you,” your aunt says, taking your arm and holding it, with a sad tone that matches the frown on her face.

You hold back from sighing in annoyance, recognizing where this is going. You’ve heard it twice already from two other aunts.

“Not really. I know she’s the baby of the family, but well, we all grow up, right?” you reply, forcing a smile. You hope your words will deter your aunt from explaining what she truly means, but unfortunately for you, it doesn’t.

“Aw, not that, sweetie. I mean, yes, but I was referring to how hard it must be for you as the eldest. Seeing your younger sister get married before you - it must be so hard. You should’ve been married by now, maybe with a little toddler at your side. Instead, you’ve found yourself witnessing your younger sister marry first, and who knows, maybe pregnant in a few months, but cheer up, sweetie. Don’t let this make you feel less, okay? Sometimes… Not everyone has the pleasure of marrying and experiencing motherhood, but that’s alright. I’m sure you have other… things that bring happiness to you, like… your job?” your aunt says, giving your arm what she thinks is a reassuring squeeze, but is rather an uncomfortable one. On top of that, she’s delivering another jab at you she doesn’t even know she’s making. “I’m sure that brings a lot of satisfaction to you.”

“Thank you for your kind words,” you force yourself to say with a fake smile that seems to go past your aunt. You silently pray she leaves you alone and that this is the last time you have to hear the same “comforting” and “reassuring” words for the night. You hope so, or you’ll slap someone. Mentally, of course. You’d never cause any kind of commotion publicly, much less at your sister’s wedding when you care so deeply about her and Gabriel. Besides, that’d give the people a field day and fill their minds with thoughts of you being “jealous” or “resentful” about your sister marrying before you.

Thankfully, your aunt leaves, off to offer more unsolicited advice and words of comfort, probably.

“Mierda [shit],” you sigh just as you hear a man somewhere behind you.

“Ah, Miguel! It’s been so long since I’ve seen you. Working all the time, huh?”

Subtly, you glance behind you at the man’s words. You didn’t even know Miguel was nearby, but now knowing he is, you wonder if he heard your aunt. You hope he didn’t as the last thing you want is Miguel to think you were looking at the newlyweds with jealously and that that was the reason your aunt felt the need to provide those “reassuring” words.

“Yes, yes. I stay busy working,” you hear Miguel reply.

“Good for you. And you’re still single?” the man asks.

“Si. No tengo pareja [Yes. I don’t have a partner],” Miguel replies, a hint of humor in his tone.

“That’s good, that’s good! No plans of marriage in sight for you. It’s better that way. You can spend your money how you want to, no children involved, no woman bothering you about grand gestures, or making you spend money. Enjoy your youth, have your fun. Maybe later on, you can settle down.”

You continue to watch the people on the dance floor, but you can’t help but scoff to yourself at the difference.

Your aunt was just pitying you about not being married and having children, but Miguel is being celebrated for the same thing by this man when he’s a few years older than you. You grab a glass from a waiter’s tray, thanking him. “I need one, or two after the crap I’m hearing,” you murmur to yourself as he walks away.

“You think so?” Miguel asks. “At my age, people think I ought to be married. Maybe with a kid or two.”

“No, no. Trust me, it’s better. That’s why I divorced.”

“I thought it was your wife who divorced you,” Miguel says gently. Despite the gentleness, Miguel’s words tear down the man’s attempt to make it seem like he had been the one to make the decision, and had you been watching Miguel, you would’ve noticed his raised brow to go along with it.

“Ah - well. Yes… But who cares? I’m divorced and free. I’m doing better than I was.” The man laughs. “I’m doing so, so, so great...” he says trailing off before chugging down some alcohol, a sign of a man who is most definitely doing great.

You roll your eyes. God bless that woman, she made the right choice divorcing the idiot behind you.

“Yeah, well…” you hear Miguel start. “I guess marriage is not for everyone. I’m not going to say it’s not for me, though. Who knows? Maybe one day a woman catches my attention.”

“You’ll be a miserable man, trust me. Don’t let any woman lure you into the marriage trap. You’re too young. Enjoy your youth. Go on dates. Have fun, if you know what I mean,” the man says, using a tone that leaves no doubt about what he’s referring to.

You decide you’ve heard enough, so you walk away, glass in hand. You glance at your sister and Gabriel from the sidelines of the dance floor, still dancing and lost in their own little and magical bubble. The sight brings a smile to your face once more before you turn, seeking a moment to yourself.

You step out of the venue, sighing deeply as you walk into a garden area where photos were taken earlier in the day. You briefly recall the photo session and how you were forced to take some photographs with the groom’s best man, who looked equally displeased to stand next to you, the maid of honor. You stood next to each other, stiff as surf boards and hands clasped in front of you with the most serious faces.

“This is the most scoffs, eye rolls, and scowls I’ve ever seen in a photo shoot. C’mon, guys! You’re the maid of honor and the best man. And -” Arturo, the cameraman, paused, walking closer. “Respective eldest siblings to the bride and groom. You should be acting like - a family. Here, let’s just move a little closer,” he said, finding it easier to move you instead of Miguel, and moving you closer to him.

You stiffened even more at that and Miguel scoffed at the way you were acting, like he had some incurable disease.

“You, too, señor [sir]. Please step closer,” Arturo gently demanded.

That earned Arturo a scoff and a glare.

“Yeah, O’Hara. Move closer and stop wasting time,” you added, innocently.

“Thank you, señorita [miss],” Arturo replied happily, believing he had at least turned your attitude around when in reality, you were simply taking the opportunity to poke fun at Miguel. It was the only way to make the photo session bearable.

With an eye roll, Miguel stepped closer until his arm brushed against yours. “Better?” he said through gritted teeth.

“Better,” Arturo confirmed. “Though…” he trailed off, frowning.

“You look like a three-day old piece of bolillo [savory bread in MX + other Latin countries],” you said all too seriously. “Stiff.”

Arturo, bless his heart, turned away and attempted to hide his shock.

With a poker face, you turned to look at Miguel and found a scowl, his eyes on you already.

“A three-day old piece of bolillo?” he repeated, annoyance dripping from his mouth. “And what are you? A fresh, sweet, soft piece of cortadillo [a kind of pan dulce; Mexican pastry], I suppose?”

You snorted at that. “I’m flattered you think of me like that. Cortadillo is so good,” you replied, smirking softly.

“Dios mio [my God], I’m just trying to do my job and those two are talking about pan dulce [Mexican pastries],” Arturo complained from somewhere, thinking he was quiet enough that he wasn’t going to be heard, but he was.

Miguel and you stared at each other as the cameraman’s words of frustration rang in your heads. You held each other’s gazes and as much as you both wanted to keep the glares and scowls, Arturo made both of you smile and then burst into quiet laughter.

In the end, Arturo got his opportunity with that moment of laughter and managed to capture the best man and maid of honor smiling in each other’s presence before you both ran off to get other duties done once the photographs were done.

You shake your head from the memory and look up at the garden lights hanging over you, giving the area a whimsical look, before you walk further away from the door and into a less well-lit area.

You sigh deeply again, something you’ve found yourself doing too much lately. The comments from your pesky aunts and the conversation you overheard have caused you some irritation, but it’s not just that. You’ve been trying to ignore a problem that’s been weighting on you all day. You’ve tried not to let it dampen your mood, today being your sister’s wedding, and you had succeeded until now. On a normal day, those conversations with your aunts and the man’s words to Miguel would’ve mattered little to you, but with the big issue in your life right now, they’ve managed to put you in a bad mood.

The big issue?

You were forced to resign from your job two days ago, leaving you unemployed.

It wasn’t anything that you did, but rather what you refused to do that led to the decision. You grimace in disgust just thinking about it all over again. You started working at the company two years ago and everything was great with you rising up the ranks quickly due to your hard work and determination, but as you rose higher and higher, you were warned.

You were told to be cautious of your boss and his wandering hands. You did your best to avoid him on your own and always kept a professional attitude to set clear boundaries. Foolishly, you thought you were safe with two years in and no impropriety on your boss’s side, but you were wrong.

Two days ago, he cornered you in his office to make his move. Of course, you made it known you weren’t interested nor willing to do anything beyond what is professional. Even when you were promised a promotion if you “played” the game, you refused - something that angered your boss. Apparently, the disgusting man believed you’d accept his advances. Despite taking it to HR, nothing was done because of the position and status your boss holds within the company. You knew then that you needed to leave the company, so you did.

You don’t regret it. You’ll never give yourself away like that to some disgusting and horrible man, even if you’re unemployed now.

However, you don’t look forward to job searching and all that it entails. Thinking about it makes you feel stressed and even some anxiety. Then, there’s also the words from your ex-boss, his promise to make it hard for you to find a job within your field.

You wonder. Surely he doesn’t have that much power, right?

You hope not.

You down the rest of the drink, briefly thinking about how you should probably stop drinking by now, but the unexpected change, one you’re carrying on your own because you refused to tell your family about it with the wedding coming up, is weighing heavily on you now.

Your thoughts are interrupted when you hear the door open, follow by footsteps. You recognize it’s not a woman’s, at least you don’t think so since there’s no sounds of heels, but either way, you can’t help but feel annoyed that someone has stepped out and taken your small moment of solitude. You just wanted a moment to yourself, but it seems that whoever stepped out, decided otherwise.

“Ah, you’re here, too?”

Rolling your eyes, you turn to face Miguel O’Hara. Of course, it had to be him of all people.

Miguel stands a few feet from the door, hands inside the pockets of his perfectly tailored pants while staring at you. For some reason, your annoyance grows at the way it hugs him in what women would say the “right way,” which you’re certain many women did comment on tonight, considering you caught many staring at him like he’s a piece of candy. You’re sure many are probably having little fantasies of him now; recalling how tall he is for a Mexican man, his wide shoulders only enhanced by his suit jacket, and the way his hair frames his chiseled face so well like God himself styled it for him.

And if they shook his hand, they may be thinking about how large and warm it was, how it felt against their own.

There may even be some women imagining making their parents suegros [parents-in-laws] and planning some elaborate wedding in their heads, thinking the bride today will be like a sister to them.

“Yes,” you simply reply, turning away again and making it known you don’t wish to talk. He can stay over there, on his own little spot, and let you be over here, unbothered.

“Needed some fresh air?”

Great.

“Yes.”

Miguel snorts, decreasing the distance between you. He’s still not in your space, but he’s significantly closer now. “One-word answers. You must be having a night.”

You don’t reply. Maybe if you don’t he’ll go back inside, but with your luck recently, doubtful.

“Did the comments from your aunts get to you?” he asks suddenly when you say nothing else.

“What comments?”

“You know very well which ones. I happened to be there, you know. When the first aunt went over, the second one, and then, the third and last one.”

You scoff. “Didn’t know you were a chismoso [gossiper; masculine noun].”

Miguel snorts again. “It’s not my fault they talk so loudly and I happened to be there.”

True on the talking too loud, but you still wish he hadn’t heard, just like you wish you hadn’t heard him being celebrated for the same things you were being pitied on.

“Right, and are you here to offer words of comfort, too?” you reply in a snappy tone. “Or, are you out here to celebrate how you were recommended to stay clear from commitment by your friend?”

Miguel scoffs. You really think he’s that kind of man?

“If you heard the conversation, surely you heard what I said,” he replies defensively turning his body to face you now. “I don’t agree with that mindset.”

“You know -” you step back and pinch the bridge of your nose for a second. “I don’t care. Can you just - leave me alone?” you snap, stepping away. You don’t care about the topic anyway, it’s not the reason why you’re truly upset. Miguel O’Hara can do whatever he wants with his life and your aunts can nag and pity you, you don’t care. What you care about is the fact you lost your job the way you did and that now you’re unemployed.

“No,” Miguel says, upset. “I’m not. You seem to think you have me all figured out, don’t you? Just because we’ve never been two to get along. I’m not that kind of man.”

“I don’t care what kind of man you are. This isn’t about you.”

Miguel steps forward, his body brushing against your arm making you turn to face him, too. You glare at him.

“This isn’t about me, but I’m receiving the brunt of your anger.”

“I’m not angry about what you think I am, alright? I could care less what my aunts said, what that man said to you, though it’s unfair, but it’s not what’s on my mind. So, do me a favor and drop it. Leave me alone. You’re not the center of my world,” you reply with a scoff before turning away from him.

“What a shame,” Miguel murmurs following you. He grabs your arm and pulls you back, his hand wrapping around your flesh with enough force to keep you still without hurting you. “¿Que te pasa [what’s the matter]? Why are you so upset if it’s not that, then?”

You tug at your arm, a fruitless attempt to free yourself since Miguel doesn’t let go.

“Answer the question,” he demands, those deep brown eyes looking straight at you.

“It’s none of your business,” you answer, still glaring at Miguel.

He scoffs, holding your gaze as you look at him like he’s the most disgusting thing your eyes could ever lay upon.

“You’re such a fucking brat,” he mumbles, his grip tightening around your arm slightly, tugging you closer to him. With narrowed eyes, he holds your gaze for a few seconds before images of your lips flash in his mind from the dance lessons.

He had never been that close to you before, never held nor touched you.

Miguel had never noticed the way your eyelashes framed your eyes, the shape of your lips, nor had he ever noticed your scent, a mixture of your very own essence and perfume. It’s the kind of scent that makes a man weak in the knees and wish for a closer inhale. No, Miguel had never noticed those things about you and it was to his great annoyance that not only had he noted them, but that those details had also made him feel weird afterwards.

Miguel felt so off that he had to make up the excuse about having a call to make. In reality, all he did was step out and take some fresh air, his mind boggled with the entire situation from the comments the dance instructor made about the two of you being in love and sharing passion to his little stunt after your two left feet comment and your payback, which left an ache on his foot, to the details he had never noticed about you. His mind was boggled and yet, you were the same as always with him; annoyed by, distant from, and uninterested in him.

And for some reason, it bothered him that day.

When he went back inside, he found you on the other side of the dance studio, looking closely at the couple and offering some advice to help them, ignoring his presence. Even when the four of you met up at the parking lot once again after the dance lesson, your attitude was the same. Your sister and Gabriel asked if either of you were interesting in grabbing something to eat, but you declined so fast and stated you had other things to do before the wedding, “maid of honor duties” you called them.

He watched with a scowl as you got in your car and left, only having said bye to the couple while barely giving him a glance of acknowledgement despite the conversation you had just had about making things work for the sake of your sister and Gabriel.

Of course, Miguel declined the invitation, too. He was in no mood to be third wheeling and he did have some things to do for work, so he, too, left with thoughts of your annoying self on his mind.

He eventually placated his thoughts with work, including dealing with his team and the fact that his current assistant put in their four weeks. Thankfully, he still has some time left before his assistant leaves, which he hopes is enough time to find someone to fill in the position. Either way, his work helped him set his thoughts about you aside that day.

Now, Miguel pushes past his thoughts and focuses on you, still holding your arm.

“And what of it?” you reply to his comment about you being a brat, still glaring at him so fiercely and angrily about whatever you’re upset about, proving Miguel you can be such a brat sometimes.

For two seconds Miguel has a thought - bending you over his knee and teaching you a lesson to tame that bratty attitude of yours. Then, his brain betrays him and he imagines what you’d sound like if he did. Would you still be a little brat when his heavy palm makes contact with your rear, or would you whimper and -

“You’re so upset,” Miguel says in an almost breathless way, his mind blanking for a second. “If it’s not your aunts’ comments, then what is it? It must be something of importance, if it has you like this on your sister’s wedding day,” Miguel adds, trying to focus on the moment at hand and not on whatever the hell his brain is going on about. He decides, quickly, that he’s probably had a few too many tequila shots. That’s probably why his brain is acting up. Surely.

“As I said earlier, it’s none of your business,” you reply, once again trying to free your arm, but to no avail. The giant man has you rooted to his side.

“Bullshit,” Miguel replies. His brother married into your family and your sister into his, that makes the two of you something now, doesn’t it? You’re tied for life now, for better or worse, in this way thanks to your siblings. And, the two of you did agree to get along for their sake.

“No te metas en lo que no te importa [don’t get involved in what doesn’t bother you],” you snap. “Mind your business. We may have agreed to be civil, but that doesn’t mean we’ll be besties.”

“As if, princesita [little princess],” Miguel responds with a scoff. “I wouldn’t be able to take your little attitude for two hours, even if I was paid, much less be ‘besties’ with you.”

“We have that in common, at least. I wouldn’t spend a day with you, even for a million dollars,” you reply, even though you could really use a million dollars, especially now.

Miguel smirks, amused by your response, and pulls you closer. “Not even if I paid you two million?”

“Not even five.”

Lies, lies, lies. You wouldn’t be worrying about being unemployed if you had even just one million dollars in the bank right now.

Miguel shrugs. “Maybe it’s too little, they’re little numbers after all,” he replies with a cocky smirk, for some reason bragging about his wealth to you now, something he’s never done before to anyone, but then again, his brain is not working accordingly right now.

Scoffing, you roll your eyes. You know Miguel is a CEO for a company you’ve never bothered to learn the name of, so you’re not surprised he has money, but saying five million dollars is “too little” is aggravating, and kind of shocking.

“Whatever, let go of me. Now,” you demand.

Miguel now scoffs at your demanding tone as if he couldn’t easily throw you over his shoulder and carry you off, or pin you against a wall.

“¿Qué tal si te digo que no? ¿Qué vas a hacer entonces, princesita? [What if I tell you no? What are you doing then, princess?]” Miguel replies, pulling you closer, so much closer his expensive cologne surrounds you.

You breathe it in, subtly of course. It’s rich, warm, and woody mixed in with his own scent. It’s the kind that sends a pool of warmth to your very core if allowed to inhale straight from a man’s neck with your nose pressed to his sensitive and warm flesh. You freeze for a second, the very thought almost makes you grimace, the fact that you’ve thought of such thing with Miguel of all men.

“You’re gonna slam your foot on mine again like the other day?” he asks mockingly, bringing you back to your senses.

“And mess your pretty, expensive shoes?”

Miguel snorts. “I can easily replace them.”

“So, you want me to slam my foot on yours? Is that what you’re saying?” you reply, raising an eyebrow.

Miguel grins, leaning closer, so much closer. He continues to hold your gaze, holding you still.

You scoff, your gaze unwavering.

You’re such a little brat, Miguel thinks again, his hand tightening around your arm just a tad more.

“What? Can’t make up your mind now?” you ask with a smug smile.

He scowls, pulling you so much closer. Your breath fans his face and he finds himself growing still when he feels it against lips especially. He swallows deeply while holding your gaze, your scent filling his nostrils and making him lean almost instinctively.

“You can ruin the shoes, I’ll simply buy new ones. I’ll even get you some pretty heels for your trouble. ¿Trato [Deal]?” he asks quietly, his gaze flickering to your lips for a second.

And God, maybe it really is all the drinks you’ve both had tonight because you lean closer, too.

Suddenly, it feels like two rocks rubbing against each other, a spark of fire made beneath the moonlight.

“¿Que pasa [What’s wrong]? Cat got your tongue?” Miguel whispers with a smirk.

“No. I was just thinking about the color I'd like the heels,” you reply, sarcastically.

“Ah, the color. Don't worry, you can choose whatever color you like. Whatever brand. Saint Laurent, Burberry, Gucci…”

You snort. “Didn't know you were so giving, O’Hara.”

“You don't know me” Miguel replies, tilting his head a little.

You raise an eyebrow, giving him a smirk that makes Miguel's heart skip a beat. He leans slightly closer, further decreasing the distance between your faces.

“I’m a man that likes to give - to provide,” Miguel continues, his hand tightening around your arm, his gaze flickering to your lips once more.

“Ah, interesting. You're the tree that keeps on giving, hm?”

“Such a smartass,” Miguel mumbles, eyes narrowing and meeting yours again. “One of these days that mouth of yours is gonna get you in trouble.”

“I can't wait,” you reply defiantly.

Miguel scowls, your little defiance stirring something in him once more. He huffs, eyes moving to your lips yet again, not thinking straight. All he’s suddenly thinking about is closing the distance and shutting your mouth - with his own. He thinks about his mouth pressed against yours, about slipping his tongue in and swirling it around yours to taste you, to make you whine.

Meanwhile, you look at him, noticing his gaze on your lower face. You find yourself doing the same, your eyes landing on his full lips specifically. You silently wonder, despite yourself, what they’d feel like against yours and against your skin. The thought creates a fluttering feeling inside your chest, one that Miguel shares.

His heart races, his mind clouded with these strange thoughts. Miguel thinks about leaning in all the way and doing it, kissing you once and for all to satisfy a hunger and craving he’s suddenly overwhelmed with.

And he would've, if only the door leading to the garden hadn’t suddenly swung open before you both register voices.

You both pull away instantly, staring at each other like two deer caught in headlights. The realization hits the two of you like a ton of feathers at once, the truth echoing in your heads over and over again.

You were going to kiss.

You were going to kiss.

You were going to kiss.

The only thing that breaks Miguel and you from your shock are the sudden intimate noises, tearing your gazes from each other to see what’s the matter. It’s then that you both see a couple making out against the wall, totally unaware that Miguel and you are there due to the poor lighting.

Seeing the intimacy and hearing their noises of passion is all you need before you walk past Miguel, fleeing the garden area wordlessly to pull yourself together.

Miguel doesn’t try to stop you, not even when you brush past him. He stands there for a second or two before he, too, walks off in the opposite direction, hands clenched.

It’s not until you find yourself utterly alone once more that you stop walking. You stare at the ground, your heart racing while your mind plays the last few minutes over and over again. It makes no sense. There’s no way Miguel was about to kiss you, right? You huff in frustration and begin to pace back and forth, one hand clenched tightly around the glass you brought out with you as you try to make sense of the situation.

“Alcohol,” you say quickly to yourself, nodding. “Too much alcohol. It makes people do stupid things.” You nod once more, slowly calming yourself as you repeat this in your head.

At last, you stop pacing when you find reason for that near mistake.

Alcohol, which messes with your brain. Nothing more.

“Hey!”

Startled, you jump and let out a small gasp before turning. You find your mom, happily smiling.

“Come on! What are you doing out here all alone, mija [my daughter]?”

“Just - taking some fresh air,” you answer, walking over to her.

“Your sister and Gabrielito are about to cut the cake. They were wondering where you were,” your mom informs you, offering her arm to you.

You smile and accept your mom’s arm, embracing her comforting presence as you both head back inside the party.

“They were also looking for Miguel. You haven’t seen him, have you?” your mom asks, nearly making you trip.

“N - No, I haven’t,” you lie, clearing your throat and checking your shoe to pretend something is wrong with it to make up for you nearly tripping. “He’s probably talking with the men. They all seem like big fans of him.”

Your mom smiles, nodding. She hums softly as you both enter the venue again, the kind of hum that only moms can muster when they know something you don’t.

“I’m sure Miguelito is somewhere around here. Maybe he needed some fresh air, too,” your mom continues, patting your forearm as you fully enter the reception room now. “Let’s go get some cake.”

After eating cake and making toasts with your family and the guests, you stick near your parents’ side for the rest of the night, as a distraction to forget what almost happened earlier, until it’s time to see your sister and Gabriel off. You watch next to your parents as the newlyweds walk out of the venue, saying bye to the guests and other family members until it’s the immediate families’ turn at the end.

You hug your sister and Gabriel goodbye when it’s your turn, wishing them a great time and congratulating them yet again.

At last, the couple makes it to the car and gets settled. You smile softly as they wave goodbye one more time before the car departs. Watching the car grow smaller and smaller, the realization that your baby sister is married dawns on you. In the blink of an eye, she grew up and turned into a wonderful young woman. You briefly recall when she was a little girl, when she used to follow you everywhere because she wanted to do everything with you. And now, she’s all grown up and starting a new life with the love of her life.

A few feet away from you, Miguel does the same with a thoughtful expression on his face. He can’t believe Gabriel is now a married man, that he’s all grown up. He sighs, wondering where time went before he turns sideways, finding you staring in the direction of the car. He has no doubt you’re having similar thoughts like his, the two of you being the eldest siblings.

Sensing someone’s gaze, you turn, only to meet Miguel’s eyes. You stare at each other for a few seconds, the moment at the garden flashing through your minds like the highlights of a video with one particular part in replay: that moment when Miguel leaned forward and his gaze fell on your lips before you allowed yourself the same with his.

Your senses, both Miguel’s and yours, are overwhelmed in seconds. You easily recall each other’s scents, the warmth from your bodies, and the angry energy that slowly turned into something different due to the shoe talk before you fell into whatever that was at the end.

You blink at last and swallow deeply, pushing the memory away. You scoff at yourself, still holding Miguel’s gaze.

Damn alcohol and the things it makes you do and feel. Right?

You finally look away and walk off to meet your parents, not sparing Miguel another glance.

Miguel’s eyes follow you until you disappear from his sight. He runs a hand through his hair with a sigh, frustrated. He doesn’t even know if it’s at you or himself, or both. Or, maybe he’s just exhausted form the wedding planning and the actual wedding activities.

He doesn’t know anymore, just like he doesn’t know what he was thinking back at the garden. He turns away and scowls at himself. Okay, fine. He knew exactly what he was thinking: kissing and tasting you.

“Miguel-”

“What?” Miguel snaps, turning. He clears his throat when he finds Daniel, the man from earlier who was boasting about being divorced and advising Miguel to stay single for a while longer. He sighs and shakes his head. “Forgive me, Daniel. I didn’t mean to snap at you.”

“It’s alright. You’re probably tired from the wedding. These things are always exhausting. I was just going to ask if you are interested in joining me and some of the other guys to a bar. It’s still early,” Daniel says before three other young men reach them.

Knowing the men, Miguel knows what kind of night they hope to have; one with no attachments but filled with carnal pleasure.

Miguel shakes his head. “Thank you for the invitation, but I’m too tired. And besides, I still have to wrap up some things here regarding the venue. You guys have fun.”

The other men boo him and one even dares to call him “old fashioned” since they know Miguel isn’t interested in those type of nights with strangers. They eventually walk away, leaving Miguel alone once more. He shakes his head as he sees them pull out of the parking lot before fishing for his own car keys inside his pockets.

The truth is, Miguel has no tasks related to the venue left. A cleaning crew was hired to take care of everything so neither families would have to worry about it. The food situation was handled and the gifts have been collected to be stored for now until the couple comes back from their honeymoon.

All Miguel needs to do is wish everyone a good night and head home. That’s it. Yet… His thoughts are a storm and you’re at the center of it, the culprit.

His gaze, despite himself, searches for you. He finally spots you several feet away talking with a man, one he doesn’t know personally. Miguel watches the interaction, noticing the closeness and the way you seem at ease with the individual. Hell, you’re even laughing at something the man says.

He looks away when the man places a hand on your forearm while talking, opting to gaze at the venue’s front gardens with trimmed bushes and perfectly aligned flowers.

Miguel suddenly realizes it. He’s stalling, but why? He turns to look your way again, discreetly, and the need to talk to you suddenly hits him. He needs to talk to you about what almost happened at the garden earlier. So, Miguel takes a few steps your way.

As he approaches you, he’s unsure of what he’d even say. I’m sorry for almost kissing you? Miguel cringes internally. Should he even bring it up? Talking about it makes it more real. It means acknowledging that that almost happened between you along with admitting some level of vulnerability, something neither of you have ever shared with each other.

He suddenly finds himself standing next to you and the man, his large strides making the walk a short one. The man stops talking and looks over at him, a look of confusion at Miguel’s sudden appearance. On the other hand, to Miguel’s annoyance, you give him a look of nonchalance.

“Excuse me,” Miguel starts, acknowledging the man. “I’m sorry for interrupting, but I need a word with Ms. Y/N.”

The man nods, looking somewhat disappointed. “I see. I’ll give you two a moment,” the man says despite you beginning to protest.

You watch the man, a son of one of your dad’s friends from work, walk away. Slowly, you turn to face Miguel, keeping a neutral expression. “Yes?”

“We need to talk about what happened,” Miguel says quietly, meeting your gaze.

“What happened?” you reply, raising an eyebrow.

Miguel scoffs, his eyebrows furrowing. “Don’t give me that attitude.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“At the garden,” Miguel continues through gritted teeth in disbelief at your nonchalance.

You hum, tilting your head. “Nothing happened,” you respond.

“Are you kiddi-” Miguel starts but stops, his frustration mounting. He lowers his voice. “Don’t play stupid with me, princesita [little princess]. We both know you’re far from it.”

“You know what I know?” you ask quietly. “There’s nothing to discuss. Don’t make a storm in a glass of water, okay?” With that, you walk around him.

“Where do you think you’re going? We’re not done talking,” Miguel replies, following you.

“As far as I’m concern, we have nothing to talk about. So, I’ll see you around, Mr. O’Hara,” you say, ending the conversation as you head to your car.

“Dammit,” Miguel murmurs, still following you.

You quickly unlock your car and get inside, slamming the door close. You start the car even when you see Miguel standing next to it, trying to talk to you. Sighing, you consider rolling your window down for a few seconds to let him talk, but at the same time you don’t wish to hear him out. A part of you knows that talking about what nearly happened will make it feel important when it’s not. Or, at least you’ve made yourself believe it’s not.

You shift the car’s gear, ready to drive off, but at the last second, you roll your window down. Facing forward and with your foot on the brake, you speak. “We’ve both had drinks. Alcohol makes people do things that they wouldn’t do when they’re fully sober, even with a little bit in their system. There’s nothing to discuss nor explain. Nothing happened and that’s what matters. I’m certainly not making a big deal out of it, nor have I been offended by what nearly happened, so if that’s what you’re trying to do - apologize - save it. Have a good night,” you state firmly before driving off, leaving a frustrated Miguel in the parking lot.

Through your rear view mirror, you look at him one more time. You find him watching you drive off, his arms at his sides in a stance that lets you detect his frustration clearly. At last, you look away, certain you’ve handled the situation accordingly.

A/N: Hiii, I'm sorry for how long it took me to update, but life got crazy in August due to a family member's death and then sickness. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed part 2! When I wrote part 1, I wasn't planning on this being a multiple parts fic, but with writing part 2, I guess I am now.

I'm unsure of how long this will be. Tbh, I'm hoping for it to be short 😭🙏🏼 Like, 10 chapters or so? Maybe less. I need to sit down and plan accordingly! As you can probably guess, this will transition into a CEO!Miguel x Assistant!female reader who are also now connected because of your sister and Gabriel, so I'm just letting you guys know the forced proximity will increase! 🙂‍↕️

Thank you for reading, and I hope you're having a great day/night!!

Alondra❤️

p.s. I have attached my side Spotify account in case you guys are interested in keeping up with the music I listened to while writing this chapter.

for the people that asked me to notify them for part 2: @vera4luv @safixiovi

[imagines-for-the-fangirls-soul]

The Prince - Chapter Eight

A/N: Hello, friends! I'm afraid today I bring more stress in this chapter. I hope you are all still enjoying the story so far. Thank you for all your comments, likes, and reblogs. Only two more chapters to go!

Pairing: Jacaerys Velaryon x Reader Word Count: 4.3k Synopsis: Jace and the reader return to King's Landing, where for one glimmering moment it seems like all might be well, until an unexpected visitor arrives to shake that hope.

Tag List: Please see comments! Let me know if you'd like to be tagged.

Previous Chapter

Jace is not in bed when you wake up. For the last three mornings, he has been the first thing you see when you open your eyes. Sitting up in the fluffy bed that the two of you had shared the night before, you glance around his room. It’s colder than normal in here, as well as empty, and the door to the balcony is wide open.

You grab a robe and wrap it around yourself quickly, making for the open doors. Jace stands along the railing, his back to you. He’s dressed, a first in the last few days, but you’re relieved that it’s only in his sleep clothes, not his full riding gear. He doesn’t hear you until you come up behind him, until you're wrapping your arms around his shoulders.

“Morning,” he says, turning to face you and giving your lips a soft kiss.

“It’s freezing out here, Jace,” you say, resting your head on his shoulder.

“I’m sorry.”

“You’re freezing,” you say, rubbing a hand over his chest. He laughs as he takes that hand, kissing it softly. He keeps his eyes on the horizon, a slight frown on his face.

“What is it?” you ask.

“My mother sent a raven,” he says, his jaw tense.

“Better than a dragon,” you say, and you smile when he does.

“She says I must return.”

“We knew this day was coming,” you say.

“She also asked that you return, too.” He turns to you then, taking your hands in his. He looks you over for a moment, a contemplative look in his eyes. “My first thought was to ignore her summons.”

“Jace,” you say softly.

“But I figured she would send a dragon then. So I thought about you and I getting on Vermax and heading for Pentos.”

“Jace!” you say, eyes wide. He smiles.

“I figured you’d say as much.”

“As much fun as running away with you sounds,” you say, “You belong in King’s Landing. You have a throne waiting for you.”

“What if I don’t want it anymore?” he asks quietly. You frown at him, waiting until his eyes meet yours to kiss him softly.

“I’d say you’re not thinking straight because we’ve been fucking nonstop for the past three days."

“Can you blame me?” he asks, his arm going around your waist.

“No, and I can’t even believe I’m saying it, either, but we have to return to King’s Landing. We have to face whatever fate awaits us.”

“Not right away though,” he says, pulling you flush against him.

“No,” you say with a smile, “Not right away.”

Later that morning, Jace mounts Vermax and flies back to King’s Landing. He hates that you have to part in Dragonstone, that you have to take a ship back. He wishes that he could have just one more moment with you, because as he approaches his home, a strange, paranoid feeling washes over him. He’s always been hopeful for your future, and maybe it just has to do with the fact that so much has changed between the two of you, but he feels that hope slipping.

When he gets to the castle, his first stop is his mother’s chambers. The look she gives him when he walks in is part relief at seeing him, and part disappointment.

“Mother,” he says, stopping just inside of the doorframe, hands behind his back.

“Hello, Jace,” she says, “I trust your flight was well?”

“It was.”

“Good,” she says, giving him a smile that chills him. “Sit down, please.” She motions to the table in her chambers and sits down after him.

“Mother—”

“Just, give me a moment,” she says with a shake of her head. “I want to make sure I understand clearly.

"Baela discovered that there is something between you and Lady Y/N, so she sends Y/N to Dragonstone, so that she could clear things up with you, after which, you follow to Dragonstone and hide out there for three days.”

“That sounds accurate,” he says with a sigh. Rhaenyra raises her eyebrow at him.

“You've insulted Baela," she says. Jace drops his head.

“That was never my intention.”

“Regardless, the insult has landed."

“Where is Baela?” he asks. "I saw Moondancer was gone."

“Driftmark. She should be back in a few days.”

“And have you thought any more about my request?” he asks. Rhaenyra sighs, looking at him blankly.

“You’ve put me in a tough position, Jace. You’ve put Y/N in a worse one.”

“What do you mean?’ he asks with a shake of his head.

“If I grant you leave to marry her, all is well. But you’ve bedded her,” she says, making him blush as he clenches his jaw. “If I deny you, what becomes of her? Of the child she may bare you?” He doesn’t have an answer because he has been denying the reality of the matter to himself.

“Tell me, did you do this to force my hand?” she asks.

“No!” he says quickly, “No. I love her.”

“You have to plead your case with Baela, Jace. But," she says, sighing as she meets his eyes, "If she agrees, you have my blessing."

The trip back to King's Landing took as long as the one to Dragonstone, but it feels infinitely shorter. You had two days to prepare yourself for what you will face when you returned, enough time, you thought, to sort out your own feelings. But the entire time, your head and your heart were fighting over the right path.

As you step off the ship and on to steady ground, you decide to let whatever is coming come. Whether that means getting sent back to the Vale, your reputation getting destroyed, or all your dreams coming true.

Inside the Red Keep, your first thought is to find Jeyne and apologize for leaving so abruptly. It had been so early when you left, you hadn't had time to find her and tell her what was happening.

You take a few more steps into the Keep when someone slips out of the shadows, causing your heart to leap.

“Let’s turn around and go back to Dragonstone,” Jace whispers in your ear, placing a soft hand on your arm. Your racing heart seems to settle to its normal pounding at seeing him.

“We've already discussed what will happen if we do that,” you say with a smile. Jace glances around the large hallway before taking your hand and pulling you into an empty study. The minute the door closes, he pins you to the doorframe, his lips crashing into yours. You laugh into the kiss, a hand on his waist, keeping him close to you.

“Your Highness,” you say, breaking away to catch your breath.

“Don’t start with that,” he says, the smile on his face never leaving.

“I need to get back into character,” you say innocently. He kisses you again.

“I like you just the way you are.”

“We can’t be seen together, you know,” you say. His smile does fall a little then, realizing that you are true to your word. Now that you’ve returned to King’s Landing, you will have to go back to playing your parts.

Simply put, there is no more time for this fairytale.

"I have news," he says.

"Oh?"

"My mother has given her blessing, officially, as long as Baela gives hers first."

"Jace," you say quietly, so stunned you take a step back from him. He smiles, pulling you right back.

"That's good news, right?" he asks.

"It's wonderful news," you say, now breathless.

"Well then look more excited," he says, making you laugh.

"I can't trust this hopeful feeling inside of me," you say, meeting his eyes. He smiles, brushing your hair back behind your ear with a gentle frown.

"I know what you mean."

"Do you think she--"

"I don't know," he say, shaking his head. "I don't know."

"Well," you say, holding his hands. "It is good news. We can be hopeful, but also realistic."

"How do we do that?" he asks with a laugh.

"We keep pretending that nothing has changed," you say. "And wait for the moment that we might actually be able to be ourselves."

“I don’t like this,” he says. You cup his cheek, your thumb brushing softly.

“I don’t either,” you say. You need to break apart, make your way to your separate chambers. “I love you,” you say, watching him look back to you. It’s the best way you can say goodbye right now.

“I love you,” he says. “I’ll see you soon.” You nod and lean in to kiss his soft lips once more.

Once you've settled into your room, greeting Brigitta, who gives you a knowing look, you head for Jeyne's quarters. When she opens the door, the look she gives you, deadpanned with a raise eyebrow, only makes you laugh. Sudden excitement fills you, knowing that she might share in your joy.

“You know, I didn’t come all this way, just for you to flee to Dragonstone for days,” she says, turning from the door, leaving you to follow her into the room.

“I didn’t flee, I was sent.”

“Within reason, I think,” Jeyne says, turning to face you. “If my fiancé was seeing someone behind my back—”

“Jeyne.” She studies your face, the look on it.

“What is it?” she asks.

“Rhaenyra has officially given her blessing. As long as Baela agrees, Jace and I can be together.”

"She has?" she asks, taking your hand.

"Yes," you say with a smile.

"Oh Y/N, that's wonderful. But will Baela agree?" she asks. Your smile falls a little then.

"I don't know. Jace doesn't either."

"She left the same day he did, you know," Jeyne says, guiding you into her room, sitting down next to you. "Rhaena thought she might be heading to meet the two of you in Dragonstone." You take in a breath, realizing how lucky it was that she didn't, that you got to have those few days alone with Jace.

"Should the fact that she didn't make me hopeful or not?"

"I don't know her that well," she says. "Rhaena does seem to be cooling off a little, though."

"Good," you say, setting your jaw.

"It's okay, you know," she says, leaning forward until you meet her eyes. "It's okay that you tried to find your happiness with Jace. Even if it doesn't work out in the end, you had this time together. It matters." You don't have the words, so you just give her a smile, fighting off the tears and nerves that build inside of you.

"So," she says, changing the subject to lighter matters, "Tell me how it was."

You don't see Jace the rest of that day. Jeyne invites you back to her quarters for a private dinner, and on your return to your quarters, you wonder if he might be waiting. If you might pick up old habits.

But when you approach your door, he is not there. You try to hide your disappointment as you settle in for the night. Brigitta goes about laying out your nightwear, and you are just about to change when a knock comes from the door.

You answer it, foolishly hoping its Jace, but instead find a member of the Kingsguard waiting.

"Lady Y/L/N, your presence is requested in the throne room immediately."

"Oh. Yes. Very well," you say, anxiety creeping in. This is to be the moment then, when you find out what your future will hold.

As you walk down to the throne room, your heart thuds. Jeyne appears at the opposite end of the hallway. She has a soft smile on her lips, too, but there is the same uncertainty there, too.

When you walk into the throne you, when you spot the Iron Throne, you aren’t sure you’re breathing, not sure what you’re seeing fully, until Jeyne stops in her steps, gasping quietly.

Standing in front of the throne is Barun Blacktyde, your former fiancé.

The world blurs around you, fading into the distance. Ringing fills your ears. Sweat builds at your brow. All you can see is Barun, his tall figure, corded with muscles, and the cruelest expression on his face.

“Hello, Y/N,” Barun says, meeting your gaze, a wicked smile on his face.

“Lo-Lord Blacktyde,” you say, your feet stuck to the floor. Jeyne doesn’t move any further, but her hand brushes yours, a gentle, quiet reminder that she’s here. The gesture is sweet, but useless. She had been there when the arrangement was made in the first place, and couldn’t do anything to keep you from him.

“Thank you for joining us, Lady Arryn, Y/N,” Rhaenyra says. Her tone is firm, and you break your gaze from Barun to look at her. She sits upon the Iron Throne, a strained, tight-lipped expression on her face. It is only when you look towards her that you realize Jace is at her side, his hand gripping the pommel of his sword, his face pale.

“Perhaps the two of you can shed a little light on this situation,” Rhaenyra continues. Jeyne takes your hand fully in hers, stepping forward twice, just enough to recognize her queen, but still stay far from Barun.

“Apologies, Your Grace,” Jeyne says, “But we are as confused as you are. It has been years since either of us have seen the Lord Blacktyde.”

“I’ve come to collect what was promised to me,” Barun says, his voice harsh, as if this is an argument he has repeated to Rhaenyra already.

“Who was promised to you,” Rhaenyra says, her voice tight, “Lord Blacktyde claims that he is betrothed to Y/N,” she says, turning to the two of you. If it wasn’t for Jeyne’s grip on your hand, you might have run, might have fainted, so scared are you in that moment.

“That was years ago,” Jeyne says immediately, watching Barun as he paces the room, eyeing the two of you, a predator stalking his prey. “And the betrothal fell through when Lord Blacktyde married another.”

“Lady Blacktyde died two months back,” Barun replies, startling you at how close he has gotten. He still stays a step away, constantly moving, but his focus is solely on you. You won’t quiver before him, and keep your eyes ahead, keep them on Rhaenyra. If you look to Jace, you know you will break.

“My condolences for your loss, Lord Blacktyde. But if what Lady Arryn says is true—”

“Y/N is unmarried, is she not?” he asks, and this time he is closer, just a step from you. The smell of sea salt and sweat cling to him. You straighten, hoping to move inconspicuously away from him.

Rhaenyra glances at Jace before answering, “Not presently, no.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“The problem is that deal is void,” Jeyne says, dropping your hand to move closer to Barun, seamlessly pushing you behind her. “You broke it when you married Lady Blacktyde.”

“Is the Vale so eager to lose allies?” Barun asks lowly. Jeyne smiles, devoid of any joy.

“Are you threatening me, My Lord?” Jeyne asks.

“I only mean that the deal was brokered to forge an alliance with our two great houses. That something should change that—”

“You changed it already when you married,” you say, turning to look at him. Fear still resides within you, but so does a growing anger. He seems to have an equal look of displeasure on his face.

“So, she does speak,” he says, sizing you up.

“Our agreement has ended,” you say, “If you wish for it to be reinstated, I suggest you plea your case to my cousin, instead of coming in and demanding that which does not belong to you.”

“You dare tell me—”

“An excellent idea, Y/N,” Rhaenyra says, standing from the throne. “Lord Blacktyde, you've come into my home uninvited, I suggest you rethink your style. I shall offer you boarding here until an agreement can be made between you and House Arryn.” She looks over at you with a withering stare.

“I’m sure the pair of you have plenty to do,” she says. Words fail you, but Lady Arryn steps up, understanding the queen’s signal.

“We do, Your Majesty.”

“Off you go, then.”

Jeyne doesn’t waste a moment. Before even the guards have stepped up to guide Barun to his rooms, she grabs your arm. As she drags you out of the throne room, you look towards Jace. His face is ashen, his head hung low.

“Come on,” Jeyne says, pulling you after her. Neither of you say anything on the march back to her chambers. When she closes the doors behind you, she locks it tightly.

“Jeyne,” you say, breathless, “How did he know I was here?”

“I don’t know. Spies in the Vale?” she muses. There is fear on her face, which only makes the fear inside of you grow. So many thoughts fill your head, but nothing you can make sense of. A plan to escape rattles around. What Barun might take instead of you. But mostly, you think of Jace and the look on his face when he realized what was happening.

“Jeyne,” you begin, your tears from before wallowing up. She is by your side in a moment, her hands on your arms. “What the fuck am I going to do?”

“I don’t know,” she says, “I don’t know. But we’ll figure it out together. I promise you.” You nod, not fully believing her.

Jace decides to stop fighting sleep when the sun is visible from the window in his room. He rolls over with a groan as his maids enter. They curtsy to him, but even the task of nodding his head is too much for him.

“How did you sleep, Your Highness?” Cecelia asks. She has been his maid since he was a boy, and the way she is looking at him now, Jace knows she could see right through him.

“I’ve had better nights,” he says, sitting up, propping his arms on his knees.

“That seems to be the common theme around here today,” she mutters as she sets out his breakfast.

“What do you mean?” he asks. She only glances at him, but that look is confirmation enough. “How is Y/N?”

“I haven’t seen her,” she says, nodding to the other maid to dismiss her. Once she’s out the door, she continues, “But her lady’s maid was up all night, because Lady Arryn had a fitful night. Says she kept waking up, screaming.”

“I need to see her,” he says, throwing back his sheets.

“The Queen has asked that the two of you remain separated,” she says. Jace barely hears her as he tugs on a shirt and pulls on a pair of pants, whatever is close by.

“Cecelia, please,” he says, eyes wide.

“The guards will stop you,” she says. “But . . .”

“But?” he asks, stepping closer to her. The older woman looks up at him with a sad smile.

“There’s a servant’s entrance that can get you into her room. It’s a long path—”

“I don’t care,” he says. “Show me.”

The walls of the servant’s hallway are dark, and are nearly too tight for him to walk through, let alone two people at a time. His mind isn’t on the spider webs, or the dank smell of the halls. He just needs to get to you. He thinks about the night he had, the lack of sleep, and knowing that it was worse for you makes him sick.

When he finally reaches the door to your quarters, he takes a breath. It’s been nearly ten minutes since he left his chambers. The entire walk over he thought he knew what he was going to say, but here at your doorstep, he’s at a loss.

The light of the room is jarring in retrospect to the dark hallway he leaves. When he walks in, he hears soft chatter, and he spots you almost immediately.

You are still in your dressing gown, your hair flowing down your back, in tangled curls. Your back is turned to him, but when he closes the door behind him, you turn. Your eyes go wide.

“Your Highness,” you say.

“Really? We’re going back to—” he stops when he sees you nod towards the corner of the room. Lady Arryn stands from the breakfast table and makes her way towards him. She curtsies and Jace nods his head politely.

“What a lovely surprise, Your Highness,” Jeyne says.

“Lady Arryn, I need to have a word with Y/N, if you wouldn’t mind,” he says. She studies him for a long moment but then nods her head.

“I’ll be right outside the door,” she says, glancing at you before leaving the room. When the door closes, you turn towards him.

“Jace, I know you must be furious with me,” you say, “And you’ve got every right to be, I—"

“I’m not angry, Y/N,” he says, moving closer to you. “I’m confused as hell, but mostly I'm worried about you.”

“I’m sorry,” you say gently.

“Don’t be sorry, just tell me what’s going on.”

“There is nothing going on between Lord Blacktyde and I. There never was.”

“He made it seem otherwise,” he says, bracing a hand on the back of a chair. You watch him for a long moment, and he can see you fighting with yourself, deciding whether you’ll tell him the full story. “Y/N, just tell me the truth.”

“Fine,” you say, running a hand through your hair. “Fine.” You take a seat at the table, nodding for him to do the same. He does, his pulse racing as he waits for you to tell him.

“When you came to the Eyrie all those years ago, asking for our help, what were Jeyne’s terms of agreement?” you ask. Jace’s brow furrows.

“A dragon to guard the Vale.”

“And what else?”

“That when the war was over, you would be allowed access to live within King’s Landing, as the Queen’s ward,” he says with a sigh.

“There was a deeper reason behind that. Before you came to the Vale, Lord Royce had arranged a betrothal for me, to Lord Blacktyde. Since my father’s death, we had been scrambling to find our footing, and he accepted the first worthwhile offer for me.

“What neither of us knew, was the kind of man Barun was. Is,” you say. “He’s got wandering hands, a fierce temper, and I was terrified of him.” Jace’s heart breaks at your words, and he reaches for your hand, giving it a gentle squeeze.

“We didn’t see a way out until you came. Jeyne took the opportunity, and," you say, taking a breath, "You saved me. Those long years during the war, I wasn’t afraid because I knew I had an escape. Jeyne told Barun that she wanted me to go to King’s Landing, to become a more well-rounded woman. He got sick of waiting and eventually married someone from the Iron Islands. Our engagement was called off, because of you.” He is silent for a long moment, sitting with the gravity of your words.

“When I heard the news, I was so relieved. But still, in the back of my mind, there was a fear. What if he ever came back? What if something happened to his wife? I waited five years to come here, not knowing when he would appear again, demanding that the engagement be reinstated."

“And now he is back,” he says. Jace is sick and he’s angry, but most of all, he just wants to take you in his arms and hold you. He can see the lack of sleep in you. The dark circles under your eyes, how devoid of energy you are.

“Now, more than ever we need to ensure our marriage," he says firmly.

“Jace,” you say, taking a moment to gather your thoughts. “I am not sure we have that choice.”

“What do you mean?”

“There was a time, during our initial engagement, where I tried to break it off with Barun, and in response, he threatened to bring war to the Vale,” you say.

“We’ll stop him. Can he stand up against our army? Against Vermax?”

“I would not send you into another war,” you say quietly. “And The Vale’s reinforcements are already so depleted.”

“So you mean to give in to his bargaining?” he asks.

“I don’t know what I mean to do,” you say with a shake of your head, “I’ve thought about it all night long.”

“He can’t hurt you here, Y/N,” he says, taking your hand. You look at him with sad eyes.

“He is possessive. Cruel. If he ever found out about us, about what we’ve done,” you say quietly. “I am dead.”

“Y/N.”

“He wants me as a trophy. Wants me to have children for him, he wants to use me. That is the future that awaits me. Now you see why I was trying so hard to find a suitor, I was trying to ensure that by the time he came looking, I was already gone.”

“Why can’t you see that you’ve found your suitor?" he says gently, "I will protect you.”

“We don’t even know if that’s a possibility, Jace.”

“We do know. My mother has given us her blessing, we--"

“And what will she think now?" you ask, "After what she's seen today? What kind of a queen would I make?”

“I won’t allow this to happen," he says, setting his jaw, stepping closer to you. "He's not going to just take you away from me."

“Jace,” you say with a frown, “Depending on what your mother says, what kind of deal Jeyne can make—"

“There’s always a chance,” he says, cupping your cheek. “I love you. Don’t you love me, still?”

“Of course I do.”

“Then we will figure this out, like we always have.”

[nayedoll]

sweet coffee

joost klein x reader

summary : joost shows up at your apartment drunk two months after your breakup.

genre: fluff

rpf ahead, do not read if uncomfortable !!!

────────────────────────

You checked the time, unable to fall asleep after god knows how long you had been trying for. The clock read 4:01 A.M, the bright light emitting from it overwhelming your eyes. You sighed as you stared at the ceiling, accepting your fate for yet another night.

You had never been one to suffer from insomnia, the sudden lack of sleep getting to you and ruining every aspect of your daily life. You tried to convince yourself that it was the work stress but deep down you knew that the real reason behind your sleep problems was your recent breakup with your boyfriend of three years.

You and Joost had met at the coffee shop that you worked at as a struggling student during your university years. Absolutely mesmerized by you, Joost would come by everyday and order the same coffee; a cappuccino latte. It didn’t take long before you both fell in love with each other, helping one another heal from the struggles of the past.

But what started as a sweet relationship ended in the most bitter way you could have imagined. When Joost was picked to represent his country in Eurovision, you knew that he wouldn’t spend as much time with you anymore due to the hard preparation for such a big contest, something that you respected.

However, with time you felt him distancing himself from you more and more, calling you once every few days and giving dry replies. You tried to stay patient so as not to stress him out even more but him going on tour immediately after the contest ended was the last straw for you. After multiple days of nonstop arguing and crying, you finally made the hard decision to break up with him one day before his flight to Canada for a festival there.

Two months later, you were now sitting at the floor of your apartment with the windows wide open as you let the chilly summer night breeze clear your mind. You grabbed your phone and scrolled through your old texts with Joost. The last conversation you’d had with him was the morning after you told him to end things.

may 27, 8:06 A.M

you left your hoodie here.

it’s ok u can keep it.

oh ok. thanks

Seen

You took a deep breath as you realized you were wearing the same hoodie right now, softly playing with the fabric to feel some kind of comfort. Seeing things from a different perspective now made you think about how stupid it had been of you to end a three year relationship just like that.

The guilt overtook your thoughts as you felt tears swelling up in your eyes. The sudden loud banging on your door made you flinch in fear, quickly wiping away any tears with the sleeves of your -or his-hoodie. You got up slowly to check who it was, carefully looking through the peep hole.

Your heart stopped at the distorted sight of Joost outside of your apartment door. You quickly opened the door and his face lit up at your presence.

“Mijn liefste,” he exclaimed and you pulled him into your apartment by his hand in a hurry before any of your neighbors could come out and realize where all the noise was coming from.

Closing the door, he immediately quieted down as he hugged you tightly. You reluctantly hugged him back, feeling how sweaty he was. He reeked of alcohol and cigarettes, obviously having come back from a night out.

“What are you doing here?” you asked and tried to pull back but he didn’t let you.

“I missed you,” he mumbled, his voice as sweet as ever.

“I didn’t know you were in Amsterdam. Aren’t you on tour?”

He tried to answer your question but gave up halfway, giving you an idea of just how drunk he was. You couldn’t help but let out a small chuckle at the sight, reminiscing all the times you’d seen Joost in similar circumstances in the past. He finally let go of you and you grabbed his hand, caressing it.

“Let’s take care of this first,” you laughed and he nodded as you tried your best to keep him from falling with Joost being way taller than you. After some minutes of struggling, you finally managed to walk him to the bathroom and left him alone to take a shower.

Meanwhile you made your way to the kitchen to make him some food, in hopes to sober him up a little. Finally having some time to your thoughts, you smiled to yourself as you recalled him calling you liefste earlier, a word you had grown accustomed to hearing while dating him along with other pet names.

He shortly came out of the shower already looking a lot more sober and collected. He smiled at you as you passed him the food, the two of you holding eye contact for a moment longer. Your eyes trailed to his body and you noticed he was only wearing a towel, growing worried that he might catch a cold.

“Hold on,” you hurried into the bedroom that you once shared, searching for any of his clothes. Luckily you came across some baggy boxers you’d stolen from him a while back, finally returning them to Joost.

He thanked you, though he was still topless. You got the idea to pass him the hoodie you were wearing, since it was his to begin with. As you took the hoodie off without a second thought, you were left with nothing than a bralette on top, making Joost glance to the floor to hide his smirk. You playfully slapped him on the shoulder before putting the hoodie on him, your eyes meeting again under the warm kitchen light, at a closer proximity.

It was evident in your eyes that you had so much to say to each other but didn’t even know where to start. He briefly looked down at your lips and you would have kissed him right then and there if it wasn’t for the fact that he looked exhausted.

“You should get some sleep,” you advised him as you stepped away. He looked away from you mumbling something in agreement.

He lied down on the couch and you recalled memories from the past when he’d carry you to the couch after getting back home together as his soft lips littered your face and body with small, gentle kisses.

“Sorry for waking you up earlier,” he said, pulling you out of your thoughts.

“It’s okay, not that I was asleep anyway,” you reassured him. Joost made a curious face at your last words.

“How so?”

“I don’t know, I just haven’t been sleeping very well for some time after we…” you trailed off and he nodded apologetically. Things went silent for a few seconds, leaving you both to your thoughts.

“Come here,” Joost whispered, you looked over as he patted the empty space next to him. You smiled and slowly lied down with him as he rested his hand atop your waist. He turned to face you, your faces now inches away from each other.

This time you couldn’t avoid it. You kissed him, reluctantly at first but with more confidence as you felt him kiss you back. It was a sweet and slow kiss, mirroring the unconditional love between you both.

He pulled away, your breaths shallow from the length of the kiss.

“I love you so much,” he said quietly as his fingers caressed your face and lips.

“I love you too,” you whispered. You felt yourself drifting off to sleep, Joost’s soft pants and the distant sound of the passing cars lulling you to sleep. The last thing you remember is the feeling of Joost wrapping his arm around you to pull you closer.

-

The bright morning sun woke you up, finding yourself still in Joost’s arms. You reached for your phone to check the time, the gesture making Joost wake up as well.

“Goedenmorgen,” he said in a raspy voice, placing a peck on your lips.

“Good morning,” you replied and got up from the couch, lightly stretching your arms to feel more awake.

“What time is it?” Joost asked, rubbing his eyes from the sleep.

“9:34 A.M”

He nodded, following you to the kitchen where the warm sunlight was emitting from the window. He sat on the chair, staring at you making breakfast.

“What?” you laughed noticing his smile and intense stare.

“You’re beautiful,” he responded, you turned around to hide the blush forming in your cheeks. His compliments felt like the warm rays of sunshine against your back as your face beamed with a smile.

“What coffee do you want?” you asked, voice still raspy from the sleep.

“Een cappuccino latte, please”

[forlix]

𝐜𝐫𝐲𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠・h.h.

— you're uninviting, there's no doubt about that, your resolve like unpolished diamond and tongue like broken glass. but hyunjin finds you're not half as impossible as everyone assumes you are.

words・11.1k

pairing・idol!hyunjin x female stylist!reader (inspired by this)

genres・fluff, angst, eventual smut so MDNI, some hurt/comfort, some humor, mc is a bad bitch and hyunjin is a #simp, enemies? to lovers, sexual tension, workplace relationship, mutual pining, slow burn, nonlinear narrative

warnings・reader vividly remembers an anxiety attack, alcohol is consumed, lots of compartmentalization and imperfect communication, complex people feeling complex emotions, smut warnings under the cut

playlist・farewell, neverland by txt・like crazy by jimin・black friday by tom odell・collide by justine skye・crying lightning by arctic monkeys

a/n・call me victor frankenstein bc i've given birth to a MONSTER (except i actually love and care for mine ofc). this was easily the greatest challenge of my fanfiction-writing career and it feels like my magnum opus; i hope it's worth the wait! also a huge shoutout to sahar for being my voice of reason and my biggest supporter :’) i don’t deserve u i love u

smut warnings・cunnilingus, overstimulation, creampie (practice safe sex!!), mild dacryphilia

Present day. Cannes, France. 5:54 P.M.

You’ve long made peace with the fact that Hwang Hyunjin is incapable of shutting up for more than five minutes.

As it is, the man has a mouth that runs like a cross-country marathon; then throw in his uncanny aptitude for annoying you, and what do you get? A nonstop slew of terrible jokes and teasing quips, tailored according to his thorough mental manual of what gets under your skin hardest and fastest.

This is the reality you live in, presumably because you were evil in your past life, and you’ve steeled yourself to see it through.

But twenty minutes have passed since you and Hyunjin ducked into the back of a cab and gave the driver the show’s address—and, as stunning as the red rooftops and lazuline coastline of Cannes are, you find you’re more interested in Hyunjin’s peculiar silence.

You move your gaze to his face. He’s looking outside, his chin resting upon the palm of his hand, the afternoon sunlight dusting over his chiseled features like polish on pottery; his complexion an exuberant gold against the cream-colored linen that makes up his clothing.

Maybe it’s because you opted for a simpler makeup look today, leaving the most telling contours of his face warm and bare, or maybe it’s because you’ve spent the last year committing his every mannerism and expression to memory. Nevertheless, you see through his pursed lips and tight brow right away.

“Nervous?” 

Hyunjin’s head swivels towards you with a small snap, like he’s forgotten you’re here. His lips fall open, their glossy peach color glinting with the small shift.

“No,” he replies reflexively, but then his facade flickers. “Fuck, maybe a little. It’s just hard to believe, you know?”

You do know. It was a huge honor for both of you when Hyunjin was named the newest global ambassador of Versace. For you to be attending the brand’s pop-up show in one of the most beautiful cities in Europe, among some of the world’s most prolific creatives, is truly incomprehensible. Even you’ve been feeling antsy since you landed; you can only imagine Hyunjin’s anxiety.

You have never been good at consolation. You think your mouth is too coarse, your propensity for honesty too strong. But you’ve always known just what to say when it comes to him.

“Just remember who you are.”

Hyunjin takes a few seconds to process your words, but his understanding washes over his whole body; straightens his back; hardens his gaze. You don’t see this change in posture, though. You’re too busy looking anywhere else, all of a sudden feeling quite embarrassed.

Nor do you see the private smile that disperses across Hyunjin’s lips; his eyes softening so, so marginally when they peer at your profile; his hand twitching where it rests on his knee, as if contemplating reaching for you with a mind of its own.

Thirty seconds. That is the amount of time you have left to bask in this otherworldly tranquility. And then he speaks.

“I want you to meet my parents.”

Your arm reacts before your mind can. Without having to turn your head an inch, you smack him squarely in the bicep, sending him crumpling against his door with a bark of a laugh; “please,” he adds, and you’re biting back a smile as you hit him again, with less conviction this time.

The cab driver nearly misses an exit, too busy wondering about the peculiar pair in his backseat and the nature of your relationship. He can’t tell if you hate each other or if you’re married.

One year ago. Seoul, South Korea. 8:42 A.M.

“I still can’t believe you’re abandoning me.”

“For my newborn daughter.”

“Yeah, okay. I still can’t believe you’re abandoning me for your newborn daughter. What does that brat have that I don’t?”

“My genes, to begin with.”

“That’s unfair. She’s using—”

An important-looking pair of women step out of the nearest elevators, the clacking of their heels ricocheting sharply off the lobby walls. Hyunjin straightens his back so quickly he thinks he pulls a muscle. He and Seojun incline their heads in perfect sync, their “good morning”s prim and professional.

“She’s using cheats,” Hyunjin hisses the second the women are out of earshot again, and this wrests a laugh from the older man at last.

Around one month prior, Seojun confided in Hyunjin that he and his partner were expecting their first child soon, and that he would be putting his career on indefinite hiatus to welcome her into the world.

Hyunjin had never felt so conflicted in his life. On one hand, he’d grown closer to his stylist over the last two years than he’d thought possible, and he knew it was stupid to be anything but delighted for him and his expanding family. On the other hand, it was precisely because they’d become so close that he wanted to grab the man by the ankles and shake the decision clean out of his body. He couldn’t imagine a dressing room or tour bus without him.

Today is a Saturday, but it’s also Seojun’s last day with the company. Hyunjin dragged himself to the JYP building at half past eight with much less reluctance than he let on. He wouldn’t have missed it for the world.

“Fourth floor,” Seojun instructs after the pair enter the elevator, and Hyunjin presses a knuckle to the according number. “Thanks.”

The doors slide shut; the floor numbers tick upwards.

“What was her name again?” Hyunjin asks.

“Y/N,” Seojun returns. “Y/L/N.”

“Is she here already?”

“No, she’ll be here at nine.”

There’s a small pause. 

“Hyung.”

“Hm?”

“I feel like I’m being married off to another family for political reasons.”

“God, I can’t wait to be free of your theatrics.”

At this, the two men make eye contact; exchange smiles. The elevator announces their arrival to the fourth floor, and they step through the doors.

“You’ll be in good hands,” Seojun reassures. “She’s the best of the best. I hear she’s basically running the industry these days. I’m surprised she agreed to take you on.”

“I’m surprised an old fry like you knows someone like her,” Hyunjin replies, and the look Seojun gives him is so withering that he thinks he pulls a muscle again with his apologetic bow.

“You’re not wrong, though,” Seojun concedes. “We happened to work on the same project back when she was still a small name, and we’ve kept in touch ever since. She’s a great kid. Ambitious, hardworking, strong as hell—”

They arrive outside their destination, and Hyunjin holds open the door to the conference room. Only to find that Seojun has stopped in his footsteps, temporarily stunned by a new realization.

She reminds me of him.

“He’s forgotten how to walk,” the him in question whispers like he’s narrating a nature documentary, and the moment is over. “Is this what fatherhood does to a man?”

Seojun kicks Hyunjin into the room by the seat of his pants.

The minutes pass slowly. Seojun moves his eyes between the door and his phone every few seconds, visibly antsy about the imminent meeting. In the meantime, Hyunjin makes the groundbreaking discovery that these office chairs are absurdly and almost suspiciously comfortable. All it takes is a chin upon his palm and a few seconds of shut-eye, and he’s suddenly slumped over the table, snoring softly into the crook of his elbow.

At 8:57, Seojun’s phone lights up with a new notification. At 8:58, he notices that Hyunjin is asleep, and closes his hand around the crumpled receipt in his pocket. At 8:59, he scrunches said receipt into a ball and launches it in Hyunjin’s direction. It hits him squarely on the head, and the boy is nearly knocked to the floor like a bowling pin.

“For that,” Hyunjin sputters, “I’m the godfather.”

“Absolutely the hell not.”

Then, it is 9:00.

When the door of the conference room opens, Hyunjin is still trying to gather his wits, wondering if the bastard is leaving the makeup industry to secretly pursue a career in professional basketball. He just barely notices the unfamiliar figure who steps into his line of vision.

“There she is,” Seojun greets warmly, rising to his feet right away. “God, how long has it been? Two, three years now?”

You’re not doing anything remarkable when Hyunjin sees you for the first time, simply walking across the room and bowing graciously in Seojun’s direction, but he is immediately under the vague impression that you’re cutting through space as you move, scorching the particles of air that dare obstruct your path. 

With his head cocked slightly to the left, like a fascinated puppy, Hyunjin watches the stunning smile that forms on your lips when you take Seojun’s hand; your finger as it tucks a loose strand of hair behind your ear with the elegance of rippling silk. His mind feels impossibly slow, like you’ve tapped open his skull and robbed him of his ability to think.

Then, you toss Hyunjin a look over your shoulder, and he’s reminded of lightning forking towards the earth. Terrifying, volatile, beautiful.

“Something like that,” you say, turning back to Seojun, and time starts to move again. “It’s great to see you again, Mr. Lee. Congratulations on the baby.”

“Please, Seojun is fine,” he answers hastily. “And thank you. Thank you for all of this, actually. I can’t tell you how excited we are to have you.” 

“You’re too kind—I’m excited too.”

Upon uttering the word “we,” Seojun delivers Hyunjin a fleeting side-eye; he takes the hint and pushes himself to his feet, feeling uncharacteristically clumsy as he moves towards you.

The second time he meets your gaze, it feels wrong, almost, for him to hold it for as long as he does. Like he’s approaching your throne with his chin held high and eyes fixed forward instead of his head sweeping the ground.

Except he swears he senses a strange warmth within the rings of your irises, and he spends every second of eye contact following, chasing it, almost craning his neck with how badly he wants to get a closer look. Until he’s as close to you as is socially acceptable for a first meeting and comes to a halt.

He ends up losing its trail, but he won’t forget that it’s there. 

“My client, I’m guessing?” You say, extending your hand. “Y/N. It’s a pleasure.”

Your fingers are freezing cold where they meet his, and Hyunjin already knows that melting the permafrost that coats your flesh and guards your soul will be the tallest task of his life.

But he finds his next words accompanied by an involuntary smirk; he’s nothing, if not tenacious.

“Hyunjin,” he returns. “Pleasure’s all mine.”

Nine months ago. Paris, France. 6:16 P.M.

Hyunjin isn’t sure why—maybe you forget that he can still steal glances at your reflection over your shoulder or through the gaps of your fingers—but he’s learned over the last four weeks that you’re different, gentler, when you’re doing his makeup.

Your cold hands request instead of demand that he angle his head a certain way or suck in his cheeks. Your syllables are rounder somehow, your voice never traveling above a murmur. Even your eyes mellow out when you move in really close, your pupils dilating as you detail the final touches to the fresco you’ve painted upon him.

Your expression doesn’t give you away (it never does), but his hunch is that there’s a sprinkle of doting somewhere among the intense focus. That would explain why he feels like a flower in the moments when your fingertips and gaze move so carefully over his skin, like you’re touching his petals, trying not to tear them.

Too bad you never let him daydream for long.

“Close.”

“Huh?”

“Your eyes. Close them.”

His lashes have hardly brushed his lower lids when you begin to empty what feels like an entire bottle of setting spray on him. At the moist surprise, Hyunjin’s features scrunch up around his nose and he lets out a distraught hack like an old man.

A few seconds later, the barrage stops, and he cracks open a wary eye to scope out his surroundings. You wait until he does this to give his face one last spurt.

“Witch,” Hyunjin mutters, clawing back up the vanity chair.

“Thank you,” you reply, completely earnestly.

And whatever Hyunjin was going to say next suspends instantly on his tongue when you bring the pad of your thumb to the very edge of his lower lip and drag it across the soft flesh. He wonders if you know how hard he tries not to look at your mouth whenever you tend to his. He wonders if there’s anything you don’t know.

“You smudged your lipstick already.” There’s a small streak of coral pink on your hand when it falls back to your side. “See? That’s why we need the setting spray.”

“Uh huh.” And Hyunjin spots a ghost of a smile flit across your face, gone nearly as soon as it appears. The only evidence of it ever existing is the quickened heartbeat it leaves behind within him.

“You’re done, by the way,” you say, stepping aside. “Take a look.”

He slips out of his seat and moves closer to the vanity, peering at his reflection as curiously as if he’s never seen it before. But that’s how he’s felt since he started working with you.

Seojun was right: you are the best that the makeup industry has to offer. Hyunjin has come to understand this for multiple reasons. Your phone screen is incessantly illuminated by new notifications and incoming calls. The other stylists heed your advice like it’s the law. Brushes and pencils move like water when it’s you maneuvering them. And then some.

He would call what you have “talent,” but he knows it’s more than that. You show him a new version of himself every time you turn a mirror in his direction, like there are facets of him that are visible to you and you only. As much as he delights in the notion that you have such intimate knowledge of him, it should be impossible, considering you’ve only known him for two months. So no, it’s not just talent that you possess. It’s some combination of talent, hawkish perception, and raw artistry that is utterly inhuman—and sexy as fuck.

Speaking of sexy. Hyunjin’s look is relatively rudimentary tonight, the makeup light, the outfit a simple black tank top beneath a jacket and pants made of bright red velvet. But it’s the details that tie the whole thing together: the wide, loose sleeves causing the jacket to slip continually off his shoulders; the inner layer tight in all the right places. His face doesn’t look half bad either, with the sultry carmine powder that fringes his eyes and the intentionally mussed state of his hair. He pushes a hand through the dark locks, regarding himself with thorough appreciation.

You appear in his periphery as you start cleaning up your work station. “You can just take the jacket off when your sweat glands start malfunctioning, by the way. I thought you’d appreciate that detail.”

At this, his smize cracks into a laugh, the sound loud and uninhibited and uniquely yours to hear. “You suck.”

He looks away from his reflection just in time to glimpse another of your phantom smiles, and he thinks it’s so painfully on brand that the two times it’s appeared tonight have both been from you making yourself laugh. You might be the most insufferable person he’s ever met. He might be obsessed with you anyways.

“Well?” You implore. “What do you think?”

“No notes.” 

It’s the answer you’re expecting. You survey him from head to toe one last time, decide that you, too, are satisfied, and slip your makeup into your bag; hike its strap over your shoulder.

“I’ll see you after the show, then.”

You have an important conference call to attend before tonight’s concert, hence why Hyunjin had to come in early for hair and makeup. This is also the reason why the two of you have been the only people in the dressing room for the better part of an hour. 

It’s rare that he ever gets you alone, and he doesn’t want it to end. Not just yet.

“I lied, actually,” he calls. “I do have notes.”

You already have one foot out the door when you hear this, and you turn around so slowly and in such disbelief that he has to fight to constrain his laugh—the concept of imperfection is truly unthinkable to you. Insufferable, like he said.

“Do tell,” you say, dropping your bag back onto the floor.

“You have any jewelry for me?”

You chew on this for a moment. You did have a selection of necklaces prepared for tonight, but they were heavy and numerous, not exactly the best-suited for the group’s dynamic sets. You still like them, granted, and you know Hyunjin would as well.

You articulate all of this to him, and he asks if he can take a look at them anyways. “Come here, then,” you say, the words so tantalizing when they fall from your lips that nearly trips over himself trying to obey.

You take out a flat rectangular box from your bag and set it down in front of the lightbulb-studded mirrors. Hyunjin observes quietly as you show him its contents: three thick, gold chains with varying lengths and boasting different pendants, plus a beaded bracelet and an assembly of rings of the same material. His devious plan aside, he does love the selection.

“You’re sure you won’t be uncomfortable?”

He nods, and you pick up the longest of the three chains; turn to him expectedly. He takes this as his cue to move closer to you, except he overshoots a little, and he feels the tips of his shoes accidentally bump into the ends of yours; discerns the warmth emanating from your body against his own. He expects a withering glare, a kick in the shin, maybe, but you don’t seem bothered by the proximity at all, unblinking as you bring your hands around the either side of his neck and fasten the first necklace with a soft tap. Your fingers then brush over his collarbones to adjust the pendant, and he thinks your hands would have to be numb not to perceive the frantic heartbeat threatening to burst straight out of his skin.

Entire minutes pass before Hyunjin musters the courage to actually look at you. By then, you’re already working on the third and final necklace. It’s not a surprise that your face is mere inches away from his; he’s been watching your reflections out of the corner of his eye; he knows you’re closer to each other than you’ve ever been. But there are parts of you that the mirror doesn’t show—the soft curve of your lashes, the concentrated narrow of your eyes, the shapely protrusion of your pursed lips—and these surprise him so thoroughly that he slips and slides out of his right mind.

You are the type of beautiful that’s been around longer than humans have, the same as that of the true blue color of forget-me-nots. And Hyunjin feels enveloped, intoxicated by you from this minuscule distance. The idea forms numbly in his head that maybe, just maybe, he was put on this earth to admire you.

In this inebriated state, he makes a venturesome decision.

When you finish centering the last pendant upon the his chest, you are about to take a step back and review the updated look, but you’re debilitated by the feeling of fingers grazing over your hip—lightly, so lightly that you mistake them for a gust of wind at first, but the contact is enough to push the small of your back against the edge of the counter. Then, both of Hyunjin’s hands reach behind you, pressing flat against the marble surface, and, just like that, he has you right where he wants you, ensnared between cold stone and hot flesh.

And so begins an equilibrium so fragile that it’ll shatter if one of you so much as blinks the wrong way, your rattled breath fluttering against his lips, his eyes dark and hooded and out of focus as they survey the fine lines of your expression. It still doesn’t give you away (it never does), but he finds that in this moment he just doesn’t care.

“Let me take you out,” he murmurs. “One date.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” You reply under your breath.

“You know what I’m talking about, beautiful.”

Upon uttering that last word, he angles his head almost imperceptibly, the movement challenging, daring you to say something about it. But you don’t. You merely hiss out a whetted “you’re fucking crazy,” and that’s his opening to drag this on a little longer; push your limits a little more.

“About you? Damn straight.”

At this, finally, fucking finally, there is a semblance of something in your face that isn’t just your usual mildly-irritated nonchalance. Instead, he detects surprise in the whites of your eyes as you widen them; as you part your lips with a response that only comes much later.

And he’s surprised by your surprise. Surely, with your skills of observation, you would’ve noticed long ago how his world shrinks down to only you and your gorgeous voice and your confident glare and your shitty sense of humor whenever he’s been granted the privilege of your presence.

This might be the first time he’s admitted it out loud, but he hasn’t tried—hasn’t been able—to hide how he feels about you, not now, not ever. It’s been that way since the moment the sole of your shoe met the carpet of that conference room on the fourth floor of the JYP building.

 “Hwang—” You begin.

“Hyung!”

At the sound of a third, new voice, your arms tense like you’re about to shove Hyunjin off of you, but he only leans in further, so that his lips almost graze your jaw and your hands have nowhere to go except the taut surface of his chest. The surprise is gone; now you’re just pissed. He can feel the heat of your furious eyes and the tremor in your hands as you form fists around the fabric of his top. But he takes his sweet time in scooping up the bracelet and rings, and only afterwards does he pull away from you and straighten to his full height.

“Hey, Innie!” Hyunjin chirps, and Jeongin materializes in the doorway, looking thoroughly perturbed by the older boy’s sunny tone. “What’s up?” 

In the meantime, you turn around to snap the lid of your jewelry box shut, and it takes a singular glance in the mirror for a truly horrible realization to settle upon your shoulders. You don’t think anybody would be able to tell even if you announced it outright, but you know yourself and the little nuances of your face all too well.

You’re flustered.

You feel like a horror movie heroine breaking the fourth wall. 

“Nothing, weirdo. I was just announcing my arrival,” Jeongin says. Thank fuck you did, Hyunjin thinks to himself, completely unaware of the epiphany you’re having behind him. “Chan-hyung mentioned you were here already? Why?”

“She’s in high demand.” Hyunjin points out the she in question by jutting his chin in your direction. “The usual.”

“Ah.”

Jeongin inclines his head towards you in polite greeting. You return his hello, but your expression starts to feel tight when his eyes dart between the strange smile on Hyunjin’s face and your awkward stance (still glued to the edge of the counter) as he drops his duffel by the couch. The boy isn’t stupid, unlike his older counterpart.

“I saw a vending machine on my way here,” Jeongin says, turning to leave the room again. “You want anything, hyung? Noona?”

“I’m okay, thank you,” you say.

“I’ll have whatever you have,” Hyunjin says.

Jeongin flashes a thumbs-up and dips out of the room, perhaps a little more hastily than he intends to come across. And then there are two. Again.

You wait until you can’t hear his footsteps anymore, and then you turn to glower at Hyunjin so intensely that he thinks you’re about to place a curse on his whole bloodline.

Then, your phone starts vibrating, and he knows he’ll live to see another day.

“You still owe me an answer,” Hyunjin calls as you turn around and leave the room.

“Don’t hold your breath,” you reply.

One day, I’ll break her, is the predominant thought that resides in Hyunjin’s head as he slips on the remaining jewelry; watches your figure disappear around a corner. One day, I’ll break his face, is the predominant thought that resides in yours as you stalk away. That’s the two of you, in a nutshell.

Six months ago. Osaka, Japan. 3:03 P.M.

When you walk into the dressing room, you find Haeun hunched over an overflowing photo album with her hands forming fists in her hair, muttering to nobody in particular, “I have no idea what the fuck I’m doing.”

There’s an amused look in your eye as you set your bag down by Hyunjin’s empty vanity chair. She hasn’t noticed your presence yet; approximately three hallways down, the members are rehearsing for tonight’s performance on the main stage of the Kyocera Dome, and the music is so loud that you think you actually saw the walls vibrating while you were in the hallway moments ago.

You rise to your tiptoes and encroach upon her, waiting until she’s within reach to tickle the back of her neck. She nearly flies out of her seat with a shriek that can be heard over the heavy bass.

“Never gets old.” You hand her the photo album that went soaring also, and Haeun snatches it back with an affronted flourish.

“I can’t remember the last time you said hi to me normally, unnie.”

“Me neither, now that you mention it.”

Haeun and Han are your favorite stylist-idol duo in the world because they’re so eerily similar—and it’s adorable. They both illuminate every room they walk into; they both have grins too big for their faces, laughs too loud for their lungs. You always regret leaving your sunglasses at home when you catch sight of the effulgent pair.

But today you cannot detect the usual radiance in Haeun’s voice, nor so much as a hint of her easy grin. Then again, that’s another quality that she and her client share; they’re both well acquainted with the burdens that come with unwavering passion.

Every stylist has their own modus operandi. Haeun’s is a scrapbook of images that she cuts out and saves from catalogs, advertisements, newspapers, et cetera. You’ve seen it many times before, but never in such a state: messy handwriting stuffing the margins to their very brims, numbers and symbols like clusters of rainclouds over a sea of different outfits, arrows and circles and squares highlighting pant cuffs and cascade collars and dangling earrings. Telltale signs that Haeun hasn’t a clue as to what Han will be wearing tonight.

You gnaw on your lower lip, deliberating your next move. You end up placing a firm hand against the album’s cover and pushing it closed.

“Come with me,” you say. “We’re gonna try a new approach.”

Haeun opens her mouth to protest, but unfortunately you have an extensive track record of being right.

“What do you have in mind?” She sighs instead.

“You’ll see.”

With that, you stand up, tuck a small towel under your arm, and angle your head in the direction of the music.

The two of you make your way through the labyrinth of hallways that comprise the venue’s backstage. Eventually, the color of the floor changes from speckled white to solid black, and you step onto the part of the stage that is concealed from the audience by drawn curtains and heavy equipment. You say a quick hello to the group’s manager as you dip past him, and eventually reach the edge of the curtains, where you and Haeun have a good view of the eight members as they run through their setlist for tonight’s concert.

Haeun settles into the spot beside you, still confused as she follows your gaze. 

“Let me ask you this,” you say, just audible over the din. “Can you style a performer if you don’t know how he performs?”

And understanding seeps over her features like poured tea.

“I want you to watch him,” you continue. “Tell me how he performs.”

Han’s part begins, as if on cue. His voice rings out through the empty stadium as he ducks to the front of the formation, a microphone held loosely to his lips, his face taut with focus. Haeun stares at him for some time, silently trying to fathom her observations, but she sees you shaking your head in the corner of her eye.

“Don’t think, Haeun. Just speak.”

She blows out a deep breath before obliging. “It’s hard to picture Han doing anything but laughing or making other people laugh, he’s so goofy and lighthearted most of the time. But he’s like a different person on stage. He’s so intense, it’s almost intimidating. Not intimidating in a douchey way, though—you just get the impression that he’s very confident in himself and his music.

You don’t say another word, but don’t need to. She’s hit her stride.

“His voice and enunciation are so clear. It’s crazy how he sounds exactly like the studio recording. Plus, his delivery feels genuine; he’s not just reciting lyrics, but speaking straight from his heart.

“And this is gonna sound bad, but I didn’t know Han could dance. Like, yeah, I knew that he could dance, but not like this. His movements are so sharp that I feel like my attention is being—”

Right there.

She cuts herself off, reaching the same conclusion.

“It’s his turn to talk, and he wants you to cling to his every word," Haeun articulates slowly. "He’s demanding your attention. He needs you to listen. That’s how he performs.”

A satisfied smile bolts across your face like lightning. “Couldn’t have said it better myself.”

Haeun pictures her scrapbook again, and there are now only a few articles of clothing and accessories that fit the framework you’ve helped her forge. She’s almost dizzy with disbelief, tearing her eyes from Han to look at you instead.

“You’re brilliant, you know that?”

“I do, but I appreciate the reminder.”

She can’t help but giggle. It’s a you answer if she’s ever heard one. “Do you do that with all of your clients?”

Haeun asks the question arbitrarily, without thinking. But you respond in a way that she doesn’t think she’s ever witnessed before, and she’s momentarily baffled by the sight: you hesitate.

As the song’s final chorus approaches, Hyunjin is the one folding himself into the center of the eight-person throng. You can only see his back from this angle, but even then it’s palpable how expertly and effortlessly he molds his body to the modulations of the music; how much fervor and feeling he expresses with every jerk of his spine and flex of his hands.

Within a few short seconds, innumerable descriptors and sensations skim the surface of your mind—but one word knocks the rest clean out of the water, the way it always does when you watch Hwang Hyunjin perform.

Artistry.

“No,” you reply. “Not all of them.”

And where better to find inspiration than inspiration himself?

Haeun furrows a brow, understandably puzzled by this response, but you don’t elaborate. Partially because you feel like being coy, but mostly because you know that any explanation you offer will sound like a confession.

The song ends, leaving your ears ringing with the abrupt absence of sound. The members hold their poses with heaving shoulders, staring out into the empty stands until the stage manager’s voice comes through the monitors.

“And that’s a wrap! We’re all set for tonight. Good work, everyone.”

There is a ripple of movement around the stage as the boys relax. Jeongin jogs over to Minho, hoping to review a particularly challenging dance break; the manager asks Chan if he has a second to discuss travel logistics; Seungmin plops onto the edge of the stage and downs the rest of his water; Hyunjin beelines toward you the second he sees you, because of course he does.

You get a good look at him as he skips closer. Stray blonde locks plastered against his damp skin, tank top dyed several shades darker by the perspiration rolling down his neck, the muscles of his arms actually rippling as he swings them around stupidly, a shit-eating smile plastered across his stunning face.

You’re annoyed before he says a word.

“I didn’t know they were letting fans backstage now,” he hums happily. “Want an autograph, gorgeous?”

“Put a sock in it.” You whisk the towel you’ve been holding in his direction. “Wet freak.”

But he catches and tosses it over his shoulder straightaway, and your heart sinks to your fucking ankle. You’ve seen this movie before. You know how it ends.

“No.” You take a shaky step back. “No, nope, don’t even think about—”

The next thing you know, Hyunjin is lunging towards you and winding his arms around your waist, nearly sweeping you clean off your feet as he pulls you into his sweaty embrace. To your complete dismay, your face presses flat against the clammy plane of his chest. “Call me a wet freak again, go on,” he manages to say through his laughter. 

In response, one of your hands wriggles free of its slippery prison and snatches the cuff of Hyunjin’s ear with impressive accuracy. He yelps and loosens his hold on you, but doesn’t relent completely, not even when he catches sight of the murderous expression on your face and cackles so forcefully his whole head is thrown back.

You tighten your grip. “Wet,” you seethe, “freak.”

“Ow—okay, don’t make it hot, what’s wrong with you?”

“Wha—what’s wrong with YOU?!”

As the two of you dissolve into your fatuous arguing, Haeun is no longer sure that she’s still standing here. She’s not even sure if she’s in her right mind anymore. She thinks she might be hallucinating the way everything about Hyunjin softens next to you, or the way your biting tone only seems to nibble when it’s him on the receiving end.

“Psst. We’ve been placing bets on them. You want in?”

Han suddenly materializes next to Haeun, and she would have been jumpscared into a different dimension if she wasn’t so fixated upon the bizarre occurrence before her.

But what if she’s not hallucinating?

No, not all of them, you’d said, like you were disclosing a forbidden secret.

“Yes,” she says, and Han beams. “Absolutely.”

Three months ago. Seoul, South Korea. 2:26 A.M.

On a tranquil Saturday night, you’re sitting at your desk, your knees tucked to your chest, the newest episode of your drama playing quietly on your laptop, a half-empty glass of rosé and open sketchbook laid before you. This is your happy place—a safe haven that the trials and tribulations of the real world can’t reach. But you think you’ve really gone and lost your mind when you find yourself thinking about your job.

Well, not your job, exactly. More like the man who makes your job feel fucking Sisyphean.

You know your way around fabric and foundation better than anyone, but you have never struggled with anything as much as you have trying to navigate Hyunjin. You show up to work every day ready to just put some makeup on the man; instead, you wind up stumbling around the potholes of his dimples and the hills of the veins that run over his forearms and hands like a hopeless drunkard. Scouring the creases of his smile and the oscillations of his voice like they’re topographical maps. Mentally replaying your interactions with him time and time again like you’re monitoring security footage, trying to detect illicit activity in every casual touch he leaves on your shoulder or waist; every babe or gorgeous he throws your way, seemingly without a second thought.

You’ve been trying to understand him and his intentions for seven months now, and your efforts have yielded no fruit whatsoever, save for a few theories that you feel insane for even humoring.

You down the rest of the blush-colored liquid, and as you set down your empty glass you notice your fingers itch with a familiar urge. The pen that you’ve been twirling over your knuckles stills, then swivels; its tip hovers over the last free corner of the sheet of cartridge paper below you. And then it presses upon the surface and starts to move, as naturally as if on its own.

When you were little, you came across a children’s book that you no longer remember the name of, about a little girl with a magical pen that brought her every drawing to life. You decided then that you would one day be that girl.

At some point, the subjects of your incessant sketching became almost exclusively runway models and makeup advertisements. You cemented that you wanted to work in fashion as early as your high school graduation, and by then you already possessed the conviction and charisma of the industry’s most experienced members. Your portfolio was stellar; your personality prophesied of wild success. So your career took off, propelled by the neverending positions and projects that various companies continually laid before your feet.

You stand and pad to your kitchen to refill your glass, only to bring the entire bottle of wine back to your room instead. With one hand, you flick the cap off and lift the whole thing to your lips; with the other, you seize your pen again, not wanting to lose momentum.

For the year or so after you joined the industry, you basked in your idyllic prosperity. Even the doodles you scrawled on random napkins during banal business lunches would appear on some of the world’s most renowned faces the next week. You had indubitably become the little girl from your story; made a career out of giving your imagination tangible form. And what a fruitful career it was going to be.

If only you knew how it would strengthen you in ways you never wanted.

The first time someone called you cold, it took you a while to realize that they were talking about you. The phrase was said so casually and lightheartedly that it sounded at first like a piece of unimportant small talk. But the whisper of cold bitch was then followed by a bout of stifled laughter and what was undoubtedly your name. Your heart stopped along with your footsteps, and you looked towards the source: two interns whose names you had yet to learn, while yours was already in their mouths.

You felt nothing until you were three stops away from your apartment, and then the bottom of the subway gave out beneath you and suddenly you were feeling everything. Only confusion, hurt, and rage at first, but then the other emotions that you’d been smothering tirelessly for who-knows-how-long tore free of their cerebral shackles too, and together they formed an amalgamation of anxiety that closed up your throat within seconds. 

As your pen studs details into a shapely jawline, you remember how you’d shoved your way off the subway and made a mad dash into the night air. You remember how you collapsed against a utility pole in an unfamiliar neighborhood, how your knuckles paled around the ashen wood, how your tears tumbled over your lips and salted your tongue. You remember wanting to go home so badly that you thought your ribcage would cave in on itself with the weight of it. You remember begging for air, for you.

By the time the oxygen had returned to your lungs, the streets were empty save for you, crouched on the curb, your face buried in your arms, spent, shattered, and alone. You were only nineteen at the time.

You are now twenty-two, and the word “cold” has become a regular guest in the lodgings of your heart. You never invite it over, but you’re no longer surprised to find it at your door. It’s a thief, swiping pieces of you when it thinks you’re not looking—a fragment above the fireplace, a scrap from the cracks between the couch—and you know whenever you’re being robbed, know that you lose parts of yourself upon its every visit. But better that than acknowledging what you lose.

You allow it to walk away with full pockets every time.

Hyunjin does not.

“Three words to describe yourself. Go,” he said a few days ago, the two of you heading back to the tour bus after a filming session. 

You were so used to these irrational inquiries of his that you didn’t bother trying to dodge this one. “You first.”

“Smart, sexy, suave,” he said immediately, but burst into a sheepish laugh at the sight of your weary glare. “Fine, fine, let me think. Ambitious, for one. Introspective, definitely—maybe overly so. And artistic. I’d like to think so, at least. Satisfied?”

The most creative person you knew doubting his own ingenuity was absurd to you, but you nodded begrudgingly. It was a good answer, for the most part.

“Now you.”

Honestly, the thief had surfaced the moment you heard the question, but you weren’t sure if you wanted to inform Hyunjin of its existence. Not because you didn’t trust him—you did, more than you had anyone in years—but because you didn’t know what you’d do with yourself if he agreed. You weren’t sure your heart would be able to take it.

When you met the boy’s gaze, though, the carob brown of his eyes was so curious and so comforting that you suspected that was never a possibility.

“Cold,” you mumbled. “I’ve been called cold before.”

There was a pregnant pause. You found yourself holding your breath. And then—

“That’s a joke, right?”

Hyunjin began to count off his fingers.

“Mean. So mean. Impossibly, infuriatingly confident. Talented, stubborn, strong. Funny, sometimes, I guess, though I’d rather you hit me with a metal pipe than admit that ever again.”

At this, you caved; a laugh erupted from your lips, leaving a genuine smile in its wake.

“Determined. Eloquent. Bossy. Some kind of evil, twisted genius. Contemplative, caring, compassionate. Fearless,” he went on. “You get my point. You’re a lot of things, Y/N, but cold isn’t one—”

He was about to say something mind-numbingly stupid. You could sense it in the air.

“—and not just because you’re hot.”

You smacked his bicep, the smile on your face now an uninhibited, helpless grin. And as he vanished into a fit of high-pitched laughter, you thought you sensed him crack open your door and slip your missing artifacts back to their rightful places.

Hyunjin began to climb into the bus, and you caught the cuff of his sleeve, your feet still planted on the pavement.

“Thank you,” you said.

The tremors of his fond chuckle traveled to your very core.

“Idiot,” he sighed softly.

Idiot, you write, and the drawings are complete. 

When you stand up, the bottle is mostly gone—and so are you. You splash some water on your face in lieu of your skincare routine and prod the inside of your mouth a few times using a dry toothbrush, and then you dive beneath your duvet and are dead asleep in minutes. Your slumber is interrupted only by dreams of a world where your theories about Hyunjin aren’t just theories.

If you’d had even one mouthful less of rosé, you might’ve remembered that you picked up your phone and opened your most recent conversation somewhere between steps two and three.

[3:10 A.M.] To: Hwang Hyunjin (Stray Kids, JYP) Audio Message.wav

Hi. I’m drunk and I’m going to regret this tomorrow. But that’s tomorrow’s business. There’s something I need to tell you tonight.

After I moved to Seoul, I used to get these bouts of homesickness. Not in a standard ‘I wanna go home’ kind of way, but in a way that felt like a hole had opened up in the ground below me. I was always ready for it to swallow me alive. I would’ve been happy for it to.

But I haven’t felt that way since I met you. I realized this not too long ago, and it threw me for a fucking loop. I’ve never felt seen the way you see me. I’ve never been known the way you know me. Every time I look at you or hear your voice, it feels so much like returning home that I don’t have to dream of it anymore.

You called me fearless the other day, but you’re wrong. I’m terrified. I’m terrified that history is going to repeat itself, that another home will slip through the cracks between my fingers and there will be nothing I can do to stop it. And that’s why I’m so hesitant towards you, towards whatever this is, because I don’t want to go through that ever again.

So the thing I need to tell you is that I care about you. I care so much that I’m scared speaking it into existence will make it real and vulnerable to all the worst parts of the world. But it’s not speaking it into existence if I’m drunk, right? Maybe I have no idea what I’m talking about. Maybe you’ll never even hear this. So it doesn’t count. That’s how that works, surely.

Sorry if this was totally nonsensical. And sorry that I’m so bad at feelings. You must think I’m impossible, and I don’t blame you.

Good night, Hyunjin. Thank you, again.

One month ago. Los Angeles, United States. 12:37 A.M.

When Hyunjin steps out of the hotel’s tall glass double doors, he’s wearing a teatree facemask, and his bags are draped over the crooks of his elbows like he’s an upper-echelon socialite on his way back from a lavish shopping spree. And then he sees you standing next to the curb, and the situation dawns on him in bits and pieces.

You’re the only one here. The vans that were supposed to take you to the airport are nowhere to be seen. Boarding begins in four minutes.

A soft flinch crimps his features. Oops.

“Tomorrow night,” you’re saying into your receiver, but your attention is on him only, your penetrative gaze putting the dead in deadpan. “The absolute earliest. You’re sure?”

When you finish listening to the manager’s response, you heave a sigh that sags your shoulders and end the call with a jab that should’ve splintered your screen protector.

Then, you start walking towards him.

“Hi,” Hyunjin says, his eyes pleading for mercy. “You are so talented and beautiful. I don’t tell you that often enough, do I?”

He expects you to grab him by the cuff of his ear again, to throw him a retort that’s twice as mean as it is witty, something along those lines. But you merely push your suitcase in his direction, and it is then when he notices that your face is hard enough to chip enamel; that your eyes are eerily, entirely empty. The tendril of warmth that’s always dancing among the subtleties of your expressions, that he’s always pursuing to the very borders of his dreamscapes, is nowhere to be seen.

A shiver travels down Hyunjin’s spine as he curls his fingers around the plastic handle.

Something’s not right.

“We’re gonna have to stay here another day,” you say. “Can you check us in? I have some calls to make.”

“Us?” Hyunjin repeats.

“Junghan could only reserve one room,” you reply, your phone already glued back to your ear. “The hotel is fully booked for the next few months.”

With that, you’re already preoccupied with the next thing, turning to the side to reschedule a meeting. But Hyunjin can only stare blankly at your profile, trying and failing to grasp that he’s going to spend a night with the subject of his every daydream. Though you might be leaning more towards the nightmare end of the spectrum at the moment, considering the way your head snaps back in his direction like a woman possessed.

Go, you mouth, and he obliges.

A few minutes later, Hyunjin is in the elevator by himself. He speculates it’s an ingenious, intentional choice that the lights are turned off, so that whoever’s inside can watch the psychedelic lights of Los Angeles sprawl further and wider the higher they go. But he can’t think of anything except for the subzero nothingness where your irises should’ve been.

Hyunjin’s initial guess was that he crossed a line with this missed plane, but the more he thinks about it the clearer it becomes that this isn’t an isolated issue. It’s the culmination of something bigger. Something continuous.

You have become as familiar to him as the lines of his eyes or the ridges of his knuckles. He’s learned where to look for your feelings when he can’t find them in your face; studied your words and the undertones of your voice like they’re verses of scripture. Yet, it was around two months ago when Hyunjin looked at your side profile and couldn’t recognize you. He’d blinked, startled, and then you’d asked why he was looking at you so strangely, and everything returned to normal. He wrote it off as a side effect of sleep deprivation and paid it no more mind that day.

Except it happened again a few days later; again, not too long after, and Hyunjin began to suspect that he was losing his mind. You didn’t seem all that different—a bit more taciturn than usual, maybe, but you’d been busier than usual, too, your workspace always full of empty coffee cups by the end of the day, the pages of your planner more colorful and crammed than ever. The minor variances never struck him as a reason for worry.

“Stupid,” Hyunjin whispers bitterly.

He replays your interaction one more time. You, shoving your suitcase against his palm, telling him to go check in. Him, fastening his hand around the handle, sensing the bottomless void within you, feeling like he’d been dismissed from before your throne.

As he steps off the elevator and walks towards your designated room, he doesn’t understand how or why—but he can’t shake the feeling that he’s failed you.

Nearly an hour passes. The room only has one bed, so Hyunjin turns off the lights, folds himself onto the armchair by the floor-to-ceiling window, drapes a complimentary robe over his shoulders, and tries to sleep. He doesn’t know why he even tries. He’s exhausted, but he knows damn well there’s no hope of him getting any rest until he has you in his proximity again.

He doesn’t look at the door when he finally hears it open, but the knot of tension in his chest comes undone as soon as your silhouette appears in the hallway. He takes out his first real breath since leaving you at the hotel’s entrance.

You hear the sound it makes. You fall still.

“Hyunjin?”

His heart physically aches at how tired you sound. “Yeah?”

“Oh, you’re awake,” you answer. “Move to the bed. You’re not sleeping on that thing.”

He remains where he is, his chin resting on the side of his fist, his eyes glued to the flickering panorama of neon lights below him. You crouch to unzip something, and there’s a heavy thud of metal meeting cloth, presumably your laptop being tossed onto the bed’s mattress.

“Hello? Did you—”

“Is everything okay?”

A short pause follows his interruption.

“I still have a few emails to write, but everything’s been rescheduled, so as long as you don’t miss tomorrow’s flight, too, we should be—”

The robe slides off his lap as he pushes himself to his feet. “That’s not what I mean.”

The only source of light in the room is the lone light above the entrance, but it’s enough for him to see your face and the surprise etched upon it. You open your mouth, utter one syllable, and stop yourself immediately after, stunned into silence by the sobriety in Hyunjin’s expression.

“Enlighten me, then,” you say finally.

“You really don’t know?”

“What is there to know? That you missed a flight and pissed me the fuck off? Trust me, I’m aware.”

“No, that’s not—”

“So what are you talking about, then? Why are you talking in riddles? Fuck, what is it that you want from me?”

There’s real frustration in your voice, and it’s the first time you’ve shown him any emotion in pure, unadulterated form. With this, Hyunjin understands that he was right; this conversation is heading towards a culmination of some kind, and so are you, with the devastating force of a natural phenomenon.

He wonders if you’re prepared to destroy yourself, too.

“I know how you are around me,” you whisper. “You’re always acting like you’re trying to unearth something, and I figure this ‘something’ must be wonderful, because you look at me like I’m made of stars; you speak to me like you’re serenading a lover. But I am constantly, ceaselessly haunted by the possibility that this ‘something’ doesn’t exist, that you’re looking for the wrong thing in the wrong person. 

“I know it’s selfish to ask for anything more than what you’ve already given me—you’re so kind, Hyunjin, and you’ve been nothing but since the day we met. But grant me one more wish, even if it is the last time you ever do.

“Tell me what you see in me,” you plead. “Otherwise, I will spend the rest of my life mourning the months of yours that you wasted on me.”

With that, it occurs to Hyunjin, falls upon and cracks open his mind like a piece of firewood, that you have never been aware of—never asked for—the throne you sit upon.

For an indeterminate amount of time, the two of you stay there, standing in silence on opposite sides of your dark hotel room. You haven’t felt anything like this in a long time, your chest heaving with your heavy breaths, your vision muddied by both the lack of light and the desperation searing through your windpipe. 

When Hyunjin finally begins to speak, his words wrest the oxygen from your lungs.

“After you moved to Seoul, you used to get these bouts of homesickness.”

Your mind careens; your heart reels. 

“They came in a way that felt like a hole had opened up in the ground below you.” He takes a tentative step towards you. “You thought it was going to swallow you alive. You would’ve been happy for it to.”

You never got to listen to your voice note. You were blacked out when you recorded it and horrified when you discovered it in your chat logs the next morning; the wretched thing was unsent so quickly that you couldn’t check for a read receipt.

But there’s not a doubt in your mind that these are your words falling from Hyunjin’s lips.

“You haven’t felt that way since you met me, though.” He is only a few feet away from you now, and getting closer still. “You’ve never felt seen the way I see you. You’ve never been known the way I know you.”

God, you said that? Did you propose to him too?

“You’re terrified that another home will slip through the cracks between your fingers and there will be nothing you can do to stop it.” Hyunjin flattens his left hand upon the drywall next to your ear; pushes you back ever-so-gently against the hard surface. “I must think you’re impossible.”

And he brings his face so, so close to yours; looks at you with so much adoration, so much tenderness, that you feel the final bulwark around your heart fracture—

“I don’t,” Hyunjin breathes, cradling your cheek, “because you’re not. And I want to prove it to you, even if it takes me the rest of my life. That’s what I see in you.”

—and crumble.

You form fists in the lining of his hoodie. Hyunjin’s hand tightens where it lays over the curve of your jaw.

When you crash your lips upon his, he tastes the metallic sheen of electricity and the salt of tearwater both; he witnesses crying lightning, for the first time in human history.

Present day. Cannes, France. 9:15 P.M.

Hyunjin never thinks when he fucks you. 

One part of it is that he physically can’t; his cognitive facilities shut down when he has you quivering beneath him, like his desire to pleasure you is too overwhelming for his mind to bear. The other part is that he doesn’t want to. He’s afraid that the voices of cynicism and trepidation that plague his mind every waking moment will taint the actualization of his wildest dreams.

Lucky for him, you manage to erase his mind on a daily basis with only one accidental touch or an apparition of a smile, so he doesn’t stand a chance whenever you let him between your legs.

“Trust me?” He whispers, imprinting the words upon the inside of your thigh.

“More than anyone,” you breathe, and just this has him tenting against his satin slacks.

Hyunjin used to see you scolding managers or moving racks twice your weight and think that was you in your element—tonight, he learned otherwise. You were so confident that even just the way you puffed your chest out prompted heads to turn and low voices to ask for your name; so charming that even by the end of your self-introduction you had every guest you spoke to eating out the palm of your hand. 

Eating out your pussy, though, is Hyunjin’s privilege alone.

He wraps his fingers around the hem of your dress and pushes it upwards, creating a halo of red fabric around your midriff; slides your panties off your legs and tosses them over his shoulder. All obstacles out of the way, Hyunjin winds his arms around your thighs and pins your hips to the mattress, slotting himself between your knees as they fall apart. Your ankles fold over the top of his head, and you’re about to ask if he’s okay like this, but then you feel the hot muscle of his tongue trace over your dripping folds—and every word of every language you’ve ever known is dispelled from your brain and your mouth in the form of a stuttered, euphoric moan.

He teases you first, drags his mouth over you so that he’s lapped up all of your slick, and just when you feel your patience thinning he pulls you apart with reverent hands and begins to suckle on your clit, as attentive to your every solicitation as always. You arch your back so high off the bed that your ankles knock Hyunjin’s head down a few inches, but the new angle is even better; grants him access to more of you.

He reinforces his grip around you, presses his torso right up against the side of the mattress, and gorges: sluices your labia until you’re spilling from his chin onto the sheets; flicks against your bundle of nerves until it’s pulsating and swollen on his mouth; fucks his tongue against your favorite spot until you’re curling your toes, seeing the whole solar system. 

“Coming,” you blabber after some time. Tell me something I don’t know, he thinks to himself. “Coming, Hyune. I’m—fuck—”

Hyunjin is aware of the way you clench so hard around nothing that your pelvis hurts. He is aware of the way you’re so dilapidated from pleasure that you’re genuinely struggling to breathe. He doesn’t care. He wants to get the cadences of your climax tattooed into the gray matter of his brain, and there can’t be rests in the sheet music, can there?

He presses a hand flat on your stomach in preparation for your body’s protest, then returns his face to its place between your thighs; starts to leave kitten licks around the edges of your puffy folds before you can finish riding out your high. You press your tongue against the back of your front teeth, emitting a pained hiss as you draw a sharp breath, tears stinging at your eyes.

“Son of a bitch—”

“Trust me?” He asks again, his voice vibrating against your sore cunt, and your complaints quiet into whimpers as you bring a hand over your quivering mouth, and nod. 

At least Hyunjin bridles his thirst the second time he eats your pussy open, his lips smacking openly and slowly over your every inch except the one that would be truly unbearable for you right now. He’s so rough and so fucking careful at once like he can’t decide between obliterating and worshipping your cunt.

He’ll end up doing both.

Within a few minutes, your legs have gone slack on either side of Hyunjin once again, and another coil has begun to tighten behind your bellybutton, equal parts pain and pleasure—but he knows your pussy just as well as he does your person by now, and it’s not long before the former is compounding with the latter.

Round two has a faster ascent and a steeper drop. He finds your spot again with the precision and ease of a trained marksman and fixates upon it like a man starved. It has your cries devolving to incoherent profanities and, to his unfettered delight, your foot actually shaking, your heel tapping against the back of his neck every time it comes down.

As if referencing a metronome, Hyunjin matches the rhythm of his tongue to your accelerando. Only when your leg is nearly convulsing does he wrap his lips back around your clit; slide two fingers into the place he leaves empty and pumps them into you until you are liquifying, igniting around him, your mewls lamenting the second orgasm he plucks from your core.

After your body has stilled, Hyunjin lifts his head, his face drenched in perspiration and saliva and you. His eyes travel over the slopes of your arms and the hills of your breasts, over the tears streaming from your eyes and staining the pillow you lie on. It is this last bit that has him shrugging off his shirt and undoing his dress pants with one hand, palming his throbbing cock with the other.

He clambers over you, and the kiss that follows is filthy, your mouth falling apart when he rolls your nipples between his fingers, strands of spit suspending between your tongues before dripping down onto your collarbone. You can sense what he wants in his craving lips, his pleading tongue—and you know he won’t ask for it. He’s tested you enough tonight; he’d rather your comfort than his pleasure.

But you guide his leaking head to your entrance, returning his stupefied look with a watery smile.

“Love me?” You ask this time, for the first time.

There is not even a nanosecond of hesitation when he answers, “with everything in me.”

He comes inside you the moment he bottoms out, your name leaving his lips in breathless, desperate repetition like a broken prayer as he topples off the same cliff he’d dropped you from moments ago. You curl a hand in his hair as he stutters against you, bring your lips flush against his ear, and whisper that you love him too—and the sight of you beneath him blurs he also starts to tear up.

This is the reality Hyunjin lives in, presumably because he was a saint in his past life, and it would be his utmost pleasure to see it through.

Two years later. Milan, Italy. 11:28 A.M.

For the last half hour, a ray of sunlight has repeatedly struck the diamond that sits between the second and third knuckle of your ring finger, and the Vogue journalist on the other side of your desk thinks he is slowly losing his vision. But when he asks his final question, your hand comes to a much-appreciated stop, the fountain pen you’ve been twirling around clattering to your tabletop.

“Where do you find your inspiration?” 

As the journalist blinks the phosphenes from his eyes, he finally manages to get a good look at the face of Versace’s newest designer, and he detects something ineffable and warm in your expression.

“My inspiration, hm?” You fall silent for a short time, thinking. “If you asked me this at the start of my career, I’d have said ‘people.’ Their postures, their expressions, their wardrobes. I knew I was a goner when I watched a fashion show for the first time and noticed how the models’ attire helped them harness their innate power and grace—I wanted to orchestrate that kind of symbiosis, too. In that aspect, nothing has changed, actually. I still find wonder in human beings, and not just the ones on the runway. I think it would be difficult not to, don’t you?

“Some time ago, a good friend of mine was having trouble with an outfit for her client. She asked me a similar question, and only then did I realize that it was no longer just people that inspired me most, but a singular person. I had always been skeptical of the idea of a ‘muse’ until I met him. But I could only spend so long denying how he ventured closer to my soul than anything ever had, how he knew me and saw me like nobody ever could. He understood my art. He was my art, so—”

Your eyes dart over your ring, and the journalist would’ve flinched out of habit if he wasn’t so mesmerized by your eloquence.

“—where better to find inspiration than inspiration himself?”

A few seconds elapse, and then you clear your throat and straighten your back, returning to your office from your trip down memory lane. 

“That’s the long answer, anyways. The short answer would be my fiancé.”

The journalist laughs, and he doubts you’ll give him this next piece of information—but he’ll be damned if he doesn’t try.

“And who would that be?”

He’s right. You don’t answer the question. But you do flash him an enigmatic smile, and for some reason it reminds him of lightning.

🔖 (send an ask to be added)・@astraystayyh・@like-a-diamondinthesky・@fire-08・@starsandrqindrops・@txtxlz・@laylasbunbunny・@strayghibli・@nuronhe

© 𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐱 (est. 090323) · 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤? please consider reblogging, commenting, or sending me an ask to let me know; or, read my other works here. thanks so much for the support ♡

[trashfangirlsworld]

Hello! I've been inactive due to the current events in the mcyt community, but I've been keeping up with the qsmp admin situation and I thought I'd share some opinions because the amount of doomposting I've seen the last few weeks has been more than I've seen in any fandom in a while and I feel like it's reached the point where people really need to chill the fuck out because they're not thinking straight and actively not helping. Everything I'm gonna say is based on stuff I've seen on both tumblr and twitter.

they should not promote/release merch! : one of the things that baffles me the most tbh; how do you expect any employee to be payed then? Merch is so far the only big source of income for the server besides q's own cc salary or whatever income they get through the official qsmp channel on twitch and youtube (which I don't think is a lot). "I get that they said they have no funds, but still it doesn't feel right"... sorry but at this point I don't know what to tell you, do you expect them to pull money out of their asses? You can't demand that they stop making merch and then complain that they can't afford the twitter admins at the same time. If you don't feel comfortable buying anything from them it's fine obviously, but if your reason for it is that you're helping the admins then I have bad news for you. I have seen people propose that quackity sets up a patreon, and while I think it would be a good idea, I understand why he's not doing it, since with the merch he can at least give something back to the people that choose to support his project instead of people just giving him money for free, especially with what's happening now. Also with how much hate he's been receiving simply for the merch I can't imagine that a patreon would be recieved well.

we don't know if the money is going to the admins/ they should not use pomme's likeness! : the money is definitely going to go to the employees and admins because otherwise the server would not last. And as much as I understand people feeling protective over pomme's admin, quackity studios is very much allowed to sell merch of the character because it is not the likeness of the admin, it's a minecraft model made by the people that work there. Would you have rathered they skip her character entirely? Do you really think that would have been okay?. Also correct me if I'm wrong, but I've seen posts and tweets saying that pomme's admin has been confirmed to come back with the other eggs whenever it happens by pierre, who talked with her admin.

the admins of the update accounts got fired, it means they want to fire everyone, they aren't making things better! : it sucks that the updates accounts had to end and I feel bad for every twitter admin that clearly cared a lot about the project, but unfortunately it had to happen if there simply isn't enough money to pay them adequately like they deserved and ultimately the update accounts were not essential to keep the project going, so it makes sense that they were let go unfortunately. This is not gonna be the case for the egg admins because if they got fired (which they didn't), the server would basically end. Just because a cc does not know when they will be back does not mean it's not gonna happen. Just because tubbo randomly said that he's not sure if they will be back does not mean they were fired; tubbo is normally not a reliable source of information, even less so when he's been live nonstop for the past 20 days, which is prior to everything happening. If you genuinely didn't expect a reduction in non essential staff considering everything, then you have unreasonable expectations on how this stuff goes. As I write this, I'm seeing people saying that "they would understand this decision if q had set up a patreon to pay the admins", and once again I don't understand how people don't realize why quackity might not be keen on the idea of having his fans pay his own employees for his own project instead of, you know, doing it himself; and, again, do not fool yourself into thinking it would be recieved well. That being said, it's fair to criticize how everything was communicated to the admins, but I'll get to this in more detail later.

quackity should not have uninstalled social media, he's trying to avoid everything! : he's not avoiding anything, he's been off social media for a while now, which is why it took him that long to remove wilbur from the server. He has every right to not want to look at social media, as his focus should be on restructuring his server instead of doomscrolling on twitter because people think he needs to see how much people dislike him. The only people that he should talk to are those that have important information to tell him, like josè with the document. He explicitly said on stream where to contact him if you have helpful information and I'm sure that despite multiple well liked posts saying not to spam his email, people are definitely doing it anyway, which is probably gonna slow the whole thing down even more. I hope josè's document is able to be seen with pierre's help as well.

quackity studios is not communicating with their employees and leaving them in the dark and that's not okay : I agree with this. i think a huge chunk of doomposting lately has been due the lack of communication not with the audience, but with the admins, and they deserve to know what is happening behind the scenes more then us since this is about their current or future job.... that being said, I do kind of understand why they're being so secretive and shutting everyone out, and that's due to all the "leaks" that have been spread online. I understand the anger but I really wish some people would realize that discussing leaked bts lore stuff in ccs discord servers does not help the situation at all and instead makes it seem like they're only doing this to rile up the fandom against quackity studios by using the lore of people's fav characters.

At the end of the day, I think people just aren't used to dealing with a situation that does not have a clear cut solution and someone to clearly hate, so the result is this doomposting and the over aggressiveness toward anything related to the project. Personally, I haven't witnessed anything that made me lose faith in the qsmp like some people have been saying, as every change that we've seen so far coincides with what quackity said on stream a while ago. I only wish things were communicated properly to the admins clearly, as they're the ones most affected, so I hope that's resolved soon. Ultimately quackity is singlehandedly restructuring the server from basically zero, has had to fire people that were misusing money and power and, depending on what josè's document said, is probably gonna have to fire some more. This is not an easy process, nor a quick one, you're not gonna hear about sunshine and rainbows for a while and doomposting about everything you hear because you expected quick change is useless. Think before you speak, have a clear head and most importantly have empathy.