#better than most people and while he knows its a bad thing to think he genuinely believes it to be true even while attempting to convince

[secretlythatsme]

i really love dc x dp tbh but i hate how so many fics end up making the batfam dumb as shit. and i don't mean in a "loveable goof" kind of way but in a genuine "these people don't have the skills or intelligence to be heroes" kind of way. which is just antithetical to their entire thing

sometimes it's because the writer just genuinely doesn't know anything about the batfam or what they've been through so they come across as idiots. and other times it's because the writer is writing op ghost king danny or just generally op danny and they genuinely think he could outsmart or beat them. more often than not, it's a combination of the two.

it's just so sad. like not only is it disrespectul to the batfam, essentially getting rid of all the skills and experience they have just to prop up danny, but it also makes things a lot more boring imo. don't get me wrong, i don't mind the occasional "main character is super op" kind of story, but it's boring when like 70% of fics are like that and there's no real challenge or obstacle for him. part of why the show danny phantom was so fun was that it was exciting and chair gripping to see danny have to deal with his new ghost powers, figuring out how to deal with ghost attacks or vlad, and dealing with school and his parents on top of that.

but often, dc x dp fics just,, get rid of any challenge for him. sure batman is a skilled detective but danny will always be able to trick him! sure cass has been trained since birth to read people's body language but this random ghost teen knows how to conceal and control everything!! yeah damian has also been trained since birth to fight and kill but this random guy from the midwest who just started fighting in his teens is so much better!!! like, alright. it's fun every now and then but it sucks when so much of the dc x dp content is just people acting like the batfam are the worst vigilantes/detectives in the world.

and honestly i still feel this way even with the ghost king danny fics because how? he's never had to deal with people obsessively reading his body language or reading between the lines. he's had to deal with hiding stuff sure but his parents aren't the most observant people - their whole deal was being neglectful. even as a ghost king, why would he know how to outsmart, take advantage of, or beat the batfam in any capacity when he would still mostly deal with ghosts. it's a completely different skill set here - one that he likely wouldn't be prepared for. it'd be fine if they at least attempted to explain why danny would have those skills (like league danny aus) but most of them don't.

and i'm not saying danny couldn't do it at all, especially if it's a ghost king au, but i'm just tired of seeing the batfam constantly downplayed in these fics Just to make danny look better, smarter, stronger, etc. ik most people in the fandom are just danny fans but it really shows with how they treat, characterize, and shit on the dc characters just to prop danny up. it also serves to occasionally make danny look like an asshole when he intentionally messes with them and basically commits psychological torture for a goof.

[lucyandthepen]

sweet cream, cold brew | lmh ( m )

something about mark lee keeps you up at night, and you’re pretty sure that it isn’t the lingering smell of espresso on his shirt.

alternatively: mark is shy until he isn’t.

read the second part here!

pairing: nerd!barista!mark x reader verse: college au rating: r ( minors, do not interact! ) warnings&tags: unprotected sex, oral (f!receiving), fingering, slightly possessive/jealous dialogue, mark has a thing for tummy bulges because why not, implicitly that also means he has a big dick, a slight???? exhibitionism kink (not actually something that happens, only talked about), johnny exists in this simply to trigger something vaguely feral in mark, reader is a little bit assertive and schemes to get mark's attention, jaehyun is a nosy lil eavesdropper, i think that should be it?? word count: 26.4k

a/n: hello so this was a mess and honestly not a fic i would say showcases my best plot-wise but… what can I say apart from booty wurk mark has me in a chokehold and I needed to release some thoughts and feelings !!! please do not expect too much from the development of the story; i fear it’s quite long and choppy because my ideas were all over the place and i was wringing my hands and brain constantly and i was eager to get to the spicy parts !! this is also not beta’d/proofread, it’s currently almost 1am, and i’ve been writing this on and off for a full week with very few breaks so it honestly felt like a fever dream for me LMAO please forgive any oversights and mistakes; i’ll try to go back on them another day and fix them little by little! finally and …most importantly belated happy birthday, my beloved morkly!

p.s. this will probably be flagged as ‘mature’ by tumblr, which means there’s a high likelihood it won’t appear in tags or searches. please consider reblogging to boost the fic, if you feel so inclined!

You’ve heard tell of how caffeine has inherently addictive properties. 

The more of it you have in your lifetime, the more likely you are to experience symptoms of withdrawal whenever you try to have orange juice for breakfast in its stead. It sounds bad, actually, considering most addictive substances are, but you suppose that its benefits somehow outweigh its milder drawbacks. You’re not much of a coffee connoisseur the way some people — see: your best friends, Yeji and Jisu — are, trying one cafe after the other in pursuit of being able to nominate the winning beans of 2023 (an annual heated debate they participate in for no better reason than their own slow and useless entertainment during their six-hour long breaks), but you do know you’ve only ever experienced good things from having a cup every so often: better energy, a more focused approach to mental activities, and the ability to drive through fifty percent of a road trip without needing pop punk music blasting out of your speakers to keep yourself alert. 

The three of you are generally particular about the coffee you drink, only in different ways. While your friends have a tendency to demand only the best from any establishment — lest the staff hear fiery commentary about the flatness of the brew or the evident coarseness of the grind — you, on the other hand, are a singular individual of rather simple tastes. All you need to survive long days is a glass of vanilla sweet cream cold brew. No modifications to the sugar level or fancy new milk types are necessary; you’ll drink it as it’s served in a grande cup (or a venti, when things prove particularly grueling). 

Of course, you’re strict about other things in the experience of consumption —  like where it’s served and, more importantly, who serves it to you. 

While Yeji and Jisu have rated the Liberal Arts building’s on-campus Starbucks branch as a five with the strict label of POEO — ‘passable on emergencies only’ — branding the menu as “nothing revolutionary” and criticizing most baristas for subpar brewery, you happen to be extremely drawn to the place. Initially, you may have argued that this has to do with the fact that it’s walking distance from most of your classes, confined to the same general compound on campus, so you can always grab a quick recharger whenever needed, no matter how short the timeframe to do so is. Sometime later on, you may have found yourself asserting that the layout of the cafe, albeit small, is very convenient, considering that every table is situated next to an electrical outlet, so you’re never out of battery (important to other students for their laptops and powerpoint presentations, important to you because you have an unhealthy obsession with passing time on TikTok, scrolling past video after video of ASMR girls clicking their twenty-inch long acrylics with their crazy candyland designs), and this makes you feel at ease. 

A month ago, you finally came clean to yourself and, soon after, to your friends, and they came to understand, albeit begrudgingly and with no small amount of amusement, what made this Starbucks unbeatable in your eyes; it had one thing no other coffee shop could lay claim to.

What you know of Mark Lee is accrued from two major sources: long, surreptitious glances in the Modern World History class you share, and irritatingly brief interactions when you place your order from the other side of the counter behind which he stands, long fingers always poised to punch in your order at the speed of light. Sometimes, those encounters get cut even shorter when irate upperclassmen start prattling their orders out before you can even say anything past your own, except even this has its own consolation prize — an apologetic smile at you that seems only for you, although you’re not sure how much of this assumption is true. You’ll just believe it as you feel it. 

And what you’ve learned about Mark Lee has funneled down into two key points for you: first, he is single, a fact you were clued into when a group of his friends came to the coffee shop and sat around the table next to you. You hadn’t been eavesdropping; they’d just been pretty loud, but you’d also perked your ears the moment the one everyone seemed to call “Hyuck” — you aren’t sure if it’s his full name or a nickname, and you don’t particularly care — had leaned in for a conspiratorial whisper about having a vague master plan to set Mark up with an old high school friend’s younger sister that he was just waiting to spring on said Mark, busy slaving away on their six impossible orders near the espresso machine. 

You don’t really know what became of that plan, nor if anyone had telepathically been on your side to outright call it crazy (someone should have had a better reason than you, anyway) since the next moment, Hyuck’s voice becomes significantly louder when it orders the one named Jisung to collect the completed coffee and snacks waiting for them on the counter. However, you feel safe in the assumption that even if it had happened, no repercussions had followed, seeing as Mark still presently comes and goes from his shifts alone and in no clear hurry to meet any cute girls that are sisters of high school friends of his friends. Or, maybe you’re just ignoring what could be truth, but that’s whatever. 

Second, you’ve learned that Mark Lee should not actually be your type — at least, in theory. 

Saying you’re out of his league would be a bit juvenile, but if you had only so many words to describe the situation, you’d say so under duress. It isn’t so much that he’s beneath you in any way, but your interests and general social circles run different routes. Yours tend to be more classically patterned after constantly changing trends, and the people you interact with all seem to have similar goals; you like to call it ‘vibe networking,’ which, from experience, involves connecting with both groups and individuals that are equally aware that they will benefit in some way from any resulting acquaintanceship — whether it be by climbing the social ladder a couple of rungs or being able to call in a quick, off-the-charts favor for something very important and/or very exclusive down the road. You and your friends spend a significant amount of time in a year watching your style and image, something quite a lot of kids in the first couple of years of college tend to do, which means that while you don’t particularly like to spend your time following your grade trajectory, you do have quite a lot of pseudo-friends that all seem to offer something entertaining or helpful to you. 

Mark, on the contrast, prefers to keep his circle very close to his heart, it seems — that which acts as a receptacle for all his interests. You can tell that he likes to be up to date less with trending movies and more with comic books, a separate beast of a world that’s rather unknown to you. More than once, you’ve overheard him chat with his friends about Spider-man Issue Number Whatever-It-Is or engage in somewhat lively (sometimes rowdy, thanks to the Hyuck fellow) discussions about some webtoon you’ve come to understand is called Solo Leveling, which seems to have to do with monsters and hunters — two things you know next to nothing about. You’ve also never seen Mark holding anything remotely close to a magazine; his hands are always filled with either a freshly opened comic or a beat-up textbook. Maybe once or twice, you’ve seen him on his phone, but when you peeked over (surreptitiously, of course) on those occasions, you were met only with brightly colored panels and a singular word: BAM. 

In conclusion — you and Mark Lee live very different lives, likely never truly meant to intersect. 

And yet, you want him — not even in a way that speaks only to your curiosity, but in a manner that feels slightly delusional. More than once, you’ve found yourself having to shut your jaw close after realizing you’ve been watching him steam milk with your mouth slightly agape. Maybe it’s his side profile, which gives you a great view of the way his jaw tenses every time he puts whipped cream on someone’s frappuccino. Maybe it’s his eyes, which always seem to twinkle like he’s harboring some special secret every time someone in line asks for his recommendation on how to spice their order up. Maybe it’s his hands, steady and agile, with just the right showing of veins through the skin to tell you they’ve probably got significant strength to them too. Or maybe it’s just his mind — that thing he always manages to show off in class, working faster than lightning even when the rest of you are in your natural eight-in-the-morning stupor.

Whatever the reason for your interest, Mark Lee makes sure the Liberal Arts building’s Starbucks has you as a regular customer. 

You’re fully aware that this is the twenty-first century, which is why you could, as Yeji and Jisu have so kindly made known, simply ask him out. Under normal circumstances, you would have.

Unfortunately, in this particular area of your life, separate from all others, you’re something of a traditionalist. 

Actually, you just want to know what Mark asking you out would look like. Curiosity has fully gotten the better of you — how can it not, with how he breaks eye contact with you the moment it happens by accident in class, or with how pleasantly and shyly he smiles when you say ‘hey’ to him once you’re about to order? You’d like to see, first-hand, as a recipient of the experience itself, what he would look like taking control of a particular situation like that — something someone like him, so mild-mannered and laid-back, never really seemed to do upfront. 

You’d like to think you’ve given him clear signs. There’s a reason you always come in during his shift times, and it’s the same reason for why you have the same damn drink from the menu over and over again despite not even caring too much about coffee in the first place (something he admittedly doesn’t know and probably wouldn’t puzzle out, given how often you’re in that Starbucks, anyway). It’s that you want him to remember you.

Selfishly, it’s that you want him to think just a little bit more about you every single day. 

But if he does, Mark has never made it very clearly known; apart from taking your order in his genial customer service demeanor or letting a look of brief recognition pass his face over when you cross paths in the hallways, he’s never really shown heightened inquisitiveness about you. For all your differences, only you seem to actually care.

Frankly, that frustrates you, because if you have to think about him unhealthily, it would only be right for him to do that for your sake too. Still, you’ll shrug that hit on your pride off for as long as you can get his attention one way or another.

All you really need is for your plan to pan out as well as you think — and hope — it will. 

The thing is, you’re not even that bad at math. You’ve never really excelled at it, of course, but you wouldn’t go so far as to say you’re in dire need of help from anyone — the kind of help that feels like babysitting, at least.

However, Mark Lee doesn’t know that, and you’re not compelled to make that fact known to him when you notice that he’s leaning on the counter with his elbows, shoulders rolled forward and head bent down. He’s twirling his ballpoint in hand, wrist hovering over a worksheet, and you’re briefly distracted by the rapidly moving shadow underneath it.

His head snaps up when you gently knock on the counter, and the rest of his body follows suit, straightening as he shoves the paper away, one edge crumpling in on itself as it meets resistance in the form of the pastry display glass.

“Hey — hi, _________.” He knows your name, says it easily, and while you’d like to believe it’s because of his unprecedented interest in you, you know that it’s just because you’re always here and always having him write your name on the side of your cup. “Can I get you the usual?”

There’s no particular reason you order what you do; maybe it’s just rooted in the fact that when you first asked Mark for a recommendation, he said that the Vanilla Sweet Cream Cold Brew was pretty good, and you were inclined to believe him (while pointedly ignoring the fact that it was, at the time, a new item all of the baristas were required to push to indecisive, slightly moony-eyed customers such as yourself). Whatever the case, you found the drink generally palatable, and you were also able to score the first of many smiles that fed into your two-semester-long infatuation with him, so it was basically a win-win scenario for all. He even got to do his job by getting some rube (see: you) into trying a new product.

“Hey, Mark.” You’ve long since given up pretending that you don’t know his name and have to check the tag on his cute green apron (why is it cute? You don’t know. It’s the same, standard, Starbucks green, but Mark makes it look homely and natural, somehow). You’ve been here way too many times over the last academic year for a nonchalant, were you talking to me? approach to work, anyway. “That, plus a lemon loaf, if you don’t mind. What’ve you got there?”

His eyes follow the trail of yours over to his wrinkled worksheet. “Oh — no, sorry. It’s nothing.”

“Is it secret?” Your bottom lip juts out, and you see his Adam’s apple bob dangerously, a small telltale sign of minute nervousness before he lets out a short laugh. “Didn’t know we kept stuff from each other.”

You don’t know what makes you say that so naturally. The both of you don’t do much beyond exchanging pleasantries.

“We — uh, well, it’s just a worksheet. For Park Hyosung’s class. College algebra?”

“I’m in Kim Junghwa’s. Can I have a look? I want to know if you’re suffering just as much as I am.”

He pauses, considering your request for a moment, likely wondering if there’s any harm in it before he smooths the paper out and turns it towards you. His handwriting’s a little messy, but his solutions are extremely neat. You see, like, one erasure, max. You also don’t see anything that interests you — except the name written at the top. Still, you can see at a general glance that more than half of his answers are correct; the logic of his organization is way too elegant and his writing’s too sure to be anything else. You whistle low, and his eyebrows shoot up.

“Something wrong?”

“Pretty much the opposite. How is it that you’re doing this without breaking a sweat?”

“Oh, well — it’s not…” He doesn’t even know how to brag. Yet another item in the perpetually growing list of things you find cute about Mark Lee. “I mean, anyone… can?”

“I must not be anyone then.” You meet his quizzical look with a wry smile. “Either you guys are leaps and bounds ahead, or I’m really not going to make it through this semester.”

Another silence passes, just for a fraction of a second — short enough to be passable to others, but long enough for you to wonder if your humor code isn’t up to par with the rest of the world’s — before Mark’s chuckling lowly. His large palm comes down, covering a majority of his answers in the process.

“You’re kidding. I’m sure you’re doing just fine.”

“Mark, look at this face.” You gesture to your evidently dumbfounded, blank expression. “Does this look like the face of someone that’s doing just fine?”

You’re pleased to hear another laugh from him; you don’t know if he really finds you funny or if he’s just the type to be easily amused. You don’t want to know, anyway; assuming is better than actually finding out.

“That bad, huh?” He slides the worksheet away again, like he��s afraid his correct answers are going to offend you into leaving the cafe. Instead, his hands start working on your order, grabbing a cup and scrawling the shorthand of the drink on one of the little boxes. “Ever think about getting a tutor, maybe? If you really feel like you’re drowning, that is.”

“A tutor? I guess that depends. Are you free on weeknights?”

The marker makes a soft screeching sound as he drags it down with too much force, ruining the penmanship of your name. Mark takes a moment to stare at the mistake on the plastic before he looks at you, pointing the rim of the cup towards himself. “Sorry — am I free—?”

“You said I should get a tutor, right?”

“I thought — no, sorry, I was thinking more like one of those department-assigned tutors you can ask the faculty for, or something.”

“Oh. Are you not one of them?” You sigh, albeit a little over dramatically. Thankfully, he doesn’t really cotton onto your acting, too caught up in befuddlement at the turn of the conversation. “That’s a bummer. I was kinda hoping that if I was going to ask for help, I’d get an actual genius. You know — someone like you?”

You can tell by Mark’s expression that he’s torn between denying your compliment again and responding to your actual question; he looks both relieved and miffed when the student behind you clears her throat.

“Sorry, but— you know that there’s a line, right?”

You both apologize, Mark’s much more sincere than your own, and you step aside. His gaze follows you for a moment before it snaps back to the next customer, his voice abandoning that bemused uncertainty it had taken up with you. You don’t really mind; as far as you’re concerned, any dent in his barista persona when he talks to you is a step in the right direction.

You hang around the pick-up area, receipt in hand, watching Mark clear the line before moving to the actual stations near the kitchen area. There’s a concentration on his face that you find all the more attractive; he has a habit of chewing on his bottom lip when he’s trying to focus on getting the drizzle just right inside the cup’s cylinder.

He tends to try his best at everything, you figure. Not an unattractive quality — not by a long shot.

Mark finishes your drink first; the milk’s still only seeping, cloudy, into the coffee when he brings it over. He doesn’t even have to call your queue number, opting to meet your eye — albeit slightly nervously — instead. You reach out to hold the cup, a calculated move that allows you to brush hands against his without him being able to pull back on instinct. He doesn’t, nor does he really seem to want to, but his jaw tightens as a flush creeps along the curve of his ears.

“You really won’t help me?”

Your question’s abrupt, almost a little demanding, even if your voice is sweet. You’re not above asking this much, anyway, even if you technically want him to make the first move. The redness sinks down to his earlobes.

“I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t really say anything,” you tease. The cup’s on the counter now, so he can easily relinquish it to you at this point, but he still hesitates, only one hand slipping out from under the heat of your palm. He uses it to rub the back of his neck, chuckling softly, and you take this as a green light. “What time does your shift end?”

“Five-thirty. You sure you wouldn’t want someone better?”

You pull your cup slowly to yourself, and his hand, still lightly trapped by your own, follows for a few inches before he’s withdrawing, the counter between the two of you forcing the distance. A smile follows the shaking of your head, and you take a small sip of the drink before you respond simply.

“There’s no one better than you.”

Mark is a prompt kind of person; you learn this when, at five-thirty, he comes over to your table, tugging his apron off over his head. Of course, you might attribute that to his overall personality, but the fact that you spend the remaining two hours of his shift casting him glances from the left side of the coffee shop might have also been a contributing factor. The looks you give him aren’t even furtive; they’re deliberately long, so you never miss whenever he looks over to you from time to time.

He doesn’t hold eye contact for very long (he does it well enough when he’s talking to customers, but it’s not like you’re ordering another cold brew from across the room at that point), but you can read snippets of his thoughts through the fleeting gaze exchanges. He’s curious as to why you’re asking for help, now, of all times, when the semester’s more than halfway over. He’s surprised that you asked him, of all people, because he just can’t conceive of a world that isn’t within a television show where this kind of abrupt, overt request makes sense. He’s flattered that you even asked him out of the blue. He’s equal parts anxious and eager to know what’s meant to happen after his shift, once he starts fulfilling your request.

Most of all, he’s unsure if he’s reading you right — if what it feels like you’re doing is something he’s attaching too deep a meaning to. If he’s right in reading your signs.

You don’t really mind it; you like knowing that Mark somehow wears his heart on his sleeve, even if he tries to remain neutral for the sake of appearances. You also bask quietly in the fact that he’s looking at you twice as much as he ever has in the time you’ve loosely known each other. Still, his bubbling confusion and inquisitiveness seem to be interfering with the rest of his work, especially when you notice that he’s been wiping down the surface of a table two down from where you are for more than seven minutes.

In the hopes of easing whatever tension might be in his heart, you offer him a small smile, but that’s only met with his eyes immediately glazing over and inching a couple of centimeters above your forehead, where the story of Starbucks’ origins is drawn out in a faux-manga style. He pretends to find it interesting, as if he hasn’t seen it a million times from coming into this establishment day after day — you know it well enough, and you don’t even have to, considering you don’t work here — and you can’t do anything but hold back your laughter.

A small part of you says you should just give him the affirmative answer to his biggest question, but every other cell in your body says that it’s no fun if he doesn’t ascertain it for himself.

He has his school bag and textbook in tow when he approaches, taking the seat across from you. There’s a steely resolution on his face, like he’s been emotionally preparing himself for such a daunting task, but it eases up the moment you laugh lightly.

“You don’t have to act like I’m going to eat you.”

“I’m still not sure why you’re suddenly asking me to help you,” he admits. He’s also very honest, you note. Again, not an unattractive trait. “I’m not complaining. I just didn’t think you even had an opinion of me.”

“Why’s that?” You’re genuinely surprised. Mark drums his fingers on the front of his textbook, thoughtful — less for the sake of thinking what to say and more for the sake of considering how to say it. It’s clear he wants to avoid calling attention to the fact that before now, you two have had no reason to run the same track, let alone sit together and talk at a coffee shop, as if you’ve always been the best of friends.

“Genuinely just thought I was the guy who gave you your afternoon coffee every day,” he finally settles. Your eyes widen, and another laugh escapes you — a little louder this time, enough to call the attention of a couple of jumpy freshmen nearby.

“Well — let me put it this way.” You lean over slightly, cupping your chin in your palm. “Was I just the girl you made coffee for every day until now?”

There are clear cogs turning in his head; his eyes unfocus slightly as he thinks of the possibilities. His silence suddenly makes you somewhat nervous; your tone had been confident, and you’d only said that to prove a point, to push him in the right direction, but you realize that you hadn’t previously factored in the possibility that he might simply say yes — or, worse, say no just to avoid hurting your feelings.

You watch his lower lip curl in; he uses his tongue to smooth out the skin that’s slightly dried from work fatigue. You would much rather it peeked out, so you could imagine it against your own. His response is mumbled in a lower register, but you catch some key syllables — didn’t… not … stranger — pretty … you?

“Sorry?” You ask patiently, but the fact that he turns red and laughs again — something you realize is not only a trademark of his personality but also downright delicious of him to be doing — is all the answer you need to let the apprehension seep from your shoulders. “I didn’t catch that.”

Mark clears his throat. “No, I… didn’t think of you that way. I mean… you’re my classmate.”

“Sure,” your tone’s breezy, but the somewhat sloppy confirmation of interest in you makes your heart soar. He just needs more of a push. “And we’re basically friends, right?”

“Yeah.” His voice is unsure at first, like he can’t seem to wrap his head around the concept. You can tell that Mark’s notion of friendship is likely based on shared interests, of which you admittedly have none. Technically, if you were his friend, you’d spend less time just telling him the exact same order every single day and more time sitting around a table trying to learn how to play Magic: The Gathering with him. Still, he takes one long look at your grin and suddenly gains confidence in his next words, as if it somehow convinces him that the briefness of your old conversations had been a mutually agreed-upon thing and not the product of social distance between the two of you. “Yeah. We’re friends.”

“Right. Friends help friends, don’t they? I’d definitely feel more comfortable having a friend teach me than some stuffy upperclassman I don’t know.”

You see Mark’s lips move slightly, in such small movements you could have imagined it as breathing if you didn’t care too much (which you do). He mouths, to himself — friends help friends. For some reason, that boosts his conviction even further, and he nods.

“Makes sense. Well — for as long as you don’t mind me, then.”

“Mind? I asked you, so I should be saying that.”

“I’d never mind — I mean, of course I don’t mind.” He’s quick to correct himself, and you have to stop your own hand from reaching out to try to satisfy your curiosity, the desire to know just how hot his cheeks get when he blushes. “More than happy to help, actually.”

“And I’m more than happy to be here.” You beam at him, and he mirrors your smile. You don’t know what it is about the look on his face — the brightness in his eyes, or the slight lift of his eyebrows, maybe — but it gives you the impression that he might be feeling at least a fraction of what you are: the feeling of your heart lifting off a few inches from your rib cage. “Since we’re on the same page, I hope — should we get to it?”

From the moment that Mark opens his textbook to a chapter on inverted parabolas, he assumes a personality you feel you haven’t seen from him before. You realize that you really do know him in only two limited capacities — his classroom persona that seems to really only view himself and the material, focused on the board and the professor’s words (even up until the useless anecdotes) to absorb as much information as possible, and his more genial customer service form, always happy to assist in the trained, easygoing way you’ve come to meet so often.

Right now, he’s a blend of both, yet somehow neither all at once. He’s quick to catch the parabolas you draw, either wrongly or downright poorly. Despite initial hesitation, he always manages to say something; there’s already a pattern to how he does it, from his slightly awkward, “Ah, sorry, actually —” to the way his finger traces over what you’ve written, outlining the right curve. You find his interruptions so endearing that you start drawing them wrong purposefully — not enough for him to realize your schemes in their entirety, but enough to cast you a few amused glances, like he can’t imagine why you’d map out such an absurd graph. You get the feeling he wants to actually laugh at how ridiculous you’re acting, but he can’t tell if you’re seriously struggling or not, so he settles for a smile he thinks he does well in keeping to himself, but that you catch anyway. He’s patient, even when you have to rip out pages from the back of his notebook because of your ‘mistakes,’ like he’s still catering to your request for an extra pump of syrup for your coffee on sleepy days.

But there’s also that side to him that comes out when he suddenly remembers the distance between you that, before today, had felt unlikely to be closed. It peaks at odd moments, like when you’re borrowing his pen because yours is currently holding your slowly unraveling bun up, and your fingers brush against his. It surfaces abruptly when you lean in to watch what he’s drawing until he realizes how close you are, arm lightly grazing his, and his pen freezes, ink blotting on the paper for a second. It’s in those times that you can almost hear his brain churning out questions — like he’s wondering if you’re just oblivious or if you’re doing something on purpose that he can’t quite believe. Like he wants to ask you what’s on your mind, but he just doesn’t know how.

If he asked, you would reply without missing a beat. The answer, after all, is simple (him). But Mark never raises the question, only does something without fully acknowledging what he’s doing — the adjustment of his glasses on the bridge of his nose, the ruffling of his hair as though to shake off his thoughts, the clearing of his throat to normalize his tone before he explains something you’ve just asked about. There’s always that light tinge of pink to his face that makes him look even more endearing, and it fades and returns every so often for the better part of two hours.

By the time he rubs oncoming fatigue out of his eyes, the sun has already set; there are far fewer people around you at this time, and for as much as you like spending time with him and breathing in the scent of his shirt — always a tinge of Downy, barely cutting through the much more overpowering scent of espresso and sugar — your back has begun hurting from your front-heavy posture and determination to have your face as close as rationally possible to Mark’s. Still, you don’t miss out on the fact that the act of him cracking his neck to relieve tension makes your lips curl inward, trying to stifle an inappropriate noise in reaction to the view.

“I feel like I talked your ear off,” he pipes up, sounding a bit sheepish. “Sometimes it’s hard to know when to stop once you’ve gotten started. I’m just hoping I didn’t bore you to death.”

“Meanwhile, I’m here hoping you aren’t sick of my questions already.” You smile, closing your notebook and hanging the clip of your pen on the spiral. Your arms stretch up first, followed by your back, a light twist to relax your posture into normalcy again. Mark’s breathing falls quiet, like he’d been preparing to say something in response but had let it die in the back of his throat instead. You let your eyes drop, expecting to see him looking at you, as he mostly has been — on and off — since his shift ended, but his eyes are far lower than yours, the telltale redness now growing in evident splotches across his cheeks.

The hem of your shirt has ridden up; while there’s nothing outrageous about it, there’s a short expanse of skin that it reveals, for a brief moment. His eyes are slightly glossy, brow furrowed like he’s trying to find a solution to something he can’t fully understand. You’re not even sure about what he could really be looking at, or if there’s something he’s just thinking of that caught his attention while his eyes focused on a rather unfortunate spot. To test your theory, you suck in your stomach slightly alongside an inhale.

It should be objectively funny to watch Mark blink unevenly, left eye going first before his right tries to catch up, but you manage to stifle your laughter — poorly, though, because you end up coughing a little and breaking him out of his strange trance. You avert your eyes quickly enough for him to look vaguely relieved that you hadn’t caught him looking. So he thinks, at least.

“Anyway.” You feel bad that you have to tear his mind away from whatever faraway land it must be trying to burrow a hole in; the dazed expression on his face dims into hastily hidden embarrassment. You don’t want him to feel awkward, so you just busy yourself with packing up, making an unnecessary show of stuffing your notebook back into your bag as if it isn’t half-empty at this point. “I really appreciate you taking the time to help me.”

“Any time.” His first attempt is a little raspy, maybe from overuse of his voice today, so he clears his throat and tries again. A slow smile builds on your lips. “Any time, really. I’m glad that this is actually helping you; you pick things up surprisingly fast.”

“Wait, really?”

“Yeah. Give it a couple of weeks, and you’ll probably be ready to tackle it on your own again, I’m sure.”

He smiles reassuringly, but all you can think about is how that’s not good. You should pretend to be a little dumber next time, or this will end much too prematurely.

The next five minutes pass in silence; you don’t expect to be knee-deep in conversation anyway since, as much as you try to convince him, you aren’t actually anywhere close to being those kinds of friends yet. There’s an unspoken rule to the give and take of things, where he pauses for you to get an item off the table and push it into your bag before he does the same with his own belongings. Neither of you really intersect paths, save for the moment you both grab your phones and stand at the same time.

His jaw falls open like he’s preparing to say something, then shuts as if he’s better decided against it. You decide to take the initiative to say what you’re assuming he wants to. “Same time, same table?”

“Oh — uh, yeah, for sure.”

You want to ask him to walk out with you. You want to lace your fingers with his, tug him out, and kiss him under the green and white glow of the sign outside. You want to know if kissing his collarbone means you’ll taste a hint of coffee. You think about doing it all somehow, especially since he’s fighting back a slight smile at the promise of tomorrow.

But it just isn’t the right time.

Instead, you place a hand on his shoulder, giving it a light squeeze. The slow movement of his throat — yet another hard swallow — isn’t lost on you, and his eyes land on where the two of you connect. With a grateful smile, you bid him a soft goodbye, taking your leave first.

You don’t look back — at least, not until you’re fully in the cover of the darkness outside. On the gravel path, just out of reach of the lamplight, you chance one last glance back into the store. Mark is still rooted to the same spot, his backpack slung over one shoulder, staring at the table like he’s dissociating from what just happened — like he can’t believe the last couple of hours.

Your smile grows when you see his own, and his hand comes around to the back of his neck, rubbing it lightly like it gives him small comfort to let him know that it was real.

Baby steps, you remind yourself. You’ve already got one foot in the door, after all.

As the days trickle by, you fall into a more comfortable standing with Mark; there’s a routine to your meetings that seems to eliminate the initial and abrupt awkwardness of that first day. You come into that Starbucks at four, greet Mark, who doesn’t ever have to ask for your order, and spend the next hour and a half slowly sipping on it until the ice has thinned and watered down your drink substantially. In that time, you allow yourself to do whatever you want (as if you’ve ever done otherwise anyway), and what you usually want the most is a good view of him. You therefore use most of the minutes you have on hand to regard him from different angles — from the side when he’s frothing milk, upfront when he turns to leave cups on the pick-up counter, from the back when he’s clearing tables — interspersed with moments of checking your TikTok feed, clearing group chat messages, and sometimes re-curling your bangs with a portable iron from the school’s co-op center, a relatively new purchase you tote around these days. You do essentially anything in between to avoid acting too suspicious while he works.

Sometimes, you catch Mark’s eye too; the more your meetings increase in number over the course of a few weeks, the more deliberately he looks over at you, and the longer it lasts. You feel like you’ve made significant progress when your gazes lock and he smiles slightly, albeit a bit unsurely, instead of turning away like he used to. The other day, he’d even passed by while apologizing for how long you always waited for him — not that you ever minded, something you made a point to clarify with him before he walked away, carrying a couple of chairs from the back room with him to replace rickety ones.

That he’s able to transport them easily, as if he’s lugging a bag of apples from the grocery, does not escape your watchful eye.

What you like the most is that you start to learn more about him in a way that isn’t fueled only by your expectations and, therefore, limited by your imagination. You find out that he’s from a close-knit family with a rather cushy background, and this barista job is just for interest funding and experience, in that exact order. Most of his earnings are funneled into the things he collects, which apparently isn’t limited to comic books and special edition blu-rays with director’s cut but also a rather stupendous amount of PopMart blind box figurines. Apparently, he particularly likes the Skullpanda series even if he hasn’t completed it yet; your last session together had adjourned thirty minutes earlier than usual so that he could catch a pre-rush hour inner circle train to Hongdae, where the flagship store was set to open on that day. He’d promised to show you his pulls (as long as they weren’t embarrassing dupes). You learn that he likes to listen to loud music when he studies to stimulate his mind, and he has a playlist that’s just a jumble of songs from Punk Goes Pop volumes that makes him feel empowered for some absurd reason, like he’s going against the grain. You don’t really get it, but you do like that spiced-up rendition of Ariana Grande’s Problem that he let you listen to once.

Of course, there are things that you find out not through conversation but through continued, closer observation. You notice that he likes to put on chapstick even if his lips aren’t particularly dry, but he does worry on them often, most especially when he’s thinking hard about something. He has a habit of saying honestly… at the start of every other sentence, as if he’s concerned you won’t take his word on anything, even though he’s just talking about how unnaturally hot it was at noon despite it still being spring. He has long eyelashes that you’re equal parts attracted to and jealous of, and he bites the inside of his cheek whenever he wants to pep himself up after grueling shifts. He plays beats you’re not even sure he knows he’s creating against his knee with his fingers, so enthusiastic and consistent in this habit that you want to offer your thigh instead. His shoulders always go first before he laughs, and he does this thing where he raises his hand to cover his mouth at the start of it, which is a shame, because you’d do anything to keep seeing him smile like that — or, better yet, to be the reason for it.

Then there are those things you notice he tries to hide. He always turns his face halfway to the side when he blushes, something he seems to do without fail every time you smile at him. He has to temper the intensity of his grin when you take the time to compliment him on how cool his shirt is, or how nice his hair looks today, or how smart he is, like he doesn’t want you to know how good it makes him feel even if you want him to feel good about it, around you, because of you. Sometimes he denies it for the sake of responding, and his voice always lilts on the first syllable in his refusal to accept what you say, even though he knows you won’t take it for an answer.

And after a couple more careful experiments, you notice that Mark, out of the many things he’s interested in, seems to have a particular thing for your stomach.

You don’t know if it has anything to do with him not really seeing much of it in real life in his own time or if he just has his own kind of fixation on it, but you start to cotton on by the fourth time you meet. An hour of being hunched over a table that’s not at the greatest height in relation to your neck and torso has you stiff, and you’d leaned back in your chair, arms pulling to the air, hoping your spine might feel like realigning if you exerted enough tension pressure that way. Your shirt hadn’t ridden up this time, considering it had been tucked into your jeans, and it was because of this that you’d caught a flicker of something new in his face that you hadn’t seen before.

You could have sworn it looked like disappointment.

Of course, he hides it quickly, as he does with most of his emotional candor, but it’s enough to make you suspicious — enough to make you wonder if Mark is also just keeping something to himself. Or maybe you’re just projecting your own presently secretive nature onto him. Regardless, you think it’s odd that whenever you stand up or stretch, his eyes almost immediately fall to your midriff, like he wants to challenge your clothing into a staring contest before he thinks better of it.

You don’t mind, anyway. He can look as much as he likes. Maybe when the weather’s warmer, you’ll even cater to that interest and wear a crop top. Hopefully, that’ll be the push he needs to act on human instinct and ask you out or, like… bend you over. Maybe.

You’re often plagued with these kinds of thoughts in between the ones you try to keep as family-friendly as possible — now, more so than ever.

Sometimes, it’s easier, especially when you’re caught up in talks with him; despite the fact that he doesn’t seem like much of a conversationalist when it comes to generic matters, when either he or you are enthusiastic about a particular topic, he has a tendency to get carried away. There’s nothing impure about how his eyes light up when you remember to ask him about the movie he saw with his friends over the weekend or the way he hums old Nickelodeon cartoon theme songs under his breath whenever he’s looking for a page in the textbook. It’s more of a situation where you’ll observe something and immediately run with it despite it being an objectively normal action.

Like right now, as you’re watching him turn his pen between his fingers. Now, while he’s shaking his knee in mild impatience, as if he’s trying to will the answer to the worksheets you’ve both been trying to get through for the better part of the day faster. You’d made copies of the problems your professors had assigned and exchanged them under the premise of being able to practice more intensely.

However, whereas Mark is actually focused on solving, you’re just watching him out of the corner of your eye, wondering if he’s ever been told that his fingers are fuck-worthy on a singular, unique level or if it’d feel good for you to ride the thigh he’s currently moving, jeans and all. You consider the feeling of his warm palms on your bare waist as you do it, and you end up wondering if that’s what crosses his mind whenever he sneaks glances at you, too.

You’d know the answer to all those things if he’d fucking ask you out. Maybe you could do it after all. Maybe you should, instead of relying on slowly increasing the probability over such a long period of time. Maybe if you asked nicely, Mark might pull the shades down on the storefront windows and rail you against the glass.

You’re so lost in thought that it genuinely startles you when he plops his textbook over the worksheet, rattling your eraser dangerously close to the edge of the table. You’re still clutching your heart while he rubs his eyes a little too violently.

“Can’t,” he groans, and his neck gives into the weight of his head, allowing it to loll backward. “I feel like the numbers are just melting into each other. I swear, I thought I could read words out of them.”

“Maybe we were a little too ambitious with the double worksheet agenda,” you admit, even though you’ve barely gotten past half of yours and certainly haven’t touched a single item on his. “Should we call it a day for now?”

“Yeah,” he agrees, although he still takes the time to encircle his final answers before clapping his palms to his cheeks (an act that has your mind dangerously close to wandering off inappropriately again) to wake himself up. “Woah. I didn’t even notice how dark it is already. I’d say time flies when you’re having fun, but I’m not too sure about the ‘fun’ part of it…”

You trace his gaze towards the glass; the moon’s already out, surrounded by a smattering of low-light stars. You hadn’t realized how late it had gotten, probably because your mind had been on R-18 mode for most of the afternoon. Also, the days are getting generally shorter, but that fact doesn’t make you feel as embarrassed, at least.

“You got a ride?”

The question once again shocks you out of your small trance, and you turn back to him with wide eyes. “Well — no. Wait, I didn’t know you had a car. Why’d you take the subway, then?”

“Oh — no, sorry, I… don’t.” He looks suddenly sheepish, eyes dropping to the shiny surface of the table for a moment before they snap back up, as if he’s actually actively reminding himself to look at you. “I was wondering if you wanted me to — actually, more than that, are you going home already? Not that you need to stay; it’s not that important, but…”

You try to gloss over the fact that he had just been about to initiate another huge step in the right direction (i.e. offering to walk you home) by beaming at him, maybe a little too widely, if only to mask your disappointment at the sudden shift in conversation. “I have nothing waiting at home for me but a sandwich dinner and Singles Inferno, so hit me with whatever it is.”

“Oh, cool.” His lips turn up, and the corners shake, this show of happiness once again tamped down by his own inexplicable desire to maintain a safe distance. How are you supposed to tell him you’re desperate to bridge that gap without using those exact words? “I came from the flagship store yesterday — the one in Hongdae that I told you about?” He allows the smile to widen slightly when you nod in genuine understanding. “Got the last six boxes of the collection I’ve been trying to finish.”

You whistle appreciatively. “Can I ask you for a loan on my next phone bill? You know, once I’ve upgraded to something pricier.”

“Nah — just itching to complete the set,” he laughs. You wonder if he’s been doing that more often because he knows its crippling effect on you, though you doubt he’s that sly. Again, maybe you’re just projecting too much of your own motivations onto him. “This was probably about two months of saving up combined.”

“No new Iron Man issues to look out for, then?” Your voice is warm even though it takes on a teasing tone; Mark’s hand rubs the back of his neck, and his expression is a little sheepish, but you’re happy that the times he used to go completely quiet, opting only to blush at your attempts to act more familiar with him are pretty much gone now.

“Maybe next month.” You also like that he doesn’t really treat his hobbies as secrets, neither out of shame nor snobbishness. He explains these things to you the same way he does the topics you study — with an air of contentedness, like he’s happy someone listens to him without interrupting. On your end, you have no qualms with listening to his voice for hours, wondering when he’ll stop using it to greet you when you come through the door and when he’ll start saying your name in a way that makes you feel like you’re the only one he sees whenever you’re near. It’s a win-win situation (sort of). “I was actually debating between this collection and a really rare copy of Spi— well, never mind that. I just thought — since you were asking me a bit about blind boxes last time. You know, if you wanted to. With… me.”

As much as he’s become comfortable talking to you about things that don’t involve coffee orders and school, you can’t say that you aren’t doing your fair share of the work in connecting the dots; the demand for your efforts is exponentially higher in moments like this, when you think he’s trying to ask you something but can’t seem to find less-than-eager words to avoid what he thinks might spook you.

Luckily, he augments his fragments with action; reaching into his backpack — which you notice seems to be bulkier than usual — he starts extracting small brown boxes, all with the same design; it seems, for lack of better words, aesthetically gothic, and you reach out to pick one up, turning it over and examining the print on each side with vague interest. Mark starts laying them out on top of each other until there’s a small, somewhat unstable pyramid in front of him, then shifts his attention fully to you, just as you’re putting the box in your hand atop all the rest.

“I’d love to.” You beam as he does, and there’s a wondrous relief in his eyes that tells you he’s glad you manage to catch onto his words — or lack, thereof — surprisingly well. “For as long as you don’t blame me for any bad draws.”

“The contents have already been decided by my own hand — sort of,” he chuckles. “Point is, I would never do that to you. But I won’t lie; I kind of want to rely on your luck a little more.”

“What makes you think I’d have any of that running through my system?”

“Not sure — beginner’s luck, maybe? You just kind of look like one of those kinds of people to me — like… you’re just made of good things.”

You don’t know how to take this compliment; on the one hand, it’s easily one of the sweetest things Mark has ever said to you that doesn’t involve anything with actual sugar content. On the other, you know you’re not as lucky as he makes it sound, considering you’re still striking out on getting past the borderline of friendship with him. All you can do is smile, nodding and making to move closer to him by sliding into the next seat.

It’s hard to ignore the sight of him stiffening; something like surprise mingled with both fear and interest flashes strong across his face, but you don’t do anything to acknowledge the slight change in atmosphere, choosing to settle down comfortably and clap your hands. “So. What are the rules? What can I do, and what can’t I?”

“Uh.” His throat constricts at the right moment, the syllable getting caught and causing him to clear his throat. You know that this is the nearest you’ve ever been to him, the sleeve of your shirt tickling his arm. Upon closer, albeit brief inspection, you note that he’s also rather veiny. That doesn’t do your impurity any favors. “Not… really rules, or anything like that. Just — these are the ones I’ve been looking for. Not that you can really control it, but in case you were curious about that.”

You squint intently at the scaled-down images he points out. There’s one that looks like a penguin caught in an oil spill; another that seems to be in a polar bear costume, dozing; and — “What’s… halo? Halo…bios?”

“It just means marine life,” he answers quickly, like the thought means close to nothing to him to know something that obscure. Whoever said that smart is the new sexy wasn’t joking. “Like… all things that live in the ocean, that kind of thing.”

“And you know this because?”

He pauses, looking thoughtful. “I’m not sure. I guess I must have just learned it when I was curious about what it meant some time ago. Isn’t that how we all learn things?”

You shake your head incredulously, and he smiles a little apologetically. “You never cease to amaze me.” Your nail drums against the silhouette of one with a question mark on it. “What’s this supposed to be? Can you draw your own figurine, or something?”

“No.” He’s clearly amused, but his expression’s still patronizing enough for you to not feel too bad about saying something idiotic. “It’s a secret design — a money drainer, basically. You could buy a full set of this and still not get it. Some people will open hundreds without any luck, so it’s really rare.”

“You don’t want it?”

“I try not to get too caught up in the secret thing,” he admits. “Otherwise…”

“No rare print comic books for the rest of your life, basically?”

He taps his nose, and you both share another laugh. It’s nice, you think, to have come this far — to be someone Mark can share his interests and thoughts with. You may have been stretching the word to its limit when you first punched your way into his social life and called yourself his friend, but it feels more real now, more natural to think about and say. Even if he still sometimes seems to be hyperaware of the gap between the both of you, there’s no denying, at least, that it’s been significantly reduced, and this much is a testament to that.

“Well, leave it up to me. I’ll let all of this beginner’s luck rub off on you,” you announce with overflowing albeit unfounded confidence.

You both decide to open a box each at the same time; Mark suddenly panics and asks you not to unseal the foil bag right away without looking at the card inside first, earning him one slightly alarmed look followed by a burst of laughter at his pained expression when you pretend to rip open the packaging. Comparing pulls, you identify them using the set chart — your luck doesn’t seem to be operating at full capacity yet because you can only offer him the card of one that looks like a floppy pigeon, which he responds to with a slightly apologetic grimace before saying he’s already pulled that thrice in the past. He, on the other hand, is turning the card of the polar bear over in his palm, trying not to make you feel bad for your duplicate pull by slipping it under his textbook when your eyes land on it.

The second round isn’t much better; both of you manage to pull something he’s already added to his collection, and as you’re ripping the seal to your third box, he pauses and watches you. You think it’s because he’s concerned about the obvious shit luck you’ve had thus far and wants to snatch it from you before your negative energy transfigures whatever’s inside into something he doesn’t want, and you’re just about to offer the half-opened package to him before he pushes the one on his end to you.

“No way, Mark.” Your eyes are wide, a palm up to reject it. “If that turns out to be another dupe by my hand, I’m literally going to walk into oncoming traffic.”

He has to control his amusement at your words so that it doesn’t completely shake his voice into incoherence. “I picked all of these while I was there, so if anything, you’re only riding off my bad luck. Besides, this is your first time doing this. I want you to have fun.”

“But,” your voice is pained. “Your money.”

“It’s not a big deal. With how few I need to complete them, I was definitely bound to run into more repeats than new ones.” He taps the front of the textbook — or, at least, the part of it not buried under the figurines and sealing tapes yet. “Probability mathematics.”

“I thought we already ended the study part of the day,” you grumble but concede, putting aside the one you half-opened to tear the top of his. You’re careful when you shake out the foil packaging, making sure to place it upright on the table before extracting the card. Both of your faces fall — yours more than his — when you see it’s a repeat of the polar bear.

“Almost. It would’ve been a pretty lucky pull earlier, so it’s technically not bad,” he tries to reassure you, but you childishly feel like you’ve been the sole source of his disappointment thus far. “Try the last one.”

It’s irrational, but you’re suddenly anxious about it. For some reason, you’re worried that this will topple the carefully constructed ladder you’ve propped up against Mark’s tower of social defense. Even if he’s being genial about your rotten pulls, you don’t know how much of it is just resignation to dismay on his part.

You say a small prayer, then fully rip off the seal; you don’t even take out the packaged figuring anymore. You just shimmy the card out of the box, turning it over when you notice it’s upside down.

For a moment, your shoulders deflate. It’s closest to this pastel purple figurine in the middle of the line-up, its stupid puckered lips almost taunting you. He hadn’t even mentioned it as something he’s looking for, so you almost feel like this has come to a horrible full circle. But then he grabs the box, checks the list, and looks back at your card again. He looks shell-shocked, and you’re not sure if it’s the strong air conditioning directed towards the two of you or if it’s just his hands, but the image he’s holding is shivering slightly.

You look more closely at it, and something just doesn’t feel right. Color palette aside, there are notable differences — different colored lips, a more intricate ear design, and closed eyes. It’s…

“Dream eater,” Mark’s voice is hushed, almost reverent, and very, very close to your ear. “It’s the secret one. You’re… incredible.”

“What are you talking about,” your words are just as raspy; you’re not sure if you’re actually choked up with emotion or something — over a figurine, you have to remind yourself. “You picked all of this. I just ripped open the box.”

The hush that falls over the both of you feels very concrete, weighty on your shoulders. His fingers creep towards the foil packet — the only one he actually opens because there’s no way he’s not keeping it. The shiny purple head gleams under the fluorescent, the glitter around the star and moon designs catching the light as he turns it left to right, like he’s worried it’s a fake. You can tell why people want these things so much; there’s a thrill in you that lingers, makes you feel warm and alert. It’s anticipation, despair, excitement, and triumph all in one sitting.

You’re stroking the smooth curve of the design by the ears lightly when Mark speaks up again and says the most outrageous thing.

“I want you to have it.”

“What?” You actually have to pop your ear canal in front of him with your pinky to make sure he knows how ludicrous he sounds. “This is… you said it was crazy rare.”

“Yeah. And you pulled it, with your magic. That’s like… unimaginable luck. Even more than beginner’s luck.”

“Like I said, I literally just opened the box.”

“No — you have like… the golden touch.”

“Please,” you hiss, a genuine testiness to your voice. “Do not. I was just here for the ride — the experience, and all.”

“Seriously, take it.”

“Absolutely not—”

It’s a chaotic moment of him trying to hand you the figurine and you outright rejecting it, with both your palms working hard to push it back to him. Instead of nudging the plastic back, though, you end up placing the full force of your hands against his fingers.

There’s no actual spark when you touch, but your reactions make it feel like there might as well have been; you even lock eyes in startled unison, like you can’t believe that just happened, before you pull away quickly, Mark drawing the figuring back to his torso while looking away towards the counter, where a lowerclassman is wiping down the stains. You want to scream at your warped reflection in the window. You barely initiate contact with him, but you imagine that if you ever did, you would prefer to not be saying something as abjectly negative as absolutely not while doing so.

Your mind flails in an attempt to mitigate the issue and water down the embarrassment, and clearly he’s struggling to figure it out too, because he pipes up before you can piece your thoughts together.

“No, really.” His tone is a lot milder and, consequently, a lot more persuasive this way. “You should take it. I want you to.”

“It’s not mine. This is your thing — your hobby.”

“That’s why I’m giving it to you. I swear — I want you to keep it.”

“Why?”

He lapses into silence again, but his face is much redder than earlier. His mouth opens in an attempt to say something, but he just manages to uh his way back into a state of quiet, which gives you a chance to speak instead.

“We can… share it,” you suggest. “Shared custody…. ish.”

His eyebrow cocks involuntarily, and his jaw falls again, but all he does in actual response is nod — slowly at first, then with more sureness to the act.

“Yeah. We can share it. I’d… like that.”

You’re glad that the bulk of the awkwardness has fizzled out fairly easily, and when you think about it, this feels like a pretty good course of action; you like that it’s this little link between the two of you now — something you share that no one else can touch.

Mark, you notice, is smiling as well — more to himself than towards you, it seems. His thumb grazes across the face of the figurine, slow across the lips, and you’re once again falling into a pit of nonsense by wondering when he’d do that to you.

“Thanks for staying with me, _________,” he finally says, and your heart jolts and melts all at once. “And for… doing this. For chatting with me. And giving me your luck, and all that. Great way to end the day… with you.”

You say no problem, but you instantly regret it when you realize you could have just said it didn’t have to end just yet.

“__________? Hello? Come back down to Earth?”

“Shut up,” you sigh at the guy seated across you — Seo Youngho, an upperclassman, your Gender Studies classmate, and current project partner, waves in front of your face. You shoo his hand away, which only joins his other one as he throws them in defeat above his head. “Stop moving. Be quiet. Don’t talk.”

“That’s the same thing as shut up and be quiet. What’s up with you?” He demands. “Fifteen minutes ago, you were full of ideas. Now I feel like I’m talking to a wax figure.”

You’d been engrossed in your report for the last hour and a half, and the subject matter is admittedly something you enjoy — the role of gender in Twenty-First Century Korean marketing and advertisement, a title Youngho had taken more than ten minutes to type into the Google Docs header because he was pissed off at how the numbers looked like in the fonts he chose. He’s an enthusiastic classmate and someone you’ve come to be friendly with, not only because he’s genuinely approachable but also because he has fits of nosiness and talkativeness at the strangest moments, so a chunk of your relationship is mostly based on social terrorism on his part. You like him well enough most of the time — save for the last fifteen minutes of this hour.

Because Mark had just come in for his shift fifteen minutes ago, and suddenly Youngho is much too noisy for your taste, and his head is honestly way too big to the point that it gets in the way of your opportunities to see Mark behind the counter. You even resent him for choosing a booth instead of your usual table all of a sudden, because your view of the central barista’s area is much more limited from this angle, especially since the huge espresso machine is in the of your field of vision.

You’re also (currently and abruptly) mad at Youngho because you remember that he’s the reason you’ve had to skip out on a couple of sessions with Mark. Like, it technically isn’t his fault that you have a lot of research to do for the literature review section of the paper, nor is it his fault that this is your final requirement that comprises a whopping forty percent of your grade, but like… you’ll blame him anyway. So you’re much more irritable, and you’ve definitely been missing Mark’s presence. In fact, you kind of just want to shove Youngho’s balloon head away and call Mark over to sit with you, but you’re not that much of an animal to actually do that.

Probably.

There had been inquisitiveness across Mark’s face when he’d come in; his eyes had trailed to the table at which you usually sat, surprised to find two guys hunched over a single phone there instead of the usual you, waiting for him with your eyes bright and your smile wide. You’d like to think it’s because he’s gotten as used to seeing you as you’re used to waiting to see him — like he just expects you to be there.

You hadn’t really known how to call his attention to where you were, especially since Youngho was prattling very matter-of-factly about the academic journal he’d unearthed yesterday and how he thought it would be useful in reshaping the methodology of your paper (whatever). There was a moment in which you briefly considered ordering another cup of coffee just to get in line to talk to him, but your hands were already shaking from the venti you’d had to keep yourself from passing out in front of your partner.

So you’re more than relieved when, half an hour into his shift, Mark finally steps out from behind the huge machine, a mug of water for himself in hand, and turns away from the front of the store to drink it — only for your eyes to lock as he twists his torso in your general direction.

The mug stops just inches from his lips, but you could swear he smiles at you briefly when he recognizes you, so you return the favor. Youngho’s face contorts into abject befuddlement, turning around to see what you’re grinning at.

“Oh, you poor sap,” he snorts, finally letting the puzzle pieces fall into place.

“What?” You’re still distracted even if Mark has taken a gulp of water and is now attending to a gaggle of girls still in the throes of discussing what to order.

“What what? You gonna spend the rest of the day eyefucking Mark Lee from over here? At least let me get a different table.”

“Shut up,” you repeat sullenly, coming back down to his level and finally — albeit reluctantly — meeting his eye (just because Mark isn’t looking your way). “What were you saying about the sample size?”

“That it’s much too large to be feasible, a point we closed twenty fucking minutes ago,” he says pointedly. “Is it a thing for baristas or a thing for smart guys?”

“It’s a thing for Mark Lee,” you sigh, following Youngho’s suit and shutting your laptop close. You’re at least glad he’s not annoyed that you’re delaying work for a crush, or maybe he’s also just equally lazy at this point. “You ever look at someone and think you would give it all up for a chance to hit that?”

“No, because this isn’t a porn movie, and I’m clearly not the main character in whatever’s going on in there.” He jabs at your forehead; you swat his hand away again.

“Well, I would.”

He rolls his eyes. “So do it, dumbass.” He says this so simply, like he can’t imagine why you’d be holding yourself back, which is a valid thing to feel, except it’s not really any of his business.

“Can’t.”

“Because?”

“Because it doesn’t fit into my elegant master plan. Also because I want him to ask me out. I just want that victory.”

“Oh yeah, there it is.” Youngho leans over, wiggling his fingers at your ears like he’s greeting a next-door neighbor. “Hey, delusion. Good to see you. Do you even understand how crazy it is that you’re taking a Gender Studies class while waiting for your dick-in-shining-armor like a damsel in distress?”

“Asshole,” you grumble, violently opening your laptop monitor again. “Get back on Google Drive.”

Thankfully, Youngho complies, and the next two hours pass in relative silence and productivity, with you hammering out a vague references list that he promises to format in your stead so you can ‘spend more time dreaming about Mark Lee between your legs.’ You want to strangle him, but there are far too many people in the cafe for you to get away with it. Also, aforementioned Mark Lee would only be a witness to your criminal record, and while you think there’s something romantic in killing for love, or whatever, you’re not sure it’d make the best impression on him.

“Next week’s my birthday,” Youngho announces as he stands to tug on his jacket.

“Congratulations,” you say wryly, peeking over his bulletin board torso to see Mark tugging off his apron and picking up his school bag. Your heart hammers in your chest as he looks over at you briefly, and something like embarrassment passes over his face before he busies himself with neatly folding the fabric. “Go away.”

“Usually people look uncomfortable for not knowing and then start thinking about what gifts to get the celebrant, but I always felt you were kind of a revolutionary.” He snaps his fingers right in front of your eyes, and you look up at him, a little offended. “I’m having a get-together — and by get-together, I mean it’s gonna be a rager. You should come.”

“When?”

“Next Thursday.”

“Can’t,” you chew on your lip, wondering if Mark is leaving. His movements seem particularly slow, but you wonder if he’s just taking his sweet time because he has nothing better to do. Of course, he would have something better to do if Youngho stopped fucking obscuring you from him and vice versa. “Busy. School… whatever.” Not completely untrue. Most of what you do with Mark has to do with school.

“This moony-eyed thing is just not for you, I fear.”

“Are you going to be here all day?”

“Are you? Why don’t you just fucking ask him out, you lunatic?” You can’t imagine why he sounds so exasperated. It’s not like this is his problem — or his business, for that matter. “Maybe if you did, you could fuck him and move on with your life and be an actual contributor to society’s development.”

“Has anyone ever told you how nosy you are?”

“Constantly.” He brings his palms down on the table, the thud shaking you out of another oncoming stupor. “Think about it. Maybe it’ll make you stop making that stupid face.”

“You’ve got a stupid face,” you mumble, sulking as he pinches your cheek as a goodbye before heading out of the shop.

At least you finally get to see Mark in full, glorious view — and you get to watch him come closer, although his stride is somewhat cautious.

“Hey.” Even his voice sounds unsure — almost like the way he used to sound earlier in your friendship. “I didn’t want to interrupt you and… your friend?”

“Oh. Well, you wouldn’t have been interrupting,” you inform him, completely genuine. “He was spouting a lot of nonsense.”

“You guys seemed pretty close.”

“I guess it’s a proximity thing,” you sigh, and Mark raises his eyebrows slightly in question. “We’re partners.”

“Oh.” The way he draws out the syllable is slow. “That definitely makes sense.”

The silence stretches out between the two of you again, with Mark checking his shoelaces. You almost grab your head; it hadn’t occurred to you until now how damaging missing meetings with him would be to your friendship. You feel like you’re slowly being dragged back to square one, and you want to give him an explanation.

“He’s actually… I haven’t been able to see you because I’ve been working on something with him.” you offer, trying to answer a question he didn’t even ask. “Sorry about that. I swear I’ll be back on track tomorrow.”

“No, no — I completely understand.” He pauses thoughtfully. “Thank you… for telling me, though. I— uh, appreciate that.”

“I’d love to see you tomorrow, though.” You try injecting more pep into your voice. “I’ve really been behind on my algebra. I’ve definitely been drowning without you.”

“Oh, yeah.” A small smile graces his lips, but you can’t tell if the reluctance behind it is from fatigue or something that looks oddly like sadness. “I’m down for tomorrow. Same time, same table, right?”

“Yeah, for sure.”

“Cool. See you, _________.”

You watch him turn on his heel, walking to the front door, and something like fear mingled with desperation clutches your heart. Fuck the traditional route, you think. You don’t know what it is about how he’s acting now, but it’s making you feel like he’s slipping through your fingers. All that hard work — there’s no way you’re letting him go.

“Mark, wait.”

You’re at his side, fingers curled into the sleeve of his jacket before you can figure out exactly what you want to say. You feel as surprised as he looks at your sudden liveliness in action, and his gaze trails from your clenched fist to your face slowly, like he’s trying to memorize this whole position.

Your exhale’s shaky, but even still, you try not to sound overtly self-conscious when you ask, “Do you like Chinese food?”

Something in the furrowing of his brows tells you he can’t seem to see where this conversation is headed, and that slightly bothers him. “I like it well enough. Why?”

“There’s this really good dim sum buffet near my mom’s office. We tried it before — the Xiaolongbao is awesome.”

“Hey, that sounds pretty cool. I love Xiaolongbao. I’ll definitely have to check it out then.”

You want to tear your hair out. “How about — you know, checking it out with me? Tonight? You know… together. With me.” You already fucking said that.

You’ve never seen Mark blink this rapidly; he looks like he’s trying to crunch large numbers in his head. A small part of you actually worries that he’s malfunctioning, but just when you think he’s going to glitch out completely, he clears his throat. It bothers you how uncomfortable he looks. “Tonight? Oh man… it’s my cousin’s birthday tonight. I can’t… reschedule. Well, obviously. Maybe some other… time?”

Your ‘oh, yeah’ is small, and so is the ghost of Mark’s smile. You can’t help but feel like he’s pitying you a little, although he doesn’t seem like the type, but the thought of it alone makes you want to puke. He makes no motion to move, and you think he’s extending this awkward moment out on purpose until you realize you’re still hanging onto him and he has no way of telling you to let go nicely.

Fingers unfurling from his sleeve, you take a careful step back, but when he walks away, it feels like you’ve gone much, much further away.

The worst part is that you can’t even figure out why.

Luckily, the next few times you see Mark, you manage to rebuild a rather shaky bridge back to where you had been. You even manage to strong-arm him into sharing an apple fritter one afternoon, and you know it’s a bit sad to think about it a particular, untrue way, but you can’t help but pattern what you’re doing into some kind of pseudo-date. Pathetic isn’t a word you normally associate yourself with, but you’ve been borderline desperate for progress where there seems to be none, so you take small victories where you can get them.

Unfortunately, you haven’t been able to revisit your stupid dim sum plan; sometimes, he says he has somewhere important to be, but most of the time, it’s actually your fault. No — it’s Youngho’s fault, because he keeps bothering you to finish the project. You’re aware that he can’t do it himself, but since he’s informed of your current plight, he could at least stand to be more sympathetic.

And you hate the way Mark looks every time you splutter out that you have to take a rain check for that reason; it’s not even disappointment, or something, which would be much more understandable. It’s this mysterious kind of faraway look, where his eyes glaze over a bit and he seems suddenly very lost in thought — or completely dissociated. He never strays away from his normal response of “next time, then,” but that ‘next time’ fades into the weekend and into the start of next week, and you have to spend every other evening with an annoying Seo fucking Youngho on a Google Meets call instead of eating soup dumplings loveshot style with Mark Lee.

Thursday night rolls around, and the former performs the most irritating stunt yet: blowing up your phone with so many KakaoTalk messages that it almost buzzes off the table during your session with Mark. Luckily, he seems to have learned a thing or two from his comic books, catching it before it hits the floor.

“You sure you don’t want to answer it?” He asks, gingerly handing the phone to you like he’s afraid it’s going to explode from all the pinging.

“Without the shadow of a doubt,” you sigh, flipping the screen downwards. Buzz.

“It kind of seems important. Or, like… urgent.”

“He’ll live. Unfortunately.”

Mark falls silent, fiddling with the page he’s on. He’s neatly highlighted the formulas on the page with blue ink, and his finger keeps scratching at the slightly wet paper. Buzz.

“Didn’t you say you two were partners?”

“Yes. Also unfortunately.” Youngho is actually a great person, but you kind of hate how Mark’s paying more attention to his texts than to you right now. “What did you get for number ten?” Buzz.

“A hundred and twe— are you really just going to let it keep ringing like that? What if he’s… I don’t know. In trouble? Like, he needs you?”

You smack your phone on its back, hoping that the punishment reaches Youngho because he absolutely is in trouble — only with you. “He’s just making a racket because it’s his birthday and he probably wants a bunch of people to trash his parents’ house, or something.”

“Sounds like fun.” The dubious tone in Mark’s voice indicates that his idea of fun definitely isn’t that. Buzz.

“Not really, but I assume he’ll only pipe down if he manages to get his way.”

“He must really want you there.”

There it is again — that weird, distant expression that makes you feel like he’s trying to free himself from the tethers of the earth. You close your textbook in defeat; it wasn’t even like you got the answer to number ten correct anyway. Buzz.

“He just wants everyone there, I bet. But I probably should show up so he shuts up.”

“Oh — yeah, okay. We’ll call it a day, then?” He’s avoiding your eye as he starts packing his things, which is actually impressive because you have practically nothing but your book to keep in comparison to his pencils and protractor, so you just stare, willing him to look at you.

You want to know what’s going on in his head. You want to know what’s going on in his heart — what he thinks of you, why he seems warm one second then almost like a stranger the next. You want to know if he knows you like him and if him not doing anything even if he knows is a sign that he doesn’t like you back. You want to know if he’d let you kiss him, if he’d kiss you first, if you can meet not because of sweet cream cold brews or algebra but because you just want to be together.

You just don’t know how to ask. For as much as you like him, for as much as you want him, you haven’t figured out the most basic part of this — if you mean anything more than a two hour talk to him at all.

“Mark.” This feels awfully like the dim sum conversation, only somehow ten times more disastrous. “Come with me.”

“Sorry?” The appalled look on his face makes you squirm in your seat.

“I don’t really want to go, but maybe if we go together… we can just hang out a bit and leave once it’s boring… I think it’d be fun,” you explain lamely, deciding at the last second to drop the with you that had originally come with your sentiment.

“I don’t think your… partner will like someone uninvited showing up.”

“I’m inviting you.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s not how it works.”

“You’d be, like, my saving grace or something — my excuse to scram. We’ll say we came right from a study session; we only popped in halfway through for the sake of greeting him a happy birthday. Then we can just go. We can say — uh, we’ve got more work to do.” You’re practically begging him at this point, and you don’t even get why. You just don’t want him to leave looking the way he does — confused and a little detached. You want the Mark that had smiled at you while giving you your coffee — the one that had kindly pointed out an arithmetic mistake in the most gentle way possible. You want to open blind boxes with him, whine about your rotten luck, and part ways with his warmth still against your coat sleeve.

You don’t know what comes over you then, but you pluck up the courage and initiative to slip your hand in his. He stiffens a little, but you don’t care; your fingers squeeze his in urging.

Something in his expression breaks — cracks first, then falls away, before he’s nodding, still looking vaguely thoughtful.

“If you think it’ll help you, then… okay.”

The bus ride to Youngho’s neighborhood is uneventful because it’s quiet. You stand close to Mark at all times, but you barely touch, save for the times your knuckles accidentally brush his when you lurch forward slightly as the vehicle comes to a dangerously abrupt stop. He doesn’t ask anything about the party or the company that’ll populate it, which is just as well, because you don’t have a clue.

You know it’s the right house because the door’s wide open and there’s music coming from inside; you can’t make out much more than the deep bass pumping through the concrete, but you’re pretty sure it’s making your heart jump in your chest even more than it already is. There are quite a few people you vaguely recognize on the lawn, and even more that you absolutely don’t; a good number of them glance at you and Mark as you step through the threshold then look away, probably deciding you’re of no real consequence or harm to their moods.

Youngho’s easily spottable because of his massive height; he towers over the rest of his guests, and the red plastic cup in his hand calls even more attention because he’s lifted it over everyone else’s heads. You throw Mark an apologetic glance that he responds to with a short nod before you dive into the crowd alone, trying to weave your way to where you’d last seen Youngho.

“Bro, finally!” Youngho greets you, pretty much shouting over the music. “Where’s the gift? Did you leave it on the table?”

“Happy birthday, Youngho. Do you know how close you were to being blocked?”

“I see you brought mister espresso with you,” he ignores your comment completely, nodding to Mark. When you turn back to see him, you notice he’s squishing his arms closer to his sides, trying to minimize the space he takes up. “So what? Y’all get to hook up already?”

“No. I brought him here because we were in the middle of something and someone,” you stop, offering him a pointed look that’s also ignored. “Wouldn’t stop texting.”

“Cockblock,” the guy next to Youngho, who you now realize has been eavesdropping, singsongs. “Oh, sorry. You looked angry when you stomped through the crowd, so I wanted the juicy details. Name’s Jaehyun.”

You take the hand he offers you briefly, introducing yourself. When you say your name, realization dawns on his face, and he jabs his forefinger at you.

“Oh, dude. You’re that girl — the Starbucks Showstopper.”

“The what?”

“That’s what his friends call you.” He scratches his ear, seemingly racking his brain for more information. “I’m with Mark and a couple of his friends — Lee Donghyuck and Na Jaemin — in College Algebra.”

You completely gloss over the fact that you’ve finally found out the real government identity of the mysterious figure named ‘Hyuck.’ “They… talk about me?”

“From time to time. Not really. Once or twice. Donghyuck only calls you that because Mark apparently keeps blowing them off to hang out with you.”

“How do you know this?”

“I have ears. It’s not hard when they talk like no one’s around.”

You shush Youngho’s exclamation of and you’re saying I’m nosy?, your heart hammering hard in your ears, practically drowning out the music. “What… what else did they talk about?”

“Not sure. Something about not seeing you that often these days. Jaemin teasing Mark about getting dropped now that you don’t need his help anymore. Donghyuck piling on and saying you’ve got a boyfriend.”

“What?”

“Don’t shoot the messenger.” Jaehyun still inches away from you when your voice rises in pitch and decibel. Some people around you start, then move away as well, as if scared you’re going to incinerate them. “They were just teasing him that you probably ditched him after you started dating someone. Your partner in some project, or what.”

“Oh gross.” The realization hits you like a speeding truck. Youngho’s expression is affronted.

“First of all, you bitch. Second of all, as if I would date someone who didn’t even buy me a gift. Or want to come. Or yelled at me after coming. Wow — now that I think about it, you’re terrible, _________.”

“Oh, shit; that someone was you?” The only person that isn’t tense in this conversation is Jaehyun, who laughs point blank at Youngho’s sour face. “I think they were offering to put you into one of their Death Note notebooks. Sucks for you, hotshot.”

“What a smudge on my good name,” Youngho sighs mournfully. “On my special day, too.”

“I desperately need you two to be quiet for one second. I have to — where’s Mark?”

Even when you stand on your tiptoes, you’re not nearly as tall as the two of them; it’s Youngho, with his freakish height, who manages to spot Mark by the bowl of nachos, looking as though he’s trying to decide if they’re safe for consumption. You hardly excuse yourself; actually, all you say is a distracted “later” that dismisses Jaehyun’s cooing that something’s going down and you should clue him into all the mess later as a thank you. Your appreciation of his sudden and somewhat short-lived presence in your life is still up in the air.

Mark’s busy making a sour face at the sip of punch he’d just taken; he only straightens up when you’re right in front of him, putting his cup down next to the nachos. “Hey. Did you get to find… um…”

“That’s not important.” Your hand bunches the fabric of his jacket in a death grip, something he barely has time to register, let alone question, before you’re tugging him through the throng of people. You want somewhere quiet, somewhere private, and you initially consider the lawn, except you know it’s strewn with cups and has stragglers debating whether to go home or not. You can’t risk any of them being expert eavesdroppers like Jaehyun, so you make a beeline for the stairs instead.

“We’re not leaving yet?” He has to shout over the music, but there’s no resistance in his stride; he follows you up and waits patiently, although a little perplexed, as you check the doors on the second floor. Two are locked, one is a bathroom, and the other is a messy, musk aftershave-scented place you can only presume is Youngho’s room. Talking in front of a sink and a toilet doesn’t feel like it’ll be very productive, so you just drag Mark into the bedroom, kicking aside the crumpled shirt on the floor — which you could’ve sworn you’d seen Youngho wear for class yesterday. “_________, what’s going on?”

“Mark Lee,” you burst out, ignoring the fact that his eyes widen slightly at your tone. “What’s your fucking deal?”

You don’t think you’ve ever sworn in front of him before; that much is evident when he continues to gawk silently, unable to find words to respond to your question. Or maybe it’s just the volume and force with which you demand an answer. The problem is that you don’t even know what kind of reply you want. A small part of you nags that this is uncalled for, especially at this level, with you practically caging him into an unknown room. In fact, even now, you’re still embarrassed at your behavior, wondering if you’ve gone too far and stepped over a line between you.

But the source of all your frustrations is, in fact, that line — one so strangely drawn, clear at some points and almost invisible at others. Sometimes, he seems simply content with the barest minimum of friendship: talking to you, helping you, politely laughing at your (terrible) jokes. But there are also times he blushes too hard for it to not mean anything, times that he makes you feel like you could mean a little something more to him too.

Yet, from there, he wavers, stepping back so as not to get entangled in something you don’t understand — like when he grows distant every time you mention Youngho to him. You don’t understand why he would unless he echoed, even just a little, the longing in you. But you also don’t get why he stays and builds more walls around himself, like he’s determined to ignore all the other signs — like he doesn’t want to know if it’s really true and will just accept the assumption that it is. You hate not knowing where you stand with him, and while you could easily ask, you know you don’t want to.

And for a long time, you’ve convinced yourself that it’s because you want to see Mark step out of his comfort zone and initiate something, but the ugly truth is staring at you: it’s simply just that you can’t stand the idea of seeing him come to the conclusion that you can’t be anything more to him than someone he makes a sweet cream cold brew for every so often.

There’s a moment of tense silence between you two, where you’re just staring at each other — him, perplexed, and you, agitated — and the only sound that passes is the faint but unmistakable voice of Youngho going who has the cake cutting knife? from somewhere down below. You try not to get caught up in the fact that Mark still looks cute when he’s dumbfounded.

“Sorry?”

“What,” you repeat pointedly. “Is your deal? Why have you been acting so weirdly around me these days? I thought — I thought we were… getting closer. I thought… we…”

You’ve confirmed it now; you’re the epitome of cowardliness. You can’t even say I thought we liked each other — because you know that you do, but you still can’t honestly, assuredly tell if he does. Maybe you just read too deeply into the smallest things — smiles before he asks for your order, glances at you when he thinks you’re not looking, sharing the dream eater figurine — to fuel your own emotions without really checking the depth of his.

“I thought we were cool,” you reroute your words, and they come out flat and lame. “But just when I think you’re warming up to me, you suddenly pull away. Like… you’re afraid of me. Or you don’t like me. I don’t know.”

“It’s not — I don’t — I’m not afraid of you,” he stumbles over his words, and even in the darkness of this space, you see his face turn bright red, very quickly. His feet shuffle, not because he’s lost his balance but because he seems to want to get rid of a sudden restlessness. “I do like you. We are — we were getting — we’re close. We — we’re friends. You said that, and we are.”

“Is it only because I say we are that you agree?”

“What? No, I—” His hand passes over his face, slowing at the curve of his chin. “I really like being friends with you. I like being around you.”

“Then why do you act so weird these days? Like — you’ll be fine one moment, then you’ll back off, like you suddenly remembered you don’t want to be around me.”

“It’s not like that. I’m — I don’t get…” He takes a deep inhale, recalibrating himself for a moment before his voice comes out again, less strained this time. “I just don’t want you to feel uncomfortable around me.”

“How could I?” There’s something more than confusion coloring your voice; there’s hurt, too, and he looks as surprised as you feel at hearing it. “I wanted to be your friend. I was the one that asked you to hang out. I was the one who wanted you to talk to me, to help me, to go to a goddamn dim sum place with me. Why would I feel uncomfortable? Or are you just using this as some roundabout way to say you feel uncomfortable?”

Mark falls silent, and you don’t know why this speaks volumes all of a sudden. His eyes are trained to the tips of his sneakers, which are rising in soft bumps every few seconds; he’s curling his toes inside them. You feel like you’ve gotten the worst answer possible, and something grows cold in your chest.

“You feel uncomfortable around me.” You rehash, but it’s no longer a question. “You don’t know how to get rid of me.”

“No, it’s not that.”

“You think I’m only using you.”

“No.”

“Then what?” Your voice breaks, no longer out of anger, but a desperate sadness. The moment your eyes feel hot and prickly, you decide you want to end the conversation. It’s embarrassing, you think, for someone like Mark Lee — whom you like, who only ever sees you as a friend — to see you get choked up at a fucking birthday party at someone else’s house.

A beat later, you’re mumbling a half-hearted forget it, and you detest overdramatics, but you hate the idea of being in a room with someone who’ll never return your feelings even more right now; you push past him, already on the thought of calling a cab home instead of taking the bus so that no half-drunk businessmen coming from their company dinners see you crying.

But something warm wraps around your wrist, then closes over your hand, and you’re unable to move, Mark’s palm pressed against the back of yours. When you look back, you notice he’s still not looking at you, but his ears are practically on fire with how red they are, and you feel his fingers tighten slightly, tremble slightly against yours.

“It’s not that. I didn’t ever want you to think — I heard about you two. That you were dating someone. Seo Youngho.”

“What does that matter?” Your words come out a little more bitterly than you expect, and you have to remind yourself to reel it in. “That doesn’t explain your discomfort.”

“I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable,” he repeats, still evidently careful in choosing his words. “Because you wanted to be friends.”

“I don’t understand,” you state bluntly. In the back of your mind, you note that Mark’s grip keeps tightening and loosening, unsure of whether to keep holding on or let go. But there’s something else, too — the soft graze of skin against yours, his thumb gliding over your knuckles.

“That was all you said you wanted to be, right?” He waits for a response, but when you don’t give him one, he lets out a shaky breath and continues. “You kept saying — we were friends. You wanted us to be close like that. I just wanted to respect it, even if…”

“Respect what?”

“That you didn’t want… anything else.”

The music downstairs is a bit tamer now; you hear the door opening and closing every so often, signaling guests leaving here and there, but there are still enough footsteps downstairs for you to know that there’s a crowd Youngho hasn’t gotten rid of and therefore has to attend to. That much is good; you’d get slapped with a homicide charge if he came up here all of a sudden.

“You were jealous.”

Mark’s fingers pinch the bridge of his nose for a moment. “I tried to stop. I don’t have a lot of practice with — well, I didn’t know how to approach the situation. I thought I was still acting normally; I didn’t think… I didn’t want you to feel weird and stop hanging out with me just because… I couldn’t fix it.”

“Your friends are assholes,” you mumble, and he finally meets your eye, equal parts startled and amused. “We aren’t. Weren’t. We never were dating.”

“Even without that, I thought… it was a bit embarrassing. Liking someone like you — someone as pretty as you, as nice as you — I thought it would make you feel weird. Then you’d start avoiding me too. Or, worse, you’d keep doing it just because… you… felt bad for me.”

You don’t know what you find more ridiculous — that you hadn’t seen figured it out or that you could have avoided all of this if you’d just been a little more honest with him too. Mark’s hand starts loosening around yours, a little too much, and you turn your palm and grip his hand before he can escape. He stiffens again, just like earlier, but you now understand better why he does.

“I just wanted to keep hanging out with you as much as I could. I thought… It’d be fine, just spending time with you, and I’d be able to like you for a while, on my own, then…” He looks a little pained. “Then just let you go. I’m sorry.”

“Sorry you couldn’t let go?” You sigh softly, your palm guiding his until they connect, face to face, and you can finally lace your fingers into his. There’s no resistance, but his hand trembles slightly in yours still. “If there’s anything you should be apologizing for, it’s that you ever thought of doing it.”

Something clears in the air, lightens in his expression, and he chuckles, albeit a little shyly still. “It’s because I never thought someone like you would like someone like me.”

“I like you.” And it feels right to say it now, not at all out of the blue, never in fear of an answer he’s already given. “I like you when you smile at me every time you ask for my order. I like that you never get impatient when I’m getting my answers wrong. I like seeing you excited when you talk about a new series you’re looking forward to — something new you really want to collect. When you blush, when you laugh loudly, when you spin your pen in your hand — I like you in all those times.”

“Even when I’m jealous?”

“Especially when you are.” Your free hand comes up to cup his jaw, and you’re reminded of the fact that you’ve wanted to feel the strength of the angle under your palm for ages now. It’s not at all a disappointment, and your heart flutters irregularly in knowing you could’ve done this a long time ago, but it doesn’t matter because you’re doing it now, and fuck if Mark Lee doesn’t look good this close to you. “So be jealous — because now, you know you can be.”

Kissing him is better than you imagined, and you’ve imagined a little too much to be embarrassed at this point; there’s a heat to his lips that matches the one across his face, an upturn to them that makes you smile too. The setting’s not at all an expected one, but you’ll take it, not because it’s dark or because it’s private but because Mark’s in here with you, and you would have kissed him in a brightly lit football field full of people for as long as he’d let you.

You’d like to think he’s flushed for a reason other than shyness when you pull away, even if his laugh is quiet and breathy. In fact, when you murmur not enough, he’s the one that closes the gap this time, offering freely what you ask for with such little eloquence. The natural trepidation in his mouth relaxes, gives way to a curiosity that keeps you locked for so long that you forget you need to breathe, much more intent on finding out if Mark’s tongue tastes as good as you’ve imagined for so long.

It doesn’t; it tastes even better.

It’s still not enough, not by a long shot, but you have to resurface before you pass out like this, and even he looks a little dazed when you pull away — not in a bad way, with a grin on his face that you can only classify as endearingly goofy: slightly lopsided and a little shy, but with an unmistakable air of satisfaction.

“Months,” he mumbles, his lips still dangerously close to yours. Your eyebrows rise in questioning, and he laughs in that infectious way that makes you want to join in without even knowing what the punchline is. “I’ve been thinking of kissing you for months.”

And you do share the laughter this time, not out of amusement but of a happiness that spills without restraint. “But you’re suddenly holding back now?”

“Just letting myself bask in the moment, I guess. Letting it sink in so I remember everything.”

The two of you stand there quietly, still trying to fully parse the progression of events, and a small part of your mind registers that Mark’s thumb is still drawing circles on your skin. It’s also not enough — this touch, this closeness. You know now that he’s been thinking of you for months, and it reminds you that you spent that time dreaming of him too. And you remember you’ve always wanted to be even more familiar with him, and suddenly the desire is overwhelming; he’s right here, and you don’t ever want him out of your grasp again.

“Where are you going?” He’s only curious for the sake of it; there’s no alarm in the question because you keep your fingers tightly woven in his, tugging him along as you walk past him to the door. He’s still staring in wonder after the lock clicks shut. “What’s… happening now?”

“You waited months to kiss me, right?” He nods in response at your question. “I’ve been waiting just as long to have you too.”

His mouth falls open, but he doesn’t manage to say anything; his jaw tightens just as quickly when he feels your free hand trail down his chest, feather-light and asking for a green light. Your index finger stops just above his navel and draws back slowly, but not before you feel the shiver that runs down his torso.

“We don’t have to if you don’t want to,” you murmur, giving his hand a little squeeze. “But I just want you to know — I want to. I want you.”

A thoughtfulness settles on his face, and his eyes graze over yours, trying to read your seriousness. You don’t know how honest you look, but your words hold enough truth in them. A silence stretches over the next minute, but to you, it feels like an eternity, and you lose the test of patience somewhat, smiling softly at him.

“You don’t want to?”

“I—” His tongue peeks out, running over his bottom lip. “I do. It’s not that I don’t want to, but…”

“You seem worried.”

A hesitant nod. “I’ve never — well, no, I have, but not — with someone like you.”

“What’s someone like me?” You laugh airily.

“Someone pretty like you — I don’t know. Someone who seems to know exactly what they want. Someone who seems like… they could do better than me.”

“Mark.” You can’t keep the incredulity out of your voice. “I do know exactly what I want. I want you. The rest — I don’t care about. As long as it’s you, I want it.”

He cracks a smile, half of relief, half of disbelief. You don’t miss his hand coming up to press, warm, against your waist. “For real?”

Your fingers curl into the front of his shirt — an anchor to bring you closer, until the tips of your noses are brushing. “For real.”

The third time you kiss is slow, almost careful; there’s lingering worry in the line of his mouth that your lips try to ease until his slightly part under the movements of yours. You feel the tension leave his form in waves — first in his shoulders, then in his arms, until you’re able to press yourself closer and feel the slight give of his frame against your smaller one. He’s radiating an immense amount of body heat that’s pricking your skin and keeping you alert, and you’re hyperaware of the smallest things — the weak tremble in his mouth, the slight roughness of his teeth under your tongue, the ridges of his palate above it.

He tastes nothing like what he smells, you learn. Instead of the air of earthy coffee stuck to clean linen, you inhale a combination of spearmint and mild saltiness that’s made slightly sharper by the lingering splash of alcohol from his accidental sip of punch earlier. You decide then and there that this disparity is important to you; it makes you feel like you’re the only one who can have this experience — that everyone else can know his scent, but now, only you can know what Mark Lee tastes like.

You have to keep your wits about you to avoid this addictive stimulation of your senses; you let go of his hand only to lock your fingers around his neck, and there’s a show of trust in how he lets you lead him backwards, until his knees are hitting the edge of the unmade bed. The kiss breaks as he’s forced to settle on the mattress, and he looks up at you in what can only be described as a quiet kind of awe. He doesn’t complain when you place your hands, heavy, on his shoulders, using his sturdy form to keep you stable as you move to straddle his lap.

“I feel like,” his voice is hoarse as he speaks up. “We should have picked a different location. Someone… could walk in.”

“I locked the door,” you remind him, a light reassurance in your voice. He doesn’t say anything immediately, but it’s clear there are cogs turning in his head, and you think it’s unfair that he’s thinking way too hard about something else that isn’t you, right now, in this position. In a bid to rectify this, your face presses into the side of his neck, breathing in that familiar scent and leaving a light kiss on his skin right after. Your lips mark the moment he swallows hard at the contact. “Besides, would you really be that unhappy if someone did?”

His hands tighten against your waist, prompting you to leave another kiss against his collarbone. “What — what do you mean?”

“You wouldn’t like it if someone — say, Youngho — walked in to see me on your lap like this?”

The silence that follows your words is tense, and you can tell that Mark’s breathing has become shallower. Again, you can feel his throat constricting slightly, and you can’t help but laugh breathily as you nip at his skin, just under his Adam’s apple. He’s surprisingly easy to tease, you realize — quick to turn speechless and prone to hanging onto your words.

To say that you wouldn’t want to use that to your advantage would be a downright lie.

“Tell me,” you urge, your tone deceptively gentle. “You wouldn’t want him to see you kissing me like this? To see me wrapped around you, begging for more, saying your name over and over? You don’t want him to watch you take me — so he knows you’re the only one that can?”

A strangled groan punctuates your words, but it comes from him; his fingers dig hard into your side with barely constructed restraint. “What do you want from me, _________?”

“I want to know if kissing me was the only thing you wanted for months.”

You pull your head away, nudging his chin with the tip of your nose. Another groan escapes him, and his head tilts back slightly, almost like he’s praying. But when his gaze comes down to meet yours at your level again, you see a firm resolution in his eyes that stirs your heart — which takes off the moment he shakes his head, slowly but surely.

“Then,” you whisper. “What do you want from me?”

He doesn’t say so much as shows; he takes from you your breath, steals another kiss that’s now firmer and more openly demanding. Suddenly, his mouth can’t seem to stay still, trapping your lower lip in between his, drawing out your taste until it mixes with his against his teeth. You feel your head growing light again, and you’re pleasantly surprised that it’s suddenly become difficult to keep up with his lips, asking more from you without restraint. A hum of need sounds in the back of his throat, vaguely dissatisfied, and he’s telling you wordlessly that it isn’t enough right before he attaches his lips to the base of your neck, just above your collar. You think he’s just about to return the favor, but a laugh leaves you when you realize he’s taken it a step further, his teeth grazing your skin lightly, soft nips signaling how eager he is to sink his teeth in with only his slowly weakening self-control stopping him from doing it. Mark’s breathing is slightly labored when he pulls his lips away, warm breath fanning over your chest.

“It’s crazy — and stupid,” he croaks out, voice slightly raspy. “But I want it, and I don’t.”

“What do you mean?” Your fingers drag into his hair, combing it upward messily from his nape. He leans in for a quick kiss that’s somewhat misplaced, landing on the corner of your mouth instead of squarely atop it.

“I want them — him to see us. To see me with you, kissing you — fucking you, too. I want everyone to know we’re like this.”

You’ve never heard Mark say anything so forwardly before; a sweet, warm flush builds in your face, pleased at how comfortably he manages to say it — pleased that he’s saying it to you. “Then what’s the problem?”

“I don’t want him to see you.” There’s a bluntness to his words, but hiding behind them is an undertone of pleading — a serious request. “I don’t want him to see how pretty you look. I don’t want him to see you when you’re bare, or how you look when I’m inside you. I don’t want him to see—”

His voice wavers and dies, and you wonder if he’s embarrassed, but when you read his expression, you see an unyielding longing. A smile tugs at your lips, and your hand comes around to cup his chin, thumb extending upwards to drag his lower lip down.

“You don’t want him to see what’s only yours.”

He swallows hard again, but he doesn’t wait long to nod. Understanding passes between the both of you, silently but completely, and Mark presses his face to your throat, feeling the hum resonate as he places another long, firm kiss there.

“You’re mine,” he whispers, in a way that almost feels like he wants to convince himself of something impossible to believe. He doesn’t even wait for your affirmation, prefers to read it in the way you shiver lightly once his lips travel further down. His kisses trail past the collar of your shirt, and his hands are unabashed in how they seek skin, pushing the fabric upward so he can settle the palms of his hands, warm against your waist. Oddly, they don’t travel upwards; they only brush against the dip, down slightly over the upward rise of your hips, then upwards again, almost soothingly. It’s almost like he wants his mouth to meet them, but he stops halfway, sidetracked by the curve of your breasts.

He barely pulls away, only does for a moment, enough to meet your eyes.

“You’re only mine,” he repeats, his voice softer now. You realize he’s still waiting for some confirmation, and when you do, you’re quick to give it to him — quick to erase any doubt.

“I’m yours,” you affirm in the same tone, in the same careful volume. “Only yours, Mark.”

Whatever else he wanted to ask for, he knows you’ve given assent; that much is clear when he buries his face between your tits, inhaling your scent. You briefly wonder if he might feel just as intoxicated around you as you do around him, if your pleasant dizziness in being this close to him, in tasting and smelling him is something he experiences too, but you don’t get much time to dwell on it the moment you feel his lips part, a slight wetness seeping through the fabric. He’s kissing your chest, teeth grazing just above the cup of your bra, nipping without any real objective other than to feel the pad’s slight resistance to his mouth.

You almost miss what he says as he shifts his head, lips brushing over the curve of your breast — another breathless ‘mine’ that isn’t ever punctuated; his lips still stay parted, mouthing at the cloth, like he’s desperate to feel what’s underneath through it. There’s pressure where his tongue presses flush against the shape of your tit, tightness whenever he chooses to nip, attempting to take the flesh and all that’s between you and him between his teeth.

Not enough, you think, even when a whimper of need bubbles out of you; you want to be closer, your thighs pressing against the sides of his. You’re close in almost every way, but you still inch yourself further forward, enough to feel the taut hardness in his jeans. Your hips settle right there, letting fabric ride against fabric as you center yourself.

No sooner do you press yourself flush against him do you gasp; the light sting sends a jolt up your spine when his teeth close around your nipple through your bra, and when you look down at him, you see the corners of his mouth pulled up in evident satisfaction. He’s quick to atone, his tongue dragging your shirt slightly upwards in his attempt to soothe, and for some reason, the push of fabric and the barely-there feeling of motion leaves you tingling.

“Mark.” Your voice comes out in a whine, but in the haze you’re in, you don’t really have a clear idea of what you’re asking for. All you know is that you want more of him, and for as much as he’s already given you in kisses and words, you aren’t even halfway down the list of everything else you wish you could demand from him. You say the only thing that comes to mind — the only thing that really encompasses what you feel. “Mark, I want you. I want more of you.”

His hands on your waist are replaced by the significant tightness of his arms, locked around your torso; you don’t even have the time to take in your awe at the fact that he can easily carry you, turn you over until you’re on your back, until he’s already eased one knee between your legs.

The way he looks down at you is a mixture of hesitation and desire, but the former’s erased when you reach out for him, murmuring another ‘more’ so you can pull him in. With one palm pressed against the mattress, he lets his free hand graze against your side again, bolder in its movements, and his fingers trace a path up to your breast, squeezing the soft flesh through layers. Your back arches upwards in response, eager for more contact, for touch that’s almost there but not quite, and he smiles when you make a noise of frustration from his fingers tweaking the soft nub of your nipple.

“Mark, please—”

“Would you really let him see you like this?” His thumb’s still idly grazing over your breast, following the rise and fall of its curve. You swallow hard, trying to keep your voice level despite the growing want that threatens to break through it. “Would you really let him watch you… get fucked?”

You shake your head, and his brow furrows.

“I’d let him watch you fuck me,” you correct him, and the confusion in his face gives way to pure satisfaction the moment you make this nuance clear. “It has to be only you.”

His grip tightens briefly against your breast again, and he leans down, pressing a surprisingly chaste and brief kiss to your lips.

“Then I’ll unlock the door next time and give him a show.”

You don’t know if it’s what he says or what he does after — his hands bunching your shirt upward until the hem’s just below your neckline — that makes your breath hitch, but you decide it doesn’t matter when you realize you’d much rather be focusing on the journey his lips take, slick against your stomach as he presses languid kisses down to your navel. His fingers hook into the waistband of your jeans, the weight naturally pulling them down, and you see his muscles tighten for a moment as he stops himself from tugging them off completely.

Mark’s mouth is unparalleled in its attentiveness, seemingly intent on making sure he’s covered every inch of your stomach in warm kisses, but you only realize he’s somehow stalling when he starts the cycle again, his nails digging into the taut elastic of your jeans as though to remind himself to curb his desire.

You take the initiative instead, raising your hips slightly to signal your want, acutely aware of the fact that you brush lightly against his thigh when you do so. His eyes lift first, followed by the rest of his face, and he’s watching you quietly. You might have thought he was unsure of what to do all of a sudden again, but his knee pressing closer, an unmistakable pressure against you, is enough to tell you that he’s only curious to know what else you’ll do.

The second time you grind against his thigh, his hands catch your hips, keeping them aloft just long enough for him to tug the band of your jeans downward; he peels them off you with surprising ease, returning to the same position between your legs, hands still firm on your waist. With that done, he only has the thin garter of your panties left to curl his fingers into, bunching it into his fists when you roll your hips up one more time. You manage a shaky noise when you feel the stark difference — the roughness of the denim against you, the stick and drag of flimsy cloth. Mark lets out a low but unmistakable hiss.

“I can’t believe—” his idea is cut short by the movement of your hips again, and his grip tightens, knuckles pressing into your skin. “Can’t believe you’re here. I can’t believe we’re doing this.”

“What am I supposed to do,” you breathe out, the sound momentarily getting stuck in your throat. “So that you know it’s real?”

His fingers relax their hold, palms now pressed against your thighs; they travel between your hips and your knees, a soothing and thoughtful motion. “God — I don’t know. I just want — I just want you so badly. Like… I’m going to go crazy if I don’t have you now.”

You lean up, your weight resting on your elbow, and your other hand reaches out; Mark meets you halfway, bending just a little lower to press his cheek against your palm. There’s something intimate, something so giving about the way he turns his face to your fingers, pressing a fluttering kiss just under your thumb. The tips of your fingers trace the shape of his lips, even when they pucker again under your digits.

“Take me,” you murmur quietly. “Right now — from now on, every part of me is all for you.”

His exhale is shaky, but his fingers have a sureness to them; they slip under your thighs, cradling the backs of your knees, and lifting until they’re folded over your chest. You don’t even have the time to wonder if you should feel exposed all of a sudden; his breath warms the inside of your thigh as he presses his lips there — not a kiss, just a touch as he speaks.

“I want to taste you,” he mumbles, partly distracted with the act of inhaling the mild scent off of your skin. “Every inch of you — I want to know just how sweet you are.”

He lets his hold on your thighs relax, letting them fall apart; he busies his hands with your panties instead, hooking a finger into the strip of cloth just covering you. It’s clear you’re both aware that the fabric sticks light to your skin, poorly masking your wetness, and interest mingled with hunger flashes across his face as he pulls it aside.

“You’re so pretty,” he says, sounding like it’s a comment more for himself than anything else. His gaze flickers to you for a moment before it moves back to your pussy. “The prettiest fucking girl in the world.”

The pressure of his thumb between your folds causes you to forget what you wanted to say, and you know Mark had been nervous, but you realize that it doesn’t mean he’s supremely inexperienced by any means; there’s a quiet, understated confidence in the way he rubs slow, thorough circles, moving upward towards your clit. Your face, your neck, your whole torso feels flushed, but you power through the instinct to tilt your head back so that you can keep watching him — the minute changes in his expression, the slowly building strength in his touch.

“I want to taste you,” he repeats, looking up at you. “I want to know what you taste like when you cum against my mouth.”

You’re not sure if you’re gawking because you can hardly believe Mark Lee — your eternally blushing, mild mannered campus crush — had said all those words strung together into such a lewd sentence, but you’re sure as hell not going to deny him. Your hand travels down your torso, and he watches, curious at first, then awestruck when your index and forefinger settle against either side of your folds, pulling them apart in offering.

His eyes end up transfixed on your pussy again, observing how your fingers ease your folds further apart the more he massages his thumb against your slit. His mouth is slightly agape, intent on drinking in the sight, unaware that you’re trying to memorize this view of him too — Mark Lee, touching you, wanting you, eager to take you fully.

“I’ve always wanted to see what it’d look like with your face between my legs,” you say in a hushed tone, but he catches it anyway, briefly looking up at you again. “I’ve always wanted to know what your tongue would feel like against my pussy.”

Your index finger bumps against the tip of his thumb, and he stops its motions, allowing you to move his digit down until the pad of it hovers just in front of your tiny hole. You can see one cheek tucked between his teeth, bitten to muffle the groan you wish you’d heard louder.

“Won’t you show me?”

You think you hear him rasp out a ‘fuck yes’ before he bends down, pressing his half-open mouth against your pussy. The squeal of delight that leaves you is half-strangled as his thumb curls, hooking into your entrance. It starts a shallow, distracted motion, with his attention funneled much more clearly into keeping his tongue working. Flush against your slit, it drags up, and he releases a guttural noise at your taste, lips pursing slightly on the way back down — like he can’t stand not trapping every drop of wetness with his mouth.

The intensity of his tongue, the idle thrusting of his thumb — you’re not sure what you want to focus on more, and the result is you whimpering incoherently at the starkly contrasting combination of the two. Mark moves his mouth like he’s never tasted anything as good in his life; the sounds between your thighs are wet, sloppy — almost embarrassingly so — but you don’t have the presence of mind to dwell on that because Mark Lee is eating you out and that’s really all that you can think of.

The tip of his tongue suddenly flicks upwards; you keen, long and low, when it starts to circle your clit in that same intense, circular movement his thumb had gotten you used to. Your sensitivity skyrockets, and you’re completely unable to control the upward bucking of your hips, but Mark stays supremely unperturbed, his free arm winding under your thigh to keep the both of you steady. Your noises are growing embarrassingly loud, and you realize just how needy you’ve become when you vaguely notice that there’s a pattern in what you’re saying — his name, over and over again.

“Did you do that too?” He asks softly, his words slightly muffled against you. “Say my name, I mean — when you thought of me.”

“God, yes.” Your voice comes out strained, teetering on the edge of slurring. “So many times — every single fucking time.”

“Promise me something.” He lifts his head, and you see a fieriness in his gaze.

You nod — at this rate, whatever he’d ask you to do, you would without question. “Anything.”

His thumb presses in deeper, up to his knuckle and you reflexively tighten around his digit, but he keeps it anchored there, pushing down against your walls. He drinks in your gasp, the widening of your eyes, the way you chew on your lip with a singular kind of contentment on his face.

“Promise me — from now on, you’ll make sure I’m always there to hear it.”

The only kind of assent you’re able to make is a moan as he dives down again, mouth buried in your warmth, his nose pressed tight against your clit. His tongue moves in strong strokes, broad swipes that push your folds apart further, and his thumb, while not moving, increases in pressure to the point that you feel a heaviness adding to the growing pleasure. Your hands fly down, seeking some kind of sense and reason, and you thread your fingers into his hair, grip tightening as your climax builds in stride.

“Mark, I’m—” close, you want to say, embarrassingly so, but the moment he hears his name, his lips attach to your clit, and there’s suddenly so much more pressure as he sucks, almost like he’s desperate to draw out your orgasm. He chooses this of all time to start moving his thumb again, and this time, his movements are anything but slow and idle; they’re filled with the intent to drive you over the edge. “Fuck me, oh my god—”

“I want to,” he murmurs, pausing for just a moment to drag the tip of his tongue around the nub. “God, I want to. Let me see you cum first; let me taste how sweet you are.”

His thumb stops, buries deep into your pussy, and you’re not sure why this, of all things, is what pushes you beyond control; you’re only half-sure you say his name when your orgasm hits, the rest of your consciousness much too clouded by pleasure. He doesn’t stop, revels in the way you squirm under him as he hums low and keeps his tongue working against your clit. His licks become longer, more thorough as you come down from your high, your cries softening into whimpers as his tongue both attempts to clean you up and makes you messier in the process. His arm is still curled around your thigh, keeping you from inching away from him, even if instinct and stimulation are telling you to.

You’re barely lucid when you sit up, and Mark inches back, somewhat startled; you grab the front of his shirt, and the sight of his mouth, slick and glistening from your wetness, only makes you more curious to know what you taste like on him. You find out how tangy it is, how rich the two of you are together on his lips, and you’re able to fully appreciate the skill of the mouth that kisses you deeply, leaving traces of you against your tongue and teeth.

“Please — fuck me.” It’s the only thing you can say at this rate, only half-coherent and still trembling with desire, but Mark doesn’t seem to care that you’re stuttering over such a simple request. His thumb wipes traces of saliva off the corner of your mouth, kisses it clean for good measure, then straightens up, his hands working at his belt. You almost miss the fact that his hands are shaking slightly as he undoes the buckle and tugs it out from the loops.

You want to help — it’s the least you can do, after all, and your fingers push the button of his jeans out through the hole, his hands working in tandem to tug the zipper down. However, your movements falter when you hear a noise from just outside the room — the sound of the doorknob being jangled, the thud of a body gently hitting the door, as though worried it’s stuck. You glance up at Mark, ready to reassure him, but he either hadn’t heard or doesn’t care because he’s too busy stepping out from the pool of denim at his ankles, and you get completely sidetracked by the bulge straining against his boxers.

You almost ignore Youngho’s voice grumbling ‘Jesus Christ, now of all times? from behind the door, but you leverage it instead.

“Should we let him in?” You ask, tone innocent despite the evident deviousness in your words. It pays off, though; Mark’s cock twitches unmistakably under thin fabric, and he actually looks like he’s considering it. “You’re just about to fuck me, after all. Weren’t we going to — what did you say? Put on a show?”

He worries on his bottom lip, like he’s unsure if you’re serious, but in the end, he shakes his head, reaching out to smooth your hair away from your face and ushering you to lay back down. The lips that meet your forehead are gentle, almost apologetic.

“Not now,” he murmurs against your skin. “Right now, you’re all mine.”

You laugh lightly, nodding, and he chuckles too, but the sound of it slowly dies down when your finger hooks into the garter of his boxers. You can feel his breathing hitch as you tug it down, the elastic catching when it meets the shape of his cock, but you don’t make any move to free it just yet — for some reason, you want to see him do it.

“Show me.”

He complies without hesitation, one hand dragging the elastic down over his thighs, the other curling around the base of his length, and your face flushes as satisfaction works through your system at the bare sight of him.

Mark Lee is big — not monstrously so, but enough for you to make a pleased noise as your hand joins his, fingers barely wrapping around his girth. You give his shaft a gentle squeeze, and his exhale stutters, watching you stroke him, long and thorough in your movements. Your palm swipes over the tip, leaking precum, allowing it to slick up your hand enough to keep your movements smooth. You’re fixated on the tension in his lips, the throb of his cock against your palm, and the way his gaze never leaves your face, like a small, amazed part of him still can’t believe what you’re doing, even if you’re both half-naked already.

“I want to suck you off,” you plead, grip tightening slightly. He grits his teeth, stifling another groan, but he shakes his head clearly enough for you to slow your movements in mild surprise.

“Can’t — not now. I need to be in you so badly.” His breathing’s sharp and heavy, like he’s trying to keep himself in check. “You don’t even know — how long I’ve wanted to feel you.”

Your hold relaxes, and you let him maneuver you, his renewed hold on your hips dragging you closer to the edge of the bed. In this position, he can spread your thighs further, and you angle yourself optimally — enough for him to get a full view of your pussy, wet and still aching from your last orgasm.

“You don’t know how badly I’ve wanted to know how tight you are,” he continues, and there’s a faraway look in his eyes that makes you think he might be entrenched in fantasy. “How much I would have killed to see you — have you like this. I’m not gonna be able to wait anymore.”

His fingers dig into your sides, thumbs stroking your stomach in a weak pattern. The underside of his shaft presses against your folds, still half obscured by your panties, in a way that’s heavy enough to make you mewl, your hips reacting before your mind can, and he hisses softly as he feels his length glide along your slit before you relax your stance again.

“I can’t wait,” he reiterates, a breaking in his voice that sounds almost tortured. You don’t want him to either, want to see him buried to the hilt inside you, and you raise your hips again in need. “I want you so much it’s driving me crazy.”

“Then take me.”

And you’re not sure if it’s a demand or a plea, but he no longer stops himself; his hand fists his cock a few times, coating the slick of precum along his length before he lines the tip up with your entrance. His other hand’s flush against the inside of your thigh, a light pressure ensuring he always has enough space to fit himself between your legs — enough space to bottom out completely.

Mark’s considerate in his pace — maybe he knows he’s big, or maybe he’s just naturally careful, but he allows you the time to adjust to the stretch. Your nails almost puncture holes into the sheets, your grip so tight you wonder if it’s just to brace yourself or to hang onto the last threads of your sanity. He’s only halfway in, but you’re pushing fullness already, and he stops when his cock meets slight resistance, looking up at you in concern.

“You’re not—?”

“It doesn’t hurt,” you reassure him softly, and it’s true; the adjustment brings about slight discomfort, but it’s almost nothing to you — not compared to how much more you want. “Give me everything; I want all of you inside me.”

He pauses still, trying to read your expression for any lies, but when he can’t find any, he nods, his jaw tensing as he presses both palms against your thighs, keeping you open as much as possible to accommodate him. He doesn’t even stop when you whimper, feeling a tightening twitch in your pussy that also causes him to groan, until inch by inch, you’ve taken him, his hips flush against yours.

He doesn’t move — not yet, his eyes trained to where you’re connected like he’s once again unable to believe what he’s doing. You hear him mumble something to himself that you want to hear too; you squirm slightly, and he hisses through his teeth, looking up at you and finding the questioning in your face. He offers you a small smile, albeit somewhat strained.

“You’re tighter than I thought.”

“You’re bigger than I thought,” you hum, and neither of you is really to blame; the tight fit, the slight breathlessness it leaves you with, is perfect, you think — just what the both of you need. “Did you often think about fucking me?”

“Probably just as often as you’re making it sound like you thought about having me fuck you, I think.”

“Don’t get cocky,” you warn, but there’s no real heat in your voice.

“I won’t. But it makes me feel good — knowing you wanted me just as bad.”

“I still do.” Your gaze is lazy, a little hazy, even if you’re anticipating so much. Even just the feeling of Mark, throbbing inside you, is already slowly building the pleasure in your stomach again; you wonder if you could cum like this, given enough time, given enough patience. “I’m still waiting for you to fuck me. God, Mark— please.”

He chuckles good-naturedly, but even that’s drowned out by the long moan that leaves you once he draws his hips back; your body’s mildly shocked into a new adjustment, feeling a sudden emptiness that’s quickly mitigated by him filling you back up again. The pace is slow, almost torturous, although you know he isn’t doing it to get a rise out of you. He wants to ease you into speed, careful to help you adjust fully; his restraint in his movements is all the more evident on his face, in the furrowing of his brow and the determination in his gaze. Even with that, he can’t help what he says, so intent on controlling everything else he does that he lets his words spill out over your noises.

“Pretty,” he grunts out, and when your walls twitch around him, he accidentally thrusts sharper — just enough for you to whimper a little more loudly, and he has to reel his strength back again. “God, you’re beautiful. I should’ve told you sooner how much I wanted you. All those times I had to imagine you wrapped around me like this, wondering how much tighter you’d get once you came on my cock. All those times you drove me crazy while I was alone, when I could have been in you— I could have found out how good you felt. How pretty you’d look under me. And you’re still even prettier, even better than I ever dreamed.”

There’s an erratic melody of moans under his words, spilling from your mouth, and the fact that he riles himself up enough to increase his speed slightly doesn’t escape you. He’s a little less careful now, seemingly entranced by the view he gets, watching his shaft disappear into you only to come out glistening, and a part of you hates the idea of snapping out of his reverie, but the majority of your thoughts now lean towards wondering how much more you can get him to break free of his own self-imposed restrictions.

“I wanted to ask you so many times.” His eyes snap up, coming back into focus as he takes in the sight of you, flushed, hair tousled, gaze darkened. “Almost every day — I sat there, thinking about how all I could do was go home and fuck myself, frustrated you weren’t doing it for me. I should have taken you home with me right then and there — should have let you watch me touch myself thinking of you, should have let you touch me into cumming on your fingers.”

His breathing staggers as he leans in, eager to see you clearer, to hear your words, slowly becoming airier as they come out. For a moment, his gaze falls, torn between watching him move into you and meeting your eyes, but he ultimately chooses the latter once you speak up again, your tone even more hushed than before — like it’s meant to be a secret between just you and him.

“But there were times I wanted you even more than that, to the point that I almost felt like I couldn’t wait.” His eyes widen slightly, a few precious seconds of wondering if he understands what you mean, right before you confirm what he thinks. “I thought about making a move right then — I should have kissed you. I should have asked you.”

“Asked me what?” His voice is gruff with the effort to keep himself in check despite the fact that it’s clear to the both of you that it won’t last.

Your lazy smile’s illusionary; it hides the triumph swelling in your chest at knowing that he asked exactly what you hoped him to.

“I should have asked you to fuck me in front of everyone there.”

“God,” his eyes squeeze shut, his grip tightening. “Please. I can’t—”

“I should have bent over for you there, begged you to stretch me out right after our session,” you continue, bordering on merciless. “Mark, you don’t know — how badly I wanted to be on your lap, your cock in me, with everyone watching. How much I wanted you to fold me over that table, have people watch you pound me, have them listen to how good you make me feel. No one would ever even wonder; everyone would know I’m yours.”

You pause, allowing his eyes to fly open once again, and there’s a pleading in them that’s begging for release. Your eyes soften along with your voice, but you’re this far gone; you should at least see it through.

“And everyone would know you’re mine too.”

“Fuck,” he growls, and his hips stutter before new resolve fills him, his hips driving into you with the force of a strength you didn’t even know he had in him; your thighs tremble at the intensity, at the renewed impact, and feeling him drive his cock deeper into you has you crying out somewhere between a moan and a sob. “Fuck, _________. If I had known you’d thought about me like that — God.”

It’s your turn to shut your eyes for a while, allowing yourself to focus on his movements, breaching your tightness even faster now. You feel his hands skim up your sides again, fingers digging into the fabric of your bra and pulling them down until your bare tits are cupped in his hands. You shiver as his thumbs pass over your nipples, toying them into firm nubs.

“One day,” he hums out, his voice giving way to a slight hoarseness again. “I’ll do it. I’ll fuck you in front of him — in front of Youngho, in front of everyone. I’ll let them wonder how tight you are, how fucking warm you are, and I’ll let them leave knowing no one can know but me.”

It’ll never happen, you both know, but something about agreeing to something so absurd is what has your body almost shaking in longing, and it’s what causes him to press in deeper, folding your legs closer to your torso. Your hands do what little they can to help, keeping your thighs apart so as not to obstruct his view. You can tell it’s somehow not enough, not really all of what he wants when his brow furrows, and he shifts his weight, pushing into you at a new angle.

The stark difference has you gasping before you can control it. Immediately, Mark stops, and you’re already shaking your head before you even hear him say anything, presuming he’s paused out of concern. But before you can say you’re fine, his hushed voice cuts through the silence.

“Do that again.”

“What?”

“Do it again,” he mumbles, sounding distant. “Breathe in. Suck in your stomach.”

You’re not one to complain at such a simple request, albeit a little odd, so you comply, inhaling enough to tighten your torso. You’re surprised when you feel his cock twitch inside you, and you blow out the air alongside your question. “Mark, what are you—”

“I can see it,” he says in utter disbelief. “When you’re like this, I can — I can see my cock inside you. Just a bit.”

Your eyes follow his gaze, fixed just below your navel. From this angle, without any movement, you can’t see a thing, but you assume he’s not one to abandon fucking you so intently without good reason, so you press your palm against your stomach, just above your pelvis. Nothing really feels significantly out of place — up until the point when Mark draws his hips back again, and you feel the backward slide of his cock.

Your throat tightens, and you don’t really understand the feeling that spreads in you — a unique kind of arousal, knowing how deep he is inside you and how you’re taking all of him in despite the fit, because of the fit. Your hand falls away, allowing Mark’s to take its place, and he exerts just a little more pressure against your stomach in an attempt to get the most out of the experience when he thrusts back in. He groans, feeling the bulge push back up, and he quickly picks up the same pace, renewed in intensity so he can experience the rapid rise and fall he creates under his palm.

The faster he goes, the harder he presses, and you’re not sure if he knows it, but the onslaught of friction is what’s making you whine and squirm even more; you’re trapped, in the best way possible, in his hold, your hands back to clinging to the backs of your knees like a lifeline. Pressure from the outside builds on the slowly growing pressure inside, a knot in your pelvis that’s coiling so tightly you feel like you can’t breathe. If Mark notices how close you are, he doesn’t make it known; he’s busy feeling the outline of his cock against your stomach, and when he looks up at you again, his eyes are hazy.

“I would fuck you every single day, every single hour if I could feel this every time,” he whispers in a way that’s almost reverent. “Let me — I want to keep seeing you like this. I want to feel how deep I am inside you, too. Let me fuck you all the time.”

You nod, and your first attempt to say something is just another choked sob. When you do manage to get something out, it’s broken in tearful stutters. “M-Mark, I’m s— I’m so close… I’m — fuck—”

“Do it.” It’s not a harsh command but an urging made on short breath; through your misty vision, you see tension in Mark’s face and shoulders, like he’s bracing himself for something too. You barely register the ping in the back of your mind, too focused on the way he’s pressing his palm harder on your stomach, the way his hips quicken their pace — he’s close too. “Let me feel you — want to feel you cum all over my cock.”

You inhale, not to speak but to let out a loud whimper; your teeth dig into your lower lip as you try to stifle the moans that threaten to follow, but in the end, you whine out his name. Your thighs threaten to close, trembling as you finally reach your climax, an impossible explosion of pleasure, and you have to squeeze your eyes shut so that you don’t get dizzy from the stars that burst around your vision.

“Fuck.” Mark’s voice is strained, his one hand still firm against your stomach, the other sliding against the inside of your thigh. “You get even tighter — you feel even better when you cum.”

“Mark,” you hiccup, unable to do anything but flutter around him as he pistons harder into you. You don’t even know what you’re asking for when you say ‘please,’ but he somehow seems to, and you trust that your body’s saying something you can’t fully detect in this state, with your mind floating in the aftermath of ecstasy.

“I know,” his tone is soothing in contrast to the intensity of his thrusts. “I’ve got you. Just a little more — where do you want—?”

You blink slowly, his words sinking in at too leisurely a pace; his hips stutter dangerously before you’re able to respond. You barely even do that, your hand gently brushing over the one against your stomach, but he catches onto the meaning quickly enough.

You’ve never heard your name said in such a beautiful way; hearing him moaning it lowly is enough to make you whine again, and that noise is drawn out when he shifts and slips out of you fully. Your brain’s fuzzy, but your senses are at least sharp enough to drink in the perfect sight of him cumming — the way he leans his head back, jaw taut and eyes shut, as he pumps his cock and the heat of his release against your skin, pooling against your stomach once he finally cums. You see a shiver run through him, and then he’s still for a while in this position, the both of you basking in the afterglow of your highs.

You’re still weak and sensitive when Mark finally comes back down, a lucidity you don’t have right now coming back into his gaze. All you can do is smile when he leans in, catching your lips in another kiss — one that’s surprisingly soft and slow in comparison to everything else, but still leaves you breathless when he pulls away.

“Let me clean you up,” he murmurs, and you hum in agreement, your body limp as you watch him move off the bed and pull a handful of tissues from a box on the desk on the opposite wall. Even his hands are gentle when he scoops you up, shifting you until your head can lean against the pillows. They carry a scent you’re not used to, and your nose scrunches, rejecting the change, but that’s quickly overpowered by Mark’s familiar coffee-and-linen one when he presses next to you, careful as he wipes his cum off your stomach and thoroughly cleans between your thighs. From somewhere down below, you still hear hushed voices, and the front door slams shut again. People are still in the middle of leaving, but you know Youngho will likely run out of guests soon, and this makes you feel like the timing’s suddenly become urgent.

“I want to date you properly,” you start, slightly slurred but unmistakably blunt. Mark’s gaze snaps to yours, slightly amused, as he balls the tissues up in his fist. “You never asked me, so I’m asking you.”

He looks perplexed. “I just never thought you wanted me to, so I didn’t try.”

You reach up, locking your fingers into his hair and using your grip to pull him down. Your kiss is a little demanding, with a tinge of excess frustration, and he pulls away laughing lightly.

“Do you still think I don’t want you to?”

Mark hums thoughtfully. “I think you made a lot of things clear tonight. On my end, I was happy enough to be near you.” He smiles down at you, and in the faint light, you can see the flush slowly return to his cheeks. “Having you like this — dating you… there’s no way I’d say no.”

Your shoulders relax, satisfied with his answer, and you beam up at him — an act he easily returns, breathtaking and endearing all at once.

Moments later, you feel his arm wind around your waist; he allows you to lean into his side, his other hand crossing over his lap to stroke your thigh. His face turns, pressing a kiss to your hair, and you feel his lips move, hear the quick rush of a whisper. You tilt your head, eyes slightly wide in questioning. “What was that?”

He shakes his head at first, trying to pass it off as nothing. But when it’s clear your curiosity won’t abate, he chuckles softly, his hand gently cupping your chin so that you can only look at him. His thumb strokes your bottom lip gently, as if trying to coax the same words out of your mouth before he murmurs them to you one more time — and this time, he sounds fully convinced of them.

“You’re all mine.”

[chkn-soup]

🎀The Radio Demon🎀

————————————-

Warnings: Alastor is bad at affection, Alastor is awkward, Alastor’s dating skills are pathetic…..give him tips please..he sucks….

Syno: silly little Alastor dating headcanons, but I wrote him in character so he’s very…him🤨..

—————————————

How you guys start

—

-Alastor isn’t really one for romance or catching feelings, but if he were, yoid have to be the most entertaining thing he’s seen in a while.

-I think he’s all up for giddy innocent people, people that smile a lot, people that laugh a lot, people that are carefree, and a joy to be around, even people who are crazy..crazier than him or just crazy. If you are those things then he’d take a great liking to being around you all the time.

-especially if you have dark humor, that makes him really laugh. As soon as you make him laugh the first time, he’d be around you a lot more, if being funny is your thing, he’d follow you around just to laugh again. He’d find you greatly entertaining.

-As soon as he notices that he’s taken a liking to your personality or just your humor, he’d begin to reciprocate, he’d want to make you laugh as well, and he’d often appear out of nowhere to tell you an “old timey pun”. That’s how you get the hint that he likes you..other than him just stalking you around the hotel.

-When he’s surely come to the conclusion of adoring you. Then he’d make the move..it wouldn’t be very..romantic per say? Like he wouldn’t ask you out with sparkles and kisses. It would kinda go like this

—

^Alastor waltz into the hotel’s lobby, shadow demon trailing shorty behind him with a big smile on its face, matching the same big one that Alastor is wearing. He finds his way over to you and sneaks up behind you, slightly startling you as he doesn’t make his presence known..you just have to guess he’s there by the chills that present themself down your neck. Once he knows he gotten your attention, he just stand there and smile at you..eerily..

“..How can I help you Alastor..?” You’d have to break the creepy silence, Alastor truly isn’t trying to be weird he just doesn’t know where to start.

“We shall enjoy breakfast together in my room, let’s say..tomorrow.” He doesn’t really question..it’s rather a statement. But of course you just nod a little off put.

“Lovely.” And with that he walks away.

—-

-the date would go better than him asking you out though, he’s a old class gentleman, so he would come prepared with a bouquet of your favorite flowers..you don’t know how he got that information but he has it.

-He’d also thank you for dining with him at the end of breakfast, and pat your head with his radio cane as a sign of affection.

-the only way you’d know that was considered a date, or that you guys are even dating is if he tells you that it should become a regular thing everyday..that’s his way of asking you to be his partner.

Relationship

—

-Like I said, it would probably take a couple of breakfasts together for you to realize you guys are even ‘dating’ because Alastor won’t straight up say it or call you his spouse.

-Even with him being very avoidant on the topic, he’d still be absolutely classy with you, he’d act the same way he did when you guys were just acquaintances but..notched up a little, so he’d plant kisses on your hand on special occasions

-Will compliment you the best of his ability, “Dear, you look absolutely deadly this morning.” ..please don’t take it the wrong way, he’s trying his best. Will most likely say shit like “You’d taste delicious” to compliment you..Will he eat you? Who knows it’s always a surprise with him.

-he will most definitely bite you though, I read it on @/Radioisntdead’s page, (creds to them), and I thought it was so fitting and cute, so yes he would definitely bite you uncalled for as a sign of affection.

-He showers you with flowers and small trinkets from cannibal town.

-You are the only one who gets to see his tail!! Will he let you touch it..maybe..but make him laugh first then you’ll get a two in one deal of touching his ears too.

-Will cook you cultural food from when he was alive, yes that includes Jambalaya, he makes his shit spicy so, if you aren’t into that, have milk on hand or be really nice about telling him to tone it down.

-Or if you don’t like speaking up about things cause you’re a people pleaser like me and will just take the pain of burning taste buds instead of possibly hurting his nonexistent feelings, then he will figure out by the red look on your face and your watery eyes..he finds it funny. But he doesn’t want to put you in pain for too long, so the next time he cooks for you, you can see that he’s toned down the spice a little..he will never tell you that he did it for your sake though.

-your special thing is eating togther because Alastor is a big foodie and will try different foods with you, also if you like cooking, Alastor would adore your food especially if it’s something from your culture.

-Alastor, will not be one for cuddles…what he will do is sit on the couch next to you and wait for you to fall asleep, the he will lay you down on his lap. He won’t ever physically wrap his arms around you or snuggle into you, he’d wait for you to snuggle into him..but then he’d sit perfectly still and not reciprocate.

-Alastor also doesn’t sleep…but when you guys are dating, he won’t have to stand in the corner anymore..cause he knows that would creep you out, so when you sleep in his room or when he goes to your room, he will instead lay on the bed, back against the headboard, but legs relaxed on the bed, and he’d read, while you slept beside him..he’d also be very overprotective and on gaurd for you while you are in such a pathetic state.

-OVERPROTECTIVE BF ALASTOR!!! GRRR!!

———

Tell me if I should do NSFW or Argument HC’s next!! Also, I am working on a part two of my Vox smut ‘Photoshoot’, so it should be out soon!!😙😙🫶🏼🎀

[niki-phoria]

⋆｡°✩ YOU LOOK SO PRETTY / PRETTY LIKE THE SUN

sweet moments with fushiguro megumi, itadori yuuji, inumaki toge, okkotsu yuuta

notes: gn reader (no pronouns used), first jjk reaction post !! this was so hard to write ngl, header from pinterest, title from tom odell - black friday

FUSHIGURO MEGUMI is in love with you.

dusk is filled with golden rays and city lights. you walk side-by-side with megumi in a comfortable silence. these quiet moments with you had always been rare but cherished moments - a small amount of time when you both could finally breathe. 

years of fighting curses had taken its toll on you. with death always just one wrong move away, megumi had grown accustomed to cherishing the little moments with you: when you made him coffee in the morning before he woke up; when you waited at his bedside after he was injured in a fight; when you forcefully put some of your food on his plate after noticing that he wasn’t eating enough.

megumi had never grown up with a view of a real romantic relationship - all of his experience came from side plots in manga and being dragged into watching movies with yuuji - but he was smart enough to realize why his heart beat so fast around you. why he blushed so easily when your hand brushed against his. why he desperately wanted more.

megumi stops when you pause in your steps, stretching out your shoulders. a content sigh escapes you as you look out towards the shore. “the sunset is beautiful, isn’t it?” you say, your eyes trained on the hues of pink and blue filling the sky. 

megumi glances at the skyline, only taking in the sight momentarily before he turns back to you. all the beautiful things he’s heard about “golden hour” seem to come true. the sun peeks out from behind various buildings, illuminating your silhouette. you softly smile as you look up at the clouds above.

“yeah,” he smiles; his gaze remains trained on you. “beautiful.”

fushiguro megumi is in love with you. now, he just has to tell you.

ITADORI YUUJI is - surprisingly - not a bad cook. over his months at jujutsu high, he had become the unofficial chef in the dorms. so when you fell ill, it was no surprise when he took on the responsibility of nursing you back to health.

your body is little more than a mound of blankets when yuuji creeps into your room; a bowl of steaming soup in his hands. he moves with the utmost care as he makes his way across the room before setting the bowl down on your bedside table. despite your puffy eyes and red-tipped nose he smiles, reaching up to push a stray strand of hair away from your face.

you stir awake at his touch before slowly blinking up at him. “hi y/n,” yuuji whispers. “feeling any better?”

he receives a groan in response. “i feel like death,” you rasp out. 

yuuji reaches over, resting the back of his hand against your forehead. “you’re still really warm,” he mumbles. “i don’t think your fever has gone down at all.”

his cheeks flush slightly when you reach over, taking his hand into your own. your skin is overly warm and slightly clammy, but yuuji doesn’t mind. instead, he intertwines your hands together. 

“here,” he says, using his free hand to hold up a spoonful of the soup he made. “try it. maybe it’ll make you feel better.”

the metal spoon burns your tongue and the broth is a little too salty, but it soothes your throat all the same. “thank you,” you murmur. “it’s delicious.”

yuuji simply smiles brightly, holding out yet another spoonful for you. “of course.”

“do you know japanese sign language?”

INUMAKI TOGE stares at you with wide eyes, surprised by your sudden question. it shouldn’t have been all that surprising, but it was something no one had bothered to ask before. 

finally, after a short period of silence, he nods. “salmon.”

toge had grown accustomed to being left out. even while around the most supportive people, he often found himself struggling to be heard - both literally and metaphorically. after all, it was difficult to communicate with others through origini ingredients. 

that didn’t make it any less hurtful, though. 

you smile brightly, hesitantly signing along to your words as you speak. “i’ve been practicing a little. i wanted to surprise you.”

toge’s face flushes; his jacket does little to hide the way his blush spreads across his cheeks and up to the tips of his ears. your movements are a little sloppy and you’re clearly nervous, but he doesn’t comment on it. no one had ever put in this much effort to speak to him before. to not only listen, but understand what he means. 

“thank you,” he signs in return. he pauses for a second, hesitating slightly before he continues. “i love you.”

“i don’t think i know that one.” toge simply smiles, leaning in to pull you into a kiss. he’ll tell you what it means soon enough. but for now, his flushed cheeks and soft smile tell you everything he means to say.

the safest place in the world is within OKKOTSU YUUTA’S arms. you can’t remember when it became a routine for the two of you. he would return home and immediately seek you out; his fingers curl around your waist and tug you closer until your back reaches his chest. 

a soft sigh escapes his lips as he rests his chin against your shoulder. the pieces of your bodies fit together like a puzzle - from the way yuuta intertwines his fingers with your own to how seamlessly his arms wrap around you. 

messy strands of ink black hair brush against the side of your neck when yuuta nuzzles himself even closer against you. his breath ghosts against your shoulder as he leans down, pressing a few lazy kisses over the fabric of your shirt. “i missed you.”

“i missed you, too.” your fingertips trace along little cuts and deep bruises decorating yuuta’s hands. “do they hurt?”

he catches his bottom lip between his teeth. it feels trivial to be in pain over such minor injuries, but yuuta has never been the best liar. “only a little,” he murmurs.

you frown slightly, raising your intertwined hands up to your lips. the soft kisses you press against the fresh wounds leave him breathless. with a flushed face and a soft smile, yuuta presses a chaste kiss against your cheek in return. “thank you.”

taglist (open! send an ask/dm to be added): @sunoooism @vamxpi @sad-darksoul @kamote-kuneho

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[vexwerewolf]

why is it that we only have like two licenses from any mech producer that’s a good guy? For a game where like there are clear good and bad guys (even if who you play isn’t necessarily linked to that) it seems strange to me that the only loot and XP you get is… more benefits from the bad guys

I can tell you the answer, but to do so, we're gonna have to talk about a completely different TTRPG.

If you've read @makapatag's truly excellent Filipino martial arts TTRPG Gubat Banwa (and if you haven't, here it is), you may notice that every single character class description (with one notable exception) ends with one of these babies:

I am not Makapatag, and I cannot write with quite as much grace and eloquence as he can, but I will try:

If you choose to become a Lancer, ask yourself why you mock the name of peace with these weapons of war. You call yourself a saviour, but your steed was forged from the murder of a world. You stride across the sky in a colossus built in your own image, so why are you too cowardly to give it your face? Why do you believe these machines of death can preserve life?

It is important to note that the admonitions in Gubat Banwa are not just there to make you feel bad; they are there as legitimate questions. The Sword Isles have seen so much blood, death and tragedy. Wars are not glorious and killing is not a game. So, knowing all of that, why have you taken up this discipline - no matter how noble and virtuous it might claim to be - to shed more blood, to bring more death, to write more tragedy? What could possibly drive you to this? What need is so great that you must kill?

The thing with Gubat Banwa is that there are legitimate answers to these questions! There are bad people doing bad things, and some of them will not be stopped with words or kindness. Sometimes, as sorrowful as it is, killing is the correct choice to prevent greater suffering and deeper tragedy - but adding less misery and death to the world is still adding some amount of it. Even the most necessary wars will drench the ground in the blood of the innocent.

A sword is a tool meant to kill humans; while it can be used for other things, it is not well-suited to anything other than this. A mech is, in its most basic essence, just a very complicated sword: it's usually used on things larger than a person, but it's still a tool built to kill.

So why have you taken up this path? Humanity was saved from the brink of extinction and has created wondrous technologies like printers, cold fusion and mind-machine interface, and yet you use them to play soldier in a giant metal man. Why do you choose to take up this machine of death, built by the greedy and pitiless? Why do you think these machines can ever make things right?

Because sometimes, despite everything, they can.

Warhammer 40K shows an awful world full of monsters and monstrosity, and in the darkest moments of its history, Lancer's world looked just as bleak, but Lancer's world differs in one crucial way. Warhammer's world has long given up trying to be better, but Lancer's world never did. Lancer's world kept insisting a better world is possible, and it used what tools it had to make it so.

Sometimes the correct choice, no matter how bitter it may seem, is to kill someone. When you need to do this, a sword is a perfectly good choice for the job.

If you find yourself discomforted by the fact that all the people you can buy mechs from are corrupt and immoral - good! You have correctly engaged with the text. You have understood that the sort of people who would make giant walking death machines and sell them for profit are not good people. But you still have a job to do, and you need the correct tools, and those people have them.

Lancer is not a game about a perfect world - it is a game about a deeply flawed and imperfect one that does not let its imperfection stop it from trying. You have to try to make a better world, even with imperfect tools made by unpleasant people.

[imfinereallyy]

Bedside Manner

for @acasualcrossfade request for "the infection has spread"

"Some birdie told me that you have been causing a fuss, Wayne, is that true?"

Wayne huffs from his hospital bed, glasses sliding down his nose. He places the newspaper he was reading on the table beside him. "You tell that Robbie of yours to stop exaggerating. It was only a small request."

Steve raises his eyebrows at his favorite patient (Dustin tells him he isn't supposed to have favorites, but he also used to cry anytime he picked up Max before him when they were younger, so what does he know) and gives him a knowing look. "Robin listens to no man, Wayne, you know this. You're better off sending that message through her wife. Besides, small? She was telling me you refused to have any other nurse help you because I wasn't here last night. Which surprised me since you are always pushing me on about taking a vacation. "

Wayne opens his mouth, but Steve presses on. "And the fact Robin was even in the room means they called a psych consult, so I can only imagine how bad it was."

Wayne grumbles like a little kid being scolded for getting his hands caught in the cookie jar. "Yea, well, it was a bad night, kid."

Steve feels his shoulders sag, he takes off his glasses and rubs a hand down his face before placing them back on. "Sorry, Wayne, I had a bad migraine last night. Nance and Robs wouldn't even let me pass the entrance. Bad news?"

"Kid, don't stress yourself out over me. I'm just your patient, and more so, I am just a cranky old man." Wayne patted Steve's knee as he sat down next to him.

"C'mon, Wayne. You're more than that. I'd like to think seeing you in and out of here the last year has made us friends. Although I gotta say, you're the only friend I have that I'll be glad if I don't get to see again, given the circumstances. So, what's the news?"

"The infection has spread."

Steve takes in a deep breath, he tries not to panic, but any infection in a hospital can be deadly, especially for a cancer patient like Wayne. "Incision site?"

Steve must not be as good at hiding his emotions as he used to be because Wayne jumps to ease his worry. "No, kid, don't worry. The surgery was a success. Just got that hospital fever, the good old bronchitis. But it just means I'm here longer than I have to. It also means my nephew is on edge, and I don't know if I can take a second longer of his hovering."

Steve laughed wetly, thankful for the topic change. "Ah yes, the mysterious nephew of yours that I've never met. The way you talk about him almost tempts me into switching to the day shift, sounds like he might be entertaining. But only almost."

"Always wondered why you were always working the nights, most of the others seem to switch. Not a big fan of the day?"

Steve shakes his head gently, "No, I like the quiet here at night. Like getting to know the patients without having to worry about fixing ten million things. Don't get me wrong, it has its downfalls. Like the doctors can be horrible at night, never tell Dr. Wheeler that or Robbie will kill me, and the food is awful. But there is something special about it here at night. So sorry, your ridiculous nephew isn't enough to tempt me."

Wayne smirked, "What if I told you he was a looker and single?"

Steve blushes slightly. He is used to patients trying to pawn him off to their relatives, it came with being a young male nurse, but typically it didn't phase him. But Steve has become close with Wayne, so hearing him suggest he get together with his nephew has him flustered. "I'm good, Wayne, thanks. Gave up on the dating scene a while ago. Not many people can keep up with a guy who works nights and suffers from severe head trauma."

"Shame, Eddie likes the nights too. I'd reckon yal would get along."

"I'm pretty sure we would need more than that, Wayne."

Wayne smiles fondly at Steve. "You don't need a whole lot to build a connection, son. Me and Linda, god rest her soul, only started dating for our mutual love of mugs. And we may not have had long together, but our love was strong. Besides, there is more yal would have in common than just the night shift."

Steve huffs a laugh, "Oh yea, like what?" The least he can do is humor the man.

"Well, you both care about me deeply."

Steve blushes again, "C'mon, Wayne. I'm your nurse. I'm kinda paid to care."

Wayne won't hear any of it, "No, son, it's more than that. You take your break in here every night. You make sure to record the game at home for me because they only have the news here. And last night, you tried to come in with a migraine, even though we both know I am the only patient you can stand right now."

Steve doesn't know what to say back. Wayne is right, of course. Steve has been spending all of his time with the man, giving him extra care. Steve isn't bad with his other patients, he goes above and beyond most of his coworkers, but there is something special about Wayne.

"You got nothing, kid, you know I'm right. Remind me a lot of my nephew. Before visiting hours ended is when I got the news of having to stay longer. Kid almost threw a fit when they kicked him out. Swore he was gonna break in to stay the night with me. I told him not to worry since you would be there, I brag about you too, ya know. When he found out today you weren't here, that boy threw a fit again. Swear he gets his tantrums from his father. Said he was gonna sneak back in tonight. Make sure I had company. That 'the man' couldn't stop him. That if he ran into you, he was gonna have a word with you."

Steve can't help the snort that shakes his body, "I'd like to see him get passed Hop first."

Wayne starts to chuckle, too, "Eds may have had his fair share of escaping the law, but no man moves as fast as Jim in a security uniform."

Steve is fully laughing now, "I know, right? It's like those pants make him aerodynamic or something. No way your nephew is getting by."

It is almost as if Steve's words summon what happens next. There in the doorway is the most gorgeous man he's ever seen, even though he is bent over and out of breath.

"Eds?" Wayne questions, clearly surprised. Steve has to mask his face and quickly before Wayne catches him ogling his nephew. Steve is finding it difficult, though. The man, Eddie, despite his out-of-breath appearance, is stunning. His long curly hair is thrown up in a bun, showing off the piercings up his ears. His clothes are simple but suiting, ripped jeans and a black band tee. Tattoos cover his entire body, and Steve wants to ask about every single one of them.

The most surprising thing about him isn't that he got by Hop (although he has questions for that later), no the most surprising thing to Steve is that Wayne somehow knew his exact type, which most people assume wrong in that department.

Eddie awakens an old craving inside Steve that he thought he had buried long ago.

"Wayne, you would not believe what I just went to get up here. The story I have for you, oh boy. You're gonna love it. Who knew security guards could move that fast. Anyway, I hope that nurse boy of yours is here tonight because I am ready to—" Eddie stops mid-rant when his eyes land on Steve, a lovely blush blossoming across his pale cheeks.

"I believe what you are trying to say is, what was it, Wayne? Oh yea, 'have a word with me,'" Steve laughs softly.

Eddie sputters, "Wayne!?!" His blushing becomes deeper as the seconds pass by.

Wayne just chuckles as Steve stands. "Don't be mad at your Uncle, I think he was just trying to make me feel better. I am sorry I wasn't here last night for the news. Got my head knocked around too much as a kid—" Steve taps his head with his knuckles, "—so I suffer from migraines sometimes. I really did try to come in, but well—you met Jim. He's pretty fast." Steve worries his lip. Eddie's eyes follow.

"Well, I can't be too mad now, can I?" Eddie swallows nervously before a smirk spreads across his face, switching from shy to confident in two seconds flat. Steve shouldn't be turned on by that. "The pretty face helps too. I'm pretty sure you could convince me to give you my kidney right about now. I'm Eddie, which I know you know by now, and you are...?"

Steve puts his hand out for a shake, "Nurse Harrington. But most people call me Steve."

Eddie grabs his hand gently and brings the back of it to his lips. "Stevie, a pleasure, really." A light kiss is placed on Steve's knuckles. Stevie, he thinks. That's a new one. And he isn't mad about it, at all. In fact, the butterflies in his stomach want him to get Eddie to say it again.

Steve catches Wayne's smug face in the corner of his eye as Steve begins to blush again.

"I'm just gonna—I'll be right back." Steve stutters.

"Leaving so soon?" Eddie says disappointed.

Steve has the sudden urge to fix the frown on his face. "No, no! Just, uh, gonna call Jim and tell him not to send out a search party. That it's okay if you stay. I'll keep an eye on you."

Eddie's face breaks out into a brilliant smile, "Really, Stevie? You gonna keep me around?"

Steve's heart skips a beat, "If I can help it."

***

[itsvelyria]

"non-sexual acts of intimacy with the f1 boys"

Charles Leclerc

being there for each other. after a bad race, you'll be right there in the garage waiting with open arms or his phone will be lit up with a bunch of messages from you. a bad day at work? he's running a bath with your favourite sandalwood bath salts and your fluffiest towel is hanging on the heated rack. he is one constant presence you can always count on to be there, to smile at you and tell you it's going to get better, and vice versa.

Carlos Sainz

he finds comfort in physical contact, that means his hands are either on your lower back guiding you through crowds, or on your thigh during midnight cuddles on the couch, or simply just interlaced with yours. his family and friends are used to him drifting away from them, weaving through people to drape his arms over your shoulders from behind in greeting. he likes the reminder that you are right there with him, grounding him.

Danny Ricciardo

he loves your mornings together. being an f1 driver doesn't get him a lot of days at home so when he does, he enjoys waking to daylight slipping through the cracks of the curtains and slipping out of bed to make coffee for two. the aroma wakes you up and when you pad into the kitchen, rubbing your eyes, he thinks he might be the luckiest man in the world to be able to witness it. oftentimes you two sit there in silence, just relishing in each other's presence and sharing a quiet moment.

George Russell

its the little things he brings back from every trip or every outing, the excuse of "it reminded me of you" rolling off his tongue. the chrysanthemums outside the flower shop he passed by, the strange pink shell he saw at the beach. he shows them to you with such pride, the tiny burst of happiness in his chest when you laugh and admire the present, turning it over in your hands. every present he gifts another reiteration of your significance in his life and just how often he thinks of you throughout the day. what could be more of an indication of love than that?

Lando Norris

children at heart, you two love teasing each other — his messy curls that are sticking up in all directions when he wakes or the light foam moustache on your upper lip from the cappuccino you just drank. but you never take it too far and he finds it easy to just be himself around you, to be able to laugh everything off. its the intimate level of comfort and understanding that shines through all your playful banter and jokes that makes him never want to leave your side.

Lewis Hamilton

he really loves hearing you talk, it's like music to his ears whenever you're telling him about the bus you missed or raving over your new favourite song. the man hangs onto your every word, letting them sink in as he gazes at you with lovestruck eyes. and he's always there with the perfect response — how to deal with a difficult client at work or just filing your words away in his album of you in his brain.

Max Verstappen

remembering the littlest most insignificant things about you. he got you a first print copy of your favourite book after 3 months together and since then, he's surprised you every so often at just how much he knows you. sometimes orders for you at cafes and restaurants because he knows exactly how you pick items on the menu. you once told him about how you hate cracked phone screens so he has a bunch of them in his drawer and changes them for you. the sight of him squinting while trying to line up your phone screen makes your heart swell with adoration.

[lovelybrooke]

Can I request how Sliver, Idia, Kalim, Vil, and Malleus realises he loves Reader?

Totally, hope you liked this.

masterlist

---

Silver

Silver couldn't help but dream. 

He dreamt of adventures, of traveling the lands and discovering its magical wonders. He also has more boring dreams. Dreams of animals and warm sunlight. The smell of fresh cut grass and warm sweets. 

But he's found himself dreaming of you often. 

He drifts away to the memories of your voice, to the shape of your figure, to the remnant of your touch. He thinks he's going insane, the way his mind can't seem to think of anything other than you, even while asleep. 

Somedays, he tries to stay awake, racking his mind on why you were so captivating. He'd come to different conclusions every time. Maybe it was your smile, the one he sees so often in these dreams. Maybe it was your kindness, something that seemed so crucial to your personality. Eventually, he'd fall asleep, and would be gifted with your presence again and again, not that he was complaining. 

It was embarrassing, having to see your face afterwards, across the cafeteria. Watching as you mingled and laughed with your first year friends, he couldn't keep his eyes off of you, as you talked and ate. It was strange in a way, how the mundane became so interesting when it came to you. 

He knew his feelings for you were less than normal, you were different, that's why he liked you. He liked being able to watch you, to learn about you from the background. He liked his dreams, because it gave him the chance to talk to you, to feel your skin, to leave the background and be in your presence. 

But like most dreams, you eventually wake up, and he finds himself sitting behind you in class or watching you in the cafeteria, and he imagines what it would feel like to actually interact with you. 

But, never acts. 

Instead he dreams. 

Idia

Idia is awkward, he's a loser. But at least he's aware. 

He knows why he locks himself in his room for hours, or why he can't talk to people unless it's through a screen, or why he finds it difficult connecting with people. He's awkward and anxious and scared, but he's self aware, and that's more than most people at least. 

He's self aware as he watches you through his camera, eyes almost unblinking as he observes. You fiddle with your hands a lot, he thinks you do it when you're nervous. You also will pet Grim when you don't know what to do with your hands, Grim doesn't seem to mind. Your bag is also too heavy for you since you switch which shoulder you carry it with a lot throughout the day. 

He shouldn't find some gratification in watching you, he shouldn't look forward to seeing what you did throughout the day, but he does, and he knows that, that's why he's better than the others. 

He knows he's a freak, but at least he doesn't sit on top of some moral high ground, acting like he's so much better than everyone else, like he's doing you a service by helping to keep you trapped here. He isn't like the others, jumping through hoops to justify their behavior. He knows he's strange. 

But knowing isn't enough to stop him. 

Knowing he's strange isn't enough to stop his behaviors, it isn't enough to stop him from keeping you whenever he could. Especially now, as he watches you in the library. You're doing homework, reading and scratching notes on paper silently. It's nice, and for a moment he can pretend like he's there with you. He's sitting across from you, existing in the same space as you. India doesn't know how to put it into words, but it's nice. 

He knows it's wrong, he should feel bad about invading your privacy like this. But he's a coward, and this is the best he'll ever get.

Kalim 

Kalim just thinks you're the greatest. You're so funny and kind and wonderful, he can't think of a single bad thing about you. 

Except for the fact that you one day might leave. 

Kalim thinks about that a lot, about you leaving him and never coming back. It happens most often whenever he's alone, so he does his best to stay with you, just so he knows you won't leave him. Maybe it's selfish of him to want to be around you constantly, but he can't help it. He hates the aching, queasy feeling he gets whenever you're away from him. 

As music plays in the background, he watches as you converse with some random first year, he doesn't know their name, and he wonders if the aching feeling will ever go away. It seeps into him like a plague, tears at flesh and threatens to destroy him if he doesn't do something soon. Kalim didn't know he could feel as strongly as he did now, but as he crossed the room and dragged you away from the first year, he knew he didn't care. 

He knew he would spend the rest of this party apologizing to you, hanging off your shoulders as he tried to stay as close as possible to you. He knew he'd promise you something extravagant, and gift you something ten times better in the morning. He knew he'd beg you to stay over at Scarabia for the night, that Jamil wanted to see you and that they could walk you to classes together tomorrow. 

Kalim just thought you were great, that you were so easy to love. But being easy to love means other people felt just as strongly as he did. He knew that he wasn't as stupid as people though, that's why he has to keep you with him. If you were with him at all times, then you weren't trying to leave, and that's all Kalim could ask for. 

Kalim just thinks you're the greatest, but you're even better when you're just with him. 

Vil 

Vil strives for perfection, for beauty. He's dedicated his entire life to being as perfect as possible, and while he's tried to be better at hyper fixating on his idea of perfection, it gets hard when it comes to you. 

You're ordinary, extremely so, but for some reason that draws him to you. Your presence is comforting, soft and light, filling him with a warmth that he's come to crave, especially after his Overblot. 

Vil strives for beauty, he seeks it out in everything he does. But you've taught him that beauty is everywhere, that you can appreciate the beauty in everything rather than change yourself to achieve beauty. He's come to love the world around him more, you included. 

You are the beauty that Vil strives for, the perfection that he craves. There is something so wonderful underneath all that ordinary that Vil wishes to uncover. He wonders how much he missed out on before his Overblot, thinking back on the times he used to look at you in disgust. It shook him to his core, and if he could he'd spend the rest of his life atoning. 

But instead he cares for you. He cradles your face softly as he applies your makeup. He hums softly as he styles your hair, brushing out of your face slightly. He takes your hand and lifts it slightly, latching bracelets onto your wrist that glimmer in the light. 

As he admires you, he wonders if love is the correct word for what he is feeling right now. Does love drive everyone to madness? Does love make everyone so tunnel visioned that they can't think about anything else? Does love make everyone else feel so overwhelmed that you can't possibly imagine a life without this person? 

Maybe love isn't the right world, Vil thinks as he watches you smile at him. Obsession seems more like it. 

Malleus 

Malleus spent most of his life alone before you. 

He wouldn't exactly call his childhood lonely, he had Lilia and his grandmother to care for him, and for a while he thought that was enough. 

That was until he met you. 

Malleus believes meeting you that day outside of Ramshackle was the best thing to ever happen to him. He's never met someone so kind, someone brave enough to talk to him like you were equals. It humored him in a way, someone so courageous. 

From that day on he couldn't stop thinking about you. His eyes would find yours in the hallways, and you'd smile and wave. It was strange how he'd feel his body warm up, but it wasn't out of fear or anger. It was a warmth that was nice and exciting. 

He'd find you again outside of Ramshackle. Sometimes you talk for hours, other times you sit in silence and watch the stars. He was happy either way, getting to spend time with you. He didn't realize how much he craved companionship until now. 

Malleus is sure he fell in love with you the day you first talked with him. Since then, you've been the only thing he could think about, the only thing he craves, he desires. He couldn't live without you. 

Malleus loves you. He loves you completely with his whole being. He loves you like the stars love the sky, like the moon loves the sun. You are the only one who understands him, you can't leave him alone again. 

He can't stand hearing you talk about going home, about that mirror. It fills him with dread, it makes him sick, he hates it. 

You will not leave him.

He will not be alone.

---

[hyewka]

Like, u got Soobin to use those vibrators on his pants before and during his performance, you're backstage while watching him live, turning on the vibrator at different levels in different times, maybe low level when he's talking with his fans, medium when he starts dancing and the highest level whenever it's his time to sing while he tries his best to concentrate and sing stable while trying not to get a boner or cum during the performance, while noticing the little details of how startled he gets whenever the vibrations starts again and waiting for his performance to end just to drag him to an empty room and finally fuck good

cw. sub leaning switch!soobin, creampie, premature orgasm, f!reader

note. happy valentines everyone ^^

“Don’t cum.” is the last thing you whisper to his ear before you push him out to his fans with a smile, the roaring cheers really showing how big the turn out was tonight. You can tell with the way he turns back to you he’s asking for mercy, begging for it. You just opt to give him a thumbs up before shooing him away, at least to ease those nerves up. You wouldn’t want him to cum simply from thinking about the toy around his cock.

Long story short—you don’t give him mercy. What fun is that?

You watch the way he gets visibly comfortable the more the show progresses and its definitely because he noticed you’ve been keeping the setting on low. It has you snort. He’s such an open book, it’s the cutest thing about him. But it’s also his most vulnerable point.

Experimentally, you turn it up two, curious of how he’d react.

There’s other staff monitoring with you, so you put in the effort to pretend you have nothing to do with the small hiccup that occurs, scrolling through your phone as if you were busy.

Soobin’s voice cracks.

It’s not a big deal, just something that happens that you don’t think even the fans paid much attention to. You notice a lot more than that though when you look up from your screen.

For one, the tips of his ears are red. Really red. You know better, it’s not only because he’s embarrassed. If the fact that you can tell he’s letting his eyes glaze over a little with his mouth hung open when he’s no longer in the center was any indication.

You play with him like that a little more before you decide you might just be the greediest girlfriend ever. You turn it up to its highest setting, just to relish a little more in his little gasps heard in the mic— and god, the immediate reaction you get out of him is the most satisfying thing you’ve seen all week.

Soobin’s eyes shoot wide open almost like hes shell shocked, his breathing’s even heavier, his cheeks are so brightly colored that it could no longer be excused as the bit of blush applied to his face half an hour ago…and he definitely looks like hes checked out. Thats when the comments from the people around you started to pick up.

“What’s wrong with Soobin today?”

“Is he sick?”

“Should we cut the ments short?”

“He looks like he’s about to piss his pants…” — That one had you gigglr

While some were picking at their cubicles, wondering if this might’ve not been the smooth sail they were predicting this gig to be, you let that little small smile break seeing the very obvious boner outlined in his leather pants, leaving the crowd no room for imagination. Oops.

You can only shrug when you’re asked if you know what was up with your boyfriend. “Who knows, maybe its a bad day?”

##########

He’s everywhere—his lips kiss along your jaw then to your neck, sucking and kneading your bare tits at the same time. He’s absolutely delirious tonight.

“You’re so sweaty, gross” you giggle, jokingly pushing him away but hes not having it, caging you until your bodies were flush agsainst each other to the point your breathing cut off momentarily, your head getting light headed.

“Someone’s excited.” you say breathily, attempting to be cheeky but it doesn’t work as your resolve breaks almost immedietley when he sucks particularily rough on your flesh. You’ll have to spend some time covering it up when he’s done with you.

“It hurts,” he whines in your ear, feverishly grinding his hard on like an absolute freak, still leaving wet spit on your vacant flesh. “You were so mean to me, y’know?”

“Was I? Thought I went a little easy on you out there.” you take it upon yourself to put your hand between your bodies and palm him over his pants, releasing a little bit of tension from his poor body. “Maybe you’re just weak. Can’t stay focused on your job because all you’re thinking about is having your dick in my cunt instead, bad boy.”

He nods pitifully—clearly absentminded, eyes teary and clouded as you thumb his tip over his pants, so shamelessly a wet spot spreads and grows under it.

“Please. Let me fuck—y-you.” his breathing staggers, trembles, you feel it against your face with how close he is…and it’s the hottest thing ever. For someone so usually composed, the leader of a band he’s a part of, well spoken and articulate, building tougher skin as time goes by—seeing him being weak in the knees so often, like this, dirty and desperate, never fails to have you drench your panties. He always manages to do it for you every time.

“But baby…there’s staff right outside this room.” you tease with a whine of your own, looking up at him with big eyes, toying with his shirt— you know how the innocent look gets him.

“I don’t care.”

That’s the snap, his voice uncharacteristically low and hoarse. You can’t even get a word in before he has your teeth clash with how fast he props you up around his waist, your back slamming against the door, breathing heavily with his lips on yours, sloppy, fast, quick as he pulls out his cock. It’s still intimidating how big it is, but you don’t even get to think for any longer before he has your panties bunched to the side and the tip of his dick’s protruding your hole.

He doesn’t wait like he usually does, he doesn’t even wait to catch his own breath, biting down on your bottom, languidly bottoming out in one go. You squirm at how full you feel despite how easy it went in, oxygen feeling like a second priority now. “God, fuck, you’re made for me.” he breathes out in awe staring at where you connect, “You take me so well now, look at your pussy baby” he babbles against your lips.

You can’t. You can’t. Your eyes burn with tears, you have no clue whats gotten into you, you could only think of the pleasure and pain of the stretch as he finally moves, thrusting up, his speed getting erratically faster by the second, until you have him buried in your tits, licking and kissing all over them like a dumb dog. Then you hear his muffled groan, and know.

“Binnie…?” you chuckle hoarsely.

“Sorry…” he whines, hiding in your boobs. “You teased me too much up there.” Jesus christ why do you still find him so adorable despite him cumming embarrassingly fast today. Its okay, you’ll have your way with him when you actually get back home later.

[balancethescales]

thinking about the specific moments where the berzatto family falls in love with sydney (because of course they do, everyone does).

for richie, it takes the end of the beef and right up till the opening of the bear to happen. he is full of contempt and grief when he meets her and all he knows is that when he looks at her face he is afraid. he doesn’t like that feeling. richie is not a man who finds himself fearful a lot, but she is everything he is not and nothing that he is and he hates himself for it. if she is what it means to be passionate, then what is he? is he nothing but an empty shell of mikey, stuck on earth to shake his fist at passing clouds, because how dare they move and continue on like mikey was nothing to them, as if he wasn’t the very point that the earth revolved around? everyone is leaving him behind, and she is proudly leading the pack. it’s not right. but then— he gets it. he talks to garrett and jess and chef terry and he sees sydney in every corner of that restaurant. the fear slowly is replaced with respect as the week goes on and he realizes that just because she’s good doesn’t mean she’s out to get him. that’s the berzatto upbringing in him doing the talking, but it doesn’t have to, because shes a berzatto now, maybe not officially (not yet, but mark his words, she will be) but she is, and that’s not how she does things. so, he lets her lead them into the future to something good and different and better.

for sugar, it’s instant. she was born to a mother who is triggered by her very existence, and it has hurt her all her life. she is full of love and the one person she wants to give it to the most doesn’t want any part of it. she was born to give but is surrounded by those who are afraid to even take it, to reach out their hand and meet her in the middle. and if they cant take then they themselves have nothing to give, so she gets used to being the one who has to force feed her love down their throats, because if no one does, if no one shows them that they are worthy of good things, then they will crumble (“if i just talked to him more—” “no, nat—” “if i had just—” “it’s not your fault, honey. it’s never been.”). but when she meets sydney, it’s like looking into a mirror. she sees her bright eyes and soft smiles and careful but strong hands and instantly recognizes her for what she is: a giver. and sugars heart swells with even more love than she thought possible, because finally, she’s not alone— there is someone else there to slowly, albeit subconsciously, take care of her crumbling family, to show them that despite what their mother may have taught them, its okay to not be okay (she tries her best not to cry when syd asks her if shes okay, but she does. and syd doesnt grab her face or yell at her or call her stupid. she makes her a meal. and sugar cries some more).

for cicero, the love isn’t instant, and it’s not even entirely love. she is strong and she is assertive, but that also makes her naive and a very expensive risk. she makes him curious for what’s to come, intrigued by the way she doesn’t back down from carmy whose voice so often mimics the berzattos that came before him (“you’re better than this, kid.” “i don’t know what i am.” “whatever it is, it’s not this.”). she's self assured and knows her place in the establishment and is unafraid to let people know it. it’s a refreshing change of pace from mikey, who often resorted to intimidation to get his way, or carmy, who’s anxiety envelopes him and distracts him from what’s right there in front of him. but she is not them. she is focused and on track and is willing to put in the work to get what she wants. he doesn’t visit the bear often, only drops by once in a while to deliver bad news or to fulfill a favour or to just enjoy some good food, but when he does, she is always there, dedicated to ensuring that carmy and michaels, and now, her dream stays alive. she is good for his family, and he trusts her to keep the berzatto spirit alive.

for michelle, it’s quite simple. she always looked out for carmy, their little bear, so when she meets her it’s a family thanksgiving party at the bear and syd stumbles out of the kitchen, obviously frazzled and a little sweaty (“carmy, im not ready, i didn’t even change yet and the turk—” “don’t worry, tina will take care of it, you look great, they’ll love you, they just really wanted to meet you—”), but she’s smiling. she’s a little awkward when she introduces herself, and michelle finds herself endeared by her nervous ramble (“it’s, uh, really nice to meet you guys. sorry, i didn’t know that i was going to be pulled out of the kitchen so soon. uh, im sydney. yeah, i guess carmy already told you guys, huh? um. im sorry, how are you related to the family again? i mean, i dont want to offend but it’s just. uh. well, you guys are just very... normal?”) and she’ll laugh and look at stanley and the two of them will think to themselves, good job carmy, she’s a good one, before telling syd something dumb and nonsensical about a genetic mutation and richie interrupts to tell michelle it’s not a genetic mutation it’s called being boring and syd will laugh and michelle will too, truly happy that their little bear found someone normal, a breath of fresh air within the smoke of their family.

for donna, it’s weird. it’s tense. they don’t meet for a long time. they don’t meet at the bear when it first opens and not at the bear even when it has found it’s footing, but by chance. they are somewhere mundane (a grocery store, a park, or maybe just the street) and there is no other family member around when syd meets the berzatto matriarch. she only knows what donna looks like from photos at sugars house because carmys apartment is devoid of any actual sentiment (although that has begun to change since she made him get an actual dresser and he dedicated one of the drawers to her stuff). she calls out to her by her name, and donna turns around startled. she doesn’t recognize syd, of course, who introduces herself and informs her of who she is to the family. when donna smiles it’s not a real one, and syd knows this, but it doesn’t deter her. she tells donna that her kids love her (“even after everything, nat?” “she’s our mother. its all that we can do.”) and that her kids are great (“carmy, you are not broken.” “im a little broken.” “no, listen to me, the fact that you are still here, means something. its something.”) and that there will always be a table for her at the bear (“chef, someones calling in for a reso for 1 but we’re all full up… except for—“ “yo, dont finish that sentence. table 7 for ms. berzatto is an indefinite booking. is that understood?” “yes, chef”). donnas smile fades and her chest fills with anger but just as she’s about to explode in typical berzatto fashion syd interrupts her. she has faced the bear many a time before and has handled herself with grace and dignity everytime, so this is no different. she smiles brightly and thanks donna for listening to her and hopes she considers coming in, because she’d really like to cook for her. she looks like she needs a good meal. she deserves one. she turns and walks away. donnas stomach growls. that night, table 7 is occupied for the first time since the bear opened its doors.

and carmy? well, there isn’t an exact moment. its a culmination of awkward partnership (“i don’t want to be shitty.” “okay, then dont be.”) and flawless teamwork (“the menu needs—” “already on it, chef.”) and nights unwinding at the bar down the street (“of course you drink an old fashioned.” “what’s that supposed to mean?” “nothing, it’s just very… tortured-chef-from-the-slums-of-chicago of you”) and spontaneous phone calls just to hear the others voice (“why are you whispering?” “i… don’t know. my dads home. its a habit.” “you’re 27.” “and you’re white, you wouldn’t get it.”) till they’re just inseparable (“cousin, wheres carmy?” “with syd, duh.” “why'd i even ask?”). and then, sydney and carmen become something else. something tender and sweet and terrifying and beautiful all mixed together into… something. there’s no word for what they have. but it feels so right; to the guests who taste their food and recognize that the hands who put it together are full of love and care; to the staff at the bear who see the unspoken communication, the lingering touches, and their soft eyes that seem to always be on the other; to the berzatto family who notice that carmy looks a little brighter, and shakes a little less. yes, its love, but its so much more. it’s syd and carmy. it always has been, and always will be.

(“can i ask you something? something corny and lame and gross?” “always.” “when did you, like, know?” “know what?” “like, when did you know that you loved me? like, not as a chef or a friend, but as... y'know.” “that’s very middle school of you to ask.” “shut up, i did warn you.” “…” “so?” “its, uh, i don’t, i don’t know.” “well, that’s rude.” “no, i mean, i can’t say its one moment because... it was all of them. together. like, one moment you’re staging and then everything happened and, and, keeps happening but the next thing i knew you were there and you always were there and i just knew that i never wanted you to not be there.” “that’s…. really, really, disgusting, and frankly, a little unprofessional.” “oh, fuck off.” “no, like, i knew you were obsessed with me, but wow, that is a whole new other level.” “fuck you, get off of me, don’t touch me.” “no no no, please—” “i let you into my family—” “let me?” “into my restaurant—” “i think you mean OUR restaurant—” “only for you to humiliate me in my own bed? how dare you.” “…are you sulking?” “…” “…carmy?” “syd?” “me too.” “…heard, chef. now come back here.”)

(and it’s unspoken, but everyone knows that michael would’ve loved her too. i mean, she’s sydney fucking adamu, she conquered the bear. how could anyone not love her?)

[anonymouscheeses]

Obvious shit I noticed part 3 (spoilers for welcome to heaven)

Look at her! "Teehee"

Also she's nervous! Foreshadowing omg 🤯

STICKERS! Two pride stickers and a cute donut. Gives me an idea to draw Chaggie at a donut shop while everything is burning down <3 (I'll probably do it but if any artist wants to as well go ahead!)

*CHOKES ON COFFEE* I LOVE THEM. I'M SORRY I GET SO GIDDY WHEN THEY HAVE EVEN THE SMALLEST INTERACTION BUT UGHHH I NEED MORE, IT WILL NEVER BE ENOUGH 🙏🙏

KISSY! MWA! *SCREAMS INTO THE VOID*

Vivzie give me more, moar now. MOAR

DAMN. SHE CAN THROW- or maybe it just exaggerates the perspective in this frame but still- ZAMNNN

Cherri x Sir Pentious fans RISE UP.

I wasn't ever really a fan of it myself but I always thought it was CUTE. Like 3 seconds before this part I was already begging for them to kiss 😭

More foreshadowing!

AAAAAA CREEPY BIRD THINGS!!!

Oh wait- Sera's hot and Emily's already adorable

If heaven don't look like what this is in the show, I DONT WANT IT! (THATS A JOKE PLEASE DON'T SMITE ME)

JEALOUS GIRLFRIEND VAGGIE!! Can I just say how much I love Vaggie's face expressions? Not just here but like all the time. She's just made to be so exaggerated, out of all of them I thought it would be Charlie who would have the most dramatic faces but Vaggie wins it for me. I JUST GIGGLE SO HARD WHEN SHE LOOKS LIKE THIS BAHAHAH

Okay yeah. It's very obvious now. Vaggie is definitely an ex-exterminator. They don't close in on Charlie here so it's made to subtly nudge the attention to Vaggie. HOW DID THEY IMMEDIATELY NOTICE IT WAS HER THO??

Hot-

That's it.

SHARE THAT MOTHUSSY GIRL-

YOU'RE TELLING ME SHE GREW OUT ALL OF THAT HAIR?!? YEAH ITS BEEN A LONG TIME SINCE THEN BUT STILL AJJSJD.

But overall the design is pretty meh. I always loved the idea of short hair Vaggie and even have seen art of it but it's just yknow, alright. Reminds me of Cassandra from Tangled: the series. IM LISTENING TO ONE OF THE SONGS RIGHT NOW HELPPP

THIS SCENE HERE! WOOOOO! SO GLAD WE KNOW WHEN AND WHERE THEY FIRST MET!! Wish we got it extended tho. And also probably push it to next episode so it would have a better impact(atleast I think thats when they'll have the duet). BUT WHATEVER SOMETHING IS BETTER THAN NOTHING! or uh whatever

Vaggie must've been a bit terrified at first. The only sinner she ever sent mercy to was a child. Then to see someone who to her is an adult sinner who just looks really human, that must be crazy. BUT THEN IF SHE WAS TOLD THAT CHARLIE WAS ACTUALLY THE PRINCESS OF HELL? HOOOO, LOCK IN AND STEAL HER. THAT'S SOME WATTPAD SHIT. Also, I wonder how long Charlie thought of redeeming sinners. It would make sense to be after meeting Vaggie, since it could have been a wake up call to the fact not all sinners are bad people. Even though Vaggie isn't a sinner technically, Charlie didn't know that at the time. But maybe Charlie was always like this but just needed to meet someone who could start her dream with her. Long rant uhhh

Haha penis 🫵

SCRAP WHATEVER I SAID IN THE FIRST PART. THEY PROBABLY DO FUCK- OR DONT?? I DONT KNOW- ANYWAY LESBIAN SEX (BOTTOM TEXT). WHY DO I CARE SO MUCH??? SOMEONE PULL THE TRIGGER.

Lute looks like a basic asf anime gorl. Adam doesn't ever take his helmet off, or maybe he just can't. OH HE'S DOING THE GAY SIGN 💅💅 Very appropriate for what he's saying

Mentor, apprentice. I love that Husk is just trying to help Angel grow but isn't going to force him into it if he doesn't want to.

Im not a fan of huskerdust and think they'd be better friends as I can't imagine a relationship with them at all. But it's still nice and they are supportive of eachother so that's like- yknow. Basic rules. Or something like that. (HELP. I ruined it all at the last part)

I- girl- WHY IS SHE GROWLING?? GRR GRR RR (INSERT TWILIGHT SAGA HERE)

VAGGIE'S FACE. SENDS ME. WHO GAVE HER THESE OVERDRAMATIC EXPRESSIONS, I APPLAUD YOU RGAGAGA

Ooo... I didnt like this part at all... Instead of making the choice she just runs off. Then because the plot demands it, Adam says nothing. Kinda whish she atleast avoided the question, maybe in some way that would require actual thinking? For a character like Vaggie, she could choose either way and it feel like it's still her. If she chose to protect Charlie's dream, she would still be perfectly loyal to her but in the act of so would reveal a secret that could harm their relationship(which does happen at the end but that's because the plot wanted it like that). If she chose to side with Adam, she'd be hurting Charlie emotionally, sure, but it would keep a secret that could make Charlie see Vaggie less than who she is to her already(atleast what Vaggie might think would happen). Imo it should've been her deciding to protect Charlie, since it would mean she's devoted to her at all times.

ANOTHER THING! IF SHE COULDN'T MAKE THE CHOICE, THAT IS SOMETHING INTERESTING TO GO INTO. Maybe it could go deeper into how Vaggie doesn't know who she is without Charlie. So when she has a choice to make, like here, she can't do it without feeling the need to ask Charlie. BUT NOOO, YA HAD TO GO WITH THIS!! Wow. That was a long ass rant. Wtf 😭

Maybe I'm a dumbass. Maybe they'll talk about that next episode, but still, atleast touch on it a bit to not seem rushed?

Angel looking out for his kids like a mom. We always did need the motherly figure, the one closest to that being Charlie but girl needs a mother in her life too(damn, wait, I did her so dirty).

Huh, so why does it work here then? 🤨🤨 if it was said in the contract that Valentino can do whatever he wants only in the studio, then why is this the exception? 🤨🤨

Yes I'm stupid. Why do you ask? (No genuinely what's happening here)

OH ITS THE IMAGE! I really like Sera so far, hope we get more of her soon or in season 2.

Now that we know the context of this, yeah, that's fucking insane. And badass. WOMEN.

HMM. THATS STRANGE. DID YOU NOT FOR ONCE THINK THERE COULD BE A POSSIBILITY SHE MIGHT HAVE BEEN AN ANGEL? Okay I probably wouldn't either but I have an excuse, I'm an idiot. Some girl with a standing out outfit, with one eye, looks unusually human, right after/during the extermination... that's pretty solid ass proof. But I'm dumb so don't take anything i say seriously :D

Imagine this. No- shit. Just-

JUST LOOK! THEY ARE SO CUTE! EVEN THOUGH CRAZY SHIT IS HAPPENING.

*SWEATS*

Vaggie is DESPERATE. PLEADING. That's obvious yeah, but don't mind me I had nothing to say for the last 3 images I just thought they were cool

I mean. Slay I guess. 😍💅

Do all the exterminators look similar or is it just Lute and Vaggie? 🤨

Even though Vaggie and Charlie may be going through this horrible thing with a hard punch in the gut, but Vaggie is always going to comfort her and I just think that's so adorable.

Also Adam looks like a chicken hah.

Everyone fears to be like Lucifer. If they don't do bad things they believe are for the greater good and make sacrifices that put them higher than those in hell, they could themselves be fallen. It's really interesting but I don't know if it's going to be fleshed out enough with the amount of episodes left. Which also worries me about everything else that still hasn't be concluded. There's gonna be loose strings I just know it. Hopefully though they rather do that then rush everything out y'know?

I want the next episode to be mostly focused on Vaggie and Charlie's relationship and the healing of what happened. Not for the entire episode of course, it would feel drawn out if it did, but atleast address the problem for the first like I would say 10 minutes? Then the rest would focus on one or two loose threads while also having Vaggie and Charlie acting upon moving on. That's just my idea but yeah-

[slytherinshua]

CHERRY BOWS

genre. fluff. cheol as a dad. warnings. toddler/parent stuff. cheol gets jelly. pairing. husband!scoups x wife!reader. wc. 1k. request. request by @blue-jisungs: you asked for soft hours n i shall give!! it’s been in my mind for a hot while actually but i’m too busy rn to do it myself… and you’re the perfect person bc U MADE ME THINK IF TJAT 🫵🫵 jealous dad seungcheol :( ofc he loves u n ur kid but give him some attention too smh >:T and requested by anon: i love your svt as dads!! they’re all so cute and i’d like to request one for cheol! a/n. i love love love dad cheol omg :( my second dad fic for him hehe <3 hes so girl dad coded and SOOOOO ADORABLE SKDJKS I LOVE HIM!!!!

“You ate without me…?” Cheol’s sleepy mumble was the first thing you heard from him. He had tiredly trudged downstairs when he had woken up and you weren’t next to him in the bed. It was already a bad start to the day when that happened, and he was frowning and pouting and generally sulking about it by the time he found you.

He wrapped his arms around you from the back, trapping you in the middle of the living room so you couldn’t continue without giving him the attention he needed. You smiled at his clinginess and deep raspy morning voice, but scoffed at how baby-like he was in the morning. Sometimes he acted even more like a child than your actual child. 

Eunha was your now 2 year old daughter. She was adored by everyone and constantly doted on. She could be a handful at times, but only because she had started to take after your bossiness and knew exactly how to appeal to Seungcheol. If she ever wanted something, all she had to do was look at them with those big boba eyes that she got from him, and he’d be folding.

He loved her more than anything. Probably even more than you, but you were okay with it. It warmed your heart how much he cared for his daughter. He’d die for her in a heartbeat without a second of hesitation. You were learning more and more every day the love a father could hold for his children. You had expected this attitude when you married him, of course. Because you knew him and you knew how caring he was. He was so filled with love for people and the world, and you were so lucky to have him.

Starting a family had always been a dream for both of you, and Eunha’s birth had been your biggest blessing. It was challenging to take care of a toddler, but you and Cheol always did your best.

Eunha was happily playing with her toy dolls after eating breakfast— the entire living room spread with her mess. It was always a constant of cleaning her toys in the evening just for her to make a new mess the next day, but you didn’t mind. It was worth it to see her so happy, and though it could be stressful to have a messy space sometimes, her happy giggles made up for it.

“Were you playing dolls with her without me as well?” Cheol asked, the pout he was wearing somehow finding its way into his tone. You giggled and he squeezed you tighter out of jealousy. He didn’t want to admit that he missed your attention being only on him, but it was true. 

You were getting up earlier to feed Eunha and play with her in the morning. The sleepy morning cuddles that Cheol looked forward to every time he fell asleep next to you were becoming rarer and rarer and he felt bitter about the change. It just wasn’t the same with Eunha. It wasn’t worse, it was definitely better in most aspects, but the free time that he had enjoyed before was being sucked away by the little child.

“She wanted me to be the doctor.” You told him, explaining the dynamics of Eunha’s favourite game. She would be the mother to her little baby doll, and either Cheol or you would usually be the doctor.

“The bed was so cold without you…” He murmured, pushing his cheek against your neck. His skin was warm against yours and you leaned into him more, savouring the feeling.

“I’m sorry. You know that Eunha likes to get up early…” You whispered.

“She should’ve woken me up instead of you. Aren’t you tired?” 

“A bit. Eating breakfast with her was nice, though. She insisted on having strawberries with her yogurt since she had seen me eat it like that once.” You smiled. Seungcheol pouted.

“I thought I was her favourite…” He was mostly joking, of course, but slightly hurt. He had always been susceptible to jealousy. Maybe he was a little too greedy— he loved watching you and Eunha spend time together, but he also hated being left out.

Your little moment of warm embrace was interrupted after 2 minutes, a giggly Eunha running up and clinging to her father’s leg. She babbled something about her doll and wanting to get ice cream later today, which you were sure Seungcheol would indulge her in. He spoiled her too much.

You were happy to see your husband’s pout lift up into the sweetest of grins. He picked up Eunha, holding her so that she was resting on his hip. He kept one arm around you; almost if you would run away and leave him if he didn’t. Which was probably partially true since you hadn’t cleaned up from breakfast yet.

“Give daddy a kiss?” Cheol asked Eunha, giggles ensuing amongst both of them. She leaned forward and kissed his cheek cutely and you smiled. Now that Seungcheol was awake as well, the two would be inseparable for the rest of the day— especially since Cheol didn’t have any work to get to.

The morning happily proceeded with a small second breakfast and playtime. Now that your husband was being included in every activity, he was all smiles and giggles. He liked being the centre of attention; you had discovered that fact throughout the years. He was the happiest man in the world when he knew he was making his daughter happy.

Her happiness always came first, even when it relied on Seungcheol’s hair being tied up in pigtails with little cherry-coloured bows because Eunha wanted to play hairdresser. You were almost envious of how cute he looked in them. It was impossible not to love everything that Cheol did.

Along with the bows came matching sweaters with a cherry pattern for father and daughter. One look at the two and you could easily declare them the two cutest human beings in the entire world.

↳ svt taglist: @kangtaehyunzzz,, @yeonjuns-redhair,, @ddeonudepressions,, @hannahsophie0103,, @skz-minchan-enthusiast,, @shuabby1994,, @icyminghao,, @98-0603,, @weird-bookworm,, @edensgardenn,, @wonwooz1,, @cyberpunksunwoo,, @cienlvrs,, @amara-mars

[noodlesarecheese]

So Watcher is launching a Dropout (it's not called Dropout but they're clearly using the same template format platform thing idk what it's called, and the same pricing structure), and the reaction so far has been wildly different than what I remember from Dropout's launch. I was curious about why that was or if I was just misremembering the Dropout launch, so I went back to the Dropout launch video to compare them and I think I can see where some of the difference is coming from.

If you want to make the comparison yourself: Watcher's Video, Dropout's Video.

I wanna clarify first though that this isn't a knock against Watcher or the fans who are reacting one way or another or anything like that, I genuinely am just fascinated with how different the reactions are to what seems to be the same business decision. This also isn't a 'wow watcher sucks and dropout is so much better' I'm just using them for comparison because they did the same thing with different results. ALSO this isn't about the business decision itself, just the presentation! Disclaimers out of the way, here's the analysis.

Title and Thumbnail So the Watcher.tv announcement video is titled "Goodbye Youtube" and the thumbnail is Ryan, Shane, and Steven sitting on a couch looking serious, with a dark background. That really makes it seem like they're quitting (which, ok, they are quitting youtube but not quitting quitting). Viewers are already primed to be upset, and it's easier to go from upset to angry than upset to excited, curious, or neutral.

Compare to the dropout announcement video: "How the Internet is Ruining Comedy" - inline with other collegehumor video titles, might make you curious. Thumbnail - Big News! with Sam smiling and a bright background. We know its big news, but he looks happy, and the exclamation point let's us know they want us to be excited. Viewers are primed to be curious and excited.

Tone The Watcher announcement has 2 main tones. The first half is very sentimental, almost sad or wistful at times, and while there are parts that veer into pride at achievements, it's mostly bittersweet and sentimental. The second half is a bit more uplifting, but still quite serious. It reminded me of a tech announcement, like when they introduce the new iphone or something like that. Very professional, sleek, and serious, which isn't automatically a bad thing! But I do think that's not the vibe a decently-sized chunk of the audience expected or wanted. Many people watch Watcher for the cast's dynamic with each other, humor, and the more relaxed/conversational/friendly feel that most of the series have.

Compare to dropout - excited and comedic tone. Still professional, but also fits the expectations of the viewers. People watch collegehumor for the humor (it was in the name, after all). They also poke a bit of fun at themselves, which lightens the mood, shows self-awareness, and alleviates some of the bad feelings about paywalling.

Focus The Watcher announcement focuses a lot on the creative journey of the cast and company, as well as how this move will benefit them. Which isn't a bad thing, that's actually quite interesting! The problem here, I think, is actually more about what isn't here - a solid explanation of how this will also benefit the viewers and why the viewers should be excited. There's a brief description of one new show, and the promise that existing shows will get an upgrade, but we weren't given many specific details about how they'll be improved, and there's only one new show to tempt us into subscribing. Some people will be excited for that, some people won't, and some people will be excited but not enough to subscribe. Having 2 or 3 series (even if it's 1 fleshed out plus a few teasers of what's in production or what is being planned) plus some more details about how existing shows will be improved would've helped. Without that, it really does seem like it'll just be the same stuff viewers were getting for free, but now paywalled, rather than new and exciting stuff. That makes a big difference. I think with the fans not getting as much focus, this also led to some (accidental, I hope) hurt feelings. Based on what I've seen from fan reactions, all the talk about hitting the peak of what they can do on youtube and wanting more, translated for many people to 'youtube isn't enough' which became 'you (the current viewers) aren't enough.' Which I don't think was their intent! But I also don't think fans are wrong for feeling hurt by that.

Compare to dropout: They clearly explain how the move will benefit fans, and reassure viewers that existing content will stay where it is, and only new content will be behind the paywall. (Watcher clarified this too, but in a comment. It's not in the video itself, which is a huge problem.) They include clips of several new (at the time) series that would be premiering on dropout, including things that specifically could not be made on youtube (due to weed, violence, and sexual humor), so the reason for the shift is clear to the audience.

Advertisers Both videos contain the sentiment that being monetarily successful on youtube means working to appease the advertisers, and that over time what the advertisers want and what the creators want drifts further and further apart, putting strain on the creators.

However, I think the message gets lost a bit in the Watcher vid. Instead, it leaves viewers with the idea that the main problem is just ads are annoying instead of advertisers putting constraints on content. I'm not even sure what the specific constraints are for watcher, because they didn't give any examples. And the focus on ads being annoying leaves viewers frustrated because people typically either don't mind ads or they already have an ad blocker.

Timing and Size Okay, this isn't exactly about presentation, but it is still a factor that impacts perception so I'm tackling it. And I'm actually going to do dropout first. CollegeHumor launched dropout in September 2018. Pre-pandemic, but also pre-Sam Reich as CEO. The company was still owned by IAC. It was a Company, and while it wasn't huge it wasn't tiny either. So launching dropout was a Company Decision, a Business Strategy. Some people were upset about, but it wasn't a personal betrayal (generally, anyways). If I remember correctly, this was also not a high point for the company. They kinda needed dropout to do well to keep things running smoothly (which is why they shut it down and sold it to Sam just 1 1/2ish years later), so the sudden shift made sense.

Watcher Entertainment is a company, but it doesn't feel like one. Ryan, Shane, and Steven own and operate things, but they're also the faces, and they're youtubers. Which makes every business decision they make feel more personal to viewers, especially those who have been watching for a long time. They've also seemingly been doing well on youtube, which makes it more difficult for viewers to understand why the sudden change is happening now. They do talk a bit about it, about the company expanding and wanting to do things that advertisers don't like (which I've already covered). However, mostly the choice to start a streaming platform is framed as 'the next big step' without much clarification on why it's the next big step. Plus, it's post-pandemic, and a lot of people are still struggling financially with the ripple effects of that. Yes, $6 isn't a wild amount of money, but there have been some months where $5 absolutely meant the difference between paying all my bills or not, and I know I'm not the only one. This, coupled with a lack of clarity about why exactly they're doing this, leads to fans feeling hurt, betrayed, bitter, and frustrated.

Now, presentation and framing isn't everything. No matter how perfect your announcement is, some people are still going to be upset. It's a big change, of course people will be upset! But I do think a more careful presentation would've alleviated some of the hurt and anger that fans are feeling. While I do think a lot of the reaction we're seeing is due to the decision, I think (based on what I've seen) that some of it is also based on the poor communication in the video itself, and that could've been avoided!

So I'm gonna get a little speculative and describe what I would've done. In this hypothetical, they've decided to launch the streaming service and brought me on just for the announcement.

Firstly, switch the title out. If they're married to Goodbye Youtube then add a (and hello...?) after so it's at least obvious they aren't fully quitting. The dark color scheme of the thumbnail fits their regular vibe, but they want everyone to be excited so they should look excited. Next, let's lighten the tone up. Being proud of what they've done so far is great, but we don't need the sentimental music and bittersweetness. Remember, the goal is to get viewers excited about what come's next - so let's focus on what actually comes next! Talk about specific show plans and mention why they wouldn't work on youtube. Then, take some time to reassure the fans. Predict a few likely worries and address them in the video. Acknowledge that it's a big change, that it will take time to get used to, and that not everyone will be onboard, and let the fans know that it's ok if they aren't onboard.

Like I said, this wouldn't fix everything. There are a few differences in between dropout and watcher that don't have anything to do with presentation. Dropout launched with primarily new shows rather than new seasons of existing shows, and they continued uploading to youtube relatively regularly in addition to the content behind the paywall, which I do think went a long way to keeping fans happy. At this point it's unclear if watcher will do either of those or not. But, while I don't think it would fix everything, I do think improved communication in the announcement would've helped.

[itsclydebitches]

Hazbin Hotel: Let's Talk About Cursing!

Trigger warning for lots of cursing in this post (obviously) and discussion of canon abuse scenes

As I delve further into the Hazbin Hotel fandom, I’ve inevitably come across a variety of people who dislike the show for an equal variety of reasons. One criticism I’ve seen with some consistency is in regards to the cursing and yeah, I get it. That’s not going to be everyone’s cup of tea. However, the repeated claim that the cursing is only there as a—failed—attempt at bad, lazy humor got me thinking about why I personally liked the cursing, and why I think it serves a greater purpose in the show.

Now yes, some of the cursing does function as an arguably simplistic joke. The most common setup I’ve noticed is one that leans into a contrast in tone/personalities. We see this a lot with the polite, comparatively timid Charlie as she navigates her distinctly vulgar domain.

Charlie: “Hi, mister!” Demon: “Go fuck yourself!”

The entirety of “Happy Day in Hell” plays with this contrast, setting up Charlie’s slightly skewed, but significantly optimistic perspective of Hell. We are shown again and again how her lyrics are contradicted or twisted into something less innocent through the visuals: a “revealing” street where it’s “hard not to stare” has BDSM going on in a nearby window, Charlie will “open the door” for her people and then literally does so... for a guy who’s already dead. (Or, you know, temporarily out of commission until he heals, or whatever demons do when they’re ‘killed’ by things other than angelic steel.) The entire point here is to contrast the happy, skipping girl claiming that there’s a “warm, fuzzy feeling” in the air with the actual environment of unchecked fires and decaying limbs. And yes, that can be amusing. Not necessarily for everyone as humor is highly subjective and dependent on context, but distilling this contrast down to the shock of a polite greeting getting a “Go fuck yourself!” in response is a kind of entertainment. Especially when Charlie’s reaction adds another layer: for me that’s a very funny—and currently relatable—expression.

We can potentially make the case that this humor format overstays its welcome, but I personally think the show does a good job of keeping Charlie’s cursing both simple and comparatively rare, so that when she is put into these contrast situations the humor lands better. The best example I can think of in the latter half of the show is Susan. There we get the whiplash of polite, trying-to-get-these-people-to-like-her Charlie reaching a breaking point to become “FUCK YOU, YOU OLD BITCH” Charlie. It’s a moment that builds off of the earlier surprise of the courteous Alastor calling someone an “Ornery old bitch”—while Rosie is trying (and failing) to find a nicer way to phrase this.

However, as stated above I think the cursing serves more of a purpose than to just be funny for (some) viewers. Beyond those who simply find cursing distasteful, I’ve seen a fair bit of, “This is so stupid. No one even talks like that!” going around.

Except... I do? I talk like that.

See, I like cursing. I was born to former hippie parents and grew up playing MMOs, so cursing was something I became pretty acclimated to. Personally, I’m glad I was because I’m fascinated by language and cursing—for better or worse—is an integral way that many people communicate. I was taught to see cursing not as the Bad Forbidden Thing You Must Never Ever Do, but rather as just another form of expression, something to be used in moderation and under specific circumstances. Once I became an adult I already understood how I wanted to curse and when it was appropriate to do so. People at work are often shocked when I tell them I curse a lot because no, of course I’m not doing that at my job. That isn't considered professional in this space. Among my friends though?

We can sound a lot like the Hazbin crew.

Undoubtedly the most common curse in the show is “fuck” and its variations, which very much tracks with my personal experience among other people who curse. In fact, it’s so ubiquitous that it barely counts as a curse at all in some groups. It’s more of an easy, accepted way to add emphasis. Vaggie’s “What the fuck was that?” about Alastor’s commercial is a perfect example. She’s pissed and simply saying “What was that?” doesn’t carry the same weight, no matter how angry she may sound when she says it. Vox’s long “Fuuuuuuuck” at the end of “Stayed Gone” conveys an emotion you just can’t capture any other way. No dialogue at all would create a fundamentally different experience of Vox’s feelings and another non-cursing response is just gonna hit different. Not necessarily bad, just different.

“I don’t want to go to the party!” “I don’t want to go to the freaking party!” “I don’t want to go to the fucking party!”

The above represents three distinct characters to me and I think Hazbin Hotel gets that. Cursing isn’t thrown around randomly because something something cursing supposedly sells; it’s all linguistically logical. Characters curse when something surprising or bad happens, or when something unexpectedly good happens, when they’re angry, trying to be sexy, or they want to add that emphasis. That’s a lot of different situations where cursing can be useful and when you use “fuck” in your daily life a lot you become pretty desensitized to it. As said, for many it’s barely a curse at all. Which means that when you really want to curse you’ve got to up the ante. It doesn’t surprise me one bit that the two uses of “cunt” I can recall—a word that is generally considered far worse than “fuck” and makes a lot of people understandably uncomfortable—is used by two of the worst characters in moments that are meant to horrify the viewer:

Adam: “Can’t wait a whole year to slaughter those little cunts / I know it’s just been a week, but we’ll be back in six months!” Valentino: “When I say you’d better get that fucking cunt out of my studio, you say...?”

This horror is especially emphasized in Valentino’s scene. The creators know this word is coming up and deliberately build towards it. Angel is currently being abused and has been reminded that Valentino “owns” him. The above question is a part of a trio that Valentino asks (a standard structure in writing), wherein the third option is the outlier/most shocking of the three. The animation leans into that shock, with the music building and Valentino grabbing Angel to pull him close right on the word “cunt.” Perez even puts emphasis there because he knows that this is a significant word that will change our understanding of Valentino.

Despite having hit Angel multiple times and taunting him with the contract, this is the moment Valentino stops playing the ‘nice’ employer. This is the real him. No more fake compliments and endearments aimed at Charlie, no more fake comfort/intimacy aimed at Angel. That “cunt” conveys a hell of a lot about how Valentino really sees them and when you have a cast of characters who are already cursing on the regular, it takes a word on that level to do that kind of work. If Valentino had said, “get that fucking bitch out of my studio” it wouldn’t have had nearly the same impact because he’s the kind of guy who uses "bitch" even when playing ‘nice.’

Adam’s line from “Hell is Forever” does very similar work. The scene needs a word to align with the horrific reveal that another extermination is just six months away, that conveys Adam’s deep disgust for Charlie’s people, and that still catches the viewer’s attention even though he’s the character (I believe) who curses the most. Here the music drops and Adam is a little closer to speaking than singing; there's this shift because, like with Valentino, our perception of him is shifting. This isn’t just some egotistical idiot who wants to be called “Dick Master,” he’s the leader of an army coming to gleefully kill them. Framing a whole world of people—people Charlie loves—as “cunts” while treating their murder as a holiday that can’t come soon enough creates an, 'Oh shit. This guy is actually a threat' understanding that you can’t quite get with anything else.

On a smaller scale, cursing does other character work throughout the whole show. I watched a number of cursing compilation vids for this meta (that was a trip lol) and again, cursing is not thrown in randomly. Each character has a unique way of cursing that aligns with their personality and motivations:

As said, Adam curses the most in the show which helps sell his truly over-the-top, irreverent personality. Linguistically, the amount he curses also allows for some fun grammatical play. Lines like, “Fucking love putting my name on shit, shit’s the best!” help convey the versatility of cursing.

Also as said, Charlie curses a fair bit but she’s comparatively polite and her cursing tends to be a result of genuinely big emotions—like saying “Crap” when she’s shocked and falls, or “Shit!” when Adam locks her out of the room—rather than sprinkled into her conversations as a modifier. That leaves space to create those moments of amused surprise when Charlie really let’s loose.

Sr Pentious curses even less than Charlie which fits his secretly gooey center. He talks a big game at the start of the show, but he’s actually quite bad at being, well, bad (especially the Amazon version compared to pilot!Pentious). His idea of getting one over on Alastor is ripping a bit of his coat. He loves his Egg Bois and “doesn’t want to live” without them. He has no desire to go into battle without minions/a big machine to hide behind and, of course, he’s the first to be redeemed. He's too much of a secret sweetheart to curse a lot.

Interestingly, Niffty doesn’t seem to curse at all. At least, not enough for me to think of examples off the top of my head. Right now I’m inclined to read that as an extension of her lived experiences/design—the cute 1950’s housewife archetype who is obsessed with keeping things clean doesn’t [gasp!] curse—as well as a way to maintain her legitimate creep factor. As said, cursing is common among the hotel residents and is a way for them to linguistically fit in. Niffty, however, is positioned more as an outsider (despite how much they all obviously love her): she’s actually scary in a way most demons aren’t and despite how weird this whole world is, she stands out as someone no one else can make sense of (even Alastor). If cursing is normal, Niffty is a character who is decidedly positioned as not normal.

Angel curses a fair bit, though his irreverence is conveyed more through innuendos. Angel is great at verbally twisting others’ words (especially Husk’s) to give himself a conversational advantage:

Husk: “Go fuck yourself” Angel: “Only if you watch me~”

Husk: “You’ve come—” Angel: [very loud orgasm noise] Husk: “...to the right place.”

Meanwhile, Husk uses “fuck” plenty, but he’s also one of the few characters who use “bullshit" too. I wouldn’t say there’s anything particularly revealing about that choice, but just giving him a go-to curse that’s otherwise used infrequently helps make his character distinct in a cast of other cursing characters.

Vaggie occasionally curses in Spanish, showing us her heritage if she used to be human, or a distinct knowledge/verbal preference if she’s always been an angel.

Heaven, as the ‘good’ side, doesn’t curse as a general rule, which leaves room for cursing to do more of that silent character work. We’re reminded of the stuffy, overly critical beings she’s dealing with when Charlie receives the combined judgement of the court for saying, “Fuck yeah!” In contrast, we understand just how shocked St. Peter is to see a Morningstar when he lets out an unintentional “Fuck!” The angry vindication of Charlie’s “That’s what the fuck I’ve been saying!” lands harder after multiple scenes of very little cursing, and Lute’s “Some crack-whore who fucked up already? / He blew his shot like the cocks in his mouth—” helps set her apart as an exorcist + Adam's second in command: her shocking violence comes through in her word choice too; words that supposedly don't belong in Heaven.

In what’s arguably the funniest line in the whole show, Lucifer undermines his dramatic standoff with Adam by going, “You mess with my daughter and now I’m going to fuck you.” Beyond just cutting the tension, that fits his bumbling, oblivious personality perfectly. Lucifer is crazy powerful and can absolutely wreck Adam. He also has none of the classy intimidation that, say, Alastor displays when he tries to convey that. This is a depressed himbo who makes ducks in his free time and settles on, “Hey, bitch!” when greeting his estranged daughter. Of course he’s going to accidentally turn a threat into a promise of sex.

Which finally brings me to Alastor, someone whose cursing is already understood well by the fandom. He’s characterized as manipulatively courteous, using manners to both hide his true nature and draw attention to his power—’You’re so beneath me I’ll just calmly sip my coffee and politely ask who you are, despite the fact that we've fought multiple times.’ This is a guy who calls people “My dear” and unironically insults them with the phrase “wacky nonsense.” So when he curses you can BET it’s gonna have an impact. It sure did for me. I had to pause the episode after Alastor’s first “Fuck you” because it was so shocking to hear that language from him. And that’s the point! The scene wants that reaction from the audience. The "Fuck you"s visceral anger contrasting the fake laughs he and Lucifer have been giving, the quick-fire exchange that’s suddenly cut short by Alastor’s choice of a direct insult, the fact that he’s officially dropping the polite veneer they’ve both been indulging in and raising the stakes before Charlie intervenes, the loss of the radio filter that otherwise demonstrates his control over a situation... all of it screams, ‘THIS IS AN IMPORTANT CHARACTER MOMENT.’

"Fuck you” reveals that, for the first time in the show, Alastor is legitimately threatened by someone. Which makes sense given that, you know, Lucifer is the King of Hell. Cursing for Alastor isn’t normal, so when he does curse it’s going to reveal something about a guy who otherwise is obsessed with being unknowable. Having the King of Hell dismiss him is actually infuriating in a way Sir Pentious’ threats could never be and the exchange kicks off a rivalry that rattles Alastor in ways Vox’s never has. (Side note: is it any wonder people ship them? Character A making control freak Character B feel vulnerable is classic!) It’s no surprise to me than that the one other true curse we get from Alastor is, “I’m about to end your fucking life,” delivered to Adam who, like Lucifer, poses a legitimate threat and does end up beating him. I say “true” curse because calling Susan a “bitch” does similar work for him, but the takeaway is humorous rather than dramatic. It’s funny that the only people who can piss Alastor off enough to curse are the First Man/a powerful exorcist angel threatening his life, the literal King of Hell... and Susan.

So there’s a lot going on here, more than what many viewers might assume if they approach the show as just “stupid,” needlessly vulgar entertainment. As shown above, I don’t think the cursing is needless, especially given that, well... they’re in Hell. They’re sinners, supposedly the worst that humanity has to offer, so of course they're going to curse a lot. Does cursing mean you’re a bad person? No. Can you craft a hellish world that doesn't rely on cursing to convey a group's immoral nature? Sure.

Does it make sense that a writer would equate a sinful, irreverent cast with linguistic rebellion and would want to convey a certain vibe that, frankly, you just can’t get without dropping an F bomb?

Yeah, I think so. No one has to like that kind of creative decision, but it’s worth acknowledging it as a deliberate choice.

That’s all! Thanks for reading this fucking long post ✌️

[amalthiaph]

I took an interest in The Bad Batch around the tailend of S2. It's not news to Tumblr that I almost slept on this show. And I cannot thank Caleb Dume enough for being the reason why I pressed the play button for this one. While I haven't been around for most of its active run, and I wish I had been, the last year has been among the best months of my life.

This show challenged my morals, and taught me lessons that I will forever take with me.

Tech taught me to embrace and take pride in who I am. I now think that I am not something that needs to be cured. I needed to be understood and accepted. He taught me that we deserved to be loved and be allowed to live the way we want to (as long as we are not causing harm to ourselves or to others).

Hunter taught me that at the end of the day, we're all still humans. We make mistakes. We fail. But we can learn from them, and we can strive to be better. And I should also take care of my hair bec I cannot accept that a man in a galactic war have better hair than me (Okay, did you honestly think I'm gonna be serious this entire essay?)

Crosshair taught me that at the end of the day, we really are still humans. Sometimes, we make choices that not everyone will understand or agree to. Sometimes, we don't even understand our own choices. But we can learn from them, and we can strive to be better. And that I should also go to therapy bec istg my hand shakes like hell I always need to rely on a pen stabilizer when doing my artworks.

Wrecker taught me that in this world where we can be anything, always choose to be kind. He is a great man who would always be there for everyone, and I hope that one day, I can be that person too. He is afraid of heights, but he climbs and go on high places anyway. Like him, I should also start conquering my fears. Dear Wrecker, I did try conquering my fear of heights last March 9 but I can't. I will try again.

Echo taught me to always fight for the greater good. Almost two years ago, me and a group of people campaigned for a great tomorrow. With pink flags and pink balloons, we worked on our little thing I like to call our rebellion. Sadly, we lost. At times, I am thinking of just giving up bec that's democracy and I cannot go against the people's decision, but characters like Echo and the rest of Rogue One taught me that nothing should ever stop me for fighting for the people's rights and that my love for my fellow citizens should always come first before hatred.

And lastly, Omega taught me to be curious, or more likely to not be ashamed for being curious. Learn about the world. Learn about lots of things. We never know when we need it. While I could say be good at strategy and win 30 grand on card games, nahhh, I'm not that smart.

I also learned to reevalutate myself as an artist. This show taught me integrity. I had ranted about this lately but these characters challenged me in terms of art. I knew that the creators aren't best at proper representation. While I could draw them as they are in the show, I choose to stand for what is right, and represent them as properly as my skills could. In the more technical side, I became good at drawing armors. And this little Actors AU Draw Series taught me to be responsible; I tried my very best to create and post them on time. This increased my productivity.

But enough about me.

There's something I realized two nights ago; we, the fandom, are Bad Batchers ourselves. We can consider ourselves a family, but not one of us is the same and we're all interesting, and capable in our own unique ways. We can have our own opinion and stand about something and still coexist. Like our favorite charactera, we embrace and celebrate our differences.

This show may end. No more Bad Batch Eves, no more cryptic tweets that cause us to hyperventilate, no more Bad Batch Wednesdays but it will live on, through us.

I know there will be a day where we decrease in number, one by one, little by little, but still, the show will live on through our actions, our opinions, our choices we make after May 1, 2024 because I know that all of us were changed in some ways by these characters and this show.

To the crew, your cryptic tweets caused me sleepless nights, but thank you so, so much. It is through your hardwork that we had this wonderful show. Thank you for making every second of the past year so worthwhile and enjoyable for me and for everyone.

However this show will end, whether happy or sad, I am glad it happened. However short my time was with them, I am happy I had been here. However short my time with everyone in the fandom was or if some of you leave one day, still, thank you so much for being part of my life; I am so happy I met all of you.

To Clone Force 99, thank you. I've never loved anything like this before. May the Force be with you.