#but i also listen to music at night so who knows what my stations turn into | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

repulsiveliquidation · 8 months

Text

Want, not Need. Pt. 2 || The Orgy

warnings : smut 18+, fingering, strap-on, cunnilingus, anal play, semi-public sex.

a/n : Mapi is not injured and hobbling about in this series, thank you very much. That is also my favorite picture of those two.

Part One

“Her?” Ingrid asks, “Where did you meet her?”

Mapi begins to go into vivid detail about your one-night stand with Mapi. She gets into the nitty gritty and boy does it pique Ingrid’s interest.

“We met at the bar, she was standing there with the most perfect ass I had ever seen at the time. Yours tops that list now.” Mapi says, giving Ingrid a little tap on her behind. She grins and smacks her girlfriend, listening to her explain her little night with you.

“She took the big one, Ingrid,” Mapi tells her proudly. Ingrid knew what Mapi was talking about. Mapi had a toy that she still struggled to take. It sat in the back of Mapi’s nightstand, a mountain Ingrid still hadn’t been able to conquer. She was thoroughly impressed though, and by the sound of it, Mapi was too.

“I mean, I barely fingered her open and she took it like a champ.”

“She is fascinating.”

Ingrid looks over at you, eyes already hooded like a predator that has eyes on prey.

“And she just left you? No goodbye?” Ingrid asks as she stands. Mapi stands too and tucks a lock of the Norwegian hair behind her ear.

“Just a note, and the most delicious breakfast I had in all my time in Madrid,” Mapi tells Ingrid as she begins to walk over to you. Mapi suddenly grabs her arm, pulls her back, and gives her a chaste kiss, grinning from ear to ear.

“Work your magic, huh princesa? She owes me a round of drinks.”

Ingrid saunters over, a friendly smile on her face.

“Hello, you must be who Jonatan was raving about, our newest sports writer! Please, call me Ingrid.”

“Yes, it’s certainly a pleasure to meet you, Ingrid. Y/N.”

The camera starts rolling and the interview goes smoothly. Mapi tries to focus back on training but can’t, spending more time staring at you and Ingrid than going through her drills for the day. She notices that Ingrid is flirting with you a little and you give her the same attention. Mapi stands at the water station after training just as Ingrid’s interview wraps up, watching your hand rub up and down Ingrid’s arm.

Mapi bites the bullet and walks over, hand wrapped around Ingrid’s waist. She pulls Ingrid in for a kiss and Ingrid melts; you stand there awkwardly and scratch the back of your head.

“Mapi, it’s nice to meet you again,” you say, extending your hand out for her to shake.

“What brings you to Barcelona?” Mapi asks, shaking your hand but pulling you in for a hug.

“Work! I used to write for Madrid then I got a job in America for a while before transferring here.”

“Well, since we know each other and you seem to be getting along with my girlfriend so well, we’ll show you around!” Mapi insists, linking your arms together.

“Wait, I-I wouldn’t want to impose!” You say and step back, ready to help the crew pack up and go back to your hotel room.

“Nonsense,” Ingrid says, reaching out for your arm. “Give Mapi a minute to clean up and we can head for dinner!” Ingrid links her arms with yours and walks ahead of Mapi, the shorter woman smirking at all the possibilities dinner could bring.

Throughout dinner, Mapi and Ingrid take turns teasing you. Whether it was under the table of the family-owned restaurant or being extra careful of you by ordering for you and pulling your chair out.

Ingrid insists on paying for dinner, even when you try to go over to the counter and make the teenager behind the counter take your card.

“You’re new to our home, let us take care of you,” she whispered, pressing a soft kiss to your ear before pulling you out the door.

Mapi takes your hand and drags you down the street to a private bar. You grin and walk in with Ingrid in tow, the loud music bringing back memories of that night you had with Mapi.

“Time to cash in on that promise, princesa. The first round is on you,” Mapi teases and tilts your head up to look at her at the bar, index finger tapping your nose. You buy drinks as promised, bringing them to both the girls who found a private corner of the bar to sit at. You sit at the end, sipping innocently on your minty gin. Mapi stands, downing her rum and coke in one swig before standing behind you. She caresses her hands down your arms, lips close to your ear.

“May I?” she asks softly. You nod, eyes locked onto Ingrid’s that are a similar dark-hooded shade. Mapi’s lips begin to kiss along your neck and shoulder, hands moving to your waist as she presses her front tight to your back.

“Come on, you must show Ingrid how well you move those hips hm?” Mapi encourages, helping you off the seat.

You follow them to the packed dancefloor, Ingrid instantly pulling you to her as Mapi stands behind her and holds her waist. In a split-second decision, you decide to let go and enjoy yourself. You dance with Ingrid and Mapi, the heat of the dancefloor bringing a light blush to all your faces. Ingrid, in a surprising turn of events, turns and begins to grind back on you despite only one drink.

You hesitate to touch her, eyes shooting up at Mapi who looks a little confused as to why you are still holding back. She suddenly pulls you into her and kisses you hard. You melt into her like Ingrid did earlier, the feeling of her lips on yours brings you back to her apartment where you last felt her. You pull away a little breathless, her lips just millimeters from yours.

“Don’t keep her waiting, pretty girl.”

You nod softly and pull Ingrid close, the tall Norwegian goes back to grinding on you. She’s a little buzzed, hips moving back on you beautifully. You too grab her hips and dance along with her, looking up to see Ingrid and Mapi making out lovingly.

You begin to kiss down Ingrid’s bare shoulder, nipping at her flesh to leave deep teeth marks. Your hands don’t stop caressing her, the two of them now noisily kissing each other when Ingrid pulls away with a loud smack.

“Need you,” she says to Mapi before she turns to you shaking her head, “No, want you.”

This time you take charge and pull them towards the private bathrooms at the end of the room. Ingrid was all over you the moment the door locked, eagerly on her knees while Mapi grabbed your face to kiss you. Ingrid pulled your jeans down, happily settled between your legs as she began to lap hungrily at your pussy.

Mapi kept your moans to a minimum, kissing you hard with her hand wrapped around your neck lightly. One hand held Ingrid’s head close, the other tangled in Mapi’s messy hair. She began to kiss down your neck, the music in the club becoming louder which gave you a bit of confidence to moan freely. Ingrid held your legs steady, tongue flicking over your clit fast and hard. Mapi pulled your shirt up and began to suck on your breasts hard. You moaned loudly without a care in the world, the feeling of one of them was the best fuck of your life and now to have the two of them take care of you was a dream come true.

Ingrid sucked hard on your clit, two long fingers slipping into your pussy before you felt Mapi’s lips leave your chest. Before you could open your eyes, she spanked your ass.

“Quédate quieto.”

You nod and listen, feeling her move around as your hips begin to almost ride Ingrid’s fingers. You feel her hands pull at your ass, tongue flat and warm against your second hole. You yelp and ride the sensations; Ingrid’s lips wrapped tight around your clit, her fingers pressed deep inside you, and Mapi’s tongue jabbing its way into your ass.

“Fuck…” you moan, hand reaching back to hold Mapi’s head closer as Ingrid’s fingers press harder against your sweet spot. You hunch over, pulling on Ingrid’s hair but she relents, sucking harder and harder on your clit.

“Ingrid, fuck…I’m close!” you squeak, thighs quivering as she slips a third finger inside your pussy. Mapi takes a bite of your ass and stands, holding you close and looking down over your shoulder at Ingrid at your feet.

“Seems familiar doesn’t it, pretty girl? She looks so gorgeous on her knees where she belongs no?”

Your eyes roll into your head when you remember her voice having the same lilt it had now when she said the same thing to you.

“Y-Yes! Fuck please, yes!”

Ingrid gives you one last come-hither flick inside you and you crash, thighs trembling as your orgasm ripples through you.

Mapi catches you and lets you crumble to the floor. You grab Ingrid’s face and kiss her passionately, moaning into her mouth when the taste of you floods your senses.

“Please take me home,” you beg, turning to look at a smug Mapi. She looks put together, and not someone who just ate your ass and pushed you toward a knee-buckling orgasm.

“You girls clean up, I’ll bring the car to the front.”

You sit in the back of the car with Ingrid, her lips on yours the whole short drive home.

“You’re right Mapi,” Ingrid starts, fingertips dancing over your features. “She is pretty.”

Mapi grins and winks at you in the rear-view mirror, before Ingrid turns your head back to look at her.

“Eyes on me, elskling,” she demands, not sounding as menacing as she wants. You raise your eyebrow at her and Mapi starts to laugh, parking the car and getting out.

Ingrid huffs and marches into the building herself, Mapi stops you before you can walk in.

“She’s a brat sometimes,” Mapi starts, hands in her pocket looking as cool as a cucumber.

“I can see that.”

“She’s been acting up lately, I think someone else being in charge should get her to behave.”

“You want me to”

“Just for a bit, while I watch of course,” she presses the button for the lift and you take a deep breath, there is a lingering hint of Ingrid’s perfume in the air. She must be upstairs already.

“Brat taming was not how I envisioned my evening going.”

“Surprised?”

“Tickled.”

Walking into Mapi and Ingrid’s beautiful apartment, she takes your hand and gently guides you to the bedroom where Ingrid lays naked on the bed spread eagle with her fingers plunged deep into her pussy.

You and Mapi stand over her, arms crossed in unison. Ingrid merely smiles and plays with her chest, her right hand busy between her legs.

“You were taking too long down there so I figured I’d sort myself out,” she whimpers, a third finger sliding into her wet pussy before she dramatically turns onto her knees and fingers herself that way. She moans into the mattress but stops when she doesn’t hear anyone berating her for being a brat.

Instead, she hears clothes falling to the ground, lips smacking softly and moans begging for more. She pulls her sticky fingers out of her pussy and turns back around, jaw dropped in shock when she sees you on your knees already sucking on Mapi’s strap.

She didn’t even notice Mapi grabbing it from the bedside drawer let alone giving you her spare one. You gag loudly and Ingrid takes notice of the silicone cock you’re sucking on; it’s the one she’s never been able to take.

“Good girl, princesa…” Mapi praises, running her fingers through your hair. She pulls a makeshift ponytail and fucks into your mouth, moaning loudly to put on a show for Ingrid. Ingrid shuffles over and pulls you away from Mapi, lips wrapped around Mapi’s cock. You both kneel in front of her, taking turns to suck her cock. She grins and goes with it, feeling the tension grow between you and Ingrid.

“On the bed, both of you,” Mapi says sternly, Ingrid scrambling onto the bed quickly. You follow her, stroking your cock which was much smaller than Mapi’s but was one that Ingrid took very easily.

Mapi pulled an office chair to the end of the bed, sitting back and relaxing. She lazily stroked her cock, before pointing at Ingrid.

“You will do as she says. Disobey her, you do not get my cock much less hers.”

Ingrid nods, looking at you and leaning in for a kiss. You kiss her back, slowly pushing her onto her back. Ingrid moves as you do, legs spread wide open like she did earlier. You kiss her messily, hands fondling her full breasts and supple skin.

“Mm, I’ve wanted to taste you since I saw you at Wolfsburg the first time.”

“You’ve waited that long, cariño?” Mapi asks in a bored tone, looking at her nails as she pulls a hangnail off.

“Sí, so long…” you whisper, sucking on Ingrid’s nipple. She whines and arches her back, hands pushing your hair out of your face as she squirms on the bed.

You kiss down her toned midfielder body, her abs prominent as she breathes heavier and heavier. You bite just over her hip, pressing her thighs wide open. You settle between her legs at the edge of the bed, tongue-mouthing eagerly at her sloppy folds.

“Fuck!” she moans, hands tangled in your hair as she tries to grind up into your mouth. You stop her and pin her down tighter, sucking harder at her clit as she begs for you to let her come.

“Already, Ingrid?” you tease, two fingers slipping into her easily.

“Yes…feels so good…” she begs, head thumping back on the mattress.

“Oh, I don’t own your orgasms, Ingrid. Mapi does, you should ask her,” you say amusedly, grinning at a smirking Mapi who leaned over with her elbows on her knees. You go back to fucking Ingrid, four fingers now deeply pressed into her open pussy as your lips suckle hard on her swollen clit.

“All you have to do is ask, mi amor,” Mapi teases, reaching over and tucking a loose strand of hair behind Ingrid’s ear. Her eyes fill with tears as the feeling of the stretch begins to course through her.

“Please, Mapi…” she whimpers, “I’ve been good.”

Mapi leans back into her menacing chair, hand on her chin like she’s thinking.

“Have you been good, Ingrid?” she asks, spinning around slowly. You’ve turned Ingrid onto her stomach, tongue lapping fast at her asshole as your fingers press up into her sweet spot. She grunts and begins to keen, lips begging Mapi to let her come.

“I don’t know, bebita. We’ve had a guest in our home and you’ve been a needy little slut the whole night. Should she come, princesa? Has our Norwegian whore been a good girl?”

“Hmm,” you begin, thumb circling over Ingrid’s clit as three fingers rub hard on her sweet spot. She’s trembling hard, fighting her impending orgasm the best she can.

“She did make me come in the club earlier, that was nice of her,” you say, kissing her belly button.

“She can come.”

Ingrid screams your name, back fully arching off the bed as the shocks course through her entire body. She pants hard and mutters a soft “Come here,” before capturing your lips in a tender kiss. You press your thigh between her legs and she cheekily grinds up into it, biting your lip.

Mapi stands and pulls you off her, wrenching open your jaw to spit into. It lands all over your mouth but in it before she leans in for a kiss. Ingrid reaches for the bottle of lube and spreads it all over Mapi’s cock, obediently awaiting more instructions.

Mapi gets on the bed behind Ingrid, kissing along her shoulder. You lean in and kiss her lips, caressing her thighs. The Norwegian can’t figure out who to focus on, her hands grabbing you to lace together.

Mapi pushes her forward, fingers rubbing tenderly over her folds. Ingrid becomes face to face with your cock, eagerly taking it in her mouth as Mapi slips her cock into Ingrid. She goes slow and adds more lube, knowing that Ingrid struggles to take this one.

To her surprise, Ingrid swallows it up with ease, moaning loudly around your cock as the thick silicone fills her aching pussy. Mapi thrusts slowly, getting her used to the stretch. Ingrid focuses on your cock, sucking on the much smaller appendage with practiced ease.

Mapi moans and reaches for you, leaning over Ingrid as her hips pound into her girlfriend. You cradle Ingrid’s head, leaning forward, and kiss Mapi. You hear Ingrid choke a couple of times, your hips gently nudging the toy down her throat. You pull away from Mapi and pull Ingrid off your cock, kissing her spit-soaked face.

“Fucking hell Ingrid, you’re such a whore for us huh? Love having two cocks fill your holes?”

“Not all my holes…” she says with a grin, a harsh smack on her ass resounding through the room.

“Basta, puta asquerosa,” Mapi looks up at you, hips never faltering even once. “Come here.”

You scoot over, grabbing the bottle of lube, knowing your next move before Mapi asks. She pulls out of Ingrid and helps her onto her side, two of your fingers slipping into her asshole. She whimpers, hips chasing the feeling eagerly.

“More, please,” she asks, knuckles white as she grips the sheets tight in pleasure.

You kiss along her side and ass, scissoring your fingers faster before pushing in a third. She grabs your wrist and guides your hand, your bicep cramping as you finger her asshole open enough to take your cock and Mapi’s at the same time.

“I can! Just hurry, please!” She squeals, hiking her leg up to her chest as Mapi adds more lube to her cock and yours. She slips in first, rubbing Ingrid’s thigh as you line yourself up with Ingrid’s ass.

You slip in and Ingrid moans long and loud, feeling overwhelmingly full and buzzed. You lean down and kiss her softly, the center-back smiling softly before nodding for you to move. Mapi starts slow, thrusting into her girlfriend before urging you to thrust on her upstroke. You alternate like a smooth machine, Ingrid babbling nonsense as raw pleasure surges through her petite body.

“Faster!” she screams, hips moving back on you and Mapi. You spank her ass and beckon your hips faster, kissing Mapi passionately as she also fucks into Ingrid faster.

The Norwegian comes with a scream of both your names, the sheer force of the orgasm pushing you both out of her as she quivers and squirms. You’re both beside her in an instant, straps abandoned somewhere in the room.

Ingrid smiles drunkenly, one hand cradling Mapi’s head behind her and the other petting your abs.

“I think I went to heaven,” she slurs before looking at you. “I wanted you too, you know. I saw you at the final against Lyon. Was too shy to say hi, but it was worth the wait.”

#mapi leon #ingrid engen #mapi león x ingrid engen #mapi leon x ingrid engen x reader #mapi león x reader #ingrid engen x reader #woso smut #woso x reader #woso soccer #woso fanfics #fc barca femeni #woso imagines #mapi leon smut #ingrid engen smut

715 notes · View notes

sandwitchstories · 2 months

Text

I was listening to my music on shuffle yesterday while I work on a fic. A song came on that I know like the back of my hand. My dad played it pretty much my entire life. As I listened to the lyrics, it made me think of Sanemi.

So, thanks to "When you say nothing at all" done by Allison Krause, I gift you some Relationship/Romance headcannons about one of my favorite emotionally unhinged, very sexy maniacs. Song information and lyrics under the cut for anyone interested. I Divider by @strangergraphics-archive

CW: Implied Sex, no gender terms applie to Sanemi's beloved

We all know that Sanemi SUCKS at dealing with and expressing his emotions. I strongly believe that would also carry over into his romantic relationships. But not in a bad way.

Sanemi is the type of man that shows his love rather than says it. His love language is 'Acts of Service.' With a dash of 'Physical Touch.' Sanemi needs someone who knows that he loves them, wants them, and will always be there for him even if he doesn't say the words out loud. It's right there in his beautiful lavendar eyes, plain as day. Sanemi needs someone who sees the smile that is reserved for them alone. Sanemi needs someone who knows that he is not a PDA type of person. He may hold their hand, but more often than not it will be gentle brushes of his fingers against their's, soft touches of his hand on thier back as they walk, standing closer than necessary so he can feel their warmth and give them his support. That being said, once Sanemi is with his partner at home or in private- he's like a 5'10, scarred up, sexy Koala. Holding, touching, and wrapped around his partner every chance he gets. Sanemi would absolutely love to wash his partner's hair when they take a shower together (Which is 90% of the time because Sanemi would never turn down and opportunity to see and touch his lover's body) Sanemi would absolutely watch his beloved sleep. He never takes a single moment with them for granted, and that includes moments like those, where he can sit there and just quietly take in their beauty and revel in fact that they love him the same way he loves them. Sanemi loves sex. Not just because it feels so damn amazing. Not just because one of his favorite hobbies is pleasing his partner to the point they are reduced to a babbling, trembling mess and crying out his name. He loves the intimacy that comes with it. The way everything else disappears. Both just lost in the moment and in eachother. Sanemi absolutely does know what 'making love' is, and if it's the slow, sensual, long kisses type of sex his partner is in the mood for he will deliver all night long. But Sanemi thinks a little bit differently - even a hard, filthy fuck is making love if it is done with love and with someone you love. (filthy fucking is a valid love language) Song information and lyrics under the cut for anyone interested. I hope you enjoy these HCs!

For anyone curious, this is the song and some of the lyrics. My dad loved both the Keith Whitley version and the Alison Krause & Union Station version. Alison Krause and Union Station "When You Say Nothing At All"

Link is to a lyric video for it on YouTube

Lyrics:

It's amazing how you can speak right to my heart

Without saying a word, you can light up the dark

Try as I may, I can never explain What I hear when you don't say a thing

The smile on your face lets me know that you need me There's a truth in your eyes saying you'll never leave me The touch of your hand says you'll catch me wherever I fall

You say it best, when you say nothing at all

All day long, I can hear people talking out loud (ooh)

But when you hold me near (you hold me near) you drown out the crowd (out the crowd) Try as they may, they can never define What's being said between your heart and mine

#sanemi headcanons #sanemi x reader #kny sanemi #sanemi shinazugawa x reader #sanemi shinzugawa headcanons #sanemi rambles #sanemi shinazugawa #shinazguawa sanemi #filthy fucking is my love language #sanemi shinazugawa romance #sanemi fluff #sanemi smut #sandwitchstories

161 notes · View notes

spliffymae · 2 years

Text

barber!sukuna

synopsis: armin and ejirou usually handled the kids that came into the shop. but of course there would be a day when both call in sick, and only sukuna is available to cut your son’s hair.

⚠️ bit of anime crossover, reader is a single mother, fluff

kio’s notes - listen, i be taking my brother to his barber and be getting so many ideas 😭 also got my old school music on so yaktv !!

⊱ ──────── {.⋅ ✺ ⋅.}──────── ⊰

barbersukuna who literally goes to the shop to work and leave. he works alongside his friend geto, and five other barbers—armin, connie, aran, ejirou, and sero. he doesn’t really chop it up with the rest of the guys like that. he’s a bit more to himself, often chilling in the back room with his headphones on in between appointments.

“man, you so lame. you don’t ever smile? laugh at some shit?” connie pesters sukuna as he sits against his station, watching him give a man a box cut.

“say something worth laughing at then, springer.” sukuna says with a gruff, focusing on the back of the man’s neck instead of connie’s comment.

barbersukuna who is very particular about his work station. everything is in its designated spot, where he likes it by order of what he uses most. he changes it according to his appointments for the day. it’s something he takes great pride in and everyone knows not to mess with his shit.

seriously don’t! one time as a prank connie went to each station and swapped their tools. he put sukuna’a clippers with ejirou’s station and the pink haired man nearly killed the younger coworker, connie watching in fear from the background as sukuna held ejirou in a submission leg hold with his red man bun inbetween hair shears.

“why the hell do you have my shit!?”

“please! i just got here!” eji cried, begging geto to remove sukuna and save his hair.

barbersukuna who gets a bit irritated everytime eji or armin have a kid in their chair. the appointment can either go very well, with the child behaving and sitting still, or it can go horrible, with the kid doing anything other than that.

barbersukuna who liked all his clients to be relaxed and able to sit still through a haircut. he would make small talk here and there, but he often was just quiet and let the rest of the shop hold conversations as he made grunts of approval or disapproval.

barbersukuna who specialized in fades, and was the go to for clean and crisp cuts with the utmost precision.

barbersukuna who would hold his breath in suspense whenever sero’s son would wander around the shop and come anywhere close to his station.

barbersukuna who regretted telling armin he would cover his clients for the day when the blond suddenly gets sick from food poisoning, and sees you and your six year old son walk in, asking for armin.

“all armin’s appointments gotta be rescheduled for the day, but if it’s urgent sukuna can take you.” sero points his thumb back to the pink haired man, who was fiddling with his comb in annoyance.

he had seen your son before in armin’s chair. he was squeamish, often playing a “stop, go” game with armin when cutting his hair. a simple high bald fade haircut that should take no more than fifteen minutes, stretched to nearly forty-five because your son had the fidgets.

“he really can’t come in? is the other guy here then…the red one?” you ask sero, a worriedsome look on your face. you had been working double shifts all week and it had slipped your mind friday (the next day) was your son’s school picture day. you had made the appointment last night with armin, begging him to take your son last minute. your son was one of armin’s favorites, so he accepted you with no problem.

the raven haired man clicked his tongue on the roof of his mouth, “sorry, love. both of them out sick. the next best for lil’ man would be connie but…” sero turned around from the desk to check connie, who was having a very heated conversation with his girlfriend over the phone. he was speaking spanish, and unfortunately sero heard and knew all of what he was saying.and it wasn’t pretty. “he’s caught up right now.”

you were chewing on your bottom lip, looking down at your son who was sitting on the sectional. he was playing around with an action figure, unaware of your dilemma.

“sukuna is good, (y/n). armin can vouch for him.” sero reassured you.

“s’not like i doubt his capabilities,” you said, looking at sukuna to see him sitting in his chair, scrolling through his phone. “i just don’t trust miles to sit still. armin has a good amount of patience with him.”

and sero completely understood. you had more than enough faith that sukuna could cut hair, you just wanted to make sure he was comfortable with the fact your son would be a handful.

most barbers couldn’t last past ten minutes, so it was a hassle to find armin, who was the best when dealing with miles.

“kuna has patience.” sero lied. he honestly could’ve just stopped helping you, but you were a regular and one of the shop’s favorites. he wouldn’t just give up. frankly, had he not have someone coming in right now he would’ve cut your son’s hair.

“yeah, okay fine. i’m already here and i have no other option. i’ll just tip him extra for the inconvenience.” you shook off your nerves and flashed deep a smile.

“great. sukuna! c’mere!” sero called out. when sukuna came, he gave you a quick glance before looking behind you to your son.

“this miles?” his voice was gravelly, deep. he spoke like he was uninterested, nodding to the direction of your son.

“yeah. i’m his mom, (y/n).” you extended your hand to him, which he shook with a curt nod. he made note of how soft your hands were, and how it was comfortable to hold. as quick as that note was made, he dropped your hand and turned to walk back to his station, gesturing for you to follow him. you got your son off the couch and you two followed sukuna.

“where’s armin?” miles asked sukuna as he crawled in his chair, sitting on the cushion to make him taller.

“he’s sick, baby. but he left sukuna to take good care of you, ‘kay?” you smiled at him, hoping he could understand and not be too effected by the switch in barbers.

“can we still play ‘stop, go’?” he looked back at sukuna. sukuna glanced down at you, looking to you for help. but you were looking at him too, silently pleading he doesn’t ask you to tell your son no.

sukuna had planned to not play the game. he just managed to make a plan that’s fits in all of his and armin’s clients, while still giving him the right amount of break time. he figured you would have rescheduled once hearing armin was out.

but you know the game was the only way miles could sit still. you had forgotten his ipad because you were coming straight from getting him from school, having no time to bring the backup distractions. the action figure wasn’t enough.

“m’not good at games.” he said to miles, who didn’t say anything after sukuna’a rejection. sukuna noticed a pout was now on your brown glossed lips, and he tsked before looking away. you pouting was stirring something within him.

“mommy i want arminn.” your son started to get fussy, his legs shaking and fingers tapping the arms of the seat. if his feet could touch the ground, your sure he’d be spinning around in the chair.

barbersukuna who for the life of him, will do anything if your son could just keep his head still. miles had started to whine and even slide on the chair every time sukuna touched his shoulder, or brought clippers to his hair.

barbersukuna who finally gets your son to cooperate ten minutes later after bribing him with candy, just for the six year old to yell “mommy! i gotta pee!”

barbersukuna let’s out a tiresome sigh as he helps miles down to go to the bathroom. he pulls his phone from out his apron and sends his client a text to come thirty minutes later than his appointment time.

“i’m really sorry about this, i can tell from the times i’ve watched you before you have a very…specific clientele. miles just,” you looked back to the bathroom to see your son hasn’t come out yet, “he just takes a little while to adjust to changes, s’all. armin had made up the game to help him redirect the energy.”

barbersukuna who sees the fatigue in your eyes when you look back at him. you also had bags, your hair was a messy puff of coils with flyaways sticking out. you were wearing a pencil skirt and blouse with black flats. you had to have just been coming from work. he also noted your son was in his school uniform, so you clearly never went home to take a break and change you two out of the day’s clothes.

barbersukuna thinks about how tired you must be from working. he doesn’t know what you do, but he can imagine not getting a break between work mode and mom mode has overwhelmed you.

barbersukuna who shrugs off your apology with a wave, “kids’re kids. s’not bothering me, hun.” the pet name was deliberate. he realized he had come off a tad bit…cold towards you guys. he was used to clients being silent and much older, so miles’ energy was rather new to him. he felt the tip of his ears burn as you put your hand on his forearm, smiling and thanking him for his patience.

when miles came back out, he sat back in his chair but was more to himself. he had his arms crossed and looking at his mom, who was trying to make him to crack a smile by making funny faces as him.

from the corner of his eye, sukuna could see you stick out your tongue and cross your eyes, your funny face getting miles to giggle.

“mama,” miles called out to you suddenly, getting you to stop. “i got a snack for you from school.” he pointed to his black spider-man (miles morales’ spider-man) backpack at your feet. “wendy b. brought cookies for her birthday. i saw the sugar ones you like.”

you held a hand to your heart, looking at your angel of a child. it was heartwarming that he thought of you. so much so that it even touched sukuna.

you reached into the bag to pull out the blast ix bag of treats, two sugar cookies amongst a snickerdoodle and chocolate chip. “oh my goodness! look at these cookies!” you looked over at his smiling and giggling face.

the cookie was soft, it looked to be the consistency you like of hard on the outside but soft on the inside. when you bit into it, your eyebrows raised in surprise. “oh my gosh, this is really good.”

sukuna looked over at you to see you tearing up the homemade cookie. “mm thank you miles. mommy didn’t have time to eat her lunch so this hit the spot.”

from across the room in his chair, connie couldn’t help but perk up as an impulsive thought came to his mind, “yo (y/n),” you looked over at him. his call to you also got the eyes of sukuna, who was trying to get miles to hold his head up. he looked at connie through his mirror.

“y’know kuna is a real stickler when it comes to baked goods. especially sugar cookies, his all time favorite.” he winked at sukuna, who felt that burning feeling in his ears travel down to his cheeks.

he had noticed the way sukuna was looking at you. he had never seen him look at someone that way before and was dying to know if sukuna had an inner dog in him.

“mom give him the other one.” miles directed you before you could speak. connie’s tongue poked out from between his teeth, silently chuckling to himself. he wanted to catch sukuna off guard and make him flustered. a shy sukuna was a rare sighting, and connie felt like seeing if today he’d get lucky.

“feed to em, so he doesn’t stop lil’ man’s cut.” connie suggested, nodding to the way miles had stopped moving once he was focusing on sukuna eating the cookie.

“yeah mommy do it.” miles cheered, swinging his feet in excitement.

“ya don’t have to do that.” sukuna reassured you.

“oh come on, kuna. didn’t you say the best time to eat a cookie is as close to the baked time as possible?” connie continued to push, getting sukuna to narrow his eyes. from the hair washing station, sero couldn’t help but snicker at the situation.

you cleared your throat, “uh i’m good with whatever you want. miles seems to be still so…” you didn’t know what to say. you were getting hot and felt the air become thick.

you had always thought the barbers in this shop were a good set of lookers—some batting from a pretty scale, like armin, to a charming scale like sero, and a mysterious scale like sukuna.

but there was something about sukuna that had him at the top of your list.

sukuna looked down at miles, who was looking up at him with big eyes, “if i eat this cookie and promise to play stop and go w’chu…will you sit still so i can get your hair right?”

his change of heart had come from watching you interact with your son, and the fact he was starting to take an interest in you. you were beautiful, kind, and considerate. you had a sweetness to you that drew him in. he knew he needed to get in contact with you after this. he just knew it.

at the mention of the game, miles’ eyes widened. “really?” he couldn’t believe it. he looked at you to see you were also surprised.

“yeah. but you gotta sit still so that mommy can feed me, okay?” sukuna looked at you with a smile, one that was sly but also endearing.

from across the room, connie turned away from the scene, upset he did not achieve his goal of getting sukuna flustered, and instead managed to help him out in securing a potential date with you.

miles agreed without hesitation, smiling and sitting still as possible with his hands in his lap, under the gown sukuna had over him. “mommy, you ready?” sukuna spoke softly to you, his words creating a shiver to roll down your spine.

“mhm.” you just barely made the sound, smiling nervously as you reached in the bag for the second sugar cookie.

“tell me when to go miles” sukuna said, pretending to get warmed up for the game. he jogged in place, pumping his arms up to ‘feel the burn’. his antics were amusing, and while miles cracked up, you felt your heart swell a bit.

“go!” your son’s scream snapped you out your thoughts, and you instantly brought the cookie to sukuna’a mouth. you held your other hand under it to catch any fallen crumbs.

barbersukuna who takes a small bite from the cookie, smiling as he also starts working on the left side of miles’ head. he had just finished the back before deciding to play the game.

“stop!” miles called out after thirty seconds, giggling as sukuna quickly played it off like he was just checking the time.

“that cookie is good.” he said to you, breaking out into a laugh same time as you. you nodded in agreement.

“okay go!” miles called out, excitement in his eyes as he watched sukuna go back to his hair, while also eating more of the cookie from you.

barbersukuna who texts his next client that he’ll have to reschedule with the haircut but that it will be free of charge due to the sudden inconvenience.

barbersukuna who spends forty five minutes playing “stop, go” with your son while cutting his hair, and understanding why armin takes his time with you two.

#🌞🍃spliffymae #jjk⋞〈⏣》⋟#jjk x black reader #anime x black!reader #sukuna x black reader #ryomen sukuna #sukuna x black y/n #sukuna x reader #fluff

1K notes · View notes

jxckchxmpi0n · 1 year

Note

Hi there. I was wondering if you could do a Spider-Man Ethan x fem!reader where the reader has feelings for Spider-Man and doesn’t know its her friend Ethan who she also grew up having a crush on. Every night the her and Spider-Man talk and hang out on the roof of her apartment. One of the nights there is so much tension that they end up doing the famous Spider-Man kiss. Feelings on both ends are confessed, but Ethan refuses to fully take off his mask. But then one night Spider-Man is extremely injured and loses a lot of blood. So the reader ends up patching him up and has to remove his mask to reveal that it’s her friend Ethan that she’s always had feelings for. Then it can end spicy from there with whatever you’re comfortable writing.

Thank you 😊

OMG! 🕸🕷 I love this idea - ugh, I'm gonna have so much fun writing this ahhhhhh hope you enjoy love 🌼

Two Hearts

Summary : You have a crush on your best friend Ethan- but growing close with Spiderman, and also sharing those same feelings leaves you confused. A rough night for Spiderman ends up revealing secrets.

||m.list

Word count: 3.0k

Warning: Angst, fluff, swearing, blood, mentions of death, slight NSFW.

I love how much music affects my writing. Listened to "hopeless romantic soft mix" while writing this. Made me kick my feet and giggle!! ALSO, THIS IS THE LONGEST FIC I HAVE WRITTEN ANNNDDD OH MY GOS I AM SO IN LOVE

There was a new superhero in town, and boy did that 'Spiderman' have all the girls' hearts. He sure had yours, but he will never be Ethan- Ethan was your best friend. He has been by your side since you could remember.

Any person that would see you together thought you were dating, but you weren't. The thought of telling Ethan you liked him - oh boy. That would be the last thing you would do. HE GIVES YOU BUTTERFLIES!!! he makes your stomach turn, and those chocolate brown eyes always make you want to grab his face and smother him in kisses.

Your little daydreams got carried away sometimes, staring off into space when you hang out with him. "y/n, you there?" Shaking the thoughts away, you nod. He then just continues on about science.

But this Spiderman, saving people, helping the elder, oh what a dream he seemed very sweet and always helped no matter how minor the "crime" was.

Not knowing who he was drove New York crazy the secret identity was smart and cool, but it really started to pick up in the school halls.

How old was he?

Was 'he' he or 'she'?

How did they become super?

You were always talking about the latest crime fight Spiderman had done, digging into conspiracies, which always made Ethan laugh.

Lately, you haven't been able to hang out with Ethan as much as he signed up for active work at the police station with his dad. Most nights, he would be busy with his dad doing simple desk work and / or join him in a ride along. So, being on your own was the new daily.

It started a few weeks ago. Slowly, you noticed webs around your neighborhood buildings. 'Maybe Spiderman came through.' he was always around this part of town, so it made sense.

As the school days died down and the city got louder at night, you would relax on the rooftop of your apartment. Being so high in the sky, being able to see over it, was refreshing. Turning your music off, you'd listen to the sounds around you as your mind filled with thoughts. Homework would also fill the gap.

It wasn't until the second week of being on the rooftop that something wild happened. As you sat playing music going over your English notes, right across the street, Spiderman stood watching you. He didn't want to seem like a creep - well, standing in a head-to-toe body suit watching from a rooftop seemed weird, but he kept it lowkey.

He liked seeing you in such peace, sitting looking down at the people who roamed the streets, or how you would lay on your back looking at the sky. You were so beautiful in his eyes. He was so drawn to you, he couldn't just stay away.

Before he realized what he was doing, his arm straightened out activating his webs. Putting his full body weight in the web, he swung over he landed on the opposite side of the roof near you. Why was he so nervous, you don't know who he is! What if this ends up bad! wait, you don't know who he is! this is perfect.

"Why do you sit up here?" he spoke before he could process. The sudden voice made you jump and yelp a little. Looking around, you saw him. He stood a few feet away from you.

'Spiderman, oh my gosh, it's Spiderman,' you thought, your mind racing with so many questions. 'Why is he up here?' 'is this fake' ?Did I fall asleep again?'

"What? are- this- I- Are you really here?" he couldn't help but laugh at your comment and walked closer. He could feel his heartbeat in his ears.

"Well, duh," he tried to sound smooth, but his voice ended up cracking while he sat in front of you. You laughed as he tried to buff up his look.

"So? Why are you sitting up here?" he tilted his head to the side in a questioning way. The spider eyes on the mask opening and closing softly.

"It's peaceful up here, I get to see the city, and no one else comes up here so it's like the perfect place to escape for a little" your heart ached, you wished Ethan wasn't always so busy so you could take him up here.

He hummed, satisfied with your answer. 'How was he just so calm sitting here with me, like this is normal?'

"I'm sorry, as much as I think this is cool - uh, what are you doing here? Don't you have some crime to fight?" You threw some fake punches his way, laughing to ease your awkwardness.

"I mean, yeah, but it's a slow day, and I just saw you hanging out here. I've actually seen you here a lot the past few weeks, so you know, I just thought I'd see what you do. " he was blushing so hard under the mask, and his body was warm. 'Don't sound like a perv!'

"Do you do this a lot? spy on people?" Your voice is playful and light.

"Me? Well, psh No, I-I haven't done this before. Is it weird - oh, did I make you uncomfortable?!" As he spoke, his voice started to hold some panic.

"What - no, you didn't- NO this is cool! It's cool. I swear, I mean, you're Spiderman, like how wouldn't this be cool."

He felt a little better knowing it didn't make you uncomfortable. Hours had passed, and you talked about what it's like to fight crime and how he got his powers.

This soon became a regular occurrence. Every other night, he would show up and tell you the star crime of the day. You would bring extra drinks and food and give some to him. He would always turn around, or you would close your eyes when he ate/drank.

The feelings you had for him grew into an actual crush, now that you knew him - somewhat you felt like you could trust him.

After a few months, things started to change. He would tease you as you would do the same. Playful touching, whispering as he was inches away from your face. He grew so comfortable around you that he would sit shoulder to shoulder with you.

The smell of his calonge would fill your nose, a sense of familiar came to mind. The tension between you two could be cut by a knife, long shared glances, his body pressed into yours when he would give you his web shooters and show how to use them.

"Would you ever feel comfortable enough to take your mask off?" You sat on the edge of the rooftop with him right next to you, your hands resting near one another. The city lights shined on your face as he looked at you, a soft blush rose to your cheeks.

"Uh, maybe. I'm just scared. " he looked away, not wanting to face you.

"You don't have to be scared," you hand reached for his face, pulling it to face you. Even if you can't see his eyes, you knew they were looking right back at you. "You have my trust, and I promise not to break it," your voice was stern, yet like butter to his ears. His gloved hand went to yours, holding it closer to his face, leaning into your touch, the warmth of your hand seeping into his suit.

"It's getting pretty late; I should get going." Your hand fell from his face, and he nodded. "I'll see you tomorrow?" You were already walking towards the door with your bag over your shoulder.

"Yeah, of course!" he smiled under the mask matching the one you wore. Turning around, you could hear the web shooters, meaning he was leaving, but to your surprise, he hung over the door by his web. Looking up, your eyes followed it to the billboard.

"Only a little." He couldn't trust his own voice. He was nervous. 'Did she understand?'

The sound of cars honking and people shouting started to drown out as you stepped closer. 'Was he sure about this?' Your hands got closer to his neck, finding the edge of the mask. "Are you sure?" concerned you asking, pressured him.

"Yes, please." it almost sounded like a whine.

Pulling the mask over his chin past his lips; you stopped right before his nose. Your heart was beating very fast, feeling it in your throat, the butterflies in your stomach, it was driving you insane.

You could see he was blushing, some moles on his face near his lips. His lips, they looked so soft, and your hands held both sides of his face like he was going to get away. Your right hand let go though, reaching to trace his lips; they were soft, but also chapped. Both of your breaths were picking up.

"Please y/n," His voice whining again.

Pulling you out of your trance, you leaned in, "You're so beautiful."

Your lips clashed with his, inhaling his scent. This was heaven. The kiss was rough, the tension finally catching up. Teeth brushing each other sightly, you could feel his head pushing into yours. He wanted more, and so did you. Your lungs were burning gasping for air, but you didn't want to pull away, no, not yet. 'What if this is the only time I can kiss him, feel him?'

He was the first to pull away gasping for air. He just kissed you after wanting to for so long. "I'd like to do that again sometime." he was smiling so wide, being able to see it made your heart do flips.

"You know where to find me." Leaning in again, you kissed his cheek.

Taking the edge of the mask again, you pulled it back down towards his neck and tucking it in. "I'll see you tomorrow." Your hands dropped from his face, and you walked past him into the door.

Hours have passed, sitting on your bed acting like a little schoolgirl, giggling and kicking your feet. Who wouldn't you just kissed spiderman!

Looking at the clock, it was near one am. Sleep was catching up. So, you started your normal night routine. Finding some old extra oversized t-shirt, you slipped it on, and it landed on your mid-thigh barley coving much. You had shorts on but night shorts that were very short.

As you were done in the bathroom, you walked back into your room and felt a cold breeze. Looking around, you saw your window was open. An overwhelming feeling flooded your body as you knew you had closed it earlier. Getting closer, you hear a noise out of the darkness. Spiderman sat up, holding his side. He didn't look good.

"Help me," his body collapsed halfway in your window. your heart sunk at seeing him like this. Running to him, you grabbed him the best you could and pulled him in.

"What did you get yourself into, bug boy?" he sat against your wall, one arm trying to hold himself up and the other holding his abdomen.

"It's not that bad, I-" he removed his hand to show you the deep cut. it ran from lower chest to the middle of his stomach, "Okay, maybe it's a little bad." Every word was broken up by him groaning or wheezing.

"I'll be back." Running out of your room, you grabbed the first aid kit in the hallway. "I don't have much, so we have to make this work."

Before you started to clean the cut, you looked at his face. The mask was beat up pretty bad. He had a tear in it, running from his ear to chin. After tonight, you don't think this suit would survive.

"Can you move?" Your voice was low. The last thing you need is your parents finding Spiderman in your room.

"I'll try," he tried to push himself up, his head spinning. Standing with him, you saw him stumble, catching him. You guided him to your bed. As soon as he sat down, the pain was too much to bear. His body went limp.

"Hey! bug boy! hey, can you hear me?" You sat next to him, patting his face over and over and hoping to wake him up. His eyes would open and close after a few seconds, "You got to stay with me!"

"I'm tired." he was barely auditable.

As you looked at him, an idea came to your mind, "I'm sorry," putting a hand over his mouth and taking your other hand, you pressed down on the cut. He yelled into your hand in pain, his eyes tearing up under the mask. 'fuck'

The most you could do right now is clean the wounds and patch him up. He was awake but laid there quietly. You were so focused on making sure the wounds were thoroughly cleaned that you didn't realize one of his hands laid on your thigh, gripping it every time you wiped the cuts.

"You're okay." You tried your best to comfort him, and not much could be said though truthfully.

Once you checked over his entire body for more wounds, you moved up to his face. the mask was resting weirdly, "I finished everything else, but if you don't want me to clean -" As you spoke, his hand that wasn't on your thigh reached for the mask ripping it off.

Your jaw dropped.

ETHAN FUCKING LANDRY.

YOUR BEST FRIEND.

"I-" before he could fully speak, you flung your body into his. He winced out in pain as he felt you on him, yet he felt better.

Your eyes were watering at this point, seeing Spiderman - no seeing Ethan like this ripped your heart apart. "I had my theories- but fuck bug boy why?!" you pulled away making eye contact. He could see the tear stains running down your rosy cheeks.

"Don't cry pretty, girl, please don't cry. I'm okay - kind of, " he chuckled, hoping it helped ease the tension. His hand cupped your face, his finger halfway in your hair, his thumb resting on your cheek moving side to side wiping the tears.

"You're an idiot you know that?" You hit his shoulder, pushing him back a little. He made a face like it hurt but only smiled. Looking at you through his lashes, blood sprayed on his face, scars you haven't seen before. His eyes softened as he saw your face red and stained, crying, pouting.

"I'm hoping to be your idiot though." his thumb still ran across your cheek, slowly moving down to trace your lips. He hasn't stopped thinking about kissing you. Even when he was dying, the need for you was strong.

He was just looking at your lips at this point. He looked at you like he was starving. The hunger for you grew stronger after that kiss. Noticing the change in how he looked at you, a laugh escaped you. "For almost dying, you sure are a teenage boy with your thoughts"

Your voice pulled him back, snapping his eyes up to yours he smiled. "That obvious?" Your hand had gone to his wrist rubbing circles into his skin as he did the same to your face.

Your head went forward, forehead to forehead. A sweet little moment between you two. "Don't die. I know what you do is dangerous, but I don't think I can handle seeing you crawl into my room like this again." he nodded his head, yours moving with his.

You felt far away from him too far, using what strength he had left he pulled you into his lap, straddling him, your breath hitched.

"I won't, I promise." his hand left your thigh holding out his pinky. It was cheeky, yes, but he would.

Both of your breaths were heavy, and the tension in the room was filled again. It's like he knew because he would lean in to ghost over your lips, yet pull away. 'asshole'

"Kiss me already," your voice was laced with annoyance.

Pulling you in from the back of your head, your lips crashed together, and it felt different. This kiss was hungry. It was needy. His hands went over the curves of your body, trailing under the t-shirt, gripping the back of your back, pulling you towards him if possible.

Your hands were tangled in his hair, the curls all broken apart, pulling it softly, earning a moan from him.

Your body was thinking faster than your mind, rocking back and forth on him. The feeling of his body tensing, pulling away to kiss your jaw, then your neck. Your head fell back, giving him more access. His lips were soft against your skin, his teeth grazing your skin as he left love bites, both of you, a moaning mess.

"Ethan" moaning out his name was something you both dreamed of "we- shouldn't- not- not now-" your words kept getting broken up from the feeling of him sucking your neck, and how his hands gripped your hips moving you more.

"Why?" he voice was muffled from being in your neck. He knew it wasn't the right time since he was so beaten up. His hands loosed up on your hips, and a whine could be heard from you. That didn't stop him from peppering your neck and face with kisses thought.

"Fine. We'll stop, but next time, I won't quit as easily. " he pulled his face out of your neck so he could look at you. Your face was red, with a smirk on it.

"Let's just lay here then," you crawled off of his lap. You laid down, following you, and he pulled you so close that you were basically on top of him again.

"I'm fine with that." he looked down, kissing the top of your head before sleep took over his body.

292 notes · View notes

ambiguouslady42 · 19 days

Text

Remember Summer Days: Chapter 6 - Planetarium

Pairing: Satoru Gojo x Female OC

Genre: Fluff. The kind where your heart kind of melts.

Word Count: 2.6K

Tags: @pixelcafe-network, @hayatoseyepatch (big thanks for reading it for me)

Summary: It's not a date, but you know it is.

Chapter 5

Saturday Night. July 2007

Isabel still felt the warmth of his hand as they were being driven to an undisclosed location. She felt excited because nobody had done this before, but she was also curious if he had planned this by himself or with some help.

Satoru came up with the idea on a whim, he didn’t plan all the major details on how to make this the best night for her. He knew he could always ask her what to do after, but he felt he wasn’t sure what Isabel would think of him. Would she judge him for taking her out and then asking her what else they should do?

He started to notice that her grip on his hand was loosening. He grew worried that she finally got too uncomfortable and wanted to let go. Just when he had noticed that she was starting to lean her neck to the side, she fell asleep. Rather than let her neck hang to the side and become sore, he decides to move her head towards his arm. When she began to nuzzle against his arm, a pink hue appeared on his cheeks. She didn't move, and that was a great comfort to him; it meant she was becoming more comfortable with touching him.

The route to the undisclosed location was very busy. Traffic was lining up from the freeway’s exit.

“There’s no other way to get around, we’ll have to sit here for a little while.” the driver informed Satoru.

“It’s fine. Thanks a lot for this.” Satoru responded.

“...I can’t wait for this”, Isabel responded sleepily.

“You don’t need to wake up yet, Izzy. You can keep sleeping.” He said softly, as to not awaken her.

The radio was on. The station that the driver had been listening to was mostly playing 80’s music. Satoru began to reflect on the first time he spoke to Isabel about John Hughes's movies. He figured at some point he should have a movie night with her and his friends. He’s sure they’ll like her a lot too.

And when she wakes up and makes up her mi-i-ind//she’ll see I’m not so tough just because I’m in love with an uptown girl

Satoru smiled at hearing this particular lyric.

As the cars were all honking, trying to cut in front of each other to go into moving lanes, they all ascended a hill. She was slowly waking up. As she felt the car going up and making turns, she was trying to guess quietly where she could be going. “Where could we be?” she thought.

“Alright, we’re here.” the driver announced.

“Hey Izzy, wake up. We’re finally here!” Satoru’s excitement couldn’t be contained. He hoped that she would be excited with him, but only time will tell.

“Can I take off my blindfold now?” Isabel asked.

“Nope! Not until we get out of the car.” he grinned.

Satoru stepped out and opened the door for her. He helped her by grabbing her arm. “As fun as it would be to let you fall, I know you would be pretty mad.”

“I’d actually cry, dude.” Isabel attempted to shove him, but she couldn’t see him. He began to laugh at her.

“Who are you trying to push? Me?”

“No, the holy spirit. Yes, you, Sherlock.” with a hint of sarcasm in her voice.

“Gotta do better than that.”

He grabbed her arm and they walked ahead. The evening was entering the scene. The sky went from a purple hue and it was getting darker. The street lamps were illuminating. Cars were parked everywhere. People were observing the skyline nearby.

“Okay, NOW can I take off this blindfold?”

“No, I’ll do it.”

“Ugh, where are we?!”

“Just be patient.”

“I’m not a patient person.”

“I can see that now.”

She sticks out her tongue at Satoru. Of course, she can only assume that he’s standing next to her, so he’s able to see this gesture. It makes him laugh.

“Woman, stop being a brat. We’re here.”

He removes the blindfold.

“Dude how did you know I wanted to be here?!”

“I didn’t, I just thought it would be a good idea for me to check it out, but I guess I knocked down two birds with one stone.”

“You have no idea how long I’ve been waiting to come back to the observatory!” she smiled ear to ear and began to jump up and down.

“You’re such a dork. It’s really cute actually.”

She immediately stopped jumping, feeling embarrassed by this comment. Now that she thinks about it, it’s not a word she hears often from others. It wasn’t missing, but she can’t help but feel that there’s something there.

“Aww come on, don’t stop, Izzy. I like seeing this side of you. I feel like you’re letting me get to know you”, Satoru says with a grin.

Was this the risk that Mariella was talking about? Isabel was concerned that her actions would make him not like her anymore. It was a growing insecurity on her part. His words can be a form of reassurance, but she knows she needs to believe that people can be honest and truthful with good intentions.

Satoru did like seeing that Izzy was letting him see this side of her. His friends are not necessarily the excited type. Shoko is mostly laid back and goes along with whatever he and Suguru decide to do. Suguru was his partner in crime, they do mostly everything together. These days, they’re either going to the beach, hanging out at the pool, or going on random food runs.

As they reached the rotunda of the observatory, there was a pendulum at the center of the room. People were surrounding it and staring at the bottom. The pendulum was slowly knocking down some pegs beneath it.

“Do you know what a pendulum is?” Isabel asked Satoru.

“Sure. It’s moving back and forth using the force of gravity to move, right? As it’s doing that, it’s going to slowly knock those thingies out, right?”

“Yep!” Isabel said with a giant smile.

“Cool, now what’s my reward for answering correctly?”

“The gift of nothing!” she smirks.

“Ugh, I thought it would be something else.”

“No idea what you’re talking about…” Isabel walked away as her face was turning tomato red. Satoru quickly followed right behind her as they made their way further inside.

As they enter past the rotunda, they’re making their way through various galleries. They see a giant crowd of people gathering in a specific area. They decide to see what the commotion is. Isabel is not tall at all, so she pushes her way to the front of where everyone is standing. When she reaches the front, she discovers that she is standing in front of a giant orb. When she reads the sign, it reads Tesla Coil. Satoru shoves his way to the front, despite that his tall stature might be bothersome. He doesn’t care at the moment. He wants to be close to her and continue admiring her. The lights began to dim and a speaker was at the front.

“Welcome everyone! You might be wondering what a Tesla Coil is. Rather than just explain it right now, I’ll demonstrate how it works. 3, 2, 1.”

BZZZZZZ, BZZZZZ. Electricity began to run. Sparks were contained. The sound was so startling that Isabel grasped onto Satoru’s arm so tightly and pressed her face against it. She peeked from one eye to observe what it looked like. Realizing what she had done, she let go as fast as she could. Satoru looked down at her. Noticing that she now can’t look at him and she’s staring down at her shoes.

“Don’t be scared, Izzy. Look it’s all contained! Plus, you were so excited to see it too!” he offered her his hand to comfort her. Rather than taking the entire hand, this time she only decided to hold onto his pinky.

Why did I do that? I already held his hand once in the car. Ughhh, I’m such a weirdo.

“As you can see two wires are running to create this current of electricity. One is a green one and the other is a copper coil, which is what ultimately makes the Tesla Coil work. This coil is plugged in just like any electronic appliance in your house. When the electricity reaches the top of the coil, the electricity produced is 500,000 volts. That’s a lot!”

The speaker decides to demonstrate the use of the coil once again. BZZZZZ BZZZZZZ. The noise was starting to create anxiety inside of Isabel. She didn’t know if she didn’t like the noise, but Satoru got the hint. He grabbed her hand and they walked away from it.

“Hey, we don’t have to do anything, you don’t like, okay? I just want to make sure you have fun.”

“I’m sorry.” she blushed and felt embarrassed by not being able to tolerate the noise.

“You have nothing to be sorry for. Let’s keep walking around. You don’t have to let go, by the way.”

Her smile displayed the dimple on her right side. To him, this was her cutest feature. He wondered if he could continue to make her smile throughout the night. What exhibits will bring out this joyful side of her? There’s so much that he needs to know about her. So much more to see.

I have to make the best of tonight. She seems so happy too.

Isabel felt a lot better as they walked through the exhibits. They observed how the moon can affect the tides of the ocean due to the forces of gravity; they learned how seasons worked due to the sun and the rotation of the Earth. Space was such a magnificent thing to learn about for her. Too many knowns and unknowns exist; just like her relationship with her and Satoru.

“Hey there was something back towards the rotunda about shows taking place at the planetarium, do you want to check it out?” Satoru asked.

“Sure! I wonder when’s the next showing.” Isabel said excitedly.

Arriving at the counter, they saw the next show was called Centered in the Universe. It was the next show in 5 minutes. She wanted to purchase both tickets, but before she took out her wallet, Satoru beat her.

“No. You do not get to pay for anything while I’m here.”

“Why? I can pay for it though.” she giggled.

We’re on a date, can’t you tell?

“Whenever we go out, I don’t want you to worry about paying for me.”

“Are you loaded or something?”

“You could say that.”

“Is there anything that I could buy for you?”

“No! It’s fine, Izzy. I just want to make sure you’ll have fun and keep having fun while I’m here.”

She blushed, but she relented. She wasn’t comfortable with this gesture on Satoru’s part, but if he insisted, she knew it was a battle that she wasn’t going to win; they made their way to the terrace where they entered the planetarium. The seats reclined and it allowed them to view the ceiling. It was displaying a starry sky right above them. Isabel was observing the different constellations that were displayed above them.

“That one right there is the Big Dipper. Then not too far away, is the Little Dipper. The shiniest star at the end of the handle is the North Star. You’re supposed to use it to find your way if you get lost.”

“You could say that I’m the Big Dipper and you’re the Little Dipper.” Satoru whispered to Isabel. She immediately blushed and tried to look away from him. “You’re so cheesy” were the only words she was able to muster back. Her heart was beating faster as they continued to hold hands and Satoru shared this sweet flirtation with her.

“And yet, you’re still here next to me.” he moves to grab her hand once again. “Tell me what else I should see,” he asks her excitedly.

“The one that looks like a stick figure is Orion. He is technically holding an arrow. That’s as much as I know, I don’t stargaze too often.” she turns away from him to keep staring at the ceiling. She’s smiling and hopes that this night never ends.

The planetarium begins to dim. A presentation begins with a presenter holding an orb to represent the sun. Projections appear on the ceiling to show the entire solar system. The sun is the center of the universe. Planets that exist beyond Earth. Stars that are born and then die. At this moment, Isabel felt small. Satoru shared this feeling too. They’re two individuals who are small in this entire universe. Satoru rubs his thumb on her hand as they’re holding it together. There’s more to discover outside of Earth, the same way that there’s so much to know about each other.

Before they knew it, the presentation was over. The light turned on again. The audience exited the building and it led them to the terrace. Isabel led the way to a corner of the terrace to allow Satoru to see the city’s skyline. The wind began to blow as Isabel was standing on the terrace. It was a secluded area away from all the other guests. He stood right behind her. She turned around and there was a glow to her where he was standing. She sees that there is a hint of pink on her cheeks as she’s smiling at him.

“So what do you think?” she asks him.

“This is wonderful. All of it.” he crouches down to whisper in her ear. “I’m glad we got to come here tonight.”

“...Toru, what are we doing?” she turns around. He’s looking at her.

“I don’t know yet…” he places his hands on her waist. She places her hands on his arms.

“Can we talk about it?” the wind starts to blow. Her hair moves towards her face. He moves it away to place it behind her ear.

“...I think I like like you. I don’t know how possible it is to be around each other as you’re going home soon.”

“Izzy…I knew there was a way I charmed my way into your heart.” he smiles.

“Oh my god, shut up” she begins to laugh.

“I think you’re cool. You’re so smart and you know a whole lot about movies and music. I want to continue to get to know someone like you. I know that our time is limited, but I want to make it the best. All this to say, I like you too.”

“I can’t reach you, so do you mind just lowering your head just a little?” as he does so, she kisses his cheek. He turns bright red. He’s not embarrassed, but he feels glad that she was the first to make the first move. It reveals how brave she is. This means he will also need to be brave for her. To return this gesture, he kisses her on top of her head.

“Whatever happens, you’re special to me. I won’t forget you that easily.”

“If you say so, Toru.” as she proceeds to hug him. “I’m feeling hungry, do you have any ideas where we will go?”

“No, I was hoping you knew” he laughs.

“Ugh, fine. I know the spot! Have you ever had pupusas before?”

“No, but I hope they’re good.”

“Trust me, you’ll love them! I know a spot not too far from here.”

“Lead the way.”

They walk towards the entrance hand in hand. The stars are shining brightly tonight, just for them.

#jjk #jujutsu kaisen #jjk fanfic #satoru gojo x reader #gojo satoru x reader #jujutsu kaisen x reader #satoru gojo #gojo satoru x oc #satoru gojo x oc #gojo satoru #Remember Summer Days #jjk fluff

31 notes · View notes

sparkling-ariaria · 1 year

Text

Only you | Sirius Black x fem!Reader

Fandom: Harry Potter (set during Hogwarts, house of reader not specified)

Genre: Pure fluff

A/N: While feeling sentimental and listening to Only you by The Platters I somehow got inspired to write a little fluffy something for Sirius. Maybe there’s someone out there who’s gonna enjoy reading it~ (English isn't my first language, so if you find any mistakes feel free to let me know please!)

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

It was one of those slow days, where everything and everyone seemed to be in the same state of calmness. Even the rain pitter-patters unhurriedly against the open window wich lets the warm summer breeze stream into his room. You both spent the afternoon there laying on his bed, talking and enjoying each others presence. In the background soft music can be heard coming from Remus‘ record-player. The vinyl you put on consists of some of the main hits from the 50’s and 60‘s, because you like those so much.

Only you can make all this world seem right

The moment the first notes start playing he is looking at you. An delighted smile is spreading on your face and you turn your head to look at him too. Listening to the words while looking back into your eyes he feels himself overcome with a wave of emotions.

He gets up from the bed and holds his hand out for you. With a happy little giggle you put your hand in his and let him help you up till you stand in front of each other in the middle of the room. He lifts one of your hands up to rest on his shoulder before bringing one of his to your waist and interlocking your other hands in the air. Then he starts slowly swaying the both of you from side to side, making little steps.

Only you can make the darkness bright

He knows a lot of people are referring to their partners as „the light of their life“ without putting much thought into these words and actually meaning them. To him you really are pure light, a ray of sunshine that managed to creep it’s way into his dark and lonely life. Giving him warmth and hope and the feeling of belonging. Whenever he had to leave to Grimmauld Place during his first summers at Hogwarts before he got taken in by the Potters, his friends of course wrote him letters regularly and met up with him as often as possible. But you where there too to help him cope with the long stay at this godforesaken place. It touched him how you always gave him especially long hugs before departing at the train station and wrote to him even in the middle of the nights when he couldn’t fall asleep due to the heavy atmosphere that seemed to be constantly clinging to the house of the Blacks. Just the thought of your smile and being able to see you again soon helped him go through the days. It was also you who immediately invited him to spend the christmas breaks at your place so he wouldn’t have to stay alone in Hogwarts.

Only you and you alone can thrill me like you do

Not one day goes by without him feeling greatful for having you by his side. You’re the main reason he wakes up with a smile on his face in the mornings. He doesn’t even know anymore what it feels like to be bored. There’s simply no chance with you around. You share the same type of humour and often your conversations turn to witty banters between you two that have your friends looking on in amusement. You both know how to be active together, and you know how to be quiet too. Even in quietness the sparks between you can be felt. You don’t have to be doing anything, you don’t even have to talk. Simply being around each other makes him feel happy and his body and soul feel recharged and energised.

And fill my heart with love for only you

Even before he was old enough to fully grasp the meaning of romatic feelings you already had a special spot in his heart. Over time this spot just grew bigger till it filled his whole being with the wonderful and indescribable emotion named love he felt only for you.

Only you can make all this change in me

Whenever the arrogance he so loathed in his family tried to arise in him, you were there to bring his true self back to the surface. Or when he was about to take one of his pranks too far, letting his recklessness take over, you put a stop to it. You were never afraid to call him out, but you did it gently. Took the time to talk to him about it in a calm and serious manner. That's what you always did, being gentle with him and treating him like something precious that deserves to be valued. You help guide him to be the best version of himself. Someone others can confidently call acquaintance, friend, family. For the right reasons.

And he feels honoured, that only you get to call him boyfriend and show not a trace of hesitance when doing that.

For it's true, you are my destiny

It for sure was destiny, when you sat in the same compartment as him and the others on your first ride to Hogwarts. Little you who was clearly uncomfortable with the rising tension between him, James and Snape and managed to somewhat dissolve it by changing the topic to your excitement for learning all kinds of magic. Even managed to do some small talk with Snape about potions. He now feels ashamed to admit that he mainly acted like that towards Snape to get noticed by you, show you that he knew how to talk back. But by now he long realized that he doesn't have to act a certain way to get your attention. You're always focused on him, listening to every thought he has, no matter how big or small. Letting him be himself, wanting him to stay true to his own ideals and never losing sight of what kind of person he really wants to be.

When you hold my hand, I understand the magic that you do

At this part he gives your hand in his hold a gentle squeeze and takes it up to his lips to give it a kiss while keeping his loving gaze fixed on your eyes. The gesture makes your smile even brighter and a small giggle escape before you let your head lie on his shoulder. All the while still looking up to him with your beautiful eyes that never looked at him with anything but pure love and affection...and more often than not also amusement of course.

His favourite feature of you besides your eyes must be your hands. There’s just something about the act of holding them that makes him feel connected to you in a special way. From day one when he took your hand to help you down the steps of the Hogwarts Express, making you smile shyly up at him. Those hands that spread warmth to him so many times. Holding his cheeks gently between them when you are reassuring him of something, listening to him after a nightmare or shaking his head softly from side to side when you’re gushing about how adorable he is. And just holding his hand like this while slowly dancing through the room. Once again showing him that you will always be there for him, with him.

You're my dream come true, my one and only you

You sing the last part together with him, making his smile turn even softer. Just as the last notes play out, your lips touch for a sweet kiss and you embrace each other tightly.

For you two there’s no one else when it comes to now and forever. For you have found your only love in each other.

#harry potter fic #sirius black x reader #sirius black x y/n #sirius black x you #marauders x reader #marauders x you #sirius black #marauders era #sirius black fluff #harry potter fluff #first fic

136 notes · View notes

blysse-and-blunder · 4 months

Text

in lieu of a second chance

10:30pm, sunday, may 12, 2024

wow oh man i have forgotten how to do this!! but it's spring, it's the end of the term, it's the start of a new season and a new burst of creativity and, perhaps, a different routine-- so let's try again.

reading audio-books and ebooks have been my absolute constant companions all winter, but shout-out to the stack of paperbacks on my bedside table, which i am slowly but surely working through. finished italo calvino's if on a winter's night a traveler (a loan from @hematiterings), part of my now intentional quest to read calvino's whole oeuvre, and basically loved it. the whole 'first chapters of various novels you'll never get the rest of' was such a good way to showcase a bunch of cliches from, like, mid-century literary fiction. very meta, and very fun. the connective frame narrative, in second person, was a little more of a stretch (again, very mid-century literary self-referential/ironic/whatever, which unfortunately i did find amusing)-- and calvino's female characters are not great, except for in the nonexistent knight's narrator who i loved)-- but there was a section addressed to a female reader which did, in fact, feel like it read me for absolute filth. other finished reads from the last few months which i will mention here briefly: the angel of the crows, katherine addison; our wives under the sea, julia armfield; the bell in the fog, lev ac rosen; the nutmeg's curse, amitav ghosh; the ruin of kings, jenn lyons.

listening this would have been different if i'd written this last week, but have y'all heard beyonce's album cowboy carter?! i know i'm a few months late but i actually feel like i'm years late, like i haven't responded to a beyonce album this strongly maybe ever. i love the covers, i love the vocal layering and harmonies, i love the samples from old timey radio and everything familiar and texas and country about it...i keep thinking i have a favorite track, but genuinely i like listening to this one all the way through, as a cohesive album, as a work in itself. have a pitchfork review. pull quote:

"On Cowboy Carter, Club Renaissance is swapped out for KNTRY Radio Texas, an AM station hosted by an ever-hazy Willie Nelson. Here she re-contextualizes roots music—Americana, folk, country—for a contemporary moment, reminding listeners that Black artists were the genesis of these forms and never stopped playing them, despite what Hollywood or Nashville might have on offer....Despite drawing from the kitsch and fun of ’70s and ’80s country music, Cowboy Carter has an air of melancholy to it, a quality that reverberates through the scores of songs in minor keys about loneliness on the range.

youtube

^^ this is a playlist of the whole album on youtube, if you're into that. AMERIICAN REQUIEM, the opening track, is what hooked me-- i was in from the opening notes. but TEXAS HOLD EM' is also great. fuck yeah, rhiannon giddens.

watching so in addition to rewatching the entire sixth season of dropout's game changer today, last week we finished a truly wild show out of netflix italy: la legge di lidia poët / the law according to lidia poët, which is a historical mystery-romance like only netflix can make. is it bridgerton but for ninteenth century italian lawyers? is it the girlbossification of an actually interesting historical figure? yes, maybe, but everyone is very attractive and the costumes are bonkers in a satisfying way. she has insect themed jewellery, rides a bike, has a lot of sex, finds a decent relationship with her brother and, god help me, i do want a second season.

featuring, hey isn't that pasquale from my brilliant friend? and wow, they probably think this song choice is really cool but it is so on the nose in english it is almost distracting.

playing hollow knight! hollow knight. hollow knight. it's become a problem, actually, since i have quite literally turned my evening yoga time into gamer time, and would you believe, i am less flexible and have higher anxiety levels lmaoo. but i'm getting so powerful i don't care. i probably can't promise myself to beat this game any time soon, and should stop thinking i can, but look! two dreamers down?!

making patched the inner thighs of some jeans-- they will probably remain weekend pants, but they're further from dead than they were. similarly, clumsily darned a hole in my sweater. baked a caffeinated cake courtesy of a b. dylan hollis video (coffee loaf from 1959) . glued a wooden salad tong back together and i feel like the seams are actually quite subtle.

(this wood glue claims to be food safe after curing, pray for me etc etc).

working on ooof. i am done teaching but still owe two-three students emails. i survived my committee meeting but have done nothing to follow the schedule of deadlines we set me, despite being so excited to back on may 2 / so energized to do All the Things back on april 26. i have an article to prep to submit! a chapter to finish tweaking (reworking? reframing? changing from the ground up? lololololol)! not to mention a newsletter to draft and copy edits (almost done) to send back on a friend's article! but i can't stop playing hollow knight in all my free time, and really, what's more important here.

#HELLO #i return at last #seems like every other ilcb contains some form of 'sorry it's been so long ' / 'back again at last!' but it's true #ilcb #in lieu of a commonplace book #contains maybe my broadest / most random assortment of topics but not as long as many of these posts #starting again with a lower wordcount / less demanding offering

14 notes · View notes

aineryeo · 2 years

Text

10 Things I Hate About You Jake Kim.

Synopsis: "On the very first day in Jerry Kwon's new school, he instantly falls for Ryang Sang-min, the girl of his dreams. The issue is that Sang-min is forbidden to date until her ill-tempered, completely undateable older sister (You) goes and dates someone too.. In an attempt to solve his problem, Jerry singles out the only guy who might potentially be a match for Ryang (Name): His Senior, the same age as you, Jake Kim."

Themes & Warnings: 2000s Teen-Drama, Romance, Cliches, Fem. POV, Jake is a romantic idiot, slightly OOC, setting is in J-High, a little NSFW

Author Notes:

"Can't Take My Eyes Off Of You" - Frankie Valli | 10 Things I Hate About You (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)

This is basically the whole movie but the cast is Jake Kim, You, a random character as your younger sister, Vin Jin, Mary Kim, the Practical Music Dept, Big Deal (Jason, Brad, Jerry), and cameos of our favorite characters/main lookism cast <3 I even recreated the title sequence I'm so happy for this! 1/3 parts + The OG Cast are Seniors (Vasco, Crew Heads, Daniel, etc.)

LOOKISM, SOUTH KOREA — 갱단의 삶. » “THE GANGSTER LIFE”

*Set in a school environment & an alternate universe where Jake now attends J-High School, this includes the rest of the crew heads & Big Deal. There are no four major crews and no gangs, but Jake is still renowned as Gapryong Kim's son. Sinu Han is also present.

Chapter 1 (Current) » Chapter 2

Jaewon-High School. A second-rate vocational school that focuses more on giving its students the experience they need for the jobs they want in the department they chose. There are eight (8) departments:

Fashion and Clothing Department

Architecture and Interior Design Department

Beauty Department

Comics and Animation Department

Vocal and Dance Department

Practical Music Department

Baking Department

Computers Department

Out of these eight, you were in your third year in Practical Music. The school was full of tools. The Fashion Dept always flaunted their brand clothes because they’re the only department allowed to wear whatever they want. The Architecture Dept. Always full of creepy guys who don’t look their age. Bundled together in groups to show off their strength or something like that... Unless they have a leader already. A well-known persona in their Dept was a person named Vasco for Burn Knuckles, and he’s a sophomore from what you know. There’s a rumor that a second group of men was formed, but it is not like they were all serious gangs. You hear it was because they like one guy, similar to the Burn Knuckles.

If that was how the Architecture Dept worked, you could say the same for the Beauty Dept. Except they’re all girls, save for one Senior: Eli Jang. They all love their one boy. You could go on and on about how everyone is the same, readable stereotype. They all do things because they think they should be doing them. To act cool, tough, rich, pretty, or popular, listen to this famous K-pop group or dance to this new pop song. You hate all of it.

What you hate the most right now, though? Freshmen.

“Hey, have you listened to NCT’s new release, 119?”

“Yeah, I waited all night for the exact time of their release, and I memorized all the lyrics, yeah!”

“Already a big fan? You rock! I just mentioned this the other day!”

“You know me~.”

The girls had brightly colored hair, and they played whatever new song they were talking about loudly through the speakers of their phones while you were in the seat just behind them on the bus. Getting annoyed, you remove your headphone’s audio jack from your phone and start playing Bad Reputation by Joan Jett & the Blackhearts at a volume rivaling theirs.

“Hey, what the hell?” The first girl looks back to where you were currently sitting.

Just as they begin to protest, the bus driver halts at the station you get off. You get your bag and walk past them, giving them a natural look that makes them stare back a little before turning their heads in defeat. You? You were still playing your music. As you step off the public transport bus with the girls behind you in tow, grumbling about you ruining their vibe, you’re met with a litter of J-high’s students scattered around the grounds.

As usual, you navigate through the messy crowd. Filled with students who were learning how to skate. Some were walking to school, while the others had their bicycles.

The most intriguing sight you missed once you entered was the freshman in his small bike with a basket. Contrary to his small bicycle was a massive build defying the logic of a teen’s average growth. Pedaling this bike was none other than Jerry Kwon.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Ki Young-Mi was engraved in the wooden name plaque on the desk filled with books, papers, and a small, thick, and visibly old laptop. Below the name was Guidance Counselor, was it?

Ms. Young was a middle-aged lady with old style, permed hair, and rectangle-shaped glasses that were quite thick for her age, connected to the white-laced retainers wrapped around her neck. Her glasses were tipping around her nose as she looked down at her laptop with puckered lips.

Tap.

Tap, tap, tap.

Tapppp…

That was how slow she typed. Jerry was sitting in front of her desk, fiddling with his thumbs as if he didn’t look like a Senior student.

“I’ll be right with you.” Ms. Young says.

Jerry nods obediently.

Behind the screen, little did Jerry know was Ms. Young’s… Hobby. Right, she was writing for her novel. She was unfocused on what Jerry was asking her since he came barging in as she was still in her brainstorming stage. And now…

«Gushiken wakes up from her slumber after her intense battle with Akaza. With the dim moonlight shining on her, she opens her eyes to see….»

Ah, perfect. For now. Ms. Young closes her laptop and takes off her glasses, leaving them dangling around her neck.

“So, what are you here for? Did Gordon send you in already?” The Architecture Dept again…

“Oh, I’m a freshman, Ms. Young.”

Ms. Young, in her many years in J-high, had never seen a kid look… Like this. Ah, but she gets such a small salary, anyways, she shakes off her shock. She shouldn’t be shocked. Some students here could pass off as adults in their mid-twenties if they wanted to, seriously.

“Then you must be Jerry Kwon. Here you go,” Ms. Young gives Jerry a yellow piece of paper, printed with his class schedule and where his room is.

The guidance counselor then looks over Jerry’s documents, standing near the window in her solo office. She hums with a slight nod.

“You’re big for a first-year high schooler. You—” Once more, Ms. Young takes a good look at Jerry and points at him accusingly. “Are you sure you’re not a convicted criminal or something!?”

Jerry sweats nervously at this. He shakes his head and his hands in swift denial. “N-no! My father is—”

“Okay, that’s enough.” Ms. Young regains her lost composure. “I’m sure you’ll fit right into Jaewon. It’s not any different from the local schools, or any other schools, for the matter of fact.”

Splat! Behind the window protecting Ms. Young, who smiled with her eyes closed.

“Same little ass-wipe shit-for-brains everywhere.” And then she laughs as if it was normal. It probably is.

Poor Jerry didn’t know what to say, stuttering. For a big, intimidating guy, Jerry remembers what his big brother, by bond, had always told him: Respect your elders.

“Sorry, sorry… Should I go?”

The more Jerry sat on the chair, the more Ms. Young looked sweetly aggravated. “Go, I have deviants to see and a novel to finish. Bye-bye now.”

Jerry leaves with his bag on his shoulder as Ms. Young pats his back while ushering him out of the Guidance office. As Jerry approached the door, his prominent figure was almost rivaled by a familiar figure in a black compression short-sleeved shirt from Under Armour. Despite Jerry being in the original school uniform, the Architecture Dept was well-known to follow a different setup. The students usually wore jumpsuits.

“Big bro Jake!” Jerry grins.

Jake only gave a brief closed-eyed smile to Jerry, giving his head a small pat as he now faced Ms. Young, who had her arms closed.

“Jake Kim.”

Jake walks into the office just as Jerry leaves.

“I see we’re making our visits a weekly ritual.” Jake smiles at Ms. Young. Was it an attempt at charm? He nods a bit at the end of the statement. Jake places his hands in his school pants’ pockets.

“Only so we can have these moments together. Should I hit the lights?”

“Oh, very clever, the big boss, was it?” Ms. Young raises her thinly drawn eyebrow at the report in her hands. “Says here you exposed yourself in the cafeteria?”

“I was joking with the guys since it was bratwurst day. Doesn’t come all the time. And I didn't mean for the lunch lady to see anything.” Jake shrugged.

“Aren’t we the optimist?” Ms. Young’s eyes flit down briefly before flicking back to his eyes in a middle-aged, tired fashion.

Jake’s brows furrow at this. Always the weird faculty this school has. Though the students were much worse off. So, Mano a Mano. “Next time, keep it in your pouch, okay? Now scoot!”

The brief session in the guidance office was done in no time. Ms. Young had other… Business to attend to, yes…

«…“Are you looking for a wife? Oh, you know, just like a wife. Get married.”»

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

“Hello! Brad Lee, Sophomore from the Architecture Dept.” A similarly head-shaven guy approached the innocent Jerry waiting nearby the guidance office from earlier. Next to him was a lanky guy who wore red Converse shoes.

“Jason Yoon. We’re supposed to show you around; I’m a sophomore like Brad. It's rare, even for us, to see our No. 2. We usually just hear about you from Jake. Nice to see you in Jaewon, finally.”

They both shake hands with Jerry, whose other hand is holding onto the strap of his backpack. Brad looks at the little paper before looking back at Jerry.

“So… You play the flute?” Brad jests as they begin to walk.

“For a performance before, the flute is very important to me. It was given to me by big brother Jake.”

“Woah, the boss is amazing,” Jason remarks, walking with his hands behind his head.

Jerry hums in acknowledgment as he nods along. Brad then taps Jerry’s shoulder and points his chin toward a group of girls huddled together. Some had hair curlers for their bangs, even blow dryers. They all wore the standard uniform, but their hair was of different colors.

“Here’s the breakdown. Them,” Jerry looks at them again. “They’re from the Beauty Department.”

“Basic beautiful people.” Jason shrugged and looked up at Jerry, who was listening attentively. “Now, unless they talk to you first, just don’t bother.”

Jerry nods obediently at this. “They mostly only care about the only boy in their department, Eli Jang.” Brad chuckles.

Still walking along the long hall, they pass by a different group of kids. They were small, younger-looking boys.

“To the right, you’ll see the dweebs from the Fashion Dept. They’re your classic rich kids—” Jason explains.

“Hey, watch where you’re walking! You almost stepped on my Limited Edition Air Jordan 1s! You can’t find these anywhere anymore! Huh?!” A funny little lamb wearing glasses yelled. None of the three paid any mind.

“Tell them there’s a sale of whatever limited pair of pants, and they’ll come running alright. They won’t mess with you, though, I’m sure.” Jason gives Jerry a thumbs up.

Suddenly, some guy with his friend bumped into Jerry. The guy was petite compared to the giant Jerry Kwon, but he didn’t seem scared. No, his eyeglasses seemed to have lit up as he adjusted them.

“Konnichiwa (*In Japanese: “Hello”), are yuu new hero? (*In English: “Are you new here” — Korean accent)”

Brad and Jason sweat at this. Brad leans close to Jerry to whisper and explain before Jerry thinks of beating him up. Though Jerry didn’t think of that in the first place.

“He must be from the AniCom Dept. Most think they’re the next Light Yagami or Satoru Gojo.”

Jason joins in and whispers on Jerry’s other ear, tip-toeing to reach it like Brad. “Never touch their body pillows.”

Jerry only nods rapidly and gives a brief wave before moving on.

“Arigato Gozaimasu!” The boy bows deeply for Jerry, catching a few stares from the passing students.

In one of the rooms they were passing by, they could hear loud laughter and a bunch of yells from the teacher. When the door opened, Jerry, Brad, and Jason could see the class monitor displaying… Porn. Obscene moans filled the rooms, and the furious teacher figured out why the remote wasn’t working suddenly. In the room, a particularly mischievous boy who sat on his chair with both his feet up like it was a dirty alleyway caught Jerry’s eye.

“Dumbasses.” Jerry hears from the boy with purple hair and a devious smile.

“Kouji!!!!” The teacher screams. “Was it you again!?”

“Hah? You have no proof whatsoever, Mr.”

Jason laughed along while the porn didn’t stop playing. “Computer Department. That Kouji kid’s already famous for being known to hack easily into the school’s whole PA System.”

“Woah,” Jerry says something for the first time since their tour after exchanging names. This makes Jason Yoon and Brad Lee look immediately into whatever caught the quiet Jerry’s attention.

There walked a somewhat petite, classic, a little vintage-in-style girl. Sweetly holding her books as, for some reason, the wind picked up inside the school!? How was this possible?! But then Jerry thought, I guess for a goddess…!

She had a strawberry-printed oversized jacket paired with the prettiest smile in Jerry Land while she walked over to a blonde girl with a cloth headband.

“Did the wind pick up just now?” Jerry hears her ask her friend.

“No, it’s just that fan over there. Someone turned it on just right on time.” Her friend replies while they walk off together.

Jerry couldn’t take his eyes off her. Is this what a campus crush is? He doesn’t think he’s seen anyone his whole life, which caught his fancy. With this, he whips his head towards his tour guides.

“Who is she..?” Jerry asks shyly. If you look closer, you’ll see a tinge of pink on his cheeks.

“The don't-even-think-about-it girl.” Jason sighs, putting his hands down on his head.

“She’s Ryang Sang-min of the Ryang sisters. A freshman like you, but she’s great friends with Mary Kim, Senior, since they’re in the same department.” Brad explains kindly.

Ryang Sang-min. Ah, Jerry will remember that name for the rest of his life. Brad and Jason notice how Jerry seems to be in wonderland, showing a small smile, but they worry for the little… Well, big guy.

“You see Jerry, Ryang Sang-min, a beautiful, deep, and a good dancer too. That, we’re sure of.” Brad Lee states, looking off into the direction that Sang-min and Mary walked off to. The trio was not so far behind the two girls walking off to their respective classrooms.

Sang-min speaks dreamily while holding her stack of papers in her arms, “You see, there’s a difference between like and love.”

“I like my Skechers, but I love my Prada backpack.”

“But I… Love my Skechers.” Mary replies.

“That’s because you don’t have a Prada backpack.” Sang-min shrugs.

Mary thinks about Sang-min’s point for a while until she finally gets the message. I mean, she didn’t have a Prada backpack, so that much was true. Mary chuckles and palms her forehead, “Ohh….”

And then they pass by the Second years’ Architecture Department room. Where Jason and Brad’s stop should be. Jerry still looks off towards the girls’ back. Specifically, Sang-min's, in pure awe until Jason waves a hand in front of him, and Brad starts talking.

“Look, Jerry, Ryang Sang-min has a very strict, uptight dad. It’s a widely known fact that the Ryang sisters don’t date.”

None of what they did or said got to Jerry, though, as he stared off into the distance. “Uhuh… Yeah.”

Jason Yoon and Brad Lee look at each other worriedly. They were here on behalf of Jake Kim’s request to look out for Jerry on his first day as part of Big Deal, but they don’t know if they failed or succeeded.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

After the bell rang, all departments were in their given rooms. There were a lot of reasons why Practical Music had a strong competitiveness against the Vocal & Dance Dept. While they battled for agencies to take them in, performances, the lot, they also had mixed classes. Mixed classes are different from auditorium sessions. It was unique to the two departments since they had ragingly similar lessons anyway. Auditorium sessions take up all the departments in the most enormous room in Jaewon. However, it was primarily used for seminars. It was easy to skip if you tried.

The mixed classes between Practical Music and VD would happen with the core subjects and Music Theory or whatnot. But topics specific to your department are when the two would separate. For now, it was Literature. The sound of clapping hands garnered the students’ attention, stopping their mid-class talking.

“Okay, then. What did everyone think of ``The Sun Also Rises?``” Your professor, Mr. Il Pae-min, asks.

A student with a pixie cut raises her hand from the back. Dreamily, she says,

“I loved it. He’s so romantic.”

“Romantic? Hemingway?” You pipe up. Scoffing after looking at her, then looking upfront to your professor, who already saw your rebuttal from a mile away. “He was an abusive, alcoholic misogynist who squandered half his life hanging around Picasso trying to nail his leftovers.”

This makes Mr. Pae-min roll his eyes.

“Look who’s talking, Ms. I’m-bitter-Boohoo-I-have-no-friends.” Vin Jin, the twerp who always wore sunglasses and some ugly-ass hat, laughs right after his statement. He’s even got the backup extras laughing with him and giving him undeserved low-fives.

This makes you roll your eyes.

“Shut your mouth, ripoff.” Mr. Pae-min scolds, and Vin frowns at his retort.

You found your opportunity, so you’ll take it. Laughing a little at first, you say, “I guess in this society, being male and an asshole makes you worthy of our time.”

“Oooh.” The class reacts. Vin Jin was definitely pissed off. But as they spot you open your mouth again, half the class groans.

“What about Sylvia Plath, or Charlotte Bronte, or Simone de Beauvoir—?” Your little speech is cut off when the door slides open, revealing a student who was unquestionably not from either Practical or DV.

It was a guy with a tattoo sleeve decorating both his arms, and in his hand was a black bomber jacket, probably to pair with his compression shirt. Without missing a beat, he asks, and you’re not even sure if it was genuine, “What’d I miss?”

You sigh exasperatedly. Attention has already gone from the boy who just entered. You answer his question. “The oppressive patriarchal values that dictate our education.”

“...” You don’t see it, but he nods and smiles. “Good. Not my class.” And just as quickly as he disrupted your class, just as quickly he left.

“Hey!” Your professor yelled at him, but he couldn’t catch him as another student called out for him. He looks to the student and, oh, another asshat.

“Um, Mr. Pae-min…” Vin Jin initially calls in mock sadness before morphing into an angrier tone. “Is there any chance we can get (Name) to take her Midol before she comes to class?”

You look back at Vin Jin, who sat on your left, just right behind you, with an unamused expression.

“Someday, you’re going to get bitch slapped, and I’m not gonna do a thing to stop it.” Your professor butts in before you do.

Vin Jin’s smug smile turns into a dissatisfied grunt. “Tch.”

“And Ryang (Name), I want to thank you for your point of view.” Now it was your turn to nod and feel the sweet, sweet satisfaction. That is until “It must’ve been hard for you to overcome all your years in upper-middle class suburban oppression.”

Mr. Pae-min shakes his head to express his point better, “Must be tough.”

“Anything else?” You ask. Whether sarcastic or not, your professor isn’t taking it anymore. So he replies, “Yeah, go to the office. You’re pissing me off.”

“What? Mr. Pae—”

“Later!” He cuts you off, not giving you any more than that. This fucking sucks, you think. Makes your day even worse than the annoying freshmen on the bus earlier. You roll your eyes and get your stuff, kicking Vin Jin’s leg before you leave.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

In the guidance office, there sat Ms. Young, eyes closed to envision the scene of her novel in her head. Along with this, she vocalizes the lines herself. “A different and yet all the more beautiful….” And she opens her eyes.

“Yeonhui!” Ms. Young calls her intern.

“Yes, ma’am?” She springs from the open door that led to Ms. Young’s office.

“What’s another word for engorged?”

“I’ll look it up.” The young adult says.

“Okay.” Ms. Young replies, shifting her attention back to her retro laptop. “Swollen. Turgid.” She recites to herself in thought.

“Tumescent?” You continue for her, hands in your jacket.

Ms. Young looks at you, “Perfect.” Then types in the rest of her thoughts while talking. “So, I hear you were terrorizing Mr. Pae-min’s class. Again.”

You sigh. You couldn’t count how much you’ve done this for the day already. And it was just your first class. Sitting, you reply, “Expressing my opinion is not a terrorist action.”

“Mhm, the way you expressed your opinion to Doo Lee?” Ms. Young retorts, finally closing her laptop and taking her reading glasses off to dangle around her neck once more.

“My statement remains that he kicked himself in the balls.” You cross your arms.

Ms. Young gives you a second to stare at you with a smile that says how talking about it with you is just not going to work this time. Not like it worked all the other times, anyway. So, she gets her tall CBTL coffee mug, “So, the thing is, Ms. Ryang (Name)... People perceive you as somewhat—”

“Tempestuous?” You continue with raised brows.

“Heinous bitch is the term used most often.” Ms. Young smiles once more. You lay back on your chair with a sense of disbelief. Though you’re not so surprised about what the guidance counselor said. “You might want to work on that. Thank you.” She finishes.

You stand up from the chair facing Ms. Young’s desk. “As always, thank you for your excellent guidance.”

Just before leaving and fixing the strap of your sling bag on your shoulder, you say, “I’ll let you get back to Kyojuro’s quivering member.”

Ms. Young looked up at your back that was leaving. Humming, she nods. “Quivering member. I like that.”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

“Virgin alert. Your favorite.” One of his friends pointed with his chin.

Vin Jin looks to his back, right where a familiar face greets him, exactly when Mary flips Vin off once she catches his attention. Sang-min notices Vin staring, and she gives him a shy smile while walking to the canteen with Mary and her other friends she met in her class.

“Lookin’ good, ladies. And Mary.”

Vin and his lackeys stare at Sang-min walking off. “Oh, she’s out of reach, even for you.”

Vin looks at Chul with an air of confidence only he can have. “No one’s out of reach for me.”

“You wanna put money on that?” Chul replies.

Putting his hands in his pants pockets, Vin smirks at Chul. “Money, I’ve got.” Looking back into the direction that Sang-min walked off to, he continues. “This, I’m gonna do for fun.”

As Vin and his friends kept ogling at Sang-min and her friends in turns, on the other side of the open grounds were the three loners in the big group that was Big Deal. It was only break time, and Jerry’s not precisely the most… Approachable in terms of face and body structure. So once Jason and Brad saw Jerry walking alone, they approached the big guy. And there they were now. Jerry is drinking strawberry milk on the bench next to Jason and Brad.

“Who’s he?” Jerry points innocently with his finger that could probably stop a truck single-handedly.

“Most people call him Vin Jin, sometimes Jin Ho Bin,” Brad answers first. “Aspiring rapper. Take note about aspiring.” Jason continues.

“He’s a prick, basically.” Brad chuckles, laying back on the benches behind them.

Jerry nods, taking note of the boy who is visibly interested in his goddess. While sipping the last strawberry milk, his eyes flit to Ryang Sang-min. So much so that he fails to notice that the box is already empty and crushed in his hand. “She’s so pretty….”

“Conceited.” Jason cuts him off, a notebook covering his face from the sun.

Jerry visibly gasps at this. “She’s perfect!” The boy rumbles. Twiddling with his fingers, Jerry is suddenly bashful as he recites how pretty Sang-min’s smile is or how her eyes are reflected in the sun. Jason and Brad were not entertaining Jerry’s ideas, looking at each other as Jerry kept going on.

“Look, Jerry, Sang-min is a snotty princess.” Jason scrunches his nose and removes the notebook that covers his face, “She wears short skirts and tighter blouse, all against the school dress code. So that guys like us can realize that we’ll never be able to touch her, and guys like Vin Jin realize that they want to.” Jason finishes bitterly.

“No, you’re wrong.” Jerry shakes his head, which is shining from the sun. If you listen closely, you can hear someone slipping due to momentary blindness.

Jason laughs. “Take a shot, big buddy.”

Brad hums, interested. “She’s looking for an English tutor.”

Jerry shines brighter ever than before. Like a lightbulb that lit up but instead of having it over his head, it was his head. “I can teach her.”

“You speak good English?” Brad asks.

Jerry sweats. “I will.”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

End of class.

You walked with Crystal Choi to the bus stop when Vin brushed past you on his off-road motorbike. Was that new? But you internally groan and scold yourself for even glancing at it because now the dude is stopping to talk to you.

“Hey,” Vin smirks. “How’re those shitty headphones doing, (Name)?” He then leans into the handles of his bike with the cockiest face he can make, with half his face hidden in seven-layer tinted sunglasses. It wasn’t even hot out.

“Run along, loser.” You wave off, and Vin frowns, roaring his engine back to life and driving off slowly to greet another passerby.

[...]

“I know you can be overwhelmed, and you can be underwhelmed,” Sang-min’s friend trails off. “But can you ever just be… Whelmed?”

Sang-min didn’t know what to say, but she did think about it. “I think you can in Japan.” She shrugs.

“Hi, ladies.” Vin greets with his hotshot attitude. His motorbike calmed down next to them while Vin looked at the girl of his current interest. “I’m here to pick up a certain princess. Got one more free seat for a ride.”

This makes Sang-min giggle and look at her friend before she hopped on Vin’s ride. Wrapping her arms around his waist and waving goodbye to her friend.

“Careful, the seats are brand new.” Vin notices, giving himself a little laugh once he feels the girl wrap her arms around him, “Heh.”

Somewhere near the school entrance, you can hear a certain blonde raging about someone stealing her cousin’s bike. You and Crystal watched the whole exchange between the jerkoff and your sister. Both of you were not close friends, but at that moment, the same thoughts were running through your heads.

“That’s an odd development.” Crystal remarks beside you.

You look down at Crystal, then back at Vin and Sang-min. Agreeing, you get on the bus that just arrived and sit next to her. “A disgusting one.”

The rest of the ride after that ordeal was comfortable. Later on, Crystal got off first. It was an upward stretch filled with shabby houses. Crystal was such a commendable spirit. She knew a lot of great bands, too. You think she’s fantastic for caring for that dog she told you about. Vin is more of an asshat for messing around with that mixed-breed golden retriever. You hope that one of these days, he gets just what he deserves.

Looking out the window, your bus quickly passes by the guy that mistook your room for his. You stare at him for a couple of seconds. It seems he felt the piercing look you gave him as he looked up at you from the sidewalk. Neither of you breaks eye contact, trying to see which of the other looks away first, an unspoken competition you’ve partaken in. You notice that he had a pretty well-defined face, a subtle side part where his slick hair was pushed back a little, sharply arched brows, and his black compression shirt. His bag was slung over his torso, and you know he probably wore a shirt like that on purpose.

And then he closed his eyes for a polite smile, catching you off guard.

You look away quickly, feeling your face heat up for no reason. Geez, who just suddenly flashes a smile at a stranger like that? This school’s filled with a bunch of weirdos. As your ride finally goes past him, you flip him off without looking back.

Back to the boy you had a staring competition with…

Samuel Seo, in his side-slicked undercut, white Ralph Lauren long-sleeve shirt with two open buttons at the top, the blue school tie hanging loosely on his neck, school pants, a missing coat, and his handbag lazily thrown over his shoulder, turns a corner and finally sees Jake Kim, face chasing a look to the bus that just left. The middle finger proudly displays itself in the window. When Samuel's eyes flit back to Jake, he focuses on what he is wearing. Making him scoff and call his friend out.

“The fuck you doing in my shirt?”

Jake looks back to see Samuel and walks to him. Shrugging, “Forgot to wash the jumpsuit.”

“Nasty,” Samuel replies.

“This shit’s fucking tight. How do you breathe in your shirts, man?” Jake pinches the front of his shirt, inspecting the material.

“Shut the fuck up.” Samuel retorts, slapping the back of Jake’s head as they both walk off to their shared dorm.

[...]

“Have you seen Jerry?”

“Nah.” Samuel suddenly vividly remembers when he almost stumbled on his feet during the break when the sun shone on his glasses. Jake hums in reply.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Finally, you arrive home. You assume your sister got here first, considering she got a ride from the nation’s biggest asshole. Knocking on the door, you’re greeted by your middle-aged dad, who was just about to sort the mail in his neutral tone checkered shirt, covered by a brown vest and a tie underneath. After removing your shoes by the entrance, you get sorted into the living room and sigh from your typically long day.

Your dad approached you as you sat on the couch, putting your socked feet up. Still looking into the number of mail he had on his hands.

“Hello (Name). Made anyone cry today?” Your dad jests.

“No, but it’s only four-thirty.” You smile cheekily at him, to which he chuckles back at you.

“Hi, daddy.” Your sister butts in, coming down the stairs. Sang-min gives your dad a quick kiss on the cheek. “Hello, dear.”

Looking at your sister and lying on your stomach on the sofa with your hands supporting your chin, you start your array of questions. “So, where have you been?”

Quickly shutting you down, Sang-min looks at you with threateningly wide eyes. “Nowhere.”

“Hey, what’s this? Kyonggi University in Suwon?” Your dad suddenly pipes up, making you shoot yourself up from the sofa. Taking the piece of opened mail from your father’s hands and scanning it yourself. And there, it was written in bold:

«We are pleased to acknowledge and congratulate Ms. Ryang (Name) on her application’s acceptance. We were very impressed….»

Any message after that didn’t matter to you as the excitement and happiness caught up to you first. Jumping around and looking between the fancy paper, your sister, and your father, anyone could see how happy this made you from a mile away.

“I got in. I got in!!!” You yell for the umpteenth time, now running and plopping yourself back on the sofa, currently reading the whole message of the letter.

Your father followed behind you with a worried look. At the same time, your sister was curious about the current situation, following suit with your dad.

“Isn’t Suwon too far off Central Seoul?” Your dad asks.

“That’s one of the reasons why it’s absolutely perfect!” You grin.

“I thought we… Decided you were going to stay here and go to school? There’s a lot of universities in Seoul.” Your dad suddenly starts listing all the universities nearby, including the one he went to, even mimicking their university mascot. “Wooh! Go, Seoul!”

Your eyebrow raises before it scrunches together in confusion. Facing back to meet your father and sister’s gazes, you reply. “No, you decided.”

A small air of silence.

“Oh, okay. So what, you just pick up and leave, is that it?” Your dad gives you the same expression that you were now showing him. An air of annoyance was starting to radiate off you, and your sister didn’t seem to have picked up on that. Even annoyingly does her sweet smile while saying, “Let’s hope so.”

You now mirror her sickly smile. “Oh, dad, ask Sang-min who drove her home.”

“(Name) don’t change the—” Your dad points at you before facing your sister at record speed. “Drove? Who drove you home?”

“Now, don’t get upset, Daddy, but there’s this boy….” Your sister starts, testing the waters.

But you cut her off. “Who’s a flaming imbecile, by the way.”

“Please.” Your dad shushes you, but your sister starts blowing off. “And I think he might ask me—”

“Please! I think I know what he’s going to ask you.” Your dad then cuts your sister off too. Holding on to her forearms in a worried manner. “And I think the answer is always no. No. It’s always no.” Your sister’s expression turns crestfallen at your father’s reaction.

Your dad then directs her to sit beside you on the couch. Starting with his sermon every time the topic of dating arose. “What are the two house rules?” He says, volume now raised.

Once your sister sits on the couch, your dad answers his questions. “Number one. No dating until you graduate.”

And… “Number two. No dating until you graduate.” Your dad finishes counting the rules with his fingers. “That’s it. That’s all the rules.”

Sang-min crosses her arms, showing a deep pout. “But that’s so unfair!”

“Alright, you wanna know what’s unfair? This is for you too.” Your dad starts again, and you can already see where this is going. “This morning, I delivered a set of twins to a fifteen-year-old girl. You know what she said?”

In your mind, you recited: I’m a crack whore who should have made my skeezy boyfriend wear a condom.

“I’m a crack whore who should have made my skeezy boyfriend wear a condom?” Your sister said for you aloud.

Yeah, got that right. Sometimes, you even wonder how you and your sister can share the same thoughts. Your dad pauses for a while, raising his brows in acknowledgment. That hit the nail right on the head. “Close, but no.” Never mind, then.

“She said, ``I should have listened to my father.`` ”

“Oh, she did not say that!” Sang-min argues.

“Well, that’s what she would have said if she wasn’t doped up.”

You remained quiet for the whole ordeal while your sister was totally blowing up. You hear your sister groan, and she flails her arms forward before saying, “Can we please just focus on me for a second?”

“I am the only girl in school who’s not dating.”

“Oh, no, you’re not.” Your dad shakes his head quickly and then refers to you. “Your sister’s not dating.”

“Aaand I don’t intend to.” You assure your point by looking between your sister and your dad.

“And why is that again?” Your father declares.

“Is that even a question? I mean, come on, dad. Jaewon’s either filled with boys who probably don’t even wash their hair,” You count with your fingers. “Snotty prepubescent little boys who think they’re it with their branded clothes, probably stolen shoes, or just major criminal-looking men.” The last one suddenly had your brain remind you of the boy who flashed you a smile. Internally shaking away the intrusive thoughts because that was not what you meant by criminal looks.

“Where did you even come from?” Sang-min gawks, “Planet Loser?”

“Oh, yeah? As opposed to Planet, `` Look at me, look at me.``” You taunt, with your hands flailing around like one of those nobles from the 1800s.

A swift clap of hands disrupted your little argument, making the two of you look up at your father. “Okay, here’s how we solve the problem. Old rule out. New rule in, Sang-min can date.”

Your dad’s statement leaves your mouth open in shock, and for Sang-min to cross her arms and smiles happily. Your father begins to walk off, but just before he does, he finishes his sentence. Walking backward and pointing to you. “When she does.”

And suddenly, the happy smile Sang-min had was replaced with the bitter shock that overtook her. She stands up abruptly, trying to chase your dad while you laugh at the situation.

“Wait, dad, but what if she never dates? She’s a total mutant!”

Your dad shrugs. “Then you’ll never date.” Turning his back, he mumbles to himself. “Oh, I like that. And I’ll get to sleep at night!”

Raising his finger, he makes his point clearer. “The deep slumber of a father whose daughters aren’t out being impregnated.” Then the ring from his phone indicates the end of the conversation.

Standing up from the sofa, you walk off to your room while your dad points at you as he prepares to leave. “We’ll talk about Kyonggi University later.” You give him a hum of affirmation, going up the stairs that lead to your room. On the other hand, your sister tried to convince your unmoving dad, so, in the end, she resorts to you.

With a hand on the wooden rail of the stairs, she yells. “Can’t you just find someone blind and deaf to take you to the movies so I can have one date?!”

Turning to face her and looking down, you smile at her. “I’m sorry. Guess you’ll just have to miss out on the dreamboat Jin Ho “Eat me” Bin.” You pout.

Your sister gives you a scoff, waving you off and whining. “You suck!”

“You suck~” You mock her back, and she groans, annoyed by you.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Flipping the pages of the thick book that had «Speak English for Dummies!» right on the title page, at the moment, Jerry was trying his best to take in the overloaded amount of information so he could teach Sang-min all that which he learned. Yeah, he got lucky to score an English tutoring session with Sang-min, so he was trying his best on this! While avidly reading, the quick tapping of heels behind Jerry and the following plop of a bag on his desk made Jerry look up at the beauty that greeted him.

Sang-min smiles at him, and he feels his heart fly out of his chest.

“Hi. I almost thought I got the wrong table. I didn’t expect someone like you to volunteer as my English tutor.” Sang-min begins, and Jerry? Well, he was still formulating the words to reply in his head. “Actually… Can we make this quick?”

“Zack Lee and Daniel Park are having an incredibly horrendous public fight in their class, again.”

For the whole duration that Sang-min was talking, Jerry was unknowingly leaning close to listen to her voice more. It was until she stopped speaking did Jerry regain his stance. Stuttering, he says, “O-oh… Well, you s-see. Okay, I thought we’d start with pronunciation, i-if that’s alright with you.”

“Not the overuse of Rs. It’s actually so hard to remove our natural Korean accent. Can we start on anything else, please?”

“Ah, well, there is an alternative.” Jerry poses.

“There is?”

Jerry scratches his cheek, looking back to the back. “Yeah, uh, we can try American Food. We could, uh, e-eat some together. Maybe… Saturday night?” As subtle as he can, he tries to look back at Sang-min.

Sang-min squints her eyes with a genuine smile. Trying to decipher what was going on. Speaking up, she says, “You’re Asking me out?”

Then Sang-min grins, showing off her white teeth. “That’s so cute! I never expected you to be so timid too. What’s your name again?” She leans on her chin.

“J-Jerry.” He says, looking down bashfully with his hands and fingers crossed together in such a behave-looking position. “Jerry Kwon.”

Jerry clears his throat and smiles at Sang-min too. “I know your dad doesn’t let you date, but since we’re studying so you could learn English, you know….” Around Sang-min, Jerry had the peculiar habit of scratching his cheek or picking on his nails.

“Oh, sorry, wait a minute. Tom…” Sang-min cuts off.

“Jerry.” He corrected timidly.

“My dad actually came up with a new rule. So I can date when my sister does.” Sang-min trails off with her sentence.

“Really?” Jerry perks up, and suddenly, his whole body faces her while he is still sitting on the chair. “Do you like sailing? I read about this place that rents boats made for—”

“A colossal problem, Jeremy.” Jerry almost speaks up to correct his name again, but Sang-min continues. “In case you haven’t heard, my sister’s a hideous breed of loser.”

Feeling down, Jerry picks on the corner of one of the pages in the open book. “Y-yeah, I heard she was a little antisocial. Do you know why?”

“The only mystery even Scooby-doo can’t solve.” Sang-min shrugs. “She used to be popular, and then it was like, she got sick of it or something.”

“Theories abound as to why, but I’m pretty sure she’s incapable of human interaction. I mean, she basically, like, has no friends now.” Sang-min continues, smiling at Jerry again. “Plus, she’s a bitch.”

Jerry sweats at this, trying to cook up his solutions. “But I’m sure, you know, that there are lots of guys who wouldn’t, you know, mind going out with a difficult wo-man.” Jerry stutters throughout his sentence. Trying to regain his point, he shakes his hands because he feels what he said was wrong.

“I mean, you know, people jump out of airplanes and ski off cliffs or beat up a hundred guys to protect a street. It’d be like, uh, like, Extreme Dating!”

“Shhh!” A couple of students reacted at the back when Jerry picked up his volume by the end. Though once they saw Jerry apologizing sincerely, they piped down due to sheer intimidation.

Now hush-hush between Sang-min and Jerry, who leaned into each other to whisper instead. Sang-min cooks up a reply to what Jerry was trying to say earlier. “You think you can find someone that extreme?”

“I think so…” For you. Jerry thinks.

“You’d do that for me?” Sang-min holds her hand out to touch Jerry’s arm. Suddenly hyped up, Jerry immediately says: “Yes!” Nodding his head avidly.

A smack of a hand on their table catches their attention briefly. Showing a brunette guy with a messy haircut looking at them with an intense glare. “Quiet down.” And then he leaves, Jerry, taking note of the black army jacket that he wore.

Jerry comes down from his high, focusing on the girl of his dreams right next to him. “I mean— I’ll, I could, I could look into it.”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

“There’s a lot of guys from our department. Maybe you can find one here.” Brad says, leading Jerry into the Sophomores' area, right into the deep man cave—the jungle that is the Architecture Dept.

With his hand resembling the “OK” gesture, Jason kisses the tips of his put-together thumb and index. “The finest of Jaewon.” And then the door opens.

It revealed a bunch of guys who were… Weightlifting? Half the class wore black leather jackets with “BNC” and a burning knuckle brass on top of the text. It trailed off to the sleeves with duplicated horizontal lines trailing down to the end. The other half had their jumpsuits down to reveal either a white shirt covered with a plain black coat or just the black jacket paired with whatever shirt or lack thereof they had.

Yes, the Architecture Department was filled with only men for the longest time. Usually, they’d form a single group under a single leader who had shown the most tremendous power amongst the whole batch. But for this year, there were two groups. The other was Burn Knuckles under Vasco, and the other was Big Deal. Under Jake Kim.

What they had in common was that they were formed with the pretense that they were solely just like their leader and had chosen to follow either of the two for as long as they could. Does this spark war, you ask? Well, neither of the leaders aren’t really into unnecessary fights. So, in the end, they simply coexist. Initially, Big Deal was from Sinu Han, an alumnus of Jaewon.

“Osu! Everyone from Big Deal, say hello to the No. 2!” Brad Lee pipes up, and the members of Big Deal immediately stand up from their seats to greet the freshman.

Even the men from Burn Knuckles thought Jerry was already an alumnus, whispering about how big he looked. Is this guy really a student? Was the question most asked.

“No. 2, Jerry Kwon! Welcome to our classroom!” They bow at a perfect ninety-degree angle.

“Geez, what’s the ruckus?” Jace scratches his ear, waking up from his power nap on the floor. When his eyes flit to Jerry, he reels. “Woah.”

“Our junior here was just asking for help. He’s looking for a guy that would be fit for a girl.”

“...” The classroom freezes and digests the information.

“A girl.”

“A girl?!” They yell in unison.

“Should I volunteer, Jace?” Vasco grins, tapping his best friend’s shoulder. Contrariwise, Jace was measuring the situation. He thinks about why a mafia boss has visited them. Vasco and I were just visiting the sophomores. I guess it was the right time to hang around…

Suddenly, everyone was raising their hands and asking questions.

Is she pretty?

From what department?

Can she lift 100kg?

“Who’s the girl first?” Jace asks, raising his hand, and the crowd goes silent. They were all waiting for the answer. Yui Kim? Zoe Park? Joy Hong? Ryang Sang-min?

“Ryang…” They all listen closely. Sang-min? Sang-min? Sang-min!?

“(Name).” Brad finishes.

And suddenly, they all slump their backs. No longer listening to whatever offer Brad and Jason were trying to give them. In the back, even Vasco was put down. Shivering, he recalls, “She once told me that I smelled.”

He cries to Jace, “Do I smell, Jace?!”

Jace pats Vasco’s back while the rest of the Burn Knuckles yell their reprisals. “You don’t smell, Vasco!”

“If Vasco smells, then Burn Knuckle smells!”

“It’s the true smell of a man.”

The other half of Big Deal was awfully quiet, avoiding the looks Jerry, Jason, and Brad were giving them. Absolutely no support whatsoever. None, nein, nothing. Brad sighs and palms his similarly shaven head.

“Well, we’re empty. Sorry, Jerry.” Brad apologizes while Jason tries to comfort the sad giant.

“I told you it was pointless, the girl’s hopeless man,” Jason says.

Jerry frowned as he slowly left the room. He looked like a sad baby. All things, including the scars on his face, were set aside. The rest of the sophomores felt terrible, mainly the ones under Big Deal, but it even caught the attention of Vasco and Jace by the end. At least until Jerry bumped into someone right before the sophomores’ classroom. When Jerry focused on who it was,

“Jake!” Jerry exclaims, to which Jake replies with an easygoing smile.

“Hey. Eat lunch yet?” Jake greets, patting Jerry’s shoulder. “You should eat more. Nutrients are important.”

Once the other members of Big Deal spotted their leader standing right outside the door talking to Jerry, they immediately crowded the entrance in a straight line. Once more, in unison, they speak at a volume that could be heard from the highest to the lowest floor of the whole school.

“Boss Jake! Welcome to our class!”

“Don’t I get a greeting too?” Samuel pops out beside Jake, who was busy telling them to lower their voices to not disrupt other classes.

The other Big Deal members stay quiet, and Samuel laughs, putting his hands in his pockets. “How come I feel a little hurt, huh? I was your number two for a while, too, you know.”

“The only number two you’ll be from now on is when you go to the toilet,” Jake says, using his index finger to pull his cheek down and poke his tongue out toward the male. Samuel was smiling, but a visible irk mark formed on his forehead.

While the two bicker, Jerry is downcast again. Jake immediately notices this.

“Hey, you okay, big guy? You know, if something’s wrong, I can always help.”

This perks Jerry up, and Samuel flinches at the sight of how Jerry is starkly different from what you’d assume his character was at first glance. It was then that Jerry recalled everything since the very beginning. From when he met Sang-min to his current dilemma: Finding someone that can date you.

“Oh, so that was your only problem?” Samuel reacts first. Leaning with his hand on Jake’s shoulder, he rubs his fingers together in front of Jerry. “If you’ve got money, maybe I can find someone to take up the job.”

“I’ll do it.” Jake perks up.

That was the second time that everyone froze. All motion stopped inside the classroom. It wasn’t just Big Deal that reacted harshly, screaming altogether with Burn Knuckles.

“WHAT?!”

“He’s a true man, Jace. Maybe I should have taken the chance too. He feels so cool right now.” Vasco feels a teardrop on his cheek.

“Vasco…” Jace says. Looking at the unknowing man who was scratching his chin, Jace thinks He’s not normal. Is this why he’s the ``Big Boss`` of Big Deal!?

“BOSS! You don’t have to sacrifice yourself!” Some of the members from Big Deal retort.

Samuel recovers, breathing heavily as if he’d just been beaten to a pulp. “Jake, you’re different after all.”

Jerry sees his new hope surface in the face of Jake Kim. He hugged his big brother, who was ironically smaller than him. Unbeknownst to Jerry, he also accidentally squeezed Samuel. Squishing the two men together in the bigger man’s arms, making their cheeks stick and for Samuel to tap Jerry’s back multiple times as a sign for Tapping Out.

Suddenly, Brad speaks up. “But for Boss Jake to date (Name), he’ll need money for the dates. Do you have any funds on you, Boss?”

Jerry lets go of the two boys who are fixing their clothes. Samuel was rapidly wiping his cheek off, acting as if Jake had cooties. Jake, on the other hand, simply patted himself off of imaginary dust and replied, taking his pockets out that held nothing but crumpled paper and a bunch of coins.

“Nope.”

“Then you guys need a backer,” Samuel suggests, fixing his glasses on his nose.

“What’s that?” Jake asks.

“Someone stupid, but with money.”

From the room, anyone could hear the oohs coming from the Archi Dept.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

It was break time in the school’s crowded cafeteria. At one of the tables, there was a student drawing boobs on one of the lunch trays with a permanent marker. That student was surrounded by his lackeys, as usual, save for one who wasn’t a lackey.

“Oh yeah.” Vin Jin says as he keeps on with his masterpiece.

“You look like a third grader who just learned how to draw, Vin.” Mary insults.

“Vin Jin,” Jason says, sitting on the table with the rest of Big Deal, save for Jake. “He’s perfect.”

“Wait, he has money?” Brad asks.

“I mean, his shoes don’t look cheap. And he’s perfect. He likes Sang-min, too, so he’s sure to back Jake up if it means ``scoring.``”

Jerry grumbles at the term. “He will not ``score.``”

“Of course. Since that also means you can go on a date with your girl and have a chance at beating the jerkoff. We let him pretend that he’s calling the shots, so while he pays Jake to take out (Name), you can take your sweet time with Sang-min.” Jason explains

“Win-win!” Jason cheers, putting his arms up.

With this, the rest of Big Deal also cheers at the table. Jerry nods, understanding the situation. He admits, “It’s a pretty good idea.”

But a question now raises itself: Who’ll ask Vin Jin? See, none of them were intimidated, but they needed to pick the right person for the job to be done right. Because if Vin Jin refuses, then Jerry will never get married! Big Deal offered to gather up their funds together for Jake, but Jake refused to use his own group’s money. As Samuel said, if he was going to use someone else’s money, he might as well use the money of someone he didn’t care about. This made the other Big Deal members cry and inadvertently strengthened the loyalty they had for Jake Kim.

In the end, they picked one of the most reasonable people in Big Deal. Their one and only Lineman. Just as he approaches Vin’s table, Mary leaves to buy a drink. She gives a quick greeting to the guy, which Lineman acknowledges before passing each other. At the same time, Lineman takes the seat Mary once sat on and turns it so that he faces Vin Jin, who is puckering his lips in disdain.

The whole exchange was watched over intently by Jerry, Jason, Brad, and the rest of Big Deal. Lineman was their No. 6, after all. They couldn’t hear anything, but they saw the expression on Vin’s face change from annoyed to semi-interested. Even putting the cap of his marker back on, forgetting about drawing on the lunch tray. On their side…

“The Ryang sisters, they can’t date. Specifically, Sang-min can’t date if her older sister doesn’t.” Lineman starts pointing at the table to simply prove his point, “She can’t go out with you because nobody wants to go out with Ryang (Name). Well,” Lineman claps.

“See, what we think—”

“Wait, we?” Vin cuts him off. “Who the fuck are we?”

Lineman gives a glance and a nod to the side, pertaining to the many eyes that were overlooking the single table that had Vin and his two other friends in tow. Vin, for some reason, feels more animosity from the monster that sat in the middle of their long, lined table staring at him. Vin stays quiet and looks back at Lineman, who continues what he is saying.

“What we think is that you need to hire a guy who’ll go out with her.”

Vin places his elbow on the table, resting his chin on his palm and tapping his cheek. Still, with his puckered lips, this time, in thought. One of Vin’s friends then speaks up.

“What’s even in it for you guys?”

Lineman wastes no time responding, already having thought of this coming. “Our boss thinks that it’s a good idea to form good relationships with other departments. And you look like you’re the boss of Vocal & Dance. It’s only necessary to strengthen our bonds as students of Jaewon-High.” He preaches with no stutters.

“Who’s the guy you have in mind?” Vin Jin asks.

Right on time, Jake enters the cafeteria, yawning and looking like he just woke up from a sound sleep. He had a cowlick on the right side of his head, and a pen that he probably overlooked was still stuck on his cheek. Lineman points to him subtly with his hand.

“That guy? What makes you think that guy could stand the nutcase of a woman?” Vin inquires, already skeptical that he is just getting used for his money.

“He’s not the boss of Big Deal for no reason. A solid investment.” Lineman smirks.

With the sound of chairs being pushed back and feet padding across the hall, a clear path was made just so Jake Kim could pass through to an empty table with a meal already prepared with no problems. Vin also notices the visible slanted vertical scar that grazed Jake’s mouth. He felt a subtle chill on his neck before he cleared his throat.

“Tch. Fine. I’ll think about it.”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Field day.

Jake was sitting on one of the benches while the other students of J-high were either doing gym classes, having free time, or running around the grounds playing whatever sport they felt like. The sun was high, and it was hot with no shade, so Jake had to squint everywhere he looked. His black coat was off, leaving him in the baggy pants of the black jumpsuit for those in their Senior year with the top half let down, leaving him in a white tank top, his tattoos from his chest visible up to the ones on his wrists due to the sweat cultivating on his skin.

Jake had just taken a single stick of cigarette and lit it up, putting it in his mouth and inhaling.

Smoking was banned in school, but since his first year in Jaewon, Jake’s learned the habit of the professors that scolded the students for smoking. Plus, he’s got lookouts.

“Hey.” The callout makes Jake look at Vin, wearing gold chains and his leopard-printed sunglasses, he was missing his hat, and his favorite black and white-striped jacket hung on his shoulder, so this time, he was also in a tank top, though it was black. “Fuck.” He utters under his breath.

“You're the Big Boss, right?” Vin Jin asks. He was with his two other friends.

“Do I know you?” Jake asks, looking at Vin with bored eyes, tapping on the cigarette to let the ashes on the tip fly off in the passing wind.

Vin laughs under his breath, annoyed. He was about to take back his greeting and leave, thinking that the guy that talked to him probably messed with him. But Jake interrupts Vin’s thoughts as Jake remembers what Jerry told him.

“Nevermind, I remember now.”

Of course, I’m the boss of our department. Hah! Everyone knows me! Vin rubs his chin, releasing a devious smile. This makes Jake stop and visibly cringe. Man, this dude’s ugly.

Standing a little closer, Vin smugly puts his hands on his hips and looks at where you are currently playing soccer with your class. This makes Jake look in front of him, right where Vin Jin is looking.

“You see that girl?”

“Hm,” Jake replies, inhaling another hit from the cig.

“That’s Ryang (Name). I want you to go out with her.” Vin ordered.

While Jerry Kwon was in class, he suddenly felt the need to sneeze. “A-Who do you think you are, talking to Jake like that-Choo!” Everyone in his class looked at him weirdly, deservingly so. But Jerry seemed to have no clue why everyone was staring at him as he rubbed his nose. A thought came into mind while the professor in Jerry’s class resumed his lesson: I wonder if someone is disrespecting Jake right now…

Back to the field where Jake and Vin were staring at you— correction— Vin was staring at Jake, and Jake was staring at you. Jake realized that you were the girl that flipped him off on the bus a couple of weeks ago.

“You already know the conditions, right?” Vin continued as Jake remained silent. Giving Vin the passive treatment.

Now that Jake was actually at the premise of pulling it off, he felt terrible. Not for using Vin’s money. But because this whole ordeal felt as if you were the ultimate pawn and that everyone just wanted to get past you so they could get to your sister. But the image of Jerry’s sad face, and Vin’s annoying-ass face, got Jake reeling. I mean, he’ll be using this asshat’s money, and he’ll get to know you. Maybe it’ll be worth it, Jake thinks as he watches you breathe heavily, bending over slightly, with your hair sticking to your forehead, in the school’s soccer team uniform that was nearly skin tight from the immense practice it went through.

“So, you’ll be investing in me, isn’t that right? Let’s get this over with.” Jake puffs out another smoke. He hands out his hand, waiting for Vin to hand over his ``downpayment``.

Vin smirks, happy to get his plans in motion.

Vin takes out the cash from his wallet and hands it to Jake, folded. Putting the cigarette in his mouth, Jake unfolds the cash to reveal about a hundred bucks. Guess Vin was stupid. But with money.

Jake pockets the early compensation and puts his cigarette out with his foot. With that, Vin walks off with his friends.

[...]

“Great practice, everybody! Good hustle, Ryang.” Your coach, Mr. Minji, calls.

You jog to the bench where the rest of the team’s stuff is placed. You thank your coach for the praise before you wipe the sweat on your forehead, threatening to drip on your eyes. God knows how much it stings when it drips into your eyes. You were fixing your bag, trying to look for your thermal 1.8L water bottle. When you finally found it, you unscrewed the cap and took a long drink to rehydrate.

Just as you finish, a familiar face greets you.

“Hey there, pretty. How’re you?” Jake Kim offers you his most charming close-eyed smile, along with a wink right after. Even leaning on his knees for a second to adjust to your more petite frame in contrast to his larger build.

You give a tight smile back, nodding. The fuck… “Sweating like a pig. And yourself?” You sling your bag over your shoulder.

“Here, trying to get your attention.” Jake shrugs and points to himself with his index finger. “You certainly got mine.”

“Finally.” You breathe out, and Jake tilts his head. Finally…? Were you— “You’ve certainly helped me achieve my mission in life since I’ve struck your fancy. It worked. Thanks.” You say with the most lifeless tone. Oh.

Jake gives you a small laugh, following behind you closely whilst you walk. Which was faster than an average person, he noticed. Having a hard time catching up even with his giant strides. He places his hands in his jumpsuit’s pockets, now walking toe-to-toe beside you. Leaning a little closer so you could hear him amidst the array of students, Jake says with an air of playfulness:

“Pick you up on Friday?”

“Oh. Right, Friday.” You nod in mock enthusiasm before raising your hand in front of his face. “Uhuh.”

“I’ll take you places you’ve never been before.” Jake raises his already naturally arched brows.

“Take me places— Where? The Hypermarket in Gangnam?” You squint at him, unknowingly raising your shoulders in protest of his bad ideas. Plus, “Do you even know my name, dog boy?”

Jake stops in his steps for a while as you continue walking in front of him. “Ryang (Name).” Which makes you stop walking to face him with squinted brows. Both from the heat of the sun, and the way that he did, in fact, know your name. You two stand there for a while, almost recreating the time when you saw him on the bus.

“Doesn’t matter. Screw off.” Then, you walk away. Leaving Jake Kim to think.

In the sophomores’ classroom in the Architecture Dept, everyone, including non-Big Deal members, watched the whole interaction between the infamous Ryang (Name) and the more famous Jake Kim. They even saw how their Big Boss was left in the dust by the girl. Some were still commending Jake, some of the Big Deal members cried for Jake, while Jason and Brad…

“Jerry’s screwed. We’re screwed.” Jason relays to Brad.

“Hey, no, are you saying you don’t trust the Big Boss?” Brad replies. Though in his mind, he thought the same thing. To distract himself, he says, “We should be upbeat, upbeat!”

“We’re~! Screwed~!”

Brad could only nod and sigh at Jason in defeat. Placing his gaze back towards their boss, who was still standing there in the middle of the field, looking in the direction that you left him off with.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

You just finished washing your face, already preparing for bed. You wiped your face off the droplets of water sticking to your skin, feeling refreshed.

“Have you considered a new look?” Your sister brings up abruptly. You shared the same bathroom, after all. “Like, seriously, you have some definite potential under all that hostility.”

Still patting your face with the soft towel, you give her a reply. “It’s not hostility. Just annoyed.”

Sang-min begins playing with your hair, trying to style it before you lightly push her off. She sits on her chair where a vanity mirror is displayed, reflecting her image. “Why don’t you try being nice? People won’t know what to think.”

You check if you have any zits on your face, “You forget, I don’t care what people think.”

“Yes, you do.” Your sister quips, brushing her hair lightly as she stares into her reflection.

“No, I don’t.” You say with a subtle authority in your tone. You squint at Sang-min’s reflection, “You don’t always have to be who they want you to be, you know.”

A small air of pause as Sang-min finally notices you looking at her through her reflection. She looks back at you, “I happen to like being adored, thank you.”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

You come out of the B&B Music Store after your little hustle of finding new headphones. You often visit here because they also sell instruments. And since you’re a well-known regular, sometimes, they let you try out the electric guitar you’ve been pining for and saving for since the dawn of time. It was almost afternoon, but the day was relatively calm, and the sun wasn’t too intense. A perfect day.

Until you see who’s leaning on your car. It was a blue and white used Chevy Chevrolet 1955 car that you also saved up for the longest time. Though your dad chipped in when it was your birthday, you’re proud of using the majority of your money on it. You don’t use it often since Jaewon wasn’t exactly filled with angels.

“Nice car. Very vintage.” Jake comments with a friendly smile, supporting his tall frame with his forearm on the roof of the car.

“Jake Kim…” You breathe out, pinching your nose. This makes Jake flinch, propping himself up from your car. “Are you actually following me?”

With your accusation, Jake quickly raises his hands in surrender. “I was not! Please don’t think I’m a weirdo!”

You raise your brow, crossing your arms, waiting for more than that shitty excuse. Jake takes the hint and points back with his thumb. “I was in the laundromat. I saw you enter the store a couple of minutes ago. I came over to wait for you so I could say hi.”

“Honest.” Jake finishes off, drawing a cross over his heart. Today, he was in white, casual loose pants, a hoodie in a really light shade of brown, coated with another jacket in dark denim that was open, and plain white shoes.

“Eyes up here, pretty,” Jake smirks playfully, crossing his arms this time. This idiot. To think I was about to compliment his fashion taste.

“You came to say hi, right? Well, hi.” You remark, walking over to the door that led to the driver’s seat, just where Jake was blocking earlier. Just as you were reaching for the handle, he slid to stop it from your reach again.

“You don’t like talking much, do you?” Jake cranes his neck to level his face with yours.

You smile sweetly at him. “Hm, depends on the topic. My car nor your trip to the laundromat doesn’t really whip me into a ``verbal frenzy.`` Run along and wash your sweaty uniforms now.”

“You’re tough. You’re not scared of me?” Jake pouts. You don’t give him a reaction. He sighs and rolls his jacket sleeves up. “Not even one of these guns?”

“About forty-five percent of the school’s population consists of boys like you flaunting their inked skin. So why should I be afraid of you?”

“Hmmm… I don’t usually flaunt this, but how does being No. 1 of Big Deal sound?”

“Sounds like you’ve thought of that name just so you can say that you’re ``The Big Deal`` ‘round these parts. Corny when you actually hear it, sorry. Not afraid of that, big boy. Think of something else for me.”

Jake, still with his jacket sleeves rolled up, chuckles. He finds your replies genuinely interesting. Leaning a little closer towards you, “Okay, well, maybe you’re not afraid of me….”

“But I’m sure you’ve thought of me naked.” Jake gives you a cheeky smile and a sneaky wink.

You gasp. And Jake thinks he’s finally got you. “Am I that transparent?”

Placing your hand over your chest and leaning a little closer with every word, “I want you, I need you. Oh, baby. Oh, baby.” Jake actually blushed a little from the distance you closed in the short amount of time. If only you didn’t say that with the dullest voice and expressionless face, maybe he’d have felt butterflies.

You finally got a hold of the door handle, prompting Jake to push himself off the door. He scratches the back of his head in another failure.

“Careful on the drive home.” Jake waves, going back to his dirty laundry, waiting across the street as you prepare to leave, happy to be in your car with no nuances anymore. You put in the key, trying a couple of times as usual before the engine starts. Putting the gear on reverse, you were just about to leave.

But a motorbike parks right behind you to block your exit, and you groan, realizing who it is. Today was definitely an asshole day. You switch gear back to Neutral and raise your hand break. Peeking out of your open window, Vin Jin walks past you.

“Do you mind?” You ask, already pissed.

“Not at all,” Vin replies, twirling the motorbike’s keys around his index finger.

“Fine.” You whisper. You push the hand break back down, shifting into reverse, and you back onto the bike. Enough to tumble it to the ground.

Across the street, Jake watches and laughs at the exchange. Samuel, in his casual wear composed of mid-thigh shorts and a printed black shirt covered with a maroon hoodie because his tattoos were showing more this time, looks to what made Jake laugh and saw the scene, chuckling to himself too. They both continue to observe you laughing at Vin’s rage.

They hear Vin Jin panic and scream at you for being a massive bitch whilst you drove off, probably not listening anymore.

The whole affair with you maiming Vin’s bike, which you found out was actually Mary’s cousin’s motorbike, reached your dad and your sister later that evening. Sang-min was mad that she had to take the bus to school instead of being taken to by Vin, and your dad was angry because, well, of course, you had to pay for the minor damages to the vehicle. Still, you say, it was worth it.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Vin Jin grimaces angrily as he finally spots the guy he hired. He walks towards Jake, who is sleeping on his desk. Vin pushes Jake’s shoulder to wake him. Jake stirs awake, still in the throes of his break time nap, when Vin already starts his scolding, trapping Jake on his chair with Vin’s arms that hold both sides of the table. Jake leans back, unamused and certainly not intimidated.

“I shell out a hundred. I expect results.” Vin says with clenched teeth. Even with multi-layer tinted sunglasses in a dimly lit room, you could feel just how piercing Vin’s gaze was toward Jake. Anyone could feel it. But he’s Jake Kim. All that did was remind him that he probably had saliva that dried on his chin, wiping it off during the whole ordeal. “Watching that bitch violate my motorbike doesn’t count as a date.”

“Now, if you don’t get any, I don’t get any.” Vin taunts, “So get some.” He pokes Jake’s chest.

Just as Vin turns to leave, Jake speaks up. “I just upped my price. Add ‘nother fifty, in advance.”

“Huuuuh? Forget it.” Vin scowls. “Well, forget her sister, then.” Jake rebukes, starting to lay back down on his desk, taunting Vin by making it look like he was making himself visibly comfortable.

The next series of events were Vin grumbling as he reached into his pocket and slammed the bill in front of Jake. “You better hope you’re as smooth as you think you are, Jake Kim.”

Jake sighs exasperatedly, pulling the bill to place it in his pocket. He then goes back to his nap to replenish enough energy before the bell rings.

[...]

“Class Schedule, Reading List, Concert Tickets to one of her many favorite indie bands playing tomorrow.” Sang-min lists off, giving some of it to Jerry.

Jake didn’t know what he was doing here right now. With your sister, Jerry, as well as Jason, and Brad, who were waiting outside to give him a call in case you get home. This is definitely wrong, an absolute breach of privacy. This all feels against his personal code of morals, and in the back of his head, he can hear his previous superior, Sinu Han, scolding him in the form of a tiny angel sitting on his shoulder.

“I don’t want to do this,” Jake says, out of the blue, making Sang-min stop rummaging through your drawers to look at him.

“You didn’t seem so opposed earlier. Plus, we’re doing this so I can go to the party with Jerry that Beom from Practical Music is hosting. Right, Jerry?” Sang-min recalls, placing both her hands on her hips as she looks at Jerry for affirmation. To which the big guy nods frantically with a small smile. Seeing how Jerry was really into going to a party with your sister, Jake couldn’t help but let go of his morals for a little bit.

“Plus, it was you guys that asked for help. I refused at first, too, because it was creepy when I first thought about it, but for the sake of my social life….” Sang-ming trails. “And we’re not going too far into her stuff. You guys better not be stalkers or something.”

Typically, Jerry didn’t really ask for much.

But rummaging through a girl’s room is wrong! Imaginary Sinu says. Well, he was right, but…

But she’s actually pretty, isn’t she? Plus, poor Jerry doesn’t ask for much. Stop worrying. Who was this? Jake asks himself at the immediate entrance of a new imaginary figure. It was… Samuel?! What the fuck was going on in his head…?

“Oh, look, black panties.” Sang-min smiles cheekily, nitpicking your plain black underwear taken from inside your top drawer. Jake immediately covers Jerry’s eyes with his hand.

“Cover your ears, Jerry!” Jake sputters quickly. And Jerry, ever obedient, follows quickly. Already having a light shade of pink on the tips of his ears at Sang-min exposing your… Garment.

“What does that have to do with me dating your sister?” Jake asks with a clenched jaw, pissed but more so flustered and red at the same time.

Sang-min couldn’t believe that a guy like Jake Kim didn’t know what black panties meant. “She wants to have sex someday.”

On Jake’s shoulders sat the imaginary figures. One was laughing his heart out, while the other had a similar reaction to Jake. Sinu, who was also quite red despite being depicted as an angel, gives Jake a go-go-okay sign. Who does he think he is for giving me a go sign?! Go away! Samuel couldn’t stop laughing and hitting Jake’s shoulder in his miniature stature.

“She could just like the color. How can I trust you?” Jake rebukes, peeling his eyes off the article that is still in your sister’s hand.

Sang-min groans as if it was apparent. “Women just don’t buy black lingerie for nothing. They buy it because they want someone to see it.” She raises her eyebrows at Jake when she finishes her sentence. Jakes covers half his face with his other free hand, and he feels the heat that stuck to his skin because of whatever Sang-min said.

[...]

“So, first thing, (Name) hates...” Brad starts. Jake puffs out a smoke whilst leaning on a billiard table that he and the guys reserved just to hang out for the night. “Smokers. She said, and I quote, ``Would rather die than date a smoker.``”

Jake puts his cigarette out, recalling the detail that Sang-min told them earlier.

“And she likes pretty guys!” Jason remarks with his index finger pointing up, “As proven by the picture of that idol DG that Sang-min showed us earlier.”

The small group went quiet as opposed to their other buddies talking on the other reserved billiard tables in the local night bar. Jake forbids most of them to drink if they’re under twenty-one like him, though. Which, really, they all are. It just so happens that this was run by one of the girls from their street. None of them spoke a word as Jake pushed his hair back on both sides. “I guess we have no problem with that part.”

“...” Jason and Brad stare at Jake.

“...” Jake stares at Jason and Brad.

“What?”

“Nothing, boss.” Brad states.

“You don’t think I’m pretty?” Jake asks the question they all dreaded. If Jerry was here, he probably would have agreed with no brakes, but Jake made him go home early. So he doesn’t forget to do his homework.

“Hey, no, he’s stunning!” Jason argues, lightly pushing Brad away, and points to Jake with both his hands. “Prettiest guy in Jaewon!”

“Gorgeous guy, of course.” Brad agrees, too, all of a sudden, grasping his head. “Just taking opinions. Everyone knows Jake is a pretty guy.”

Jake looks off, playing with his hands now that he can’t smoke. “So, she likes traditional Japanese food, indie rock, and psychological horror movies that can be portrayed easily in real life?”

Jason and Brad nod, knowing that Jake got it all right.

“All right, then.” Jake finishes the conversation quickly, pushing himself off the edge of the billiard table and getting a cue stick, ready to play Pool.

“Club ViVi, tomorrow night, her favorite band’s gonna be playing there,” Jason adds, getting a cue stick, too, whilst Brad prepares to arrange the balls for their game.

“Club ViVi?! I can’t be seen at Club ViVi.” Jake suddenly pipes up.

“But she’ll be there. She’s marked it in her calendar.” Jason rebukes, making Jake grasp his forehead in thought. He remembers getting into a brawl with their top bouncer there once, Xiaolung, was it?

“I mean, it’s just one night. Did you do something wrong there, Boss?” Brad looks at Jake, now having the balls arranged and prepped. He got a chalk to rub on the tip of his cue stick.

She has a pair of black underwear. His small demon, Samuel, whispered in his ear. Instinctively, Jake swats the image away, making Jason and Brad think there is a fly bothering Jake. Though they both wonder why their boss was red-faced all of a sudden.

“Nothing. It’s fine. I’ll go.” Jake shakes his head, still stuck on a particular image in his head.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

The sticky air filled with sweat that any typical club would radiate permeated through the whole environment that was Club ViVi. Jake was easily let in by the two bouncers up front, allowing him to delve deeper into the club. He was trying his best to lay low and avoid meeting Xiaolung accidentally.

The club was full of drunk young adults, guys in loose shirts, and women in tight dresses. Jake opted to wear a black silk short-sleeved shirt that was unbuttoned from the top with a simple silver chain. He had black pants and black Johnston & Murphy pair of dress shoes. Jake didn’t bother tucking the shirt in his pants like Samuel told him, just allowing the smooth silk to stretch through his body. His tattoo sleeves were easily seen, and he was ogled by the many ladies that he quickly passed by.

The neon purple, pink, and the occasional green were blasting all through the rooms of Club ViVi, and Jake had to push through a bunch of people to get to the stage where a band called Bad Suns was playing. Jake’s eyes flit to the denser crowd surrounding the scene in the center of the glistering dance floor. Then to the band that was playing on the stage, shining with sweat.

“I had no reason to breathe,” Uninterested, Jake suddenly spots your image. “Until you knocked the wind out of me.”

You were wearing a white crisscrossed wrap top. Covering only what you wanted to cover. You had light-washed denim jeans and white strap heels, and despite the thin heels supporting your feet, you were still excitedly jumping around and dancing to the rhythm of the song. Full of energy, with a huge grin, your hair swayed and wrapped around your face. The same grin you had on was contagious enough to infect Jake Kim.

“Thanks for listening to Life Was Easier When I Only Cared About Me, now for Daft Pretty Boys! A one, a one-two-three!” The singer yells into the mic as the beat shifts.

As the song begins, Jake slowly makes his way to your singular form. He couldn’t believe that you go to clubs like this all alone. Even if there were so many raving people around him, Jake excused himself to keep going. Until he finally got behind you, who was still unaware. Jake bobs his head and moves lightly to the beats of the song just so he can meld with the others who are dancing with much more fervor than he was. He chose to focus more on you, waiting for you to notice his presence. Unwilling to disrupt your excitement and happiness at this moment.

“Like the gates of heaven are open now,”

Suddenly, Jake thinks about how anyone could ever be scared of you. How could anyone be angry with you? You were just— Abruptly, you accidentally stepped back and tripped backward, yelping on instinct. Your hands try to reach out for the closest support; your other leg is raised as the other is losing its balance. But just as you grab the silk material, Jake already has his stable hand supporting your back, you face him, and he meets you.

The flashing lights and the dark ambiance made it hard for you to recognize Jake at first. Thinking he was just a random boy who was trying to shoot his shot. Which wasn’t a pretty far-off conclusion, actually.

Your eyes glowed with the neon lights, and his eyes could only softly reflect yours. With a dazed look, you finally figure it out, “Jake.” You breathe out.

“She says, ``There’s a dangerous kind of cool about you.``” The singer on the stage sang with fervor.

Jake raises you up from your leaning position smoothly. “What are you doing here?” You appraise, fixing yourself.

Still, Jake had his hand unconsciously on your back, ghosting above the semi-exposed skin. “I hang out here every now and then. I know a couple of people here.” Jake replies, leaning closer to your face so you can hear him talk. You face him, and you catch a whiff of the natural musk and a touch of mint from when Jake spoke. “You’re not surrounded by your usual cloud of smoke.”

“I quit.” Jake grins at you, and he cups his mouth. “Apparently, they’re bad for me.”

“You think?” You snarkily reply. You clutch your forehead, regaining your balance while you hold onto Jake’s forearm that he so generously offered to you. “But thanks for having my back. I think I need water, though.”

As you started to navigate through the dancing crowd that was taking your last place, Jake’s figure was right behind you, helping to push the other people lightly. He has his arm stretched out, reaching just above your head, and you look back at him, and all he did was give you a thumbs up and a wide grin. Noticing his scar that stretched out with his grin and you try to clear your throat, ignoring the way his shirt was brushing your back as you walked off.

When the both of you arrived, the bartender was cleaning a glass. When Jake looks up from your form, he notices who the bartender is. “Johan?”

“Oh. Hey.” The boy replies curtly. Jake leans on the counter, sitting right beside where you sat. “Did you always work here? Aren’t you a minor?”

“I make the drinks. I don’t drink them.” He explains. “I’ve been looking for a well-paying part-time job these days.”

Johan then looks at you then flits back to Jake. Mildly interested in how Ryang (Name) and Jake Kim mixed out of the blue.

“Uh, hey. I just need some water.” You call out to the boy. Nodding, Johan reaches out from the cooler behind him after he places the shot glass down. When he handed it to you, he decided to leave you and Jake to your own devices. Johan wasn’t one for engaging in gossip or whatnot.

Taking the cold bottle of water, you try to open the cap. But it was way tighter than it should be. Jake was looking at you struggle all this time, and you felt your cheeks heat up in embarrassment. He takes the bottle from your hands and opens it with ease, handing it back to you.

“Thank you again.” You fix a strand of your hair and drink the water. Both to cool down from all your burst of energy on the dance floor earlier and from the irritating man that was sitting beside you. Wiping your lip from the water, you face Jake. “If you’re planning on asking me out again, you might as well just get over it.”

Jake opts to lean on his enclosed hand supported by the table. He chooses to change the topic just as he drinks the glass of orange juice Johan left for him. “You know,” Jake starts with a loud volume, giving you a cheeky side glance, “These guys, Bad Suns? They’re pretty good. Though they’re no Weathers or the Technicolors.”

You feel your ears perk up at what he said. Skeptically, your reply. “You know who the Weathers are?”

Jake stands up and leaves his glass on the table. You quickly follow right behind him, with the both of you ending up just a ways back from the center, looking over the most crowded area in the entire club.

“Secret’s Safe With Me. Gave it a listen.” Jake says, inserting his hands in his pocket and using the other to tap his ear.

You pause, still holding on to the water bottle you got earlier. You’re surprised someone like Jake would even care about a band like Weathers. “I saw you out there earlier. Never seen you prettier than when you smile while dancing.”

“You’ve probably only seen me like, what, three, four times?” You chuckle. Jake then notices a waiter carrying trays filled with a bunch of margaritas about to pass by you at an unsteady pace. So, by instinct, he clears the path for the waiter. By having his hand no longer ghost above your back.

You face Jake’s semi-exposed chest, and you internally reel at the proximity of your bodies. Jake could feel your breath near his neck, and he had to gulp to think of something else quickly. But your hands were grounding him, and he could almost feel how you were trying your best not to be pushed further into him so that your chest won’t crash with his. Jake finally looks down at you only to find you already staring up at him, and he feels a form of heat rush up to his head, losing his cool and finding his words. Looking for them in the glimmer of your eyes.

“Come to Beom’s party with me.” Jake finally breathes out, something only you can hear in the noisy atmosphere.

What he says finally grounds you, “You never give up, do you?” You lightly tap on his chest, and he’s left there dumbfounded as you walk back to the dancefloor, right in front of the stage.

But Jake has to know. Cupping both his hands around his mouth, he shouts. “Was that a yes?!”

“No!” You reply, back turned.

Jake tries to catch up to you, grabbing your wrist lightly. “Then, was it a no…?”

You face him, with a close-eyed smile, just like his. “No.”

223 notes · View notes

aurorafables · 2 months

Text

From the Grey, Chapter 7.

“By the way, I'm Nicholas,” I tried to lighten his mood a little. “My friends usually just call me Nick.”

The boy finally stopped and slowly turned towards me. He brushed his hair away from his face with long, thin fingers, revealing dark eyes, pouty pink lips, and the sweetest nose I'd ever seen.

Hi everyone! Here is a new part of the story with sweet moments between the boys 🥰😊 and some angst from the past.

Have a nice week! 🙂

Pairing: Noah Sebastian X Nicholas Ruffilo

Warnings: 18+, Explicit, Angst, Past character death, Suicidal thoughts

Tags: M/M, M/F, Slow burn, Childhood friends, Friends to lovers, Family drama, Band fic, Masturbation, Accidental Voyeurism

Word Count: 4.4k

Cross-posted: AO3

The next morning we had a small breakfast and packed up before we left. I quickly got rid of the rental car at the nearest drop-off point and we drove most of the way in Noah's car. We listened to music, Noah singing Taylor Swift while drumming his tattooed fingers on the steering wheel, and I watched him sleepily out of the corner of my eye, my head resting on the headrest of the seat. It was especially good that I didn't have to drive much, because I didn't sleep well that night. Although I reassured myself that nothing had happened - and this was also confirmed by the fact that Noah showed the same - negative emotions still swirled in me. Guilt that Maya deserves better than me. I'm afraid one wrong word or touch and I'll lose Noah because there's no attraction worth even risking our friendship for. I started whipping myself over and over when I thought about it. I can't act so stupid, I'm a grown man who has been in a serious relationship for almost eight months now, not a stupid little teenager who has no idea about the world.

“Everything is alright? You're very quiet today," Noah remarked, turning down the radio, keeping his eyes on the road.

“I slept badly,” I answered in a hoarse, sleepy voice, and at least I didn't lie to him with that.

“We will stop at the next gas station. I'll buy you a coffee,” he promised and smiled kindly at me, which I tried to return.

"I might not be the best company today," I said apologetically.

“You don't have to talk to be good company,” he looked at me sideways from under his sunglasses. "It calms me down when you're near me," he added much more quietly.

I pursed my lips, closed my eyes under my sunglasses, and wished he wouldn't be so nice to me all the time. It was as if his comment had fueled that strange feeling in me, which was pleasant, but I had to suppress it as soon as possible, because it would only cause my loss in the long run.

After a few minutes we pulled into a gas station parking lot, but Noah didn't get out of the car immediately. He unbuckled his seat belt, took a deep breath, and turned to me.

“I would like to apologize for my behavior yesterday,” he began, which immediately made me pay attention to him, and suddenly the dream escaped my eyes. “My morning wasn't the best, and then…” he shook his head, causing his hair to fall into his eyes “and then Karin called me saying she wanted to meet.”

Oh. I didn't expect him to talk about it, even though I could have learned by now that if I gave him enough time, sooner or later he would pour his heart out.

“What did you say to her?” I asked breathlessly.

“I said it's over. Everything, that was between us.”

My mouth twisted into a proud smile.

“I think you made the right decision. You've already finished it once, there would be no point to continue and hurt each other.”

"Yeah…" he said thoughtfully.

I swallowed the thoughts of how badly the girl had affected him, and that he could find a thousand better women than her if he wanted to, because I really didn't really know what kind of mental state he was in, and I felt that it would not be constructive at that moment.

“If you want to talk about this or anything else, I will be happy to listen to you at any time,”I said instead of my judgmental thoughts. Noah's grateful look made it worth it.

“Thank you. I don't know how to thank you for caring so much about me.”

“For a start a big cappuccino will do,” I joked with him to lighten both of our melancholic moods. Noah smiled but still didn't go. I could see he wanted to speak about something else.

“About what happened in the afternoon… I think it's also due to my fucked up mood.”

I blinked a few times and remembered our conversation two days before when we slept in the same room after stargazing and Noah apologized even then, though he didn't say exactly why. I felt that it would be no different now, but something told me that it would be better for both of us if I didn't mess this up. Besides, I felt equally responsible.

"Yesterday afternoon was particularly good," I said honestly, because no matter how messed up the ending was, we laughed and talked a lot before it, everything was almost the same as before.

Noah pushed his sunglasses on top of his head and scanned my face.

“So isn't that why you're in a bad mood?”

I'm in a bad mood because we almost kissed in the lake, completely attached to each other's bodies? Because I almost cheated on my girlfriend with my best friend? Or because I loved every minute when our bodies touched? Is the reason for this messed up mood that I get into the room, half lying on the floor, because my cock was throbbing so much after hearing his moans that I didn't even have the opportunity to sit on the bed? Or because of all the fucking sexy things my brain was creating and he was the main character in all of them? I have no idea what exactly the question was about.

“I'm tired, I could sleep here in the car, only my neck would hurt,” I answered. “Tomorrow, after a long sleep, everything will be much better.”

I really believed in this, because when I'm rested, it's much easier to cope with any test that life throws at me. Maybe I felt tired and bored, that was just a bad move and I could screw everything up - if I haven't done it yet - but tomorrow, fresh, I will definitely see things in a better light.

"Okay," Noah agreed thoughtfully, then grabbed his wallet and hopped out of the car. “A cappuccino, as you said. Anything else?” he asked with a smile as he leaned in the door.

“A chocolate chip cookie, please.” I returned his smile when he nodded.

He put on his sunglasses and pulled the hood of his hoodie over his head. While he went into the store, I got out to stretch my legs and smoke a cigarette.

I was already getting back in the car when I saw Noah exit the small shop at the gas station and start heading back, but it seemed I wasn't the only one who noticed. He was stopped by a middle-aged woman with long red hair and a younger girl. I could tell by their body language how excited they were when they started talking. His presence has probably made their day better, but maybe even their whole week. I watched him as he bent down a little so the height difference would not be too disturbing, as he smiled restrainedly, but kindly, and paid attention to them. I felt a pleasant feeling move in my chest because I was in such an advantageous position that I could receive this attention at any time. Noah nodded, then smiled as they took a few selfies, he held the phone with his long arm. He pulled his hoodie up over his forearms, the muscles on which were tense and his dark tattoos glistened in the sunlight. His hair fell forward as they checked to see if the pictures were okay, and I wondered if I had ever felt as much desire for another man as I did for him. The answer was clearly no.

In high school, we were told a thousand times that we were gay because of our long hair and eccentric style, but I never seriously thought about the possibility, because for me the girls were interesting enough, anyone could say anything. Our friends also looked at us strangely when they found out that I lived with my best friend, but they didn't ask about it too much. Did Noah feel the same way? I remember a long time ago, at a party, he kissed a guy, but it was just a silly, drunken challenge, not a real kiss, and it didn't last more than a few seconds. He always had girlfriends and it never occurred to me that he might even be bisexual. And then there was Noah's mom…who loved to attack our friendship and all the good things that happened to her son.

It all started when two boys started teasing Noah at school, and one of my friends and I listened to it all. They made rude comments about his hair and figure, and when that didn't get enough of an impact and reaction, they started teasing him about having Asian blood in his veins. He was told that it was indeterminate whether he was a boy or a girl, just like in Japanese anime. I think this was the point where even though I hated conflict, I had to step in because I absolutely loved anime. And I didn't understand why you couldn't leave a boy alone who just wanted to write his homework.

It only took a couple of well-selected sentences from Davis and a few condescending glances from me to make the young boys go away in defeat. They wisely decided that it was pointless to confront the three of us, especially since my friend and I were several years older. We had a fist-bump with Davis, who immediately left for class, and only then did I turn to the boy, who got up from the bench and started packing his things back into his bag. His hair fell into his face as he leaned forward, his movements looking nervous. I've never been the type to initiate acquaintances. I hated big company and could only really open up to a small circle of friends, but… I felt I had to open up to him. Little did I know then that I was making the best decision of my life.

“By the way, I'm Nicholas,” I tried to lighten his mood a little. “My friends usually just call me Nick.”

The boy finally stopped and slowly turned towards me. He brushed his hair away from his face with long, thin fingers, revealing dark eyes, pouty pink lips, and the sweetest nose I'd ever seen.

"I could have dealt with them alone," he declared instead of introducing himself. I wasn't mad at him though, I knew he was still in passive aggressive defense mode.

“I know,” I answered and smiled cautiously. I didn't want him to feel like I was laughing at him. “But I am desperately collecting friends who like anime.”

With this, I managed to remove some of the storm clouds from his face.

“How many friends do you have like that, Nick?” he asked with interest, tilting his head slightly to the side.

“I hope you will be the first,” I answered honestly, for which I received a bright smile in response.

"Noah," he said, twisting his fingers, turning his gaze to the ground. "I mean, that's my name," he added, laughing nervously, looking up at me again.

"Noah," I said his name, just to know how it felt. I loved it.

In the weeks that followed, Noah easily fit into my group of friends. No one really noticed that he was three years younger than us. Even then he was almost as tall as me, and much more mature than his age would have suggested.

The summer holidays were approaching, the students were less and less focused on studying and wanted to stay more and more outdoors. I couldn't wait for the bell to ring from our last class on Friday and it would be the weekend. Not because I wanted to party - I've never been a party animal - but so that I can finally get a good night's sleep and draw as much as I like. I was decorating the edge of my notebook throughout math class, and when the bell finally rang, I was one of the first to get up, threw my things into my bag, said goodbye to the two boys I had been friends with for years, and stepped out into the hallway. Noah was leaning against the railing waiting for me, drinking a can of Coke and smiling when he saw me.

"Thanks for waiting," I told him as we walked out of the building. “This math class was dead boring.”

"I can't say that this was the most exciting day of my life either," he answered, smoothing his shoulder-length brown hair behind his ears. “But maybe it will get better from now on.”

“For sure. It is even more fun to sit in the church and listen to the teacher about nonsense.”

"Brr, don't even mention the church," he said with disgust on his face. I laughed to myself as he wrinkled his freckled nose, pursed his lips, and was visibly sick of even the thought. He said that his grandparents, with whom he lived, were very religious and forced him to participate in church work, even if it’s about repairs or fundraising.

We walked down to the front of the building when a bunch of young boys turned to us and giggled as we passed them. I saw in Noah that he was uncertain for a fleeting moment, but then he kept his head up and walked confidently.

“You shouldn't show off with me,” he remarked when we left the gate. “You must have noticed that I am not the most popular student.”

“Don't think I'm afraid of your classmates in diapers,” I snorted, touching my pockets. I couldn't wait to finally light a cigarette. I found the box with the lighter inside and took out a cigarette. I noticed Noah reach out his hand as well, causing my eyebrows to rise to the center of my forehead.

“What is that?” Noah asked.

“Aren't you too young for that?”

He just rolled his eyes, then grabbed my wrist where I was holding the box and took out a cigarette. He lit it with practiced movements and blew the first puff of smoke into my face, making me roll my eyes.

“Just because you're older, you don't have to play the adult.”

“Just because I smoke is not an example to be followed,”I retorted, but I couldn't take this conversation seriously either, and by the end we both laughed at each other.

“Don't worry, I already smoked before I met you.”

“Huh,” I squeezed my hand dramatically towards my chest. “Now a huge stone fell from my heart. I was already beginning to think that I had led you into trouble during our short acquaintance.”

“My grandparents won't be coming home until Sunday,” Noah explained as we got to their house. I looked up at the two-story building, which was surrounded by a large, well-kept garden, and nodded approvingly. It was the first time I visited them, only three weeks had passed since we met in the schoolyard.

"I guessed you were a little prince," I said with feigned seriousness. The house was about twice the size of the one I lived in with my parents and four siblings. Noah snorted, but didn't answer anything, he just opened the door with his key, and then we entered the hall one after the other. Even next to the coat hanger, the face of Jesus greeted me on the wall. It seemed that Noah was not exaggerating when he spoke about his grandparents' religiosity. I kicked off my shoes and continued to look around while Noah struggled with his tangled shoelaces.

“Who is she?” I asked, pointing to a beautiful woman in one of the paintings. Her brown hair was at least down to her waist and she wore a blood red cloak over her long dress which she held in her hands at her chest.

"Mary Magdalene," Noah answered as he straightened up. “She…”

"Many people believe that she was Jesus' lover," said a woman's voice behind us, and we both turned on our heels in surprise. "Hello, I'm Noah's mother, Elizabeth," the owner of the voice extended her hand to me with a soft smile on her lips. Her light brown hair was tied back in a bun, her nails were painted bright pink, and she wore a short black dress that showed off her long thighs. She looked barely over thirty, I would never have guessed she was Noah's mother. I would have guessed it was his sister.

“Good afternoon. I'm Nicholas,” I shook her hand politely. Her skin was hot and slightly clammy, her grip strong. Then we both turned to Noah, who was standing with his arms crossed in front of his chest, not moving.

“Don't you welcome your mother?” asked the woman, raising the glass filled with whiskey she was holding to her mouth with a smile.

“Why are you here? “Noah asked, but his voice was barely above a whisper.

“I don't have the right to visit my son?” Since Noah didn't appreciate any reaction, she drained the rest of the drink from her glass and continued: “Your grandmother mentioned that you will be alone. I thought this would be the perfect time to get back together.”

When Noah told me about his bad relationship with his mother, I thought they didn't get along because of some sort of teenage rebellion. I never thought that Noah could act so cold with someone when I got to know him so friendly and kind in the last few weeks.

I followed him up the stairs with furrowed brows as he started without saying a word to his mother. When we entered his room, he immediately locked the door and collapsed on the bed, broken.

“I'm sorry, I didn't know she would be here.”

“It's okay,” I reassured him immediately and fell down next to him. "She doesn't seems that bad," I added, but I saw that pained smile on Noah's face that I haven't been able to get out of my head since, and I kept seeing it in my mind as his mother stabbed him in the back over and over again just to see him suffer.

I stood up and walked over to the bookshelf to look through his manga. He said he would be happy to lend me any of them if I wanted to read them, and I chose two. Afterwards, I sat back next to him and we were talking about school, when my sketchbook, in which I used to draw, came up.

“Shall I show you?” I asked Noah. His face lit up as he nodded, so I reached for the ceiling and pulled my t-shirt over my head. Noah leaned very close to my shoulder, which was decorated with a fresh tattoo. My first tattoo, a beautifully crafted bird wing.

“I want to tattoo my entire arm,” I explained to him, while he touched my skin, as if he wanted to test whether it feels different over the tattoo. - I designed this too, and if I collect the money for it, we will continue. Maybe one day I'll be a tattoo artist, who knows…”

Noah nodded and struggled to break his gaze to look up at me.

“Your drawings are very good, there is no doubt that you have a talent for it,” he said honestly. “I want a tattoo too.” He bit his lip as he thought. Then he slowly pulled up his t-shirt and placed his index finger on one of the small scars on his chest.

“Do you think these could be covered? There was this car accident and… I broke a few ribs, and then in the hospital they put tubes in… here too,” he smoothed a hand over the side of his chest. “Although the doctors said that it will almost completely disappear by the time I grow up, I still want something on it.”

I didn't know that particular accident was so serious that he lost his father and everyone died except him. I had no idea, it had been many months have passed before he told me about that summer day.

“They can surely make it disappear,” I answered him, while my gaze involuntarily fell on his ribs, which almost pierced his skin. Noah might have noticed because he quickly readjusted his shirt and wrapped his arms around himself defensively. I hated myself for making him uncomfortable, it was the last thing I wanted. I also put on my t-shirt and smiled at him from under my eyelashes.

“Can I have some tea now?” I referred to his offer from half an hour before. Noah nodded enthusiastically, and while he ran down to the kitchen, I picked up one of the manga and started flipping through the pages. He left the door ajar, so I heard him approach cautiously after five minutes, probably to avoid spilling the contents of the mug on himself. I looked down at the bottom of the page I was reading, noted the page number, and closed the book. Then I heard Noah's mother's voice. His speech was slurred, I could tell even though he was half-whispering.

“Your grandmother must be proud of you for being gay. She must be happy to tell it in church.” The smile immediately melted from my face and I sat frozen on the bed. “Look at me when I talk to you!” Elizabeth didn't even try to suppress her voice.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Noah said quietly. His voice was laced with pleading and fear. My throat tightened. “Please…”

“More about who. Nicholas, if I remember his name correctly. Why would you bring a boy here and shut him up in your room?”

“Nick is my friend.”

“Who would want to be friends with you, baby?” asked the woman almost regretfully. “You are so naive, Noah. Everyone has an ulterior motive.”

My hands were clenched into fists, my blood pressure skyrocketed, and yet I didn't move. I was held back by my good upbringing, by the fact that my parents taught me to be obedient to adults. Later, I regretted a thousand times that I didn't stand by Noah and get him out of that family right away. That place was equal to hell on earth. I heard a door close and Noah finally entered the room. His hands were shaking, the tea between his fingers spilled onto the floor, but his face remained completely emotionless. I jumped off the bed and took the mug from him so he wouldn't drop it. This time, I locked the door and took out a pocket of tissue from my bag. He accepted without a word, wiped his hand, then threw it away and we sat next to each other on the bed.

"If you don't feel like staying, I won't be mad if you go home," he said without looking at me. He knew I heard every word of the conversation. His fingers dug into his thighs and his face went completely pale. I didn't really know what to do in such a situation. I felt uncomfortable, I was angry, but I wanted to help him feel good again. This was the most important thing, because over the weeks I slowly began to become completely addicted to his smile. I put the tea on the table and turned to him.

“Would you like me to go home?” I asked him because I had to know what he wanted.

Noah finally looked up at me. Unshed tears glistened in his eyes, his lips trembled.

“No. I want you to stay.”

His voice was childish, not the confident teenager I knew from school. I quickly realized that it was just a disguise, but I was relieved to hear his answer, because I would not have liked to leave him alone with that woman.

“Then I'll stay,” I answered and slowly smiled. It took a few seconds for him to return the smile, and even though it didn't quite reach his eyes, I was satisfied with that. “Which anime would you like?” I stood up and started watching the DVDs packed under the TV.

“Choose something. Surprise me,” he replied with a slight challenge in his eyes.

It was the first and last time we went to their place after school. Afterwards, we always ended up at our house, and Noah didn't seem bothered by my loud brother, my hysterical little sisters, or the fact that the hot water kept running out late at night and we were forced to take cold showers if we were immersed in the conversation. If the milk ran out in the morning, he made his porridge with water and didn't complain if we had toast for lunch. I noticed how strange it was when mom or I hugged him. Like he doesn't know what to do with it all and is confused. But it only took a few weeks for all of that to change and he almost started demanding touches.

Noah walked to the car and turned back to make sure no one was following him before getting in. I followed his approaching steps with half-closed eyes, trying to figure out what had changed. Where was the tipping point when I started finding him attractive. No matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't figure it out and that only made me more frustrated. Noah got in and handed me the coffee and the paper bag, then pulled the hood off his head.

“I hope it didn't get too cold,” he said with an apologetic smile.

I tiredly returned his smile and handed the biscuit back to him.

“Half of it is yours. And thank you.”

He didn't argue for a second that I wanted to share the dessert with him. He began to eat the cookie with gusto, while I drank my coffee thoughtfully.

“Noah…we'll be fine, right?” I suddenly asked out of nowhere. My voice sounded so scared that I was surprised by it.

He looked at me confused, with a small crumb on his mouth that I was tempted to wipe off, but luckily he licked it off before I could move. He swallowed the bite and looked deep into my eyes.

“Whatever happens, we will always be here for each other. You are the only sure point in my life. Believe me, I will do everything to be your sure point.”

I nodded and closed my eyes again. I think that was enough to make me feel better, if only a little.

#bad omens fanfiction #bad omens fic #jolly karlsson #nick folio #nick ruffilo #noah sebastian #bad omens band #nicholas ruffilo #noah sebastian fanfiction #noah sebastian fic

7 notes · View notes